divideand conquer 1. To gain or maintain power by generating tension among others, especially those less powerful,
so that they cannot unite in opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... In its most general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal, but I'm hoping I can say something new. ..."
"... The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies. As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy. ..."
"... Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity. ..."
"... If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members, who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump. ..."
I've been thinking about the various versions of and critiques of identity politics that are around at the moment.
In its most
general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that
members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different
things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal,
but I'm hoping I can say something new.
You missed one important line of critique -- identity politics as a dirty political strategy of soft neoliberals.
To be sure, race, gender, culture, and other aspects of social life have always been important to politics. But neoliberalism's
radical individualism has increasingly raised two interlocking problems. First, when taken to an extreme, social fracturing into
identity groups can be used to divide people and prevent the creation of a shared civic identity. Self-government requires uniting
through our commonalities and aspiring to achieve a shared future.
When individuals fall back onto clans, tribes, and us-versus-them identities, the political community gets fragmented. It becomes
harder for people to see each other as part of that same shared future.
Demagogues [more correctly neoliberals -- likbez] rely on this fracturing to inflame racial, nationalist, and religious antagonism,
which only further fuels the divisions within society. Neoliberalism's war on "society," by pushing toward the privatization and
marketization of everything, thus indirectly facilitates a retreat into tribalism that further undermines the preconditions for
a free and democratic society.
The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies.
As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary
neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that
some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they
then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy.
Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies
of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity.
Of course, the result is to leave in place political and economic structures that harm the very groups that inclusionary neoliberals
claim to support. The foreign policy adventures of the neoconservatives and liberal internationalists haven't fared much better
than economic policy or cultural politics. The U.S. and its coalition partners have been bogged down in the war in Afghanistan
for 18 years and counting. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is a liberal democracy, nor did the attempt to establish democracy in
Iraq lead to a domino effect that swept the Middle East and reformed its governments for the better. Instead, power in Iraq has
shifted from American occupiers to sectarian militias, to the Iraqi government, to Islamic State terrorists, and back to the Iraqi
government -- and more than 100,000 Iraqis are dead.
Or take the liberal internationalist 2011 intervention in Libya. The result was not a peaceful transition to stable democracy
but instead civil war and instability, with thousands dead as the country splintered and portions were overrun by terrorist groups.
On the grounds of democracy promotion, it is hard to say these interventions were a success. And for those motivated to expand
human rights around the world, it is hard to justify these wars as humanitarian victories -- on the civilian death count alone.
Indeed, the central anchoring assumptions of the American foreign policy establishment have been proven wrong. Foreign policymakers
largely assumed that all good things would go together -- democracy, markets, and human rights -- and so they thought opening
China to trade would inexorably lead to it becoming a liberal democracy. They were wrong. They thought Russia would become liberal
through swift democratization and privatization. They were wrong.
They thought globalization was inevitable and that ever-expanding trade liberalization was desirable even if the political
system never corrected for trade's winners and losers. They were wrong. These aren't minor mistakes. And to be clear, Donald Trump
had nothing to do with them. All of these failures were evident prior to the 2016 election.
If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members,
who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump.
Initially Clinton calculation was that trade union voters has nowhere to go anyways, and it was correct for first decade or so
of his betrayal. But gradually trade union members and lower middle class started to leave Dems in droves (Demexit, compare with
Brexit) and that where identity politics was invented to compensate for this loss.
So in addition to issues that you mention we also need to view the role of identity politics as the political strategy of the
"soft neoliberals " directed at discrediting and the suppression of nationalism.
The resurgence of nationalism is the inevitable byproduct of the dominance of neoliberalism, resurgence which I think is capable
to bury neoliberalism as it lost popular support (which now is limited to financial oligarchy and high income professional groups,
such as we can find in corporate and military brass, (shrinking) IT sector, upper strata of academy, upper strata of medical professionals,
etc)
That means that the structure of the current system isn't just flawed which imply that most problems are relatively minor and
can be fixed by making some tweaks. It is unfixable, because the "Identity wars" reflect a deep moral contradictions within neoliberal
ideology. And they can't be solved within this framework.
...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a
pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy
Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect
the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent
hate groups target the powerless and diverse.
Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your
protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and
repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't
possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.
...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a
pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy
Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect
the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent
hate groups target the powerless and diverse.
Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your
protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and
repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't
possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.
Europe is willing to defy the U.S. on Nordstream to the point of forcing the U.S. to openly and nakedly destroy its reputation
with European contractors and governments to stop one pipeline in a place where multiple gas pipelines will be needed for future
growth.
This is the diplomatic equivalent of the nuclear option. And the neocons in the Senate just pushed the button. Europe understands
what this is really about, the U.S. retaining its imperial position as the policy setter for all the world. If it can set energy
policy for Europe then it can set everything else.
And it's clear that the leadership in Europe is done with that status quo. The Trump administration from the beginning has used
NATO as an excuse to mask its real intentions towards Europe, which is continued domination of its policies. Trump complains that
the U.S. pays into NATO to protect Europe from Russia but then Europe buys its energy from Russia. That's unfair, Donald complains,
like a little bitch, frankly, even though he right on the surface. But if the recent NATO summit is any indication, Europe is no
longer interested in NATO performing that function. French President Emmanuel Macron wants NATO re-purposed to fight global terror,
a terrible idea. NATO should just be ended.
But you'll notice how Trump doesn't talk about that anymore. He wants more billions pumped into NATO while the U.S. still sets
its policies. This is not a boondoggle for the MIC as much as it's a Sword of Damocles to hold over Europe's head. The U.S.'s involvement
in should be ended immediately, the troops brought home and the billions of dollars spent here as opposed to occupying most of Europe
to point missiles at a Russia wholly uninterested in imperial ambitions no less harboring any of them.
And Trump also knows this but thinks stopping Nordstream 2 is the price Europe has to pay him for this privilege. It's insane.
The time has come for Europe to act independently from the U.S. As much as I despise the EU, to untangle it from the U.S. on energy
policy is the means by which for it to then deal with its problems internally. It can't do that while the U.S. is threatening it.
Circling the wagons against the immediate threat, as it were.
And that means protecting its companies and citizens from the economic depredations of power-mad neoconservatives in the U.S.
Senate like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham.
Allseas, the Swiss company laying the pipe for Nordstream 2,
has halted construction for now
, awaiting instructions from the U.S. Gazprom will likely step in to finish the job and Germany will green light any of the necessary
permits to get the pipeline done. Those people will be put out of work just in time for Christmas, turning thousands of people against
the U.S. Commerce drives people together, politics drives them apart.
But, at the same time, the urgency to finish Nordstream 2 on time is wholly irrelevant now because Ukraine and Russia came to
terms on a new five-year gas transit contract. This ensures Gazprom can meet its contractual deliveries to Europe that no one thought
could be done on time. But when the Nazi threat to Zelensky meeting with Merkel, Macron and Putin in Paris failed to materialize,
a gas deal was on the horizon.
And, guess what? U.S. LNG will still not have the marginal lever over Europe's energy policy because of that. Putin and Zelensky
outmaneuvered Cruz, Graham and Trump on this. Because that's what this boils down to. By keeping Russian gas out of Europe, it was
supposed to constrain not only Russia's growth but also Europe's. Because then the U.S. government can control who and how much energy
can make it into European markets at critical junctures politically.
That was the Bolton Doctrine to National Security. And that doctrine brought nothing but misery to millions.
And if you look back over the past five years of U.S./EU relations you will see this gambit clearly for what it was, a way to
continue European vassalage at the hands of the U.S. by forcing market share of U.S. providers into European markets.
Again, it gets back to Trump's ideas about Emergy Dominance
and becoming the supplier of the marginal erg of energy to important economies around the world.
The smart play for the EU now that the gas transit deal is in place is to threaten counter-sanctions against the U.S. and bar
all LNG shipments into Europe. Gas prices are at historic lows, gas supplies are overflowing thanks to fears of a deal not being
in place.
So, a three to six month embargo of U.S. LNG into Europe to bleed off excess supply while Nordstream 2 is completed would be the
right play politically.
But, in reality, they won't need to, because the U.S. won't be able to import much into Europe under current prices and market
conditions. And once Nordstream 2 is complete, LNG sales to Europe should crater.
In the end, I guess it's too bad for Ted Cruz that economics and basic human ingenuity are more powerful than legislatures. Because
Nordstream 2 will be completed. Turkstream's other trains into Europe will be built. Venezuela will continue rebuilding its energy
sector with Russian and Chinese help.
There is no place for U.S. LNG in Europe outside of the Poles literally burning money virtue signaling their Russophobia. Nordstream 2 was a response to the revolt in Ukraine, to replace any potential losses in market share to Europe. Now Russia will
have what it had before passing through Ukraine along with Nordstream 2. By 2024 there will be at least two trains from Turkstream
coming into Europe.
Iran will keep expanding exports, settling its oil and gas trade through Russian banks. And the U.S. will continue to fulminate
and make itself even more irrelevant over time. What men like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump refuse to understand is that when you go nuclear you can't ever go back. If you threaten
the nuclear option, there's no fall back position.
And when those that you threaten with annihilation survive they are made all the stronger for passing through the eye of the needle. Looking at Gazprom's balance sheet right now, that's my take.
Turkey, since 2011, has been waging a pro-Sunni proxy war in Syria, in the hope of one day
establishing in Damascus a pro-Turkey, Islamist regime. This ambition has failed, costing
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey violent political turmoil on both sides of
Turkey's 911-km border with Syria and billions of dollars spent on more than 4 million Syrian
refugees scattered across the Turkish soil.
In Egypt, in 2011-2012, Erdoğan aggressively supported the failed Muslim Brotherhood
government and deeply antagonized the incumbent -- then-general but now president -- Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi. Since Erdoğan's efforts in Syria and Egypt failed, his Sunni Islamist
ambitions have found a new proxy-war theater: Libya.
On December 10,
Erdoğan said he could deploy troops in Libya if the UN-backed Government of National
Accord (GNA) in Tripoli (which Turkey supports) requested it. Erdoğan's talks with GNA's
head, Fayez al-Sarraj, who is fighting a war against the Libyan National Army (LNA) of General
Khalifa Haftar, produced two ostensibly strategic agreements: a memorandum of understanding on
providing the GNA with arms, military training and personnel; and a maritime agreement
delineating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean waters.
Greece and Egypt protested immediately while the European Council unequivocally condemned
the controversial accords. Meanwhile, the deals apparently escalated a proxy competition
between Turkey's old (Greece) and new (Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) rivals.
With the al-Sarraj handshake, Erdoğan is apparently aiming to:
minimize Turkey's isolation in the Mediterranean, one which has gradually worsened since
2010, following one diplomatic crisis after another with Israel;
counter strategic cooperation between Cyprus, Greece, Egypt and Israel, including joint
diplomatic, energy and military initiatives;
cut into the emerging Cypriot-Greek-Egyptian-Israeli maritime bloc;
push back against Arab (Egyptian and UAE) pressure on al-Sarraj;
fill the European vacuum in Libya; and
emerge as a deal-breaker in the Mediterranean rather than a deal-maker.
All that ambition requires military hardware as well as diplomatic software. Since 2011, a
year after the Mavi Marmara incident ruptured relations with Israel, Turkey has been investing
billions of dollars in naval technologies, in an apparent effort to build up the hardware it
would one day require.
In the eight years since then, Turkey has built
four Ada-class corvettes; two Landing Ship Tank (LST) vessels; eight fast Landing Craft Tank
(LCT) vessels; 16 military patrol ships; two deep-sea rescue ships; one submarine rescue ship;
and four assault boats.
The jewel in the naval treasury box is a $1 billion Landing Platform Dock (LPD), now being
built under license from Spain's Navantia shipyards, to be operational in 2021. The TCG
Anadolu , Turkey's first amphibious assault ship, will carry a battalion-sized unit of
1,200 troops and personnel, eight utility helicopters and three unmanned aerial vehicles; it
also will transport 150 vehicles, including battle tanks. It also may be able to deploy short
takeoff and vertical landing STOVL F-35 fighter jets. Turkey will be the third operator in the
world of this ship type, after Spain and Australia.
Erdoğan's naval ambitions, however, are not limited just to an emerging fleet of
conventional vessels. In 2016, he said
that the LPD program would hopefully be the first step toward producing a "most elite" aircraft
carrier. He also said he "sees it as a major deficiency that we still do not have a nuclear
vessel."
On December 22, Turkey's first Type 214 class submarine, the TCG Piri Reis , hit the seas
with a ceremony attended by Erdoğan. "Today,"
he said , "we gathered here for the docking of Piri Reis . As of 2020, a submarine will go
into service each year. By 2027, all six of our submarines will be at our seas for
service."
Unsurprisingly the docking ceremony reminded Erdoğan of his Libyan gambit: "We will
evaluate every opportunity in land, sea and air. If needed, we will increase military support
in Libya."
Erdoğan seems to think that his best defense in the Mediterranean power game is an
offense. On December 15, Turkish Naval Forces
intercepted an Israeli research ship, the Bat Galim , in Cypriot waters and escorted it
away, as tension over natural resource exploration continued to rise in the region.
On December 16, Turkey dispatched a surveillance and reconnaissance drone to the
Turkish-controlled north of the divided island of Cyprus. A week before the drone deployment,
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Ankara could use its
military forces to halt gas drilling in waters off Cyprus that it claims as its own.
Libya is another risky proxy war theater for Turkey. Its deals with the al-Sarraj government
over troop deployment and maritime borders will become null and void if the Libyan civil war,
begun in 2014, ends with Gen. Haftar's victory. The chief of staff of the LNA, Farag
Al-Mahdawi,
announced that his forces would sink any Turkish ship approaching the Libyan coast. "I have
an order; as soon as the Turkish research vessels arrive, I will have a solution. I will sink
them myself," Al-Mahdawi warned, noting that the order was coming from Haftar. On December 21,
Haftar's forces seized
a Grenada-flagged ship with Turkish crew aboard, on the suspicion that it was carrying arms.
The ship was later released.
The European Union is another factor why Erdoğan, once again, is probably betting on
the wrong horse. Technically speaking, Turkey is a candidate for full EU membership, but it is
an open secret that accession talks have not moved an inch during the past several years, and
with no prospects of progress in sight. Making membership prospects even gloomier, EU foreign
ministers in November
agreed on economic sanctions for Ankara for violating Cyprus' maritime economic zone by
drilling off the island.
The Mediterranean chess game leaves Turkey in alliance with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot
statelet and one of the warring factions in Libya, versus a strategic grouping of Greece,
Cyprus, Egypt (and the UAE), Israel, and the other warring Libyan group.
One emerging power in Libya, however, is not a Western state actor. After controlling Syria
in favor of President Bashar al-Assad and establishing permanent military bases inside and off
the coast of the country, Russia has the potential to step into the Libyan theater with a
bigger proxy and direct force, to establish its second permanent Mediterranean military
presence. As in Syria, where divergent interests did not stop Turkey from becoming a
remote-controlled Russian player, Moscow can once again make use of the Turkish card to
undermine Western interests in Libya.
Also as in Syria, Turkey's Islamist agenda will probably fail in Libya, but by the time
Erdoğan understands that, it might be too late to get out of Moscow's orbit.
Instead of finding the real culprits - ISIS remnants, disgruntled locals, Kurds who want
to regain control over Kirkuk - the U.S. decided that Kata'ib Hizbullah was the group guilty
of the attack....
Yesterday's attacks guarantee that all U.S. troops will have to leave Iraq and will
thereby also lose their supply lines to Syria.
One wonders if that was the real intend of those strikes.
Just like with 9/11 and Iraq where the US government immediately pushed its pre-existing
agenda, so the US doesn't care who really launches attacks on US and US-client positions in
Iraq and Syria but automatically assigns them to Hezbollah and thus to Iran, in accord with
the pre-existing neocon wet dream of provoking a full-scale war with Iran.
If that's the US intent, to escalate against Iran, and if conversely the Iraq government
is serious about kicking out the US military, we'll have the confrontation discussed in the
open thread.
As for the idea that Trump was briar-patching here, wanting a good legalistic pretext to
withdraw troops from Iraq (which would then trigger the practical supply-based pretext to
withdraw them from Syria and not "take the oil" after all), well even if he had such confused
thoughts, we've already seen how spineless he is about trying to assert his will over that of
the neocon bureaucracies, civilian and military. Do we really expect them to agree to vacate
Iraq merely because the legally constituted supposedly sovereign government told them to? It
seems more likely they'll tell the government they're not going anywhere and demand that the
government help them suppress non-governmental resistance to their ongoing presence, or else.
(I don't know if there's yet been a formal order to leave from the Iraqi government, or just
rhetoric in an attempt to save face.)
"... "Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win." ..."
"... And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world." ..."
"... The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy." ..."
"... Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis. ..."
"... By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another. ..."
"... George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy. ..."
"... Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake. ..."
"... "Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now." ..."
You can hear echoes of progressive realism in the statements of leading progressive
lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna. They have put ending
America's support for the Saudi war on Yemen near the top of the progressive foreign policy
agenda. On the stump, Sanders now singles out the military-industrial complex and the runaway
defense budget for criticism. He promises, among other things, that "we will not continue to
spend $700 billion a year on the military." These are welcome developments. Yet since November
of 2016, something else has emerged alongside the antiwar component of progressive foreign
policy that is not so welcome. Let's call it neoprogressive internationalism, or
neoprogressivism for short.
Trump's administration brought with it the Russia scandal. To attack the president and his
administration, critics revived Cold War attitudes. This is now part of the neoprogressive
foreign policy critique. It places an "authoritarian axis" at its center. Now countries ruled
by authoritarians, nationalists, and kleptocrats can and must be checked by an American-led
crusade to make the world safe for progressive values. The problem with this neoprogressive
narrative of a world divided between an authoritarian axis and the liberal West is what it will
lead to: ever spiraling defense budgets, more foreign adventures, more Cold Wars -- and hot
ones too.
Unfortunately, Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have adopted elements of the
neoprogressive program. At a much remarked upon address at Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri, the site of Churchill's 1946 address, Sanders put forth a vision of a Manichean
world. Instead of a world divided by the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Communism, Sanders sees a
world divided between right-wing authoritarians and the forces of progress embodied by American
and Western European progressive values.
"Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or
democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen
American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe,
including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to
win."
A year later, Sanders warned that the battle between the West and an "authoritarian axis"
which is "committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as
limiting their access to power and wealth." Sanders calls this "a global struggle of enormous
consequence. Nothing less than the future of the -- economically, socially and environmentally
-- is at stake."
Sanders's focus on this authoritarian axis is one that is shared with his intraparty rivals
at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank long funded by some of the least progressive
regimes on the planet), which he has pointedly criticized for smearing progressive Democrats
like himself. CAP issued a report last September about "the threat presented by opportunist
authoritarian regimes" which "urgently requires a rapid response."
The preoccupation with the authoritarian menace is one Sanders and CAP share with prominent
progressive activists who warn about the creeping influence of what some have cynically hyped
as an "authoritarian Internationale."
Cold War Calling
Senator Warren spelled out her foreign policy vision in a speech at American University in
November 2018. Admirably, she criticized Saudi Arabia's savage war on Yemen, the defense
industry, and neoliberal free trade agreements that have beggared the American working and
middle classes.
"Foreign policy," Warren has said, "should not be run exclusively by the Pentagon." In the
second round of the Democratic primary debates, Warren also called for a nuclear "no first use"
policy.
And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be
one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats
(Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt
capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here
in the United States and around the world."
Warren also sees a rising tide of corrupt authoritarians "from Hungary to Turkey, from the
Philippines to Brazil," where "wealthy elites work together to grow the state's power while the
state works to grow the wealth of those who remain loyal to the leader."
The concern with the emerging authoritarian tide has become a central concern of progressive
writers and thinkers. "Today, around the world," write progressive foreign policy activists
Kate Kinzer and Stephen Miles, "growing authoritarianism and hate are fueled by oligarchies
preying on economic, gender, and racial inequality."
Daniel Nexon, a progressive scholar of international relations, believes that "progressives
must recognize that we are in a moment of fundamental crisis, featuring coordination among
right-wing movements throughout the West and with the Russian government as a sponsor and
supporter."
Likewise, The Nation 's Jeet Heer lays the blame for the rise of global
authoritarianism at the feet of Vladimir Putin, who "seems to be pushing for an international
alt-right, an informal alliance of right-wing parties held together by a shared
xenophobia."
Blithely waving away concerns over sparking a new and more dangerous Cold War between the
world's two nuclear superpowers, Heer advises that "the dovish left shouldn't let Cold War
nightmares prevent them [from] speaking out about it." He concludes: "Leftists have to be ready
to battle [Putinism] in all its forms, at home and abroad."
The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU
professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian
school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute
power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom
of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy."
Likewise, we are seeing the emergence of an "authoritarian school" which posits that the
internal political dynamics of regimes such as Putin's cause them, ineffably, to follow
revanchist, expansionist foreign policies.
Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global
movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context,
history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian"
nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis.
By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the
neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and
neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence
that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies
allegedly don't fight wars against one another.
Yet as Richard Sakwa, a British scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe, writes, "it is often
assumed that Russia is critical of the West because of its authoritarian character, but it
cannot be taken for granted that a change of regime would automatically make the country align
with the West."
George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession
with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So
too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith
and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad
policy.
True, some of the economic trends voters in Europe and South America are reacting to are
global, but a diagnosis that links together the rise of Putin and Xi, the elections of Trump in
the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Kaczyński in Poland with the
right-wing insurgency movements of the Le Pens in France and Farage in the UK makes little
sense.
Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the
neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to
anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western
interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific
to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a
mistake.
Echoes of Neoconservatism
The progressive foreign policy organization Win Without War includes among its 10 foreign
policy goals "ending economic, racial and gender inequality around the world." The U.S.,
according to WWW, "must safeguard universal human rights to dignity, equality, migration and
refuge."
Is it a noble sentiment? Sure. But it's every bit as unrealistic as the crusade envisioned
by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, in which he declared, "The survival of
liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best
hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
We know full well where appeals to "universal values" have taken us in the past. Such
appeals are not reliable guides for progressives if they seek to reverse the tide of unchecked
American intervention abroad. But maybe we should consider whether it's a policy of realism and
restraint that they actually seek. Some progressive thinkers are at least honest enough
to admit as much that it is not. Nexon admits that "abandoning the infrastructure of American
international influence because of its many minuses and abuses will hamstring progressives for
decades to come." In other words, America's hegemonic ambitions aren't in and of themselves
objectionable or self-defeating, as long as we achieve our kind of hegemony. Progressive
values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake
the world in the American self-image.
"Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these
days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which
we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max
Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war
record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist
authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now."
Neoprogressivism, like neoconservatism, risks catering to the U.S. establishment's worst
impulses by playing on a belief in American exceptionalism to embark upon yet another global
crusade. This raises some questions, including whether a neoprogressive approach to the crises
in Ukraine, Syria, or Libya would be substantively different from the liberal interventionist
approach of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Does a neoprogressive foreign policy
organized around the concept of an "authoritarian axis" adequately address the concerns of
voters in the American heartland who disproportionately suffer from the consequences of our
wars and neoliberal economic policies? It was these voters, after all, who won the election for
Trump.
Donald Trump's failure to keep his campaign promise to bring the forever wars to a close
while fashioning a new foreign policy oriented around core U.S. national security interests
provides Democrats with an opportunity. By repeatedly intervening in Syria, keeping troops in
Afghanistan, kowtowing to the Israelis and Saudis, ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela, Iran,
Russia, and China, Trump has ceded the anti-interventionist ground he occupied when he ran for
office. He can no longer claim the mantle of restraint, a position that found support among
six-in-ten Americans in 2016.
Yet with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, for the most part the Democratic field is offering
voters a foreign policy that amounts to "Trump minus belligerence." A truly progressive foreign
policy must put questions of war and peace front and center. Addressing America's post 9/11
failures, military overextension, grotesquely bloated defense budget, and the ingrained
militarism of our political-media establishment are the proper concerns of a progressive U.S.
foreign policy.
But it is one that would place the welfare of our own citizens above all. As such, what is
urgently required is the long-delayed realization of a peace dividend. The post-Cold War peace
dividend that was envisioned in the early 1990s never materialized. Clinton's secretary of
defense Les Aspin strangled the peace dividend in its crib by keeping the U.S. military on a
footing that would allow it to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously. Unipolar
fantasies of "full spectrum dominance" would come later in the decade.
One might have reasonably expected an effort by the Obama administration to realize a
post-bin Laden peace dividend, but the forever wars dragged on and on. In a New Yorker profile
from earlier this year, Sanders asked the right question: "Do we really need to spend more than
the next ten nations combined on the military, when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids
can't afford to go to college?"
The answer is obvious. And yet, how likely is it that progressives will be able realize
their vision of a more just, more equal American society if we have to mobilize to face a
global authoritarian axis led by Russia and China?
FDR's Good Neighbor Policy
The unipolar world of the first post-Cold War decade is well behind us now. As the world
becomes more and more multipolar, powers like China, Russia, Iran, India, and the U.S. will
find increasing occasion to clash. A peaceful multipolar world requires stability. And
stability requires balance.
In the absence of stability, none of the goods progressives see as desirable can take root.
This world order would put a premium on stability and security rather than any specific set of
values. An ethical, progressive foreign policy is one which understands that great powers have
security interests of their own. "Spheres of influence" are not 19th century anachronisms, but
essential to regional security: in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere.
It is a policy that would reject crusades to spread American values the world over. "The
greatest thing America can do for the rest of the world," George Kennan once observed, "is to
make a success of what it is doing here on this continent and to bring itself to a point where
its own internal life is one of harmony, stability and self-assurance."
Progressive realism doesn't call for global crusades that seek to conquer the hearts and
minds of others. It is not bound up in the hoary self-mythology of American Exceptionalism. It
is boring. It puts a premium on the value of human life. It foreswears doing harm so that good
may come. It is not a clarion call in the manner of John F. Kennedy who pledged to "to pay any
price, bear any burden." It does not lend itself to the cheap moralizing of celebrity
presidential speechwriters. In ordinary language, a summation of such a policy would go
something like: "we will bear a reasonable price as long as identifiable U.S. security
interests are at stake."
A policy that seeks to wind down the global war on terror, slash the defense budget, and
shrink our global footprint won't inspire. It will, however, save lives. Such a policy has its
roots in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address. "In the field of World policy,"
said Roosevelt, "I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor
who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the
neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a
World of neighbors."
What came to be known as the "Good Neighbor" policy was further explicated by FDR's
Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Montevideo Conference in 1933, when he stated that "No
country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Historian
David C. Hendrickson sees this as an example of FDR's principles of "liberal pluralism," which
included "respect for the integrity and importance of other states" and "non-intervention in
the domestic affairs of neighboring states."
These ought to serve as the foundations on which to build a truly progressive foreign
policy. They represent a return to the best traditions of the Democratic Party and would likely
resonate with those very same blocs of voters that made up the New Deal coalition that the
neoliberal iteration of the Democratic Party has largely shunned but will sorely need in order
to unseat Trump. And yet, proponents of a neoprogressive foreign policy seem intent on running
away from a popular policy of realism and restraint on which Trump has failed to deliver.
James W. Carden is contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation and a
member of the Board of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.
The other possible replacements include Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Deputy Secretary of
State Biegun, U.S. ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, Trump's Iran envoy Brian Hook, and two
hard-liners from the Senate, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton. Most of these names inspire some
mixture of loathing and dread, and of the seven men being considered Biegun is the only one
remotely qualified to take the job. Hook has
disqualified himself , and he shouldn't even be working at the State Department right now
much less running it. Grenell functions as little more than an international
troll , and he has done a terrible job representing the U.S. in Berlin, so promoting him
would be an equally terrible mistake.
Rubio and Cotton are fanatics with the most toxic foreign policy views, and they would also
likely be very poor managers of the department. In that respect, they are very much like
Pompeo. Mnuchin would likely have great difficulty getting confirmed, and replacing one
sanctions-happy Secretary with the Treasury Secretary who has been enforcing those sanctions is
no improvement at all. As for O'Brien, he was a
bad choice for National Security Advisor , he has done nothing since he took over from
Bolton to suggest otherwise, and so it makes absolutely no sense to promote him. Biegun clearly
has the confidence of the Senate following his overwhelming confirmation vote to be Deputy
Secretary, so having him take over the department for whatever time is left in Trump's term
seems the best available choice.
It is a measure of how chaotic and unsuccessful Trump's foreign policy is that we are
talking about the possible nomination of a third Secretary of State in less than three years.
Pompeo has outlasted many of his administration colleagues to become one of the longest-serving
Cabinet officials under this president, and his tenure is not even two years old. It is no
wonder that the list of likely replacements is so weak. Who would want to join a scandal-ridden
administration with a failed foreign policy?
Pompeo's departure will be good news for the State Department, and the sooner it comes the
better. There has rarely been a Secretary of State as dishonest and political as Pompeo, and
his brief time running the department has been one of the low points in its history.
Considering the damage that Pompeo has done along with the harm done by Tillerson, the next
Secretary of State will have a lot of work to do to rebuild and not much time to do it in.
Pompeo should clear the way for the next Secretary and resign as soon as possible.
Dec 10, 2018 Iran has arrested more than 100 Christians in the last week,
charities report, amid a growing crackdown by the Islamic Republic. play_arrowplay_arrow 3 Reply reply Report flag CTG_Sweden
19 minutes ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy But so far they haven´t been kicked out of Iran, like a
considerable portion of the Palestinian Christians in Palestine/Israel back in 1947-48. 30 % of
the Palestinians who were driven out from Israel were Christians. Nor have they been starved to
death like the Christians who owned farmland in Russia/Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s when Lenin,
Trotsky, Stalin and Stalin´s "brother in law" Kaganovych ruled over Russian/Ukrainian
farmers. But I agree that Europe still is a better place for Christians than Iran. But does a
person like Barbara Lerner-Spectre want to keep it that way? Well, I´m not so sure about
that. CTG_Sweden 17 minutes ago remove Share link Copy
falconflight:
"christians, and btw Yazidies have been destroyed in those two nations."
My comments:
... by ISIS and Al-Qaeda which indirectly were supported by the West which also wished to
topple Assad. Israel even treated wounded ISIS fighters in Golan (which they had conquered from
Syria in 1967). TeraByte 1 hour ago remove Share link Copy Israel is too arrogant to be able to recognize the current altered
terror balance in ME, even when this is confirmed by their own military analysts. The country
will experience a very hard awakening, if attacking neighbour nations. How is it possible these
Choosenites swearing God chose them to reign over other people and their Holy Talmud telling
"the Universe was created for the fulfillment of the destiny of the Jewish people" now
simultaneously can claim they have a cool rational of their real position on real time. These
lunatics´ religious arguments simply do not add up.
Congress' constitutional duty is putting Israel first!
House Dems Unanimously Vote to Condemn Withdrawal From Syria - Oct 16, 2019
In a Wednesday vote, the House overwhelmingly backed a resolution expressing opposition to
the end of the US war in Syria, and calling on the US to protect the Syrian Kurds from
Turkey. The vote was 354-60, with the majority of Republicans supporting it, and unanimous
support from Democrats who cast votes .
Positions from Democrat leaders suggested an unconditional opposition to Trump ending
any war and withdrawing any troops under any circumstances. They also objected to the
notion that a president could end a war without their permission .
The other possible replacements include Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Deputy Secretary of
State Biegun, U.S. ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, Trump's Iran envoy Brian Hook, and two
hard-liners from the Senate, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton. Most of these names inspire some
mixture of loathing and dread, and of the seven men being considered Biegun is the only one
remotely qualified to take the job. Hook has
disqualified himself , and he shouldn't even be working at the State Department right now
much less running it. Grenell functions as little more than an international
troll , and he has done a terrible job representing the U.S. in Berlin, so promoting him
would be an equally terrible mistake.
Rubio and Cotton are fanatics with the most toxic foreign policy views, and they would also
likely be very poor managers of the department. In that respect, they are very much like
Pompeo. Mnuchin would likely have great difficulty getting confirmed, and replacing one
sanctions-happy Secretary with the Treasury Secretary who has been enforcing those sanctions is
no improvement at all. As for O'Brien, he was a
bad choice for National Security Advisor , he has done nothing since he took over from
Bolton to suggest otherwise, and so it makes absolutely no sense to promote him. Biegun clearly
has the confidence of the Senate following his overwhelming confirmation vote to be Deputy
Secretary, so having him take over the department for whatever time is left in Trump's term
seems the best available choice.
It is a measure of how chaotic and unsuccessful Trump's foreign policy is that we are
talking about the possible nomination of a third Secretary of State in less than three years.
Pompeo has outlasted many of his administration colleagues to become one of the longest-serving
Cabinet officials under this president, and his tenure is not even two years old. It is no
wonder that the list of likely replacements is so weak. Who would want to join a scandal-ridden
administration with a failed foreign policy?
Pompeo's departure will be good news for the State Department, and the sooner it comes the
better. There has rarely been a Secretary of State as dishonest and political as Pompeo, and
his brief time running the department has been one of the low points in its history.
Considering the damage that Pompeo has done along with the harm done by Tillerson, the next
Secretary of State will have a lot of work to do to rebuild and not much time to do it in.
Pompeo should clear the way for the next Secretary and resign as soon as possible.
Lyttennburgh, I can think of a couple of reasons for Erdogan's Libyan adventure. First, he'd
rather have those battle tested jihadis in Libya than on his border or in his country.
Second, he may have his eyes on Mediterranean oil. Lastly, he may see a friendly Libyan
government as an ally or province of his Ottoman Empire dream. No matter what the reason,
he's setting himself up for another confrontation with Russia.
Combating the scourge of US-supported terrorists in Syria at the behest of its government
aside, Russia's involvement elsewhere is diplomatic, including in Libya.
Obama regime-led aggression in 2011 transformed Africa's most developed nation into a
charnel house, a dystopian failed state, endless war raging with no resolution in prospect.
Wherever wars rage, chances are US dirty hands are involved, clearly the case in multiple
countries, including Libya.
Russia is not involved in the country militarily. Claims otherwise are fabricated. Russian
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov strongly denied them, saying:
"I categorically refute speculations of this kind. We are acting in the interest of the
Libyan settlement," adding:
"We are supporting the existing effort, including through the United Nations. We maintain a
dialogue with those who somehow influence the situation."
"We do not think that there is any grounds for such statements, such fiction, but this is
not the first time that US media spread different speculations, wicked rumors, falsehoods
targeting us."
"We have already gotten used to this, and we take it in stride. However, I have to
acknowledge that recurrent hoaxes of this kind exercise a negative influence on the sentiment
of the US domestic public, and the general atmosphere in the United States."
"Unfortunately it does not promote normalization of our ties, although we strive for
it."
A November NYT propaganda piece falsely accused Russia of involvement militarily in Libya --
instead of focusing on how the Obama regime raped and destroyed the country.
Trump hardliners support warlord Khalifa Haftar, a longtime CIA asset, a former US resident,
commander of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) -- waging war on the UN-backed
Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).
Since US-led aggression toppled Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011 and sodomized him to death,
the US continued to wage secret drone war on the country, conducting hundreds of strikes,
continuing since Trump took office.
The Times falsely claimed "Russian mercenaries (and) snipers" are involved in Libya -- no
evidence cited proving what's not so, adding:
Hundreds of "Russian fighters (are) part of a broad campaign by the Kremlin to reassert its
influence across the Middle East and Africa (sic)."
"It has introduced advanced Sukhoi jets, coordinated missile strikes, and precision-guided
artillery, as well as the snipers -- the same playbook that made Moscow a kingmaker in the
Syrian civil war (sic)."
There's nothing remotely "civil" about US aggression in Syria. No evidence suggests Russia
is involved militarily in Libya with heavy or other weapons.
The Kremlin didn't intervene in the country on behalf of anyone. Its involvement is
diplomatic to try resolving the mess US aggression created -- what the Times and other
establishment media cheerled.
Days earlier, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed false claims
about Kremlin involvement in Libya militarily, saying:
Moscow officials maintain diplomatic contact "with all current Libyan political forces,"
adding:
Congressional hardliners drafted the so-called Libya Stabilization Act -- imposing sanctions
on Russia for its "imaginary military presence in" the country.
The measure falsely accuses Moscow of "military intervention," blaming what doesn't exist on
destabilizing the country, ignoring how US-led NATO smashed Libya, massacring countless
thousands, displacing many more, destroying their livelihoods and well-being
"I wonder how US lawmakers describe the illegal US armed forces presence in Syria or the
reckless actions of the (Obama regime) in Libya to their voters," Zakharova stressed.
The Times propaganda piece barely acknowledged Trump regime support for Haftar, mentioning
it buried well into its article, ignoring its April 2019 piece, headlined:
"... Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power. ..."
"... This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids. ..."
"... Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets. ..."
"... Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. ..."
"... Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us. ..."
"... If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press. ..."
"... Instead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup? ..."
"... The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense. ..."
"... And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal. ..."
"... According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this." ..."
"... New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded. ..."
Wikileaks has released their fourth set of leaks from the OPCW's Douma investigation,
revealing new details about the alleged deletion of important information regarding the
fact-finding mission.
RELEASE: OPCW-Douma Docs 4. Four leaked documents from the OPCW reveal that toxicologists
ruled out deaths from chlorine exposure and a senior official ordered the deletion of the
dissenting engineering report from OPCW's internal repository of documents. https://t.co/ndK4sRikNk
"One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the
fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes
an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW , where he instructs that an
engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the
organisation," WikiLeaks writes. Included in the email is the following directive:
" Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive] And please remove all
traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.'"
According to Wikileaks, the main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma, was
that two of the cylinders were most likely manually placed at the site, rather than
dropped.
"The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and two cylinders that were
found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there
than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted
from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident," the Wikileaks report said.
It must be remembered that the U.S. launched an attack on Damascus, Syria on April 14, 2018
over alleged chemical weapons usage by pro-Assad forces at Douma.
Another document released Friday is minutes from a meeting on 6 June 2018 where four staff
members of the OPCW had discussions with "three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one
bioanalytical and toxicological chemist" (all specialists in chemical weapons, according to the
minutes).
Minutes from an OPCW meeting with toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons: "the
experts were conclusive in their statements that there was
no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure". https://t.co/j5Jgjiz8UY pic.twitter.com/vgPaTtsdQN
The purpose of this meeting was two-fold. The first objective was "to solicit expert advice
on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April
2018". According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there would be
little use in conducting exhumations. The second point was "To elicit expert opinions from the
forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged
victims."
More specifically, " whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure
to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas."
According to the minutes leaked Friday: "With respect to the consistency of the observed and
reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the
experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and
chlorine exposure ."
The OPCW team members wrote that the key "take-away message" from the meeting was "that the
symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate
chemical causing the symptoms could be identified".
The isisrahell have such long hand to pull the plug any stories implicating their crime in
progress otherwise they can put out some bs spins as bombshell reporting about US lies in
Afghanistan war on their wapo for public for those who read it was nothing important revealed
except being a misdirected na
If you want to pay off that student loan you're going to print what they tell you to
print. You're going to inject kids with what they tell you to inject them with. You're going
to think what they tell you to think or you're going to spend your days in a Prole bar
drinking Blatz.
yes, an attack was launched, 50 missiles I believe, after loud warnings that it was
coming, and none of them actually hit anything significant ... this is the way the game is
played .... the good news is that the missiles cost $50 million, and now they will have to be
replaced, by the Pentagon, first borrowing the money through the US Treasury offerings, and
then paying for them from new money printed by the Federal Reserve. capische?
That`s the way it`s always been, it`s the eternal war of good against evil.
And when one evil enemy is defeated, it`s necessary to create a new evil enemy, how else
can the Establishment Elite make money from war, death and destruction.
It's really very awkward & telling how ***** these bunch of western nations are
looking tough on taking out poor defenceless country like Syria on ******** & at the
satried to ease real kickass Russian as you described when they launch the attacks
I kind wish the US & their Zionist clown launch such huge attacks on Iran based on
false flag
I really wanted these evil aggressive powers to taste what it is like to get bombed back
even one they used to throw on multiple weaker nations freely with nothing to fear as
retribution etc
This organisations are all set up in Europe and US run by the filthiest filth on earth who
still think they have God given right to imperial rule over the world.
Your military-industrial-intelligence complex at work, creating justification for more
funding, like always - and who cares if people die as a result? Like Soros said, if they
didn't do it, someone else would. (do I need /sarc?).
They don't like to be shown to be in charge, just to be in charge. And if you think this
is a function of the current admin, you've been slow in the head and deaf and blind for quite
some time.
I've watched since Eisenhower, and "it's always something". Doesn't matter what color the
clown in chief's tie is.
Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved
in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow
overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power.
This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids.
Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done
by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets.
Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war
crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do
whatever the f*ck you want. Why do we even follow the law, then? Given the precedent that is
being set, we might as well not have any.
Well, they are looking forward to using all those Israeli weapons, er, uh, products, that
local law enforcement has purchased...so watch out for Co-Intel Pro elicitation going
forward....?
Everybody knows the Golem (USA) does Isn'treal's bidding in Syria and elsewhere in the
Near East. Hopefully they keep hammering in the fact that this "gas attack" was an obvious
set-up to use as a pretext (flimsy itself on the face of it) to brutalize Assad and Syria on
behalf of Isn'treal.
The whole thing is built on ******* lies. Worst part about it is, nothing will happen.
Only official news is to believed. You see it and it is a lie. they tell you to believe
it. A lot of people casually believe whatever is spoken on TV. They become teachers and are
taught in college what is right and wrong. We only have a few years before all the brain dead
are in charge and robotically following the message like zombies with no brain
Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have
seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to
influence us.
It is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW.
In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on
Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the
OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat "is conducting an internal
investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document".
Then it adds: "At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and
the OPCW is unable to accommodate [sic] requests for interviews". It's a tactic that until
now seems to have worked: not a single news media which reported the OPCW's official
conclusions has followed up the story of the report which the OPCW suppressed.
And you bet the OPCW is not going to "accommodate" interviews. For here is an
institution investigating a war crime in a conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of
lives – yet its only response to an enquiry about the engineers' "secret" assessment
is to concentrate on its own witch-hunt for the source of the document it wished to keep
secret from the world.
If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than
a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists
– now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information
reaching the press.
The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant
ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its
foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the
Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to
defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something
in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of
stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more
likely to be destroyed faster. No offense.
And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis,
hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the
Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United
States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the
American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying
Christians. How interesting, why such zeal.
According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm
about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian
government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's
editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another
position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence,"
Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job
knowing that I couldn't report something like this."
New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical
weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony
from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government
committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW
information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number
of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials
voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and
excluded.
This is, without a doubt, a major global scandal: the OPCW, under reported US pressure,
suppressing vital evidence about allegations of chemical weapons. But that very fact exposes
another global scandal: with the exception of small outlets like The Grayzone, the mass media
has widely ignored or whitewashed this story. And this widespread censorship of the OPCW
scandal has just led one journalist to resign. Up until recently, Tareq Haddad was a reporter
at Newsweek. But in early December, Tareq announced that he had quit his position after
Newsweek refused to publish his story about the OPCW cover up over Syria.
So Turkey goes against Uncle Sam and Egypt. Interesting...
Notable quotes:
"... Erdogan's eyes set on defeating Benghazi-based General Khalifa Haftar, it appears this arms and jihadist rat line has conveniently been reversed . ..."
"... In a deepening proxy war, Turkey aims to send its Navy to protect Tripoli, while its troops train and coordinate forces of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, according to a senior Turkish official. Turkey recently signed a critical maritime deal with oil-rich Libya that serves energy interests of both countries and aims to salvage billions of dollars of business contracts thrown into limbo by the conflict . ..."
"... Remember when the CIA thought it was a good idea to train and fund jihadists in Syria to topple Assad? ..."
"... The conflict in Syria has become a rallying point for jihadists from around the world. More than 20,000 foreign fighters are fighting or have fought in Syria, and most are part of jihadist groups, including Jubhat al Nusra (JAN) and Islamic State (IS). North Africa has provided a large portion of these foreign fighters, from countries as diverse as Morocco and Libya. ..."
Bloomberg has confirmed on Friday the prior rumors that Turkey will be sending mercenaries
to Libya -- where it is propping up the UN-backed government in Tripoli (the GNA) -- are true.
"Turkey is preparing to deploy troops and naval forces to support the
internationally-recognized Libyan government, joining a planned push by Ankara-backed Syrian
rebels to defeat strongman Khalifa Haftar,"
reports Bloomberg .
Though Ankara has yet to confirm or deny the new reports, Erdogan's Turkey has for years
overseen a Libya-to-Turkey-to-Syria arms
"rat line" which saw both heavy weaponry and jihadists fighters transported for the purpose
of toppling Assad. But now with Erdogan's eyes set on defeating Benghazi-based General Khalifa
Haftar, it appears this arms and jihadist rat line has conveniently been reversed
.
This also as President Erdogan
in a speech on Thursday presented plans to send Turkish national troops bolster Tripoli as
well .
Possibly thousands from among the so-called Turkish Free Syrian Army (formerly the FSA),
with most of its fighters currently attacking Syrian Kurds in the ongoing 'Operation Peace
Spring', will now be sent into Libya.
There are reports suggesting Turkey is ready to pay $2,000 a month for each Syrian 'rebel'
willing to go to Libya .
TFSA source told me Turkey will be offering fighters from all TFSA factions $2,000/month
to go to Libya.
And akin to the current proxy war which has seen both the US, Kurds, and Sunni Islamists
backed by Turkey wrangle over Syria's oil rich eastern region, Libya is heating up to be the
latest 'oil and gas prize' -- but with immensely more at stake. As Bloomberg notes:
In a deepening proxy war, Turkey aims to send its Navy to protect Tripoli, while its
troops train and coordinate forces of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, according to a senior
Turkish official. Turkey recently signed a critical maritime deal with oil-rich Libya that
serves energy interests of both countries and aims to salvage billions of dollars of business
contracts thrown into limbo by the conflict .
As we
predicted earlier , Libya and the southern Mediterranean is on its way to becoming the next
big Middle East conflict of 2020 , also with Egypt and even Russia warning of further
involvement to block Turkey's increasing role on the ground.
And as the mainstream media finally stops ignoring the looming catastrophe for north Africa
and the region (still in denial as to the fruits of US-NATO "liberated" Libya after Gaddafi was
overthrown and killed), it
must be remembered that in another ironic plot twist, the CIA trained the very FSA 'rebel'
fighters now on their way to Libya .
Gee who would have ever predicted? It's the foreign fighter 'rat line' in reverse.
Remember when the CIA thought it was a good idea to train and fund jihadists in Syria to
topple Assad? Via a 2015
military study :
The conflict in Syria has become a rallying point for jihadists from around the world.
More than 20,000 foreign fighters are fighting or have fought in Syria, and most are part of
jihadist groups, including Jubhat al Nusra (JAN) and Islamic State (IS). North Africa has provided a large portion of these
foreign fighters, from countries as diverse as Morocco and Libya. Who are these North African fighters, and why are they
going to Syria? What do they hope to accomplish there, and do they want to return to their home countries?
Considering the tens of thousands of foreign fighters which poured into Syria starting in
2011 and 2012 in the first place, many of them from Libya, perhaps many are now simply headed
"home" -- ready to further the proxy war chaos at Erdogan's bidding.
NATO IS NOTHING more than an extension of George Soros' arm as it is also an extension
of the Rothschild arm! Most should have gleaned this by now, particularly recognizing the
radical Wahhabism that was included in this band of merry global thugs (Saudi Arabia) to do
the bidding of the globalist satanic cabal. Kind of sad hearing this kind of neive
responses from the gallery...sorry Mr. teolawki but you missed the forest for the
trees.
What is naive is not understanding that Turkey is the current NATO nations gateway for
all manner of illicit and illegitimat activity to foment and perpetuate the forever wars in
the ME. This has been going on since well before Benghazi and has only gotten worse under
Erdogan.
If you have a way to snap your fingers and solve every problem simultaneously, then
please do so. Otherwise it must be undertaken one step at a time. Closing that Turkish
gateway permanently is an excellent start.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Lord Palmerston stated what he thought was obvious,
that "England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only
eternal and perpetual interests." Palmerston was saying that national interests should drive
the relationships with foreigners. A nation will have amicable relations most of the time with
some countries and difficult relations with some others, but the bottom line should always be
what is beneficial for one's own country and people.
If Palmerston were alive today and observing the relationship of the United States of
America with the rest of the world, he might well find Washington to be an exception to his
rule. The U.S., to be sure, has been adept at turning adversaries into enemies and
disappointing friends, and it is all done with a glib assurance that doing so will somehow
bring democracy and freedom to all. Indeed, either neoliberal democracy promotion or the
neoconservative version of the same have been seen as an overriding and compelling interest
during the past twenty years even though the policies themselves have been disastrous and have
only damaged the real interests of the American people.
The U.S. relationship with Israel is, for example, driven by a powerful and wealthy domestic
lobby rather than by any common interests at all yet it is regularly falsely touted as being
between two "close allies" and "best friends." It has cost Americans hundreds of billions of
dollars in subsidies for the Jewish state and Israeli influence over U.S. policy in the Middle
East region has led to catastrophic military interventions in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq,
Syria, Mogadishu and Libya. Currently, Israel is agitating for U.S. action against the
nonexistent Iranian "threat" while also unleashing its lobby in the United States to make
illegal criticism of any of its war crimes, effectively curtailing freedom of speech and
association for all Americans.
Far more dangerous is the continued excoriation of the Kremlin over the largely mythical
Russiagate narrative. Congress has
recently approved a bill that would give to Ukraine $300 million in supplementary military
assistance to use against Russia. The money and authorization appear in the House of
Representatives version of the national defense authorization act (NDAA) that passed last
week.
The bill is a renewal of the controversial Ukraine
Security Assistance Initiative that Donald Trump allegedly manipulated to bring about an
investigation of Joe Biden's son Hunter. The new version expands on the former assistance
package to include coastal defense cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles as offensive weapons
that are acceptable for export to Kiev. It also authorizes an additional $50 million in
military assistance on top of the $250 million congress had granted in last year's bill, "of
which $100 million would be available only for lethal assistance."
Ukraine sought the money and arms to counter Russian naval dominance in the Black Sea
through its base at Sevastopol in the Crimea. One year ago the Russian navy
captured three Ukrainian warships and Kiev was unable to push back against Moscow because
it lacked weapons designed to attack ships. Now it will have them and presumably it will use
them. How Russia will react is unknowable.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration,
has been in Washington lobbying for the additional military assistance. He has had considerable
success, particularly as there is bipartisan support in Congress for aid to Kiev and also
because the Trump Departments of Defense and State as well as the National Security Council are
all on board in countering the "Russian threat" in the Black Sea. President Trump signed the
NDAA last week, which completed the process.
Far more ominously, Kuleba and his interlocutors in the administration and congress have
been revisiting a proposal first surfaced under Bill Clinton, that Ukraine and Georgia should
be admitted to the NATO alliance. Like the $300 million in military aid, there appears to be
considerable bipartisan support for such a move. NATO already has a major presence on the Black
Sea with Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey all members. Adding Ukraine and Georgia would completely
isolate the Russian presence and Moscow would undoubtedly see it as an existential threat.
The NDAA also provides seed money to initiate the so-called Space Force ,
which President Trump inaugurated by describing it as "the world's newest war-fighting domain.
Amid grave threats to our national security, American superiority in space is absolutely vital.
We're leading, but we're not leading by enough, but very shortly we'll be leading by a lot. The
Space Force will help us deter aggression and control the ultimate high ground."
If that isn't bad enough, the new defense budget ominously also requires the Trump
administration to impose sanctions "with respect to provision of certain vessels for the
construction of certain Russian energy export pipelines." Last week the House of
Representatives and Senate
approved specific sanctions relating to the companies and governments that are
collaborating on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will cross the Baltic Sea
from Vyborg to Greifswald to connect Germany with Russian natural gas. President Trump has
signed off on the legislation.
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The United States has opposed the project ever since it was first mooted, claiming that it
will make Europe "hostage" to Russian energy, will enrich the Russian government, and will also
empower Russian President Vladimir Putin to be more aggressive. Engineering companies that will
be providing services such as pipe-laying will be targeted by Washington as the Trump
administration tries to halt the completion of the $10.5 billion project.
Now that the NDAA has been signed, the Trump administration has 60 days to identify
companies, individuals and even foreign governments that have in some way provided services or
assistance to the pipeline project. Sanctions would block individuals from travel to the United
States and would freeze bank accounts and other tangible property that would be identified by
the U.S. Treasury. One company that will definitely be targeted for sanctions is the
Switzerland-based Allseas, which has been contracted with by Russia's Gazprom to build the
offshore section of pipeline. It has suspended work on the project while it examines the
implications of the sanctions.
Bear in mind that Nord Stream 2 is a peaceful commercial project between two countries that
have friendly relations, making the threats implicit in the U.S. reaction more than somewhat
inappropriate. Increased U.S. sanctions against Russia itself are also believed to be a
possibility and there has even been some suggestion that the German government and its energy
ministry might be sanctioned. This has predictably resulted in pushback from Germany, normally
a country that is inclined to go along with any and all American initiatives. Last week German
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas asked Congress not to meddle in European energy policy, saying "We
think this is unacceptable, because it is ultimately a move to influence autonomous decisions
that are made in Europe. European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the U.S."
German Bundestag member Andreas Nick warned that "It's an issue of national sovereignty,
and it is potentially a liability for trans-Atlantic relations." That Trump is needlessly
alienating important countries like Germany that are genuine allies, unlike Israel and Saudi
Arabia, over an issue that is not an actual American interest is unfortunate. It makes one
think that the wheels have definitely come off the cart in Washington.
The point is that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and Mike Esper (admittedly too
many Mikes) wouldn't know a national interest if it hit them in the face. Their
politicization of policy to "win in 2020" promoting apocalyptic nonsense like war in space has
also reinforced an existing tunnel vision on what Russia under Vladimir Putin is all about that
is extremely dangerous. Admittedly, Team Trump throws out sanctions in all directions with
reckless abandon, mostly aimed at Russia, Iran, North Korea and, the current favorite,
Venezuela. No one is immune. But the escalation going from sanctions to arming the Kremlin's
enemies is both reckless and pointless. Russia will definitely strike back if it is attacked,
make no mistake about that, and war could easily escalate with tragic consequences for all of
us. That war is perhaps becoming thinkable is in itself deplorable, with Business
Insiderrunning a recent
piece on surviving a nuclear attack. New homes in target America will likely soon come
equipped with bomb shelters, just like in the 1950s. Tags Politics
S&P Global Platts does not seem to be in the same jubilatory mood as is the troll in his
belief that Nord Stream 2 has been well and truly fucked by the mighty Empire:
The move by Allseas will certainly mean new delays to the completion of the 55
Bcm/year pipeline, which had originally been scheduled to start operations at the end of
2019.
Delays to the completion of the pipeline?
Delays????
Are you serious Platts?
The Empire has once again been victorious against the doltish Mongol-Tatar subhumans, who
have no technology, no wits, no gumption no nothing , when faced with the awesome
might of the Exceptional Nation.
A remarkably disingenuous article I would say. Russia sanctioned and sanctioned again with
threats of being kicked out of SWIFT and isolated in every way takes minimal precautions
against an internet collapse and is criticized. For example, DNS resolution function which I
believe resides in various western countries could be denied rendering much of the Russian
internet useless.
O nce in a blue moon an indispensable book comes out making a clear case for sanity in what
is now a post-MAD world. That's the responsibility carried by " The (Real)
Revolution in Military Affairs ," by Andrei Martyanov (Clarity Press), arguably the most
important book of 2019.
Martyanov is the total package -- and he comes with extra special attributes as a top-flight
Russian military analyst, born in Baku in those Back in the U.S.S.R. days, living and working
in the U.S., and writing and blogging in English.
Right from the start, Martyanov wastes no time destroying not only Fukuyama's and
Huntington's ravings but especially Graham Allison's childish and meaningless Thucydides Trap
argument -- as if the power equation between the U.S. and China in the 21stcentury could be
easily interpreted in parallel to Athens and Sparta slouching towards the Peloponnesian War
over 2,400 years ago. What next? Xi Jinping as the new Genghis Khan?
(By the way, the best current essay on Thucydides is in Italian, by Luciano Canfora ("
Tucidide: La Menzogna, La Colpa, L'Esilio" ). No Trap. Martyanov visibly relishes defining the
Trap as a "figment of the imagination" of people who "have a very vague understanding of real
warfare in the 21st century." No wonder Xi explicitly said the Trap does not exist.)
Martyanov had already detailed in his splendid, previous book, "Losing Military Supremacy:
The Myopia of American Strategic Planning," how "American lack of historic experience with
continental warfare" ended up "planting the seeds of the ultimate destruction of the American
military mythology of the 20thand 21stcenturies which is foundational to the American decline,
due to hubris and detachment of reality." Throughout the book, he unceasingly provides solid
evidence about the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a possible, future war against
real armies (not the Taliban or Saddam Hussein's), air forces, air defenses and naval
power.
Do the Math
One of the key takeaways is the failure of U.S. mathematical models: and readers of the book
do need to digest quite a few mathematical equations. The key point is that this failure led
the U.S. "on a continuous downward spiral of diminishing military capabilities against the
nation [Russia] she thought she defeated in the Cold War."
In the U.S., Revolution in Military
Affairs (RMA) was introduced by the late Andrew Marshall, a.k.a. Yoda, the former head of
Net Assessment at the Pentagon and the de facto inventor of the "pivot to Asia" concept. Yet
Martyanov tells us that RMA actually started as MTR (Military-Technological Revolution),
introduced by Soviet military theoreticians back in the 1970s.
One of the staples of RMA concerns nations capable of producing land-attack cruise missiles,
a.k.a. TLAMs. As it stands, only the U.S., Russia, China and France can do it. And there are
only two global systems providing satellite guidance to cruise missiles: the American GPS and
the Russian GLONASS. Neither China's BeiDou nor the European Galileo qualify – yet
– as global GPS systems.
Then there's Net-Centric Warfare (NCW). The term itself was coined by the late Admiral
Arthur Cebrowski in 1998 in an
article he co-wrote with John Garstka's titled, "Network-Centric Warfare – Its Origin and
Future."
Deploying his mathematical equations, Martyanov soon tells us that "the era of subsonic
anti-shipping missiles is over." NATO, that brain-dead organism (copyright Emmanuel Macron)
now has to face the supersonic Russian P-800 Onyx and the Kalibr-class M54 in a "highly hostile
Electronic Warfare environment." Every developed modern military today applies Net-Centric Warfare
(NCW), developed by the Pentagon in the 1990s.
Rendering of a future combat systems network. (soldiersmediacenter/Flickr, CC BY 2.0,
Wikimedia Commons)
Martyanov
mentions in his new book something that I learned on my visit to Donbass in March 2015: how
NCW principles, "based on Russia's C4ISR capabilities made available by the Russian military to
numerically inferior armed forces of the Donbass Republics (LDNR), were used to devastating
effect both at the battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo, when attacking the cumbersome Soviet-era
Ukrainian Armed Forces military."
No Escape From the Kinzhal
Martyanov provides ample information on Russia's latest missile – the hypersonic
Mach-10 aero-ballistic Kinzhal, recently tested in the Arctic.
Crucially, as he explains, "no existing anti-missile defense in the U.S. Navy is capable of
shooting [it] down even in the case of the detection of this missile." Kinzhal has a range of
2,000 km, which leaves its carriers, MiG-31K and TU-22M3M, "invulnerable to the only defense a
U.S. Carrier Battle Group, a main pillar of U.S. naval power, can mount – carrier fighter
aircraft." These fighters simply don't have the range.
The Kinzhal was one of the weapons announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin's
game-changing March
1, 2018 speech at the Federal Assembly. That's the day, Martyanov stresses, when the real
RMA arrived, and "changed completely the face of peer-peer warfare, competition and global
power balance dramatically."
Top Pentagon officials such as General
John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, have admitted on the record there are "no
existing countermeasures" against, for instance, the hypersonic, Mach 27 glide vehicle Avangard
(which renders anti-ballistic missile systems useless), telling the U.S. Senate Armed Services
Committee the only way out would be "a nuclear deterrent." There are also no existing
counter-measures against anti-shipping missiles such as the Zircon and Kinzhal.
Any military analyst knows very well how the Kinzhal destroyed a land target the size of a
Toyota Corolla in Syria after being launched 1,000 km away in adverse weather conditions. The
corollary is the stuff of NATO nightmares: NATO's command and control installations in Europe
are de facto indefensible.
Martyanov gets straight to the point: "The introduction of hypersonic weapons surely pours
some serious cold water on the American obsession with securing the North American continent
from retaliatory strikes."
Kh-47M2 Kinzhal; 2018 Moscow Victory Day Parade. (Kremilin via Wikimedia Commons)
Martyanov is thus unforgiving on U.S. policymakers who "lack the necessary tool-kit for
grasping the unfolding geostrategic reality in which the real revolution in military affairs
had dramatically downgraded the always inflated American military capabilities and continues to
redefine U.S. geopolitical status away from its self-declared hegemony."
And it gets worse: "Such weapons ensure a guaranteed retaliation [Martyanov's italics] on
the U.S. proper." Even the existing Russian nuclear deterrents – and to a lesser degree
Chinese, as paraded recently -- "are capable of overcoming the existing U.S. anti-ballistic
systems and destroying the United States," no matter what crude propaganda the Pentagon is
peddling.
In February 2019, Moscow announced the completion of tests of a nuclear-powered engine for
the Petrel cruise missile. This is a subsonic cruise missile with nuclear propulsion that can
remain in air for quite a long time, covering intercontinental distances, and able to attack
from the most unexpected directions. Martyanov mischievously characterizes the Petrel as "a
vengeance weapon in case some among American decision-makers who may help precipitate a new
world war might try to hide from the effects of what they have unleashed in the relative safety
of the Southern Hemisphere."
Hybrid War Gone Berserk
A section of the book expands on China's military progress, and the fruits of the
Russia-China strategic partnership, such as Beijing buying $3 billion-worth of S-400 Triumph
anti-aircraft missiles -- "ideally suited to deal with the exact type of strike assets the
United States would use in case of a conventional conflict with China."
Beijing parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic, October 2019.
(YouTube screenshot)
Because of the timing, the analysis does not even take into consideration the arsenal
presented in early October at the Beijing parade celebrating the 70thanniversary of the
People's Republic.
That includes, among other things, the "carrier-killer" DF-21D, designed to hit warships at
sea at a range of up to 1,500 km; the intermediate range "Guam Killer" DF-26; the DF-17
hypersonic missile; and the long-range submarine-launched and ship-launched YJ-18A anti-ship
cruise missiles. Not to mention the DF-41 ICBM – the backbone of China's nuclear
deterrent, capable of reaching the U.S. mainland carrying multiple warheads.
Martyanov could not escape addressing the RAND Corporation, whose reason to exist is to
relentlessly push for more money for the Pentagon – blaming Russia for "hybrid war" (an
American invention) even as it moans about the U.S.'s incapacity of defeating Russia in each
and every war game. RAND's war games pitting the U.S. and allies against Russia and China
invariably ended in a "catastrophe" for the "finest fighting force in the world."
Martyanov also addresses the S-500s, capable of reaching AWACS planes and possibly even
capable of intercepting hypersonic non-ballistic targets. The S-500 and its latest middle-range
state of the art air-defense system S-350 Vityaz will be operational in 2020.
His key takeway: "There is no parity between Russia and the United States in such fields as
air-defense, hypersonic weapons and, in general, missile development, to name just a few fields
– the United States lags behind in these fields, not just in years but in generations
[italics mine]."
All across the Global South, scores of nations are very much aware that the U.S. economic
"order" – rather disorder – is on the brink of collapse. In contrast, a
cooperative, connected, rule-based, foreign relations between sovereign nations model is being
advanced in Eurasia – symbolized by the merging of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO), the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the NDB (the BRICS bank).
The key guarantors of the new model are Russia and China. And Beijing and Moscow harbor no
illusion whatsoever about the toxic dynamics in Washington. My recent conversations with top
analysts in Kazakhstan last month and in Moscow last week once again stressed the futility of
negotiating with people described – with overlapping shades of sarcasm – as
exceptionalist fanatics. Russia, China and many corners of Eurasia have figured out there are
no possible, meaningful deals with a nation bent on breaking every deal.
Indispensable?
No: Vulnerable
Martyanov cannot but evoke Putin's speech to the Federal Assembly in February 2019, after
the unilateral Washington abandonment of the INF treaty, clearing the way for U.S. deployment
of intermediate and close range missiles stationed in Europe and pointed at Russia:
"Russia will be forced to create and deploy those types of weapons against those regions
from where we will face a direct threat, but also against those regions hosting the centers
where decisions are taken on using those missile systems threatening us."
Translation: American Invulnerability is over – for good.
In the short term, things can always get worse. At his traditional, year-end presser in
Moscow, lasting almost four and a half hours, Putin stated that Russia is more than ready to
"simply renew the existing New START agreement", which is bound to expire in early 2021: "They
[the U.S.] can send us the agreement tomorrow, or we can sign and send it to Washington." And
yet, "so far our proposals have been left unanswered. If the New START ceases to exist, nothing
in the world will hold back an arms race. I believe this is bad."
"Bad" is quite the euphemism. Martyanov prefers to stress how "most of the American elites,
at least for now, still reside in a state of Orwellian cognitive dissonance" even as the real
RMA "blew the myth of American conventional invincibility out of the water."
Martyanov is one of the very few analysts – always from different parts of Eurasia --
who have warned about the danger of the U.S. "accidentally stumbling" into a war against
Russia, China, or both which is impossible to be won conventionally, "let alone through the
nightmare of a global nuclear catastrophe."
Is that enough to instill at least a modicum of sense into those who lord over that massive
cash cow, the industrial-military-security complex? Don't count on it.
* * *
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong
Kong-based Asia Times . His latest book is
"
2030 ." Follow him on Facebook .
"... My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country ..."
"... Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down. ..."
My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities
throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise
be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by
the US Department of Defense, in states across the country .
Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their
factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians
willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and
keep unemployment down.
The issue then is how to keep those jobs and keep those factories but change what
engineers are designing and workers are making from machines of destruction into machines
that sustain life and communities.
Yes, the absolute truth. Defense spending is spread over as many states and regions as
possible to keep strong political support. It seems every month the state is sponsoring
seminars aimed at educating small/medium manufacturers on how to bid on defense contracts.
Even small mom-and-pop machine shops get their share of defense business. One small shop in
our region makes compressor blades for cruise missiles. Every time the US fires off a barrage
of missiles, they probably get an order; everybody is happy except those in the target area.
Many American communities also depend on the Military-Industrial Complex to educate their
children. I personally know several families who had children enlist in the military in order
to get a free college education; one that their families could otherwise not afford. The
parents put their kids in the army and navy, and then just cross their fingers and hope they
won't be deployed to a war zone.
The system is actually perfect. The odds of any one of these young people actually getting
killed in a war, is actually quite low. The vast majority get a good education with lots of
perks, all expenses paid including housing, they do their time, and never see a bullet. All
at the taxpayers expense.
"... Overwhelming Power was the stated war goal in 1942. When that failed because of the Soviets, the Red Victories, and the Red bomb, it become essential to create a false reality where "Everything the American Public believes is false (Casey/Honegger) ..."
Overwhelming Power was the stated war goal in 1942. When that failed because of the
Soviets, the Red Victories, and the Red bomb, it become essential to create a false reality
where "Everything the American Public believes is false (Casey/Honegger)
Stimson said in '42>
"We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our flag will be
recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of
overwhelming power on the other." (Capra Why We Fight")
If Power is overwhelming, then Power defines freedom. Stimson's rhetoric presents a
false equality. A deception. Essentially a lie.
The "Reds" are onto this, however, see VVP's informal disquisition at
"Dan Crenshaw did not serve his country. Dan Crenshaw is not a hero. Dan Crenshaw
participated in a military occupation that after 18 years and counting has claimed tens of
thousands of lives for no benefit to any ordinary American at all. All he served during his
time in that country was the geostrategic imperialist agendas of unaccountable government
agencies and the profit margins of war plutocrats, yet upon returning home he's been able to
convert his stint as a glorified hired thug into social collateral which got him elected to
the US House of Representatives and secured him a punditry platform from which he can spout
war propaganda. All because people agree to play along with the completely nonsensical
narrative that US war veterans are heroes."
("glorified hired thug" LOL!!!)
"I'm not saying to be mean to veterans, and I'm not saying veterans are bad people, in
fact, one of the most heinous injustices about these corporate wars is that they turn many of
our finest and bravest young people toward the very most toxic and pernicious ends possible.
Many of them sincerely enlisted due to an impulse to help make the world a better place; it's
the same impulse which led Julian Assange to set up a leaking outlet to help expose
unaccountable power structures, the only difference is that Assange saw clearly through the
fog of propaganda and they did not. But the reverence and fairy tales have got to go.
There are no war heroes. There are only war victims. It's time to grow up and stop pretending
otherwise."
Damn!!!! Caitlin is Spot F'n On !!!
BTW Notice how these war 'heroes' seem to bear a striking family resemblance.
Who does that pix of Crenshaw bring to mind??? LOL!!! Weird huh!!!
So we go to THEIR homeland as if they had come here to our homeland-which they
haven't.
Maybe that's what Dan would have said if he were a straightforward truthful kinda guy
which of course he isn't.
Be careful. Playing upon her military service is a big part of Tulsi Gabbard's gravitas and
authenticity. It's quite true that she uses it to argue against regime-change wars, but a
position that military records only mean you served as a dupe for war profiteers and enabled
their plundering will not do her any good at all, and Caitlin has set it up so there is
little wiggle room for intentions.
S&P Global Platts does not seem to be in the same jubilatory mood as is the troll in his
belief that Nord Stream 2 has been well and truly fucked by the mighty Empire:
The move by Allseas will certainly mean new delays to the completion of the 55
Bcm/year pipeline, which had originally been scheduled to start operations at the end of
2019.
Delays to the completion of the pipeline?
Delays????
Are you serious Platts?
The Empire has once again been victorious against the doltish Mongol-Tatar subhumans, who
have no technology, no wits, no gumption no nothing , when faced with the awesome
might of the Exceptional Nation.
More USAAF Eighth Air Force men were killed over Europe than the total number of USMC men
killed in the Pacific.
The footage is grim. Particularly the concluding encounter between a Bf-110 and a B-17. The
former was equipped with 20 or 30mm cannon besides machine guns. It would have been
miraculous if that B-17
somehow made it back to England
The USSR was no workers' paradise. For all its formal allegiance to Marx and Engels, it was a
militantly hierarchical class society ruled by a tyrannical state. After World War Two, it
held brutal military power over Eastern Europe and East Germany. Still, Soviet-era Russia
created an urban and industrialized society with real civilizational accomplishments
(including cradle-to-grave health-care, housing, and food security and an impressive
educational system and cultural apparatus) outside capitalism. It pursued an independent path
to modernity without a capitalist class, devoid of a bourgeoisie, in the name of socialism.
It therefore posed a political and ideological challenge to U.S-led Western capitalism
– and to Washington's related plans for the Third World periphery, which was supposed
to subordinate its developmental path to the needs of the rich nations (the U.S., Western
Europe, and honorarily white Japan) of the world-capitalist core.
Honest U.S. Cold Warriors knew that it was the political threat of "communism" – its
appeal to poor nations and people (including the lower and working classes within rich/core
states) – and not any serious military danger that constituted the true "Soviet
menace." Contrary to U.S. "containment" doctrine after World War II, the ruling Soviet
bureaucracy was concerned above all with keeping an iron grip on its internal and regional
empire, not global expansion and "world revolution." It did, however "deter the worst of
Western violence" (Noam Chomsky) by providing military and other assistance to Third World
targets of U.S. and Western attack (including China, Korea, Indonesia, Egypt, Syria, Cuba,
Vietnam, and Laos). Along the way, it provided an example of independent development outside
and against the capitalist world system advanced by the superpower headquartered in
Washington.
To make matters worse from Washington's "Open Door" perspective, the Soviet Empire kept a
vast swath of the world's natural and human resources walled off from profitable exploitation
by global capital.
All of this was more than enough to mark the Soviet Union as global public enemy number
one for the post-WWII U.S. power elite, which had truly planet-wide imperial ambitions,
unlike Moscow.
The Soviet deterrent and alternative to U.S.-led capitalism-imperialism collapsed once and
for all in the early 1990s. Washington celebrated with unchallenged invasions of Panama and
Iraq. The blood-drenched U.S. President George H.W. Bush exulted that "what we say goes" in a
newly unipolar, post-Soviet world. Russia reverted to not-so "free market" capitalism under
U.S.-led Western financial supervision and in accord with the savage austerity and inequality
imposed by the neoliberal "Washington consensus." Chomsky got it right in 1991. "With the
collapse of Soviet tyranny," he wrote, "much of the region can be expected to return to its
traditional [subordinate] status, with the former high echelons of the bureaucracy playing
the role of the Third World elites that enrich themselves while serving the interests of
foreign investors." The consequences were disastrous for many millions of ordinary
Russians.
@Kevin #18
"Can anyone recommend a good book on the privatization of state assets of the former USSR?
Particularly one that focuses on how mid-level technocrats, often of a persecuted minority,
were able to get the capital to purchase these assets."
PUTIN from Chris
Hutchins is a good read that also describes the rise of the oligarchs and how Putin dealt
with them. Like one oligarch made a small fortune selling the first western cars in the
country and how they bought up cheap shares from the Yeltsin privatisation scheme. Privatized
companies changed ownership under threats or even at gunpoint. The oligarchs were simple
mobsters at the time. That is about what i vaguely remember reading the book a few years back
but there is a lot more detail.
TG #29
Replacement level fertility" is the total fertility rate -- the average number of children
born per woman -- at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the
next, without migration. This rate is roughly 2.1 children per woman for most countries,
although it may modestly vary with mortality rates'
Russia 1.61 children born/woman (2018 est.)
Canada 1.6 children born/woman (2018 est.)
Japan 1.42 children born/woman (2018 est.)
Italy 1.45 children born/woman (2018 est.)
France 2.06 children born/woman (2018 est.)
@Kevin #18
I would suggest looking at articles in the Exile: www.exile.ru
Unfortunately, these are no longer free.
The short story: the most successful "privatizations" involved getting control of a bank,
then using the bank's deposits to buy up companies.
The most successful scheme was getting control of a bank which was partly used by the Russian
government for payments; I recall one example where one bank was used to clear funds paid for
state enterprises - so the "privatizers" were literally pushing money out for assets and
getting them back.
Further down the scale - there was all manner of chicanery including kidnapping, extortion,
murder and what not.
The problem with books published in English is that you're almost guaranteed to run into
thinly disguised agitprop ranging from the usual American and British academics taking the
national security dime, to Khodorkovsky and the other O.G. Jewish oligarchs attempting to
whitewash history: Gusinski, Berezofsky, etc.
Try this: Wheel of Fortune: The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia – May 15,
2017
by Thane Gustafson
A review @ Amazon:
Thane masterfully succeeded in uncovering the fundamental drivers of the Russian oil
industry and its interdependency with the political complex through a comprehensive and
convincing historical analysis, with plenty of meaningful insights and endearing anecdotes.
Rooted in Soviet legacy and having gone through the 90s bust-boom roller coaster and 2000s
state reconsolidation the industry is a unique globally isolated eco system, and, with
Russia as a whole, is at a crossroads. A must read for any decision maker in the O&G
business.
Just a quick take, the separation of the Russian government/ruling elites from Russian
culture suggests foreign influence as in Russia's elites looking to the West and aping
Western ideas – think of Peter the Great or Gorbachev. That was a betrayal of Russian
values and a historical mistake of immense proportions. Russia is learning to how to minimize
the core values of the West – greed, deception and narcissism.
China has done a better job than Russia in that regard but on the other hand it has a
vastly different history and enjoyed more isolation from Western meddling if not outright
invasions.
I would make a distinction here. Mastering Western technology is not necessarily the same
thing as "aping Western ideas". Also would distinguish between Peter the Great who won some
remarkable geopolitical victories for Russia (think Poltava); vs Gorbachov, who completely
betrayed Russia. To the extent he even left Russia vulnerable to American nuclear attack for
a window of 2 whole hours, or more.
As I showed in
this old post .
Gorby in phone conversation to George W. Bush Daddy:
"And now concerning Russia – this is the second most important theme of our
conversations. In front of me, on the table, lies the Decree of the President of the USSR,
concerning my resignation. I am hereby also relieving myself of the duties of the
Commander-in-Chief and handing over my responsibilities for employing nuclear weapons ,
to the President of the Russian Federation. In other words, I continue to manage these
affairs right up until the completion of the constitutional process. I can assure you, that
everything is under strict control. The moment I announce my resignation, these orders will
become effective. There will not be any kind of dispute about this. You can spend your
Christmas evening in complete peace of mind."
In other words, Gorby not only left the Soviet Union completely vulnerable to nuclear
attack for a period of 2 hours or so; but even announced that fact to their greatest enemy.
What kind of national leader does something like that? The only reason any Russians are even
around today, is because George Bush Daddy was either too kind, or too dull-witted to take
advantage of that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
"... To use Krushchev's granddaugher as a source was also a very low blow: she's herself an op-ed "journalist" coopted by the western MSM (I remember reading her pieces when she worked for the Asia Times, and she's for sure not a specialist/expert). ..."
"... It's also false when the NYT stated Russia is some kind of last refuge for oligarchs, mafiosos and terrorists in the world. No, this refuge's name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. ..."
"... The USA is also the last refuge of Latin American dictators. More than 3,000 enemies of the State from Latin American countries live in Florida under officially recognized political asylum. Many of them are ex-generals and bankers. ..."
"... There's also a macabre message in the headline of the NYT article: that it is weird, from the American point of view, that Russia was somehow able to survive the absolute destruction that should have happened with its Shock Therapy during the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The author indeed seems genuinely puzzled as to why didn't Russia degenerate to a Third World banana republic after the capitalist charge on the newly founded nation sponsored by the USA; after all, it worked in Latin America and many other countries. I've already discussed it here many times, and I stand by my hypothesis: Russia is still able to rest on the laurels of the good ol' Soviet Union. That windfall will soon end, so Putin must think a viable succession scheme and viabilize the five-year plans. ..."
The worst thing about the NYT piece is that it is not in the "Opinion" section, but right
in the Front Page, as if it were genuine investigative journalism.
To use Krushchev's granddaugher as a source was also a very low blow: she's herself
an op-ed "journalist" coopted by the western MSM (I remember reading her pieces when she
worked for the Asia Times, and she's for sure not a specialist/expert).
I disagree with b about the "hidden economy" thing. Every capitalist country has a
hidden economy; the USA, for example, has by far the largest shadow banking system in the
world, which could easily rise its GDP by 50%. Italy recently considered including the
mafia business in the GDP calculation so they could officially get out of recession. Having
20-30% of your economy "hidden", therefore, is not an excuse for the Russian Federation for
the dire state of its own people.
The NYT is also wrong when it infers Yeltsin was "fixing" the Soviet economy by making
it take the bitter pill. The Soviet economy begun to unravel precisely because of
Gorbachev's Perestroika - which was the policy designed precisely to reform the system in
the first place. Yeltsin made things even worse - far worse than a linear extrapolation
even from the Gorbachev era. Indeed, that's why he was toppled in the first place.
It's also false when the NYT stated Russia is some kind of last refuge for
oligarchs, mafiosos and terrorists in the world. No, this refuge's name is the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Thanks to its inumerous tax havens (of
which the Cayman Islands are, by far, the largest), many traffickers, terrorists and
oligarchs are able to roam freely around the world, with their money laundered. Many of
them even buy residence in London and a British Green Card, so they can also enjoy the
protections the Crown gives to its subjects. In their free time, they also buy some English
football clubs, but that's another story. Switzerland also enjoy many of the perks of being
a tax haven.
The USA is also the last refuge of Latin American dictators. More than 3,000 enemies
of the State from Latin American countries live in Florida under officially recognized
political asylum. Many of them are ex-generals and bankers.
Indeed, Russia is considered a "not free" nation precisely because this kind of
financial promiscuity doesn't exist on a systemic-cultural level. Freedom, for the
liberals, is nothing more nothing less than being able to freely purchase and use the
commodities you bought on the free market with a certain amount of money. Russia (but
mainly China) doesn't allow the western oligarchs to do that, so it is kind of a
disappointment to the "vital center".
There's also a macabre message in the headline of the NYT article: that it is weird,
from the American point of view, that Russia was somehow able to survive the absolute
destruction that should have happened with its Shock Therapy during the Yeltsin
era.
The author indeed seems genuinely puzzled as to why didn't Russia degenerate to a
Third World banana republic after the capitalist charge on the newly founded nation
sponsored by the USA; after all, it worked in Latin America and many other countries. I've
already discussed it here many times, and I stand by my hypothesis: Russia is still able to
rest on the laurels of the good ol' Soviet Union. That windfall will soon end, so Putin
must think a viable succession scheme and viabilize the five-year plans.
@FSD:
Agreed, but I think we are seeing a strange form of mass psychogenic illness in the West (
https://quillette.com/2018/11/02/trigger-warnings-and-mass-psychogenic-illness/),
and in the EU and US in particular. I strongly suspect that the farther an farther the mass
media push the willingly ignorant bulk of people out into a fictional and counterfactual
mental reservation, the more and more people crave distraction that, like a junkie's fix,
needs to always get bigger to reach the same effect. I turned on the TV the other day and
happened on a show called Masked Singer, which struck me as so insanely manic in its
subject and its presentation -- loud music, flashing lights, cartoonish hosts, junkie-like
pacing -- that I wondered that anyone can function anymore inside this pin-ball machine
world. It's like the entire West is having, especially in its so-called cultural nodes, a
collective manic episode with very real danger of self-harm.
Because Russia's population is relatively stable, every small uptick in economic growth
is pure profit. With a stable population, even 1% annual growth, compounded every year, can
result in substantial prosperity before too long.
But in the United States, with open-borders cheap-labor immigration pushing the
population ever higher, the numbers are different. When a population ir forced upwards, the
economic demands are even higher than the population growth itself. That's because you need
to not just grow the ongoing population, but provide massive investments in new
infrastructure. Russia is like a person who's paid off his mortgage, and can devote all
income to living and making progress. The United States is like a homeowner with a massive
mortgage and who also has to pay massive taxes to pay for more sewers and roads and energy
conservation etc.
So 1% annual sustained economic growth in Russia means Russia is making progress, while
even 3% annual economic growth in the United States means it is falling behind.
Don't believe me? From 1950 to the present, immigration increased California's
population from 10 million to about 40 million. On paper the economy boomed, but the
average person is much worse off, the quality of life has tanked, roads are choked, rents
are sky-high while wages are stagnant, air quality is down even with massive spending on
pollution controls, poverty is the worst in the nation, homelessness is booming, etc.
It's my guess Putin doesn't waste time reading the NYTs. Why should he, and for that
matter why should anyone? The Times and the other Oligarch rags should be ignored by all.
Break the chains. Focusing on God and family a young couple may try homesteading. Ignore
the rest.
The imperial lie machine sure is disgruntled that the 1990s attempt to economically and
biologically crush Russia once and for all was a failure and Russia has since been
reasserting itself. It wasn't "the end of history" after all.
That was the source of the underlying current of Russia Derangement among the US
elite classes (political, economic, media, academia, professional etc.), the many
provocations, and then the total meltdown beginning in late 2016.
Since it really seems to be a collective mental illness (I mean that literally)
afflicting a power group which is already psychotic and violent, and since it coincides
with the accelerating erosion of the US imperial position, it's looking more and more
likely that this must eventually lead to all-out war. I just can't imagine the US stepping
back, any more than I could imagine Hitler doing so.
America's obsessive bashing of Russia (and now China) is suggestive of a deep
psychological disorder.
Though the Americans and their allied apologists will insist that it is sincerely
motivated by a humanitarian concern for Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights(TM), that is
quite laughable given America's concentration camps for undocumented immigrants; its
incarceration of immigrant children in cages; or the US Prison Industrial Complex in
general, which has been called America's new Jim Crow in that it imprisons millions of
African Americans and other minorities and relegates them to a new racist caste system.
No, cut through the barrage of American Moral Supremacism and other delusions, the
United States is enraged that, despite its attempt to economically rape Russia in the 1990s
through American-promoted Free Market reforms and Neoliberal "shock therapy," Russia is
still standing and indeed resurgent.
THAT is what enrages the Americans and triggers them in rug-chewing fits of frenzy.
It's official: "Freedom gas" is the Worst Phrase of the Year, according to the Plain
English Foundation. But where does the expression come from? EURACTIV did not have to look
far to get the answer
So where does the whole story come from?
On 1 May, EURACTIV's energy and climate reporter Frédéric Simon attended
a briefing with US energy secretary Rick Perry in Brussels. He recalls the events
below.
The four journalists in the room had spent about an hour asking Perry a basic question:
why would Europeans choose to pay for expensive LNG imported from the US when they have
access to cheap Russian gas?
"But my surprise soon turned to dismay when Perry suddenly took a grave face and
started talking about the Normandy landings during WWII for which commemorations were planned
days after."
Here's what Perry went on to say: Seventy-five years after liberating Europe from Nazi
Germany occupation, "the United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European
continent," the US energy secretary told reporters that day.
"And rather than in the form of young American soldiers, it's in the form of liquefied
natural gas," he added. "So yes, I think you may be correct in your observation," he said in
reference to Fred's suggestion about 'Freedom gas' .
####
Quite instructive about the mindset (f/king nuts) they are over in the States. They really
do live in their own universe where no-one picks up their dogs' (and their own) crap. They
neither notice the smell nor link to the slipperyness underfoot to their own actions. They
don't care either.
They like to talk about the European "blood-debt" to the USA.
I don't know what they think a large number of unfortunate young men were doing on Gold,
Juno and Sword beaches in June, 1944, or indeed that there were such beaches. Even moreso,
they are apparently unaware of the over 22 million Soviet citizens who died 1941-1945 during
what is known as "The Great Patriotic War for the Fatherland, 1941-1945"..
Analysts have identified a way to increase the export of Gazprom to bypass the Ukraine The
Eugal pipeline built to deliver gas from "Nord Stream-2 " to end users, will be operating
in 2020, despite US sanctions. "Gazprom" will redirect gas to this pipeline from "Northern
stream-1", experts say
The capacity of the Eugal onshore gas pipeline, built specifically for delivering gas from
the Nord Stream-2 offshore gas pipeline to end users, may allow Gazprom to increase supplies to
Europe bypassing the Ukraine, despite the fact that the United States has imposed sanctions
against laying the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline. , said experts interviewed by RBC.
The Gascade Gastransport operator,
controlled by Gazprom and the German Wintershall Dea , will commission the first of two Eugal
pipelines with a capacity of 30.9 billion cubic metres per year from January 1, 2020 (total
pipe capacity should be 55 billion cubic metres), which will go from German Greifswald on the
Baltic Sea to the south to the border with the Czech Republic, the Eugal press service said on
December 20. And the next day it became known that the European pipe-laying company Allseas had
suspended the construction of Nord Stream-2 (which should pump 55 billion cubic meters per
year) in the Baltic Sea.
Eugal will lay another 36 billion cubic metre capacity OPAL landline, built to pump gas from the first
Baltic gas pipeline of Gazprom and partners, Nord Stream-1, which achieved at full capacity 55
billion cubic metres per year back in October 2012. Since 2013, Gazprom could only use 50% of
OPAL capacity because of restrictions, and in 2016, the company received permission to connect
to 90% of the pipeline capacity. However, in September 2019, Gazprom was forced to reduce gas
pumping through OPAL, and then through Nord Stream-1, because of a decision of the European
Court of Justice, which, in lawsuit filed by Poland, limited supply by almost half – from
90 to 50% of capacity , or up to 18 billion cubic metres per year.
"The launch of Eugal will ensure a full load of Nord Stream-1. About 20 billion cubic
metres of gas per year can be delivered via a new land gas pipeline, which volume was lost
because of restrictions imposed as a result of Poland's victory in court", said Mikhail
Korchemkin, director of East European Gas Analysis, to RBC. The remaining 17–20 billion
cubic metre Gazprom can pump through a second branch from the offshore gas pipeline
NEL , which runs only through
Germany to the west of Greifswald, so Poland could not achieve restrictions on its
capacity.
At the peak of capacity, OPAL pumped up to 103 million cubic metres of gas per day owing to
a decision of the European Court to decrease transit to 50 million cubic metre. Last week, it
fell to 12 million cubic metres per day. This is due to an increase of 115 million cubic metres
per day in supplies to the NEL gas pipeline, as well as an increase in transit to Europe
through the territory of the Ukraine, Korchemkin points out.
"Now most of the gas from Nord Stream-1, which continues to operate at its design capacity,
is sent to the markets of northwestern Europe through NEL, that is, the limitation of the use
of OPAL by the decision of the European Court has practically had no affect on the load of Nord
Stream", added Deputy General Director of the National Energy Policy Fund, Alexey Grivach.
According to him, after the introduction of Eugal, part of the gas can go to Central Europe
through a new onshore gas pipeline, depending on the current market needs and the optimization
of Gazprom's export portfolio.
Despite the impending U.S. sanctions, the possibility of using Eugal to pump Gazprom's gas
was recognized in November by Arno Bux, chief commercial officer of gas transmission operator
Fluxys, which is a minority shareholder in Gascade. According to him, since 2020, from 80 to
90% of the Eugal capacity has already been booked for 20 years at auctions. "Since the
transportation facilities are reserved on a ship-or-pay basis (" transport or pay "), the
potential delays of the Nord Stream-2 project do not affect Eugal's revenues", he told
Interfax, noting that the flows from the gas pipeline Nord Stream 1 can be routed through
Eugal.
"We cannot predict the volumes that will be transported through Eugal, because it
depends on requests from transport customers", Gascade spokesman Georg Wustner told RBC on
December 23, declining to specify whether gas supplies from Nord Stream-1 will begin on
January 1 through a new onshore pipeline. A representative of Gazprom Export declined to
comment; the press service of Nord Stream AG (operator of the Nord Stream-1 project) did not
respond to a request from RBC.
An excellent show from last week. However still relevant with some reminders from the 80s
that are quintessential irony. Sanchez's journalistic delivery is impressive.
Rapoza's latest effort, for Forbes, is his review of the Russia/Ukraine gas deal that
everyone is talking about. His take, in summary, is that Russia did not really have to give
up very much, it would be to Ukraine's advantage to stop fucking around and concentrate now
on the issues, that Ukraine dropped a very large amount in claims in return for not very much
money (although he does not say how likely Ukraine would have been to win them in court, and
my personal opinion is not very), that Nord Stream II will be completed with not a
significant amount of delay, and that Russia can implement the same no-gas-through-Ukraine in
five years if it does not like the way things are going.
I linked a Russian newspaper article above which analysed the deal and in which it was
pointed out that the $3 billion that Gazprom coughed up is 1% of the annual turnover of that
company. And another thing that the article pointed out was that the deal is between Gazprom
and Naftogaz notRussia and the Ukraine. In return for that $3 billion,
which will be pocketed by many Yukitard bastards, I am sure, Gazprom's never ending
altercations with the Yukie gas outfit over compensation and claims and counter-claims have
had a line drawn under them. I suppose that's really why the Porky bloc in the rada is taking
action against the deal: they fear that their nice little earner is being stifled, in that
penalties imposed by arbitration courts against Gazprom have seemingly ended.
All talk about a Ukrainian victory or a Russian victory should be left to politicians
for domestic consumption, although, to be fair, it is worth noting: Ukrainian functionaries
immediately claimed it is a victory for Ukraine. This sounded against the background of the
absence of fanfare in Russia, which, in the face of the most difficult negotiations, would be
extremely inappropriate.
Why?
Because Gazprom is Gazprom, not Russia. Confusion in concepts is a very characteristic
phenomenon for immature structures and individuals on both sides. So talk of Russia allegedly
forgiving Ukraine $3 billion in credit has nothing to do with the topic at all. There is no
word in the document about this, which is natural, because, I will repeat: Russia is not
Gazprom.
However, the Naftogaz fanfare coming from Vitrenko's mouth is also understandable on
the other hand: the [Naftogaz] board (8 people) will not have to return
millions of dollars already distributed to their pockets as part of the prize
according to the results of the Stockholm Arbitration. Moreover, now, if Gazprom pays the
claim amount, the premium will increase significantly.
As for the amount Gazprom has pledged to pay – about $3 billion – it is
less than 1% of the assets of the Russian gas giant (not to be confused with
capitalisation). Few will notice this drop in the ocean. And for Naftogaz? In the absence of
up-to-date information about the assets of this structure, I believe that the figure is
comparable to all assets, especially since, according to the current reform, the Ukrainian
gas transit system, the market value of which is no more than $1.5 billion (according to the
Chairman of the Board Kobolev), leaves from under Naftogaz in general.
Conclusion: tactically Naftogaz and its board benefited from a contract with Gazprom.
Strategically, as it seems, Gazprom at least did not lose, firstly, significantly reducing
the term of the contract and the volume of pumping on the gas transit system of Ukraine,
taking into account the forthcoming and inevitable implementation of "Nord Stream-2" and,
secondly, leaving itself the right to disagree with transit tariffs, which remain the subject
of negotiations
I agree; it's not Muilenberg's fault, or not entirely. But firing the CEO is about as far
from American corporate tradition as you can get – it is much more customary to
identify 'a few bad apples' from the lower echelons, fire them and announce the company has
undergone a purge and is now 'all better'. And they had to have had it in for the engineers
who shot off their mouths. 'They' being the investors and the board of Boeing. Letting
Muilenberg take the fall might have something to do with his very early admission of company
responsibility. Mind you, he was also the CEO when Boeing fought so hard against grounding
the type, and only did it when pretty much everyone else had already done so for aircraft
under their own control.
It's rare that I read something on the Washington Post that I don't find highly biased, even
repugnant. But with
their recent article on the Afghanistan Papers, they truly knocked the ball out of the
park.
The facts they shared should have every American protesting in the streets.
Trillions of dollars have been spent on a war that the Pentagon knew was unwinnable all
along. More than 2300 American soldiers died there and more than 20,000 have been injured. More
than 150,000 Afghanis were killed, many of them civilians, including women and children.
And they lied to us constantly.
Congress just proved that the truth doesn't matter, though. A mere 22 hours after the
release of this document, the new National Defense Authorization Act that breezed through the
House and Senate was signed by the President. That bill authorized
$738 billion in military spending for 2020 , actually increasing the budget by $22 billion
over previous years.
So, how is your representation in Washington, DC working out for you?
What are the
Afghanistan Papers?
The Afghanistan Papers are
a brilliant piece of investigative journalism published by the Washington Post and the
article is very much worth your time to read. I know, I know – WaPo. But believe me when
I tell you this is something all Americans need to see.
This was an article that took three years of legal battles to bring to light. WaPo acquired
the documents using the Freedom of Information Act and got more than 2000 pages of insider
interviews with "people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid
workers and Afghan officials." These documents were originally part of a federal investigation
into the "root failures" of the longest conflict in US history – more than 18 years
now.
Three presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have been involved in this
ongoing war. It turns out that officials knew the entire time this war was "unwinnable" yet
they kept throwing American lives and American money at it.
Here's an excerpt from WaPo's report. Anything that is underlined is taken verbatim from the
papers themselves – you can click on them to read the documents.
In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went
wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of
warfare.
With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints,
frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.
The important thing to note about these interviews is that the interviewees never expected
their words to become public. They weren't "blowing the whistle." They were answering questions
for a federal investigation. So they didn't hold back. These aren't "soundbites." It's what the
real witnesses are saying.
The U.S. government has not carried out a comprehensive accounting of how much it has
spent on the war in Afghanistan, but the costs are staggering.
Since 2001, the Defense Department, State Department and U.S. Agency for International
Development have spent or appropriated between $934 billion and $978 billion, according to an
inflation-adjusted estimate calculated by Neta Crawford, a political science professor and
co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University.
Those figures do not include money spent by other agencies such as the CIA and the
Department of Veterans Affairs, which is responsible for medical care for wounded
veterans.
"What did we get for this $1 trillion effort? Was it worth $1 trillion?" Jeffrey Eggers, a
retired Navy SEAL and White House staffer for Bush and Obama, told government interviewers.
He added, "After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in
his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan." (
source )
The US government deliberately misled the American people.
What's more, if you officials, up to and including three presidents, knew they were throwing
money at something that could never be achieved. They did it anyway and they lied to our faces
about it.
The documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents,
military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making
progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.
Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S.
government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military
headquarters in Kabul -- and at the White House -- to distort statistics to make it appear
the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.
It's been an epic 18-year-long exercise in CYA. (Cover Your A$$). I don't see how anyone
could fail to be outraged by this. And what I've cited here is just the crap icing on the
maggot cupcake. It's a festering mess and I urge you, if you really want to know the truth, to
read this article on WaPo and click on these links.
How was all this money spent?
A lot of it went to building infrastructure in Afghanistan. It was flagrantly and
frivolously used there while we live in a place where people are going bankrupt at best and
dying at worst because they
can't afford medical care and there are places in our country without clean running
water or toilets.
The defense industry certainly reaped rewards and it's highly likely a lot of people who had
the power to allow it to go on made some "wise investments" that have paid off for them. But
for the rest of us, this conflict has done nothing except ensure that our tax dollars are not
here improving our infrastructure or helping Americans lead better and more productive
lives.
Dr. Ron Paul refers to this as the crime of the century.
It is not only members of the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations who are guilty of
this massive fraud. Falsely selling the Afghanistan war as a great success was a bipartisan
activity on Capitol Hill. In the dozens of hearings I attended in the House International
Relations Committee, I do not recall a single "expert" witness called who told us the truth.
Instead, both Republican and Democrat-controlled Congresses called a steady stream of neocon
war cheerleaders to lie to us about how wonderfully the war was going. Victory was just
around the corner, they all promised. Just a few more massive appropriations and we'd be
celebrating the end of the war.
Congress and especially Congressional leadership of both parties are all as guilty as the
three lying Administrations. They were part of the big lie, falsely presenting to the
American people as "expert" witnesses only those bought-and-paid-for Beltway neocon think
tankers.
What is even more shocking than the release of this "smoking gun" evidence that the US
government wasted two trillion dollars and killed more than three thousand Americans and more
than 150,000 Afghans while lying through its teeth about the war is that you could hear a pin
drop in the mainstream media about it. Aside from the initial publication in the Washington
Post, which has itself been a major cheerleader for the war in Afghanistan, the mainstream
media has shown literally no interest in what should be the story of the century. (
source )
And it's most likely that nobody will ever face punishment for this deception. If this is
not the very definition of the term "war crimes" I can hardly imagine what is. Dr. Paul
continues:
We've wasted at least half a year on the Donald Trump impeachment charade – a
conviction desperately in search of a crime. Meanwhile one of the greatest crimes in US
history will go unpunished. Not one of the liars in the "Afghanistan Papers" will ever be
brought to justice for their crimes. None of the three presidents involved will be brought to
trial for these actual high crimes. Rumsfeld and Lute and the others will never have to fear
justice. Because both parties are in on it. There is no justice . (
source )
The response? Silence and a budget increase.
The people in government don't care that we know about all this. Sure, it's mildly
inconvenient but "whatever."
How do I know this?
Simple. Less than a full day after the story broke, the new NDAA ended up on President
Trump's desk and was signed, authorizing an additional 22 billion dollars for next year's
defense spending. And all anyone can talk about is, "Oooohhhh Space Force!!!"
Government: "Merry Christmas. We're going to blow through more of your tax money and you
won't get a damned thing for it."
I couldn't make this up if I tried. In a notable, must-read op-ed ,
Darius Shahtahmasebi cited some horrific incidents and concluded:
We can't let this recent publication obscure itself into nothingness. The recent reaction
from Congress is a giant middle finger designed to tell you that (a) there will never be
anything you can do about it and (b) they simply don't care how you feel. Democracy at its
finest from the world's leading propagator of democratic values. ( source )
When is enough going to be enough? Why are we not enraged en masse? Why haven't we recalled
these treasonous bastards and taken our country and our budget back?
For a country that is ready to take up arms and waste countless hours "impeaching" Trump
over something he said on a phone call, it sure says a lot about those same people ignoring 18
years of treasonous behavior by three separate administrations.
Why isn't the media raising hell over this? Why aren't these lives important? Why isn't
sending trillions of our dollars to be frittered away an outrage?
People love to say "America First" and "impeach Trump for treason" and all that jazz. They
love to call anti-war people "un-American" and recommend a quick, one-way trip to Somalia if we
don't "support our troops." However, I think is far more evidence of supporting our troops to
want out of there, not risking their lives based on a castle of lies that further enriches
powerful and wealthy people who have nothing to lose.
Most people love to be outraged about frivolous matters. But when a report like this and its
following insult are met with resounding silence, it's pretty obvious that hardly anybody is
really paying attention.
So, cut funding for prisons; cut necessary levels, to insure safety, prison guard
staffing; watch as prison violence escalates; then print a story where the Union leader,
trying to protect his remaining too small workforce from the rising violence, sounds like an
inhuman bad guy in the story. Neolibs gotta love that angle.
I'm seeing the same thing in my US state over the past several years. The politicians'
answer is not to increase staffing of unionized prison guards or spend more on safety for
state prisons, but to outsource prisoner housing to the private sector. Neolibs love that
angle.
Lengthy But Martin and Low-key draw interesting parallels between the situations on both
sides of the 'pond' as they call it. Apparently Pompeo stated that if Corbyn were to win,
extraordinary measures would be taken to neutralize the problem. (Dallas option ??) This
together with some in the military
warning a coup would result from a Corbyn win. Sound familiar? Did you know that it was not
until 1928 that Brits who are not property could vote for members of Parliament!! I sure didn't
realize that!!
You mean British voters who were not owners of property were disenfranchised until 1928?
Not true! It was only women who had no property that were not allowed to vote until 1928,
so no big deal!
In 1832, the Great Reform Act broadened the spectrum of voters to include the likes of
landowners and shopkeepers as part of the property criteria. Householders paying more than
£10 in annual rent were also given the vote.
The act still defined voters as 'male persons', however, and continued to exclude swathes
of working class workers from elections. Subsequent reforms in 1867 and 1884 increased the
electorate further with broader property and rental criteria. They also continued to make
voting boundaries more fair, but failed to make any changes for women.
In February 1918, the Representation of the People Act made two major changes to voting
criteria – it removed practically all property requirements for men over 21 and allowed
women over 30 to vote. Property qualifications were kept in place when giving women over 30
the vote, however.
With Equal Franchise Act, 1928, women were at last given voting equality to men. In 1928,
the Equal Franchise Act gave all women over 21 the right to vote, removing property
requirements completely. Some 15 million women were eligible to vote in the following 1929
General Election.
Rapoza's latest effort, for Forbes, is his review of the Russia/Ukraine gas deal that
everyone is talking about. His take, in summary, is that Russia did not really have to give
up very much, it would be to Ukraine's advantage to stop fucking around and concentrate now
on the issues, that Ukraine dropped a very large amount in claims in return for not very much
money (although he does not say how likely Ukraine would have been to win them in court, and
my personal opinion is not very), that Nord Stream II will be completed with not a
significant amount of delay, and that Russia can implement the same no-gas-through-Ukraine in
five years if it does not like the way things are going.
Riffing a bit on the theme that Russia did not really have to give up very much, he
highlights an angle all other western coverage has missed; adding Ukraine's transit volumes
to all other pipelines running flat out (which he says pipelines hardly ever do and cannot
sustain for long periods) actually increases Russia's pipeline export capacity to 230 BcM.
That seems like a lot, but Gazprom announces it expects to export 200 BcM to Europe in 2020.
That's not far off. Groningen, the world's tenth-largest gas field, is shutting down
production altogether in 2022, owing to the increased danger of earthquakes. Production from
Groningen has already dropped from annual volumes of 42 BcM in 2014 to only 17 BcM today.
That could mean an additional annual export sale of 20 BcM for Gazprom if it plays its
cards right, over and above the record volumes it expects to export this coming year. No
wonder the US State Department is rattling Poroshenko's chain. Perhaps it is beginning to
dawn on them what they actually achieved by pressuring Russia into a continued transit deal
with Ukraine.
If ever there was the time for a good poker face, Mr. Putin, it's now. And start thinking
seriously about your successor, because the expansion of Gazprom's export capacity is going
to outlive the Putin presidency. The USA's efforts to put a stick through the spokes of a
chosen successor will outstrip all its regime-change efforts to date, because if Russia gets
what is essentially a younger Putin in charge, that's it.
Too lazy to confirm but IIRC, the guaranteed minimum volume is 40 BcM of which Ukraine would
typically consume 20 BcM leaving a net 20 BcM as transit gas. Russia only pays transit fees
for the transit volume. Moreover, any gas entering the pipeline that does not make it out of
the other end is automatically assumed to have been consumed by Ukraine putting an end to gas
theft. This implies flow meters at each international crossing that will be used to enforce
the foregoing agreement. To me, that is a big deal.
The agreement does allow Ukraine to use reverse flow gas purchasing which may mean that
gas Ukraine purchase from a 3rd country would including transit fees plus whatever profit the
3rd party wishes to make.
The above agreement also suggests the end of Ukraine's past shenanigans of blocking gas
transit while blaming the Russians and pocketing billions of dollars of free gas.
The more we know about the deal, the better it sounds for Russia and Europe.
The Russia that will exist in 2024 when Putin retires ought to be richer, stronger and more
secure than ever. Although that is good, it is also dangerous in that the temptation to take
down one's guard and to trust the West could cloud good judgement.
On the other hand, the US could be a true economic basket case by then greatly diminishing
its ability to bully and coerce beyond its borders.
My hope is that the US can have a soft landing, learn to live within its means and
redirect its defense spending to rebuilding the country.
My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout
the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost
towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US
Department of Defense, in states across the country. Part of the reason is to lobby
politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon
funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because
they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down.
The issue then is how to keep those jobs and keep those factories but change what
engineers are designing and workers are making from machines of destruction into machines
that sustain life and communities.
Yes, the absolute truth. Defense spending is spread over as many states and regions as
possible to keep strong political support. It seems every month the state is sponsoring
seminars aimed at educating small/medium manufacturers on how to bid on defense contracts.
Even small mom-and-pop machine shops get their share of defense business. One small shop in
our region makes compressor blades for cruise missiles. Every time the US fires off a barrage
of missiles, they probably get an order; everybody is happy except those in the target area.
The USA government acts as a gangster and should expect that other power will behave equally
bad toward the USA. That's a very bad, disastrous calculation, even in view of the current USA
technological superiority (which might shrink in the future)
Pride goeth before a fall. Washington is proud of itself, but a day will come when it will
count the cost, and mutter, "What the fuck was I thinking?" It was not ever going to actually
interrupt, and then seize for itself, Russia's share of the European gas market – that
was just another example of its addled belief in exceptionalism and its ability to overcome
any and all limiting factors, including distance and capacity.
What it HAS done is reveal itself as a petulant global child who will break anything that
does not please it, and therefore a dangerous and unpredictable business partner.
Thus spake the official Washington arsehole in Germany:
The American Ambassador in Berlin Richard Grenell, about whom it has already been
requested in Germany that he be recognized as persona non grata because of his
repeated attacks against the German leadership, has said that the sanctions imposed by
Washington against the pipeline "Nord Stream-2" had been introduced in the interests of the
EU and many countries of Europe are grateful for them.
"Seriously: from 15 European countries, the European Commission and the European
Parliament have all expressed their concerns about the project. We have long heard from our
European partners that the United States should support their efforts. Therefore, sanctions
represent a very Pro-European solution", said Grenell to the publication
Bild am Sonntag . [A German arsewipe publication of the first magnitude -- ME]
According to him, European diplomats have allegedly already repeatedly expressed their
gratitude for the measures taken by Washington.
Recall that the United States, which from time to time has opposed the emergence in
Europe of a strong competitor for its gas, imposed sanctions against the pipelines "Nord
Stream-2" and "Turkish Stream", requiring that the companies involved in their laying
immediately stop construction. In response, the German government has said it "rejects such
extraterritorial sanctions" directed "against German and European companies.
Just two events that occurred during Saturday night have turned into one of the main news
stories in recent months and years: Russia, the Ukraine and the European Commission signed a
trilateral agreement on the transit of gas over the coming years from Russia to the EU via
the Ukrainian GTS, and President Trump signed a law on the defence budget, in which US
parliamentarians have written separate clauses concerning sanctions against companies
involved in the construction of the pipeline "Nord stream – 2″
If anyone has forgotten, allow me to remind you that Vladimir Putin has never talked about
the categorical refusal as regards the transit to Europe via the Ukraine of Russian gas.
Always, he has only stressed that it is a question exclusively of a commercial nature,
without any political overtones, and that such transit be carried out on favourable terms.
Vice-Premier of the Russian government Dmitry Kozak has said about the new contract to be
signed before the New Year that he parties had agreed on favourable terms. In addition to
this, the Ukrainian side said that "Gazprom" had agreed to pay "Naftogaz" $3 billion,
according to the decision of the Stockholm arbitration. So, can the Ukraine celebrate a
"victory"?
So far, only Kiev has stated this figure of $3 billion. On the Russian side, there has
been no confirmation of this yet, but even if the Kiev figure is correct, I do not see much
reason to celebrate "victory", for if Russia has paid this money to the Ukraine ($2.6 billion
+ penalties), then the Ukraine is obliged to return $4.5 billion to Russia (3 billion
Eurobonds + penalties). The balance is not in favour of Kiev. In addition, the Ukraine has
pledged to stop all legal disputes on gas issues. Yes, in one case there is a dispute between
economic entities, and in a second case there is a dispute about sovereign debt. However,
since both Naftogaz and Gazprom are budget-forming state companies, to a certain extent this
difference in debt statuses is leveled.
Now on transit. There is no denying that for Russia it is not only important but necessary
to transit gas through the Ukraine at the moment, since under long-term contracts with
Europe, Gazprom is obliged to supply the volumes of gas stipulated in them, regardless of the
circumstances. Otherwise, the Russian company would have to pay heavy fines and penalties. By
concluding the contract, Gazprom has once again proved its reliability as a supplier, which,
by the way, was has already been emphasized by the European Commission following the
negotiations.
The only thing currently known about the transit contract is that it has been concluded
not for 10 years as Kiev had wanted, but for 5 years. Apparently, a longer term is not
relevant, chiefly because of complete uncertainty about the future of the Ukraine -- by the
way, in the next few days Kiev is likely to start an active struggle against the agreements
already reached, and if something threatens them at the moment, it is only Ukrainian
instability. According to data received from the Russian company, the volume of transit
through the Ukraine next year will be about 65 billion cubic metres. This is certainly a very
significant figure, but it is significantly less than the 90 billion cubic metres pumped
through the Ukrainian GTS in 2017. In 2021-2024, the annual transit volume will drop to 40
billion cubic metres. This volume allows the Ukrainian GTS to operate at a plus rather than a
minus, but Kiev will not receive any significant financial gain through it.
By the way, a certain demand for Ukrainian transit will remain after the Nord Stream-2 gas
pipeline has reached its design capacity, as European gas demand grows annually and a number
of fields operated in the EU countries are decommissioned in the coming years. As for NS-2
itself, by the time the sanctions are imposed, less than 50 kilometres will have been left on
one pipeline and about 70 kilometres on the other. Even if the Swiss company gathers up its
belongings, Russian pipe-laying ships will finish the job, and even though they lay pipes 3
times slower, they have absolute immunity from American sanctions. One of them is now located
in the area of Indonesia, and the second pipe-laying ship, "Fortuna", which, by the way, has
already participated in the implementation of "NS-2", is in a German port and is ready to
start working within a few days. [My stress! See that Finnish troll? -- ME]
So, by and large, the question is only one of time. But in any case "SP-2" will be
completed in terms of installation, testing and commissioning, and can be put into operation,
at most, at the end of the first half of 2020.
I really really doubt that the US military will attack overtly or covertly. The US already
announced that it will sanction other Russian energy projects if North Stream is placed in
operation.
I don't imagine that will be necessary. Be pretty hard to argue then that they were not
acting solely in their own interests, wouldn't it? It would make a hell of a thriller novel,
though – the pipeline is on the seabed, so any American efforts to tamper with it would
probably have to be from underwater. A submarine has no business being there, so its mission
would have to be super-secret and plausibly deniable. And in that scenario, if it simply
disappeared, the Americans would have to just proceed as if it never existed. There you go,
Karl; a great book idea, you should write it. But I want 20%; 30% if I have to proofread it
before publication to take out all the rhapsodizing about freedom and democracy, and rewrite
the ending where the Americans blow up the pipeline and miraculously escape, sailing home to
a ticker-tape parade and leaving Putin with angry tears running down his face.
Bulgaria is an instructive example here. Remember when it stopped South Stream in its
tracks, and was the hero of America and the EU? And Bulgaria strutted and swaggered, and was
pretty proud of itself while it waited for the rewards of its bravery. And then the USA built
them a Middle School or a new fence or something, I forget, and there were lots of 'well
done, old chap!' compliments, and and then that was it. Bulgaria did not become everyone's
preferred business partner and the destination of enormous foreign investment. And then,
gradually, everybody stopped talking about what a great and brave thing Bulgaria did, and it
just sort of sat there with its mouth half-open, trying to take in how skillfully it had been
creampied, and evidently all for nothing.
And eventually, Bulgaria repented, and went back to Russia and Putin, cap in hand. And
Russia received it warmly, like a brother who fell in with a bad crowd but was not really, at
heart, bad himself. It did not say that Bulgaria must prove itself by repudiating its former
friends. It seemed willing to let bygones be just that.
It is not even too much of a stretch to imagine that might one day be Ukraine as well,
although it certainly could not be under the current conditions. The nationalists would have
to be purged, hard. And there would have to be a completely new political administration. But
there's time, and lots of it. The west is not going to make a prosperous paradise of Ukraine,
it is only interested in stripping it of anything of value, and in the meantime it will go
down and down, because nobody wants to put any money into it. Except, ahem; Russia.
Party Poroshenko initiates sanctions against the supply of gas from Russia
The faction of "European solidarity" in the Ukrainian Parliament initiates sanctions
against the Russian gas supplies directly, reports RIA "Novosti".
As stated by the ex-President and leader of the faction of Petro Poroshenko, the
political force will require the convening of the national security Council on this issue,
and "implementation of sanctions" against the gas supplies from Russia
The people who elected Zelensky expected him to put Porky behind bars. But, surprise
surprise, Zel is a wimp who couldn't bring himself to buck his American overlords.
Said Overlords like Porky and want to keep him around, as the new leader of the Opps, with
hope he gets back into power some day.
Porky is the Ukrainian version of Saakashvili, there is simply no getting rid of him!
What if Germany, angered by American high-handedness, decided to move away from the US
dollar. Could that happen?
It could. Analysts caution that it would be unwise for Washington to laugh at efforts by
nations to make themselves less dependent on the dollar, because it also makes those nations
less susceptible to American sanctions. The world outside America is getting fed up with the
USA's sanctions-happy punishments, which have mushroomed from 5 targeted countries at the
start of the George W. Bush administration to 22 targeted countries at the end of 2018.
One of the ways Russia has hardened its economy against American tampering is in
increasing its use and accumulation of gold as a hedge, which is immune to 'freezing' by the
USA, so long as the gold is held in Russian vaults. That's the key, and momentum is slowly
gathering in other countries. Hungary repatriated all its gold from the Bank of England in
October of this year, and increased its holdings tenfold as well. Romania has submitted a
bill to parliament which mandates that only 5% of the country's gold can be stored abroad.
Currently about 60% of its 103 tonnes is stored at the Bank of England. In 2017 Germany
repatriated around $31 Billion worth of gold which had been stored in New York and Paris.
This week, Poland and Slovakia called for a return of their gold, which is being held by, you
guessed it, the Bank of England. The lesson of Venezuela's stolen gold was not lost on
anyone, and the less foreign gold the Bank of England has in its vaults, the less useful it
is to Washington and its 'freeze' orders.
Germany was chafing at US bullying back in 2018, and talking up policies to pull away from
the US dollar. Would this latest example of American meddling make them more, or less
inclined to pursue financial policies which did not include the United States as a partner,
do you think?
"According to S&P Global Platts Analytics, Nord Stream 2 would have to seek
alternative vessels and contractors to complete the remaining section of pipe in Danish
waters if the sanctions are enacted.
"While the most challenging parts of Nord Stream 2 have been laid in water depths of
around 200 meters, the remaining section in Danish waters at 90 meters depth remains
complicated," it said.
Russian companies operate capable offshore pipe-lay vessels, which have completed projects
in challenging Arctic conditions, including the MRTS Defender, which worked on the offshore
stretch of the Bovanenkovo-Ukhta pipeline.
Platts Analytics believes MRTS Fortuna could be used to complete Nord Stream 2, but is
capable of laying just 1 km/d.
A further obstacle, according to Platts Analytics, is that the Danish permit application
states that it is assumed that the vessels used to complete the Danish section will have
dynamic positioning capabilities (such as those of the Allseas vessels) which are not present
on MRTS Fortuna.
A Russian pipelaying vessel that already has dynamic positioning capabilities, Akademik
Cherskiy, could be used, but it would take up to two months to arrive to Danish waters as it
is currently stationed in Russia's Far East."
It is surprising that the Gazprom management didn't prepare for this situation! If this
article is correct the only Russian vessel that can be used to finish the project is
currently stationed in Vladivostok, and it will take about two months for it to arrive to
Danish waters.
The sanction threat has been looming for months, but it seems that Gazprom did not prepare
for it in any meaningful way.
I would be pleasantly surprised if this project is finished in 2020.
Karl, this is no attitude for the Christmas season – don't be so dour and pessimistic.
It takes two years to build a specialized ship, at a minimum, and that's just a regular
design like an LNG tanker – should Gazprom have built two or three, only to have the
Americans laugh and not impose sanctions? Then you would have chuckled ruefully over how
foolish Gazprom was to waste its money; there's no pleasing you. Only two days ago you were
moaning over how the entirety of the funds spent so far would be wasted; the pipeline could
not be completed, America is just too strong. You can go back and look. Now it looks as if it
can be completed, just the remainder will be done at about a third the speed it could have
been. But the money which would have gone to Allseas will be saved, and really there's no
hurry now; they have 5 years if they need it. In 2 months the worst of the winter weather
should be over, and any further slowdowns between now and completion can be blamed on the
Americans, whose fault of course it is. It would have been done now but for American pressure
on Denmark to hold out.
I wouldn't say it couldn't have turned out better, but all things considered the results
are not that bad for Russia and not very good for the USA, which has incurred a lot of
resentment and ill-will in exchange for really nothing. It is not going to stop the pipeline
from completing, but it has made a lot of enemies, and even the Poles have stopped yapping
and do not appear to be celebrating too loudly, lest they anger other Europeans.
""While the most challenging parts of Nord Stream 2 have been laid in water depths of around
200 meters, the remaining section in Danish waters at 90 meters depth remains complicated,"
it said."
Norwegian divers welded pipelines at 900 meters depth (And, yes they had some
problems).
Let me guess – the United States has threatened to confiscate the assets in the USA of
any company which sells dynamic-positioning systems to the Soviets (oops! I mean the
Russians!), and so now they will have to develop the technology themselves. Why not just
threaten to slap sanctions on anyone giving 'aid and comfort' to the Russians? I mean,
they're the enemy, right? Right?? So nobody sell them boots or warm clothes, or anything. See
how they like laying pipe in their skivvies, barefoot.
Say, I'll bet that attitude is good for market share for the remaining American businesses
still operating in Russia. And speaking of that, here's another example – gosh, there
are so many – of America's love affair with sanctions; CAATSA, the Countering America's
Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. According to an analyst at the Foreign Policy Research
Institute,
it's a failure , because it did not prevent Turkey from buying the S-400 system from
Russia when they were supposed to buy the Patriot from the USA, or
prevent Egypt from buying the Sukhoi S-35 from Russia when they were meant to buy the
F-35. Oh, but they were frustrated in that because Israel did not want them to have it.
Washington never misses an opportunity to show Israel it still loves it despite all the
actions Israel makes it take against its own best interests.
"Egypt turned to Moscow for the Su-35 aircraft after being frustrated in repeated
attempts to get a foothold in the F-35 program, a move closely watched in Israel, which
remains the only country in the region to receive the fifth-generation aircraft."
America threatened Egypt with – you guessed it – sanctions if it continued
with plans to buy Russian fighters worth $2 Billion in sales, but Egypt basically ignored
them, only not laughing because it would be impolite to laugh.
"The Egyptian leadership views the US threats as not credible, based on a long history
of Egyptian/US relations where the US has made threats and even withheld assistance, but in
the end has always capitulated," said Andrew Miller, who was director for Egypt and Israel
military issues in the Obama administration's National Security Council."
Egypt also bought the two MISTRAL class light assault carriers that Washington made France
cancel the sale of when Russia had already paid a security deposit, which had to be returned.
Egypt quickly purchased helicopters from Russia to outfit its new ships.
In fact, America seems to be losing its grip on the Middle East and Africa. And its
newly-discovered and somewhat childlike faith in sanctions as a cure-all is ruining its
traditional alliances and eroding its global reach. Much less-powerful countries now
routinely ignore its threats to impose sanctions and more sanctions. The fewer foreign
businesses interested in locating significant assets in the United States – so as to
prevent their being seized in a fit of pique – the less influence Washington can bring
to bear through sanctions. Its most loyal toady, the UK, will soon no longer be a part of the
EU, while nations jostle one another in eagerness to get their gold back from the Bank of
England where the United States cannot slap a 'hold' order on it through its devoted
proxies.
Russian dolts just don't have the technology, isn't that right ?
From the Finnish naysayer:
In retrospect the biggest mistake Russia did was to start the Nord Stream 2 project
without possessing the technology to complete the project and relying on the Western
technology. This made Nord Stream 2 and Russia vulnerable for the sanctions and this
vulnerability was exploited.
Will Russia learn and not start any major project in the future without having the
means to complete the project itself without relying on the West? I doubt it.
As mentioned earlier, commercial contracts normally include provisions for frustration
– supervening illegality can prevent performance of obligations contracted under
different circumstances and no one would expect a company to commit suicide. It's just a
business problem. But a business problem which, as Mark states, leaves the instigator –
the USA – diminished by its own actions.
Every contract has Force Majeure provisions to address factors beyond the control of the
supplier. The list includes of acts of God (weather, for example), civil unrest, labor
disputes, etc. "US sanctions" need to be added.
According to ME they were within 50 kilometers of landfall. According to Karl the replacement
vessel can lay pipe at a 1km/day rate. The resulting calculation isn't rocket science
mathematics. Ribbons will be cut and valves will be turned on in a few months to the clink of
vodka and champagne glasses.
Peskov did not say a fuckin' thing about "hope" that the pipeline will be completed. He
stated that the sanctions will NOT work to bring about substantial delay.
Two pipelines are being laid in parallel. One line , if I rightly recall, has 50 kms left to
be laid, the other 75 kms. The Russian pipelayers, again if I rightly recall, lay at one
third of the speed as did the Allseas vessel. The Russians are also aware of the
geopositioning requirement that the Danes may impose. Only one Russian pipelayer, the one at
present in the Far East, has this capability. from here
"Pioneering Spirit" and" Solitaire" crossed the border of Swedish and Danish waters on
27 and 28 November, respectively, since which time the former has covered 89 km, the latter
-- a little less than 70 km, i.e. they move at a speed of 3.5–4.5 km per day. This
means that they should be able to complete the construction within a month. But maintaining
this momentum depends on the weather conditions.
There was only 1 month's worth of laying left when Allseas fucked off.
The Russians are seemingly, from the troll's point of view, faced with such insurmountable
odds that he is coming in his pants. They'll never finish the job.
Like when they said they would never finish that bridge, across the petersburg-Simferopol
train crosses for the first time this coming Christmas Day?
From same source as above, namely Moskovskiy Komsomolets :
According to a representative of one of the contractors involved in the creation of the
offshore section of "Nord Stream – 2", Gazprom began to insure against sanctions
against companies involved in laying the pipeline in October. The Fortuna pipe-laying barge,
built in 2010 at a Russian shipyard and later upgraded at Chinese shipyards, has been used.
This vessel has been based for about two months in the German port of Mukran, where the pipes
required for the gas pipeline construction are shipped.
According to an MK interlocutor who wished to remain anonymous, despite the fact that
Fortuna is the most powerful domestic vessel in its class, it is unlikely that it can fully
replace Allseas pipelayers. "Fortuna" is able to do such works, but the speed of the project
will be slowed down. "Fortuna specializes in laying infield and linear pipelines on land,
while Gazprom charters vessels with foreign registration for offshore sections.
At the same time, Fortuna has experience working in deep water areas. As part of the
Sakhalin-3 project, the barge was deploying an underwater production facility in the
Kirinskoye field at a depth of 100 meters. The depth of the sea in the Danish section of the
NS-2, which remains to be completed by Gazprom, does not exceed this mark, while Fortuna has
a depth limit of 200 meters", explains the MK interlocutor.
Yeah, according to the Troll:
it is surprising that the Gazprom management didn't prepare for this situation! If this
article is correct the only Russian vessel that can be used to finish the project is
currently stationed in Vladivostok, and it will take about two months for it to arrive to
Danish waters.
The sanction threat has been looming for months, but it seems that Gazprom did not
prepare for it in any meaningful way.
I would be pleasantly surprised if this project is finished in 2020.
For "pleasantly surprised" above, read: "bitterly disappointed".
"... Some, such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal. ..."
When Will the Afghan War Architects Be Held Accountable?
Even after the release of the Afghanistan Papers, our elites are still determined to escape
without blame. CERNOBBIO, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 06: Chairman of the KKR Global Institute David
Howell Petraeus attends the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum 2019 "Lo scenario
dell'Economia e della Finanza" on September 6, 2019 in Cernobbio, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco
Tacca/Getty Images)
Almost two weeks after the Washington Post 's Craig Whitlock published his six-part
series on the trials, tribulations, and blunders of Washington's 19-year-long social science
experiment in Afghanistan, those involved in the war effort are desperately pointing fingers as
to who is to blame. An alternative narrative has emerged among this crop of elite policymakers,
military officers, and advisers that while American policy in Afghanistan has been horrible,
the people responsible for it really did believe it would all work out in the end. Call it the
"we were stupid" defense.
There were no lies or myths propagated by senior U.S. officials, we are told, just honest
assessments that later proved to be wrong. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, who
has advised U.S. commanders on Afghanistan war policy, wrote that "no, there has not been a
campaign of disinformation, intentional or subliminal." Former defense secretary Jim Mattis,
who led CENTCOM during part of the war effort, called the Post 's reporting "not really
news" and was mystified that the unpublished interviews from the U.S. special inspector general
were generating such shock. Others have faulted the Post for publishing the material to
begin with, claiming that public disclosure would scare future witnesses from cooperating and
threaten other fact-finding inquiries (the fact that the newspaper was legally permitted to
publish the transcripts after winning a court case against the government is apparently
irrelevant in the minds of those making this argument).
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
All of these claims and counter-claims should be seen for what they truly are: the flailings
of a policymaking class so arrogant and unaccountable that it can't see straight. That they're
blaming the outrage engendered by the Afghanistan Papers on anything other than themselves is
Exhibit A that our narcissistic policy elite is cocooned in their own reality.
Analysts have been pouring over the Afghanistan interview transcripts for over a week in
order to determine how the war went wrong. Some of the main lessons learned have long been
evident. The decision to impose a top-down democratic political order on a country that
operated on a system of patronage and tribal systems from the bottom-up was bound to be
problematic. Throwing tens of billions of dollars of reconstruction assistance into a nation
that had no experience managing that kind of money -- or spending it properly -- helped fuel
the very nationwide corruption Washington would come to regret. Paying off warlords to fight
the Taliban and keep order while pressuring those very same warlords into following the rules
was contradictory. The mistakes go on and on and on: as Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said,
"We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."
One of the most salient findings about this ghastly two-decade-long misadventure surfaced
after the Afghanistan Papers were released: the commentariat will stop at nothing to absolve
themselves of the slightest responsibility for the disaster they supported. The outright
refusal of the pundit class to own up to its errors is as disturbing as it is infuriating. And
even when they do acknowledge that errors were committed, they tend to minimize their own role
in those mistakes, explaining them away as unfortunate consequences of fixed withdrawal
deadlines, inter-agency tussling, Afghanistan's poor foundational state, or the inability of
the Afghans to capitalize on the opportunities Washington provided them. Some,
such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right
track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled
the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal.
It's always somebody else's fault.
Whether out of arrogance, ego, or fear of not being taken seriously in Washington's foreign
policy discussions, the architects of the war refuse to admit even the most obvious mistakes.
Instead they duck and weave like a quarterback escaping a full-on defensive rush, attempting
yet again to fool the American public.
But the public has nothing to apologize for. It is those who are making excuses who have
exercised disastrous judgment on Afghanistan. And they owe the country an apology.
Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and a contributor
to The American Conservative.
On September 27, 2018, Yale's Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and
the Poynter Fellowship for Journalism hosted Vladimir Pozner, the acclaimed Russian-American
journalist and broadcaster. Pozner spoke on the impact of US foreign policy towards Russia
after the Soviet Union has been disbanded, and shared his opinions on a range of issues raised
by the audience, from the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections,
to Skripal poisoning, to the state of independent media in Russia and the US.
"... It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees. ..."
"... Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." ..."
"... The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there! ..."
"... Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. ..."
For a century and a half American political life has been the exclusive preserve of the
duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, also known as
the Evil Party and the Stupid Party . (If something is both Evil and Stupid, we call that
"Bipartisan.") But the familiar Evil-Stupid dichotomy doesn't even begin to describe the
descent into national dysfunction and galloping irrationality that characterizes the Trump
impeachment hysteria.
Media chatter now centers on the nuts-and-bolts questions of "what's next?" Will House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? (Yes. Even one of the
legal "scholars" enrolled in the impeachment lynch mob avers that
Trump isn't actually impeached until the Senate receives the articles .) Who will be the
trial managers? (Who cares.) Will there be a "real trial," with witnesses? (It hardly matters.)
Will Trump be removed? (Unlikely unless some bolt from the blue flips 20 GOP Senators.) Will
impeachment be the Democrats' albatross going into November 2020? (Most polls show independents
are turned off, but there's still almost a year to go.)
None of these questions, which are meaningful only in a mental universe of the Evils and the
Stupids shadowboxing over a partisan allocation of political spoils, touch upon the grim
– and occasionally sardonic – symptoms of America's seemingly unstoppable terminal
slide.
With Trump's impeachment it's time to say goodbye to yesteryear's Team Evil and Team Stupid.
Say hello in 2020 to Team Maggot and Team Corpse!
In short, Democrats hate Trump not so much for what he's done (which, contrary to what his
passionate supporters think based on his Tweets, isn't much) but as an expression of an
amorphous dread that by some mysterious populist alchemy he might still breathe life back into
the Corpse Party's deplorable base.
With that in mind, here are a few things to note as we cruise on into Bizarro World
:
As the impeachment spectacle unfolded in the House, one could not fail to be touched by the
hushed, heartfelt reverence with which Democrat after Democrat cited the sage words of the
Founding Fathers: Madison especially, but also Jefferson and Washington. No doubt they can
hardly wait for this spectacle to be over so they can go back to denouncing the Founders as
dead, racist, Christian, patriarchal, " Anglo
," and (presumably) heterosexual slaveholders
in wigs and knee-breeches whose memory should be expunged from the historical record . It's
instructive to glance at the members of
the House Judiciary Committee who – solemnly, reluctantly, and prayerfully, they
assure us! – voted out articles of impeachment in the name of "the American people." But
which "people" might that be? Of the 23 Democrats who voted, only four even arguably fit the
heritage American, male profile of the Founding Fathers. The " gender
balance " (as it's ungrammatically called nowadays) on the voting majority side of the
Committee is 12-11. That's not quite up to
Barack Obama's exhortation that "every nation on earth" should be "run by women ," but it's
progress in that direction! (Just imagine how much more serene the world would be if all
countries were ruled by peaceniks like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Susan
Rice, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michèle Flournoy, Evelyn Farkas, etc., plus
a
bevy of Deep State Democrats now installed in Congress .) By contrast, the 17 Republicans
on the Committee have approximately the same demographic composition they'd have had in 1950
– and aside from the inclusion of two women, that of the First Congress seated in
1789.
In short, in the Congressional Maggot Caucus the approaching
Dictatorship of Victims defined by race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language,
religion, migratory status, etc., is already becoming a reality, and they voted to get rid of
Trump. Members of the Corpse Caucus defending him still belong demographically and morally to
the declining legacy America, though they'd never, ever admit it. Impeachment is thus more than
just the latest iteration of the years-long anti-constitutional coup to overturn a presidential
election,
though it is that too . Even more fundamentally, it's a coup against the people whose
identity, traditions, and values the Constitution was intended to ensure for themselves and
their posterity.
Foreign interference in our deMOCKracy.
Even more absurd than Democrats' presumption in lip-synching the venerable principles of an
American constitutional tradition they despise almost as much as they loathe the ethnos that
ordained and established it is their feigned horror – horror! – that Trump's phone
chat with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky realized the Founders' worst fears of foreign influence
over American domestic politics. Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine under Zelensky's
predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, did try to queer the 2016 election in favor of Hillary, and that
Hunter and Joe Biden are crooks, the Maggoteers' ability to maintain a straight face of shocked
indignation smack in the middle of a souk, a flea market, a bazaar where both domestic and
foreign interests buy, sell, and trade favors like vintage baseball cards is nothing less than
heroic.
Argentina Caucus, Armenian Issues Caucus, Azerbaijan Caucus, Bangladesh Caucus, Bosnia
Caucus, Brazil Caucus, Cambodia Caucus, Central America Caucus, Colombia Caucus,
Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria, Croatian Caucus, Czech Caucus, Ethiopian-American Caucus,
Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, EU Caucus, Friends of Australia Caucus, Friends of
Denmark Caucus, Friends of Egypt Caucus, Friends of Finland Caucus, Friends of Ireland
Caucus, Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus, Friends of New Zealand Caucus, Friends of Norway
Caucus, Friends of Scotland Caucus, Friends of Spain Caucus, Friends of Sweden Caucus,
Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, Friends of Wales Caucus, Georgia Caucus, Hellenic
Caucus, Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, House Baltic Caucus, Hungarian Caucus, India and
Indian Americans Caucus, Iraq Caucus, Israel Allies Caucus, Israel Victory Caucus, Kingdom of
Netherlands Caucus, Korea Caucus, Kyrgyzstan Caucus, Macedonia and Macedonian-American
Caucus, Moldova Caucus, Mongolia Caucus, Montenegro Caucus, Morocco Caucus, Nigeria Caucus,
Pakistan Caucus, Peru Caucus, Poland Caucus, Portuguese Caucus, Qatari-American Strategic
Relationships Caucus, Republican Israel Caucus, Romania Caucus, Serbian Caucus, Slovak
Caucus, Sri Lanka Caucus, Taiwan Caucus, UK Caucus, Ukraine Caucus, U.S.-Bermuda Friendship
Caucus, U.S.-China Working Group, U.S.-Japan Caucus, U.S.-Kazakhstan Caucus, U.S.-Lebanon
Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Turkey Relations and Turkish
American, Uzbekistan Caucus, Venezuela Democracy Caucus
Recalling
Your Working Boy 's years at the State Department – where there still exists no
"American Interests Section" – the reader can search the above in vain for anything that
looks remotely like "Friends of the United States of America."
In fact, the Democrats' core impeachment narrative – Russia bad, Ukraine good –
is itself an example to which American policy is in the grip of foreign antipathies and
attachments against which the
Father of Our Country warned us in his 1796 farewell address :
"[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against
particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in
place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which
indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.
It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it
astray from its duty and its interest."
"[W]e should care about our allies. We should care about Ukraine. We should care about a
country struggling to be free and a Democracy. We used to care about Democracy. We used to
care about our allies. We used to stand up to Putin and Russia. We used to. I know the party
of Ronald Reagan used to. 'Why should we care about Ukraine?' But of course it's about more
than Ukraine. It's about us. It's about our national security. Their fight is our fight.
Their defense is our defense. When Russia remakes the map of Europe for the first time since
World War II by dint of military force [ JGJ : Well, there was Kosovo, but never mind ] and
Ukraine fights back, it is our fight too."
Indeed, one wonders how hysterical Democrats missed accusing Trump outright of treason ,
which actually is specified as grounds for impeachment in
Article II, Section 4 . After all, as described by Schiff, didn't Trump's actions
constitute (under Article
III, Section 3 ) "adhering" to our evil enemies the Russians, and "giving them aid and
comfort"? It's an open and shut case of a capital crime – and the
House Majority Whip is ready to get the rope ! (Really, how did the Democrats miss this?
Maybe GOP stupidity has migrated to the other side of the aisle )
It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's
framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military,
intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees.
Nor is any Republican
Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine,
which thus is not really our "ally." Partisanship is the variable; Russophobia is the constant.
The sole retort
from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the
Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So
there!
Thus, even with Trump's almost (at this point) certain survival of a Senate impeachment
trial, the relevant foreign inveterate antipathies and passionate attachments will remain
entrenched. (Not just in the case of Ukraine/Russia but with respect to the rest of the world
our habitual hatreds and fondnesses remain firmly in place and are unlikely to change for the
balance of Trump's presidency, if ever. Trump's
Korea initiative is on life support. Israel/Iran is a flashpoint that could explode at any
time : "Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull's eyes, a
lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to
go.")
It turns out that the US military hires more shills and clowns and runs more "news"
worldwide than all the real news agencies, combined.
For Soetoro to turn this $hit loose on us exposes his truly sinister intent. Here you all
are, thinking the bull$hit on TV is remotely relevant other than exposing the gangsters who
direct it and rob us to pay for it against our will.
All these High Crimes on Pelosi and Schumer's watch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness
was shut down in 2003 by Congress after dinosaur exposed mass surveillance abuses
establishing "Total Information Awareness" over all US citizens. The program was continued in
overt defiance of Congress through Trillions in black funding.
Or you could just point to the massive expansion of debt and reduction of freedoms signed
by Trump last night while the whole government was telling you "nothing up my sleeve!"
"... The problem with an unseen stimulus is that no one thinks it's helping them. Obama provided tax relief for nearly every working American, but instead of sending citizens a check, as George W. Bush had done, his economists decided to structure it as a payroll tax cut, subtly increasing the size of everyone's paycheck. The administration then intentionally did not advertise the fact that it had given nearly every working American a tax cut , in the hopes that people would be nudged into spending, rather than saving, that extra cash. Predictably, in 2010, one poll showed that only 12 percent of Americans believed they'd received a tax cut; 24 percent thought Obama had raised their taxes. ..."
"... A program that was supposed to help underwater homeowners turned down 70 percent of those applying for permanent loan modifications , even as over six million families lost their homes. The point of the program was never actually to help people stay in their homes, of course; it was to preserve the finance industry by spacing out foreclosures. In the end, it achieved its aim: The banks today are as profitable as ever, while more households are renting than in 50 years . ..."
"... The individual mandate, similarly designed to force the healthiest young invincibles to enter the market to bring down costs, is equally dead. And a decade into the ACA, it has become more apparent than ever that the best way to reduce America's absurd health care costs would simply be a single-payer program. ..."
"... The political scientist Suzanne Mettler coined the term "the submerged state" in 2010 to refer to the jungle of hidden government "programs" designed not to call attention to themselves, often perpetuated not because they are still helping the neediest, but because they are lucrative to the finance, insurance, and/or real estate industries. ..."
Welcome to The Decade From Hell , our look
back at an arbitrary 10-year period that began with a great outpouring of hope and ended in a cavalcade of despair.
As 2009 ended, the editors of this magazine at the time
took their measure of the first year of Barack Obama's
presidency and declared it, with some reservations, a modest success. "All of this might not exactly place him in the pantheon next
to Franklin Roosevelt," they said of his major domestic achievements (the stimulus package, primarily, as the Affordable Care Act
had not yet been signed). "But it's not a bad start, given all the constraints of the political system (and global order) in which
he works."
That was the broad consensus of American liberals at the time, ranging from nearly the most progressive to nearly the most neoliberal.
Over the ensuing years, that consensus would crack and eventually shatter under the weight of one disappointment after another. The
story of American politics over the past decade is that of a political party on the cusp of enduring power and world-historical social
reform, and how these once imaginable outcomes were methodically squandered.
The bulk of that unsigned New Republic editorial in 2009 was dedicated to Obama's foreign policy, specifically the question
of whether he was waging enough war. The conclusion: He was. The editors praised "the escalation of the war in Afghanistan" as "the
most consequential action of the first year of his presidency," even though it
offended the base of his party and possibly injured his future political prospects. On strategic grounds, we believe he made
the right choice. But the thoroughness and logic of the process by which he arrived at this decision double our confidence in
that choice. The is exactly the type of pragmatism and non-ideological policymaking that sentient humans have craved after the
Bush years.
(Sure, escalate the endless wars -- but for God's sake, please do it non-ideologically .)
In December of this year, The Washington Post
obtained thousands of pages of documents from a government oversight project called "Lessons Learned," which included interviews
with more than 600 people involved in the war in Afghanistan at some point over its 18-year history. An interview with a National
Security Council official described, according to the Post , "constant pressure from the Obama White House and Pentagon to
produce figures to show the troop surge of 2009 to 2011 was working, despite hard evidence to the contrary." Nearly every piece of
data used over the last decade to try to convince Americans that the war was going well, or even going according to any sort of coherent
logic or reason, was phony or meaningless.
"I don't want to be going to Walter Reed for another eight years," Obama
reportedly said in 2009 , as he struggled
with the decision to escalate the war. The president and his closest advisers were determined to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam. Since
then, overwhelmed by billions
in U.S. "aid," the country has sunk into kleptocracy. Last year, according to the United Nations, was the single deadliest year
of the war for Afghan civilians. Today, around 13,000 American service members remain in Afghanistan. The Trump administration is
attempting to negotiate a peace with the Taliban that would leave it in charge of the country, just as it was prior to America's
invasion. The war in Afghanistan may finally end, but not before the close of this decade that began with that oh-so-carefully considered
decision to escalate it.
"We Are All Socialists Now," Newsweek declared on its cover in early 2009, when
it was still part of the prestige press (it is currently run by
a different sort of cult ).
Editor Jon Meacham, evincing the usual historical and political amnesia of airport bookstore historians, justified the claim by writing
that "for the foreseeable future Americans will be more engaged with questions about how to manage a mixed economy than about whether
we should have one." A mixed economy run according to Keynesian principles was, you may recall from reading slightly more rigorous
historians, the primary alternative to socialism on offer in the West throughout the twentieth century. The stimulus had been
large (if not large
enough ), but with $288 billion of it dedicated to tax credits and incentives for individuals and businesses, it scarcely resembled
socialism. Indeed, rather than giving Americans a greater hand in managing the economy, much of it was designed to be almost invisible.
This was intentional. In the May 6, 2009, issue of The New Republic , Franklin Foer and Noam Scheiber
described Obama's "Nudge-ocracy," a belief, inspired
by behavioral economics, that the best way for the government to create good outcomes for the people was not through "heavy-handed
market interventions" but via technocratic attempts to change the behavior of individuals and the incentives of market actors.
The problem with an unseen stimulus is that no one thinks it's helping them. Obama provided tax relief for nearly every working
American, but instead of sending citizens a check, as George W. Bush had done, his economists decided to structure it as a payroll
tax cut, subtly increasing the size of everyone's paycheck. The administration then
intentionally did not advertise the fact that
it had given nearly every working American a tax cut , in the hopes that people would be nudged into spending, rather than saving,
that extra cash. Predictably, in 2010,
one poll showed
that only 12 percent of Americans believed they'd received a tax cut; 24 percent thought Obama had raised their taxes.
The flaw in this strategy was apparent to another author at this magazine. In late 2009, John B. Judis
foresaw a presidency in serious political trouble, because
Obama's fortunes were tied not just to the state of the economy, or even economic trends, but to people's perceptions of the
state of the economy. Noting how Roosevelt "dramatized the New Deal's contribution to the economy" by creating "colorful new agencies,"
thereby "ensuring that Roosevelt was given credit for the rise in employment," Judis called on Obama to "introduce programs that
provide jobs and capture the public's imagination." He also suggested the president
turn a deaf ear to those who are calling for fiscal responsibility. He should keep pouring money into jobs and into the pockets
of people who will spend until the unemployment rate begins going down and wages begin going up.... And, whatever he does to try
to mend the economy, Obama should never stop loudly trumpeting his efforts -- so that he is able to reap the credit when improvements
occur.
Roosevelt liked to wrestle his enemies in public, and Team Obama preferred to be above it all.
What Judis didn't consider, though, was that Obama didn't want to do any of those things. The president, along with economists
who worked for him such as Austan Goolsbee and Tim Geithner,
all pointedly rejected comparisons to
Roosevelt , based in part on a seemingly inaccurate understanding of the history of his first term but also seemingly based on
aesthetics: Roosevelt liked to wrestle his enemies in public, and Team Obama preferred to be above it all. It's hard to remember
now how wise everyone made it sound that the president and his team intentionally avoided doing things they worried would be too
popular, but there would not be another New Deal. Indeed, instead of ostentatious acts of helping people, the administration almost
preferred being seen standing athwart attempts to provide relief. A program that was supposed to help underwater homeowners
turned
down 70 percent of those applying for permanent loan modifications , even as over six million families lost their homes. The
point of the program was never actually to help people stay in their homes, of course; it was to
preserve the
finance industry by spacing out foreclosures. In the end, it achieved its aim: The banks today are as profitable as ever, while
more households are renting than in 50 years .
By far the most effective part of the Affordable Care Act, in terms of helping Americans get care, was simply expanding Medicaid.
But what many Democrats and liberals were most excited about was the bill's many experimental and technocratic attempts to "bend
the cost curve" -- reduce costs without price controls -- and "improve quality," mainly by encouraging insurers, with incentives,
to strive for outcomes that market forces alone weren't incentivizing them to aim for. The signature example of this may be the "Cadillac
tax," which was designed to nudge companies to force employees onto cheaper insurance plans with greater cost sharing -- a tax built
on the belief that one of the primary drivers of health care cost inflation was people taking advantage of their too-generous employers
and greedily consuming more health care than they needed. The tax never went into effect.
The individual mandate, similarly designed to force the healthiest
young invincibles to enter the market to bring down
costs, is equally dead. And a decade into the ACA, it has become more apparent than ever that the best way to reduce America's absurd
health care costs would simply be a single-payer program.
That is not to say that the ACA did not end up having the significant long-term political ramifications its drafters promised
it would. The primary non-Medicaid structure of the ACA, with its means-tested subsidies to purchase private insurance, had the predictable
effect of convincing some of its beneficiaries
that Obama and the Democratic Party had nothing to do with the government assistance they weren't sure they were getting. Then, as
costs rose and rose over the decade, that structure also
had the predictable effect of making people
who receive partially subsidized private care resentful of those poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.
Much of the decade we have just endured has shown how the Democratic addiction to dispensing benefits through the tax code in
complicated, indirect ways -- combined with the usual insufficiency of these benefits -- was nearly perfectly designed to foment
mass resentment of others, imagined or not, who might secretly be getting the Good Benefits.
The political scientist Suzanne Mettler coined the term "the submerged state" in 2010 to refer to the jungle of hidden government
"programs" designed not to call attention to themselves, often perpetuated not because they are still helping the neediest, but because
they are lucrative to the finance, insurance, and/or real estate industries.
One of her illustrations
of the effect of the submerged state is a graph showing how many people who used particular government programs admitted so only
after first telling researchers they'd received no assistance. That nearly 40 percent of people on Medicare claimed this is likely
attributable to ideology (and the fact that Medicare, like Social Security, was designed to make retirees feel like they had "paid
into it").
But when 60 percent of people who used tax-advantaged higher education savings accounts claim they received no government benefits,
as they did in Mettler's study, it's probably because tax-advantaged savings accounts are wholly inadequate to the problem of higher
education costs. Now combine this with a persistent belief (memorably
described by Ashley C. Ford a few years ago) that minorities -- black kids in particular -- get to go to college for free by
default, and stir in the rise of tuition costs and other expenses due to cutbacks in state investment in education. The result of
this cocktail of ignorant biases and inadequate solutions might look something like the year 2019.
"... It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees. ..."
"... Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." ..."
"... The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there! ..."
"... Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. ..."
For a century and a half American political life has been the exclusive preserve of the
duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, also known as
the Evil Party and the Stupid Party . (If something is both Evil and Stupid, we call that
"Bipartisan.") But the familiar Evil-Stupid dichotomy doesn't even begin to describe the
descent into national dysfunction and galloping irrationality that characterizes the Trump
impeachment hysteria.
Media chatter now centers on the nuts-and-bolts questions of "what's next?" Will House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? (Yes. Even one of the
legal "scholars" enrolled in the impeachment lynch mob avers that
Trump isn't actually impeached until the Senate receives the articles .) Who will be the
trial managers? (Who cares.) Will there be a "real trial," with witnesses? (It hardly matters.)
Will Trump be removed? (Unlikely unless some bolt from the blue flips 20 GOP Senators.) Will
impeachment be the Democrats' albatross going into November 2020? (Most polls show independents
are turned off, but there's still almost a year to go.)
None of these questions, which are meaningful only in a mental universe of the Evils and the
Stupids shadowboxing over a partisan allocation of political spoils, touch upon the grim
– and occasionally sardonic – symptoms of America's seemingly unstoppable terminal
slide.
With Trump's impeachment it's time to say goodbye to yesteryear's Team Evil and Team Stupid.
Say hello in 2020 to Team Maggot and Team Corpse!
In short, Democrats hate Trump not so much for what he's done (which, contrary to what his
passionate supporters think based on his Tweets, isn't much) but as an expression of an
amorphous dread that by some mysterious populist alchemy he might still breathe life back into
the Corpse Party's deplorable base.
With that in mind, here are a few things to note as we cruise on into Bizarro World
:
As the impeachment spectacle unfolded in the House, one could not fail to be touched by the
hushed, heartfelt reverence with which Democrat after Democrat cited the sage words of the
Founding Fathers: Madison especially, but also Jefferson and Washington. No doubt they can
hardly wait for this spectacle to be over so they can go back to denouncing the Founders as
dead, racist, Christian, patriarchal, " Anglo
," and (presumably) heterosexual slaveholders
in wigs and knee-breeches whose memory should be expunged from the historical record . It's
instructive to glance at the members of
the House Judiciary Committee who – solemnly, reluctantly, and prayerfully, they
assure us! – voted out articles of impeachment in the name of "the American people." But
which "people" might that be? Of the 23 Democrats who voted, only four even arguably fit the
heritage American, male profile of the Founding Fathers. The " gender
balance " (as it's ungrammatically called nowadays) on the voting majority side of the
Committee is 12-11. That's not quite up to
Barack Obama's exhortation that "every nation on earth" should be "run by women ," but it's
progress in that direction! (Just imagine how much more serene the world would be if all
countries were ruled by peaceniks like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Susan
Rice, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michèle Flournoy, Evelyn Farkas, etc., plus
a
bevy of Deep State Democrats now installed in Congress .) By contrast, the 17 Republicans
on the Committee have approximately the same demographic composition they'd have had in 1950
– and aside from the inclusion of two women, that of the First Congress seated in
1789.
In short, in the Congressional Maggot Caucus the approaching
Dictatorship of Victims defined by race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language,
religion, migratory status, etc., is already becoming a reality, and they voted to get rid of
Trump. Members of the Corpse Caucus defending him still belong demographically and morally to
the declining legacy America, though they'd never, ever admit it. Impeachment is thus more than
just the latest iteration of the years-long anti-constitutional coup to overturn a presidential
election,
though it is that too . Even more fundamentally, it's a coup against the people whose
identity, traditions, and values the Constitution was intended to ensure for themselves and
their posterity.
Foreign interference in our deMOCKracy.
Even more absurd than Democrats' presumption in lip-synching the venerable principles of an
American constitutional tradition they despise almost as much as they loathe the ethnos that
ordained and established it is their feigned horror – horror! – that Trump's phone
chat with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky realized the Founders' worst fears of foreign influence
over American domestic politics. Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine under Zelensky's
predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, did try to queer the 2016 election in favor of Hillary, and that
Hunter and Joe Biden are crooks, the Maggoteers' ability to maintain a straight face of shocked
indignation smack in the middle of a souk, a flea market, a bazaar where both domestic and
foreign interests buy, sell, and trade favors like vintage baseball cards is nothing less than
heroic.
Argentina Caucus, Armenian Issues Caucus, Azerbaijan Caucus, Bangladesh Caucus, Bosnia
Caucus, Brazil Caucus, Cambodia Caucus, Central America Caucus, Colombia Caucus,
Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria, Croatian Caucus, Czech Caucus, Ethiopian-American Caucus,
Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, EU Caucus, Friends of Australia Caucus, Friends of
Denmark Caucus, Friends of Egypt Caucus, Friends of Finland Caucus, Friends of Ireland
Caucus, Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus, Friends of New Zealand Caucus, Friends of Norway
Caucus, Friends of Scotland Caucus, Friends of Spain Caucus, Friends of Sweden Caucus,
Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, Friends of Wales Caucus, Georgia Caucus, Hellenic
Caucus, Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, House Baltic Caucus, Hungarian Caucus, India and
Indian Americans Caucus, Iraq Caucus, Israel Allies Caucus, Israel Victory Caucus, Kingdom of
Netherlands Caucus, Korea Caucus, Kyrgyzstan Caucus, Macedonia and Macedonian-American
Caucus, Moldova Caucus, Mongolia Caucus, Montenegro Caucus, Morocco Caucus, Nigeria Caucus,
Pakistan Caucus, Peru Caucus, Poland Caucus, Portuguese Caucus, Qatari-American Strategic
Relationships Caucus, Republican Israel Caucus, Romania Caucus, Serbian Caucus, Slovak
Caucus, Sri Lanka Caucus, Taiwan Caucus, UK Caucus, Ukraine Caucus, U.S.-Bermuda Friendship
Caucus, U.S.-China Working Group, U.S.-Japan Caucus, U.S.-Kazakhstan Caucus, U.S.-Lebanon
Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Turkey Relations and Turkish
American, Uzbekistan Caucus, Venezuela Democracy Caucus
Recalling
Your Working Boy 's years at the State Department – where there still exists no
"American Interests Section" – the reader can search the above in vain for anything that
looks remotely like "Friends of the United States of America."
In fact, the Democrats' core impeachment narrative – Russia bad, Ukraine good –
is itself an example to which American policy is in the grip of foreign antipathies and
attachments against which the
Father of Our Country warned us in his 1796 farewell address :
"[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against
particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in
place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which
indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.
It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it
astray from its duty and its interest."
"[W]e should care about our allies. We should care about Ukraine. We should care about a
country struggling to be free and a Democracy. We used to care about Democracy. We used to
care about our allies. We used to stand up to Putin and Russia. We used to. I know the party
of Ronald Reagan used to. 'Why should we care about Ukraine?' But of course it's about more
than Ukraine. It's about us. It's about our national security. Their fight is our fight.
Their defense is our defense. When Russia remakes the map of Europe for the first time since
World War II by dint of military force [ JGJ : Well, there was Kosovo, but never mind ] and
Ukraine fights back, it is our fight too."
Indeed, one wonders how hysterical Democrats missed accusing Trump outright of treason ,
which actually is specified as grounds for impeachment in
Article II, Section 4 . After all, as described by Schiff, didn't Trump's actions
constitute (under Article
III, Section 3 ) "adhering" to our evil enemies the Russians, and "giving them aid and
comfort"? It's an open and shut case of a capital crime – and the
House Majority Whip is ready to get the rope ! (Really, how did the Democrats miss this?
Maybe GOP stupidity has migrated to the other side of the aisle )
It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's
framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military,
intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees.
Nor is any Republican
Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine,
which thus is not really our "ally." Partisanship is the variable; Russophobia is the constant.
The sole retort
from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the
Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So
there!
Thus, even with Trump's almost (at this point) certain survival of a Senate impeachment
trial, the relevant foreign inveterate antipathies and passionate attachments will remain
entrenched. (Not just in the case of Ukraine/Russia but with respect to the rest of the world
our habitual hatreds and fondnesses remain firmly in place and are unlikely to change for the
balance of Trump's presidency, if ever. Trump's
Korea initiative is on life support. Israel/Iran is a flashpoint that could explode at any
time : "Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull's eyes, a
lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to
go.")
The new US defense bill, agreed on by both parties, includes sanctions on executives of companies involved in the completion
of Nordstream 2. This is companies involved in laying the remaining pipe, and also companies involved in the infrastructure around
the arrival point.
This could include arrest of the executives of those companies, who might travel to the United States. One of the companies
is Royal Dutch Shell, who have 80,000 employees in the United States.
Some people believe 'the market' for crude oil is a fair and effective arbiter of the industry supply and demand.
But if we step back an inch or two, we all can see it has been a severely broken mechanism during this up phase in oil.
For example, there has been long lags between market signals of shortage or surplus.
Disruptive policies and mechanisms such as tariffs, embargo's, and sanctions, trade bloc quotas, military coups and popular revolutions,
socialist agendas, industry lobbying, multinational corporate McCarthyism, and massively obese debt financing, are all examples
of forces that have trumped an efficient and transparent oil market.
And yet, the problems with the oil market during this time of upslope will look placid in retrospect, as we enter the time beyond
peak.
I see no reason why it won't turn into a mad chaotic scramble.
We had a small hint of what this can look like in the last mid-century. The USA responded to military expansionism of Japan by
enacting an oil embargo against them. The response was Pearl Harbor. This is just one example of many.
How long before Iran lashes out in response to their restricted access to the market?
People generally don't respond very calmly to involuntary restriction on food, or energy, or access to the markets for these things.
"... Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal' mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore. ..."
"... Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning, the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a series of impossible demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Qatar not long ago ..."
"... Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. ..."
"... Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia. ..."
"... Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way. ..."
"... False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army. On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media ..."
As a history student years ago I remember our teacher explaining how past events are linked to what happens in the future. He
told us human behaviour always dictates that events will repeat in a similar way as before. I remember we studied 20th century history
and discussed World War I and the links to World War II. At this time, we were in the middle of the Cold War and in unchartered waters
and I couldn't really link past events to what was likely to happen next. Back then I guess like many I considered US presidents
more as statesman. They talked tough on the Soviet Union but they talked peace too. So, the threat to humanity was very different
then to now. Dangerous but perhaps a stable kind of dangerous. After the break up of the Soviet Union we then went through a phase
of disorderly change in the world. In the early 1990s the war in the Former Yugoslavia erupted and spread from republic to republic.
Up until the mid-to-late nineties I didn't necessarily sense that NATO and the West were the new threat to humanity. While there
was a clear bias to events in Yugoslavia there was still some even-handedness or fairness. Or so I thought. This all changed in 1999
with the war in Kosovo. For the first time I witnessed shocking images of civilian targets being bombed, TV stations, trains, bridges
and so on. But my wake-up call was the daily NATO briefings on the war. The NATO spokesman boasted of hundreds of Serbian tanks being
destroyed. There was something new and disturbing about his manner, language and tone, something I'd not encountered from coverage
of previous conflicts. For the first time I found myself not believing one word of the narrative.
When the peace agreement was reached, out of 300 Serbian tanks which had entered Kosovo at the start of the conflict, over 285
were counted going back into Serbia proper which was
confirmation he had been
lying .
From this conflict onwards I started to see clear parallels with events of the past and some striking similarities with the lead
up to previous world wars. This all hit home when observing events in Syria and more recently Venezuala. But looking around seeing
people absorbed in their phones you wouldn't think the world is on the brink of war. For most of us with little time to watch world
events there are distractions which have obscured the picture historians and geopolitical experts see more clearly.
Recent and current
western leaders haven't been short people in military uniform shouting. That would be far too obvious. It's still military conflict
and mass murder but in smart suits with liberal sound-bites and high-fives. Then the uncool, uncouth conservative Trump came along
and muddied the waters.
Briefly it seemed there might be hope that these wars would stop. But there can be little doubt he's been
put under pressure to comply with the regime change culture embedded in the Deep State. Today, through their incendiary language
we see US leaders morphing into the open style dictators of the past. The only thing missing are the military uniforms and hats.
Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal'
mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up
to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore.
Let's look at some of these:
1) Military build up, alliances and proxy wars – for all the chaos and mass murder pursued by the Obama Administration he did
achieve limited successes in signing agreements with Iran and Cuba. But rather than reverse the endless wars as promised Trump cancels
the agreements leaving the grand sum of zilch foreign policy achievements. NATO has been around for 70 years, but in the last 20
or so has become obsessed with military build up. Nowadays it has hundreds of bases around the world but keeps destablising non-aligned
states, partly to isolate Russia and China. And Syria sums up the dangers of the regime change model used today. With over a dozen
states involved in the proxy war there is a still high risk of conflict breaking out between US and Russia. The motives for military
build up are many. First there are powerful people in the arms industry and media who benefit financially from perpetual war. The
US while powerful in military terms are a declining power which will continue, new powers emerging. The only return on their money
they can see is through military build up. Also there are many in government, intelligence services and media who can see that if
the current order continues to crumble they are likely to be prosecuted for various crimes. All this explains the threatening language
and the doubling-down on those who challenge them. In 1914, Europe had two backward thinking military alliance blocks and Sarajevo
showed how one event could trigger an unstoppable escalation dragging in many states. And empires such as Austro-Hungary were crumbling
from within as they are now. So a similar mentality prevails today where the powerful in these empires under threat favour conflict
to peace. For these individuals it's a last throw of the dice and a gamble with all our lives.
2) Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning,
the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and
unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US
has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a
series of impossible
demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic
as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day
US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with
Qatar not long ago.
3) Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is
in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. In addition we face a situation
of highly unpredictable, ideological regional leaders in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Most worrying of all, the language, threats
and actions of Trump, Pompeo and Bolton suggests there are psychopathic tendencies in play. Behind this is a Deep State and Democrat
Party pushing even harder for conflict. The level of paranoia is discouraging any notion of peace. 30 years ago Russia and US would
sit down at a summit and reach a consensus. Today a US leader or diplomat seen talking to a Russian official is accused of collusion.
When there are limited channels to talk in a crisis, you know we are in trouble. In Germany in the 1930s, ideology, propaganda and
creating enemies were key in getting the population on side for war. The leaders within the Nazi clique, Hitler, Goring and Himmler
look disturbingly similar to the Trump, Pompeo, Bolton line up.
4) Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public
would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been
a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia.
The terms and words; regime change, mass murder and terrorist have all been substituted by the media with 'humanitarian intervention',
'limited airstrikes' and 'moderate rebels' to fool a distracted public that the victims of the aggression are the bad guys. Western
funded 'fact checking' sites such as Bellingcat have appeared pushing the misdirections to a surreal new level. Obama was portayed
in the media as a cool guy and a little 'soft' on foreign policy. This despite the carnage in Libya, Syria and his drones. Sentiments
of equal rights and diversity fill the home affairs sections in the liberal press, while callous indifference and ethno-centrism
towards the Middle East and Russia dominate foreign affairs pages. In the press generally, BREXIT, non-existent anti-Semitism and
nonsense about the 'ISIS bride' continues unabated. This media circus seeks to distract from important matters, using these topics
to create pointless divisions, causing hostility towards Muslims and Jews in the process. The majority of a distracted public have
still not twigged largely because the propaganda is more subtle nowadays and presented under a false humanitarian cloak. A small
but vocal group of experts and journalists challenging these narratives are regularly smeared as
Putin
or Assad "apologists" . UK journalists are regularly caught out lying and some long standing hoaxes such as Russiagate exposed.
Following this and Iraq WMDs more people are starting to see a pattern here. Yet each time the media in the belief they've bamboozled
enough move on to the next big lie. This a sign of a controlled media which has reached the point of being unaccountable and untouchable,
deeply embedded within the establishment apparatus. In the lead up to World War II the Nazis ran an effective media propaganda campaign
which indoctrinated the population. The media in Germany also reached the point their blindingly obvious lies were rarely questioned.
The classic tactic was to blame others for the problems in Germany and the world and project their crimes on to their victims. There
are some differences as things have evolved. The Nazis created the media and state apparatus to pursue war. Nowadays this is the
opposite way around. Instead the state apparatus is already in place so whoever is leader whether they describe themself as liberal
or conservative, is merely a figurehead required to continue the same pro-war policies. Put a fresh-looking president in a shiny
suit and intoduce him to the Queen and you wouldn't think he's the biggest mass murderer since Hitler. Although there are some differences
in the propaganda techniques, all the signs are that today's media are on a similar war-footing as Germany's was just prior to the
outbreak of World War II.
5) Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli
aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for
time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily
unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way.
6) False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by
Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of
the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army.
On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being
played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media. The next flashpoint in Syria is Idlib, where it's highly
likely a new chemical fabrication will be attempted this Spring. In the 1930s the Nazis were believed to use false flags with increasing
frequency to discredit and close down internal opposition. Summary – We now live in a society where exposing warmongering is a more
serious crime than committing it. Prisons hold many people who have bravely exposed war crimes – yet most criminals continue to walk
free and hold positions of power. And when the media is pushing for Julian Assange to be extradicted you know this is beyond simple
envy of a man who has almost single-handedly done the job they've collectively failed to do. They are equally complicit in warmongering
hence why they see Assange and others as a threat. For those not fooled by the smart suits, liberal platitudes and media distraction
techniques, the parallels with Germany in the 1930s in particular are now fairly obvious. The blundering military alliances of 1914
and the pure evil of 1939 – with the ignorance, indifference and narcissism described above make for a destructive mix. Unless something
changes soon our days on this planet are likely be numbered. Depressing but one encouraging thing is that the indisputable truth
is now in plain sight for anyone with internet access to see and false narratives have collapsed before. It's still conceivable that
something may create a whole chain of events which sweep these dangerous parasites from power. So anything can happen. In the meantime
we should keep positive and continue to spread the message.
Kevin Smith is a British citizen living and working in London. He researches and writes down his thoughts on the foreign wars
promoted by Western governments and media. In the highly controlled and dumbed down UK media environment, he's keen on exploring
ways of discouraging ideology and tribalism in favour of free thinking.
2- 'Israel and its US relationship'. The 'hands off' policy of the Western powers, guarantees that Syria cannot even be a trigger
to any 'global conflict', supposing that a 'global conflict' was on the cards, especially when Russia is just a crumbling shadow
of the USSR and China a giant with feet of clay, heavily dependent on Western oligarchic goodwill, to maintain its economy and
its technological progress.
In 1914, the Serbian crisis was just trigger of WWI and not a true cause. It is not even clear if it was Germany that dragged
Austria-Hungary into the war or Russia. Although there was a possibility (only a possibility), that a swift and 'illegal' attack
by Austria-Hungary (without an ultimatum), would have localised and contained the conflict.
There is no similarity whatsoever between the 1914 'diktats' and modern US policy, as the US is the sole Superpower and its
acts are not opposed by a balancing and corresponding alliance. Save in the Chinese colony of North Korea, where the US is restrained
by a tacit alliance of the North Eastern Asiatic powers: China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, that oppose any military action
and so promote and protect North Korean bullying. Qatar, on the other hand, is one of the most radical supporters of the Syrian
opposition and terrorist groups around the muslim world, even more than Saudi Arabia and there are powerful reasons for the confrontation
of the Gulf rivals.
You should go back in Time and STUDY what really happened .. that means going back to the Creation of the socalled British Empire
..the Bank of England , the British East Indian Company , the Opium Wars and the Opium Trafficing , the Boer Wars for Gold and
Diamonds , the US Civil War and its aftermath , the manipulations of Gold and Silver by socalled british Financial Interests ,
The US Spanish Wars , the Japanese Russian War , the failed Coup against Czar Russia 1905 , the Young Turk Coup against the Ottoman
Empire 1908, the Armenian Genocide , the Creation of the Federal Reserve 1913 , the Multitude of Assinations and other Terror
Attacks in the period from 1900 and upwards , WHO were the perpetraders ? , , WW 1 and its originators , the Bolshevik Coup 1917
, the Treaty of Versailles and the Actors in that Treaty ,the Plunder of Germany , the dissolution of Austria Hungary , the Bolshevik
Coup attempts all over Europe , and then the run up to WW 2 , the Actions of Poland agianst Germans and Czechs .. Hitler , Musolini
and finally WW 2 .the post war period , the Nuernberg Trials , the Holocaust Mythology , the Creation of Israel , Gladio , the
Fall of the Sovjet Empire and the Warshav Pact , the Wars in the Middle East , the endless Terror Actions , the murder of Kennedy
and a mass of False Flag Terrorist Attacks since then , the destruction of the Balkans and the Middle east THERE IS PLENTY of
EXCELLENT LITERATURE and ANALYSIS on all subjects .
It was your Obama that 'persecuted' Mr Assange !!!
Syria demonstrates that there has NOT been a Western strategy for regime change (specially after the 'defeats' in Iraq and
Afghanistan), let alone a proxy war, but, on the contrary, an effort to keep the tyranny of Assad in power, in a weaker state,
to avoid any strong, 'revolutionary' rival near Israel. Russia has been given a free hand in Syria, otherwise, if the West had
properly armed the resistance groups, it would have been a catastrophe for the Russian forces, like it was in Afghanistan during
the Soviet intervention.
Trump's policy of 'equal' (proportional) contributions for all members of NATO and other allies, gives the lie to the US military
return 'argument' and should be understood as part of his war on unfair competition by other powers.
The 'military' and diplomatic alliances of 1914 were FORWARD thinking, so much so that they 'repeated' themselves during WWII,
with slight changes. But it is very doubtful that the Empires, like the Austro-Hungarian o the Russian ones, would have 'crumbled'
without the outbreak of WWI. They were never under threat, as their military power during the war showed. Only a World War of
cataclysmic character could destroy them. A war, triggered, but not created, by the 'conflict seeking mentality' of the powerful
in the small countries of the Balkans.
Generally attributed to Senator Hiram Warren Johnson in 1918 that 'when war comes the first casualty is truth' is as much a truism
now as it was then.
I'm more inclined to support hauptmanngurski's proposition that the members of the armed forces, from both sides, who return
from conflicts with life-changing injuries or even in flag-draped caskets defended only the freedom of multinational enterprises
and conglomerates to make and continue to make vast profits for the privileged few at the population's expense.
As Kevin Smith makes abundantly clear we are all subject to the downright lies and truth-stretching from our government aided
and abetted by a compliant main stream media as exemplified in the Skripal poisoning affair, which goes far beyond the counting
of Serbian tanks supposedly destroyed during the Balkans conflict. The Skripals' are now God knows where either as willing participants
or as detainees and our government shows no signs of clarifying the matter, so who would believe what it put out anyway in view
of its track record of misinformation ? The nation doesn't know what to believe.
Sadly, I believe this has always been the way of things and I cannot even speculate on how long it will be before this nation
will realise it is being deliberately mis-led.
In any case withdrawal from Syria was a surprising and bold move on the Part of the Trump. You can criticizes Trump for not doing
more but before that he bahvaves as a typical neocon, or a typical Republican presidents (which are the same things). And he started
on this path just two month after inauguration bombing Syria under false pretences. So this is something
I think the reason of change is that Trump intuitively realized the voters are abandoning him in droves and the sizable faction
of his voters who voted for him because of his promises to end foreign wars iether already defected or is ready to defect. So this is
a move designed to keep them.
Notable quotes:
"... "America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said. ..."
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more
a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump
said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded
back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there
into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting
exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror
groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies
have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia
and Iran.
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to"
the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit
analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or
NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and
as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United
States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous."
He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous
nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the
150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want
us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight"
in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has
berated the Saudis
and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly
$4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter
jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's
mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American
militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its
imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only
superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional
hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's
clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he
said
: "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria
and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans
and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas
night was
reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not
at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign
bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his
knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their
military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the
bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s
condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something
virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor
for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked
as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist
based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world,
the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness
to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for
"pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites
for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything,
and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people
and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've
always been getting.'
"... While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and liberation". ..."
"... Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia? Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining ground btw. Ask yourself why ? ..."
"... Sphere of influence, the same reason why Cuba and Venezuela will pay for their insolence against the hegemon. The world is never a fair place. ..."
While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and
liberation".
I hate how America exploit the weak. president moon should offer an olive branch to fatty Kim by sending back the
thaad to America and pulling out American base and troops. he should convince fatty Kim that should he really like to proliferate
his nuclear missile development as deterrence, aim it only to America and America only. there is no need for Koreans to kill fellow
Koreans.
Very good idea, after having pushed Ukraine and Georgia to a war lost in advance, lets hope US will abandon South Korea and
Japan because they were helpless in demilitarizing one of the poorest countries in the world....
Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia?
Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life
isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say
farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining
ground btw. Ask yourself why ?
In this person's opinion, the article raises a good point with regards to US defense subsidies. However, its examples are dissimilar.
Japan spends approximately 1% of its GDP on defense; South Korea spends roughly 2.5% of its GDP defense.
In fact, it seems to this person that a better example of US Defense Welfare would be direct subsidies granted to the state
of Israel.
"... Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor and messianic in its language. ..."
"... At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem," yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways. ..."
"... Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory is built. ..."
"... Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet. ..."
"... I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department. ..."
"... I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization, which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely. Neither is guaranteed. ..."
"... "Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened. ..."
"... Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire, ..."
"... We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem, or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or .... ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'. ..."
"... "If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but a Global Empire only posing as your former country." ..."
Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are
part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from
the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but
can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and
he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and
integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy
of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor
and messianic in its language.
The foundation upon which Barnett builds his binary view of the world is heavily dependant upon the continued advancement of
globalization - almost exclusively so. However, advancing globalization is not pre-ordained. Barnett himself makes the case that
globalization is a fragile undertaking similar to an interconnected chain in which any broken link destroys the whole. Globalization
could indeed be like the biblical statue whose feet are made of clay. Globalization, and therefore the integration of the Gap,
may even stop or recede - just as the globalization of the early 20th century ended abruptly with the onset of WW I and a global
depression. Moreover, Barnett's contention that the United States has an exceptional duty and moral responsibility for "remaking
the world in America's image" might be seen by many as misguided and perhaps even dangerous.
The divide between the `Functioning Core' and the `Non-Integrating Gap' differs from the gulf between rich and poor in a subtle
yet direct way. State governments make a conscious decision to become connected vs. disconnected to advancing globalization. States
and their leaders can provide the infrastructure and the opening of large global markets to their citizens in ways that individuals
cannot. An example can serve to illustrate the point: You can be rich and disconnected in Nigeria or poor and disconnected in
North Korea. In each case the country you live in has decided to be disconnected. Citizens in this case have a limited likelihood
of staying rich and unlimited prospects of staying poor. But by becoming part of the functioning Core, the enlightened state allows
all citizens a running start at becoming part of a worldwide economic system and thus provide prospects for a better future because
global jobs and markets are opened up to them. A connected economy such as India's, for example, enables citizens who once had
no prospects for a better life to find well-paying jobs, such as computer-related employment. Prospects for a better Indian life
are directly the result of the Indian government's conscious decision to become connected to the world economy, a.k.a. embracing
globalization.
After placing his theory of the Core/Gap and preemptive war strategy firmly into the church of globalization, Barnett next
places his theory squarely upon the alter of rule sets. Few would argue that the world is an anarchic place and Barnett tells
us that rule sets are needed to define `good' and `evil' behavior of actors in this chaotic international system. An example of
such a rule set is the desire of the Core to keep WMDs out of the hands of terrorist organizations. Other examples are the promulgation
of human rights and the need to stop genocide. Barnett also uses rule sets to define `system' rules that govern and shape the
actions, and even the psychology, of international actors. An example that Barnett gives of a system-wide rule set is the creation
of the `rule' defined by the United States during the Cold War called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Barnett claims that this
rule set effectively ended the possibility of war for all time amongst nuclear-capable great powers. Barnett states that the U.S.
now should export a brand new rule set called `preemptive war,' which aims to fight actors in the lawless Gap in order to end
international terrorism for all time. Barnett makes it clear that the Core's enemy is neither a religion (Islam) nor a place (Middle
East), but a condition (disconnectedness).
Next, Barnett points out that system-wide competition has moved into the economic arena and that military conflict, when it
occurs, has moved away from the system-wide (Cold War), to inter-state war, ending up today with primarily state conflict vs.
individuals (Core vs. bin Laden, Core vs. Kim, etc.). In other words, "we are moving progressively away from warfare against states
or even blocs of states and toward a new era of warfare against individuals." Rephrased, we've moved from confrontations with
evil empires, to evil states, to evil leaders. An example of this phenomenon is the fact that China dropped off the radar of many
government hawks after 9/11 only to be replaced by terrorist groups and other dangerous NGOs "with global reach."
Barnett also points out that the idea of `connectivity' is central to the success of globalization. Without it, everything
else fails. Connectivity is the glue that holds states together and helps prevent war between states. For example, the US is not
likely to start a war with `connected' France, but America could more likely instigate a war with `disconnected' North Korea,
Syria or Iran.
Barnett then examines the dangers associated with his definition of `disconnectedness.' He cleverly describes globalization
as a condition defined by mutually assured dependence (MAD) and advises us that `Big Men', royal families, raw materials, theocracies
and just bad luck can conspire to impede connectedness in the world. This is one of few places in his book that Barnett briefly
discusses impediments to globalization - however, this short list looks at existing roadblocks to connectedness but not to future,
system-wide dangers to globalization.
At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore
never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited
some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by
claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard
wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem,"
yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion
that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways.
Barnett then takes us on a pilgrimage to the Ten Commandments of globalization. Tellingly, this list is set up to be more like
links in a chain than commandments. Each item in the list is connected to the next - meaning that each step is dependent upon
its predecessor. If any of the links are broken or incomplete, the whole is destroyed. For example, Barnett warns us that if there
is no security in the Gap, there can be no rules in the Gap. Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand
strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory
is built.
What else could kill globalization? Barnett himself tells us: "Labor, energy, money and security all need to flow as freely
as possible from those places in the world where they are plentiful to those regions where they are scarce." Here he is implying
that an interruption of any or all of these basic necessities can doom globalization. Barnett states clearly: "...(these are)
the four massive flows I believe are essential to protect if Globalization III is going to advance." Simply put, any combination
of American isolationism or closing of borders to immigration, a global energy crisis, a global financial crisis or rampant global
insecurity could adversely affect "connectedness," a.k.a. globalization. These plausible future events, unnerving as they are,
leave the inexorable advancement of globalization in doubt and we haven't yet explored other problems with Barnett's reliance
on globalization to make the world peaceful, free and safe for democracy.
Barnett goes on to tell us that Operation Iraqi Freedom was an "overt attempt to create a "System Perturbation" centered in
the Persian Gulf to trigger a Big Bang." His definition of a Big Bang in the Middle East is the democratization of the many totalitarian
states in the region. He also claims that the Big Bang has targeted Iran's "sullen majority."
Barnett claims that our problem with shrinking the Gap is not our "motive or our means, but our inability to describe the enemies
worth killing, the battles worth winning, and the future worth creating." Managing the global campaign to democratize the world
is no easy task. Barnett admits that in a worst-case scenario we may be stuck in the "mother of all intifadas" in Iraq. Critics
claim this is something that we should have planned for - that the insurgency should not have been a surprise, and that it should
have been part of the "peacemaking" planning. Barnett blithely states that things will get better "...when America internationalizes
the occupation." Barnett should not engage in wishful thinking here, as he also does when he predicted that Iraqis would be put
in charge of their own country 18 months after the fall of Baghdad. It would be more accurate if he claimed this would happen
18 months after the cessation of hostilities. Some critics claim that Iraq is an example that we are an "empire in a hurry" (Michael
Ignatieff), which then results in: 1) allocating insufficient resources to non-military aspects of the project and 2) attempting
economic and political transformation in an unrealistically short time frame.
The final basic premise of Barnett's theory of the Core and the Gap is the concept of what he calls the "global transaction
strategy." Barnett explains it best: "America's essential transaction with the outside world is one of our exporting security
in return for the world's financing a lifestyle we could far more readily afford without all that defense spending." Barnett claims
that America pays the most for global stability because we enjoy it the most. But what about the other 80 countries in the Core?
Why is America, like Atlas, bearing the weight of the world's security and stabilization on its shoulders?
Barnett claims that historical analogies are useless today and point us in the wrong direction. I disagree. James Madison cautioned
us not to go abroad to seek monsters to destroy. We can learn from his simple and profound statement that there are simply too
many state (and individual) monsters in today's world for the U.S. to destroy unilaterally or preemptively. We must also avoid
overstretching our resources and power. Thucydides reminds us that the great democracy of Athens was brought to its knees by the
ill-advised Sicilian expedition - which resulted in the destruction of everything the Athenians held dear. Do not ignore history
as Barnett councils; heed it.
Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet.
Therefore, America needs to stay engaged in the affairs of the world, but Barnett has not offered conclusive evidence that the
U.S. needs to become the world's single Leviathan that must extinguish all global hot wars. Barnett also has not proved that America
needs to be, as he writes, "the one willing to rush in when everyone else is running away." People like Barnett in academia and
leaders in government may proclaim and ordain the U.S. to be a global Leviathan, but it is a conscious choice that should be thoroughly
debated by the American people. After all, it is upon the backs of the American people that such a global Leviathan must ride.
Where is the debate? The American people, upon reflection, may decide upon other courses of action.
I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend
it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the
military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department.
It seems to be well researched - having 35 pages of notes. Many of Barnett's citations come from the Washington Post and the
New York Times, which some may see as a liberal bias, but I see the sources as simply newspapers of record.
I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization,
which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely.
Neither is guaranteed.
I don't think poorly of Thomas Barnett himself. He's very bright and, I think, good hearted, BUT his well thought-out, well
argued pride and joy (and positive intellectual pursuit) is being badly distorted ---- which happens to all 'tools' that Empire
gets its hands on.
For those who like predictions, I would predict that Barnett will wind up going through an epiphany much like Francis Fukuyama
(but a decade later) and for much the same reason, that his life's work gets misused and abused so greatly that he works to reverse
and correct its misuse. Fukuyama, also brilliant, wrote "The End of History" in 1992 (which was misused by the neocons to engender
war), and now he's working just as hard to reverse a misuse that he may feel some guilt of his work supporting, and is writing
"The Future of History" as a force for good --- and I suspect (and hope) that Barnett will, in even less time, be counter-thinking
and developing the strategy and book to reverse the misuse of his 2004 book before the Global Empire pulls down the curtain.
"Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate
name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened.
Best luck and love to the fast expanding 'Occupy the Empire' educational and revolutionary movement against this deceitful,
guileful, disguised EMPIRE, which can't so easily be identified as wearing Red Coats, Red Stars, nor funny looking Nazi helmets
---- quite yet!
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding
wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem,
or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or ....
ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'.
"If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but
a Global Empire only posing as your former country."
"... Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003. ..."
"... If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents. ..."
People who seem to think that Trump's generals will somehow go along and support his original vision are sadly mistaken.
Since 2003, Israel has had an increasingly strong hand in the vetting who gets promoted to upper positions in the American
armed forces. All of the generals Trump has at his side went through a vetting procedure which definitely involved a very close
look at their opinions about Israel.
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened
in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003.
Officers who openly oppose the dictates of the Israel Lobby will see their prospects for advancement simply vanish like a whiff
of smoke.. Those who support Israel's machinations are rewarded with promotions, the more fervent the support the more rapid the
promotion especially if this knowledge is made known to their congressman or senator..
Generals who support Israel already know that this support will be heavily rewarded after their retirements by being given
lucrative six figure positions on company boards of directors or positions in equally lucrative think tanks like the American
Enterprise Institution or the Hoover Institute. They will receive hefty speaking fees. as well. They learned early that their
retirements could be truly glorious if they only "went" along with The Lobby. They will be able to then live the good life in
expensive places like Washington, New York or San Francisco, often invited to glitzy parties with unlimited amount of free prawns
"the size of your hand".
On the other hand, upper officers who somehow get then get "bad" reputations for their negative views about Israel ( like Karen
U. Kwiatkowski for instance) will end up, once retired, having to depend on just their often scanty pensions This requires getting
an often demeaning second jobs to get by in some place where "their dollar goes further". No bright lights in big cities for them.
No speaking fees, no college jobs. Once their fate becomes known, their still active duty contemporaries suddenly decide to "go
along".
If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years
ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents.
Face it, we live in a country under occupation by a hostile power that we willingly pay large amounts monetary tribute to.
Our government does whatever benefits Israel regardless of how negatively this effects the USA. We are increasing troop strength
in Afghanistan because, somehow, this benefits Israel. If our presence in Afghanistan (or the Mideast in general) didn't benefit
Israel, our troops would simply not be there.
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam, Lebanon,Somalia,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending wars are expensive
was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street
masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives,
create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class
in US politics and culture.
Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking
about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.
Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell
Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.
"... The American people and most of the world bought into the lies and half-truths because they wanted to believe the fiction they were being spoon fed by the White House, but is there a whole lot of difference between what the US government did against Iraq in 2003 and what Hitler's government did in 1939 when it falsely claimed that Polish troops had attacked Germany? Was subsequent torture by the Gestapo any different than torture by a contractor working for Washington? ..."
"... A friend of mine recently commented that honest men who were formerly part of the United States government do not subsequently get hired by lobbying firms or obtain television contracts and "teaching" positions at prestigious universities. ..."
"... If the marketplace is anything to go by Feith and Tenet are running neck-and-neck on secondary book exchanges as George also can be had for $.01. ..."
"... The historian Livy summed up the significance of his act, writing "It is worthwhile for those who disdain all human things for money, and who suppose that there is no room either for great honor or virtue, except where wealth is found, to listen to his story." ..."
"... "Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." ..."
"... senior government officials and politicians routinely expect to be generously rewarded for their service and never held accountable for their failures and misdeeds ..."
"... One thing for sure about the Washington elite, you never have to say you're sorry. ..."
The United States already has by far the per capita largest prison population of any developed country but I am probably one of
the few Americans who on this Independence Day would like to see a lot more people in prison, mostly drawn from politicians and senior
bureaucrats who have long believed that their status makes them untouchable, giving them license to steal and even to kill. The sad
fact is that while whistleblowers have been imprisoned for revealing government criminality, no one in the federal bureaucracy has
ever actually been punished for the crimes of torture, kidnapping and assassination committed during the George W. Bush and Barack
H. Obama presidencies.
Why is accountability important? After the Second World War, the victorious allies believed it was important to establish responsibility
for the crimes that had been committed by officials of the Axis powers. The judges at the Nuremberg Trials called the initiation
of a war of aggression the ultimate war crime because it inevitably unleashed so many other evils. Ten leading Nazis were executed
at Nuremberg and ninety-three Japanese officials at similar trials staged in Asia, including several guilty of waterboarding. Those
who were not executed for being complicit in the actual launching of war were tried for torture of both military personnel and civilians
and crimes against humanity, including the mass killing of civilians as well as of soldiers who had surrendered or been captured.
No matter how one tries to avoid making comparisons between 1939 and 2015, the American invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression,
precisely the type of conflict that the framework of accountability provided by Nuremberg was supposed to prevent in the years after
1946. High level US government officials knew that Iraq represented no threat to the United States but they nevertheless described
an imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein in the most graphic terms, replete with weapons of mass destruction, armed drones flying
across the Atlantic, terrorists being unleashed against the homeland, and mushroom clouds on the horizon. The precedent of Iraq,
even though it was an abject failure, has led to further military action against Libya and Syria to bring about "regime change" as
well as a continuing conflict in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the US has been waging a largely secret "long war" against terrorists employing torture and secret prisons. The
American people and most of the world bought into the lies and half-truths because they wanted to believe the fiction they were being
spoon fed by the White House, but is there a whole lot of difference between what the US government did against Iraq in 2003 and
what Hitler's government did in 1939 when it falsely claimed that Polish troops had attacked Germany? Was subsequent torture by the
Gestapo any different than torture by a contractor working for Washington?
Many Americans would now consider the leading figures in the Bush Administration aided and abetted by many enablers in congress
from both political parties to be unindicted war criminals. Together they ignited a global conflict that is still running strong
fourteen years later with a tally of more than 7,000 dead Americans and a minimum of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, Afghans,
Libyans, Somalis and Syrians.
War breeds more war, due largely to the fact that guilty parties in Washington who piggyback on the prevailing narrative move
onward and upward, rewarded in this life even if not necessarily so in the hereafter. A friend of mine recently commented that
honest men who were formerly part of the United States government do not subsequently get hired by lobbying firms or obtain television
contracts and "teaching" positions at prestigious universities. Though not 100% accurate as I know at least a couple of honorable
former senior officials who wound up teaching, it would seem to be a generalization that has considerable validity. The implication
is that many senior government officials ascend to their positions based on being accommodating and "political" rather than being
honest and they continue to do the same when they switch over to corporate America or the equally corrupted world of academia.
I thought of my friend's comment when I turned on the television a week ago to be confronted by the serious, somewhat intense
gaze of Michael Morell,
warning about the danger that ISIS will strike the US over the Fourth of July weekend. Morell, a former senior CIA official,
is in the terror business. He had no evidence whatsoever that terrorists were planning an attack and should have realized that maneuvering
the United States into constantly going on alert based on empty threats is precisely what militant groups tend to do.
When not fronting as a handsomely paid national security consultant for the CBS television network Morell is employed by Beacon
Global Strategies as a Senior Counselor, presumably warning well-heeled clients to watch out for terrorists. His lifestyle and substantial
emoluments depend on people being afraid of terrorism so they will turn to an expert like him and ask serious questions that he will
answer in a serious way suggesting that Islamic militants could potentially bring about some kind of global apocalypse.
Morell, a torture apologist, also has a book out that he wants to sell, positing somewhat ridiculously that he and his former
employer had been fighting The Great War of Our Time against Islamic terrorists, something comparable to the World Wars of the past
century, hence the title. Morell needs to take some valium and relax. He would also benefit from a little introspection regarding
the bad guys versus good guys narrative that he is peddling. His credentials as a warrior are somewhat suspect in any event as he
never did any military service and his combat in the world of intelligence consisted largely of sitting behind a desk in Washington
and providing briefings to George W. Bush and Barack Obama in which he presumably told them what they wanted to hear.
Morell is one of a host of pundits who are successful in selling the military-industrial-lobbyist-congressional-intelligence community
line of BS on the war on terror. Throw in the neocons as the in-your-face agents provocateurs who provide instant intellectual and
media credibility for developments and you have large groups of engaged individuals with good access who are on the receiving end
of the seemingly unending cash pipeline that began with 9/11. Frances Townsend, who was the Bush Homeland Security adviser and who
is now a consultant with CNN, is another such creature as is Michael Chertoff, formerly Director of the Department of Homeland Security,
who has successfully marketed his
defective airport
scanners to his former employer.
But the guys and gals who are out feathering their own nests are at least comprehensible given our predatory capitalist system
of government. More to the point, the gang that ordered or carried out torture and assassination are the ones who should be doing
some hard time in the slammer but instead they too are riding the gravy train and cashing in. To name only a few of those who knew
about the torture and ordered it carried out I would cite George Tenet, James Pavitt, Cofer Black and Jose Rodriguez from the intelligence
community. The assassination program meanwhile is accredited to John Brennan, currently CIA Director, during his tenure as Obama's
Deputy National Security Advisor. And then there are Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon together with John Yoo at Justice
and Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice at the White House, all of whom outright lied, dissimulated and conspired their way
to bring about a war of aggression against Iraq.
There are plenty of nameless others who were "only carrying out orders" and who should be included in any reckoning of America's
crimes over the past fifteen years, particularly if one also considers the illegal NSA spying program headed by Michael Hayden, who
defended the practice and has also
referred to those who oppose enhanced interrogation torture as "interrogation deniers." And then there are Presidents Bush and
Obama who certainly knew what was going on in the name of the American people as well as John Brennan, who was involved in both the
torture and renditions programs as well as the more recent assassinations by drone.
So where are they now? Living in obscurity ashamed of what they did? Hardly. Not only have they not been vilified or marginalized,
they have, in most cases, been rewarded. George W. Bush lives in Dallas near his Presidential Library and eponymous Think (sic) Tank.
Cheney lives in semi-retirement in McLean Virginia with a multi-million dollar waterfront weekend retreat in St. Michaels Maryland,
not too far from Donald Rumsfeld's similar digs.
George Tenet, the CIA Director notorious for his "slam-dunk" comment, a man who cooked the intelligence to make the Iraq war possible
to curry favor with the White House, has generously remunerated positions on the boards of Allen & Company merchant bank, QinetiQ,
and L-1 Identity Solutions. He sold his memoir At the Center of the Storm, which has been
described
as a "self-justifying apologia," in 2007 for a reported advance of $4 million. His book, ironically, admits that the US invaded
Iraq for no good reason.
James Pavitt, who was the point man responsible for the "enhanced interrogation" program as Tenet's Deputy Director for Operations,
is currently a principal with The Scowcroft Group and also serves on several boards. Cofer Black, who headed the Counter-Terrorism
Center, which actually carried out renditions and "enhanced interrogations," was vice chairman of Blackwater Worldwide (now called
Xe) and chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions, a Blackwater spin-off. He is now vice president of Blackbird Technologies, a defense
and intelligence contractor. Rodriguez, who succeeded Black and in 2005 illegally destroyed video tapes made of Agency interrogations
to avoid possible repercussions, is a senior vice president with Edge Consulting, a defense contractor currently owned by IBM that
is located in Virginia.
John Yoo is a Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley while Condoleezza Rice, who spoke of mushroom clouds and
is widely regarded as the worst National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in history, has returned to Stanford University.
She is a professor at the Graduate School
of Business and a director of its Global Center for Business and the Economy as well as a fellow at the Hoover Institution. She
is occasionally spoken of as either a possible GOP presidential candidate or as a future Commissioner of the National Football League.
Her interaction with students is limited, but when challenged on her record she has responded that it was a difficult situation post
9/11, something that everyone understands, though few would have come to her conclusion that attacking Iraq might be a good way to
destroy al-Qaeda.
Paul Wolfowitz, the Bush Deputy Secretary of Defense, is seen by many as the "intellectual" driving force behind the invasion
of Iraq. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and advises Jeb Bush on foreign policy. A bid to
reward Wolfie for his zeal by giving him a huge golden parachute as President of the World Bank at a salary of $391,000 tax free
failed when, after 23 months in the position, he was ousted over promoting a subordinate with whom he was having an affair. His chief
deputy at the Pentagon Doug Feith left the Defense Department to take up a visiting professorship at the school of Foreign Service
at Georgetown University, which was subsequently not renewed. He is reported to be again practicing law and thinking deep thoughts
about his hero Edmund Burke, who no doubt would have been appalled to make Feith's acquaintance. Feith is a senior fellow at the
neoconservative Hudson Institute and the Director of the Center for National Security Strategies. His memoir War and Decision did
not make the best seller list and is now available used on Amazon for $.01 plus shipping. If the marketplace is anything to go
by Feith and Tenet are running neck-and-neck on secondary book exchanges as George also can be had for $.01.
The over-rewarding of former officials who have in reality done great harm to the United States and its interests might well seem
inexplicable, but it is all part of a style of bureaucracy that cannot admit failure and truly believes that all its actions are
ipso facto legitimate because the executive and its minions can do no wrong. It is also a symptom of the classic American character
flaw that all things are of necessity measured by money. Does anyone remember the ancient Roman symbol of republican virtue Lucius
Quinctius Cincinnatus, who left his farm after being named Dictator in order to defeat Rome's enemies? He then handed power back
to the Senate before returning to his plowing after the job was done. The historian Livy summed up the significance of his act,
writing "It is worthwhile for those who disdain all human things for money, and who suppose that there is no room either for great
honor or virtue, except where wealth is found, to listen to his story." George Washington was America's Cincinnatus and it is
not a coincidence that officers of the continental army founded the Cincinnati Society, the nation's oldest patriotic organization,
in 1783. It is also reported that Edward Snowden used the alias "Cincinnatus."
Lord Acton once observed that "Power tends
to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." More recently essayist Edward Abbey
put it in an American context, noting
"Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." That senior government officials and politicians
routinely expect to be generously rewarded for their service and never held accountable for their failures and misdeeds is a
fault that is perhaps not unique to the United States but it is nevertheless unacceptable. Handing out a couple of exemplary prison
sentences for the caste that believes itself untouchable would be a good place to start. An opportunity was missed with David Petraeus,
who was fined and avoided jail time, and it will be interesting to see how the Dennis Hastert case develops. Hastert will no doubt
be slapped on the wrist for the crime of moving around his own money while the corruption that was the source of that money, both
as a legislator and lobbyist, will be ignored. As will his molestation of at least one and possibly several young boys. One thing
for sure about the Washington elite, you never have to say you're sorry.
"... oligarchic greed; a military dedicated to protecting the wealth of oligarchs; and, wars over resources. Granted Bill Clinton began the current charade about 'humanitarian wars' but it was Bush II and Obama who turned our focus into resource wars and the hegemons (Malignant Overlords) who decided it was time to take it all. ..."
Long ago (1968) after returning from Vietnam with a bullet hole in my leg (my 90 wonder, post-ROTC officer shot me when he
panicked) I wondered off to a down-at-the-heel cow college. There I took a class and C Wright Mills 'The Power Elite' was required
reading.
I had just finished 'War is a fraud' and read an article by Paul Ehrlich an then 'The Population Bomb' shortly thereafter.
The three books created an interesting fusion in my mind:
More or less after the year 2000 the world would be plagued by resource wars;
The primary role of the military is to enforce what capitalists want; and
Behind the alleged scenes of our form of government hovered oligarchs who would demand more and more.
I recently found a paper I had written long ago. It wasn't very well written, but even then the handwriting was on the wall:
oligarchic greed; a military dedicated to protecting the wealth of oligarchs; and, wars over resources. Granted Bill Clinton
began the current charade about 'humanitarian wars' but it was Bush II and Obama who turned our focus into resource wars and the
hegemons (Malignant Overlords) who decided it was time to take it all.
I guess the point of all of this is (except for the details) Ehrlich, Mills and Butler warned us. As did Huxley and Orwell
... we were just too damned dumb (or distracted) to see it.
Maybe with the Queen of Chaos, the above will result in either annihilation or in a severe reduction in the numbers of people
... (hopefully including all of the oligarchic class) and the chance to start over?
Nah ... we'll just fuck it up again ... as a species we refuse to learn. Sigh ...
"... Yes. "War is a force that gives us meaning," as Chris Hedges wrote. It provides (false) meaning and purpose. It's an amazingly powerful force, which is one reason why only Congress should declare war. And the last time that happened in the USA was December of 1941. ..."
I just read your article in TD. In my opinion you buried the reason for never ending wars.
You mention exceptionalism. I call that concept preeminence. With it is one of the few ways
we try to fill the void, or as you said in fewer words, try to give meaning to life. There
can be no doubt our lives are becoming increasingly meaningless so we double down and double
down again with what we know despite the self-destruction. https://thelastwhy.ca/poems/2015/6/25/life-a-reaction-to-the-void
Yes. "War is a force that gives us meaning," as Chris Hedges wrote. It provides (false)
meaning and purpose. It's an amazingly powerful force, which is one reason why only Congress
should declare war.
And the last time that happened in the USA was December of 1941.
Doug Barr–It appears to me you are trying to blur some lines, or perhaps you are
confused about, what one might call general human psychology and the official policies of a
specific government, that of the USA. [As a student of Anthropology, I point out that though
our primate ancestors are prone to outbursts of violence, there is no evidence that making
war, especially in the contemporary phase of human society, fulfills an innate "need."] Yes,
the US seeks to be "pre-eminent"–or to be blunter, DOMINANT–over the rest of the
globe. Where "exceptionalism"–which I have designated the American Disease–enters
the picture is the attempt to justify military aggression by suggesting (some are less subtle
and openly assert) that the US somehow has been granted a "right" to do this by "a higher
power." (Apparently God Himself revealed to George W. Bush that he was born to be "a war
president" and the genius Rick Perry asserted recently that Donald Trump was put in the
presidency by direct Divine action.) A "right" to send assassin drones anywhere, anytime, to
target anyone who's been designated a Bad Guy. This is absurd, if not insane, on the face of
it. (In olden times, Rudyard Kipling called it "the white man's burden" to bring civilization
to less "enlightened" peoples.) If there was an international court that had some teeth, the
US would be vigorously swatted down, ordered to cease and desist. But one of the greatest
tragedies of our time is that there is no power on Earth that could stand up to this Monster
(as John Kay and his band Steppenwolf rightly identified the US 50 years ago) even if it
could find the backbone to make the attempt.
After more than 17 years of the United States pouring blood and treasure into the effort
to build an Afghan army and government, why is it that the Kabul government continues to lose
ground against the Taliban? Further, why were we unsuccessful creating an Iraqi army that
could stand on its own against the Islamic State?
Before that, of course, came Vietnam.
Nor was that the start of the failure of American-backed armies. I was a teenager in 1949
when Chiang Kai-shek's American-backed Nationalist army lost to the Communist forces of Mao
Zedong in China. The American secretary of state, Dean Acheson, having conducted a study on
why our side lost, declared: "The Nationalist armies did not have to be defeated; they
disintegrated. History has proved again and again that a regime without faith in itself, and
an army without morale, cannot survive the test of battle."
Forty-four years ago, the American-trained and American-supplied army of South Vietnam
simply melted away before the less-well-equipped but better-motivated army of North Vietnam.
In 1975, I watched South Vietnamese soldiers taking off their uniforms and running away in
their underwear as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon.
Five years ago, the world watched another American-trained and American-equipped Iraqi
army bolt and run when the better motivated Islamic State forces overran Mosul in Northern
Iraq.
Why, over and over again, does the side America has backed in these civil wars end up
defeated? Four threads connect these lost wars of the last 70 years: corruption, patriotic
nationalism, a misplaced belief in American exceptionalism, and self-deception.
I saw corruption on a grand scale in Saigon. Generals and government officials were
funneling America's tax dollars into bank accounts abroad, fielding ghost armies in which
there were fewer soldiers on the ground than on the official payrolls. In Baghdad during the
American occupation, I learned that billions of American taxpayer dollars were bleeding out
to the Persian Gulf and Jordan, causing a laundered money real estate boom in the Jordanian
capital. In Afghanistan I learned that Afghan officers and soldiers routinely robbed the
villages they were sent to protect. Corruption sapped the people's belief in their US-backed
government in all four wars. Soldiers saw no reason to die for corrupt officials.
A second thread is that our side always appeared to be fighting on the side of foreigners,
while the Communists in China and Vietnam, as well as the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan,
always had a better grip on patriotic nationalism and resistance to foreigners. The
anti-colonial struggle was more important than the threat of Communism in most of the
post-World War II world, and the Islamist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan knew how to
exploit the traditional resistance to foreign rule. The Taliban could appeal to patriotism
while trying to expel the infidel forces of the United States, just as their fathers,
grandfathers, and great grandfathers had resisted the Russians and the British before that in
the name of jihad.
A third thread is a curiously American trait of willfully ignoring other people's history
and cultures. I remember asking an American officer in Vietnam if he had read anything of the
French experience in Vietnam. His answer: "No, why should I? They lost, didn't they?" Robert
McNamara, defense secretary and an architect of our Vietnam War, said in later life that
Americans had never understood the Vietnamese. There were plenty of people who could have
helped him understand, but he wasn't interested. We were Americans -- exceptional, and
therefore not susceptible to the same forces that thwarted other efforts.
I met Americans in the Green Zone in Baghdad who knew nothing about the great schism
between Sunnis and Shia Muslims that was tearing the country apart. American-style democracy
was the answer to all ills, they felt. In Afghanistan I met Americans who thought purple ink
on the fingers of Afghans who had voted was the answer to a thousand years of tribal and
ethnic rivalries.
The fourth thread is self-deception. In Saigon, in Baghdad, and in Kabul I attended
briefings in which progress was always being made, the trend lines were always favorable, and
we were always winning wars we were actually losing. Wishful thinking is no substitute for
reality. Americans can train and assist the armies of those whom we want to support in the
civil wars of others, but we cannot supply the motivation and morale that is necessary to
survive the test of battle.
As we observe another anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that shattered American
life 18 years ago, its full impact is still unfolding. Those who planned it succeeded beyond
their wildest dreams. The airborne assaults that took nearly 3,000 lives on that day may now
be seen as the most diabolically successful terror attack in history. That attack not only
wreaked carnage at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania.
It wound up dragging the United States into an endless state of war that has drained our
treasury, poisoned our politics, created waves of new terrorism, and made us the enemy of
millions around the world.
The apparent chief perpetrator of the 9/11 attack, Osama bin Laden, presumably cackled
with joy when he heard news of his success on that stunning day. He lived for another 10
years, long enough to cackle with even greater glee at Washington's self-defeating response
to the attack. Using the 9/11 attack as a pretext, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
Bin Laden died knowing that he had lured us into the greatest foreign policy disaster in
American history.
It is a truism that our lives are shaped not by what happens to us, but by how we react to
what happens to us. The same applies to nations. Devastating as the death toll was on Sept.
11, 2001, it turned out to be only a taste of what was to come. The United States has been at
war ever since. Thousands of Americans have died. So have hundreds of thousands of civilians
in the Middle East and beyond. This nearly two-decade-long spasm of attacking, bombing, and
occupying countries has decisively shaped the United States and its image in the world. Every
day that our "forever war" continues is a triumph for bin Laden. So is every wounded veteran
who returns home, every newly minted terrorist infuriated by an American attack, every
citizen of the world who recoils at what US forces are being sent to do. We did not simply
fall into bin Laden's trap, we raced in at full speed. Even now, we show little will to
extricate ourselves.
America's determination to strike back with devastating force after 9/11 was
understandable given our shared sense of ravaged innocence. We might have launched a
concentrated strike against the gang of several hundred criminals whose leaders attacked the
United States, and then come home. Instead we have used the 9/11 attack to justify wars and
military deployments around the world.
On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed an "authorization for the use of military force"
against the perpetrators of that week's attack and against their "associated forces." Three
presidents have used that authorization to deploy troops across the Middle East and in
countries from Kenya to Georgia to the Philippines. Every call for US withdrawal from
Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria is met by warnings that ending wars could produce "another
9/11." This has become the paralyzing mantra that prevents us from halting the hydra-headed
military campaign we have been waging for 18 years. We also use it to justify atrocities at
prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Bin Laden has succeeded even in colonizing our
minds.
Soon after passing its highly elastic authorization for military action against
"associated forces," Congress approved another, even more sweeping law: the Patriot Act. It
gave the government broad new power to monitor people and businesses, and has become a
foundation stone of our emerging "surveillance state." The 9/11 attack led us to distort not
only our approach to the world, but also the balance between freedom and security at
home.
Another pernicious aftereffect of the terror attack has been the deepening of our national
us-against-them narrative. This began with President George W. Bush's assertion that every
country in the world had to be "either with us or against us." Crusader rhetoric posits the
United States as the indispensable guardian of civilization, entitled to act as it chooses in
order to fend off a threatening tide of barbarism. Now this approach has leaked back into the
United States. Racist attacks that tear at our social fabric are the domestic reflection of
foreign policies that see the rest of the world as a hostile "other" bent on destroying our
way of life.
Last month it was announced that the five surviving alleged plotters of the 9/11 attack
will finally be brought to trial in 2021. If they are aware of what is happening in the
world, they will arrive in court with a deep sense of satisfaction. Their great triumph was
not the attack. It was the damage the United States has since inflicted upon itself.
Acheson is parroting Napoleon: "In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to 1."
He is wrong in the matter of "faith", unless the Chiang's army lost faith in Chiang's
moral poverty, what he stood for.
A better quote about Chiang losing is written by George C. Marshall, who went over and
came back sure Chiang was done for.
He said: "The US would not be dragged through the mud by those reactionaries". Meaning
Chiang was not the moral power in China.
Same for Vietnam US puppets were not and had no moral power/authority.
In Afghanistan same!
Iraq is split in moral authority, the areas populated by Shi'a are okay as long as the
central government does not pander to the Sunni 1/3 (Baathists were suppressing Shi'a).
I do not agree with quoting Acheson when there is plenty of professional soldier writings
that say it more clearly.
After Korea the professional soldiers were no longer expressive when it cme to propping
thugs, with no moral power in their own borders (granted many of the borders surround
fictional counties).
US has stood with thugs for most of its quagmire experience.......
This week US is looking for a way to start a new quagmire with Iran for royal murderers'
sharing their oil company!
Regarding your last sentence: this is the great truth that Washington's world hegemonists would have you forget. Taking into
account the untapped vast resources of Canada and Alaska and its expansive offshore economic zones extending deep into the Atlantic,
the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, the North American anglosphere could be entirely self-sufficient and do
quite nicely on its own for hundreds of years to come, it just wouldn't be the sole tyrannical state presumably ruling the entire
planet.
Why, it might even entertain the idea of actually cooperating with other regional powers like Russia, China, the EU, India,
Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, greater central Asia, Latin America and even Africa to everyone's benefit, rather than bullying
them all because god ordained us to be the boss of all humans.
America's major malfunction is its lack of historical roots compared to the other societies mentioned. All those places had
thousands of years to refine their sundry cultures and international relationships, certainly through trial and error and many
horrible setbacks, most notably wars, famines, pestilence, genocide and human bondage which people did not have the foresight
to nip in the bud. They learned by their mistakes and some, like the great world wars, were doozies.
The United States, and some of its closest homologues like Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, were thrown together very
rapidly as part of developing colonial empires. It was created through the brute actions of a handful of megalomaniacal oligarchs
of their day. What worked to suppress vast tracts of aboriginal homelands, often through genocide and virtual extinction of the
native populations, was so effective that it was institutionalized in the form of slavery and reckless exploitation of the local
environment. These "great leaders," "pioneers" and "founding fathers" were not about to give up a set of principles -- no matter
how sick and immoral -- which they knew to "work" and accrued to them great power and riches. They preferred to label it "American
exceptionalism" and force it upon the whole rest of the world, including long established regional powers -- cultures going back
to antiquity -- and not just conveniently sketched "burdens of the white man."
No, ancient cultures like China, India, Persia and so forth could obviously be improved for all concerned merely by allowing
a handful of Western Europeans to own all their property and run all their affairs. That grand plan fell apart for most of the
European powers in the aftermath of World War Two, but Washington has held tough and never given up its designs of micromanaging
and exploiting the whole planet. It too is soon to learn its lesson and lose its empire. Either that or it will take the world
down in flames as it tries to cling to all that it never really owned or deserved. The most tragic (or maybe just amusing) part
is that Washington still had most of the world believing its bullshit about exceptionalism and indispensability until it decided
it had to emulate every tyrannical empire that ever collapsed before it.
Realist , April 30, 2019 at 02:08
"ex·tor·tion /ik?stôrSH(?)n/ noun The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."
"Racketeering refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. A racketeer attempts to obtain money or property from
another person, usually through intimidation or force. The term is typically associated with organized crime."
I see. So, American foreign policy, as applied to both its alleged enemies and presumed allies, essentially amounts to an exercise
in organised crime. So much for due process, free trade, peaceful co-existence, magical rainbows and other such hypocritical platitudes
dispensed for domestic consumption in place of the heavy-handed threats routinely delivered to Washington's targets.
That's quite in keeping with the employment of war crimes as standard "tactics, techniques and procedures" on the battlefield
which was recently admitted to us by Senator Jim Molan on the "60 Minutes" news show facsimile and discussed in one of yesterday's
forums on this blog.
Afghanistan was promised a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs as incentive to bend to our will (and that of Unocal which,
unlike Nordstream, was a pipeline Washington wanted built). Iraq was promised and delivered "shock and awe" after a secretary
of state had declared the mass starvation of that country's children as well worth the effort. They still can't find all the pieces
left of the Libyan state. Syria was told it would be stiffed on any American contribution to its rebuilding for the effrontery
of actually beating back the American-recruited, trained and financed ISIS terrorist brigades. Now it's being deliberately starved
of both its energy and food requirements by American embargoes on its own resources! North Korea was promised utter annihilation
by Yankee nukes before Kim's summit with our great leader unless it submitted totally to his will, or more likely that of Pompous
Pompeo, the man who pulls his strings. Venezuela is treated to cyber-hacked power outages and shortages of food, medicines, its
own gold bullion, income from its own international petroleum sales and, probably because someone in Washington thinks it's funny,
even toilet paper. All they have to do to get relief is kick out the president they elected and replace him with Washington's
chosen puppet! Yep, freedom and democracy blah, blah, blah. And don't even ask what the kids in Yemen got for Christmas from Uncle
Sam this year. (He probably stole their socks.) A real American patriot will laughingly take Iran to task for ever believing in
the first place that Washington could be negotiated with in good faith. All they had to do was ask the Native Americans (or the
Russians) how the Yanks keep their word and honor their treaties. It was their own fault they were taken for suckers.
"... Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy. ..."
"... America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla. ..."
"... Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never. ..."
Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM |
link
Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:
American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors,
generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.
To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly
and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."
The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate
and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest.
That is why we go to war.
Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are
fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic,
not humanitarian, reasons.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is
him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds
of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious
election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious.
It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest
of the wealthy.
America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian
reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support
Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.
Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators;
it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending
your kids to die. Never.
New book by David NorthA Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016
Notable quotes:
"... "Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly." ..."
"... Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"... ..."
We publish here the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016 by David North.
The book will be published on August 10, and is available for preorder today at Mehring Books in both
softcover
and hardcover
.
***
"In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than
in the period of boom."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1928
"U.S. capitalism is up against the same problems that pushed Germany in 1914 on the path of war. The world is divided? It must
be redivided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.' The United States must 'organize' the world. History is bringing
mankind face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1934
This volume consists of political reports, public lectures, party statements, essays, and polemics that document the response
of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to the quarter century of US-led wars that began in 1990–91. The
analyses of events presented here, although written as they were unfolding, stand the test of time. The International Committee does
not possess a crystal ball. But its work is informed by a Marxist understanding of the contradictions of American and world imperialism.
Moreover, the Marxist method of analysis examines events not as a sequence of isolated episodes, but as moments in the unfolding
of a broader historical process. This historically oriented approach serves as a safeguard against an impressionistic response to
the latest political developments. It recognizes that the essential cause of an event is rarely apparent at the moment of
its occurrence.
Much of what passes for analysis in the bourgeois press consists of nothing more than equating an impressionistic description
of a given event with its deeper cause. This sort of political analysis legitimizes US wars as necessary responses to one or another
personification of evil, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the "warlord" Farah Aideed in Somalia, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Osama
bin Laden of Al Qaeda, the Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; and, most recently, Bashar al Assad in Syria, Kim
Jong Un in Korea, and Vladimir Putin in Russia. New names are continually added to the United States' infinitely expandable list
of monsters requiring destruction.
The material in this volume is the record of a very different and far more substantial approach to the examination of the foreign
policy of the United States.
First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in
1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it
emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would
lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism. As far back as August 1990 -- twenty-six years ago -- it was able to foresee
the long-term implications of the Bush administration's war against Iraq:
It marks the beginning of a new imperialist redivision of the world. The end of the postwar era means the end of the
postcolonial era. As it proclaims the "failure of socialism," the imperialist bourgeoisie, in deeds if not yet in words, proclaims
the failure of independence. The deepening crisis confronting all the major imperialist powers compels them to secure control
over strategic resources and markets. Former colonies, which had achieved a degree of political independence, must be resubjugated.
In its brutal assault against Iraq, imperialism is giving notice that it intends to restore the type of unrestrained domination
of the backward countries that existed prior to World War II. [
1 ]
This historically grounded analysis provided the essential framework for an understanding, not only of the 1990–91 Gulf War, but
also of the wars that were launched later in the decade, as well as the post-9/11 "War on Terror."
In a recently published front-page article, the New York Times called attention to a significant milestone in the presidency
of Barack Obama: "He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president." But with several months remaining
in his term in office, he is on target to set yet another record. The Times wrote:
If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama's term -- a near-certainty
given the president's recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria -- he will leave
behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war. [
2 ]
On the way to setting his record, Mr. Obama has overseen lethal military actions in a total of seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The number of countries is growing, as the United States escalates its military operations
in Africa. The efforts to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency involve a buildup of US forces in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.
Without any sense of irony, Mark Landler, author of the Times article, notes Obama's status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner
in 2009. He portrays the president as "trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate. . . ." Obama "has wrestled
with this immutable reality [of war] from his first year in the White House . . ."
Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the
order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize,
in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes
necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
During the Obama years, folly has clearly held the upper hand. But there is nothing that Landler's hero can do. Obama has found
his wars "maddeningly hard to end."
The Times ' portrayal of Obama lacks the essential element required by genuine tragedy: the identification of objective
forces, beyond his control, that frustrated and overwhelmed the lofty ideals and humanitarian aspirations of the president. If Mr.
Landler wants his readers to shed a tear for this peace-loving man who, upon becoming president, made drone killings his personal
specialty, and turned into something akin to a moral monster, the Times correspondent should have attempted to identify the
historical circumstances that determined Obama's "tragic" fate.
But this is a challenge the Times avoids. It fails to relate Obama's war-making record to the entire course of American
foreign policy over the past quarter century. Even before Obama entered office in 2009, the United States had been at war on an almost
continuous basis since the first US-Iraq War of 1990–91.
The pretext for the Gulf War was Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. But the violent US reaction to Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's dispute with the emir of Kuwait was determined by broader global conditions and considerations. The historical context
of the US military operation was the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was finally carried out in December 1991. The
first President Bush declared the beginning of a "New World Order." [
3 ] What Bush meant by this phrase was
that the United States was now free to restructure the world in the interests of the American capitalist class, unencumbered by either
the reality of the countervailing military power of the Soviet Union or the specter of socialist revolution. The dissolution of the
USSR, hailed by Francis Fukuyama as the "End of History," signified for the strategists of American imperialism the end of military
restraint.
It is one of the great ironies of history that the definitive emergence of the United States as the dominant imperialist power,
amid the catastrophe of World War I, coincided with the outbreak of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which culminated in the establishment
of the first socialist workers state in history, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. On April 3, 1917, President Woodrow
Wilson delivered his war message to the US Congress and led the United States into the global imperialist conflict. Two weeks later,
V.I. Lenin returned to Russia, which was in the throes of revolution, and reoriented the Bolshevik Party toward the fight to overthrow
the bourgeois Provisional Government.
Lenin and his principal political ally, Leon Trotsky, insisted that the struggle for socialism was indissolubly linked to the
struggle against war. As the historian R. Craig Nation has argued:
For Lenin there was no doubt that the revolution was the result of a crisis of imperialism and that the dilemmas which it posed
could only be resolved on the international level. The campaign for proletarian hegemony in Russia, the fight against the war,
and the international struggle against imperialism were now one and the same. [
4 ]
Just as the United States was striving to establish its position as the arbiter of the world's destiny, it faced a challenge,
in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution, not only to the authority of American imperialism, but also to the economic, political,
and even moral legitimacy of the entire capitalist world order. "The rhetoric and actions of the Bolsheviks," historian Melvyn P.
Leffler has written, "ignited fear, revulsion and uncertainty in Washington." [
5 ]
Another perceptive historian of US foreign policy explained:
The great majority of American leaders were so deeply concerned with the Bolshevik Revolution because they were so uneasy about
what President Wilson called the "general feeling of revolt" against the existing order, and about the increasing intensity of
that dissatisfaction. The Bolshevik Revolution became in their minds the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent.
And that is perhaps the crucial insight into the tragedy of American diplomacy. [
6 ]
In a desperate effort to destroy the new revolutionary regime, Wilson sent an expeditionary force to Russia in 1918, in support
of counterrevolutionary forces in the brutal civil war. The intervention was an ignominious failure.
It was not until 1933 that the United States finally granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. The diplomatic rapprochement
was facilitated in part by the fact that the Soviet regime, now under Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship, was in the process of repudiating
the revolutionary internationalism that had inspired the Bolsheviks in 1917. It was abandoning the perspective of world revolution
in favor of alliances with imperialist states on the basis of "collective security." Unable to secure such an alliance with Britain
and France, Stalin signed the notorious Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in August 1939. Following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941, and the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941, the exigencies of the struggle against
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan required that the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forge a military alliance
with the Soviet Union. But once Germany and Japan were defeated, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union rapidly
deteriorated. The Truman administration, opposing the extension of Soviet influence into Eastern Europe, and frightened by the growth
of Communist parties in Western Europe, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 and triggered the onset of the Cold War.
The Kremlin regime pursued nationalistic policies, based on the Stalinist program of "socialism in one country," and betrayed
working class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. But the very existence of a regime that arose out of a socialist
revolution had a politically radicalizing impact throughout the world. William Appleman Williams was certainly correct in his view
that "American leaders were for many, many years more afraid of the implicit and indirect challenge of the revolution than they were
of the actual power of the Soviet Union." [
7 ]
In the decades that followed World War II, the United States was unable to ignore the existence of the Soviet Union. To the extent
that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949, provided limited political and material
support to anti-imperialist movements in the "Third World," they denied the US ruling class a free hand in the pursuit of its own
interests. These limitations were demonstrated -- to cite the most notable examples -- by the US defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the
compromise settlement of the Cuban missile crisis, and the acceptance of Soviet domination of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.
The existence of the Soviet Union and an anticapitalist regime in China deprived the United States of the possibility of unrestricted
access to and exploitation of the human labor, raw materials, and potential markets of a large portion of the globe, especially the
Eurasian land mass. It compelled the United States to compromise, to a greater degree than it would have preferred, in negotiations
over economic and strategic issues with its major allies in Europe and Asia, as well as with smaller countries that exploited the
tactical opportunities provided by the US-Soviet Cold War.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, combined with the restoration of capitalism in China following the Tiananmen
Square massacre of June 1989, was seen by the American ruling class as an opportunity to repudiate the compromises of the post-World
War II era, and to carry out a restructuring of global geopolitics, with the aim of establishing the hegemony of the United States.
There was no small element of self-delusion in the grandiose American response to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The bombastic
claims that the United States had won the Cold War were based far more on myth than reality. In fact, the sudden dissolution of the
Soviet Union took the entire Washington foreign policy establishment by surprise. In February 1987, the Council on Foreign Relations
published an assessment of US-Soviet relations, authored by two of its most eminent Sovietologists, Strobe Talbott and Michael Mandelbaum.
Analyzing the discussions between Reagan and Gorbachev at meetings in Geneva and Reykjavik in 1986, the two experts concluded:
No matter how Gorbachev comes to define perestroika in practice and no matter how he modifies the official definition
of security, the Soviet Union will resist pressure for change, whether it comes from without or within, from the top or the bottom.
The fundamental conditions of Soviet-American relations are therefore likely to persist. This, in turn, means that the ritual
of Soviet-American summitry is likely to have a long run. . . . [
8 ]
The "long run," Talbott and Mandelbaum predicted, would continue not only during the reign of "Gorbachev's successor," but also
his "successor's successor." No substantial changes in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were to be expected.
The two prophets from the Council on Foreign Relations concluded:
Whoever they are, and whatever changes have occurred in the meantime, the American and Soviet leaders of the next century will
be wrestling with the same great issue -- how to manage their rivalry so as to avoid nuclear catastrophe -- that has engaged the
energies, in the latter half of the 1980s, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. [
9 ]
In contrast to the Washington experts, who foresaw nothing, the International Committee recognized that the Gorbachev regime marked
a climactic stage in the crisis of Stalinism. "The crisis of Gorbachev," it declared in a statement dated March 23, 1987, "has emerged
as every section of world Stalinism confronts economic convulsions and upheavals by the masses. In every case -- from Beijing to
Belgrade -- the response of the Stalinist bureaucrats has been to turn ever more openly toward capitalist restorationism." [
10 ]
The Cold War victory narrative encouraged, within the ruling elite, a disastrous overestimation of the power and potential of
American capitalism. The drive for hegemony assumed the ability of the US to contain the economic and political centrifugal forces
unleashed by the operation of global capitalism. Even at the height of its power, such an immense project was well beyond the capacities
of the United States. But amid the euphoria generated by the end of the Soviet Union, the ruling class chose to ignore the deep-rooted
and protracted crisis of American society. An objective observer, examining the conditions of both the United States and the Soviet
Union between 1960 and 1990, might well have wondered which regime was in greater crisis. During the three decades that preceded
the dissolution of the USSR, the United States exhibited high levels of political, social, and economic instability.
Consider the fate of the presidential administrations in power during those three decades: (1) The Kennedy administration ended
tragically in November 1963 with a political assassination, in the midst of escalating social tensions and international crises;
(2) Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, was unable to seek reelection in 1968, as a result of urban riots and mass opposition
to the US invasion of Vietnam; (3) Richard Nixon was compelled to resign from office in August 1974, after the House of Representatives'
Judiciary Committee voted for his impeachment on charges related to his criminal subversion of the Constitution; (4) Gerald Ford,
who became president upon Nixon's resignation, was defeated in the November 1976 election amid popular revulsion over Nixon's crimes
and the US military debacle in Vietnam; (5) Jimmy Carter's one term in office was dominated by an inflationary crisis that sent the
federal prime interest rate to 20 percent, a bitter three month national coal miners strike, and the aftershocks generated by the
Iranian Revolution; and (6) Ronald Reagan's years in office, despite all the ballyhoo about "morning in America," were characterized
by recession, bitter social tension, and a series of foreign policy disasters in the Middle East and Central America. The exposure
of an illegal scheme to finance paramilitary operations in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra crisis) brought Reagan to the very brink of
impeachment. His administration was saved by the leadership of the Democratic Party, which had no desire to remove from office a
president who was politically weakened and already exhibiting signs of dementia.
The one persistent factor that confronted all these administrations, from Kennedy to Reagan, was the erosion in the global economic
position of the United States. The unquestioned dominance of American finance and industry at the end of World War II provided the
economic underpinnings of the Bretton Woods system of dollar-gold convertibility that formed the basis of global capitalist growth
and stability. By the late 1950s, the system was coming under increasing strain. It was during the Kennedy administration that unfavorable
tendencies in the US balance of trade first began to arouse significant concern. On August 15, 1971, Nixon suddenly ended the Bretton
Woods system of fixed international exchange rates, pegged to a US dollar convertible at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold. During
the 1970s and 1980s, the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar mirrored the deterioration of the American economy.
The belligerent response of the United States to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union reflected the weakness, not the strength,
of American capitalism. The overwhelming support within the ruling elite for a highly aggressive foreign policy arose from the delusion
that the United States could reverse the protracted erosion of its global economic position through the deployment of its immense
military power.
The Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by the Department of Defense in February 1992, unambiguously asserted the hegemonic ambitions
of US imperialism:
There are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture
of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global
competitor. [ 11 ]
The 1990s saw a persistent use of US military power, most notably in the first Gulf War, followed by its campaign to break up
Yugoslavia. The brutal restructuring of the Balkan states, which provoked a fratricidal civil war, culminated in the US-led 1999
bombing campaign to compel Serbia to accept the secession of the province of Kosovo. Other major military operations during that
decade included the intervention in Somalia, which ended in disaster, the military occupation of Haiti, the bombing of Sudan and
Afghanistan, and repeated bombing attacks on Iraq.
The events of September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity to launch the "War on Terror," a propaganda slogan that provided an
all-purpose justification for military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and, with increasing frequency, Africa.
They furnished the Bush administration with a pretext to institutionalize war as a legitimate and normal instrument of American foreign
policy.
The administration of the second President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001. In speeches that followed
9/11, Bush used the phrase "wars of the twenty-first century." In this case, the normally inarticulate president spoke with precision.
The "War on Terror" was, from the beginning, conceived as an unending series of military operations all over the globe. One war would
necessarily lead to another. Afghanistan proved to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Iraq.
The military strategy of the United States was revised in line with the new doctrine of "preventive warfare," adopted by the US
in 2002. This doctrine, which violated existing international law, decreed that the United States could attack any country in the
world judged to pose a potential threat -- not only of a military, but also of an economic character -- to American interests.
In a verbal sleight of hand, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq as a preemptive war, undertaken in
response to the imminent threat posed by the country's "weapons of mass destruction" to the national security of the United States.
Of course, the threat was as non-existent as were Saddam Hussein's WMDs. In any event, the Bush administration rendered the distinction
between preemptive and preventive war meaningless, by asserting the right of the United States to attack any country, regardless
of the existence or non-existence of an imminent threat to American national security. Whatever the terminology employed for propaganda
purposes by American presidents, the United States adheres to the illegal doctrine of preventive war.
The scope of military operations continuously widened. New wars were started while the old ones continued. The cynical invocation
of human rights was used to wage war against Libya and overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The same hypocritical pretext
was employed to organize a proxy war in Syria. The consequences of these crimes, in terms of human lives and suffering, are incalculable.
The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the
US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are
component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.
It is through the prism of America's efforts to assert control of the strategically critical Eurasian landmass, that the essential
significance of the events of 1990–91 is being revealed. But this latest stage in the ongoing struggle for world hegemony, which
lies at the heart of the conflict with Russia and China, is bringing to the forefront latent and potentially explosive tensions between
the United States and its present-day imperialist allies, including -- to name the most significant potential adversary -- Germany.
The two world wars of the twentieth century were not the product of misunderstandings. The past is prologue. As the International
Committee foresaw in 1990–91, the American bid for global hegemony has rekindled interimperialist rivalries simmering beneath the
surface of world politics. Within Europe, dissatisfaction with the US role as the final arbiter of world affairs is being openly
voiced. In a provocative essay, published in Foreign Affairs , the journal of the authoritative US Council on Foreign Relations,
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has bluntly challenged Washington's presumption of US global dominance:
As the United States reeled from the effects of the Iraq war and the EU struggled through a series of crises, Germany held
its ground. . . .
Today both the United States and Europe are struggling to provide global leadership. The 2003 invasion of Iraq damaged the
United States' standing in the world. After the ouster of Saddam Hussein, sectarian violence ripped Iraq apart, and U.S. power
in the region began to weaken. Not only did the George W. Bush administration fail to reorder the region through force, but the
political, economic, and soft-power costs of this adventure undermined the United States' overall position. The illusion of a
unipolar world faded. [ 12 ]
In a rebuke to the United States, Steinmeier writes: "Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism
-- for any nation." [ 13 ]
The journalists and academics, who work within the framework of the official narrative of the defense of human rights and the
"War on Terror," cannot explain the progression of conflicts, from the 1990–91 Gulf War, to the current expansion of NATO eight hundred
miles eastward, and the American "pivot to Asia." On a regular basis, the United States and its allies stage war games in Eastern
Europe, in close proximity to the borders of Russia, and in strategically critical waters off the coast of China. It is not difficult
to conceive of a situation in which events -- either as a result of deliberate calculation or of reckless miscalculation -- erupt
into a clash between nuclear-armed powers. In 2014, as the centenary of World War I approached, a growing number of scholarly papers
called attention to the similarities between the conditions that precipitated the disaster of August 1914 and present-day tensions.
One parallel between today and 1914 is the growing sense among political and military strategists that war between the United
States and China and/or Russia may be inevitable. As this fatalistic premise increasingly informs the judgments and actions of the
key decision makers at the highest level of the state, it becomes a dynamic factor that makes the actual outbreak of war more likely.
A specialist in international geopolitics has recently written:
Once war is assumed to be unavoidable, the calculations of leaders and militaries change. The question is no longer whether
there will or should be a war, but when the war can be fought most advantageously. Even those neither eager for nor optimistic
about war may opt to fight when operating in the framework of inevitability. [
14 ]
Not since the end of World War II has there existed so great a danger of world war. The danger is heightened by the fact that
the level of popular awareness of the threat remains very limited. What percentage of the American population, one must ask, realizes
that President Barack Obama has formally committed the United States to go to war in defense of Estonia, in the event of a conflict
between the small Baltic country and Russia? The media has politely refrained from asking the president to state how many human beings
would die in the event of a nuclear war between the United States and either Russia or China, or both at the same time.
On the eve of World War II, Leon Trotsky warned that a catastrophe threatened the entire culture of mankind. He was proven correct.
Within less than a decade, the Second World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people. The alarm must once again be
sounded. The working class and youth within the United States and throughout the world must be told the truth.
The progressive development of a globally integrated world economy is incompatible with capitalism and the nation-state system.
If war is to be stopped and a global catastrophe averted, a new and powerful mass international movement, based on a socialist program,
and strategically guided by the principles of revolutionary class struggle, must be built. In opposition to imperialist geopolitics,
in which national states fight brutally for regional and global dominance, the International Committee counterposes the strategy
of world socialist revolution. As Trotsky advised, we "follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle. . . ." [
15 ]
In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were mass protests against the war policies of the United States and
its allies. Millions took to the streets. But after the war began, public opposition virtually disappeared. The absence of popular
protest did not signify support for the war. Rather, it reflected the repudiation, by the old middle-class protest movement, of its
former Vietnam-era opposition to imperialism.
There are mounting signs of political radicalization among significant sections of the working class and youth. It is only a matter
of time before this radicalization gives rise to conscious opposition to war. It is the aim of this volume to impart to the new antiwar
movement a revolutionary socialist and internationalist perspective and program.
The quotes from Trotsky are glaring. These and others were used to argue against socialism in the post war decades, but all that
was needed was time and the working of the forces of capitalism itself. History never ended, it is right on schedule
"Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving
the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel
Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that
war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
VI lenin crushed the Krondstadt rebellion that was the true 'soviet union' model and instituted a hard right revolutionary regime
of ruthless dictatorial control from smolny, not a workers state. The US borgeouis (and french and english) intervened to keep
russia in the war and 160 german divisions from leaving the eastern front. The threat of a workers state was not the concern of
the victors. The failure of revolutionary russia to represent what this article is propping it up to be (some kind of genuine
workers state) leaves me deeply suspect about the other conclusions he's bent history to. Anyone who's read "2 years in russia"
by emma goldman, and "the victors dilemma" - john silverlight and any number of books on the russian civil war, it is clear that
the intervention was for military tactical reasons and that the nascient state was in no ways a workers state but a totalitarian
military dictatorship. Emma Goldman's disillusionment is not her falling out of love with her ideals, but her coming to terms
with the reality vs the PR of Russia. Which is why this website (Wsws) advertised a book repudiating the rejection of socialism
with the faiure of the soviet union as a false narrative a year or few ago.
The historical memoir is clear, diaries, memos, news articles, and the Western soldier revolts, time to smash the revolution.
Kronstadt was a tragedy, but the regime was under threat. history is messy.
I can imagine that
the leadership of imperialist countries was underestimating the bolsheviks in 1917, but once the Russian revolution had given
enough confidence to the German masses to make the war stop one year later, once the French black sea fleet had rebelled in 1919,
etc... they were all very conscious of the risks (potential risks, not immediate threats).
The evidence in favour of what Trotsky wrote about Kronstadt is simply overwhelming. A cmd above gave some basic evidence. Trotsky
was absolutely right and absolutely honest on what he wrote later on ("hue and cry over Kronstadt")
The working class has been the victim of betrayal after betrayal by pseudo-left forces in the 20th century, which led to two catastrophic
world wars and all the other conflicts that have created needless bloodshed around the world. The great task will be, when the
new mass working class anti-war movement arises, to give the working class the political knowledge it needs to not fall for the
traps that dissipated anti-war movements in the past. It must be made clear to the workers of the world that for us, it's do or
die time - literally, as the obscene levels of social inequality and the prospect of nuclear confrontation prove.
I understand this very well, having seen what happened to what I thought at the time was a powerful antiwar movement in the 1960s
against the war in Vietnam. I was quite politically naive at the time and became so disillusioned with politics in general and
what I then thought to be the "left" in particular, that I went off politics completely and started reading Ayn Rand.
After being turned off by Rand's misanthropy and hatred of the working class (even though I admired her atheism), I became
more or less apolitical until 1998, when I first read the World Socialist Web Site and found what I had been looking for.
for this affirming comment. Me too, having all but given up on politics and following a last ditch
search of the web I was rewarded with a political program and party that was more than compatible with my world view and personal
values. Something I had not thought possible, thank you ICFI/SEP.
There are times when even we as Marxists find ourselves scouring the past for a word that befits the character and luminosity
of a moment in human understanding. In this respect David North has given new meaning to the word 'Biblical'.
As a word, its essence is transcendent. For whoever defines an epoch in the clearest and most profoundest way as this, is elevated
to the realms of Greatness.
As the bourgeoisie now scrabbles, in fights, and drowns in the last dregs of its alchemy, a Phoenix arises out of their chaos
lest the bourgeoisie commits all to the Fires of Hell ....
Most excellent words comrade David ...a most excellent call to class struggle .
This is a remarkably panoramic account, grounded in both history and economics, of the unfolding of U.S. militarism and imperialist
warfare over the past 30 or so years. It is without peer in anything else I have seen in terms of showing that events and tendencies
- which we may have been separately aware of - were in fact part of a historical continuum growing out of economic developments
and the perceived interests of the U.S. ruling class.
Always interesting to read cmd. North. ''First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the
Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the
entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown
of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism''. This is great but we also
have German militarism on the rise and we should not underestimate. The working class must be prepared for economic and even actual
wars in Europe and elsewhere. The redivision of markets and resources is evident with Germany and China on the table.
March 12, 2019 at 5:25
pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN
Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law
prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."
Hi AnonfromTN.
Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli
"dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly
given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.
They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.
What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President
t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.
Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type
of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US
military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an
Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!
Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland"
law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman
raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on
the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.
@ChuckOrloski I
can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery.
As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and
donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these
should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally,
desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and
severely punish those who expose these crimes.
I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of
any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves
are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash.
Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel
influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness
on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside
have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making
the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that
serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons
of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens
of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders
from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."
ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing
region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying
to overthrow Syria's secular Government
and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is
the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold.
Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.
The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful
that approach turns out to be.
Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly
by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families
and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined
"Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are
believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish
areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on
Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015,
"Ideology
and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other
Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which
was protected by
the US
In September 2016 a UK official
"FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK
FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield
to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have
also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's
Government.
On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US
military website
"Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined
"WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around
twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry,
shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military
had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015,
"Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were
involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen
Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil
from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.
An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit
for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish
city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city
and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq
and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man
in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto
other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.
The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by
a brutal coup in February 2014
: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian
reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport"
near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen
minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining
on 14 March,
"Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked,
"A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The
load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's
gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland (
Obama's detail-person
overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would
never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia
was being squeezed by this fascist
Ukrainian-American ploy.
The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists.
As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana
Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :
"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed
9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."
Furthermore, On
8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000
tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via
Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey
and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."
Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled
"Islamic State Weapons
in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State
forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking
their lives to fight against those jihadists.
In December 2017, CAR headlined
"Weapons of the Islamic State"
and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition
forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.
That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining
"Russian TV
Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was
working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government
in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's
Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't
the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort
against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action,
"'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?
So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs
the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.
This is today's form of imperialism.
Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the
imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting
for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland.
That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against
corruption around the world." For example, as
RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd,
about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together
to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and
democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians
and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them.
Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors'
many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on
the take.
The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries,
and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive
Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people
never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.
Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined
"Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting
on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't
been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't
expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the
past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).
The USA 'lost' in Syria, the opposing coalition incl. Iran and Russia couldn't be faced off successfully.
Destroying Afgh., Iraq, Lybia, - all 'failures' in the sense of not garnering 'advantage' for the USA as a territory, a Federated
Nation, its citizens, its trade, boosting hopeful expansion, etc. One aim rarely mentioned is keeping allies on board, e.g. Sarkozy's
France, to invade Lybia. In France many say it was Sark I who did DE-ss-troy! Lybia.
The word *failure* is based on the acceptance of a stated aim reminiscent of old-style-colonialism: grab resources, exploit
super-cheap labor, control the natives, mine, exploit, shunt the goods / profits to home base.
If the aim is to stop rivals breathing, blast them back to the Stone Age, the success is good but relative. (see Iraq.) Private
GloboCorps (e.g. Glencore.. ) are in charge behind the curtain, many Gvmts are just stooges for them in the sense of unawoved
partnerships, the one feeding into the other, in a kind of desperado death spiral.
I have always been struck by the fact that Oil Projects / Management in Iraq, even wiki gives lists that shows major movers
and profiteers are not USA oil cos. / interests, but China, Malaysia, many others.
"... The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. ..."
"... Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ..."
In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military
bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term,
but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.
Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called
defense contractors, and the " emergency
men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the
national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some
quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits,
promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course,
that's part of the problem.
Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they
come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service
rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this:
in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they
have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation,
they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning
hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and
departing after a couple years to
make way for someone else to give it a try.
... ... ...
Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election
already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to
declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white,
that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.
Until that occurs, however, the American penchant for war will stretch on toward infinity.
No doubt Saudi and Israeli leaders will cheer, Europeans who remember their Great War will
scratch their heads in wonder, and the Chinese will laugh themselves silly. Meanwhile, issues
of genuinely strategic importance -- climate change offers one obvious example -- will continue
to be treated like an afterthought. As for the gravy train, it will roll on.
1. WW1 had total casualties (civilian and military) of around 40M. WW2 had total
casualties of 60M. So yes WW2 was more deadly but "pales in comparison" is hardly justified,
especially relative to population.
2. Marshal Foch, 28 June, 1919: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20
years."
WW1 inevitably led to WW2.
The only politician with a modest national stage to have said that (and meant it) in the
last 50 years was Ron Paul, who was booed and mocked as crazy. Trump made noises in that
direction, but almost as soon as the last words of his oath echoed off into the brisk January
afternoon, he seemed to change his tune. Whether he never meant it, or decided to avoid the
JFK treatment, who knows.
No, as I believe Will Rogers said, democracy is that form of government where the people
get what they want, good and hard.
I supported Ron Paul in 2012. But after his candidacy was crookedly subverted by the
Establishment (cf., Trump's) I vowed never to vote again for anyone that I believe unworthy
of the power wielded through the public office. I haven't voted since, and don't expect to
until the Empire collapses.
Kirk Douglas starred in a great film about fighting in World War I: "Paths of Glory." I
highly recommend the film for its accuracy, best described in Wiki by the reaction of
governments:
Controversy
On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.
In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently
criticized the film -- and its portrayal of the French Army -- after it was released in
Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European
distributor) to not release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in
1975 when social attitudes had changed.[17]
In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining
relations with France;[18] it was not shown for two years until after its release.
In Spain, Spain's right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was
first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.
In Switzerland, the film was censored, at the request of the Swiss Army, until
1970.[18]
At American bases in Europe, the American military banned it from being shown.[18]
No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they
supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.
I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public,
always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or
that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public
about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what
is wrong with the U.S. today.
As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate
stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for
there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to
govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself
surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with
them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving –
they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia.
Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with
dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.
I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to
propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are
indifferent to its very existence."
This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of
dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be
better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and
the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention
something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we
throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was
attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about
it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably
be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't
like the status quo.
After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly
beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry
chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.
No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are
simply being ignored.
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap?
You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to
JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.
Your national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They
can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge.
CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy
the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your
bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison
CIA SIS or GTFO.
Since Spain was smart enough to stay out of both World Wars (as was Switzerland, of
course), I wonder what Franco was thinking when he banned the film. Anyway, the final scene
may be the best final scene in the history of movies.
This writer, a retired military officer whose son died in service to the yankee imperium
seems to have as good a grasp as any if not a better grasp than any about the nature of the
yankee system of permanent war.
While I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected, salaried members of the
elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are Pharaohs and massively
powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.
Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then
a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must
divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here
the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are
extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.
I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could
beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and
Pharaohs because they are global.
The yawning silence accompanying the centennial of the Great War is baffling to me. It was
the pivotal event of the 20th century. It was the beginning of the unmanning, the
demoralization of Western Civilization. It was the calamity that created the World we inhabit
today.
I've heard nary a peep about it in the U.S. over the last four years. It's as if it were
as remote in people's consciousness as the Punic Wars.
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading
British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human,
and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.
Likewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate
attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again
with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.
But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their
profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.
In a traditional sense the author is right. Strategy is the attainment of political goals,
within existing constraints. (diplomatic, political, resources etc)
"Goals" traditionally means "victories". (WWI is a great example of the sometimes dubious
idea of victory)
Has the US ceased to have a strategy ? No. (Their strategy is myopic & self destructive
– ie it's not a "good" strategy)
The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony
over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. Afghanistan,
at (relatively) minimal cost, US controls key land mass (& with possible future access to
fantastic resources). Threaten, mess up Russian – Chinese ambitions in this area. Iraq:
Israeli enemy, strategic location, resource extraction. Syria: Israeli enemy, strategic
location, key location for resource transfer to markets (EU esp). Deny Russia an ally. Libya:
who cares ? Gaddafi was a pain in the arse. Iran: Israeli enemy, fantastic resources, hate
them regardless.
Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that
it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional
"war" it's pretty cheap ( which is funny, because it's such a yummy gravy train for the
1% sorry, actually, forgot the FIRST core principle of US strategy: enrich all the "right"
people)
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the
instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so
many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for
the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great,
big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be
a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is
no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side
will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing
and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently
the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long you will see this
curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of
furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as
earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and
all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who
ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen
will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man
will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and
refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that
the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of
grotesque self-deception'.
- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)
European politicians, the war on terror, and the triumph of Bankers United: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/12/europe-brainwashed-normalize-relations-russia/
"Europe has not had an independent existence for 75 years. European countries do not know
what it means to be a sovereign state. Without Washington European politicians feel lost, so
they are likely to stick with Washington .
Russian hopes to unite with the West in a war against terrorism overlook that terrorism is
the West's weapon for destabilizing independent countries that do not accept a unipolar
world."
The world is ripe for barter exchange. Screw the money changers.
On January 8, 2018, former government advisor Edward Luttwak wrote an opinion piece for
Foreign Policy titled "It's Time to Bomb North Korea."
Luttwak's thesis is relatively straightforward. There is a government out there that may
very soon acquire nuclear-weapons capabilities, and this country cannot be trusted to
responsibly handle such a stockpile. The responsibility to protect the world from a rogue
nation cannot be argued with, and we understandably have a duty to ensure the future of
humanity.
However, there is one rogue nation that continues to hold the world ransom with its nuclear
weapons supply. It is decimating non-compliant states left, right, and center. This country
must be stopped dead in its tracks before anyone turns to the issue of North Korea.
In August of 1945, this rogue nation dropped two atomic bombs on civilian targets, not
military targets, completely obliterating between 135,000 and
300,000 Japanese civilians in just these two acts alone. Prior to this event, this country
killed even more civilians in the infamous
firebombing of Tokyo and other areas of Japan, dropping close to 500,000 cylinders of
napalm and petroleum jelly on some of Japan's most densely populated areas.
Recently, historians have become more open to the possibility that dropping the atomic bombs
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not actually necessary to end World War II. This has also been
confirmed by those who actually took part in it. As the Nation
explained:
Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, stated in a public
address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings that 'the atomic bomb played
no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan ' Adm. William
"Bull" Halsey Jr., Commander of the US Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946 that 'the first
atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment . It was a mistake to ever drop it . [the
scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it
A few months' prior, this rogue country's
invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa also claimed at least one quarter of Okinawa's
population. The Okinawan people have been protesting this country's military presence ever
since. The most recent ongoing protest
has lasted well over 5,000 days in a row.
This nation's bloodlust continued well after the end of World War II. Barely half a decade
later, this country bombed North Korea into complete oblivion, destroying over 8,700 factories,
5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, 600,000 homes, and
eventually killing off as much as 20 percent of the country's population. As the Asia
Pacific Journal has noted, the assaulting country dropped so many bombs that they eventually
ran out of targets to hit, turning to bomb the irrigation systems, instead:
By the fall of 1952, there were no effective targets left for US planes to hit. Every
significant town, city and industrial area in North Korea had already been bombed. In the
spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the
North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to
the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating
whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans."
This was just the beginning. Having successfully destroyed the future North Korean
state, this country moved on to the rest of East Asia and Indo-China, too. As Rolling Stone's
Matt Taibbi
has explained :
We [this loose cannon of a nation] dumped 20 million gallons of toxic herbicide on Vietnam
from the air, just to make the shooting easier without all those trees, an insane plan to win
'hearts and minds' that has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease
– including about 100,000 children, even decades later, little kids with misshapen
heads, webbed hands and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our real American legacy, well out of
view, of course.
This mass murder led to the deaths of between 1.5 million and 3.8 million people,
according to the Washington Post. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were unleashed
during the entire
conflict in World War II . While this was going on, this same country was also
secretly bombing Laos and Cambodia, too, where there are over 80 million
unexploded bombs still killing people to this day.
This country also decided to bomb Yugoslavia ,
Panama
, and
Grenada before invading Iraq in the early 1990s. Having successfully bombed Iraqi
infrastructure, this country then punished Iraq's entire civilian population with brutal
sanctions. At the time, the U.N.
estimated that approximately 1.7 million Iraqis had died as a result, including
500,000 to 600,000 children . Some years later, a prominent medical journal attempted
to absolve the cause of this infamous history by refuting the statistics involved despite
the fact that, when interviewed during the sanctions-era, Bill Clinton's secretary of state,
Madeleine Albright, intimated that to this rogue government, the
deaths of half a million children were "worth it" as the "price" Iraq needed to pay. In other
words, whether half a million children died or not was irrelevant to this bloodthirsty nation,
which barely blinked while carrying out this murderous policy.
This almighty superpower then invaded Iraq again in 2003 and plunged the entire region
into chaos . At the end of May 2017, the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)
released a study
concluding that the death toll from this violent nation's 2003 invasion of Iraq had led to over
one million deaths and that at least one-third of them were caused directly by the invading
force.
Not to mention this country also invaded Afghanistan prior to the invasion of Iraq (even
though the militants plaguing Afghanistan were
originally trained and financed by this warmongering nation). It then
went on to bomb Yemen, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and the
Philippines .
Libya famously
had one of the highest standards of living in the region. It had state-assisted healthcare,
education, transport, and affordable housing. It is now a lawless war-zone
rife with extremism where slaves are openly traded like commodities
amid the power vacuum created as a direct result of the 2011 invasion.
In 2017, the commander-in-chief of this violent nation took the monumental death and
destruction to a new a level by removing
the restrictions on delivering airstrikes, which resulted in thousands upon
thousands of civilian deaths. Before that, in the first six months of 2017, this country
dropped
over 20,650 bombs , a monumental increase from the year that preceded it.
Despite these statistics, all of the above conquests are mere child's play to this nation.
The real prize lies in some of the more defiant and more powerful states, which this country
has already unleashed a containment strategy upon. This country has deployed its own troops all
across the border
with Russia even though it promised in the early 1990s it
would do no such thing. It also has a specific policy of
containing Russia's close ally, China, all the while threatening China's borders with talks
of direct strikes on North Korea (again, remember it already did so in the 1950s).
This country also elected a president who not only believes it is okay to embrace this rampantly violent
militarism but who openly calls other
countries "shitholes" – the very same term that aptly describes the way this country
has treated the rest of the world for decades on end. This same president also reportedly once
asked three times in a meeting
, "If we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" and shortly after proposed a policy to
remove the constraints protecting the world from his dangerous supply of advanced nuclear
weaponry.
If we have any empathy for humanity, it is clear that this country must be stopped. It
cannot continue to act like this to the detriment of the rest of the planet and the safety and
security of the rest of us. This country
openly talks about using its nuclear weapons, has used them before, and has continued to
use all manner of weapons unabated in the years since while threatening to expand the use of
these weapons to other countries.
Seriously, if North Korea seems like a threat, imagine how the rest of the world feels while
watching one country violently take on the rest of the planet single-handedly, leaving nothing
but destruction in its wake and promising nothing less than a nuclear holocaust in the years to
come.
There is only one country that has done and that continues to do the very things North Korea
is being accused of doing.
Take as much time as you need for that to resonate.
1 The Korean War ends (1953
2 President Kennedy invades South Vietnam (1962)
3 The US overthrows Allende in Chile (1973)
4 The West installs Iranian dictator the Shah (1953)
5 The US-led Iraq invasion (2003)
Many honorable mentions including:
– NATO bombing of Serbia
– Libya
– Afghanistan
– Syria (support of ISIS and its predecessors and spinoffs)
The US body count is simply staggering – many millions killed, millions more wounded
or poisoned (Vietnam – agent orange and other chemical agents) and tens of millions of
lives forever damaged.
USA! USA! USA! (its elites that rule us of course!)
"... In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its "exceptionalism", Burns' "entirely new" Vietnam war is presented as "epic, historic work". Its lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in Vietnam. ..."
"... The cynical fabrication of "false flags" that led to the invasion of Vietnam is a matter of record – the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" in 1964, which Burns promotes as true, was just one. The lies litter a multitude of official documents, notably the Pentagon Papers ..."
"... Today, according to secret Nato documents obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zetung, this vital treaty is likely to be abandoned as "nuclear targeting planning is increased". The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned against "repeating the worst mistakes of the Cold War All the good treaties on disarmament and arms control from Gorbachev and Reagan are in acute peril. Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this." ..."
"... Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record, including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama's overthrow of Ukraine's elected government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia's western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941. ..."
In a society often bereft of historical memory and in thrall to the propaganda of its
"exceptionalism", Burns' "entirely new" Vietnam war is presented as "epic, historic work". Its
lavish advertising campaign promotes its biggest backer, Bank of America, which in 1971 was
burned down by students in Santa Barbara, California, as a symbol of the hated war in
Vietnam.
Burns says he is grateful to "the entire Bank of America family" which "has long supported
our country's veterans". Bank of America was a corporate prop to an invasion that killed
perhaps as many as four million Vietnamese and ravaged and poisoned a once bountiful land. More
than 58,000 American soldiers were killed, and around the same number are estimated to have
taken their own lives.
I watched the first episode in New York. It leaves you in no doubt of its intentions right
from the start. The narrator says the war "was begun in good faith by decent people out of
fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and Cold War misunderstandings".
The dishonesty of this statement is not surprising. The cynical fabrication of "false flags"
that led to the invasion of Vietnam is a matter of record – the Gulf of Tonkin "incident"
in 1964, which Burns promotes as true, was just one. The lies litter a multitude of official
documents, notably the Pentagon Papers , which the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg
released in 1971.
There was no good faith. The faith was rotten and cancerous. For me – as it must be
for many Americans ! it is difficult to watch the film's jumble of "red peril" maps,
unexplained interviewees, ineptly cut archive and maudlin American battlefield sequences.
... ... ...
The sheer energy and moral persistence of these great movements largely succeeded; by 1987
Reagan had negotiated with Mikhail Gorbachev an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)
that effectively ended the Cold War.
Today, according to secret Nato documents obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeutsche
Zetung, this vital treaty is likely to be abandoned as "nuclear targeting planning is
increased". The German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned against "repeating the worst
mistakes of the Cold War All the good treaties on disarmament and arms control from Gorbachev
and Reagan are in acute peril. Europe is threatened again with becoming a military training
ground for nuclear weapons. We must raise our voice against this."
But not in America. The thousands who turned out for Senator Bernie Sanders' "revolution" in
last year's presidential campaign are collectively mute on these dangers. That most of
America's violence across the world has been perpetrated not by Republicans, or mutants like
Trump, but by liberal Democrats, remains a taboo.
Barack Obama provided the apotheosis, with seven simultaneous wars, a presidential record,
including the destruction of Libya as a modern state. Obama's overthrow of Ukraine's elected
government has had the desired effect: the massing of American-led Nato forces on Russia's
western borderland through which the Nazis invaded in 1941.
"... Using data compiled by a Geography and Native Studies professor from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, the indy100 team created an interactive map of U.S. military incursions outside its own borders from Argentina in 1890 to Syria in 2014. ..."
"... " Deployment of the military to evacuate American citizens, covert military actions by US intelligence, providing military support to an internal opposition group, providing military support in one side of a conflict, use of the army in drug enforcement actions. ..."
Tyler Durden
Aug 26, 2017 9:15 PM 0
SHARES
US has had a military presence across the world
, from almost day one of its independence.
For those who have ever wanted a clearer picture of the true reach of the United States
military - both historically and currently - but shied away due to the sheer volume of research
required to find an answer,
The Anti Media points out
that
a crew at the
Independent
just made things a whole lot simpler.
Using data compiled by a Geography and Native Studies
professor
from Evergreen State College in
Olympia, Washington, the indy100 team
created
an interactive map of U.S. military incursions outside its own borders from
Argentina in 1890 to Syria in 2014.
To avoid confusion, indy100 laid out its prerequisites for what constitutes an invasion:
" Deployment of the military to evacuate American citizens, covert military actions by US
intelligence, providing military support to an internal opposition group, providing military
support in one side of a conflict, use of the army in drug enforcement actions.
But indy100 didn't stop there.
To put all that history into context, using
data
from the Department
of Defense (DOD), the team also put together a map to display all the countries in which nearly
200,000 active members of the U.S. military are now stationed.
"... As for Washington and the proverbially bombastic, failed futurists across the Beltway, do they even know what is the end game of "investing" in two never-ending wars with no visible benefits? ..."
As for Washington and the proverbially bombastic, failed futurists across the Beltway, do they even know what is the
end game of "investing" in two never-ending wars with no visible benefits?
You start by assuming that the absence of war is the ultimate good, but none can say what a world without war would be like,
or how long it would last.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/20/wars-john-gray-conflict-peace
Has the world seen moral progress? The answer should not depend on whether one has a sunny or a morose temperament. Everyone
agrees that life is better than death, health better than sickness, prosperity better than privation, freedom better than tyranny,
peace better than war. All of these can be measured, and the results plotted over time. If they go up, that's progress.
For John Gray, this is a big problem. As a part of his campaign against reason, science and Enlightenment humanism, he insists
that the strivings of humanity over the centuries have left us no better off. This dyspepsia was hard enough to sustain when
Gray first expressed it in the teeth of obvious counterexamples such as the abolition of human sacrifice, chattel slavery and
public torture-executions. But as scholars have increasingly measured human flourishing, they have found that Gray is not just
wrong but howlingly, flat-earth, couldn't-be-more-wrong wrong. The numbers show that after millennia of near-universal poverty
and despotism, a steadily growing proportion of humankind is surviving infancy and childbirth, going to school, voting in democracies,
living free of disease, enjoying the necessities of modern life and surviving to old age.
And more people are living in peace. In the 1980s several military scholars noticed to their astonishment that the most
destructive form of armed conflict – wars among great powers and developed states – had effectively ceased to exist. At the
time this "long peace" could have been dismissed as a random lull, but it has held firm for an additional three decades.
In my opinion Gray, though wrong that violence is not decreasing, is onto something about the future being bleak because of
the rise of meliorist assumptions, because perpetual peace will be humanity's tomb.
While many suggest a danger for our world along the lines of
Brian Cox's explanation for the Fermi Paradox (ie intelligent life forms cross grainedly bring on self-annihilation through
unlimited war) I take a different view.
Given that Pinker appears substantially correct that serious war (ie wars among great powers and developed states) have effectively
ceased to exist, the trend is for peace and cooperation. Martin Nowak in his book The Supercoperators shows cooperation, not fighting,
to be the defining human trait (and indeed the most cooperative groups won their wars in history, whereby nation states
such the US are the result of not just individuals but familial tribal regional , and virtually continental groupings coming together
for mutual advantage and defence .
The future is going to be global integration pursuit of economic objectives, and I think this exponential moral progress bill
begat technological advances beyond imagining.. An escape from the war trap is almost complete and the Singularity becomes. The
most likely culprit in the paradox is a technological black hole event horizon created by unlimited peace and progress.
Cross-grained though it may be to say that the good war hallows every cause, I think it not so bad in comparison with the alternative.
Well put. These people are like the "nobles" of medieval times. They care not a whit about the "peasants" they trample. They
are wealth bigots, compounded by some ethnic bigotry or other, in this case Jewish supremacism. America has an oligarchy problem.
At the center of that oligarchy is a Jewish mafia controlling the banks, and thereby the big corporations, and thereby the media
and the government. This oligarchy sees America as a big, dumb military machine that it can manipulate to generate war profits.
"... There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK forces thinking. They insisted on UN legal cover cover the invasion of Iraq but were totally on board with pre-emptive action in Libya, happily training effectively ISIS forces before Gaddafi was removed. They are now training Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and training ISIS/whatever in Syria, effectively invading the country. I guess this may reflect the increasing direct Zionist control of Perfidious Albion with attendant levels of hubris. ..."
The Russians were there in Yugoslavia but they were not following NATO's script. There was an incident where Russian forces
took control of a key airport to the total surprise of NATO. The US overall commander ordered the UK to go in and kick the Russians
out. The UK ground commander wisely said he was not prepared to start WW III over Russian control of an airfield.
There has been a gradual decline in the rationality of UK forces thinking. They insisted on UN legal cover cover the invasion
of Iraq but were totally on board with pre-emptive action in Libya, happily training effectively ISIS forces before Gaddafi was
removed. They are now training Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and training ISIS/whatever in Syria, effectively invading the country. I guess
this may reflect the increasing direct Zionist control of Perfidious Albion with attendant levels of hubris.
According to some commenters at MoA the US neocons can be viewed as a flavor of political psychopaths: "Linear thinking is precisely
how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation.
It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking
because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates
think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone
straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced
and banished from the Washington tribe."
and " the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath
manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough
about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops
in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things
to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create
our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single
time. "
Notable quotes:
"... Provided the gross flaws of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying. ..."
"... Barack CIA 0bama. ..."
"... It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. ..."
"... Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit? ..."
"... Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives. ..."
"... you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals? ..."
"... it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion. ..."
"... the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him. ..."
"... Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP. ..."
"... There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade. ..."
"... My only gripe with his work is that he always describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc. ..."
"... Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe. ..."
"... the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told, break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed. ..."
"... Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but who cares, the cash keeps flowing. ..."
"... It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end - but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that. ..."
"... Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them! ..."
"... Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic damage. ..."
"... America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road to destruction. ..."
"... the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single time. ..."
"... The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression. ..."
"... Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization is the embodiment of that propaganda. ..."
"... The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored. The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated. The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story. ..."
"... Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is often quite noticeable in comments at SST. ..."
"... The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality. The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane. If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it. ..."
"linear"?, I would say amateurish and often stupid! It seems that the USA cannot see far enough as it's submitted to regime changes
every 5 years and decisions are finally left to powerful lobbies that have a better continuity.
Provided the gross flaws
of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive
universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying.
"Linear" and all that is the mushy feel-good stuff on top of your arrogance. Kleptocracy only NOW putting down its roots? Come
on. Let's get back to the 90's where it started. Vengeance for 9/11? Cover?
It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. All's well in the world with
them as long as the USSA is grinding away on some near helpless ME country. Drugs and other natural resources flow from and death
and destruction flow to the unsuspecting Muslim targets.
With America, you're our friend, (or at least we tolerate you) until you're not (or we don't), then God help you and your innocent
hoards.
The organized and well scripted chaos has been just one act in the larger play of destroying western civilization with throngs
of Muslims now flooding western Europe and to a lesser degree, USA. Of course, the Deep State had felt confident in allowing Latinos
to destroy America...Trump has put a large crimp in the pipeline--one of the reasons he is hated so badly by the destructive PTB.
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective
and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.
It is entirely possible that the underlying objective of, for instance, invading Iraq was to win a war and bring democracy.
Subsequent behaviour in Iraq (and Afghanistan) indicates that there might be (likely is) a hidden but central other objective.
I do not want to state that I know what that is because I am not "in the know". However, much that you attribute to failure from
linear thinking just as easily can be explained by the complexity of realizing a "hidden agenda".
Perhaps we can learn from history. Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a
game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power
and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having
sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit?
Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted
by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as
partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make
them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives.
Russia learnt a huge lesson from their experience in Afghanistan. There they retreated in the face of a violent Wahabist insurgency
and paid the price. The Soviet union collapsed and became vulnerable to western free-market gangsterism as well as suffering the
blowback of terrorism in Chechnya, where they decided to play it very differently. A bit more like how Assad senior dealt with
the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980's.
Russia knew that if ISIS and friends were allowed to destroy Syria like the Mujahadeen
had done in Afghanistan, then it would only be a matter of time before blowback would come again to Russia.
Russia's involvement is entirely rational and in their national interest. It should never have come as a surprise to the US,
and the US should shake off their cold war propaganda and be grateful that people are willing to put their lives on the line to
defeat Wahabist terrorism. Russia has played a focused line with integrity. Many Syrians love them for this, and many more in
the Middle East will likewise adopt a similar line.
In other words, the linear mindset blocks out all non-conforming realities in the present and those contingent elements
which might arise in the future
you mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals?
i kinda skimmed this piece, but it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy
without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion.
Brenner: Washington never really had a plan in Syria.
Really? Firstly, the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on
a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the
strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him.
Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in
this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP.
The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities
has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic
to Al Qaeda.
In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January [2007], Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
that there is "a new strategic alignment in the Middle East," separating "reformers" and "extremists"; she pointed to the Sunni
states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were "on the other side of that divide."
Lastly, Brenner's complaint that Obama has been "scape-goated" as having created ISIS conveniently ignores Obama's allowing ISIS
to grow by down-playing the threat that it represented. Obama's called ISIS al Queda's "JV team" and senior intelligence analysts
dutifully distorted intelligence to down-play the threat (see below). This was one of many deceptions that Obama took part in
- if not orchestrated (others: "moderate rebels", Benghazi, the "Fiscal Cliff", bank bailouts).
After months of investigation, this much is very clear: from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States
Central Command's most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command's intelligence products to downplay the threat from
ISIS in Iraq" . . .
The Joint Task Force can find no justifiable reason why operational reporting was repeatedly used as a rationale to change
the analytic product, particularly when the changes only appeared to be made in a more optimistic direction . . .
There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's
break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade.
Russia has also benefited through the non-linear analysis of US diplomacy failures of the last two decades. Russia has created
a coalition backing up their military entry into the Middle East that allows achievement of tangible objectives at a sustainable
cost.
But b's article is about the US's dismal diplomacy that is exacerbating its rapid empire decline and it does very well to help
explain the rigid lack of thought that hastens the deterioration of US influence.
This article makes a lot of good points, but I didn't really grasp exactly what "linear" thinking is. OK. Venezuela very well
may be turning into a situation. What is the "linear" approach? What, instead, would be the "non-linear" approach? This article
cites many "linear" failures. It would be helpful also to learn of some non-linear successes. If not by the United States then
by somebody else.
Let me clarify my prior posting. This article seems to be asserting that the United States has attempted to pound the square peg
of its policy objectives into the round hole of the Middle East. I pretty much agree with that idea. But how is this "linear,"
as opposed to "bull-headed"? How does being "non-linear" help with the pounding? Would not adapting our policies to pound a round
peg instead be just as "linear" but more clever?
Thanks for posting these great observations by Michael Brenner, b.
The link to his bio on University of Pitsburg site is broken and the page is gone, but it still exists for now in Google's
cache from Aug. 1st
here . His bio can also be found under this ">https://www.theglobalist.com/united-states-common-man-forgotten-by-elites/">this
article from The Globalist
Everything I've read of Dr. Brenner that I've stumbled across is brilliant. My only gripe with his work is that he always
describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never
goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy
infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc.
While he is quite accurate in describing the symptoms, one is left with the impression that they are the things to be
fixed. Linear thinking in a U.S. foreign policy of aggression? Absolutely, but it's pointless to 'fix' that without understanding
the cause.
Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population
for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money,
guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear
thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters
will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels
that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe.
Does anyone in Washington REALLY want to 'save' the Persians and 'rebuild' Iran as they imagine America did post WWII to German
and Japan? Or is the more overriding intent to punish and destroy a leadership that will not submit to the political and commercial
interests in the US? Of course the U.S. fails to deliver any benefits to the 'little people' after destroying their country and
government - they are incapable of understanding what the 'little people' want (same goes for domestic issues in the U.S.).
The U.S. government and leadership do not need lessons to modify their techniques or 'thinking' - they are incapable of doing
so. You can't 'talk a psychopath into having empathy' any more than you can talk them out of having smallpox. 'The law' and voting
were intentionally broken in the U.S. to make them all but useless to fix Washington, yet a zombified American public will continue
to use the religiously (or sit back and watch others use them religiously) with little result. Because we're a democracy and a
nation of laws - the government will fix anything broken with those tools.
In a certain sense, I'm glad Brennan does NOT go on about psychopathy in his articles. He would sound as tedious and nutty
as I do here and would never be allowed near Washington. I'll just be grateful for his thorough illustration of the symptoms for
now.
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective
and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.
First, this is more an analysis of military failure to "do the job" that Washington "strategic thinkers" tell them to do, and
the reasons why it's such a futile game. In our system of government, the military does tactics, not strategy. And the above article,
which should be passed out to every politician in this country, isn't really about "the objective".
For example, the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors
and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected
strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told,
break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency
gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever
dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed.
Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from
reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and
breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers
and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling
arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to
keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but
who cares, the cash keeps flowing.
And if you want to know why the Borg State got firmly behind Hillary Clinton, it's because they could see her supporting this
agenda wholeheartedly, especially after Libya. Here's a comment she wrote to Podesta on 2014-08-19, a long 'strategy piece' ending
with this note:
Note: It is important to keep in mind that as a result of this policy there probably will be concern in the Sunni regions of
Iraq and the Central Government regarding the possible expansion of KRG controlled territory. With advisors in the Peshmerga
command we can reassure the concerned parties that, in return for increase autonomy, the KRG will not exclude the Iraqi Government
from participation in the management of the oil fields around Kirkuk, and the Mosel Dam hydroelectric facility. At the same
time we will be able to work with the Peshmerga as they pursue ISIL into disputed areas of Eastern Syria, coordinating with
FSA troops who can move against ISIL from the North. This will make certain Basher al Assad does not gain an advantage from
these operations. Finally, as it now appears the U.S. is considering a plan to offer contractors as advisors to the Iraqi Ministry
of Defense, we will be in a position to coordinate more effectively between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army.
It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end
- but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation
between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead
on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that.
Regardless, it looks like end times for the American empire, very similar to how the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980s, and
the last days of the French and British empires in the 1950s. And good riddance, it's become a dead weight dragging down the standard
of living for most American citizens who aren't on that gravy train.
Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems
is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power
to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such
a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them!
Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there
are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such
policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic
damage.
America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down
on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on
committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that
raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road
to destruction.
There's a lot in both this piece and the comments. In a sense, I wonder if the core issue behind the Neocon/Imperial mindset isn't
a complete inability to see the other side's point of view. Psychopathy, short-termism (a common fault in businesspeople), divorce
from reality and hubris are likely a good part of it, as somebody, Paveway IV, Makutwa and nonsense factory put it, but the
Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to
fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough
about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the
troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way
of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly,
that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to
disaster every single time.
I would paraphrase critics of b that he (she?) has fallen into linearity trap: one point is the resources spent by USA on wars
of 21-st century (a lot), the second points are positive results (hardly any), and an intellectual charge proceeds from A to B.
However between A and B there can be diversity of problems. We can stock enough gasoline, run out of potable water. And indeed,
you can encounter pesky terrain. I recall a family vacation trip where we visited Natural Bridges National Monument and we proceeded
to Arizona on an extremely straight highway through pretty flat plateau. Then the pavement end, and the acrophobic designated
driver has to negotiate several 180* hairpins to get down on a cliff flanking Monument Valley. After second inspection, the map
had tiny letters "switchbacks" and a tiny fragment of the road not marked with the pavement. Still better than discovering "bridge
out" annotation on your map only when you gaze at the water flowing between two bridge heads. (If I recall, during late 20-th
century Balkan intervention, US military needed a lot of time to cross Danube river that unexpectedly had no functioning bridge
where they wanted to operate. Landscape changes during a war.)
That said, military usually has an appreciation for terrain. But there are also humans. On domestic side, the number of experts
on those distant societies is small, and qualified experts, minuscule. Because the qualified ones were disproportionally naysayers,
the mere whiff if expertise was treated as treason, and we had a purge of "Arabists". And it was of course worse in the lands
to charm and conquer. Effective rule requires local hands to follow our wishes, people who can be trusted. And, preferably, not
intensely hated by the locals they are supposed to administer. And like with gasoline, water, food, etc. on a vacation trip (who
forgot mosquito repellent!), the list of needed traits is surprisingly long. Like viewing collaboration with Israel supporting
infidels as a mortal sin that can be perpetrated to spare the family from starvation (you can recruit them, success!), but it
has to be atoned through backstabbing (local cadres are disappointing).
Great analysis! This is an excellent example for why I read MOA at least once a day and most of the comments! There's something
of a sad irony that Trump has made at least some kind of effort to thwart the neocons and their relentless rush toward armageddon,
seeing as how lacking in any real intellectual capcity they all seem and with Trump at the helm?
Mostly tptb, our political class, and the pundits for the masses, seem all to exhibit an astonishingly dull witted lack of
true concern or humanity for anybody anywhere, and in my years on earth so far, at least in America, they have inculcated in the
population very dubious ethical chioces, which you would think were tragic, and decisions, which you would believe were doomed,
from the wars being waged, to the lifestyles of the citizenry especially toward the top of the economic ladder, and I don't know
about others here but I for one have been confronting and dealing with these problems both in family and aquaintances for my entire
adult life! Like the battle at Kurushetra. At least they say they "have a plan," scoffingly.
Where is chipnik to weigh in on this with his poetic observations, or I think long ago it was "slthrop" who may have been bannned
for foul language as he or she raged on at the absurdities that keep heaping up exponentially? I do miss them!
Oh well, life is relatively short and we will all be gone at some point and our presense here will be one and all less than
an iota. An awareness of this one fact and its implications you would think would pierce the consciousness of every human being
well before drawing their final breath, but I guess every McCain fails to realize until too late that the jig is up?
Justin Glyn@20 "but the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda."
The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate
their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression.
Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession
with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization
is the embodiment of that propaganda.
The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing
Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored.
The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated.
The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story.
Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in
US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is
often quite noticeable in comments at SST.
That it why the US in its arrogance has failed in Syria, and Russia with its tiny force has been so successful.
The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality.
The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such
a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The
country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial
designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading
to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually
incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like
John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane.
If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime
change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to
decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it.
"... A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating, if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature, is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it; of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it. ..."
"... My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us. ..."
"... Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again. ..."
Consider this article a work of speculation; a jumble of ideas thrown at a blank canvas.
A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating,
if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature,
is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to
teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it;
of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it.
For example, America's overseas wars today are both abstractions and distractions. They're also somewhat surreal to most Americans,
living as we do in comparative safety and material luxury (when compared to most other peoples of the world). Abstraction and surrealism:
two art styles that may say something vital about America's wars.
If some aspects of America's wars are surreal and others abstract, if reports of those wars are often impressionistic and often
blurred beyond recognition, this points to, I think, the highly stylized representations of war that are submitted for our consideration.
What we don't get very often is realism. Recall how the Bush/Cheney administration forbade photos of flag-draped coffins returning
from Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of all the war reporting you've seen on U.S. TV and Cable networks, and ask how many times you saw
severed American limbs and dead bodies on a battlefield. (On occasion, dead bodies of the enemy are shown, usually briefly and abstractly,
with no human backstory.)
Of course, there's no "real" way to showcase the brutal reality of war, short of bringing a person to the front and having them
face fire in combat -- a level of "participatory" art that sane people would likely seek to avoid. What we get, as spectators (which
is what we're told to remain in America), is an impression of combat. Here and there, a surreal report. An abstract news clip. Blown
up buildings become exercises in neo-Cubism; melted buildings and weapons become Daliesque displays. Severed limbs (of the enemy)
are exercises in the grotesque. For the vast majority of Americans, what's lacking is raw immediacy and gut-wrenching reality.
Again, we are spectators, not participants. And our responses are often as stylized and limited as the representations are. As
Rebecca Gordon put it from a different angle at
TomDispatch.com , when it comes to America's wars, are we participating in reality or merely watching reality TV? And why are
so many so prone to confuse or conflate the two?
Art, of course, isn't the only lens through which we can see and interpret America's wars. Advertising, especially hyperbole,
is also quite revealing. Thus the US military has been sold, whether by George W. Bush or Barack Obama, as "the world's finest military
in history" or WFMH, an acronym I just made up, and which should perhaps come with a copyright or trademark symbol after it. It's
classic advertising hyperbole. It's salesmanship in place of reality.
So, when other peoples beat our WFMH, we should do what Americans do best: sue them for copyright infringement. Our legions of
lawyers will most certainly beat their cadres of counsels. After all, under Bush/Cheney, our lawyers tortured logic and the law to
support torture itself. Talk about surrealism!
My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least
in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the
ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us.
As I said, this is me throwing ideas at the canvas of my computer screen. Do they make any sense to you? Feel free to pick up
your own brush and compose away in the comments section.
P.S. Danger, Will Robinson. I've never taken an art theory class or studied advertising closely.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools
and blogs at Bracing Views . He can be reached at
[email protected] . Reprinted from Bracing
Views with the author's permission.
Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a
Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again.
"... It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. ..."
"JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has two big pronouncements as the Trump administration starts reshaping
the government: "The United States of America is truly an exceptional country," and "it is clear that something is wrong."
Dimon, leader of world's most valuable bank and a counselor to the new president, used his 45-page annual letter to shareholders
on Tuesday to list ways America is stronger than ever -- before jumping into a much longer list of self-inflicted problems that
he said was "upsetting" to write.
Here's the start: Since the turn of the century, the U.S. has dumped trillions of dollars into wars, piled huge debt onto students,
forced legions of foreigners to leave after getting advanced degrees, driven millions of Americans out of the workplace with felonies
for sometimes minor offenses and hobbled the housing market with hastily crafted layers of rules.
Dimon, who sits on Donald Trump's business forum aimed at boosting job growth, is renowned for his optimism and has been voicing
support this year for parts of the president's business agenda. In February, Dimon predicted the U.S. would have a bright economic
future if the new administration carries out plans to overhaul taxes, rein in rules and boost infrastructure investment. In an
interview last month, he credited Trump with boosting consumer and business confidence in growth, and reawakening "animal spirits."
But on Tuesday, reasons for concern kept coming. Labor market participation is low, Dimon wrote. Inner-city schools are failing
poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure planning and spending
is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous it's driving capital
and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive.
" It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and
governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free
enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. "...
"Inner-city schools are failing poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure
planning and spending is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous
it's driving capital and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive."
Let's unpack his list. The 4th (last) sentence is his hope that his bank can back to the unregulated regime that brought us
the Great Recession. His 3rd sentence is a call for more tax cuts for the rich.
We may like his first 2 sentences here but who is going to pay for this? Not Jamie Dimon. See sentence #3.
Why would you object to government creating more demand for labor? Over time, wages will rise and higher wages will fund more
demand for labor produced goods.
"... As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror" into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice. ..."
Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize -- for not being George W. Bush. This seemed unseemly at the time, but not outrageous.
Seven years later, it seems grotesque.
As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror"
into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice.
ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY
(Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS
(Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is
In Bad Faith: What's Wrong With the
Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy)
at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics
of Illusion (AK Press).
"... Although the bill has not said which specific Russians, the nature of the bill means that there will be inevitable sanctions against Russia as it is a top weapon exporter to Syria, which will unlikely change despite of the new sanctions. Those in the eventual sanction list will face an American blacklist, which means a ban on entry, freezing of assets in the United States, a ban on doing business with this person for American citizens or companies. At the same time, the bill allows that the US President can consider each case separately and refuse to impose sanctions. ..."
"... Washington is frustrated that European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the U.S., which calls into question the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe. It is a very risky measure and Europe would need to have a blunt attitude of rejection of these measures imposed by the U.S., because its own economy is at risk. ..."
"... Effectively, the "Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act," which strangely targets Russia who had a greater role than the U.S. in defeating ISIS terrorists, is just another way for Washington to warn other countries not to buy the S-400 or Russian military equipment or engage in energy diplomacy with Moscow. It is unlikely that this will deter states from conducting arms and energy deals with Russia as Moscow has been pioneering anti-sanction measures to protect financial transactions without punishment, and rather it demonstrates a Washington that is becoming increasingly desperate in the Era of Multipolarity. ..."
Washington's Proposed New Sanctions Against Turkey also Aimed Against Russia
December 18, 2019 A Opinion Leave a commentWith the world fixated on Turkish actions
against Syria, Greece and Libya at the moment, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate
of the United States Congress approved a bill, "Promoting American National Security and
Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act," spearheaded and thoroughly promoted by staunch
anti-Syria/Venezuela/Iran/Russia Democratic Senator Robert Menendez who celebrated the bills
passing
on his Twitter . The Republican-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 18-4 to send
the bill for a vote in the full Senate.
The approval of the bill was widely reported in the mainstream media as an "anti-Turkey
bill." Senator Jim Risch, the panel's Republican chairman, a fellow endorser of the bill with
Menendez, said that the approval of this bill is because of the "drift by this country, Turkey,
to go in an entirely different direction than what they have in the past. They've thumbed their
nose at us, and they've thumbed their nose at their other NATO allies."
According to
the draft bill , the Turkish acquisition of the powerful S-400 missile defense system gives
grounds to impose sanctions against this country, under the Countering America's Adversaries
Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). In particular, the document restricts the sale of U.S. weapons
to Turkey and imposes sanctions on Turkish officials responsible for supplying weapons towards
their
illegal military operation in Syria.
Turkey signed in December 2017 the first contract with Russia for the purchase of the S-400
for a value of $2.5 billion, which caused tension in relations between Ankara and Washington.
The U.S. demanded that Ankara renounce that transaction and buy U.S. Patriot systems, and
threatened to delay or cancel the sale of the F-35 fighters to Turkey. Ankara refused to make
concessions and assured that its purpose of acquiring Russian systems remains firm.
What was missed, perhaps intentionally by the majority of the mainstream media is that this
bill has a heavy anti-Russian/Syrian component to it. Although not as detailed and expansive as
the Turkish section of the bill, it claims that "the Russian Federation and Iran continue to
exploit a security vacuum in Syria and continue to pose a threat to vital United States
national security interests," without explaining what these security interests are, exactly as
we have become accustomed to.
According to the bill, there will be a
"list of each Russian person that, on or after such date of enactment, knowingly exports,
transfers, or otherwise provides to Syria significant financial, material, or technological
support that contributes materially to the ability of the Government of Syria to acquire
defense articles, defense services, and related information."
Although the bill has not said which specific Russians, the nature of the bill means that
there will be inevitable sanctions against Russia as it is a top weapon exporter to Syria,
which will unlikely change despite of the new sanctions. Those in the eventual sanction list
will face an American blacklist, which means a ban on entry, freezing of assets in the United
States, a ban on doing business with this person for American citizens or companies. At the
same time, the bill allows that the US President can consider each case separately and refuse
to impose sanctions.
These proposed new sanctions that will have to pass the House of Representatives, which
passed its own anti-Turkish sanctions bill by an overwhelming 403-16 vote in October, is part
of a wider effort for the U.S. to keep pressurizing Russia's economy. On December 9, the
committees of both chambers of the U.S. Congress previously agreed on the military budget for
2020, which includes restrictions against the Nord Stream 2 and Turk Stream pipelines to bring
Russian energy to Europe, infrastructures designed to raise Europe's energy security. The U.S.
bill that provides sanctions against companies participating in the laying of the Nord Stream 2
gas pipeline aims to obtain unilateral advantages in the gas area to the detriment of the
interests of the countries of Europe. This prompted the chairman of the Board of Directors of
the Russian-German Foreign Chamber of Commerce, Matthias Schepp, to explain that the new
measures against Nord Stream 2 affect not only Russia, but, above all, European companies and
Germany's energy interests.
Washington is frustrated that European energy policy is decided in Europe, not in the U.S.,
which calls into question the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe. It is a very risky
measure and Europe would need to have a blunt attitude of rejection of these measures imposed
by the U.S., because its own economy is at risk.
Effectively, the "Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS
Act," which strangely targets Russia who had a greater role than the U.S. in defeating ISIS
terrorists, is just another way for Washington to warn other countries not to buy the S-400 or
Russian military equipment or engage in energy diplomacy with Moscow. It is unlikely that this
will deter states from conducting arms and energy deals with Russia as Moscow has been
pioneering anti-sanction
measures to protect financial transactions without punishment, and rather it demonstrates a
Washington that is becoming increasingly desperate in the Era of Multipolarity.
After more than 17 years of the United States pouring blood and treasure into the effort
to build an Afghan army and government, why is it that the Kabul government continues to lose
ground against the Taliban? Further, why were we unsuccessful creating an Iraqi army that
could stand on its own against the Islamic State?
Before that, of course, came Vietnam.
Nor was that the start of the failure of American-backed armies. I was a teenager in 1949
when Chiang Kai-shek's American-backed Nationalist army lost to the Communist forces of Mao
Zedong in China. The American secretary of state, Dean Acheson, having conducted a study on
why our side lost, declared: "The Nationalist armies did not have to be defeated; they
disintegrated. History has proved again and again that a regime without faith in itself, and
an army without morale, cannot survive the test of battle."
Forty-four years ago, the American-trained and American-supplied army of South Vietnam
simply melted away before the less-well-equipped but better-motivated army of North Vietnam.
In 1975, I watched South Vietnamese soldiers taking off their uniforms and running away in
their underwear as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon.
Five years ago, the world watched another American-trained and American-equipped Iraqi
army bolt and run when the better motivated Islamic State forces overran Mosul in Northern
Iraq.
Why, over and over again, does the side America has backed in these civil wars end up
defeated? Four threads connect these lost wars of the last 70 years: corruption, patriotic
nationalism, a misplaced belief in American exceptionalism, and self-deception.
I saw corruption on a grand scale in Saigon. Generals and government officials were
funneling America's tax dollars into bank accounts abroad, fielding ghost armies in which
there were fewer soldiers on the ground than on the official payrolls. In Baghdad during the
American occupation, I learned that billions of American taxpayer dollars were bleeding out
to the Persian Gulf and Jordan, causing a laundered money real estate boom in the Jordanian
capital. In Afghanistan I learned that Afghan officers and soldiers routinely robbed the
villages they were sent to protect. Corruption sapped the people's belief in their US-backed
government in all four wars. Soldiers saw no reason to die for corrupt officials.
A second thread is that our side always appeared to be fighting on the side of foreigners,
while the Communists in China and Vietnam, as well as the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan,
always had a better grip on patriotic nationalism and resistance to foreigners. The
anti-colonial struggle was more important than the threat of Communism in most of the
post-World War II world, and the Islamist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan knew how to
exploit the traditional resistance to foreign rule. The Taliban could appeal to patriotism
while trying to expel the infidel forces of the United States, just as their fathers,
grandfathers, and great grandfathers had resisted the Russians and the British before that in
the name of jihad.
A third thread is a curiously American trait of willfully ignoring other people's history
and cultures. I remember asking an American officer in Vietnam if he had read anything of the
French experience in Vietnam. His answer: "No, why should I? They lost, didn't they?" Robert
McNamara, defense secretary and an architect of our Vietnam War, said in later life that
Americans had never understood the Vietnamese. There were plenty of people who could have
helped him understand, but he wasn't interested. We were Americans -- exceptional, and
therefore not susceptible to the same forces that thwarted other efforts.
I met Americans in the Green Zone in Baghdad who knew nothing about the great schism
between Sunnis and Shia Muslims that was tearing the country apart. American-style democracy
was the answer to all ills, they felt. In Afghanistan I met Americans who thought purple ink
on the fingers of Afghans who had voted was the answer to a thousand years of tribal and
ethnic rivalries.
The fourth thread is self-deception. In Saigon, in Baghdad, and in Kabul I attended
briefings in which progress was always being made, the trend lines were always favorable, and
we were always winning wars we were actually losing. Wishful thinking is no substitute for
reality. Americans can train and assist the armies of those whom we want to support in the
civil wars of others, but we cannot supply the motivation and morale that is necessary to
survive the test of battle.
As we observe another anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack that shattered American
life 18 years ago, its full impact is still unfolding. Those who planned it succeeded beyond
their wildest dreams. The airborne assaults that took nearly 3,000 lives on that day may now
be seen as the most diabolically successful terror attack in history. That attack not only
wreaked carnage at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania.
It wound up dragging the United States into an endless state of war that has drained our
treasury, poisoned our politics, created waves of new terrorism, and made us the enemy of
millions around the world.
The apparent chief perpetrator of the 9/11 attack, Osama bin Laden, presumably cackled
with joy when he heard news of his success on that stunning day. He lived for another 10
years, long enough to cackle with even greater glee at Washington's self-defeating response
to the attack. Using the 9/11 attack as a pretext, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
Bin Laden died knowing that he had lured us into the greatest foreign policy disaster in
American history.
It is a truism that our lives are shaped not by what happens to us, but by how we react to
what happens to us. The same applies to nations. Devastating as the death toll was on Sept.
11, 2001, it turned out to be only a taste of what was to come. The United States has been at
war ever since. Thousands of Americans have died. So have hundreds of thousands of civilians
in the Middle East and beyond. This nearly two-decade-long spasm of attacking, bombing, and
occupying countries has decisively shaped the United States and its image in the world. Every
day that our "forever war" continues is a triumph for bin Laden. So is every wounded veteran
who returns home, every newly minted terrorist infuriated by an American attack, every
citizen of the world who recoils at what US forces are being sent to do. We did not simply
fall into bin Laden's trap, we raced in at full speed. Even now, we show little will to
extricate ourselves.
America's determination to strike back with devastating force after 9/11 was
understandable given our shared sense of ravaged innocence. We might have launched a
concentrated strike against the gang of several hundred criminals whose leaders attacked the
United States, and then come home. Instead we have used the 9/11 attack to justify wars and
military deployments around the world.
On Sept. 14, 2001, Congress passed an "authorization for the use of military force"
against the perpetrators of that week's attack and against their "associated forces." Three
presidents have used that authorization to deploy troops across the Middle East and in
countries from Kenya to Georgia to the Philippines. Every call for US withdrawal from
Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria is met by warnings that ending wars could produce "another
9/11." This has become the paralyzing mantra that prevents us from halting the hydra-headed
military campaign we have been waging for 18 years. We also use it to justify atrocities at
prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Bin Laden has succeeded even in colonizing our
minds.
Soon after passing its highly elastic authorization for military action against
"associated forces," Congress approved another, even more sweeping law: the Patriot Act. It
gave the government broad new power to monitor people and businesses, and has become a
foundation stone of our emerging "surveillance state." The 9/11 attack led us to distort not
only our approach to the world, but also the balance between freedom and security at
home.
Another pernicious aftereffect of the terror attack has been the deepening of our national
us-against-them narrative. This began with President George W. Bush's assertion that every
country in the world had to be "either with us or against us." Crusader rhetoric posits the
United States as the indispensable guardian of civilization, entitled to act as it chooses in
order to fend off a threatening tide of barbarism. Now this approach has leaked back into the
United States. Racist attacks that tear at our social fabric are the domestic reflection of
foreign policies that see the rest of the world as a hostile "other" bent on destroying our
way of life.
Last month it was announced that the five surviving alleged plotters of the 9/11 attack
will finally be brought to trial in 2021. If they are aware of what is happening in the
world, they will arrive in court with a deep sense of satisfaction. Their great triumph was
not the attack. It was the damage the United States has since inflicted upon itself.
Acheson is parroting Napoleon: "In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to 1."
He is wrong in the matter of "faith", unless the Chiang's army lost faith in Chiang's
moral poverty, what he stood for.
A better quote about Chiang losing is written by George C. Marshall, who went over and
came back sure Chiang was done for.
He said: "The US would not be dragged through the mud by those reactionaries". Meaning
Chiang was not the moral power in China.
Same for Vietnam US puppets were not and had no moral power/authority.
In Afghanistan same!
Iraq is split in moral authority, the areas populated by Shi'a are okay as long as the
central government does not pander to the Sunni 1/3 (Baathists were suppressing Shi'a).
I do not agree with quoting Acheson when there is plenty of professional soldier writings
that say it more clearly.
After Korea the professional soldiers were no longer expressive when it cme to propping
thugs, with no moral power in their own borders (granted many of the borders surround
fictional counties).
US has stood with thugs for most of its quagmire experience.......
This week US is looking for a way to start a new quagmire with Iran for royal murderers'
sharing their oil company!
Regarding your last sentence: this is the great truth that Washington's world hegemonists would have you forget. Taking into
account the untapped vast resources of Canada and Alaska and its expansive offshore economic zones extending deep into the Atlantic,
the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean, the North American anglosphere could be entirely self-sufficient and do
quite nicely on its own for hundreds of years to come, it just wouldn't be the sole tyrannical state presumably ruling the entire
planet.
Why, it might even entertain the idea of actually cooperating with other regional powers like Russia, China, the EU, India,
Iran, Turkey, the Middle East, greater central Asia, Latin America and even Africa to everyone's benefit, rather than bullying
them all because god ordained us to be the boss of all humans.
America's major malfunction is its lack of historical roots compared to the other societies mentioned. All those places had
thousands of years to refine their sundry cultures and international relationships, certainly through trial and error and many
horrible setbacks, most notably wars, famines, pestilence, genocide and human bondage which people did not have the foresight
to nip in the bud. They learned by their mistakes and some, like the great world wars, were doozies.
The United States, and some of its closest homologues like Canada, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, were thrown together very
rapidly as part of developing colonial empires. It was created through the brute actions of a handful of megalomaniacal oligarchs
of their day. What worked to suppress vast tracts of aboriginal homelands, often through genocide and virtual extinction of the
native populations, was so effective that it was institutionalized in the form of slavery and reckless exploitation of the local
environment. These "great leaders," "pioneers" and "founding fathers" were not about to give up a set of principles -- no matter
how sick and immoral -- which they knew to "work" and accrued to them great power and riches. They preferred to label it "American
exceptionalism" and force it upon the whole rest of the world, including long established regional powers -- cultures going back
to antiquity -- and not just conveniently sketched "burdens of the white man."
No, ancient cultures like China, India, Persia and so forth could obviously be improved for all concerned merely by allowing
a handful of Western Europeans to own all their property and run all their affairs. That grand plan fell apart for most of the
European powers in the aftermath of World War Two, but Washington has held tough and never given up its designs of micromanaging
and exploiting the whole planet. It too is soon to learn its lesson and lose its empire. Either that or it will take the world
down in flames as it tries to cling to all that it never really owned or deserved. The most tragic (or maybe just amusing) part
is that Washington still had most of the world believing its bullshit about exceptionalism and indispensability until it decided
it had to emulate every tyrannical empire that ever collapsed before it.
Realist , April 30, 2019 at 02:08
"ex·tor·tion /ik?stôrSH(?)n/ noun The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats."
"Racketeering refers to crimes committed through extortion or coercion. A racketeer attempts to obtain money or property from
another person, usually through intimidation or force. The term is typically associated with organized crime."
I see. So, American foreign policy, as applied to both its alleged enemies and presumed allies, essentially amounts to an exercise
in organised crime. So much for due process, free trade, peaceful co-existence, magical rainbows and other such hypocritical platitudes
dispensed for domestic consumption in place of the heavy-handed threats routinely delivered to Washington's targets.
That's quite in keeping with the employment of war crimes as standard "tactics, techniques and procedures" on the battlefield
which was recently admitted to us by Senator Jim Molan on the "60 Minutes" news show facsimile and discussed in one of yesterday's
forums on this blog.
Afghanistan was promised a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs as incentive to bend to our will (and that of Unocal which,
unlike Nordstream, was a pipeline Washington wanted built). Iraq was promised and delivered "shock and awe" after a secretary
of state had declared the mass starvation of that country's children as well worth the effort. They still can't find all the pieces
left of the Libyan state. Syria was told it would be stiffed on any American contribution to its rebuilding for the effrontery
of actually beating back the American-recruited, trained and financed ISIS terrorist brigades. Now it's being deliberately starved
of both its energy and food requirements by American embargoes on its own resources! North Korea was promised utter annihilation
by Yankee nukes before Kim's summit with our great leader unless it submitted totally to his will, or more likely that of Pompous
Pompeo, the man who pulls his strings. Venezuela is treated to cyber-hacked power outages and shortages of food, medicines, its
own gold bullion, income from its own international petroleum sales and, probably because someone in Washington thinks it's funny,
even toilet paper. All they have to do to get relief is kick out the president they elected and replace him with Washington's
chosen puppet! Yep, freedom and democracy blah, blah, blah. And don't even ask what the kids in Yemen got for Christmas from Uncle
Sam this year. (He probably stole their socks.) A real American patriot will laughingly take Iran to task for ever believing in
the first place that Washington could be negotiated with in good faith. All they had to do was ask the Native Americans (or the
Russians) how the Yanks keep their word and honor their treaties. It was their own fault they were taken for suckers.
"... Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy. ..."
"... America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla. ..."
"... Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never. ..."
Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM |
link
Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:
American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors,
generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.
To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly
and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."
The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate
and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest.
That is why we go to war.
Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are
fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic,
not humanitarian, reasons.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is
him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds
of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious
election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious.
It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest
of the wealthy.
America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian
reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support
Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.
Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators;
it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending
your kids to die. Never.
New book by David NorthA Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016
Notable quotes:
"... "Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly." ..."
"... Typical American philosophy... "War is peace!"... ..."
We publish here the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016 by David North.
The book will be published on August 10, and is available for preorder today at Mehring Books in both
softcover
and hardcover
.
***
"In the period of crisis the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than
in the period of boom."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1928
"U.S. capitalism is up against the same problems that pushed Germany in 1914 on the path of war. The world is divided? It must
be redivided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.' The United States must 'organize' the world. History is bringing
mankind face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."
-- Leon Trotsky, 1934
This volume consists of political reports, public lectures, party statements, essays, and polemics that document the response
of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to the quarter century of US-led wars that began in 1990–91. The
analyses of events presented here, although written as they were unfolding, stand the test of time. The International Committee does
not possess a crystal ball. But its work is informed by a Marxist understanding of the contradictions of American and world imperialism.
Moreover, the Marxist method of analysis examines events not as a sequence of isolated episodes, but as moments in the unfolding
of a broader historical process. This historically oriented approach serves as a safeguard against an impressionistic response to
the latest political developments. It recognizes that the essential cause of an event is rarely apparent at the moment of
its occurrence.
Much of what passes for analysis in the bourgeois press consists of nothing more than equating an impressionistic description
of a given event with its deeper cause. This sort of political analysis legitimizes US wars as necessary responses to one or another
personification of evil, such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the "warlord" Farah Aideed in Somalia, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Osama
bin Laden of Al Qaeda, the Mullah Omar in Afghanistan, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya; and, most recently, Bashar al Assad in Syria, Kim
Jong Un in Korea, and Vladimir Putin in Russia. New names are continually added to the United States' infinitely expandable list
of monsters requiring destruction.
The material in this volume is the record of a very different and far more substantial approach to the examination of the foreign
policy of the United States.
First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in
1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the entire global nation-state system, as it
emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown of the established postwar equilibrium would
lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism. As far back as August 1990 -- twenty-six years ago -- it was able to foresee
the long-term implications of the Bush administration's war against Iraq:
It marks the beginning of a new imperialist redivision of the world. The end of the postwar era means the end of the
postcolonial era. As it proclaims the "failure of socialism," the imperialist bourgeoisie, in deeds if not yet in words, proclaims
the failure of independence. The deepening crisis confronting all the major imperialist powers compels them to secure control
over strategic resources and markets. Former colonies, which had achieved a degree of political independence, must be resubjugated.
In its brutal assault against Iraq, imperialism is giving notice that it intends to restore the type of unrestrained domination
of the backward countries that existed prior to World War II. [
1 ]
This historically grounded analysis provided the essential framework for an understanding, not only of the 1990–91 Gulf War, but
also of the wars that were launched later in the decade, as well as the post-9/11 "War on Terror."
In a recently published front-page article, the New York Times called attention to a significant milestone in the presidency
of Barack Obama: "He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president." But with several months remaining
in his term in office, he is on target to set yet another record. The Times wrote:
If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama's term -- a near-certainty
given the president's recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria -- he will leave
behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war. [
2 ]
On the way to setting his record, Mr. Obama has overseen lethal military actions in a total of seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. The number of countries is growing, as the United States escalates its military operations
in Africa. The efforts to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency involve a buildup of US forces in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, and Chad.
Without any sense of irony, Mark Landler, author of the Times article, notes Obama's status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner
in 2009. He portrays the president as "trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate. . . ." Obama "has wrestled
with this immutable reality [of war] from his first year in the White House . . ."
Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving the
order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel Prize,
in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that war is sometimes
necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
During the Obama years, folly has clearly held the upper hand. But there is nothing that Landler's hero can do. Obama has found
his wars "maddeningly hard to end."
The Times ' portrayal of Obama lacks the essential element required by genuine tragedy: the identification of objective
forces, beyond his control, that frustrated and overwhelmed the lofty ideals and humanitarian aspirations of the president. If Mr.
Landler wants his readers to shed a tear for this peace-loving man who, upon becoming president, made drone killings his personal
specialty, and turned into something akin to a moral monster, the Times correspondent should have attempted to identify the
historical circumstances that determined Obama's "tragic" fate.
But this is a challenge the Times avoids. It fails to relate Obama's war-making record to the entire course of American
foreign policy over the past quarter century. Even before Obama entered office in 2009, the United States had been at war on an almost
continuous basis since the first US-Iraq War of 1990–91.
The pretext for the Gulf War was Iraq's annexation of Kuwait in August 1990. But the violent US reaction to Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's dispute with the emir of Kuwait was determined by broader global conditions and considerations. The historical context
of the US military operation was the imminent dissolution of the Soviet Union, which was finally carried out in December 1991. The
first President Bush declared the beginning of a "New World Order." [
3 ] What Bush meant by this phrase was
that the United States was now free to restructure the world in the interests of the American capitalist class, unencumbered by either
the reality of the countervailing military power of the Soviet Union or the specter of socialist revolution. The dissolution of the
USSR, hailed by Francis Fukuyama as the "End of History," signified for the strategists of American imperialism the end of military
restraint.
It is one of the great ironies of history that the definitive emergence of the United States as the dominant imperialist power,
amid the catastrophe of World War I, coincided with the outbreak of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which culminated in the establishment
of the first socialist workers state in history, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. On April 3, 1917, President Woodrow
Wilson delivered his war message to the US Congress and led the United States into the global imperialist conflict. Two weeks later,
V.I. Lenin returned to Russia, which was in the throes of revolution, and reoriented the Bolshevik Party toward the fight to overthrow
the bourgeois Provisional Government.
Lenin and his principal political ally, Leon Trotsky, insisted that the struggle for socialism was indissolubly linked to the
struggle against war. As the historian R. Craig Nation has argued:
For Lenin there was no doubt that the revolution was the result of a crisis of imperialism and that the dilemmas which it posed
could only be resolved on the international level. The campaign for proletarian hegemony in Russia, the fight against the war,
and the international struggle against imperialism were now one and the same. [
4 ]
Just as the United States was striving to establish its position as the arbiter of the world's destiny, it faced a challenge,
in the form of the Bolshevik Revolution, not only to the authority of American imperialism, but also to the economic, political,
and even moral legitimacy of the entire capitalist world order. "The rhetoric and actions of the Bolsheviks," historian Melvyn P.
Leffler has written, "ignited fear, revulsion and uncertainty in Washington." [
5 ]
Another perceptive historian of US foreign policy explained:
The great majority of American leaders were so deeply concerned with the Bolshevik Revolution because they were so uneasy about
what President Wilson called the "general feeling of revolt" against the existing order, and about the increasing intensity of
that dissatisfaction. The Bolshevik Revolution became in their minds the symbol of all the revolutions that grew out of that discontent.
And that is perhaps the crucial insight into the tragedy of American diplomacy. [
6 ]
In a desperate effort to destroy the new revolutionary regime, Wilson sent an expeditionary force to Russia in 1918, in support
of counterrevolutionary forces in the brutal civil war. The intervention was an ignominious failure.
It was not until 1933 that the United States finally granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union. The diplomatic rapprochement
was facilitated in part by the fact that the Soviet regime, now under Stalin's bureaucratic dictatorship, was in the process of repudiating
the revolutionary internationalism that had inspired the Bolsheviks in 1917. It was abandoning the perspective of world revolution
in favor of alliances with imperialist states on the basis of "collective security." Unable to secure such an alliance with Britain
and France, Stalin signed the notorious Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler in August 1939. Following Hitler's invasion of the Soviet
Union in June 1941, and the entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941, the exigencies of the struggle against
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan required that the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt forge a military alliance
with the Soviet Union. But once Germany and Japan were defeated, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union rapidly
deteriorated. The Truman administration, opposing the extension of Soviet influence into Eastern Europe, and frightened by the growth
of Communist parties in Western Europe, launched the Marshall Plan in 1948 and triggered the onset of the Cold War.
The Kremlin regime pursued nationalistic policies, based on the Stalinist program of "socialism in one country," and betrayed
working class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. But the very existence of a regime that arose out of a socialist
revolution had a politically radicalizing impact throughout the world. William Appleman Williams was certainly correct in his view
that "American leaders were for many, many years more afraid of the implicit and indirect challenge of the revolution than they were
of the actual power of the Soviet Union." [
7 ]
In the decades that followed World War II, the United States was unable to ignore the existence of the Soviet Union. To the extent
that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949, provided limited political and material
support to anti-imperialist movements in the "Third World," they denied the US ruling class a free hand in the pursuit of its own
interests. These limitations were demonstrated -- to cite the most notable examples -- by the US defeats in Korea and Vietnam, the
compromise settlement of the Cuban missile crisis, and the acceptance of Soviet domination of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe.
The existence of the Soviet Union and an anticapitalist regime in China deprived the United States of the possibility of unrestricted
access to and exploitation of the human labor, raw materials, and potential markets of a large portion of the globe, especially the
Eurasian land mass. It compelled the United States to compromise, to a greater degree than it would have preferred, in negotiations
over economic and strategic issues with its major allies in Europe and Asia, as well as with smaller countries that exploited the
tactical opportunities provided by the US-Soviet Cold War.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, combined with the restoration of capitalism in China following the Tiananmen
Square massacre of June 1989, was seen by the American ruling class as an opportunity to repudiate the compromises of the post-World
War II era, and to carry out a restructuring of global geopolitics, with the aim of establishing the hegemony of the United States.
There was no small element of self-delusion in the grandiose American response to the breakup of the Soviet Union. The bombastic
claims that the United States had won the Cold War were based far more on myth than reality. In fact, the sudden dissolution of the
Soviet Union took the entire Washington foreign policy establishment by surprise. In February 1987, the Council on Foreign Relations
published an assessment of US-Soviet relations, authored by two of its most eminent Sovietologists, Strobe Talbott and Michael Mandelbaum.
Analyzing the discussions between Reagan and Gorbachev at meetings in Geneva and Reykjavik in 1986, the two experts concluded:
No matter how Gorbachev comes to define perestroika in practice and no matter how he modifies the official definition
of security, the Soviet Union will resist pressure for change, whether it comes from without or within, from the top or the bottom.
The fundamental conditions of Soviet-American relations are therefore likely to persist. This, in turn, means that the ritual
of Soviet-American summitry is likely to have a long run. . . . [
8 ]
The "long run," Talbott and Mandelbaum predicted, would continue not only during the reign of "Gorbachev's successor," but also
his "successor's successor." No substantial changes in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were to be expected.
The two prophets from the Council on Foreign Relations concluded:
Whoever they are, and whatever changes have occurred in the meantime, the American and Soviet leaders of the next century will
be wrestling with the same great issue -- how to manage their rivalry so as to avoid nuclear catastrophe -- that has engaged the
energies, in the latter half of the 1980s, of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. [
9 ]
In contrast to the Washington experts, who foresaw nothing, the International Committee recognized that the Gorbachev regime marked
a climactic stage in the crisis of Stalinism. "The crisis of Gorbachev," it declared in a statement dated March 23, 1987, "has emerged
as every section of world Stalinism confronts economic convulsions and upheavals by the masses. In every case -- from Beijing to
Belgrade -- the response of the Stalinist bureaucrats has been to turn ever more openly toward capitalist restorationism." [
10 ]
The Cold War victory narrative encouraged, within the ruling elite, a disastrous overestimation of the power and potential of
American capitalism. The drive for hegemony assumed the ability of the US to contain the economic and political centrifugal forces
unleashed by the operation of global capitalism. Even at the height of its power, such an immense project was well beyond the capacities
of the United States. But amid the euphoria generated by the end of the Soviet Union, the ruling class chose to ignore the deep-rooted
and protracted crisis of American society. An objective observer, examining the conditions of both the United States and the Soviet
Union between 1960 and 1990, might well have wondered which regime was in greater crisis. During the three decades that preceded
the dissolution of the USSR, the United States exhibited high levels of political, social, and economic instability.
Consider the fate of the presidential administrations in power during those three decades: (1) The Kennedy administration ended
tragically in November 1963 with a political assassination, in the midst of escalating social tensions and international crises;
(2) Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, was unable to seek reelection in 1968, as a result of urban riots and mass opposition
to the US invasion of Vietnam; (3) Richard Nixon was compelled to resign from office in August 1974, after the House of Representatives'
Judiciary Committee voted for his impeachment on charges related to his criminal subversion of the Constitution; (4) Gerald Ford,
who became president upon Nixon's resignation, was defeated in the November 1976 election amid popular revulsion over Nixon's crimes
and the US military debacle in Vietnam; (5) Jimmy Carter's one term in office was dominated by an inflationary crisis that sent the
federal prime interest rate to 20 percent, a bitter three month national coal miners strike, and the aftershocks generated by the
Iranian Revolution; and (6) Ronald Reagan's years in office, despite all the ballyhoo about "morning in America," were characterized
by recession, bitter social tension, and a series of foreign policy disasters in the Middle East and Central America. The exposure
of an illegal scheme to finance paramilitary operations in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra crisis) brought Reagan to the very brink of
impeachment. His administration was saved by the leadership of the Democratic Party, which had no desire to remove from office a
president who was politically weakened and already exhibiting signs of dementia.
The one persistent factor that confronted all these administrations, from Kennedy to Reagan, was the erosion in the global economic
position of the United States. The unquestioned dominance of American finance and industry at the end of World War II provided the
economic underpinnings of the Bretton Woods system of dollar-gold convertibility that formed the basis of global capitalist growth
and stability. By the late 1950s, the system was coming under increasing strain. It was during the Kennedy administration that unfavorable
tendencies in the US balance of trade first began to arouse significant concern. On August 15, 1971, Nixon suddenly ended the Bretton
Woods system of fixed international exchange rates, pegged to a US dollar convertible at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold. During
the 1970s and 1980s, the decline in the exchange rate of the dollar mirrored the deterioration of the American economy.
The belligerent response of the United States to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union reflected the weakness, not the strength,
of American capitalism. The overwhelming support within the ruling elite for a highly aggressive foreign policy arose from the delusion
that the United States could reverse the protracted erosion of its global economic position through the deployment of its immense
military power.
The Defense Planning Guidance, drafted by the Department of Defense in February 1992, unambiguously asserted the hegemonic ambitions
of US imperialism:
There are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture
of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global
competitor. [ 11 ]
The 1990s saw a persistent use of US military power, most notably in the first Gulf War, followed by its campaign to break up
Yugoslavia. The brutal restructuring of the Balkan states, which provoked a fratricidal civil war, culminated in the US-led 1999
bombing campaign to compel Serbia to accept the secession of the province of Kosovo. Other major military operations during that
decade included the intervention in Somalia, which ended in disaster, the military occupation of Haiti, the bombing of Sudan and
Afghanistan, and repeated bombing attacks on Iraq.
The events of September 11, 2001 provided the opportunity to launch the "War on Terror," a propaganda slogan that provided an
all-purpose justification for military operations throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and, with increasing frequency, Africa.
They furnished the Bush administration with a pretext to institutionalize war as a legitimate and normal instrument of American foreign
policy.
The administration of the second President Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001. In speeches that followed
9/11, Bush used the phrase "wars of the twenty-first century." In this case, the normally inarticulate president spoke with precision.
The "War on Terror" was, from the beginning, conceived as an unending series of military operations all over the globe. One war would
necessarily lead to another. Afghanistan proved to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Iraq.
The military strategy of the United States was revised in line with the new doctrine of "preventive warfare," adopted by the US
in 2002. This doctrine, which violated existing international law, decreed that the United States could attack any country in the
world judged to pose a potential threat -- not only of a military, but also of an economic character -- to American interests.
In a verbal sleight of hand, the Bush administration justified the invasion of Iraq as a preemptive war, undertaken in
response to the imminent threat posed by the country's "weapons of mass destruction" to the national security of the United States.
Of course, the threat was as non-existent as were Saddam Hussein's WMDs. In any event, the Bush administration rendered the distinction
between preemptive and preventive war meaningless, by asserting the right of the United States to attack any country, regardless
of the existence or non-existence of an imminent threat to American national security. Whatever the terminology employed for propaganda
purposes by American presidents, the United States adheres to the illegal doctrine of preventive war.
The scope of military operations continuously widened. New wars were started while the old ones continued. The cynical invocation
of human rights was used to wage war against Libya and overthrow the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The same hypocritical pretext
was employed to organize a proxy war in Syria. The consequences of these crimes, in terms of human lives and suffering, are incalculable.
The last quarter century of US-instigated wars must be studied as a chain of interconnected events. The strategic logic of the
US drive for global hegemony extends beyond the neocolonial operations in the Middle East and Africa. The ongoing regional wars are
component elements of the rapidly escalating confrontation of the United States with Russia and China.
It is through the prism of America's efforts to assert control of the strategically critical Eurasian landmass, that the essential
significance of the events of 1990–91 is being revealed. But this latest stage in the ongoing struggle for world hegemony, which
lies at the heart of the conflict with Russia and China, is bringing to the forefront latent and potentially explosive tensions between
the United States and its present-day imperialist allies, including -- to name the most significant potential adversary -- Germany.
The two world wars of the twentieth century were not the product of misunderstandings. The past is prologue. As the International
Committee foresaw in 1990–91, the American bid for global hegemony has rekindled interimperialist rivalries simmering beneath the
surface of world politics. Within Europe, dissatisfaction with the US role as the final arbiter of world affairs is being openly
voiced. In a provocative essay, published in Foreign Affairs , the journal of the authoritative US Council on Foreign Relations,
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has bluntly challenged Washington's presumption of US global dominance:
As the United States reeled from the effects of the Iraq war and the EU struggled through a series of crises, Germany held
its ground. . . .
Today both the United States and Europe are struggling to provide global leadership. The 2003 invasion of Iraq damaged the
United States' standing in the world. After the ouster of Saddam Hussein, sectarian violence ripped Iraq apart, and U.S. power
in the region began to weaken. Not only did the George W. Bush administration fail to reorder the region through force, but the
political, economic, and soft-power costs of this adventure undermined the United States' overall position. The illusion of a
unipolar world faded. [ 12 ]
In a rebuke to the United States, Steinmeier writes: "Our historical experience has destroyed any belief in national exceptionalism
-- for any nation." [ 13 ]
The journalists and academics, who work within the framework of the official narrative of the defense of human rights and the
"War on Terror," cannot explain the progression of conflicts, from the 1990–91 Gulf War, to the current expansion of NATO eight hundred
miles eastward, and the American "pivot to Asia." On a regular basis, the United States and its allies stage war games in Eastern
Europe, in close proximity to the borders of Russia, and in strategically critical waters off the coast of China. It is not difficult
to conceive of a situation in which events -- either as a result of deliberate calculation or of reckless miscalculation -- erupt
into a clash between nuclear-armed powers. In 2014, as the centenary of World War I approached, a growing number of scholarly papers
called attention to the similarities between the conditions that precipitated the disaster of August 1914 and present-day tensions.
One parallel between today and 1914 is the growing sense among political and military strategists that war between the United
States and China and/or Russia may be inevitable. As this fatalistic premise increasingly informs the judgments and actions of the
key decision makers at the highest level of the state, it becomes a dynamic factor that makes the actual outbreak of war more likely.
A specialist in international geopolitics has recently written:
Once war is assumed to be unavoidable, the calculations of leaders and militaries change. The question is no longer whether
there will or should be a war, but when the war can be fought most advantageously. Even those neither eager for nor optimistic
about war may opt to fight when operating in the framework of inevitability. [
14 ]
Not since the end of World War II has there existed so great a danger of world war. The danger is heightened by the fact that
the level of popular awareness of the threat remains very limited. What percentage of the American population, one must ask, realizes
that President Barack Obama has formally committed the United States to go to war in defense of Estonia, in the event of a conflict
between the small Baltic country and Russia? The media has politely refrained from asking the president to state how many human beings
would die in the event of a nuclear war between the United States and either Russia or China, or both at the same time.
On the eve of World War II, Leon Trotsky warned that a catastrophe threatened the entire culture of mankind. He was proven correct.
Within less than a decade, the Second World War claimed the lives of more than fifty million people. The alarm must once again be
sounded. The working class and youth within the United States and throughout the world must be told the truth.
The progressive development of a globally integrated world economy is incompatible with capitalism and the nation-state system.
If war is to be stopped and a global catastrophe averted, a new and powerful mass international movement, based on a socialist program,
and strategically guided by the principles of revolutionary class struggle, must be built. In opposition to imperialist geopolitics,
in which national states fight brutally for regional and global dominance, the International Committee counterposes the strategy
of world socialist revolution. As Trotsky advised, we "follow not the war map but the map of the class struggle. . . ." [
15 ]
In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were mass protests against the war policies of the United States and
its allies. Millions took to the streets. But after the war began, public opposition virtually disappeared. The absence of popular
protest did not signify support for the war. Rather, it reflected the repudiation, by the old middle-class protest movement, of its
former Vietnam-era opposition to imperialism.
There are mounting signs of political radicalization among significant sections of the working class and youth. It is only a matter
of time before this radicalization gives rise to conscious opposition to war. It is the aim of this volume to impart to the new antiwar
movement a revolutionary socialist and internationalist perspective and program.
The quotes from Trotsky are glaring. These and others were used to argue against socialism in the post war decades, but all that
was needed was time and the working of the forces of capitalism itself. History never ended, it is right on schedule
"Landler informs his readers that Obama "went for a walk among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery before giving
the order to send 30,000 additional troops into Afghanistan." He recalls a passage from Obama's 2009 speech accepting the Nobel
Prize, in which the president wearily lamented that humanity needed to reconcile "two seemingly irreconcilable truths -- that
war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly."
VI lenin crushed the Krondstadt rebellion that was the true 'soviet union' model and instituted a hard right revolutionary regime
of ruthless dictatorial control from smolny, not a workers state. The US borgeouis (and french and english) intervened to keep
russia in the war and 160 german divisions from leaving the eastern front. The threat of a workers state was not the concern of
the victors. The failure of revolutionary russia to represent what this article is propping it up to be (some kind of genuine
workers state) leaves me deeply suspect about the other conclusions he's bent history to. Anyone who's read "2 years in russia"
by emma goldman, and "the victors dilemma" - john silverlight and any number of books on the russian civil war, it is clear that
the intervention was for military tactical reasons and that the nascient state was in no ways a workers state but a totalitarian
military dictatorship. Emma Goldman's disillusionment is not her falling out of love with her ideals, but her coming to terms
with the reality vs the PR of Russia. Which is why this website (Wsws) advertised a book repudiating the rejection of socialism
with the faiure of the soviet union as a false narrative a year or few ago.
The historical memoir is clear, diaries, memos, news articles, and the Western soldier revolts, time to smash the revolution.
Kronstadt was a tragedy, but the regime was under threat. history is messy.
I can imagine that
the leadership of imperialist countries was underestimating the bolsheviks in 1917, but once the Russian revolution had given
enough confidence to the German masses to make the war stop one year later, once the French black sea fleet had rebelled in 1919,
etc... they were all very conscious of the risks (potential risks, not immediate threats).
The evidence in favour of what Trotsky wrote about Kronstadt is simply overwhelming. A cmd above gave some basic evidence. Trotsky
was absolutely right and absolutely honest on what he wrote later on ("hue and cry over Kronstadt")
The working class has been the victim of betrayal after betrayal by pseudo-left forces in the 20th century, which led to two catastrophic
world wars and all the other conflicts that have created needless bloodshed around the world. The great task will be, when the
new mass working class anti-war movement arises, to give the working class the political knowledge it needs to not fall for the
traps that dissipated anti-war movements in the past. It must be made clear to the workers of the world that for us, it's do or
die time - literally, as the obscene levels of social inequality and the prospect of nuclear confrontation prove.
I understand this very well, having seen what happened to what I thought at the time was a powerful antiwar movement in the 1960s
against the war in Vietnam. I was quite politically naive at the time and became so disillusioned with politics in general and
what I then thought to be the "left" in particular, that I went off politics completely and started reading Ayn Rand.
After being turned off by Rand's misanthropy and hatred of the working class (even though I admired her atheism), I became
more or less apolitical until 1998, when I first read the World Socialist Web Site and found what I had been looking for.
for this affirming comment. Me too, having all but given up on politics and following a last ditch
search of the web I was rewarded with a political program and party that was more than compatible with my world view and personal
values. Something I had not thought possible, thank you ICFI/SEP.
There are times when even we as Marxists find ourselves scouring the past for a word that befits the character and luminosity
of a moment in human understanding. In this respect David North has given new meaning to the word 'Biblical'.
As a word, its essence is transcendent. For whoever defines an epoch in the clearest and most profoundest way as this, is elevated
to the realms of Greatness.
As the bourgeoisie now scrabbles, in fights, and drowns in the last dregs of its alchemy, a Phoenix arises out of their chaos
lest the bourgeoisie commits all to the Fires of Hell ....
Most excellent words comrade David ...a most excellent call to class struggle .
This is a remarkably panoramic account, grounded in both history and economics, of the unfolding of U.S. militarism and imperialist
warfare over the past 30 or so years. It is without peer in anything else I have seen in terms of showing that events and tendencies
- which we may have been separately aware of - were in fact part of a historical continuum growing out of economic developments
and the perceived interests of the U.S. ruling class.
Always interesting to read cmd. North. ''First, and most important, the International Committee interpreted the collapse of the
Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989–90, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, as an existential crisis of the
entire global nation-state system, as it emerged from the ashes of World War II. Second, the ICFI anticipated that the breakdown
of the established postwar equilibrium would lead rapidly to a resurgence of imperialist militarism''. This is great but we also
have German militarism on the rise and we should not underestimate. The working class must be prepared for economic and even actual
wars in Europe and elsewhere. The redivision of markets and resources is evident with Germany and China on the table.
March 12, 2019 at 5:25
pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN
Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law
prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."
Hi AnonfromTN.
Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli
"dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly
given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.
They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.
What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President
t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.
Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type
of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US
military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an
Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!
Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland"
law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman
raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on
the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.
@ChuckOrloski I
can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery.
As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and
donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these
should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally,
desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and
severely punish those who expose these crimes.
I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of
any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves
are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash.
Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel
influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness
on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside
have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making
the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that
serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons
of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens
of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders
from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."
ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing
region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying
to overthrow Syria's secular Government
and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is
the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold.
Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.
The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful
that approach turns out to be.
Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly
by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families
and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined
"Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are
believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish
areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on
Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015,
"Ideology
and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other
Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which
was protected by
the US
In September 2016 a UK official
"FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK
FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield
to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have
also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's
Government.
On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US
military website
"Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined
"WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around
twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry,
shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military
had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015,
"Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were
involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen
Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil
from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.
An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit
for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish
city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city
and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq
and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man
in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto
other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.
The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by
a brutal coup in February 2014
: It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian
reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport"
near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen
minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining
on 14 March,
"Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked,
"A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The
load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's
gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland (
Obama's detail-person
overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk
cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would
never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia
was being squeezed by this fascist
Ukrainian-American ploy.
The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists.
As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana
Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :
"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed
9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."
Furthermore, On
8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000
tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via
Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey
and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."
Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled
"Islamic State Weapons
in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State
forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking
their lives to fight against those jihadists.
In December 2017, CAR headlined
"Weapons of the Islamic State"
and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition
forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.
That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining
"Russian TV
Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was
working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government
in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's
Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't
the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort
against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action,
"'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?
So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs
the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.
This is today's form of imperialism.
Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the
imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting
for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland.
That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against
corruption around the world." For example, as
RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd,
about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together
to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and
democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians
and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them.
Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors'
many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on
the take.
The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries,
and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive
Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people
never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.
Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined
"Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting
on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't
been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't
expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the
past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).
The USA 'lost' in Syria, the opposing coalition incl. Iran and Russia couldn't be faced off successfully.
Destroying Afgh., Iraq, Lybia, - all 'failures' in the sense of not garnering 'advantage' for the USA as a territory, a Federated
Nation, its citizens, its trade, boosting hopeful expansion, etc. One aim rarely mentioned is keeping allies on board, e.g. Sarkozy's
France, to invade Lybia. In France many say it was Sark I who did DE-ss-troy! Lybia.
The word *failure* is based on the acceptance of a stated aim reminiscent of old-style-colonialism: grab resources, exploit
super-cheap labor, control the natives, mine, exploit, shunt the goods / profits to home base.
If the aim is to stop rivals breathing, blast them back to the Stone Age, the success is good but relative. (see Iraq.) Private
GloboCorps (e.g. Glencore.. ) are in charge behind the curtain, many Gvmts are just stooges for them in the sense of unawoved
partnerships, the one feeding into the other, in a kind of desperado death spiral.
I have always been struck by the fact that Oil Projects / Management in Iraq, even wiki gives lists that shows major movers
and profiteers are not USA oil cos. / interests, but China, Malaysia, many others.
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
"... One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries: ..."
"... The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare. ..."
"... The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. ..."
"... When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else. ..."
One of the most revealing and absurd responses to
rejections of forever war
is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries:
Just like @POTUS , who put a limited op of NE
#Syria under heading of "endless
war," this op-ed has "drone strikes & Special Ops raids" in indictment of US-at-war. In fact, those actions are antidote to war.
Their misguided critique is insult to real war. https://t.co/DCLS9IDKSw
War has become so normalized over the last twenty years that the constant use of military force gets discounted as something other
than "real war." We have seen this war denialism on display several times in the last year. As more presidential candidates and analysts
have started rejecting endless war, the war's
defenders have often
chosen to
pretend
that the U.S. isn't at war at all. The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is
a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and
Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare.
Because Obama is relatively less aggressive and reckless than his hawkish opponents (a very low bar to clear), he is frequently
given a pass on these issues, and we are treated to misleading stories about his supposed "realism" and "restraint." Insofar as
he has been a president who normalized and routinized open-ended and unnecessary foreign wars, he has shown that neither of those
terms should be used to describe his foreign policy. Even though I know all too well that the president that follows him will
be even worse, the next president will have a freer hand to conduct a more aggressive and dangerous foreign policy in part because
of illegal wars Obama has waged during his time in office.
The attempt to define war so that it never includes what the U.S. military happens to be doing when it uses force abroad has been
going on for quite a while. When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they
came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the
Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't
engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for
redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't
engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that
gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment
of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something
else.
It isn't just physical war that results in active service body bags but our aggression has alreay cost lives on the home front
and there is every reason to believe it will do so again.
We were not isolationists prior to 9/11/2001, Al Qaeda had already attacked but we were distracted bombing Serbia, expanding
NATO, and trying to connect Al Qaeda attacks to Iran. We were just attacked by a Saudi officer we were training on our soil to
use the Saudis against Iran.
It remains to be seen what our economic warfare against Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, and our continued use of Afghanistan
as a bombing platform will cost us. We think we are being clever by using our Treasury Dept and low intensity warfare to minimize
direct immediate casualties but how long can that last.
This article confirms what the last Real Commander-in-Chief, General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about when he retired
58 years ago.
His wise Council based on his Supreme Military-Political experience has been ignored.
The MSM, Propagandists for the Military-Industrial Complex, won't remind the American People.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could,
with time and as required, make swords as well.
But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments
industry of vast proportions.
Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on
military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total
influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the
very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for
granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
The psychological contortionism required to deny that we are at war amazes me. US military forces are killing people in other
countries – but it's not war? Because we can manufacture comforting euphemisms like "police action" or "preventive action" or
"drone strike," it's not war? Because it's smaller scale than a "real" war like WWII?
Cancer is cancer. A small cancer is still a cancer. Arguing that it's not cancer because it's not metastatic stage IV is, well,
the most polite term is sophistry. More accurate terms aren't printable.
> alliances like NATO, and ultimately the loss of our democracy
Changes might be coming, but Republicans and Clinton faction of Dems are now fully
prepared to resist those changes tooth and nail.
Neoliberal Dems just invented the template for deposing or, at least, paralyzing any
future antiwar president. Via vote of non-confidence mechanism, which essentially what
House impeachment "investigation" was about.
You can always find another Fiona Hill, or Alexander Vindman or a half-dozen State
Department neocon hawks (where in some cases it was unclear who is their real employee )
, or find another jingoistic and complexly detached from reality professor like Karlan,
to support this action. Neocons feed from threat inflation. And money from MIC doesn't
smell.
The problems with the current impeachment goes far deeper then Trump. It is a change
of the constitutional system converting it closer to the UK model.
Jimmy1969 says: December
19, 2019 at 2:12 pm GMT 200 Words Golden Tree Asset Management bought up Post Media in
Canada at a fire sale years ago from the bankrupt Asper family. Post Media is a conglomerate
that controls dozens and dozens of media outlets in all of Canada including 95% of all the
major Newspapers in every large city. Therefore Canadian news is de facto controlled by an
American New York Jewish hedge fund. That fact has been known for years and is joked about on
all of the bar stools in Canada where reporters hang out .but not in the Press. No one writes
about it none of the Nationalistic Professors, Journalists, Members of Parliament no one. One
fact is certain you will never ever see a single bad word in any of their papers critical of
Israel, or any actions of Israelis. Any comment critical of Israel or Zionist power, no matter
how objective or moderate is immediately deleted. And sadly this is no joke. The world should
take note of how Canada is strangled. Read More Replies: @bike-anarkist
Replies: @the
grand wazoo , @eah
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@silviosilver
Paying what you owe is perfectly fine and moral. Paying double of what you owe on account of
inflated fees and interest is blood sucking. Doing this to developing nations is downright
cruel.
Let's say Congo owes $10 billion. A finance firm buys that debt for $8 billion, collects
the full $10 billion (which already includes interest) and make a $2 billion profit. That's
not too terrible.
But to buy the debt for $8 billion and then force Congo to pay $60 billion is Jewish.
Playing the victim while accusing Congo of financial mismanagement and forcing them to close
their schools and hospitals – very Jewish. Evading the ethical implications of one's
actions and seeking cover behind legalism like a coward –> Jew level –
Godlike
Jews see themselves as the ingroup, and the "goyim" as the outgroup. Since Whites are the
"outgroup" it's not just acceptable, but praiseworthy, to exploit them. To "beat" them at
war.
The problem is that Whites wrongly do not see Jews as an outgroup – something that
Jews themselves take great pains to discourage via their various front groups like the
ADL.
There is no "technical" fix, there is no objective "system" that can change this dynamic.
There is no "level playing field."
Whites need to ostracize Jews at all levels. Boycott, Divest and Sanction – not just
their apartheid regime of Jew bigotry in Zionist-occupied Palestine, but at every level of
society, business, civil institutions, etc.
Jews are destroying the world. Everywhere they go, they leave behind nations in ruins.
Look at Europe, Africa and the Americas, Jews have left their ugly footprints. Corruption,
prostitution, drugs and human trafficking are their trade.
Reading the (obvious) Jews commenting here on their various financial swindle-systems is a
lot like reading zionists defending Israel. The basic tactics are always the same:
1.) Focus on some small aspects or most recent events and make a comparison to Gentiles or
other events with similar micro-narratives. "See? Everyone else does it! Why single out us
poor, persecuted Jews?"
2.) Use these minute distractions to drown out the overall issues, underlying concepts,
long history or guiding ideology in noise and minutiae.
3.) Never start at the beginning of the story and follow the trajectory though; always
start in the middle and focus on some trivial detail, use it to defend the (never stated)
sicko ideology that started the problem in the first place. Completely ignore any timelines
or larger perspectives.
David Icke calls it (or used to call it -- - back when his backbone was healthy) the
Reptilian Brain. The ability to manipulate trivial minutiae while never addressing underlying
concepts or timelines.
It is hard to feel sorry for WASPs, they struck a deal with the Jews centuries ago
Catholic political powers have been "striking deals with Jews" for two thousand years.
There is a synagogue in Rome right next to the Vatican which has been legally privileged
since the days of Christ. As E. Michael Jones detailed in his book, Jewish Revolutionary
Spirit , the Catholic Church itself defended Jews from the angry mobs time and time again
throughout their history, to the point bishops and priests would harbor Jews in the
cathedrals and lock the doors before the peasants could arrest them.
Indeed, the infighting among Whites promoted by the likes of Jones is yet again another
assist from Catholic powers to their partners, the Jews.
The popular "neo-reactionary/NRx" movement, started by the Ashkenazi Curtis Yarvin, is yet
another "right-wing" fad that blames Calvinists for all the problems in the world.
Jews are blameless, yet again another White ethnicity/religion is at fault.
No wonder Jews get away with what they do. Whites are too busy infighting over false
history demonizing various rival cults.
So, the "vultures" flew out to the West after devouring the Russian empire and now with the
help of the likes of the homeboy or more like a two bit whore, Ben Sasse, they've descended
on America and have started gutting it out.
Where will they fly next? White Christians don't want them and black/brown Muslims can't
stand them but perhaps China is their next destination being that they have shipped most of
the jobs out there and the whole lot of them are marrying "Chinese-American" women in droves
for good measure.
In the coming battle of the titans, the one who's name can't be pronounced, viz. Yahweh,
hopefully has better guns than Jehovah and Allah, for it sure is gonna need it when the
latter two gang up on it maybe Buddha will give it a helping hand being that they're
practically in-laws now!
My question is how do entities like Puerto Rico get so far in debt in the first
place?
For the same reason individuals get into debt, financial incompetence and sometimes a bit
of bad luck.
I've personally never understood how people can take out loans from companies like Wonga
or QuickQuid (both Jewish owned incidentally) seeing as they quite clearly advertise their
exorbitant interest rates.
Look up income by ethnic group in the UK and US, you will find that Indians and Chinese
(South Asians) are the richest in both countries (except for Jews of course).
What I have found is that these two groups come from a debt-averse culture, their kids
actually live with their parents until they have saved enough money for a house and other
such things required to start a family.
Whites meanwhile are WAY to trusting of these faceless financial institutions, they get
into debt very easily and thus become slaves, if you have kids, the first thing you should
educate them about is finance and debt, don't throw them out to the dogs either, it's tragic
to see some getting into debt and then having other problems like drugs and alcohol
addictions.
I came out of that book with the utmost admiration for Bill Browder.
You don't seem to be serious, if I understood what you want to say. Even Der Spiegel has
published a critical article in English about Browder, Browder is the one who pushed for
sanctions against Russia because of the case Magnitsky:
Questions Cloud Story Behind U.S. Sanctions
The story of Sergei Magnitsky has come to symbolize the brutal persecution of
whistleblowers in Russia. Ten years after his death, inconsistencies in Magnitsky's story
suggest he may not have been the hero many people -- and Western governments -- believed him
to be.
@Anonymous
Sure, but you're talking utopia. The reality is that public entities issue bonds to finance
special projects or even their operations. Somebody then buys the bonds and expects to be
paid back.
@Realist
There is something especially deficient with Whites when it comes to money matter, how can
such a large number of Whites take short-term loans from companies like Wonga and QuickQuid,
when the nature of their business (usury) is very clearly advertised. I was around 10 years
old when I was astounded at the 5000% APR loans advertised on TV, and wondered if I
understood interest right.
Parents, especially White ones, really need to educate their children on personal finance
and debt, it seems a lot of Whites these days do not actually own anything and all their
flashy gadgets and whatnot are being loaned out (buying Iphone on contract for example),
these people are the hardest hit as they can't scrape together even a couple of hundred
pounds/dollars/euros when hard times come. Its farcical albeit tragic.
Wow what a confused mess. Here's a summary: Vulture capitalism is bad for no particular
reason but only an evil anti-Semite (like you) would dare criticize capitalism.
And they want the island of Puerto Rico for themselves, save a few thousand able bodies to
serve as maids and gardeners. But what about the triple-raced residents of the island itself?
Well, that's easy! Dump them in states like Florida and New York and let the suckers pay for
it. After all, it's not like they are going to vote for the other side we get to eat the cake
and keep it too!
An article that appeared in Goebbels newspaper, Der Angriff (The Attack) titled
"The Jew", a short excerpt that is relevant to your comment;
The Jew is immunized against all dangers: one may call him a scoundrel, parasite,
swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But call him a Jew and
you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back:
"I've been found out."
I think the term "vulture capitalism" is calumnious to vultures, who, as carrion birds,
perform a useful and purifying function in nature.
The Jews as a collective, i.e., the Jews who identify as such, concur in the death
sentence of Christ handed down by their Sanhedrin and espouse the Talmudic mitzvah of killing
the best of the gentiles (which naturally implies elevating the worst of the gentiles to
power and prominence) are more to be likened to plague bearing rodents. Unlike vultures, rats
feast on corruption and putrescence, spread disease and also kill the living.
We embrace the finance capitalist worldview at our peril. In its essence, it is nothing
but the worship of money making and profiteering as the supreme aspiration of life,
irregardless of its horrible effects on our compatriots and fellow humans. In doing so, we
become Jews at heart.
There is nothing wrong with industry and the profit motive per se. Predatory finance
contributes nothing to the well being of a nation and the needs of the physical economy- it
is supremely toxic and corrosive of both. It must be expunged and its champions expropriated
and exiled. People like the odious Peter Singer have no place in a moral world; they ought to
be first expropriated, then exiled as far away from their host societies as possible.
I was personally wounded by the anti gay rhetoric peppered across this article. I can't help
making the association that Paul singer's son came out as gay and that this must be the
source of the author's animus against him and the others. Shakespeare, who was also
homosexual, described this state of mind as "a green eyed monster," i.e. jealousy. I'm
mortified that other members of the commentariat have not taken issue with this. Maybe we
would be more compassionate to the denizens of middle America if they allowed our most basic
civil rights.
@J
Adelman Oh those kind jews have always been for the working class? But there is a white
working class and jews want them extinct from the face of the earth. Read 'Abolishing
whiteness has never been more urgent.' By Mark Levine
@silviosilver
You make several good points but you don't address the issue of capitalists manipulating the
politicians with campaign contributions. If a fund gets paid off by public money due to
politicians putting the fund owners ahead of the taxpayers, that's corrupt. What happened to
the 'creative destruction' principle by which large IBs like Goldman would have been allowed
to collapse and their principals carried off in leg-irons in 2008? Oh -- they are "too big to
fail and too big to jail." So much for the free market myth.
Moreover, most Jews support endless free money for "victim groups" to be forcibly
extracted from the middle-class. Never mind if Mr. Jones has a lengthy criminal record, let's
pay for him to go to college, let's pay his rent, let's pay his medical bills, etc. Why then
take such a hard line on people who foolishly get into debt?
Moreover, the economic downturn that caused many mortgagors to default was CAUSED BY the
big Wall Street firms' irresponsible behavior.
Also, most people do tend to temper economic contracts with a degree of compassion.
Gentile capitalism does not exist in a vacuum.
I recall reading about a young female environmentalist who was refusing to leave a
venerable redwood tree that was scheduled to be cut down. The WASP businessman who owned the
tree was extremely patient with the girl, tried to win her over, threw her food and drinks,
and so on. The land with the tree was then sold to some Jewish firm. At that point the
article left off. The tree was cut down with no further negotiation.
The greatest jewish vulture fund is the zionist privately owned feral reserve aka the FED ,
is creates money out of thin air and feeds this money to the otherwise bankrupt zionist banks
and not just here in the ZUS but in Europe, and the BIS is the vulture fund of vulture funds
owned by the zionists, the biggest scam in the history of the world.
By the way, Tucker Carlson said that 911 truthers were nuts, that says it all about
him.
Mass immigration for cheap labor, the weaponization of the grievance industry against
white majority/European nations and the use for the production of anti-white race baiting
media.
Much great work!! Very impressed. Would recommend to Moses himself.
@Colin
Wright I remember seeing a clip where Jared Taylor was on some talk show. He was calmly
citing statistics on how blacks are over represented among violent criminals. A sassy black
women broken in with "Jeffrey Dahmer Ted Bundy they were all white!" Not her exact words but
something to that effect. Naxalt, in other words.
I don't think Joyce is suggesting that all unscrupulous capitalists are Jews, or vice
versa. It is true that gentiles can be scumbags (the Enron boys.)
Now most Muslims are not terrorists, and many terrorists are not Muslims.
And yet it seems like there are many people who will notice patterns among other groups,
rightfully roll their eyes when they hear PC arguments in favor of those groups, and then
pull out the naxalt and what-about-isms when you notice patterns in Jewish behavior.
@Dutch
Boy Your statement: "maximizing shareholder is the holy grail of all capitalist
enterprises" statement is spot on.
I've been saying that for decades.
Labor is never given value, but is a commodity-a "necessary evil" according to the Wall
Street types and is to be minimized and marginalized at all costs.
Adolph Hitler's Germany monetized labor and gave it value. THAT is the reason that the
jews went after Germany. Post WW1 Germany was successful in its economy due to throwing off
the shackles (and shekels) of the internationalist banksters.
Henry Ford CREATED a market which had not existed when he paid his employees $5.00 per day
when the average wage of the day was around $1.25 per day. His premise was not entirely
altruistic as assembly line work was monotonous; a way had to be found to retain employees as
well.
Of course, the wall street types and the banksters howled that Ford's wage rates would
destroy capitalism (as they knew it-those at the top reap all of the benefits while the
proles are forced to live on a bare subsistence wage, due to the machinations of those at the
top).
Guess what??
The OPPOSITE happened. Henry Ford knew one of the basic tenets of a truly free,
capitalistic society, that a well-paid work force would be able to participate and contribute
to a strong economy, unlike what is taught in business schools today-that wages must be kept
to a bare minimum and that the stockholder is king.
Our "free trade" politicians have assisted the greedy wall street types and banksters in
depressing wages on the promise of cheap foreign labor and products.
A good example of this is the negative criticism that Costco receives for paying its
employees well above market wages. These same wall street types praise Wal-Mart for paying
its employees barely subsistence wages while assisting them in filling out their public
assistance (welfare) forms.
Any sane person KNOWS that in order for capitalism to work, employees need to make an
adequate wage. Unfortunately, this premise does not exist in today's business climate.
Henry Ford openly criticized those of the "tribe" for manipulating wall street and
banksters to their own advantage, and was roundly (and unjustly) criticized for pointing out
the TRUTH.
Catholic priest, Father Coughlin did the same thing and was punished by the Catholic
church, despite his popularity and exposing the TRUTH of the American economy and the
outsider internationalists that ran it . . . and STILL run it.
Our race to the bottom will not be without consequences. A great realignment is necessary
(and is coming) . .
@lavoisier
I'm not sure I'd put Buffett in that category. For example, in one of the companies he
bought, he kept a factory with declining profits open as long as he could to avoid throwing a
large chunk of people out of work overnight. He has mostly made his money by avoiding dopey
fads and a disciplined buy-and-hold approach to stocks.
@J
Adelman' Jewish people have always stood against tyranny against the working class,
the poor and other people of color." '
Right. I'd say Jews actually collaborated extensively in the imposition of tyranny
on the working class in Eastern Europe from 1917 to 1991. That'd be one counter-example.
Should we explore others? The role of Jews in the medieval slave trade? After all,
somebody had to castrate all those Christian boys who were to serve as harem
guards.
No reason to dredge up ancient history -- except here you are, making a blatantly false
claim about it. 'Always stood against ', my ass.
They are gunning for India now who do you think that brought in the Turks who ruled as the
Moguls to exploit the Hindu wealth and later on who did in the Muslims?
Disraeli and his ilk always knew that India was poor but their temples were rich with gold
and it's that they are after one can't build one's own "Third Temple" without it.
Why are the black cohens being promoted (South Brahmins the most pliable ones) at Google,
Microsoft and Pepsi etc.? Because the waterboys, and girls, will help rope in what's left of
the Indian carcass for thirty pieces of silver!
@secondElijah
You are probably the most antisemitic troll I have ever met online.
So, when did Epstein and Weinstein become the standard bearers of the Jewish community?
It is your jealousy of the Jewish people that makes you spew such vile hatred here.
Smug, obnoxious white people like you who have always considered this country their private
preserve are an endangered species. The demographic trends cannot be denied.
In less than 25 years white folks will become a minority in this country. So enjoy it while
you can, Bubba, your days of driving the bus are numbered.
You and other whites here are like the bad guys in every horror movie ever made, who gets
shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass -- even if
it takes four sequels to make it happen -- but who in the meantime keeps coming back around,
grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were
finally dead this time. Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends. Our
ankles survive.
YOU DO NOT.
@Saguaro
The soup has boiled over, the horse has bolted and the barn has burnt down and yet you
Yankees haven't woken up.Your politicians are whores who cannot function without funding from
the jews. And Jeffery got them all for Mossad. Enjoy
@Vaterland
The "standing up for People of Color" schtick is particularly disingenous, as all the Jews
have really done isuse their disproportionate control of the media to peddle false narratives
and distort history. One good example of this is the case of then president of the Atlanda
chapter of B'nai B'rith, Leo Frank. Frank had raped and murdered 13 year-old Mary Phagan and
when he was found out, he used his connection with New York Jews to get lots of money and
hire the best defence lawyers, his lawyer then launched vicious racial attacks on a Black
semi-literate janitor who worked in the factory that Frank was in charge of (and where Phagan
worked) to try and convict him of the horrible crime.
Jews will be friends of POC when it suits them. The funny thing about the Frank case is
that the Jewish media has made it out that Frank was innocent and wrongly lynched (only after
his death sentence had been commuted by a judge who was suspected to have been bribed by
powerful New York Jews), and that the Black janitor was the guilty one. This is absurd seeing
as the racist Southern jury would never favour a "White" man over a Black man (anti-semtism
wasn't that big in the South, and especially so considering this was before the Bolsheviks
took control of Russia), and that if Frank had truly been White, this case would be a
landmark case in which the evil rich White man was tried and the Black man was given
justice.
"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States.
I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of
the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the
profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I
take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families.
That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin
fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I
have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I
will rout you out!"
Islam stands in their way of usury-ripping of mankind of their
resources and defrauding mankind via bank thefts.
Bring on the Shariah Law. I would much rather live under Shariah, God's Constitution than
under Euoropean/Western diabolic, satanic, fraudulent monies, homosexual, thievery, false
flag hoaxes, WMD's, bogus wars, Unprovoked oppression, tel-LIE-vision, Santa Claus lies,
Disney hocus pocus , hollywood, illuminati, free mason, monarchy, oligarchy, millitary
industrial complex, life time congressman/senators, upto the eye balls taxation, IRS
thievery, Fraudulent federal reserve, Rothchild/Rockerfeller/Queens and Kings city of London
satanic cabal, opec petro$$$ thievery, ISISraHELL's, al-CIA-da hoaxes, Communist, Atheist,
Idol worshippers, Fear Monger's, Drugged and Drunken's oxy crystal coccaine meth psychopath,
child pedeophilia, gambler's, Pathological and diabolical liars, Hypocrites, sodomites ..I
can't think of any right now, because my mind is exploding with rage because of these
troubling central banker's satanic hegemony!
Quran Chapter 30
39. The usury you practice, seeking thereby to multiply people's wealth, will not multiply
with God. But what you give in charity, desiring God's approval -- these are the
multipliers.
40. God is He who created you, then provides for you, then makes you die, then brings you
back to life. Can any of your idols do any of that? Glorified is He, and Exalted above what
they associate.
41. Corruption has appeared on land and sea, because of what people's hands have earned, in
order to make them taste some of what they have done, so that they might return.
@Really
No Shit Jews are doing to White countries what Whites and Jews did to India, no honour
amongst thieves, the ones with the higher verbal IQ wins.
Also it is important to note that the reason India came under the sway of Anglo-Zionist
banking cartels so easily was because how divided it was, I reckon that is why they are
promoting mass immigration. Import lots of different groups, then run lots of race-baiting
stories to distract the plebs from their financial machinations.
This is why Jews are well represented in non-antisemitic White Nationalist organisations
like Jared Taylor's AmRen, they are great at playing both sides.
And he funded the building of the Peace Palace ("Vredespaleis") in The Hague, presently
the seat of the International Court of Justice, an institution not held in high esteem in
the home country of the generous donor.
@Wally
You can act confused all you want, you know exactly what I am talking about, the fact of the
matter is Whites like you and Joyce would be laughing it up at countries/territories like
Puerto Rico, Congo, Vietnam etc etc being carved up and financially enslaved if Whites were
also allowed a piece of the pie along with Jews (as was the case in the days of the British
Empire when WASP's and Jews worked together), but now that the low-IQ countries have been
looted, the Jews have turned on the Whites and the latter are now crying that their criminal
comrades have now betrayed them.
You quite clearly have a clue, you are just terrified and trying to divert because I am
right, the Jews will do to the White nations what the White nations and Jews did to the
non-White nations. All I can say is that you WASPs should have kept to youselves like Eastern
Europeans and Eastern Asians, they didn't really engage in lofty ambitons to dominate the
world and as such are intact at the moment and seem like they will remain that way for a long
time, they are the true conservatives, WASPs have always had a Jewish streak within their
corrupt souls and are now paying the price for engaging with a criminal race.
Why do you think Epstein has all these Gentiles in his pocket? You think do-gooding
gentiles just randomly decided to get into bed with Epstein and Co.? How many East Asians and
Eastern Euros do you see terrified of being outed as paedophiles.
Don't deceive yourselves, all debts are paid in the end, especially when the creditors are
Jews.
@Adrian
They are a function of Empire in Hague, who protect empire criminals, and assume a non
existent legitimacy and jurisdiction as a private entity to take down empire opponents.
It is the very same kangaroo court as the IMT or Tokio show trials.
In the book "Heaven is for real" a 4 year old boy who supposedly is dead for a short period,
but actually visits heaven; when he returns, is asked : what is the meaning, the purpose of
life on earth?
His response is so simple, that it could only be true. And it could only come from
knowing
Don't deceive yourselves, all debts are paid in the end, especially when the creditors
are Jews.
It is a mathematical impossibility due to interest. The FED probably goes negative
interest like ECB mafia.
Chances are higher they do a reset and start anew with an electronic ponzi scheme.
No one seriously plans to pay these "debts", they can't be paid, and are actually a nothing
burger, pure fiction.
" it is truly remarkable that vulture funds like Singer's escaped major media attention prior
to this ."
Not really. The Jew's grip is starting to slip now, though. More and more people are
becoming aware that they are virulent parasites and always have been.
@Mulegino1
Real capitalism is the competition of ideas, innovation, efficient manufacturing and quality
products made and produced by honest companies. That competition can, in theory at least,
make people (and companies) "try harder". But only when a company's success is determined by
the strength of its products, not by the "deals" it cuts with Jewish financial, advertising,
"marketing" and swindling rackets, designed to line the pockets of the Jew while destroying
honest competition by Gentiles who struggle to play fair and innovate.
Jewish vulture "capitalism" contributes NOTHING of value to any company or any culture. It
never has and never will.
You and other whites here are like the bad guys in every horror movie ever made, who
gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass --
even if it takes four sequels to make it happen -- but who in the meantime keeps coming
back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that
you were finally dead this time. Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie
ends. Our ankles survive.
YOU DO NOT.
Talk about deflection. Any nation, empire, culture or civilization wherein the Jewish
collective gains critical mass and ultimately absolute power turns into a real horror,
not a movie. The Jews may be said to be the true prototype of the "bad guys in every horror
movie", since they can only be gotten rid of by very rigorous means taken in the healthiest
and most vigorous cultures and societies. Indeed, antisemitism itself is the healthy
immunological reaction of a flourishing culture, and its lack thereof the pathology of a
moribund one.
Woke Christians of European provenance have nothing to envy the Jew (the archetypal Jew)
over. We realize that the true measure of success is not primarily monetary or the
fulfillment of cheap ambitions, but a spiritual and cultural one. On the contrary, the Jewish
hatred against Christian Europe and the civilization that it constructed is engendered out of
sheer envy and malice, because Jewry understands that is would never be capable of
constructing anything similar, and never has. In all of the arts, Jewry has produced nothing
of note.
This is not to say that individual Jews have not made contributions to the arts and sciences,
but they have done so only by participation in gentile culture, not qua Jews. Jewry only
tears down and deconstructs; it is not creative in the sense of high art, and can thrive only
in the swamp of gentile decadence and moral putrefaction. Whatever Jewry touches, it turns to
merde.
European Jewish IQ has only gone 1/2 a standard deviation above the white norm in the last
100 years. Interesting to know why, but the belief Jews have always been more intelligent is
just lack of data.
bias for co-operation
Nazis did this too – they worked reaaally well with each other. The issue was how
they thought of and treated others.
That aside, I think we daily meet plenty of individuals who'd sell their mothers, and
maybe kill lives, for pennies. They are like machines not even conscious of what they are
doing.
Your 1 data point aside, are you saying all humans act in identical ways, regardless of
how the ideologies they embrace ask them to act?
Take the ideology of Islam – it does not allow for aggressive war, surprise attacks,
the killing of women or children (unless they take up arms)..
Judaism allows for aggressive war, surprise attack, and demands the killing of all
when a state of war is declared.
Do you believe these declarations lead to identical actions by their practitioners? (in
other words – people act how they would wish to act, and don't really engage in any
belief systems beyond what pulls their own selves?)
So, it's the usual with Joyce (and not only Joyce of course). You take something that is
human, talk of Jews, point to that something in Jews, and pretend, trusting that your
readers will pretend the same, that it's a Jewish-specific something.
Yes, correct – no ideology is perfect at taming human action, and corruption is a
human action, not a Jewish action. But we could still engage in comparative ideology, and
this is what Joyce (and not only Joyce, of course) engage in.
Saying 'well, all peoples engage in force and deceit, so is there any actual difference
between them and their beliefs?' is absurdism. In such a world, I will build a nation of
priests, fashioned along the lines of the Aztek priesthood. Give me your children so I can
rip out their hearts and make it rain – after all 'we are all the same'!!
The argument is that, for the proportion of the population, the fraction of monopoly power
in Western economies that is taken up by Jewish power is much disproportional to other
nations/belief systems.
It is fair to ask whether people who engage in other belief systems have the same level of
desire for monopoly, just less skill to get it due to their belief systems.. I would say yes,
they have the same level of desire (we are all human after all (not that if you read chapter
1 of the Tanya, you will be offered that point of view)) – but that their belief
systems specifically push them away from materialism and desire for money and power, even at
the expense of others. That is the exact point of religion (self-improvement) btw, so
the next question is – is the Jewish religion effective?
At which point, the Jewish ideology becomes the wolf in the hen house – because it
fails to tame the human away from such materialistic desire (as it btw claims it does
best).
Should the hens be allowed to point out what they see as a wolf? Yes.
That the supposed wolf then obfuscates and justifies their actions by pointing to others,
mostly, betrays that it is, in fact, a wolf.
I have become totally disenchanted with the SEC. Stupid, Evil, Crazy! It would not surprise
me if they are the ones that have been terrorizing me, with stupid, evil, crazy chants
through appliances after illegallly implaced RFIDs, microchips, or sensors illegally
implanted in my ears and nose that started after my first phone was hacked in 2017! Can't
expect stupid people not to be stupid, evil people not to be evil, and crazy people not to be
crazy! They were just born that way!
@J
Adleman brookings.edu : "The US will become minority white in 2045 Census projects "
:
"During that year [2045] whites will comprise 49.7 per cent of the population in contrast to
24.6 per cent for Hispanics , 13.1 per cent for Blacks , 7.9 per cent for Asians and 3.8 per
cent for multi-racial populations " Are these projections good or bad for the "Jewish people
" ?
Nov 22, 2013 Thomas DiLorenzo – The Revolution Of 1913
From the Tom Woods show Loyola economics professor Thomas DiLorenzo discusses three events
from 1913 that greatly escalated the transmogrification of America from the founder's vision
(limited government) to its current state (unlimited government).
@silviosilver
Yes, and just because you can doesn't mean you should. And if there's a predilection among
jewish men to engage in predatory lending and collecting tactics that is disproportionate to
their of the population, there's something about their genes or their culture that shapes
them to be this way.
Also, notice how you left out the part where they jack up the interest rates and debtor's
fees to grossly inflate their income. Is there a reason to do this other than as a quick way
to make money off already impoverished people? It's kind of like opening up a rent to own
place in a low income place. The people who do that shit know exactly why they should set up
among poor people; low wealth and bad decision making abound.
And yes, it does seem to be particularly jewish given how many jews are involved in its
practice and given that it used to be frowned upon in Christian Europe. Hell, God himself (as
Jesus) went and beat the shit out of a bunch of jews for their money lending in the temple.
That's the best part of the Bible, frankly. God gets so sick of the his own chosen people
that he sends himself to chastise and whip them for their greed and hubris. No lesson was
learned.
And then they killed him. And they lost their homeland for 2000 years. And then were
kicked out of a hundred plus kingdoms, cities and countries. And then a miserable liberal
shows how vile and stupid their children are:
You know, maybe instead of making excuses, you can just acknowledge the wrongdoing and
acknowledge that some jews are particularly malicious. Cuz eventually, people are
gonna get sick of the shit jews pull and see jewish (or gentile zionist) people defending
their obvious misdeeds and get pissed at them as well. Remember, the well is open to
everyone.
Besides being retardedly wrong, the broader point is likewise retarded: when
English-speaking Jews name their businesses they shouldn't use English words. Naming a
company "Oaktree" should be limited to those of purely English blood! Jews must name their
companies "Cosmopolitan Capital" or RosenMoses Chutzpah Advisors."
Telling that you go with hyperbole here: the only two options must be Albion
Whyteman Capital or Foreskin-Chewing Pornographers Incorporated!
There are two interesting things about the onomastics of the prepuce-free business world.
One is that far fewer sons of Abraham name their businesses after themselves (I'm sure this
will insincerely be attributed to some fear of native kulaks' repressed urge-to-pogrom, even
in Finland or Japan.) The other is an observation made by an associate of a famous Austrian
landscapist: even merely remarking on their origins causes these guys mental distress.
Here in the melting pot, the difference couldn't be any starker. You can make small talk
with any flavor of goy based on it: that's a Polish name, isn't it? Yeah, how did you
know! Try this one with Levy or Nussbaum down at The Smith Group or The Jones Foundation
and watch them plotz.
Jews have always weaponized usury. Long before Christianity, Jews operated the East/West
mechanism on donkey caravan trade routes. Silver would drain from the West, and Gold would
drain from the east, while Jewish caravaneers would take usury on exchange rate differences.
This operated for thousands of years.
Haibaru donkey bones have been discovered outside of Sumer. The Aiparu/Haibaru (Hebrew)
tribes were formed as merchants operating between city states. In those days, psychopaths and
criminals would be excommunicated from civilized city states, and would take up with the
wandering merchant tribe.
Why do you think the Jew is always interested in owing the money power? Why do you think
the Jew perpetually stands outside the walls of the city state, plotting its destruction?
History tells us things, and we had better listen. That is – real history, not what
you learned in (((public skool))). There are two ways to deal with the Jew: 1) Remove him
from your country. 2) Limit him.
Limiting was done by Byzantium under Justinian. The Jew was limited FROM money
counting/banking; limited from participation in government; limited from access to pervert
young minds – especially as school teachers and professors.
It takes a King or Tsar who cares about his population, and is willing to eject or filter
out toxins from the body politic. (((Democracy))) is a failed form of government, whereby
monied Oligarchs control the polity by compromat and pulling strings.
You are not going to be able to vote your way out of the Jew problem.
@Colin
Wright Echoing words once supposedly used by Hermann Goering: whenever I here the word
'philanthropist' these days, I instinctively reach for my revolver!
Take the ideology of Islam – it does not allow for aggressive war, surprise
attacks, the killing of women or children (unless they take up arms)..
Ilya,
There is deception in Islam. Sorry. You cannot make claims about Islam not allowing for
aggressive war and surprise attacks.
These concepts even have names and doctrine that support them. Wahabbi/Salafist Islam is
exactly in alignment with Islamic teachings, especially when using abrogation techniques.
Taqiyya is lying with intent to deceive. The analog in Judaism is the Kol-Niedre, which
allows one pre-forgiveness for lying, cheating, even murder of Goyim.
Hudnas is are used to lay in wait, build up strength, to then attack the enemy.
Islam has derogatory terms to demean e.g. Kaffirs, which is similar to Goyim.
There is also deception in Christianity, but this deception is OUT OF ALIGNMENT WITH
DOCTRINE. The doctrine of super-session means the old testament is superseded, completed, a
historical record.
In Islam the doctrine of Abrogation means that the more pacific Meccan verses are
abrogated (made less relevant) that post Medina. Ergo, Wahabbi Islam and the Takfiri's are
doctrinaly correct, while Judaizer Christians (those that worship the old testament) are out
of alignment and heretics.
Judaism is actually a new religion that came into being after 73 AD, when the verbal
tradition (Caballa) became written down into Talmud.
Our Jewish friends have always been practicing usury, going back to since forever.
Our Jewish friends, I count as worse that Islamics. However two wrongs don't make a right.
Islam badly needs reform or to be expunged. Talmudic Judaism is by far the worst religion on
the planet, and its adherents must malfunction by definition.
o ..kill all the Jewish, er, "vulture capitalists" , right? Or should we go "easy" on
them all and merely ship them all off to special "re-education" camps? Or am I missing
something here ?
You are missing something because you are unwilling to adapt and learn with new
information. This makes you an ideologue.
Lolbertarianism IS A JEWISH CONSTRUCT.
There are no such things as free markets. Money's true nature is law, not gold. Money
didn't come into being with barter and other nonsense lolbertarians believe.
Most of the luminaries that came up with "libertarian" economics are Jews, and it is a
doctrine of deception. The idea is to confuse the goyim with thoughts and ideas that make
them easy pickings.
A determined in-group of predators operating in unison, will take down an "individual"
every-time.
Don't expect anything to improve with Jay Clayton as SEC Chair, and his wife and her father
Gretchen Butler Clayton who was CEO of CSC and mysterious WMB Holdings which share the same
address in addition to many Goldman Sachs divisions. Gretchen was employed by Goldman Sachs
as an attorney from 1999-2017. Many companies affiliated with the Panama Papers share the
same address as well.
Jewish people have treated me better than my own White Euro family.
Jews are tribal, gee what a surprise after 1000's of years of people trying to wipe them
out . and so their charity is within the tribe, but there is no charity within the tribe
among Whites.
Jews, along with Asians and at least some Africans, believe in not just climbing the
ladder, but in actually helping others – at least family – up it also. Whites
believe in climbing the ladder and then pulling it up after them.
I was explaining to a friend recently: My (relative) has proven that if I showed up at
their door, starving, they'd not give me a cheese sandwich, while in my experience, strangers
have been overall a fairly kind lot and a stranger, 50/50, might. Therefore, while I find the
idea of robbing or burning down the house of a stranger abhorrent, I don't mind the idea so
much when it involves a person who's proven to be cold and evil.
For more on this, see the book Angela's Ashes. The Irish family could have stayed in New
York where they were being befriended by a Jewish family. There was a ray of hope. The Irish
kids, at least, would have been fed, steered into decent schooling, etc. But foolishly they
went back to Ireland, to be treated like utter dogshit by their fellow White family and
"people".
Most of the predation going on in the US and worldwide is being done by WASPS who are
using Jews as a convenient scapegoat.
@tono
bungay Feel free to offer us some counter-examples, tono. How many such funds to you know
of that aren't disproportionately Jewish? We're all ears!
@Robjil
This is an example of what I was saying. Less Euro whites in the world is not going to be a
good world for Big Js. Non-Euros believe in freedom of speech.
Jewish Bigwigs can't get control of businesses in East Asia. They have been trying. Paul
Singer tried and failed. In Argentina he got lots of "success". Why? Lots of descendants of
Europeans there went along with "decisions" laid out by New York Jews.
Little Paulie tried to get control of Samsung. No such luck for him in Korea. In Korea
there are many family monopolies, chaebols. A Korean chaebol stopped him. Jewish Daniel Loeb
tried to get a board seat on Sony. He was rebuffed.
I was moved to reflect on the universality of this theme recently when surveying media
coverage on Korean and Argentinian responses to the activities of Paul Singer and his
co-ethnic shareholders at Elliott Associates, an arm of Singer's Elliott Management hedge
fund. The Korean story has its origins in the efforts of Samsung's holding company, Cheil
Industries, to buy Samsung C&T, the engineering and construction arm of the wider
Samsung family of businesses. The move can be seen as part of an effort to reinforce
control of the conglomerate by the founding Lee family and its heir apparent, Lee Jae-yong.
Trouble emerged when Singer's company, which holds a 7.12% stake in Samsung C&T and is
itself attempting to expand its influence and control over Far East tech companies,
objected to the move. The story is fairly typical of Jewish difficulties in penetrating
business cultures in the Far East, where impenetrable family monopolies, known in Korea as
chaebols, are common. This new story reminded me very strongly of last year's efforts by
Jewish financier Daniel Loeb to obtain a board seat at Sony. Loeb was repeatedly rebuffed
by COO Kazuo Hirai, eventually selling his stake in Sony Corp. in frustration.
Here is how the Koreans fought off Paul Singer.
The predominantly Jewish-owned and operated Elliott Associates has a wealth of
self-interest in preventing the Lee family from consolidating its control over the Samsung
conglomerate. As racial outsiders, however, Singer's firm were forced into several tactical
measures in their 52-day attempt to thwart the merger. First came lawsuits. When those
failed, Singer and his associates then postured themselves as defending Korean interests,
starting a Korean-language website and arguing that their position was really just in aid
of helping domestic Korean shareholders. This variation on the familiar theme of Jewish
crypsis was quite unsuccessful. The Lee family went on the offensive immediately and,
unlike many Westerners, were not shy in drawing attention to the Jewish nature of Singer's
interference and the sordid and intensely parasitic nature of his fund's other
ventures.
Cartoons were drawn of Singer being a vulture.
Other cartoons appearing at the same time represented Elliott, literally, as humanoid
vultures, with captions referring to the well-known history of the fund. In the above
cartoon, the vulture offers assistance to a needy and destitute figure, but conceals an axe
with which to later bludgeon the unsuspecting pauper.
ADL got all worked about this. The Koreans did not care. It is reality. Freedom of speech
works on these vultures. The west should try some real freedom of speech.
After the cartoons appeared, Singer and other influential Jews, including Abraham
Foxman, cried anti-Semitism. This was despite the fact the cartoons contain no reference
whatsoever to Judaism – unless of course one defines savage economic predation as a
Jewish trait. Samsung denied the cartoons were anti-Semitic and took them off the website,
but the uproar over the cartoons only seemed to spur on even more discussion about Jewish
influence in South Korea than was previously the case. In a piece published a fortnight
ago, Media Pen columnist Kim Ji-ho claimed "Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless
and merciless." Last week, the former South Korean ambassador to Morocco, Park Jae-seon,
expressed his concern about the influence of Jews in finance when he said, "The scary thing
about Jews is they are grabbing the currency markets and financial investment companies.
Their network is tight-knit beyond one's imagination." The next day, cable news channel YTN
aired similar comments by local journalist Park Seong-ho, who stated on air that "it is a
fact that Jews use financial networks and have influence wherever they are born." It goes
without saying that comments like these are unambiguously similar to complaints about
Jewish economic practices in Europe over the course of centuries. The only common
denominator between the context of fourteenth-century France and the context of
twenty-first-century South Korea is, you guessed it, Jewish economic practices.
The Koreans won. Paulie lost. Good win for humanity. The Argentines were not so lucky.
They don't have freedom speech like the Koreans and East Asians have.
In the end, the Lee strategy, based on drawing attention to the alien and exploitative
nature of Elliott Associates, was overwhelmingly effective. Before a crucial shareholder
vote on the Lee's planned merger, Samsung Securities CEO Yoon Yong-am said: "We should
score a victory by a big margin in the first battle, in order to take the upper hand in a
looming war against Elliott, and keep other speculative hedge funds from taking short-term
gains in the domestic market." When the vote finally took place a few days ago, a
conclusive 69.5% of Samsung shareholders voted in favor of the Lee proposal, leaving
Elliott licking its wounds and complaining about the "patriotic marketing" of those behind
the merger.
@jack
daniels Now that I think about it, it was unfair to make an anecdotal judgment that
Jewish lenders are less forgiving. There are plenty of examples, I'm sure, of compassionate
Jews and flinty gentiles.
Finally! An intelligent criticism of Trump for a change. So tired of the brainless
Democrat/MSM impeachment circus. They make me feel like a reflexive MAGAtard just for
defending the constitution, logic, etc., from their never-ending stream of inanities.
Meanwhile, the real problem with Trump is not that he's Hitler; it's that he's not Hitler
enough!
I am also so tired of Zionist-loving cucks bleeting on about the evils of the CRA without
ever considering the role played by the (((profiteers))) who lobbied such policies into law
in the first place. Realize that what Paul Singer does for a living used to be illegal in
this country up until recently. That's right: US bankruptcy law used to forbid investors from
buying up debt second-hand at a discount and then trying to reclaim the entire face
value from the debtor. But I see all kinds of people even on this thread blaming the victim
instead -- 'Damn goyishe deadbeats!' Whatever
What Singer and the other Jewish vultures engage in is not productive, and isn't even
any recognisable form of work or business. It is greed-motivated parasitism carried out on
a perversely extravagant and highly nepotistic scale. In truth, it is Singer and his
co-ethnics who believe that money can be printed on the backs of productive workers, and
who ultimately believe they have a right to be "showered by free stuff promised by
politicians."
To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being
a result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit?
The last Gentleman on WS was not a Jew. Bring back the WASP. You can maintain your honor,
and manners and still succeed. Jews take the easy low road of deception and cheating. WASP
take the higher road of harder work and ethical business practice.
[MORE]
The courtly Mr. Jenrette, who has been dubbed "the last gentleman on Wall Street" earned this
sobriquet largely for his reputation of being particularly sensitive to the human dimension
in an industry where such matters often get sidestepped. Nonetheless, despite Mr. Jenrette's
modest demeanor, he's risen to the top in an often cutthroat business. He remained with
Donaldson Lufkin through good times and bad, guiding it after its two other founding partners
departed for other ventures and, next month, he will step down as the chairman of the
Securities Industry Association, the brokerage trade group.
"Dick has been the one who carried the firm from its original promise through to closure,"
said Samuel Hayes 3d, an investment banking professor at the Harvard Business School.
"Dick's more in tune with human values and that's not frequently found on Wall Street."
Richard Jenrette, 89, Wall Street power, Raleigh native, dies https://www.wral.com ›
richard-jenrette-89-wall-street-power-and-preserva
Apr 23, 2018 – A courtly, soft-spoken North Carolina native whom The New York Times
once called the "last gentleman on Wall Street," Jenrette (pronounced
Wall Street's 'last gentleman' left behind these 24 lessons about life and success: At the
time of his death late last month due to complications from lymphoma, these couple dozen
rules to live by were left on his desk.
Stay in the game. That's often all you need to do -- don't quit. Stick around! Don't be a
quitter!
•Don't burn bridges (behind you)
•Remember -- Life has no blessing like a good friend!
•You can't get enough of them
•Don't leave old friends behind -- you may need them
•Try to be nice and say "thank you" a lot!
•Stay informed/KEEP LEARNING!
•Study -- Stay Educated. Do Your Home Work!! Keep learning!
•Cultivate friends of all ages -- especially younger
•Run Scared -- over-prepare
•Be proud -- no Uriah Heep for you! But not conceited. Know your own worth.
•Plan ahead but be prepared to allow when opportunity presents itself.
•Turn Problems into Opportunities. Very often it can be done. Problems create
opportunities for change -- people willing to consider change when there are problems.
•Present yourself well. Clean, clean-shaven, dress "classically" to age. Beware style,
trends. Look for charm. Good grammar. Don't swear so much -- it's not cute.
•But be open to change -- don't be stuck in mud. Be willing to consider what's new but
don't blindly follow it. USE YOUR HEAD -- COMMON SENSE.
•Have some fun -- but not all the time!
•Be on the side of the Angels. Wear the White Hat.
•Have a fall-back position. Heir and the spare. Don't leave all your money in one
place.
•Learn a foreign language.
•Travel a lot -- around the world, if possible.
•Don't criticize someone in front of others.
•Don't forget to praise a job well done (but don't praise a poor job)
•I don't like to lose -- but don't be a poor loser if you do.
•It helps to have someone to love who loves you (not just sex).
•Keep your standards high in all you do.
•Look for the big picture but don't forget the small details.
"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I" care not who makes its laws"
That is what Mayer Amschel Rothchild said in the 1750s. Now, is it a stretch of my
imagination to believe the Central Banks of the West, all Jewish controlled, would unfairly
favor their 'own' when issueing or disbursing the money they are permitted to create.
We are not allowed to audit the Federal Reserve, so we know not what they do with it beyond
what they tell us. In 2016 it was discovered that between the year 1999 and 2016 well over
$23 trillions had been stolen from just 2 departments of our government, the DoD and HUD.
(Someone should look at NASA). Is it possible the seed money, for not only Venture
capitalists schemes but also buying governments and law makers, has been diverted, shoveled
out of the back door of these corrupt central banks and into the hands of their fellow
jews?
Anyway, the more exposure articles like this get the closer we get to ending their reign.
As I noted in my previous examination of contemporary Jewish usury, Jews have been at
the forefront of innovation in debt for many centuries, and remain its most adroit auteurs.
Although obviously rooted in centuries of Jewish financial practice, Singer and his
co-ethnics (all four equity partners of Elliott are Jewish, and its COO is the
charmingly-named Zion Shohet) pioneered the finer points of the vulture-fund concept. The
firm was born in 1977 when Singer pooled $1.3 million from family and friends,
His firm's first big "win" was the pillage of Panama in 1995.
but it only really took off in October 1995, when Elliott Associates L.P. purchased
$28.7 million of Panamanian sovereign debt for the discounted price of $17.5 million. The
banks holding those bonds, a group that included heavy hitters like Citi and Credit Suisse,
had given up on repayment from Panama. To cut their losses, they sold their holdings to
Elliott which, like a medieval tax farmer, went in with a heavy hand. When Panama's
government asked for a restructuring of its foreign debt in 1995, the vast majority of its
bondholders agreed – apart from Elliott. In July 1996, Elliott Associates,
represented by one of the world's most high-profile securities law firms, filed a lawsuit
against Panama in a New York district court, seeking full repayment of the original $28.7
million – plus interest and fees. The case made its way from a district court in
Manhattan to the New York State Supreme Court, which sided with Elliott. In the end,
Panama's government had to pay the Jewish group over $57 million, with an additional $14
million going to other creditors. Overnight, Singer's group made $40 million, and the
people of Panama found their original sovereign debt had more than doubled.
@Mefobills
If you could point to a verse in the Quran that allows for aggressive war, it would help me
learn – when I read it I saw an explosive self defence at any infringment on the Ummah,
but not much beyond that.
Of course the origination story of the faith is one of fighting, and without any wise men
to guide the laypeople, the faith has an issue in that it is easy for people to not follow
what it teaches.
Islam has been assaulted for a millennium, and so the self defence aspect of its faith has
become more active than the rest.. it needs reform I agree (and not in the direction the
Salafists have taken it), but more so there is a need for the Ummah to have a few generations
of non-aggression from the outside world.. without it the pressure will only be towards
violence – for any nation or faith!
Judaism has monopolized for millennia though, and still acts as a victim. Different kettle
of fish.
Also, you can debate the positives and negatives of Islam with a Muslim (not as a rabid
ignoramus of course – you must be polite, and have learnt something, as well as be open
to learning more). Almost every debate with a Jew about Judaism has started with, continued
with, and ended with name calling for me however.
Judaism fails as a religion because it does not encourage the practitioner to look at
themselves when confronted with error, Islam still does imo.
Does anyone here remember how John Leibowitz aka John Stewart spent months ripping Mitt
Romney to shreds? Remember? Evil white man vulture capitalism at Bain? Remember? Romney was
Adolf Hitler, and look he put his golden retriever on the roof once?
Say. How come that Mr Leibowitz never talked about the Jews who basically destroyed yes
the entire Rust belt by acquisition and outsource?
That Mr Johnny Leibovitz sure did hate the goy a lot and all. He never talked about his
own people. What a fair fellow Mr Johnny Leibovitz was. He even changed his name. Why change
the name?
Remember. Bain Capital and that kind of merger pump and dumps is all done by Mormons
goyim.
@Colin
Wright Your statement: "Jews actually collaborated extensively in the imposition of
tyranny on the working class in Eastern Europe from 1917 to 1991" not only applies to Europe,
but the united States of America as well.
It's the JEWS it's always the JEWS
[MORE]
Our present situation and the devolving into the morass of "multiculturalism" and "diversity"
is no accident. The jewish talmud and that jewish invention-communism has "rules" for the
debasement of (white) civil society.
The following statements are a result of personal experiences–your mileage may
vary
I came of age during the first so-called "civil-rights" movement and saw for myself the
underhanded dealings, the demonization of decent, law-abiding whites, and in general, the
deterioration of civil society.
Almost all of the "civil-rights" workers and demonstration "handlers" were of one
persuasion–New York based leftist communist jews. They cared not one wit about true
"civil rights", but were there to create hate and discontent among their black charges (who
were too stupid or naive to see that they were being used to suborn and destroy legitimate
government and society–a favorite communist tactic).
These New York-based "carpetbaggers" fomented their hate and discontent, only to become
future "civil-rights" attorneys, race-hustlers, and America-hating leftist communists and the
ADL and $PLC being invented.
Those of us whites who were in the middle of this "civil-rights" revolution had a saying:
" Behind every negro, there is a jew ". No truer words were spoken.
Let's not forget their infestation of the nation's education and entertainment systems,
(which continues to the present day), in which they can spread their jewish supremacist
poison.
The so-called "non-violent civil-rights demonstrations" were anything but "non-violent".
Robberies, rapes, and other criminal acts were common, but never reported, as even the
"mainstream media" was "in on the game" and conveniently turned off their cameras during the
acts of violence. You see, even then,"creating crises" was a part of the agenda.
The "beginning of the end" of America was the use of federal troops against white
Americans, which, in itself was a violation of "posse comitatus"–the prohibition on the
use of federal troops for domestic "law enforcement" purposes. As most whites were (and still
are) law-abiding, they (we) were "steamrollered" by the use of federal troops to crush honest
dissent. We never recovered from those unconstitutional actions. It was all downhill from
there
The next step may be "civil-war" in which us whites will have to take back our birthright
by force.
"Foreign Policy described the court's decision as "a groundbreaking moment in the modern
history of finance." By taking the case to a New York district court, Elliott broke with
long-standing international law and custom, according to which sovereign governments are not
sued in regular courts meant to deal with questions internal to a nation state. Further, the
presiding judge accepted the case – another break with custom. It set the stage for two
decades of similar parasitism on struggling countries by Elliott Associates, a practice that
has reaped billions for Jewish financiers. "
A year later after the ground breaking decision. Paulie tries this scam on another nation,
Peru.
Just one year after the Panama decision, Singer spent about $11 million on
government-backed Peruvian bank debt in 1996. After Singer took Peru to court in the U.S.,
U.K., Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, and Canada, the struggling nation finally agreed in
2000 to pay him $58 million. That meant he got better than a 400 percent return.
In 2001, the victim was Argentina.
In 2001, Elliott Associates purchased an Argentinian default for $48 million; the face
value of that debt today is $630 million. The fund wants repayment for the full value of
the debt to all of Argentina's creditors, as it did in 1995 with Panama. This amounts to
$1.5 billion, which could rise to $3 billion including, again, that all-important interest
and fees.
Another victim was the Congo in 2002-03.
..specific activities of Elliott Associates in Congo, where it originally bought $32.6
million in sovereign debt incurred by that country for the knockdown price of under $20
million. In 2002 and 2003, a British court (tactically chosen) forced the Congolese
government to settle for an estimated $90 million, which included that all-important
interest and fees. Elliott Associates rapidly became known as the quintessential "vulture
fund."
1. Re Sidney, Nebraska: Maybe I'm missing something but wasn't it Cabela's owners, for
example co-founder and chairman Jim Cabela, who sold Cabela, not Elliot Management (Singer et
al)? I gather Elliot Management owned only 11% of the company. Was that enough to force them
to sell?
2. The article confuses honest straightforward loans with tax farming and government
corruption. Loans can be very useful, e.g. for a car to get to a job, or for a house so you
build up equity instead of paying rent.
@Hapalong
Cassidy Bain's not much of an exception to Joyce's pattern: although Mitt, like the other
three founders, was a goy, there were plenty of Chosen Ones associated with the company right
from the start:
In addition to the three founding partners, the early team included Fraser Bullock,
Robert F. White, Joshua Bekenstein, Adam Kirsch, and Geoffrey S. Rehnert Early investors
included Boston real estate mogul Mortimer Zuckerman and Robert Kraft, the owner of the New
England Patriots football team.
@BannedHipster
According to the Talmud, we goyim are not the descendants of Adam and Eve, like the
Jews. No, we are the bastard progeny of Adam's first wife, Lilleth, who eloped with the demon
Samael. So we goyim are really all half-demons and therefore we are an abomination in the
sight of Jew-hova, and we get what we deserve at the hands of his 'chosen people'.
improving the quality of life and access to opportunities for all Israeli citizens so that
they may benefit from the country's prosperity
Read 'all Jewish Israeli citizens'. I doubt they're going to do any life-enhancing
or make opportunities available to any of the grunting subhuman goyim .
It's important not to get carried away with this. Figures such as Andrew Carnegie, while
impeccably gentile, were hardly paragons of scrupulous ethics and disinterested virtue.
Andrew Carnegie built something that made life better for people. Making steel is a
beneficial thing.
These evil vulture Jews build nothing – they make people poorer. They suck the
wealth out of people who have little. They know 100% what they are doing.
Jesus expressed anger against the money changers on the temple steps.
It is OK for you to have natural human feelings and be angry at these Jew bastards.
@Anon
Romney is a Mormon, one of the church officials. The Mormons are closer to the Jews pattern
of worshiping money and using charity donation for business investments.
Mormons arent considered Protestants .
"Although the church has not released church-wide financial statements since 1959, in
1997, Time magazine called it one of the world's wealthiest churches per capita.[147] In a
June 2011 cover story, Newsweek stated that the LDS Church "resembles a sanctified
multinational corporation -- the General Electric of American religion, with global ambitions
and an estimated net worth of $30 billion." A whistle blower within the church reported them
to the IRS for using their status as a non taxable religious groups to invest in business
ventures instead of charities.
@anon
Maybe I can answer your question.
I studied and befriended many jews as a student (Imperial College, London etc) – none
were above average intelligent, and although they were very geeky, they only got average
grades.
When I moved to LA – most of my friends were jews and again, none were very bright
(even though a few were famous). Most of these LA jewish friends were probably psychopaths
– thinking back – very manipulative, exploitative and they lied a lot.
I think it's mostly through their cultural nepotism – they work on their own unity
(they help promote each other) while at the same time they work on destroying unity in their
host and everyone else.
Many have changed their Eastern European names.
And they go out of the way to help other jews (only) – a Serbian friend in Toronto
looks very jewish (but is not religious) told me several times here in Toronto, other Jews
(his boss etc) just offered to help him for no reason ("Is there anything I can do for you?"
etc). He did not understand why they did that – then I realized he actually looks like
a Jewish stereotype (as does his twin brother). So he thought he was helping his own
tribe.
When I went to Cuba with a Jewish 'friend' from LA – he was actively looking for
anything jewish (and nothign else – he did not want to see anything famous like a
beautiful cemetery in Havana etc) – only synagogs etc – where he gave some money
to jews he never even met. I was there with him and saw it. He was even angry if I suggested
we see something nice , historical and not-jewish. We met a NY jew there and we gave his a
ride in the car we rented – they immediately teamed up against me – for no reason
– I regretted going with him on this trip. It was an awful experience –
consistent with all the books I read on psychopaths and also that book Jewish History, Jewish
Religion, the weight of 3000 years
Another very wealthy American mother of a friend asked her South African friends (also jews)
to help her book trips in South Africa (and they of course recommended only their Jewish
friends) – it's their son who told me this.
So a lot of backstabbing, cultural nepotism and actively (but in a hidden way as most
psychopaths like to do) they do at wakening and isolating their host. That's their only
advantage – not intelligence (at least in my experience )
I recently learned that from about 1790 to 1967 the USState department refused to issue US
passports to people who held foreign passports. State also didn't hire any dual citizens for
any job from cafeteria dishwasher to ambassador.
Then in the mid sixties, an Israeli immigrant who became a US citizen applied for a US
passport. State refused to issue the US passport. So the Israeli immigrant practiced lawfare.
In 1967 the Supreme Court issued one of its usual detrimental and dangerous rulings. State
was ordered to start issuing US passports to dual citizens.
Soon there were numerous applications to State depot jobs from Israeli citizens residing
in the US. Knowing lawsuits loomed, State caved.
And that children is how and why State, commerce, DOJ CIA treasury, top security civilian
departments in the Pentagon and other federal agencies became flooded with dual American
Israeli citizens who divert money to Israel. Plus they work for Israel instead of the US.
Mysterious how the only Whites who manage to make it past affirmative action barriers are
jews.
Maybe there's a special affirmative action quota for Israelis residing in America.
@J
Adelman Adelman, be careful what you wish for, as in a debate you will be drowned.
Being labeled an ANTISEMITE is the new badge of honor and courage.
Central banks and their fiat fractional reserve banking system is slowly collapsing, as more
and more nations avoid using the BIS. Joyce's article fully explains why Russia is being
promoted as some type of arch-enemy.
@DaveE
I don't even know what capitalism means anymore. It doesn't seem like it's an actual free
market system. Seems like it is slavery for the little guy, and parasitism for the rich.
Maybe we should ditch the word capitalism for usuryism.
"'It was very gratifying to see Tucker Carlson's recent attack on the activities of Paul
Singer's vulture fund, Elliot Associates '"
I am going to avoid the Jew is bad mantra here. I read that article. But it was not an
expose' of hedgefunds, at least not at the level i was expecting. They merged two companies
and sold off or closed that which was least profitable.
In that article there was no clear discussion – about what could have prevented the
closure. So it was hard to respond positively in favor of not closing. I am advocate of
keeping work in the US, but I don't think it is unreasonable that companies be sustainable. I
would have liked that exposure, that the hedge had no intention of exploring possible profit
making alternatives.
And that is where Mr. Carlson lost me. He did not link the companies as you have. Nor
provide the examples you bring to the fore.
What distresses me about Islam is that the pacific practitioners, e.g. Suffi's, many Shias
and Sunnis are out of alignment, and hence are subject to violence from their coreligionists.
I happen to believe there are many wonderful people within the religion what I am saying is
that there is an elephant in the room, and it has a name: abrogation.
I'm going to use a smoke there is fire analogy using data.
If a religion launches repeated attacks against civilizations, then there is something
"in" the religion that is used for justification of said aggression. I'm of the opinion that
data matters, and you have to adjust your position to come into accord with real world
data.
Between 632 and 1922, Islam launched 548 offensive battles against classical
civilization
These attacks were often brutal, especially with rapes being used to "convert women"
rapidly.
In Islam (as in other religions as well) the Imam can turn knobs and get an output. This
means that abrogation is used to pick and choose verses depending on situation, to maneuver
the sheeple in the direction Imam's or political authority want them to go – including
offensive war. I used the term political authority on purpose, because Islam is more than
just a religion, it is a political-theocratic construct that is all-encompassing.
There may not be a specific verse allowing aggressive violence, but there is something
going on based on the data. (I admit to being a lay-man and not an expert on minutia of
Islam. I don't want to go there based on what I already know to be true.)
In Christianity, if there are calls for aggressive violence it is OUT OF ALIGNMENT because
of super-session. Christian adherents who do this are Judaizers, and have to use the old
testament for justification.
@Digital
Samizdat Who the heck is Lillith? Where did she come from? Adam's apple? At least Samael
is a step up from a talking snake. Talk about rewrite. Almost on par to the silly ones on the
daytime soaps. Oh wait . probably same writers.
@Rebel0007
"This won't end well."
-- They cannot help themselves. Two components make it impossible for the tribe to behave in
a preservation mode:
1. the victimhood complex, despite all the recently displayed data about Jewish murderous
ways in the host countries
2. the disproportionate number of psychopaths who are approved by tribal epos and mentality
Perhaps the only solution is to make the aggressive Jews become confined to their Jewish
country. Like an infectious disease that needs to be quarantined. Otherwise, the Jewish
psychopaths will continue leaching and destroying.
Not only the vulture bankers but a complete set of ziocons-infested stink-tanks should be
relocated (with their immediate families) to the Jewish State and prohibited from crossing
the Jewish State borders. Plus the limitations on their involvement in international commerce
and banking. Let the Jews be finally in Jerusalem today, not "next year." Let them enjoy the
company of other Jews.
Jew billionaire globalizer money-grubber Paul Singer has bought and paid for politician
puppet whore Marco Rubio.
JEWS ORGANIZED GLOBALLY(JOG) -- of which Paul Singer is a shady participant -- have plans
for after Trump and they involve the US Senators Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton
and others.
Paul Singer pushes mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration. Paul Singer wants
to continue to use mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration as demographic weapons
to attack and destroy the historic American nation.
Paul Singer wants to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight endless wars on
behalf of Israel.
I wrote this in February of 2019:
I just got reminded that Marco Rubio won a lot of the GOP billionaire Jew donor money away
from Jebby Bush in the 2016 GOP presidential primary because the Jew billionaires -- Paul
Singer in particular -- were not too thrilled with Jebby Bush's connection to James Baker.
James Baker was a factor in the Jew billionaire decision to back Marco Rubio.
George W Bush had dragged the American Empire into a war in Iraq on behalf of Israel and
the GOP Jew billionaire donors were still not convinced of Jebby Bush's slavish devotion to
Israel.
Marco Rubio signalled his willing whoredom to the ISRAEL FIRST foreign policy of endless
war on behalf of Israel in a way that left nothing to chance for the GOP Jew billionaire
donors.
Marco Rubio is nothing more than a filthy politician whore for the GOP Jew billionaire
donors who want to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of
Israel.
New York Times article:
Mr. Rubio has aggressively embraced the cause of wealthy pro-Israel donors like Mr.
[Sheldon] Adelson, whom the senator is said to call frequently, and Mr. Singer, who both
serve on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, an umbrella group for Republican
Jewish donors and officials. Mr. Bush has been less attentive, in the view of some of these
donors: Last spring, he refused to freeze out his longtime family friend James A. Baker
III, the former secretary of state, after Mr. Baker spoke at the conference of a liberal
Jewish group.
The lobbying of Mr. Singer intensified in recent weeks as Mr. Bush's debate stumbles and
declining poll numbers drove many donors to consider Mr. Rubio anew. Last week, Mr. Bush's
campaign manager, Danny Diaz, and senior adviser, Sally Bradshaw, flew to New York to make
personal appeals on Mr. Bush's behalf, in the hopes of heading off an endorsement of Mr.
Rubio, according to two people close to the former governor's campaign.
This is a timely article for me as I have been pondering the relationship between Jews and
neoliberalism for some time now.
At university I studied under a brilliant Neo-Marxist professor who showed me some theory
and arguments that went a long way towards explaining how to make sense of the global power
structure. (Just a quick not for those who recoil at the mere mention of Neo-Marxist: the
academics that use a marxist lens as a tool to criticize the powerful are not all the cuckold
communist SJW types – some of these individuals are extremely intelligent and they make
very powerful arguments backed by loads of data.) One of the theories I was introduced to was
the notion of the Transnational Capitalist Class in this article called Towards A Global
Ruling Class? Globalization and the Transnational Capitalist Class:
http://media.library.ku.edu.tr/reserve/respring18/Intl313_ZOnis/3_Historical_Structuralism.pdf
The authors write the following:
Sklair's work goes the furthest in conceiving of the capitalist class as no longer
tied to territoriality
Inherent in the international concept is a system of nation-states that mediates relations
between classes and groups, including the notion of national capitals and national
bourgeoisi. Transnational, by contrast, denotes economic and related social, political, and
cultural processes – including class formation that supersede nation-states
What distinguishes the TCC from national or local capitalists is that it is involved
in globalized production and manages globalized circuits of accumulation that give it an
objective class existence and identity spatially and politically in the global system above
any local territories and polities.
Since reading your (Dr Joyce) work on the JQ I began to see the connection between age old
complaints of Jews, and what Ford referred to as "The International Jew". In fact, replace
the term "transnational capitalist class" from my passages quoted above (and many others) and
what you have is perfect mirror image of the argument.
This question has come up often lately, synchronistically (or maybe not). I'm somewhat new
to the JQ, having consumed many hours of work (including much of your own) after being sent
down the rabbit hole by the ongoing Epstein case. I was pondering that perhaps, Jews take the
blame for what the predatory capitalists are doing. Not even a week later you addressed this
precise question in your piece about Slavoj Ziszek and now with "vulture capitalism" it is
coming up yet again in Carlson's segment followed by the article right here. It also came up
on the "other side" in the blog I follow of a professor of globalization in this article:
https://zeroanthropology.net/2019/11/27/global-giants-american-empire-and-transnational-capital/
The link above is a review of the book Giants: The Global Power Elite . The review
provides a summary of the book which once again could be a text about Jews if one were to
replace the term "transnational capitalist class" with "Jews". Why I mention it, though, is
the following: "Chapter 2, "The Global Financial Giants: The Central Core of Global
Capitalism," identifies the 17 global financial giants -- money management firms that control
more than one trillion dollars in capital. As these firms invest in each other, and many
smaller firms, the interlocked capital that they manage surpasses $41 trillion (which amounts
to about 16% of the world's total wealth). The 17 global financial giants are led by 199
directors. This chapter details how these financial giants have pushed for global
privatization of virtually everything, in order to stimulate growth to absorb excess capital.
The financial giants are supported by a wide array of institutions: "governments,
intelligence services, policymakers, universities, police forces, militaries, and corporate
media all work in support of their vital interests" (p. 60).
Chapter 3, "Managers: The Global Power Elite of the Financial Giants," largely consists of
the detailed profiles of the 199 financial managers just mentioned.
This caught my eye because I immediately wondered how many of those 199 directors are
Jewish. It also pertains directly to this exact article because I am confident that the
vulture capitalists you targeted here are profiled in the book, probably with many
others.
Now, I am not in the business of writing about the JQ, so I wanted to suggest to anyone
out there that is that if they were to obtain a copy of this book and determine how many of
the 199 directors are jews. What this could accomplish is a marriage of the major two
theories of the "anti-semites" (for lack of a better word) and the "Neo-Marxists". I would
argue that perhaps both sides would learn they are coming at the same thing from two
different angles. Most would ignore it, but maybe a few leftist thinkers would receive a much
needed electric shock if they were to see the JQ framed in marxist terms. Perhaps some
alliances could be forged across the cultural divide in this struggle. Personally I believe
that both angles are perfectly valid, and that understanding one without the other will
leaves far too much to be desired when studying the powerful.
@the
grand wazoo Reagan relaxed the laws on takeovers and as a result what Galbraith called the technostructure (modern
corporation in which the business was run by not with an eye on shareholder value but in the
interests of everyone involved) was ripped apart.
However the technostructure had come about in the 30s when the Depression led to mass lay
offs, which had began to cause social unrest. The Chinese are have already cutting a swath
through Western productive capacity, and now they are coming for the rest to the extent that
the European Union is tightening the limits of foreign direct investment and takeovers. Trump
is calling for negative interest rates, which were not adopted even during the 1930s when
one-quarter of the labor force was idle.
Prospects for severe economic pain being imposed on ordinary working people and the
consequent (eventual) establishment of a new technostructure are excellent. I hate to sound
like an accelerationist, but Jews like Singer are bringing that day closer.
@Ghali
'Everywhere they go, they leave behind nations in ruins. "
-- They always find the willing local collaborators ready to make a big profit. Who can
forget Dick Cheney, the Enemy of Humanity? The same kind of unrestricted criminality and
amorality lives on in Tony Blair the Pious. The fact that this Catholic weasel and major
criminal Tony Blair is still not excommunicated tells all we need to know about the
Vatican.
Assange is rotting in a prison, while Tony Blair and Ghislaine Maxwell are roaming free. The
Jewish connections pay off.
I know some Torah Jews who are angry that Mischlings have no right of return to Israel,
and apparently now aren't part of the ruling American Jewish nation, or American, or have
anywhere to go now. They're also angry at what they see as a repeat of the cycle of
international Jewish action and inevitable reaction they will have to bear the brunt of.
They referred me to this website: The Institute for Historical Review where they
apparently contribute.
" Although Jews make up no more than three or four percent of Russia's population, they
wield enormous economic and political power in that vast and troubled country. "At least half
of the powerful 'oligarchs' who control a significant percentage of the economy are Jewish,"
the Los Angeles Times has cautiously noted. (See also: D. Michaels, "Capitalism in the New
Russia," May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 21-27. )"
So that was the context of who owned capital in Russia, what was the effect?
" According to Harvard University scholar Graham Allison, who is also a former US
assistant Secretary of Defense, ordinary Russians have experienced, on average, a 75 percent
plunge in living standards since 1991 -- almost twice the decline in Americans' income during
the Great Depression of the 1930s. But in the midst of this widespread economic misery, a
small minority has grown fabulously wealthy since the end of the Soviet era ."
But how is that possible? Swashbuckling international capitalists like Bill Browder were
bringing their Ivy League MBA's to more efficiently manage all those assets. And he said how
much he wanted to save the Polish Train-yards.
What happened? A Putin arose. He took the capital from the Jews, and the Jews were
dispatched to the United States. Putin also aligned himself with a different Jewish faction
less virulently dismissive of the needs of the people they ruled.
What do they do in the United States? Something similar as the economy careens towards
another financial crisis and living standards, mortality rates, and the middle class
plummet.
"Jewish power in Russia, Galushin continues, has resulted in millions of homeless
children, widespread tuberculosis and cholera, a shortage of medicines, cheating retirees of
their pensions, suicide in the armed forces, and the death of science. What do the Gusinskys,
the Berezovskys, the Chubais, the Nemtsovs, the Kiriyenkos, the Smolenskys, the Livshits, and
the Gaidars say about this? Millions of Russians have perished under their rule. Are the
Russian people ready to judge these scoundrels for their crimes, Galushin ask",
Robert Maxwell was a Chezch Jew – he also robbed hundreds of millions worth of
pensions. How is it possible that all these Jewish capitalists can be linked to readily to
Jeffrey Epstein?
How did Robert Maxwell get his seed money?
Here is a letter sent to Boris Berezovsky nee Abramovich.
"In sharp contrast to the intense feelings expressed by such Russian writers over the
catastrophic situation in their country today is the seeming indifference of American and
German taxpayers who have unwittingly channeled billions of dollars and marks to the
oligarchs -- who in turn have transferred this largesse to secret Swiss accounts. Who
monitors the distribution of these billions through the World Bank, the IMF, the financial
houses, and various banks? Who is responsible for this terrible injustice?"
That's really strange, because isn't that what the Russians accused Browder of doing? They
say that he channelled billions of dollars out of Russia into the United States. Then we had
the great Russian menace that is still ongoing in the media, and failing.
But Browder said that the Russian collusion story that was created by Fusion GPS, and then
the FISA court warrants issued on the basis of the fabricated Steele 'pissgate' dossier and
media stories was 100% true.
And Steele worked for the Russia desk of British Intelligence, and was being paid by the
Democrats.
Even the proto-Shabbos goys at the National Review had to distance themselves from it.
They showed that the date the FBI and Justice said it was verified it couldn't possibly have
been verified.
So why did so many Jewish capitalists like Browder support it?
And why aren't the Russians being permitted to trace Russian monies into Cyprus if Bill
Browder and now Jewish captialist ever has every done a thing that is wrong?
Because literally to the letter what is said about Donald Trump, the Democrats were
actually doing.
"" It got almost no attention, but in May [2018], CNN reported that Sens. Robert
Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to
Ukraine's prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four
investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that
their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as "strong
advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine," the Democratic senators
declared, "We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some
in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President
Trump," before demanding Lutsenko "reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation
with this important investigation ."
And yet Trump pulls the Jews ever closer. A ruling race of ubermenschen now.
'No reason'.
Can you imagine what American Blacks and savage Hispanics let alone whites are going to do
if the US economy craters like the Russian economy, and everything is transferred to the
banks?
@Old
and grumpy Yeah . fine idea. I've always maintained there are two uses of the word
"capitalism" industrial capitalism or competition of ideas vs. financial capitalism, the
Darwinian struggle for the most ruthless bankster to rig the "markets" most efficiently.
Whether we give it new terminology I don't care much . but I sure wish people would
understand the difference, one way of another !
Trump and the Republican Party puppets are nothing more than nasty politician whores for
billionaire Jews such as Seth Klarman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson and Les Wexner and
Bernie Marcus and many other money-grubber Jew donors.
The Republican Party Jew donors want to continue to flood the USA with mass legal
immigration and mass illegal immigration and the Jew donors want to continue to use the US
military as muscle to fight unnecessary wars and endless wars on behalf of Israel.
The Republican Party Jew donors also want to have all their shady money-grubber scams
protected by the Republican Party politician whores.
I wrote this in October of 2017 about Seth Klarman and Puerto Rican government debt:
Puerto Rico must be allowed to go belly up. The bond owners who own Puerto Rican debt must
go tits up. The US government must not bail out the investors who purchased Puerto Rican
government debt, or any debt whatsoever connected to Puerto Rico. Seth Klarman has been
revealed as a person who has bought Puerto Rican bonds in hopes of cashing out big.
SETH KLARMAN must be given a salt shaker to sprinkle salt on his worthless Puerto Rican
bonds before he eats them. Klarman must lose 100 cents on the dollar for his greedy purchase
of Puerto Rican debt. Klarman has loads of loot, and the Puerto Rican government debt was
purchased for one of his funds. I am sure his investors won't mind getting soaked by Seth for
a bit of money -- it is not even a whole billion dollars, only close to it.
David Dayen says:
Klarman, who has been described as the Oracle of Boston, has a history of buying
unpopular or distressed assets on the cheap in hopes of a payday. Baupost manages over $30
billion in assets. He is known as the top campaign contributor in New England and has been
a major donor in Republican politics in Massachusetts, including largely secret support for
2016's Question 2, an ultimately unsuccessful effort to lift a state cap on charter
schools. Klarman supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, calling Donald Trump "completely
unqualified for the highest office in the land."
Klarman's involvement in Puerto Rican debt will surely come as a surprise to activists
in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico, who have never mentioned him among the "vultures" who are
causing undue pain for the island's U.S. citizens.
Jewish people have treated me better than my own White Euro family.
White Euro people are/were evolved for small tribes. They were hunter gatherers, and
evolved concurrently with dogs. In my opinion the pathological altrusim of whites has to do
with the close relations to dogs, pets and later livestock. The whole "good shepherd" is more
of a Western Construct of Cro-Magnon white people, than the insular goat-herding types of the
middle east.
For example, in Scandinavia and most white countries, a 'baby sitter' can be a neighbor,
while in middle eastern cultures, a baby sitter can only be from a family member.
In other words, white people extend trust to one another, while middle-eastern ethos is
more familal then tribal. Ice age evolution, especially the fourth ice ages, selected for
pathological altruism is whites; which is why whites extend their grace to foreigners, brown
people, and are easily duped by Jews.
All you can do is try to rise above your own families failings. White people have to think
it through intellectually, as it does not come naturally.
Jews are tribal, gee what a surprise after 1000's of years of people trying to wipe them
out . and so their charity is within the tribe, but there is no charity within the tribe
among Whites.
Yes, but what is being debated here is how Jews use their ethnocentrism and in-group
methods to practice usury against out-groups. Euro-whites are a perfect host for the
parasite. The parasitical methods EVOLVED over millenia to operate the usury mechanism, to
take rents and unearned income. This is why they have been kicked out of 109 countries,
because what they do is seen as immoral and against the common good. (Euro whites eventually
smarten up and it always takes a King to eject the Jews.)
For more on this, see the book Angela's Ashes. The Irish family could have stayed in New
York where they were being befriended by a Jewish family.
Let's not get cause and effect reversed. The potato famine in Ireland was devastating
because high-value crops were being exported to England to pay for wait for it . usury on
debts the Irish owed the English. The English in turn were operating the state sponsored
usury system of the Bank of England, which came into being in 1694. The BOE in turn was
JEWISH in construct, being maneuvered into place by Sephardic Jews from Amsterdam.
The Irish, being trusting souls, fell into the usury trap and could not keep up with the
exponential debts.
A general statement: White people can build high trust civilizations that benefit all of
their people, but are easily subverted when the wrong type of predators infiltrate. If your
family was extended, and had aunts and uncles and cousins, who lived in the general area for
centuries, then there would be a network to fall back on.
See slaughter of the cities by Jones:
And yes, the FIRE sector and impetus behind the destruction of your extended family was
JEWISH. The breakdown of neighborhoods and ethnics was on purpose.
The Jew is anti-logos, and whatever he touches he destroys. (There are exceptions of
course – but these people no longer possess a negative Jewish spirit.)
Sorry your family was destroyed. When whites become un-moored they don't know how to
act.
@J
Adleman Quite bizarre post. First,he makes a half ass defense of Jew
character.(Weinstein,Epstein don't represent jews! Well,they kind of do. Any jew who is
called to accounts for his crimes automatically does not represent jews!
You are a used condom. Do you represent the jews? Id day yes.)
Your diatribe sounds like an alt righter's view of jews. Are you real?
if you think it's wrong to buy or try to collect on defaulted debt, what is the
alternative set of laws and behavior you are recommending? If debts can simply be
repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function.
Capitalism includes money. You can't separate the risks in lending from other risks. Bad
investors should be punished and good investors rewarded. Resources should be well allocated.
Otherwise it's not capitalism.
These insane Boomers seem to think that there is a Jewish coup underway to remove Trump
because of all the things that Jews are saying in Jewish publications and every single person
involved being Jewish and stuff.
@Germanicus
About the Carnegie donated "Peace Palace" in The Hague, presently the seat of the In
ternational Court of Justice:
Germanicus claims:
They are a function of Empire in Hague, who protect empire criminals, and assume a non
existent legitimacy and jurisdiction as a private entity to take down empire opponents.
Such as this ruling for instance:
Guardian 3 Oct.2018:
International court of justice orders US to lift new Iran sanctions
Mike Pompeo indicates US will ignore ruling, after judges in The Hague find unanimously in
favour of Iran
@silviosilver
"What Joyce regards as a defect of "vulture" funds, others might regard as an benefit. "
-- Of course. I hope you did not miss the fact that the Jewish vulture funds -- ruthless,
unethical, and leaching on goyim -- contribute to the Jewish Holocaust Museum.
Is not it touching that the same bloody destroyers of nations demand from the same nations a
very special reverence -- out of ethical considerations, of course -- towards the Jewish
victims of WWII? But only Jewish victims. All others were not victims but casualties. See
Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine. See the unlimited hatred of ziocons towards Russia.
@Anonymous" but maybe a few leftist thinkers would receive a much needed electric shock if they were
to see the JQ framed in marxist terms " – I would not count on the effect of the
electric shock on the leftist thinkers. The role of Jewish Bolsheviks in the Cheka, NKVD,
GULAGs, genocides by famine has been known from the very beginning and yet it left no impact
on the leftist thinkers.
"According to Harvard University scholar Graham Allison, who is also a former US
assistant Secretary of Defense, ordinary Russians have experienced, on average, a 75 percent
plunge in living standards since 1991 -- almost twice the decline in Americans' income during
the Great Depression of the 1930s. But in the midst of this widespread economic misery, a
small minority has grown fabulously wealthy since the end of the Soviet era."
"Although Jews make up no more than three or four percent of Russia's population, they
wield enormous economic and political power in that vast and troubled country. "At least half
of the powerful 'oligarchs' who control a significant percentage of the economy are Jewish,"
the Los Angeles Times has cautiously noted. (See also: D. Michaels, "Capitalism in the New
Russia," May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 21-27.)"
It's interesting how the appeal of Eduard Topol to Jews in Russia is now starting to echo
Jewish calls in the United States for Jews to stop the path they are currently on.
Here is the complete text of Topol's extraordinary "Open Letter to Berezovksy,
Gusinsky, Smolensky, Khodorkovsky and other Oligarchs," translated for the Journal by Daniel
Michaels from the text published in the respected Moscow paper Argumenty i Fakty ("Arguments
and Facts"), No. 38, September 1998:
Magnitsky and Bill Browder is also really interesting.
It turns out that a large measure of the Russiagate story arose because Russian lawyer
Natalia Veselnitskaya, who traveled to America to challenge Browder's account, arranged a
meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign advisers in June 2016 to present this
other side of the story.
Then we had Democrats actually literally word for word doing what they accuse Trump of
doing in Ukraine.
"It got almost no attention, but in May [2018], CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez
(D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine's
prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations
they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support
for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as "strong advocates for a
robust and close relationship with Ukraine," the Democratic senators declared, "We have
supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to
have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump," before
demanding Lutsenko "reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this
important investigation."
What's the first rule of Communist and Satanist Saul Alinsky? Always accuse your opponents
of what you are doing.
Imagine having a Grandfather as the literal Chairman of the American Communist Party, and
all the amazing lessons you would learn about political maneuvering and ideology.
And it's amazing.
Browder's story is that Russian officials stole his companies seals and then fraudulently
formulated a tax avoidance scheme with a complete paper trail that they fabricated against
him in totem. Precisely matching the amount of money he was trying to remove from their
country, like those other Jewish Oligarchs who imposed conditions that were multiples worse
then even the American depression.
When under oath it turns out that Magnitsky wasn't even a lawyer at all, and didn't go to
law school. Why did the media owned by Mormons of course keep saying that Magnitsky was
Browder's lawyer?
Why did the Russians fraudulently fabricate a paper-trail for another Jewish Oligarch to
steal money out of Russia? Just like they colluded with Trump when a Russian lawyer sought to
explain what happened. Because that totally happened.
Maybe the problem isn't Capitalism. Maybe, when even the ur-Shabbos goys at National
Review are shaking their head and washing their hands like Pilate, maybe it's a different
problem.
Yet Trump holds these people ever close to his beating heart.
And then there are all these connections to Jeffrey Epstein that are like an explosion
linking all these people.
Poor old Russia. Even Putin isn't worse then what came before.
The link above is a review of the book Giants: The Global Power Elite. The review
provides a summary of the book which once again could be a text about Jews if one were to
replace the term "transnational capitalist class" with "Jews". Why I mention it, though, is
the following: "Chapter 2, "The Global Financial Giants: The Central Core of Global
Capitalism," identifies the 17 global financial giants -- money management firms that
control more than one trillion dollars in capital.
From the review .
"Robinson's claim that nation-states have become, "little more than population containment
zones," while "the real power lies with the decision makers who control global capital" (p.
26). Both propositions are unconvincing: first, populations are clearly not being
contained; second, if states matter so little, and the real decision-makers are global
capitalists, then why do the latter need states
That is such stupid reasoning it blows the mind. He is trying to shift the global problem
to institutions .. instead of the people who head those institutions
Institutions, agencies , financial firms, etc .are ALL run by PEOPLE .who make the
policies,laws, take the actions.
Why does the 'transnational capitalist class' need states? well duh because
people/labor/consumers are indeed "contained' in states subject to the states laws and
system. The transnational capitalist class created the institutions he speaks of 'from
within' those states thru their control of its system and their same goal partners who do the
same from within their respective states.
That the capitalist class is not tied to any territory has been observable since 1960.
I don't have time now to look up how many of 199 directors are Jews . but I know enough of
the economic history of various countries to know that Jews were the first business and
finance globe trotters,,,,.from Spain to Amsterdam, France to Africa , etc.etc. Jew were
first hired as reps and facilitators by the gentile business owners especially because of
their breather tribal contacts in many countries ..that was their stepping stone to becoming
transnational capitalist themselves.
Understanding our global capitalist ruling elite and who they are is not rocket
science
Buy your loans from another lender,
change the terms (add fees, penalties, underhanded stuff),
reposses your collatteral.
Outta be illegal.
White Gentiles, you must infiltrate and take over big business and big finance to help
protect your people from predation .and to give all peoples principled, fair financial
services. To help our society, and even others. Paul Singer doesnt seem to care about most of
his fellow men. We could do better, and help the world be a better place.
Yet more evidence is piling up that Donald J Trump is the Great Betrayer.
A man who had the biggest mandate in post war history to clean up the Swamp that is D.C.,
reform Immigration to save America and reform the economy for American workers.
He has squandered all of it while pandering to Jews.
When the Donald is revealed as the Great Betrayer where will Jews run? Yes, they have
several back up plans. Patagonia, Ukraine and Israel.
Imagine that. They have their own country and 2 back up plans. It is really tough being a
hated, oppressed minority.
@Anonymous
Thanks for your comment. You've come to the right place. Unz is an ideal hangout for
left/right fusionists who don't fit in perfectly with either side, but are interested in
hearing from both. In addition, if you're looking for other good right-wing sites that aren't
libertarian, Zionist or overly Christian, I can also heartily recommend Dr. Kevin MacDonald's
Occidental Observer ,
where Dr. Joyce himself usually posts.
What this could accomplish is a marriage of the major two theories of the "anti-semites"
(for lack of a better word) and the "Neo-Marxists". I would argue that perhaps both sides
would learn they are coming at the same thing from two different angles. Most would ignore
it, but maybe a few leftist thinkers would receive a much needed electric shock if they
were to see the JQ framed in marxist terms.
Or, more correctly, it would be a re -marriage of anti-Semitism and Marxism. If you
have a background in Marxism yourself, maybe you recall reading or hearing about Karl Marx's
pre-Kapital classic, On the Jewish Question , where he basically identifies
finance-capitalism as a Jewish phenomenon in essence and origin. Money quote
:
"Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew but the everyday
Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the
secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical
need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his
worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may
exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities . The
bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange .
The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of
money in general.[ ] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because
he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him,
money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical
spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the
Christians have become Jews. [ ] In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the
emancipation of mankind from Judaism."
Marx himself, of course, came from a family of rich conversos, so he knew whereof he
spoke.
Perhaps some alliances could be forged across the cultural divide in this struggle.
Personally I believe that both angles are perfectly valid, and that understanding one
without the other will leaves far too much to be desired when studying the powerful.
As a third-way national socialist, I hope so, too. Libertarianism/capitalism and mainline
socialism are dead-ends, having both been thoroughly co-opted (founded?) by the Jews. Both
fail to address the pink elephant in the corner; both put some hopelessly abstract ideology
before the welfare of my people–while benefiting another. And so, as the original NS
used to say: 'Neither godless Bolshevism nor soulless capitalism!'
Reality: Contrary to popular mythology, not all serial killers are white. Serial killers
span all racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. The racial diversity of serial killers
generally mirrors that of the overall U.S. population. There are well documented cases of
African-American, Latino and Asian-American serial killers. African-Americans comprise the
largest racial minority group among serial killers, representing approximately 20 percent of
the total. Significantly, however, only white, and normally male, serial killers such as
Ted Bundy become popular culture icons.
@Lot
Your defense of bond holders do not hold water. They agreed to take the risk at the given
price. If the debtor can't pay back, they have the eat the losses, period. Usury law needs to
be put in place to outlaw these vulture funds. Then the bond funds will adjust by demanding
better terms that truly reflects the risk from the get go, and the debtors will adjust by
being much more cautious in their borrowing since the borrowing cost is so high.
Instead, this current arrangement basically uses bond funds to put up a false front,
telling a debtor they can borrow at 2% when the real rate should be at 20% given the known
risks, then the debtor goes crazy borrowing because it's so cheap to borrow, and when they
can't pay back, the bond gets sold to the vultures who come collecting at 20% or they seize
assets. This is no different than the subprime mortgage crap, except now that is regulated so
they go after sovereign debt and corporate debt instead. These vultures need to go die
period.
Trump is now essentially funded by three Jews -- Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon
Adelson, together accounting for over $250 million in pro-Trump political money. In return,
they want war with Iran.
Hmm -- The day after Trump in inaugurated for his second term -- will Iran be in his
crosshairs?
@Jimmy1969
This is a great, concise overview of Canadian media influence by the "silent" Jewish
overlords via Golden Tree.
I tried copy/paste of your comment on CBC, but it did NOT last 2minutes before being
suspended!!
I am sorry to have used your comment without your permission, but I am going to "misspell"
some words to defeat the algorithm to get your message across.
@Lot
For points 1 and 2, I think that you would learn a lot from reading his previous article (
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2015/08/01/paul-singer-and-universality-of-anti-semitism/
) on vulture capitalism. It is not just that they are recovering assets from defaults. These
vulture groups will use the courts to increase the size of the debts and sue for extra "fees"
on top, even when all other lenders are against it. They typically manage to get US courts in
NYC to try these cases, which also is apparently abnormal (apparently it would be more normal
to use international courts). This is what Joyce refers to here:
"This type of predation is so pernicious and morally perverse that both the Belgian and UK
governments have taken steps to ban these Jewish firms from using their court systems to sue
for distressed debt owed by poor nations. "
These funds do not do something that normal investors do, especially not to the bonds of
governments of struggling third-world countries.
As for 3, you are misunderstanding. Joyce never demanded that they name their charities
anything in particular, but it is obviously the case that your typical normie thinks that
"white males," presumably golf-playing Episcopalians or something, are the ones running
finance, and these golfy-sounding names (Elliot, Monarch, GoldTree, OakTree, Canyon, Tilden
Park) fit the perception. We whites receive the society's hate for the wealth disparities
created by high finance.
4. No, it is not difficult to do finance differently. Every other investor has higher
patience for poor countries in Central America and Africa, and they all look at Elliot with
confused scorn.
And, things would probably run fine without hyper-aggressive multi-billionaires in pushing
the courts to f- over those who default on debts they owe to the maximum degree. Japan and
Norway do quite fine with businesses that are run by gentle and humble goys who feel ashamed
at the thought of getting "too rich."
@J
Adleman You will be thrown out.
You will have to choose between Israel, Ukraine and Patagonia. No one else will take you.
You have destroyed our politics, media and economy.
You are not respected.
You buy compliance with money.
You have bankrupted the U.S. dollar with debt pursuing Israel's enemies.
Do any of you goys remember when the Jewish funded Democrats through the US State
department gave Russia one third of the US strategic uranium reserve and also funnelled
military tech to Russia's Skolkovo Valley? At a time when they were working on the Hypersonic
ballistic missile engine?
It's almost like there was this plan for people to move back into Russia, just like China,
but for some reason the Russians and Chinese didn't cooperate.
Remember when David Spengler wrote about this a few years back hence?
Do you think disloyal Jews had anything to do with 18 American CIA assets getting captured
and murdered by the Chinese Intelligence services through 2010 to 2012?
Could it be that there were loyal Americans who were interfering with Chinese pay for play
with the Jewish nation in the United States? Or might have come upon it?
Imagine being an American military service member knowing that your Jewish commanders and
Jewish senior officers have got your back.
It's amazing isn't it.
Clinton was receiving tens of millions of dollars from Skolkovo Valley Syndicate owners in
Russia, and in exchange all she gave them were military secrets that may have given Russia
for example it's lead in hypersonic military technology.
And then we're told China had a duplicate version of her emails in China, in exchange for
what?
US Taxpayer money funded the Russian weapons program.
How much China tech was also funded by US taxpayers?
And then these people accused Trump of collusion with Russia, because the Russians were
telling the Trump family that the Magnitsky Act was unjust because the Russians were trying
to secure their assets against the kind of predatory practices that lowered Russian mortality
to where it's headed in the Midwest. Right now. For the same reasons.
Yeah – this trend is absolutely going to be permitted to continue.
The American nation forewarned and forearmed is simply going to allow itself to go the way
of the Russian Slav under a century of Jewish and proto-Jewish (the man who was made to call
himself Stalin) leadership.
Maybe, just maybe, an American President might consider a Magnitsky Act the subjects of
which were different. Maybe Trump is the last civic-nationalist President, maybe.
Look at how loyal the ruling nation in the United States is to their fellow Americans.
There aren't enough hours in the day to trace the labyrinthine set of Jewish betrayals and
asset transferrals – remember the Panama Papers? Remember the Samson Option?
Why won't Browder let the Russians investigate Cyprus?
Maybe good old fashioned local corruption with noblesse oblige is preferable to this
international corruption.
The Jews got out-leveraged by the Russians, and now, finally, the Empire might be able to
take back Korriban from the Jewdi.
Of course that's impossible. You have to trade one for the other. Just one set for the
other set.
If you want to find a list of these capitalists – you just look at who attends the
World Jewish Congress Galas.
" Ira Rennert (net worth $3 billion, previously, $6 billion, investor, known as a "junk
bond billionaire," found guilty of corruption in 2015, placed a mill in Baltimore's outer
harbor into bankruptcy, causing more than 2,000 workers to lose their jobs, owes Baltimore $8
million in unpaid city water bills, allegedly used money he looted from his business to build
a 29-room mansion & compound – a garage holds 100 cars)
Dick Parsons (former Time Warner CEO, CBS chair, & Citibank chair; in 2012 shareholders
filed a lawsuit against Parsons and some other executives for "stuffing their pockets while
running the bank into the ground")
Ben Ashkenazy (net worth $4 billion, Israeli American real estate tycoon, a benefactor of the
2015 AIPAC Real Estate Luncheon at New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel)
Jack Chehebar (real estate mogul, sued for alleged breach of contract, accused of beating his
son)
Ray Kelly (longest serving commissioner in the history of the New York City Police
Department, for a period was an Interpol vice president, charged by Muslim groups of
discrimination: "The commissioner oversaw a spying program that targeted Muslims based solely
on their religion, showed poor judgment by participating in a virulently anti-Islamic film,
and approved a report on terrorism that equated innocuous behavior such as quitting smoking
with signs of radicalization."
What did God say once?
In Genesis 18:32 He said he would spare Sodom and Gamorrah if Abraham could find just 10
honourable men. He couldn't find them. Only the family of Lot.
There isn't much time left. It might simply be the case that the rot goes too deep and too
dark.
Valhalla is a worthy place. I think there might be some Russians there, along with the
souls of those 18 Americans who were tortured and murdered in China for reasons unknown.
Capitalism includes money. You can't separate the risks in lending from other risks. Bad
investors should be punished and good investors rewarded. Resources should be well
allocated. Otherwise it's not capitalism.
There are different kinds of capitalism. It is part of today's hypnotism that people don't
know the different types.
For example, there is finance capitalism, industrial capitalism, and what Andrew Joyce
calls vulture capitalism.
Vulture capitalism is a subset of finance capitalism.
Industrial capitalism was invented in the American colonies, especially Massachusetts bay.
The American system of economy (industrial capitalism with mixed economy and sovereign money)
has since been lost to America, as it imported Jewish/British finance capitalism as the
operating construct after 1913.
You can separate risks in lending. That is more hypnosis that you have been imbibing on.
The entire corpus of Classical economics goes about trying to separate unearned from earned
income, how to tax properly, what is site value, and it also is able to separate risk
types.
The fact that you do not know these things is not surprising, as most of western man is
living inside of a Jewish inverted reality bubble. The agents of mammon won, and classical
economics is not even taught in university.
Homosexuality is present in our society, but doesn't register much in demographics and as
such, I am happy to call gays as homosexuals. Tackling animus towards homosexuals requires
NOT trying to enforce new nomenclature of gender etc., otherwise an unexpected nasty backlash
can occur. Within your "ingroup", you can say what you like, but do not try and force ingroup
dynamics on the majority that are not interested.
Otherwise, you are behaving by identity politics, just like the Jews force their identity
upon the majority.
@sally
" Time after time I have asked my Jewish friends are you are Zionist, and most say they do
not really know what Zionism is? "
Zionism is a name which is more well known as an identifier by the critical (among the
Goy), carrying by now negative connotations. Broadly it is not an ism which is well known to
the man in the street. It could well be that among Jews, the name Zionism is only handled by
certain groups.
The question should have been rephrased asking what position these Jewish friends take with
regard to Israel. It comes down roughly to the same thing.
To not know of Zionism might be strategically a good thing, it refers to convergent
interests, actually a power block, you don't want to throw around such things, it could make
people aware Keep it diluted, diversity, obfuscation.
Ben Franklin and the American revolution was almost put in a similar pinch by the Amsterdam
banker Jean DeNeufville. In a letter to John Adams, 14 December 1781*, Franklin explained
that DeNeufville wanted as security for a loan "all the lands, cities, territories, and
possessions of the said Thirteen States, which they may have or possess at present, and which
they may have or possess in the future, with all their income, revenue, and produce, until
the entire payment of this loan and the interests due thereon."
Franklin considered that "extravagant" but Newhouse rejoined, "this was usual in all loans
and that the money could not otherwise be obtained". Franklin retold in this lengthy letter,
"Besides this, I was led to understand that it would be very agreeable to these gentlemen if,
in acknowledgment of their zeal for our cause and great services in procuring this loan, they
would be made by some law of Congress the general consignee of America, to receive and sell
upon commission, by themselves and correspondents in the different ports and nations, all the
produce of America that should be sent by our merchants to Europe."
Talk about shooting the moon
While Wikipedia says DeNeufville was Mennonite, Franklin concluded with this colorful --
and bitter -- remark , "By this time, I fancy, your Excellency is satisfied that I was wrong
in supposing John de Neufville as much a Jew as any in Jerusalem, since Jacob was not content
with any per cents, but took the whole of his brother Esau's birthright, and his posterity
did the same by the Canaanites, and cut their throats into the bargain; which, in my
conscience, I do not think Mr. John de Neufville has the least inclination to do by us while
he can get any thing by our being alive. I am, with the greatest esteem, etc., ✪ B.
Franklin."
Perhaps it was just an expression based on an earlier stereotype?
*Bigelow, 1904. The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 9 Letters and Misc. Writings
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections, killing
dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to see with
their own eyes.
Zion had the opportunity to go to Uganda and Ugandans were willing, but NO Zion had to
have Palestine, and they got it through war, deception, and murder. It was funded by usury,
as stolen purchasing power from the Goyim.
The fake country of Israel, is not the biblical Israel, and it came into being by
maneuverings of satanic men determined to get their way no matter what, and is supported by
continuous deception. Even today's Hebrew is resurrected from a dead language, and is fake.
Many fake Jews (who have no blood lineage to Abraham), a fake country, and fake language.
These fakers, usurers, and thieves do indeed have their eyes set on Patagonia, what they call
the practical country.
Unz is an ideal hangout for left/right fusionists who don't fit in perfectly with either
side, but are interested in hearing from both
You just described me to a tee. I defy categorization, especially ideological ones
(although I half jokingly refer to myself as a free-thinkist), and I feel this makes me
weird.
I've been to TOO. However I can't bring myself to start commenting on a white nationalist
website. I will admit I am unable to articulate this discomfort presently.
As to your point about Marx – I actually forgot about his work on the JQ. The Saker,
who is a columnist on this site, referenced Marx's essay on the JQ some time ago. I must have
not read the whole thing or I'd have remembered it. I didn't know that Marxism originated
with anti-Semitism, but that is fascinating. I have encountered some Marxists in my time and
they focus exclusively (predictably) on the cis-white-male patriarchy, or whatever occupies
their brainwashed minds after an Introduction to Gender Studies class.
@Anon
"If debts can simply be repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function."
Is this children's capitalist theory class time? throwing around some simple slogans for a
susceptible congregation of future believers?
Should be quite obvious that people, groups of people, if not whole nations , can be
forced and or seduced into depths by means of certain practices. There are a thousand ways of
such trickery and thievery, these are not in the theory books though. In these books things
all match and work out wonderfully rationally
Then capitalism cannot function? Unfortunately it has become already dysfunctional, if not
a big rotten cancer.
Isaiah 1:4 4 Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers,
Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the LORD, They have provoked to anger The
Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward.
Ezekiel 21:25 25 'Now to you, O profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, whose
iniquity shall end
Jeremiah 5:9 Shall I not punish them for these things?" says the LORD. "And shall I not
avenge Myself on such a nation as this?
As Jesus said which of the prophets have you not killed or persecuted? The truth hurts. As
for me I do not hate Jews ..I feel terribly sad for a people that are capable of greatness
and squandered the gifts given to them by God. Are you a holy nation? Don't make me laugh.
Repent. Your time is coming. No more running and hiding. Deception will no longer save you
only acceptance of the Messiah.
Hey! Don't mention anything a Jew ever did, especially usury, or else the entire cult will go
up in a holocaustal mushroom cloud of emo nasal whining. In Judaism you've got a fanatical
sect that systematically selects and brainwashes its members to inculcate extreme values of
two Big Five personality axes: high neuroticism and low intellect (where intellect means
open-mindedness.) Note the existential crisis triggered by a straightforward lecture from The
Society for the Study of Unbelievably Obvious Shit.
Of course Israel is holocausting the Palestinians. This is what happens when the founding
myth of a nation is, We wiped em all out and then they wiped us almost all out so now we
gotta wipe em all out etc., etc., etc.
Well, the only difference between a narcissist and a psychopath is that the former need
people to like them whereas psychopaths genuinely could not care less (although they learn
early that acting as if they do can be very helpful , as can always trying to elicit sympathy
etc).
As I noticed while reading a few books on psychopathy (I was inspired to after reading Steve
Job's biography) – their whole 'culture' is structured as a (collective )
PSYCHOPATH.
It seems that (collectively) they cannot care about others even if they wanted to. Due to
their sickness
I am not saying they are all that way – but overall their 'culture' seems to be that
way
@Digital
Samizdat Indeed I cannot agree more. I quote from a 1923 interview of Hitler:
"Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party
programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?"
"Socialism," he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of
dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The
Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from
the Socialists.
"Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain
lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to
disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private
property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is
patriotic.
@Colin
Wright The Sacklers occupy a hoity-toity rung in the philanthropy universe, as they have
given enough $$$ to Harvard for H to paste their name on its museum housing I believe its
whole Asian art collection. Students have now protested Harvard's high-profile gift of
probity and cultural status to the Sacklers via, literally, an "Aushangerschild" on a major
university museum. Harvard protests back: Jeez, if we don't take the Sacklers' dough we might
be obliged to stop taking the dough from Exxon, etc.
@Anon
you are right about repaying the loan
but Banksters have managed over decades I think starting with Clinton to remove protection
laws (which were stating how much interest was the maximum a bankster could charge his pray
etc). They also removed the rules of how much was the maximum they could lend (according to
how much their victim makes a year etc).
So even though you are right that loans should be repaid – it is immoral to allow a
well connected mafia to change all the laws and remove protections while pushing up prices of
everything because it suits the lender (who has a licence to print).
They basically lend money that does not exist and get interest for that. So the more sheeple
are tricked into borrowing the better for them, but the worse for everyone else
They should not be allowed to bribe politicians to remove all the protection that was there
since 1920s I think.
It's a marriage from hell: easy to bribe Anglosheep meets the masters of predatory bribing
who own the printing press
That stupid cuck Trump just got impeached by the House. Thats a good lesson to everybody
how much good Jew-ass kissing does for you .you get stabbed in the back anyway lol
Couldn't have happened to a more deserving and treacherous scumbag!
But he should have been impeached for his treachery to the constitution and to the
American people for his slavish devotion to all things Jewish!
@Digital
Samizdat True, but irrelevant. The Jews that matter don't read the Talmud or believe in
"Adam and Eve."
It's 2020. The Jewish religion is "The Holocaust" and we're all "Nazis."
Frankly, it's these traditional religious notions of "anti-semitism" that get in the way
of understanding what is, at the core, an ethnic issue. It's Sheldon Adelson, the Zionist
entity in Palestine, and the ADL that are the problem, not some looney-tunes rabbi living in
Brooklyn.
The other side of the expalnation is the laking of reaction of the victim,the american
people.
The least that the people that loot the world trough and with the USA power should do, is ,at
least ,let us,the american people, a free ride.
Not illegal in the Talmud either but most certainly illegal in all of the countries that
DynCorp was caught profiting from this type of business. For some reason they never seem to
suffer for their exposure suggesting that they may be wielding the same influence that
Epstein had over our elected officials.
We dont have to get back to the Singer of this world but to our own politicians ,that allowed
them to do this to us,and to the world.In this kind of abusive realtionship the 2 sides are
to blame.
@Just
passing through "Look up income by ethnic group in the UK and US, you will find that
Indians and Chinese (South Asians) are the richest in both countries (except for Jews of
course)."
And why is that? Think about it. These are members of the Indian and Chinese elite who the
multinational corporations are doing business with.
In order to do business in China, the Chinese stipulated that the western corporations had
to give one of the members of the Chinese elite half ownership in the company. They were also
required to turn over the western technology to the China-based company. Western technology,
western money, cheap Chinese slave labor, ability to pollute to your heart's content. For
both sides, it was a win-win. The Chinese elite got filthy rich and then moved over to the
West with their newfound gains, buying up properties, forcing prices up for the natives. The
western corporations not only wanted cheap products to export back to the U.S., but they were
also developing a whole new market – Chinese consumers who would buy their products as
well. Double plus good!
And once in the West, the Chinese and the Indians stick to their groups. They hire their
own, promote their own, do business together. A lot of corruption, money laundering,
cheating, taking advantage of and bending laws. Rule of law? Code of ethics? Morals? Do unto
others? They never learned it. Opportunistic dual citizens.
I would not count on the effect of the electric shock on the leftist thinkers. The role
of Jewish Bolsheviks in the Cheka, NKVD, GULAGs, genocides by famine has been known from
the very beginning and yet it left no impact on the leftist thinkers.
It unfortunately has not had much of an effect on a lot of people in the West, who remain
ignorant or in denial of the role played by Jewish Bolsheviks in historic mass murders and
totalitarian repression.
Waiting for the Hollywood movie to tell the story.
This is an expensive, weighty, and important book, which will take some time to
digest.
Classical economists re-learn the science of money, starting with Prodhoun and even Marx
in Das Kapital volume 3. (Leftists are often correct about money, but wrong on social
issues.)
The jew Marx does do some deception in volume 3 with a sneaky equation that does not
compound interest, but otherwise he is pretty accurate. Marx was probably beholden to his
finance masters.
This is why you need to start with Zarlinga, as there is no BS to lead you astray. Hudson
tends to drill the bulls-eye too. There is so much deception in the field of money and
economy, that it is easy to get caught up in false narratives, like one-born free
libertarianism. Usury flows fund the deception, even to the point of leaving out critical
passages in translations, such as in Aristotle's works. Or, important works are bought up and
burned.
Michael Hudson is the leading economist resurrecting Classical Economics. Reading all of
Hudson and Zarlinga will take some time and effort, but it is good to take a first step.
@Anon
I respectfully disagree that "Kenya was given up [by Great Britain] before there was even an
anti-colonial movement in Kenya ."
According to Wikipedia : " The armed rebellion of the Mau Mau was the culminating response to
Colonial rule . Although there had been previous instances of violent resistance to
colonialism , the Mau Mau revolt was the most prolonged and violent anti-colonial warfare in
the British Colonial colony. From the start the land was the primary British interest in
Kenya ."
Just as the Kenyans suffered the consequences of British colonialism , the "Palestinians will
suffer
the consequences of Zionist colonialism until Israel's original sin is boldly confronted and
justly remedied " foreignpolicyjournal.com
@anon
A particular distinction of Jewish investors versus gentile investors – on average, of
course – is their use of bribery to get the force of government behind them. Rather
than taking a bet about some group being able to pay back some bonds and letting the chips
fall where they may, Jews start bribing or influencing politicians to force that group to pay
back the bonds.
Buy some bonds, charge outrageous fees, bribe officials in some form or other, get govt to
force the payment of bonds and outrageous fees. Rinse and repeat. Jews have been doing this
in some form aor another for 1500 years. It's why the peasants get a tad angry at both the
Jews and their bribed politicians/nobility.
@lavoisier
"But he should have been impeached for his treachery to the constitution and to the American
people for his slavish devotion to all things Jewish!"
A purely political impeachment, right down party lines. I hear Schiff has got his hands
full of Ukrainian-Jewish oligarchic money. Dear me, wait until that comes out.
Trump is in league with the Jews? Yeah, who isn't? Obama's lips are still sore from
kissing Jewish Wall Street bankers' asses (notice that none of them went to jail). Same with
the Clinton's.
You can get politicians to pass all sorts of laws in your favor if you've got enough dirt
on them. After all, your side owns the media, Hollywood, academia, the courts, the banks.
If dirt doesn't work, you can always threaten to impeach them in order to get what you
want.
But Trump is also revealing every last dirty one of them (accidentally or on purpose).
People see them now.
@J
Adelman J Adelman comes out swinging. He's such a tough guy. But does he make sense? Does
he care if he makes sense? The writer is talking about those Jews who are vulture
capitalists. He's not talking about every Jew. Isn't it a little odd that nearly all of these
funds are run by Jews? Can your corrupt mind accept that fact and address the question? Or
are you going to bore us with your religion and by that I mean your obsession with
anti-semitism, which is your religion.
@PCA
Stop splitting hairs. Is this the best you can do? Are you one of Lot's cronies? I don't
normally address petty matters of this kind but Joyce is describing a multitude of sins and
misconduct orchestrated by various Jewish financiers around the globe. It is not merely one
phenomenon; thus, 'phenomena' fits. Go troll someone else.
Lobelog ran some articles in Singer, Argentina, Iran Israel and the attorney from Argentina
who died mysteriously . Singer is a loan shark. Argentinian paid dearly .
Google search –
NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors – LobeLog
https://lobelog.com/tag/paul-singer/
Paul Singer NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors' Financial Conflict of Interest
by Eli Clifton On Tuesday, Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz, two executives at the hawkish
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), took
The Right-Wing Americans Who Made a Doc About Argentina
https://lobelog.com/the-right-wing-americans-who-made-a-doc-about-argentina/
Oct 7, 2015 One might wonder why a movie about Argentina, in Spanish and . of Nisman's and
thought highly of the prosecutor's work, told LobeLog, FDD, for its part, has been an
outspoken critic of Kirchner but has From 2008 to 2011, Paul Singer was the group's
second-largest donor, contributing $3.6 million.
NYT Failed to Note Op-Ed Authors' Funder Has $2 Billion
@mark
green Mark green the queen of self rightousness.
There are many non jews runny vulture funds worldwide with at least 100 in china
alone.
The list joyce provided is selective and politically motivated.There are many more non
jews who are guilty of financial crimes.The jails are full of them.
The vulture funds are a product of a system that punishes failure.Do not blame the
funds,blame the system.
This story and like many that appear here is designed to pressure israel to change
politically.Israels future lies in the hands of God not some mutt with a serious case of
mutters.
@Lot
venture capital funds are only made necessary because we have a federal reserve.. which is a
private bank and private banks want to earn interest.
consider the difference between when a private lender makes loans to the USA
(treasury)
on the books of the feds is the following
due from the USA $11,000
new cash printed and given to dumb clucks at the USA $10,000
profit on the loan $ 1,000
what happened here is the fed printed $10,000 in new bills.
Assume the loan made at 10% interest and it is due in 1 year.
Ok so what is the loan on the USA books
cash $10,000
amount payable to the Federal Reserve $11,000
loss on the deal $ 1,000
this loan becomes the loan on the local bank books
the government gives the bank its loan and its obligation to repay the principal plus
interest
If there were no interest (that is the government printed its own money and made
venture loans to entrepreneurs at 0% interest the entries would look like this )
Amount due in one year from venture borrower $10,000
new cash printed and loaned to venture $10,000
so if the venture guy spent the $10,000 and then went broke the treasury would still gets
its money back in taxes from those who earned profit the money the venture paid.. no one has
to beat somebody to pay the interest (the economy does not have the extra $1000 dollars in
interest so somebody has to lose)
When interest must be paid its like musical chairs.. each time the music stops there are
not enough chairs to go around, someone is left standing ( its like that in money lending,
the debtors dance until the music stops, but because the private bank only put the principal
amount $10,000 in circulation the guy needs $11,000 to pay the loan back where does he get
the extra $1,000? <=If ten $10,000 loans are made, and 1 guy goes broke, there will be
enough cash in the system for the 9 others to pay the interest they each owe and enough for
the local private bank and lawyers to get paid for handling the bankruptcy. . <= we
started with 10 loans, one loan went broke the 9 remaining borrowers each pay $11,000 to
retire the debt , there are 9 loans "$99,000 to repay them and $1000 to pay debt service
costs and legal fees.
if there were no interest on the loans, the bankruptcy would not matter.
What makes the venture capitalist have a business at all is the Federal reserve is a
private profit making bank. Lending printed money from the Federal reserve requires interest
to be paid, and that requirement of interest makes the economy horde its capital and the
economic players playing king of the mountain to get the extra money they need to pay the
interest . ..
Zionism brought private banking to the USA and the USA wrote a tax law to collect the
money from the Americans it governs to pay the interest on the debt.
this is a really simplistic description of what is happening to our economy so don't rely
on it but instead use its simplistic idea to model the impact of having interest on the
national debt is having each year. If our government reversed what it privatized to the
Federal Reserve, we could make the economy run more or less as we please. \we could eliminate
the national debt and with it income tax es.
Typical Jew baiting article. Mitt Romney isn't a "Jew" Ashish Masih isn't. Many more examples
of gentiles taking advantage of their brothers. May as well consider the Walton family of
Wal-Mart to be vultures as well since they benefit the most from this system, they're so
called Christians, not Jews. The problem is capitalism. Author seems to suggest that a moral
economic system has been corrupted. The system was designed in an era of widespread slavery
folks. Its an immoral system that requires theft, slavery, war, immigration, all the things
you hate, to survive. The system is working exactly as it is designed to work. Exploit
workers, the environment and resources, shift all the profits from workers to the owners of
capital, period. Welcome to the late stage, it eats and destroys itself
From the days of the colonists slaughtering the Injuns and stealing their land. The days
of importing African slaves, and indentured servants. The days of child labor and factory
owners hiring Pinkertons to gun down workers who protested shitty wages and working
conditions. The good ol days of the gilded age. Now the age of offshoring to China or some
other lower wage nation. Overthrowing leaders not willing to let their resources and people
be plundered and enslaved, driving refugees to our borders fleeing violence and poverty.
Importing H1B workers to drive down wages. It was always a corrupt system of
exploitation/theft/slavery. This is nothing new and doesn't require "Jews" to be immoral.
And all these so called "Christians" like Pastor Pence approve. Usury and capitalism run
amok. I'm sure Jesus is smiling down on all these Bible toting demons who allow their fellow
man to be exploited by the parasites. Sad!
Good for Tucker. He has his moments I'd watch his show if he wasn't a partisan hack. But
that will never happen working for Fox or any other corporate media.
@Colin
Wright I doubt Trump promised to go to war with Iran before he was elected. In his
Inauguration Speech, Trump said he wanted to bring the troops home and stop the wars. He
didn't have to say these things, he had already won the election, but he said them anyway.
One of the few times the media has laid off Trump was when he sent some missiles into
Syria (after he gave them hours of warning ahead of time that the missiles were coming). If
Hillary had been elected, Syria would have been leveled by now and flying an Israeli
flag.
Obama brought us the destruction of Libya and the murder of Gaddafi, the coup in Ukraine,
and through ISIS, which the U.S. armed, trained and paid for, tried to destroy Syria.
I don't really blame Obama or Bush Jr. or Clinton. They were all puppets who did as they
were told. If they hadn't, in the words of Chuckie Schemer, there would have been "six ways
from Sunday of getting back at them".
If you don't do what they want, you're impeached, some of your dirty laundry is aired, or
they purposely crash the stock market on you. If you still don't get the message, maybe
you're just assassinated.
Trump loves his daughter and she is married to a Jew. If they're not getting their way, I
could see them telling Trump: "Sad what happened at the Pittsburgh synagogue, isn't it? Sure
hope nothing like that happens to your daughter."
I don't envy Trump. He not only is up against the Democrats, but he is also fighting the
globalist neocons in his own party. Both parties want open borders and more war, something
Trump does not believe in. As far as I can see, he's throwing them bones in order to shut
them up. If he gets elected again, which I think he will, we might see a different Trump. Who
knows.
@Jimmy1969
I think this deal has already taken place. Israel has given away to China for 99 years the
hall commercial incomming This deal has taken place 2 or 3 years ago
Don't blame it on the Talmud. These Jews act in accordance to their Torah: "If Yahweh your
God blesses you as he has promised, you will be creditors to many nations but debtors to
none; you will rule over many nations, and be ruled by none" (Deuteronomy 15:6). "feeding on
the wealth of the nations" (Isaiah 61:5) is Israel's destiny according to Yahweh.
@mcohen
I took a squint at both your own and Mark Green's comment history. Your comment history
cannot even begin to compare in value, but I should have already guessed that from the
name-calling in the first line of your comment. Just weak, extremely weak.
Rather amusing to read our resident Jewish apologists carrying on about the absolute sanctity
of the necessity of collecting debts to the functioning of the capitalistic system. These
nations and corporate entities that are now in thrall of the Wall Street Jews , were herded
into debt by that other faction of the capitalist system, the dealers in easy money.
Snookering the rubes into lifelong debt, telling them that money is on the tap, promoting
unsustainable spending habits and then let the guillotine come down, for the vultures to feed
on. They are two sides of the same coin.
Its damned funny that the rich Jews nowadays are absolutely addicted to usury, rentier
activities, and debt collection, when the Bible itself condemns such activities. But they are
our elder brothers in faith according to some.
@Colin
Wright Carnegie was a Protestant. The Protestant cancer serves it's Jewish masters. Read
'The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit' by E. Michael Jones. There is definitely a revolutionary
nature to the international Jew just as there is to their Protestant dupes. Jewish nature is
to subvert the natural order and the west was built by the guidance of LOGOS. The Catholic
Faith created by God guided the creation of the west. These Jewish exploits are a result of
the Wests rejection of its nature and its enslavement
1. rich or poor, creditor or debtor, in the final analysis, ultimately, all will become equal
in the grave. the filthy rich might decide to lay their corpses in coffins made of gold, but
it will be in vain. the sorrows and the joys of this fleeting world shall quickly pass like
the shadow.
2. talmudics feel the need to accumulate money in order to have sense of security since they
were stateless for two millennia. paradoxically, amount of wealth is indirectly proportional
to a sense of security, provoking backlash from aggrieved host people.
3. establishment of State of Israel did not reduce the need for the accumulation but has only
heightened it since now talmudics feel the need to support it so that she could maintain
military superiority over neighbouring threats.
4. as long as Palestinians are not free and Israel does not make peace, talmudics will
continue to meddle in American politics. if you don't want to save the Palestinians for the
sake of humanity and truth or justice, at least you should do it for your own sake.
5. loan sharking, vulture whatever, etc., is the ugliness of big capitalism with capital C,
what is beyond sickening is the promotion of sodomy. if one becomes poor or homeless, it's a
pity. to go against nature is an abomination.
6. by using such words as "homosexual" you have accepted the paradigm of the social engineers
and corruptors, and are therefore collaborating with them. words have consequences since that
is how we convey ideas unless you own Hollywood and can produce your own moving pictures
too.
7. talmudics is a better word than as a great American scholar says, since people who promote
sodomy are absolutely opposed to the Torah (O.T.). those who still struggle to follow it
couldn't care less what happens to benighted goyim, only becoming reinforced in pride of
their own purity as opposed to disgraced nations. thus, practically, they too are talmudics,
alien to the spirit of the ancient holy fathers and prophets of Israel. the word "Orthodox"
has been stolen and now has lost all meaning or it means the exact opposite of what it
originally meant.
8. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5
@Colin
Wright Well there's nothing wrong in principle about specialists in valuing distressed
debt and managing it nuying such debt and using the previously established mechanisms for
getting value out of their investment. So the problem is how they go about enforcing their
rights and the lack of regulation to mitigate hardship in hard cases.
Still it is notable that it should, overwhelmingly be a Jewish business and such a
powerful medium for enriching Jewish causes and communities at the expense of poor
Americans.
While Whites theoretically still have the numbers to affect/determine the outcome of
elections, a majority of Whites usually stay home because they are tired of the 'evil of two
lessers' choice they are offered -- even voting for Trump got them little/nothing.
@Colin
Wright George Bush needed Tony Blair's support to attack Iraq , Donald Trump now has the
support of Boris Johnson to attack Iran : "Boris Johnson refuses to rule out military
intervention on Iran ." metro.co.uk
It is said that the "deep state " removed Theresa May from office as she was "too soft" on
Iran . As you suggest the attack will not happen until Trump's second term unless, in the
meantime , there is a false flag attack like 9/11 which can be blamed on the Iranians .
East Asians have freedom of speech. That is all that is needed to end Jewish Mafia vulture
capitalism. If it was Italian Mafia vulture capitalism, the west would end it a few seconds.
When one is in a "no see, no say, no hear" tribal group one can get away with everything.
East Asians don't believe in hiding reality.
Here is more on how Samsung fought back against little Paulie.
Samsung published controversial sketches in response to row over merger
Jewish U.S. hedge fund boss Paul Singer was trying to stop a Samsung business deal
In response the firm released cartoons on its website depicting Singer as a vulture
A row has broken out in South Korea with media there describing Jews as 'ruthless' with
money
Merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries was approved today
This is how Paulie's row with Samsung started.
These are the extraordinary cartoons Samsung posted on its website which reportedly
depict a Jewish hedge fund boss as a money-grabbing vulture.
The row between Samsung and one of its major shareholders, Paul Singer, has sparked an
anti-Semitism row in South Korea.
Harvard-educated Mr Singer, 70, whose hedge fund Elliott Management owns a seven per
cent stake in Samsung C&T fell out with the company after he objected to a merger
deal.
Cartoons shown what Paul's company did to the Congo, just one of many nations he
pillaged.
In response Samsung posted a number of inflammatory cartoons on its website showing Mr
Singer as a long-beaked vulture, which have since been taken down.
In one of the sketches a poor-looking man goes, cap in hand, to the vulture who has an
axe hidden behind his back.
The caption reads: 'Elliott Management's representative method of earning money is,
first of all, to buy the national debt of a struggling country cheaply, then insist on
taking control as an investor and start a legal suit'
In another people appear to be dying in the desert from dehydration. Underneath is the
caption: 'Because of it, Congo suffered even more hardship'.
This is believed to refer to Elliott Management's business dealings in the Congo.
Samsung wanted to keep their company in the Lee family. They did not want a Jewish Mafia
tribal group take over.
The bitter fall out came because Samsung Group's founding family wanted to complete a
merger with its holding company Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T to shore up its
control of the firm as its chairman, Lee Kun-hee's health is in decline.
In the End, Samsung won. Paul lost.
The Lee family, who control Samsung, owns 43 per cent of Cheil Industries. The
controversial merger was finally approved today.
South Koreans are not shy to express reality as it is. The west has to learn the value of
freedom of speech before it too late for the west.
But the row has sparked an outpouring of anti-Semitism in South Korea.
One columnist described Jewish money as 'ruthless and merciless'.
And on Tuesday the former South Korean ambassador to Morocco Park Jae-seon expressed his
concern about the influence of Jews in finance.
In an extraordianry outburst he said: 'The scary thing about Jews is they are grabbing
the currency markets and financial investment companies.
'Their network is tight-knit beyond one's imagination,' Park added.
The next day, cable news channel YTN aired similar comments by local journalist Park
Seong-ho.
'It is a fact that Jews use financial networks and have influence wherever they are
born,' he said.
Neither Park Jae-seon and Park Seong-ho were available for comment.
In a piece published a fortnight ago, Media Pen columnist Kim Ji-ho claimed 'Jewish
money has long been known to be ruthless and merciless'.
While Whites theoretically still have the numbers to affect/determine the outcome of
elections, a majority of Whites usually stay home because they are tired of the 'evil of
two lessers' choice they are offered -- even voting for Trump got them little/nothing.
I said nothing of an electoral solution to America's problems the problems will not be
solved that way.
@Art
That scary thought has crossed my mind, too, Art. I've even started wondering if this whole
impeachment circus is really part of an elaborate plot to guarantee Trump's re-election. I
mean, would Pelosi's insane actions make the slightest sense otherwise? And everyone has
noted how this is such a 'Jew coup,' haven't they? It all looks so suspicious
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections,
killing dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to
see with their own eyes.
True, but irrelevant. The Jews that matter don't read the Talmud or believe in "Adam and
Eve."
Whether they believe it or not, they act as though they do. That shows it is an ancient
and essential part of their ethnic subculture. Who knows? Maybe Kevin MacDonald is right and
it's actually genetic .
It's 2020. The Jewish religion is "The Holocaust" and we're all "Nazis."
The holo-hoax is just their modern version of 'chosenness'. Pretending to be the
biggest victims evah! is just another way of making themselves appear collectively as
morally superior to the rest of mankind–even the darkies:
But whether it's being wielded by the Zionists or the lefty Social Jewish Warriors, it's
really just a power play down deep. It's really just another way of reminding us
goyim–white and colored–that we are all just half-demons (so to speak) compared
to The Chosen.
@Wally
It is rather entertaining watching you kvetch, Jewish colonialism over WASP nations will be
glorious.
Vietnam & Congo can choose as they wish, it is they who vote for their leaders.
In fact, Congo was better off with colonialism.
America voted for Zion Don, he is now receving hundreds of millions of dollars from Jews
to do their bidding. It is hilarious that you can't see the irony of your comments.
In fact, it is even more funny what the Jews will do to WASP nations, enjoy your future of
transexualism and fast food, WASPs totally deserve everything that is coming at them.
Then you change the subject to Epstein. Pathetic.
If you had an IQ above room temperature, you would realise my segue into the Epstein
affair was a response to your question of "What deal was supposedly struck".
You killed Lumumba," she roared at the Belgian officials on the platform, before being
escorted away by the police. The music and speeches resumed.
She was right: they did. Belgium was heavily implicated in the 1961 killing of the
radical, first prime minister of an independent Congo, now the war-torn Democratic Republic
of Congo. In 1975 a US inquiry also pointed conclusively to CIA involvement in the
execution carried out by a Katangan police unit under a Belgian officer.
Paul Singer, a Jewish Mafia vulture capitalist did some "work" on the Congo too.
He also bought some of Congo's debt for $10m and sued for $127m. The Congolese
government was found to be corrupt and under US racketeering law, Singer may be able to
claim triple damages, reaping as much as $400m.
On March 9, 2016, Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight personnel learned that the FBI
had been employing outside contractors who had access to raw Section 702 Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) data, and retained that access after their work for the FBI was
completed.
This information was disclosed in a 99-page FISA court ruling on April 26, 2017, that was
declassified by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
That wasn't an isolated incident and the improper access granted to outside contractors
"seems to have been the result of deliberate decisionmaking" (footnote – page 87).
The FISA court noted the "FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules" and questioned
"whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that
have not been reported."
"This is bigger than Watergate + 9/11 + the Bay of Pigs + almost every other conspiracy
theory you can name combined. It is also why you're seeing definite signs of panic and
desperation everywhere from the House of Representatives to the mainstream media to the
boardrooms of the Fortune 500. This reaches from the heart of the Swamp in Washington DC to
Silicon Valley and Seattle, Washington. In East Germany, it came out after the Wall fell that
one-fifth of the population was involved in the surveillance of the other four-fifths of the
population; now keep in mind that due to the mathematical reach of the FISA warrants, the 825
million surveillance orders issued actually exceeds the 320 million population of the
USA.
Now we know how and why Google and Amazon and Facebook got so big, so fast. They were the
corporate arm of the surveillance state."
You disloyal Jews used government resources and private contractors to surveil the entire
country.
I wonder what's going to happen next?
Also why haven't you responded to any of the comments about what the Jews did in
Russia?
@RealistI said nothing of an electoral solution to America's problems
And I said nothing about an "electoral solution", or any other kind of "solution", to
"America's problems" -- I said/implied that blaming Whites, or the way they vote, more or
less exclusively, as you did, for the way things are, was not exactly a genius take -- there
is literally no one for a race conscious white person, eg a WN, to vote (affirmatively)
for at the moment -- and it is hard to imagine anyone emerging in the near future.
For the record: I (also) do not think just voting, especially in the current
one two party system with the usual 'evil of two lessers' choices offered,
will do anything for Whites.
What We abrogate (of) a sign or [We] cause it to be forgotten, We bring better than it
or similar (to) it. Do not you know that Allah over every thing (is) All-Powerful?
2:106
The verses on abrogation read as to only allow Allah to abrogate, so any human action on
this is stepping over the line imo.. maybe other than when 100% of the Ummah agree on
something, I read that could remove a surah of the Quran, like a voice of God. That rhymes
nicely imo.
Of course how to judge which ruling to use? I agree, it brings in a casuistry into the
faith that generally helps to confuse.. I don't know much about it though yet.
I think Islam preaches a decent message, but the average practitioner is open to
misinterpret it quite a bit. This is a failing of the teaching.. but I think Mohammed's
message was corrupted like Christ's message pretty much straight after his death. Gospel of
Thomas and Tolstoy's rewrites all the way for something closer imo.
venture capital funds are only made necessary because we have a federal reserve.. which
is a private bank and private banks want to earn interest.
Sentiments are correct and you are hovering over the target, but some details are
needed.
The federal reserve is the tail on the dog, not the dog. The Fed was created as a part of
the corporate banking money trust. Before Fed the reserve loops of banks were not tied
together, and they had to use treasuries (T bills or Lincoln Green-backs) to balance their
ledgers.
Banksters wanted to extend their money power beyond their region. In the days before
federal reserve bank money power would fall off the further you got away from the bank. Banks
hypothecate new bank credit, and the credit has to swim home to the debt instrument. This
"swimming home" is done easily when the ledgers are all connected through reserve loops (also
called the overnight market).
After Federal Reserve (1913) and before Wright Pattman, the Federal Reserve was recycling
its profits made on public debt back to its stock owners and member banks. The member banks
especially, were guaranteed profits no matter how the economy did. After Wright Pattman (mid
60's) Fed has to rebate to treasury they couldn't face up to the allegations they were
stealing from the commons, which they were.
Today, the FED rebates interest on TBills and public debt back to Treasury. The private
banks within the system continue to hypothecate new money at interest, as that is their
business model. This business model does not include morality, nor does it work in the public
interest. It works to enrich finance at the expense of the working/laboring economy.
So, central banks are not profit centers, but instead they ensure profit lower down
– within the private banking system. Central banks are backstops to prevent instability
within the already unstable debt money system.
Recent Example: The Repo Crises, whereby FED is monetizing repurchase agreements. Non bank
actors such as hedge funds, REIT's and others have been given access to the overnight market
(where reserves are supposed to be traded). The FED now swaps new keyboard dollars for
various finance paper to keep the non bank actors in the repo market liquid.
This action is artificial and props up the finance sector at the expense of the normal
working economy, and hence it is usurious.
Usury is a word that has been normed out of our language. Why? Because our (((friends)))
are agents of mammon, and they cannot help themselves. It may be genetic.
Usury is a power relation, where you steal from others because you can. Laws are changed
to enable the thefts.
In the case of the FED it was taking 6 percent from the people on public debts. Public
debts were funded by taxpayers. This money was then funneling backwards from FED into their
crony banks and paid off sycophants.
We don't know what the FED is doing today because the bad guys won't allow an audit. The
general statement is that private corporate banking is usurious, and was born in iniquity,
and that is where your eye should gaze, not necessarily at the FED or any central bank.
The debt money system and finance capitalism is state sponsored usury, and is a Jewish
construct.
Vulture capitalism is simply vultures buying up or creating distressed assets and then
changing the law, or using force to then collect face value of the debt instrument or other
so called asset. Vultures will use hook or crook to force down what they are buying, and hook
or crook to force up what they are selling. God's special people can do this because when
they look in the mirror, they are god, and are sanctioned to do so.
Maybe the vulture should replace the bald eagle as America's favorite bird since our dear
shabbos goy President Trump and cohorts are undermining the First Amendment and trying to
make it a crime to criticize Jews and/or Israel. Oh and don't think I am promoting the other
Zionist and their shabbos goy on the demshevik side. The Jew CONTROLS both sides and "our"
two party system has become Jew vs. Jew, not republican vs. democrat. Lenin said that the
best way to control the opposition was to lead it and (((they))) are at it AGAIN.
I think Islam preaches a decent message, but the average practitioner is open to
misinterpret it quite a bit. This is a failing of the teaching.. but I think Mohammed's
message was corrupted like Christ's message pretty much straight after his death. Gospel of
Thomas and Tolstoy's rewrites all the way for something closer imo.
The line of good and evil runs down the middle of each person's heart, and they have to
decide.
My line of attack on Judaism, Islam, Christianity, or whatever, has to answer the
question: "Is it good narrative for high civilization." Does the narrative make people
malfunction?
There are branches of Islam that are good narrative – where people choose the better
side of Islam.
The point is that these good branches, say the Suffi's, have to keep the crazy aunt in the
basement.
Abrogation allows what comes later, to gain power over what comes earlier. And what comes
earlier is the best part of Islam.
Christianity has the same problem, it does not do a good job of policing its crazies, who
twist scripture. Judaism, especially Talmudic Judaism is Kabala and utterances of the sages,
and it morphs and changes over time. For example, after Sabatai Sevi, the Kol-Neidre was
weaponized, and this construct is used by today's Zionists to wreak havoc. Before Sabatai,
there was Hillel, who weaponized usury.
Yes, I agree about Christianity changing quite a bit. In the first 300 years it was much
different than today, especially after the Arien controversy was settled by Constantine's
maneuvering of Bishops at council of Nicea. For example, before; reincarnation was part of
Christian doctrine, and after; reincarnation was excluded.
Trump should be impeached and convicted. But not for the reasons in the two Articles passes
by the House.
He should be for
Violating the Symington and Glenn amended 1961 Foreign Assistance Act to ban any aid to
clandestine nuclear powers that were not NPT signatories. Trump increased aid to Israel.
Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem in violation of numerous UN Security Council and
General Assembly resolutions.
The abuse of Office via Nepotism in having totally unqualified Jared and Ivanka Kushner
serve as US Government respresentatives.
Executive Order classifying Jews as a Nationality protected from Free Speech criticism of
them, in violation of the First Amendment.
Of course those in Congress, that facilitated and cheered on the Israeli centric Trump
acts, should all be voted out forever.
I have long maintained that libertarianism/capitalism is really like a kind of Calvinism
for atheists. Calvinists used to assume that, since whatever happened was God's will and
God's will was invariable good, then whatever happened was good. Likewise, many modern cucks
seem to have just substituted The Market for God. Morally speaking, it all lets man off the
hook for anything that results–especially when those men happen to be Jewish
financiers!
No, boys and girls, The Market is not inherently good. It requires that a moral system be
superimposed on top of it in order to make it moral.
@Anon
After reading the book of this MI6 asset (and potential killer) who tried to fleece Russia,
you probably can benefit from watching a movie by Nekrasov about him. See references in:
It looks like it was Browder who killed Magnitsky, so that he can't spill the beans. And
then in an act of ultimate chutzpah played the victim and promoted Magnitsky act.
"The CIA was the central protagonist in Russiagate. The origins of the New Cold War are found
in Bill Clinton's first term, when administration neo-cons looted, plundered and moved NATO
against a prostrate Russia in
contradiction to explicit guarantees not to do so made by the George H.W. Bush
administration. Vladimir Putin's apparent crime was to oust the Clintonites from Russia and
restore Russian sovereignty." CounterPunch.org
"Russiagate was a declaration of war by the 'intelligence community' against a duly elected
President. As argued below, the CIA's motive is to move its own foreign policy agenda forward
without even the illusion of democratic consent." CounterPunch.org
Notable quotes:
"... Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the problem, never part of the solution. ..."
Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US
war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and
abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the
problem, never part of the solution.
Her long disturbing congressional record shows she exclusively serves wealth and power
interests at the expense of the vast majority of Americans she disdains, proving it time and
again.
Her deplorable voting record speaks for itself, backing:
the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Blily Act repeal of Glass-Steagall, permitting some of the most
egregious financial abuses in the modern era;
the September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), permitting endless
wars of aggression in multiple theaters, raging endlessly;
annual National Defense Authorization Acts and US wars of aggression;
Obama's neoliberal harshness, continuing under Trump, along with tax cuts for the rich,
benefitting her and her husband enormously, without admitting it;
increasingly unaffordable marketplace medicine, ripping off consumers for profit, leaving
millions uninsured, most Americans way underinsured;
the USA Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and other police state law;
the 9/11 whitewash Commission Recommendation Act;
the FISA Amendments Act -- permitting warrantless spying post-9/11, Big Brother watching
everyone;
NAFTA and other anti-consumer/corporate coup d'etat trade bills;
the repressive US gulag prison system, the world's largest by far; incarcerating
millions by federal, state, and local authorities, it includes global torture prisons;
unapologetic support for Israeli apartheid viciousness;
fierce opposition to Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, and other
nonbelligerent sovereign states threatening no one;
the Russiagate witch hunt and Ukrainegate scams.
Calling exploitive/predatory "free market (capitalism) our greatest asset" shows her
contempt for equity and justice.
Her support for the military, industrial, security, media complex is all about backing
endless wars of aggression against invented enemies. No real ones exist.
Pelosi represents what belligerent, plutocratic, oligarchic, increasingly totalitarian rule
is all about, notably contemptuous of nations on the US target list for regime change --
Russia, China and Iran topping the list.
On Friday, she falsely accused Russia of involvement in Ukrainegate, a failed Russiagate
scam spinoff with no legitimacy, supported by undemocratic Dems and their echo-chamber
media.
Repeating the long ago debunked Russian US election meddling Big Lie that won't die, she
falsely accused Moscow of "ha(ving) a hand in this."
Referring to the Ukrainegate scam, she offered no evidence backing her accusation because
none exists.
During a Friday press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York,
Sergey Lavrov slammed Pelosi's Big Lie, saying:
"Russia's been accused of all the deadly sins, and then some. It's paranoia, and I think
it's obvious to everyone."
It's unacceptable anti-Russia hate-mongering, what goes on endlessly, Cold War 2.0
raging.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following on her facebook
page:
"Speaker of the lower house of Congress Nancy Pelosi believes that Russia is involved in the
scandal over July telephone conversation between us and Ukraine Presidents Donald Trump and
Vladimir Zelensky."
"This (baseless) assumption was made on Friday Pelosi (not) explaining what it means, and
without providing evidence of her words."
"Considering that it was Nancy Pelosi who caused the 'Scandal around the telephone
conversation between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine,' then, according to the
speaker's logic, Russia attached the hand to her."
What's going on is continuation of the most shameful political chapter in US history,
ongoing since Trump took office, along with railroading Richard Nixon.
Both episodes represent McCarthyism on steroids – supported by establishment media,
furious about Trump's triumph over Hillary, targeting him largely for the wrong reasons,
ignoring plenty of right ones.
Mueller's probe ended with a whimper, not the bang Dems wanted, Ukrainegate their second
bite of the apple to try discrediting Trump for political advantage ahead of November 2020
elections.
That's what Russiagate and Ukrainegate are all about.
These actions by undemocratic Dems and their media press agents are further clear proof that
Washington's deeply corrupted political system to its rotten core is far too debauched to
fix.
"... Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones. ..."
"... In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp the working parallels. In general, I can recommend this book as a good introduction on Vladimir Putin, but it's hardly the last word and certainly not the definitive narrative. ..."
Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological
profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their
limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again
and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999
manifesto on his millenial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both
subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these
documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are
padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.
As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the
authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a
doozy:
"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic
and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter
Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."
For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong.
They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold
War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in
fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control
than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II. To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy.
Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior
that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened
their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome
part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which
while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.
I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this
book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian
scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the
opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days. But in ignoring what Cohen has to
say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in
lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.
The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the
writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US
Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen
than they are to Hill and Gaddy.
Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden
motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers'
books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors
never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.
Ultimately, this is an unsatisfying work.
karenann, 2 years ago (Edited)
Kissinger has had the good sense to state that the best hope for peace in the region is to have Ukraine as a totally
neutral country, similar to Finland before the USSR collapsed. The Budapest Memorandum of NATO calls for the full military
integration of Ukraine and Georgia.
As a thought experiment, what if the Soviets undermined the provincial governments of Alberta and British Columbia, and
then wanted to include these governments in the Warsaw Pact? What do you think the reaction of the US would be?
- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research
and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table.
Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him
credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia.
Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic
liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors
Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver
to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents
by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.
Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own
role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian
insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan
Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was
not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on
then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by
Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of
relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the
backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When
he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid
historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for
the same.
The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of
his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us -
our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these
"motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic
hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut
compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David
Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy,
Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes
Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but
rather ongoing and painful ones.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the
authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the
"misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the
"Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out
of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part
of a geo-political manouver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians,
exactly as in the Baltic states.
His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the
authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an
aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial
amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western
pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is
dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian
security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving,
it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie
Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.
In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand
tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on
Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make
him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US.
Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp the working parallels. In general, I can
recommend this book as a good introduction on Vladimir Putin, but it's hardly the last word
and certainly not the definitive narrative.
Anon II, 4 years ago (Edited)
It is refreshing to read something on Russia written by a reviewer who knows what he is talking about. This book is full
of data, but the authors lack any intellectual basis on which to organize it. They are trying to publish a book in which
there will be reader interest, but they really have nothing to say. If you are eager to make an enemy of Russia, this book
will be useful to you. If you are simply trying to understand what is happening, it won't be.
D.B.4 years ago
Thank you for an excellent countervailing perspective!
Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't
stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation
and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the
MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.
This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors
in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party
system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.
Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much
for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying
jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out
like a garbage.
"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept.
of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered
his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded
on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship;
3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially
instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984.
Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced
by Rachel Maddow show ;-)
Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will
be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.
One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA
foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are
bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar
think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's
famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last
refuge of scoundrels."
The House impeachment is driven by several factors:
After Russiagate, when Trump began to investigate its fraudulent origins, the Dems feared the exposure of Obama-era
corruption if not high crimes. Hence Ukrainegate is preemptive political tactics.
The investigation into Russiagate led right to Ukraine, and thus to Biden. In the context of Sanders' campaign,
Ukrainegate became an imperative for the factions of the capitalist class that dominates the DNC. If Biden falls on Ukraine
issues, then Sanders is inevitable; an anathema to Wall Street and Big Tech DNC donors.
3. While 1 and 2 dominate DNC machinations, foreign policy is also a factor. The foreign policy establishment is absolutely
against any hesitation with respect to confronting Russia as part of a regional and global strategy for primacy. Trump's limited
prevarications on Russia might threaten the long established strategy to expand Nato to Ukraine and thereby to encircle Russia
and maintain US dominance over Europe. So, even though Trump names great power rivalry as the name of the game today, his inclination
for making nice with Putin threatens to weaken the US hold over Europe, which Trump wants to label as an economic competitor.
It is with these points that the strategic differences become apparent: Trump is raising a realist, neo-mercantalist strategy
against ALL potential competitors; the DNC and the deep state hold a strategy of liberal hegemony: globalization and US primacy
through dominating regional alliances, and impregnating US hegemony INSIDE the vassal States of the empire.
All of this, however, is bound to fail for the DNC, and down the road for Trump himself.
The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones.
If anyone was watching The Horowitz hearing in the senate today it would be hard to conclude
that RussiaGate and Ukrainegate will not have serious consequences going forward.
The whole sordid, nasty conspiracy seems on the verge of being exposed, maybe as high as
Obama himself, although he is just a puppet himself, and indictments are sure to follow. I
don't see how anyone could think that this will not be catastrophic for the democratic
party.
The Washington Post, through documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, has
published a long investigation into Afghanistan. Journalists have collected over 400
testimonies from American diplomats, NATO generals and other NATO personnel, that show that
reports about Afghanistan were falsified to deceive the public about the real situation on the
ground.
After the tampering with and falsification of the report of the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), we are witnessing another event that will certainly
discomfit those who have hitherto relied on the official reports of the Pentagon, the US State
Department and international organizations like the OPCW for the last word.
There are very deliberate reasons for such disinformation campaigns. In the case of the
OPCW, as I wrote some time back, the aim was to paint the Syrian government as the fiend and
the al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked "moderate rebels" as the innocent souls, thereby likely
justifying a responsibility-to-protect armed intervention by the likes of the US, the UK and
France. In such circumstances, the standing and status of the reporting organization (like the
OPCW) is commandeered to validate Western propaganda that is duly disseminated through the
corporate-controlled mainstream media.
In this particular case, various Western capitals colluded with the OPCW to lay the
groundwork for the removal of Assad and his replacement with the al-Nusra Front as well as the
very same al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked armed opposition officially responsible for the 9/11
attacks.
As if the massaging of the OPCW reports were not enough in themselves to provoke
international outrage, this dossier serves to give aid and comfort to jihadi groups supported
by the Pentagon who are known to be responsible for the worst human-rights abuses, as seen in
Syria and Iraq in the last 6 years.
False or carefully manipulated reports paint a picture vastly different from the reality on
the ground. The United States has never really declared war on Islamic terrorism, its
proclamations of a "War on Terror" notwithstanding. In reality, it has simply used this
justification to occupy or destabilize strategically important areas of the world in the
interests of maintaining US hegemony, intending in so doing to hobble the energy policies and
national security of rival countries like China, Iran and the Russian Federation.
The Post investigation lays bare how the US strategy had failed since its inception, the
data doctored to represent a reality very different from that on the ground. The inability of
the United States to clean up Afghanistan is blamed by the Post on incorrect military planning
and incorrect political choices. While this could certainly be the case, the Post's real
purpose in its investigation is to harm Trump, even as it reveals the Pentagon's efforts to
continue its regional presence for grand geopolitical goals by hiding inconvenient truths.
The real issue lies in the built-in mendacity of the bureaucratic and military apparatus of
the United States. No general has ever gone on TV to say that the US presence in Iraq is needed
to support any war against Iran; or that Afghanistan is a great point of entry for the
destabilization of Eurasia, because this very heart of the Heartland is crucial to the
Sino-Russian transcontinental integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and
the Belt and Road Initiative. In the same vein, the overthrow of the Syrian government would
have ensured Israel a greater capacity to expand its interests in the Middle East, as well as
to weaken Iran's main regional ally.
The Post investigation lays bare the hypocrisy of the military-industrial complex as well as
the prevailing political establishments of Europe and the United States. These parties are not
interested in human rights, the wellbeing of civilians or justice in general. Their only goal
is to try and maintain their global hegemony indefinitely by preventing any other powers from
being able to realize their potential and thereby pose a threat to Atlanticist preeminence.
The war in Iraq was launched to destabilize the Middle East, China's energy-supply basin
crucial to fueling her future growth. The war in Syria served the purpose of further
dismantling the Middle East to favor Saudi Arabia and Israel, the West's main strategic allies
in the Persian Gulf. The war in Afghanistan was to slow down the Eurasian integration of China
and Russia. And the war in Ukraine was for the purposes of generating chaos and destruction on
Russia's border, with the initial hope of wresting the very strategically area of Crimea from
Russia.
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this has been on full display in
recent times. Almost all of Washington's recent strategic objectives have ended up producing
results worse than the status quo ante. In Iraq there is the type of strong cooperation between
Baghdad and Tehran reminiscent of the time prior to 1979. Through Hezbollah, Iran has
strengthened its position in Syria in defense of Damascus. Moscow has found itself playing the
role of crucial decider in the Middle East (and soon in North Africa), until only a few years
ago the sole prerogative of Washington. Turkey's problems with NATO, coupled with Tel Aviv's
open relation with Moscow are both a prime example of Washington's diminishing influence in the
region and Moscow's corresponding increase in influence.
The situation in Afghanistan is not very different, with a general recognition that peace is
the only option for the region being reflected in the talks between the Afghans, the Taliban,
the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. Beijing and Moscow have well known for over a
decade the real intent behind Washington's presence in the country, endeavoring to blunt its
impact.
The Post investigation only further increases the public's war weariness, the war in
Afghanistan now having lasted 18 years, the longest war in US history. Jeff Bezos, the owner of
the Post, is a bitter opponent of Trump and wants the president to come clean on the
Afghanistan debacle by admitting that the troops cannot be withdrawn. Needless to say,
admitting such would not help Trump's strategy for the 2020 election. Trump cannot afford to
humiliate the US military, given that it, along with the US dollar, is his main weapon of
"diplomacy". Were it to be revealed that some illiterate peasants holed up in caves and armed
with AK-47s some 40 years ago are responsible for successfully keeping the most powerful army
in history at bay, all of Washington's propaganda, disseminated by a compliant media, will
cease to be of any effect. Such a revelation would also humiliate military personnel, an
otherwise dependable demographic Trump cannot afford to alienate.
The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the
disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also political,
seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military credentials as well
as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the Post do not know,
or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations directed against political
opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political and military prestige of
the United States.
In other words, when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it
difficult to lie its way through wars and failures, but when a country relies on Hollywood to
sustain its make-believe world, as well as on journalists on the CIA payroll, on compliant
publishers and on censored news, then any such revelations of forbidden truths threaten to
bring the whole facade crashing down.
Philip Giraldi Ph.D., Executive Director of the
Council for the National Interest
"... The FFM was headed by Malik Ellahi , who served as head of the OPCW's government relations and political affairs branch. The appointment of someone lacking both technical and operational experience suggests that Ellahi's primary role was political. Under his leadership, the FFM established a close working relationship with the anti-Assad Syrian opposition, including the White Helmets and SAMS. ..."
"... Once the FFM wrapped up its investigation in Douma, however, it became apparent to Fairweather that it had a problem. There were serious questions about whether chlorine had, in fact, been used as a weapon. The solution, brokered by Fairweather, was to release an interim report that ruled out sarin altogether, but left the door open regarding chlorine. ..."
"... Braha did this by dispatching OPCW inspectors to Turkey in September 2018 to interview new witnesses identified by the White Helmets, and by commissioning new engineering studies that better explained the presence of the two chlorine cannisters found in Douma. By March, Braha had assembled enough information to enable the technical directorate to issue its final report. Almost immediately, dissent appeared in the ranks of the OPCW. An engineering report that contradicted the findings published by Braha was leaked , setting off a firestorm of controversy derived from its conclusion that the chlorine cannisters found in Douma had most likely been staged by the White Helmets. ..."
"... The OPCW, while eventually acknowledging that the leaked report was genuine, explained its exclusion from the final report on the grounds that it attributed blame, something the FFM was not mandated to do. According to the OPCW , the engineering report in question had been submitted to the investigation and identification team, a newly created body within the OPCW mandated to make such determinations. Moreover, Director General Arias stood by the report's conclusion that it had "reasonable grounds" to believe "that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon has taken place on 7 April 2018." ..."
"... The OPCW's credibility as an investigative body has been brought into question through these leaks, as has its independent character. If an organization like the OPCW can be used at will by the U.S., the United Kingdom and France to trigger military attacks intended to support regime-change activities in member states, then it no longer serves a useful purpose to the international community it ostensibly serves. ..."
A spate of leaks from within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (
OPCW ), the international inspectorate
created for the purpose of implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention, has raised serious
questions about the institution's integrity, objectivity and credibility. The leaks address
issues pertaining to the OPCW investigation into allegations that the Syrian government used
chemical weapons to attack civilians in the Damascus suburb of Douma on April 7, 2018. These
allegations, which originated from such anti-Assad organizations as the Syrian Civil Defense
(the so-called White Helmets )
and the Syrian American Medical Society ( SAMS ), were immediately embraced as credible by the OPCW, and
were used by the United States, France and the United Kingdom
to justify punitive military strikes against facilities inside Syria assessed by these
nations as having been involved in chemical weapons-related activities before the OPCW
initiated any on-site investigation.
The Douma incident was initially described by the White Helmets, SAMS and the U.S., U.K. and
French governments as involving both sarin nerve agent and chlorine gas. However, this
narrative was altered when OPCW inspectors released, on July 6, 2018, interim
findings of their investigation that found no evidence of the use of sarin. The focus of
the investigation quickly shifted to a pair of chlorine cylinders claimed by the White Helmets
to have been dropped onto apartment buildings in Douma by the Syrian Air Force, resulting in
the release of a cloud of chlorine gas that killed dozens of Syrian civilians. In March, the
OPCW released its final report on
the Douma incident , noting that it had "reasonable grounds" to believe "that the use of a
toxic chemical as a weapon has taken place on 7 April 2018," that "this toxic chemical
contained reactive chlorine" and that "the toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine."
Much has been written about the OPCW inspection process in Syria, and particularly the
methodology used by the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), an inspection body created by the OPCW in
2014 "to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly
chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic." The FFM was created under the
direction of Ahmet
Üzümcü , a career Turkish diplomat with extensive experience in
multinational organizations, including service as Turkey's ambassador to NATO.
Üzümcü was the OPCW's third director general, having been selected from a field
of seven candidates by its executive council to replace Argentine diplomat Rogelio Pfirter.
Pfirter had held the position since being nominated to replace the OPCW's first director
general, José Maurício Bustani. Bustani's tenure was marred by controversy that
saw the OPCW transition away from its intended role as an independent implementor of the
Chemical Weapons Convention to that of a tool of unilateral U.S. policy, a role that continues
to mar the OPCW's work in Syria today, especially when it comes to its investigation of the
alleged use by the Syrian government of chemical weapons against civilians in Douma in April
2018.
Bustani was removed from his position in 2002, following an
unprecedented campaign led by John Bolton, who at the time was serving as the
undersecretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs in the U.S. State
Department. What was Bustani's crime? In 2001, he had dared to enter negotiations with the
government of Iraq to secure that nation's entry into the OPCW, thereby setting the stage for
OPCW inspectors to visit Iraq and bring its chemical weapons capability under OPCW control. As
director general, there was nothing untoward about Bustani's action. But Iraq circa 2001 was
not a typical recruitment target. In the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, the U.N. Security
Council had passed a resolution under Chapter VII requiring Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
(WMD), including its chemical weapons capability, to be "removed, destroyed or rendered
harmless" under the supervision of inspectors working on behalf of the United Nations Special
Commission, or UNSCOM.
The pursuit of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction led to a series of confrontations with Iraq
that culminated in inspectors being ordered out of the country by the U.S. in 1998, prior to a
72-hour aerial attack -- Operation Desert Fox. Iraq refused to allow UNSCOM inspectors to
return, rightfully claiming that the U.S. had infiltrated the ranks of the inspectors and was
using the inspection process to spy on Iraqi leadership for the purposes of facilitating regime
change. The lack of inspectors in Iraq allowed the U.S. and others to engage in wild
speculation regarding Iraqi rearmament activities, including in the field of chemical weapons.
This speculation was used to fuel a call for military action against Iraq, citing the threat of
a reconstituted WMD capability as the justification. Bustani sought to defuse this situation by
bringing Iraq into the OPCW, an act that, if completed, would have derailed the U.S. case for
military intervention in Iraq. Bolton's intervention
included threats to Bustani and his family, as well as threats to withhold U.S. dues to the OPCW accounting
for some 22% of that organization's budget; had the latter threat been implemented, it would
have resulted in OPCW's disbandment.
Bustani's departure marked the end of the OPCW as an independent organization. Pfirter,
Bolton's hand-picked replacement, vowed to keep the OPCW out of Iraq. In an
interview with U.S. media shortly after his appointment, Pfirter noted that while all
nations should be encouraged to join the OPCW, "We should be very aware that there are United
Nations resolutions in effect" that precluded Iraqi membership "at the expense" of its
obligations to the Security Council. Under the threat of military action, Iraq allowed UNMOVIC
inspectors to return in 2002; by February 2003, no WMD had been found , a result that did
not meet with U.S. satisfaction. In March 2003, UNMOVIC inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq
under orders of the U.S., paving the way for the subsequent invasion and occupation of that
nation that same month (the CIA later concluded that
Iraq had been disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction by the summer of 1991).
Under Pfirter's leadership, the OPCW became a compliant tool of U.S. foreign policy
objectives. By completely subordinating OPCW operations through the constant threat of fiscal
ruin, the U.S. engaged in a continuous quid pro quo arrangement, trading the financial solvency
of an ostensible multilateral organization for complicity in operating as a de facto extension
of American unilateral policy. Bolton's actions in 2002 put the OPCW and its employees on
notice: Cross the U.S., and you will pay a terminal price.
When Üzümcü took over the OPCW's reins in 2010, the organization was very
much the model of multinational consensus, which, in the case of any multilateral organization
in which the U.S. plays a critical role, meant that nothing transpired without the express
approval of the U.S. and its European NATO allies, in particular the United Kingdom and France.
Shortly after he took office, Üzümcü was joined by Robert Fairweather , a
career British diplomat who served as Üzümcü's chief of Cabinet. (While
Üzümcü was the ostensible head of the OPCW, the daily task of managing the
functioning of the OPCW was that of the chief of Cabinet. In short, nothing transpired within
the OPCW without Fairweather's knowledge and concurrence.)
Üzümcü and Fairweather's tenure at the OPCW was dominated by Syria, where,
since 2011, the government of President Bashar Assad had been engaged in a full-scale conflict
with a foreign-funded and -equipped insurgency whose purpose was regime change. By 2013,
allegations emerged from both the Syrian government and rebel forces concerning the use of
chemical weapons by the other side. In August 2013, the OPCW dispatched an inspection team into
Syria as part of a U.N.-led effort, which included specialists from the World Health
Organization (WHO) and the U.N. itself, to investigate allegations that sarin had been used in
attack on civilians in the town of Ghouta. While the mission found conclusive evidence that sarin nerve agent had been
used , it did not assign blame for the attack.
Despite the lack of causality, the U.S. and its NATO allies quickly assigned blame for the
sarin attacks on the Syrian government. To forestall U.S. military action against Syria, the
Russian
government helped broker a deal whereby the U.S. agreed to refrain from undertaking
military action if the Syrian government joined the OPCW and subjected the totality of its
chemical weapons stockpile to elimination. In October 2013, the OPCW-U.N. Joint Mission , created
under the authority of U.N. Security Council resolution 2118 (2103), began the process of
identifying, cataloging, removing and destroying Syria's chemical weapons. This process was
completed in September 2014 (in December 2013, the OPCW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its
disarmament work in Syria).
If the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons was an example of the OPCW at its best, what
followed was a case study of just the opposite. In May 2014, the OPCW created the Fact-Finding Mission, or FFM ,
charged with establishing "facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals,
reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic." The FFM was headed
by Malik Ellahi ,
who served as head of the OPCW's government relations and political affairs branch. The
appointment of someone lacking both technical and operational experience suggests that Ellahi's
primary role was political. Under his leadership, the FFM established a close working
relationship with the anti-Assad Syrian opposition, including the White Helmets and
SAMS.
In 2015, responsibility for coordinating the work of the FFM with the anti-Assad opposition
was transferred to a British inspector named Len Phillips (another element of the FFM, led by a
different inspector, was responsible for coordinating with the Syrian government). Phillips
developed a close working relationship with the White Helmets and SAMS and played a key role in
OPCW's investigation of the April 2017 chemical incident in Khan Shaykhun. By April 2018, the
FFM had undergone a leadership transition, with Phillips
replaced by a Tunisian inspector named Sami Barrek . It was Barrek who led the FFM into
Syria in April 2018 to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use at Douma. Like Phillips,
Barrek maintained a close working relationship with the White Helmets and SAMS.
Once the FFM wrapped up its investigation in Douma, however, it became apparent to
Fairweather that it had a problem. There were serious questions about whether chlorine had, in
fact, been used as a weapon. The solution, brokered by Fairweather, was to release an interim
report that ruled out sarin altogether, but left the door open regarding chlorine. This
report was released on July 6, 2018. Later that month, both Üzümcü and
Fairweather were gone, replaced by a Spaniard named Fernando
Arias and a French diplomat named Sébastien
Braha . It would be up to them to clean up the Douma situation.
The situation Braha inherited from Fairweather was unenviable.
According to an unnamed OPCW official who spoke with the media after the fact, two days
prior to the publication of the interim report, on July 4, 2018, Fairweather had been paid a
visit by a trio of U.S. officials, who indicated to Fairweather and the members of the FFM
responsible for writing the report that it was the U.S. position that the chlorine cannisters
in question had been used to dispense chlorine gas at Douma, an assertion that could not be
backed up by the evidence. Despite this, the message that Fairweather left with the OPCW
personnel was that there had to be a "smoking gun." It was now Braha's job to manufacture
one.
Braha did this by dispatching OPCW inspectors to Turkey in September 2018 to interview
new witnesses identified by the White Helmets, and by commissioning new engineering studies
that better explained the presence of the two chlorine cannisters found in Douma. By March,
Braha had assembled enough information to enable the technical directorate to issue its final
report. Almost immediately, dissent appeared in the ranks of the OPCW. An engineering report
that contradicted the findings published by Braha
was leaked , setting off a firestorm of controversy derived from its conclusion that the
chlorine cannisters found in Douma had most likely been staged by the White Helmets.
The OPCW, while eventually acknowledging that the leaked report was genuine, explained
its exclusion from the final report on the grounds that it attributed blame, something the FFM
was not mandated to do.
According to the OPCW , the engineering report in question had been submitted to the
investigation and identification team, a newly created body within the OPCW mandated to make
such determinations. Moreover, Director General Arias stood by the report's conclusion that it
had "reasonable grounds" to believe "that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon has taken
place on 7 April 2018."
Arias' explanation came under attack in November, when WikiLeaks published an email sent
by a member of the FFM team that had participated in the Douma investigation. In this email,
which was sent on June 22, 2018, and addressed to Robert Fairweather, the author noted that,
when it came to the Douma incident, "[p]urposely singling out chlorine gas as one of the
possibilities is disingenuous." The author of the email, who had participated in drafting the
original interim report, noted that the original text had emphasized that there was
insufficient evidence to support this conclusion, and that the new text represented "a major
deviation from the original report." Moreover, the author took umbrage at the new report's
conclusions, which claimed to be "based on the high levels of various chlorinated organic
derivatives detected in environmental samples." According to email's author "They were, in most
cases, present only in parts per billion range, as low as 1-2 ppb, which is essentially trace
quantities." In short, the OPCW had cooked the books, manufacturing evidence from thin air that
it then used to draw conclusions that sustained the U.S. position that chlorine gas had been
used by the Syrian government at Douma.
Arias, while not addressing the specifics of the allegations set forth in the leaked email,
recently declared that it is "the nature of any thorough inquiry for individuals in a team
to express subjective views," noting that "I stand by the independent, professional conclusion"
presented by the OPCW about the Douma incident. This explanation, however, does not fly in the
face of the evidence.
The OPCW's credibility as an investigative body has been brought into question through
these leaks, as has its independent character. If an organization like the OPCW can be used at
will by the U.S., the United Kingdom and France to trigger military attacks intended to support
regime-change activities in member states, then it no longer serves a useful purpose to the
international community it ostensibly serves.
To survive as a credible entity, the OPCW must open itself to a full-scale audit of its
activities in Syria by an independent authority with inspector general-like investigatory
powers. Anything short of this leaves the OPCW, an organization that was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for its contributions to world peace, permanently stained by the reality that it is
little more than a lap dog of the United States, used to promote the very conflicts it was
designed to prevent.
The
Washington Post , throughdocumentsreleased through the Freedom of Information Act, has published a long
investigation into Afghanistan. Journalists have collected over 400 testimonies from American
diplomats, NATO generals and other NATO personnel, that show that reports about Afghanistan
were falsified to deceive the public about the real situation on the ground.
After the tampering with and falsification of the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW), we are witnessing another event that will certainly discomfit those
who have hitherto relied on the official reports of the Pentagon, the US State Department and
international organizations like the OPCW for the last word.
There are very deliberate reasons for such disinformation campaigns. In the case of the
OPCW, as I
wrote some time back, the aim was to paint the Syrian government as the fiend and the
al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked "moderate rebels" as the innocent souls, thereby likely justifying a
responsibility-to-protect armed intervention by the likes of the US, the UK and France. In such
circumstances, the standing and status of the reporting organization (like the OPCW) is
commandeered to validate Western propaganda that is duly disseminated through the
corporate-controlled mainstream media.
In this particular case, various Western capitals colluded with the OPCW to lay the
groundwork for the removal of Assad and his replacement with the al-Nusra Front as well as the
very same al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked armed opposition officially responsible for the 9/11
attacks.
As if the massaging of the OPCW reports were not enough in themselves to provoke
international outrage, this dossier serves to give aid and comfort to jihadi groups supported by the Pentagon
who are known to be responsible for the worst human-rights abuses, as seen in Syria and Iraq in
the last 6 years.
False or carefully manipulated reports paint a picture vastly different from the reality on
the ground. The United States has never really declared war on Islamic terrorism, its
proclamations of a "War on Terror" notwithstanding. In reality, it has simply used this
justification to occupy or destabilize strategically important areas of the world in the
interests of maintaining US hegemony, intending in so doing to hobble the energy policies and
national security of rival countries like China, Iran and the Russian Federation.
The Post investigation lays bare how the US strategy had failed since its inception,
the data doctored to represent a reality very different from that on the ground. The inability
of the United States to clean up Afghanistan is blamed by the Post on incorrect military
planning and incorrect political choices. While this could certainly be the case, the
Post's real purpose in its investigation is to harm Trump, even as it reveals the
Pentagon's efforts to continue its regional presence for grand geopolitical goals by hiding
inconvenient truths.
The real issue lies in the built-in mendacity of the bureaucratic and military apparatus of
the United States. No general has ever gone on TV to say that the US presence in Iraq is needed
to support any war against Iran; or that Afghanistan is a great point of entry for the
destabilization of Eurasia, because this very heart of the Heartland is crucial to the
Sino-Russian transcontinental integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and
the Belt and Road Initiative. In the same vein, the overthrow of the Syrian government would
have ensured Israel a greater capacity to expand its interests in the Middle East, as well as
to weaken Iran's main regional ally.
The Post investigation lays bare the hypocrisy of the military-industrial complex as
well as the prevailing political establishments of Europe and the United States. These parties
are not interested in human rights, the wellbeing of civilians or justice in general. Their
only goal is to try and maintain their global hegemony indefinitely by preventing any other
powers from being able to realize their potential and thereby pose a threat to Atlanticist
preeminence.
The war in Iraq was launched to destabilize the Middle East, China's energy-supply basin
crucial to fueling her future growth. The war in Syria served the purpose of further
dismantling the Middle East to favor Saudi Arabia and Israel, the West's main strategic allies
in the Persian Gulf. The war in Afghanistan was to slow down the Eurasian integration of China
and Russia. And the war in Ukraine was for the purposes of generating chaos and destruction on
Russia's border, with the initial hope of wresting the very strategically area of Crimea from
Russia.
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this has been on full display in
recent times. Almost all of Washington's recent strategic objectives have ended up producing
results worse than the status quo ante. In Iraq there is the type of strong cooperation between
Baghdad and Tehran reminiscent of the time prior to 1979. Through Hezbollah, Iran has
strengthened its position in Syria in defense of Damascus. Moscow has found itself playing the
role of crucial decider in the Middle East (and soon in North Africa), until only a few years
ago the sole prerogative of Washington. Turkey's problems with NATO, coupled with Tel Aviv's
open relation with Moscow are both a prime example of Washington's diminishing influence in the
region and Moscow's corresponding increase in influence.
The situation in Afghanistan is not very different, with a general recognition that peace is
the only option for the region being reflected in the talks between the Afghans, the Taliban,
the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. Beijing and Moscow have well known for over a
decade the real intent behind Washington's presence in the country, endeavoring to blunt its
impact.
The Post investigation only further increases the public's war weariness, the war in
Afghanistan now having lasted 18 years, the longest war in US history. Jeff Bezos, the owner of
the Post , is a bitter opponent of Trump and wants the president to come clean on the
Afghanistan debacle by admitting that the troops cannot be withdrawn. Needless to say,
admitting such would not help Trump's strategy for the 2020 election. Trump cannot afford to
humiliate the US military, given that it, along with the US dollar, is his main weapon of
"diplomacy". Were it to be revealed that some illiterate peasants holed up in caves and armed
with AK-47s some 40 years ago are responsible for successfully keeping the most powerful army
in history at bay, all of Washington's propaganda, disseminated by a compliant media, will
cease to be of any effect. Such a revelation would also humiliate military personnel, an
otherwise dependable demographic Trump cannot afford to alienate.
The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the
disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also
political, seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military
credentials as well as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the
Post do not know, or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations
directed against political opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political
and military prestige of the United States.
In other words, when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it
difficult to lie its way through wars and failures, but when a country relies on Hollywood to
sustain its make-believe world, as well as on journalists on the CIA payroll, on compliant
publishers and on censored news, then any such revelations of forbidden truths threaten to
bring the whole facade crashing down.
"With impeachment imminent, Kushner has pushed out his enemies, installed allies, and
taken control of the campaign and large swaths of policy -- only Kellyanne Conway is still
pushing back.
Inside the West Wing, Kushner has both eliminated opponents and installed acquiescent
officials. "Jared was very frustrated with [Reince] Priebus and John Kelly," a Republican
close to the White House, said. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney "was Jared's pick," the
source said, and has allowed Kushner to function as de facto chief of staff. "Mick has
decided not to be in control," a former West Wing official said. "Jared treats Mick like the
help. There's no pushback," a prominent Republican said. John Bolton, who recently mocked
Kushner in a private speech, has been replaced by Robert O'Brien, a Kushner ally. Sources say
that Vice President Mike Pence and his advisers don't challenge Kushner after a string of
leaks that Kushner wanted to replace Pence on the ticket with Nikki Haley. "Pence people look
at Jared apprehensively. Pence treats Jared as a peer," said former Trump aide Sam Nunberg.
(The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)"
Jared the Jew Prince is the number one reason not to reelect Trump.
The pandering by Donald Trump and those around him to Israel and to some conservative
American Jews is apparently endless. Last Wednesday the president signed
an executive order that is intended to address alleged anti-Semitism on college campuses by
cutting off funds to those universities that do not prevent criticism of Israel. To provide a
legal basis to defund, the administration is relying on title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, which prohibits any discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Since the Act
does not include religion, Trump's order is declaring ipso facto that henceforth
"Jewishness" is a nationality.
The executive order does not mention Israel by name, but it does state that its assumptions
are based on "the non-legally binding working definition of
anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
(IHRA), which states, 'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as
hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward
Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions
and religious facilities'; and (ii) the 'Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism' identified by
the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory
intent."
The IHRA "contemporary examples" supplementing the basic description are important. They
considerably broaden the definition of anti-Semitism, to include "Accusing Jewish citizens of
being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the
interests of their own nations" and "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a
racist endeavor." The examples also included holding Israel to a higher standard than other
nations when criticizing it, and IHRA offers no possible mitigation even if the accusations
are, in the case of the behavior of some Jews and of Israel, accurate.
Those who are confused because in the past expressions like "Italian" or "Irish" or
"British" meant actual countries should recognize that Trump-speak never respects any
connection with reality when there is political advantage just sitting out there waiting to be
snatched and exploited. And that imperative is considerably multiplied when one is referring to
either the state of Israel or of Jews in general, particularly as seen by the Trump White
House, which clearly and repeatedly sends the message that it reveres both. Trump's order will
in effect constitute a government-promoted argument that Jews are a people or a race with a
collective national origin, like Italian or Polish Americans, an assertion that clearly is
untrue.
In fact, suppressing criticism of Israel on college campuses using a
"weaponized" claim of anti-Semitism has long been a major foreign policy objective of the
Israeli government even though nonviolent assembly and free speech are guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution. Congress has several times considered a comprehensive Anti-Semitism Awareness
Act, though it has not passed due to legitimate free speech concerns. The nonviolent Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions movement (B.D.S.), which is very active on American campuses, has been
particularly targeted and criticism of it is frequent in the media and from Congress while also
emanating from the White House. As most accredited colleges receive federal funding, which can
be considerable at a major research university, the executive order will create a major dilemma
over how to respond, particularly for those schools that have Middle East study programs.
Work on the presidential executive order was initiated in the summer inside the White House
by a team led by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, together with his close
aide special assistant to the president Avi Berkowitz. They sought to develop a formula whereby
government policy would equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and Donald Trump both agreed
with that assessment and followed through on it. On December 8 th he promised to
take action against B.D.S. and other critics
in a speech delivered before the Israeli-American Council. The speech is worth reading in
full by anyone who is concerned that the United States now has a government that favors one
already privileged, wealthy and powerful constituency in particular and is not committed to
upholding the civil liberties of all Americans.
Israel is an apartheid state. Covering up for its crimes against humanity as well as its war
crimes is something of a growth industry in the United States, with Zionist billionaire
oligarchs launching new foundations on a regular basis. Jewish power in the U.S. means that
Israel always has been given a pass, even when it deliberately attacked and sought to sink the
U.S.S. Liberty, an American Naval vessel in international waters in 1967. Thirty-four crewman
died in the assault. The subsequent investigation of the attack was whitewashed by the
president, secretary of state and the Navy department while the survivors were threatened with
imprisonment if they revealed what had occurred. That is how a powerful and ruthless Israel
acting through its traitorous domestic proxies operates and it illustrates how feeble the
Establishment is in standing up to it.
This latest outrage, in which free speech and association will be denied to benefit one
group on the basis of its claimed perpetual victimhood, had its genesis earlier this year when
the federal government's Education Department ordered Duke University and the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill to reorganize the Consortium for Middle East Studies program run
jointly by the two colleges in part based on their failure to include enough "positive" content
relating to Judaism. The demand came with a threat to suspend federal funding of Title VI
Higher Education Act international studies and foreign language grants to the two schools if
the curriculum were not changed.
The Education Department was particularly irate over a conference in March called "Conflict
Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities." A Republican congressman was outraged by the
development and asked Secretary DeVos to
investigate because the gathering was full of "radical anti-Israel bias."
Coverage of the story revealed that "Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has become
increasingly aggressive in going after perceived anti-Israel bias in higher education." Her
deputy who has served as a focal point for the effort to root out anti-Israel sentiment is
Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus, who might reasonably be described as
"a career pro-Israel advocate," the founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for
Human Rights Under Law, which he has used to exclusively defend the rights of Jewish groups and
individuals against BDS and other manifestations of Palestinian pushback against the Israeli
occupation of their country. He has not hesitated to call opponents anti-Semites and has worked
with Jewish students to file civil rights complaints against college administrations, including
schools in Wisconsin and California. In an op-ed
that appeared, not surprisingly, in The Jerusalem Post , he observed that even when
student complaints were rejected, they created major problems for the institutions involved.
"If a university shows a failure to treat initial complaints seriously, it hurts them with
donors, faculty, political leaders and prospective students."
Last year Kenneth Marcus reopened an
investigation into alleged anti-Jewish bias at Rutgers University that the Obama
Administration had closed after finding that the charges were baseless. Marcus indicated that
the re-examination was called for as his office in the Education Department would henceforth be
using the IHRA-derived State Department definition of
anti-Semitism that also includes "denying the Jewish people their right to
self-determination," making virtually all criticism of Israel a civil rights violation or even
a hate crime.
Critics of the Trump move,
many of whom are themselves Jewish , are uncomfortable with being placed by government into
one category, noting inter alia that ALL students are de facto already
protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of discrimination
illegal. And they also note that the law was never intended to protect individuals whose
feelings were hurt or who claim to be unwelcome or even threatened by someone saying something
that they disapprove of. Since such protection is clearly the intention of the executive order,
it is undeniable that the Trump's latest ploy is little more than a mechanism to pressure
colleges into effectively banning B.D.S. and other groups critical of Israel.
And the order itself raises at least one unpleasant thought: if "Jewishness" is a nation
even though it is demonstrably not one, what is the alleged Jewish nationality all about? Is
this just one more example of the politics of Jewish identity or is it really some form of dual
loyalty, with American Jews divided between those who are loyal to the U.S. and those who are
loyal to some supra-nationality or allegiance? The fact is, that Donald Trump himself has
several times expressed the view that American Jews, particularly those who are politically
liberal, should be more loyal to Israel.
There is a certain irony in all of this political theater, that the wealthiest and most
powerful identifiable group in the United States should yet again be playing the victim is in
itself astonishing. And making it a crime to deny Israel legitimacy while at the same time
denying the same thing to Palestinians should give anyone pause.
And there is also considerable hypocrisy in that pro-Israel groups on campus have been if
anything better funded and more aggressive in promoting their point of view than B.D.S. has
been without any consequences. Canary
Mission , for example, claims to "document people and groups that promote hatred of the
U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses" by posting their names, photos and
personal information on its website. Israeli-American real estate investor and billionaire Adam
Milstein is reported to be its principal funder while the site's
listings have been allegedly used by the Israeli border security officials to deny entry to
pro-B.D.S. American citizens and also with potential employers to deny applicants jobs.
The Lawfare Project's Campus Civil Rights Project meanwhile helps aggrieved Zionist
students to "take legal action to ensure that schools live up to their legal obligations to
protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation, and discrimination."
So here we are again. Special privileges for the perpetual victims. And no one in the media
is willing to tell it like it is, while the handful of meek voices in congress have been
effectively silenced. So sad, particularly as an election year is coming up and there will
undoubtedly be much more of this. When the Israelis occupy nearly all of the West Bank with
Donald Trump's approval and start "relocating" the existing population, who will be around to
speak up? No one, as by that time saying nay to Israel will be a full-fledged hate crime and
you can go to jail for doing so.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is [email protected] .
This is a case of extreme 1st amendment rights abuse, not solely for violating freedom of
speech, the press, the right to assemble, and redress the government with greivances, but it
is also making both an establishment of religion, and prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
If this anti-Semetic definition is to be claimed to allow for the free exercise of
Judaism, then it would only be fitting that it is anti-Islamic to Boycott, Sanction, and
Divest from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which again, proves that this has made Judaism the
established religion in America, where most Americans are Christians.
There are no equal protection laws passed for Christianity, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism,
Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Seiks, or any other religion.
This is totally insane! I know that Ivanka converted to Judaism, and Trump loves his
daughter, but this is disgusting!
Donald Trump's so-called "antisemitism" Executive Order Is abominable, reprehensible
& downright tyrannical. It is a blatant attack against the First Amendment protection
of free speech and for all intents and purposes elevates all things Jewish to royalty
status in America -- being granted official government protection against any kind of
criticism.
In this video, Chuck Baldwin exposes the fact that not only is Donald Trump a hack for
Zionism; he is also a wanna-be tyrant -- and this Executive Order proves it.
Here's the full transcript:
[MORE]
Donald Trump's Executive Order this past week will empower the federal Department of
Education to withhold funding to campuses that do not squash anti-Israel rhetoric. In other
words, it is now official government policy to deny college students and faculty members
their natural and constitutional right to criticize, especially and primarily, if they
criticize any and all things Israel. This will also, doubtless, include speech that supports
Palestinian rights. Trump also declared that the religion of Judaism is a nationality or
ethnicity, and is beyond criticism. Can you imagine the outcry if he had declared
Christianity to be a nationality. Plus, by issuing this Executive Order, Donald Trump has
made every Christian and non-Jew in the United States a second class citizen. But don't
expect Robert Jeffress and his gaggle of Christian Zionists to figure that out. I have said
repeatedly that Donald Trump is America's first Zionist president. And Trump's actions
continue to prove that statement right. Trump's latest attack against the constitution
– specifically the First Amendment – is just his latest sellout to Israel. I'll
say it straight out: Donald Trump is not trying to make America great. He's trying to make
Israel great. By the way, I'm glad to see the rabid Jewish Zionist, Mark Levin, agree with
me. At the signing ceremony of this draconian Executive Order, Levin called Trump "America's
first Jewish president." Even casual research will easily discover that Trump's family is
dominated by Jewish Zionists, as is his circle of friends and business associates. What a
coincidence! Trump says his EO is protecting free speech on college campuses. That's a lie.
His EO is squashing free speech specifically, speech that criticizes Israel or Zionism.
Donald Trump is a pathetic puppet of the likes of the ultra Zionist billionaire, Sheldon
Adelson. Even worse is the fact that the Christian Zionist preachers and churches in this
country are as much Adelson's puppet as is Trump, which is why they love Trump so much. And
all of this hypnotic support for faux Israel can be traced directly to the false teachings of
John Darby and CI Scofield and the thousands of Christian Zionist churches and scores of
Christian Zionist colleges that those two men created. Now, the Zionist, Donald Trump, is
trying to prohibit colleges from criticizing Zionism. If you were looking for an impeachable
offence, this blatant abridgement of the First Amendment by the president of United States is
it. But, don't expect Democrats in Congress to challenge Trump's unconscionable EO that
officially elevates Jewishness to royalty status. Because the same Israeli Lobby that
controls the Republicans in Washington DC also controls the Democrats. Trump's EO will deny
funding for colleges and universities unless they prohibit the right of faculty and students
to exercise their First Amendment freedom of speech to criticize Israel. How long will it be
before Donald Trump decides to criminalize anyone who criticizes Israel? Donald Trump is not
only a Zionist hack, he is a wannabe tyrant, and this Executive Order proves it! [loud
applause]
@Bragadocious'Obama considered something similar to this. He also signed two major international trade
agreements with anti-BDS language. Giraldi said nothing about this; I checked. He did mention
the trade agreements but forgot the punchline: Obama signed them into law! Why one standard
for President Zero, another for Orange man?'
We'll have to revisit this if Obama becomes president again.
Silly on the part of Jews. If they are counted separately, it becomes even harder to hide
that they are absurdly overrepresented in all the desirable professions.
Thank you again for your courageous reporting, Mr. Giraldi.
This is a very interesting situation!
I am seeing it with a double-vision.
If this so, and passed into law?!
Then, what possible legal excuse still exists for not declaring AIPAC, and all of the other
'special interest extra-governmental agencies', foreign agents of a foreign
'nation'?
@geokat62
Thank you for the clip geokat62 . Chuck Baldwin simply speaks the truth.
But here is where I diverge from the conclusions of the good pastor. Trump has now stated the
obvious, Jews are a race and a religious cult. Besides this truth he is,
hopefully, forming an irreparable wedge between secular and Zionist Jews. This only helps the
majority in this nation. Unfortunately this majority also includes Christian Zionists, a
heretic group even more revolting than Zionist Jews.
I still believe that Trump is cynically doing this to protect his flanks from the rabid
Zionists, who with the rest of that Jew Cabal, who hate him more than anything, would all
attack Trump and make him a one term POTUS.
Because, believe it or not, Trump is still better than any of the Demo'krat candidates out
there for, as the 'good pastor' said, both political parties are owned .
As far as the exec. order itself it is unconstitutional and will be shot down in the courts.
But if this power isn't checked and destroyed now it will become a crime to even think anti I
z rael thoughts (Orwell, Huxley et al).
A pox on that most artificial of nation states, BDS now but in a conflict 4 more years of
Donald because I can see him going to war with the NEOCONS over Russia and other Satanic
goals of the Cabal. Time will tell and hopefuly Trump will do the right thing.
What you stayed is not equal protection. The law prohibits the criticism and boycott of a
Jewish state. The government has a double standard. It is a rock solid case of an
establishment of Judaism as the religion of America.
The government has boycotted, sanctioned, and divested from the Islamic Republic of Iran,
which is an Islamic state, but not the terrorist group, and in fact the adversary of the
terrorist group IS.
The Israeli government has waged war on every religion, and so has our own government by
refusing Christians and Muslims to criticize the barbaric racial holocaust, precisely as
Hitler refused to allow Catholics and Protestants to criticize his racist policies, the Nazis
raided the Catholic and Protestant churche, seized assets, and placed clergy in concentration
camps.
This anti-Semetic law is an affront to all religions because it has nothing to due with
the Jewish religion and everything to do with the Israeli government. It has nothing to do
with Jewish people and everything to do with the Israeli government.
This is simply an effort to silence any criticism of murderous regimes and the holocaust
against Islam, precisely as Hitler had done in Germany towards those who criticized his
insane racist policies and barbaric holocausts.
How would it fly if Trump's EO instead forbade criticism of Russia in schools and colleges in
USA?
Very strange that something like this could ever be written and signed. A fast budding and
explicit "Judeo lese majetse" is unfolding before our eyes. And if it is meant to protect
Jews as a race and nation, then that will naturally induce people to see them as exactly
that: a separate nation. Will this quell concern about loyalty or raise more doubt?
p.s. In 2018, Israeli army expert snipers made a turkey shoot of Palestinians marching on
the 70th anniversary of their people being ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland.
A "shoot to cripple" policy only murdered several score but, with high speed dum dum bullets,
they blasted bloody wreckage through the flesh and bones of many thousands of unarmed people.
You may not see them on your porno channels and game shows, but a large number will be
crippled for the rest of their lives.
This is a good example of a very recent state sponsored atrocity on a large scale.
Students in our schools and colleges might want to examine this in a variety of ways. The
history, legality, ethics, demographic dilemmas etc. Sure, it might roll over into some
criticism and activism, e.g. DBS Israel, but is that to be prohibited by our government? What
sort of citizens are our schools and colleges supposed to be cultivating if students are not
permitted to exercise their freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of
conscience?
Critics of the Trump move, many of whom are themselves Jewish, are uncomfortable with
being placed by government into one category, noting inter alia that ALL students are de
facto already protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of
discrimination illegal.
A positive side of this is that even the most dopey university students now understand the
situation
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United
States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. My Administration is committed to combating the rise of anti-Semitism and
anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world. Anti-Semitic incidents have
increased since 2013, and students, in particular, continue to face anti-Semitic harassment
in schools and on university and college campuses.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), 42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq., prohibits
discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities
receiving Federal financial assistance. While Title VI does not cover discrimination based on
religion, individuals who face discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin
do not lose protection under Title VI for also being a member of a group that shares common
religious practices. Discrimination against Jews may give rise to a Title VI violation when
the discrimination is based on an individual's race, color, or national origin.
It shall be the policy of the executive branch to enforce Title VI against prohibited
forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism as vigorously as against all other forms of
discrimination prohibited by Title VI.
Sec. 2. Ensuring Robust Enforcement of Title VI. (a) In enforcing Title VI, and
identifying evidence of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, all
executive departments and agencies (agencies) charged with enforcing Title VI shall consider
the following:
(i) the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016,
by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, "Antisemitism is a
certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and
physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals
and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities";
and
(ii) the "Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism" identified by the IHRA, to the extent
that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.
(b) In considering the materials described in subsections (a)(i) and (a)(ii) of this
section, agencies shall not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law
or under the First Amendment. As with all other Title VI complaints, the inquiry into whether
a particular act constitutes discrimination prohibited by Title VI will require a detailed
analysis of the allegations.
Sec. 3. Additional Authorities Prohibiting Anti-Semitic Discrimination. Within 120 days of
the date of this order, the head of each agency charged with enforcing Title VI shall submit
a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy,
identifying additional nondiscrimination authorities within its enforcement authority with
respect to which the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism could be considered.
Sec. 4. Rule of Construction. Nothing in this order shall be construed to alter the
evidentiary requirements pursuant to which an agency makes a determination that conduct,
including harassment, amounts to actionable Start Printed Page 68780discrimination, or to
diminish or infringe upon the rights protected under any other provision of law.
Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or
otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head
thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to
budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the
availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive
or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its
departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other
person."
theguardian.com : "Believe it or not ,
Barack Obama had Israel's best interests at heart " By Avi Shlaim :
"Obama's actual record during his eight years in office make him one of the most pro-Israeli
American presidents since Harry S. Truman . Obama has given Israel considerably more money
and arms than any of his predecessors ."
It is believed that the investments will be made through contracts signed between Aramco
and the US government, whose armed forces have steadily been increasing
their military presence in terms of manpower and equipment around the oil fields. Despite
initially claiming to
scale back troops from Syria, US President Donald Trump announced in October that
America had " secured " and
taken control of the oil in the Middle East.
The sad reality is that the Washington Post, New York Times and most of the mainstream TV
and radio media are worse liars and better propagandists for the US Military-Industrial
Complex than Pravda was for the Soviet Communist Party. There is no and never was an fair and
balanced journalism. There's even no professional journalism!
My Russian opponents and Latin friends now laugh that I don't believe anything coming from
US media today and I'm hoarding hard and untraceable assets just like they do in the Eastern
Bloc, Middle East and Cuba. The 21st Century might yet be the century of dictators and their
storm troopers who learned their lessons from Hitler and Stalin.
If populism and Trump don't survive the coup it'll be pretty grim times for the non-elites
in America. The revenge from the weirdos and the leftist globalist Marxists will definitely
start US Civil War 2.
Yes and thank you for stating fundamental and obvious truths ..
on the other hand ,
"The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the
disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also political,
seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military credentials as
well as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the Post do not
know, or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations directed against
political opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political and military
prestige of the United States."
The Washington Compost May well have an ax to grind with and motive for publishing
newfound truthiness, it's a miracle ! I fail to see however, just how Trump takes credit in
the bull **** fog, of the longest running war, motivations department.
other than that ...
And so in closing, I would be more inclined to believe sir, propagandizing, the
propaganda, with such an opinion, is just another kin to, let's say, the impeachment farce in
example. Or in the words of "The father of modern day marketing", an obvious attempt at
further shaping public opinion, for the masses, an opinion that grows more weary, more
suspicious, more distrustful, and divergent from government and their various mouth pieces,
by the day.
Stating obvious points such as you have, and blowing it with flawed analysis, is not a
good look ..
Washington Compost, has a much more simple, damaging ,and nefarious agenda.
Truth is being revealed, regarding the mountain of year on year lies, spoon fed to the
bewildered, inflamed, dispassionate, and cowed citizenry, as the bull **** gets harder to
peddle, more impossible to digest whole.
And is happening with or without the post, and likewise, various other "main stream" mouth
pieces and government hacks (in the interests of national security, of course.)
Neocons lie should properly be called "threat inflation"
The underlying critical
point-at-issue is credibility as I noted in my comment on b's 2017 article. I've since
linked to tweets and other items by that trio; the one major change seems to have been the
epiphany by them that they needed to go to where the action is and report it from there to
regain their credibility.
The fact remains that used car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking
credibility sans a confession as to why they feel the need to lie to sell cars.
Their actions belie the guilt they feel for their choices, but a confession works much
better at assuaging the soul while helping convince the audience that the change in heart's
genuine. And that's the point as b notes--genuineness, whose first predicate is
credibility.
"... House Democrats should seriously consider dropping this second article in light of the recent Supreme Court action. In fairness, this development involving the high court occurred after Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee made up their minds to include obstruction of Congress as an impeachment article. Yet the new circumstances give some Democratic members of Congress, who may end up paying an electoral price if they support the House Judiciary Committee recommendation, meaningful reason for voting against at least one of the articles of impeachment. ..."
"... The first article goes too far in authorizing impeachment based on the vague criterion of abuse of power. But it is the second article that truly endangers our system of checks and balances and the important role of the courts as the umpires between the legislative and executive branches under the Constitution. It would serve the national interest for thoughtful and independent minded Democrats to join Republicans in voting against the second article of impeachment, even if they wrongly vote for the first. ..."
The decision by the Supreme Court to review the lower court rulings involving congressional and prosecution subpoenas directed
toward President Trump undercuts the second article of impeachment
that passed the House Judiciary Committee along party lines last week.
That second article of impeachment charges President Trump with obstruction of Congress for refusing to comply with congressional
subpoenas in the absence of a final court order. In so charging him, the House Judiciary Committee has arrogated to itself the power
to decide the validity of its subpoenas, as well as the power to determine whether claims of executive privilege must be recognized,
both powers that properly belong with the judicial branch of our government, not the legislative branch. The House of Representatives
will do likewise, if it votes to approve the articles, as is expected to occur on Wednesday.
President Trump has asserted that the executive branch, of which he is the head, need not comply with congressional subpoenas
requiring the production of privileged executive material, unless there is a final court order compelling such production. He has
argued, appropriately, that the judicial branch is the ultimate arbiter of conflicts between the legislative and executive branches.
Therefore, the Supreme Court decision to review these three cases, in which lower courts ruled against President Trump, provides
support for his constitutional arguments in the investigation.
The cases that are being reviewed are not identical to the challenged subpoenas that form the basis for the second article of
impeachment. One involves authority of the New York district attorney to subpoena the financial records of a sitting president, as
part of any potential criminal investigation. The others involve authority of legislative committees to subpoena records as part
of any ongoing congressional investigations.
But they are close enough. Even if the high court were eventually to rule against the claims by President Trump, the fact that
the justices decided to hear them, in effect, supports his constitutional contention that he had the right to challenge congressional
subpoenas in court, or to demand that those issuing the subpoenas seek to enforce them through court.
It undercuts the contention by House Democrats that President Trump committed an impeachable offense by insisting on a court order
before sending possibly privileged material to Congress. Even before the justices granted review of these cases, the two articles
of impeachment had no basis in the Constitution. They were a reflection of the comparative voting power of the two parties, precisely
what one of the founders, Alexander Hamilton, warned would be the "greatest danger" of an impeachment.
House Democrats should seriously consider dropping this second article in light of the recent Supreme Court action. In fairness,
this development involving the high court occurred after Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee made up their minds to include
obstruction of Congress as an impeachment article. Yet the new circumstances give some Democratic members of Congress, who may end
up paying an electoral price if they support the House Judiciary Committee recommendation, meaningful reason for voting against at
least one of the articles of impeachment.
It would be a smart way out for those Democrats. More important, it would be the right thing for them to do. It would be smart
and right because, as matters now stand, the entire process smacks of partisanship, with little concern for the precedential impact
which these articles could have on future impeachments. If a few more Democrats voted in a way that would demonstrate greater nuanced
recognition that, at the least, the second article of impeachment represents an overreach based on current law, it would lend an
aura of some nonpartisan legitimacy to the proceedings.
The first article goes too far in authorizing impeachment based on the vague criterion of abuse of power. But it is the second
article that truly endangers our system of checks and balances and the important role of the courts as the umpires between the legislative
and executive branches under the Constitution. It would serve the national interest for thoughtful and independent minded Democrats
to join Republicans in voting against the second article of impeachment, even if they wrongly vote for the first.
"... The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel. ..."
"... Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years ..."
"... This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government. ..."
"... The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel. ..."
"... Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior. ..."
The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and
Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli
cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.
Kirkuk, Iraq -- "We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers
because we're keeping the oil," President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, "I like
oil. We're keeping the oil."
Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria,
Trump shocked many with his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent
Syrian oil resources from being developed by the Syrian government and, instead, kept in the
hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the U.S.-backed
Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Though Trump himself received all of the credit -- and the scorn -- for this controversial
new policy, what has been left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the
U.S.' pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its creation with the purpose of selling Syrian
oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the Syrian conflict may have hindered
such a plan from becoming reality, it nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role
often played by the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and
closed-door deals with major regional implications.
Indeed, the Israel lobby-led effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to
Israel is not an isolated incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals
connected to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist neoconservatives manipulated both
U.S. policy and Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow Iraqi oil to be sold
to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government. These designs, not unlike those that
continue to unfold in Syria, were in service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist
efforts to balkanize Iraq by strengthening the KRG and weakening Baghdad.
After the occupation of Iraq's Nineveh Governorate by ISIS (June 2014-October 2015), the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) took advantage of the Iraqi military's retreat and, amidst
the chaos, illegally seized Kirkuk on June 12. Their claim to the city was supported by both
the U.S. and Israel and, later, the U.S.-led coalition targeting ISIS. This gave the KRG
control, not only of Iraq's export pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan port, but also to Iraq's largest
oil fields.
Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the
consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the
largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in
areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq,
the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into
Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to
impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the
Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years.
In retrospect, and following revelations from
Wikileaks and new information regarding the background of relevant actors, it has been
revealed that much of the covert maneuvering behind the scenes that enabled this scenario
intimately involved the United States' powerful pro-Israel lobby. Now, with a similar scenario
unfolding in Syria, efforts by the U.S.' Israel lobby to manipulate U.S. foreign policy in
order to shift the flow of hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit can instead be seen as a pattern
of behavior, not an isolated incident.
"Keep the oil" for Israel
After recent shifts in the Trump administration in its Syria policy, U.S. troops have
controversially been kept in Syria to " keep the
oil ," with U.S. military officials subsequently claiming that doing so was "a subset of
the counter-ISIS mission." However, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper later
claimed that another factor behind U.S. insistence on guarding Syrian oil fields was to
prevent the extraction and subsequent sale of Syrian oil by either the Syrian government or
Russia.
One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop
withdrawal in Syria in order to "keep the oil" was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David
Satterfield. Satterfield was previously the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern
Affairs, where he yielded great influence over U.S. policy in both Iraq and Syria and worked
closely with Brett McGurk, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and
later special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition.
Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S.
government as an Israeli intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed,
Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now known as the AIPAC espionage scandal,
also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never charged for
his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush
administration.
David Satterfield, left, arrives in Baghdad with Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, right, and Joey Hood, May 7, 2019. Mandel Ngan | AP
In 2005, federal prosecutors cited a U.S. government official as having illegally passed classified
information to Steve Rosen, then working for AIPAC, who then passed that information to the
Israeli government. That classified information included intelligence on Iran and the nature of
U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing. Subsequent media reports from the New York Times and
other outlets revealed that this government official was none other than David Satterfield, who
was then serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs.
Charges against Rosen, as well as his co-conspirator and fellow AIPAC employee Keith
Weissman, were dropped in 2009 and no charges were levied against Satterfield after State
Department officials shockingly claimed that Satterfield had "acted within his authority" in
leaking classified information to an individual working to advance the interests of a foreign
government. Richard Armitage, a neoconservative ally with
a long history of ties to CIA covert operations in the Middle East and elsewhere,
has since claimed that he was one of Satterfield's main defenders in conversations with the
FBI during this time when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of State.
The other government official named in the indictment, former Pentagon official Lawrence
Franklin, was not so lucky and was charged under the Espionage Act in 2006. Satterfield,
instead of being censured for his role in leaking sensitive information to a foreign
government, was subsequently promoted in 2006 to serve as the Coordinator for Iraq and Senior
Adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In addition to his history of leaking classified information to AIPAC, Satterfield also has
a longstanding relationship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a controversial
spin-off of AIPAC also known by its acronym WINEP. WINEP's website has long listed Satterfield
as one of its experts and
Satterfield has spoken at several WINEP events and policy forums, including several
after his involvement with the AIPAC espionage scandal became public knowledge. However,
despite his longstanding and controversial ties to the U.S. pro-Israel lobby, Satterfield's
current relationship with some elements of that lobby, such as the Zionist Organization of
America (ZOA), is complicated at best.
While Satterfield's role in yet another reversal of a promised withdrawal of U.S. troops
from Syria has largely escaped media scrutiny, another individual with deep ties to the Israel
lobby and Syrian "rebel" groups has also been ignored by the media, despite his outsized role
in taking advantage of this new U.S. policy for Israel's benefit.
US Israel Lobby secures deal with Kurds
Earlier this year, well before Trump's new Syria policy of "keeping the oil" had officially
taken shape, another individual with deep ties to the U.S. Israel lobby secured a lucrative
agreement with U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in Syria. An official
document issued earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm
of the Kurdish majority and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a New Jersey-based
company, founded
and run by U.S.-Israeli dual citizen Mordechai "Motti" Kahana, was given control of the oil
in territory held by the SDC.
Per the document, the SDC formally accepted the offer from Kahana's company -- Global
Development Corporation (GDC) -- to represent SDC in all matters pertaining to the sale of oil
extracted in territory it controls and also grants GDC "the right to explore and develop oil
that is located in areas we govern."
The SDC's formal acceptance of Global Development
Corporation's offer to develop Syrian oil fields. Source | Al-Akhbar
The document also states that the amount of oil then being produced in SDC-controlled areas
was 125,000 barrels per day and that they anticipated that this would increase to 400,000
barrels per day and that this oil is considered a foreign asset under the control of the United
States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
After the document was made public by the Lebanese outlet Al-Akhbar , the SDC claimed
that it was a forgery, even though Kahana had separately confirmed its contents
and shared the letter itself to the Los Angeles Times as recently as a few weeks ago.
Kahana previously attempted to distance himself from the effort and
told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom in July that he had made the offer to the
SDC as means to prevent the "Assad regime" of Syria from obtaining revenue from the sale of
Syrian oil.
The Kurds currently hold 11 oil wells in an area controlled by the [Syrian] Democratic
Forces. The overwhelming majority of Syrian oil is in that area. I don't want this oil
reaching Iran, or the Assad regime."
At the time, Kahana also stated that "the moment the Trump administration gives its
approval, we can begin to export this oil at fair prices."
Given that Kahana has openly confirmed that he is representing the SDC's oil business
shortly after Trump's adoption of the controversial "keep the oil policy," it seems plausible
that Kahana has now received the approval needed for his company to export the oil on behalf of
the SDC. Several media reports have
speculated that, if Kahana's efforts go forward unimpeded, the Syrian oil will be sold to
Israel.
However, considering Turkey's aversion to engaging in any activities that may benefit the
PKK-SDF – there are considerable obstacles to Kahana's plans. While the SDF -- along with
assistance from U.S. troops -- still controls several oil fields in Syria, experts assert that
they can only realistically sell the oil to the Syrian government. Not even the Iraqi Kurds are
a candidate, considering Baghdad's firm control over the Iraq-Syria border and the KRG's
weakened state after its failed independence bid in late 2017.
Regardless, Kahana's involvement in this affair is significant for a few reasons. First,
Kahana has been a key player in the promotion and funding of radical groups in Syria and has
even been
caught hiring so-called "rebels" to kidnap Syrian Jews and take them to Israel against
their will. It was Kahana, for instance, who financed and orchestrated the now infamous trip of
the late Senator John McCain to Syria, where he met with Syrian "rebels" including Khalid
al-Hamad – a "moderate" rebel who gained notoriety after a video of him eating the heart
of a Syrian Army soldier
went viral online . McCain had also admitted
meeting with ISIS members, though it is unclear if he did so on this trip or another trip
to Syria.
In addition, Kahana was also the mastermind behind the "Caesar" controversy, whereby a
Syrian using the pseudonym "Caesar" was brought to the U.S. by Kahana and went on to make
claims regarding torture and other crimes allegedly committed by the Assad-led government
Syria, claims which were
later discredited by independent analysts. He was also very involved in
Israel's failed efforts to establish a "safe zone" in Southern Syria as a means of covertly
expanding Israel's territory from the occupied Golan Heights and into Quneitra.
Notably, Kahana has deep ties -- not just to efforts to overthrow the Syrian government --
but also to U.S. Israel lobby, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)
where Satterfield is as an expert. For instance, Kahana was a key player in a 2013 symposium organized by WINEP
along with Syrian opposition groups intimately involved in the arming of so-called "rebels."
One of the other participants in the symposium alongside Kahana was Mouaz Moustafa, director of
the "Syrian Emergency Task Force" who assisted Kahana in bringing McCain to Syria in 2013.
Moustafa was listed as a WINEP expert
on the organization's website but was later mysteriously deleted.
Kahana is also intimately involved with the Israeli American Council (IAC), a pro-Israel
lobby organization, as a team
member of its national conference. IAC was co-founded and is chaired by Adam Milstein , a
multimillionaire and convicted felon who is also on the boards of AIPAC, StandWithUs,
Birthright and other prominent pro-Israel lobby organizations. One of IAC's top donors is
Sheldon Adelson, who is also the top donor to President Trump as well as the entire Republican
Party.
Though the machinations of both Kahana and Satterfield to guide U.S. policy in order to
manipulate the flow of Syria's hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit may seem shocking to some,
this same tactic of pro-Israel lobbyists using the Kurds to illegally sell a country's oil to
Israel was developed a few years prior, not in Syria, but Iraq. Notably, the individuals
responsible for that policy in Iraq shared connections to several of the same pro-Israel lobby
organizations as both Satterfield and Kahana, suggesting that their recent efforts in Syria are
not an isolated event, but a pattern.
War against ISIS is a war for oil
In an email dated
June 15, 2014, James Franklin Jeffrey (former Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and current U.S.
Special Representative for Syria) revealed to Stephen Hadley, a former George Bush
administration advisor then working at the government-funded United States Institute of Peace,
his intent to advise the KRG in order to sustain Kirkuk's oil production. The plan, as Jeffery
described it, was to supply both the Kurdistan province with oil and allow the export of oil
via Kirkuk-Ceyhan to Israel, robbing Iraq of its oil and strengthening the country's Kurdish
region along with its regional government's bid for autonomy.
Jeffrey, whose hawkish views on Iran and Syria
are well-known , mentioned that Brett McGurk, the U.S.' main negotiator between Baghdad and
the KRG, was acting as his liaison with the KRG. McGurk, who had served in various capacities
in Iraq under both Bush and Obama, was then also serving Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
for Iraq and Iran. A year later, he would be made the special presidential envoy for the
U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition and, as previously mentioned, worked closely with David
Satterfield.
James Jeffrey, left, meets with Kurdish Regional Government President Massoud
Barzani, April 8, 2011, at an airport in Irbil, Iraq. Chip Somodevilla | AP
Jeffrey was then a private citizen not currently employed by the government and was used as
a non-governmental channel in the pursuit of the plans described in the leaked emails published
by WikiLeaks. Jeffrey's behind-the-scenes activities with regards to the KRG's oil exports were
done clandestinely, largely because he was then employed by a prominent arm of the U.S.'
pro-Israel lobby.
At the time of the email, Jeffrey was serving as a distinguished fellow
(2013-2018) at WINEP. As previously mentioned, WINEP is a pro-Israel foreign policy think-tank
that espouses neoconservative views and was created in 1985 by researchers that
had hastily left AIPAC to escape investigations against the organization that were related
to some of its members conducting espionage on behalf of Israel. AIPAC, the American Israeli
Public Affairs Committee, is the largest registered Israel lobbyist organization in the US
(albeit registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act would be more suitable), and, in
addition to the 1985 incident that led to WINEP's creation, has had members indicted for
espionage against the U.S. on Israel's behalf.
WINEP's launch was funded by former President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles,
Barbara Weinberg, who is its founding president and constant Chairman Emerita. Nicknamed
'Barbi', she is the wife of the late Lawrence Weinberg who was President of AIPAC from 1976-81
and who JJ Goldberg, author of the 1997 book Jewish Power, referred to as one of a
select few individuals
who essentially dominated AIPAC regardless of its elected leadership. Co-founder alongside
Weinberg was Martin Indyk. Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1995-97) and Assistant Secretary
of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1997-99), led the AIPAC research time that formed WINEP to
escape the aforementioned investigations.
WINEP has
historically received funding from donors who donate to causes of special
interest for Zionism and Israel. Among its trustees are extremely prominent names in political
Zionism and funders of other Israel Lobby organizations, such as
Charles and Edgar Bronfman and the Chernicks .
Its
membership remains dominated by individuals who have spent their careers promoting Israeli
interests in the U.S.
WINEP has become more well-known, and arguably more controversial, in recent years after its
research director famously called for false-flag attacks to trigger a U.S. war with Iran in
2012, statements well-aligned with longstanding
attempts by the Israel Lobby to bring about such a war.
A worthy partner in crime
Stephen Hadley, another private citizen who Jeffrey evidently considered as a partner in his
covert dealings discussed in the emails, also has his own past of involvement with
Israel-specific intrigues and meddling.
During the G.W. Bush administration, Hadley tagged along with neoconservatives in
their numerous creations of fake intelligence and efforts to incriminate Iraq for possessing
chemical and nuclear weapons. Hadley was one of the promoters from within the U.S. government
of the false claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague.
What this particular claim had in common with the 'Iraq meets Atta in
Prague' disinformation, and other famous lies against Iraq fabricated and circulated by the
dense neocon network, was its source: Israel and pro-Israel partisans.
The distribution
network of these now long-debunked claims was none other than the neoconservatives who act
a veritable Israeli fifth column that has long sought to promote Israeli foreign policy
objectives as being in the interest of the United States. In this, Hadley played his part by
helping to ensure that the United States was railroaded into a war that had long been promoted
by both Israeli and American neoconservatives, particularly Richard Perle -- an advisor to
WINEP -- who had been promoting regime change in Iraq for Israel's
explicit benefit for decades.
In short, for covert intrigues to serve Israel that would likely be met with protest if
pitched to the government for implementation as policy, Hadley's resume was impressive.
Israeli interests pursued through covert channels
Given his employment at WINEP during this time, Jeffrey's intent to advise the KRG to
sustain Kirkuk's oil production despite the seizure of the Baiji oil refinery by ISIS is
somewhat suspect, especially since it required that 100,000 barrels per day pass through
ISIS-controlled territory unimpeded.
Jeffrey's email from June 14, therefore, demonstrated that he had foreknowledge that ISIS
would not disturb the KRG as long as the Kurds redirected oil that was intended originally for
Baiji to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline, facilitating its export and later sale to
Israel.
Notably, up until its liberation in mid-2015 by the Iraqi government and aligned Shia
paramilitaries,
ISIS kept the refinery running and, only upon their retreat, destroyed the facility.
One would normally expect ISIS to be opposed to such collusion given that the KRG, while a
beneficiary of the ISIS-Baghdad conflict, was not an ally of ISIS. Thus, a foreign power
with strategic ties to
ISIS used its
close ties to the KRG and assurances that it was on-board for the oil trade, to deliver a
credible guarantee that ISIS would 'cooperate' and that a boom in production and exports was in
the cards.
This foreign power -- acting as a guarantor for the ISIS-KRG understanding vis-a-vis the
illegal oil economy, represented by Jeffrey and clearly not on good terms with Iraq's
government -- was quite clearly Israel.
Israel
established considerable financial support as well as the provision of armaments to other
extremist terrorist groups active near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights
and Southern Syria when war first broke out in Syria in 2011. At least four of these extremist
groups were led by individuals
with direct ties to Israeli intelligence . These same groups, sometimes promoted as
'moderates' by some media, were actively fighting Syria's government – an enemy of Israel
and ally of Iran – before ISIS existed and
eagerly partnered with ISIS when it expanded its campaign into Syria.
Israel has also long promoted the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, with Israel having
provided Iraq's Kurds with weapons, training and teams of Mossad advisers as
far back as the 1960s . More recently, Israel
was the only state to support the KRG independence referendum in September 2017 despite its
futility, hinting at the regard Israel holds for the KRG. Iraq's government subsequently
militarily defeated
the KRG's push for statehood and reclaimed Kirkuk's oil fields with assistance from the
Shia paramilitaries which were responsible for defeating ISIS in the area.
A 2014 map shows
the areas under ISIS and Kurdish control at the time. Source | Telegraph
This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli
agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling
Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government.
WINEP's close association with AIPAC, which
has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel several times in the past with no consequence,
combined with Jeffrey's long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk,
provided an ideal opening for Israel in Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey's plan,
Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted 77 percent of Israel's total
oil imports during the KRG's occupation of Kirkuk.
The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S.
pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting
up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of
U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.
Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of
orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can
accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior.
Agha Hussain is an independent researcher based in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He specialized
in Middle Eastern affairs and history and is an editorial contributor to Eurasia Future,
Regional Rapport and other news outlets.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to
several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute
and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and
is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
"My administration will never tolerate the suppression, persecution or silencing of the
Jewish people," Trump declared at the ceremony, which doubled as a Hanukkah party.
USSR, Yugoslavia, US, EU, and the Indian Union are predicated on the ideas of the
Enlightenment Tradition. So far, USSR and FRY have disintegrated. If EU fails, could US and
EU be too far behind. In US, we have the political ascendancy of foolish Protestantism, in
India that of Hindu masses.
Can any states, predicated on secularism of the Enlightenment Tradition survive the rise
of religious politics?
From my understanding the west's relationship with the Turks is strategic. Having western
armies in Turkey, as well as nukes, and Turkeys military alliance against the Russians helps
contain Russia, helps reduce their influence in the middle east, and helps shield Israel, and
the gulf from the Russians.
For America to recognize that any major Muslim nation has inflicted a mass murder on non
Muslims like the Armenians and Christians throughout the middle east, and south eastern
Europe would open up A floodgate of knowledge, and end the censorship of the media
perpetually pretending that muslims cannot be racist, and allow Israel to better defend
itself with the truth about Muslim intentions and treatment of Jews in the present, and allow
the Europeans to defend themselves from conquest, and allow the Americans the possibility of
avoiding much of the hardship of having a large Muslim minority in the first place. Even the
Gulf Nations would have the opportunity to defend themselves with the truth about Islam if
they wanted to.
It is difficult to measure the strategic value of things like containing the Russians, and
the price of losing influence over the gulf's oil business. But I believe in general, that
the opportunities opened by knowledge are far more valuable than some improved situation on
the grand chessboard. By definition the loss of wealth from even the gulf oil would translate
into less than the potential value of knowledge.
There is the possibility of peoples free will. They make take freedom to discuss non white
racism, hatred of whites, discrimination in general in society against whites and Jews, and
they may throw it away, and cower in fear some more. But I do not think that is the
situation. Israelis are not able to give speeches on college campuses in Europe, Canada and
even most of America. The white women of the west have been poisoned by this knowledge of
inequality and fear of the violence and ostracization they will face for standing for their
own people, or far less, and being accused of being A racist. The price for their biological
emotions is counted in millions of unformed families.
Frankly, its to hard a test for most white women, who get pressured into dating non
whites, in order to prove they're not racist, with all of its consequences, and its years of
abuse. If white men remain tall and strong, white women, both Jewish and gentile will still
be conquered by the schools, and cut down in massive numbers.
Far better to die on some battlefield by the millions, then in the bedrooms by the
hundreds of millions.
The legitimacy of the schools and the universities are destroyed, the official reason to
go, is to signal that you are A traitor to your people. The police, and courts are on life
support, the military is directionless, the politicians have nothing meaningful to say.
I consider it a blessing that Trump has the option of exposing the Armenian massacre at
the hands of the Muslims. I hope its effect is as far reaching as I imagine and hope. I
believe it is overwhelmingly in the best interests of both our people, and according to the
discourse I believe its time has come. I may be mistaken, even though I am not clear how.
What additional knowledge could be attained in these matters? I pray for the wisdom of our
leaders, and to the awesome power of G-d. In Him I trust.
"... A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for the United States. ..."
"... Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell. ..."
Peace means different things to different governments and different countries. To some it
suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect. To others it serves as a euphemism for
dominance, peace defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.
In the absence of actually existing peace, a nation's reigning definition of peace
shapes its proclivity to use force. A nation committed to peace-as-harmony will tend to employ
force as a last resort. The United States once subscribed to this view. Or beyond the confines
of the Western Hemisphere, it at least pretended to do so.
A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli
predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become
America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to
patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may
prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for
the United States.
Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of
peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real
peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The
inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy
Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from
Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that
their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms,
our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell.
Netanyahu asks a lot of Palestinians. Yet however baldly stated, his demands reflect
longstanding Israeli thinking. For Israel, peace derives from security, which must be absolute
and assured. Security thus defined requires not simply military advantage but military
supremacy .
From Israel's perspective, threats to supremacy require anticipatory action , the
earlier the better. The IDF attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 provides one
especially instructive example. Israel's destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in
2007 provides a second.
Yet alongside perceived threat, perceived opportunity can provide sufficient motive for
anticipatory action. In 1956 and again in 1967, Israel attacked Egypt not because the
blustering Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser possessed the capability (even if he proclaimed the
intention) of destroying the hated Zionists, but because preventive war seemingly promised a
big Israeli pay-off. In the first instance, the Israelis came away empty-handed. In the second,
they hit the jackpot operationally, albeit with problematic strategic consequences.
For decades, Israel relied on a powerful combination of tanks and fighter-bombers as its
preferred instrument of preemption. In more recent times, however, it has deemphasized its
swift sword in favor of the shiv between the ribs. Why deploy lumbering armored columns when a
missile launched from an Apache attack helicopter or a bomb fixed to an Iranian scientist's car
can do the job more cheaply and with less risk? Thus has targeted assassination eclipsed
conventional military methods as the hallmark of the Israeli way of war.
Whether using tanks to conquer or assassins to liquidate, adherence to this
knee-to-the-groin paradigm has won Israel few friends in the region and few admirers around the
world (Americans notably excepted). The likelihood of this approach eliminating or even
diminishing Arab or Iranian hostility toward Israel appears less than promising. That said, the
approach has thus far succeeded in preserving and even expanding the Jewish state: more than 60
years after its founding, Israel persists and even prospers. By this rough but not
inconsequential measure, the Israeli security concept has succeeded. Okay, it's nasty: but so
far at least, it's worked.
What's hard to figure out is why the United States would choose to follow Israel's path. Yet
over the course of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama quarter-century, that's precisely what we've
done. The pursuit of global military dominance, a proclivity for preemption, a growing taste
for assassination -- all justified as essential to self-defense. That pretty much describes
ourpresent-day MO.
Israel is a small country with a small population and no shortage of hostile neighbors. Ours
is a huge country with an enormous population and no enemy, unless you count the
Cuban-Venezuelan Axis of Ailing Dictators, within several thousand miles. We have choices that
Israel does not. Yet in disregarding those choices the United States has stumbled willy-nilly
into an Israeli-like condition of perpetual war, with peace increasingly tied to unrealistic
expectations of adversaries and would-be adversaries acquiescing in Washington's will.
Israelification got its kick-start with George H.W. Bush's Operation Desert Storm, a
triumphal Hundred-Hour War likened at the time to Israel's triumphal Six-Day War. Victory over
the "fourth largest army in the world" fostered illusions of the United States exercising
perpetually and on a global scale military primacy akin to what Israel has exercised
regionally. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon announced that henceforth it would settle for nothing
less than "Full Spectrum Dominance."
Bill Clinton's contribution to the process was to normalize the use of force. During the
several decades of the Cold War, the U.S. had resorted to overt armed intervention only
occasionally. Although difficult today to recall, back then whole years might pass without U.S.
troops being sent into harm's way. Over the course of Clinton's two terms in office, however,
intervention became commonplace.
The average Israeli had long since become inured to reports of IDF incursions into southern
Lebanon or Gaza. Now the average American has become accustomed to reports of U.S. troops
battling Somali warlords, supervising regime change in Haiti, or occupying the Balkans. Yet the
real signature of the Clinton years came in the form of airstrikes. Blasting targets in
Afghanistan, Bosnia, Serbia, and Sudan, but above all in Iraq, became the functional equivalent
of Israel's reliance on airpower to punish "terrorists" from standoff ranges.
In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush, a true believer in Full Spectrum Dominance, set out to
liberate or pacify (take your pick) the Islamic world. The United States followed Israel in
assigning itself the prerogative of waging preventive war. Although it depicted Saddam Hussein
as an existential threat, the Bush administration also viewed Iraq as an opportunity: here the
United States would signal to other recalcitrants the fate awaiting them should they mess with
Uncle Sam.
More subtly, in going after Saddam, Bush was tacitly embracing a longstanding Israeli
conception of deterrence. During the Cold War, deterrence had meant conveying a credible threat
to dissuade your opponent from hostile action. Israel had never subscribed to that view.
Influencing the behavior of potential adversaries required more than signaling what Israel
might do if sufficiently aggravated; influence was exerted by punitive action, ideally
delivered on a disproportionate scale. Hit the other guy first, if possible; failing that,
whack him several times harder than he hit you: not the biblical injunction of an eye for an
eye, but both eyes, an ear, and several teeth, with a kick in the nuts thrown in for good
measure. The aim was to send a message: screw with us and this will happen to you. This is the
message Bush intended to convey when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Unfortunately, Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched with all the confidence that had informed
Operation Peace for Galilee, Israel's equally ill-advised 1982 incursion into Lebanon, landed
the United States in an equivalent mess. Or perhaps a different comparison applies: the U.S.
occupation of Iraq triggered violent resistance akin to what the IDF faced as a consequence of
Israel occupying the West Bank. Two successive Intifadas had given the Israeli army fits. The
insurgency in Iraq (along with its Afghan sibling) gave the American army fits. Neither the
Israeli nor the American reputation for martial invincibility survived the encounter.
By the time Barack Obama succeeded Bush in 2009, most Americans -- like most Israelis -- had
lost their appetite for invading and occupying countries. Obama's response? Hew ever more
closely to the evolving Israeli way of doing things. "Obama wants to be known for winding down
long wars," writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post. "But he has shown no hesitance
when it comes to shorter, Israel-style operations. He is a special ops hawk, a drone
militarist."
Just so: with his affinity for missile-firing drones, Obama has established targeted
assassination as the very centerpiece of U.S. national-security policy. With his affinity for
commandos, he has expanded the size and mandate of U.S. Special Operations Command, which now
maintains an active presence in more than 70 countries. In Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, and
the frontier regions of Pakistan -- and who knows how many other far-flung places -- Obama
seemingly shares Prime Minister Netanyahu's expectations: keep whacking and a positive outcome
will eventually ensue.
The government of Israel, along with ardently pro-Israel Americans like Michael Gerson, may
view the convergence of U.S. and Israeli national-security practices with some satisfaction.
The prevailing U.S. definition of self-defense -- a self-assigned mandate to target anyone
anywhere thought to endanger U.S. security -- is exceedingly elastic. As such, it provides a
certain cover for equivalent Israeli inclinations. And to the extent that our roster of enemies
overlaps with theirs -- did someone say Iran? -- military action ordered by Washington just
might shorten Jerusalem's "to do" list.
Yet where does this all lead? "We don't have enough drones," writes the columnist David
Ignatius, "to kill all the enemies we will make if we turn the world into a free-fire zone."
And if Delta Force, the Green Berets, army rangers, Navy SEALs, and the like constitute (in the
words of one SEAL) "the dark matter the force that orders the universe but can't be seen," we
probably don't have enough of them either. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems
willing to test both propositions.
The process of aligning U.S. national-security practice with Israeli precedents is now
essentially complete. Their habits are ours. Reversing that process would require stores of
courage and imagination that may no longer exist in Washington. Given the reigning domestic
political climate, those holding or seeking positions of power find it easier -- and less risky
-- to stay the course, vainly nursing the hope that by killing enough "terrorists" peace on
terms of our choosing will result. Here too the United States has succumbed to Israeli
illusions.
Andrew J. Bacevich is a visiting professor at the University of Notre
Dame.
The infinity war We say we're a peaceful nation. Why do our leaders always keep us at war? The infinity war We say
we're a peaceful nation. Why do our leaders always keep us at war? Sam Ward (For The Washington Post) By Samuel Moyn
and Stephen Wertheim December 13, 2019
Add to list On my list
Now we know, thanks to
The
Afghanistan Papers published in The Washington Post this past week, that U.S. policymakers doubted almost from the start that
the two-decade-long Afghanistan war could ever succeed. Officials didn't know who the enemy was and had little sense of what an achievable
"victory" might look like. "We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking," said Douglas Lute, the Army three-star
general who oversaw the conflict from the White House during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
And yet the war ground on, as if on autopilot. Obama inherited a conflict of which Bush had grown weary, and victory drew no closer
after Obama's troop "surge" than when Bush pursued a small-footprint conflict. But while the Pentagon Papers, published in 1971 during
the Vietnam War, led a generation to appreciate the perils of warmaking, a new generation may
squander this opportunity
to set things right. There is a reason the quagmire in Afghanistan, despite costing thousands of lives and
$2 trillion
, has failed to shock Americans into action: The United States for decades has made peace look unimaginable or unobtainable.
We have normalized war.
President Trump sometimes disrupts the pattern by
vowing to end America's "endless
wars." But he has
extended and escalated them at every turn, offering nakedly punitive and exploitative rationales. In September, on the cusp of
a peace deal with the Taliban, he discarded an agreement negotiated by his administration and
pummeled
Afghanistan harder than ever (now he's back to wanting to talk). In Syria, his promised military withdrawal has morphed into
a grotesque redeployment to
"secure" the country's
oil .
It is clearer than ever that the problem of American military intervention goes well beyond the proclivities of the current president,
or the previous one, or the next. The United States has slowly slid away from any plausible claim of standing for peace in the world.
The ideal of peace was one that America long promoted, enshrining it in law and institutions, and the end of the Cold War offered
an unparalleled opportunity to advance the cause. But U.S. leaders from both parties chose another path. War -- from drone strikes
and Special Operations raids to protracted occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has come to seem inevitable and eternal, in practice
and even in aspiration.
Given World War II, Korea, Vietnam and many smaller conflicts throughout the Western Hemisphere, no one has ever mistaken the
United States for Switzerland. Still, the pursuit of peace is an authentic American tradition that has shaped U.S. conduct and the
international order. At its founding, the United States resolved to steer clear of the system of war in Europe and build a "new world"
free of violent rivalry, as Alexander Hamilton put it
.
Indeed, Americans shrank from playing a fully global role until 1941 in part because they saw themselves as emissaries of peace
(even as the United States conquered Native American land, policed its hemisphere and took Pacific colonies). U.S. leaders sought
either to remake international politics along peaceful lines -- as Woodrow Wilson proposed after World War I -- or to avoid getting
entangled in the squabbles of a fallen world. And when America embraced global leadership after World War II, it felt compelled to
establish the United Nations to halt the "scourge of war," as
the U.N. Charter says right at the
start. At America's urging, the organization outlawed the use of force, except where authorized by its Security Council or used in
self-defense.
Even when the United States dishonored that ideal in the years that followed, peace remained potent as a guiding principle. Vietnam
provoked a broad-based antiwar movement. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution (WPR) to tame the imperial presidency. Such opposition
to war is scarcely to be found today. (The Iraq War inspired massive protests, but they are a distant memory.) Consider that the
United States has undertaken more armed interventions since the end of the Cold War than during it. According to the Congressional
Research Service, more than 80 percent of all of the country's
adventures abroad since 1946 came after 1989. Congress, whether under Democratic or Republican control, has allowed commanders in
chief to claim the right to begin wars and continue them in perpetuity.
Legal constraints on U.S. warmaking -- including international obligations, domestic statutes and constitutional duties -- ought
to have returned to the fore after the Cold War, the rationale for America's vast mobilization in the second half of the 20th century.
Instead, they have eroded to dust. At the outset of the 1990s, as President George H.W. Bush promised a
"peace dividend" for Americans and a "peaceful international
order" for all, the United States did rely more faithfully than before on Security Council approval for military operations.
The Persian Gulf War, blessed by the United Nations to repel Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, was legal under international law. But
enthralled by its exorbitant primacy in world affairs, the United States turned away from international prohibitions on war, finding
the rules too restricting.
The next two presidents, attracted to liberal internationalist and neoconservative creeds that embraced armed force, treated international
law cavalierly. Bill Clinton abused U.N. resolutions meant to control Saddam Hussein's weaponry to justify new attacks, including
the bombing of Iraq in December 1998. The next year, the U.S.-led NATO operations in Kosovo suggested that America would unleash
its military for ostensibly noble causes -- in this case to prevent heart-rending atrocity -- even without the pretense of legality.
Despite failing to obtain U.N. approval, the Clinton administration said the intervention should not be treated as a precedent (though
it became one). Others excused it as "illegal but legitimate," with self-professed moral intentions permissibly trumping law. "For
the purpose of stopping genocide," commented
the New Republic's Leon Wieseltier, "the use of force is not a last resort; it is a first resort."
Once such arguments gained currency, their authors lost control of them. Conservative hawks found that a law-optional approach
suited their agenda as well, and their liberal counterparts, if they disagreed at all, did so mostly as a matter of tactics, not
principle. George W. Bush benefited from this permissive context when he launched the Iraq War, whose
illegality was
flagrant and catalytic, since it was unauthorized by the United Nations and
relied on the administration's dangerous claim that "anticipatory
self-defense" justifies invasion. The world took notice. Russia, in particular, seized on the new U.S. position as a
spectacular excuse to make incursions of its own in
Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014.
Obama won election in part because he ran against the Iraq War. In office, however, he cemented more than reversed America's disregard
of international constraints on warmaking. While failing to end the war in Afghanistan, his administration
exceeded the Security Council's authorization
by working to overthrow Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, converting a permission slip to avert atrocity into a blank check for regime
change. Then, to punish the Islamic State, Obama bombed Syria on a contrived
rationale
-- one that allowed attacks against nations unwilling or unable to control terrorists on their territory. When he nearly struck
again in response to Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons, Obama
laid the legal
foundation for Trump to strike the Syrian government, again without a U.N. sign-off. Once highly valued, then defied only with
controversy, international law now scarcely figures in U.S. decisions of war and peace.
Like international law, U.S. domestic law enshrines an expectation of peace, setting a high bar for the resort to war. If war
is to be waged, the Constitution requires Congress to declare it -- a purposeful grant of authority to the branch of government that
best reflects the diverse interests of the people and therefore should be harder to rouse to conflict than one commander in chief.
Yet the nation has drifted from that tradition, too. After defaulting on its constitutional obligation during the Cold War (partly
on the grounds that the speed of a potential nuclear strike required a president who could respond quickly), Congress declined to
reassert its authority after the Soviet threat passed.
In the 1990s, Congress might at least have kept faith with the WPR, which it passed in 1973 to rein in future presidents. The
resolution calls for Congress to authorize "hostilities" within 60 days of their start; otherwise U.S. forces must withdraw. Throughout
the 1980s and 1990s, members of the House of Representatives
brought presidents to
court for taking military action in violation
of the statute -- in El Salvador
, the Persian Gulf War and
Kosovo , for example. But advocates of the strategy
all but gave up, and Congress itself increasingly deferred to presidential wars in the age of terrorism. By the time Obama intervened
in Libya, the WPR lay in tatters. In a final indignity during the Libya operation, one administration lawyer
explained that "hostilities" was an "
ambiguous term of art
" that might exclude aerial bombardment, so Congress did not need to approve a war that toppled a regime.
This deference has proved costly, allowing Trump to pose as an antiwar candidate against the mainstream of two political parties,
a somnolent Congress and inactive courts. Once in power, this wildly unpredictable chief executive finally clarified the danger of
entrusting the world's mightiest military to one man's whims. Congress has begun to stir. In voting this year to end U.S. involvement
in Yemen's civil war, it invoked the WPR for the first time while forces were active in battle.
President Trump speaks to U.S. troops at Bagram air base in Afghanistan last month.
though he has pledged to end America's "endless wars,"
Trump, like past presidents, has instead extended them. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)
Ultimately, elevating peace as a priority will require not merely changing legal norms but overturning the militarized concept
of America's world role that permeates Washington. Somehow, despite waging near-perpetual war, the leaders of the most powerful country
on Earth have convinced themselves that America is always on the brink of turning "isolationist," a peril against which
every president since Ronald
Reagan has warned as their terms wound down. Trump is likely to deviate from that rhetorical tradition, but the rest of the establishment
carries on and doubles down. Today, it is military withdrawals, not destructive deployments, that freak out pundits and spur Cabinet
members to resign, as Jim Mattis
did last year over Trump's vow to pull troops from Syria. Abandoning the Kurds there this fall was Trump's "
great betrayal ," lamented Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, who did not appear to lose sleep over our past
military incursions.
Under Trump, who applies "maximum pressure" to all foes foreign and domestic,
American militarism is more perilous than ever. It is also more undeniable. That is one reason the current moment is surprisingly
hopeful. The call to
end
"endless war" continues to rise on the flanks of both parties, even as it is flouted by leaders of each. More and more Americans
insist that, whatever interests are served by endless war, their own are not. More than
twice as many Americans prefer
to lower than raise military spending, according to a 2019 Eurasia Group Foundation survey.
Veterans support
Trump's pledge to bring Middle East wars to a close: A
majority of vets deem the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria not to have been worth fighting. The Afghanistan Papers ought to
strengthen the consensus. Americans deserve a president who will act accordingly.
The United States would find partners far and wide, in nations great and small, if it put peace first. It could make clear that
while spreading democracy or human rights remains worthwhile, values cannot come at the point of a gun or serve as a pretext for
war -- and that international peace is, in fact, a condition for human flourishing. Every time Washington searches for a monster
to destroy, it shows the world's despots how to abuse the rules and hands demagogues a phantom to inflate. The alternative is not
"isolationism" but something closer to the opposite: peaceful, lawful international cooperation against the major threats to humanity,
including climate change, pandemic disease and widespread deprivation. Those are the enemies worth fighting, and bombs and bullets
will not defeat them.
Samuel Moyn is Henry R. Luce professor of jurisprudence and professor of history at Yale University and a fellow of the
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and Stephen Wertheim is deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute
for Responsible Statecraft. He is also a research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University
Follow @samuelmoyn and @stephenwertheim
(Note from the Editor – Over 20 years ago, I was working for a company while endeavoring to build a church in California [preachers
need to work many times] and in the process we worked on a transaction of enormous size – $26.5 Trillion Dollars and it was deeply
involved with the CIA and our Government. It was under code name "Project Hammer" and the actual code word for the project was "EFG
Jacobi." After the deal closed the US Government froze the money. Many people don't realize that they have two sets of books, one
for the public and one for their clandestine operations around the world. We never got paid. I met Ambassador Lee Wanta (
http://eagleonetowanta.com ) about this time and since we had similar experiences
with the Government theft of funds meant for the American People, I have stayed in touch with him for many years. This article is
from http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/projecthammerreload/titlepage1.htm
written by David Guyatt who has intimate knowledge of these matters as the article will show. I kept a daily log on this for
8 years until we felt it would never pay out. Ambassador Wanta has a Court Order to release his money but powers are still refusing
to do so. We are attempting to arrange a meetingh with him and President Trump so the new Treasury Secretary can seize the funds
he has [$32.5 Trillion] which will pay off the national debt and finance the infrastructure for this country. There is a desperate
attempt in the ESTABLISHMENT, the Democrat Party, some Republicans, and the Main Streem Media to divert our attention from the true
story that you can read here and on the website of the Ambassador.)
Beginning in 1988 and lasting until approximately 1992, "
Project Hammer " was the latest
in a series of highly secretive banking practices – known as "collateral trading" programs – that are used to create, as if by magic,
huge amounts of unaccountable funds for use in specific projects.
These vast pools of unvouchered slush funds are applied to finance a wide variety of clandestine activities that include:
secret military projects
geo-political requirements
development of infrastructure projects
It is also whispered that, in the case of the Project Hammer program at least, a percentage of the proceeds generated from this
secretive activity found its way into the pockets of VIPs and well-known politicians.
Names associated with such corrupt behavior are carried on the wind; but if one listens attentively, the names
George Bush, Sr , and Jim
Baker
III are just discernible to the trained ear.
An example of the type of project on which these funds are expended is the trading programme known as "EFG Jacobi" – a predecessor
of Hammer – that I understand was used largely to finance military facilities and related operations at the
top-secret US base located at Pine Gap near
Alice Springs in central Australia.
In order to maintain the secrecy that surrounds genuine activity, these trading programmes are routinely said not to exist. Enquiries
about them are deflected and attention is instead focused on the warnings issued by government agencies about fake programmes. This,
when combined with the numerous prosecutions that occur every year over fraudulent High Yield Investment Programme transactions,
serves to create the impression that authorized programmes do not occur.
The reasons for this deflection are many, but not least is the fact that the asset bases on which these programmes usually operate
are also said not to exist – at least in the quantities that they actually do. The assets in question are large volumes of gold and
lesser amounts of platinum plundered by the Nazis and Japanese during World War II.
The fact that gold has been the one stable commodity used to back and support the issuance of currency over the decades means
that it has been subject to considerable government and central bank secrecy. It was only in 1997 that the Bank of England decided
to lift this veil of secrecy and allow the London bullion market a degree of openness. But that openness did not include coming clean
about the true amount of gold in existence, which is far larger than official figures allow.
Because of this and the extremely covert nature of related trading programmes, comprehensive details of the programmes' operations
and the financing techniques employed have remained hidden from public view. At least this was the case prior to the publication
of part one of this series,
The Project Hammer File .
1 This essay is the result
of further examination of the techniques and activity of Project Hammer, and now places additional important material into the public
domain.
Project Hammer 2
(Reloaded ) remains a high-level state secret in a number of countries including the USA. This was confirmed de facto by the
CIA in its refusal to release any relevant information following my Freedom of Information Act request in February 2001. The exemption
used by the CIA to reject my request was that relevant material is "properly classified pursuant to an Executive Order in the interest
of national defense or foreign policy".
2
Project Hammer also stands out because proceeds from the trading activity were illegally diverted by major banks. Confirmation
of this is provided by Brigadier-General
Erle Cocke in his April 2000 affidavit . In this, General Cocke was asked about the involvement of former US Treasury Secretary
Lloyd Bentsen, who was retained to investigate what had happened to (and also to recover) the missing funds.
Asked if Bentsen "had the government's interest in closing this whole problem" and if he had "ever had a discussion" with Bentsen,
Cocke replied:
Many hours just trying to find out whether any agency, any group, Federal Reserve, Treasury, CIA, FBI, security agencies, and
so forth, all of them put together, whether any of which would really like to finish. And, quite frankly, nobody stepped up to
the plate.
Cocke was then asked if "they would like to finish it", and he responded:
I think they would like to finish it, but they all back away. It is not my cup of tea, or they have spent enough time with
it and are not going to realize anything, and therefore they just quit. They don't confirm, they don't deny, they just stop.
One can conclude that the banks that diverted this money were too powerful for any agency of the US government to tackle. It also
helped that suitable and substantial "incentives" were provided to former high-level Bush (Sr) Administration figures to bring their
influence to bear quietly to ensure that action against the banks was not taken.
Although not part of the sanctioned plan for Project Hammer – which was to generate funds to pay off debts on bullion certificates
issued by certain metal trusts – the funds were siphoned off surreptitiously in order to rescue numerous major US and other banks
that by the latter half of the 1980s were tottering on the brink of bankruptcy.
3
The banks only had themselves to blame for their imminent collapse. Reckless lending to Third World nations for over a decade
or more, combined with the raw greed of senior bank executives, had caused unparalleled damage to the world's banking system. The
inability of indebted Third World nations to repay their massive debts could have been – in fact, was – foreseen, but was ignored.
The spiral of gluttony had taken prisoner the faculty of prudence and reason as bank executives, seeking their next bonus and
promotion, pleaded with sovereign nations to take loans they did not need and ultimately could not repay. Nor was it unusual for
some of the funds on loan to find their way into the private bank accounts of corrupt state officials – "diversions" that were known
about in the boardrooms of the top banks, but ignored as "business as usual".
By the end of the 1980s, big banks including Citibank, Chase Manhattan, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC),
England's Midland Bank and many, many others were in dire straits. In all but name, they were bankrupt. The possibility of a prolonged
series of collapses of the world's top banks – a sort of "domino theory" of finance – was regarded in some quarters with palpable
fear. The entire Western banking system was rocking when it should have been rolling along nicely.
Somewhere, someone – nobody knows who (or at least no one is saying) – took the decision to bail out the banks and save the banking
system by diverting Project Hammer funds for this purpose. Those banking executives who caused the problem in the first place weren't
confronted by their mistakes or held to account by their shareholders but, instead, continued to collect their million-dollar pay
cheques, boost their bonus payments and profit shares, flick ash off their Cuban cigars, quaff bottles of expensive Cheval Blanc
and slap each other on the back in delighted relief.
One of those sighing relief was almost certainly Citibank's John Reed.
Another
one quite likely to have been cultivating a quiet exhalation was Hongkong and Shanghai Bank boss Sir William Purvis.
Meanwhile, many investors who had placed their money into Project Hammer in return for an agreed profit, as well as all those middle-men
who had worked hard for their promised commission, were relieved of their money in a twisted version of the well-known axiom, "One
man's loss is another banker's gain".
STEALING FROM THIEVES
The sanctioned purpose of Project Hammer was of a macro-economic nature, which is a nice way of saying that it was all to do with
"repatriating" the assets stolen earlier by someone else – except that when nations steal valuable assets during wartime, it's called
"plunder"; but when the victors in that war grab those same assets, they call it "recovery".
The assets in question were a vast horde of gold and lesser quantities of platinum plus not inconsiderable amounts of loose gemstones
which had been grabbed by the Nazis and the Japanese during World War II.
A large volume of this loot found its way to the Philippines where it was hidden in numerous treasure sites by the Japanese occupiers,
who planned to recover it after the war.
But it didn't quite work out the way the Japanese had planned. They lost the war, along with the Philippines – which, it seems,
they had been fairly confident of being allowed to keep in a negotiated truce with the Allies.
In their place, the OSS – the wartime forerunner of America's spy agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – began recovering
the bullion plundered from a dozen or so nations. This bullion formed what became known as the "Black Eagle" fund, which was part
of a secret agreement eclipsed behind the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement.
Consequently, the metal was placed under the care of OSS (and later CIA) operative Severino Garcia Santa Romana, who put it under
the control of numerous corporate entities he formed for the purpose. These entities, in turn, proceeded to establish 176 bank accounts
in 42 different countries in which to deposit these assets under private treaty agreement.
Confirmation of this came from General Cocke, after this was put to him:
"I have been advised that a chunk of the Hammer Project funds that were used to trade, to invest and reinvest, came from a
large block of assets that CIA put into the bank [Citibank]." Cocke replied: "And they pulled that several times from several
sources. Nobody is going to confirm it."
4
Santa Romana died in 1974, and following his death his former attorney and trustee was able to "acquire" considerable portions
of Santa Romana's estate by illicit means.
The lawyer was Ferdinand Marcos, who went on to become President of the Philippines and a favorite friend of the United States
until his overthrow in 1986. The acquisition of these assets helped give rise to stories of "Marcos gold" – a legend that was supplemented
by additional later recoveries of WWII gold and other loot using a Filipino Army battalion under the overall command of Marcos henchman
General Fabian Ver.
But Marcos was not the sole illegitimate beneficiary of war loot once controlled by Santa Romana.
Another was the late Baron Krupp who, I have
been told, also gained access to some of these assets. Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that Santa Romana, prior to his death, was
apparently associated with former US President and head of the CIA,
George H. W. Bush , and "had some contact" with Jeb
Bush, the Governor of Florida.
In any event, this bullion has collectively given rise to a whole class of gold and platinum certificates issued over the decades,
mainly by top-drawer European banks.
(See the history of the Global Collateral Accounts HERE
)
The certificates bear the names of prominent, and in some cases infamous, individuals – usually heads of state – as beneficiaries.
However, these named owners were and are not the legal beneficiaries but, rather, were cat's-paws used to muddy the waters concerning
the true origin of the bullion. Nor did the banks that held the assets own them, but they could and did use them in support of their
off-balance sheet activity – to the point of irresponsibility.
It should not be forgotten that this gold and platinum hoard was stolen and that, under international law, every effort should
have been made to return it to its rightful owners – rather than secretly stash it in bank vaults for use in Cold War covert operations.
And although it can reasonably be argued that the true owners could never be traced – since the greater quantity of the bullion was
privately owned (rather than being central bank bullion) – it is clear that the ends dictated the means.
And even though numerous nations around the world were to benefit from post-war reconstruction based on the use and application
of this war booty, the price of this apparent largesse was for these nations to be moulded into Uncle Sam's image. As they say in
America's boardrooms, "There's no such thing as a free lunch".
In examining the techniques employed in setting up Project Hammer, one is struck not just by the complexity of it but also by
the way the banks and intelligence agencies involved structured things to shield themselves from responsibility (and lawsuits, no
doubt) by utilizing subterranean networks, each working at "arm's length".
Piecing these techniques and networks together has been an arduous, painstaking task, but the process has further unveiled a shadow
world of parallel finance usually only known to those initiated into it.
THE EMPIRE STATE CONNECTION
During his April 2000 deposition, just days before his death from cancer, Brigadier-General Erle Cocke, when asked about the overall
objective of Project Hammer, replied:
Well, it was mainly to bring back monies to the United States from all types of activities, both legitimately and illegitimately.
Not that they were in the smuggling business per se, but they were all in the arms business, they were all retracing dollars of
one description or another that had accumulated all through the '40s and '50s, really. And that probably is as broad a definition
as I can give you
General Cocke then added that involvement in
Project Hammer extended to:
the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agencies of all types, Pentagon in the broad sense of it and as such, the Treasury,
Federal Reserve. Nobody got out of the act, everybody wanted to get in on the act."
5
Cocke's involvement with clandestine CIA activities dates back many years. At the very least, he is known to have been involved
with the CIA's Nugan Hand Bank. For example, US Treasury records obtained by veteran journalist and author Jonathan Kwitny show Cocke
as the registered "person in charge" of Nugan Hand's Washington office.
6
Cocke also indicated in his affidavit that he was regularly contacted by the CIA for expert assistance over the years and was
usually debriefed by them following overseas travel. Despite this, a Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA made on behalf
of this writer was dismissed with the statement that "no records responsive to your request were located" – which is not entirely
the same thing as saying that no records exist.
7
It also appears that the CIA is not the only one that cares to deny knowledge of General Cocke. Another is former Citibank CEO
and Chairman John Reed, who, in a sworn affidavit dated 5 December 2000, stated he had "no knowledge of any persons named Erle Cocke,
Jr, or Barrie D. Wamboldt". Both the CIA and Citibank's John Reed hold at least one major advantage over General Cocke: they are
alive and he is dead; and while it is true that the dead can't lie, it is also true that they can't rebut anyone's testimony–sworn
or otherwise. 8
In his deposition, Cocke states that although he had never "met" John Reed, he had attempted on numerous occasions to speak with
him, but was continually rejected:
We did our best to make the normal approaches, but I can see the President of the United States with no trouble. I cannot see
Reed. 9
The "we" Cocke was referring to, besides himself, was Paul Green, a "long-time real estate lawyer in New York" with "50 years
practice", who "had done most of his real estate dealings through Citibank".
10
Green also did some of his banking business with Citibank at its Fifth Avenue, New York, branch under account FOCUS #946 963 94.
According to Cocke, Paul Green was an outside counsel for Citibank and went back,
"30-odd years with large transactions through that bank, buying and selling big buildings. He was very much involved buying
and selling the Empire State Building one time."
11
Asked if Green was involved in the purchase and sale of collateral instruments, Cocke replied:
Probably not as an individual. But he represented the clients that certainly wanted to do the same thing.
12
News in late March 2003 revealed that the Empire State Building had just been sold by casino king Donald Trump and the heirs of
shady Japanese billionaire Hideki Yokoi for US$57.5 million.
Yokoi (who, at the time, was serving a prison sentence and had secretly negotiated the transaction through a middleman) and his
partner Trump had gained ownership of the building in 1991 for US$42 million. Little is known about Yokoi's World War II activities.
The building last changed hands four decades earlier in 1961, when it was acquired by real estate tycoon Harry Helmsley from the
Prudential Insurance Company in a sale-leaseback deal. The world-renowned skyscraper was built on land owned by the
Astor family and sold to
the DuPonts in 1929.
Construction of the Empire State Building began in 1930. John Jacob Astor was one of the first Americans to become involved in
the opium trade, from which his later fortune derived. This he invested in Manhattan real estate. The architects of the Empire State
Building were Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates – designers of One Bankers Trust Plaza, the HQ of Bankers Trust, together with
the Credit Lyonnais building in New York City.
It is of more than passing interest that one law firm represents many of the "actors" who appear in this story. That firm is White
& Case. Amongst numerous notable achievements listed on its website background/history is its representation of the DuPont Group
in its sale of the Empire State Building in 1954 for the princely sum of US$51.5 million.
As we noted earlier, almost 40 years later, in 1991, the building sold for the less than princely sum of US$42 million. I am not
certain how the real estate investors define investment performance over the years, but an aggregate loss of US$9.5 million over
the course of 37 years doesn't usually constitute an investment accomplishment by any standard I know.
13
Meanwhile, a brief review of White & Case's client list tell us that they also represented,
the First National Bank (the forerunner of Citibank)
Seagram Company Ltd of Canada, controlled by the Bronfman family – regarded by some as the kings of the Canadian mafia
15
But White & Case's most "enduring" client is Bankers Trust Company, a J. P. Morgan-controlled bank which the law firm was "centrally
involved" in forming back in 1903.
The ancestor of all trust companies is England's Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust, which dates back to 1868 and was conceived
by one of the foremost legal minds of the day, Lord Westbury. The current Lord Westbury, Richard Bethell, will appear later in this
story.
But first, let's step through the looking glass and examine one of the early Hammer deals, which General Cocke believed:
It was one of the very early transactions, as far as I am concerned, with Hammer. I think he [Dan Hughes] is the one who expanded
Hammer in the sense that we moved from one hundred million [dollars] to a billion-type movement, and now we are doubling, about
a trillion. He is the one who enhanced it, is the best way of saying.
THE HUGHES PORTAL
Dan Hughes , Jr , the nephew of US Representative William J. Hughes from New Jersey, made a considerable fortune in
the construction business in Florida during his early working life.
By the mid-1980s, with paper assets nearing US$100 million, he became involved in collateral trading and by late 1989 entered
the realm of Project Hammer.
During the autumn of 1989, Hughes was approached by Peter Seaman, the President and Chairman of a small investment bank called
Nantucket Holding Company. Seaman had developed an arrangement with Ecoban Limited, a small merchant bank with offices in London
and New York City that specialized in emerging market-debt and the A'forfait market.
16
Seaman, using Nantucket Holding Company , concluded an agreement by which Ecoban would purchase US$100 million worth of
documentary letters of credit issued by the head offices of Citibank NA and the Chase Manhattan Bank NA. Hughes had access to these
bank credits via a US$50 billion "commitment" extended to him by the Bankers Trust Company.
To fund the purchase, Ecoban needed the support of a bank and turned to Midland Bank Aval Limited (MidAval), the forfaiting subsidiary
of Midland Bank Group International Trade Services (MiBGITS).
MidAval, once wholly owned by Midland Bank, had, shortly before commencing with the Hammer transaction, concluded a private agreement
with Sir William Purvis, Chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation , wherein HSBC purchased a controlling
equity stake in MidAval. This meant that MidAval was 60% owned by HSBC and 40% owned by Midland Bank.
17
Accordingly, on 12 October 1989, MidAval issued a letter agreeing to purchase "$100 million with rolls until funds are exhausted
of documentary letters of credit"
18
An earlier MidAval letter (dated 25 September 1989) stated that they,
"irrevocably commit to purchase the above letters of credit and pay the amount agreed between you and Ecoban Limited ('the
purchase price') to Citibank NA, Lugano".
The reference to "Lugano" was deleted in later letters at the specific request of Nantucket's Peter Seaman, as detailed in his
11 October 1989, letter to Brian Fitzpatrick, the Managing Director of Ecoban Limited. Lugano was of some considerable importance
– as we shall see later – but not least because it was at Union Bank of Switzerland in Lugano where, according to Dan Hughes, the
actual trading of the Hammer programme took place.
Meanwhile, MidAval's letter was addressed to Jardine, Emett & Chandler, New England, Inc., in Boston, USA, which
acted as an agent for MidAval. On the strength of MidAval's signed and authorized letter, Jardine, Emett & Chandler issued its own
"Request for collateral instruments" under its letterhead. This letter, dated 12 October 1989, bore the reference "Midland Bank Aval
Limited for Ecoban Limited".
To close the circle, Dan Hughes had earlier instructed his attorney, Oswald (Ozzie) Howe, Jr, of the Miami law firm Mershon,
Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole , to cause to be issued a sight draft, dated 6 October 1989, drawn on the Southeast Bank NA,
Miami, and payable to Bankers Trust Company, for the sum of US$50,000. A further sight draft was issued in the amount of US$25,000,
at the request of Bankers Trust.
Following this sequence of events, nothing happened and no draws were made against the sight drafts issued by Southeast Bank in
favour of Bankers Trust.
But on 18 October 1989, Hughes received a time and sequence confirmation from Joan Johnson, Vice President and Operations Manager
of the Security Pacific bank in Los Angeles, which Hughes believes activated his transaction through a "back door" arrangement which
would cut him out of his commission.
19 Thereafter, Peter Seaman
point-blank and inexplicably refused to speak with Hughes again.
General Cocke was an experienced banker from a long line of bankers and was a former full-time US representative at the World
Bank.
Intimately familiar with the operational techniques of trading programmes, he was asked:
"Can you explain in a general way how it [Hammer] functioned, that it was a trade programme, for those of us that are not familiar?"
The stock way all big banks, all central banks, change within themselves and curtail their balances, build up their peaks and
then sell it.
He went on to explain that "most of it is done in a four-week program to be technically correct" and involved the trading of banking
instruments – usually known as "collateral" – that are heavily discounted and then sold off.
MAPPING THE COVERT CONNECTIONS
To appreciate the subtleties of how the diversion of this particular "portal" into Project Hammer may have occurred, it is instructive
to look at the connections and associations of the principal players.
20
Ecoban:
In addition to Ecob an Limited in London, there was the affiliated Ecoban Finance Limited that conducted business out
of an address on Third Avenue in New York City.
A one-time President and CEO of Ecoban Finance Limited in New York was Jim Demitrieus, who more recently was the President
and Chief Operating Officer of Ixnet/IPC, which was acquired by Global Crossing in June 2000.
Global Crossing was one of the US firms that recently suffered a spectacular collapse together with Worldcom, Enron and the accountancy
firm Arthur Andersen. All were subjected to a welter of media attention for what was believed to have been unparalleled insider trading
activities by senior executives.
Earlier in his career, Demitrieus,
"served as senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Commodity Division of Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc., responsible
for the precious metals, energy products, foreign exchange trading subsidiary and institutional brokerage division".
Of interest here is the little known fact that Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, New York , was a recipient of gold bullion from
Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos in January 1984.
It is not clear from Mr Demitrieus's available vitae if this was the same time period he was the Senior Vice President of Drexel's
bullion business, but I am informed this is probably the case. Before that, Demitrieus "held senior-level financial positions with
Freeport-McMoRan, ITT and Arthur Andersen".
21
Significantly, Freeport-McMoRan, back when it was Freeport Sulphur , positively heaved with CIA and elite heavy-hitters
– not to mention persistent whispers of its involvement in the recovery of plundered gold stashed in Indonesia, where Freeport had
the world's largest copper mining operation.
Over the years, the Freeport senior management has included such luminaries as Augustus "Gus" Long, Chairman of Texaco, who did
"prodigious volunteer work for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital" – which has been described as a "hotbed of CIA activity".
22
Another director was Robert Lovett, who has been described as a "Cold War architect" and was once an executive at the old Wall
Street bank of Brown Brothers Harriman. He also served as an Under Secretary of State, Assistant Secretary of War and Secretary of
Defense. He was a best friend of Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman (and Warren Commission member) John J. McCloy.
The Chase Manhattan and Citibank connection to Freeport was further enhanced by the board appointment of Godfrey Rockefeller,
brother of James Stillman Rockefeller who was appointed Chairman of Citibank (then known as First National City Bank, or FNCB for
short) in 1959. (Note, too, that Chase Manhattan and Citibank are the exact same two banks that were to issue the Project Hammer
documentary letters of credit.)
Godfrey Rockefeller was a one-time trustee of the Fairfield Foundation that financed a variety of CIA "fronts". Meanwhile, Stillman's
cousin, David Rockefeller , was Chairman
of Chase Manhattan and regarded as the "goliath of American banking".
23
By a strange coincidence of fate, it was Robert Lovett and John J. McCloy who, together with Robert B. Anderson, formed Secretary
of War Henry L. Stimson's team of financial experts concerned with tracking WWII gold looted by the Axis powers.
Indeed, Lovett and McCloy were responsible for negotiating the secret agreement hidden behind the Bretton Woods Agreement
concerning the establishment of the Black Eagle trust
that was to make use of plundered WWII bullion in the postwar years.
24
Midland Bank:
When looking at MidAval's parent, Midland Bank Group International Trade Services (MiBGITS), one could do worse than read the
very informative book by former arms company chairman Gerald James, entitled In the Public Interest. James recounts numerous chilling
accounts of Her Majesty's intelligence service MI6's deep involvement with the MiBGITS special defense unit.
Included are details of Stephan Kock, who James claims to have been a former head of the Foreign Office's so-called assassination
squad, Group 13.
Another intelligence-connected individual named in James's book is Sir John Cuckney, who was a non-executive director of Midland
Bank from 1978 until 1988 and was responsible for having formed the defense unit in the first place.
Gerald James and his munitions company Astra also had dealings with, and a private account at, MidAval.
25
Kock's boss at Midland was Comte Herve de Carmoy, a Frenchman and a leading light on the
Trilateral Commission . He left Midland in
1988 to take up the position as the most senior executive of Belgium's massive transnational company, Société Générale.
portrait serre
He was replaced as head of Midland International by John Louden, a multilinguist who had an unfortunate speech impediment – leading
wags in the bank to say of him that he could stutter in seven languages. De Carmoy's departure was followed by that of both Cuckney
and Kock, after what Gerald James describes as "funny practices" relating to a loss of £100 million involving all three men.
26
Although a similar amount to the MidAval's Project Hammer transaction, this sum of £100 million cannot have been the same money
for two reasons. Firstly, the Hammer amount was in dollars and not pounds, and was discounted at approximately 4% over the prevailing
one-year interest rate (LIBOR–the London Interbank Borrowing Rate).
For US banks of the standing of Chase and Citibank, at that time a market rate of perhaps one quarter of 1% – or, at most, one
half of 1% – was applicable. Four per cent was unheard of by a very long shot indeed. Secondly, at least a year separated the two
movements of money.
Even so, there are notable connections between the MidAval CEO Ian Guild and Herve de Carmoy (who was known in the bank as "Herve
the Swerve").
Firstly, de Carmoy was Guild's overall boss.
Secondly, shortly after de Carmoy moved to Société Générale, a valued employee of MidAval (also a Frenchman, referred to
in-house by the affectionate nickname of "Froggy") left MidAval employment to take up the post of Chef du Cabinet at the specific
invitation of de Carmoy.
Thirdly, Guild and the other two senior executives, plus some other staff, left Midland in 1990 to form IndoSuez Aval Limited.
IndoSuez Bank was directly owned by Société Générale and negotiations between de Carmoy, his Chef du Cabinet – the former MidAval
employee – and the three senior MidAval executives had been ongoing for almost a year before satisfactory terms were settled.
Following the takeover of Midland Bank by HSBC, MidAval had its name changed to HSBC Forfaiting Limited. It was dissolved in February
2000. Former staff had long since scattered with the four winds. IndoSuez Aval Limited is likewise now defunct.
Note
Documents and other exhibits in support of this story are available
HERE .
2. See Project Hammer
part one, "The Project Hammer File",
HERE
3. Information about
Project Hammer has been garnered from numerous sources. Those sources that I am able to name are named in the text. The remainder
remain confidential.
4. Page 51 of General
Cocke's affidavit. One of the CIA "sources" was the slush fund controlled by Japanese Liberal Democrat Party bosses and known
as the "M-fund", after General MacArthur's economic supremo in Tokyo, General Marquat.
6. See Jonathan Kwitny's
excellent book, The Crimes of Patriots (Touchstone Books, New York, 1987), for a detailed background on the Nugan Hand Bank affair.
13. If one includes
the inflationary effect over this time period, it would reveal that the sale price is, in fact, a great deal less now than it
was almost 50 years ago, which is more than curious. Nor does the leasing agreement over this same period seem especially lucrative.
14. It is not clear
from the banking records I have viewed online, but it looks as though the Astor Trust Company was absorbed into an entity that
formed part of the Bankers Trust Company.
16. Forfaiting is
the discounting of bank-guaranteed receivables (Aval) on a non-recourse basis.
17. I use the term
"private agreement" under advice–following a recent telephone conversation with a representative of Companies House, who told
me that no change of ownership notification had been made for MidAval at that time. MidAval had first been registered as a limited
company under the shelf registration name of "Diplema Twenty Nine Limited" in June 1983. A change of name to Midland Bank Aval
Limited was formally notified to Companies House in April 1996–although the firm had been trading in the name of Midland Bank
Aval Limited from day one. Following the full buy-out of Midland Bank PLC by the HSBC Group, MidAval had its name changed to HSBC
Forfaiting Limited. The company was dissolved in February 2000.
19. Sworn and notarized
affidavit of Dan Hughes, dated December 31, 1990.
20. There are believed
to have been numerous different "portals" providing access into Project Hammer over the period of its life. The Dan Hughes transaction
was one of these–albeit a significant and "early" one, according to the testimony of General Erle Cocke.
21. Demitrieus's vitae
is drawn from that published on the Global Crossing website.
22. For details concerning
the Freeport Board of Directors, see Internet report entitled "Freeport Sulphur's Powerful Board of Directors".
23. See Phillip Zweig's
massive book, Wriston (Crown Publishers, New York, 1995) for comprehensive background on Citibank and Chase.
24. For details of
these three gentlemen's involvement in the Black Eagle Trust, see Seagrave's self-published book, Gold Warriors; details are available
on my website, under the heading of " The Seagrave Affair
"
25. I know much of
the inner workings of MidAval for the simple reason that I was the Treasurer and an Associate Director of that firm until 1991.
However, I knew nothing of the Project Hammer deal that was strictly handled by the three principal executive directors.
26. See details on
page 164 of Gerald James's book, In the Public Interest (Warner Books/Little, Brown, London, 1996).
Project Hammer Reloaded – Part 2
Part 2
MAPPING THE COVERT CONNECTIONS
Peter
Seaman:
In addition to being the President and Chairman of Nantucket Holding Company, Peter Seaman was a successful businessman
and involved in a number of other enterprises. These included an entity called Harbor Fuel Holdings Co., Inc. of Westchester
County, in which Seaman was a partner with attorney Stuart Root.
Both Root and Seaman were clients of attorney Kenneth C. Ellis. Root was a director of another firm called Bowery Advisors
Subsidiary Corporation, which was registered in Florida with a principal mailing address of Kenneth C. Ellis "care of" the
Southeast First National Bank building, located at Biscayne Boulevard, Miami. Seaman had a residence in Greenwich, Connecticut,
where, by another odd coincidence, his next-door neighbor was Citibank's John Reed.
Following his close association with Dan Hughes in setting up the MidAval Hammer deal in October 1989, Seaman thereafter
refused to speak with Hughes ever again. Whether it was guilt for diverting Hughes's commission or some other factor that caused
this extraordinary vow of silence, we shall never know. Peter Seaman died, taking all his secrets with him.
Oswald
Howe, Jr:
Dan Hughes's attorney throughout the Hammer deal and the subsequent years of investigation was Oswald (Ozzie) Howe, Jr,
of the Miami law firm of Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole, whose offices were located in the Southeast Bank
building at the Southeast Financial Center.
According to Dan Hughes, it was Howe who introduced him to Southeast Bank, and Howe did a lot of real estate work for the
bank. Hughes also feels that his ongoing law case would be a great deal more effective if several vital documents had not mysteriously
disappeared from Howe's office. In any event, Mershon, Sawyer, Johnston, Dunwoody & Cole is now defunct, and Howe practices
law and is the senior partner for Howe, Robinson & Watkins LLP in Miami.
Southeast
Bank:
Southeast Bank NA was declared insolvent on 19 September 1991; it exists no more. Over the years it could boast some famous,
if not infamous, clients – but one suspects that such boasting was the last thing the bank's board of directors had in mind.
One such account "holder" was Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who used his henchman and former law school classmate Roberto
Benedicto to front for him.
In addition to being appointed by Marcos as the Philippines Ambassador to Japan, Benedicto was a signatory to Marcos's Credit
Suisse accounts and was clearly content to be used by Marcos as a cat's-paw to hide his money and gold bullion.
27 Benedicto died
in May 2000, following a heart attack.
Other illustrious clients of Southeast Bank over the years have included such criminal luminaries as Licio Gelli and Michele
Sindona, named by author Luigi DiFonzo in his book,
St Peter's Banker . DiFonzo reveals that US$34 million of the "lost" money of Robert Calvi's collapsed bank, the Banco
Ambrosiano, was traced to that bank's subsidiary in Nassau, where it was withdrawn and smuggled to two Miami banks, one of
these being the Southeast First National Bank (of Miami)–where it was deposited in account number 18221465.
28
Bankers Trust:
Bankers Trust International, a subsidiary of Bankers Trust, was the other Miami bank named in St Peter's Banker as having
funds stolen from Banco Ambrosiano deposited with it. According to DiFonzo, these funds were deposited into account number
001050018, which was also controlled by Licio Gelli and Michel Sindons (i.e., Michele Sindona).
In 1982, Ferdinand Marcos arranged via his right-hand man, General Fabian Ver, to transfer 50 tonnes of gold bullion to
Switzerland via two chartered 747 aircraft. These were arranged by an individual using the name Ron Lusk, who had been retained
by Ver to deliver the gold to Bankers Trust, Zurich.
29
Bankers Trust is of considerable interest for other reasons, too. Firstly, readers will recall that Dan Hughes caused two
sight drafts to be issued in favour of Bankers Trust for the collateral commitment relative to the Chase and Citibank debenture
instruments – an activity which, as we have already seen, caused General Erle Cocke to believe kicked off the Project Hammer
programme in a big way.
Secondly, the lawyers and investigators who were building a lawsuit for Dan Hughes and other clients cheated out of their
money were quietly negotiating with the Central Intelligence Agency in an attempt to settle privately and quietly out of court.
According to Dan Hughes, these negotiations were taking place with the office of Buzzy Krongard, the then No. 3 man in the
CIA hierarchy.
By profession, Krongard is a banker and formerly was the Chairman and CEO of investment bank Alex. Brown, Inc. In September
1997, Krongard engineered the merger of Alex. Brown with Bankers Trust and became the Vice Chairman of the board of directors
of Bankers Trust. A few months later, in January 1998, he was recruited as a "counsellor" to CIA boss George Tenet. In March
2001, he was promoted to Executive Director, making him the No. 2 man of the spy agency.
But the strange coincidences don't end there. South African intelligence operatives Rolf van Rooyen and Riaan Stander,
30 who are both
deeply enmeshed in the Project Hammer (
1 and
2 ) story,
were working closely with Gregory Serras, the President/CEO of the San Diego brokerage firm, Vanguard Capital.
This involved discussions for Vanguard to act on their behalf in the private placement of Argentinian government-approved
debenture instruments that formed part of a trading programme that van Rooyen and Stander had been working on. In a signed
letter, Serras – acting on behalf of his bank, Morgan Stanley & Co. – requested confirmation that the debentures in question
were "legal securities authorized and approved by the government of Argentina"
Vanguard appears to change its banking relationships from time to time. In the period that Serras was in contact with van
Rooyen, its relationship was with Morgan Stanley & Co. Today it is with the Bank of New York, Inc. – itself no stranger to
front-page scandals, such as those involving money-laundering activities for Russian crime syndicates and political figures.
31 Of interest is
the fact that Vanguard was earlier affiliated with Buzzy Krongard's old firm, Alex. Brown, which, following the takeover of
Bankers Trust by Germany's Deutsche Bank, changed its name to Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, Inc.
The fact is that when it comes to the fraternity of banking, one can often disregard the supposed rivalry that is said to
exist, because incestuous relationships are commonplace. In the past, at least, the big banks owned significant chunks of each
other's stock, whereas nowadays they just tend to merge. Take, for example, the Bank of America, whose second-largest stockholder
was J. P. Morgan. In third place was Citibank.
Meanwhile, Citibank's largest stockholder was J. P. Morgan, which in December 2000 merged with Chase Manhattan to form the
all-powerful J. P. Morgan Chase.
32 Bankers Trust
was a J. P. Morgan creation from day one.
White
& Case:
No doubt by sheer coincidence alone, the Marcos account held by Roberto Benedicto at Southeast Bank was a White & Case Trust
account (number 018-410191).
It may also have been mere coincidence that Peter Seaman's and Stuart Root's attorney, Kenneth C. Ellis – who was the registered
addressee at Southeast Bank building for the Bowery Advisors Subsidiary Corporation – is also listed on the
White & Case website as a partner of that firm, who specializes in
financial matters and who now works out of its Singapore office.
UBS,
Lugano:
One of the more flamboyant financiers of recent decades undoubtedly is the Italian, Florio Fiorini, the former finance director
of the Italian state-owned oil company, ENI. Fiorini is best known for his failed attempt to rescue Roberto Calvi's bankrupt
private bank, Banco Ambrosiano – an affair that also involved Mafia financier Michele Sindona and, of course, Licio Gelli,
the Grandmaster of the secret masonic lodge, P2, that was a parallel de facto government of Italy.
Unlike others, Fiorini spilled the beans, and he did so in two books that he wrote while in Champ-Dollon prison, Switzerland,
for "fraudulent bankruptcy". Of the many secrets he revealed, one of the most explosive was the now infamous conto protezione
(protection account), used to launder profits derived from myriad insider-dealing activities by some of the largest and
most prestigious banks and transnational corporations in Europe.
A significant slice of the profits was paid to what Fiorini amusingly described as "the starving of the parties". In plain
words, these allocations were kickbacks paid to the various political parties.
The administrator of the secret kickback account (number 633369) was a member of P2 and also a former Minister of Justice
of disgraced Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, who went by the name of Claudius Hammerings – and if one deletes the last four letters
of his name, coincidence throws up the word "Hammer".
33 Readers will
by now have guessed that the account was held at UBS, Lugano.
Fiorini's name also appears prominently in the story of the looting of MGM, the famous Hollywood film studio, by Italian
Mafia "thug" Giancarlo Paretti. The MGM affair was an event that almost brought France's state-owned bank, Credit Lyonnais,
crashing to its knees. Without intervention and an infusion of considerable sums of money from the French taxpayer, France's
once proud bank would have folded.
This is not the place to recount the MGM/Credit Lyonnais story, but it is of passing interest only to note that Credit Lyonnais
recruited attorney Charles Meeker to join MGM as president, to handle negotiations with Paretti. Prior to joining MGM, Meeker
was with the law firm of White & Case.
34 Following a warrant
issued by France, Paretti was eventually arrested and cuffed by US federal agents in a conference room in the downtown Los
Angeles office of White & Case.
Credit Lyonnais has also been deeply involved in Black Eagle gold transactions. In one transaction I am familiar with, a
large block of bullion was to be purchased by a representative operating on behalf of Credit Lyonnais Rouse Limited, London,
the precious metals trading arm of the bank.
35
It is also interesting to note that UBS, Lugano, was not only the bank of choice for those running the secret insider trading
protection account; it was also the bank of choice for former Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The numerous confidential
accounts he had at that bank have been dubbed the "Mother" money-laundering account for the Marcos family by Marcos gold investigator
Reiner Jacobi. 36
But the UBS connections don't end there. The Honorary Chairman of UBS (now part of the Swiss Bank Corporation Group) is
Nicholaus Senn, who was also the Chairman of the enormous transnational corporation, Compagnie Financière Richemont AG
, until his retirement in September 2002. Senn was also the senior partner of the Swiss-based international law and consultancy
firm of Senn, Christians and Letemeyer , which, coincidentally, acted for the late Baron Arndt Krupp.
In particular, Carl Letemeyer and Nicholaus Senn worked hard on behalf of the Krupp Estate in regard to the Krupp Heritage
& World Peace Foundation (Singapore), which received a legacy of US$97 billion from
Baron Krupp . This was a cash gift. According
to documents I have in my possession, Krupp's "secret" properties and businesses did not form part of this legacy. However,
the most interesting fact is that, prior to his death, Baron Arndt Krupp controlled some of the Santa Romana "Black Eagle"
fund assets. Of the $97 billion gifted, $47 billion was on deposit in account number 4 77 22 P with the Trust Department of
the Standard & Chartered Bank, London.
Indosuez:
This is one of those banks which are barely visible but consistently circle the waters of black gold and Project Hammer
– like a prowling shark with just the tip of its dorsel fin showing. For example, in one bullion transaction being negotiated
by Dr A. Konig, the Swiss representative of Rolf van Rooyen's Eastcorp Syndicate, the nominated closing bank for the transaction
was Indosuez, Lugano – where Eastcorp Holdings maintained an account.
This is in addition to the migration of some MidAval staff to Indosuez following their involvement in the Project Hammer
trading programme, as outlined earlier. With the closure of Indosuez Aval, a rump of former MidAval employees (now unfortunately
ex-Indosuez Aval as well), including MidAval's former CEO, found a new berth for their abilities. This was at Standard & Chartered
Bank in London. Standard Bank Nominees, meanwhile, is the second largest shareholder of Oppenheimer's Anglo American, with
a stake of 11.74 per cent.
37
While knowledge of the hidden connections of the Hughes "portal" into Project Hammer is vital for an understanding of how
the world of parallel finance operates, there are still deeper "rhythms" at work. An examination of these "rhythms" leads to
the companies, people and intelligence assets that sit at the heart of the so-called Anglo-American relationship.
THE KESWICK-JARDINE CONNECTION
A few days after I published part one of Project Hammer in late October 2001, I was alerted to an anonymous posting at the
Cryptome.org website of a document produced by the South African National
Intelligence Agency in 1998.
The document describes plans, then alleged to be in preparation, for a coup to occur during the 1999 South African general election.
Whilst the coup did not happen, the document is of significance because it describes members of – and entities aligned with – the
group who wished to disrupt the ruling African National Congress (ANC) political party.
38
A large part of this document outlines the alleged involvement of Executive Outcomes (EO), the British-based private security
company that is part of the Palace Group of companies. A few days prior to this document being made available, I had published charts
showing the "network" of the Palace Group that formed the London end of the associated South African intelligence group known as
the Eastcorp Syndicate.
This group was headed by Rolf van Rooyen and Riaan Stander – both South African intelligence operatives who were deeply involved
in Project Hammer. Not only were the London and South African networks closely aligned, but in some cases they also shared the same
executives. 39
One of the entities appearing on the Cryptome.org document as a member of the London network/Palace Group is Jardine Fleming of
Hong Kong, listed under "Banking and Investments". Two lines beneath appears the name Defense Systems Ltd – a division of the arms
manufacturer, Vickers.
Jardine
Fleming is also listed in the same document as a "role player", a few lines beneath the name of Tony Buckingham – the high-profile
head of Executive Outcomes. In an accompanying financial report it is revealed that EO used account number 600774426 at Jardine Fleming
Bank Limited, located at Port Moresby, Hong Kong. The account, rendered as at 15 May 1998, held a balance of US$36 million, and included
Tony Buckingham among those authorized to sign cheques on the account.
Jardine Fleming Bank Limited was established in 1970 as a joint venture between the huge transnational company, Jardine Matheson
Limited, and British merchant bank, Robert Fleming. Jardine's 50% stake in this Hong Kong bank was exchanged in 1999 for a direct
18% stake in Robert Fleming, which in April 2000 was sold to the Chase Manhattan Corporation – the holding company of what is now
the huge US bank of J. P. Morgan Chase.
But a year later, in May 2001, the magicians' musical chairs were in use again when it was announced that Jardine Fleming Bank
was to be sold by J. P. Morgan Chase to Standard Bank. The transfer of ownership occurred on 3 July 2001, with the renaming of
Jardine Fleming Bank to Standard Bank Asia Limited, but trading was under the new name of Standard Jardine Fleming Bank Limited.
Of considerable significance is the fact that, at the time that Jardine, Emett & Chandler – the firm of Boston insurance
brokers mentioned earlier – issued its letter on behalf of MidAval, seeking collateral instruments, it was owned by Jardine Matheson
Limited. Meanwhile, Jardine Resources Limited, with an address in the Isle of Man, was a business entity used by Rolf van Rooyen
for collateral trading programme and other activities. The Isle of Man also boasted a branch of Jardine Fleming Bank Limited.
Jardine Matheson Limited, originally formed over 170 years ago, created a fortune from the China opium business. Since that time
it has diversified enormously and remains the family fiefdom of the Keswick family, descendants of the firm's co-founder, William
Jardine.
The Keswick clan, in addition to having had family members awarded the chairmanship or directorship of such notable international
companies as Hongkong & Shanghai Bank , Rio Tinto Zinc and Samuel Montagu (the London merchant bank that was
part of the Midland Bank Group, itself now owned by HSBC), is also able to boast having had family members as the head of Britain's
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and decades-long membership of the Court of the Bank of England.
Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) was founded in 1873 by Hugh Matheson, the co-founder of Jardine Matheson. In 1995, RTZ acquired a minority
ownership in Freeport McMoRan. Anglo American (which has long had very close ties with RTZ), together with De Beers, is the fiefdom
of the Oppenheimer family, which owns a significant piece of Lonrho. These three intertwined conglomerates dominate the precious
metals and mining world – amongst achieving other notable accomplishments. For example, the Oppenheimers' Minorco holding company
is believed to be the single largest investor in the United States.
Minorco, founded in 1981, was quick to obtain an interest in America's then biggest bank, Citibank, whose CEO, Walter Wriston,
together with Citibank's principal attorney, Robert Clare, a partner of the powerful law firm of Shearson & Sterling, both accepted
invitations to sit on the Minorco board.
40
According to the authors of the book
Dope, Inc ., the Keswick family
controls a substantial part of the world's narcotics trade and uses HSBC, the bank it is said to control, to "provide centralized
rediscounting facilities for the financing of the drugs trade".
41
How true this is remains unknown to this writer, but it is known that Li Ka-shing – the Chinese billionaire who owns a 3% stake
in Jardine Matheson Limited and has sat on the board of HSBC – has been accused of being a member of Chinese intelligence as well
as being associated with the narcotics trade.
42
Indeed, the latter allegation arose repeatedly during my investigation of Project Hammer, while the use of HSBC as an "authorized
six-point laundry" was also mentioned. Meanwhile, the description of "centralized rediscounting facilities" referenced by the authors
of Dope, Inc . is suggestive,
to this writer at least, of collateral trading techniques.
Such connections are almost endless, it seems. Take, for example, the rise to fortune of Peter Munk, Chairman of Barrick Gold
which was formed in Toronto, Canada, in 1983, with the majority stake being held by the Saudi royal family middleman and arms dealer,
Adnan Khashoggi. Khashoggi had long been associated with Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and the so-called Marcos gold.
Indeed, so trusted was he that Marcos had him fronting for two "eclipsed" Marcos accounts – one in the name of Etablissement
Mabari with the private Swiss bank of Lombard Odier & Cie, and the other in the name of Etablissement Gladiator
at COGES Corraterie Gestion SA , Geneva.
Of interest, too, is the fact that Sir Henry Keswick is reported to have been responsible for "lifting" Munk to a new career,
although he also received patronage from Australia's now-deceased multi-billionaire businessman Sir Peter Abeles.
43
Sir Peter received considerable attention in Jonathan Kwitny's excellent book,
The
Crimes of Patriots , because of his alleged Mafia connections and close association with Bernie Houghton and Michael Hand in
the CIA drug smuggling laundry, the Nugan Hand Bank – which also arranged to ship gold bullion surreptitiously for Marcos.
At this point, it is worth reminding readers that Brigadier-General Erle Cocke – whom I referenced earlier concerning his affidavit
detailing his knowledge and involvement in Project Hammer – was reported by Kwitny to be a key player in the Nugan Hand Bank.
And Project Hammer is said to be a general continuation of Nugan Hand Bank activity.
MARITIME FINANCING
The ties that bind are kept hidden from public view.
Activities such as the one we have been discussing are made to operate on an "arms length" basis to confuse and also to ensure
deniability.
Following these subterranean and diverse threads can easily perplex the investigator, and patience and persistence are required
to arrive at the reality that is hidden behind all the smoke and mirrors. The story of Puffin Investments is a case in point.
During a number of extensive telephone interviews with the Canadian, Barrie Wamboldt, it was hinted that it would be worthwhile
to look into the activities of an Alan Shepherd and a firm of his called Puffin Investments. Readers will remember that Barrie Wamboldt
was involved with Project Hammer and had worked with General Cocke and Paul Green to recover Project Hammer funds.
Puffin Investment Company Limited, a Bahamas company, was owned by Old Harrovian Alan Shepherd, who had connections to the British
royal family resulting from generous donations he made to the Royal Windsor Horse Show, of which he was vice president.
In March 2001, Shepherd and Puffin Investments were involved in a High Court action initiated by the Financial Services Authority
– the government watchdog – for enticing investors to put up money for a "sham" investment trading programme. According to the
Sunday Express newspaper, reporting on the court case, up-front fees paid by investors on the promise of massive returns were
not repaid. 44
A week later, on 1 April 2001, the Sunday Express carried a further report detailing a lawsuit against Alan Shepherd, his American
wife Sherry and previous Conservative Party "grandee" Sir Edward du Cann, who was the former Chairman of City merchant bank Keyser
Ullman.
Sir Edward was earlier involved in Tradeswind, an arms trading company in which he was a director with Tiny Rowland of Lonrho
fame and the Egyptian, Ashraf Marwan – known as "Dr Death". Earlier in his career, du Cann served as Chairman of Lonrho, thus working
alongside board directors such as British MI6 luminary Nicholas Elliot.
45
Shepherd, his wife Sherry and du Cann were being sued for £1.25 million in a dispute involving the search for "one of the world's
most fabulous buried treasures". The treasure in question was "30 tons of gold statues, bullion, doubloons and precious stones",
stolen by Scottish pirate Captain William Thompson. The treasure was currently valued at £500 million.
The lawsuit was brought by Richard Bethell of the Bermuda-based Hart Group , who alleged that Shepherd and du Cann were
guilty of "misrepresentations" over an agreement for the provision of various "services" to Shepherd's planned treasure hunt.
One cannot help but be reminded of stories that have circulated in the past concerning gold plundered by the Japanese during WWII
and hidden in the Philippines – later to be recovered and "laundered" as treasure retrieved from Spanish galleons that had sunk while
traveling from Peru to Spain. A variation of this story is the recovery of lost "pirate treasure" – otherwise known as gold – on
the Cocos Islands.
Richard Bethell – elevated to Lord Westbury following the recent death of his father – is a former SAS and Scots Guards officer
and, like Alan Shepherd, an Old Harrovian. The Hart Group, of which he is the Chief Executive Officer, is one of a number of companies
that form the Global Marine Security Systems Company (GMSSCO).
A distinct cynic – as this writer has become – would easily conclude that a marked similarity in structure exists between GMSSCO
and Rolf van Rooyen's South African Eastcorp Syndicate that was closely allied with the London network of Executive Outcomes.
For example, companies belonging to the Eastcorp Syndicate also had a maritime and security theme.
APARTHEID'S
MISSING BILLIONS
But the similarity doesn't end there.
Lord Westbury is currently serving as Chief Executive Officer of Defense Systems Limited (DSL), which, as we have already seen,
is an integral member of the London network of the Palace Group (named so because of its close proximity to the royal family's official
London residence, Buckingham Palace).
46
Moreover, Executive Outcomes has been described as "the advance guard for major business interests engaged in a latter-day scramble
for the mineral wealth of Africa".
47
This is a particularly incisive description, and readers of the first part of this series will recall that one aspect of Project
Hammer apparently involved the disappearance of substantial quantities of gold reserves, as well as stocks of De Beers diamonds,
just prior to the takeover of the Republic of South Africa in 1994 by Nelson Mandela and the ANC. This theft has become known as
"apartheid's missing billions".
Defense Systems Limited has a client list that comes straight from the top drawer and includes oil and gas companies like British
Petroleum, Shell and British Gas of the UK and Amoco, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil and Texaco of the United States. Major mining and mineral
extraction companies such as Canada's Cambior and De Beers and Anglo American of South Africa also feature, as does the giant US
construction firm, Bechtel.
Another client is Canadian-based Ranger Oil, which by happy coincidence is the same name as an entity that forms part of the Palace
Group and which is run by arms trader Mick Ranger.
By miraculous good fortune, Mick Ranger was also a board member of Bridge SA – one of the entities formed and run by Rolf van
Rooyen and Riaan Stander. Meanwhile, Sandline, which many knowledgeable insiders believe is Executive Outcomes by another name, has
a client base that includes Rio Tinto Zinc.
DSL is now owned by Armor Holdings, Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida, but is still headquartered in London. This affiliation seems,
on the face of it, to be a particularly binding one, for Armor Holdings is said to have its very own US spook-type "network".
48
The senior executives of Armor Holdings are predominantly bankers of one strain or another. Take, for example, Thomas W. Strauss,
formerly a Vice Chairman of Salomon Brothers, the Wall Street investment bank that was once minority owned by the Oppenheimers' Anglo
American and De Beers strategic holding company, Minorco.
49
Until 1993, Salomons owned the controlling interest in the Bank of New York, which, as you will recall, is the current affiliated
clearing bank of Gregory Serras's Vanguard Capital. Today, Salomons is owned by Citigroup.
50
We might also mention Armor Holdings director Burtt R. Ehrlich, whose family securities firm, Ehrlich and Boger , is owned
by Cater Allen Bank of the Channel Islands, which specializes in "offshore finance"; likewise, Nicholas Sokolow, formerly
a partner in the Wall Street firm of Coudert Brothers , and Warren B. Canders, a former Senior Vice President of Orion
Bank Ltd , a merchant bank owned by the Royal Bank of Canada.
A subsidiary of Armor Holdings is the very shadowy United States Defense Systems, Inc. (USDS), which on paper is based
in Chantilly, Virginia, although its real operating headquarters are in Manassas, Virginia.
Staff recruited by USDS are usually former military types or specialists with criminal intelligence backgrounds and possessing
surveillance skills. They are usually told they will be working in support of Department of Defense programmes and will require a
DoD security clearance.
Operations in the past have included surveillance of US citizens during Fourth of July events at Capitol Mall in DC.
51
BIN LADEN AND SAUDI ARABIAN LINKS
A Google Internet search using the search term "Armor Holdings, Inc." revealed a curious message dated September 2001 from
an aggrieved investor:
"I'm horrified to find one of my investments is in a company with links to bin Laden. Apparently it is common knowledge in
London that a senior figure in Armor, Ambrose Cary, has familial ties to bin Laden and uses those in his work.
How can it be allowed that a US company providing security to US companies, embassies and airports round the world can deal
simultaneously with this type of person? Does anyone else have further information on this?"
Unsurprisingly, no answer to the question has been posted.
52
Had this been the first bin Laden connection, it is likely I would have ignored it. However, the name had already arisen during
a deposition given by Rolf van Rooyen to German police in 1995, following his detention and questioning. At that time, he admitted
to being "involved" with a Jean Ruiz, of Saudi Finance.
53
Saudi Finance (Saudifin), headquartered in Geneva, owned a controlling interest in Banque Al Saoudi via the Paris-based holding
company, Saudi Arab Finance Corporation . Banque Al Saoudi was, according to a 1999 PBS Online Frontline story, one of the
principal international financing vehicles for the bin Laden family.
Interestingly, in 1989 – in the early stages of Project Hammer's timeline – Banque Al Saoudi would have collapsed in bankruptcy
had it not been for the timely intervention of the French central bank, the Banque de France, which shored it up prior to a partial
takeover by none other than Banque Indosuez, which decided to change its name to Banque Française pour l'Orient.
A year later, the bank merged with the Mediterranée Group. Of note is the fact that a subsidiary, Saudifin SA, was active in Panama
until 1997, when it was dissolved.
54
Moreover, the Frontline story revealed that both Banque Al Saoudi and Banque Indosuez were "instrumental" in financing a portion
of Middle East weapons contracts during the 1970s and 1980s.
Meanwhile, those who are familiar with the story of black gold will recall that Dr Ole Bay was the controller on behalf of the
CIA and US Treasury in the YAB/42 bullion transaction that involved then President Marcos of the Philippines. This transaction was
structured to use cut-outs including Navegocian Global SA and DuPont , along with other CIA conduits, to make it ostensibly
a private, non-government transaction.
The transaction code YAB/42 is also instructive. Not only does "YAB" spelled backwards yield the name "BAY" but, altogether, 42
"major trusts were tapped to help fund" the deal. Coincidentally, 42 is also the number of countries in which Santa Romana gold was
deposited in the immediate post-WWII years to form the Black Eagle fund, discussed earlier.
55
One of the more salient facts about the Puffin Investments fiasco is that Alan Shepherd's American wife, Sherry, is the daughter
of Dr Ole Bay. Dr Bay is known to have been the "Master Wizard" who arranged and ran the Project Hammer trading programme.
According to one former intelligence source familiar with the inner workings of Project Hammer, Dr Bay had told him that the ultimate
responsibility for Hammer lay with the CIA and the US Treasury, and that Robert Rubin – who later became US Treasury Secretary –
acted as Dr Bay's "gofer" on the project. Robert Rubin is now a director and Chairman of the Executive Committee of Citigroup.
If one had to choose a word to describe these apparently diverse connections, that word would surely have to be "incestuous".
Currently, Li Ka-shing (whom we mentioned earlier) is bidding to purchase control of the global communication network giant, Global
Crossing (which was also mentioned earlier), via a joint venture of Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa and Singapore Technologies
Telemedia . Representing Ka-Shing's bid to take control of Global Crossing was the powerful neo-conservative attorney, Richard
Perle, who sought a nod of approval from the Pentagon for the deal.
Perle, who is one of the present Bush Administration "think-masters", is close to Bush Senior, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz
and to others on the Defense Policy Board , which he chaired. A recent story by legendary investigative reporter Sy Hersh
revealed that Perle had furtively met with a leading Saudi investor in Marseille, France, on 3 January 2003, in what was seen as
an attempt to gain private financial advantage from the planned war on Iraq.
A furious Perle responded to the report by calling Hersh a "terrorist". The meeting was arranged on Perle's behalf by none other
than Adnan Khashoggi (whom we mentioned earlier). Khashoggi also attended the meeting.
Khashoggi, a trusted adviser to the Saudi royal family, is one of the "high net worth individuals" whose past investments have
been handled by Mayo Shattuck, formerly head of Alex. Brown (also mentioned earlier). It is of passing interest that Saudi
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz took a 10% stake in Citigroup (also mentioned earlier) back in 1991, following a cash "infusion"
of US$400 million, which was eclipsed from view by The
Carlyle Group which acted as the
facilitator for the investment.
In 1997, Mayo Shattuck was made Trustee of the Bronfman (also mentioned earlier) family fortune. He resigned as CEO of Deutsche
Banc Alex. Brown on 12 September 2001, the day following the tragic events in New York City and Washington, DC – the day that
has come to be known as "9-11".
56
On 13 September 2001, news reports began circulating of suspicious stock market transactions that suggested prior knowledge of
the events that were to take place on 9-11 .
Short sales of airline and insurance stocks that sharply fell in price in the wake of the 9-11 tragedy were later traced back
to Alex. Brown.
Author's Note
Documents and other exhibits in support of this story are available
HERE .
Endnotes
27. See
http//www.marcosbillions.com
for some additional background on Roberto Benedicto and his willingness to front for Marcos. Additionally, I have a two-page
Marcos document listing details of the numerous bank accounts he controlled either directly or through others.
28. See Luigi DiFonzo's
St Peter's Banker (Franklin Watts, New York, 1983).
29. See William Scott
Malone's Golden Fleece (Regardies, October 1988).
30. See "
The Project Hammer File
" part one for background on van Rooyen and Stander's involvement in Project Hammer.
31. See news reports
circa 2000 of BoNY involvement in illegal money laundering activities with IMF funds on behalf of Russian criminal and political
figures.
32. See Everybody's
Business: An Almanac – The Irreverent Guide to Corporate America, edited by Milton Moskowitz, Michael Katz and Robert Levering
(Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1980).
33. Although this
may, of course, just be pure coincidence, it is worth noting.
34. For a comprehensive
account of the MGM/Credit Lyonnais affair, see David McClintick and Anne Faircloth's informative "Predator", which is freely available
on the Internet.
The interesting info here is that the article states Haftar's "eastern-based Libyan
National Army (LNA), backed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, France, Russia and
Turkey".
The NATO rift between Turkey and its other members has escalated with the Evil Outlaw US
Empire's Senate voting to recognize the Armenian Genocide and Greece to help the LNA (Bengazi
gov't) defend against Turkish shipments of militia/terrorists and weapons to the besieged GNA
in Tripoli. This
site is very helpful and up-to-date regarding what's occurring. And
this PDF Briefing Paper is very good and quite detailed.
All of the above's added to the tense situation around Cyprus, Turkey's threat to close
Incirlik, and Greek offers to house those NATO facilities. It increasingly looks like the
Turkish S-400s are aimed at Greece and NATO.
/div>
Viking guy at 40
"Today we are not members of the EU, but all the "regulations" are forced upon us anyway. The
EU is a non-democratic nightmare that must be demolished."
Absolutely. The EU is the 2nd biggest imperialist asshole on the block, benefitting from the
fact that 1st place is taken by the USA, which is far more blatant, in-your-face and
universally obnoxious when at it, and doing it even to the EU. The EU not being the ultimate
superpower, it can't bully the US or China and only does it when dealing with lesser powers.
That's why it's practically impossible for anyone living inside a major EU-member to actually
notice and be aware of the typical EU behaviour: to crush any lesser country and to force it to
abide by its very own rules, whether independent countries want it or not.
That the EU is that bad should have been clear and obvious to all during the Greek crisis, but
most Europhiles prefer to think this was just an accident, due to some bad apples, and that "If
only the Czar knew", this wouldn't happen. Well, UK is going to get hit badly with the future
deal, because an imperalist neo-liberal power like the EU - just like the US, but most of the
time without the military part of it - can only crush any opposition and make an example out of
it.
If the EU were a truly democratic endeavour, they would allow at least popular referendum at
EU-wide level, and possibly even initiatives, for starter. The way it works, the people have no
checks on it. Not a bit surprise though, most of its core members function this un-democratic
way.
Viking guy at 40
"Today we are not members of the EU, but all the "regulations" are forced upon us anyway. The
EU is a non-democratic nightmare that must be demolished."
Absolutely. The EU is the 2nd biggest imperialist asshole on the block, benefitting from the
fact that 1st place is taken by the USA, which is far more blatant, in-your-face and
universally obnoxious when at it, and doing it even to the EU. The EU not being the ultimate
superpower, it can't bully the US or China and only does it when dealing with lesser powers.
That's why it's practically impossible for anyone living inside a major EU-member to actually
notice and be aware of the typical EU behaviour: to crush any lesser country and to force it
to abide by its very own rules, whether independent countries want it or not.
That the EU is that bad should have been clear and obvious to all during the Greek crisis,
but most Europhiles prefer to think this was just an accident, due to some bad apples, and
that "If only the Czar knew", this wouldn't happen. Well, UK is going to get hit badly with
the future deal, because an imperalist neo-liberal power like the EU - just like the US, but
most of the time without the military part of it - can only crush any opposition and make an
example out of it.
If the EU were a truly democratic endeavour, they would allow at least popular referendum at
EU-wide level, and possibly even initiatives, for starter. The way it works, the people have
no checks on it. Not a bit surprise though, most of its core members function this
un-democratic way.
It's a bit like calling 9/11 an intelligence failure. First, identify the actual measure
of success against which this outcome should really be judged...
An excerpt:
"Here's the real "secret history" of the Afganistan war: It wasn't a failure, it was a
success. In every facet, on every front, Afghanistan is exactly what America needed it to be.
They dripfeed in the blood of young Americans, they destroy 100,000s of Afghan lives, and
they reap the rewards they always intended to reap:
The permanent slow-simmer conflict gives them an excuse to keep thousands of US military
personnel in a country which borders Iran, Pakistan AND China. (Not to mention a host of
ex-Soviet states).
It keeps military expenditure nice and high, so Congressman, ex-generals and everyone else
on the boards of Boeing or Lockheed Martin get great big bonuses every year.
They have sole access to the rare-Earth elements and other vital metals in the Afghan
mountains. Lithium, most importantly of all.
They have control of the world's opium industry. A vital cog in the relations of the US
intelligence agencies, and organised crime. It's essentially reverse money-laundering –
turning tax-payer funds into dark money that can be spent hiring mercenaries, organising
assassinations, arranging coups or simply be stolen.
They have access to all the "radicalised" young men they could ever want. A little Jihadi
farm, where "terrorists" can be named, trained and sent off to fight proxy wars in Syria, or
spread fear and chaos in the West."
Clapper and Brennan will be shaking in their boots after watching Barr's interview: done in
"bad faith" = SEDITION !!!! Deep State operatives...ie, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Stork, Lisa,
McCabe, should be held accountable. Obama should probably be impeached.
The hard fact is, that the top of the FBI knew, in advance, that the "dossier" was just bs
invented by Russian liars, for money, to be used as political lies for kilary's campaign. It
Wasn't evidence and Comey knew far in advance of crossfire hurricane. I can't see less than 20
years in comey's future. That same includes barak, brennan and clapper, who were all informed,
willing accomplices in this crime.
10:30
Whoever in FBI that intentionally misled the court using the Steele dossier knowing that the
dossier was "total rubbish" as Barr states, needs to be inditing immediately. Why we are
continuing to investigate instead of inditimg while continuing to investigate. Until these people
are held accountable I don't think our country will begin to heal and media and others apologize
to the country for the damage they have done.
7:49 -
"Comey refused to sign back up for his security clearance, and therefore couldn't be questioned
about classified matters." Well now, isn't that interesting. Haven't heard that one before.
In an exclusive interview, Attorney General William Barr spoke to NBC News' Pete Williams
about the findings on the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the Russia
investigation and his criticisms of the FBI.
I'm So glade we have a competent attorney General pushing back on the massive
disinformation narrative that comes from Giant News outlets of which are used to being
unchallenged, unchecked by today's "journalistic standards"
so this guy really asked Bahr"why not open an investigation even with little evidence?"
because is a violation of civil liberties to invade the privacy of law abiding citizens. You
need compelling evidence for something so huge
Horowitz should be instructed to edit or update his Report to discuss The Question of Bias
and Evidence of Bias. He has clearly misguided Americans with his choice of words and has
omitted important facts underpinning bias.
AG Barr is an outstanding role model, a man of integrity and wisdom, calm in a raging
political storm. I have full confidence he will make those who fabricated evidence and hid
exculpatory evidence finally face justice. AG Barr for President 2024!
Barr is a straight shooter and I love it. It sounds like we will get to the real truth
eventually through Durhams investigation I just hope it doesnt take another year to get to
the prosecutions.
So, I watched the interview... The video is called, "Full Interview: Barr Criticizes
Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation." Not once did I hear him criticize the
I.G.'s report. In fact, A.G. Barr clarified that the I.G.'s report was limited in scope
because of the limitations put on the I.G. He said that the report was appropriate.
It's scary to see how powerful the corruption of the Democratic Party has grown. It
represents a serious threat to all our personal freedom. The Democratic Party has to be
stopped.
Ok after watching this interview its quite clear that Barr and Durham is going after these
criminals and people are going to jail. Maybe there is hope for US yet becuase this dane
consider US atm a banana republic. Spying on political candidates? Forging documents? You FBI
behaving like Stalins secret police. Lets see what happen.
Amazing for the AG to go in deep into enemy territory at the heart of the opposition media
to lay out a case for the criminal activities that undermined our country prior to and after
the 2016 election. The deep state is trembling at the prospect of being held accountable
after all the facts are laid out to the american people that these activities cannot be
brushed aside or swept under the carpet if we are to continue as a country.
The corrupt media is trying to act like they have not been involved in this treasonous
scam since the beginning working directly with the treasonous cabal. The media has been lying
and pushing fake news for 3 years calling Trump a Russia agent and called him treasonous. I
knew the whole time that they were lying there was evidence from day one that this was all
lies and if I can see that from the public then they can definitely see that from the inside
they are purposefully lying.
I dare anyone on here to research Barr's History back to his involvement in the
assignation of JFK, the cover up, defending Nixon, Epstein, and many other illegal and
immoral activities. After reviewing the evidence, I walked away believing that Barr is trying
to cover up his tracks so he does do jail time. No need to reply. Either take my dare or not.
God Bless America and ALL her people, Stephan
The public are sick of waiting . I find myself skipping through a half hour news show in 5
minutes flat looking for arrests ,whereas before I was rivited to every minute of the half
hour show but it goes on and on and at the there is Nothiing .The Democrats are the masters ,
it's obvious . If they break the law they get off scott free . If you are republican wave bye
bye , you will be in jail for years . America is not the free and fair country it is all
cracked up to be . It is corrupted by the democrats who have peoiple in high places that
thwart real justice.
Mifsud approached George! Who was Mifsud working for (western asset) and why did he
approach George? He’s the one who offered George dirt on Hill. Then invited him to meet
the fake “niece”, of Putin, in England! What about this information? Someone set
George up to make this happen outside the US, because of EO 12333. It had to happen outside
the US so they could go to the fisa court!
I dont trust Christopher Wrey. He keeps slow-walking all the FBI documents and
declassifications. He also fights judicial watch and judges that rule in their favor and
continue not giving over what is ordered! This last judge was ready to hold him in contempt
for refusing to cooperate with court ordered documents.
Why did the FBI continue to investigate Trump after January when the case collapsed? To
try and find a way to impeach Trump. Remember the Washington Post headlined article right
after the inauguration "The effort to impeach President Donald John Trump is already
underway." The FBI "insurance" policy was essential!
As Tony Kevin reported (watch-v=dJiS3nFzsWg) at one small fundraiser
Bill Clinton made an interesting remark. He said that the USA should always have enemies. That's absolutely true, this this
is a way to unite such a society as we have in the USA. probably the only way. And Russia simply fits the
bill. Very convenient bogeyman.
Notable quotes:
"... The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium. ..."
One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who
pay attention to Asian affairs.
The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to
do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take
a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the
Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.
It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent
by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.
During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the
public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or
Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of
the country or it's history.
The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up
all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and
America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in
Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which
has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.
"... Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, recently freed from prison after his trial and conviction were deemed by the Supreme Court to have been a right-wing ruse, is vowing to challenge neo-Nazi president Jair Bolsonaro in the next presidential election. ..."
Trump's reinvigoration of the 19 th century imperialist Monroe Doctrine, which
Washington uses as a political lever to prevent the Western Hemisphere from adopting its own
foreign and domestic policies, has, once again, cast the United States in the light of an
oppressive overlord over the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Trump regime has returned to a Cold War playbook of color-coding Western Hemisphere
nations with red or pink for "socialist" and "communist." Falling into the "red" category are
Venezuela, which is suffering from crippling US-led economic, diplomatic, and trade sanctions,
and Nicaragua and Cuba, which are also subject to sanctions. Color-coded "pink" are Mexico and
Argentina, led by progressive presidents and which have shifted from their heretofore pro-US
stances. Argentina elected progressive leftist Alberto Fernández as president and, as
vice president, former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The Peronista left ticket
defeated incumbent right-wing president Mauricio Macri, a one-time real estate business crony
of Trump and someone who had abused the nation's security services in a failed attempt to dig
up dirt to target former President Kirchner in a bogus corruption court case. The same
CIA-backed "lawfare" operation was used to impeach and remove from office Brazilian leftist
president Dilma Rousseff and imprison her predecessor, the wildly popular Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, recently freed from prison after his trial and conviction
were deemed by the Supreme Court to have been a right-wing ruse, is vowing to challenge
neo-Nazi president Jair Bolsonaro in the next presidential election.
Trump and his Central Intelligence Agency's aggressive stance toward progressive hemispheric
governments have seen more transitions from the "red/pink" bloc to the fascistic and pro-US
bloc than the other direction. Ecuador has moved from the red/pink bloc to the blue as a result
of the pro-US policies of President Lenin Moreno, who served as vice president under the
leftist president Rafael Correa from 2007 to 2013. Moreno's threats against his predecessor
forced Correa to flee to political exile in Belgium. The recent right-wing coup in Bolivia was
supported by fascist leaders of Brazil and Colombia. Bolivia's democratically-elected president
Evo Morales was forced to flee to Mexico, which granted him political asylum.
The revanchist imperialism of the Trump administration has witnessed Moreno and Morales
being forced to flee the fascist "thugocracy" policies of their respective nations, which rely
on abusing the legal system to stifle dissent and imprison opposition politicians. The
governments of Chile and Peru have also firmly lined up with Washington and have engaged in
anti-opposition policies that, in the case of Chile, has led to bloodshed in the streets as a
result of brutal police actions.
A recent addition to the blue bloc from the pink/red coalition is Uruguay. After fifteen
years of rule by the left-wing Broad Front, the right-wing National Party's presidential
candidate, Luis Lacalle Pou, declared a razor-thin victory over Broad Front candidate Daniel
Martinez. One of Lacalle Pou's first decisions was to recognize the opposition Venezuelan
regime of the CIA puppet, Juan Guaido. Lacalle Pou also decided to align Uruguay with the Lima
Group, a bloc of US lackey regimes dedicated to overthrowing the Maduro government of
Venezuela. Lacalle Pou has also signaled his willingness to develop closer ties with the
Bolsonaro regime in Brazil and distance Uruguay from the Fernandez- Kirchner government of
Argentina. It is not secret that Argentina's Alberto Fernández supported the Broad
Front's Daniel Martinez for president.
Of special concern to progressive Uruguayans is the role that Lacalle Pou's coalition
partner, the Cabildo Abierto party of far-right winger Guido Manini Ríos, will play in
his government. If the CIA's lawfare operations in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia are
any indication, the Cabildo Abierto elements in Lacalle Pou's government, all supporters of the
former military junta's war against leftists in the 1970s, may seek the arrest of former
leftist presidents Jose Mujica, a leader of the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas in the 1970s, and
Tabaré Vázquez. The Latin American fascist acolytes of Trump, from Bolsonaro and
Bolivian politician Luis Fernando Camacho – known as the "Bolivian Bolsonaro" – to
Manini Ríos and Colombian President Ivan Duque, all share in common a desire to imprison
and even torture and execute the leftist opposition of their respective nations.
If the fascistic foreign policy power levers of the Trump White House, CIA, and State
Department have their way, another leftist leader in South America will face prison or worse.
Suriname's leftist president Desi Bouterse was recently convicted by a military court of the
extrajudicial executions of 15 political opponents in 1982, while he served as the military
leader of the former Dutch colony.
The death of the 15 opposition leaders may have been the work of the CIA, which launched a
coup attempt against Bouterse in 1982. In December 1982, the CIA worked closely with Dutch
intelligence to establish contacts with Bouterse's opposition in Suriname, including
politicians, businessmen, and journalists. The Dutch provided assistance to former President
Henck Chin a Sen and his Amsterdam-based opposition forces. The CIA plan included landing
Surinamese rebels in Paramaribo, the Suriname capital, and seize power. There were also reports
that the CIA planned to assassinate Bouterse during the coup, a direct violation of a White
House executive order banning assassinations of foreign leaders. The CIA's chief in-country
liaison for the coup was US ambassador to Suriname Robert Duemling.
A CIA dispatch from Suriname, dated March 12, 1982, describes the CIA's hands-on involvement
in the coup against Bouterse: "Dissident military officers opposing the leftist trend of the
military leadership launched a coup yesterday, but forces loyal to the government are still
resisting. The group, calling itself the Army of National Liberation, is led by two officers
who have been associated with conservative elements of the Surinamese society . . . Although
the rebels have control of the Army's main barracks and ammunition depot in Paramaribo,
government strongman Army Commander Bouterse and troops loyal to him apparently have taken up a
defensive position in the capital's police camp some 6 kilometers away. Fighting subsided
somewhat last night, with both sides claiming to be in control and appealing for support from
military troops and citizenry. A large number of rank-and-file military, who had objected to
Bouterse's leftist policies several months ago, probably will join the dissidents if Bouterse's
position weakens further." If anyone is responsible for the deaths of the opposition figures in
1982, one does not need to look beyond CIA headquarters in Langley and its interlocutors with
the Ford Foundation in New York.
Suriname's third largest ethnic group is Javanese, people who originally were settled by the
Dutch colonizers from Indonesia. In 1982, Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who spoke
fluent Javanese, was already well-entrenched with CIA programs in Java through her employment
with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ford Foundation. Dunham, who
used her Indonesian last name, re-spelled Sutoro from Soetoro, was a valuable asset for the
CIA's program to destabilize Suriname through its business-oriented and very anti-Bouterse
Javanese minority. Curiously, Ann Sutoro's employment contract with the Ford Foundation ended
in December 1982, the same month that the CIA attempted to oust Bouterse. During her 1981-1982
contract with the Ford Foundation, Dunham Sutoro spent much of her time liaising with the Ford
Foundation's headquarters in New York, a city that was also a base for the CIA-backed
Surinamese opposition.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Bouterse was on a state visit to China when the court delivered
its guilty verdict, along with a 20-year prison sentence. Bouterse seized power in 1980 during
an era that saw leftist leaders like Daniel Ortega and his Sandinistas, Panamanian President
Omar Torrijos, Ecuadorian President Jaime Roldos, Bolivian President Hernán Siles Zuazo,
Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley, and Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop all buck
Washington's influence in the hemisphere. Bouterse became a destabilization target of the
Ronald Reagan-George H. W. Bush administration. After stepping down from power in 1987,
Bouterse and his National Democratic Party returned to power when Bouterse was elected
president in 2010 and re-elected in 2015. In 2012, the National Assembly passed a bill that
granted Bouterse immunity from prosecution. It was later overturned by a court in another
blatant display of Washington-orchestrated lawfare. In 1999, the Dutch weighed in against
Bouterse by being convicted by a Netherlands court of drug-trafficking. Bouterse denies all the
claims against him and remains popular among the primarily Afro-Surinamese population.
The legal action against Bouterse appears to be part of the Trump administration's program
to curb China's international "Belt and Road Initiative," particularly in Latin America. Trump
has countered with his own contrivance, called the "Growth in the Americas" program. Peru has
signaled that it will join Argentina, Chile, Jamaica, and Panama in supporting the American
anti-Chinese bloc. It is clear that if Washington is able to depose Bouterse from power in
Suriname, it can prevent China from establishing a foothold in the country.
The Trump regime is attempting to move its chess pieces around on the Western hemisphere's
political chessboard. Increasingly, it will be up to exiled progressives like Correa and
Morales, as well as the recently-liberated Lula, to counter the march to fascist rule from
Tierra del Fuego to the Rio Grande.
The recent shootings of three U.S. soldiers in Florida at the hands of a Saudi citizen raises a standard question in the U.S.
government's perpetual "war on terrorism": "Why do they hate us?"
Soon after the 9/11 attacks, the official mantra began being issued: The terrorists just hate us for our "freedom and values."
No other explanation for motive was to be considered. If anyone suggested an alternative motive -- such as "They are retaliating
for U.S. governmental killings over there" -- U.S. officials and interventionists would immediately go on the attack, heaping a mountain
of calumny on that person, accusing him of treason, hating America, loving the terrorists, and justifying their attacks.
It happened to me and other libertarians who dared to challenge the official motive behind the 9/11 attacks. Shortly after the
attacks, I spoke at a freedom conference in Arizona consisting of both libertarians and conservatives. When I pointed out that the
attacks were the predictable consequence of a foreign policy that kills people over there, another of the speakers was filled with
anger and rage over such an "unpatriotic" suggestion. Then, a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, FFF published an article by me entitled,
" Is This the Wrong Time
to Question Foreign Policy? " in which I pointed out the role that U.S. interventionism had played in the attacks. FFF was hit
with the most nasty and angry attacks I have ever seen.
Eighteen years later, the evidence is virtually conclusive that the reason that the United States has been suffering a constant,
never-ending threat of terrorism is because U.S. military and CIA forces have been killing people in the Middle East and Afghanistan
since at least the end of the Cold War, and even before.
After all, if the terrorists hate us for our "freedom and values," why haven't they been attacking the Swiss? They have pretty
much the same freedom and values that Americans have. And they are much closer geographically to Middle East terrorists than the
United States is. Why haven't the terrorists been attacking them?
The answer is simple: the Swiss government, unlike the U.S. government, hasn't been killing, maiming, and injuring people and
hasn't been bombing and destroying countries in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
A long history of U.S. interventionism
U.S. interventions in the Middle East began, of course, long before the 9/11 attacks. There was the 1953 CIA coup that destroyed
Iran's experiment with democracy with a coup that replaced the democratically elected prime minister of the country with a tyrannical
pro-U.S. dictator. Not surprisingly, that produced the violent Iranian revolution almost 25 years later. The Iranian revolutionaries
didn't hate America for its "freedom and values." They hated America for the U.S. government's installation, training, and support
of the tyrannical regime against which they revolted.
In the 1980s, there was the sending of U.S. troops into Lebanon as interventionist "peacekeepers." The terrorists ended up blowing
up a Marine barracks, killing 241 U.S. soldiers. The terrorists didn't hate America for its "freedom and values." They hated America
for the federal government's interventionism into Lebanon. As soon as all U.S. troops were withdrawn from Lebanon, which was the
right thing to do, there were obviously no more deaths of U.S. soldiers in that country.
It was after the Pentagon and the CIA lost their official Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia), that they proceeded
headlong into the Middle East and began killing multitudes of people. There was the Persian Gulf War, waged without the constitutionally
required congressional declaration of war, where thousands of Iraqis were killed or injured. That was followed by a decade of brutal
sanctions against Iraq, which contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.
Thus, when Ramzi Yousef, one of the terrorists who tried to bring down the World Trade Center with a bomb in 1993, appeared before
a federal judge for sentencing, he angrily told the judge that it was U.S. officials who were the butchers, for killing multitudes
of innocent children in Iraq.
As those Iraqi children were dying, there were retaliatory terrorist strikes on the USS Cole and the U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Once again, however, U.S. officials continued to steadfastly maintain that was all about hatred for America's "freedom and values"
and had nothing to do with the deadly and destructive U.S. interventionism in the Middle East.
Then came Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against the United States, in which he expressly cited U.S. interventionism in
the Middle East as his motivating factor. That was followed by the 9/11 attacks, along with other terrorist attacks both here and
abroad. Through it all, U.S. officials and interventionists have blindly maintained that the terrorists hate us for our "freedom
and values," not because the U.S. government kills, maims, injures, and destroys people over there.
The recent Florida killings
And now we have the latest killing spree, this one at the hands of a Saudi citizen in Florida. According to
a story in yesterday's Washington Post about the killing of three U.S. soldiers, the killer, Ahmed Mohammed al-Shamrani
was described as "strange" and "angry." "He looked like he was angry at the world," said one person who knew him. Another said that
he looked at people in an "angry, challenging" way.
The article says that "the FBI has not yet determined a motive for the mass shooting."
Well, of course it hasn't. That's undoubtedly because the FBI hasn't yet found any statements in which the killer states that
he hates America for its "freedom and values."
But the Post article does point out something quite interesting. The article states: "The gunman, who was shot dead by
a sheriff's deputy responding to the shooting, is thought to have written a 'will' that was posted to the account a few hours before
the rampage. In it, he blasts U.S. policies in Muslim countries."
Well, isn't that interesting! Unfortunately, the Post didn't provide a verbatim transcript of the killer's "will" in which
he "blasts U.S. policies in the Muslim countries." The Post does point out though that "the writer says he does not dislike
Americans per se -- 'I don't hate you because of your freedoms,' he begins -- but that he hates U.S. policies that he views as anti-Muslim
and 'evil.'"
I n an article at antiwar.com entitled, " Pensacola: Blowback Terrorism ," Scott Horton provides a verbatim transcript of the
killer's "will," in which the killer states in part:
I'm not against you for just being American, I don't hate you for your freedom, I hate you because every day you supporting,
funding, and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity. I am against evil, and America as a whole has turned
into a nation of evil. What I see from America is the supporting of Israel which is invasion of Muslim countrie, I see invasion
of many countries by it's troops, I see Guantanamo Bay. I see cruise missiles, cluster bombs and UAV.
Now, if one goes back to Ramzi Yousef's sentencing hearing in 1995 -- some 24 years ago -- one will see that Yousef angrily said
much the same thing to the federal judge who was getting ready to sentence him to jail for his 1993 terrorist attack on the World
Trade Center.
Americans have a choice:
One, continue the U.S. government's decades-long killing spree in the Middle East, in which case America will continue to experience
never-ending terrorist retaliation, the perpetual "war on terrorism, and the ongoing destruction of our liberty and privacy at the
hands of our government, which is purportedly protecting us from the terrorist threats that it produces with its foreign interventionism.
Or, two, stop U.S. forces from killing any more people, bring them all home and discharge them, which would help get America back
on the right track, one toward liberty, peace, prosperity, morality, normality, and harmony with the world.
This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received
his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for
twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987,
Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced
freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren
shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch . View these interviews at
LewRockwell.com and from
Full Context
. Send him email .
The White House
In his
Farewell Address
, of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow
citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.
Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases
where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the
former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or
justification."
In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which
exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically
ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best
friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in
reality neither a friend nor an ally.
Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light
between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has
declared astonishingly
that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to
the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it
aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly
denounced any reduction
in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to
convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer
has identified himself
as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.
Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to
know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely
that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has
been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the
current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives
that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the
malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised
the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.
Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than
has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the
illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the
United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex
much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman
has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality
inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.
Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu
have recently been discussing
a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to
intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish
state. As Israel is now reportedly
considering the value
of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be
higher.
But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday
in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group
funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to
the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and
American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.
Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for
Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America,
saying that
"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I
have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have
Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience
should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying
"You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."
There was
considerable pushback
almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who
saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish
audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to
Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to
the United States.
In August he said
that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge
or great disloyalty."
And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has
raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans
that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your
politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows
very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to
power.
For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump
is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch
billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically
conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the
United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.
But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way
and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the
Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the
president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is
29% among Jewish voters nationwide
, according to a Gallup poll
while only 17% of Jews
voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic
president
might
have noticed the large number
of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out
to get him" in the impeachment hearings.
Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a
gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the
interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and
willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a
national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group,
and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a
favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major
war in which Americans will die.
Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated
and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants.
We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann
Coulter maintained that the president
didn't go far enough
in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start
slowly by getting them to like America?"
Philip Giraldi
December 12, 2019 |
Featured Story
Donald Trump and Israel: When Does a 'Passionate Attachment' Threaten National Security?
In his
Farewell Address
, of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his
fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of
evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common
interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of
the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter
without adequate inducement or justification."
In today's United States, there is no more
"passionate attachment" than that which exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously
cultivated by the media and the politically ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is
frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best friend and closest ally. But Israel,
with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in reality neither a friend nor an
ally.
Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light
between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has
declared astonishingly
that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled
to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even
call it aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly
denounced any reduction
in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to
Israel to convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer
has identified himself
as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.
Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would
like to know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it
is unlikely that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to
Israel by Democrats has been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that
has been the hallmark of the current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical
chairs line-up of neo-conservatives that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo
has been unstinting in its praise of the malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
but it is the president himself who has raised the level of adoration to heights previously not
observed coming out of the White House.
Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more
than has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US
Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has
declared the illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the
Palestinians and the United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by
the Jewish state to annex much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his
Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed
demonstrators and the everyday brutality inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.
Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu
have recently been discussing
a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States
to intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by
the Jewish state. As Israel is now reportedly
considering the value
of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not
be higher.
But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last
Saturday in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically
right-wing group funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is
also a close adviser to the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000
mostly well-heeled Israelis and American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more
years!" as the president was speaking.
Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for
Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America,
saying that
"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more,
I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you
have Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his
audience should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called
"Pocahontas," saying "You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your
wealth away."
There was
considerable pushback
almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals
who saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to
Jewish audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish
attachment to Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about
potential disloyalty to the United States.
In August he said
that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of
knowledge or great disloyalty."
And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he
has raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish
Republicans that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to
control your politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not
been asleep knows very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about
money. Money buys access to power.
For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald
Trump is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch
billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are
politically conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because
Trump is good for the United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought
or persuaded.
But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that
way and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice
for the Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many
Jews, so the president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His
approval rating is
29% among Jewish voters nationwide
, according to a Gallup poll
while only 17% of Jews
voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the
narcissistic president
might
have noticed the large number
of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be
"out to get him" in the impeachment hearings.
Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something
like a gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent
the interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is
able and willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is
unthinkable that a national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any
specific ethnic group, and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable,
particularly as in this case it is a favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US
interests and could easily lead to a major war in which Americans will die.
Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a
dedicated and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get
what it wants. We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech,
conservative pundit Ann Coulter maintained that the president
didn't go far enough
in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we
start slowly by getting them to like America?"
In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which
exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically
ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best
friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in
reality neither a friend nor an ally.
Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light
between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has
declared astonishingly
that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to
the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it
aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly
denounced any reduction
in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to
convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer
has identified himself
as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.
Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to
know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely
that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has
been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the
current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives
that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the
malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised
the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.
Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than
has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the
illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the
United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex
much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman
has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality
inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.
Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu
have recently been discussing
a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to
intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish
state. As Israel is now reportedly
considering the value
of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be
higher.
But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday
in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group
funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to
the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and
American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.
Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for
Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America,
saying that
"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I
have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have
Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience
should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying
"You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."
There was
considerable pushback
almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who
saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish
audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to
Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to
the United States.
In August he said
that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge
or great disloyalty."
And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has
raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans
that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your
politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows
very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to
power.
For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump
is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch
billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically
conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the
United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.
But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way
and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the
Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the
president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is
29% among Jewish voters nationwide
, according to a Gallup poll
while only 17% of Jews
voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic
president
might
have noticed the large number
of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out
to get him" in the impeachment hearings.
Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a
gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the
interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and
willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a
national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group,
and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a
favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major
war in which Americans will die.
Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated
and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants.
We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann
Coulter maintained that the president
didn't go far enough
in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start
slowly by getting them to like America?"
The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture
Foundation.
Spotlight on defense authorization bill: Saudi Arabia wins big with assist from
Kushner
The White House secured a major reprieve for Saudi Arabia this week by convincing
Congress to drop several provisions from its annual defense bill before the House passed it
on Wednesday. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week. Gone are sanctions on
key Saudi officials for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and restrictions on US
support for Riyadh's campaign in Yemen. The New York Times reports that President Donald
Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner – who reportedly maintains a
direct WhatsApp line with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – played a key role in the
negotiations.
The United Arab Emirates also came out ahead as the final bill removes language
taking aim at the $8 billion in emergency arms sales to Gulf countries that Trump
authorized in May citing the threat of Iran. The UAE had lobbied against these provisions
and also opposed calls for a report detailing the "military activities" of the UAE, Saudi
Arabia and other international actors in Libya. . The final bill no longer singles out
specific countries but still requires "a detailed description of the military activities of
external actors" in the country.
We always stick by our friends, through thick and thin and murder, and war crimes, and
terrorism, and well, all of it. After all, what are friends for?
"... Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and special adviser, wrote in the New York Times that the definition "makes clear [that] Anti-Zionism is antisemitism". ..."
Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and special adviser, wrote in the New York
Times that the definition "makes clear [that] Anti-Zionism is antisemitism". I'm a
Zionist. But on a college campus, where the purpose is to explore ideas, anti-Zionists have a
right to free expression.
I suspect that if Kushner or I had been born into a Palestinian family displaced in 1948, we
might have a different view of Zionism, and that need not be because we vilify Jews or think
they conspire to harm humanity. Further, there's a debate inside the Jewish community whether
being Jewish requires one to be a Zionist. I don't know if this question can be resolved, but
it should frighten all Jews that the government is essentially defining the answer for us.
The real purpose of the executive order isn't to tip the scales in a few title VI cases, but
rather the chilling effect. ZOA and other groups will hunt political speech with which they
disagree, and threaten to bring legal cases. I'm worried administrators will now have a strong
motivation to suppress, or at least condemn, political speech for fear of litigation. I'm
worried that faculty, who can just as easily teach about Jewish life in 19th-century Poland or
about modern Israel, will probably choose the former as safer. I'm worried that pro-Israel
Jewish students and groups, who rightly complain when an occasional pro-Israel speaker is
heckled, will get the reputation for using instruments of state to suppress their political
opponents.
Antisemitism is
a real issue, but too often people, both on the political right and political left, give it a
pass if a person has the "right" view on Israel. Historically, antisemitism thrives best when
leaders stoke the human capacity to define an "us" and a "them", and where the integrity of
democratic institutions and norms (such as free speech) are under assault.
... ... ...
Kenneth Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, and the author
of the forthcoming The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus
Debate
"I wish that people would realize that to interfere, in any way shape or form in wars that
occur in Islamic States is pissing into the wind.
We simply cannot and do not understand the religious/tribal and feudal component of these
societies.
It is better that we just let them go at each other. Sooner or later one despot will end
up being top dog - so be it."
Hmm. Do you know the history of colonialism in MENA? I did not think so.
My guess is that your 'knowledge' of Afghanistan and its history is based on your obvious
xenophobia aka Islamophobia and lofty Western superiority complex. Don't feel alone, that's
what folks use to make themselves feel better and able to sleep at night. Check this out:
"Despite close relations to the Axis powers, Zahir Shah refused to take sides during World
War II and Afghanistan remained one of the few countries in the world to remain neutral. In
1944 and 1945, Afghanistan experienced a series of revolts by various tribes.[13] After the
end of the Second World War, Zahir Shah recognised the need for the modernisation of
Afghanistan and recruited a number of foreign advisers to assist with the process.[14] During
this period Afghanistan's first modern university was founded.[14] During his reign a number
of potential advances and reforms were derailed as a result of factionalism and political
infighting.[15] He also requested financial aid from both the United States and the Soviet
Union, and Afghanistan was one of few countries in the world to receive aid from both the
Cold War enemies.[16] In a 1969 interview, Zahir Shah said that he is "not a capitalist. But
I also don't want socialism. I don't want socialism that would bring about the kind of
situation [that exists] in Czechoslovakia. I don't want us to become the servants of Russia
or China or the servant of any other place."[17]
Zahir Shah was able to govern on his own during 1963[9] and despite the factionalism and
political infighting a new constitution was introduced during 1964 which made Afghanistan a
modern democratic state by introducing free elections, a parliament, civil rights, women's
rights and universal suffrage.[14]"
As Tony Kevin reported (watch-v=dJiS3nFzsWg) at one small fundraiser
Bill Clinton made an interesting remark. He said that the USA should always have enemies. That's absolutely true, this this
is a way to unite such a society as we have in the USA. probably the only way. And Russia simply fits the
bill. Very convenient bogeyman.
Notable quotes:
"... The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium. ..."
One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who
pay attention to Asian affairs.
The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to
do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take
a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the
Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.
It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent
by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.
During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the
public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or
Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of
the country or it's history.
The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up
all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and
America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in
Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which
has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.
This war is 18 years old. It's no longer a minor in the eyes of the law. It's old enough to
think for itself, to vote, to move out of the house and get it's own place. Afghanistan will
figure it out. Once we withdraw to allow Afghanistan to return to self-governance.
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed
without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia
over the 2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the
Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives
from the U.S. media were utter
frauds .
Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power
– its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to
demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in
order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page
during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence,
and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in
order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal,
what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a building
named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers
and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because that's what
these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state
factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and
civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide
this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with proof of
FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not
true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the
Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.
The US lied about the Gulf of Tonkin in order to justify attacking North Vietnam, it then
proceeded to lie about the conduct of the war and the terrible genocide it was committing. No
lesson learned because in a heartbeat the US was lying about Chile, Brazil, Argentina,
Colombia, Nicaragua and El Salvador, committing a wide range of atrocities in each.
Add Somalia, Libya, proxy wars in Angola and Yemen, efforts to destabilize Cuba, Venezuela
and Iran, illegal wars in the Lebanon and Syria, the annihilation of Afghanistan in
retaliation for what was actually a Saudi terrorist act, the destruction of modern Iraq and
her people using trumped up claims, to say nothing of Clinton's cheery disregard for the
welfare of Balkan residents when the US rained (illegal) uranium bombs down on the hapless
inhabitants.
And now the WP and Congress are worked up over spending a trillion dollars when plainly
they could care less about the Afghan casualties and American war crimes. Heck this goes back
to Theodore Roosevelt seizing Cuba claiming he was saving it from the ravages of Spain or
even further back to government backed settler land grabs "saving their white women from the
savages". Savages, indeed. Zero accountability and Britain still playing faithful lap
dog.
My take on this is that the American Department of Defense war machine remained in a state of
perpetual excitement after their successes in WW11.. almost as if they had to continuously
invent an enemy in order to maintain their war time budget.. (and therefore demonstrate their
ongoing prowess etc etc) in a cycle of wars starting with Korea and bringing us up to date
with Afghanistan.. so that's nearly 70 years worth of international hubris on display.
All on the excuse of spreading their version of democracy.. is money talks!!
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential
for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the
weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take
nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper
meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods
and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
That both the Afghan war and the invasion of Iraq could happen at all tells us that the UN
Security Council is not fit for purpose. These wars also told us that British pretense at
being the voice of reason or the steadying hand that prevents US foreign policy being
subsumed by the visceral and synthesised reactions of a US public is no more than empty cant.
If the US is unable to prevent foreign and defence policy being captured by money
interests and remains inclined to deliver revenge to its public on demand howsoever it might
be misdirected then the US should not be on the UN Security Council at all. They are fast
becoming the number one major rogue state. And the outlook suggests this is more likely to
get worse than improve. Whatever happens to Trump One more (and likely smarter) Trumps are
coming down the track. More Dick Cheneys too. More Bushes, more Rumsfelds, more Nixons,
Boltons, Kissingers, Johnsons and a host of others we'd all much rather were one offs. The US
is the biggest extant threat to world peace. It is too powerful and far too easily played by
warmongers and terrorists of every stripe and every persuasion. And by those seeking to
profit from war.
To call war profiteering and murder a geopolitical "mistake" is to EXCUSE criminal activity.
Anyone responding to this latest revelation of military dishonest as a "mistake" is
actually part of the crime. They are aiding the abettors. Everyone in Congress knows what
everyone in this comments section knows: our military and its global actions are, first and
foremost, a financial fraud.
But not American oil companies which were basically shut out outside of a few minor service
and procurement contracts. Looks like all the "Blood for Oil" poster were BS.
The Iraq War was only partly, however, about big profits for Anglo-American oil
conglomerates - that would be a bonus (one which in the end has failed to materialise - not
for want of trying though).
Yes, and it made no conclusion as to whether the war was legal or not.
" The inquiry did not reach a view on the legality of the war , saying this
could only be assessed by a "properly constituted and internationally recognised court", but
did make a damning assessment of how the decision was made."
Just think - the USA spends more on its military then the combined amount of the next 10
nations in the list (incl. China/Russia/India). That is a major major spend commitment. A
small percentage of that could be used for US citizens to fund their healthcare - but I
suppose they prefer to spend it to threaten and bomb other nations to their will.
Just to think - a similar report was produced post Vietnam and in the 50's even Eisenhower
was worried about the US military backed by private companies becoming a perpetual spending
machine.
But there's one big question the Post report raises but does not address: why? Why did
so many people – from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to
state department and National Security Council officials – feel the need to lie about
how the war in Afghanistan was going?
Because "how the war is going" is not the operating question. Because it does not matter
if the war is just or unjust, whether it's winnable or not winnable, nor whether it's
supported in the "homeland" or not. No, the operating principle is that there is a war. By
its existence, the war creates funding and jobs and profits for the people that matter, the
people the author mentions, from the Security/Military complex corporations all the way to
careerists in the Pentagon and State.
So, it is NOT a waste of $1 trillion dollars ... it is just as it was supposed to be. That
is why the war president (W), the peace president (Obama), and the swamp drainer (Trump) have
all supported it. The war is doing what it's supposed to do.
In time, the US national debt will force them to rein in their military spending. By lowering
taxes while continuing to spend like drunken sailors on military adventures the national debt
is ballooning. US government debt is currently rated AA whereas Canada is AAA. US debt to GDP
is significantly higher than Canada's. (and that's just Canada vs the US). Trump is trying to
create a mafia style protection racket to force other countries to subsidize reckless US
military spending. "Pay up or who knows what might happen?" It is high time US taxpayers ask
why the US can't lower its' out of control military spending rather than pressuring others to
match their profligate ways? Some US citizens say they pay low taxes but it seems they get
nothing in return; no health care, no equal access to education, decaying public
infrastructure, etc. The rest feel overtaxed when they realize they get nothing in return but
don't question the elephant in the room. If other countries maintain responsible levels of
military spending the US will dig itself deeper into debt until the debt markets force them
to see sense.
Military spending is a fine way to transfer wealth from the general population to the rich.
War has always been a fabulous business opportunity, but what has never been so very clear is
how, even for the winning side, it represents a major defeat as wealth is transferred from
the common good into the hands of the rich.
In such matters always consider 'Who will prosper'.
Follow the money...
Considering the United States has been involved in one war or another, directly or
indirectly, for all but about 20 years of its existence, this latest revelation shouldn't
shock anyone. We're a violent country with a violent history and never more so than now, with
our built-on-conflict empire losing steam. We point fingers ("It's the Russians!" "It's the
Chinese!" It's the Iranians!") to deceive ourselves and others, but we're the real threat to
peace. Us. The United States.
Every time I see a person on the street nobly collecting 50ps or the odd fiver for a good
cause like Cancer Research or some other charity, I wonder why they have to do this when the
US has spent over a USD$1 trillion on the Afghan war and other militaries continue to soak up
massive amounts of funding. How much more could we have achieved by now for the real good of
humanity if these funds were focused on research and real human need?
Te US military has been practicing genocide around the world since WW2, millions have been
murdered and still are. But hey, they are the leaders of the free world, the corruption in
the US government, corporations, and military has no bounds. Their own poorer members of this
society are dying in their thousands for lack of medical care, innocent black people are
murdered by police, yet the greed must go on nothing else matters. The only question now
being, which country will they invade next, which government will they plot to overthrow. How
many will be murdered in the process, not that it matters, greed cannot be measured in dead
people.
World peace and the safety of the American public has never been a priority. Entirely the
opposite. Standard procedure: foment fear to wage immoral, endless, profitable war.
This isn't conjecture or "conspiracy theory"; it's as obvious as the sun rising. Anyone
casting this in any other way is either behind the curve or dangerously soft pedaling -- or
lying to stave off actual accountability.
Please stop pretending that our "leaders" are mistaken. They aren't They're doing the jobs
for which they were paid.
It's worse even than a crime... it's insanity to keep excusing a failed 18 year strategy
costing a trillion dollars, resulting in the death of more than 100,000, and the country
ending up worse than when they started. The military, politicians and the media are all to
blame. The military for being too frightened and too stupid to admit they were losing and had
no idea how to correct it.. the politicians for being too frightened to call out their
beloved but incompetent military, and for not "getting it" after more than a trillion dollars
had already been spent; the press and media for being embedded (sometimes literally) with the
military and acting as no more than unquestioning cheerleaders for a self-evidently failed
strategy. It is a terrible indictment of the US on so many levels... where were the public
anti-war protests or activists? Couldn't they see or didn't they care? Either way it's
pathetic.
Almost every year US generals stood before the media and politicians, jutting jaws and
feeble minds, to say that this year was going to be decisive against the Taliban. The fact
is, after Al Qaeda was scattered in 2001, the US picked on the Taliban pointlessly. They
stayed pretending they were engaged in countering the return of al Qaeda (that was never
going to happen) but actually made a new enemy of the Taliban by picking the wrong side in
what was a civil war. The US never understood what it was trying to do so it lied and lied
out of fear of being found out. I find it sickening that this country -the US - pretends it
is a force for good in the world when they are quite prepared to keep killing innocent people
in order to mask the generals' cowardice about facing the truth of their own
incompetence.
A terrible but interesting dichotomy. You have Governments and a broad part of the public
fiercely opposed to public spending and any kind of redistribution. It is all about the
individual.
Yet they sport and actually worship an institution where the individual counts for naught.
In the military it always is about the collective. They throw huge swaths of money to the
military. Which is the only place in the US where dreaded universal healthcare, pensions and
free education exists. Not only that, even the army shops sell goods as subsidised prices,
something unthinkable outside the barracks.
Entirely intentional according the PNAC document Rebuilding America's Defences, Orwellian for
we're going to make a lot of pointless weapons with huge mark-ups for profit by bombing the
shit out of foreigners.
I was listening to NPR about how Veterans turned against the Vietnam war. The people of south
Vietnam would collect shells and explosives that did not detonate and gave to US troops for a
small financial reward. In one such case - the shell exploded killing few kids and injuring a
girl. That girl was refused treatment from US medics because she was one of them. That
soldier involved later joined the anti war movement.
All the veterans were surprised with the image that soldiers coming back from war were spat
at and disrespected by the anti war protesters - this could not have been further from truth.
Back in Vietnam you were taught how to destroy a village, poison drinking water sources
etc. And understandably many GIs fought back.
There are similar stories out of Afghanistan - the naked prisoners with soldiers acting as
if they are engaging in a sexual act and many such shameless incidents. These soldiers were
acquitted which is another way of saying - An Afghan and his life and honor are below us. It
has de-stabilized the region for many decades.
There is a bright side to Donny and his conmen - maybe there will be less intervention and
more introspection - which can only be good for the World.
I think it should have been seen as a thirty year campaign and the same with Iraq and Libya.
The northern Ireland campaign took 30 years and many people are as bitter as they ever were
much of it secondhand from younger people who weren't even alive during the conflict. The
idea of a quick war is a very big mistake I think and flawed short-term thinking.
The West and the USA in particular have always taken the stand that their ideology is the
only right one. That they have a right to interfere in the interns, affairs of other
countries but their own internal affairs are sacrosanct.
So - USA, with UK support decided that Saddam Hussein had to be removed. They moved in to
do so - they killed Saddam but had no plan to return the country to a functioning nation.
Instead they facilitated the unleashing of internal wars and have now left the citizens of
that country in utter turmoil.
& then went and repeated the exercise n Libya.
Decades ago, Britain decided that Palestinians could be thrown out of their homes to make
way for the creation of Israel and laid the foundation for the Middle-East turmoil that has
caused untold misery and suffering. They followed that up with throwing out the Chagosians
out of their homes and making them homeless. Invited Caribbean's to the 'Mother Country' to
serve their erstwhile lords, ladies, masters and mistresses only to then drive to despair the
children and grandchildren of the invitees who had contributed to the 'Mother Country' for
decades.
We are 18 years into an illegal invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. We are the invaders,
the terrorists. The Taliban are fighting for their country, they may use brutal methods but
so did the French, Dutch, Russian freedom fighters during the Nazi invasions. America's
puppet regime in Afghanistan is reminiscent of the Quislings of WW2. And to use drones to
kill Afghans and to say it is progress that there is more transparency is the height of
hubris. All it does is show the corrosive effect of unfettered power in America and it's
military. Why do we tolerate this inhuman action on another country's society? America is by
far the greatest contributor to the rise in terrorism in the world and if not somehow stopped
the greatest threat to world peace. It keeps on invading country after country with it's MSM
propaganda machine claiming it is spreading Democracy throughout the globe. Thank you America
!
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I have just finished reading William
Shirer's
Berlin Diary
. (This may not fascinate you, but I am coming to something.) I first
encountered it in high school. It is of course Shirer's account as a correspondent in Germany of the rise of
the Nazis. Most of it is well known to the educated. The Nazis, who had control over the domestic press,
convinced the German population that the Poles were threatening Germany, as plausible as Guatemala
threatening the United States. The Poles were said to be committing atrocities against Germans.
Then the Reich, with no justification
whatever, having absolute air superiority, attacked Poland, bombing undefended cities and killing huge
numbers of people. It was a German pattern several times repeated. Many reporters told of the smell of
rotting bodies, of refugees dying of hunger and thirst. Today the Reich is endlessly remembered as a paragon
of evil. It was.
How did Nazi Germany differ from the
United States today? There is the same lying. Washington insisted that Iraq was about to get nuclear
weapons, biological agents, that it had poisonous gas. None of this was true. The government, unimpeded by
the media, persuaded over half of the American population that Iraq was responsible for Nine-Eleven. Now it
says that Iran works to get nuclear weapons, and of course that the Russians are coming. The American press,
informally but strictly controlled, carefully doesn't challenge any of this.
Having prepped the American public as the
Nazis prepped theirs, Washington unleashed a savage attack against Iraq, deliberately destroying
infrastructure, leaving the country without power or purified water. The slaughter was godawful. But, said
America, the war was to rid the Iraqi people of an evil dictator, to bring them democracy, freedom, and
human rights. (The oil was entirely incidental. The oil is always incidental.)
Fallujah, Iraq, after the American military brought it democracy, human rights, and freedom.
Guernica, after the visit of the Kondor Legion. For the historically challenged, this was the Spanish
city bombed during the Spánish Civil War by the Germans in support of the Falangists.
Washington never sleeps in its campaigns to improve the lives of people
whose most fervent wish is that America stop improving their lives. To give the Afghans democracy, human
rights, and American values, the US has for eighteen years been bombing, bombing, bombing a largely
illiterate population in a nation where America has no business. It is a coward's war with warplanes
butchering peasants who have no defenses. The pilots and drone operators who do this deserve contempt, as
does the country that sends them. How many more years? For what purpose? And how were the German Nazis
different?
The German Gestapo perpetrated sickening
torture in hidden basements. America does the same, mainltaining torture prisons around the world. In these,
men, and no doubt women, are hung by their wrists for days, naked in very cold rooms, kept awake and
periodically beaten (exactly as described by survivors of Soviet torture. Nazis, whether American, Russian,
or German, are Nazis.)
Photos of Iraqis at the American torture
operation at Abu Ghraib showed prisoners, almost naked, lying in pools of blood. Tell me, please, how this
differs from what was done by the Reich? (The bloodier photos are no longer online. Many that remain seem to
have been edited.)
Abu Ghraib.
A happy American girl soldier. Note rubber gloves. The US military used many
female soldiers for this duty. They apparently were kinky, as they seemed to get a kick out of it. A
female general ran the operation.
Gina Haspel, head of the CIA, is a sadist
who tortured Moslem prisoners, reminiscent of Ilse Koch, the notorious Nazi torturess, who also worked in
prisons. It is easy to find victims there, I suppose.
An Abu Ghraib pic apparently no longer online. I found it on an ancient memory stick. Are we having
fun yet?
President Trump has just
pardoned
several American war criminals, saying he wanted to give US soldiers the "confidence to
fight." This amounts to blanket permission to commit atrocities. A purpose of military training being to
extirpate human decency and mercifulness, the obscene barbarism is not surprising. Atrocities are what
soldiers do, and will do as long as the wars go on, being furiously denied by the government. (When I
covered Force Recon, the Marine Corps Special Forces, the motto on the wall was "Crush Their Skulls and Eat
Their Faces.")
Perhaps the best known example of
implied approval was Nixon's pardon of Lt. Calley, who ordered the murder of Vietnamese villagers, for which
he received three years of house arrest.
The Germans wanted empire,
lebensraum,
and resources, in particular oil. Americans want empire and oil, control of which allows
control of the world They go about getting them by invasion and intimidation. Thus America wants to bring
democracy and human rights to Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Nigeria, which have
lots
of oil, while it
has occupation troops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Mideast. What part of Syria is Trump
occupying? Surprise, surprise! The part with the oil. Oil for the Americans, land for the Germans.
As Shirer points out, the German public
was not enthusiastic about the war, at least not through 1940, as neither is the American public today.
Neither public showed any concern about the hideousness its government inflicted around the world. What is
the difference?
The parallels with the Reich are not
complete. Washington does not essay genocide against Jews or blacks or any other internal population, being
content with killing whoever its bombs fall upon. Trump cannot reasonably be likened to Hitler. He lacks the
vision, the backbone, and apparently the viciousness. Hitler was a very smart, very evil man who knew
exactly what he was doing, at least politically. This cannot be said of Trump. However, Hitler was, and
Trump is, surrounded by freak-show curiosities of great bellicosity. Adolf had Goering, Goebbels, Himler,
Rheinhardt Heydrich, Julius Streicher, Eichman. Trump has John Bolton, as amoral and pathologically
aggressive as any in the Fuehrer's entourage, or under a log. Pompeo, a bloated toad of a man, bears an
uncanny resemblance to Goering. Both he and Pence are Christian heretics, Evangelicals, who believe they are
connected to God on broadband. O'Brien sounds like Bolton. All want war with Iran and perhaps with China and
Russia. Sieg heil, and run like hell.
My Lai, after Lt. Calley of the SS Totenkopf Div excuse me, the Americal Division, I meant to say,
brought human rights, freedom, and the American way.
Wikipedia:
"Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were killed by U.S. Army soldiers Victims
included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated as
were children as young as 12.")
For this Calley got three years house
arrest, less than the sentence for a bag of methamphetamine, until pardoned by Nixon. Many Americans said,
and many still say, that he should not have been punished at all, that we needed to take the gloves off, let
the troops fight. Again, this is what Trump said.
The German Nazis worshiped Blood and
Soil, the land of Germany and the Teutonic race, which they believed to be genetically superior to all
others. Americans can't easily worship race. Instead they think themselves Exceptional, Indispensable, a
Shining City on a Hill, the greatest civilization the world has known. Same narcissism and arrogance,
slightly different foundation.
Nazi Germany was, like Nazi America,
intensely militaristic. The US has hundreds of bases around the world (China has one overseas base, in
Djibouti), spends appallingly on the military despite the lack of a credible military enemy. It currently
buys new missile submarines (the Columbia class), aircraft carriers (the Ford class), intercontinental
nuclear bombers (the B21), and fighter planes (the F-35).
Nazi Germany attacked Poland, Norway,
Belgium, France, Russia, America, and England. America? Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, supports a
brutal proxy war against Yemen (Yemen is a grave threat to America), threatens Venezuela, China, and Iran
with attack, embargoes Cuba. These are recent. Going back a bit, we have Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Yugoslavia, the intervention in Panama, on and on. Millions and millions killed.
The Third Reich was, and America is, the
chief threat to peace on the planet, a truly rogue state.
Is this something to be proud of?
Other stuff
La FIL,
Feria Internacional
de Libros
, International Book Fair, Guadalajara, an annual event. I post the photo with the joyous sense
of mischief of an eleven-year-old poking a nest of wasps. It will infuriate the Dissident Right, or Alt
Right, or Race Realists. Their leaders excepted, most of these are ill-tempered naifs who insist, and seem
to hope desperately, that Latin Americans are illiterate. I occasionally have conservative friends down and
they are astonished to find that Guadalajara, a large international city, has the sorts of bookstores had by
large international cities. Duh. (If interested,
here
are a couple of dozen.)
Another and cherished conceit of the
Dissident Right is that Latin Americans who can read must be white. Well, I guess. Why, you could easily
mistake the crowd above for Norwegians. Their ancestors probably arrived with Leif Erikson.
Merry Christmas to all! Happy "Winter
Holidays" to none.
Write Fred at
[email protected].
Put the letters "pdq" anywhere in the subject line to avoid autodeletion. All read, reply not guaranteed due
to volume.
This meritorious and beneficial column
will go into hibernation until after New Year, after which it will likely return.
It's almost a century since Smedley Butler wrote his incisive pamphlet War is a Racket.
If you've never read it, it takes about 15-20 minutes to do so. It will astound, anger and
depress you that the only thing that's changed is the number or zeroes on the eye waterering
profits. Oh, and the players. What is it exactly that makes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
untouchable? (Answers on a postcard C/O Beelzebub.)
Smedley Butler knew of what he lectured about, being the most decorated officer in the
history of the Marine Corps.
A brief insight into this insightful all American action man man Hollywood seems to have
overlooked:
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this
country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks
from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time
being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In
short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I
helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues
in.
I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall
Street.
"The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international
banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for
American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its
way unmolested.
"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket.
Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could
do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
There's been a century of endless war and profits since then with this century shaping up
nicely for the racketeers, whose finest day might well have been September 11th, 2001.
Anyway, here's a link to a pdf file of War is a Racket if you're interested.
Speaking
before Sheldon Adelson's Israeli-American Council the other day, Trump took a shot at Jewish
Americans who he says don't "love Israel enough."
"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more," Trump
said . "We have to get them to love Israel more because you have people that are Jewish
people, that are great people – they don't love Israel enough. You know that."
Typical of Trump, this is scatter-brained. He begins by talking about "the people of our
country," which sounds like everyone, but ends up focusing on Jews who "don't love Israel
enough." In either case, Trump talks rubbish.
First off, observe that although Trump stands accused of fomenting anti-Semitism by such
remarks, he actually turns the loyalty issue upside-down. He doesn't say that some Jewish
Americans are too loyal to Israel (presumably at the expense of America), which is
what a classic anti-Semite would say, but that they are not loyal enough. Recall that he
previously labeled Jews who vote for Democrats
"disloyal." Disloyal to whom? Disloyal to Israel! We know this because he's criticized
the Democratic Party for "defending [Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who sympathize with
the Palestinians] over the State of Israel." Trump's critics seem to overlook this twist
because it doesn't fit their stock narrative.
But turning to the matter at hand, Trump now entitles us to ask: what's so lovable about
Israel anyway? The modern state was founded through a campaign of ethnic cleansing –
violent expulsion of Arabs, that is, non-Jews, from their long-held properties – and
outright massacres and terrorism. For the next couple of decades it subjected those who
avoided expulsion to martial law. Then in 1967 it conquered the remainder of Palestine, the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, creating new refugees. Since then Israel has denied the inhabitants
of those territories all rights while the Israeli occupiers built privileged Jewish-only
settlements and otherwise usurped the land it acquired through aggressive force –
contrary to morality and international law. The West Bank today resembles apartheid South
Africa. But things are even worse in Gaza, a small, crowded piece of land under blockade that
dissenting Israelis call a concentration camp and others euphemistically refer to as merely
the world's largest open-air prison. Gaza consists largely of refugees from the 1947-48
ethnic cleansing and their families.
So, I ask again, what's lovable about Israel? Is it because Israel calls itself the
nation-state of the Jewish people (whether or not they live or want to live there) and Jews
were treated horribly by Christian Europe, culminating in the monstrous Nazi Judeocide? That
doesn't make Israel lovable. It is accountable for its crimes against humanity in Palestine
regardless of the atrocities Jews suffered elsewhere. Israel is not exempt from moral
judgment.
As for Jewish Americans in particular not loving Israel enough, Trump has again stuffed
his foot in his mouth, something so commonplace that most people don't notice it. Like other
Americans, Jewish Americans are not obligated to love Israel. How could they be? They are not
part of a supposed Jewish national people – they are Americans with a particular
private religious faith (unless they are secular). If they wanted to become Israelis, they
would have done so.
Israel, despite what it claims, cannot be the nation-state of all Jews everywhere
(even atheists with Jewish mothers); it is the state only of its own Jewish
citizens/nationals. The 25 percent of non-Jewish Israeli citizens unfortunately are out of
luck, but then it shouldn't call itself a democracy. Jewish Americans have roots in many
countries, yet no one would say they are obliged to love those places.
We may ask: what does today's state of Israel have to do with the Jewish creed, especially
the universalism of the prophets? Little, really: Zionism was a secular movement that
disparaged traditional and secularized Jews in Europe and America. Theodor Herzl et al.
promised a new Jew in his own state, strong and hardy farmers and soldiers, unlike the frail
bookish scholars and rootless "parasitic" financiers of the so-called "diaspora." (It wasn't
a diaspora since the Judeans were not exiled by the Romans in 70 CE.) That's one reason
Zionism was a minority movement for a long time.
No one is clear about what it means to be a Jewish state. True, you have to be a properly
credentialed Jew to get the benefits the Israeli state offers, but that only means having a
Jewish mother or being converted by an approved Orthdox rabbi. (Conservative and Reform
converts need not apply.) Jews and non-Jews may not marry each other, but that is not a
religious injunction for Israelis; rather it's a matter of secular (pseudo-)ethnic purity.
It's feared that Israeli children of interfaith marriages are less likely than other children
to identify as Jewish – but then what would happen to the "Jewish people's" state?
In fact, no Jewish national ethnicity exists to be kept pure, but many Israelis
(who do constitute an Israeli ethnicity) don't accept that. Nevertheless, Jews
worldwide are of virtually every ethnicity, culture, language group, and color, and despite
what Israel's apologists say today, Hitler was wrong: there is no Jewish race (or gene or
blood). Most Jews descend from the converts of many ethnicities -- Judaism was a wide-ranging
proselytizing religion roughly from 200 BCE to 200 CE (and later) -- and most ancient
Israelites, Judahites, Yehudis, and Judeans never left their homes, although many of their
offspring converted to Christianity or Islam.
For the record, ancient kingdoms of Israel, Judah, Yehud, and Judea, according to the Old
Testament, were no more lovable bastions of enlightenment than any other kingdom in the
vicinity, what with their authoritarian monarchies, military conquests, genocides, Hebrew and
gentile slave labor, animal and occasional human sacrifice, forced conversion of gentiles,
suppression of religious pluralism among the Hebrews, and persecution and even capital
punishment of sundry peaceful nonconformists, such as homosexuals and dissenters.
Moreover – and I wouldn't expect Trump to know this – there is a long and
honorable tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism . It goes back to the days of Herzl, though
his idea of a "return" to Canaan originated earlier with non-Jews for perhaps
less-than-honorable reasons. On different grounds, Orthodox and Reform Jews vehemently
opposed Herzl's movement. (See details on this and other matters discussed here in my book
Coming to Palestine .) The Orthodox regarded the Zionists as charlatans because a
"return" was not to occur until the Messiah appeared in order to redeem the sinful Jews; the
Orthodox anti-Zionists did not regard any of the atheists running the Zionist movement as
Messiahs – even if they had Jewish mothers.
The Reform shared that disdain for the Zionists and Zionism but on different grounds.
First, they rejected the premise that the people around the world who profess Judaism
constitute an exiled national people, race, or ethnicity. Judaism is just a religion, they
said. Second, they objected to a country that would proclaim itself the nation-state of all
the "Jewish people," including Jews who don't and won't live there. This, they said, would
harm the Jewish citizens of other countries and the non-Jewish residents of Israel.
Third, they knew that Palestine was not a "land without a people," and so they rejected the
land theft and expulsion they knew would be required to make a Jewish state there. I would
say the Reform were right. (The remnant of this movement resides at the American Council for Judaism .)
So, Mr. Trump, I can't see how Jewish Americans, who when surveyed rank justice high on
their list social concerns, have an obligation to love Israel – or how this admonition
from you, an enthusiast for Palestinian oppression, could possibly be taken seriously.
Any particular American war has no purpose, but the USA waging it does. The main points of
what war does:
1. Transfers wealth from social services to the military industrial complex. Americans
don't have education, infrastructure, or healthcare, but they do have a generation of
soldiers with PTSD, national debt, worldwide hatred, and an ever increasing sense of
exceptionalism.
2. Traps Americans in a cycle of fear and persecution. Americans don't need a bogeyman,
but our corporate overlords do, its how they monetize the populace. Find some disparate
population of brown people who want self autonomy, send in the CIA to fuck them up, and when
they retaliate tell Americans that people who live in a 3rd world land locked country several
thousands of miles away are a threat to their very existence and way of life because they
don't like God and Walmart.
Sadly the US uses the MIC to keep a large chunk of its population under control, as well as
providing a convenient coverup of the actual numbers of people who are unemployable or would
be unemployed if it were'nt for the taxpayer funding humungous spending in the so-called
defence sector, which needs a a constant supply of conflict to keep going. The frankly
moronic 'thank you for your service' soundbite drives me insane but it shows how much the
American public has been brainwashed.
For years my home state of Washington had a New Deal Democrat Senator named Henry Jackson,
AKA the Senator from Boeing.
He did good things for the state & was hugely popular here. One reason being that because
he brought the Federal pork back home.
IMO the things Gen. Butler wrote about in the 1920s are still the modus operandi of US
foreign policy.
If the Afghanistan war ends, the USA will go to war with someone else. You cannot spend so
much on military & not be at war. America must have an enemy. And, don’t forget,
they always have “God on our side!”
The neocons in power during 2001 were hell bent on taking out Saddam Hussein. When 9/11
happened, they were looking for avenues to blame Iraq so that they could launch the war on
that nation. Since things could not be put together, and all evidence pointed to Afghanistan,
they took a detour in their war plan with a half hearted approach.
In fact Afghanistan was never the problem - It was Pakistan that held Afghanistan on the
string and managed all terror related activities. Everything related to 9/11 and beyond
pointed directly at Pakistan. Whatever threat Bush and his cronies projected about Iraq was
true in the case of Pakistan. The war was lost when they made Pakistan an ally on the war on
terror. It is like allying with Al Capone to crack down on the mafia.
Pakistan bilked the gullible American war planners, protected its assets and deflected all
the rage on to the barren lands of Afghanistan. They hid all key Al Qaeda operatives and
handed off the ones that did not align with their strategic interests to the US, while
getting reward for it. War in Iraq happened in a hurry because the Bush family had scores to
settle in Iraq. Pressure was lifted on Afghanistan. This is when the war reached a dead
end.
The Taliban knew time was on their hands and waited it out. Obama did understand the
situation and tried to put Af-Pak together and tightened the grip on Pakistan. He got the
troops out of Iraq. Pakistan is almost bankrupt now for its deep investment on terror
infrastructure. The US has drained billions of dollars and lives in Afghanistan due to
misdirected goals. I am surprised Bush and Cheney have not been sent to jail on lies to
launch the Iraq war and botching the real war on terror.
he American people have known that the war in Afghanistan was a lost cause for quite some
time. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans' views of the war
started to go south right around the end of 2011, until eventually a majority started
seeing the writing on the wall about two years later.
That's why the Washington Post
report this week on the so-called "Afghanistan Papers", detailing how US officials
"deliberately mislead the public" on the war's progress, is almost sort of unremarkable. If the
piece took away any shred of innocence left from this ghastly enterprise, it's that perhaps
some of us thought our leaders, while failing miserably at building a nation thousands of miles
away, were at least acting in good faith.
At the same time, the Post report is rage inducing, not just because of the sheer stupidity
of American leaders continuing to fight a war they knew they could not win, but also how their
unwillingness to take responsibility for a failed policy caused so much death, destruction and
heartbreak, particularly among those American families who have admirably dedicated their lives
to serving their country, and the countless number of Afghan civilians trapped in a cycle of
endless war they have nothing to do with.
Of course, the "Afghanistan Papers" immediately recalled memories of the Pentagon variety
leaked to the New York Times nearly a half century ago because they too were government
documents outlining how numerous American administrations had lied to the public about Vietnam
– another long, costly and unnecessary war with no military solution.
But there's one major difference: the war in Afghanistan doesn't have as direct an impact on
the lives of everyday Americans as the Vietnam war did, when the military draft meant that
everyone had to deal with the cold war proxy conflict in south-east Asia
one way or another . Therefore, it's entirely possible, likely even, that this major and
important report from the Post will drift into the wilderness just like the dozens of Trump-era
stories that would have,
for example , taken down any other US president in "normal times".
But there's one big question the Post report raises but does not address: why? Why did so
many people – from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to state
department and National Security Council officials – feel the need to lie about how the
war in Afghanistan
was going?
The easy answer is that there's a long tradition in Washington, particularly among the
foreign policy establishment, that self-reflection, taking responsibility and admitting failure
is a big no-no. Heck, you can get convicted of lying to Congress about illegal arms sales, and
cover up brutal atrocities and still get a job at the
state department . Did you torture anyone? No problem .
While DC's culture of no culpability certainly plays a role in this case, the more
compelling answer lies somewhere near the fact that once the American war machine kicks into
gear, no amount of facts undermining its very existence is going to get in the way.
Indeed, the United States has so far doled out nearly one trillion dollars for the war in
Afghanistan (the true cost of the war
will be trillions more ) and everyone's on the take: from defense industry executives,
lobbyists and US political campaign coffers to Afghan government officials and poppy farmers to
anyone and anything in between.
What's more is that this
military-industrial-congressional complex is largely insulated from public accountability,
so what's the incentive to change course? The Pentagon's entire budget operates in much the
same way: unprecedented amounts in unnecessary appropriations resulting in hundreds of billions
of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. Yet Congress continues to throw more and more money at
the defense department every year without ever requiring it to account for how it spends the
money. In fact, the war in Afghanistan is small potatoes by comparison.
The bottom line is that the Afghanistan Papers clearly show that a lot of people were
killed, injured and subject to years, if not lifetimes, of psychological trauma and financial
hardship because a bunch of men – yes, mostly men – in Washington didn't want to
admit publicly what they knew privately all along. If we don't start holding these people to
account – and it's not just about Afghanistan
– the DC foreign policy establishment will continue to act with impunity, meaning that
it's probably more likely than not that in 50 years there'll be another batch of "papers"
revealing once again that we've failed to learn obvious lessons from the past.
This war is 18 years old. It's no longer a minor in the eyes of the law. It's old enough to
think for itself, to vote, to move out of the house and get it's own place. Afghanistan will
figure it out. Once we withdraw to allow Afghanistan to return to self-governance.
Why did so many people -- from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to
state department and National Security Council officials -- feel the need to lie about how
the war in Afghanistan was going?
This is because it's easy cash cow for the old boys club by sending working class kids
to be killed in a far off land.
The pentagon with the full cooperation of MSM will sell it as we are defending our ways of
life by fighting a country 10,000 kms away. This show the poor literacy, poor analytical
thinking of US population constantly brain washed by MSM, holy men, clergy, other neo con
organisations like National rifle club etc.
I never knew USA dropped 2.7 millions tons of bombs and now so many left unexploded and
its same in Vietnam, Cambodia as neutral,
but i met so many injured kids etc from the bombs,.
the total MADNESS OF USA IS NAZI SM AT ITS BEST,.NO SHAME OR COMPASSION FOR THE
VICTIMS.
I cannot comprehend the money it cost USA,. AN ALSO PROFITS FOR SOME,.
With the exceptions of two attacks on American soil-Pearl Harbor and 911- the American people
and for the most part their legislative representatives in Congress- will always remain
cluless what the United States Government does overseas.
This country runs on its own drum beats. The ordinary man on the street needs to take care
of his economic needs. The Big Boys always take care of themselves. That includes the
military establishment, that is always entitled to an absurd amounts of monies, fueled by an
empire building machinery, pushed by the elites that control the fate of economic might, and
political orchestra that feeds its ego and prestige.
Time and again, our American sociopaths in power have a strangle hold on us, regardless of
the destruction and animosity they heap on distant peoples and lands the world over in the
name of national security and the democratic spiel, as they like to tell us ....
Richard Nixon, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson- Vietnam and the South East Asian countries of
Laos , Cambodia, are an example .
Years later, the establishment manufactures blatant cover-ups with lies upon lies to accuse
on record, as general Powell eloquently presented at the United Nations: That Iraq has
weapons of mass destruction and needs to be held accountable.And now, this report on
Afghanistan with all this pathological violence.
Is it reasonable to conclude that our democracy and its pathological actors in government
and big business will always purchase it by demagoguery and self vested interest, because the
ordinary man whose vote should count will never have the ultimate say when it comes to war
and destruction!
the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance)
definition of anti-Semitism
the official guideline for Title VI is as following "Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as
hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals
and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." So this hatred against certain ethnic
category. Much like Russophobia. Looks pretty reasonable to me. For example, claiming that
Paul Singer is a criminal financial racketeer is not anti-Semitism, because Romney is not that different.
"... The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students. ..."
"... But the IHRA is hotly disputed. The State Department has adopted it but critics say it is too vague and all-encompassing, and can be a trap for honest critics of Israel's domestic and foreign policies. For example, it describes as anti-Semitic "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" under some circumstances, and offers as an example of such behavior "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." ..."
With his son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner hovering inches behind him, President Trump
signed an executive order Wednesday that interprets Judaism as a nationality or race and religion so that the federal government
can threaten to withhold funds from schools deemed to be fostering anti-semitism in school activities, programs, curricula and classrooms.
What it really will do is put a chill on speech, as skittish administrations shut down protests, screen speakers, and monitor classrooms
for unsanctioned criticisms against Israel.
"It is a game changer," said Trump legal advisor Alan Dershowitz who along with Kushner promoted the plan to Trump. "One of the
most important events in the 2,000-year battle against anti-Semitism."
12/11/19, 11:42 A.M.: President Trump is expected to sign an executive order that will effectively put a chill on BDS (Boycott
Divestment Sanction) campaigns or any other campus protests against Israel's treatment of Palestinians, illegal settlements, or U.S.-Israel
foreign policy.
The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing
colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students.
Currently, Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin. By declaring Judaism a nationality
rather than religion, it puts it under the rubric of federal protection, unlocking all sorts of tools for the school to shut down
speech. As of this writing, however,
Jewish Insider claims to have a copy of the executive order and says, contra to the NYT, there is no mention of national
origin in it.
Nevertheless, the order as being reported will allow the federal government to force schools to restrict protests and monitor
speech and curriculum in the classroom. For example, if there is an active BDS organization on campus or ongoing protest against
the lockdown of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, it might be deemed anti-Semitic and the Department of Education could threaten a
withdrawal of financial assistance to the school. This goes, perhaps more importantly, to courses and professors that are accused
of being "anti-Semitic." We can see where this is going.
From the Jerusalem Post :
A senior administration official said on Tuesday that antisemitism on campuses is often hidden in an anti-Israel agenda.
If campuses that receive money from the government adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism in cases of discrimination, students
who will feel that they are being bullied on college campuses would be able to complain to their institution's administration,
who will then need to decide if the incident is considered antisemitic.
Trump's order would make the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance)
definition of anti-Semitism the official guideline
for Title VI.
But the IHRA is hotly disputed. The State Department has adopted it but critics say it is too vague and all-encompassing,
and can be a trap for honest critics of Israel's domestic and foreign policies. For example, it describes as anti-Semitic "denying
the Jewish people their right to self-determination" under some circumstances, and offers as an example of such behavior "claiming
that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."
The White House's latest move, if fulfilled, is a huge victory for pro-Israel organizations here in the United States that, according
to Forward magazine
has been funneling tens of millions of dollars into combating constitutionally protected boycotts on school campuses and in American
states.
Not only well-funded by groups like AIPAC, according to Forward, these pro-Israel campaigns use social media bird-dogging
and rapid response strikes against student governments and planned demonstrations and other measures to cast the pro-Palestinian
protests as anti-Semitic. In the states, they've convinced lawmakers and governments to pass laws that would require any companies
and individuals working for the government to sign "contracts" or other affidavits declaring that they would never boycott Israeli
companies or be denied work.
These laws have been overturned by multiple courts as unconstitutional.
Nevertheless, afraid of the "anti-Semitic" taint, federal and state elected officials have not only continued to pass these laws,
but have
proposed criminal charges against offenders.
The issue has riven the Democratic party, with pro-Palestinian and free speech proponents on one side, and pro-Israeli advocates
(joining all but a few Republicans) on the other. The often raucous BDS debate has quieted down from earlier this year, when Rep.
Ilhan Omar was forced to apologize
for her own comments when criticizing the anti-boycott laws, but Trump is sure to re-invigorate things now.
Meanwhile, a slow-burn smear campaign has begun against 2020 candidate Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, and who has also spoken
out against what he calls are attacks against BDS and free speech.
In this outrageous Federalist piece yesterday, Melissa Langsam Braunstein, "a former U.S. Department of State speechwriter,"
suggests Sanders is "associating with antisemites," ignoring "far-left" and "Islamist" anti-Semitism, and employing secret anti-Semites
on his staff. Again, criticism of Israel's Palestinian policies and supporting people who support the boycotts seem to be the core
definition of Bernie's burgeoning anti-Semitism here.
This is should be an alarming sign for anyone, but it may be worse for Bernie. He is up in the polls, which makes him a target.
He is also an avowed socialist who has been openly against the anti-boycott movement on Capitol Hill. In addition, he could suffer
the same slings and arrows that his compatriot Jeremy Corbyn is taking across the pond. The Labor Party leader and candidate for
prime minister has been accused of being personally anti-Semitic for his criticism of Israel and his entire party criticized for
fostering a
"culture
of anti-Semitism" and not taking serious various formal complaints against it.
Read this whole Atlantic piece for the details, but the money passage for our purposes is here:
Disproportionate hatred of Israel is one strand of left-wing anti-Semitism. The other is the conspiracist turn, turbocharged
by social media, which gains succor from attacks on "the elite," "the 1 percent," "the mainstream media," and "billionaires."
Corbyn has made such attacks a key part of Labour's appeal, adopting the slogan "For the many, not the few." The trouble is that
while all of these are superficially innocent phrases -- as well as useful ways of describing a world in which wealth and opportunities
are unequally distributed -- it is clear that some supporters hear them as a
dog whistle
This is Sanders' platform, too. Heck it is a critical part of Elizabeth Warren's and President Trump's appeal. If this kind of
populism–and to be sure I am not talking about the Reddit "turbo charged" racist conspiracy driven memes that we all know are
out there -- is to be deemed "a dog whistle," we may all be accused of anti-Semitism before the year is done.
It's wonderful when people hold onto their culture and heritage. The idea of "melting pot" wasn't some kind of blast furnace that
stripped immigrants of their past, but rather a blending of the many different cultures that created something uniquely American.
To be an American doesn't mean abandoning caring about your homeland - but it does mean that you should prioritize the success
and prosperity of your fellow Americans more than you do the success and prosperity of those in the land you left behind.
The implication of labeling Judaism a nationality (and the implicit tying that to Zionism) is that American Jews owe their
first loyalty not to fellow Americans ... but to Judaism, and by the associative property, to Israeli Jews.
A very dangerous path for American Jews to trod, as history has shown repeatedly.
The ironic thing here is that Trump is managing to play to three different bases here
- to the most conservative Zionist Jews in America
- to Evangelical Christians who are happy to have a cudgel to use in their battle against those who don't embrace the idea of
a Judeo-Christian America, and
- to White Nationalists who themselves don't consider Jews to be part of "White Culture" and will enjoy referring to a Federal
declaration of Jewish otherness
As one writer succinctly put it, a lot of these endeavors are indicators that the influence and power of the Jewish elite is slowly
and irreversibly diminishing.
The Orange Moron can do anything he wants in this vein but it will most likely only speed up what is already in motion...
we may all be accused of anti-Semitism before the year is done
When an American vessel in neutral waters was deliberately attacked by Israel in 1967, all subsequent investigation of the
attack was whitewashed and the survivors threatened with imprisonment. Nothing has been done to restore the dignity of the veterans.
When the late Paul Findley compiled copious evidence of Israel's stranglehold on institutions of government and education,
using a fringe publishing house to present his findings, which enjoyed 9 weeks on the Washington Post 's bestseller list,
nothing was done to forestall the Lobby's influence.
When the FBI held tens of Israeli nationals engaged in suspicious activity in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, subjecting them
to polygraph tests which some failed, Richard Armitage and Alan Dershowitz applied
political pressure to free them and send them packing to Israel. Nothing more was done.
When professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer provided a thoroughly documented analysis of Israel's headlock on American
foreign policy, proving that it was Israel who drew us into the current Middle Eastern quagmire, nothing was done to forestall
the Lobby's influence.
And now Israel, applying its usual pressure in Washington, wants Americans to fight yet another war on its behalf, this time
against Iran, who has done nothing to America since the 1970s.
If you discuss these plain-as-day, readily available facts, you're called an "anti-Semite" and a "Nazi." If you want to discuss
them on YouTube, you risk being demonetized or deplatformed. If you raise the topics in the public square, you're certain to confront
censure, if not unemployment.
And, however much one may naively regard some claims as "conspiratorial," these phenomena are just the tip of the proverbial
iceberg.
You had better get used to it. Free speech isn't free and there's one group in America that's more interested in eliminating
it than any other.
Of course, mentioning this is "anti-Semitic" as well.
Trump is first and foremost pandering to his evangelical Christian supporters and a few rich Jewish donors here. He doesn't care
that he feeds into anti-semitism by implying that Jewish Americans identify with Israel rather than the U.S. Most Jewish Americans
won't vote for him (he has almost a 70% dis-approval rating with Jews in the U.S.). He's also toadying to Netanyahu, who he identifies
with. Netanyahu is continually under investigation for corruption.
College students are free to protest the behavior of Russia without being labeled anti-Russian; they can protest the People's
Republic of China without being accused of sinophobia.
Why does Israel need a special dispensation from this? If the argument is that any criticism of Israel for any reason is antisemitic,
then you are essentially saying that Israel should be uniquely immune from criticism that every other country on earth is subject
to.
It started in Europe with creating a class of people protected from free speech, then the envelope widened to include immigrants
and then muslims then leftists use it to prevent a discussion on immigration and then you get 10+ years of pedophile and female
muslim rape gangs patrolling streets and having the entire crime known by police and covered up for fear of hate speech toward
a group even though its specific groups that engage in honor killings, terrorist attacks, knifing s, grooming gangs, rape gangs,
etc.
"... The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and on everyone they communicated with. ..."
"... The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later 'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were no more than unconfirmed rumors. ..."
The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not
mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and
on everyone they communicated with.
The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had
talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later
'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were
no more than unconfirmed rumors.
By now Steele's credibility is zero. Time to revisit Steele's involvement with the debunked
"Russia bought the soccer World Champion games", the Litvinenko polonium poisening and the
Skripal novichok poisening. The timing of the Skripal matter deserves some scrutiny in
relation to Skripal possibly being Steele's source for the infamous Trump dossier. There
might be a motive hidden there.
As early as
August 2018 , there had been speculation that the Skripals were being held at USAF
Fairford airbase, based on audiovisual evidence in the background garden scene where the
interview took place. Helmer's sources (they requested anonymity) spotted a chicken coop in
the background which they say is a crow ladder trap. This is one indication that the garden
scene was located near a runway. Background noises included the roar of jet engines.
If Helmer's information is correct, then we can now understand why the British government
never gave Russian embassy staff access to the Skripals: London was in no position to do so,
the Skripals were on US territory.
One implication of this new information is that the Skripals may no longer be in Britain
and may now be living in North America somewhere with new identities. Should something happen
to them (or have happened to them already), they will not be missed by their new neighbours.
The Skripals will never be allowed to return to Russia and Sergei Skripal will never see or
be allowed to communicate with his elderly mother again.
It really does look as if Sergei Skripal may have had something to do with that Orbis
dossier after all, even if as a minor source or as a reference rather than the primary source
of disinformation about Donald Trump's past activities in Moscow. What other work has Skripal
done for his American masters?
It looks as if Sergei Skripal may not be the primary source of the disinformation in
Christopher Steele's dossier. Perhaps the person who is the primary source
is not a Russian at all.
JR | Dec 11 2019 19:41 utc | 20 brings up a revisiting of the Litvinenko polonium poisoning.
It is worth mentioning that a tiny but crucial and virtually never mentioned detail of the
official inquiry (considered the last word on the matter) is that those conducting the
official inquiry were never allowed access to the autopsy report -- which should have been
(which would have been, in any honest effort at inquiry) the bedrock starting point. The
report has right along been sequestered by Scotland Yard in the interests of... you guessed
it: national security. Go figure...
It strikes me that the best explanation of the attack on the Skripals is not that he was
responsible for the Steele Dossier in any way, but that he could easily prove that it was a
fantasy. And was planning to do so.
He knew better, though, than to say so in the UK which suggests that he was on his way
home with his daughter when MI6 caught up with him and poisoned them both.
Steele, Pablo Miller and Skripal were old partners in crime.
I'm wondering whether the mistake Sergei made was not to leave the house -- probably worth
lotsa rubles -- behind and just go. On the other hand he was almost certainly under constant
surveillance.
@50 The Official Report to which you refer was also very careful to enter extensive
caveats regarding its conclusions for which there was almost no real evidence.
It seems important to note that Mr. Lavrov refers to administrations in his
comments, not presidents per se. As there are many staff in presidential
administrations, it seems entirely possible that 1) the requests from the Russians never
reached Obama or Trump personally, and 2) either or both presidents were therefore not even
aware of the requests. In the case of Trump, that would be consistent with the fact that many
members of his administration have been revealed to have operated contrary to his wishes.
@Jen #42
The Skripals residing on US territory would definitely indicate that the US has been the
senior partner in the "Skripal operation". This seems to be part of a general pattern.
@Jackrabbit #48
For the Steele dossier to be intentional bullshit (meaning its creator(s) knew it was
false when they created it) doesn't seem all that surprising. Intelligence agencies promote
disinformation all the time. That in no way means that Trump is in on the game.
Both Putin and Lavrov have stated that they talked directly with Obama and Trump about the
issues involved with their relations, so there's no excuses or obfuscation possible is this
case.
He is bad for Jewish programmers, nurses, etc. He is certainly good for Jewish financial
oligarchs like Adelson and singer as well as Zionists like natuanuahoo.
Notable quotes:
"... I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm. ..."
"... An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad ..."
On Saturday Donald Trump gave a
speech to the Israeli American Council in which he asserted that many in his audience were
"not nice people at all," but that "you have to vote for me" because Democrats would raise
their taxes.
Was he peddling an anti-Semitic stereotype, portraying Jews as money-grubbing types who care
only about their wealth? Of course he was. You might possibly make excuses for his remarks if
they were an isolated instance, but in fact Trump has done this sort of thing many times, for
example asserting in 2015 that Jews weren't supporting him because he wasn't accepting their
money and "you want to control your politicians."
Well, it's not news that Trump's bigotry isn't restricted to blacks and immigrants. What is
interesting, however, is that this particular anti-Semitic cliché -- that Jews are
greedy, and that their political behavior is especially driven by their financial interests --
is empirically dead wrong. In fact, American Jews are much more liberal than you might expect
given their economic situation.
... ... ...
In other words, American Jews aren't the uniquely greedy, self-interested characters
anti-Semites imagine them to be. But it would be foolish to make the opposite mistake and
imagine that Jews are especially public-spirited; they're just people, with the same virtues
and vices as everyone else. I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that
Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason
was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to
confirm.
An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies
of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't
understand, at home or abroad
Excellent column to which I would add only that Trump is not pro-Israel. Rather, he is
pro-Netanyahu because he identifies with individuals he identifies as apparent "strong men"
and believes that making "deals" with Netanyahu and others of his ilk will be mutually and
personally beneficial. Trump has no concern with national policy or the best interests of the
U.S. It's all about his power and wealth and he is open to deals with others who share his
principal concern with self-benefit above all else. Any action taken by Trump that may seem
pro-Israel in reality is merely a means to a self-serving and perhaps corrupt end. Birds of a
feather...
Surprised Paul didn't mention the main sponsor of the group that invited Trump to speak, the
Israeli American Council, is Sheldon Adelson, whose politics are of the minority in the
Jewish community but very close to Trump (and Bibi's). Which actually makes the speech rather
even uglier, perhaps.
Difficult to appreciate why the US, or Krugman for that matter, would support a
religion-based Apartheid country, much less associate with that country's chief lobbying arm.
Say what you will about our founding fathers, but George Washington was absolutely prescient
and correct in his farewell address when he advised against "a passionate attachment of one
nation for another"; the "variety of evils" he warned of regularly manifest themselves.
The question is not who is Trump bad for. The question is- who is he good for! He is not so
great for his own die-hard supporters, or even his own long term interest. In fact, he
sabotaged his own presidency and basically got himself into this impeachment affair. Almost
everyone is suffering under this guy. Vast majority realized that as soon as he became the
President. Many realized it little later. Hopefully the remaining tiny few will understand in
near future.
Dear Professor K, weaponizing religion is nothing new. What's most amazing is that people
were cheering him while being marginalized as stereotypes. The God of Mamon won the evening.
This is the only religion Trump adheres to. Apparently it's popular among other religions
too.
In my first 59 years, I'd never felt concern for my physical safety as a Jew in this country
until this man became president. I knew exactly where this was all headed at the moment Sean
Spicer took to the podium and lied to the country about the inauguration crowd size in his
first official act for Trump. It made me sick to my stomach, and I couldn't believe that most
people were laughing it off as no big deal. Any Jew who trust this administration is a fool,
and although there a few more "precise" Yiddish words for these members of my tribe, I'll
refrain from using them as I'm sure you can fill in the blanks just fine.
A good reference to this opinion column, which was written and probably edited by highly
intelligent people- The Stupidity of Intelligence: What Happened to Common Sense? Every
sentence could be easily argued and overturned based upon some simple facts.
Trump and his minions try to buy Jewish support by backing right wing Israelis in their goal
of a greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. In fact, when asked if Trump is
anti-Semitic, one his strongest supporters, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, gave the standard
response, "Trump supports Israel". Supporting Israel is a political position. All the while,
Trump has about as much use for Jews as Archie Bunker had for the Jews in his fictional law
firm, Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz and Rabinowitz. Then they often mention that his son-in-law is
Jewish, like he had a choice in the matter. Simultaneously, Trump derives strong support from
white nationalists that would be perfectly happy to send all American Jews to Israel. Those
two motivations are inexorably linked. Because of this linkage, I can't understand for one
minute how American Jews can support Trump. Is the money that good? Do they think that their
money can protect them? Others have made that mistake before.
Among Trump's lies is that he is far more friendly to Israel than Obama was. Sadly, some Jews
take this lie as fact and, because of this, overlook everything else Trump does or says,
supporting him without wavering, no matter what.
The difference is intelligence. My college psychology textbook said that Russian Jewish
immigrants had the highest IQs of all identified ethnicities. Number two was all other Jews.
Of course they voted for Hillary.
The attachment the wealthy have for the Republican Party goes beyond just a lower tax rate.
It is power and deference. The wealthy want an unquestioned dominance that not only protects
and expands their wealth, but celebrates them not only for their wealth as symbol of personal
success but of their moral superiority. Obama certainly did not threaten their wealth, and,
in fact, pursued policies that protected them from the worst of the Great Recession. Yet, the
masters of wealth whined endlessly about Obama not respecting them and that his language
toward them was disrespectful and not sufficiently deferential. Trump's "policies" threaten
long term economic health, and the wealth creation that keeps concentrating wealth at the
top. His trade gyrations, his dismantling of the environmental regulatory regime to favor
fossil fuels, and his reward and punishment of private corporations based on politics are
doing the damage that no Democrat would ever inflict. Yet, nary a corporate executive will
said a word, and far too many are happy to be props at events for Trump's endless
glorification of himself. Because they, like Trump, believe themselves heroes and geniuses
whose domination should never be questioned. So they and Trump wind up all being pretty
comfortable with each other. The neo-liberal promise of free market economics producing
rational economic actors free from political motives and protecting all of us from political
abuse rings pretty hollow.
"I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has
rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a
diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm." Considering my age,
and extrapolating therefrom, I think Einstein beat your friend to it. Pondering the moral
weight given to Jewish thought at the time, Einstein thought political power was behind it,
Jews simply had not the opportunity. As not unusual, Einstein's theory has been supported by
experiment.
Prof. Krugman, I loved this statement " An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel,
but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's
presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad" Please make sure that
your colleague Bret Stephens get this memo.
The audience at the Israeli American Council cheered Trump enthusiastically through out his
whole speech. They cheered when he said he learned his tricks from Sheldon Adelson. They
cheered when he said that maybe he should stay for eight more years. They hardly thought he
was anti-Semitic. He has done exactly what he promised his big donors starting with the
embassy in Jerusalem. His shutting down of any opposition to the Netanyahu administration
especially the BDS movement . He seems to know his audience very well and they were loving
it.
Trump is not just saying "look at the taxes you are saving", he's saying "look what I've done
for Israel!" I don't understand why the media persists on calling him a white nationalist.
His daughter and son in law are strict Jews, he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of
Israel, he's given them the Golan Heights and has listened to their advice on Iran (bad
idea). He's not after Jewish votes necessarily, because there are only about 2 million Jews
in the U.S . But being more "affluent on average" he's more likely after some big campaign
contributions.
Everyone in my Jewish family votes Democratic, although we have all done well financially. I
remember growing up that my Dad would say that he personally would benefit financially from a
Republican administration, but that it would not be good for the nation as a whole. I believe
that it is not just self-interest and fear of anti-Semitism that has led Jews to favor the
Democratic party, but also Jewish values, including wanting to make the world a better place.
An argument can also be made that Netanyahu (extreme Right) has been excessively partisan to
the degree that it has divided both Israel and diaspora Jews. Israel might be bettered by
negotiating with all of its territorial stakeholders. Land is at issue. Palestinians will not
vanish or evaporate. The West Bank must be addressed. The Trump rubber stamp of a Jarusalem
Embassy does not solve much.
@Justice Support for Israel may mean many things, at its most basic it's a belief that Israel
had and still has a right to exist among the nations of the world. If one believes that at
its inception it was and continues to be nothing more than an "ethnoreligious state," that
imay not be support , though Krugman distinguises between the former and criticism of the
current Israeli administration. I suppose the commenter would also find theocratic states
like Saudi Arabia or Iran "deeply problematic " One thing for sure is that most Jews will not
suport the supposedly Zionist Trump when he says that Jews who vote Democratic are either
uninformed or disloyal.
@Justice My own take is that american jews support having a home for jews, esp in the land
they came from. But the government of Israel is conservative while most american jews are
more liberal. There are many liberal jews in Israel. I support the idea of a homeland for the
jews, just not how that has been accomplished. Real democracy is fragile and far too many
countries are moving from democracy to more authoritarian governments.
I'm told that many Israelis who were enthusiastic about Trump got a wakeup call when he
abandoned the Kurds. They now better understand that he regards everyone as disposable, and
can't imagine that anyone could be motivated by something other than pure-self interest.
@Eben Sadly, Donald is not the first president to abandon the Kurds. In the words of Henry
Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Yes, this could
conceivably at some time in the future be relevant to Israel. Even if not under Donald.
@edwardc - Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Our
current problem is that the "interests" being pursued are solely those of Donald Trump
personally -- appeasing his secret Russian lenders; doing the bidding of "tough" guy
dictators like Turkey's so he can feel tough himself and build hotels in their capitals;
exercising his long held bigotry about people of color in this country. Our allies the Kurds,
on the other hand, helped with an actual, important US national interest: beating ISIS and
holding it back from growing again to where it can resume attacking us. But since that
doesn't put money in Trump's pocket he abandons the cause.
@Eben : I have great empathy for the Kurdish people, but does "support for the Kurds" mean we
must stay in Iraq and Afghanistan literally forever? we've already been there going on 17
years -- at the cost of trillions of dollars spent and thousands of American lives.
"In last year's midterms, 52 percent of voters with incomes over $200,000 voted Republican,
compared with only 38 percent of voters with incomes under $50,000. The rightward tilt is
especially strong at the very top; although there are a few high-profile liberal
billionaires, most of the extremely wealthy are also extremely right-wing." And that group
will vote for Trump for re-election even if he is impeached unfortunately.
Israel does not seem to understand the long term damage being done to its country. The U.S.
has always been its number one defender, but there is a whole generation of Americans that
think Israel is bad, that it is mistreating the Palestinians. Demographics are working
against it. Israel can always look to Europe, but I don't know how that is going to work out
in the long run.
@Gone Coastal Trump is all about the sugar high you get from immediate gratification of the
baser impulses. His influence will end soon enough, perhaps another five years but the
potential destruction of the Repulican party and the reaction against Trumpism could last for
decades. Its a big danger to Israel if Israel is just seen as the last gasp of European
colonialism and a part of the Western white world : a European imposition on the middle east.
Roosevelt tried to create institutions that would lead to peace though out the life times of
the people who lived when he was president. Sadly Trump is making strides to destroy the
institutions initiated by Roosevelt, leaving a world where small countries are more easily
bullied by their larger neighbors.
"... Ms. Rion spoke with Ukrainian former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko who outlines how former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch perjured herself before Congress . ..."
"... What is outlined in this interview is a problem for all DC politicians across both parties. The obviously corrupt influence efforts by U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch as outlined by Lutsenko were not done independently. ..."
"... Senators from both parties participated in the influence process and part of those influence priorities was exploiting the financial opportunities within Ukraine while simultaneously protecting Joe Biden and his family. This is where Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham were working with Marie Yovanovitch. ..."
In a fantastic display of true investigative journalism, One America News journalist Chanel
Rion tracked down Ukrainian witnesses as part of an exclusive OAN investigative series. The
evidence being discovered dismantles the baseless Adam Schiff impeachment hoax and highlights
many corrupt motives for U.S. politicians.
Ms. Rion spoke with Ukrainian former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko who outlines how
former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch perjured herself before Congress .
What is outlined in this interview is a problem for all DC politicians across both parties.
The obviously corrupt influence efforts by U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch as outlined by Lutsenko
were not done independently.
Senators from both parties participated in the influence process and part of those influence
priorities was exploiting the financial opportunities within Ukraine while simultaneously
protecting Joe Biden and his family. This is where Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey
Graham were working with Marie Yovanovitch.
Imagine what would happen if all of the background information was to reach the general
public? Thus the motive for Lindsey Graham currently working to bury it.
You might remember George Kent and Bill Taylor testified together.
It was evident months ago that U.S. chargé d'affaires to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, was
one of the current participants in the coup effort against President Trump. It was Taylor who
engaged in carefully planned
text messages with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland to set-up a narrative helpful to Adam
Schiff's political coup effort.
Bill Taylor was formerly U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine ('06-'09) and later helped the Obama
administration to design the laundry operation providing taxpayer financing to Ukraine in
exchange for back-channel payments to U.S. politicians and their families.
In November Rudy Giuliani released a letter he sent to Senator
Lindsey Graham outlining how Bill Taylor blocked VISA's for Ukrainian 'whistle-blowers' who are
willing to testify to the corrupt financial scheme.
Unfortunately, as we are now witnessing, Senator Lindsey Graham, along with dozens of U.S.
Senators currently serving, may very well have been recipients for money through the
aforementioned laundry process. The VISA's are unlikely to get approval for congressional
testimony, or Senate impeachment trial witness testimony.
U.S. senators write foreign aid policy, rules and regulations thereby creating the financing
mechanisms to transmit U.S. funds. Those same senators then received a portion of the laundered
funds back through their various "institutes" and business connections to the foreign
government offices; in this example Ukraine. [ex. Burisma to Biden]
The U.S. State Dept. serves as a distribution network for the authorization of the money
laundering by granting conflict waivers , approvals for financing (think Clinton Global
Initiative), and permission slips for the payment of foreign money. The officials within the
State Dept. take a cut of the overall payments through a system of "indulgence fees", junkets,
gifts and expense payments to those with political oversight.
If anyone gets too close to revealing the process, writ large, they become a target of the
entire apparatus. President Trump was considered an existential threat to this entire process.
Hence our current political status with the ongoing coup.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out , because, well, in reality all of the U.S.
Senators (both parties) are participating in the process for receiving taxpayer money and
contributions from foreign governments.
A "Codel" is a congressional delegation that takes trips to work out the payments
terms/conditions of any changes in graft financing. This is why Senators spend $20 million on a
campaign to earn a job paying $350k/year. The "institutes" is where the real foreign money
comes in; billions paid by governments like China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Ukraine, etc.
etc. There are trillions at stake.
[SIDEBAR: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds the power over these members (and the
members of the Senate Intel Committee), because McConnell decides who sits on what committee.
As soon as a Senator starts taking the bribes lobbying funds, McConnell then has
full control over that Senator. This is how the system works.]
The McCain Institute is one of the obvious examples of the financing network. And that is
the primary reason why Cindy McCain is such an outspoken critic of President Trump. In essence
President Trump is standing between her and her next diamond necklace; a dangerous place to
be.
So when we think about a Senate Impeachment Trial; and we consider which senators will vote
to impeach President Trump, it's not just a matter of Democrats -vs- Republican. We need to
look at the game of leverage, and the stand-off between those bribed Senators who would prefer
President Trump did not interfere in their process.
McConnell has been advising President Trump which Senators are most likely to need their
sensibilities eased. As an example President Trump met with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in
November. Senator Murkowski rakes in millions from the multinational Oil and Gas industry; and
she ain't about to allow horrible Trump to lessen her bank account any more than Cindy McCain
will give up her frequent shopper discounts at Tiffanys.
Senator Lindsey Graham
announcing today that he will not request or facilitate any impeachment testimony that
touches on the DC laundry system for personal financial benefit (ie. Ukraine example), is
specifically motivated by the need for all DC politicians to keep prying eyes away from the
swamps' financial endeavors. WATCH:
This open-secret system of "Affluence and Influence" is how the intelligence apparatus gains
such power. All of the DC participants are essentially beholden to the various U.S.
intelligence services who are well aware of their endeavors.
There's a ton of exposure here (blackmail/leverage) which allows the unelected officials
within the CIA, FBI and DOJ to hold power over the DC politicians. Hold this type of leverage
long enough and the Intelligence Community then absorbs that power to enhance their self-belief
of being more important than the system.
Perhaps this corrupt sense of grandiosity is what we are seeing play out in how the
intelligence apparatus views President Donald J Trump as a risk to their importance.
Everyone loves money. I like money. The only question is how to earn them. Neither I, nor
you, nor many of us will cross a certain moral and ethical line (border), but there are
people without morality, without ethical standards, without conscience. We all look the same
outwardly, but we are all completely different inside.
Ukraine is Obama's **** , this is not Trump's ****. Trump's stupidity was only one - he
got into this ****. I wrote, but I repeat - USA acted as the best friend in relation to
Russia, having taken off a leech from Russia and hanging it on itself. Do you know such an
estate of Rothschilds - called Israel and its role in the life of USA?
So, Ukraine was for the Russians the same Israel in terms of meaningless spending. Look at
Vlad, in 2014 he looked like a fox who was eating a chicken, and on January 1, 2020 he will
look like a fox who eating a whole brood of chickens. I think he has portraits of Obama and
Trump in his bedroom.
Yes, indeed. Lindsey will bury the story, he is on the take. Your tax dollars at work. By
the way, the Fed picked up all of the Ukies gold for safekeeping at 33 Liberty St. NY, with
Yats permission, of course.... https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-18/ukraine-admits-its-gold-gone
A glimpse into how elected officials accumulate millions, retire wealthy, pampered and
privileged....and I'm not talking pensions I'm talking corruption. Obama, Biden, Hillary,
Kerry, Holder, Rice and ALL the senior Obama Administration officials knew of each other's
corrupt sinecures.
Well, it is based on a OAN story. Believe it or not, they actually sent a reporter to
Ukraine to talk to people with knowledge of the matter and look what they came up with. Kind
of makes you wonder why other well funded news organizations never thought to do something
like that.
I don't know that we deserve this. We are all working people, with families to raise,
taxes to pay and the Dems and Commies have been working against us 24/7. And most of them get
paid to do so from government jobs that pay them 8 hours a day when many work 1 hour a day,
all the while scheming against us.
If Trump wins a second term, he is gonna **** these people up good.
Now that I've read the article, I'm both shocked and appalled at learning that Ukraine is
a money laundering operation for the politically connected. (They provide many other 'perks'
as well.)
I've warned about light in the loafers Lindsey as well as McConnell before and more than
once. Sessions should also be denied a re-admission into the swamp. There are others.
John Brewster - 90
Did you by chance confuse Russia with Italy? Because Russia has close to 150M people, not
65M, significantly more than Germany. Granted, less than USSR back in 1939, but militarily
more powerful compared to Germany - and possibly with more exploited resources.
vk - 79
I tend to agree with the view that the key factor in USSR's demise was that it couldn't
sustain the competition with the Kapital and wasn't able to develop, "progress", "grow" at
the rate the West was showing off. US and USSR levels were far closer back in 1950 than in
1980, and the discrepancy was only growing. Reagan fanboys might argue that he sped up the
decaying process, but troubles and upheavals were going to happen, no matter what. Now, why
this rate of progress was so different is another matter, and probably the most important one
- both for 20th century history and for the fate of the West in this century.
It's also painfully obvious that the only path outside downright servitude for Europe is to
distance itself from the USA and seek if not a direct alliance at least a clear partnership
with Russia and a "detente" with clear rules on their borders and a common declaration of
neutrality over Ukraine - as in: no side will try to annex the whole country, which either
would be split up or ideally would have a heavy dose of decentralization and localism. But it
is of vital importance for the actual survival of Europe that atlanticists and Russiaphobes
be hunted down and expelled from any position of power or influence - be it from economy,
media, politics.
They poisoned with the USA with Russophobia for decades to come, and that really increases
the risk of nuclear confrontation, which would wipe out all this jerks, but also mass of innocent
people.
Notable quotes:
"... The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5. Not holding my breath I am afraid. ..."
"... Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better distractions). ..."
Sooner or later you'll have this, IMHO: Reaction time 7 minutes . You know,
decision-making time to say "launch" or not. The decision-maker in the White House, Downing
Street and Elysees Palace either a geriatric or one of this new multiracial breed. Just think
about those people
Add to that the level of overall expertise by the crews manning those systems, its
maintenance etc. Add increased automation of some parts of the launch process with
hardware/software as it's produced now (you know, quality control etc.).
It will take a miracle not to have that launch sooner or later. Not big, say .80 KT. What
happens after that is anybody's guess. Mine, taking the second point from the fourth
paragraph .a big bang.
The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of
their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5.
Not holding my breath I am afraid.
@peterAUS The rational actor false supposition has it that the biologics can't be used
because they don't recognize friend from foe.
Rational actors? Where? Anthrax via the US mail.
One rational actor point of view is that you have to be able to respond to anything.
Anything. In a measured or escalating response. Of course biologics are being actively
pursued to the hilt. Just like you point out about Marburg.
But, the view from above is that general panic in the population cannot be allowed, and so
all biologics have to be down played. "of course we would never do anything like that, it
would be insane to endanger all of humanity". Just like nukes. So professors pontificate
misdirection, and pundits punt.
So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis. "We only want the fear that results
in more appropriations. Not the fear that sinks programs." Don't generate new Church
commissions. Hence the fine line. some fear yes, other fears, no.
Well Washington D.C.
Hahahahaha sorry, couldn't resist.
So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis.
I don't.
But I also probably forgot more about nuclear war than most of readers here will ever
know. And chemical, when you think about it; had a kit with atropine on me all the time in
all exercises. We didn't practice much that "biologics" stuff, though. We knew why, then.
Same reason for today. Call it a "stoic option" to own inevitable demise.
Now, there is a big difference between the age of those protests I mentioned and today.
The Internet. The access to information people, then, simply didn't have.
Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real
world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better
distractions).
Well, they will care, I am sure. For about ..say in the USA ..several hours, on
average.
We here where I am typing from will care for "how to survive the aftermath" .. for two
months.Tops.
"... I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq. As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense. ..."
"... He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign. ..."
"... When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress. ..."
"... Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over. ..."
Enthusiasm over entrepreneurship is now found in every corner of society -- even, apparently, within the federal bureaucracy.
Witness after witness in last month's House impeachment inquiry hearings referred to "the interagency," an off-the-books informal
government organization that we now know has enormous power to set and execute American foreign policy.
The first to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, State Department official George Kent, seemed to conceive of the
interagency as the definitive source of foreign-policy consensus. That Mr. Trump's alleged decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine
deviated from that consensus was, for Mr. Kent, prima facie evidence that it was misguided.
Next up, Ambassador William Taylor told the committee that it was the "unanimous opinion of every level of interagency discussion"
that the aid should be resumed without delay. Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official, gave the game away by admitting
how upset she was that Gordon Sondland, President Trump's ambassador to the European Union, had established an "alternative" approach
to helping Kyiv. "We have a robust interagency process that deals with Ukraine," she said.
What is the interagency, and why should its views guide the conduct of American diplomatic and national-security professionals?
The Constitution grants the president the power to set defense and diplomatic policy. Where did this interagency come from?
I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq.
As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was
executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense.
He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that
the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture,
Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new
hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong
engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign.
Interagency cooperative agreements have been around for decades. The Justice Department, for example, has opioid-interdiction
programs that require it to work with the Department of Homeland Security. Today a dictionary of more than 12,500 official terms
exists to guide bureaucrats in writing interagency contracts that repurpose federal funds appropriated to various executive departments.
Often these interdepartmental initiatives devised by bureaucrats are unknown to Congress. It's hard to imagine that the legislative
branch wouldn't object to these arrangements, if only it were aware of them.
When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military
and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the
Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine
and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress.
Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government
credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of
how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who
probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that
Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over.
The impeachment hearings will have served a useful purpose if all they do is demonstrate that a cabal of unelected officials are
fashioning profound aspects of U.S. foreign policy on their own motion. No statutes anticipate that the president or Congress will
delegate such authority to a secret working group formed largely at the initiation of entrepreneurial bureaucrats, notwithstanding
that they may be area experts, experienced in diplomatic and military affairs, and motivated by what they see as the best interests
of the country.
However the impeachment drama plays out, Congress has cause to enact comprehensive legislation akin to the Goldwater-Nichols Act
of 1986, which created more-efficient structures and transparent processes in the Defense Department. Americans deserve to know who
really is responsible for making the nation's foreign policy. The interagency, if it is to exist, should have a chairman appointed
by the president, and its decisions, much like the once-secret minutes of the Federal Reserve, should be published, with limited
and necessary exceptions, for all to see.
Mr. Schramm is a university professor at Syracuse. His most recent book is "Burn the Business Plan."
This comment follows onto earlier comments about Ukrainian influence and media censorship.
I have always tried to keep politics out of science, in order to be able to focus clearly
on the study of nature, instead of the opinions of people. Admittedly, some areas of science
are completely political, such as climate change, ecology, and nuclear power. I also
recognize that the so-called prestige press for science - journals such as Nature (UK) and
Science (US) - are going to reflect the conventional, if not the corporate perspective.
Nevertheless, a book review in this week's (5 DEC 2019) issue of Nature really pissed me
off. The book is about natural gas pipelines and their ability to overcome political
differences:
The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe
by Thane Gustafson
Of course, such a topic is completely political and the author is a political scientist.
Gustafson is Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University and Senior Director of
Russian and Caspian Energy for HIS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, whose chairman and
founder is Dr. Daniel Yergin, author of many best-selling books on the oil industry.
The offensive review is by Andrew Moracsik, whom I had never heard of. But, after a little
googling, I discover that his wife is the appropriately named, Anne-Marie Slaughter. She of
bomb Libya fame. (NOTE 1.) Andrew himself has quite the pedigree: educated at Stanford
and Johns Hopkins (Nitze SAIS), professor at Harvard and Princeton. He is a prominent scholar
of the EU and of Eastern Europe, and an editor at the journal Foreign Affairs.
Now to the review. Dr. Moracsik admits up front that:
(the book) offers a readable, intelligent, even-handed historical interpretation of this
relationship.
In other words, he can't fault the book for inaccuracy. But his purpose is really to bring
the non-stop villification of Russia to the pages of a scientific journal. Here are the
unfounded, false, and weasel-worded assertions he makes:
Russia also provoked a series of interventions and conflicts in Georgia, Moldova,
Syria, and Ukraine. The West responded by imposing sanctions...More recently, Russia
has become involved in the disruption of elections in the West, and in cyberwarfare.
Andrew Moravcsik is professor of politics and international affairs, and director of the
EU Program, at Princeton University in New Jersey.
-----
Why is it that whenever I find a US scholar talking about Eastern Europe, they have
some kind of refugee from Communism pedigree? Well, the obvious answer is that that is
the pedigree that gets you into the club of Russia hatred and gets you a free pass from
criticism about bias. In an earlier comment at MoA, I mentioned how the fascist Ukrainian spy
network of Reinhard Gehlen became the lens through which all CIA (and therefore US) foreign
policy was seen.
In Moravcsik's case the pedigree runs through his father, Michael Julius Moracsik. Michael
was a refugee from Hungary in 1948, who subsequently got a Ph.D in physics from Cornell. He
eventually became a scientific fellow at NATO. (NOTE 2.)
Just to round out the players' pedigrees, the author, Dr. Gustafson has given papers at the Danyliw
Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine, which describes itself as
"A unique forum for researchers from Canada, Ukraine and elsewhere open to all social
science and humanities research topics touching on Ukraine."
(Ah, Canada, whose deputy prime minister is Chrystia Freeland, an unrepentant defender of
her Banderite Ukrainian grandfather.) So, clearly Gustafson is a member of the club and
hence, the acknowledgement of factual correctness by Moravscik.
-------
This book review in this journal has driven home to me how complete the propaganda bubble
is in the Five Eyes countries. How does one have an impact in the face of such overwhelming
institutionalized propaganda? We have certainly reached the point described by Hannah
Arendt:
Equality of condition among their subjects is not sufficient for totalitarian rule because
it leaves more or less intact certain nonpolitical communal bonds between subjects,
such as family ties and common cultural interests. If totalitarianism takes its own claim
seriously, it must come to the point where it has "to finish once and for all with the
neutrality of chess," that is, with the autonomous existence of any activity whatsoever.
The lovers of "chess for the sake of chess", aptly compared by their liquidator with the
lovers of "art for art's sake", are not yet absolutely atomized elements in a mass
society whose completely homogeneous uniformity is one of the primary conditions for
totalitarianism. From the point of view of totalitarian rulers, a society devoted to
chess for the sake of chess is only in degree different and less dangerous than a class of
farmers for the sake of farming.
-p 322
So, I continue to read and post at MoA, but I have no expectation that it amounts to
anything more than German's listening to the BBC in WW2 did. What I do expect is that, sooner
or later, MoA will be blacklisted for simply relating true facts.
----
NOTE 1
Slaughter served on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School from
1989–1994
On 23 January 2009, U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced the appointment
of Slaughter as the new Director of Policy Planning under the Obama administration.
In July 2005, Slaughter wrote in the American Journal of International Law about the
responsibility to protect (R2P).
Slaughter wrote a strong endorsement of Western military intervention in Libya. In this
op-ed, Slaughter challenged the skeptics who questioned the NATO use of force in Libya,
On 25 August 2011, she was roundly criticized by Matt Welch, who sorted through many of
Slaughter's prior op-eds and concluded that she was a "situational constitutionalist".
Clifford May on 15 October 2014 wrote a piece in which he drew a straight line between
Annan and Slaughter's R2P "norm", and the failure in Libya. May noted that President Obama
had cited the R2P norm as his primary justification for using military force with Libyan
dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who had threatened to attack the opposition stronghold of
Benghazi.
In an 11 November 2014 piece entitled What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to
Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones?, Glenn Greenwald denounced her and her policies
Michael Julius Moravcsik - Hungarian, American physics professor.
Recipient Derek de Solla Price memorial medal;
Scientists and Engineers for Economic Development grant, 1974,
Senior fellow in Science, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1974.
Background
Moravcsik, Michael Julius was born on June 25, 1928 in Budapest, Hungary.
Arrived in United States, 1948, naturalized, 1954.
Education
Student, University Budapest, 1946 -- 1948.
AB cum laude, Harvard University, 1951.
Doctor of Philosophy, Cornell University, 1956.
"Ahead of the Normandy Four meeting in Paris, I once again highlight the key priorities of
the Ukrainian World Congress position in support of the territorial integrity and sovereignty
of Ukraine. We ask that Ukrainian communities around the world maintain and call upon their
national leaders to maintain a clear and unequivocal position, specifically that..."
@29 john brewster... here - let me ''react''.. you gave a few really great examples.. i don't
know that anyone here would dispute how insipid all these russophobic articles are, or worse,
that they all follow a constant theme running out of the 5 eyes central offices..
it is entirely predictable at this point and you're absolutely correct - 110%
propaganda... y
ou've given another good example here with the treatment of stephen cohen... what i find
shocking is the lack of embarrassment towards all of this..
people in the west seem to be devoid of any type of response to it all, other then us
commenting on moa about it.. i don't know how any of it is going to change..
it seems to me the desire to protest all this is really low here in the west..
i admire the french for the protests they have been engaged in the past few months, which
get very little msm coverage.. i wish we could protest about all the propaganda we are
subject to here in canada or the usa, but we haven't reached a critical point in it all yet
it seems..
james #27 - " the drivel chris brown - regular columist for cbc posts.. and typically his
drivel is not open to comments.. here is his latest bs - In an obliterated landscape,
war-weary Ukrainians hope peace summit ends fighting for an insight into completely lopsided
reporting"
Is it my fading memory, or was the CBC once a relatively professional source of
international reporting? This piece is notably bad - not just from the skewed account of
2014's events, or the insistence on describing Donbass as "separatist", or the map which
includes Crimea as part of Ukraine. How is it that the Minsk Accords no longer seem to exist
in the corporate media, or the upcoming meeting in Paris properly described as a continuation
of that process (alleged failure to "live up" to said accords was used as a stick against
Putin for several years, and now their possible realization is vaguely referred to as
something bad). Why does a Chatham House spokesperson get to define Ukraine's supposed "red
lines", which are in reality the political position of the badly defeated former government?
Why is Zelensky's oft stated policy position presented here as Russian-induced capitulation?
Brown interviews four women of whom he says "none would tell us their last name out of fear
of repercussions from local authorities" except they allowed for their photos to be taken and
published. All of these story points result from conscious decisions, not sloppy errors.
"... Lavrov told reporters Thursday: "I think that it is difficult to unbalance us and China. We are well aware of what is happening. We have an answer to all the threats that the Alliance is multiplying in this world." He also said the West is seeking to dominate the Middle East under the guise of NATO as well. ..."
"... "Naturally, we cannot but feel worried over what has been happening within NATO," Lavrov stated. "The problem is NATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only NATO is in the position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for some reason ." ..."
"... NATO still exists, according to Lavrov, in order to "eliminate competitors" and ensure a West-dominated global system in search of new official enemies. ..."
"... I'm wondering how many NATO states don't have US Military Bases positioned in them. It's a small distance between a forward operating base and an occupying forces. ..."
"... What NATO is doing is called racketeering. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO. ..."
"... Children sometimes need a made-up friend, and these bastards need a made-up enemy. Russia is perfect for this. ..."
"... LOL. The NATO ONLY serves US interests. It has the same function as always. Keep the US in, Russia out and Germany down. ..."
"... The collapse of the US empire has been underway for years. Nobody is excited about it because, instead of gracefully adapting to change with the dignity of a great nation, the US will continue to cling to denial, lashing out at all and sundry as reality intrudes upon the myth of American exceptionalism. ..."
"... US geopolitics has created a foe it cannot defeat without itself being destroyed. ..."
"... Technocratic sociopaths, doing a CYA for their incompetence. ..."
"... ZATO cries out in pain as it strikes you. ..."
NATO Seeking To "Dominate The World" & Eliminate Competitors: Russia's Lavrov by
Tyler Durden Mon,
12/09/2019 - 02:45 0 SHARES
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has charged NATO with wanting to "dominate the world"
a day after 70th anniversary events of the alliance concluded in London.
"We absolutely understand that NATO wants to dominate the world and wants to eliminate any
competitors, including resorting to an information war, trying to unbalance us and China,"
Lavrov said from Bratislava,
the capital of Slovakia, while attending the 26th Ministerial Council of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
He seized upon NATO leaders' comments this week, specifically Secretary General Jens
Stoltenberg, naming China as a new enemy alongside Russia . Stoltenberg declared
at the summit that NATO has to "tackle the issue" of China's growing
capabilities.
Lavrov told reporters Thursday: "I think that it is difficult to unbalance us and China. We
are well aware of what is happening. We have an answer to all the threats that the Alliance is
multiplying in this world." He also said the West is seeking to dominate the Middle East under
the guise of NATO as well.
The new accusation of 'world domination'
comes at a crisis moment of growing and deep divisions over the future of the Cold War era
military alliance, including back-and-forth comments on Macron's "brain death" remarks, and
looming questions over Turkey's fitness to remain in NATO, and the ongoing debate over cost
sharing burdens and the scope of the mission.
"Naturally, we cannot but feel worried over what has been happening within NATO," Lavrov
stated. "The problem is NATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to
persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only NATO is in the position
to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for
some reason ."
A consistent theme of Lavrov's has been
to call for a "post-West world order" but that NATO has "remained a Cold War institution"
hindering balance in global relations where countries can pursue their own national
interests.
NATO still exists, according to Lavrov, in order to "eliminate competitors" and ensure a West-dominated global system in
search of new official enemies.
Remember the last Bilderberg meeting. Russia and China were not invited. The globalists
have planned this, and apparently, Russia has better intelligence to know what's going on,
and they will take the necessary precautions, along with China. Let's just hope it's not
going to lead us to WW3.
I'm wondering how many NATO states don't have US Military Bases positioned in them. It's a small distance between a forward operating base and an occupying forces.
NATO is not trying to dominate, NATO is trying to extend its profit from frightened
European donkeys who still believe that the USSR exists, and Uncle Joe sits in the Kremlin
and eats a Christian baby in garlic sauce for lunch.
What NATO is doing is called racketeering. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but
the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO.
So there will
be a big "raspathosovka" with shooting and explosions, do not even doubt it.. Only the problem of
Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same
Americans and NATO. So there will be a big **** with shooting and explosions, do not even
doubt it.
I'll just repeat the erased: NATO - lovers of freebies and they don't refuse this
freebie voluntarily. Children sometimes need a made-up friend, and these bastards need a
made-up enemy. Russia is perfect for this.
NATO is obsolete. The organization no longer serves US interests, and quite frankly,
hasn't for some time. I respectfully suggest the USA move all forces out of Germany on day 1, and station them
at Fort Trump in Poland.
Day 2, the US forms a new "mutual defense pact" with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
(Former Eastern Bloc nations)
Russia and Germany can duke it out, just not where our guys are hanging out. Hades,
Germany and France can limp wrist at each other as they have done in the past so many
times. But insofar as US troops leaving continental Europe forever? Sorry Sergei, that ain't happening, no matter how much
propaganda you shove up western
europe's (willing) ***.
Meanwhile Vlad makes new friends around the world... Last year Putin signed accords with President Macri of Argentina which included Russia
recognizing Argentina's Falklands claim. (La Voz, 23 Jan 2018).
An Argentinian claim based upon 'usurpation' – meaningless in the 18th century and
inheritance from Spain just like Mexico inherited California and Texas.
The NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety. As it stands, I am not
excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing. People have been predicting that for
a while and for the moment, I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate. The
US is a crooked gangster, but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big
league.
The NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety.
The NATO disadvantage right now is of the "sitting with pants full of **** and asking
others who farted" variety.
As it stands, I am not excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing.
The collapse of the US empire has been underway for years. Nobody is excited about it
because, instead of gracefully adapting to change with the dignity of a great nation, the
US will continue to cling to denial, lashing out at all and sundry as reality intrudes upon
the myth of American exceptionalism.
I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate.
US imperial decline is reminiscent of Casey at the Bat.
but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big league.
Or they've decided the US game is not worth playing.
Since 2013 I have followed Russian foreign policy and actions in the middle east and
elsewhere,thanks to statesmen like Lavrov they have crossed every t and dotted every i
following international law and convention, true history will be a lot kinder to Russia than
N ot A nother T errorist O rganisation
What is happening to Europe is the same as what's happening to Russia, only Russia
didn't ask for it. Nevertheless, Azeris and Tatars are on the rise demographically, and
Russians are on the decline.
I don't think Russia ... or China for that matter ... need to worry much. The West is imploding and NATO will implode along with it. The West can't even depend on its technical superiority anymore ( see Boeing 737MAX
); it sure can't depend on (most of) its people to do any real fighting.
NATO is fading and becoming a contradictory mess. China and Russia will be the foe, with possibly India, and far more effective,
economically and militarily. Europe doesn't stand a chance against these no matter how they posture, their slope is
downward.
US geopolitics has created a foe it cannot defeat without itself being destroyed.
"The problem is ZATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to
persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only ZATO is in the
position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West
dislikes for some reason ."
One of things which concerns me most about this site and most others inhabited by
contrarian blokes of a certain age is the way that topics discussed are most often the same
topics as those fed to the mugs via corporate media.
Sure the opinions are vastly different, but the subjects are not. So much energy and
time wasted on pointless topics like the amerikan prez when we all know that it really
doesn't matter who jags that gig nothing meaningful will alter for amerikans or the people
outside amerika oppressed by empire.
Now the prez thing is a bit of a troll since so many amerikans have been intensely
indoctrinated right through their lives to believe that all the prezdency guff is
meaningful when it so obviously isn't. That in reality the odds of any amerikan suddenly
having an epiphany about the pointlessness of DC kibuki from reading this, or something
similar written by someone else, are negligible.
So we have to accept, to a degree, that Washington Housewives and Days of Our Lives DC
will continue to feature at MoA.
But what happens when the corporate media chooses not to consider much larger, more
pernicious forms of imperialism than is currently occurring in the ME because that
imperialism is nascent, awful things are being done to humans western populations who have
not been sufficiently propagandised against, so may not greet the tales of murder and
mayhem generated by the actions of french foreign legionaires, english SAS or amerikan
special forces with sufficient approval?
Easy, we just don't talk about it except when told to or where there is no choice
because some action by the imperial thugs for hire has attracted too much attention. In
that case the barest of details make it into the news and we will be told that whoever it
was who had their families butchered belonged to an organisation which 'western
intelligence' said was 'associated with ISIS'. No specificity, not details at all apart
from the one unsubstantiated claim, which lets face it says any village of humans anywhere
that contains a single resident which western intelligence believes is somehow associated
with ISIS, is worthy of being genocided out of existence.
I reckon one of the best indicators of imperial violence is displaced persons. We saw in
the ME that various forms of ethnic cleansing were practised to persuade people to move off
their traditional lands in order to either exploit the natural resources in the area (see
Saudi Amerika driving tribes from the newly discovered hydrocarbon prospects in North
Yemen), or to create lebensraum for another group of humans currently held in favour by the
empire (see the shifting of arabs and Turkamen from North Syria to give ready made villages
to Kurds which only lasted for as long as the Kurds were needed by empire).
So many people were displaced in the ME during the first half of the teens that shock,
horror some european countries felt obliged to allow a few of those whose lives had been
destroyed into their communities.
That was then, yet we still all talk about the ME as though it is where the empire is
committing its most egregious harm, but that is no longer the case.
If you check
this Pew Center article you will see
The total number of people living in
sub-Saharan Africa who were forced to leave their homes due to conflict reached a new high
of 18.4 million in 2017, up sharply from 14.1 million in 2016 -- the largest regional
increase of forcibly displaced people in the world" .
If one checks the chart Pew has provided we can see that the numbers of decent humans in
the ME who have been displaced from their land is alleged to currently be 21.5 million
while the number of persons displaced in sub-Sahara Africa is about 3 million less at 18.4
million.
See so more action in the ME still. No, firstly the ME curve has flattened right out
over the years since 2016 meaning that new displacements are relatively low unless of
course it is your whanau that has been displaced in which case it wouldn't feel
nearly as benign. Secondly if you look at the fine-print on that chart you will see the 21.5 million line is
labelled "Middle East-North Africa".
Libya is an African state which happens to have a proportion of arabic speaking people
in its population, it also contains Berbers (e.g. Muammar Ghadaffi) and what the chart
calls "sub-Saharan Africans when they want say negro but the unfortunate connotations
associated with that term (99% the result of horrific whitefella behaviour) means that
negro is no longer a la mode in whitefella land.
Not enough to rape, steal & steal from black Africans, now we also remove the means
to identify them as a distinct group.
The Libya africa/ME issue matters a great deal because prior to the fukusi rape of
Libya, that nation acted as a bulwark for all the supra-saharan nations, some Saharan eg
Niger and that was just as likely a reason for amerika to destroy Libya setting loose the
ethno-centrists of Misratah to kill black africans, standover Berbers & Turks to ensure
that only Arab speaking semites can get control. This is the deal the empire struck. Not to
enable italy to get some of that sweet sweet crude at the sort of bargain basement prices
Italy hadn't enjoyed since Mussolini invaded Libya - that was purely a minor side benefit,
now the good colonel was no more, fukus became the only game in town. There was no longer any white knight determined to protect his/her neigbours from the
outright theft, extortion, bribery, rape & murder which are the empire's stock in
trade.
It is foolish and counterproductive to ignore the horrors that a US-led fukus mission
which runs across the entire African continent has created in the name of more billions to
the already rich. Do it if you want, but all you are really achieving is enabling the arseholes.
There is a scarcity of relevant links for the usual reasons. Not only are you more
likely to put faith in info from sources you already know & trust, getting there will
help you comprehend this crime far better than something easily digestible from a user, and
most importantly the final paras were done long after the sun rose over the yardarm
here.
@ A User 72
All very true. I would place the de jure war onslaughts within the overall context of
globalization and in particular the imperialistic assault of corporate industrial agriculture
upon Africa, the last great semi-frontier which wasn't fully assimilated by the first "Green
Revolution" onslaught. A main goal as the global empire faces decline or collapse is to seize
control of all land and drive the people OUT.
Globalization acts to destroy all local production and distribution. It destroys this
outright or seizes control of it in order to force it into the global commodity framework. It
seizes control of indigenous land and resources. It dumps subsidized Western goods. It
destroys any functional politics and democracy. It imposes the control of multinational
corporations over every part of life it can. It does this purely in the power interests of
Western elites. Any benefits it lets trickle down to locals are purely calculated payouts to
accomplices. Much of the global South has been crushed under the corporate boot this way, and
Africa has already been subject to the IMF and World Bank’s debt indenture shock
treatment (“structural adjustment”).
All this has been accompanied by the systematic ravaging of African ecosystems,
culminating in the rising climate chaos driven by the patterns of energy consumption, waste,
and ecological destruction practiced and imposed by Western industrialized productionism and
consumerism. Climate change is caused by these actions. Since corporate state elites and
their supporters have long known this and in spite of lots of lip service have refused to do
anything to avert the worst of it, it’s long been true that climate change is an
intentional campaign of aggression against the Earth and all vulnerable peoples. Thus climate
change takes its place as the most extreme and far-reaching of the corporate campaigns
designed to cause disaster, destruction, and chaos. According to this pattern of disaster
capitalism the corporations then proceed to use the crises they intentionally generate as
further opportunities for aggression and profit. All corporate sectors practice this, and
corporate agriculture is the most aggressive and destructive practitioner of all. Today
Africa is its primary new target.
Corporate control of agriculture and food has always been at the core of the globalization
onslaught. In accordance with its food weapon the US government systematically has waged
economic, political, chemical, biological (both of the former in the form of poison-based
agriculture and other pretexts for systemic and systematic environmental poisoning), and
often literal shooting warfare. Throughout this history of war and sublimated war, corporate
agriculture has been a constant weapon and battleground as well as its aggrandizement being a
constant goal.
This comment follows onto earlier comments about Ukrainian influence and media censorship.
I have always tried to keep politics out of science, in order to be able to focus clearly
on the study of nature, instead of the opinions of people. Admittedly, some areas of science
are completely political, such as climate change, ecology, and nuclear power. I also
recognize that the so-called prestige press for science - journals such as Nature (UK) and
Science (US) - are going to reflect the conventional, if not the corporate perspective.
Nevertheless, a book review in this week's (5 DEC 2019) issue of Nature really pissed me
off. The book is about natural gas pipelines and their ability to overcome political
differences:
The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe
by Thane Gustafson
Of course, such a topic is completely political and the author is a political scientist.
Gustafson is Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University and Senior Director of
Russian and Caspian Energy for HIS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, whose chairman and
founder is Dr. Daniel Yergin, author of many best-selling books on the oil industry.
The offensive review is by Andrew Moracsik, whom I had never heard of. But, after a little
googling, I discover that his wife is the appropriately named, Anne-Marie Slaughter. She of
bomb Libya fame. (NOTE 1.) Andrew himself has quite the pedigree: educated at Stanford
and Johns Hopkins (Nitze SAIS), professor at Harvard and Princeton. He is a prominent scholar
of the EU and of Eastern Europe, and an editor at the journal Foreign Affairs.
Now to the review. Dr. Moracsik admits up front that:
(the book) offers a readable, intelligent, even-handed historical interpretation of this
relationship.
In other words, he can't fault the book for inaccuracy. But his purpose is really to bring
the non-stop villification of Russia to the pages of a scientific journal. Here are the
unfounded, false, and weasel-worded assertions he makes:
Russia also provoked a series of interventions and conflicts in Georgia, Moldova,
Syria, and Ukraine. The West responded by imposing sanctions...More recently, Russia
has become involved in the disruption of elections in the West, and in cyberwarfare.
Andrew Moravcsik is professor of politics and international affairs, and director of the
EU Program, at Princeton University in New Jersey.
-----
Why is it that whenever I find a US scholar talking about Eastern Europe, they have
some kind of refugee from Communism pedigree? Well, the obvious answer is that that is
the pedigree that gets you into the club of Russia hatred and gets you a free pass from
criticism about bias. In an earlier comment at MoA, I mentioned how the fascist Ukrainian spy
network of Reinhard Gehlen became the lens through which all CIA (and therefore US) foreign
policy was seen.
In Moravcsik's case the pedigree runs through his father, Michael Julius Moracsik. Michael
was a refugee from Hungary in 1948, who subsequently got a Ph.D in physics from Cornell. He
eventually became a scientific fellow at NATO. (NOTE 2.)
Just to round out the players' pedigrees, the author, Dr. Gustafson has given papers at the Danyliw
Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine, which describes itself as
"A unique forum for researchers from Canada, Ukraine and elsewhere open to all social
science and humanities research topics touching on Ukraine."
(Ah, Canada, whose deputy prime minister is Chrystia Freeland, an unrepentant defender of
her Banderite Ukrainian grandfather.) So, clearly Gustafson is a member of the club and
hence, the acknowledgement of factual correctness by Moravscik.
-------
This book review in this journal has driven home to me how complete the propaganda bubble
is in the Five Eyes countries. How does one have an impact in the face of such overwhelming
institutionalized propaganda? We have certainly reached the point described by Hannah
Arendt:
Equality of condition among their subjects is not sufficient for totalitarian rule because
it leaves more or less intact certain nonpolitical communal bonds between subjects,
such as family ties and common cultural interests. If totalitarianism takes its own claim
seriously, it must come to the point where it has "to finish once and for all with the
neutrality of chess," that is, with the autonomous existence of any activity whatsoever.
The lovers of "chess for the sake of chess", aptly compared by their liquidator with the
lovers of "art for art's sake", are not yet absolutely atomized elements in a mass
society whose completely homogeneous uniformity is one of the primary conditions for
totalitarianism. From the point of view of totalitarian rulers, a society devoted to
chess for the sake of chess is only in degree different and less dangerous than a class of
farmers for the sake of farming.
-p 322
So, I continue to read and post at MoA, but I have no expectation that it amounts to
anything more than German's listening to the BBC in WW2 did. What I do expect is that, sooner
or later, MoA will be blacklisted for simply relating true facts.
----
NOTE 1
Slaughter served on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School from
1989–1994
On 23 January 2009, U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced the appointment
of Slaughter as the new Director of Policy Planning under the Obama administration.
In July 2005, Slaughter wrote in the American Journal of International Law about the
responsibility to protect (R2P).
Slaughter wrote a strong endorsement of Western military intervention in Libya. In this
op-ed, Slaughter challenged the skeptics who questioned the NATO use of force in Libya,
On 25 August 2011, she was roundly criticized by Matt Welch, who sorted through many of
Slaughter's prior op-eds and concluded that she was a "situational constitutionalist".
Clifford May on 15 October 2014 wrote a piece in which he drew a straight line between
Annan and Slaughter's R2P "norm", and the failure in Libya. May noted that President Obama
had cited the R2P norm as his primary justification for using military force with Libyan
dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who had threatened to attack the opposition stronghold of
Benghazi.
In an 11 November 2014 piece entitled What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to
Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones?, Glenn Greenwald denounced her and her policies
Michael Julius Moravcsik - Hungarian, American physics professor.
Recipient Derek de Solla Price memorial medal;
Scientists and Engineers for Economic Development grant, 1974,
Senior fellow in Science, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1974.
Background
Moravcsik, Michael Julius was born on June 25, 1928 in Budapest, Hungary.
Arrived in United States, 1948, naturalized, 1954.
Education
Student, University Budapest, 1946 -- 1948.
AB cum laude, Harvard University, 1951.
Doctor of Philosophy, Cornell University, 1956.
"Ahead of the Normandy Four meeting in Paris, I once again highlight the key priorities of
the Ukrainian World Congress position in support of the territorial integrity and sovereignty
of Ukraine. We ask that Ukrainian communities around the world maintain and call upon their
national leaders to maintain a clear and unequivocal position, specifically that..."
@29 john brewster... here - let me ''react''.. you gave a few really great examples.. i don't
know that anyone here would dispute how insipid all these russophobic articles are, or worse,
that they all follow a constant theme running out of the 5 eyes central offices..
it is entirely predictable at this point and you're absolutely correct - 110%
propaganda... y
ou've given another good example here with the treatment of stephen cohen... what i find
shocking is the lack of embarrassment towards all of this..
people in the west seem to be devoid of any type of response to it all, other then us
commenting on moa about it.. i don't know how any of it is going to change..
it seems to me the desire to protest all this is really low here in the west..
i admire the french for the protests they have been engaged in the past few months, which
get very little msm coverage.. i wish we could protest about all the propaganda we are
subject to here in canada or the usa, but we haven't reached a critical point in it all yet
it seems..
james #27 - " the drivel chris brown - regular columist for cbc posts.. and typically his
drivel is not open to comments.. here is his latest bs - In an obliterated landscape,
war-weary Ukrainians hope peace summit ends fighting for an insight into completely lopsided
reporting"
Is it my fading memory, or was the CBC once a relatively professional source of
international reporting? This piece is notably bad - not just from the skewed account of
2014's events, or the insistence on describing Donbass as "separatist", or the map which
includes Crimea as part of Ukraine. How is it that the Minsk Accords no longer seem to exist
in the corporate media, or the upcoming meeting in Paris properly described as a continuation
of that process (alleged failure to "live up" to said accords was used as a stick against
Putin for several years, and now their possible realization is vaguely referred to as
something bad). Why does a Chatham House spokesperson get to define Ukraine's supposed "red
lines", which are in reality the political position of the badly defeated former government?
Why is Zelensky's oft stated policy position presented here as Russian-induced capitulation?
Brown interviews four women of whom he says "none would tell us their last name out of fear
of repercussions from local authorities" except they allowed for their photos to be taken and
published. All of these story points result from conscious decisions, not sloppy errors.
"... I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq. As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense. ..."
"... He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign. ..."
"... When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress. ..."
"... Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over. ..."
Enthusiasm over entrepreneurship is now found in every corner of society -- even, apparently, within the federal bureaucracy.
Witness after witness in last month's House impeachment inquiry hearings referred to "the interagency," an off-the-books informal
government organization that we now know has enormous power to set and execute American foreign policy.
The first to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, State Department official George Kent, seemed to conceive of the
interagency as the definitive source of foreign-policy consensus. That Mr. Trump's alleged decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine
deviated from that consensus was, for Mr. Kent, prima facie evidence that it was misguided.
Next up, Ambassador William Taylor told the committee that it was the "unanimous opinion of every level of interagency discussion"
that the aid should be resumed without delay. Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official, gave the game away by admitting
how upset she was that Gordon Sondland, President Trump's ambassador to the European Union, had established an "alternative" approach
to helping Kyiv. "We have a robust interagency process that deals with Ukraine," she said.
What is the interagency, and why should its views guide the conduct of American diplomatic and national-security professionals?
The Constitution grants the president the power to set defense and diplomatic policy. Where did this interagency come from?
I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq.
As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was
executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense.
He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that
the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture,
Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new
hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong
engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign.
Interagency cooperative agreements have been around for decades. The Justice Department, for example, has opioid-interdiction
programs that require it to work with the Department of Homeland Security. Today a dictionary of more than 12,500 official terms
exists to guide bureaucrats in writing interagency contracts that repurpose federal funds appropriated to various executive departments.
Often these interdepartmental initiatives devised by bureaucrats are unknown to Congress. It's hard to imagine that the legislative
branch wouldn't object to these arrangements, if only it were aware of them.
When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military
and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the
Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine
and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress.
Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government
credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of
how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who
probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that
Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over.
The impeachment hearings will have served a useful purpose if all they do is demonstrate that a cabal of unelected officials are
fashioning profound aspects of U.S. foreign policy on their own motion. No statutes anticipate that the president or Congress will
delegate such authority to a secret working group formed largely at the initiation of entrepreneurial bureaucrats, notwithstanding
that they may be area experts, experienced in diplomatic and military affairs, and motivated by what they see as the best interests
of the country.
However the impeachment drama plays out, Congress has cause to enact comprehensive legislation akin to the Goldwater-Nichols Act
of 1986, which created more-efficient structures and transparent processes in the Defense Department. Americans deserve to know who
really is responsible for making the nation's foreign policy. The interagency, if it is to exist, should have a chairman appointed
by the president, and its decisions, much like the once-secret minutes of the Federal Reserve, should be published, with limited
and necessary exceptions, for all to see.
Mr. Schramm is a university professor at Syracuse. His most recent book is "Burn the Business Plan."
The documents also contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who
assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.
Look at this:
Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public.
They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul -- and at the White House -- to distort statistics to make it appear
the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.
As commanders in chief, Bush, Obama and Trump all promised the public the same thing. They would avoid falling into the trap
of "nation-building" in Afghanistan.
On that score, the presidents failed miserably. The United States has allocated more than $133 billion to build up Afghanistan
-- more than it spent, adjusted for inflation, to revive the whole of Western Europe with the Marshall Plan after World War II.
The Lessons Learned interviews show the grandiose nation-building project was marred from the start.
If you can get through it all, good for you. I got so mad that I had to quit reading not long after the paragraph above. We have
lost about 2,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, and sustained about 21,000 casualties of war. (Not to mention all the dead innocent Afghan
civilians, and the dead and wounded troops of our NATO allies.) We have spent altogether almost $1 trillion on that country. The
Afghan officials stole a fortune from us. We never knew what to do there. And every one of our leaders lied about it. Lied! All those
brave American soldiers, dead or maimed for life, for a war that our leaders knew that we could not win, but in defense of which
they lied.
It's the Pentagon Papers all over again. You know this, right.
Trump is negotiating now with the Taliban over the possibility of US withdrawal. The story says US officials fought the Post
in court over these documents, and have said most recently that publishing them would undermine the administration's negotiating
position. I don't care. Tell the truth, for once. Let's cut our losses and go before more Americans die in this lost cause. Poor
Afghanistan is going to fall under the tyrannical rule of the mullahs. But if, after 18 years, a trillion dollars, and all those
dead and wounded Americans, we couldn't establish a stable and decent Afghan regime, it's not going to happen.
If any of my children want to join the US military, I'm going to go to the mat to talk them out of it. I do not want them, or
anybody's sons or daughters, sent overseas to die in hopeless countries in wars that we cannot win, and shouldn't have fought, but
kept doing because of bipartisan Establishment foreign policy delusions. To be clear, we should have bombed the hell out of Afghanistan
after 9/11. The Taliban government gave shelter to Al Qaeda, and brought retribution upon itself. But the Bush Administration's nation-building
insanity was never going to work. Eight years of Obama did not fix this. Nor, so far, has three years of Trump, though maybe he will
be the one to stop the bleeding. If he does withdraw, I hope he blasts the hell out of his two predecessors and the military leadership
for what they've done here.
I've been writing lately in this space, and in the book I'm working on, about the parallels between late-imperial Russia and our
own time and place. And I've been writing about what Hannah Arendt had to say about the origins of totalitarianism. Arendt says that
one precursor of totalitarianism is a widespread loss of faith in a society's and a government's institutions.
According to a 2019 Gallup poll, the
US military is one of the few institutions that enjoys broad confidence. How can anybody possibly believe them after this? How can
we believe our Commanders-in-Chief? According to the secret documents, the men in the field have been were their commanders for a
long time that this Afghan thing was not working, and wasn't ever going to work. But they kept sending them back in.
Why? Pride? Too full of themselves to admit that it was a failure? As soldier John Kerry turned antiwar activist said back in
the 1970s, about Vietnam, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" No more American dying in and for Afghanistan.
Bring the troops home. They did not fail. Their superiors did.
How do you convince young people to join an institution whose leadership -- civilian as well as military -- is prepared to sacrifice
them for a lost cause, and then lie, and lie, and lie about it? How do you convince mothers and fathers to send their sons and daughters
with confidence to that military? How do you convince taxpayers to support throwing more money into the sh*thole that is the Pentagon's
budget?
The questions that are going to come up sooner than most of us think, and, in some version, from both the Left and the Right:
just what kind of order do we have in America anyway? Why do I owe it my loyalty? What does it mean to be a patriot when you cannot
trust the nation's leaders and institutions?
These are the kinds of questions that, depending on how they are answered, can lead to the unraveling, and even the overthrow,
of a regime. It has been said that the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan was a prime mover in the ascension of Mikhail Gorbachev and the
collapse of the Soviet system. We are not the Soviet Union -- but I wouldn't be so quick to take comfort in that, if I were a political
or military leader.
We learned nothing from Vietnam, did we? Not a damn thing. It is beyond infuriating. It is beyond demoralizing. And you know,
the only thing more infuriating and more demoralizing than this will be if there are no consequences for it, or if people fall back
into partisan positions. The report makes clear that this is a disaster that was launched by a Republican administration, continued
under a Democratic administration, and has been overseen by another Republican administration.
One of the reasons Donald Trump is president today, and not some other Republican, is he was the one Republican primary candidate
who denounced the wars. If he can't get us out of Afghanistan, what good is he?
UPDATE: I was just thinking about something a military friend told me almost 15 years ago, based on his direct personal knowledge
of the situation: that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was lying to the nation about how the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were
going. And if Rumsfeld was lying, so was the administration. My friend was deeply discouraged. Rumsfeld left office in 2006 -- but
the habit remained with our leadership.
The only thing that surprised me in the WaPo article was that it was published in the CIA's house organ.
EDIT: I should have added that the squandering of blood and treasure, fighting a pointless war that benefits nobody but the
financiers, contractors, arms manufacturers and generals, all while the politicians and generals proclaim that victory is just
at hand, we can't turn back now, - all this reminds me of nothing so much as a smaller scale WWI.
Trump wants us out of Afghanistan, but Iran is a different story. He's sending more troupes to Saudi Arabia to defend the Saudi's
from Iran, how is that disentangling from the ME. I think the Saudi's Wahhabism, basically the same as ISIS practices, is the
most dangerous religion in the word today and they are busy exporting it to the rest of the world. I really think Trump is a false
prophet, a lying prophet, who serves first himself.
Didn't vote for Trump - but: He has attempted to stand up to the elite establishment intelligence-military-arms manufacturing
complex and start cutting back the forever wars. Everyone attacks him for this--establishment Republicans, Democrats, State Department,
Military, Intelligence, Media--everybody. The attacks are immediate and intense. He is almost always forced to pull back. He seems
determined to keep trying, but, as is evident, they will do anything it takes to stop him.
First Worlders commenting here seem to have the illusion Christianism is the good brother
of the three Abrahamic religions. Although I understand the pro-Christian bias coming from
the Europeans (since Christianism is an inextricable aspect of European identity), this
opinion is a myth: we have already tasted this in the Bolivian coup, but it's also a Latin
American phenomenon.
Christians are wolves under sheep skins.
--//--
@ Posted by: pogohere | Dec 9 2019 1:25 utc | 57
The USSR had a relatively backwards transportation system (specially railways), that still
used disproportional quantities of petroil to function, but that wasn't an existential threat
to the nation per se , it could be modernized.
Of all the theses I've read about the collapse of the USSR, the one that most convinced me
was Angelo Segrillo's "Decline of the USSR" - which I think only exists in Portuguese right
now. Segrillo covers all the arguments of the time used to explain the fall of the USSR and
refutes them all empirically before he lays out that the main cause of the fall of the USSR
was its structural inability to implement the Third Industrial Revolution ("toyotism").
When it became clear the USSR wouldn't be able to keep up technologically with the USA,
Gorbachev then decided (without knowing it) it would be preferrable for the USSR to disappear
than to continue to exist as a non-superpower.
In that sense, yes, the Soviet then relatively inneficient energy use was a symptom of the
underlying cause - but it wasn't the cause.
--//--
@ Posted by: bevin | Dec 9 2019 3:03 utc | 62
The problem with Europe is its geography: it is a tiny, depleted peninsula. In the 17th
Century, it was an advantage, since the lack of natural resources impelled it to aggressively
exploit other continents, giving birth to capitalism.
But capitalism is a global system, not a regional system. When it reached maturity, Europe
slowly, but inexorably, begun to lose its competitive advantages over purely capitalist
formations - the greatest of them all being the USA. Then what was an advantage became a
disadvantage.
This gordian knot was cut with WWI and WWII (both were only one war, in two parts) - a
last desperate attempt by British capitalism to preserve its imperialist status.
But History is unasailable: it is the saga of class struggle, of the contradictions
between the modes of production and the relations of production. The result couldn't be any
different: Western Europe was on its knees after WWII. The British Empire had just sold all
its assets to the Americans and German men were literally prostituting themselves to American
soldiers for on cigarette (and German children, for one chocolate bar). The USA was the
undisputed sovereign of the European Peninsula from 1945 on.
The last leverage the European Peninsula had, in that scenario, was the USSR itself: it
could ask the USA for good treatment and some dignity in exchange of not doing socialist
revolutions backed up by the Soviets. The result was the Marshall Plan and a permission to
revive their previous industrial parks.
That situation resulted in the rise of Atlanticism, the ideology that the USA is the
legitimate heir of Western Civilization. Andy Warhol was the successor to Michelangelo.
--//--
@ Posted by: john brewster | Dec 9 2019 4:35 utc | 65
The USSR stagnated during the period that spanned from the oil crisis of 1975 until its
fall in 1991.
But it only had a recession in two years of its history: the year after the Perestroika
and its last year of existence. Both were very mild recessions (by capitalist standards).
Even during the infamous "Brezhnev stagnation", growth was 1-3% per year - comparable to
the developed capitalist nations since the 1990s.
But the problem is that its successor states are doing objectively worse: Russia will
grown a little more than 1% this year; other ex-Soviet states are more or less in the same
situation (with Ukraine doing outright worse). The mircle promised to the Russians didn't
come: Putin's boom of the early 2000s was not comparable to the Soviet boom. Russia's status
today are completely dependent on China (which, ironically, has the Soviet system of
government) and the modernization from the old Soviet weapons and know-how it already
had.
"... The New Cold War can traced back to a broken promise made to Moscow on Nato expansion eastward. "London and Washington are orchestrating a disinformation" campaign today against Russia, as the New Cold War has heated up over Syria, Ukraine, NATO troops on Russia's borders and Russiagate. ..."
"... Hostility to Russia is the oldest continuous foreign policy tradition in the United States. It is now so much of a part of America's identity that it is unlikely to be ever cured. ..."
"... It is a dangerous miscalculation to think the "New Cold War" will end like the first. Russia (the USSR) had a buffer zone then, it doesn't today. For Moscow the coming war (world war) will be about survival. All that is left is the fall-back position of nuclear deterrence doctrine – annihilation. I don't think western capitals see how perilous the situation is. ..."
"... Then there are snide remarks about the meeting today concerning the Ukrainian Azov (Neo-Nazi) attacks on the Donbass (NOT how either the BBC or NPR speaks of this of course) in France. This struggle, between the Russian-speaking Donbass peoples and the neo-Nazis of western Ukraine, has killed many thousands of people (most likely mostly those of the Donbass). The Donbass fighters are spoken of as "Russian-supported" in an attempt to deny them and the reasons for their struggle *any* legitimacy (meanwhile the support for the neo-Nazis goes unmentioned, leaving the listener with the impression that they are the Ukrainian military, thus legitimately fighting a foreign funded and manned insurgency). ..."
"... Mad Dog Mattis spoke the truth when he said that an opponent wasn't defeated until they agreed they were defeated. The US merely assumed that Russia agreed that they were defeated and are doubling down when they now suddenly realize that Russia never said any such thing. ..."
"... I am really sick of the smearing of Russia done by the US and UK. The Skripal as well as the MH17 case are plain ridiculus. Anybody can see through these silly plants. US and UK obviously don't feel obliged to respect any international rules any more. (The one person who is suffering most at the moment from the decline in respect is Julian Assange, an Australian citizen!) ..."
"... "From 1922 onwards the strategic purpose of the Soviet Union was to defend the Soviet Union not global domination, whereas the purpose of the "West" has always been global domination. " ..."
"... "At an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause." ..."
Retired Australian diplomat Tony Kevin, in conversation with former Australian Foreign
Minister Bob Carr, says the West is unnecessarily determined to undermine Russia. A t an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United
States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause.
When Kevin said he returned to Russia after more than 40 years in 2016 he realized he "had
to take sides" in the U.S.-Russia standoff when all Nato countries boycotted the Moscow
celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
"I had to take a moral position that it is not right for the West to be ganging up on
Russia," Kevin says in his conversation with the former Australian foreign minister.
The New Cold War can traced back to a broken promise made to Moscow on Nato expansion
eastward. "London and Washington are orchestrating a disinformation" campaign today against
Russia, as the New Cold War has heated up over Syria, Ukraine, NATO troops on Russia's borders
and Russiagate.
Watch the hour-long in depth discussion which was filmed and produced by Consortium
News' CN Live! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan.
Tony's (especially!) and Bob's sane and sensible view of this dangerous and destructive
state of affairs deserve the widest possible distribution and attention.
George McGlynn , December 9, 2019 at 13:27
A quarter century has passed since the fall of the Soviet Union, and little has changed.
Cold War patterns of thinking about Russia show no sign of weakening in America. The further
we distance ourselves from the end of the Cold War, the closer we come to its revival.
Hostility to Russia is the oldest continuous foreign policy tradition in the United States.
It is now so much of a part of America's identity that it is unlikely to be ever cured.
It is a dangerous miscalculation to think the "New Cold War" will end like the first.
Russia (the USSR) had a buffer zone then, it doesn't today. For Moscow the coming war (world
war) will be about survival. All that is left is the fall-back position of nuclear deterrence
doctrine – annihilation. I don't think western capitals see how perilous the situation
is.
AnneR , December 9, 2019 at 07:48
The latest efforts at attacking Russia via smear, allegation and Doublespeak have been,
are via that US supported supposed oversight committee, WADA which has done what the US-UK
wanted: banned Russia for four years from international sporting events including the
upcoming Tokyo Olympics and World Cup (Football – soccer to Americans).
Then there were allegations – of those "highly likely" (therefore one knows to be
untrue and unadulterated propaganda to increase Russophobia) sort – about Russian
hackers (always giving the impression that the "Kremlin" is behind itl) being the Labour
Party's source of the Tory party's US-UK trade deal which would/will deliberately and finally
destroy the NHS and replace it with (of course) US "health" insurance company
profiteering.
(Always the Tory intention from the NHS's initiation in May of 1948; only its popularity
among many Tory party supporters among the working and lower middle classes prevented them
from a full-frontal killing off the NHS; the Snatcher's government began the undermining, via
installing a top-heavy bureaucratization, siphoning off a sizable proportion of the funds
that would otherwise have gone to medical care, demanding that hospitals not "lose" money
– a concept completely beyond the remit of the NHS as originally conceived and
constructed and like exactions.)
Then there are snide remarks about the meeting today concerning the Ukrainian Azov
(Neo-Nazi) attacks on the Donbass (NOT how either the BBC or NPR speaks of this of course) in
France. This struggle, between the Russian-speaking Donbass peoples and the neo-Nazis of
western Ukraine, has killed many thousands of people (most likely mostly those of the
Donbass). The Donbass fighters are spoken of as "Russian-supported" in an attempt to deny
them and the reasons for their struggle *any* legitimacy (meanwhile the support for the
neo-Nazis goes unmentioned, leaving the listener with the impression that they are the
Ukrainian military, thus legitimately fighting a foreign funded and manned insurgency).
Someone even suggested that President Putin needed to be diplomatic. Really? From what
I've read the man is the most diplomatic and intelligent politician (not just political
leader) along with Xi Jinping and the Iranian government that exist on the world stage. None
of them are hubristic, solipsistic, eager beaver killers of peoples in other countries.
Unlike their western "world" political counterparts.
Jeff Harrison , December 8, 2019 at 18:30
Mad Dog Mattis spoke the truth when he said that an opponent wasn't defeated until they
agreed they were defeated. The US merely assumed that Russia agreed that they were defeated
and are doubling down when they now suddenly realize that Russia never said any such thing.
St. Ronnie's whole thing back in the 80's was to outspend Russia militarily and it worked
well. We're trying to do it again but Russia isn't playing the same game this time and now it
is the US that has a mountain of debt and Russia that doesn't. SIPIRI tags US military
spending at $650B and Russian military spending at $62B. But we know that the $650B number is
bogus because it doesn't include our in-violation-of-the-NNPT nuclear program which is in the
energy department or our veteran's expenses which are in HHS. I don't know what's missing
from Russia's $62B but I'll bet they can sustain that a whole lot better than we can sustain
our $650B and rising bill.
Antonio Costa , December 9, 2019 at 13:17
Good point regarding Russia's downsizing the Soviet Union. From Gorbachev to Putin there
was NEVER a surrender, intended in any way. The intent has been multilateral partnerships.
For Russia the US/West won nothing at all except the opportunity to live and work in peace.
(By the way this policy has a long Russian history.)
They gave up the Warsaw Pact and America with our worthless "word" expanded NATO.
The US foreign policy has lost even the semblance of sanity. Our naked aggression is clear
as never before, a mad man throwing a global fit armed with megaton nuclear projectiles on
trigger first strike alert. What could go wrong?
nondimenticare , December 8, 2019 at 15:56
If, magically, Consortium News/CN Live! were a mass-distribution network/magazine (hence
universally consulted), allowing the light in for the mass of the viewing and listening
public, it could change the world – both an exalting and despairing thought.
Lily , December 8, 2019 at 09:52
It is a great joy to listen to this conversation!
I am really sick of the smearing of Russia done by the US and UK. The Skripal as well as
the MH17 case are plain ridiculus. Anybody can see through these silly plants. US and UK
obviously don't feel obliged to respect any international rules any more. (The one person who
is suffering most at the moment from the decline in respect is Julian Assange, an Australian
citizen!)
I wish people would have the courage to break away from the group pressure originated by a
nation which has been started by killing more than 90% of the indigenous people in their
country and since then has turned the worl into a very insecure place.
Chapeau, Tony Kevin! Thanks to Bob Carr and Consortiums News.
Lily , December 9, 2019 at 01:18
It seems that some facts are beginning to be realized in the military department.
Words are catalysts of connotations and connotations are functions of
expectations/framing..
Some conflate cause with purpose thereby limiting perception of cause and purpose.
Some understand that causation is interactive and in any lateral system the genesis of
causation is difficult to determine.
Some understand that evaluation is a function of purpose and that purpose can be evaluated
through such portals into wonderlands such as "What is the "United States of America" and how
is it facilitated?"
As thumb-nailed in the comments section of the article Capitalism's suicidal trajectory
– OlyaPola
December 6, 2019 at 07:46
"From 1922 onwards the strategic purpose of the Soviet Union was to defend the Soviet
Union not global domination, whereas the purpose of the "West" has always been global
domination. "
From 1922 onwards various tactics have been attempted by the "West" to facilitate their
purpose, including attempts at "Orange revolution" in many areas which catalysed many lateral
trajectories including the process of transcendence of the "Soviet Union" by the Russian
Federation in the period from 1991 to 2005.
Consequently Mr. Suslov's observation re war of "The United States of America" can be
extended into present times and hence no "New cold war" exists.
""What is the "United States of America"
An initial step through the portal is that "The United States of America" is – a
regime of social relations to facilitate its purpose – the social relations not being
restricted to the "nation state" presently self designated "The United States of America" but
including classes in other "nation states".
Consequently alternative purposes and social relations pose an existential threat to "The
United States of America"; this being perceived of lesser significance in regard to "The
Soviet Union" and greater in regard to the Russian Federation.
"At an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United
States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause."
The American establishment's problem with Russia is simply that Russia is the only country
on earth capable of obliterating the United States. Not even China has yet reached that
capacity.
"Carthago delenda est"
Skip Scott , December 9, 2019 at 06:13
There is "cause." Russia was our latest vassal under Yeltsin. Putin stopped the looting,
and worked to benefit average Russian citizens. Just watch "The Magnitsky Act, behind the
scenes" to know the "cause".
Bruno DP , December 8, 2019 at 02:34
The West is ganging up on Russia? Replace "West" by "United States of America", and I will agree.
Much of the West (i.e. Germany) has been dragged by force into damage control mode. The
Magnitsky Act monster, the election interference hysteria, are just 2 crying examples met
with shock and disbelief across the pond. The Fiona Hill testimony was a very telling moment
for the inner workings of a self perpetuating logic.
Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.
But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin
seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined.
I'm German, living in the US, and I agree with your comment. I especially love the last
two sentences:
"Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.
But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems
to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined."
So a republican staffer, a neocon without any diplomatic experience was the NSC senior director of European and Russian
affairs, the successor of Fiona Hill.
Washington
-- A top National Security Council official who listened to President Trump's July call with the
president of Ukraine told lawmakers he "promptly" told White House lawyers he was concerned details of the call would
become public, but did not think "anything illegal was discussed" during the conversation.
Tim Morrison, the outgoing senior director of European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council and a
deputy assistant to the president, is testifying before committees leading the
impeachment inquiry
on Capitol Hill on Thursday. He has emerged as a central witness to the events at the center
of the inquiry, particularly the administration's policy toward Ukraine.
CBS News learned the substance of his opening statement to the committees, which ran six pages and appears below.
Morrison said the summary released by the White House of the call between Mr. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky accurately reflects his memory and understanding of the call, but he said he had three concerns in the event
the summary became public.
"[F]irst, how it would play out in Washington's polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the
bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the
Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship," Morrison, who was in the Situation Room for the call, told
lawmakers. "I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed."
However, he also corroborated a central allegation in the Democratic case against the president: that a U.S.
ambassador told a high-ranking Ukrainian official that the release of military aid was contingent on an investigation
into the Bidens.
Tim Morrison arrives for a deposition at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on October 31,
2019.
SAUL LOEB / AF
Morrison said his predecessor, Fiona Hill, told him about "concerns about two Ukraine processes that were
occurring": one led by traditional U.S. diplomatic entities, and one led by the U.S. Ambassador the E.U. Gordon
Sondland and Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer. He said Hill told him about their efforts to get Ukraine
to investigate Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that had employed Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe
Biden's son.
"At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the investigation entailed," Morrison said. "After the
meeting with Dr. Hill, I googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy company and that Hunter Biden was
on its board."
Morrison said he spoke frequently with Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in the embassy in Kiev. Taylor
testified before the committees
last week and described his misgivings about efforts to pressure Ukraine
to open investigations into the president's rivals. Morrison, in his statement, confirmed the substance of Taylor's
account, but said he remembered two details differently.
Taylor testified that Morrison told him Sondland had demanded the Ukrainian president announce an investigation
into Burisma, while Morrison said he remembered Sondland saying an announcement by the country's top prosecutor would
suffice. Taylor also indicated Morrison met with the Ukrainian national security adviser in his hotel room, while
Morrison said it was in the hotel's business center.
Morrison said he learned about a delay in military aid to Ukraine shortly after assuming his post, and was tasked
with coordinating with various agencies to demonstrate why the aid was needed.
"I was confident that our national security principals -- the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Council -- could convince President Trump to
release the aid," he said.
Morrison testified he had "no reason to believe" the Ukrainians knew of a delay in military aid until August 28,
and said he was unaware the aid may have been tied to the demand for an investigation into Burisma until he spoke to
Sondland on September 1.
Morrison arrived on Capitol Hill before 8 a.m. Thursday for his deposition after Democrats issued a subpoena for
his testimony. A spokesman for House Intelligence Committee chairman declined to comment on his opening statement.
Morrison appeared on the same day the House
approved a resolution
greenlighting the rules for impeachment proceedings moving forward.
On Wednesday, officials said Morrison would be leaving his White House post. He said in his statement he has yet
to submit his resignation "because I do not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and
my impending departure."
"I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump Administration to accomplish," he said.
Read Morrison's full statement
Opening Statement of Timothy Morrison
Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and
the House Committee on Oversight and Reform
October 31, 2019
Chairman Schiff and Members of the Committees, I appear today under subpoena to answer your questions about my
time as Senior Director for European Affairs at the White House and the National Security Council ("NSC"). I will
give you the most complete information I can, consistent with my obligations to the President and the protection of
classified information. I do not know who the whistleblower is, nor do I intend to speculate as to who it may be.
Before joining the NSC in 2018, I spent 17 years as a Republican staffer, serving in a variety of roles in both
houses of Congress. My last position was Policy Director for the then-Majority Staff of the House Armed Services
Committee.
I. The Role of the National Security Council
From July 9, 2018 to July 15, 2019, I served as a Special Assistant to the President for National Security and as
the NSC Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Biodefense. In that role, I had limited exposure to
Ukraine, focusing primarily on foreign military sales and arms control. On July 15, 2019, I became Deputy Assistant
to the President for National Security. In this role, I serve as the lead interagency coordinator for national
security issues involving Europe and Russia.
It is important to start with the role of the NSC. Since its creation by Congress in 1947, the NSC has
appropriately evolved in shape and size to suit the needs of the President and the National Security Advisor it
serves at the time. But its mission and core function has fundamentally remained the same: to coordinate across
departments and agencies of the Executive Branch to ensure the President has the policy options he needs to
accomplish his objectives and to see that his decisions are implemented. The NSC staff does not make policy. NSC
staff are most effective when we are neutral arbiters, helping the relevant Executive Branch agencies develop options
for the President and implement his direction.
In my current position, I understood our primary U.S. policy objective in Ukraine was to take advantage of the
once-in-a-generation opportunity that resulted from the election of President Zelensky and the clear majority he had
gained in the Ukrainian Rada to see real anti-corruption reform take root.
The Administration's policy was that
the best way for the United States to show its support for President Zelensky's reform efforts was to make sure the
United States' longstanding bipartisan commitment to strengthen Ukraine's security remained unaltered, it is easy to
forget here in Washington, but impossible in Kyiv, that Ukraine is still under armed assault by Russia, a
nuclear-armed state.
We also tend to forget that the United States had helped convince Ukraine to give up Soviet
nuclear weapons in 1994. United States security sector assistance (from the Departments of Defense and State) is,
therefore, essential to Ukraine. Also essential is a strong and positive relationship with Ukraine at the highest
levels of our respective governments.
In my role as Senior Director for European Affairs, I reported directly to former Deputy National Security
Advisor, Dr. Charles Kupperman, and former National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton. I kept them fully
informed on matters that I believed merited their awareness or when I felt I needed some direction. During the time
relevant to this inquiry, I never briefed the President or Vice President on matters related to Ukrainian security.
It was my job to coordinate with the U.S. Embassy Chief of Mission to Ukraine William Taylor, Special Representative
for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker, and other interagency stakeholders in the Departments of Defense and State of
Ukrainian matters.
My primary responsibility has been to ensure federal agencies had consistent messaging and policy guidance on
national security issues involving European and Russian affairs. As Dr. Fiona Hill and I prepared for me to succeed
her, one of the areas we discussed was Ukraine. In that discussion, she informed me of her concerns about two Ukraine
processes that were occurring: the normal interagency process led by the NSC with the typical department and agency
participation and a separate process that involved chiefly the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. Dr. Hill told
me that Ambassador Sondland and President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were trying to get President
Zelensky to reopen Ukrainian investigations into Burisma. At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the
investigation entailed. After the meeting with Dr. Hill, I googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy
company and that Hunter Biden was on its board. I also did not understand why Ambassador Sondland would be involved
in Ukraine policy, often without the involvement of our duly-appointed Chief of Mission, Ambassador Bill Taylor.
My most frequent conversations were with Ambassador Taylor because he was the U.S. Chief of Mission in Ukraine and
I was his chief conduit for information related to White House deliberations, including security sector assistance
and potential head-of-state meetings. This is a normal part of the coordination process.
II. Review of Open Source Documents in Preparation for Testimony
In preparation for my appearance today, I reviewed the statement Ambassador Taylor provided this inquiry on
October 22, 2019. I can confirm that the substance of his statement, as it relates to conversations he and I had, is
accurate. My recollections differ on two of the details, however. I have a slightly different recollection of my
September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. On page 10 of Ambassador Taylor's statement, he recounts a
conversation I relayed to him regarding Ambassador Sondland's conversation with Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Yermak.
Ambassador Taylor wrote: "Ambassador Sondland told Mr. Yermak that security assistance money would not come until
President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation." My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland's
proposal to Mr. Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general -- not President Zelensky -- would
commit to pursue the Burisma investigation. I also would like to clarify that I did not meet with the Ukrainian
National Security Advisor in his hotel room, as Ambassador Taylor indicated on page 11 of his statement. Instead, an
NSC aide and I met with Mr. Danyliuk in the hotel's business center.
I also reviewed the Memorandum of Conversation ("MemCont') of the July 25 phone call that was released by the
White House. I listened to the call as it occurred from the Situation Room. To the best of my recollection, the
MemCon accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call. I also recall that I did not see anyone from the
NSC Legal Advisor's Office in the room during the call. After the call, I promptly asked the NSC Legal Advisor and
his Deputy to review it. I had three concerns about a potential leak of the MemCon: first, how it would play out in
Washington's polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners
currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine
relationship. I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed.
III. White House Hold on Security Sector Assistance
I was not aware that the White House was holding up the security sector assistance passed by Congress until my
superior, Dr. Charles Kupperman, told me soon after I succeeded Dr. Hill. I was aware that the President thought
Ukraine had a corruption problem, as did many others familiar with Ukraine. I was also aware that the President
believed that Europe did not contribute enough assistance to Ukraine. I was directed by Dr. Kupperman to coordinate
with the interagency stakeholders to put together a policy process to demonstrate that the interagency supported
security sector assistance to Ukraine. I was confident that our national security principals -- the Secretaries of State
and Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Council -- could
convince President Trump to release the aid because President Zelensky and the reform-oriented Rada were genuinely
invested in their anti-corruption agenda.
Ambassador Taylor and I were concerned that the longer the money was withheld, the more questions the Zelensky
administration would ask about the U.S. commitment to Ukraine. Our initial hope was that the money would be released
before the hold became public because we did not want the newly constituted Ukrainian government to question U.S.
support.
I have no reason to believe the Ukrainians had any knowledge of the review until August 28, 2019. Ambassador
Taylor and I had no reason to believe that the release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a
public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland.
Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland's strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by leaders
in the Administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.
I am pleased our process gave the President the confidence he needed to approve the release of the security sector
assistance. My regret is that Ukraine ever learned of the review and that, with this impeachment inquiry, Ukraine has
become subsumed in the U.S. political process.
IV. Conclusion
After 19 years of government service, I have decided to leave the NSC. I have not submitted a formal resignation
at this time because I do not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and my impending
departure. I plan to finalize my transition from the NSC after my testimony is complete.
During my time in public service, I have worked with some of the smartest and most self-sacrificing people in this
country. Serving at the White House in this time of unprecedented global change has been the opportunity of a
lifetime. I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump Administration to accomplish.
Trump is right about the NATO members inadequate military spending; the US expects NATO
members to spend 2% of their GDP on their own defence, the US however, does not require them
to purchase American made weapons, they can produce their own weapons, like French do, or buy
from each other like Germans -- they just have to make their military up and ready in case of
emergency, that's not an unreasonable expectation.
Among the NATO members however, Canada's case is unique; due to its closeness and joint
high command (NORAD) with the US -- and direct threat from Russian claim on the Canadian
Arctic, Canada needs and must increase its military spending significantly, Canada should
purchase modern Air force fleet, Advanced Surveillance equipment, Warships and Submarines for
the defence of the Arctic; F-35, F-22, AH-64 Apache, Nuclear powered Icebreaker and
Submarines etc. because all these equipment will we be partially built in Canada which bring
many high tech jobs and economic growth to the Canadian communities.
Trump is right, NATO and Canada should spend much more on their own defence, and buying
American advanced weapons is the best strategic choice for the Canadians forces, there
shouldn't be any doubt about that.
LOL to the first comment, Russia is *zero* threat to Canada ** . Russia is zero threat to the
US or Europe either. NATO has long outlived its purpose and needs to die.
** I suppose Russia could claim the north pole, and threaten to hold Santa hostage.
@Jmaie
Russian annexation of Crimea was a blatant assault on the International Law, yet it went off
without serious consequences to Russia -- it's not a secret that Russia has claims on
Canadian Arctic seabed, Russia has already planted its flag on the Arctic seabed; here is a
Link that you should want to see: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/02/russia.arctic
I'd really be interested to understand how on earth the reintegration, by overwhelming
majority in a plebiscite acknowledged by all sides as free and unconstrained, of Crimea, a
Russian province for 300+ years, and a majority-Russian area for quite a long time, is "a
blatant assault on the International Law".
The "International Law" you quote must be a newcomer.
"I'd really be interested to understand how on earth "
It is very easy to understand. As Upton Sinclair observed "It is difficult to get a man to
understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Alistair repeats typical neocon viewpoint. Nothing original here. Neocons make their
living off threat inflation and this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact.
Fiona Hill is a shining recent example here -- this intellectual prostitute of MIC is a
member of Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council and other MIC lobbing organization that
promote Cold War 2 and neoliberal globalization.
The real question is "Why we should believe any of these chickenhawks?" They has been
proven liars so many times that they deserve the rotten tomatoes to be thrown at them on any
of their public appearances or, which is sadly impossible, at their Internet posts
But again money do not smell: unless neocons start facing very real and very personal
consequences, nothing will change. And like with any sect there is small number of
intellectually deficient people who still believe them.
3. Restrainers Want Realistic Foreign Policy Goal s. Instead of engaging in
costly and futile efforts to remake the world in our image, restrainers want U.S. foreign
policy to pursue more feasible objectives. The U.S. military must be strong enough to deter
attacks on the U.S. homeland, a task that is relatively easy to accomplish. When necessary,
the United States can also help other states uphold the balance of power and deter war in a
few key strategic areas outside the Western Hemisphere. America's economic clout will also
give Washington considerable influence over the institutions that manage trade, investment
and other beneficial forms of international cooperation, and it should use that influence
to ensure these institutions are working properly. But the United States has neither the
need, the capacity, nor the wisdom to conduct massive social engineering projects
("nation-building") in deeply divided and conflict prone societies, and it should cease
trying.
4. Restrainers Want Credible Foreign Commitments . The United States keeps taking
on new security obligations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but it rarely
debates their wisdom or value. Americans are now formally committed to defending more
countries around the world than at any time in U.S. history, even though some of these
states are hard to defend, have little strategic importance for the United States, and
sometimes act in ways that damage U.S. interests. Washington is also engaged in less
visible military activities in dozens of other countries, some of them shrouded in secrecy.
Yet anytime U.S. leaders contemplate trimming these obligations, alarmists warn that the
slightest reduction in America's global presence will undermine U.S. credibility, embolden
rivals, and lead to catastrophe. Having allowed itself to become overextended, the United
States ends up fighting endless wars in places with no strategic value in order to convince
allies and adversaries that it will still fight in places of greater importance.
The sooner the EU & Europe generally either discard NATO or create its own defence
force in parallel with NATO, the better.
Europe MUST take control of its own destiny. It can not have an external nation, the US,
with different, if not opposing interests, dictating European policy & action.
The “Russia” situation is a perfect example of this divergence of interests.
Europe’s future clearly lies with greater Eurasian integration. Energy, primary
products, & mercantile trade all lie to the East, through Russia to China, Vietnam etc.
Notably, some countries such as Italy are already pulling away from official EU policy &
turning East.
Unfortunately, The US has bribed & threatened (many) EU leaders, leaders who
couldn’t even imagine a change to the status quo. Thankfully, though, it seems that
many average Europeans are sick to their back-teeth with the status quo & Europe’s
“evermore” subservience to US imperialism.
German tax-payers, like most other Europeans, see no need to spend billions of
hard-earned euros against a non-existent threat from the East.
They don’t even want to spend their money turning back the actual threats spilling
across their borders, but climate change is way up there on the agenda. De-industrialised
Europe chock-full of third-world denizens is going to be heaven on earth.
"... Primacists use the security threats that are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't stop, or in fact increase, the use of force. ..."
"... These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example, veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all parties involved. ..."
"... September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and denying this space wouldn't have prevented it. ..."
"... For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the Pacific." ..."
"... The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and importance. ..."
"... This article originally appeared on LobeLog.com . ..."
The unrivaled and unchallenged exertion of American military power around the world, or
what's known as "primacy," has been the basis for U.S. Grand Strategy over the past 70 years
and has faced few intellectual and political challenges. The result has been stagnant ideas,
poor logic, and an ineffective foreign policy. As global security challenges have evolved, our
foreign policy debate has remained in favor of primacy, repeatedly relying on a select few,
poorly conceived ideas and arguments. Primacy's greatest hits arguments are played on repeat
throughout the policy and journalism worlds and its latest presentation is in a recent
article in
the Wall Street Journal, written by its chief foreign policy correspondent, titled,
"America Can't Escape the Middle East." The piece provides a case study in how stagnant these
ideas have become, and how different actors throughout the system present them without serious
thought or contemplation.
Hyping the threat of withdrawal
The WSJ piece trotted out one of the most well-worn cases for unending American military
deployments in the region. "The 2003 invasion of Iraq proved to be a debacle," it rightly
notes. However, there's always a "but":[B]ut subsequent attempts to pivot away from the region
or ignore it altogether have contributed to humanitarian catastrophes, terrorist outrages and
geopolitical setbacks, further eroding America's standing in the world."
Primacists often warn of the dire security threats that will result from leaving Middle East
conflict zones. The reality is that the threats they cite are actually caused by the
unnecessary use of force by the United States in the first place. For example, the U.S. sends
military assets to deter Iran, only to have Iran increase attacks or provocations in response.
The U.S. then beefs up its military presence
to protect the forces that are already there. Primacists use the security threats that
are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't
stop, or in fact increase, the use of force.
These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently
ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example,
veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at
unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even
draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't
induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the
Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and
don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all
parties involved.
Terrorism safe havens
And how many times have we heard that we must defend some undefined geographical space to
prevent extremists from plotting attacks? "In the past, jihadists used havens in Afghanistan,
Yemen, Syria and Iraq to plot more ambitious and deadly attacks, including 9/11," the WSJ piece
says. "Though Islamic State's self-styled 'caliphate' has been dismantled, the extremist
movement still hasn't been eliminated -- and can bounce back."
The myth of the terrorism safe havens enabling transnational attacks on the United States
has
persisted despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and significant scholarly research
that contradicts it. The myth persists because it provides a simple and comforting narrative
that's easy to understand. September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the
ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and
denying this space wouldn't have prevented it.
Terrorists don't need safe havens to operate, and only gain marginal increases in
capabilities by having access to them. Organizations engage in terrorism because they have such
weak capabilities in the first place. These movements are designed to operate underground with
the constant threat of arrest and execution. The Weatherman Underground in the United States
successfully carried out bombings while operating within the United States itself. The Earth
Liberation Front did the same by organizing into cells where no cell knew anything about the
other cells to prevent the identification of other members if members of one cell were
arrested. Organizations that engage in terrorism can operate with or without safe havens.
Although safe havens don't add significantly to a terrorist groups' capabilities, governing
your own territory is something completely different. ISIS is a commonly used, and misused,
example for why wars should be fought to deny safe havens. A safe haven is a country or region
in which a terrorist group is free from harassment or persecution. This is different from what
ISIS created in 2014. What ISIS had when it swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014 was a
proto-state. This gave them access to a tax base, oil revenues, and governing resources. Safe
havens don't provide any of this, at least not at substantial levels. The Islamic State's
construction of a proto-state in Syria and Iraq did give them operational capabilities they
wouldn't have had otherwise, but this isn't the same as the possible safe havens that would be
gained from a military withdrawal from Middle Eastern conflicts. The conditions of ISIS's rise
in 2014 don't exist today and the fears of an ISIS resurgence like their initial rise are
unfounded .
Credibility doesn't work how you think it works
For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always
be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America
withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea
and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the
Pacific."
Most commentators have made this claim without recognition of their own contradictions that
abandoning the Kurds in Syria would damage American credibility. They then list all the other
times we've abandoned the Kurds. Each of these betrayals didn't stop them from working with the
United States again, and this latest iteration will be the same. People don't work with the
United States because they trust or respect us, they do it because we have a common interest
and the United States has the capability to get things done. As we were abandoning the Kurds
this time to be attacked by the Turks, Kurdish officials were continuing to
share intelligence with U.S. officials to facilitate the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi because both the United States and the Kurds wanted Baghdadi eliminated and only
the United States had the capability to get it done.
Similarly, the idea that pulling out militarily in one region results in a direct chain of
events where our adversaries move into countries or areas in a completely different region is
quite a stretch of the imagination. Russia moved into Crimea because it's a strategic asset and
it was taking advantage of what it saw as an opportunity: instability and chaos in Kiev. Even
if we left troops in every conflict country we've ever been in, Russia would have correctly
assessed that Ukraine just wasn't important enough to spark a U.S. invasion. When the Soviets
withdrew from Afghanistan, did the United States invade Cuba? What alliance did the Soviets or
Chinese abandon before the United States entered the Korean War?
Assessments of credibility , especially in times of crisis (like that in Ukraine), are made
based on what leaders think the other country's interests are and the capabilities they have to
pursue those interests. There is no evidence to support -- in fact there is a lot of evidence
that contradicts -- the idea that withdrawing militarily from one region or ending an alliance
has any impact on assessments of a country's reliability or credibility.
Not all interests are created equal
Threat inflation isn't just common from those who promote a primacy-based foreign policy,
it's necessary. Indeed, as the WSJ piece claimed, "There is no avoiding the fact that the
Middle East still matters a great deal to U.S. interests."
The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need
to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists
couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve
all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and
importance. Vital interests are those that directly impact the survival of the United
States. The only thing that can threaten the survival of the United States is another powerful
state consolidating complete control of either Europe or East Asia. This would give them the
capabilities and freedom to strike directly at the territorial United States. This is why the
United States stayed in Europe after WWII, to prevent the consolidation of Europe by the
Soviets. Addressing the rise of China -- which will require some combination of cooperation and
competition -- is America's vital interest today and keeping troops in Afghanistan to prevent a
terrorism safe haven barely registers as a peripheral interest. There are U.S. interests in the
Middle East, but these interests are not important enough to sacrifice American soldiers for
and can't easily be secured through military force anyway.
Consequences
Most of these myths and arguments can be summarized by the claim that any disengagement of
any kind by the United States from the Middle East comes with consequences. This isn't entirely
wrong, but it isn't really relevant either unless compared with the consequences of continuing
engagement at current levels. We currently have 67,000 troops in the
Middle East and Afghanistan and those troops are targets of adversaries, contribute to
instability, empower hardliners in Iran, and provide continuing legitimacy to insurgent and
terrorist organizations fighting against a foreign occupation. One
article in The Atlantic argued that the problem with a progressive foreign policy
is that restraint comes with costs, almost ironically ignoring the fact that the U.S.'s current
foreign policy also comes with, arguably greater, costs. A military withdrawal, or even
drawdown, from the Middle East does come with consequences, but it's only believable that these
costs are higher than staying through the perpetuation of myths and misconceptions that inflate
such risks and costs. No wonder then that these myths have become the greatest hits of a
foreign policy that's stuck in the past.
"... For one the Ukraine is not fighting "the Russians". The Kiev government is fighting against east-Ukrainians who disagree with the Nazi controlled regime which the U.S. installed after it instigated the unconstitutional Maidan coup. Russia supplies the east-Ukrainians and there were a few Russian volunteers fighting on their side but no Russian military units entered the Ukraine. ..."
"... But aside from that how can anyone truly believe that the Ukraine "fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here"? Is Russia on the verge of invading the United States? Where? How? And most importantly: What for? How would that be in Russia's interest? ..."
"... And how is it in U.S. interest to give the Ukraine U.S. taxpayer money to buy U.S. weapons? The sole motive behind that idea was greed and corruption , not national interest: ..."
"... To claim that it hurt U.S. national interests is nonsense. ..."
"... It is really no wonder that U.S. foreign policy continuously produces chaos when its practitioners get taught by people like Karlan. In the Middle East as well as elsewhere Russian foreign policy runs circles around U.S. attempts to control the outcome. One reason it can do that is the serious lack of knowledge and realism in U.S. foreign policy thinking. It is itself the outcome of an educational crisis. U.S. 'political science' studies implement a mindset that is unable to objectively recognize the facts and fails to respond to them with realistic concepts. ..."
"... In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it. Their majority in the House could have used the time it spent on the impeachment circus to prevent that and other obscenities. ..."
"... The same bs argument about "not fighting the Russians here" was used a couple of weeks ago by another witness, Tim Morrison. This shows you that the hysteria is bipartisan... ..."
"... I don't believe that the so called "Professor's View" is normative for the educated class of Americans. It is the normative view of the Ivy League pseudoeducated individuals that have been placed in leadership positions in the US Goverment and Politics but they are not EDUCATED in any way. Karlan is almost certainly a Jew. She is without a doubt a whore who will do anything for her John as directed by her pimp. ..."
"... Being a brain dead feminist helps her with that role in life. I had an ex wife who fought me post divorce for 10 years trying to destroy me in any way she could. She finally stopped with the Breast Cancer she had for 7 of those years finally killed her. I see the same psychotic, sociopathic and off scall narcissitic behavior in every one of these women in politics and academics today. So don't think that something will get better without a terminal solution. ..."
"... Americans are entranced by the kayfabe (mock combat). Just as in wrestling it is designed to look 'real' but just keeps people engrossed in the action, unable to think of what they are NOT being told. ..."
"... Her delusions are a prerequisite for teaching at an academic level. ..."
"... The military industrial complex is in the people of usa's interest.. they think they benefit from the rayatheons, lockheed martins, boeings and etc - as they have relatives working at these places... the usa is one sick puppy, and Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor is just further proof of this... sorry if someone else said what i did, as i didn't read the comments yet.. ..."
"... The fact that the "papers of record" have become mouthpieces for the CIA/deep state has played a huge role in the brainwashing of academia and the rise of neoliberalism. The false narratives these "trusted sources" of information have been serving up create a very real Matrix, a false reality that is ingrained into those who rely upon them for their daily "news". Karlan is merely repeating what she accepts as truth, garnered from the NY Times and Wash Post, CNN, NPR, etc. ..."
"... The US is dysfunctional on purpose to keep the masses under control and dumbed down/brainwashed ..."
"... BTW, it is totally lost on the entirety of Western establishment that you cannot make Ukraine strong (wouldn't we all love to see strong Ukraine?) while wrecking its economy by encouraging policies like spending 5% of GDP on the military, switching to more expensive energy sources, cutting itself from traditional markets and supplies, replacing with rather worthless "cooperation" agreement with a trading block that is neither particularly interested in trading with Ukraine (Ukraine strongest exports are in surplus within EU) nor inclined to subsidize it (budgets are tights and plenty of recent EU members are in dire needs already) ..."
"... Unfortunately this is endemic in the western world. 'Democracy' seems to consist of dumbing down the population as much as possible, and telling them what they have to think so the self-anointed leaders of society can have their way (both those in front, and behind the scenes). I'm far from certain this is a recipe for success. ..."
"... Russians and Chinese in particular, and BRICS/SCO in general, are showing the way. The countries involved have very different political systems, but they understand that co-operation is much more beneficial than constant conflict. ..."
"... This is a typical example of the stupidity and often dementia of most of the highly educated. Especially those in academia, who exist in a funhouse hall of propagandist and ideological mirrors. But it's true of the educated in the general. I personally know plenty of highly educated people who make themselves more stupid and mentally ill by the day by uncritically reading the NYT and watching CNN. ..."
"... So it's no wonder that an elite Stanford law professor is in practice the exact same stupid, ignorant, deranged yahoo as you could easily find in a trailer park, just with better manners and diction. ..."
"... After all, Karlan's Russia comment would receive enthusiastic thumbs up from at least Biden, Obama, W. Clinton, H. Clinton, Rubio, Klobuchar, Pelosi, Warren, Graham, Buttigieg, Romney, the late McCain, Pompeo, Bolton, Mattis...the list goes on and on. ..."
"... It's even worse than that. The economy will never recover while oligarchs have a stranglehold on economic activity and government. And USA's capitalist dementia ensures that will never change. (The West as a whole is headed in the direction of unabashed oligarchic rule.) ..."
"... Many of the dumbest people I met were university students or graduates. They are thought to absorb information as given, reproduce once, forget. They are not trained to question anything, they follow a narrative. Some even denounced everything they ever learned and became a follower of some religion, which is just another narrative. ..."
"... I've seen Jonathan Turley on TV a number of times. He always seemed to be a person of integrity. One needs to add courage to the list after testifying against impeachment on the presented "evidence". I will be very surprised to see him on PBS or CBS ever again. Their news readers are nearly giddy with excitement about impeachment. They never consider what could happen if Trump is convicted but refuses to leave the White House. Then what? ..."
"... Karlan type of academics is scattered all over the US universities. They are the Academia´s gatekeepers, watching over & "spotting" of our future leaders. the majority of them are claptraps selling jingoism to our youth in order to fulfill the Judeo-Zionist agenda. ..."
"... You hit the nail on the head. Karlan's loyalty is to her tribe, not this nation. That's the crux of almost every major problem and injustice we're suffering from in this country, from private prisons to Wall Street looting to endless foreign wars to censorship. There is one group of people behind it with a very bad track record in terms of how they treat their host nations. I wonder when we will finally get our act together and become the 110th country to expel them. ..."
"... IF Trump is removed from office then the war on Lebanon and Iran would be accelerated. Israel will likely go for all the marbles and annex the last remaining Palestinian holdings. Some here believe this couldn't happen but we all live in bizarro world now. ..."
"... it was obvious (on the video) that Karlan really thought she was (wait for it! It's on the way) landing a very clever bon mot! ..."
"... It is a small thing, yet it speaks volumes about the spirit of this clearly clueless human being (and others of her ilk), and her handlers, who must have cleared this little gotcha for prime time. Been up on the podium too long, bleating to students who can't/don't bleat back! No common sense. ..."
"... As the great wise man, Frank Zappa proclaimed about the USA: "Politics/government is the entertainment division of the Military-Industrial Government." American politics makes much greater sense (and is a hell of a lot more entertaining) if you understand this truism. ..."
During yesterday's impeachment hearing at the House House Judiciary Committee one of the
Democrats' witnesses made some rather crazy statements. Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law
professor, first proved to have bought into
neo-conservative delusions about the U.S. role in the world:
America is not just 'the last best hope,' as Mr. Jefferies said, but it's also the shining
city on a hill. We can't be the shining city on a hill and promote democracy around the world
if we're not promoting it here at home.
As people in Bolivia and elsewhere can attest the United States does not promote democracy.
It promotes rightwing regimes and rogue capitalism. The U.S. is itself
not a democracy but a functional oligarchy as a major Harvard study found:
Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial
independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest
groups have little or no independent influence.
But worse than Karlan's pseudo-patriotic propaganda claptrap were her remarks on the Ukraine
and Russia:
This is not just about our national interests to protect elections or make sure Ukraine stays
strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them here , but it's in our national
interest to promote democracy worldwide.
That was not an joke. From the video it certainly seems that
the woman believes that nonsense.
For one the Ukraine is not fighting "the Russians". The Kiev government is fighting against
east-Ukrainians who disagree with the Nazi controlled regime which the U.S. installed after it instigated
the unconstitutional Maidan coup. Russia supplies the east-Ukrainians and there were a few
Russian volunteers fighting on their side but no Russian military units entered the
Ukraine.
But aside from that how can anyone truly believe that the Ukraine "fights the Russians so we
don't have to fight them here"? Is Russia on the verge of invading the United States? Where? How? And most importantly: What
for? How would that be in Russia's interest?
One must be seriously disturbed to believe such nonsense. How can it be that Karlan is
teaching at an academic level when she has such delusions?
And how is it in U.S. interest to give the Ukraine U.S. taxpayer money to buy U.S. weapons?
The sole motive behind that idea was
greed and corruption , not national interest:
[U.S. special envoy to Ukraine] Volker started his job at the State Department in 2017 in an
unusual part-time arrangement that allowed him to continue consulting at BGR, a powerful
lobbying firm that represents Ukraine and the U.S.-based defense firm Raytheon. During his
tenure, Volker advocated for the United States to send Raytheon-manufactured antitank Javelin
missiles to Ukraine -- a decision that made Raytheon millions of dollars.
The missiles are
useless in the conflict . They are
kept near the western border of Ukraine under U.S. control. The U.S. fears that Russia
would hit back elsewhere should the Javelin reach the frontline in the east and get used
against the east-Ukrainians. That Trump shortly held back on some of the money that would have
allowed the Ukrainians to buy more of those missiles thus surely made no difference.
To claim that it hurt U.S. national interests is nonsense.
It is really no wonder that U.S. foreign policy continuously produces chaos when its
practitioners get taught by people like Karlan. In the Middle East as well as elsewhere Russian
foreign policy runs circles around U.S. attempts to control the outcome. One reason it can do
that is the serious lack of knowledge and realism in U.S. foreign policy thinking. It is itself
the outcome of an educational crisis. U.S. 'political science' studies implement a mindset that
is unable to objectively recognize the facts and fails to respond to them with realistic
concepts.
The Democrats are doing themselves no favor by producing delusional and partisan witnesses
who repeat Reaganesque claptrap. They only prove that the whole affair is just an unserious
show trial.
In the meantime Trump is
eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing
about it. Their majority in the House could have used the time it spent on the impeachment
circus to prevent that and other obscenities.
Do the Democrats really believe that their voters will not notice this?
Posted by b on December 5, 2019 at 15:40 UTC |
Permalink
This is the woman that Common Dreams describes as a leading legal scholar.
And maybe she is, it would certainly help explain the current state of the US Judiciary and
the legal system, which reflects internally the utter contempt for law and custom which
characterises US behaviour in international affairs.
The same bs argument about "not fighting the Russians here" was used a couple of weeks ago by
another witness, Tim Morrison. This shows you that the hysteria is bipartisan...
There is a large cohort of Americans who believe every word the professor spoke. Whatever you
and I may think about it the professor's view of the world is normative for the educated
class in America.
Regarding those food stamps, it is actually just a small rule change lowering the
unemployment rate to 6% (from 10%) above which a state can waive the existing work
requirement for single, non-disabled recipients aged 18-49. States can still also waive it if
they deem that job availability is low.
Attributed to Mark Twain. Perhaps the learned professor karlan may affirm: "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you
with experience."
Budapest has signaled that it will not support Ukraine's bid to join NATO until Kiev
reverses a law that places language restrictions on ethnic Hungarians and other minorities
living in the country.
Legislation that limits the use of Hungarian, Russian, Romanian, and other minority
languages in Ukraine must be repealed before Hungary backs Ukraine's NATO membership,
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday.
"We ask for no extra rights to Hungarians in Transcarpathia, only those rights they had
before," Szijjarto told Hungarian state media at a NATO summit in London. He alleged that
150,000 ethnic Hungarians living in the region have been "seriously violated" by
Ukraine.[.]
In February, Ukraine's parliament ratified amendments to the constitution which made
NATO membership a key foreign policy objective. However, a number of hurdles still remain
before its membership is likely to be seriously considered. European Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker predicted in 2016 that it would be 20-25 years before Ukraine would be
able to join NATO and the EU.
I don't believe that the so called "Professor's View" is normative for the educated class of
Americans. It is the normative view of the Ivy League pseudoeducated individuals that have
been placed in leadership positions in the US Goverment and Politics but they are not
EDUCATED in any way. Karlan is almost certainly a Jew. She is without a doubt a whore who
will do anything for her John as directed by her pimp.
Being a brain dead feminist helps her
with that role in life. I had an ex wife who fought me post divorce for 10 years trying to
destroy me in any way she could. She finally stopped with the Breast Cancer she had for 7 of
those years finally killed her. I see the same psychotic, sociopathic and off scall
narcissitic behavior in every one of these women in politics and academics today. So don't
think that something will get better without a terminal solution.
Americans are entranced by the kayfabe (mock combat). Just as in wrestling it is designed to
look 'real' but just keeps people engrossed in the action, unable to think of what they are
NOT being told.
People must free themselves of partisan affiliations that are just levers used to
manipulate them.
The establishment uses Democracy Works! propaganda to give you a false sense of
power and security. But the people are an afterthought in US/Western politics. The
politicians and their Parties work for the money. Much of that money comes from AIPAC, MIC,
and other EMPIRE FIRST organizations that are leading us to WAR.
It's messy and inconvenient but power only responds to power.
The stoopid cult-thinking must stop. This is where it leads: Buffalo
Bishop Resigns Over Sex Abuse Cover-Up . Why do people cling to a corrupt Catholic
Church? It's NOT just a few bad apples!! The pedophilia and cover-ups have been
worldwide and reach into the highest levels of the Church.
This Buffalo Bishop, like dozens of other Bishops in the last decades, lied to cover for
pedophiles and then used the power of his position to remain in his position. His wasn't for
the children or any higher morality but for himself. He will get a nice, peaceful retirement
- paid for by the deluded Catholic flock.
In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the
Democrats are doing nothing about it.
The reason for that if very simple: the Democrats agree with Trump on this.It's the same question many ask when studying Roman History for the first time: where were
the legions when the Goths invaded? The answer is that the Goths were the legions, there was
no invasion.
The same logic applies to the Right-Left political spectrum in modern Western Democracies.
"Where are the lefties?" is the modern question the first worlders ask themselves since
2008.
--//--
As for the Pamela Karlan thing, it's an issue I've been commenting on here for some time
now, so I won't repeat everything.
I'll just say again that imbecilization is a completely normal historical phenomenon in
declining empires: the earlier example we have is the Christianization of the Roman Empire
after Marcus Aurelius' death. The rise of Christianity was the messenger of the Crisis of the
Third Century, the historic episode which ended the Roman Empire by giving birth to its
demented form after the Diocletian Reforms.
Empires tend to have a very plastic conception of truth, that is, they believe they can
fabricate reality for the simple reason they are geopolitically dominant.
It's easy to visualize this. The greatest philosopher of the end of the 18th Century and
beginning of the 19th Century was a German, not a British. While Hegel wrote his
proto-revolutionary works which would pave the way to Karl Marx, in UK we had the likes of
Mackinder and Mahan dominating British philosophical thinking. And even then they weren't the
dominant intellectual figures: the UK was the land of accountants and economists, not
philosophers. The reason for this is that neither Hegel nor Marx had any ships to do gunboat
diplomacy in Asia, as the British did.
Empires tend to think and rationalize the world in a much more plastic/practical way than
the periphery. As the old saying goes: the stronger side doesn't need to think before it
acts.
Scroll down the page @ Steven Cheung {VID} on Twitter to watch this exchange where the RATS
are told they are the ones who have abused power.
Professor Jonathan Turley, a lawyer's go-to-Constitutional Expert:
"The Record does not establish corruption in this case - no bribery, no extortion, no
obstruction of justice, no abuse of power."
Trump should include Prof. Turley on his legal team. The RATS have not thought this through to what will unfold in the Senate. A real court
trial; No hearsay and no! no! no! "I was made aware" And the Bidens, Schiff, and Pelosi under cross-examination. And the Whistleblower!!!
I used to think that stupid was a characteristic of the American right. It took Donald Trump
getting elected to see that stupid knows no political borders. Seriously. I thought that
education and progressive thinking also led to a clarity of thought. Boy, was I wrong. The
most pro-war people in the USA seem to be Democrats. Bizarro world.
To "...make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them
here"
This predates 2003 and stems from the red menace days when it was the communist legions
would behave like a set of dominoes and eventually we (USA) would be fighting them in the
streets of New York etc. Thus it was imperative that they defeat the commies in French
Indo-China despite the fact that they could easily have simply bought the nation by
supporting Uncle Ho who had been working for the OSS during WW2. But no, they had to win
brownie points with the French by bankrolling their effort to retake the nation and when that
didn't work a little "false flag" event employed to keep the ball rolling. I use quotations
because while being false, the Tonkin Gulf event wasn't much of a flag.....
At any rate the fact that both Demublicans AND Republocrats are falling back on such
antiquated rhetoric is bitterly laughable! It can also be seen as an indicator of just how
dumbed down the USAn populace has become. As noted above article, how could anyone think that
the RF would plan much less attempt an attack on the continental US?! A closer look at recent
history has the US and it's poodles surrounding the RF with missile bases, sanctioning and
embargoing the fhaak out it, and generally trying to destroy the nation as a whole with
whatever clandestine methods are available. But hey, take a page from the book of Cheney:
deny everything and make counter accusations.....
thanks b... propaganda is the usa's education... see your breakdown of the nyt articles...
most people don't get this...
The military industrial complex is in the people of usa's interest.. they think they
benefit from the rayatheons, lockheed martins, boeings and etc - as they have relatives
working at these places... the usa is one sick puppy, and Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law
professor is just further proof of this... sorry if someone else said what i did, as i didn't
read the comments yet..
"Throughout her career, Karlan has been an advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court.[10] She
was mentioned as a potential candidate to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter when he
retired in 2009.[11]
Personal life
Karlan told Politico in 2009, "It's no secret at all that I'm counted among the LGBT
crowd".[12] She has described herself as an example of a "snarky, bisexual, Jewish
women".[13] Her partner is writer Viola Canales.[14]
she is not an American women apparently.. she is a Jewish women.. oh well, lol...
The fact that the "papers of record" have become mouthpieces for the CIA/deep state has
played a huge role in the brainwashing of academia and the rise of neoliberalism. The false
narratives these "trusted sources" of information have been serving up create a very real
Matrix, a false reality that is ingrained into those who rely upon them for their daily
"news". Karlan is merely repeating what she accepts as truth, garnered from the NY Times and
Wash Post, CNN, NPR, etc.
Believe me, even here in the red states, you won't find a hell of a lot of faculty members
at large universities who are Trump supporters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ
What I find absent in most discussions about impeachment of Trump is the 800 pound gorilla -
what will happen to the US if against all odds, Trump gets impeached. Could the US survive
that cataclysmic event or would it rip the empire apart?
What contingency plans does everybody make for that unlikely, but not impossible singularity?
"In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the
Democrats are doing nothing about it. Their majority in the House could have used the time it
spent on the impeachment circus to prevent that and other obscenities."
That's why it's called bread and circus. The loot and pillage party's two separate funding
arms get their funding and privilege from the same sociopath/psychopaths who operate the mass
murder for profit economy we now live in.
They will continue the slaughter until the enforcers within society finally understand
they work for criminally insane cultists who will never have enough money, power, and
prestige.
I see that distrust to everything that is good and decent is extended to law professors.
Stanford is a short (if sometimes slow) ride from Berkeley that has a more famous professor
in its own law school (Wiki):[you know
John Choon Yoo (born July 10, 1967)[4] is a Korean-American attorney, law professor,
former government official, and author. Yoo is currently the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of
Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.[1] Previously, he served as the
Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Department
of Justice, during the George W. Bush administration.
He is best known for his opinions concerning the Geneva Conventions that attempted to
legitimize the Bush administration's War on Terror. He also authored the so-called Torture
Memos, which provided a legal rationale for so-called [you know what]
=====
First, they torture logic... The ignorants who could not tell tollens from a toilet brush
would not even know what to twist, hence the need for professors.
"The U.S. is itself not a democracy but a functional oligarchy as a major Harvard study
found:"
My only quibble with another great post is the assertion that the US is functional.
Functional would mean it had supportive infrastructure but instead we have homeless
shitting in the street because they are driven out of the parks to do so and they must be bad
people that don't deserve public toilets.
Functional would mean, as Jackrabbit linked to above, and a I i did a few hours ago in the
Weekly Open Thread, that there wouldn't be 117 sexually abusive Catholic priests in the
Buffalo NY area doing the same thing as Epstein was doing to his clients.
Functional would mean we would not have the blatant hypocrisy Chervus quoted from the
posting above
"To "...make sure Ukraine stays strong and fights the Russians so we don't have to fight them
here"
I agree with Chervus that this is same BS that got us the Iron Curtain with Russia after WWII
because they wanted Godless communism instead of global private finance. And also, as I
ranted recently in the Open Thread, this gave us the 1950's change to the US Motto to In God
We Trust which gets back to the control of the obfuscatory/hypocrisy narrative telling us
that the private finance cult are doing God's work and that "competition is good/sharing is
bad"
The US is dysfunctional on purpose to keep the masses under control and dumbed
down/brainwashed
Ha! More connections to Stanford:
"Ancient Logic: Forerunners of Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens". Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
BTW, it is totally lost on the entirety of Western establishment that you cannot make
Ukraine strong (wouldn't we all love to see strong Ukraine?) while wrecking its economy by
encouraging policies like spending 5% of GDP on the military, switching to more expensive energy sources, cutting itself from traditional markets and supplies, replacing with rather worthless
"cooperation" agreement with a trading block that is neither particularly interested in
trading with Ukraine (Ukraine strongest exports are in surplus within EU) nor inclined to
subsidize it (budgets are tights and plenty of recent EU members are in dire needs
already)
I think it's tragic that that creatures like Karlan are not simply seen as the blatant bigots
and Nazi's that they are. You have to be wearing a large set of blinkers not to be able to
see that.
Unfortunately this is endemic in the western world. 'Democracy' seems to consist of
dumbing down the population as much as possible, and telling them what they have to think so
the self-anointed leaders of society can have their way (both those in front, and behind the
scenes). I'm far from certain this is a recipe for success.
The biggest tragedy is that Americans seem to think that the only way to succeed is to
tear down any other country that isn't essentially a puppet government, necessarily defining
them as 'enemies', and therefore someone/thing that must be hated and destroyed, by any
means, fair or foul.
Russians and Chinese in particular, and BRICS/SCO in general, are showing the way. The
countries involved have very different political systems, but they understand that
co-operation is much more beneficial than constant conflict. Unless, of course, a quarter of
your government tax income is dedicated to supporting an amazingly corrupt
Military-Industrial-Intelligence Complex.
Trump supporters approve of cutting food stamps. The majority of Democratic Party politicians
approve of cutting food stamps. Both parties agree times are good and the future is rosy. The
only thing they disagree on is foreign policy. The guy who couldn't even win the election
(and merely fluked in on a technicality that undermines all progress since 1788,) refuses to
play by the rules on foreign policy. And he is not justified by success, not in any terms,
not in making peace, not in winning, not in anything. The only people who are upset about
impeaching Trump are Trump lovers and cranks who think being president is like being elected
God and no one but sinners can defy Him.
The Trump supporters were going to turn out for him anyway, barring an economic crisis
even they couldn't ignore. Impeachment has no downside so long as it is from the right, and
doesn't rile up the rich people. Except the rich donors are leaving the Democratic Party
anyway. The strategy for a nicey-nice campaign that leaves enough Trump voters soothed enough
to sit it out has one enormous defect: Trump was not elected by the people anyhow.
But the Democratic Party politicians are anti-Communist, which means pro-Fascist, so yes,
they do see this as (im)moral principles to die for, though they hope to politically kill for
it. Their problem is, Trump is also anti-Communist and pro-Fascist, which everyone knows,
which means Trump was merely his office for campaigning. That may be hypocritical and a
violation of campaign laws. But in the eyes even of the anti-Communist/pro-Fascist population
missiles for Ukrainian fascists with strings or without strings is merely a tactical
disagreement. Even worse, the president breaking laws is perceived as strong leadership,
smashing the machine, getting rid of those awful politicians and their oppressive
government.
This is a typical example of the stupidity and often dementia of most of the highly educated.
Especially those in academia, who exist in a funhouse hall of propagandist and ideological
mirrors. But it's true of the educated in the general. I personally know plenty of highly
educated people who make themselves more stupid and mentally ill by the day by uncritically
reading the NYT and watching CNN.
I don't know why anyone would expect anything different. All system schooling at whatever
level boils down to the same two goals:
Instill the basic literacy necessary for a given cog position within the hierarchy.
Instill obedience to authority, including indoctrination into its ideology.
From kindergarten to grad school these are the same; whether one's being trained to pump
gas or to assume a high position in the corporate world/government/academia these are the
same.
So it's no wonder that an elite Stanford law professor is in practice the exact same
stupid, ignorant, deranged yahoo as you could easily find in a trailer park, just with better
manners and diction.
"One must be seriously disturbed to believe such nonsense. How can it be that Karlan is
teaching at an academic level when she has such delusions?"
I assume this question was meant rhetorically. After all, Karlan's Russia comment would
receive enthusiastic thumbs up from at least Biden, Obama, W. Clinton, H. Clinton, Rubio,
Klobuchar, Pelosi, Warren, Graham, Buttigieg, Romney, the late McCain, Pompeo, Bolton,
Mattis...the list goes on and on.
For a related, institutionalized, revolting example packaging multiple instances of such
delusional thought, see "russias-dead-end-diplomacy-syria"
. Have a pail nearby to catch the spew.
"The guy who couldn't even win the election (and merely fluked in on a technicality that
undermines all progress since 1788,)"
I don't think you ever answered when I asked you last time: Are you saying you think Hillary was so stupid she didn't know about the electoral
college, and that it was electoral votes she had to fight for, not popular ones? Because if you're not saying that, then nothing is changed: Trump beat Hillary in the
electoral fight they were both trying to win. It's pure nonsense to babble about
"technicalities".
And if any significant Democrat faction was saying throughout 2016, and not just after the
election, that the election should NOT be about electoral votes, please direct me to where
and when they were saying that, because I don't recall ever hearing it. And I think the
reason I never heard it was because the Dems were so smugly sure of electoral college
victory. And if Hillary had won, we never would've heard a word from you or anyone else about
the electoral college.
it is totally lost on the entirety of Western establishment that you cannot make Ukraine
strong while wrecking its economy
It's even worse than that. The economy will never recover while oligarchs have a stranglehold
on economic activity and government. And USA's capitalist dementia ensures that will never
change. (The West as a whole is headed in the direction of unabashed oligarchic rule.)
Why would anyone invest in Ukraine? Sometimes I think Putin was happy for the Western coup to succeed and simply planned to
keep the best parts.
But do they really believe what they (the mid-level elites) say or is it all some kind of
theater of the increasingly absurd? I am never clear on who among the narrative managers is
sincere and who is simply acting sincere. Are people like this woman or the Bellingcat
narrative managers or any of their numerous colleagues in their mid-level narrative
management positions occupying their positions simply due to their acting abilities? They
seem to be both delusional and ill-informed. When these people get together at their
conferences and dinner parties, does the mask come off?
casey @31: When these people get together ... does the mask come off?
I doubt it. They have convinced themselves that they are right and/or are following the
wishes of people who are right-thinking. In USA, most people are brainwashed to assume that
people with lots of money are right-thinking (as in: they must be doing something
right!).
Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not
understanding it.
Upton Sinclair self-published a book in 1922 about education in America entitled Goose
Step . Predating the infamous era of the Nazi/Fascist Goose Stepping thugs then armies, I
read a preview and found an inexpensive copy. The subject as might be assumed was about the
use of school systems to indoctrinate young Americans at all educational levels and
nationwide to conform to the views of the rather few wealthy people who sat on interlocking
boards that controlled curriculum--sort of like the oligarchic control over media today.
And
as we've seen with the study of political-economy, the ability to erase rather recent
developments and personages and inserting false doctrines and their priests was done rather
easily and with little noted protest. And so it's gone on down through the decades until
today--just look at the War Criminals hired by Stanford and other universities for proof of
its being an ongoing problem.
That ideological blinders are omnipresent is easily proven by the various defense planning
documents referenced here over the last several years, all of which relate to the unilateral,
might makes right mindset that's one of the Evil Outlaw US Empire's longstanding traits that
predates the 20th Century. Too many will never learn humility and the reality accompanying it
until it's enforced. But there's a wiser group residing within the Empire, some of us present
at this bar ready to deal with the mess once humpty-dumpty falls from its perch upon which
it's currently tottering.
I just looked up Pamala Karlan. Apparently there is a story that when she was a baby she was
so ugly her parents had to put shutters on her pram.
She claims to have a partner? There's no accounting for taste I suppose but even for a U.S.
citizen there must be a red line. Somewhere? someone!
As to her intellectual prowess, in my limited understanding, intellect depends on the
platform it rests upon. Put a Jaguar engine into a Mobility scooter and see how well that
performs. Plenty of power but no means of utilising it.
Logical mechanisms such as law require as little emotion as possible. People like her just
bring the demise of a great nation into action sooner rather than later.
I suppose we should be grateful such fools consider Russia an adversary, it's makes
predicting what comes next much more clear and succinct action can be instigated.
Professor Pamela Karlan. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
@29 russ...steven is making himself look like a fool regularly with that crap.. oh well..
@36 really? yes, indeed.. same faulty logic one would expect from a stanford law prof.. as
@22 piotr rightly notes - john yoo, the freak who could make torture in abu graib okay is
another one cut from the very same cloth..
i see one of Pamela Karlans comments got the ire of melania trump.. article
here..
"The Constitution states that there can be no titles of nobility. So while the president
can name his son Barron, he can't MAKE him a baron." Pamela S. Karlan
"A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you
should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child
to do it." -- Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 4, 2019
Karlan apologized for her remark as the hearing continued late Wednesday. "It was wrong of
me to do that,'' she said, according to the Associated Press. "I do regret it."
Universally accepted fact among the devoted is that "America is fighting Russia in the
Ukraine", though there are exactly zero confirmed reports of Russian troops in the region in
the past five years.
Many of the dumbest people I met were university students or graduates. They are thought to
absorb information as given, reproduce once, forget. They are not trained to question
anything, they follow a narrative. Some even denounced everything they ever learned and
became a follower of some religion, which is just another narrative.
I remember one student dorm in particular. Someone came in and decided it was too warm.
Put the central heating thermostat on "arctic winter", opened all doors and windows while it
was freezing outside. Then someone else came in and decided it was cold, closed all doors and
windows, put the thermostat on "incinerate". Repeat 24/7. The few times I tried to explain
how a thermostat works, I felt like being rubbed out of existence.
Only one guy understood that you set a room thermostat at a comfortable level and it would
regulate to desired temperature. He was an alcoholic, always stoned up to his eyeballs, not a
student except for the 3 or 4 studies he briefly tried and failed, and had given up on life
in general. He was also the only one there who questioned things.
I've seen Jonathan Turley on TV a number of times. He always seemed to be a person of
integrity. One needs to add courage to the list after testifying against impeachment on the
presented "evidence". I will be very surprised to see him on PBS or CBS ever again. Their
news readers are nearly giddy with excitement about impeachment. They never consider what
could happen if Trump is convicted but refuses to leave the White House. Then what?
---------
The food stamp program changes will kill people. As intended. One of the most affected groups
will be people who are too sick or otherwise too impaired to work, and maybe unable to even
leave their home, but still can't get social support. The system says there is no problem
because desperate people can get a free meal on Thanksgiving and Christmas. For the other 363
days a year, go find a dumpster to dive in.
Almost all Social Security Disability applicants are denied on the initial application.
There are no interim payments or support of any kind. Many give up, as intended. The rest
file appeals and wait years for a hearing before an "administrative law judge", who is not a
"real" judge, but just some lawyer with fancy title.
ALJ decisions tend to be rather arbitrary, so a favorable decision depends on which ALJ
hears a case. Sure there are more levels to appeal, and many more years of no social support,
if an applicant can find a way to survive for years on zero income, all the while being sick
with probably no medical care.
Social Security and disability lawyers have colluded to keep lawyers in business. Social
Security requires the use of a standard contract that gives the lawyer a fixed percentage of
the retroactive benefits. "Retroactive benefits" are the regular monthly benefits that accrue
from the officially determined "date of disability". So if it takes three years to get
benefits, the lawyer gets a nice chunk of change for a few hours work writing a brief and
showing up for the hearing.
The lawyer who signed my contract did nothing to help my case, and he even hired someone
else to write the brief and attend the hearing. One wonders if ALJs get some benefit from
lawyers to encourage long wait times, since long wait times increase lawyer profits at zero
cost.
The US system really is that cruel and barbaric. It would be kinder to take us out back
and shoot us, but that's too obvious. Much better to let people die slowly in the shadows so
the rest of society doesn't have to see us.
And I'm one of the fortunates who managed to hang on, despite bankruptcy, a civil suit,
the disability benefits process (only took six years), and state attempts to revoke Medicaid,
all at the same time. I know it sounds melodramatic, made up, or at least exaggerated. That's
understandable, because it seems that way to me, too!
About 1000 people a week kill themselves in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
Does anyone wonder why, or even notice? The reason for many of these deaths is the lack of
social supports. In Uncle Sam Land, social apoptosis is a feature, not a bug.
Russ@29 forgot the comments where I've reviewed exactly how everybody rejected the Electoral
College, holding legitimacy came from winning the real election. Until Gore, every time the
EC violated the expectation that it was a technical way of recording the popular vote, there
was justified outrage. Bush's camp in 2000 had plans to contest an EC loss, until that shoe
turned out to be on the other foot. If Trump had won the popular vote and lost the Electoral
College, he would no more accept the results. Only liars take refuge in the simplistic
legalisms. And only Trump ass-lickers are so contemptible as to pretend Trump was the stable
genius who outplayed Clinton in the real game. Trump had no more idea how to win the EC
without winning the popular vote than anyone else. Further, by the witless pretended
principles of Russ' ilk, a presidential candidate who managed to win faithless electors who
ignored even their own states' pluralities* would still be the legitimate president! Every
single defender of Trump the one legitimate president is witless and worthless.
But very likely the real objection to the response is the insistence that Trump isn't
magically guaranteed re-election because...well, the real reason is slavish devotion to a God
named Trump. Even with the advantage of incumbency this time around, with even more support
from the wealthy (the people who have really turned away from the Democratic Party to favor
political gangsterism,) Trump is likely to lose the election again. If I were in Congress I
would offer a compromise, where the Republicans were assured Trump would not be investigated
any more, much less impeached, for abolition of the Electoral College. But I think Trump
would say no, because he knows deep down he's a loser.
*US politicians rarely win majorities of the electorate. Politicians of all stripes have
agreed that non-voting is always to be deemed as "Satisfied" with either choice instead of
"Alienated, with no choice." Decent people suspect otherwise.
@38 Karloff1 You can still Read the late John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of
American Education online. He did a great job highlighting the history and purpose of copying
the Prussian style of education to replace the one room school houses and instill the
"martial spirit" in the American public. I have to hand it to the Oligarchs of old too. They
were very effective in their implementation.
Karlan type of academics is scattered all over the US universities. They are the
Academia´s gatekeepers, watching over & "spotting" of our future leaders. the
majority of them are claptraps selling jingoism to our youth in order to fulfill the
Judeo-Zionist agenda.
John Taylor Gatto, former New York City and New York State teacher of the year, stated:
The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders; and
John Holt concluded, School is a place where children learn to be stupid . . . Children
come to school curious; within a few years most of that curiosity is dead, or at least
silent.
I recall when I was a student at the University of Technology, Sydney, way back in the
Mesozoic era (1980s), the economics dept there had a lecturer there with a Harvard University
background so the staff made him head of the department. Just because he had a Harvard
University PhD. He was hardly a great administrator and the subjects he taught (compared with
other lecturers' subjects) were much less structured. Of course this meant the courses he
taught were easier on students' time and energy, though if you made use of the opportunity a
less structured course gave, you could turn in an end-of-term essay with impressive research
equivalent to the level required of a post-grad.
The university also had an exchange program with the University of Oregon, and most of the
Oregon students who came to UTS (usually in their second or third year) found the UTS
coursework very heavy-going and difficult.
In those days, UTS was only supposed to be a second-tier university in Australia.
This hearing is a theatre performance (kabuki -- hey, I learned a new
word, thanks) and PK's lines are an invocation of the official US myth
(the shinning city on the hill, the exceptional, indispensible
nation). No one in the room took that seriously or literally
(especially PK herself) and IMHO these national myths are not really
anything to freak out about - every nation has got its myth, and this is
an arrogant one, but compared to a few others it's almost likeable.
Of course it is at odds with historical records and the reality, but
all of them are, because, frankly, the truth, being descendants of
genocidal, religious nutters and slavers, is apparently very
motivational -- in the KSA...
The RU/UK lines are slightly more worrisome, but that's just a
matching background for her story - the fluff. She doesn't have to
belive it - it's just a performance, an elegant one but meaningless in the end.
A lot of the visitors comment about the deep state, most of the time
mentioning three letter agencies. Here comes a piece about a four
letters one, acting more or less in the plain sight:
OIRA, E.O.
12866
A group of virtually anonymous, unaccountable people wields quite
considerable power over both legislative and executive. A very
interesting construction...
Posted by: nietzsche1510 | Dec 5 2019 21:03 utc | 65
You hit the nail on the head. Karlan's loyalty is to her tribe, not this nation. That's
the crux of almost every major problem and injustice we're suffering from in this country,
from private prisons to Wall Street looting to endless foreign wars to censorship. There is
one group of people behind it with a very bad track record in terms of how they treat their
host nations. I wonder when we will finally get our act together and become the 110th country
to expel them.
And Goldhoarder, while you may not mind how your posts look, you've managed to damage this
comment thread and until b deletes your poorly structured post, we all suffer for it.
@ Posted by: Lochearn | Dec 5 2019 21:51 utc | 72 who seems to disagree with my concept
"dysfunctional on purpose"
and wants to use decadence instead and wrote:
"
Surely there must be some functionality
to be able to keep the masses dumbed down/brainwashed; it implies some sort of thought out
strategy.
How do we get the same narrative trotted out in media in exactly the same format from LA to
Warsaw,
from Lima to Bangalore if it's all so dysfunctional?
"
I posit that strategy of "dysfunctional on purpose" is control of the narrative and
language and it is purposefully used.
Consider the current seeming understanding of the terms, socialism and capitalism by many
of your fellow barflies.
Many of our fellow barflies would have one believe that China is socialist and the West is
capitalist...exclusively.
I and a few others keep trying to point out that both China and the West are, to varying
degrees mixed economies,
including aspects of both socialism and capitalism
Consider the implicit definition of government if you will. Is government, as compared to
dictatorships, not explicitly socialistic?
Are not the provision of water, sewage treatment and in many case electricity explicitly
socialistic by definition?
Is it not dumbing down and brainwashing that many don't understand reality but spout the
words and concepts they are fed
by those in control of the narrative and media pushing it?
And, not to make too fine a point of it, does all of the West not live under the
dictatorship of global private finance at this time?
So how much more would I get ignored if I beat that drum as part of my comments here?
IF Trump is removed from office then the war on Lebanon and Iran would be
accelerated. Israel will likely go for all the marbles and annex the last remaining
Palestinian holdings. Some here believe this couldn't happen but we all live in bizarro world
now.
Also, don't expect the Electoral College to oust Pence after the general election since
he's more pro-war; even the electors from Democrat controlled states would support him. IMHO,
the US would continue on; business as usual.
However, if the Democrats are crazy enough to follow through, the Republican dominated
Senate would reject it. Basically a repeat of what happened to Clinton. In the end, nothing
changed.
""It was wrong of me to do that,'' she said, according to the Associated Press. "I do
regret it.""
Ya but . . .as Tucker Carlson spot-on reacted, that comment sure looked as though it had
been rehearsed in front of the bathroom mirror. It was sooooo lame!!! I mean, it was obvious
(on the video) that Karlan really thought she was (wait for it! It's on the way) landing a
very clever bon mot!
It is a small thing, yet it speaks volumes about the spirit of this clearly clueless human
being (and others of her ilk), and her handlers, who must have cleared this little gotcha for
prime time. Been up on the podium too long, bleating to students who can't/don't bleat back!
No common sense.
Never a connection with a child, I'll bet, or she could never have said such a thing.
Painful to look at the pinched little face, decent hairdo missing in action, with the rant
coming out of the tight little mouth. A pathetic individual.
Ditto Noah Feldman from the Felix Frankfurter Dept of the Harvard Law School: Pure
bloviation with skin like a baby's bottom. Better coiffed, actually, than Karlan. Quels
types!!!
My comment @ 67 was actually just to highlight the (most undeserved) reputations that
places like Harvard and Stanford have among certain faculties in Australian universities. In
those days Stanford, Harvard and MIT were the holiest of holy shrines to do business studies
/ economics degrees. Years later I read a book by someone who actually did do a Stanford MBA
and the scales fell from my eyes then. The work was similar to what I'd done as an
undergraduate (albeit collapsed in the space of 18 months; I had the luxury of doing
part-time and then going full-time as a student).
I should have added that the Harvard PhD guy who taught me comparative economics was a
lousy teacher as well as a lousy administrator. I visited his office once and it looked as if
a tornado had just hit it. To be fair though, he really wasn't cut out to be a lecturer, he
was much better at research and analysis.
Before he became a lecturer, he worked at the CIA as a researcher. He knew next to no
German (he was of Polish background) so he was assigned to the section to read East German
newspapers. A fellow he knew who could speak and read German but no Bulgarian was assigned to
the ... Bulgarian section. That experience must account for my lecturer's sloppy personal
style.
But now that you draw my attention to the link, yes you are right that the study was done
at Princeton University.
Why do you assume a technical illiterate could read those instructions? I can't even begin
to do anything with that. It is never simple enough for those who have not been
initiated.
HTML works by magic. Your instructions do not convince me otherwise.
Better solution is to forgo links altogether if not competent. Or spell out the link and
force the really interested to transcribe. Of course no one is going to go to effort of
spelling out a link as long as that one above. Which would be a good thing.
She's been gone some time now (she died in April 2018) but Karen Dawisha , a so-called expert on
Russian and post-Soviet politics who obtained a higher degree at the London School of
Economics, was another deluded academic twat who wrote the book "Putin's Kleptocracy: Who
Owns Russia?"
The 1-star, 2-star and 3-star reviews on Amazon.com of the book refer to the tabloid
quality of many of the claims in the book, poor sourcing, cherry-picking of facts and the
author's inability to write at a level that would attract a readership outside the academic
community.
The least we can say for her is that she is no longer in a position to, erm, "advise" the
US and UK governments on issues and help formulate policy that would backfire on Washington
and London anyway.
As the great wise man, Frank Zappa proclaimed about the USA: "Politics/government is the entertainment division of the Military-Industrial
Government." American politics makes much greater sense (and is a hell of a lot more entertaining) if
you understand this truism.
US Presidential Debates and impeachment hearings are a swell occasion for drinking
games. Every time a political hack, media shill, or academic invokes some variant of American
Exceptionalism, take a shot of your favorite alcoholic beverage. You will be drunk within half an hour--guaranteed!
I'd say unbelievable but I know that is only wishful thinking on my part. What's scary is
that these people populate the "educational" system which explains why we're as screwed as we
are.
"... When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at that. ..."
"... Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our business. ..."
Here is a congealing conventional wisdom around sending military assistance to Ukraine that
is as absurd as can be, and it cropped up again this morning:
"Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" was extremely stupid when
applied to terrorism. It is much more stupid when applied to Russia, and shows how
impoverished the FP thinking of even bright, engaged Americans is. My goodness.
It is discouraging to see that one of the dumbest talking points from the Bush era has
returned. "Fight them there" was always a silly justification for waging unnecessary wars in
other countries, and now it is being repurposed to justify the questionable policy of throwing
weapons at a conflict in Europe. When it was used in the context of Bush-era wars, it was an
attempt to make what were clearly wars of choice seem as though they were unavoidable. When a
government needs to defend a bad policy, it will usually claim that they have no choice but to
do what they are doing.
When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a
war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to
make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally
important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at
that.
I have written many times why I think it is a mistake to arm Ukraine. It just encourages
escalation at worst and the prolongation of the conflict at best. Until recently, the arguments
in favor of doing this have not been very compelling, but at least they weren't quite so
mindless. Needless to say, Russia's conflict with Ukraine is a local one, and the U.S. doesn't
have much at stake in that conflict. Ukrainians aren't fighting Russia and its proxies on our
behalf or to prevent them from attacking someone else, but for the sake of their own country.
If Russia hawks insist on providing Ukraine with weapons and other assistance, they should at
least be able to acknowledge that this is a peripheral interest of the United States.
Exaggerating the importance of this policy to U.S. security just calls attention to how little
it matters to U.S. security.
Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this
conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible
threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our
business.
The threat to US official impunity panics the regime more than any number of Russian
Sarmats or nuclear ramjets. The ICC is one very new judicial forum, and its halting efforts
to get its institutional footing panicked the US into imposing illegal sanctions on
accredited diplomats. The real threat of the Rome Statute is the universal obligation to
prosecute or extradite war criminals and enemies of humanity.
An increasing number of the most influential US functionaries will be unable to travel
freely. This is, in effect, pariah-state status more abject than North Korea's. This has been
a mounting challenge for years – GW Bush fled Switzerland, scared off by a war crimes
accusation from a single legislator.
And international criminal law is one jaw of a pincer. It complements the doctrine of
state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts. State responsibility provides the
civil equivalent of international criminal law, with the potential to impose restitution,
reparation, satisfaction, and compensation with interest. Satisfaction articulates directly
with international criminal law by providing for prosecution of designated criminals. The
US faces insupportable liabilities for its internationally wrongful acts, and US
functionaries know that any one of them could be sacrificed to get the regime off the
hook.
Russian policy is to enforce this law at gunpoint. Iranian policy is to make its case in
independent international courts. China is vocal about upholding rule of law, and as its
deterrent improves, it will be increasingly active in applying it. The G-192 – 96% of
the world's population – pitches in by withholding the "waterfall" of G-5 privileges.
The UK recently got pushed off the ICJ bench for the first time ever for its lawless conduct.
The US is next.
The US is an underdeveloped country ineffectually waving second-rate weapons. The world is
leaving it behind.
For the past two centuries and, particularly the last three decades, direct foreign military
intervention in the affairs of ostensibly sovereign and independent states has been perhaps the
most consistent and destructive common denominator that shapes our region's worsening
condition. Direct warfare by foreign powers almost always paves the way for decades, if not
centuries, of continuing instability -- whether in the cases of Napoleon in 1798, the Soviet
Union and the United States in Afghanistan in the decades after 1979, the U.S. in Iraq in 2003,
or Russia, Iran, and seemingly half the world in Syria since 2015.
Direct foreign military attacks or other "security" activities inside Middle East lands
inevitably create traumatic local power imbalances that portend chronic local ideological
conflicts, and spark resentments and resistance to the foreign invader or to the invader's
local ruling ally. Foreign invaders also create local authority vacuums that open the door for
other states to intervene (see Iraq, Syria, and Libya), and also create the ideal spawning
ground for radical, militant, resistance, or terrorist movements of all stripes. Israel
repeatedly encountered this instinctive local resistance to its predatory militarism in Lebanon
and Gaza, as did the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and the U.S. and its allies in
Iraq.
Almost nothing good emerges from direct foreign militarism in the Middle East, and even when
the fighting stops surreptitious foreign support to local warring parties also perpetuates
tensions and clashes, which only spur economic waste, corruption, collapse, and widespread
poverty and suffering among the citizenry.
It is clear now that foreign militarism plays a destructive and sustained role in the two
biggest problems that now tear apart much of the Arab region (and also touch on non-Arab
Mideast states like Iran, Turkey and Israel). The first is mass pauperization that now sees
over two-thirds of all Arab citizens living in poverty or vulnerability, in states that have
reached or approach bankruptcy and allow citizens no meaningful political rights. This will get
much worse because all prevailing economic trends that could counter it are flat or negative
(trade, tourism, direct investment, remittances, job creation).
The second problematic big regional trend -- very much states' reactions to their citizens'
helpless pauperization -- is the growing militarization and securitization of governance. This
is evident in bloated military and security budgets that are controlled by a handful of
unelected, unaccountable leaders, and expanded use of anti-terrorism laws since September 2011
to deter or imprison domestic political foes, or prevent any independent political expression
by the public (see Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain). Foreign militarism since the 1940s
has inevitably promoted local military rule within Arab states. The incompetence, autocracy,
and corruption of Arab military rulers since the 1970s have driven economies into the ground,
and sparked the nonstop street uprisings we witness today across the region.
The centuries of cumulative interventions by foreign powers inside Arab states reached a new
peak in the past eight years in Syria, where dozens of foreign and regional actors that joined
the fray inside the country charted new ground in the historical legacy that had mostly seen
big power, usually Western and colonial, interventions in the region's affairs.
Of course Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Persian, and other imperial dominance in
the region across time all played a role in defining the Middle East as a frontline battlefield
in the recurring waves of global imperial dominance and cultural influence. Starting in the
19th Century, however, as imperial powers started to come to terms with their imminent
historical demise, the British and the French mostly wrote the book on the ugly heritage of
battling for strategic supremacy in our region. The 20th Century saw foreign powers fight at
will in the Middle East, and also provide indirect political and "security" support to their
favorite local partners, allies, surrogates, and stooges, who kept fighting it out inside Arab
countries that proved to be only nominally sovereign and independent states.
The civil war in Syria that started in 2011 was the logical outcome of this legacy. It
mirrors other states where authority and legitimacy collapsed in the eyes of their own people,
and the sovereign control of their lands and resources succumbed to the many foreign actors
that came in to save the dying beast or bite off pieces of its carcass. Syria offers one of the
most important examples of this, given the wide variety of warring parties that joined its
several overlapping local, regional, and global wars.
The fighters in Syria included dozens of Arab states and non-state armed groups, local
militias and tribal forces, regional non-Arab powers like Iran, Turkey, Israel, and Hezbollah
and their clients, wannabe regional powers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, leading global powers
like the U.S. and Russia, second-tier powers like the U.K. and France, and a few smaller
countries around the world that joined directly or provided mercenaries mostly to win credits
with bigger Arab or foreign powers.
The eight-year war in Syria is at once a consequence and a high-water mark of sustained
foreign military interventions in the Arab region, and a harbinger of how such foreign and
local militarism will operate there for years to come. We can already see in Libya, Lebanon,
Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and scattered other corners of our troubled region several noteworthy
legacies of today's foreign militarism in Syria and its antecedents since Napoleon.
Regional and foreign powers' rolling interventions in Syria have redefined how such powers
engage across the region, where two opposing loose alliances, loosely allied with Saudi Arabia
or Iran, now face off -- each comprises Arab states, regional Arab and non-Arab powers, global
powers, and local non-state actors. The sheer number and variety of foreign forces that
directly or indirectly fought in Syria portend badly for fragile states whose illusory
sovereignty can collapse at any moment in the face of dozens of armed actors that pounce like
wolves circling a dazed gazelle. The "international community" that actively joined and fueled
the fighting also responded weakly to the alleged and real war crimes on both sides This
suggests that the "international community" is something of a fiction, but also that, whatever
it represents, it can live with the Middle East's continuing authoritarian, lawlessness, and
violent political systems -- as long as the violence, refugees, terrorists, and turmoil remain
in the Middle East.
Indeed, global and regional powers actively engage in cross-border militarism and
neo-colonialism that we can see in several arenas: Washington's support for Israeli settlements
expansion and annexations of occupied Arab lands, and its lingering presence in Syria and Iraq;
Russian and American support for Turkish incursions into northern Syria; Saudi Arabian and
Emirati moves to control parts of the south of Yemen for their own strategic aims; British and
American direct involvement in the war on Yemen; and, French, Emirati, Russian, and Egyptian
support for the rebel forces of Khalifa Haftar in Libya, to mention only the most obvious.
These are only the most current but ongoing consequences of over two centuries of non-stop
foreign military and political interference that our region has experienced, with devastating
long-term impacts. Internal and regional wars, in a climate of very high Arab military
spending, continue to propel countries back into dilapidated or vulnerable conditions every few
decades. The Arab examples of this only increase, including Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Egypt,
Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Jordan. Non-Arab Iran, Turkey, and Israel face their own
challenges, as they simultaneously suffer the damages of external militarism and also engage in
it themselves around the region.
It is time for all foreign and regional powers to start learning the hard lessons of these
historical trends and instead seek non-violent diplomatic solutions to challenges they now
mostly address with their guns blazing. A regional population of half a billion poor and
powerless people held in check by hundreds of billions of dollars of military spending linked
to foreign troops who enter our countries at will is probably a far greater real threat to
their wellbeing than anything they can imagine today.
So a republican staffer, a neocon without any diplomatic experience was the NSC senior director of European and Russian
affairs, the successor of Fiona Hill.
Washington
-- A top National Security Council official who listened to President Trump's July call with the
president of Ukraine told lawmakers he "promptly" told White House lawyers he was concerned details of the call would
become public, but did not think "anything illegal was discussed" during the conversation.
Tim Morrison, the outgoing senior director of European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council and a
deputy assistant to the president, is testifying before committees leading the
impeachment inquiry
on Capitol Hill on Thursday. He has emerged as a central witness to the events at the center
of the inquiry, particularly the administration's policy toward Ukraine.
CBS News learned the substance of his opening statement to the committees, which ran six pages and appears below.
Morrison said the summary released by the White House of the call between Mr. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky accurately reflects his memory and understanding of the call, but he said he had three concerns in the event
the summary became public.
"[F]irst, how it would play out in Washington's polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the
bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the
Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship," Morrison, who was in the Situation Room for the call, told
lawmakers. "I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed."
However, he also corroborated a central allegation in the Democratic case against the president: that a U.S.
ambassador told a high-ranking Ukrainian official that the release of military aid was contingent on an investigation
into the Bidens.
Tim Morrison arrives for a deposition at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on October 31,
2019.
SAUL LOEB / AF
Morrison said his predecessor, Fiona Hill, told him about "concerns about two Ukraine processes that were
occurring": one led by traditional U.S. diplomatic entities, and one led by the U.S. Ambassador the E.U. Gordon
Sondland and Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer. He said Hill told him about their efforts to get Ukraine
to investigate Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that had employed Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe
Biden's son.
"At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the investigation entailed," Morrison said. "After the
meeting with Dr. Hill, I googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy company and that Hunter Biden was
on its board."
Morrison said he spoke frequently with Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in the embassy in Kiev. Taylor
testified before the committees
last week and described his misgivings about efforts to pressure Ukraine
to open investigations into the president's rivals. Morrison, in his statement, confirmed the substance of Taylor's
account, but said he remembered two details differently.
Taylor testified that Morrison told him Sondland had demanded the Ukrainian president announce an investigation
into Burisma, while Morrison said he remembered Sondland saying an announcement by the country's top prosecutor would
suffice. Taylor also indicated Morrison met with the Ukrainian national security adviser in his hotel room, while
Morrison said it was in the hotel's business center.
Morrison said he learned about a delay in military aid to Ukraine shortly after assuming his post, and was tasked
with coordinating with various agencies to demonstrate why the aid was needed.
"I was confident that our national security principals -- the Secretaries of State and Defense, the Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Council -- could convince President Trump to
release the aid," he said.
Morrison testified he had "no reason to believe" the Ukrainians knew of a delay in military aid until August 28,
and said he was unaware the aid may have been tied to the demand for an investigation into Burisma until he spoke to
Sondland on September 1.
Morrison arrived on Capitol Hill before 8 a.m. Thursday for his deposition after Democrats issued a subpoena for
his testimony. A spokesman for House Intelligence Committee chairman declined to comment on his opening statement.
Morrison appeared on the same day the House
approved a resolution
greenlighting the rules for impeachment proceedings moving forward.
On Wednesday, officials said Morrison would be leaving his White House post. He said in his statement he has yet
to submit his resignation "because I do not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and
my impending departure."
"I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump Administration to accomplish," he said.
Read Morrison's full statement
Opening Statement of Timothy Morrison
Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and
the House Committee on Oversight and Reform
October 31, 2019
Chairman Schiff and Members of the Committees, I appear today under subpoena to answer your questions about my
time as Senior Director for European Affairs at the White House and the National Security Council ("NSC"). I will
give you the most complete information I can, consistent with my obligations to the President and the protection of
classified information. I do not know who the whistleblower is, nor do I intend to speculate as to who it may be.
Before joining the NSC in 2018, I spent 17 years as a Republican staffer, serving in a variety of roles in both
houses of Congress. My last position was Policy Director for the then-Majority Staff of the House Armed Services
Committee.
I. The Role of the National Security Council
From July 9, 2018 to July 15, 2019, I served as a Special Assistant to the President for National Security and as
the NSC Senior Director for Weapons of Mass Destruction and Biodefense. In that role, I had limited exposure to
Ukraine, focusing primarily on foreign military sales and arms control. On July 15, 2019, I became Deputy Assistant
to the President for National Security. In this role, I serve as the lead interagency coordinator for national
security issues involving Europe and Russia.
It is important to start with the role of the NSC. Since its creation by Congress in 1947, the NSC has
appropriately evolved in shape and size to suit the needs of the President and the National Security Advisor it
serves at the time. But its mission and core function has fundamentally remained the same: to coordinate across
departments and agencies of the Executive Branch to ensure the President has the policy options he needs to
accomplish his objectives and to see that his decisions are implemented. The NSC staff does not make policy. NSC
staff are most effective when we are neutral arbiters, helping the relevant Executive Branch agencies develop options
for the President and implement his direction.
In my current position, I understood our primary U.S. policy objective in Ukraine was to take advantage of the
once-in-a-generation opportunity that resulted from the election of President Zelensky and the clear majority he had
gained in the Ukrainian Rada to see real anti-corruption reform take root.
The Administration's policy was that
the best way for the United States to show its support for President Zelensky's reform efforts was to make sure the
United States' longstanding bipartisan commitment to strengthen Ukraine's security remained unaltered, it is easy to
forget here in Washington, but impossible in Kyiv, that Ukraine is still under armed assault by Russia, a
nuclear-armed state.
We also tend to forget that the United States had helped convince Ukraine to give up Soviet
nuclear weapons in 1994. United States security sector assistance (from the Departments of Defense and State) is,
therefore, essential to Ukraine. Also essential is a strong and positive relationship with Ukraine at the highest
levels of our respective governments.
In my role as Senior Director for European Affairs, I reported directly to former Deputy National Security
Advisor, Dr. Charles Kupperman, and former National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton. I kept them fully
informed on matters that I believed merited their awareness or when I felt I needed some direction. During the time
relevant to this inquiry, I never briefed the President or Vice President on matters related to Ukrainian security.
It was my job to coordinate with the U.S. Embassy Chief of Mission to Ukraine William Taylor, Special Representative
for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker, and other interagency stakeholders in the Departments of Defense and State of
Ukrainian matters.
My primary responsibility has been to ensure federal agencies had consistent messaging and policy guidance on
national security issues involving European and Russian affairs. As Dr. Fiona Hill and I prepared for me to succeed
her, one of the areas we discussed was Ukraine. In that discussion, she informed me of her concerns about two Ukraine
processes that were occurring: the normal interagency process led by the NSC with the typical department and agency
participation and a separate process that involved chiefly the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. Dr. Hill told
me that Ambassador Sondland and President Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were trying to get President
Zelensky to reopen Ukrainian investigations into Burisma. At the time, I did not know what Burisma was or what the
investigation entailed. After the meeting with Dr. Hill, I googled Burisma and learned that it was a Ukrainian energy
company and that Hunter Biden was on its board. I also did not understand why Ambassador Sondland would be involved
in Ukraine policy, often without the involvement of our duly-appointed Chief of Mission, Ambassador Bill Taylor.
My most frequent conversations were with Ambassador Taylor because he was the U.S. Chief of Mission in Ukraine and
I was his chief conduit for information related to White House deliberations, including security sector assistance
and potential head-of-state meetings. This is a normal part of the coordination process.
II. Review of Open Source Documents in Preparation for Testimony
In preparation for my appearance today, I reviewed the statement Ambassador Taylor provided this inquiry on
October 22, 2019. I can confirm that the substance of his statement, as it relates to conversations he and I had, is
accurate. My recollections differ on two of the details, however. I have a slightly different recollection of my
September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland. On page 10 of Ambassador Taylor's statement, he recounts a
conversation I relayed to him regarding Ambassador Sondland's conversation with Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Yermak.
Ambassador Taylor wrote: "Ambassador Sondland told Mr. Yermak that security assistance money would not come until
President Zelensky committed to pursue the Burisma investigation." My recollection is that Ambassador Sondland's
proposal to Mr. Yermak was that it could be sufficient if the new Ukrainian prosecutor general -- not President Zelensky -- would
commit to pursue the Burisma investigation. I also would like to clarify that I did not meet with the Ukrainian
National Security Advisor in his hotel room, as Ambassador Taylor indicated on page 11 of his statement. Instead, an
NSC aide and I met with Mr. Danyliuk in the hotel's business center.
I also reviewed the Memorandum of Conversation ("MemCont') of the July 25 phone call that was released by the
White House. I listened to the call as it occurred from the Situation Room. To the best of my recollection, the
MemCon accurately and completely reflects the substance of the call. I also recall that I did not see anyone from the
NSC Legal Advisor's Office in the room during the call. After the call, I promptly asked the NSC Legal Advisor and
his Deputy to review it. I had three concerns about a potential leak of the MemCon: first, how it would play out in
Washington's polarized environment; second, how a leak would affect the bipartisan support our Ukrainian partners
currently experience in Congress; and third, how it would affect the Ukrainian perceptions of the U.S.-Ukraine
relationship. I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed.
III. White House Hold on Security Sector Assistance
I was not aware that the White House was holding up the security sector assistance passed by Congress until my
superior, Dr. Charles Kupperman, told me soon after I succeeded Dr. Hill. I was aware that the President thought
Ukraine had a corruption problem, as did many others familiar with Ukraine. I was also aware that the President
believed that Europe did not contribute enough assistance to Ukraine. I was directed by Dr. Kupperman to coordinate
with the interagency stakeholders to put together a policy process to demonstrate that the interagency supported
security sector assistance to Ukraine. I was confident that our national security principals -- the Secretaries of State
and Defense, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the head of the National Security Council -- could
convince President Trump to release the aid because President Zelensky and the reform-oriented Rada were genuinely
invested in their anti-corruption agenda.
Ambassador Taylor and I were concerned that the longer the money was withheld, the more questions the Zelensky
administration would ask about the U.S. commitment to Ukraine. Our initial hope was that the money would be released
before the hold became public because we did not want the newly constituted Ukrainian government to question U.S.
support.
I have no reason to believe the Ukrainians had any knowledge of the review until August 28, 2019. Ambassador
Taylor and I had no reason to believe that the release of the security sector assistance might be conditioned on a
public statement reopening the Burisma investigation until my September 1, 2019 conversation with Ambassador Sondland.
Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland's strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by leaders
in the Administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.
I am pleased our process gave the President the confidence he needed to approve the release of the security sector
assistance. My regret is that Ukraine ever learned of the review and that, with this impeachment inquiry, Ukraine has
become subsumed in the U.S. political process.
IV. Conclusion
After 19 years of government service, I have decided to leave the NSC. I have not submitted a formal resignation
at this time because I do not want anyone to think there is a connection between my testimony today and my impending
departure. I plan to finalize my transition from the NSC after my testimony is complete.
During my time in public service, I have worked with some of the smartest and most self-sacrificing people in this
country. Serving at the White House in this time of unprecedented global change has been the opportunity of a
lifetime. I am proud of what I have been able, in some small way, to help the Trump Administration to accomplish.
This is the net result of Clinton policies and neocon dominance in the USA foreign policy.
And it is not a pretty picture. It might difficult to win Russia back as an ally after those
Russiagate nonsense. They feel really offended by it and might overreact as is evident from the
test below.
I'll just say again that imbecilization is a completely normal historical phenomenon in declining empires, Empires also tend to have a very
flexible conception of truth, that is, they believe they can
fabricate reality for the simple reason they are geopolitically dominant.
The fact that the MSM have become mouthpieces for the CIA/deep state has
played a huge role in the brainwashing of academia and the rise of neoliberalism. The false
narratives these "trusted sources" of information have been serving up create a very real
Matrix, a false reality that is ingrained into those who rely upon them for their daily
"news".
It feels like the world has gone crazy. They push someone's wallet in our pocket, and then
shout "catch the thief!". We try to debunt this false flag, show surveillance footage, which
clearly shows the setup. But the continue shout in chorus - " thief, thief, thief!".
Acquaintances turn away, hide their eyes. Those "Western partners" iare numerous and they
silence our weak attempts to protest. We were driven into a corner... They try to strangulate
us with sanctions.
Unfortunately, this is our new reality. For the next decade. The question is "Why?" Because
we are a force in international arena again. We're ruining their racketeering business. We are
a vivid example that it is possible to escape the system of the global racket of which they
feed, That there is an alternative.
So now there is a player who does not wan to pay the racketeers, And he is still alive. This
means that others may not pay either. They hate such a situation, because other players may
refuse to pay, and that also means that sooner or later they might be force to live within this
own meanss. It has been a long time since they live within their means, and they completely
lost the habit of doing so. So they want to "solve" the problem with us now ones and forever,
while others are still afraid of them.
Plus they have a new gang leader. Like all newbies, he wants to be the toughest. And raises
the stakes.
Let's face the truth. They won't let us go easily. It's pointless to explain. We will be
hunted, subjected to the array of false flags, persecuted and sanctioned to death. And if they
feel the slack – they will beta us to the death, much more thoroughly then they did in
1990th. The question of whether this can be avoided is no longer worth asking. Today we have
one question – how to survive the next two decades?
We need finally exhale and turn on the brain... The key to victory, as Sun Tzu wrote –
is in knowing the enemy and knowing yourself.
What is their strength?
First, there are many. And they have money. They can buy everything, including witnesses and
judges. We'll be blamed for for anything; they will attack and we will be framed as the
attacker.
Second, they scream loudly. In chorus. That control world mass communications. And their
propaganda works. It is useless to argue otherwise. All our arguments are useless. They will
fall of death ear and will be ignored. Nobody will question their validity -- they will be
simply swipe under the carpet. No matter how ridiculous is their "version of events" is
(Skripals, Russiagate, Ukrainegate) the label "the guilty party" is already put on us like a
yellow patch on the Jews in Nazi Germany. Before any investigation or God forbid judicial
process. And most people on the planet still take their word for it.
What is their weakness?
As opponents these guys, I mean their neoliberal elites are the second grade; they belong to
the "grey zone", the zone of mediocrity. Too greedy, too arrogant, and too lazy. Sometime
semi-senile. Their previous generation was much stronger. They respected us. And we them.
We do not respect this new neoliberal elite and they feel that. And we don't respect them
because such mediocrities do not deserve our respect, and are not trustworthily partner. They
generally can be classified as "Unable to adhere to any legal treaties" (Nedogovorosposobnie")
. And that scares us, almost to death, because you need to deal with completely unpredictable,
bizarre partner for whom treaties and agreements are not worth the paper they were printed on.
But they will avoid open fight, unless the success guaranteed. We need to ensure that such
situation never occur.
Their nervousness, their fidgeting, their second-rateness now is staring to be felt by other countries who would
prefer to hedge their bet and join only a sure winner. They see that the outcome of the USA quest for Full Spectrum Dominance is not yet
decided.
In addition, our opponents are now engaged in brutal showdown with each other. Western
Europe recovered and became competitor of the USA. They also are openly laughing over their new chief. Half of the major
Europium countries leadership probably hates him. For how long he can stay in
power is completely unclear. But this is a new and unexpected development. .
And those in the second row, the stooges, are generally ready to escape from this virtual
battlefield. It became too expensive to catch hot potatoes for Uncle Sam as the amount of loot
for partners shrunk dramatically. And problems with neoliberalism at home mounted. Neoliberal
chickens start coming to roost. They were promised money and a share of loot, not a beating in a real fight
with a strong determined opponent.
What is our strength?
First of all we no longer have any illusions about the the USA or West in general, illusions
that cost us so dearly in 1990th. They are predators who want to colonize, fleece and dismember
our nation. An having no illusions means that they can't repeat economic rape they committed in
1990th. Now we know what awaits us if we give up. They'll devour us completely. Those gangsters
will kick the lying opponent with feet until he is dead. They won't let us survive a second
time.
We also have a grenade as the last resort. They know it, and they're terrified we'll pull
the pin.
They don't understand how we can be defeated, so they try new ways to make us surrender
without a fight. Looking for a weak spot.
What is our weakness?
Our first problem is that we are alone. We are a big and clumsy country with a lot of
internal problems and convoluted history. Which refuse to became the USA vassal. We were a difficult neighbor in the past. Some
people are afraid of us because or our past.
Our second and main problem is the lack of money for economic reconstruction. We don't have enough money for the restoration of the
economy and the standard of living of our people after 1990th rape to the level we deserve as
the major European country. Say the level the Germany managed to achieve, despite being
defeated in WWII. And nobody is going to help us, at least on acceptable conditions. They will
try to slow down our economic development by all mean possible. that's why they already imposed
sanctions under bogus pretext. They will impose more to slow down the process. They will
manipulate oil prices and engage us in "gas wars." If we can solve this problem and restore the
economy and the standard of living of people after 1990 collapse other problems will be easier
to take on.
Also a nice thing about having money is that you instantly have a lot of fiends ;-) At
once.
Now some panoramic view on the situation like in oil painting.
First of all out willingness to fight back is a guarantee that they will not get into a real
fight. We need to hold out for the next ten-twenty years or so. I think this is what we can
expect for neoliberalism to last before the collapse.
But that doesn't solve all our problems. We need that they stop punching us with new
sanctions. Better forever but, at least for the next twenty years. Until their racket finally
falls apart.
So the second goal is to earn to earn money need to reconstruction of the economy and
creating first class infrastructure. Which will allow us to grow. and we need to do this while
there is time. That probably means that invest our money in growth and stop saving "for a rainy
day" in US treasures and Western banks. Otherwise, this rainy day may come in a very unexpected
fashion and way too soon: money will simply be confiscated as long as they can do it with
impunity.
Andrey Bezrukov is the associate Professor of the chair of applied analysis of
international problems, MGIMO
"... Today USA even is no more an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything negotiated by a rival spider. ..."
US political "elites" are generally appallingly incompetent in matters of war and are
"educated" mostly through Hollywood and Clansiesque "literature". I am not even sure that
they comprehend what Congressional Research Service prepares for them as compressed
briefings. Neocon wing of US political elite is simply mentally inadequate.
Very true, especially the part about "Hollywood and Clansiesque 'literature.'" I used to
read Clancy's books and, while entertaining, in retrospect they appear ridiculous, even
childish. But they probably capture the popular notion of American military invincibility
better than any other.
Most of Hollywood's output is garbage anyway, and its grasp of real war and military
matters appears to be that of a not so precocious third grader.
Katyn, whoever did it, was much before Cold War and before even first relatively small
nuclear blast.
And if you want to go that far – why not remember crisis over West Berlin, where
tank armees were watching one another, but no one pulled trigger?
Afghanistan was attacking one's own ally. Same as Prague 1968 and Hungary 1956.
If you want to compare – that is like USA invading Panama to remove their no longer
reliable puppet Norriega.
Did American attack on their own Panama risk USSR going ballistic? Hardly so. There was no Soviet invasion into Pakistan nor there was Chinese/American invasion into
India.
And looking away from purely military events, there was no attempt to arrest the whole
embassy stuff them, neither in Moscow nor in DC. No killing Soviet ambassadors in NATO states
during official events.
Those dirty games had red lines, both sides maintained. Today? Today USA even is no more
an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution
any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything
negotiated by a rival spider.
> deploying conventional anti-ballistic missile defenses around their most important
cities.
No, by then effective treaty both USSR and USA had only ONE region they were allowed to
protect.
Those were some nuclear launchpads in USA i guess, and one single city (Moscow) in USSR. No
more.
> deterrence [did not] worked > See the last phrase in bullet 2.
You suppose USSR killed itself trying to keep deterrence working.
That does not show it did not work, already.
That shows it worked so well (at least from Soviet perspective) that they gambled all they
had on the futile effort of keeping that deterrence working into the future.
Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there
been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a
handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country, they
will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will
not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war. -- John
Turner, 1922
This list tells quite a story. It deserves a name such as "US History Written in Blood," but
more ironically and yet sufficient would be "An Inconvenient List." In any case, mass murder
for fun and profit has defined war throughout the entire history of humankind. That in the
modern era of late that the US has pioneered rentier capitalism as a means of extracting
profits from the industrial war machine is a matter of the natural evolution of state
sanctioned murder, far better at returning profits to investors than the mere slaughter of
stone age natives to steal their land.
OTOH, pacifism is indeed an aberration of political thought, not necessarily an unwarranted
aberration, yet one that should be subject to close inspection for its bona fides. My
Cherokee ancestors inform me to always be suspect of the good intentions of white men
claiming that they despise war.
Pacifism for me is individual. I was a cold warrior (pacifist not!) from '72 to '85 when I
went from supporting operating weapons to the "dark side" in weapons development, which a lot
was also nuclear related.
It's pretty obvious that Team Pelosi is more concerned with the affairs of the Empire,
even though she has no constitutional responsibility. than for the welfare of the American
people. The focus of the impeachment hearing on American policy in Ukraine is further
evidence.
Meanwhile, I have gotten no answer to my basic question: what are the top 5 pieces of
progressive legislation that Pelosi has passed--legislation that representations can brag
about to their constituents when running in 2020? It's pretty obvious that their have been
almost none.
Yet, I have been assured by others here at EV that our two party representative political
system is not merely engaging in so much Kabuki theatre in order to appear relevant. Who
knew?
Outside of the fact that this fellow is a liar of monumental proportion - for instance, this
post alone contains 3 different lies - it is fundamentally untrue that BOTH parties are just
engaged in theater. One actually passes legislation to help people and to reduce the
influence of $$$. The other - as former Republican party member Norm Orenstein has pointed
out - is anti-democracy, pro-despotism and a insurgent danger with a propaganda arm.
Huh... all team Pelosi/Schumer of is rant against the US constitution, demean the congress,
disdain the office of the President and make up things about the Donald.
See the continuing resolution good through 20 Dec because Pelosi who owns the House won't
face the responsibility to try and run the US government's purse.
More selective outrage from EMichael, the partisan hack.
Sure, it's horrendous that Trump pardoned a war criminal. But let's not forget that Obama
never even prosecuted torturers ... or closed Guantanamo as promised.
As usual for EMichael and his ilk, what's a horror when their party does something, it's
perfectly acceptable when his party does it.
All these years of being a almost pacifist and now I am seeing the error in my ways.
Sometimes - hopefully increasingly less often - good people must rise up and stomp out evil.
The pardons were not just condoning war crimes - it was telling the nazi ahs in the ranks
that they can do the same domestically. The right has an army within the US. Most of the
officers are okay - but that said, they are tolerating nazis, white supremacists, oathkeepers
and dominionists in their ranks. These exceptions are to let the other nazis know they can
mass murder if the want.
"... It may be as simple as Trump does not really know what he's doing. He doesn't seem to understand the complexity and dynamics of foreign policy. The way he handled Israel is an example as well as some of the bombs he ordered dropped on Afghanistan and Syria. Was he behind that or was someone else? ..."
"... After Bolton came onboard, and then Eliot Abrams, the 24/7 Russia-gate suddenly stopped. That was also around the time USA was fomenting a Venezuelan coup. Was obvious that Russia-Gate was designed to control Trump. ..."
"... The US had power, and no-one else had any. That's all they needed to know, and set about creating new, wonderfully intoxicating realities. As Rove famously inverted the MO they'll act first, creating realities and the analysis and calculation can come later. In awe of their creations, they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington, elsewhere it moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in zugzwang, with no understanding how they got there. Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in a tar pit, they've managed only to attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the abomination. ..."
"... If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever see. Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar. ..."
@Z-man I
wasn't sure how to characterize McMaster and Kelly. My sense was that they represented the
foreign policy establishment consensus, ergo neocon by default.
I share your optimism about Trump -- because it's the only strand of hope out there, and
his enemies are so impeccably loathsome -- but am fully prepared to be proved wrong.
"How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it
was the doing and legacy of the neocon John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security
adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate such
appointees."
It started before Bolton came on board.
Believe Trump when he says "Loyalty to me first". And that begins with his son in law
Jared .his former personal attorney Jason Greenblatt .his former bankruptcy attorney David
Friedman and his largest donor Sheldon Adelson .
Trump is too stupid to see that his Zios have no loyalty to him. Trump doesn't appoint anyone, doesn't even know anyone to appoint to national security or
foreign policy. He never had any associations or confidents in his business life in NY except
the above Jews .
Ask yourself how a 29 year old Jewish boy (now gone) with zero experience got brought onto
the WH NSC. He was recommended by Gen. Flynn who did it as a favor to Zio Frank Gaffney of
Iraq fame, and Jared because he was a friend of Jared and Gaffney was a friend Ezra's family.
..getting the picture?
All Trumps appointments look like a chain letter started by Kushner and his Zio
connections.
It may be as simple as Trump does not really know what he's doing. He doesn't seem to
understand the complexity and dynamics of foreign policy. The way he handled Israel is an
example as well as some of the bombs he ordered dropped on Afghanistan and Syria. Was he
behind that or was someone else?
He's a walking contradiction.
After Bolton came onboard, and then Eliot Abrams, the 24/7 Russia-gate suddenly stopped.
That was also around the time USA was fomenting a Venezuelan coup. Was obvious that
Russia-Gate was designed to control Trump.
There was a lull in the attacks on Trump between the time they stopped the 24/7
Russia-gate garbage and start of Impeachment inquiry.
He did something else to tick them all off, so now impeachment is on front burner.
In the days of Kissinger, Baker, et al the Imperial Staff were well coached in the
Calculus of Power, knew the limits to Empire and thrived within them. Since the end of
history, and the apparent end of limits, policy makers had no more need of realists and their
confusing calculations and analyses.
The US had power, and no-one else had any. That's all they needed to know, and set about
creating new, wonderfully intoxicating realities. As Rove famously inverted the MO they'll
act first, creating realities and the analysis and calculation can come later. In awe of
their creations, they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington,
elsewhere it moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in
zugzwang, with no understanding how they got there. Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in
a tar pit, they've managed only to attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the
abomination.
In the second term watch out Trump is not as dumb as they think
I too believe he isn't dumb, but the real question is whether he's playing the fool in
furtherance of a plan, or whether it's just who he is and his successes are accidental.
The Deep State's (aka: PFPE's) ongoing behaviour indicates that Trump's using buffoonery
to work a plan that's anathema to their created realities, and their increasing shrillness
indicates it's working. At every turn, he's managed to make unavailable the resources their
reality called for. From the M.E., to the Ukraine to N. Korea to Venezuela, things just
aren't working the way they're supposed to. In fact, they're invariably working out in a way
that exposes the Deep State's ineptitude and malevolence, and maximizes its
embarrassment.
If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever see.
Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised
to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see
if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar.
Decades old rhetorical question and answer-the indolent, indoctrinated and illiterate masses
who only care about the Super Bowl and other sports,Disneyland and burgers. Twelve per cent of
Americans have never heard of the Vice President Mike Pence - that is 30,870,000 American
adults.
It is the same people who have been making it since the creation of central banks in
America (all three of them).
Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there
been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a
handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country,
they will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They
will not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war.
– John Turner, 1922
"... As Bolivian soldiers were firing tear gas at a funeral for slain protesters recently, the US State Department issued a statement saluting "Bolivia's political transition to democracy" and declaring that the military leaders who had just overthrown the elected government were "standing up for their constitution." It was the latest example of intensifying US support for violently oppressive regimes south of our border. We are paying attention to Latin America again. That's bad news for Latin America. ..."
As Bolivian soldiers were firing tear gas at a funeral for slain protesters recently, the
US State Department issued a statement saluting "Bolivia's political transition to democracy"
and declaring that the military leaders who had just overthrown the elected government were
"standing up for their constitution." It was the latest example of intensifying US support
for violently oppressive regimes south of our border. We are paying attention to Latin
America again. That's bad news for Latin America.
The US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago are sometimes described as
wars in which everyone lost. In an odd way, though, Latin America won those wars. For more
than a decade, the US government focused so obsessively on the Middle East that it forgot
about Latin America. Free of intervention from Washington, voters in several countries
elected progressive or leftist leaders whom the United States would never have tolerated in
an earlier era. That cycle is now ending. The United States is returning to its traditional
role in Latin America, embracing retrograde regimes just as we did during the dark days of
military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.
In Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, the military deposed President Evo
Morales on Nov. 10 after opponents charged that he had used fraud to secure his re-election
three weeks earlier. Morales was Bolivia's first indigenous president and an outspoken
socialist. He had nationalized the oil and gas industries. Some feared that he was preparing
to limit foreign exploitation of his country's rich lithium deposits. His indigenous identity
was a permanent affront to the white ruling class. The little-known politician who has
installed herself as provisional president, Jeanine Añez, once tweeted: "I dream of a
Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rituals."
Morales may have -- manipulated election laws to give himself an extra presidential term.
But in its first days, the new regime has shown little democratic impulse. Morales has been
forced to flee the country. Senior members of his party have been attacked or arrested. If
his masses of indigenous followers are pushed back into political isolation despite
constituting the country's majority, many will feel disenfranchised and angry.
Their cousins in Honduras would know the feeling. Late one night in 2009, the elected
Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, who like Morales had alienated both the United States and
his own ruling elite, was pulled out of bed and put on a plane out of the country while still
in his pajamas. In the decade since then, the new regime in Honduras has eagerly handed out
mining and hydroelectric contracts to foreign corporations. It has abolished term limits for
presidents -- the very sin for which we denounced President Morales in Bolivia. Mass protests
have been harshly suppressed. Environmental activists are killed with impunity.
Last month in a New York court, the brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez
was convicted on charges of large-scale drug trafficking. A witness testified that the drug
lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman had contributed $1 million to Hernandez's presidential
campaign. Yet just a couple of days after the trial ended, the senior American diplomat in
Honduras was photographed partying with President Hernandez. Hondurans who saw those pictures
could hardly miss the message: the United States happily supports a Latin American government
that holds power unconstitutionally, allows political killers to rampage freely, and is
widely reported to be infiltrated by drug traffickers -- as long as it is friendly to the
United States. How has Honduras showed that friendship? By keeping leftists out of power and
agreeing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The other Latin American country in which the United States is most assiduously wrecking
prospects for democracy is Guatemala. Like neighboring Honduras, it has long been dominated
by a clique of lavishly corrupt oligarchs. But over the last decade, a force has emerged that
for the first time mounted a serious challenge to drug traffickers, larcenous politicians,
organized-crime kingpins, and death squad leaders. In 2006, the government invited a squad of
investigators and prosecutors assembled by the United Nations to come to Guatemala and build
cases against powerful criminals. Since then the squad, known by the Spanish acronym CICIG,
has secured more than 400 convictions and deeply shaken the political elite. Presidents
George W. Bush and Barack Obama recognized that this process might help stabilize Guatemala,
and provided moral support and funding for CICIG.
This year, at the request of senior Guatemalan officials who seemed likely to be indicted
for corruption, the State Department agreed to stop backing CICIG. That crippled the first
serious effort in generations to confront the violent corruption that throttles civic life in
Guatemala. What did President Trump ask in return? That Guatemala open an embassy in
Jerusalem and agree to serve as a "safe haven" for Honduran and Salvadoran immigrants the
United States doesn't want to accept -- a sick joke considering that Guatemala is plagued by
violence and has one of the world's highest murder rates.
Bashing leftists in Latin America and embracing their quasi-fascist enemies is one of
Washington's oldest habits. It feels good and pays electoral dividends in Florida. Bolivians,
Hondurans, and Guatemalans might be forgiven for wishing that United States would once again
plunge into all-consuming war somewhere far away. That might allow them to try shaping their
societies as they see fit.
In addition to L.A., others in California submitting briefs include Sacramento, San Diego,
Fresno, Riverside and Orange counties, as well as a slew of cities, including Sacramento,
Fullerton, Torrance and Newport Beach. Several states including Idaho, Texas and Alaska have
as well. Their reasons for doing so vary.
"We're saying that we agree with the central tenet of Boise that no one should be
susceptible to punishment for sleeping on a sidewalk at night if there's no alternative
shelter at that point," said Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer. "But the rationale sweeps too
broadly ... It makes the opinion unclear and, therefore, the opinion raises more issues than
are resolved. And so it leaves jurisdictions like us without the certainty that we need."
---
The ninth curt ruling specified that without enough shelters, public camping cannot be
banned.
LA is spewing horse manure, claiming they want a humane solution, but they are filing to
have the ruling overturned. LA wants to ban homeless camping and they make up a bunch of
irrational horse manure because they had already invited the homeless to California with
promises of shelter that does not exits. They re caught in a contradiction and end up talking
out of the side of their mouth.
And no, more national debt to promise apartments for everyone just make inequality worse
because we end up doing bad deals with the primary dealers. The evidence is in on that. Our
ten year experiment of the '50 little hoovers' crowd has been proven fraudulent.
"... Just war theory and military ethics crumble to dust on the battle field. We rarely fight because it is right, but rather because in some context it seemed necessary at the time. After 9/11 there was an imperative that the US military wage an extended war against any and every group of Muslims that defied US global hegemony in any way. ..."
The average demorat, aside from worshipping Ba'al and hating the constitution, is depraved,
been such since crooked Hillary forgot that the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering
liberals living on the coasts do not run the world.
"...the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the
world."
[Who says that they do not? Certainly, it is close enough to that for government work.
Besides, in the end corporations and the interests of the donor class dictate the rules of
engagement for both illiberal and unconservative politicians. How the dogs of politics fight
over scraps thrown out for them should be of less interest to the wage class than who is
throwing out the scraps to them.]
Of course a former Air Force military hardware procurements officer likely knows no more
about present day life among the wage class than a banker. That would be like thinking that a
kid raised in poverty by the welfare state knew how to farm. Still, it is possible for either
one to be haunted by guilt late in life.
You are bound with your adversaries in ways known only to God, not a religious testimonial
but merely a proxy for the abstraction of omniscience. Some things can be seen as clear as
day and remain a complete mystery, to me at least.
At the very least Trump is guilty of being Trump. So, if you believe the charges against
Trump are Trumped up, then what else would you expect?
Just war theory and military ethics crumble to dust on the battle field. We rarely
fight because it is right, but rather because in some context it seemed necessary at the
time. After 9/11 there was an imperative that the US military wage an extended war against
any and every group of Muslims that defied US global hegemony in any way.
The US Constitution was written and then rewritten repeatedly in blood going all the way
back to Apr 19, 1775. That is what it means to be an American, son, my Cherokee ancestors
notwithstanding.
"... A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have kept the allegations alive. ..."
"... The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today, Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even an Obama aide termed it , will remain. ..."
"... Listen to the podcast here ..."
"... War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate ..."
"... The John Batchelor Show ..."
"... Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument. The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline! ..."
"... You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills. ..."
"... It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision. They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy. ..."
"... CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it. ..."
"... We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths. If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or intelligence, so we should stop paying them. ..."
"... Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise. ..."
"... Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is, as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep "in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards. ..."
"... Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes likes it or not, except as . ..."
"... Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to conclude that he's fully on board. ..."
"... There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it, not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe propaganda value. ..."
"... In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination ..."
"... Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie enemies. It makes it ' real '. The ' heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches, etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice. ..."
"... To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens. In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security 'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world. (Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.) ..."
"... or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric? ..."
"... The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid. ..."
"... "TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ". Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ? ..."
"... Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics, and that's through America's brutal empire abroad. ..."
"... Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference, except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things. ..."
President Trump campaigned and was elected on an anti-neocon platform: he promised to reduce direct US involvement in areas where,
he believed, America had no vital strategic interest, including in Ukraine. He also promised a new détente ("cooperation") with Moscow.
And yet, as we have learned from their recent congressional testimony, key members of his own National Security Council did not
share his views and indeed were opposed to them. Certainly, this was true of Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Both of them
seemed prepared for a highly risky confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, though whether retroactively because of Moscow's 2014
annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
Similarly, Trump was slow in withdrawing Marie Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer appointed by President Obama as ambassador
to Kiev, who had made clear, despite her official position in Kiev, that she did not share the new American president's thinking
about Ukraine or Russia. In short, the president was surrounded in his own administration, even in the White House, by opponents
of his foreign policy and presumably not only in regard to Ukraine.
How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it was the doing and legacy of the neocon
John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate
such appointees.
A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the
Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained
a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have
kept the allegations alive.
The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy
establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today,
Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views
of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave
power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even
an Obama aide termed it , will remain.
Listen to the podcast
here . Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F.
Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. ANationcontributing editor, his most recent book,War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate, is available
in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host ofThe John Batchelor Show, now in their sixth
year, are available at www.thenation.com .
because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
In an otherwise decent overview, this sticks out like a sore thumb. It would be helpful to stop using the word annexation.
While correct in a technical sense – that Crimea was added to the Russian Federation – the word comes with all kinds of connotations,
that imply illegality and or force. Given Crimea was given special status when gifted to Ukraine for administration by the USSR,
one could just as easily apply "annexation" of Crimea to Ukraine. After Ukraine voted to "leave" the USSR, Crimea voted to join
Ukraine. Obviously the "Ukrainian" vote did not include Crimea. Even after voting to join Ukraine, Crimea had special status within
Ukraine, and was semi autonomous. If you can vote to join, you can vote to leave. Either you have the right to self determination,
or you don't.
This is what is so infuriating, Stephen! These silent coups of the executive branch have been taking place for my entire life!
Both parties are guilty of refusing to appoint cabinet members that the elected presidents would have chosen for themselves, because
both parties are more interested in making the president of the opposing party look bad, make him ineffective, and incapable of
carrying out policies that he was elected to carry out. That is the very definition of treason!
Things are a disaster. The JCPOA is at the heart of the issue and Trump and his advisors stubborn refusal to capitulate on
this issue very well may cause Trump to lose the 2020 election. Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the
DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument.
The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline!
The anti-Iranian fever has created so much havoc not only with Iran, but with every country on earth other than Israel, Saudi
Arabia, and the UAE. Germany announced that it is seeking to unite with Russia, not only for Gazprom, but is now considering purchasing
defense systems from Russia, and Germany is dictating EU policy, by and large. Germany has said that Europe must be able to defend
itself independent of America and is requesting an EU military and Italy is on board with this idea, seeking to create jobs and
weapons for its economy and defense.
The EU is fed up with the economic sanctions placed on countries that the U.S. has black-listed, particularly Russia and Iran,
and China as well for Huwaei 5G.
Nobody in their right mind could ever claim this to be the free market capitalism that Larry Kudlow espouses!
You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed
novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens
that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills.
It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this
blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura
Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision.
They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy.
CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it.
The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty
of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
It is a political game between to competing kleptocratic cults. The DNC and RNC are whores and will do what ever their donors
tell them to do. That is also treason. This country is just a total wasteland.
Everyone has pledged allegiance to fraud.
Too big to fail, like the Titanic and the Hindenberg.
We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.
If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or
intelligence, so we should stop paying them.
Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering
Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise.
What kind of stupid question is this? You mean you don't know or asking us for confirmation? If you really don't know then why
are you writing an article about it? If you do know then why are you asking the UNZ readers?
Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is,
as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to
the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep
"in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards.
It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.
That's ok but it's a bit unfair to Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths After all most of the country is Hedonistic as hell,
it sells commercials or wtf. Satanic is philosophical and way over the heads of these clowns, though if the be a Satan, then they
are in the plan for sure, and right on the mark. As for psychopaths, those are criminals who are insane, but they can have remorse
and be their own worst enemies, often they just go off and go psycho and bad things happen, but can be unplanned off the wall
stuff, not diabolic.
Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's
are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as
kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes
likes it or not, except as .
So, once upon a time, a people got so hedonistic and they didn't watch the game and theier leaders were low quality
(especially religeous/morals ) and long story short Satan unleashed the Socio's , Things seem to be heading disastrously,
so will bit coin save the day? Green nudeal?
While massive attention is directed towards Russia and the Ukraine, the majority of the public are shown the slight of hand
and their attention is never brought near to the real perpetrators of subverting American and British foreign policy.
Doesn't matter if he's surrounded. A president CAN make foreign policy, and a president CAN fire people who disagree with his
policy. Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy
for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to
conclude that he's fully on board.
The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them
guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
--
first off the supreme law of the land maybe the Constitution and to oppose it may be Treason, but the Law that is supreme to the
Law of the land is Human rights law.. it is far superior to, and it is the TLD of all laws of the land of all of the Nation States
that mankind has allowed the greedy among its masses, to impose.
There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it,
not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender
of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual
promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe
propaganda value.
If you note the USA constitution has seven articles..
Article 1 is about 525 elected members of congress and their very limited powers to control
foreign activities. Each qualified to vote member of the governed (a citizen so to speak) is allowed to
vote for only 3 of the 525 persons. so basically there is no real national election anywhere .
Article II grants the electoral college the power to appoint two persons full control of the assets,
resources and manpower of America to conquer the entire world or to make peace in the entire world.
Either way: the governed are not allowed to vote for either; the EC vote determines the P or VP.
Article III allows the Article II person to appoint yes men to the judiciary
Where exist the power of the governed to deny USA governors the ability to the use the powers the constitution claims
the governors are to have, against the governed? <==No where I can find? Theoretically, the governed are protected from abuse
for as long as it takes to conduct due process?
One person, the Article II person, is basically the king when in comes to constitutional authority to establish, conduct,
prosecute or defend USA involvement in foreign affairs.
No where does the constitution of the USA deny its President the use of American resources or USA military power, to
make and use diplomat appointments, or to use the USA to use the wealth of America and the hegemonic powers of the USA to make
a private or public profit in a foreign land. <= d/n matter if the profit is personal to the President or if it assigned by appointment
(like the feudal powers granted by the feudal kings to the feudal lords) to corporate feudal lords or oligarch personal interest.
AFAICT, the president can USE the USA to conduct war, invade or otherwise infringe on, even destroy, the territory, or a
private or public interest, within a foreign sovereign more or less at will. So if the President wants to command a private
or secret Army like the CIA, he can as far as I can tell, obviously this president does, because he could with his pen alone shut
it down.
Seems to me the "NO" from Wilson's four points
no more secret diplomacy peace settlement must not lead the way to new wars
no retribution, unjust claims, and huge fines <basically indemnities paid by the losers to the winners.
no more war; includes controls on armaments and arming of nations.
no more Trade Barriers so the nations of the world would become more interdependent.
have been made the essence of nation state operations world wide.
IMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.
@Curmudgeon all of that,
plus the Kosovo precedent.
In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force
self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination
Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment
there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie
enemies. It makes it ' real '. The 'heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But
the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches,
etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice.
To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens.
In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security
'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there
are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world.
(Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.)
Trump should have kept Steve Bannon as his advisor and should have fired instead his son-in-law. Perhaps "they" are blackmailing
Trump with photos like here: https://www.pinterest.com/richarddesjarla/creepy/
That would explain why Trump is so ineffective at making a reality anything he campaigned for.
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow
continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
An anti-neocon president appears to have been surrounded by neocons in his own administration.
The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself
with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid.
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow
continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
Halfway around the world from Washington's halls of power, Ukraine sits along a civilizational and geopolitical fault line.
To Ukraine's west are the liberal democracies of Europe, governed by rule of law and democratic principles. To its east are
Russia and its client states in Eurasia, almost all of which are corrupt oligarchies. [ ] In this war on democratic movements
and democratic principles, Russia's biggest prize and chief adversary has always been the United States. Until now, however,
Russia has always had to contend with bipartisan resolve to counter
No mention of China, and this is the problem with the whole foreign policy establishment not just the neocons. Russia is more
of an annoyance than anything, but they are still operating assumptions on what is the
Geographical Pivot of History , so they want to talk about Russia. Like an Edwardian sea cadet we are supposed to care about
Russia getting (back) a water port in Crimea. Mahan's definition of sea power included a strong commercial fleet. After tearing
their own environment apart like a car in a wrecking yard and heating up the planet China has taken time out from deforestation
and colonising Tibet, to send huge container vessels full of cheap goods through the melting Arctic round the top of Russia all
the better to get to Europe and deindustrialise it.
Western elites have sold out to China, seen as the future, so we hear about Russia rather than the three million Uyghurs in
concentration camps complete with constantly smoking crematoria, and harvesting of organs for rich foreigners.
Who
poses a greater threat to the West: China or Russia?
By the time the West finds itself in open conflict with Beijing, we will have lost our relative advantage. Brendan Simms and
K.C. Lin [ ] The concept of China being a threat is harder to comprehend. In what way? Yes, its hacking and intellectual property
theft is a headache. But is it worse than what Russia is up to? And don't we need Chinese investment, so does it really matter
if China builds our 5G mobile networks? In London, ministers agonise over these issues -- not knowing whether to pity China
(we still send foreign aid there), beg for its money and contracts (with prime ministerial trade trips), or treat it as a potential
antagonist.
Aid ! They sent robots to the far side of the Moon
Beijing has been the beneficiary of liberal revulsion at the Trump presidency: if the Donald is against the Chinese,
who cannot be for them? As a result, Trump's efforts to address China's unfair trade practices have so far missed the mark
with the domestic and international audience. As Trump declares war on free trade, China -- one of the most protectionist economies
in the world -- is now celebrated at Davos as the avatar of free trade. Later this month, China's Vice-President is likely
to be in attendance at Davos -- and there is even talk of him meeting with Trump. Similarly, the messiness of American politics
has made China's one-party state an apparent poster boy of political stability and governability.
"TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by
Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic
known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ".
Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ?
Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal
authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free
speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics,
and that's through America's brutal empire abroad.
The military/intelligence imperial establishment definitely see Israel as a kind of American colony in the Mideast, and they
make sure that it's well provided for. That's what the Neocon Wars have been about. Paving over large parts of Israel's noisy
neighborhood. And that includes matters like keeping Syria off-balance with occupation in its northeast. And constantly threatening
Iran.
Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference,
except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things.
By the way, the last President who tried seriously to make foreign policy as the elected head of government left half of his
head splattered on thec streets of Dallas.
@Jon Baptist We have
all been brainwashed by the propaganda screened by the massmedia ,whether it be FOX , MSNBC , CBS ,etc.. SeptemberClues.info has
a good article entitled "The central role of the news media on 9/11 " :
"The 9/11 psyop relied foremostly on that weakspot of ours .We all fell for the images we saw on TV at the time we can only
wonder why so many never questioned the absurd TV coverage proposed by all the major networks The 9/11 TV imagery of the crucial
morning events was just a computer-animated, pre-fabricated movie."
@follyofwar Pat inhabits
a strange Hollywood type world, where the US is always the good guy. He believes that, although the US may make foreign policy
mistakes, its aims and ambitions are nevertheless noble and well intentioned.
In Pat's world it's still circa 1955, but even then, his take on US foreign policy would have been hopelessly unrealistic.
"This was a debate over policy. Trump's critics may not have liked the policy he was
pushing. But as former Defense Intelligence Agency official Pat Lang noted on his blog last
week,
the statute in question applies only to "intelligence activities" but "does not include
differences of opinions concerning public policy matters."
That's what this fight is about, said Lang . Speaker after speaker at the hearings asserted
that Trump's views did not comport with official national policy. But the president sets that
policy, Lang said, not the diplomats.
"They think they are the people who set national policy and the president is this figurehead
who is guided by all these people around him who agree on everything," he said. "The president
doesn't need to use the State Department at all to conduct foreign policy." ' Paul Mulshine
-------------
Actually, I was too minimal in speaking of "diplomats." Vindman is not a diplomat and there
are many other actors in this drama of Borgist angst (foreign policy establishment ) who are
not diplomats.
For one thing a large percentage of the Drones at the State Department are civil service
employees rather than Foreign Service Officers, and although they do not play well together
they agree on the ultimate authority of the Supremacy Clause (non-existent) in the US
Constitution that gives the State Department dominion over all the Lord created. A career
ambassador's wife once lectured me that the US Army should change the cap badge that officers
wear because it looks too much like the Great Seal of the United States which in the State
Department can only be displayed by Ambassadors. I told her that she should petition the
Secretary of the Army in this matter.
Various departments of government, media, academia, thinktankeries, etc., all have heavy
infestations of folks who went to graduate school together in poly sci in all its branches, or
who wish to be thought worthy of such attendance. They specialize in group think, conformity,
and conformism, even to the solemn dress they affect. The four in hand tie knot is pretty much
mandatory for serious consideration for inclusion in the Borg. It indicates a certain preppy
insouciance and faux disregard for details of dress.
Trump's casual disregard for all that enrages the Borg who thought they had "won it all"
long ago and that they would have a Borgist neocon to deal with in Hillary.
Hillary's Foundation has lost millions recently, which has Hillary pursing her lips like
she's been using a lemon for her lipstick. I mean, worse than fish-lips, Hillary's pursing
expression.
Too bad that we can't form some cement shoes for the Borg and toss them into the east
river AKA the Atlantic, or send them back to hell from where they originated!
OT:
This afternoon my wife and I turned on the TV to watch football. We were flipping through
channels and came upon some local ABC affiliate (WMUR) which had on a documentary which
mentioned the Medal of Honor and a Catholic chaplain in Vietnam. Needless to say we stayed on
that channel. Long story short, it was one of the most powerful things we've ever watched. We
were both in tears by the end (nb: I don't cry easily) and we were changed from having
watched it. We immediately went online to purchase copies for family members. It was recently
released.
As the Borg like to say "We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our
own." They have done this with the four in hand tie knot which was previously worn by giants
like George Kennon and Chip Bohlen. Yet now, the midgetry prevails.
Colonel...This is another Reason why I appreciate your levels of Experience and knowledge
with SST..Thank you for doing that...I always come away with New Insight..and Understanding
of Real Dynamics..what has Progressively Developed inside the State.Department.with its
Influence On so Much POLICY...and .is as You say...The BORG..and Their Own Culture.your
Article put that all into a Big Picture for Me..(Connecting the Data..) .It.as you aptly
Described. is a Universal.Sect..and...At The National Level...They are Cyber Borgs..Shciff
Shapers..and that Whole Colony has Been Exposed.,,, Bad Products and All....
Fiona Hill appears to be part of the Borg, not really sure which part she's affiliated.
Some have called her a 'sleeper agent', but a sleeper for whom? British Intelligence agent of
influence? Or an Israeli agent of influence, or maybe a Daniel Pipes trained NEOCON agent of
influence? Any way one spins it, Fiona Hill has been undermining POTUS Trump while she was
part of his NSC and his advisory team. Why her intense hatred of Putin? Does he happen to
know through his nation's intelligence exactly who she is and whom she may be working on
behalf of? The Skripal incident showed just how much that the British Government and Crown
hate Russia. But why the intense British hatred of Russia, why?
Questions, so many questions regarding Ms. Hill and who she really works for.
Daniel
LarisonTAC contributor Gil Barndollar
calls attention to the damage that endless war is doing to the military:
The president has been rightly excoriated for these pardons, which dishonor the U.S.
military and may degrade good order and discipline. But amid this uproar, Americans should
note the bigger lesson: Endless wars, especially endless counterinsurgency or
counterterrorism wars, slowly chip away at both a military's ethics and its critical
war-fighting skills.
These wars are particularly corrosive because they cannot be conclusively won, and for every
enemy that is destroyed it seems as if two or three more appear to replace it. Futile,
open-ended wars contribute to breakdowns in discipline. Barndollar continues:
However, keeping their honor clean becomes harder and harder the longer these wars drag
on. Wars among the people, as all our endless wars now are, are inherently dirty. When even
senior members of the foreign policy establishment concede that we are not seeking victory in
Afghanistan, it becomes harder for soldiers to make hollow mission accomplishment a higher
priority than self-preservation. Treating U.S. soldiers like victims, as Trump implicitly
does, also becomes more common.
When a war cannot be won, the rational thing to do would be to stop fighting it, but instead
of doing that our political and military leaders treat endless war as a new normal that must
not be questioned. It is bad enough when a government sends its soldiers to fight and die for a
cause that it pretends can still be won when that isn't possible, but to keep sending them over
and over again into war zones to fight a war they admit is futile has to be discouraging and
frustrating. This also has to widen the division between the military and the civilian
population. While military personnel are called on to go on multiple tours in pointless
conflicts, most people back home mouth empty platitudes about supporting the troops and do
nothing to bring the wars to an end. The public's failure to hold our political and military
leaders accountable for these failed and unnecessary wars is bound to have corrosive effects as
well.
At the same time, these wars degrade the military's ability to fight other adversaries:
Even more serious for American national security is the fact that endless small wars
degrade a military's ability to fight and win big wars -- wars that have real consequences
for our security and way of life.
Our endless wars have been enormously costly. It is estimated that all of the wars of the
last twenty years will end up costing at least $6.4 trillion, and beyond that they have
consumed our government's attention and resources to the detriment of everything else. Our
political and military leaders perpetuate these wars, and the public has allowed them to do
this, because they are still laboring under the faulty assumption that the U.S. is being made
more secure in the process. The reality is that endless wars are undermining our security,
weakening the military, and creating more enemies. They should be ended responsibly, but they
must end. about the author Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in
the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics
Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The
American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in
history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
"This was a debate over policy. Trump's critics may not have liked the policy he was
pushing. But as former Defense Intelligence Agency official Pat Lang noted on his blog last
week,
the statute in question applies only to "intelligence activities" but "does not include
differences of opinions concerning public policy matters."
That's what this fight is about, said Lang . Speaker after speaker at the hearings asserted
that Trump's views did not comport with official national policy. But the president sets that
policy, Lang said, not the diplomats.
"They think they are the people who set national policy and the president is this figurehead
who is guided by all these people around him who agree on everything," he said. "The president
doesn't need to use the State Department at all to conduct foreign policy." ' Paul Mulshine
-------------
Actually, I was too minimal in speaking of "diplomats." Vindman is not a diplomat and there
are many other actors in this drama of Borgist angst (foreign policy establishment ) who are
not diplomats.
For one thing a large percentage of the Drones at the State Department are civil service
employees rather than Foreign Service Officers, and although they do not play well together
they agree on the ultimate authority of the Supremacy Clause (non-existent) in the US
Constitution that gives the State Department dominion over all the Lord created. A career
ambassador's wife once lectured me that the US Army should change the cap badge that officers
wear because it looks too much like the Great Seal of the United States which in the State
Department can only be displayed by Ambassadors. I told her that she should petition the
Secretary of the Army in this matter.
Various departments of government, media, academia, thinktankeries, etc., all have heavy
infestations of folks who went to graduate school together in poly sci in all its branches, or
who wish to be thought worthy of such attendance. They specialize in group think, conformity,
and conformism, even to the solemn dress they affect. The four in hand tie knot is pretty much
mandatory for serious consideration for inclusion in the Borg. It indicates a certain preppy
insouciance and faux disregard for details of dress.
Trump's casual disregard for all that enrages the Borg who thought they had "won it all"
long ago and that they would have a Borgist neocon to deal with in Hillary.
Hillary's Foundation has lost millions recently, which has Hillary pursing her lips like
she's been using a lemon for her lipstick. I mean, worse than fish-lips, Hillary's pursing
expression.
Too bad that we can't form some cement shoes for the Borg and toss them into the east
river AKA the Atlantic, or send them back to hell from where they originated!
OT:
This afternoon my wife and I turned on the TV to watch football. We were flipping through
channels and came upon some local ABC affiliate (WMUR) which had on a documentary which
mentioned the Medal of Honor and a Catholic chaplain in Vietnam. Needless to say we stayed on
that channel. Long story short, it was one of the most powerful things we've ever watched. We
were both in tears by the end (nb: I don't cry easily) and we were changed from having
watched it. We immediately went online to purchase copies for family members. It was recently
released.
As the Borg like to say "We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our
own." They have done this with the four in hand tie knot which was previously worn by giants
like George Kennon and Chip Bohlen. Yet now, the midgetry prevails.
Colonel...This is another Reason why I appreciate your levels of Experience and knowledge
with SST..Thank you for doing that...I always come away with New Insight..and Understanding
of Real Dynamics..what has Progressively Developed inside the State.Department.with its
Influence On so Much POLICY...and .is as You say...The BORG..and Their Own Culture.your
Article put that all into a Big Picture for Me..(Connecting the Data..) .It.as you aptly
Described. is a Universal.Sect..and...At The National Level...They are Cyber Borgs..Shciff
Shapers..and that Whole Colony has Been Exposed.,,, Bad Products and All....
Fiona Hill appears to be part of the Borg, not really sure which part she's affiliated.
Some have called her a 'sleeper agent', but a sleeper for whom? British Intelligence agent of
influence? Or an Israeli agent of influence, or maybe a Daniel Pipes trained NEOCON agent of
influence? Any way one spins it, Fiona Hill has been undermining POTUS Trump while she was
part of his NSC and his advisory team. Why her intense hatred of Putin? Does he happen to
know through his nation's intelligence exactly who she is and whom she may be working on
behalf of? The Skripal incident showed just how much that the British Government and Crown
hate Russia. But why the intense British hatred of Russia, why?
Questions, so many questions regarding Ms. Hill and who she really works for.
"... Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed. https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024 … ..."
"... So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17? ..."
"'Our Democracy Is at Stake.' Pelosi Orders Democrats to Draft Articles of Impeachment
Against Trump" [ Time ]. With autoplay video.
""The President abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of
our national security by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in
exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival." • So now when
a President doesn't allow The Blob to dictate Ukraine policy it's an impeachable offense?
Really? Yasha Levine quotes Democrat impeachment witness Karlan (see below) but the point is
the same:
Yasha Levine ✔ @yashalevine
Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon
against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or
suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed.
https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024 …
So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our
national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17?
"Read opening statements from witnesses at the House Judiciary hearing" [
Politico ]. "Democrats' impeachment witnesses at Wednesday's judiciary committee hearing
plan to say in their prepared remarks that President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine were
the worst examples of misconduct in presidential history." • So again, it's all about
Ukraine. I feel like I've entered an alternate dimension. Aaron Maté comments:
My very subjective impression: I've skimmed three, and read Turley. Karlan, in particular,
is simply not a serious effort. Turley may be wrong -- a ton of tribal dunking on Twitter --
but at least he's making a serious effort. I'm gonna have to wait to see if somebody, say at
Lawfare, does a serious effort on Turley. Everything I've read hitherto is and posturing and
preaching to the choir. (Sad that Larry Tribe has so completely discredited himself, but that's
where we are.)
Lambert, while Trump was unable to complete his attempt to extort the President of
Ukraine, as someone who practiced the criminal law for 34 years, let me be the first to clue
you in to the concept in the criminal law of the inchoate offense . This is
criminal law, not contract law.
An inchoate offense includes an attempt, a conspiracy, and the solicitation of a crime.
All focus on the state of mind of the perpetrator, and none require that the offense be
completed -- only that a person or persons having the required criminal intent took material
steps toward completing the crime. Such a person becomes a principal in the contemplated
crime, and in the eyes of the law is just as guilty as if he or she had completed the
attempted offense.
(The details of Trump's offense differ from what David in Santa Cruz said they would be.)
"Inchoate" appears only in Turley's piece, indicating, to me, that his was the only serious
effort.
"... Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that here . ..."
"... Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails here . ..."
"... Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations here . ..."
"... Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the embassy's statement here and here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning." You can read her testimony here . ..."
"... Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality. ..."
"... Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars, including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter here . Kent testified he signed the letter here . ..."
"... Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I accurately quoted him by watching the video here . ..."
"... Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
"... Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting here . ..."
honor and applaud Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's service to his country. He's a hero. I also respect his decision to testify
at the impeachment proceedings. I suspect neither his service nor his testimony was easy.
But I also know the liberties that Lt. Col. Vindman fought on the battlefield to preserve permit for a free and honest debate
in America, one that can't be muted by the color of uniform or the crushing power of the state.
So I want to exercise my right to debate Lt. Col. Vindman about the testimony he gave about me. You see, under oath to Congress,
he asserted all the factual elements in my columns at The Hill about Ukraine were false, except maybe my grammar
"I think all the key elements were false," Vindman testified.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y, pressed him about what he meant. "Just so I understand what you mean when you say key elements, are you
referring to everything John Solomon stated or just some of it?"
"All the elements that I just laid out for you. The criticisms of corruption were false . Were there more items in there, frankly,
congressman? I don't recall. I haven't looked at the article in quite some time, but you know, his grammar might have been right."
Such testimony has been injurious to my reputation, one earned during 30 years of impactful reporting for news organizations that
included The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Daily Beast/Newsweek.
And so Lt. Col. Vindman, here are the 28 primary factual elements in my Ukraine columns, complete with attribution and links to
sourcing. Please tell me which, if any, was factually wrong.
Fact 1 : Hunter Biden was hired in May 2014 by Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, at a time when his father
Joe Biden was Vice President and overseeing US-Ukraine Policy.
Here
is the announcement. Hunter Biden's hiring came just a few short weeks after Joe Biden urged Ukraine to expand natural gas production
and use Americans to help. You can read his comments to the Ukrainian prime minister
here . Hunter Biden's firm then began receiving monthly payments totaling $166,666. You can see those payments
here .
Fact 2 : Burisma was under investigation by
British authorities for corruption
and soon came under investigation by
Ukrainian authorities led by Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
Fact 3 : Vice President Joe Biden and his office were alerted by a
December 2015 New York Times article that Shokin's office was investigating Burisma and that Hunter Biden's role at the company
was undercutting his father's anticorruption efforts in Ukraine.
Fact 4 : The Biden-Burisma issue created the appearance of a conflict of interest, especially for State Department officials.
I especially refer you to State official George Kent's testimony
here . He testified he viewed
Burisma as corrupt and the Bidens as creating the perception of a conflict of interest. His concerns both caused him to contact the
vice president's office and to block a project that State's USAID agency was planning with Burisma in 2016. In addition, Ambassador
Yovanovitch testified she, too, saw the Bidens-Burisma connection as creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. You can read
her testimony
here .
Fact 5 : The Obama White House invited Shokin's prosecutorial team to Washington for meetings in January 2016 to discuss
their anticorruption investigations. You can read about that
here . Also, here is the official agenda for that meeting in
Ukraine and
English
. I call your attention to the NSC organizer of the meeting.
Fact 6 : The Ukraine investigation of Hunter Biden's employer, Burisma Holdings, escalated in February 2016 when Shokin's
office raided the home of company owner Mykola Zlochevsky and seized his property.
Here is the announcement of that court-approved
raid.
Fact 7 : Shokin was making plans in February 2016 to interview Hunter Biden as part of his investigation. You can read
his interview with me here, his sworn deposition to a court
here and his interview with
ABC News
here .
Fact 8 : Burisma's American representatives lobbied the State Department in late February 2016 to help end the corruption
allegations against the company, and specifically invoked Hunter Biden's name as a reason to intervene. You can read State officials'
account of that effort here
Fact 9 : Joe Biden boasted in a
2018 videotape
that he forced Ukraine's president to fire Shokin in March 2016 by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid. You can view his
videotape here
.
Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and
ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that
claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that
here .
Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting
with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails
here .
Fact 12 : Burisma's legal representatives secured that meeting April 6, 2016 and told Ukrainian prosecutors that "false
information" had been spread to justify Shokin's firing, according to a Ukrainian government memo about the meeting. The representatives
also offered to arrange for the remaining Ukrainian prosecutors to meet with U.S State and Justice officials. You can read the Ukrainian
prosecutors' summary memo of the meeting here and here and the Burisma lawyers' invite to Washington
here .
Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion
dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations
here .
Fact 14 : In March 2019, Ukraine authorities reopened an investigation against Burisma and Zlochevsky based on new evidence
of money laundering. You can read NABU's February 2019 recommendation to re-open the case
here , the March 2019 notice of suspicion by Ukraine prosecutors
here and a
May 2019 interview
here
with a Ukrainian senior law enforcement official stating the investigation was ongoing. And
here is an announcement this week that the Zlochevsky/Burisma probe has been expanded to include allegations of theft of Ukrainian
state funds.
Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee
contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort
in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the
embassy's statement
here and
here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary
Clinton winning." You can read her testimony
here .
Fact 16 : Chalupa sent an email to top DNC officials in May 2016 acknowledging she was working on the Manafort issue. You
can read the email here .
Fact 17 : Ukraine's ambassador to Washington, Valeriy Chaly, wrote an OpEd in The Hill in August 2016 slamming GOP nominee
Donald Trump for his policies on Russia despite a Geneva Convention requirement that ambassadors not become embroiled in the internal
affairs or elections of their host countries. You can read Ambassador Chaly's OpEd
here and the Geneva Convention rules of conduct for foreign diplomats
here . And your colleagues
Ambassador Yovanovitch and Dr. Hill both confirmed this, with Dr. Hill
testifying this
week that Chaly's OpEd was "probably not the most advisable thing to do."
Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary
member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference
by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling
here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality.
Fact 19 : George Soros' Open Society Foundation issued a memo in February 2016 on its strategy for Ukraine, identifying
the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Action Centre as the lead for its efforts. You can read the memo
here .
Fact 20 : The State Department and Soros' foundation jointly funded the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. You can read about
that funding here from the Centre's own funding records and George
Kent's testimony about it here
.
Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office
demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars,
including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter
here . Kent testified he signed the
letter here .
Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch
during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I
accurately quoted him by watching the video
here .
Fact 23 : Ambassador Yovanovitch and her embassy denied Lutsenko's claim, calling it a "fabrication." I reported their
reaction
here .
Fact 24 : Despite the differing accounts of what happened at the Lutsenko-Yovanovitch meeting, a senior U.S. official in
an interview arranged by the State Department stated to me in spring 2019 that US officials did pressure Lutsenko's office on several
occasions not to "prosecute, investigate or harass" certain Ukrainian activists, including Parliamentary member Leschenko, journalist
Vitali Shabunin, the Anti-Corruption Action Centre and NABU director Sytnyk. You can read that official's comments
here . In addition, George Kent confirmed this same information in his deposition
here .
Fact 25 : In May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions sent an official congressional letter to Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo asking that Yovanovitch be recalled as ambassador to Ukraine. Sessions and State confirmed the official letter,
which you can read here
.
Fact 26 : In fall 2018, Ukrainian prosecutors, using a third party, hired an American lawyer (a former U.S. attorney) to
proffer information to the U.S. government about certain activities at the U.S. embassy, involving Burisma and involving the 2016
election, that they believed might have violated U.S. law. You can read their account
here . You can also confirm it independently by talking to the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan or the American lawyer representing
the Ukrainian prosecutors' interests.
Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State
Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting
here .
Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to
discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting
here .
Lt. Col. Vindman, if you have information that contradicts any of these 28 factual elements in my columns I ask that you make
it publicly available. Your testimony did not.
If you don't have evidence these 28 facts are wrong, I ask that you correct your testimony because any effort to call factually
accurate reporting false only misleads America and chills the free debate our Constitutional framers so cherished to protect.
Our leaders like to say we value human rights around the world, but what they really manifest
is greed. It all makes sense in a Gekko- or Machiavellian kind of way.
Highly recommended !
Notable quotes:
"... Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is? ..."
"... A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right. ..."
"... If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life. ..."
"... I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama administration too. ..."
"... Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it. ..."
"... they are not only lobbyists for MIC, but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of militarism. ..."
"... Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower. ..."
"... The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive resources. ..."
"... Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.) ..."
"... The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus, the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world. Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep! ..."
By William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor. His
personal blog is Bracing Views .
Originally published at TomDispatch
Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch , I've been arguing
against America's forever wars, whether in Afghanistan , Iraq , or elsewhere . Unfortunately, it's no surprise that,
despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle
East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities
ruined . And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of
America's wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the
seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?
Sadly, there isn't just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we
could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.
So why do America's disastrous wars
persist ? I can think of many reasons , some obvious and easy to
understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more
subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness
to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here's
another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America
today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has
essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for
president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise
a self-professed hawk on the
subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end " endless
wars " but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive
F-35 fighter jet.
The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually
withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking
of peace . And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his
inauguration he's sent more
troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other
air strikes ,
something about which he openly
boasts .
War, in other words, is our new normal, America's default position on global affairs, and
peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against
the Taliban, ISIS, "terror" more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia
or
China , is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an
unprecedented 800 or so
military bases , when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection,
when you divide the globe -- the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms
like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you
spend more on your military than the next
seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a
nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion ) already
quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a
reality of endless war?
Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the
predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise)
path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the
world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation
after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional"
belief system, what is?
If we're ever to put an end to our country's endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset
will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war's
many uses in American
life and culture.
War, Its Uses (and Abuses)
A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for
America's vast
military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety,
especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of
national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today,
it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.
As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it , war is
a force that gives us meaning. And let's face it, a significant part of America's meaning in
this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as
trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being
the world's sole superpower.
And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war
weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In
an age of
gaping inequality , using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive
ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the
many.
In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn't. In a
nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive,
anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its
participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as "great captains."
What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment -- not against communist
expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What's stopping us from containing war?
You might say that, in some sense, we've grown addicted to it , which is true enough, but here
are five additional reasons for war's enduring presence in American life:
The
delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore
winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a "loser." Meanwhile, such dubious
conflicts -- see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with
several more years, or even generations
, to go -- continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though
they visibly aren't. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite
his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully
resisted the Pentagon's siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the
cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off. American
society's almost completeisolationfrom war's deadly
effects: We're not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though
they're certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure , thanks in part to the
cost of those overseas wars). It's nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the
media or elsewhere, this country's never-ending war-making gets here. Unnecessary and
sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don't know about? Learning its
lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now
classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn't
because the enemy could exploit such details -- the enemy already knows! -- but because the
American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like
Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden,
pursued and indicted for sharing honest
details about the calamitous Iraq War and America's invasive and intrusive surveillance
state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be
truth-tellers. An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress
ceded to
the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite
recent
attempts to end America's arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden
by Donald Trump's veto power), America's duly elected representatives generally don't represent
the people when it comes to this country's disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly,
largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go
to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech ( thank
you , Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in
Congress than you and I ever will. \America's persistent empathy gap.
Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to
understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we're actually doing to them. Even our
globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast
bases, referred to in the military as "Little Americas," complete with familiar stores, fast
food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big
trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But
what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives,
these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.
All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang
of a " peace train " that was
"soundin' louder" in America. Today, that peace train's been derailed and replaced by an armed
and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war -- and that train is indeed soundin'
louder to the great peril of us all.
War on Spaceship Earth
Here's the rub, though: even the
Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is
climate change , not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his
administration of arsonists
its officials can't express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might.
Assuming we don't annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our
real enemy is the endless war we're waging against Planet Earth.
The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant
driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only
wants to grow more so, but what's welfare for the military brass isn't wellness for the
planet.
There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since
we're all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we're its
crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to
fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed
out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely
to survive, no less thrive.
In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the
planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific
effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.
Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the
existence of
significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as
suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures
to rise even as food and other resources dwindle .
Under the circumstances, what's the best strategy for survival: killing each other while
ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?
Unfortunately, for America's leaders, the real "fixes" remain global military and resource
domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as
we've seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President
Trump's recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria
to steal that country's oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in
significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule
percentage of the world's petroleum.
If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything,
it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human
as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium.
Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.
Despite all of war's uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it's time that we
Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few
enough of us experience "our" wars firsthand and that's precisely why some idealize their
purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those
practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes
everyone involved into a murderer.
We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is
nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship
Earth.
I think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign
policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the
State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under
Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully
controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama
administration too.
They preach “Full Spectrum Dominance” (Wolfowitz doctrine) and are not shy to
unleash the wars to enhance the USA strategic position in particular region (color revolution
can be used instead of war, like they in 2014 did in Ukraine). Of course, being chichenhawks,
neither they nor members of their families fight in those wars.
For some reason despite his election platform Trump also populated his administration with
neoconservatives. So it might be that maintaining the USA centered global neoliberal empire
is the real reason and the leitmotiv of the USA foreign policy. that’s why it does not
change with the change of Administration: any government that does not play well with the
neoliberal empire gets in the hairlines.
Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected
officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for
the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be
bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and
every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it.
Good point. But why the rise of the neocons? Why did they prosper? I'd say because of the
military-industrial complex. Or you might say they feed each other, but the Complex came
first. And of course the Complex is a dominant part of the Deep State. How could it not be?
Add in 17 intelligence agencies, Homeland Security, the Energy Dept's nukes, and you have a
dominant DoD that swallows up more than half of federal discretionary spending each year.
I agree, but it is a little bit more complex. You need an ideology to promote the interests
of MIC. You can't just say -- let's spend more than a half of federal discretionary spending
each year..
That's where neo-conservatism comes into play. So they are not only lobbyists for MIC,
but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of
militarism.
wjastore December 2, 2019 at 12:25 PM
Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about
containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We
heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling
full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower.
The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put
their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive
resources.
Think about how no one was punished for the colossal intelligence failure of 9/11.
Instead, all the intel agencies were rewarded with more money and authority via the PATRIOT
Act.
The Afghan war is an ongoing disaster, the Iraq war a huge misstep, Libya a total failure,
yet the Complex has even more Teflon than Ronald Reagan. All failures slide off of it.
greglaxer , December 2, 2019 at 4:12 PM
There is a still bigger picture to consider in all this. I don't want to open the door to
conspiracy theory–personally, I find the claim that explosives were placed inside the
World Trade Center prior to the strikes by aircraft on 9/11 risible–but it certainly
was convenient for the Regime Change Gang that the Saudi operatives were able to get away
with what they did on that day, and in preparations leading up to it.
Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the
Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes
human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and
Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for
development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down
business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.)
Once the great majority of folks in Africa have cellphones and subscriptions to Netflix
whither capitalism? Trump denies the severity of the climate crisis because that is part of
the ideology/theology of the GOP.
The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become
ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus,
the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they
advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world.
Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere
on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that
concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep!
After presiding over a far-right coup in Bolivia, the US dubbed Nicaragua a "national
security threat" and announced new sanctions, while Trump designated drug cartels in Mexico as
"terrorists" and refused to rule out military intervention.
One successful coup against a democratically elected socialist president is not enough, it
seems.
Washington dubbed Nicaragua a threat to US national security, and announced that it will be
expanding its suffocating sanctions on the tiny Central American nation.
Trump is also turning up the heat on Mexico, baselessly linking the country to terrorism and
even hinting at potential military intervention. The moves come as the country's left-leaning
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador warns of right-wing attempts at a coup.
As Washington's rightist allies in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador are desperately
beating back massive grassroots uprisings against neoliberal austerity policies and yawning
inequality gaps, the United States is ramping up its aggression against the region's few
remaining progressive governments.
These moves have led left-wing forces in Latin America to warn of a 21st-century revival of
Operation Condor, the Cold War era campaign of violent subterfuge and US support for right-wing
dictatorships across the region.
Trump admin declares Nicaragua a 'national security
threat'
A day after the US-backed far-right coup in Bolivia, the White House released a statement
applauding the military putsch and making it clear that two countries were next on Washington's
target list: "These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in
Venezuela and Nicaragua ," Trump declared.
On November 25, the Trump White House then quietly issued a statement characterizing
Nicaragua as an "unusual and
extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
This prolonged for an additional year an executive order Trump had signed in 2018 declaring
a state of "national emergency" on the Central American country.
Trump's 2018 declaration came after a failed violent right-wing
coup attempt in Nicaragua . The US government has funded and supported many of
the opposition groups that sought to topple elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and
cheered them on as they sought to overthrow him.
The 2018 national security threat designation was quickly followed by economic warfare. In
December the US Congress approved
the NICA Act without any opposition. This legislation gave Trump the authority to impose
sanctions on Nicaragua, and prevents international financial institutions from doing business
with Managua.
Trump's new 2019 statement spewed outlandish propaganda against Nicaragua, referring to its
democratically elected government -- which for decades has been targeted for overthrow by
Washington -- as a supposedly violent and corrupt "regime."
This executive order is similar to one made by President Barack Obama in 2015, which
designated Venezuela as a threat to US national security.
Both orders were used to justify the unilateral imposition of suffocating economic
sanctions. And Trump's renewal of the order paves the way for an escalated economic attack on
Nicaragua.
The extension received negligible coverage in mainstream English-language corporate media,
but right-wing Spanish-language outlets in Latin America heavily amplified it.
And opposition activists are gleefully cheering on the intensification of Washington's
hybrid warfare against Managua.
More aggressive US sanctions against Nicaragua
Voice of America (VOA), the US government's main foreign broadcasting service, noted that
the extension of the executive order will be followed with more economic attacks.
Washington's ambassador to the Organization
of American States (OAS), Carlos Trujillo, told VOA, "The pressure against Nicaragua is
going to continue."
The OAS representative added that Trump will be announcing new sanctions against the
Nicaraguan government in the coming weeks.
VOA stated clearly that "Nicaragua, along with Cuba and Venezuela, is one of the Latin
American countries whose government Trump has made a priority to put diplomatic and economic
pressure on to bring about regime change."
This is not just rhetoric. The US Department of the Treasury updated the Nicaragua-related
sanctions section of its website as recently as November 8.
And in September, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a " more
comprehensive set of regulations ," strengthening the existing sanctions on Nicaragua.
Voice of America's report quoted several right-wing Nicaraguans who openly called for more
US pressure against their country.
Bianca Jagger, a celebrity opposition activist formerly married to Rolling Stones frontman
Mick Jagger, called on the US to impose sanctions on Nicaragua's military in particular.
"The Nicaraguan military has not been touched because they [US officials] are hoping that
the military will like act the military in Bolivia," Jagger said, referring to the military
officials who violently overthrew Bolivia's democratically elected president.
Many of these military leaders had been
trained at the US government's School of the Americas , a notorious base of subversion
dating back to Operation Condor. Latin American media has been filled in recent days with
reports that Bolivian soldiers were paid $50,000 and generals were paid up to $1 million to
carry out the putsch.
VOA added that "in the case of the Central American government [of Nicaragua], the effect
that sanctions can have can be greater because it is a more economically vulnerable
country."
VOA quoted Roberto Courtney, a prominent exiled right-wing activist and executive director
of the opposition group Ethics and Transparency, which monitors elections in Nicaragua and is
supported by the US
government's
regime-change arm , the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Courtney, who claims to be a human rights activist, salivated over the prospects of US
economic war on his country, telling VOA, "There is a bit of a difference [between Nicaragua
and Bolivia] the economic vulnerability makes it more likely that the sanctions will have an
effect."
Courtney, who was described by VOA as an "expert on the electoral process," added, "If there
is a stick, there must also be a carrot." He said the OAS could help apply diplomatic and
political pressure against Nicaragua's government.
These unilateral American sanctions are illegal under international law, and considered an
act of war. Iran's foreign minister,
Javad Zarif , has characterized US economic warfare "financial terrorism," explaining that
it disproportionately targets civilians in order to turn them against their government.
Top right-wing Nicaraguan opposition groups applauded Trump for extending the executive
order and for pledging new sanctions against their country.
The Nicaraguan Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, an opposition front group that
brings together numerous opposition groups , several of which are
also
funded by the US government's NED , welcomed the order.
Trump dubs drug cartels in
Mexico "terrorists," refuses to rule out drone strikes
While the US targeting of Nicaragua and Venezuela's governments is nothing new, Donald Trump
is setting his sights on a longtime US ally in Mexico.
In 2018, Mexican voters made history when they elected Andrés Manuel López
Obrador as president in a landslide. López Obrador, who is often referred to by his
initials AMLO, is Mexico's first left-wing president in more than five decades. He ran on a
progressive campaign pledging to boost social spending, cut poverty, combat corruption, and
even decriminalize drugs.
AMLO is wildly popular in Mexico. In February, he had a record-breaking
86 percent approval rating . And he has earned this widespread support by pledging to
combat neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy.
"The neoliberal economic model has
been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country," AMLO has declared. "The child
of neoliberalism is corruption."
When he unveiled his multibillion-dollar National Development Plan, López Obrador
announced the end to "the long night of neoliberalism."
AMLO's left-wing policies have caused shockwaves in Washington, which has long relied on
neoliberal Mexican leaders ensuring a steady cheap exploitable labor base and maintaining a
reliable market for US goods and open borders for US capital and corporations.
On November 27 -- a day after declaring Nicaragua a "national security threat" -- Trump
announced that the US government will be designating Mexican drug cartels as "
terrorist organizations ."
Such a designation could pave the way for direct US military intervention in Mexico.
Trump revealed this new policy in an interview with right-wing Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.
"Are you going to designate those cartels in Mexico as terror groups and start hitting them
with drones and things like that?" O'Reilly asked.
The US president refused to rule out drone strikes or other military action against drug
cartels in Mexico.
Trump's announcement seemed to surprise the Mexican government, which immediately called for
a meeting with the US State Department.
The designation was particularly ironic considering some top drug cartel leaders in Mexico
have long-standing ties to the US government. The leaders of the notoriously brutal cartel the
Zetas, for instance, were originally trained in
counter-insurgency tactics by the US military.
Throughout the Cold War, the US government armed, trained, and funded right-wing
death squads throughout Latin America, many of which were involved in drug trafficking. The
CIA also used drug money to fund far-right counter-insurgency paramilitary groups in Central
America.
These tactics were also employed in the Middle East and South Asia. The United States armed,
trained, and funded far-right Islamist
extremists in Afghanistan in the 1980s in order to fight the Soviet Union. These same
US-backed Salafi-jihadists then founded al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
This strategy was later repeated in the US wars on Libya and Syria. ISIS commander
Omar al-Shishani
, to take one example, had been trained by the US military and enjoyed direct support from
Washington when he was fighting against Russia.
The Barack Obama administration also oversaw a campaign called Project Gunrunne r
and Operation Fast and Furious, in which the US government helped send thousands of guns to
cartels in Mexico.
Mexican journalist Alina Duarte explained that, with the Trump administration's designation
of cartels as terrorists, "They are creating the idea that Mexico represents a threat to their
national security ."
"Should we start talking about the possibility of a coup against Lopez Obrador in
Mexico?" Duarte asked.
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She noted that the US corporate media has embarked on an increasingly ferocious campaign to
demonize
AMLO , portraying the democratically elected president as a power-hungry aspiring dictator
who is supposedly wrecking Mexico's economy.
Duarte discussed the issue of US interference in Mexican politics in an interview with The
Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton, on their podcast Moderate
Rebels:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7OJyCHjxCEs
Now, a whisper campaign over fears that the right-wing opposition may try to overthrow
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is spreading across Mexico.
AMLO himself has publicly addressed the rumors, making it clear that he will not tolerate
any discussion of coups.
"How wrong the conservatives and their hawks are," López Obrador tweeted on November
2. Referencing the 1913 assassination of progressive President Francisco Madero, who had been a
leader of the Mexican Revolution, AMLO wrote, "Now is different."
"Another coup d'état will now be allowed," he declared.
In recent months, as fears of a coup intensify, López Obrador has swung even further
to the left, directly challenging the US government and asserting an independent foreign policy
that contrasts starkly to the subservience of his predecessors.
AMLO's government has rejected US efforts to delegitimize Venezuela's leftist government,
throwing a wrench in Washington's efforts to impose right-wing activist
Juan Guaidó as coup leader.
AMLO has welcomed Ecuador's ousted socialist leader Rafael Correa and hosted Argentina's
left-leaning Alberto Fernández for his first foreign trip after winning the
presidency.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/D4T0zbASfbA
In October, López Obrador even welcomed Cuban President Díaz-Canel to Mexico
for a historic visit.
Trump's Operation Condor 2.0
For Washington, an independent and left-wing Mexico is intolerable.
In a speech for right-wing, MAGA hat-wearing
Venezuelans in Miami , Florida in February, Trump ranted against socialism for nearly an
hour, threatened the remaining leftist countries in Latin America with regime change.
"The days of socialism and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua
and in Cuba as well," he declared, adding that socialism would never be allowed to take root in
heart of capitalism in the United States.
While Trump has claimed he seeks to withdraw from wars in the Middle East (when he is not
occupying its oil fields
), he has ramped up aggressive US intervention in Latin America.
During the height of the Cold War, Operation Condor thousands of dissidents were murdered,
and hundreds of thousands more were disappeared, tortured, or imprisoned with the assistance of
the US intelligence apparatus.
Today, as Latin America is increasingly viewed through the lens of a new Cold War, Operation
Condor is being reignited with new mechanisms of sabotage and subversion in play. The mayhem
has only begun.
Well, that was "A Warning", for sure! The anonymous author of this tell all, Trump outter,
goes on to proclaim "we must look deeper at the roots of the present disorder, which is why I
have written this book."
Based on his/hers opening salvo, I proceeded with an open mind and hoped a first hand
accounting of events would give me something more, something new, something unbiased...after
reading every single word, I'm not sure what to think any more.
"A Warning", by Anonymous, is a well written political volume that speaks clearly, and
authoritatively concerning the events that take place in the White House and with our
president, Donald J. Trump. They have avoided all the histrionics that fill the tomes offered
by most of the media members. There's plenty of passion and urgency behind what's being said
it's just not crazed which for me, lends it an air of veracity. I'm settled for 60% of the
discourse.
By chapter 5 my opinion of the author's recanting about the details of the POTUS's daily
events has begun to become suspect and I'm starting to get that feeling that something is
"off". I read on trying to keep my open mind, feelings at bay. It's not easy because the
stories being told are starting to take on a schoolyard tenor such as: listing snippets of
twitter tweets (only the "bad"parts), highlighting his inadequacies as a statesman/politician
(DJT never claimed to be more than a businessman). It's not wrong to mention these things,
it's the spirit in how it's done and the vacuum.
This is about the time that anonymous' logic becomes unfounded, for me; a Venn diagraming
dilemma of if-then, WHAT?
Positing that POTUS has such a weakness for strong men that he would make egregious
blunders of national security, as well as waffle on business and finance issues just doesn't
make sense. Sorry. If for no other reason than his sheer business acumen, I'm rejecting this
premise. Yes, he blunders on with lack of finesse in the deportment and statesman columns
but...nope.
"A Warning" continues on pretty much in this manner, more and more juvenile until we end
up firmly in the land of snark with chapter seven and "The Apologists" where the author in
his anonymity proclaims how we can identify the various flavors of apologists, all they think
and feel and all they need to do-to get , be and do better; presumptuous, IMHO. I'm sure
snark wasn't the intended goal but it's how I arrived, for me.
All things considered, the writing and publishing are excellent. For the first half of the
book, I was impressed with the author's ability to detail the story, taking the high road.
The road got lonely along the way and anonymous veered to the access road, never joining
yellow journalism highway to deliver "A Warning" 📚
A lot of reviewers are saying "It's nothing we didn't already know," and at first, that
was my conclusion as well: there's no bombshells here. But upon reflection, there actually is
something that we didn't know. It answered a mystery that has perplexed me for the better
part of 3 years, albeit I don't think the author knows it themselves. The million dollar
question: how could anyone with any morality, dignity, patriotism, or merely a sense of
self-preservation work in the Trump administration? 'A Warning' is not any kind of explosive
insider expose on the workings of the current White House. It's far too vague and
generalized, avoiding specifics on nearly every topic to the point of exasperation. What this
book is, is an attempt by the author to justify their bad, and it must be said, weak choices.
It's both a sub-conscious excuse and apology for what's clear the author has still not fully
come to terms with themselves. Between the lines, you can almost see him/her trying to work
it out, never quite grasping his/her own moral weakness in enabling a man they know to be
dangerously incompetent. Everybody, anybody, who has ever worked for somebody else has faced
this dilemma at some point in their career: when the boss is bad; you either stay for
self-serving reasons (like your finances) or you make a stand before the boss damages the
whole enterprise. The author is trying to make a stand, and failing at it. The alarming
aspect in this instance, is the stakes are so much higher, the highest, in fact. This is a
book written by somebody deep in denial, attempting to work it out but not quite willing,
yet, to look themselves directly in the mirror. Chapter 7, "Apologists," is the most telling.
The author is not just explaining the motivations of his/her co-participants, but is
unwittingly addressing their self as well. Perhaps the most important question here, is WHO
does Anonymous think they are "Warning?" at this point? For the Never-Trumpers this is all
old news. For the Ever-Trumpers, they're never going to read anything unapproved by their
Dear Leader. For those on the fence (if there are any) they're comatose and aren't capable of
comprehension. This wasn't written for anybody but the author's own conscience, and even at
that, it hedges, dances around itself, and avoids mirrors.
The book tells readers what is already known and readily apparent about Donald Trump: his
lack of empathy and curiousity, his volatility and impetuousness, his vengeful nature, the
long-lasting damage he is doing to the country's institutions and norms.
The book does not delve into much, if any, new territory that has not been previously
reported. Mentions of specific administration members and their individual actions are
sparing and go little beyond general notions that many intitially thought Trump would turn
his behavior around, are continually dumbfounded by him, try behind the scenes to keep the
wheels of government on the road and fail due to his ADD, vanity, and pettiness, and that all
know they are expendible to him.
The author devotes quite a bit of time discussing historical Greek democratic philosophy
and examples to compare to the current situation. While interesting, it only serves to put
Trump's personality and failings into yet another historical context which would surprise
nobody who has paid any attention to this administration, government, politics, law, or
history.
One of the largest problems with the author's arguments and solutions is that it
ultimately lack individual courage. The author takes time to discuss the passengers aboard
Flight 93 that fought back against the hijackers on 9/11. He/she even ends the book with the
famous last words of one of the passengers who fought back: " Let's roll." While we do not
know the identity of the author, his or her actions in publishing this book are not the same.
The actions of passengers deciding to fight back against hijackers was not anonymous. They
did not fail to show their faces. They met the danger head-on and with full knowledge of the
consequences of failure. They did not try to leave it to others. The author gives the coda
that the general public needs to wake up and do something, but then does not get in the aisle
with the rest of the passengers to fight back. While the author's explanation of remaining
anonymous is logical (that the message is more important than the messenger), the author
ultimately falls prey to one of the flaws of everyone else who serves Trump: that he/she is
not willing to speak truth directly to power regardless of the horrific consequences of not
doing so. Former Senator Jeff Flake and Representative Justin Amash have made many of the
same philosophical and logical points as the author regarding Trump's damaging actions
publicly, to their own political demise. The reader cannot help but wonder if the author is
still in the administration taking daily part in the passivity of those who know better but
will not say it to Trump's face.
The book offers much in the way of problems but little in the way of solutions. The author
suggests Americans be engaged in civics and politics at local and state levels. The author
suggests that we find the political middle and return to civility. The author does not posit
how the reader should, given such a dire warning, convince the many people to change course,
who: 1) see what Trump really is and actually like it, 2) have been completely fooled about
who Trump really is but will not respond to facts, logic, and/or self-interest, and 3) hold
power to do something about Trump (i.e.: 53 Republican Senators) but remain passive due to a
variety of personal, social, political, or economic factors.
Ultimately, the book puts forth an important analysis of Trump, the sycophants that
surround him, and the damage he continues to do. But it doesn't come with the gravity of
someone who is willing to risk his/her own skin in order to try to save the country that
he/she seems to hold so dear. The message would mean more if the author was willing to risk
all like the passengers of Flight 93.
A Warning by Anonymous who claims to be a senior Trump administration official comes on
the heal of previous tell all books such as Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury and Bob Woodward's
Fear. Unfortunately, if one read those books or has paid attention to the news there is
nothing really new in A Warning, which outlines the argument against the Trump
presidency.
Anonymous' argument is that Trump is unfit for the presidency and most be voted out of
office in the next election. The author's complaints are well known. The president knows
nothing about how the government, the economy or foreign policy works which leads to endless
problems as he makes pronouncements, Tweets, or asks his staff to do things that can't be
done, and sometimes might even be illegal. He contemplated telling the National Guard that
was deployed to the border with Mexico to shoot people trying to enter illegally as a
deterrent. Trump isn't inquisitive, doesn't read, and is an avid consumer of conspiracy
theories. Trump for example is so adverse to reading and has such a short attention span that
his staff has been reduced to briefing him with just one graphic or one slide that represents
one main issue, and to repeat that point over and over in the hopes that it will sink in with
the chief executive. Many times that fails. Instead, Trump's main sources of information are
cable news and a variety of conspiracy theories he hears or makes up himself. The president's
language is divisive. Trump revels in smack talking, and one of his favorite times is to go
to rallies where he can unleash a new line against his opponents. He enjoys being a rabble
rouser and inciting his followers. The president came into office with a diverse cabinet of
generals, politicians, and businessmen, but most of them have left. Not only that, but some
of them were willing to stand up to the president and tell him things he didn't want to hear.
The author considers himself part of this group. Now Trump is surrounded by people that only
tell him what he wants to hear. All together that has led the White House into one crisis
after another. Trump Tweets he wanted out of Syria without telling any of his staff
beforehand. The White House had outlined a $2 trillion infrastructure bill with the
Democrats, but then Trump got mad watching cable TV before a planned meeting and walked away
from the deal. The author has one great characterization at an end of a chapter where he says
the government is like one of Trump's companies. It's badly managed, a sociopath is at its
head, there is infighting, lawsuits, debt, shady deals, and everything is focused upon the
owner rather than the customers.
Anonymous does make one new argument you rarely hear, and that is Trump is not a
conservative. He starts off with the fact that Trump has changed his party affiliation
several times. He also has violated many of the hall marks of conservatism such as free
trade, fiscal responsibility, and cutting the size of the federal government. Trump for
example, has created a huge budget deficit with his tax cuts while continuing to increase
public spending.
Again, the problem with the book isn't the message, it's just that his has all been said
before. I was at least expecting some interesting stories to go along with this laundry list
of faults, but was disappointed by the lack of them. In the end, if this is the first book
you're thinking of reading about Trump you will get the main arguments against his
presidency. If you've been following Trump and his faults, then there's little to see
here.
"A Warning" confirms with additional anecdotes what we already know--useful if you don't
want to go all over the web for "all the news" about the White House's inner workings and the
President's behavior. It's well-written but would have been more compelling if the op-eds,
snark and name-calling had been edited out. Clearly, not written (but possibly edited) by
someone with a journalism background. The chapter on "character" was the most valuable as it
serves as a reminder of what we are looking for in a leader of our country, or any leader, in
fact--someone with integrity, honesty, service-minded, respectful of others, clear-thinking,
etc. It's clear from what's written here that if the President is re-elected, it says more
about our nation than it does about a 73-year-old man who clearly has attention deficit
disorder, possibly a reading disability, and absolutely no experience with statecraft. (Nor
does he care. I don't know what's worse.) I'm sure this book will become a part of our
interesting historical record!
I purchased this book (against my better judgment) because I thought maybe the insights in
this book would be enlightening. But I wish I hadn't spent the money. First, most of what was
related in these pages, other than the opinion parts, were already well known through media,
especially The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as other other media
outlets.
Second, anyone paying attention would have anticipated Trump's actions. What made me want
to vomit after finishing this book was the realization that the Republican party doesn't care
and will continue to support Trump, regardless of the evidence that he is not fit to serve
and the author despite issuing this "warning", doesn't have the guts or the patriotism to
come out of the shadows.
I also take issue with the author's portrayal of "never Trumpers" as crazed haters. That's
the farthest from the truth. Many of us recognized early on that Trump is agrifter and a liar
and an unscrupulous opportunist. We are not crazed; we are sounding the alarm! We are
sensible patriots who love our country and our Constitution, who do not want to see our
discourse redown into tribal factions and, possibly, into civil war (hopefully, if such does
occur it will be cyber rather than armed conflict).
Every single day we are asked to ignore what our eyes can clearly see and what our ears
can clearly hear and our brains can easily deduce in order to allow Trump's reality to
proceed unquestioned. He doesn't understand he is not a monarch and his children are not
heirs to the throne. The lies are non-stop and getting worse and the people surrounding him,
including the author, are doing NOTHING to reign him in.
Last, we are in the midst of an impeachment inquiry. I've read every deposition that has
been released and watched every minute of direct testimony during the hearings. It is without
contest that Trump attempted to extort and bribe Ukraine in order to have the newly
inaugurated president of Ukraine announce an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden's
involvement with Burisma. Sondland made it abundantly clear that no such actual investigation
would be necessary, just the announcement of an investigation to tarnish Joe Biden's
reputation and electoral standing. Trump's act was sleazy and wrong and illegal (check the
statute about soliciting foreign involvement in domestic elections).
I'm infuriated by the author's insinuation that we who oppose such actions by any
president are somehow deranged. The writer seems to think that impeachment and removal from
office for such dirty tricks involving a foreign government should be somehow, beyond the
pale for a civilized society. NO! Trump has obviously abused his office and put an ally in
danger by withholding funding HE WAS NOT AUTHORIZED TO WITHHOLD, according to our
Constitution. The author seems to think we should just cover our eyes to these transgressions
and wait until the next election to vote Trump out.
What about all of the damage Trump can perpetrate on our democracy and on our foreign
policy. He has done so much damage alrready, how can we allow him another year and keep our
fingers crossed that it doesn't get worse? Also, since Trump was obviously trying to
influence our upcoming elections with his dirty dealings, how can we allow him to remain in
office knowing that he will do anything to cheat to win?
We anti-Trumpers (not never-Trumpers) are constantly accused of trying to perpetuate a
"coup" by trying to remove Trump from office via either impeachment or through the 25th. That
would only be true if Hilllary Clinton was installed in Trump's place. But If Trump leaves
office before his first term is up, Mike Pence will assume the duties of president, not HRC.
-- certainly not a "coup" to anyone who has half a brain and understands how our system
works. It would still be a Republican administration and there would still be a Republican
Senate. Certainly NOT a coup, just a Constitutional succession of the next in.line.
With regard to restoring a "climate of truth", that is impossible so long as alternative
media (including FOX) exists. We Americans used to share a truth courtesy of the likes of
Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley and others. Now, there's "left" media and a "right"
media and they both exist in their own realities. We no longer share the same reality. If we
no.longer share the same immutable facts and truths, then how can we work out our differences
and our needs so we can all come to a consensus?
This book left me feeling angry and afraid for the future of my country, especially
because people like the "anomynous" author doesn't take his citizenship and patriotism a step
forward and tell what he knows on the record.
Don't waste your money. The author is a coward and should never profit from his lack of
courage.
This is not a very good book . I say this even though I was so looking forward to it ,
even buying it in pre-publication. On the publication date, I woke up early and started to
read it, only to find it repetitious and general in nature.
Trump is described as amoral, indifferent, inattentive and impulsive – repeatedly. But
with little background. The author is afraid of being identified as such so he deletes
specific information that may later identify him. High ranking officials are identified as
"high ranking officials". Important meetings are identified as "important meetings".
I did not read the original article that led to the book but It feels like the author took
the article and padded it into a book. Disappointing: a waste of time; a waste of money.
First off, I really enjoyed the author's listing of every sleazy thing Trump has ever done
(none of which are new or even greatly detailed), followed by snarky quips about Democrats
taking power with too much zeal to investigate. That's the kind of 'logic' we are looking at
here. The argument is that there is a lawless criminal in the White House but it's better to
whine about him in print than do anything about it.
Secondly, there is no new information in this book. There is nothing here I have not heard
before. There are no damning conversations or dramatic revelations. This book packages up the
reporting of every news agency to date and just vomits it out at us. We've heard this all
before. We had the author's level of indignation three years ago. We came to these
conclusions three years ago. It is insulting that the author presents this material with a
'ta-daaa!' It's a scam.
Thirdly, Trump does what he does because weasels like the author of this 'book' let him.
No matter what justifications this guy has for himself, he is still nothing but an enabler,
and is complicit in the actions of this Administration. The author spends most of the book
whining about the things Trump has done, takes no responsibility for anything, and does a LOT
of "CYA." (cover your butt).
"... A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters. ..."
"... The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them. ..."
aul MacDonald and Joseph Parent
explain in detail that Trump hasn't reduced U.S. military commitments overseas:
But after nearly three years in office, Trump's promised retrenchment has yet to
materialize. The president hasn't meaningfully altered the U.S. global military footprint he
inherited from President Barack Obama. Nor has he shifted the costly burden of defending U.S.
allies. To the contrary, he loaded even greater military responsibilities on the United
States while either ramping up or maintaining U.S. involvement in the conflicts in
Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. On practically every other issue, Trump departed radically
from the path of his predecessor. But when it came to troop deployments and other overseas
defense commitments, he largely preserved the chessboard he inherited -- promises to the
contrary be damned.
MacDonald and Parent's article complements my earlier
post about U.S. "global commitments" very nicely. When we look at the specifics of Trump's
record, we see that he isn't ending U.S. military involvement anywhere. He isn't bringing
anyone home. On the contrary, he has been sending even more American troops to the Middle East
just this year alone. While he is being excoriated for withdrawals that never happen, he is
maintaining or steadily increasing the U.S. military presence in foreign countries. Many Trump
detractors and supporters are so invested in the narrative that Trump is presiding over
"withdrawal" that they are ignoring what the president has actually done. Trump's approach to
U.S. military involvement might be described as "loudly declaring withdrawal while maintaining
or increasing troop levels." Almost everyone pays attention only to his rhetoric about leaving
this or that country and treats it as if it is really happening. Meanwhile, the number of
military personnel deployed overseas never goes down.
The authors offer a possible explanation for why Trump has been able to get away with
this:
A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military
footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic
politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few
in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political
moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are
broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military,
flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from
the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and
influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same
fantasy world as voters.
Trump is further insulated from scrutiny and criticism because he is frequently described as
presiding over a "retreat" from the world. Most news reports and commentary pieces reinforce
this false impression that Trump seeks to get the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. There are
relatively few people pointing out the truth that MacDonald and Parent spell out in their
article. The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump
may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them.
"... Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually grow suspicious. ..."
"... It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism" these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown 28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of "anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New York Times ran a major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented" denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long mistreatment of the Palestinians. ..."
I recently published a couple of long essays, and although they primarily focused on other
matters, the subject of anti-Semitism was a strong secondary theme. In that regard, I mentioned
my shock at discovering a dozen or more years ago that several of the most self-evidently
absurd elements of anti-Semitic lunacy, which I had always dismissed without consideration,
were probably correct. It does seem likely that a significant number of traditionally-religious
Jews did indeed occasionally commit the ritual murder of
Christian children in order to use their blood in certain religious ceremonies, and also
that powerful Jewish international bankers did play a large
role in financing the establishment of Bolshevik Russia .
When one discovers that matters of such enormous moment not only apparently occurred but
that they had been successfully excluded from nearly all of our histories and media coverage
for most of the last one hundred years, the implications take some time to properly digest. If
the most extreme "anti-Semitic canards" were probably true, then surely the whole notion of
anti-Semitism warrants a careful reexamination.
All of us obtain our knowledge of the world by two different channels. Some things we
discover from our own personal experiences and the direct evidence of our senses, but most
information comes to us via external sources such as books and the media, and a crisis may
develop when we discover that these two pathways are in sharp conflict. The official media of
the old USSR used to endlessly trumpet the tremendous achievements of its collectivized
agricultural system, but when citizens noticed that there was never any meat in their shops,
"Pravda" became a watchword for "Lies" rather than "Truth."
Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close
variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of
thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic
media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single
real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from
my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims
were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily
newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking
people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually
grow suspicious.
Indeed, over the years some of my own research has uncovered a sharp contrast between image
and reality. As recently as the late 1990s, leading mainstream media outlets such as The
New York Times were still denouncing a top Ivy League
school such as Princeton for the supposed anti-Semitism of its college admissions policy,
but a few years ago when I carefully investigated that issue in quantitative terms for my
lengthy Meritocracy
analysis I was very surprised to reach a polar-opposite conclusion. According to the best
available evidence, white Gentiles were over 90% less likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the
other Ivies than were Jews of similar academic performance, a truly remarkable finding. If the
situation had been reversed and Jews were 90% less likely to be found at Harvard than seemed
warranted by their test scores, surely that fact would be endlessly cited as the absolute
smoking-gun proof of horrendous anti-Semitism in present-day America.
It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism"
these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown
28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary
victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media
coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government
for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of
"anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits
combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New
York Times ran a
major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented"
denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the
Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to
nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long
mistreatment of the Palestinians.
One plausible explanation of the strange contrast between media coverage and reality might
be that anti-Semitism once did loom very large in real life, but dissipated many decades ago,
while the organizations and activists focused on detecting and combating that pernicious
problem have remained in place, generating public attention based on smaller and smaller
issues, with the zealous Jewish activists of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) representing a
perfect example of this situation. As an even more striking illustration, the Second World War
ended over seventy years ago, but what historian Norman Finkelstein has so aptly labeled "the
Holocaust Industry" has grown ever larger and more entrenched in our academic and media worlds
so that scarcely a day passes without one or more articles relating to that topic appearing in
my major morning newspapers. Given this situation, a serious exploration of the true nature of
anti-Semitism should probably avoid the mere media phantoms of today and focus on the past,
when the condition might still have been widespread in daily life.
Many observers have pointed to the aftermath of the Second World War as marking a huge
watershed in the public acceptability of anti-Semitism both in America and Europe, so perhaps a
proper appraisal of that cultural phenomenon should focus on the years before that global
conflict. However, the overwhelming role of Jews in the Bolshevik Revolution and other bloody
Communist seizures of power quite naturally made them objects of considerable fear and hatred
throughout the inter-war years, so the safest course might be to push that boundary back a
little further and confine our attention to the period prior to the outbreak of the First World
War. The pogroms in Czarist Russia, the Dreyfus Affair in France, and the lynching of Leo Frank
in the American South come to mind as some of the most famous examples from that period.
Lindemann's discussion of the often difficult relations between Russia's restive Jewish
minority and its huge Slavic majority is also quite interesting, and he provides numerous
instances in which major incidents, supposedly demonstrating the enormously strong appeal of
vicious anti-Semitism, were quite different than has been suggested by the legend. The famous
Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was obviously the result of severe ethnic tension in that city, but
contrary to the regular accusations of later writers, there seems absolutely no evidence of
high-level government involvement, and the widespread claims of 700 dead that so horrified the
entire world were grossly exaggerated, with only 45 killed in the urban rioting. Chaim
Weizmann, the future president of Israel, later promoted the story that he himself and some
other brave Jewish souls had personally defended their people with revolvers in hand even as
they saw the mutilated bodies of 80 Jewish victims. This account was totally fictional since
Weizmann happened to have been be hundreds of miles away when the riots occurred.
Although a tendency to lie and exaggerate was hardly unique to the political partisans of
Russian Jewry, the existence of a powerful international network of Jewish journalists and
Jewish-influenced media outlets ensured that such concocted propaganda stories might receive
enormous worldwide distribution, while the truth followed far behind, if at all.
For related reasons, international outrage was often focused on the legal confinement of
most of Russia's Jews to the "Pale of Settlement," suggesting some sort of tight imprisonment;
but that area was the traditional home of the Jewish population and encompassed a landmass
almost as large as France and Spain combined. The growing impoverishment of Eastern European
Jews during that era was often assumed to be a consequence of hostile government policy, but
the obvious explanation was extraordinary Jewish fecundity, which far outstripped that of their
Slavic fellow countrymen, and quickly led them to outgrow the available spots in any of their
traditional "middleman" occupations, a situation worsened by their total disinclination to
engage in agriculture or other primary-producer activities. Jewish communities expressed horror
at the risk of losing their sons to the Czarist military draft, but this was simply the
flip-side of the full Russian citizenship they had been granted, and no different from what was
faced by their non-Jewish neighbors.
Certainly the Jews of Russia suffered greatly from widespread riots and mob attacks in the
generation prior to World War I, and these did sometimes have substantial government
encouragement, especially in the aftermath of the very heavy Jewish role in the 1905
Revolution. But we should keep in mind that a Jewish plotter had been implicated in the killing
of Czar Alexander II, and Jewish assassins had also struck down several top Russian ministers
and numerous other government officials. If the last decade or two had seen American Muslims
assassinate a sitting U.S. President, various leading Cabinet members, and a host of our other
elected and appointed officials, surely the position of Muslims in this country would have
become a very uncomfortable one.
As Lindemann candidly describes the tension between Russia's very rapidly growing Jewish
population and its governing authorities, he cannot avoid mentioning the notorious Jewish
reputation for bribery, corruption, and general dishonesty, with numerous figures of all
political backgrounds noting that the remarkable Jewish propensity to commit perjury in the
courtroom led to severe problems in the effective administration of justice. The eminent
American sociologist E.A. Ross, writing in 1913, characterized
the regular behavior of Eastern European Jews in very similar terms .
Lindemann also allocates a short chapter to discussing the 1911 Beilis Affair, in which a
Ukrainian Jew was accused of the ritual murder of a young Gentile boy, an incident that
generated a great deal of international attention and controversy. Based on the evidence
presented, the defendant seems likely to have been innocent, although the obvious lies he
repeatedly told police interrogators hardly helped foster that impression, and "the system
worked" in that he was ultimately found innocent by the jurors at his trial. However, a few
pages are also given to a much less well-known ritual murder case in late 19th century Hungary,
in which the evidence of Jewish guilt seemed far stronger, though the author hardly accepted
the possible reality of such an outlandish crime. Such reticence was quite understandable since
the publication of Ariel Toaff's remarkable volume
on the subject was still a dozen years in the future.
Lindemann subsequently expanded his examination of historical anti-Semitism into a much
broader treatment, Esau's Tears , which appeared in 1997. In this volume, he added
comparative studies of the social landscape in Germany, Britain, Italy, and several other
European countries, and demonstrated that the relationship between Jews and non-Jews varied
greatly across different locations and time periods. But although I found his analysis quite
useful and interesting, the extraordinarily harsh attacks his text provoked from some outraged
Jewish academics seemed even more intriguing.
For example, Judith Laikin Elkin opened her discussion in The American Historical
Review by describing the book as a "545-page polemic" a strange characterization of a book
so remarkably even-handed and factually-based in its scholarship. Writing in
Commentary , Robert Wistrich was even harsher, stating that merely reading the book
had been a painful experience for him, and his review seemed filled with spittle-flecked rage.
Unless these individuals had somehow gotten copies of a different book, I found their attitudes
simply astonishing.
I was not alone in such a reaction. Richard S. Levy of the University of Illinois, a noted
scholar of anti-Semitism, expressed amazement at Wistrich's seemingly irrational outburst,
while Paul Gottfried, writing in Chronicles , mildly suggested that Lindemann had
"touched raw nerves." Indeed, Gottfried's own evaluation quite reasonably criticized Lindemann
for perhaps being a little too even-handed, sometimes presenting numerous conflicting analyzes
without choosing between them. For those interested, a good discussion of the book by Alan
Steinweis, a younger scholar specializing in the same topic,
is conveniently available online .
The remarkable ferocity with which some Jewish writers attacked Lindemann's meticulous
attempt to provide an accurate history of anti-Semitism may carry more significance than merely
an exchange of angry words in low-circulation academic publications. If our mainstream media
shapes our reality, scholarly books and articles based upon them tend to set the contours of
that media coverage. And the ability of a relatively small number of agitated and energetic
Jews to police the acceptable boundaries of historical narratives may have enormous
consequences for our larger society, deterring scholars from objectively reporting historical
facts and preventing students from discovering them.
The undeniable truth is that for many centuries Jews usually constituted a wealthy and
privileged segment of the population in nearly all the European countries in which they
resided, and quite frequently they based their livelihood upon the heavy exploitation of a
downtrodden peasantry. Even without any differences in ethnicity, language, or religion, such
conditions almost invariably provoke hostility. The victory of Mao's Communist forces in China
was quickly followed by the brutal massacre of a million or more Han Chinese landlords by the
Han Chinese poor peasants who regarded them as cruel oppressors, with William Hinton's classic
Fanshen describing the unfortunate history that unfolded in one particular village.
When similar circumstances led to violent clashes in Eastern Europe between Slavs and Jews,
does it really make logical sense to employ a specialized term such as "anti-Semitism" to
describe that situation?
Furthermore, some of the material presented in Lindemann's rather innocuous text might also
lead to potentially threatening ideas. Consider, for example, the notorious Protocols of
the Learned Elders of Zion , almost certainly fictional, but hugely popular and
influential during the years following World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. The fall of so
many longstanding Gentile dynasties and their replacement by new regimes such as Soviet Russia
and Weimar Germany, which were heavily dominated by their tiny Jewish minorities, quite
naturally fed suspicions of a worldwide Jewish plot, as did the widely discussed role of Jewish
international bankers in producing those political outcomes.
Over the decades, there has been much speculation about the possible inspiration for the
Protocols , but although Lindemann makes absolutely no reference to that document, he
does provide a very intriguing possible candidate. Jewish-born British Prime Minister Benjamin
Disraeli certainly ranked as one of the most influential figures of the late 19th century, and
in his novel Coningsby , he has the character representing Lord Lionel Rothschild
boast about the existence of a vast and
secret network of powerful international Jews , who stand near the head of almost every
major nation, quietly controlling their governments from behind the scenes. If one of the
world's most politically well-connected Jews eagerly promoted such notions, was Henry Ford
really so unreasonable in doing the same?
Lindemann also notes Disraeli's focus on the extreme importance of race and racial origins,
a central aspect of traditional Jewish religious doctrine. He reasonably suggests that this
must surely have had a huge influence upon the rise of those political ideas, given that
Disraeli's public profile and stature were so much greater than the mere writers or activists
whom our history books usually place at center stage. In fact, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a
leading racial theorist, actually cited Disraeli as a key source for his ideas. Jewish
intellectuals such as Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso are already widely recognized as leading
figures in the rise of the racial science of that era, but Disraeli's under-appreciated role
may have actually been far greater. The deep Jewish roots of European racialist movements are
hardly something that many present-day Jews would want widely known.
One of the harsh Jewish critics of Esau's Tears denounced Cambridge University
Press for even allowing the book to appear in print, and although that major work is easily
available in English, there are numerous other cases where an important but discordant version
of historical reality has been successfully blocked from publication. For decades most
Americans would have ranked Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn as among the world's greatest
literary figures, and his Gulag Archipelago alone sold over 10 million copies. But his
last work was a massive two-volume account of the tragic 200 years of shared history between
Russians and Jews, and despite its 2002 release in Russian and numerous other world languages,
there has yet to be an authorized English translation, though various partial editions have
circulated on the Internet in samizdat form.
ORDER IT NOW
At one point, a full English version was briefly available for sale at Amazon.com and I
purchased it. Glancing through a few sections, the work seemed quite even-handed and innocuous
to me, but it seemed to provide a far more detailed and uncensored account than anything else
previously available, which obviously was the problem. The Bolshevik Revolution resulted in the
deaths of many tens of millions of people worldwide, and the overwhelming Jewish role in its
leadership would become more difficult to erase from historical memory if Solzhenitsyn's work
were easily available. Also, his candid discussion of the economic and political behavior of
Russian Jewry in pre-revolutionary times directly conflicted with the hagiography widely
promoted by Hollywood and the popular media. Historian Yuri Slezkine's award-winning 2004 book
The Jewish Century provided many similar facts, but his treatment was far more cursory
and his public stature not remotely the same.
Near the end of his life, Solzhenitsyn gave his political blessing to Russian President
Vladimir Putin, and Russia's leaders honored him upon his death, while his Gulag
volumes are now enshrined as mandatory reading in the standard high school curriculum of
today's overwhelmingly Christian Russia. But even as his star rose again in his own homeland,
it seems to have sharply fallen in our own country, and his trajectory may eventually relegate
him to nearly un-person status.
A couple of years after the release of Solzhenitsyn's controversial final book, an American
writer named Anne Applebaum published a thick history bearing the same title Gulag ,
and her work received enormously favorable media coverage and won her a Pulitzer Prize; I have
even heard claims that her book has been steadily replacing that earlier Gulag on many
college reading lists. But although Jews constituted a huge fraction of the top leadership of
the Soviet Gulag system during its early decades, as well as that of the dreaded NKVD which
supplied the inmates, nearly her entire focus on her own ethnic group during Soviet times is
that of victims rather than victimizers. And by a remarkable irony of fate, she shares a last
name with one of the top Bolshevik leaders, Hirsch Apfelbaum, who concealed his own ethnic
identity by calling himself Grigory Zinoviev.
ORDER IT NOW
The striking decline in Solzhenitsyn's literary status in the West came just a decade or two
after an even more
precipitous collapse in the reputation of David Irving , and for much the same reason.
Irving probably ranked as the most internationally successful British historian of the last one
hundred years and a renowned scholar of World War II, but his extensive reliance on primary
source documentary evidence posed an obvious threat to the official narrative promoted by
Hollywood and wartime propaganda. When he published his magisterial Hitler's War ,
this conflict between myth and reality came into the open, and an enormous wave of attacks and
vilification was unleashed, gradually leading to his purge from respectability and eventually
even his imprisonment.
These important examples may help to explain the puzzling contrast between the behavior of
Jews in the aggregate and Jews as individuals. Observers have noticed that even fairly small
Jewish minorities may often have a major impact upon the far larger societies that host them.
But on the other hand, in my experience at least, a large majority of individual Jews do not
seem all that different in their personalities or behavior than their non-Jewish counterparts.
So how does a community whose individual mean is not so unusual generate what seems to be such
a striking difference in collective behavior? I think the answer may involve the existence of
information choke-points, and the ability of relatively small numbers of particularly zealous
and agitated Jews in influencing and controlling these.
We live our lives constantly immersed in media narratives, and these allow us to decide the
rights and wrongs of a situation. The vast majority of people, Jew and Gentile alike, are far
more likely to take strong action if they are convinced that their cause is a just one. This is
obviously the basis for war-time propaganda.
Now suppose that a relatively small number of zealous Jewish partisans are known to always
attack and denounce journalists or authors who accurately describe Jewish misbehavior. Over
time, this ongoing campaign of intimidation may cause many important facts to be left on the
cutting-room floor, or even gradually expel from mainstream respectability those writers who
refuse to conform to such pressures. Meanwhile, similar small numbers of Jewish partisans
frequently exaggerate the misdeeds committed against Jews, sometimes piling their exaggerations
upon past exaggerations already produced by a previous round of such zealots.
Eventually, these two combined trends may take a complex and possibly very mixed historical
record and transform it into a simple morality-play, with innocent Jews tremendously injured by
vicious Jew-haters. And as this morality-play becomes established it deepens the subsequent
intensity of other Jewish-activists, who redouble their demands that the media "stop vilifying
Jews" and covering up the supposed evils inflicted upon them. An unfortunate circle of
distortion following exaggeration following distortion can eventually produce a widely accepted
historical account that bears little resemblance to the reality of what actually happened.
So as a result, the vast majority of quite ordinary Jews, who would normally behave in quite
ordinary ways, are misled by this largely fictional history, and rather understandably become
greatly outraged at all the horrible things that had been done to their suffering people, some
of which are true and some of which are not, while remaining completely ignorant of the other
side of the ledger.
Furthermore, this situation is exacerbated by the common tendency of Jews to "cluster"
together, perhaps respresenting just one or two percent of the total population, but often
constituting 20% or 40% or 60% of their immediate peer-group, especially in certain
professions. Under such conditions, the ideas or emotional agitation of some Jews probably
permeates others around them, often provoking additional waves of indignation.
As a rough analogy, a small quantity of uranium is relatively inert and harmless, and
entirely so if distributed within low-density ore. But if a significant quantity of
weapons-grade uranium is sufficiently compressed, then the neutrons released by fissioning
atoms will quickly cause additional atoms to undergo fission, with the ultimate result of that
critical chain-reaction being a nuclear explosion. In similar fashion, even a highly agitated
Jew may have no negative impact, but if the collection of such agitated Jews becomes too
numerous and clusters together too closely, they may work each other into a terrible frenzy,
perhaps with disastrous consequences both for themselves and for their larger society. This is
especially true if those agitated Jews begin to dominate certain key nodes of top-level
control, such as the central political or media organs of a society.
Whereas most living organizations exist solely in physical reality, human beings also occupy
an ideational space, with the interaction of human consciousness and perceived reality playing
a major role in shaping behavior. Just as the pheromones released by mammals or insects can
drastically affect the reactions of their family members or nest-mates, the ideas secreted by
individuals or the media-emitters of a society can have an enormous impact upon their
fellows.
A cohesive, organized group generally possesses huge advantages over a teeming mass of
atomized individuals, just as a Macedonian Phalanx could easily defeat a vastly larger body of
disorganized infantry. Many years ago, on some website somewhere I came across a very
insightful comment regarding the obvious connection between "anti-Semitism" and "racism," which
our mainstream media organs identify as two of the world's greatest evils. Under this analysis,
"anti-Semitism" represents the tendency to criticize or resist Jewish social cohesion, while
"racism" represents the attempt of white Gentiles to maintain a similar social cohesion of
their own. To the extent that the ideological emanations from our centralized media organs
serve to strengthen and protect Jewish cohesion while attacking and dissolving any similar
cohesion on the part of their Gentile counterparts, the former will obviously gain enormous
advantages in resource-competition against the latter.
Religion obviously constitutes an important unifying factor in human social groups and we
cannot ignore the role of Judaism in this regard. Traditional Jewish
religious doctrine seems to consider Jews as being in a state of permanent hostility with all
non-Jews , and the use of dishonest propaganda is an almost inevitable aspect of such
conflict. Furthermore, since Jews have invariably been a small political minority, maintaining
such controversial tenets required the employment of a massive framework of subterfuge and
dissimulation in order to conceal their nature from the larger society surrounding them. It has
often been said that truth is the first casualty in war, and surely the cultural influences of
over a thousand years of such intense religious hostility may continue to quietly influence the
thinking of many modern Jews, even those who have largely abandoned their religious
beliefs.
The notorious Jewish tendency to shamelessly lie or wildly exaggerate has sometimes had
horrifying human consequences. I very recently discovered a fascinating passage in Peter
Moreira's 2014 book The Jew Who Defeated Hitler: Henry Morgenthau Jr., FDR, and How We Won the War ,
focused on the important political role of that powerful Secretary of the Treasury.
A turning point in Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s relationship with the Jewish community came in
November 1942, when Rabbi Stephen Wise came to the corner office to tell the secretary what
was happening in Europe. Morgenthau knew of the millions of deaths and the lampshades made
from victims' skin, and he asked Wise not to go into excessive details. But Wise went on to
tell of the barbarity of the Nazis, how they were making soap out of Jewish flesh.
Morgenthau, turning paler, implored him, "Please, Stephen, don't give me the gory details."
Wise went on with his list of horrors and Morgenthau repeated his plea over and over again.
Henrietta Klotz was afraid her boss would keel over. Morgenthau later said the meeting
changed his life.
The fraction of RussiaGate/UkraineGate that can be taken seriously is quite small. An
enormous amount of it is "it's ok when we do it"-level material. Difficult to sort without
presenting a range encompassing all factions.
It's possible I'm too jaded, but "reporters presents material derived from his political
faction" isn't all that exciting, since I don't belong to either of the factions engaged in
this battle. I remember the Lewinsky Matter, WMDs, and (see today's Links), being smeared by
Prop0rNot, and UkraineGate just a little too well.
"... The anonymous author of the piece revealed that "many of the senior officials in [Trump's] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." The "adults in the room," he claimed, are leading a "two-track presidency." ..."
"... The author, "Anonymous," has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen. James Mattis. Posting a report of his alleged authorship on Twitter, Snodgrass cryptically mused, "the swirl continues. ..."
"... If the allegation is true, it would have ominous implications. It would mean that the New York Times gave the military an opportunity to denounce a president as "amoral," "impetuous," "petty" and "ineffective," and to all but advocate his removal via unconstitutional means. ..."
"... We do not know whether Snodgrass is the author of A Warning , but the themes of the National Defense Strategy document are consistent with the emphasis of the book. ..."
"... A Warning makes one thing abundantly clear: the "Resistance" to Trump's policies within the state, which is the basis of the Democrats' opposition to him, centers on claims that Trump is insufficiently aggressive in defending and expanding America's imperial interests against Russia and China. ..."
"... A Warning argues that "America's dominant role on the international stage is at risk today," but Trump is "not positioning us to strengthen our empire of liberty." It continues: "Instead, he's left the empire's flank vulnerable to power-hungry competitors" with his "isolationist, what's-in-it-for-me attitude toward the world." ..."
"... Politically, the author appears to be an anti-Trump Republican. He urges his "fellow Republicans" to vote for a centrist Democrat if one is nominated--as long as the candidate is not a "socialist." ..."
"... The struggle to remove Trump and to hold him to account for his real crimes will have nothing to do with people such as "Anonymous," or the Democratic impeachment campaign that is totally aligned with his pro-war agenda. ..."
On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published an op-ed by a "senior official" in
the White House, entitled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."
The anonymous author of the piece revealed that "many of the senior officials in [Trump's]
own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his
worst inclinations." The "adults in the room," he claimed, are leading a "two-track
presidency."
In that op-ed, he revealed that "there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking
the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president."
In other words, members of the executive branch had discussed a coup to remove a sitting
president, which they pulled back from only because "no one wanted" a "constitutional
crisis."
One year later, the same unnamed official, whose identity is known to the Times , has
published a book elaborating on themes elucidated in the editorial. A Warning is
currently #1 on the New York Times ' nonfiction bestseller list.
The author, "Anonymous," has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy
commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen.
James Mattis. Posting a report of his alleged authorship on Twitter, Snodgrass cryptically
mused, "the swirl continues."
If the allegation is true, it would have ominous implications. It would mean that the New
York Times gave the military an opportunity to denounce a president as "amoral,"
"impetuous," "petty" and "ineffective," and to all but advocate his removal via
unconstitutional means.
Notably, Snodgrass claims to be the author of perhaps the most important military document
produced under the Trump administration, the unclassified summary of the 2018 National Defense
Strategy, which declared that "Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the
primary concern in US national security."
We do not know whether Snodgrass is the author of A Warning , but the themes of the
National Defense Strategy document are consistent with the emphasis of the book.
AWarning makes one thing abundantly clear: the "Resistance" to Trump's
policies within the state, which is the basis of the Democrats' opposition to him, centers on
claims that Trump is insufficiently aggressive in defending and expanding America's imperial
interests against Russia and China.
Cmdr. Guy M. Snodgrass is shown in this Defense
Department photograph in Japan in 2016. MATTHEW C. DUNCKER/U.S. NAVY
A Warning argues that "America's dominant role on the international stage is at risk
today," but Trump is "not positioning us to strengthen our empire of liberty." It continues:
"Instead, he's left the empire's flank vulnerable to power-hungry competitors" with his
"isolationist, what's-in-it-for-me attitude toward the world."
The allegations continue:
The president lacks a cogent agenda for dealing with these rivals because he doesn't
recognize them as long-term threats. He only sees near-term deals. "Russia is a foe in
certain respects. China is a foe economically But that doesn't mean they are bad," the
president said in one interview
What he doesn't see, especially with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, is that their
governments are programmed to oppose us
The United States is taking its eye off the ball with China, and our national response has
been ad hoc and indecisive under President Trump. We have no serious plan to safeguard our
"empire of liberty" against China's rise. There is only the ever-changing negotiating
positions of a grifter in chief, which will not be enough to win what is fast becoming the
next Cold War. President Trump is myopically focused on trade with China, which is only part
of the picture
In a July 2018 interview, the president was asked to name America's biggest global
adversary. He didn't lead the list with China, which is stealing American innovation at a
scale never before seen in history, or Russia, which is working to tear our country
apart.
And on and on.
In response to such concerns, the writer makes clear that sections of this staff were
contemplating an extra-constitutional coup to replace Trump by declaring the American president
mad and therefore "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office," in the words of
the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, which outlines presidential succession in the case
of a presidential disability.
A back-of-the-envelope "whip count" was conducted of officials who were most concerned
about the deteriorating situation. Names of cabinet-level officials were placed on a mental
list. These were folks who, in the worst case scenario, would be amenable to huddling
discreetly in order to assess how bad the situation was getting I froze when I first heard
someone suggest that we might be getting into "Twenty-fifth territory."
Among the figures noted in the press as possibly amenable to such an endeavor were former
Defense Secretary Mattis, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former Chief of Staff Gen.
John Kelly and former National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster.
The writer describes what the removal of the president via the 25th Amendment would look
like:
Removal of the president by his own cabinet would be perceived as a coup. The end result
would be unrest in the United States the likes of which we haven't seen since maybe the Civil
War. Millions would not accept the outcome, perhaps including the president himself, and many
would take to the streets on both sides. Violence would be almost inevitable.
If Trump is "removed from office and he refuses to go He will not exit quietly -- or easily
It is why at many turns he suggests 'coups' are afoot and a 'civil war' is in the offing."
One does not know whether the author has really had a change of heart about overthrowing the
American government in a coup, or, if he is a military person, he fears a court martial for
treason. In any event, he concludes, "In a democracy we don't overthrow our leaders when
they're underperforming. That's for third-rate banana republics and police states."
How reassuring
After only three paragraphs weighing in on the merits of the impeachment proceeding, the
author concludes, "One option -- and one option only -- stands above the rest as the ultimate
way to hold Trump accountable" -- to unseat him in the 2020 election.
Politically, the author appears to be an anti-Trump Republican. He urges his "fellow
Republicans" to vote for a centrist Democrat if one is nominated--as long as the candidate is
not a "socialist."
Two "warnings" are to be drawn from this book:
First is the enormous crisis of democracy in the United States, which has degenerated to the
point where cabinet officials, most of whom are or were military officers, abetted by the
media, discuss a coup as a legitimate means to resolve policy differences. The president,
meanwhile, repeatedly threatens to say in office past the two-term constitutional limit, and
effectively asserts unlimited and dictatorial executive powers.
While the threat posed by Trump to democratic rights is immense, no one who opposes war and
attacks on democratic rights can have anything to do with the aims and intentions of the author
of this book. Behind his pilfered, cobbled-together quotations -- he calls Plato an American
historian -- and his ridiculous attempt at gravitas, he is a bloodthirsty advocate of
imperialist war.
The Democrats, who have upheld this man and people like him as the "adults in the room" and
the antipode to Trump, are infected with the same poison.
The struggle to remove Trump and to hold him to account for his real crimes will have
nothing to do with people such as "Anonymous," or the Democratic impeachment campaign that is
totally aligned with his pro-war agenda.
'A Warning: A manifesto of the pro-war "Resistance" in the American state ' Andre Damon,
4 December
2019 , wsws.org
On September 5, 2018 , the New York Times published an op-ed by a "senior official" in the
White House, entitled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."
The anonymous author of the piece revealed that "many of the senior officials in [Trump's]
own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and
his worst inclinations." The "adults in the room," he claimed, are leading a "two-track
presidency."
In that op-ed, he revealed that "there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking
the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president."
..........................................
One year later , the same unnamed official, whose identity is known to the Times, has
published a book elaborating on themes elucidated in the editorial. A Warning is
currently #1 on the New York Times ' nonfiction bestseller list.
The author, "Anonymous," has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy
commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen.
James Mattis. Posting a report of his alleged authorship on Twitter, Snodgrass cryptically
mused, "the swirl continues."
If the allegation is true, it would have ominous implications. It would mean that the New
York Times gave the military an opportunity to denounce a president as "amoral," "impetuous,"
"petty" and "ineffective," and to all but advocate his removal via unconstitutional
means.
Notably, Snodgrass claims to be the author of perhaps the most important military document
produced under the Trump administration, the unclassified summary of the 2018 National
Defense Strategy, which declared that "Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is
now the primary concern in US national security."
We do not know whether Snodgrass is the author of A Warning, but the themes of the
National Defense Strategy document are consistent with the emphasis of the book.
A Warning makes one thing abundantly clear: the "Resistance" to Trump's policies within the
state, which is the basis of the Democrats' opposition to him, centers on claims that Trump
is insufficiently aggressive in defending and expanding America's imperial interests against
Russia and China."
.......................................................
The Democrats, who have upheld this man and people like him as the "adults in the room" and
the antipode to Trump, are infected with the same poison.
The struggle to remove Trump and to hold him to account for his real crimes will have nothing
to do with people such as "Anonymous," or the Democratic impeachment campaign that is totally
aligned with his pro-war agenda."
and another 20 inches of text. you'll also remember that the NYT published a whispered rumor
last year that 'military insiders' were saying privately that DT really meant to leave NATO,
which was nonsense. that rumor led to the infamous 'defense of NATO act', which every senator
vote for, and almost all of the house (3 didn't vote, conveniently.)
The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a
laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014,
he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen
staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special
knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing
video games , which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by
journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society
Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for
Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.
In his foreign policy Trump looks like a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy
is a Deep State controlled republican. Why is the Deep State is attacking him is completely unclear. May be they just do not like unpredictable,
inpulsive politicians
Despite his surrender "Neocon crazies from the basement" still attack his exactly the same way as they attacked him for pretty
mundane meeting with Putin and other fake "misdeeds" like Ukrainegate
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans and former Sanders supporters, who voted
for him in 2016 to block Hillary election.
And in no way he is an economic nationalist. He is "national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on
treaties and prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties. And his "fight" with the Deep state
resemble so closely to complete and unconditional surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two. Most of
his appointees are rabid neocons. Just look at Pompeo, Bolton, Fiona Hill. That that extends far beyond those obvious crazies.
Washington Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his discussions with Russian President
Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private
conversation in Helsinki last summer.
"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn't care less."
"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which only the leaders and their translators
were present -- as "a great conversation" that included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."
"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the president of various countries. I
do it with all countries." -
Politico
In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed by Republicans. "The Washington Post
is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump said. When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York
Times report that the FBI had opened an inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you
ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?" "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think
it's the most insulting article I've ever had written."
Trump went on an
epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting
that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, &
as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations
with Russia again!"
The remote site in eastern Afghanistan where the U.S. military dropped its largest
non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat earlier this month bears signs of the weapon's
power, but little evidence of how much material and human damage it inflicted.
Reuters photos and video footage - some of the first images from journalists allowed to
get close to the site - reveal a scarred mountainside, burned trees and some ruined
mud-brick structures.
They did not offer any clues as to the number of casualties or their identities.
Since the GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb was dropped on a fortified tunnel
complex used by suspected Islamic State fighters in Nangarhar province, access to the
site has been controlled by U.S. forces who are battling the militant group alongside
Afghan troops.
The U.S. military has said that ongoing fighting had prevented media or
independent investigators from visiting the site, and Afghan soldiers said special forces
from both countries were still engaging the enemy in the area.
A Reuters witness viewed the site from several hundred yards (meters) away, because of
what troops he was accompanying said were continued threats in the area. (snip)
Within a few hundred feet of the apparent blast site, leaves remained intact on trees,
belying initial expectations that the explosion may have sent a destructive blast wave for
up to a mile.
The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a
laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014,
he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen
staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special
knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing
video games , which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by
journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society
Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for
Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.
"... "The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant, when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq." ..."
"... " 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating the word mission. 'I am sullied.' " ..."
In my opinion the most under-reported event of the Iraq war was the suicide of military Ethicist Colonel Ted Westhusing. It was
reported at the end of a Frank Rich column that appeared in the NY Times of 10-21-2007:
"The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence
was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant,
when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in
Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq."
"Colonel Westhusing's death was ruled a suicide, though some believe he was murdered by contractors fearing a whistle-blower,
according to T. Christian Miller, the Los Angeles Times reporter who documents the case in his book "Blood Money."
Either way, the angry four-page letter the officer left behind for General Petraeus and his other commander, Gen. Joseph Fil,
is as much an epitaph for America's engagement in Iraq as a suicide note."
" 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating
the word mission. 'I am sullied.' "
"The tiny pink candies at the bottom of the urinals are reserved for Field Grade and Above." --sign over the urinals in the "O"
Club at Tan Son Nhut Airbase, 1965.
Now that sentiment, is Officer-on-Officer. The same dynamic tension exists throughout all Branches and ranks.
My background includes a Combat Infantry Badge and a record of having made Spec Four , two times. If you don't know what that
means, stop reading here.
I feel that no one should be promoted E-5 or O-4, if they are to command men in battle, unless they have had that life experience
themselves. It becomes virgins instructing on sexual etiquette.
Within the ranks, there exists a disdain for officers, in general. Some officers overcome this by their actions, but the vast
majority cement that assessment the same way.
What makes the thing run is the few officers who are superior human beings, and the NCOs who are of that same tribe. And there
is a love there, from top to bottom and bottom to top, a brotherhood of warriors which the civilian population will forever try
to discern, parse and examine to their lasting frustration and ignorance.
It is the spirit of this nation [Liberty, e pluribus unum and In God We Trust ] that is the binding filament of it all. The
civilians responsible for the welfare of the armed services need to be more fully aware of that spirit and they need to bring
it into the air-conditioned offices they inhabit when they make decisions about men who know sacrifice.
"... The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. ..."
"... I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out. ..."
Stephen Kinzer
comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and
non-interventionism:
Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank
harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence
Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom
and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy
based on that live-and-let-live principle.
The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats,
sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and
this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint
at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute
represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy
for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when
they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts
in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been
waging war without end
, there couldn't be a better time for this.
TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:
The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors
-- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its
takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million
budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway.
Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent
decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim;
and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.
"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized
approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore
the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent
years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made
by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my
posts here . Their involvement is a
very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing
what they do, and I wish them luck.
Good luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies
and his clones.
Once in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere
else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information.
I generally do not see those guests ever again.
The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing
our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest.
It is all about us.
I also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet
another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth.
It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the
block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.
Exciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding
competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function.
Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will
outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.
Re: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."
So do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken
advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful
Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get
along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.
I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long
as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will
change.
Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander
General General Kenneth McKenzie:
Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants
of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.
BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon
audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.
Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than
threats, sanctions, and bombing"
"... No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian antipathy to Russia. ..."
Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the
point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest.
That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.
phenomenal cat @64
So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give
a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed
in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that
Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of
Russians do.
Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them.
Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to
restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic
states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)
"So
democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them?"
No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on
U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported
Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll
note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi
Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way
of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic
forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian
antipathy to Russia.
"I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections."
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the U.S. looked like with those dynamics in place.
"Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been
great."
If you say so. For now I'll leave any decisions or actions taken on these outcomes to Russian
citizens. I would, however, kindly tell Victoria Nuland and her ilk to fuck off with their senile
Cold War fantasies, morally bankrupt, third-rate Great Game machinations, and total spectrum dominance
sociopathy.
"Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot
down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do."
There's definitely some of 'em hanging about, but yeah it mostly seems to be a motley assortment
of oligarchs, gangsters, and grifters tied into international neoliberal capital and money flows.
No doubt Russian believe a lot things. I find Americans tend to believe a lot things as well.
"... Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect it, everybody else be damned. ..."
"... Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class". ..."
"... Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch". ..."
Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.
Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something that does relate to Krugmans
post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately
though the Democratic Party hasn't been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.
"I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."
Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially
people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect
it, everybody else be damned.
Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class".
Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".
Looks like Brown Noser Eliot Higgins and his Bellingcrap organisation may have finally met
their match in a real investigative journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who (some of us may
recall) has done sterling work in tracing movements of weapons from the Balkan countries to
Turkey and Azerbaijan with their ultimate destination being Syria to be used by ISIS jihadis,
and for which she was sacked by her newspaper employer in Bulgaria.
Does anyone imagine that the Brown Noser will have the courage and fortitude to respond to
legal action brought against him and Bellingcrap? Will his Atlantic Council employers support
him or has he passed his use-by date and become a liability?
"... Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Mail On Sunday blog, ..."
"... I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure. ..."
"... In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks ..."
"... But I've never seen one like this. It scared me. ..."
"... If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be started by a falsehood. ..."
I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot
identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure.
I had travelled a long distance by train to an address I had been given over an encrypted email.
I was nervous that the meeting might be some sort of trap.
Leaks from inside arms
verification organisations are very sensitive matters. Powerful people mind about them.
I wasn't sure whether to be afraid of being followed, or to be worried about who might be waiting behind
the anonymous door on a dark afternoon, far from home. I took all the amateurish precautions that I could
think of.
As it happened, it was not a trap. Now, on carefully selected neutral ground, I was to meet a person
who would confirm suspicions that had been growing in my mind over several years – that there is something
rotten in the way that chemical weapons inspections are being conducted and reported. And that the world
could be hurried into war on the basis of such inspections.
Inside the safe house, I was greeted by a serious, patient expert, a non-political scientist
whose priority had until now always been to do the hard, gritty work of verification
– travelling
to the scenes of alleged horrors, sifting and searching for hard evidence of what had really happened.
But this entirely honourable occupation had slowly turned sour.
The whiff of political interference had begun as a faint unpleasant smell in the air and grown
until it was an intolerable stench.
Formerly easy-going superiors had turned into tricky bureaucrats.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had become so important that it could
no longer be allowed to do its job properly.
Too many of the big powers that sponsor and finance it were breathing down its neck, wanting certain
results, whether the facts justified them or not.
My source calmly showed me various pieces of evidence that they were who they said they were,
and knew what they claimed to know, making it clear that they worked for the OPCW and knew its inner workings.
They then revealed a document to me.
This was the email of protest, sent to senior OPCW officials, saying that a report on the alleged Syrian
poison gas attack in Douma, in April 2018, had been savagely censored so as to alter its meaning.
In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks
:
leaks
over luxurious, expensive lunches with Cabinet Ministers, anonymous leaks that just turned up in envelopes,
leaks from union officials and employers, diplomats and academics.
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But I've never seen one like this. It scared me.
If it was true, then
something hugely dishonest and dangerous was going on, in a place where absolute integrity was vital.
If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be
started by a falsehood.
Last week I reported on the first episode in this story. Within days the OPCW had confirmed that the
email I leaked was authentic.
Nobody followed me home or threatened me. A few silly people on social media told blatant lies about
me, insinuating that I was somehow a Russian patsy or a defender of the disgusting Syrian regime that
I have been attacking in print for nearly 20 years. That was what I had expected.
But there is much more to come.
And, as it grows harder for everyone to ignore this
enormous, dangerous story,
I suspect I shall be looking over my shoulder rather more than usual.
"... Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her. Recently, Hillary Clinton smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset, and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested (with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their priorities ..."
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is a
compelling choice for president in 2020. She's principled, she's against America's disastrous
regimen of regime-change wars, and she's got the guts to criticize her own party for being too
closely aligned with rich and powerful interests. She's also a military veteran who enlisted in
the Army National Guard in Hawaii after the 9/11 attacks (she currently serves as a major and
deployed overseas to Iraq during that war).
What's not to like about a female veteran who oozes intelligence and independence, a woman
who represents diversity (she's a practicing Hindu and a Samoan-American), an early supporter
of Bernie Sanders who called out the DNC for its favoritism toward Hillary Clinton
Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned
her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by
establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her.
Recently, Hillary Clinton
smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset,
and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested
(with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Think about that. Hillary Clinton and much of the mainstream media are accusing a serving
major in the U.S. military of being an asset to a foreign power. It's an accusation bordering
on a charge of treason -- a charge that is libelous and recklessly irresponsible.
A reminder: Tulsi Gabbard enlisted in the military to serve her country in the aftermath of
9/11. What did Hillary Clinton do? Can you imagine Hillary going through basic training as a
private, or serving in the military in a war zone? (Hillary did falsely claim that she came
under
sniper fire in Bosnia , but that's a story for another day.)
Tulsi Gabbard is her own person. She's willing to buck the system and has shown compassion
and commitment on the campaign trail. She may be a long shot, but she deserves a long look for
the presidency, especially when you consider the (low) quality of the enemies she's made.
Reply
Whenever I post anything remotely positive about Tulsi Gabbard on Facebook, the same few
people come out to denounce her. My response is below, though I know you can't reason with
haters:
That Tulsi has been on Fox News is an argument in her favor, i.e. her crossover appeal and
her willingness to engage with the "other side." That Tulsi met with Assad is, in my view,
reasonable; true leaders are always willing to meet with "bad" people, even ruthless
dictators, in the cause of averting war. My main point is how she's being smeared as some
kind of traitor, or at least a useful idiot. She's neither. Also, I've read the piece on
Tulsi in Jacobin, and I've heard about alleged cults. Is this really the best the media can
do? Guilt by association?
Some of our readers may have concerns about Tulsi, e.g. alleged Islamophobia, alleged
cults, etc. The main point is this: Does she deserve to be smeared as a Putin puppet? What
does this say about our media? And why are they doing this? I can tell you why. Trillions of
dollars are spent on wars and weapons, and Tulsi is calling for an end to regime-change wars
and a return to diplomacy. She also, like Bernie, is willing to call out the DNC as being
against the interests of ordinary Americans -- and she's right about this. She has a lot in
her favor. I'm a Bernie fan myself, but I'll take Tulsi over all those phony "centrists" like
Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Harris, and Biden.
I can't speak to the RSS/BJP connection; I've read about it, but I admit to ignorance on the
matter. Of course, every candidate has multiple connections, positions, donors, etc. All
politicians carry baggage. So far, from what I've read, Tulsi is more principled and more
courageous than most of her peers.
I'm still a Bernie fan -- his long record of helping the poor and vulnerable speaks for
itself. Of course, he once went to Moscow oh no! Run away! 🙂
Tulsi has now done four courageous, unusual, and very positive things while merely a
candidate:
1) Tulsi effectively took down a leading contender and DNC favorite, by demonstrating that
Senator Harris had been a corrupt prosecutor.
2) Tulsi defended democracy as she sued Google for at least $50 million, for playing
favorites in search-routing of candidates.
3) Tulsi called out Hillary Clinton for the monster she is.
4) Tulsi supported a process toward 911 truth by supporting 911-victims' families' right to
see FBI documents that have been denied to them.
Tulsi is the anti-war candidate. Tulsi Gabbard should be Commander-in-Chief. Yang should
be VP and in charge of the economy. Read his book. UBI is the way to go. Tulsi needs someone
she can trust as VP.
I consider the vicious persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning -- both
languishing in prison for having committed no crime whatsoever -- along with the exile of
Edward Snowden, among the greatest travesties of justice ever committed by the U.S. and U.K.
(dishonorable mention goes to Sweden and the latest Ecuadorian government, as well). I had
hoped for this subject to come up in the "debates," giving Tulsi yet another opportunity to
shine relative to her competitors, most of whom would soil their undergarments in panic at
the thought of "crossing" the absurdly named "intelligence community" and its entirely
co-opted corporate media outlets.
If Tulsi Gabbard had done no other principled thing than this, I would have considered her
heads and shoulders above anyone else campaigning for a position in the U.S. government
today.
I ought to dedicate this one to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for her principled defense of
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden (and no-doubt Chelsea Manning, as well):
Star Chamber, Incorporated
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
Jailed as twin examples for the proles:
"Look what happens if you publish secrets:
More totalitarian controls."
In Chinese: "Kill the Chicken scare the Monkey."
Rat-out your colleagues. Do not Power tempt.
Or otherwise the judges and grand juries
Will hold you in what lawyers call "contempt."
A strange word-choice, indeed, by Power's minions
Who spend careers perfecting rank abuse.
For them I'd have to feel respect much greater
Before that is the word that I would use.
I've nothing good to say for prosecutors.
Some say I wish to "damn them with faint praise."
But I reply: "You praise with faint damnation.
So which of us has coined the the better phrase?"
Despicable, the treatment of these heroes.
The US and UK have sunk so low.
Still, Julian and Chelsea have together
More balls than these two governments can grow.
No matter, they have passed into the ages.
Already they have earned a fair renown.
Each day they live defiant, undefeated,
They rise as jailers try to put them down.
As JFK once said of his elite class:
"The ship of state leaks mainly from the top."
But if some lowly, powerless, poor person
Tries that, they'll feel the lash. No truth. Now stop!
To scare a monkey, kill another monkey.
If not, the monkeys learn impunity.
While eating KFC they ask, obtusely:
"What has a chicken got to do with me?"
And so the Corporation-State must silence
Reports of its incompetence and crime.
If citizens knew what it did they'd order
Its dissolution. Now. And just in time.
Historically, they called it the Star Chamber
A secret court designed to thwart the king.
But power then perverted it to serve him.
Grand juries in the US, same damn thing.
They now indict ham sandwiches routinely
With no protection for the innocents.
Presumed as guilty, evidence not needed.
Conviction guaranteed. No court repents.
A judge may do whatever he determines
He can. So levy fines. Coerce. Demand
On penalty of prison, testimony
Against oneself, alone upon the stand.
"Democracy" is just a euphemism
If citizens allow this to proceed.
Orwellian: first Hate then Fear of Goldstein.
Two Minutes, daily. Really, all you need.
This is a good commentary. military experience is a good thing especially when we are dealing
with the fact that over half of the national budget is devoted to the military.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a thoughtful article on playing it safe, running out the clock,
prevent defense, etc., on your opponent as it would apply to politics.
Jabbar writes: Almost every poll showed her with a respectable lead over Trump just days
before the election. So, the Clinton campaign tried to run out the clock by not campaigning
much in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota,
all of which turned much redder than in the previous presidential election.
The tactic of trying to pick a "safe" candidate who can beat Trump by appealing to their
ideas about Middle America sends the wrong message to all of America. No team devise a game
strategy based on fear: they emphasize their strengths and exploit their opponents'
weaknesses. The Democratic candidate shouldn't be the least objectionable, but the one who
boldly forges ahead with clear and detailed plans for Making America America Again.
Democrats can't pander to voters by denigrating Trump but then promising them Trump-lite
with a wink. Promote progressive policies and plans worthy of a party that wants to lead this
country without fear of being called "socialists" or "the radical left" or whatever else your
opposing team chants.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/oct/15/how-sports-tactics-can-help-the-democrats-beat-donald-trump-in-2020
===================================
Jabbar is correct. The Corporate Democrats among them Biden, Buttigieg and Bloomberg are
fighting desperately to preserve a perceived lead aided and abetted by the McMega-Media.
Chicago Alderman, Paddy Bauler (1890-1977) said in 1955 on the election of Daley the
Elder, "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet", or "Chicago ain't ready for a reform mayor".
Today, the pundits employed by Corporate America, along with various Democratic Party
stooges for Wall Street tell us America ain't ready for Reform.
Yes, ML, so goes American 'Exceptionalism', after WW2 Victory. Today, so goes a Great
American City in violence, all so shortsighted. I'm still confused with our never-ending wars
overseas, as our cities rot in crime & violence, my main concern. I didn't grow up
– or party! -later on in today's disaster areas of Baltimore or Philadelphia, etc.It
was GREAT!
But somethings going on I don't know about, when the WORST cities have black Congresspeople
(Maxime Waters?) living in 6.5$Mil mansions as their "districts" die.
I have NO PROBLEM with black people! Such a smear an insult. But it's worth investigating why
these characters who have ruined their cities are supporters of Dems, & Billary! Oh! They
spend & vote lavishly on more money for our wars, but nothing for their own cities!
Finally starting to figure it out: They're traitors to their own race, for their personal
benefit. They make Dems "look proud", vs "REP's!" Yes, they too re dreadful maybe that's why
I feel: TULCI GO! She's neither dreadful party!
ML: Good citation of KA-J -- - although I've seen the same-sort of criticism of the Dems
elsewhere, Kareem's sports analogy is very helpful in understanding the concept.
(I have to say that I got sick of the Dems milquetoast approach to politics. Maybe it was
an understandable response to a frustrating right-wing zeitgeist, but DAMN, did they have to
be SO passive against the Reps?? Even when they briefly held majorities in Congress under
Obama, the wouldn't introduce/push bills that weren't 'filibuster-proof'!?!? I for one might
still be voting Dem POTUS IF they had pushed those progressive bills., then let the Reps
filibuster for weeks or months, meantime the Dems & Obama could've gone in front of the
public daily and said something like "We're trying to help you by passing Bill X, but the
Reps are filibustering and stopping Congress from getting any work done!" Let the government
shut-down for a few weeks because of it and keep hammering away at the Reps for being the
BLOCKERS, etc. Call their bluff, and use it against them during elections. Instead they tried
to be overly accommodating & conciliatory BEFORE debate had even begun!)
Yes. Eddie. The Democratic Party not only gets its ass kicked for breakfast, lunch, and
dinner, but it seems to have developed something of a masochistic taste for the Republican
abuse. Hence two of my verse compositions essentially agreeing with your observations:
(1) From eight years ago. From "Hope" and "Change" to despair and the status quo. And with
a Nobel Peace Prize for Endless War, too.
Congenital Stockholm Syndrome
He started by giving up quickly,
Surrendering early his case.
He offered to kiss their asses.
Replying, they pissed in his face.
Their urine, he thought, tasted strangely;
Yet not at all bad to his taste.
He'd gotten so used to it, plainly.
Why let such a drink go to waste?
The people who voted in favor
Of him and his promise of "change"
Now see in his many betrayals
A poodle afflicted with mange.
Each time that the surly and crazy
Republicans out for his skin
Condemn him for living and breathing,
He graciously helps them to win.
He'll turn on his base in an instant
With threats and disdain and neglect
While bombing some Muslims so Cheney
Might thrill to the lives that he's wrecked.
A black man in love with apartheid
He offers his stalwart support
To Zionists and their extortion
With "More, please!" his only retort.
A masochist begging for beatings
Obama takes joy in abuse
Receiving just what he has asked for
Which makes him of no earthly use
The little brown men that he's murdered
In homes far away from our land
Bring profits obscene to his backers
Who give him the back of their hand.
Obama seeks praise from the vicious
Republicans, no matter what.
He suffers, apparently, nothing
So much as his need to kiss butt.
Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2011
(2) From twelve years ago and on the Congressional side of the Surrender Monkey
Syndrome:
Nancy the Negotiator
Nancy the Negotiator
Gives up first; surrenders later;
Takes her cards from off the table,
Then recites her loser fable:
"We don't have the votes we need,"
Nancy says, in tones that bleed:
"Mean Republicans will whine
If we do not toe their line."
Nancy bows to George and Dick
While her skinny ass they kick;
Writes them checks both blank and rubber,
Then proceeds to lamely blubber:
"We don't like what Dubya's doing.
Still, we quite enjoy the screwing.
Masochism's what we offer,
Helping crooks to loot the coffer"
"Sure, the squandered blood and treasure
Goes to those we will not measure.
Still, we promise you'll adore us
If you mark your ballot for us."
"Choices you don't have assail you,
Leaving only us who fail you.
Nonetheless, we've gotten fatter.
Why, then, should we think you matter?"
After six years in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club (the last eighteen months of that in the
now-defunct Republic of South Vietnam) it didn't take me long to realize that the Republicans
get paid a lavish salary to do what the fabulously wealthy demand, while the Democrats get a
comparatively meager allowance to do what the Republicans tell them to do, also on behalf of
the fabulously wealthy: namely, betray their own working-class anti-war base so that the
Republicans will not have anything even remotely "leftist" to worry about. In truth, the
Democratic party crawled up its own ass and died so many years ago that I think I've lost
count.
Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the
wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their
priorities
A con man of the first order. Fewer and fewer are seeing him as a decent man. Just another
neoliberal. When he was in his in first term and said to a bunch of reporters in a hamburger stand that
he was the same as a 1960's moderate Republican, I couldn't believe that people gave him a
pass.
It was so obvious. I never made the mistake of voting for him again. I'm glad it's finally
getting through to people what a phony, greedy person he is.
He and his neoliberal ilk are why this country is declining rapidly into economic and social
disaster and why South America and Europe are now on fire with right-wing coups and massive
demonstrations.
With the power structures combining to purposely decimate the world population, I see
nothing but historic calamity facing all of us. I just hope the 1% have to pay the piper as
well.
Take a mild-mannered Constitutional Law professor, wave a magic wand and utter "Abracadabra!"
and you get a full-blown apologist for US Imperialism! "We are the Indispensable Nation We
are the Indispensable Nation We are the Indispensable Nation " Stop the world, I want to get
off!
Who's for starting a pool to guess the month and week Barack Obama announces – with
reluctance – that for "the good of the Nation and Party" he would accept the
nomination, were it to be offered?
Barack vs Hillary, Round 2: Better than "The Thrilla in Manilla" or "The Rumble in the
Jungle."
Follow-up: Will the Democratic Party survive the campaign and convention?
Chile - it's not just the level of inequality and austerity in the country that triggered
the social uprising against the elite. On the OECD's 'better life' index, Chile scores very
badly even compared to other Latin American countries.
The OECD index allows you to compare well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the
OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of
life.
The Indian economy is heading into trouble - to all intent, in recession. The
second-largest country in the world by population grew only 4.5 percent year-on-year in the
third quarter of 2019, below 5 percent in the previous period and market expectations of
4.7 percent. That's the weakest pace since the first three months of 2013, mainly due to a
fall in factory output and exports and a slowdown in investment.
Investment, sluggish for nearly a decade, grew a mere 1 per cent year-on-year, down from
4 per cent in the previous quarter. Manufacturing output contracted 1 per cent.
Infrastructure investment has collapsed.
The government has announced several measures to boost growth including a reduction in
corporate taxes, concessions on vehicle purchases, bank recapitalisation. Meanwhile, the
central bank has already cut borrowing cost 5 times this year and is seen lowering rates
again next week.
This is a very interesting example of how Western (i.e. libera, capitalist) propaganda
works, and also a very illustrative example of how capitalism declined from the point of view
of a person who benefitted the most from it when it was at its apex:
The shock in the US was that the Russians were not only competitive, but had embarrassed US
science and engineering by being first. In 1958, President Eisenhower signed into law the
National Defense Education Act, and this enabled talented students to flow into science and
engineering. The shock waves were felt throughout the entire educational system, from top
to bottom. Mathematics was more important than football.
He's right in the abovementioned paragraph. If you interviewed people who were 12-14 years
old between 1958 and 1963, and asked about what would be the future of the USA in the year
2000, most of them would have more or less the same answer: that the future of America was
scientific, bright, of high technology; a nation where scientists and engineers would be more
more venerated than tv celebrities and football/baseball players. It would be the world of
the infamous "flying cars" and space exploration and colonization.
Nobody in 1963 would imagine that the USA of the 2000s would be the USA of finance,
of Wall Street ; of football players, of the anti-vaxxers, of the flat earthers and of
the Kardashians.
But they should've. The reason this degeneration happened is the fact that the USA is a
capitalist society. In capitalism, scientific progress is accidental. What matters in the
capitalist system is the valorization process, not the process of use value creation. Like
any other societal formations, capitalism has a revolutionary period, an apex period, a
decline period and a collapse period. In my opinion, world capitalism has just exited its
apex phase and is now entering its decline phase.
Here's the propaganda part of the article:
As demonstrated by the USSR, socialism does not prohibit scientific prowess. There is a
difference, of course. Socialism's success in the USSR came at the expense of millions of
lives, the slave labor of millions more, and a lower standard of living. Nevertheless, the
fact is that Yuri Gagarin was the first person to orbit the earth. In comparison to the US
today, Soviet universities were not plagued by whining children – nor are today's
Chinese universities. The Soviets thought it wiser that their young study calculus and
physics.
This paragraph encapsulates all the elements of Cold War propaganda about the USSR. When I
read it, it felt like a blast from the past.
First, the image of the USSR as essentially a slavery society is a Western chimera. They
come from Weber -- who once theorized the USSR as a "modern Ancient Egypt" -- and the
propaganda from Solzhenitsyn, who hugely exagerated the number of prisoners in the USSR.
In fact, even at the height of the GULAG era, the USSR's jailed population never went
beyond 1.5% of its overall population (as we know now from Soviet official archives). That's
well within the world's average. If only 1.5% of the population is able to sustain the other
98.5%, then even I want to know how the Soviets operated such an economic miracle.
Besides, the USSR obviously didn't kill "millions of people" in order to send someone to
space. That's obviously absurd by any metric, logic included. First of all because this would
never gather political consensus among the population, second because it is impossible to do
rocket science with slave labor.
The quick rise of the Third Reich gave birth to the myth in the West that slave labor can
operate miracles. Nothing is further from the truth. In Ancient times, both the Greeks and
the Romans already knew slave labor was only economically viable in very basic and simple
tasks, such as agriculture, mining and other domestic services. Athens achieved naval
supremacy over Greece by using wage labor for its rowing and sailor crews, so that they could
be professionals with high morale in the battlefield. The reason for this is that maneuvering
triremes was an extremely complex art, too complex and valuable for the Athenians to trust to
slaves. They also had, by the nature and complexity of the task, a naturally high degree of
freedom from their "bosses". Either way, the task was simply too complex for a slave to
phisically learn, since a slave was kept into his/her place through physical deprivation and
domination, and a sailor had to be always fit physically and mentally to wage wars at sea.
The Spartans didn't slave their coastal colonies, giving them a much larger degree of freedom
(perioikoi), probably in exchange for a supply of sailors, ships. The Romans also did the
same: when a slave became specialized enough in the family business (such as acting as a
middle man in the paterfamilias' businesses in some coastal city), he usually "gifted" him
with his freedom.
In sum: even the ancients knew that, for more complex tasks, free people were a must.
Slavery was only economically viable for very simple and denigrating tasks (specially,
agriculture and mining).
As for the "lower quality of living", that's highly debatable. Surely, on average, the
USSR certainly didn't enjoy the same life quality than the top of the capitalist chain of the
time. But inequality was much, much lower (almost negligible) except for the rural-urban
divide, and there was no deprivation.
On average, life quality in the USSR was much better than the vast majority of the
capitalist nations with the benefit inequality was negligible (so the average approached the
median). Sure, it was no post-1980s Norway or Finland -- but those are microscopic capitalist
nations, with negligible population.
Thanks vk. The Soviet achievements in space were the achievements of a free people who had
to make superhuman sacrifices in order to preserve their freedom. Here's Boris Chertok, a
remarkable Soviet space designer whose experiences stretched from the crowds of 1917 and
Lenin's funeral to the construction of the international Space Station:
"I am part of the generation that suffered irredeemable losses, to whose lot in 20th
century fell the most arduous of tests. From childhood, a sense of duty was inculcated in
this generation - a duty to the people, to the Motherland, to our parents, to future
generations, and even to all humanity.
...
Currently ... it is ideological collapse that threatens the objective recounting of
[Soviet] science and technology ... motivated by the fact that its origins date back to the
Stalin epoch or to the period of the 'Brezhnev Stagnation'"
"... The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. ..."
"... I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out. ..."
Stephen Kinzer
comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and
non-interventionism:
Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank
harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence
Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom
and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy
based on that live-and-let-live principle.
The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats,
sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and
this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint
at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute
represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy
for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when
they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts
in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been
waging war without end
, there couldn't be a better time for this.
TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:
The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors
-- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its
takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million
budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway.
Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent
decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim;
and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.
"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized
approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore
the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent
years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made
by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my
posts here . Their involvement is a
very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing
what they do, and I wish them luck.
Good luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies
and his clones.
Once in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere
else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information.
I generally do not see those guests ever again.
The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing
our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest.
It is all about us.
I also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet
another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth.
It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the
block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.
Exciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding
competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function.
Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will
outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.
Re: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."
So do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken
advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful
Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get
along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.
I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long
as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will
change.
Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander
General General Kenneth McKenzie:
Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants
of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.
BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon
audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.
Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than
threats, sanctions, and bombing"
" That anonymous author (a German intelligence analyst) documented the evilness of the overthrow of Evo Morales in Bolivia,
and the threat now clearly posed to the world by the US regime -- a spreading cancer of expansionist fascism, led from Washington.
But, even more than this, he indicated that unless the individuals who are responsible for the advancing fascism are executed,
there won't be any real hope for democracy anywhere in the world. Either this impunity will stop, or else the spread of the US
international dictatorship -- not only by CIA coups such as this, but by illegal international invasions such as of Iraq 2003,
Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, and Yemen 2015-, -- will continue and will engulf in misery ultimately the entire world . He makes
clear the complicity of US 'news'-media in the lies that 'justify' this coup (and 'justified' those invasions)." [My Emphasis]
IMO, that's a very broad interpretation of b's summation, but I cannot argue against the section I bolded--as some may have
noticed, my appellation for the USA has evolved to better reflect its nature: the Evil Outlaw US Empire. There are numerous reasons
that prompted me to do so, one I mentioned in my reply @14 to S--tact is no longer employed in diplomacy by the Evil Outlaw US
Empire, and that's a very bad sign, IMO. Zuesse continues on calling out the crimes of BigLie Media, echoing my accusation that
the writers and editors are all committing the crimes of Goebbels and ought to mimic his actions when his end was nigh.
Zueese ends his very authentic rant with the following prescription which was clearly needed prior to 911:
"Unfortunately, the only global solution would be a second American Revolution, but, this time, the news-media are far less
honest, and so almost no support exists amongst the US population for doing that. Consequently, the outlook for the future, worldwide,
is grim. If the warning (hidden by the media as it is), this time from Bolivia, is not heeded, how can this cancer ever be stopped
from engulfing the entire world?"
It's curious that an impending Civil War within the Evil Outlaw US Empire is posited but seldom a 2nd Revolution, although
the latter's been discussed at the bar by myself and others off and on over the past several years. I wrote the following in a
reply to psychohistorian on the previous open thread:
"I appears that the prerequisite to obtaining freedom and democracy is public ownership of the vast majority of financial levers.
Without public capture of that essential domain, only some form of penury is possible for the vast majority of commonfolk, leaving
only a select hierarchy free, democracy reserved only for their use. Pretty well sums up the current situation within the Evil
Outlaw US Empire I'd say."
The Civil Arm of the coup: one of the best-funded NGOs in Bolivia during 2017 and 2018 was the International Republican Institute
(IRI). http://bit.ly/37HYnit
The destabilization of Ukraine and Tunisia are the main achievements of this American organization.
"... Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts ..."
"... Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified. "Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it. ..."
"... the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'" "The dogs being who?" she asked. "Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied. ..."
"... American officials are the cheapest to recruit. "British officials, they demand millions to be recruited. American politicians, some of them accept $50,000." ..."
"We recruited both, Republicans and Democrats, but that's not good enough. We want to
rule the White House," the Qataris allegedly said. E
... ... ...
"Everything [Alan Bender] said in the deposition about me has happened," Imam Tawhidi told
The Post . "I believe in the deposition and await an investigation. All I want is to be
treated fairly," he added. However, Omar was not the only prominent American named in the
Bender testimony.
"They [the Qataris] said: 'We recruited both, Republicans and Democrats, but
that's not good enough. We want to rule the White House.' So they will," he told the court.
Indeed, if Bender's testimony is accurate, they are already close. Explaining that Qatar uses
western companies to effectively launder the money they paid to American citizens, Bender cited
a $1.4 billion payment which he claims was passed to Jared Kushner from Qatar, via a Canadian
company named Brookfield, which he says they have invested heavily in.
Despite knowing that it
was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to
write off his debts. "Why didn't they pay Kusher directly?" the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Ms.
Castenda, asked. "Too risky," Bender replied. "Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar
for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified. "Correct. That's what they told me. ...
And they did it.
And Kushner is happy with them because, according to them, I don't know
Kushner personally, but the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I
tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'" "The dogs being who?" she asked. "Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied.
The Qataris were aware that as an investment the pay-off was a write-off,
but told Bender, "'We just paid it to pay off his debt. And as long as he's in the White House,
we have to do what he wants until we control the White House.' We as in Qatar," Bender
clarified. The Jerusalem Post has reached out to Mr Kushner's office for a response.
However, no comment has been received as of yet.
Among other claims made by Mr. Bender were
that: - The real power in Qatar is Mohammed Al-Masnad, known as 'the CEO.' "After a couple of
hours, I was convinced that the Emir of Qatar does not run the show and Mohammed Al-Masnad is
in charge of everything. He is also the Emir's uncle. [...] And the Emir's mother is the real
king of Qatar." - The second most powerful man in Qatar is a Palestinian, Azmi Bishara. - That
Jamal Khashoggi was set up by Qatar to be killed by the Saudis after he was found to have been
"playing both sides." "Jamal Khashoggi and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal were very close friends,"
Bender said. "[Khashoggi] would receive sensitive secrets ... and he leaks them to the Qataris.
The Qataris would leak them to media outlets ... and he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
I got that confirmation from the Qatari officials." - that "they [Qatar] finance almost 99
percent of Saudi dissidents in the US and the UK. They pay them."
Bender named Ghanem
al-Dosari, a well known YouTuber, as one such individual. - Three Italians, known as 'the
engineers' were paid by Qatar to hack the accounts of Saudi Arabian and the United Arab
Emirates's citizens. "E-mails, text messages, regular phone calls, laptops. Anything you can
think of. They hacked into all that."
American officials are the cheapest to recruit.
"British officials, they demand millions to be recruited. American politicians, some of them
accept $50,000." - The Qataris refer to Trump as "the orange man," and to Kushner as the
"descendant of pigs and apes," because he is Jewish.
"And they refer to other American Senators
and Congressmen who are Christians as 'Crusaders'."
US Empire's Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell gets irked that more nations are joining the INSTEX mechanism for commerce with Iran as
shown by his Tweet:
"cc: @TreasurySpox @USTreasury sounds to me like all these people and groups should be added
to the US Sanctions list. We should ensure that they don't get to work in the US market.
Iran or the US -- they decide. But not both ." [My Emphasis]
The nations saying we're not with you are Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway,
and Sweden--what might be termed the more enlightened Europeans.
And here we have Germany's CDU acting in a manner reflecting the Bush Doctrine as it debated
Germany's 5G
rollout :
"The moderates, represented by Merkel, believe that Germany should not rule out any company
over political issues, but focus more on objective factors such as whether its technological
security and standards meet German requirements. However, some hard-liners make it an
ideological issue and believe Huawei should be excluded. The reason they provided is ' no
Chinese company is an independent company,' adding that Huawei's involvement is principally "an
imminent question of national security .
"After decades of following the US, Germany has somewhat lost the ability to independently
decide its development and destiny. But in recent years, the US has been pursuing
unilateralism. The export-oriented German economy is affected by not only China-US trade
conflicts, but also US threat of imposing tariffs on German products. Thus, it is time for
Berlin to stop its fear of threats from Washington and make choices that are in line with its
own interests." [My Emphasis]
Every Evil Outlaw US Empire chartered corporation in the tech realm is not an "independent
company" since they work hand in glove with CIA, NSA, FBI, other government organizations, and
are also funded by the government. The same is likely true of every Western tech company. A
double standard excuse in service of continuing the Bush Doctrine.
To paraphrase Grenell, Now is most certainly the time to declare your independence and
reclaim your sovereignty and cease acting in the service of another nation.
The Ukies imagine they are so clever! They will waive a claim they have pretty much no chance
of ever being awarded, in return for a lesser amount of guaranteed cold, hard cash plus a
transit deal which will commit Russia to giving them at least another $20 Billion in transit
fees over 10 years. Russia should pretend to consider it, just to wind them up, and run out
the clock on the signing of a new contract. Then say, "I've decided not to after all, old
chap".
Stephen Cohen (one of the few pundits who actually knows something about Russia:)
"Almost daily for three years, Democrats and their media have told us very bad things
about Donald Trump's life, character, and presidency. Some of them are true. But in the
process, we have also learned some lamentable, even alarming, things about the Democratic
Party establishment, including self-professed liberals. Consider the following:
The Democratic establishment is deeply and widely imbued with rancid Russophobic
attitudes. Most telling was (and remains) a core "Russiagate" allegation that "Russia
attacked American democracy during the 2016 presidential election" on Trump's behalf -- an
"attack" so nefarious it has often been equated with Pearl Harbor. But there was no "attack"
in 2016, only, as I have previously explained, ritualistic "meddling" of the kind that both
Russia and America have undertaken in the other's elections for decades. Little can be more
phobic than the allegation or belief that one has been "attacked by a hostile" entity. And
yet this myth and its false narrative persist in the Democratic Party's discourse,
campaigning, and fund-raising.
We have also learned that the heads of America's intelligence agencies under President
Obama, especially John Brennan of the CIA and James Clapper, director of National
Intelligence, felt themselves entitled to try to undermine an American presidential candidacy
and subsequent presidency, that of Donald Trump. Early on, I termed this operation
"Intelgate," and it has since been well documented by other writers, including Lee Smith in
his new book. Intel officials did so in tacit alliance with certain leading, and equally
Russophobic, members of the Democratic Party, which had once opposed such transgressions.
This may be the most alarming revelation of the Trump years: Trump will leave power, but
these self-aggrandizing intelligence agencies will remain.
We also learned that, contrary to Democratic dogma, the mainstream "free press" cannot be
fully trusted to readily expose such abuses of power. Indeed, what the mainstream media --
leading national newspapers and two cable news networks, in particular -- chose to cover and
report, and chose not to cover and report, made the abuses and consequences of Russiagate
allegations possible. Even now, exceedingly influential publications such as The New York
Times seem eager to delegitimize the investigation by Attorney General William Barr and his
appointed special investigator John Durham into the origins of Russiagate. Barr's critics
accuse him of fabricating a "conspiracy theory" on behalf of Trump. But the real, or
grandest, conspiracy theory was the Russiagate allegation of "collusion" between Trump and
the Kremlin, an accusation that was -- or should have been -- discredited by the Robert
Mueller report.
And we have learned, or should have learned, that for all the talk by Democrats about
Trump as a danger to US national security, it is their Russiagate allegations that truly
endanger it. Consider two examples. Russia's new "hyper-sonic" missiles, which can elude US
missile-defense systems, make new nuclear arms negotiations with Moscow imperative and
urgent. If only for the sake of his legacy, Trump is likely to want to do so. But even if he
is able to, will Trump be entrusted enough to conduct negotiations as successfully as did his
predecessors in the White House, given the "Putin puppet" and "Kremlin stooge" accusations
still being directed at him?"
The Russia thingie/falsehoods are part of corrupt demrats assault on the US constitution.
They are even now predicting their loss in 2020 due to "interference" and people wanting to
know how corrupt the DNC [front running] select has been!
Demrat allies in the shadow revolving door government of neocon humbug factories are
denouncing Trump for his ignoring their war mongering imperial objects.
[Adding assault to injury? The US Constitution was damning enough on its own. What are
they thinking inside the deep state apparatus? Don't they know that power and privilege is
reserved for holders of wealth by the US Constitution? Who do they think that they are really
working for?]
Friend ilsm may be less nuts than it appears, but friend ilsm is not less incomprehensible
than it appears. Would it be out of place to thank you for ilsm's sake?
Our two-party system was largely useless after FDR, but our two-party system has been
largely destructive since 1968. Let me know if anything really changes.
not that I would be ordinarily predisposed to defend her. The problem with delusions is that
they can easily become self-perpetuating, even easier with the right hand on the tiller.
I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
This is not a story I was told
When all the people are made out of wood
They build their houses of bones
Sail away, Oh sail away
The edge of the world is near
Sail away, Oh sail away from here
I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
All the cigarettes are hand rolled
Nothing is bought and nobody is sold
And everything's made of gold
I have just come back from the land beyond the mountain
There a man with wounds I did see
Said: I do not want to escape from reality
I want reality to escape from me
"... However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her." According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren. ..."
In November, Barack Obama, who had avoided commenting on the Democratic presidential
primary, came out forcefully in opposition to the extreme positions taken by some leading
progressive contenders, positions that could cause the Democrats to be beaten by Trump in the
2020 election. Obama was a very popular president among Democrats, and what he has to say
carries considerable weight with them. While this may not be his intent, Obama's position could
open the field for Hillary Clinton to enter the fray and quite possibly become the Democrats'
nominee, given the lackluster performance of leading "moderate" Joe Biden, whose weaknesses
have been brought out by the mainstream media, despite their animosity toward Trump.
Now many in the Democratic Party leadership, as well as wealthy Democratic donors, have been
concerned for some time about the radical nature of some of the economic policies advocated by
the leading progressive Democratic contenders. They fear that instead of the 2020 election
revolving around Trump with his low approval ratings, and very likely his impeachment, which
would seem to be a slam-dunk victory for Democrats, it would focus on those radical economic
proposals. Many voters are skeptical about how free college for all, free health care for all,
high-paying jobs in "green energy" -- after greatly reducing the use of fossil fuels, free
childcare for all, just to name some of the "free" things that have been promised, would really
work. Instead of raising taxes on the middle class, most of these free things would purportedly
be paid for by the super-wealthy, which would exclude mere millionaires such as Bernie Sanders
(estimated wealth $2 million) and Elizabeth Warren (estimated wealth $12 million) who are the
leading progressive contenders.
Obama began stressing his concern about the danger of radicalism in an October speech at the
Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago. And he did this not by dealing with presidential candidates
but with youth who think they can immediately change society. "This
idea of purity and you're never compromised, and you're always politically woke and all
that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama lectured. "The world is messy. There are
ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws."
It was at a gathering of Democratic donors in Washington, D.C., in November that Obama
cautioned Democratic candidates not to go too far to the left since that would antagonize many
voters who would otherwise support the Democratic candidate. "Even as we push the envelope and
we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in
reality ," Obama asserted. "The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear
down the system and remake it." Although Obama did not specify particular Democratic
candidates, his warning was widely interpreted as being directed at Elizabeth Warren and Bernie
Sanders.
Currently, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, according to national polls,
is Joe Biden, who is considered a moderate. But Biden has a number of problems. He continues to
make gaffes while speaking, and during his long career in the Senate took positions that are
antithetical to the Democratic Party of today. Moreover, he lacks the charisma to attract large
crowds to his events. Thus, it is questionable that he has the capability to attract large
numbers of Democratic voters to the polls in November 2020.
According to Politico Magazine , Obama was recently discussing election tactics with
an unnamed current candidate and "pointed out that during his own 2008 campaign, he had an
intimate bond with the electorate" and he is quoted as adding, "And you know who really
doesn't have it ? Joe Biden."
Biden's appeal already seems to be waning. For example, in November, a Marquette Law School
poll, which is considered the gold-standard survey in swing state Wisconsin, which the
Democrats need to win the 2020 election, shows
Trump leading Biden 47 percent to 44 percent. In October, Trump had trailed Biden by 6
points (44 percent to 50 percent), and in August, Trump trailed Biden by 9 points (42 percent
to 51 percent). In short, Biden is losing support. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by a slender
margin of 0.77 percent, with 47.22 percent of the total votes over the 46.45 percent for
Hillary Clinton.
Another problem Biden faces is the corrupt activities of his son Hunter and brother James,
who have taken advantage of their connection with him. The mainstream media has so far largely
kept this mostly under wraps, but this tactic won't be successful as the election approaches.
In fact, the progressive Democrats such as Bernie Sanders are likely to bring this up in a
desperate effort to be nominated. And already these issues are being mentioned by the
alternative media. For instance, there is an article in the non-partisan, anti-government
Intercept
titled, "Joe Biden's Family Has Been Cashing in on His Career for Decades. Democrats Need to
Acknowledge That," and comparable articles in the conservative Washington Examiner such
as, "Hunter Biden-linked company r
eceived $130M in special federal loans while Joe Biden was vice president," and "Hunter
Biden has
99 problems , and Burisma is only one."
David Axelrod, Democratic strategist and longtime aide to Barack Obama, said concerns about
Biden's electability clearly influenced multi-billionaire (estimated $53 billion) and
former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's entrance into the contest for the Democratic
nominee for president. "There's no question that Bloomberg's calculus was that Biden was
occupying a space, and the fact that he's getting in is a clear indication that he's not
convinced Biden has the wherewithal to carry that torch," Axelrod said. "So yeah, I don't think
this is a positive development for Joe Biden."
Similarly, Democratic strategist Brad Bannon contended that "centrist Democrats and wealthy
donors have
lost confidence in Biden's ability to stop Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders from winning
the nomination." Bannon added that with Bloomberg entering the Democratic presidential race,
"Biden's fundraising will get even shakier than it already is. There's only room for one
moderate in this race and Bloomberg threatens Biden's status as the centrist
standard-bearer."
Bloomberg's "stop and frisk"
policy as mayor , which largely targeted blacks and Hispanics, should make it virtually
impossible that he could be the Democratic nominee, despite his recent apology. Unless he has
become senile in his late 70s, Bloomberg should well understand this since he did not make his
billions by being stupid. It could be that he intends to serve as a stalking horse to draw
Hillary Clinton into the contest by showing the weakness of Biden. Then like Superwoman,
Hillary can enter the fray, appearing not to act for her own sake but to save the country from
a likely second term for President Trump.
Similarly, Mark Penn, who was chief strategist for Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 presidential
campaign, said Bloomberg's entrance
could cause Clinton to consider to run and decide there's "still a political logic there for
her."
As Biden's support slips away, Clinton's should rise. Clinton has been recently promoting a
book she co-wrote with her daughter, Chelsea, in Britain. In an interview with BBC Radio 5
Live , Clinton said "many, many, many people" are
pressuring her to jump into the 2020 presidential race and that she thinks about this "all
the time." Clinton told the host that she is under "enormous pressure" but said it is not in
her plans, though she cryptically added that she would "never say never."
Dick Morris, who was once a close confidant of the Clintons during Bill Clinton's time as
Arkansas governor and U.S. president recently said in a radio interview that Hillary Clinton
likely wants to run for the presidency in 2020. "My feeling is that
she wants to ," Morris said. "She feels entitled to do it. She feels compelled to do it.
She feels that God put her on the Earth to do it. But she's hesitant because she realizes the
timing is bad."
However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out
because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her."
According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the
leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren.
Morris has not been in touch with the Clintons for many years, and has become strongly
critical of them, so his claim might be questionable. Nonetheless, his portrayal of Hillary's
current thinking seems quite reasonable.
A Fox News poll included Clinton along with the active Democratic candidates in a
hypothetical election with Trump, and Hillary came out ahead of him by two percentage
points. While some actual candidates did somewhat better than Hillary, she did quite well for
someone who is not currently running for office.
Furthermore, a Harris Harvard poll in late October asked the question, "Suppose Hillary
Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, and John Kerry decides [sic] to enter the race, who would you
support as a candidate for President?" Joe Biden received the support of 19 percent of Democrat
respondents while Clinton was a
close second with 18 percent. Elizabeth Warren came in third at 13 percent, John Kerry was
at 8 percent, and Bloomberg was at 6. Again, Clinton does quite well for someone who is not
actually running for president.
One might think that if references to family members' corruption damaged Biden, then Clinton
would be subject to worse damage in that area, since she and her husband Bill were connected
with far more corrupt activities -- Whitewater, Travelgate, the Lewinsky affair, the Paula
Jones affair, t the death of Vince Foster, the Clinton Foundation, her private server, and so
on. But these issues are already known and are presumably already taken into account by the
voters, whereas the Biden family's corrupt activities are so far largely unknown.
It should be pointed out that Clinton has a number of positives as a presidential candidate.
Although losing in the Electoral College in 2016, Clinton had garnered 3 million more votes
more than Trump. The election was decided by a total of 80,000 votes in three states. It is
highly unlikely that such a fluke could be duplicated.
Clinton's staff had been overconfident assuming victory, which was based on their polling of
various states, and as a result began to focus on competing in states well beyond those Clinton
needed for victory.
Moreover, one key event outside the control of Clinton's staff was FBI Director James
Comey's investigation of Clinton's use of a personal email server during her tenure as
secretary of state. Most crucial were his July 2016 public statement terminating the
investigation, with a lengthy comment about what Clinton did wrong, and his October 28
reopening the inquiry into newly discovered emails and then closing it two days before the
election, stating that the emails had not provided any new information. The October 28 letter,
however, probably played a key role in the outcome of the election. As statistician Nate Silver
maintains: "Hillary Clinton would probably be president
if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which
said the FBI had 'learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the
investigation into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended
the news cycle and soon halved Clinton's lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the
Electoral College.'"
[Silver's organization FiveThirtyEight had projected a much higher chance (29
percent) of Donald Trump winning the presidency than most other pollsters]
Clinton has also helped to convince many Democrats and members of the mainstream media that
the 2016 election was stolen from her by Russian agents If this were really true – which
is very doubtful – then Hillary should be the Democrats' candidate for 2020 since Russian
intervention should not be as successful as it allegedly was in 2016.
In endorsing Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, Obama stated. "I don't think that
there's ever been someone
so qualified to hold this office." He has yet to make such an endorsement for Biden and
privately, as mentioned earlier, said he is a poor choice for a nominee. He might ultimately
endorse Biden, but he certainly would not renege on what he said four years ago about Clinton
if she became the Democrats' standard-bearer.
Should Clinton opt to run, she would have no trouble raising money since she set a record in
2016 of $1.4 billion
and wealthy donors want a moderate to be the Democratic nominee. It would seem likely that she
would enter the contest if Biden has serious trouble. She would miss some state primaries since
it would be too late to register in them but given the crowded field of candidates, there is a
likelihood that there will be a brokered convention, that is, the convention will go past the
first ballot. Since the superdelegates would be allowed to vote in all rounds after the first,
they could determine the winner, which would probably mean the selection of a candidate who
would be seen to have the greatest chance of winning, and that would likely be Hillary Clinton,
if she has entered the fray.
I discussed the merits of Pete Buttigieg in a previous article in
Unz Review, and what I write here might seem to conflict with that. However, while Buttigieg is
doing quite well
in the polls, he still does not get much support
from blacks and Latinos, which is essential to become the Democrats nominee for president.
Buttigieg could, however, be nominated for vice president or, more likely, given an important
cabinet position since the vice-presidential slot would probably be reserved for a black or
Latino if a white person were picked as the presidential nominee, which currently seems
likely.
But because of Buttigieg's relatively hardline foreign policy
, which largely meshes with that of Clinton's, and his wide knowledge and language ability,
Buttigieg would fit well in the all-important position of secretary of state in a Clinton
administration. Moreover, Buttigieg, whose tenure as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will end in
January 2020, would almost certainly be willing to take such a position, which could serve as a
jumping-off point for the presidency in the future.
"... Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies. ..."
"... No informed American can afford to not know the names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. > ..."
"... Hersh hoped that future historians would document the fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved the takeover. ..."
"... The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket. ..."
"... In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent. ..."
"... That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book. Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters. ..."
"... Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state. However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and often place American interests second to that of the lobby. ..."
Although it is generally understood that American neoconservatives pushed hard for the war
in Iraq, this book forcefully argues that the neocons' goal was not the spread of democracy,
but the protection of Israel's interests in the Middle East. Showing that the neocon movement
has always identified closely with the interests of Israel's Likudnik right wing, the
discussion contends that neocon advice on Iraq was the exact opposite of conventional United
States foreign policy, which has always sought to maintain stability in the region to promote
the flow of oil. Various players in the rush to war are assessed according to their motives,
including President Bush, Ariel Sharon, members of the foreign-policy establishment, and the
American people, who are seen not as having been dragged into war against their will, but as
ready after 9/11 for retaliation
Every American should read this superb book about the intimate connection between the
state of Israel and the Americans who planned and promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003
(and who still influence U.S. policy in the Middle East). This very well-researched and
well-argued book will enlighten Americans who want to understand how the Jewish State of
Israel powerfully shapes U.S. Middle East policy.
Stephen Sniegowski provides a detailed look at the network of die-hard pro-Israel
Neoconservatives who have worked in the U.S. government, in think tanks, and in the news
media to shape American foreign policy to serve the needs of Israel at the expense of the
U.S. From media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose 175 newspapers around the world ALL editorialized
in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, to
Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and later Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, to
Vice President Dick Cheney, to the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle, the
neoconservatives successfully persuaded President George W. Bush to invade Iraq to promote
Israel's foreign policy interests.
Sniegowski describes how the Neocons promoted lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed Weapons
of Mass Destruction and his supposed ties to al-Qaeda terrorists from a network of think
tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Middle East Media Research Institute,
Hudson Institute, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Center for Security Policy, and the
Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
He also traces the influence of Israeli Zionist Oded Yinon on the American
Neoconservatives. Yinon wrote an article in 1982 entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the
1980s" that called for Israel to bring about the dissolution of many of the Arab states and
their fragmentation into a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian groupings. This is basically what
is happening to Iraq and Syria today. He also called for Israelis to accelerate the
emigration of Palestinians from Israel, whose border he believed should extend to the Jordan
River and beyond it.
Yinon's article influenced a paper written for the Israeli Likud government of Benjamin
Netanyahu in 1996 by American neoconservatives Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David
Wurmser entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". This paper stated
that Netanyahu should "make a clean break" with the Oslo peace process and reassert Israel's
claim to the West Bank and Gaza. Like Yinon's article, it also called for the removal of
Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the weakening of Syria to promote Israel's interests. It was
written five years BEFORE the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These same three
men - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser - who advised Netanyahu's Israeli
government on issues of national security would later advise President George W. Bush to
pursue virtually the same policies regarding the Middle East.
If you want to understand how and why powerful pro-Israel neoconservatives in the U.S.
misled Americans and convinced President George W. Bush to order the U.S. invasion of Iraq in
2003, and how they persuaded the U.S. Congress to give Bush the authority to order the
invasion, read this outstanding book.
Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper
entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think
tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to
foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies.
The policy was adopted by the Israeli pro-settler right wing and Jewish activists in and
around the Clinton and Bush administrations such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David
Wurmser (who all helped produce the original document). They identified as targets Iraq,
Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia and were handed a golden opportunity after the 9/11 attack on
the World Trade Centre. Iraq was falsely presented as an Al Qaeda base and the media planted
with stories about an imminent attack on the United States using WMD. Despite the CIA knowing
all along that the WMD didn't exist, the US still invaded Iraq and the story was quietly and
unbelievably changed to "building democracy".
As Sniegoski points out, the war has exceeded the cost of Vietnam and the same activists,
now working through Hillary Clinton are looking for "incidents" in Iraq to trigger the next
phase of the plan which is a US attack on Iran.
UPDATE October 2014:
And it gets worse: The 911 story itself keeps morphing. Google "Building 7", YouTube "911
Missing Links" or check the article at http://911speakout.org/7TOCPJ.pdf. >
Important book for those trying understand the chaos that
is currently reigning in the Middle East. From the lies based NEOCON attack on Iraq trumpeted
by the mainstream USA media as a fight to save Western Civilization, to the rise of ISIL.
This books will make those connections clear. No informed American can afford to not know the
names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. >
On January 27, 2005, [...] posted the remarks of Seymour Hersh (The New Yorker
contributor) at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York that a neoconservative cult had
taken over the American government.
Hersh hoped that future historians would document the
fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to
overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The
Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved
the takeover.
Other books have stressed how the neoconservative ideology is contrary to traditional
American values: Reclaiming the American Right (Justin Raimondo), America the Virtuous (Claes
Ryn), Where the Right Went Wrong (Patrick Buchanan).
"Memoirs of a Trotskyist" in Neo-conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (Irving Kristol)
provided a neoconservative account of the origins of neo-conservatism. Sniegoski noted
correctly that the term neoconservative originated with leftists critical of their former
comrades for attempting to infiltrate the Democratic and Republican parties. Thanks to
leftists who call neoconservatives the ultra-right and to conservative dupes who think that
anyone using a conservative label is a conservative, the neoconservative cancer has spread
through the fragile American political body.
The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group
attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a
detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to
overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket.
Unlike earlier secret plots to take over the American government, Sniegoski explained how it
was possible for the neoconservatives to operate as a relatively transparent cabal. However,
he observed that the neoconservatives used a Trojan horse technique to take over the American
conservative movement. The goal of the neoconservatives is to promote endless wars regardless
of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power.
The neoconservatives do not represent a popular mass movement in America. Instead, the
neoconservatives rely upon the co-operation of other groups. Sniegoski provided extensive
documentation of which groups enabled the neoconservatives. For example, the Christian
Zionists duped their followers into sacrificing money and soldiers. Zionism originated with
the writings of Moses Hess (who helped Karl Marx write The Communist Manifesto, was nicknamed
the Communist Rabbi, and who is buried in Israel). In 1862, Moses Hess published Rome and
Jerusalem. Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (Shlomo Avineri) provided a detailed
explanation of the relationship between Communism and Zionism.
The reason for the fragility of American democracy is the failure of many Americans to
understand the most basic aspects of the American political system and of their
religions.
The Transparent Cabal is an important starting point for understanding how a neoconservative
cult opposed to traditional American political and religious values is able to destroy
America with endless wars.
_The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, And the
National Interest of Israel_, published in 2008 by Enigma Editions of IHS Press, by scholar
Stephen J. Sniegoski is a thorough examination of the role of the neoconservatives in pushing
for war in the Middle East (beginning with the war in Iraq and pushing onwards towards Iran)
in order to protect the national interests of Israel. Sniegoski makes the claim that the
neoconservatives have been the fundamental force behind the war efforts of the United States
and have played a particularly prominent role in the Bush administration. While these claims
have now become common knowledge, Sniegoski makes an important contribution by tracing the
history of the neoconservative movement and its links to prominent pro-Jewish and pro-Israel
groups. In particular, Sniegoski claims that neoconservativism is a tool of Zionism and the
Likudniks of Israel. Sniegoski traces out how following the attacks of September 11, the
neoconservative war hawks had a profound influence on the thinking of President Bush and
offered him a ready made solution to his foreign policy agenda. In this book, Sniegoski also
considers and refutes other theories as to the root causes behind America's intervention in
Iraq (such as the role of oil and war profiteering) but explains how these theories lack the
validity of that which lays the blame on the neoconservatives and their goals for Israeli
dominance in the Middle East.
In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at
the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli
Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked
charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the
United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book
echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the
small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains
that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a
tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent.
This book begins with a Foreword by Congressman Paul Findley (famous author of _They Dare
to Speak Out_ and longtime opponent of the Israeli Lobby) in which he explains the importance
of Sniegoski's book and deflects the spurious charge of anti-Semitism. Following this,
appears an Introduction by noted paleoconservative Paul Gottfried who explains his admiration
for Sniegoski's book, offers some comparisons between Sniegoski's claims and those of other
individuals, and contrasts the old non-interventionist limited government form of
conservativism with that of the neoconservatives.
The first chapter of Sniegoski's book is entitled "The Transparent Cabal" and notes the
disastrous consequences that have followed upon the Iraq war spurred on by the
neoconservatives. The author explains what he means in calling the neoconservatives a
"transparent cabal" and notes the importance of their Middle East, pro-Israeli agenda. The
author explains how following the events of September 11, they came to take on a prominent
role in influencing the thinking of the president (who had previously shown little interest
in the Middle East).
The second chapter is entitled "The "Neocon-Israel" Claim: Bits and
Pieces" and exposes the role of Israel's Likudnik party behind the neoconservatives. The
author deflects claims of "anti-Semitism" which are frequently hurled at those who make these
charges by showing that even many prominent Jews agree with this. Following this appears a
chapter entitled "Who are the Neocons?" which shows how the neocons emigrated from their
original home in the Democratic party of the McGovernite left into the Republican party as
the New Left began to voice criticisms of Israel. The author shows that many of the neocons
are actually socialists and Trotskyites parading under the label of "conservative". Further,
the author shows the role of various intellectuals centering around New York City in creating
the neoconservative movement.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "The Israeli Origins of the
Middle East War Agenda" which shows how the goal of Middle East war to further the interests
of Israel has been supported extensively by hawkish groups in Israel. The author explains how
these groups came to have such a prominent role in influencing the policy of the United
States and in suppressing the native population of Palestinians in Israel. Following, appears
a chapter entitled "Stability and the Gulf War of 1991: Prefigurement and Prelude to the 2003
Iraq War" in which the author explains the importance of the first Gulf War of Bush I in
prefiguring the Iraq War of Bush II. After this, appears a chapter entitled "During the
Clinton Years" in which the author shows the continuing role of the neocons during the
Clinton years.
Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Serbian Interlude and the 2000
Elections" in which the author explains how the war in Yugoslavia paved the way for the
coming Iraq War of President Bush. This also explains the split that occurred among
conservatives between those traditional conservatives who opposed the war and the neocons who
firmly supported it. Following this appears a chapter entitled "George W. Bush
Administration: The Beginning" in which the author explains the role that the neocons came to
take in the Bush administration mentioning in particular the role of such figures as
Wolfowitz and Cheney and the role of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Following
this appears a chapter entitled "September 11", showing how the events of Sept. 11 allowed
the neocon agenda to gain prominence in the mind of President Bush.
Next, appears a chapter
entitled "Move to War" explaining how the neocons pushed for war against Sadaam Hussein
presenting their case to the American people by claiming that Hussein was in possession of
WMDs which could be used against America. Following this appears a chapter entitled "World
War IV" explaining how the conflict in the Middle East came to be dubbed World War IV by
certain intellectuals among the neocons.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "Democracy for the
Middle East" showing the role of the neocons in foisting "democracy" onto various nations and
their goal of global democratic revolution. The author also explains the role of the thinking
of political philosopher Leo Strauss behind many of the neocons and his profoundly
anti-democratic philosophy. Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Neocons'
Post-Invasion Difficulties" showing how the invasion of Iraq turned out to be more serious
and difficult than originally anticipated by the neocons. Next, appears a chapter entitled
"Beginning of the Second Administration" showing the continuing role of the neocons under the
second Bush administration.
Then, appears a chapter entitled "Israel, Lebanon, and the 2006
Election" showing the role of Lebanon and Syria in relationship to Israel and that of the
2006 election.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "2007: On to Iran" showing how the neocons
continued to press for further wars in particular against Iran by alleging among other things
that Ahmedinejad was a mad man with possible access to nuclear weapons. Following, appears a
chapter entitled "The Supporting Cast for War" noting the role of Christian Zionists (which
includes the beliefs of President Bush, although not his father), former Cold Warriors, and
even prominent establishment liberals in supporting the Iraq war. The author notes however
that the traditional foreign policy establishment elites and many in the intelligence
agencies did not support the war, but were disregarded to further the neocon agenda. The
author also contrasts the difference between the liberal elites who frequently were pro-war
and the popular anti-war movement which had very little power.
Following this, the author
turns to a chapter entitled "Oil and Other Arguments" in which the author considers the
claims that the war was fought to obtain access to oil or for the interests of war profiteers
and shows that while both groups certainly benefited they are not the real reason for the
war. The book ends with a "Conclusion" in which the author expounds upon the continuing role
of the neocons in influencing American foreign policy and a "Postscript" in which the author
notes that no matter who wins the 2008 election that the neocon agenda will likely continue
and is not likely to go away anytime soon.
This book offers a fascinating history and account of the role of the neoconservatives in
pushing the United States into war. The author makes clear the influence of the Israeli
Likudnik party behind the neocons and their goal of strengthening the position of Israel in
the Middle East. It is important to understand the fundamental nature of the foreign policy
elites who have been pushing us into war against Iraq and now with eyes towards Iran.
That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book.
Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed
by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters.
Let's put aside these negative and nasty characterizations and look at the facts.
Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state.
However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and
often place American interests second to that of the lobby.
To suggest that there is such a
lobby and that it is powerful is hardly anti-semitic. Nor is the author. He is simply stating
verifible facts which any student of politics is free to do. He may be mistaken in his
conclusions but that hardly makes him anti-semitic. And he may not be mistaken at all. He is
not the first to suggest that our leaders are fearful of the Israeli lobby and do its bidding
and often to the detriment of American interests .
Stephen Sniegoski, a diplomatic historian, is uniquely qualified to write about the
neoconservatives' involvement in the prolonged Iraq War originating in 2003. He accurately
predicted their activities and allegiance in this entanglement in 1998, three years before
the acts of 9-11 and two additional years before a traumatized nation yielded to a nescient,
misdirected President, his Vice President/administration, and an ostensibly compliant
bi-partisan House and Senate.
The author presents a tight outline which he cogently expands in intelligible detail,
maintaining that the origins of the American war on Iraq revolve around the adoption of a war
agenda whose basic structure was conceived in Israel to advance Israel's interests. The
pro-Israel neoconservatives and a powerful Israel lobby in the United States fervently pushed
its agenda. Ironically, he extracts his most persuasive evidence from an extensive
neoconservative paper trail that's been clearly recognized by a discreet cadre of vigilant
Americans for years. Thus the title, "The Transparent Cabal."
Dr. Sniegoski asks the appropriate question: "Who are the neoconservatives?" He provides
insightful answers on their pertinent activities since 1972, those who shaped and mentored
them, their immediate family/interconnected family networks, their prominent periodical
publications, their past and present leadership, non-Jewish minority members, their
persistent rise to positions of political influence and authority, their embrace of Christian
Zionists, and their close ties to the extremely conservative Likud Party in Israel. He
reveals their tactical affiliations with key, heavily endowed influential think tanks, and a
vast number of powerful Israel-centric lobbying organizations that reactively finance and
nurture their continued success.
Many readers will recognize his references to writers of previous books, articles and
columns -- many of Jewish heritage -- who bravely fight against well financed, mainstream
media-dominant opponents and their psychological surrogates active on the Internet. These
opponents perniciously engage in personal attacks and retribution, indiscriminately applying
irrelevant anti-semitic labels. They persist at attempting to sway public discourse by
spreading misinformation, disinformation, and mostly NO RELEVANT INFORMATION to the
public.
In various places throughout the book, the author notes curious relationships with current
and former elected and appointed officials. He writes about the ongoing 2008 presidential
campaign in a postscript, citing past and existing direct influences on specific candidates
by the neoconservatives, the Israel Lobby and its supporters.
The book concludes with a summary of the paucity of benefits compared to the predictable
losses of the American people over recent years. These are the real consequences of the
Israel-inspired plan to "drain the swamp" (a euphemism for destabilizing perceived enemies
then establishing precarious nominal democracies) that began with our misadventure in Iraq
and was to proceed with subsequent U.S. military interventions in Iran and Syria. The few
meager benefits and the enormous losses to the United States are compared to the strategic
advantages that the State of Israel derives directly from our five-year induced military
involvement in Iraq and our concomitant departure from past, longstanding policies of
diplomacy and stability in the Middle East.
Sniegoski counsels, "it is hardly controversial to propose that elites, rather than the
people as a whole, determine government policies, even in democracies."
Yet this war has a supporting cast of middle Americans. Many of them were traumatized by
the events of 9-11 and reactively saw an act of patriotism in supporting retaliation against
a falsely perceived enemy in Iraq. It's time to reconsider false arguments preceding the Iraq
War that have only been cosmetically modified until the present day. It's time to dismiss
incongruous ideas formed in the cauldron of confusion after 9-11.
Given today's realities, it DOES take patriotism and courage to insist on formally
normalizing an entangled, unreciprocated military alliance with an Israeli government that
burdens the taxpayers of the United States, promotes angst among its people, and imperils its
military forces worldwide.
Know and embrace Thomas Jefferson's ideal of 'eternal vigilance' as citizens of the United
States.
.
.
Facts in this book are reinforced in adjacent paragraphs and referenced in nearly 50 pages of
notes. Readers are encouraged to read:
World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global
Instability by Amy Chua -- "Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects
in the September 11 Attacks and Their Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning: The Need for a
Public Inquiry" **a 166 PAGE LEAKED REPORT** documenting foreign espionage activities
surrounding 9-11, available on the Internet (although rarely in COMPLETE UNEDITED FORM **WITH
5 EXHIBITS AND 4 MAPS**). .
Stephen J. Sniegoski has a doctorate from the University of Maryland and studied American
diplomatic history. My review here will refer to him as "S," for short.
This book is about the American neoconservative movement. S goes from its founding through
its influential role in getting the U.S. into the Iraq War, then he discusses the War's
aftermath. S's argument is that the neoconservative agenda regarding the Middle East is
designed to serve the interests of the state of Israel, as those interests are articulated by
the right-wing Likud party there. This agenda supports weakening Arab nations surrounding
Israel so that they cannot pose a threat to her. According to S, the neoconservatives
supported such an agenda since their beginning as a movement, but 9/11 created an opportunity
for this agenda to become the foreign policy of the United States during much of the
Presidency of George W. Bush.
Here are some thoughts:
A. Looking broadly at the book itself, it is a standard narration of the events
surrounding and including the Iraq War. Like a lot of people, I lived through that, so the
sweeping narrative of the book was not particularly new to me. The story is essentially that
the U.S. went into Iraq expecting to find weapons of mass destruction after 9/11, bombed the
country and found that were no WMDs, and traveled the difficult road of trying to rebuild the
country, amidst ethnic division, turmoil, and opposition from Iraqis.
B. That said, there were some things that I learned from this book. First, while
neoconservatism is said to believe in spreading democracy in the Middle East, it is not
necessarily committed to democracy, per se. Initially, it supported a new government of Iraq
that would be led by the traditional, pre-Saddam tribal authorities, who were not democratic.
Second, S seems to imply that even the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was
unnecessary, since the Taliban initially appeared cooperative in offering to help the U.S. to
bring al-Qaeda to justice. Third, there are neoconservatives who have supported undermining
even America's allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia. The different groups in Saudi
Arabia was also interesting, for, as S notes, Shiites hold a significant amount of control
over Saudi oil, even though the political establishment is Sunni. Fourth, S argues rigorously
against the idea that the U.S. launched the Iraq War to get more oil. Saddam was offering
U.S. oil companies opportunities to drill in Iraq, plus oil companies did not want the oil
infrastructure of the country to be disrupted or shattered by war.
C. There were also things in the book that I was interested to learn more about, even
though I had a rudimentary understanding of them before. For one, S chronicles George W.
Bush's changing views on foreign policy, as he went from rejecting nation-building, while
retaining a tough stance, to embracing nation building. In the early days of the Bush II
Administration, long before the Iraq War, Condi Rice even explained on news shows why regime
change in Iraq would be a mistake at that point. Second, S discusses the coalition that
emerged to support the war in Iraq. The neocons wanted to protect Israel, but Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embraced the Iraq War as a way to showcase the effectiveness of a
lean military. Meanwhile, many Americans, frightened after 9/11, supported the Iraq War as a
way to keep the U.S. safe. And Christian conservatives embraced the good vs. evil, pro-Israel
stance of neoconservative policy. Third, S strategically evaluates moves that the U.S. made;
for S, for example, the surge did not actually work, but more stability emerged in Iraq as
different ethnic factions became separated from each other.
D. According to S, the Iraq War was a disaster. It stretched America's military, taking
away resources that could have been used to find Osama bin-Laden. Yet, Israel got something
that it wanted as a result: disarray among her Arab neighbors. An argument that S did not
really engage, as far as I can recall, is that the Iraq War placed Israel even more in peril,
since it increased the power of Iran by allowing Iraq to serve as a proxy for Iranian
interests.
E. For S, neoconservatism is concerned about the security of Israel. Even its staunch Cold
War policy is rooted in that concern, since the U.S.S.R. tended to support Arabs over the
Israelis. S acknowledges, though, that there is more to neoconservatism that that.
Neoconservatives supported a strong U.S. military intervention in the former Yugoslavia
during the Clinton Administration, and neoconservatism also maintains stances on domestic
issues, such as welfare.
F. S is sensitive to any charges of anti-Semitism that may be launched against his book.
He emphatically denies that he is saying there was a Jewish conspiracy to get the U.S. into
Iraq, for he observes that many Jews opposed the Iraq War. Moreover, S does not exactly
present the U.S. government as a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG), for the neoconservatives
were long on the margins prior to the Presidency of George W. Bush. Even under Bush II, the
traditional national security and intelligence apparatus was critical of the Iraq War,
preferring more multilateralism and a focus on stability in the Middle East. The Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR), long a bogeyman of right-wing conspiracy theorists, also had
reservations about the Iraq War.
G. S largely depicts the Likud party in Israel, and neoconservatives, as supporting
Israel's security as a nation, her protection, if you will. At the same time, S argues that
Israel in 2006 was acting aggressively rather than defensively in its invasion of Lebanon,
for Lebanon had coveted water-supplies.
H. Near the end of the Iraq War, S demonstrates, neoconservatives were calling on the U.S.
to take an aggressive stance against Iran, going so far as to bomb the country. That, of
course, is an issue that remains relevant today. S probably regards such a move as a mistake.
At the same time, he can understand why Israel would be apprehensive about a nuclear-armed
Iran. He thinks that Ahmadinejad has been incorrectly understood to say that Israel should be
wiped off the map, but S still acknowledges that a powerful Iran could provide more support
to the Palestinians, which would trouble Israel. Although S understands this, he seems to
scorn the idea that Israel should get everything she wants and have hegemony.
I. S is open to the possibility that neoconservatives believe that their support for
Israel is perfectly consistent with America's well-being. As S observes, the U.S. government
since its founding has had people who believe that partisanship towards a certain nation --
-Britain or France -- -is not only good for its own sake but serves the interests of the
United States. S disputes, however, that neoconservative policy is the only way to help the
U.S. Could not one argue, after all, that the U.S. would want to be on the Arabs' good side,
with all the oil the Arabs have? This analysis may be a little dated, since the U.S. now has
some alternative sources of energy (fracking), but S makes this point in evaluating the
historical stance of neoconservatism.
I was interested to see the reviews of this book. Usually if any book suggests that Israel
is less than perfect a group of Zionist fanatics surface with several reviews telling us that
there nothing wrong Israel or American support of it.
Remarkably there is only one negative review of this book which has to be seen to be
believed. This reviewer "yoda" from Israel charges in all seriousness that Sniegoski does not
provide evidence that the neoconservatives are "predominantly Jewish " and are " strongly
aligned with Israel". Asking the author to provide evidence for such
assertions is like asking him to give evidence that the sun will
rise in the east tomorrow .
This is I believe the real reason that that there are relatively few attacks on this book.The
author does not engage in shrill denunciations of Israel or of the neoconservatives . What he
does do is quote at length what neocoservstives say and provide careful documentation for any
factual claims. For the most part the reader is allowed to
draw his own conclusions. Should the US continue to finance
Israeli repression of Palestinians and perhaps go to war against Iran or anyone else who
might object to Israeli policie?
Instead of denouncing Sniegoski "Yoda" should consider
the sane Israelis in his own country . For example former
Mossad chief Meir Dagan who said that a war with Iran was
the "stupidest idea he had ever heard of." Also moviemaker
Emmanuel Dror who interviewed virtually all the former directors of the Shin Bett ( Israel's
internal security service )
who all called for disengaging from the occupied territories .
perhaps we all would be better off listening to these Isaelis rather than follow the
neoconservatives into another disastrous war on the other side of the world.
This is going to be a very strange review coming from me. You see, I wrote a novel called
"Other Nations" and well, people that liked it a lot, liked it, but then those that really
disliked it disliked it because my "aliens among humans" were nice people, likeable people,
even charismatic people, everyday suburban types even, living that kind of life. Among us.
Next door, in the next city over. They wanted instead to see the aliens among us portrayed as
well, pick your favorite genocidal maniac or mind-controlling dictator or creature so
dementedly alien that no sense can be made of it. Well!
There are many types of true horror. The kind that passes itself off as my aliens among us
are portrayed, well, I guess some people GET IT - and they liked it.
But I'm not here to push my book. I'm here to push THIS BOOK - because my god, this is
REAL, not fantasy, it's REAL, not science fiction. And yes, they are among us with well -
BUY THIS BOOK. If you are too broke to buy it, get it from the library - and by all means
- READ IT.
Just hope to whatever god you choose that neocons are removed from governmental influence
and that their Amen corner is ignored. Hope to god, because if they suceed in doing the
INSANITY they want to do - America will be FINISHED - if it's not finished already due to
what these Fifth Columnists have done during the 8 years of Twilight Zone (GWB Rule).
And for those Jewish critics on here that might want to compare these neocon FACTS and the
other FACTS openly available to all (which is WHY the book is called the TRANSPARENT cabal) -
compare it to the Protocols - they better think twice about that. Becauase, you see, what's
in here is real, real facts, provably real facts - and if Jews themselves compare this to the
Procols? Some folks might get the idea that maybe that is real too. Perhaps George Soros (who
is Jewish) needs to speak LOUDER against the neocons. They are, indeed, crazies, as Colin
Powell called them. Crazies.
If you want to have an eye opener then read and see who were those Jewish players working
and influencing everything in the Bush Admin.promoting war with Iraq, then this is your book
of truth. The cabal of Jewish players come out of the woodwork in Stephen Sniegoski's great
work. When step by step the plan was a clear war map laid out for the U.S. in detail and
after you realize just who was working for whom in this criminal cabal of the American
government.
When you have Jewish control of the main stream media and Jewish control in Washington, D.C.,
don't wonder why the facts were omitted to make all the right connections for the public to
see in this lead up to a war from lies.
Video: How the U.S. Caused the Breakup of the Soviet UnionSean Gervasi 1992
Lecture By Sean
Gervasi and Dennis Riches Global Research,
November 30, 2019 Region: Russia and FSU , USA Theme: History
We bring to the attention of Global Research readers the text of an unpublished Lecture
delivered in 1992 by the late Sean Gervasi on the history of the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the US Strategy formulated during World War II to bring down the USSR.
The full transcript and video of Sean Gervasi's presentation is preceded by Dennis Riches
Introduction
Scroll down for the Video
Introduction
We defeated totalitarianism and won a war in the Pacific and the Atlantic simultaneously
We worked together in a completely bipartisan way to bring down communism So now we have to use
our political processes in our democracy, and then decide to act together to solve those
problems. But we have to have a different perspective on this one. It [global warming] is
different from any problem we have ever faced before [i] – Al Gore
These words above were spoken by former US vice-president Al Gore in 2007 in his film An
Inconvenient Truth . Because audiences at the time were in rapt awe of him, treating him as
a savior in the campaign to solve the global warming crisis, they never seemed to reflect on
the outrageous assumptions underlying his comments about "defeating totalitarianism" and
"bringing down communism." These are worth examining for what they say about perceptions of
world history among the American political class, and they even hint at how the errors in these
perceptions led Mr. Gore to being self-deceived about what would be necessary to solve the
problem he has devoted himself to since he has been out of power.
Although the United States played a crucial role in WWII, it was slow to get involved and it
let the Soviet Union do much of the heavy lifting and suffer the heaviest losses. The United
States had a lot of help in achieving the victory Mr. Gore claims for America, and we could
assume he knows this, so the way he chose to describe historical events is telling.
Perhaps acknowledging the reality would have detracted from his second point about "bringing
down communism." Everyone knows that what he is referring to so proudly is the destabilization
and destruction of the USSR, the Warsaw bloc nations, and Yugoslavia, not the abstract notion
of communism. He is referring to a "victory" which precipitated civil wars and a disastrous
collapse of the economy and social welfare systems in these countries, one that killed and
impoverished millions. In China, Cuba and the DPRK, contrary to what he stated, these nations'
versions of socialism haven't been brought down at all. [1992]
Explicitly describing the "bringing down of communism" as America's deliberate actions to
dismantle the USSR might run the risk of reminding the audience about the illegality of
interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, and it might have reminded people of
what a betrayal this was of America's WWII ally and partner in the détente of the 1970s.
The inconvenient truth is that the USSR was the WWII ally that played a crucial role in the
victory that Mr. Gore claimed solely for America.
Nonetheless, the comment about "bringing down communism" is refreshingly, and maybe
accidentally, very honest. Most descriptions of the Soviet collapse, even those done by
historians specializing in this field, pay little attention to American efforts to undermine
the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. The political class always denied that America had a
plan to dismantle the USSR, and denied having any significant influence on events which they
claim arose from domestic causes. If America's influence is addressed at all, it is considered
as a matter of speculation, a mystery hardly worth thinking about when one can more easily look
at the dramatic events that occurred on the surface within the Soviet Union in the last decade
of its existence. The following transcript of the lecture by Sean Gervasi, delivered in 1992,
shortly after the collapse, is unique and valuable for what it reveals about the significant,
and perhaps decisive, American role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In his conclusion, Mr. Gervasi came to this judgment:
The Soviet Union today, in the absence of this extraordinarily crafty, well-thought-out,
extremely costly strategy deployed by the Reagan administration, would be a society
struggling through great difficulties. It would still be a socialist society, at least of the
kind that it was. It would be far from perfect, but it would still be there, and I think,
therefore, that Western intervention made a crucial difference in this situation."
The journey to how he came to this conclusion is well worth the reader's time.
A final comment about Mr. Gore's remarks: He is oblivious to the inconvenient solution that
has been staring him in the face all these years: that the necessary reduction of carbon
emissions will require severe constraints on capitalism, a thesis developed by Jason W. Moore
in Capitalism in the Web of Life .[ii] Mr. Gore should know that a radical solution is
needed. In his recent sequel to An Inconvenient Truth he complains about the undue
influence of "money in politics" that has gotten so much worse over the last ten years, but
that's as deep as the class analysis and ideological exploration can go in America. He evinces
no awareness of the historical figures who developed answers to the problem of unaccountable
private control of a nation's government, resources and productive capacities. Gore is still
proud of having actively worked against a revolution in human affairs that aimed to curtail the
savage capitalism that led to the present ecological catastrophe.
In spite of the flaws one might see in what the Soviet Union actually became, flaws that
arose to a great extent because it had to fight against external threats throughout its
existence, the goals of the revolution of 1917 are still relevant to the crises of the 21st
century, and this is what makes Sean Gervasi's research so valuable now, after a quarter
century in which America doubled down on its "winning ways" and worsened the crises that were
evident long ago in 1992.
About Sean Gervasi
Sean Gervasi (1933-1996) spent the latter part of his career exposing the role of the
United States and Western powers in the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia. He was working on a
book,Balkan Roulette, at the time of his death.
Gervasi was an economist trained at the University of Geneva, Oxford and Cornell. His
political career began when he took a post as an economic adviser in the Kennedy
administration. He resigned in protest after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
After his resignation, Gervasi was never able to get work again in the United States as an
economist, despite his impressive academic credentials. He became a lecturer at the London
School of Economics after leaving Washington. Notwithstanding his great popularity, the school
refused to renew his contract in 1965.
During the 1970s and 1980s he was an adviser to a number of governments in Africa and the
Middle East, helping them navigate the hostile and predatory world of transnational
corporations and megabanks. He also worked for the UN Committee on Apartheid and the UN
Commission on Namibia.
In addition, Gervasi was a journalist, contributing to a wide range of publications, from
the New York Amsterdam News to Le Monde Diplomatique . He was a frequent
commentator on the listener-supported Pacifica radio station WBAI in New York. In 1976, Gervasi
broke the story of how the U.S. government was secretly arming the apartheid regime in South
Africa.
In the late 1980s, Gervasi began to focus on the Cold War and what he called the "full court
press," a basketball term for a highly aggressive "all in" strategy. In an article published in
the Covert Action Information Bulletin in early 1991[iii], when the breakup of the USSR
was imminent, Gervasi showed how the Reagan administration's strategy of economic isolation, a
gargantuan arms buildup with the threat of a nuclear attack, overt funding of internal dissent,
and CIA-directed sabotage had been decisive in bringing down the USSR. Gervasi backed up his
analysis with careful scholarship and documentation.
Gervasi was widely respected as a leading independent figure in the left, but his views were
contrary to the fashionable dogma that attributed the USSR's collapse almost exclusively to
such things as failures of leadership, centralization of the economy, the black market,
Chernobyl, or independence movements, and not to external hostility. These are the subjects
which he addressed in the following lecture given to a small audience in January 1992. The
lecture can still be found on internet video sites, but the thesis of this lecture still
remains marginal and obscure two decades later, even though it is highly pertinent to the Cold
War replay that is underway in the second decade of the 21st century -- one in which Russia
stands accused of turning the tables and doing a comparatively very tame version of the
propaganda war waged on the USSR in the 1980s.
After 1992, Gervasi focused his attention on the breakup of Yugoslavia, which he discovered
was a replay of the strategy used to break up the Soviet Union. He became active in exposing
the role of external powers, particularly the U.S. and German governments, in fomenting the
civil war in the Balkans. His view that the war in Bosnia was sparked by the aggressive
machinations these nations, and not age-old ethnic rivalries, alienated Gervasi from much of
the liberal and progressive movement. Journals to which he had once regularly contributed would
no longer print his articles. He had great difficulty finding a publisher for his book on the
Balkans, but some of his research on this topic can be found in the article "Why Is NATO In
Yugoslavia?"[iv] published by Global Research in 2001.[v]
Dennis Riches, November 2017
***
VIDEO
Scroll down for the full Transcript
https://www.youtube.com/embed/b9_aYcpxClA
Byline of the video:
Propaganda expert reveals details in 1992 of RAND Think Tank plan under Reagan to bring down
USSR, the major socialist challenge to capitalism in crisis, called Operation Full Court Press
when announced at a Reagan limited invitee press conference upon its launch. It involved
targeting mid-level Soviet bureaucrats with publications and Air America broadcasts pointing to
problems they were facing having better outcomes in the US, military provocations when they
were considering their budget in order to spend them into bankruptcy, luring them into
Afghanistan followed by arming the Mujahadeen with surface to air missiles and such; and
fanning flames of ethnic rivalries within the Soviet Union, like by sending publication
equipment to Baltic ethnic groups.
In first 20 minutes Sean prophetically lays out the impending crisis of capitalism that
drives their urgency to stamp out socialist competition. Sean died under mysterious
circumstances in Belgrad where he had set up shop pointing out a PR effort in the US Congress
by Ruder Finn hired by Croats and Kosovo Albanians to start a US war against Yugoslavia for
their secession.
Event January 26, 1992 arranged by Connie Hogarth of WESPAC, Camera: Beth
Lamont
Transcript
(edited by Dennis Riches)
Introduction
I've been speaking in the last year or so about developments in the Soviet Union from the
perspective of a person who follows the workings of the Western intelligence agencies,
something in which I was tutored while I was working at the United Nations, and was on the
receiving end of quite a lot of that activity.
That is an important theme that one needs to look at: the role of the West in developments
which have taken place in the Soviet Union, and it's one that I've been focusing on, but of
course the wider and more important issue is: how shall we understand the meaning of events in
the Soviet Union in the last five, six, ten years? That's really the critical question.
As you know, the developments, particularly the end or collapse of communist rule in the
Soviet Union, and finally the breakup of the Soviet Union itself, have been presented in our
media insistently and incessantly as evidence that socialism or social democracy, or
what-have-you, which we'll discuss, is unworkable. And this, of course, in tandem with the
theme which has been disseminated so energetically by these same people in the last decade,
that capitalism:
a) is more or less the same thing as democracy, and
b) must be seen as the core and triumphant achievement of Western civilization
Hence the thesis that this is the end of history, that we have achieved everything that
there is to achieve, that the present system of institutions in which we live in the West
represents the pinnacle of human capacities, intellectually and organizationally, and is the
best of all possible worlds.
That's the thesis, or those are the twin theses which surround us and which have been, I
think, creating an enormous amount of confusion and consternation because I think people sense
there is something wrong with this idea, and the effort to close off all discussion about
alternatives to, what I would term, our "regime" in the United States today, and possibly in
Western Europe, which is a moving backward from the more enlightened and liberal capitalism,
liberal democracy and capitalism, which evolved after the Second World War in Western Europe
and the United States.
We are today, I think, living in an irrational and savage capitalism of the 19th-century
variety, which for particular reasons, people who have power in this society either have
acceded to or have energetically worked to institute.
Part 1 The Crisis in the United States
The question is whether this great wave of propaganda makes any sense, and so I think we
should examine whether the idea that socialism and alternatives to raw capitalism are
impossible, undesirable, and unworkable. I think we have to look at that in two ways. First of
all, we have to examine our own situation in the United States, historically, and we have to
also, I think, look at what has happened in the Soviet Union because what has happened in the
Soviet Union is really very different from what we are told by the mass media. We have not
merely witnessed a collapse of communism in the Soviet Union. We have seen something really
very different, but it has been systematically misrepresented in the Western media.
There's a great deal of misunderstanding about the kind of society that American democracy
really represents, and that misunderstanding is both historical and contemporary. There is a
tremendous tension which we are all aware of in our society. It is a tension between
egalitarianism and inequality. It is a tension born of the evolution in the in the 16th, 17th
and 18th century in England, and the transfer of a particular kind of society onto American
soil through British political traditions, notwithstanding our rebellion as colonists at the
end of the 18th century. And that is the particular set of institutions known as liberal
democracy. Liberal democracy is a combination of parliamentary government and capitalism, and
liberal democracy inevitably, therefore, contains some very serious tensions because the
progressive development of parliamentary democracy has tended to give greater and greater scope
to the principle of equality in human life and politics. That's why in the course of British
19th century political development there was a progressive expansion of the franchise. And
that's why in the United States there was also an expansion of the franchise. The United States
did not have the same encumbering property qualifications in the beginning, although we did
have property qualifications in the 18th century in the United States, but eventually we had
the full franchise extended to all adults, and we've been redefining adults most recently.
We've dropped the level of political maturity or political enfranchisement to 18 years.
Capitalism, on the contrary, is a system of economic and social institutions based on the
principle of inequality, and there's a rationale for that inequality which also comes from the
18th century, but the idea, essentially, is that it makes sense from the point of view of
efficiency, and indeed equity, given all the considerations that one must take into account, to
have a society based on the unequal distribution of property organized around that institution,
to have an economy based on private property because, in the final analysis, it is most
efficient, and in the long run holds the greatest promise of continuous progress. By the way,
that's an argument that Marx made at a certain point -- that at a certain stage of history a
capitalist society is extremely progressive, that it gathers the technical capacities of
mankind, personkind, and develops them and accumulates and accumulates until it creates
something new, which we won't talk about just now.
But historically and currently in the United States we very strongly sense this tension so
that we go back and forth between periods when we have enormous pressures to give predominance
to the principle of inequality, to pay attention to the rights of property, and periods when
egalitarian tendencies have been very strong. For instance, as in the turn of the century
during the expansive phase of American populism and during the antitrust of the great popular
movements that sought -- not just popular -- but that sought to contain the power of the
cartels and the trusts in the United States. And today we sense that too. We passed the law in
1946 that's called the Employment Act. By the way, it's not called the Full Employment Act. You
have to remember that legislation. And yet we realize that our adherence to the principle of
full employment was tenuous even in the 25 years which followed the Second World War, and
completely spurious today. Why is that? It's because of this tremendous tension between the
realities of power under capitalism and the rather fragile hold which democratic principles and
institutions have on that power.
Let's go back to the Constitution and the Philadelphia Convention. I've been rereading Beard
and I'm very impressed by his grasp of who predominates really in this delicate balance in
liberal democracy between the principles of egalitarianism, the principles of parliamentary
democracy and the enormous concentration of power, which even then was inherent in the
dominance of the institutions of private property. Beard's argument essentially is that in the
final analysis a small group of men, whom he refers to as one-sixth of the adult male
population -- the only people who ratified the Constitution, the participants in the ratifying
conventions who voted positively for the Constitution -- represented one-sixth of the adult
male population. That is to say 8% of the adult population in today's terms. Against our values
that represents 8% of today's population -- the equivalent.
Now, what was obtained in that framing of the Constitution? What was obtained was a system
of political science, a system of government which was so structured as to ensure the dominance
of private property, the power of private property in any contention between the forces of
democracy and the forces of private property, and the forces of inequality, if you like, so
that the structure which constitutes, at the founding of this republic, which constitutes the
framework within which we operate today, is one which ensures that predominance.
I know that Beard has been attacked by many people, and it's perfectly understandable when
you read Beard carefully, but it seems to me that today Beard becomes more illuminating. Why? I
say I pay attention to the Constitution, to the Philadelphia Convention, to its ratification,
to the numbers who ratified it and to the purposes which they saw themselves as furthering by
their framing and ratification of this constitution because that is the framework within which
the United States experienced the most successful and untrammeled Industrial Revolution in the
history of mankind. Untrammeled. We had a straight run of industrialization which was the first
to transform the condition of man in human society, by which I mean something very, very
specific. And here I speak to things which were said by people like [ John Maynard] Keynes , by people like [
Joseph Alois] Schumpeter ,
but really ignored because they're extremely uncomfortable.
The rationalization for inequality in the institution of private property, in the thinking
of eighteenth century philosophers, was that property had to be shared unequally and income had
to be unequal because this inequality provided incentives which would constitute a constant
assurance of the drive to the expansion of production. That was the rationalization, but in the
20th century, according to the economic historians and according to people like Keynes,
countries like the United States and Great Britain began to end, began to transform the
historical situation within which these institutions were conceived. How? By developing such a
capacity to produce that gradually more and more numbers were lifted out of anything which
could be historically or comparatively called poverty so that scarcity, which dominates the
reasoning of economists, was really beginning to end in many respects. And Joseph Schumpeter
was able to say, for instance, in 1928, that if economic growth continued in the United States
for another 50 years we would see in 1978 the end of anything that could reasonably be called
poverty.
Now that didn't quite happen. That didn't quite happen because of the enormous influence of
inequality in the distribution of this productive abundance. But what it did transform was the
lives of many, many people, and it transformed everyday life and the historical condition. Look
between 1870 and 1970 at how the number of hours that the average American works falls. In the
period between 1945 and 1970, per capita production trebled, just in that period, and we
already had a huge industrial base at that time, so I would argue [agree], with Galbraith, who
-- because he was right was vilified and ignored by the economist profession and studiously
made little of by the mass media -- that indeed America began to be transformed with the
success of its enormous industrial revolution by the end of the period after 1865, when really
heavy industrialization began to take place. And indeed I would argue that the reason for the
Great Depression was that the United States had lost the ability to continue to absorb
everything that it could produce in an adequate way, given the institutions of the time.
So what happened then was that within this framework, which is the same framework conceived
by the James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. To further the purposes of property and to insure
against what Madison called "the leveling attacks of democracy," we have industrialization
enhance the expansion of an enormous power, which is the power that controls the machinery and
the resources of that productive system. That is to say large corporations. The largest 500
corporations in the United States today, plus the largest 500 banks and the largest 50
financial corporations control more resources than the Soviet planners ever dreamed of
controlling. The control of those resources, which is made invisible by the clever workings of
economists, inheres in the ability to make investment decisions. Investment decisions are the
key decisions in any economic system. The power to make those decisions is the power to
continuously transform and to determine the terms of everyday life among human beings in any
society. That power is not only invisible in our system of thought, carefully hidden by the
descendants of the 18th century philosophers, but it is also totally unaccountable.
Now maybe you could say, and we did say this between 1945 and 1975:
"OK this is a contradiction of democracy. This is the inheritance from the Philadelphia
Convention, the Constitution in its ratification and the dominance of this one-sixth of the
male adult population in 1789, but this system is so productive that we can alleviate the
resulting social and political tensions by raising the standard of living of ordinary
folks."
And that was the whole philosophy of the sophisticated American leadership in the first
generation after the Second World War. That was the philosophy of the Rockefellers when they
talked about the new enlightened capitalism of 20th century. Capitalism could deliver the goods
and hence people would be content, despite the fact that the realities of power born at the end
of the 18th century, and essentially enhanced by the enormous accumulation of power represented
by industrialization and the growth of large corporations and their concentrated power in the
economy. We could live with that because the United States economy was so productive.
Now, that's our history, and the tremendous tension of our situation today as contrasted
with the post-war period because one thing is very clear today: that for 20 years in the United
States this system has not been working. There has been a systematic retreat from full
employment, high wages, advancing standards of living, security in one's job, and the advance
of the welfare state. We have systematically been retreating from those things so that we have
higher and higher official and real unemployment, which of course is about double the official
unemployment -- and the statisticians work very hard to hide the realities of
life.
Sean Gervasi
Between 1977 and 1992, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 70% of American
families have seen their after-tax income fall. 70%! In the lower ranges of the income
distribution those falls are quite sharp. Purchasing power falls by twenty 20.8% for the
poorest fifth, by something like 12% for the next fifth, by something like 11% for the third
fifth, and by smaller amounts for those in the middle of the income distribution system. So I
would say that that represents, and people are increasingly becoming aware of it, a collapse of
the American standard of living. And this collapse of the American standard of living is
related to a gradual economic decline which is causing the post-war system, as we have known it
in the United States between 1945 and 1970, to begin to disintegrate. And I think this is the
reality of what is happening so that today even according to Wall Street forecasters like the
Levies, attached to Bard
College up here in the county, we are facing what they call a contained depression, which
may be worse than the kind of depression we saw in the 1930s because the stabilizing role of
the government makes it possible not to avoid some of the awful horrors that occurred in
the depression, but to diminish them to a degree which makes them almost invisible.
So we have a very tense situation. I ask you to reflect on that when we confront the
enormous economic difficulties from which there follow all kinds of social problems in our
society today which we face. These are connected to, and, if you like, made possible by the
arrangements conceived by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton . If this crisis which we have
been living in for 20 years, and have become more acutely aware of in the last 10, is
intractable, it is, above all, intractable because of this invisible concentrated power which
exists today after industrial growth -- the rise of the large corporations in the framework
conceived by Madison, Hamilton and the other Federalists.
So if you want to argue today that we need to reconsider this framework, you run into very
fundamental problems. You run into the problem that the Constitution is treated like an icon,
that people are unaware that the preamble to the Declaration of Independence is not the law of
the United States, that people are unaware of the fact that the Bill of Rights, which is
supposed to compensate for some of the failings of our constitutional system, has been
systematically shredded by the two most recent administrations. Witness William Kunstler and
his remarkable talks on what has happened to the Bill of Rights in the last ten years.
Part 2 The Crisis in the Soviet Union
Now, let's get to the Soviet Union, keeping in mind always that it is against this
background of crisis and the intractability of crisis, and it's rooting in the historical
origins of the Constitution that we are asked, that we are invited -- without anybody saying
that that's the background -- that we are invited to ponder the proposition that there is no
alternative to the kind of capitalism that we have, and that this capitalism is the
quintessence of democracy.
Now let us look at that proposition against a second set of data, if you like, which is
supposed to prove the case that there was socialism in the Soviet Union, that the Soviet Union
then, along with its Eastern European partners, collapsed in chaos owing to the essential
unworkability of this kind of a system. Let's look at that.
When the Reagan administration came into office we all became aware rather quickly that
something new was happening. We should have known that something new was happening because, in
fact, the arrival of the Reagan administration in power had been preceded by a very careful
build-up which was, in part, visible in the American polity, and that was the emergence of the
development and the elaboration of the power of a group which we now call the new right --
people who 20 years ago, 28 years ago in 1964, after Goldwater lost the Republican National
Convention. Rockefeller took command of the party that had been relegated to what every major
political commentator at the time called the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. These were
the people who, particularly in California, were coming out of the walls in the late 1970s,
creating foundations, buying chairs of economics at universities. Look at it: the Coors ,
the
Mises , with all of their contacts. These were the people who were building a new group,
and the purpose of this group was to put a stop to the kind of systematic democratic
entrenchment which they thought had been going on in the 1960s and the 1970s.
In the 1960s and the 1970s, there were three movements: (1) the movement for workers'
rights, for unionization, the expansion of unionization, particularly among city employees and
for raising wages, and the tremendous industrial disruption that attended the 1960s and the
early 1970s in the industrial sector, (2) the civil rights movement, which preceded that,
beginning in the late 1950s, and (3) the movement against the war in Vietnam, the war in
Vietnam being one of the ways in which this society managed to utilize, in a profitable
fashion, its enormous productive capacity without giving it to ordinary folks, without giving
its fruits to ordinary folks.
The new right was determined to do something quite new. One of the new things that it did,
and Reagan really was not its spokesman because that implies a degree of activity which I think
he's incapable of. You can always program a spokesman. I don't think he had the wheels to do
that.
Reagan launched, as you know, a massive, serious, intense, ugly confrontation with the
Soviet Union, ideologically. At the same time we became aware that there was a significant
drive on to re-arm the United States, to throw enormous resources -- ultimately it was in
excess of 1.7 trillion dollars during the 1980s -- to throw enormous resources into the
military sector, to throw enormous resources into shifting the technology of the military
sector to war in space, SDI [Space Defense Initiative], etc. All of those things were on the
agenda, but many of us at the time puzzled about this. I remember asking myself, "What is it
with these folks? Do these fellows really want a world war? Can they not see that this can be
the outcome?"
And I remember those discussions, and I remember when many of you and I on June 12, 1982
were at the demonstration of 750,000 to 1 million people in the center of New York City, which
was an expression of the alarm that people felt at this enormous aggressive policy which was
coming out of the Reagan administration, which threatened to shred US-Soviet relations.
But in fact, retrospectively, we can see that there was something else behind it, that it
was not just irrational madness. There was a bit of that, but there was a rationality to what
was being done, and in fact, to understand that, it's important to see that it is connected to
every single major line of innovative policy that the Reagan administration developed. It was
extremely well thought-out, extremely shrewd. And [it involved] the military buildup and the
aggressive rhetoric towards the Soviet Union, the deliberate effort to create difficulties in
the relationships between the Soviet Union and the European powers. You remember that in 1982
the United States tried to force the European powers not to accept natural gas from the Soviet
Union, to deny shipments of technology to the Soviet Union which would make it possible for the
Soviet Union to exploit that natural gas, to earn foreign exchange, etc. It was all part of a
very complex strategy, but it was a very clear strategy.
Let me say, though, that many of us, at least I at the time, missed that. We didn't quite
comprehend what was going on, but we had in the back our mind flickers that something was
wrong. There were people who were saying or hinting clearly at what was happening, and shrewd
people, intelligent people who did begin to grasp what was happening.
Let me quote from one or two. Writing in 1982, Joe Fromm , who was then the editor of the
United States' US News and World Report , said,
"There was something behind," I'm quoting him, "the shift to a harder line in foreign
policy." The US, in fact, seemed to be "waging limited economic warfare against Russia to
force the Soviets to reform their political system." That suggests that's a nice journalist,
a reasonably liberal journalist at US News and World Report , but Joe then quoted a
State Department official saying (actually, a National Security Council official), "The
Soviet Union is in deep, deep economic and financial trouble. By squeezing wherever we can,
our purpose is to induce the Soviets to reform their system. I think we will see results over
the next several years." That's in 1982.
Robert Scheer wrote a book in 1982 called With Enough Shovels: Reagan and Bush and
Nuclear War . I think I've got the title almost right. This is a very interesting book in
which Scheer saw that there was something behind this enormously aggressive foreign policy,
foreign and military policy, that the Reagan administration was deploying. And he saw that the
United States was not simply playing nuclear chicken with the Soviet Union, as he put it, but
that it was embarked on a policy designed to create such pressure for the Soviet Union as to
force changes within the Soviet Union.
Now of course it had always been the case that the Cold War consisted of moves designed to
affect the behavior of others. The Cold War, from the point of view of the West, had always
aimed at modifying, as the State Department cookie pushers liked to put it in their delicate
prose, the behavior of our antagonist. But this, I think you will see, went beyond that
because, in fact, the Reagan administration embarked on a policy of many dimensions which
included pressure around the world on countries with close ties to the Soviet Union.
Insurgencies were initiated in Mozambique, Angola, Cambodia against Vietnam, Nicaragua, and,
quite a lot, Afghanistan.
I don't want to get into too many complicated discussions of Afghanistan, but I think
anybody who reflects upon the United States' response to the Soviet entry into Afghanistan in
1979 must realize that the United States did not want the Soviet Union to leave Afghanistan,
and in fact the purpose of these insurgencies around the world, which as you know, had expended
billions of dollars, was to pin the Soviet Union down, and to inflict economic costs upon the
Soviet Union. The purpose of the remilitarization in the West was to force the Soviet Union, at
the risk of exposing itself to the pressure of escalation, to meet our resource commitments, to
defend itself, or to place itself in a position to resist our pressure.
The purpose of escalating the technology of nuclear warfare, again, was to impose costs upon
the Soviet Union. [This was ] the purpose of every principled measure, such as withholding
advanced technology from the Soviet Union, foreign assistance programs aimed not at assisting
countries on the basis of their needs, but on assisting countries on the basis of the
contribution they would make to putting pressure on the Soviet Union. All of these things were
part of a systematic strategy designed to create havoc in the Soviet Union.
Now I'll say a little bit more about what the purpose of that was, but first let me point
out that this is a systematic strategy consisting of a number of pieces, and that it did pose
enormous economic and other costs upon the Soviet Union.
But who is Gervasi [the speaker] to say that this is so, beyond quoting Joseph Fromm? Well,
let me tell you a little bit about an interesting experience I had. I had lunch one day with a
friend who was passing through the United States, who had been in jail in South Africa for
eight years, and had just got out. He had been engaged in planning one of the principal
sabotage operations against the South African nuclear installations, and he was very happy to
be out of jail. We sat at lunch and he said to me -- we talked about many things, mostly about
Africa which he and I had worked on together -- and he said to me,
"What's going on in the Soviet Union?" I said to him, "Well, you know, I really can't
figure this out. I can't figure out what's going on." He said, "It seems to me that the
Soviet Union is being destabilized." "My goodness," I say to myself quietly.
The thought had never passed my mind, but when my friend, Christie, said this I thought I
should look into this, and I did.
The first thing I found was I spent a little bit of time on a computer and some things came
up, and I said that looks very interesting. Within a very short time I had discovered reams of
material being generated at the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s by organizations like
the RAND Corporation. You know what the RAND Corporation is. It's an Air Force/CIA contracting
agency in Southern California, very large, very powerful, very influential in the so-called
intellectual defense community, the military industrial complex, and in Washington. People go
back and forth from the CIA, from the DIA to the State Department to the RAND Corporation. And
what were the chaps at the RAND Corporation doing? Well, they were producing very interesting
studies with titles like Economic Factors Affecting Soviet Foreign and Defense Policy :
A Summary Outline , The Costs of the Soviet Empire , Sitting on Bayonets: the
Soviet Defense Burden and Moscow's Economic Dilemma: The Burden of Soviet Defense ,
Exploiting Fault Lines in the Soviet Empire: Economic Relations with the USSR .
Anyway, I started reading the stuff. First of all, I started collecting it and I started
reading this stuff, and I found out something very interesting: that these fellows at the end
of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s were clearly fashioning a plan in which we began to
see the pieces of in the emerging parts of foreign and military policy, foreign and military
and economic policy under the Reagan administration. And the basic reasoning of this plan --
I'll give it to you -- is as follows: the Soviet Union was in a dual crisis. They knew what was
going on in Soviet Union. Economic growth in the Soviet Union had begun to slow down. It had
been very rapid, by the way, in the period from 1950 to the early 1970s. Between 1960 and 1984
per capita income and per capita production in the Soviet Union trebled, so it wasn't slow.
That was a 4 or 5% rate of growth, very rapid considering that we're growing at about 1.5
which, is about, by the way, equivalent to the rate of growth on average during the decade of
the 1930s in the United States.
Now, what I found out was that they also understood there was a leadership crisis in the
Soviet Union. The old line of principal Soviet leaders born in the early stages of Soviet
redevelopment after the Revolution, formed in the Second World War -- that leadership was dying
out, as we all knew. And in fact Mikhail Gorbachev , selected by Andrei Gromyko , was the first
representative of a new generation of Soviet leaders, but in the late 70s and early 80s, people
were dying. The major figures Andropov, Chernenko and Brezhnev, were dying, and there was a
very great confusion about succession. So the country was in a kind of crisis. The CIA calls it
a dual crisis, a leadership crisis, not knowing to which new people of a new generation the
leadership of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet Union should pass, and at the same time
a beginning of faltering of economic growth, which was serious because since the Soviet Union
had to always, like any country, choose between investing, competing in the arms race, and
raising the standard of living of its population. The fact that economic growth fell off made
that more difficult.
Now the next step in the reasoning of the RAND Corporation, gentlemen and ladies from the
RAND Corporation, was that the United States and its allies could take various actions which
would force the Soviet Union to increase its defense spending and its military assistance to
allies and friends. They could take measures to deny the Soviet Union credits, which they did,
and to deny it technology. They could also take measures which would reduce the overall volume
of resources available to the Soviet Union and hold back the growth of productivity, which
would exacerbate the problem, or force them to shift resources from consumers to investment.
And [they knew] that all of these effects would (to quote them) "aggravate the difficulties
confronting the Soviet leadership in a stagnant economy. So, a combination of these measures to
impose costs on the Soviet Union could be expected to lead to falling investment and/or living
standards, and such measures consequently might generate pressures within the Soviet Union for
withdrawing from the world stage, and for political reform."
So the purpose of this operation, which I will try to define more clearly in a moment, was
to impose, in a variety of ways, enormous costs on the Soviet Union, or to reduce the resources
available to them in such a way as to exacerbate their economic difficulties. Let me quote from
Abraham Becker , one of the shrewder Rand analysts:
Thus the Reagan administration seized Soviet economic troubles as an opportunity to
complicate further their resource allocation difficulties dilemma, in the hope that
additional pressures would result in a reallocation of resources away from defense, or would
push the economy in the directions of economic and political reform.
The purpose of this new aggressive multi-dimensional strategy was to force reform upon the
Soviet Union. What that reform was to be is a later chapter. Now, it's one thing to say that
these plans exist, and I'll talk about other plans. For instance, I managed to pull together a
collection of documents from the National Endowment for Democracy, which as you know, is
supposed to be a quasi-government institution. It's not a quasi-government institution. It's
funded by Congress. It's a government institution funded by Congress, which sees it to be its
business to "promote democracy outside the United States" in the rest of the world, where by
"democracy" one means essentially, and when you come down to it it's clear now in the Soviet
Union, "capitalism" and "liberal democracy," if you like [the latter term].
Now, it's one thing of course to talk about all this planning, to try on your own to reason
that all of these things fit together, but in fact we began to get official indications and
documentation, as early as the spring of 1982, that the government had signed on to this
strategy, that this was not the wild thinking of a few eager folks in a few think tanks, that
it was policy and that it was policy which the American public knew very little of, did not
understand the purposes and consequences of, but would nonetheless be required to pay for to
the tune of several trillion dollars, which did indeed help to create the situation in which we
presently find ourselves at home, locked in the Philadelphia Convention.
In the spring of 1982 I had spoken to two of the participants in this little meeting. A
senior National Security Council official charged with responsibility for Soviet affairs called
a number of influential Washington correspondents and asked them to come to the National
Security Council for a briefing. Two of them told me that they left this briefing extremely
shaken. They didn't want to say too much about it, but they gave me to understand that they
thought that this was an extremely aggressive, dangerous, and highly risky strategy which the
administration was describing and stating that it was about to embark upon.
Helen Thomas of UPI was one of the people who was in that meeting, and she described the
results of the briefing -- this briefing on the Soviet Union -- in the following manner:
A senior White House official said Reagan has approved an eight-page National Security
document that undertakes a campaign aimed at internal reform in the Soviet Union and the
shrinkage of the Soviet empire. He affirmed that it could be called a full-court press
against the Soviet Union.[vi]
A little later, just a few days later, in fact, further evidence, this time quoting official
documentation, not hearsay from a briefer at the National Security Council, but quoting
official documentation: Richard Halloran, the defense correspondent of The New York
Times published an article in that paper on May the 30th of 1982, just a few days really
after Helen Thomas sent out her UPI dispatch. Halloran quoted from the fiscal years 1984-1988
Defense Guidance, of which The Times stated that it had a copy.[vii] The Secretary's
Guidance Document recommended what Halloran called "a major escalation in the nuclear arms
race." Apart from that it indicated that a number of other measures were being taken "to impose
costs on the Soviet Union." Note the language is the language of the RAND planners. Some of the
same people probably wrote the document. I quote from Halloran's direct quote from the National
Guidance document of the Secretary of Defense:
"As a peacetime complement to military strategy, the Guidance Document asserts that the
United States and its allies should, in effect, declare economic and technical war on the
Soviet Union."
This is interesting. "And so I think," it went on. They wrote,
"to put as much pressure as possible on the Soviet economy already burdened with military
expenditure, they should develop weapons that are difficult for the Soviets to counter,
impose disproportionate costs, open up new areas of major military competition, and
obsolesce," (Nice English. I've put sic in my article) "precious Soviet
investments."
So I think it's safe to say, and a number of people prove it to us a little later on, that
this policy was instituted. Let me just race ahead to one of the more recent proofs. David
Ignatius , who is a correspondent at The Washington Post, published a very remarkable
article about "spyless coups" not long ago, in October, if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps it was
September. Ignatius is a correspondent with very close ties to the intelligence community, to
be very polite about it. I quote from his article: "Preparing the ground " This is immediately
after the Yeltsin double event of August 1991 in which Mr. Gorbachev was seemingly threatened
by a coup and in which Mr. Yeltsin did not seem to take power but did. He described the event
in this way:
Preparing the ground for last month's triumph was a network of overt operatives who,
during the last ten years, have quietly been changing the rules of international politics.
They have been doing in public what the CIA used to do in private, providing money and moral
support for pro-democracy groups, training resistance fighters, working to subvert communist
rule.[viii]
Could he have written that in The Washington Post in 1982? It's difficult, I would
have thought. It might not have passed muster. Some people might have noticed, but in 1991,
evidently, it was all right to say that this is what we were doing.[ix]
If you look very carefully you can find many traces by officials stating that the United
States had embarked upon a strategy which, retrospectively, it is very clear, was nothing more
and nothing less than a strategy to destabilize the Soviet Union. Mr. Casey's magnificent and
expansive imagination had carried covert operations beyond the narrow confines of Third World
countries and aimed them at the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. If you go back and look at the
history of these events in this perspective, reading some of the documents, you'll see things
very differently
Judd Clark [name indistinct, spelling uncertain], for instance, speaking at a private
seminar at Georgetown University, again around 1982, said,
"We must force our principle adversary, the Soviet Union, to bear the brunt of its
economic shortcomings."
Well, that's slightly veiled language that means the same sort of thing that everybody else
was saying. It wasn't, though, until 1985, that the redoubtable and incomparable Jeane
Kirkpatrick appeared on the stage with the full text of the play in hand, and she gave a
speech, not surprisingly in front of the Heritage Foundation, at a conference room on Capitol
Hill in which she said, "The Reagan doctrine, as I understand it, is about our relations with
the Soviet Union," and she then described every principal element of the strategy which Helen
Thomas in 1982 called, repeating the NSC briefer's statement, "a full-court press against the
Soviet Union."
If you read her speech to the Heritage Foundation, which everybody should read because it
was 1985, she was saying that the United States is bent upon a strategy aimed at overthrowing
the Soviet Union through internal and external pressures. She principally described the
external pressure.
I want to say a little bit about the debate over the internal pressure. Again, in 1982,
there was a nasty little debate between some members of Congress and the then-Secretary of
State General Alexander Haig . Mr. Haig was very anxious that the United States should embark
upon the program which Ronald Reagan was going to describe before the British Parliament in
June 1982, at just about the time most of us were going to be in the streets of New York to
protest some of the things that he was doing. And Hague said in the debate over the creation of
the National Endowment for Democracy, which the Congress had insisted should not spill over
into efforts to meddle in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union, Mr. Haig said,
"Just as the Soviet Union gives active support to Marxist-Leninist forces in the West and
the [Global] South " [ironic commentary:] (because it owns Newsweek , for instance and
it manipulates the Columbia Broadcasting Company such enormous power the Soviet Union has in
the West) " we must give vigorous support to democratic forces wherever they are located,
including countries which are now communist. We should not hesitate to promote our own
values, knowing that the freedom and dignity of man are the ideals that motivate the quest
for social justice. A free press, free trade unions, free political parties, freedom to
travel, and freedom to create are the ingredients of the democratic revolution of the future,
not the status quo of a failed past."
The founder of the Central Intelligence Agency said that propaganda is the first arrow of
battle. A statement by Alexander Haig in 1982 to the Congress signals what the United States
would attempt to do with the National Endowment for Democracy, that it would try to create and
participate in the creation of [a false narrative of ] a failed past in the Soviet Union. And,
in fact, as you know, all that went ahead.
Now, let's look at that for a second. I know that it's very difficult to believe this. I ask
you to look at the second of the articles which I read, or to search for what I've written. You
can read it and search for some of the documentation easily available. You will find that the
mission statement of the National Endowment for Democracy, which functions as a kind of
consortium bringing many of the pressures of the US government to bear inside the Soviet
Union.
Destabilization requires external pressure and a manipulation of the internal situation to
move political developments in the direction you desire. That's what targeting a country for
destabilization involves. We deprive Cuba of sugar, of medicines etc. and that creates internal
pressure, and utilizing the internal pressure, you insert yourself, create groups, diffuse
ideas which are inconsistent with those prevailing and suitable to power, and you begin to work
on that discontent. If the discontent deepens and spreads, you get better and better odds, and
because the Soviet Union was already in a kind of crisis, which, as Abraham Becker said,
"the United States then systematically sought to intensify and exacerbate."
The National Endowment for Democracy and literally dozens and dozens of pseudo-private
foundations, which I'll talk about in a second, went into the Soviet Union under the new
umbrella of glasnost, created academic presses, created newspapers, created radio stations, and
began to mobilize and to work upon the natural dissent and discontent that existed in the
Soviet Union, not only because of the historical past but also because of the difficulties of
the present as exacerbated by the United States and its Western partners.
If you look at how much money I'll just give you an idea of some of the projects that were
involved, and this is just one agency. You have to recognize that if this was going on in the
National Endowment for Democracy that there were many, many other channels of finance and
influence into the Soviet Union that were working on this.
For instance, in 1984 the NED gave $50,000 to a book exhibit in the Soviet Union: America
through American Eyes. At the book fair in 1985 (I mean I'm just selecting [a few]):
$70,000 via the Free Trade Union Institute, which is part of the National Endowment, to
Soviet Labor Review for research in publications on Soviet trade union and worker
rights.
In 1986, $84,000 to Freedom House to expand the operations of two Russian language journals
published in the US and distributed in the higher levels of the Soviet bureaucracy and
intelligentsia, already an arresting description. Imagine the Soviet Union publishing two
English-language journals in the Soviet Union during the 1980s and having them distributed and
eagerly read in the highest levels of the United States bureaucracy and intelligentsia. I don't
think that would have stuck very well in the United States.
In 1987, Freedom House, for the Athenaeum Press, rushed $55,000 for a Russian-language
publication house in Paris to publish unofficial research conducted in the USSR by established
scholars writing under pseudonyms. Now what does that mean? If you get down to 1989, we're
talking already in the $200,000 category.
For instance, the Center for Democracy, which is related to the National Endowment for
Democracy, began to create a center for assistance to independent and nationalist groups,
including the Crimean Tatar movement for human and national rights. In other words, they began
to finance ethnic and nationalist separatism, began to finance separate trade unions, began to
finance their own academics etc., except this is open, but it's very large-scale, very
large-scale.
I've done a little calculation and I can tell you that very large amounts of money were
being spent, probably on the order of, by all the Western allies, minimum, inside the Soviet
Union in the period from the mid to the late 1980s, one hundred million dollars a year -- a
hundred million dollars a year to finance organizations which might begin like WESPAC but would
then grow, develop, have outreach, which would become extraordinary with that kind of funding,
and did finally change things.
If you look at perestroika in the Soviet Union, [we know it started when] Mr. Gorbachev
became the Soviet leader. This is the background to the two stages in which we must understand
perestroika. In the first stage it was clear that the Soviet leadership was desperate to find a
way to renew socialism, that Mr. Gorbachev was bent upon the reformation of the notion of
socialism, and that he had widespread support inside the Soviet Union.
There were genuine economic improvements which took place between 1986 and, sort of, let's
say, the end of 1988, in the Soviet Union, as a result of those efforts, but the principal
question we have to ask ourselves, since today we confront a fragmented, or, if you like,
disassembled Soviet Union, the supremacy of nationalism, ethnic conflict, and Mr. Yeltsin --
who represents an extremely right-wing constituency at the present moment -- and the supremacy
of capitalism. And a capitalist society is now being created in the Soviet Union, ending Mr.
Gorbachev's experiment the crucial question to ask ourselves is a very simple one: how is it
that between 1985 and 1990 a movement which began as an attempt to transform and renew
socialism in the Soviet Union was supplanted by a right-wing movement aiming at the creation of
a capitalist society in the Soviet Union? That is the key question. That is the key question
because that's what's happened, and it's strange.
That's why many of us were puzzled about the contradictory evidence coming out of the
Khrushchev [ sic ? Brezhnev?] era. It was very difficult to understand. At first, it
seemed very positive, and then from the end of 1988, the fall of 1988, it became increasingly
clear that things were going to pieces, that Mr. Gorbachev was either not able to control the
forces which he had unleashed or that indeed he was bent upon creating, as I heard on the
French radio in 1988 for the first time stated very clearly -- it arrested my attention: the
purpose, said Mr. [name indistinct], on the radio in his not-bad French, was to create a
regulated market economy. That was the purpose of perestroika, not when it began, but somehow
something had happened.
In fact there's a lot of very interesting information out there now on the whole process.
There was clearly a large dissatisfied set of strata in the Soviet intelligentsia. What has
happened in the Soviet Union is more complex than the collapse through its own internal
contradictions of the system of socialism in the Soviet Union. I really don't want to talk very
much about whether the Soviet Union was a socialist society. There are people who say it was
and people who say it wasn't. It's a long discussion between Trotsky and Stalin etc., but for
my part I would say this: that the Soviet Union began as a genuine attempt to establish
socialism. There were always in the Soviet Union people genuinely seeking to further socialism,
and people who didn't give a damn. On balance, the thing we have to ask ourselves is whether
the existence of the Soviet Union, as an apparently perceived socialist society, was a positive
thing in the world equation at this particular time of history. I, on balance, having spent
years in the United Nations, seeing that under the attacks of the Western countries, which in
many cases were very ugly, most of the Third World countries which emerged in the late 1950s
and 60s and early 70s were really only barely saved by the few sources of support which they
got in the socialist world. And when the Soviet Union went down, they went down too; [for
example] Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua.
So in many respects I would have thought that the Soviet Union, for all its defects, stood
as a positive development in history, with all of the horrors that took place. The United
States has had its horrors. The question is this: did the Soviet Union collapse because
socialism is unworkable and central planning doesn't work? No, it didn't. There was a crisis in
the Soviet Union. I would argue that in the absence of the kind of pressure [that was applied],
it's very difficult to weigh the balance. How important were the internal forces? How important
were the difficulties experienced internally, and how important was the external pressure and
the externally intervening force? How important that balance was is very difficult to get. We
have to read through all a lot of intelligence to understand that, to begin to get a grasp of
things, but that's our duty as people who are living history, or who seek to understand
history. We have to try to do that, and my basic conclusion still at this moment is this: the
Soviet Union today, in the absence of this extraordinarily crafty, well-thought-out, extremely
costly strategy deployed by the Reagan administration, would be a society struggling through
great difficulties. It would still be a socialist society, at least of the kind that it was. It
would be far from perfect, but it would still be there, and I think, therefore, that Western
intervention made a crucial difference in this situation. That's a judgment.
Conclusion
All right. Now, there is a question irrespective of that: what does it mean that the Soviet
Union now has disappeared as a result of the kind of process that I'm talking about, a
combination of internal difficulties and external pressure and intervention? Does it mean that
socialism doesn't work? Does it mean that [there is no alternative to] the kind of capitalism
that we live in today, which I think increasingly of as a return to irrational and savage 19th
century capitalism? If you walk through the Bronx and Brooklyn and Harlem, how can you not
conclude that we are living in an irrational and savage capitalism in which the leveling
attacks of democracy have been dealt with, in which the possibility of remedying that situation
by the constitutional means which exist in the normal political channels of our government are
very small, that electoral changes, in other words, are not going to be very significant, until
there's a mass mobilization of American people to make something happen.
If this is so, then the fact that what has happened in the Soviet Union has happened as it
happened has no bearing whatsoever on our problems, and we should not be confused or pushed
into consternation by it. Why? Primarily, for a very simple reason: The Soviet Union was
conceived at a time when, in Marxist terms, it was not ready. The Soviet Union did not have the
material base of abundance which would make it possible to create a society at once egalitarian
and democratic because the struggle to create that base would require a degree of repression
and authoritarianism, particularly heightened by external intervention and attack, which
inevitably would distort the nature of socialism.
I sympathize with Isaac [name indistinct], but I think it's too simple when he says
socialism in a backward country is backwards socialism. But the critical fact for us is this:
the Soviet Union was a society conceived as a socialist society prior to the creation of the
economic base which would permit the creation of a socialist society with ease. We live in a
society whose capacity to produce, whose potential abundance is so great that the inability to
make use of it is literally tearing this society apart.
We live in a society which is ready, and when I say that, I want to go back to the terms of
the discussion on the constitutional conventions. Well, why can't we have economic democracy?
What does economic democracy mean? Economic democracy inevitably would mean a number of these
things: the accountability of the enormous concentrated power which exists in our society today
to public democratic institutions. The planned rational use of resources at the public level,
with democratic participation in the same manner that that planned rational use is conceived
within the framework of the corporations, where the exercise of those decisions is not
accountable. So it seems to me that in our day, when our society is riven by its
contradictions, unable to use its abundance, unable to use its productive capacity in a
rational, humane and democratic manner, that what is on the agenda today is the democratization
of economic power, the rendering accountable of the enormous economic potential and power that
exists in our society to make this a better and decent and democratic world.
Voilà.
End of lecture
Question Period
Well, dear friends, first of all, we have to have this serious debate because the real terms
of the debate are rendered invisible by the absurd rhetoric and the absurd way in which we
speak about ourselves, and by the mass media whose power and determination is to keep the real
terms of the debate invisible. The real terms of the debate are: why is this society
collapsing? Why does this economic machine not work? Who is responsible? If the people who are
responsible are not going to do something about it, let them get the hell out.
Moderator : I know there have got to be lots of questions. We'll allot a certain amount of
time. We'll try to recognize everyone.
Question : You've analyzed this quite well, but what does one do to change [the
situation]?
Well, I think part of the problem I don't mean to be repetitious but I think that people are
clearly immobilized and confused at the moment. I think one of the reasons that people are
immobilized and confused is that the proper debate is not out there. It's not possible for
people to express what they know from their experience to be true, to assert its truth. The
public debate rejects our experience and understanding because the public debate is designed to
contain us, to make us accept and even to believe in the superiority of this situation. I think
people know what needs to be done out there. In a sense the quintessential problem confronting
our country is the enormous concentrated power to shape people's lives, to define discourse, as
[name indistinct] pointed out, which is accountable to no one. The democratization of that
power means, I think, certainly radical changes in the structure of our society, but ones for
which in many respects people are ready and which indeed are supported by most of the values
that this society has lived by historically and attests to.
It seems to me it's really quite simple. We don't have democracy in the sense in which we
normally understand ourselves to have democracy in which people often speak of us as having. We
don't have that. Why do we not have it? Because of this eternal and now much more intensive,
much more intense tension that has existed from the beginning between property and democracy,
between popular majorities as the Federalists called them, disdainingly, and the rights of
property. This now has become an enormous incubus on American society. We have enormous
concentrated power for which nobody is accountable, and this is not acceptable. Roger and Me [the documentary
film] is a reflection of a sensitivity that says, "We've got to talk about this, Roger. You're
responsible for this." So I really think by not knowing these things, not changing the
discourse of our lives, and the discourse in the public arena, coming to agreements amongst one
another by hard work, by hard discussion, how can we know it's true?
And by the way, I don't think this can be done in the absence of action. That is to say, in
a haltingly naive phase of my recent existence, I tried to convince some people in the Congress
that we were headed into a really horrible situation, and they didn't want to know. They
didn't. They don't want to believe what is uncomfortable for them to believe, so my decision
was that you have to go into the trenches, that you have to work on projects that are going to
materialize these ideas, that you have to work against plant closings, that you have to work
for measures that alleviate the social burdens that exist in a city like New York, that you
have to work for things while articulating these ideas because it seems to me it's only in the
combination of action and debate of ideas that people will begin to understand the relevance
and the necessity of a new discussion. You can't have in that sense -- I cede your point -- you
can't have a drawing-room discussion which will prevail.
Certainly the people in the National Endowment for Democracy believe that. They don't just
sit back and spend millions of dollars on printing books and making radio tapes and television
shows. No. They created new political institutions. They then created new political parties,
financing people like Arkady Murashev, the Inter-Regional Group in the Soviet Parliament, until
recently. It doesn't exist anymore. The Inter-Regional Group was the group of pseudo-democrats,
pro-capitalists, speaking, in many respects for the interests represented in the agglomeration
of black market operations in the Soviet Union. Arkady Murashev was systematically cosseted,
financed and trained by an organization in Washington very closely tied to certain agencies
whose names we don't want to pronounce in the present circumstances. Murashev was a liaison man
between Washington and Yeltsin. The National Endowment for Democracy gave $40,000 just for the
faxes, and the printing machines and the telephones in the Initiatives Foundation, which was
the organization that the Inter-Regional Group used to put out its messages, get itself
organized, make contacts, etc. The United States was financing that operation. Arkady Murashev
is now the chief of police of the city of Moscow.
This is heavy stuff. I mean, really, it's incredibly dramatic, but we mustn't go on in this
vein because there are questions to be answered.
Question : Does every country have to go through this period of savage capitalism to become
socialist?
No. I don't believe that. No.
Question: Bush seemed to like Gorbachev. Was Gorbachev foolish? Was he taken for a ride?
These are the great mysteries. There are, as you know, there are a different views. There
are different theories about that. One of them is that Gorbachev was a mole, that Gorbachev was
a deep-cover or Western intelligence agent. I believe that's exaggerated. I believe that's off
the wall, but I do believe that there's an element here that's important to understand.
There was in the Soviet Union, as a result of the very success of the industrialization of
the Soviet Union, an enormous alienated set of strata amongst the educated population because
the Soviet elite absorbed people at a very small rate. It didn't reach out to large numbers of
people. They were educating enormous numbers of people, professional scientific workers,
managers, and these people were mostly urban people. They were the fruit, in many respects, of
industrialization. At the same time, being urban people, they found themselves trapped in the
most difficult conditions in the Soviet Union because in its industrialization the Soviet Union
really ignored a lot of problems. Theyfound themselves, in many respects, in a similar
situation as the United States, where the decay of urban areas, the lack of equipment, the lack
of infrastructure, the lack of adequate facilities for health or education etc. became a real
problem. They didn't have the resources to industrialize, to raise the standard of living in
the really poor republics of the Soviet Union, and to deal with the urban problem, as we call
it in the United States.
So these people were imagine all educated people earning this education and looking upon
themselves as deserving of the advantages and prerogatives of their Western counterparts,
living in the equivalent of New York City, but earning the wages of a skilled worker. They
didn't like it. They felt shut out. They were angry, and it's those people that the neoliberals
were recruiting, not just the American neoliberals but their own neoliberals. There were
neoliberals in the Soviet Union. There were reactionary people in the Soviet Union this [name
indistinct] operation out in Siberia, the so-called sociological think tank. There are people
who, I don't know why Perhaps when you become very isolated from the world and separated from
reality you conjure up the most amazing dreams in your mind. I think Marx called it idealism.
In any case, these people were very much Western idealists and they came, frankly, into Moscow
and Leningrad fervent believers in the need to embrace Western institutions because of their
frustration, because of their understanding of their own past. Whether it was distorted or not,
it's not for me to say. It's because of the way they viewed and felt about their past, because
of their own personal frustration, because of the problems which were very real that they
experienced by the Soviet leadership, by the Soviet economy and society. They were alienated,
and that's where there was recruitment. When economic growth slowed down it made it much worse,
and it spread the basis of recruitment very effectively.
There is a collection of essays which I think is quite remarkable and valuable, which gives
you some background about the incredible contradictions in the Soviet Union, and how the Soviet
Union, in fact, more than a decade and even two decades ago, was in fact being prepared for
what is happening. It was ripening for some big bull shaking the tree, which is eventually what
happened. That's the collection that The Monthly Review has published recently, After
the Fall, something like that. After the Fall of the Soviet Union is really a very
valuable collection of essays on the Soviet Union, or whatever it is after communism. Very
useful stuff.
Question : Could you talk about Third World countries?
That's a really hard question. I've worked in Third World countries which were socialist
countries and which were under attack. I worked in Mozambique in the beginning of the 1980s
when the South African-Western-CIA operations were really beginning to [take a toll], and
people were dying by the tens of thousands because the roads had been cut, and the supplies had
been cut, and the health stations blown up, and I think that it was very hard for them to
survive that. Socialism proved very frail in Mozambique, even though the leaders of the
revolution had been born in armed struggle, formed by armed struggle, were dedicated to armed
struggle, but the society just couldn't withstand that kind of pressure.
In some ways I think that's true of the Soviet Union. There was a war in the shadows waged
against the Soviet Union on a massive scale, and what these events prove is the Soviet Union
was insufficiently strong to stand up to those pressures, and I think this is all the more true
in the Third World. I don't know, but I don't want to say that I know the answer, whether they
should try to make that jump or not. I think that will depend on what happens in the Western
world. I don't see any reason why the jump couldn't be made if the West, Western Europe and the
United States, in particular North America saw [supported] significant transformation of the
present system of power. Then it's not a problem, but with this massive opposition coming from
the West, it's very difficult to survive.
Question (apparently edited from video recording): __________________
These same people today, and we're talking about within a few months, within the end of the
year there being not 50,000 but between six and eight million unemployed people in Russia, 130
million people, labor force of 65 or 70 million, and I saw this same thing happening in East
Germany.
I was very briefly in Humboldt University in 1989 or 1990, I can't remember which now. The
whole situation was in upheaval, and I saw many intellectuals genuinely enraged by the
arrogance of the Honecker regime, and at the same time, unfortunately, completely unaware of
what would happen if that regime went down, taking everything, "really existing socialism,"
with it. And my question would be, OK, it's a question. You know the old version of this
question used to be what about Stalin, but it's a little different now.
My problem is this: let's look at it in human terms, OK? Just forget ideology. What has
happened as a result of the materialization of the dreams of the so-called reformers and
democrats in the Soviet Union? What has happened is what has happened in Poland, and worse:
that the standard of living of ordinary people is going to collapse, that old people will be
destitute, that children will be without health care, that the transportation system is
collapsing, that there will be no food distribution by spring, that people will starve, that
there is continuous ethnic conflict. Now, the Soviet system of prices and of raw material
supplies were such that enormous quantities that the supply system worked in a way which led to
the waste of vast quantities of raw materials and semi-finished products. I mean vast
quantities.
So the idea was to go in to work at the enterprise level to create incentives to create
better accounting, a system of prices which would reflect the real value of these raw materials
and not the fact that they could be replaced anytime you wanted because all you have to do is
put an order in. It didn't matter what you did with them. It [the reform] was focused on the
enterprise, on profit incentives, and this loosening of the tight bonds on the enterprise,
really did lead to a recrudescence of output. For instance, between 1986 and 88 there was a 17%
increase in housing production in the Soviet Union. There was a 30% increase in overall
production. The production, the economy, accelerated in the period 1986-88. In those three
years the economy accelerated, but as I said, there were two stages of perestroika. There was a
stage of perestroika where the effects were quite beneficial, where it was clear that
perestroika and glasnost were aiming to energize and develop andfree and move forward the
Soviet Union.
As a friend of mine said, the only way to ensure the social development of the Soviet Union
is to undertake these reforms, but there was another stage, a second stage beginning in late
1988 to, obviously, the end of 1991, where the forces that were unleashed utilized the reform
program to destroy socialism, clearly to destroy socialism, and Mr. Gorbachev was either
helpless before that or a willing apprentice of that process. I could not pretend to pronounce
which of those was the case. It's very difficult to say.
On the other hand, I really don't know how anybody in his right mind could have conceived of
the notion that the way forward for the Soviet Union -- and this was the quintessential
statement of perestroika by the principle Soviet leaders in the mid-1980s -- the way for the
Soviet Union was to integrate the Soviet Union into the world economy. I mean to an economist
with any degree of sophistication and critical approach, that is sheer unadulterated madness.
It's like saying that the North American free trade agreement will lead to real economic
development in Mexico. It's absurd. I mean we know what those processes are. How can a much
weaker, less industrialized Soviet Union hope to stand up against the economic forces arrayed
against it and capable of penetrating it, once it declares its intention to integrate itself
into the world economy? When I heard that, I said, "It's all over, boys. These people don't
know that they're doing," and indeed, listening to Soviet economists as I did when I was still
teaching in Paris, and meeting with some of these people, until 1989, I got the impression of
two things: they had not the least actual understanding of what was going on in the West, and
that their theoretical conceptions were taken out of a handbook by Voltaire making fun of the
French aristocracy.
Transcript produced by Youtube "auto-caption" speech recognition software, corrected and
edited by blog author, Dennis Riches.
Notes
[i] Davis Guggenheim (Director), Al Gore (Writer), "An Inconvenient Truth," Paramount
Classics , 2006.
[ii] Jason W. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life (Verso, 2015), 267-268. "What is
really needed is proper planning of available resources globally, plus a drive, through public
investment, to develop new technologies that could work and, of course, a shift out of fossil
fuels into renewables. Also, it is not just a problem of carbon and other gas emissions, but of
cleaning up the environment, which is already damaged. All these tasks require public control
and ownership of the energy and transport industries and public investment in the environment
for the public good."
The reference appears to be to this article. The dates 1984-1988 may appear to be an error
because the report referred to was written in 1982. However, the Defense Guidelines were
focused on plans for the future, fiscal years of 1984-1988.
[ix] As we know from the perspective of 2017, the normalization of such interventions
continued shamelessly, going from a bad habit to a deranged addiction. The political
establishment in America now resorts to economic warfare, violence and military intervention as
the solutions for every problem in international relations.
All images, except the featured, in this article are from the author.
"... Ciaramella invited Chalupa to meetings and events at the Obama White House. She also visits the Obama White House with Ukrainian lobbyists seeking aid from Obama. Senator Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2017, " ..."
"... According to Fox News, the complaint alleges that the DNC specifically "tasked Chalupa with obtaining incriminating or derogatory information about Donald Trump [and] Paul Manfort," ..."
"... Remarkably, despite his clear connections to Rice and Brennan, he was brought back into the inner circle of the Trump NSC by HR McMaster. McMaster appointed him to be his personal aide. ..."
"... He was fired in June of 2017 after being directly implicated in a series of serious national security leaks from the White House calculated to be damaging to President Trump. ..."
"... Vindman also leaked the classified information about the President's call with a foreign head of state to a number of other people. These unauthorized leaks are criminal. Both illegal, unethical and unconscionable. ..."
"... Ciaramella worked with both Grace and Misko in the NSC at the Obama White House. Misko and Grace joined Schiff's committee in early August of 2019, just in time to coordinate the "whistleblower" complaint. ..."
"... Both Vindman and Ciaramella do not qualify for "whistleblower" status. They were reporting on a diplomatic conversation, not an intelligence matter. They were not reporting on a member of the Intelligence committee. ..."
"... IC IG Michael Atkinson surreptitiously changed the rules for whistleblower complaints to allow second-hand testimony in September of 2019. He then backdated the changes to allow the Ciaramella complaint, initially filed in early August, to be included under the new "interpretive" guidelines. ..."
"... The playbook is the same as the Mueller Inquisition and the Russia Hoax, the same as the Kavanaugh smear campaign. With the same co-conspirators of the left-wing mainstream media. Not only carrying water for the coup plotters but being actual participants in the scheme. Paid mouthpieces for the Deep State. ..."
"... Sperry's devastating expose makes clear that Ciaramella is another cog in the Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rice, Obama conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States. As Chuck Schumer said in January of 2017, ..."
"... Ciaramella helped generate the "Putin fired Comey" narrative. Sperry reports, "In the days after Comey's firing, this presidential action was used to further political and media calls for the standup of the special counsel to investigate 'Russia collusion.'" ..."
WASHINGTON, DC : Adam Schiff "whistleblower" Eric Ciaramella has
been exposed as a John Brennan ally. An ally who actively worked to defame, target, and destroy
President Donald Trump during both the Obama and Trump administrations. He was fired from the
Trump White House for leaking confidential if not classified information detrimental to the
President. ( The Pajama Boy
Whistleblower Revealed – Rush Limbaugh )
The 33-year-old Ciaramella, a former Susan Rice protege, currently works for the CIA as an
analyst.
Eric Ciaramella: The Deep State non-whistleblower
During his time in the Obama White House, NSC Ciaramella worked under both Vice President
Joe Biden and CIA director John Brennan. He reported directly to NSC advisor Susan Rice through
his immediate boss, Charles Kupchan. Kupchan had extensive ties with Clinton crony Sydney
Blumenthal. Large portions of Blumenthal's disinformation from Ukrainian sources in 2016 was
used in the nefarious Steele Dossier.
Ciaramella also worked extensively with DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa. Chalupa led the
effort at the DNC to fabricate a link between the Trump Campaign to Vladimir Putin and Russia.
According to Politico, Chalupa "met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington
in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia."
The DNC paid Chalupa $412,000 between 2004 and 2016.
DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa: Ciaramella co-conspirator
"Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, 'I felt there
was a Russia connection.'"
Apparently without any evidence. So she set out to concoct it.
Chalupa (left) also says that the Ukrainian embassy was working directly with reporters
digging for Trump-Russia ties. How convenient, and unethical.
Ciaramella invited Chalupa to meetings and events at the Obama White House. She also visits
the Obama White House with Ukrainian lobbyists seeking aid from Obama. Senator Charles
Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter to Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein in 2017, "
"Chalupa's actions appear to show that she was simultaneously working on behalf of a
foreign government, Ukraine, and on behalf of the DNC and Clinton campaign, in an effort to
influence not only the U.S voting population but U.S. government officials."
The FEC complaint against the DNC and Chalupa
In September 2019 a complaint was filed with the Federal Elections Commission against the
DNC naming Alexandra Chalupa. The complaint alleges that Chalupa acted "improperly to gather
information on Paul Manafort and Donald Trump in the 2016 election".
According to Fox News, the complaint alleges that the DNC specifically "tasked Chalupa
with obtaining incriminating or derogatory information about Donald Trump [and] Paul
Manfort,"
Fox News reporting, that Chalupa allegedly
"Pushed for Ukrainian officials to publicly mention Manafort's financial and political ties
to" Ukraine and "sought to have the Ukrainian government provide her information about
Manafort's work in the country."
John Solomon and Wikileaks both expose Chalupa as DNC operative
"Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information
from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort's dealings inside the country. Chalupa later
tried to arrange for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to comment on Manafort's Russian ties
on a U.S. visit during the 2016 campaign."
Ciaramella's connection with John Brennan and Susan Rice
Eric Ciaramella had been working with John Brennan, Susan Rice, the Obama White House, and
Alexandra Chalupa to target and destroy Donald Trump well before he was elected. He was
initially brought into the NSC and the White House inner circle by John Brennan himself.
Remarkably, despite his clear connections to Rice and Brennan, he was brought back into the
inner circle of the Trump NSC by HR McMaster. McMaster appointed him to be his personal
aide.
He was fired in June of 2017 after being directly implicated in a series of serious national
security leaks from the White House calculated to be damaging to President Trump.
Ciaramella and Alexander Vindman: the second "whistleblower"
Ciaramella's title at the White House was NSC Director for Ukraine. That position is now
held by the newest Schiff star witness and Trump hater Lt. Col Alexander Vindman. Vindman is
apparently the "2nd whistleblower" to leak his concerns about the call between Trump and
President Zelensky to Ciaramella.
Vindman also leaked the classified information about the President's call with a foreign
head of state to a number of other people. These unauthorized leaks are criminal. Both illegal,
unethical and unconscionable.
Violating clear national security guidelines for classified information.
Republicans, on cross-examination of Vindman was asked by Republicans cross-examining him
during the closed-door secret police hearings conducted by Adam Schiff, asking who Vindman had
contact with. Schiff cut off the questioning, coaching the witness while refusing to let him
answer the questions.
Schiff coordinated with Ciaramella and Vindman
It is now clear that Ciaramella and Vindman coordinated the entire whistleblower affair with
Schiff and his staff in violation of the "whistleblower" statute. That Ciaramella has been
coordinating his complaint with Schiff committee staffers Abigail Grace and Sean Misko.
Ciaramella worked with both Grace and Misko in the NSC at the Obama White House. Misko and
Grace joined Schiff's committee in early August of 2019, just in time to coordinate the
"whistleblower" complaint.
Both Vindman and Ciaramella do not qualify for "whistleblower" status. They were reporting
on a diplomatic conversation, not an intelligence matter. They were not reporting on a member
of the Intelligence committee.
The suspicious case of IC IG Michael Atkinson
IC IG Michael Atkinson surreptitiously changed the rules for whistleblower complaints to
allow second-hand testimony in September of 2019. He then backdated the changes to allow the
Ciaramella complaint, initially filed in early August, to be included under the new
"interpretive" guidelines.
The level of subterfuge and coordination between Schiff, Ciaramella, Vindman, Abigail Grace,
Sean Misko, and IG Atkinson is more than suspicious. It reeks of yet another episode of a Deep
State coordinated coup attempt.
The whole impeachment affair is a brazen sequel to the Russia Hoax involving many of the
same key players. Susan Rice, John Brennan, Adam Schiff. Designed to target, destroy, and in
this case, fabricate grounds for the impeachment of the President.
The playbook is the same as the Mueller Inquisition and the Russia Hoax, the same as the
Kavanaugh smear campaign. With the same co-conspirators of the left-wing mainstream media. Not
only carrying water for the coup plotters but being actual participants in the scheme. Paid
mouthpieces for the Deep State.
Paul Sperry and Real Clear Investigations
The most comprehensive expose on Ciaramella, that has forced even the mainstream media to
take notice, was the Real Clear Investigations reporting of Paul Sperry. Only Sperry, the
Federalist, and CDN have exposed the whistleblowers' identity. But his name and transparent
partisan actions are the worst kept secret in Washington.
As CIA analyst Fred Fleitz has said:
"Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows.
Congress knows. The White House knows. Even the president knows who he is."
Sperry's devastating expose makes clear that Ciaramella is another cog in the Brennan,
Clapper, Comey, Rice, Obama conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected President of the United
States. As Chuck Schumer said in January of 2017,
"If you take on the intelligence community, they have nines ways to Sunday of getting back
at you."
The never-ending coup attempt against Trump
The reality is that Trump was targeted by the Obama White House well before he was
President. The ongoing coup against him started as soon as he was elected. It morphed into the
Mueller Weissman inquisition and the Peter Strzok insurance policy.
When that fizzled into oblivion it was time for plan B, or in this case plan C or D. The
Deep State and their paid minions in the left-wing press have been unrelenting in their ongoing
anti-constitutional putsch against the President.
The impeachment farce, with its calculated rollout reminiscent of the Kavanaugh smear
campaign, is yet another extension of a never-ending East German Stassi coup (sic) attempt
against the constitution, the Republic, and the people of the United States.
Sperry lays out the trail of evidence against Ciaramella
Paul Sperry's excellent investigative reporting makes clear that Ciaramella "previously
worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan. (He) left his
National Security Council posting in the White House's West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns
about negative leaks to the media." As Sperry reports, "He was accused of working against Trump
and leaking against Trump," said a former NSC official.
Sperry reports that "a handful of former colleagues have compiled a roughly 40-page research
dossier on him. A classified version of the document is circulating on Capitol Hill". The
dossier documents Ciaramella's bias against Trump. His relationships with Brennan, Rice, the
Obama White House, and DNC operative Chalupa. As well as his coordination with Vindman, Schiff
and his committee staff.
Chuck Schumer: "Eight ways to Sunday of getting back at you"
It questions both Ciaramella's and Vindman's veracity as a legitimate whistleblower. It
makes clear that Ciaramella and his co-conspirators are part of a Deep State coup attempt. A
calculated, coordinated, illegal, seditious, and illegitimate putsch.
As CIA analyst Fred Fleitz makes clear, " They're hiding him ." Fleitz was emphatic,
" They're hiding him because of his political bias."
Ciaramella helped generate the "Putin fired Comey" narrative. Sperry reports, "In the days
after Comey's firing, this presidential action was used to further political and media calls
for the standup of the special counsel to investigate 'Russia collusion.'"
How IC Inspector General Atkinson found the whistleblower complaint "credible" and "urgent"
at the same time he was backdating the change in regulations to allow the complaint to be filed
is more than highly suspicious. How the 'whistleblower" coordinated with Schiff, Grace, Misko,
and Atkinson to stager the start of impeachment farce is criminal.
Adam Schiff: Constantly lying while moving the goalposts
... ... ...
Schiff: Outstanding scoundrel in a cesspit filled to the brim with similar criminals.
Now Eric Ciaramella is apparently backing away from testifying. Schiff says he no longer
needs his testimony. But Ciaramella should be subpoenaed and called to testify before the
Senate Judiciary Committee. He should not be allowed to escape accountability for his role in
this calculated charade of a conspiracy.
He would then have to testify to his coordination with Schiff and the committee staff. He
would have to expose how Vindmann leaked national security information illegally. How the
entire 'whistleblower" farce was a calculated effort to again derail the Trump Presidency.
A lot has come out about Eric Ciaramella, the Adam Schiff 'Whistleblower", in recent days.
It is the tip of the iceberg. Any legitimate investigation of the circumstances surrounding the
entire Ukraine affair will reveal the extensive criminality of the Obama White House and the
coup plotters.
Exposing the dark underbelly of the Obama White House
It stretches back to the Steele Dossier and the clear efforts of the DNC and the Deep State
to use to a foreign power to interfere in the 2016 election. He exposes the corruption of Vice
President Biden to enrich his family at the expense of the American taxpayer. Details the $6
million dollar bribery scheme of Hunter and Joe Biden by Burisma Holdings.
Lays out the corrupt dealings of Ambassador Yovanovich.
It will lay open the devious underbelly of all the so-called hero witnesses of the Schiff
impeachment Star Chamber inquisition. Of the criminal actions of the coup plotters. Of
Ambassador Yovanovich, Ambassador Taylor, Alexandra Chalupa, and Alexander Vindman.
As well as the so-called whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella.
Calling the Fourth Estate back
It is the tip of the iceberg that only a truly free and independent press will have to
take the reins to fearlessly expose. Like brilliant investigative reporter Paul Sperry at
Real Clear Investigations. Like the Federalist, NOQ Report, and here at CommDigiNews, who
broke the Ciaramella story a full two days before Real Clear Investigations.
No one else in the corrupt media establishment seems willing to rise to the challenge.
Max is one of the greatest journalists of our time ! Thank You , but take care because
their are many that are threatened by truth and integrity ! RESPECT !
The msm is full of CIA swamp lobbyist liars. Max is just objectively reporting
substantiated data points that counter lies that are meant to sell taxpayers war.
Perestroika put the final nails in the USSR's economy One of the first main policies
Gorbachev adopted was Perestroika – reform of the economy. Hoarding and reciprocal
favours (blat) had been a means of survival in the Soviet Union, thieving to 'moonlight' was
also common and this cost the regime a lot. The 'command-administrative' system had become
obsolete in the Post-Industrial era and was curtailing economic development 1. To solve this,
Gorbachev wanted to give enterprise managers control over contracts and introduce aspects of
the market economy, to make it managers' responsibility to gain contracts and to make sure the
enterprise makes a profit. However, in practice the way the enterprises operated remained
unchanged except in terms – ministries rephrased their commands as contracts 2. Private
enterprise was also permitted, which seemed to contradict Gorbachev's claim to be committed to
Marxist-Leninist thought which was vehemently opposed to capitalism which Marxist's argue
exploit the proleteriat – so to actually create a class of capitalists who (according to
Marxist doctrine) would exploit the workers who were supposed to be living in socialist –
i.e. 'classless society' seemed contradictory to the very ideological concept the regime's
power was based upon. A small amount of private enterprise emerged, but the profiteering was
very much resented by the general population – goods and services were sold for four or
five times their subsidized price due to shortages. Another aspect of Perestroika was entry
into the market economy – many of the social benefits given by the enterprises had to be
done away with, as they could not make a profit and afford to maintain the benefits, resulting
in a stagnant economy occuring simultaneously with a collapsing social welfare system.
Gorbachev's reforms did not work and only succeeded in hastening the economic collapse that was
inevitable.
1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...
Glasnost facilitated Opposition to Concentrate against the Regime Allowing freedom of
thought from the 'mono-ideological controls' that existed for decades and allowing pluralist
thought and leadership meant a weakening of power for the Communist Party – it had to
convert into a proper parliamentary party to survive. Furthermore, in a regime based on
oppression and propaganda, when these are removed and freedom of speech and freedom of the
media are introduced, nasty elements about the system in the past are going to be revealed, and
when there is 70 years of repression being reported all at once, it is inevitable there will be
extreme hostility toward those responsible – the Party 1, this especially fuelled the
anger of the nationalities who had been oppressed and triggered a nationalist movement.
The population were dissatisfied with the dire state of affairs and could voice their
discontent openly with glasnost, which led to Gorbachev becoming very unpopular by 1991, in
which year the economy had contracted by 18% 2, people were also very concerned over the
incompetence of the command-administrative system and irresponsibility of the leadership with
regards to the 1986 Chernobyl power station disaster 3.
In a state committed to one ideology, the removal of mono-ideological controls, and the
ability of other ideological persuasions to come to power meant the Party had lost its RIGHT to
govern the people unless the people themselves WANTED the Party to rule. Thus, the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had to win the support of the people in order to govern
effectively. However, in a society that was becoming increasingly liberal and 'bourgeois' (the
USSR was largely middle class, private property was protected and capitalism was legalised),
the people had to believe in socialist ideology – which would have been almost impossible
to achieve.
Gorbachev's reforms themselves undermined some of the principle features of socialist rule
in the USSR, e.g. atheism, mono-ideological control, one-party state, economic monopoly and the
suspendability of law. Gorbachev's ideology itself – his focus on 'all-human values'
instead of the class struggle, the rule of law, international peace and proper parliamentary
representation have more resonance with John Stuart Mill than Karl Marx 4 – Gorbachev was
subconsciously moving the USSR in this ideological direction.
With democratization and pluralist thought permitted, Gorbachev found himself operating
within an increasingly wide political spectrum – with the reformist 'democrats' on one
side and the conservative Communist Party members on the other. There was a constant power
struggle between the two and Gorbachev dealt with this by constantly playing one side against
the other and compromising. One of Gorbachev's critics at the time said this was like trying to
marry a hare to a hedgehog. The two sides were very much irreconcilable and instead of trying
to defeat one side, Gorbachev sat on the fence and as a result his policies were constantly
inconsistent – you cannot mix radical reforms with conservatism 5. The dangers of this
were apparent when Shevardnadze, Foreign Minister at the time, resigned because he warned a
dictatorship was approaching, Gorbachev ignored this threat and dismissed this claim with
overconfidence 6.
1 Kagarlitsky, B. Russia under Yeltsin and Putin: neo-liberal autocracy, London: Pluto
2002
2 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997
3 Haynes, M., Russia: Class and Power, 1917-2000, London: Bookmarks 2002
4 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997
5 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991
6 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991 No because...
Regional Nationalism and Independence Movements These original flaws in the system were
largely responsible for its own downfall – in particular the nationalities issue –
the decision to maintain the Empire without granting real power to the nationalities whilst
simultaneously repressing them left most of the nationalities feeling bitter when glasnost
revealed the truth about how they had been treated in the past and democratisation gave them
the power to chose representatives who would really represent people's interests (the
nationalist movement) whilst at the same time being given by Gorbachev an appetite for power
– a fatal combination.
The wealthier regions wanted a separation from the USSR because of the feeling they were
being milked from the centre and many other regions wanted to become independent because they
did not want to be part of an economic disaster area which became apparent when the Donbass
miners who had no commitment to nationalism thought their future would be safer if the Ukraine
wasn't part of the USSR 1.
The nationalist movement emerged when freedom of speech, media and association along with
democratisation and the loss of fear of repression allowed people to voice pride in their
nation and resentment at past repressions as well as the ongoing special treatment of Russians
in the Regions, who had access to better housing and other special privileges the locals did
not.
Certain Republics felt nationalism more strongly than others, most notably the Baltic States
who felt a strong cultural attachment to the West and felt they were being unfairly occupied.
Gorbachev's mistake here was to downplay the importance of nationalism and not treat the Baltic
States as a special case 2. After all, most of the population of the USSR wished to preserve
the Union – 76% voted to preserve the Union in March 1991 (except the Baltic States,
Moldova, Georgia and Armenia who did not conduct the referendum) 3. After the failed coup, most
states declared their independence, even if they did so with reluctance, as there was a general
feeling there was no alternative. Gorbachev tried to persuade the Republics not to become fully
independent. However, in early December, the Ukraine held a referendum where the population
voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, even after Gorbachev stated "there can be no
Union without Ukraine", on 8th December, Yeltsin met with the Ukrainian and Bielorussian leader
and declared a formal end to the USSR and the establishment of the Confederation of Independent
States which they invited the other states to join.
There was nothing left Gorbachev could do, democratisation had brought about the means for
independence and Gorbachev didn't feel he could argue with people's wishes carried out through
democratic means and, on 25th December he resigned with regret.
1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996
3 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996 Yeltsin Factor
Boris Yeltsin emerged as the true hero and strong leader for the fearlessness to condemn the
coup – in a press conference afterwards Yeltsin ordered Gorbachev around undermining his
position, then used his institutional powers derived from democratization to appoint Egor
Gaidar, an economist dedicated to laissez-faire economics, as his Finance Minister and
suspension of the CPSU pending an investigation into the coup. Gorbachev half heartedly argued
against this but it was no use – he was seen as a weaker leader along with discontent
over his policies, whilst Yeltsin's radicalism was keeping pace with developments and his
popularity at an all-time high, Gorbachev's position was also much less weaker without the
Communist Party. Also, the Soviet Union really could not exist without the Communist Party
arguably as they had political and economic monopoly on society and the Communist Party went
from controlling these aspects of society to ceasing to exist, the Soviet Union could not
function and the economy spiralled out of control. Yes because...
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... August 1991 Coup
Counter Productive, Bringing About What It Sought To Prevent - The End of the Soviet Union
By August 1991 Gorbachev's popularity was at an all-time low both in the Party and outside it.
Despite being advised by some of his staff to sign the Treaty agreement granting the republics
real autonomy before going on holiday and some suspicious circumstances he should have been
more questioning about, he planned on signing the agreement when he returned. This was a big
mistake and allowed the conservatives to stage a coup. The Emergency Committee made no
reference whatsoever to Marxism-Leninism or the class struggle in their speech, meaning it was
a coup in the hope of returning the Soviet Union to 'normal' i.e. an Empire controlled from
Moscow and putting the final nails in the coffin of socialism in the USSR 1.
The failed coup triggered the very thing it sought to prevent – the break-up of the
Soviet Union 2.
1 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
Yes because... Report this ad
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... The System Needed to
Change in Order to Survive in the Longer Term; That Mikhail Gorbachev's Reforms Failed Showed
that the USSR Could Not be Saved By the Gorbachev era, all hopes of fulfilling the original
Marxist-Leninist dream were gone and most did not feel passionately about communism, even
within the Party. There was a general acknowledgement that the USSR could not continue in the
same way as before – Andropov, Gorbachev's predecessor also realised this and set about
changing society through repressive measures such as harsh labour discipline enforced by
cutting payments from workers for work deemed poor quality and restrictions on the sale of
alcohol and prohibition of alcohol on official occasions was felt overly repressive and for
many – Gorbachev was seen as a positive, energetic leader who would overcome the USSR's
problems in a less repressive manner. With economic stagnation and an economy dependent on the
exportation of natural resources to survive 1, an unsuccessful war (Afghanistan) and an ageing
Party Membership to combat, Gorbachev was the candidate for those who wanted change or at least
realised change could no longer be postponed 2.
Autocracies survive due to repressing their people to the extent that they are not given the
freedoms required to change their government, rather than because the people want them to stay
in power. Mikhail Gorbachev's conscience and sense of responsibility for his population
dictated that the system could no longer be propped up like this, and that the people needed
and deserved the freedoms and basic human rights they had been denied for decades. That the
system could not encorporate such freedoms meant that the system morally should not be allowed
to perpetuate itself, and thus the Soviet Union fell apart because it was unrepresentative and
did not support the population's human rights means the fall of the USSR should be applauded,
not mourned for its' population.
1 Volkogonov, D.A. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire: political leaders from Lenin to
Gorbachev, edited and translated by M. Shukman, London: HarperCollins 1998
2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... War with Afghanistan
Drained USSR of Patriotic Morale The war in Afghanistan was a key contributing factor to
the breakup of the USSR. Reuveny and Prakash argue that the Soviet-Afghan war contributed to
undermining the Soviet Union in many ways. First, it discredited the Red Army, and impacted
negatively upon the image of the Red Army as a strong, almost invincible force, which gave
nationalist movements in the Republics hope that they might succeed in attaining independence
after all. Second, it impacted upon leadership perception on the usefulness of utilising the
military to keep the union intact and as a force for foreign intervention. Third, it created
new forms of political participation, which had begun to impact upon media reporting even
before glasnost, and began the first calls for glasnost, as it created a number of war
veterans, who went on to form organisations which weakened the total authority of the CPSU
1.
1 Reuveny, Rafael, and Prakash, Aseem, 'The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet
Union', Review of International Studies (1999), 25:693-708 Yes because... Report this ad
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... It was dead from the
time Stalin took control Gorbachev finished it off, but Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc.
really killed it. Lenin had nothing to do with that, he was a socialist-marxist, not a
communist. You obviously don't know the difference. Learn it before you blindly yell your
opinion into the dark of the internet.
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
MOSCOW --
Yegor K. Ligachev, once the second-most-powerful man in the Kremlin, on Wednesday called his former
boss and comrade, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, a coward and a traitor.
"I met many Communists who spent
decades in labor camps in the permafrost zone but retained their faith in the party," the erstwhile
Politburo hard-liner said. "I fail to understand its general secretary who spent three days in the
best health resort the country has by the warm sea, then called for its dissolution."
Ligachev, as straight-talking and opinionated as ever, met with journalists to present his book
"The Gorbachev Riddle," a personal chronicle of the
perestroika
years he helped to
shape before the Soviet president and party leader gave him the boot in August, 1990.
The book presentation, attended by a standing-room-only audience in the Moscow House of
Journalists, served as a forum for Ligachev, 71, to reiterate his views and credo.
Advertisement
"When life proved me wrong, I did change my perceptions," he said with quiet dignity, "but I never
changed my principles. Unlike Gorbachev, I still adhere to socialism, and I still think this is the
future for my country." The white-haired native of Siberia said his only desire is to reunite the
nation, introduce peace and stability and build a "new, refurbished Soviet Union."
A foe of both Gorbachev and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, Ligachev contended that his country
is in danger of becoming a "raw materials supplier and semi-colony" for the capitalist world as the
Russian leadership presses on with its economic reforms.
"The ban on the Communist Party, an organization uniting about 20 million members, cannot but
diminish the chances for a peaceful resolution of the country's current political, economic and social
crisis," Ligachev said, referring to a ban that Yeltsin ordered last Nov. 6.
Few questions during the presentation ceremony concerned Ligachev's 303-page book itself; instead,
many people sought out his view of recent political developments.
The most persistent question put to Ligachev was why none of the former leaders of the Communist Party
had volunteered to defend it at hearings on its record ordered for July by the Constitutional Court of
Russia.
Asserting that it is Gorbachev who is legally obligated to take on this task, Ligachev said
that the party "had been betrayed by its general secretary" and that it is now up to "ordinary
Communists" to defend the party's 73-year record in leading the Soviet Union.
Ligachev, who became a voting, or full, member of the ruling party Politburo in 1985, the same year
Gorbachev came to power, remains the only publicly active figure from the defunct body who voices
support for his old principles.
Others, such as former Vice President Gennady I. Yanayev, are now in prison for their roles in last
August's unsuccessful attempt at overthrowing Gorbachev when he was on vacation at a Crimean beach
resort.
"... Nuland's comment came in response to news that that there would be a second phase of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' investigation into Russian interference – this time focusing on the State Department. Nunes sent a questionnaire to about two dozen current and former intelligence, law enforcement and State Department officials. My guess is Nuland was one of them. Former Secretary of State John Kerry may have been another. ..."
"... Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. When Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well. ..."
On February 4, 2018, Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of
State in the Obama Administration went on Face the Nation and made the
following comment :
During the Ukraine crisis in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who
were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what
was going on between them. Chris had a friend [Jonathan Winer] at the State Department and he
offered us that reporting free so that we could also benefit from it. It was one of, you know,
hundreds of sources that we were using to try to understand what was going on.
Then, in the middle of July, when he was doing this other work and became concerned, he
passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to
that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here
that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation.
That's something for the FBI to investigate.
Nuland said the State Department received the Dossier directly from Steele in mid-July 2016,
whereupon the State Department turned it over to the FBI (segmented video
here ).
Which is right around the time Susan Rice began showing increased interest in National
Security Agency (NSA) intelligence material – including "unmasked" Americans' identities.
From a
Circa article :
Intelligence sources said the logs discovered by National Security Council staff suggested
Rice's interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans' identities,
appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated
after Trump's election in November launched a transition that continued through January.
Nuland's comment came in response to news that that there would be a
second phase of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' investigation into
Russian interference – this time focusing on the State Department. Nunes sent a questionnaire to about two dozen current and former intelligence, law
enforcement and State Department officials. My guess is Nuland was one of them. Former Secretary of State John Kerry may have been
another.
The New York Times
had earlier reported that the FBI received the Steele Dossier directly from Christopher Steele
on July 5, 2016 – the same day as Comey's infamous exoneration of Hillary Clinton during
a news conference:
The reports came from a former British intelligence agent named Christopher Steele, who was
working as a private investigator hired by a firm working for a Trump opponent. He provided the
documents to an F.B.I. contact in Europe on the same day as Mr. Comey's news conference about
Mrs. Clinton. It took weeks for this information to land with Mr. Strzok and his team.
This claim was recently repeated in a lengthy article in the
New Yorker . In this version, the Steele Dossier was given to the FBI on July 5, 2016. By ~July 20, 2016,
Comey had seen it and Strzok had the Dossier in his possession.
There is a third version of events, provided by Jonathan Winer in a
Washington Post Op-Ed :
In 2009, I met and became friends with Steele, after he retired from British government
service focusing on Russia. Steele was providing business intelligence on the same kinds of
issues I worked on at the time. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me
whether the State Department would like copies of new information as he developed it.
I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant secretary of state for
European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me
they were useful and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more
than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts at the State Department, who continued to
find them useful.
In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information
regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did
not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures," a Soviet
intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other
countries.
In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as
the "dossier." Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking
of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised
Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.
I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the
State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that,
like me, she felt that the secretary of state [John Kerry] needed to be made aware of this
material.
In this third version, Nuland and the State Department received the Dossier in September
2016.
Nuland made her comments on February 4, 2018. Winer wrote his Op-Ed on February 8, 2018.
Winer has known Steele since 2009. Nuland has known Steele since 2014 – during the
Ukraine crisis.
Victoria Nuland is famous for an interesting conversation with the U.S. Ambassador to
Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt on or before February 4, 2014 (transcript here ):
During the call, which was intercepted and leaked, the two appear to be discussing replacing
Ukrainian President Yanukovych with opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Some excerpts:
PYATT: I think we're in play. The Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko, one of three main opposition
leaders] piece is obviously the complicated electron here.
NULAND: Good. I don't think Klitsch should go into the government. I don't think it's
necessary, I don't think it's a good idea.
PYATT: Yeah. I guess in terms of him not going into the government, just let him stay out
and do his political homework and stuff. I'm just thinking in terms of sort of the process
moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together.
NULAND: I think Yats [opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk] is the guy who's got the economic
experience, the governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the
outside.
PYATT: The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych but we probably regroup on
that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.
NULAND: Sullivan's come back to me VFR, saying you need [Vice President] Biden and I said
probably tomorrow. So Biden's willing.
Here's what actually happened:
On or before February 4 2014 – Call between Pyatt and Nuland.
February 22, 2014 – Yanukovych was
removed as President of Ukraine.
February 27 2014 – Yatsenyuk was installed as Prime Minister of Ukraine.
Klitschko was left out. Yatsenyuk would
resign
in April 2016 amidst corruption accusations.
April 18 2014 – Hunter Biden was
appointed to the Board of Directors for Burisma – one of the largest natural gas
companies in Ukraine.
April 22 2014 – VP Biden
travels to Ukraine and
offers support and $50 million in aid for Yatsenyuk's shaky new government.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly
questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump
aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after
the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his
advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met
with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between
Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of
the situation.
That Ukrainian-American was DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa.
Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named
Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the
Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for
Democratic National Committee.
The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission
records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic
campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.
Some actions taken by Chalupa (sources from Politico
article unless otherwise linked):
January 3 2014 – Leaders representing more than a dozen Ukrainian-American
organizations, including the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, met at the
White House with President Obama's senior national security staff to discuss the crisis in
Ukraine.
The non-partisan meeting held on January 3 was initiated by the co-chairs of
Ukrainian-Americans for Obama, Julian Kulas, Andrew Fedynsky and Ulana Mazurkevich, as well
Alexandra Chalupa , co-convener of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee.
This was approximately one month prior to Nuland's call with Pyatt regarding the
installation of Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister of Ukraine.
2014 (undetermined) -Chalupa begins to investigate Paul Manafort.
Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested
in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort's role in Yanukovych's rise, as well as
his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych's political party.
Late 2015 – Chalupa expands her opposition research into Manafort to include Trump's
ties to Russia.
Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington,
including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives.
When Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more
on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well.
She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton's campaign
January 2016 – Chalupa informs a senior DNC official that she feels there is a Russia
connection with the Trump Campaign.
Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, "I felt there was
a Russia connection," Chalupa recalled. "And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul
Manafort to be involved in this election," said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning
leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was "Putin's political brain for
manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections."
March 25 2016 – Chalupa shared her concerns with the Ukrainian Ambassador to the
U.S.
She said she shared her concern with Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and
one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy.
According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his
radar, but that he wasn't particularly concerned about the operative's ties to Trump.
March 29 2016 – Chalupa briefs DNC Communication staff.
The day after Manafort's hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC's communications staff on
Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the
situation.
A former DNC staffer and the operative familiar with the situation agreed that with the
DNC's encouragement, Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which
Poroshenko might discuss Manafort's ties to Yanukovych.
While the embassy declined that request, officials there became "helpful" in Chalupa's
efforts, she said, explaining that she traded information and leads with them.
Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and
Russia to point them in the right directions.
April 4 – April 12 2016 – Ukrainian Parliamentarian Olga Bielkov has
four meetings – with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies),
Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Dept) and David Kramer (McCain
Institute).
Doug Schoen files FARA documents that
show he was paid $40,000 a month by Ukrainian Billionaire Victor Pinchuk (page 5) to arrange
these meetings.
Schoen attempts to arrange another 72 meetings with Congressmen and media (page 10). It is
unknown how many meetings took place.
April 6 2016 – Chalupa holds a meeting with an assistant of Representative Marcy
Kaptur.
Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort's hiring was announced, she discussed the
possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the
office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus.
April 26 2016 – Investigative reporter Michael Isikoff publishes
story on Yahoo News about Paul Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg
Deripaska.
April 28 2016 – Chalupa appears on a panel to discuss her research on Manafort with a
group of 68 Ukrainian investigative journalists gathered at the Library of Congress for a
program sponsored by a U.S. congressional agency called the Open World Leadership Center.
From a Wikileaks
email sent by Chalupa to Luis Miranda, Communications Director of the DNC:
I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last Wednesday at the
Library of Congress – the Open World Society's forum – they put me on the program
to speak specifically about Paul Manafort and I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working
with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians.
Two points.
Open World is a supposedly non-partisan Congressional agency.
Michael Isikoff is the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked
to in September 2016:
The Carter Page FISA application extensively cited a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focused on Page's July 2016 trip to
Moscow. This information was used to corroborate the Steele Dossier.
Steele leaked to Isikoff who wrote the article for Yahoo News. The Isikoff article was then
used to help obtain a Title I FISA grant to gather information on Page. This search was then
leaked by Steele to David Corn at Mother Jones.
Isikoff accompanied Chalupa to a reception at the Ukrainian Embassy immediately after the
Library of Congress event.
May 3 2016 – Chalupa emails Luis Miranda, Communications
Director of the DNC (same email referenced above).
A lot more coming down the pipe More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component
you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on
you should be aware of.
Late July 2016 – Chalupa leaves the DNC to work full-time on her research into
Manafort.
Chalupa left the DNC after the Democratic convention in late July to focus full-time on her
research into Manafort, Trump and Russia . She said she provided off-the-record
information and guidance to "a lot of journalists" working on stories related to Manafort and
Trump's Russia connections.
August 4 2016 – Ukrainian ambassador to U.S.
writes op-ed against Trump.
August 15 2016 – CNN
reports that Manafort is named in a Ukrainian probe over potentially illegal payments
received from Ukraine's pro-Russian ruling party.
August 19 2016 – CNN
reports the FBI is conducting an inquiry into Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort's payments
from pro-Russia interests in Ukraine in 2007 and 2009.
August 19 2016 – Ukrainian parliament member Sergii Leshchenko
holds news conference to draw attention to Paul Manafort and Trump's "pro-Russia" ties.
September 19 2016 – At UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Ukrainian President
Poroshenko
meets with Hillary Clinton.
November 28 2016 – McCain associate
David Kramer flies to London to meet Christopher Steele for a briefing on the Dossier. Upon
Kramer's return, Fusion GPS provided McCain with a copy of the Dossier.
July 24 2017 – Senator Charles Grassley
sends a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein regarding the actions taken by
Chalupa.
According to news reports, during the 2016 presidential election, "Ukrainian government
officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump" and did so by "disseminat[ing]
documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the
matter.
At the center of this plan was Alexandra Chalupa, described by reports as a
Ukrainian-American operative "who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee" and
reportedly met with Ukrainian officials during the presidential election for the express
purpose of exposing alleged ties between then-candidate Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, and
Russia.
Chalupa's actions appear to show that she was simultaneously working on behalf of a foreign
government, Ukraine, and on behalf of the DNC and Clinton campaign, in an effort to influence
not only the U.S voting population but U.S. government officials.
Aside from the apparent evidence of collusion between the DNC, Clinton campaign, and
Ukrainian government, Chalupa's actions implicate the Foreign Agents Registration Act
(FARA).
Chalupa reportedly worked directly with Ukrainian government officials to benefit Ukraine,
lobbying Congress on behalf of Ukraine, and worked to undermine the Trump campaign on behalf of
Ukraine and the Clinton campaign.
The January 4, 2018 Grassley Memo – made
public on February 6, 2018, made clear that both the State Department and the Clinton Campaign
directly contributed information used by Steele in the formation of his Dossier.
I'm curious if Chalupa met directly with Christopher Steele. It's clear her research was
funneled by the DNC to Steele's Dossier.
Former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland must have known about all of this.
People above her had to know as well.
On March 6, 2018, Sara Carter
reported that the House Intelligence Committee is now investigating former Secretary of
State John Kerry:
The House Select Committee on Intelligence is now investigating former Secretary of State
John F. Kerry's possible role into the unverified dossier paid for by the Democratic National
Committee and Hillary Clinton Campaign.
The climb up the Obama Administration hierarchy appears to have finally begun.
Fiona Hill books does not worth even 5% of any book written by Professor Stephen Cohen. In other words they are pathetic junk.
Of the class that in UK(ream MI6) writes Luke Harding. may be they both have the same handlers. She is just a regular MIC
prostitute, like all neocons.
And Putin is a KGB thug is a terrible. simplistic argument. Pure propaganda. This isn't about either Putin (or Trump)
really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred.
Notable quotes:
"... As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors ..."
"... "The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare." ..."
"... For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. ..."
"... I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days. ..."
"... The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy. ..."
"... Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same. ..."
"... I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones. ..."
"... A poorly written smear that would make McCarthy blush. Recycled fear for the gullible citizens so desperately uneducated and unread. The Military Industrial Corporatists will pass it around as Bible ..."
Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological
profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their
limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again
and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999
manifesto on his millennial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both
subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these
documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are
padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.
As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the
authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a doozy:
"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic
and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter
Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."
For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong.
They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold
War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in
fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control
than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II.
To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy.
Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior
that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened
their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome
part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which
while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.
I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this
book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian
scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the
opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days.
But in ignoring what Cohen has to
say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in
lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.
The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the
writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US
Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen
than they are to Hill and Gaddy.
Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden
motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers'
books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors
never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.
Unprofessional writing, a profound disappointment. Reads like a high school essay - one
that repeats a single thought over and over, even re-using the same phrases - than a proper
biography. The content feels like it has been skimmed only from public sources. There is no
sign of insight among the authors, nor even a curiosity as to what makes this important
figure unique. One wonders where the interests lie in those who wrote laudative reviews. I am
sad to say that this book is nothing more than a polemic, and moreover one that is repetitive
and boring.
- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research
and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table.
Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him
credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia.
Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic
liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors
Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver
to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents
by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.
Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own
role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian
insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan
Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was
not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on
then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by
Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of
relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the
backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When
he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid
historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for
the same.
The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of
his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us -
our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these
"motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic
hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut
compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David
Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy,
Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes
Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but
rather ongoing and painful ones.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the
authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the
"misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the
"Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out
of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part
of a geo-political maneuver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians,
exactly as in the Baltic states.
His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the
authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an
aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial
amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western
pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is
dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian
security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving,
it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie
Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.
In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand
tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on
Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make
him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US.
Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp
A poorly written smear that would make McCarthy blush. Recycled fear for the gullible
citizens so desperately uneducated and unread. The Military Industrial Corporatists will pass
it around as Bible
The book gives advices what the US officials should say about Russia to advocate their
(US's) dishonest and aggressive policy. See examples of such policy in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Syria and Lybia.
"... The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August 2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate evidence to assign blame to Syria. ..."
Manufacturing a pretext for the U.S.
missile strike on Syria in April 2018 is nowhere near the biggest of OPCW's crimes. The
OPCW is an accessory , both before and after the fact to the crime of
mass murder.
It should now be clear to everyone that Syrian "rebels" gassed thousands of hostages in
cellars, most likely with chlorine gas, and then paraded the victims in White Helmets
snuff videos. OPCW conspired in this crime in both encouraging the terrorists to more murder
and by protecting them afterward by assigning blame to Assad and the Syrian government.
The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August
2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their
pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate
evidence to assign blame to Syria.
We have been documenting
these crimes and hoaxes at A Closer Look On Syria from December 2012. OPCW was used
from the beginning to manufacture consent for war. See for example:
Of course, the OPCW is already there! I highly suggest Caitlin Johnstone's article b
linked be read, which can be
found here .
We should expand on Petri's number of people involved in this crime to include all the
paid disinformation artists noted in Caitlin's essay at minimum. What becomes very clear in
all this is the total collusion with OPCW upper level management--those whom the
whistleblowers and their allies within OPCW petitioned--in these crimes as Petri contends.
Until they are visibly replaced, nothing issued by OPCW has any credence.
OPCW has shown to be a pure political entity, used at will by few regimes in the UN to
promote their agenda, b has done a tremendous job to humanity to bring the truth to the
public worldwide. Syrians have paid the price for UN leaders support to global terrorism for
too long. It must stop now.
"... In 1979 at one of my public speeches ("How to kill an elephant with a needle"), I was asked what in my opinion was the most vulnerable point in the Soviet system. I replied: the one that is considered the most reliable, namely, the apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, within it - the Central Committee, and within the latter - the General Secretary. ..."
"... The reader should not think that I gave that idea to Cold War strategists. They realized that without me. One of the employees of the Intelligence Service told me that soon they (i.e. forces of the West) would put their man on "the soviet throne". ..."
"... What distinguishes this Cold War operation is that the method of "killing an elephant with a needle" was applied against a less powerful, yet mighty opponent, to obviate the possibility of a "hot war" becoming dangerous to the point where the advantages of the West could disappear, as happened in the war of Germany versus the Soviet Union in 1941-1945. ..."
"... The method in question made it possible to avoid risk and losses, save time and win by proxy. The method invented by the weak to fight stronger opponents was adopted by the most powerful forces on the planet in their war for domination over the entire human race. ..."
More than anyone else, he was responsible for handing the US and UK their greatest strategic victory ever
Alexander Zinoviev
Tue,
|
1300 words
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MORE:
History
This post first appeared on Russia Insider
RI
continues
with
a series of articles about the life and works of the brilliant postwar Russian philosopher, author, and
dissident, Alexander Zinoviev.
This time, his famous essay on how the West destroyed the USSR is introduced by his widow Olga, chairwoman
of the Zinoviev Club at Rossiya Sevodnya, a major Russian news agency.
How
different US-Russia relations were back then...
Zinoviev often said that judging from
Gorbachev's behavior, one cannot exclude the possibility that he was working for the West, but that at the end of
the day, it didn't really matter, because what he did served the West's interests exactly.
lllustrations are by Zinoviev himself, provided to
RI
by his family.
Translated from
Russian
especially
for
RI
by Sergei Malygin
Introduction
Before you, dear readers, you have one of the
seven chapters
of Zinoviev's famous essay 'How to Kill an Elephant With a Needle', written in 2005, a year
before the author's death.
The material for it derived from recollections of the numerous meetings Alexander Zinoviev had with
representatives of the West's political elite who were responsible for the formation of policy with respect to the
USSR.
1016196444.jpg
Olga Zinovieva - an active voice in
contemporary Russia
The idea underlying little episodes, including historical examples, is as elementary and limpid as spring
water: how to work out the weak spot of the enemy, adversary, scoundrel or opponent, irrespective of their
number and armaments, both literally and metaphorically.
With graphic clarity, as if it were a lesson, he provides a whole series of examples, beginning with his
own example involving a compass but then using classical examples from history, such as the episode with Francisco
Pizarro, the conquistador conqueror of Mexico, who demonstrated extraordinary quick-wittedness in his detection of
the adversary's weak spot (the Indians).
Astonished by the attack of a handful of Pizarro's warriors on their leader, whom they regarded as a god
and who in their conception was invulnerable and untouchable, the Indians capitulated without a fight. "Pizarro",
wrote Alexander Zinoviev, "had divined the enemy army's weak spot, its Achilles heel".
In this essay he writes about how the Soviet Union's weak spot turned out to be the top echelons of the
leadership.
Zinoviev was often called a dissident, but he never thought of himself as such. He was a critic of the
Soviet system, but he was not its enemy.
In his later years he often repeated that, if he had known what a dreadful fate awaited the USSR, he would
not have written a single critical book or article about it.
Olga Zinovieva
How to kill an elephant with a needle
I was exiled to the West in 1978, when the thirty-year course of the Cold War hit a radical turning point.
Cold War leaders have studied Soviet society since the beginning. The new science of Sovietology has been
developed employing thousands of experts and involving hundreds of research centers.
Within it, a separate branch of Kremlinology has appeared. It pedantically studied the structure of the
Soviet State, the party apparatus, the central party apparatus, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union, the Politburo and employees of the government apparatus individually.
But for a long time (perhaps until the end of the 1970s) the main focus was on the ideological and
psychological manipulation of the general population, the creation of pro-Western masses of Soviet citizens who
in actuality would play the role of the West's "fifth column" and (intentionally or unintentionally) working on
the ideological and moral disintegration of the Soviet population (not to mention other functions). Thus the
dissident movement was created.
In short, the main work was carried out through the destruction of Soviet society "from below". Important
achievements had been made that became factors in the future counterrevolution. But they were not significant
enough to bring the Soviet society to its collapse.
By the end of the 1970s, the Western Cold War leaders understood that. They realized that the government
system formed the basis of Soviet communism and the party apparatus was at its core. Having thoroughly studied
the party apparatus, the nature of relations between its members, their psychology and qualifications,
selection methods and its other characteristics, Cold War leaders concluded that Soviet society could be
destroyed only from the top, by destroying its system of government.
To destroy the latter it was necessary and sufficient to destroy the party apparatus, starting from its top
level - the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. So they shifted their main efforts in
that direction.
They found the most vulnerable place in the Soviet social structure. It was not difficult for me to guess
this shift, because I had an opportunity to observe and study that hidden part of the Cold War.
In 1979 at one of my public speeches ("How to kill an elephant with a needle"), I was asked what in my
opinion was the most vulnerable point in the Soviet system. I replied: the one that is considered the most
reliable, namely, the apparatus of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, within it - the Central Committee,
and within the latter - the General Secretary.
To Homeric laughter in the audience, I said that "if you put your man in that position he will ruin the
party apparatus, thus starting a chain reaction resulting in the breakdown of the entire government system and
administration. The consequence will be the breakdown of the entire society". I referred to the precedent of
Pizarro.
The reader should not think that I gave that idea to Cold War strategists. They realized that without me.
One of the employees of the Intelligence Service told me that soon they (i.e. forces of the West) would put
their man on "the soviet throne".
At that time I did not believe that was possible. I spoke hypothetically of the General Secretary as the
West's "needle". But Western strategists already considered that to be a realistic proposition. They developed
a plan for winning the war: take the supreme power in the Soviet Union under their control by promoting "their"
man to the position of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, force him to destroy the CPSU apparatus, implement an overhaul ("perestroika") that would start a chain
reaction and consequent breakdown of the entire Soviet society.
Such a plan was realistic then because the crisis at the top level of Soviet power was already evident, due
to the senescence of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Soon "their" man in the role of the Western "needle" appeared (if he was not "prepared" in advance).
Admittedly, the plan worked well.
What distinguishes this Cold War operation is that the method of "killing an elephant with a needle" was
applied against a less powerful, yet mighty opponent, to obviate the possibility of a "hot war" becoming
dangerous to the point where the advantages of the West could disappear, as happened in the war of Germany
versus the Soviet Union in 1941-1945.
The method in question made it possible to avoid risk and losses, save time and win by proxy. The method
invented by the weak to fight stronger opponents was adopted by the most powerful forces on the planet in their
war for domination over the entire human race.
You put it pretty well. I also think that Gorby wasn't a conscious traitor, but he
was not capable to handle the necessary tasks for the reform of the USSR. He botched
it badly.
Yeltsin, on the other hand, was exactly that: a traitor. And he proved
it time and again.
Did not notice that about Pizarro, Kortez conquered Mexico.
Gorby was not fit and did not have what it takes to be Central Secretary and
he had no idea about how power is used. In times of restructuring and reforms
power cannot be diffused and undermined which is what he did, but must be
concentrated. Making quite a few heads roll would cause the rest to fall in
line including Yeltsin, who was a typical opportunist who smelt weakness and
rot at the top and used it.
Note that after Lenin death and until, Stalin by brutal measures concentrated
power in his hands, there was a lot of talk but little deeds. Just like in US
Congress. Same happened under Gorby, everybody started talking, then everybody
started smearing face with feces and glorifying the West until they undermined
any chance for positive change. What should have been done is to make heads
indeed roll at the top especially in Central Asia and Caucasus republics where
corruption was running amok and local intelligencia born by USSR own efforts
started thinking too much of themselves. Then when everybody would see there
is the Boss in Kremlin, things could have been started to move .
In China Deng had to deal with Hua Guo Feng and others before he started
reforms after concentrating power in own hands.
Gorby, well, was not cut for the role. Every few months new ideas, busy body
and not very straight talker. He was too soft and lacked abilities to be
leader of such a country and had none in his surrounding to shore his
deficiencies up.
He did , but me think not enough. also, it is not exactly the way
it used to be. I think Putin knew what he was doing. Unlike Gorby
who had all of the power in his hands and could do things we are
talking about, Putin had to maneuver. His position was not
unassailable when he came to power and much later. He had to be
more of a fox. He is also not a cruel man, like Stalin was.
It wouldn't be impossible, even today there are some questionable characters in very
high Kremlin positions, and if any of them manage come to power they will undermine
Russia's interests as has happened in the not so distant past.
I agree that in the
case of Gorby he was more of a fool than a Western agent. The Westerners knew how to
charm, flatter and entertain him and he was only too willing to please them and lap
up their manipulation and false promises.
It would be impossible. They do not and did not understand how things work in
Russia and they almost always are wrong. Gorby stupidity was all the required,
Yeltsin was a dark horse and Coup leaders should have studied more of Lenin
how to make coups.
With Gorby no cunning was necessary. The guy was plain sucker and not fit for
the office. Looks like he got picked for 2 qualities. Youth and good health
and having no enemies.
In those years we had new General secretary every
year.
I am so sad that the great Soviet Union for which so many many millions
of brave and honest people gave everything they had and their life in
the end got ripped apart due to this corrupted idiot. Furthermore I am
surprised beyond any belief that no one from KGB or Soviet Army arranged
for this fool to get smoked when they saw what was about to commence.
Today it is still the biggest mystery to me. I am aware that USSR had
some problems but those were truly nothing compared to what Russia and
all the other post Soviet countries faced after USSR got destroyed by
that cock sucker. 300 000 000 people more or less got their future
crippled and robbed because of 1 ( one ) western puppy. I just still
today cannot believe that happened. Looks like of course he had some KGB
staff on his payroll but in the end I just cannot believe that no one
took him to Siberia and burried him over there on time.
What is even
more sad is that today this idiot is prancing freely across Russia even
after almost everyone today sees that because of him they got Yeltsin
and his mobsters that stole their future.
I do admire Russian people and respect them for everything they wnt
through their past but some things are just not logical for a 12 year
old child and definitely not for a nation that gave the most chess
masters and champions to the world.
I would definitely like your comment on this if you are a citizen of
ex USSR.
lets look at it a different way ... Who was Gorbachev not Working FOR !
-
Gorbachev Was not Working For the USSR, Gorbachev Was not working for the People of the
USSR ...
-
now it is easier to see who Gorbachev the Traitor was Working For / and Where Gorbachev
Loyalties Were !
Mihail Sergeyevitch is a Russian
patriot, just as good as many more millions of Russians are! But Mihail Sergeyevitch
fallen for the pretence of honesty, so skilfully played by the west, as he presupposed the
existence of GENTLEMEN being in power in the west! ...and he wasn't the only one of the
Russian politicians, ...Dimitry Anatolyevitch fallen for the same, ...when the agreed for
a no-fly zone to be established over Libya!
There are NO gentlemen in western politics! ZIPPO, ZILCH, NADA! There are O N L Y
BASTARDS, one worse then the next!
i think gorbachev can in a sense be called traitorious to the RUSSIAN nation --
whether it was under the USSR or not...
but precisely because he allowed himself
to be ''open'' in ways that the west needed for the leadership to be open -- at the
exact time when russia at the core of the USSR NEEDED someone to REFUSE to be
''open'' in exactly the way the USA wanted -- in order to get rid of the
'perception' of a 'failing, geriatric ussr" - and thus , be ''welcomed" by the
''world" which to gorbachev WAS the west...
to the nearly complete ignoring of THE MAJORITY of other nations (such as we see
PUTIN achieve differently) -
he became the instrument of what was to follow -- yeltsin and the collapse of not
just the USSR -- but RUSSIA'S governance itself
which further opened russia to the pillaging through the oligarchic collaborators
with their western masters...
i think GORBACHEV LOVES RUSSIA -- i really do -- i think he is as russia in his
soul and heart as can be...
but he was simply
WRONG in his putting FAITH and confidence, just as BORIS correctly argues,
in having GENTLEMEN AS COUNTERPARTS from the west. -- reagan the ACTOR?
excuse me -- THAT IS ALL that gorbacheV should HAVE KEPT IN MIND. to know that
the USA was and IS NOT A ''partner"
as the russians, including putin -- like to say out of POLITENESS.
he should have realized that the WEST ARE NOT -- nd never have been 'THE LEAGUE
OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN"
but EXTRAORDINARILY DECEITFUL plunderers and pillagers.
AND it has been like that since the beginning of the USA - TODAY -- and WILL
continue to be so.
it is in its DNA
just as TRUE compassion -- faith, ethics, morality, a sense of TRUE justice and
brotherhood of all humanity
IS IN THE DNA Of the RUSSIAN SOUL.
in other words -- the MISTAKE of gorbachev -- and yeltsin -- who were RIVALS --
was to believe or WISH to believe THAT THE AMERICANS and west --
were and are EQUALS AS PEOPLE GUIDED BY ETHICS ABOVE politics, economics,
personal glory, even nationality --
tht the west -- reagan etc -- were actually MEN OF HONOR.
THAT WAS HIS -- and ANY russian leaderships; GREATEST mistake.
perhaps gorbachev did not HAVE to 'work for the CIA" -- AND THE author is
probably correct -- he didn'/t HAVE to - DIRECTLY \\\
it was enough that gorbachev suffered from ''infatuation" with the west....
and so -- whatever HIS intentions or beliefs were -- his ACTS -- in themselves
BECAME acts of treason to his great country and people.
for what he did was -- to try to present THEM -- IN HIS ''glasnost and perestroika"
some of the 'freedom of the west" -- that the russian people REALLY did NOT need
-- but could have a freedom of THEIR very own
INDEPENDENT of ''copying or emulating" the west...
because IN RUSSIA AND AMONG the russian people
was ALL THE STRENGTH of their own freedom and choice and prosperity they WOULD
EVER NEED!
Hearing on U.S. Security Strategy Post-9/11
Testimony before House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
November 6, 2007
(
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/...
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage:
Well, indeed. I think we probably didn't get off to the
right foot in the Cold War. But, you know, we did apply smart power.
And let me give you an example -- I was being facetious about the
Chou En-lai French Revolution comment. But one of the advisers to
Gorbachev was a fellow by the name of Yakovlev -- he's the fellow who
came up with the term perestroika.
He actually, back in the bad days of the Cold War, when we were
tightly constraining the number of Soviet citizens who might come here,
he actually studied at Columbia. And he studied under a professor who
taught him about pluralism.
And Yakovlev went back to the then-Soviet Union with an idea that pluralism could work.
And 20 years later, he was the adviser. So it took a while to realize that investment,
but we realized that investment.
I called this out as a real possibility 2 years ago! I actually think that Gorbachev was
just a naive fool and the real CIA agent was his top adviser, Yakovlev. Here is what I
wrote back then:
". . . after extensive research by the Prole Center research team, it
has come to light that Alexander Yakovlev, Gorbachev's chief advisor on glasnost
and perestroika, was very likely a CIA penetration agent – an agent of influence. He could
have been either a witting or unwitting asset of U.S. intelligence."
This information was included as part of a brief book review I did. Here is the link to
the full article:
I still cannot believe how many naive people live today in Russia. There are STILL plenty
of people who believe that gorbachev was just a "clumsy" person in charge of the "task too
big to handle".
I would like to remind you that even after 2 "sudden" deaths of Soviet
leaders ( Andropov and Chernenko ) before this traitor USSR was just in a period of
economic stagnation and certainly not a deep recession. Several independent prominent
western economists have also collaborated that.
What happened is just so obvious to me that it really cannot get any simpler.
Gorbachev was a very weak minded person who even wasnt a true believer in Soviet
principles and even less so even less capable manager and organizer. He was a bureaucrat
whos wife was terminally ill and who was just a simpleton who allowed himself to be
seduced by the western propaganda and few full stores even though he obviously knew
nothing of the background principles of how world economy functioned even then.
Apparently he was way out of his league when meeting with Reagan who was a smart brave
and a cunning man I do have to admit that.
Gorbachev did what he only knew he could do. He betrayed the 70 years or hard work of
Soviet people and building of different world because he thought that world will admire
this moron and traitor if he arranges the collapse of USSR and the "end of the Cold War".
Of course there is another side of this coin.
What the actually did was "below the table" arrangement with the US that he would be
able to send his wife to a treatment abroad if he made the USSR disappear and that he
would be obviously well compensated for this evil deed. Even today he is being funded by
the western government through his "charity funds" Green Cross and Gorbachev foundation.
This guy made the dissolution of USSR on purpose make no mistake about it. It was
organized to make it seem as it happened "accidentally" and as a part of "democratic
process" so less question would be asked. Apparently even that idiotic strategy worked
which seems rather incredible for a country that provided so many smart people and was a
leading chess nation for decades. Even Albania would be skeptical about it.
Of course there is a silver lining to this. He could not do this all by himself. He had
powerful friends in KGB and army who helped him in his deeds. Why? Because they were
greedy people who lost faith in CP. With the help of these people Gorbachev introduced
extremely vile version of capitalism to the 300 000 000 people while he and his "comrades"
extracted currency reserves from the sabotaged USSR and hid them in western banks and off
shore companies.
To corroborate my point I will point out few facts:
1. only when gorbachev came to power Chernobyl catastrophe happened
2. he is the person who sent top Soviet military commanders AND THEIR WHOLE FAMILIES to
move from East Germany to the PLAINS of Ukraine and live like dogs for months until their
poor quality appartements were finished while being given nothing in exchange from Helmut
Kohl but a "Danke schon". No sane 6 year old would do that and certainly not a reasonable
and intelligent but honest Soviet leader.
3. He was the person who forced the Energia rocket with Polyus payload to be rushed beyond
all reason and that is what caused its demised and failure to put first ever weapon system
into orbit.
4. He allowed for the Berlin wall to fall like a brick overnight and did nothing to stop
that
5. He DIRECTLY NEGLECTED results of referendum of Soviet people in 1991. who with 72% of
votes wanted to preserve USSR
6. He arranged for NATO not to move eastward ORALLY WITHOUT ANY KIND OF
AGREEMENT!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??! WHO DOES THIS!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?
BUAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
7. He himself made the USSR formally and willingly the thing of past in the end of 1991.
No one sane can believe that USSR dissolved itself in the time when there was no war
had a stable economy and strong army. This guy did it with the help of corrupt highly
positioned KGB and military personnel and of course CIA who helped them to transfer 50 000
000 000 US dollars ( 1991. value ) out of USSR for their own benefit.
To conclude: Gorbachev is a person of poor intellect, no love for Soviet or Russian
principles or state, but also a very sane traitor of USSR and Russia as well and also a
member of masonic clan who sold it for his personal interest. Just because he was playing
dumb doesnt mean he is not the biggest criminal in Soviet history. Make no mistake about
it. Even the dumbest person in Russia cannot believe that all this factors fell in place
"like chips". The probability for that is exactly 0 ( zero ).
Oh come on, this is not news. This was pretty evident. Initially he was not cooperating
with CIA. But CIA offered him something he couldn't resists. Nobel peace price, enormous
wealth, safe passage to US etc. Health care etc.
Wasn't Gorbachev from Russia's frontier lands (sometimes called Ukraine)? Not only that,
but from a place which joined the Nazis in their atrocities? I've also heard he took big
US money to step down. Bad source on that one though.
I disagree with this. Gorbachev had the right intentions. He just didn't bank on the
treachery of the wests big biz and various vested interests. Both Gorby and Reagan were
both honorable in their intentions and they did achieve much. To me it was Yeltsin who did
the utmost damage to Russia making it look like a 3rd world anarchic country as he allowed
Oligarchs to strip the countries assets.
It's difficult for me to believe that Gorbachev was simply a naive fool. Anyone
educated in Marxist theory know about the predatory nature of
capitalism/imperialism. Anyone, particularly a Soviet politician, who'd been
observing the behavior of the US after WW2 should have known that the Yanks are
masters of treachery.
This same words could be written by Gorbachov ' if he had known what a dreadful fate
awaited the USSR, he would not have written a single critical book or article about it." ,
I think Alexander Zinoviev also worked and even work for the CIA after his dead publishing
his books.
To me, Gorbachev is no traitor. He is a Russian patriot who honestly wanted to improve
Soviet Communism and adapt it to his time. Was he naïve? Yes, very much so. After all, he
started the stones rolling and should have known what could happen if other people got
their hands on them. He probably knew that if one takes one single stone from the
monolithic structure of communism the whole structure would collapse. So he just tried to
embellish some of the corner stones of communism without pulling them entirely out from
its structure, and called this 'perestroika' and 'glasnost'. Other people in his
government, oblivious of the danger of completely pulling corner stones from its
structure, didn't think embellishing stones in-situ was enough, and pulled them completely
from the structure, with the intend to put them back once the dust that had settled on
them over time had been thoroughly scratched off, with a wire brush. But by doing so the
corner stones changed their form and didn't fit anymore into the places they had been
taken from, communism. Thus, the Primal Sin was committed, and Soviet Communism collapsed.
And so did Roman Catholicism in Europe for similar reasons.
"... Ivan Nikitchuk, a Communist party deputy, said recent events and the Ukraine crisis in particular have led five MPs, including two from the ruling United Russia party, to ask the prosecutor general, Yury Chaika, to examine Gorbachev, 83. ..."
"... "The consequences of that destruction can be felt today in the conflicts that we have seen," said Nikitchuk. ..."
A group of Russian MPs have formally requested prosecutors to investigate former Soviet
leader Mikhail
Gorbachev for treason over the breakup of the Soviet Union, a lawmaker said on
Thursday.
Ivan Nikitchuk, a Communist party deputy, said recent events and the Ukraine crisis in particular have led five
MPs, including two from the ruling United Russia party, to ask the prosecutor general, Yury
Chaika, to examine Gorbachev, 83.
"We asked to prosecute him and those who helped him destroy the Soviet Union for treason of
national interests," said Nikitchuk, adding that Soviet citizens in 1991 were against the
country's breakup.
Seeking to create a more open and prosperous Soviet Union through glasnost and perestroika,
Gorbachev ended up unleashing forces that swept away the country he had sought to preserve and
himself from power.
"The consequences of that destruction can be felt today in the conflicts that we have seen,"
said Nikitchuk.
He added that this included not only Ukraine but other former Soviet countries over the past
two decades.
In February, a popular pro-Western uprising in Ukraine ousted pro-Moscow president Viktor
Yanukovych, who has since taken refuge in Russia .
The Kremlin responded by sending troops to Ukraine's Russian-speaking peninsula of Crimea
and annexing it as part of Russia last month.
"What is happening in Ukraine can happen in Russia, too," said Nikitchuk. "This pushed us to
write to the prosecutor general, so that professional lawyers rather than historians can
investigate the events of 1991."
He added that lawmakers were also concerned about internal enemies stirring unrest.
"The fifth column in our country has been formed and works in the open, funded by foreign
money," he said.
In a landmark speech marking Russia's takeover of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin called Russians
disagreeing with his policies, such as his decision to occupy Crimea, a fifth column.
There have been previous attempts by the Communist party to have Gorbachev prosecuted but
these have led nowhere.
Nikitchuk said he hoped that the current political climate makes for a more favourable
moment and that prosecutors would launch the investigation this time.
Unlike the previous cases, the current request is backed by lawmakers from the ruling party,
United Russia.
Gorbachev said the lawmakers' initiative was "poorly thought out and groundless from a
historical point of view".
"Such calls only show that some lawmakers want publicity," he told the Interfax news agency.
A spokeswoman at the prosecutor's office declined to comment.
The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist in December 1991 after Russia, Belarus and
Ukraine signed the Belavezha accords dissolving the USSR. Gorbachev resigned two weeks
later.
The Soviet Union did not disappear because of a great flood or a major earthquake. Somebody
was at the helm making decisions and setting a political course. Politicians should be
responsible for their actions. But do politicians alone bear responsibility?
In fact, Gorbachev's problem is inseparably linked with the unstated problem of the low
self-esteem and rationalization of the millions of people who lived through the drama of 1991.
Some justify Gorbachev's actions in an attempt to justify their own complicity in events. For
the same reasons, others try to shift blame from themselves by holding Gorbachev solely
responsible. "He ruined everything," they say. "We are not to blame."
Unfortunately, the Soviet people bear responsibility for what happened to their country.
That does not lift responsibility from any one individual, even if that person was part of the
leadership -- those whom we naturally call on the carpet first for anything that happens. We
the people are to blame for not mounting any resistance to that course of action, or at least
for not fighting it hard enough.
In truth, the only people with the moral right to criticize Gorbachev today are the ones who
had the courage in the 1980s and 1990s to point out how destructive his policies were, to go
against the flow, and to condemn the path followed not only by Gorbachev, but also by his main
political rival, former President Boris Yeltsin.
Gorbachev's rule contrasts favorably with the leaders who came both before and after him,
and he is not remembered for having committed any particularly egregious wrongdoings. According
to that thinking, Gorbachev did not "destroy" the Soviet Union, he "only" betrayed the country
he led.
Gorbachev took office with a pledge to serve and defend the state. He cannot be blamed for
the fact that a catastrophe that had been brewing for two decades erupted during his reign. But
as the captain, he was obligated to "go down with the ship" and share the same political fate
as the country he governed. The problem is not that Gorbachev could have prevented the collapse
and didn't -- he couldn't have under any circumstances -- but that when the troubles came, he
snuck away from the battlefield and went home to have dinner.
The people might sometimes excuse or even justify the deeds of malefactors, but it never
forgives a traitor.
Boris Kagarlitsky is the director of the Institute of Globalization
Studies.
But by his death in 1997, Deng's decision appeared vindicated, as world opinion had turned
decisively in his favor. Deng had seen enough of Russia's tumultuous politics to know where he
stood: sacrifice political liberalization for stability's sake, because the alternative was
chaos and collapse. Chinese analysts of Soviet politics continue to fault Gorbachev for
abandoning central planning too rapidly and in a disorganized fashion. Rather than liberalizing
politics, they argue, Gorbachev should have focused on the economy.
Today, top Chinese leaders cite the Soviet Union as an example of why China's Communist
Party must keep its fist clenched on power, even as it casts off the last remaining vestiges of
the Maoist economy. Jiang Zemin, who succeeded Deng as China's leader, argued in 1990 that
the Soviet Union's main problem was that Gorbachev was a traitor like Leon Trotsky, the Soviet
revolutionary who was found guilty of betraying Marxism-Leninism by then-leader Joseph
Stalin.
That was an ironic charge coming from the official who first formally welcomed China's
business classes into the supposedly communist ruling party. Yet in December 2012, Chinese
President Xi Jinping echoed this analysis. "Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate?" he
asked
a group of Communist Party members. "Their ideals and convictions wavered," he explained.
"Finally, all it took was one quiet word from Gorbachev to declare the dissolution of the
Soviet Communist Party, and a great party was gone." Yet it is Deng's logic that has come to
dominate most interpretations of the Soviet Union's collapse. "My father,"
reported Deng's youngest son, "thinks Gorbachev is an idiot."
In Russia, many agree. Russians regularly rate Gorbachev as one of their worst leaders of
the 20th century. A 2013 poll
found that only 22 percent of Russians perceive Gorbachev positively or slightly
positively, while 66 percent have a negative impression. By contrast, Leonid Brezhnev, who
presided over two decades of stagnation, is viewed positively by 56 percent of Russians. Even
Stalin, who managed a murderous reign of terror, gets positive marks from half of Russians. It
is not surprising, then, that Deng's reputation in Russia has risen. Many Russians see China as
a model of what their country should have done during the 1980s and 1990s. Liberal politics
cause chaos and economic distress, many Russians have concluded, and only a strong hand can
deliver economic growth.
... ... ...
... Deng managed to compromise with other elites, letting them retain their authority in
exchange for their support in pursuing economic reforms that allowed China to grow. But in the
Soviet Union, economic reform meant destroying the power base of the special interest groups,
leaving a potential military coup lurking in the background and hanging over Gorbachev's head.
That was a threat Deng never faced.
The reason why Gorbachev lost out is not because the Soviet economy was unreformable.
China's example proved that the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy was
possible. Rather, the Soviet Union collapsed because vast political power was entrusted to
groups that had every reason to sabotage the efforts to resolve the country's decades-long
financial dilemmas.
In the end, the political clout of these interest groups proved far greater than Gorbachev
anticipated. In his quest to reform his country and steer it away from calamity, Gorbachev
brought about the very process that would eventually lead to the Soviet Union's collapse.
Perestroika put the final nails in the USSR's economy One of the first main policies
Gorbachev adopted was Perestroika – reform of the economy. Hoarding and reciprocal
favours (blat) had been a means of survival in the Soviet Union, thieving to 'moonlight' was
also common and this cost the regime a lot. The 'command-administrative' system had become
obsolete in the Post-Industrial era and was curtailing economic development 1. To solve this,
Gorbachev wanted to give enterprise managers control over contracts and introduce aspects of
the market economy, to make it managers' responsibility to gain contracts and to make sure the
enterprise makes a profit. However, in practice the way the enterprises operated remained
unchanged except in terms – ministries rephrased their commands as contracts 2. Private
enterprise was also permitted, which seemed to contradict Gorbachev's claim to be committed to
Marxist-Leninist thought which was vehemently opposed to capitalism which Marxist's argue
exploit the proleteriat – so to actually create a class of capitalists who (according to
Marxist doctrine) would exploit the workers who were supposed to be living in socialist –
i.e. 'classless society' seemed contradictory to the very ideological concept the regime's
power was based upon. A small amount of private enterprise emerged, but the profiteering was
very much resented by the general population – goods and services were sold for four or
five times their subsidized price due to shortages. Another aspect of Perestroika was entry
into the market economy – many of the social benefits given by the enterprises had to be
done away with, as they could not make a profit and afford to maintain the benefits, resulting
in a stagnant economy occuring simultaneously with a collapsing social welfare system.
Gorbachev's reforms did not work and only succeeded in hastening the economic collapse that was
inevitable.
1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...
Glasnost facilitated Opposition to Concentrate against the Regime Allowing freedom of
thought from the 'mono-ideological controls' that existed for decades and allowing pluralist
thought and leadership meant a weakening of power for the Communist Party – it had to
convert into a proper parliamentary party to survive. Furthermore, in a regime based on
oppression and propaganda, when these are removed and freedom of speech and freedom of the
media are introduced, nasty elements about the system in the past are going to be revealed, and
when there is 70 years of repression being reported all at once, it is inevitable there will be
extreme hostility toward those responsible – the Party 1, this especially fuelled the
anger of the nationalities who had been oppressed and triggered a nationalist movement.
The population were dissatisfied with the dire state of affairs and could voice their
discontent openly with glasnost, which led to Gorbachev becoming very unpopular by 1991, in
which year the economy had contracted by 18% 2, people were also very concerned over the
incompetence of the command-administrative system and irresponsibility of the leadership with
regards to the 1986 Chernobyl power station disaster 3.
In a state committed to one ideology, the removal of mono-ideological controls, and the
ability of other ideological persuasions to come to power meant the Party had lost its RIGHT to
govern the people unless the people themselves WANTED the Party to rule. Thus, the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had to win the support of the people in order to govern
effectively. However, in a society that was becoming increasingly liberal and 'bourgeois' (the
USSR was largely middle class, private property was protected and capitalism was legalised),
the people had to believe in socialist ideology – which would have been almost impossible
to achieve.
Gorbachev's reforms themselves undermined some of the principle features of socialist rule
in the USSR, e.g. atheism, mono-ideological control, one-party state, economic monopoly and the
suspendability of law. Gorbachev's ideology itself – his focus on 'all-human values'
instead of the class struggle, the rule of law, international peace and proper parliamentary
representation have more resonance with John Stuart Mill than Karl Marx 4 – Gorbachev was
subconsciously moving the USSR in this ideological direction.
With democratization and pluralist thought permitted, Gorbachev found himself operating
within an increasingly wide political spectrum – with the reformist 'democrats' on one
side and the conservative Communist Party members on the other. There was a constant power
struggle between the two and Gorbachev dealt with this by constantly playing one side against
the other and compromising. One of Gorbachev's critics at the time said this was like trying to
marry a hare to a hedgehog. The two sides were very much irreconcilable and instead of trying
to defeat one side, Gorbachev sat on the fence and as a result his policies were constantly
inconsistent – you cannot mix radical reforms with conservatism 5. The dangers of this
were apparent when Shevardnadze, Foreign Minister at the time, resigned because he warned a
dictatorship was approaching, Gorbachev ignored this threat and dismissed this claim with
overconfidence 6.
1 Kagarlitsky, B. Russia under Yeltsin and Putin: neo-liberal autocracy, London: Pluto
2002
2 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997
3 Haynes, M., Russia: Class and Power, 1917-2000, London: Bookmarks 2002
4 Service, R. History of Modern Russia: from Nicholas II to Putin, London: Penguin 1997
5 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991
6 Sheehy, G. The Man who changed the World, New York: HarperCollins 1991 No because...
Regional Nationalism and Independence Movements These original flaws in the system were
largely responsible for its own downfall – in particular the nationalities issue –
the decision to maintain the Empire without granting real power to the nationalities whilst
simultaneously repressing them left most of the nationalities feeling bitter when glasnost
revealed the truth about how they had been treated in the past and democratisation gave them
the power to chose representatives who would really represent people's interests (the
nationalist movement) whilst at the same time being given by Gorbachev an appetite for power
– a fatal combination.
The wealthier regions wanted a separation from the USSR because of the feeling they were
being milked from the centre and many other regions wanted to become independent because they
did not want to be part of an economic disaster area which became apparent when the Donbass
miners who had no commitment to nationalism thought their future would be safer if the Ukraine
wasn't part of the USSR 1.
The nationalist movement emerged when freedom of speech, media and association along with
democratisation and the loss of fear of repression allowed people to voice pride in their
nation and resentment at past repressions as well as the ongoing special treatment of Russians
in the Regions, who had access to better housing and other special privileges the locals did
not.
Certain Republics felt nationalism more strongly than others, most notably the Baltic States
who felt a strong cultural attachment to the West and felt they were being unfairly occupied.
Gorbachev's mistake here was to downplay the importance of nationalism and not treat the Baltic
States as a special case 2. After all, most of the population of the USSR wished to preserve
the Union – 76% voted to preserve the Union in March 1991 (except the Baltic States,
Moldova, Georgia and Armenia who did not conduct the referendum) 3. After the failed coup, most
states declared their independence, even if they did so with reluctance, as there was a general
feeling there was no alternative. Gorbachev tried to persuade the Republics not to become fully
independent. However, in early December, the Ukraine held a referendum where the population
voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence, even after Gorbachev stated "there can be no
Union without Ukraine", on 8th December, Yeltsin met with the Ukrainian and Bielorussian leader
and declared a formal end to the USSR and the establishment of the Confederation of Independent
States which they invited the other states to join.
There was nothing left Gorbachev could do, democratisation had brought about the means for
independence and Gorbachev didn't feel he could argue with people's wishes carried out through
democratic means and, on 25th December he resigned with regret.
1 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996
3 Brown, A. The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1996 Yeltsin Factor
Boris Yeltsin emerged as the true hero and strong leader for the fearlessness to condemn the
coup – in a press conference afterwards Yeltsin ordered Gorbachev around undermining his
position, then used his institutional powers derived from democratization to appoint Egor
Gaidar, an economist dedicated to laissez-faire economics, as his Finance Minister and
suspension of the CPSU pending an investigation into the coup. Gorbachev half heartedly argued
against this but it was no use – he was seen as a weaker leader along with discontent
over his policies, whilst Yeltsin's radicalism was keeping pace with developments and his
popularity at an all-time high, Gorbachev's position was also much less weaker without the
Communist Party. Also, the Soviet Union really could not exist without the Communist Party
arguably as they had political and economic monopoly on society and the Communist Party went
from controlling these aspects of society to ceasing to exist, the Soviet Union could not
function and the economy spiralled out of control. Yes because...
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... August 1991 Coup
Counter Productive, Bringing About What It Sought To Prevent - The End of the Soviet Union
By August 1991 Gorbachev's popularity was at an all-time low both in the Party and outside it.
Despite being advised by some of his staff to sign the Treaty agreement granting the republics
real autonomy before going on holiday and some suspicious circumstances he should have been
more questioning about, he planned on signing the agreement when he returned. This was a big
mistake and allowed the conservatives to stage a coup. The Emergency Committee made no
reference whatsoever to Marxism-Leninism or the class struggle in their speech, meaning it was
a coup in the hope of returning the Soviet Union to 'normal' i.e. an Empire controlled from
Moscow and putting the final nails in the coffin of socialism in the USSR 1.
The failed coup triggered the very thing it sought to prevent – the break-up of the
Soviet Union 2.
1 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
2 Hosking, Geoffrey, History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992
Yes because... Report this ad
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... The System Needed to
Change in Order to Survive in the Longer Term; That Mikhail Gorbachev's Reforms Failed Showed
that the USSR Could Not be Saved By the Gorbachev era, all hopes of fulfilling the original
Marxist-Leninist dream were gone and most did not feel passionately about communism, even
within the Party. There was a general acknowledgement that the USSR could not continue in the
same way as before – Andropov, Gorbachev's predecessor also realised this and set about
changing society through repressive measures such as harsh labour discipline enforced by
cutting payments from workers for work deemed poor quality and restrictions on the sale of
alcohol and prohibition of alcohol on official occasions was felt overly repressive and for
many – Gorbachev was seen as a positive, energetic leader who would overcome the USSR's
problems in a less repressive manner. With economic stagnation and an economy dependent on the
exportation of natural resources to survive 1, an unsuccessful war (Afghanistan) and an ageing
Party Membership to combat, Gorbachev was the candidate for those who wanted change or at least
realised change could no longer be postponed 2.
Autocracies survive due to repressing their people to the extent that they are not given the
freedoms required to change their government, rather than because the people want them to stay
in power. Mikhail Gorbachev's conscience and sense of responsibility for his population
dictated that the system could no longer be propped up like this, and that the people needed
and deserved the freedoms and basic human rights they had been denied for decades. That the
system could not encorporate such freedoms meant that the system morally should not be allowed
to perpetuate itself, and thus the Soviet Union fell apart because it was unrepresentative and
did not support the population's human rights means the fall of the USSR should be applauded,
not mourned for its' population.
1 Volkogonov, D.A. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire: political leaders from Lenin to
Gorbachev, edited and translated by M. Shukman, London: HarperCollins 1998
2 Hosking, G. History of the USSR, 1917-1991, London: Fontana 1992 Yes because...
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... War with Afghanistan
Drained USSR of Patriotic Morale The war in Afghanistan was a key contributing factor to
the breakup of the USSR. Reuveny and Prakash argue that the Soviet-Afghan war contributed to
undermining the Soviet Union in many ways. First, it discredited the Red Army, and impacted
negatively upon the image of the Red Army as a strong, almost invincible force, which gave
nationalist movements in the Republics hope that they might succeed in attaining independence
after all. Second, it impacted upon leadership perception on the usefulness of utilising the
military to keep the union intact and as a force for foreign intervention. Third, it created
new forms of political participation, which had begun to impact upon media reporting even
before glasnost, and began the first calls for glasnost, as it created a number of war
veterans, who went on to form organisations which weakened the total authority of the CPSU
1.
1 Reuveny, Rafael, and Prakash, Aseem, 'The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet
Union', Review of International Studies (1999), 25:693-708 Yes because... Report this ad
Gorbachev Was Responsible for The Collapse Of The USSR No because... It was dead from the
time Stalin took control Gorbachev finished it off, but Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc.
really killed it. Lenin had nothing to do with that, he was a socialist-marxist, not a
communist. You obviously don't know the difference. Learn it before you blindly yell your
opinion into the dark of the internet.
Joe Venetos ,
history, European Union and politics, int'l relations
Answered Aug 22 2017 · Author has 485 answers and 325k answer views
Neither.
The USSR as it was was not sustainable, and the writing was all over the wall.
The reason it wasn't sustainable, however, is widely misunderstood.
The Soviet Union could have switched to a market or hybrid economy and still remained a
unified state. However, it was made up of 15 very different essentially nation-states from
Estonia to Uzbekistan, and separatist movements were tearing the Union apart.
Unlike other multi-national European empires that met their day earlier in the 20th century,
such as the British, French, Portuguese, Austro-Hungarian, or Ottoman Empires, the Russian
Empi...
The USSR as it was was not sustainable, and the writing was all over the wall.
The reason it wasn't sustainable, however, is widely misunderstood.
The Soviet Union could have switched to a market or hybrid economy and still remained a
unified state. However, it was made up of 15 very different essentially nation-states from
Estonia to Uzbekistan, and separatist movements were tearing the Union apart.
Unlike other multi-national European empires that met their day earlier in the 20th century,
such as the British, French, Portuguese, Austro-Hungarian, or Ottoman Empires, the Russian
Empire never had the chance to disband; the can was simply kicked down the road by the
Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet era. Restrictions on free speech and press, followed by a
gradual economic downturn that began in the 1970s, brewed anti-Union and separatist sentiments
among sizeable sections of society. It's important to note, however, that not everyone wanted
the disband the USSR, and not everyone in the Russian republic wanted to keep it together (the
Central Asian states were the most reluctant to secede). There was, actually, a referendum on
whether or not to keep the Union together, and a slight majority voted in favor (something
Gorbachev points out to this day), but the vote was also boycotted by quite a few people,
especially in the Baltic republics. So, we know that the citizens had mixed feelings and the
reasons for the USSR's end were far more complex than just "communism failed".
By the summer of 1991, there was nothing Gorbachev could do. The hardliners saw him as
incompetent to save the Union, but too many citizens and military personnel had defected to the
politicians of the constituent republics (rather than the Union's leadership), including Russia
itself, that were increasingly pursuing their independence since the first multiparty elections
across the Union in 1989. By December 1991, Union-level political bodies agreed to
disband. So, Gorbachev had no choice but to admit that the USSR no longer existed.
Gorbachev could have ruled with an iron fist, and he could have done so from the 1985
without ever implementing glasnost and perestroika, but that could have been a disaster.
We don't really know, actually, but in my opinion, an oligarchy -which is what the USSR
was in its later years, not an authoritarian state like it was under Stalin- still needs
some level of public consent to continue governing, like China (which is also a diverse
society, but far more homogenous than the USSR was). If you have all this economic and
separatist malaise brewing, it's not going to work out.
In the long run, Russia is much better off. They now have a state where ethnic
Russians make up 80% of the population (a good balance), from what was, I think 50% in the
USSR.
While some Russians regret that the USSR ended, others don't care or were ready to call
themselves "Russian" rather than "Soviet". It's no different to French public opinion turning
against the Algerian war in the 1960s and supporting Algerian independence, or British public
opinion starting to support the independence of India yet some people from those countries, may
look back fondly. Also, Russia went through a tough economic period in the 1990s, which
strengthened Soviet nostalgia, understandably, thinking back to a time when the state
guaranteed everyone with housing and a job. While some sentiments still exist today in
the Russian Federation that may appear pro-Soviet, it's important to point out that that
doesn't necessarily mean these folks would like to recreate the Soviet Union as it
was . Many just simply miss the heaftier influence the USSR had, versus what they perceive
to be weakness or disrespect for Russia today. The communist party today gets few votes in
Russian elections; and many Russians now were not adults prior to 1991, and thus don't quite
remember the era too well; many others may be old enough to remember the economic downturn of
the 80s, and not the economic good times of the 60s.
One final point, regarding Gorbachev being a "stooge of the West": that gives far too
much credit to America under Reagan for taking down the USSR. The "West" had nothing to do with
it. In the longer run, as we may be seeing slowly unravel since the Bush Jr administration,
America pretty much screwed itself with the massive military spending that started in the 80s
and continues upward, with supporting the mujahedeen to lure the USSR into Afghanistan in 1979
(a war that lasted until 1989), with opposing any secular regime in the Middle East
friendly to Moscow in the 70s and 80s, and so on we all know how these events started playing
out for the US much later, from 9/11 to the current Trump mess.
The U.S.' counterinsurgency war against the communist and Black self-determinationist
movements of the 20th century ensured that the period of U.S. imperial decline beginning in the
1970s would embolden the rich to eviscerate any and all gains made by workers in the decades
prior. Neoliberal austerity, privatization, and monopolization drowned the United States in a
sea of counterrevolutionary political ideology. "Call out culture" commodified movement culture
and channeled activists into profitable modes of expression that promoted individual
recognition, academic prestige, and careerism rather than the plight of the poor, especially
the Black poor.
... ... ...
"Corporate political operatives like Obama seek to 'diversify' a violent empire."
As I wrote for Black
Agenda Report in 2016, Obama's legacy is in large part shaped by a mastery of
counterinsurgency warfare. His recent slandering of millennial activists fits snugly within
this legacy. While appearing to castigate the very political environment that elevated him
beyond criticism for eight years, Obama was really taking aim at the increasingly left posture
of millennials. The "Bernie or bust" movement is worrisome to a ruling class that has utilized
the counterinsurgency skills of Barack Obama to engineer massive profits from endless war and
austerity. "Wokeness" and "purity" must be shot down by Obama because it threatens the
legitimacy of political class actors like him who expect to be praised for their intelligent
leadership over the great race to the bottom.
Barack Obama takes great pride in his impurity. Obama was elected in 2008 to bring "hope"
and "change" to the masses, only to escalate and add to every single ill of end-stage U.S.
imperialism. Under his administration, whistleblowers were prosecuted
under the Espionage Act in record numbers,
Black wealth plummeted, bankers ran away with trillions worth
in bailout rescue funds, and the military industrial complex expanded its special
operations to
engulf 70 percent of the world's nations in a regime of endless chaos. In many ways,
Obama's presidency was the biggest lie in the history of an empire built on grand lies of
democracy, liberty, and freedom. As he successfully posed as the "lesser evil," Obama was hard
at work instituting a permanent private healthcare system ( the Affordable Care Act ),
murdering thousands of people
by way of drone strike , and militarizing the African continent
through AFRICOM to ensure the instability required for Western corporations to plunder the
continent of its vast wealth.
"'Wokeness' and 'purity' must be shot down by Obama because it threatens the legitimacy
of political class actors like him."
While Obama succeeded in ramming through the ruling class' agenda, he also helped engineer
the political crisis which paved the way for the rise of Bernie Sanders. Millennials have
mobilized in the millions to elect a president that will bring them Medicare for All, a Green
New Deal, and living wages. They are no longer interested in politicians like Obama who claim
to be a "lesser evil" choice to the Republicans only to implement a more effective Wall Street
agenda that renders
ninety percent of all new jobs low-wage or temporary. The "purity" of the Sandernista's
principles is a sign to Obama and his class that Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and
Pete Buttigieg are unlikely to garner any support from Sanders' large millennial base. It
should come as no surprise, then, that Obama feels compelled to condemn the political leanings
of young people as an affront to his sordid legacy.
Obama benefitted from the proliferation of call out culture so much that he has no shame in
telling its most loyal adherents to "shut up and dribble" into the embrace of the Democratic
Party. Neither Obama nor the rest of the corporate Democratic Party has anything to offer
except the so-called civility and respectability that characterizes their approach to imperial
rule. Obama is aware of who he works for and what will keep him well-paid now that his
presidential career has ended. Like Hillary Clinton, Obama has quickly become a pundit for Wall
Street and its paid killers in the war machine. His most recent comments offer further evidence
of the desperate need for a mass exit from the Democratic Party. Of course, no mass exodus from
the Democratic Party is possible prior to a popular repudiation of Obama's legacy and all the
imperial arrogance and destruction that comes with it.
Danny Haiphong is an activist and journalist in the New York City area. He and Roberto
Sirvent are co-authors of the book entitled American Exceptionalism and American Innocence:
A People's History of Fake News--From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror ( Skyhorse
Publishing). He can be reached at[email protected], on Twitter @spiritofho,
and on Youtube at The Left Lens with Danny Haiphong
Fiona Hill continues to amaze and astound; one of her latest wheezes is that the Russians fed
disinformation to a naive Christopher Steele so that they could frame themselves for
interfering in the 2016 American presidential election.
Yeah, the Russian expert Fiona, daughter of a Durham coalfield miner, whose expertise here
was acquired whilst studying in the USSR for 1 academic year in 1987 on a Russian studies
degree course. And, curiously enough, as an undergraduate here, she interned for NBC News.
Now how did she manage to do that, I wonder?
By a strange parallel, I too arrived in the USSR at the same time in order to study
Russian, and furthermore, until 1985 I had been a Lancashire coal miner.
After having graduated, however, I came back here in 1993 and stayed; she, on the other
hand, having graduated from St. Andrew's University, Scotland, on the advice of an American
academic, applied for a postgraduate course of studies at Harvard, where, in 1991, she got a
master's in Russian and history.
After that, it seems the world has been her lobster as regards getting paid for her
expertise on matters Russian.
Now, where did I go wrong?
above: Hill, seated to the left of Scumbag Bolton at a meeting with "Vlad", Leader of the
Orcs, June 27, 2018, Mordor..
"... While their testimony was unable to prove a quid pro quo or machiavellian Trump bribery, it did reveal the extent to which the Democrat party and the Deep State are in panic mode, as Obama White House corruption investigations into loans provided to Ukraine ramp up, and Ukraine election meddling in 2016 have now taken center stage. ..."
'Sherlock, super hearing' Holmes & 'Russia Did It' Hill testimony reveals deep state
panic
24 Nov 2019
The Duran
The Duran Quick Take: Episode 382.
The Duran's Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss Adam
Schiff's decision to call up a super hearing, lip-reading David Holmes and Russia hating
bureaucrat Fiona Hill to close out the impeachment inquiry clown show.
While their testimony was unable to prove a quid pro quo or machiavellian Trump bribery,
it did reveal the extent to which the Democrat party and the Deep State are in panic mode, as
Obama White House corruption investigations into loans provided to Ukraine ramp up, and
Ukraine election meddling in 2016 have now taken center stage.
"... The aim of Washington – and I am sure it has people on the ground in Bolivia to 'advise' the coup government – will be to stabilize the situation and keep things quiet while Anez gets settled in and selects a cabinet and forms her organization. After that, it'll just be the new reality, and everyone will have to get used to it. ..."
"... Frankly, it's almost a pity there wasn't a mercenary army for hire by victims of western-sponsored coups such as Ukraine and Bolivia. The military has remained mostly loyal to Maduro in Venezuela, so I did not include it. ..."
Inside Bolivia's murderous post-coup regime – with Wyatt Reed
25 Nov 2019
Moderate Rebels
Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton speak with journalist Wyatt Reed, who is reporting on the
ground in Bolivia after a US-backed far-right military coup against democratically elected
leftist President Evo Morales. He describes the bloody repression of Indigenous protesters
and the state of resistance.
The aim of Washington – and I am sure it has people on the ground in Bolivia to
'advise' the coup government – will be to stabilize the situation and keep things quiet
while Anez gets settled in and selects a cabinet and forms her organization. After that,
it'll just be the new reality, and everyone will have to get used to it.
Frankly, it's almost a pity there wasn't a mercenary army for hire by victims of
western-sponsored coups such as Ukraine and Bolivia. The military has remained mostly loyal
to Maduro in Venezuela, so I did not include it.
This army could be used to fight the
disloyal police and military and restore order. But that'd be the wrong way to go, because it
would quickly escalate and you can be sure the hired peacekeepers would be referred to as
invaders rather than 'moderate rebels', so Washington would consider itself invited in
militarily to 'protect democracy'.
"... In contrast, the transatlantic alliance should advance American and European security. Absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union, thereby pushing the alliance up to the Russian Federation's border, proved to be a foolish move because it violated assurances made to Russian leaders. Despite being former KGB, Vladimir Putin never appeared to be ideologically antagonistic toward America. However, when he perceived Washington's behavior as threatening -- including dismembering Serbia, backing revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, and promising to include both nations in NATO -- it encouraged him to respond violently. ..."
"... Admitting new members is never costless. Aid will be necessary to improve their militaries. Moreover, newer members sometimes become the most demanding, like the Baltics and Poland, which insist that they are entitled to American bases and garrisons. ..."
"... Continuing expansion also reinforces the message that NATO is hostile toward Russia. That's the only country allies are joining to oppose, after all. Obviously, there are plenty of other reasons Moscow should distrust the United States, but reinforcing negative perceptions for no benefit at all is bad policy. ..."
America Doesn't Need Another Weakling NATO Ally Macedonia is the latest nation invited into the alliance, but how does
that enhance America's (or Europe's) security?•
July 19,
2018
Utenriksdept /
cc At last week's NATO summit, President Donald
Trump denounced the allies for taking advantage of American taxpayers. Then he approved their latest subsidies. He even agreed to
invite a military weakling, Macedonia, to join NATO, which will add yet another nation to our military dole.
When George Washington warned Americans against forming a "passionate attachment" to other countries, he might have been thinking
of the Balkans. Indeed, a couple decades later, John Quincy Adams criticized proposals to aid Greece against the Ottoman Empire,
which then ruled that region. America "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy," he intoned.
On into the 20th century, the Balkans were in turmoil. Germany's "Iron Chancellor," Otto von Bismarck, warned that "the great
European War would come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans." That's exactly what happened in 1914.
It took decades and two world wars for the Balkans to stabilize. But after the Cold War ended, Yugoslavia, which had emerged from
Europe's previous convulsions, broke apart. One of the smaller pieces was Macedonia.
The battles among the Serbians, Croatians, and Bosnians were bloody and brutal. In contrast, Macedonia provided comic relief.
The small, mountainous, landlocked nation of two million people won its independence without a fight in 1991, though Athens launched
a verbal and economic war against Skopje over the latter's use of the name "Macedonia."
Perhaps modern Greeks feared that a resurrected Alexander the Great would lead the newly freed Macedonian hordes south and conquer
Greece. Skopje entered the United Nations under the provisional name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM. In June, after
only 27 years, the two governments agreed that Macedonia/FYROM would be called the Republic of North Macedonia -- though the decision
must still be ratified by the Macedonian people in a referendum.
More serious was the insurgency launched by ethnic Albanians who made up about a quarter of the nation's population. The battle
two decades ago over Kosovo inflamed ethnic relations in Macedonia, eventually resulting in a short-lived insurgency. Although the
fighters disarmed, Skopje's politics remained nationalist and difficult. Last year, a more liberal administration took over, but
the country's democratic institutions remain fragile.
Indeed, Freedom House only rates the nation "partly free." The group cites voter intimidation, political patronage networks, violent
protests, and problems with judicial impartiality and due process. Particularly serious were the threats against press freedom, which
led to a rating of "not free" in that area. While NATO's newer members tend to score lower than "Old Europe," as Donald Rumsfeld
once referred to the original allies, Macedonia is a step further down. Only Turkey, an incipient dictatorship, is worse: it almost
certainly would not be considered for membership today.
None of this mattered last week, however. After suffering Trump's many slings and arrows, alliance members approved an invitation
for Skopje to join NATO. Macedonian lawmaker Artan Grubi called it "our dream coming true. We have been in the waiting hall for too
long."
That's because Macedonia had hoped for an invite back in 2008 at the Bucharest summit, but was blocked by Athens over the name
dispute, and has wanted to join ever since. Macedonia's Defense Minister Radmila Sekerinska said, "With NATO membership, Macedonia
becomes part of the most powerful alliance. That enhances both our security and economic prosperity." Money and status are expected
to follow.
But how would this benefit the United States and other NATO members? James Ker-Lindsay at the London School of Economics made
the astonishing claim that "opening the way for the country to join NATO would be a big win for the organization at a crucial time
when concerns over Russian influence in the Western Balkans are growing in many capitals." As Skopje goes, so goes Europe? Not likely.
If Washington and Moscow are engaged in a new "great game," it is not a battle for Macedonia.
In fact, Macedonia is a security irrelevancy, destined to require American aid to create the pretense that its military is fit
for the transatlantic alliance. Skopje spent just $112 million on its armed forces last year, ahead of only one NATO member, Montenegro.
That was barely 1 percent of its GDP, putting Macedonia near the back of the NATO pack.
With an 8,000-man military, one is tempted to ask, why bother? But then one could similarly pose that query to several other NATO
members. Skopje's military is roughly the same size as Albania's, slightly bigger than Slovenia's, and about four times the size
of Montenegro's. None will be of much use in a conflict with the only conceivable threat, Russia.
So why bring Macedonia into NATO?
Some American policymakers see alliance membership as a means to socialize nations like Macedonia, helping them move towards democracy.
However, the European Union, which sets standards governing a range of domestic policies, has always been better suited to this task,
and EU membership imposes no security obligations on Washington. With the name controversy tentatively resolved, Skopje could begin
the EU accession process -- if the Europeans are willing. That is properly their -- not Washington's -- responsibility.
In contrast, the transatlantic alliance should advance American and European security. Absorbing former members of the Warsaw
Pact and Soviet Union, thereby pushing the alliance up to the Russian Federation's border, proved to be a foolish move because it
violated assurances made to Russian leaders. Despite being former KGB, Vladimir Putin never appeared to be ideologically antagonistic
toward America. However, when he perceived Washington's behavior as threatening -- including dismembering Serbia, backing revolutions
in Georgia and Ukraine, and promising to include both nations in NATO -- it encouraged him to respond violently.
The Balkans are peripheral even to Europe and matter little to America's defense. The states and peoples there tend to be more
disruptive and less democratic than their neighbors, reflecting the region's unstable history. (North) Macedonia's 8,000 troops aren't
likely to be reborn as the Spartan 300 and hold off invading Russians. So why should America threaten war on Skopje's behalf?
Admitting new members is never costless. Aid will be necessary to improve their militaries. Moreover, newer members sometimes
become the most demanding, like the Baltics and Poland, which insist that they are entitled to American bases and garrisons.
Expansion also complicates alliance decision-making. No doubt, Washington wishes its European allies would do what they're told:
spend more, shut up, and deploy where America wants them. That doesn't work out very well in practice, alas, as Trump has discovered
in Europe (though nations with smaller militaries are more likely to acquiesce than nations with bigger ones). An organization of
30 members, which NATO will become if Macedonia is added, is a more complex and less agile creature than one of 16, the number that
existed before NATO raced east.
Continuing expansion also reinforces the message that NATO is hostile toward Russia. That's the only country allies are joining
to oppose, after all. Obviously, there are plenty of other reasons Moscow should distrust the United States, but reinforcing negative
perceptions for no benefit at all is bad policy.
Finally, expanding the alliance is nonsensical in light of the president's criticisms of the Europeans. Hiking U.S. military spending,
increasing manpower and materiel deployments in Europe, and adding new members all contradict his demand that the allies do more
and signal that the president is not serious in his demands. That leaves the Europeans with little incentive to act, especially since
most of their peoples perceive few if any security threats.
Yet again President Trump has been exposed as a thoughtless blowhard. His rabid supporters have likely enjoyed his confrontational
rhetoric, but he has done nothing to turn it into policy. The Europeans need only wait for his attacks to ebb and then they can proceed
much the same as before. The status quo will continue to reign, impervious to change.
Montenegro always resembled the Duchy of Grand Fenwick from the delightful novel The Mouse that Roared . Macedonia is
the Duchy of North Grand Fenwick, a slightly larger neighboring state with similar features but additional problems. Neither is remotely
relevant to American security. America doesn't need yet another security black hole as an alliance partner.
Kushner's Apparent
Extortion of Qatar is an interesting gem. If you remember Rex Tillerson quitting, Saudi
Arabia and the UAE almost going to war with Qatar and then Brookstone Partners, financed by
Qatar paying, 1.4 billion for Kushers failed 666 building in NY where they were hemorrhaging
money.
Indeed, if Bender's testimony is accurate, they are already close.
Explaining that Qatar uses western companies to effectively launder the money they paid
to American citizens, Bender cited a $1.4 billion payment which he claims was passed to Jared
Kushner from Qatar, via a Canadian company named Brookfield, which he says they have invested
heavily in.
Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666
Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts.
"Why didn't they pay Kusher directly?" the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Ms. Castenda,
asked.
"Too risky," Bender replied.
"Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?"
Castenda clarified.
"Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it. And Kushner is happy with them
because, according to them, I don't know Kushner personally, but the Qataris said Kushner
told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'"
"The dogs being who?" she asked.
"Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied.
The Qataris were aware that as an investment the pay-off was a write-off, but told
Bender, "'We just paid it to pay off his debt. And as long as he's in the White House, we
have to do what he wants until we control the White House.' We as in Qatar," Bender
clarified.
"... Starting to remind me more and more of JFK. She's a natural at public speaking; I don't think I've ever seen her lost for words, and while she must have prepared herself for many of these questions. she launches immediately into her response and does not use recovery pauses like "Ummm " that break up the flow of her speech. She responds instantly and seemingly spontaneously, and delivers the whole message as a seamless package. ..."
Did she say she would not vote for impeachment? Up to recently, I thought that, while she was
the best of a bunch of fakers, clowns and idiots, her lack of experience and toughness were
fatal flaws..
However, her ongoing performances suggests to me that she is capable of being a
good president – the first in decades in my opinion.
Starting to remind me more and more of JFK. She's a natural at public speaking; I don't think
I've ever seen her lost for words, and while she must have prepared herself for many of these
questions. she launches immediately into her response and does not use recovery pauses like
"Ummm " that break up the flow of her speech. She responds instantly and seemingly
spontaneously, and delivers the whole message as a seamless package.
A fairly recent update on the Boeing situation. This is a lengthy and very comprehensive
article which delves into the cultural shift at Boeing from an engineer-centric agency to an
executive-dominated moneymaker, just before the production of the Dreamliner.
"In December, 1996, Boeing announced that it was buying a struggling rival, McDonnell
Douglas, for thirteen billion dollars. Sorscher is one of many Boeing employees who have
identified the merger as the moment when Boeing went from being led by engineers to being
led by business executives driven by stock performance.
Sorscher recalled a labor-management breakfast, shortly before the merger, at which a
top Boeing executive said that the company would reduce spending on a program that employed
engineers to find improvements in the process of making planes. Sorscher, a member of the
union's bargaining unit at the time, pointed out how much money process improvement was
saving the company."
" The executive tipped his head back, as if thinking how best to explain basic
economics to a clueless scientist. Finally, as Sorscher recalled, the executive said, "The
decisions I make have more influence over outcomes than all the decisions you make."
Sorscher told me, "It was: 'I can't help but make a billion dollars every time I pick up
the phone. You people do things that save four hundred thousand dollars, that take one
shift out of flow time -- who gives a crap?' "
Three years later, the engineers' union went on strike over bonus pay and cuts in
health coverage. James Dagnon, another Boeing executive, said that engineers had to accept
that they were no longer the center of the universe. "We laughed," Sorscher recalled. "This
is an engineering company -- these are complex, heavily engineered products. Of course
we're the center of the universe. But he wasn't kidding. We didn't get it. Who is the
center of the universe? It's the executives."
A fascinating read. The Dreamliner, the first project built under the new culture, was
rolled out three years late and tens of billions over budget. The following year, persistent
battery fires grounded the model for three months.
And that's not even making a dent in the arrogance of the company aristocracy – the
previous CEO made $80 million in salary and bonuses in his final three years in the post
– and the determination to stick with the corporate-economic model despite clear
warnings that it was on a sled bound for hell. If you read the whole thing, you'll have a
much better understanding why we have not yet seen the triumphant return of the Max 8 to the
air.
Meddling in the 2016 US presidential election by Ukrainian politicians and government
agencies did indeed happen. No amount of denial is going to change that.
By Yasha Levine ####
Vis Fiona Hill (as ME & Mark referenced earlier), does she really think everyone else
is stupid?
Anyway, it's not what the partisan media reports that matters but what the American voter
thinks. If it's 'A pox on both your houses', then there will be plenty more shocks to the
body politik to come and hopefully, real change.
Thus the fierce struggle for regulation over the internet, and the flap about 'fake news' and
how critical it is that you cede control over what you can see so that you can be 'protected'
– it's all 'for your own safety'. A narrative can really only be driven home when the
audience is not exposed to conflicting stories or evidence which does not fit the
establishment tale.
"... the United States' high-handedness is taking it dangerously close to making an enemy of Europe. ..."
"... There is nothing remotely fair about carving out markets for your product by eliminating all other choices. I realize Washington will say it is only trying to stop Nord Stream II so that Russia will be forced to transit gas across Ukraine and pay it exorbitant transit fees, and that it is doing Ukraine a favour while not restricting Europe from getting pipeline gas. ..."
"... American strategy is always all about getting everyone else by the balls so that they have no choice but to accept American control and orders. That's called American Global Leadership, which they figure is good for the world because it's certainly good for American investors. ..."
In the U.S. Senate, they have spoken about how to block "Nord stream -- 2"
06:37 24.11.2019 (updated: 06:54 24.11.2019)
MOSCOW, 24 Nov – RIA Novosti. The U.S. Congress intends to include sanctions
against the Russian gas pipeline "Nord stream -- 2" in the 2020 defence budget, says Jim
Risch, head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, in the latest edition of "Defense
News".
Sanctions against companies involved in the construction of the pipeline have been
included in a draft law "On National Defense for 2020", said Rish. "The reason for this step
is that the window of opportunity is closings. Most of "Nord stream" has already been
constructed", said the Senator. However, he expressed the opinion that the sanctions "will
convince" the construction company to stop work on the project because the American
restrictions "will cost them dearly".
If sanctions are included in the US defence budget, companies involved in the
construction of Nord Stream 2 will close, and Russia will, supposedly, have to look for other
contractors, says Riesch.
However, he noted that the House of Representatives and the Senate have not yet reached a
final agreement on the bill as a whole.
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted in late July to pass a bill on
sanctions against Nord Stream 2. It was prepared by Republican Senator Ted Cruise and
Democrat Gene Shahin, and, in particular, involves a ban on the entry into the United States
and the freezing of US assets under the jurisdiction of persons involved in the "sale, lease,
provision or assistance in providing" ships for laying at sea Russian pipelines at a depth of
30 metres.
For the bill to enter into force, it must be approved by the House of Representatives
and the US Senate, as well as US President Donald Trump.
Let the Liberty Bell ring out loud! -- albeit that it is cracked and was never rung on 4th
July, 1776, but, as usual, bullshit baffles brains!
And that'd be Jean Shaheen; the translation managed to get both her name and her gender
wrong.
As I have said before now, the United States' high-handedness is taking it dangerously
close to making an enemy of Europe. It has made it clear it is trying to restrict Europe's
energy choices to American LNG or American LNG.
There is nothing remotely fair about carving
out markets for your product by eliminating all other choices. I realize Washington will say
it is only trying to stop Nord Stream II so that Russia will be forced to transit gas across
Ukraine and pay it exorbitant transit fees, and that it is doing Ukraine a favour while not
restricting Europe from getting pipeline gas.
But Washington still aims to control Ukraine
and use it as a bastion against Russia, and if it can arrange things so that Russian gas must
pass across Ukraine under American control, why, it can conjure stoppages and interruptions
of service at its pleasure, as well as helping Ukraine to jack up transit fees so that Russia
must either raise its gas prices until American LNG is competitive, or sell at a loss.
American strategy is always all about getting everyone else by the balls so that they have no
choice but to accept American control and orders. That's called American Global Leadership,
which they figure is good for the world because it's certainly good for American
investors.
Except when he says "we all", he is talking about less than ten thousand people in a country
of 147 million. Yes, few Russians get to breathe the rarefied air of true mental clarity.
So far as I am aware, the latest offer on the table is still for a one-year extension of
the current contract, although Russia did agree to drop legal claims and counter-claims
between itself and Ukraine, in which Russia claimed Ukraine underpaid/did not pay at all for
gas it received. Ukraine has thus far not replied.
Moscow has made some concessions, but there has been no movement at all toward a long-term
contract that I have seen. I maintain that a cold winter of frozen bums in Europe would offer
a salutary effect. Russia is actually better-placed to deliver LNG by vessel than the USA, as
well, as it is much closer.
There must be a limit to European loyalty to the USA in the face of conditions so markedly
against its interests, a limit to how much shit it will smear on its own face to keep its
partner happy and amused.
Apparently U-ropean gas storage networks are full, not to mention that there has been heavy
investment in the Austrian Baumgarten storage network, Germany, France, infact just about
everywhere except the UK (coz the French will store it for them and sell the gas back at a
nice mark up)
Ukraine has already stated publicly that although its own gas storage bunkers are full, that
amount will not likely carry it through the winter if there is an interruption owing to
non-renewal of the gas contract, and if the winter is cold and harsh as usual. I imagine
Europe is the same; storage facilities are not so extensive that they could take the entire
region through a cold winter.
Not surprising that Navalny and his ilk oppose Nord Stream. They oppose anything that is good
for Russia. They don't seem to be interested in developing russia into a better place, but
tear it apart and ruin it from within. It is rather odd that Russia has these types of people
as "opposition politicians". People who hate their own country and don't even pretend to hide
their hatred.
I don't see them that dangerous though because they seem to lack wider support and Russia is
not currently facing any troubles that would turn people against the current rulers.
And I'm not saying that Russia is ruled by a very competent government currently. The economy
should be growing a lot faster than it has been growing for the past ten years. But the
current government is still 100x better than Navalny would be. He would probably bring down
Russia even worse than Yeltsin did.
"Naftogaz" has promised turn off the gas valve
03:01 28.11.2019 (updated: 10:45 28.11.2019)
KIEV, November 28 – RIA Novosti. The Ukraine does not intend to shut off the gas
valve, even if Russia fails to sign a new contract on gas transportation, Executive Director
of "Naftogaz of the Ukraine", Yuriy Vitrenko, has said in an interview with Deutsche Welle.
In his opinion, the valve will be turned off by Gazprom, not Naftogaz.
"But I remind you, that in a letter sent by Gazprom to Naftogaz, in black and white
[it states] that on January 1st at 10 am Moscow time Gazprom has no reason to keep the gas
flowing in the direction of the Ukraine", he said.
So you Russia is going to hold Europe to ransom, not the Ukraine, right?
What happened to all the leverage Ukraine gained by its blinding victory in Swiss
arbitration? They should be able to lead Moscow around by the nose now.
"... Gazprom sent about 200 BcM to Europe last year, of which 70 BcM went via Ukraine. If Ukraine is completely cut out now, Gazprom could manage about 195 BcM, with every other available pipeline to Europe straining at the rivets. But you need a 'technical reserve' capability, which would take Russia's requirement to 230 BcM. Obviously, the intent is that they should commit to sending this amount through Ukraine, forever. ..."
"... The other interesting figure is included in the claim that 'Ukraine's economy is growing nicely, but loss of transit income would shave 4% off of GDP.' When the initial threat that eventually transit would be stopped was floated, Ukraine squealed that it would bilk it of 2% of GDP. But now somehow that loss would be double but the economy is 'growing nicely'? Ummm .how do you figure? ..."
The appeal court in Sweden has refused to satisfy the appeal of "Gazprom" in a dispute
with the Ukrainian concern "Naftogaz", according to Tass. Executive Director of "Naftogaz of
Ukraine" Yuriy Vitrenko on "Facebook" called the decision a "complete victory".
"Complete victory, Ukraine wins again! We won the appeal at the first complaint of
"Gazprom" the decision of the Stockholm arbitration!" said his statement.
It is anticipated that decisions in two other cases in court between the same parties
will be taken in 2020.
The Stockholm arbitration court in December 2017 and February 2018 issued decisions on
disputes between Gazprom and Naftogaz in respect of contracts for supply and transit of gas,
obliging as a result, Russian the Ukrainian company to pay more than $ 2.5 billion. Gazprom
appealed against the decision in March 2018, and in May demanded the complete abolition of
the "transient" solution.
Ukraine allegedly offered to do a deal in which they would not drop their claim of being
owed $2.5 Billion by Gazprom, but would take it in free gas. They say they have not had a
reply yet. The same article suggests Russia would be perfectly happy to just run out the
clock. Even happier now, I would think.
A few interesting figures are included in the article. For one, the author claims that in
order to completely circumvent Ukraine for gas delivery to Europe, it would need pipeline
capacity of 230 BcM. Here's how it breaks down – Gazprom sent about 200 BcM to
Europe last year, of which 70 BcM went via Ukraine. If Ukraine is completely cut out now,
Gazprom could manage about 195 BcM, with every other available pipeline to Europe straining
at the rivets. But you need a 'technical reserve' capability, which would take Russia's
requirement to 230 BcM. Obviously, the intent is that they should commit to sending this
amount through Ukraine, forever.
The other interesting figure is included in the claim that 'Ukraine's economy is
growing nicely, but loss of transit income would shave 4% off of GDP.' When the initial
threat that eventually transit would be stopped was floated, Ukraine squealed that it would
bilk it of 2% of GDP. But now somehow that loss would be double but the economy is 'growing
nicely'? Ummm .how do you figure?
The way I see it, Russia has a couple of options; it can just let the clock run out, carry
on with Nord Stream II, and pump everything it can right to capacity, without any going
through Ukraine. That would leave it about 5 BcM short, obviously with no reserve capability.
The USA could be invited to make that shortfall up with its Molecules of Freedom. But that
relies on Merkel not suddenly deciding to slap more restrictions on Nord Stream II so that it
could not pump to its full capacity – she has apparently said all along that Nord
Stream II will not be allowed unless some gas continues to go through Ukraine – the
obvious clash of wills is that Russia is trying to ensure that amount is as small as
possible, while the west and Ukraine are trying to ensure that amount is as large as
possible.
Another option is for Russia to speed up and intensify its own LNG-export capability, and
perhaps it can make up the shortfall with its own LNG carriers. Either way, it is plain the
Ukies think they have Russia by the balls, and can dictate terms as they like – perhaps
they will even add the return of Crimea to their demands for a gas deal, they seem to feel so
confident. Let's see how it plays out; only a couple of weeks remain to get a deal done, and
it's everyone against Russia.
The look on Vitrenko's face will be priceless if the Russians just close up their
briefcases and go home. Not to mention the look on Sefcovic's face. Not to mention the jump
in gas prices in Europe.
The list contains some (but not all) of the key participants of the 2014 coup d'état
against President Yanukovich. There are 13 names in the list: MPs Serhiy Leshchenko, Mustafa
Nayem, Svitlana Zalishchuk, Serhiy Berezenko, Serhiy Pashynsky; ex-Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk; ex-Head of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeriya Hontareva; ex-First Deputy of the
National Security and Defense Council Oleg Hladkovsky; judge of the Constitutional Court of
Ukraine Makar Pasenyuk; candidate for presidency Anatoly Hrytsenko; singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk;
journalist Dmytro Hordon and ex-Head of the Presidential Administration Borys Lozhkin.
Pashynsky was involved in Snipergate. Yatsenyuk was the marionette chosen by Nuland to head
the Provisional government after Yanukovich will be overthrown.
Almost all of these people from the list were involved in various sort of scandals during
the last five years. Particularly, Oleg Hladkovsky was recently dismissed from his post due to
the corruption scandal in the defense sphere. Serhiy Leshchenko became known for the purchase
of the flat for $275,253 and the number of information attacks at well-known politicians and
businessmen. Serhy Pashynsky was tied to the hostile takeover of a confectionary factory in
Zhytomyr.
In its turn, the U.S. Department of State stated that the
words of Lutsenko are not true and aims to tarnish the reputation of Ambassador
Yovanovitch. Thus, there are certain concerns that the actual list might be fake.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The House is holding its second public hearing with former US envoy
to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch centring around her ouster which, according to her, is pertinent
to the impeachment probe against Trump. Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch
flatly denied allegations that she circulated a list of potential corruption targets in Ukraine
that the United States did not want prosecuted, according to testimony at the opening of
hearings in the House impeachment probe of President Donald Trump on Friday.
"I want to reiterate first that the allegation that I disseminated a do not prosecute list
was a fabrication", Yovanovitch said. "Mr Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian prosecutor general
who made that allegation, has acknowledged that the list never existed. I did not tell Mr
Lutsenko or other Ukrainian officials who they should or should not prosecute. Instead I
advocated the US position that rule of law should prevail."
US President Donald Trump in a series of tweets on Friday
criticised former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch's performance while she was
testifying in the impeachment hearing against him. He defended his decision to replace
Yovanovitch - appointed by his predecessor Barak Obama - as the US ambassador to Ukraine, where
she served from August 2016 until May 2019.
....They call it "serving at the pleasure of the President." The U.S. now has a very
strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than proceeding administrations. It is
called, quite simply, America First! With all of that, however, I have done FAR more for
Ukraine than O.
During Friday's Democrat-led impeachment inquiry hearing, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine
Marie Yovanovitch testified under oath that she did not give former Ukrainian Prosecutor
General Yuriy Lutsenko a "do not prosecute list" in 2017. Yovanovitch also doubled-down on
left-wing disinformation saying that Lutsenko "acknowledged that the list never existed" in
April.
"I want to reiterate first that the allegation that I disseminated a "Do Not Prosecute" list
was a fabrication,"
Yovanovitch told the House Intelligence Committee . "Mr. Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian
prosecutor general who made that allegation, has acknowledged that the list never existed. I
did not tell Mr. Lutsenko or other Ukrainian officials who they should or should not
prosecute."
"That is such a lie," Glenn Beck said on Friday's show. "She should be held for
perjury."
During a three-part BlazeTV exposé on the Democrats' corruption in Ukraine, Glenn
debunked what he called "the most misleading fabrication I've ever seen by the mainstream
media."
Earlier this year, award-winning investigative journalist John
Solomon reported Lutsenko's claim that then-Ambassador Yovanovitch gave him a list of
"people whom we should not prosecute" during a meeting in 2016. Shortly after Solomon's article
was released, several news sources, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal,
reported that Lutsenko retracted his statement.
When Lutsenko said Yovanovitch "gave" him a list, he did not mean she actually handed him
anything in writing, but verbally conveyed the names of people he shouldn't prosecute.
"They never mentioned the fact that it was verbally dictated and he wrote the list down
himself -- are you kidding me?" Glenn exclaimed. "This is how the media is fact-checking and
debunking. They are playing with our republic and Ukraine's republic. They are planting
dynamite all around everything that we hold dear. How do they sleep at night? Everyone that
reads their stories actually thinks that there was a retraction of one of the most damning
parts of this entire case."
If you like what you see, use promo code GB20OFF to get $20 off a full year of BlazeTV . With a BlazeTV subscription, you're not just paying to watch
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Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told Hill.TV's John Solomon in an interview that
aired Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch gave him a do not prosecute
list during their first meeting.
"Unfortunately, from the first meeting with the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, [Yovanovitch] gave
me a list of people whom we should not prosecute," Lutsenko, who took his post in 2016, told
Hill.TV last week.
"My response of that is it is inadmissible. Nobody in this country, neither our president
nor our parliament nor our ambassador, will stop me from prosecuting whether there is a crime,"
he continued.
The State Department called Lutsenko's claim of receiving a do not prosecute list, "an
outright fabrication."
"We have seen reports of the allegations," a department spokesperson told Hill.TV. "The
United States is not currently providing any assistance to the Prosecutor General's Office
(PGO), but did previously attempt to support fundamental justice sector reform, including in
the PGO, in the aftermath of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. When the political will for
genuine reform by successive Prosecutors General proved lacking, we exercised our fiduciary
responsibility to the American taxpayer and redirected assistance to more productive
projects."
Hill.TV has reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine for comment.
Lutsenko also said that he has not received funds amounting to nearly $4 million that the
U.S. Embassy in Ukraine was supposed to allocate to his office, saying that "the situation was
actually rather strange" and pointing to the fact that the funds were designated, but "never
received."
"At that time we had a case for the embezzlement of the U.S. government technical assistance
worth 4 million U.S. dollars, and in that regard, we had this dialogue," he said. " At that
time, [Yovanovitch] thought that our interviews of Ukrainian citizens, of Ukrainian civil
servants, who were frequent visitors of the U.S. Embassy put a shadow on that anti-corruption
policy."
"Actually, we got the letter from the U.S. Embassy, from the ambassador, that the money that
we are speaking about [was] under full control of the U.S. Embassy, and that the U.S. Embassy
did not require our legal assessment of these facts," he said. "The situation was actually
rather strange because the funds we are talking about were designated for the prosecutor
general's office also and we told [them] we have never seen those, and the U.S. Embassy replied
there was no problem."
"The portion of the funds namely 4.4 million U.S. dollars were designated and were foreseen
for the recipient Prosecutor General's office. But we have never received it," he said.
Yovanovitch previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Armenia under former presidents
Obama and George W. Bush, as well as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan under Bush. She also served as
ambassador to Ukraine under Obama.
The question is who will listed to Obama after his "change we can believe in" betrayal. Also
is not he a war criminal? Obama election was probably the most slick false flag operation even
conducted by intelligence agencies. Somebody created for him complexly fake but still plausible
legend.
That Obama desire to interfere in 2020 election also shows gain that that he a regular
completely corrupt Clinton neoliberal. The worst king of neoliberals, wolfs in sheep's
clothing.
And the fact that CIA democrats dominates the Democratic Party actually is another reason
from "Demexit" from the Democratic party of workers and lower middle class. The sad fact that the
USA Corporate Dems recently became the second pro-war militarist party, and learned to love
intelligence agencies; two things unimaginable in 60th and 70th.
As we noted earlier, a bombshell admission from Politico today exploring Obama's
substantial behind the scenes influence as Democratic kingmaker : included in the lengthy
profile on the day-to-day of the former president's personal office in the West End of
Washington D.C. and his meeting with the field of Democratic candidates, is
the following gem :
"Obama said privately that if Bernie were running away with the nomination, Obama would
speak up to stop him."
And crucially, when asked about that prior statement reported in Politico, an Obama
spokesperson did not deny that he said it.
The frank admission underscores what many independent analysts, not to
mention prior damning WikiLeaks DNC disclosures , have pointed out for years: that the
establishment controlling the Democratic party has continuously sought to rig the system
against Bernie.
"Since losing 2016, Dem elites have waged a prolonged effort to stop Bernie. Bernie is the
obvious answer to the neoliberal Clinton-Obama legacy voters rejected..." journalist Aaron
Maté observed of the
Politico quote.
Here's the stunning and deeply revealing section in full, which began by outlining Obama's
'advice-giving' throughout meetings with Democrat contenders including Joe Biden, Elizabeth
Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker,
and others :
Publicly, he has been clear that he won't intervene in the primary for or against a
candidate , unless he believed there was some egregious attack. "I can't even imagine with
this field how bad it would have to be for him to say something," said a close adviser.
Instead, he sees his role as providing guardrails to keep the process from getting too ugly
and to unite the party when the nominee is clear.
There is one potential exception: Back when Sanders seemed like more of a threat than he
does now, Obama said privately that if Bernie were running away with the nomination, Obama
would speak up to stop him. (Asked about that, a spokesperson for Obama pointed out that
Obama recently said he would support and campaign for whoever the Democratic nominee is.)
And a further deeply revealing but more laughable quote comes later as follows: "Obama
designed his post-presidency in 2016, at a time when he believed Hillary Clinton would win and
Biden would be out of politics." So the reality is... far from the idea that the Dem elites
would back the actual nominee the party puts forward, clearly the die has already been cast
against Bernie just
like the last time around against Hillary in 2016.
Politico author Ryan Lizza later in the story quotes a "close family friend," who described
that Obama's "politics are not strong left of center."
"I mean it's left, but he's nowhere near where some of the candidates are currently sitting,
at least when he got himself elected," the source claimed.
This means in the mind of Obama and other top party influencers and kingmakers, Bernie and
other popular outliers like Tulsi Gabbard have already long been sidelined. Tulsi, it should
also be noted, is one of the couple of candidates who did not bother to stop by Obama's D.C.
office for a 'blessing' and advice.
According to the US Census there are 3031 counties in the US.
If we redirected the $3.8 billion plus the 500,000,000 for missile defense that we give
Israel to US counties budgets each county would receive about
$ 1.3 million.
If we included the $1.2 billion each we give to Egypt and Jordon for signing the Carter
peace treaty with Israel that figure increases to $2.3 million for each county.
While $2.3 million may be a small figure for counties with metro cities, it would be a
large amount for the majority of counties across the nation.
Since aid to Israel alone accounts for 50% of US foreign aid who would oppose this re
direct of taxpayers money...besides the politicians...and how would the politicians explain
their opposition to the districts they supposedly represent?
"... Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. ..."
"... Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics ..."
"... "The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks. ..."
"... Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision." ..."
"... Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. ..."
"... To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe. ..."
Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins.
Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being unreasonable -- those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to
boost Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort.
Jokes aside, however, I can only imagine how SVR
and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many "free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a
free ride.
Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't
remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics. I thought it
had been an American Admiral. I had no luck finding a reference so I googled it. Still no joy with the American admiral, but the
list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.
"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration.
It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose
to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe"
to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth
called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant
but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy
agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."
Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the
respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the
crazy banner. Or, to put it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations. Though I, as an outside
observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with Brzezinski and his copious output.
Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an extent American foreign policy has been
hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.
Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious.
And that from a long way back and no matter whether those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.
It cannot but help be distorting, that influence. It's not merely that unexamined Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many
Eastern Europeans. There's a narrow minded focus on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes
with neighbors.
That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of the United States - because that is
a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the world stage - distorts US foreign policy. To a great degree American
foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions
inherited from Old Europe.
In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New World, with all its power and might,
steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened. And continued to happen for half a century and more. But there
was a price few noticed. The New World might have stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a
most destructive freight.
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding
of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's
loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He
dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do
many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding
Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I
argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
I wrote what follows before reading Andrei's response to EO, but do not see much reason to change what I had written.
When in 1988 I ended up working at BBC Radio 'Analysis' programme because it was impossible to interest any of my old television
colleagues in the idea that one might go to Moscow and talk to some of the people involved in the Gorbachev 'new thinking', my
editor, Caroline Anstey, was an erstwhile aide to Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister.
As a result of his involvement with the Trilateral Commission, she had a fascinating anecdote about what one of his fellow
members, the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, said about another, Zbigniew Brzezinski: that he could never work out which
of his country's two traditional enemies his Polish colleague hated most.
Almost a generation after hearing her say this, in December 2013, I read an article Brzezinski published in the 'Financial
Times, headlined 'Russia, like Ukraine, will become a real democracy.'
Unfortunately, it is behind a subscription wall, but it clearly expresses its author's fundamental belief that after all those
years of giving Russia the 'spinach' treatment -- to use Victoria Nuland's term -- it would finally 'knuckle under', and become
a quiescent satellite of the West.
An ironic sidelight on this is provided in a recent article by a lady called Anna Mahjar-Barducci on the 'MEMRI' site -- which
actually has some very useful material on matters to do with Russia for those of us with no knowledge of the language -- headlined
'Contemporary Russian Thinkers Series -- Part I -- Renowned Russian Academic Sergey Karaganov On Russia And Democracy.'
Its subject, who I remember well from the days when he was very much one of the 'new thinkers', linked to it on his own website,
clearly pleased at what he saw as an accurate and informed discussion of his ideas.
There is an obvious risk of succumbing to facetiousness, but sometimes what one thinks are essential features of an argument
can be best brought out at the risk of caricaturing it.
It seems to me that some of the central themes of Karaganov's writing over the past few years -- doubly interesting, because
his attacks on conventional Western orthodoxies are very far from silly, and because he is a kind of 'panjandrum' of a significant
section of the Russian foreign policy élite -- may be illuminated in this way.
So, attempting to link his Russian concerns to British and American ones, some central contentions of his writings might be
put as follows:
'"Government of the people, by the people, for the people' looked a lovely idea, back in 1989. But if in practice "by the people"
means a choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, how can it be "for the people?"
'Moreover, it turned out that our "deplorables" were always right, against us 'intellectuals', in grasping that, with "Russophobes"
running Western policy, a "real democracy" would simply guarantee that we remained as impotent and humiliated as people like Brzezinski
clearly always wanted us to be.
'Our past, and our future, both in terms of alliances and appropriate social and political systems, are actually "Eurasian":
a 'hybrid' state, whose potential greatest advantage actually should be seen as successfully synthesising different inheritances.
'As the need for this kind of synthesis is a normal condition, with which most peoples have to reckon, this gives us a very
real potential advantage over people in the West, who, like the communists against whom I rebelled, believe that there is one
path along which all of humanity must -- and can -- go.'
At the risk of over-interpreting, I might add the following conclusion:
'Of course, precisely what this analysis does not mean is that we are anti-European -- simply that we cannot simply come to
Europe, Europe come some way to meet us.
'Given time, Helmut Schmidt's fellow countrymen, as also de Gaulle's, may very well realise that their future does not lie
in an alliance with a coalition of people like Brzezinski and traditional "Russophobes" from the "Anglosphere".
'And likewise, it does not lie with the kind of messianic universalist "liberalism" -- and, in relation to some of the SJC
and LGBT obsessions, one might say "liberalism gone bonkers" -- which Putin criticized in his interview with the "Financial Times"
back in June.
An obvious possibility implicit in the argument is that, if indeed the continental Europeans see sense, then the coalition
of traditional 'Anglophobes' and the 'insulted and injured' or the 'borderlands' may find itself marginalized, and indeed, on
the 'dustbin of history' to which Trotsky once referred.
Of course, I have no claims to be a Russianist, and my reading of Karaganov may be quite wrong.
But I do strongly believe that very superficial readings of what was happening when I was working in the 'Analysis' office,
back in 1988-9, have done an immense disservice alike to Britain and the United States.
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding
of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's
loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He
dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do
many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding
Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I
argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
David, Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. But the events of two days ago with Putin and Lavrov being personally
present at the unveiling of the monument to Evgenii Primakov in a front of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs speaks, in fact
screams, volumes. You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost"
(quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose) Russia and it can be "thankful" for that to a so called Russia
Studies field in the West which was primarily shaped and then turned into the wasteland, in large part thanks to influx of East
European "scholars" and some "Russian" dissidents which achieved their objectives by drawing a caricature. They succeeded and
Russia had it with the West.
DH, appreciate your comment. Haven't read the MEMRI paper yet. Scanned the first page though.
Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. ... You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as
I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose)
Well, two things sticked out for me during Tumps reelection campain.
1) on the surface he stated, he wanted closer relations to Russia. Looked at more closely, as should be expected, maybe. They
were ambigous. If I may paraphrase it colloguially: I meet them and, believe me, if I don't get that beautiful deal, i'll be out
of the door the next second.
2) he promised to be enigmatic, compared to earlier American administrations. In other words, hard to read or to predict. Guess
one better is as dealmaker. But in the larger intelligence field? Enigmatic may well be a commonplace. No?
Otherwise, Andrei, I would appreciate your further elaboration on Karaganov as opportunist.
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia -- the westernmost portion of what is now Ukraine -- that was acquired by Empress
Maria Theresa in the mid - 18th century.
I have been curious about precisely where both Srzok and Pientka came from, but have not had time to do any serious searches.
What is the actual evidence that they have Galician origins?
And, if they do, what are these?
I would of course automatically tend to assume that Polish names mean that their origins are Polish.
But then, if this is so, why are they enthusiastically collaborating with 'Banderista' Ukrainians?
It has long been a belief of mine that one of Stalin's great mistakes was to attempt to incorporate Galicia into the empire
he was creating.
Had he returned it to Poland, the architects of the Volhynia massacres of Poles -- as also of the massacres of Jews in Lviv/Lvov/Lemberg
-- could have gone back to their old habits of assassinating Polish policemen.
I first picked up the Galician connection in an article by Scott Humor: " North America is a land run by Galician zombies "
-- published by The Saker on July 4, 2018. It seems that Galicians, especially those that arrived after WWII, migrate into security
positions such as ICE / FBI / NSA etc. It may have to do with a family history of work in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Regrettably, I am not from Eastern Europe and cannot help you further about the Bortnicks, the Gathkes, Buchtas, and so on.
"... These ethnic lobbies seek to influence U.S. policy in three ways. ..."
"... First, by framing the issues "they help set the terms of debate" or "put items on the country's agenda." ..."
"... Second, they are a source of information and analysis that provide a great deal of information to members of Congress and serve as a resource for other branches of government and non-governmental organizations, and shaping general perspectives. ..."
"... Finally, ethnic group lobbies provide policy oversight. "They examine the policies of the U.S. government, propose policies, write letters and [are] involved in electioneering activities." ..."
Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor of Political Science, North Dakota State
University and Yossi Shain, Professor of Comparative Government and Diaspora Politics,
Georgetown University
In an age marked by the greater ease of communication and travel, recent research on
ethnic groups and conflict has begun to examine the influence of diaspora groups. Of
particular interest are their efforts to affect political environments in their "home" and
host countries through their remittance of funds, lobbying and the dissemination of
information. Dr. Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor at North Dakota University presented
material from his recent edited volume Ethnic Identity Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy.
Commentary was provided by Yossi Shain, Professor at Georgetown and Tel Aviv Universities,
author of "Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and their Homelands"
and a contributor to Ambrosio's book. The meeting marked what moderator Carla Koppell,
Interim Director of the Wilson Center's Conflict Prevention Project called, "a relatively new
area of analysis and dialogue for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars."
Ambrosio, stated that as we seek to understand diaspora groups and their influence on U.S.
foreign policy, the question is not should ethnic groups influence foreign policy but how
they effect foreign policy, what are their goals and why do they mobilize. He began his
presentation by defining ethnic identity groups as "politically relevant social divisions
based on a shared sense of cultural distinctiveness." This would include racial, religious,
national and ethnic identities. Ethnic identity groups often form institutions that effect
U.S. foreign policy or ethnic communities abroad, most commonly in the form of ethnic
lobbies.
These ethnic lobbies seek to influence U.S. policy in three ways.
First, by framing the
issues "they help set the terms of debate" or "put items on the country's agenda."
Second,
they are a source of information and analysis that provide a great deal of information to
members of Congress and serve as a resource for other branches of government and
non-governmental organizations, and shaping general perspectives.
Finally, ethnic group
lobbies provide policy oversight. "They examine the policies of the U.S. government, propose
policies, write letters and [are] involved in electioneering activities."
Ambrosio cautioned, that we must not believe that the effort by "ethnic groups to
influence U.S. foreign policy is new." It has a long history but "has become increasingly
active in recent years." To illustrate, he presented five periods of ethnic lobbying in the
United States--Pre-WWI, WWI, Cold War, post-Cold war, and post-September 11.
Since before WWI, there has been a "steady rise in the number of ethnic groups in the U.S.
mobilizing to influence the foreign policy process." Both the WWI and Cold War periods saw an
explosion in the number of interest groups affecting domestic and foreign policy. According
to Ambrosio, however, it was the post-Cold War period that gave way to a real increase in
American multiculturalism. U.S. interests during this period were not clearly defined, and
the Congress had more influence than the Executive Branch over policy-making. That balance of
power according to Ambrosio allowed ethnic lobbying groups greater access to policy-makers
and potential influence in policy formation. Since September 11 quite the opposite is true;
there is a re-centralization of foreign policy in the White House. That re-centralization is
restricting influence over policy.
Ambrosio concluded by suggesting several areas for future research. First, the question of
the legitimacy of ethnic group influence on foreign policy deserves some attention. Second,
more case study analysis is need. In Ambrosio's view, we need to look at specific groups, and
why or how they influence policy. In particular, greater attention should be paid to the case
of Muslim Americans. Third, is the need to examine the relationship between ethnic and
non-ethnic interest groups. For instance, Ambrosio suggested that a comparison of the
influence of "the Oil lobby versus the Armenian lobbies over the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh
and Azerbaijan" could provide some interesting insights. Fourth, the reliance on natives for
intelligence information should be examined more closely. In the case of Iraq, there is the
question of "how Iraq exiles influence U.S. foreign policy." Finally, the export of American
values must be better understood. Further research could help the U.S. government mobilize
diaspora groups in the United States to deal with growing anti-Americanism throughout the
world.
Shain, began by commenting that while the topic of diaspora group influence on U.S.
foreign policy is important, "it is perhaps an overblown topic." He agreed with Ambrosio that
the idea of transnational influence on U.S. foreign policy is not new. However, Shain
contends that people have always been wary of such influences. The topic, according to Shain,
became more salient in the 1990's with the end of the Cold War when the "us versus them
posture was no longer in existence." It was also a time when more people began "shuttling
back and forth," retaining greater ties to their home country. According to Professor Shain,
the question is "who really speaks [in U.S. foreign policy]?" This was the period of
increasing American multiculturalism; the identity of the U.S. itself was changing. As a
result, attention to issues reflected the makeup of the U.S. For instance, before September
11, relations between the United States and Mexico in the age of NAFTA, had center stage.
Shain suggested that while ethnic Americans mobilize to influence U.S. foreign policy,
their ability to do so is quite limited. Ethnic lobbies have more often been used to market
American ideals in their home countries or to "democratize their countries of origin." When
they do have influence, it has generally been at the electoral level in connection with a
domestic issue, or when an issue is of little importance to the administration. Professor
Shain continued contending that the influence of ethnic lobbies relies on their ability to
advance a message that resonates with the American values and ideals. This is one reason he
believes Arab-Americans have had difficulty influencing U.S. foreign policy; there is a
perception that they are attempting to influence policy in ways that would be contrary to
American values. When issues promoted by an ethnic lobby are priorities, and are in line with
the administration, ethnic lobbies have the greatest influence in policy oversight.
According to Shain there are several issues that warrant future research and
understanding. The first is to understand the explosion of Islam in the United States; rather
than lobbying for national country interests, there is greater mobilization around religious
beliefs. According to Shain, this has little to do with ethnic lobbies; rather it is a
question of who is mobilizing communities. This is a difficult question to examine because,
depending on the time period, different people will speak for a community. Another issue for
further study involves tracking and better understanding economic influence. For example,
donations for Israel at the same time support local organizations and Jewish-American issues;
financial support drives diaspora politics. At the same time, many country economies depend
on money sent from abroad; this gives diasporas a greater say in their "home" countries.
"When you do any politics in Haiti, there is the 10th department... the 10th department is
here. This is the community that can mobilize and has money."
The final issue for further study according to Shain is the concept of identity in
America. While there is identity as an American, many still "retain some affinity and
memories" of their home country. This is particularly galvanizing where there is still
instability in the country of origin. Shain concluded that the subject of the influence of
diaspora communities in the U.S. was most important in regard to identity in America.
"Identity is critical for America because the American makeup has always been changing." "The
market, democracy and human rights are much more on the minds of ethnic groups as they relate
to their country of origin," concluded Shain.
"... Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. ..."
"... Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics ..."
"... "The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks. ..."
"... Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision." ..."
"... Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. ..."
"... To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe. ..."
Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins.
Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being unreasonable -- those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to
boost Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort.
Jokes aside, however, I can only imagine how SVR
and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many "free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a
free ride.
Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within the American administration. I couldn't
remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the more hawkish elements in US politics. I thought it
had been an American Admiral. I had no luck finding a reference so I googled it. Still no joy with the American admiral, but the
list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.
"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration.
It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose
to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe"
to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth
called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East -- and in D.C. -- certainly looked like a distant
but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy
agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."
Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the
respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the
crazy banner. Or, to put it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations. Though I, as an outside
observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with Brzezinski and his copious output.
Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an extent American foreign policy has been
hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.
Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign policy has been uniformly deleterious.
And that from a long way back and no matter whether those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.
It cannot but help be distorting, that influence. It's not merely that unexamined Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many
Eastern Europeans. There's a narrow minded focus on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes
with neighbors.
That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of the United States - because that is
a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the world stage - distorts US foreign policy. To a great degree American
foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions
inherited from Old Europe.
In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New World, with all its power and might,
steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened. And continued to happen for half a century and more. But there
was a price few noticed. The New World might have stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a
most destructive freight.
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding
of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's
loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He
dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do
many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding
Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I
argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
I wrote what follows before reading Andrei's response to EO, but do not see much reason to change what I had written.
When in 1988 I ended up working at BBC Radio 'Analysis' programme because it was impossible to interest any of my old television
colleagues in the idea that one might go to Moscow and talk to some of the people involved in the Gorbachev 'new thinking', my
editor, Caroline Anstey, was an erstwhile aide to Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime Minister.
As a result of his involvement with the Trilateral Commission, she had a fascinating anecdote about what one of his fellow
members, the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, said about another, Zbigniew Brzezinski: that he could never work out which
of his country's two traditional enemies his Polish colleague hated most.
Almost a generation after hearing her say this, in December 2013, I read an article Brzezinski published in the 'Financial
Times, headlined 'Russia, like Ukraine, will become a real democracy.'
Unfortunately, it is behind a subscription wall, but it clearly expresses its author's fundamental belief that after all those
years of giving Russia the 'spinach' treatment -- to use Victoria Nuland's term -- it would finally 'knuckle under', and become
a quiescent satellite of the West.
An ironic sidelight on this is provided in a recent article by a lady called Anna Mahjar-Barducci on the 'MEMRI' site -- which
actually has some very useful material on matters to do with Russia for those of us with no knowledge of the language -- headlined
'Contemporary Russian Thinkers Series -- Part I -- Renowned Russian Academic Sergey Karaganov On Russia And Democracy.'
Its subject, who I remember well from the days when he was very much one of the 'new thinkers', linked to it on his own website,
clearly pleased at what he saw as an accurate and informed discussion of his ideas.
There is an obvious risk of succumbing to facetiousness, but sometimes what one thinks are essential features of an argument
can be best brought out at the risk of caricaturing it.
It seems to me that some of the central themes of Karaganov's writing over the past few years -- doubly interesting, because
his attacks on conventional Western orthodoxies are very far from silly, and because he is a kind of 'panjandrum' of a significant
section of the Russian foreign policy élite -- may be illuminated in this way.
So, attempting to link his Russian concerns to British and American ones, some central contentions of his writings might be
put as follows:
'"Government of the people, by the people, for the people' looked a lovely idea, back in 1989. But if in practice "by the people"
means a choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, how can it be "for the people?"
'Moreover, it turned out that our "deplorables" were always right, against us 'intellectuals', in grasping that, with "Russophobes"
running Western policy, a "real democracy" would simply guarantee that we remained as impotent and humiliated as people like Brzezinski
clearly always wanted us to be.
'Our past, and our future, both in terms of alliances and appropriate social and political systems, are actually "Eurasian":
a 'hybrid' state, whose potential greatest advantage actually should be seen as successfully synthesising different inheritances.
'As the need for this kind of synthesis is a normal condition, with which most peoples have to reckon, this gives us a very
real potential advantage over people in the West, who, like the communists against whom I rebelled, believe that there is one
path along which all of humanity must -- and can -- go.'
At the risk of over-interpreting, I might add the following conclusion:
'Of course, precisely what this analysis does not mean is that we are anti-European -- simply that we cannot simply come to
Europe, Europe come some way to meet us.
'Given time, Helmut Schmidt's fellow countrymen, as also de Gaulle's, may very well realise that their future does not lie
in an alliance with a coalition of people like Brzezinski and traditional "Russophobes" from the "Anglosphere".
'And likewise, it does not lie with the kind of messianic universalist "liberalism" -- and, in relation to some of the SJC
and LGBT obsessions, one might say "liberalism gone bonkers" -- which Putin criticized in his interview with the "Financial Times"
back in June.
An obvious possibility implicit in the argument is that, if indeed the continental Europeans see sense, then the coalition
of traditional 'Anglophobes' and the 'insulted and injured' or the 'borderlands' may find itself marginalized, and indeed, on
the 'dustbin of history' to which Trotsky once referred.
Of course, I have no claims to be a Russianist, and my reading of Karaganov may be quite wrong.
But I do strongly believe that very superficial readings of what was happening when I was working in the 'Analysis' office,
back in 1988-9, have done an immense disservice alike to Britain and the United States.
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from "white board" theorists with zero understanding
of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's
loyalties were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false, anti-Russian grievances. He
dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do
many, as you correctly stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of which Founding
Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I
argue constantly, utter destruction of the remnants of the Republic.
David, Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. But the events of two days ago with Putin and Lavrov being personally
present at the unveiling of the monument to Evgenii Primakov in a front of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs speaks, in fact
screams, volumes. You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost"
(quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose) Russia and it can be "thankful" for that to a so called Russia
Studies field in the West which was primarily shaped and then turned into the wasteland, in large part thanks to influx of East
European "scholars" and some "Russian" dissidents which achieved their objectives by drawing a caricature. They succeeded and
Russia had it with the West.
DH, appreciate your comment. Haven't read the MEMRI paper yet. Scanned the first page though.
Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. ... You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as
I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose)
Well, two things sticked out for me during Tumps reelection campain.
1) on the surface he stated, he wanted closer relations to Russia. Looked at more closely, as should be expected, maybe. They
were ambigous. If I may paraphrase it colloguially: I meet them and, believe me, if I don't get that beautiful deal, i'll be out
of the door the next second.
2) he promised to be enigmatic, compared to earlier American administrations. In other words, hard to read or to predict. Guess
one better is as dealmaker. But in the larger intelligence field? Enigmatic may well be a commonplace. No?
Otherwise, Andrei, I would appreciate your further elaboration on Karaganov as opportunist.
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia -- the westernmost portion of what is now Ukraine -- that was acquired by Empress
Maria Theresa in the mid - 18th century.
I have been curious about precisely where both Srzok and Pientka came from, but have not had time to do any serious searches.
What is the actual evidence that they have Galician origins?
And, if they do, what are these?
I would of course automatically tend to assume that Polish names mean that their origins are Polish.
But then, if this is so, why are they enthusiastically collaborating with 'Banderista' Ukrainians?
It has long been a belief of mine that one of Stalin's great mistakes was to attempt to incorporate Galicia into the empire
he was creating.
Had he returned it to Poland, the architects of the Volhynia massacres of Poles -- as also of the massacres of Jews in Lviv/Lvov/Lemberg
-- could have gone back to their old habits of assassinating Polish policemen.
I first picked up the Galician connection in an article by Scott Humor: " North America is a land run by Galician zombies "
-- published by The Saker on July 4, 2018. It seems that Galicians, especially those that arrived after WWII, migrate into security
positions such as ICE / FBI / NSA etc. It may have to do with a family history of work in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Regrettably, I am not from Eastern Europe and cannot help you further about the Bortnicks, the Gathkes, Buchtas, and so on.
"... These ethnic lobbies seek to influence U.S. policy in three ways. ..."
"... First, by framing the issues "they help set the terms of debate" or "put items on the country's agenda." ..."
"... Second, they are a source of information and analysis that provide a great deal of information to members of Congress and serve as a resource for other branches of government and non-governmental organizations, and shaping general perspectives. ..."
"... Finally, ethnic group lobbies provide policy oversight. "They examine the policies of the U.S. government, propose policies, write letters and [are] involved in electioneering activities." ..."
Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor of Political Science, North Dakota State
University and Yossi Shain, Professor of Comparative Government and Diaspora Politics,
Georgetown University
In an age marked by the greater ease of communication and travel, recent research on
ethnic groups and conflict has begun to examine the influence of diaspora groups. Of
particular interest are their efforts to affect political environments in their "home" and
host countries through their remittance of funds, lobbying and the dissemination of
information. Dr. Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor at North Dakota University presented
material from his recent edited volume Ethnic Identity Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy.
Commentary was provided by Yossi Shain, Professor at Georgetown and Tel Aviv Universities,
author of "Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and their Homelands"
and a contributor to Ambrosio's book. The meeting marked what moderator Carla Koppell,
Interim Director of the Wilson Center's Conflict Prevention Project called, "a relatively new
area of analysis and dialogue for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars."
Ambrosio, stated that as we seek to understand diaspora groups and their influence on U.S.
foreign policy, the question is not should ethnic groups influence foreign policy but how
they effect foreign policy, what are their goals and why do they mobilize. He began his
presentation by defining ethnic identity groups as "politically relevant social divisions
based on a shared sense of cultural distinctiveness." This would include racial, religious,
national and ethnic identities. Ethnic identity groups often form institutions that effect
U.S. foreign policy or ethnic communities abroad, most commonly in the form of ethnic
lobbies.
These ethnic lobbies seek to influence U.S. policy in three ways.
First, by framing the
issues "they help set the terms of debate" or "put items on the country's agenda."
Second,
they are a source of information and analysis that provide a great deal of information to
members of Congress and serve as a resource for other branches of government and
non-governmental organizations, and shaping general perspectives.
Finally, ethnic group
lobbies provide policy oversight. "They examine the policies of the U.S. government, propose
policies, write letters and [are] involved in electioneering activities."
Ambrosio cautioned, that we must not believe that the effort by "ethnic groups to
influence U.S. foreign policy is new." It has a long history but "has become increasingly
active in recent years." To illustrate, he presented five periods of ethnic lobbying in the
United States--Pre-WWI, WWI, Cold War, post-Cold war, and post-September 11.
Since before WWI, there has been a "steady rise in the number of ethnic groups in the U.S.
mobilizing to influence the foreign policy process." Both the WWI and Cold War periods saw an
explosion in the number of interest groups affecting domestic and foreign policy. According
to Ambrosio, however, it was the post-Cold War period that gave way to a real increase in
American multiculturalism. U.S. interests during this period were not clearly defined, and
the Congress had more influence than the Executive Branch over policy-making. That balance of
power according to Ambrosio allowed ethnic lobbying groups greater access to policy-makers
and potential influence in policy formation. Since September 11 quite the opposite is true;
there is a re-centralization of foreign policy in the White House. That re-centralization is
restricting influence over policy.
Ambrosio concluded by suggesting several areas for future research. First, the question of
the legitimacy of ethnic group influence on foreign policy deserves some attention. Second,
more case study analysis is need. In Ambrosio's view, we need to look at specific groups, and
why or how they influence policy. In particular, greater attention should be paid to the case
of Muslim Americans. Third, is the need to examine the relationship between ethnic and
non-ethnic interest groups. For instance, Ambrosio suggested that a comparison of the
influence of "the Oil lobby versus the Armenian lobbies over the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh
and Azerbaijan" could provide some interesting insights. Fourth, the reliance on natives for
intelligence information should be examined more closely. In the case of Iraq, there is the
question of "how Iraq exiles influence U.S. foreign policy." Finally, the export of American
values must be better understood. Further research could help the U.S. government mobilize
diaspora groups in the United States to deal with growing anti-Americanism throughout the
world.
Shain, began by commenting that while the topic of diaspora group influence on U.S.
foreign policy is important, "it is perhaps an overblown topic." He agreed with Ambrosio that
the idea of transnational influence on U.S. foreign policy is not new. However, Shain
contends that people have always been wary of such influences. The topic, according to Shain,
became more salient in the 1990's with the end of the Cold War when the "us versus them
posture was no longer in existence." It was also a time when more people began "shuttling
back and forth," retaining greater ties to their home country. According to Professor Shain,
the question is "who really speaks [in U.S. foreign policy]?" This was the period of
increasing American multiculturalism; the identity of the U.S. itself was changing. As a
result, attention to issues reflected the makeup of the U.S. For instance, before September
11, relations between the United States and Mexico in the age of NAFTA, had center stage.
Shain suggested that while ethnic Americans mobilize to influence U.S. foreign policy,
their ability to do so is quite limited. Ethnic lobbies have more often been used to market
American ideals in their home countries or to "democratize their countries of origin." When
they do have influence, it has generally been at the electoral level in connection with a
domestic issue, or when an issue is of little importance to the administration. Professor
Shain continued contending that the influence of ethnic lobbies relies on their ability to
advance a message that resonates with the American values and ideals. This is one reason he
believes Arab-Americans have had difficulty influencing U.S. foreign policy; there is a
perception that they are attempting to influence policy in ways that would be contrary to
American values. When issues promoted by an ethnic lobby are priorities, and are in line with
the administration, ethnic lobbies have the greatest influence in policy oversight.
According to Shain there are several issues that warrant future research and
understanding. The first is to understand the explosion of Islam in the United States; rather
than lobbying for national country interests, there is greater mobilization around religious
beliefs. According to Shain, this has little to do with ethnic lobbies; rather it is a
question of who is mobilizing communities. This is a difficult question to examine because,
depending on the time period, different people will speak for a community. Another issue for
further study involves tracking and better understanding economic influence. For example,
donations for Israel at the same time support local organizations and Jewish-American issues;
financial support drives diaspora politics. At the same time, many country economies depend
on money sent from abroad; this gives diasporas a greater say in their "home" countries.
"When you do any politics in Haiti, there is the 10th department... the 10th department is
here. This is the community that can mobilize and has money."
The final issue for further study according to Shain is the concept of identity in
America. While there is identity as an American, many still "retain some affinity and
memories" of their home country. This is particularly galvanizing where there is still
instability in the country of origin. Shain concluded that the subject of the influence of
diaspora communities in the U.S. was most important in regard to identity in America.
"Identity is critical for America because the American makeup has always been changing." "The
market, democracy and human rights are much more on the minds of ethnic groups as they relate
to their country of origin," concluded Shain.
Since its creation in 1948, the modern state of Israel has steadily stolen Palestinian land
and driven Palestinians from their homes, cities and villages.
Nothing has been done to halt Israel's steady march to tighten its absolute control of the
Palestinian people with the obvious goal of ethnic cleansing, an historic fact well documented
by Israeli scholar
Ilan Pappe .
Under the protection of a security-obsessed military occupation, fully supported and
underwritten by U.S. tax payers, Israel denies it has broken any laws. Israel makes its own
self-preservation laws. It listens to no higher authority.
Israel has destroyed olive tree orchards and smothered stolen farmlands and pastures with
modern malls where U.S. firms like Ace Hardware and Burger King enrich stock holders who don't
know, or don't care, that they are taking part in the ugly crime of ethnic cleansing.
(The first time I saw an Ace Hardware store in a Ma'ale Adumim mall, I started my own
personal boycott of Ace, an action unfair to employees of my local Ace outlet, but one that has
increased the receipts of my small neighborhood hardware store.)
The narrative of Israeli governments heeding no call but their own, has been with us all
along, but U.S. media readers/viewers have avoided having to think about it, or do anything
about it.
They live comfortably within their bubble of ignorance which is created and sustained for
them by their newspapers, news magazines, television outlets, radio broadcasts, government
leaders and, alas, their religious leaders.
It does not have to be this way. During the last decade, the narrative of settlements like
Ma'ale Adumim has been available on the internet in reports like this one from Electronic Intafada , which begins
:
It is only a fifteen minute bus ride from Jerusalem to the Ma'ale Adumim settlement. After
entering through guarded gates, one's first impression is of a Miami-style suburb. The town
at noon seems almost abandoned because the major part of Ma'ale Adumim residents head off to
work in Jerusalem during the day. . . .
As soon as Barack Obama demanded from Israel the simple act of "freezing" its settlement expansion , Israel trotted out Public
Relations Plan A for distribution to the media: Have a heart, settlement residents need room
for their families to grow.
Israel operates on the logic of the man found guilty of killing his parents. The guilty man
begged for mercy on the grounds that he was now an orphan.
To tell you about the Israeli settlers' plea for mercy, the Los Angeles Times (July 6) delivered its version of the
orphan story: "Israel's settlements in West Bank present a major hurdle."
The opening paragraphs of the Times story set the tone for the plea with weasel words
(Lobby talking points) used by writer Edmund Sanders:
Reporting from Ma'ale Adumim, West Bank -- This sprawling, well-manicured Israeli
settlement -- with its rows of red-tile roofs, palm trees and air-conditioned shopping mall
-- could almost pass for Orange County. Except the guards in this gated community sometimes
pack automatic weapons.
Settlements such as the city-sized Ma'ale Adumim, about four miles east of Jerusalem in
the West Bank, are viewed by much of the world as illegal because they are built on land
seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War. Many Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of
their country.
Now let us review the weasel words.
The reference to the illegality of Ma'ale Adumim is softened by the qualifying rhetorical
device, "viewed by much of the world as illegal". The phase "viewed by" suggests that the issue
at hand is open to debate among reasonable people.
Reasonable, as, for example, as a story that might have appeared in a Birmingham, Alabama,
newspaper, circa 1939, reporting that "segregation is viewed by many in the South as as a way
to maintain harmony between the races and preserve our Southern Way of Life."
Should such an analysis have been open to debate? No, certainly not in the minds of a small
number of courageous Southern liberals, and an increasingly impatient black population.
It required two more decades of U.S. racial oppression for that "debate"–for and
against segregation–to reach a definitive conclusion with "all deliberate speed".
Now we have a 21st century debate. The Times' Monday story includes the phrase: "many
Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of their country." Do they, indeed? How many Israelis?
Most polls suggest that sentiment is largely confined to the pro-settler community, while
"security-minded" government leaders continue to demand the inclusion of Ma'ale Adumimin a
future Israeli state
To other more fair-minded Israelis the phrase "many Israelis see Ma'ale Adumim as part of
their country", unpleasantly evokes the case of the parent-killer who begs for mercy because he
is an orphan.
The Time s story continues:
Now the long-simmering dispute over this and other fast-growing settlements has become a
major obstacle to restarting peace talks.
Settlement building is not a long-simmering dispute. It is part of decades of immoral and
illegal actions by Israel and is much more than a "major obstacle" to peace talks. It is an
indisputable violation of international law, which, if allowed to stand, will block any
successful peace talks.
The parent-killer should mourn his Mom and Dad from his jail cell, not while sitting in the
sun in his well-watered grass covered private backyard, shaded from the hot summer sun by a
picnic umbrella purchased from a nearby Ace Hardware.
The LA Times reserves most of its early sympathy for the illegal settlers of an
illegal city with these touching "facts":
"Why is President Obama interfering with our lives, telling us how many children we can
have and whether we can get married?" asked Benny Kashriel, longtime mayor of Ma'ale Adumim.
. . .
Talk about a possible freeze has many here worried.
"You can't freeze a city," Kashriel said. "If you freeze, you go backwards. Every month we
are not building and people are not coming, it affects the economic situation of the city. .
. . It's punishing."
A freeze, officials say, would threaten the opening of four new synagogues and seven
sorely needed schools. Class sizes are already near the legal limit of 40 students per
room.
An additional 400 units of housing in various stages of construction might also be shut
down, leaving homeowners -- many of whom have already taken out mortgages up to $300,000 --
with monthly payments and no place to live.
The Times knew American readers would identify with those folks holding mortgages of
up to $300,000 with monthly payments and no place to live. And those same readers can also
identify with parents whose children are in schools "near the legal limit of 40 students per
room".
Further down in the story, the Times reports on the Arab village of Aziriyeh, (in
biblical times, the village of Bethany), where Lazarus was called from his grave by Jesus. (Or
as the Times writes, carefully avoiding any validation of a religious belief, "where the
biblical Lazarus is said to have risen from the dead").
The comparison of Aziriyeh (Bethany) with Ma'ale Adumim is fact-filled. The comparison also
strains for a "balance" that is impossible to achieve between occupiers and the occupied.
Since 1967, the story reports, the village of Aziriyeh has had three-fourths of its land
stolen to enlarge Ma'ale Adumim. Its mayor, Issam Faroun, makes a comparison between his
citizens and those of the illegal citizens of Ma'ale Adumim. The facts are presented fairly.
The comparative use of water is an example.
Mayor Faroun said:
. . . that as Ma'ale Adumim frets about the fate of its landscaped grounds or swimming
pools, Azariyah residents receive water only once a week. The town gateway has turned into a
junkyard of trash, scrap metal and old appliances. Schools have 45 students per class and
unemployment is 50%, in part because the barrier prevents workers from reaching
Jerusalem.
With no room to expand horizontally, families are adding second and third stories to their
homes as children grow up and marry. Bassem abu Roomy, 31, still lives in his parents' house,
sharing two rooms with his pregnant wife and two children. His younger brothers are not so
lucky.
"We can't add any more stories because the foundation of the house can't support it," he
said. "So they can't get married."
When did the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis in Aziriyeh (Bethany) and Ma'ale
Adumim go wrong? When that first brick was laid in Maale Adumim soon after 1967? When Ma'ale
Adumim gobbled up three fourths of Aziriyeh's farmland for its own use? Name your own moment in
recent memory.
The LA Times wants us to look back no further than two decades when the biblical
village of Lazarus and the modern Israeli city of Ma'ale Adumim had, as the Times
describes it, their harmonious relations "strained".
A decade ago, the two communities lived somewhat harmoniously. Israelis shopped in
Azariyah [Bethany] and Palestinians worked on housing projects in the settlement. But during
the last Palestinian uprising, in 2000, two settlers were shot in the village and relations
have been strained since.
The competing needs of these two communities have become part of the international
debate.
So there you have it. Everything was fine until two Israeli settlers were shot. This is a
case study on why the Israeli Lobby and the U.S. Congress are so grateful for news stories like
this one that appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
For Sanders and the Times , the Arab village of Azariyah and the modern illegal city
of Maale Adumim are merely playing a role in an "international debate".
No wonder that parent-killer failed to get any respect with his request for mercy because he
was now an orphan. He did not have the support of his own personal lobby making a case for
orphans who have killed their parents.
The picture above is of a barrier in the Arab village of Azariyah (Bethany). The break
in the barrier has been covered by barbed wire. The wire is removed and replaced on a regular
basis by Israeli authorities, who built the barrier in the first place. This photo is from
the website of the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and
Israel.
From comments: "After all, Pompeo might as well announce hippos can fly. The settlements are
illegal. That's a matter of fact -- not opinion."
Notable quotes:
"... If one is seeking evidence to suggest that Pompeo, a man who lies with a fluency that takes one's breath away, is delusional, it would certainly have to include his self-assessment that he has a reputation to protect. It is possible to cite many instances in which Pompeo has asserted something that is absolutely contrary to the truth, though one might also have to concede that he could often be saying what his factually challenged boss wants to hear. When Pompeo was Director of the CIA he even joked openly about how "We lied, we cheated, we stole." ..."
A story has been
circulating suggesting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will soon be resigning because
he needs to focus on planning for his campaign to become a Senator from Kansas in 2020. This is
good news for the United States, as Senator Lindsey Graham has had no one he is able to talk to
about exporting democracy by blowing up the planet since Joe Lieberman retired and John McCain
died. And the tale even has a bit of palace intrigue built into it, with an interesting back
story as Pompeo is apparently considering his move because he fears that staying in harness
with Donald Trump for too long might damage his reputation. There are also reports that he has
been traveling to Kansas frequently on the State Department's dime to test the waters, a
violation of the Hatch Act which prohibits most government officials
from engaging in self-promotional political activities unrelated to their actual jobs.
If one is seeking evidence to suggest that Pompeo, a man who lies with a fluency that
takes one's breath away, is delusional, it would certainly have to include his self-assessment
that he has a reputation to protect. It is possible to cite many instances in which Pompeo has
asserted something that is absolutely contrary to the truth, though one might also have to
concede that he could often be saying what his factually challenged boss wants to hear. When
Pompeo was Director of the CIA he even joked openly about how "We lied, we cheated,
we stole."
Mike Pompeo's
latest concession to the war criminals in charge of Israel, clearly intended to boost the
electoral chances of Benjamin Netanyahu, is only the most recent dose of the Secretary of
State's falsehood piled on fiction. It is generally assumed that the move to help Bibi by
interfering in Israeli politics has been made in an effort to have Tel Aviv reciprocate by
putting pressure on its many American fellow travelers in the media and congress to go easier
on Trump in the impeachment saga. And Trump would also expect additional reciprocity when he
runs again in 2020. Even though Netanyahu, who has been indicted over bribery and fraud, will
not be able to shift many liberal Jewish votes, he will be able to get allies like mega
billionaire Sheldon Adelson to pony up tens of millions of dollars to support the GOP
campaign.
The Trump Administration's gifts to Israel are unprecedented, including moving the capital
to Jerusalem and acknowledging the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. Pompeo, driven by
his Christian Zionist beliefs, has been the point man on many of those moves, ably assisted by
a U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, ex-bankruptcy lawyer, who has served as a consistent advocate
and apologist for Israel with little or no concern for actual American interests. One might
also observe that if Pompeo is truly interested in running for the Senate a little help and
cash from Israel and its many friends might be very welcome.
The Pompeo gift to Bibi was announced early last week. He said that the Trump Administration
is now rejecting the 1978 State Department Hansell Memorandum legal opinion that the creation
of civilian settlements in occupied territories is indeed "inconsistent with international
law." In a sense, he was giving something away to Israel that neither he nor the Israelis
legally possess. He said that he was "accepting realities on the ground" and elaborated on his
view that the White House believes legal questions about settlements should be dealt with in
Israeli courts, meaning that the hapless Palestinians would have no voice in developments that
would deprive them of their homes.
Per Pompeo, "Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with
international law has not advanced the cause of peace. The hard truth is that there will never
be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as
a matter of international law will not bring peace."
Pompeo's latest statement, consistent with many of his earlier ones, is completely contrary
to the Fourth
Geneva Convention framework of international law governing behavior by occupying military
powers that was established after the Second World War. It ignores the fact that the status
quo of expanding settlements has only taken place because of Washington's refusal to do
anything about it. The State Department's new interpretation completely embraces arguments
being made by hard-line politicians in Israel and opens the door to endorsement by the White
House of a total de facto or even de jure annexation of the West Bank by the
Jewish state.
Pompeo was talking about the nearly 700,000 illegal exclusively Jewish settlers currently on
the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Palestinians, in many areas under a brutal regime of
martial law enforced by the Jewish state's army and police, have virtually no rights and are
subject to increasing violent attacks by the settlers. Not surprisingly, Pompeo's statement was
rejected by everyone but the Israelis and the usual crowd in the U.S. Congress and media, but
even some leading Democratic candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, found
the decision troubling. The 28 member European Union declared that "All settlement activity is
illegal under international law and it erodes the viability of the two-state solution and the
prospects for a lasting peace. The E.U. calls on Israel to end all settlement activity, in line
with its obligations as an occupying power."
And, of course, there are potential consequences when a government does something stupid.
Shortly after Pompeo's announcement, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem put out a security advisory
warning Americans traveling in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, stating, "Individuals and
groups opposed to [the Pompeo] announcement may target U.S. government facilities, U.S. private
interests, and U.S. citizens." It suggested that visitors ought "to maintain a high level of
vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness in light of the
current environment."
There is inevitably considerable discussion in some circles regarding what the new situation
on the West Bank actually means. To be sure, the number and size of settlements will increase,
but some knowledgeable critics like Gilad Atzmon
suggest that the move will backfire on the Israelis, who, by taking control of the land,
will eventually have to accept some kind of one state solution, giving the Palestinians
considerable rights in a not-completely-denominational state. He observes how " inadvertently,
Trump has finally committed the U.S.A. to the One State Solution. It is hard to deny that the
area between the 'River and the Sea' is a single piece of land. It shares one electric grid,
one pre-dial code (+972) and one sewage system. At present, the land is ruled over by a racist,
tribal and discriminatory ideology through an apparatus that calls itself 'The Jewish State'
and declares itself home for every Jew around the world; yet, is abusive, lethal and some would
say genocidal
toward the indigenous people of the land Pompeo's declaration provides an explicit and
necessary message to the Palestinians in general and in the West Bank in particular. The
conflict is not progressing toward a peaceful resolution. Those amongst the Palestinians who
advocated the 'Two States Solution' will have to hide now. Pompeo has affirmed that there is
one Holy Land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. From now on the battle over
this disputed land is whether it will be subject to the racist discriminatory ideology implied
by the notion of 'The Jewish State' and its '
National Bill ,' or if it will transform itself into a 'State of its
Citizens' as is inherent in the notion of One Palestine."
Tom Suarez posits
similarly at Mondoweiss, observing that any form of annexation of the West Bank without
giving Palestinians equal rights would basically make Israeli apartheid so visible and
unacceptable to world opinion that the Jewish state would become a complete pariah
internationally and would be forced to adopt some kind of one state formula.
Nevertheless, even if a one state solution with equal citizenship status for everyone would
appear to be both desirable and compliant with modern notions of human rights, it is not
necessarily inevitable. The chosen-by-God Israeli state is quite capable of ethnic cleansing or
even genocide on a massive scale, as it did originally in 1947-8 when it was founded and also
later after it occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The Jewish state's leaders have
repeatedly asserted that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, that Jordan is actually
Palestine. They have become skilled at making the lives of Palestinians so miserable by
destroying their farms, other livelihood and even their homes while also controlling their
infrastructure, killing them if they resist, that they emigrate. Christians in Palestine, the
original followers of Jesus Christ, constituted close to 8 percent of
the population in 1946 but now number less than 2 percent. Most have chosen to leave rather
than submit to Israel.
There is no reason to doubt that the Israelis could continue their creeping annexation of
the West Bank for ten more years or so while also deliberately driving the remaining Arabs out.
I have little doubt that that is precisely what they will do and they will be empowered to do
so by the United States, which will never develop either the integrity or the courage to push
back against "America's closest ally and best friend in the entire world."
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and
its email is [email protected] .
Well, what the heck, why not? It's not like the Palestinians were doing anything with the
West Bank. They might as well pass it on off to a more ambitious property developer. Call it
the Middle East's version of Eminent Domain. If you can't develop it, it's going to end up in
the hands of someone who will, and they'll gentrify it in the process. The Palestinians will
be redlined right out of their old neighborhoods, and since the Palestinians are more hoods
than neighbors, good riddance.
@Anon
"Why not? It's not like Jews were doing anything with Lebensraum in the first place. They
might as well pass it to more ambitious Reich developers. Call it 'Adolfian Domain'! If you
can't develop it, Shlomo, give it to those who will. In any case, Juden will be rothlined out
of their old shtetls. And since the Tribe is filled with hoods, not good neighbors, the world
will say, 'Good auschwitzriddance'!"
@Anon' The Palestinians will be redlined right out of their old neighborhoods, and since the
Palestinians are more hoods than neighbors, good riddance.'
More or less what Hitler said about inferior races.
@Colin
Wright Yeah, we certainly have reached 'peak grovel,' however, there's a long way down to
the nadir, because Israel is not done digesting its pray, nor with expanding its territory.
As in their attack of southern Lebanon in 2006, where they were stopped by Hesbollah, that
expansion is still in the plans. All the ME wars we've been involved with since 911 have had
as a strategic goal to destroy Iran in order to weaken Hesbollah, in order to, among other
things, take southern Lebanon.
We're being lowered into hell in a hand-basket and are probably only 1/3 of the way down,
so we're going to reach many more 'peak grovel' milestones on the way to John McCain's
resting place.
"[Pompeo's latest statement] ignores the fact that the status quo of expanding [Jewish]
settlements has only taken place because of Washington's refusal to do anything about
it."
Actually, it's even worse than that, Philip.
The US–as a deeply-compromised, long-term 'peace broker' between Israel and the
Palestinians–has in fact been an active and willing partner with the Jewish
State vis-a-vis it's race-centered, biblically-inspired objective of acquiring East
Jerusalem, Syria's Golan Heights, conquering Gaza, and colonizing the West Bank.
With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as
well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and
every US administration and Congress since 1967. This deliberate process amounts to
incremental warfare.
Despite these facts, every Israeli transgression has been followed up by the delivery of
billions more in US aid to Israel along with additional billions in state-of-the-art US
weaponry. This is an extremely sweet deal. And it is incredibly one-sided.
At the UN, Zio-Washington has also provided diplomatic cover for the rogue Zionist state
every time Israel has violated international law or UN protocols since LBJ.
Over the past 50 years, scores of UN resolutions that sought to censure Israel for its
lawlessness have been vetoed by top US officials. These actions are unparalleled.
Despite the feeble attempt of a few US Presidents to push back (Ford and Bush Sr.)
Zio-Washington has never decisively withheld aid to the Jewish state, no matter
what–(this acquiescence by Washington even includes the 'unfortunate accident' that
occurred in 1967 in international waters involving US-made Israeli fighter jets and one
American intelligence-gathering vessel.)
What kind of a 'relationship' is this?
Not only is American aid to the Zionist state more lavish than the amount of aid received
by any other country in US history, it is also awarded to Israel unconditionally.
Actual US states don't have a relationship this deliciously one-sided with our Federal
government.
This one-way 'relationship' renders Zio-Washington a working (junior) partner in Israel's
slow-motion genocide of its native gentiles.
Ironically, modern Israel has displaced a culture in Palestine that was relatively
peaceful, tolerant, and integrated.
Stranger still: secular, 'multicultural' America has unwittingly signed on to this
colonial, supremacist agenda with nary a peep of protest.
Some breathed a sigh of relief when Nutty Nikki Haley left that spot, only to be replaced by
someone just as deluded, if not crazier.
I'm sure President Jared will find another clueless and irrational, Israeli-Firster to
appoint to that position, one who has been blessed by Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban.
Where is Europe on all of this? Can't they sanction the United States to prevent this? Or
maybe openly endorse sanctions on Israel? It's time for the world to step up and act.
Israel is headed for difficult times. The BDS movement is gaining steam at a pace that's
outstripped that of the anti-apartheid movement, and anti-BDS legislation in America is
collapsing in the courts. Demographically, Israel's military service-resistant Haredim will
soon become their largest constituency and Arabs on both sides of the wire will outnumber
Jews throughout the region.
It won't happen overnight, but it isn't too far away.
Nasty bit of work, that Trump. I think it's a shame that nationalists all across the Western
world see him as their figurehead because it doesn't look good at all.
I`m always wary of trying to get into people`s heads and declaring what they think
How about :-
Pompeo, who claims to be driven by his Christian Zionist beliefs,
Or something like that instead?
After all, I`m sure Pompeo would prefer to claim "I`m doing this due to my (perhaps a bit
wacky) beliefs, and I am also clearly a Christian" rather than say "I`m doing this for
Israeli Benjamins and not just the Netanyahu type."
Factoid: Balfour had buyer's remorse very shortly after having been cornered into
giving to Jews that which they did not have. His remorse was heightened by Jewish terrorists
who killed the British soldiers and diplomats who secured Palestine for Jews.
His preference was for Britain to wash its hands of 'the Jewish state,' as the British
ultimately did. "The sins of the father are visited on their children."
Mr. A. J. Balfour to the Secretary of State
Washington, January 13, 1922 .
My Dear Mr. Hughes: You will remember that some days ago I mentioned my great anxiety to
get the agreements in regard to the Mandate for Palestine advanced a stage in order that
the Council of the League of Nations might give it their blessing at the meeting which is
now, I think, going on at Geneva. . . .
The task which the British Government have undertaken in Palestine is one of extreme
difficulty and delicacy. At Paris I always warmly advocated that it should be
undertaken, not by Britain, but by the U.S.A. ; and though subsequent events have
shewn me that such a policy would never have commended itself to the American people I
still think that, so far as the Middle East is concerned, it would have been the best.
@mark
green Wisely, and I place emphasis on the word "possible," Mark Green wrote: "With the
possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as well as the
confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and every US
administration and Congress since 1967."
Hey Mark!
As you know, President Carter brokered the 1979 Camp David Agreement with Begin and Sadat.
Such is considered the former president's greatest achievement.
A question. Who do you think most benefited from this agreement?
As reminder, in October 1981, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by presumably the Muslim
Brotherhood, and the murder soon elevated the authoritarian & ruthless Hosni Mubarak as
Egypt president. Of course, Israel and the US were comfortable with Mubarak.
If no response comment, Mark, I understand. Thank you.
@mark
green I go into detail here folks, and will offer a justification as to why. So, kindly
bear with me.
What kind of a 'relationship' is this?
Master/Slave.
Or, since many of the same people are the purveyors of porn,
Sado-Masochistic.
Their Master/Sadism can be seen, quoting from Mark's comment,
expanding [Jewish] settlements
race-centered colonizing
Israeli confiscation of land
deliberate incremental warfare
Israeli transgression
the rogue Zionist state violated international law
Israel lawlessness
colonial, supremacist
deliciously one-sided
one-way 'relationship'
incredibly one-sided
The last three work both ways, of course, and provide a nice segue into the
Slave/Masochist role played by the US (and not just the US).
The US–deeply-compromised
an active and willing partner
US aid to Israel
diplomatic cover for the rogue Zionist state
feeble attempt to push back
acquiescence – no matter what
unconditionally
There's a reason many sites have dropped their comment sections. As the comment section at
TUR, and not just TUR, has made perfectly clear, commenters can help amplify and extend the
ideas covered in any article, thereby driving the point home.
The point here is that human beings have but one task – to adapt to their
environment, which is the same thing as saying, to adapt the environment to themselves.
Humans have the power to manipulate the environment to their advantage. But, they also
have the power to manipulate the environment to their disadvantage, if they're stupid enough,
as they must necessarily be, since they can see the environment only under the pressure of
their needs.
The more people do this, the more the single-mindedness of purpose emerges, the less
flexibility they demonstrate, the more Either/Or (Master/Slave, S & M) the world becomes,
the more psychotic the behavior, the more the crazy comes out.
When enough people can see this to form a critical mass, then a culture crisis inevitably
breaks out.
And that is the position we're in today.
No wonder they're cracking down on the Internet.
If there's one thing psychotics fear above all else, it's exposure.
Jewish Supremacy Inc. has rendered the USA powerless and reduced it to the status of a
domesticated animal, a pet. And therein lies their stupidity and the world's dilema.
JSI routinely violates that which it is dependent on. By killing its Proxy, it kills
itself.
And there's no question that the USA is dying. But then, so to is JSI.
That's what is really going on. What we're witnessing is The Pyrrhic Victory of JSI.
This explains why, now that they've sucked all of the blood out of the West in general and
the USA in particular, they're currently engaged in a Fire Sale, where everything must go,
and with only one buyer – China.
All Master/Slave, S & M relations are a degrading Dance of Death, which is how it
ends, for both.
1. According to our Bible, it was Jews who were responsible for falsely accusing Jesus
(pbuh), deceiving the masses about his true mission and causing him to be crucified by the
Romans. It is also true that in the Bible Jesus called Jews murderers, children of the devil,
vipers, liars and other vile things. Jesus did not pull any punches in describing them. I
guess in today's world he would have been arrested for Antisemitism. He realized the truth
and exposed them for what they really were. You Christian Zionists and far right Christians
should go study your Bible. You may either learn something or come back denouncing Jesus as
an anti-Semite.
2. According to many respected WW1 historians it was Jews who tricked Britain into agreeing
to give them Palestine in exchange for getting the U.S. into WW1. Benjamin Freedman, a friend
of some of the major leaders in our time and who is also a Jew, admitted this during a major
speech given to patriots in 1961. The Neturei Karta, a devoutly Jewish religious group also
admits the same. There are numerous scholars, historians and Jews who describe in detail how
WW1 was started and fought with one of the main goals being securing Palestine for Jews. Here
is a link to more information about that:
A Jewish Defector Warns America
3. It was Jews who caused the pogroms of their own people in Russia around the 1890s, so that
the world will hate the regime of the Czar and cause millions of Jews to flee to the U.S. for
political gain. Under the orders of Jacob Schiff in New York and the Rothschilds, they
massacred hundreds of fellow Jews to have Russians blamed for this act and cause the
immigration of thousands of other Jews to the US. Among other things, this resulted in world
opinion turned against the Czar and his government and set up the bloody overthrow of his
regime by the Bolsheviks.
The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations
4. As admitted to by many historians and even by the ultra Israeli religious group, the
Neturei Karta, WW2 was engineered by Jews and the leadership of the Jews made an alliance
with Hitler causing thousands of German Jews to be killed so that others will flee en mass to
Israel. They also forced the U.S. president Roosevelt to get into WW2 by embargoing Japanese
oil causing them to attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt went along with this plan, all
the while knowing ahead of time about the Japanese attack and the murder of thousands of
Americans. See the following for more:
Stranger Than Fiction
5. The Iraqi Jew Naeem Giladi wrote a book detailing how Israelis performed terrorist
actions and caused the deaths of many Jewish Iraqis during the 1950s so that Arab Iraqis can
be blamed for it. The purpose of these terrorist actions was to cause Jews to migrate to
Israel from Iraq. All but 6,000 of the 125,000 Jews in Iraq fled to Israel. http://www.savethemales.ca/030203.html
6. A few years after the end of World War II, the Zionist plan to establish the nation of
Israel in Palestine was finally realized. But not before the British protectors of Palestine
were chased out by acts of terror carried out by ungrateful Zionist terrorists. It was
British troops who unwittingly sacrificed their lives in order to steal Palestine away from
Arab control and allowed the Jews of Europe to immigrate there. But with Great Britain left
weakened and in debt from World War II, the ungrateful Zionists saw their opportunity to now
chase the British out of Palestine by committing acts of terrorism against them. The most
notorious of the Zionist terror groups was the Irgun, whose leader Menachem Begin would one
day go on to become the Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
On the morning of July 22, 1946, a group of 15-20 Irgun terrorists dressed as Arabs entered
the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. They unloaded 225 kilograms of explosives hidden in milk
churns. The King David Hotel housed the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and
Headquarters of the British Forces in Palestine. When a British officer became suspicious, a
shootout took place and the Irgun lit the fuses and fled. The explosion destroyed part of the
hotel and killed 91 people. Most of the victims were British but 15 innocent Jews also died.
Menachem Begin was not merely suspected of being behind these murderous deeds. Begin admitted
that the Irgun committed these acts and that they were necessary for the establishment of a
Jewish state.
Stranger Than Fiction
7. In 1956, as reported by the Times Of London, during one of Israel's perpetual wars with
its neighbors, the Israeli Mossad tried to trick the United States into siding with Israel
against Egypt by blowing up a US facility in Cairo and blaming the Egyptians for it. The plot
was wrecked when the operatives were caught and confessed, creating a huge scandal. This
event was referred to as the Lavon Affair named after the Israeli Defense Minister, Pinhas
Lavon, at that time. http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6854 http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/zionism/mossad/lavon_affair.htm
8. According to Victor Ostrovski, a defector from the Israeli Mossad, the US was tricked into
bombing Libya when the Israeli Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Tripoli which sent out
fake orders to "terrorists" which the US could intercept. The faked orders caused Libya to be
blamed for a German disco bombing. As a result of this fake transmission, Reagan used it as
evidence to bomb Libya killing 30 innocent people including Qaddhafi's baby daughter. http://100777.com/node/101
9. On June 8, 1967 Israel used unmarked fighters and torpedo boats to launch an hour and
one-half long attack on the American Navy ship the USS Liberty, costing 34 American sailors
their lives and 171 wounded. The Israelis first attacked the Liberty's radio towers in an
attempt to stop the Sixth Fleet from learning that the Israelis were the attackers. After
unmarked Israeli fighters horrendously bombed and strafed the Liberty, Israel sent in torpedo
boats to finish the job. They even machine gunned the deployed life rafts in an effort to
ensure that there would be no survivors (witnesses) who could expose them. Just as in the
Lavon Affair, Israel hoped to blame this act of war on their enemy, the Egyptians. This time,
only the courage and resourcefulness of the Liberty's crew prevented a further compounding of
the travesty. http://home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/
9. It was Israelis who were armed with 9mm pistols, nine grenades, explosives, three
detonators and 58 bullets and caught in Mexico in an attempt to blow the Mexican Congress up
on October 10, 2001, one month after 9/11. Curiously these Israelis were found not with
Israeli passports in their possession but with Pakistani passports. The Israelis were booked
for conspiracy to destroy a building by means of an explosive by the Mexican police. If they
were successful in blowing up the Mexican Congress, then like 9/11, it would have been blamed
on Muslim terrorists, especially if Pakistani passports were found at the scene of the crime.
They got caught red-handed here and only God knows how many other incidents that innocent
Muslims are being blamed for that was really done by Israelis. See the following link for
more on this:
"America's only ally in the Middle East, Israel, has been responsible for more acts of
terror, sabotage, and murder of American citizens than the Muslims ever were. By her
duplicity, she has put Americans in more danger than they have ever known or will know. She
has bombed hotels, American government buildings, deliberately allowed hundreds of US Marines
to be killed in their barracks in Lebanon, assaulted a US intelligence gathering ship, the
USS Liberty (for the purposes of blaming the Arabs and thus drawing America into her war
against them) stole and then sold America's most sensitive nuclear weapons technology to her
enemies, (Russia and China) and by all indicators most certainly was involved in the 9/11
attacks. Whether it was the testimony given by the Israeli pilots who bombed and machine
gunned the USS Liberty (killing 34 American sailors and wounding almost 200 more) or whether
it was the Israeli intelligence officers who were arrested on 9/11 (while videotaping the
destruction and cheering for a job well done) so much evidence exists which leaves no doubt
as to who America's real enemy is, and yet short of one individual's conviction and prison
sentence, Jonathon Pollard, nothing has been done with Israel with respect to justice or the
interests of America's security. By contrast, year after year she is rewarded with more and
more money and even more in terms of immunity and insulation from public scrutiny. The
American people, supposedly a Christian people, have displayed not an ounce of the same
concern for this obvious danger against their physical well-being which they attempt to
display now over the supposed danger posed by Islamic extremism. Through the eyes of a Muslim
therefore, the picture of the modern day Western Christian is one of an intellectually
compliant, politically and religiously complacent individual who cannot think for himself or
act in his own best interests outside of the programming which he receives from his Zionist
puppet masters. Even today, as the headlines are blaring out the obvious vindication of this
image by virtue of the fact that the war in Iraq was fought on completely false pretenses,
the average conservative Christian in America who has adopted this irrational fear of Islam
has taken no note of this nor does he appear to have been affected in the least."
Through the Eyes of a Muslim
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank
The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term ad-Diffah I-Garbiyyah, given to the
territory west of the Jordan River that fell, in 1948, under occupation and
administration by Jordan, which subsequently annexed it in 1950. This annexation was
considered illegal and was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan .[14] The term
was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the "east bank" of this
river
America never recognised Jordan as having sovereignty over the West Bank, so when it lost
it the position was not obviously the same as one country occupying another's territory.
There was a legal opinion of how international law applied, that is all.
The chosen-by-God Israeli state is quite capable of ethnic cleansing or even genocide on
a massive scale, as it did originally in 1947-8 when it was founded and also later after it
occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The Jewish state's leaders have repeatedly
asserted that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, that Jordan is actually Palestine.
They have become skilled at making the lives of Palestinians so miserable by destroying
their farms, other livelihood and even their homes while also controlling their
infrastructure, killing them if they resist,
The above is the Heart of Giraldi's article. Add to that, one of today's headlines,
below, where the leader of Britain's Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn , is routinely
attacked in the Zionist owned American and British Mainstream Media. In the Zionist diatribe,
there is not a mention of the complaints of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. Not an
ounce of honesty is allowed by the Zionist New World Order's propaganda machine. If you
oppose them, they will assassinate you, one way, or another.
The Turkish flag still flies over Constantinople, after having killed millions and forcefully
converting or mistreating the Christians who lived there. In fact, the now Muslim countries
of N Africa as well as Lebanon and Syria were also Christian lands. The tortures and
degradations suffered by the formerly Christian people in this region are well documented.
Where is the outrage? When does Mr Giraldi write an article about what Muslims have done to
the original Christians who lived in this region?
The Israelis aren't leaving. The Palestinians, as a defeated peaple, have to find a way to
make peace with their conqueror. Their Muslim ancestors were much less kind to the Christians
who lived there, than the Israelis have been to them.
Pompeo was clearly rotated through the DCI billet just long enough to get him briefed for his
focal point job at CIA's Foggy Bottom site. A rare non-tendentious question: What was the
line he was getting on Israel policy? "International law has not advanced the cause of peace"
is CIA boilerplate for everyplace. Is it CIA's stated policy to repudiate international law
for the benefit of Israel? Or did Pompeo go off the reservation?
The ZUS Executive Branch and cohort Knesset Congress West gave the West Bank to Israel.
Pompeo merely conveyed the done-deal to Amerikans.
Fyi, as the Crusades have become topical on this article thread, it's good to recall how
ZUS "War President" G.W. Bush slipped up (as usual ) and announced his administration's
Crusade.
@Durruti
I agree with your comment overall, but would like to point out the flaw in your Giraldi quote
that no one addresses.
If the Jews claim Jordan is the real Palestine, then why do the Jews want Jerusalem as their
capital, and claim the Golan Heights, West Bank and the rest of "Israel"?
The Balfour Declaration supported the resettlement of Jews in Palestine therefore Jordan, not
all of the other territory they claim. As poster Sean has observed, the West Bank is not
universally recognized as part of Jordan. Neither the Golan Heights nor Jerusalem have ever
been part of Palestine – Jordan.
While it may piss off the King of Jordan, perhaps the question needs to be put to the
Zionists, suggesting strongly that the Balfour Declaration has been misinterpreted, and the
US recognition of Israel was wrong and will be withdrawn.
Jeremy Hammond : "Why Israel has no right to exist " writing in the Foreign Policy Journal
:
" There is a popular belief that Israel was founded through some kind of legitimate political
process . This is absurd .when they declared Israel's independence Jews owned less than 7% of
the land of Palestine The Zionist leadership relied on the UN's Resolution 181 for their
claim of legitimate authority . The truth is that the resolution did no such thing . The UN
General Assembly had no authority to partition the land against the will of the majority of
its inhabitants . Nor did it claim to ."
The "problem" with Trump, is that his thought processes were developed for different
circumstances. His statements are often confusing, giving opposite affirmatives or negatives.
They are likely perfect for the business world. I think it is too soon to discard his
sometimes bizarre actions.
He has stated many times that he's the best thing ever for Israel. He has made decisions
regarding Israel that have been ridiculed at home and abroad. In Trump's drain the undefined
swamp world, Israel could well be part of his swamp. There is an old adage, keep your friends
close and your enemies closer.
His seemingly bizarre actions have made more people than ever acutely aware of the poisonous
effects of the Israeli lobby. The attack on his Presidency is dominated by Jews, and the
public sees that.
"If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."
@Rich
/When does Mr Giraldi write an article about what Muslims have done to the original
Christians who lived in this region?/
Don't like what Mr. Giraldi has to say, eh?
There are an astounding number of blogs throughout cyberspace devoted to your perspective.
You're more than welcome to part company with us and join your fellow hasbaraites there.
On your way out the door, a little perspective for you, courtesy of Moshe Sharett:
Israeli documents have revealed that the Israeli army deliberately adopted a policy
based on the destruction, vandalism and harm of the sanctity of churches in Palestine,
during and after the 1948 war. An Israeli book, which will be published next month,
explains how the Israeli army carried out seizure and destruction operations against
churches located in the Palestinian cities, towns and villages the army took control off
after expelling their people.
According to the protocol, Sharett described the army's violations of the church saying,
"the officers and soldiers deliberately harmed the Christian sanctities; their behaviour is
that of beasts, not human beings." Sharett also said, "The attacks suffered by the churches
at the hands of the soldiers and officers are a shameful page in Israel's history."
This book also revealed that Sharett compared Israel, which allowed such acts, to "an
evil and brutal Caesar that promotes nothing but destruction." He added: "The soldiers and
officers turned the churches to toilets where they would tend to their needs." The book
also goes on to reveal that Sharett told members of the Mapai party, in a meeting in July
1949, that Israel deliberately declared the areas containing churches as military zones in
order to justify its refusal to allow foreign visitors and tourists to enter these areas
and churches in an attempt to prevent them from witnessing the army's heinous
violations.
Sharett also said that the soldiers stole a very valuable crown made of precious stones
from one of the churches. He also noted another incident where the soldiers broke the hand
off a sculpture of Jesus in one of the churches in order to steal the gold bracelets that
were on it, as an example of the systematic looting and stealing from the churches which
lasted for months. He stressed that the Israeli officers and soldiers also intentionally
harmed the sanctity of the churches and tore holy books, mentioning that the acts of
destruction committed against the churches were not only committed by the officers and
soldiers, but also by many settlers, especially those who newly immigrated.
@SolontoCroesus
So Balfour announced his sordid scheme, and then expected someone else to get their hands
dirty by putting it into effect. It took a little time though, but effectively that is just
what has happened. Much of the filth has now washed off Britain's grubby hands and has
floated its way across the North Atlantic, where it now seems very much at home. Balfour
would be well pleased.
Orthodox leaders say they've embraced Trump because of his pro-Israel policies,
including voiding the Iran nuclear deal. Some pointed to Trump's commuting of Hasidic
meatpacking boss Sholom Rubashkin's 27-year-sentence for bank fraud and money laundering in
2017.
Trump has always been a shabbos goy just like his Dad and Brother.
His wives and kids are all Jews, so you see, he was never one to care about the goyim.
It is worse than that, they attacked the USS Liberty and the WTC on 911, they have free
rein to do anything , they are the untouchables, killers and wreckers of nations including
America.
It is worse than that. Today the whole world hates the USA. Until the Jews went on their
genocidal rampage in 1948 the whole world loved the USA. Even the Iranians loved the USA
then, but not for long, not after the USA, the worst enemy of Democracy the world has ever
known, turned their constitutional monarch into a particularly vicious, obedient
dictator.
So that's Israel's (and the CIA's) greatest achievement, making everyone in the whole
world hate the USA, making the final demise of the USA a total certainty.
Yet it would be so, so easy for the USA to make the whole world love it again. Step one,
force an immediate One State Solution, with equal rights for all, on Israel.
@anarchyst
Montesquiou pointed out that every nation is founded on a crime. A known truth for historical
times, and a likely supposition about pre-historical change of rulership. True of the US,
Canada, NZ, Australia in recent times.
The jews are merely the most recent example of that principle. Most of the Arab
inhabitants of Israel's slice of Palestine were driven into exile, into the West Bank,
Jordan, Lebanon.
The jews have no right to their territory, no more than any other nation. They hold their
territory by force of arms. Selective arm-chair moralizing about injustice to the
Palestinians may be judged to be nothing more than hot air plus an atavistic hatred, possibly
religiously based, of the jews.
The 75 year long existence of Israel has culminated in a high-class civilization,
materially and professionally impressive, socially unified by majority army conscription,
with efficient governance chosen democratically.
Their Ungluck is to have colonized in the wrong area surrounded by religiously
based enemies. The Spartans in antiquity is an approximate parallel.
They prevailed over their enemies for centuries until they didn't. Why? One possible
explanation is that their fertility rate dwindled with a concommitant loss of military
supremacy. Happily, the Israeli birthrate is extremely high among the 20% religious and among
the secular as well.
According to Wikipedia, "With an average of three children per woman, Israel also has the
highest fertility rate in the OECD by a considerable margin and much higher than the OECD
average of 1.7."
Well trumps campaign promise was to get rid of NATO and while it looks like he reneged on
that promise his actions in forcing nato countries to pay their fair share is effectively
dismantling nato. Maybe in his recognition of things in Israel which he has no authority to
recognize is causing Israel to act in a way to create the one state scenario as the author
suggests. Maybe trump is not as dumb as he looks or maybe someone above has his hand on the
throttle
@ChuckOrloski
Hi Chuck. Who benefited most from the Camp David? As you may recall, there were a series of
agreements and accords that began with Camp David (which was primarily just an overrated
peace deal between Israel and Egypt) but it set the stage (allegedly) for a comprehensive
peace settlement involving the Palestinians as well as the larger Arab world.
But this vaunted peace process finally failed. The 'two state' solution has been dumped.
Israel is now in conquest mode.
As for Camp David, Israel got Egypt to accept Greater Israel and to break away from the
rest of the Arab League. This marked one of the first significant cracks in the Arab wall of
anti-Zionist solidarity. It looks as if this was Israel's game plan all along. Jewish Henry
Kissinger made this happen. Very clever. Very duplicitous.
The crypto-Israelis among us continue to dominate this multi-decade chess match, with
Washington still carrying their bags. So we're left with this:
The expanding Jewish state continues to gain more territory while bringing its divided
foes to heel.
US aid to nuclear Israel remains unconditional.
Israel's native non-Jews are still being crushed.
Looking back, the US squandered vast amounts of time, money and prestige on a peace
process that went nowhere. The Palestinians continue to suffer and die. And Israel isn't done
yet.
The Zions want 'regime change' in Iran and the alliance between Russia, Assad's Syria and
Iran smashed. More conflict ahead.
With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements'
(as well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of
each and every US administration and Congress since 1967. This deliberate process amounts
to incremental warfare.
Carter is no saint. He covered up Israel's nuclear test just to preserve his legacy as
international peacemaker.
"... Authored by John Solomon via JohnSolomonReports.com, ..."
"... Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship
with oligarchs and other key figures. ..."
"... State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. ..."
"... The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to January
2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine. ..."
"... All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue a joint
project with Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016.
..."
"... All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office
concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. ..."
"... All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social media
activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence on
the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts to publicize
allegations against Paul Manafort. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa
and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. ..."
There are still wide swaths of documentation kept under wraps inside government agencies like the State Department that could
substantially alter the public's understanding of what has happened in the U.S.-Ukraine relationships now at the heart of the impeachment
probe.
As House Democrats mull whether to pursue impeachment articles and the GOP-led Senate braces for a possible trial, here are 12
tranches of government documents that could benefit the public if President Trump ordered them released, and the questions these
memos might answer.
Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship
with oligarchs and other key figures. What was the CIA, FBI and U.S. Treasury Department telling Trump and other agencies
about Zelensky's ties to oligarchs like Igor Kolomoisky, the former head of Privatbank, and any concerns the International Monetary
Fund might have? Did any of these concerns reach the president's daily brief (PDB) or come up in the debate around resolving Ukraine
corruption and U.S. foreign aid?
CNBC ,
Reuters and
The Wall Street
Journal all have done recent reporting suggesting there might have been intelligence and IMF concerns that have not been fully
considered during the impeachment proceedings.
State Department memos detailing conversations between former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and former Ukrainian Prosecutor
General Yuriy Lutsenko . He says Yovanovitch raised the names of Ukrainians she did not want to see prosecuted during their first
meeting in 2016. She calls Lutsenko's account fiction. But State Department officials admit the U.S. embassy in Kiev did pressure
Ukrainian prosecutors not to target certain activists. Are there contemporaneous State Department memos detailing these conversations
and might they illuminate the dispute between Lutsenko and Yovanovitch that has become key to the impeachment hearings?
State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.
There is documentary evidence that State provided funding to this group, that Ukrainian prosecutor sought to investigate whether
that aid was spent properly and that the U.S. embassy pressured Ukraine to stand down on that investigation. How much total did
State give to this group? Why was a federal agency giving money to a Soros-backed group? What did taxpayers get for their money
and were they any audits to ensure the money was spent properly? Were any of Ukrainian prosecutors' concerns legitimate?
The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to
January 2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. Did Burisma or Hunter Biden
ever come up in the calls? What did Biden say when he urged Ukraine to fire the prosecutor overseeing an investigation of Burisma?
Did any Ukrainian officials ever comment on Hunter Biden's role at the company? Was any official assessment done by U.S. agencies
to justify Biden's threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. aid if Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin wasn't fired?
All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine.
The U.S. government's main whistleblower office
is investigating allegations from a U.S Energy Department worker of possible wrongdoing in U.S.-supported Ukrainian energy
business. Who benefited in the United States and Ukraine from this alleged activity? Did Burisma gain any benefits from the conduct
described by the whistleblower?
OSC has concluded there is a "substantial likelihood of wrongdoing" involved in these activities.
All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings.
What did the U.S. know about allegations of corruption at the Ukrainian gas company and the efforts by the Ukrainian prosecutors
to investigate? Did U.S., Latvian, Cypriot or European financial authorities flag any suspicious transactions involving Burisma
or Americans during the time that Hunter Biden served on its board? Were any U.S. agencies monitoring, assisting or blocking the
various investigations? When Ukraine reopened the Burisma investigations in March 2019, what did U.S. officials do?
All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue
a joint project with Burisma Holdings. State official
George Kent has testified he stopped this joint project because of concerns about Burisma's corruption reputation. Did Hunter
Biden or his American business partner Devon Archer have anything to do with seeking the project? What caused its abrupt end?
What issues did Kent identify as concerns and who did he alert in the White House, State or other agencies?
All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016.
We now know that Ukrainian authorities escalated their investigation of Burisma Holdings in February 2016 by raiding the home
of the company's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Soon after, Burisma's American representatives
were pressing the State Department to help end the corruption allegations against the gas firm, specifically invoking Hunter
Biden's name. What did State officials do after being pressured by Burisma? Did the U.S. embassy in Kiev assist Burisma's efforts
to settle the corruption case against it? Who else in the U.S. government was being kept apprised?
All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office
concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. We now know that multiple State Department
officials believed Hunter Biden's association with Burisma created the appearance of a conflict of interest for the vice president,
and at least one official tried to contact Joe Biden's office to raise those concerns. What, if anything, did these Cabinet agencies
tell Joe Biden's office about the appearance concerns or the state of the various Ukrainian investigations into Burisma?
All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social
media activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. Did any such
monitoring occur? Was it requested by the American embassy in Kiev? Who ordered it? Why did it stop? Were any legal concerns raised?
All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence
on the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts
to publicize allegations against Paul Manafort. What did U.S. officials know about these efforts in 2016, and how did they
react? What were these federal agencies' reactions to a Ukrainian court decision in December 2018 suggesting some Ukrainian officials
had improperly meddled in the 2016 election?
All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra
Chalupa and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. Did anyone in these U.S. government
agencies interview or have contact with Chalupa during the time the Ukraine embassy in Washington says she was seeking dirt in
2016 on Trump and Manafort?
Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade, and Tuesday's testimony before Adam's Schiff
Show by former NSC official Tim Morrison is just such an occasion. In spades!
In his opening statement, this paranoid moron uttered the following lunacy, and it's all
you need to know about what is really going on down in the Imperial City.
"I continue to believe Ukraine is on the front lines of a strategic competition
between the West and Vladimir Putin's revanchist Russia. Russia is a failing power, but it
is still a dangerous one. The United States aids Ukraine and her people so they can fight
Russia over there and we don't have to fight Russia here.
Folks, that just plain whacko. The Trump-hating Dems are so feverishly set on a POTUS
kill that they have enlisted a veritable posse of Russophobic, right-wing neocon cretins
– Morrison, Taylor, Kent, Vindman, among others – to finish off the
Donald.
But in so doing they have made official Washington's real beef against Trump crystal
clear; and it's not about the rule of law or abuse of presidential power or an impeachable
dereliction of duty.
To be sure, foolish politicians like Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and the Clintonista
apparatus at the center of the Dem party are so overcome with inconsolable grief and anger
about losing the 2016 election to Trump that their sole purpose in life is to drive the
Donald from office. But that just makes them "useful idiots" or compliant handmaids of the
Deep State, which has a far more encompassing and consequential motivation.
To wit, whether out of naiveté, contrariness or just plain common sense, the Donald
has declined to embrace the War Party's Russian bogeyman and demonization of Putin. He
thereby threatens the Empire's raison d'être to the very core.
Indeed, that's the real reason for the whole concerted attack on Trump from the Russian
Collusion hoax, through the Mueller Investigation farce to the present UkraineGate and
impeachment inquisition. The Deep State deeply and profoundly fears that if Trump remains in
office – and especially if he is elected with a new mandate in 2020 – he might
actually make peace with Russia and Putin.
So in Part 1 we advert to the basics. Without the demonization of Russia, Ukraine would
be the no count failed state and cesspool of corruption it actually is, and not a purported
"front line" buffer against Russian aggression.
Likewise, it would not have been a recipient of vast US and western military and economic
aid – a condition that turned it into a honeypot for the kind of Washington influence
peddling which ensnared the Bidens, induced its officials to meddle in the 2016 US election,
and, in return, incited Trump's justifiable quest to get to the bottom of the malignancy that
has ensued.
So the starting point is to identify Russia for what it actually is: Namely, a
kleptocratic state sitting atop an aging, Vodka-chugging population and third-rate economy
with virtually zero capacity to project 21st century offensive military power beyond its own
borders.
That truth, of course, shatters the whole foundation of the Warfare State. It renders NATO
an obsolete relic and eviscerates the case for America's absurd $900 billion defense and
national security budget. And with the latter's demise, the fairest part of Washington's
imperial self-importance and unseemly national security spending-based prosperity would also
crumble.
But in their frenzied pursuit of the Donald's political scalp, the Dems may be
inadvertently sabotaging their Deep State masters. That's because the neocon knuckleheads
they are dragging out of the NSC and State Department woodwork are such bellicose simpletons
– just maybe their utterly preposterous testimony about the Russkie threat and
Ukrainian "front line" will wake up the somnolent American public to the absurdity of the
entire Cold War 2.0 campaign.
Indeed, you almost have to ask whether the bit about fighting the Russkies in the
Donbas rather than on the shores of New Jersey from Morrison's opening statement quoted above
was reprinted in the New York Times or The Onion ?
The fact is, the fearsome Russian bogeyman cited by Morrison yesterday – and
Ambassador Taylor, George Kent and Lt. Colonel Vindman previously – is a complete
chimera; and the notion that the cesspool of corruption in Ukraine is a strategic buffer
against Russian aggression is just plain idiocy.
Russia is actually an economic and industrial midget transformed beyond recognition by
relentless Warfare State propaganda. It is actually no more threatening to America's homeland
security than the Siberian land mass that Sarah Palin once espied from her front porch in
Alaska a decade ago.
After all, how could it be? The GDP of the New York City metro area alone is about $1.8
trillion, which is well more than Russia's 2018 GDP of $1.66 trillion. And that, in turn, is
just 8% of America's total GDP of $21.5 trillion.
Moreover, Russia' dwarf economy is composed largely of a vast oil and gas patch; a
multitude of nickel, copper, bauxite and vanadium mines; and some very large swatches of
wheat fields. That's not exactly the kind of high tech industrial platform on which a war
machine capable of threatening the good folks in Lincoln NE or Worchester MA is likely to be
erected.
And especially not when the Russian economy has been heading sharply south in dollar
purchasing terms for several years running.
GDP of Russia In Millions of USD
Indeed, in terms of manufacturing output, the comparison is just as stark. Russia's annual
manufacturing value added is currently about $200 billion compared to
$2.2 trillion for the US economy.
And that's not the half of it. Not only are Russia's vast hydrocarbon deposits and mines
likely to give out in the years ahead, but so are the livers of its Vodka-chugging work
force. That's a problem because according to a recent Brookings study, Russia's working age
population – even supplemented by substantial in-migration and guest worker programs
– is heading south as far into the future as the eye can see.
Even in the Brookings medium case projection shown below, Russia's working age population
will be nearly 20% smaller than today by 2050. Yet today's figure of about 85 million is
already just a fraction of the US working age population of 255 million.
Russia's Shrinking Work Force
Not surprisingly, Russia's pint-sized economy can not support a military establishment
anywhere near to that of Imperial Washington. To wit, its $61 billion of
military outlays in 2018 amounted to less than 32 days of Washington's current
$750 billion of expenditures for defense.
Indeed, it might well be asked how Russia could remotely threaten homeland security in
America short of what would be a suicidal nuclear first strike.
That's because the 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons on each side represent a continuation
of mutual deterrence (MAD) – the arrangement by which we we got through 45-years of
cold war when the Kremlin was run by a totalitarian oligarchy committed to a hostile
ideology; and during which time it had been armed to the teeth via a forced-draft allocation
of upwards of 40% of the GDP of the Soviet empire to the military.
By comparison, the Russian defense budget currently amounts to less than 4% of the
country's anemic present day economy – one shorn of the vast territories and
populations of Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and all the Asian "stans"
among others. Yet given those realities we are supposed to believe that the self-evidently
calculating and cautious kleptomaniac who runs the Kremlin is going to go mad, defy MAD and
trigger a nuclear Armageddon?
Indeed, the idea that Russia presents a national security threat to America is laughable.
Not only would Putin never risk nuclear suicide, but even that fantasy is the extent of what
he's got. That is, Russia's conventional capacity to project force to the North American
continent is nonexistent – or at best, lies somewhere between nichts and nothing.
For example, in today's world you do not invade any foreign continent without massive sea
power projection capacity in the form of aircraft carrier strike groups. These units consist
of an armada of lethal escort ships, a fleet of aircraft, massive suites of electronics
warfare capability and the ability to launch hundreds of cruise missiles and other smart
weapons.
Each US aircraft carrier based strike group, in fact, is composed of roughly 7,500
personnel, at least one cruiser, a squadron of destroyers and/or frigates, and a carrier air
wing of 65 to 70 aircraft. A carrier strike group also sometimes includes submarines and
attached logistics ships.
The US has eleven such carrier strike groups. Russia has zero
modern carrier strike groups and one beat-up, smoky old (diesel) aircraft carrier that the
Israeli paper, Haaretz, described as follows when it recently entered the
Mediterranean:
Russia's only aircraft carrier, a leftover from the days of Soviet power, carries a
long history of mishaps, at sea and in port, and diesel engines which were built for Russia's
cold waters – as shown by the column of black smoke raising above it. It needs frequent
refueling and resupplies and has never been operationally tested.
Indeed, from our 19th floor apartment on the East River in NYC, even we could see this
smoke belcher coming up Long Island Sound with an unaided eye – with no help needed at
all from the high tech spyware of the nation's $80 billion intelligence apparatus.
Yet Morrison had the audacity to say before a committee of the U.S. House that we are
aiding Ukraine so we don't have to fight Russians on the banks of the East River or the
Potomac!
For want of doubt, just compare the above image of the Admiral Kuznetsov belching smoke in
the Mediterranean with that of the Gerald R. Ford CVN 48 next below.
The latter is the US Navy's new $13 billion aircraft carrier and is the most
technologically advanced warship ever built.
The contrast shown below serves as a proxy for the vastly inferior capability of the
limited number of ships and planes in Russia's conventional force. What it does have
numerical superiority in is tanks – but alas they are not amphibious nor
ocean-capable!
Likewise, nobody invades anybody without massive airpower and the ability to project it
across thousands of miles of oceans via vast logistics and air-refueling capabilities.
On that score, the US has 6,100 helicopters to Russia's 1,200 and 6,000 fixed wing
fighter and attack aircraft versus Russia's 2,100. More importantly, the US has 5,700
transport and airlift aircraft compared to just 1,100 for Russia.
In short, the idea that Russia is a military threat to the US homeland is ludicrous.
Russia is essentially a landlocked military shadow of the former Soviet war machine. Indeed,
for the world's only globe-spanning imperial power to remonstrate about an aggressive threat
from Moscow is a prime facie case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Moreover, the canard that Washington's massive conventional armada is needed to defend
Europe is risible nonsense. Europe can and should take care of its own security and
relationship with its neighbor on the Eurasian continent.
After all, the GDP of NATO Europe is $18 trillion or 12X greater than that of Russia, and
the current military budgets of European NATO members total about $280 billion or 4X more
than that of Russia.
More importantly, the European nations and people really do not have any quarrel with
Putin's Russia, nor is their security and safety threatened by the latter. All of the
tensions that do exist and have come to a head since the illegal coup in Kiev in February
2014 were fomented by Imperial Washington and its European subalterns in the NATO
machinery.
Then again, the latter is absolutely the most useless, obsolete, wasteful and dangerous
multilateral institution in the present world. But like the proverbial clothes-less emperor,
NATO doesn't dare risk having the purportedly "uninformed" amateur in the Oval Office
pointing out its buck naked behind.
So the NATO subservient think tanks and establishment policy apparatchiks are harrumphing
up a storm, but for crying out loud most of Europe's elected politicians are in on the joke.
They are fiscally swamped paying for their Welfare States and are not about to squeeze their
budgets or taxpayers to fund military muscle against a nonexistent threat.
Finally an American president has woken up to the fact that World War II, not to mention
the cold war, is over: there's no need for US troops to occupy Germany. Vladimir Putin
isn't going to march into Berlin in a reenactment of the Red Army taking the Fuehrer-bunker
– but even if he were so inclined, why won't Germany defend itself?
Exactly. If their history proves anything, Germans are not a nation of pacifists, meekly
willing to bend-over in the face of real aggressors. Yet they spent the paltry sum of
$43 billion on defense during 2018, or barely 1.1% of Germany's $4.0 trillion
GDP, which happens to be roughly three times bigger than Russia's.
In short, the policy action of the German government tells you they don't think Putin is
about to invade the Rhineland or retake the Brandenburg Gate.
And this live action testimonial also trumps, as it were, all of the risible alarms that
have emanated from the beltway think tanks and the 4,000 NATO bureaucrats talking their own
book in behalf of their plush Brussels sinecures.
And as we will outline in Part 2, that's what Washington's Ukraine intervention is all
about, and why the Donald's efforts to get to the bottom of that cesspool has brought on the
final Deep State assault against his presidency.
Part 2
In Part 1 we dispatched UkraineGater Tim Morrison's preposterous suggestion that
Washington is helping Kiev subdue the Donbas so we won't have Russkies coming up the East
River.
Yet his related claim that Ukraine is a victim of Russian aggression is even more
ludicrous. The actual aggression in that godforsaken corner of the planet came from
Washington when it instigated, funded, engineered and recognized the putsch on the streets of
Kiev during February 2014, which illegally overthrew the duly elected President of Ukraine on
the grounds that he was too friendly with Moscow.
Thus, Morrison risibly asserted that,
Support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty has been a bipartisan
objective since Russia's military invasion in 2014. It must continue to be.
The fact is, when the Maidan uprising occurred in February that year there were no
uninvited Russian troops anywhere in Ukraine. Putin was actually sitting in his box on the
viewing stand, presiding over the Winter Olympics in Sochi and basking in the limelight of
global attention that they commanded .
It was only weeks later – when the Washington-installed ultra-nationalist
government with its neo-Nazi vanguard threatened the Russian-speaking populations of Crimea
and the Donbas – that Putin moved to defend Russian interests on his own doorstep. And
those interests included Russia's primary national security asset – the naval base at
Sevastopol in Crimea which had been the homeport of the Russian Black Sea Fleet for centuries
under czars and commissars alike, and on which Russia had a long-term lease.
We untangle the truth of the crucial events which surrounded the Kiev putsch in greater
detail below, but suffice it here to note the whole gang of neocon apparatchiks which have
been paraded before the Schiff Show have proffered the same Big Lie as did Morrison in the
"invasion" quote cited above.
As the ever perspicacious Robert Merry observed regarding the previous testimony of
Ambassador Bill Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, the Washington
rendition of the Maidan coup and its aftermath amounts to a blatant falsehood:
The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that
dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was
so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood.
As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his
first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he
tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence,
whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country
in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army
rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed
formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to
Ukraine.
"It is this security assistance," he said, "that is at the heart of the [impeachment]
controversy that we are discussing today."
Taylor's right that this narrative is at the center of UkraineGate, but there is not a
shred of truth to it. Nevertheless, defense of this false narrative, and the inappropriate
military and economic aid to Ukraine which flowed from it, is the real reason this posse of
neocon stooges took exception to the Donald's legitimate interest in investigating the Bidens
and the events of 2016.
As Morrison put it Tuesday and Vindman said last week, their interest was in protecting
not the constitution and the rule of law, but the bipartisan political consensus on Capitol
Hill in favor of their proxy war on Putin and the Ukraine aid package through which it was
being prosecuted.
As I stated during my deposition, I feared at the time of the call on July 25 how its
disclosure would play in Washington's political climate. My fears have been realized.
Not surprisingly, the entire Washington establishment has been sucked into this scam. For
instance, the insufferably sanctimonious Peggy Noonan used her Wall Street Journal
platform to idolize these liars.
As she portrayed it, bow-tie bedecked George P. Kent appeared to be the very picture of
the old-school American foreign service official. And West Pointer Bill Taylor – with a
military career going back to (dubious) Vietnam heroism – was redolent of the
blunt-spoken American military men who won WW II and the cold war which followed.
As Robert Merry further noted,
She saw them as "the old America reasserting itself." They demonstrated "stature and
command of their subject matter." They evinced "capability and integrity."
Oh, puleeze!
What they evinced was nothing more than the self-serving groupthink that has turned
Ukraine into a beltway goldmine. That is, a cornucopia of funding for all the think tanks,
NGOs, foreign policy experts, national security contractors and Warfare State agencies
– from DOD through the State Department, AID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the
Board for International Broadcasting and countless more – which ply their trade in the
Imperial City.
But Robert Merry got it right. These cats are not noble public servants and heroes;
they're apparatchiks and payrollers aggrandizing their own power and pelf – even as
they lead the nation to the brink of disaster:
But these men embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and
dangerous. Perhaps no serious blame should accrue to them, since it is the same
geopolitical outlook embraced and enforced by pretty much the entire foreign policy
establishment, of which these men are mere loyal apparatchiks. And yet they are playing
their part in pushing a foreign policy that is directing America towards a very possible
disaster.
Neither man manifested even an inkling of an understanding of what kind of game the
United States in playing with Ukraine. Neither gave even a nod to the long, complex
relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Neither seemed to understand either the substance
or the intensity of Russia's geopolitical interests along its own borders or the likely
consequences of increasing U.S. meddling in what for centuries has been part of Russia's
sphere of influence.
They obviously didn't get it, but we must. So let us summarize the true Ukraine story,
starting with the utterly stupid and historically ignorant reason for Washington's February
2014 coup.
Namely, it objected to the decision of Ukraine's prior government in late 2013 to align
itself economically and politically with its historic hegemon in Moscow rather than the
European Union and NATO. Yet the fairly elected and constitutionally legitimate government of
Ukraine then led by Viktor Yanukovych had gone that route mainly because it got a better deal
from Moscow than was being demanded by the fiscal torture artists of the IMF.
Needless to say, the ensuing US sponsored putsch arising from the mobs on the street of
Kiev reopened deep national wounds. Ukraine's bitter divide between Russian-speakers in the
east and Ukrainian nationalists elsewhere dates back to Stalin's brutal rein in Ukraine
during the 1930s and Ukrainian collusion with Hitler's Wehrmacht on its way to Stalingrad and
back during the 1940s.
It was the memory of the latter nightmare, in fact, which triggered the fear-driven
outbreak of Russian separatism in the Donbas and the 96% referendum vote in Crimea in March
2014 to formally re-affiliate with Mother Russia.
In this context, even a passing familiarity with Russian history and geography would
remind that Ukraine and Crimea are Moscow's business, not Washington's.
In the first place, there is nothing at stake in the Ukraine that matters. During the last
800 years it has been a meandering set of borders in search of a country.
In fact, the intervals in which the Ukraine existed as an independent nation have been few
and far between. Invariably, its rulers, petty potentates and corrupt politicians made deals
with or surrendered to every outside power that came along.
These included the Lithuanians, Poles, Ruthenians (eastern Slavs), Tartars, Turks,
Muscovites, Austrians and Czars, among manifold others.
At the beginning of the 16th century, for instance, the territory of today's Ukraine was
scattered largely among the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia (light brown area), the
Kingdom of Poland (dark brown area), Muscovy (bright yellow area) the Crimean Khanate (light
yellow area).
The latter was the entity which emerged when some clans of the Golden Horde (Tartars)
ceased their nomadic life on the Asian steppes and occupied the light yellow stripped areas
of the map north of the Black Sea as their Yurt (homeland).
From that cold start, the tiny Cossack principality of Ukraine (blue area below), which
had emerged by 1654, grew significantly over the subsequent three centuries. But as the map
also makes clear, this did not reflect the organic congealment of a nation of kindred volk
sharing common linguistic and ethnic roots, but the machinations of Czars and Commissars for
the administrative convenience of efficiently ruling their conquests and vassals.
Thus, much of modern Ukraine was incorporated by the Russian Czars between 1654 and 1917
per the yellow area of the map and functioned as vassal states. These territories were
amalgamated by absolute monarchs who ruled by the mandate of God and the often brutal sword
of their own armies.
In particular, much of the purple area was known as "Novo Russia" (Novorossiya) during the
18th and 19th century owing to the Czarist policy of relocating Russian populations to
the north of the Black Sea as a bulwark against the Ottomans. But after Lenin seized power in
St. Petersburg in November 1917 amidst the wreckage of Czarist Russia, an ensuing civil war
between the so-called White Russians and the Red Bolsheviks raged for several years in these
territories and elsewhere in the chaotic regions of the former western Russian Empire.
At length, Lenin won the civil war as the French, British, Polish and American contingents
vacated the postwar struggle for power in Russia. Accordingly, in 1922 the new Communist
rulers proclaimed the Union of Soviet Social Republics (USSR) and incorporated Novo Russia
into one of its four constituent units as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR)
– along with the Russian, Belarus and Transcaucasian SSRs.
Thereafter the border and political status of Ukraine remained unchanged until the
infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Pursuant thereto
the Red Army and Nazi Germany invaded and dismembered Poland, with Stalin getting the blue
areas (Volhynia and parts of Galicia) as consolation prizes, which where then incorporated
into the Ukrainian SSR.
Finally, when Uncle Joe Stalin died and Nikita Khrushchev won the bloody succession
struggle in 1954, he transferred Crimea (red area) to the Ukraine SSR as a reward to his
supporters in Kiev. That, of course, was the arbitrary writ of the Soviet Presidium, given
that precious few Ukrainians actually lived in what had been a integral part of Czarist
Russia after it was purchased by Catherine the Great from the Turks in 1783.
In a word, the borders of modern Ukraine are the handiwork of Czarist emperors and
Communist butchers. The so-called international rule of law had absolutely nothing to
do with its gestation and upbringing.
It's a pity, therefore, that none of the so-called conservative Republicans attending
Adam's Schiff Show saw fit to ask young Tim Morrison the obvious question.
To wit, exactly why is he (and most of the Washington foreign policy establishment) so
keen on expending American treasure, weapons and even blood in behalf of the "territorial
integrity and sovereignty" of this happenstance amalgamation of people subdued by some of
history's most despicable tyrants?
Needless to say, owing to this very history, the linguistic/ethnic composition of today's
Ukraine does not reflect the congealment of a "nation" in the historic sense.
To the contrary, central and western Ukraine is populated by ethnic Ukrainians who speak
Ukrainian (dark red area), whereas the two parts of the country allegedly the victim of
Russian aggression and occupation – Crimea (brown area) and the eastern Donbas region
(yellow area with brown strips) – are comprised of ethnic Russians who speak Russian
and ethnic Ukrainians who predominately speak-Russian, respectively.
And much of the rest of the territory consists of admixtures and various Romanian,
Moldovan, Hungarian and Bulgarian minorities.
Did the Washington neocons – led by Senator McCain and Assistant Secretary Victoria
Nuland – who triggered the Ukrainian civil war with their coup on the streets of Kiev
in February 2014 consider the implications of the map below and its embedded, and often
bloody, history?
Quite surely, they did not.
Nor did they consider the rest of the map. That is, the enveloping Russian state all
around to which the parts and pieces of Ukraine – especially the Donbas and Crimea
– have been intimately connected for centuries. Robert Merry thus further noted,
As Nikolas K. Gvosdev of the US Naval War College has written, Russia and Ukraine
share a 1,500-mile border where Ukraine "nestles up against the soft underbelly of the
Russian Federation." Gvosdev elaborates: "The worst nightmare of the Russian General Staff
would be NATO forces deployed all along this frontier, which would put the core of Russia's
population and industrial capacity at risk of being quickly and suddenly overrun in the
event of any conflict." Beyond that crucial strategic concern, the two countries share
strong economic, trade, cultural, ethnic, and language ties going back centuries. No
Russian leader of any stripe would survive as leader if he or she were to allow Ukraine to
be wrested fully from Russia's sphere of influence.
And yet America, in furtherance of the ultimate aim of pulling Ukraine away from
Russia, spent some $5 billion in a campaign to gin up pro-Western sentiment there,
according to former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who
spearheaded much of this effort during the Obama administration. It was clearly a blatant
effort to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign nation – and a nation
residing in a delicate and easily inflamed part of the world.
Indeed, Ukraine is a tragically divided country and fissured simulacrum of a nation.
Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard called Ukraine "a cleft country, with two distinct
cultures" causing Robert Merry to rightly observe that,
Contrary to Taylor's false portrayal of an aggressive Russia trampling on eastern
Ukrainians by setting up puppet governments and manufacturing a bogus referendum in Crimea,
the reality is that large numbers of Ukrainians there favor Russia and feel loyalty to what
they consider their Russian heritage. The Crimean public is 70 percent Russian, and its
Parliament in 1992 actually voted to declare independence from Ukraine for fear that the
national leadership would nudge the country toward the West. (The vote was later rescinded
to avoid a violent national confrontation.) In 1994, Crimea elected a president who had
campaigned on a platform of "unity with Russia."
In short, in modern times Ukraine largely functioned as an integral part of Mother Russia,
serving as its breadbasket and iron and steel crucible under czars and commissars alike.
Given this history, the idea that Ukraine should be actively and aggressively induced to join
NATO was just plain nuts, as we will amplify further in Part 3 (to come).
"The difficulty here is that Trump thinks he's defending the military, when he's not"
No, this is not about Trump defending the military. What this is about is how Trump thinks war should be fought, "tough" in
his words. What he means by this is troops should be utterly ruthless. They should murder and kill civilians, as this strikes
fear into the enemy and shows them how "tough" we are. Plus of course Trump likes vengeance. No one should be surprised by this
as Trump has voiced strong support for war crimes, he wants "strong" torture, he wants the families of terrorists, women, children,
elderly murdered to punish the terrorists. Sad thing is, I've heard lots of support for this kind of warfighting among conservatives.
Trump has the mentality of an authoritarian dictator, thankfully he's not that smart.
Army Col. Keven Benson suggests Trump may have overplayed his hand, considering all the wreckage he wrought playing to his base
at the possible cost of his legitimacy among those in uniform. Benson charges, too, that the president's decision to reverse the
directives of senior Navy officers in disciplining one of their own might lose him support not only among senior officers, but
among the rank and file -- a constituency that voted overwhelmingly to put him in the White House.
"You know, these guys, these three knuckleheads -- Lorance, Golsteyn and Gallagher -- might be welcome on Fox News," Benson
says, "but they wouldn't be welcome in my platoon."
Damn.
If it is all the same to everyone, I think we shouldn't indulge in the kind of permissiveness that makes incidents like the
My Lai Massacre or the Abu Graib prisoner abuse scandal possible.
I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 - 31 May 1968). That is to be blunt, I served as an enlisted man which
is equivalent to a working class peon in civilian life or an Indentured servant who didn't have the money to pay his passage to
the American colony but promised to serve an extended period of apprenticeship to pay it off. In American society at that time
an indentured servant was one rung above being a slave. So I am no fan of the brass. And I have never been a big fan of our Commander-in-Chief
"Bone Spurs" given what I saw during my tour of duty in Vietnam.
But on his decision to deny the brass javing their way and giving them the fickle finger of fate, i.e. the middle finger if
you don't get my drift, I support President Trump wholeheartedly. Anyone who can piss off the brass and make them whine like melting
snowflakes must be doing something right. Also does Mr. Perry remember when President Richard Nixon pardoned Lt. William Calley
after being convicted for the infamous My Lai Massacre?
The American people overwhelmingly supported Nixon's pardon.They will again support President Trump's decision. They do not
read the TAC. Nor do they read any other high-falutin' journal of political opinion. But they are still patriots in their minds.
But being populists they are not necessarily patriots when it comes to the brass who in their thinking are the equivalent of the
1% in civilian life.
It's historical class warfare that fuels populism even though these populists have probably never read Karl Marx. So the brass
can disagree vehemently with Trump, They can also resign like Richard Spencer did and join the private sector. But they may be
in for a rude awakening when they try to give an order to average civilians and are instead given fickle fingers of fate. And
besides, let's be real about this latest crisis du jour, there are plenty more brass where these whiners came from. I bet you
at the Pentagon the brass are literally bumping into each other just walking down the halls.
But they swore allegiance to our Constitution. The president gives orders to them as commander-in-chief. Not the other way
around. Mr. Perry doesn't get how our country has changed since Trump won the election. I assume reading this essay, and if I
am wrong I apologize here, he probably has never broken bread with the great unwashed given how he identifies with military authority.
Trump was elected president surfing on a wave of populism. He played his populist cards in this tempest in a teapot. He gets it.
He is playing to his base. He wants to get re-elected.
But I have one question for Mr. Perry. Why didn't the brass resign en masse against the Iraq War or all these useless Forever
Wars we have been fighting?
These same people stood by and watched our military be socially engineered and gender normed to the point of incompetence. These
are Obama sycophants pure and simple.
A "crisis" in Special Ops is good. Anything that weakens Deepstate is good. Trump didn't make his decision on this basis; he only
needed to assuage his ego; but nevertheless he accidentally did the right thing.
I don't much care about this since I consider most all US military to be war criminals. I suppose I just note the cosmic justice
which punishes many of them with PTSD, drug addiction, and suicide. Now... let's get on with privatizing the VA.
The desk jockey keyboard warrior officers in the Pentagon want to make examples even if they have to use prosecutorial misconduct
to do it and that will help morale and discipline?
Trump should get rid of all the swamp Generals and Admirals. I'm sure they
will enjoy retirement making millions at Lockheed and Raytheon. Trump supports the Troops, not the Bureaucrats.
One gets the impression that the "Rules of Engagement" seem to have been the issue in the case discussed here but they were forgotten
in the bureaucratic squabble between the military and the White House.
People like Pete Hegseth call Chief Gallagher's service exemplary and repeat that he was acquitted of 'alleged war crimes'.
He was acquitted because a medic testified that after he and Gallagher stabilized a wounded, sedated prisoner after 20 minutes,
Gallagher inexplicably stabbed him (non-fatally) below the collar bone, stormed off, and then the medic suffocated him before
Iraqi security forces could torture him. Later Gallagher posed with his corpse.
This is not the sign of a well man or one who was making a snap, life or death decision. I'm not interested in punishing Gallagher
but this hero worship of our military and failure to acknowledge that these long deployments are breaking down our military is
self-deception. But I won't be surprised if I see a trifecta of Trump, Hegseth, and Gallagher at a campaign stop.
If we are being honest, I bet the IRGC has a better reputation than us in the M.E.
Julius Caesar was able to march on Rome because the soldiers gave their fealty to him over Rome. I find Trump's pardoning of soldiers
accused of war crimes deeply disturbing.
The first and foremost principle that must be maintained is that the President has complete authority over the military. Its one
of the central constructs of our republic. The most egregious offence was for Spencer to defy Trump's order. Regardless of what
one's opinion on the state of the special forces is, we can't go down that road. To say that Trump is destroying the commanders
authorities is bass ackwards. The US military, like it or not, MUST have civilians over and above them.
Having said that, I completely agree that there is something very bad wrong with the special forces and especially the Navy
Seals. My experience with Green Berets in the Vietnam era is that they were very effective in working with indigenous populations,
to include recruiting fighters to our side, spoke their language, were highly competent, tough as nails, and very humble. Out
of uniform, one would not even know they were Green Berets. Likewise almost all Army Rangers are equally humble. Green Berets
are recruited from the Rangers.
I never had any personal experiences with Navy Seals, but over the last decade or so at least, its obvious that a large percent
of them are a bunch of braggadocios chest thumpers. There is something seriously wrong with the Navy Seal recruitment program
or training or both. They have a very bad reputation of making their missions public, making jokes out of their security clearances
and never seem to be held accountable for such violations.
The regular military has always distrusted the SOF for the very reasons cited in this article. The Pentagon forbade the beret
until JFK overruled the brass in 1963.
The Founding CO of that vaunted Tier 1 unit Seal team 6 was convicted of federal crimes and spent time in prison in the 1980s.
The Green Beret affair in 1965 resulted in the murder of a allied civilian in Vietnam. The military grew these units beyond
reasonable levels and has misused and overused them since 9/11,
One is left to wonder whether the president has really overplayed his hand or these naval officers are simply Trump-haters as
is all too often the case these days. I'd have to go with let the Navy be the Navy and handle it's own business. But one has to
question whether these officers would've objected as strongly had it been Obama giving the orders?
What a disgrace... I'm a dovish, pacifist peacenik, but even I understand maintaining organizational order, respect for authority,
chain-of-command... (and have respect for many in the military for their desire and attempts to play by international rules and
by-the-book procedures.)
Trump & Gallagher (who strikes me as a sadist) are a disgrace and Fox News is especially beyond the pale, giving Gallagher
a platform to impugn his commanding officer! in public! Where has anyone ever gotten away with that before?... unbelievable.
I guess you could hope for some silver lining that this might undermine the DoD's global empire tendencies... but I'm not sure
this is a good way to get that done (ie leaving or promoting arrogant, cruel men like Gallagher, with the stench of by-gone barbarism
clinging to him, in the services:)
If I were one of this president's advisers, I would make one thing clear.
Don't tweet instructs to any department or department member because it is neither a proper channel for official communique's
nor is it conducive to to effectively, management and more times than not creates more trouble that it solves.
After listing the reasons why "twitter" is an inappropriate forum. i would of course be fired. But I am deeply concerned that
the president is conducting official business in open forums such as twitter.
The official in question was certainly being reasonable to request the order either direct communique or in riding. Given the
nature of twitter, it was a reasonable expectation.
Laugh: I think there are plenty of issues with the military justice system. But that is another matter best left out of twitter
feeds.
Why didn't anyone mention what the effect of these democracy wars are having on our soldiers considering they aren't actually
protecting the country but helping the Muslims move over to it, not just here but to Europe as well.
Most of the terrorist fighters are coming and going from other countries and travel freely oh and besides in Syria we're really
not fighting terrorists but over-throwing a government.
To top it all off these actions are helping to bankrupt our nation. I wonder how this plays for morale of our soldiers? I'm
sure many don't care, the majority of people indluding those just coming in ro the country seem to hate the country anyway so
why would anyone want to fight for them and then maybe there is another side who sees it all and cares, cares that they are losing
their nation. What about the "fight them over there but love them and bow down to their diverstity"? What happens when you realize
that you're not the savior you thought you would be and no one is greatful to have you around, they are fighting you endlessly
and ruthlessly while you're ttying to be a gentle invader, not fighting to win but to install democracy and can't figure out why
no one wants your gift of gentrification.
I'm not so sure I could take his rank from him either, maybe just give him a break from the war on the ground and the two sides
of the war in his head.
On the other hand we increasingly see an unwillingness by the military and Deep State to be ruled over by civilian government,
and instead of a commander in chief, to make of elected Presidents mere puppets for their consensus.
I disagree with Lt.Col Milburns (Ret.) The UCMJ is military law and military law is part of federal law. The president has the
right to pardon anyone convicted under the UCMJ but his authority stops where the law is concerned. The president isn't above
the law, he can countermand the conviction but he can't force the military to withdraw the A@D given by the individual services.
That remains the prerogative of the commanders. Discipline must be maintained and the commanders are responsible and accountable
for that discipline.
CIC is a title conferred on a civilian president, he states that they are responsible for the strategic decisions used to justify
the use of our military forces, the Presidents actions with regard to anything other than the pardon does not meet the criteria
of a strategic decision.
And if water isn't involved in the mission then there really isn't need for SEALS to be there. Mission creep on the part of
the Navy to increase Spec Ops budgets.
Rank has their privilege and as far as I know, PDJT is the CiC. So either you - the un-elected bureaucrat, shut up and follow
the order or put up and resign your commission.
"... 38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another 31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night. Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to scale back U.S. involvement overall. ..."
"... The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more support for negotiations and non-intervention: ..."
"... With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons ..."
"... There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they want. It is long past time that Washington started listening. ..."
he Eurasia Group Foundation's new survey of public
opinion on U.S. foreign policy finds that support for greater restraint continues to rise:
Americans favor a less aggressive foreign policy. The findings are consistent across a
number of foreign policy issues, and across generations and party lines.
The 2019 survey results show that most Americans support a more restrained foreign policy,
and it also shows an increase in that support since last year. There is very little support for
continuing the war in Afghanistan indefinitely, there is virtually no appetite for war with
Iran, and there is a decline in support for a hawkish sort of American exceptionalism. There is
still very little support for unilateral U.S. intervention for ostensibly humanitarian reasons,
and support for non-intervention has increased slightly:
In 2018, 45 percent of Americans chose restraint as their first choice. In 2019, that has
increased to 47 percent. Only 19 percent opt for a U.S.-led military response and 34 percent
favor a multilateral, UN-led approach to stop humanitarian abuses overseas.
38% of respondents want to end the war in Afghanistan now or within one year, and another
31% support negotiations with the Taliban to bring the war to an end. A broad majority of
Americans wants to bring the war to a conclusion. I already mentioned the survey's finding that
there is majority support for reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia last night.
Americans not only want to get out of our interminable wars overseas, but they also want to
scale back U.S. involvement overall.
The report's working definition of American exceptionalism is a useful one: "American
exceptionalism is the belief that the foreign policy of the United States should be
unconstrained by the parochial interests or international rules which govern other countries."
This is not the only definition one might use, but it gets at the heart of what a lot of hawks
really mean when they use this phrase. While most Americans still say they subscribe to
American exceptionalism either because of what the U.S. represents or what it has done, there
is less support for these views than before. Among the youngest respondents (age 18-29), there
is now a clear majority that rejects this idea.
The survey asked respondents how the U.S. should respond if "Iran gets back on track with
its nuclear weapons program." That is a loaded and potentially misleading question, since Iran
has not had anything resembling a nuclear weapons program in 16 years, so there has been
nothing to get "back on track" for a long time. Framing the question this way is likely to
elicit a more hawkish response. In spite of the questionable wording, the results from this
year show that there is less support for coercive measures against Iran than last year and more
support for negotiations and non-intervention:
A strong majority of both Republicans and Democrats continue to seek a diplomatic
resolution involving either sanctions or the resumption of nuclear negotiations. This year,
there was an increase in the number of respondents across party lines who would want
negotiations to resume even if Iran is a nuclear power in the short term, and a bipartisan
increase in those who believe outright that Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons to
defend itself. So while Republicans might be more likely than Democrats to believe Iran
threatens peace in the Middle East, voters in neither party are eager to take a belligerent
stand against it.
With only around 10% favoring it, there is almost no support for preventive war against
Iran. Americans don't want war with Iran even if it were developing nuclear weapons, and it
isn't doing that. It may be that the failure of the "maximum pressure" campaign has also
weakened support for sanctions. Support for the sanctions option dropped by almost 10 points
overall and plunged by more than 20 points among Republicans. In 2018, respondents were evenly
split between war and sanctions on one side or negotiations and non-intervention on the other.
This year, support for diplomacy and non-intervention in response to this imaginary nuclear
weapons program has grown to make up almost 60% of the total. If most Americans favor diplomacy
and non-intervention in this improbable scenario, it is safe to assume that there is even more
support for those options with the real Iranian government that isn't pursuing nuclear
weapons.
There is substantial and growing support for bringing our current wars to an end and
avoiding unnecessary conflicts in the future. This survey shows that there is a significant
constituency in America that desires a more peaceful and restrained foreign policy, and right
now virtually no political leaders are offering them the foreign policy that they say they
want. It is long past time that Washington started listening.
"There is a division in the US, whether this is genuine or not I do not know, but the US
seems divided between the warmongers team and the 'let get this clean up' team, I understand
the Dem party, CIA and part of the Pentagon favor more conflict with Syria, and clearly there
is anther group trying to get out of this mess, I see Trump playing all sides, but he is
trying, once more, to leave. The oil thing is BS, the US is pumping very low amount fo oil,
Russia said USD 30MM and recently the US says USD 40MM, which most of it is sold to the Syrian
Gov thru the SDC, the US is clearly trying to keep the SDC with some sort of money, a way for
them to pay the US for goods shipped to them weapons, it is that simple."
So, the looted oil is used to pay for weapons that were once freely provided it appears, and
then goes to the Syrian government. What a convoluted mess. Do please visit the site to read
all of Canthama's news and commentary!
"... Despite massive amounts of evidence to the contrary, such people now enthusiastically whitewash the decades preceding Trump to turn it into a paragon of human liberty, justice and economic wonder. You don't have to look deep to understand that resistance liberals are now actually conservatives, brimming with nostalgia for the days before significant numbers of people became wise to what's been happening all along. ..."
"... Lying to yourself about history is one of the most dangerous things you can do. If you can't accept where we've been, and that Trump's election is a symptom of decades of rot as opposed to year zero of a dangerous new world, you'll never come to any useful conclusions ..."
"... Irrespective of what you think of Bernie Sanders and his policies, you can at least appreciate the fact his supporters focus on policy and real issues ..."
"... An illiberal democracy, also called a partial democracy, low intensity democracy, empty democracy, hybrid regime or guided democracy, is a governing system in which although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it is not an "open society". There are many countries "that are categorized as neither 'free' nor 'not free', but as 'probably free', falling somewhere between democratic and nondemocratic regimes". This may be because a constitution limiting government powers exists, but those in power ignore its liberties, or because an adequate legal constitutional framework of liberties does not exist. ..."
From a big picture perspective, the largest rift in American politics is between those
willing to admit reality and those clinging to a dishonest perception of a past that never
actually existed. Ironically, those who most frequently use "post-truth" to describe our
current era tend to be those with the most distorted view of what was really happening during
the Clinton/Bush/Obama reign.
Despite massive amounts of evidence to the contrary, such people now enthusiastically
whitewash the decades preceding Trump to turn it into a paragon of human liberty, justice and
economic wonder. You don't have to look deep to understand that resistance liberals are now
actually conservatives, brimming with nostalgia for the days before significant numbers of
people became wise to what's been happening all along.
They want to forget about the bipartisan coverup of Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9/11, all
the wars based on lies, and the indisputable imperial crimes disclosed by Wikileaks, Snowden
and others. They want to pretend Wall Street crooks weren't bailed out and made even more
powerful by the Bush/Obama tag team, despite ostensible ideological differences between the
two. They want to forget Epstein Didn't Kill Himself.
Lying to yourself about history is one of the most dangerous things you can do. If you can't
accept where we've been, and that Trump's election is a symptom of decades of rot as opposed to
year zero of a dangerous new world, you'll never come to any useful conclusions. As such, the
most meaningful fracture in American society today is between those who've accepted that we've
been lied to for a very long time, and those who think everything was perfectly fine before
Trump. There's no real room for a productive discussion between such groups because one of them
just wants to get rid of orange man, while the other is focused on what's to come. One side
actually believes a liberal world order existed in the recent past, while the other
fundamentally recognizes this was mostly propaganda based on myth.
Irrespective of what you think of Bernie Sanders and his policies, you can at least
appreciate the fact his supporters focus on policy and real issues. In contrast, resistance
liberals just desperately scramble to put up whoever they think can take us back to a
make-believe world of the recent past. This distinction is actually everything. It's the
difference between people who've at least rejected the status quo and those who want to rewind
history and perform a do-over of the past forty years.
A meaningful understanding that unites populists across the ideological spectrum is the
basic acceptance that the status quo is pernicious and unsalvageable, while the status
quo-promoting opposition focuses on Trump the man while conveniently ignoring the worst of his
policies because they're essentially just a continuation of Bush/Clinton/Obama. It's the most
shortsighted and destructive response to Trump imaginable. It's also why the Trump-era alliance
of corporate, imperialist Democrats and rightwing Bush-era neoconservatives makes perfect
sense, as twisted and deranged as it might seem at first. With some minor distinctions, these
people share nostalgia for the same thing.
This sort of political environment is extremely unhealthy because it places an intentional
and enormous pressure on everyone to choose between dedicating every fiber of your being to
removing Trump at all costs or supporting him. This anti-intellectualism promotes an ends
justifies the means attitude on all sides. In other words, it turns more and more people into
rhinoceroses.
Eugène Ionesco's masterpiece, Rhinoceros, is about a central European town where
the citizens turn, one by one, into rhinoceroses. Once changed, they do what rhinoceroses do,
which is rampage through the town, destroying everything in their path. People are a little
puzzled at first, what with their fellow citizens just turning into rampaging rhinos out of
the blue, but even that slight puzzlement fades quickly enough. Soon it's just the New
Normal. Soon it's just the way things are a good thing, even. Only one man resists the siren
call of rhinocerosness, and that choice brings nothing but pain and existential doubt, as he
is utterly profoundly alone.
A political environment where you're pressured to choose between some ridiculous binary of
"we must remove Trump at all costs" or go gung-ho MAGA, is a rhinoceros generating machine. The
only thing that happens when you channel your inner rhinoceros to defeat rhinoceroses, is you
get more rhinoceroses. And that's exactly what's happening.
The truth of the matter is the U.S. is an illiberal democracy in practice,
despite various myths to the contrary.
An illiberal democracy, also called a partial democracy, low intensity democracy, empty
democracy, hybrid regime or guided democracy, is a governing system in which although
elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who
exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it is not an "open society".
There are many countries "that are categorized as neither 'free' nor 'not free', but as
'probably free', falling somewhere between democratic and nondemocratic regimes". This may be
because a constitution limiting government powers exists, but those in power ignore its
liberties, or because an adequate legal constitutional framework of liberties does not
exist.
It's not a new thing by any means, but it's getting worse by the day. Though many of us
remain in denial, the American response to various crises throughout the 21st century was
completely illiberal. As devastating as they were, the attacks of September 11, 2001 did
limited damage compared to the destruction caused by our insane response to them. Similarly,
any direct damage caused by the election and policies of Donald Trump pales in comparison to
the damage being done by the intelligence agency-led "resistance" to him.
So are we all rhinoceroses now?
We don't have to be. Turning into a rhinoceros happens easily if you're unaware of what's
happening and not grounded in principles, but ultimately it is a choice. The decision to
discard ethics and embrace dishonesty in order to achieve political ends is always a choice. As
such, the most daunting challenge we face now and in the chaotic years ahead is to become
better as others become worse. A new world is undoubtably on the horizon, but we don't yet know
what sort of world it'll be. It's either going to be a major improvement, or it'll go the other
way, but one thing's for certain -- it can't stay the way it is much longer.
If we embrace an ends justifies the means philosophy, it's going to be game over for a
generation. The moment you accept this tactic is the moment you stoop down to the level of your
adversaries and become just like them. It then becomes a free-for-all for tyrants where
everything is suddenly on the table and no deed is beyond the pale. It's happened many times
before and it can happen again. It's what happens when everyone turns into rhinoceroses.
* * *
If you enjoyed this, I suggest you check out the following 2017 posts. It's never been more
important to stay conscious and maintain a strong ethical framework.
Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade, and Tuesday's testimony before Adam's Schiff
Show by former NSC official Tim Morrison is just such an occasion. In spades!
In his opening statement, this paranoid moron uttered the following lunacy, and it's all
you need to know about what is really going on down in the Imperial City.
"I continue to believe Ukraine is on the front lines of a strategic competition
between the West and Vladimir Putin's revanchist Russia. Russia is a failing power, but it
is still a dangerous one. The United States aids Ukraine and her people so they can fight
Russia over there and we don't have to fight Russia here.
Folks, that just plain whacko. The Trump-hating Dems are so feverishly set on a POTUS
kill that they have enlisted a veritable posse of Russophobic, right-wing neocon cretins
– Morrison, Taylor, Kent, Vindman, among others – to finish off the
Donald.
But in so doing they have made official Washington's real beef against Trump crystal
clear; and it's not about the rule of law or abuse of presidential power or an impeachable
dereliction of duty.
To be sure, foolish politicians like Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and the Clintonista
apparatus at the center of the Dem party are so overcome with inconsolable grief and anger
about losing the 2016 election to Trump that their sole purpose in life is to drive the
Donald from office. But that just makes them "useful idiots" or compliant handmaids of the
Deep State, which has a far more encompassing and consequential motivation.
To wit, whether out of naiveté, contrariness or just plain common sense, the Donald
has declined to embrace the War Party's Russian bogeyman and demonization of Putin. He
thereby threatens the Empire's raison d'être to the very core.
Indeed, that's the real reason for the whole concerted attack on Trump from the Russian
Collusion hoax, through the Mueller Investigation farce to the present UkraineGate and
impeachment inquisition. The Deep State deeply and profoundly fears that if Trump remains in
office – and especially if he is elected with a new mandate in 2020 – he might
actually make peace with Russia and Putin.
So in Part 1 we advert to the basics. Without the demonization of Russia, Ukraine would
be the no count failed state and cesspool of corruption it actually is, and not a purported
"front line" buffer against Russian aggression.
Likewise, it would not have been a recipient of vast US and western military and economic
aid – a condition that turned it into a honeypot for the kind of Washington influence
peddling which ensnared the Bidens, induced its officials to meddle in the 2016 US election,
and, in return, incited Trump's justifiable quest to get to the bottom of the malignancy that
has ensued.
So the starting point is to identify Russia for what it actually is: Namely, a
kleptocratic state sitting atop an aging, Vodka-chugging population and third-rate economy
with virtually zero capacity to project 21st century offensive military power beyond its own
borders.
That truth, of course, shatters the whole foundation of the Warfare State. It renders NATO
an obsolete relic and eviscerates the case for America's absurd $900 billion defense and
national security budget. And with the latter's demise, the fairest part of Washington's
imperial self-importance and unseemly national security spending-based prosperity would also
crumble.
But in their frenzied pursuit of the Donald's political scalp, the Dems may be
inadvertently sabotaging their Deep State masters. That's because the neocon knuckleheads
they are dragging out of the NSC and State Department woodwork are such bellicose simpletons
– just maybe their utterly preposterous testimony about the Russkie threat and
Ukrainian "front line" will wake up the somnolent American public to the absurdity of the
entire Cold War 2.0 campaign.
Indeed, you almost have to ask whether the bit about fighting the Russkies in the
Donbas rather than on the shores of New Jersey from Morrison's opening statement quoted above
was reprinted in the New York Times or The Onion ?
The fact is, the fearsome Russian bogeyman cited by Morrison yesterday – and
Ambassador Taylor, George Kent and Lt. Colonel Vindman previously – is a complete
chimera; and the notion that the cesspool of corruption in Ukraine is a strategic buffer
against Russian aggression is just plain idiocy.
Russia is actually an economic and industrial midget transformed beyond recognition by
relentless Warfare State propaganda. It is actually no more threatening to America's homeland
security than the Siberian land mass that Sarah Palin once espied from her front porch in
Alaska a decade ago.
After all, how could it be? The GDP of the New York City metro area alone is about $1.8
trillion, which is well more than Russia's 2018 GDP of $1.66 trillion. And that, in turn, is
just 8% of America's total GDP of $21.5 trillion.
Moreover, Russia' dwarf economy is composed largely of a vast oil and gas patch; a
multitude of nickel, copper, bauxite and vanadium mines; and some very large swatches of
wheat fields. That's not exactly the kind of high tech industrial platform on which a war
machine capable of threatening the good folks in Lincoln NE or Worchester MA is likely to be
erected.
And especially not when the Russian economy has been heading sharply south in dollar
purchasing terms for several years running.
GDP of Russia In Millions of USD
Indeed, in terms of manufacturing output, the comparison is just as stark. Russia's annual
manufacturing value added is currently about $200 billion compared to
$2.2 trillion for the US economy.
And that's not the half of it. Not only are Russia's vast hydrocarbon deposits and mines
likely to give out in the years ahead, but so are the livers of its Vodka-chugging work
force. That's a problem because according to a recent Brookings study, Russia's working age
population – even supplemented by substantial in-migration and guest worker programs
– is heading south as far into the future as the eye can see.
Even in the Brookings medium case projection shown below, Russia's working age population
will be nearly 20% smaller than today by 2050. Yet today's figure of about 85 million is
already just a fraction of the US working age population of 255 million.
Russia's Shrinking Work Force
Not surprisingly, Russia's pint-sized economy can not support a military establishment
anywhere near to that of Imperial Washington. To wit, its $61 billion of
military outlays in 2018 amounted to less than 32 days of Washington's current
$750 billion of expenditures for defense.
Indeed, it might well be asked how Russia could remotely threaten homeland security in
America short of what would be a suicidal nuclear first strike.
That's because the 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons on each side represent a continuation
of mutual deterrence (MAD) – the arrangement by which we we got through 45-years of
cold war when the Kremlin was run by a totalitarian oligarchy committed to a hostile
ideology; and during which time it had been armed to the teeth via a forced-draft allocation
of upwards of 40% of the GDP of the Soviet empire to the military.
By comparison, the Russian defense budget currently amounts to less than 4% of the
country's anemic present day economy – one shorn of the vast territories and
populations of Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and all the Asian "stans"
among others. Yet given those realities we are supposed to believe that the self-evidently
calculating and cautious kleptomaniac who runs the Kremlin is going to go mad, defy MAD and
trigger a nuclear Armageddon?
Indeed, the idea that Russia presents a national security threat to America is laughable.
Not only would Putin never risk nuclear suicide, but even that fantasy is the extent of what
he's got. That is, Russia's conventional capacity to project force to the North American
continent is nonexistent – or at best, lies somewhere between nichts and nothing.
For example, in today's world you do not invade any foreign continent without massive sea
power projection capacity in the form of aircraft carrier strike groups. These units consist
of an armada of lethal escort ships, a fleet of aircraft, massive suites of electronics
warfare capability and the ability to launch hundreds of cruise missiles and other smart
weapons.
Each US aircraft carrier based strike group, in fact, is composed of roughly 7,500
personnel, at least one cruiser, a squadron of destroyers and/or frigates, and a carrier air
wing of 65 to 70 aircraft. A carrier strike group also sometimes includes submarines and
attached logistics ships.
The US has eleven such carrier strike groups. Russia has zero
modern carrier strike groups and one beat-up, smoky old (diesel) aircraft carrier that the
Israeli paper, Haaretz, described as follows when it recently entered the
Mediterranean:
Russia's only aircraft carrier, a leftover from the days of Soviet power, carries a
long history of mishaps, at sea and in port, and diesel engines which were built for Russia's
cold waters – as shown by the column of black smoke raising above it. It needs frequent
refueling and resupplies and has never been operationally tested.
Indeed, from our 19th floor apartment on the East River in NYC, even we could see this
smoke belcher coming up Long Island Sound with an unaided eye – with no help needed at
all from the high tech spyware of the nation's $80 billion intelligence apparatus.
Yet Morrison had the audacity to say before a committee of the U.S. House that we are
aiding Ukraine so we don't have to fight Russians on the banks of the East River or the
Potomac!
For want of doubt, just compare the above image of the Admiral Kuznetsov belching smoke in
the Mediterranean with that of the Gerald R. Ford CVN 48 next below.
The latter is the US Navy's new $13 billion aircraft carrier and is the most
technologically advanced warship ever built.
The contrast shown below serves as a proxy for the vastly inferior capability of the
limited number of ships and planes in Russia's conventional force. What it does have
numerical superiority in is tanks – but alas they are not amphibious nor
ocean-capable!
Likewise, nobody invades anybody without massive airpower and the ability to project it
across thousands of miles of oceans via vast logistics and air-refueling capabilities.
On that score, the US has 6,100 helicopters to Russia's 1,200 and 6,000 fixed wing
fighter and attack aircraft versus Russia's 2,100. More importantly, the US has 5,700
transport and airlift aircraft compared to just 1,100 for Russia.
In short, the idea that Russia is a military threat to the US homeland is ludicrous.
Russia is essentially a landlocked military shadow of the former Soviet war machine. Indeed,
for the world's only globe-spanning imperial power to remonstrate about an aggressive threat
from Moscow is a prime facie case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Moreover, the canard that Washington's massive conventional armada is needed to defend
Europe is risible nonsense. Europe can and should take care of its own security and
relationship with its neighbor on the Eurasian continent.
After all, the GDP of NATO Europe is $18 trillion or 12X greater than that of Russia, and
the current military budgets of European NATO members total about $280 billion or 4X more
than that of Russia.
More importantly, the European nations and people really do not have any quarrel with
Putin's Russia, nor is their security and safety threatened by the latter. All of the
tensions that do exist and have come to a head since the illegal coup in Kiev in February
2014 were fomented by Imperial Washington and its European subalterns in the NATO
machinery.
Then again, the latter is absolutely the most useless, obsolete, wasteful and dangerous
multilateral institution in the present world. But like the proverbial clothes-less emperor,
NATO doesn't dare risk having the purportedly "uninformed" amateur in the Oval Office
pointing out its buck naked behind.
So the NATO subservient think tanks and establishment policy apparatchiks are harrumphing
up a storm, but for crying out loud most of Europe's elected politicians are in on the joke.
They are fiscally swamped paying for their Welfare States and are not about to squeeze their
budgets or taxpayers to fund military muscle against a nonexistent threat.
Finally an American president has woken up to the fact that World War II, not to mention
the cold war, is over: there's no need for US troops to occupy Germany. Vladimir Putin
isn't going to march into Berlin in a reenactment of the Red Army taking the Fuehrer-bunker
– but even if he were so inclined, why won't Germany defend itself?
Exactly. If their history proves anything, Germans are not a nation of pacifists, meekly
willing to bend-over in the face of real aggressors. Yet they spent the paltry sum of
$43 billion on defense during 2018, or barely 1.1% of Germany's $4.0 trillion
GDP, which happens to be roughly three times bigger than Russia's.
In short, the policy action of the German government tells you they don't think Putin is
about to invade the Rhineland or retake the Brandenburg Gate.
And this live action testimonial also trumps, as it were, all of the risible alarms that
have emanated from the beltway think tanks and the 4,000 NATO bureaucrats talking their own
book in behalf of their plush Brussels sinecures.
And as we will outline in Part 2, that's what Washington's Ukraine intervention is all
about, and why the Donald's efforts to get to the bottom of that cesspool has brought on the
final Deep State assault against his presidency.
Part 2
In Part 1 we dispatched UkraineGater Tim Morrison's preposterous suggestion that
Washington is helping Kiev subdue the Donbas so we won't have Russkies coming up the East
River.
Yet his related claim that Ukraine is a victim of Russian aggression is even more
ludicrous. The actual aggression in that godforsaken corner of the planet came from
Washington when it instigated, funded, engineered and recognized the putsch on the streets of
Kiev during February 2014, which illegally overthrew the duly elected President of Ukraine on
the grounds that he was too friendly with Moscow.
Thus, Morrison risibly asserted that,
Support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty has been a bipartisan
objective since Russia's military invasion in 2014. It must continue to be.
The fact is, when the Maidan uprising occurred in February that year there were no
uninvited Russian troops anywhere in Ukraine. Putin was actually sitting in his box on the
viewing stand, presiding over the Winter Olympics in Sochi and basking in the limelight of
global attention that they commanded .
It was only weeks later – when the Washington-installed ultra-nationalist
government with its neo-Nazi vanguard threatened the Russian-speaking populations of Crimea
and the Donbas – that Putin moved to defend Russian interests on his own doorstep. And
those interests included Russia's primary national security asset – the naval base at
Sevastopol in Crimea which had been the homeport of the Russian Black Sea Fleet for centuries
under czars and commissars alike, and on which Russia had a long-term lease.
We untangle the truth of the crucial events which surrounded the Kiev putsch in greater
detail below, but suffice it here to note the whole gang of neocon apparatchiks which have
been paraded before the Schiff Show have proffered the same Big Lie as did Morrison in the
"invasion" quote cited above.
As the ever perspicacious Robert Merry observed regarding the previous testimony of
Ambassador Bill Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, the Washington
rendition of the Maidan coup and its aftermath amounts to a blatant falsehood:
The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that
dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was
so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood.
As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his
first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he
tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence,
whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country
in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army
rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed
formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to
Ukraine.
"It is this security assistance," he said, "that is at the heart of the [impeachment]
controversy that we are discussing today."
Taylor's right that this narrative is at the center of UkraineGate, but there is not a
shred of truth to it. Nevertheless, defense of this false narrative, and the inappropriate
military and economic aid to Ukraine which flowed from it, is the real reason this posse of
neocon stooges took exception to the Donald's legitimate interest in investigating the Bidens
and the events of 2016.
As Morrison put it Tuesday and Vindman said last week, their interest was in protecting
not the constitution and the rule of law, but the bipartisan political consensus on Capitol
Hill in favor of their proxy war on Putin and the Ukraine aid package through which it was
being prosecuted.
As I stated during my deposition, I feared at the time of the call on July 25 how its
disclosure would play in Washington's political climate. My fears have been realized.
Not surprisingly, the entire Washington establishment has been sucked into this scam. For
instance, the insufferably sanctimonious Peggy Noonan used her Wall Street Journal
platform to idolize these liars.
As she portrayed it, bow-tie bedecked George P. Kent appeared to be the very picture of
the old-school American foreign service official. And West Pointer Bill Taylor – with a
military career going back to (dubious) Vietnam heroism – was redolent of the
blunt-spoken American military men who won WW II and the cold war which followed.
As Robert Merry further noted,
She saw them as "the old America reasserting itself." They demonstrated "stature and
command of their subject matter." They evinced "capability and integrity."
Oh, puleeze!
What they evinced was nothing more than the self-serving groupthink that has turned
Ukraine into a beltway goldmine. That is, a cornucopia of funding for all the think tanks,
NGOs, foreign policy experts, national security contractors and Warfare State agencies
– from DOD through the State Department, AID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the
Board for International Broadcasting and countless more – which ply their trade in the
Imperial City.
But Robert Merry got it right. These cats are not noble public servants and heroes;
they're apparatchiks and payrollers aggrandizing their own power and pelf – even as
they lead the nation to the brink of disaster:
But these men embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and
dangerous. Perhaps no serious blame should accrue to them, since it is the same
geopolitical outlook embraced and enforced by pretty much the entire foreign policy
establishment, of which these men are mere loyal apparatchiks. And yet they are playing
their part in pushing a foreign policy that is directing America towards a very possible
disaster.
Neither man manifested even an inkling of an understanding of what kind of game the
United States in playing with Ukraine. Neither gave even a nod to the long, complex
relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Neither seemed to understand either the substance
or the intensity of Russia's geopolitical interests along its own borders or the likely
consequences of increasing U.S. meddling in what for centuries has been part of Russia's
sphere of influence.
They obviously didn't get it, but we must. So let us summarize the true Ukraine story,
starting with the utterly stupid and historically ignorant reason for Washington's February
2014 coup.
Namely, it objected to the decision of Ukraine's prior government in late 2013 to align
itself economically and politically with its historic hegemon in Moscow rather than the
European Union and NATO. Yet the fairly elected and constitutionally legitimate government of
Ukraine then led by Viktor Yanukovych had gone that route mainly because it got a better deal
from Moscow than was being demanded by the fiscal torture artists of the IMF.
Needless to say, the ensuing US sponsored putsch arising from the mobs on the street of
Kiev reopened deep national wounds. Ukraine's bitter divide between Russian-speakers in the
east and Ukrainian nationalists elsewhere dates back to Stalin's brutal rein in Ukraine
during the 1930s and Ukrainian collusion with Hitler's Wehrmacht on its way to Stalingrad and
back during the 1940s.
It was the memory of the latter nightmare, in fact, which triggered the fear-driven
outbreak of Russian separatism in the Donbas and the 96% referendum vote in Crimea in March
2014 to formally re-affiliate with Mother Russia.
In this context, even a passing familiarity with Russian history and geography would
remind that Ukraine and Crimea are Moscow's business, not Washington's.
In the first place, there is nothing at stake in the Ukraine that matters. During the last
800 years it has been a meandering set of borders in search of a country.
In fact, the intervals in which the Ukraine existed as an independent nation have been few
and far between. Invariably, its rulers, petty potentates and corrupt politicians made deals
with or surrendered to every outside power that came along.
These included the Lithuanians, Poles, Ruthenians (eastern Slavs), Tartars, Turks,
Muscovites, Austrians and Czars, among manifold others.
At the beginning of the 16th century, for instance, the territory of today's Ukraine was
scattered largely among the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenia (light brown area), the
Kingdom of Poland (dark brown area), Muscovy (bright yellow area) the Crimean Khanate (light
yellow area).
The latter was the entity which emerged when some clans of the Golden Horde (Tartars)
ceased their nomadic life on the Asian steppes and occupied the light yellow stripped areas
of the map north of the Black Sea as their Yurt (homeland).
From that cold start, the tiny Cossack principality of Ukraine (blue area below), which
had emerged by 1654, grew significantly over the subsequent three centuries. But as the map
also makes clear, this did not reflect the organic congealment of a nation of kindred volk
sharing common linguistic and ethnic roots, but the machinations of Czars and Commissars for
the administrative convenience of efficiently ruling their conquests and vassals.
Thus, much of modern Ukraine was incorporated by the Russian Czars between 1654 and 1917
per the yellow area of the map and functioned as vassal states. These territories were
amalgamated by absolute monarchs who ruled by the mandate of God and the often brutal sword
of their own armies.
In particular, much of the purple area was known as "Novo Russia" (Novorossiya) during the
18th and 19th century owing to the Czarist policy of relocating Russian populations to
the north of the Black Sea as a bulwark against the Ottomans. But after Lenin seized power in
St. Petersburg in November 1917 amidst the wreckage of Czarist Russia, an ensuing civil war
between the so-called White Russians and the Red Bolsheviks raged for several years in these
territories and elsewhere in the chaotic regions of the former western Russian Empire.
At length, Lenin won the civil war as the French, British, Polish and American contingents
vacated the postwar struggle for power in Russia. Accordingly, in 1922 the new Communist
rulers proclaimed the Union of Soviet Social Republics (USSR) and incorporated Novo Russia
into one of its four constituent units as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR)
– along with the Russian, Belarus and Transcaucasian SSRs.
Thereafter the border and political status of Ukraine remained unchanged until the
infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Pursuant thereto
the Red Army and Nazi Germany invaded and dismembered Poland, with Stalin getting the blue
areas (Volhynia and parts of Galicia) as consolation prizes, which where then incorporated
into the Ukrainian SSR.
Finally, when Uncle Joe Stalin died and Nikita Khrushchev won the bloody succession
struggle in 1954, he transferred Crimea (red area) to the Ukraine SSR as a reward to his
supporters in Kiev. That, of course, was the arbitrary writ of the Soviet Presidium, given
that precious few Ukrainians actually lived in what had been a integral part of Czarist
Russia after it was purchased by Catherine the Great from the Turks in 1783.
In a word, the borders of modern Ukraine are the handiwork of Czarist emperors and
Communist butchers. The so-called international rule of law had absolutely nothing to
do with its gestation and upbringing.
It's a pity, therefore, that none of the so-called conservative Republicans attending
Adam's Schiff Show saw fit to ask young Tim Morrison the obvious question.
To wit, exactly why is he (and most of the Washington foreign policy establishment) so
keen on expending American treasure, weapons and even blood in behalf of the "territorial
integrity and sovereignty" of this happenstance amalgamation of people subdued by some of
history's most despicable tyrants?
Needless to say, owing to this very history, the linguistic/ethnic composition of today's
Ukraine does not reflect the congealment of a "nation" in the historic sense.
To the contrary, central and western Ukraine is populated by ethnic Ukrainians who speak
Ukrainian (dark red area), whereas the two parts of the country allegedly the victim of
Russian aggression and occupation – Crimea (brown area) and the eastern Donbas region
(yellow area with brown strips) – are comprised of ethnic Russians who speak Russian
and ethnic Ukrainians who predominately speak-Russian, respectively.
And much of the rest of the territory consists of admixtures and various Romanian,
Moldovan, Hungarian and Bulgarian minorities.
Did the Washington neocons – led by Senator McCain and Assistant Secretary Victoria
Nuland – who triggered the Ukrainian civil war with their coup on the streets of Kiev
in February 2014 consider the implications of the map below and its embedded, and often
bloody, history?
Quite surely, they did not.
Nor did they consider the rest of the map. That is, the enveloping Russian state all
around to which the parts and pieces of Ukraine – especially the Donbas and Crimea
– have been intimately connected for centuries. Robert Merry thus further noted,
As Nikolas K. Gvosdev of the US Naval War College has written, Russia and Ukraine
share a 1,500-mile border where Ukraine "nestles up against the soft underbelly of the
Russian Federation." Gvosdev elaborates: "The worst nightmare of the Russian General Staff
would be NATO forces deployed all along this frontier, which would put the core of Russia's
population and industrial capacity at risk of being quickly and suddenly overrun in the
event of any conflict." Beyond that crucial strategic concern, the two countries share
strong economic, trade, cultural, ethnic, and language ties going back centuries. No
Russian leader of any stripe would survive as leader if he or she were to allow Ukraine to
be wrested fully from Russia's sphere of influence.
And yet America, in furtherance of the ultimate aim of pulling Ukraine away from
Russia, spent some $5 billion in a campaign to gin up pro-Western sentiment there,
according to former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who
spearheaded much of this effort during the Obama administration. It was clearly a blatant
effort to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign nation – and a nation
residing in a delicate and easily inflamed part of the world.
Indeed, Ukraine is a tragically divided country and fissured simulacrum of a nation.
Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard called Ukraine "a cleft country, with two distinct
cultures" causing Robert Merry to rightly observe that,
Contrary to Taylor's false portrayal of an aggressive Russia trampling on eastern
Ukrainians by setting up puppet governments and manufacturing a bogus referendum in Crimea,
the reality is that large numbers of Ukrainians there favor Russia and feel loyalty to what
they consider their Russian heritage. The Crimean public is 70 percent Russian, and its
Parliament in 1992 actually voted to declare independence from Ukraine for fear that the
national leadership would nudge the country toward the West. (The vote was later rescinded
to avoid a violent national confrontation.) In 1994, Crimea elected a president who had
campaigned on a platform of "unity with Russia."
In short, in modern times Ukraine largely functioned as an integral part of Mother Russia,
serving as its breadbasket and iron and steel crucible under czars and commissars alike.
Given this history, the idea that Ukraine should be actively and aggressively induced to join
NATO was just plain nuts, as we will amplify further in Part 3 (to come).
"... "US Officials" say the Bidens are pure in heart and deed? Hah! Is it not clear that The Borg (foreign policy establishment) hate Donald Trump and will say anything possible to injure him? ..."
"... "Debunked," "Discredited," "Conspiracy theories?" Trickery in the press is the real truth , trickery intended to protect the only viable candidate in the Democratic Party field. ..."
"... Lutsenko has had a pretty sketchy career, including charges of abuse of power, forgery and embezzlement among other things. https://heavy.com/news/2019/11/yuriy-lutsenko/ It's telling that Democrats and the mainstream media choose to cite such a character as their primary source for evidence that the Bidens did nothing wrong. Reminds me of Mark Twains old adage: "An honest politician is one who, once he's been bought, stays bought." More recently it seems that his loyalties have shifted, accusing Yovanovitch of giving him a list of people who should be protected. ..."
"... It's not really that complicated an inquiry to decide whether there is a need to go further; two questions: what did Hunter Biden do for the money; and Joe, did you get the Ukrainian prosecutor fired as you bragged you did, and why? Maybe throw in a third if the answer is "I did", what or who made you think that you could do that? ..."
"Graham's conspiracy theory-based investigation is rooted in the
baseless allegation that Biden pressured Ukraine to remove a corrupt prosecutor in 2016
as a way to protect Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, against a corruption probe. Biden's
son Hunter was previously a board member with Burisma until April this year.
There is no evidence to support allegations that Biden acted improperly in calling for the
prosecutor general in charge of the Burisma probe to be ousted, and both Ukrainian and U.S.
officials have said there is no merit to the claim. As many have since noted, the Burisma
investigation was in fact dormant when the prosecutor general was forced out on accusations
he was slow-walking corruption probes, among other things.
Trump brought up that debunked conspiracy during a July 25 call with Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asking the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden as well as a
baseless conspiracy involving the Democratic National Committee servers."
"Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality
of belief. Much debate in epistemology centers on four areas:
(3) the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and
(4) the criteria for knowledge and justification.
Epistemology addresses such questions as: "What makes justified beliefs justified?" " What
does it mean to say that we know something? ", and fundamentally "How do we know that we
know?"
~ wiki on epistemology
-------------
As in the example above from the "American Independent," the MSM and online projects like
the American Independent incessantly insist that the simple fact that Hunter Biden and his dear
old dad, a "Union Man," solicited money in Ukraine and in China for services not rendered
proves nothing, that nothing has been proven against them and that any mention of these
occurrences is evidence of harsh partisan rhetoric based on fantasy and equivalent to belief in
the Loch Ness Monster.
Well, pilgrims I want to know who and what investigation or investigations cleared the
Bidens of anything.
It is obvious that Hunter is qualified for employment as a bag man and not much else. He has
a law degree? So what? As in the matter of the qualifications of doctors, not all learn much in
medical or law school.
"US Officials" say the Bidens are pure in heart and deed? Hah! Is it not clear that The Borg
(foreign policy establishment) hate Donald Trump and will say anything possible to injure
him?
"Debunked," "Discredited," "Conspiracy theories?" Trickery in the press is the real truth , trickery intended to protect the only viable
candidate in the Democratic Party field.
The article highlighted here, typically, is a lie. As documented in Moon of Alabama's
timeline (
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/11/a-timeline-of-joe-bidens-intervention-against-the-prosecutor-general-of-ukraine.html),
Shokin was actively investigating Zlochevsky in February 2016, when Shokin seized his luxury
car. Barely two weeks later, Biden was on the phone to Poroshenko demanding Shokin's firing.
While this doesn't prove that Biden was motivated primarily by a desire to protect his son's
employer, it is certainly consistent with that possibility.
John Solomon has been very much in the lead on reporting from Ukraine which furthers what the
MSM calls "conspiracy theories".
While he earlier reported, or opined, from The Hill,
now he evidently has been bumped (my opinion) from that perch,
and now has own blog John Solomon Report : https://johnsolomonreports.com/
It is tragic, IMO, how the MSM ignores the facts that Solomon documents in his
columns.
It is possible that JS is a mouthpiece for corrupt elements in Ukraine,
but I think his points deserve more attention than they have been getting.
There are two sides to this story, not only one as Col. Lang pointed out in his root
piece.
I recall that the Russiagate conspiracy theory was "proven" factual as well, and by many of
the same people who claim that Biden's corruption has been "debunked". Even though it was
absurd on its face and had been debunked numerous times, many people in fact continue to
insist otherwise.
Seriously....who would think Biden's son taking a highly paid position with a company in a
foreign country that Biden was representing the US in wasn't a conflict of interest? Even the
'appearance' of a conflict of interest should be avoided in such situations.
I find Biden and his political 'career', greased by his 'good old Joe act' disgusting in so
many ways it would take too long to describe them here.
The media really seems to be testing the limits of disinformation. More and more, the media
wants to convince people that black is white and up is down. Fortunately, I don't think their
plan is working all that well.
In the case of Hunter Biden, we are told that "There is no evidence to support allegations
that Biden acted improperly".
Okay, that's one way to look at things, but I have found that even among my liberal
friends, the fetid smell of corruption emitting from this case, is overpowering. And while
most people might have a hard time sinking their teeth into a "quid pro quo", they do have a
pretty good grasp of old fashioned influence peddling, which is what we are talking
about.
So why has the media chosen to defend the crooked goings-on of public officials who were
obviously up to no good? Don't they care about their credibility at all?
Was the American Independent quote lifted from The NY Times? It sure sounds like it!
For some time I've been wondering how exactly Biden got cleared. Was there any formal
investigation? Who conducted it? And how reliable are the facts when they come from a place
like Ukraine, where anything, including the 'truth,' can be laundered?
What's become painfully obvious is how eagerly America's major news outlets, including the
journals of record, participate in the laundering of truth.
Of course, that should have been obvious from the yellow journalism preceding the war in
Iraq.
What's really scary are reports that "intelligence" services get most of their 'facts'
from the very same truth laundering sources.
I always got the impression the "wild, debunked conspiracy theory pushed by right wing nuts"
was always referring to the Crowdstrike DNC computer investigation hoax that Trump tried to
re-open.
They would never specifically refer to the Crowdstrike favor Trump specifically asked for
in the phone call, instead they would substitute Trump asked about some "debunked, wild right
wing conspiracy".
So they never explained how the Crowdstrike investigation hoax was debunked either.
To me this is far more interesting missing debunked conspiracy link - since it shows
incredible coordination between the DNC, the "leak" of their DNC computer data, Ukrainian
Crowdstrike, and finally the Mueller Report who used the DNC Crowdstrike investigation
conclusoin hook line and sinker to reach their own official conclusions which is now "proven"
operating dogma. Without ever doing an independent investigation themselves. How often does
that happen?
To me the Crowdstrike connection begs further investigation - why would a Russian hating
Ukrainian who was running Crowdstrike point the finger at the Russians and claim they
"hacked" the DNC computers, but not let anyone else touch those same computers to corroborate
that conclusion?
And then parlay this into Trump supporting Russian interference in the 2016 election. All
too tidy for me. Feels like dark forces are still at work, and subverting language to achieve
their ends.
Whatever happened to Joe Biden's taped boast, at the Council on Foreign Relations, that he
gave President Poroshenko 6 hours to fire Prosecutor Shokin -- or else lose $1 Billion of US
aid ?
How was this taped confession of QUID-PRO-QUO debunked ?
The media (approx. 99% of them) have been in the tank for Democrats since at least the
Vietnam war.
Roger Ailes said why he didn't read the NY Times:
"You cover the bad news about America. You do. But you don't get up in the morning hating
your country."
Eight days later Joe Biden launched an intense pressure campaign to get rid of Shokin. He
personally calls Poroshenko on Feb 12, 18 and 19 to press for firing Shokin.
To think that this is unrelated is not reasonable.
The rest of the
timeline shows further Biden influence in the case.
(I should update that timeline as a lot of additional evidence of Burisma lobbying State
at that time has since come in.)
There are tons of additional dirt. The U.S. has control over the National Anti-Corruption
Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and uses it to push all such investigations to its favor. NABU has
itself been involved in serious corruption.
There is also a USAID/Soros paid NGO that has a similar function and is equally corrupt.
These organizations are used as weapons to put all Ukrainian assets into the hands of
those that the U.S. embassy likes.
Lutsenko was the guy who was appointed as Prosecutor General after Biden got the previous
one fired. IOW Lutsenko owed his job to Biden.
Lutsenko has had a pretty sketchy career, including charges of abuse of power, forgery and
embezzlement among other things. https://heavy.com/news/2019/11/yuriy-lutsenko/ It's telling that Democrats and the mainstream media choose to cite such a character as
their primary source for evidence that the Bidens did nothing wrong. Reminds me of Mark Twains old adage: "An honest politician is one who, once he's been
bought, stays bought." More recently it seems that his loyalties have shifted, accusing
Yovanovitch of giving him a list of people who should be protected.
The only thing I can conclude is that Lutsenko is probably just trying to survive the
shifting tides in the Ukrainian swamp and will say or do whatever it takes.
"American Independent" is David Brock's Clinton / Soros linked Shareblue disinfo and troll
brigade rebranded. It will obviously tell every lie going to protect the corrupt Corporate Dem Establishment,
the Globalists and the Deep State. https://twitter.com/Ian56789/status/1198338991814250497
It's not really that complicated an inquiry to decide whether there is a need to go further;
two questions: what did Hunter Biden do for the money; and Joe, did you get the Ukrainian
prosecutor fired as you bragged you did, and why? Maybe throw in a third if the answer is "I
did", what or who made you think that you could do that?
"... Only 2 months before Nuland bragged to Ukrainians about the 5.5 billion America invested to purchase democracy for the ex-SSR. In the private phone discussion it sounded more like all that scratch went to taking political decisions out of the hands of 44 million people. "I don't think Klitsch should go into the government," Nuland monarchically decides, "I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's a good idea" "I think Yats (banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk) is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience." ..."
"... Arseniy Yatsenyuk, that's "Yats" to BFFs, laid down the law to Crimean pols who dared to allow the referendum as soon as Nuland turned him loose: ..."
"... "We will find all of them-if it takes one year, two years-and bring them to justice and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn under their feet." ..."
"... "Russian aggression in Ukraine is an attack on world order and order in Europe. All of us still clearly remember the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany". - [born in 1974, Yats' vivid memory rivals Bill O'Reilly's]-"That has to be avoided. And nobody has the right to rewrite the results of Second World War. And that is exactly what Russia's President Putin is trying to do." ..."
"... Before the Senate Foreign Relations Sub-Committee March 10th Nuland testified: ..."
"... "This manufactured conflict-controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers expense-has cost the lives of more than 6000 Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russian sent to fight and die there by the Kremlin, in a war their government denies." ..."
"... The Euro-cracy that won WWI tried micro-managing the broken pieces of Ottoman Empire 90 some years ago. Their first major accomplishment was a massacre in Smyrna. Further efforts have blessed the east Mediterranean with bloodthirsty dictators, Qutbists, Ba'athists, ISIS and the like. Treaties like Sevres and Laussanne have helped keep the War, which started in Europe 1914 and ended there in 1945, going on in Asia Minor to this day. ..."
"... The idea that US influence, meddling or intervention will transform Ukraine into Winthrop's "city upon a hill" is a highly combustible fantasy. Ideologues from fancy universities, foundations and think-tanks understanding of Ukraine, and world history, is as shallow as it was in Afghanistan in the 80's and Iraq 20 years later. People will inevitably be hurt as an ancient empire dissolves and settles. Outsider intrusions will metastasize the process into the kind of catastrophe the world has seen before, and continues to witness today. ..."
Victoria Nuland is a storybook kind of name you could hang on an actress. It's a good fit
for the reigning princess of an over the rainbow place where rulers are wise and peasants are
prosperous. If such a Eurotopia doesn't already exist, well, it ought to and it can.
Euro-crats just have to change course and put subjects of the realm on the path to
enlightenment. That's a route you can only traverse, incidentally, by shutting up and keeping
the hind quarters of an enlightened one in front of you for the trip.
In the real world Madame Nuland is an employee of the US State Department who, for the
time being, goes by the title Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs. Her
magnetism is metaphysically bipolar. It magically keeps Democrats and Republicans equally
attracted. All that charm can throw circuit breakers when she try's turning it on foreigners
and reporters. The lady made her splash into the annals of international intrigue after a
phone call to the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, was recorded by a third party and
put on YouTube in February 2014. "I think we are in play," Pyatt declares, from there he and
the boss picked who else got to play, and who didn't, in Ukraine's interim government. They
didn't seem to notice the elected one was still in office.
Only 2 months before Nuland bragged to Ukrainians about the 5.5 billion America invested
to purchase democracy for the ex-SSR. In the private phone discussion it sounded more like
all that scratch went to taking political decisions out of the hands of 44 million people. "I
don't think Klitsch should go into the government," Nuland monarchically decides, "I don't
think it's necessary. I don't think it's a good idea" "I think Yats (banker Arseniy
Yatsenyuk) is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience."
The mainstream press didn't make much of the un-democratic scheming going on at the time.
The Assistant Secretary colorfully distracted the world from the substance of the
conversation with the line: "Fuck the EU." Americans weren't offended. They take their
princesses with a pinch of salt these days.
Ladies who speak for the US Diplomatic corps are just as good faking hypersensitivity as
any man. Jen Psaki called the leaked call "a new low in Russian tradecraft." News of NSA
listening in on their private conversations still kept foreign leaders distant and surly in
early 2014. Psaki must have meant that our side would never stoop to spilling dirt that juicy
to the rabble. Only a madman shares the fruits of "tradecraft" with all those little nobodies
plying trades. Free world rulers need freedom from scrutiny. Otherwise the governed classes
might get the idea they've been manipulated.
So far the US government has provided no evidence the Russians let everybody else in on
the tidy little plot. It's possible a prankster with a contraption available on the internet
for $50 pulled it off. The question of who the rat was lost some relevance March 11th. 2014.
That's when the people of Crimea declared independence from the state of Ukraine. The plot
thickened when they voted to re-Russify 5 days later. The audacity of self-determination
unified opinions throughout the major media and DC double-think-tanking circuits.
News-mouths, from MSNBC to Fox and everywhere in between, were just as uncompromising about
Ukraine staying together as they were about Serbia breaking apart 15 years earlier.
Plebiscites equal rebellious chaos when Foggy Bottom doesn't approve.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, that's "Yats" to BFFs, laid down the law to Crimean pols who dared
to allow the referendum as soon as Nuland turned him loose:
"We will find all of them-if it takes one year, two years-and bring them to justice
and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn under their
feet."
Yats received 7% of votes cast in the 2010 general election for president. The Rada
(Ukrainian parliament) made him interim prime minister by 371 to 1 February 27, 2014. Earlier
in the month the far more popular Viltali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok were considered more
likely contenders. What neither of them had, as the infamous phone call revealed, was Nuland
backing him up. Naturally Arseniy doesn't think the man on the street has any business voting
without his, or US, supervision.
In January Mr. Yatsenyuk was in Germany and made the following remarks to ARD (German PBS)
interviewer Pinar Atalay:
"Russian aggression in Ukraine is an attack on world order and order in Europe. All
of us still clearly remember the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany". - [born in 1974,
Yats' vivid memory rivals Bill O'Reilly's]-"That has to be avoided. And nobody has the
right to rewrite the results of Second World War. And that is exactly what Russia's
President Putin is trying to do."
Putin, 22 years closer to the war, may need help with Arseniy's references. Yats is either
getting his wars or his results mixed up. The Institute for Historical Review wouldn't get
caught running his revision. Details of Russian "aggression" in the Ukraine are sketchy even
to the ones hellbent on making the most of it. Before the Senate Foreign Relations
Sub-Committee March 10th Nuland testified:
"This manufactured conflict-controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy
weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers expense-has cost the lives of more than 6000
Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russian sent to fight and die there by the
Kremlin, in a war their government denies."
All that big talk wasn't accompanied by a single photograph from a drone, a satellite, a
journalist, a spy or even a cellphone. Victoria, who once called Russian espionage "pretty
impressive", hasn't been dazzling anyone with the American brand. Did Snowden exaggerate all
that super-duper snoopology? Have the separatists outwitted the NSA by staying in touch with
Putin's army using smoke signals? At least Colin Powell gave us pictures of a trailer park as
proof of Saddam's treachery.
When pressed by Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) on Russian losses, Nuland put the numbers at
between 4 and 500. Corker sounded disappointed with less than 1000. No source was provided
for the figure or the "more than 6000 Ukrainians." When asked if "In practical terms does
that [Russian action] constitute an invasion?" Nuland responded: "We have used that word in
the past, yes." The Guardian put out a fairly comprehensive article March 4th detailing the
administration's avoidance of the term. Some White House midwives are finding the patient
less pregnant than others. If the two countries are at war it's a weird one. Throughout the
conflict Russia has never cut off fuel flow to Ukraine completely. This is only one
contradiction to the brutal clash State continually describes.
Things are awfully complicated in Ukraine and particularly the Donbass region. 2010
demographic maps mark a stark east-west geographic divide between those who voted for and
against deposed President Yanucovych. There's no question the fugitive chief-exec enjoyed his
most intense support among Russian speaking Ukrainians. The fact remains he was run out of
town on a rail over an economic treaty particularly loathed by ultra-nationalist types with a
high tolerance for Nazi-style ideals. What would be the reaction of the US press if a Russian
Foreign Service employee, one rung below Sergei Lavrov himself, crowed to the media about
handing out sandwiches during the Occupy protests or at the Bundy Ranch the way Nuland
has?
Meanwhile the best "intelligence" on Putin's skullduggery we've got from our woman in Kiev
so far are grainy pictures of "a bearded man clearly a GRU agent." Wow, in East Ukraine? Near
a Russian Naval base and several divisions of troops? Now there's a dastardly plot no one
could have suspected. The Ukraine was a part of Russia for well over 200 years. Did idealists
who grew up a continent and an ocean away really expect to dismantle the empire without any
adjustments? American interventionists are like street urchins pouncing on a handful of coins
dropped by an old man.
Back in 2005, shortly after Americans learned how urgently our attention was necessary
there, Foreign Affairs began its "Ukraine's Orange Revolution" article:
"Razom nas bahato! Nas ne podolaty!"-"Together we are many! We cannot be defeated!"
This was the chant of protesters who refused to accept Yanukovich's first election in a
November 2004 runoff. The reform candidate, Victor Yushchenko, maintained a clear lead in
exit polling and worldwide media called fraud. Ukraine's Supreme Court mandated a new poll
that Yushchenko won. During a five year term the president fired his own government and
dissolved the Rada twice. Things were in constant upheaval. In the 2010 election the
incumbent couldn't even muster 6% of the vote. Yanukovoch's victory went undisputed this
time.
On his way out of office Yushchenko made Stepan Bandera, a nationalist who cooperated
extensively with the Nazis, official Hero of Ukraine. Results like this took no wind from the
sails of US internationalists keen for another go stirring the pot in Kiev. American
"experts" never notice anything disturbing about pro-western Ukrainians nostalgia for the
Axis. Yet they find fascism in any movement that doesn't kneel before political convention
here at home. The US Constitution is the threat keeping the DHS up at night. People who go
camping with founding documents and firearms threaten to lay siege on the District of
Columbia any moment. Don't get distracted by how many times Mein Kamf makes book of the month
with the State Department's foreign friends.
During testimony Nuland presented a list of chores American taxpayers are pitching in
on:
"With U.S. support -- including a $1 billion loan guarantee last year and $355 million in
foreign assistance and technical advisors -- the Ukrainian government is:
helping insulate vulnerable Ukrainians from the impact of necessary economic reforms;
improving energy efficiency in homes and factories with metering, consumer incentives and
infrastructure improvement;
building e-governance platforms to make procurement transparent
and basic government services cleaner and publicly accessible;
putting a newly trained
force of beat cops on the streets of Kyiv who will protect, not shake down, the citizens;
reforming the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) -- supported by U.S. law enforcement and
criminal justice advisors -- and helping energize law enforcement and just prosecutions;
moving to bring economic activity out of the shadows;
supporting new agriculture laws --
with the help of USAID experts -- to deregulate the sector and allow family farms to sell
their produce in local, regional and wholesale markets;
and helping those forced to flee
Donetsk and Luhansk with USAID jobs and skills training programs in places like Kharkiv.
And there's more support on the way. The President's budget includes an FY16 request of
$513.5 million -- almost six times more than our FY14 request -- to build on these
efforts."
Jet-setting from the East coast to East Europe the Assistant Secretary is above petty
details of uninsulated vulnerability to a whipsawing economy here at home. A legion of
retirees who fought against Yats' favorite side in WWII are living out their days in poorly
insulated energy inefficient structures under the stars and stripes.
Where shakedowns are
concerned Foggy Bottom better circulate a memo on the asset forfeiture controversy that's
been raging stateside nearly 30 years now. Teddy Roosevelt started reforming the police
before he got to Washington. News is they're still shooting unarmed people in the back. Just
yesterday the Washington Post front-paged a piece on people convicted on phony evidence from
the FBI crime lab. Only a tiny fraction of such cases have been reviewed so far
Meanwhile we
get another story of unscrupulous prosecutors railroading innocent victims to the
penitentiary at least weekly. The US is no position to offer any country "criminal justice
advisers." Deregulating agriculture is a great idea but shouldn't we try it first?
The Euro-cracy that won WWI tried micro-managing the broken pieces of Ottoman Empire 90
some years ago. Their first major accomplishment was a massacre in Smyrna. Further efforts
have blessed the east Mediterranean with bloodthirsty dictators, Qutbists, Ba'athists, ISIS
and the like. Treaties like Sevres and Laussanne have helped keep the War, which started in
Europe 1914 and ended there in 1945, going on in Asia Minor to this day.
The idea that US influence, meddling or intervention will transform Ukraine into
Winthrop's "city upon a hill" is a highly combustible fantasy. Ideologues from fancy
universities, foundations and think-tanks understanding of Ukraine, and world history, is as
shallow as it was in Afghanistan in the 80's and Iraq 20 years later. People will inevitably
be hurt as an ancient empire dissolves and settles. Outsider intrusions will metastasize the
process into the kind of catastrophe the world has seen before, and continues to witness
today.
An egotistical desire for an entry in history books and the grip of an insatiable
insecurity industry are the motives driving the princes and princesses of our realm. Each of
these forces is bad enough by itself. Combined they guarantee an ugly ending.
In 2001 and in 2002 Congress passed authorizations for war. While not declarations of war,
these mandates, each titled an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) provided the
legal framework for attacks against al-Qaeda in 2001 and in 2002 for the Iraq War. Both AUMFs
are still in effect today. As Congress considers its annual authorization to fund the Pentagon
our current members of Congress, both in the House and the Senate, are in positions of
responsibility and ability to repeal these AUMFs.
The effect of the AUMFs :
Based on FBI and
journalist
investigations, al Qaeda had between 200-400 members worldwide in September of 2001. Al Qaeda
now has affiliates in every corner of the world, their
strength measures in the tens of thousands of members, and they control territory in Yemen,
Syria and parts of Africa. In Afghanistan, the Taliban now control as much as 60 percent of the
territory and, with regards to international terrorism, where there was one international
terror group in Afghanistan in 2001, the Pentagon now
reports twenty such groups .
ISIS was formerly al Qaeda in Iraq, an organization that came into existence solely due to
the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States. US military
,
intelligence agencies, journalists
and other
international organizations continually report that the reason people join such groups is
not out of ideology or religious devotion, but out of resistance to invasion and occupation,
and in response to the killing of family, friends and neighbors by foreign and government
forces. It is clear the AUMFs have worsened terrorism, not defeated it.
The cost of the AUMFs :
More
than 7,000 US service members have been killed and more than 50,000 wounded in the wars
since 9/11. Of the 2.5 million troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as many as 20% percent are
afflicted with PTSD, while 20 percent
more may have traumatic brain injury. The Veterans Administration reports Afghan and Iraq
veterans have rates of suicide
4-10 times higher than their civilian peers. This means almost two Afghan and Iraq veterans
are die by suicide every day. Do the math and it is clear more Afghan and Iraq veterans are
dying by suicide than by combat. The cost to the people overseas to whom we have brought these
wars is hard to grasp.
Between one and four million people have been killed, directly and indirectly, by these
wars, while tens of millions more have been wounded or psychologically traumatized, and tens of
millions more made homeless – the cause of the worst refugee crisis since WWII.
Financially, the cost of these wars is immense, at least $6 trillion. Of a vast many statistics that
compose this incomprehensible figure of $6 trillion, is that nearly $1 trillion of it is simply
just interest and debt payments. For any American, Democrat, Republican or independent, these
interest and debt payments alone should cause them to reconsider these wars.
The AUMFs have allowed for wars to be waged without end by the executive branch, wars the
American people, including veterans, say
have not been worth fighting . Congress has the ability and responsibility to help bring
about an end to these wars by ensuring the repeal of the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs. Join the debate
on Facebook More articles by: Matthew Hoh
Matthew Hoh is a member of the advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans For Peace and
World Beyond War. In 2009 he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in
protest of the escalation of the Afghan War by the Obama Administration. He previously had been
in Iraq with a State Department team and with the U.S. Marines. He is a Senior Fellow with the
Center for International Policy.
"... She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election – a claim the president pushed repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate – played into Russia's hands. ..."
"... "In the course of this investigation," Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings, "I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests." ..."
"... government investigators examining secret records have found Manafort's name, as well as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr. Manafort's main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych. ..."
"... Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau . Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials. ..."
"... In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies .. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin. ..."
"... Mr. Manafort's involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential campaign – from Mr. Trump's favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation of Crimea to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats' emails – an examination of Mr. Manafort's activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in Kiev. ..."
"... Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country. ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race .. ..."
"... But Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another's elections. ..."
"... While it's not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the Ukrainian government. ..."
"... Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what happened in Kiev during 2014 and after. Thus, in one recent attack she claimed, ..."
"... "In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian empire." ..."
"... On April 26, 1954. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR ..Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the Ukrainian SSR . ..."
"... NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security. ..."
"... True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine, renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia. ..."
"... Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that enables US meddling in foreign countries. ..."
"... That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward. ..."
"... The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia – the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder – renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind. ..."
"... But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive player – aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the US government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood. ..."
"... George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well. ..."
"... David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, ..."
"... . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader . ..."
It's beginning to seem like an assault by the Zulu army of American politics – they
just never stop coming.
We are referring to the Russophobic neocon Deep Staters who have trooped before Adam's
Schiff Show to pillory POTUS for daring to look into the Ukrainian stench that engulfs the
Imperial City – a rank odor that is owing to their own arrogant meddling in the the
internal affairs of that woebegone country.
This time it was Dr. Fiona Hill who sanctimoniously advised the House committee that there
is nothing to see on the Ukraine front that involved any legitimate matter of state; it was
just the Donald and his tinfoil hat chums jeopardizing the serious business of protecting the
national security by injecting electioneering into relations with Ukraine.
She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook
a concerted campaign to interfere in the election – a claim the president pushed
repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate – played into Russia's hands.
"In the course of this investigation," Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence
Committee's impeachment hearings, "I would ask that you please not promote politically
driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests."
Folks, we are getting just plain sick and tired of this drumbeat of lies, misdirection and
smug condescension by Washington payrollers like Fiona Hill. No Ukrainian interference in the
2016 US election?
Exactly what hay wagon does she think we fell off from?
Or better still, ask Paul Manafort who will spend his golden years in the Big House owing
to an August 2016 leak to the New York Times about an alleged "black book"
which recorded payments he had received from his work as an advisor to the Ukrainian
political party of former president Yanakovych. As we have seen, the latter had been removed
from office by a Washington instigated coup in February 2014.
By its own admission, this story came from the Ukrainian government and the purpose was
clear as a bell: Namely, to undermine the Trump presidential campaign and force Manafort out
of his months-old role as campaign chairman – a role that had finally brought some
professional management to the Donald's helter-skelter campaign for the nation's highest
office.
In the event, this well-timed bombshell worked, and in short order Manafort resigned,
leaving the disheveled Trump campaign in the lurch:
government investigators examining secret records have found Manafort's name, as well
as companies he sought business with, as they try to untangle a corrupt network they say was
used to loot Ukrainian assets and influence elections during the administration of Mr.
Manafort's main client, former President Viktor F. Yanukovych.
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr.
Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012,
according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau . Investigators
assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients
also included election officials.
In addition, criminal prosecutors are investigating a group of offshore shell companies
.. Among the hundreds of murky transactions these companies engaged in was an $18 million
deal to sell Ukrainian cable television assets to a partnership put together by Mr. Manafort
and a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.
Mr. Manafort's involvement with moneyed interests in Russia and Ukraine had previously
come to light. But as American relationships there become a rising issue in the presidential
campaign – from Mr. Trump's favorable statements about Mr. Putin and his annexation
of Crimea to the suspected Russian hacking of Democrats' emails – an examination of
Mr. Manafort's activities offers new details of how he mixed politics and business out of
public view and benefited from powerful interests now under scrutiny by the new government in
Kiev.
The bolded lines in the NYT story above tell you exactly where this was coming
from. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau had been set up by an outfit called "AntAC", which
was jointly funded by George Soros and the Obama State Department. And there can be little
doubt that the Donald's accurate view at the time – that Crimea's reunification with
Mother Russia after a 60 year hiatus which had been ordered by the former Soviet Union's
Presidium – was unwelcome in Kiev and among the Washington puppeteers who had put it in
power.
For want of doubt that the Poroshenko government was in the tank for Hillary Clinton, the
liberal rag called Politico spilled the beans a few months later. In a January
11, 2017 story it revealed that the Ukrainian government had pulled out all the stops
attempting to help Clinton, whose protégés at the State Department had been the
masterminds of the coup which put them in office. Thus, Politico concluded,
Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by
officials of a former Soviet bloc country.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by
publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a
top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to
back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information
on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in
Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race ..
But Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the
race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from
engaging in one another's elections.
While it's not uncommon for outside operatives to serve as intermediaries between
governments and reporters, one of the more damaging Russia-related stories for the Trump
campaign – and certainly for Manafort – can be traced more directly to the
Ukrainian government.
Documents released by an independent Ukrainian government agency – and publicized
by a parliamentarian – appeared to show $12.7 million in cash payments that were
earmarked for Manafort by the Russia-aligned party of the deposed former president,
Yanukovych.
The New York Times , in the August story revealing the ledgers'
existence, reported that the payments earmarked for Manafort were "a focus" of an
investigation by Ukrainian anti-corruption officials, while CNN reported days later that the
FBI was pursuing an overlapping inquiry.
Yet Fiona Hill sat before a House committee and under oath insisted that all of the above
was a Trumpian conspiracy theory, thereby reminding us that the neocon Russophobes are so
unhinged that they are prepared to lie at the drop of a hat to keep their false narrative
about the Russian Threat and Putin's "invasion" of Ukraine alive.
Needless to say, Fiona Hill is among the worst of the neocon warmongers, and has made a
specialty of demonizing Russia and propagating over and over flat out lies about what
happened in Kiev during 2014 and after. Thus, in one recent attack she claimed,
Russia today poses a greater foreign policy and security challenge to the United States
and its Western allies than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Its annexation of
Crimea, war in Ukraine's Donbas region, and military intervention in Syria have upended
Western calculations from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Russia's intervention in Syria,
in particular, is a stark reminder that Russia is a multi-regional power ..
There is not a single true assertion in that quotation, of course, but we cite it for a
very particular reason. Shifty Schiff & his impeachment tribunal have brought in Hill
– and Lt. Colonel Vindman, Ambassador Taylor, George Kent and Tim Morrison previously
– in order to created an echo chamber.
That's right. The Dems are parroting the neocon lies – whether they believe them or
not – in order to propagate the impression that the Donald is undermining national
security in his effort to take a different posture on Russia and Ukraine, and is actually
bordering on treason.
Thus, Adam Schiff repeated the false neocon narrative virtually word for word at the opening
of the public hearings:
"In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation's
embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin's desire to rebuild a Russian
empire."
That's pure rubbish. It's based on the Big Lie that the overwhelming vote of the Russian
population of Crimea in March 2014 was done at the gun point of the Russian Army. And that
event, in turn, is the lynch-pin of the hoary canard that Putin is seeking to rebuild the
Soviet Empire.
So it is necessary to review the truth once again about how Russian Crimea had been
temporarily appended to the Ukrainian SSR during Soviet times.
The allegedly "occupied" territory of Crimea, in fact, was actually purchased from the
Ottomans by Catherine the Great in 1783, thereby satisfying the longstanding quest of the
Russian Czars for a warm-water port. Over the ages Sevastopol then emerged as a great naval
base at the strategic tip of the Crimean peninsula, where it became home to the mighty Black
Sea Fleet of the Czars and then the Soviet Union, too.
For the next 171 years Crimea was an integral part of Russia (until 1954). That span
exceeds the 170 years that have elapsed since California was annexed by a similar thrust of
"Manifest Destiny" on this continent, thereby providing, incidentally, the United States Navy
with its own warm-water port in San Diego.
While no foreign forces subsequently invaded the California coasts, it was most definitely
not Ukrainian and Polish rifles, artillery and blood which famously annihilated The Charge Of
The Light Brigade at the Crimean city of Balaclava in 1854; they were Russians defending the
homeland from Turks, French and Brits.
And the portrait of the Russian "hero" hanging in Putin's office is that of Czar Nicholas
I – whose brutal 30-year reign brought the Russian Empire to its historical zenith. Yet
despite his cruelty, Nicholas I is revered in Russian hagiography as the defender of Crimea,
even as he lost the 1850s war to the Ottomans and Europeans.
At the end of the day, security of its historic port in Crimea is Russia's Red Line, not
Washington's. Unlike today's feather-headed Washington pols, even the enfeebled Franklin
Roosevelt at least knew that he was in Soviet Russia when he made port in the Crimean
city of Yalta in February 1945.
Maneuvering to cement his control of the Kremlin in the intrigue-ridden struggle for
succession after Stalin's death a few years later, Nikita Khrushchev allegedly spent 15
minutes reviewing his "gift" of Crimea to his subalterns in Kiev.
As it happened, therefore, Crimea became part of the Ukraine only by writ of one of the
most vicious and reprehensible states in human history – the former Soviet Union:
On April 26, 1954. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet
transferring the Crimea Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian
SSR ..Taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial
proximity and the close economic and cultural ties between the Crimea Province and the
Ukrainian SSR .
That's right. Washington's hypocritical and tendentious accusations against Russia's
re-absorption of Crimea imply that the dead-hand of the Soviet presidium must be defended at
all costs – as if the security of North Dakota depended upon it!
In fact, the brouhaha about "returning" Crimea is a naked case of the hegemonic arrogance
that has overtaken Imperial Washington since the 1991 Soviet demise.
After all, during the long decades of the Cold War, the West did nothing to liberate the
"captive nation" of Ukraine – with or without the Crimean appendage bestowed upon it in
1954. Nor did it draw any red lines in the mid-1990's when a financially desperate Ukraine
rented back Sevastopol and the strategic redoubts of the Crimea to an equally pauperized
Russia.
In short, in the era before we got our Pacific port in 1848, and even during the 170-year
interval since then, America's national security has depended not one whit on the status of
Russian-speaking Crimea. That the local population has now chosen fealty to the Grand Thief
in Moscow over the ruffians and rabble who have seized Kiev amounts to a giant: So what!
The truth is, when it comes to Ukraine there really isn't that much there, there. Its
boundaries have been morphing for centuries among the quarreling tribes, peoples, potentates,
Patriarchs and pretenders of a small region that is none of Washington's damn business..
Still, it was this final aggressive drive of Washington and NATO into the internal affairs
of Russia's historic neighbor and vassal, Ukraine, that largely accounts for the demonization
of Putin. Likewise, it is virtually the entire source of the false claim that Russia has
aggressive, expansionist designs on the former Warsaw Pact states in the Baltics, Poland and
beyond.
The latter is a nonsensical fabrication. In fact, it was the neocon meddlers from
Washington who crushed Ukraine's last semblance of civil governance when they enabled
ultra-nationalists and crypto-Nazis to gain government positions after the February 2014
putsch.
As we indicated above, in one fell swoop that inexcusable stupidity reopened Ukraine's
blood-soaked modern history. The latter incepted with Stalin's re-population of the eastern
Donbas region with "reliable" Russian workers after his genocidal liquidation of the kulaks
in the early 1930s.
It was subsequently exacerbated by the large-scale collaboration by Ukrainian nationalists
in the west with the Nazi Wehrmacht as it laid waste to Poles, Jews, gypsies and other
"undesirables" on its way to Stalingrad in 1942-43. Thereafter followed an equal and opposite
spree of barbaric revenge as the victorious Red Army marched back through Ukraine on its way
to Berlin.
So it may be fairly asked. What beltway lame brains did not chance to understand that
Washington's triggering of "regime change" in Kiev would reopen this entire bloody history of
sectarian and political strife?
Moreover, once they had opened Pandora's box, why was it so hard to see that an outright
partition of Ukraine with autonomy for the Donbas and Crimea, or even accession to the
Russian state from which these communities had originated, would have been a perfectly
reasonable resolution?
Certainly that would have been far preferable to dragging all of Europe into the lunacy of
the current anti-Putin sanctions and embroiling the Ukrainian factions in a suicidal civil
war. The alleged Russian threat to Europe, therefore, was manufactured in Imperial
Washington, not the Kremlin.
In fact, in 1989 and 1990, the George H. W. Bush administration assured Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev that if he accepted German unification, the West would not seek to exploit
the situation through any eastward expansion – not even by "one inch," as
then-secretary of state James Baker assured Gorbachev. But Bill Clinton reneged on that
commitment, moving to expand NATO on an eastward path that eventually led right up to the
Russian border.
So Robert Merry said it well in his excellent piece on the entire neocon Ukraine Scam that
is being paraded before the Schiff Show.
That is, what is being desperately defended on Capitol Hill is not the rule of law,
national security or fidelity to the Constitution of the United States., but a giant Neocon
Lie that is needed to keep the Empire in business, and the world moving ever closer to an
utterly unnecessary Cold War 2.0 between nation's each pointing enough nuclear warheads at
the other to destroy the planet.
NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the
expansion countries lying east of Germany. As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued
stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in NATO
either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security.
True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their
elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to respond favorably to Western financial
blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine,
renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official
status to the Russian language. These actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but
they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations aimed
at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater
economic ties to Russia, pro-Western Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged
street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria Nuland
gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia.
Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely
Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey
Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian coup, she
shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position,
demonstrating the influence that enables US meddling in foreign countries.
That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to
protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine (the so-called Donbass in the country's
east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated a
plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly
the "sham referendum" described by Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass
Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward.
The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in
the center of Eurasia – the global "heartland," in the view of the famous British
geographic scholar Halford Mackinder – renders it always a potential threat. Its
vulnerability to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands.
Its national temperament seems to include a natural tendency towards authoritarianism. Any
sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind.
But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia,
the Alliance has been the more aggressive player – aggressive when it pushed for NATO's
eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the US
government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the
encirclement of Russia; aggressive when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for
Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian orbit with
economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected
Ukrainian government; and aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge
Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood.
George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this
aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon
its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues and
leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well.
"... America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted. ..."
"... Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent, sensitive type would be concerned by it. ..."
"... America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over" as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened. ..."
"... Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington. ..."
"... Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even insist they do so. ..."
The motives for so many Western spies serving the Soviet Union – and in the 1940s and
1950s the Soviets had the best "humint" on earth – were rather idealistic. This was
largely true for the Cambridge Circle in Britain. They were concerned that America was going
to "lord it over" the Russians and everyone else.
America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the
1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted.
Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined
towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of
major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent,
sensitive type would be concerned by it.
You certainly did not have to be a communist to feel that way, but being one assisted with
access to important Soviet contacts. They sought you out.
America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable
position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over"
as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened.
It made little secret of its desire to keep such a monopoly, so brilliant people like
Oppenheimer would be well aware of something they might well regard as ominous.
Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the
Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there
were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington.
A hugely important general like MacArthur was unblinkingly ready in 1950 to use atomic
weapons in the Korean War to destroy North Korea's connections with China.
I read several major biographies of Oppenheimer, and there is little to nothing concerning
Soviet intelligence work. When I came across the Sudoplatov book with its straightforward
declaration of Oppenheimer's assistance, it was difficult to know how to weigh the claim.
Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even
insist they do so.
Judging by what is suggested here, if Oppenheimer did help, it was in subtle ways like
letting Klaus Fuchs, a fellow scientist and a rather distinguished one (but a Soviet spy),
look at certain papers. But the scientific community always has some considerable tendency to
share information, a tendency having nothing to do with spying.
In general, it should be understood, that Oppenheimer, despite all his brilliance, was a
rather disturbed man all his life. Quite early on, as just one example, he attempted to
poison someone he did not like. Only pure luck prevented the man's eating a lethally-laced
apple. There were other disturbing behaviors too.
Later they believed that equality of superpower status for the Soviet Union would
contribute to world peace.
How dumb were these "scientists". Everyone knows that once Soviet Union fell, peace and
freedom and democracy are flowering all over the world and United States are not waging any
wars anymore.
"... It could be argued, perhaps, that an expansion of Russian influence in Ukraine could affect the vital interests of the rest of Europe, though that would hardly be inevitable. But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion? ..."
"... The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood. As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine. ..."
"... Thumbs up on the article - the valiant Ukraine facing perfidious Russia is a gross oversimplification. And as noted, the US is involved in this mess up to its eyeballs. ..."
"... Russia is associated with the image of the USSR which developed an alternative model to financial capitalism. Financial capitalism is collapsing for objective and totally unavoidable reasons. The search for an alternative will continue drawing more attention to Russia as a country that is, in principle, capable of offering an alternative development model. ..."
"... The disagreement IS over Ukraine policy, not this argument about what Trump may or may not have done. DC is full of corruption of all kinds, including in foreign policy, but no one is ever punished. So we know that is not the issue. ..."
"... I believe Stratfor, no friend of Russia and close to the neocon faction in American politics, described the 2014 coup as "the most blatant coup in history". ..."
"... This article is very good in detail, but they could also add that the first Minister of Finance in Ukraine's post-Maidan government was a literal US State Department official who was only then granted Ukrainian citizenship. Not surprisingly she also made Ukraine accept IMF loans, getting Ukraine into the IMF predatory lending/austerity scam. ..."
"... This is the legacy of careerism within the Foreign Service. People get positions in which they live comfortably, attending all the right parties and getting a sophisticated world view and seldom have any loyalty or accountability to the Commander in Chief. ..."
"... When Vindman claimed he was disturbed by what he heard, instead of following the chain of command, which he invokes almost as often as his rank, he lawyers up. ..."
he Wall Street Journal 's Peggy Noonan liked what she saw when U.S. diplomats George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr. went
before the House Intelligence Committee to give testimony as part of the ongoing impeachment drama. She saw them as "the old America
reasserting itself." They demonstrated "stature and command of their subject matter." They evinced "capability and integrity."
All true. Kent, with his bow tie and his family tradition of public service, appeared to be the very picture of the old-school
American foreign service official. And Taylor, with his exemplary West Point career, his Vietnam heroism, and his longtime national
service, seemed a throwback to the blunt-spoken American military men who gave us our World War II triumph and our rise to global
dominance.
But these men embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous. Perhaps no serious blame should accrue
to them, since it is the same geopolitical outlook embraced and enforced by pretty much the entire foreign policy establishment,
of which these men are mere loyal apparatchiks. And yet they are playing their part in pushing a foreign policy that is directing
America towards a very possible disaster.
Neither man manifested even an inkling of an understanding of what kind of game the United States in playing with Ukraine. Neither
gave even a nod to the long, complex relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Neither seemed to understand either the substance or
the intensity of Russia's geopolitical interests along its own borders or the likely consequences of increasing U.S. meddling in
what for centuries has been part of Russia's sphere of influence.
Both Taylor and Kent declared that America's vital national interest is wrapped up in Ukraine, though neither sought to explain
why in any substantive way. Spin out all the potential scenarios of Ukraine's fate and then ask whether any of them would materially
affect America's vital interests. Any affirmative answer would require elaborate contortions.
It could be argued, perhaps, that an expansion of Russian influence in Ukraine could affect the vital interests of the rest of
Europe, though that would hardly be inevitable. But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has
a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion?
The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's
rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood. As he had it, Ukraine's turn to
the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an
extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv
that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point
of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments."
And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine.
"It is this security assistance," he said, "that is at the heart of the [impeachment] controversy that we are discussing today."
In contrast to this misleading rendition, here are the facts, with appropriate context.
In 1989 and 1990, the George H. W. Bush administration assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if he accepted German unification,
the West would not seek to exploit the situation through any eastward expansion -- not even by "one inch," as then-secretary of state
James Baker assured Gorbachev. But Bill Clinton reneged on that commitment, moving to expand NATO on an eastward path that eventually
led right up to the Russian border.
NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany.
As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in
NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security.
As Nikolas K. Gvosdev of the U.S. Naval War College has written, Russia and Ukraine share a 1,500-mile border where Ukraine "nestles
up against the soft underbelly of the Russian Federation." Gvosdev elaborates: "The worst nightmare of the Russian General Staff
would be NATO forces deployed all along this frontier, which would put the core of Russia's population and industrial capacity at
risk of being quickly and suddenly overrun in the event of any conflict." Beyond that crucial strategic concern, the two countries
share strong economic, trade, cultural, ethnic, and language ties going back centuries. No Russian leader of any stripe would survive
as leader if he or she were to allow Ukraine to be wrested fully from Russia's sphere of influence.
And yet America, in furtherance of the ultimate aim of pulling Ukraine away from Russia, spent some $5 billion in a campaign to
gin up pro-Western sentiment there, according to former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who spearheaded
much of this effort during the Obama administration. It was clearly a blatant effort to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign
nation -- and a nation residing in a delicate and easily inflamed part of the world.
But Ukraine is a tragically divided nation, with many of its people drawn to the West while others feel greater ties to Russia.
The late Samuel Huntington of Harvard called Ukraine "a cleft country, with two distinct cultures." Contrary to Taylor's false portrayal
of an aggressive Russia trampling on eastern Ukrainians by setting up puppet governments and manufacturing a bogus referendum in
Crimea, the reality is that large numbers of Ukrainians there favor Russia and feel loyalty to what they consider their Russian heritage.
The Crimean public is 70 percent Russian, and its Parliament in 1992 actually voted to declare independence from Ukraine for fear
that the national leadership would nudge the country toward the West. (The vote was later rescinded to avoid a violent national confrontation.)
In 1994, Crimea elected a president who had campaigned on a platform of "unity with Russia."
True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych,
to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine,
renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These
actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations
aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western
Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria
Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia.
Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she
declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian
coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that
enables U.S. meddling in foreign countries.
That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine
(the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated
a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by
Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward.
The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia -- the global "heartland,"
in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder -- renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability
to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural
tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind.
But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive
player -- aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the
U.S. government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive
when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian
orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and
aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood.
George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze
Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues
and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well.
American diplomacy is rather reminiscent of German diplomacy in 1917, in that expanding NATO into Ukraine and the Baltics is as
stupidly provocative to Moscow as the Zimmerman Telegram was to the US. Zimmerman's offer was incredibly stupid since it provoked
a US declaration of war but Germany had absolutely no way to provide Mexico any material assistance. Neither will NATO be providing
any real assistance to Ukraine or the Baltic states if the balloon goes up -- today's Bundeswehr is not your grandfathers Wehrmacht.
True. The stupidity of US policy toward Russia can only be defeated by stupidity of the limitrophus of Eastern Europe, like Poland
or the Baltic states. If "balloon goes up" they will be first to evaporate.
Thumbs up on the article - the valiant Ukraine facing perfidious Russia is a gross oversimplification. And as noted, the US is
involved in this mess up to its eyeballs. The first person to speak out publicly was the former diplomat (and godfather of "Containment")
George Kennan. In his last public comment, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times warning against pushing NATO to the East as
a policy guaranteed to cause Russian fear and resentment. In the early years of the century, Mikhail Gorbachev - no friend of
Putin's - accused the West of trying to treat Russia like a third rate nation. It is sad that the "deep state" maneuvers against
Trump (up and running early enough to destroy Paul Manafort) derailed Trump's plans to talk openly with Putin and thus earn him
the blind hatred of John Brennan. The rest is history.
You need a foreign policy update. Ukraine and Europe are not longer our problems. They have grown ideologically distant and opposed
to US interests, which is self interest and transactional foreign policy now. The days of "altruistic" foreign policy are over
with. Marshall died long ago.
This is totally inaccurate. The current Russian system is not socialist, and it certainly has problems with corruption, but it
is opposed to the Western establishment and it is promoting a traditional Christian and nationalist outlook as opposed to the
liberal globalism of the Western elites. It is better than the alternative at the moment, and in a sense Putin, especially
his foreign policy , is executing the will of the people in Russia. Conservatives opposed Russia up until Trump because both
sides are controlled by the same Western establishment, which has been pursuing an anti-Russian agenda for a long time. They do
not want any resistance to their liberal world order.
"Democracy" is a lie and a fraud, Plato knew this 4,000 years ago, and "class consciousness" is only real in the sense that
the current situation in the West has an elite that is going against the interests of the people. I don't see how defending Russia
is "undermining class conscientious," actually arguing against the anti-Russian warmongering is a good thing. What "Russian state
attacks" are you talking about?
"To see US conservatives defending an autocracy reflects they have embraced those fascistic principles."
Do you even know how conservatism and the terms right and left wing originated? Conservatism and the right wing are terms that
are from the French Revolution, used to describe supporters of the Catholic French Monarchy of the Bourbons while the liberals
or the left were the revolutionaries. Historically Conservatives defended European Christian monarchies while the liberals always
wanted to overthrow throne and altar to replace them with secular democratic republics. In fact there is nothing more conservative
than autocracy, namely a Church-anointed monarchy. Americanism, or the ideology of the American founding fathers, was inherently
liberal. They were in revolt against the monarchy of their time. There is nothing conservative about democracy, it's quite to
the contrary. Autocracy is not "fascistic," that term is completely irrelevant in this historical context.
"Seeing similar headlines from opposite political poles exposes a 'horseshoe' phenomenon of left/right ideologies in which
the two poles are close together in significant contexts."
Are you really going to be so grug brained as to unironically bring up the horseshoe theory? Looks like we have a big brained
intellectual centrist over here. Not even worth giving an in depth analysis on this one.
Good comment. The Monarchists sat on the right side of the French assembly and the revolutionaries sat on the left. That is how
the modern spectrum morphed into Fascism (corporate state) on the right and Communism (revolutionary) on the left.
I've actually been to Russia, twice in the last year and a half, and I had a chance to meet and to converse with, and to hear
from, Russians of all sorts: academics, students, politicians, government employees, businessmen, environmentalists, scientists,
and journalists.
Based on what I saw and heard, I categorically reject your statement that Russians "are not all that free to express their
opinion."
I heard from people who are well known in Russia who disagree with Putin. I heard criticisms of the government from people
who are not well known, or who are just average people. People note that corruption is still a problem, at many levels of society
and government, but they did not seem at all reticent to make that point.
No one displayed any fear or reluctance to express his views. At the same time, Russians acknowledge a great deal of improvement
since the tragedy of the Yeltsin years.
And while there are people who criticize the government's domestic policies, they tend to be much more in support of what the
government under Putin has accomplished in terms of foreign policy. And that seems to me to be a very rational reaction.
First off I am Russian myself. Most people are in favour of an authoritarian government, nobody cares about or wants democracy.
Monarchist restoration would be ideal but Putin is good enough for now. Free press and elections are a fraud and a lie, as I said.
First of all, show me one single state on the planet today which is pro working class. Secondly, juxtaposing the concepts of working
class and fascism is just a demonstration of how badly you know the history. Suffice it to say that the set of political views
deriving from the ideas of Mussolini are called right-wing socialism. Hence, your ignorance of history logically begets that of
today's politics. No, Trump and Putin cannot be called truly pro working class. But they're at least are not so blatantly anti
working class as neolibs who oppose them.
Russia is associated with the image of the USSR which developed an alternative model to financial capitalism. Financial capitalism
is collapsing for objective and totally unavoidable reasons. The search for an alternative will continue drawing more attention
to Russia as a country that is, in principle, capable of offering an alternative development model.
Except that isn't what this is about. The disagreement IS over Ukraine policy, not this argument about what Trump may or may not
have done. DC is full of corruption of all kinds, including in foreign policy, but no one is ever punished. So we know that is
not the issue.
But we do know from the testimonies that they oppose Trump BECAUSE he changed Ukraine policy away from the policy of confrontation
with Russia, or tried to. They are all against that and against Trump doing that, as they said. The entire establishment has opposed
Trump on this since he got elected. So let's not be disingenuous. This charade has gone on long enough. The elites want their
proxy war with Russia.
1. From my perspective, the article is saying that our Ukraine policy is immoral, not that the impeachment is not founded.
2. Further to 1. above, your pizza analogy doesn't hold up. If pizza is bad for you, eating pizza harm nobody but the eater
and the eater's insurers.
By contrast, our Ukraine policy is the support of actual live Nazis and has resulted in the deaths of numerous innocents, not
to mention the economic destruction of Ukraine.
This is more like providing one pizza company weapons and support, knowing full well that they will use those weapons and cash
to murder rivals and customers who order from those rivals.
The good news is that the influence of apparatchiks like Mr. Kent and Mr. Taylor will be at an end within a few years. America
thought the blood of hundreds of thousands of foreign children was a "fair price" to pay for the dollar's continued role as a
reserve currency (Madeleine Albright's words) and cheaper gas at the pump. The effort was a bust. Endless trillion-dollar-a-year
deficits will come to an end quickly. There isn't that much liquidity in the private sphere to sop up at the price the U.S. Gov
can afford.
Americans have forgotten how much money a billion dollars is, much less a trillion: to wit, the Democrats future plans are
priced in dozens of trillions of dollars. Is it even possible to count that high (given that no one has any real idea how the
economy will react)?
Boomers destroyed the country. It only took one "me" generation to introduce such deep structural instability that there is
no recovery. Really, does anyone think a trillion dollars a year of demand can ever be pulled out of the economy? No. Does anyone
really think a trillion dollars a year will magically appear for free, from nowhere, for a decade or more? The intelligentsia
will reap the fruit of its effort within a few years. And it will be dried cat food for dinner. Bless them!
What "actual bloody invasion" of Ukraine and Georgia. Georgia attacked South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, and got a bloody nose
for their trouble. They didn't lose any territory however, which is odd, if Russia were the attacker.
If Russia had actually invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainian clown army would be obliterated in days or hours. Note how there are
some 500 miles of open border between Donbass and Sumskaya Oblast - but no fighting? Do you think that the Russian military doesn't
know the geography of their own border?
Ukraine was already devided before it separated from USSR. People from western Ukraine called Russians and eastern Ukrainians
moskali. Eastern Ukraine spoke mostly Russian, western Ukraine spoke mostly Ukrainian. I believe tension escalated after Russia
was about to loose access to the Black Sea and its navy there. Sorry. That was a big mistake to even think that it would happen
easy. Russia annexed Crimea from Ottoman Empire in 18th century. Since then it was part of Russia. Khrushchev transferred it to
Ukrainian republic in 1954. You seriously believe that Russia would easy let it go after almost 2 centuries of its presence there?
Big chunk of Russian history associated with Black Sea Fleet.
The invasions were in response to them trying to acquire NATO memberships and NATO egging then on to do this and provoke Russia.
If they remain in the Russian sphere than that would not be a problem.
NATO goes where it was warned not to go, provokes the response it knew it would get, and claims that this is "aggression."
What a joke.
There was no "Russian meddling", that was debunked. There is no evidence that the DNC was hacked and the so called troll farm
had no connection to the Russian government and was merely a business marketing firm selling advertising space on their social
media pages.
Russia doesn't poison dissidents in foreign countries, if you are referring to the Skripal case, that narrative has fallen
apart, multiple journalists have written lengthy pieces about all of the inconsistencies and contradictions in the UK government's
narrative. Not to mention Yulia Skripal said she's still wants to go back to Russia, so clearly she doesn't think Russia poisoned
her.
We do have evidence to the show the opposite. The only ones who examined the DNC servers are a firm that was caught lying about
Russian hacking before and is owned by a Ukrainian millionaire that donated to the Clinton Foundation. Can't get more damning
than that.
What are you even talking about? The DNC refused to allow the server to be examined because they know there was no Russian hacking,
and why would Trump privately ask Zelensky to investigate Ukraine's role in all of this if he knew he were guilty? The point is
there is no evidence to prove Russian hacking, and the only claims come from a firm that is owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who
has been caught lying about Russian hacking before and donated millions to the Clinton Foundation.
How much mental gymnastics are you going to use to try to pretend like you don't understand?
Which is more aggressive, do you think -- invading one's neighbors, or "dangling the prospect of NATO membership" for them?
The US engineered and supported a coup in Ukraine to overthrow the constitutional government. Is this aggression? It seems
so to me. It certainly preceded any Russian response. As far as NATO membership for Ukraine, polls of Ukrainian opinion long before
the Maidan showed very strong feeling against Ukraine joining NATO.
I believe, when all facts fail, that the way through to some would be pointing out the absurdities of what they hear therefore
think. It might make them think twice before publicly embarassing themselves.
The Western actions are more aggressive, because they actually happened...
Russia's annexation of the Crimea was bloodless, and doubtless spared it the carnage that the regime in Kiev wrought in Donbass.
America's movements since the end of the Cold War have been consistently offensive in nature, and Russia's consistently defensive
in nature.
That defense has included counterattacks, feints, and opportunistic thrusts. In every 'attack' it made, Russia was reacting,
not taking the initiative.For their part the liberal hegemonists know what they're doing. Good PR is priceless, and they know it's essential for offensive
movements to not appear that way.
Problem is, you liberals are still unable to prove a single allegation of those you uttered in your comment.
How come the previous Ukrainian government didn't manage to beg one single satellite pic of, say, Russian tanks crossing their
border from the CIA or the DIA, given the purported "bloody invasion"? Russian armored vehicles have some cloaking devices or
what?
How come the Mueller's so-called "investigation" turned out to be such a pathetic juridical failure, given the purported "direct
meddling"?
What a naive poor dear one has to be to believe in poisonings with radioactive substances (as dangerous to the poisoner as
to his victim) in a world where poisons causing deaths looking like those from natural causes exist and are available to all secret
services (and even to private citizens having talents in chemistry)?
Plus, careful with (ab)using upper case. "Democratical countries" with a capital "D" reads like "countries, whose governments
are proxies of the Democratic Party". Blame Freud and his slips.
I love people like you. I mean since we were invaded by Germany, Napoleon, Charles the Tenth of Sweden, the Teutonic Knights,
the Golden Horde (Ghengis Khan started this), at the cost of countless millions of lives lost, I sense that we- as Americans-
have every need to push our frontiers to Russia's doorstep.
You demonstrate a phenomenal ignorance of Historical perspective: exactly the cannon fodder the establishment's looking for.
Nice and sober account. One detail that might be significant. Until 1954, Crimea was part of the Russian Federation (the Russian
State has wrestled that territory from the Tatars/Mongols and Ottomans more than 200 years before and fought for it against the
united Europe in 1850s). And Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, had bestowed Crimea in an unsanctioned administrative decision to
the then Ukrainian Socialist Republic in 1954.
Ukraine as a state is pretty much a creation of Russia and instead of being grateful for their extensive statehood, elements
in Ukraine would rather bite the hand that made them.
Lots of people all over the world get up and go to work. They do it in democracies, autocracies, and countries that are somewhere
in between. In fact, the United States is losing its position as global economic hegemon in large part because the Chinese (no
democracy there) are harder working than Americans.
The United States currency has value for two reasons - inside the United States, it's the only way you can pay taxes. Outside
the United States, the gulfie tyrannies only accept dollars for international sales of oil.
$5 billion thrown down the Ukraine rat hole. It is too bad that the money wasn't spent providing better care for our wounded veterans.
Watch the video "Delay, Deny, Hope They Die". As one of the very few, perhaps only, commentater who has criticized Victoria Nuland's
role in the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, I have made many of the same points in recent days.
You know that is dishonest. This has nothing to do with what Trump tried to tell Zelensky, and anyway the US and Ukraine do in
fact have a treaty from 1998 that mandates them to cooperate on law enforcement matters. DC is full of corruption but none of
it is ever punished, so we know that is not the issue.
This is all about Trump's desire to end the proxy war with Russia. That is all this is about ultimately. Looking at the big
picture, that is a large part of the reason why the establishment wants to delegitimization him or remove Trump from office. This
phone call scandal is nothing more than the latest tactical move to get there. If you don't see that, and you genuinely think
that this is merely about Trump asking Zelensky to investigate something and get caught up in the minutiae of that, you are simply
naive and don't understand the true nature of politics. Think about the big picture.
A proxy war is nice cover for weapons smuggling. I've postulated for awhile now that Benghazi is the key to Deep State. Ask yourself
why the Obama administration allowed Stevens and his cohorts to die when there was ample air and naval power nearby. What did
he stumble upon? I think it was a vast smuggling operation designed to support Muslim Bros. and Al Shabbab-both of whom later
attacked US assets and who continue to worry the region with their raids of kidnappings, rapes and mass murders that go largely
unreported in the US press. There's a reason why so many liberals her and abroad claim to support open borders and it has nothing
to do with humanitarian goals and everything to do with an organized global crime group who is using sievelike borders to allow
drugs, fake licensed products, fake pharmaceuticals, weapons and even humans to become trade goods. People should really ask why
Democrats refuse to stop this. Europeans should ask who is getting rich off of unchecked migration of indigent people.
1. The military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify their exorbitant budgets.
2. The spooks need a Big Enemy to justify Big Brother and also their increasingly open interference in domestic politics.
3. The people who run things need a distraction, lest the masses start to demand the sorts of reforms that would take money
out of rich people's pockets. A Big Enemy does this just fine.
Russia makes a better Big Enemy than does China, for US business is already too intertwined with China and its supply chains
reach deeply into that country. Any disruption to those links would cost a lot of money.
TAC has been doing great work covering the Ukraine.
Even so-called conservatives play along with the mainstream media's and establishment's narrative, with the likes of NRO's
warmongering neocons, such as the Jay Nordlinger, constantly banging-on about poor little Ukraine being a "struggling democracy"
in need, rather than a deeply divided and failed state that perhaps should never have existed in its present borders as a "sovereign
nation." The best solution for the Ukraine would probably be to split it into two, with Eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula
perhaps just becoming part of Greater Russia.
I believe Stratfor, no friend of Russia and close to the neocon faction in American politics, described the 2014 coup as "the
most blatant coup in history".
Exactly. This article is very good in detail, but they could also add that the first Minister of Finance in Ukraine's post-Maidan
government was a literal US State Department official who was only then granted Ukrainian citizenship. Not surprisingly she also
made Ukraine accept IMF loans, getting Ukraine into the IMF predatory lending/austerity scam.
FYI, the advocates for intervening in the Ukraine are the ones accusing Pres Putin
1. with invading Crimea -- false
2. interfering with US elections -- sabotage an offense that certainly means war -- unfounded
3. that the Russians and the President operated in as collaborators in sabotaging US election also false
this president in response signed a document that the Russians did spy and further implemented the worst sanctions to date
against Russia despite the lack of evidence
as it is that Pres. Putin is certainly not being excused -- ;laugh - not even from things he has not been proved to have done
:Laugh ---
It's like when the police say you did something but can't prove it so they get some others to say you did it because they know
you did it
-even there's no evidence you did.
If you don't understand just review the SP Mueller investigation and the subsequent impeachment inquiry -- this is not new
game for anyone familiar with prosecutor methods.
This is true, all of this could have easily been avoided if the US stopped meddling and withdrew its troops from the former USSR.
People like Taylor and Kent show there is an agenda to start a war with Russia. Hopefully the upcoming Ukraine-Russia peace summit
can settle this conflict.
1. The military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify their exorbitant budgets.
2. The spooks need a Big Enemy to justify Big Brother and also their increasingly open interference in domestic politics.
3. The people who run things need a distraction, lest the masses start to demand the sorts of reforms that would take money
out of rich people's pockets. A Big Enemy does this just fine.
Russia makes a better Big Enemy than does China, for US business is already too intertwined with China and its supply chains
reach deeply into that country. Any disruption to those links would cost a lot of money.
TAC has been doing great work covering the Ukraine.
Even so-called conservatives play along with the mainstream media's and establishment's narrative, with the likes of NRO's
warmongering neocons, such as the Jay Nordlinger, constantly banging-on about poor little Ukraine being a "struggling democracy"
in need, rather than a deeply divided and failed state that perhaps should never have existed in its present borders as a "sovereign
nation." The best solution for the Ukraine would probably be to split it into two, with Eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula
perhaps just becoming part of Greater Russia.
FYI, the advocates for intervening in the Ukraine are the ones accusing Pres Putin
1. with invading Crimea -- false
2. interfering with US elections -- sabotage an offense that certainly means war -- unfounded
3. that the Russians and the President operated in as collaborators in sabotaging US election also false
this president in response signed a document that the Russians did spy and further implemented the worst sanctions to date
against Russia despite the lack of evidence
as it is that Pres. Putin is certainly not being excused -- ;laugh - not even from things he has not been proved to have done
:Laugh ---
It's like when the police say you did something but can't prove it so they get some others to say you did it because they know
you did it
-even there's no evidence you did.
If you don't understand just review the SP Mueller investigation and the subsequent impeachment inquiry -- this is not new
game for anyone familiar with prosecutor methods.
That's a strawman and there's nothing to refute, the article is correct. Because the US government and CFR globalist thinkers
like Zbigniew Brzezinski, George Friedman, and George Soros have talked about the geopolitical importance of Ukraine since the
1990s -- read Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard from 1996, where talks about the need for the US to take control of Ukraine from Russia
to prevent Russia from becoming a great power that can challenge US global hegemony, or Soros' admission on a 60 Minutes interview
from 1998 that he has invested billions in Ukraine, particularly in the Ukrainian military. As Brzezinski says, the US was quick
to recognise the geopolitical importance of an independent Ukrainian state, and became one of Ukraine's strongest backers in the
1990s for this reason. Globalist plans for Ukraine go back many years.
Polls before the Maidan show most Ukrainians had a very positive image of Russia as well, and increasingly people in Ukraine
are getting tired of the war, which is why they voted massively for Zelensky over Poroshenko.
When I look at our foreign policy, before Trump, you have to go back to Reagan to have any semblance of policy based in reality.
While Trump is kinda of a bull in a china shop, at least he highlights some of the asinine policies the 'experts' have been pursuing.
Russia's objection to US and EU interference into Ukrainian politics makes as much sense as US objection. would if Russia were
in Mexico attempting to draw them into a confederation with Moscow.
He may be as immoral as hell. Most of them, R or D, are, in case you haven't noticed. The fact is, there's still no factual evidence
he committed any impeachable in this specific case.
So, if the employees of the government who are involved in international affairs do not agree with the President, the President
is accused of an impeachable offense? These two are not patriots in the usual sense. Nor are they public servants. They see themselves
as somehow above the Law. Above the Constitution. Applauded by those trying ever since the election to bring down a President.
Seditionists.
The last 30 years has been a complete disaster for US foreign diplomacy. We are being led by complete morons! Trump is a big step
in the right direction.
The fact is, it was a U.S. sponsored coup by the Obama administration that overthrew a democratically elected government in Ukraine.
Here is the Feb 2015 Obama CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria...note that Obama says 'Yanukovich fleeing AFTER we brokered a deal
to transition power in Ukraine'...incredible. Play
Hide
Why is it wrong and improper to know whether or not a presidential candidate's family was involved in corrupt dealings abroad?
But that's not even the question, because the issue of what Trump may or may not have done is not the real issue. DC is full of
corruption and none of it is ever punished, so we know that's not what they care about. What this is about is Trump's disagreement
with the establishment on Russia-Ukraine policy and the greater geopolitical picture. Thinking this is about some minutiae over
who said what on a phone call and what he mayor may not have really meant is naive and ignorant of the true nature of politics.
These situations are not compartmentalised, these have to be seen from the the big picture of geopolitics.
He sensible policy would be to Finlandize Ukraine and Byelorus. NATO would not have them as members and Russia would let them
pursue economic ties with Europe. This worked for Finland through put the Cold War and kept the region peaceful
This is the legacy of careerism within the Foreign Service. People get positions in which they live comfortably, attending all
the right parties and getting a sophisticated world view and seldom have any loyalty or accountability to the Commander in Chief.
That's a problem.
When Vindman claimed he was disturbed by what he heard, instead of following the chain of command, which he
invokes almost as often as his rank, he lawyers up. Why? Who is Vindman reporting to if not the President? Too many of these folks
act as if the change in administrations is merely a formality to which they can choose to embrace or not. Almost without exception,
we have seen testimony from people whose personal history is in the Russian/Ukraine theater and who have family and history there.
This is problematic. If anyone ever looked and sounded the part of a mole, it was Vindman today.
These maniacs are provoking nuclear war.
They fail to understand that, unlike 50 years ago when America had a decentralized industrial economy and banking system, 2
large nukes aimed at NYC and DC would destroy the country.
This is the only conservative site worth reading. I do love me some serious and deep analysis from Conservatives in important
geopolitical issues. God for a return to the days of Buckley. It would be glorious.
Fantastic analysis of the 3D chess game. But we are talking about Biden and Clinton so we need not overthink this. Obama gave
1 billion of taxpayer money to Ukraine. Ukraine gave Burisma some of that according the government of the UK. And once Burisma
was in receipt of our aid funds, millions flow through right back to the very same bad actors like Biden who directly controlled
the one billion in foreign aid. I wish this was more complicated. I wish it made Americans seem smarter. But to this old guy it
seems like a good old fashioned and very simple run of the mill scam . And in this scam the only person we know for fact cashed
the checks is Biden.
Come on Barr. It's time to do what we all know what needs to be done.
"But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that
the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18
trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6
trillion?"
An excellent question. The cold war is over. We won. We don't need to keep fighting it. Russia is not that much of a threat
to us.
Think about it. Our State Department has been in operation for well over 100 years in some form or another. Are we ANY safer?
Fire them all. No pension for failure.
For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.
Putin is a serious strategist – on the premises of Russian history. Understanding US values and psychology are not his strong
suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point among US policymakers.
-- Henry A. Kissinger in 2014 at the start of the Ukraine crisis (writing in the Washington Post.)
I cannot believe that the State Department was unaware of the intertwined history of Russia and the Ukraine or rather given State's
rigid worldview I can believe it. The Russians knew perfectly well that the United States was pulling the strings of the so-called
Maidan revolution and that the end would be to plant Nato and the EU right on Russia's doorstep.
Previous attempts to push Nato into parts of the south of the former Soviet empire had been fought off. Nothing could be more
predictable than that the Kremlin would do everything it could to oppose what it saw as hostile interference in the Ukraine on
behalf of "reformers". The US plays by the same rules. Cuba and the earlier Monroe doctrine are prize exhibits.
Obama slotted temperamentally into the State Department worldview or maybe it was the other way round. It was a worldview that
got the Middle East profoundly wrong at every turn including misundertanding the Arab Spring, support for the deeply anti-Western
Muslim Brotherhood, the appeasement and promotion of Iran, the abandonment of the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran, the destruction
of Libya as a going concern and how to tackle Syria. If there was an opportunity to get something wrong, Obama and the bow ties
managed it. They left behind a trail of wreckage.
Worst of all, Obama, the great opponent of nuclear proliferation, turned out to be its greatest enabler but ensured that he
would be long out of office when it happened and the media started asking "who lost Iran?" If Obama achieved one thing, it was
finally to kill off nuclear non-proliferation as a viable ambition. A nuclear Iran isn't just a threat to its neighours. It is
a direct missile threat to the EU which has happily collaborated in advancing Iranian power.
Unsurprisingiy, Trump rejected all this and it is for this that he is vilified by the foreign police dinosaurs who try to delude
the nation into believing that even when what they do ends in manifest disaster, there is no alternative. There is hardly a word
leaked by the foreign policy to the willingly ignorant media that is not a lie. The mess is theirs and they hate Trump for wakening
Americans up to their self-serving, somnolent incompetence.
The usual response to posts like this is to accuse the writer of being a traitrous Putin lover. On the contrary, know thy enemy.
The maxim doesn't mean have a beer with him. It means understand him.
Excellent statement of the "Thucydides trap" argument for caution regarding Russia and its traditional sphere of concern. But
Merry leaves us with a cliffhanger: what is the sound US Russian policy given his concerns and cautions? Moreover, his rendition
is vulnerable to a counterargument, namely, that Putin's Russia has gone far beyond the seizure or control of "protective lands"
towards an encirclement or menacing of Europe. This can be seen unfolding in Russia's military presence on Syria's (and potentially
Libya's) Mediterranean coast, its sale of weapons to Turkey, its connivance with Iran's Middle Eastern proxy wars, and the potential
for petro-blackmail of its energy customers. Add to this the affirmative case for European interest in Poland, whose capital Warsaw
is exposed to attack from its eastern and southern flanks just as Moscow is immediately threatened from its western and southern
flanks. Perhaps all this just confirms how far down the path to the "Thucydides trap" the principal parties have traveled. Yet,
all the same, on what grounds do we rationalize Russian inroads into the Mediterranean? Free navigation of the seas?
I like this article but Russia is no longer a declining power technically. It's GDP is slowly rising again in the last few years.
They did take a hit from sanctions and low oil prices but they are staring to recover to some degree.
Russians like Putin because their economy is much better now than it was during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The problem this country has with Russia is that they were a declining power and now are back on the rise. China is more of
a threat but the imbeciles in the establishment keep focusing on trying to undermine Russian security. They seem to really believe
Putin is their enemy without realizing the overwhelming majority of Russians have issues with our stupid foreign policy.
Google Russian GDP, especially through time, and you'll see what I mean.
Is it any wonder that the old foreign service establishment "embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and
dangerous"?
The foreign service exam of that era (probably no better today) tested substantially on ones knowledge of fiction: novels and
such. Rather like choosing career foreign service officers based on a person's performance in the entertainment trivia night at
the local watering hole. It was a test of memory not logic or insightfulness or historical perspective. These folks are not latter-day
De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer.
One thing that few appreciate is that US actions in the Ukraine in 2013/14 prompted Russian retaliation in the 2016 election.
The Russians had been playing by our rules. (Party of the Regions won a free and fair election in the Ukraine) and then we supported
a violent extra-constitutional takeover.The Obama administration wanted to see a repeat of the performance in Kiev, in Moscow
with Putin playing the part of Yanukovych. The Russian response was to attack the fault lines in American Society. Their ultimate
goal is to see the kind of rioting in the US that we had supported in Kiev in the Winter of 14.
American diplomacy has become dangerously simplistic and one-dimensional in outlook. Turkey bad, Kurds good. Iran bad, Israel
good. Russia bad, Ukraine and NATO good. You try talking with Russia, Iran or Turkey you'll be crucified in domestic politics.
Russia on the other hand doesn't have this simplistic view. They wisely recognize that the world is varying shades of gray.
Excellent piece. Bottom line: the Ukraine is within Russia's "sphere of influence", not ours. Not our problem. The last time a
major power attempted to insert itself within another country's sphere of influence was in 1962. Anybody remember the Cuban Missile
Crisis?
Mr. Merry is entitled to his point of view, but I find his remarks to be out of touch -- sort of like another "Chicken Kiev" speech
with the date "2019" slapped on it. Perhaps he would benefit from a couple of tours of duty in Kyiv, like George Kent and Bill
Taylor. Then he would appreciate the fact that the United States does have real interests in preserving Ukrainian sovereignty,
along with the independence of all the former Soviet states who have split off from Russia. He should also not be so quick to
characterize Kent's and Taylor's testimony. They were in Congress not to express a policy position on Russia, but to act as fact
witnesses to the potentially impeachable actions of the President and his circle. So, let's not get into conspiracy theories about
what "elites" believe. It's one short step from that to muttering darkly about the 'Deep State" and Comet Pizza.
Is it any wonder that the old foreign service establishment "embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and
dangerous"?
The foreign service exam of that era (probably no better today) tested substantially on ones knowledge of fiction: novels and
such.
Rather like choosing career foreign service officers based on a person's performance in the entertainment trivia night at the
local watering hole. It was a test of memory not logic or insightfulness or historical perspective. These folks are not latter-day
De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer.
"... It could be argued, perhaps, that an expansion of Russian influence in Ukraine could affect the vital interests of the rest of Europe, though that would hardly be inevitable. But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion? ..."
"... The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood. As he had it, Ukraine's turn to the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments." And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine. ..."
"... Thumbs up on the article - the valiant Ukraine facing perfidious Russia is a gross oversimplification. And as noted, the US is involved in this mess up to its eyeballs. ..."
"... Russia is associated with the image of the USSR which developed an alternative model to financial capitalism. Financial capitalism is collapsing for objective and totally unavoidable reasons. The search for an alternative will continue drawing more attention to Russia as a country that is, in principle, capable of offering an alternative development model. ..."
"... The disagreement IS over Ukraine policy, not this argument about what Trump may or may not have done. DC is full of corruption of all kinds, including in foreign policy, but no one is ever punished. So we know that is not the issue. ..."
"... I believe Stratfor, no friend of Russia and close to the neocon faction in American politics, described the 2014 coup as "the most blatant coup in history". ..."
"... This article is very good in detail, but they could also add that the first Minister of Finance in Ukraine's post-Maidan government was a literal US State Department official who was only then granted Ukrainian citizenship. Not surprisingly she also made Ukraine accept IMF loans, getting Ukraine into the IMF predatory lending/austerity scam. ..."
"... This is the legacy of careerism within the Foreign Service. People get positions in which they live comfortably, attending all the right parties and getting a sophisticated world view and seldom have any loyalty or accountability to the Commander in Chief. ..."
"... When Vindman claimed he was disturbed by what he heard, instead of following the chain of command, which he invokes almost as often as his rank, he lawyers up. ..."
he Wall Street Journal 's Peggy Noonan liked what she saw when U.S. diplomats George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr. went
before the House Intelligence Committee to give testimony as part of the ongoing impeachment drama. She saw them as "the old America
reasserting itself." They demonstrated "stature and command of their subject matter." They evinced "capability and integrity."
All true. Kent, with his bow tie and his family tradition of public service, appeared to be the very picture of the old-school
American foreign service official. And Taylor, with his exemplary West Point career, his Vietnam heroism, and his longtime national
service, seemed a throwback to the blunt-spoken American military men who gave us our World War II triumph and our rise to global
dominance.
But these men embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and dangerous. Perhaps no serious blame should accrue
to them, since it is the same geopolitical outlook embraced and enforced by pretty much the entire foreign policy establishment,
of which these men are mere loyal apparatchiks. And yet they are playing their part in pushing a foreign policy that is directing
America towards a very possible disaster.
Neither man manifested even an inkling of an understanding of what kind of game the United States in playing with Ukraine. Neither
gave even a nod to the long, complex relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Neither seemed to understand either the substance or
the intensity of Russia's geopolitical interests along its own borders or the likely consequences of increasing U.S. meddling in
what for centuries has been part of Russia's sphere of influence.
Both Taylor and Kent declared that America's vital national interest is wrapped up in Ukraine, though neither sought to explain
why in any substantive way. Spin out all the potential scenarios of Ukraine's fate and then ask whether any of them would materially
affect America's vital interests. Any affirmative answer would require elaborate contortions.
It could be argued, perhaps, that an expansion of Russian influence in Ukraine could affect the vital interests of the rest of
Europe, though that would hardly be inevitable. But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that the EU has
a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18 trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6 trillion?
The Taylor/Kent outlook stems from the widespread demonization of Russia that dominates thinking within elite circles. Taylor's
rendition of recent events in Ukraine was so one-sided and selective as to amount to a falsehood. As he had it, Ukraine's turn to
the West after 2009 (when he left the country after his first diplomatic tour there) threatened Russia's Vladimir Putin to such an
extent that he tried to "bribe" Ukraine's president with inducements to resist Western influence, whereupon protests emerged in Kyiv
that drove the Ukrainian president to flee the country in 2014. Then Putin invaded Crimea, holding a "sham referendum at the point
of Russian army rifles." Putin sent military forces into eastern Ukraine "to generate illegal armed formations and puppet governments."
And so the West extended military assistance to Ukraine.
"It is this security assistance," he said, "that is at the heart of the [impeachment] controversy that we are discussing today."
In contrast to this misleading rendition, here are the facts, with appropriate context.
In 1989 and 1990, the George H. W. Bush administration assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that if he accepted German unification,
the West would not seek to exploit the situation through any eastward expansion -- not even by "one inch," as then-secretary of state
James Baker assured Gorbachev. But Bill Clinton reneged on that commitment, moving to expand NATO on an eastward path that eventually
led right up to the Russian border.
NATO, with just 16 members in 1990, now includes 29 European states, with all of the expansion countries lying east of Germany.
As this was unfolding, Russian leaders issued stern warnings about the consequences if America and the West sought to include in
NATO either Ukraine or Georgia. Both are considered as fundamental to Russian security.
As Nikolas K. Gvosdev of the U.S. Naval War College has written, Russia and Ukraine share a 1,500-mile border where Ukraine "nestles
up against the soft underbelly of the Russian Federation." Gvosdev elaborates: "The worst nightmare of the Russian General Staff
would be NATO forces deployed all along this frontier, which would put the core of Russia's population and industrial capacity at
risk of being quickly and suddenly overrun in the event of any conflict." Beyond that crucial strategic concern, the two countries
share strong economic, trade, cultural, ethnic, and language ties going back centuries. No Russian leader of any stripe would survive
as leader if he or she were to allow Ukraine to be wrested fully from Russia's sphere of influence.
And yet America, in furtherance of the ultimate aim of pulling Ukraine away from Russia, spent some $5 billion in a campaign to
gin up pro-Western sentiment there, according to former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who spearheaded
much of this effort during the Obama administration. It was clearly a blatant effort to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign
nation -- and a nation residing in a delicate and easily inflamed part of the world.
But Ukraine is a tragically divided nation, with many of its people drawn to the West while others feel greater ties to Russia.
The late Samuel Huntington of Harvard called Ukraine "a cleft country, with two distinct cultures." Contrary to Taylor's false portrayal
of an aggressive Russia trampling on eastern Ukrainians by setting up puppet governments and manufacturing a bogus referendum in
Crimea, the reality is that large numbers of Ukrainians there favor Russia and feel loyalty to what they consider their Russian heritage.
The Crimean public is 70 percent Russian, and its Parliament in 1992 actually voted to declare independence from Ukraine for fear
that the national leadership would nudge the country toward the West. (The vote was later rescinded to avoid a violent national confrontation.)
In 1994, Crimea elected a president who had campaigned on a platform of "unity with Russia."
True, many in western Ukraine have pushed for greater ties to the West and wanted their elected president, Viktor Yanukovych,
to respond favorably to Western financial blandishments. But Yanukovych, tilting toward Russia, eschewed NATO membership for Ukraine,
renewed a long-term lease for the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, and gave official status to the Russian language. These
actions eased tensions between Ukraine and Russia, but they inflamed Ukraine's internal politics. And when Yanukovych abandoned negotiations
aimed at an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union in favor of greater economic ties to Russia, pro-Western
Ukrainians, including far-right provocateurs, staged street protests that ultimately brought down Yanukovych's government. Victoria
Nuland gleefully egged on the protesters. The deposed president fled to Russia.
Nuland then set about determining who would be Ukraine's next prime minister, namely Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is our guy," she
declared to U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. When Pyatt warned that many EU countries were uncomfortable with a Ukrainian
coup, she shot back, "Fuck the EU." She then got her man Yats into the prime minister position, demonstrating the influence that
enables U.S. meddling in foreign countries.
That's when Putin rushed back to Moscow from the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi to protect the more Russian-oriented areas of Ukraine
(the so-called Donbass in the country's east and Crimea in the south) from being swallowed up in this new drama. He orchestrated
a plebiscite in Crimea, which revealed strong sentiment for reunification with Russia (hardly the "sham referendum" described by
Taylor) and sent significant military support to Donbass Ukrainians who didn't want to be pulled westward.
The West and America have always been, and must remain, wary of Russia. Its position in the center of Eurasia -- the global "heartland,"
in the view of the famous British geographic scholar Halford Mackinder -- renders it always a potential threat. Its vulnerability
to invasion stirs in Russian leaders an inevitable hunger for protective lands. Its national temperament seems to include a natural
tendency towards authoritarianism. Any sound American foreign policy must keep these things in mind.
But in the increasingly tense relationship between the Atlantic Alliance and Russia, the Alliance has been the more aggressive
player -- aggressive when it pushed for NATO's eastward expansion despite promises to the contrary from the highest levels of the
U.S. government; aggressive when it turned that policy into an even more provocative plan for the encirclement of Russia; aggressive
when it dangled the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia; aggressive when it sought to lure Ukraine out of the Russian
orbit with economic incentives; aggressive when it helped foster the street coup against a duly elected Ukrainian government; and
aggressive in its continued refusal to appreciate or acknowledge Russia's legitimate geopolitical interests in its own neighborhood.
George Kent and William B. Taylor Jr., in their testimony last week, personified this aggressive outlook, designed to squeeze
Russia into a geopolitical corner and trample upon its regional interests in the name of Western universalism. If that outlook continues
and leads to ever greater tensions with Russia, it can't end well.
American diplomacy is rather reminiscent of German diplomacy in 1917, in that expanding NATO into Ukraine and the Baltics is as
stupidly provocative to Moscow as the Zimmerman Telegram was to the US. Zimmerman's offer was incredibly stupid since it provoked
a US declaration of war but Germany had absolutely no way to provide Mexico any material assistance. Neither will NATO be providing
any real assistance to Ukraine or the Baltic states if the balloon goes up -- today's Bundeswehr is not your grandfathers Wehrmacht.
True. The stupidity of US policy toward Russia can only be defeated by stupidity of the limitrophus of Eastern Europe, like Poland
or the Baltic states. If "balloon goes up" they will be first to evaporate.
Thumbs up on the article - the valiant Ukraine facing perfidious Russia is a gross oversimplification. And as noted, the US is
involved in this mess up to its eyeballs. The first person to speak out publicly was the former diplomat (and godfather of "Containment")
George Kennan. In his last public comment, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times warning against pushing NATO to the East as
a policy guaranteed to cause Russian fear and resentment. In the early years of the century, Mikhail Gorbachev - no friend of
Putin's - accused the West of trying to treat Russia like a third rate nation. It is sad that the "deep state" maneuvers against
Trump (up and running early enough to destroy Paul Manafort) derailed Trump's plans to talk openly with Putin and thus earn him
the blind hatred of John Brennan. The rest is history.
You need a foreign policy update. Ukraine and Europe are not longer our problems. They have grown ideologically distant and opposed
to US interests, which is self interest and transactional foreign policy now. The days of "altruistic" foreign policy are over
with. Marshall died long ago.
This is totally inaccurate. The current Russian system is not socialist, and it certainly has problems with corruption, but it
is opposed to the Western establishment and it is promoting a traditional Christian and nationalist outlook as opposed to the
liberal globalism of the Western elites. It is better than the alternative at the moment, and in a sense Putin, especially
his foreign policy , is executing the will of the people in Russia. Conservatives opposed Russia up until Trump because both
sides are controlled by the same Western establishment, which has been pursuing an anti-Russian agenda for a long time. They do
not want any resistance to their liberal world order.
"Democracy" is a lie and a fraud, Plato knew this 4,000 years ago, and "class consciousness" is only real in the sense that
the current situation in the West has an elite that is going against the interests of the people. I don't see how defending Russia
is "undermining class conscientious," actually arguing against the anti-Russian warmongering is a good thing. What "Russian state
attacks" are you talking about?
"To see US conservatives defending an autocracy reflects they have embraced those fascistic principles."
Do you even know how conservatism and the terms right and left wing originated? Conservatism and the right wing are terms that
are from the French Revolution, used to describe supporters of the Catholic French Monarchy of the Bourbons while the liberals
or the left were the revolutionaries. Historically Conservatives defended European Christian monarchies while the liberals always
wanted to overthrow throne and altar to replace them with secular democratic republics. In fact there is nothing more conservative
than autocracy, namely a Church-anointed monarchy. Americanism, or the ideology of the American founding fathers, was inherently
liberal. They were in revolt against the monarchy of their time. There is nothing conservative about democracy, it's quite to
the contrary. Autocracy is not "fascistic," that term is completely irrelevant in this historical context.
"Seeing similar headlines from opposite political poles exposes a 'horseshoe' phenomenon of left/right ideologies in which
the two poles are close together in significant contexts."
Are you really going to be so grug brained as to unironically bring up the horseshoe theory? Looks like we have a big brained
intellectual centrist over here. Not even worth giving an in depth analysis on this one.
Good comment. The Monarchists sat on the right side of the French assembly and the revolutionaries sat on the left. That is how
the modern spectrum morphed into Fascism (corporate state) on the right and Communism (revolutionary) on the left.
I've actually been to Russia, twice in the last year and a half, and I had a chance to meet and to converse with, and to hear
from, Russians of all sorts: academics, students, politicians, government employees, businessmen, environmentalists, scientists,
and journalists.
Based on what I saw and heard, I categorically reject your statement that Russians "are not all that free to express their
opinion."
I heard from people who are well known in Russia who disagree with Putin. I heard criticisms of the government from people
who are not well known, or who are just average people. People note that corruption is still a problem, at many levels of society
and government, but they did not seem at all reticent to make that point.
No one displayed any fear or reluctance to express his views. At the same time, Russians acknowledge a great deal of improvement
since the tragedy of the Yeltsin years.
And while there are people who criticize the government's domestic policies, they tend to be much more in support of what the
government under Putin has accomplished in terms of foreign policy. And that seems to me to be a very rational reaction.
First off I am Russian myself. Most people are in favour of an authoritarian government, nobody cares about or wants democracy.
Monarchist restoration would be ideal but Putin is good enough for now. Free press and elections are a fraud and a lie, as I said.
First of all, show me one single state on the planet today which is pro working class. Secondly, juxtaposing the concepts of working
class and fascism is just a demonstration of how badly you know the history. Suffice it to say that the set of political views
deriving from the ideas of Mussolini are called right-wing socialism. Hence, your ignorance of history logically begets that of
today's politics. No, Trump and Putin cannot be called truly pro working class. But they're at least are not so blatantly anti
working class as neolibs who oppose them.
Russia is associated with the image of the USSR which developed an alternative model to financial capitalism. Financial capitalism
is collapsing for objective and totally unavoidable reasons. The search for an alternative will continue drawing more attention
to Russia as a country that is, in principle, capable of offering an alternative development model.
Except that isn't what this is about. The disagreement IS over Ukraine policy, not this argument about what Trump may or may not
have done. DC is full of corruption of all kinds, including in foreign policy, but no one is ever punished. So we know that is
not the issue.
But we do know from the testimonies that they oppose Trump BECAUSE he changed Ukraine policy away from the policy of confrontation
with Russia, or tried to. They are all against that and against Trump doing that, as they said. The entire establishment has opposed
Trump on this since he got elected. So let's not be disingenuous. This charade has gone on long enough. The elites want their
proxy war with Russia.
1. From my perspective, the article is saying that our Ukraine policy is immoral, not that the impeachment is not founded.
2. Further to 1. above, your pizza analogy doesn't hold up. If pizza is bad for you, eating pizza harm nobody but the eater
and the eater's insurers.
By contrast, our Ukraine policy is the support of actual live Nazis and has resulted in the deaths of numerous innocents, not
to mention the economic destruction of Ukraine.
This is more like providing one pizza company weapons and support, knowing full well that they will use those weapons and cash
to murder rivals and customers who order from those rivals.
The good news is that the influence of apparatchiks like Mr. Kent and Mr. Taylor will be at an end within a few years. America
thought the blood of hundreds of thousands of foreign children was a "fair price" to pay for the dollar's continued role as a
reserve currency (Madeleine Albright's words) and cheaper gas at the pump. The effort was a bust. Endless trillion-dollar-a-year
deficits will come to an end quickly. There isn't that much liquidity in the private sphere to sop up at the price the U.S. Gov
can afford.
Americans have forgotten how much money a billion dollars is, much less a trillion: to wit, the Democrats future plans are
priced in dozens of trillions of dollars. Is it even possible to count that high (given that no one has any real idea how the
economy will react)?
Boomers destroyed the country. It only took one "me" generation to introduce such deep structural instability that there is
no recovery. Really, does anyone think a trillion dollars a year of demand can ever be pulled out of the economy? No. Does anyone
really think a trillion dollars a year will magically appear for free, from nowhere, for a decade or more? The intelligentsia
will reap the fruit of its effort within a few years. And it will be dried cat food for dinner. Bless them!
What "actual bloody invasion" of Ukraine and Georgia. Georgia attacked South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, and got a bloody nose
for their trouble. They didn't lose any territory however, which is odd, if Russia were the attacker.
If Russia had actually invaded Ukraine, the Ukrainian clown army would be obliterated in days or hours. Note how there are
some 500 miles of open border between Donbass and Sumskaya Oblast - but no fighting? Do you think that the Russian military doesn't
know the geography of their own border?
Ukraine was already devided before it separated from USSR. People from western Ukraine called Russians and eastern Ukrainians
moskali. Eastern Ukraine spoke mostly Russian, western Ukraine spoke mostly Ukrainian. I believe tension escalated after Russia
was about to loose access to the Black Sea and its navy there. Sorry. That was a big mistake to even think that it would happen
easy. Russia annexed Crimea from Ottoman Empire in 18th century. Since then it was part of Russia. Khrushchev transferred it to
Ukrainian republic in 1954. You seriously believe that Russia would easy let it go after almost 2 centuries of its presence there?
Big chunk of Russian history associated with Black Sea Fleet.
The invasions were in response to them trying to acquire NATO memberships and NATO egging then on to do this and provoke Russia.
If they remain in the Russian sphere than that would not be a problem.
NATO goes where it was warned not to go, provokes the response it knew it would get, and claims that this is "aggression."
What a joke.
There was no "Russian meddling", that was debunked. There is no evidence that the DNC was hacked and the so called troll farm
had no connection to the Russian government and was merely a business marketing firm selling advertising space on their social
media pages.
Russia doesn't poison dissidents in foreign countries, if you are referring to the Skripal case, that narrative has fallen
apart, multiple journalists have written lengthy pieces about all of the inconsistencies and contradictions in the UK government's
narrative. Not to mention Yulia Skripal said she's still wants to go back to Russia, so clearly she doesn't think Russia poisoned
her.
We do have evidence to the show the opposite. The only ones who examined the DNC servers are a firm that was caught lying about
Russian hacking before and is owned by a Ukrainian millionaire that donated to the Clinton Foundation. Can't get more damning
than that.
What are you even talking about? The DNC refused to allow the server to be examined because they know there was no Russian hacking,
and why would Trump privately ask Zelensky to investigate Ukraine's role in all of this if he knew he were guilty? The point is
there is no evidence to prove Russian hacking, and the only claims come from a firm that is owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who
has been caught lying about Russian hacking before and donated millions to the Clinton Foundation.
How much mental gymnastics are you going to use to try to pretend like you don't understand?
Which is more aggressive, do you think -- invading one's neighbors, or "dangling the prospect of NATO membership" for them?
The US engineered and supported a coup in Ukraine to overthrow the constitutional government. Is this aggression? It seems
so to me. It certainly preceded any Russian response. As far as NATO membership for Ukraine, polls of Ukrainian opinion long before
the Maidan showed very strong feeling against Ukraine joining NATO.
I believe, when all facts fail, that the way through to some would be pointing out the absurdities of what they hear therefore
think. It might make them think twice before publicly embarassing themselves.
The Western actions are more aggressive, because they actually happened...
Russia's annexation of the Crimea was bloodless, and doubtless spared it the carnage that the regime in Kiev wrought in Donbass.
America's movements since the end of the Cold War have been consistently offensive in nature, and Russia's consistently defensive
in nature.
That defense has included counterattacks, feints, and opportunistic thrusts. In every 'attack' it made, Russia was reacting,
not taking the initiative.For their part the liberal hegemonists know what they're doing. Good PR is priceless, and they know it's essential for offensive
movements to not appear that way.
Problem is, you liberals are still unable to prove a single allegation of those you uttered in your comment.
How come the previous Ukrainian government didn't manage to beg one single satellite pic of, say, Russian tanks crossing their
border from the CIA or the DIA, given the purported "bloody invasion"? Russian armored vehicles have some cloaking devices or
what?
How come the Mueller's so-called "investigation" turned out to be such a pathetic juridical failure, given the purported "direct
meddling"?
What a naive poor dear one has to be to believe in poisonings with radioactive substances (as dangerous to the poisoner as
to his victim) in a world where poisons causing deaths looking like those from natural causes exist and are available to all secret
services (and even to private citizens having talents in chemistry)?
Plus, careful with (ab)using upper case. "Democratical countries" with a capital "D" reads like "countries, whose governments
are proxies of the Democratic Party". Blame Freud and his slips.
I love people like you. I mean since we were invaded by Germany, Napoleon, Charles the Tenth of Sweden, the Teutonic Knights,
the Golden Horde (Ghengis Khan started this), at the cost of countless millions of lives lost, I sense that we- as Americans-
have every need to push our frontiers to Russia's doorstep.
You demonstrate a phenomenal ignorance of Historical perspective: exactly the cannon fodder the establishment's looking for.
Nice and sober account. One detail that might be significant. Until 1954, Crimea was part of the Russian Federation (the Russian
State has wrestled that territory from the Tatars/Mongols and Ottomans more than 200 years before and fought for it against the
united Europe in 1850s). And Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian, had bestowed Crimea in an unsanctioned administrative decision to
the then Ukrainian Socialist Republic in 1954.
Ukraine as a state is pretty much a creation of Russia and instead of being grateful for their extensive statehood, elements
in Ukraine would rather bite the hand that made them.
Lots of people all over the world get up and go to work. They do it in democracies, autocracies, and countries that are somewhere
in between. In fact, the United States is losing its position as global economic hegemon in large part because the Chinese (no
democracy there) are harder working than Americans.
The United States currency has value for two reasons - inside the United States, it's the only way you can pay taxes. Outside
the United States, the gulfie tyrannies only accept dollars for international sales of oil.
$5 billion thrown down the Ukraine rat hole. It is too bad that the money wasn't spent providing better care for our wounded veterans.
Watch the video "Delay, Deny, Hope They Die". As one of the very few, perhaps only, commentater who has criticized Victoria Nuland's
role in the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, I have made many of the same points in recent days.
You know that is dishonest. This has nothing to do with what Trump tried to tell Zelensky, and anyway the US and Ukraine do in
fact have a treaty from 1998 that mandates them to cooperate on law enforcement matters. DC is full of corruption but none of
it is ever punished, so we know that is not the issue.
This is all about Trump's desire to end the proxy war with Russia. That is all this is about ultimately. Looking at the big
picture, that is a large part of the reason why the establishment wants to delegitimization him or remove Trump from office. This
phone call scandal is nothing more than the latest tactical move to get there. If you don't see that, and you genuinely think
that this is merely about Trump asking Zelensky to investigate something and get caught up in the minutiae of that, you are simply
naive and don't understand the true nature of politics. Think about the big picture.
A proxy war is nice cover for weapons smuggling. I've postulated for awhile now that Benghazi is the key to Deep State. Ask yourself
why the Obama administration allowed Stevens and his cohorts to die when there was ample air and naval power nearby. What did
he stumble upon? I think it was a vast smuggling operation designed to support Muslim Bros. and Al Shabbab-both of whom later
attacked US assets and who continue to worry the region with their raids of kidnappings, rapes and mass murders that go largely
unreported in the US press. There's a reason why so many liberals her and abroad claim to support open borders and it has nothing
to do with humanitarian goals and everything to do with an organized global crime group who is using sievelike borders to allow
drugs, fake licensed products, fake pharmaceuticals, weapons and even humans to become trade goods. People should really ask why
Democrats refuse to stop this. Europeans should ask who is getting rich off of unchecked migration of indigent people.
1. The military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify their exorbitant budgets.
2. The spooks need a Big Enemy to justify Big Brother and also their increasingly open interference in domestic politics.
3. The people who run things need a distraction, lest the masses start to demand the sorts of reforms that would take money
out of rich people's pockets. A Big Enemy does this just fine.
Russia makes a better Big Enemy than does China, for US business is already too intertwined with China and its supply chains
reach deeply into that country. Any disruption to those links would cost a lot of money.
TAC has been doing great work covering the Ukraine.
Even so-called conservatives play along with the mainstream media's and establishment's narrative, with the likes of NRO's
warmongering neocons, such as the Jay Nordlinger, constantly banging-on about poor little Ukraine being a "struggling democracy"
in need, rather than a deeply divided and failed state that perhaps should never have existed in its present borders as a "sovereign
nation." The best solution for the Ukraine would probably be to split it into two, with Eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula
perhaps just becoming part of Greater Russia.
I believe Stratfor, no friend of Russia and close to the neocon faction in American politics, described the 2014 coup as "the
most blatant coup in history".
Exactly. This article is very good in detail, but they could also add that the first Minister of Finance in Ukraine's post-Maidan
government was a literal US State Department official who was only then granted Ukrainian citizenship. Not surprisingly she also
made Ukraine accept IMF loans, getting Ukraine into the IMF predatory lending/austerity scam.
FYI, the advocates for intervening in the Ukraine are the ones accusing Pres Putin
1. with invading Crimea -- false
2. interfering with US elections -- sabotage an offense that certainly means war -- unfounded
3. that the Russians and the President operated in as collaborators in sabotaging US election also false
this president in response signed a document that the Russians did spy and further implemented the worst sanctions to date
against Russia despite the lack of evidence
as it is that Pres. Putin is certainly not being excused -- ;laugh - not even from things he has not been proved to have done
:Laugh ---
It's like when the police say you did something but can't prove it so they get some others to say you did it because they know
you did it
-even there's no evidence you did.
If you don't understand just review the SP Mueller investigation and the subsequent impeachment inquiry -- this is not new
game for anyone familiar with prosecutor methods.
This is true, all of this could have easily been avoided if the US stopped meddling and withdrew its troops from the former USSR.
People like Taylor and Kent show there is an agenda to start a war with Russia. Hopefully the upcoming Ukraine-Russia peace summit
can settle this conflict.
1. The military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify their exorbitant budgets.
2. The spooks need a Big Enemy to justify Big Brother and also their increasingly open interference in domestic politics.
3. The people who run things need a distraction, lest the masses start to demand the sorts of reforms that would take money
out of rich people's pockets. A Big Enemy does this just fine.
Russia makes a better Big Enemy than does China, for US business is already too intertwined with China and its supply chains
reach deeply into that country. Any disruption to those links would cost a lot of money.
TAC has been doing great work covering the Ukraine.
Even so-called conservatives play along with the mainstream media's and establishment's narrative, with the likes of NRO's
warmongering neocons, such as the Jay Nordlinger, constantly banging-on about poor little Ukraine being a "struggling democracy"
in need, rather than a deeply divided and failed state that perhaps should never have existed in its present borders as a "sovereign
nation." The best solution for the Ukraine would probably be to split it into two, with Eastern Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula
perhaps just becoming part of Greater Russia.
FYI, the advocates for intervening in the Ukraine are the ones accusing Pres Putin
1. with invading Crimea -- false
2. interfering with US elections -- sabotage an offense that certainly means war -- unfounded
3. that the Russians and the President operated in as collaborators in sabotaging US election also false
this president in response signed a document that the Russians did spy and further implemented the worst sanctions to date
against Russia despite the lack of evidence
as it is that Pres. Putin is certainly not being excused -- ;laugh - not even from things he has not been proved to have done
:Laugh ---
It's like when the police say you did something but can't prove it so they get some others to say you did it because they know
you did it
-even there's no evidence you did.
If you don't understand just review the SP Mueller investigation and the subsequent impeachment inquiry -- this is not new
game for anyone familiar with prosecutor methods.
That's a strawman and there's nothing to refute, the article is correct. Because the US government and CFR globalist thinkers
like Zbigniew Brzezinski, George Friedman, and George Soros have talked about the geopolitical importance of Ukraine since the
1990s -- read Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard from 1996, where talks about the need for the US to take control of Ukraine from Russia
to prevent Russia from becoming a great power that can challenge US global hegemony, or Soros' admission on a 60 Minutes interview
from 1998 that he has invested billions in Ukraine, particularly in the Ukrainian military. As Brzezinski says, the US was quick
to recognise the geopolitical importance of an independent Ukrainian state, and became one of Ukraine's strongest backers in the
1990s for this reason. Globalist plans for Ukraine go back many years.
Polls before the Maidan show most Ukrainians had a very positive image of Russia as well, and increasingly people in Ukraine
are getting tired of the war, which is why they voted massively for Zelensky over Poroshenko.
When I look at our foreign policy, before Trump, you have to go back to Reagan to have any semblance of policy based in reality.
While Trump is kinda of a bull in a china shop, at least he highlights some of the asinine policies the 'experts' have been pursuing.
Russia's objection to US and EU interference into Ukrainian politics makes as much sense as US objection. would if Russia were
in Mexico attempting to draw them into a confederation with Moscow.
He may be as immoral as hell. Most of them, R or D, are, in case you haven't noticed. The fact is, there's still no factual evidence
he committed any impeachable in this specific case.
So, if the employees of the government who are involved in international affairs do not agree with the President, the President
is accused of an impeachable offense? These two are not patriots in the usual sense. Nor are they public servants. They see themselves
as somehow above the Law. Above the Constitution. Applauded by those trying ever since the election to bring down a President.
Seditionists.
The last 30 years has been a complete disaster for US foreign diplomacy. We are being led by complete morons! Trump is a big step
in the right direction.
The fact is, it was a U.S. sponsored coup by the Obama administration that overthrew a democratically elected government in Ukraine.
Here is the Feb 2015 Obama CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria...note that Obama says 'Yanukovich fleeing AFTER we brokered a deal
to transition power in Ukraine'...incredible. Play
Hide
Why is it wrong and improper to know whether or not a presidential candidate's family was involved in corrupt dealings abroad?
But that's not even the question, because the issue of what Trump may or may not have done is not the real issue. DC is full of
corruption and none of it is ever punished, so we know that's not what they care about. What this is about is Trump's disagreement
with the establishment on Russia-Ukraine policy and the greater geopolitical picture. Thinking this is about some minutiae over
who said what on a phone call and what he mayor may not have really meant is naive and ignorant of the true nature of politics.
These situations are not compartmentalised, these have to be seen from the the big picture of geopolitics.
He sensible policy would be to Finlandize Ukraine and Byelorus. NATO would not have them as members and Russia would let them
pursue economic ties with Europe. This worked for Finland through put the Cold War and kept the region peaceful
This is the legacy of careerism within the Foreign Service. People get positions in which they live comfortably, attending all
the right parties and getting a sophisticated world view and seldom have any loyalty or accountability to the Commander in Chief.
That's a problem.
When Vindman claimed he was disturbed by what he heard, instead of following the chain of command, which he
invokes almost as often as his rank, he lawyers up. Why? Who is Vindman reporting to if not the President? Too many of these folks
act as if the change in administrations is merely a formality to which they can choose to embrace or not. Almost without exception,
we have seen testimony from people whose personal history is in the Russian/Ukraine theater and who have family and history there.
This is problematic. If anyone ever looked and sounded the part of a mole, it was Vindman today.
These maniacs are provoking nuclear war.
They fail to understand that, unlike 50 years ago when America had a decentralized industrial economy and banking system, 2
large nukes aimed at NYC and DC would destroy the country.
This is the only conservative site worth reading. I do love me some serious and deep analysis from Conservatives in important
geopolitical issues. God for a return to the days of Buckley. It would be glorious.
Fantastic analysis of the 3D chess game. But we are talking about Biden and Clinton so we need not overthink this. Obama gave
1 billion of taxpayer money to Ukraine. Ukraine gave Burisma some of that according the government of the UK. And once Burisma
was in receipt of our aid funds, millions flow through right back to the very same bad actors like Biden who directly controlled
the one billion in foreign aid. I wish this was more complicated. I wish it made Americans seem smarter. But to this old guy it
seems like a good old fashioned and very simple run of the mill scam . And in this scam the only person we know for fact cashed
the checks is Biden.
Come on Barr. It's time to do what we all know what needs to be done.
"But cannot Europe handle any such threat vis-a-vis Russia, given that
the EU has a population of 512 million and a GDP of $18
trillion -- compared to Russia's population of 145 million and GDP of $1.6
trillion?"
An excellent question. The cold war is over. We won. We don't need to keep fighting it. Russia is not that much of a threat
to us.
Think about it. Our State Department has been in operation for well over 100 years in some form or another. Are we ANY safer?
Fire them all. No pension for failure.
For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.
Putin is a serious strategist – on the premises of Russian history. Understanding US values and psychology are not his strong
suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point among US policymakers.
-- Henry A. Kissinger in 2014 at the start of the Ukraine crisis (writing in the Washington Post.)
I cannot believe that the State Department was unaware of the intertwined history of Russia and the Ukraine or rather given State's
rigid worldview I can believe it. The Russians knew perfectly well that the United States was pulling the strings of the so-called
Maidan revolution and that the end would be to plant Nato and the EU right on Russia's doorstep.
Previous attempts to push Nato into parts of the south of the former Soviet empire had been fought off. Nothing could be more
predictable than that the Kremlin would do everything it could to oppose what it saw as hostile interference in the Ukraine on
behalf of "reformers". The US plays by the same rules. Cuba and the earlier Monroe doctrine are prize exhibits.
Obama slotted temperamentally into the State Department worldview or maybe it was the other way round. It was a worldview that
got the Middle East profoundly wrong at every turn including misundertanding the Arab Spring, support for the deeply anti-Western
Muslim Brotherhood, the appeasement and promotion of Iran, the abandonment of the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran, the destruction
of Libya as a going concern and how to tackle Syria. If there was an opportunity to get something wrong, Obama and the bow ties
managed it. They left behind a trail of wreckage.
Worst of all, Obama, the great opponent of nuclear proliferation, turned out to be its greatest enabler but ensured that he
would be long out of office when it happened and the media started asking "who lost Iran?" If Obama achieved one thing, it was
finally to kill off nuclear non-proliferation as a viable ambition. A nuclear Iran isn't just a threat to its neighours. It is
a direct missile threat to the EU which has happily collaborated in advancing Iranian power.
Unsurprisingiy, Trump rejected all this and it is for this that he is vilified by the foreign police dinosaurs who try to delude
the nation into believing that even when what they do ends in manifest disaster, there is no alternative. There is hardly a word
leaked by the foreign policy to the willingly ignorant media that is not a lie. The mess is theirs and they hate Trump for wakening
Americans up to their self-serving, somnolent incompetence.
The usual response to posts like this is to accuse the writer of being a traitrous Putin lover. On the contrary, know thy enemy.
The maxim doesn't mean have a beer with him. It means understand him.
Excellent statement of the "Thucydides trap" argument for caution regarding Russia and its traditional sphere of concern. But
Merry leaves us with a cliffhanger: what is the sound US Russian policy given his concerns and cautions? Moreover, his rendition
is vulnerable to a counterargument, namely, that Putin's Russia has gone far beyond the seizure or control of "protective lands"
towards an encirclement or menacing of Europe. This can be seen unfolding in Russia's military presence on Syria's (and potentially
Libya's) Mediterranean coast, its sale of weapons to Turkey, its connivance with Iran's Middle Eastern proxy wars, and the potential
for petro-blackmail of its energy customers. Add to this the affirmative case for European interest in Poland, whose capital Warsaw
is exposed to attack from its eastern and southern flanks just as Moscow is immediately threatened from its western and southern
flanks. Perhaps all this just confirms how far down the path to the "Thucydides trap" the principal parties have traveled. Yet,
all the same, on what grounds do we rationalize Russian inroads into the Mediterranean? Free navigation of the seas?
I like this article but Russia is no longer a declining power technically. It's GDP is slowly rising again in the last few years.
They did take a hit from sanctions and low oil prices but they are staring to recover to some degree.
Russians like Putin because their economy is much better now than it was during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The problem this country has with Russia is that they were a declining power and now are back on the rise. China is more of
a threat but the imbeciles in the establishment keep focusing on trying to undermine Russian security. They seem to really believe
Putin is their enemy without realizing the overwhelming majority of Russians have issues with our stupid foreign policy.
Google Russian GDP, especially through time, and you'll see what I mean.
Is it any wonder that the old foreign service establishment "embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and
dangerous"?
The foreign service exam of that era (probably no better today) tested substantially on ones knowledge of fiction: novels and
such. Rather like choosing career foreign service officers based on a person's performance in the entertainment trivia night at
the local watering hole. It was a test of memory not logic or insightfulness or historical perspective. These folks are not latter-day
De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer.
One thing that few appreciate is that US actions in the Ukraine in 2013/14 prompted Russian retaliation in the 2016 election.
The Russians had been playing by our rules. (Party of the Regions won a free and fair election in the Ukraine) and then we supported
a violent extra-constitutional takeover.The Obama administration wanted to see a repeat of the performance in Kiev, in Moscow
with Putin playing the part of Yanukovych. The Russian response was to attack the fault lines in American Society. Their ultimate
goal is to see the kind of rioting in the US that we had supported in Kiev in the Winter of 14.
American diplomacy has become dangerously simplistic and one-dimensional in outlook. Turkey bad, Kurds good. Iran bad, Israel
good. Russia bad, Ukraine and NATO good. You try talking with Russia, Iran or Turkey you'll be crucified in domestic politics.
Russia on the other hand doesn't have this simplistic view. They wisely recognize that the world is varying shades of gray.
Excellent piece. Bottom line: the Ukraine is within Russia's "sphere of influence", not ours. Not our problem. The last time a
major power attempted to insert itself within another country's sphere of influence was in 1962. Anybody remember the Cuban Missile
Crisis?
Mr. Merry is entitled to his point of view, but I find his remarks to be out of touch -- sort of like another "Chicken Kiev" speech
with the date "2019" slapped on it. Perhaps he would benefit from a couple of tours of duty in Kyiv, like George Kent and Bill
Taylor. Then he would appreciate the fact that the United States does have real interests in preserving Ukrainian sovereignty,
along with the independence of all the former Soviet states who have split off from Russia. He should also not be so quick to
characterize Kent's and Taylor's testimony. They were in Congress not to express a policy position on Russia, but to act as fact
witnesses to the potentially impeachable actions of the President and his circle. So, let's not get into conspiracy theories about
what "elites" believe. It's one short step from that to muttering darkly about the 'Deep State" and Comet Pizza.
Is it any wonder that the old foreign service establishment "embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and
dangerous"?
The foreign service exam of that era (probably no better today) tested substantially on ones knowledge of fiction: novels and
such.
Rather like choosing career foreign service officers based on a person's performance in the entertainment trivia night at the
local watering hole. It was a test of memory not logic or insightfulness or historical perspective. These folks are not latter-day
De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer.
Victoria Nuland is a storybook kind of name you could hang on an actress. It's a good fit
for the reigning princess of an over the rainbow place where rulers are wise and peasants are
prosperous. If such a Eurotopia doesn't already exist, well, it ought to and it can.
Euro-crats just have to change course and put subjects of the realm on the path to
enlightenment. That's a route you can only traverse, incidentally, by shutting up and keeping
the hind quarters of an enlightened one in front of you for the trip.
In the real world Madame Nuland is an employee of the US State Department who, for the
time being, goes by the title Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs. Her
magnetism is metaphysically bipolar. It magically keeps Democrats and Republicans equally
attracted. All that charm can throw circuit breakers when she try's turning it on foreigners
and reporters. The lady made her splash into the annals of international intrigue after a
phone call to the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, was recorded by a third party and
put on YouTube in February 2014. "I think we are in play," Pyatt declares, from there he and
the boss picked who else got to play, and who didn't, in Ukraine's interim government. They
didn't seem to notice the elected one was still in office.
Only 2 months before Nuland bragged to Ukrainians about the 5.5 billion America invested
to purchase democracy for the ex-SSR. In the private phone discussion it sounded more like
all that scratch went to taking political decisions out of the hands of 44 million people. "I
don't think Klitsch should go into the government," Nuland monarchically decides, "I don't
think it's necessary. I don't think it's a good idea" "I think Yats (banker Arseniy
Yatsenyuk) is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience."
The mainstream press didn't make much of the un-democratic scheming going on at the time.
The Assistant Secretary colorfully distracted the world from the substance of the
conversation with the line: "Fuck the EU." Americans weren't offended. They take their
princesses with a pinch of salt these days.
Ladies who speak for the US Diplomatic corps are just as good faking hypersensitivity as
any man. Jen Psaki called the leaked call "a new low in Russian tradecraft." News of NSA
listening in on their private conversations still kept foreign leaders distant and surly in
early 2014. Psaki must have meant that our side would never stoop to spilling dirt that juicy
to the rabble. Only a madman shares the fruits of "tradecraft" with all those little nobodies
plying trades. Free world rulers need freedom from scrutiny. Otherwise the governed classes
might get the idea they've been manipulated.
So far the US government has provided no evidence the Russians let everybody else in on
the tidy little plot. It's possible a prankster with a contraption available on the internet
for $50 pulled it off. The question of who the rat was lost some relevance March 11th. 2014.
That's when the people of Crimea declared independence from the state of Ukraine. The plot
thickened when they voted to re-Russify 5 days later. The audacity of self-determination
unified opinions throughout the major media and DC double-think-tanking circuits.
News-mouths, from MSNBC to Fox and everywhere in between, were just as uncompromising about
Ukraine staying together as they were about Serbia breaking apart 15 years earlier.
Plebiscites equal rebellious chaos when Foggy Bottom doesn't approve.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, that's "Yats" to BFFs, laid down the law to Crimean pols who dared
to allow the referendum as soon as Nuland turned him loose:
"We will find all of them-if it takes one year, two years-and bring them to justice
and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn under their
feet."
Yats received 7% of votes cast in the 2010 general election for president. The Rada
(Ukrainian parliament) made him interim prime minister by 371 to 1 February 27, 2014. Earlier
in the month the far more popular Viltali Klitschko and Oleh Tyahnybok were considered more
likely contenders. What neither of them had, as the infamous phone call revealed, was Nuland
backing him up. Naturally Arseniy doesn't think the man on the street has any business voting
without his, or US, supervision.
In January Mr. Yatsenyuk was in Germany and made the following remarks to ARD (German PBS)
interviewer Pinar Atalay:
"Russian aggression in Ukraine is an attack on world order and order in Europe. All
of us still clearly remember the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany". - [born in 1974,
Yats' vivid memory rivals Bill O'Reilly's]-"That has to be avoided. And nobody has the
right to rewrite the results of Second World War. And that is exactly what Russia's
President Putin is trying to do."
Putin, 22 years closer to the war, may need help with Arseniy's references. Yats is either
getting his wars or his results mixed up. The Institute for Historical Review wouldn't get
caught running his revision. Details of Russian "aggression" in the Ukraine are sketchy even
to the ones hellbent on making the most of it. Before the Senate Foreign Relations
Sub-Committee March 10th Nuland testified:
"This manufactured conflict-controlled by the Kremlin; fueled by Russian tanks and heavy
weapons; financed at Russian taxpayers expense-has cost the lives of more than 6000
Ukrainians, but also of hundreds of young Russian sent to fight and die there by the
Kremlin, in a war their government denies."
All that big talk wasn't accompanied by a single photograph from a drone, a satellite, a
journalist, a spy or even a cellphone. Victoria, who once called Russian espionage "pretty
impressive", hasn't been dazzling anyone with the American brand. Did Snowden exaggerate all
that super-duper snoopology? Have the separatists outwitted the NSA by staying in touch with
Putin's army using smoke signals? At least Colin Powell gave us pictures of a trailer park as
proof of Saddam's treachery.
When pressed by Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) on Russian losses, Nuland put the numbers at
between 4 and 500. Corker sounded disappointed with less than 1000. No source was provided
for the figure or the "more than 6000 Ukrainians." When asked if "In practical terms does
that [Russian action] constitute an invasion?" Nuland responded: "We have used that word in
the past, yes." The Guardian put out a fairly comprehensive article March 4th detailing the
administration's avoidance of the term. Some White House midwives are finding the patient
less pregnant than others. If the two countries are at war it's a weird one. Throughout the
conflict Russia has never cut off fuel flow to Ukraine completely. This is only one
contradiction to the brutal clash State continually describes.
Things are awfully complicated in Ukraine and particularly the Donbass region. 2010
demographic maps mark a stark east-west geographic divide between those who voted for and
against deposed President Yanucovych. There's no question the fugitive chief-exec enjoyed his
most intense support among Russian speaking Ukrainians. The fact remains he was run out of
town on a rail over an economic treaty particularly loathed by ultra-nationalist types with a
high tolerance for Nazi-style ideals. What would be the reaction of the US press if a Russian
Foreign Service employee, one rung below Sergei Lavrov himself, crowed to the media about
handing out sandwiches during the Occupy protests or at the Bundy Ranch the way Nuland
has?
Meanwhile the best "intelligence" on Putin's skullduggery we've got from our woman in Kiev
so far are grainy pictures of "a bearded man clearly a GRU agent." Wow, in East Ukraine? Near
a Russian Naval base and several divisions of troops? Now there's a dastardly plot no one
could have suspected. The Ukraine was a part of Russia for well over 200 years. Did idealists
who grew up a continent and an ocean away really expect to dismantle the empire without any
adjustments? American interventionists are like street urchins pouncing on a handful of coins
dropped by an old man.
Back in 2005, shortly after Americans learned how urgently our attention was necessary
there, Foreign Affairs began its "Ukraine's Orange Revolution" article:
"Razom nas bahato! Nas ne podolaty!"-"Together we are many! We cannot be defeated!"
This was the chant of protesters who refused to accept Yanukovich's first election in a
November 2004 runoff. The reform candidate, Victor Yushchenko, maintained a clear lead in
exit polling and worldwide media called fraud. Ukraine's Supreme Court mandated a new poll
that Yushchenko won. During a five year term the president fired his own government and
dissolved the Rada twice. Things were in constant upheaval. In the 2010 election the
incumbent couldn't even muster 6% of the vote. Yanukovoch's victory went undisputed this
time.
On his way out of office Yushchenko made Stepan Bandera, a nationalist who cooperated
extensively with the Nazis, official Hero of Ukraine. Results like this took no wind from the
sails of US internationalists keen for another go stirring the pot in Kiev. American
"experts" never notice anything disturbing about pro-western Ukrainians nostalgia for the
Axis. Yet they find fascism in any movement that doesn't kneel before political convention
here at home. The US Constitution is the threat keeping the DHS up at night. People who go
camping with founding documents and firearms threaten to lay siege on the District of
Columbia any moment. Don't get distracted by how many times Mein Kamf makes book of the month
with the State Department's foreign friends.
During testimony Nuland presented a list of chores American taxpayers are pitching in
on:
"With U.S. support -- including a $1 billion loan guarantee last year and $355 million in
foreign assistance and technical advisors -- the Ukrainian government is:
And there's more support on the way. The President's budget includes an FY16 request of
$513.5 million -- almost six times more than our FY14 request -- to build on these
efforts."
Jet-setting from the East coast to East Europe the Assistant Secretary is above petty
details of uninsulated vulnerability to a whipsawing economy here at home. A legion of
retirees who fought against Yats' favorite side in WWII are living out their days in poorly
insulated energy inefficient structures under the stars and stripes. Where shakedowns are
concerned Foggy Bottom better circulate a memo on the asset forfeiture controversy that's
been raging stateside nearly 30 years now. Teddy Roosevelt started reforming the police
before he got to Washington. News is they're still shooting unarmed people in the back. Just
yesterday the Washington Post front-paged a piece on people convicted on phony evidence from
the FBI crime lab. Only a tiny fraction of such cases have been reviewed so far. Meanwhile we
get another story of unscrupulous prosecutors railroading innocent victims to the
penitentiary at least weekly. The US is no position to offer any country "criminal justice
advisers." Deregulating agriculture is a great idea but shouldn't we try it first?
The Euro-cracy that won WWI tried micro-managing the broken pieces of Ottoman Empire 90
some years ago. Their first major accomplishment was a massacre in Smyrna. Further efforts
have blessed the east Mediterranean with bloodthirsty dictators, Qutbists, Ba'athists, ISIS
and the like. Treaties like Sevres and Laussanne have helped keep the War, which started in
Europe 1914 and ended there in 1945, going on in Asia Minor to this day.
The idea that US influence, meddling or intervention will transform Ukraine into
Winthrop's "city upon a hill" is a highly combustible fantasy. Ideologues from fancy
universities, foundations and think-tanks understanding of Ukraine, and world history, is as
shallow as it was in Afghanistan in the 80's and Iraq 20 years later. People will inevitably
be hurt as an ancient empire dissolves and settles. Outsider intrusions will metastasize the
process into the kind of catastrophe the world has seen before, and continues to witness
today.
An egotistical desire for an entry in history books and the grip of an insatiable
insecurity industry are the motives driving the princes and princesses of our realm. Each of
these forces is bad enough by itself. Combined they guarantee an ugly ending.
This is a replay of Vietnam Communist Domino Theory. May all those neocons rest in Eternal
Hell.
Notable quotes:
"... Now is not the time to retreat from our relationship with Ukraine, but rather to double down on it. As we sit here, Ukrainians are fighting a hot war on Ukrainian territory against Russian aggression. ..."
"... I went to the front line approximately 10 times during a hot war sometimes literally as we heard the impact of artillery, and to see how our assistance dollars were being put to use. ..."
"... Ukraine, with an enormous land mass and a large population, has the potential to be a significant force multiplier on the security side And now Ukraine is a battleground for great power competition with a hot war for the control of territory and a hybrid war to control Ukraine's leadership. ..."
"... She explained that the US-funded and fascist-led "Maidan Revolution" of 2014, which she and other State Department officials absurdly called the "Revolution of Dignity," was part of this conflict. "That's why they launched the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, demanding to be a part of Europe," she declared. ..."
"... Diplomat George Kent invoked the same theme in his testimony last Wednesday, saying: ..."
"... Ukraine's popular Revolution of Dignity in 2014 forced a corrupt pro-Russian leadership to flee to Moscow. After that, Russia invaded Ukraine, occupying seven percent of its territory, roughly equivalent to the size of Texas for the United States ..."
"... Since then, more than 13,000 Ukrainians have died on Ukrainian soil defending their territorial integrity and sovereignty from Russian aggression. American support in Ukraine's own de facto war of independence has been critical in this regard. ..."
"... Kent subsequently compared the role of the United States in the Ukrainian civil war to that of Spain and France in the American War of Independence. In that conflict, Spain and France were officially at war with Great Britain, including formal declarations of war in 1778 and 1779. ..."
"... If Kent's analogy is true, then the United States is in an undeclared war with Russia. ..."
"... But when has this war ever been discussed with the American people? Was there ever a congressional vote to authorize it? ..."
"... When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces," she said, threatening the "president, or anyone else, [who] impedes or subverts the national security of the United States. ..."
"... "In an otherwise divided Washington, one of the few issues of bipartisan agreement for the past six years has been countering Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's broad plan of disruption. That effort starts in Ukraine, where there has been a hot war underway in the east for five years " ..."
"... @wendy davis ..."
"... @jim p ..."
"... @lotlizard ..."
"... Mykola Zlochevsky, former employer of Hunter Biden and current partner of the Atlantic Council ..."
' Who decided the US should fight a "hot war" with Russia? ', 23 November 2019 . Andre Damon,
wsws
"There is a saying attributed to the banker J.P. Morgan: " A man always has two reasons
for what he does -- a good one and the real one ."
If the alleged "organized crime shakedown" by Trump was the "good" reason for the
impeachment inquiry, the "real" reason has emerged over two weeks of public congressional
hearings. The hearings have lifted the lid on a massive US conspiracy to spend billions of
dollars to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014 and foment a
civil war that has led to the deaths of thousands of people.
The impeachment drive is itself the product of efforts by sections of the intelligence
agencies and elements within the State Department to escalate Washington's conflict with
Russia, with potentially world-catastrophic consequences.
On Thursday, Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell showed a photo of Ukrainian President
Zelensky in body armor on the "front lines" of the civil war in eastern Ukraine. He asked the
State Department witnesses "why it's so important that our hard-earned tax dollars help
President Zelensky and the men standing beside him fight Russia in this hot war?"
David Holmes, political counselor at the US embassy in Kiev, replied:
Now is not the time to retreat from our relationship with Ukraine, but rather to
double down on it. As we sit here, Ukrainians are fighting a hot war on Ukrainian territory
against Russian aggression.
Later in his testimony, Holmes pointed to the massive sums expended by the United States
and its European allies to fight this "hot war," saying the US had provided $5 billion and
its European allies $12 billion since 2014.
In her testimony last week, the former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich recalled that
as ambassador:
I went to the front line approximately 10 times during a hot war sometimes literally
as we heard the impact of artillery, and to see how our assistance dollars were being put
to use.
She added:
Ukraine, with an enormous land mass and a large population, has the potential to be
a significant force multiplier on the security side And now Ukraine is a battleground for
great power competition with a hot war for the control of territory and a hybrid war to
control Ukraine's leadership.
She explained that the US-funded and fascist-led "Maidan Revolution" of 2014, which
she and other State Department officials absurdly called the "Revolution of Dignity," was
part of this conflict. "That's why they launched the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, demanding
to be a part of Europe," she declared.
Diplomat George Kent invoked the same theme in his testimony last Wednesday,
saying:
Ukraine's popular Revolution of Dignity in 2014 forced a corrupt pro-Russian
leadership to flee to Moscow. After that, Russia invaded Ukraine, occupying seven percent
of its territory, roughly equivalent to the size of Texas for the United States
Since then, more than 13,000 Ukrainians have died on Ukrainian soil defending their
territorial integrity and sovereignty from Russian aggression. American support in
Ukraine's own de facto war of independence has been critical in this regard.
Kent subsequently compared the role of the United States in the Ukrainian civil war to
that of Spain and France in the American War of Independence. In that conflict, Spain and
France were officially at war with Great Britain, including formal declarations of war in
1778 and 1779.
If Kent's analogy is true, then the United States is in an undeclared war with
Russia.
But when has this war ever been discussed with the American people? Was there ever a
congressional vote to authorize it? Does anyone believe that if the question, "Do you
want to spend billions of dollars to help Ukraine fight a war with Russia," were posed to the
American public, the percentage answering yes would be anything more than minuscule? Of
course, that question was never asked." [snip]
"But in the congressional hearings this week, government officials declared that any
questioning of this aid is virtually treasonous. In her testimony on Thursday, former
National Security Council officer Fiona Hill accused anyone who questions that "Ukraine is a
valued partner" of the United States of advancing "Russian interests. "
" When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces,"
she said, threatening the "president, or anyone else, [who] impedes or subverts the national
security of the United States. "
In 2017, Hill penned a blog post for the Brookings Institution calling Trump a
"Bolshevik," echoing statements made more than 60 years ago by John Birch Society leader
Robert W. Welch, who declared that President Eisenhower was a "communist."
Underlying the mad allegations of the Democrats that Trump is functioning as a "Russian
asset" is a very real content: The extremely dangerous drive by factions within the state for
a military confrontation between the United States and Russia, whose combined nuclear weapons
arsenals are capable of destroying all of humanity many times over.
There is no "peace" faction within the American political establishment. No credence can
be given to either one of the parties of US imperialism, which have, over the course of
decades, presided over the toppling of dozens of governments, the launching of countless wars
and the deaths of millions of people."
Patrick Martin from his Oct. 16, 2019 ' The Trump
impeachment and US policy in Ukraine '
"This utterly reactionary, pro-imperialist role was demonstrated Friday in the tribute
that Yovanovitch paid, in the course of her testimony, to Arsen Avakov, the Ukrainian
interior minister (head of the domestic police) under both the current president, Volodymyr
Zelensky, and his predecessor Petro Poroshenko. Avakov is a principal sponsor of fascist
militias such as the Azov Battalion , which glorify the Ukrainians who collaborated with the
Nazis during World War II against the Soviet Union. In other words, the State Department
officials being celebrated in the media for defending American democracy are actually working
with the fascists in Ukraine .
While Yovanovitch hailed Avakov, Kent cited as his heroes among immigrants who have
rallied to the defense of the United States Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger, two of
the biggest war criminals of the second half of the twentieth century ." [snip]
""The connection between the impeachment drive and differences on foreign policy was spelled
out Friday on the front page of the New York Times, in an analysis by the newspaper's senior
foreign policy specialist, David Sanger, a frequent mouthpiece for the concerns of the CIA,
State Department and Pentagon, under the headline, " For President, Case of Policy vs.
Obsession." [snip]
But Sanger goes on to spell out, in remarkably blunt terms, the real foreign policy issues
at stake in the Trump impeachment. He writes,
"In an otherwise divided Washington, one of the few issues of bipartisan agreement for
the past six years has been countering Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's broad plan of
disruption. That effort starts in Ukraine, where there has been a hot war underway in the
east for five years "
Trump, according to Sanger, has betrayed the anti-Russia policy outlined by his own
administration in a Pentagon strategic assessment which declared that the "war on terror" had
been superseded as the top US priority by "great-power competition," particularly directed at
China and Russia. He sacrificed this policy to his own personal, electoral interests, as
expressed in the comment by the US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland:
"President Trump cares more about the investigation of Biden" than about the military
conflict between Ukraine and Russia."
They'll bust both your kneecaps and then fit you with cement overshoes and toss you into
the ocean. Trump is finding out the hard way that entrenched interests in the US government
wield vast veto power over anything a president wants to do.
He's his own worst enemy with his self-sabotaging Twitter rants, endless character
assassinations, hastily burnt bridges, and conflicting statements that change based upon
the last person he talked to. Trump doesn't inspire loyalty in those who work for him and
around him. OTOH, that doesn't excuse the Deep State, an unelected cabal secretly running
our government and risking our lives with endless wars and Russia baiting. If impeachment
has shown nothing else, it's that the Deep State is real and usually gets its way.
almost all the casualties are Russian speakers in the East. Back in the early coup days
there were 37 claims that Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Which turned out to be none. I
still remember when Pravda in New York had a blurred photo they claimed to be a Russ
officer (and how do you get blurring in the digital age) which turned out to be a Ukranian
officer facebook photo. They never explained how that happened.
great context. kent's number 13,000, and yes, they were likely all Novoroosians
, if he hadn't pulled that figure out of his ass, anyway. photos of 'little green men' in
ancient soviet uniforms, old tanks left over from the days of yore.
was kent counting the dead inside the trade unions massacre in odessa petrol-bombed by
the neo-nazis?
in depth reads for later, and thank you, miz lizard. funny that the Atlantic council (at
least one version) had chosen Zelenskiy based on promises to end corruption (read: so
ukraine could have the lucre to enter Nato). and yet, he'd kept 9as per the photo caption)
Mykola Zlochevsky, former employer of Hunter Biden and current partner of the Atlantic
Council in hi cabinet, isn't it?
be encouraged to read your stockman links to his 'The Ukrainian Influence Peddling Rings
– A Microcosm of How Imperial Washington Rolls', David Stockman,
November 13, 2019 , i'll offer a few excerpts. i rarely (if ever) call anything a 'must
read', but even you, voice, might want to dig into this one (part I of II, if i get his
drift).
i'm assumming his historical narrative is correct, as all the pieces i do know about are
there are well, but what he writes i hadn't known is key, of course. his language is also
colorful as all giddy-up, which i like, and good on him. he's lost me a bit in some
sections, as he names names, lobbying firms, and so on, but that's on me, not stockman.
"The latest dispatch from the Wall Street Journal on the stench wafting westward from
Kiev reveals more about the rotten foundation of UkraineGate than its authors probably
understood.
Burisma Holdings' campaign to clean up its image in the West reached beyond the 2014
hiring of Hunter Biden, son of the then-U.S. vice president, to include other
well-connected operatives in Washington, according to officials in both countries and
government records.
The Ukrainian company, owned by tycoon Mykola Zlochevsky, also hired a lobbyist with
close ties to then-Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as a consulting group founded
by top officials in the Clinton administration that specialized in preparing former
Soviet-bloc countries to join NATO (Blue Star Strategies).
Soon the efforts bore fruit. With the help of a New York-based lawyer, Mr.
Zlochevsky's U.S. consultants argued to Ukrainian prosecutors that criminal cases
against the company should be closed because no laws had been broken.
Burisma later became a sponsor of a Washington think tank, the Atlantic Council,
whose experts are often cited on energy and security policy in the former Soviet
Union.
Simple translation: Zlochevsky was an ally, officeholder (minister of ecology and
natural resources) and inner-circle thief in the ousted government of Viktor Yanukovych.
He therefore needed to powder the pig fast and thoroughly in order to hold onto his
ill-gotten billions.""
[longish snip of a who's who involvement]...................
"Finally, the Clinton wing of the Washington racketeering system had to be covered,
too – hence the above mentioned Blue Star Strategies. And the bolded sentence from
the WSJ story quoted below tells you all you need to know about its business, which was
to " .help former Soviet countries prepare for NATO consideration".
That's right. With the Soviet Union gone, its 50,000 tanks on the central front
melted-down for scrap and the Warsaw Pact disbanded, the rational order of the day was to
declare "mission accomplished" for NATO and effect its own disbandment.
The great parachuter and then US president, George Bush the Elder, could have actually
made a jump right into the giant Ramstein Air Base in Germany to effect its closure. At
that point there was no justification for NATO's continued existence whatsoever.
But the Clinton Administration, under the baleful influence of Washington busybodies
like Strobe Talbot and Madeleine Albright, went in just the opposite direction. In
pursuit of Washington's post-1991 quest for global hegemony as the world's only
superpower and putative keeper of the peace, they prepared the way for the entirety of
the old Warsaw Pact to join NATO.
So doing, however, they also laid the planking for a revival of the cold war with the
Kremlin. As the father of containment and NATO during the late 1940s, Ambassador George
Kennan, observed at the time, the Clinton Administration's policy of expanding NATO to
the very doorstep of Russia was a colossal mistake." [longish snip]
...............................
"So that's how the Imperial City rolls. People make policies which extend the Empire
while in office – as did these Clintonistas with the NATO expansion project –
and then cash-in afterwards by peddling influence in the corridors of the beltway on
behalf of Washington's newly acquired vassals and supplicants.
In this case, all roads lead to the Atlantic Council, which is the semi-official
"think tank" of NATO in Washington and is infested with Russophobes and Clinton/Biden
operatives. The latter, of course, make a handsome living peddling anti-Putin propaganda
– the better to grease the Washington purse strings for unneeded military spending
and foreign aid, security assistance and weapons sales to the "front line" states
allegedly in the path of Kremlin aggression."
thank you, miz lizard. love this title of his on the sidebar: ' Democrats Empower a Pack
of Paranoid Neocon Morons '. ; )
i'll grab part II and read it greedily when i have more time.
putting them in the context of the region's deeper past. The first two parts of a
series.
The Special Operations Detachment "Azov", often known as Azov Battalion, Azov
Regiment, or Azov Detachment, (Ukrainian: Полк
Азов) is a Ukrainian National Guard regiment,[1][2][3][4] based
in Mariupol in the Azov Sea coastal region.
In 2014, it gained notoriety after allegations emerged of torture and war crimes, as
well as neo-Nazi sympathies and usage of associated symbols by the regiment itself, as
seen in their logo featuring the Wolfsangel, one of the original symbols used by the
German Nazi Party. In 2014, around 10-20% of the unit were neo-Nazis.[9] In 2018, a
provision in an appropriations bill passed by the U.S. Congress blocked military aid to
Azov on the grounds of its white supremacist ideology. [10] Members of the regiment come
from 22 countries and are of various backgrounds.[11]
On 13 April 2014 Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov [nb 1] issued a decree
authorizing creating new paramilitary forces from civilians up to 12,000.[22] The Azov
Battalion (using "Eastern Corps" as its backbone[20]) was formed on 5 May 2014 in
Berdiansk[23] by a white nationalist.[24] Many members of Patriot of Ukraine joined the
battalion.[20] Among the early patrons of the battalion were a member of the Verkhovna
Rada Oleh Lyashko, and an ultra-nationalist Dmytro Korchynsky and businessman Serhiy
Taruta and Avakov.[25][20] The battalion then received training near Kiev by instructors
with experience in the Georgian Armed Forces.[
In September 2014, the Azov battalion was expanded from a battalion to a regiment and
enrolled into the National Guard of Ukraine.[23][33] At about this time it started
receiving increased supplies of heavy arms.[33] The Azov battalion received funding from
the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and other sources (believed to be Ukrainian
oligarchs).
As of late March 2015, despite a second ceasefire agreement (Minsk II), the Azov
Battalion continued to prepare for war, with the group's leader seeing the ceasefire as
"appeasement".[33] In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov
Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in
their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[44][45] US training however was
withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking
any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its Neo-Nazi
background.[46] After the vote Congressman John Conyers thanked the House saying "I am
grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to
ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion,
along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these
unstable regions."[45]
Since 2015 Azov is organising summer camps where children and teenagers receive
practice in civil defense and military tactics mixed with lectures on Ukrainian
nationalism.[48][20]
Since 2015 the Battalion has been upgraded to Regimental status and "Azov" is now
officially called "Special Operations Regiment" , with combat duties focused on
reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, EOD disposal, interdiction and special weapons
operations.
Foreign membership [edit]
According to The Daily Telegraph, the Azov Battalion's extremist politics and
professional English social media pages have attracted foreign fighters,[30] including
people from Brazil, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom, France, America, Greece,
Scandinavia,[2][30] Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Russia. [2][56][57] About 50
Russian nationals are members of the Azov regiment.[58]
According to Minsk Ceasefire Agreements, foreign fighters are not allowed to serve in
Ukraine's military:[66] since "Azov" Regiment was granted full military status, its
foreign volunteers were compelled either to take Ukrainian citizenship, or to leave the
Regiment.
Human rights violations and war crimes[edit]
Reports published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR) have connected the Azov Battalion to war crimes such as mass looting, unlawful
detention, and torture.[68][69] An OHCHR report from March 2016 stated that the
organisation had "collected detailed information about the conduct of hostilities by
Ukrainian armed forces and the Azov regiment in and around Shyrokyne (31km east of
Mariupol), from the summer of 2014 to date. Mass looting of civilian homes was
documented, as well as targeting of civilian areas between September 2014 and February
2015".[68] Another OHCHR report documented an instance of rape and torture
Rodnovery, symbolism and neo-Nazism [edit]
Emblem featuring a Wolfsangel and Black Sun
Most soldiers of Azov are followers of a Ukrainian nationalist type of Rodnovery (Slavic
Native Faith), wherefrom they derive some of their symbolism (such as a variation of the
swastika symbol kolovrat). They have also established Rodnover shrines for their
religious rites, including one in Mariupol dedicated to Perun.[70][71][72][unreliable
source] German ZDF television showed images of Azov fighters wearing helmets with
swastika symbols and "the SS runes of Hitler's infamous black-uniformed elite corps".[73]
Due to the use of such symbols, Azov has been considered to have connections with
neo-Nazism, with members wearing neo-Nazi and SS symbols and regalia and expressing
Neo-Nazi views.
The group's insignia features the Wolfsangel[78][79][80] and the Black
Sun,[78][81][82] two Nazi-era symbols adopted by neo-Nazi groups.
In 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a provision blocking any training of
Azov members by American forces, citing its neo-Nazi background. In previous years,
between 2014 and 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed amendments banning
support of Azov, but due to pressure from the Pentagon, the amendments were quietly
lifted.[87][88][89] This move has been protested by Simon Wiesenthal Center which stated
that the move highlights danger of Holocaust distortion in Ukraine.[89] On 26 June 2015,
the Canadian defence minister declared as well, that training by Canadian forces or
support would not be provided to Azov. [90]
While Azov Battalion troops have denied that the organization has any neo-Nazi or white
supremacist beliefs, journalists stated that "numerous swastika tattoos of different
members and their tendency to go into battle with swastikas or SS insignias drawn on
their helmets make it very difficult for other members of the group to plausibly deny any
neo-Nazi affiliations" .[85]
no more US training? dunno what to say to that. but i plugged '2018' into a bing search
of azov torchlight parades and found this from 2016 instead (although there were some
later, as well):
Ukrainian ultra-nationalist Azov battalion [as well as Right Sector' stages torch-lit
march in Kharkov (VIDEOS)], 12 Dec, 2016 , RT.com
really according to Eva
Bartlett who'd committed journalism in the donbass independent republics, zelenskiy
hasn't been able to control them (as promised) either.
it's a good time to remember all who'd invested in the ukraine who had interest in the
Maidan putsch, isn't it?
The Special Operations Detachment "Azov", often known as Azov Battalion, Azov
Regiment, or Azov Detachment, (Ukrainian: Полк
Азов) is a Ukrainian National Guard regiment,[1][2][3][4]
based in Mariupol in the Azov Sea coastal region.
In 2014, it gained notoriety after allegations emerged of torture and war crimes,
as well as neo-Nazi sympathies and usage of associated symbols by the regiment
itself, as seen in their logo featuring the Wolfsangel, one of the original symbols
used by the German Nazi Party. In 2014, around 10-20% of the unit were neo-Nazis.[9]
In 2018, a provision in an appropriations bill passed by the U.S. Congress blocked
military aid to Azov on the grounds of its white supremacist ideology. [10] Members
of the regiment come from 22 countries and are of various backgrounds.[11]
On 13 April 2014 Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov [nb 1] issued a decree
authorizing creating new paramilitary forces from civilians up to 12,000.[22] The
Azov Battalion (using "Eastern Corps" as its backbone[20]) was formed on 5 May 2014
in Berdiansk[23] by a white nationalist.[24] Many members of Patriot of Ukraine
joined the battalion.[20] Among the early patrons of the battalion were a member of
the Verkhovna Rada Oleh Lyashko, and an ultra-nationalist Dmytro Korchynsky and
businessman Serhiy Taruta and Avakov.[25][20] The battalion then received training
near Kiev by instructors with experience in the Georgian Armed Forces.[
In September 2014, the Azov battalion was expanded from a battalion to a regiment
and enrolled into the National Guard of Ukraine.[23][33] At about this time it
started receiving increased supplies of heavy arms.[33] The Azov battalion received
funding from the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and other sources (believed
to be Ukrainian oligarchs).
As of late March 2015, despite a second ceasefire agreement (Minsk II), the Azov
Battalion continued to prepare for war, with the group's leader seeing the ceasefire
as "appeasement".[33] In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the
Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army
troops in their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[44][45] US training
however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as US House of Representatives passed an
amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its
Neo-Nazi background.[46] After the vote Congressman John Conyers thanked the House
saying "I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my
amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the
repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and
easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions."[45]
Since 2015 Azov is organising summer camps where children and teenagers receive
practice in civil defense and military tactics mixed with lectures on Ukrainian
nationalism.[48][20]
Since 2015 the Battalion has been upgraded to Regimental status and "Azov" is now
officially called "Special Operations Regiment" , with combat duties focused on
reconnaissance, counter-reconnaissance, EOD disposal, interdiction and special
weapons operations.
Foreign membership [edit]
According to The Daily Telegraph, the Azov Battalion's extremist politics and
professional English social media pages have attracted foreign fighters,[30]
including people from Brazil, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom, France, America,
Greece, Scandinavia,[2][30] Spain, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Russia. [2][56][57]
About 50 Russian nationals are members of the Azov regiment.[58]
According to Minsk Ceasefire Agreements, foreign fighters are not allowed to serve
in Ukraine's military:[66] since "Azov" Regiment was granted full military status,
its foreign volunteers were compelled either to take Ukrainian citizenship, or to
leave the Regiment.
Human rights violations and war crimes[edit]
Reports published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR) have connected the Azov Battalion to war crimes such as mass looting,
unlawful detention, and torture.[68][69] An OHCHR report from March 2016 stated that
the organisation had "collected detailed information about the conduct of hostilities
by Ukrainian armed forces and the Azov regiment in and around Shyrokyne (31km east of
Mariupol), from the summer of 2014 to date. Mass looting of civilian homes was
documented, as well as targeting of civilian areas between September 2014 and
February 2015".[68] Another OHCHR report documented an instance of rape and
torture
Rodnovery, symbolism and neo-Nazism [edit]
Emblem featuring a Wolfsangel and Black Sun
Most soldiers of Azov are followers of a Ukrainian nationalist type of Rodnovery
(Slavic Native Faith), wherefrom they derive some of their symbolism (such as a
variation of the swastika symbol kolovrat). They have also established Rodnover
shrines for their religious rites, including one in Mariupol dedicated to
Perun.[70][71][72][unreliable source] German ZDF television showed images of Azov
fighters wearing helmets with swastika symbols and "the SS runes of Hitler's infamous
black-uniformed elite corps".[73] Due to the use of such symbols, Azov has been
considered to have connections with neo-Nazism, with members wearing neo-Nazi and SS
symbols and regalia and expressing Neo-Nazi views.
The group's insignia features the Wolfsangel[78][79][80] and the Black
Sun,[78][81][82] two Nazi-era symbols adopted by neo-Nazi groups.
In 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a provision blocking any
training of Azov members by American forces, citing its neo-Nazi background. In
previous years, between 2014 and 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed
amendments banning support of Azov, but due to pressure from the Pentagon, the
amendments were quietly lifted.[87][88][89] This move has been protested by Simon
Wiesenthal Center which stated that the move highlights danger of Holocaust
distortion in Ukraine.[89] On 26 June 2015, the Canadian defence minister declared as
well, that training by Canadian forces or support would not be provided to Azov.
[90]
While Azov Battalion troops have denied that the organization has any neo-Nazi or
white supremacist beliefs, journalists stated that "numerous swastika tattoos of
different members and their tendency to go into battle with swastikas or SS insignias
drawn on their helmets make it very difficult for other members of the group to
plausibly deny any neo-Nazi affiliations" .[85]
It's great that Ukraine's revisionist far-right politics are at least getting some
attention in the press. But what you won't read in these reports is that the U.S.
government had recently sponsored a "cultural" exhibit that celebrated the Nazi
collaborator who is now getting his own street in Kiev. You can't make this stuff up!
But we have to help the Nazis because Putin's Russia is invading and we owe it to them
to.... blehh!
yasha levine commits good journalism, there too! i'd never even heard of Nil Khasevych
nor his Kil the Jews wood block prints. zelenskiy is not only jewish, but russian speaking,
ukrainian is his second language as i understand it.
imagine now living on Khasevych; wouldn't you be proud? i'd been on yasha's account
recently looking for his take (if any) on the intercept/NYT collaboration on the Iranaian
leaks. i'd figured his link to the history if U S meddling at the bottom would speak at
length about Pierre Omidyar's investments (centre UA, USAID, etc.) and maybe (then)
monsanto/billy gates.
thank you; a whoosh -worthy exposé. do you get his newsletter,
snoop?
p.s. on edit: i tried to subscribe, but it costs money. oh, well...
It's great that Ukraine's revisionist far-right politics are at least getting some
attention in the press. But what you won't read in these reports is that the U.S.
government had recently sponsored a "cultural" exhibit that celebrated the Nazi
collaborator who is now getting his own street in Kiev. You can't make this stuff
up!
But we have to help the Nazis because Putin's Russia is invading and we owe it to
them to.... blehh!
There is lots of good info on Twitter about the Ukraine system and corruption. Bibi
didn't have any problems dealing with the neo Nazis there either which threw me for a loop.
But then it was people in our country that made Hitler's war chest. Bush Sr., Ford and lots
of others thought Hitler's system should be implemented here. Oh yeah and of course the
banks..
Yasha Levine commits good journalism, there too! i'd never even heard of Nil
Khasevych nor his Kil the Jews wood block prints. zelenskiy is not only jewish, but
russian speaking, ukrainian is his second language as i understand it.
imagine now living on Khasevych; wouldn't you be proud? i'd been on yasha's account
recently looking for his take (if any) on the intercept/NYT collaboration on the
Iranaian leaks. i'd figured his link to the history if U S meddling at the bottom would
speak at length about Pierre Omidyar's investments (centre UA, USAID, etc.) and maybe
(then) monsanto/billy gates.
thank you; a whoosh -worthy exposé. do you get his newsletter,
snoop?
p.s. on edit: i tried to subscribe, but it costs money. oh, well...
especially with the editing. but it' like the game of telephone, isn't it? 'he told me
he overheard...', and someone told me s he heard..., yada, yada,
but just think if Pelosi hadn't limited the inquiry to One Phone call? 'as trump's
puppet, is zelenskiy's claiming 'no quid pro quo worth anything?'
There is lots of good info on Twitter about the Ukraine system and corruption. Bibi
didn't have any problems dealing with the neo Nazis there either which threw me for a
loop. But then it was people in our country that made Hitler's war chest. Bush Sr.,
Ford and lots of others thought Hitler's system should be implemented here. Oh yeah and
of course the banks..
Nah not so much. Numerous websites wrote about it back when it happened just like they
wrote about Hunter Biden and Burisma. But now I'm seeing the main stream media trying to
tell us that it didn't happen that way. Well here's one article that hasn't been scrubbed
yet.
Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly
working to boost Clinton.
Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by
officials of a former Soviet bloc country.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by
publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating
a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to
back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging
information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National
Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to
expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to
people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort's
resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to
Ukraine's foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally
directed than Russia's alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.
Ahh that good ole but. Yes what people in Ukraine did was bad, but.... and here's the
but.
Russia's effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, involved
the country's military and foreign intelligence services, according to U.S.
intelligence officials. They reportedly briefed Trump last week on the possibility that
Russian operatives might have compromising information on the president-elect. And at a
Senate hearing last week on the hacking, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
said " I don't think we've ever encountered a more aggressive or direct campaign to
interfere in our election process than we've seen in this case."
There's little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers
suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the
country -- not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia -- would render it unable to
pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country's election. And
President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in
Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.
Yet Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the
race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from
engaging in one another's elections.
Well there you have it. People in Ukraine were digging up dirt on people in Trump's
campaign whilst Vlad only placed a few ads on FB and most of them were placed after the
election was over. Badder Russia.
That Ukraine was trying to get Hillary elected was well known in the Ukraine government,
but sure let's just say it never happened like that. Then of course there was Hillary
hiring people in another country to dig up dirt too, but that doesn't count. Why? Reasons
of course and because it was Hillary and the DNC doing it. See? Reasons.
Next paragraph starts with this.
Russia's meddling has sparked outrage from the American body politic. Lots of words
about how that outraged people here...and more blah blah blah stuff.
Next paragrap
Ukraine, on the other hand, has traditionally enjoyed strong relations with U.S.
administrations. Its officials worry that could change under Trump, whose team has
privately expressed sentiments ranging from ambivalence to deep skepticism about
Poroshenko's regime, while sounding unusually friendly notes about Putin's regime.
Poroshenko is scrambling to alter that dynamic, recently signing a $50,000-a-month
contract with a well-connected GOP-linked Washington lobbying firm to set up meetings
with U.S. government officials "to strengthen U.S.-Ukrainian relations."
Hmm hint of a quid pro quo there?
BTW. Lindsay Graham wants to investigate Hunter Biden and Joe says that he will regret
doing that for the rest of his life. Stay tuned for the fireworks.
Ahh yes Russia was the one that started that propaganda. Burisma and Biden was always on
the up and up so don't even think that they weren't. I really don't know how people who
believe everything about Russia Gate and now Ukraine Gate can keep their beliefs intact
when there is so much information showing that what they believe is wrong or didn't happen
the way they think it did.
Nah not so much. Numerous websites wrote about it back when it happened just like
they wrote about Hunter Biden and Burisma. But now I'm seeing the main stream media
trying to tell us that it didn't happen that way. Well here's one article that hasn't
been scrubbed yet.
Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after
quietly working to boost Clinton.
Donald Trump wasn't the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by
officials of a former Soviet bloc country.
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump
by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents
implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the
matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies
research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation
found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National
Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort
to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according
to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort's
resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to
Ukraine's foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or
centrally directed than Russia's alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic
emails.
Ahh that good ole but. Yes what people in Ukraine did was bad, but.... and here's
the but.
Russia's effort was personally directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin,
involved the country's military and foreign intelligence services, according
to U.S. intelligence officials. They reportedly briefed Trump last week on the
possibility that Russian operatives might have compromising information on the
president-elect. And at a Senate hearing last week on the hacking, Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper said " I don't think we've ever encountered a
more aggressive or direct campaign to interfere in our election process than we've
seen in this case."
There's little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers
suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the
country -- not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia -- would render it unable to
pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country's election. And
President Petro Poroshenko's administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in
Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.
Yet Politico's investigation found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in
the race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments
refrain from engaging in one another's elections.
Well there you have it. People in Ukraine were digging up dirt on people in Trump's
campaign whilst Vlad only placed a few ads on FB and most of them were placed after the
election was over. Badder Russia.
That Ukraine was trying to get Hillary elected was well known in the Ukraine
government, but sure let's just say it never happened like that. Then of course there
was Hillary hiring people in another country to dig up dirt too, but that doesn't
count. Why? Reasons of course and because it was Hillary and the DNC doing it. See?
Reasons.
Next paragraph starts with this.
Russia's meddling has sparked outrage from the American body politic. Lots of words
about how that outraged people here...and more blah blah blah stuff.
Next paragrap
Ukraine, on the other hand, has traditionally enjoyed strong relations with U.S.
administrations. Its officials worry that could change under Trump, whose team has
privately expressed sentiments ranging from ambivalence to deep skepticism about
Poroshenko's regime, while sounding unusually friendly notes about Putin's
regime.
Poroshenko is scrambling to alter that dynamic, recently signing a $50,000-a-month
contract with a well-connected GOP-linked Washington lobbying firm to set up meetings
with U.S. government officials "to strengthen U.S.-Ukrainian relations."
Hmm hint of a quid pro quo there?
BTW. Lindsay Graham wants to investigate Hunter Biden and Joe says that he will
regret doing that for the rest of his life. Stay tuned for the fireworks.
this morning intending to grab some of his quotes and links here: ' November
20, 2019 , Impeachment Circus - Today's Bombshell Is Another Dud one chris cilizza link
i'd given to linda wood to see if she or others might parse for me/us.
"The impeachment circus continued today with a refreshingly candid opening statement
from Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the EU. Sondland was involved in diplomatic
efforts in Ukraine. Instead of stonewalling Sondland just let it all out:
'Gordon D. Sondland testified that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed off on the
pressure campaign, and that he told Vice President Mike Pence about an apparent link
between military aid for Ukraine and investigations of Democrats. Mr. Sondland
confirmed there was a "clear quid pro quo" for a White House meeting between President
Trump and Ukraine's president.'
The
anti-Trump media see this as another "bombshell" that will hurt him.
But it is more likely that Sondland's testimony will help President Trump and those
involved on his side.
Ahh yes Russia was the one that started that propaganda. Burisma and Biden was
always on the up and up so don't even think that they weren't. I really don't know how
people who believe everything about Russia Gate and now Ukraine Gate can keep their
beliefs intact when there is so much information showing that what they believe is
wrong or didn't happen the way they think it did.
Almost everything Americans have ever been told about US foreign policy is a lie. Almost
everything we think we know is still a lie.
The Democrat's immediate goal is to install Mike Pence as President as soon as
possible.
Everything depends on this. Pence is the continuation of Obama's Neocon policies in
Ukraine and throughout the world. Biden is the premier Neocon on the 2020 ticket. His job
is to lie himself into the nomination and pick-up a Neocon Vice President. If he loses to
Pence, it doesn't matter. The CFR wins either way. And we're off to war with Russia.
This is a must read for those who want to know what is happening to them. And happening
fast.
It will be hard to see the world the same way again.
as with a hella busy 3-day weekend, i hadn't intended to, but what with the smoke
coming out of my ears and all...
i'd long claimed that i'd want to go out in a first strike as well, and here we are
just east of the shit-head capital of bumfuck, CO (h/t ed abbey).
now there are a number of NORAD
sites , but most nations as i understand it still have No First Strike Rules, but
the US no longer does, iirc (meaning: don't count on it). our daughter and her family
live in el paso county, CO home of one or two, one an alt-site under cheyenne
mountain.
i've often been a bit glib as to: 'Who will stop the US Empire? Those who can...and
must.'
but i dunno who that might end up being, nor how including with nukes. but at this
point, i guess it's all philosophical to me, as we're all living on borrowed time, and
Live in the Moment when possible.
i do so wish i could help you ease your fears, my friend.
there's no way i can read anything that long, especially in the zero-hedge format. but i
found it at the duran, and an easier read on my eye-brain configuration at the
saker . strategic culture usually carries his columns, but not this one...yet.
even scanning at the zero hedge version, i hadn't spotted pence's name. in which part
(I-IV) was it? zuesse has always needed a good editor, imo. but yeah, Pentecostal Pence
gives me the shivers.
Almost everything Americans have ever been told about US foreign policy is a lie.
Almost everything we think we know is still a lie.
The Democrat's immediate goal is to install Mike Pence as President as soon as
possible.
Everything depends on this. Pence is the continuation of Obama's Neocon policies in
Ukraine and throughout the world. Biden is the premier Neocon on the 2020 ticket. His
job is to lie himself into the nomination and pick-up a Neocon Vice President. If he
loses to Pence, it doesn't matter. The CFR wins either way. And we're off to war with
Russia.
This is a must read for those who want to know what is happening to them. And
happening fast.
It will be hard to see the world the same way again.
i read the comments on the saker version, what was key was what zuesse hadn't written
(i.e. any mention of the CIA), and part IV at the duran,, withut elaborating, much of which
i disagreed with.
there's no way i can read anything that long, especially in the zero-hedge format.
but i found it at the duran, and an easier read on my eye-brain configuration
at the
saker . strategic culture usually carries his columns, but not this one...yet.
even scanning at the zero hedge version, i hadn't spotted pence's name. in which
part (I-IV) was it? zuesse has always needed a good editor, imo. but yeah, Pentecostal
Pence gives me the shivers.
@Pluto's Republic or New York for sure. There are a lot of other target rich areas
like Langley, the Silicon Valley area and certainly that big base in San Diego in
California, the possible list is long because this Country is littered with military
installations.
But I'd expect that if Russia had only two nukes to fire Washington DC and NY would be
the instant decision. DC is 'evil Central' to most of the world, and NY City's Wall Street
is its oxygen supply and without those two cities it's like chopping off the head of the
snake. (no offense to snakes intended)
It fills the soul with dread. There is no one left to fight the poisonous empire
from the inside. All have succumbed. They will be along soon enough to clean up these
fragments and send them down the memory hole. I'm going to dwell in the large-target
cities from now on. I intend to be vaporized in the first strike.
are brilliant and vital to understanding the Ukraine situation. I think Part 2 is most
important, even though I disagree with him on one point. He establishes how stupid and
moronic the Democrats' impeachment witnesses are to suggest we have to fight Russia in
Ukraine so we don't have to fight them here. He shows how minuscule Russia's conventional
weapons systems are compared to ours, especially with respect to sea and air power, and
then he states,
... Not surprisingly, Russia's pint-sized economy can not support a military
establishment anywhere near to that of Imperial Washington. To wit, its $61 billion of
military outlays in 2018 amounted to less than 32 days of Washington's current $750
billion of expenditures for defense.
Indeed, it might well be asked how Russia could remotely threaten homeland security in
America short of what would be a suicidal nuclear first strike.
That's because the 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons on each side represent a
continuation of mutual deterrence (MAD) – the arrangement by which we we got
through 45-years of cold war when the Kremlin was run by a totalitarian oligarchy
committed to a hostile ideology; and during which time it had been armed to the teeth via
a forced-draft allocation of upwards of 40% of the GDP of the Soviet empire to the
military.
By comparison, the Russian defense budget currently amounts to less than 4% of the
country's anemic present day economy – one shorn of the vast territories and
populations of Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and all the Asian
"stans" among others. Yet given those realities we are supposed to believe that the
self-evidently calculating and cautious kleptomaniac who runs the Kremlin is going to go
mad, defy MAD and trigger a nuclear Armageddon?
Indeed, the idea that Russia presents a national security threat to America is
laughable. Not only would Putin never risk nuclear suicide, but even that fantasy is the
extent of what he's got. That is, Russia's conventional capacity to project force to the
North American continent is nonexistent – or at best, lies somewhere between nichts
and nothing.
I agree with Stockman that in a conventional war with the U.S., we win. But that's just
exactly the problem. Russia can't have a conventional war with us or with NATO. It's
defense from us is ONLY nuclear assured destruction. So the problem is not whether or not
he's nuts. The problem is that we are nuts. Our government is nuts. Our government has a
first strike policy, meaning our government considers it rational to eliminate a portion of
the American people, which in our Nuclear Posture Review would be catastrophic, in order to
win a war with Russia.
... The NPR argues that additional low-yield options are "not intended to enable"
nuclear war-fighting "[n]or will it lower the nuclear threshold" (p. 54). But this
assertion ignores the fact that the stated purpose is to make their use "more credible"
in the eyes of U.S. adversaries , which means that they are meant to be seen as "more
usable."
The belief that a nuclear conflict could be controlled is dangerous thinking. The fog
of war is thick, the fog of nuclear war would be even thicker. Such thinking could also
have the perverse effect of convincing Russia that it could get away with limited nuclear
use without putting its survival at risk.
Many military targets are in or near urban areas. It has been estimated that the use
of even a fraction of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces could lead to the death of tens of
millions of people in each country. An all-out exchange would kill hundreds of millions
and produce catastrophic global consequences with adverse agricultural, economic, health,
and environmental consequences for billions of people.
No country should be preparing to wage a "limited nuclear war" that neither side can
guarantee would remain "limited." Rather, as Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail
Gorbachev declared in 1985, today's Russian and U.S. leaders should recognize that "a
nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought."
and i agree: it's not the defense budget that matters. in this nation, the defense
industries are allowed to do 'cost over-runs', and russia's weapons of war and defensive
war are clearly superior. see how many are wanting russian man-pads missile defense, for
instance.
i'll take part two, but at anti-war.com to the café. commenter juliania loved
part I witless! i was sad to read that justin raimondo has already crossed over, may he
rest in power. one place i'd blogged for a time were outraged i tell you, Outraged, that a
libertarian wrote for antiwar.com. needless to say, i didn't last long at the
accursed dagblog.com.
are brilliant and vital to understanding the Ukraine situation. I think Part 2 is
most important, even though I disagree with him on one point. He establishes how stupid
and moronic the Democrats' impeachment witnesses are to suggest we have to fight Russia
in Ukraine so we don't have to fight them here. He shows how minuscule Russia's
conventional weapons systems are compared to ours, especially with respect to sea and
air power, and then he states,
... Not surprisingly, Russia's pint-sized economy can not support a military
establishment anywhere near to that of Imperial Washington. To wit, its $61 billion
of military outlays in 2018 amounted to less than 32 days of Washington's current
$750 billion of expenditures for defense.
Indeed, it might well be asked how Russia could remotely threaten homeland
security in America short of what would be a suicidal nuclear first strike.
That's because the 1,600 deployed nuclear weapons on each side represent a
continuation of mutual deterrence (MAD) – the arrangement by which we we got
through 45-years of cold war when the Kremlin was run by a totalitarian oligarchy
committed to a hostile ideology; and during which time it had been armed to the teeth
via a forced-draft allocation of upwards of 40% of the GDP of the Soviet empire to
the military.
By comparison, the Russian defense budget currently amounts to less than 4% of the
country's anemic present day economy – one shorn of the vast territories and
populations of Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and all the Asian
"stans" among others. Yet given those realities we are supposed to believe that the
self-evidently calculating and cautious kleptomaniac who runs the Kremlin is going to
go mad, defy MAD and trigger a nuclear Armageddon?
Indeed, the idea that Russia presents a national security threat to America is
laughable. Not only would Putin never risk nuclear suicide, but even that fantasy is
the extent of what he's got. That is, Russia's conventional capacity to project force
to the North American continent is nonexistent – or at best, lies somewhere
between nichts and nothing.
I agree with Stockman that in a conventional war with the U.S., we win. But that's
just exactly the problem. Russia can't have a conventional war with us or with NATO.
It's defense from us is ONLY nuclear assured destruction. So the problem is not whether
or not he's nuts. The problem is that we are nuts. Our government is nuts. Our
government has a first strike policy, meaning our government considers it rational to
eliminate a portion of the American people, which in our Nuclear Posture Review would
be catastrophic, in order to win a war with Russia.
... The NPR argues that additional low-yield options are "not intended to enable"
nuclear war-fighting "[n]or will it lower the nuclear threshold" (p. 54). But this
assertion ignores the fact that the stated purpose is to make their use "more
credible" in the eyes of U.S. adversaries , which means that they are meant to be
seen as "more usable."
The belief that a nuclear conflict could be controlled is dangerous thinking. The
fog of war is thick, the fog of nuclear war would be even thicker. Such thinking
could also have the perverse effect of convincing Russia that it could get away with
limited nuclear use without putting its survival at risk.
Many military targets are in or near urban areas. It has been estimated that the
use of even a fraction of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces could lead to the death of
tens of millions of people in each country. An all-out exchange would kill hundreds
of millions and produce catastrophic global consequences with adverse agricultural,
economic, health, and environmental consequences for billions of people.
No country should be preparing to wage a "limited nuclear war" that neither side
can guarantee would remain "limited." Rather, as Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail
Gorbachev declared in 1985, today's Russian and U.S. leaders should recognize that "a
nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought."
"... "Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount of influence over both parties." ..."
"... She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so serious about what's at stake here." ..."
"... Democratic presidential primary debate, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in Atlanta, via the AP. ..."
In a rare moment with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi
Gabbard explained why the leading figures in her party are war hawks. Far from days of the
Democrats feigning to have any semblance of an 'anti-war' platform (only convenient for Liberal
activism during the Bush years, but fizzling out under Obama), today's party attempts to
out-hawk Republicans at every turn.
"I'm looking at the Democratic establishment figures," Matthews introduced, "people I
normally like. John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton. You go down the list. They all supported
the war in Iraq. Why were they hawks? " (Though we might ask, what do you mean, "
were ?"). "Why so many Democrats with a party that's not hawkish, why are so many of
their leaders hawks?" Matthews reiterated.
In the segment, Matthews heaps rare praise on Tulsi for being "out there all alone tonight
fighting against the neocons."
"Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy
establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount
of influence over both parties."
She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors
have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have
people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical
decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so
serious about what's at stake here."
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The interview happened immediately after this week's fifth Democratic debate Wednesday night
in Atlanta, and after pundits have continued to complain that Gabbard is a 'single issue
candidate'.
However, is there any candidate in her party or in the GOP saying these things?
We find ourselves in a rare moment of agreement with MSNBC's Matthews: she is "out there all
alone tonight fighting against the neocons." Tags Politics
For some bizarre reason, The New York Times asked Paul Wolfowitz to write
about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East:
If we abandon the allies who made possible the victory over ISIS, and perhaps now also
abandon the Afghan allies who enabled us to drive Al Qaeda out of their country in 2001, the
United States will make the same mistake as Mark Twain's cat, viewing everything in the
greater Middle East through the prism of the painful experiences of the "hot stoves" -- the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars [bold mine-DL]. Abandoning allies who have advanced American
interests, while fighting courageously for their own, is not a formula for avoiding another
large-scale United States military engagement in the Middle East, but rather for ending up in
another one. Next time, however, will be without the local allies we need.
Before we get to Wolfowitz's argument, such as it is, can we just marvel at the
shamelessness of Wolfowitz when he presumes to lecture anyone about sound foreign policy
decision-making? Wolfowitz was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the invasion of Iraq,
and in his role at the Pentagon he was also one of the top officials most responsible for the
ensuing debacle. He then has the gall to liken that war and the war in Afghanistan to "hot
stoves," as if the consequences of these wasteful wars were no more than being briefly burned.
What an awful way to trivialize almost two decades of failure and massive loss of life.
No one needs to hear from Wolfowitz on this or frankly any other foreign policy issue. There
must be dozens of other writers who would argue for the same general position without helping
to rehabilitate one of the architects of the biggest U.S. foreign policy blunder in the last
forty years. If we want to know why there is no accountability in U.S. foreign policy, this
Wolfowitz op-ed is Exhibit A. Former officials and policymakers can get things as wrong as can
be, advocate for truly disastrous policies that claim hundreds of thousands of lives, and yet
their opinions will still be taken seriously and published as if nothing had ever happened.
There have been no professional or legal consequences for the officials responsible for the
great crime that was the Iraq war, and instead they are asked for their advice on what the U.S.
should do next in the same region that they set on fire.
The main flaw in the substance of Wolfowitz's op-ed is that he assumes that the U.S. will
always be "sucked back in" to more regional conflicts if it ever tries to leave any of them.
According to this view, withdrawal is more destabilizing than intervention, and so while
Wolfowitz never disagrees with the interventions he is dead-set against the withdrawals. If the
U.S. can't ever leave a foreign conflict that it has chosen to fight for fear of creating a
"vacuum," that amounts to saying that some U.S. forces must remain in these countries in
perpetuity. No U.S. interests are being served by refusing to bring these wars to a conclusion.
It just traps the U.S. in prisons of our own making. Instead of thinking about how to prepare
local partners for the inevitable U.S. departure, our politicians and policymakers waste that
time by concocting implausible stories for why we can never leave.
Syria is the more straightforward example. Even when ISIS was in control of a significant
amount of territory, the U.S. did not have to go to war there. The U.S. was not defending
itself, and our forces had no business going into Syria five years ago. Now that ISIS is a
fraction of its former self, there is really no reason for U.S. forces to stay. The U.S. should
be able to avoid another "large-scale military engagement" in the region because there is no
good reason for the U.S. to get involved in another one. The idea that the U.S. has to keep
forces in Syria illegally in Syria to prevent our government from launching another war on the
scale of the Iraq invasion is preposterous, but Wolfowitz presents it as if it needs no
argument.
Wolfowitz likes to fault the U.S. for its "inaction" in the region, by which he always means
that the U.S. chose not to become even more actively involved in conflicts inside other
countries. It is telling that he repeats the falsehood that the U.S. didn't support the Syrian
opposition, when support for the opposition from the U.S. and our allies and clients helped to
fuel the war and keep it going longer than it otherwise might have. In one breath, he lists the
terrible human costs of the war, and then in the next condemns the U.S. for not having done
more to add to them. There is no acknowledgment anywhere in his op-ed that U.S. intervention
frequently makes things worse, and there is no consideration that avoiding deeper involvement
in these conflicts was actually in the best interests of the United States. Of course there
isn't. Wolfowitz is a tired neoconservative ideologue and he isn't going to learn anything from
the catastrophic failures of policies he supported.
Of course, there is no ineluctable force that drags the U.S. into these conflicts. It is the
faulty assumptions of ideologues like Wolfowitz who imagine that there are vital American
interests at stake in conflicts where there aren't any. The U.S. is never "sucked back in." Our
government goes running back in at the first chance it gets. Sometimes this is driven by threat
inflation, sometimes it is driven by headlines that prompt calls for "action," sometimes it is
driven by a misguided need to show "leadership," and sometimes it is just old-fashioned
"do-somethingism" where the U.S. intervenes because it can. It is almost never driven by a need
to protect the United States or even our treaty allies. One president after another chooses to
entangle the U.S. in conflicts in the Middle East that the U.S. could easily avoid. Having
failed to avoid these entanglements, we are then told that disentanglement is never an
acceptable option. If the U.S. is ever going to extricate itself from endless wars, we have to
learn that our ongoing military involvement in these conflicts is a greater source of
instability than our departure ever could be.
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in
the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics
Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The
American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in
history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
"... "...it is quite possible that the historically well-informed neocons are merely longing for the good old Bolshevik days in Russia." ..."
"... Neocons resurrect tribal memories to fan the flames ..."
"... Imo Vindman's testimony revealed a 'personal' grudge against Russia. Hill also displayed a 'obsession' with Russia imo..... its interesting her Russian instructor at Harvard was Richard Pipes, the supreme Russian hater. ..."
"... Perhaps you should consider the influence of Ukrainian emigre groups/lobbies. They are essentialy an extension of the Galician movement you refer to. ..."
"... Machiavelli warned repeatedly of the baleful results that listening to exiles gets you into (specifically concerning attempts to reinstate some exiles in the place they came from), George Washingtons farewell adress can be read in a similiar way. Here is the thing with exiles: ..."
"... Lets pretend that Atlantis exists, but 98% of Americans do not particularly care about this country. Now something happens there that genereates exiles. If those exiles are at least somewhat savy, they will passionately argue that the current atlantean government is pure evil. Other then that, they will strive to make themselfs usefull to the host nation. Now, lets pretend that you have 5 such atlantean exiles in a group of 100 politicians. The atlantean exiles would care primarily about condeming the atlantean government, and may be in a position to deliver political points in other areas to anyone who is asking. A normal "I dont care about Atlantis" politican will see a fairly simple cost benefit thing, I condemn Atlantis, something about which I do not care at all, and in return the exiles will back something I care about, like my health policy. ..."
"... This is by no means a rapid development, but give it a couple of decades and the exchange of many such small favors will essentially result in a large group of politicians who will underwrite things like "Atlantis delenda est", mostly because they dont actually care about Atlantis. ..."
"... I don't know why this campaign against Russia was launched but at least part of it was domestic political pressure from Clinton Dems towards Trump Reps. What better way to deflect criticism about the foreign influences on the Clinton Dems (massive bribes from the usual suspects, either direct or via the Clinton Fdn.) but by accusing your opponent of being in the pay of foreign powers? ..."
"... Hillary Clinton shrieking about "Russia Wikileaks" seems to me to be pure projection and also rationalising a cause for her defeat other than the incompetence and corruption of her campaign. ..."
"... Also it seems to me that the Russian defeat of the regime change op in Syria (altho the situation seems rather fluid at the moment...) is another motivation where Israel's interests loom large. ..."
"... A grandfather and great grandfather were in a Union regiment but that hardly is proof that I am a Union man. Unusual family demographics to be sure but even then those Ukrainians served in that SS unit over 70 years ago. I doubt they were even then motivated by National Socialist ideology. Hatred of Russians was likely the primary motivation, as now. The German invasion was an opportunity to settle scores. ..."
"... I understand the hatred but not the application of "Nazi" to any Ukrainian thinking. If "Nazi" merely connotes "thuggish" then perhaps that explains the Azov formations but I suspect much more is at work. Additional inquiry is warranted. ..."
"... Many of those in the Ukrainian SS units ended up in Canada after WW2, resulting in the very pro Ukranian actions of the Canadian Government post 2014. Their FM, Christina Freeland, is a descendant. ..."
"... After the fall of the Former Soviet Union in 1991, saw a resurgence of the OUN. ..."
"... The Ukrainian Nazi formations and political factions openly call themselves Nazis. For that matter, everyone else called them Nazis too, at least before they became useful to the neocons. I'll spare everyone an explanation of Ukrainian diaspora culture, but I will say that, before WWII, the principal Ukrainian nationalist folk devil wasn't Russia. It was Poland and the Jews. ..."
"... Could the anti Russia bias be as simple as the need to protect the empires of people in State and Defence etc that would be no longer needed if Russia was a 'good' guy? ..."
"... Then there is the MIC and the lobbying flows of money into Congress.Russia is far too important to too many insiders to be anything but an enemy. ..."
"... As pointed out earlier - the military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify its exorbitant budgets. The Deep State, the Borg, the Blob, whatever you want to call it, needs a Big Enemy to justify its spying and increasingly blatant interference in domestic US politics. ..."
"... the Russian nation is greatly under populated and owns a staggering per cent of the planets natural resources of every description. envy by those look from the outside towards russia is alone sufficient justification for wanting to grab it for themselves as has been unsuccessfully tried for centuries. ..."
"... The irony, of course, is that in Jewish folk memory, the most pig-headed (pun intended) and virulent anti-Semites were the peasants of Galicia (western Ukraine) and Poland. ..."
"... I also share your bafflement and not just with the political positions of the likes of Victoria Nuland. What do US & UK hope to gain? I can't see any benefits. ..."
Giraldi suggests, "...it is quite possible that the historically well-informed neocons are
merely longing for the good old Bolshevik days in Russia." That aligns more readily with
neocons' (and their oligarch supporters') psychopathic obsession with power and control via
the state. Giraldi also illustrates another more recent period in history when the neocons
were not decidedly anti-Russian:
In fact, the neocons got along quite well with Russia when they and their overwhelmingly
Jewish oligarchs and international commodity thieves cum financier friends were looting the
resources of the old Soviet Union under the hapless Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s. Alarms
about the alleged Russian threat only re-emerged in the neocon dominated media and think
tanks when old fashioned nationalist Vladimir Putin took office and made it a principal
goal of his government to turn off the money tap.
There was no monolithic 'Jewish Oligarch' club cashing in on Yeltsin's Russia. In the
broadest sense, the western neocon-friendly Russian-Jewish oligarch group(s) were booted out
by Putin, while rival group(s) stayed in Russia and submitted to Putin's reforms (whatever
that means). Saker has written in the past about the various Jewish oligarch factions in
Russia. It's complicated and beyond me.
Israel Shamir attempts to untangle the contradictory views on Ukraine from the State of
Israel, Ukrainian-Jewish oligarchs, neocons and Jews from the US, Ukraine and Russia:
Summary: 'Tribal' oversimplifies - no unified opinion. It's complicated. Mr. Shamir's
views seem reasonable and go a long way to explaining the contradictions to me.
Giraldi suggests, "...it is quite possible that the historically well-informed neocons are
merely longing for the good old Bolshevik days in Russia."
I have a great deal of respect for Phil Giraldi but he is wrong here--it has nothing to do
with "Bolshevism", whatever that means in the American context, but with settling accounts
with 1930s purges of largely, not exclusively, Jewish Trotskists from the party and a
consistent anti-Zionist position of USSR till the every end. Now, with Russia effectively
de-fanging Israel, they go apoplectic. Modern neocons have zero relation to Bolshevism and if
they dream about anything--it is mostly have Russia gone as such.
''A question for me is the motivation behind the antipathy of the American neo-liberals and
neocons toward Russia. There are a lot of Jews scattered among these groups. .... Or, do
these people see Russia as a plausible geopolitical rival for the US? Surely it cannot be as
simple, or simpleminded as that.''
Jews have next to zero political control in Russia and I do think that the Zionist see
Russia, as the only other superpower, as a hindrance to their aims for one thing.
Also any state where Jews 'lost out' is subject to vilification and branded as evil.
Imo Vindman's testimony revealed a 'personal' grudge against Russia. Hill also
displayed a 'obsession' with Russia imo..... its interesting her Russian instructor at
Harvard was Richard Pipes, the supreme Russian hater.
As for the non Jewish Neos what would they do without a big scary enemy to fight?...they
might have to actually concentrate on doing things for America.
If anyone is interested here is a nice tool for following congressional bills and etc..
Mostly good for counting all the money they are giving away and the sanctions on countries
they are demanding....they aren't doing much of anything else in congress if you don't count
the kangaroo court circus.
How odd on PBS tonight - 'Secrets of Her Majesty's Secret Service" - an inside look at the
worlds only defense against Russia -a love letter to M16 and it nearly 100 year "special
relationship" with the US and CIA.
What strange timing for such a calculated PR piece for an extremely publicity shy Five
Eyes operation. Were they trying to get ahead of the coming Russiagate investigation reports
with this engaging documentary - we are in fact the James Bonds of the world and we know you
Americans love James Bond.
Anyone else see it or have I gotten aa sinister cabal derangement syndrome behind even PBS
"friendly" documentaries?
"A question for me is the motivation behind the antipathy of the American neo-liberals and
neocons toward Russia" Perhaps you should consider the influence of Ukrainian emigre groups/lobbies. They are
essentialy an extension of the Galician movement you refer to.
" Is it Russia's relentless persecution of homosexuals?" What's the evidence for this
persecution?
Essentially, when both 2 persons as contrary to each other as George Washington and
Niccolo Machiavelli agree on something, it behoves one well to listen.
Machiavelli warned repeatedly of the baleful results that listening to exiles gets you
into (specifically concerning attempts to reinstate some exiles in the place they came from),
George Washingtons farewell adress can be read in a similiar way. Here is the thing with
exiles:
Lets pretend that Atlantis exists, but 98% of Americans do not particularly care
about this country. Now something happens there that genereates exiles. If those exiles are
at least somewhat savy, they will passionately argue that the current atlantean government
is pure evil. Other then that, they will strive to make themselfs usefull to the host
nation. Now, lets pretend that you have 5 such atlantean exiles in a group of 100
politicians. The atlantean exiles would care primarily about condeming the atlantean
government, and may be in a position to deliver political points in other areas to anyone
who is asking. A normal "I dont care about Atlantis" politican will see a fairly simple
cost benefit thing, I condemn Atlantis, something about which I do not care at all, and in
return the exiles will back something I care about, like my health policy.
This is by no means a rapid development, but give it a couple of decades and the
exchange of many such small favors will essentially result in a large group of politicians
who will underwrite things like "Atlantis delenda est", mostly because they dont actually
care about Atlantis.
This is not a specifically US thing at all. My understanding is that Russias WW1 decision
to back Serbia was considerably influenced by a group of ethnically serbian/Montenegrin
advisors (who, one has to say were otherwise loyal to Russia, and had fought with distinction
in the Tsars wars, shedding their blood for Russia).
I don't know why this campaign against Russia was launched but at least part of it was
domestic political pressure from Clinton Dems towards Trump Reps. What better way to deflect
criticism about the foreign influences on the Clinton Dems (massive bribes from the usual
suspects, either direct or via the Clinton Fdn.) but by accusing your opponent of being in
the pay of foreign powers?
Hillary Clinton shrieking about "Russia Wikileaks" seems to me to be pure projection
and also rationalising a cause for her defeat other than the incompetence and corruption of
her campaign.
Also it seems to me that the Russian defeat of the regime change op in Syria (altho the
situation seems rather fluid at the moment...) is another motivation where Israel's interests
loom large.
It also seems to me to be stunningly stupid to have thrown away any potential alliance
with Russia in favor of promoting Wahabist scum. And forcing Russia into the arms of the
Chinese instead of recruiting them into the containment cordon.
Anyway, speaking as a denizen of Plato's cave, without direct knowledge of the reality of
the thing it's mostly educated guesses on my part...
A grandfather and great grandfather were in a Union regiment but that hardly is proof that
I am a Union man. Unusual family demographics to be sure but even then those Ukrainians
served in that SS unit over 70 years ago. I doubt they were even then motivated by National
Socialist ideology. Hatred of Russians was likely the primary motivation, as now. The German
invasion was an opportunity to settle scores.
I understand the hatred but not the application of "Nazi" to any Ukrainian thinking. If
"Nazi" merely connotes "thuggish" then perhaps that explains the Azov formations but I
suspect much more is at work. Additional inquiry is warranted.
Many of those in the Ukrainian SS units ended up in Canada after WW2, resulting in the
very pro Ukranian actions of the Canadian Government post 2014. Their FM, Christina Freeland,
is a descendant.
Folks like Freeland openly credit her SS grandfather for her ideology. When speaking in
public, she does then to conveniently omit his services to the national Socialist state.
Try Stephan Bandera, he was as bad of a figure as what the Russians accused him of being.
Bandera's legacy was that of a Nazi sympathizer and a real nut case too boot. He was one sick
twisted individual.
After the fall of the Former Soviet Union in 1991, saw a resurgence of the OUN.
These Russian hating individuals that composed the far-right Nazi resurgence in the Ukraine
government, started terrifying the Russian enclaves in the Crimea, and those enclaves in turn
called on their fellow Russian brothers in Russia for help, to which Putin and the Russian
military came to their aid and the annexation of the Crimea by Russia took place so as to
protect the Russian enclaves from further persecution by the Banderites. Bandera posters
became more and more prevalent. The Euromaidan protests turned more and more violent, the
wolfsangel that was formerly a symbol of the SS but was now taken up by the Azov Battalion
and other militias, the old OUN war cry of "Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes" that was
now ubiquitous among anti-Yanukovych protesters.
Here's some further reading regarding Stephan Bandera:
The Ukrainian Nazi formations and political factions openly call themselves Nazis. For
that matter, everyone else called them Nazis too, at least before they became useful to the
neocons. I'll spare everyone an explanation of Ukrainian diaspora culture, but I will say
that, before WWII, the principal Ukrainian nationalist folk devil wasn't Russia. It was
Poland and the Jews.
That's a very interesting write up at Zerohedge. I believe we discussed the same conduct,
though not the depth of corruption of US politicians, here while that was happening. The borg
are starting to panic with the threat of a real investigation.
Thank you for the posting and thank all for the comments.
Some of us out here in The Middle can't really understand any of the behaviors of those
good and not-so-good Swamp dwellers (any more than we can understand the behaviors of the La
La Land Californian politicians.
I understand more about the issues involving our relationship with Ukraine by reading this
post and comments than I ever would have been able to since I simply don't have time to get
large books and many detailed published papers to read.
Could the anti Russia bias be as simple as the need to protect the empires of people in
State and Defence etc that would be no longer needed if Russia was a 'good' guy?
The US's 'independent' multi-national force NATO would clearly no longer be needed, so
many years after the Warsaw Pact dissolved. Whilst the US 'occupation' forces all over the
place, but especially in Europe, could return home to the US.
Then there is the MIC and the lobbying flows of money into Congress.Russia is far too
important to too many insiders to be anything but an enemy.
Indeed, its boom time as China related structures are expanding in parallel rather than
replacing those directed at Russia.
As pointed out earlier - the military industrial complex needs a Big Enemy to justify its
exorbitant budgets. The Deep State, the Borg, the Blob, whatever you want to call it, needs a
Big Enemy to justify its spying and increasingly blatant interference in domestic US
politics.
There are too many business ties with China, and our supply chains reach too deeply into
that country, for it to serve as a Big Enemy without causing serious disruption.
the reasons for the agreed upon antipathy towards Russia is imo not the actual reason for the
hostilities that have existed for at least the last 100 years and actually much longer.
the Russian nation is greatly under populated and owns a staggering per cent of the
planets natural resources of every description. envy by those look from the outside towards
russia is alone sufficient justification for wanting to grab it for themselves as has been
unsuccessfully tried for centuries.
why complicate matters when simple greed answers so many of the questions asked about WHY
the west hates russia.
The irony, of course, is that in Jewish folk memory, the most pig-headed (pun intended)
and virulent anti-Semites were the peasants of Galicia (western Ukraine) and Poland.
I also share your bafflement and not just with the political positions of the likes of
Victoria Nuland. What do US & UK hope to gain? I can't see any benefits.
From the point of view of election promise of detente with Russia, Trump clearly betrayed them. He was a neocon puppet
from the beginning to the end, His policy was not that different from hypothetical policy of Hillary administration.
Notable quotes:
"... Caitlin Johnstone discredits a CNN listicle on Trump's "softness" towards Moscow. In fact, she writes, the U.S. president has actually been consistently reckless towards Moscow, with zero resistance from either party. ..."
"... It would be understandable if you were unaware that Trump has been escalating tensions with Moscow more than any other president since the fall of the Berlin Wall; it's a fact that neither of America's two mainstream political factions care about, so it tends to get lost in the shuffle. Trump's opposition is interested in painting him as a sycophantic Kremlin crony, and his supporters are interested in painting him as an antiwar hero of the people, but he is neither ..."
"... Anyone who has not read Orwell's 1984 should do so sooner rather than later. The official control of narrative in the novel is what we are presently drowning in. To watch it work so spectacularly is beyond depressing. ..."
"... The complete corruption of Western MSM is the reason many of us regularly read Caitlin and Consortium, all desperately trying to get some sort of a reality-check in an otherwise "Orwellian" media environment. ..."
"... The simple truth here is that in regard to the military (read 'military complex', which includes the deep state and shadow government [intelligence agencies] every president is a puppet. ..."
"... The coup in Ukraine was a major provocation to Russia, but was also a repeat of the Americans' rape and pillaging of Russia under Yeltsin, Clinton's puppet. The per capita median income of Ukrainians has dropped in half from 2013, despite pumping $billions in from the US. ..."
"... Failing impeachment, from the attempts by the Clinton Campaign, to the Congressional sanctions on Russia, to sabotage of Syria withdrawal to the Mueller hoax, to the State Dept hawks protests on Ukraine, the effort to prevent Trump from following through on his campaign promise has been the primary goal of the intelligence community. It is instructive to note that the phone call that has led to the current impeachment inquiry was made on July 26, the day following Robert Mueller's clownish testimony before Congress, effectively ending that line of impeachment. ..."
"... Also note that although the phone call was made in July, nothing was said about it until after John Bolton was fired in September, 2 months later. ..."
Caitlin Johnstone discredits a CNN listicle on Trump's "softness" towards Moscow. In fact,
she writes, the U.S. president has actually been consistently reckless towards Moscow, with
zero resistance from either party.
CNN has published a fascinatingly manipulative and falsehood-laden article titled "
25 times Trump
was soft on Russia ," in which a lot of strained effort is poured into building the case
that the U.S. president is suspiciously loyal to the nation against which he has spent his
administration escalating dangerous new cold war aggressions.
The items within the CNN article consist mostly of times in which Trump said some words or
failed to say other words; "Trump has repeatedly praised Putin," "Trump refused to say Putin is
a killer," "Trump denied that Russia interfered in 2016," "Trump made light of Russian
hacking," etc. It also includes the
completely false but oft-repeated narrative
that "Trump's team softened the GOP platform on Ukraine", as well as the utterly ridiculous and thoroughly
invalidated claim that "Since intervening in Syria in 2015, the Russian military has
focused its airstrikes on anti-government rebels, not ISIS."
CNN's 25 items are made up almost entirely of narrative and words; Trump said a nice thing
about Putin, Trump said offending things to NATO allies, Trump thought about visiting Putin in
Russia, etc. In contrast, the 25 items which I am about to list do not consist of narrative at
all, but rather the actual movement of actual concrete objects which can easily lead to an
altercation from which there may be no re-emerging. These items show that when you ignore the
words and narrative spin and look at what this administration has actually been doing ,
it's clear to anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty that, far from being "soft" on
Russia, Trump has actually been consistently reckless in the one area where a US president must
absolutely always maintain a steady hand. And he's been doing so with zero resistance from
either party.
It would be understandable if you were unaware that Trump has been escalating tensions with
Moscow more than any other president since the fall of the Berlin Wall; it's a fact that
neither of America's two mainstream political factions care about, so it tends to get lost in
the shuffle. Trump's opposition is interested in painting him as a sycophantic Kremlin crony,
and his supporters are interested in painting him as an antiwar hero of the people, but he is
neither. Observe:
1. Implementing a Nuclear Posture Review with a more aggressive stance
toward Russia
Last year Trump's Department of Defense rolled out a Nuclear Posture Review which
CNN itself called "its toughest line yet against Russia's resurgent nuclear forces."
"In its newly released Nuclear Posture Review, the Defense Department has focused much of
its multibillion nuclear effort on an updated nuclear deterrence focused on Russia," CNN
reported last year.
This revision of nuclear policy includes the new implementation of
"low-yield" nuclear weapons , which, because they are designed to be more "usable" than
conventional nuclear ordinances,
have been called "the most dangerous weapon ever" by critics of this insane policy. These
weapons, which can remove some of the inhibitions that mutually assured destruction would
normally give military commanders, have already been rolled off the assembly line.
2.
Arming Ukraine
Lost in the gibberish about Trump temporarily withholding military aide to supposedly
pressure a Ukrainian government who was never even aware of being
pressured is the fact that arming Ukraine against Russia is an entirely new policy that was
introduced by
the Trump administration in the first place. Even the Obama administration, which was
plenty hawkish toward Russia in its own right, refused to implement this extremely provocative escalation
against Moscow. It was not until Obama was replaced with the worst Putin puppet of all time
that this policy was put in place.
3. Bombing Syria
Another escalation Trump took against Russia which Obama wasn't hawkish enough to also do
was bombing the Syrian government, a longtime ally of Moscow. These airstrikes in April 2017 and
April 2018 were perpetrated in retaliation for chemical weapons use allegations that there
is
no legitimate reason to trust at this point.
4. Staging coup attempts in
Venezuela
Venezuela, another Russian ally, has been the subject of relentless coup attempts
from the Trump administration which persist unsuccessfully to this very day .
Trump's attempts to topple the Venezuelan government have been so violent and aggressive that
the starvation sanctions which he has implemented are believed to have
killed tens of thousands of Venezuelan civilians .
"Signals coming from certain capitals indicating the possibility of external military
interference look particularly disquieting," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "We warn
against such reckless actions, which threaten catastrophic consequences."
5. Withdrawing
from the INF treaty
For a president who's "soft" on Russia, Trump has sure been eager to keep postures between
the two nations extremely aggressive in nature. This administration has withdrawn from the 1987
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, prompting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to
declare that
"the world lost an invaluable brake on nuclear war." It appears entirely possible that Trump
will continue to adhere to the John Bolton school of nuclear weapons treaties until they all
lie in tatters, with the administration strongly criticizing the crucial New START
Treaty which expires in early 2021.
Some particularly demented Russiagaters try to argue that Trump withdrawing from these
treaties benefits Russia in some way. These people either (A) believe that treaties only go one
way, (B) believe that a nation with an economy the size of South
Korea can compete with the U.S. in an arms race, (C) believe that Russians are immune to
nuclear radiation, or (D) all of the above. Withdrawing from these treaties benefits no one but
the military-industrial complex.
6. Ending the Open Skies Treaty
"The Trump administration has taken steps toward leaving a nearly three-decade-old agreement
designed to reduce the risk of war between Russia and the West by allowing both sides to
conduct reconnaissance flights over one another's territories," The Wall Street Journalreported last month , adding that the
administration has alleged that "Russia has interfered with American monitoring flights while
using its missions to gather intelligence in the US."
Again, if you subscribe to the bizarre belief that withdrawing from this treaty benefits
Russia, please think harder. Or ask the Russians themselves how they feel about it:
"US plans to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty lower the threshold for the use of nuclear
weapons and multiply the risks for the whole world, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai
Patrushev said," Sputnik
reports .
"All this negatively affects the predictability of the military-strategic situation and
lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which drastically increases the risks for
the whole humanity," Patrushev said.
"In general, it is becoming apparent that Washington intends to use its technological
leadership in order to maintain strategic dominance in the information space by actually
pursuing a policy of imposing its conditions on states that are lagging behind in digital
development," he added.
7. Selling Patriot missiles to Poland
"Poland signed the largest arms procurement deal in its history on Wednesday, agreeing with
the United States to buy Raytheon Co's Patriot missile defense system for $4.75 billion in a
major step to modernize its forces against a bolder Russia," Reuters
reported last year .
8. Occupying Syrian oil fields
The Trump administration has been open about
the fact that it is not only maintaining a military presence in Syria to control the
nation's oil, but that it is doing so in order to deprive the
nation's government of that financial resource. Syria's ally Russia strongly opposes this,
accusing the Trump administration of nothing short of "international state banditry".
"In a statement, Russia's defense ministry said Washington had no mandate under
international or US law to increase its military presence in Syria and said its plan was not
motivated by genuine security concerns in the region," Reutersreported last
month.
"Therefore Washington's current actions – capturing and maintaining military control
over oil fields in eastern Syria – is, simply put, international state banditry,"
Russia's defense ministry said.
9. Killing Russians in Syria
Reports have placed Russian casualties anywhere between a handful and
hundreds , but whatever the exact number the U.S. military is known to have killed Russian
citizens as part of the Trump administration's ongoing Syria occupation in an altercation last
year.
exact number the U.S. military is known to have killed Russian citizens as part of the Trump
administration's ongoing Syria occupation in an altercation last year.
10. Tanks in
Estonia
Within weeks of taking office,
Trump was already sending Abrams battle tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and other
military hardware right up to Russia's border as part of a NATO operation.
"Atlantic Resolve is a demonstration of continued US commitment to collective security
through a series of actions designed to reassure NATO allies and partners of America's
dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region in light of the Russian intervention
in Ukraine," the Defense Department said in a statement.
11. War ships in the Black
Sea
12. Sanctions
Trump approved new sanctions against Russia on August 2017. CNN reports the following:
"US President Donald Trump approved fresh sanctions on Russia Wednesday after Congress
showed overwhelming bipartisan support for the new measures," CNN reported at
the time . "Congress passed the bill last week in response to Russia's interference in the
2016 US election, as well as its human rights violations, annexation of Crimea and military
operations in eastern Ukraine. The bill's passage drew ire from Moscow -- which responded by
stripping 755 staff members and two properties from US missions in the country -- all but
crushing any hope for the reset in US-Russian relations that Trump and Russian President
Vladimir Putin had called for."
"A full-fledged trade war has been declared on Russia," said Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in
response.
13. More sanctions
"The United States imposed sanctions on five Russian individuals on Wednesday, including the
leader of the Republic of Chechnya, for alleged human rights abuses and involvement in criminal
conspiracies, a sign that the Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on Russia," The
New York Timesreported in December
2017 .
14. Still more sanctions
"Trump just hit Russian oligarchs with the most aggressive sanctions yet," reads
a Vice headline from April of last year.
"The sanctions target seven oligarchs and 12 companies under their ownership or control, 17
senior Russian government officials, and a state-owned Russian weapons trading company and its
subsidiary, a Russian bank," Vice reports. "While the move is aimed, in part, at Russia's role
in the U.S. 2016 election, senior U.S. government officials also stressed that the new measures
seek to penalize Russia's recent bout of international troublemaking more broadly, including
its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and military activity in eastern
Ukraine."
"The Trump administration on Thursday imposed new sanctions on a dozen individuals and
entities in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea," The Hill
reported in November of last year. "The group includes a company linked to Bank Rossiya and
Russian businessman Yuri Kovalchuk and others accused of operating in Crimea, which the U.S.
says Russia seized illegally in 2014."
17. Oh hey, more sanctions
"Today, the United States continues to take action in response to Russian attempts to
influence US democratic processes by imposing sanctions on four entities and seven individuals
associated with the Internet Research Agency and its financier, Yevgeniy Prigozhin. This action
increases pressure on Prigozhin by targeting his luxury assets, including three aircraft and a
vessel," reads
a statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from September of this year.
18.
Secondary sanctions
Secondary
sanctions are economic sanctions in which a third party is punished for breaching the
primary sanctions of the sanctioning body. The U.S. has leveled sanctions against both
China and
Turkey for
purchasing Russian S-400 air defense missiles, and it is
threatening to do so to India as well.
19. Forcing Russian media to register as
foreign agents
Both RT and
Sputnik have been forced to register as "foreign agents" by the Trump administration. This
classification forced the outlets to post a disclaimer on content, to report their activities
and funding sources to the Department of Justice twice a year, and could arguably place an unrealistic
burden on all their social media activities as it submits to DOJ micromanagement.
20.
Throwing out Russian diplomats
The Trump administration joined some 20 other nations in casting out scores of
Russian diplomats as an immediate response to the Skripal poisoning incident in the
U.K.
21. Training Polish and Latvian fighters "to resist Russian aggression"
"US Army Special Forces soldiers completed the first irregular and unconventional warfare
training iteration for members of the Polish Territorial Defense Forces and Latvian
Zemmessardze as a part of the Ridge Runner program in West Virginia, according to service
officials," Army Times
reported this past July.
"U.S. special operations forces have been training more with allies from the Baltic states
and other Eastern European nations in the wake of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian
Federation in 2014," Army Times writes. "A low-level conflict continues to simmer in
eastern Ukraine's Donbas region between Russian-backed separatists and government forces to
this day. The conflict spurred the Baltics into action, as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia
embraced the concepts of total defense and unconventional warfare, combining active-duty,
national guard and reserve-styled forces to each take on different missions to resist Russian
aggression and even occupation."
22. Refusal to recognize Crimea as part of the Russian
Federation
Key point: Trump agreed to send more forces to Poland to defend it against Russia.
What Happened: U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to deploy approximately 1,000 additional
U.S. troops to Poland during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda on the sidelines of
the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, Reuters reported Sept. 23.
Why It Matters: The deal, which formalizes the United States' commitment to protecting
Poland from Russia, provides a diplomatic victory to Duda and his governing Law and Justice
ahead of November elections. The additional U.S. troops will likely prompt a reactive
military buildup from Moscow in places like neighboring Kaliningrad and, potentially,
Belarus.
24. Withdrawing from the Iran deal
Russia has been consistently opposed to Trump's destruction of the JCPOA. In a statement
after Trump killed the deal, the Russian Foreign Ministry said
it was "deeply disappointed by the decision of US President Donald Trump to unilaterally refuse
to carry out commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action", adding that this
administration's actions were "trampling on the norms of international law".
25.
Attacking Russian gas interests
Trump has been threatening Germany with sanctions and troop withdrawal if it continues to
support a gas pipeline from Russia called Nord Stream 2.
"Echoing previous threats about German support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Trump said
he's looking at sanctions to block the project he's warned would leave Berlin 'captive' to
Moscow," Bloomberg
reports . "The US also hopes to export its own liquefied natural gas to Germany."
"We're protecting Germany from Russia, and Russia is getting billions and billions of
dollars in money from Germany" for its gas, Trump told the press.
I could have kept going, but that's my 25. The only reason anyone still believes Trump is
anything other than insanely hawkish toward Russia is because it doesn't benefit anyone's
partisanship or profit margins to call it like it really is. The facts are right here as plain
as can be, but there's a difference between facts and narrative. If they wanted to, the
political/media class could very easily use the facts I just laid out to weave the narrative
that this president is imperiling us all with dangerous new cold war provocations, but that's
how different narrative is from fact; there's almost no connection. Instead they use a light
sprinkling of fact to weave a narrative that has very little to do with reality. And meanwhile
the insane escalations continue.
In a cold war, it only takes one miscommunication or one defective piece of equipment to set
off a chain of events that can obliterate all life on earth. The more things escalate, the
greater the probability of that happening. We're rolling the dice on Armageddon every single
day, and with every escalation the number we need to beat gets a bit harder.
We should not be rolling the dice on this. This is very, very wrong, and the U.S. and Russia
should stop and establish detente immediately. The fact that outlets like CNN would rather
diddle made-up Russiagate narratives than point to this obvious fact with truthful reporting is
in and of itself sufficient to discredit them all forever.
Our historians here seem to be forgetting the brutal takeover of Ukraine by the USSR in
the 50's, in which millions of Ukrainians were shot, raped, beaten and starved out, while
"ethnic Russians" moved in and took over. Kruschev didn't "give" Crimea away, he simply
transferred the administration thereof to the Soviet Republic of "the" Ukraine (a term
Ukranians have always decried as a way to make it seem as if Ukraine had always been a part
of the USSR). The "ethnic Russians" wouldn't have been there at all if the Soviets hadn't put
them there. That argument is the same one Hitler used as his excuse to annex Poland, and Polk
used to annex Texas. It's true Russia's self-interest (and well-founded fears of foreign
betrayal) have been largely ignored, but it's also disingenuous to ignore their murderous
20th-century imperialism. Just because we're not the good guys doesn't mean they are
either.
anon4d2 , November 20, 2019 at 18:12
Perhaps you forgot that the USSR actions in eastern Europe after WWII were in direct
response to the murder of 20 million Russians in WWII by the Nazi forces, attacking through E
Europe just as Napoleon had done. All US casualties in all its wars are less than five
percent of that, and 95 percent of Nazi division-months were spent in the USSR. On that front
they had nearly all of the casualties and did nearly all of the fighting. No wonder they were
a bit uncomfortable afterward with leaving open the favorite attack route of the west. What
would the US have done if a hundred times its WWII casualties were caused by two invasions
through (for example) Mexico? Would we have left the door open? Such circumstances cannot be
ignored. Starting one's version of history after the world's greatest provocation cannot be
said to clarify the history.
Toby McCrossin , November 21, 2019 at 02:56
"Our historians here seem to be forgetting the brutal takeover of Ukraine by the USSR in
the 50's"
Nice alternative facts. Ukraine was one of the original constituent republics of the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922!
" Kruschev didn't "give" Crimea away"
Huh? Crimea had been part of Russia since 1783. You know you can check this stuff yourself
using Google, right?
"The "ethnic Russians" wouldn't have been there at all if the Soviets hadn't put them
there."
Right, so the Soviets put the Russians in Crimea in 1783, 139 years before it was in
existence. I guess the Soviets mastered time travel.
I know reading's hard and all but you might wanna try it some time.
Jon Anderholm , November 20, 2019 at 02:22
An essential article by Caitlin .. Thanks so much .
Sam F , November 19, 2019 at 22:56
Another excellent article by Caitlin Johnstone.
Jeff G. , November 19, 2019 at 19:59
Given the laws of cause and effect, our nuclear missiles might as well be considered to be
pointed straight at ourselves. Like shooting at one's image in a mirror or joining in a
mutual suicide pact. Sheer insanity.
ranney , November 19, 2019 at 17:26
WONDERFUL article, Caitlin. You are so right! I agree with Alan Ross, you deserve an award
for this, and I hope this gets passed around for a wide readership.
Antonio Costa , November 19, 2019 at 15:14
When elected POTUS you are elected, no matter the campaign rhetoric, to take the reins of
the imperial empire.
Trump did that willingly, in fact to a fault given his "big mouth". He's no more nor less
dangerous than his predecessors. And like them, his is a mass of rhetorical contradictions.
Policy is all that should really matters. It is our only means of identifying some truth.
Trump knows what most here know regarding US invasions and assassinations. What he thinks
about any leader is anyone's guess (including his). For him it's all deal making as if it's
his private Trump Towers Enterprises. But in the end he's playing the chief gangsta role of
his like. (If you've ever listened to Sinatra at the Sands (the full concert), you'll hear
how Trump has mimicked the popular gangsta singer to the last "love ya baby ").
The media is not free. It is an arm of the national security state, with occasional
outages of truth telling, all the more to tell the big lies. It's purpose is to pacify and
repress any rebellions. Since the end of Vietnam it has succeeded. And here we are, never
knowing truth from lie. (I think of Obama as deceitful to the max, while Trump just tells
transparent lies so you don't know when he's actually telling a profound truth.)
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to
believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people
from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the
mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the
State."
-- Joseph Goebbels (was a German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi
Germany from 1933 to 1945)
Mark Thomason , November 19, 2019 at 14:22
We can go one step further than to say that Trump was reckless toward Russia, "with zero
resistance from either party."
Both parties demanded it. They approved it as "Presidential" whenever he did it, and
attacked him for any effort to be less reckless. They'd done the same to Obama, but Trump
proved weaker and more malleable.
Jeff Harrison , November 19, 2019 at 14:14
Verra nice peroration. I have two objections. One, I doubt that the people of the Donbass
are Russian backed in the same sense that the "moderate" rebel scum in Syria is US backed
with weapons, intelligence, and training but the people of the Donbass are ethnic Russians.
With a steady stream of anti-Russian legislation coming out of Kiev, I imagine they're
looking for an out. Putin is trying to get it for them without starting a war with Ukraine.
The real question that Washington has yet to address is what are they going to do if the
people of Ukraine notice that since they signed on to the neo-liberal dictates of Washington
and Brussels they've become the poorest nation in Europe. I know that there are a number of
Ukrainians who think wistfully of the days when they were part of Mother Russia. But you
never know, the CIA is notorious for its subversion and the Ukrainians might prove to be
spectacularly stupid. After all, they weren't doing badly until they let the US and EU foment
a coup for them.
And, two, "We should not be rolling the dice on this. This is very, very wrong, and the
U.S. and Russia should stop and establish detente immediately." While I agree with the
sentiment, don't bring Russia into this. Everything that Russia has done has been a reaction
to what is usually an American violation of international law. Putin has been very clear that
he wants to back off this cold war but he has also been very clear that we started it and
we're going to have to be the ones to start backing off.
David Hamilton , November 20, 2019 at 02:11
I absolutely agree with your number two reaction to Caitlin's suggestion that Russia and
the U.S. should stop it and establish detente immediately. Everything Russia's leadership is
doing is a reaction to American imperial dares to defy their law violations. They exhibit
extreme and principled restraint to the Orwellian madness emanating from this place.
I think it is important that this be understood. Russians have been used and abused once
before by American largesse in the form of Clinton's puppet's assistance in the rape of the
former Soviet Union by the Harvard-sponsored project. That was the one during the nineties
that privatized national industries and created a dozen neoliberal oligarchs. The cost was a
huge increase in death rate that lowered life expectancy into the 50's from 70 years I think.
Cynical foreign policy, isn't it?
Lois Gagnon , November 19, 2019 at 13:16
Anyone who has not read Orwell's 1984 should do so sooner rather than later. The official
control of narrative in the novel is what we are presently drowning in. To watch it work so
spectacularly is beyond depressing.
Many thanks to Caitlin Johnstone, Consortium News and all the others pushing back against
this system of perception management. I keep repeating it because it rings true. It's like
waking up in the Twilight Zone.
John Neal Spangler , November 19, 2019 at 12:44
She is right. CNN. MSNBC, NYT, and Wapo totally irresponsible. Fox not much better. So
many anti-Russian bigots in US
Jimmy gates , November 19, 2019 at 12:37
Thank you Caitlin. The neoliberals and neocons both desperately want a greatly intensified
cold war with Russia, but want it started by Trump ( because he is personally an
outsider).
This gives the Democrat and Republican donors contracts for the war machine. Ever since
Clinton administration moved NATO to the Russian border, the process has worked for the
oligarchs who control all US policies, foreign and domestic.
The complete corruption of Western MSM is the reason many of us regularly read Caitlin and
Consortium, all desperately trying to get some sort of a reality-check in an otherwise
"Orwellian" media environment.
For anyone who has been waiting for the publication of reporter Udo Ulfkotte's best
selling book (in Germany), a book based on his experience as a well respected journalist
whose reporting was completely compromised by Western intelligence services and business
interests, it is finally available in an English language edition. The English language
edition has been quite obviously suppressed for the last several years and the book was
published in 9 languages BEFORE this English edition became available. It is a book that is
well worth reading to better understand why literally NOTHING written by MSM should be
believed at face value, ever:
See:
I would urge anyone interested in buying this book to get it directly from the publisher-
Progressive Press. Amazon and other mega monopolies are a big part of our problems. Take the
time to make a few extra clicks and boycott Jeff Bezos.
Noah Way , November 19, 2019 at 10:58
The simple truth here is that in regard to the military (read 'military complex', which
includes the deep state and shadow government [intelligence agencies] every president is a
puppet. Nobel Peace Prize winner oBOMBa bombed 7 countries, overthrew Ukraine's democratic
government, invaded Syria, armed terrorists as proxy armies, authorized drone assassinations,
and bombed a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The last president to resist the military complex? JFK
Caitlin Johnstone's list points to growing tensions with Russia. Failure of the political
and media establishment to see this makes the task of avoiding world war three all the more
difficult. In the West the end of the Cold War was seen as the dawn of peace. But the Cold
War was the peace, a post-world war environment: we are now in a pre-world war
environment.
Jimmy gates , November 19, 2019 at 12:45
The Democratic Party members have not " missed" anything that Trump has done. They will
not impeach him on those grounds, because they too are guilty of complicity in those war
crimes.
As Pelosi said regarding impeaching GWB for the torture program or invasion of Iraq and
Afghanistan " it's off the table". Because she was complicit.
Lois Gagnon , November 19, 2019 at 13:23
Russia did not illegally annex Crimea. A referendum was held and 90% of the voters voted
to rejoin Russia. Most people in Crimea are ethnic Russians and speak Russian. They were
understandably scared to death of what their fate would be under the rule of the fascists the
US installed in Ukraine.
And frankly, Russia had every right to protect its only warm water port in Sevastopol that
would have been taken over by NATO if Crimea had remained part of Ukraine. Too many Americans
have been indoctrinated in the belief that Russia has no legitimate self interest to
defend.
michael , November 19, 2019 at 18:22
In addition to what Lois Gagnon points out, you have to realize that the re-patriation of
Crimea to Russia in March 2014 was the direct result of Obama, Biden, Nuland et al
overthrowing the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Yanukovych, in the Maidan coup
in February, 2014, and replacing him with a neoNAZI regime. Russian speech was outlawed,
which has been the language of the majority of Crimea since Catherine the Great.
The coup in Ukraine was a major provocation to Russia, but was also a repeat of the
Americans' rape and pillaging of Russia under Yeltsin, Clinton's puppet. The per capita
median income of Ukrainians has dropped in half from 2013, despite pumping $billions in from
the US.
Jeff G. , November 19, 2019 at 20:25
Crimeans have an absolute right of self-determination as a fundamental human right under
established international law, just as the Kosovars did when we were supporting the breakup
of Serbia when Clinton was president. Ethnic Russians voted in an overwhelming majority in a
free and fair plebiscite to rejoin Russia, which they had been part of for centuries, because
the neo-Nazi US coup government allied with Azov battalions in Kyiv terrified them and they
wanted nothing further to do with them. Crimea had every right to decide. Russia did nothing
to interfere, not a bullet was fired. Russia's troops were already stationed in Crimea by
treaty and did not invade. Russia warned NATO against the Kosovo precedent that it would come
back to bite them someday, and it was ignored. NATO is unhappy because it was denied an
illegitimate geostrategic advantage they thought they would gain. Crimea is happy, so what's
the problem?
DH Fabian , November 19, 2019 at 21:08
"We," who? Regardless, the issues you raise can't be understood outside of their
historical context, and Americans never try to understand the world within that historical
context.
anon , November 19, 2019 at 22:54
Crimea was part of Russia for roughly 200 years before the USSR premier (Kruschev?) gave
it to Ukraine, although its inhabitants were nearly all of Russian heritage and language,
like E Ukraine. So not surprising that they wanted to go back to being part of Russia.
dean 1000 , November 20, 2019 at 19:26
Couldn't agree more Lois Gagnon. Washington did an illegal coup. Russia did a legal
annexation.
btw – The Autonomous Republic of Sevastopol on SW Crimea is no longer the only
ice-free port of the Russian Navy. Kaliningrad (on the Baltic sea) has been part of Russia
since 1945. Its deep ice-free harbor is the home port of Russia's Baltic fleet according to
the 2012 world book DVD.
Good one Caitlin. Again
jdd , November 19, 2019 at 09:51
This article properly puts to rest the absurd notion that President Trump is a "tool of
Putin, " and correctly notes that it has created a potentially disastrous situation.
However,
let's put the blame squarely where it belongs: on the Anglo/American led forces arrayed
against Trump from the moment he announced his intention to run on a platform of "getting
along" with Russia and joining with Putin to defeat ISIS.
Failing impeachment, from the
attempts by the Clinton Campaign, to the Congressional sanctions on Russia, to sabotage of
Syria withdrawal to the Mueller hoax, to the State Dept hawks protests on Ukraine, the effort
to prevent Trump from following through on his campaign promise has been the primary goal of
the intelligence community. It is instructive to note that the phone call that has led to the
current impeachment inquiry was made on July 26, the day following Robert Mueller's clownish
testimony before Congress, effectively ending that line of impeachment.
Nick , November 19, 2019 at 16:50
Also note that although the phone call was made in July, nothing was said about it until
after John Bolton was fired in September, 2 months later.
Alan Ross , November 19, 2019 at 09:47
This article alone deserves an award for public service. And in a more sensibly run world
Caitlin Johnstone would have gotten at least fifty such awards for past articles.
"... For the last twenty years Ukraine and Belarus have kept NATO and Russian forces far apart. This was an underappreciated benefit. NATO's flirtation with admitting Ukraine into the alliance simply ignored the new risks that would be assumed. If Russia were to occupy all of Ukraine, we would return to this unhappy standoff. ..."
"... If Ukraine falls into civil war, with Russia and the West aiding their respective favorites, the risk of a direct NATO-Russia clash also rises. To ensure peace between Russia and the West, the question of foreign alignment should be taken out of Ukrainian politics. ..."
"... Barry R. Posen is Ford International Professor of Political Science, MIT and Director of their Security Studies Program. He is the author of Restraint- A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy . ..."
"If, in the worst case, all Ukraine were to "fall" to Russia, it would have little impact on
the security of the United States."
Once, foreign policy experts talked about "vital interests." The term has fallen into
disuse, partly because there are no hard and fast rules for calculating what distinguishes the
"vital" from the merely "interesting." If advocates wanted their country to do a thing they
would call it a vital interest; if they did not, then they would not. But students of foreign
policy did seem to agree on one thing: vital interests were the things you were willing to have
your soldiers die for and kill for. By this measure, even the most hawkish politicians in the
United States, all of whom have eschewed any desire for a shooting match, have agreed that the
United States has no vital interests in Ukraine.
What would vital interests look like if they were present? Vital interests affect the
safety, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and power position of the United States, or indeed
of any country. If, in the worst case, all Ukraine were to "fall" to Russia, it would have
little impact on the security of the United States. Russia is no longer the strong country that
the USSR was: its GDP is dwarfed by that of the United States. Its non-nuclear military power
is woefully insufficient for the conquest of the major states of Eurasia. The possession of
Crimea, a grab for Ukraine's eastern provinces, or even the occupation of all Ukraine would not
change this. Indeed, the military conquest of Ukraine would be costly to Russia because as one
moves westward, one encounters ever-more-nationalistic Ukrainians, who have a historical
propensity to fight. Russian forces facing west would find themselves with a fifth column in
their rear.
Geography alone can sometimes create a vital interest. If Ukraine were Mexico, the United
States would have an interest in protecting it from Russia or anyone else. For Russia, Ukraine
is Mexico, and in their eyes, the United States and its Western allies have been inexorably
creeping in their direction since the end of the Cold War. Russian interests in Ukraine
probably exceed NATO's, which is why modest sanctions are unlikely to coerce Russia into
passivity. They do not want Western political, economic, and military power on their border. Of
course, the easternmost members
of NATO would not like Russian forces on their doorstep , but because they are all too weak
to defend themselves, or too confident in the United States to bother, their security depends
much more on whether the United States will make good on its alliance commitments than on
whether Russia shares a border.
The United States does have one security interest in Ukraine. Though it is not a vital
interest, the preservation of an independent
neutral zone between NATO and Russian military forces has been a stabilizing factor in
east-west relations. During the Cold War, especially in Germany, NATO and Soviet forces faced
each other head to head. Even their non-nuclear forces had powerful offensive capabilities --
thousands of tanks and aircraft that could strike deeply into the other's territory. The two
sides also possessed large numbers of nuclear weapons, and had the command, control and plans
in place to use them if necessary. This was a nervous relationship, fraught with the
possibility of escalation and mutual disaster. This is a world that neither we nor the Russians
should wish to recreate, even with the diminished forces Russia now possesses. The United
States and its allies succeeded in managing this for forty years, and we could do it again if
we had to. So preventing this is "nice to have" but not "need to have." Indeed, trying to
prevent it by force brings on the very thing we should wish to avoid. But maintaining a wide
military buffer zone is a real security interest, and the only one worth pursuing in
Ukraine.
For the last twenty years Ukraine and Belarus have kept NATO and Russian forces far apart.
This was an underappreciated benefit. NATO's flirtation with admitting Ukraine into the
alliance simply ignored the new risks that would be assumed. If Russia were to occupy all of
Ukraine, we would return to this unhappy standoff. If NATO forces were to help Ukraine resist
Russia militarily, we would also return to this situation. This is neither in Russia's
interests, nor in ours. It is far better to negotiate a mutual "hands off Ukraine" agreement.
Diplomacy, sanctions (and the threat of more), and economic assistance (bribes) to Ukraine are
the tools that the West should use to restore the status quo ante.
Western liberals will be quick to decry any security agreement reached over the heads of the
Ukrainians. The crisis in Ukraine, however, is a direct consequence of the fact that Ukrainians
do not agree on the extent to which they should be associated with the West or with Russia.
This disagreement threatens to tear the country apart. If Ukraine falls into civil war, with
Russia and the West aiding their respective favorites, the risk of a direct NATO-Russia clash
also rises. To ensure peace between Russia and the West, the question of foreign alignment
should be taken out of Ukrainian politics.
This is another remnant for Bush neocon team, a protégé of Bolton. Trump probably voluntarily appointed this rabid neocon, a
chickenhawk who would shine in Hillary State Department.
Interestingly she came from working class background. So much about Marx theory of class struggle. Brown, David (March 4, 2017).
"Miner's daughter
tipped as Trump adviser on Russia" . The Times.
She also illustrate level pf corruption of academic science, because she got
PhD in history from Harvard in 1998 under Richard
Pipes, Akira Iriye, and
Roman Szporluk. But at least this was history, not
languages like in case of Ciaramella.
Such appointment by Trump is difficult to describe with normal words as he understood what he is buying. So he is himself to blame for his current troubles and his inability
to behave in a diplomatic way when there was important to him question about role of CrowdStrike in 2016 election and creation of Russiagate
witch hunt.
There is something in the USA that creates conditions for producing rabid female neocons, some elevator that brings ruthless female
careerists with sharp elbows them to the establishment. She sounds like a person to the right of Madeline Albright, which is an achievement
With such books It is unclear whether she is different from Max Boot. She buys official Skripal story like hook and sinker. The
list of her book looks like produced in UK by Luke Harding
Being miner daughter raised in poverty we can also talk about betrayal of her class and upbringing.
This also rises wisdom of appointing emigrants to the Administration and the extent they pursue policies beneficial for their
native countries.
She testified in public before the same body on November 21, 2019. [12] While being
questioned by Steve Castor , the counsel for the House Intelligence
Committee's Republican minority, Hill commented on Gordon
Sondland 's involvement in the Ukraine matter: "It struck me when (Wednesday), when you put up on the screen Ambassador Sondland's
emails, and who was on these emails, and he said these are the people who need to know, that he was absolutely right," she said.
"Because he was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security foreign policy. And
those two things had just diverged." [13] In response
to a question from that committee's chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff
, Hill stated: "The Russians' interests are frankly to delegitimize our entire presidency. The goal of the Russians [in 2016]
was really to put whoever became the president -- by trying to tip their hands on one side of the scale -- under a cloud."
[
This is another remnant for Bush neocon team, a protégé of Bolton. Trump probably voluntarily appointed this rabid neocon, a
chickenhawk who would shine in Hillary State Department.
Interestingly she came from working class background. So much about Marx theory of class struggle. Brown, David (March 4, 2017).
"Miner's daughter
tipped as Trump adviser on Russia" . The Times.
She also illustrate level pf corruption of academic science, because she got
PhD in history from Harvard in 1998 under Richard
Pipes, Akira Iriye, and
Roman Szporluk. But at least this was history, not
languages like in case of Ciaramella.
Such appointment by Trump is difficult to describe with normal words as he understood what he is buying. So he is himself to blame for his current troubles and his inability
to behave in a diplomatic way when there was important to him question about role of CrowdStrike in 2016 election and creation of Russiagate
witch hunt.
There is something in the USA that creates conditions for producing rabid female neocons, some elevator that brings ruthless female
careerists with sharp elbows them to the establishment. She sounds like a person to the right of Madeline Albright, which is an achievement
With such books It is unclear whether she is different from Max Boot. She buys official Skripal story like hook and sinker. The
list of her book looks like produced in UK by Luke Harding
Being miner daughter raised in poverty we can also talk about betrayal of her class and upbringing.
This also rises wisdom of appointing emigrants to the Administration and the extent they pursue policies beneficial for their
native countries.
She testified in public before the same body on November 21, 2019. [12] While being
questioned by Steve Castor , the counsel for the House Intelligence
Committee's Republican minority, Hill commented on Gordon
Sondland 's involvement in the Ukraine matter: "It struck me when (Wednesday), when you put up on the screen Ambassador Sondland's
emails, and who was on these emails, and he said these are the people who need to know, that he was absolutely right," she said.
"Because he was being involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security foreign policy. And
those two things had just diverged." [13] In response
to a question from that committee's chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff
, Hill stated: "The Russians' interests are frankly to delegitimize our entire presidency. The goal of the Russians [in 2016]
was really to put whoever became the president -- by trying to tip their hands on one side of the scale -- under a cloud."
[
The most interesting part of testimony is that CrowdStrike machinations in case of DNC leak which was artificially turns into
Russian hack (and probably not without Crowdstyle server located in Ukraine). As this is connected to Steel which is a hot
spot for the UK government was swiped under the carpet.
She actually met with Steele. She was shown Steele dossier before it was published.
CrowdStrike was mentioned only is passing and was instantly dismissed by rabid neocon Hill.
While this was the central issue with Zelensky administration.
All questioning was about semi-senile Biden, who is probably the most favorable contender on
Democratic side for Trump.
Nice and focused and succinct...love the Mao quote...
The higher the monkey climbs, the harder he will fall...
That describes Scumbag Pompeo in a nutshell...worth hearing this brief history of the
lardass pathological climber...
I have said this before...Trump is still the best of what's on offer in the fake democracy
of empire...
His opponents are hoisting themselves on their own petard...the more pathologically
determined they get, the bigger the bomb exploding in their face...Wile E Coyote 101...
The simple fact as I see it is that Trump is basically alone, which is not surprising
because who among the Washington creatures is going to agree with any of his sensible
agenda...which most notably is to get out of Syria and Afghanistan...and 'get along' with
Russia...
Regardless of anything else bad that he thinks is good...which includes enabling Israeli
colonialism and other things...if he were able to actually pull off those agenda items it
would be a very good step forward...
Now he has been tied up quite effectively by the opposition ['resistance'] but he's still
managed to at least break open northeastern Syria for the government to return...a big
plus...
As far as hopes to somehow take him down...that is delusional...he's a tough cookie who's
dealt with much tougher customers than these half wits in Washington...
People forget that the POTUS has tremendous power, even all alone and stranded on an oval
office island...he is not going to be brought down like Nixon...that era is over...plus he's
not as dumb as poor Dickie...
At the same time, there will be no scumbags going to jail for the massive hoax of
Russiagate and what amounts to a domestic color revolution attempt that they perpetrated on
their own people...
The Trump plan is to simply remain in office, which almost certainly he will do, and then
we may see Prometheus Unbound...
"... Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but many of us will never know... ..."
"... They certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for "the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism. ..."
In my July 25th article " Zelenskii's dilemma " I pointed
out the fundamental asymmetry of the Ukrainian power configuration following Zelenskii's crushing victory over Poroshenko: while
a vast majority of the Ukrainian people clearly voted to stop the war and restore some kind of peace to the Ukraine, the real levers
of power in the post-Maidan Banderastan are all held by all sorts of very powerful, if also small, minority groups including:
The various "oligarchs" (Kolomoiskii, Akhmetov, etc.) and/or mobsters Arsen Avakov's internal security forces including some "legalized"
Nazi death squads The various non-official Nazi deathsquads (Parubii) The various western intelligence agencies who run various groups
inside the Ukraine The various western financial/political sponsors who run various groups inside the Ukraine The so-called "Sorosites"
(соросята) i.e. Soros and Soros-like sponsored political figures The many folks who want to milk the Ukraine down to the last drop
of Ukrainian blood and then run
These various groups all acted in unison, at least originally, during and after the Euromaidan. This has now dramatically changed
and these groups are now all fighting each other. This is what always happens when things begin to turn south and the remaining loot
shrinks with every passing day,
Whether Zelenskii ever had a chance to use the strong mandate he received from the people to take the real power back from these
groups or not is now a moot point: It did not happen and the first weeks of Zelenskii's presidency clearly showed that Zelenskii
was, indeed, in " free fall ": instead of becoming
a "Ukrainian Putin" Zelenskii became a "Ukrainian Trump" – a weak and, frankly, clueless leader, completely outside his normal element,
whose only "policy" towards all the various extremist minorities was to try to appease them, then appease them some more, and then
even more than that. As a result, a lot of Ukrainians are already speaking about "Ze" being little more than a "Poroshenko 2.0".
More importantly, pretty much everybody is frustrated and even angry at Zelenskii whose popularity is steadily declining.
... ... ...
Another major problem for Zelenskii are two competing narratives: the Ukronazi one and, shall we say, the "Russian" one. I have
outlined the Ukronazi one just above and now I will mention the competing Russian one which goes something like this:
The Euromaidan was a completely illegal violent coup against the democratically elected President of the Ukraine, whose legitimacy
nobody contested, least of all the countries which served as mediators between Poroshenko and the rioters and who betrayed their
word in less than 24 hours (a kind of a record for western politicians and promises of support!).
... ... ...
Some of the threats made by these Ukronazis are dead serious and the only person who, as of now, kinda can keep the Ukrainian
version of the Rwandan " Interahamwe " under control would probably be Arsen Avakov, but since he himself is a hardcore
Nazi nutcase, his attitude is ambiguous and unpredictable. He probably has more firepower than anybody else, but he was a pure "
Porokhobot " (Poroshenko-robot) who, in many ways, controlled Poroshenko more than Poroshenko controlled him. The best move
for Zelenskii would be to arrest the whole lot of them overnight (Poroshenko himself, but also Avakov, Parubii, Iarosh, Farion, Liashko,
Tiagnibok, etc.) and place a man he totally trusts as Minister of the Interior. Next, Zelenskii should either travel to Donetsk or,
at least, meet with the leaders of the LDNR and work with them to implement the Minsk Agreements. That would alienate the Ukronazis
for sure, but it would give Zelenskii a lot of popular support.
Needless to say, that is not going to happen. While Zelenskii's puppet master Kolomoiskii would love to stick this entire gang
in jail and replace them with his own men, it is an open secret that powerful interest groups in the US have told Zelenskii "don't
you dare touch them". Which is fine, except that this also means "don't you dare change their political course either".
...are going through the famous Kübler-Ross stages of griefs: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance: currently,
most of them are zig-zagging between bargaining and depression; acceptance is still far beyond their – very near – horizon. Except
that Zelenskii has nothing left to bargain with.
Thank you for a rational article about Ukraine. The sad thing is that it might take years to reach the "acceptance" phase.
It would take someone like Hitler to clean out the stables. Arrest is not a viable option as they will bribe their way out.
These people need to be put down like rabid dogs. That is the only way to put an end to their mischief and it would be a deterrent
to their replacements.
Personally, I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel. Another
country that is still in the "denial" phase. Its military and political leaders know full-well that their strategic aims have
all failed. The boot is now firmly on the other foot.
I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score.
To give you an idea of how ridiculous it has all become, the UK no longer accepts medical degrees awarded by universities in Crimea.
Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but
many of us will never know...
I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel.
You got that right – what it's all about is building a New Khazaria. But they're neither giving up on their Greater Israel
project between the two rivers, and hence more wars, conflict and chaos to drive out the native Arabs from the Middle East.
I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score.
@AWMThey certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for
"the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part
of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism.
@bob sykes Kolomoiskii is the real hidden owner/controller of the company that bribed the Bidens. He has a finger in lots
of pies. His pretense to leaning towards Russia is his way to try to get the Americans to stop attempts to get at the many millions
that he stole from his own Ukrainians bank – fake loans to his companies.
Of course, the Russians understand all of that. This theater is aimed at the Americans – not at the Russians.
For the Ukrainian state to break up, there need to be some forces interested in a break-up. You won't find such forces inside
the Ukraine.
What is Ukrainian South-East? In pure political terms, "South-East" is a bunch of oligarchs, who are all integrated into Ukrainian
system, and have no reason to seek independence from Kiev, especially if it means getting slapped with Western sanctions.
Even the Kremlin doesn't show much interest in breaking up the Ukraine, so why the hell would it break up?
It's worth pointing out that the so-called "Novorossia movement" started out as Akhmetov's project to win concessions from
new Kiev regime. It was then quickly hijacked by Strelkov, a man who actually wanted to break up the Ukraine, and it is because
of Strelkov, that Donetsk and Lugansk are now de-facto independent. Without similar figures to lead secessionist movements elsewhere
in the Ukraine, this break-up that Saker keeps talking about will never happen.
His ratings must be sky-high, because otherwise I cannot imagine why Fox would allow him to continue to use their network as
a medium to broadcast common sense.
Of course the Dems are making it so easy.
Schiff, Kent, Taylor, Yanovitch -- what a pathetic, nauseating crew.
"... She looked to be a most convincing and dignified victim but it was difficult to work out quite what she'd been a victim of. ..."
"... I think our closest equivalent over here would be Lady Ashton, who headed up the pre-coup European negotiations with the Ukraine. It was Lady Ashton who gave the most famous diplomatic response in modern history, when she was told that the snipers might be provocateurs. "Gosh." ..."
"... And Chairman Schiff looked as scary as usual. If I could open my eyes that wide I'd make a fortune in horror movies. Which I suppose is more or less what he does. ..."
"... Colonel, your description of Ambassador Yovanovitch as "a secular nun" is spot on. Congratulations ! On the other hand, why is a nun continuing a civil war with 1% predatory oligarchs and Bandera thugs on our side, versus 99% of un-armed local nobodies who want a return to normalcy? ..."
"... Lastly, note that Representative Stefanik caught Ambassador Marie in a lie about Hunter Biden and Burisma. Marie claimed under oath that she had never encountered the issue pre-arrival in the Ukraine, while she had admitted earlier that Obama staff coached her about Hunter / Burisma responses for her Senate Confirmation Hearings. ..."
... She seems to live alone, alone with her work. She tried living with her 88 year old mother
three years ago but that did not last. What would the old girl have done with herself in Kiev
with her daughter working all the time?
So, the maman went home to the States. Marie is still employed as a Career Ambassador
(a high rank) in the Foreign Service of of the United States She is currently assigned at
Georgetown U.
That's the first time I've seen "winsome" used with an edge.
I watched her for some time and didn't know what on earth to make of her. She looked to
be a most convincing and dignified victim but it was difficult to work out quite what she'd
been a victim of.
I think our closest equivalent over here would be Lady Ashton, who headed up the
pre-coup European negotiations with the Ukraine. It was Lady Ashton who gave the most famous
diplomatic response in modern history, when she was told that the snipers might be
provocateurs. "Gosh."
A very safe pair of hands, is what would be said of both and almost certainly often
is.
I did know what to make of the histrionics just before the recess. They looked false. That
man wasn't really crying. And Chairman Schiff looked as scary as usual. If I could open my
eyes that wide I'd make a fortune in horror movies. Which I suppose is more or less what he
does.
EO,
Zelensky did not like her and suggested that she was involved with corrupt people and
undermining the President. I don't understand how Trump gets all of the blame for her being
relieved of her position.
Marie IMO was always the second best looking girl in the class but maybe teacher's pet,
and has never had anyone take anything away from her before. "Gosh." She doesn't look like
someone you could safely make a pass at unless you had an awful lot of rank.
Colonel, your description of Ambassador Yovanovitch as "a secular nun" is spot on.
Congratulations ! On the other hand, why is a nun continuing a civil war with 1% predatory
oligarchs and Bandera thugs on our side, versus 99% of un-armed local nobodies who want a
return to normalcy?
Then again, since when does a Presidential emissary not only criticize him and the
President of her host country, but also instruct local law enforcement on which oligarchs he
may investigate and which oligarch's (admittedly ours) he may not.
Lastly, note that Representative Stefanik caught Ambassador Marie in a lie about Hunter
Biden and Burisma. Marie claimed under oath that she had never encountered the issue
pre-arrival in the Ukraine, while she had admitted earlier that Obama staff coached her about
Hunter / Burisma responses for her Senate Confirmation Hearings.
To take your cue, Ambassador Marie is a secular nun with very bad ideas, who wandered to a
profession she is not at all suited.
"... Senator Rand Paul has urged President Trump to shut out neoconservative war hawks from the State Department, as it has emerged that Elliott Abrams , a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, could be appointed to serve in the number two spot. ..."
"... "Elliott Abrams is a neoconservative too long in the tooth to change his spots, and the president should have no reason to trust that he would carry out a Trump agenda rather than a neocon agenda," Paul writes in an opinion piece for the libertarian website Rare . ..."
"... "Congress has good reason not to trust him -- he was convicted of lying to Congress in his previous job," Paul notes in his piece. ..."
"... Abrams is also believed to have been involved in approving the attempted Venezuelan coup against Hugo Chávez in 2002 while serving as Special Assistant to the President and holding office in the National Security Council. ..."
"... It is believed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is the one pushing for Abrams to join him at the State Department. ..."
Senator
Rand Paul has urged President Trump to shut out neoconservative war hawks from the State
Department, as it has emerged that Elliott Abrams , a senior fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations, could be appointed to serve in the number two spot.
"Elliott Abrams is a neoconservative too long in the tooth to change his spots, and the
president should have no reason to trust that he would carry out a Trump agenda rather than a
neocon agenda," Paul writes in an opinion piece for the libertarian website
Rare .
Abrams was intimately tied in with the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, and was even
convicted of withholding information from Congress about covert government activities in
Nicaragua and El Salvador. He was later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush.
"Congress has good reason not to trust him -- he was convicted of lying to Congress in his
previous job," Paul notes in his piece.
Abrams is also believed to have been involved in approving the attempted Venezuelan coup
against Hugo Chávez in 2002 while serving as Special Assistant to the President and
holding office in the National Security Council.
Senator Paul urges Trump not to appoint Abrams, adding that his "neocon agenda trumps his
fidelity to the rule of law."
Paul points out that during the election, Abrams publicly spoke out against Trump's
intention to withdraw from policing the world.
"He is a loud voice for nation building and when asked about the president's opposition to
nation building, Abrams said that Trump was absolutely wrong; and during the election he was
unequivocal in his opposition to Donald Trump, going so far as to say, 'the chair in which
Washington and Lincoln sat, he is not fit to sit,'" Paul writes.
It is believed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is the one pushing for Abrams to join
him at the State Department.
Paul, a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, hopes Tillerson "will continue the
search for expert assistance from experienced, non-convicted diplomats who understand the
mistakes of the past and the challenges ahead."
The State (War) Department is really the neocons viper nest
Notable quotes:
"... Listening to our "world's best diplomats" convinced me that the deep state is real. These people think they, not elected officials, make policy. Plus, they are sneaky and conniving in trying to establish and protect their own little fiefdoms. They have never seen a foreign aid budget that in their humble yet expert opinion shouldn't be increased tenfold. They are political but pretend otherwise. And, their sanctimony is unbearable. Let's just say that I don't think that Foggy Bottom made a good impression with the general public this week. ..."
"... Oh, please. Every time it looks like we might actually pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, the generals pop up on the TV talk shows and in the Op-Ed pages warning of the dire consequences and pleading for more time. The neo-cons used to pull this "OMG, the military is the most competent part of the federal government" stuff back in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, and TAC is not the only publication that has blown up that myth. ..."
Listening to our "world's best diplomats" convinced me that the deep state is real. These
people think they, not elected officials, make policy. Plus, they are sneaky and conniving
in trying to establish and protect their own little fiefdoms. They have never seen a
foreign aid budget that in their humble yet expert opinion shouldn't be increased tenfold.
They are political but pretend otherwise. And, their sanctimony is unbearable. Let's just
say that I don't think that Foggy Bottom made a good impression with the general public
this week.
Straight fire out of Peter Van Buren. The State is the "The Blob." They're the ones who
want to promote a policy of interventionism and nation-building. The military actually
prefers to stay out of wars and don't want to pursue nation-building.
Oh, please. Every time it looks like we might actually pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan or
Syria, the generals pop up on the TV talk shows and in the Op-Ed pages warning of the dire
consequences and pleading for more time. The neo-cons used to pull this "OMG, the military
is the most competent part of the federal government" stuff back in the build-up to the
invasion of Iraq, and TAC is not the only publication that has blown up that myth.
snake @95 argues "the deep state does not exist" with circular logic that is massively off
target.
The deep state is individuals INSIDE the government that do the bidding of the banksters,
the military-industrial complex, the globalists and other nefarious interests. None of those
interests have the ability to make policy and implement regime changes without the deep
state. Yes, outside interests drive the actions of the deep state, but no, those outside
interests have no ability to accomplish anything without their deep state operatives.
If the US federal government bureaucracy was a) much less powerful, b) much more
transparent, and c) more responsive to elected leaders, then none of the bad things would
happen. A pipe dream? Yes - but it is erroneous to make a simple declaration "the deep state
doesn't exist" without any rational arguments to refute my points in @72.
Thank you for your post. You say that there is a deep state, but you then go on to tell us
it is not as deep as we imagine. So, I posit we should call it "the shallow state". It is the
foam on the edge of the sea as it begins to recede from a high tide of corrupt practices,
delicate and lacy at the edges and so mesmerizing and attractive to some. But it is receding.
And out there as it departs the Deep People are waiting. They are the depths of an ocean that
never disappears. At low tide they are still there, and they will feed the incoming tide. At
the turn.
And I also say, you may not care what the future brings, but I do. I have a little
granson, born on my birthday, gazing at me with twinkling eyes from his photograph across the
room. Family is also something we can call Deep and be truthful about that. It runs in both
directions, past and future. The Deep People have Deep Families.
And yes, I know, other grandsons have met untimely deaths this century and are counted as
'collateral damage' by the shallow state. Still they are with us as the past is always with
us; they deepen our persons in unaccountable but irreversible ways. They strengthen our
family commitments. They are always here, in our memories and in our strengths. They are not
collateral; they are the fabric of our determinations, our life blood.
The Deep People do care what happens. The twinkle in their grandsons' eyes burns in
their hearts. It is a fire, a consuming force. It never dies.
"deep state", "deep people", "the swamp" .. a rose by any other name would smell just as
rancid.
"deep people" implies a small, isolated group. IMO, it's more like an iceberg than
seashore foam. 90% of it is hidden from view.
My point was that snake's blame of the oligarchs misses the target. I look at them the way
I look at any other predator - if the opportunity exists, they will take it. The deep state
is THE necessary ingredient for the evil that the US government does.
I too have grandchildren. I am convinced that their lives will be less free, less
prosperous, with less opportunity than what the seven generations of Wills family before me
have experienced in the US for the last 275 years. So what can I do about it? Typing on my
keyboard certainly won't make one whit of difference...
Andrew Bacevich rightly
rejects
the
idea that there was ever a
Pax Americana
in the Middle East:
"It took many decades to build a
Pax Americana
in the Middle East," X writes. Not
true: it took only a handful of hours - the time he invested in writing his essay. The
Pax
Americana
is a figment of X's imagination.
Defenders of U.S. hegemony like to make what they think is a flattering comparison between the
U.S. and the Roman Empire, but
where the Romans made a desert and called it peace the U.S.
has gone to war in the desert again and again with no end in sight.
Not only has the U.S. not brought peace, but there is little reason to think that our
government is capable of doing so.
More to the point, the U.S. has no right to keep
meddling in the affairs of these nations. It would also be accurate to say that the more American
involvement there has been in the region, the less
pax
there has been there. There is
nowhere else in the world where our foreign policy is as intensely militarized, and it is no
accident that it is also where our foreign policy is most destructive.
If the U.S.
genuinely desired stability and the security of energy supplies, it would not be waging an economic
war on Iran, and it wouldn't be fueling a disgraceful war on Yemen.
The author of that
piece, William Wechsler, notably has nothing to say about either one of those policies.
Opponents of U.S. withdrawal
from the Middle East make two major claims: that withdrawal would
harm U.S. interests and that it would make the region worse off than it already is.
The second point is wrong but debatable, and the first one depends on an absurdly expansive
definition of what U.S. interests are. The
piece
that
Bacevich is answering asserts that "it would be a terrible mistake and deeply harmful to the United
States" to withdraw from the region, but the author does not show that current troop levels of more
than 50,000 people are necessary or even useful for securing U.S. interests.
The U.S.
didn't have and didn't need a large military presence in the Middle East for the entire Cold War,
and it doesn't need to have one now.
Having a military presence in the region has directly
contributed to increased threats to U.S. security through terrorism, and it made the Iraq war
debacle possible. The greatest harm to U.S. security has come from our ongoing extensive military
involvement in this part of the world.
Neither does the author demonstrate that U.S. foreign policy up until now has actually
been doing the job he thinks it has.
For instance, he mentions "supporting a delicate
balance of power that promotes regional stability and protects our allies," but looking back over
just the last twenty years of U.S. foreign policy in the region there is no evidence that the U.S.
has been supporting a balance of power or promoted regional stability.
On the contrary, to
the extent that there was a balance of power at the start of this century, the U.S. set about
destroying it by overthrowing the Iraqi government, and it has further contributed to the
destabilization of at least three other countries through direct or indirect involvement in
military interventions.
The clients that the U.S. has in the Middle East aren't allies and
we aren't obliged to protect them, but the U.S. hasn't done a terribly good job of protecting them,
either. The U.S. has managed to indulge its clients in reckless and atrocious behavior that has
also made them less secure and undermined our own security interests. Support for the war on Yemen
is a good example of that.
Enabling the Saudi coalition's war has bolstered Al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), devastated and fractured Yemen, and exposed Saudi Arabia to reprisal
attacks that it had never suffered before.
The other major flaw with the Wechsler piece is that he is warning against something that isn't
happening:
As campaign promises tend to become governing realities for American foreign policy, the
prospect of a full U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East now stands before us.
If only that were true.
The U.S. has more troops in the region than it
did at the start of this year. There is no sign that those numbers will be reduced anytime soon.
Support for the war on Yemen continues, and the president has gone out of his way to keep arming
the Saudi coalition. Even in Syria, there will still be an illegal U.S. military presence for the
foreseeable future. Full withdrawal is nowhere in sight right now. The U.S. is heading in the
opposite direction. The author pretends that withdrawal is in the offing and then urges the next
president to "reverse this course," but there is nothing for the next president to reverse. So why
rail against something that hasn't happened and isn't likely to occur?
This is an old
tactic of making the option of withdrawing from the region seem so extreme and dangerous that it
has to be rejected out of hand, but these scare tactics are less and less effective as we see the
mounting costs of open-ended conflict and deep entanglement in the affairs of other countries.
The author wants the next administration "to reestablish American leadership in the Middle East,
restore deterrence with our adversaries, and begin renewing trust with our partners and allies,"
but he has not made a persuasive case that "American leadership" in the region is worth
"reestablishing" even if it were possible to get back to the way things were before the Iraq war.
Many of the "partners and allies" in question are themselves unreliable and have become
liabilities, and many of the adversaries do not really threaten the U.S.
Bacevich
concludes that there needs to be a radical overhaul of U.S. foreign policy in the region on account
of its colossal failures:
Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is
essentially zero.
There is no going back to an imagined Golden Age of American statecraft in the Middle East.
The imperative is to go forward, which requires acknowledging how wrongheaded U.S. policy in
region has been ever since FDR had his famous tete-a-tete with King Ibn Saud and Harry Truman
rushed to recognize the newborn State of Israel.
Once we acknowledge those errors, the next step is not to fall into the same patterns
out of a misguided desire for "leadership" and domination.
Instead of chasing after a
fantasy of imposing peace in some other part of the world, we need to stop our destabilizing and
destructive policies that perpetuate conflict and make new wars more likely.
Lets just be honest the USA is in the business of war,overthrowing
governments and creating vassal states with murder and mayhem all
the way,sponsoring fascists,dictators,drug lords and Christ knows
what else along the way and there is no high moral ground as its
average citizen is either watching football or Kim Kardashians ***
and couldn't give a ****,no amount of whinging is ever going to
change that the author is pissing in the wind.
Instead of replacing and upgrading infrastructure in the US, we
have burned that money up in the desert fighting wars so the
Chinese and Russian oil companies could waltz in and take all of
marbles.
US Middle East policy has been failing since Eisenhower
injected us into Iran an in the 1950s.
It seems to me those people are intent on killing each other at
all costs. No need to get in their way and suffer casualties.
Seems like a population reduction in that region might improve
the world
Your ignorance is amazing. Before the US interventions a
number of these countries were going down the path of having
secular governments. Many had mixed communities from a
religious and ethnic perspective. US bastardry has cost the
lives of tens of thousands of people.
Aside from the countless us blunders in the middle east.. The core
issues are rooted in the barbaric religious beliefs that have
plagued the region since Mohammed rose to power.
Let them figure it out. Why stick yoar hook nose into someone
else's problems? Ah there is something in it for the special
group, and the tab goes to the tax payers.
The politicians
should set the example by sending their kids to woar first.
Trillions wasted and what benefit has that been to the tax
payers? No money for healthcare or education, pensions,
infrastructure etc. Lotsa money available for killing people.
Agreed. The Jews were a relatively recent reintroduction to
the region. It was a **** hole long before this time. Try to
blame it all on them but it's a weak point of view. Unless
you are looking at the last 70 years. But that **** hole
status goes back far beyond this time frame
Perpetual war was always the plan since Reagan days to break up
OPEC or cause in-fighting and destablize region. Iran/Iraq war,
first Gulf war, Iraq war, ISIS, Syrian conflict, Yemen,
Sunni/Shitte division, feed the fire on unofficial decades old
plan still ongoing by CIA and State Dept lifers. Perpetual war in
Mid-East was always the plan.
That way you keep down the competition.
What do you think all the demonizing efforts are against China
and Russia now? They are countries murica can't conquer.
The author of the referenced article is a prototypical Atlantic
Council Zionist *** chickenhawk ******** artist who pisses
swampwater - William F. Wechsler.
His concern is Greater Israel, not what is best for Americans.
All humanity, including us, have the right to survive and defend
ourselves from obliteration. To do this we must hit when hit, and
harder to eliminate the attack. beyond that, we need not fight.
God will is in charge, not ours.
We are at risk of non-survival
when we fail to recognize the difference between what we feel
responsibly for, and what we can actually control. That is why we
need a border. Defnding it gives us a line behidn which we can
produce, and be productive. Once we cross that line, we begin to
fall into a morass.
How long did it take America to exit Vietnam? You would think
America had money and men to burn with these fruitless wars. Who
benefits other than the vampires of the military-industrial
complex, owners of cemetaries, and those who produce and market
the Intel community's distracting and criminally-produced films
and television offerings?
Vietnam War started back when dollar debt was redeemable in
gold. Back then debts had impact and the war spending was felt
almost immediately though its effect on the economy. War was
partially responsible for closing of the gold window by Nixon.
They couldn't fake sustainability otherwise.
Jimmy Carter: US 'Most Warlike Nation in History of the World'
-
April 19, 2019
Most countries surveyed in a 2013 WIN/Gallup poll identified
the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, and a
2017 Pew Research poll found that a record number of people in
30 surveyed nations viewed US power and influence as a "major
threat."
Benjamin
Disraeli: Father Of The World Wars
The British-Jewish Lion Plots
Austria-Hungary and Turkey were the winners at Disraeli's
Congress of Berlin. Serbia and Russia were the losers.
Disraeli: "Our great object was to break up and permanently
prevent the alliance of the three Empires and I maintain there
never was a general diplomatic result more completely
effected."
The Franco-Russian alliance encircles Germany and
Austria-Hungary. Britain joined the alliance in 1907.
The Great War was only triggered by the assassination. The real
engineer of the disaster was Rothschild agent, Benjamin
Disraeli, who died in 1881.
All Wars Are Bankers' Wars!
The IRS and The Federal Reserve
Bank work together to swindle USA citizens
The 16th Amendment and the Income Tax
1913 proved to be a transformative year for the nation's
economy, first with the passage of the 16th "income tax"
Amendment and the false claim that it had been ratified.
"I think if you were to go back and and try to find and
review the ratification of the 16th amendment, which was the
internal revenue, the income tax, I think if you went back
and examined that carefully, you would find that a
sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment."
- U.S. District Court Judge James C. Fox, Sullivan Vs.
United States, 2003.
Later that same year, and apparently unwilling to risk
another questionable amendment,
Congress passed the
Federal Reserve Act over Christmas holiday 1913, while
members of Congress opposed to the measure were at home.
This was a very underhanded deal, as the Constitution
explicitly vests Congress with the authority to issue the
public currency, does not authorize its delegation, and thus
should have required a new Amendment to transfer that
authority to a private bank. But pass it Congress did, and
President Woodrow Wilson signed it as he promised the
bankers he would in exchange for generous campaign
contributions.
Woodrow Wilson later regretted that decision.
"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my
country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its
system of credit. We are no longer a government by free
opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote
of the majority, but a government by the opinion and du
I don't blame
them. Look at all the invasions and coups since WWII. Theft of
gold, resources, death and destruction and poverty follows. No
moar competition.
Washington? We know what our founding father said about the Jews.
He was right. Today, and even before the Federal Reserve "Black
Magic Act" of 1913:
Washington = Israel.
There is no
America any longer. It was 911'd inside and out by the Joker ***
cult. And after they 911'd you they did a Joker dance, didn't
they?
it was never paxamericana. it was always paxjudaica, in other
words war and chaos called peace the way jewlanders roll with
their zionazi cocksuckers in tow.
"They [the Jews] work more
effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a
hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great
cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each
state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society
and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America."
-- George
Washington
Taylor is a neocon and he is against detente with Russia. So he is part of State Department
nest of neocon vipers.
Taylor was very evasive. but he is a trained diplomat. Taylor will definitely regret his role
( and may be already started to regret ) but he has nothing to lose; he is old enough to
retire.
Notable quotes:
"... I love how CBS completely edited out Nunes first part of his speech about all the lowlife activities the left pulled. ..."
"... My favorite part was at 25:40 where Castro says "And at the heart of this corruption is this oligarchical system." .... for a second, I thought he was talking about the United States. ..."
My favorite part was at 25:40 where Castro says "And at
the heart of this corruption is this oligarchical system." .... for a second, I thought he
was talking about the United States.
I have learned to HATE everything the Democrats, their deep state and MSM stand for. It's
beyond comprehension that they have hijacked the greatest nation on earth and subverted the
constitution for personal power and gain! A government takeover by the citizens is not far
off, and the only people who will be safe are a few Republicans in government.
Now this amounts to the impeachment of The President of the United States, for "shaking
the confidence of a close partner for our reliability" Ambassador Taylor. 21:21
18:40 - 19:50 Turner gives a
confused explanation of the "6th Amendment" - right of criminal defendant to “to be
confronted with the witnesses against him” versus The Hearsay Rule - which is evidence
(statements made outside court setting) that may or may not be admissible at trial. Which, in
part, why Judges are present to rule on whether exceptions, exclusions to the Hearsay Rule
apply.
He obviously had his script written before this hearing and didn't listen to what was
actually said. He referenced things that were never even brought up but were talking points
for the Democrats.
...What a blinder and hypocrisy in the highest echelons of power. What a little petty
thinking....Democrats are clearly communists. Do you Americans know what this mean? Obviously
not.
Democrat lunacy on parade Taylor was about as clear as mud and so where his he said, they
said, or i heard someone say something, are we really taking these people seriously.?
Do these republicans not realize that the Ukrainian President is going to say whatever
trump tells him to say so he gets his money and weapons....he’s got a war going on and
must have those resources...what else is he going to say?
If Giuliani seeking information in Ukraine is such an abnormal thing as to cause alarm
then please explain DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa and the years she has spent in Ukraine
performing opposition research along with maintaining close ties with the NSCand the Obama
whitehouse.
There is no evidence against Trump and Taylor was so tongue-tied that he couldn't answer
some of those questions. I loved Jordan asking all those questions and putting those two
witnesses in place. In the court of law they WILL NOT TAKE HEARSAY because I worked for the
courts and lawyers so I know what the Judge would say. this is nothing but a scham and when
Trump gets to be President again I hope he puts Schiff in prison!!!!!!!
Taylor is a neocon and he is against detente with Russia. So he is part of State Department
nest of neocon vipers.
Taylor was very evasive. but he is a trained diplomat. Taylor will definitely regret his role
( and may be already started to regret ) but he has nothing to lose; he is old enough to
retire.
Notable quotes:
"... I love how CBS completely edited out Nunes first part of his speech about all the lowlife activities the left pulled. ..."
"... My favorite part was at 25:40 where Castro says "And at the heart of this corruption is this oligarchical system." .... for a second, I thought he was talking about the United States. ..."
My favorite part was at 25:40 where Castro says "And at
the heart of this corruption is this oligarchical system." .... for a second, I thought he
was talking about the United States.
I have learned to HATE everything the Democrats, their deep state and MSM stand for. It's
beyond comprehension that they have hijacked the greatest nation on earth and subverted the
constitution for personal power and gain! A government takeover by the citizens is not far
off, and the only people who will be safe are a few Republicans in government.
Now this amounts to the impeachment of The President of the United States, for "shaking
the confidence of a close partner for our reliability" Ambassador Taylor. 21:21
18:40 - 19:50 Turner gives a
confused explanation of the "6th Amendment" - right of criminal defendant to “to be
confronted with the witnesses against him” versus The Hearsay Rule - which is evidence
(statements made outside court setting) that may or may not be admissible at trial. Which, in
part, why Judges are present to rule on whether exceptions, exclusions to the Hearsay Rule
apply.
He obviously had his script written before this hearing and didn't listen to what was
actually said. He referenced things that were never even brought up but were talking points
for the Democrats.
...What a blinder and hypocrisy in the highest echelons of power. What a little petty
thinking....Democrats are clearly communists. Do you Americans know what this mean? Obviously
not.
Democrat lunacy on parade Taylor was about as clear as mud and so where his he said, they
said, or i heard someone say something, are we really taking these people seriously.?
Do these republicans not realize that the Ukrainian President is going to say whatever
trump tells him to say so he gets his money and weapons....he’s got a war going on and
must have those resources...what else is he going to say?
If Giuliani seeking information in Ukraine is such an abnormal thing as to cause alarm
then please explain DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa and the years she has spent in Ukraine
performing opposition research along with maintaining close ties with the NSCand the Obama
whitehouse.
There is no evidence against Trump and Taylor was so tongue-tied that he couldn't answer
some of those questions. I loved Jordan asking all those questions and putting those two
witnesses in place. In the court of law they WILL NOT TAKE HEARSAY because I worked for the
courts and lawyers so I know what the Judge would say. this is nothing but a scham and when
Trump gets to be President again I hope he puts Schiff in prison!!!!!!!
Assad
Goes Red Pill In Interview: Epstein, Bin Laden & Baghdadi 'Liquidated' As "They Knew Vital Secrets"
by
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/15/2019 - 17:25
0
SHARES
In a wide-ranging new interview with Russia's
Rossiya-24
television on Thursday, Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad addressed the death of White Helmets founder James Le Mesurier, who had
been found dead Nov. 11 after an apparent fall from a three story high balcony outside his Istanbul
office.
Le Mesurier was a former British military intelligence officer and founder of the controversial
White Helmets group which Assad has
previously dubbed
the
'rescue force for al-Qaeda' and his reported suicide under mysterious circumstances is
still subject of an ongoing Turkish investigation. In an
unusual
and rare conversation
for a head of state, Assad compared Le Mesurier's death to the murky
circumstances surrounding the deaths of
Jeffry Epstein, Osama bin Laden and ISIS leader Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi
.
Assad said what connects these men are that
they "knew major secrets"
and were
thus
"liquidated" by "intelligence services"
--
most likely the CIA
, in
the now viral interview picked up by
Newsweek
and
other mainstream outlets.
"American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was killed several weeks ago, they said he had committed
suicide in jail," Assad said during the
Russian broadcaster interview
.
"However, he was killed because
he knew a lot of vital secrets connected with very
important people in the British and American regimes
, and possibly in other countries as
well."
"And now the main founder of the White Helmets has been killed, he was an officer and he had
worked his whole life with NATO in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq and Lebanon," he explained.
"Both of us know that they [representatives of the White Helmets] are naturally part of Al
Qaeda.
I believe that these people, as well as the previously liquidated bin Laden and
al-Baghdadi had been killed chiefly because they knew major secrets.
They turned into a
burden once they had played out their roles. A dire need to do away with them surfaced after they
had fulfilled their roles," Assad continued.
Concerning White Helmet's founder Le Mesurier's death, he pointed to the CIA or an allied
intelligence service,
such
as Turkey's MIT
:
"Of course, this is the work of the secret services. But which secret service? When we talk
about Western secret services in general, about Turkish and some other ones in our region,
these are not the secret services of sovereign states, rather these are departments of
the main intelligence agency – the CIA
."
"It is quite possible that Turkish intelligence agencies did the job upon the instructions of
foreign intelligence services," he qualified.
The Syrian president then
speculated that
, "Possibly,
the founder of the White Helmets had been working on his
memoirs and on the biography of his life, and this was unacceptable
. This is an
assumption, but a very serious one, since other options don't sound convincing to me at the
moment."
Though Assad has done major media interviews routinely over the past years related to the now
eight-year long war out of which which he's come out on top,
this latest has already
received the most visibility, and is currently going viral
--
likely given the
immense public suspicion and doubts surrounding Epstein's jail cell death.
Even Newsweek weighed in,
commenting
: "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad waded into the conspiracy theories around Jeffery
Epstein's suicide, saying the financier and convicted sex offender was murdered as part of a
Western plot to eliminate high-profile people who knew too much."
Trump, for all his faults, tells the truth often. Give the man
his due. He did a lot of work to expose the corruption of the
MSM as simply propaganda for the deep state (aka "fake news").
That alone is a legacy more lasting than any president I can
think of in my lifetime.
Prince Andrew interview has the convenience of "I do not recall "
ever meeting the underage girls I have my arm around in multiple
photos. What hope of justice do the plebs have
The deep state IS A REGIME...they disregard the constitution,
have total disdain for American citizens an compromise EVERYONE
in their path for control. That's a totalitarian regime.
"... In the spring and summer of 2019, did you ever become aware of any U.S. intelligence or U.S. treasury concerns raised about incoming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his affiliation or proximity to certain oligarchs? Did any of those concerns involve what the IMF might do if a certain oligarch who supported Zelensky returned to power and regained influence over Ukraine's national bank? ..."
"... John Solomon reported at The Hill and your colleagues have since confirmed in testimony that the State Department helped fund a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Action Centre of Ukraine that also was funded by George Soros' main charity. That nonprofit, also known as AnTac, was identified in a 2014 Soros foundation strategy document as critical to reshaping Ukraine to Mr. Soros' vision. ..."
"... In March 2019, Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko gave an on-the-record, videotaped interview to The Hill alleging that during a 2016 meeting you discussed a list of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups you did not want to see Ukrainian prosecutors target. Your supporters have since suggested he recanted that story. Did you or your staff ever do anything to confirm he had recanted or changed his story, such as talk to him, or did you just rely on press reports? ..."
"... Your colleagues, in particular Mr. George Kent, have confirmed to the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. embassy in Kiev did, in fact, exert pressure on the Ukrainian prosecutors office not to prosecute certain Ukrainian activists and officials. These efforts included a letter Mr. Kent signed urging Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an investigation of the aforementioned group AnTac as well as engaged in conversations about certain Ukrainians like Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin and NABU director Artem Sytnyk. Why was the US. Embassy involved in exerting such pressure and did any of these actions run afoul of the Geneva Convention's requirement that foreign diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs of their host country? ..."
"... If the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States suddenly urged us to fire Attorney General Bill Bar or our FBI director, would you think that was appropriate? ..."
"... At any time since December 2015, did you or your embassy ever have any contact with Vice President Joe Biden, his office or his son Hunter Biden concerning Burisma Holdings or an investigation into its owner Mykola Zlochevsky? ..."
The next big witness for the House Democrats' impeachment hearings is Marie Yovanovitch, the
former American ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled last spring at President Trump's
insistence.
It is unclear what firsthand knowledge she will offer about the core allegation of this
impeachment: that Trump delayed foreign aid assistance to Ukraine in hopes of getting an
investigation of Joe Biden and Democrats started.
Nonetheless, she did deal with the Ukrainians going back to the summer of 2016 and likely
will be an important fact witness.
After nearly two years of reporting on Ukraine issues, here are 15 questions I think could
be most illuminating to every day Americans if the ambassador answered them.
Ambassador Yovanovitch, at any time while you served in Ukraine did any officials in Kiev
ever express concern to you that President Trump might be withholding foreign aid assistance
to get political investigations started? Did President Trump ever ask you as America's top
representative in Kiev to pressure Ukrainians to start an investigation about Burisma
Holdings or the Bidens?
What was the Ukrainians' perception of President Trump after he allowed lethal aid to go
to Ukraine in 2018?
In the spring and summer of 2019, did you ever become aware of any U.S. intelligence
or U.S. treasury concerns raised about incoming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and
his affiliation or proximity to certain oligarchs? Did any of those concerns involve what the
IMF might do if a certain oligarch who supported Zelensky returned to power and regained
influence over Ukraine's national bank?
Back in May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions wrote a letter to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggesting you might have made comments unflattering or
unsupportive of the president and should be recalled. Setting aside that Sessions is a
Republican and might even have donors interested in Ukraine policy, were you ever questioned
about his concerns? At any time have you or your embassy staff made comments that could be
viewed as unsupportive or critical of President Trump and his policies?
John Solomon reported at The Hill and your colleagues have since confirmed in
testimony that the State Department helped fund a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Action
Centre of Ukraine that also was funded by George Soros' main charity. That nonprofit, also
known as AnTac, was identified in a 2014 Soros foundation strategy document as critical to
reshaping Ukraine to Mr. Soros' vision. Can you explain what role your embassy played in
funding this group and why State funds would flow to it? And did any one consider the
perception of mingling tax dollars with those donated by Soros, a liberal ideologue who spent
millions in 2016 trying to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump?
In March 2019, Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko gave an on-the-record,
videotaped interview to The Hill alleging that during a 2016 meeting you discussed a list of
names of Ukrainian nationals and groups you did not want to see Ukrainian prosecutors target.
Your supporters have since suggested he recanted that story. Did you or your staff ever do
anything to confirm he had recanted or changed his story, such as talk to him, or did you
just rely on press reports?
Now that both the New York Times and The Hill have confirmed that Lutsenko stands by his
account and has not recanted, how do you respond to his concerns? And setting aide the use of
the word "list," is it possible that during that 2016 meeting with Mr. Lutsenko you discussed
the names of certain Ukrainians you did not want to see prosecuted, investigated or
harassed?
Your colleagues, in particular Mr. George Kent, have confirmed to the House
Intelligence Committee that the U.S. embassy in Kiev did, in fact, exert pressure on the
Ukrainian prosecutors office not to prosecute certain Ukrainian activists and officials.
These efforts included a letter Mr. Kent signed urging Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an
investigation of the aforementioned group AnTac as well as engaged in conversations about
certain Ukrainians like Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin and
NABU director Artem Sytnyk. Why was the US. Embassy involved in exerting such pressure and
did any of these actions run afoul of the Geneva Convention's requirement that foreign
diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs of their host country?
On March 5 of this year, you gave a speech in which you called for the replacement of
Ukraine's top anti-corruption prosecutor. That speech occurred in the middle of the Ukrainian
presidential election and obviously raised concerns among some Ukrainians of internal
interference prohibited by the Geneva Convention. In fact, one of your bosses, Under
Secretary David Hale, got questioned about those concerns when he arrived in country a few
days later. Why did you think it was appropriate to give advice to Ukrainians on an internal
personnel matter and did you consider then or now the potential concerns your comments might
raise about meddling in the Ukrainian election or the country's internal affairs?
If the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States suddenly urged us to fire Attorney
General Bill Bar or our FBI director, would you think that was appropriate?
At any time since December 2015, did you or your embassy ever have any contact with
Vice President Joe Biden, his office or his son Hunter Biden concerning Burisma Holdings or
an investigation into its owner Mykola Zlochevsky?
At any time since you were appointed ambassador to Ukraine, did you or your embassy have
any contact with the following Burisma figures: Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, lawyer John
Buretta, Blue Star strategies representatives Sally Painter and Karen Tramontano, or former
Ukrainian embassy official Andrii Telizhenko?
John Solomon obtained documents showing Burisma representatives were pressuring the State
Department in February 2016 to help end the corruption allegations against the company and
were invoking Hunter Biden's name as part of their effort. Did you ever subsequently learn of
these contacts and did any one at State -- including but not limited to Secretary Kerry,
Undersecretary Novelli, Deputy Secretary Blinken or Assistant Secretary Nuland -- ever raise
Burisma with you?
What was your embassy's assessment of the corruption allegations around Burisma and why
the company may have hired Hunter Biden as a board member in 2014?
In spring 2019 your embassy reportedly began monitoring briefly the social media
communications of certain people viewed as supportive of President Trump and gathering
analytics about them. Who were those people? Why was this done? Why did it stop? And did
anyone in the State Department chain of command ever suggest targeting Americans with State
resources might be improper or illegal?
"... "In direct contravention of U.S. interests" says the NBC and quotes a member of the permanent state who declares "it is clearly in our national interest" to give weapons to Ukraine. ..."
"... But is that really in the national U.S. interest? Who defined it as such? ..."
"... And that's where the policy community and I part company. It is the president, not the bureaucracy, who was elected by the American people. That puts him -- not the National Security Council, the State Department, the intelligence community, the military, and their assorted subject-matter experts -- in charge of making policy. If we're to remain a constitutional republic, that's how it has to stay. ..."
"... The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col. Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is the duly elected president who does that. ..."
"... Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine's most powerful figure outside government, given his role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn back toward Russia. ..."
"... "They're stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations," he said, comparing Russia's power to that of Ukraine. "People want peace, a good life, they don't want to be at war. And you" -- America -- "are forcing us to be at war , and not even giving us the money for it." ..."
"... Mr. Kolomoisky [..] told The Times in a profanity-laced discussion, the West has failed Ukraine, not providing enough money or sufficiently opening its markets. ..."
"... Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its geopolitical rival. "War against Russia," he said, "to the last Ukrainian." Rebuilding ties with Russia has become necessary for Ukraine's economic survival, Mr. Kolomoisky argued. He predicted that the trauma of war will pass. ..."
"... Kolomoisky's interview is obviously a trial balloon for the policies Zelensky wants to pursue. He has, like Trump, campaigned on working for better relations with Russia. He received nearly 73% of all votes. ..."
"... Ambassador Taylor and the other participants of yesterday's clown show would certainly "mess it up and get in the way" if Zelensky openly pursues the policy he promised to his voters. They are joined in this with the west-Ukrainian fascists they have used to arrange the Maidan coup: ..."
"... Only some 20% of the Ukrainians are in favour of continuing the war against the eastern separatists who Russia supports. During the presidential election Poroshenko received just 25% of the votes. His party European Solidarity won 8.1% of the parliamentary election. Voice won 5.8%. ..."
"... on Yovanovitch, She added: "If our chief representative is kneecapped, it limits our effectiveness to safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States." ..."
"... She wasn't fired, she was kneecapped, and Ukraine is a US vital national security interest, especially after it installed a new government with neo-fascism support.. . .Kneecapping is a form of malicious wounding, often as torture, in which the victim is injured in the knee ..."
NBC News
is not impressed by the first day of the Democrats' impeachment circus. But it fails to
note what the conflict is really about:
It was substantive, but it wasn't dramatic.
In the reserved manner of veteran diplomats with Harvard degrees, Bill Taylor and George
Kent opened the public phase of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on
Wednesday by bearing witness to a scheme they described as not only wildly unorthodox but
also in direct contravention of U.S. interests.
"It is clearly in our national interest to deter further Russian aggression," Taylor, the
acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said in explaining why
Trump's decision to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to the most immediate target of
Russian expansionism didn't align with U.S. policy.
But at a time when Democrats are simultaneously eager to influence public opinion in favor
of ousting the president and quietly apprehensive that their hearings could stall or
backfire, the first round felt more like the dress rehearsal for a serious one-act play than
the opening night of a hit Broadway musical.
"In direct contravention of U.S. interests" says the NBC and quotes a member of the
permanent state who declares "it is clearly in our national interest" to give weapons to
Ukraine.
But is that really in the national U.S. interest? Who defined it as such?
President Obama was against giving weapons to Ukraine and never transferred any to Ukraine
despite pressure from certain circles. Was Obama's decision against U.S. national interest?
Where are the Democrats or deep state members accusing him of that?
Which brings us to the really critical point of the whole issue. Who defines what is in the
"national interest" with regards to foreign policy? Here is a point where for once I agree with
the right-wingers at the National Review where Andrew McCarthy writes :
[O]n the critical matter of America's interests in the Russia/Ukraine dynamic, I think the
policy community is right, and President Trump is wrong. If I were president, while I would
resist gratuitous provocations, I would not publicly associate myself with the delusion that
stable friendship is possible (or, frankly, desirable) with Putin's anti-American
dictatorship, which runs its country like a Mafia family and is acting on its revanchist
ambitions.
But you see, much like the policy community, I am not president. Donald Trump is.
And that's where the policy community and I part company. It is the president, not the
bureaucracy, who was elected by the American people. That puts him -- not the National
Security Council, the State Department, the intelligence community, the military, and their
assorted subject-matter experts -- in charge of making policy. If we're to remain a
constitutional republic, that's how it has to stay.
The U.S.
constitution "empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly
negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries."
The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the
administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col.
Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is
the duly elected president who does that.
The president does not like how the 'American policy' on Russia was built. He rightly
believes that he was elected to change it. He had stated his opinion on Russia during his
campaign and won the election. It is not 'malign influence' that makes him try to have good
relations with Russia. It is his own conviction and legitimized by the voters.
...
[I]t is the president who sets the policies. The drones around him who serve "at his
pleasure" are there to implement them.
There is another point that has to be made about the NBC's assertions. It is not in
the interest of Ukraine to be a proxy for U.S. deep state antagonism towards Russia. Robber
baron Igor Kolomoisky, who after the Maidan coup
had financed the west-Ukrainian fascists who fought against east-Ukraine, says so directly in
his
recent NYT interview :
Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine's most powerful figure outside government, given his
role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a
remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn
back toward Russia.
"They're stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations," he said, comparing Russia's
power to that of Ukraine. "People want peace, a good life, they don't want to be at war. And
you" -- America -- "are forcing us to be at war , and not even giving us the money for
it."
... Mr. Kolomoisky [..] told The Times in a profanity-laced discussion, the West has failed
Ukraine, not providing enough money or sufficiently opening its markets.
Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its
geopolitical rival. "War against Russia," he said, "to the last Ukrainian." Rebuilding ties
with Russia has become necessary for Ukraine's economic survival, Mr. Kolomoisky argued. He
predicted that the trauma of war will pass.
...
Mr. Kolomoisky said he was feverishly working out how to end the war, but he refused to
divulge details because the Americans "will mess it up and get in the way."
Kolomoisky's interview is obviously a trial balloon for the policies Zelensky wants to
pursue. He has, like Trump, campaigned on working for better relations with Russia. He received
nearly 73% of all votes.
Ambassador Taylor and the other participants of yesterday's clown show would certainly "mess
it up and get in the way" if Zelensky openly pursues the policy he promised to his voters. They
are joined in this
with the west-Ukrainian fascists they have used to arrange the Maidan coup:
Zelenskiy's decision in early October to accept talks with Russia on the future of eastern
Ukraine resulted in an outcry from a relatively small but very vocal minority of Ukrainians
opposed to any deal-making with Russia. The protests were relatively short-lived, but
prospects for a negotiated end to the war in the eastern Donbas region became more remote in
light of this domestic opposition.
...
The supporters for war with Russia are ex-president Poroshenko and two parliamentary
factions, European Solidarity and Voice, whose supporters are predominantly located in
western Ukraine. Crucially, however, they can also rely on right-wing paramilitary groups
composed of veterans from the hottest phase of the war in Donbas in 2014-5.
Only some 20% of the Ukrainians are in favour of continuing the war against the eastern
separatists who Russia supports. During the presidential election Poroshenko received just 25%
of the votes. His party European Solidarity won 8.1% of the parliamentary election. Voice won
5.8%.
By pursuing further conflict with Russia the deep state of the United States wants to ignore
the wishes not only of the U.S. voters but also those of the Ukrainian electorate. That
undemocratic mindset is another point that unites them with the Ukrainian fascists.
Zelensky should ignore the warmongers in the U.S. embassy in Kiev and sue for immediate
peace with Russia. (He should also investigate
Biden's undue influence .) Reengaging with Russia is also the easiest and most efficient
step the Ukraine can take to lift its desolate economy.
It is in the national interest of both, the Ukraine and the United States.
Posted by b on November 14, 2019 at 18:23 UTC |
Permalink
next page " agree with mccarthy about who conducts foreign policy, disagree about who
the aggressor is; it's the USA, trying to weaken Russia, which is the aggressor.
thanks b... typo - immediate piece with Russia - 'peace' is the spelling here...
the comments from Kolomoisky in the recent nyt interview are very telling.. aside from
being a first rate kleptomaniac who will willingly play both sides if he can profit from it,
he is also speaking a moment of truth..for him Ukraine is available to the highest bidder...
he could give a rats ass about Ukraine or the people... but still, it is refreshing that the
NYT published his comments in this regard..
the quote "the Americans "will mess it up and get in the way." is very true... it was true
before kolomisky picked a side too.. this guy is very shrewd.. i wonder if his own country is
able to see thru him?
national interest.... yes, trump gets to decide and he won on the idea of having closer
relations with russia, but the cia-msm has been lambasting him and anyone else associated
with him since before the election over the clinton e mails... they have painted a scenario
that it is all russias fault and have been relentless in this portrayal... hoping trump is
going to turn this around is like hoping someone is going to turn the titanic around from
hitting a giant iceberg... the usa is too far gone and will be hitting the iceberg.. they are
in fact...
From NYT about Kolomo???? (spelling in English is highly variable)
George D. Kent, a senior State Department official, said he had told Mr. Zelensky that his
willingness to break with Mr. Kolomoisky -- "somebody who had such a bad reputation" -- would
be a litmus test for his independence. [If is good to be independent, i.e. to do what we
want.]
And William Taylor, the acting ambassador in Kiev, said he had warned Mr. Zelensky: "He,
Mr. Kolomoisky, is increasing his influence in your government, which could cause you to
fail." [La Paz is a fresh reminder for Kiev?]
Well the thing about Zelensky is he's still there, and he is making changes in Donbass.
Kolomoisky was interested in the fracked gas in Donbass, the completion of NordStream II
has made a mess of that idea. It is good that he has seen the light, as it means Zelensky
will have support in his attempts to adapt to reality. But Kolomoisky is still a crook no
doubt.
My immediate reaction was that Kolomoisky realises he has to act - the Ukrainian oligarchs
have got too close to America. I agree with James that he is a extremely clever man.
Ukraine's traditional business is playing both ends against the middle and sending the
proceeds to Switzerland (or the Caribbean in Porosyonok's case). Since 1990 a few of these
robber barons have made a very good business winding up the west against Russia, it could go
on ever - why spoil it by lifting the rock and seeing all the insects scurrying around in the
light?
Another rock that has been lifted is in Washington, where the khokhol diaspora are
desperately trying to get Uncle Sam to right the wrongs of a century ago.
"Deep state" is misleading and actually a false construction.
There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction)which consists of imperial apparatchiks
placed in every key position in government.
There is one and only one Western Empire and its deep state spreads throughout Western
governments and society. They are the owners oif the world and they run the world they
own.
... @ b -- "Only some 20% of the Ukrainians favor to continue the war against the eastern
separatists who Russia supports."
The are not 'separatists', but rather Ukrainians who want to stay in a federated Ukraine
as 'provinces' with powers to pass their regional laws, similar to those in Canada.
The segment of empire in the US that are against Russia act so because it was Russia that
stymied them in Syria and continues to be in their way of expanding the control from that
part of empire...the US segment.
I still believe that the global private finance core segment of empire is behind Trump and
throwing America(ns) under the bus as the world turns more multilateral. The cult of global
private finance intends on still having some overarching super-national role in the new
multilateral world and holding debt guns to everyones heads to make it ongoing.
I don't believe that strategy will work but as long as they can be fronted by a MAD player
of some sort (Occupied Palestine comes to mind) they can be bully players in international
matters.
As the world economies grind to a "halt" there will be lots of pressure everywhere and
very little clarity about the key civilization war over public/private finance, IMO
For a military dictatorship, diplomacy is the continuation of war by other means. The US has
been at war with Russia since the right-wing coup at the Democratic convention of 1944. All
presidents have been servants of the military, which includes the police/intel/security
apparatus; the few who did not entirely accept their figurehead role were "dealt with."
Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and now Trump. The Washington permanent state bureaucrats are shocked
and understandably offended; they have after all, been running US foreign policy for 75
years!
Wow! The depth of delusion on display is as breathtaking as its complete projection of the
intentions and actions of the Evil Outlaw US Empire! Oh so many saying I'm displaying four
fingers instead of two. Too bad there isn't a padded cell big enough to contain all the
lunatics. I recall the pre- and post-coup discussions from 2014--that Russia was going to
make NATO own Ukraine until it was forced to concede it has no business being there; that
Russia would teach the would-be leaders of Ukraine a serious lesson in where their national
interests lay. NATO is ready to cede and the lesson's been learned.
IMO, two referendums must be held. The first within Russia: Will you accept portions of
Ukraine wanting to merge with Russia: Yes/No? Second to be given within Ukraine provided Yes
wins in #1: Do you wish to join Russia or remain in Ukraine? IMO, this is a very longstanding
unresolved issue of consequence for the people involved. The political leaders of Russia and
Ukraine might both be against such a vote, but IMO that merely kicks the can further down the
road and opens the door for more mischief making by the Evil Outlaw US Empire. Assuming a Yes
from Russia and some from Ukraine, a strategic threat to Russia and Europe would be
mitigated. Additional questions about those parts of Ukraine not wanting to join Russia could
be solved via additional referenda in the Ukraine and neighboring nations that might prove
willing to absorb the remnants and their people. Such action would of course negate the Minsk
Agreements.
Given the ideological passions of those living in Western and Northern Ukraine, I don't
see any hope for the continuation of the Ukrainian state as currently arranged, thus the
proposed referenda. However, if Russia says Nyet, then Minsk must be implemented.
"Democracy" is not about letting the people as a whole have a say in how the country is
governed. That would be fascist, and racist, and populist, and LITERALLY HITLER. Letting the
people decide on things like foreign policy, is literally anti-democratic.
No, "Democracy" is about privatizing power and socializing responsibility. The elites get
to set the policy, but the public at large gets to take responsibility when things go wrong.
Because you see, we are a "Democracy."
Breaking off long established economic and cultural ties with a large neighbouring country,
virtually overnight, is a rash act, and certain to create dislocation and hardship. The
craziness of the idea was only achievable through the traumatizing psy-op of the sniper
event, leading directly to the coup and the state of war. The EU and the US were clearly
malevolent in orchestrating the Association agreement with its ridiculous terms and the
corresponding Maidan pressures.
The fools in Hong Kong, after protester-sponsored screenings of the World On Fire
documentary, were actually quoted as presuming the Maidan protests had "won" and expressed
their hopes that they too could "win". Good luck to them.
Kolomoisky and Zelensky know what needs to be done, but they fear the blood that will flow
with Nazi-Banderist scum! Zelinski's balls are not that big, and has no options left after
compromising his position from day one. Who will make the first move, I fear not him? Russia
has time, and patience, which is sorely lacking in the west who feel they have to push the
envelope.
The Minsk II protocol was agreed to on 12 February 2015 by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia,
France, and Germany, It included provisions for a halt in the fighting, the withdrawal of
foreign forces, new constitution to allow special status for Donbass, and election in Donbass
for local self governance. Control of the present border of Ukraine would be restored to the
Ukraine government. Donbass would continue to be in Ukraine with some autonomy here (scroll down).
There are many such autonomous zones in the world, and in Europe, seen here .
The problem in Ukraine is that the neo-Nazi factions promoted by the US don't want to see a
resolution, and will fight it with US support.
Kolomoysky is obviously a master thief and general scumbag...but he is no fool...
I think the writing on the wall became obvious with the Nordstream 2 finalization, where,
it is noted, Denmark came in just under the wire in terms of not disrupting the
timetable...
Obviously the interests of German business have prevailed...and rightly so in this
case...
And what of the famous EU line about 'protecting' Ukraine as a gas transit
corridor...?
LOLOLOL...that is in the same category of nothingburger as the EU noises about 'alternate
payment' mechanisms for trade with Iran...
As soon as the Denmark story broke, Gazprom and Russian energy analysts talked openly
about the tiny volumes that Ukraine could expect to see transiting its territory...as part of
a new agreement to replace the one that has expired...
It works out to a small fraction of the several billion dollars in transit fees the
Ukraine was getting...
Also considering that the IMF appears to be finally shutting off the tap of loans to this
failed gangster state...and that the promises from the EU in 2013 were just so much fairy
tales...hard-nosed operators like Kolomoysky are recalculating...
The chaos and national ruin has really cost these gangster capitalists nothing [in fact
they have profited wildly]...so it is easy for them to reverse course and come begging back
to Russia...
Bryan MacDonald has a good piece about this today in RT...
So, here we are, almost six years since the first "EuroMaidan" protests in Kiev, and
Ukraine's most prominent oligarch has finally voiced the unmentionable: the project has
failed.
As for Kolomoysky...like Trump, there is something to like about dirtballs who speak their
minds openly...LOL
Quite a turnaround by Kolomoisky. Wasn't he once caught on a tapped phone call admitting
while chuckling about Ukrainian complicity in shooting down MH-17? i.e. NOT Donbas rebels and
NOT Russia.
@12 karlof1... a referendum... as if the usa would agree to that, lol.... look how they
processed the one in crimea...
@18 flankerbandit... last line is true, but it pales in relation to the ugliness these 2
exhibit 99% of the time, although the 1% when they don't it's refreshing! ukraine will
continue to be used as a tool by the west..
forget about any referendum.. that makes too much sense and won't be allowed..
Nordstream 2 will come online in less than 2 months and the Ukrainian gas exports at that
time will cease (I.e. no oil for the Oligarchs to steal), no matter what the US says they
can't replace the Russian oil exports in terms of money & support to Ukraine, so the
Oligarchs are now positioning themselves to abandon the US in order for the Russians to keep
even a tiny bit of oil flowing into their pockets
It's a tough balancing act, being a Ukrainian oligarch. For two decades they stole what they
could from the Ukraine (and from perverting the various sweetheart deals Russia was
providing). Once the industry and energy money was stripped, and Russia started closing the
spigots, they managed to get the West to pump in ungodly amounts of cash so long as they
would agree to talk mean about Russia, and didn't mind the US machine taking its cut of the
loot.
But now the Ukrainian thieves are beginning to realize that the Western thieves are going
to steal the very ground from under their feet, so there will be no more Ukraine to steal
from. That's not a very good business model. Plus they're no doubt seeing how the US treats
its partners in crime in Syria and elsewhere, and realize they could easily find themselves
the next meal for the US beast. Pretty easy to see why the smarter ones are getting
nervous.
they need to make peace with Russia or they will be left out in the cold, literally. They
seemed to have previously bought into some insane lie that they'd be a part of the EU and
NATO if theyd do Washington's bidding. The Deep state vastly underestimated Putin's resolve
when it became clear to the Russians that Washington may try and turn Crimea into a NATO port
one day. The game is over. Ukraine needs to find a way forward now for itself or it will be a
failed state in the near future. It's clear Merkel and Europe want no part of this headache
I don't think Russians want to 'own' any part of Ukraine...at least that is the nearly
unanimous opinion of my own contacts and colleagues in Russia...so I don't think any
referenda will be on the table...
What I do think is possible is what Yanukovich and Russia agreed to in terms of a trade
and economic deal...which was a lot more practical [not to mention generous] than the EU
'either or' nonsense...
Ukraine has run itself into the ground, literally...now they are selling vast tracts of
agricultural land to huge Euro agribusiness concerns...literally dispossessing themselves of
their own food security...
At the time of the Soviet dissolution, Ukraine had the highest living standards and some
of the world's prime industry and technology...including for instance the Yuzhnoye design
bureau [rocket engines and spacecraft] and many more such cutting edge aerospace
concerns...
For years these crucial enterprises were able to keep going due to the Russian
market...that all ended in 2014 [and in fact was tapering off even before due to the massive
corruption]...
Now the Chinese are looking to scoop up these gems at firesale prices...
It is really quite unbelievable that the nutcases in the Ukraine would be willing to cut
off their own arm just to bleed on Russia's shirt...
Why did the Ukraine never recover from the gangster capitalism like Russia did...because
no Putin ever came along to reign in the oligarchy...[It could be argued Putin hasn't done
nearly enough in this regard].
The Ukraine is actually a preview of what we can expect to see in our own future...as the
unleashed oligarchy similarly runs everything into the ground in order to extract maximal
wealth for a parasite elite...already we are nothing but a Ponzi Scheme on the verge of
toppling...
Kolomoisky is talking his book and helping USA to make the case that Nordstream is a NATO
security issue. To pretend that he's serious about a rapproachment with Russia just plays
into that effort.
And b ignores my comment on the prior thread that he references (about Trump being
Constitutionally charged with foreign policy). Repeating: the "Imperial Presidency" has flung
off Constitutional checks and balances by circumventing the need to get Congressional
approval for spending. Wars (like Syria) are now be funded by Gulf Monarchies, black ops, and
black budgets.
While for practical reasons the Executive Branch of USA government has the power to
negotiate treaties and manage foreign relations, Constitutionally he does so for the
sovereign (the American people) and his efforts are subject to review and approval of the
people's representatives via the power of the purse.
Ignoring how the "Imperial Presidency" has usurped power leads to faulty analysis that
supports that power grab.
Ukrainegate IS a farce, but for other reasons. Chief among them being the inherent fakery
of 'managed democracy' which manifests as kayfabe.
There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction)which consists of imperial apparatchiks
placed in every key position in government.
There is one and only one Western Empire and its deep state spreads throughout Western
governments and society. They are the owners of the world and they run the world they
own.
Nicely put:- that is the reality. Thanks b for your intrepid reports.
Paul Craig Roberts has a deeply aggrieved rant at zero hedge if barflies want a chuckle.
What a shitshow.
Crimea?
It has been part of Russia about as long as the USA has been a country.
9 out of 10 residents are of Russian origin, and Russian is the spoken language.
I guess it could be returned to the 10%-- but out of fairness, we must turn the USA over to
its original occupants.
If you live in the USA, get your ass ready to leave.
One of the problems that the anti-nazis face in Ukraine is that there are occupying armies in
the country. Armies which cannot be trusted to obey instructions which are not agreed upon by
NATO warmongers.
One such army is Canadian, commanded I believe by a descendant of the Ukrainian SS refugees
and reporting to the Foreign Minister in Ottawa, a Russophobe with a family background of
nazi collaboration.
The actual political situation is much more delicate than media reports suggest: what are
called elections feature, in the Washington approved fashion, the banning of socialist and
communist candidates. Bans which are enforced by a combination of fascist commanded police
forces and, even less responsible, private nazi militias. Opponents of the Maidan regime are
driven into exile, jailed or murdered.
Those who wonder as Jackrabbit, in a rare essay into rationality, does above, about the
nature of the US Constitution after decades of the erosion of checks and balances thanks to
the Imperial Presidency, will recognise that a dialectic is at work here. Washington's
support for fascism abroad has instituted fascism at home which has led in turn to the
installation of fascist regimes abroad, not just occasionally but routinely. Wherever the US
intervenes it leaves a fascist regime, in which socialists are banned and persecuted, behind
it.
And what this means is that, among other things, the ability of the population to effect
political change is cancelled: there is no way that the people of Ukraine can decide what
they want because the decisions have been taken for them, in weird cult like gatherings of SS
worshiping Bandera supporters in Toronto and Chicago. It is no accident that most of the
'Ukrainians' being wheeled out by the Democrats to testify against Trump are actually greedy
expatriates who have never really lived in Ukraine.
There was a moment, not long ago, when it looked as if the Minsk accords promised a path to
peace and reconciliation. Unfortunately the plain people of Ukraine, the poorest in Europe
though living in one of the richest countries, Washington, Ottawa and NATO didn't like the
sound of Minsk. Nor did the fascists in the Baltic states and Poland, for whom, for
centuries, Ukraine has been a cow to milk, its people slaves to be exploited and its rich
resources too tempting to ignore.
As Thomas Jefferson explained the President's role in foreign affairs in 1790, and the lack
of advisors' policy making decisions: ''as the President was the only channel of
communication between the United States and foreign nations, it was from him alone 'that
foreign nations or their agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation';
that whatever he communicated as such, they had a right and were bound to consider 'as the
expression of the nation'; and that no foreign agent could be 'allowed to question it,' or
'to interpose between him and any other branch of government, under the pretext of either's
transgressing their functions.' Mr. Jefferson therefore declined to enter into any discussion
of the question as to whether it belonged to the President under the Constitution to admit or
exclude foreign agents. 'I inform you of the fact,' he said, 'by authority from the
President.'
Might also be worth yesterdays hero's asking if dear Mr Kolomoisky, joint Uki/Israeli
national, took a part in authorising the shoot down of MH17 as a news cover for Operation
Protective Edge. Heave ho zionist USA ....et al.
1.The decisions to with hold and release aid have nothing to do with the President making
foreign policy but with his campaign. Saying it was about foreign policy is a damned lie.
2.Trump as president is supposed to lead foreign policy, which means actually setting a
policy. Military aid to Ukraine, yes, except no, except yes, personal handling without asking
anybody with experience how to achieve the national goal desired, national agenda kept secret
from the people who have to carry it out, abuse of officials, demands for dubiously legal
actions without rationale...Saying it was about the president's executive role is a damned
lie.
3.Trump has not made even a tweet that questions US support for fascists. That not even a
issue for Trump. Saying this is about support for fascism is a damned lie.
4.Kolomoyskiy is a bankroller of fascists. It is not impossible even a billionaire might get
frightened by the genie he's let out of the bottle, even if he's Jewish and rich enough to
run away. But actually undoing the fascist regime means taming the paramilitaries and this is
not even on the horizon. Given the rivalry between Poroshenko and Kolomoyskiy it's not even
certain it's a real change of heart or just soothing words for the non-fascist people. Nor is
it even clear the Zelensky will follow even the Steinmeier formula. If he does, good, but
until something actually happens? Saying it's about the antifascist turn is a damned lie.
The only thing that isn't a lie is that Trump was not committing treasons, "merely" a
campaign violation. But then, Clinton never did either. The crybabies who dished it out but
can't take it deserve zero respect, and zero time.
Curious to know how Kolomoisky is working "feverishly" to end the war in the Donbass region.
Wonder if he is planning to come clean on what he knows of the Malaysia Airlines MH17
shootdown and crash in an area not far from Slavyansk and near where his Privat Group's
subsidiary company Burisma Holdings holds a licence to drill for oil and natural gas. What
does he know about Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk air traffic control personnel's direction to MH17
to fly at 10,000 metres in the warzone and not an extra 1,000 metres above as the flight crew
had requested? He had been governor of Dnepropetrovsk region at the time.
Somewhere I read it alleged that the actual owner of Burisma was or is Kolomoiski.
Anything to this?
And via John Helmer (via Checkpointasia and dances with bears) comes the perspective that
it's not so much Kolomoiski floating trial balloons (though that may also be true) but that K
is being given space in the NYT to build his credentials as the new Borg villain, thereby
making it still harder for Zelensky to reconcile with Russia.
fb @ 25 said;"The Ukraine is actually a preview of what we can expect to see in our own
future...as the unleashed oligarchy similarly runs everything into the ground in order to
extract maximal wealth for a parasite elite...already we are nothing but a Ponzi Scheme on
the verge of toppling..."
Yup, aided and abetted by our current regime, while pretending not to...
@23
"It's a tough balancing act, being a Ukrainian oligarch. For two decades they stole what they
could from the Ukraine (and from perverting the various sweetheart deals Russia was
providing). Once the industry and energy money was stripped, and Russia started closing the
spigots, they managed to get the West to pump in ungodly amounts of cash so long as they
would agree to talk mean about Russia, and didn't mind the US machine taking its cut of the
loot."
This is it in a nutshell. The Russians were fed up with Ukraine stealing gas. Hence, Nord
Stream 2. That was always the plan. Whether the Yanks truly grasped the rationale here
---Russia is cutting off gas to Ukraine, simple---has never been clear to me. Although it is
a fairly simple plot. The Russians had decades of shenanigans with the Ukes and said Basta.
By not overreacting to the Ukrainian-USA freakout and keeping their eyes on the prize (Nord
Stream and disengaging, gas-wise, from Uk), they have managed to reach their goal of getting
Nord Stream 2 online.
Kolomoiski is the bankroller and commander of the Azov Battalion. Has close arrangements with
other paramilitaries. And is the current principal of Burisma. And is Privatbank, the only
bank left in Ukraine. He gets a cut of all the action.
When Trump queries Zelensky, all that Zelensky is thinking is this guy does not know the
score. This guy does not know who's on first. He wants me to investigate the boss? Let him
talk to the boss. And who does Z talk to in D.C.? Pointless getting into detail with
Trump.
Trump has no team. No one in D.C. is on his side. He's unable to finish anything.
1) Say the fantasy happens and the US/Russia become BFFs like US/UK...
- Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss?
- Tough to answer, many unknowns- Russia may act different once its on top, actors may
derail schemes, Deep State temper tantrum, etc...
In general, governments are the order-providing solution for chaos and problems that only
first existed inside the minds of those seeking power over others.
Kolomoiski is a U.S. asset. His interview with the NYTimes proves it.
His threats are meant to mobilize NATO and Russia haters in general; because Trump and
most of his cadre care nothing for Ukraine.
Does anyone think Russia will give Kolomoiski 100 million dollars? Why was he given an
opportunity to threaten the USA? For no reason? Something else is afoot but Russia still
won't take the bait because they are winning.
Russia is quite happy with the status quo. The war in Ukraine keeps the war against Russia
on a level which is easy to manipulate and therefore geostrategically beneficial. Kolomoiski
will get nothing.
Thank you, b, for that snippet from NY Interview with Kolomoisky . I had glanced the headline
on RT but didn't read it because of RT's usual clumsy writing.
Kolomoiski is taunting the empire: investigate my crimes and
ukraine will seek reconciliation and alliance with russia.
Russia won't fall for it. They want kolomoiski's scalp even
more than the empire. From the statements putin has made, maybe
the only concession russia would accept is the dissolution of
ukraine as a sovereign entity and reintegration with russia, minus galicia.
Putin has remarked that they are not one people but one state. Ukraine
already knows that its domestic industry is only viable in competition
with the eu industrial powerhouses if it is integrated with russia.
What does [Kolomoysky] know about Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk air traffic control
personnel's direction to MH17 to fly at 10,000 metres in the warzone and not an extra 1,000
metres above as the flight crew had requested?
Okay..so an interesting can of worms here...
First is the fact that Kolomoysky was the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast at the
time...
Now as to the flight and Dnipro Radar [the regional air traffic control facility that
controls a very big chunk of airspace over eastern Ukraine]...
First the issue of the airplane cruising altitude...the crew had filed their flight plan
to climb from flight level 330 [33,000 ft] to FL350 after passing a certain waypoint in
eastern Ukraine...
Now the controllers did instruct the crew to go ahead and climb to their planned altitude,
but the crew declined the clearance and opted to stay at FL330...this was done very
likely because the atmospheric conditions at that height were better for fuel economy...
[To be even more specific...the Boeing manual gave an optimum flight altitude of 33,800
ft, but flying eastward you only have odd numbered flight levels to choose from, so the crew
figured they would be better off staying at 33 than climbing to 35...]
BUT...there are a couple of very curious things here...
First is the fact that Dnipro controllers deviated the airplane from its flight
plan just before it went down...ostensibly due to other traffic...
We can see this in the following map, which is what's called a high altitude en route
chart, which is used by pilots to plan and execute their flight...
You will note a couple of things here...the airplane is flying on the L980 airway
[basically a highway in the sky] when it is turned south by controllers to the RND waypoint,
which is in Russian territory...
This is NOT the route filed by the crew...which can be seen here...
They were supposed to continue flying on L980 right to the TAMAK waypoint, which is
visible on the previous chart and is right on the border with Russia...
They would have continued on the A87 airway to their next waypoint in Russia which is
TIKNA...
Now here is the thing...right after they were turned south, they got shot down...
According to the radio transcripts, the crew acknowledged the course change, but did not
object...however, usually these kinds of course changes aren't appreciated on the flight deck
because the crew is trying to minimize wasted time and wasted fuel on course
deviations...
Most times you will just not bother to complain to controllers...but for sure there will
always be chatter between the captain and copilot about being yanked around like that...
No mention is made in the Dutch Safety Board report about such chatter from the cockpit
voice recorder, which I find very odd...
Also odd is the fact that Dnipro ATC primary radar was down, and only the so-called
'secondary' was working which uses the transponder signals from the airplane...
This is very busy airspace because a lot of flights from western Europe to South Asia
traverse this territory...the plan is always to fly what's called a 'great circle route'
which is basically a straight line, if you flattened out the globe...
Plus considering that you have a war going on underneath...it's very unusual to have your
PRIMARY radar inoperable...
This is significant also because military aircraft will not be using transponders and so
will not be visible to the secondary surveillance...
The Russian primary radar did pick up two other aircraft very nearby MH17...but the Dutch
have made some kind of excuse about that data not being in 'raw' form and thus not
usable...
So we see some very suspicious anomalies here...
The Ukrainian authorities did have a NOTAM [notice to airmen] in effect up to FL320
[32,000 ft] so commercial traffic could not fly under that height...but clearly they should
have closed the airspace over the hot conflict area...
They didn't do that...and Kolomoysky was in charge...
The Deep State's view on the members' God given right to make foreign policy decisions (it
must be the God who has give it to them, because the people certainly have not) just reminds
the of the general attitude of the Government's bureaucracy. Give any fartbag a position in
the government and he/she becomes "a prince/princes over the people", give him or her a
monopoly over violence and you got yourself a king/queen. All these police and military kings
& queens milling around and lording over us. "Deep State" is such a totally natural
consequence of the government bureaucracy corrupted by power that it appropriated.
Pillaging taxes from the sheeple (and taking young maidens like Sheriff of
Nottingham/Epstein) could have never ever been enough. Did you seriously think that the Deep
Staters would constrain themselves to only stealing your money, taking your children for
their pleasure and to die in their wars of conquest, and putting you into a totally unsafe
airplanes to die for their profit? Constrain themselves when there is a whole globe out there
to be lorded over, like Bidens over Ukraine? It is the poor people of Ukraine who just have
too much money, thus had to give it through the gas monopoly to the Biden gang, which
selflessly brought them "democracy" at $5B in US taxpayers' expense. Therefore, it is the
Deep State which has been chosen by God, or someone just like that, to make the decisions
about the imperialist/globalist foreign policy and have billions of dollars thrown by the
grateful natives into their own pockets, as consulting fees:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/leaked-bank-records-confirm-burisma-biden-payments-morgan-stanley-account
So far the only clear-cut globalization is that one of crime, which has become
global.
What is the US National Interest b asks? Who defines it as such?
Ome magazine that might know is none other than The National Interest. Hopefully I won't
get attacked for quoting from what seems like a fairly sane article to me....
"The US should consider whom they are giving weapons to. Ukraine is a debt-ridden state
and only five years beyond an extralegal revolution. Should the government collapse again,
then American weapons could end up in the possession of any number of dubious paramilitary
groups.
It wouldn't be the first time. In the 2000s, CIA operatives were forced to repurchase
Stinger missiles that had fallen into the hands of Afghani warlords -- at a markup.
Originally offered to the Mujahideen in the 1980s, the Stingers came to threaten American
forces in the region. Similarly, many weapons provided with US authorization to Libyan rebels
in 2011 ended up in the possession of jihadists."
It's difficult to find clean information on happenings within Ukraine and those involving
Russia. The Ministry of Foreign affairs has this page
dedicated to the "Situation Around Ukraine." Of the three most recent listings,
this one --"Comment by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova on the NATO
Council's visit to Ukraine"--from 1 November is quite important as it deals with the reality
on the ground versus the circus happening thousands of miles away, although it's clear the
delusions in Washington and Brussels are the same and "continue to be guided by the Cold War
logic of exaggerating the nonexistent 'threat from the East' rather than the interests of
pan-European security."
In the
second most recent listing --"Remarks by Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian
Federation to the OSCE Vladimir Zheglov at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting on the
situation in Ukraine and the need to implement the Minsk Agreements, Vienna, October 31,
2019"--the following was noted:
"There's more to it. The odious site Myrotvorets continues to function using servers
located in the United States. The UN has repeatedly stated that this violates the presumption
of innocence and the right to privacy. Recently, Deputy Head of the UN Human Rights
Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Benjamin Moreau, reiterated the recommendation to shut down
this website. A similar demand was made by other representatives of the international
community, including the German government. The problem was brought to the attention of the
European Court of Human Rights. The other day, the representative of Ukraine at the ECHR was
made aware of the groundlessness of the Ukrainian government's excuses saying that it
allegedly 'has no influence' on the above website.
"In closing, recent opinion polls in Ukraine indicate that its residents are expecting the
government to do more to bring peace to Donbas. The path to a settlement is well known, that
is, the full implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures of February 12, 2015, that was
approved by the UN Security Council."
Clearly, Zelensky's government is much like Poroschenko's when it comes to listening to
those who empowered it, the above citation is one of several from the overall report.
The latest report deals with an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice at The
Hague that reveals some of the anti-Russian bias there. It has no bearing on this discussion,
although it does provide evidence of the contextual background against which the entire
affair, including the circus in Washington, operates.
MoA consensus is Minsk backed NATO and its Ukrainian minions into a corner from which
there's only one way out, which is the implementation of the Accords they continue to oppose
to implement despite their promise to do so. Clearly an excellent example of not being
agreement capable that hasn't changed since 2015.
If the Republicans had any brains, they'd turn the Ukrainian aspect of the hearings into
an indictment against Obama/Biden for illegally overthrowing Kiev and trying to obtain their
piece-of-the-action, but then that would be the logical thing to do and thus isn't an option.
The prospect of each day providing similar spectacle is mind numbing as it airs the sordid,
unwashed underwear if the Evil Outlaw US Empire.
I normally do not reply to trolls, but I make an exception for you. Pedo-dollar? Do you have
any more such crap to dilute the valid points discussed here?
i liked what @ 32 tod said - "he's just doing the old Jewish threatening/begging
dance!
"And you are forcing us to be at war, and not even giving us the money for it." Wink!
Wink!"
stating the obvious is one remedy for any possible confusion here..
@54 karlof1... i don't believe trump is allowed to shine any light on the usas illegal
actions as that would be sacrilege to all the americans who see their country in such a
great, exceptional-ist light... how would trumps MAGA concept swallow that? it wouldn't, so
it won't happen...
You are a bit off on that story. NS2 pipeline will increase the capacity not transitioning
via Ukraine and reduce the price banditry by the Ukrainian & US gangs, but it will not
make gas transit via Ukraine unnecessary. The planned switch off of the German nuclear and
coal power plants will gradually increase the German demand for gas, that is the Russian gas
by so much that NS1 and NS2 will not be enough. Primarily, NS2 is a signal to the Ukrainian
& US Democrat gangs that if they try excessive transit fees and stealing of gas again,
that they will be circumvented within a few years by NS 3,4,5 ...
BTW, the globalized pillaging of the population is clearly not an invention of the DNC
crime gang only. For example, the 737Max is a product of primarily Republican activity on
deregulating what should have never been deregulated and subjugation to the Wall Street (aka
financialization). The pillaging of the World is strictly bipartisan, just differently
packaged:
1) R - packaging the deregulation to steal & kill as "freedom" or
2) D - packaging the regime change as responsibility to protect R2P (such regime change and
stuffing of own pockets later).
karlof1 @54 - "Minsk backed NATO and its Ukrainian minions into a corner from which
there's only one way out, which is the implementation of the Accords"
Yes. As you well know, and as we have well discussed, Minsk was in its very essence the
surrender terms dictated to the US by NAF and Russia in return for letting the NATO
contractors go free and secretly out of the Debaltsevo cauldron. Either actually or
poetically, this was the basis. The US lost against NAF. The only way to prevent Donbass
incursion into the rest of Ukraine was to freeze the situation. The US had no choice, and
surrendered.
Out of the heat and fog of warfare came a simple document made of words which, even so,
illustrated perfectly just how elegantly the Kremlin had the entire situation both war-gamed
and peace-gamed. Minsk from that day until forever has locked the Ukraine play into a lost
war of attrition for the US sponsors, with zero gain - except for thieves.
To attempt to parse Ukraine in terms of statecraft is to miss the point that Ukraine can
only be parsed in terms of thievery. This is not cynicism, simply truth.
Now they sell their land because this is all there is left to sell. Kolomoisky proposes
selling the entire country to Russia for $100 billion but not only will Russia not bite, the
country isn't worth even a fraction of that - because of Minsk, it can cause zero harm to
Russia. But this ploy raises the perceived value (Kolomoisky hopes) in the eyes of the west,
and starts the bidding.
In Russia the people see all this very clearly, including on their TV. Yakov Kedmi in this
Vesti News clip of
Vladimir Soloviev's hugely popular talk show, discusses the situation. He baits Soloviev by
saying that the Ukrainian thieves are only doing what the Russian thieves did in the 1990's -
and one must filter through this badinage to take out the nuggets he supplies. Here are
three:
1. Zelensky has no security apparatus that follows his command, therefore how can he be
considered the leader of the country?
2. There is no power in Ukraine, only forces that contend over the scraps of plunder.
3. These forces are creating the only law there is, which is the sacred nature of private
property for the rich - the only thing the US holds sacred.
Therefore sell the very soil.
~~
The Minsk agreement is a sheer wall of ice reaching to the sky. No force imaginable can
scale it or break it. Against that ultimate, immovable wall the US pounds futilely, with
Ukraine caught in the middle, while Russia waits for Ukraine to devolve into whatever it
can.
And the Russian people and government regard the people of the Ukraine as brothers and
sisters. But until the west has worn itself down, and either gone away or changed the
equation through a weakening of its own position in some significant way, nothing can be done
by Russia except to wait.
What Tod @32 described is spot-on, "the old Jewish threatening/begging dance". It is not that
the Russians do not know this about Kolomoyskyi. They will play along not expecting anything
from the Zelo-on-a-String and his master. The Russians like to let those scumbags (Erdo comes
to mind) huff & puff and embarrass themselves by flips. They know - it could always be
worse if those did something intelligent. Kolomoyskyi is vile but he ain't no genius, not any
more than Erdo.
Sure Cheeza...everybody's a 'bit off' except you...
Gazprom is talking about 10 bcm a year through Ukraine for the new 10 year deal, as
opposed to the 60 bcm [billion cubic meters] that Ukraine is hoping for...
"Deep state" is misleading and actually a false construction.
There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction/)which consists of imperial apparatchiks
placed in every key position in government. Babyl-on @ 8
? before I begin , how do you measure the political and economic power of money
as opposed to the political and economic power of the intentions and needs of the masses.
Does $1 control a 100 people? A million dollars control 100,000,000 people? How do we measure
the comparative values between money power and people power? I think the divisions of
economics and the binaries of politics established by the nation state system means that the
measurement function (political and economic values) varies as a function of the total wealth
vs the total population in each nation state. If true, become obvious how it is that: foreign
investments displaces the existing homeostatis in any particular nation state, the smaller
the poorer the nation state, the more impact foreign wealth can have; in other words outside
wealth can completely destroy the homeostatis of an existing nation state. I think it is this
fact which makes globalization so attractive to the ruling interest (RI) and so damning to
the poorest of the poor.
Change by amendment is impossible There is one and only one Western Empire but
there is also an Eastern Empire, a southern empire, and a Northern Empire and I believe the
ruling interest (faction) manipulate all nations through these empires. In fact, they can do
this in any nation they wish. The world has been divided into containers of humans and
propaganda and culture have highly polarized the humans in one container against the humans
in other containers. <=divide, polarize, then exploit: its like pry the window, and gain
access to the residence, then exploit. It is obvious that the strength of the resistance to
ruling class exploitation is a function of common cause among the masses. But money allows to
control both the division of power and the polarization of the masses. The persons who have
the powers described in Article II of the US Constitution since Lincoln was murdered can be
controlled (Epstein, MSM directed propaganda, impeachment, assassination, to accomplish the
objects of the ruling interest (faction). Article II of the USA constitution removes foreign
activity of the USA from domestic view of the governed at home Americans. Article II makes it
possible for the POTUS to use American assets and resources to assist his/her feudal lords in
exploiting foreign nations almost at will and there is no way governed Americans can control
who the ruling interest place in the Article II position.
A little History Immigration to NYC from Eastern (the poor) and Western (the
rich) Europe transitioned NYC and other cities from Irish majority to a Jewish majority; and
the wealthy interest used the Jewish majorities in key cities to take control over both
Article I and Article II constitutional powers by electing field effect controlled
politicians (political puppets are elected that can be reprogrammed while they are in office
to suit the ruling interest. The source code is called rule of law, and money buys the
programmers who write the code. So the ruling interest can reprogram in field effect fashion,
any POTUS they wish. Out of sight use of the resources of America in foreign lands is nothing
new, it was established when the constitution was written in Philadelphia in 1787 and
ratified in 1788.
Propaganda targeted to the Jewish Immigrants allowed the wealthy interest to
control the outcome of the 1912 election. That election allowed to destroy Article I,
Section 9, paragraph 4 " No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid unless in
Proportion to the Census of enumeration herein before directed to be taken". and to enact a
law which privatized the USA monopoly on money into the hands of private bankers (the federal
reserve act of 1913)
What was the grand design Highly competitive, independent too strong economic
Germany was interfering with Western hegemony and the oil was in the lands controlled by the
Ottomans. It took two wars, but Germany was destroyed, and the Ottoman empire (basically the
entire Middle East) became the war gained property of the British (Palestine), the French
(Syria) and the USA (Israel). Since then, the ruling interest have used their (field effect
devices to align governments so the wealthy could pillage victim societies the world over.
Field effect programming allows wealth interest to use the leaders of governments to use such
governments to enable pillage in foreign places. The global rich and powerful, and their
corporations are the ruling interest.
psychohistorian says it well "..the global private finance core segment of empire is
behind Trump and throwing America(ns) under the bus as the world turns more multilateral. The
cult of global private finance intends on still having some overarching super-national role
in the new multilateral world and holding debt guns to everyone's heads to make it
ongoing..." by psychochistorian @ 10
NOBITs @ 11 says it also "All presidents have been servants of the military, which includes
the police/intel/security apparatus; the few who did not entirely accept their figurehead
role were "dealt with." Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and now Trump. The Washington permanent state
bureaucrats are shocked and understandably offended; they have after all, been running US
foreign policy for 75 years!" by: NOBTS @ 11
According to TG @ 13 "Democracy" is about privatizing power and socializing
responsibility. The elites get to set the policy, but the public at large gets to take
responsibility when things go wrong. Because you see, we are a "Democracy."by: TG @ 13 <=
absolutely not.. the constitution isolates governed Americans from the USA, because the USA
is a republic and republics are about privatizing power and socializing responsibility;
worse, there ain't nothing you can do about it.
Vonu @ 19 says "According to Kevin Shipp, the National Security Council really runs the
executive branch, not the president. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=XHbrOg092GA"
by: Vonu @ 19 <=but it is by the authority of Ariicle II that the NSC has the power to run
the executive branch?
KAdath @ 22 says "the Oligarchs are now positioning themselves to abandon the US in
order for the Russians to keep even a tiny bit of oil flowing into their pockets by: Kadath @
22" <=exactly.. but really its not abandoning the USA, its abandoning the oligarchs local
to the pillaged nation..
J Swift @ 23 says "the US treats its partners in crime in Syria and elsewhere,"
[poorly] but its not the USA per say, because only one person has the power to deal in
foreign places. Its that the POTUS, or those who control the Article II powers vested in the
POTUS, have or has been reprogrammed.. J. Switft @23>>
flankerbandit @ 25 says " Ukraine has run itself into the ground, literally...now they
are selling vast tracts of agricultural land to huge Euro agribusiness concerns...literally
dispossessing themselves of their own food security..." flankerbandit @ 25 <=Not really
the wealthy (investor interest) have pushed the pillage at will button.. since there is no
resistance remaining, the wealthy will take it all for a song..
Jackrabbit @ 26 says "Trump [is].. Constitutionally charged with foreign policy. Repeating:
the "Imperial Presidency" has flung off Constitutional checks and balances by circumventing
the need to get Congressional approval for spending. Wars (like Syria) are now be funded by
Gulf Monarchies, black ops, and black budgets.by Jackrabbit @ 26 <== Trumps orders
military to take 4 million day from Syria in oil?
your observation that the money has circumvented Article I of the COUS explains why the
democraps are so upset.. the wealthy democrap interest has been left to rot? Your comment
suggest s mafia is in charge?
Tod @ 32 says "As soon as some money goes his way, he'll discover democracy again.
Sorry to burst you bubbles." by: Tod @ 32" <==understatement of the day.. thanks.
Bevin @ 32 says "a dialectic is at work here. Washington's support for fascism abroad
has instituted fascism at home which has led in turn to the installation of fascist regimes
abroad, not just occasionally but routinely. Wherever the US intervenes it leaves a fascist
regime, in which socialists are banned and persecuted, behind it. this means.. the ability of
the population to effect political change is cancelled" by bevin @ 33 <= yes but there is
really no difference in a republic and its rule of law, and a fascist government and its
military police both rule without any influential input from the governed.
michael @ 34 reaffirms "The President was the only channel of communication between the
United States and foreign nations, it was from him alone 'that foreign nations or their
agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation'" michael @ 34 well known to
barflies, the design of national constitutions is at the heart of the global problem. Until
constitutional powers are placed in control of the governed there will never be a change in
how the constitutional powers ( in case of the USA Article II powers) are used and
abused.
OutofThinAir @45 says "In general, governments are the order-providing solution for
chaos and problems that only first existed inside the minds of those seeking power over
others.by: OutOfThinAir @ 45" <+governments are the tools of wealth interest and the
governors their hired hands.
by: War is Peace @48 " Trump is a moron, groomed by Jewish parents ( Mother was Jewish,
Father buried at biggest Jewish cementary in NYC ) to be a non-Jew worked for the mob under
Cohen ( lawyer for 1950's McCarthy ); Became the 'Goyim Fool" real estate developer as a
cover for laundering mob money. So that it didn't appear that it was Jewish Mafia Money, so
they could work with the Italian Mafia. Trump went on for his greatest role ever to be the
"fool in Chief" of the USA for AIPAC. What better way to murder people, than send out a fool,
it causes people to drop their guard. by War is Peace @48 <= yes this is my take, What
does it mean. com suggest the global wealth interest may be planning to reprogram Trump to
better protect the interest of the global wealthy.
Kiza @ 51 the reason for globalization is explained see above=> response to Babyl-on @
8
dh @ 53 says ""The US should consider whom they are giving weapons to." by dh @53 <
the USA cannot consider anything, if its foreign the POTUS (Article II) makes all decisions
because Art II gives the POTUS a monopoly on talking to, and dealing with, foreign
governments.
Deagel @ 56 says "The American people don't care, they're all drugged out, and shitting
on the side-walks all over the USA, and sleeping in their own shit. This is the best time in
USA history for the Zionists to do anything they wish." by: Deagel @ 56 <= I think you
under estimate the value Americans place on democracy and human rights, until recently
governed Americans believed the third party privately produced MSM delivered propaganda that
nearly all overseas operations by the USA were to separate the people in those places from
their despotic leaders, and to help those displaced people install Democracy.. many Americans
have come to understand such is far from the case.. the situation in the Ukraine has been an
eye opener for many Americans. thoughts are sizzling, talk is happening, and people are
trying to shut google out of their lives. that is why i think Trump is about to be
reprogrammed from elected leader to .. God in charge
I watched that Soloviev segment with Kedmi the other day...always interesting to say the
least...
Btw...I'm not really up to speed on that whole Debaltsevo cauldron thing...I've heard
snippets here and there...[there is a guy, Auslander, who comments on the Saker blog that
seems to have excellent first hand info, but I've only caught snippets here and there]...
I hadn't heard this part of the story before about Nato contractors as bargaining
chips...if you care to shed a bit more light I will be grateful...
I suggest going to The Saker Blog and
enter Debaltsevo Cauldron into the site's search box and click Submit where you'll be greeted
with numerous results.
Grieved @62--
Thanks for your reply and excellent recap. As I recall, Putin wants Donbass to remain in
Ukraine and Ukraine to remain a whole state, although I haven't read his thoughts on the
matter for quite some months as everything has revolved around implementing Minsk. The items
at the Foreign Ministry I linked to are also concerned with Minsk.
The circus act in DC is trying to avoid any mention of Minsk, the coup or anything
material to the gross imperial meddling done there to enrich the criminal elite, which
includes Biden, Clinton, other DNC members--a whole suite of actors that omits Trump in this
case, although they're trying to pin something on him. The issue being studiously ignored is
Obama/Biden needed to be busted for their actions at the time, but in time-honored fashion
weren't. And the huge rotted sewer of corruption related to that action and ALL that came
before is the real problem at issue.
Typical reaction of a zelf-zentered person as evidenced by The New Yorker 737Max article
in the previous thread. This good article could only be measured by how much it agrees with
your own opinion that MCAS was put in to mimic the pilots' usual fly-stick feel. If anyone
does his home work, such as the journalist of this article, then he must agree with you,
right? With experts such as you out there, why would anyone dare apply common sense and say
that it would be an unimaginably stupid idea to put in ANY AUTOMATED SYSTEM which pushes
the plane's nose down during ascent (the most risky phase of a civilian flight, when almost
desperately trying to get up and up and up) for any DUMBLY POSSIBLE REASON !? What could
ever go wrong with such an absolutely dumbly initiated system relying on one sensor? Maybe it
was a similar idea to putting a cigarette lighter right next to the car's gas tank because it
lights up cigarettes better when there are gasoline vapors around. Or maybe an idea of
testing the self-driving lithium battery (exploding & flammable) cars near kindergartens
(of some other people's children)!?
An intelligent person would have said - whatever the reason was to put in MCAS it was a
terribly dumb idea, instead of congratulating himself on understanding the "true reason".
"If I were president, while I would resist gratuitous provocations, I would not publicly
associate myself with the delusion that stable friendship is possible (or, frankly,
desirable) with Putin's anti-American dictatorship, which runs its country like a Mafia
family and is acting on its revanchist ambitions."
Really?
From what have gleaned from the alternative media available on the internet ,of which MOA is
an important part. Putin and Lavrov are the two most moral and diplomatic statesmen on the
world stage today Compared to Trump, Johnson, Macron, Merkel, Stoltenberg, Pompeo, Bolton and
whoever else blights the international scene these days these two are colossi.
To describe
them as like a Mafia family seems to me to be 180 degrees wrong. Maybe Putin overreacted, in
his early days in power, to the Chechen conflict but look at the situation today.
Look at how
Gorbachev and Yeltsin were played by the west. I appreciate you did not write the words
quoted above but you said you agree with them and I find that startling given I am usually
very admiring of your insight and knowledge of geopolitical events.
According to the Impeachniks, it is Schiff's staff who decides how Schiff votes and his
policies. It would be illegal for Schiff to make decisions. But Schiff's recommendation will
make or break the careers of his staff, so elected Schiff has some influence. That's not true
for elected Trump, because those in his service already have made careers and/or a host of
outsiders looking to place them.
Although, he didn't get impeached for it Obama did get criticized for not sending the aid to
Ukraine. He was also criticized when he did intervene, but not fast enough for the deep
state. Remember "leading from behind" in response to Libya. Obama was much more popular and
circumspect than Trump, which protected him from possible impeachment when he went off the
deep state's script.
Discussion of the USC and the responsibilities assigned therein is probably a foolish and
merely moot exercise, as law is, ultimately simply custom over time, and since '45 or so the
custom has become dissociated from the documents' provisions, particularly with regard to
war-making and the "licensed" import and sale of dangerous drugs, dope. The custom in place
is essentially ukase - rule by decree. Many decree are secret.
I do not object, simply pointing to the obvious.
This is a public secret anybody can know. Inter alia see The Politics of Heroin in
Southeast Asia (McCoy)
...........
Custom includes also permitted theft, blackmail, trafficking children and so forth.
...........
zerohedge put up some documents tying TGM Hunter B to the money from Ukraine...
................
I would not worry about the name of the person called president. The real sitrep is more
like watching rape and murder from the dirty windows of a runaway train.
Upon the dissolution of the USSR, Ukraine was left with the fifth-largest nuclear arsenal in
the world. In exchange for financial assistance in the costs of removing all the nukes, the
West guaranteed to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity.
In the meantime, Russia has annexed the Crimea and rebels have taken control of parts of
Eastern Ukraine. The West has not provided any direct military assistance to restore those
territorial infringements.
Since the West has reneged on its end of the deal, would it not only be fair to return
Ukraine's nukes so it can defend itself like the Big Boys do, namely with threat of nuclear
annihilation?
I hate this trope. The Russian Fed. is not launching offensive operations to capture
Kharkov or Kiev. Western Ukraine is shelling ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. What would
U.S. Congressman say if these were Jews? (I would condemn that as well).
The next time someone pontificates, 'Ukrainians are dying because Trump held up aid' ask
them how many. The number is ZERO. Javelins are not being used on the front line.
Mr. Kolomoisky is spot on, i.e. when he says that the Americans will only use Ukrainians as
their little bitches to fight and die for America's gain against Russia. Just like the
Americans fucked over the Kurds in Syria, using them as proxy fighters to do USA/Israel's
dirty work. Wherever the USA shows up and starts interfering, everything turns into shit:
Iraq...Afghanistan...Venezuela...Bolivia...Ukraine...Libya...Yemen...Nicaragua...Ecuador...the
list is quite long. It remains to be seen if Mr. Kolomoisky can bring about rapprochement
with Russia. He'd better watch his back.
"Wow. My opinion of Kolomoisky has just improved ... somewhat." --Seamus Padraig @73
Yes, Kolomoisky has moved up a notch in my estimation as well; from the low of
"monstrously inhuman spawn of satan" all the way up to "rabid dog" . That's
quite the dramatic improvement, I must admit.
I am very glad to see you back, Grieved, and your 'wall of ice' metaphor is indeed accurate.
To me, the promising signs in Ukraine were even as here in the US when voters fought back
against what b calls Deep State, which I am sure in my heart was even more of an overwhelming
surge than registered - the best the corrupters of the system could do was make it close
enough to be a barely legitimate win for their side, and they didn't succeed. Maybe somewhere
along their line of shenanigans a small cog in the wheel got religion and didn't do their
'job'. An unsung hero who will sing when it's safe.
I hope, dearly hope, it gets safe in Ukraine very soon. They are us only further down the
line than we are, but we will get there if we can't totally remove the cancer in our midst.
That's our job; I wish Ukraine all the best in removing theirs.
Jen...I should have made clear that the two aircraft picked up by Russian PRIMARY RADAR were
unidentified...
The two commercial flights you mention were in the area and were known to both Russian and
Ukrainian controllers by means of the SECONDARY SURVEILLANCE RADAR, which picks up the
aircraft transponder signals...
However, secondary WILL NOT pick up military craft that have their transponders
off...which is normal operating procedure for military craft...
So the airspace situation was this...you can see this from one of the illustrations I
provided from the DSB prelim report...
You had MH17...you had that other flight coming from the opposite direction [flying
west]...and you had that airplane that overtook the MH17 from behind [they were in a hurry
and were going faster, so when MH17 decided to stay at FL330, they were cleared to climb to
FL350 so they could safely overtake with the necessary vertical separation...]
Those three aircraft were all picked up on the Ukrainian SECONDARY [transponder]
surveillance...as well as the Russians...on both their PRIMARY AND SECONDARY...
But what the Russians picked up were two craft ONLY ON THEIR PRIMARY...those would have
been military aircraft flying with their transponders off [they're allowed to do that and do
that most of the time in fact]...
That's why those two DIDN'T SHOW UP ON THE SECONDARY DATA HANDED OVER TO THE INVESTIGATORS
BY THE UKRAINIANS...
Only primary radar would pick those up...and, very conveniently, the Dnipro primary was
inop at the time...[so the data handed to investigators by the Ukrainians would have no trace
of any military aircraft nearby]...
But with the Russian primary radar data, there is in fact evidence that there were
military aircraft in the air at the time...just that the Dutch investigators simply decided
to exclude the very vital Russian radar data on some stupid technicality...
[Really this is a very poorly done report, both prelim and final, and I've read many over
the years...]
The other thing I should have emphasized more clearly is about that course deviation that
controllers steered MH17 to, just seconds before it was hit...
The known traffic was those three commercial aircraft, as shown on the chart...here it is
again...
Those three commercial flights are clearly labeled...and the big question is... why was
MH17 DIVERTED SOUTH...OFF ITS PLANNED ROUTE...?
We can see the deviation track by the dotted red line...
Clearly there was no 'other traffic' that required MH17 to be vectored south by the
controllers...
In fact we see that there was a FOURTH commercial flight [another B777] that was flying
south exactly to that same waypoint that MH17 was diverted to...we see this airplane is
flying west on the M70 airway and is heading to the RND waypoint...
This does not make sense...why would you divert MH17 from going to TAMAK as flight
planned...in order to go south toward RND where another airplane is heading...
If nothing else this is very bad controller practice right there...yet again, the DSB
[Dutch Safety Board] does not even raise this question...
Like I said, leaving aside any guesswork, these are the simple facts and they raise
serious questions...both about the competence of the Dutch report, and the way the
controllers handled that flight...
Ukrainian think tank Ukrainian Institute of the Future and Ukrainian media outlet Zerkalo
Nedeli (both anti-Russian, but slightly more intellectual than typical Ukrainian outlets)
have contracted a Kharkov-based pollster to conduct a poll among DNR/LNR residents from
October 7 to October 31 (method: face-to-face interviews at the homes of the respondents,
sample size: 806 respondents in DNR and 800 respondents in LNR, margin of error: 3.2%) and
published its results in an article: Тест
на сумісність
[Compatibility Test] (in Ukrainian).
It's a long and rambling article, interspersed with
Ukrainian propagandistic clichés (perhaps to placate Ukrainian nationalists), but the
numbers look solid, so I've extracted the numbers I consider important and put them in a
table format. Here they are:
GENERAL INFORMATION
Gender 46.5% male 53.5% female
Age 8.3% <25 years old 91.7% ≥25 years old
Education 31.5% no vocational training or higher education 45.2% vocational training 23.3% higher education
Religion 57% marry and baptize their children in Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) 31% believe in God, but do not go to any church 12% other churches, other religions, atheists
Political activity 3% are members of parties 97% are not members of parties
Language 90% speak Russian at home 10% speak other languages at home
Nationality 55.4% consider themselves Ukrainians 44.6% do not consider themselves Ukrainians
ECONOMY
Opinion about the labor market 24.3% there are almost no jobs 39.3% high unemployment, but it's possible to find a job 15.7% there are jobs, even if temporary 17.1% key enterprises are working, those who want to work can find a job 2.9% there are not enough employees
Personal financial situation 4.9% are saving on food 36.4% enough money to buy food, but have to save money to buy clothing 43.6% enough money to buy food and clothing, but have to save money to buy a suit, a mobile
phone, or a vacuum cleaner 12% enough money to buy food, clothing, and other goods, but have to save money to buy
expensive goods (e.g. consumer electronics) 2.7% enough money to buy food, clothing, and expensive goods, but have to save money to buy a
car or an apartment 0.4% enough money to buy anything
Personal financial situation compared to the previous year 28.4% worsened 57.3% stayed the same 14.2% improved
Personal financial situation expectations for the next year 21% will worsen 58.6% will stay the same 18.7% will improve
Opinion on the Ukraine's (sans DNR/LNR) economic situation compared to the previous
year 50.3% worsened 41.4% stayed the same 6.3% improved
CITIZENSHIP
Consider themselves citizens of 57.8% the Ukraine 34.8% DNR/LNR 6.8% Russia
Russian citizenship 42.9% never thought about obtaining it 15.5% don't want to obtain it 34.2% would like to obtain it 7.4% already obtained it
Considered leaving DNR/LNR for 5.2% the Ukraine 11.1% Russia 2.9% other country 80.8% never considered leaving
Visits to the Ukraine over the past year 35.1% across the DNR/LNR–Ukraine border (overwhelming majority of them -- 32.2% of all
respondents -- are pensioners who visit the Ukraine to receive their pensions) 2.6% across the Russia–Ukraine border 62.3% have not visited the Ukraine
WAR
Is the war in Donbass an internal Ukrainian conflict? 35.6% completely agree 40.5% tend to agree 14.1% tend to disagree 9.3% completely disagree
Was the war started by Moscow and pro-Russian groups? 3.1% completely agree 6.4% tend to agree 45.1% tend to disagree 44.9% completely disagree
Who must pay to rebuild DNR/LNR? (multiple answers) 63.6% the Ukraine 29.3% Ukrainian oligarchs 18.5% DNR/LNR themselves 17% the U.S. 16.5% the EU 16% Russia 13% all of the above
ZELENSKIY
Opinion about Zelenskiy 1.9% very positive 17.2% positive 49.6% negative 29.3% very negative
Has your opinion about Zelenskiy changed over the past months? 2.7% significantly improved 7.9% somewhat improved 44.8% stayed the same 22.9% somewhat worsened 20.5% significantly worsened
Will Zelenskiy be able to improve the Ukraine's economy? 1.4% highly likely 13.3% likely 55.3% unlikely 30% highly unlikely
Will Zelenskiy be able to bring peace to the region? 1.7% highly likely 12.5% likely 59% unlikely 26.5% highly unlikely
MEDIA
Where do you get your information on politics? (multiple answers) 84.3% TV 60.6% social networks 50.9% relatives, friends 45.9% websites 17.4% co-workers 10% radio 7.4% newspapers and magazines
What social networks do you use? (multiple answers) 70.7% YouTube 61% VK 52.3% Odnoklassniki 49.8% Viber 27.1% Facebook 21.4% Instagram 12.4% Twitter 11.1% Telegram
FUTURE
Desired status of DNR/LNR 5.1% part of the Ukraine 13.4% part of the Ukraine with a special status 16.2% independent state 13.4% part of Russia with a special status 50.9% part of Russia
Desired status of entire Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts 8.4% part of the Ukraine 10.8% part of the Ukraine with a special status 14.4% independent state 13.3% part of Russia with a special status 49.6% part of Russia
Just listening to a bit of the testimony of the ex-ambassador to Ukraine.
It is all BS hearsay!
Also, this lady doesn't seem to grasp that as an employee of the State Department, she
answers to Trump. Trump is her boss.
The questioning is full of leading questions that contains allegations and unproved
premises built into them. I can't imagine that such questioning would be allowed in a normal
court of justice in the USA.
Sure, Trump is a boor. But he is still the boss and he gets to pull out ambassadors if he
wants to.
This is total grandstanding.
Also, a lot of emotional stuff like "I was devastated. I was shocked. Color drained from
my face as I read the telephone transcript . . . "
This is BS!
IIRC the Russian radar showed that the two mystery planes in questions were flying in
MH17's blindspot . That's way too close to be half an hour away. Also, the fact that
the two planes were flying over a war zone with their transponders turned off (which is why
they couldn't be conclusively identified) strongly suggests that they were military.
@ Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 15 2019 11:24 utc | 71
When the US launched a coup in Kiev, wasn't that a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty
too?
@ Posted by: Christian J Chuba | Nov 15 2019 12:36 utc | 72
You know the real reason why they have yet to deliver the javelins to Ukraine? It's
because they're afraid that they'll be sold on the black market and end up in the ME
somewhere targeting US tanks. That's why.
@ Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 15 2019 13:30 utc | 75
That's quite the dramatic improvement, I must admit.
on Yovanovitch,
She added: "If our chief representative is kneecapped, it limits our effectiveness to
safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States."
She wasn't fired, she was kneecapped, and Ukraine is a US vital national security
interest, especially after it installed a new government with neo-fascism support.. .
.Kneecapping is a form of malicious wounding, often as torture, in which the victim is
injured in the knee
Cheeza decides to launch a personal attack...also completely off topic...
Typical reaction of a zelf-zentered person [sic]...With experts such as you out there,
why would anyone dare apply common sense...an intelligent person would have said...blah
blah blah...
Look man...I'm not going to take up a lot of space on this thread because it's not about
the MAX...
BUT...I need to set the record straight because you are accusing me here of somehow
muddying the waters on the MAX issue...
That is a complete inversion of the truth...I have been very explicit in my [professional]
comments about the MAX...and it is the exact opposite of what you are trying to tar me with
here...
Yes, it is important to understand these things...which is why I have made the effort to
explain the issue more clearly for the layman audience...
Your pathetic attack here shows you have no shame, nor self-respect...
Let's rewind the tape here...I said that Gazprom is looking to cut supplies to Ukraine in
the new 10 year deal that comes up for negotiation in January...and that they are going to be
pumping much less gas through Ukraine because NS2 now allows to bypass Ukraine...
You took a run at this comment, calling it wrong, and putting up a bunch of your own
hypothesizing...
I responded by linking to the
Russian news report quoting officials saying exactly that...that gas to Ukraine will be
greatly reduced...
Instead of responding to that by admitting you were full of shit...you decide to attack me
on the MAX issue...everybody here knows my [professional] position on the MAX...and that I
have said repeatedly THAT IT CANNOT BE FIXED...[which is also why I have offered detailed
technical explanations...]
I'm not going to let you screw with my integrity here...everything you attributed to me
on the MAX is completely FALSE and in fact turning the truth on its head...
As Kiza #55 noted - Nordstream 1 and 2, combined, only equal half of Ukraine's transit
capacity.
The primary impact is that Ukraine can't hold far Western European customer gas hostage
anymore with its gas transit "negotiations" as Nordstream allows Russia to sell directly to
Germany.
There can still be Russian gas sold via Ukraine, but this will be mostly to near-Ukraine
neighbors: Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Czech as well as Ukraine itself.
Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania can transit from Turk Stream, but there are potential Turk (and
Bulgarian) issues.
Poland is already committing to LNG in order to not be dependent on Russian gas transiting
Ukraine - a double whammy.
The ultimate effect is to remove Ukraine's stranglehold position over Russian gas exports,
which in turn severely undercuts Ukraine's ability to both get really cheap Russian gas and
additional transit fees - a major blow to their economy.
Therefore, the continuation of gas transit via Ukraine in volumes greater than the 26 bcm/y
suggested above will depend on the European Commission and European gas importers, and
their insistence that gas transit via Ukraine continues.
Otherwise, gas transit via Ukraine will be reduced to delivering limited volumes for
European storage re-fills in the 'off-peak' summer months...
This prospect will undoubtedly complicate any negotiations between Gazprom and its
Ukrainian counterparty over a new contract to govern the transit of Russian gas via
Ukraine, once the existing contract expires at the end of December 2019.
...Gazprom may be willing to commit to only limited annual transit volumes...
European gas importers don't give a shit about Ukraine...and they have the final
word...they care only about getting the gas they need from Russia in a reliable way and at a
good price...
The news report I linked to makes it perfectly clear that the Europeans are demanding that
the Ukranians get their act together on the gas issue, or they will be dropped
altogether...
You know...FOOL...it really makes me wonder how fools like you decide to make statements
here with a very authoritative tone...when it is quite clear you are talking out your rear
end...
Nobody needs that kind of bullshit here...if you don't know a subject sufficiently well,
then maybe you should keep quiet...or when making a statement, phrase it as your own OPINION
and nothing more...
"... To become a Foreign Service Officer you must take a written and an oral exam. If you pass these exams then you win the golden ticket granting you entrance into the FSO club. FSOs have convinced themselves that only the smartest, the brightest, the most able can pass this exam. If you have not taken the exam and passed it then you are by definition not a very smart person. ..."
"... Many FSOs looked down their nose at these knuckle dragging gorillas masquerading as Special Operations forces at U.S. They assumed they were barely literate. Imagine their shock when the FSOs discovered that a member of the elite U.S. Army CT unit or a member of the SEALS could actually speak a foreign language, had read some real literature and held an advanced college degree. Not making this up. ..."
"... The Foreign Service contains many officers who take arrogance and prickishness to new heights. You make a fatal error if you believe that because they tend to be soft spoken and non-confrontational that they are not dangerous and devious. Au contraire. Many that rise in the Foreign Service have a knack for sticking a knife in the back of a perceived rival. ..."
"... Just another day in the life of a Pomposity. From what I have seen of tomorrow's witness, Marie Yovanovitch, an FSO, is the same kind of person I encountered in the Office of Counter Terrorism. Arrogant and aggrieved and convinced that she is so much smarter than the troglodytes who will be asking her questions. ..."
"... You get to the point of not caring if you don't get the credit. You just want to be able to do your job better and go home each night ..."
"... It's common for females in almost every work situation I held. Pompous men getting the credit for what a whole office of females actually did -- sometimes doing things and making decisions they just didn't ask the boss to "approve." ..."
14 November 2019Understanding the Foreign Service Officer Nerd Behavior by Larry C Johnson
A group of lions is called a "pride." A group of crows is called a "murder." A group of
geese is called a "gaggle." So what do you call a group of Ambassadors? A pomposity (that term
was coined by Colonel Lang when the two of us were working on an exercise on Iran and there
were three Ambassadors huddled in a corner scheming--brilliant).
There are two types of Ambassadors--political appointees and Foreign Service Officers who
have made their way to the top of the Foreign Service mountain. The two fellows testifying at
the opening of the House Impeachment inquiry -- Kent and Taylor -- are Foreign Service
Officers. They are a strange lot. There are some exceptions who are normal people, such as
Ambassador Morris (Buzz) Busby and Ambassador Anthony Quainton. I worked for Buzz and dealt
with Ambassador Quainton on a variety of policy issues.
I conducted training for U.S. military Special Ops forces for several years in the aftermath
of 9-11. My task was to teach them how to understand the culture of the Foreign Service
Officers and offer tips on how to interact. In the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks,
U.S. SpecOps personnel were deployed to U.S. Embassies around the world and were having some
trouble interacting with the so-called diplomats.
To become a Foreign Service Officer you must take a written and an oral exam. If you pass
these exams then you win the golden ticket granting you entrance into the FSO club. FSOs have
convinced themselves that only the smartest, the brightest, the most able can pass this exam.
If you have not taken the exam and passed it then you are by definition not a very smart
person.
Many FSOs looked down their nose at these knuckle dragging gorillas masquerading as Special
Operations forces at U.S. They assumed they were barely literate. Imagine their shock when the
FSOs discovered that a member of the elite U.S. Army CT unit or a member of the SEALS could
actually speak a foreign language, had read some real literature and held an advanced college
degree. Not making this up.
The Foreign Service contains many officers who take arrogance and prickishness to new
heights. You make a fatal error if you believe that because they tend to be soft spoken and
non-confrontational that they are not dangerous and devious. Au contraire. Many that rise in
the Foreign Service have a knack for sticking a knife in the back of a perceived rival.
Let me give you a personal example. A female Ambassador who was a Deputy in the Office of
the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism had a blow up when I helped a Navy SEAL Commander, who
was detailed to State, revamp a memo she had already approved because an important overseas
asset deployed for responding to a international terrorist incident had been inadvertently left
out of the memo. When my SEAL buddy went in to brief her on the change she started screaming at
him, broke her lamp and threw a bottle of hand lotion at him. If she had been a man my friend
would have physically retaliated. Instead, my SEAL buddy walked out of the office and recounted
the incident to a Civil Service employee in the office. That employee happened to be the
neighbor of Ambassador A. Peter Burleigh, who was in charge of S/CT during that time.
When Ambassador Burleigh learned of her outburst he called her to his office and read her
the riot act. What did she do? She assumed I was the one (I was not) who had ratted on her to
Ambassador Burleigh. She set out to destroy me. My boss at the time was a retired Marine Corps
Colonel, Dominick "Dick" Gannon. What a gentleman. I counted him as a mentor and a second
father. Hard as woodpecker lips and a man who lived by a code of honor.
Dick prepared my fitness report and submitted it to his supervisor, the crazy female FSO.
She demanded he change it to trash me and he refused. So she waited. Dick went overseas on a
diplomatic mission and the female Ambassador snuck upstairs to the 7th floor (i.e., the
Secretary of State's suite). She filed a complaint against Dick accusing him of failing to do
the evaluation in a timely manner. Fortunately, the admin person she talked to, Joanne Graves,
looked it over, saw that Dick had signed and informed the female FSO that the person who had
failed to act in a timely manner was her. She was furious but beaten.
Just another day in the life of a Pomposity. From what I have seen of tomorrow's
witness, Marie Yovanovitch, an FSO, is the same kind of person I encountered in the Office of
Counter Terrorism. Arrogant and aggrieved and convinced that she is so much smarter than the
troglodytes who will be asking her questions.
I am not saying that all FSOs are like this. But a large number are. You will be seeing
another one of these critters in Friday's testimony.
Ah, troglodytes ... a decade ago I was told that I was one too. Because I can ... count.
As a student I worked in a marketing company that sold US credit cards. My part of the job
was more honourable: I was tasked with administering the phone numbers called to do that.
It's like that with these numbers: You call someone and he sais " Never ever call me
again, never ever, you a**hole " the number is blocked to be recalled for 6 weeks and was
then called again. If the person agrees to appointment with a seller, the number is blocked
for a year etc pp.
The point is, the more you call the less numbers you have left. Call in a city for a week,
starting with 5000 numbers - after a week you're left with, say, 300 (mostly crap).
To make after that many or any more appointments then is simply impossible or requires a
lot of luck or, much worse, to re-use the numbers by nullifying all blockings (= burning
resources).
It's that simple: To make fried eggs you need eggs, a stove and a pan (or a really hot
engine hood), to make bricks you need clay, if you want to drive from Europe to Vladivostok
you need ... a visum, money, time, food, good weather, a warm jacket, to know russian, have a
robust car and a lot of fuel etc pp.
One day another employee (nice ties, glued hair and IMO seriously business study damaged)
negotiated a new contract with the credit card company with very ambitious goals, without
asking whether we had the resources (phone numbers) to achieve that.
And we didn't have what was needed and the bosses decided and chose not to buy more
numbers. So I told the unfortunate guy tasked with achieving the demanded sales that, with
the numbers left, we simply couldn't do it.
I was then wildly insulted to be a ... troglodyte, wicked, mean, illoyal, evil, that I
would lie and some more of that sort. I was fired 15 minutes later, which annoyed as hell
but, on the plus side, with luck led me to a three times better paid much better job
elsewhere.
The part more entertaining me was that I was absolutely correct, which I learned a few
months later from a former colleague:
The company was bankrupt eight weeks later, and the guy who fired me had a burnout or
mental breakdown three weeks later. One of the bosses went from having been a millionaire to
work as a waiter. The contract partner simply chose another "executor" (who was amusingly
employing the same salesmen).
So, I was right, and what did it give me? Not much but a bad experience and, with luck,
something much better elsewhere. Alas, and good riddance.
Yes, it's not often that someone who is right first gets the credit. It's true in business,
educational organizations--well everywhere I ever worked. I just got used to someone else
getting credit for things I had put in place first.
You get to the point of not caring if you don't get the credit. You just want to be able
to do your job better and go home each night.
It's common for females in almost every work situation I held. Pompous men getting the
credit for what a whole office of females actually did -- sometimes doing things and making
decisions they just didn't ask the boss to "approve."
I am struck by the fact that a woman mentioned above actually threw a bottle of hand
lotion at a SEAL who came to Main State to brief her. Much the same thing happened to me with
a male FSO who was DCM in an embassy in which I was DATT.
I had drafted a lengthy report to DIA that described the local armed forces as inept and difficult to train. The embassy had
the right to append remarks to my report but not to change it or block it without my
agreement. The DCM tried for half an hour to pressure me into changing my report to make it
more favorable to the local forces.
When I refused repeatedly to do so he threw the fifteen
page message form across the room at me. I got up and left, leaving it where it fell. After
talking to the ambassador the man apologized and the embassy sent my message.
Someone's ox is getting slowly and methodically gored. Solomon's reporting on Ukraine and
the State Department has been spot on and backed up by solid evidence.
Sputnik is reporting that the US has spent $6.4 Trillion fighting wars that have killed
800,000 since Sept 11/01, that number is unbelievable, at least 1,500,000 dead in Iraq,
250,000 in Afghanistan, 750,000 in Syria.
The US military budget alone has averaged about 650 billion since then, plus the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan were funded separately (around 200 million a year), plus CIA/ blackbook
projects - 7 or 8 trillion is a more likely number.
When things get blown up, no one really knows what was actually bought and existed and
what was just a phantom piece of equipment War has always been the ideal cover for
corruption
"... "In direct contravention of U.S. interests" says the NBC and quotes a member of the permanent state who declares "it is clearly in our national interest" to give weapons to Ukraine. ..."
"... But is that really in the national U.S. interest? Who defined it as such? ..."
"... And that's where the policy community and I part company. It is the president, not the bureaucracy, who was elected by the American people. That puts him -- not the National Security Council, the State Department, the intelligence community, the military, and their assorted subject-matter experts -- in charge of making policy. If we're to remain a constitutional republic, that's how it has to stay. ..."
"... The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col. Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is the duly elected president who does that. ..."
"... Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine's most powerful figure outside government, given his role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn back toward Russia. ..."
"... "They're stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations," he said, comparing Russia's power to that of Ukraine. "People want peace, a good life, they don't want to be at war. And you" -- America -- "are forcing us to be at war , and not even giving us the money for it." ..."
"... Mr. Kolomoisky [..] told The Times in a profanity-laced discussion, the West has failed Ukraine, not providing enough money or sufficiently opening its markets. ..."
"... Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its geopolitical rival. "War against Russia," he said, "to the last Ukrainian." Rebuilding ties with Russia has become necessary for Ukraine's economic survival, Mr. Kolomoisky argued. He predicted that the trauma of war will pass. ..."
"... Kolomoisky's interview is obviously a trial balloon for the policies Zelensky wants to pursue. He has, like Trump, campaigned on working for better relations with Russia. He received nearly 73% of all votes. ..."
"... Ambassador Taylor and the other participants of yesterday's clown show would certainly "mess it up and get in the way" if Zelensky openly pursues the policy he promised to his voters. They are joined in this with the west-Ukrainian fascists they have used to arrange the Maidan coup: ..."
"... Only some 20% of the Ukrainians are in favour of continuing the war against the eastern separatists who Russia supports. During the presidential election Poroshenko received just 25% of the votes. His party European Solidarity won 8.1% of the parliamentary election. Voice won 5.8%. ..."
"... on Yovanovitch, She added: "If our chief representative is kneecapped, it limits our effectiveness to safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States." ..."
"... She wasn't fired, she was kneecapped, and Ukraine is a US vital national security interest, especially after it installed a new government with neo-fascism support.. . .Kneecapping is a form of malicious wounding, often as torture, in which the victim is injured in the knee ..."
NBC News
is not impressed by the first day of the Democrats' impeachment circus. But it fails to
note what the conflict is really about:
It was substantive, but it wasn't dramatic.
In the reserved manner of veteran diplomats with Harvard degrees, Bill Taylor and George
Kent opened the public phase of the House impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump on
Wednesday by bearing witness to a scheme they described as not only wildly unorthodox but
also in direct contravention of U.S. interests.
"It is clearly in our national interest to deter further Russian aggression," Taylor, the
acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said in explaining why
Trump's decision to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to the most immediate target of
Russian expansionism didn't align with U.S. policy.
But at a time when Democrats are simultaneously eager to influence public opinion in favor
of ousting the president and quietly apprehensive that their hearings could stall or
backfire, the first round felt more like the dress rehearsal for a serious one-act play than
the opening night of a hit Broadway musical.
"In direct contravention of U.S. interests" says the NBC and quotes a member of the
permanent state who declares "it is clearly in our national interest" to give weapons to
Ukraine.
But is that really in the national U.S. interest? Who defined it as such?
President Obama was against giving weapons to Ukraine and never transferred any to Ukraine
despite pressure from certain circles. Was Obama's decision against U.S. national interest?
Where are the Democrats or deep state members accusing him of that?
Which brings us to the really critical point of the whole issue. Who defines what is in the
"national interest" with regards to foreign policy? Here is a point where for once I agree with
the right-wingers at the National Review where Andrew McCarthy writes :
[O]n the critical matter of America's interests in the Russia/Ukraine dynamic, I think the
policy community is right, and President Trump is wrong. If I were president, while I would
resist gratuitous provocations, I would not publicly associate myself with the delusion that
stable friendship is possible (or, frankly, desirable) with Putin's anti-American
dictatorship, which runs its country like a Mafia family and is acting on its revanchist
ambitions.
But you see, much like the policy community, I am not president. Donald Trump is.
And that's where the policy community and I part company. It is the president, not the
bureaucracy, who was elected by the American people. That puts him -- not the National
Security Council, the State Department, the intelligence community, the military, and their
assorted subject-matter experts -- in charge of making policy. If we're to remain a
constitutional republic, that's how it has to stay.
The U.S.
constitution "empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly
negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries."
The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the
administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col.
Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is
the duly elected president who does that.
The president does not like how the 'American policy' on Russia was built. He rightly
believes that he was elected to change it. He had stated his opinion on Russia during his
campaign and won the election. It is not 'malign influence' that makes him try to have good
relations with Russia. It is his own conviction and legitimized by the voters.
...
[I]t is the president who sets the policies. The drones around him who serve "at his
pleasure" are there to implement them.
There is another point that has to be made about the NBC's assertions. It is not in
the interest of Ukraine to be a proxy for U.S. deep state antagonism towards Russia. Robber
baron Igor Kolomoisky, who after the Maidan coup
had financed the west-Ukrainian fascists who fought against east-Ukraine, says so directly in
his
recent NYT interview :
Mr. Kolomoisky, widely seen as Ukraine's most powerful figure outside government, given his
role as the patron of the recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, has experienced a
remarkable change of heart: It is time, he said, for Ukraine to give up on the West and turn
back toward Russia.
"They're stronger anyway. We have to improve our relations," he said, comparing Russia's
power to that of Ukraine. "People want peace, a good life, they don't want to be at war. And
you" -- America -- "are forcing us to be at war , and not even giving us the money for
it."
... Mr. Kolomoisky [..] told The Times in a profanity-laced discussion, the West has failed
Ukraine, not providing enough money or sufficiently opening its markets.
Instead, he said, the United States is simply using Ukraine to try to weaken its
geopolitical rival. "War against Russia," he said, "to the last Ukrainian." Rebuilding ties
with Russia has become necessary for Ukraine's economic survival, Mr. Kolomoisky argued. He
predicted that the trauma of war will pass.
...
Mr. Kolomoisky said he was feverishly working out how to end the war, but he refused to
divulge details because the Americans "will mess it up and get in the way."
Kolomoisky's interview is obviously a trial balloon for the policies Zelensky wants to
pursue. He has, like Trump, campaigned on working for better relations with Russia. He received
nearly 73% of all votes.
Ambassador Taylor and the other participants of yesterday's clown show would certainly "mess
it up and get in the way" if Zelensky openly pursues the policy he promised to his voters. They
are joined in this
with the west-Ukrainian fascists they have used to arrange the Maidan coup:
Zelenskiy's decision in early October to accept talks with Russia on the future of eastern
Ukraine resulted in an outcry from a relatively small but very vocal minority of Ukrainians
opposed to any deal-making with Russia. The protests were relatively short-lived, but
prospects for a negotiated end to the war in the eastern Donbas region became more remote in
light of this domestic opposition.
...
The supporters for war with Russia are ex-president Poroshenko and two parliamentary
factions, European Solidarity and Voice, whose supporters are predominantly located in
western Ukraine. Crucially, however, they can also rely on right-wing paramilitary groups
composed of veterans from the hottest phase of the war in Donbas in 2014-5.
Only some 20% of the Ukrainians are in favour of continuing the war against the eastern
separatists who Russia supports. During the presidential election Poroshenko received just 25%
of the votes. His party European Solidarity won 8.1% of the parliamentary election. Voice won
5.8%.
By pursuing further conflict with Russia the deep state of the United States wants to ignore
the wishes not only of the U.S. voters but also those of the Ukrainian electorate. That
undemocratic mindset is another point that unites them with the Ukrainian fascists.
Zelensky should ignore the warmongers in the U.S. embassy in Kiev and sue for immediate
peace with Russia. (He should also investigate
Biden's undue influence .) Reengaging with Russia is also the easiest and most efficient
step the Ukraine can take to lift its desolate economy.
It is in the national interest of both, the Ukraine and the United States.
Posted by b on November 14, 2019 at 18:23 UTC |
Permalink
next page " agree with mccarthy about who conducts foreign policy, disagree about who
the aggressor is; it's the USA, trying to weaken Russia, which is the aggressor.
thanks b... typo - immediate piece with Russia - 'peace' is the spelling here...
the comments from Kolomoisky in the recent nyt interview are very telling.. aside from
being a first rate kleptomaniac who will willingly play both sides if he can profit from it,
he is also speaking a moment of truth..for him Ukraine is available to the highest bidder...
he could give a rats ass about Ukraine or the people... but still, it is refreshing that the
NYT published his comments in this regard..
the quote "the Americans "will mess it up and get in the way." is very true... it was true
before kolomisky picked a side too.. this guy is very shrewd.. i wonder if his own country is
able to see thru him?
national interest.... yes, trump gets to decide and he won on the idea of having closer
relations with russia, but the cia-msm has been lambasting him and anyone else associated
with him since before the election over the clinton e mails... they have painted a scenario
that it is all russias fault and have been relentless in this portrayal... hoping trump is
going to turn this around is like hoping someone is going to turn the titanic around from
hitting a giant iceberg... the usa is too far gone and will be hitting the iceberg.. they are
in fact...
From NYT about Kolomo???? (spelling in English is highly variable)
George D. Kent, a senior State Department official, said he had told Mr. Zelensky that his
willingness to break with Mr. Kolomoisky -- "somebody who had such a bad reputation" -- would
be a litmus test for his independence. [If is good to be independent, i.e. to do what we
want.]
And William Taylor, the acting ambassador in Kiev, said he had warned Mr. Zelensky: "He,
Mr. Kolomoisky, is increasing his influence in your government, which could cause you to
fail." [La Paz is a fresh reminder for Kiev?]
Well the thing about Zelensky is he's still there, and he is making changes in Donbass.
Kolomoisky was interested in the fracked gas in Donbass, the completion of NordStream II
has made a mess of that idea. It is good that he has seen the light, as it means Zelensky
will have support in his attempts to adapt to reality. But Kolomoisky is still a crook no
doubt.
My immediate reaction was that Kolomoisky realises he has to act - the Ukrainian oligarchs
have got too close to America. I agree with James that he is a extremely clever man.
Ukraine's traditional business is playing both ends against the middle and sending the
proceeds to Switzerland (or the Caribbean in Porosyonok's case). Since 1990 a few of these
robber barons have made a very good business winding up the west against Russia, it could go
on ever - why spoil it by lifting the rock and seeing all the insects scurrying around in the
light?
Another rock that has been lifted is in Washington, where the khokhol diaspora are
desperately trying to get Uncle Sam to right the wrongs of a century ago.
"Deep state" is misleading and actually a false construction.
There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction)which consists of imperial apparatchiks
placed in every key position in government.
There is one and only one Western Empire and its deep state spreads throughout Western
governments and society. They are the owners oif the world and they run the world they
own.
... @ b -- "Only some 20% of the Ukrainians favor to continue the war against the eastern
separatists who Russia supports."
The are not 'separatists', but rather Ukrainians who want to stay in a federated Ukraine
as 'provinces' with powers to pass their regional laws, similar to those in Canada.
The segment of empire in the US that are against Russia act so because it was Russia that
stymied them in Syria and continues to be in their way of expanding the control from that
part of empire...the US segment.
I still believe that the global private finance core segment of empire is behind Trump and
throwing America(ns) under the bus as the world turns more multilateral. The cult of global
private finance intends on still having some overarching super-national role in the new
multilateral world and holding debt guns to everyones heads to make it ongoing.
I don't believe that strategy will work but as long as they can be fronted by a MAD player
of some sort (Occupied Palestine comes to mind) they can be bully players in international
matters.
As the world economies grind to a "halt" there will be lots of pressure everywhere and
very little clarity about the key civilization war over public/private finance, IMO
For a military dictatorship, diplomacy is the continuation of war by other means. The US has
been at war with Russia since the right-wing coup at the Democratic convention of 1944. All
presidents have been servants of the military, which includes the police/intel/security
apparatus; the few who did not entirely accept their figurehead role were "dealt with."
Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and now Trump. The Washington permanent state bureaucrats are shocked
and understandably offended; they have after all, been running US foreign policy for 75
years!
Wow! The depth of delusion on display is as breathtaking as its complete projection of the
intentions and actions of the Evil Outlaw US Empire! Oh so many saying I'm displaying four
fingers instead of two. Too bad there isn't a padded cell big enough to contain all the
lunatics. I recall the pre- and post-coup discussions from 2014--that Russia was going to
make NATO own Ukraine until it was forced to concede it has no business being there; that
Russia would teach the would-be leaders of Ukraine a serious lesson in where their national
interests lay. NATO is ready to cede and the lesson's been learned.
IMO, two referendums must be held. The first within Russia: Will you accept portions of
Ukraine wanting to merge with Russia: Yes/No? Second to be given within Ukraine provided Yes
wins in #1: Do you wish to join Russia or remain in Ukraine? IMO, this is a very longstanding
unresolved issue of consequence for the people involved. The political leaders of Russia and
Ukraine might both be against such a vote, but IMO that merely kicks the can further down the
road and opens the door for more mischief making by the Evil Outlaw US Empire. Assuming a Yes
from Russia and some from Ukraine, a strategic threat to Russia and Europe would be
mitigated. Additional questions about those parts of Ukraine not wanting to join Russia could
be solved via additional referenda in the Ukraine and neighboring nations that might prove
willing to absorb the remnants and their people. Such action would of course negate the Minsk
Agreements.
Given the ideological passions of those living in Western and Northern Ukraine, I don't
see any hope for the continuation of the Ukrainian state as currently arranged, thus the
proposed referenda. However, if Russia says Nyet, then Minsk must be implemented.
"Democracy" is not about letting the people as a whole have a say in how the country is
governed. That would be fascist, and racist, and populist, and LITERALLY HITLER. Letting the
people decide on things like foreign policy, is literally anti-democratic.
No, "Democracy" is about privatizing power and socializing responsibility. The elites get
to set the policy, but the public at large gets to take responsibility when things go wrong.
Because you see, we are a "Democracy."
Breaking off long established economic and cultural ties with a large neighbouring country,
virtually overnight, is a rash act, and certain to create dislocation and hardship. The
craziness of the idea was only achievable through the traumatizing psy-op of the sniper
event, leading directly to the coup and the state of war. The EU and the US were clearly
malevolent in orchestrating the Association agreement with its ridiculous terms and the
corresponding Maidan pressures.
The fools in Hong Kong, after protester-sponsored screenings of the World On Fire
documentary, were actually quoted as presuming the Maidan protests had "won" and expressed
their hopes that they too could "win". Good luck to them.
Kolomoisky and Zelensky know what needs to be done, but they fear the blood that will flow
with Nazi-Banderist scum! Zelinski's balls are not that big, and has no options left after
compromising his position from day one. Who will make the first move, I fear not him? Russia
has time, and patience, which is sorely lacking in the west who feel they have to push the
envelope.
The Minsk II protocol was agreed to on 12 February 2015 by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia,
France, and Germany, It included provisions for a halt in the fighting, the withdrawal of
foreign forces, new constitution to allow special status for Donbass, and election in Donbass
for local self governance. Control of the present border of Ukraine would be restored to the
Ukraine government. Donbass would continue to be in Ukraine with some autonomy here (scroll down).
There are many such autonomous zones in the world, and in Europe, seen here .
The problem in Ukraine is that the neo-Nazi factions promoted by the US don't want to see a
resolution, and will fight it with US support.
Kolomoysky is obviously a master thief and general scumbag...but he is no fool...
I think the writing on the wall became obvious with the Nordstream 2 finalization, where,
it is noted, Denmark came in just under the wire in terms of not disrupting the
timetable...
Obviously the interests of German business have prevailed...and rightly so in this
case...
And what of the famous EU line about 'protecting' Ukraine as a gas transit
corridor...?
LOLOLOL...that is in the same category of nothingburger as the EU noises about 'alternate
payment' mechanisms for trade with Iran...
As soon as the Denmark story broke, Gazprom and Russian energy analysts talked openly
about the tiny volumes that Ukraine could expect to see transiting its territory...as part of
a new agreement to replace the one that has expired...
It works out to a small fraction of the several billion dollars in transit fees the
Ukraine was getting...
Also considering that the IMF appears to be finally shutting off the tap of loans to this
failed gangster state...and that the promises from the EU in 2013 were just so much fairy
tales...hard-nosed operators like Kolomoysky are recalculating...
The chaos and national ruin has really cost these gangster capitalists nothing [in fact
they have profited wildly]...so it is easy for them to reverse course and come begging back
to Russia...
Bryan MacDonald has a good piece about this today in RT...
So, here we are, almost six years since the first "EuroMaidan" protests in Kiev, and
Ukraine's most prominent oligarch has finally voiced the unmentionable: the project has
failed.
As for Kolomoysky...like Trump, there is something to like about dirtballs who speak their
minds openly...LOL
Quite a turnaround by Kolomoisky. Wasn't he once caught on a tapped phone call admitting
while chuckling about Ukrainian complicity in shooting down MH-17? i.e. NOT Donbas rebels and
NOT Russia.
@12 karlof1... a referendum... as if the usa would agree to that, lol.... look how they
processed the one in crimea...
@18 flankerbandit... last line is true, but it pales in relation to the ugliness these 2
exhibit 99% of the time, although the 1% when they don't it's refreshing! ukraine will
continue to be used as a tool by the west..
forget about any referendum.. that makes too much sense and won't be allowed..
Nordstream 2 will come online in less than 2 months and the Ukrainian gas exports at that
time will cease (I.e. no oil for the Oligarchs to steal), no matter what the US says they
can't replace the Russian oil exports in terms of money & support to Ukraine, so the
Oligarchs are now positioning themselves to abandon the US in order for the Russians to keep
even a tiny bit of oil flowing into their pockets
It's a tough balancing act, being a Ukrainian oligarch. For two decades they stole what they
could from the Ukraine (and from perverting the various sweetheart deals Russia was
providing). Once the industry and energy money was stripped, and Russia started closing the
spigots, they managed to get the West to pump in ungodly amounts of cash so long as they
would agree to talk mean about Russia, and didn't mind the US machine taking its cut of the
loot.
But now the Ukrainian thieves are beginning to realize that the Western thieves are going
to steal the very ground from under their feet, so there will be no more Ukraine to steal
from. That's not a very good business model. Plus they're no doubt seeing how the US treats
its partners in crime in Syria and elsewhere, and realize they could easily find themselves
the next meal for the US beast. Pretty easy to see why the smarter ones are getting
nervous.
they need to make peace with Russia or they will be left out in the cold, literally. They
seemed to have previously bought into some insane lie that they'd be a part of the EU and
NATO if theyd do Washington's bidding. The Deep state vastly underestimated Putin's resolve
when it became clear to the Russians that Washington may try and turn Crimea into a NATO port
one day. The game is over. Ukraine needs to find a way forward now for itself or it will be a
failed state in the near future. It's clear Merkel and Europe want no part of this headache
I don't think Russians want to 'own' any part of Ukraine...at least that is the nearly
unanimous opinion of my own contacts and colleagues in Russia...so I don't think any
referenda will be on the table...
What I do think is possible is what Yanukovich and Russia agreed to in terms of a trade
and economic deal...which was a lot more practical [not to mention generous] than the EU
'either or' nonsense...
Ukraine has run itself into the ground, literally...now they are selling vast tracts of
agricultural land to huge Euro agribusiness concerns...literally dispossessing themselves of
their own food security...
At the time of the Soviet dissolution, Ukraine had the highest living standards and some
of the world's prime industry and technology...including for instance the Yuzhnoye design
bureau [rocket engines and spacecraft] and many more such cutting edge aerospace
concerns...
For years these crucial enterprises were able to keep going due to the Russian
market...that all ended in 2014 [and in fact was tapering off even before due to the massive
corruption]...
Now the Chinese are looking to scoop up these gems at firesale prices...
It is really quite unbelievable that the nutcases in the Ukraine would be willing to cut
off their own arm just to bleed on Russia's shirt...
Why did the Ukraine never recover from the gangster capitalism like Russia did...because
no Putin ever came along to reign in the oligarchy...[It could be argued Putin hasn't done
nearly enough in this regard].
The Ukraine is actually a preview of what we can expect to see in our own future...as the
unleashed oligarchy similarly runs everything into the ground in order to extract maximal
wealth for a parasite elite...already we are nothing but a Ponzi Scheme on the verge of
toppling...
Kolomoisky is talking his book and helping USA to make the case that Nordstream is a NATO
security issue. To pretend that he's serious about a rapproachment with Russia just plays
into that effort.
And b ignores my comment on the prior thread that he references (about Trump being
Constitutionally charged with foreign policy). Repeating: the "Imperial Presidency" has flung
off Constitutional checks and balances by circumventing the need to get Congressional
approval for spending. Wars (like Syria) are now be funded by Gulf Monarchies, black ops, and
black budgets.
While for practical reasons the Executive Branch of USA government has the power to
negotiate treaties and manage foreign relations, Constitutionally he does so for the
sovereign (the American people) and his efforts are subject to review and approval of the
people's representatives via the power of the purse.
Ignoring how the "Imperial Presidency" has usurped power leads to faulty analysis that
supports that power grab.
Ukrainegate IS a farce, but for other reasons. Chief among them being the inherent fakery
of 'managed democracy' which manifests as kayfabe.
There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction)which consists of imperial apparatchiks
placed in every key position in government.
There is one and only one Western Empire and its deep state spreads throughout Western
governments and society. They are the owners of the world and they run the world they
own.
Nicely put:- that is the reality. Thanks b for your intrepid reports.
Paul Craig Roberts has a deeply aggrieved rant at zero hedge if barflies want a chuckle.
What a shitshow.
Crimea?
It has been part of Russia about as long as the USA has been a country.
9 out of 10 residents are of Russian origin, and Russian is the spoken language.
I guess it could be returned to the 10%-- but out of fairness, we must turn the USA over to
its original occupants.
If you live in the USA, get your ass ready to leave.
One of the problems that the anti-nazis face in Ukraine is that there are occupying armies in
the country. Armies which cannot be trusted to obey instructions which are not agreed upon by
NATO warmongers.
One such army is Canadian, commanded I believe by a descendant of the Ukrainian SS refugees
and reporting to the Foreign Minister in Ottawa, a Russophobe with a family background of
nazi collaboration.
The actual political situation is much more delicate than media reports suggest: what are
called elections feature, in the Washington approved fashion, the banning of socialist and
communist candidates. Bans which are enforced by a combination of fascist commanded police
forces and, even less responsible, private nazi militias. Opponents of the Maidan regime are
driven into exile, jailed or murdered.
Those who wonder as Jackrabbit, in a rare essay into rationality, does above, about the
nature of the US Constitution after decades of the erosion of checks and balances thanks to
the Imperial Presidency, will recognise that a dialectic is at work here. Washington's
support for fascism abroad has instituted fascism at home which has led in turn to the
installation of fascist regimes abroad, not just occasionally but routinely. Wherever the US
intervenes it leaves a fascist regime, in which socialists are banned and persecuted, behind
it.
And what this means is that, among other things, the ability of the population to effect
political change is cancelled: there is no way that the people of Ukraine can decide what
they want because the decisions have been taken for them, in weird cult like gatherings of SS
worshiping Bandera supporters in Toronto and Chicago. It is no accident that most of the
'Ukrainians' being wheeled out by the Democrats to testify against Trump are actually greedy
expatriates who have never really lived in Ukraine.
There was a moment, not long ago, when it looked as if the Minsk accords promised a path to
peace and reconciliation. Unfortunately the plain people of Ukraine, the poorest in Europe
though living in one of the richest countries, Washington, Ottawa and NATO didn't like the
sound of Minsk. Nor did the fascists in the Baltic states and Poland, for whom, for
centuries, Ukraine has been a cow to milk, its people slaves to be exploited and its rich
resources too tempting to ignore.
As Thomas Jefferson explained the President's role in foreign affairs in 1790, and the lack
of advisors' policy making decisions: ''as the President was the only channel of
communication between the United States and foreign nations, it was from him alone 'that
foreign nations or their agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation';
that whatever he communicated as such, they had a right and were bound to consider 'as the
expression of the nation'; and that no foreign agent could be 'allowed to question it,' or
'to interpose between him and any other branch of government, under the pretext of either's
transgressing their functions.' Mr. Jefferson therefore declined to enter into any discussion
of the question as to whether it belonged to the President under the Constitution to admit or
exclude foreign agents. 'I inform you of the fact,' he said, 'by authority from the
President.'
Might also be worth yesterdays hero's asking if dear Mr Kolomoisky, joint Uki/Israeli
national, took a part in authorising the shoot down of MH17 as a news cover for Operation
Protective Edge. Heave ho zionist USA ....et al.
1.The decisions to with hold and release aid have nothing to do with the President making
foreign policy but with his campaign. Saying it was about foreign policy is a damned lie.
2.Trump as president is supposed to lead foreign policy, which means actually setting a
policy. Military aid to Ukraine, yes, except no, except yes, personal handling without asking
anybody with experience how to achieve the national goal desired, national agenda kept secret
from the people who have to carry it out, abuse of officials, demands for dubiously legal
actions without rationale...Saying it was about the president's executive role is a damned
lie.
3.Trump has not made even a tweet that questions US support for fascists. That not even a
issue for Trump. Saying this is about support for fascism is a damned lie.
4.Kolomoyskiy is a bankroller of fascists. It is not impossible even a billionaire might get
frightened by the genie he's let out of the bottle, even if he's Jewish and rich enough to
run away. But actually undoing the fascist regime means taming the paramilitaries and this is
not even on the horizon. Given the rivalry between Poroshenko and Kolomoyskiy it's not even
certain it's a real change of heart or just soothing words for the non-fascist people. Nor is
it even clear the Zelensky will follow even the Steinmeier formula. If he does, good, but
until something actually happens? Saying it's about the antifascist turn is a damned lie.
The only thing that isn't a lie is that Trump was not committing treasons, "merely" a
campaign violation. But then, Clinton never did either. The crybabies who dished it out but
can't take it deserve zero respect, and zero time.
Curious to know how Kolomoisky is working "feverishly" to end the war in the Donbass region.
Wonder if he is planning to come clean on what he knows of the Malaysia Airlines MH17
shootdown and crash in an area not far from Slavyansk and near where his Privat Group's
subsidiary company Burisma Holdings holds a licence to drill for oil and natural gas. What
does he know about Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk air traffic control personnel's direction to MH17
to fly at 10,000 metres in the warzone and not an extra 1,000 metres above as the flight crew
had requested? He had been governor of Dnepropetrovsk region at the time.
Somewhere I read it alleged that the actual owner of Burisma was or is Kolomoiski.
Anything to this?
And via John Helmer (via Checkpointasia and dances with bears) comes the perspective that
it's not so much Kolomoiski floating trial balloons (though that may also be true) but that K
is being given space in the NYT to build his credentials as the new Borg villain, thereby
making it still harder for Zelensky to reconcile with Russia.
fb @ 25 said;"The Ukraine is actually a preview of what we can expect to see in our own
future...as the unleashed oligarchy similarly runs everything into the ground in order to
extract maximal wealth for a parasite elite...already we are nothing but a Ponzi Scheme on
the verge of toppling..."
Yup, aided and abetted by our current regime, while pretending not to...
@23
"It's a tough balancing act, being a Ukrainian oligarch. For two decades they stole what they
could from the Ukraine (and from perverting the various sweetheart deals Russia was
providing). Once the industry and energy money was stripped, and Russia started closing the
spigots, they managed to get the West to pump in ungodly amounts of cash so long as they
would agree to talk mean about Russia, and didn't mind the US machine taking its cut of the
loot."
This is it in a nutshell. The Russians were fed up with Ukraine stealing gas. Hence, Nord
Stream 2. That was always the plan. Whether the Yanks truly grasped the rationale here
---Russia is cutting off gas to Ukraine, simple---has never been clear to me. Although it is
a fairly simple plot. The Russians had decades of shenanigans with the Ukes and said Basta.
By not overreacting to the Ukrainian-USA freakout and keeping their eyes on the prize (Nord
Stream and disengaging, gas-wise, from Uk), they have managed to reach their goal of getting
Nord Stream 2 online.
Kolomoiski is the bankroller and commander of the Azov Battalion. Has close arrangements with
other paramilitaries. And is the current principal of Burisma. And is Privatbank, the only
bank left in Ukraine. He gets a cut of all the action.
When Trump queries Zelensky, all that Zelensky is thinking is this guy does not know the
score. This guy does not know who's on first. He wants me to investigate the boss? Let him
talk to the boss. And who does Z talk to in D.C.? Pointless getting into detail with
Trump.
Trump has no team. No one in D.C. is on his side. He's unable to finish anything.
1) Say the fantasy happens and the US/Russia become BFFs like US/UK...
- Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss?
- Tough to answer, many unknowns- Russia may act different once its on top, actors may
derail schemes, Deep State temper tantrum, etc...
In general, governments are the order-providing solution for chaos and problems that only
first existed inside the minds of those seeking power over others.
Kolomoiski is a U.S. asset. His interview with the NYTimes proves it.
His threats are meant to mobilize NATO and Russia haters in general; because Trump and
most of his cadre care nothing for Ukraine.
Does anyone think Russia will give Kolomoiski 100 million dollars? Why was he given an
opportunity to threaten the USA? For no reason? Something else is afoot but Russia still
won't take the bait because they are winning.
Russia is quite happy with the status quo. The war in Ukraine keeps the war against Russia
on a level which is easy to manipulate and therefore geostrategically beneficial. Kolomoiski
will get nothing.
Thank you, b, for that snippet from NY Interview with Kolomoisky . I had glanced the headline
on RT but didn't read it because of RT's usual clumsy writing.
Kolomoiski is taunting the empire: investigate my crimes and
ukraine will seek reconciliation and alliance with russia.
Russia won't fall for it. They want kolomoiski's scalp even
more than the empire. From the statements putin has made, maybe
the only concession russia would accept is the dissolution of
ukraine as a sovereign entity and reintegration with russia, minus galicia.
Putin has remarked that they are not one people but one state. Ukraine
already knows that its domestic industry is only viable in competition
with the eu industrial powerhouses if it is integrated with russia.
What does [Kolomoysky] know about Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk air traffic control
personnel's direction to MH17 to fly at 10,000 metres in the warzone and not an extra 1,000
metres above as the flight crew had requested?
Okay..so an interesting can of worms here...
First is the fact that Kolomoysky was the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast at the
time...
Now as to the flight and Dnipro Radar [the regional air traffic control facility that
controls a very big chunk of airspace over eastern Ukraine]...
First the issue of the airplane cruising altitude...the crew had filed their flight plan
to climb from flight level 330 [33,000 ft] to FL350 after passing a certain waypoint in
eastern Ukraine...
Now the controllers did instruct the crew to go ahead and climb to their planned altitude,
but the crew declined the clearance and opted to stay at FL330...this was done very
likely because the atmospheric conditions at that height were better for fuel economy...
[To be even more specific...the Boeing manual gave an optimum flight altitude of 33,800
ft, but flying eastward you only have odd numbered flight levels to choose from, so the crew
figured they would be better off staying at 33 than climbing to 35...]
BUT...there are a couple of very curious things here...
First is the fact that Dnipro controllers deviated the airplane from its flight
plan just before it went down...ostensibly due to other traffic...
We can see this in the following map, which is what's called a high altitude en route
chart, which is used by pilots to plan and execute their flight...
You will note a couple of things here...the airplane is flying on the L980 airway
[basically a highway in the sky] when it is turned south by controllers to the RND waypoint,
which is in Russian territory...
This is NOT the route filed by the crew...which can be seen here...
They were supposed to continue flying on L980 right to the TAMAK waypoint, which is
visible on the previous chart and is right on the border with Russia...
They would have continued on the A87 airway to their next waypoint in Russia which is
TIKNA...
Now here is the thing...right after they were turned south, they got shot down...
According to the radio transcripts, the crew acknowledged the course change, but did not
object...however, usually these kinds of course changes aren't appreciated on the flight deck
because the crew is trying to minimize wasted time and wasted fuel on course
deviations...
Most times you will just not bother to complain to controllers...but for sure there will
always be chatter between the captain and copilot about being yanked around like that...
No mention is made in the Dutch Safety Board report about such chatter from the cockpit
voice recorder, which I find very odd...
Also odd is the fact that Dnipro ATC primary radar was down, and only the so-called
'secondary' was working which uses the transponder signals from the airplane...
This is very busy airspace because a lot of flights from western Europe to South Asia
traverse this territory...the plan is always to fly what's called a 'great circle route'
which is basically a straight line, if you flattened out the globe...
Plus considering that you have a war going on underneath...it's very unusual to have your
PRIMARY radar inoperable...
This is significant also because military aircraft will not be using transponders and so
will not be visible to the secondary surveillance...
The Russian primary radar did pick up two other aircraft very nearby MH17...but the Dutch
have made some kind of excuse about that data not being in 'raw' form and thus not
usable...
So we see some very suspicious anomalies here...
The Ukrainian authorities did have a NOTAM [notice to airmen] in effect up to FL320
[32,000 ft] so commercial traffic could not fly under that height...but clearly they should
have closed the airspace over the hot conflict area...
They didn't do that...and Kolomoysky was in charge...
The Deep State's view on the members' God given right to make foreign policy decisions (it
must be the God who has give it to them, because the people certainly have not) just reminds
the of the general attitude of the Government's bureaucracy. Give any fartbag a position in
the government and he/she becomes "a prince/princes over the people", give him or her a
monopoly over violence and you got yourself a king/queen. All these police and military kings
& queens milling around and lording over us. "Deep State" is such a totally natural
consequence of the government bureaucracy corrupted by power that it appropriated.
Pillaging taxes from the sheeple (and taking young maidens like Sheriff of
Nottingham/Epstein) could have never ever been enough. Did you seriously think that the Deep
Staters would constrain themselves to only stealing your money, taking your children for
their pleasure and to die in their wars of conquest, and putting you into a totally unsafe
airplanes to die for their profit? Constrain themselves when there is a whole globe out there
to be lorded over, like Bidens over Ukraine? It is the poor people of Ukraine who just have
too much money, thus had to give it through the gas monopoly to the Biden gang, which
selflessly brought them "democracy" at $5B in US taxpayers' expense. Therefore, it is the
Deep State which has been chosen by God, or someone just like that, to make the decisions
about the imperialist/globalist foreign policy and have billions of dollars thrown by the
grateful natives into their own pockets, as consulting fees:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/leaked-bank-records-confirm-burisma-biden-payments-morgan-stanley-account
So far the only clear-cut globalization is that one of crime, which has become
global.
What is the US National Interest b asks? Who defines it as such?
Ome magazine that might know is none other than The National Interest. Hopefully I won't
get attacked for quoting from what seems like a fairly sane article to me....
"The US should consider whom they are giving weapons to. Ukraine is a debt-ridden state
and only five years beyond an extralegal revolution. Should the government collapse again,
then American weapons could end up in the possession of any number of dubious paramilitary
groups.
It wouldn't be the first time. In the 2000s, CIA operatives were forced to repurchase
Stinger missiles that had fallen into the hands of Afghani warlords -- at a markup.
Originally offered to the Mujahideen in the 1980s, the Stingers came to threaten American
forces in the region. Similarly, many weapons provided with US authorization to Libyan rebels
in 2011 ended up in the possession of jihadists."
It's difficult to find clean information on happenings within Ukraine and those involving
Russia. The Ministry of Foreign affairs has this page
dedicated to the "Situation Around Ukraine." Of the three most recent listings,
this one --"Comment by Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova on the NATO
Council's visit to Ukraine"--from 1 November is quite important as it deals with the reality
on the ground versus the circus happening thousands of miles away, although it's clear the
delusions in Washington and Brussels are the same and "continue to be guided by the Cold War
logic of exaggerating the nonexistent 'threat from the East' rather than the interests of
pan-European security."
In the
second most recent listing --"Remarks by Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian
Federation to the OSCE Vladimir Zheglov at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting on the
situation in Ukraine and the need to implement the Minsk Agreements, Vienna, October 31,
2019"--the following was noted:
"There's more to it. The odious site Myrotvorets continues to function using servers
located in the United States. The UN has repeatedly stated that this violates the presumption
of innocence and the right to privacy. Recently, Deputy Head of the UN Human Rights
Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Benjamin Moreau, reiterated the recommendation to shut down
this website. A similar demand was made by other representatives of the international
community, including the German government. The problem was brought to the attention of the
European Court of Human Rights. The other day, the representative of Ukraine at the ECHR was
made aware of the groundlessness of the Ukrainian government's excuses saying that it
allegedly 'has no influence' on the above website.
"In closing, recent opinion polls in Ukraine indicate that its residents are expecting the
government to do more to bring peace to Donbas. The path to a settlement is well known, that
is, the full implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures of February 12, 2015, that was
approved by the UN Security Council."
Clearly, Zelensky's government is much like Poroschenko's when it comes to listening to
those who empowered it, the above citation is one of several from the overall report.
The latest report deals with an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice at The
Hague that reveals some of the anti-Russian bias there. It has no bearing on this discussion,
although it does provide evidence of the contextual background against which the entire
affair, including the circus in Washington, operates.
MoA consensus is Minsk backed NATO and its Ukrainian minions into a corner from which
there's only one way out, which is the implementation of the Accords they continue to oppose
to implement despite their promise to do so. Clearly an excellent example of not being
agreement capable that hasn't changed since 2015.
If the Republicans had any brains, they'd turn the Ukrainian aspect of the hearings into
an indictment against Obama/Biden for illegally overthrowing Kiev and trying to obtain their
piece-of-the-action, but then that would be the logical thing to do and thus isn't an option.
The prospect of each day providing similar spectacle is mind numbing as it airs the sordid,
unwashed underwear if the Evil Outlaw US Empire.
I normally do not reply to trolls, but I make an exception for you. Pedo-dollar? Do you have
any more such crap to dilute the valid points discussed here?
i liked what @ 32 tod said - "he's just doing the old Jewish threatening/begging
dance!
"And you are forcing us to be at war, and not even giving us the money for it." Wink!
Wink!"
stating the obvious is one remedy for any possible confusion here..
@54 karlof1... i don't believe trump is allowed to shine any light on the usas illegal
actions as that would be sacrilege to all the americans who see their country in such a
great, exceptional-ist light... how would trumps MAGA concept swallow that? it wouldn't, so
it won't happen...
You are a bit off on that story. NS2 pipeline will increase the capacity not transitioning
via Ukraine and reduce the price banditry by the Ukrainian & US gangs, but it will not
make gas transit via Ukraine unnecessary. The planned switch off of the German nuclear and
coal power plants will gradually increase the German demand for gas, that is the Russian gas
by so much that NS1 and NS2 will not be enough. Primarily, NS2 is a signal to the Ukrainian
& US Democrat gangs that if they try excessive transit fees and stealing of gas again,
that they will be circumvented within a few years by NS 3,4,5 ...
BTW, the globalized pillaging of the population is clearly not an invention of the DNC
crime gang only. For example, the 737Max is a product of primarily Republican activity on
deregulating what should have never been deregulated and subjugation to the Wall Street (aka
financialization). The pillaging of the World is strictly bipartisan, just differently
packaged:
1) R - packaging the deregulation to steal & kill as "freedom" or
2) D - packaging the regime change as responsibility to protect R2P (such regime change and
stuffing of own pockets later).
karlof1 @54 - "Minsk backed NATO and its Ukrainian minions into a corner from which
there's only one way out, which is the implementation of the Accords"
Yes. As you well know, and as we have well discussed, Minsk was in its very essence the
surrender terms dictated to the US by NAF and Russia in return for letting the NATO
contractors go free and secretly out of the Debaltsevo cauldron. Either actually or
poetically, this was the basis. The US lost against NAF. The only way to prevent Donbass
incursion into the rest of Ukraine was to freeze the situation. The US had no choice, and
surrendered.
Out of the heat and fog of warfare came a simple document made of words which, even so,
illustrated perfectly just how elegantly the Kremlin had the entire situation both war-gamed
and peace-gamed. Minsk from that day until forever has locked the Ukraine play into a lost
war of attrition for the US sponsors, with zero gain - except for thieves.
To attempt to parse Ukraine in terms of statecraft is to miss the point that Ukraine can
only be parsed in terms of thievery. This is not cynicism, simply truth.
Now they sell their land because this is all there is left to sell. Kolomoisky proposes
selling the entire country to Russia for $100 billion but not only will Russia not bite, the
country isn't worth even a fraction of that - because of Minsk, it can cause zero harm to
Russia. But this ploy raises the perceived value (Kolomoisky hopes) in the eyes of the west,
and starts the bidding.
In Russia the people see all this very clearly, including on their TV. Yakov Kedmi in this
Vesti News clip of
Vladimir Soloviev's hugely popular talk show, discusses the situation. He baits Soloviev by
saying that the Ukrainian thieves are only doing what the Russian thieves did in the 1990's -
and one must filter through this badinage to take out the nuggets he supplies. Here are
three:
1. Zelensky has no security apparatus that follows his command, therefore how can he be
considered the leader of the country?
2. There is no power in Ukraine, only forces that contend over the scraps of plunder.
3. These forces are creating the only law there is, which is the sacred nature of private
property for the rich - the only thing the US holds sacred.
Therefore sell the very soil.
~~
The Minsk agreement is a sheer wall of ice reaching to the sky. No force imaginable can
scale it or break it. Against that ultimate, immovable wall the US pounds futilely, with
Ukraine caught in the middle, while Russia waits for Ukraine to devolve into whatever it
can.
And the Russian people and government regard the people of the Ukraine as brothers and
sisters. But until the west has worn itself down, and either gone away or changed the
equation through a weakening of its own position in some significant way, nothing can be done
by Russia except to wait.
What Tod @32 described is spot-on, "the old Jewish threatening/begging dance". It is not that
the Russians do not know this about Kolomoyskyi. They will play along not expecting anything
from the Zelo-on-a-String and his master. The Russians like to let those scumbags (Erdo comes
to mind) huff & puff and embarrass themselves by flips. They know - it could always be
worse if those did something intelligent. Kolomoyskyi is vile but he ain't no genius, not any
more than Erdo.
Sure Cheeza...everybody's a 'bit off' except you...
Gazprom is talking about 10 bcm a year through Ukraine for the new 10 year deal, as
opposed to the 60 bcm [billion cubic meters] that Ukraine is hoping for...
"Deep state" is misleading and actually a false construction.
There is an Imperial State (the ruling faction/)which consists of imperial apparatchiks
placed in every key position in government. Babyl-on @ 8
? before I begin , how do you measure the political and economic power of money
as opposed to the political and economic power of the intentions and needs of the masses.
Does $1 control a 100 people? A million dollars control 100,000,000 people? How do we measure
the comparative values between money power and people power? I think the divisions of
economics and the binaries of politics established by the nation state system means that the
measurement function (political and economic values) varies as a function of the total wealth
vs the total population in each nation state. If true, become obvious how it is that: foreign
investments displaces the existing homeostatis in any particular nation state, the smaller
the poorer the nation state, the more impact foreign wealth can have; in other words outside
wealth can completely destroy the homeostatis of an existing nation state. I think it is this
fact which makes globalization so attractive to the ruling interest (RI) and so damning to
the poorest of the poor.
Change by amendment is impossible There is one and only one Western Empire but
there is also an Eastern Empire, a southern empire, and a Northern Empire and I believe the
ruling interest (faction) manipulate all nations through these empires. In fact, they can do
this in any nation they wish. The world has been divided into containers of humans and
propaganda and culture have highly polarized the humans in one container against the humans
in other containers. <=divide, polarize, then exploit: its like pry the window, and gain
access to the residence, then exploit. It is obvious that the strength of the resistance to
ruling class exploitation is a function of common cause among the masses. But money allows to
control both the division of power and the polarization of the masses. The persons who have
the powers described in Article II of the US Constitution since Lincoln was murdered can be
controlled (Epstein, MSM directed propaganda, impeachment, assassination, to accomplish the
objects of the ruling interest (faction). Article II of the USA constitution removes foreign
activity of the USA from domestic view of the governed at home Americans. Article II makes it
possible for the POTUS to use American assets and resources to assist his/her feudal lords in
exploiting foreign nations almost at will and there is no way governed Americans can control
who the ruling interest place in the Article II position.
A little History Immigration to NYC from Eastern (the poor) and Western (the
rich) Europe transitioned NYC and other cities from Irish majority to a Jewish majority; and
the wealthy interest used the Jewish majorities in key cities to take control over both
Article I and Article II constitutional powers by electing field effect controlled
politicians (political puppets are elected that can be reprogrammed while they are in office
to suit the ruling interest. The source code is called rule of law, and money buys the
programmers who write the code. So the ruling interest can reprogram in field effect fashion,
any POTUS they wish. Out of sight use of the resources of America in foreign lands is nothing
new, it was established when the constitution was written in Philadelphia in 1787 and
ratified in 1788.
Propaganda targeted to the Jewish Immigrants allowed the wealthy interest to
control the outcome of the 1912 election. That election allowed to destroy Article I,
Section 9, paragraph 4 " No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid unless in
Proportion to the Census of enumeration herein before directed to be taken". and to enact a
law which privatized the USA monopoly on money into the hands of private bankers (the federal
reserve act of 1913)
What was the grand design Highly competitive, independent too strong economic
Germany was interfering with Western hegemony and the oil was in the lands controlled by the
Ottomans. It took two wars, but Germany was destroyed, and the Ottoman empire (basically the
entire Middle East) became the war gained property of the British (Palestine), the French
(Syria) and the USA (Israel). Since then, the ruling interest have used their (field effect
devices to align governments so the wealthy could pillage victim societies the world over.
Field effect programming allows wealth interest to use the leaders of governments to use such
governments to enable pillage in foreign places. The global rich and powerful, and their
corporations are the ruling interest.
psychohistorian says it well "..the global private finance core segment of empire is
behind Trump and throwing America(ns) under the bus as the world turns more multilateral. The
cult of global private finance intends on still having some overarching super-national role
in the new multilateral world and holding debt guns to everyone's heads to make it
ongoing..." by psychochistorian @ 10
NOBITs @ 11 says it also "All presidents have been servants of the military, which includes
the police/intel/security apparatus; the few who did not entirely accept their figurehead
role were "dealt with." Kennedy, Nixon, Carter and now Trump. The Washington permanent state
bureaucrats are shocked and understandably offended; they have after all, been running US
foreign policy for 75 years!" by: NOBTS @ 11
According to TG @ 13 "Democracy" is about privatizing power and socializing
responsibility. The elites get to set the policy, but the public at large gets to take
responsibility when things go wrong. Because you see, we are a "Democracy."by: TG @ 13 <=
absolutely not.. the constitution isolates governed Americans from the USA, because the USA
is a republic and republics are about privatizing power and socializing responsibility;
worse, there ain't nothing you can do about it.
Vonu @ 19 says "According to Kevin Shipp, the National Security Council really runs the
executive branch, not the president. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=XHbrOg092GA"
by: Vonu @ 19 <=but it is by the authority of Ariicle II that the NSC has the power to run
the executive branch?
KAdath @ 22 says "the Oligarchs are now positioning themselves to abandon the US in
order for the Russians to keep even a tiny bit of oil flowing into their pockets by: Kadath @
22" <=exactly.. but really its not abandoning the USA, its abandoning the oligarchs local
to the pillaged nation..
J Swift @ 23 says "the US treats its partners in crime in Syria and elsewhere,"
[poorly] but its not the USA per say, because only one person has the power to deal in
foreign places. Its that the POTUS, or those who control the Article II powers vested in the
POTUS, have or has been reprogrammed.. J. Switft @23>>
flankerbandit @ 25 says " Ukraine has run itself into the ground, literally...now they
are selling vast tracts of agricultural land to huge Euro agribusiness concerns...literally
dispossessing themselves of their own food security..." flankerbandit @ 25 <=Not really
the wealthy (investor interest) have pushed the pillage at will button.. since there is no
resistance remaining, the wealthy will take it all for a song..
Jackrabbit @ 26 says "Trump [is].. Constitutionally charged with foreign policy. Repeating:
the "Imperial Presidency" has flung off Constitutional checks and balances by circumventing
the need to get Congressional approval for spending. Wars (like Syria) are now be funded by
Gulf Monarchies, black ops, and black budgets.by Jackrabbit @ 26 <== Trumps orders
military to take 4 million day from Syria in oil?
your observation that the money has circumvented Article I of the COUS explains why the
democraps are so upset.. the wealthy democrap interest has been left to rot? Your comment
suggest s mafia is in charge?
Tod @ 32 says "As soon as some money goes his way, he'll discover democracy again.
Sorry to burst you bubbles." by: Tod @ 32" <==understatement of the day.. thanks.
Bevin @ 32 says "a dialectic is at work here. Washington's support for fascism abroad
has instituted fascism at home which has led in turn to the installation of fascist regimes
abroad, not just occasionally but routinely. Wherever the US intervenes it leaves a fascist
regime, in which socialists are banned and persecuted, behind it. this means.. the ability of
the population to effect political change is cancelled" by bevin @ 33 <= yes but there is
really no difference in a republic and its rule of law, and a fascist government and its
military police both rule without any influential input from the governed.
michael @ 34 reaffirms "The President was the only channel of communication between the
United States and foreign nations, it was from him alone 'that foreign nations or their
agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation'" michael @ 34 well known to
barflies, the design of national constitutions is at the heart of the global problem. Until
constitutional powers are placed in control of the governed there will never be a change in
how the constitutional powers ( in case of the USA Article II powers) are used and
abused.
OutofThinAir @45 says "In general, governments are the order-providing solution for
chaos and problems that only first existed inside the minds of those seeking power over
others.by: OutOfThinAir @ 45" <+governments are the tools of wealth interest and the
governors their hired hands.
by: War is Peace @48 " Trump is a moron, groomed by Jewish parents ( Mother was Jewish,
Father buried at biggest Jewish cementary in NYC ) to be a non-Jew worked for the mob under
Cohen ( lawyer for 1950's McCarthy ); Became the 'Goyim Fool" real estate developer as a
cover for laundering mob money. So that it didn't appear that it was Jewish Mafia Money, so
they could work with the Italian Mafia. Trump went on for his greatest role ever to be the
"fool in Chief" of the USA for AIPAC. What better way to murder people, than send out a fool,
it causes people to drop their guard. by War is Peace @48 <= yes this is my take, What
does it mean. com suggest the global wealth interest may be planning to reprogram Trump to
better protect the interest of the global wealthy.
Kiza @ 51 the reason for globalization is explained see above=> response to Babyl-on @
8
dh @ 53 says ""The US should consider whom they are giving weapons to." by dh @53 <
the USA cannot consider anything, if its foreign the POTUS (Article II) makes all decisions
because Art II gives the POTUS a monopoly on talking to, and dealing with, foreign
governments.
Deagel @ 56 says "The American people don't care, they're all drugged out, and shitting
on the side-walks all over the USA, and sleeping in their own shit. This is the best time in
USA history for the Zionists to do anything they wish." by: Deagel @ 56 <= I think you
under estimate the value Americans place on democracy and human rights, until recently
governed Americans believed the third party privately produced MSM delivered propaganda that
nearly all overseas operations by the USA were to separate the people in those places from
their despotic leaders, and to help those displaced people install Democracy.. many Americans
have come to understand such is far from the case.. the situation in the Ukraine has been an
eye opener for many Americans. thoughts are sizzling, talk is happening, and people are
trying to shut google out of their lives. that is why i think Trump is about to be
reprogrammed from elected leader to .. God in charge
I watched that Soloviev segment with Kedmi the other day...always interesting to say the
least...
Btw...I'm not really up to speed on that whole Debaltsevo cauldron thing...I've heard
snippets here and there...[there is a guy, Auslander, who comments on the Saker blog that
seems to have excellent first hand info, but I've only caught snippets here and there]...
I hadn't heard this part of the story before about Nato contractors as bargaining
chips...if you care to shed a bit more light I will be grateful...
I suggest going to The Saker Blog and
enter Debaltsevo Cauldron into the site's search box and click Submit where you'll be greeted
with numerous results.
Grieved @62--
Thanks for your reply and excellent recap. As I recall, Putin wants Donbass to remain in
Ukraine and Ukraine to remain a whole state, although I haven't read his thoughts on the
matter for quite some months as everything has revolved around implementing Minsk. The items
at the Foreign Ministry I linked to are also concerned with Minsk.
The circus act in DC is trying to avoid any mention of Minsk, the coup or anything
material to the gross imperial meddling done there to enrich the criminal elite, which
includes Biden, Clinton, other DNC members--a whole suite of actors that omits Trump in this
case, although they're trying to pin something on him. The issue being studiously ignored is
Obama/Biden needed to be busted for their actions at the time, but in time-honored fashion
weren't. And the huge rotted sewer of corruption related to that action and ALL that came
before is the real problem at issue.
Typical reaction of a zelf-zentered person as evidenced by The New Yorker 737Max article
in the previous thread. This good article could only be measured by how much it agrees with
your own opinion that MCAS was put in to mimic the pilots' usual fly-stick feel. If anyone
does his home work, such as the journalist of this article, then he must agree with you,
right? With experts such as you out there, why would anyone dare apply common sense and say
that it would be an unimaginably stupid idea to put in ANY AUTOMATED SYSTEM which pushes
the plane's nose down during ascent (the most risky phase of a civilian flight, when almost
desperately trying to get up and up and up) for any DUMBLY POSSIBLE REASON !? What could
ever go wrong with such an absolutely dumbly initiated system relying on one sensor? Maybe it
was a similar idea to putting a cigarette lighter right next to the car's gas tank because it
lights up cigarettes better when there are gasoline vapors around. Or maybe an idea of
testing the self-driving lithium battery (exploding & flammable) cars near kindergartens
(of some other people's children)!?
An intelligent person would have said - whatever the reason was to put in MCAS it was a
terribly dumb idea, instead of congratulating himself on understanding the "true reason".
"If I were president, while I would resist gratuitous provocations, I would not publicly
associate myself with the delusion that stable friendship is possible (or, frankly,
desirable) with Putin's anti-American dictatorship, which runs its country like a Mafia
family and is acting on its revanchist ambitions."
Really?
From what have gleaned from the alternative media available on the internet ,of which MOA is
an important part. Putin and Lavrov are the two most moral and diplomatic statesmen on the
world stage today Compared to Trump, Johnson, Macron, Merkel, Stoltenberg, Pompeo, Bolton and
whoever else blights the international scene these days these two are colossi.
To describe
them as like a Mafia family seems to me to be 180 degrees wrong. Maybe Putin overreacted, in
his early days in power, to the Chechen conflict but look at the situation today.
Look at how
Gorbachev and Yeltsin were played by the west. I appreciate you did not write the words
quoted above but you said you agree with them and I find that startling given I am usually
very admiring of your insight and knowledge of geopolitical events.
According to the Impeachniks, it is Schiff's staff who decides how Schiff votes and his
policies. It would be illegal for Schiff to make decisions. But Schiff's recommendation will
make or break the careers of his staff, so elected Schiff has some influence. That's not true
for elected Trump, because those in his service already have made careers and/or a host of
outsiders looking to place them.
Although, he didn't get impeached for it Obama did get criticized for not sending the aid to
Ukraine. He was also criticized when he did intervene, but not fast enough for the deep
state. Remember "leading from behind" in response to Libya. Obama was much more popular and
circumspect than Trump, which protected him from possible impeachment when he went off the
deep state's script.
Discussion of the USC and the responsibilities assigned therein is probably a foolish and
merely moot exercise, as law is, ultimately simply custom over time, and since '45 or so the
custom has become dissociated from the documents' provisions, particularly with regard to
war-making and the "licensed" import and sale of dangerous drugs, dope. The custom in place
is essentially ukase - rule by decree. Many decree are secret.
I do not object, simply pointing to the obvious.
This is a public secret anybody can know. Inter alia see The Politics of Heroin in
Southeast Asia (McCoy)
...........
Custom includes also permitted theft, blackmail, trafficking children and so forth.
...........
zerohedge put up some documents tying TGM Hunter B to the money from Ukraine...
................
I would not worry about the name of the person called president. The real sitrep is more
like watching rape and murder from the dirty windows of a runaway train.
Upon the dissolution of the USSR, Ukraine was left with the fifth-largest nuclear arsenal in
the world. In exchange for financial assistance in the costs of removing all the nukes, the
West guaranteed to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity.
In the meantime, Russia has annexed the Crimea and rebels have taken control of parts of
Eastern Ukraine. The West has not provided any direct military assistance to restore those
territorial infringements.
Since the West has reneged on its end of the deal, would it not only be fair to return
Ukraine's nukes so it can defend itself like the Big Boys do, namely with threat of nuclear
annihilation?
I hate this trope. The Russian Fed. is not launching offensive operations to capture
Kharkov or Kiev. Western Ukraine is shelling ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. What would
U.S. Congressman say if these were Jews? (I would condemn that as well).
The next time someone pontificates, 'Ukrainians are dying because Trump held up aid' ask
them how many. The number is ZERO. Javelins are not being used on the front line.
Mr. Kolomoisky is spot on, i.e. when he says that the Americans will only use Ukrainians as
their little bitches to fight and die for America's gain against Russia. Just like the
Americans fucked over the Kurds in Syria, using them as proxy fighters to do USA/Israel's
dirty work. Wherever the USA shows up and starts interfering, everything turns into shit:
Iraq...Afghanistan...Venezuela...Bolivia...Ukraine...Libya...Yemen...Nicaragua...Ecuador...the
list is quite long. It remains to be seen if Mr. Kolomoisky can bring about rapprochement
with Russia. He'd better watch his back.
"Wow. My opinion of Kolomoisky has just improved ... somewhat." --Seamus Padraig @73
Yes, Kolomoisky has moved up a notch in my estimation as well; from the low of
"monstrously inhuman spawn of satan" all the way up to "rabid dog" . That's
quite the dramatic improvement, I must admit.
I am very glad to see you back, Grieved, and your 'wall of ice' metaphor is indeed accurate.
To me, the promising signs in Ukraine were even as here in the US when voters fought back
against what b calls Deep State, which I am sure in my heart was even more of an overwhelming
surge than registered - the best the corrupters of the system could do was make it close
enough to be a barely legitimate win for their side, and they didn't succeed. Maybe somewhere
along their line of shenanigans a small cog in the wheel got religion and didn't do their
'job'. An unsung hero who will sing when it's safe.
I hope, dearly hope, it gets safe in Ukraine very soon. They are us only further down the
line than we are, but we will get there if we can't totally remove the cancer in our midst.
That's our job; I wish Ukraine all the best in removing theirs.
Jen...I should have made clear that the two aircraft picked up by Russian PRIMARY RADAR were
unidentified...
The two commercial flights you mention were in the area and were known to both Russian and
Ukrainian controllers by means of the SECONDARY SURVEILLANCE RADAR, which picks up the
aircraft transponder signals...
However, secondary WILL NOT pick up military craft that have their transponders
off...which is normal operating procedure for military craft...
So the airspace situation was this...you can see this from one of the illustrations I
provided from the DSB prelim report...
You had MH17...you had that other flight coming from the opposite direction [flying
west]...and you had that airplane that overtook the MH17 from behind [they were in a hurry
and were going faster, so when MH17 decided to stay at FL330, they were cleared to climb to
FL350 so they could safely overtake with the necessary vertical separation...]
Those three aircraft were all picked up on the Ukrainian SECONDARY [transponder]
surveillance...as well as the Russians...on both their PRIMARY AND SECONDARY...
But what the Russians picked up were two craft ONLY ON THEIR PRIMARY...those would have
been military aircraft flying with their transponders off [they're allowed to do that and do
that most of the time in fact]...
That's why those two DIDN'T SHOW UP ON THE SECONDARY DATA HANDED OVER TO THE INVESTIGATORS
BY THE UKRAINIANS...
Only primary radar would pick those up...and, very conveniently, the Dnipro primary was
inop at the time...[so the data handed to investigators by the Ukrainians would have no trace
of any military aircraft nearby]...
But with the Russian primary radar data, there is in fact evidence that there were
military aircraft in the air at the time...just that the Dutch investigators simply decided
to exclude the very vital Russian radar data on some stupid technicality...
[Really this is a very poorly done report, both prelim and final, and I've read many over
the years...]
The other thing I should have emphasized more clearly is about that course deviation that
controllers steered MH17 to, just seconds before it was hit...
The known traffic was those three commercial aircraft, as shown on the chart...here it is
again...
Those three commercial flights are clearly labeled...and the big question is... why was
MH17 DIVERTED SOUTH...OFF ITS PLANNED ROUTE...?
We can see the deviation track by the dotted red line...
Clearly there was no 'other traffic' that required MH17 to be vectored south by the
controllers...
In fact we see that there was a FOURTH commercial flight [another B777] that was flying
south exactly to that same waypoint that MH17 was diverted to...we see this airplane is
flying west on the M70 airway and is heading to the RND waypoint...
This does not make sense...why would you divert MH17 from going to TAMAK as flight
planned...in order to go south toward RND where another airplane is heading...
If nothing else this is very bad controller practice right there...yet again, the DSB
[Dutch Safety Board] does not even raise this question...
Like I said, leaving aside any guesswork, these are the simple facts and they raise
serious questions...both about the competence of the Dutch report, and the way the
controllers handled that flight...
Ukrainian think tank Ukrainian Institute of the Future and Ukrainian media outlet Zerkalo
Nedeli (both anti-Russian, but slightly more intellectual than typical Ukrainian outlets)
have contracted a Kharkov-based pollster to conduct a poll among DNR/LNR residents from
October 7 to October 31 (method: face-to-face interviews at the homes of the respondents,
sample size: 806 respondents in DNR and 800 respondents in LNR, margin of error: 3.2%) and
published its results in an article: Тест
на сумісність
[Compatibility Test] (in Ukrainian).
It's a long and rambling article, interspersed with
Ukrainian propagandistic clichés (perhaps to placate Ukrainian nationalists), but the
numbers look solid, so I've extracted the numbers I consider important and put them in a
table format. Here they are:
GENERAL INFORMATION
Gender 46.5% male 53.5% female
Age 8.3% <25 years old 91.7% ≥25 years old
Education 31.5% no vocational training or higher education 45.2% vocational training 23.3% higher education
Religion 57% marry and baptize their children in Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) 31% believe in God, but do not go to any church 12% other churches, other religions, atheists
Political activity 3% are members of parties 97% are not members of parties
Language 90% speak Russian at home 10% speak other languages at home
Nationality 55.4% consider themselves Ukrainians 44.6% do not consider themselves Ukrainians
ECONOMY
Opinion about the labor market 24.3% there are almost no jobs 39.3% high unemployment, but it's possible to find a job 15.7% there are jobs, even if temporary 17.1% key enterprises are working, those who want to work can find a job 2.9% there are not enough employees
Personal financial situation 4.9% are saving on food 36.4% enough money to buy food, but have to save money to buy clothing 43.6% enough money to buy food and clothing, but have to save money to buy a suit, a mobile
phone, or a vacuum cleaner 12% enough money to buy food, clothing, and other goods, but have to save money to buy
expensive goods (e.g. consumer electronics) 2.7% enough money to buy food, clothing, and expensive goods, but have to save money to buy a
car or an apartment 0.4% enough money to buy anything
Personal financial situation compared to the previous year 28.4% worsened 57.3% stayed the same 14.2% improved
Personal financial situation expectations for the next year 21% will worsen 58.6% will stay the same 18.7% will improve
Opinion on the Ukraine's (sans DNR/LNR) economic situation compared to the previous
year 50.3% worsened 41.4% stayed the same 6.3% improved
CITIZENSHIP
Consider themselves citizens of 57.8% the Ukraine 34.8% DNR/LNR 6.8% Russia
Russian citizenship 42.9% never thought about obtaining it 15.5% don't want to obtain it 34.2% would like to obtain it 7.4% already obtained it
Considered leaving DNR/LNR for 5.2% the Ukraine 11.1% Russia 2.9% other country 80.8% never considered leaving
Visits to the Ukraine over the past year 35.1% across the DNR/LNR–Ukraine border (overwhelming majority of them -- 32.2% of all
respondents -- are pensioners who visit the Ukraine to receive their pensions) 2.6% across the Russia–Ukraine border 62.3% have not visited the Ukraine
WAR
Is the war in Donbass an internal Ukrainian conflict? 35.6% completely agree 40.5% tend to agree 14.1% tend to disagree 9.3% completely disagree
Was the war started by Moscow and pro-Russian groups? 3.1% completely agree 6.4% tend to agree 45.1% tend to disagree 44.9% completely disagree
Who must pay to rebuild DNR/LNR? (multiple answers) 63.6% the Ukraine 29.3% Ukrainian oligarchs 18.5% DNR/LNR themselves 17% the U.S. 16.5% the EU 16% Russia 13% all of the above
ZELENSKIY
Opinion about Zelenskiy 1.9% very positive 17.2% positive 49.6% negative 29.3% very negative
Has your opinion about Zelenskiy changed over the past months? 2.7% significantly improved 7.9% somewhat improved 44.8% stayed the same 22.9% somewhat worsened 20.5% significantly worsened
Will Zelenskiy be able to improve the Ukraine's economy? 1.4% highly likely 13.3% likely 55.3% unlikely 30% highly unlikely
Will Zelenskiy be able to bring peace to the region? 1.7% highly likely 12.5% likely 59% unlikely 26.5% highly unlikely
MEDIA
Where do you get your information on politics? (multiple answers) 84.3% TV 60.6% social networks 50.9% relatives, friends 45.9% websites 17.4% co-workers 10% radio 7.4% newspapers and magazines
What social networks do you use? (multiple answers) 70.7% YouTube 61% VK 52.3% Odnoklassniki 49.8% Viber 27.1% Facebook 21.4% Instagram 12.4% Twitter 11.1% Telegram
FUTURE
Desired status of DNR/LNR 5.1% part of the Ukraine 13.4% part of the Ukraine with a special status 16.2% independent state 13.4% part of Russia with a special status 50.9% part of Russia
Desired status of entire Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts 8.4% part of the Ukraine 10.8% part of the Ukraine with a special status 14.4% independent state 13.3% part of Russia with a special status 49.6% part of Russia
Just listening to a bit of the testimony of the ex-ambassador to Ukraine.
It is all BS hearsay!
Also, this lady doesn't seem to grasp that as an employee of the State Department, she
answers to Trump. Trump is her boss.
The questioning is full of leading questions that contains allegations and unproved
premises built into them. I can't imagine that such questioning would be allowed in a normal
court of justice in the USA.
Sure, Trump is a boor. But he is still the boss and he gets to pull out ambassadors if he
wants to.
This is total grandstanding.
Also, a lot of emotional stuff like "I was devastated. I was shocked. Color drained from
my face as I read the telephone transcript . . . "
This is BS!
IIRC the Russian radar showed that the two mystery planes in questions were flying in
MH17's blindspot . That's way too close to be half an hour away. Also, the fact that
the two planes were flying over a war zone with their transponders turned off (which is why
they couldn't be conclusively identified) strongly suggests that they were military.
@ Posted by: ralphieboy | Nov 15 2019 11:24 utc | 71
When the US launched a coup in Kiev, wasn't that a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty
too?
@ Posted by: Christian J Chuba | Nov 15 2019 12:36 utc | 72
You know the real reason why they have yet to deliver the javelins to Ukraine? It's
because they're afraid that they'll be sold on the black market and end up in the ME
somewhere targeting US tanks. That's why.
@ Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 15 2019 13:30 utc | 75
That's quite the dramatic improvement, I must admit.
on Yovanovitch,
She added: "If our chief representative is kneecapped, it limits our effectiveness to
safeguard the vital national security interests of the United States."
She wasn't fired, she was kneecapped, and Ukraine is a US vital national security
interest, especially after it installed a new government with neo-fascism support.. .
.Kneecapping is a form of malicious wounding, often as torture, in which the victim is
injured in the knee
Cheeza decides to launch a personal attack...also completely off topic...
Typical reaction of a zelf-zentered person [sic]...With experts such as you out there,
why would anyone dare apply common sense...an intelligent person would have said...blah
blah blah...
Look man...I'm not going to take up a lot of space on this thread because it's not about
the MAX...
BUT...I need to set the record straight because you are accusing me here of somehow
muddying the waters on the MAX issue...
That is a complete inversion of the truth...I have been very explicit in my [professional]
comments about the MAX...and it is the exact opposite of what you are trying to tar me with
here...
Yes, it is important to understand these things...which is why I have made the effort to
explain the issue more clearly for the layman audience...
Your pathetic attack here shows you have no shame, nor self-respect...
Let's rewind the tape here...I said that Gazprom is looking to cut supplies to Ukraine in
the new 10 year deal that comes up for negotiation in January...and that they are going to be
pumping much less gas through Ukraine because NS2 now allows to bypass Ukraine...
You took a run at this comment, calling it wrong, and putting up a bunch of your own
hypothesizing...
I responded by linking to the
Russian news report quoting officials saying exactly that...that gas to Ukraine will be
greatly reduced...
Instead of responding to that by admitting you were full of shit...you decide to attack me
on the MAX issue...everybody here knows my [professional] position on the MAX...and that I
have said repeatedly THAT IT CANNOT BE FIXED...[which is also why I have offered detailed
technical explanations...]
I'm not going to let you screw with my integrity here...everything you attributed to me
on the MAX is completely FALSE and in fact turning the truth on its head...
As Kiza #55 noted - Nordstream 1 and 2, combined, only equal half of Ukraine's transit
capacity.
The primary impact is that Ukraine can't hold far Western European customer gas hostage
anymore with its gas transit "negotiations" as Nordstream allows Russia to sell directly to
Germany.
There can still be Russian gas sold via Ukraine, but this will be mostly to near-Ukraine
neighbors: Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Czech as well as Ukraine itself.
Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania can transit from Turk Stream, but there are potential Turk (and
Bulgarian) issues.
Poland is already committing to LNG in order to not be dependent on Russian gas transiting
Ukraine - a double whammy.
The ultimate effect is to remove Ukraine's stranglehold position over Russian gas exports,
which in turn severely undercuts Ukraine's ability to both get really cheap Russian gas and
additional transit fees - a major blow to their economy.
Therefore, the continuation of gas transit via Ukraine in volumes greater than the 26 bcm/y
suggested above will depend on the European Commission and European gas importers, and
their insistence that gas transit via Ukraine continues.
Otherwise, gas transit via Ukraine will be reduced to delivering limited volumes for
European storage re-fills in the 'off-peak' summer months...
This prospect will undoubtedly complicate any negotiations between Gazprom and its
Ukrainian counterparty over a new contract to govern the transit of Russian gas via
Ukraine, once the existing contract expires at the end of December 2019.
...Gazprom may be willing to commit to only limited annual transit volumes...
European gas importers don't give a shit about Ukraine...and they have the final
word...they care only about getting the gas they need from Russia in a reliable way and at a
good price...
The news report I linked to makes it perfectly clear that the Europeans are demanding that
the Ukranians get their act together on the gas issue, or they will be dropped
altogether...
You know...FOOL...it really makes me wonder how fools like you decide to make statements
here with a very authoritative tone...when it is quite clear you are talking out your rear
end...
Nobody needs that kind of bullshit here...if you don't know a subject sufficiently well,
then maybe you should keep quiet...or when making a statement, phrase it as your own OPINION
and nothing more...
"... In the spring and summer of 2019, did you ever become aware of any U.S. intelligence or U.S. treasury concerns raised about incoming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his affiliation or proximity to certain oligarchs? Did any of those concerns involve what the IMF might do if a certain oligarch who supported Zelensky returned to power and regained influence over Ukraine's national bank? ..."
"... John Solomon reported at The Hill and your colleagues have since confirmed in testimony that the State Department helped fund a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Action Centre of Ukraine that also was funded by George Soros' main charity. That nonprofit, also known as AnTac, was identified in a 2014 Soros foundation strategy document as critical to reshaping Ukraine to Mr. Soros' vision. ..."
"... In March 2019, Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko gave an on-the-record, videotaped interview to The Hill alleging that during a 2016 meeting you discussed a list of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups you did not want to see Ukrainian prosecutors target. Your supporters have since suggested he recanted that story. Did you or your staff ever do anything to confirm he had recanted or changed his story, such as talk to him, or did you just rely on press reports? ..."
"... Your colleagues, in particular Mr. George Kent, have confirmed to the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. embassy in Kiev did, in fact, exert pressure on the Ukrainian prosecutors office not to prosecute certain Ukrainian activists and officials. These efforts included a letter Mr. Kent signed urging Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an investigation of the aforementioned group AnTac as well as engaged in conversations about certain Ukrainians like Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin and NABU director Artem Sytnyk. Why was the US. Embassy involved in exerting such pressure and did any of these actions run afoul of the Geneva Convention's requirement that foreign diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs of their host country? ..."
"... If the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States suddenly urged us to fire Attorney General Bill Bar or our FBI director, would you think that was appropriate? ..."
"... At any time since December 2015, did you or your embassy ever have any contact with Vice President Joe Biden, his office or his son Hunter Biden concerning Burisma Holdings or an investigation into its owner Mykola Zlochevsky? ..."
The next big witness for the House Democrats' impeachment hearings is Marie Yovanovitch, the
former American ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled last spring at President Trump's
insistence.
It is unclear what firsthand knowledge she will offer about the core allegation of this
impeachment: that Trump delayed foreign aid assistance to Ukraine in hopes of getting an
investigation of Joe Biden and Democrats started.
Nonetheless, she did deal with the Ukrainians going back to the summer of 2016 and likely
will be an important fact witness.
After nearly two years of reporting on Ukraine issues, here are 15 questions I think could
be most illuminating to every day Americans if the ambassador answered them.
Ambassador Yovanovitch, at any time while you served in Ukraine did any officials in Kiev
ever express concern to you that President Trump might be withholding foreign aid assistance
to get political investigations started? Did President Trump ever ask you as America's top
representative in Kiev to pressure Ukrainians to start an investigation about Burisma
Holdings or the Bidens?
What was the Ukrainians' perception of President Trump after he allowed lethal aid to go
to Ukraine in 2018?
In the spring and summer of 2019, did you ever become aware of any U.S. intelligence
or U.S. treasury concerns raised about incoming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and
his affiliation or proximity to certain oligarchs? Did any of those concerns involve what the
IMF might do if a certain oligarch who supported Zelensky returned to power and regained
influence over Ukraine's national bank?
Back in May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions wrote a letter to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggesting you might have made comments unflattering or
unsupportive of the president and should be recalled. Setting aside that Sessions is a
Republican and might even have donors interested in Ukraine policy, were you ever questioned
about his concerns? At any time have you or your embassy staff made comments that could be
viewed as unsupportive or critical of President Trump and his policies?
John Solomon reported at The Hill and your colleagues have since confirmed in
testimony that the State Department helped fund a nonprofit called the Anti-Corruption Action
Centre of Ukraine that also was funded by George Soros' main charity. That nonprofit, also
known as AnTac, was identified in a 2014 Soros foundation strategy document as critical to
reshaping Ukraine to Mr. Soros' vision. Can you explain what role your embassy played in
funding this group and why State funds would flow to it? And did any one consider the
perception of mingling tax dollars with those donated by Soros, a liberal ideologue who spent
millions in 2016 trying to elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump?
In March 2019, Ukrainian prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko gave an on-the-record,
videotaped interview to The Hill alleging that during a 2016 meeting you discussed a list of
names of Ukrainian nationals and groups you did not want to see Ukrainian prosecutors target.
Your supporters have since suggested he recanted that story. Did you or your staff ever do
anything to confirm he had recanted or changed his story, such as talk to him, or did you
just rely on press reports?
Now that both the New York Times and The Hill have confirmed that Lutsenko stands by his
account and has not recanted, how do you respond to his concerns? And setting aide the use of
the word "list," is it possible that during that 2016 meeting with Mr. Lutsenko you discussed
the names of certain Ukrainians you did not want to see prosecuted, investigated or
harassed?
Your colleagues, in particular Mr. George Kent, have confirmed to the House
Intelligence Committee that the U.S. embassy in Kiev did, in fact, exert pressure on the
Ukrainian prosecutors office not to prosecute certain Ukrainian activists and officials.
These efforts included a letter Mr. Kent signed urging Ukrainian prosecutors to back off an
investigation of the aforementioned group AnTac as well as engaged in conversations about
certain Ukrainians like Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin and
NABU director Artem Sytnyk. Why was the US. Embassy involved in exerting such pressure and
did any of these actions run afoul of the Geneva Convention's requirement that foreign
diplomats avoid becoming involved in the internal affairs of their host country?
On March 5 of this year, you gave a speech in which you called for the replacement of
Ukraine's top anti-corruption prosecutor. That speech occurred in the middle of the Ukrainian
presidential election and obviously raised concerns among some Ukrainians of internal
interference prohibited by the Geneva Convention. In fact, one of your bosses, Under
Secretary David Hale, got questioned about those concerns when he arrived in country a few
days later. Why did you think it was appropriate to give advice to Ukrainians on an internal
personnel matter and did you consider then or now the potential concerns your comments might
raise about meddling in the Ukrainian election or the country's internal affairs?
If the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States suddenly urged us to fire Attorney
General Bill Bar or our FBI director, would you think that was appropriate?
At any time since December 2015, did you or your embassy ever have any contact with
Vice President Joe Biden, his office or his son Hunter Biden concerning Burisma Holdings or
an investigation into its owner Mykola Zlochevsky?
At any time since you were appointed ambassador to Ukraine, did you or your embassy have
any contact with the following Burisma figures: Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, lawyer John
Buretta, Blue Star strategies representatives Sally Painter and Karen Tramontano, or former
Ukrainian embassy official Andrii Telizhenko?
John Solomon obtained documents showing Burisma representatives were pressuring the State
Department in February 2016 to help end the corruption allegations against the company and
were invoking Hunter Biden's name as part of their effort. Did you ever subsequently learn of
these contacts and did any one at State -- including but not limited to Secretary Kerry,
Undersecretary Novelli, Deputy Secretary Blinken or Assistant Secretary Nuland -- ever raise
Burisma with you?
What was your embassy's assessment of the corruption allegations around Burisma and why
the company may have hired Hunter Biden as a board member in 2014?
In spring 2019 your embassy reportedly began monitoring briefly the social media
communications of certain people viewed as supportive of President Trump and gathering
analytics about them. Who were those people? Why was this done? Why did it stop? And did
anyone in the State Department chain of command ever suggest targeting Americans with State
resources might be improper or illegal?
At the 19th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, President Xi (31 October 2019)
reiterated the imperative of "Upholding the centralized and unified leadership of the CPC."
Why does Xi insist on this point as #1 item on the party's agenda of items?
Let's make a comparison. In 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a "dictator" and of
using the party as a sort of church for the worship of his own "personality cult." This was
nonsense of course and Mao said so formally in 1963, but it was music to the ears of the
capitalist powers, in the lead the US .
Kruscev then decided to liberalize the "Stalinist party"--which was more music to the
ears of the capitalist "Free West." He said, since the class struggle in in the USSR was
over, there were no class enemies, and everyone could join the party. Opportunist did;
corrupt greedy people did, until at last in 1989 it was top heavy with members of the
shadow economy--managers of factories, mines, industries of all sorts who had over 3
decades accumulated undeclared private wealth from leeching from the the public wealth. The
party had become a club of "entrepreneurs" (thieves) whose best bet for investments of
their ill-gotten accumulation of wealth was the restoration of capitalism.
There was much more damage to the party than I can synthesize in a post, but this small
bit will do. The party was infiltrated by opportunists of the worst greed. And its
integrity, authority, ability to plan the economy according to scientific Marxist Lenininst
wisdom and principles died.
Now the US and the Cia had long ago figured that if the integrity of party could be
disintegrated the USSR would collapse. And so it did.
The CPC has no intention of China collapsing and falling once again into the avid hands
of Western imperialism, which wages capitalist.imperialist class war on China. So, China
would never dream of declaring the class struggle over for China.
Its constitution states that China will remain a class society for a long time. Not only
because it depends for the creation of wealth on a loyal national, anti-imperialist
bourgeoisie but also because China is threatened by imperialism, which is also a class war
Khrushchev ignored, calling for "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism, since both USSR
and the imperialists supposedly shared the goal of peace under the nuclear cloud.
The man was a scoundrel and destroyed the power of the Communist Party, paving the way
to the restoration of capitalism.
This is the difference between the Soviet Union post-1956 and China. Mao was not
cleansed out of the party and consigned to the lower depths of Hell like Stalin. Whatever
his mistakes, he was treated as a comrade not an enemy, his contribution acknowledged, his
deficits also--unlike Stalin. Furthermore, his revolutionary contribution to the founding
and survival of the People's Republic of China was enshrined in the party's memory. His
picture is on the currency. He is loved and respected. The party was not stressed, purged,
or divided by making Mao an issue of allegiance.
Finally, by recognizing the contribution of the loyal bourgeoisie to a self-sufficient,
independent China, the CPC acknowledges that China is still a class society. No second
economy, operating in the shadow for China. The private sector exists and is regulated (and
lately bought up gradually by the state). No chance for a clutch of opportunists to
accumulate more combined wealth than the state's and so able to take over the state and
exact regime change.
This is why Xi specifically demands and requires a strong, centralized, integral, and
uncorrupt Communist party. The party is the insurance for the persistence of the path to
socialism and eventually communism for China. No party, no sovereign, imperialism-free
China
And in this determination of making the CPC the pillar of China's social and economic
progress for all the people, Xi is acting as a Leninist. The party is for the people and
the people for the party. They are one. Without a revolutionary party and a revolutionary
theory (in China "scientific and Marxist) the revolution would die. A it did in the Soviet
Union, starting with the Kruscev gambit.
This for the West is "authoritarianism," though the West is ruled by a clutch of
authoritarian economic elites who make all the decisions in their own interests. But they
call tit "democracy." At least in China, if anything, it's an "authoritarianism" for and by
the people--a bit closer to democracy, I should argue.
The problem with import substitution is that the factories that used to make these goods were
largely moved to China. China isn't going to give them back.
So in order to attempt to substitute US made for the China imports, the factories have to
be built first.
Secondly, China heavily subsidizes the early parts of the supply chains: raw materials and
what not. This wouldn't hold true to American factories.
So while the goal and the theory are good, the problem is the execution.
Russia is doing it because they're forced to: sanctions actually accelerates the process
because Russian internal investors know there will be a reasonably long term market for
Russian goods so long as the sanctions hold true, and the sanctions also lock in Russian
capital (that which was repatriated) to some extent.
Dems skillfully changed the narrative from Biden's Corruption to Trump actions against his potential Presidential candidate
(which is actually much less dangerous to Trump then Warren or Sanders; it is optimal for Trump variation of Hilary 2.0 theme )
The issue of supplying Ukraine arm to destabilize the region (with the USA on the receiving end of the potential Russia
retaliation incase of escalation of the conflict ) was changed in "withholding the aid from the ally". Real propaganda
professionals.
Looks like George Kent is dyed-in-the-wool neocon and belongs to the neocon vipers nest in the State Department as
Nuland. He is
actually extremely damaging for the USA foreign policy person. Another crazy USA supremacist, believer in "Full Spectrum
Domination" doctrine
Notable quotes:
"... I really wish that TAC writers would stop offering concessions to the neocons in an effort to appear "serious" and "reasonable". It's disingenuous, counterfactual, and it does not work. Russia did not invade Ukraine. (You could say that about Crimea, but if you were to do so, you should also admit that the locals welcomed the "invaders" as liberators.) ..."
"... Conservatives are basically wimps, that is why they feel they have to throw the neocon dogs some bones ..."
"... If his domestic political opponents have been engaged (or even suspected of being engaged) in corrupt dealings with foreign governments, why should they not be investigated??? ..."
"... The civilians killed are almost all on the Donbass side of the line (as a result of Ukrainian terror attacks). The civilians on the other side of the line are not attacked. The Ukrainian line is that the Novorussians are shelling themselves, but that would require them, among other absurdities, to invent artillery shells that can do a 180 degree turn mid-flight. ..."
"... These foreign policy experts ignore the fact that a large percentage of Ukrainians *are* Russians and proud of their heritage but do not want to join the Russian Federation and support a united Ukraine. I was a relentless critic of Obama but the more I read about Euromaiden and the subsequent Russian invasion/annexation the more I agree with his policy or not rushing in to supply arms in what was a confusing situation that was part civil war between factions of Ukrainians. ..."
"... The 13,000 Ukrainian deaths could probably have been avoided had the US had stayed out of Ukraine's internal affairs and not encouraged the overthrow of its elected government back in 2014, however corrupt it was. It was naive of the US State Department and specifically Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary for East European Affairs (who served in this role under both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry) to think that Russia would not respond to a shift in Ukrainian foreign policy in favor of the West. ..."
"... The Deep State lies about the Ukraine and US involvement in political and economic corruption there are just astounding, but not surprising. The US and NATO bear a huge portion of the blame for destabilizing an already unstable "nation," being largely responsible for the coup that ousted the rightful President Yanukovich in 2014 (whom they also helped deny election in 2004). NATO itself should have been disbanded after the Warsaw Pact was disbanded. Instead it has taken an ever more expansionist and aggressive stance toward Russia. ..."
"... The US drove forward with NATO until this inevitably happened. Then resistance became "aggression." It was imagined that NATO would station its ships in former Russian Black Sea bases of the Crimea, and so lock down Russia's north-south river system as completely as someone allowed to capture New Orleans and close the Mississippi river system. That attempt had to produce a war of some sort. Russia just had to resist that. The US did it anyway, guys like George Kennan in his last years protesting without effect. ..."
"... Refusing to consider what it was about themselves or their agenda for why they lost the election, Unable, or unwilling to allow a change of course they set about an entire process for revenge. Refusing to take this time to reassess themselves, their candidates or their agenda they have chosen instead to plow ahead in their attempts to overturn the election. by impeachment and conviction or at least damaging the president so badly making his unelectable. ..."
"... Demonstrating the worst attributes of a prosecution: a case with no evidence to the charge, manufacturing evidence, open admissions that the witnesses saw a crime or we even in the room when the alleged crime took place -- they are showing how the system works and why government cannot be trusted, maybe the public probably too busy trying to earn a living to attend to the details explains why half of them actually believe that Russia infiltrated the US to sabotage an election, regardless that no evidence supports the accusation. ..."
"... If it is an impeachable offense, then just about every administration that has been around since I have been alive should have been nailed. Do you think we don't make deals with no strings attached? ..."
"... Those string attached are for the benefit of the US. NOT for the benefit of particular persons. Strings attached to official aid to benefit particulars is called CORRUPTION ..."
"... Not a criminal act and you have your facts wrong. The president referenced CrowdStrike at the center of the collusion and Russian hack accusations) and given the circumstances of the VP's son and the VP conduct regarding an investigation in progress in the Ukraine -- the suspicions are entirely reasonable and the VP openly speaks about what he did ---- political rival or not that confession is a fact. ..."
"... -- it's metaphysically impossible to desperately need something unless you are already receiving that same thing; or if someone else once said you didn't need the thing; or wrote an op-ed saying you needed the thing but we shouldn't be the ones to provide the thing you need ..."
Choking on the Democrats' Ukraine Fantasy Narrative
Officials and media delivered enough untruths and distortions yesterday to cause us all
heartburn. State Department deputy assistant secretary, George Kent, left, and acting U.S.
ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor, right, appear for a House Intelligence Committee
impeachment hearing Wednesday November 13, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The
Washington Post via Getty Images)
A top U.S. State Department official began his testimony before the House impeachment
inquiry with eye-popping analogies comparing patriotic Ukrainians to the Minutemen of the
American revolution. His narrative went unchallenged, as all of Washington appears to have
suddenly fallen in love with the poor, defenseless, disadvantaged Ukraine that President Trump
tried to deny arms to.
George Kent, a U.S. State Department official who served under five presidents, told the
House Intelligence Committee Wednesday morning that after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014,
occupying seven percent of its territory, "Ukraine's state institutions were on the verge of
collapse" until "the 21st century Ukrainian equivalent of our own Minutemen in 1776" bought
"time for the regular army to reconstitute."
"Since then, more than 13,000 Ukrainians have died on Ukrainian soil defending their
territorial integrity and sovereignty from Russian aggression," said Kent. "American support in
Ukraine's own de facto war of independence has been critical in this regard." Here's more:
"By analogy, the American colonies may not have prevailed against British imperial might
without help from transatlantic friends after 1776. In an echo of Lafayette's organized
assistance to General George Washington's army and Admiral John Paul Jones' navy, Congress
has generously appropriated over $1.5 billion over the past five years in desperately needed
train and equip security assistance to Ukraine . Similar to von Steuben training colonials at
Valley Forge, U.S. and NATO allied trainers develop the skills of Ukrainian units at Yavoriv
near the Polish border, and elsewhere. They help rewrite military education for Ukraine's
next generation, as von Steuben did for America's first."
One would think, listening to this, that the U.S. had always provided arms to Ukraine, and
that Ukraine has relied on this aid for years. But this is completely untrue, and the
Washington blob knows it.
Back in 2014, when Russia annexed a large swath of Ukraine, the Obama administration
declined to arm Ukraine, fearing that adding American weapons to the conflict would spark a hot
war between the U.S. and Russia. At the time, Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain argued
vociferously against Obama's policy.
"The Obama Administration's policy in Ukraine effectively amounts to an arms embargo on
victims of aggression," Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain said in a joint statement. "The
United States and the European Union must provide Ukraine with the arms and related military
and intelligence support that its leaders have consistently sought and desperately need."
Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression "demands more than additional empty rhetoric
and threats of lowest-common-denominator sanctions," they wrote. "That has been the extent of
the world's response to Putin's slow-motion dismemberment of Ukraine, and it has consistently
failed to deter new acts of aggression."
Even as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned of a "serious military buildup" by
Russian forces inside Ukraine, the Obama administration still declined to provide Ukraine with
lethal aid.
"We don't think the answer to the crisis in Ukraine is simply to inject more weapons and
engage in tit-for-tat," White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told CNN.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki stressed that the US didn't want to "get into a proxy
war with Russia."
So instead, the U.S. responded to Russian aggression with sanctions and kicking them out of
the G-8 (now G-7.) Instead of providing arms,Washington provided Ukraine with non-lethal aid
and with military advisers and continued to engage in joint training exercises together with
several other countries.
Back when a Democrat occupied the White House, foreign policy experts were comfortable with
an unarmed Ukraine.
Foreign Policy magazine published an article called "Don't Poke the Russian
Bear" just after the Russian incursion into Ukraine. Providing arms to Ukraine would be a
needless escalation of a conflict with Moscow, the piece argues.
Where are all these foreign policy experts and their fears about conflict with Russia now?
Did they all suddenly change their minds now that Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office?
Obama's opinion on arming Ukraine never wavered. Even as late as 2016, he argued to
The Atlantic that Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one.
"The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to
military domination by Russia no matter what we do," said Obama.
Thus, the Trump administration decision to provide Ukraine with weapons was a significant
departure from previous US policy. In August 2017, then-U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis
said the Trump administration was "actively reviewing" the question of whether to provide
lethal assistance to Ukraine. Then in 2018, the State Department approved the sale of 210
Javelin portable anti-tank missiles, as well as launchers, associated equipment, and training,
at a total estimated cost of $47 million.
The media appears to be deliberately blurring the timeline to obscure this fact.
From Politico:
The U.S. has provided about $1.5 billion in military support to Kiev between 2014 and this
past June, according to an updated analysis
by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. And Trump's temporary cut off of the aid
represented a significant setback for the country.
But here's what that CRS report Politico links to actually says: "During the Obama
administration, arguments against the provision of lethal assistance centered on Russia's
ability and willingness to steadily escalate conflict in response," says the report. But things
changed significantly under the Trump administration which "has provided major defensive lethal
weaponry to Ukraine."
The U.S. has only approved the sale of weapons to Ukraine last year! But now, weapons
Obama refused to provide are "a lifeline."
Obscuring the timeline advances the narrative that Ukraine relied on military assistance
which Trump suddenly precipitously withdrew. But the truth is that Ukraine did not even have
this assistance until Trump came into office. How can a country rely on something that was only
authorized last year? about the author Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and
national security reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington
Examiner and for CNS News. She is the author of Patton Uncovered , a book about
General George Patton in World War II, and her work has appeared on Fox News, The Hill ,
UK Spectator , and elsewhere. Boland is graduate from Immaculata University in
Pennsylvania. Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC .
I really wish that TAC writers would stop offering concessions to the neocons in an effort
to appear "serious" and "reasonable". It's disingenuous, counterfactual, and it does not
work. Russia did not invade Ukraine. (You could say that about Crimea, but if you were to do
so, you should also admit that the locals welcomed the "invaders" as liberators.)
If Russia were to invade Ukraine, the Ukrainian clown army, "minuteman patriots(tm)" and
all, would be wiped out in days or hours.
Conservatives are basically wimps, that is why they feel they have to throw the neocon dogs
some bones. It also is why they tend to be history's biggest losers.
If his domestic political opponents have been engaged (or even suspected of being engaged)
in corrupt dealings with foreign governments, why should they not be investigated???
Maybe you think that senior US officials should be immune from investigation, or that
laws don't apply to them?
more than 13,000 Ukrainians have died on Ukrainian soil defending their territorial
integrity and sovereignty from Russian aggression," said Kent.
The UN has estimated that the total number killed in Ukraine's war since the Maidan is
13,000. This figure includes casualties in the Donbass region, fighters and civilians,
killed by the armed forces of Kiev. Mr. Kent is enlisting these dead into a cause they died
resisting. Is there no limit to Washington's cynicism?
1. And most of those pro-Kiev soldiers died because they rushed into reckless and poorly
planned offensives and got slaughtered as a result. When they stay on their own side of the
contact line, they don't get killed.
2. The civilians killed are almost all on the Donbass side of the line (as a result of
Ukrainian terror attacks). The civilians on the other side of the line are not attacked.
The Ukrainian line is that the Novorussians are shelling themselves, but that would require
them, among other absurdities, to invent artillery shells that can do a 180 degree turn
mid-flight.
The fact that the Obama administration did not give lethal aid to Ukraine came up at the
impeachment hearing yesterday and was confirmed by the two bureaucrats. A republican asked
about it.
These foreign policy experts ignore the fact that a large percentage of Ukrainians *are*
Russians and proud of their heritage but do not want to join the Russian Federation and
support a united Ukraine. I was a relentless critic of Obama but the more I read about
Euromaiden and the subsequent Russian invasion/annexation the more I agree with his policy
or not rushing in to supply arms in what was a confusing situation that was part civil war
between factions of Ukrainians.
Congress disagreed and passed the Ukraine Freedom Act which
mandated sanctions and authorized arms shipments. Obama signed it in December of 2014 but
in his signing statement wrote that wasn't going to implement sanctions or ship arms. Back
then ignoring the will of Congress wasn't an impeachable offense but obviously times change.
The 13,000 Ukrainian deaths could probably have been avoided had the US had stayed out of
Ukraine's internal affairs and not encouraged the overthrow of its elected government back
in 2014, however corrupt it was. It was naive of the US State Department and specifically
Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary for East European Affairs (who served in this role
under both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry) to think that Russia would not respond to a
shift in Ukrainian foreign policy in favor of the West.
Russia was never going to allow
Sevastopol (in Crimea), its only warm water to become a future NATO base and Ms. Nuland
should have understood that. Crimea had been captured from the Ottoman Empire in Catherine
the Great's time (c. 1783). Nikita Khrushchev had transferred administrative control of
Crimea from Russia to Ukraine at a time (1954) when there was no land link from Crimea to
Russia and no one expected the USSR to break up.
At the time the Soviet Union gave its consent to the peaceful reunification of East and
West Germany in 1990, it was with the understanding that NATO would not expand eastward
beyond its then existing sphere of influence. But NATO and the US violated this
understanding as new member states from the old Soviet block countries were admitted to
NATO starting in 1999.
As the US continues to meddle in the internal affairs of foreign countries and to hand
out billions of dollars in military foreign aid money every year, the medical care our own
veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan is being short changed. Watch the documentary
"Delay, Deny and Hope You Die" (free if you have an Amazon Prime Membership).
The Deep State lies about the Ukraine and US involvement in political and economic
corruption there are just astounding, but not surprising. The US and NATO bear a huge
portion of the blame for destabilizing an already unstable "nation," being largely
responsible for the coup that ousted the rightful President Yanukovich in 2014 (whom they
also helped deny election in 2004). NATO itself should have been disbanded after the Warsaw
Pact was disbanded. Instead it has taken an ever more expansionist and aggressive stance
toward Russia.
Ukraine is a largely artificial country, parts of which (The Crimea and eastern Ukraine)
really should just be part of greater Russia (the Russian nation's very roots, after all,
are in mediaeval Kievan Rus). It had never been a sovereign nation-state before 1991, and
its current borders are arbitrary and unworkable demographically. The US line that Ukraine
is a vital national security interest in garbage - they just want to join the oligarchs in
fleecing the country and using it as a proxy in their bizarro-world where Russian bogeymen
are everywhere.
What Congress ought to be investigating is how Joe Biden's son ended up on the board of
one of the most corrupt Ukraine oil companies shortly after own visit to the country while
he was VP. That's where the real corruption is.
The US drove forward with NATO until this inevitably happened. Then resistance became
"aggression." It was imagined that NATO would station its ships in former Russian Black Sea bases of
the Crimea, and so lock down Russia's north-south river system as completely as someone
allowed to capture New Orleans and close the Mississippi river system. That attempt had to
produce a war of some sort. Russia just had to resist that. The US did it anyway, guys like
George Kennan in his last years protesting without effect.
The US did this to Ukraine. It rightly ought to be rather like Austria, Yugoslavia, and
Finland of the Cold War era, a safe space between playing off each against the other.
Instead, it got thrown into NATO's aggression.
Here is the basic question: Did Donald Trump attempt to extort the Ukrainian government to get dirt on Biden? It's a basic
yes or no question. And assuming that he did extort the Ukrainian government, is it enough of a crime and abuse of power for
him to be impeached. Every thing else is irrelevant.
No. He didn't.
Even if you think he did, his behaviour could be considered inappropriate, but that
doesn't make it a criminal offense, no matter how much you hate the man.
Like it or not, Trump WON a legal and constitutionally held election, run according to
electoral college procedures. That doesn't change because he wants to know what REALLY
happened when Biden demanded the Ukr sack its corruption investigator (and then bragged
about it) when the investigator started sniffing around the gas company that Hunter Biden
and been installed in by daddy and his pals.
Readers, don't be fooled by her focus on "arms."
Here's what the report says:
"Since independence, Ukraine has been a leading recipient of U.S. foreign and military
aid in
Europe and Eurasia. In the 1990s (FY1992-FY2000), the U.S. government provided almost
$2.6 billion in total aid to Ukraine ($287 million a year, on average).146 In the 2000s
(FY2001 to
FY2009), total aid to Ukraine amounted to almost $1.8 billion ($199 million a year, on
average).147 In the five years before Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine (FY2010 to
FY2014),
State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) assistance
(including
foreign military financing) totaled about $105 million a year, on average.
Separate
nonproliferation and threat reduction assistance administered by the Departments of Energy
and
Defense amounted to an average of over $130 million a year in obligated funds."
It's true that Obama didn't want to stumble into a proxy war with Russia. It's also true
that Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating a political rival.
Blame the media!
Another example of the right's love of Trump. Grab 'em by the truth!
My week started nice. I has been setting dates to take an entire week off to give my body
a rest from exercise, but after but two and half days I couldn't do it. My mind could not
let iot rest. It plagued and nagged with all of those self deprecating thoughts press
against a change of pace or of course. I found myself trying to cram a weeks worth of
exercise into three days without a break . . it was nuts. Passing my quota was not enough
and i have not let it go to this moment, despite what damage i may do to my body.
I guess the democrats are that way. Refusing to consider what it was about themselves or
their agenda for why they lost the election, Unable, or unwilling to allow a change of
course they set about an entire process for revenge. Refusing to take this time to reassess
themselves, their candidates or their agenda they have chosen instead to plow ahead in
their attempts to overturn the election. by impeachment and conviction or at least damaging
the president so badly making his unelectable.
Demonstrating the worst attributes of a
prosecution: a case with no evidence to the charge, manufacturing evidence, open admissions
that the witnesses saw a crime or we even in the room when the alleged crime took place --
they are showing how the system works and why government cannot be trusted, maybe the
public probably too busy trying to earn a living to attend to the details explains why half
of them actually believe that Russia infiltrated the US to sabotage an election, regardless
that no evidence supports the accusation.
Maybe, just maybe enough of them will see this for what it is an abuse of the our system
worthy of condemnation and maybe the next election will be a second dose of shock and awe.
. Sadly should that be the case the message that democrats will here is that they need to
redouble their efforts potential opponents, even if means destroying the republic they
supposedly seek to save.
I see nothing in this article but deflection and whataboutism. Instead, answer the question
these hearings are actually about: Did Donald Trump withhold or threaten to withhold aid or
support from a foreign ally in return for a personal benefit? If so, that's extortion and
abuse of power and an impeachable offense. It's really that simple.
If it is an impeachable offense, then just about every administration that has been around
since I have been alive should have been nailed. Do you think we don't make deals with no
strings attached?
Those string attached are for the benefit of the US. NOT for the benefit of particular
persons. Strings attached to official aid to benefit particulars is called CORRUPTION
According to "Defense News," the millions of dollars in U.S. security assistance provided
to Ukraine during the Obama administration was "...aimed at helping Ukraine monitor and
secure its borders, deploy its forces more safely and effectively, and make progress toward
NATO interoperability." It was also militarily significant. For example, "After Ukraine
received 20 Lockheed Martin AN/TPQ-53 radar systems that track incoming mortar and
short-range artillery fire in 2015, the casualty rate for units equipped with those systems
went from 47 percent to about 18 percent..."
A year after Trump took office, the U.S.added lethal aid to the mix, as authorized in
the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. According to Defense News, these weapons
included "anti-armor weapon systems, mortars, crew-served weapons and ammunition, grenade
launchers and ammunition, and small arms and ammunition ― but also unspecified
'cyber' and 'electronic warfare' capabilities."
Ms. Boland's article seems to ignore the amount and the helpfulness of the previous
administration's security aid. It also blithely minimizes the harm of holding up the latest
tranche of enhanced security aid (an action that was done for no discernible reason that
anyone but several impeachment witnesses and Mick Mulvaney seems able to explain).
Agree with you that is interesting that those deep state bureaucrats who think that they
make all the policy and the they run the country did lie, and lie quite often.
But I think you're wrong that they planned anything for years. The deep state just wanted
to get Trump out via any means possible and thought they could just come up with anything.
Only useful idiots (and media) believe their lies. Clearly, you are not one of these useful
idiots.
I am hopeful that Kent is educated enough not to take seriously the analogy between the
Ukraine and the 13 colonies and that this was directed to the ignorant boobocracy that is
fixated on their TV screens watching this dreck unfold and whose knowledge of history is
virtually nonexistent.
Unless, of course, I'm wrong and Kent himself is one of them.
You might want to have some facts that are related to the charges --
"Congressional approved funding would be withheld until Ukraine officials agreed to
investigate (or at least publicly announce an investigation) into the President's political
rival."
Not a criminal act and you have your facts wrong. The president referenced CrowdStrike
at the center of the collusion and Russian hack accusations) and given the circumstances of
the VP's son and the VP conduct regarding an investigation in progress in the Ukraine --
the suspicions are entirely reasonable and the VP openly speaks about what he did ----
political rival or not that confession is a fact.
You do realize there are currently investigations underway in the US on these
issues.
-- Trump did, in fact, do exactly what he was accused of doing
-- you shouldn't whine like a baby when "only" seven percent of your territory is
militarily annexed by a hostile foreign power
-- Lindsay Graham pushed for the very aid Trump held up, but that was different because
that was Obama then and anyway can't you see how Democrats are the unprincipled
hyper-partisans here?
-- non-lethal military aid including military advisors is not military aid because
something something Obama something something mainstream media something Obama
-- it's metaphysically impossible to desperately need something unless you are already
receiving that same thing; or if someone else once said you didn't need the thing; or wrote
an op-ed saying you needed the thing but we shouldn't be the ones to provide the thing you
need
"... And, of course, it wouldn't be good, old-fashioned Washington gunslinging if she didn't pin the blame on somebody else. In this case, it was former secretary of state Rex Tillerson and former White House chief of staff John Kelly -- portrayed by Haley as duplicitous snakes who sought to undermine the president behind his back. ..."
Her messaging confirms what many have long suspected: Nikki Haley is a human weathervane, trying to ingratiate herself to the
boss (she knows Trump will remain a popular figure within Republican politics for years to come) while at the same time distancing
herself from his most controversial actions.
And, of course, it wouldn't be good, old-fashioned Washington gunslinging if she didn't
pin the blame on somebody else. In this case, it was former secretary of state Rex Tillerson and former White House chief of staff
John Kelly --
portrayed by Haley as duplicitous snakes who sought to undermine the president behind his back.
She is a neocon and people arent going to vote for more war. She has no real accomplishments. I think she would make an interesting
candidate. A republican woman is generally not as loopy left wing as the democratic women running just because their women. Personally
Nikki does not represent my values and I wouldnt vote for her.
Well, what does that tell ya about the continuing corruption and ruining of America's elections systems in this evolving, shallower
society and the major 'news' media being 'neo-con' run or influenced as such?
It's ridiculous and I'm being kind, that people with no qualifications are seriously being given money and given media exposure
such as- Buttgieg, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and some others with low IQ's and only want the ego tripping and be one of the 'elites'
all their non-productive lives.
So, Nikki Haley is seriously one of those to lead America?
You now what, people who vote for these clowns, clowns that never worked in their lives, are just plain shallow too. But...the
big donors give these characters money so that they will continue the terrible neo-con foreign policy.
Now, may I ask, as a fella that was born in another nation:
how come I use my real name but Nikki Haley and others do not?
I laugh, as did others, over the years when I say-you would think, that a guy with my name, being a Palestinian/Arab/Moslem heritage,
would be the last one to do that!
Well, how 'bout that question in our great big country America? Dig?
Opportunism of this one is so sky high that it resembles a cartoonish psychopath. Even her name is not real. A pathological liar
who took up barking as a profession because that is what sells these days. Tragedy of America is that snakes move high and up.
If you're an outsider with a political agenda, there's no better country to target than the
United States.
Ever since the Treaty of Westphalia, the idea of territorial sovereignty has been central to how most of us think
about international politics and foreign policy. Although a huge amount of activity occurs across state borders, one
of the chief tasks of any government is to defend the nation's territory and make sure -- to the extent it can -- that
outsiders are not in position to interfere in harmful ways. But for all the effort and expense devoted to keeping
harmful influences out, sometimes countries wind up locking and bolting the windows while leaving the front door wide
open.
Take the mighty United States, for example. It has a vast Department of Homeland Security, whose job is to
defend its borders from international terrorism, illegal migration, drug smuggling, customs violations, and other
dangers. The United States has intelligence agencies monitoring dangerous developments all over the world to keep
them from harming Americans at home. It has spent trillions of dollars on a sophisticated nuclear arsenal designed to
deter a hostile country from attacking the U.S. homeland directly, and it's spent additional hundreds of billions of
dollars pursuing the holy grail of missile defense. Americans now worry about cyberthreats of various kinds,
including the possibility that foreign powers like Russia might be interfering in U.S. elections or sowing division
and false information via social media. And then there's President Donald Trump's obsession with that southern wall,
which he declares is necessary to keep the Republican base riled up -- oops, sorry, I meant to say "is necessary to
protect us from impoverished refugees or other undesirables."
Given all the time, effort, and money the United States devotes to defending the realm against outside intrusions,
it is ironic that the United States may also be the most permeable political system in modern history. More than any
great power's that I can think of, America's political system is wide open to foreign interference in a variety of
legitimate and illegitimate ways. I'm not talking about foreign bots infecting the national mind via social
media -- though that is a worrisome possibility. I'm talking about foreign governments or other interests that use a
variety of familiar avenues to shape U.S. perceptions and persuade the U.S. government to do things that these
outsiders want it to do, even when it might not be in America's broader interest.
Suppose you were a foreign government, or perhaps an opposition movement challenging a foreign regime. Suppose
further that you wanted to get America on your side, or maybe you just wanted to make sure that the United States
didn't use its considerable power against you. What avenues of influence are available to achieve your goal?
Obviously, you can use traditional diplomatic channels. You can tell your official representatives (ministers,
ambassadors, consular officers, envoys, etc.) to meet with the relevant U.S. counterparts and plead your case. While
they're at it, your official representatives could also shmooz with other members of the executive branch and try to
win them over too. There's nothing remotely dodgy here; it's just the usual workings of the normal diplomatic
machinery. And sometimes that's all you'll need, especially when your interests and America's interests really do
coincide.
But you don't have to stop there. For example, you could also take your case up to Capitol Hill. There are 435
representatives and 100 senators, and that's an awful lot of potential points of access. Most of them don't care a
fig about foreign policy (and know even less), but some of them do care and a few of them have real clout. If you can
win over a respected and well-placed representative or senator -- or even just persuade one of their top aides -- there's a
good chance a lot of the other lawmakers will follow their lead. Back in the 1950s, for example, Sen. William
Knowland (R-Calif.) was often derided as the "Senator from Formosa" because of his consistent opposition to communist
China and ardent support for Taiwan. More recently, Beltway denizen Randy Scheunemann was both a paid lobbyist for
the government of Georgia and a top foreign-policy aide to the late Republican Sen. John McCain during his 2008
presidential campaign, which may help explain why the latter was such an ardent defender of Georgia during its 2008
war with Russia.
On top of that, there are plenty of politicians outside Congress who might be enlisted to your cause as well. Over
the past decade or more, for example, Democrats including former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee
chairman Howard Dean and Republicans such as former New York mayor (and Trump apologist) Rudy Giuliani or current
National Security Advisor John Bolton have spoken at rallies sponsored by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) an Iranian
exile group that was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department from 1997 to 2012. The MEK is
despised within Iran for its past collaboration with Iraq's Saddam Hussein, but that didn't prevent it from
recruiting
a wide array of prominent Americans to its side, many of whom received lucrative speakers' fees. See
how easy this is?
But wait, there's more! Foreign governments, corporations, and opposition movements can also hire public relations
firms and professional lobbyists to clean up their public image, lobby politicians directly, and try to get
influential Americans to see them as valuable partners. In his amusing but disturbing
book
Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship, the journalist Ken
Silverstein showed how eager D.C. PR firms were to serve as the paid agents of a ruthless Central Asian dictator,
along with the various ways that savvy spin doctors can scrub a despot's reputation and get them access to
influential people in Washington. The sad news is that Silverstein's saga is far from atypical.
And don't forget the rest of the Blob. In recent years, for example, we've learned that several prominent D.C.
think tanks took
millions
of dollars from foreign governments eager to enhance their visibility, presence, and influence in
Washington. The receiving organizations predictably denied that the money had the slightest influence on what they
did, said, wrote, or believed, but former employees tell a
different story
. And yes, I know: Universities are not immune to temptation either.
The influence of self-interested foreigners increases even more when they can partner with domestic groups that
share their objectives, and that will use their testimony to sell whatever course of action they are trying to
promote. The most notorious recent example of this phenomenon was the infamous Iraqi schemer Ahmed Chalabi, who
joined forces with American neoconservatives to help sell the Iraq War in 2003. Foreign voices like Chalabi's often
exercise disproportionate influence because they are (falsely) perceived as objective experts with extensive local
knowledge, making uninformed, gullible, or mendacious Americans more likely to heed their advice. It is usually a
good idea to listen to what foreign witnesses have to say about conditions far away provided that one never forgets
that they may be telling Americans what they think they want to hear or feeding Americans false information designed
to advance their interests at America's expense.
Notice I haven't said a word about espionage, bribery, or more ordinary forms of corruption, though each can be
another way for foreign powers to advance their aims inside America's borders. After all, when the U.S. president
continues to defy the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and when his son-in-law and White House advisor is still
financially connected to a real estate firm that recently got
bailed out
by a Qatari-backed investment company, one may legitimately wonder whether key foreign-policy
decisions are being influenced by the personal financial interests of the president or his entourage. Trademarks in
China,
anyone
?
The debacle over Syria shows that neither party understands the country's real goals
in the Middle East -- or what it would take to achieve them.
Argument
|
Nick
Danforth
,
Daphne
McCurdy
Last but by no means least, foreign governments (or in some cases opposition groups) can also benefit from support
by Americans with a strong attachment to the countries in question.
Ethnic lobbying
by Greek Americans, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, Indian Americans, Jewish Americans, and
other ethnic groups has been part of the U.S. political scene for more than a century, and foreign governments
understand that such groups can be a valuable asset. As an official Indian government commission
noted
back in 2002, Indian Americans "have effectively mobilised on issues ranging from the nuclear test in 1999
to Kargil and lobbied effectively on other issues of concern to the Indian community. The Indian community in the
United States constitutes an invaluable asset in strengthening India's relationship with the world's only
superpower."
To be clear: Americans holding strong attachments to a foreign country are free to express their views and try to
influence what the government does, regardless of whether their particular attachment is based on ethnicity,
ideology, family connections, or personal experience (such as tourism, a Peace Corps stint, or whatever). That's how
our system of interest group politics works. Nonetheless, India and other countries have also recognized that
Americans with powerful connections are a potent source of political influence, and it would be naive to expect them
not to take advantage of it.
This issue is not one-sided, of course. The permeability of the U.S. political system allows more sources of
information to penetrate U.S. politics and undoubtedly contributes to a broader understanding of complicated
international problems in some cases. U.S. foreign policy would be even less effective if Americans tried to wall the
country off -- sorry, Donald! -- or if they foolishly tried to bar politicians from talking to people from other parts of
the world. So my warnings are not a recommendation for a head-in-the-sand approach to the outside world.
Rather, it is an argument for a more hardheaded, cynical, and realistic approach to the influence that foreigners
invariably seek to exercise over U.S. foreign policy. As long as the U.S. political system is so permeable, it
behooves Americans to treat foreign efforts to shape their thinking with due discretion. It also requires preserving
a sophisticated and independent analytic capacity of their own, so that they can distinguish when they are gaining
useful information and when they are being conned. Americans should always be willing to exchange ideas with
others -- including their adversaries, by the way -- but let's try not to be foolish about it. Foreign policy is not a
philanthropic activity, and even close allies think first and foremost about self-interest, which sometimes means
trying to bamboozle the United States into doing what they want, even at some cost to Americans. If the United States
is spending all this money securing the borders, leaving the national mind unlocked and ripe for manipulation is a
tad short-sighted.
Stephen M. Walt
is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard
University.
This is how filthy neocon fifth column typically works: "The senior U.S. diplomat in Ukraine said Tuesday he was told release of
military aid was contingent on public declarations from Ukraine that it would investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election, contradicting
President Trump’s denial that he used the money as leverage for political gain." Who told him? Some State Dept. apparatchik? Unless
it was directly from Trump it's just a hearsay and evidence of nothing whatsoever.
"It’s absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard
as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly
calls “the most dangerous ideology that has ever
existed,” neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions
with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a
world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies."
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member
or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Taylor notably expressed his concerns in a Sept. 9 text message to US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, saying: " I think
it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign. "
To which Sondland replies " Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump's intentions. The President has been crystal
clear no quid pro quo's of any kind, " adding "I suggest we stop the back and forth by text."
On Tuesday, Mr. Taylor directly addressed accusations surrounding Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Burisma, a Ukrainian
gas company that employed Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., one of the leading Democratic candidates
for president.
He "drew a very direct line in the series of events he described between President Trump's decision to withhold funds and refuse
a meeting with Zelensky unless there was a public pronouncement by him of investigations of Burisma and the so-called 2016 election
conspiracy theories," Ms. Wasserman Schultz said. -
New York Times
As the
Washington
Post notes, Taylor said "By mid-July it was becoming clear to me that the meeting President Zelenskyy wanted was conditioned
on the investigations of Burisma," the Ukrainian gas firm which employed Hunter Biden, "and alleged Ukrainian interference in the
2016 U.S. elections."
He's a Liar. There's no QPQ. We have the transcript of the call. No QPQ. This Frail looking Douche Bag is lying. He's obviously
on the Ukrainian-Take like the rest of them. DNC kept Servers in the Ukraine. Why would they do that??? (wink, wink)
Democrats have called the testimony the most damaging account yet, as Taylor provided an "excruciatingly detailed" opening
statement, according to the
New York Times .
Taylor was a democratic appointee from the Obama administration...shocker. And he was the only one suggesting this was politically
motivated. Sondland corrected him immediately. Nobody else, including the Ukrainians, agree with his "interpretation".
Schiff's bitch said it like he was told to. Nothing to see folks.
Bobzilla. Do not piss him off , 12 minutes ago
link
Wasn't creepy uncle joe doing a quid pro quo when he said no billion $ unless you fir the prosecutor?? Seems the demonrats
have two sets of rules. ******* hypocrites.
That's right, I followed everything Ukraine in detail in 2013, so did my Mom who is 81. She knows more Ukraine than any of
my dirtbag Democrat friends. Hunter Biden corruption old news.
First of all Ukraine had already started to investigate Biden and Burisma in March, second of all the aid was turned over to
them already and there is no resolution to the investigation yet. Third, the Ukrainians have gone on the record saying there was
no pressure. Last, the president has a responsibility to look into corruption even if it was a Demonrat.
Tandem of CIA and the State Department against Trump ?
Notable quotes:
"... Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May, testified that President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani led a campaign to oust her as ambassador over unsubstantiated allegations that she badmouthed the president and was seeking to stop Ukraine from opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. -Axios ..."
"... Last month, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan reportedly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Trump recalled Yovanovitch after Giuliani singled her out for having an anti-Trump agenda. ..."
"... McKinley testified to impeachment investigators that he resigned over the State Department's unwillingness to support foreign service officers caught up in the Ukraine scandal and the apparent "utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives. ..."
On Monday, the House committees conducting impeachment inquiries into President Trump released transcripts of testimony from several
witnesses, including former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and career diplomat and former senior adviser to Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo, Michael McKinley.
Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May, testified that President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani led a campaign to
oust her as ambassador over unsubstantiated allegations that she badmouthed the president and was seeking to stop Ukraine from opening
an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. -Axios
Yovanovitch, who left her position in May, testified that she "assumed" Trump's lack of support for her stemmed from a "partnership"
between Giuliani and Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko .
Last month, Deputy Secretary of State
John Sullivan reportedly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Trump recalled Yovanovitch after Giuliani singled her
out for having an anti-Trump agenda.
McKinley testified to impeachment investigators that he resigned over the State Department's unwillingness to support foreign
service officers caught up in the Ukraine scandal and the apparent "utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic
political objectives." -Axios
"... Ukraine cancels arrest warrant against Zlochevsky and closes the case against him. ..."
"... Ukraine's prosecutor closes the case against Burisma after the company agrees to pay UAH 180 millions of tax liabilities. ..."
"... Burisma announces a donation of between $100,000 and 249,999 to the Atlantic Council ..."
"... U.S. supported National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) closes its case against Zlochevsky ..."
"... Joe Biden brags publicly how he blackmailed Poroshenko into firing Shokin. ..."
"... When put this way it is difficult to not ..."
"... Biden son's case is more than demonstrated right now and, in itself, is not even that impressive: it's just bread & butter patronage corruption, which happens all the time in Western Democracies, at all countries, at all levels. What's really impressive here is the scale, because an entire country was destroyed overnight. I mean, if a man as powerful as a vice-POTUS is willing to destroy entire nations just to give his son a sinecure, then no country is safe. ..."
"... A discussion to be followed by prison terms. ..."
"... "Here is to hoping that both sides continue the battle until the whole treasonous house of cards collapses." ..."
"... I agree with previous posters that the real crime was the 2014 coup, and people like Hillary, Victoria Noland and Biden are the greater criminals. But let's not make this a Dem vs Rep thing. Bush and Cheney lied us into a war in Iraq to steal their oil. Both war parties supported Poroshenko and unending anti-Russian invective. It is from that mindset that they argue over whether conditioning military aid to Ukraine constitutes quid pro quo. ..."
"... We've gone through a lot of news sources to see if we couldn't figure out what is going on in Ukraine as to why the Democrats, led by Jewish congressional representatives Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who leads the impeachment committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) who is on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.), Eliot Engel (D-New York) along with 21 other Jewish Democratic congressional representatives all calling for the impeachment of President Trump because of his phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine. ..."
"... As I wrote in April 2015, there are very strong indications that Foreign Affairs Representative for the EU Catherine Ashton, IMF boss Christine Lagarde and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland provided the united US/EU media front for the Ukraine coup, with Biden, Kerry and John McCain too publicity hungry to remain in the background like they were almost certainly supposed to. https://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/double-double-toil-and-trouble-the-cauldron-of-kiev/ ..."
"... It is like a virtual country that wants to impose a distorted view of itself. Just imagine for a minute if California became independent and all of the sudden the official language is Spanish, all relations at schools, hospitals, state centers, banks, etc. etc. are to be held in Spanish only. Well, that's happening in that new "liberated" for democracy country, the priceless work of Nulands, Bidens et al, plus all the killing, that goes without saying. ..."
"... when a corrupt system lies to itself about its corruption there is some hope. ..."
"... We desperately need a bringer of light. Could it be Tulsi Gabbard? Perhaps, if she has the guts to turn away from Indian and Israeli nationalism and if the people choose to support her truth telling. It's a long shot, but she might be our last hope. ..."
by then-Vice President Joe Biden against the
then-General Prosecutor of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin. Shokin was investigating Mykola Zlochevsky,
the owner of the gas company Burisma Holdings which paid Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden at least
$50,000 per month for being on its board.
We used
that timeline to show that Biden's intervention reached its height shortly after the
prosecutor confiscated Zlochevsky houses.
A new report by John Solomon, based on released State Department emails,
supports the suspicion that Joe Biden and others intervened against Shokin on behalf of
Burisma and on request of his son:
Hunter Biden and his Ukrainian gas firm colleagues had multiple contacts with the Obama State
Department during the 2016 election cycle, including one just a month before Vice President
Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating his son's company for
corruption, newly released memos show.
During that February 2016 contact, a U.S. representative for Burisma Holdings sought a
meeting with Undersecretary of State Catherine A. Novelli to discuss ending the corruption
allegations against the Ukrainian firm where Hunter Biden worked as a board member, according
to memos obtained under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Just three weeks before Burisma's overture to State, Ukrainian authorities raided the home
of the oligarch who owned the gas firm and employed Hunter Biden, a signal the long-running
corruption probe was escalating in the middle of the U.S. presidential election.
Solomon points to the same Interfax-Ukraine report about
the prosecutor's action against Burisma owner Zlochevsky that we have used to make our case
against Biden. Other media have so far
ignored that report and several have falsely claimed that the case against Burisma was
"dormant" when Biden intervened to get the Prosecutor General fired.
Below is an integrated timeline which combines the one
WaPo provided with the new
dates from Solomon's reporting and from additional sources. It is intended as a working
reference that can be updated when new details come to light.
Jul 2010 - Apr 2012 Mykola Zlochevsky heads the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources in Ukraine. Several oil and gas
companies owned by Zlochevsky receive lucrative special drilling permits. Feb 23 2014 The U.S.
supported Maidan 'regime change' coup overthrows the elected government of Ukraine. Mar 2014
The EU blocks funds of several Ukrainian oligarchs including Zlochevsky's.
RFERL
Mar 11 2014 Britain blocks the transfer of $23 million owned by Mykola Zlochevsky companies and
opens an investigation against him.
Guardian
Spring 2014 Burisma hires Devon Archer and Hunter Biden as members of its board.
Archer and Biden together own a firm called Rosemont Seneca Partners.
Guardian
May 2014 Rosemont Seneca Partners starts to receive monthly checks of $166,000
from Burisma.
JS
Nov 24 2014 U.S. government organ RFERL publishes a video report showing one of
Zlochevsky's palaces near Kiev. It notes the Hunter Biden connection.
RFERL
Dec 2 2014 Unknown
Ukrainian prosecutor writes letter saying that Zlochevsky is not under suspicion.
Guardian
Late 2014 Zlochevsky is put on Ukraine's most-wanted list for alleged economic
crimes. RFERL
Jan 21 2015 Referring to the
letter by the unknown Ukrainian prosecutor a British court orders the closure of the British
case against Zlochevsky and to release the $23m.
Guardian
Feb 10 2015 Victor Shokin nominated as Prosecutor General of Ukraine
Interfax
Mar 2015 EU
lifts blocking of funds of several Ukrainian oligarchs including Zlochevsky
RFERL
May 27 2015 Hunter Biden meets then-Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, a former national
security adviser to Joe Biden who was promoted to the No. 2 job at State under then-Secretary
John Kerry.
JS
July 22 2015 Hunter Biden against meets with the State Department No. 2 Tony Blinken.
JS
July 31 2015 Ukraine's prosecutor general issues an arrest warrant against Zlochevsky.
RFERL
Sep 2015
Referring to the closed British case then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt gives a
speech urging Ukrainian prosecutors to do more against corruption.
Guardian
Oct 8 2015 Then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland
testifies in Congress: "The Prosecutor General's Office has to be reinvented as an institution
that serves the citizens of Ukraine, rather than ripping them off."
WaPo
Oct 17 2015 Shokin announces a joint investigation with Britain of the Zlochevsky
case. Interfax
Dec 7 2015 Joe Biden holds a
press conference in Kiev and announces $190 million to "fight corruption in law enforcement and
reform the justice sector."
WaPo
Dec 7/8 2015 According to his then-National Security Advisor Colin Kahl VP Biden
withholds the announcement of a $1 billion loan guarantee Ukraine was supposed to receive.
WaPo
Dec 8 2015 Joe Biden speaks in the Ukrainian parliament and decried the "cancer of
corruption" in the country. "The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform," he
noted.
WaPo
End of 2015 Shokin hands one case on Zlochevsky to the U.S. supported National
Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) Interfax
Jan 20 2016 Biden meets
Poroshenko in Davos, Switzerland, when he also presses "the need to continue to move forward on
Ukraine's anti-corruption agenda," according to a White House statement. Kahl said Biden at
that meeting reinforced the linkage between the loan guarantee and the necessary reforms.
WaPo
Feb 2 2016 Shokin confiscates several large properties and a Rolls-Royce Phantom owned
by Zlochevsky. Interfax
Feb 4 2016 First public
announcement of the confiscation of Zlochevsky's properties.
Interfax
Feb 4 2016 Hunter Biden
starts following Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Twitter.
JS
Feb 12 2016 Biden speaks to Poroshenko by phone. "The two leaders agreed on the
importance of unity among Ukrainian political forces to quickly pass reforms in line with the
commitments in its IMF program, including measures focused on rooting out corruption," the
White House said.
WaPo
Feb 16 2016 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says that he had advised Shokin to
step down. Interfax
Feb 16 2016 Poroshenko
announced he had asked Shokin to resign.
WaPo
Feb 18 2016 Another call
takes place between Biden and Poroshenko.
WaPo
Feb 19 2016 The presidential press secretary Sviatoslav Tseholko says that Shokin's
letter of resignation had arrived at the presidential administration. On the same day,
Poroshenko tables a motion in parliament to dismiss Shokin.
Interfax
Feb 19 2016 Poroshenko
announces he has received Shokin's resignation letter. It still required parliamentary
approval, and Shokin did not go away quietly.
WaPo
Feb 19 2016 Biden speaks separately with Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk.
WaPo
Feb 22/23 2016 Karen Tramontano of Blue Star Strategies, a U.S. representative for
Burisma Holdings, seeks a meeting with then-Undersecretary of State Catherine A. Novelli who
oversees international energy issues to discuss ending the corruption allegations against
Burisma.
JS
Feb 24 2016 A State Department email exchange under the subject line "Burisma" notes
that Karen Tramontano especially mentioned Hunter Biden while she tried to get the meeting.
JS
Mar 1 2016 Tramontano is scheduled to meet Novelli and that State Department officials
are scrambling to get answers ahead of time from the U.S. embassy in Kiev.
JS
Mar 2 2016 Hunter Biden's fellow board member at Burisma, Devon Archer, has a meeting
with Secretary of State John Kerry. Secretary Kerry's stepson, Christopher Heinz, had earlier
been a business partner with both Archer and Hunter Biden at the Rosemont Seneca investment
firm.
JS
Mar 16 2016 Reports emerged
that Shokin was back at work after having been on vacation.
WaPo
Mar 22 2016 Biden and Poroshenko speak again by phone.
WaPo
Mar 29 2016 The Ukrainian parliament, in a 289-to-6 vote, approves Shokin's dismissal.
WaPo
undated "Mr. Zlochevsky's allies were relieved by the dismissal of Mr. Shokin, the
prosecutor whose ouster Mr. Biden had sought, according to people familiar with the situation."
NYT
Mar 31 2016
Poroshenko meets with Biden during a trip to Washington, and Biden emphasizes that the loan
guarantee was contingent on further reform progress beyond Shokin's removal.
WaPo
Apr 14 2016 Biden and Poroshenko have another call. Biden congratulates the president
on his new cabinet and "stressed the urgency of putting in place a new Prosecutor General.
WaPo
May 12 2016 Poroshenko nominated Yuriy Lutsenko as the new prosecutor general.
WaPo
May 13 2016 In a phone call, Biden told Poroshenko he welcomed Lutsenko's appointment.
WaPo
Undated "Mr. Zlochevsky's representatives were pleased by the choice, concluding they
could work with Mr. Lutsenko to resolve the oligarch's legal issues, according to the people
familiar with the situation."
NYT
Jun 2016
Hunter Biden joins Zlochevsky at a Burisma organized event in Morocco.
Guardian
Aug 22 2016 Joe Biden tells the Atlantic how he blackmailed Poroshenko into
firing the "corrupt" Shokin.
Atlantic
Sep 2016Ukraine cancels arrest warrant against Zlochevsky and closes the case against him.Guardian
Jan 12 2017Ukraine's prosecutor closes the case against Burisma after the company
agrees to pay UAH 180 millions of tax liabilities.
Interfax
Jan 19 2017Burisma
announces a donation of between $100,000 and 249,999 to the Atlantic CouncilGuardian
Aug 2017U.S. supported National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) closes
its case against ZlochevskyInterfax
Oct 27 2017 Zlochevsky is estimated to have $535 million in assets, more than double than a year earlier.
Interfax
Jan 23 2018Joe Biden brags publicly how he blackmailed Poroshenko into firing Shokin.CFR
Feb 1 2018 After more than three years abroad Zlochevsky returns to Ukraine.
Interfax
May 14 2019 Ukrainian
Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko says that the Zlochevsky case was reopened "several months
ago". Interfax
Jul 2019 Shokin maintains
his suspicions about the vice president's motives, accusing Biden of promoting his dismissal
for personal reasons. He insists he had "no doubt" Biden wanted him gone in an effort to
protect his son's new employer.
ABCNews
Posted by b on November 5, 2019 at 20:13 UTC |
Permalink
Considering the deep peril the legitimacy of the Outlaw US Empire's electoral system enjoys
as Elizabeth Vos
reports, why put forth the effort to prize then reveal the truth of Ukrainegate or
Russiagate.
The DNC will forward whomever it chooses to face Trump in 2020 -- the court
determined that whomever the people choose through the primary and convention exercises
doesn't matter as DNC can legally negate that choice.
Now I don't mean to belittle the
great amount of effort b's done on those issues, but IMO the message within Vos's essay is
what must be addressed.
When put this way it is difficult to not see the corruption. How is Trump asking
Ukraine's new president to investigate this obvious corruption more of a crime than the
corruption that Trump is asking to be investigated? That will take some mental gymnastics for
the establishment's spinmeisters to explain.
Totally agree, but want to add one more important point: How is Trump's melding his
legitimate and personal interests together in a phone call also more serious than the
original war crime of overthrowing the legal Ukrainian government in an armed coup? Biden's
corruption is obvious upon logical review of the known facts, but along with ignoring this,
the US elites also completely ignore the serious crime of otherthrowing a government
(because, such things are not discussed in polite company, one supposes).
William Gruff | Nov 5 2019 20:45 utc | 2. Says "How is Trump asking Ukraine's new president
to investigate this obvious corruption more of a crime than the crime itself?"
No problem for the TDS afflicted sheeple. Not much different than the position of the
sheeple that the exposure of DNC machinations is the crime rather than the crimes of DNC
themselves.
thanks b... as far as crimes go, biden corrupt is small potatoes and ditto trumps.. the big
enchilada is the dynamic leading up to the coup of feb 23 2014.... that is what needs to be
examined and of course it won't be, as that would highlight just how corrupt the whole usa
system is here... that said, i agree with @1 karolf1 and @ 2 william gruffs comments.. in the
greater scheme of things though - meddling in a foreign country, whether it be an election or
outright war and everything in between is what the usa has excelled at for as long as i can
remember - 60's forward... they are one bullshite country with a bullshite msm completing the
propaganda loop that is on display 24/7... i am not sure what it takes to break it.. your
work certainly helps!
Biden son's case is more than demonstrated right now and, in itself, is not even that
impressive: it's just bread & butter patronage corruption, which happens all the time in
Western Democracies, at all countries, at all levels.
What's really impressive here is the scale, because an entire country was destroyed
overnight. I mean, if a man as powerful as a vice-POTUS is willing to destroy entire nations
just to give his son a sinecure, then no country is safe.
My thinking on the matter is that the Washington establishment is panicking over this
relatively small issue because, like pulling a loose end of yarn on a sweater, they fear the
whole cover story on the Ukraine covert actions will unravel if the Biden corruption
investigation continues.
The obvious explanation, for the way that the democrats have used all their energies to
ensure that the entirety of this sordid scandal is made known to the world is that the John
Birch Society entrists, such as the Clintons, are about ready to withdraw from the Democrats
altogether and so, like good arsonists, they have poured flammable, explosive material
everywhere, confident that a spark will ignite it.
In any case arguing that 'black is white' and 'up is down' is easy compared to convincing the
world that Biden, his son, Kerry and all are not totally corrupt.
According to Wikipedia, Vitaly Yarema was the Ukrainian Prosecutor
General from 19 June 2014 to 10 February 2015. He was nominated to the position by President
Petro Poroshenko.
A list of Prosecutor General title-holders is here at
this link if you need to refer to it. The odd thing though is that while Yarema was Prosecutor General, he was all very much for
bring Mykola Zlochevsky to justice in the London court (depending on who you
read , of course).
The U.K. asked Ukraine to investigate whether Burisma's founder had benefited from criminal
dealings with Sergei Kurchenko, a shadowy billionaire who acted as the alleged frontman for
the money of Viktor Yanukovych and his older son, Oleksander Yanukovych. Prosecutor General
Vityaly Yarema ordered Zlochevsky brought to court, which put him on what Ukrainians call
their "wanted list."
According to that Daily Beast source, Zlochevsky was on the "wanted list" in January
2015.
On reading that Guardian article which you cite, the thought occurred to me that
someone other than Yarema must have written and signed that letter sent from the
Prosecutor General's office to the UK court, which then ordered the case against Zlochevsky
to be dropped. That in itself would be worth an article, as the timeline seems to be a bit
confused: did Zlochevsky go on the "wanted list" before the letter was sent to the UK and the
money released or did he go on the "wanted list" AFTER the UK court dropped the case against
him and ordered the release of the $23 million?
I agree about the Voss article, but there is nothing new in it is there? The DNC 'defence'
has been in the public domain ever since it was first annunciated. As to the absolute scandal
of the disenfranchiement of 100,000 Democrats in Bernie's hometown, it was obvious on the
night that it was this which allowed HC to steal the New York Primary.
The problem was that the Sanders campaign seems to have done nothing about it- it is hard to
believe that, back in 2016, they were thinking of 2020 and running Sanders again.
Were not the White primaries, a DNC favourite at the time, banned on just these grounds that
public money and resources could not be used to disenfranchise large numbers of people?
You are right that the story, which reminds us that it was the democrats who invented dirty
tricks and the NY Democrats, who used to meet at Tammany Hall, were on the cutting edge of
electoral corruption, is one that cannot be too widely discussed. A discussion to be followed
by prison terms.
Once again this Ukraine story shows that its not the government, its not the structure of the
government, its not even the functions of the government, but instead its is the actors
that run the government and the actors that benefit from the government being run by the
actors-in-charge that make a strong case that an independent non governmental auditor is
needed (one paid from a % of the taxes collected but one that answers only to the HR courts).
So the government would not pay the auditors any salaries since the auditors are the
governed. In other words, any qualified voter would be an eligible Auditor. Such people
(auditors) would have the right to audit the-conduct of any person claiming or benefiting
from a government interest.
The independent HR court would hear all charges made by any HR auditor. All persons claiming
or benefiting in some way from a government interest would be subject to the jurisdiction of
the HR courts. The HR court would be empowered to hear a claim of wrongful behavior made
against any government person (elected, appointed, bureaucrats, military and contractors) and
if the court agrees substantive facts exist, then the court would assemble a case, impanel a
jury (from the ranks of the governed) and instruct that jury to hear the charges and to
develop the case, and to decide on the innocence or guilt of the person charged, and if
guilty then to decide on the penalty.
Important here is that the HR rights courts would hear cases against individuals that involve
corruption, fraud, theft, self dealing, negligence and treason.. the HR rights courts are not
government, they are courts made up of judges and juries that are appointed by the governed
people.
Thanks for your reply! Did you note the number of people who committed multiple felonies
that have yet to be prosecuted years now after-the-fact? The lack of justice being applied to
those who broke the law and violated the public trust is also a big issue itself that I
mentioned on the week in review. The bottom line: No democracy + no justice = no legitimacy,
which appears to be the main point. I just finished listening to
this interview with Dr. Hudson where in the last few minutes he says the DNC in 2020 aims
at electing Donald Trump, which seems to be the consensus arrived at by us barflies and with
which I agree. What Hudson doesn't touch on, nor is he asked, is what can be done to overturn
the Reagan Revolution which installed the current policy direction, although we can make a
few assumptions based on his preferences for Sanders and Gabbard and the movement to deal
with student debt relief.
My comment to the article wasn't optimistic and has yet to be posted. I don't really have
anything of substance to add to what b's proving about Biden as I've already called him out
for his Capital Crimes and the usual corruption. Maybe I ought to throw up my arms in disgust
and adopt a Don't Worry; Be Happy/What, Me Worry? escapist attitude and ignore it all for my
remaining days and party like it's 1999. Too bad Styx didn't offer a solution to having Too
Much Time on My Hands aside for that being a calamity for my sanity.
General-Prosecutor Victor Shokin was being pressured -- mostly by the USA -- to prosecute
corruption more effectively.
In response to such pressure, Shokin initiated an investigation of Mykola Zlochevsky on
October 17, 2015. It seems that Britain had established an investigation of Zlochevsky in
2014, had suspended that investigation on January 21, 2015, but then resumed that
investigation in October 2015. Shokin joined that British investigation on October 17,
2015.
It seems further that the USA eventually took unknown actions to prevent that joint
British-Ukrainian investigation of Zlochevsky.
On December 7-8, 2015, Vice President Biden indicated that a large US grant of aid money
would be conditional. However, the conditions seem to be secret.
In this situation, before the end of December 2015, General-Prosecutor Shokin transfered
the Zlochevsky investigation to the so-called National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine
(NABU), which essentially was a creature of the US Government.
The situation seemed to remain quiet through the month of January 2016. On February 2,
however, Shokin seized some of Zlochevsky's property, even though the NABU was supposed to be
managing the Zlochevsky case.
Sholin's seizure of Zlochevsky's property on February 2 sparked a US-Ukraine crisis. The
US (i.e. the Bidens) felt it had been double-crossed by Shokin.
Although the property seizure occurred on February 2, it was not announced publicly until
February 4. On that same day, Hunter Biden began following the Twitter account of US Deputy
Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who managed Ukrainian affairs. (I wonder if Blinken
communicated in code to Hunter Biden by means of Twitter.)
On February 12, Vice President Joe Biden talked with Ukrainian President Poroshenko by
telephone and ordered the firing of Shokin. The firing essentially happened later that same
day.
Joe Biden's story about waiting for an airplane due to take off in six hours might be
false or might refer to an airplane taking off in some country other than Ukraine.
Several (numerous?) topics so qualify. Either they're scarcely hinted at, or the lies and
misdirections prevail. Applause for anyone brave enough to name the first three forbidden
items that come to mind.
Are vlochevsky, kolomoisky, and pinchbuk partners in crime?
$1.8 billion in imf loans "disappeared" in koilomoiski's
privat bank. After that privat bank was nationalized and kolomoiski
fled to the us. Was this how vlochevsky's asets doubled? Coincidentally
the chinese firm investment in rosemont seneca was over $1 billion. Some
have speculated that the bidens could have become billionaires from this.
Was the chinese firm a pass through for the embezzled $1.8 billion imf loan?
Come on' folks, there are no Dems, there are no Repubs, there are no Independants ,only reps
who take the $ offered by the wealthy. In the U$A today, the party of $ owns the system. Case
closed. We get who they want. The rules have been changed to favor them. Vote if you want,
it's good therapy,but, the system is rigged.
The latest report from journalist John Solomon reveals that the Obama State Department saw
Joe and Hunter Biden's brewing Burisma scandal as a "Biden problem" during the 2016 US
election, and specificialy coached now-recalled US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch on how
to answer awkward questions about it. [.]
Memos newly released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the
Southeastern Legal Foundation on my behalf detail how State officials in June 2016 worked
to prepare the new U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to handle a question
about "Burisma and Hunter Biden."
In multiple drafts of a question-and-answer memo prepared for Yovanovitch's Senate
confirmation hearing, the department's Ukraine experts urged the incoming ambassador to
stick to a simple answer.
"Do you have any comment on Hunter Biden, the Vice President's son, serving on the board
of Burisma, a major Ukrainian Gas Company?," the draft Q&A asked.
The recommended answer for Yovanovitch: "For questions on Hunter Biden's role in Burisma, I
would refer you to Vice President Biden's office."[.]
The Media has created a story whose purpose it is to keep the public focused on some small
details of goings-on in Ukraine mostly since 2014 and NOT the fact that this is a clear
example of a US backed coup which destabilized the country enough to allow the US Corporate
jackals in to strip off the booty. THAT is what all the participants in this scheme want to
keep secret. Why? Because the American citizens benefit not one bit from any of this. Change
will require something major to trigger it.
I agree with previous posters that the real crime was the 2014 coup, and people like Hillary,
Victoria Noland and Biden are the greater criminals. But let's not make this a Dem vs Rep
thing. Bush and Cheney lied us into a war in Iraq to steal their oil. Both war parties
supported Poroshenko and unending anti-Russian invective. It is from that mindset that they
argue over whether conditioning military aid to Ukraine constitutes quid pro quo.
In the meantime I wonder if Zelensky, who was elected over Porky with an end the war
platform, is thinking "Why do these idiots think they can negotiate by offering me something
I absolutely do not want?"
"Remember when voters in 2016 were like 'can we please have even one major candidate who
doesn't have something seriously wrong with them?', and the entire US political system was
all 'LOL nope,' and then nobody burned that system to the ground and flushed it down the
toilet? Good times."
Except IMO there were thousands of people willing and ready to burn down the system just
as there are now--that's what ought to happen to things that are corrupt: they get exposed as
illegitimate and get torched by the public is a fit of righteous outrage and exact justice
collectively.
But that didn't happen within the Outlaw US Empire in 2016, nor did it happen when Obama
backstabbed millions, broke the law he was supposed to enforce and gave billions to
fraudulent banksters. Most all political riots--not police riots--during my life were against
racism and its associated injustices long ongoing. Within the Outlaw US Empire historically,
corruption in politics is as traditional as apple pie, meaning the people are mostly inured
to its occurrence. As with customary bribery in some nations, political corruption is seen as
a normal happening usually of little consequence until something morally repulsive occurs to
raise awareness again. The problem of course is that corruption is always morally
repulsive. Perhaps such leniency says more about a nation's public than anything else--tons
of corruption's tolerated just as the killing of millions of innocents overseas is
tolerated/abided/excused. Guess it's time for some Victory Gin as there's not much more to
say.
I think you've left out the Vietnam era, karlof1 - there were certainly riots against that
war plus there was l968 in Chicago Democratic Convention. I'd call both of those political.
And I would call the Occupy movement at least anti-political in its focus on the banksters.
Plus protests against the invasion of Iraq. Those two latter 'thrusts' by the citizenry were
indeed handled oppressively and not covered adequately or at all in the case of protests
against the invasion and/or other political events. Just because they weren't covered doesn't
mean they didn't happen or weren't part of the general malaise. Trump got elected on that
premise. And just because you don't see it on TV doesn't mean the general public isn't
totally unhappy with the way things are.
Since the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the international energy group
Burisma has been providing systematic and comprehensive assistance to the defenders of the
Fatherland. Among the military, whom the Burisma Group has supported since 2014, is the Poltava
Special Purpose Police Battalion, which has repeatedly served in the war zone in the
Donbass. from one of their press releases -
being the good nazis biden requested of them..
AFAIK, Burisma supported regaining Donbas because that's where the fracking opportunity
is.
Who else was an ardent supporter of regaining the Donbas? Kolomoyskyi, who is also
militantly pro-Israel, and is rumored to be the real owner (or part owner?) of
Burisma.
Biden is also a Zionist
and what his son made is peanuts compared to what Biden has/could make if he plays along.
Obama is said to have made $70 million after leaving the Presidency and has just bought a $15
million home. And where else is a fracking opportunity sought by a corrupt company that is connected to
corrupt politicians? Golan Heights and Genie Energy..
I liked Dr. Hudson's remarks concerning that DNC's quest for a candidate most sure to lose
to Trump. This of course accounts for their hysterical fear of Tulsi Gabbard, as she is the
only one who would be certain to beat him! The DNC will probably be willing, this time
around, to let Bernie sheepdog on into the general election if that's what it takes to stop
Tulsi. It's very sad to see the would be left media falling in line with the
Jacobin/Intercept/Omidyar psyops regime. The one slim hope is that actual voters not
controlled by any of the usual gatekeepers might overwhelm the DNC rigging machine in early
primaries. I'm encouraged whenever I'm out on the real street I frequently overhear people
mentioning her name and passersby chime in. Don't hear a thing about any of the mediocrities
supported by the DNC and the press.
From the Chris Hedges article you linked to: "The deep state committed the greatest
strategic blunder in American history when it invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq."
The sentence quoted is an example of the murky self-assured but dubious 'wordscape' that
we are so inundated by. This is not to imply that the author doesn't make many sensible
points in this particular article, or to dismiss his work more generally. In my opinion he
does lots of good work.
Note the use of the cryptic abstraction "deep state" to describe the 'perpetrator' of the
'invasions and occupations'.
Note the use of the abstract term "greatest" to describe the "strategic blunder". One can
declare without deserving even a raised eyebrow 'that was the greatest day of my life!' or
that was greatest number of apples I've ever eaten at one sitting, but never again!" But how
does one calibrate those two wars of aggression as the "greatest" whatever?
Note that these particlular wars of aggression, the supreme crime, and both not
coincidentally based on lies upon lies, have been verbally downgraded to "invasions". As in,
say, the Normandy invasion, or an invasion of grasshoppers? And all the horrors that followed
the wars of aggression are condensed by the summary word "occupation". Many of us have
occupations.
And for who were these "strategic blunders?" From the perspective of the MIC, and PNAC,
and 'strategic positioning' re Earthly heroin flows, say, perhaps these were "strategic
blessings". Or even diabolically cunning?
The point I'm making here is that even in the 'good articles', even in 'noble efforts' its
pretty hard not to slip into, what? Let's call it, Empire Speak. Or is that Swamp Speak?
@ Robert Snefjella with the analysis of the wording of the Chris Hedges article that ben
linked to
Nice work but I want to add that the real reason for going after Iraq and Afghanistan was
because they were not yet owned and subservient to the Western private banking cult.
Like Libya before Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton served her masters.
@ 42 Rboert
Personally, I don't care to dissect Hedges word choices. Those invasion were the greatest
mistake, because they broke the US public image, its military, and its economy. No, not
directly, but those overextensions were the watershed moments. While it has been quite
lucrative for certain parties since then, it has been a huge quagmire and literal sand in the
military's gears. It also destroyed the invincible image of the US military. Trillions of
dollars, thousands of troops, millions of civilians and yet we are all negotiating to stay in
Afghanistan against troops with tire scandals, no air force, and very limited mechanization.
@ 43 psycho I agree that the banking, and gold in particular, were reason for destroying
the countries. Along with human trafficking, Sumerian artifacts, takfiri recruitment,
etc.
Exactly, JR. The very limited amount of reporting on that quickly led to Jewish oligarchs
and that has been studiously ignored since. Since then it has been an endless shit show of
Biden's corruption and how the US foreign policy is handled with everyone trying to thinly
slice the corruption of DC so as to only smear the other side.
There are some
sites that think about these things.
We've gone through a lot of news sources to see if we couldn't figure out what is going on
in Ukraine as to why the Democrats, led by Jewish congressional representatives Adam Schiff
(D-Calif.) who leads the impeachment committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) who is on the
Judiciary Committee, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.), Eliot
Engel (D-New York) along with 21 other Jewish Democratic congressional representatives all
calling for the impeachment of President Trump because of his phone call with President
Zelensky of Ukraine.
This site seems devoted to looking for links of this nature, but is often sketchy IMO. Where is O when you need an obsessive analysis.
So if the Biden's and Rosemont Seneca were in Ukraine stealing IMF funds,
what were they stealing in China?
Do they have no shame? Or is that Whitey Bulger's clan ethics at play.
Is all currency ok as long as its stolen?
How much bitcoin can they steal and convert or is that story yet to be told?
That is the oldest trick in the book: owning a company as a subsidiary of another company
that you own. The wonder is that Kolomoisky didn't insert another layer of another subsidiary
between Privat Group and Burisma Holdings to cover his tracks even more.
The largest private gas producer in Ukraine is establishing relations with the new US
administration.
The Atlantic Council and the Burisma Group, Ukraine's largest independent gas producer,
have signed a partnership agreement. The Atlantic Council, with the support of Burisma,
will develop transatlantic relations programs with a focus on energy security in Europe and
the world, the company said in an official press release.
For the Burisma Group, this is a new stage in the development of cooperation between the
United States and European countries together with such an influential world institution as
the Atlantic Council.
Relations with Ukraine and future programs with the Burisma Group will be overseen by an
authoritative diplomat, US Ambassador to Ukraine (2003-2006) and Director of the Dinu
Patriciu Eurasia Center (structure under the Atlantic Council) John Herbst.
"Support and cooperation with Burisma will allow us to expand our program development
activities in Ukraine and create new platforms for discussing important and relevant
issues," said John Herbst.
It is symbolic that the collaboration between the Atlantic Council and the Burisma Group
coincided with the launch of the new US Presidential Administration Donald Trump. According
to experts, this will allow for more efficient implementation of new joint projects in the
energy sector and gain support from one of the most respected and influential organizations
in the United States. The conclusion of an agreement between Burisma and the Atlantic
Council and the full implementation of joint projects became possible after all charges
against Burisma Group and its owner Nikolai Zlochevsky were dropped.
According to Mykola Zlochevsky, president of the Burisma Group, the Atlantic Council
plays a key role in Ukraine in building transatlantic relations, democracy and energy
security. "Ambassador Herbst has been and continues to be the lawyer of Ukraine, and
Burisma is pleased to be able to support the work of the ambassador and the Atlantic
Council," said Nikolai Zlochevsky.
The Atlantic Council (US Atlantic Council) is the largest American non-governmental
analytical center for international relations of the Atlantic community, headquartered in
Washington. It is one of the most influential non-governmental organizations in the United
States, operates ten regional centers and functional programs that deal with issues of
international security and global economic development.
The Atlantic Council and Burisma Holdings working together!
As I wrote in April 2015, there are very strong indications that Foreign Affairs
Representative for the EU Catherine Ashton, IMF boss Christine Lagarde and Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland provided the united
US/EU media front for the Ukraine coup, with Biden, Kerry and John McCain too publicity
hungry to remain in the background like they were almost certainly supposed to.
https://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/double-double-toil-and-trouble-the-cauldron-of-kiev/
Thank you for that link. Rolling up the naked capitalism story is
this rather more profound analysis from the Saker. It is also linked to in the abel
danger site I referenced earlier.
Something that really shocks me about Ukraine is like the video about the kitsch palace of
the Zlochevsky guy, the neighbors on the other side of the river complain about not being
able to swim across anymore, as they used to do, but the whole interview is in
Russian¡¡¡¡, I mean, it is supossed to be Kiev, not the east and
everybody speaks in a language that does not have official status anymore.
It is like a
virtual country that wants to impose a distorted view of itself. Just imagine for a minute if
California became independent and all of the sudden the official language is Spanish, all
relations at schools, hospitals, state centers, banks, etc. etc. are to be held in Spanish
only. Well, that's happening in that new "liberated" for democracy country, the priceless
work of Nulands, Bidens et al, plus all the killing, that goes without saying.
The same case happens in the UK (with Corbyn). They want the policies, but they don't want
"socialism".
This is the great contradiction of the USA and other First World countries: they know they
need to reform, but they don't want to give up the good things that capitalist imperialism
gave them. Therefore, they want the best of both worlds.
Great, true comment, vk. The people of America are willing participants in the American
Dream, aka The American Death Cult. Let's give the American People full credit for the horror
show they've inflicted on the world. They willfully chose this and continue to choose this
and that is why they embrace horrific figures like Trump, Hillary, Biden, etc..
But the American People do have a better angel. They also want community. They want to see
themselves as individually and collectively good. They want to believe that they are on the
light side of the Force, not the dark side of the Force, so to speak. How it plays out is
that they want the elites to tell them lies, sweet little lies...
For me the turning point of America, at least of the America that I've seen, was the Iraq
War. The Libya War can be seen as a second stage of that war; same with the Syria War. It's
not that such acts of global mayhem have been worse than what America has done before. It's
that the American System has embraced the evil more knowingly than ever before, it seems to
me. No one can credibly claim that they didn't see the US knowingly lie its way into war vs.
Iraq. No one can credibly call that a just war.
when a corrupt system lies to itself about its corruption there is some hope. When it
knows it is corrupt and embraces this anyway then there is no hope. The Ukraine controversey
we are seeing play its way out now typifies and illustrates this state of affairs. What Trump
did was brutal and corrupt, yet his fans continue to defend him and even to defend this. What
Biden did was far far more brutal and corrupt, yet the Dems continue to defend him and what
he did. Biden helped plunge a country into chaos and then feasted on the corpse. The Ukraine
controversey is a journey into the heart of our darkness.
We desperately need a bringer of light. Could it be Tulsi Gabbard? Perhaps, if she has the
guts to turn away from Indian and Israeli nationalism and if the people choose to support her
truth telling. It's a long shot, but she might be our last hope.
As for Biden? Well I suppose he's a placeholder for Hillary Clinton.
The USA is a capitalist society. However, as Marx demonstrated in his opus, the
development of capitalism tends to socialism. Socialism cannot be born out of
manorialism or antiquity, but only from capitalism.
The American elite knows this, so they came up with a very interesting strategy: they keep
the rest of the world down, in a permanent state of destruction and rebuild (groundhog day
mode); and, at home, they try to preserve a minimum of industrial dynamism and life quality
for their masses with "domesticated and restricted socialism". FDR did it during 1938-1944
and it worked; after the end of Bretton Woods and the establishment of the Dollar Standard,
they adopted restricted socialism in a specific sector -- the Military -- in order to
maintain its industrial and innovation capacity going in face of its inexorable tendency of
"financialization".
Although the Pentagon by itself is socialist, the USA remains capitalist because of the
way the Pentagon relates to the rest of the nation: it takes the infinite pool of taxpayer
money (so the profit motivation is removed) but they give it back to private contractors, who
are capitalist and thus have the profit motivation. Taxpayer money is then converted into
money-capital through a socialist institution.
However, this comes at a price for the capitalists: as profits go down over time (as Marx
also scientifically demonstrated), the share of the Pentagon on the overall American economy
rises, thus rising the "socialist piece of the pie". Heterodox estimates put the Pentagon
social architecture at 10% of the American economy; most still put it at around 5%, and some
of then put it at an insignificant 3%. If think that, if you take out the ficitious part of
the capitalist economy (i.e. Wall St.), the figures are much closer to the 10%, probably even
more.
@56 -- "... it [Pentagon] takes the infinite pool of taxpayer money (so the profit motivation
is removed) but they give it back to private contractors, who are capitalist and thus have
the profit motivation. Taxpayer money is then converted into money-capital through a
socialist institution."
State-base 'capitalism' just like China!
The only additional point is that a sizable % of the socialist $$$'s (more Fed than
taxpayer these days) also flow from said funds into lobbying and then into the pockets of the
politician du jour. The corrupt Clinton's were not the exception -- rather the rule. Was this
systemic corruption not referred to previously as the military-industrial-congressional
complex?
No, it would be China if the contractors themselves were owned by the Government.
China is pretty much the polar opposite of the USA: it has a socialist system with some
restricted pockets of capitalism. Capitalism there is restricted to the special economic
zones, and private enterprise is restricted to non-strategic sectors.
That's why China's tax rates are actually lowering, not rising.
@2 If you recall the media explained that Joe Biden's corruption is really Joe Biden fighting
corruption. They create their own reality. We are just supposed to swallow it. The CFR video
doesn't matter. Just like Victoria Nuland's call. Snowden's revelations, or the volumes of
wikileaks documents proving the enormity of US self described "elite" corruption
I'd written a long detailed reply that I was about to post when my computer locked-up and
I lost my entire effort, and that ended my contributions yesterday. Of the many observations
I made, this IMO was the most important--When MLK was murdered, blacks nationwide rioted; but
when JFK and RFK were murdered, nothing of the sort occurred. I'll also reinforce the notion
of people rioting as the vast majority of what's deemed a riot by Media was in fact a Police
Riot as they run amok amidst peaceful protesters just as they would do against striking
workers, of which there's a long bloody history of massacres.
"... Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral." ..."
"... Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with " Obama rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012. ..."
No, the really intense backlash against Warren and progressive Democrats in general is
coming from
Wall Street . And while that opposition partly reflects self-interest, Wall Street's Warren
hatred has a level of virulence, sometimes crossing into hysteria, that goes beyond normal
political calculation.
What's behind that virulence?
First, let's talk about the rational reasons Wall Street is worried about Warren. She is, of
course, calling for major tax increases on the very wealthy, those with wealth exceeding $50
million, and the financial industry is strongly represented in that elite club. And since
raising taxes on the wealthy is highly popular , it's an
idea a progressive president might actually be able to turn into real policy.
Warren is also a big believer in stricter financial regulation; the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, which was highly effective until the Trump administration set about gutting
it, was her brainchild.
So if you are a Wall Street billionaire, rational self-interest might well induce you to
oppose Warren. Neoliberal_rationality/ does not, however, explain why a money manager like Leon Cooperman
-- who just two years ago
settled a suit over insider trading for $5 million, although without admitting wrongdoing
-- would circulate an embarrassing, self-pitying open letter
denouncing Warren for her failure to appreciate all the wonderful things billionaires like
him do for society.
Nor does it explain why Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren
adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of
economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral."
The real tell here, I think, is that much of the Wall Street vitriol now being directed at
Warren was previously directed at, of all people, President Barack Obama.
Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating
financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He
and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared
with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that
financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And
the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with "
Obama
rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012.
I wonder, by the way, if this history helps explain an odd aspect of fund-raising in the
current primary campaign. It's not surprising that Warren is getting very little money from the
financial sector. It is, however, surprising that the top recipient isn't Joe Biden but
Pete
Buttigieg , who's running a fairly distant
fourth in the polls. Is Biden suffering from the lingering effects of that old-time Obama
rage?
In any case, the point is that Wall Street billionaires, even more than billionaires in
general, seem to be snowflakes, emotionally unable to handle criticism.
I'm not sure why that should be the case, but it may be that in their hearts they suspect
that the critics have a point.
What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy? Unlike the robber barons
of yore, today's Wall Street tycoons don't build anything tangible. They don't even direct
money to the people who actually are building the industries of the future. The vast expansion
of credit in America after around 1980 basically involved a surge in
consumer debt rather than new money for business investment.
Moreover, there is growing evidence that when the financial sector gets too big it actually
acts as a drag on the economy -- and America is well past that point .
Now, human nature being what it is, people who secretly wonder whether they really deserve
their wealth get especially angry when others express these doubts publicly. So it's not
surprising that people who couldn't handle Obama's mild, polite criticism are completely losing
it over Warren.
What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies
would have dire effects. Such claims don't reflect deep economic wisdom; to a large extent
they're coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted
appropriately. The Times is committed to publishing
a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of
our articles. Here are some tips
. And here's our email: [email protected]
.
If you're an outsider with a political agenda, there's no better country to target than the
United States.
Ever since the Treaty of Westphalia, the idea of territorial sovereignty has been central to how most of us think
about international politics and foreign policy. Although a huge amount of activity occurs across state borders, one
of the chief tasks of any government is to defend the nation's territory and make sure -- to the extent it can -- that
outsiders are not in position to interfere in harmful ways. But for all the effort and expense devoted to keeping
harmful influences out, sometimes countries wind up locking and bolting the windows while leaving the front door wide
open.
Take the mighty United States, for example. It has a vast Department of Homeland Security, whose job is to
defend its borders from international terrorism, illegal migration, drug smuggling, customs violations, and other
dangers. The United States has intelligence agencies monitoring dangerous developments all over the world to keep
them from harming Americans at home. It has spent trillions of dollars on a sophisticated nuclear arsenal designed to
deter a hostile country from attacking the U.S. homeland directly, and it's spent additional hundreds of billions of
dollars pursuing the holy grail of missile defense. Americans now worry about cyberthreats of various kinds,
including the possibility that foreign powers like Russia might be interfering in U.S. elections or sowing division
and false information via social media. And then there's President Donald Trump's obsession with that southern wall,
which he declares is necessary to keep the Republican base riled up -- oops, sorry, I meant to say "is necessary to
protect us from impoverished refugees or other undesirables."
Given all the time, effort, and money the United States devotes to defending the realm against outside intrusions,
it is ironic that the United States may also be the most permeable political system in modern history. More than any
great power's that I can think of, America's political system is wide open to foreign interference in a variety of
legitimate and illegitimate ways. I'm not talking about foreign bots infecting the national mind via social
media -- though that is a worrisome possibility. I'm talking about foreign governments or other interests that use a
variety of familiar avenues to shape U.S. perceptions and persuade the U.S. government to do things that these
outsiders want it to do, even when it might not be in America's broader interest.
Suppose you were a foreign government, or perhaps an opposition movement challenging a foreign regime. Suppose
further that you wanted to get America on your side, or maybe you just wanted to make sure that the United States
didn't use its considerable power against you. What avenues of influence are available to achieve your goal?
Obviously, you can use traditional diplomatic channels. You can tell your official representatives (ministers,
ambassadors, consular officers, envoys, etc.) to meet with the relevant U.S. counterparts and plead your case. While
they're at it, your official representatives could also shmooz with other members of the executive branch and try to
win them over too. There's nothing remotely dodgy here; it's just the usual workings of the normal diplomatic
machinery. And sometimes that's all you'll need, especially when your interests and America's interests really do
coincide.
But you don't have to stop there. For example, you could also take your case up to Capitol Hill. There are 435
representatives and 100 senators, and that's an awful lot of potential points of access. Most of them don't care a
fig about foreign policy (and know even less), but some of them do care and a few of them have real clout. If you can
win over a respected and well-placed representative or senator -- or even just persuade one of their top aides -- there's a
good chance a lot of the other lawmakers will follow their lead. Back in the 1950s, for example, Sen. William
Knowland (R-Calif.) was often derided as the "Senator from Formosa" because of his consistent opposition to communist
China and ardent support for Taiwan. More recently, Beltway denizen Randy Scheunemann was both a paid lobbyist for
the government of Georgia and a top foreign-policy aide to the late Republican Sen. John McCain during his 2008
presidential campaign, which may help explain why the latter was such an ardent defender of Georgia during its 2008
war with Russia.
On top of that, there are plenty of politicians outside Congress who might be enlisted to your cause as well. Over
the past decade or more, for example, Democrats including former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee
chairman Howard Dean and Republicans such as former New York mayor (and Trump apologist) Rudy Giuliani or current
National Security Advisor John Bolton have spoken at rallies sponsored by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) an Iranian
exile group that was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department from 1997 to 2012. The MEK is
despised within Iran for its past collaboration with Iraq's Saddam Hussein, but that didn't prevent it from
recruiting
a wide array of prominent Americans to its side, many of whom received lucrative speakers' fees. See
how easy this is?
But wait, there's more! Foreign governments, corporations, and opposition movements can also hire public relations
firms and professional lobbyists to clean up their public image, lobby politicians directly, and try to get
influential Americans to see them as valuable partners. In his amusing but disturbing
book
Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship, the journalist Ken
Silverstein showed how eager D.C. PR firms were to serve as the paid agents of a ruthless Central Asian dictator,
along with the various ways that savvy spin doctors can scrub a despot's reputation and get them access to
influential people in Washington. The sad news is that Silverstein's saga is far from atypical.
And don't forget the rest of the Blob. In recent years, for example, we've learned that several prominent D.C.
think tanks took
millions
of dollars from foreign governments eager to enhance their visibility, presence, and influence in
Washington. The receiving organizations predictably denied that the money had the slightest influence on what they
did, said, wrote, or believed, but former employees tell a
different story
. And yes, I know: Universities are not immune to temptation either.
The influence of self-interested foreigners increases even more when they can partner with domestic groups that
share their objectives, and that will use their testimony to sell whatever course of action they are trying to
promote. The most notorious recent example of this phenomenon was the infamous Iraqi schemer Ahmed Chalabi, who
joined forces with American neoconservatives to help sell the Iraq War in 2003. Foreign voices like Chalabi's often
exercise disproportionate influence because they are (falsely) perceived as objective experts with extensive local
knowledge, making uninformed, gullible, or mendacious Americans more likely to heed their advice. It is usually a
good idea to listen to what foreign witnesses have to say about conditions far away provided that one never forgets
that they may be telling Americans what they think they want to hear or feeding Americans false information designed
to advance their interests at America's expense.
Notice I haven't said a word about espionage, bribery, or more ordinary forms of corruption, though each can be
another way for foreign powers to advance their aims inside America's borders. After all, when the U.S. president
continues to defy the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and when his son-in-law and White House advisor is still
financially connected to a real estate firm that recently got
bailed out
by a Qatari-backed investment company, one may legitimately wonder whether key foreign-policy
decisions are being influenced by the personal financial interests of the president or his entourage. Trademarks in
China,
anyone
?
The debacle over Syria shows that neither party understands the country's real goals
in the Middle East -- or what it would take to achieve them.
Argument
|
Nick
Danforth
,
Daphne
McCurdy
Last but by no means least, foreign governments (or in some cases opposition groups) can also benefit from support
by Americans with a strong attachment to the countries in question.
Ethnic lobbying
by Greek Americans, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, Indian Americans, Jewish Americans, and
other ethnic groups has been part of the U.S. political scene for more than a century, and foreign governments
understand that such groups can be a valuable asset. As an official Indian government commission
noted
back in 2002, Indian Americans "have effectively mobilised on issues ranging from the nuclear test in 1999
to Kargil and lobbied effectively on other issues of concern to the Indian community. The Indian community in the
United States constitutes an invaluable asset in strengthening India's relationship with the world's only
superpower."
To be clear: Americans holding strong attachments to a foreign country are free to express their views and try to
influence what the government does, regardless of whether their particular attachment is based on ethnicity,
ideology, family connections, or personal experience (such as tourism, a Peace Corps stint, or whatever). That's how
our system of interest group politics works. Nonetheless, India and other countries have also recognized that
Americans with powerful connections are a potent source of political influence, and it would be naive to expect them
not to take advantage of it.
This issue is not one-sided, of course. The permeability of the U.S. political system allows more sources of
information to penetrate U.S. politics and undoubtedly contributes to a broader understanding of complicated
international problems in some cases. U.S. foreign policy would be even less effective if Americans tried to wall the
country off -- sorry, Donald! -- or if they foolishly tried to bar politicians from talking to people from other parts of
the world. So my warnings are not a recommendation for a head-in-the-sand approach to the outside world.
Rather, it is an argument for a more hardheaded, cynical, and realistic approach to the influence that foreigners
invariably seek to exercise over U.S. foreign policy. As long as the U.S. political system is so permeable, it
behooves Americans to treat foreign efforts to shape their thinking with due discretion. It also requires preserving
a sophisticated and independent analytic capacity of their own, so that they can distinguish when they are gaining
useful information and when they are being conned. Americans should always be willing to exchange ideas with
others -- including their adversaries, by the way -- but let's try not to be foolish about it. Foreign policy is not a
philanthropic activity, and even close allies think first and foremost about self-interest, which sometimes means
trying to bamboozle the United States into doing what they want, even at some cost to Americans. If the United States
is spending all this money securing the borders, leaving the national mind unlocked and ripe for manipulation is a
tad short-sighted.
Stephen M. Walt
is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard
University.
"... So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it). ..."
"... Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"). ..."
"to a one they are turf-conscious careerists who think they set U.S. foreign policy and
resent the president for intruding upon them. It is increasingly evident that Trump's true
offense is proposing to renovate a foreign policy framework that has been more or less
untouched for 75 years (and is in dire need of renovation)."
This may be even worse than Lawrence depicts. It is clear that Vindman in his opening
remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been
following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama,
Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite constitutionally these
people at best only having advisory roles to the President (and constitutionally the
President can ask for their opinions in writing; CYA even back then!) The Ukrainian Americans
involved in the coup (national security from Vindman's perspective) are deeply committed
since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits with no interference from Trump. And the
Democrats/ Ukraine-Americans "running the show" are probably much more corrupt than
Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.
I have started Oliver Bullough's "Money Land" and was aghast at the luxury items
Yanukovich had stolen through corruption and accumulated at his many properties. Surely with
so much money going to corrupt Yanukovich and his henchmen, the coup would have been a
blessing for the Ukrainian people! Right? I was shocked to find that after the overthrow of
Yanukovich in 2014, the median per capita household income in Ukraine, which had risen
steadily from $2032 in 2010 to $2601 in 2013, had dropped over 50% to $1110 to $1135 in 2015
and 2016, and has only risen to $1694 in 2018 (ceicdata.com).
So the Ukrainians traded their
corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt
neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their
pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with
it).
Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such
bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in
loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in
skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down
(American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman").
"Meet the witnesses: Diplomats start off impeachment hearings" [Associated Press].
"Diplomats and career government officials, they're little known outside professional circles,
but they're about to become household names testifying in the House impeachment inquiry . The witnesses will
tell House investigators -- and Americans tuning into the live public hearings -- what they
know about President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine First up will be William Taylor, the
charge d'affaires in Ukraine, and George Kent, the deputy Assistant Secretary in the European
and Eurasian Bureau, both testifying on Wednesday." • You can read the full article for
the bios. First, William Taylor:
"Op-Ed in Novoye Vremya by CDA Taylor: Ukraine's Committed Partner" [ U.S.
Embassy in Ukraine ]. From November 10, 2019, the penultimate paragraph. I've helpfully
underlined the dogwhistles:
But as everyone who promotes democracy knows, strengthening and protecting democratic
values is a constant process, requiring persistence and steady work by both officials and
ordinary citizens. As in all democracies, including the United States, work
remains in Ukraine, especially to strengthen rule of law and to hold
accountable those who try to subvert Ukraine's structures to serve their personal aims,
rather than the nation's interests .
It's kind of Taylor to let the Ukrainians know who's really in charge of foreign policy,
isn't it? Now, Kent–
"George Kent Opening Statement At Impeachment Hearing: Concerned About
"Politically-Motivated Investigations" [
RealClearPolitics ]. From the full text as prepare for delivery:
Ukraine's popular Revolution of Dignity in 2014 forced a corrupt pro-Russian leadership to
flee to Moscow.
By analogy, the American colonies may not have prevailed against British
imperial might without help from transatlantic friends after 1776. In an echo of
Lafayette's organized assistance to General George Washington's army and Admiral John Paul
Jones' navy , Congress has generously appropriated over $1.5 billion over the past five
years in desperately needed train and equip security assistance to Ukraine.
Similar to von Steuben training colonials at Valley Forge, U.S. and NATO allied
trainers develop the skills of Ukrainian units at Yavoriv near the Polish border, and
elsewhere.
Are these people out of their minds? See, e.g., "America's Collusion With Neo-Nazis" [
The Nation ]:
Not even many Americans who follow international news know the following, for example:
That the snipers who killed scores of protestors and policemen on Kiev's Maidan Square in
February 2014, thereby triggering a "democratic revolution" that overthrew the elected
president, Viktor Yanukovych, and brought to power a virulent anti-Russian, pro-American
regime -- it was neither democratic nor a revolution, but a violent coup unfolding in the
streets with high-level support -- were sent not by Yanukovych, as is still widely reported,
but instead almost certainly by the neofascist organization Right Sector and its
co-conspirators.
§ That the pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa
shortly later in 2014 reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during
World War II has been all but deleted from the American mainstream narrative even though it
remains a painful and revelatory experience for many Ukrainians.
(To be fair, the Ukrainian neo-Nazis we supported weren't slaveholders, unlike to many of
our own Founders. So there's that.)
The Hearings should be in a room that lets in sunlight, that universal disinfectant. Make
the Front Row Kid Careerists sit by the windows.
Thus far, my main reaction is that the State Department needs to be shaken up to get rid of
those entrenched FRK'ing Careerists and to bring in some accountability. Inspector General
positions and functions should not be optional at the whim of some SoS or other.
Not change for its own sake, just bringing things out of the shadows. In keeping with my
light theme, a Sunset Provision would help, too. That is one step toward eliminating the
hearsay, innuendo and nonsense suppression of Due Process as that is anti-Constitutional. The
people, including back-row, dropouts and all, deserve better from their government.
We Americans are less obvious, if also less subtle: we quickly transform our common story
into uncommon glory -- of a Continental Army standing unbowed before well-drilled Redcoats, of
a war against slavery that, within a generation, became a War for Southern Independence, or in
extolling the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans in a divisive intervention that became, less than a
half a decade later, a "noble cause." Not surprisingly, the truth is far more interesting than
any myth. The Continental Army at Valley Forge was not only ill-clothed, underpaid, and
desertion-riddled, its finest day had come not against British regulars but mercenary Hessians;
the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war
began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst), days, while the "noble cause" of Vietnam
featured a
military that , by 1971, was "in a state approaching collapse, with individual units
avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where
not near-mutinous."
The substitution of myth for fact, however, has its uses -- as one of our greatest soldiers,
General George Patton, certainly knew. While Patton was an indifferent student (he flunked
mathematics at West Point), he was an avid reader with a prodigious memory and a finely tuned
sense of history. Which makes his speech to the Third Army on June 5 of 1944 (as celebrated in
Hollywood's epic 1970 paean), all the more remarkable, as it extols a history we wish we had --
but don't: "Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this
war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit," Patton announced. "Americans love to fight,
traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle."
But Patton was just getting started. "Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a
loser," he went on to say. "Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all the time. I
wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never
lost nor will ever lose a war; for the idea of losing is hateful to America."
Of course, very little of this was actually true -- even in 1944, two decades before
Vietnam. All Americans love the sting and clash of battle? Not really. In January of 1781, in
the midst of the American Revolution, 1500 soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines of
the Continental Army mutinied, murdered their officers, and threatened to march on
Philadelphia.
When the mutiny spread, Washington had the mutineers rounded up, arrested, and their
ringleaders shot by a firing squad made up of their
fellow soldiers . On July 10 of 1863, one week after the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York
draft riots protesting conscription set fire to 50 buildings, lynched 11 black bystanders, and
left 120 civilians dead. The insurrection (as it was called by city officials), was finally
quelled by the New York State Militia. And in late 1944, while commanding in Europe, Dwight
Eisenhower was so angered by the reports of teeming throngs of American deserters raping and
looting their way through France that he considered "lining them up and mowing them down."
Americans have never lost a war? It doesn't take a trained historian to point out that the
American military botched the War of 1812 (the White House was burned and Washington occupied),
performed poorly (and genocidally) in the Indian Wars of the late 19th century (in which one of
its most famous units, the 7th Cavalry, was erased from existence), and mishandled the brutal
1899 Philippine Insurrection -- during which Mark Twain described American soldiers as
"uniformed assassins." Patton was no dummy and might have recited all of this himself. But his
speech made for good copy (and, as it turned out, great cinema) and undoubtedly boosted morale,
particularly for those who, within a short time, would be facing off against the best light
infantry in the history of the world.
But while historical myths have their place in creating a national story, France, China, and
Russia have, in turn (and over time), chosen truth over triumph -- exhuming the greatness of
Napoleon, Mao, and Lenin,
while burying forever the policies they followed . This is true also for the United States.
For while we Americans readily adopt the regalia of our past, we expect that our institutions
will not follow suit; that in the midst of failure, our policymakers will discard myths and
choose reality.
This is what happened, famously, on March 25, 1968 when President Lyndon
Johnson met with a group he called "the wise men" -- a wizened crew of 14 Washington
policymakers to help him decide what to do about the worsening situation in Vietnam. Included
in the group was former secretary of state Dean Acheson, former White House counsel Clark
Clifford, former ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and former JCS chairman
General Omar Bradley.
These officials had traditionally supported Johnson's Vietnam policies but now, in the wake
of the disastrous Tet Offensive, they had second thoughts. Stunned by the ferocity of the
Vietnamese attack, only two of the 14 (Maxwell Taylor and Abe Fortas) recommended that Johnson
"stay the course." The shift was symbolized by Omar Bradley, a military icon. Victory? "Maybe
we ought to lower our sights," he told Johnson.
Of course, while the March 1968 meeting of the wise men was crucial to America's adventure
in Vietnam (and Lyndon Johnson's political future), it did little to dampen the controversy
surrounding the war -- which has been refought, since, in the pages of the war's histories.
Indeed, it seems axiomatic that what cannot be won on a battlefield is often alchemized in
later accounts.
These bloodless campaigns, fought with pen rather than sword, turn defeats into victories,
burnish reputations, assess blame, but also blight understanding and blemish history. This is
particularly true when it comes to America's most controversial conflicts. In 1869, Confederate
Major General Dabney Herndon Maury founded the Southern Historical Society. Its papers, later
collected in 52 volumes, rewrote much of Civil War history, a tendentious rendering whose goal
was to argue the justness of the Lost Cause. Many of the society's papers remain troubling,
rehabilitating the image of the most famous and otherwise failed rebel leaders, while laying
the blame for the Confederate loss at the feet of southerners who, in later years, conceded the
Union victory. The papers also remain controversial because their most important claims (that Lee lost at
Gettysburg because his orders were disobeyed, that soldier-for-soldier, the southern armies
were simply better fighters than their northern counterparts) resulted from barely veiled
pro-southern and racially tinged political agendas. You'd have thought the South had won the
war.
The same holds true for Vietnam. In that war's aftermath, while much of America was trying
to forget the conflict, a small group of respected historians continued to pick at its scab,
leaving a blood trail of if-onlys in their wake. The most prominent of these historians was
Lewis "Bob" Sorley, a respected former officer and celebrated biographer (of Creighton Abrams
and William Westmoreland, among others), whose book on Vietnam, A Better War , has been
the subject of controversy since its publication in 1999.
In A Better War , Sorley argued that the U.S. might have won in Vietnam, if only that
nation's top commander in the conflict had discarded his costly and morale-sapping
search-and-destroy strategy in favor of maintaining the security of South Vietnam's population,
substituted clear-and-hold tactics for massive sweep operations, improved the training and
equipping of South Vietnam's military, decreased the destruction of U.S. firepower -- and
supported the South Vietnamese, instead of abandoning them.
The conclusions ignited a bonfire of criticism, particularly from some of the Army's more
respected thinkers. Writing in the pages of The National Interest in 2012, retired
Colonel Gian Gentile took on Sorley in a pointed critique that proposed that America should
have never been in Vietnam in the first place.
"In war, political and societal will are calculations of strategy, and strategists in
Vietnam should have discerned early on that the war was simply unwinnable based on what the
American people were willing to pay," Gentile wrote .
"Once the war started and it became clear that to prevail meant staying for an unacceptable
amount of time, American strategy should have moved to withdraw much earlier than it did.
Ending wars fought under botched strategy and policy can be every bit as damaging as the wars
themselves."
Put simply, Sorley argues that the Vietnam War could have been won, if only the U.S. had the
will to prevail, while Gentile responds that because the American people did not have the will
to prevail, the war should have never been fought.
The spat over the Civil War and Vietnam doesn't necessarily mean that history repeats
itself, but it does get rewritten -- and rethought. The same is now true for the war in Iraq.
The Army War College's weighty two-volume study of the 2003 Iraq conflict ( The U.S. Army in
the Iraq War ), has sparked a divisive mini-controversy among the uniformed services, whose
senior officers regularly debate its major conclusions (as I noted in The American
Conservative , online,
back in February ): that U.S. commanders didn't understand the country they invaded, made
assumptions about an enemy that proved to be wrong, didn't have enough soldiers to win the
fight, who bungled the military's detention policies, and who failed in their mission to train
and equip the Iraqi armed forces.
But any praise for these conclusions has been muted by the study's other (Sorley-like)
judgment: that, as in Vietnam -- where the villains were the antiwar movement and the Congress,
the villains in Iraq are George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the former blamed for too quickly
getting us in, the latter for too quickly getting us out.
Into this affray has now jumped a much shorter (at 292 pages), offering, written by a team
of nine experts and researchers at the Rand Corporation. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad , gives us what
the Army War College didn't -- an unvarnished and precise accounting of what went wrong and
why, and without the tendentious political overtones of the tome-like AWC study. This shouldn't
come as a surprise. Among the study's authors are two of the Army's leading thinkers: retired
Colonels David E. Johnson and Gian Gentile, the latter the outspoken Sorley critic known in the
military for his often-scathing ability to say what he means.
Johnson, on the other hand, is known for his counter-intuitive and often uncomfortable
question of given premises, which has made him a valued interlocutor in the upper echelons of
the Army. The likely result of the study (much talked about in the military prior to its
release earlier this year), is that it has had a far greater impact than its 1200-plus page
predecessor. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad is not a page-turner, unless of course
you're an Army officer, but it lays out in precise detail the eight lessons the military can,
and should learn, from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But most readers will find the study's
understated third chapter, on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, among the most compelling written on
the war.
At the center of this presentation is the unshifting, unalterable truth of the war -- -that
the dysfunction obvious at the upper levels of the U.S. military following the fall of Baghdad
mirrored a deeper civilian-military chasm in Washington. The result of the dysfunction was that
the initial Battle for Baghdad was simply a prelude to a continuing battle for Baghdad, that
the war, once ended, simply continued.
The study's authors issue this crisp judgment, which is starkly at odds with the AWC
study:
"While much of the blame for the shortcomings of postwar planning rightly falls on senior
rungs of the Bush administration, the truth of the matter is that there is more than enough
blame to go around, up and down the chains of command in military and civilian planning."
Military officers speak candidly of the problem: "I don't think that any of us either could
have or did anticipate the total collapse of this regime," Lt. General William Wallace told the
authors, "and the psychological impact it had on the entire nation."
In military history, this is "the Henry Wentz problem." Henry Wentz was born in York County
in Pennsylvania in 1827, but moved with his family to nearby Gettysburg when he was nine. He
spent his most formative years on his family farm, which was just south of the town and off the
Emmitsburg Road.
As a young adult Henry went to Martinsburg (then in Virginia), married a local girl and
became a carriage maker. When the Civil War came he joined the Confederate Army, serving as an
ordnance sergeant in Taylor's Virginia Battery. On July 2, 1863, Wentz found himself manning
his rebel guns in his family's front yard, at Gettysburg, as a part of Longstreet's bloody
assault on the Union Army's III Corps. Lee had attacked with Longstreet that day to unhinge the
Union line, planning to take the high ground around the Wentz farm at a peach orchard, which
Lee thought was a dominating position.The orchard, owned by the Sherfy family (and hence
referred to as the Sherfy Peach Orchard in battle histories) seemed to rise out of the ground
and command the fields beyond. The problem was that Sherfy's orchard didn't dominate anything.
It was not on a rise, it did not control the land beyond. The orchard's height, if you stand on
it, is an optical illusion. A short discussion with Henry Wentz might have shown this, if only
Lee had known that Wentz was there.
He didn't.
For military officers commanding thousands or hundreds of thousands of young men and women,
for military experts whose job it is to study these operations -- -and not just for hobbyists
or aficionados -- the Henry Wentz problem is a tolling bell, a heart stopping
wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night realization that not knowing , particularly when
lives are at stake, is an unforgivable blunder. Reading about Gettysburg many years later,
generations of Civil War historians, reclining by their firesides, want to scream at Lee: "What
do you mean you didn't know ?" And that is the value of The U.S. Army and the Battle
of Baghdad -- -and the effect of William Wallace's seemingly mundane, if stunning,
observation. The U.S. military did not anticipate that the drive for Baghdad would be
difficult, did not anticipate that the Iraq Army would transform itself into an insurgency, did
not anticipate "the total collapse of the regime" -- and so did not anticipate the tragedy that
followed. To which we too want to scream: what do you mean you didn't anticipate? It was
your job to anticipate."
It is long past time that the senior military leadership with Iraq invasion (not to
ignore the Afghan debacle) and since be held accountable for multitude of blunders and poor
performance overall.
The fawning adulation from the press serves no good purpose and simply perpetuates the
waste and fraud that gives us more blunders and weapons systems and "strategies" that do
not and could not work to specs and plans.
But as the article states, there is plenty of blame to go around, I am referring to the
"political Leadership" of bush, obama, and now trump, and of course, congress. Leadership
may be too kind a term for what passes for leadership.
no issues holding the military mistakes to account. But these choices were politically
made and the political leadership should not be permitted to scapegoat the military for the
leaderships choices to engage in regime change which included purging military
dissenters.
Full agreement here. In fact, it's rather silly to strike at the military leaders, people
trained in war, for supporting war. It's like complaining about a scientist who decides to
solve every crisis with attaching it to the Internet.
The generals look at ways to fight a war. It's the political leaders that determine if
war is the right idea. That's why it's the elected leaders, not the military, that hold the
keys. All of the manipulations of the DoD end once we have a Congress and White House that
wants it to end.
Honestly I respect the idea of going after the past leaderships that sent us here, but
really I'd be content with just finding a leadership that stops the train now and leave the
old guard to their retirements. That's going to be difficult as it is without us turning on
a revenge campaign that might turn ugly.
It's a relatively minor point in the article, but I would agree with those who claim that
man-for-man the Confederates were better soldiers than the Yankees. They held out for 4
years against the US, whose forces were numerically superior and far better equipped and
supplied, while managing to inflict more military casualties on their foes than they
suffered. In the same way, I'd also agree with the many historians and WWII veterans who
claim that the Germans were man-for-man better soldiers than any of their enemies. Both the
American Civil War and WWII were essentially wars of attrition. Losing such a war is no
military disgrace but it also doesn't mean that the losing side had a noble cause. In most
wars, there are no good guys.
in what way were the confederate soldiers better "man for man"?
US soldiers got slaughtered wholesale throughout the war - yet they had the spirit to
keep coming. They got slaughtered wholesale because they used tactics developed for the
previous generation of small arms. The tactic of marching at the enemy packed together.
As James McPherson describes in "Battle Cry of Freedom" they got slaughtered because
they 1) had to fight on offense and 2) they were using tactics designed for the previous
generation of small arms. They used tactics designed for weak-firing in accurate muskets
rather than the current generation of rifles - accurate and deadly from long ranges.
They used the tactic of massing men together and marching at the enemy. This worked for
muskets. For rifles loaded with minie balls, it made them sitting ducks when they marched
towards dug in Confederates.
This article's author, Mr. Perry, mentions the slaughter of the Confederate soldiers at
the peach orchard. A slaughter that resulted from the Confederates having to walk across a
long rise of land before they could engage with the enemy. The slaughter that was said to
have begun the defeat the Confederates. An awful slaughter.
The US soldiers didn't have just one peach orchard, they had many. They had "cold
harbor", they had "the bloody angle", they had "Marye's heights". Dug in confederates armed
with rifles mangled US soldiers horribly. Mangled them as they marched, out in the open,
well within rifle range, towards dug in and hidden Confederates.
Yet the Union soldiers had the spirit to keep on coming. It's like "Butch Cassidy and
The Sundance Kid". As Perry points out, post Civil War Southern supporting writers
romanticized the poor, starving, southern infantryman. He was handsome, stoic, and a
fighter. But it was the northern guys who kept on coming. Kept on coming despite seeing so
many of their friends torn to pieces.
Northern soldiers who had the stuff to get the job done.
So the more numerous side that has the spirit to keep coming despite enormous casualties
and because of bad tactics are by definition better soldiers than the less numerous side
which using good tactics has the spirit to keep fighting until they finally run out of
effective fighters? By this standard the more numerous are always better soldiers as long
as they win in the end, which they usually will in a war of attrition. By this standard,
the Russians were far better soldiers than the Germans in WWII. Hint - the term man-for-man
indicates I am measuring quality rather than just quantity and quality in soldiers includes
tactical proficiency, not just bravery.
War is an obsolete idea. 1000 years ago, the only way to increase your wealth was to take
over someone else's land and enthrall the local population to farm it for you. 200 years
ago it was necessary to capture a population in order to force them to only purchase your
manufactured goods, so your capitalists didn't have to compete with those of other
countries.
In a information/service economy, war and control over other populations serve no
purpose. The DOD, like all grand bureaucracies, survives only through the corruption of
Congress.
It is time to disband the military. Get rid of the Navy, but leave the Coast Guard. Then
turn the Coast Guard over to the States. Disband the Army and Marine Corps. Let the State's
maintain their National Guards if they want. Disband the Air Force. The federal government
should just maintain a nuclear deterrent force and set up a coastal missile defense that
can destroy any Navy attempting to sail to attack us.
Have the federal government manufacture everything it needs itself instead of handing
over tax payer dollars which are then used to corrupt Congress. It's time.
I look forward to further articles on the military's culture of not knowing. I've spent
my whole adult life around Army personnel. (mostly retired). Going off to do things
half-cocked is a point of pride with them. It's a macho trait that they love about
themselves. Being willing to take action even though they haven't spent much time assessing
the forces in their way.- being willing to wade into unknown danger.
Pondering things seriously is weakness - in their view.
further, at least one of these unlikely seeming new proponents of traditional
masculinity - Jordan Peters - celebrates this macho trait. The macho trait of taking action
without considering all knowable facts.
"the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the
war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst)"
The comforting notion that slavery was destined to "fade away" was frequently indulged
in during the 250 plus years that it lasted in the U.S., but it never did. As for the Wentz
anecdote, if Lee had talked with Wentz, the outcome of the war would not have changed.
There is an interesting "sabermetric" study of generals you can find online that gives a
particularly interesting picture of Lee. He was one of the most aggressive generals in
history, fighting more battles than anyone except Napoleon. But he was also--wait for
it--BELOW AVERAGE. (Please don't spill your mint julip.) Grant, on the other hand, was one
of the 10 best ever.
Slavery was on the way out and in another generation was gone throughout the western world,
including the African colonies, and surviving only in Arabia. Only in the US and Haiti was
slavery ended by wars and horrific bloodshed. In all other countries, including the vast
slave empire of Brazil, slavery was abolished with minimal to no casualties. A bit of
patience on the part of the abolitionists and unionists would have led to a somewhat later
but peaceful end of slavery in the southern US. The union of all the states may not have
been preserved, but in my estimation that would have been a good thing, if achieved
peacefully.
The military planners knew what was needed to pacify Iraq in the invasion and occupation.
750,000 troops and 25B+ dollars. Darth Cheney knew the US public wouldn't accept that, so
they went in on the cheap, ignored the vast stores of conventional weapons, and Viceroy
Bremmer back-stabbed the Iraqi army, thus creating the insurgency. Why? Because Planned
Chaos is the most profitable, and taking Iraq oil off the market greatly enriched our
"Saudi friends" and lots of other producers in the region. Inflation-adjusted oil prices
more than doubled from 2003 to 2007.
As of early 2009, the surge had worked, were holding territory on turf Islamic savages
considered their own and were killing hoards of jihadi scum who were flocking there, pretty
much at will, who were being induced to do so at the behest of Bin Laden. Iraq was part of
a long term strategic regional strategy (kill them on their own turf) which was working
quite well as far as it got. 4000 dead US soldiers is a travesty under any circumstances,
but considering what we had accomplished it pales in comparison with Vietnam. Keep in mind
we stayed in Germany and Japan for decades after WWII to ensure our efforts were not
wasted.
Iraq was not a debacle until 0bama refused to negotiate an updated SOFA, effectively
surrendered (against military and other expert advice) and rendered every single US
military death to have been in vain.
"... So the Ukrainians traded their corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with it). ..."
"... Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down (American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"). ..."
"to a one they are turf-conscious careerists who think they set U.S. foreign policy and
resent the president for intruding upon them. It is increasingly evident that Trump's true
offense is proposing to renovate a foreign policy framework that has been more or less
untouched for 75 years (and is in dire need of renovation)."
This may be even worse than Lawrence depicts. It is clear that Vindman in his opening
remarks made it clear that the consensus policy of experts (like John Bolton) had been
following an agenda from the Obama administration (or before, but implemented under Obama,
Biden and Nuland) and it is verboten to change anything, despite constitutionally these
people at best only having advisory roles to the President (and constitutionally the
President can ask for their opinions in writing; CYA even back then!) The Ukrainian Americans
involved in the coup (national security from Vindman's perspective) are deeply committed
since 2014, and they expect to reap the benefits with no interference from Trump. And the
Democrats/ Ukraine-Americans "running the show" are probably much more corrupt than
Ukrainians governing their country before 2014.
I have started Oliver Bullough's "Money Land" and was aghast at the luxury items
Yanukovich had stolen through corruption and accumulated at his many properties. Surely with
so much money going to corrupt Yanukovich and his henchmen, the coup would have been a
blessing for the Ukrainian people! Right? I was shocked to find that after the overthrow of
Yanukovich in 2014, the median per capita household income in Ukraine, which had risen
steadily from $2032 in 2010 to $2601 in 2013, had dropped over 50% to $1110 to $1135 in 2015
and 2016, and has only risen to $1694 in 2018 (ceicdata.com).
So the Ukrainians traded their
corrupt Ukrainian elected President, mostly accumulating stuff in Ukraine, for corrupt
neocon/ neolib Democrat bureaucrats and Ukrainian/ Americans, who now cannot be denied their
pound of flesh (which will quickly exit Ukraine, taking much of that country's value with
it).
Even the anti-corruption agencies are corrupt! So American policy now is set by such
bureaucrats, who not only play military adventurism games (to justify all that money in
loans, grants, and weapons), but even pass the corruption level of the Native Ukrainians in
skimming that incoming money and getting rich, and of course steal whatever isn't nailed down
(American policy as previewed in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman").
"... From the 1950s, the anti-Soviet fervor of these New York City-based intellectuals prompted support for the early United States intervention in Vietnam. In the 1970s, the Socialist Party split up as some factions aligned with the New Left. The neocons formed the Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), only later abandoning their socialist party-building in favor of penetrating both the Democratic and Republican parties. In the 1970s, Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Representative William Hughes hired some leading second-generation neocons as foreign policy staffers, beginning a long, steady penetration of key Congressional committees. ..."
"... Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world stage. ..."
"... Antonio Gramsci quote" Trotskyist are the whores of the fascists". Globalist are modern day or post modern Trotskyist ..."
As the happy marriage of neoconservatives and Obama-era humanitarian interventionists continues to flourish in defense of American
permanent war deployments around the globe, it is a worthwhile moment to recall the roots of the neocons in the old left of the 1930s.
Neocon founders like Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Max Schachtman, Seymour Martin Lipset, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer, and Gertrude
Himmelfarb were all anti-Soviet socialists from the 1930s, many of whom were followers of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky broke with Stalin
in the late 1930s over his emphasis on permanent world socialist revolution, as Stalin concentrated on the consolidation of "socialist
in one country"--the USSR.
From the 1950s, the anti-Soviet fervor of these New York City-based intellectuals prompted support for the early United States
intervention in Vietnam. In the 1970s, the Socialist Party split up as some factions aligned with the New Left. The neocons formed
the Social Democrats USA (SDUSA), only later abandoning their socialist party-building in favor of penetrating both the Democratic
and Republican parties. In the 1970s, Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Representative William Hughes hired
some leading second-generation neocons as foreign policy staffers, beginning a long, steady penetration of key Congressional committees.
At the Gerald Ford White House, successive chiefs of staff Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney organized a series of "intellectual
seminars" by Irving Kristol, further spreading neocon ideology within the foreign policy establishment. As Defense Secretary and
later as Vice President, Cheney continued to promote neocons to key posts and to advocate for neocon permanent warfare.
Early in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan launched "Project Democracy," to spread democracy around the globe through well-funded
programs including the National Endowment for Democracy, led by Carl Gershman, who has headed the NED since its founding in 1984
through to the present. Gershman was previously Executive Director of Social Democrats USA. NED has been a stronghold of neocons
from its inception.
While the anti-Soviet outlook of the neocons continued even after the Berlin Wall and the fall of Soviet communism, the focus
increasingly was on permanent warfare to promote democracy around the globe.
Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism
has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the
world stage.
"Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism
has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on
the world stage."
I don't think the Democracy bit is much more than a fig leaf, it can quickly be discarded if votes do not
go as required. The aim seems to have more to do with removing unfriendly regimes and replacing them with compliant ones. It does
not work because the people/'voters' do not like the imposed elites and are inclined to vote by tribe/clan/religion, rather than
any western concept of party, the biggest block wins and lords it over the minority.
Irving was quite a character. A socialist who's eyes were not totally closed to the um, "contradictions" and stagnation inherent
in socialist economies. He spun his wheels mightily in the pages of Dissent trying to reconcile his socialist ideals with it's
fundamental conflict with human nature.
Ok, thus the essence of neoconism is Trotzkism and not Straussianism?
In other words, concerning the neoconservatives it makes no sense to look at the (Leo) Straussian angle? Arbitarily?
Now, considering their (not so prominent???) part in the US Culture War (still ongoing???) I am admittedly puzzled. If they
were leaning towards Strauss at one point in time, they may well have shifted from revolutionaries to counterevolutionaries at
one point in time. No?
They never did? They weren't impressed by their heroes death, but carried his legacy on? Nevertheless?
Actually, this is a recasting of the old Muslim idea of Dar al Salam and Dar al Harb. Western Diocletian states embodying the
House of Peace while the rest of mankind lives in the House of War. For Muslims, the idea was to bring the benefits of Islam to
non-Muslims. Here, it is to bring the benefits of Civilization to the barbarian hordes.
Fundamentally, neocon and their fellow travellers - an assortment of Protestants, Jews, Nihilists, Democrats, and Shoah Cultists
- are waging a relugious war that has failed and will fail against the particularities of mankind. Just like Islam failed to destroy
either Christianity or Hinduism, this Western errand will fail too.
I think these people are the type, subset pseudointellectuals, that just enjoy power and using it to stir the pot of humanity
for self-glorification.
IMO, they really believe in nothing else. They are, by nature, miserable craven control freaks that justify their activities
by hijacking whatever ideology is floating around in the zeitgeist that the dupes will follow; could be Islam, could be Christianity,
could be democracy, could be socialism. Makes no difference to them as long as they get to experience themselves as superior masters
of the world.
In Libya, in 2011, Democracy-promoters destroyed her so that Sarkozy and others in France, Spain, Italy, UK could steal her
wealth; reminiscent of Muslim invasions of India in search of war booty, rapine, and slaves, in the name of Islam.
So? This review of (important) history gives us no insight into why it happened or why we should care today. Yes, I agree that
these were bad people in the 1930s and they remained bad people when they moved (in theory) from the left wing to the right wing.
But that is all you have said. What were the motives? How was it done? Why were they able to find acceptance in both parties with
such a lousy history? How are they able to continue being accepted after such a lousy continuing history.
This account is all ad hominem, all about how a certain strain of ideologue has consistently advocated for policies of world-wide
control. The logical back story would be a Trotskyite coordinating presence, something I don't for a minute believe. Yet people
of this description are undeniably pervasive in the councils of state.
So what is the connection between advocates of US dominion and former advocates of world wide revolution? And, if it is just
a matter of attitudes toward power, why should we care? So some people 70 years ago (bad people, admittedly) had an influence
of some people today (also in my mind bad people). So? Were they the only people from that era who held such attitudes? Could
we not just as easily trace other genealogies for ideas of US domination? Do such ideas ever in history fail to materialize when
the power balances enable them?
So you don't like these people and you don't like where you think they came from. But do you have anything to say about why
they are so pervasive and what could be done about it?
Ah, the good old days. In the early 80's I would stop after work at the local newsstand and pick up Commentary, Dissent, Partisan
Review, National Interest, and so on. Whatever struck my fancy and for some reason, these did even though their circulation was
quite small. At the time I didn't not realize their commonality which came to me later in the 80's. The PBS movie/book, "Arguing
the World," which came out about 20 years ago, has a lot of the backstory.
A common thread is the desire to change the world though they had different views of what that "change" should be.
As for me, I was an accidental entrepreneur and generally liked Hayek's economic views. I'm also highly skeptical of idealist
and messianic movements like Mao's which the 60's had been rife with. But I loved readings all these rags with somewhat different
perspectives but a common thread that each seemed to think their "Truth" should rule. Seems to me the greatest evil gets perpetrated
by those that think they have found "The Way."
How much of neoconservatism cum liberal internationalism (foreign policy idealism aka Wilsonianism) is "spreading freedom and
democracy" and now much is neoliberal globalization as "making the world safe for capitalism"?
In either case the end in view is a Pax Americana where the US has permanent global dominance in accordance with the Wolfowitz
doctrine of not permitting a challenger to arise as a competitor.
If you go no further than Marxism, you will not understand what is happening. But to go further is to engage in thoughtcrime.
Fortunately, the Catholic scholar E. Michael Jones has written a great book on this. It is called The Jewish Revolutionary
Spirit: And Its Impact on World History. Incredibly, it has not been banned from Amazon yet. It is exhaustive, encyclopedic and
documented.
Jones has developed a following among young Catholics appalled at both the corruption in Rome and the corruption in American
society. These kids are the ones digging conservatism's grave, not the left. The left needs Conservative Inc to plays its role
and keep the show going for the benefit of older people who get all their information from television.
It has not been covered much by the media but TPUSA, a Trump-aligned youth organization, has been battered by audience after
audience on its recent campus tour. Yesterday in Los Angeles Donald Trump Jr was booed off the stage as he tried to promote his
latest book.
At first, TPUSA tried to blame campus leftwingers. This was an obvious lie, and so they began to call the audience Nazis. Then,
they accused them of being virgins. They tried to vet and plant questioners but when this failed they eliminated the Q&A altogether.
A similar episode happened the week before when Sebastian Gorka stupidly took on a 20 year-old Youtube personality with an audience
ten times larger than his own.
Post-WW2 Conservatives failed because they never understood what they were fighting, failed to wage culture war, and fooled
themselves into thinking that the fall of the Berlin Wall meant the end of struggle, when it only meant a change of theater.
"...appeared to have fallen from a balcony." I somehow doubt that.
"The NGO's funders currently include the British and German governments. The Trump administration froze US funding, which made
up about one-third of the total, without public explanation in early 2018, but resumed giving financial aid last month amid criticism
of its decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria."
I bet that pissed off the neocons to no end. He should stop it again. We can use the money at home.
"Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution?"
Yes, profoundly. For starters, Permanent Revolution and world revolution were two separate Trotskyist doctrines.
Permanent Revolution was a doctrine eschewing the mainstream social-democratic strategy of supporting bourgeois-democratic revolutions
until the proletariat gained sufficient strength to gain state power. Trotsky contended that socialist - capitalist alliances
were inherently unstable and that bourgeois-democratic forces would inevitably align with the existing ruling order against the
proletariat. World revolution was a doctrine that a socialist revolution in Russia could not survive in isolation and revolutions
had to take place in more advanced countries, particularly Germany. That was given a messianic veneer of "proletarian internationalism"
and "world revolution." Such maximalism was opposed to realist expedients such as the New Economic Policy and the Rapallo Treaty
of 1924 that fostered economic relations between the Soviet Union and capitalist Germany.
Revolutionary movements have always drawn opportunists who saw them mainly as a shortcut to gaining power for themselves. The
ur-neocons were such a group. Their loyalty to Trotskyist ideology only lasted as long as they saw it as something that could
boost them into power. When better means in various apparatuses of US power presented themselves, they latched onto them under
the guise of "spreading democracy." That seems a cynical formulation, since the most consistent neocon ideological theme is that
the great unwashed masses are not to be trusted, so power must be arrogated to themselves.
"... the most consistent neocon ideological theme is that the great unwashed masses are not to be trusted, so power must be arrogated
to themselves." Isn't that the real ideology of all these factions? To my mind the rest is all just tactics.
I am genuinely unsure what the real distinctions are. The present American "conservative" idolizing of democracy and free market
economics seems about as sincere as the Communist ideal of economic control by the working classes. Many years ago I argued with
a (captured) VC political officer that the Vietnam war was just a fight between two elites over who would get to run things. He
was appalled by the idea. His claim to the moral high ground was based on two factors: the personal honesty of the Viet Cong cadre
and the party discipline that that guaranteed it. These seemed plausible at the time. Both went up in smoke almost as soon as
the victory had been won.
How different were the results of the war from those to be expected from a Southern victory? I haven't followed the subsequent
history in detail, but American Vietnamese acquaintances tell me that 40 years later everything is being run by Southerners. Not
identically the same Southerners, but ... And does anyone believe that a southern government securely established would not have
set about expelling the Chinese population that had accumulated during the years when the Vietnamese could not control their own
borders? (American media never said much about it, but the boat people were overwhelmingly Chinese victims of longstanding hatreds.)
So how different is the neocon vision from a Trotskyist vision in a world where direct control is no longer possible?
The dots I have yet to connect are those that trace the path by which the neoconservatives wandered from their socialist roots
to become the enforcers of the Western world's fundamentalist neoliberal ideology of political economy. How many of the dots pertaining
to the latter came to be embedded in the western industrialized world and most of the Global South were tied together for me by
the recent book Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism , by Quinn Slobodian. Several points jump
from the author's narrative. The neoliberal movement traces its origins to two citizens of the Austrian Empire who came of age
in the decades immediately before its collapse: Ludwig von Mises* (b 1881) and Frederick Hayek (b 1899). Both were of un-landed
noble families that had been promoted to that status just a generation or two before. Slobodian argues that the Empire's uniqueness
as a multi-cultural, multi-national entity held together by a common market with no internal tariffs and free migration within
the empire led them (and especially Hayek) to envision a similarly structured world economy. They and their disciples and successors
saw the making of that structure happen as their lives' work. The goal remained constant but the means of achieving it changed
with the times. First they saw the League of Nations as the potential vehicle until its collapse during the Second World War.
Next was the United Nation until it was "overrun" by new nations emerging from colonialism. The goal was largely achieved in the
late 20th century when General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) morphed into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994.
The most salient features of a neoliberal political economy are: free movement and safety of capital and protections for the ownership
rights of investors across borders; free migration of people across those same borders; also tariff-free trade among countries;
and the removal of economic policies and relationships from the purviews of sovereign countries and subordinate jurisdictions
within them.
Slobodian elaborates how as the neoliberal ideology became embedded in the world economy during the 20th century it was believed
by the movers and shakers (mostly implicitly but in some cases explicitly) that the lagging development status of the peoples
of the recently decolonized emerging countries were the results of racial and/or cultural weaknesses. There was little recognition
of the impacts of the cultural carnage and wealth extraction that were part and parcel of colonial enterprise. As a result, as
the institutions of radical neoliberalism took shape they consigned a secondary economic status to the countries of what is now
known as the Global South. The USA has been the leader in putting this ideology in place and has been aggressively looking out
for its own interests in the process, which is understandable.* However an unintended consequence has been an economically lagging
global south that has been prevented from industrializing enough to employ the millions of people whose farms have become uncompetitive
with highly industrialized USA and European agribusiness. These folks move off the land either to the growing megacities of the
Global South or, increasingly, into countries of the Global North by means either legal or illegal. Thus the Democratic Party
establishment's Kumbaya on immigration is not all sweetness, light and harmony. They're also doing the bidding of their neoliberal
masters.
"... this impeachment isn't directed at Trump at all, it's about undermining the rising left-wing opposition in the Democratic party. They are plausibly on the verge of seizing the party agenda away from the neo-liberal consensus of the Clinton-Obama decades -- with issues like universal public health-care and equitable taxes. They've even found ways to fund campaigns without bowing to the corporate gods. ..."
"... Political parties are nothing more than gangs. To me, the Dems are like the Gambinos and the Repoops are like the Genovese. And they hate it when someone from outside their domain comes and disrupt their racket, when things are going smooth. ..."
"... To me Trump is like the mobster Joe Gallo, killed at Umberto's clam house in NYC. Gallo was a big shot, talked loud and fast, and wanted to start his own racket. And the other crime families would not let him do that. So they whacked him. The same thing both Dems and Repoops are trying to do with Trump. And yes Repoops don't like Trump, as in the latest from Drudge, that the Repoops are split when it comes to impeachment. ..."
"... Apropòs the articles about the 'deep state' meddling in US domestic politics, here's an oldie but a goodie from the World Socialist Web Site: The CIA Democrats . ..."
"... "The Mueller investigation has thus ultimately ended up prosecuting people for telling the same pack of lies that Mueller himself was pushing. The Clinton media, including CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times, are baffled by this. They follow the Stone trial assiduously from delight in seeing a long term Trump hanger-on brought down, and in the hope something will come out about Wikileaks or Russia. Their reporting, as that of the BBC, has been deliberately vague on why Stone is being charged, contriving to leave their audience with the impression that Stone's trial proves Trump connections to Wikileaks and Russia, when in fact it proves the precise opposite. A fact you will never learn from the mainstream media. Which is why I am doing this at 2am on a very cold Edinburgh night, for the small but vital audience which is interested in the truth." ..."
"... Of course, it stretches back to both parties, but that's what it is about - not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine - plus S, L, Y, and above all I & A!!! Gosh, we might get the entire alphabet included; ahoy all boats! ..."
"... Let me briefly sketch out an alternative narrative that more accurately captures our present predicament. Since the end of World War II, successive administrations have sought to devise a formula for assuring American consumers access to Persian Gulf oil while also satisfying pressing domestic political interests. Over a period of decades, that effort succeeded chiefly in giving birth to new problems. Out of these multiplying difficulties came the 9/11 attacks and their immediate sequel, a "war on terrorism" meant to settle matters once and for all. ..."
"... To state the matter bluntly, 9/11 was an expression of chickens coming home to roost, a massive strategic failure that the ensuing military campaigns beginning in 2001 and continuing to the present moment have affirmed. Given the dimensions of that failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero. ..."
"... The very fact Bloomberg had to enter the Democratic Party presidential race is the definite proof Biden's corruption and involvement on the destruction of Ukraine is so overwhelming and difficult to hide that it will eventually be impossible to cover it with the NYT and WaPo power alone should he be chosen as the nominee. ..."
I am amazed how the Impeachment Circus and the mainstream media continue to
ignore the facts of this story:
Joe Biden has been a favorite target for Trump-allied lawmakers. Many have adopted Trump's unsubstantiated assertion that Biden
pushed for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, because he was investigating Burisma.
The CIA is emerging as a domestic political party.
...
Brennan put a friendly finger on my chest. "The CIA is not involved in domestic politics," he said. "Period. That's on the
record."
This he asserted confidently, at an event where he had just spoken about about influence campaigns on swing voters and implied
that Hillary Clinton might be right in calling U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard a Russian asset. Even seasoned analysts, it
seems, have their blind spots.
What shifted [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] now? I'd say the answer is: this impeachment isn't directed at Trump at all, it's
about undermining the rising left-wing opposition in the Democratic party. They are plausibly on the verge of seizing the party
agenda away from the neo-liberal consensus of the Clinton-Obama decades -- with issues like universal public health-care and
equitable taxes. They've even found ways to fund campaigns without bowing to the corporate gods.
I agree with Mr. Salutin, the impeachment is not about impeachment, although if impeachment results, I'm sure they will take
it. And I agree it's about protecting the current Democratic Part "elites", both from scandal (Joe Biden, Clinton) and from the
challenge on the left. A risky and desperate move .
I tend to think it was Trump going after the Ukraine cesspit that precipitated the impeachment, but other motives seem relevant.
I have thought since Obama went all in with Russiagate that the current Dem leadership does not feel it can afford to relinquish
control.
Political parties are nothing more than gangs. To me, the Dems are like the Gambinos and the Repoops are like the Genovese. And
they hate it when someone from outside their domain comes and disrupt their racket, when things are going smooth.
To me Trump
is like the mobster Joe Gallo, killed at Umberto's clam house in NYC. Gallo was a big shot, talked loud and fast, and wanted to
start his own racket. And the other crime families would not let him do that. So they whacked him. The same thing both Dems and Repoops are trying to do with Trump. And yes Repoops don't like Trump, as in the latest from Drudge, that the Repoops are split
when it comes to impeachment.
Biden / Ukraine: Others begin to get it: 'Further scratches become visible on the picture of the Bidens in the Ukraine affair'
(original in German: 'Am Bild der Bidens in der Ukraine-Affäre werden weitere Kratzer sichtbar' nzz 9.11.19, nzz.ch/international/ukraine-affaere-rolle-der-biden-familie-undurchsichtig-ld.1520759)
Apropòs the articles about the 'deep state' meddling in US domestic politics, here's an oldie but a goodie from the World Socialist
Web Site: The CIA Democrats .
Craig Murray has an exclusive interview with
Randy Credico he prefaces with these remarks:
"The Mueller investigation has thus ultimately ended up prosecuting people for telling the same pack of lies that Mueller himself
was pushing. The Clinton media, including CNN, the Washington Post and New York Times, are baffled by this. They follow the Stone
trial assiduously from delight in seeing a long term Trump hanger-on brought down, and in the hope something will come out about
Wikileaks or Russia. Their reporting, as that of the BBC, has been deliberately vague on why Stone is being charged, contriving
to leave their audience with the impression that Stone's trial proves Trump connections to Wikileaks and Russia, when in fact
it proves the precise opposite. A fact you will never learn from the mainstream media. Which is why I am doing this at 2am on
a very cold Edinburgh night, for the small but vital audience which is interested in the truth."
That would include MoA barflies since we crave Truth. Murray has a bit more to say prior to the excerpt I provide, which I
suggest be read, too.
What a feast of links! I've only just started, with b's Daniel Lazare piece at Stretegic Culture.org - well done!
" ...This is what impeachment is about, not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine – plus Syria, Libya,
Yemen, and other countries that the Obama administration succeeded in destroying – and why Trump should pay the supreme penalty
for suggesting that Democrats are in any way to blame..."
Of course, it stretches back to both parties, but that's what it is about - not high crimes and misdemeanors, but who lost the Ukraine - plus S, L, Y, and above all I & A!!! Gosh, we might get the entire alphabet included; ahoy all
boats!
Impeachment is about controlling where the attention is focused. When things get to close to home Pelosi says look over here at
the orange head, look over there at the border but whatever you do, do not look over
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1KfU5ifhqE ">here.
"Biden / Ukraine: Others begin to get it: 'Further scratches become visible on the picture of the Bidens in the Ukraine affair'
(original in German: 'Am Bild der Bidens in der Ukraine-Affäre werden weitere Kratzer sichtbar' nzz 9.11.19, nzz.ch/international/ukraine-affaere-rolle-der-biden-familie-undurchsichtig-ld.1520759)"
Andrew J. Bacevich weighs in on US foreign policy:
Let me briefly sketch out an alternative narrative that more accurately captures our present predicament. Since the end of
World War II, successive administrations have sought to devise a formula for assuring American consumers access to Persian
Gulf oil while also satisfying pressing domestic political interests. Over a period of decades, that effort succeeded chiefly
in giving birth to new problems. Out of these multiplying difficulties came the 9/11 attacks and their immediate sequel, a
"war on terrorism" meant to settle matters once and for all.
To state the matter bluntly, 9/11 was an expression of chickens coming home to roost, a massive strategic failure that the
ensuing military campaigns beginning in 2001 and continuing to the present moment have affirmed. Given the dimensions of that
failure, the likelihood of resuscitating X's illusory Pax is essentially zero.
There is no going back to an imagined Golden Age of American statecraft in the Middle East. The imperative is to go forward,
which requires acknowledging how wrongheaded U.S. policy in region has been ever since FDR had his famous tete-a-tete with
King Ibn Saud and Harry Truman rushed to recognize the newborn State of Israel.t
The very fact Bloomberg had to enter the Democratic Party presidential race is the definite proof Biden's corruption and involvement
on the destruction of Ukraine is so overwhelming and difficult to hide that it will eventually be impossible to cover it with
the NYT and WaPo power alone should he be chosen as the nominee.
Phil, you need to get on the State Department and NSC re the coup against Trump by the
Ukraine cabal . The State Department has been stuffed with people like the below who try to
set US policy according their personal loyalties and /or hatreds or love for any foreign
country. And as we all know the State Department lost all objectivity when the Jews
infiltrated it decades ago to run out the 'Arbarist".
Currently staring in Congress Impeachment Ukraine testimony against Trump
Fiona Hill -- -- -- -- Dual US-UK citizen. Studied under Richard Pipes, in 1998 at Harvard,
Russian expert.
I have read the testimonies and several things jump out. All these people are outspoken
anti Russia activist and pro Ukraine. According to their statements Russia is the ultimate
evil. Vindman, Yovanovitch and Hill all use the same description "Ukraine needs US aid
because it is fighting for US interest and against Russian aggression'. .same spin Jews put
on "Israel fighting for US and world interest against Iran'.
Their testimonies were as much or more about why we should support Ukraine then about what
Trump said or didn't say.
It is clear and was even said by Hill in her testimony that they .."should formulate foreign
policy, not they president'. And in several cases that is what they have done going even
further with sanctions on countries then what was called for and the unattentive Trump just
accepts it .
This Trump coup is coming from the Deep State of the NSC and the State Department, not the
CIA this time.
Phil, you need to get on the State Department and NSC re the coup against Trump by the
Ukraine cabal . The State Department has been stuffed with people like the below who try to
set US policy according their personal loyalties and /or hatreds or love for any foreign
country. And as we all know the State Department lost all objectivity when the Jews
infiltrated it decades ago to run out the 'Arbarist".
Currently staring in Congress Impeachment Ukraine testimony against Trump
Fiona Hill -- -- -- -- Dual US-UK citizen. Studied under Richard Pipes, in 1998 at Harvard,
Russian expert.
I have read the testimonies and several things jump out. All these people are outspoken
anti Russia activist and pro Ukraine. According to their statements Russia is the ultimate
evil. Vindman, Yovanovitch and Hill all use the same description "Ukraine needs US aid
because it is fighting for US interest and against Russian aggression'. .same spin Jews put
on "Israel fighting for US and world interest against Iran'.
Their testimonies were as much or more about why we should support Ukraine then about what
Trump said or didn't say.
It is clear and was even said by Hill in her testimony that they .."should formulate foreign
policy, not they president'. And in several cases that is what they have done going even
further with sanctions on countries then what was called for and the unattentive Trump just
accepts it .
This Trump coup is coming from the Deep State of the NSC and the State Department, not the
CIA this time.
HARPER: NEOCONS STILL PROMOTE PERMANENT REVOLUTION
As the happy marriage of neoconservatives and Obama-era humanitarian interventionists continues
to flourish in defense of American permanent war deployments around the globe, it is a
worthwhile moment to recall the roots of the neocons in the old left of the 1930s. Neocon
founders like Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Max Schachtman, Seymour Martin Lipset, Irving
Howe, Nathan Glazer, and Gertrude Himmelfarb were all anti-Soviet socialists from the 1930s,
many of whom were followers of Leon Trotsky. Trotsky broke with Stalin in the late 1930s over
his emphasis on permanent world socialist revolution, as Stalin concentrated on the
consolidation of "socialist in one country"--the USSR.
From the 1950s, the anti-Soviet fervor of these New York City-based intellectuals prompted
support for the early United States intervention in Vietnam. In the 1970s, the Socialist Party
split up as some factions aligned with the New Left. The neocons formed the Social Democrats
USA (SDUSA), only later abandoning their socialist party-building in favor of penetrating both
the Democratic and Republican parties. In the 1970s, Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Henry
"Scoop" Jackson and Representative William Hughes hired some leading second-generation neocons
as foreign policy staffers, beginning a long, steady penetration of key Congressional
committees.
At the Gerald Ford White House, successive chiefs of staff Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney
organized a series of "intellectual seminars" by Irving Kristol, further spreading neocon
ideology within the foreign policy establishment. As Defense Secretary and later as Vice
President, Cheney continued to promote neocons to key posts and to advocate for neocon
permanent warfare.
Early in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan launched "Project Democracy," to spread democracy
around the globe through well-funded programs including the National Endowment for Democracy,
led by Carl Gershman, who has headed the NED since its founding in 1984 through to the present.
Gershman was previously Executive Director of Social Democrats USA. NED has been a stronghold
of neocons from its inception.
While the anti-Soviet outlook of the neocons continued even after the Berlin Wall and the
fall of Soviet communism, the focus increasingly was on permanent warfare to promote democracy
around the globe.
Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea
of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that
difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world
stage.
"Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea
of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that
difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world
stage."
I don't think the Democracy bit is much more than a fig leaf, it can quickly be discarded if
votes do not go as required. The aim seems to have more to do with removing unfriendly
regimes and replacing them with compliant ones. It does not work because the people/'voters'
do not like the imposed elites and are inclined to vote by tribe/clan/religion, rather than
any western concept of party, the biggest block wins and lords it over the minority.
Irving was quite a character. A socialist who's eyes were not totally closed to the um,
"contradictions" and stagnation inherent in socialist economies. He spun his wheels mightily
in the pages of Dissent trying to reconcile his socialist ideals with it's fundamental
conflict with human nature.
Ok, thus the essence of neoconism is Trotzkism and not Straussianism?
In other words, concerning the neoconservatives it makes no sense to look at the (Leo)
Straussian angle? Arbitarily?
Now, considering their (not so prominent???) part in the US Culture War (still ongoing???)
I am admittedly puzzled. If they were leaning towards Strauss at one point in time, they may
well have shifted from revolutionaries to counterevolutionaries at one point in time. No?
They never did? They weren't impressed by their heroes death, but carried his legacy on?
Nevertheless?
Actually, this is a recasting of the old Muslim idea of Dar al Salam and Dar al Harb. Western
Diocletian states embodying the House of Peace while the rest of mankind lives in the House
of War. For Muslims, the idea was to bring the benefits of Islam to non-Muslims. Here, it is
to bring the benefits of Civilization to the barbarian hordes.
Fundamentally, neocon and their fellow travellers - an assortment of Protestants, Jews,
Nihilists, Democrats, and Shoah Cultists - are waging a relugious war that has failed and
will fail against the particularities of mankind. Just like Islam failed to destroy either
Christianity or Hinduism, this Western errand will fail too.
I think these people are the type, subset pseudointellectuals, that just enjoy power and
using it to stir the pot of humanity for self-glorification.
IMO, they really believe in nothing else. They are, by nature, miserable craven control
freaks that justify their activities by hijacking whatever ideology is floating around in the
zeitgeist that the dupes will follow; could be Islam, could be Christianity, could be
democracy, could be socialism. Makes no difference to them as long as they get to experience
themselves as superior masters of the world.
In Libya, in 2011, Democracy-promoters destroyed her so that Sarkozy and others in France,
Spain, Italy, UK could steal her wealth; reminiscent of Muslim invasions of India in search
of war booty, rapine, and slaves, in the name of Islam.
So? This review of (important) history gives us no insight into why it happened or why we
should care today. Yes, I agree that these were bad people in the 1930s and they remained bad
people when they moved (in theory) from the left wing to the right wing. But that is all you
have said. What were the motives? How was it done? Why were they able to find acceptance in
both parties with such a lousy history? How are they able to continue being accepted after
such a lousy continuing history.
This account is all ad hominem, all about how a certain strain of ideologue has
consistently advocated for policies of world-wide control. The logical back story would be a
Trotskyite coordinating presence, something I don't for a minute believe. Yet people of this
description are undeniably pervasive in the councils of state.
So what is the connection between advocates of US dominion and former advocates of world
wide revolution? And, if it is just a matter of attitudes toward power, why should we care?
So some people 70 years ago (bad people, admittedly) had an influence of some people today
(also in my mind bad people). So? Were they the only people from that era who held such
attitudes? Could we not just as easily trace other genealogies for ideas of US domination? Do
such ideas ever in history fail to materialize when the power balances enable them?
So you don't like these people and you don't like where you think they came from. But do
you have anything to say about why they are so pervasive and what could be done about it?
Ah, the good old days. In the early 80's I would stop after work at the local newsstand
and pick up Commentary, Dissent, Partisan Review, National Interest, and so on. Whatever
struck my fancy and for some reason, these did even though their circulation was quite small.
At the time I didn't not realize their commonality which came to me later in the 80's. The
PBS movie/book, "Arguing the World," which came out about 20 years ago, has a lot of the
backstory.
A common thread is the desire to change the world though they had different views of what
that "change" should be.
As for me, I was an accidental entrepreneur and generally liked Hayek's economic views.
I'm also highly skeptical of idealist and messianic movements like Mao's which the 60's had
been rife with. But I loved readings all these rags with somewhat different perspectives but
a common thread that each seemed to think their "Truth" should rule. Seems to me the greatest
evil gets perpetrated by those that think they have found "The Way."
How much of neoconservatism cum liberal internationalism (foreign policy idealism aka
Wilsonianism) is "spreading freedom and democracy" and now much is neoliberal globalization
as "making the world safe for capitalism"?
In either case the end in view is a Pax Americana where the US has permanent global
dominance in accordance with the Wolfowitz doctrine of not permitting a challenger to arise
as a competitor.
If you go no further than Marxism, you will not understand what is happening. But to go
further is to engage in thoughtcrime.
Fortunately, the Catholic scholar E. Michael Jones has written a great book on this. It is
called The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit: And Its Impact on World History. Incredibly, it has
not been banned from Amazon yet. It is exhaustive, encyclopedic and documented.
Jones has developed a following among young Catholics appalled at both the corruption in
Rome and the corruption in American society. These kids are the ones digging conservatism's
grave, not the left. The left needs Conservative Inc to plays its role and keep the show
going for the benefit of older people who get all their information from television.
It has not been covered much by the media but TPUSA, a Trump-aligned youth organization,
has been battered by audience after audience on its recent campus tour. Yesterday in Los
Angeles Donald Trump Jr was booed off the stage as he tried to promote his latest book.
At first, TPUSA tried to blame campus leftwingers. This was an obvious lie, and so they
began to call the audience Nazis. Then, they accused them of being virgins. They tried to vet
and plant questioners but when this failed they eliminated the Q&A altogether. A similar
episode happened the week before when Sebastian Gorka stupidly took on a 20 year-old Youtube
personality with an audience ten times larger than his own.
Post-WW2 Conservatives failed because they never understood what they were fighting,
failed to wage culture war, and fooled themselves into thinking that the fall of the Berlin
Wall meant the end of struggle, when it only meant a change of theater.
"...appeared to have fallen from a balcony." I somehow doubt that.
"The NGO's funders currently include the British and German governments. The Trump
administration froze US funding, which made up about one-third of the total, without public
explanation in early 2018, but resumed giving financial aid last month amid criticism of its
decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria."
I bet that pissed off the neocons to no end. He should stop it again. We can use the money
at home.
"Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea
of permanent world revolution?"
Yes, profoundly. For starters, Permanent Revolution and world revolution
were two separate Trotskyist doctrines. Permanent Revolution was a doctrine eschewing the
mainstream social-democratic strategy of supporting bourgeois-democratic revolutions until
the proletariat gained sufficient strength to gain state power. Trotsky contended that
socialist - capitalist alliances were inherently unstable and that bourgeois-democratic
forces would inevitably align with the existing ruling order against the proletariat. World
revolution was a doctrine that a socialist revolution in Russia could not survive in
isolation and revolutions had to take place in more advanced countries, particularly Germany.
That was given a messianic veneer of "proletarian internationalism" and "world revolution."
Such maximalism was opposed to realist expedients such as the New Economic Policy and the
Rapallo Treaty of 1924 that fostered economic relations between the Soviet Union and
capitalist Germany.
Revolutionary movements have always drawn opportunists who saw them mainly as a shortcut
to gaining power for themselves. The ur-neocons were such a group. Their loyalty to
Trotskyist ideology only lasted as long as they saw it as something that could boost them
into power. When better means in various apparatuses of US power presented themselves, they
latched onto them under the guise of "spreading democracy." That seems a cynical formulation,
since the most consistent neocon ideological theme is that the great unwashed masses are not
to be trusted, so power must be arrogated to themselves.
"... the most consistent neocon ideological theme is that the great unwashed masses are not
to be trusted, so power must be arrogated to themselves." Isn't that the real ideology of all
these factions? To my mind the rest is all just tactics.
I am genuinely unsure what the real distinctions are. The present American "conservative"
idolizing of democracy and free market economics seems about as sincere as the Communist
ideal of economic control by the working classes. Many years ago I argued with a (captured)
VC political officer that the Vietnam war was just a fight between two elites over who would
get to run things. He was appalled by the idea. His claim to the moral high ground was based
on two factors: the personal honesty of the Viet Cong cadre and the party discipline that
that guaranteed it. These seemed plausible at the time. Both went up in smoke almost as soon
as the victory had been won.
How different were the results of the war from those to be expected from a Southern
victory? I haven't followed the subsequent history in detail, but American Vietnamese
acquaintances tell me that 40 years later everything is being run by Southerners. Not
identically the same Southerners, but ... And does anyone believe that a southern government
securely established would not have set about expelling the Chinese population that had
accumulated during the years when the Vietnamese could not control their own borders?
(American media never said much about it, but the boat people were overwhelmingly Chinese
victims of longstanding hatreds.)
So how different is the neocon vision from a Trotskyist vision in a world where direct
control is no longer possible?
The dots I have yet to connect are those that trace the path by which the neoconservatives
wandered from their socialist roots to become the enforcers of the Western world's
fundamentalist neoliberal ideology of political economy. How many of the dots pertaining to
the latter came to be embedded in the western industrialized world and most of the Global
South were tied together for me by the recent book Globalists: The End of Empire and the
Birth of Neoliberalism , by Quinn Slobodian. Several points jump from the author's
narrative. The neoliberal movement traces its origins to two citizens of the Austrian Empire
who came of age in the decades immediately before its collapse: Ludwig von Mises* (b 1881)
and Frederick Hayek (b 1899). Both were of un-landed noble families that had been promoted to
that status just a generation or two before. Slobodian argues that the Empire's uniqueness as
a multi-cultural, multi-national entity held together by a common market with no internal
tariffs and free migration within the empire led them (and especially Hayek) to envision a
similarly structured world economy. They and their disciples and successors saw the making of
that structure happen as their lives' work. The goal remained constant but the means of
achieving it changed with the times. First they saw the League of Nations as the potential
vehicle until its collapse during the Second World War. Next was the United Nation until it
was "overrun" by new nations emerging from colonialism. The goal was largely achieved in the
late 20th century when General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) morphed into the World
Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994.
The most salient features of a neoliberal political economy are: free movement and safety of
capital and protections for the ownership rights of investors across borders; free migration
of people across those same borders; also tariff-free trade among countries; and the removal
of economic policies and relationships from the purviews of sovereign countries and
subordinate jurisdictions within them.
Slobodian elaborates how as the neoliberal ideology became embedded in the world economy
during the 20th century it was believed by the movers and shakers (mostly implicitly but in
some cases explicitly) that the lagging development status of the peoples of the recently
decolonized emerging countries were the results of racial and/or cultural weaknesses. There
was little recognition of the impacts of the cultural carnage and wealth extraction that were
part and parcel of colonial enterprise. As a result, as the institutions of radical
neoliberalism took shape they consigned a secondary economic status to the countries of what
is now known as the Global South. The USA has been the leader in putting this ideology in
place and has been aggressively looking out for its own interests in the process, which is
understandable.* However an unintended consequence has been an economically lagging global
south that has been prevented from industrializing enough to employ the millions of people
whose farms have become uncompetitive with highly industrialized USA and European
agribusiness. These folks move off the land either to the growing megacities of the Global
South or, increasingly, into countries of the Global North by means either legal or illegal.
Thus the Democratic Party establishment's Kumbaya on immigration is not all sweetness, light
and harmony. They're also doing the bidding of their neoliberal masters. https://www.greenlightbookstore.com/book/9780674979529
"... The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing along. ..."
Recent class history of US is quite simple: the elite class first tried to shift the burden
of supporting the lower classes on the middle class with taxation. But as the lower class
became demographically distinct, partially via mass immigration, the elites decided to ally
with the ' underpriviledged ' via identity posturing and squeeze no longer needed
middle class out of existence.
What's left are government employees, a few corporate sinecures, NGO parasitic sector, and
old people. The rest will be melded into a few mutually antagonistic tribal groups providing
ever cheaper service labor. With an occasional lottery winner to showcase mobility. Actually
very similar to what happened in Latin America in the past few centuries.
The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are
'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of
corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing
along.
Unlike the USA (under Neocon stewardship) China has not squandered twenty trillion dollars
of its national solvency bombing countries which never attacked it post 9-11.
China's leaders (unlike our own) never LIED its people into launching obscenely expensive,
illegal wars of aggression across the middle east. (WMD's, Mushroom clouds, Yellow Cake,
etc.)
China has used its wealth and resources to build up its infrastructure, build out its
capital markets, and turbo charge its high tech sectors. As a consequence, it has lifted
nearly half a billion people out of poverty. There has been an explosion in the growth of the
"middle class" in China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are now living comfortable "upwardly
mobile" lives.
The USA, on the other hand, having been defrauded by its "ruling elites" into launching
and fighting endless illegal wars, is now 23 trillion dollars in catastrophic debt.
NOT ONE PENNY of this heinous "overspending" has been dedicated to building up OUR
infrastructure, or BUILDING OUT our middle class.
It has all gone into BLOWING UP countries which never (even) attacked us on 9-11.
As a consequence , the USA is fast becoming a failed nation, a nation where all its wealth
is being siphoned into the hands of its one percent "war pilfer-teers".
It is so sad to have grown up in such an amazing country , with such immense resources and
possibilities, and having to bear witness to it going down the tubes.
To watch all our sovereign wealth being vaporized by our "lie us into endless illegal war"
ruling elites is truly heartbreaking.
The white middle class is the only group that might effectively resist Globohomo's designs on
total power.
Blacks? Too dumb. Will be disposed of once Globohomo is finished the job.
Hispanics? Used to corrupt one party systems. Give them cerveza and Netflix and they're
good.
East Asians? Perfectly fine with living like bug people.
South Asians? Cowardly; will go with the flow.
The middle class is almost completely unique to white people.
Racial aliens cannot wrap their minds around being middle class. They think I'm crazy for
appreciating my 2009 Honda Accord. They literally cannot understand why somebody would want
to live a frugal and mundane life. They are desperate to be like Drake but most end up broke.
It will be very easy for GloboHomo to control a bucket of poor brown slop.
There IS a black middle class, but a big chunk of that works for governments of all
shapes and sizes.
Strictly speaking, there is no more "middle class" in the sense of the classical
economists: a person with just enough capital to live off the income if he works the capital
himself or herself. By this definition professionals (lawyers, dentists, physicians, small
store owners, even spinsters [1] and hand loom operators in a sense) were middle class. Upper
class had enough property to turn it over to managers, lower class had little or no property
and worked for others (servants and farm workers, for example). Paupers didn't earn enough
income per year to feed themselves and didn't live all that long, usually.
What we have is "middle income" people, almost all of whom work as an employee of some
organization -- people who would be considered "lower class" by the classical economists
because they don't have freedom of action and make no independent decisions about how the
capital of their organizations is spent. Today they are considered "intelligentsia", educated
government workers, or, by analogy, educated corporate workers. IMHO, intelligentsia is a
suicide job, and is responsible for the depressed fertility rate, but that's just me.
Back in the AD 1800s and pre-AD 1930 there were many black middle class people. usually
concentrating on selling to black clientele. Now there are effectively none outside of
criminal activities, usually petty criminal. And so it goes.
Of course, back then there were many white middle class people also, usually concentrating
on selling to white clientele. Now there are effectively none, except in some rural areas.
And so it goes.
Counterinsurgency
1] Cottagers who made their living spinning wool skeins into wool threads.
@unit472 A
lot of the middle class are Democrats but not particularly liberal. Many of them vote
Democrat only when they personally benefit. For example, my parents were suburban public
school teachers. They voted for Democrats at the state level because the Democrats supported
better pay and benefits for teachers but voted for Republicans like Goldwater and Reagan at
the national level because Republicans would keep their federal taxes lower. They had no
political philosophy. It was all about what left them financially better off. My parents also
got on well with their suburban neighbors. Suburbanites generally like their local school
system and its teachers and the suburban school systems are usually careful not to engage in
teaching anything controversial. A lot of the government employed white middle class would be
like my parents. Except in situations where specific Republicans talk about major cuts to
their pay and pensions they are perfectly willing to consider voting Republican. They are
generally social moderates, like the status quo, are fairly traditionalist and don't want any
radical changes. Since the Democrats seem be trending in a radical direction, this would put
off a lot of them. Trump would be more appealing as the status quo candidate. When running
the last time, he carefully avoided talking about any major cuts in government spending and
he's governed that way too. At the same time, his talk of cutting immigration, his lack of
enthusiasm for nonwhite affirmative action, and his more traditional views on social issues
is appealing to the white middle class.
The term middle class is used in the U.S. to mean middle income. It has nothing to do with
class. Why not just say what you mean? Most of the middle class that we say is disappearing
is really that rarest of phenomenons. A prosperous working class. The prosperous American
working class is no longer prosperous due to the Neoliberal agenda. Free trade, open borders
and the financialization of everything.
Americans know nothing of class dynamics. Not even the so called socialists. They don't
even see the economy. All they see is people with infinite need and government with infinite
wealth. In their world all of Central America can come to the U.S. and the government (if it
only wants to) can give them all homes, health care and education.
Lets stop saying class when we mean income. Not using the word class would be better than
abusing it.
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists. If
the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with the
Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
Are we to the point where we've collectively resigned ourselves to the death of the
middle class?
In the neoliberal worldview, the middle class is illegitimate, existing only as a
consequence of artificial trade and immigration barriers. Anytime Americans are spied out
making a good living, there is a "shortage" that must be addressed with more visas. Or else
there is an "inefficiency" where other countries could provide said service or produce said
product for less because they have a "comparative advantage."
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists.
If the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with
the Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
I don't know about that anymore. Increasingly, "middle class" means Asian, with Whiteness
being associated with the lower middle class (or perhaps "working class"). Sometimes the
media uses the term " noncollege Whites," which I think is actually very apt. They are the
ones who identify with Whiteness the most.
The fallout from the September attack on Saudi Arabia's Aramco oil facilities is continuing
to reverberate throughout the Middle East, sidelining old enmities -- sometimes for new ones --
and re-drawing traditional alliances. While Turkey's recent invasion of northern Syria is
grabbing the headlines, the bigger story may be that major regional players are contemplating
some historic re-alignments.
After years of bitter rivalry, the Saudis and the Iranians are considering how they can dial
down their mutual animosity. The formerly powerful Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) of Persian
Gulf monarchs is atomizing because Saudi Arabia is losing its grip. And Washington's former
domination of the region appears to be in decline.
Some of these developments are long-standing, pre-dating the cruise missile and drone
assault that knocked out 50 percent of Saudi Arabia's oil production. But the double shock --
Turkey's lunge into Syria and the September missile attack -- is accelerating these
changes.
Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran
Khan , recently flew to Iran and then on to Saudi Arabia to lobby for détente
between Teheran and Riyadh and to head off any possibility of hostilities between the two
countries. "What should never happen is a war," Khan said, "because this will not just affect
the whole region this will cause poverty in the world. Oil prices will go up."
According to Khan, both sides have agreed to talk, although the Yemen War is a stumbling
block. But there are straws in the wind on that front, too. A partial
ceasefire seems to be holding, and there are back channel talks going on between the
Houthis and the Saudis.
The Saudi intervention in Yemen's civil war was supposed to last three months, but it has
dragged on for over four years. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was to supply the ground troops
and the Saudis the airpower. But the Saudi-UAE alliance has made little progress against the
battle-hardened Houthis, who have been strengthened by defections from the regular Yemeni
army.
Air wars without supporting ground troops are almost always a failure, and they are very
expensive. The drain on the Saudi treasury is significant, and the country's wealth is not
bottomless.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to shift the
Saudi economy from its overreliance on petroleum, but he needs outside money to do that and
he is not getting it. The Yemen War -- which, according to the United Nations is the worst
humanitarian disaster on the planet -- and the Prince's involvement with the murder and
dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has spooked many investors.
Without outside investment, the Saudi's have to use their oil revenues, but the price per
barrel is below what the Kingdom needs to fulfill its budget goals, and world demand is falling
off. The Chinese economy is slowing -- the trade war with the US has had an impact -- and
European growth is sluggish. There is a whiff of recession in the air, and that's bad news for
oil producers.
Riyadh is also losing allies. The UAE is negotiating with the Houthis and withdrawing their
troops, in part because the Abu Dhabi has different goals in Yemen than Saudi Arabia, and
because in any dustup with Iran, the UAE would be ground zero. US generals are fond of calling
the UAE "little
Sparta" because of its well trained army, but the operational word for Abu Dhabi is
"little": the Emirate's army can muster 20,000 troops, Iran can field more than 800,000
soldiers.
Saudi Arabia's goals in Yemen are to support the government-in-exile of President Rabho
Mansour Hadi, control its southern border and challenge Iran's support of the Houthis. The UAE,
on the other hand, is less concerned with the Houthis but quite focused on backing the
anti-Hadi Southern Transitional Council, which is trying to re-create south Yemen as a separate
country. North and south Yemen were merged in 1990, largely as a result of Saudi pressure, and
it has never been a comfortable marriage.
Riyadh has also lost its
grip on the Gulf Cooperation Council. Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar continue to trade with Iran
in spite of efforts by the Saudis to isolate Teheran,
The UAE and Saudi Arabia recently hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin, who pressed for
the 22-member Arab League to re-admit
Syria. GCC member Bahrain has already re-established diplomatic relations with Damascus.
Putin is pushing for a multilateral
security umbrella for the Middle East, which includes China.
"While Russia is a reliable ally, the US is not," Middle East scholar
Mark Katz told the South Asia Journal . And while many in the region have no love
for Syria's Assad, "they respect Vladimir Putin for sticking by Russia's ally."
The Arab League -- with the exception of
Qatar -- denounced the Turkish invasion and called for a withdrawal of Ankara's troops.
Qatar is currently being blockaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE for pursuing an independent
foreign policy and backing a different horse in the Libyan civil war. Turkey is Qatar's main
ally.
Russia's 10-point agreement with Turkey on Syria has generally gone down well with Arab
League members, largely because the Turks agreed to respect Damascus's sovereignty
and eventually withdraw all troops. Of course, "eventually" is a shifty word, especially
because Turkey's goals
are hardly clear.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to drive the Syrian Kurds away from the Turkish
border and move millions of Syrian refugees into a strip of land some 19 miles deep and 275
miles wide. The Kurds may move out, but the Russian and Syrian military -- filling in the
vacuum left by President Trump's withdrawal of American forces -- have blocked the Turks from
holding more than the border and one deep enclave, certainly not one big enough to house
millions of refugees.
Erdogan's invasion is popular at home -- nationalism plays well with the Turkish population
and most Turks are unhappy with the Syrian refugees -- but for how long? The Turkish economy is
in trouble and invasions cost a lot of money. Ankara is using proxies for much of the fighting,
but without lots of Turkish support those proxies are no match for the Kurds -- let alone the
Syrian and Russian military.
That would mainly mean airpower, and Turkish airpower is restrained by the threat of Syrian
anti-aircraft and
Russian fighters , not to mention the fact that the Americans still control the airspace.
The Russians have deployed their latest fifth-generation stealth fighter, the SU-57, and a
number of MiG-29s and SU-27s, not planes the Turks would wish to tangle with. The Russians also
have their new mobile S-400 anti-aircraft system, and the Syrians have the older, but still
effective, S-300s.
In short, things could get really messy if Turkey decided to push their proxies or their
army into areas occupied by Russian or Syrian troops. There are reports of clashes in Syria's northeast and
casualties among the Kurds and Syrian Army, but a serious attempt to push the Russians and the
Syrians out seems questionable.
The goal of resettling refugees is unlikely to go anywhere. It will cost some
$53 billion to build an infrastructure and move two million refugees into Syria, money that
Turkey doesn't have. The European Union has made it clear it won't offer a nickel, and the UN
can't step in because the invasion is a violation of international law.
When those facts sink in, Erdogan might find that Turkish nationalism will not be enough to
support his Syrian adventure if it turns into an occupation.
The Middle East that is emerging from the current crisis may be very different than the one
that existed before those cruise missiles and drones tipped over the chessboard. The Yemen War
might finally end. Iran may, at least partly, break out of the political and economic blockade
that Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel has imposed on it. Syria's civil war will recede. And the
Americans, who have dominated the Middle East since 1945, will become simply one of several
international players in the region, along with China, Russia, India and the European
Union.
"... Impeachment is a game that Democrats are playing with Donald Trump, and the game's only rule is "heads I win, tails you lose." ..."
"... : by telling the president that he was not a subject of the probe and then refusing to issue a statement to that effect, Comey was making the point: Trump might be the country's elected executive, but men like Comey were the government. Officials could leak, they could issue anonymous quotes prejudicial to the president, and all Trump could do was wait until Comey decided to clear his name. ..."
"... by the time he issued his report, the protracted investigation, and all the hype about Trump and Russia that it sustained, had done its political damage and hammered the lesson home. Republicans suffered a bloodbath in the 2018 midterms, and the next president would think twice-and then twice again-about treating an FBI director as his underling. ..."
"... On January 11, 2017, Politico ran a news story under the headline "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire." The story documented Ukraine's meddling on behalf of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kenneth P. Vogel and David Stern summarized the findings: ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... Trump was within his rights as president to demand answers from Ukraine. And if he stood to benefit politically it was because Ukraine had already involved itself in American politics on the side of Democrats: severing those dubious ties and preventing further manipulation of U.S. elections would necessarily come at the expense of the party that Ukrainians had cultivated when Barack Obama was in power and which they had hoped to keep in power by helping Hillary Clinton ..."
"... Ukraine may have failed to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Democrats hope to use Ukraine to remove Trump now, either through impeachment-a longshot-or by weakening him and the GOP ahead of the 2020 election. And Democrats hope that Republican senators will be so embarrassed and perhaps divided by a trial in the Senate that they will lose control of that chamber in 2020, too. They know Trump will keep fighting, and the harder he fights, the more he refuses to play by the rigged rules of the game, the more opportunity Democrats see to frame his defensive moves as outrageous and impeachable offenses. With Nixon and Watergate, the cover-up was often said to be worse than the crime. With Trump, there is no crime, but his defiant acts of self-defense are enough to convict him-or so the Democrats and their allies hope. ..."
With Trump, there is no crime, but his defiant acts of self-defense are enough to convict him-or so the Democrats and their allies
hope.
Impeachment is a game that Democrats are playing with Donald Trump, and the game's only rule is "heads I win, tails you lose."
The president is familiar with these rules by now, as they're the same ones that governed the investigations into Russian meddling
in the 2016 election. FBI Director James Comey told Trump at the outset that he was not a target of the investigation.
Yet anonymous quotes and other questionably sourced reports continued to appear in the press claiming that Trump was a Russian
asset-as Hillary Clinton might bluntly put it-and so the president asked Comey to say in public what he had told him in private.
Comey refused, and Trump soon fired him.
This act of self-defense, or pique, depending on your point of view, triggered calls for the appointment of a special counsel
to take over the investigation-which ballooned from an investigation that didn't center around Trump into one in which Trump's behavior
toward Comey was grounds for investigating the president. Comey had made a power play: by telling the president that he was not
a subject of the probe and then refusing to issue a statement to that effect, Comey was making the point: Trump might be the country's
elected executive, but men like Comey were the government. Officials could leak, they could issue anonymous quotes prejudicial to
the president, and all Trump could do was wait until Comey decided to clear his name.
Other politicians might play by those rules out the desire for self-preservation. Trump chose not to. And so, an ex-FBI
director, who may have had hopes of becoming director once again, took over the investigation. Comey would not go unavenged. Mueller
ultimately found nothing criminal or meriting a recommendation of impeachment in Trump's behavior. But by the time he issued
his report, the protracted investigation, and all the hype about Trump and Russia that it sustained, had done its political damage
and hammered the lesson home. Republicans suffered a bloodbath in the 2018 midterms, and the next president would think twice-and
then twice again-about treating an FBI director as his underling.
The Ukraine corruption that is at the heart of the Democrats' impeachment project involves the same logic if somewhat different
players. On January 11, 2017, Politico ran a news story under the headline "Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire." The
story documented Ukraine's meddling on behalf of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kenneth P. Vogel and David
Stern summarized the findings:
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office.
They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only
to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico
investigation found.
If a foreign power involves itself is a U.S. election like that, shouldn't America ask questions? And shouldn't aid money to that
foreign power be held up until those questions were answered-not least because withholding those funds might be necessary to compel
cooperation with the investigation and to get the foreign interest to mend its ways? The questions Trump had to ask in this case,
however, involving what ties Ukrainians had to prominent Democratic Party figures, could and would, of course, be portrayed by Democrats
and the media sympathetic to them as a kind of election interference in its own right. Why, Trump was demanding a quid pro quo from
Kiev-the funds in return for information about the Democrats or an investigation that would embarrass a possible 2020 nominee.
Again, as Trump's enemies would have it, he loses if he acts (by firing Comey, by urging Kiev to look into questionable behavior
by or benefiting Democrats), and he loses if he doesn't act (and simply accepts mischaracterizations of the Russia investigation
in the press or Kiev's intrigues with Democrats). Trump has a predilection to defy his enemies-something they might now have come
to count on-so rather than taking the beating they want to mete out to him, he hits back, and then they cry foul. The media intensifies
its insinuations that Trump has broken one or more laws (though just which law remains vague and hardly even argued, let alone proven),
and the president's foes reach for their institutional weapons: the special counsel provisions and now impeachment proceedings. When
Republicans do not go along with the kangaroo court, well-paid ex-conservatives are hauled out to bemoan the lost integrity of a
party whose last president misled the country into ceaseless wars in the Middle East-with these very same ex-conservatives having
led the cheers for those interventions.
Trump was within his rights as president to demand answers from Ukraine. And if he stood to benefit politically it was because
Ukraine had already involved itself in American politics on the side of Democrats: severing those dubious ties and preventing further
manipulation of U.S. elections would necessarily come at the expense of the party that Ukrainians had cultivated when Barack Obama
was in power and which they had hoped to keep in power by helping Hillary Clinton.
Ukrainians are only acting in self-interest here:
they understandably want to enlist U.S. power in every way possible as a check upon Russia. The prospect of American politics taking
a turn toward rapprochement with Russia stirs Ukraine to take one side in our elections and Russia to take another. This is an old
familiar pattern in American politics-as old as the Washington and Adams administrations, when revolutionary France and counter-revolutionary
England had interests in our elections, and America's ideological factions were inclined to favor one power or another. Neutrality
was the course that George Washington urged, and by and large, it was the one that won out, even when the French-sympathizing Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison came to power.
A lesson from George Washington would stand the leaders in Washington, DC in good stead today. But Democrats in Congress have
other ideas: Ukraine may have failed to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Democrats hope to use Ukraine to remove Trump now,
either through impeachment-a longshot-or by weakening him and the GOP ahead of the 2020 election. And Democrats hope that Republican
senators will be so embarrassed and perhaps divided by a trial in the Senate that they will lose control of that chamber in 2020,
too. They know Trump will keep fighting, and the harder he fights, the more he refuses to play by the rigged rules of the game, the
more opportunity Democrats see to frame his defensive moves as outrageous and impeachable offenses. With Nixon and Watergate, the
cover-up was often said to be worse than the crime. With Trump, there is no crime, but his defiant acts of self-defense are enough
to convict him-or so the Democrats and their allies hope.
nopeace > jeremypw • 2 hours ago
The Jan 2017 piece referenced above disproves your entire post. It points out that Democrats used Ukraine n the 2016
election (long before Trump ever the Ukraine or Biden entered the race.
BTW, there wasn't just one country where the drug-abusing, bad discharged Biden-boy made gross amounts of money from countries
trying to buy influence in the Obama administration through his father. There were several, including China. The difference is
that his father admitted on video to threatening withdrawing billions in U.S. aid if the prosecutor of his son was not fired.
True quid pro quo.
We Americans are less obvious, if also less subtle: we quickly transform our common story
into uncommon glory -- of a Continental Army standing unbowed before well-drilled Redcoats, of
a war against slavery that, within a generation, became a War for Southern Independence, or in
extolling the sacrifice of 58,000 Americans in a divisive intervention that became, less than a
half a decade later, a "noble cause." Not surprisingly, the truth is far more interesting than
any myth. The Continental Army at Valley Forge was not only ill-clothed, underpaid, and
desertion-riddled, its finest day had come not against British regulars but mercenary Hessians;
the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the war
began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst), days, while the "noble cause" of Vietnam
featured a
military that , by 1971, was "in a state approaching collapse, with individual units
avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where
not near-mutinous."
The substitution of myth for fact, however, has its uses -- as one of our greatest soldiers,
General George Patton, certainly knew. While Patton was an indifferent student (he flunked
mathematics at West Point), he was an avid reader with a prodigious memory and a finely tuned
sense of history. Which makes his speech to the Third Army on June 5 of 1944 (as celebrated in
Hollywood's epic 1970 paean), all the more remarkable, as it extols a history we wish we had --
but don't: "Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this
war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit," Patton announced. "Americans love to fight,
traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle."
But Patton was just getting started. "Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a
loser," he went on to say. "Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all the time. I
wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never
lost nor will ever lose a war; for the idea of losing is hateful to America."
Of course, very little of this was actually true -- even in 1944, two decades before
Vietnam. All Americans love the sting and clash of battle? Not really. In January of 1781, in
the midst of the American Revolution, 1500 soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines of
the Continental Army mutinied, murdered their officers, and threatened to march on
Philadelphia.
When the mutiny spread, Washington had the mutineers rounded up, arrested, and their
ringleaders shot by a firing squad made up of their
fellow soldiers . On July 10 of 1863, one week after the Battle of Gettysburg, the New York
draft riots protesting conscription set fire to 50 buildings, lynched 11 black bystanders, and
left 120 civilians dead. The insurrection (as it was called by city officials), was finally
quelled by the New York State Militia. And in late 1944, while commanding in Europe, Dwight
Eisenhower was so angered by the reports of teeming throngs of American deserters raping and
looting their way through France that he considered "lining them up and mowing them down."
Americans have never lost a war? It doesn't take a trained historian to point out that the
American military botched the War of 1812 (the White House was burned and Washington occupied),
performed poorly (and genocidally) in the Indian Wars of the late 19th century (in which one of
its most famous units, the 7th Cavalry, was erased from existence), and mishandled the brutal
1899 Philippine Insurrection -- during which Mark Twain described American soldiers as
"uniformed assassins." Patton was no dummy and might have recited all of this himself. But his
speech made for good copy (and, as it turned out, great cinema) and undoubtedly boosted morale,
particularly for those who, within a short time, would be facing off against the best light
infantry in the history of the world.
But while historical myths have their place in creating a national story, France, China, and
Russia have, in turn (and over time), chosen truth over triumph -- exhuming the greatness of
Napoleon, Mao, and Lenin,
while burying forever the policies they followed . This is true also for the United States.
For while we Americans readily adopt the regalia of our past, we expect that our institutions
will not follow suit; that in the midst of failure, our policymakers will discard myths and
choose reality.
This is what happened, famously, on March 25, 1968 when President Lyndon
Johnson met with a group he called "the wise men" -- a wizened crew of 14 Washington
policymakers to help him decide what to do about the worsening situation in Vietnam. Included
in the group was former secretary of state Dean Acheson, former White House counsel Clark
Clifford, former ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and former JCS chairman
General Omar Bradley.
These officials had traditionally supported Johnson's Vietnam policies but now, in the wake
of the disastrous Tet Offensive, they had second thoughts. Stunned by the ferocity of the
Vietnamese attack, only two of the 14 (Maxwell Taylor and Abe Fortas) recommended that Johnson
"stay the course." The shift was symbolized by Omar Bradley, a military icon. Victory? "Maybe
we ought to lower our sights," he told Johnson.
Of course, while the March 1968 meeting of the wise men was crucial to America's adventure
in Vietnam (and Lyndon Johnson's political future), it did little to dampen the controversy
surrounding the war -- which has been refought, since, in the pages of the war's histories.
Indeed, it seems axiomatic that what cannot be won on a battlefield is often alchemized in
later accounts.
These bloodless campaigns, fought with pen rather than sword, turn defeats into victories,
burnish reputations, assess blame, but also blight understanding and blemish history. This is
particularly true when it comes to America's most controversial conflicts. In 1869, Confederate
Major General Dabney Herndon Maury founded the Southern Historical Society. Its papers, later
collected in 52 volumes, rewrote much of Civil War history, a tendentious rendering whose goal
was to argue the justness of the Lost Cause. Many of the society's papers remain troubling,
rehabilitating the image of the most famous and otherwise failed rebel leaders, while laying
the blame for the Confederate loss at the feet of southerners who, in later years, conceded the
Union victory. The papers also remain controversial because their most important claims (that Lee lost at
Gettysburg because his orders were disobeyed, that soldier-for-soldier, the southern armies
were simply better fighters than their northern counterparts) resulted from barely veiled
pro-southern and racially tinged political agendas. You'd have thought the South had won the
war.
The same holds true for Vietnam. In that war's aftermath, while much of America was trying
to forget the conflict, a small group of respected historians continued to pick at its scab,
leaving a blood trail of if-onlys in their wake. The most prominent of these historians was
Lewis "Bob" Sorley, a respected former officer and celebrated biographer (of Creighton Abrams
and William Westmoreland, among others), whose book on Vietnam, A Better War , has been
the subject of controversy since its publication in 1999.
In A Better War , Sorley argued that the U.S. might have won in Vietnam, if only that
nation's top commander in the conflict had discarded his costly and morale-sapping
search-and-destroy strategy in favor of maintaining the security of South Vietnam's population,
substituted clear-and-hold tactics for massive sweep operations, improved the training and
equipping of South Vietnam's military, decreased the destruction of U.S. firepower -- and
supported the South Vietnamese, instead of abandoning them.
The conclusions ignited a bonfire of criticism, particularly from some of the Army's more
respected thinkers. Writing in the pages of The National Interest in 2012, retired
Colonel Gian Gentile took on Sorley in a pointed critique that proposed that America should
have never been in Vietnam in the first place.
"In war, political and societal will are calculations of strategy, and strategists in
Vietnam should have discerned early on that the war was simply unwinnable based on what the
American people were willing to pay," Gentile wrote .
"Once the war started and it became clear that to prevail meant staying for an unacceptable
amount of time, American strategy should have moved to withdraw much earlier than it did.
Ending wars fought under botched strategy and policy can be every bit as damaging as the wars
themselves."
Put simply, Sorley argues that the Vietnam War could have been won, if only the U.S. had the
will to prevail, while Gentile responds that because the American people did not have the will
to prevail, the war should have never been fought.
The spat over the Civil War and Vietnam doesn't necessarily mean that history repeats
itself, but it does get rewritten -- and rethought. The same is now true for the war in Iraq.
The Army War College's weighty two-volume study of the 2003 Iraq conflict ( The U.S. Army in
the Iraq War ), has sparked a divisive mini-controversy among the uniformed services, whose
senior officers regularly debate its major conclusions (as I noted in The American
Conservative , online,
back in February ): that U.S. commanders didn't understand the country they invaded, made
assumptions about an enemy that proved to be wrong, didn't have enough soldiers to win the
fight, who bungled the military's detention policies, and who failed in their mission to train
and equip the Iraqi armed forces.
But any praise for these conclusions has been muted by the study's other (Sorley-like)
judgment: that, as in Vietnam -- where the villains were the antiwar movement and the Congress,
the villains in Iraq are George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the former blamed for too quickly
getting us in, the latter for too quickly getting us out.
Into this affray has now jumped a much shorter (at 292 pages), offering, written by a team
of nine experts and researchers at the Rand Corporation. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad , gives us what
the Army War College didn't -- an unvarnished and precise accounting of what went wrong and
why, and without the tendentious political overtones of the tome-like AWC study. This shouldn't
come as a surprise. Among the study's authors are two of the Army's leading thinkers: retired
Colonels David E. Johnson and Gian Gentile, the latter the outspoken Sorley critic known in the
military for his often-scathing ability to say what he means.
Johnson, on the other hand, is known for his counter-intuitive and often uncomfortable
question of given premises, which has made him a valued interlocutor in the upper echelons of
the Army. The likely result of the study (much talked about in the military prior to its
release earlier this year), is that it has had a far greater impact than its 1200-plus page
predecessor. The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad is not a page-turner, unless of course
you're an Army officer, but it lays out in precise detail the eight lessons the military can,
and should learn, from Operation Iraqi Freedom. But most readers will find the study's
understated third chapter, on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, among the most compelling written on
the war.
At the center of this presentation is the unshifting, unalterable truth of the war -- -that
the dysfunction obvious at the upper levels of the U.S. military following the fall of Baghdad
mirrored a deeper civilian-military chasm in Washington. The result of the dysfunction was that
the initial Battle for Baghdad was simply a prelude to a continuing battle for Baghdad, that
the war, once ended, simply continued.
The study's authors issue this crisp judgment, which is starkly at odds with the AWC
study:
"While much of the blame for the shortcomings of postwar planning rightly falls on senior
rungs of the Bush administration, the truth of the matter is that there is more than enough
blame to go around, up and down the chains of command in military and civilian planning."
Military officers speak candidly of the problem: "I don't think that any of us either could
have or did anticipate the total collapse of this regime," Lt. General William Wallace told the
authors, "and the psychological impact it had on the entire nation."
In military history, this is "the Henry Wentz problem." Henry Wentz was born in York County
in Pennsylvania in 1827, but moved with his family to nearby Gettysburg when he was nine. He
spent his most formative years on his family farm, which was just south of the town and off the
Emmitsburg Road.
As a young adult Henry went to Martinsburg (then in Virginia), married a local girl and
became a carriage maker. When the Civil War came he joined the Confederate Army, serving as an
ordnance sergeant in Taylor's Virginia Battery. On July 2, 1863, Wentz found himself manning
his rebel guns in his family's front yard, at Gettysburg, as a part of Longstreet's bloody
assault on the Union Army's III Corps. Lee had attacked with Longstreet that day to unhinge the
Union line, planning to take the high ground around the Wentz farm at a peach orchard, which
Lee thought was a dominating position.The orchard, owned by the Sherfy family (and hence
referred to as the Sherfy Peach Orchard in battle histories) seemed to rise out of the ground
and command the fields beyond. The problem was that Sherfy's orchard didn't dominate anything.
It was not on a rise, it did not control the land beyond. The orchard's height, if you stand on
it, is an optical illusion. A short discussion with Henry Wentz might have shown this, if only
Lee had known that Wentz was there.
He didn't.
For military officers commanding thousands or hundreds of thousands of young men and women,
for military experts whose job it is to study these operations -- -and not just for hobbyists
or aficionados -- the Henry Wentz problem is a tolling bell, a heart stopping
wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night realization that not knowing , particularly when
lives are at stake, is an unforgivable blunder. Reading about Gettysburg many years later,
generations of Civil War historians, reclining by their firesides, want to scream at Lee: "What
do you mean you didn't know ?" And that is the value of The U.S. Army and the Battle
of Baghdad -- -and the effect of William Wallace's seemingly mundane, if stunning,
observation. The U.S. military did not anticipate that the drive for Baghdad would be
difficult, did not anticipate that the Iraq Army would transform itself into an insurgency, did
not anticipate "the total collapse of the regime" -- and so did not anticipate the tragedy that
followed. To which we too want to scream: what do you mean you didn't anticipate? It was
your job to anticipate."
It is long past time that the senior military leadership with Iraq invasion (not to
ignore the Afghan debacle) and since be held accountable for multitude of blunders and poor
performance overall.
The fawning adulation from the press serves no good purpose and simply perpetuates the
waste and fraud that gives us more blunders and weapons systems and "strategies" that do
not and could not work to specs and plans.
But as the article states, there is plenty of blame to go around, I am referring to the
"political Leadership" of bush, obama, and now trump, and of course, congress. Leadership
may be too kind a term for what passes for leadership.
no issues holding the military mistakes to account. But these choices were politically
made and the political leadership should not be permitted to scapegoat the military for the
leaderships choices to engage in regime change which included purging military
dissenters.
Full agreement here. In fact, it's rather silly to strike at the military leaders, people
trained in war, for supporting war. It's like complaining about a scientist who decides to
solve every crisis with attaching it to the Internet.
The generals look at ways to fight a war. It's the political leaders that determine if
war is the right idea. That's why it's the elected leaders, not the military, that hold the
keys. All of the manipulations of the DoD end once we have a Congress and White House that
wants it to end.
Honestly I respect the idea of going after the past leaderships that sent us here, but
really I'd be content with just finding a leadership that stops the train now and leave the
old guard to their retirements. That's going to be difficult as it is without us turning on
a revenge campaign that might turn ugly.
It's a relatively minor point in the article, but I would agree with those who claim that
man-for-man the Confederates were better soldiers than the Yankees. They held out for 4
years against the US, whose forces were numerically superior and far better equipped and
supplied, while managing to inflict more military casualties on their foes than they
suffered. In the same way, I'd also agree with the many historians and WWII veterans who
claim that the Germans were man-for-man better soldiers than any of their enemies. Both the
American Civil War and WWII were essentially wars of attrition. Losing such a war is no
military disgrace but it also doesn't mean that the losing side had a noble cause. In most
wars, there are no good guys.
in what way were the confederate soldiers better "man for man"?
US soldiers got slaughtered wholesale throughout the war - yet they had the spirit to
keep coming. They got slaughtered wholesale because they used tactics developed for the
previous generation of small arms. The tactic of marching at the enemy packed together.
As James McPherson describes in "Battle Cry of Freedom" they got slaughtered because
they 1) had to fight on offense and 2) they were using tactics designed for the previous
generation of small arms. They used tactics designed for weak-firing in accurate muskets
rather than the current generation of rifles - accurate and deadly from long ranges.
They used the tactic of massing men together and marching at the enemy. This worked for
muskets. For rifles loaded with minie balls, it made them sitting ducks when they marched
towards dug in Confederates.
This article's author, Mr. Perry, mentions the slaughter of the Confederate soldiers at
the peach orchard. A slaughter that resulted from the Confederates having to walk across a
long rise of land before they could engage with the enemy. The slaughter that was said to
have begun the defeat the Confederates. An awful slaughter.
The US soldiers didn't have just one peach orchard, they had many. They had "cold
harbor", they had "the bloody angle", they had "Marye's heights". Dug in confederates armed
with rifles mangled US soldiers horribly. Mangled them as they marched, out in the open,
well within rifle range, towards dug in and hidden Confederates.
Yet the Union soldiers had the spirit to keep on coming. It's like "Butch Cassidy and
The Sundance Kid". As Perry points out, post Civil War Southern supporting writers
romanticized the poor, starving, southern infantryman. He was handsome, stoic, and a
fighter. But it was the northern guys who kept on coming. Kept on coming despite seeing so
many of their friends torn to pieces.
Northern soldiers who had the stuff to get the job done.
So the more numerous side that has the spirit to keep coming despite enormous casualties
and because of bad tactics are by definition better soldiers than the less numerous side
which using good tactics has the spirit to keep fighting until they finally run out of
effective fighters? By this standard the more numerous are always better soldiers as long
as they win in the end, which they usually will in a war of attrition. By this standard,
the Russians were far better soldiers than the Germans in WWII. Hint - the term man-for-man
indicates I am measuring quality rather than just quantity and quality in soldiers includes
tactical proficiency, not just bravery.
War is an obsolete idea. 1000 years ago, the only way to increase your wealth was to take
over someone else's land and enthrall the local population to farm it for you. 200 years
ago it was necessary to capture a population in order to force them to only purchase your
manufactured goods, so your capitalists didn't have to compete with those of other
countries.
In a information/service economy, war and control over other populations serve no
purpose. The DOD, like all grand bureaucracies, survives only through the corruption of
Congress.
It is time to disband the military. Get rid of the Navy, but leave the Coast Guard. Then
turn the Coast Guard over to the States. Disband the Army and Marine Corps. Let the State's
maintain their National Guards if they want. Disband the Air Force. The federal government
should just maintain a nuclear deterrent force and set up a coastal missile defense that
can destroy any Navy attempting to sail to attack us.
Have the federal government manufacture everything it needs itself instead of handing
over tax payer dollars which are then used to corrupt Congress. It's time.
I look forward to further articles on the military's culture of not knowing. I've spent
my whole adult life around Army personnel. (mostly retired). Going off to do things
half-cocked is a point of pride with them. It's a macho trait that they love about
themselves. Being willing to take action even though they haven't spent much time assessing
the forces in their way.- being willing to wade into unknown danger.
Pondering things seriously is weakness - in their view.
further, at least one of these unlikely seeming new proponents of traditional
masculinity - Jordan Peters - celebrates this macho trait. The macho trait of taking action
without considering all knowable facts.
"the War for Southern Independence was waged to eliminate a racial blight that, when the
war began, had already seen its best (or, rather, worst)"
The comforting notion that slavery was destined to "fade away" was frequently indulged
in during the 250 plus years that it lasted in the U.S., but it never did. As for the Wentz
anecdote, if Lee had talked with Wentz, the outcome of the war would not have changed.
There is an interesting "sabermetric" study of generals you can find online that gives a
particularly interesting picture of Lee. He was one of the most aggressive generals in
history, fighting more battles than anyone except Napoleon. But he was also--wait for
it--BELOW AVERAGE. (Please don't spill your mint julip.) Grant, on the other hand, was one
of the 10 best ever.
Slavery was on the way out and in another generation was gone throughout the western world,
including the African colonies, and surviving only in Arabia. Only in the US and Haiti was
slavery ended by wars and horrific bloodshed. In all other countries, including the vast
slave empire of Brazil, slavery was abolished with minimal to no casualties. A bit of
patience on the part of the abolitionists and unionists would have led to a somewhat later
but peaceful end of slavery in the southern US. The union of all the states may not have
been preserved, but in my estimation that would have been a good thing, if achieved
peacefully.
The military planners knew what was needed to pacify Iraq in the invasion and occupation.
750,000 troops and 25B+ dollars. Darth Cheney knew the US public wouldn't accept that, so
they went in on the cheap, ignored the vast stores of conventional weapons, and Viceroy
Bremmer back-stabbed the Iraqi army, thus creating the insurgency. Why? Because Planned
Chaos is the most profitable, and taking Iraq oil off the market greatly enriched our
"Saudi friends" and lots of other producers in the region. Inflation-adjusted oil prices
more than doubled from 2003 to 2007.
As of early 2009, the surge had worked, were holding territory on turf Islamic savages
considered their own and were killing hoards of jihadi scum who were flocking there, pretty
much at will, who were being induced to do so at the behest of Bin Laden. Iraq was part of
a long term strategic regional strategy (kill them on their own turf) which was working
quite well as far as it got. 4000 dead US soldiers is a travesty under any circumstances,
but considering what we had accomplished it pales in comparison with Vietnam. Keep in mind
we stayed in Germany and Japan for decades after WWII to ensure our efforts were not
wasted.
Iraq was not a debacle until 0bama refused to negotiate an updated SOFA, effectively
surrendered (against military and other expert advice) and rendered every single US
military death to have been in vain.
"... Until now, Iran has restrained itself despite constant aggression from Israel, but this could easily change. "The result could be a counterstrike by Iran, using cruise missiles that penetrate Israel's air defenses and smash into targets like the Kiryah, Tel Aviv's equivalent of the Pentagon. Israel would retaliate massively against Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut as well as dozens of its emplacements along the Lebanese border. And then, after a day of large-scale exchanges, the real war would begin " ..."
In my 2011 book,
The Wandering Who
, I elaborated on the possible disastrous scenario in which Israel is the nucleus of a
global escalation over Iran's emerging nuclear capabilities. I concluded that Israel's PRE Traumatic Stress
Syndrome (PRE-TSS) would be central to such a development. "The Jewish state and the Jewish discourse in
general are completely foreign to the notion of temporality. Israel is blinded to the consequences of its
actions, it only thinks of its actions in terms of short-term pragmatism. Instead of temporality, Israel
thinks in terms of an extended present."
In 2011 Israel was still confident in
its military might, certain that with the help of America or at least its support, it could deliver a mortal
military blow to Iran. But this confidence has diminished, replaced by an existential anxiety that might
well be warranted. For the last few months, Israeli military analysts have had to come to terms with Iran's
spectacular strategic and technological abilities. The recent attack on a Saudi oil facility delivered a
clear message to the world, and in particular to Israel, that Iran is far ahead of Israel and the West. The
sanctions were counter effective: Iran independently developed its own technology.
Former Israeli ambassador to the US, and
prolific historian, Michael Oren, repeated my 2011 predictions this week in the
Atlantic
and described a horrific scenario for the next, and likely last, Israeli conflict.
Oren understands that a minor Israeli
miscalculation could lead to total war, one in which missiles and drones of all types would rain down on
Israel, overwhelm its defences and leave Israeli cities, its economy and its security in ruins.
Oren gives a detailed account of how a
conflict between Israel and Iran could rapidly descend into a massive "conflagration" that would devastate
Israel as well as its neighbours.
In Israel, the term
"The War Between the Wars
," refers to the targeted covert inter-war campaign waged by the Jewish State
with the purpose of postponing, while still preparing for, the next confrontation, presumably with Iran. In
the last few years Israel has carried out hundreds of 'war between the wars' strikes against Iran-linked
targets in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Oren speculates that a single miscalculation could easily lead to
retaliation by Iran. "Israel is girding for the worst and acting on the assumption that fighting could break
out at any time. And it's not hard to imagine how it might arrive. The conflagration, like so many in the
Middle East, could be ignited by a single spark."
Until now, Iran has restrained itself
despite constant aggression from Israel, but this could easily change. "The result could be a counterstrike
by Iran, using cruise missiles that penetrate Israel's air defenses and smash into targets like the Kiryah,
Tel Aviv's equivalent of the Pentagon. Israel would retaliate massively against Hezbollah's headquarters in
Beirut as well as dozens of its emplacements along the Lebanese border. And then, after a day of large-scale
exchanges, the real war would begin "
Oren predicts that rockets would "rain on
Israel" at a rate as high as 4,000 a day. The Iron Dome system would be overwhelmed by the vast simultaneous
attacks against civilian and military targets throughout the country. And, as if this weren't devastating
enough, Israel is totally unprepared to deal with precision-guided missiles that can accurately hit targets
all across Israel from 1000 miles away.
Ben Gurion International Airport would be
shut down and air traffic over Israel closed. The same could happen to Israel's ports. Israelis that would
seek refuge in far away lands would have to swim to safety
.
In this scenario, Palestinians and
Lebanese militias might join the conflagration and attack Jewish border communities on the ground while
long-range missiles from Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran land. Before long, Israel's economy would cease to
function, electrical grids severed and damaged factories and refineries would spew toxic chemicals into the
air.
In the Shoah scenario Oren describes,
"Millions of Israelis would huddle in bomb shelters. Hundreds of thousands would be evacuated from the
border areas as terrorists attempt to infiltrate them. Restaurants and hotels would empty, along with the
offices of the high-tech companies of the start-up nation. The hospitals, many of them resorting to
underground facilities, would quickly be overwhelmed, even before the skies darken with the toxic fumes of
blazing chemical factories and oil refineries."
Oren predicts that Israel's harsh
response to attack, including a violent put down of likely West Bank and Gaza protests, would result in
large scale civilian casualties and draw charges of war crimes.
As Oren states, he did not invent this
prediction, it is one of the similar scenarios anticipated by Israeli military and government officials.
If such events occur, the US will be
vital to the survival of the Jewish State by providing munitions, diplomatic, political, and legal support,
and after the war, in negotiating truces, withdrawals, prisoner exchanges and presumably 'peace agreements.'
However, the US under the Trump administration is somewhat unpredictable, especially in light of the current
impeachment proceedings against Trump.
In 1973 the US helped save Israel by
providing its military with the necessary munitions. Will the US do so again? Do the Americans have the
weapons capability to counter Iran's ballistics, precision missiles and drones? More crucially, what kind of
support could America provide that would lift the spirits of humiliated and exhausted Israelis after they
emerge from underground shelters having enduring four weeks without electricity or food and see their cities
completely shattered?
This leads us to the essential issue.
Zionism vowed to emancipate the Jews from their destiny by liberating the Jews from themselves. It vowed to
bring an end to Jewish self-destruction by creating a Jewish safe haven. How is it that just seven decades
after the founding of the Jewish state, the people who have suffered throughout their history have once
again managed to create the potential for their own disaster?
ORDER IT NOW
In The Wandering Who I provide a
possible answer: "Grasping the notion of temporality is the ability to accept that the past is shaped and
revised in the light of a search for meaning. History, and historical thinking, are the capacity to rethink
the past and the future." Accordingly,
revisionism
is the true essence of historical thinking. It
turns the past into a moral message, it turns the moral into an ethical act. Sadly this is exactly where the
Jewish State is severely lacking. Despite the Zionist promise to introduce introspection, morality and
universal thinking to the emerging Hebrew culture, the Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish
past because it doesn't really grasp the notion of the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.
Everyone understands that a minor Iranian miscalculation could lead to total war. One in which nuclear bombs
would rain down on Iran leaving its cities, economy, and security in ruins.
The sociopath, Ayatollah
Khameni is detached from reality and may be willing to take such risks. However, there is no reason to
believe that The Iranian military or civilian population will embrace certain suicide. It is quite likely
that the IRGC would decide that it is time for another revolution and end the theocracy, rather than die
following the dubious commands of a deranged Ayatollah.
____
The whole theory about a prolonged conflict falls apart once accurate facts are applied to the situation.
Iranian al'Hezbollah has large numbers of Katyusha pattern rockets, but very few precision weapons. And to
provide human shields for these weapons, almost all of them are in a limited number of urban centers.
The facts are clear, even if Gilad chooses to ignore them in favor of his personal fantasies. Iranian
al'Hezbollah would lose badly in a total forces engagement. The nuclear incineration of their rear echelons
would leave forward forces totally defenseless against overwhelming Israeli air superiority.
-- Would there be Israeli civilian casulities? Certainly.
-- Would Lebanon become uninhabitable? Yes.
-- Would Ayatollah Khameni perish when Israeli nukes Tehran? Absolutely.
______
There is no possible scenario where Iran "wins" if they launch a substantial first strike. And, the
Iranian military understands this as fact.
@A123
It is really fun when Gilad gets off Epstein and rape stuff and ventures into wars and Israeli security. The
generals have kept Gilad up to date on the latest and the greatest.
He is so out to lunch in his desire to see Israel panic and loose the next war facing horrible casualties
because it makes his point about how the Jews are doomed unless they cease being Jews.
He really believes
that he can solve the problem and change our destiny if we all read "Wondering
Who"
In The Wandering Who I provide a possible answer: "Grasping the notion of temporality is the ability
to accept that the past is shaped and revised in the light of a search for meaning. History, and
historical thinking, are the capacity to rethink the past and the future." Accordingly, revisionism is
the true essence of historical thinking. It turns the past into a moral message, it turns the moral into
an ethical act. Sadly this is exactly where the Jewish State is severely lacking. Despite the Zionist
promise to introduce introspection, morality and universal thinking to the emerging Hebrew culture, the
Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish past because it doesn't really grasp the notion of
the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.
I wonder what it is like to wish death and destruction on a people and a country to prove your point and
call yourself an unemotional Athenian.
@A123
As you may have noticed, in the Israeli apocalyptic scenarios the Jewish state doesn't put into play the
Samson option.. it is slightly less genocidal than yourself .. you may want to ask yourself why
Israel is making a terrible mistake. The oft touted "Sampson Option" is a bogus option as Bibi, Benny Gatz
and/or any other Israeli leader knows it will be suicide if they use this option. Because even if they
emerge from the bunkers days later after using nuclear bombs against Iran, Syria, Lebanon and other European
capitals (
Samson option targets Europe
) they will be greeted with hostility and will have no
sanctuary.
Three times in world history the Jews were rescued by the Persians.
Believe it or not.
However, the US under the Trump administration is somewhat unpredictable, especially in light of the
current impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Not at all unpredictable with regards to Israel. Trump and Congress would use the last cent of US
taxpayer's money and the last drop of Anglo blood to save the place. Trump is Israel's US Viceroy and
Congress is its Colonial Parliament.
Israel's real nightmare starts when US nationalists toss out the colonialists, and Israel has to find a
way live on its own resources.
I have to think that considering the failure of military intelligence agencies in the past that no one has
any real idea how close Iran is to getting the bomb. But even if they get numbers of them and have a means
to deliver them on target it simply would mean that Iran and Israel are in a standoff. I can understand how
Israel would not want Iran to have the bomb but in reality how much difference would it make? It would only
be relevant if the two countries had already blundered into war and things were entering a final disastrous
stage. Then it would simply mean both countries would be destroyed instead of just one.
Also, not being a military man am I naive in thinking Iran might be able to buy nuclear weapons on the black
market? From North Korea, perhaps? I have got to suspect Israel will be faced with two options. Either fight
Iran sooner, before they get nukes. Or they will simply have to accept that Iran is going to be a nuclear
power. It's pretty obvious that Israel has been trying to get America to fight their war for them. But Trump
has been reluctant to do so. No wonder the Jews are chomping at the bit to find some way to get rid of him.
2020 should prove to be an interesting year.
This analysis leaves out two very significant historic military facts:
1) The 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon aka the "33 Day War" where in:
"Hezbollah inflicted more Israeli casualties per Arab fighter in 2006 than did any of Israel's state
opponents in the 1956, 1967, 1973, or 1982 Arab-Israeli interstate wars, and is generally acknowledge that
Israel flat out lost that war and de facto sued for a cease fire.
(see: "U.S. Department of Defense. The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for
Army and Defense Policy." Kindle Edition.)
2) The Syrian army is currently the only army in the world that has multi-front, contiguous multi-year
'combined arms' (i.e. army, armor, artillery and air force) combat experience .
Further, the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah in a recent interview pointed out that Hezbollah
fighting along side of the Syrian Army these past five years, now has experience in offensive warfare. In
2006 they fought strictly defensively.
In short, if an Israeli war comes again, given the experience of the Syrian and Hezbollah armies and
Syria acquiring state of the art air defense system (S 300, etc), Iranian missiles may very well be the
least of Israel's worries.
Indeed, before Iran launches missiles, Hezbollah and Syria may move to take back Shebaa Farms and Golan
Heights.
To my mind: Israel and American militaries are "paper Tigers". Israel has never fought a combined arms
war for a sustained period of time against an equally matched military. And the US not since Korea. Their
victories have always been overwhelming an inferior force.
@AaronB
For me the fact that the Jewish state indulges itself in apocalyptic and genocidal fantasies is really a
glimpse into to tribal mind.. as far as I can tell this pre traumatic stress points at severe form of
projection .. Israeli politicians and commentators attribute their own symptoms to their neighbours ..
@Rev. Spooner
' Three times in world history the Jews were rescued by the Persians.
Believe it or not.'
The Persians more or less created 'the Jews.' At any rate, a religion recognizable
as Judaism first appeared in the wake of the Persian conquests.
However, when did the Persians 'rescue' the Jews?
They allowed the creation of an autonomous Jewish state in Palestine when they overran that place around
the beginning of the seventh century AD -- but that only lasted for about twenty years anyway.
@A123
If I may: I don't know for sure what G Atzmon meant by the Samson Option; but, I have come across this
express before and I took it to mean that Israel will go to nuclear war even if means the destruction of the
Jewish State. That is, like Samson who destroyed his enemies by killing himself; Israel nuec's Iran and Iran
nuce's Israel (kills enemies and itself).
This should not be taken lightly. While it would be totally irrational for most states to take the Samson
Option, it is to my mind a plausible option for Israel. For even if the Jewish State is destroyed, the
Jewish Nation i.e. the Jewish people around the world will survive and continue on as they have these
thousands of years. But, they will be free of what they perceive as their arch enemy i.e. Iran and other
Moslems. They survived the metaphoric Holocaust and they will survive a literal one. The Jewish State may be
destroyed but not the Jewish People.
This is something not enough people comment on. Israel's military is not a mini US military, it has serious
problems and takes losses and casualties in contexts that would be shocking for another Western country that
spends as much per capita for it's military.
This is why Israel having nuclear weapons irks me so much, the more it can't rely on it's conventional
military, the more they'll lean into their nuclear deterrent, increasing the probability of it's use. (Not
dissimilar to the situation with Pakistan vis-a-vis India, though in that case, India has nukes too)
@Tom Verso
The Samson Option
The Samson Option.jpg
Author Seymour Hersh
Country United States
Language English
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Random House
Publication date
1991
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 362 pp
ISBN 0-394-57006-5
OCLC 24609770
Dewey Decimal
355.8/25119/095694 20
LC Class UA853.I8 H47 1991
The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It
details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations. The
"Samson Option" of the book's title refers to the nuclear strategy whereby Israel would launch a massive
nuclear retaliatory strike if the state itself was being overrun, just as the Biblical figure Samson is said
to have pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and
thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated.
According to The New York Times, Hersh
relied on Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli government employee who says he worked for Israeli intelligence,
for much of his information on the state of the Israeli nuclear program. However, Hersh confirmed all of
this information with at least one other source.[1] Hersh did not travel to Israel to conduct interviews for
the book, believing that he might have been subject to the Israeli Military Censor. Nevertheless, he did
interview Israelis in the United States and Europe during his three years of research.[1]
@Fran Taubman
' If you study it, can be pretty scary. It is not just Israel. Also who wants another North Korea
blackmail game?'
You mean something like the Samson option?
Anyway, the whole discussion is silly.
No nation
-- and that included Imperial Japan in 1945, when
the chips were down -- chooses self-immolation. They always give way. Iran isn't a threat to Israel because
Iran's not going to commit national suicide, and 'the Samson Option' is bullshit as well, because six
million Jews aren't going to commit national suicide either.
Zionists such as yourself only choose to think otherwise about Iran -- in spite of the absence of any
historical evidence at all -- because it justifies your own pathological aggression towards a nation that is
(a) a thousand miles away, and (b) poses no serious threat to Israel whatsoever.
Try not attacking literally everyone you can think of. That might help. I mean, fuck -- Israel is the only
state in modern history that has attacked literally
every single one
of her neighbors, and several
more besides. Since 1948, she's attacked Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, and even the
United States. What's up?
Despite the Zionist promise to introduce introspection, morality and universal thinking to the
emerging Hebrew culture, the Jewish State has failed to break away from the Jewish past because it
doesn't really grasp the notion of the 'past' as a dynamic elastic ethical substance.
The Jews are always long-term losers because they teach their children that they have always been and
will forever be victims of humanity. Jew children are traumatized at an immature young age – they are
mentally damaged by the thought that humanity wants to kill them and do them harm. This notion is inculcated
deep in the Jew child's psyche. These poor children can never escape what has been implanted. (For three
thousand years, generation after generation, Jew culture has been abusing their children with dreadful
thoughts.)
Nine out of ten adult Jews are triggered into thoughts of doom by any criticism of Israel – their
reactions are visceral, and a pure reflex coming out of their brainstem.
Jews cannot be introspective because of what elder Jews have implanted in them in their youth. Their
rational emotional systems have been short-circuited.
I have seen intelligent Jews on this forum flirt with empathy for Palestinians – only to fall back into
mindless reflexive support of whatever Israel does.
Jews Are Feeling Guilty: They Should Be. Their Influence Has Been Cancerous to America
Gilad Atzmon Wed, Nov 6, 2019
It has become an institutional Jewish habit to examine how much Jews are hated by their host nations
and how fearful Jews are of their neighbours. Jewish press outlets reported yesterday that "9 out of 10
US Jews worry about anti-Semitism."
. . .
As Haartez writer Ari Shavit wrote back in 2003: "The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative
intellectuals, most of them Jewish " Maybe some Jews now understand that the Zionist shift from a
'promised land' to the Neocon 'promised planet' doesn't reflect well on the Jews as a group.
Any separation of one group from another is a tribe. Any identity whatsoever is a tribe – because
identity sets you apart. The moment you define yourself you are tribal, because definitions distinguish
one thing from another.
The issue is that some people are not particularly tribal (i.e. Westerners) and they are open to
multiculturalism – i.e. proposition nations. However, proposition nations are very much non-tribalist places
and need non-tribalism to survive.
If tribalists talk multiculturalism and proposition nations (i.e. use deception) while practicing
tribalism, they quickly overwhelm these societies – which is where the US is today with regards to Jewish
tribalists.
What does a Jewish tribalist elite do next? And what does a (subjected) majority do next?
Michael Oren, repeated my 2011 predictions this week in the Atlantic and described a horrific scenario
for the next, and likely last, Israeli conflict.
The purpose of Oren's Atlantic article was to create alarm in the DC political corridors .."warning' that
if the US doesnt 'soon help Israel' with its Iran enemy there will be chaos and dead bodies galore .
Its propaganda but 'true' propaganda 'if' Israel were to attack Iran on their own but they wont .they aren't
capable of it alone.
They are running this same propaganda articles/warnings in Europe, saying Europe needs to 'do something'
about Iran Now!
Its basically a blackmail and scare ploy because they don't think Trump will do it for them .and of course
if Israel starts a war it will be because Trump/US deserted them like he/we did the Kurds and they were
'forced' to try and defend the world against Iran 'all alone' and Israel isn't to blame for the mess lol.
What Israel will do is try to start a war on Hezbollah 'first, as Hezbollah would be their most immediate
and dangerous threat , severely crippling Israel right at the onset of any war with Iran.
They will claim that Iran directed attacks on Israel and so the US should step in because its an attack by
Iran.
If we had anyone in DC that wasn't bought off by Jewish 'benjamin's ' they would be laughing their asses
off at this typical Jewish tactic.
Everyone understands that a minor Iranian miscalculation could lead to total war. One in which nuclear
bombs would rain down on Iran leaving its cities, economy, and security in ruins.
The sociopath, Ayatollah Khameni is detached from reality and may be willing to take such risks.
However, there is no reason to believe that The Iranian military or civilian population will embrace
certain suicide. It is quite likely that the IRGC would decide that it is time for another revolution and
end the theocracy, rather than die following the dubious commands of a deranged Ayatollah.
Kristol, you're drunk. Turn off the computer and go to bed, you shmuck.
That was the goal.
Remember the Zios in Rumsfeld's pentagon stressing how the US must dump 'old Europe"?
Even a non genius like me could figure that out .old Europe might be too much of a 'restraining ' influence
on the US.
The Jews hate Europe anyway ..just like they hate Russia.
Some interesting things popped up this week .Vindman , main testifier against Trump on Ukraine is a
Ukraine Jew, Solderman,Trump's main man on Ukraine is a Jew, also has now testified against Trump, their
attorney is also a Jew ..they all have issued statements about how the plucky "little Ukraine is fighting
against Russia for the US and world" and needs our aid and so on. Exactly the same wording and bullshit spin
the Jews use about Israel "fighting Iran to protect the US and world interest".
Plain to me the Uber Jews are trying to set up the Ukraine as a Israel satellite and weight on Russia's
flank.
I read Vindman's testimony to congress ..something is very off about the guy. he sounded numerous times
like he lost his script. He's, in his own words, a fanatical supporter of Ukraine . I don't like Trump but I
think the Ukraine deal to impeach him is a set up ..and its not coming mainly from the CIA ,its coming from
the Nat Sec Council that Vindman works for.
It is terrifying to think that in the event Israel be run by psychopaths, they might sacrifice another "6
million", while securing themselves a new Zion.
On the other hand, a peaceful transfer of the occupation of Palestine to Patagonia (and elsewhere),
without the trigger of war, would be a possible path to peace in the Middle East (not so ideal for Patagonia
though).
What would it take for either outcome to pass? I fear the former is far more likely than the latter.
I don't like Trump but I think the Ukraine deal to impeach him is a set up ..and its not coming mainly
from the CIA ,its coming from the Nat Sec Council .
A controversial whistleblower who allegedly reported second-hand on President
Donald Trump's
private conversation with the Ukrainian President
Volodymyr
Zelensky visited the Obama White House on numerous occasions, according to Obama era visitor logs obtained by Judicial Watch.
Last week
Real Clear Investigation's first reported the whistleblower's name. It is allegedly CIA officer Eric Ciaramella. His name, however,
has been floating around Washington D.C. since the leak of Trump's phone call. It was considered an 'open secret' until reporter
Paul Sperry published his article. Ciaramella has never openly stated that he is the whistleblower and most news outlets are not
reporting his name publicly.
He was detailed to the National Security Counsel during the Obama Administration in 2015 and was allegedly sent back to the CIA
in 2017, after a number of people within the Trump White House suspected him of leaking information to the press, according to several
sources that spoke with SaraACarter.com .
Further, the detailed visitor logs reveal that a Ukrainian expert
Alexandra Chalupa , a contractor that was hired by the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election, visited the White
House 27 times.
Chalupa allegedly coordinated with the Ukrainians to investigate then candidate Trump and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Manafort was forced out of his short tenure as campaign manager for Trump when stories circulated regarding business dealings with
Ukrainian officials. Manafort was later investigated and convicted by a jury on much lesser charges then originally set forth by
Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation. He was given 47 months in prison for basically failing to pay appropriate taxes and
committing bank fraud.
Both Ciaramella and Chalupa are of interest to Republican's investigating the what some conservatives have described as the second
Trump 'witch-hunt.' And many have called for the whistleblower to testify to Congress.
They are absolutely correct and within the law. There is so much information and evidence that reveals that this was no ordinary
whistleblower complaint but one that may have been based on highly partisan actions targeting Trump.
Here's just one example : Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes said its impossible to have a fair impeachment
inquiry without the testimony of the alleged whistleblower because he is a 'fact foundational witness' who had met with Intelligence
Committee Chairman
Adam
Schiff, D-CA, previously. Schiff had originally denied that he had any contact with his committee and then had to walk back his
statements when it was revealed that the whistleblower had met with the Democrats prior to filing his complaint to the Intelligence
Inspector General about the President.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, said the visitor logs reveal that there is much lawmakers or the American public don't know
about what happened during the 2016 presidential elections and moreover it raises very significant questions about the apparent partisan
nature of the whistleblower.
"Judicial Watch's analysis of Obama White House visitor logs raises additional questions about the Obama administration, Ukraine
and the related impeachment scheme targeting President Trump," said Fitton, in a press release Friday.
"Both Mr. Ciaramella and Ms. Chalupa should be questioned about the meetings documented in these visitor logs."
Read Below From Judicial Watch
The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Eric Ciaramella while he was detailed to the Obama White
House:
Daria Kaleniuk: Co-founder and executive director of the Soros-funded Anticorruption Action Center (AntAC) in Ukraine. She
visited on December 9, 2015
The Hill
reported that in April 2016, during the U.S. presidential race, the U.S. Embassy under Obama in Kiev, "took the rare step of
trying to press the Ukrainian government to back off its investigation of both the U.S. aid and (AntAC)."
Gina Lentine: Now a senior program officer at Freedom House, she was formerly the Eurasia program coordinator at Soros funded
Open Society Foundations. She visited on March 16, 2016.
Rachel Goldbrenner: Now an NYU law professor, she was at that time an advisor to then-Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha
Power. She visited on both January 15, 2016 and August 8, 2016.
Orly Keiner: A foreign affairs officer at the State Department who is a Russia specialist. She is also the wife of State Department
Legal Advisor James P. Bair. She visited on both March 4, 2016 and June 20, 2015.
Nazar Kholodnitzky: The lead anti-corruption prosecutor in Ukraine. He visited on January 19, 2016.
On March 7, 2019, The Associated Press reported
that the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch called for him to be fired.
Michael Kimmage: Professor of History at Catholic University of America, at the time was with the State Department's policy
planning staff where specialized in Russia and Ukraine issues. He is a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He was also one of
the signatories to the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group Statement of Principles. He visited on October 26, 2015.
James Melville: Then-recently confirmed as Obama's Ambassador to Estonia, visited on September 9, 2015.
On June 29, 2018, Foreign Policy
reported that Melville resigned in protest of Trump.
Victoria Nuland: who at the time was assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs met with Ciaramella on
June 17, 2016.
(Judicial Watch has previously uncovered
documents revealing Nuland had an extensive involvement with Clinton-funded
dossier . Judicial Watch also released
documents revealing that Nuland was involved in the Obama State Department's "urgent" gathering of classified Russia investigation
information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Trump taking office.)
Artem Sytnyk: the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Bureau director visited on January 19, 2016.
On October 7, 2019, the Daily Wire
reported leaked tapes show Sytnyk confirming that the Ukrainians helped the Clinton campaign.
The White House visitor logs revealed the following individuals met with Alexandra Chalupa, then a DNC contractor:
Charles Kupchan: From 2014 to 2017, Kupchan served as special assistant to the president and senior director for European
affairs on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) in the Barack Obama administration. That meeting was on November 9,
2015.
Alexandra Sopko: who at the time was a special assistant and policy advisor to the director of the Office of Intergovernmental
Affairs, which was run by Valerie Jarrett. Also listed for that meeting is Alexa Kissinger, a special assistant to Jarrett. That
meeting was on June 2, 2015.
Asher Mayerson: who at the time was a policy advisor to the Office of Public Engagement under Jarrett had five visits with
Chalupa including December 18, 2015, January 11, 2016, February 22, 2016, May 13, 2016, and June 14, 2016.
Mayerson was previously an intern at the Center for American Progress. After leaving the Obama administration, he went to work
for the City of Chicago Treasurer's office.
Mayerson met with Chalupa and Amanda Stone, who was the White House deputy director of technology, on January 11, 2016.
On May 4, 2016, Chalupa emailed DNC official Luis
Miranda to inform him that she had spoken to investigative journalists about Paul Manafort in Ukraine.
Mounting evidence shows that Turkey is now using rebel groups paid for by a $1 billion U.S.
taxpayer-funded program as its soldiers in a brutal war on the Kurdish-led forces in Syria --
which were also armed and trained by America.
U.S. officials are describing these militants as "thugs, bandits, and pirates" as the
Turkish-led Islamist forces are currently committing alleged war crimes against civilians and
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Northeast Syria. Ironically, the United States
armed many of these rebels as part of an effort to overthrow Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Critics say that there were warning signs along the way year after year. In fact,
Turkish-backed fighters recently videotaped themselves using
a U.S.-made anti-tank rocket against an SDF vehicle, perhaps itself supplied by the U.S.
military. "If a fighter was in a faction that received weapons from the CIA, and is still
fighting today -- and that's a big if -- he is most likely in the ranks of the Syrian National
Army," said Foreign Policy Research Institute Fellow Elizabeth Tsurkov, who has extensive
contacts with Syrian rebels.
Anti-Russia and anti-Iran hawks believe that the United States could have ended the could
have pre-empted the whole mess in Northeast Syria -- Turkey, the Kurds, ISIS, and all -- by
taking out Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Now that the window of opportunity has passed, and
as President Donald Trump doubles down on ending the "endless war" in Syria, anti-Assad hawks
have shifted their attention toward using U.S. power to pressure the Syrian dictator into
submission. But first, they have to clean up the image of the Syrian opposition.
America is fighting terrorism and the White House is hosting it
Walid Sharabi and Gamal Hishmat , Muslim Brotherhood leaders, wanted for justice for
participating in killing and inciting on terror attacks in Egypt, escaped from the country
and they are hosted by Qatar, Turkey and moving freely in Europe and the USA.
They are wanted for participating and inciting on burning vital buildings and public
properties, inciting for violence and killing, criminal court cases numbers 12838 year 2013 , and 10790/101 year 2013 .
Muslim Brotherhood leaders attended meetings with senior US officials and Congress in this
current month Jan 2015. Walid Sharabi declared on his Face book page, that Mohamed Morsi
being the legitimate president of Egypt, is not an open issue for discussion or arguments. He
added that this is not the first time and won't be the last time to held meetings with US
officials and also they are in contact and meetings with 27 other countries in the world to
discuss Egyptian affairs issues.
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LEADERS IN THE US CONGRESS MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LEADERS ESCAPED FROM
EGYPT AND WANTED FOR JUSTICE FOR PARTICIPATING AND INCITING ON TERROR ATTACKS
Muslim Brotherhood leaders in the above screenshot are the leaders of the
revolutionary council formed and established by Muslim brotherhood in Turkey after the
30/6/2013 revolution. The woman is Maha Azzam the chief of the council, Walid Sharabi and
Gamal Hishmat Shura council member of Muslim Brotherhood and Abd Elmawgoud Aldardiri the
official spokesman of Muslim Brotherhood and their dissolved political party, after being
declared a "terrorist organization" in Egypt.
Despite that the US refused to consider Muslim Brotherhood as "terrorist organization",
and that the US doesn't hide publicly their ties with Muslim Brotherhood, but we do have many
questions and exclamations here. What is the purpose of these meetings? Is it to hold the
stick from the middle?!
There is a blatant contradictory in the
White house policy , The White house claims their support for stability and fighting
terrorism in Egypt, and in the meantime time, they support and held meetings with the same
terrorists, Egypt is fighting!
There is no official declarations from the US officials or the Brotherhood about the
details of discussions of these meetings between MB and US officials. If Washington follows
the transparency policy as they always claim, why these meetings details were not published
to the public opinion!?
There is certainly a message there to Egypt from the US and their Muslim Brotherhood
allies, and If there is any honesty or transparency in the White house policy, Obama should
declare and admit publicly that they held deals with the devil and the terrorists, as long as
it serve their interests, and they have no shame in applying double standards policy. This is
happening already, so why not call spade a spade!
Does the White house think that playing with this idiotic card of Muslim Brotherhood, can
put any pressure on Egypt, when needed, or to go on with the same chaos middle East project,
that Egypt was saved from, after the 30/6 Egyptian revolution, to face the same destiny of
Syria, Libya, Iraq and Yemen, so the project will be accomplished and achieve its
targets!
Is it a coincidence or intentional to allow the first political party of a terrorist
organization like the Muslim Brotherhood in the USA, and held official meetings with them
what is the deal here?
On 26 Jan 2015, the inquisitr's
Website published that Muslim Brotherhood Starts A Political Party "UMMA" out of Chicago.
The founder of the party is Sabri Samirah a Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood member, was deemed a
US national security risk in 2003 and was banned from entering the US for almost 11
years.
SABRI SAMIRAH ALLOWED TO ENTER THE US BY OBAMA IN 2014 AFTER 11 YEARS OF BAN FOR NATIONAL
SECURITY THREAT
Sabri Samirah, was allowed into the U.S. by President Barack Obama back in 2014 following
an 11-year ban!!! He immediately gathered Muslims to form the party, which is now recognized
as the UMMA, an offset of the United Muslim Americans Association (UMAA means nation). The
first political party in the U.S. to be openly connected to the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist
organization .
So, not only the White House refused to consider Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist
organization, but they allowed them to form a political party in the US There are some
political analysis that are confirming the ties between MB and Washington, to keep the
channels open between the US and terrorist Organizations through the mediation of Muslim
Brotherhood, like Al-Qaeda and ISIS to ease the pressure on the US in their fight against
terrorism!
What is the deal Obama?!
This is not the first time and it won't be the last time either, the White House make
deals with all parties, including terrorists, this is no longer a secret and it is not
shocking anymore.
But why not call things by its own names? Obama always talks about his administration's
principles and values and standard policy and he is always lecturing us about the US
transparency in dealing whether with internal or external affairs. But he never calls things
by its right names!
The Muslim Brotherhood who deceived the entire world and many Egyptians, with their
moderate Islam and that they only seek to be political partners with other political
currents, are the same Muslim
Brotherhood who ruled Egypt with fascism and the same who live in about 80 countries in
the world, including the US, they are the same MB who consider
women as nothing but a pot of desires and lusts
This is their tactics, they are spreading through deception, and when the right moment
comes, they show their ugly faces and raise their swords against any one who doesn't belong
to their sick distorted ideology.
This is no longer a prediction or analysis, this is no longer a reading of the scene. We
repeat and we will never gave up confirming and warning the entire world that Muslim
Brotherhood is a terrorist organization, because this is what we have lived and experienced
when Egypt was under the rule of Muslim Brotherhood, and we are still fighting their terror
attacks.
Obama, you can't support the Egyptian people and support the terrorists at the same time,
unless of course, you are a MORON or a Schizophrenic!
Obama said that the US will always support the Egyptian people's will and the Egyptians
are the only ones to chose freely their own future and destiny
We did chose freely our destiny and future, like UNCLE OBAMA said, by our own free will on
30/6/2013.
We revolted against Muslim Brotherhood fascist regime and got back our identity and
country that has been hijacked by Muslim Brotherhood terrorists.
Obama can't claim that the US respect our human rights and free choices, the Obama's
administration violated one of our main human rights when they interfered in our internal
affairs from the very first beginning, and every time they are dictating and lecturing us
about what must be done to enjoy freedom and democracy.
Obama is against violence and armed demonstrations, this is what he claims He mentioned
several times that those who demonstrate can not express themselves with violence!? Not even
with bombs or machine guns! How come Obama is telling our gevernment to apply Restraint
policy , while they are facing Muslim Brotherhood armed demonstrations and terror
attacks?!
Yes, "He can" support us and support the terrorists at the same time.
Obama, you can't claim that you are with us and you are fighting terrorism, and at the
same time, you are hosting Terrorists in the heart of America!
All of these flags, logos and names vary, but The terrorism is one. they symbolize the
blood, racism and extremism, intolerance and discrimination, murder and slaughter and
bloodshed and torture.
How come Obama supports the symbol of Muslim Brotherhood which is a symbol of terrorism,
violence and blood, and he is fighting ISIS and Al-Qaeda? They are all coming from the same
bloody womb! How come America declared HAMAS as terrorist group, and in the meantime, the
white house is supporting Muslim brothers terrorists and Hamas is the military wing of
MB!
Muslim Brotherhood raising their 4 fingers sign of terrorism and blood in the US congress
and US foreign affairs department, it is not a message of challenging the Egyptian State or
the Egyptian people, but Muslim Brotherhood are directly challenging the American people.
This is totally insane and beyond any logic for any brain to absorb or even to
understand.
From the Medium article "John Bolton's Old Rivals Say Trump Should Be Very, Very
Worried"
"I don't think dirt-digging would offend Bolton. What would offend Bolton is interrupting
military supplies to a country in a deadly battle with Russia. Doing something that for
whatever reason appeases Putin," Thielmann said."
The country referred to is Ukraine. I guess I've missed all the msm articles detailing all
those deadly clashes between Russian & Ukrainian military units along with casualty
figures and all that. I suppose I need to pay closer attention (or something).
UN says 12,800–13,000 killed since April 2014. So Congress bought a pile of Javelin
AT munitions, the ones with a top attack flight profile that will place a high explosive
shape-charge of molten copper through tops of young Russian tank commanders' heads, who are
sons of Putin's base, if there was a mechanized push further into Ukraine. [The political
tolerance window for which is narrowing.]
Our benevolent leader said, "Hold-on. You gotta first get your FBI to clear my campaign
and come up with some trumped-up charges against my political opponent. My FBI won't do it."
Congressional impoundment, solicitation of a bribe for personal gain, and abuse of power. In
any case, Ukraine's getting a smaller pile of missiles until next year, so, gross incompetent
moves, both domestic and abroad.
You recall that the Obama administration opposed giving Ukraine any lethal assistance?
Congress has just come up with an excellent method of giving the Russians a lot of free
Javelins if there were a serious fight. Which there continues to be no sign of.
The great bulk of (pro-government) Ukrainian casualties occurred in the course of
ill-advised and poorly conducted offensives against the breakaway republics. When it only
defends, the Ukrainian side doesn't suffer casualties. Because nobody attacks it.
At a US gov-funded think tank, this official who oversaw Congress' Syria Study Group outlines
the continued regime-change strategy. She says the US military "owned" 1/3rd of Syrian territory,
including its oil/wheat-rich region. And the US is trying to block reconstruction funds:
1191808201177604096
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is a total moron, but we owe him a great debt for bringing the Deep State out into the open. We also owe him a great debt for blatantly stealing Syria's oil. Trump's big problem is that he's too stupid to keep the secrets of the ruling-class. They will never again be able to deny the Deep State. And their "just" wars are all exactly what they always looked like: unadulterated criminal greed. It's just killing and stealing, no different from any other murderous, thieving criminal other than the massive scale of the killing and stealing. ..."
First, all the way back in 2005 -- more than a half decade before the war began -- CNN's
Christiane Amanpour told Assad to his face that regime change is coming . Thankfully this was
in a televised and archived interview, now for posterity to behold.
Amanpour, it must be remembered, was married to former US Assistant Secretary of State James
Rubin (until 2018), who further advised both President Obama and former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton.
"Mr. President you know the rhetoric of regime change is headed towards you from the
United States... They're granting visas and visits to Syrian opposition politicians,"
Amanpour told Assad in a 2005 CNN
interview .
Next, a surprisingly blunt assessment of where Washington currently stands after eight years
of the failed push to oust Assad and influence the final outcome of the war, from the very man
who was among the early architects of America's covert "arm the jihadists to topple the
dictator" campaign .
Myself and others
long ago documented how former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford worked with and funded a
Free Syrian Army commander who led ISIS suicide bombers into the battlefield in 2013.
Amb. Ford has since
admitted this much (that US proxy 'rebels' and ISIS worked together in the early years of
the war), and now admits defeat in the below recent interview as perhaps a reborn
'realist'.
And finally, not everyone is as pessimistic on the continuing prospects for yet more US-led
regime change future efforts as Robert Ford is above. Below is an astoundingly blunt
articulation of the next disturbing phase of US efforts in Syria , from an October 31
conference at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) .
"The panel featured the two co-chairs of the Syria Study Group , a bi-partisan working
group appointed by Congress to draft a new US war plan for Syria," The Grayzone's Ben Norton
wrote
of the below clip:
She made it a point to stress that this sovereign Syrian land "owned" by Washington also
happened to be "resource-rich," the "economic powerhouse of Syria, so where the hydrocarbons
are as well as the agricultural powerhouse."
With images
now circulating of Trump's "secure the oil" policy in effect, which has served to at least
force pro-interventionist warmongers to drop all high-minded humanitarian notions of "democracy
promotion" and "freedom" and R2P doctrine as descriptive of US motives in Syria, the above
blunt admissions of Dana Stroul , the Democratic
co-chair of the Syria Study Group, are ghastly and chilling in terms of what's next for the
suffering population of Syria.
We are "preventing reconstruction aid and technical expertise from going back into Syria,"
she stressed in her statement.
America is not finished, apparently, and it's likely to get a lot uglier than merely
seizing
the oil.
Hell, why doesn't America unleash nerve gas on Syria's population and get this shat-show
over with? Naturally, this will result in the loss to the international body parts market of
Syria's youngsters (videos of actual procedures upon screaming school-age kids are available
online), but America's shockingly-enabled Child Protective Services seems quite adept at
replacing that market sector.
"They're granting visas and visits to Syrian opposition politicians"
think there were any quid pro quos with those? of course that was ok; it only led to a
million dead in the mideast for the very short term advantage of the likud mossad, for which
anything, at all, from 9-11 to epstein, is permitted
Gooooooooo Russia! NATO are great at bombing farmers but they **** their panties when
another modern army drew a line in the sand and they retreated and dug in around the oil
fields.
That sounds very anti USA and it is! But I know the British are involved, I just do not
see the British Armed Forces as the British Armed Forces anymore they are just small players
in a USA fronted globalist force and this globalist force fights for the private wealth of a
few individuals?
**** that and **** you for your service to all NATO personnel since 9/11. Our armed forces
are the bad guys in this movie. Which oil/ore rich nation without a western run central bank
are NATO forces going to free the **** out of next? I was betting on Iran but it looks like
America is about to turn on South America soon, Venezuela looks like NATO want to free
it.
Christiane Amanpour - I wonder what she sees when she sees herself in the mirror.
'To die, to sleep – to sleep – perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, for in
that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must
give us pause.'
likely to get a lot uglier than merely seizing the oil
Lost in their factionalist partisan bubble of rabid political gamesmanship, Merikans
continue to squabble over which of their talmudic puppet parties suffer more from imperial
over reach...
whilst serious war crimes committed by jihadis and their neo-islamist backers continue to
occur as a result of the WAR CRIMINAL IN CHIEFS' kowtowing to an oriental despot who has the
goods on Donnies' Debt Deal with turco-talmudic bagmen who did over his dirty real estate
laundry in return for having their own 'special genius' POTUS dancing on their strings!
Hundreds of thousands displaced, and more now on the run from rape n pillage gangsters due
to Dons' Deceitful Sellout of the ONLY group who took on the Daesh/ISIS and pounded their
pouty asses in to the desert sands. All to save his own chicken neck; And you wanna talk
about oil?
"I like oil - we're keeping the oil." OIL FOR BLOOD - BLOODY DON DRIMPF, THE JIHADIST CHEW
TOY!
Trump is a total moron, but we owe him a great debt for bringing the Deep State out
into the open. We also owe him a great debt for blatantly stealing Syria's oil. Trump's big
problem is that he's too stupid to keep the secrets of the ruling-class. They will never
again be able to deny the Deep State. And their "just" wars are all exactly what they always
looked like: unadulterated criminal greed. It's just killing and stealing, no different from
any other murderous, thieving criminal other than the massive scale of the killing and
stealing.
This twat wants to "hold the line on preventing reconstruction aid from going back to
Syria" ........ the Zionists love a failed state. Music to their creepy ears.
Syria is the last barrier that separates the civilization from the tsunami of evil. The
Syrian sovereignty and independence - however flawed - must be preserved at any cost.
Jews responsible for the whole of it. America cannot become a decent force in the world
without deposing its Jewish elite and removing their power, reach and influence.
I lived under communism for 21 years. For the first 11 or so years, we only had one TV
channel, which was kinda 50/50: fifty percent government propaganda, fifty percent
government-approved forms of entertainment. Some 11 years later, we got another channel,
which was mostly movies and assorted entertainment, with bits and pieces of Big Brother
presence tossed in for good measure.
Still, I found the official news credible in one sense: you knew that these guys were full
of **** and lying through the teeth so you could always reconstruct the truth by placing
their news coverage on its head. It never failed. It worked like a charm.
Now, I have some 600+ channels worth of pure brainwash in every shape, shade and nuance of
mind control. It is impossible to even think of reconstituting some semblance of objective
reality from the fake media coverage. All you get is one gigantic funhouse, the house of
horrors, the lunatic asylum on steroids. The only way to stay sane is to steer clear and as
far away from the insanity as possible. You did the right thing, in fact the only possible
thing.
The Washington Institute -- founded by Barbi Weinberg and first led by the former deputy
director of research for AIPAC. Democrat, Republican--all the same to these 'think
tanks'.
Andrew Bacevich
describes how the U.S. learned all the wrong lessons from the fall of the Berlin Wall and
the end of the Cold War:
You won't hear it from any of the candidates vying to succeed Trump, but we are still
haunted by our false conception of the Cold War. On the stump, politicians get away with
reciting comforting clichés about the imperative of American global leadership. Yet
the time for believing such malarkey is long gone.
An essential first step toward recoupling national security policy and reason is to see
the Cold War for what it was: not a "long, twilight struggle" ending in victory, but a vast
and costly tragedy that inflicted needless suffering, brought humankind absurdly close to
extinction, and from which U.S. policymakers have drawn all the wrong lessons.
The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall offers an occasion not for celebration but
for somber and long overdue reflection.
One of the wrong lessons that U.S. policymakers drew from the events of 1989-1991 was that
the U.S. was chiefly responsible for ending and "winning" the Cold War, which inevitably
overestimated our government's capabilities and effectiveness in affecting the political
fortunes of other parts of the world. The far more critical and important role of the peoples
of central and eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself in overthrowing the system that had
oppressed them was pushed into the background as much as possible. The U.S. took credit for
their success and policymakers frequently attributed the outcome to the policies of the late
Cold War rather than to the deficiencies and failings of the other system. After waging
stalemated and failed wars in the name of anticommunism, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able to
claim that they had "won" something, and so they declared victory for something that they
hadn't caused.
The period that followed the dissolution of the USSR was one of triumphalism, expansion, and
overreach. The U.S. not only congratulated itself for achieving something that was accomplished
by others, but it also assumed that it could achieve similar results in other parts of the
world. If NATO had been a great success as a defensive alliance, the "thinking" went, why
shouldn't it continue and expand to include many more countries? If the U.S. was supposedly
able to bring down the Soviet Union, why shouldn't it do the same to authoritarian regimes
elsewhere? Absent the check on ambition and hubris that a superpower rival provided, the U.S.
was free to run amok and do whatever it liked without regard for the consequences. That
triumphalism sowed the seeds for many of the more significant post-Cold War failures that we
have witnessed since then. Even today, that same overconfidence encourages U.S. policymakers to
flirt with the idea of engaging in another Cold War-style rivalry with a more formidable state
in China.
George Kennan presciently warned
against the triumphalism that he saw around him as early as 1992. At that time, he was
responding directly to the claims from Republicans that Reagan and his policies had "won" the
Cold War:
The suggestion that any American administration had the power to influence decisively the
course of a tremendous domestic-political upheaval in another great country on another side
of the globe is intrinsically silly and childish. No great country has that sort of influence
on the internal developments of any other one.
Kennan went on to say that the militarization of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War was
a boon to Soviet hard-liners and in that way helped prolong it:
The extreme militarization of American discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line
circles over the ensuing 25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the
Soviet Union.
The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate
military rather than political resolution of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the
tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater the
braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold
war extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union
at the end of the 1980's.
Whenever hawks talk about "winning" the Cold War, they invariably mean that it was the
militarized policies they favored that carried the day, but Kennan reminded us that this was
not so. In fact, a militarized foreign policy perpetuated the struggle by providing Soviet
hard-liners with a plausible foreign threat that they could use to justify their own policies
and to clamp down on internal dissent. We have seen the same thing repeated several times in
the last thirty years on a smaller scale with other governments. The most aggressive and
confrontational policies unwittingly aid authoritarian regimes by giving them an external enemy
that they can use to deflect attention from their own failings and as a pretext for the
consolidation of power at home.
Kennan was already telling us shortly after the Cold War ended that no one had "won" it:
Nobody -- no country, no party, no person -- "won" the cold war. It was a long and costly
political rivalry, fueled on both sides by unreal and exaggerated estimates of the intentions
and strength of the other party [bold mine-DL]. It greatly overstrained the economic
resources of both countries, leaving both, by the end of the 1980's, confronted with heavy
financial, social and, in the case of the Russians, political problems that neither had
anticipated and for which neither was fully prepared.
We can all be grateful that the Cold War ended, but we shouldn't delude ourselves with talk
of victory. Not only is it inaccurate, but it encourages the worst kinds of overreach and
arrogance that has led to several serious foreign policy failures in the decades that have
followed. Kennan warned us almost thirty years ago not to go down this path of triumphalism,
and as so often happened Americans ignored Kennan's wisdom.
Kennan concluded with the same idea that Bacevich stated at the end of his op-ed:
That the conflict should now be formally ended is a fit occasion for satisfaction but also
for sober re-examination of the part we took in its origin and long continuation. It is not a
fit occasion for pretending that the end of it was a great triumph for anyone, and
particularly not one for which any American political party could properly claim principal
credit.
American policymakers are not known for sober re-examination and acknowledgment of error,
but these are exactly the things that are needed if we are to stop making the same blunders and
learning the wrong lessons from the past. Kennan and Bacevich's advice is just as timely and
important today as it was twenty-seven years ago. Perhaps this time we should pay attention and
listen to it.
who said
this today in an official gov't press release?
"Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden ‒ invades
its neighbors and slays political opponents. It suppresses the independence of the Orthodox
Church in Ukraine. Russian authorities, even as we speak, use police raids and torture
against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians who are working in opposition to Russian aggression. In
Chechnya, anyone considered "undesirable" by the authorities simply disappears.
In China – in China, the Chinese Communist Party is shaping a new vision of
authoritarianism, one that the world has not seen for an awfully long time. The Chinese
Communist Party uses tactics and methods to suppress its own people that would be
horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans. The People's Liberation Army encroaches on the
sovereignty of its Chinese neighbors, and the Chinese Communist Party denies travel
privileges to critics – even German lawmakers – who condemn its abysmal human
rights record. The CCP harasses the families of Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang, who simply
sought refuge abroad. We – all of us, everyone in this room – has a duty. We must
recognize that free nations are in a competition of values with those unfree nations."
who said
this today in an official gov't press release?
"Today, Russia – led by a former KGB officer stationed in Dresden ‒ invades
its neighbors and slays political opponents. It suppresses the independence of the Orthodox
Church in Ukraine. Russian authorities, even as we speak, use police raids and torture
against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians who are working in opposition to Russian aggression. In
Chechnya, anyone considered "undesirable" by the authorities simply disappears.
In China – in China, the Chinese Communist Party is shaping a new vision of
authoritarianism, one that the world has not seen for an awfully long time. The Chinese
Communist Party uses tactics and methods to suppress its own people that would be
horrifyingly familiar to former East Germans. The People's Liberation Army encroaches on the
sovereignty of its Chinese neighbors, and the Chinese Communist Party denies travel
privileges to critics – even German lawmakers – who condemn its abysmal human
rights record. The CCP harasses the families of Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang, who simply
sought refuge abroad. We – all of us, everyone in this room – has a duty. We must
recognize that free nations are in a competition of values with those unfree nations."
"... This period is when Clinton IMHO sent NATO in a wrong direction from being strictly defensive/political to getting involved in Yugoslavia which certainly irritated Russia. ..."
"... Then good old Obama and another Clinton deciding to overthrow Gaddafi and his whole Arab Spring foreign policy to include getting involved in Syria. These were disastrous decisions that the current POTUS inherited and is trying to change except the "deep state" is fighting him tooth and nail. ..."
"... Getting out of Ukraine would be a huge trust maker for Russia and it would be followed by sanctions being lifted allowing for a level playing field to begin working on the issues that need fixing. NATO isn't going away however the forward deployed forces in the Baltic's and Poland could over time in an agreed to reciprocal move say removing Iskander missiles from Kaliningrad could be accomplished. ..."
You are 100% correct that trust is the number one point in coming to any agreement and
currently there is very little trust on either side for varying reasons. One important fact
that is overlooked by most people is the leadership of President George H. W. Bush and PM
Margaret Thatcher during the transition from the Soviet Union/Warsaw pact to independent
sovereign nations. The Bush was a WW II pilot and Thatcher earned the name Iron Lady for her
decisive action in the Falklands War, both understood the world as it was in 1990. This
statement highlights the view that prevailed from Bush at the time: "Not once, but three
times, Baker tried out the "not one inch eastward" formula with Gorbachev in the February 9,
1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev's statement in response to the assurances that "NATO
expansion is unacceptable." Baker assured Gorbachev that "neither the President nor I intend
to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place," and that the
Americans understood that "not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as
well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in
Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO's present military jurisdiction
will spread in an eastern direction." (See Document 6)"
These were complicated issues that involved a multitude of parties being negotiated by
just a few i.e. US, UK, France and West Germany a holdover from the WW II model. The Poles,
Czechs and others were not consulted and IMHO had they been the situation would have become
untenable. It must be remembered that Poland and Czechoslovakia suffered heavily due to
"large important nations" giving them away pre and post WW II. There was no written agreement
nor official treaty between the west and the Soviet Union soon to be Russian Federation and I
believe that was intentional for the reason I give above. George H. W. Bush was not reelected
in 1992 and Bill Clinton became POTUS and he pursued a foreign policy that was entirely
different. Some of his ideas used Thatchers earlier idea of a more political NATO with less
emphasis on the original military mission which brought in the Partnerships for Peace
program. That program was IMHO quite good as it stabilized countries that were wobbly in the
1990's after the breakup occurred. The Clinton White House had Madeline Albright an immigrant
from Czechoslovakia as secretary of State and Zbigniew Brzezinski a former secretary of State
and an academic that influenced his policies which were pro eastern European anti Russian. It
was during this time that NATO expanded. The US is a country of immigrants and there is a
large Polish population as well as other eastern Europeans and political considerations are
always come into play.
This period is when Clinton IMHO sent NATO in a wrong direction from being strictly
defensive/political to getting involved in Yugoslavia which certainly irritated Russia.
G.W. Bush basically continued the trend with regard to NATO but was preoccupied with 9/11
more than anything else. Bush thought that he understood Putin and even invited him to his
ranch in Crawford, Texas which Putin accepted and they did seem to get along.
However 2008
and the Georgia War began the slide in relations between the two countries. Then good old
Obama and another Clinton deciding to overthrow Gaddafi and his whole Arab Spring foreign
policy to include getting involved in Syria. These were disastrous decisions that the current
POTUS inherited and is trying to change except the "deep state" is fighting him tooth and
nail.
Getting out of Ukraine would be a huge trust maker for Russia and it would be followed by
sanctions being lifted allowing for a level playing field to begin working on the issues that
need fixing. NATO isn't going away however the forward deployed forces in the Baltic's and
Poland could over time in an agreed to reciprocal move say removing Iskander missiles from
Kaliningrad could be accomplished.
Many have tried, usually ended up in those infamous endless Russian fields, in long boxes.
See Pushkin, for the exact quote. But historical trivialities aside, there should be a way to
satisfy Imperial hubris without 'salting the grounds'. Hannibal's elephants did not carry
nukes in their trunks. Trying for the sixth time in the last 4 centuries to get Moscow
grounds salted might end badly for the entire planet.
Trust was not breached by Russia, military buildup, hostile threatening military, NATO
expansion and refusal to negotiate on these issues did not originate from Russia. Russia has
tried to negotiate, concede and de-escalate before. The West did not respond to those moves.
Even US sanctions placed on Soviet Union were not removed from Russia, despite there being no
reason for them to remain in place. This and other recent events (libya, iran deal etc) tells
Russia and other global players that de-escalating with the West doesn't work.
Even now, West seems to be interested to trade with Russia at least in some areas. And
Europe is increasingly frustrated with the United States. There is reportedly a number of EU
initiatives aimed at gradually limiting US economic levers created during the Cold War.
Rising economies will gradually offer more opportunities outside of the Western world.
Multipolar wolrd was a slogan in the 00s, in the 2040es it might be a reality.
We know NATO will not maintain ABM and CFE, and it is apparently not interested in INF and
Open Skies, and even START is in question now. NATO will withdraw troops if only Russia does
something? Please, you don't really believe that. With INF gone, Iskander is outdated, it was
a treaty-limited weapon. Moving it a few hundred klicks will not make NATO concede anything
now.
A huge trust maker would be for all NATO members to publically admit on their web page
that pledges to Russia were broken and at least some NATO officials feel responsibility for
that. They've spent 27 years denying any verbal assurances, now that those assurances are
declassified, they build other narratives about how those pledges did not matter. For there
to be trust, there needs to be an admission that trust was there, and was broken, and not by
Russia. No troop movements necessary even.
Biden isn't going to win the next election Trump will be reelected in 2020. The current
strain in relations with Russia has been inherited by Trump and even before he was elected
the DNC and Hillary Clinton cooked up the "Russia colusion" story which after $46 million and
2 1/2 years no Russia collision. Of course now we have the Dems trying to impeach Trump which
will not go anywhere in the Senate more waste of time and money. However there is the Justice
Department I.G. report soon to be released and many of the people who brought you the Russia
colusion hoax will be named. The Justice Department has an ongoing criminal investigation
into the key players and will undoubtedly result in indictments and prosecutions.
The real reason all of this is going on is because the establishment both Dem's & Repub's
along with the deep state look at Trump as an outsider who is tipping over their apple cart
i.e. he is changing the foreign policy direction and they don't like it one bit so they
create fake issues to try and stop him.
After his reelection I predict that more normal relations with Russia will resume.
Nowadays the actual attacks are manifested as 'hybrid warfare'. Of course Russia took the
US intervention and financing of Chechen rebels as an attack back in the 2000 ties. She took
fermenting and financing of the Georgian rose revolution as a hybrid attack, same as promises
made to pres. Saakashvili to support him militarily and politically after his attack on
Tskhinvali were taken as a hybrid attack. Same goes for both of the first color revolution in
Ukraine, and then the Revolution of dignity of 2014 that pushed ultra-right government to
power in Ukraine. In fact the NATO promise to both Georgia and Ukraine to take them in as
members in 2008 right after Putin's warning in 2007 was the first move in the 'hybrid war'.
The West had been warned, yet it decided to bulldoze its way across Eurasia and triggered the
confrontation. The placings of Aegises ashore in Poland and Romania was the cherry on top.
There can be be no meaningful compromise until the West backs off on the NATO enlargement.
That 2008 conference was what had reanimated the image of the collective West as adversary
for Russia.
What both sides should strive for though is at the very least to diminish the degree of
danger to the planet. Russia would not back off because she finds it easy enough to corner
individual EU states into minimal economic cooperation - Germany is already in recession and
there is no way they are going to continue damaging their economy for the sake of US
politics. And then there is China. When the Russians cannot buy goods from Germans they go
for made in China, which in turn gets China secure oil and gas from Russia. Which make the
repeat of pre-WW II situation with blockade on Japan pretty much impossible. Get realistic,
the West is loosing this one and should count her chickens already.
Well, then the sanctions will continue, as will the policy of keeping Russian in check in
the EU gas market.
What's interesting is that NATO never attacked Russia or threatened to attack Russia. Seems
to me that Putin is simply using the expansion as a pretext for military aggression against
the neighboring states. It's what the USSR did in 1939 against Finland. According the Soviet
side, the war started after Finland attacked the Soviet Union...
Russia *needs* the sanctions for at least another 5 years. Her milk and beef production is
still lagging compared to the deceased USSR and the only way her greedy oligarchs will
heavily invest in cow herd rearing is to continue to block the Eastern European milk products
to enter Russia. Chicken, eggs, pork and veggies are already up to speed, wheat production is
exploding, the salmon breeding programme have started so the Norway is not getting her market
back, bu the cow herds take longer to rear.
The Power of Siberia pipeline is being certified and filled right now - China would receive
her first delivery of piped Russian gas in 2020, so it is good that EU is prepping or the
squeeze - they are not going to continue getting unlimited cheap Russian gas, because Power
of Siberia II is in the works.
Every individual NATO member had attacked Russia in the past 4 centuries ( including small
but meaningful US contingent in the 1918), and some non-member allies had stomped those
fields as well. So the Russians are not taking any chances with the buffer zone. All of
Russia expansions to the West have always started with West invading first - then being
rolled back league by league. But seriously - ? Russians can live with Europe staying where
she is - if in turn Europe can learn to respect her civilization borders. The move on Ukraine
and Georgia was not a wise one.
House Democrats on Tuesday released excerpts of closed-door depositions with former US
Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker, as well as revised testimony from US Ambassador to
the EU, Gordon Sondland which was a complete reversal from what he said in text messages
revealed last month as well as prior testimony.
In them, Sondland reveals in four new pages of sworn testimony he told a top Ukrainian
official that a meeting with President Trump may be contingent upon its new
administration committing to investigations Trump wanted, according to the New York
Times.
Mr. Sondland provided a more robust description of his own role in alerting the
Ukrainians that they needed to go along with investigative requests being demanded by the
president's personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. -New York Times
Bloomberg reports "Sondland testified that a promise by Ukraine to investigate Joe
Biden's son and the 2016 election was a condition that "would have to be complied with"
for the country's leaders to get a meeting with Trump."
"That was my understanding," he said.
SO if that is Sondland's [mis]understanding, let's compare. Read his Sept 9 text message
to Taylor.
The image of Biden and son in link, speaks truth. Take a look.
These are the offenses designated in the Constitution for which presidents may be
impeached and removed from office.
Which of these did Trump commit?[.]
According to his accusers in this city, his crime is as follows:
The president imperiled our "national security" by delaying, for his own reasons, a
transfer of lethal aid and Javelin missiles to Ukraine -- the very weapons President
Barack Obama refused to send to Ukraine, lest they widen and lengthen the war in the
Donbass.
Now, if Trump imperiled national security by delaying the transfer of the weapons, was
not Obama guilty of a greater crime against our national security by denying the weapons
to Ukraine altogether?
The essence of Trump's crime, it is said, was that he demanded a quid pro quo. He
passed word to incoming President Volodymyr Zelensky that if he did not hold a press
conference to announce an investigation of Joe Biden and son Hunter, he, Zelensky, would
not get the arms we had promised, nor the Oval Office meeting that Zelensky
requested.
Again, where is the body of the crime? [.]
By the way, what was Biden doing approving a $1 billion loan guarantee to Petro
Poroshenko's regime, which was so corrupt that it ferociously fought not to fire a
prosecutor whose dismissal all of Europe was demanding?
Should Biden be nominated and elected, a special prosecutor would have to be appointed
to investigate this smelly deal, as well as the $1 billion Hunter got for his equity fund
from the Chinese after his father visited the Middle Kingdom.[.]
The Integrity Initiative, as paid for by the British Foreign Office, Ministry of
Defense, NATO and other such entities, will live on as a non-charitable entity with even less
transparency. Its website, as well as that of Institute of Statecraft, is down. That it
will now have to live in total secrecy will make it more difficult for it to recruit foreign
journalists to spread its propaganda.
On 3rd April, Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister Alan Duncan revealed his
department's 'Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme' - which bankrolls the
Institute for Statecraft and its Integrity Initiative subsidiary - was funding a new
endeavour, Open Information
Partnership (OIP).
The announcement, buried in a response to a written parliamentary question, was supremely
light on detail - Duncan merely said the effort would "respond to manipulated information in
the news, social media and across the public space". Official fanfare was also unforthcoming
- there was no accompanying press release, briefing document, or even mention of the launch
by any government minister or department via social media channels.
The original proposal for
the Open Information Partnership , as
released by 'anonymous' , included the Institute of Statecraft , a Media
Diversity Institute , Bellingcat , DFR Lab (i.e. the Atlantic Council) and
some others in a so called ZINC Network . On the current OIP website the Institute of
Statecraft 'charity' is no longer named.
---
Previous Moon of Alabama reports on the issue:
At Kit Klarenberg's Twitter ,
there's a long tweet thread further detailing what b has written above. I can't help be
wonder how the Monty Python troop would have portrayed the Institute for Statecraft and its
parent the Integrity Initiative. It appears that the governments of the English speaking
nations became addicted to lying to their citizens @1900 and are unable to kick the habit and
instead have actually deepened their addiction. Elsewhere on the planet, it seems that people
are learning it's easier to talk straight and transparently with other people and to pool
resources and combine efforts to form a community of nations and humanity to better one and
all. Seems simple enough to determine which is functional and which isn't.
Bellingcat only serves one interest, a propaganda/info laundering shop for NATO, the military
industrial complex and some very rich people. The blatant lies about MH17, chemical weapons
in Syria, OPCW, Russia, the list goes on and on.
By the time the people in the Netherlands find out how they have been manipulated with the
MH17 narrative and the role of Bellingcat in this operation, hopefully they will torch the
office of Bellingcat in The Hague and club the survivors to death like the Uktainian Nazi
friends of Bellingcat did in Odessa.
The Ukrainian army shot down MH17. It was no accident. The Dutch were also involved with
the 2014 coup in the Ukraine. Putting the blame on Russia is a political decision, its not
based on facts. Dutch politicians are very dirty people. Burn in hell.
"... "Manufacturing Consent," Taibbi writes, "explains that the debate you're watching is choreographed. The range of argument has been artificially narrowed long before you get to hear it" (p. 11). ..."
"... Americans were held captive by the boob tube affords us not only a useful historical image but also suggests the possibility of their having been able to view the television as an antagonist, and therefore of their having been able, at least some of them, to rebel against its dictates. Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets, the workings of which are so precisely intertwined with even the most intimate minute-to-minute aspects of our lives that our relationship to them could hardly ever become antagonistic. ..."
"... The massive political revolution was, going all the way back to 1989, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and then of the Soviet Union itself -- and thus of the usefulness of anti-communism as a kind of coercive secular religion (pp. 14-15). ..."
"... our corporate media have devised -- at least for the time being -- highly-profitable marketing processes that manufacture fake dissent in order to smother real dissent (p. 21). ..."
"... And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid. ..."
"... For Maddow, he notes, is "a depressingly exact mirror of Hannity . The two characters do exactly the same work. They make their money using exactly the same commercial formula. And though they emphasize different political ideas, the effect they have on audiences is much the same" (pp. 259-260). ..."
Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc . is the most insightful and revelatory book about American
politics to appear since the publication of Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal almost four
full years ago, near the beginning of the last presidential election cycle.
While Frank's topic was the abysmal failure of the Democratic Party to be democratic and
Taibbi's is the abysmal failure of our mainstream news corporations to report news, the
prominent villains in both books are drawn from the same, or at least overlapping, elite social
circles: from, that is, our virulently anti-populist liberal class, from our
intellectually mediocre creative class, from our bubble-dwelling thinking class.
In fact, I would strongly recommend that the reader spend some time with Frank's What's the
Matter with Kansas? (2004) and Listen, Liberal! (2016) as he or she takes up
Taibbi's book.
And to really do the book the justice it deserves, I would even more vehemently recommend
that the reader immerse him- or herself in Taibbi's favorite book and vade-mecum ,
Manufacturing Consent (which I found to be a grueling experience: a relentless
cataloging of the official lies that hide the brutality of American foreign policy) and, in
order to properly appreciate the brilliance of Taibbi's chapter 7, "How the Media Stole from
Pro Wrestling," visit some locale in Flyover Country and see some pro wrestling in person
(which I found to be unexpectedly uplifting -- more on this soon enough).
Taibbi tells us that he had originally intended for Hate, Inc . to be an updating of
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent (1988), which he first read
thirty years ago, when he was nineteen. "It blew my mind," Taibbi writes. "[It] taught me that
some level of deception was baked into almost everything I'd ever been taught about modern
American life .
Once the authors in the first chapter laid out their famed propaganda model [italics
mine], they cut through the deceptions of the American state like a buzz saw" (p. 10). For what
seemed to be vigorous democratic debate, Taibbi realized, was instead a soul-crushing
simulation of debate. The choices voters were given were distinctions without valid
differences, and just as hyped, just as trivial, as the choices between a Whopper and a Big
Mac, between Froot Loops and Frosted Mini-Wheats, between Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, between
Marlboro Lites and Camel Filters. It was all profit-making poisonous junk.
"Manufacturing Consent," Taibbi writes, "explains that the debate you're watching is
choreographed. The range of argument has been artificially narrowed long before you get to hear
it" (p. 11). And there's an indisputable logic at work here, because the reality of
hideous American war crimes is and always has been, from the point of view of the big media
corporations, a "narrative-ruining" buzz-kill. "The uglier truth [brought to light in
Manufacturing Consent ], that we committed genocide of a fairly massive scale across
Indochina -- ultimately killing at least a million innocent civilians by air in three countries
-- is pre-excluded from the history of the period" (p. 13).
So what has changed in the last thirty years? A lot! As a starting point let's consider the
very useful metaphor found in the title of another great media book of 1988: Mark Crispin
Miller's Boxed In: The Culture of TV . To say that Americans were held captive by
the boob tube affords us not only a useful historical image but also suggests the possibility
of their having been able to view the television as an antagonist, and therefore of their
having been able, at least some of them, to rebel against its dictates. Three decades later, on
the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and portable tablets, the workings
of which are so precisely intertwined with even the most intimate minute-to-minute aspects of
our lives that our relationship to them could hardly ever become antagonistic.
Taibbi summarizes the history of these three decades in terms of three "massive revolutions"
in the media plus one actual massive political revolution, all of which, we should note, he
discussed with his hero Chomsky (who is now ninety! -- Edward Herman passed away in 2017) even
as he wrote his book. And so: the media revolutions which Taibbi describes were, first, the
coming of FoxNews along with Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio; second, the coming of CNN, i.e.,
the Cable News Network, along with twenty-four hour infinite-loop news cycles; third, the
coming of the Internet along with the mighty social media giants Facebook and Twitter.
The massive political revolution was, going all the way back to 1989, the collapse of
the Berlin Wall, and then of the Soviet Union itself -- and thus of the usefulness of
anti-communism as a kind of coercive secular religion (pp. 14-15).
For all that, however, the most salient difference between the news media of 1989 and the
news media of 2019 is the disappearance of the single type of calm and decorous and slightly
boring cis-het white anchorman (who somehow successfully appealed to a nationwide audience) and
his replacement by a seemingly wide variety of demographically-engineered news personæ
who all rage and scream combatively in each other's direction. "In the old days," Taibbi
writes, "the news was a mix of this toothless trivia and cheery dispatches from the frontlines
of Pax Americana . The news [was] once designed to be consumed by the whole house . But once we
started to be organized into demographic silos [italics mine], the networks found
another way to seduce these audiences: they sold intramural conflict" (p. 18).
And in this new media environment of constant conflict, how, Taibbi wondered, could public
consent , which would seem to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from conflict,
still be manufactured ?? "That wasn't easy for me to see in my first decades in the
business," Taibbi writes. "For a long time, I thought it was a flaw in the Chomsky/Herman
model" (p. 19).
But what Taibbi was at length able to understand, and what he is now able to describe for us
with both wit and controlled outrage, is that our corporate media have devised -- at least
for the time being -- highly-profitable marketing processes that manufacture fake dissent in
order to smother real dissent (p. 21).
And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam
job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid.
Or pretty much so. Taibbi is more historically precise. Because of the tweaking of the
Herman/Chomsky propaganda model necessitated by the disappearance of the USSR in 1991 ("The
Russians escaped while we weren't watching them, / As Russians do ," Jackson Browne presciently
prophesied on MTV way back in 1983), one might now want to speak of a Propaganda Model 2.0.
For, as Taibbi notes, " the biggest change to Chomsky's model is the discovery of a far
superior 'common enemy' in modern media: each other. So long as we remain a bitterly-divided
two-party state, we'll never want for TV villains" (pp. 207-208).
To rub his great insight right into our uncomprehending faces, Taibbi has almost
sadistically chosen to have dark, shadowy images of a yelling Sean Hannity (in lurid FoxNews
Red!) and a screaming Rachel Maddow (in glaring MSNBC Blue!) juxtaposed on the cover of his
book. For Maddow, he notes, is "a depressingly exact mirror of Hannity . The two characters
do exactly the same work. They make their money using exactly the same commercial formula. And
though they emphasize different political ideas, the effect they have on audiences is much the
same" (pp. 259-260).
And that effect is hate. Impotent hate. For while Rachel's fan demographic is all wrapped up
in hating Far-Right Fascists Like Sean, and while Sean's is all wrapped up in despising Libtard
Lunatics Like Rachel, the bipartisan consensus in Washington for ever-increasing military
budgets, for everlasting wars, for ever-expanding surveillance, for ever-growing bailouts of
and tax breaks for and and handouts to the most powerful corporations goes forever
unchallenged.
Oh my. And it only gets worse and worse, because the media, in order to make sure that their
various siloed demographics stay superglued to their Internet devices, must keep
ratcheting up levels of hate: the Fascists Like Sean and the Libtards Like Rachel must be
continually presented as more and more deranged, and ultimately as demonic. "There is us and
them," Taibbi writes, "and they are Hitler" (p. 64). A vile reductio ad absurdum has
come into play: "If all Trump supporters are Hitler, and all liberals are also Hitler," Taibbi
writes, " [t]he America vs. America show is now Hitler vs. Hitler! Think of the
ratings! " The reader begins to grasp Taibbi's argument that our mainstream corporate media are
as bad as -- are worse than -- pro wrestling. It's an ineluctable downward spiral.
Taibbi continues: "The problem is, there's no natural floor to this behavior. Just as cable
TV will eventually become seven hundred separate twenty-four-hour porn channels, news and
commentary will eventually escalate to boxing-style, expletive-laden, pre-fight tirades, and
the open incitement to violence [italics mine]. If the other side is literally Hitler,
[w]hat began as America vs. America will eventually move to Traitor vs. Traitor ,
and the show does not work if those contestants are not eventually offended to the point of
wanting to kill one another" (pp. 65-69).
As I read this book, I often wondered about how difficult it was emotionally for
Taibbi to write it. I'm just really glad to see that the guy didn't commit suicide along the
way. He does describe the "self-loathing" he experienced as he realized his own complicity in
the marketing processes which he exposes (p. 2). He also apologizes to the reader for his not
being able to follow through on his original aim of writing a continuation of Herman and
Chomsky's classic: "[W]hen I sat down to write what I'd hoped would be something with the
intellectual gravitas of Manufacturing Consent ," Taibbi confesses, "I found decades of
more mundane frustrations pouring out onto the page, obliterating a clinical examination" (p.
2).
I, however, am profoundly grateful to Taibbi for all of his brilliantly observed anecdotes.
The subject matter is nauseating enough even in Taibbi's sparkling and darkly tragicomic prose.
A more academic treatment of the subject would likely be too depressing to read. So let me
conclude with an anecdote of my own -- and an oddly uplifting one at that -- about reading
Taibbi's chapter 7, "How the News Media Stole from Pro Wrestling."
On the same day I read this chapter I saw that, on the bulletin board in my gym, a poster
had appeared, as if by magic, promoting an upcoming Primal Conflict (!) professional
wrestling event. I studied the photos of the wrestlers on the poster carefully, and, as an
astute reader of Taibbi, I prided myself on being able to identify which of them seemed be
playing the roles of heels , and which of them the roles of babyfaces .
For Taibbi explains that one of the fundamental dynamics of wrestling involves the invention
of crowd-pleasing narratives out of the many permutations and combinations of pitting
heels against faces . Donald Trump, a natural heel , brings the goofy
dynamics of pro wrestling to American politics with real-life professional expertise. (Taibbi
points out that in 2007 Trump actually performed before a huge cheering crowd in a
Wrestlemania event billed as the "battle of the billionaires." Watch it on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/5NsrwH9I9vE --
unbelievable!!)
The mainstream corporate media, on the other hand, their eyes fixed on ever bigger and
bigger profits, have drifted into the metaphorical pro wrestling ring in ignorance, and so,
when they face off against Trump, they often end up in the role of inept prudish
pearl-clutching faces .
Taibbi condemns the mainstream media's failure to understand such a massively popular form
of American entertainment as "malpractice" (p. 125), so I felt more than obligated to buy a
ticket and see the advertised event in person. To properly educate myself, that is.
I have stopped watching broadcast "news" other than occasional sessions of NPR in the car.
I get most of my news from sources such as this and from overseas sources (The Guardian,
Reuters, etc.). I used to subscribe to newspapers but have given them up in disgust, even
though I was looking forward to leisurely enjoying a morning paper after I retired.
I was brought up in the positive 1950's and, boy, did this turn out poorly.
Matt Taibbi is an American treasure, and I love his writing very much, but we also need to
ask, Why hasn't another Chomsky (or another Hudson), an analyst with a truly deep and
wide-ranging, synthetic mind, appeared on the left to take apart our contemporary media and
show us its inner workings? Have all the truly great minds gone to work for Wall Street? I
don't have an answer, but to me the pro wrestling metaphor, while intriguing, misses
something about the Fourth Estate in America, if it indeed still exists. And that is, except
for radio, there is a distinct imbalance between the two sides of the MSM lineup. On the
corporate liberal side of the national MSM team you have five wrestlers, but on the
conservative/reactionary side you have only the Fox entry. Because of this imbalance, the
corruption, laziness, self-indulgence, and generally declining interest in journalistic
standards seems greater among the corporate liberal media team, including the NYT and WaPo,
than the Fox team.
I'm not a fan of either Maddow (in her current incarnation) or Hannity, but Hannity,
perhaps because he thinks he's like David, often hustles to refute the discourse of the
corporate liberal Goliath team. Hannity obviously does more research on some topics than
Maddow, and, perhaps because he began in radio, he puts more emphasis on semi-rationally
structured rants than Maddow, who depends more on primal emotion, body language, and
Hollywood-esque fear-inducing atmospherics.
I'd wager that in a single five-minute segment there will often be twice as many rational
distinctions made in a Hannity rant than in a Maddow performance. In addition, for the last
three years Hannity has simply been demonstrably right about the fake Russiagate propaganda
blitz while Maddow has been as demonstrably wrong from the very beginning as propaganda
industry trend-setter Adam Schiff. So for at least these last three years, the Maddow-Hannity
primal match has been a somewhat misleading metaphor. The Blob and the security state have
been decisively supporting (and directing?) the corporate liberal global interventionist
media, at least regarding Russia and the permanent war establishment, and because the
imbalance between the interventionist and the non-interventionist MSM, Russia and Ukraine are
being used as a wedge to steadily break down the firewalls between the Dem party, the intel
community, and the interventionist MSM. If we had real public debates with both sides at
approximately equal strength as we did during the Vietnam War, then even pro wrestling-type
matches would be superior to what we have now, which is truthy truth and thoughtsy thought
coming to us from the military industrial complex and monopolistic holding companies. If
fascism is defined as the fusion of the state and corporations, then the greatest threat of
fascism in America may well be coming from the apparent gradual fusion of the corporate
liberal MSM, the Dem party elite, and the intel community. Instead of an MSM wrestling match,
we may soon be faced with a Japanese-style 'hitori-zumo' match in which a sumo wrestler
wrestles with only himself. Once these sumo wrestlers were believed to be wrestling with
invisible spirits, but those days are gone . http://kikuko-nagoya.com/html/hitori-zumo.htm
Today's Noam Chomksy? Chomsky was part of the machine who broke ranks with it. His MIT
research was generously funded by the Military Industrial Complex. Thankfully, enough of his
latent humanity and Trotskyite upbringing shone through so he exposed what he was part of. So
I guess today that's Chris Hedges, though he's a preacher at heart and not a semiotician.
> In addition, for the last three years Hannity has simply been demonstrably right
about the fake Russiagate propaganda blitz while Maddow has been as demonstrably wrong
Eh. Read whats-his-name's (Frankfurter?) book On Bullshit . You are giving
Hannity credit for something he doesn't really care about.
I don't believe the media environment as a whole leans corporate Dem/neoliberal.
T.V. maybe, but radio is much more right wing than left (yes there is NPR and Pacifica,
the latter with probably only a scattering of listerners but ) and it's still out there and a
big influence, radio hasn't gone away. So doesn't the right wing tilt of radio kind of
balance out television? (not necessarily in a good way but). And then there is the internet
and I have no idea what the overall lean of that is (I mean I prefer left wing sites, but
that's purely my own bubble and actually there are much fewer left analysis out there than
I'd like)
The whole review is good, but this extract should be quoted extensively:
While Frank's topic was the abysmal failure of the Democratic Party to be democratic and
Taibbi's is the abysmal failure of our mainstream news corporations to report news, the
prominent villains in both books are drawn from the same, or at least overlapping, elite
social circles: from, that is, our virulently anti-populist liberal class, from our
intellectually mediocre creative class, from our bubble-dwelling thinking class.
In short, stagnation and self-dealing at the top. What could possibly go wrong?
Are you serious? Maddow called Trump a traitor and accused him of betrayal in Russiagate,
and was caught out when that fell apart. This was pointed out all over the MSM .
Three decades later, on the other hand, the television has been replaced by iPhones and
portable tablets
and then goes on to spend most of the article talking about television. I'd say television
is still the main propaganda instrument even if many webheads like yours truly ignore it
(I've never seen Hannity's show or Maddow's–just hear the rumors). Arguably even
newspapers like the NYT have been dumbed down because the reporters long to be on TV and join
the shouting. And it's surely no coincidence that our president himself is a TV (and WWE)
star. Mass media have always been feeders of hysteria but television gave them faces and
voices. Watching TV is also a far more passive experience than surfing the web. They are
selling us "narratives," bedtime stories, and we like sleepy children merely listen.
This rave review has inspired me to add this to my to-read non-fiction queue. Currently
reading William Dalrymple's The Anarchy, on the rise of the East India Company. Next up: Matt
Stoller's Goliath. And then I'll get to Taibbi. Probably worth digging up my original copy of
Manufacturing Consent as well, which I read many moons ago; time for a re-read.
May I suggest Stephen Cohen's "War with Russia?" if it's not already on your list? In
focusing on the danger emerging from the new cold war, seeded by the Democrats, propagated by
corporate media (which he thinks is more dangerous than the first), Cohen clarifies the
importance of diplomacy especially with one's nuclear rivals.
Us rubes knew decades ago about pro wrestling. There was a regional circuit and the hero
in one town would become the villain in another town. The ones to be surprised were like John
Stossel, who got a perforated eardrum from a slap upside the head for his efforts at
in-your-face journalism with a wrestler who just wouldn't play along with his grandstanding.
Somewhere, kids cheered and life went on.
Ah, Ancient Athens, here we come – running back to repeat your mistakes! Our MSM
media has decided that when we are not at our neighbor's throats, we should be at each
other's throats!
I was watching old clips of the 'Fred Friendly Seminars' on YouTube. IMHO any channel that
produced a format such as this would be a ratings bonanza. Imagine a round table with various
media figures (corporate) left, (corporate) right, and independent being refereed by a
host-moderator discussing topics in 'Hate, Inc.'. In wrestling it's called a Battle Royale.
The Fourth Estate in a cage match!
And the smothering of real dissent is close enough to public consentto get the goddam
job done: The Herman/Chomsky model is, after all these years, still valid.
This is important, if people don't want to be naive about what democracy buys. Democracy
in the end is a ritual system to determine which members of an elite would win a war without
actually having to hold the war. Like how court functions to replace personal revenge by
determining (often) who would win in a fight if there were one, and the feudal system
replaced the genocidal wars of the axial age with the gentler warfare of the middle ages
which were often ritual wars of the elite that avoided the full risk of the earlier wars.
That, I think, is important -- under a democracy, the winner should be normally the winner
of the avoided violent conflict to be sustainable. Thus, it's enough to get most people to
consent to the solution, using the traditional meaning of consent being "won't put up a fight
to avoid it". If the choices on the table are reduced enough, you can get by with most people
simply dropping out of the questions.
Qui tacet consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit
It shouldn't be a surprise that we've moved to "faking dissent" -- it's the natural
evolution of a system where a lot of the effective power is in the hands of tech, and not
just as in the early 20th century, how many workers you have and how many soldiers you can
raise.
If you don't like it, change the technology we use to fight one another. We went from
tribes to lords when we switch from sticks to advanced forged weapons, and we went from
feudalism to democracy when we had factories dropping guns that any 15 year old could use
(oversimplifying a bit). Now that the stuff requires expertise, you'd expect a corresponding
shift in how we ritualize our conflict avoidance, and thus the organization of how we control
communication and how we organize our rituals of power.
Aka, it's the scientists and the engineers who end up determining how everything is
organized, and people never seem to bother with that argument, which is especially surprising
that even hard-core Marxists waste their time on short-term politics rather than the tech
we're building.
I'd be curious whether Taibbi thought about the issue of the nature of the technology and
whether there are technological options on the horizon which drive the conflict in other
directions. If we had only kept the laws on copyright and patent weaker, so that the
implementation of communicative infrastructure would have stayed decentralized
Tabby's "manufacturing fake consent" was really the whole punchline – the joke's on
us. Hunter S. Thompson, another of Taibbi's heroes, is, along with Chomsky, speaking to us
through MT. Our media is distracting us from social coherence. Another thing it is doing
(just my opinion) is it is overwhelming us to the point of disgust. Nobody likes it. And we
protect ourselves by tuning it out. Turning it off. Once the screaming lunatics marginalize
themselves by making the whole narrative hysterical, we just act like it's another family
fight and we're gonna go do something else. When everyone is screaming, no one is
screaming.
I have tried to read Hate Inc. and Taibbi's Griftopia but one of my main issues with
Taibbi's writing is his lack of notes, references, or bibliography, etc. in his books. In
skimming Hate Inc. it seems like a book I would enjoy reading, however my personal value
system is that any book without footnotes, endnotes, citations, or at minimum a bibliography
is just an opinion or a story. At least Thomas Frank's Listen Liberal has a section for End
Notes/References at the end of the book. Again just my personal values.
I am from Greater Boston, far, far from flyover country (which I imagine begins in Yonkers
NY), but I sure grew up with pro wrestling as part of the schoolyard discourse. I certainly
knew it was as much of a family affair as Disney on Ice and have trouble believing he thought
otherwise though I will not impugn his honesty. I am very grateful to the author for taking
the time to write this, but is it possible for a male who grew up in the US to be as deeply
embedded in the MSNBC demo as he claims to be?
Seriously, how is it possible for a male raised in the US to not at least have some
working familiarity with pro wrestling? My family along with my community was very close to
the national median income–do higher income boys really not learn about WWF and
WWE?
Seriously, rich kids, what was childhood like? I know you had music lessons and sports
camps, what else? Was it really that different?
Sorry, my blue collar, lifetime union member brother says your view is horseshit. All the
knows about WWE and WWF is that they are big-budget fakery and that's why they are of no
interest.
aye. in my blue to white collar( and back to blue to no collar) upbringing, wrestling was
never a thing. it was for the morons who couldn't read. seen as patently absurd by just about
everyone i knew. and this in klanridden east texas exurbia
wife's mexican extended familia oth luche libre is a big thing that all and sundry talked
about at thanksgiving. less so these days possibly due to the hyperindiviualisation of media
intake mentioned
(and,btw, in my little world , horseshit is a good thing)
Even allowing for my lefty-liberal bias, I do not see how it is possible to equate Fox
Noise and MSNBC, or Hannity and Maddow, as "both-sides" extremists. Fox violates basic
professional canons of fairness and equity on a daily basis. MSNBC occasionally does, but is
quick to correct errors of fact. Hannity is a thuggish outer-borough New York schmuck without
much education or knowledge of the world. Maddow is an Oxford Ph.D. and Rhodes Scholar. It is
one of the evil successes of the right-wing news cauldron to have successfully equated these
two figures and organizations.
Huh? MSNBC regularly makes errors of omission and commission with respect to Sanders. They
are still pushing the Russiagate narrative. That's a massive, two-year, virtually all the
time error they have refused to recant.
The blind spots of people on the soi-disant left are truly astonishing.
'Hannity is a thuggish outer-borough New York schmuck without much education or knowledge
of the world. Maddow is an Oxford Ph.D. and Rhodes Scholar '
oh, well, then – end of conversation! i mean, god knows, it'd be a cold day in hell
before a rhodes scholar, or even someone married to one, would ever lead us astray down the
rosy neoliberal path to hell, while, at the same time, under the spell of trump derangement
syndrome, actually attempt to revive the mccarthy era, eh?
Actual drugs are being used to hinder debate as well as emotional drugs like hate.
They can't trust agency to be removed by words and images alone – the stakes are too
high.
Now all of you go take a feel good pill and stop complaining!
I've been impressed with Taibbi's work, what I've read of it, but ironically this very
article contains a quote from him which exemplifies the problem: his casual assertion that
the US committed "genocide" in Indochina. Even the most fervent critics of US policy didn't
say this at the time, for the very good reason that there was no evidence that the US tried
to destroy a racial, religious, ethnic or nationalist group (the full definition is a lot
more complex and demanding than that). He clearly means that the US was responsible for lots
of deaths, which is incontestable. But the process of endless escalation of rhetoric, which
this book seems to be partly about, means that everything now has to be described in the most
extreme, absurd or apocalyptic tones, and at the top of your voice, otherwise nobody takes
any notice. So any self-respecting war now has to be qualified as "genocide" or nobody will
take any notice.
US foreign policy is driven by "diaspora politics" - double traitors who first betrayed
their home country and are now betraying the US in the name of their nationalist Nazi
ideology and their desire to wage war on Russia.
My friend George Eliason has expanded on the topic.
Random pick from the only comment by Pave Way IV. But triggering something on my mind.
CENTCOM strategy seems to be protect ISIS and help them kill Syrian soldiers,
while coalition jets destroy as much Syrian civilian and commercial infrastructure as humanly
possible around Deir EzZor.
I wouldn't mind someone to take a closer look at one specific 'point' versus its
'counterpoint', or aligned diverse narration variants plus the respectively supporting
evidence. Maybe the author wouldn't be a bad choice. ;)
In a nutshell:
a) (point) Assad more or less deliberately created Isis by releasing a series of Islamists
from prison in 2011.
b) (counterpoint) the US supports both AQ and Isis indirectly somewhat following earlier
US strategies at ME regime change.
"a" seems to be the dominating narrative on our media over here too. No surprise there. It
also surfaced in an article by Omar Kassem on CounterPunch linked here a couple of days ago,
if I recall correctly.
Am I to believe that releasing a couple of Islamist from prison, -- how many anyway -- had
a bigger impact on the genesis of Isis than the mishandling of the Iraqi transition and
Occupation. After a war that should never have happened to start with?
Ever since the whistleblower complaint from inside the CIA first surfaced against President Donald Trump,
a steady stream of national security and State Department officials have testified about their consternation at his dealings
with Ukraine. The dominant impression that they have left, however, is that they are blurring the line between what constitutes
unsavory behavior when it comes to pressuring Ukraine for information on domestic political opponents, on the one hand,
and what are legitimate policy disagreements. Indeed, it appears that they are, more often than not, substituting their
own political judgments for the president's when it comes to the conduct of American foreign policy-something that should
concern Democrats as much as Republicans. A whole caste of government officials seems to believe that for an American president
to aim to improve relations with Russia is an illegitimate, even treasonous, aspiration.
Today was no exception. Consider the testimony of State Department official Catherine Croft. In her brief opening statement,
she declared, "As the Director covering Ukraine, I staffed the President's December 2017 decision to provide Ukraine with
Javelin anti-tank missile systems. I also staffed his September 2017 meeting with then-President Petro Poroshenko on the
margins of the UN General Assembly. Throughout both, I heard-directly and indirectly-President Trump describe Ukraine as
a corrupt country." The implication was that Trump had no business complaining about corruption in Ukraine. But why not?
The persistence of corruption, which President Volodymyr Zelensky was elected by an overwhelming majority to combat, is
hardly a secret.
Perhaps even more revealing was Croft's declaration to the House Intelligence Committee that in November 2018 the White
House refused to approve the release of a statement condemning Russia for seizing three Ukrainian ships located close to
Crimea. It sounds damning at first glance. But once again, why shouldn't Trump have practiced restraint in this instance
if he was intent on improving relations with Russia, a platform that he was elected on? As it happens, the Zelensky campaign
depicted the ship incident as a political provocation on the part of the Poroshenko government.
The implicit assumptions that appear to guide these veteran members of the bureaucracy were even more obvious in the
case of Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman. As the media has underscored, he is the first person to testify in the impeachment
inquiry who participated in the July 25 phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Initially, Trump's defenders sought to portray him as guilty of "espionage" or dual loyalty because he emigrated to America
as a toddler. But this was always preposterous. More telling is that Vindman, no less than Croft, epitomizes a mindset that
seems to regard a deviation from the strictures of the foreign policy establishment as by definition unacceptable.
In his opening statement, Vindman declared, that Ukraine is a "frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression."
He added, "the U.S. government policy community's view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise
of reforms will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy
and economic prosperity." But what if Trump has a different view of matters than the "U.S. government policy community's
view"? After all, Trump was elected in part on his explicit declarations that he would not rely on the experts who had plunged
America into Iraq and Libya.
Consider as well the attention that Vindman has lavished upon Trump's phone call with Zelensky. According to Vindman,
portions of the call he considered important were not included in the document kept by the government that was released
to the last month. This includes President Trump claiming there are recordings of former Vice President Joe Biden discussing
Ukrainian corruption, and President Zelensky specifically referring to Biden's son's company, Burisma Holdings. The document
released by the administration includes Zelensky talking about "the company" and Trump saying, "Biden went around bragging
that he stopped the prosecution," which is an interpretation of a video of Joe Biden describing how the Obama administration
made firing Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin a prerequisite for receiving foreign aid. Vindman's recollection
of the call does not change the substance of what was already understood. However, the changes in language are being portrayed
as more analogous to Richard Nixon editing the White House tapes than the routine process that produced a routine document.
"Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, who heard President Trump's July phone call with Ukraine's president and was alarmed, testified
that he tried and failed to add key details to the rough transcript," blared the New York Times headline.
For two months, major media outlets have described the document as a "transcript," as a shorthand term. But as the document,
and TNI's previous reporting
makes clear, it is not a transcript in the strict sense of the term. "This is what's known as a memorandum of conversation:
MEMCON. It is a standard tool that is used throughout the government and the procedures can vary from agency to agency,
or who your boss is. But generally, they're all done about the same way," explains Peter Van Buren, a former Foreign Service
Officer in the State Department.
"In my own experience in government for 24 years it's a pretty standardized practice. The idea is, for all sorts of reasons,
most interactions are not recorded. Instead, they're memorialized through this process of MEMCON. Typically, while there
are many people who may be listening in or present at a meeting, someone (or sometimes two people) are designated as official
notetakers and they take down the conversation. And they're not trying necessarily to get an exact word-for-word account,
but they're certainly trying to get an idea for idea. And in many cases when you're dealing at the White House level, they
are getting it pretty much word for word," Van Buren tells TNI.
As a participant on the phone call, Vindman would have been one of the early editors. As the process continued, officials
higher than him made changes, just like the editor of a magazine would for a writer. The precise reasons for the changes
are open-ended and probably unknowable. There exists no evidence that the changes were nefarious or anything other than
mundane word choice. The document released to the public is the official U.S. government record of what happened.
John Marshall Evans, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and Ambassador to Armenia, narrows down what should be the
focus of this inquiry-and what it's actually becoming. "The issue is indeed not one of policy, which the President can change,
but of the purpose that was pursued in the July 25th call: whether it was in the national interest or a private gain," he
says. So far, no one has shown that Trump demanded that the Ukrainian government produce a specific result or fabricate
evidence about the Bidens.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is supposed to hold a House vote on the impeachment inquiry tomorrow, after a barrage of criticism
from Republicans for moving forward without one. Whether the open hearings and public testimony will provide any more substance
than a parade of national security bureaucrats ventilating their grievances about a president who sought to take a different
course in foreign policy is questionable.
Vindman declared, that Ukraine is a "frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression.
Complete bull. The truth is that there is no Russian aggression. What we're seeing from Russia is actually pushback against
American aggression. The US is trying to turn Ukraine into a NATO member, knowing that doing so would severely undermine Russia's
national security. The American goal is to reduce Russia's influence in world affairs, and to be in geostrategic position to relate
to Russia coercively. Little wonder, then, that Russia lashed back by taking Crimean and Donbass.
For Vindman to assert that Ukraine is "bulwark against Russian aggression" and a matter vital to the US's national interests
only goes to prove that America is under the influence of liars. The American people are being mislead about the truth.
Ukraine's on Russia's front door step. It overlaps with Russia territorially, demographically, and geopolitically. By entering
Ukraine for strategic reasons, the US has provoked and threatened Russia. There is no justification for this reckless foreign
policy move by the US.
First off, 'improving relations with Russia' does NOT mean doing whatever is best for Russia at our expense. Every foreign
policy move this president has made has only benefited Russia, not the US! Secondly, I have slowly but surely become convinced
Trump is a wholly owned subsidiary of Putin Inc. I don't know what Putin has on Trump (but I think money laundering would be a
solid guess) or if it's the promise of Putin's blessing for a Trump Tower Moscow, but whatever it is, he has Trump in his back
pocket. And lastly, if everyone has not figured out all The Donald cares about is money in his pocket they are fools. Face it,
writer, you either have bought that bag of magic beans Trump sold the electorate in the last election or you are being willfully
blind to who and what this 'man' is.
First off, 'improving relations with Russia' does NOT mean doing whatever is best for Russia at our expense.
That's confusing. How exactly is America doing something for Russia at the expense of the US? If you really believe this, then
you've been fooled by American propaganda into thinking that Ukraine is an extension of the continental US. The reality, of course,
is that Ukraine is on the other side of the world, and does not in any way matter to America's vital national interests.
In Ukraine, America is overstretching its ambitions, and is behaving like an aggressor.
Let's start with the sanctions passed by Congress on Russian oligarchs for invading the Ukraine. Somehow, they just weren't
imposed until Trump was forced to. Then there is the deliberate sabotage of all of our alliances. Now it's stabbing the kurds
in the back so Putin and Erdogan can split that area up between them. The only thing Trump, Turkey and Russia have in common are
Trump Tower Istanbul and his desire for Trump Tower Moscow. He is, quite literally selling us out.
P.S. Nice try, Russkie, but it wasn't us who invaded and seized Crimea and western Ukraine. That was you. We may stick our
noses into world affairs more than we should, but we have not stolen any land or resources of any country we are in. Get right
down to it, if it wasn't for your nukes, we'd put you down like a rabid dog. Don't think we can? Your economy is the size of our
state of Georgia and it ain't even close to the top. Just another commie basket case.
Ever since the whistleblower complaint from inside the CIA first surfaced against President Donald Trump,
a steady stream of national security and State Department officials have testified about their consternation at his dealings
with Ukraine. The dominant impression that they have left, however, is that they are blurring the line between what constitutes
unsavory behavior when it comes to pressuring Ukraine for information on domestic political opponents, on the one hand,
and what are legitimate policy disagreements. Indeed, it appears that they are, more often than not, substituting their
own political judgments for the president's when it comes to the conduct of American foreign policy-something that should
concern Democrats as much as Republicans. A whole caste of government officials seems to believe that for an American president
to aim to improve relations with Russia is an illegitimate, even treasonous, aspiration.
Today was no exception. Consider the testimony of State Department official Catherine Croft. In her brief opening statement,
she declared, "As the Director covering Ukraine, I staffed the President's December 2017 decision to provide Ukraine with
Javelin anti-tank missile systems. I also staffed his September 2017 meeting with then-President Petro Poroshenko on the
margins of the UN General Assembly. Throughout both, I heard-directly and indirectly-President Trump describe Ukraine as
a corrupt country." The implication was that Trump had no business complaining about corruption in Ukraine. But why not?
The persistence of corruption, which President Volodymyr Zelensky was elected by an overwhelming majority to combat, is
hardly a secret.
Perhaps even more revealing was Croft's declaration to the House Intelligence Committee that in November 2018 the White
House refused to approve the release of a statement condemning Russia for seizing three Ukrainian ships located close to
Crimea. It sounds damning at first glance. But once again, why shouldn't Trump have practiced restraint in this instance
if he was intent on improving relations with Russia, a platform that he was elected on? As it happens, the Zelensky campaign
depicted the ship incident as a political provocation on the part of the Poroshenko government.
The implicit assumptions that appear to guide these veteran members of the bureaucracy were even more obvious in the
case of Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman. As the media has underscored, he is the first person to testify in the impeachment
inquiry who participated in the July 25 phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Initially, Trump's defenders sought to portray him as guilty of "espionage" or dual loyalty because he emigrated to America
as a toddler. But this was always preposterous. More telling is that Vindman, no less than Croft, epitomizes a mindset that
seems to regard a deviation from the strictures of the foreign policy establishment as by definition unacceptable.
In his opening statement, Vindman declared, that Ukraine is a "frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression."
He added, "the U.S. government policy community's view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise
of reforms will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy
and economic prosperity." But what if Trump has a different view of matters than the "U.S. government policy community's
view"? After all, Trump was elected in part on his explicit declarations that he would not rely on the experts who had plunged
America into Iraq and Libya.
Consider as well the attention that Vindman has lavished upon Trump's phone call with Zelensky. According to Vindman,
portions of the call he considered important were not included in the document kept by the government that was released
to the last month. This includes President Trump claiming there are recordings of former Vice President Joe Biden discussing
Ukrainian corruption, and President Zelensky specifically referring to Biden's son's company, Burisma Holdings. The document
released by the administration includes Zelensky talking about "the company" and Trump saying, "Biden went around bragging
that he stopped the prosecution," which is an interpretation of a video of Joe Biden describing how the Obama administration
made firing Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin a prerequisite for receiving foreign aid. Vindman's recollection
of the call does not change the substance of what was already understood. However, the changes in language are being portrayed
as more analogous to Richard Nixon editing the White House tapes than the routine process that produced a routine document.
"Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, who heard President Trump's July phone call with Ukraine's president and was alarmed, testified
that he tried and failed to add key details to the rough transcript," blared the New York Times headline.
For two months, major media outlets have described the document as a "transcript," as a shorthand term. But as the document,
and TNI's previous reporting
makes clear, it is not a transcript in the strict sense of the term. "This is what's known as a memorandum of conversation:
MEMCON. It is a standard tool that is used throughout the government and the procedures can vary from agency to agency,
or who your boss is. But generally, they're all done about the same way," explains Peter Van Buren, a former Foreign Service
Officer in the State Department.
"In my own experience in government for 24 years it's a pretty standardized practice. The idea is, for all sorts of reasons,
most interactions are not recorded. Instead, they're memorialized through this process of MEMCON. Typically, while there
are many people who may be listening in or present at a meeting, someone (or sometimes two people) are designated as official
notetakers and they take down the conversation. And they're not trying necessarily to get an exact word-for-word account,
but they're certainly trying to get an idea for idea. And in many cases when you're dealing at the White House level, they
are getting it pretty much word for word," Van Buren tells TNI.
As a participant on the phone call, Vindman would have been one of the early editors. As the process continued, officials
higher than him made changes, just like the editor of a magazine would for a writer. The precise reasons for the changes
are open-ended and probably unknowable. There exists no evidence that the changes were nefarious or anything other than
mundane word choice. The document released to the public is the official U.S. government record of what happened.
John Marshall Evans, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and Ambassador to Armenia, narrows down what should be the
focus of this inquiry-and what it's actually becoming. "The issue is indeed not one of policy, which the President can change,
but of the purpose that was pursued in the July 25th call: whether it was in the national interest or a private gain," he
says. So far, no one has shown that Trump demanded that the Ukrainian government produce a specific result or fabricate
evidence about the Bidens.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is supposed to hold a House vote on the impeachment inquiry tomorrow, after a barrage of criticism
from Republicans for moving forward without one. Whether the open hearings and public testimony will provide any more substance
than a parade of national security bureaucrats ventilating their grievances about a president who sought to take a different
course in foreign policy is questionable.
Vindman declared, that Ukraine is a "frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression.
Complete bull. The truth is that there is no Russian aggression. What we're seeing from Russia is actually pushback against
American aggression. The US is trying to turn Ukraine into a NATO member, knowing that doing so would severely undermine Russia's
national security. The American goal is to reduce Russia's influence in world affairs, and to be in geostrategic position to relate
to Russia coercively. Little wonder, then, that Russia lashed back by taking Crimean and Donbass.
For Vindman to assert that Ukraine is "bulwark against Russian aggression" and a matter vital to the US's national interests
only goes to prove that America is under the influence of liars. The American people are being mislead about the truth.
Ukraine's on Russia's front door step. It overlaps with Russia territorially, demographically, and geopolitically. By entering
Ukraine for strategic reasons, the US has provoked and threatened Russia. There is no justification for this reckless foreign
policy move by the US.
First off, 'improving relations with Russia' does NOT mean doing whatever is best for Russia at our expense. Every foreign
policy move this president has made has only benefited Russia, not the US! Secondly, I have slowly but surely become convinced
Trump is a wholly owned subsidiary of Putin Inc. I don't know what Putin has on Trump (but I think money laundering would be a
solid guess) or if it's the promise of Putin's blessing for a Trump Tower Moscow, but whatever it is, he has Trump in his back
pocket. And lastly, if everyone has not figured out all The Donald cares about is money in his pocket they are fools. Face it,
writer, you either have bought that bag of magic beans Trump sold the electorate in the last election or you are being willfully
blind to who and what this 'man' is.
First off, 'improving relations with Russia' does NOT mean doing whatever is best for Russia at our expense.
That's confusing. How exactly is America doing something for Russia at the expense of the US? If you really believe this, then
you've been fooled by American propaganda into thinking that Ukraine is an extension of the continental US. The reality, of course,
is that Ukraine is on the other side of the world, and does not in any way matter to America's vital national interests.
In Ukraine, America is overstretching its ambitions, and is behaving like an aggressor.
Let's start with the sanctions passed by Congress on Russian oligarchs for invading the Ukraine. Somehow, they just weren't
imposed until Trump was forced to. Then there is the deliberate sabotage of all of our alliances. Now it's stabbing the kurds
in the back so Putin and Erdogan can split that area up between them. The only thing Trump, Turkey and Russia have in common are
Trump Tower Istanbul and his desire for Trump Tower Moscow. He is, quite literally selling us out.
P.S. Nice try, Russkie, but it wasn't us who invaded and seized Crimea and western Ukraine. That was you. We may stick our
noses into world affairs more than we should, but we have not stolen any land or resources of any country we are in. Get right
down to it, if it wasn't for your nukes, we'd put you down like a rabid dog. Don't think we can? Your economy is the size of our
state of Georgia and it ain't even close to the top. Just another commie basket case.
"... As for the rest of Ukraine, even though they lost something, they get something valuable in return: it's called neutral status between east and west. A subdued, federalized Ukraine led by Zelensky, in many ways, makes Ukraine "Finlandized." That is good for the Ukrainian people. It means they retain their independence, but peacefully accept that Russia controls their foreign policy. That position benefited Finland between 1945 and 1991. Finland is now a peaceful and prosperous country, and it is no longer living under influence of Russia or the Soviets. If "Finlandization" led to happiness for the Finns, it can do the same for Ukraine. ..."
"... Finland did not fight against Swedish language and peacefully uses it, while it is "legacy of Swedish occupation" and less than 10% of Finnish people can speak it. Ukrainian Nazis are deprived of wisdom, they are fighting with Russian language and own people. So, if you haven't brain, nothing will help you. ..."
"... after Maidan, Nuland directly stated that the United States spent 5 billion on "building democracy in Ukraine." The United States invested 5 billion in a coup, but is Poland to blame? why? if Poland had really done that, then western Ukraine would have become part of Poland immediately after the Maidan, but this did not happen. After the Maidan, Biden was photographed in a pride chair, but not the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland;) ..."
When Russia is led by truly capable leaders, it can beat any foreign power in war or geostrategic conflict. Today Russia is
led by a great man who is starting to look more and more like another Suvorov.
And everyone knows who Suvorov was.
Just read today's headlines concerning Syria. Russia ordered Turkey to stand down its offensive. Russian troops are now functioning
as peacekeepers in-between the Turkish and Syrian armies. The Kurds have signed allied themselves with Russia and Assad.
..while Americans of all stripes scratch their heads wondering what went wrong, and then check CNN and their FB feeds in a
hopeless bid to understand what's going down. Just.... hilarious....
What disturbs me the most is that Americans are being misled into believing that they "lost" something in Syria. In reality,
America "lost" nothing in Syria. That's because the US was never established in Syria to begin with. America has long been established
in Syria's neighbors, Israel, SA, Turkey, and to a lesser degree Iraq. But not Syria.
Basically, America got involved in Syria for aggressive, illegitimate, and unnecessary reasons. We were there to further the
over-ambitious geopolitical ambitions of our ME allies. That's why America launched a minor invasion of eastern Syria, and armed
and funded rebels, jihadis to try to violently overthrow Assad. And when that didn't work, the US POTUS justifiably pulled out
US troops and stopped supporting the rebels.
So, America didn't ever have anything to gain or to lose in Syria. Nothing at all.
Meanwhile, all the hawkish American newspapers -- which includes much of MSM -- are now complaining that Trump allowed Russia
to "take" Syria, and to "humiliate" and "drive out" America from that country. What hogwash! What propaganda and lies!
Russia has been in Syria for nearly 50 years. That means Russia's the chief ally of Syria, and as such, is a guarantor peace
and stability in the country. Also, Russia definitely has something to lose in Syria if Assad gets overthrown. So, in the end,
Russia wasn't trying to "take over Syria," as lying US media suggests. Russia was just protecting itself, protecting Assad, and
trying to impose peace on the region.
Check out Newsweek's totally dishonest story on this is subject. The article was published today. It's a shame so many
naive Americans believe these lies about America's alleged "role" in Syria.
Sir, we got involved in Syria because of Assad, who is a monster to his own people. If you're talking about Butinterests in
terms of money, no -- we don't have any. But in terms of principles, yes, we were justified in entering that area of the country.
And we made a difference. Or else the Russians wouldn't be rushing in to take the place we left. We were getting a lot out
of very little engagement.
Russia has never been a guarantee for peace and stability anywhere; it has always been a guarantee of more support for Russia.
Whenever necessary, instabillity was sown, and inconvenient parties, whether or not former allies, were abandoned.
Plus, there is the nagging issue of the Kurds having helped us in the fight against ISIS. Letting this out of the picture is
as dishonest as you try to make parts of the MSM be.
But hey -- have your own opinions. Write a book about them while you're at it.
Sir, we got involved in Syria because of Assad, who is a monster to his own people. If you're talking about Butinterests in
terms of money, no -- we don't have any. But in terms of principles, yes, we were justified in entering that area of the country.
sorry what???
In fact, Assad is the legitimate, democratically elected president of Syria. have you decided in the USA that you have the
right to decide who is bad and who is good?
The United States has worked hard to overthrow legitimate power in Syria. for 7 years of NATO's joint operation in Syria, ISIS
captured 70% of the territory of this country. Of course, with the active support of the United States, it supplied weapons to
everyone who was ready to fight against the Syrian army. but the "evil" Russia came and ruined everything. for 5 years of military
operations in Syria, ISIS were defeated and switched to guerrilla warfare. solved the problem between the Kurds, Turks and Syrians.
US plans have completely collapsed. or not?
Congress is currently making a decision to bring tanks into Syria to protect oil fields from terrorists. Really??? it looks
like American democracy is black and actually called oil! all these hundreds of thousands of murdered women and children in Syria
just so that the United States could continue to steal oil from Syria!
"the greatest power in the world" turns out to be an ordinary thief! do not you disgust?
Sir, we got involved in Syria because of Assad, who is a monster to his own people.
Define what you mean by "monster to his own people." And explain to me why 30% of Syrians -- a huge chunk of whole -- have
always been solidly behind Assad.
If you're talking about the Assad regime's barrel bombing, yes, that's monstrous. But Assad didn't start doing that until the
civil war was fulling raging. That war, mind you, didn't broaden and deepen until America stepped in to fund and arm Assad's enemies.
Had America had stayed out of Syria and allowed Assad to stamp out the initial protests and acts of rebellion, then there would
have been no civil war. Therefore, America's involved escalated Syria's civil disorder all the way up to the level of a full fledged
war, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.
I really don't understand how American Triumphalists and messianic spreaders of American democracy can justify what they did
in Syria. Essentially, America consciously took a chance in Syria, choosing to support the rebels on the off chance that they
might topple Assad. America knew that the price of failure in this reckless gambit would be the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of Syrians.
Why did America do this? America's action in Syria were driven by the desire to turn the country into a strategic asset. America
chose to pursue this goal on behalf of its regional allies (all Syrian enemies), Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. That's
all. Never mind "principles." We're talking geopolitical ambitions here. Blind ambitions.
It's a mysterious to me as to why you blame the war on Russia. After all, Russia's been in Syria for nearly 50 years. During
that time, Syria was stable, and experienced no civil war. But as soon as America began meddling in Syria, war broke out. Russia
worked with Assad to try to stomp out that war. America worked with the rebels to expand it.
Ukraine power captured it's country in own trap. They can't stop civil war in Donbass because then they will need to explain
somehow why they killed Donbass people (Ukraine Nazis power hate Donbassians, but at the same time pretends to call them their
own citizens) for so many years. Admit truth means acknowledge own crimes. So, the only way they have is continuing lying about
"liberation" (means genociding) of Donbass.
But rest assured: Ukraine is beaten and the Ukrainians know it. They can feel it. That's why they elected Zelensky, who
may be a sensible guy.
Implementation of the peace plan in Donbass will turn the region into a virtually independent part of Ukraine. Russia will
be able to influence Ukrainian politics through its connections in Donbass. That means Russia will have gained exactly what it
fought for: veto power over Ukraine's attempts to join the EU and NATO.
As for the rest of Ukraine, even though they lost something, they get something valuable in return: it's called neutral
status between east and west. A subdued, federalized Ukraine led by Zelensky, in many ways, makes Ukraine "Finlandized." That
is good for the Ukrainian people. It means they retain their independence, but peacefully accept that Russia controls their foreign
policy. That position benefited Finland between 1945 and 1991. Finland is now a peaceful and prosperous country, and it is no
longer living under influence of Russia or the Soviets. If "Finlandization" led to happiness for the Finns, it can do the same
for Ukraine.
Finland did not fight against Swedish language and peacefully uses it, while it is "legacy of Swedish occupation" and less
than 10% of Finnish people can speak it. Ukrainian Nazis are deprived of wisdom, they are fighting with Russian language and own
people. So, if you haven't brain, nothing will help you.
But rest assured: Ukraine is beaten and the Ukrainians know it. They can feel it. That's why they elected Zelensky, who may
be a sensible guy.
your optimism is due to ignorance of the peculiarities of Ukrainian political life;) Let's start with a short introduction
to Ukrainian political life. Who is Zelensky? this is a representative of the oligarch Kolomoisky. exactly the same oligarch as
Parashenko has ruled Ukraine for the past 5 years. For 5 years, Parashenko has robbed banks and enterprises of other oligarchs
in Ukraine, now Kolomoisky will do the same through his representative Zelensky.
Now about the peace process in the Donbas ... The armed coup in 2014 was carried out by the forces of Ukrainian Nazis and over
the past 5 years, the Ukrainian Nazis have firmly established themselves in the Verkhovna Rada and, most importantly, in the army
and law enforcement agencies. these structures are controlled by Avakov, not Zelensky. Zelensky cannot withdraw troops, and even
more so "Ukrainian volunteers" from punitive battalions Aidar, Azov, etc. Zelensky does not control these formations and has no
leverage over them. all he can do is put forward an additional requirement of 7 days without shelling. Naturally, the shelling
is not embellished and no one withdraws the troops. Even if Zelensky really wanted to end the war, there simply isn't any opportunity
for this. all that he can do is populism and tell that he will return Crimea :))))
Mr Gvosdev sounds like one of those Eastern European svidomites . They combine this unwavering faith in the power of
Washington on top of a deep, irrational hostility to Russia.
How is "collapse of Russian economy" going to happen exactly? Judging by the casual manner in which Gvosdev talks about it,
I think he imagines president Biden flipping some switch in his cabinet, and the economy of vast country shutting down in an instant.
How does a Western economic war on Russia can help its proxies seize power? It didn't work like this in Iran or Venezuela,
it's even less likely to happen in Russia. If anything the opposite is likely to happen: pro-Western 5th column in Russia will
be eradicated.
You know that the Ukraine is doomed when your "optimistic scenario" requires Russia to drop dead essentially.
Russia's economy is functioning very close to autarky. That means Russia could survive expulsion from SWIFT.
As for for your reference to China, your point is anything but clear. China is forming a strategic alliance with Russia pointed
directly at the US. If you don't realize this, you haven't been reading the news. It would behoove you to know that China and
the US have long been drifting in the direction of a conflict for supremacy in Pan-Pacific affairs. The US has lots of weapons
systems set up in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Beijing is determined to make the US withdraw those military assets from China's
borders. China is also wary of the US's messianic impulse to spread democracy anywhere it can. China blames America for the Hong
Kong disturbances, which Beijing thinks of as America's latest attempt at a "color revolution."
Meanwhile, Russia poses no such threat to China. If anything, Russia makes an ideal junior ally for China in the latter's growing
tendency to constantly subvert the US as the world's superpower. So, I am confused as to what kind of threat you think China poses
to Russia?
Perhaps you believe that China wants to take Siberia from Russia. Do you really believe China has the ability to do so? If
that's what you're thinking, you are willfully blind to the fact that Russia remains a nuclear weapons superpower. If war broke
out between China and Russia (which is very unlikely), which country would do more damage to the other? Think about it: Russia
is a massive open land mass that is not densely populated, and it is full of nuclear missile launch sites. China is a population
dense nation consisting of far less territory than Russia. Who would suffer more in an exchange of nuclear missiles? I think the
answer is clear. For this reason, Beijing is not thinking about war with Russia, or making Russia "collapse," as you say.
Wow, I can write comments here. I am russian, so I can tell the Mordor's version. The article is generally objective, but the
author was cunning in a few points
1) The principal reason why Yanukovich refused to sign the agreement with Europe was the duty free zone with Russia. Russians
sad: ok, You will sign the agreement with Europe, but we have high customs duties with europeneans, so we will break our free
trade zone agreement. Russia was the biggest export market for Ukraine and ukranians understood that they will lose a lot of money.
But Maidan decided differently.
2) Today the Russian primary strategy for Ukraine is do nothing and wait, we have no any influence in this country. We understand
that Europe and USA will not feed this country a lot of time. Internal contradictions will ruin this country before our intervention
3) But we support new government of Zelensky because he has an opportunity to implement Minsk agreements (may be). It will
be enough to close this deal and move on
But we support new goverment of Zelensky because he has an oportunity to implement Minsk aggreements (may be). It will be enough
to close this deal and move on
I do not agree with this. how Zelensky can end the war when the security forces and the army are controlled by Avakov and the
punitive battalions do not even know who controls?
the support of any government in Ukraine is due to the fact that our countries still have a fairly large turnover. while we trade
with ukraine will cooperate ..
But now Poland and other Central European states were similarly interested in changing their position -- from being Euro-Atlantic
frontline states to shifting that line further east
I believe that this is a big reason why Maidan occured. It is also a big reason for the war in Ukraine today. The Poles have
had a hand in this issue from the very beginning. Poland is literally an aggressor state at this point, stoking trouble in Ukraine.
America's greatest sin in all of this has been to allow itself to be influenced by Poland and the Baltic states. Just like
America allowed itself to be led by the nose by its "allies" in the Syrian War. We're talking about two conflicts that have very
little to do with America's best interests, and which could result in disaster (nuclear exchange with Russia) if something goes
wrong.
It's absolutely nuts for anyone to think that nuclear equipped Russia would allow Poland and America to have their way in Ukraine,
which is virtually Russia's front porch. By supporting our Polish "ally," the US has come close to creating a Cuban Missile Crisis
in reverse. In 1963 the Russians provoked America. Since 2014, America has been provoking Russia. It could get much worse.
I believe that this is a big reason why Maidan occured. It is also a big reason for the war in Ukraine today. The Poles have
had a hand in this issue from the very beginning. Poland is literally an aggressor state at this point, stoking trouble in
Ukraine.
but after Maidan, Nuland directly stated that the United States spent 5 billion on "building democracy in Ukraine." The
United States invested 5 billion in a coup, but is Poland to blame? why? if Poland had really done that, then western Ukraine
would have become part of Poland immediately after the Maidan, but this did not happen. After the Maidan, Biden was photographed
in a pride chair, but not the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland;)
Okay, I can see where you're coming from. But still, the Russians were readying to station missiles in Cuba, just miles from
America's borders. That means the Russians must have known -- or should have known -- that they were risking war with the US.
That's my point.
Now America's doing the same thing as the USSR did in 1963. America is setting the stage to establish bases, radars, and missiles
in Ukraine. That's what preparing Ukraine for NATO membership is all about. Therefore, America must know -- or should know --
that it is risking war with Russia. In a major way.
Agree with the thrust of your agrument. The US knows it is stoking conflict with their actions (ie Donbass), but since they
are not directly in the firing line (barring major escalations) they simply don't care. They want to discomfort and undermine
Russia, drive a wedge between Russia and Germany/France, and force the Eurotrash into compliance with US diktat as a demonstration
of US power over its minions.
Re the Cuban Missile Crisis, on the balance it wasn't really a climb-down by the Soviets, but it is usually interpreted that
way, especially as anti-Krushchev factions in the USSR were succesful in portraying it that way as part of their palace coup.
The US remoived its misiles from Turkey, promised not to update them with new ones, and undertook not to repeat any more "Bay
of Pigs" attempts at overthrowing Castro by force of arms. All the Soviets needed to do was halt their mobilisation and similarly
agree not to base missiles. On the balance, the Soviets played brinkmanship well and won real concessions in exchange for very
little. Krushchevs problem was really that he marketted the ploy very poorly and was able to be portrayed as a loser by his political
enemies, and Westeners have happily repeated the narratives ever since.
And what? US placed their missiles in every corner of the Globe, including Soviet/Russian borders. Why USSR can't place it's
missiles in Cuba?
BTW, what Gary Powers did in his U-2 in the sky above Ekaterinburg 01.05.1960?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
My point is that each power is expected to respect the other's buffer zones. That's how the powers have gotten along historically.
If and when one side disrespects the other's buffer zone, major trouble is right around the corner.
Generally, in these confrontations between the nuclear superpowers, the side with the less to lose is the first to back down.
That side is always the one that has overreached. In 1963 it was the Soviets who overreached. It's looking increasingly clear
that since 2014, it's the US that's overreached.
The US will find a graceful way to end the Ukraine-NATO expansion issue, something amounting to a face-saving American retreat
from the region. Putin will likely make it easy for America to pull out without loss of prestige.
In general, you are right, but in 60's it was not Soviets, who overreached. It was US planes intervened in Soviet airspace,
not vice versa. It was US, who firstly placed missiles in Turkey in 1961, not USSR in Cuba in 1963.
Ukraine is not going anywhere, because of 115 Mrd. outstanding Debt. Ukraine lost 85% of their Industrial Base in the last
5 Years. Most of them working for Russian Companies. Those Companies get Advanced Payments from Russia till 2014 worth about 10
Mrd. for Material and Salaries. That Money is not coming again. Russian Companies replace 90% of all Ukraine deliveries during
the last 5 Years - more modern and especially with far better time frames. Ukraine has a minor Cash Reserve of 7 Billion USD.
Whatever happens to Ukraine we can be sure of one thing, through our contributions via the World Bank, the IMF and Obama's
loan guarantees, the one million dollars a day paid by U.S taxpayers directly into the pockets of Ukrainian Oligarchs will continue
in perpetuity.
I doubt Putin is in any hurry to relieve us of that 'honor' the man is a master of playing the U.S for a sucker.
You are correct on most counts. However, I think that Putin wants the US to scale down its Ukraine involvement ASAP. That's
because Russia's nightmare is NATO expansion into Ukraine. Therefore, the sooner the US backs away, the less likely Russia will
have to fight a future war in order to keep NATO off of its front yard. Nobody, including Putin, wants war.
Ukraine needs internal stability, this means peace treaty with rebels and some kind of minimal agreement with Russia. Country
needs to buy time, it is too much to expect to fight war, to do reforms and fight corruption and to develop all at the same time.
NATO expansion to East proved to be big destabilizing factor for Ukraine, its geopolitical situation is difficult. It will
always need to balance and make concessions between Eastern and Western interests.
New president looks very promising, hopefully he will be able to bring country back to stability and push it more toward faster
economical development and national reconciliation.
You make some good points regarding stability within the country. The amount now spent on fighting the war in Donbas will not
go down as Ukraine will need to continue to rebuild their military to include new fighters and new ships for the navy however
the killing will stop. Any agreement made with Putin should be made with eyes wide open as Russia has no honor so agreements are
worthless only a potent enough military will guarantee Ukraine's peace.
Peace at any cost is not acceptable and any plan that allows complete autonomy should be a no go, it would be better to just
build a wall along the existing line and rid the country of a fifth columnist element. If the plan allows for local elections,
local use of Russian, local police forces not military but police that is acceptable. These elections must allow for all residents
who resided in the area prior to the war to vote and for all Ukrainian political parties to participate.
Zelenskiy has made corruption a key to his election and it is imperative that he takes some bold action(s) soon to set the
tone. I am a little concerned that he has selected some less than pure individuals to be part of his presidential team, apparently
he hasn't picked up on how bad the optics are by having a lawyer that worked for Kolomosky as your chief of staff?
Cracking down on the oligarchs would allow Ukraine to have a standard of living like Poland within a very few years and many of
the Ukrainians that now work in Poland could come home an make as much money.
The presidential vote proved that at least 73% of Ukrainians agreed that a new beginning was needed hence Zelnskiy being elected.
The reason IMHO that "national reconciliation" hasn't been achieved is the continued Russian interference/influence in Ukraine.
It hasn't been long enough for Ukraine as an independent nation to come to terms with the past history. This part of the world
has seen millions killed over the past 100+ years, the country hasn't come to grips with that there is still finger pointing and
until that is dealt with the reconciliation will be difficult.
The desire to join NATO is all on Russia and it's continuous interference in Ukraine. In all reality NATO is a long way off
as Ukraine needs to do a lot to bring the country up to NATO standards including in the corruption realm.
This part of the world has seen millions killed over the past 100+ years
Ukraine has been used an invasion route by Western aggressors who want to conquer Russia. That's resulted in Russia suffering
millions killed in the 20th century, and hundreds of thousands more killed in earlier wars.
You keep failing to see matters from Russia's perspective. You only think about Ukraine's most selfish national interests.
You've got to understand that any security arrangement in that part of the world will have to be a shared security plan. It will
have to consider and respect Russia's concerns. NATO is not the answer here. Militarization of a Ukraine led by far-right wing
nationalists is not the answer either.
Ukraine's only path to peace and security is to accept the status of Finlandization.
If the plan allows for local elections, local use of Russian, local police forces not military but police that
is acceptable.
It's too late for that. Remember, the Ukrainian ATO invaded Donbass and killed many thousands of innocent local people. For
this reason, Donbass will never allow the Ukrainian military onto its soil.
Yes, I read what you said. That's why I highlighted "military" in my quote. You are saying that Donbass Russians are expected
to allow themselves to be occupied by the Ukrainian military, as if they are conquered, humiliated people. I am saying that Russia
and Donbass will never let that happen.
Let's not overlook that it appears very much like the war is ending now, with Ukraine submitting to the terms set by Donbass
and Russia. That means Zelensky will have to drink his poison soup and allow the Donbass militia to have exclusive and unrestricted
military rights within Donbass, and along the region's borders. That's unavoidable.
Even if you go by Minsk II which plainly does not allow for a Separatist Military there is zero chance that Ukraine will agree
to anything resembling a "military". This territory will be under Ukrainian sovereignty and the border will be under Ukrainian
sovereignty. The autonomy will be for language, education, elections of local councils, cultural endeavors etc...
It is the thugs in charge who are supported by the Kremlin are the ones that envision some quasi country within Ukraine. If
you were to go out into the villages the average person wants the war to end and life to go back to as close to what it was before
this all started. The thugs in charge know that their power and authority will go away if truly free and fair elections are to
be held without Russian and mercenary gun toting thugs walking the streets. They are the ones that are worried as their world
will come to an end if real peace comes to past.
If you were to go out into the villages the average person wants the war to end and life to go back to as close to what
it was before this all started. The thugs in charge know that their power and authority will go away if truly free and fair elections
are to be held...
You are in denial of the facts. Respected international polling agencies have taken polls inside the rebel held portion of
Donbass. The results confirm that the people there want nothing to do with the Ukrainian government, and that they identify themselves
as an extension of Russia.
The only open question among the Donbass people is whether they want to be annexed by Russia (many do), or whether they want
to remain in Ukraine as a completely autonomous region, running all of their own affairs (many like this idea too).
But under no circumstances do the Donbass people want the Ukrainian army to enter their territory, establish bases or outposts,
and then garrison the border with Russia. Why would the Donbass people have fought for five hard, victorious years only to accept
this ignominious outcome? It makes no sense. Donbass and Russia won. Ukraine lost. The winners will not let the losers take military
control of their homeland. No possible way.
From the way your posts read, it's obvious you are way, way oversold on anti-Russian propaganda.
Who says that the Ukrainian Army is going to go into this area of Donbas? Th border will be secured by Ukrainian Border personnel
as it is on every other part of the border. Ukraine is currently decentralizing services and responsibility in the rest of the
country withheld control coming from Kyiv. A modified version of that for occupied Donbas to include local elections, language,
education and local law enforcement is what they should expect. In exchange Kyiv promises to rebuild destroyed infrastructure
and provide economic assistance to the area.
If that isn't good enough then as I said build a wall and cut them lose and let Putin take on the burden which he doesn't want.
Money coming form Russia to rebuild will be a long time in coming and what they have now is pretty much what they can expect for
the future. Of course the educate and most of the young have left the area an only the poor pensioners who had no where to go
are left.
Even if you go by Minsk II which plainly does not allow for a Separatist Military there is zero chance that Ukraine will
agree to anything resembling a "military"
You're living in a dream world if you think this. The reality is that Ukraine has lost the war. Zelensky wouldn't dare to implement
Minsk II unless he were leading a defeated nation, a nation that was throwing in the towel. We're talking about a complete capitulation.
That's what Minsk II means.
I am certain that Zelensky fully expects that once Minsk II is implemented, Ukraine will be somehow be maneuvered into accepting
that the Donbass military is in charge of Donbass and the abutting section of the Russian-Ukraine frontier.
Most likely, after Donbass holds internationally ratified elections per Minsk II, the newly elected officials will claim that
they are officially part of Ukraine's government. From there, they will claim that the Donbass rebel militia, therefore, is officially
an extension of Ukraine's national army. Then, finally, the Donbass leaders and Russia will say that "returning control of the
border to Ukraine" means, in reality, putting the border under the control of the Donbass militia.
Possibly the Donbass militia will wear Ukrainian army uniforms, just for show. But believe me: there's no way the victors in
this war are going to settle for surrendering military control of their territory to a despised, alien military force (i.e., the
Ukrainian army).
There's no possible way that Putin, Russia, or the Donbass rebels would have pushed the Minsk II Accords on Ukraine unless
it one of the treaty's unstated implications is that the Ukrainian military is ejected from the region permanently. That's what
Russia and Donbass fought to achieve. It's unthinkable that they would settle for anything less.
I'm certain that Zelensky and everyone else understands this.
It will not happen Minsk II will not be implemented. Th eUkrainian foreign minister already stated what will be the approach
in the Normandy talks an edit isn't Minsk II.
"The thugs in charge know that their power and authority will go away if truly free and fair elections are to be held without
Russian and mercenary gun toting thugs walking the streets."
What nonsense. You really think that voters in Donetsk & Lugansk would to reward Kiev authorities with their support in light
of the atrocities the "volunteer" battalions have dished out to civilians over the last 5 years???
You can cry about "thugs" or "mercenaries" all you like (in a futile attempt to de-legitimise the views of the seperatists)
but your bias is clear when you whitewash the crimes of Banderites and Neo-Nazis. Or maybe you would prefer to adopt the US MSM
ploy and simply pretend that these factions don't exist, or that no warcrimes have been committed?
You really think that voters in Donetsk & Lugansk would to reward Kiev authorities...
You make a valid point. I'd add also that the rebel controlled areas are the parts of Donetsk and Lugansk where the ethnic
Russian demographic majorities are heaviest. That means there's virtually zero chance that any elections held in that zone will
favor Kiev.
...as Ukraine will need to continue to rebuild their military to include new fighters and new ships for the navy...
Impossible. That's because there aren't enough Ukrainians who feel nationalistic enough to be willing to lay down their lives
in war for Ukraine. The reason for this problem is that a huge minority of Ukrainians are ethnic Russians and pro-Russian Ukrainians
who won't fight Russia. Many other Ukrainian people are ambivalent about national identity, and will not honor their military
obligations.
In some ways, Ukraine's military problem today is akin to that suffered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in WW1. The Austro-Hungarian
state was multi-national, and much of its population did not share the political and national values of the rulers in Vienna and
Budapest.
Multi-national countries always have trouble fielding political reliable militaries. Even the Soviet Union, a superpower, had
a bottom one-third of military recruits (most from Cental Asia) that simply weren't politically reliable.
Ukraine's military future looks very grim. Only if Kiev grants independence to the non-Ukrainian regions will the country finally
have a population of people who share the same national and political values. That will have to precede Ukraine building any kind
of competent army.
The presidential vote proved that at least 73% of Ukrainians agreed that a new beginning was needed hence Zelnskiy being
elected.
That Ukrainian majority is exhausted and demoralized by the Donbass War. They want peace at any cost, even if that means granting
virtual independence to Donbass. Even if that means allowing Russia to use Donbass as an agent through which it can influence
Ukraine's domestic political situation. That's the "new beginning" that Ukrainians have in mind.
There's no way Zelensky can be in power while simultaneously continuing the Donbass War. Ukrainians elected him to get the
country out of that agony.
My wife is Ukrainian and they will not accept Russia running things through a Fifth column in Donbas. They might as well just
wall it off and be done with it makes zero sense to allow your rendition.
US military commanders overseeing Syria operations are still waiting for precise
battlefield orders from the White House and Pentagon on their exact mission to protect
oilfields in eastern Syria, according to a defense official directly familiar with the
matter.
Nearly three weeks after President Donald Trump ordered troops out of northern Syria,
publicly declaring he was taking "control" of the oil and sending troops and armored carriers
to protect it from ISIS, US commanders lack clarity on the most basic aspects of their
mission, including how and when troops can fire their weapons and what, exactly, that mission
is.
The lack of precise orders means troops are on the ground while critical details are still
being worked out -- exactly where they will go, when and how they will stay on small bases in
the area, and when they go on patrol.
Perhaps most crucially, there is no clarity about exactly who they are operating against
in the oilfields.
Everything the Trump administration has done in Syria has been horribly confused, so it
makes sense that the latest version of the policy would be baffling to our own troops. U.S.
commanders lack clarity about the mission because it was cooked up to appeal to the president's
desire for plundering other countries' resources. It was thrown together on the spur of the
moment as an excuse to keep U.S. troops in Syria no matter what, and now those troops are stuck
there with no instructions and no idea what they are expected to do. This is the worst kind of
unnecessary military mission, because it is being carried out simply to keep a U.S. foothold in
Syria for its own sake. The "critical details" aren't being worked out so much as a plausible
justification after the fact is being conjured out of thin air. There is no reason for these
troops to be there, and there is nothing that they can do there legally, but the administration
will come up with some bad argument to keep them there anyway.
Meanwhile, Trump is very proud of his clownish, illegal Syria policy:
Trump labors under the delusion that the oil is ours to "distribute." which everyone else
knows to be false. The oil belongs to the Syrian government, and that oil can't be sold and
revenues from those sales cannot be used without the permission of the government that owns it.
Syria's oil resources are not that great, and the infrastructure of many of the fields has been
damaged or destroyed, so if it were legal to loot the spoils there wouldn't be very much to
loot. The president thinks that seizing Syrian oil is worth boasting about, but in reality it
is one of the most absurd and indefensible reasons for deploying troops abroad. In addition to
damaging the country's international standing with allied and friendly governments with this
open thievery, Trump's "take the oil" fixation is a propaganda coup for hostile governments and
groups. As Paul Pillar pointed out last week, it plays into the
hands of jihadist groups and aids them in their recruitment:
Trump's Sunday appearance before the press played right into this theme. Referring back to
the Iraq War, Trump described as his own view at the time that if the United States was going
into Iraq, it should "keep the oil." As for Syria's oil, he said it can help the Kurds but
"it can help us because we should be able to take some also. And what I intend to do,
perhaps, is make a deal with an Exxon Mobil or one of our great companies to go in there and
do it properly." A propagandist for ISIS or al-Qaeda would hardly have written the script
differently.
Keeping troops in Syria to "take the oil" is divorced from genuine American security
interests just like any other unnecessary military intervention. The president is exposing U.S.
military personnel to unnecessary risk, and he is also putting them in legal jeopardy by
ordering them to commit what is essentially the war crime of pillaging. The president has
managed to take a Syria policy that was already incoherent and chaotic and he has made it even
worse.
The US openly occupies parts of Syria, boasts of taking it resources and supported the
attempts of the Kurds to set up their own little state, until the Turks blew a hissy fit.
And yet it has the gall to call out what Russia does in the Ukraine as a breach of
international law.
Good article by Scott Ritter, former US army officer and senior U.N. weapons of mass
destruction inspector, about how Syrians especially, but all of us owe a huge thank you to
Russia for saving us from the horrors that would've come in wider wars if not for Russia's
intervention.
"... On the other hand, as Targ explains, are the Trumpian, "America First" nationalist capitalists. This faction of the ruling class, while also supporting global dominance and a permanent war economy (military-related spending will consume 48 percent of the 2020 federal budget) favors trade restrictions, economic nationalism, building walls and anti-immigrant policies. Although Trump is inconsistent, bumbling and sometimes contradictory, he's departed from the neocon's agenda by making overtures to North Korea and Russia, voicing doubts about NATO as an expensive relic from the past that is being dangerously misused outside of Europe, not being afraid to speak bluntly to EU allies, frequently mentioning ending our "endless, ridiculous and costly wars," asserting that the U.S. is badly overextended and saying "The job of our military is not to police the world." ..."
"... This is a high stakes intra-ruling class struggle and neither side cares a fig about what's best for the American people or those beyond our borders. At this point it's impossible to know how it will play out but grasping the underlying dynamics explains much about current U.S. domestic and foreign policy. This understanding may, in turn, point toward how opponents of America's oligarchic elites can most expeditiously use their time and energy. ..."
"... Foremost is the fact that Trump's intra-elite enemies despise him not for being a neo-fascistic demagogue, a despicable human being devoid of a conscience, or for the brouhaha over Ukraine. Their animus is rooted in the conviction that Trump has been a foot dragging imperialist, an equivocal caretaker of empire, unreliable pull-the-trigger Commander-in-chief (e.g.Iran) and transparent truth-teller about the real motives behind U.S. foreign policy. These are his unforgivable sins and if he's impeached or denied the Oval Office by some other means, they will be real reasons. ..."
"... One of Trump's most traitorous acts is that he's been consistent, at least rhetorically, in being opposed to U.S. troops being killed in "endless wars." One need not agree with his reasons to find merit in this worthy objective. His motives probably include Nativism, racism, foreign investment stability, the wars causing more refugees to come here, his massive ego, appeals to his voting base, or simply because he believes both he and the "real America" would be better off. For him, the latter two are synonymous. ..."
"... For this treachery, those arrayed against Trump include at least, the Pentagon-CIA-armaments lobby, MSM editors like those at CNN, The New York Times ..."
Over the past few months President Trump has unilaterally by Tweet and telephone begun to
dismantle the U.S. military's involvement in the Middle East. The irony is amazing, because in
a general overarching narrative sense, this is what the marginalized antiwar movement has been
trying to do for decades.
1
Prof. Harry Targ, in his important piece "United States foreign policy: yesterday, today,
and tomorrow," (MR online, October 23, 2919), reminds us of the factional dispute among U.S.
foreign policy elites over how to maintain the U.S. empire. On the one hand are the neoliberal
global capitalists who favor military intervention, covert operations, regime change,
strengthening NATO, thrusting China into the enemy vacuum and re-igniting the Cold War with
Russia. All of this is concealed behind lofty rhetoric about humanitarianism, protecting human
rights, promoting democracy, fighting terrorism and American exceptionalism. Their mantra is
Madeleine Albright's description of the United States as the world's "one indispensable
nation."
On the other hand, as Targ explains, are the Trumpian, "America First" nationalist
capitalists. This faction of the ruling class, while also supporting global dominance and a
permanent war economy (military-related spending will consume 48 percent of the 2020 federal
budget) favors trade restrictions, economic nationalism, building walls and anti-immigrant
policies. Although Trump is inconsistent, bumbling and sometimes contradictory, he's departed
from the neocon's agenda by making overtures to North Korea and Russia, voicing doubts about
NATO as an expensive relic from the past that is being dangerously misused outside of Europe,
not being afraid to speak bluntly to EU allies, frequently mentioning ending our "endless,
ridiculous and costly wars," asserting that the U.S. is badly overextended and saying "The job
of our military is not to police the world."
I would add that Trump is also an "American exceptionalist" but ascribes a very different
provincial meaning to the term, something closer to a crabbed provincialism, an insular
"Shining City on a Hill," surrounded by a moat.
This is a high stakes intra-ruling class struggle and neither side cares a fig about
what's best for the American people or those beyond our borders. At this point it's impossible
to know how it will play out but grasping the underlying dynamics explains much about current
U.S. domestic and foreign policy. This understanding may, in turn, point toward how opponents
of America's oligarchic elites can most expeditiously use their time and energy.
Foremost is the fact that Trump's intra-elite enemies despise him not for being a
neo-fascistic demagogue, a despicable human being devoid of a conscience, or for the brouhaha
over Ukraine. Their animus is rooted in the conviction that Trump has been a foot dragging
imperialist, an equivocal caretaker of empire, unreliable pull-the-trigger Commander-in-chief
(e.g.Iran) and transparent truth-teller about the real motives behind U.S. foreign policy.
These are his unforgivable sins and if he's impeached or denied the Oval Office by some other
means, they will be real reasons.
One of Trump's most traitorous acts is that he's been consistent, at least rhetorically,
in being opposed to U.S. troops being killed in "endless wars." One need not agree with his
reasons to find merit in this worthy objective. His motives probably include Nativism, racism,
foreign investment stability, the wars causing more refugees to come here, his massive ego,
appeals to his voting base, or simply because he believes both he and the "real America" would
be better off. For him, the latter two are synonymous.
For this treachery, those arrayed against Trump include at least, the
Pentagon-CIA-armaments lobby, MSM editors like those at CNN, The New York Times and
The Washington Post , NSA, Zionist neocons, the DNC, establishment Democrats, some
hawkish Republican senators, many lifestyle liberals still harboring a sentimental faith in
American goodness and even EU and NATO elites who've benefited from being faithful lackeys to
Washington's global imperialism.
In a recent interview, Major Danny Sjursen, retired army officer and West Point instructor
with tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, notes that "The last bipartisan issue in American
politics today is warfare, forever warfare." In terms of the military, that means " even the
hint of getting out of the establishment interventionist status quo is terrifying to these
generals, terrifying to these former intelligence officers from the Obama administration who
seem to live on MSNBC now." Sjursen adds that many of these generals (like Mattis) have already
found lucrative work with the military industrial complex.
2
In response to Trump's announcement about removing some U.S. troops from the region, we find
an op-ed in The New York Times by Admiral William McRaven where he states that Trump
"should be out of office sooner than later. It's time for a new person in the Oval Office,
Republican, Democrat or Independent. The fate of the nation depends on it." The unmistakeable
whiff of support for a soft coup is chilling. If Trump can't be contained, he must be deposed
one way or another.
And this is all entirely consistent with the fact that the national security state was
totally caught off guard by Trump's victory in 2016. For them, Trump was a loose cannon,
erratic and ultra-confrontational, someone they couldn't control. Their favored candidate was
the ever reliable, Wall Street-friendly, war-mongering Hillary Clinton or even Jeb Bush. Today,
barring a totally chastised Trump, the favorites include a fading Biden, Pence, a reprise of
Clinton or someone in her mold but without the baggage.
For Trump's establishment enemies, another closely related failing is his habit of blurting
out inconvenient truths. I'm not the first person to say that Trump is the most honest
president in my lifetime. Yes, he lies most of the time but as left analyst Paul Street puts
it, "Trump is too clumsily and childishly brazen in laying bare the moral nothingness and
selfishness of the real material-historical bourgeois society that lives beneath the veils of
'Western civilization' and 'American democracy.'"
3
All his predecessors took pains or were coached to conceal their imperialist actions behind
declarations of humanitarian interventionism but Trump has pulled the curtains back to reveal
the ugly truths about U.S. foreign policy. As such, the carefully calibrated propaganda fed to
the public in endless reiterations over a lifetime is jeopardized whenever Trump utters a
transparent truth. This is intolerable.
Here are a few examples culled from speeches, interviews and press reports:
+ At a May 10, 2017 Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislayak, Trump said he was unconcerned about Moscow's interference
in the U.S. election because "We do the same thing in elections in other countries." [White
House officials were so alarmed they tried to limit access to the transcript].
+ When asked about whether Putin is a killer, Trump sarcastically asked whether "our
country was so innocent?" and added, "Our country does plenty of killing."
+ His reaction to Saudi Arabia's murder of Khashoggi was that "they really messed up."
[Translation: He/our government didn't care about what happened except that the Saudis
bungled the job. Uttering this inconvenient truth removed the usual fig leaf claim of moral
outrage and checked off another box on the Trump-Must-Go list maintained by the
globalists].
+ "The Kurds are no angels." [This dried up all the crocodile tears being shed by both
Dems and Republicans].
+ On Libya: Asked about a role for the U.S. in Libya, Trump responded "I do not see a
role in Libya. I think the United States has, right now, enough roles. We're in a role
everywhere." He did say "I would just go in and take the oil," and repeated this intention
regarding Syria. [Once again Trump sabotaged any pretense of righteous motives behind
Washington's foreign policy in the Middle East. To wit: It's always been about blood for
oil].
+ When firing John Bolton, his former national security advisor, Trump remarked "He made
some very big mistakes. When he talked about the Libya model for Kim Jong Un, that was not a
good statement to make. You just look at what happened with Gaddafi." [Here, Trump's truth
telling undermined the standard U.S. position by saying it makes perfect sense for other
countries to obtain nukes if they wish to avoid being destroyed by us.]
+ "We're in many, many countries. I do know the exact number of countries we have troops
in but I'm embarrassed to say it because it's so foolish. We're in countries that don't even
like us some people, whether it's – – you call it the military-industrial complex
or beyond that, they'd like me to stay the want me to fight forever That's what they want to
do, fight. A lot of companies want to to fight because they make their weapons based on
fighting, not based on peace. And they take up a lot of people. I want to bring our soldiers
back home."
+ During a private military briefing, Trump stunned officials by scowling, "Seriously,
who gives a shit about Afghanistan?" And he continued, "So far we've in for $7 trillion,
fellas. $7 trillion including Iraq. Worst decision ever "
+ On Ukraine: "The people of Crimea would rather be with Russia than where they
were."
+ On Syria, "Let someone else fight over this long blood stained sand." And more broadly,
he said "The same people that I watched and read -- give me and the United States advice --
were the people I've been watching and reading for many years. They are the ones who got us
into the Middle East mess but never have the vision or courage to get us out. They just
talk."
+ Responding to South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham's criticism: "The people of
South Carolina don't want us to get into another war with Turkey, a NATO member, or with
Syria. Let them fight their own wars."
+ On Middle East wars: "All of those lives lost, the young men and women gravely wounded
-- so many -- the Middle East is less safe, less stable, and less secure than before these
conflicts began."
As noted earlier, the endgame is not in sight. Trump seems without a clear strategy for
moving forward and from all reports he can't depend on his current coterie of White House
advisors to produce one. Further, he may lack the necessary political in-fight skills or
tenacity to see it through. When some of his Republican "allies" savaged his announcement to
withdraw troops from Syria, he backtracked and made some, at least cosmetic concessions.
However, the fact that Trump's position remains popular with his voter base and especially with
veterans of these wars will give pause to Republicans. If some finally join the Democrats in
voting for impeachment over Ukraine-gate they may minimize re-election risks by hiding their
real motives behind pious claims -- as will most Democrats -- about "protecting the
constitution and the rule of law".
Now, lest I be misunderstood, nothing I've written here should be construed as support for
Donald Trump or that I believe he's antiwar. Trump is aberration only in that his brand of
Western imperialism means that the victims remain foreigners while U.S. soldiers remain out of
harm's way. He knows that boots on the ground can quickly descend into bodies in the ground and
unlike his opponents, coffins returning to Dover Air Base are not worth risking his personal
ambitions. This is clearly something to build upon. We don't know if Trump views drones, cyber
warfare and proxies as substitutes but his intra-elite opponents remain extremely dubious. In
any event, that's another dimension to expose and challenge.
Finally, we know the ruling class in a capitalist democracy -- an oxymoron -- expends
enormous time and resources to obtain a faux "consent of the governed" through misinformation
conveyed via massive, lifelong ideological indoctrination. For them, citizen's policing
themselves is more efficient than coercion and precludes raising questions that might
delegitimize the system. Obviously force and fear are hardly unknown -- witness the mass
incarceration and police murder of black citizens -- but one only has to look around to see how
successful this method of control has been.
Nevertheless, as social historian Margaret Jacoby wisely reminds us, "No institution is safe
if people simply stop believing the assumptions that justify its existence."
4 Put another way, the system simply can't accommodate certain "dangerous ideas."
Today, we see promising political fissures developing, especially within the rising
generation, and it's our responsibility to help deepen and widen these openings through
whatever means at our disposal.
FOX News contributor John Solomon revealed fired Ukrainian Ambassador Maria Yovanovich's
links to a radical Soros group. Yovanovich appeared before Congress on Friday, claiming that
she was unjustly fired just because she badmouthed the president, prevented Ukrainian officials
from coming to the US to expose Democrat corruption, and giving Ukrainian prosecutor a do not
prosecute list. Now, investigative reporter John Solomon reports on her link to a
Soros-supported group. Lutsenko told Solomon that in April 2016, Ukrainian prosecutors were
investigating an alleged anti-corruption group, AntAC, over $4.4 million that was illegally
diverted. AntAc was founded by the Obama administration and George Soros.
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On Friday fired Ambassador Yovanovich testified behind closed doors in front of the
Pelosi-Schiff impeachment committee.
Yovanovich believes she was unjustly fired despite the fact that she was an Obama holdover,
was speaking out against President Trump and she was
colluding with the DNC and Hillary Campaign to undermine the US presidential election.
On Friday John Solomon told Lou Dobbs about the fired ambassador's links to a radical Soros
group operating in Ukraine.
On March 20th Solomon
published his interview with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko alleging
Yovanovitch gave him a "do not prosecute list," back in 2016.
It will be clear once the transcripts are released, that the crew
testifying for Adam Schiff are upset about the President fulfilling his
Constitutional responsibility to run foreign policy rather than letting
them run it, about his determination to get to the bottom of Ukraine's role
in intervening in the 2016 U.S. Election, and the ongoing coup against him,
which implicates many of these very same "witnesses." The President,
knowing that Ukraine tried to take him out by intervening in the 2016
election, refused to meet with the Poroshenko government. That government
jockeyed for favor by revealing its role in the 2016 illegalities and
documenting the Biden story for Rudy Guilani and others.
When new
President Zelensky was elected, President Trump used an alternate channel
to assess him, rather than the State Department and National Security
Council operatives who were either involved in the coup against him or
refused to stand against it. That appears to have included Ukraine envoy
Kurt Volker, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
There is nothing unusual in this but it drove the unelected Mandarins,
including John Bolton, crazy, along with the considerable military
industrial complex grouping in the Congress who want permanent war with
Russia.
Here are the key players so far based on the applause provided by
Democrats and the Main Stream Media:
William B. Taylor, Jr.
Presented hearsay testimony, based on conversations with NSC John Bolton
protégé Tim Morrison, and others that somehow the President presented a
quid pro quo in his July 25th phone call with Zelensky, despite the fact
that the actual transcript of the call and repeated statements by President
Zelensky evidence no quid pro quo. Taylor's career has featured every U.S.
imperial disaster possible:
– "Economic development" coordinator for Eastern Europe, former Soviet
Union, resulting in the economic decimation of those countries and their
looting
– Coordinator for U.S. assistance of Afghanistan. Said the U.S. had the
right to stay forever until the country was secured to U.S. specifications
– Coordinator for Iraq Reconstruction. Program lost billions and left
the country destitute and mired in religious warfare.
– Ambassador to Ukraine in 2006-2009 right after the Orange Revolution,
the nation's first color revolution delivered by the British and the State
Department.
– Under Obama, Special Coordinator for Mideast "transitions" in the wake
of the Arab Spring, the program which set all of Southwest Asia on fire and
birthed the present round of Isis terrorism.
– Serves on the U.S./Ukraine Business Council with David J. Kramer as a
senior advisor. Kramer leaked the dirty Christopher Steele dossier against
Donald Trump to Buzzfeed. The Council coordinates the "investment" of
various vulture and "turnaround" funds in Ukraine. According to Breitbart's
Aaron Klein, Taylor met with a member of Adam Schiff's staff, Thomas Eager,
in Ukraine, prior to his testimony.
Marie Yovanovitch
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from August 18, 2016, until she was recalled,
in May of 2019. She claimed she was the victim of a smear campaign by Trump
attorney, Rudy Giuliani and Ukrainians who opposed her. But, she was at the
helm of the Embassy at the point when the Manafort black ledger smear
campaign was at full roar.
Way back in March, 2019, U.S. Embassy employees at the Ukrainian Embassy
were leaking that the Ambassador was telling Embassy employees and
Ukrainians not to pay any attention to President Donald Trump because he
was going to be impeached.
This was before a wave of articles featuring Ukraine's former prosecutor
Yuriy Lutsenko claiming that Yovanovitch had provided him with a list of
"do not prosecute" names, including those Ukrainians most involved in the
Ukrainian efforts to target and smear former Trump Campaign Advisor Paul
Manafort as a Russian agent.
Judicial Watch has just filed a FOIA request based on State Department
sources who claim that during her tenure in Ukraine, Yovanovitch ordered
the monitoring of various journalists who published negative stories about
her or who generally support President Trump.
Her resume evidences a trail of destruction. Dubbed the "Iron Lady" by
colleagues, she replaced the infamous Ambassador Geoffey Pyatt in Ukraine.
In 2002, after serving as one of the key State Department anti-Russian
diplomats, Yovanovitch played a central role in the Ukraine regime change
operation known as the "Orange Revolution." She promoted the scandal of
Ukraine selling 4 Kolchuga radar systems to Iraq in violation of the United
Nations sanctions. This led to the pro-Russian Ukrainian President Leonid
Kuchma being replaced by Washington and London's choice, Viktor
Yushschenko..
She was Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic at the time the British-U.S.
Tulip Color Revolution occurred in that country, led by the State
Department and the British.
In 2008-2011 Yovanovitch was U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, where she was
heavily involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in neighboring Azerbaijan
(a separatist operation as part of a regime-change operation).
Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman
A Ukrainian born Army veteran, Vindman joined the NSC in July of 2018,
under John Bolton, as the NSC's "Ukraine expert." He claimed that all of
his corrections to the transcript of the Zelensky/Trump call were not
accepted although he admitted that his corrections were minor and did not
change the call substantively. He testified that he discussed with
Ukrainian colleagues how to "handle Trump."
The key to who he is and why he is testifying is contained in his
opening statement:
"When I joined the NSC in the Spring of 2019, I became aware of
outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent
with the consensus views of the interagency. This narrative was harmful for
U.S. government policy."
There you have it, the "interagency" dictates U.S. foreign policy, not
the President as specified in Article II of the Constitution. Vindman also
says he authored the Russia strategy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff for
managing "competition" with Russia, an undoubtedly very bellicose document.
Amidst the media fanfare claiming that Vindman represents "the ultimate
immigrant hero" story, the Republicans finally leaked something substantive
about what happened behind closed doors. Asked to cite in the transcript of
the call where the President offered a quid pro quo, Vindman apparently
testified that the entire call evidenced this, since the President was in a
"position of power" over President Zelensky. If true, foreign policy is now
being managed on the same terms as the Me Too movement.
Right-wing media tries to smear former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch
Despite grave Judicial Watch allegations about a "surveillance" campaign from right-wing figures,
the facts so far point to mere tracking of a pro-Trump disinformation campaign
UPDATE (10/24/19)
: It
turns out
that the list Marie Yovanovitch allegedly used to "spy" on conservatives was really a basic Facebook
search on CrowdTangle, a
mundane and widely-used
social media
tool that
tracks
public
social media activity.
Judicial Watch
described CrowdTangle as a "Soros-linked media tracking tool."
Representatives of right-wing group Judicial Watch have been claiming during appearances on
conservative media shows that former Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was "spying" on media figures
close to President Donald Trump by monitoring public statements they made on social media regarding
Ukraine.
Judicial Watch is alleging that Yovanovitch -- who recently
testified to House impeachment investigators
that Trump pressured the State Department to remove her
over baseless allegations -- was "basically running a war room" by monitoring public statements regarding
Ukraine
made by
figures in right-wing media like Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs, Trump personal lawyer Rudy
Giuliani, and Donald Trump, Jr. The list also includes former Obama ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.
Judicial Watch also claims that the searches were looking for the following keywords: "Biden,"
"Giuliani," "Soros," and "Yovanovitch."
That Yovanovich would monitor public statements made by public figures is unsurprising given her
recent testimony
claiming that Giuliani had been criticizing her in the months before her ousting,
and the people she allegedly monitored are connected to the smear campaign Giuliani was waging. He had
accused her of privately criticizing the president and trying to protect the interests of Biden and his
son Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. The smear included accusations that
Soros was funding a conspiracy to hurt Trump's presidency and elect Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Yovanovich said she was "incredulous" about her removal and that it was based on "unfounded and false
claims by people with clearly questionable motives" -- claims that have been
promoted publicly
by conservative media figures.
The Washington Post
reported that George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state responsible
for Ukraine, became concerned around October 2018 that Yovanovitch was the target of a "classic
disinformation operation."
NBC News
indicated that the State Department was concerned over the effort to oust Yovanovich,
reporting that the agency "attempted to ring alarm bells" regarding Giuliani's efforts to smear her:
The documents also show that Giuliani, through conservative writer John Solomon's columns in The Hill,
attempted to tie former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch to the liberal donor George Soros as part
of a massive conspiracy to take down Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort and help Hillary
Clinton win the 2016 election.
...
When State Department officials saw the disinformation campaign, they attempted to ring alarm bells
and strategized to correct the record, the documents show.
Yovanovitch, who has over 30 years of experience in foreign diplomacy, further testified that, as
The Washington Post
put it, "under Trump's leadership, U.S. foreign policy has been compromised by
self-interested actors who have badly demoralized and depleted America's diplomatic corps." The testimony
of
White House aide Fiona Hill
confirmed Yovanovitch's depiction of foreign policy under the Trump
administration.
Still, Judicial Watch is attempting to push the narrative that Yovanovitch nefariously
spied on Trump allies among right-wing media, appearing on the radio shows of Sebastian Gorka and Sean
Hannity and Fox Business host Lou Dobbs' prime-time show to spread the message. Some Fox News figures
responded with paranoia regarding their own conversations.
Judicial Watch
also shared
its report on Twitter, announcing that it is "investigating if prominent conservative figures/journalists
& persons [with ties] to @realDonaldTrump were unlawfully monitored by the State Dept in Ukraine at the
request of ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, an Obama appointee."
Fox & Friends
hosted Judicial Watch
President Tom Fitton, who repeated that his "sourcing tells us that she was asking that folks like Rudy
Giuliani, Don Trump Jr., a whole list of your colleagues there at Fox, be monitored on certain phrases."
Co-host Steve Doocy invited Fitton to "go ahead and speculate for a second" about Yovanovitch's motives,
to which Fitton replied, "It looks an awful lot like an enemy's list to me." Doocy noted that Yovanovitch
is "keeping an eye on television, of all things," and he called it "particularly disturbing that, you
know, somebody in the federal government would be tracking people on TV."
As Bette Davis said in All About Eve , "Fasten your seatbelts -- it's going to be a bumpy night."
The ride started last night with Rep. Devin Nunes' appearance on Hannity , escalated with arrests of figures tied to Rudy
Giuliani, and will possibly come to a complete halt when former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch meets with three House committees
tomorrow -- assuming the State Department allows the testimony to take place at all.
Kicking this off, Kicking this off, Kicking this off,
Nunes went on Hannity last night to claim that Yavonovitch may have been spying on Americans -- including journalists.
Sean Hannity expresses his anger over what his own sources are telling him about surveillance of John Solomon among others, although
Nunes more cautiously advises patience:
"What I can tell you is that we know what Pete Sessions, congressman from Texas now retired, we know what he had to say. We
know that there are people within that were not only Ukrainians but also Americans that worked at the State Department who have
raised concerns about this ambassador, that's why she was ultimately removed," Nunes said.
"We also have concerns that possibly they were monitoring press from different journalists and others," he continued. "That
we don't know, but, you know, we have people who have given us this information and we're going to ask these questions to the
State Department and hopefully they'll get the answers before she comes in on Friday."
Hannity then said three sources have told him there "is evidence that shows government resources were used to monitor communications"
of a journalist, The Hill's John Solomon.
"Well, what I have heard, and I want to be clear. I think there is a difference. What I've heard is that there were strange
requests, irregular requests to monitor, not just one journalist, but multiple journalists," Nunes said. "Now perhaps that was
okay. Perhaps there was some reason for that, that it can be explained away. But that's what we know and that's what we are going
to be looking into."
Keep Pete Sessions in mind as our ride progresses to its next sharp turn. Earlier today, two of Rudy Giuliani's clients -- and
donors to a PAC funding Giuliani's investigation of the Bidens --
got arrested for criminal campaign finance violations . Among the allegations are that those violations intended to mask foreign
influence on US elections:
Two Soviet-born donors to a pro-Trump fundraising committee who helped Rudy Giuliani's efforts to investigate Democrat Joe
Biden were arrested late Wednesday on criminal charges of violating campaign finance rules, including funneling Russian money
into President Trump's campaign.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Florida businessmen, have been under investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan,
and are expected to appear in federal court in Virginia later on Thursday, the people said. Both men were born in former Soviet
republics.
Mr. Giuliani, President Trump's private lawyer, identified the two men in May as his clients. Both men have donated to Republican
campaigns including Mr. Trump's, and in May 2018 gave $325,000 to the primary pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, through
an LLC called Global Energy Producers, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The men were charged with four counts, including conspiracy, falsification of records and lying to the FEC about their political
donations,
according
to the indictment that outlines a conspiracy to funnel a Russian donor's money into U.S. elections.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the two have been instrumental in helping Giuliani make contacts in Ukraine. One of them
happened to be part of a meeting Giuliani had with the now-unemployed envoy Kurt Volker:
Since late 2018, Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas have introduced Mr. Giuliani to several current and former senior Ukrainian prosecutors
to discuss the Biden case.
Mr. Parnas in July accompanied Mr. Giuliani to a breakfast meeting with Kurt Volker, then the U.S. special representative for
Ukraine negotiations. "We had a long conversation about Ukraine," Mr. Volker wrote in his testimony to House committees last week.
During that breakfast, Mr. Giuliani mentioned the investigations he was pursuing into Mr. Biden and 2016 election interference.
The
indictment
released today has a very telling reference to a former US congressman who involved himself in the effort to oust Yovanovitch:
And now let's go back to the WSJ for some dot-connecting:
In May 2018, Pete Sessions, at the time a GOP congressman from Texas, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking
for her removal, saying he had been told Ms. Yovanovitch was displaying a bias against the president in private conversations.
The indictment references a congressman, identifiable as Mr. Sessions, whose assistance Mr. Parnas sought in "causing the U.S.
government to remove or recall the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine." The indictment says those efforts were conducted "at least
in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials." Mr. Sessions didn't respond to a request for comment.
Hoo boy . If nothing else, this certainly looks bad, which makes Nunes' citation of Session suspect on its face.
The Department of Justice is essentially accusing Sessions of being bought by foreign influence in going after Yovanovitch, and clearly
intends to press that case against Giuliani's associates on that basis.
Bear in mind that this is William Barr's DoJ, too. Barr got read into the case soon after taking over the Attorney General
job in February, and apparently found it convincing enough to proceed to indictment. The arrest also made it very convenient for
House Democrats to
issue subpoenas for testimony from the pair , although it likely complicates how cooperative they're willing to be. At the very
least, they'll be easy to find.
Giuliani responded by attacking the DoJ for its "extremely suspect" timing in unsealing the indictment and arresting his associates.
He promised Fox News' Catherine Herridge that he would shortly reveal how all of this is connected to his investigation into the
Bidens:
What about the "extremely suspect" timing? It turns out that the pair were
trying to leave
the country , which forced the DoJ to make the arrests now:
The two Giuliani-linked defendants, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, were detained at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington
on Wednesday and are scheduled to appear in court in Virginia at 2 p.m. ET Thursday.
Meanwhile, Yovanovitch continues to prepare for her own testimony, which is still
scheduled to take place tomorrow . The Washington Post reported late last night that she's "on board" for cooperating with the
committees, and perhaps now even more so after Nunes' allegations on Hannity last night. The State Department could still
bar her from discussing her work with Congress (she remains employed by State), but
ABC reports today that Mike Pompeo is already facing a rising level of discontent over Yovanovitch's treatment and Pompeo's lack
of a public defense for her:
Marie Yovanovitch, who was recalled early from her post this spring, is scheduled for a deposition Friday with three committees
in the House of Representatives, but it is unclear whether she will be allowed to show up after the U.S. ambassador to the European
Union was blocked by the Trump administration from testifying on Tuesday.
Either way, the manner in which Yovanovitch has been treated by Trump and the silence from Pompeo has already rankled many
rank and file at the State Department, according to half a dozen current and former officials, who are also upset by the administration's
use of career diplomats in the president's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponents.
So where does this ride come to a stop? How much of this is true -- all of it, none of it, or only some of it? Trump loyalists
will surely consider all of this as more evidence of a Deep State plot that now involves both the State and Justice Departments.
Trump haters will see this as another case of foreign influence on the administration and a plot to smear Trump's opponents, both
electoral and otherwise. The rest of America might just be hoping that the [expletive deleted] ride would come to an end, period
.
At this point, the mess is too complicated to suss out which conclusion reflects the truth. What does appear to true is
that we're not going to know for sure what's true for a long, long time -- and it might turn out, ironically, that the DoJ
could end up as the most credible player in Ukraine-Gate.
"... NBC s uggests that the Barr investigation is a ' mysterious ' review " amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or factual basis " while the NY Times continues to cast doubt that the investigation has a legitimate basis implying that AG Barr is attempting to " deliver a political victory for President Trump." The Times misleads its readers with: ..."
"... There is, however, one small inconvenient glitch that challenges the Democratic version of reality that does not fit their partisan spin. The news that former FBI General Counsel James Baker is actively cooperating with the BD investigation ought to send ripples through the ranks. Baker has already stated that it was a 'small group' within the agency who led the counterintelligence inquiry into the Trump campaign; notably former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. ..."
"... Baker's cooperation was not totally unexpected since he also cooperated with the Inspector General's FISA abuse investigation which is awaiting public release. ..."
"... As FBI General Counsel, Baker had a role in reviewing the FISA applications before they were submitted to the FISA court and currently remains under criminal investigation for making unauthorized leaks to the media. ..."
"... As the agency's chief legal officer, Baker had to be a first-hand participant and privy to every strategy discussion and decision (real or contemplated). It was his job to identify potential legal implications that might negatively affect the agency or boomerang back on the FBI. In other words, Baker is in a unique position to know who knew what and when did they know it. ..."
"... Adds realist Dr.Assad: "I said before whatever the Americans say has no credibility, whether they say it to an enemy or a friend, the result is the same – it is unreliable. That is why we do not waste our time on things like this. " ..."
"... I don't think the Democratic leadership wanted a formal impeachment, they would prefer that Trump just faded away quietly before the 2020 election and were in the process of collecting information to reinforce this. They got cornered into formalizing the investigation by Trump's defense team baiting them as part of their overall strategy. It really doesn't change anything. ..."
"... Whichever way you slice and/or dice it Trump is fundamentally incompetent, he's unable to fulfill the duties of the office of the President. ..."
"... The DNC is playing this with a relatively weak field of potential candidates for 2020. Much as I personally like a Sanders or Warren they're just not going to fly in a Presidential contest -- as we found from the Obama presidency the ship of state just doesn't turn on a dime, you're not going to undo decades or generations of entrenched neoconservatism and a politically divided country overnight by some kind of Second Coming pronouncements. My concern is that if we don't get our collective acts together we're going to end up with a President Romney after 2020 -- a much more reasonable choice considering the last four years but also one that's guaranteed to change nothing. We need the journey but its only going to start with a few steps. ..."
"... Interesting updates, Joerg: however, it was obvious from the beginning that the interference in the US 2016 elections were Deep State gamers, from GCHQ-Ukro-Italian secret services, which was why they manufactured the Skripal Affair as Russians, Warning & Distraction, to cover their own backsides in the media: the same Skripal that worked on the Bum Steele Dossier, writing complete & utter fiction about Trump, that Comey then used as basis for his attempt with McCabe to enact Treason U$A, on wholly false trumped up charges, which were then transposed to the Russiagate-Hoax, Mueller &&& (yawn), . Still, it's good that Sid Powell has confirmed that they have Mifsud's phone . . . Get Mifsud, Now !? Strange how such USUK Agents become untraceable, when we simple folk would be harangued to hell, even with the odd ex-judicial killing, if we prove inconvenient to their narrative. ..."
"... "American Ukrainian nationalists don't like democracy. They don't understand the concept of it and don't care to learn. But they do understand nationalist fascism where only the top of society matters. They are behind the actors of the Intelligence coup going on in the US today .This is the mentality and politics the Diaspora is pushing into American politics today. Hillary Clinton and the DNC is surrounded with this infection which even includes political advisors. ..."
"... Rest assured they all the related Diasporas are in a fight for their political lives. If Donald Trump wins, their ability to infect American politics might be broken. Many of the leadership will be investigated for attempting to overthrow the government of the United States." ..."
As the Quantum field oversees the disintegration of institutions no longer in service to the public, the Democratic party continues
to lose their marbles, perpetuating their own simulated bubble as if they alone are the nation's most trusted purveyors of truth.
Since the Mueller Report failed to deliver on the dubious Russiagate accusations, the party of Thomas Jefferson continues to remain
in search of another ethical pretense to justify continued partisan turmoil. In an effort to discredit and/or distract attention
from the Barr-Durham and IG investigations, the Dems have come up with an implausible piece of political theatre known as Ukrainegate
which has morphed into an impeachment inquiry.
The Inspector General's Report, which may soon be ready for release, will address the presentation of fabricated FBI evidence
to the FISA Court for permission to initiate a surveillance campaign on Trump Administration personnel. In addition, the Department
of Justice has confirmed that Special Investigator John Durham's probe into the origin of the
FBI's counter intelligence investigation during the 2016
election has moved from an administrative review into the criminal prosecution realm. Durham will now be able to actively pursue
candidates for possible prosecution.
The defensive assault from the Democrat hierarchy and its corporate media cohorts can be expected to reach a fevered pitch of
manic proportions as both investigations threatened not only their political future in 2020 but perhaps their very existence.
NBC s uggests that the Barr investigation is a ' mysterious ' review " amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal
or factual basis " while the
NY Times continues
to cast doubt that the investigation has a legitimate basis implying that AG Barr is attempting to " deliver a political victory
for President Trump." The Times misleads its readers with:
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel
closed it."
when in fact, it was the Russiagate collusion allegations that Trump referred to as a hoax, rather than the Mueller investigation
per se.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va), minority leader of the Senate Intel Committee suggested that Attorney General William Barr " owes the
Committee an explanation " since the committee is completing a " three-year bipartisan investigation " that has " found nothing to
justify " Barr's expanded effort.
The Senator's gauntlet will be ever so fascinating as the public reads exactly how the Intel Committee spent three years and came
up with " nothing " as compared to what Durham and the IG reports have to say.
On the House side, prime-time whiners Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) commented that news of the Durham
investigation moving towards criminal liability " raised profound concerns that Barr has lost his independence and become a vehicle
for political revenge " and that " the Rule of Law will suffer irreparable damage ."
Since Barr has issued no determination of blame other than to assure a full, fair and rigorous investigation, it is curious that
the Dems are in premature meltdown as if they expect indictments even though the investigations are not yet complete.
There is, however, one small inconvenient glitch that challenges the Democratic version of reality that does not fit their
partisan spin. The news that former FBI General Counsel James Baker is actively cooperating with the BD investigation ought to send
ripples through the ranks. Baker has already stated that it was a 'small group' within the agency who led the counterintelligence
inquiry into the Trump campaign; notably former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
Baker's cooperation was not totally unexpected since he also cooperated with the
Inspector General's FISA abuse investigation which is awaiting public release.
As FBI General Counsel, Baker had a role in reviewing the FISA applications before they were submitted to the FISA court and
currently remains under criminal investigation for making unauthorized leaks to the media.
As the agency's chief legal officer, Baker had to be a first-hand participant and privy to every strategy discussion and decision
(real or contemplated). It was his job to identify potential legal implications that might negatively affect the agency or boomerang
back on the FBI. In other words, Baker is in a unique position to know who knew what and when did they know it.
His 'cooperation' can be generally attributed to being more concerned with saving his own butt rather than the Constitution.
In any case, the information he is able to provide will be key for getting to the true origins of Russiagate and the FISA scandal.
Baker's collaboration may augur others facing possible prosecution to step up since 'cooperation' usually comes with the gift of
a lesser charge.
With a special focus on senior Obama era intel officials Durham has reportedly already interviewed up to two dozen former and
current FBI employees as well as officials in the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
From the number of interviews conducted to date it can be surmised that Durham has been accumulating all the necessary facts and
evidence as he works his way up the chain of command, prior to concentrating on top officials who may be central to the investigation.
It has also been reported that Durham expects to interview current and former intelligence officials including CIA analysts, former
CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper regarding Russian efforts to interfere in the
2016 election.
In a recent
CNN
interview , when asked if he was concerned about any wrongdoing on the part of intel officials, Clapper nervously responded:
I don't know. I don't think there was any wrongdoing. It is disconcerting to know that we are being investigated for having
done our duty and done what we were told to do by the President."
One wonders if Clapper might be a candidate for 'cooperating' along with Baker.
As CIA Director, Brennan made no secret of his efforts to nail the Trump Administration. In the summer of 2016, he formed an inter-agency
taskforce to investigate what was being reported as Russian collusion within the Trump campaign. He boasted to Rachel Maddow that
he brought NSA and FBI officials together with the CIA to ' connect the dots ."
With the addition of James Clapper's DNI, three reports were released: October, 2016, December, 2016 and January, 2017 all disseminating
the Russian-Trump collusion theory which the Mueller Report later found to be unproven.
Since 1947 when the CIA was first authorized by President Harry Truman who belatedly regretted his approval, the agency has been
operating as if they report to no one and that they never owe the public or Congress any explanation of their behaviour or activity
or how they spend the money.
Since those days it has been a weak-minded Congress, intimidated and/or compromised Members who have allowed intel to run their
own show as if they are immune to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since 1947, there has been no functioning Congress willing
to provide true accountability or meaningful oversight on the intel community.
Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast
Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member
of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31
vexarb
From a realist who deals with the real world, Syrian President Dr.Assad on why Trump is the best POTU$A:
"As for Trump, you might ask me a question and I give you an answer that might sound strange. I say that he is the best American
President, not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president. All American presidents perpetrate
all kinds of political atrocities and all crimes and yet still win the Nobel Prize and project themselves as defenders of human
rights and noble and unique American values, or Western values in general. The reality is that they are a group of criminals who
represent the interests of American lobbies, i.e. the large oil and arms companies, and others. Trump talks transparently, saying
that what we want is oil. We want money. This is the reality of American policy. What more do we need than a transparent opponent?"
vexarb
Adds realist Dr.Assad: "I said before whatever the Americans say has no credibility, whether they say it to an enemy or a friend,
the result is the same – it is unreliable. That is why we do not waste our time on things like this. "
[Note: by "the Americans" Dr.Assad means the United $tates. A figure of speech, taking the whole to denote the part.]
Martin Usher
I don't think the Democratic leadership wanted a formal impeachment, they would prefer that Trump just faded away quietly before
the 2020 election and were in the process of collecting information to reinforce this. They got cornered into formalizing the
investigation by Trump's defense team baiting them as part of their overall strategy. It really doesn't change anything.
Whichever way you slice and/or dice it Trump is fundamentally incompetent, he's unable to fulfill the duties of the office
of the President. He also refuses to distinguish between private interests and public service. His cabinet, a rag tag body of
industry insiders and special interests, are busy trying to ride roughshod over opposition, established policy and even public
opinion to grab as much as possible before the whole house of cards collapses. Its a mess, and its a mess that's quite obviously
damaging US interests. Many constituency groups will have gone along with the program because they thought they could control
things or benefit from them but as its become increasingly obvious Trump's unable to deliver they've been systematically alienated.
The DNC is playing this with a relatively weak field of potential candidates for 2020. Much as I personally like a Sanders
or Warren they're just not going to fly in a Presidential contest -- as we found from the Obama presidency the ship of state just
doesn't turn on a dime, you're not going to undo decades or generations of entrenched neoconservatism and a politically divided
country overnight by some kind of Second Coming pronouncements. My concern is that if we don't get our collective acts together
we're going to end up with a President Romney after 2020 -- a much more reasonable choice considering the last four years but
also one that's guaranteed to change nothing. We need the journey but its only going to start with a few steps.
( and as for Trump/collusion we've spent the last three years confusing money with nation states. Trump's a businessman in
a business that's notorious for laundering money from dubious sources (this doesn't mean he's involved, of course)(legal disclaimer!).
I daresay that if Russia really wanted to sink Trump they could easily do so but why would they bother when he's doing such a
great job unaided?)
Interesting updates, Joerg: however, it was obvious from the beginning that the interference in the US 2016 elections were Deep
State gamers, from GCHQ-Ukro-Italian secret services, which was why they manufactured the Skripal Affair as Russians, Warning
& Distraction, to cover their own backsides in the media: the same Skripal that worked on the Bum Steele Dossier, writing complete
& utter fiction about Trump, that Comey then used as basis for his attempt with McCabe to enact Treason U$A, on wholly false trumped
up charges, which were then transposed to the Russiagate-Hoax, Mueller &&& (yawn), . Still, it's good that Sid Powell has confirmed
that they have Mifsud's phone . . . Get Mifsud, Now !? Strange how such USUK Agents become untraceable, when we simple folk would
be harangued to hell, even with the odd ex-judicial killing, if we prove inconvenient to their narrative.
More importantly for me was the "Putin sends a clear Message to Macron and the EU" TDC, (Top dead centre) in your link: it
was a (month old) pretty good longterm objective analysis of how the alliance between Russia & China was designed to be and has
become truly rock-solid, moving forwards: and it's well discussed & documented what a moron ManuMacroni has been on the world
stage >>> great translation of Putin's statement of intent and clear talk to Macron, who is exposed for the meaningless Deep State
puppet he is >>> even, Putin had no need to mention the Gilets Jaunes, representing a degree of vision, trust & commitment far
beyond that of the failing FUKUS empires: a vision that FUKUS cannot even financially entertain, in their present economic state
of financial & moral depravity & bankruptcy.
Austerity my ass, let's keep raising national debt and keep funding bum wars & terrorism, for the MIC & National Security State,
until society burns. How utterly shameful
It should be now very clear to all that the Russian-Chinese alliance is far more than just military, in every sense: together,
the world's largest economy will plough on regardless of what Macron or any other arrogant manipulative untrustworthy Westerner
has to say! And frankly, after NATZO's broken promises in Eastern Europe, (which I have personally observed here in Bulgaria since
2004, fully expected & awaited, I might add) and the events in the Ukraine and the self-destructive EU sanctions based on media
lies & manipulations & omissions, I really do believe Putin has handled this all extremely wisely & astutely playing the long
game, like the Chinese & avoiding incredible provocation, media wise. One day, however long it takes, the average ignorant Westerner
will come to understand that they have been deceived & lied to, from the beginning, especially by their secret services; & have
been lapdogs in the arms of US Deep State Corporate Fascist NATZO CIA & GCHQ morons, in "The History of the National Security
State" and, that Julian Assange needs to be set FREE asap : and given the Seth Rich murder, which kinda' benefited Trump and his
Fake News declarations, my guess is that Trump will not want Assange charged, in the end: but, we'll see ! ? Because first the
British have to sort out the arrogant bastards in GCHQ, also in the Media and their own new 'attorney general' who will investigate
secret services role in Deep State Corporate Deeds & prosecute people like Judge Arbuthnot, for not recusing herself >>> BoJo's
job, actually, but who cares ? >>> drain UK Swampland. ? Myopic Corbyn seems to have missed the bus & significance on the Affair
Assange, completely, which is somewhat inexplicable, given the Guardian Moderators infiltration by the British Military 77th Brigade,
and their bias against Corbyn. At least, that appears to be Trump's agenda and the longer Assange remains 'Censored', the worse
that societies throughout Europe will become, until we all address Communications & Media Law, with wholly wise, tech. savvy intelligent
and independent JUDGES, not compromised by the HillBilly Clinton/Epstein Clan of NATZO CIA/GCHQ operatives. (maybe I'm not clarifying
in the best way, but hopefully you get the drift?). Only a week or so ago, the Bulgarian President was complaining about appalling
standards of journalism, too, with an obvious agenda from abroad, also in terms of ownership. (Not widely reported!) And, I'm
sure you are aware of the incredible bias & censorship in the German MSM, just like Professor Dan Ganser & myself. 😉 R.i.P Udo
Ulfkotte >>> when Secret Services dictate the News, not much point in listening to a word they have to say >>> HANG 'EM HIGH
! out to dry, in Public Eye ! They are FASCISTS ! The worst kind !
I don't say this lightly . . . after over 40 years studying their collective behaviours, in relation to the reality on the ground.
Joerg
@Tim Jenkins
Yes, You are right.
But let's look at the bigger picture.
23 Trillions(!) of $$ are missing in the Pentagon.
To that see the great James Corbett's video "Fitt's Trillions" –
https://www.corbettreport.com/?s=fitts-trillions
.
So 23 trillion $ are missing – and the congress decided not to follow that up.
Before that on 911 already 3 trillion $ (if I remember this right) were missing in the Pentagon. And surprise, surprise: On 911
the Pentagon building exploded exactly there where those accountants were placed, who tried to find out where all that money (3
trillion $) went. All accountants died. After that no one started again to find out where the money went.
Where did the stolen gold from under the Twin Towers go to? Mueller (than state attorney of NY) obviously did want to research
that.
The US is already ruled by a mighty super-syndicate – or possibly by two or three of them. So mighty they could put the classical
Mafia directly into kindergarten.
And with that much money stolen they can buy in the USA but also in Europe (and, yes, Germany) all politicians, judges and journalists.
And those who don't comply, get fired by their (also bought) boss. Or they get murdered ("suicide"), or their career gets destroyed.
There are no classical politics anymore like, let's say, 50 years ago. Here in the west it is only the super-syndicates' power
that rules.
By the way: In the end-time of the Roman Empire there were also no more free judges. They had to follow the orders of the local
criminal gang – or they got killed. And I also believe that the fall of this impressive "Indus Valley Civilisation" (2000 B.C.)
was caused by overwhelming and destructive power of Mafia/Syndicates. In the end the citizens of the Indus Valley civilisation
simply fled the area – obviously to south India. So the Tamils may very well be the descendants of the old Indus people.
With you all the way, Joerg: ironic you should mention the Tamils. I spent time alone in Jaffna, in the aftermath of genocide.
I'd better not start here & now on Sin-dication and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Suffice to say, if one wishes to speculate
on the weather & commodities, with insider knowledge of what the D.o.D. did/do with electronics like HAARP, one would not be a
particularly intelligent or moral person, scientifically speaking. And said person, would never wish to discuss the contents of
WTC 7 and that Pentagon Wing. 😉
Ta, for the linkS :). Look forward to hearing more from you.
Viele Grüsse,
Tim
Latest in series of articles by the author re USA – Ukraine connections
"American Ukrainian nationalists don't like democracy. They don't understand the concept of it and don't care to learn. But
they do understand nationalist fascism where only the top of society matters. They are behind the actors of the Intelligence coup
going on in the US today .This is the mentality and politics the Diaspora is pushing into American politics today. Hillary Clinton
and the DNC is surrounded with this infection which even includes political advisors.
Rest assured they all the related Diasporas are in a fight for their political lives. If Donald Trump wins, their ability to
infect American politics might be broken. Many of the leadership will be investigated for attempting to overthrow the government
of the United States."
"My thoughts on all this are that many of us have become distracted and failed to examine the timeline of events since 9/11. We
look at news and conflict in isolation and move on to the next without seeing what is now a clear pattern."
In terms of the Middle East you need to go back further than the fortuitous event of 9/11 – at least to 1997 and the founding
of the Project for the New American Century which was essentially the first explicit formalisation of the agenda for an imperialist
Neoliberal and Neoconservative globalist new world order deployed through the media constructed conflicts of 'good' and 'evil'
around the world and with it the call for the 'democratisation' of the Middle East under the alibi of humanitarian interventionism
against broadly socialist governments, which since the fall of communism were constructed by Neoliberal fundamentalists as being
patently heretical and ideologically illegitimate forms of government. If it is economically illogical to elect a socialist failed
form of government then one can only assume that the election must have been rigged.
I started looking at this all a few years ago when I asked myself the question 14 years after the invasion of Iraq: where was
the liberal outrage at what had subsequently taken place in the ME? The answer was that from the Invasion of Iraq onward in addition
to fully embracing the economics of Neoliberalism as the end of economic history, the progressive 'left' quietly assimilated and
reduplicated the fundamentalist illiberal political philosophy of the Neocons. The progressive 'left' both in the UK and US have
subsequently become the far Neocon 'right' in all but name and their party hosts of Labour in the UK and the Democrats in the
US remain blissfully unaware of all of this. How else can we explain why they would welcome 'Woke' Bill Kristol into their ranks?
Once one accepts this hypothesis, then an awful lot falls into place in order to explain the 'Progressive' open support for regime
change and the almost total lack of any properly liberal objections to what has taken place ever since.
One key point here is that the Neocons have nothing to do with conservatism or the right. What is striking and most informative
about the history of Neo-conservatism is that it does not have its roots in conservatism at all, but grew out of disillusioned
US left wing intellectuals who were Marxist, anti-Stalinist Trotskyites. This is important because at the heart of Neo-conservatism
is something that appeals strongly to the die hard revolutionaries of the left who hold a strong proclivity for violence, conflict
and struggle. If one looks at the type of people in the Labour party who gravitated to the 'progressive' Neoliberal imperialist
camp they all exhibit similar personality traits of sociopathic control freaks with sanctimonious Messiah complexes such as Blair.
These extremist, illiberal fundamentalists love violence and revolution and the bloodier the better. In Libya or Syria is did
not matter that Gadaffi or Assad headed socialist governments, the Neo-colonised progressives would back any form of apparent
conflict and bloody revolution in any notional struggle between any identifiable form of 'authority' or 'oppression' with any
identifiable form of 'resistance' even if those leading the 'resistance' were head chopping, misogynist, jihadist terrorists.
It makes no difference to the fundamentalist revolutionary mindset.
The original left wing who gradually morphed in the Neoconservatives took 30-40 years to make the transition for the 1960s
to 1990s. The Labour party Blairites made the same journey from 1990 to 2003. Christopher Hitchens made the same journey in his
own personal microcosm.
When is this nausea inducing confected pile of crap going to end? Does anyone else think that Adam Schiff has a screw or three
loose, and should be residing in an institution? And imagine if somehow Mike Pence became Prez. Now that would be something to
scare the bejesus out of you.
Tim Jenkins
Adam Schiff should be shot for Treason, of the highest order, along with many others, including HRC, Brennan & Clapper ; and it
should be a public execution, like in Saudi Arabia. This is war on the minds of the masses, that Schiff for brains cares nothing
for.
As for Chuck Schumer, he can have a life sentence, as long as he manages to shut his utterly unfunny dumb vulgar cousin Amy up
& keep her out of the public eye, forever 🙂
Gezzah, life may seem bad right now: but imagine if,
you were Amy Schumer's Husband and father of her child 😉
Talk about obnoxious and utterly nauseating 🙂 , with you Gezzah, all the way.
"When is this nausea inducing confected pile of crap going to end?"
I'm almost seriously thinking of buying a one way ticket to the Marquesas Islands Right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, nowhere
near anywhere; such is the mad bad state of the World.
Need to start up a Go Fund Me page tho!
As I almost (94.6% of the time) boycott the presstitute filth masquerading as journalists (cough) so, I 99% of the time boycott
anything coming out of Hollywood, including alleged 'comedians'.
How are things in Bulgaria? What are the Fascist Stormtroopers up to, aka NATZO who all those you named have intimate connections
with.
Listening to a gorgeous Russian band called: iamthemorning. Check them out – food for the soul. Enjoy your arvo..
"The presidential election in Argentina was a game-changer and a graphic lesson. It pitted the people versus neoliberalism.
The people won – with new President Alberto Fernandez and former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) as his VP.
Neoliberalism was represented by a PR marketing product, Mauricio Macri [a Micron look-alike]: former millionaire playboy,
president of football legends Boca Juniors, obsessed with spending cuts, who was unanimously sold by Western MSM as a New Age
paradigm.
Well, the paradigm will soon be ejected, leaving behind the usual New Age wasteland: $250 billion in foreign debt, less than
$50 billion in reserves; inflation at 55 percent; 35.4 percent of Argentine homes can't make it); and (incredible as it may seem
in an agriculturally self-sufficient nation) a food emergency."
Meanwhile, in the real world, the Denmark's Ukronazi-friendly regime has been brought to heel by Germany's common sense:
Some big natural gas news very significant for Russia, Germany and the Ukraine. The Danish pipeline sector has been stalled
for a while now by anti-Russia, pro-Ukrainian forces within the Scandiwegian NATZO-friendly regimes. But it appears that Nordstream
2 _will_ get completed and that Ukraine's gas transit chokehold on the EU will come to an end when Russia's Nordstream 2 comes
online for Europe.
-- -- -- -
Permit for the Nord Stream 2 project is reluctantly granted by the Danish Energy Agency. Nord Stream 2 AG has been granted
a permit to construct natural gas pipelines on the Danish continental shelf.
The permit is granted pursuant to the Continental Shelf Act and in accordance with Denmark's obligations under the UN Convention
on the Law of the Sea. Denmark has been put under obligation to allow the construction of transit pipelines with respect to resources
and the environment.
In my humble opinion, the Trump stuff is all total nonsense.
Donald Trump was a property speculator in New York (amongst other places) and was heavily involved with the Mafia. Likewise,
Trump was heavily involved with Jeffery Epstein.
There's so much dirt on Trump that they could get him with the snap of fingers; but of course that's not what they really want.
Trump is pure theatre; a ploy to divert the masses. 'RussiaGate', 'UkraineGate' are all utter rollocks.
Trump and Obama, and all the rest going back to the assassination of Kennedy, are just puppets.
American/ deep state policy doesn't change a jot with any of them.
Wilmers31
America is always presentation over substance, wrapper over content, and shoot the messenger if you don't like the message.
In the meantime the adults in this world outside the US have to hold it all together.
Why was for instance Hillary Clinton not in the dock for saying 'Assad must go'?? It was meddling in the highest order.
Antonym
Pretty humble for an opinion 😀
phree
I guess this just goes to show you that a person can be a member of the ACLU, even a leader apparently, and still be highly biased
in favor of Trump.
Just because a witness is "cooperating" with an investigation does not entail that the witnesses testimony or evidence will
favor any particular side.
And implying that Clapper's comments somehow shows guilt when he clearly says he knows of no wrongdoing is pretty over the
top.
I've read a lot of what's out there about the start of the initial Russia investigation, and it does seem that some of the
FBI personnel leading it (McCabe particularly) were anti-Trump.
Isn't the bigger question whether the investigation was justified based on the reports from the Australians that Trump was
getting political dirt on Hillary from Russia? Is the FBI just supposed to ignore those reports? Really?
George Cornell
Love the Clapper claim (the same Clapper who lied to Congress) says he was just doing his duty in Russiagate. As GBS said, " when
a scoundrel is doing something of which he is ashamed, he always says he is doing his duty".
mark
The Spook Organisations and the Dirty Cops are a greater threat to our way of life than any foreign army or terrorist group (most
of which they created in the first place and which they directly control.)
They are a law unto themselves and completely free of any genuine oversight or control.
This applies equally to the US and UK.
"We lie, we cheat, we steal", as Pompeo helpfully explains.
They also murder people, at home and abroad. JFK, David Kelly, Diana, Epstein.
They plant bombs and blow people up.
Many of the "terrorist atrocities" from Northern Ireland to the present day, were false flag spook operations. The same applies
with Gladio on the continent and the plethora of recent false flags.
There is also a long and inglorious history of interference in domestic politics from the Zinoviev Letter onwards. Plots to stage
a military coup against the Wilson government of the 60s and 70s, with Mountbatten as its figurehead.
The more recent Skripal Hoax.
The contrived Syrian Gas Attack Hoaxes and the White Helmets.
They would not hesitate to do the same to Corbyn if they deemed it necessary.
The CIA and FBI conspired with the UK and Ukrainian governments to prevent the election of Trump, and then to sabotage and smear
his administration once he had been elected. The UK played a major part in this through MI6 and Steele.
This is highly dangerous for this country, irrespective of your view of Trump.
Trump has repaid the favour by meddling in Brexit and interfering in UK politics. It is not in his nature to turn the other cheek.
We have spook organisations claiming for themselves a right of veto over election results and foreign policy. These people are
poor servants and terrible masters.
We see Schumer warning against crossing the spook organisations, begging the obvious question – who runs this country, you or
the spooks?
The Democrats, the Deep State, the MSM, and the Deranged Left were willing to support these conspiracies and hoaxes, and even
suspend disbelief, for the greater good. The ends justify the means. All that matters is getting rid of Trump. Anything goes.
The corrosive erosion of trust, credibility and integrity in all the institutions of the state is probably irreparable. The legislature
and the political process in general. The judiciary. The spooks and police. About 9% of Americans now believe the MSM.
The irony in all this is that it very much serves Trump's interests.
He is extremely vulnerable, having failed to keep any of his promises.
Building The Wall, Draining The Swamp, Bringing The Troops Home. Sorting out health care. Building "incredible, fantastic" infrastructure.
All the Democrats had to do was highlight these failures, find a suitable candidate, and put forward some sensible policies, and
they were home and dry.
Instead, they provided an endless series of diversions and distractions from Trump's failures by charging down every rabbit hole
they could find, Russiagate, Ukrainegate, Impeachment. It couldn't work out better for Trump if he was paying them.
Expect to see the Orange Man in the White House for another 4 years.
And another even more virulent outbreak of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Tim Jenkins
Enigmatic and brilliant synopsis, m8, lol: & surely BigB could only agree 🙂
and you never even mentioned HQ.Intel.inside.Israel, today & their illegal trespass of WhatsApp, via corporate 'subsidiaries'
with 'plausible' denial of liability of spying on
everything-everything & any body, that could possibly threaten corporate fascist computerised dictatorship: distributing backdoors,
like Promis & Prism, liberally & worldwide, the Maxwells legacy . . . (yet) 🙂
No need to even discuss, until Western societies ALL get a grip on the depths of depravity that lie within the actions
and "The History of the National Security State" you have to admit, that Julian Assange could not have picked a better book to
firmly grip and signal with, than GORE Vidal's, when being manhandled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy, by Spooks who would
sell their own mother, let alone nation, in their utter technological ignorance and adherence to anachronistic doctrines & mentality
!
Glad you mentioned 'good ole' cousin ChuckS.' >>> Lol, just for a laugh and a sense of perspective: yes, he is related to Amy
Queen of Vulgarity & hideous societal distraction.
What a family of wimps & morons: the 'Schumers' being perfect fodder for ridicule & intelligent humour, naturally . . . on a positive
note, mark, think yourself lucky that you are not married to or the father of Amy Schumer's child 🙂
mark
I think I'd prefer the female rhinoceros in Moscow Zoo, even if Putin has been blackmailing me with the photos ever since.
Tim Jenkins
Well, (ahem), you certainly got me all thorny & horny, more than AmyS. ever could, in her wildest dreams, or Chucks, (shucks)
🙂 talk about suckers . . . now, do tell, what was the female Rhino's name ? ! 🙂
Who cares about some BlackRhinoMail, today ?
They'll be dead and extinct, in no time with a legacy 😉
for passionate lovers of Black holes & eternal energy 🙂
Antonym
Is that the best money can buy these days in the US? I guess most of the 1% reside in the Caribbean these days, while Washington
D.C. is stuffed with semi-stiffs.
The most important thing for us and deliciously so now the election is happening is the BLOWBACK. Our DS lying murdering arses
are going to get new ones drilled by Trump and BoBos bromance exploding in full technicolor.
Think May's dementia tax and Strong and Stable were bad?
Lol. This is going to be a FUN month of early xmases.
Dungroanin,
SST is essential reading for anyone concerned with US overseas policy and the corruption of the USA itself in the service of the
security state, so, many thanks for posting this link.
Dungroanin
By sharing we disrupt the msm messages.
Bernard at MoonofAlabama is also worth a daily visitation – priceless analysis on multiple subjects.
lundiel
Since those days it has been a weak-minded Congress, intimidated and/or compromised Members who have allowed intel to run
their own show as if they are immune to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since 1947, there has been no functioning Congress
willing to provide true accountability or meaningful oversight on the intel community.
Pretty much a carbon copy of our own oversight. We hear even less about our security services than Americans do of theirs.
I'd have thought that events like the spy in the holdall, the spies caught by farmers in Libya, the Skripal's, and the whole over-the-top
reaction to the domestic terrorism threat and consequent successful pleas for extra funding, the obvious danger of creating terrorists
by security services, the policy of giving asylum to foreign terrorists of countries we don't like and the whole concept of the
5 eyes and GCHQ needs more than ministerial oversight, a committee of yes men/women and an intelligence services commissioner.
Gosh, the Taliban wiped out poppy production in 2000. The Twin Towers were destroyed in 2001.
Bush (son of CIA Bush) invaded Afghanistan to... well, to do what? To defeat the Taliban?
Why? To restore poppy production? To find bin Laden? Didn't really do that. After all he was
in Pakistan. And what has happened to poppy farming since we invaded? Booming. For 17 years.
Those farming families are doing really well under the protection of U.S. troops. Just like
the oil families in Syria that are protected by U.S. troops. Now, Trump seems to be throwing
a spanner in all this. Of course, "We came, we saw, he died [giggle, giggle]" Clinton would
have never committed Trump's crimes. Trump's just a loose cannon.
Angleton, quoting Jesus, said "In my Father's house are many mansions."
I guess we know which mansion Brennan inhabits.
May 20, 2001
The first American narcotics experts to go to Afghanistan under Taliban rule have concluded
that the movement's ban on opium-poppy cultivation appears to have wiped out the world's
largest crop in less than a year, officials said today.
The American findings confirm earlier reports from the United Nations drug control program
that Afghanistan, which supplied about three-quarters of the world's opium and most of the
heroin reaching Europe, had ended poppy planting in one season.
But the eradication of poppies has come at a terrible cost to farming families, [A
TERRIBLE COST TO FARMING FAMILIES, OH, THOSE POOR FARMING FAMILIES]and experts say it will
not be known until the fall planting season begins whether the Taliban can continue to
enforce it.
''It appears that the ban has taken effect,'' said Steven Casteel, assistant administrator
for intelligence at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington.
The findings came in part from a Pakistan-based agent of the administration who was one of
the two Americans on the team just returned from eight days in the poppy-growing areas of
Afghanistan.
Tue 11 Sep 2001: 9/11
Tue 25 Sep 2001:
In a dramatic and little-noticed reversal of policy, the Taliban have told farmers in
Afghanistan that they are free to start planting poppy seeds again if the Americans decide to
launch a military attack.
Drug enforcement agencies last night confirmed that they expect to see a massive resumption
of opium cultivation inside Afghanistan, previously the world's biggest supplier of heroin,
in the next few weeks.
The Taliban virtually eradicated Afghanistan's opium crop last season after an edict by
Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader.
In July last year he said that growing opium was "un-Islamic" and warned that anyone
caught planting seeds would be severely punished.
Taliban soldiers enforced the ruling two summers ago and made thousands of villagers
across Afghanistan plough up their fields. Earlier this year UN observers agreed that
Afghanistan's opium crop had been completely wiped out.
"... Washington's basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to its other main rival in the region, Damascus. ..."
Before the evacuation of 1,000 American troops from northern
Syria to western Iraq, the Pentagon had 2,000 US forces in Syria.
After the drawdown of US
troops at Erdogan's insistence in order for Ankara to mount a ground offensive in northern Syria,
the US has still deployed 1,000 troops, mainly in oil-rich eastern Deir al-Zor province and
at al-Tanf military base.
Al-Tanf military base is strategically located in southeastern Syria on the border between Syria,
Iraq and Jordan, and it straddles on a critically important Damascus-Baghdad highway, which
serves as a lifeline for Damascus.
Washington has illegally occupied 55-kilometer area around
al-Tanf since 2016, and several hundred US Marines have trained several Syrian militant groups there.
It's worth noting that rather than fighting the Islamic State, the purpose of continued presence
of the US forces at al-Tanf military base is to address Israel's concerns regarding the expansion of
Iran's influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
Regarding the oil- and natural gas-rich Deir al-Zor governorate, it's worth pointing out
that Syria used to produce modest quantities of oil for domestic needs before the war – roughly 400,000
barrels per day, which isn't much compared to tens of millions barrels daily oil production in the
Gulf states.
Although Donald Trump crowed in a characteristic blunt manner in a tweet after the withdrawal of
1,000 American troops from northern Syria that Washington had deployed forces in eastern Syria where
there was oil,
the purpose of exercising control over Syria's oil is neither to smuggle oil
out of Syria nor to deny the valuable source of revenue to the Islamic State.
There is no denying the fact that the remnants of the Islamic State militants are still found in
Syria and Iraq but its emirate has been completely dismantled in the region and its leadership is on
the run. So much so that the fugitive caliph of the terrorist organization was killed in the bastion
of a rival jihadist outfit, al-Nusra Front in Idlib, hundreds of kilometers away from the Islamic State
strongholds in eastern Syria.
Much like the "scorched earth" battle strategy of medieval warlords – as in the case of the Islamic
State which early in the year burned crops of local farmers while retreating from its former strongholds
in eastern Syria –
Washington's basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and
natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to its other
main rival in the region, Damascus.
After the devastation caused by eight years of proxy war, the Syrian government is in dire need
of tens of billions dollars international assistance to rebuild the country. Not only is Washington
hampering efforts to provide international aid to the hapless country, it is in fact squatting over
Syria's own resources with the help of its only ally in the region, the Kurds.
Although Donald Trump claimed credit for expropriating Syria's oil wealth, it bears mentioning
that "scorched earth" policy is not a business strategy, it is the institutional logic of the deep
state.
President Trump is known to be a businessman and at least ostensibly follows a non-interventionist
ideology; being a novice in the craft of international diplomacy, however, he has time and again been
misled by the Pentagon and Washington's national security establishment.
Regarding Washington's interest in propping up the Gulf's autocrats and fighting their wars in regional
conflicts, it bears mentioning that in April 2016, the Saudi foreign minister
threatened
that the Saudi kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other
assets if the US Congress passed a bill that would allow Americans to sue the Saudi government in the
United States courts for its role in the September 11, 2001 terror attack – though the bill was eventually
passed, Saudi authorities have not been held accountable; even though 15 out of 19 9/11 hijackers were
Saudi nationals.
Moreover, $750 billion is only the Saudi investment in the United States, if we add its investment
in Western Europe and the investments of UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in the Western economies, the sum total
would amount to trillions of dollars of Gulf's investments in North America and Western Europe.
Furthermore, in order to bring home the significance of the Persian Gulf's oil in the energy-starved
industrialized world, here are a few stats from the OPEC data:
Saudi Arabia has the world's
largest proven crude oil reserves of 265 billion barrels and its daily oil production exceeds 10 million
barrels; Iran and Iraq, each, has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million
barrels per day, each; while UAE and Kuwait, each, has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3
million barrels per day, each; thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold 788
billion barrels, more than half of world's 1477 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
No wonder then, 36,000 United States troops have currently been deployed in their numerous military
bases and aircraft carriers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf in accordance with the Carter Doctrine of
1980, which states: "Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain
control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United
States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military
force."
Additionally, regarding the Western defense production industry's sales of arms to the Gulf Arab
States,
a report
authored
by William Hartung of the US-based Center for International Policy found that the Obama administration
had offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, military equipment and training during
its eight-year tenure.
Similarly, the top items in Trump's agenda for his maiden visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2017 were:
firstly, he threw his weight behind the idea of the Saudi-led "Arab NATO" to counter Iran's influence
in the region; and secondly, he announced an unprecedented arms package for Saudi Arabia. The package
included between $98 billion and $128 billion in arms sales.
Therefore, keeping the economic dependence of the Western countries on the Gulf Arab States in mind,
during the times of global recession when most of manufacturing has been outsourced to China, it is
not surprising that when the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decided to provide training and arms
to the Islamic jihadists in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan against the government of Bashar
al-Assad in Syria, the Obama administration was left with no other choice but to toe the destructive
policy of its regional Middle Eastern allies, despite the sectarian nature of the proxy war and its
attendant consequences of breeding a new generation of Islamic jihadists who would become a long-term
security risk not only to the Middle East but to the Western countries, as well.
Similarly, when King Abdullah's successor King Salman decided, on the whim of the Crown Prince Mohammad
bin Salman, to invade Yemen in March 2015, once again the Obama administration had to yield to the
dictates of Saudi Arabia and UAE by fully coordinating the Gulf-led military campaign in Yemen not
only by providing intelligence, planning and logistical support but also by selling billions of dollars'
worth of arms and ammunition to the Gulf Arab States during the conflict.
In this reciprocal relationship, the US provides security to the ruling families of the Gulf Arab
states by providing weapons and troops; and in return, the Gulf's petro-sheikhs contribute substantial
investments to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to the Western economies.
Regarding the Pax Americana which is the reality of the contemporary neocolonial order,
according to a January 2017
infographic
by the New York Times, 210,000 US military personnel were stationed all over the world,
including 79,000 in Europe, 45,000 in Japan, 28,500 in South Korea and 36,000 in the Middle East.
Although Donald Trump keeps complaining that NATO must share the cost of deployment of US troops,
particularly in Europe where 47,000 American troops are stationed in Germany since the end of the Second
World War, 15,000 in Italy and 8,000 in the United Kingdom, fact of the matter is that the cost is
already shared between Washington and host countries.
Roughly, European countries pay one-third of the cost for maintaining US military bases in Europe
whereas Washington chips in the remaining two-third. In the Far Eastern countries, 75% of the cost
for the deployment of American troops is shared by Japan and the remaining 25% by Washington, and in
South Korea, 40% cost is shared by the host country and the US contributes the remaining 60%.
Whereas the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar – pay
two-third of the cost for maintaining 36,000 US troops in the Persian Gulf where more than half of
world's proven oil reserves are located and Washington contributes the remaining one-third.
* * *
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the
politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.
I am always amazed (and amused) at
how much smarter "journalists" are
than POTUS. If ONLY Mr. Trump would
read more and listen to those who
OBVIOUSLY are sooo much smarter!!!!
Maybe then he wouldn't be cowed and
bullied by Erdogan, Xi, Jung-on,
Trudeau (OK so maybe that one was
too far fetched) to name a few.
Please note the sarcasm. Do I really
need to go in to the success after
success Mr. Trump's foreign policy
has enjoyed? Come on Man.
What a load of BOLOCKS...The ONLY, I
mean The Real and True Reason for
American Armored presence is one
thing,,,,,,,Ready for IT ? ? ? To
Steal as much OIL as Possible, AND
convert the Booty into Currency,
Diamonds or some other intrinsically
valuable commodity, Millions of
Dollars at a Time......17 Years of
Shadows and Ghost Trucks and Tankers
Loading and Off-Loading the Black
Gold...this is what its all
about......M-O-N-E-Y....... Say It
With Me.... Mon-nee, Money Money
Mo_on_ne_e_ey, ......
From the sale of US oil in Syria
receive 30 million. dollars per
month. Image losses are immeasurably
greater. The United States put the
United States as a robbery bandit.
This is American democracy. The
longer the troops are in Syria, the
more countries will switch to
settlements in national currencies.
"Our interests", "strategic
interests" is always about money,
just a euphemism so it doesn't
look as greedy as it is. Another
euphemism is "security' ,meaning
war preparations.
...The military power of the USA
put directly in the service of "the
original TM" PIRATE STATE.
U are
the man Norm! But wait... now things
get a little hazy... in the
classic... 'alt0media fake
storyline' fashion!
"President Trump is known to be a
businessman and at least ostensibly
follows a non-interventionist
ideology; being a novice in the
craft of international diplomacy,
however, he has time and again been
misled by the Pentagon and
Washington's national security
establishment."
Awww! Poor "DUmb as Rocks
Donnie" done been fooled agin!
...In the USA... the military men
are stirring at last... having been
made all too aware that their
putative 'boss' has been operating
on behalf of foreign powers ever
since being [s]elected, that the
State Dept of the once Great
Republic has been in active cahoots
with the jihadis ...
and that those who were sent over
there to fight against the
headchoppers discovered that the
only straight shooters in the whole
mess turned out to be the Kurds who
AGENT FRIMpf THREW UNDER THE BUS
ON INSTRUCTIONS FROM JIHADI HQ!
http://www.unz.com/mhudson/the-saker-interviews-michael-hudson/
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Introduction: I recently spoke to a
relative of mine who, due to her constant and voluntary exposure to the legacy AngloZionist media, sincerely
believed that the three Baltic states and Poland had undergone some kind of wonderful and quasi-miraculous
economic and cultural renaissance thanks to their resolute break with the putatively horrible Soviet past
and their total submission to the Empire since. Listening to her, I figured that this kind of delusion was
probably common amongst those who still pay attention and even believe the official propaganda. So I asked
Michael Hudson, whom I consider to be the best US economists and who studied the Baltics in great detail, to
reply to a few very basic questions, which he very kindly did in spite of being very pressed on time. Once
again, I want to sincerely thank him for his kind time, support and expertise.
* * *
The Saker:
The US
propaganda often claims that the three Baltic states are a true success, just like Poland is also supposed
to be. Does this notion have a factual basis? Initially it did appear that these states were experiencing
growth, but was that not mostly/entirely due to EU/IMF/US subsidies? Looking specifically at the three
Baltic states, and especially Latvia, these were the "showcase" Soviet republics, with a high standard of
living (at least compared to the other Soviet republics) and a lot of high-tech industries (including
defense contracts). Could you please outline for us what truly happened to these economies following
independence? How did they "reform" their economies going from an ex-Soviet one to the modern "liberal" one?
Michael Hudson:
This is
a trick question, because it all depends on what you mean by "success."
The post-Soviet neoliberalism has been a
great success for kleptocrats at the top. They gave themselves the public domain, from key industries to
prime real estate. But the Balts largely let their Soviet industries collapse, making no effort to salvage
or reorganize them.
Much of the problem, of course, was that all the linkages to Soviet-era
industry were torn apart as the Soviet Union was disbanded. With their supplier and final markets closed
down from Russia to Central Asia, the Baltic economies had to start afresh – with a very right-wing tax
policy and no government help whatsoever, as the government itself had become privatized in the hands of
former officials and grabitizers.
Lithuania was marginally better in having some industrial policy. EU and
NATO accession in 2004, along with easy credit, kicked off property bubbles in the Baltics, largely inflated
by Swedish banks that made a bonanza off these countries that lacked their own banks or public credit
creation. The resulting 2008 crashes were the largest in the world as a percent of GDP, with Latvia
suffering the world's biggest contraction.
The neoliberal western advisors who took
control of these economies – as if this was the only alternative to Soviet bureaucracy – imposed crushing
austerity programs to restore macroeconomic "stability" meaning security of their land and infrastructure
grabs. This was applauded by Europe's bankers, who thought the Balts had discovered a workable recipe
allowing austerity governments to retain power in a seeming democracy. These policies would have collapsed
governments anywhere else, but the ability to emigrate, plus ethnic divisions against Russian speakers,
allowed these governments to survive.
It's a historically specific situation,
but Europe's bankers promote it as a generalized model. George Soros's INET and his associated front
institutions have been leaders in subsidizing this financialization-cum-grabitization. The result has been a
massive exodus of prime working age people from Lithuania and Latvia. (Estonians simply commute to Finland.)
Meanwhile, their economies are buoyed by foreign bank lending, which sends profits back to home countries
and can be reversed at any time.
Politically, the neoliberal revolution also has been a success for U.S.
Cold Warriors, who sent over native Balts from Georgetown and other universities to impose "free market"
doctrine – that is, a market "free" of domestic regulation against theft of the public domain, against
monopolies, against land taxes and other income taxes. The Baltic states, like most of the rest of the
former Soviet Union, became the Wild East.
What was left to the Baltic countries
was land and real estate. Their forests are being cut down to sell wood abroad. I describe all this in my
book
Killing the Host
.
The Saker:
After
independence, the Baltic states had tried to cut as many ties with Russia as possible. This included
building (rather silly looking) fences, to forcing the Russians to develop their ports on the Baltic, to
shutting down large (or selling to foreign interests which then shut them down) and profitable factories
(including a large nuclear plant I believe), etc. What has been the impact of this policy of "economic
de-Sovietization" on the local economies?
Michael Hudson:
Dissolution of the Soviet Union meant
that Baltic countries lost their traditional markets, and had to shift their focus to Western Europe and, to
some extent, Asia.
Latvia and Estonia had been assigned computer and information technology,
and they have found this to be much in demand. When I was in Japan, for instance, CEOs told me that they
were looking to Latvia above all to outsource computer work.
Banking also was a surviving sector.
Gregory Lautchansky, former vice-rector at the University of Riga had been a major player already in the
1980s for moving out Russian oil and KGB money. (His company, Nordex, was sold to Mark Rich.) Many banks
continued to shepherd Russian flight capital via offshore banking centers into the United States, Britain
and other countries. Cyprus of course was another big player in this.
The Saker:
Russians are still considered "non-citizens"
in the Baltic republics; what has been the economic impact of this policy, if any, of anti-Russian
discrimination in the Baltic states?
ORDER IT NOW
Michael Hudson:
Russian-speakers, who do not acquire citizenship (which requires passing local language and history tests),
are blocked from political office and administrative work. While most Russian speakers below retirement age
have now acquired that citizenship, the means by which citizenship must be acquired has caused divisions.
Early on in independence, many Russians
were blocked from government, and they went into business, which was avoided by many native Balts during the
Soviet era because it was not as remunerative as going into government and profiting from corruption. For
instance, real estate was a burden to administer. Russian-speakers, especially Jewish ones, have wisely
focused on real estate.
The largest political party is Harmony
Center, whose members and leadership are mainly Russian-speaking. But the various neoliberal and nationalist
parties have jointed to block its ability to influence law in Parliament.
Since Russian speakers are only able to
"vote with their feet," many have joined in the vast outflow of emigration, either back to Russia or to
other EU countries. Moreover, the poor quality of social benefits has led to few children being born.
The Saker:
I often hear that a huge number of locals
(including non-Russians) have emigrated from the Baltic states. What has caused this and what has been the
impact of this emigration for the Baltic states?
Michael Hudson:
The Baltic states, especially Latvia,
have lost about 30 percent of their population since the 1990s, especially those of working age. In Latvia,
about 10 percent of the loss were Russians who exited shortly after independence. The other 20 percent have
subsequently emigrated.
The European Commission forecasts that Latvia's working-age population
will decline by 1.6% annually for the next 20 years, while the birth rate remains as stagnant as it was in
the late 1980s. The retired population (over age 65) will rise to half a million people by 2030, more than a
quarter of today's population, and perhaps about a third of what remains. This is not a domestic market that
will attract foreign or local investment.
And in any case, the European Union has
viewed the post-Soviet economies simply as markets for their own industrial and agricultural exports, not as
economies to be built up by public subsidy as the European countries themselves, the U.S. and Chinee
economies have done. The European motto is, "Give a man a fish, and he will be fed all day with your surplus
fish and consumer goods – but give him a fishing rod and we will lose a customer."
Readers who are interested might want to
look at the following books and articles. I think the leading work has been done by Jeffrey Sommers and
Charles Woolfson.
The Contradictions of Austerity: The Socio-Economic Costs of the Baltic Model
(London:
Routledge Press, 2014). Editors, J. Sommers & C. Woolfson. Foreword, J. Galbraith. ISBN:
978-0-415-82003-5.
Jeffrey Sommers, "No People, Big Problem': Democracy And Its Discontents In Latvia's National
Elections,"
Social Europe,
October 17, 2018.
Jeffrey Sommers, "Decline of the Demos: Latvia, the Face of New Europe and Austerity's Return," in F.
Jaitner, T. Olteanu and T. Spöri, eds.,
Crises in the Post-Soviet Space: From the dissolution of the
Soviet Union to the conflict in Ukraine
(Routledge Press, 2018) pp. 195-209. ISBN 9780815377245.
Jeffrey Sommers,
"
Austerity as a global prescription and lessons from the neoliberal
Baltic experiment."
Economic & Labour Relations Review.
Keynote article, 25:3 (fall 2014) pp.
1-20. DOI 10.1177/1035304614544091. Co-authored with C. Woolfson and A. Juskaa.
The Saker:
Finally,
what do you believe is the most likely future for these states? Will the succeed in becoming a "tiny
anti-Russia" on Russia's doorstep? The Russians appear to have been very successful in their
import-substitution program, at least when trying to replace the Baltic states: does that mean that the
economic ties between Russia and these states is now gone forever? Is it now too late, or are there still
measures these countries could take to reverse the current trends?
Michael Hudson:
Trump's
trade sanctions against Russia hurt the Baltic countries especially. One of their strong sectors was
agriculture. Lithuania, for instance, was known for its cheese, even in Latvia. The sanctions led Russian
dairy farming to develop their own cheese-making, and agriculture has become one of Russia's strongest
performing sectors.
This is a market that looks like it will
be permanently lost to the Baltic states. In effect, Trump is helping Russia follow precisely the policy
that made American agriculture rich: agricultural isolation has forced domestic replacement for hitherto
foreign food. I expect that this will lead to consumer goods and other products as well.
I am in Tallinn, Estonia right now. Just how good an economy is performing is often hard to determine by
talking to people, because like economists, many people have different perceptions. I was just talking to a
Russian-Estonian who was telling me how much better Lithuanians and Latvians are then Estonians at doing
things and how much cheaper things are there. It is true that things are much cheaper in the other Baltic
countries because Estonia (a tiny country of just over 1 million people) has taken off. Since the 2008
econmic collapse housing prices have shot up and in Tallinn there is building going on all over the city.
But, my acquaintance is wrong about other things. Estonians do things very well and Tallinn is a very nice
city, with beautiful cafes, clean and well kept streets and crime is very low. It is a very good city,
except it is now very expensive, especially considering how much people make here. The weather is not nice,
except for in the summer and there are friendly Estonians but they don't have a reputation for being
particularly friendly, even among themselves. I have not been back to Latvia yet, but when I was in Riga
years ago, it was a gorgeous city, bigger than Tallinn too. I think they do things very well there too. The
Russians I speak to here are often friendly and based on what I have been told, relations between Russians
and Estonians are much better than when I was here in the early 2000's.
No offense is intended to
Russians, but the Baltic countries had large German populations that played a key role in the development of
the cultures and peoples of these countries. There were also many Jews here prior to WW II. By the time WW
II had begun the German populations were much smaller than they had been and at the end of the war the
Jewish populations were much smaller. Jews were targeted in Latvia and Lithuania and many Latvians,
Lithuanians and Estonians were shipped off to far off places in the USSR during the war. I believe the Jews
were largely pro communist and welcomed the Soviet takeover of these countries in 1940, while the Latvian
and Estonian peoples were pro German, thus explaining the hard feelings between Balts and Jews.. They wanted
independence and formed legions to fight alongside the German army during WW II.
These countries were very advanced before WW II, having engineering industries and the Russian Empire's
first auto company was formed in Riga before WW I. While engineering may have been restarted after WW II,
these countries populations were decimated and they never returned to their former heights. Perhaps they
still can.
I'm assuming that these 3 East European countries are being bombarded with the same propaganda as the Ukies
are, so Russian speakers and those intelligent enough to see the game being played will be belittled and
isolated. But the Russian folks living in Russia have a birds eye view of what is going on in the west and
their puppet countries. Russia TV and debate programs, just have to show the delinquencies that are daily
happenings in the States, and Europe, in order to make the Ru people say – No Thanks to that way of life. As
far as the new Russian cheeses that are now in the markets -lol – they make a lightly smoked gouda that is
really good and is about 120-140 roubles a kilo. And, they are making more cheddar that is a white medium
taste as well. No scarcity of good natural food in Russia and No POlice state. Spacibo Unz Rev.
The trade volume between Russia and the Baltic states has actually risen, despite the sanctions. The Baltics
send food products and booze to Russia (and another 150 countries, food exports to Russia actually grew in
2016-2018). As well as chemical products and pharmaceuticals. Meldonium, btw, is made in Latvia and is still
being sent to Russia (as well as 20 other countries), not for athletes, but for regular folks. Work is being
carried out on a new generation Meldonium pill (the biggest market will be Russia).
Growth in the Baltic states has been 3-4% in the last few years. GDP per capita, as well as HDI, is
higher than in Russia. Foreign investment, including from Russia, has been growing (Russia was the second
largest investor in Latvia in 2018). Savings rates are growing, too. After a relative quiet period after
2010, the number of Russian (and other tourists) has grown again.
Estonia's population stopped shrinking in 2016 and is now growing in fact. They've seen immigration from
Finland, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as returning Estonians.
Emigration is a problem, of course, but this is partly because the Baltic states are the only former USSR
republics whose citizens were even given work permits in the West, imagine what would happen if these
permits were given to Russians from the regions.
Neo-liberal policies are of course bad and certain types of investment should be controlled, but to say
that there are no social services in the Baltic states is complete nonsense. Due to generous parental
payments, birthrates have risen significantly since the 1990s – in fact, birthrates in the Baltics are now
slightly higher than the EU average. Life expectancy is also growing. Latvia covers IVF treatments in full.
There are free school lunches.
Yes, it is true that some of the Soviet era factories should've been salvaged but the problem was they
were not competitive globally at that time (and there was no capital to remodel them). The Soviet market was
a closed one. However, some businesses were salvaged. There is local manufacturing (electronics,
pharmaceuticals, etc).
Not everything is ideal, but it is also not the kind of gloom and doom as you paint.
Saker says:
"Initially it did appear that these states were experiencing growth, but was that not
mostly/entirely due to EU/IMF/US subsidies?"
"Foreign Aid Makes Corrupt Countries More Corrupt":
"Any time a government hands out money, not just foreign aid, it breeds corruption And there are few
better examples than Ukraine – just don't tell the House impeachment hearings. Counting on foreign aid to
reduce corruption is like expecting whiskey to cure alcoholism .If U.S. aid was effective, Ukraine would
have become a rule of law paradise long ago . The surest way to reduce foreign corruption is to end
foreign aid."
@onebornfree
The EU gives every year about 2,500 million euros to the 3 Baltic countries ( 6 million people the three of
them ) , and 9000 million euros to Poland ( 38 million people ) , plus more billions to other eastern
members .
Older members of the EU , specially the UK which is going out , Greece witch was tortured ( again )
economically by Germany , and south Europe in general are not very happy about admitting so many ex-soviets
countries en the EU and subsidizing them .
Recovery and self-sufficiency since Yeltsin show the brilliance of the Russian people
It's not so much brilliance as sheer necessity to survive under sanctions. But some results were better
than anyone expected. Say, food before sanctions used to be so-so in the provinces and downright bad in
Moscow because of abundance of imported crap. Now the food is exclusively domestic, fresh and tasty. Russia
never had traditions of making fancy cheeses. Now, to bypass sanctions, quite a few Italian and French
cheese-makers started production in Russia, so in the last 2-3 years domestically made excellent fancy
cheeses appeared in supermarkets. Arguably, Russian agriculture benefited by sanctions more than any other
sector, but there are success stories virtually in every industry. Sanctions and Ukrainian stupidity served
as a timely wake up call for Russian elites, who earlier wanted to sell oil and natural gas and buy
everything else. Replacing imports after the sanctions were imposed had a significant cost in the short run,
but in the long run it made Russia much stronger, economically and militarily. Speak of unintended
consequences.
My mom is from Lithuania and I've been there several times. We have second cousins our age.
Her father was
a surveyor for the Republic in the 20s and 30s, charged with breaking up the manors and estates and the
state distributing the land to the peasantry. It was near-feudalism. There was very little
industrialization; that which existed were in a few urban centers. One interesting comment from her was that
the "Jews were communists". From what I've read they were the urban working class, but perhaps part of the
socialist/Jewish Bund?
There is no doubt that the Soviet period unleashed considerable industrialization and modernization.
Lithuania had some of the best infrastructure in the USSR. Its traditional culture was really celebrated.
When I first visited, not long after the fall of the USSR, there were enormous, vacant industrial plants.
The collective farms were in the process of being sold off the western European agribusiness firms. One
relative through marriage was from the Ukraine, with a PhD in Physics and had been employed in the military
industries -- she was cleaning houses thereafter.
Any usable industrial enterprises were quickly sold off. The utilities are all foreign owned. Part of EU
mandates are "open" electricity "markets", which resulting in DC interconnections costing hundreds of
millions with the west to import very high priced electricity. The EU has paid for "Via Baltica", a highway
running from Poland to Estonia; it is choked with trucks carrying imports and there are huge distribution
and fulfillment centers along the highway. Such progress, huh?
There had been good public transport in the earlier years of independence, but that has been replaced
with personal automobiles -- usually western European used cars that pollute a lot. Trakai is a commuter town
to Vilnius with a medieval castle (restored in Soviet times). First time I went it was very pleasant. Second
time in 2018 the place was choked with cars and not very nice at all.
The impact of emigration cannot be over-stated. College educated young people leave by the hundreds
of thousands. Those that remain are paid very low wages (e.g., 1000 euros for a veterinarian or dentist),
but pay west European prices for many essentials. Housing is cheaper than the west.
Last time in Kazlu Ruda there were huge NATO exercises in progress and even bigger ones planned for 2020.
German units were billeted at an airbase nearby, rumored to have been a CIA black site. How fitting, as the
Germans with the Lithuanian Riflemens Union exterminated a quarter of a million Jews in a matter of months
(see Jager Report on Wikipedia). There is a Red Army graveyard in the town that has the remains of perhaps
350 soldiers killed in the area driving out the Nazis. I was frankly surprised it was still there.
Lithuania hasn't been independent since the days of the Pagans and Vytautas. It surely isn't independent
today.
Anecdotal -- yes. But based on personal observation.
by John Quiggin on October 13, 2019 On Facebook, my frined
Timothy Scriven pointed to an opinion piece by classics professor Ian Morris headlined
In the long run, wars make us safer and richer It's pushing a book with the clickbaity
title War! What is it Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to
Robots .". Timothy correctly guessed that I wouldn't like it.
Based on the headline, I was expecting a claim along the lines "wars stimulate technological
progress" which I refuted (to my own satisfaction at any rate) in Economics in Two
Lessons" . But the argument is much stranger than this. The claim is that war, despite its
brutality created big states, like the Roman empire, which then delivered peace and
prosperity.
For the classical world at 100 CE or so, the era on which Morris is an expert, that argument
seemed pretty convincing. As the famous Life of Brian sketch suggests, Roman rule delivered a
lot of benefits to its conquered provinces.
The next 1900 years or so present a bit of a problem, though. There have been countless wars
in that time, and no trend towards bigger states. On the contrary two or three dozen states
(depending on how you count them) now occupy the territory of the former Roman Empire.
You could cut the number down a bit by treating the European Union as a new empire, but then
you have an even bigger problem. The EU was not formed through war, but through a determination
to avoid it. Whatever you think about the EU in other respects, this goal has been
achieved.
Morris avoids the problem by a "no true Scotsman" argument. He admits in passing that the
1000 years of war following the high point of Rome had the effect of breaking down larger,
safer societies into smaller, more dangerous ones, but returns with relief to the era of true
wars, in which big states always win. That story works, roughly, until 1914, when the empires
he admires destroyed themselves, killing millions in the process.
After that, the argument descends into Pinker-style nonsense. While repeating the usual
stats about the decline in violent deaths, Morris mentions in passing that a nuclear war could
cause billions of deaths. He doesn't consider the obvious anthropic fallacy problem – if
such a war had happened, there would not be any op-eds in the Washington Post discussing the
implications for life expectancy.
I haven't read the book, and don't intend to. If someone can't present a 700 word summary of
their argument without looking silly, they shouldn't write opinion pieces. But, for what its
worth, FB friends who have read it agree that it's not very good.
William Meyer 10.13.19 at 12:31 pm (no link)
I have not read the book in question, so I don't know if the author made this point: "Since
violence or implicit violence is how we overcome essentially all collective action problems
as humans, war probably does belong in the human toolkit." Obviously it would be better if we
could find more and better alternatives to war, and remove the obvious glitches in the
alternatives (e.g., representative democracy, single-party states, etc.) we have tried in the
past. So I find it odd as I get old that so little energy/research/academic effort is devoted
by the human race to finding better means of collective decision making. Clearly our current
abilities in this field are completely inadequate. I ponder if this is because we are
incapable of doing better by some inherent flaw in our makeup or if it is because, as in some
many areas of life, the wicked work tirelessly to maintain the systems that enrich and
empower them. I suspect I'll never find out.
Omega Centauri 10.13.19 at 4:33 pm (no link)
There might be a case to be made for empire building conquest advancing human society. I
think it was primarily by forcing the mixing of cultures which otherwise would have been
relatively isolated from each other. Also empires tended to create safe internal trade
routes, the Silk Road was made possible by the Mongol empire.
At least the authors of books about such empires like to state that over a timespan of
centuries that empire creation was a net positive.
Orange Watch 10.13.19 at 7:07 pm (no link)
Tim Worstall and Dipper's suggestion that the EU is borne of war is mostly just a failure to
take Morris's claim on its unsophisticated face and instead assume it contains subtle
complexity that is obviously missing if you read the article itself:
This happened because about 10,000 years ago, the winners of wars began incorporating
the losers into larger societies. The victors found that the only way to make these larger
societies work was by developing stronger governments; and one of the first things these
governments had to do, if they wanted to stay in power, was suppress violence among their
subjects.
For the EU to have been a result of war in the sense that Morris means, it would have to
have been forcibly formed in 1945 by the US/UK/Russia forcibly incorporating Europe into it.
When Morris states "wars make us stronger and richer" he very simply means wars of conquest
are long-term net positives. He doesn't mean something subtle about nations banding together
to forestall further war; he bluntly means conquerors gluing together their conquests into
empires and then liberally applying boot leather to necks.
Mark Brady 10.13.19 at 7:56 pm (no link)
John Quiggin is, of course, well aware of this quotation, but some of you may not.
"Though some of them would disdain to say that there are net benefits in small acts of
destruction, they see almost endless benefits in enormous acts of destruction. They tell us
how much better off economically we all are in war than in peace. They see "miracles of
production" which it requires a war to achieve. And they see a postwar world made certainly
prosperous by an enormous "accumulated" or "backed up" demand. In Europe they joyously count
the houses, the whole cities that have been leveled to the ground and that "will have to be
replaced." In America they count the houses that could not be built during the war, the nylon
stockings that could not be supplied, the worn-out automobiles and tires, the obsolescent
radios and refrigerators. They bring together formidable totals.
"It is merely our old friend, the broken-window fallacy, in new clothing, and grown fat
beyond recognition. This time it is supported by a whole bundle of related fallacies. It
confuses need with demand."
Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson, Chapter 3, "The Blessings of Destruction."
Alex SL 10.13.19 at 8:37 pm (no link)
On one side, AFAIK the last few centuries of war in Europe have indeed seen a reduction of
the number of states. Yes, the trend was partly reversed since 1914, but never to the degree
of splintering that existed in the middle ages.
On the other side, even the widely accepted cases of supposedly 'beneficial' empires such
as the Romans bringing the Pax Romana and the Mongols allowing far-reaching trade and travel
need to be seen against the devastation they caused to make their victories possible. The
Romans, for example, committed genocide in Gaul and Carthage, and they enslaved millions.
Best case argument in my eyes is that a very successful war is beneficial because it stops
continuous smaller wars, which is still not exactly the same as a general "war is
beneficial". Why not just create institutional arrangements that avoid wars between small
nations in the first place?
fran6 10.13.19 at 9:26 pm (no link)
Here's another personality who's also unfazed by the evils of war (although, she does wish
more folks were "kind" to each other):
Stephen @11 Say what? Are you suggesting that the Soviet bloc was part of the EU? As both
your comment and Tim Worstall's unwittingly illustrate, the fact that the EU has been
entirely peaceful since its creation (by contrast with non-EU Europe) is not because
Europeans suddenly became pacifists.
Sorry if I have a hard time getting Morris' argument, but: towards the end, be seems to be
saying the world requires a "Globocop" like the US to ensure its prosperity. But how does
that relate to his wider point about the benefits of war? Does Morris believe the hegemon
owes it to itself, and to the rest of the world, to wage permanent war?
Morris sold out. This was evident in his book comparing the progress of China and Europe,
though that book made excellent points in between the fluff and is well worth reading. But he
is well versed enough in Chinese history to be aware of the ultimate example of armies
conquering and bringing peace to a large area, which happens repeatedly in Chinese history.
Actually, Chinese history itself shows that the opposite argument has more support, that
instead of war being valuable because one powerful country will conquer a large area and
bring peace to it, its valuable because competition between states who are worried about
other states getting a jump on them turns out to be valuable to progress. Large continental
empires, including the Roman one as well, tended to stagnate in terms of culture and
technology and become correct.
MFB 10.15.19 at 7:18 am (no link)
Well, the opinion-piece was published on Jeff Bezos' blog. Oligarchs are naturally in favour
of centralised power and therefore of empires (so long as they are at the apex thereof, which
they usually are). The best way to build an empire is through war.
Of course, the author has to say "despite Hitler, Stalin and Mao", for ideological
reasons. Actually, Hitler built his empire largely through the threat of war rather than
through war itself; once he had actually started the war, he antagonised three more powerful
empires than his own and his empire was then crushed. As for Stalin, he actually did various
double-back-somersaults to avoid getting into wars, and the "empire" which he built in
Eastern Europe as a result of winning a war he didn't want did not sustain itself. And of
course Mao didn't start any wars at all -- his name just had to be thrown in for reactionary
reasons.
It is true that the Spanish, Portuguese, French and British empires were built upon war.
But where are they now? The United States fought a lot of wars against its indigenous people,
but frankly it would still have been a global superpower if it had simply sidestepped most of
them, at least from about 1865 onward.
An interesting question: can it be that a professor of Classics doesn't actually have to
understand the concept of evidence-based argument in any case, because everything has already
been said on the subject and all you have to do is cherry-pick other people's statements?
Because that seems to be how that silly article reads.
And yes, the whole thing reeks of the better angels propaganda. Let's not forget, by the
way, that various members of the EU -- Britain, France, Italy et al -- have launched brutally
murderous wars elsewhere, and the fact that they don't fight among themselves doesn't make
them peaceful or moral entities.
@TheSophist #25: that was mentioned as a joke rather than self-publicity, but if you're
really interested: The Roman Empire: roots of imperialism (Pluto Press, 2020). Obviously
books about the Roman Empire are ten a penny; my main claim for this one, besides its being
less apologetic and/or gung-ho than most, is that I try to integrate the historical reality
with its reception, i.e. how people have subsequently deployed Rome as an example or model.
Maybe the Roman Empire delivered on peace, but prosperity is a bit more complicated. Some
years ago David Hays wrote a book on the history of technology. One of the things he did was
make a back-of-the-envelope estimate of material welfare at different levels of development.
He concluded that, while civilization has always been a good deal for the elite, it's been
rather iffy for peasants and workers. It's only during the Industrial Evolution that the
standard of living at the lower end of society rose above that of hunter-gatherers. So, the
prosperity delivered by the Roman Empire went mostly to the elite, not the peasantry.
Peter Erwin@43 wanted the Nazis to roll right up to the eastern border of Poland, etc. etc.
So did Hitler. And although I'm quite reluctant to read minds, especially dead one, I will
nevertheless guarantee the move into the Baltics was seen as a blow to his plans, even if
accepted for temporary advantage. You must always see who hates Stalin for beating Hitler,
and those rare few who object to his real crimes.
And, Erwin thinks Chinese troops being in Korea with permission is an aggression, while US
troops closing on Chinese borders is not. The US still isn't out of Korea, but China is, but
he can't figure out who the aggressor is.
Really, Peter Erwin really says it all. The maddest ant-Communist propaganda is now
official.
MFB 10.17.19 at 9:02 am (no link)
I don't want to unnecessarily dump on Peter Erwin, because I don't believe in kicking
disadvantaged children, but if he reads the original post he will notice that it was talking
about international wars, not civil wars. I'll admit the invasion of Finland (and of the
Baltic states and Poland) but those were fairly obviously ways of strengthening the USSR's
position in order to discourage a German invasion, and all took place within the boundaries
of the former Russian Empire which Stalin undoubtedly saw as the default position.
As to Mao, he didn't start the Korean war (as Erwin unwillingly admits) and all the other
wars except for the invasion of Vietnam were civil wars since they entailed moving into
Chinese-controlled territory which had broken away during the main civil war. I'll admit that
Vietnam was a problem, but then, since Mao had been dead for some time by then, it's would be
hard for Erwin to blame him except for the fact that Erwin clearly lives on Planet
Bizarro.
@John Quiggin The claim is that war, despite its brutality created big states, like the
Roman empire, which then delivered peace and prosperity
I don't think this is an intellectually generous summary of the arguments, as presented in
the article.
The author himself summarizes it as "war made states, and states made peace", and if it is
indeed true that the author often speaks of "larger, more organized societies" there is a
strong implication that for a society to be "large" in the sense discussed in the article, it
is not really necessary that it be territorially very wide (the most clear cut indication of
that is that the author refers to the European states of the 1600s as "big, settled states"
while they all were geographically tiny at the time). So the point of the author, if
interpreted with intellectual honesty, seems to me to be twofold: 1) that war has been a
crucial factor in the formation of complex, organized states and societies and 2) that these
complex, organized states and societies brought with them so many positive things that the
wars required to form them were worth it.
The second point is pure Pinker. I consider it logically meaningless, myself (it
ultimately relies on the concept that History proceeds like an individual who is choosing a
pair of shoes) and morally repugnant (it is not hard to see who will be pleased to have a
rhetorical tool that can justify any atrocity by the long term gains it will provide humanity
– indeed, it is instructive in that respect to read SS internal papers on when and why
children should be executed with their parents, and how to select people for that task:
contrary to what could be guessed, the manual recommends the soldiers who appear to have a
strong sense of empathy and morality, with the idea that they will those who will most
strongly endorse the "by doing this abominable act, we are sacrificing ourselves on behalf of
future generations" thesis).
The first point, however, appears to me to be broadly correct descriptively. Extracting an
interesting thesis out of it requires much more work than is indicated by the article,
however (I consider Ertman's Birth of the Levianthan an example of that kind of extra
work done successfully).
@John Quiggin Lots of people predicted, along the lines of your post, that with the
external threat of the USSR gone, and the US pulling back, the old warlike Europe would
reassert itself.
I think what we may call the "wide military context thesis" runs rather like this: because
of the experience of WWII and the Cold War, modern industrial states have amassed enormous
military power while at the same time knowing that they can experience total destruction if
they enter into a military conflict with a state of comparable military might. As a
consequence, peace dominates between them. So France is not at war with the United Kingdom or
Germany, certainly in part because they are all (for now) members of the EU but also in part
for the same reason Japan is not at war with South Korea and Russia not at war with
China.
Personally, I think it would be absurd to claim that the EU has played no role in the
pacification of Western Europe in the second half of the twentieth century, but I think it
would be equally absurd to deny the role of other factors that plainly play a major role in
the equally remarkable pacification of other regional areas in the absence of an economical
and political unification process (rise in prosperity, rise in education, aging populations,
increased military power ).
@7, Omega
Not really wanting to get into the "do empires benefit civilization by promoting trade"
argument, but having just read Lost Enlightenment, nothing in that lengthy tome suggests the
Silk Road city states gain any special advantage from the Mongol invasion. In fact, quite the
opposite. After the Mongols (in part for reasons preceeding the conquest), Central Asia never
regained its pre-eminence (it had actually not just been a facilitator of trade but also a
center of manufacture, culture, scientific progress). Maybe the trade routes hobbled along as
trade routes but the civilization that was both built by and facilitated trade did not
rebound. Most empires seem to get that there is wealth to be had from involvement in trade,
they don't always know how to keep the gold goose alive.
LFC 10.20.19 at 9:10 pm (no link)
"War made states and states made peace" is a riff on Charles Tilly's line "war made the state
and the state made war."
"... Obama's life and actions are a texbook explanation of how humans develop on the sociopathic spectrum. Not all sociopaths are evil-looking monsters. Obama, Biden, Buttigieg, Kamala, W... but their actions always expose them. We, as fellow humans and sentient beings, must develop filters that trigger deeper probes into their actions over time and their sociopathic-- even psychopatic actions will emerge. ..."
For the hysterical Trump Derangement Syndrome jello-brained fools saying Trump is
killing people in secret or something ridiculous like that, check out the list of drone
murders in Pakistan as a rather typical illustration. The trend is the same for Yemen and
Afghanistan.
Here are the crucial totals for Pakistan:
Strikes under the Bush Administration: 51
Strikes under the Obama Administration: 373
Strikes under the Trump Administration: 5
84 of the 2,379 dead have been identified as members of al-Qaeda
"O-bomber" is an apt sobriquet for the previous Nobel Peace Prize winning
PotUS.
Karlof1,petri, lysias and others,(@40s) thank you for your details and focus on the U.S.
government's crimes and actions in Ukraine, especially pointing to Obama. His name is left
out of most blogs and discussions and I think is key to a critical need for us to redirect
our future conversations and actions: we need to identify the neoliberal/neocon trojan
horses early and often. I voted for Obama in 08 and was shocked as he immediately began
filling his cabinet with neoliberal/neocons-- Geitner, Hillary, Gates, Summers, etc.
Obama's life and actions are a texbook explanation of how humans develop on the
sociopathic spectrum. Not all sociopaths are evil-looking monsters. Obama, Biden,
Buttigieg, Kamala, W... but their actions always expose them. We, as fellow humans and
sentient beings, must develop filters that trigger deeper probes into their actions over
time and their sociopathic-- even psychopatic actions will emerge.
House Republicans on Thursday said that testimony from the State Department's former envoy to Ukraine, sought by
House Democrats with regards to their impeachment inquiry, won't advance the drive to impeach President Donald Trump.
Emerging from the day-long deposition, New York Republican
Lee Zeldin
said that former U.S. Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker's private Thursday testimony, "blows a hole in the
argument" presented by Democrats that Trump asked the president of Ukraine for a quid pro quo.
Volker on Thursday spent hours testifying with congressional investigators who are seeking to discover if he
played any role in Trump's efforts to obtain from Ukrainian officials information on Hunter Biden, the son of 2020
presidential hopeful
Joseph R. Biden Jr.
House Intelligence Chairman
Adam B. Schiff
briefly addressed reporters during the testimony, charging that Trump encouraging a foreign nation
to investigate his political rival was a "fundamental breach of the president's oath of office."
"It endangers our elections, it endangers our national security, it ought to be condemned by every member of this
body, Democrats and Republicans alike," Schiff said.
While Volker testified, Ohio Republican
Michael R. Turner
, an Intelligence Committee member, released a statement saying he does "not believe that
Volker's testimony advanced Schiff's impeachment agenda."
Zeldin urged the relevant congressional committees to make public a transcript of Volker's deposition, along with
text messages Volker sent to Ukrainian officials, which have become a source of intrigue in the fledgling impeachment
push.
About two-and-a-half hours into Volker's deposition,
Jim Jordan
, an Ohio Republican and founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, emerged and told reporters that
Schiff wanted to limit certain members from questioning Volker and that the California Democrat had barred State
Department lawyers from participating in the closed briefing.
Want insight more often?
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"If this is how Mr. Schiff is going to conduct these types of interviews in the future," Jordan said, "that's a
concern."
Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo
has drawn the ire of congressional Democrats this week for rejecting a subpoena and rebuffing
congressional requests to question five current and former State Department officials to testify in the impeachment
inquiry.
Trump: House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff should "resign from office"
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Jordan praised Volker, calling him "impressive." Turner called Volker "an incredible diplomat," in his statement.
Volker resigned from his position as special envoy less than a week ago after his name appeared in a whistleblower
complaint alleging that Volker was coordinating with Ukrainian officials on how to handle requests from Trump's
personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. That whistleblower report is central in justifying House Democrats' impeachment
inquiry.
Turner said he doesn't believe Volker would have done anything untoward during his State Department service.
"It is my strong belief that Volker would not have been involved in nor permitted anything inappropriate, let
alone illegal, in his service to our country," Turner said. "Today he continued his legacy of integrity under
questioning from Schiff's staff."
Arguably some of the most significant events since the eight-year long war's start have played out in Syria with rapid pace over
just the last month alone, including Turkey's military incursion in the north, the US pullback from the border and into Syria's oil
fields, the Kurdish-led SDF&# deal making with Damascus, and the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. All of this is why a
televised interview with Presiden39;st Bashar Assad was highly anticipated at the end of this week.
Assad's commentary on the latest White House policy to "secure the oil" in Syria, for which US troops have already been redeployed
to some of the largest oil fields in the Deir Ezzor region, was the biggest pressing question. The Syrian president's response was
unexpected and is now driving headlines, given what he said directly about Trump, calling him the "best American president" ever
– because he's the "most transparent."
"When it comes to Trump you may ask me a question and I'll give you an answer which might seem strange. I tell you he's the best
American president," Assad said, according to a
translation provided by NBC.
"Why? Not because his policies are good, but because he is the most transparent president," Assad continued.
"All American presidents commit crimes and end up taking the Nobel Prize and appear as a defender of human rights and the 'unique'
and 'brilliant' American or Western principles. But all they are is a group of criminals who only represent the interests of the
American lobbies of large corporations in weapons, oil and others," he added.
"Trump speaks with the transparency to say 'We want the oil'." Assad's unique approach to an 'enemy' head of state which has just
ordered the seizure of Syrian national resources also comes after in prior years the US president called Assad "our enemy" and an
"animal."
Trump tweeted in April 2018 after
a new chemical attack allegation had surfaced: "If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster
would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!"
A number of mainstream outlets commenting on Assad's interview falsely presented it as "praise" of Trump or that Assad thinks
"highly" of him; however,
it appears the Syrian leader was merely presenting Trump's policy statements from a 'realist' perspective , contrasting them from
the misleading 'humanitarian' motives typical of Washington's rhetoric about itself.
That is, Damascus sees US actions in the Middle East as motivated fundamentally by naked imperial ambition, a constant prior theme
of Assad's speeches , across administrations, whether US leadership dresses it up as 'democracy promotion' or in humanitarian terms
characteristic of liberal interventionism. As Assad described, Trump seems to skip dressing up his rhetoric in moralistic idealism
altogether, content to just unapologetically admit the ugly reality of US foreign policy.
I see Americans keep calling Assad and Putin a ''dictator'' Hey, jackasses, they were ELECTED in elections far less corrupt than what you have in the USSA
Assad is a very eloquent speaker. Witty, sharp and always calm when speaking with decadent press. Of course the MSM understood
what he DID mean, but they cannot help themselves, but parse anything to try hurting Trump.
If true. It means the Vatican (the oldest most important money there is) like Saudi Arabia and the UAE sure do seem to care
about stuff like purchasing power in their "portfolios" and a "store of value"?...
I see lots of EU participants taking their money to Moscow as well with that Arctic bonanza that says "come hither" if you
want your money to be worth something!!!
It's always been about oil. Spreading Freedumb, Dumbocracy and Western values, is PR spiel. The reality is, the West are scammers,
plunderers and outright thieves. Forget the billions Shell Oil, is holding for the Biafran people/region in Nigeria, which it
won't give to either the Bianfran states in the east, nor the Nigerian government, dating back to the secessionist state of Biafra/Nigerian civil war 1967-70. The west are nothing more than gang-bangers, but on the world stage.
Yet the department for trade and industry is scratching its head, wondering why their are so few takers for a post-Brexit trade
deal with the UK, where the honest UK courts have the final say? lol
Too bad it is political suicide for an American president to try to establish communication with Assad. He seems like a pretty
practical guy and who knows, it might be possible to work out a peaceful settlement with him.
economic warfare on the syrian civlian population through illegal confiscation of vital civilian economic assets, and as conducted
in venezeula, is called ________________
Assad is saying where before the UKK was a masked thief, with Trompas and his egotism alias exceptionalism, has not bothered
withthe mask. He is still a murderer and thief.
Now Assad has some idea why Trump is so popular with his base, they love him for not being politically correct, for "telling
it like it is". He's like the wolf looking at the sheep and telling them he's going to eat them and the sheep cheering because
he's not being a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Unfortunately in the case of Trump's sheeple, they don't even have a clue they're going to be eaten, the Trumptards all think
he's going to eat someone else like the "deep state" or the "dumbocrats". Meanwhile he's chewing away at their health care, their
export markets, piling up record deficits, handing the tax gold to the rich and corporations while they get the shaft, taking
away program after program that aided students, the poor, and the elderly, appointing lobbyists to dismantle or corrupt departments
they used to lobby against, and in general destroying the international good will that it's taken decades to build.
"... Of course, when the die was cast and Rumsfeld's famous Shock and Awe campaign began, the three major news talk channels, CNN, MSNBC and FOX, were all over us with cheerleading. ..."
"... Swinton's use of the phrase 'Intellectual prostitutes' rang true then. ..."
"... As the war criminal Mr. Obama stated, when in 2008 many of his own party wanted to have hearings on the pre-emptive attack and occupation of Iraq, that it was time to 'Move forward'. Forward he did by increasing the number of drone murderous assaults by Tenfold! ..."
"... Now that he is out of office, Barack, the 'Hope and Change' king, just purchased a home for $8.1 million. Tell that to the suckers who fell for his rhetoric in the Afro American communities. ..."
There is no such thing at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press There is not ONE of you who
dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print!
I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with The business of journalists is to destroy
the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his
daily bread We are the tools of rich men behind the scenes.
We are jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property
of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes!"
We only need go back a few short years to see the utter magnitude of what Swinton was talking about. Remember the illegal and
immoral USA invasion and occupation of Iraq? Most of the 'levers of empire' were pushed to accommodate that bit of lying, disinformation
and half truths.
This writer remembers when Phil Donahue had his nightly news/talk show on MSNBC. By February of 2003 or thereabouts, Jeff Cohen,
Phil's producer, recalls how he was told to have TWO pro invasion guests on for every anti invasion guest. Remember, at that time
General Electric Corp. owned MSNBC. Yet, that was not enough to satisfy the empire. On February 23 the Donahue show was cancelled,
although the ratings were pretty good.
You see, by that time, late February, the machine was all ready for the attack. It just needed a few more morsels of propaganda
to sink into both the Congress and of course the consumers Sorry, I mean the citizenry.
This writer was extremely agitated by the high level of Pro invasion info coming over the embedded mainstream print and electronic
media. One slight consolation was when C-Span actually 'did the correct thing' and showed a Canadian news channel's coverage of the
impending doom.
Of course, when the die was cast and Rumsfeld's famous Shock and Awe campaign began, the three major news talk channels, CNN,
MSNBC and FOX, were all over us with cheerleading.
FOX was so off the radar that no critique is needed. However, CNN and MSNBC, trying to look like 'Neutral Journalism 101', could
not contain their peanut gallery mindsets, the one that John Swinton referred to in his famous speech.
You had Aaron Brown, Lester Holt and little Katie Couric (of flagship station NBC, owned by GE), along with Brian Williams (later
to be outed, for but awhile, for his phony news stories in Iraq) all right there celebrating the 'Liberators of Iraq'.
They all wore their flag buttons on their lapels, and little Katie was filmed strolling through the halls of NBC shouting 'Marines
Rock!' Of course, Lester Holt did the 'right (wing) thing' and now is a respected anchor so much so that good ole Lester moderates
presidential debates.
Swinton's use of the phrase 'Intellectual prostitutes' rang true then.
Now we come to a recent bit of disgrace. Ellen Degeneres, the highly celebrated and successful daytime talk show hostess and proud
gay woman, was seen sitting with Junior Bush at a Dallas Cowboys game, in the exclusive owner's box area.
She has had Junior on her show to talk about his painting, has visited him at his ranch, and considers him a 'Nice guy'. Junior
has, on record as president, never did squat to help with the AIDs pandemic, and allowed his far right evangelical beliefs to keep
him from ever speaking favorably about gay rights etc.
Yet, this openly gay woman, who must have felt alarmed by our illegal invasion (OR DID SHE?), must have had friends who were enraged
by that invasion at the time.
All the many alternative news blips must have gotten to her eyes and ears, telling her that the Bush/Cheney gang were WAR CRIMINALS!
Yet Ms. DeGeneres continues to satisfy the lie which tells us to take a pass on the dastardly things done by the war criminals in
the White House.
As the war criminal Mr. Obama stated, when in 2008 many of his own party wanted to have hearings on the pre-emptive attack
and occupation of Iraq, that it was time to 'Move forward'. Forward he did by increasing the number of drone murderous assaults by
Tenfold!
Now that he is out of office, Barack, the 'Hope and Change' king, just purchased a home for $8.1 million. Tell that to the
suckers who fell for his rhetoric in the Afro American communities.
Anyone but the foolish people who still support Mr. Trump realize that he is as much of a populist as the man he emulates with
his body gestures: Il Duce!
Nothing ever changes when the majority of working stiffs suck in the foul air that comes from the mouths of the empire's minions,
whether they be presidents, congress people or (so called) journalists and talk show hosts. It is time for those of good conscience
to boycott the lot of them!
Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson
of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his works posted on sites like Global
Research, Greanville Post, OffGuardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News,
Dissident Voice, , Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on
World News Trust , whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut
military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has an internet interview show, 'It's the Empire...
Stupid' with producer Chuck Gregory.
Pretty good article. Pity you had to spoil it with the Trump populist Mussolini comparison at the end. Don't get me wrong I am
no Trump fan but are you saying that much of the stuff written about him is not propaganda? So when it comes to Trump the media
are ..even handed? honest? ..unbiased? (LOL). P.S. How many wars did Bush try and stop? How many wars did Obama stop? Is stopping
wars now "populism"? Even I can see that the highest levels of the US government have been compromised by the intelligence agencies
and corrupt partisan actors. Need I remind you that it was a "populist" who called out the FAKE NEWS?
Doctortrinate
The News Today, as slipshod as you like – but how far is it different from those diligent yesterdays. Broadcasts, built upon a
complex Fabrication, to deceive it's willing dependants into accepting falsifications as an authentic constant of everyday reality.
So, until the demoi discard the pleasure of blissful ignorance, for the painful truth whatever the spin, however its dressed,
the story will continue, trapped in it's own invention, lost in a pernicious labyrinth where every redundant turn forgets the
last.
MASTER OF UNIVE
Corporatism is Fascism, and Fascists that tow the party line are always utilized for purposes of impression management much like
props on a TV program are. Dubya is a corporatist whore just as daytime talk show hosts are too. Assuming that corporatist whores
should have integrity is naïve in the extreme.
If you watch television you are an automaton without enough reason to be able to turn the television off given that you have
been programmed to mindlessly adhere to whatever the television coughs up daily.
If you watch mindless Fascists entertaining mass murderers like George W. Bush at ballgames that host the Military Industrial
Complex for halftime shows you are _Functionally Retarded_ and likely skimmed over this article whilst locked in a trance state
of ignorance & a lack of education.
FUCK America & American television.
It's a bankrupt Corporation that is $22 trillion in debt that it will never pay back, suckers!
MOU
wardropper
" Mr. Obama stated, when in 2008 many of his own party wanted to have hearings on the pre-emptive attack and occupation of
Iraq, that it was time to 'Move forward' "
And I will never, ever, forget Nancy Pelosi's dismissive shrug when many of that same party were calling for Bush's impeachment
on account of that illegal invasion:
"Impeachment is off the table." Decent Americans no longer have a representative in the US government. As Swinton clearly
implies, those who hire today's journalists bear practically all the responsibility for this.
hollyPlastic
A glaring example of how much the West loves freedom is shown in this UN briefing on Torture, this week.
This serves a good demonstration of how stupid Hong Kong protesters are in believing that there is a 'West/UK/US' supporting
their quest for 'Democracy' and 'Freedom'.
milosevic
you mean Hollywood movies aren't an accurate source of information about world politics and history???
hollyPlastic
Look and you'll see that according to the Controlled Corporate Mass Media, there are, in this period of history, three pillars
that are supporting Western civilisation:
Pillar One: Peroxide. Look how very blonde people are getting on mainstream media. You can't miss it. Good investment to
buy shares in Peroxide factories.
Piller Two: White Skin. Whether it's using Photoshop or Skin Whitening Products, people are looking very white in their
photos, these days.
Pillar three: Piercing Blue Eyes. That must be using photoshop, because there aren't eyes that are so blue in real life
like you see nowadays in the photos.
And
The Blonde is getting blonder. Even, black is now turning blonde. The White is getting whiter. The Blue is getting bluer.
Other pillars of Western Civilisation are somewhat behind the scene and include the proliferation/sales of weapons of mass
destruction, breaking international laws, as well as, the withdrawal from treaties which restrict the deployment of nuclear missiles.
mark
Ah, but everybody knows Bombing Brown People and Torturing Brown People is good for them. We only do it for their benefit. And
this in no way contradicts Our Values and Our Rules Based Order. All these benighted natives and lesser breeds are jolly grateful
for all our lofty sermons and pious lectures about human rights.
I find it very interesting, how people need to worship something!It seems to me that they aren't able to admit, that there are
things that are not clear to them!For instance, we know very little about the universe, so we declare God made it!
hollyPlastic
There is a poignant remark made on these pages which goes something like this:
When surviving depends on believing, the mind works wonders
I think the implications of 'believing' in order to survive are profound. People need to believe in order to fit in,
in order to get a job, in order to get a promotion, in order to get married, in order to get enough food to feed their offspring,
and in order to 'look' free.
Not to forget, by believing in Jesus, you give your proxy support to plunder every inch of the Earth, and kill as many brown-skin
people as possible.
hollyPlastic
I describe this situation we face as mind control warfare
It is indeed. Thanks for the valuable thoughts!
Tim Jenkins
Mammon avoids questioning & analysing incredible endless lies by 'Schiff for brains'. When actually, just like Norman Bates in
Psycho, Adam Schiff is actually the "whistleblower", with bent whistle all he needs is a wig and a rocking chair 🙂
Jayzus . Adam fecken Schiff. Complete wackjob extraordinaire, tho in Washington DC he has s(ch)tiff competition. Someone the Liberal
bourgie professional types here in Aussie regard with dewy eyed fondness and admiration for leading the . Resistance. Gag. Can
things get anymore surreal? Do you sometimes feel like you've dropped acid by mistake such is the bizarre happenings, um, happening.
Do you think the Mad Hatter would be perplexed at the state of our World? I know I bloody am
bob
Hey man, there's nothing wrong with the way the British regime treats its sick people .
Bob, nothing wrong at all -- if you worship St.Margaret of Muck, patron saint of the AZC.
"There's no such thing as a social conscience".
Pyewacket
Eugenics mate, it's been back in fashion here for the past decade. But instead of dying in a death camp, you die on the street,
or your own home, if you have one.
vexarb
AOO, you mean Trump's Time to Bring Them Back might be genuine? I give him credit because I understand his problem: he has to
face his Jewish daughter and her Likudnik husband.
"It is easier to rule an Empire than to manage a family" -- Montaigne
vexarb
ps Not only face but live with. Trump's sincerity is in the same awkward family position as Cher in "Moonstruck" when she and
her boyfriend meet her father and his girlfriend at the Opera, and she says to her father:
"I'm not sure whether I saw you".
mark
The only 2 reputable journalists who tried to cover Iraq honestly were Donahue and Chris Hedges. Needless to say, both were immediately
sacked. Needless to say, all the cheerleading whores with blood on their hands prospered greatly and are still in situ peddling
new lies.
Graft
Unfortunately Donahue is not on the working mans side he just didn't want a war and Chris Hedges is controlled opposition that's
why he has his own tv show and lost a tonne of support for his outright lies about Lenin
mark
I don't agree with either of them on different issues but I wouldn't question their integrity.
Ramdan
"But the more fundamental problem is that Americans are too nice. That may seem like a paradox, since we are a country that blithely
bombs the world and then weeps with self-pity and affronted dignity when the little people we just stomped on fail to forgive
us for tearing out their fingernails. In fact, our niceness is itself a symptom of the moral obliviousness that permits us to
enact atrocities in the first place. Niceness is not friendliness, not hospitality, not charity and not goodness. Niceness is
the blank grin on the face of the psychopath: it is the public enactment of all the forms of love and kindness without the troublesome
burden of loving anyone or treating people with kindness.
This is what an Ellen DeGeneres is really getting at when she brags about being friends with those who have "different beliefs."
It is not a matter of actual emotional attachment to any system of values, and it's certainly not a matter of transcending minor
political squabbles to form some approximation of a community. [ ]
Rather, she is saying that it is more personally and professionally convenient just to be nice to whatever person happens to be
in the same grandstand for the same spectacle of large men grievously injuring each other. It is not that there are disparate
values to be bridged in order to form a diverse and tolerant society. Instead, it is hankering after the ease of a society in
which there is no necessity to form a core of values beyond the practical calculation of personal and social advantage."
Dubya rehabilitated himself by slagging off the Orange Man. So he's now a jolly decent chap and all round good egg. Certainly
outweighs a little thing like a couple of million dead sand niggers.
Graft
As jimmy Bore said on his show liberals love Bush nowadays but they still fucking hate Ralph Nader, because he gave us ..Bush!
Mind officially blown
Ramdan
This is an interesting (as for debate) assessment of the motives and the way we (mis)construct reality .
"in the interests of survival" but "survival" of what?
"survival" of a mind construct as in "I don't like this but I NEED to do it to survive, to STAY ALIVE, to keep eating, to not
to die"?
"Survival" as in the indegenous kids eating from dumpsters? (
here and
here ) .
OR "survival" of our INTERNALIZED adoration of Mammon as the provider for pleasurable moments and the utter avoidance of the
non-pleasurable.
survival of a vehement desire for what is mentally, socially and culturally construed as 'satisfactory', 'laudable', 'praiseworthy',
'deserving' .which basically is the adoration of wealth, and 'upper' social status, of celebrity and of all other things that
represent the ACTUAL internal adoration of Mammon.
Is in this- seemingly 'innocuous' – way that reality is subverted and we (unconsciously) construct the uber-materialistic worldview
that continues to discard the honest, deep human, spiritual values that can save us from this madness.
I would rather remember again, and old, "crazy" guy .
"A philosopher named Aristippus, who had quite willingly sucked up to Dionysus and won himself a spot at his court, saw
Diogenes cooking lentils for a meal. "If you would only learn to compliment Dionysus, you wouldn't have to live on lentils."
Diogenes replied, "But if you would only learn to live on lentils, you wouldn't have to flatter Dionysus."
― Diogenes of Sinope
"... In excess of 13,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, are known to have died in this war, and some two million have been forced from their homes. The economy of eastern Ukraine has collapsed. Ukraine has suffered through painful economic dislocation and political division. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians are believed to have been killed fighting in the Donbass. Western sanctions have damaged Russia's weak economy. And although the majority of Crimeans probably wanted to join Russia, opposition activists and journalists have been abducted, brutalized, and/or imprisoned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been closed and Tartars have been persecuted. ..."
"... Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor. ..."
"... I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil - they didn't. ..."
"... I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique. ..."
"... And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot. ..."
"... How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement. ..."
Recently Ukraine has been thrown into the spotlight as Democrats gear up to impeach President Donald Trump. More important, though,
is its role in damaging America's relations with Russia, which has resulted in a mini-Cold War that the U.S. needs to end.
Ukraine is in a bad neighborhood. During the 17th century, the country was divided between Poland and Russia, and eventually ended
up as part of the Russian Empire. Kiev then enjoyed only the briefest of liberations after the 1917 Russian Revolution, before being
reabsorbed by the Soviet Union. It later suffered from a devastating famine as Moscow confiscated food and collectivized agriculture.
Ukraine was ravaged during Germany's World War II invasion, and guerrilla resistance to renewed Soviet control continued for years
afterwards.
In 1991, the collapse of the U.S.S.R. gave Ukraine another, more enduring chance for independence. However, the new nation's development
was fraught: GDP dropped by 60 percent and corruption burgeoned. Ukraine suffered under a succession of corrupt, self-serving, and
ineffective leaders, as the U.S., Europe, and Russia battled for influence.
In 2014, Washington and European governments backed a street putsch against the elected, though highly corrupt, pro-Russian president,
Viktor Yanukovych. The Putin government responded by annexing Crimea and backing separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine's Donbass region.
Washington and Brussels imposed economic sanctions on Russia and provided military aid to Kiev.
The West versus Russia quickly became a "frozen" conflict. Moscow reincorporated Crimea into Russia, from which it had been detached
in 1954 as part of internal Soviet politics. In the Donbass, more than a score of ceasefires came and went. Both Ukraine and Russia
failed to fulfill the 2016 Minsk agreements, which sought to end the conflict.
In excess of 13,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, are known to have died in this war, and some two million have been forced from
their homes. The economy of eastern Ukraine has collapsed. Ukraine has suffered through painful economic dislocation and political
division. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians are believed to have been killed fighting in the Donbass. Western sanctions have damaged
Russia's weak economy. And although the majority of Crimeans probably wanted to join Russia, opposition activists and journalists
have been abducted, brutalized, and/or imprisoned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been closed and Tartars have been persecuted.
The most important geopolitical impact has been to poison Russia's relations with the West. Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine
cannot be justified, but the U.S. and Europe did much to create the underlying suspicion and hostility. Recently declassified documents
reveal the degree to which Western officials misled Moscow about their intention to expand NATO. Allied support for adding Georgia
and Ukraine, which would have greatly expanded Russian vulnerability, generated a particularly strong reaction in Moscow. The dismemberment
of Serbia with no consideration of Russia's interests was another irritant, along with Western support for "color revolutions" elsewhere,
including in Tbilisi. The ouster of Yanukovych finally triggered Putin's brutal response.
Washington and Brussels apparently did not view their policies as threatening to Russia. However, had Moscow ousted an elected
Mexican president friendly to America, while inviting the new government to join the Warsaw Pact, and worked with a coalition of
Central American states to divert Mexican trade from the U.S., officials in Washington would not have been pleased. They certainly
wouldn't have been overly concerned about juridical niceties in responding.
This explains (though does not justify) Russia's hostile response. Subsequent allied policies then turned the breach in relations
into a gulf. The U.S. and European Union imposed a series of economic sanctions. Moreover, Washington edged closer to military confrontation
with its provision of security assistance to Kiev. Moscow responded by challenging America from Syria to Venezuela.
It also began moving towards China. The two nations' differences are many and their relationship is unstable. However, as long
as their antagonism towards Washington exceeds their discomfort with each other, they will cooperate to block what they see as America's
pursuit of global hegemony.
Why is the U.S. entangled in the Ukrainian imbroglio? During the Cold War, Ukraine was one of the fabled "captive nations," backed
by vigorous advocacy from Ukrainian Americans. After the Soviet Union collapsed, they joined other groups lobbying on behalf of ethnic
brethren to speed NATO's expansion eastward. Security policy turned into a matter of ethnic solidarity, to be pursued irrespective
of cost and risk.
To more traditional hawks who are always seeking an enemy, the issue is less pro-Ukraine than anti-Russia. Mitt Romney, the Republican
Party's 2012 presidential nominee, improbably attacked Russia as America's most dangerous adversary. Hence the GOP's counterproductive
determination to bring Kiev into NATO. Originally Washington saw the transatlantic alliance as a means to confront the Soviet menace;
now it views the pact as a form of charity.
After the Soviet collapse, the U.S. pushed NATO eastward into nations that neither mattered strategically nor could be easily
protected, most notably in the Balkans and Baltics. Even worse were Georgia and Ukraine, security black holes that would bring with
them ongoing conflicts with Russia, possibly triggering a larger war between NATO and Moscow.
Ukraine never had been a matter of U.S. security. For most of America's history, the territory was controlled by either the Russian
Empire or the Soviet Union. Washington's Cold War sympathies represented fraternal concerns, not security essentials. Today, without
Kiev's aid, the U.S. and Europe would still have overwhelming conventional forces to be brought into any conflict with Moscow. However,
adding Ukraine to NATO would increase the risk of a confrontation with a nuclear armed power. Russia's limitations when it comes
to its conventional military would make a resort to nuclear weapons more likely in any conflict.
Nevertheless, George W. Bush's aggressively neoconservative administration won backing for Georgian and Ukrainian membership in
NATO and considered intervening militarily in the Russo-Georgian war. However, European nations that feared conflict with Moscow
blocked plans for NATO expansion, which went into cold storage. Although alliance officials still officially backed membership for
Ukraine, it remains unattainable so long as conflict burns hot with Russia.
In the meantime, Washington has treated Ukraine as a de facto military ally, offering economic and security assistance. The U.S.
has provided $1.5 billion for Ukrainian training and weapons, including anti-tank Javelin missiles. Explained Obama administration
defense secretary Ashton Carter: "Ukraine would never be where it is without that support from the United States."
Equally important, the perception of U.S. backing made the Kiev government, headed by President Petro Poroshenko, less willing
to pursue a diplomatic settlement with Russia. Thus did Ukraine, no less than Russia, almost immediately violate the internationally
backed Minsk accord.
Kiev's role as a political football highlights the need for Washington to pursue an enduring political settlement with Russia.
European governments are growing restless; France has taken the lead in seeking better relations with Moscow. Germany is unhappy
with U.S. attempts to block the planned Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has campaigned
to end the conflict.
Negotiators for Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe recently met in Minsk to revive the
agreement previously reached in the Belarus capital. They set an election schedule in the contested east, to be followed by passage
of Ukrainian legislation to grant the region greater autonomy and separatists legal immunity. Despite strong opposition from nationalists,
passage is likely since Zelensky's party holds a solid legislative majority.
Many challenges remain, but the West could aid this process by respecting Russian security concerns. The U.S. and its allies should
formally foreclose Ukraine's membership in the transatlantic alliance and end lethal military aid. After receiving those assurances,
Moscow would be expected to resolve the Donbass conflict, presumably along the lines of Minsk: Ukraine protects local autonomy while
Russia exits the fight. Sanctions against Russia would be lifted. Ukrainians would be left to choose their economic orientation,
since the country would likely be split between east and west for some time to come. The West would accept Russia's control of Crimea
while refusing to formally recognize the conquest -- absent a genuinely independent referendum with independent monitors.
Such a compromise would be controversial. Washington's permanent war lobby would object. Hyper-nationalistic Ukrainians would
double down on calling Zelensky a traitor. Eastern Europeans would complain about appeasing Russia. However, such a compromise would
certainly be better than endless conflict.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author
of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
I credit Mr. Bandow for his largely fair and accurate description of the events in Ukraine of five years ago, and for his ultimate
policy proposal for the US to extricate itself from its close involvement in the area. However, I'm a little confused by what
exactly the author means by "Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine" and "Putin's brutal response" (aside from the treatment of
dissidents and journalists as he specifically mentioned) to the Maidan Revolution.
Was it aggressive and brutal for Russia to support separatists in the Donbass who were facing the prospect of legal discrimination
and violence by a criminal, neo-fascist government in Kiev, not to mention de-industrialization, the gutting of the agriculture
sector and the forced economic migration of an enormous number of its young workers (assuming that Ukraine's economic deal with
the EU followed the script of every other Easter European's country's deal with the EU)? If Yanukovych had fled to the Donbass
and proclaimed himself still the freely elected (though certainly corrupt) President of the nation, Russia's support for the region
would have even had a shiny brass legal fig leaf, wouldn't it?
As for the supposed "conquest" of Crimea, that's a rather strong word to use considering that all of two members of the Ukrainian
military were killed, and 60-80 of them detained, while 15,000 defected to Russia. Compared to the violence in Kiev and Odessa,
what happened in Crimea almost qualifies as a bloodless coup. But then Mr. Bandow shies away from using the word "hegemony" to
describe the foreign policy of the United States, figuratively putting the word in the mouths of those bad men (which they are)
in Moscow and Beijing. It's a pity that Mr. Bandow felt the need to make linguistic concessions to the foreign policy establishment
in what was otherwise a useful and balanced piece.
Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings
in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to
escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor.
I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition
of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously
had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil
- they didn't.
I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history
of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique.
And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are
conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot.
How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement.
It is a deeply held belief that democracy is a system that by definition a generally acceptable path forward. That belief is
false as democracy is still comprised of human beings. And democracy in their hands is no "cure all". It can be a turbulent and
jerky bureaucratic maze process that pleases no one and works over time.
The US didn't accomplish it without violence until after more than 130 years, when the native populations were finally subdued.
And as for a system that embodied equal treatment to similar circumstance -- we are still at it. But a violent revolution every
ten years certainly isn't the most effective road to take.
-----------------
Why we insistent on restarting the cold war is unclear to me save that it served to create a kind of strategic global clarity
Though what that means would troublesome because Russia's ole would now be as a developing democratic state as opposed to a communist
monolith. And that means unfettered from her satellites and empowered by more capital markets her role as adversary would be more
adroit. As time after time, Ores Putin has appeared the premier diplomat for peace and stability in situations in which the US
was engaged or encouraging violence.(the Ukraine). I certainly don't think that our relations with Russia or China are a to be
kumbaya love fests, there is still global competition and there's no reason to pretend it would be without tensions. But seriously,
as a democratic/capital market player -- there really was no way to contain Russia.
----------------------
Given what we experienced during 2007 --- corruption comes in a mryiad of guises.
The Ukraine situation is complex to be certain, but ending military aid and letting Russia clean up seems like a bad idea.
This week we saw Russian forces occupy US bases abandoned when Trump ordered our troops to withdraw from the Turkish border.
And now the author is arguing we should do something similar in the Ukraine.
When did Russian appeasement become so important to conservative foreign policy?
Mate, Russians were in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. US troops are there illegally (no Congress mandate, no
international mandate, no invitation). US is an occupying, destabilizing, terrorist protecting force in Syria and Americans should
look beyond their self esteem before commenting on this "shameful" retreat. US does not have the right to put its troops wherever
it fancies.
This win or loose mentality will be the death of you. Who do you think is threatening the US, when it has the biggest moats
protecting its shores? The only thing that is happening is that the hegemonic role, that of controlling everyone's economy for
its own elites benefit is being denied.
This is what you are complaining mate, the the rich Americans cannot get richer? Do you think they will share with you, or
that, like the good English boys of the past, you will not be able to land a job with East India Co. and despoil the natives for
a while?
If the US were smart then they would lead some sort of negotiation where eastern Europe and Ukraine and Russia were allowed only
mutually agreed defensive weapons systems. A demilitarization of say 200 miles on each side of the Russia border. The strategy
should be to encourage trade between Eastern Europe and Russia where Russia has influence but is not threatening. It may be slow
to build that trust but the real question is whether the US and Europe and NATO want peace with Russia or whether they are using
fear of Russia to keep eastern Europe united with the US and Europe. This may be the case but the future will have China as a
greater threat than Russia (China will even be a threat to Russia). Any shift in Russian relations will take decades of building
trust on both sides.
Good article and excellent history of facts. If I recall during the last Bush administration W hosted a Putin and his then spouse,
at a visit at his ranch. Putin informed W," the Ukraine belongs to Russia. end of sentence.
The author forgot the critical role of Sevastopol in the Crimea. It is Russia's only warm water port and there was no way that
it was going to allow this area to become a NATO naval base. Secretary of State Clinton and her sidekick for Ukraine, Victoria
Nuland should have known this before they started supporting the overthrow of the pro-Russia government in Kiev.
If you look at a historical atlas, you won't find an independent country called Ukraine before 1991. When my parents were born,
near what is now called Lviv, the area was called Galicia and Lemberg was its provincial capital. A gold medal issued in 1916
in honor of Franz Josef's 85th birthday noted that he was the Kaiser of Austria, Hungary, Galicia and Lodomeria.
When the old Soviet Union agreed to allow East and West Germany to reunify, it was with the understanding that NATO would not
extend membership to former Soviet block countries and that there would be no NATO bases in these areas either. NATO and the US
broke their oral commitment to Russia a few years later.
The US should get out of the business of trying to spread democracy in third world countries and interfering in the affairs
of foreign governments. We can't afford to be the policeman of the world. We don't even have the ability to make many of our own
central cities safe for Americans. Think Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, all four of which appear on Wikipedia's
list of the 50 murder capitals of the world (per thousand population).
"This idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke and all
that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama said, to some laughs from the crowd.
"The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws." he
continued.
Obama cited college campuses and social media as a breeding ground for wokeness.
"One danger I see among young people particularly on college campuses," he said, "I do get
a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media,
there is this sense sometimes the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible
about other people and that's enough."
Obama then directly poked fun at 'woke' keyboard warriors:
"Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or used the wrong verb
or then, I can sit back and feel good about myself: 'You see how woke I was? I called you
out.'" he mocked.
In a nutshell, Obama is saying we all need a little more aloha spirit -- being
respectful & caring for one another. Not being so quick to judge. Not seeing everything
as black/white. I hope you'll join me in bringing the spirit of aloha to the White House.
https://t.co/tYADx6Dzqs
Obama made some pretty campaign finance promises in the 2008 primary, and then did an
about-face during the general, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from the usual
suspects. Then he declined to prosecute the bankers. Let's not do that again.
Bernie Sanders on Elizabeth Warren's work for big corporations such as advising Dow
Chemical:
"I'll let the American people make that judgment. I've never worked for a corporation.
I've never carried their baggage in the U.S. Senate." pic.twitter.com/yV9TRw7jPB
People are defending Warbama's helping DOW screw women who had breast cancer out of their
settlement. It's absolutely sickening to see people defending the indefensible. "She needed
the experience." WTAF does that even mean?
Obama made some pretty campaign finance promises in the 2008 primary, and then did
an about-face during the general, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars from the
usual suspects. Then he declined to prosecute the bankers. Let's not do that again.
Bernie Sanders on Elizabeth Warren's work for big corporations such as advising Dow
Chemical:
"I'll let the American people make that judgment. I've never worked for a
corporation. I've never carried their baggage in the U.S. Senate." pic.twitter.com/yV9TRw7jPB
of identity politics is bullshit. He's offended enough by irrationality that he's willing
to comment on that in public--now that he's out of the Presidency and doesn't have to win any
more elections.
However, none of that would stop him (or did stop him) using that kind of identity
politics to the hilt for his own political advantage.
#2 Go
on ahead and mock all you want. Those of us who see you for what you are will never stop
seeing it and calling you out on it. Boohoo mofo.
"... Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal: ..."
"... " Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. " ..."
"... The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September 27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page: ..."
"... With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very, very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter. ..."
With the Trump impeachment procedures ongoing and the connection to his conversation about the
Biden family with Ukraine President Zelenskyy, there has been very little coverage of an
important aspect of the relationship between Washington and Kiev. While none of us can speak to
the actual intent of Donald Trump's remarks be it for personal gain or for other reasons, there
is background information that may help illuminate the context of the discussion between the
two world leaders.
In case you haven't read the pertinent section of the transcript of the conversation, here it
is:
" President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that
you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any
future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the
United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States
and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard
on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him
having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate
even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just
recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we
will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody
but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most
experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you
Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also
plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as
the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I
can assure you.
President Trump: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good
and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way
they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr.
Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I
would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy
very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that
would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the
people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that.
The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution
and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney
General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you
can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.
President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all,
I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute
majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate,
who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or
she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue.
The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the
honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top
of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to
us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in
our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall
her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad
ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she
admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new
President well enough.
President Trump: Well, she's going to go through some things. I will have Mr.
Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get
to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very
badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to
get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It's a great country. I have many
Ukrainian friends, their incredible people." (my bolds)
Now, let's look back in time to 1998. On July 22, 1998, a treaty was signed between Ukraine and
Washington.
The Treaty on Mutual Legal
Assistance in Criminal Matters was signed in Kiev on the aforementioned date. Here is an
excerpt from the The original letter of submittal from the Department of State to the
President's office dated October 19, 1999 which states the following:
"I have the honor to submit to you the Treaty between the United States of America and
Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters with Annex (``the Treaty''), signed at
Kiev on July 22, 1998. I recommend that the Treaty be transmitted to the Senate for its advice
and consent to ratification. Also enclosed, for the information of the Senate, is an exchange of notes under which the
Treaty is being provisionally applied to the extent possible under our respective domestic
laws, in order to provide a basis for immediate mutual assistance in criminal matters.
Provisional application would cease upon entry into force of the Treaty.
The Treaty covers mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. In recent years, similar
bilateral treaties have entered into force with a number of other countries. The Treaty with
Ukraine contains all essential provisions sought by the United States. It will enhance our
ability to investigate and prosecute a range of offenses.The Treaty is designed to
be self-executing and will not require new legislation." (my bold)
The Treaty was then transmitted by the President of the United States (Bill Clinton) to the
Senate on November 10, 1999 (Treaty Document 106-16 -106th Congress - First Session) as shown
on this letter of
transmittal from Bill Clinton's office:
Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal:
" Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or
statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving
documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or
other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related
to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any
other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. "
The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September
27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the
President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on
February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page:
Here are the first two pages of the Treaty which outline the scope of assistance that is to
be offered by both nations as well as the limitations on assistance:
... ... ...
If you wish to read the Treaty in its entirety, please click
here .
With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very,
very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal
Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking
Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter.
"... The anti-Russian/pro-Ukrainian fanatics in the Borg, to which Lt.Col. Vindman belongs, are trying to prevent Trump from achieving his large picture vision of U.S. strategic interest and from defining U.S. foreign policy goals. They want to implement their own polices independent of what the president thinks or believes. ..."
"... If the deep state is allowed to make its own policies against the will of the elected officials why should we bother with holding elections? ..."
"... The Democrats are stupid to applaud this and to even further these schemes. They are likely to regain the presidency in 2024. What will they do when all the Civil Service functionaries Trump will have installed by then organize to ruin their policies? ..."
"... I surmise he is reflecting Israeli disquiet with the idea of a peace in Syria that leaves Assad in power. ..."
"... I first heard this idea that Trump is supposed to implement the foreign policy of the "government policy community" just a few days ago on the PBS Snooze Hour. It was startling to hear such a blatant admission of the existence of the "Deep State", and that Trump is supposed to obey it. I wonder who wrote the memo that says its now OK to publicly criticize Trump for not following the orders of the "government policy community". ..."
"... Trump is truly a horrible excuse for a human being, but apparently that is what is required to successfully rip the facade off the Deep State, however one wants to define it. Brain-dead Dummycrats will nod and exclaim that of course Trump is supposed to follow policy established by "knowledgeable experts". But I speculate that this new public attitude of the stink tank talking heads will enrage Trump supporters. ..."
"... Our foreign policies have, IMO, long been tailored to the needs and expectations of our major corporations. Notably, the fossil fuel corporations and their allies on Wall street. ..."
"... Our corporate empire wishes to export predatory capitalism around the globe, and pity any nation who stands in our way.. ..."
"... Isn't it something, b. Could you imagine ever reading a headline out of Russia or Germany where a subordinate went on record declaring he made attempts to edit Putin or Merkel's classified phone transcript, he then admits to sharing this classified information with a group of peers OUTSIDE classified channels and ended his 15 mins of fame by declaring Putin nor Merkel's policies on Ukraine fit the consensus of a national security bureaucratic group of nobodies. It's simply unimaginable! ..."
"... Which tells me they are fighting for something else entirely. Maybe more light will be shed following the release of the IG's FISA report. Then again, maybe they are motivated by fear that their lining their pockets with taxpayers gazillions has finally caught up to them. ..."
"... When Vindman admitted his crime, the Sergeant at Arms should have arrested him immediately after his testimony, but he was allowed to walk--yet another perversion of justice! By cutting off the line of questioning, Schiff was engaging in the obstruction of justice--the very crime he accuses Trump of committing! IMO, the application of the law must be depoliticized and all offenders arrested regardless of their station in life. ..."
"... A guy like this Vindman character, a walking identity problem first and foremost, given his background, should never have made it through the ranks of the US forces, let alone be given a job at the Security Council. A loyalty issue waiting to get worse. It's just wrong, a ridiculous notion. ..."
"... If you want to join the British forces e.g. you are required to have parents who were already born in Britain. Kept me from applying to join their navy back when I tried to. I was disappointed then, but it makes sense to handle the nationality question just like that. I can see that now. ..."
"... Regarding Washington, seems like the Beast, aka the Deep State, is finally coming out of its lair. Trump is way too salacious as bait for them to be careful and keep in hiding. Before they realize that trying to snatch Trump will be their own undoing, things will have way too much momentum for them to stop. Just look at Rep. Schiff moving from blunder to blunder. He'd be so much better off just doing nothing for half a year and keeping his mouth shut, but he somehow cannot do that. Neither can the Times. ..."
"... American citizens lost their voice in foreign policy a long time ago. It's a question I ask when the party politicians meet with lobbyists or attend events like Bilderberg. I am thankful for the alt media. Americans should be disgusted by their politicians and political parties. ..."
President Trump and many other people believe that it would be better for the United
States to ally with Russia against an ever growing China than to push Russia and China into
an undefeatable alliance against the United States. Trump often alluded to this during his
campaign. The voters seem to have liked that view.
The U.S. coup in the Ukraine made that policy more difficult to achieve. But within the
big picture the Ukraine is just a bankrupt and corrupt state that has little strategic value
and can be ignored.
One can disagree with that view and with other foreign policy priorities Trump set out and
pursues. I certainly disagree with most of them. But for those who work "at the pleasure of
the President" his views are the guidelines that set the direction of their duties.
The anti-Russian/pro-Ukrainian fanatics in the Borg, to which Lt.Col. Vindman belongs, are
trying to prevent Trump from achieving his large picture vision of U.S. strategic interest
and from defining U.S. foreign policy goals. They want to implement their own polices
independent of what the president thinks or believes.
We have warned that such interference by the Borg, the 'deep state' or 'swamp', is a
danger
to democracy :
If the deep state is allowed to make its own policies against the will of the elected
officials why should we bother with holding elections?
The Democrats are stupid to applaud this and to even further these schemes. They are
likely to regain the presidency in 2024. What will they do when all the Civil Service
functionaries Trump will have installed by then organize to ruin their policies?
It is unfortunate that the above points have to be repeated again and again. But when
powerful media try to sell the lies about the Ukrainian interferences by repeating the same
falsehoods over and over again the truth has only a chance to win when it is likewise spread
repeatedly.
Vindman is a Jew born in Ukraine and brought up in the Little Odessa
neighborhood of Brooklyn. I surmise he is reflecting Israeli disquiet with the idea of a
peace in Syria that leaves Assad in power.
I first heard this idea that Trump is supposed to implement the foreign policy of the
"government policy community" just a few days ago on the PBS Snooze Hour. It was startling to
hear such a blatant admission of the existence of the "Deep State", and that Trump is
supposed to obey it. I wonder who wrote the memo that says its now OK to publicly criticize
Trump for not following the orders of the "government policy community".
Everyone was shocked when Trump won the election, especially Trump and the "government
policy community". He is the proverbial dog that caught the speeding car. It's quaint that
Trump thinks he can make real policy changes. His failures in medical insurance, controlling
the FED, etc. underscore the point that being the leader is useless if underlings don't obey.
The "government policy community" will never follow Trump and it won't stop until Trump is
gone one way or another.
Trump is truly a horrible excuse for a human being, but apparently that is what is
required to successfully rip the facade off the Deep State, however one wants to define it.
Brain-dead Dummycrats will nod and exclaim that of course Trump is supposed to follow policy
established by "knowledgeable experts". But I speculate that this new public attitude of the
stink tank talking heads will enrage Trump supporters.
I'm starting to think that things may get really ugly in the "Home of the Brave and the
Land of the Free".
Our foreign policies have, IMO, long been tailored to the needs and expectations of our major
corporations. Notably, the fossil fuel corporations and their allies on Wall street.
Our corporate empire wishes to export predatory capitalism around the globe, and pity
any
nation who stands in our way..
Isn't it something, b. Could you imagine ever reading a headline out of Russia or Germany
where a subordinate went on record declaring he made attempts to edit Putin or Merkel's
classified phone transcript, he then admits to sharing this classified information with a
group of peers OUTSIDE classified channels and ended his 15 mins of fame by declaring Putin
nor Merkel's policies on Ukraine fit the consensus of a national security bureaucratic group
of nobodies. It's simply unimaginable!
Last night I watched a report by Catherine Herrhidge of Fox state that in Vindman's
statement he admits to sharing POTUS' classified transcripts and other readouts to a small
group of others outside the NSC. In essence he admitted to leaking classified information.
When Rep Jim Jordan started to drill down into that line of questioning, Schiff cut him
off.
This entire shitshow honestly tells any w/an open mind that the D's and their leadership
are desperate. Imagine a committee chairman not allowing members to question a witness about
who he shared the President's classified information with. That's not the rascally Dem Party
I know. It's painfully obvious these radicals will walk on hot coals, climb the Himalayans
and swim across the Atlantic to pin anything and I mean anything on Trump. They do not care
about downstream impacts, catastrophic as they may turn out to be.
Which tells me they are fighting for something else entirely. Maybe more light will be
shed following the release of the IG's FISA report. Then again, maybe they are motivated by
fear that their lining their pockets with taxpayers gazillions has finally caught up to
them.
When Vindman admitted his crime, the Sergeant at Arms should have arrested him immediately
after his testimony, but he was allowed to walk--yet another perversion of justice! By
cutting off the line of questioning, Schiff was engaging in the obstruction of justice--the
very crime he accuses Trump of committing! IMO, the application of the law must be
depoliticized and all offenders arrested regardless of their station in life.
A guy like this Vindman character, a walking identity problem first and foremost, given
his background, should never have made it through the ranks of the US forces, let alone be
given a job at the Security Council. A loyalty issue waiting to get worse. It's just wrong, a
ridiculous notion.
If you want to join the British forces e.g. you are required to have parents who were already
born in Britain. Kept me from applying to join their navy back when I tried to. I was
disappointed then, but it makes sense to handle the nationality question just like that. I
can see that now.
And nothing good ever comes from Ukraine. It's a psyched country, or would-be country, just
there to give the world trouble.
Regarding Washington, seems like the Beast, aka the Deep State, is finally coming out of its
lair. Trump is way too salacious as bait for them to be careful and keep in hiding. Before
they realize that trying to snatch Trump will be their own undoing, things will have way too
much momentum for them to stop. Just look at Rep. Schiff moving from blunder to blunder. He'd
be so much better off just doing nothing for half a year and keeping his mouth shut, but he
somehow cannot do that. Neither can the Times.
Looks like
Real Clear Investigations is suggesting a certain Eric Ciaramella is the "whistleblower",
which might upset Schiff since the Democrats want he name and political attachments kept a
secret. Anyway the article provides some more pieces for the Russiagate/Ukrainegate jigsaw
puzzle.
American citizens lost their voice in foreign policy a long time ago. It's a question I ask
when the party politicians meet with lobbyists or attend events like Bilderberg. I am
thankful for the alt media. Americans should be disgusted by their politicians and political
parties.
Okay, so just what is the Outlaw US Empire's Foreign/Imperial Policy? I'm glad I asked!
The overarching #1 policy goal of the Outlaw US Empire is to establish Full Spectrum
Domination over the planet and its people as enunciated publicly in 1996 policy paper
Joint
Vision 2010 which was modified and republished as Joint Vision 2020 , both of
which are essentially military policies, not National Defense as they're espousing 100%
offensive doctrines. In tandem is the much older economic policy plot known as the Washington
Consensus, which I've referenced many times and is best explained by Dr. Hudson's book
Super
Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire , and began at the end of WW2
but was greatly expanded/escalated in 1978.
Now it's obvious that Trump's trying to implement his own policies since he's getting so
much resistance. On the previous thread having this topic, I noted that Pepe Escobar had
written several pieces citing members of the Current Oligarchy who are Trump supporters who
provided him with info as to the likely directions of Trump's policies if he became POTUS. In
response to a request by Evelyn, I went and looked for those old items and found several.
This one IMO is worthy
of close scrutiny. Pepe opens:
"And for all the 24/7 scandal time of non-stop groping and kissing and lewd locker room
misbehaving, Trump seems to be ready to limp toward the finish line just as he began; an
all-out populist/nativist/nationalist fighting open borders (a Clinton mantra, as revealed by
the latest WikiLeaks Podesta email dump); 'free' trade; neoliberal globalization; and regime
change/bomb them into democracy/'humanitarian' imperialism."
Yes, there's more, but the above's more than enough to show that Trump's 100% against the
two major policies of the Outlaw US Empire--and--he's actually done what the above suggests
he might do. I remember reading that just a little more than 3 years ago and thought Pepe was
fed a line of bull from his sources--he wasn't.
S.O. 2
"> Will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its
dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity.
Take a look at that statement and realise how diseased it is."
I totally agree. It is diseased on multiple levels. "lock in"? he says? What if Ukrainians
change their minds??? Say, by electing a Russia-leaning politico?
Oh, right, that's what happened back in 2014. Hence, the Maidan "lock-in." to me this "lock
in" comment is an open confession of ongoing meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs.
That is quite apart from the sick joke that is reference to "a dream of vibrant democracy
and economic development" brought about by the "West-leaning trajectory."
From what I have heard, Ukraine is an unmitigated disaster since "the West" decided to
determine and "lock in" its political trajectory. Not to mention thousands dead in the
Donbass and Lukansk.
"Donald Trump's red wave on Election Day was an unprecedented body blow against
neoliberalism. The stupid early-1990s prediction about the 'end of history' turned into a
– possible – shock of the new....
"Once again. A body blow, not a death blow. Like the cast of The Walking Dead, the
zombie neoliberal elite simply won't quit. For the Powers That Be/Deep State/Wall Street
axis, there's only one game in town, and that is to win, at all costs . Failing that, to
knock over the whole chessboard, as in hot war...
"The angry, white, blue collar Western uprising is the ultimate backlash against
neoliberalism – an instinctive reaction against the rigged economic casino capitalism
game and its subservient political arms. That's at the core of Trump winning non-college
white voters in Wisconsin by 28 points. Blaming 'whitelash', racism, WikiLeaks or Russia is
no more than childish diversionary tactics." [My Emphasis]
No, they didn't quit but immediately put their very improvised "insurance policy" into
play based on the lies and contrivances concocted during the campaign and put into play by
Obama in the most unprecedented fashion ever as a sitting POTUS had never before sought to
undermine/sabotage the incoming POTUS in the manner being devised--essentially in my book,
Obama committed treason: again .
In his written testimony (from the Stars and Stripes account in Don Bacon's link at 146 in
the previous 'Deep State' thread) Lt. Colonel Vindman wrote:"...I am a patriot, and it is my
sacred duty and honor to advance and defend OUR country, irrespective of party or politics."
Thanks so much b, for elaborating on that first part - "...sacred duty and honor to
advance.."
It does seem the Constitutional duties and limitations got lost in the shuffle back when
George Bush (I think it was) joked the Constitution was 'just a piece of paper.' Still, even
he too thought foreign policy was his to dictate. I am remembering the 'first strike'
doctrine that he propounded and Al Gore gave a speech decrying back in the day.
That "advance" stuck in my craw - thanks for shining the light.
@29 Ghost Ship
fascinating... didn't realize how much the Trump Admin's seemingly simple
retaliation-for-Russiagate investigation of Biden really struck a nerve among the Obama era
CIA/NSC Ukraine team. Wonder what they know.
The new deployment in Syria will
leave almost the same
number of U.S. troops in the country as there were before the "withdrawal":
Meanwhile, the first few hundred infantry troops, soon to be joined by mechanized troops in Bradley fighting vehicles and possibly
a few tanks, have driven in from Iraq. Defense Department officials said the total number of American troops guarding the oil
fields would be around 500. When combined with the troops at Al-Tanf, that brings the number of American troops projected to be
in Syria to near 900, a number that could easily rise if, as expected, the Islamic State begins to make a comeback. "We're under
no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi," said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's
Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out."
Meanwhile, the first few hundred infantry troops, soon to be joined by mechanized troops in Bradley fighting vehicles and possibly
a few tanks, have driven in from Iraq. Defense Department officials said the total number of American troops guarding the oil
fields would be around 500. When combined with the troops at Al-Tanf, that brings the number of American troops projected to be
in Syria to near 900, a number that could easily rise if, as expected, the Islamic State begins to make a comeback. "We're under
no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi," said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's
Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out."
When combined with the troops at Al-Tanf, that brings the number of American troops projected to be in Syria to near 900, a number
that could easily rise if, as expected, the Islamic State begins to make a comeback. "We're under no illusion that they will go
away because we killed Baghdadi," said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon
news conference Wednesday. "Since it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out." When combined with the troops at
Al-Tanf, that brings the number of American troops projected to be in Syria to near 900, a number that could easily rise if, as
expected, the Islamic State begins to make a comeback. "We're under no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi,"
said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since
it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out." "We're under no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi,"
said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since
it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out." "We're under no illusion that they will go away because we killed Baghdadi,"
said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military's Central Command, during a Pentagon news conference Wednesday. "Since
it's an ideology, you will never be able to stamp it out."
These few sentences in the These few sentences in the NYT report on the deployment sum up the absurdity and futility of the
mission that these troops have been given. A few hundred troops are being sent to "guard" oil fields that belong to the Syrian government
for the purpose of keeping the Syrian government from being able to use their own property, so there it seems as if U.S. troops stuck
with this illegal and bizarre mission indefinitely. The troops that have been sent there also happen to be a National Guard unit
that shouldn't be there: ... ... ... A smaller number of troops will remain at the pointless Tanf base as a token force just so that
the administration can say that it is opposing Iranian influence in Syria. Neither one of these has anything to do with making the
U.S. more secure, and neither one of them has ever been authorized by Congress. The unauthorized anti-ISIS mission that these two
groups of soldiers are supposedly supporting also won't end because, as Gen. McKenzie puts it, "you will never be able to stamp it
out," so their illegal military presence in Syria will continue because there will always be the possibility of a "resurgence." Killing
Baghdadi is an operational success that doesn't really change very much. Max Abrahms ... ... ... A smaller number of troops will
remain at the pointless Tanf base as a token force just so that the administration can say that it is opposing Iranian influence
in Syria. Neither one of these has anything to do with making the U.S. more secure, and neither one of them has ever been authorized
by Congress. The unauthorized anti-ISIS mission that these two groups of soldiers are supposedly supporting also won't end because,
as Gen. McKenzie puts it, "you will never be able to stamp it out," so their illegal military presence in Syria will continue because
there will always be the possibility of a "resurgence." Killing Baghdadi is an operational success that doesn't really change very
much. Max Abrahms A smaller number of troops will remain at the pointless Tanf base as a token force just so that the administration
can say that it is opposing Iranian influence in Syria. Neither one of these has anything to do with making the U.S. more secure,
and neither one of them has ever been authorized by Congress. The unauthorized anti-ISIS mission that these two groups of soldiers
are supposedly supporting also won't end because, as Gen. McKenzie puts it, "you will never be able to stamp it out," so their illegal
military presence in Syria will continue because there will always be the possibility of a "resurgence." Killing Baghdadi is an operational
success that doesn't really change very much. Max Abrahms Killing Baghdadi is an operational success that doesn't really change very
much. Max Abrahms Killing Baghdadi is an operational success that doesn't really change very much. Max Abrahms
explains that his death doesn't
matter for the future of the group because he was a remarkably bad leader:
When you look scientifically at the history of militant groups, one thing becomes immediately clear about the Islamic State (ISIS):
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was one stupid leader. Baghdadi could have written a book called Rules for Rebels to Fail. Indeed, he did
the exact opposite of what smart leaders have historically done to achieve their stated political goals. When you look scientifically
at the history of militant groups, one thing becomes immediately clear about the Islamic State (ISIS): Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was
one stupid leader. Baghdadi could have written a book called Rules for Rebels to Fail. Indeed, he did the exact opposite of what
smart leaders have historically done to achieve their stated political goals.
In other words, eliminating such an incompetent leader is hardly a fatal blow to a group when he is the one who led them to ruin.
All of this demonstrates how foolish our Syria policy is in particular, and it also shines a light on our complete lack of strategy
in countering terrorist groups. The U.S. can kill jihadist leaders and lots of their followers again and again, but a heavily militarized
approach to counter-terrorism has caused terrorist groups to flourish and terrorist attacks to increase significantly over time.
If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile
effort at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate.
This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player
isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war
on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country
where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. In other words, eliminating such an incompetent leader is hardly a fatal
blow to a group when he is the one who led them to ruin. All of this demonstrates how foolish our Syria policy is in particular,
and it also shines a light on our complete lack of strategy in countering terrorist groups. The U.S. can kill jihadist leaders and
lots of their followers again and again, but a heavily militarized approach to counter-terrorism has caused terrorist groups to flourish
and terrorist attacks to increase significantly over time. If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't
make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response
produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it
too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions
along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and
illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. All of this demonstrates
how foolish our Syria policy is in particular, and it also shines a light on our complete lack of strategy in countering terrorist
groups. The U.S. can kill jihadist leaders and lots of their followers again and again, but a heavily militarized approach to counter-terrorism
has caused terrorist groups to flourish and terrorist attacks to increase significantly over time. If it is impossible to "stamp
it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through
force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been
likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent
civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in
spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve
anything worthwhile. All of this demonstrates how foolish our Syria policy is in particular, and it also shines a light on our complete
lack of strategy in countering terrorist groups. The U.S. can kill jihadist leaders and lots of their followers again and again,
but a heavily militarized approach to counter-terrorism has caused terrorist groups to flourish and terrorist attacks to increase
significantly over time. If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous
resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than
it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least
in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen
years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few
hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. If it is impossible to "stamp it out" because
it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort at stamping it out through force, especially
when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole,
but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing
entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist
groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. If it
is impossible to "stamp it out" because it is an ideology, it doesn't make any sense to devote enormous resources to a futile effort
at stamping it out through force, especially when a militarized response produces more enemies than it can possibly eliminate. This
approach has sometimes been likened to whack-a-mole, but that gives it too much credit. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't
responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on
terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country
where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent
civilians and destabilizing entire regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in
spawning more and worse terrorist groups, and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve
anything worthwhile. At least in whack-a-mole, the player isn't responsible for killing innocent civilians and destabilizing entire
regions along the way. Eighteen years since 9/11, the "war on terror" has succeeded mainly in spawning more and worse terrorist groups,
and illegally keeping a few hundred troops in a country where they don't belong won't achieve anything worthwhile.
Now, were Israel (and Saudi Arabia) not screeching for regime change, nobody in the pundit class would care in the slightest about
"Muh Poor Kurds" or "Iranian influence" or "ISIS ZOMG" or anything else about the region.
Filter any news reports you read or see accordingly.
Will achieve a good deal of something. Steal the oil to finance the empire, poke the Russians in the eye, continue destabilizing
Syria as the means to get closer to installing democracy in Iran. Will, definately.
Incorrect!!!!! Our Middle East policy is fantastic - if you are a local neocon, warmonger, apostle and/or fan of the only democracies
in the Middle East; namely, Israel and Saudi Arabia. If you are an American it is an absurd, illogical, and possibly unconstitutional
policy. Don't count on the knee jerk worshipers of AIPAC in Congress to call for a proper examination. Golly NO! They are still
upset that Russia might be interfering in our elections. Never mind Israel. Israel just runs the show. Not to worry - they are
our best and bravest ally? Congress still does not believe the USS Liberty was attacked by our beloved Israel. Get out of the
Middle East morass ASAP and screw the party of Middle East wars .
"... Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal: ..."
"... " Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. " ..."
"... The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September 27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page: ..."
"... With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very, very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter. ..."
With the Trump impeachment procedures ongoing and the connection to his conversation about the
Biden family with Ukraine President Zelenskyy, there has been very little coverage of an
important aspect of the relationship between Washington and Kiev. While none of us can speak to
the actual intent of Donald Trump's remarks be it for personal gain or for other reasons, there
is background information that may help illuminate the context of the discussion between the
two world leaders.
In case you haven't read the pertinent section of the transcript of the conversation, here it
is:
" President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that
you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any
future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the
United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States
and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard
on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him
having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate
even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just
recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we
will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody
but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most
experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you
Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also
plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as
the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I
can assure you.
President Trump: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good
and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way
they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr.
Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I
would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy
very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that
would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the
people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that.
The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution
and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney
General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you
can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.
President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all,
I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute
majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate,
who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or
she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue.
The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the
honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top
of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to
us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in
our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall
her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad
ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she
admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new
President well enough.
President Trump: Well, she's going to go through some things. I will have Mr.
Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get
to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very
badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to
get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It's a great country. I have many
Ukrainian friends, their incredible people." (my bolds)
Now, let's look back in time to 1998. On July 22, 1998, a treaty was signed between Ukraine and
Washington.
The Treaty on Mutual Legal
Assistance in Criminal Matters was signed in Kiev on the aforementioned date. Here is an
excerpt from the The original letter of submittal from the Department of State to the
President's office dated October 19, 1999 which states the following:
"I have the honor to submit to you the Treaty between the United States of America and
Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters with Annex (``the Treaty''), signed at
Kiev on July 22, 1998. I recommend that the Treaty be transmitted to the Senate for its advice
and consent to ratification. Also enclosed, for the information of the Senate, is an exchange of notes under which the
Treaty is being provisionally applied to the extent possible under our respective domestic
laws, in order to provide a basis for immediate mutual assistance in criminal matters.
Provisional application would cease upon entry into force of the Treaty.
The Treaty covers mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. In recent years, similar
bilateral treaties have entered into force with a number of other countries. The Treaty with
Ukraine contains all essential provisions sought by the United States. It will enhance our
ability to investigate and prosecute a range of offenses.The Treaty is designed to
be self-executing and will not require new legislation." (my bold)
The Treaty was then transmitted by the President of the United States (Bill Clinton) to the
Senate on November 10, 1999 (Treaty Document 106-16 -106th Congress - First Session) as shown
on this letter of
transmittal from Bill Clinton's office:
Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal:
" Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or
statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving
documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or
other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related
to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any
other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. "
The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September
27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the
President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on
February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page:
Here are the first two pages of the Treaty which outline the scope of assistance that is to
be offered by both nations as well as the limitations on assistance:
... ... ...
If you wish to read the Treaty in its entirety, please click
here .
With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very,
very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal
Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking
Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter.
"... If you enjoyed this original article, please consider ..."
"... making a donation ..."
"... to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Consider Israel's 1967 war for the Golan Heights, WWI partitions of Germany, Spanish American war, What am I missing? ..."
"... "Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations." ..."
"... Clearly, the UN is the arbiter of war crimes but they only ever find small, weak offenders guilty. ..."
"... The powerful countries like the US, Britain and Europe are not even investigated for war crimes let alone prosecuted. War crimes are only war crimes if there is someone there to police, prosecute and punish the offenders. There is no such authority, so reference to war crimes is just self gratification and meaningless. The US doesn't even pretend to adhere to international law. ..."
"... You can't be President of the US without engaging in war crimes. They all serve the military industrial complex. At least Trump does some things right instead of 100% for the elite and their NWO. ..."
"... I agree he's stupid, generally. But it seems pretty rational for any US President to expect he (or she) will never face any consequences for the horrific crimes they commit. ..."
"... The trouble is, angry spittle, that the US will get away with this pillage, as it has done in the past. The only difference between this "prez" and the ones before him is his *boasting* openly, publicly about America's war crimes. ..."
"... The issue of "securing oil" makes a lot if sense in this perspective. Syria is not as utterly miserable as planned, but quite miserable indeed, and delaying her access to her own oil will keep it that way. ..."
What the president advocated was one of the most telling statements of his presidency. It
amounted to an admission that he is perfectly willing to commit a war crime.
P resident Donald Trump on Sunday held a highly unusual press
conference to announce the successful special forces operation the night before that
resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. When Trump read his prepared
statement and did not walk away from the podium, my first thought was, "Oh, boy. How much
classified information is he going to release now?" My own informed opinion is that he released
a lot, talking about who did the raid, how they did it, where they launched from, what other
countries were involved, and the fact that special forces elements remained on-scene for two
hours to collect documentary intelligence. Often, those kinds of details leak out in the days
and weeks after a raid like this. But they never, ever come from the president himself.
Trump also gloated
inappropriately that Baghdadi "ran whimpering, crying, and screaming all the way" before
detonating a suicide vest, killing himself and three of his children. The whimpering, crying,
and screaming part probably wasn't true. After all, the raid was in the middle of the night and
Baghdadi had fled into a tunnel to try to escape the onslaught. It would have been impossible
to know if he was crying down there. Trump added about Baghdadi, "He died like a dog. He died
like a coward. The world is now a much safer place."
>>Please
Donate to Consortium News' Fall Fund Drive<<
Very few people in the Middle East keep dogs as pets. This was an insult just for the sake
of insult. Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad Baghdadi is dead. He was a coldblooded murderer,
child killer, and terrorist, and the world is a better place without him in it. But the insults
were unnecessary.
President Donald Trump announcing the U.S. killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (Twitter)
All of that is irrelevant to the story, though. The most interesting part of the president's
press conference was his segue into a non sequitur
about Iraq. Mid way through the press conference a reporter asked Trump about what "brilliant"
people helped in his decision-making process for the operation. Trump's response was one of the
most telling statements of his presidency. Indeed, it was an admission that he is perfectly
willing to commit a war crime, an impeachable offense, as part of his personal ideology. Here's
the exchange :
Reporter: "You -- you mentioned that you had met some -- gotten to know some brilliant
people along this process who -- who had helped provide information and -- and -- and advice
along the way. Is there anyone in particular or would you like to give anyone credit for
getting to this point today?"
Trump: "Well, I -- I would but if I mention one, I have to mention so many. I spoke to
Senator Richard Burr this morning and as you know, he's very involved with intelligence and
the committee. [Note: Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) is the chairman of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence.] And he's a great gentleman. I spoke with Lindsey Graham just a
little while -- in fact, Lindsey Graham is right over here, and he's been very much involved
in this subject and he's -- he's a very strong hawk, but I think Lindsey agrees with what
we're doing now. And again, there are plenty of other countries that can help them patrol. I
don't want to leave 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000 soldiers on the border. But where Lindsey and I
totally agree is the oil.
"The oil is, you know, so valuable. For many reasons. It fueled ISIS, number one. Number
two, it helps the Kurds, because it's basically been taken away from the Kurds. They were
able to live with that oil. And number three, it can help us, because we should be able to
take some also. And what I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with an ExxonMobil or one of
our great companies to go in there and do it properly. Right now it's not big. It's big oil
underground but it's not big oil up top. Much of the machinery has been shot and dead. It's
been through wars. But -- and -- and spread out the wealth. But no, we're protecting the oil,
we're securing the oil. Now that doesn't mean we don't make a deal at some point.
"But I don't want to be -- they're -- they're fighting for 1,000 years, they're fighting
for centuries. I want to bring our soldiers back home, but I do want to secure the oil. If
you read about the history of Donald Trump, I was a civilian. I had absolutely nothing to do
with going into Iraq and I was totally against it. But I always used to say that if they're
going to go in -- nobody cared that much but it got written about -- if they're going to go
in -- I'm sure you've heard the statement because I made it more than any human being alive.
If they're going into Iraq, keep the oil. They never did. They never did. I know Lindsey
Graham had a bill where basically we would have been paid back for all of the billions of
dollars we've spent."
Pillaging
What Donald Trump is advocating here, in his very Donald Trump kind of way, is "pillaging."
He is advocating taking Iraq's oil by force, ostensibly as payment for our "liberation" of that
country. This is clearly and definitively a war
crime .
International law has long protected property against pillage during armed conflict. The
Lieber Code, a military law from the U.S. civil war, said, "All pillage or sacking, even after
taking place by force, are prohibited under penalty of death, or such other severe punishment
as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense." In The Hague Regulations of 1907, two
provisions stipulate clearly that "the pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault,
is prohibited," and that "pillage is formally forbidden." The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court have both formally reaffirmed that
pillaging a country of its natural resources is illegal and is considered to be a war crime.
It's as simple as that.
It matters not one whit if Lindsey Graham has a bill to take Iraq's oil. It doesn't matter
if Trump thinks we should take the oil as reimbursement for U.S. aggression against that
country. What matters here is the rule of law, and the law is clear. It's bad enough that the
U.S. military is in Syria illegally. (There are only three ways to send troops to a foreign
country legally: If the troops are invited by the country; if the country attacks the United
States; or with the permission of the United Nations Security Council.) Let's not add more
international crimes to the ones we've already committed.
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the
Obama administration under the Espionage Act -- a law designed to punish spies. He served 23
months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture
program.
If you enjoyed this original article, please considermaking a donationto Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like
this one.
Vincent Castigliola , October 30, 2019 at 14:03
We have no right undertaking any military action in Syria or taking or deciding how
Syria's oil should be used. I also respect John K; however, I question his characterization
of taking control of Syrian territory or resources as "pillage".
I would distinguish the literal definition and also ask him to cite a single instance in
which the victor in a war didn't take property fro the loser.
Consider Israel's 1967 war for the Golan Heights, WWI partitions of Germany, Spanish American
war,
What am I missing?
You're missing that the law changed over time and that Israel's pillage of Palestine is an
ongoing legal issue.
1949 4th Geneva Convention, Article 33: "Pillage is prohibited."
Article 53:
"Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging
individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public
authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such
destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."
GMCasey , October 31, 2019 at 11:37
Vincent, I think you missed the pillage of America when the Supreme Court ruled that
corporations are people too.
This has been a "pillage" act from day one The US Congress, never declared a war on
Syria.
GMCasey , October 31, 2019 at 11:57
Vincent, you forgot how America took down the free nation of Hawaii and its queen. Then
there's the Whiskey Rebellion when America was forming that was pretty depressing too as it
let the citizens know that freedom was missing from certain classes. The sadness of America's
continual influence in South America was begun so long ago, and remember, the land on which
Guantanamo is situated does belong to Cuba -- -and then of course, Taft and the Philippines
-- -- – actually, it seems since the beginning of America's time this nation has not
seriously committed to making ,"a more perfect union," for its citizens and the world -- --
–maybe the Climate Crisis will rein us in.
robert e williamson jr , October 30, 2019 at 13:00
RE: my earlier comment!
The US Government has been a thief ever since those who created it started stealing the
North American Continent from the indigenous people who lived here. Never mind the genocide
the white man prosecuted against those people.
We been stealing oil from the middle east ever since the 1950's. Now that the problems
created world wide by the super wealthy elitists, SWETS, greed are coming back to haunt us
has the deep state decided we need to be governed by a dictator or is the dictator the excuse
for the security state to take over the government because a dictator got elected potus?
Vera Gottlieb , October 30, 2019 at 12:56
All one needs to do is study up close a world map, locate all the countries rich in
natural resources and bingo know where the US will meddle next, bring "democracy and human
rights", instigate civil unrest and then intervene. All in a nutshell: stealing.
robert e williamson jr , October 30, 2019 at 12:43
Anyone, the only republicans talking for the last two years, who supports the proposition
that the "Orange Apocalypse " could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it needs
to be in the dock also. . The one thing the security state, deep state, intelligence
community and congress have all trumpeted, pardon the pun, is the U.S. does not support
dictators. Right.
Er, that is dictators anywhere the U.S. security state, deep state, intelligence community
and congress doesn't want them.
The CIA history does support that last statement BTW.
CIA has stellar record of interfering in elections and overthrowing legitimately elected
rulers the globe over. Successful endeavors CIA calls them I believe.
The CIA went against the conventions of democracy by supporting dictators as soon as the
agency was created. See the Dulles Bros. and the United Fruit Company saga. The U.S. foreign
policy has been schizophrenic ever since.
Rob , October 30, 2019 at 12:36
Hey, maybe the pillaging of natural resources acquired by military conquest can be added
to the list of impeachment charges against Trump. That list could stretch across an ocean, if
the Dems include all of Trump's impeachable offenses. Ukrainegate is possibly the least
serious of all.
Michael McNulty , October 30, 2019 at 11:53
If Al Capone was alive today he wouldn't go into organised crime and bribe officials, he'd
go into Wall Street and own them.
Dale , October 30, 2019 at 10:18
Excellent article, John. I will never forget the oil guys gathering in my Bahrain office
with their maps of Iraq's oil fields. I don't think they have yet made their millions, but I
have no doubt they expect they will.
"International law has long protected property against pillage during armed conflict. The
Lieber Code, a military law from the U.S. civil war, said, "All pillage or sacking, even
after taking place by force, are prohibited under penalty of death, or such other severe
punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense." "
As if that was anything new. The USA| pilfered tens of thousands of patents after WW2 fom
Germany – from private companies. The confiscation of German foreign accounts, like in
WW1 the removing of machinery and the dismantling of Factories etc. etc. The USA is no
diffrnet in this aspect than what the Nazis did in the areas they occupied. See:
spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-29194050.html
Michael McNulty , October 30, 2019 at 12:04
Regarding patent theft, I read the two places the Nazis headed for when invading a country
were the Central Bank and the Patent Office. It turns out the pulse engine they used on the
V1 Doodlebug was a design stolen from the Patent Office in Paris. The design was granted a
patent around the end of WWI but it had not been in production because nobody had a practical
use for it. Until the Germans did.
Keith , October 30, 2019 at 09:40
When it is said that "we take the oil," what is meant is that our oligarchs are taking the
oil. "We" are not taking the oil, they are. I wonder if, when the time comes that the means
of production are seized in an uprising in this country if those leading such uprising will
be considered war criminals.
Nathan Mulcahy , October 30, 2019 at 08:02
There is nothing surprising or unusual about Trump saying that he is willing to commit war
crimes. His immediate predecessors (Obama, Bush and Clinton) have all committed war crimes
and all are celebrated widely as great statesmen (one of them recently even as a "peace
expert"). It is just that, unlike his predecessors, Trump does not care about the false
facade.
What is stunning is not Trump's bluntness, but the utter disregard for (international) law
by both political "parties" (I'd rather call them two brands of the same Mafia organization),
our so called "media" (I'd rather call them propaganda arms of the said Mafia organization),
but also of the "intellectuals" of the land, and of course the vast, vast majority of its
citizens. (Of course I exclude the readers of this website, and of similar news media from my
condemnation).
john wilson , October 30, 2019 at 07:02
If plundering the oil was America's only war crime we would think that wasn't so bad. The
war crimes committed by the West are so huge that much of them are never reported. Clearly,
the UN is the arbiter of war crimes but they only ever find small, weak offenders guilty.
The
powerful countries like the US, Britain and Europe are not even investigated for war crimes
let alone prosecuted. War crimes are only war crimes if there is someone there to police,
prosecute and punish the offenders. There is no such authority, so reference to war crimes is
just self gratification and meaningless. The US doesn't even pretend to adhere to
international law.
@ "The war crimes committed by the West are so huge that much of them are never
reported."
I disagree. I think generally they are reported but are not identified as the war crimes
that they are. E.g., the wars of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan,
etc.
Dao Gen , October 30, 2019 at 02:53
It's unlikely that Trump is sending US troops back into Syria for economic or for
long-term reasons. Oil is just a smokescreen. Probably there are several real reasons:
1. Lindsey Graham is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, so Graham would oversee a
possible Senate trial if the foolish Dems choose to impeach. Right after Trump's recent
pullout, the neocon Graham was furious and said he would support impeachment. Trump needs to
mollify Graham and other neocon Repubs for a while for the sake of his own survival.
2. The DINO lib-neocon Dem leadership, attacked Trump ferociously from the right. And the
Repub leadership in the House all voted with the Dems to censure Trump for his very helpful
pullout. With impeachment likely, Trump can't ignore this situation.
3. The MSM are overwhelmingly neocon about foreign affairs, and they have put out many
stories romanticizing the Kurds, who have actually done a fair amount of ethnic cleansing
against Christians, Sunnis, and various tribal groups, so millions of Americans have been
brainwashed into thinking Trump actually "betrayed" the poor Kurds, whereas it was the
pro-PKK leadership of the Kurds who betrayed ordinary Kurds by not reconciling with Syria
long ago. After all, Trump announced last December that he was soon going to withdraw from
Syria. If the PKK-affiliated leaders had been realistic, there would have been no Turkish
invasion. But the MSM hide this situation, thus putting great pressure on Trump.
4. France and Israel and much of the US security state want to continue to use the Kurds as
tools to balkanize Syria, attack the Syrian government, and block Iran. They are fighting
back hard against Trump.
Ultimately Trump's reasons for staying in Syria are basically kabuki to pacify the neocons
and strengthen his domestic political position. Of course this does not justify his war
crimes. However, US forces are unlikely to stay for a long time in Syria for several reasons,
and when Trump sees a good opening, surely he will try to make another realistic withdrawal
after the impeachment farce has passed. Probably Putin will come up with some kind of
diplomatic solution that will allow the US to save face while withdrawing. The conditions
which will limit US oil banditry in Syria are:
1. After impeachment has passed and after the Syrian government liberates Idlib province, it
will send its military to eastern Syria, and the small US force will be obliged to leave.
Neither Trump nor the Syrians want a war to break out over second-rate oil fields, so
diplomacy will win out.
2. The Kurds normally look down on Arabs and discriminate against them, so there is no way
the Arab tribes now running the Deir Ezzour oil field will allow the Kurds to come in and
take it away from them. Likewise, further to the northeast the Kurds have been pushed out of
several oil fields which they grabbed after Isis forced the Syrian government to leave the
area.
3. Trump's base doesn't at all like this plan to send US troops back into Syria. If Trump
wants to be reelected, he'll be forced to withdraw by late spring of 2020. By then Trump's
base will be more important to him than the DC neocons.
This Great Oil Rustling Expedition is actually the last hurrah for the US in Syria. The US
has definitely lost in Syria, but the neocons are just too stupid, stubborn, narcissistic,
and immature to be able to come out and directly say, "We lost. Let's move on." Instead they
have to grandstand and pretend they are winning until the very last moment. How many more
people will have to die because of the vanity of the neocons and the weakness of Trump? Let
us pray there will not be many.
Dale , October 30, 2019 at 10:15
Can you supply corroboration for your allegations against the Kurds? I went looking and
found an old Telegraph article, which identified a small part of Syria where Kurdish
operations had driven Syrians toward ISIL.
But I also found this:
See: medium.com/@makreyi/have-the-syrian-kurds-committed-ethnic-cleansing-8af3c33abf6c :
"YPG has had its share of faults. Crimes have been committed in regions under their
control. Some members of Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) -- a multi-national force made up of
Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and other minorities -- have committed violations against civilians.
And those few perpetrators were reprimanded by SDF and YPG. However, by no means have the
Kurds committed ethnic cleansing and forced displacement against any ethnic or religious
group. Despite their faults, the Kurds have considerably done a phenomenon job in protecting
the civilians of all backgrounds."
Trump's no more guilty of war crimes than every President since I've been alive, for 69
years. And even Presidents before then. You can't be President of the US without engaging in
war crimes. They all serve the military industrial complex. At least Trump does some things
right instead of 100% for the elite and their NWO.
dfnslblty , October 30, 2019 at 09:45
¿What?
potus does few things correctly, and economically those things benefit the elite.
Peter , October 29, 2019 at 21:09
Historically, who benefits by emboldening the the fly overs? In show business,
entertainers always starts out by telling their audience how great they are. Essentially,
lodging their tongues up the audience's bum. Trump's got his tongue so far up the fly over's
bums, well, it's just embarrassing really. This is the recipe for popularity. Trump tells
American's just what they want to hear. Exceptionalism on steroids.
angry spittle , October 29, 2019 at 20:46
The stupid idiot announces to the world he is about to commit a war crime. That on top of
his bone headed admissions of several other crimes. The guy is so stupid he probably thinks
Cheerios are donut seeds.
Cambo mambo , October 30, 2019 at 01:14
I agree he's stupid, generally. But it seems pretty rational for any US President to
expect he (or she) will never face any consequences for the horrific crimes they commit.
Are you actually suggesting Trump would ever face justice if he sent ExxonMobil to take
over Syria or Iraqi oil wells, by force? Bush did much, much worse. Obama committed horrible
war crimes. Why would Trump face consequence when they didn't? Believing he would is what's
"stupid", imo.
AnneR , October 30, 2019 at 08:34
The trouble is, angry spittle, that the US will get away with this pillage, as it has done
in the past. The only difference between this "prez" and the ones before him is his
*boasting* openly, publicly about America's war crimes.
Of course, the Strumpet is clueless about such things as the Geneva Convention. Mind you,
even being aware of it doesn't mean that the US president and admin and Pentagon etc will in
fact abide by any of the international laws regarding war. The past 70 years have made that
absolutely clear. And so far as I recall the US has refused to agree to any possibility of
its politicos, military, secret agency folks being tried for war crimes by any international
body. So the whole political, MIC, corporate-capitalist-imperialist set up here feels
completely free to destroy, steal, lay claim to, give away, kill, torture – as it
pleases anywhere it wants, when and how it wants.
The stupidity of Trump may be exaggerated. Keep in mind that he is a businessman who had
his key property bankrupted and survived pretty well. Superficially, bankruptcy is a symptom
of stupidity, but the trick is to make OTHER people to loose money and yet continue in spite
of common wisdom of lost trust etc.
Exhibit one is "insane" endeavor to bring Iran to its knees by unilaterally breaking a
multilateral agreement and imposing sanctions that would be utterly unenforceable because no
serious country would cooperate. Initially that was my thinking, all leaders of major allied
countries were against and promised measures to resist. And "heroically" petitioned to
Washington to be allowed to do so. Washington gave a limited time reprieve and otherwise
refused. So that make them sad, although quickly they focused on other troubles. Trump proved
that Amercan ability to get away with any s t imaginable was greatly underestimated.
Thus Trump's citizenry can rejoice that America proved better than before that it has
unique power to make selected other countries very misreable. Wimps like Obama were dabbling
in that too, but now the lives of Venezuela and Iran are worse than before. Not that allies
and lap dog countries do well, but not as miserable. And leaders from Equador to Lithuania
can be glad that following America is a wise choice, the alternative is worse, even if they
are periodically humiliated.
The issue of "securing oil" makes a lot if sense in this perspective. Syria is not as
utterly miserable as planned, but quite miserable indeed, and delaying her access to her own
oil will keep it that way.
To summarise, "admitting to crimes" is not stupid if you can get away with it. But it is
evil.
JustAMaverick , October 29, 2019 at 20:14
From here on out the rule of law will have very little meaning if any at all
internationally or otherwise. We can't vote our way out and the corporate fascists and the
military industrial machine have assumed virtually total control of everything. They will not
give that power back, nor will they give up one cent of their ill gotten gains without a
fight .a fight they have been preparing for, for almost forty years.
America is truly a Kleptocracy with all the goals and lack of ethics or morals that word
implies. We have let them sow an enormous amount of greed, hate and ignorance while they
lobotomized the citizenry with endless programming and propaganda, and that crop is soon to
be reaped. It will be bad. Really bad Worse, nobody even addresses the real issues let alone
unites to defend themselves.
To my eyes the daylight is almost gone and all I can see in the future is as Orwell put
it: "A boot kicking you in the face forever."
The problem traces back to the conquest of Iraq. The article implicitly assumes the
existence of a sovereign entity named
"Iraq." That is wrong. There is no such entity. There was one up until 2003. Then U.S. imperialism
invaded and destroyed it. Iraq's oil was taken by force right there.
What resulted is an occupation political project in place of the former Iraqi state. Then
the plan went wrong. Iran seized control of the project entity through elections. The first
and second "Iraqi prime ministers" under the conquest represented an Iranian clerical
organization called the Islamic Dawa.
Now, the occupation political entity was granted exclusive control of Iraq's oil revenues
under the terms of the conquest. The U.S. imperialists figured they would remain in control
of the entity, but Iran gained control.
Trump doesn't want to take Iraq's oil away not from Iraq. He wants to take it away from
Iran.
Jimmy Gates , October 29, 2019 at 18:58
Valid call. Include, in the prosecution, all previous executives who are\ were complicit
in these crimes. We all know the Presidents etc, but Congress members should be indicted and
IC members as well.
Nick , October 30, 2019 at 10:25
Don't forget 'journalists'! Bill Kristol and Judith Miller should be in the dock as
well!
lizzie dw , October 29, 2019 at 18:44
I agree totally with this author. Taking Syria's oil is Not A Good Thing. It is blatant
thievery to take something from a sovereign country "because you can", then try to justify it
by some lame statement. What additionally bothers me is that this attitude has been present
in the USA through many administrations. Look at the Ukraine since 2014. Many long time
politicians were involved with getting money from Ukraine – for no reason other than
they were American and in charge. Look at Afghanistan and the poppy fields our soldiers are
guarding for the CIA. Thieves, all of them. Look at Clinton and the Central American drugs
through Mina. We can look at the Turks looting areas of Syria of whole factories(!) while
they were occupying the northeast. What about WWII? Politicians took whatever was not nailed
down from Germany. Stealing the art. Look at Britain only now returning some artifacts they
took out of countries they were administrating decades ago. I am sickened by all of them and
I sure am disgusted with President Trump.
rodney lowery , October 29, 2019 at 18:39
My circle of friends thought Trump's speech and actions were refreshing and perfect to
reduce these terrorist leaders publicly to nothing. You libs just can't get it. Trump is not
going to give respect and dignity to murderers. We take their life and dress them down
publicly, and take away any prestige they may have had towards other terrorists. And since
when do democrats and libs care about war crimes? why don't you go apologize for us.
ML , October 30, 2019 at 09:01
Your lack of respect for decency, decorum, the rule of international law, statesmanship,
diplomacy, etc etc, is simply breathtaking. Many of us here were appalled by Obama's war
crimes too, rodney. And most of us here are not "libs" but free and critically thinking human
beings, well apart from your Team Red/Team Blue baloney dichotomous way of seeing the
U.S.A.'s role in the world. Now, who doesn't "get it?" Why, I'd say that would be you!
With all due respect, sir Since there are a good number of Americans who've swallowed the
obvious psychological warfare "Operation Baghdadi" operation hook, line and sinker, featuring
a President of the United States effectively sharing with the American boys and girls a scary
bedtime story, – and drenched with a very poor actor's "tells" or giveaways – the
more accurate term might be "My circle jerk of friends ". We would strongly suggest sobering
up – before Phase 2 of this extremely dangerous fairy tale commences.
Peace.
Joe , October 29, 2019 at 18:35
Lot of folks were bit premature giving Trump some credit for pulling troops out of Syria.
The MIC waved a dollar sign in front of Trump and showed his true colors once again.
Noah Way , October 29, 2019 at 18:18
Just a continuation of oBOMBa's war crimes .The deep state / shadow government is in control.
Nick , October 30, 2019 at 10:35
Which were a continuation of Bush's war crimes, which were a continuation of Clinton's
which were a continuation of Bush's which were a continuation of Reagan's which were a
continuation of Carter's
Cohen notes that the Russian press, which follows American politics closely, has resulted in
a consensus that all of this -- Russiagate, Ukrainegate -- was created to stop Trump from
having better relations with Russia. Thus, it is important that Putin had been told the reason
Trump cannot engage in détente is because of Trump being shackled.
Cohen noted that expert opinion in Russia -- which informs the Kremlin leadership, including
Putin -- has soured on the United States; the older generation of Russian America specialists
who like America, who visit regularly and appreciate American culture, have become utterly
disillusioned and cannot promote a Russian-American partnership given what has happened to
Trump.
Regarding Ukraine, Cohen notes it shares a very large border with Russia, tens of millions
of intermarriages, language, culture and history, and although the United States shares none of
this with Ukraine, the United States has declared Ukraine is a strategic ally, and this would
be equivalent to Russia stating that Mexico is its strategic ally, which is preposterous; the
term "strategic" clearly has military implications.
Your line of thinking might reflect the way some people in the US Establishment look on the
matter. However, this is militarily a non-starter. Attacking Russia with nuclear weapons
would immediately result in the disappearance of the USA.
IMHO, Ukraine and other countries has been a gift to corrupt US politicians. The money
they send to Ukraine never ends in the hands of those who are supposed to get it -- the
Ukrainian peoples (it is de facto several countries). The money is redirected into the hands
of US and Ukrainian politicians and Jewish oligarchs.
The weapons that are sent to Ukraine are largely sold off to countries in the Middle East
-- countries which in turn give them to terrorists on their payrolls. This money largely
benefits the upper echelons of the army of Ukraine.
Powerful elements amongst the US power elites and their hangers on wish to provoke a war with
Russia. The obtainment of total world power would seem to be the ultimate objective.
Z Brzizinski in his late 1990's book The Grand Chessboard specifically points out
the importance of Ukraine to US ambitions in Eurasia.
Excerpts below from an 1853 US geo-political book called The New Rome elaborate
further. I see the mid 19th century book and it's contents potentially as 'a suggestion'
being put into the US public's mind to let them know what was expected of them in the future,
and why, as most people in the US, then and now, are rather indifferent about Russia, just as
most Russians are probably indifferent about the United States.
Similarly, Russia could be being manipulated into a war with the US, a war which
potentially could largely destroy both the US and Russia, which indeed may be the idea as
part of a larger picture.
People have their refusal.
Has Mr Cohen read this generally unknown 1853 book, The New Rome ?
Some excerpts from The New Rome linked below:
US and UK are free, Russia is not.
pg 155
'Freedom is now limited to the oceanic world, to England and America; Russia, with its
continental dependencies, is despotic..'
After US and UK form a united front and conquer Germany (the center of power upon
continental Europe) and consolidate control over it, the US and Russia will then square
off.
pg 109
'Thus the lines are drawn. The choirs are marshalled on each wing of the world's stage,
Russia leading the one, the United States the other. Yet the world is too small for both, and
the contest must end in the downfall of the one and the victory of the other.'
Global projection of US air power is to be the key for final US victory over Russia.
pg.155-156
'It [air power] will give us the victory over Russian continentalism. American
air-privateers will be down upon the Russian garrisons, to use our own expressive slang,
'like a parcel of bricks'
Who transcribed the broadcast (Giraldi?). BTW, I regard the transcription as very fair and
accurate.
Listening to the very last stages of the broadcast I felt that Batchelor became somewhat
confrontational towards Cohen. As a matter of fact Cohen remarked that Batchelor will be
getting a lot of phone calls and emails over that!
Here is the obvious explanation.
Zio-Globalist led by Rothschild are dead set to destroy, or at least neutralize Russia.
Keep in mind another clear and obvious point: The Zio-Globalists now see the USA as
totally expendable. There is some sign they are throwing it to the curb right now.
To be fair, Netanyahu said as much years ago. America would be tossed when no longer
needed. Well, that day is coming close. Productive facilities leaving the nation is nearing
its half-century mark, and now even films and TV shows mostly film in Canada, the UK, etc.,
even though they are sold as US products, which they are mostly not.
Destroy and Russia and USA, part one. Get them to blame each other, part two. Three?
They'll both still have lots of bombs
@Ilyana_Rozumova
“Russia now is last resistance to Globalist control of all world.
China for Globalists is not really a problem. When Globalists will control Russia than China
will like it not, will be controlled by flow of energy.”
That is essentially the situation. If Russia is forced to be something close to a vassal
of the Anglo-Zionist Empire, then China will be faced with being forced into the same boat.
The Chinese might well prefer nuclear war, and unleashing 5 million men at arms, with another
5 million in training camps.
The leaders of the Anglo-Zionist Empire would not care a teeny tiny bit if Korea,
southeast Asia, the Philippines, and Japan were to be decimated. They would be tickled pink
to fill those lands with black Africans and Sunni Arabs, with Jews running the local
shows
@Baron
Ukraine is lebensraum . It has had little importance in geopolitical affairs until
Russia stupidly gave it its independence upon the breakup of the Soviet Union. Now it’s
a slush fund for the most prominent Democrat politicians. It’s also become another
conveniently remote shithole for justifying insane military spending.
2011. The Neocons activate a long standing plan that has been around for 20 years to destroy
Syria. Syria is to be destroyed, like Iraq and Libya before it. Assad will be toppled within a
few months and Syria smashed into a thousand pieces.
The Axis of Evil, the US and its NATO satraps, Shady Wahabia, Kosherstan and Sultan Erdogan,
flood Syria with the necessary cannon fodder, hundreds of thousands of head choppers and throat
slitters from a hundred countries, with a licence to murder, burn, rape, loot, steal and
enslave to their hearts content. An alphabet soup of takfiri groups is created out of thin air,
armed, trained, paid, transported and orchestrated with tens of billions of western taxpayers
money. ISIS is just one of many.
The Syrian state, armed forces and people resist with unexpected courage and determination,
and fight the proxy head choppers to a standstill. But they are under extreme pressure and have
to concentrate their forces in the main battles in the west of the country. This leaves a
vacuum that is filled by the phantom ISIS caliphate. This suits the Axis of Evil just fine.
There is no problem with ISIS black flags flying over Damascus provided Syria is destroyed.
By 2015, the outcome is in the balance. Clinton and Sultan Erdogan have agreed to impose a
no fly zone to turn the tide in favour of the head choppers. A series of Gas Attack Hoaxes and
false flag atrocity claims are staged over a protracted period of time to justify Libya style
intervention.
All bets are off as Putin overrides his advisors and despatches Russian forces to intervene
and prevent the destruction of the Syrian state. With the support of Iran and Hezbollah, the
situation is transformed. Though the worst of the fighting is yet to come, the Neocon plot to
destroy Syria is a busted flush. Syria is steadily liberated from terrorist occupation.
The main terrorist sponsors try to salvage something from this failure. Sultan Erdogan
switches sides and takes the opportunity to attack the Kurds. Trump seizes the opportunity to
scale back US involvement, generating much hysteria from all the Zionist shills in Washington.
The Kurds seek some kind of accommodation with Damascus.
The war is now winding down. It will take some time before all the terrorist areas are
liberated and occupying US and Turkish forces have to withdraw. But the outcome is now
inevitable.
"... "Western logic is an intentionally and maliciously up-side-down logic. It says that the military operation should be stopped in order to protect civilians, whilst for them the presence of civilians under the authority of terrorists constitutes a form of protection for the civilians. The opposite is actually true. The military intervention aims at protecting the civilians, by leaving civilians under the authority of terrorists you extend a service to terrorists and take part in killing civilians." ..."
"President Assad: Let us take another example, which is Idlib. There is an agreement
through the Astana Process that the Turks will leave. The Turks did not abide by this
agreement, but we are liberating Idlib. There was a delay for a year; the political process,
the political dialogue, and various attempts were given an opportunity to drive the
terrorists out. All possibilities were exhausted. In the end, we liberated areas gradually
through military operations. The same will apply in the northern region after exhausting all
political options.
"We must remember that Erdogan aimed, from the beginning of the war, to create a problem
between the Syrian people and the Turkish people, to make it an enemy, which will happen
through a military clash. At the beginning of the war, the Turkish Army supported the Syrian
Army and cooperated with us to the greatest possible extent, until Erdogan's coup against the
Army.
Therefore, we must continue in this direction, and ensure that Turkey does not become an
enemy state. Erdogan and his group are enemies, because he leads these policies, but until
now most of the political forces in Turkey are against Erdogan's policies. So, we must ensure
not to turn Turkey into an enemy, and here comes the role of friends – the Russian role
and the Iranian role."
Yes, it's a very long and complex interview. Be sure to take your time reading.
I'm reposting here a comment I made on the earlier open thread about Syria and the US plans
for the oil patch
So about the situation in Syria...
Southfront reports that the Syrian govt has called on the SDF fighters to join the
SAA...but this has been rejected by the SDF leadership...
In particular the SDF chief Mazloum Abdi...who is still clinging to the US apron strings
like a total fool...[recently he went on western news shows to talk about how his fighters
stole Baghdadi's underwear prior to the alleged raid...]
So clearly the Pentagon move to try to stay in the Syrian oil patch depends on keeping at
least some faction of the SDF on board...
But there are many problems with this...first one is that Turkey is going to distance
itself even more from the US orbit and into deeper partnership with Russia...as noted
here by
a legit scholar and expert...
The second problem is that the Kurds don't own that oil patch to the south...it is Arab
tribes there and they have their own axe to grind with the Kurds...
Arab fighters and tribes who accepted Kurds in leadership since they had American support
and key cities in north.
Many of those Arabs are already switching and joining the Syrian Army. "Securing" oil
for benefit of the Kurds is likely to antagonize the Arab fighters and tribes in the
region.
That from a Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently
and writes for the influential geopolitical analysis blog, Syria Comment...published on zero
hedge...
As I have already noted, this is a quite stupid enterprise that Trump has acquiesced to in
the face of huge pressure from the establishment that wants to remain in Syria [and other
places] forever...
I will give my own opinion here that this Mazloum Abdi character is clearly betting on the
wrong horse...the Turks are demanding that the US hand him over since he is actually listed
on an Interpol Red Notice arrest warrant [he is the adopted son of Abdullah Occalan, the PKK
leader who is in jail in Turkey...]
He is also pissing off the Syrian government and all the millions of Syrians that support
that government, by continuing to put a stick in the spokes of the SAR and the inevitable
political process that will lead to peace and a unified Syria, since all the major players
want that...Russia, Iran and Turkey...
The US is not now, nor has ever really been a major player in Syria...its grip was always
tenuous on that northeast territory, and now it has lost the bulk of it...including most
importantly the border...
So even from a military perspective it is quite insane...how do you expect to sit inside a
country's territory, when you no longer have access to the border...?
This is just one more example of the delusional character that characterizes Sodom on the
Potomac...
The Russians by contrast play the long game...they don't need to do anything now but wait
for the inevitable internal contradictions of this scheme to fall apart...
For instance, we see in the north that the Kurds are pitching in with the SAA to fight the
Turks and their proxies [who are breaching the Sochi agreement by attacking the SAA south of
the border town of Ras Al Ayn...the SAA has a right to be there according to the
agreement...
In very plain terms, the Kurds can thank the Russians and the SAR for retaining much of
their heartland along the Turkish border...two thirds in fact, since the Turkish plan was to
take the entire 450 km stretch...they only got one third of that...
Plus the Kurds have retained, again thanks to Russia and SAR their key cities of Manbij
and Kobane...
Now this Mazloum character thinks he's going to prevail on ordinary Kurds to throw all
that away and move south into Arab tribal lands as Trump proposes...how fucking crazy is
that...?
From where I sit I don't see this US puppet retaining any legitimacy among the Kurds,
since their heartland is to the north, which has been secured by the Sochi agreement...
[A a sidebar we note that Al Masdar reports that SAA held Tel Tamr was about tp fall to
Turkish militias has proved false...I have long suspected Al Masdar as not reliable...Syrian
troops with heavy weapons are moving in, plus the Turks released to Russian military police
those 19 SAA soldiers captured by the takfiris in clashes the other day.]
I'm going to post one further excerpt, Was Obama better than Trump:
"President Assad: We should not bet on any American President. First, when Erdogan says
that he decided to make an incursion or that they told the Americans, he is trying to project
Turkey as a super power or to pretend that he makes his own decisions; all these are
theatrics shared between him and the Americans. In the beginning, nobody was allowed to
interfere, because the Americans and the West believed that demonstrations will spread out
and decide the outcome. The demonstrations did not spread as they wanted, so they shifted
towards using weapons. When weapons did not decide the outcome, they moved towards the
terrorist extremist organizations with their crazy ideology in order to decide the outcome
militarily. They were not able to. Here came the role of ISIS in the summer of 2014 in order
to disperse the efforts of the Syrian Arab Army, which it was able to do, at which point came
the Russian intervention. When all bets on the field failed, it was necessary for Turkey to
interfere and turn the tables; this is their role.
"As for Trump, you might ask me a question and I give you an answer that might sound
strange. I say that he is the best American President, not because his policies are good, but
because he is the most transparent president. All American presidents perpetrate all kinds of
political atrocities and all crimes and yet still win the Nobel Prize and project themselves
as defenders of human rights and noble and unique American values, or Western values in
general. The reality is that they are a group of criminals who represent the interests of
American lobbies, i.e. the large oil and arms companies, and others. Trump talks
transparently, saying that what we want is oil. This is the reality of American policy, at
least since WWII. We want to get rid of such and such a person or we want to offer a service
in return for money. This is the reality of American policy. What more do we need than a
transparent opponent? That is why the difference is in form only, while the reality is the
same."
I highly recommend taking the time to read the interview with Assad I linked to above. He
answers questions being asked on this thread and provides insight into his and Syria's
thoughts in numerous other areas. On his recent visit to Idlib and how he perceives the
terrorists there, a perception shared by many Syrians I encounter on Twitter:
"This has been common practice for me; the visit to Idlib in particular was because the
world perhaps believed that the whole Syria question is summed up in what is happening in the
north, and the issue has now become a Turkish Army incursion into Syrian territory, and
forgetting that all those fighting in Idlib are actually part of the Turkish Army, even
though they are called al-Qaeda, Ahrar al-Sham and other names. I assure you that those
fighters are closer to Erdogan's heart than the Turkish Army itself . We should not
forget this, because politically and in relation to Turkey in particular, the main battle is
Idlib because it is linked to the battle in the north-eastern region or the Jazeera region."
[My Emphasis]
The Foreign Ministers of Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the
United Kingdom, and the United States of America welcome the launch of the Constitutional
Committee in Geneva on October 30, 2019.
We greatly appreciate the work of the UN Secretary General and UN Special Envoy Geir
Pedersen in launching this effort. This is a long-awaited positive step that requires serious
engagement and commitment in order to succeed. It can complement implementation of other
dimensions of Security Council Resolution 2254, including the meaningful involvement of all
Syrians, especially women, in the political process. We support efforts to create a safe and
neutral environment that enables Syria to hold free and fair elections, under UN
supervision.
We recall our statement in New York on September 26 and continue to call for an immediate
and genuine nationwide ceasefire in Idlib. There can be no military solution to the Syria
crisis, only a political settlement on the basis of UNSC resolution 2254.
one line from assad in the interview that i liked..
"Western logic is an intentionally and maliciously up-side-down logic. It says that the
military operation should be stopped in order to protect civilians, whilst for them the
presence of civilians under the authority of terrorists constitutes a form of protection for
the civilians. The opposite is actually true. The military intervention aims at protecting
the civilians, by leaving civilians under the authority of terrorists you extend a service to
terrorists and take part in killing civilians."
Assad's suspicions about Erdogan and USA mirror suspicions expressed here by james,
myself, and others. Erdogan is playing both sides but favoring US-backed extremists and the
overall objective of regime-change in Syria.
American brigadier general Kevin Bergner already told us in 2007 that Abu Bakr Al Bagdadi,
the alleged Daesh chief was actually a fictional character whose voice was provided by an
actor named Abu al-Adullah Naima, and that the Islamic State is a fictional entity . Those
who had invented this fiction allegedly intended to locate the origins of the terrorist
group in Iraq, not in the dark basements of the CIA, Mosad and MI6, as well as Al Qaeda, as
revealed by Edward Snowden, the former official of the American intelligence
Also that Trump, in his usual style and record, lied all the way during his address to
comunicate the killing of Al Baghdadi:
According to The Washington Post, until October 14, President Trump had released 13,435
lies, although what he told on October 27 was the icing: that the US Delta Special Forces
attacked the home of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Bagdadi, in locality of Barisha, located in
the province of Idlib, 5 kilometers from the border of Turkey, and Trump himself saw, in
direct transmission, how that man was "crying all the way" to take refuge in a tunnel along
with his two wives and five children, and then activate the bomb vest they wore: "he died
like a dog", "we had no casualties", and that "it was like a movie". But, the press
rebelled that:
-The movie that Trump saw without popcorn had no sound, so he couldn't see him
whining-
-He was not at the White House at 3:33 pm, watching the operation, but playing golf,
Newsweek betrays him. Fact corroborated by former White House photographer Pete Souza who
points out that the photo of the president and his team, with those faces without any
emotion, is subsequent to the events and was taken at 5:05 p.m., as shown in IPTC data from
the camera.
No body...no evidence...Why making such show off with Gaddafi and Sadam Hussein, and with Bin
Laden and Al Baghdadi we have no corpse, nor cruelty with it, and moreover both are awarded
the Islamic Burial in the sea...???
Assad declared that "they knew about their own "collaboration" in the operation by the
media"
At the same time, Assad emphasized that "the death of Al Bagdadi and all the combatants
will not change the situation in general as long as the "terrorist ideology" remains
alive".
Good historical rundown of
Uncle Sam's blatant theft of resources in Syria .. has historical precedent too I believe;
the wars in Southeast Asia (the golden triangle and the drug trade). Afghanistan (heroin and
the poppies); imagine, we come and destroy your country and then steal your resources in the
aftermath. Sickening
@joost #33 I like to think that Trump's saying that the US army are going to steal Syria's
oil is very much the same strategy. What better way to turn world opinion against US
occupation of Syria?
Good historical rundown of
Uncle Sam's blatant theft of resources in Syria .. has historical precedent too I believe;
the wars in southeast asia (the golden triangle and the drug trade). Afghanistan (heroin and
the poppies); imagine, we come and destroy your country and then steal your resources in the
aftermath. Sickening
@49 Tim Glover. Exactly, imagine Obama saying that. Trump seems to have a habit of using
reverse psychology on people. This strategy works very well when nobody likes you and you
have the power of Twitter at your disposal.
People tend to overestimate the power of the US president. Every one of them, being democrat
or republican, gets assimilated by the borg. Resistance is futile, unless you are perceived
to be an idiot and do just enough to please your overlords. The Borg likes what he says, "we
are there for the oil" and they are getting reckless, exposing themselves for what they are.
Group think distorts perception and that is their weak spot. The borg will get more open
about their crimes and their true intentions. This breaks global support for the petrodollar
and that will be the end of the "outlaw" US empire.
I am surprised that I've not seen any commentary regarding the US's announcement that they
will continue to steal Syria's oil, and more importantly what anyone - Syria, Russia or
anyone else - might do about this blatant crime.
Clearly this challenges Syria's sovereignty as well as Russia's declared aim to restore
Syrian territory in full.
Any thoughts how this situation might evolve? IMO Russia has to remain a facilitator
rather than an actor. A "no-fly zone" enforced by Syrians and SAA ground troops?
Stripes: Carolina Army Guard troops move into eastern Syria with Bradley Fighting Vehicles
WASHINGTON – National Guard members from North and South Carolina began moving into
eastern Syria with heavy armored vehicles on Thursday as part of the Pentagon's new mission
to secure oil fields wrestled from the Islamic State, a military spokesman said.
Soldiers with the North Carolina-based 4th Battalion, 118th Infantry Regiment and the
South Carolina-based 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade were deployed to Deir al-Zour to
protect American-held oil fields around that city, Army Col. Myles Caggins, the spokesmen
for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS mission known as Operation Inherent Resolve, tweeted Thursday.
Caggins' tweet included photos of soldiers loading M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles onto Air
Force C-17 Globemaster cargo jets to be used on the mission. . . .
For now, the new deployment will not include M1 Abrams tanks, the Pentagon official said
Thursday.
here
Why use regulars when we can call up the National Guard?
US hold on the oilfields depends mostly on Iraq. The oilfields of Deir Ezzor are in open
country with few towns and apart from the Euphrates flood plain is sparsely populated.
The only cover for guerrilla style attacks against US or its proxies on the oilfields will
be the occasional dust storm.
Apart from Iraq, syria setting up S-300 at deir Ezzor and taking control of the airspace
would also be a game changer but this may not happen.
Lebanon and Iraq are both undergoing US color revolutions at the moment so its a matter of
waiting for the dust to settle on both these moves to see where US is positioned in the
region.
Yet the US military is overwhelmingly the #1 most trusted US institution among Americans,
despite it forcibly wasting their hard earned money to kill tens of millions of innocents
abroad. At the same time the US is also filled to the brim with draft dodgers.
If anybody thinks Bolton and his chickenhawking buddies isn't representative of the whole
US, think again.
Don Bacon 73 "Really? I thought the protests were like many other protests around the world,
over economic issues."
As was the Syrian 'revolution'. Plenty of small US companies willing to go in. US already
has buyers as they have been shipping oil out of east Syria for some time. Turkey, Israel ect
plus many more willing to buy at a discount. And considering the oilfields are simply stolen,
oil can be sold at a discount.
Just prior to the R-Party Nominating Convention at Cleveland in July 2016, Pepe
wrote :
"Some powerful, well-connected business interests supporting Trump from New York to the
Midwest have outlined their reasons to me, off the record. The fact that their reasons run
completely opposite to the Beltway consensus speaks volumes."
Yes, I remember this article quite well as should other barflies. As I wrote at the time,
those Pepe cited had their own perverted twist on history and thus incorrect reasons as to
the why of America's decline as this paragraph details:
"Why Russia? ' Because Russia does not rig their currency against us to destroy our
industries, and is therefore a natural ally rather then Germany and Japan, who still rig
their currencies against the United States and have destroyed much of our industrial
power .'" [Italics Original]
The bolded text above is what the businessmen were wrong about, and in a big way. But
Trump's isn't the first time policy was based on misconceptions and incorrect history. Pepe
provides further citations that I'll omit here, although they are important, and just provide
his summation followed by one a bit too important to omit here:
"For these business interests, illegal immigration, rigged currencies, and the
'unnecessary war' against Russia are the biggest issues of the presidential campaign....
"This business crowd is distinctly anti-war: ' When Mr. Trump talks about war having to
have rational profit and loss expectation, he is sounding as a logical businessman .'
They also stress that, ' the war against Russia is also destroying our oil industry
as the US ordered the Gulf States to dump their shut-in oil production capacity on the oil
market to bankrupt Russia .'" [Bolded text my emphasis]
But 3 years later, oil price has yet to really recover to the point where Frackers can
make a profit and their Ponzi Scheme seems about to go bust, which is why we're seeing
something that looks like a shift in Trump's initial plan regarding Syria. And there's still
more that can be gleaned from the article that goes against what was then current policy and
its direction. I think it's now fairly easy to see the reasoning behind Trump's UNGA tirade
aimed at the Globalists while contradicting himself about patriots as he's fighting against
one of the most noted--and demonized--of the planet's patriots--Bashar Hafez al-Assad.
Eric Ciaramella is connected to Victoria Nuland. IIf this information is true, the entire Impeachment thing is a another phase
of Russiagate. It's the Democrats attempt at a coup d'etat
Ciaramella, who was a Susan Rice protégé and was brought into the White House by H. R. McMaster. Looks like McMaster was a
neocon zealot.
"... As lawmakers examine whether President Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, here are some of the most prominent falsehoods that have spread online and an explanation of what really happened. ..."
"... Interfax-Ukraine ..."
"... The second part is about Trump allegations connecting the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to the Ukraine. The NYT ..."
"... CrowdStrike's co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch issued a report about a Ukrainian software for artillery targeting. The report falsely claimed that the software was hacked by Russia and that Russia used the coordinates the hacked software allegedly transmitted. ..."
"... Those CrowdStrike allegations were completely false : ..."
"... The debunked CrowdStrike report about the Ukraine demonstrated that the company can not be trusted when it alleges Russian hacking - be it of an Ukrainian artillery app or of the DNC servers. ..."
"... The Ukrainian actions against the Trump campaign are well documented . The Ukrainians even admitted their intervention : ..."
"... The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election. ..."
"... Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their efforts to prevent a candidate - who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed two years ago - from reaching the summit of American political power. ..."
"... Trump claimed that China handed over $1.5 billion to Hunter Biden. But the truth is that the state owned Bank of China handed $1.5 billion ( by now $2.1 billion ) to a company that was partially owned by Hunter Biden. The timing of the very unusual deal additionally suggests that it was made for political purposes. ..."
"... The debunking piece fails in all four points it raises. It is itself sowing disinformation about Biden's intervention against Shokin and the Ukrainian meddling in the U.S. election. It fails to mention relevant facts on the two other issues. ..."
"... While Colonel Vindman's concerns were shared by a number of other officials, some of whom have already testified, he was in a unique position. Because he emigrated from Ukraine along with his family when he was a child and is fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian officials sought advice from him about how to deal with Mr. Giuliani , though they typically communicated in English. ..."
The New York Times continues to lie about Joe Biden's involvement in the Ukraine
and about Ukrainian involvement in the U.S. election. Today it also lied about a fact in
relation to Lieutenant Colonel Vindman who was yesterday questioned by the Democrats
'impeachment inquiry'. The NYT reported that very fact just a day ago. During the
hearing Lt.Col. Vindman expressed a rather preposterous view about who should define U.S.
foreign policy.
The NYT claims to debunk falsehoods but spreads more of them:
Debunking 4 Viral Rumors About the Bidens and Ukraine As lawmakers examine whether President Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate the Biden
family, here are some of the most prominent falsehoods that have spread online and an
explanation of what really happened.
Why was Ukraine's top prosecutor fired?
...
A year later, Viktor Shokin became Ukraine's prosecutor general, a job similar to the
attorney general in the United States. He vowed to keep investigating Burisma amid an
international push to root out corruption in Ukraine.
But the investigation went dormant under Mr. Shokin . In the fall of 2015, Joe Biden
joined the chorus of Western officials calling for Mr. Shokin's ouster. The next March, Mr.
Shokin was fired. A subsequent prosecutor cleared Mr. Zlochevsky.
Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin
started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to
lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the
Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on
vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into
office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out.
Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then
closed the case against Zlochevsky.
and:
It is quite astonishing that the false claims, that Shokin did not go after Burisma owner
Zlochevsky, is repeated again and again despite the fact that the public record , in form of a
report by Interfax-Ukraine , contradicts it.
Back to the NYT
'debunking' . The second part is about Trump allegations connecting the cybersecurity
company CrowdStrike to the Ukraine. The NYT is correct to say that Trump's claims in
that direction are mostly confused or false. But it also makes this claim:
CrowdStrike, based in California, is not Ukrainian-owned and does not appear to have any
Ukrainian connections.
CrowdStrike's co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch issued a report about a Ukrainian software
for artillery targeting. The report falsely claimed that the software was hacked by Russia
and that Russia used the coordinates the hacked software allegedly transmitted.
In December, CrowdStrike said it found evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian
artillery app, contributing to heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with pro-Russian
separatists.
VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS),
which publishes an annual reference estimating the strength of world armed forces,
disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company.
Ukraine's Ministry of Defense also has stated that the combat losses and hacking never
happened.
CrowdStrike was first to link hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors last
year, but some cybersecurity experts have questioned its evidence.
The debunked CrowdStrike report about the Ukraine demonstrated that the company can
not be trusted when it alleges Russian hacking - be it of an Ukrainian artillery app or of
the DNC servers.
The NYT 'debunking' also claims:
Mr. Trump's own former Homeland Security secretary, Thomas P. Bossert, called the
president's assertion that Ukraine intervened in the 2016 elections on behalf of the
Democrats "not only a conspiracy theory" but "completely debunked."
The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin,
becoming leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's
wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before:
intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election.
... Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their
efforts to prevent a candidate - who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it
annexed two years ago - from reaching the summit of American political power.
The third claim which the NYT tries to 'debunk' is that the CIA agent who played
the 'whistleblower' against Trump is a political partisan. The debunking fails when the
NYT itself notes the source of the claim:
Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the American intelligence community, found
unspecified indications of "an arguable political bias," suggesting the whistle-blower
favored a rival political candidate, according to a Justice Department memo.
The fourth 'debunking' is about Hunter Biden's business with China:
Critics of Hunter Biden have sought other areas ripe for sowing disinformation. One they
have homed in on is his dealings in China.
...
While the amount of money Hunter Biden made from those deals remains unknown, Mr. Trump has
said that China handed over $1.5 billion to Mr. Biden in a "sweetheart" business deal meant
to win favor with his father.
...
The $1.5 billion figure Mr. Trump has referred to appears to be the amount of money a
Shanghai private-equity company raised in 2014. Hunter Biden joined the board of the
company, BHR Equity Investment Fund Management, in late 2013. In 2017, he bought 10 percent
of the firm, investing the equivalent of $420,000.
The NYT conveniently forgets to mention who is
behind BHR and how the deal was made:
On one of the first days of December 2013, Hunter Biden was jetting across the Pacific
Ocean aboard Air Force Two with his father and daughter Finnegan. ... Vice President Biden,
Hunter Biden and Finnegan arrived to a red carpet and a delegation of Chinese
officials.
...
[Hunter Biden's company] Rosemont Seneca Partners had been negotiating an exclusive deal
with Chinese officials, which they signed approximately 10 days after Hunter visited China
with his father. The most powerful financial institution in China, the government's Bank of
China, was setting up a joint venture with Rosemont Seneca.
...
Rosemont Seneca and the Bank of China created a $1 billion investment fund called Bohai
Harvest RST (BHR), a name that reflected who was involved. Bohai (or Bo Hai), the innermost
gulf of the Yellow Sea, was a reference to the Chinese stake in the company. The "RS"
referred to Rosemont Seneca. The "T" was Thornton.
Trump claimed that China handed over $1.5 billion to Hunter Biden. But the truth is
that the state owned Bank of China handed $1.5 billion (
by now $2.1 billion ) to a company that was partially owned by Hunter Biden. The timing
of the very unusual deal additionally suggests that it was made for political
purposes.
The NYT asserts that Trump was "sowing disinformation' about Hunter Biden's China
relation. Trump often lies but in this case he just simplified the facts.
The debunking piece fails in all four points it raises. It is itself sowing
disinformation about Biden's intervention against Shokin and the Ukrainian meddling in the
U.S. election. It fails to mention relevant facts on the two other issues.
In its zeal to propagandize against the Trump administration the NYT is playing
lose with the facts and is even disregarding its own reporting. Consider this
item from today about media reactions to the Lieutenant Colonel who was yesterday
questioned by the Democrats 'impeachment inquiry':
Jack Posobiec, a well-known figure on the far-right internet, tweeted the falsehood that
Mr. Vindman had been advising the Ukrainian government on how to counter Mr. Trump's
foreign policy goals. Mr. Posobiec cited The New York Times as his source -- in fact, The
Times reported no such thing.
While Colonel Vindman's concerns were shared by a number of other officials, some of
whom have already testified, he was in a unique position. Because he emigrated from Ukraine
along with his family when he was a child and is fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian
officials sought advice from him about how to deal with Mr. Giuliani , though they
typically communicated in English.
When Rudi Giuliani was trying to get information about Ukrainian involvement in the 2016
election he was undoubtly pursuing the president's foreign policy. Posobiec was right and the
NYT should correct itself.
Lt.Col. Vindman did not like those policies. He in fact believes that U.S. foreign policy
should not be directed by the president.
In his written opening remarks to yesterday's confidential hearing, widely spread to the
media, he
asserts :
In spite of being under assault from Russia for more than five years, Ukraine has taken
major steps towards integrating with the West. The U.S. government policy community's view
is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise of reforms to
eliminate corruption will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine
to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity.
Given this perspective and my commitment to advancing our government's strategic
interests , I will now recount several events that occurred.
...
When I joined the NSC in July 2018, I began implementing the administration's policy on
Ukraine. In the Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false
narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency. This
narrative was harmful to U.S. government policy . While my interagency colleagues and I
were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine's prospects, this alternative narrative
undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.
Who the f**k does this NSC minion thinks he is? The President of the United States?
The U.S.
constitution "empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly
negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries."
The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the
administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col.
Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is
the duly elected president who does that.
President Trump and many other people believe that it would be better for the United
States to ally with Russia against an ever growing China than to push Russia and China into
an undefeatable alliances against the United States. Trump often alluded to this during his
campaign. The voters seem to have liked that view.
The U.S. coup in the Ukraine made that policy more difficult to achieve. But within the
big picture the Ukraine is just a bankrupt and corrupt state that has little strategic value
and can be ignored.
One can disagree with that view and with other foreign policy priorities Trump set out and
pursues. I certainly disagree with most of them. But for those who work "at the pleasure of
the President" his views are the guidelines that set the direction of their duties.
The anti-Russian/pro-Ukrainian fanatics in the Borg, to which Lt.Col. Vindman belongs, are
trying to prevent Trump from achieving his large picture vision of U.S. strategic interest
and from defining U.S. foreign policy goals. They want to implement their own polices
independent of what the president thinks or believes.
We have warned that such interference by the Borg, the 'deep state' or 'swamp', is a
danger
to democracy :
If the deep state is allowed to make its own policies against the will of the elected
officials why should we bother with holding elections?
The Democrats are stupid to applaud this and to even further these schemes. They are
likely to regain the presidency in 2024. What will they do when all the Civil Service
functionaries Trump will have installed by then organize to ruin their policies?
It is unfortunate that the above points have to be repeated again and again. But when
powerful media try to sell the lies about the Ukrainian interferences by repeating the same
falsehoods over and over again the truth has only a chance to win when it is likewise spread
repeatedly.
Posted by b on October 30, 2019 at 18:46 UTC |
Permalink Thanks,b. The truth is that the NYT piece is a published blue print for what
the quality media in vassal countries are supposed to communicate. Being German, you know
what I mean. Now, I know what will be presented in all channels tomorrow and I can spare the
time considering that bs. ;-)
No mystery here. As you pointed out already, the NYT first denied the deep state and then
came to love it. There is no going back now, it is a love story for the ages...
All the lies are just part of a neverending media circus, with no real consequences on
anything. Telling the truth about the media circus has exactly the same effect.
And if you look at the NY Times reporter's credit and CV, clicking her name will lead you
there, her job at the NY Times is to "debunk" online disinformation.
But she posted a crap load of fake news here as you note.
Here's Ms Alba's NY Times bio-CV page, note the short first paragraph:
Davey Alba is a technology reporter covering online disinformation and its global
harms.
Before joining The New York Times, Ms. Alba was a senior reporter at BuzzFeed News,
writing about artificial intelligence and the invasive effects of tech in people's lives. In
2019, her feature on how Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, used Facebook to fuel
the drug war in the country won a Livingston Award for excellence in international reporting.
The article also won a 2019 Mirror Award for best story on journalism in peril.
Ms. Alba has covered tech for the last decade, writing about topics as diverse as
facial recognition's civil rights problems, the industry's practice of using forced
arbitration in employee contracts and sexual harassment in tech. She has written for various
publications, including Wired, Gizmodo and IEEE Spectrum.
She moved to the United States in 2010 after attending De La Salle University in Manila
and has a master's degree in science journalism from Columbia University. She lives in
Brooklyn.
Columbia University School of Journalism embarrasses itself again.
I first heard this idea that Trump is supposed to implement the foreign policy of the
"government policy community" just a few days ago on the PBS Snooze Hour. It was startling to
hear such a blatant admission of the existence of the "Deep State", and that Trump is
supposed to obey it. I wonder who wrote the memo that says its now OK to publicly criticize
Trump for not following the orders of the "government policy community".
Everyone was shocked when Trump won the election, especially Trump and the "government
policy community". He is the proverbial dog that caught the speeding car. It's quaint that
Trump thinks he can make real policy changes. His failures in medical insurance, controlling
the FED, etc. underscore the point that being the leader is useless if underlings don't obey.
The "government policy community" will never follow Trump and it won't stop until Trump is
gone one way or another.
Trump is truly a horrible excuse for a human being, but apparently that is what is
required to successfully rip the facade off the Deep State, however one wants to define it.
Brain-dead Dummycrats will nod and exclaim that of course Trump is supposed to follow policy
established by "knowledgeable experts". But I speculate that this new public attitude of the
stink tank talking heads will enrage Trump supporters.
I'm starting to think that things may get really ugly in the "Home of the Brave and the
Land of the Free".
I don't agree with b that Posobiec's assertion that the NY Times had reported that "Vindman
had been advising the Ukrainian government" was factual just because the Times had reported
that "Ukrainian officials sought advice from [Vindman]".
Surely Ukraine seeking advice is not the same as Vindman actually providing it. It seems
the Times may be accurate in calling Posobiec's statement a "falsehood".
I am not a legal or constitutional scholar, but I ask myself, not for the first time, whether
the media can ever be held to account. One might argue that the criminal justice system could
not function without credible penalties for perjury. Whistleblowers and journalists who bring
the secrets of the powerful to light are increasingly fair game. But the only journalist I
can think of who faced at least mildly negative consequences for her role in the run up to
the Iraq war was Judith Miller, and she managed to have herself carted off on the laughable
hobbyhorse of "protecting" her sources among the murderous architects of that war.
I get that we have wandered back into the arena of "fake news," which has been framed by
the Right against corporate media that they quaintly characterize as "Left", and that the
Oligarchy's concern for it (among the Right) has been a stalking horse for repressing actual
progressive dissent. (A la Propornot.)
But are there simply no legal remedies that might actually serve to improve the quality of
information that we are forced to wade through?
"... But militarism is more than thuggish dictators, predatory weaponry, and steely-eyed troops. There are softer forms of it that are no less significant than the "hard" ones. In fact, in a self-avowed democracy like the United States, such softer forms are often more effective because they seem so much less insidious, so much less dangerous. ..."
"... But who can object to celebrating " hometown heroes " in uniform, as happens regularly at sports events of every sort in twenty-first-century America? Or polite and smiling military recruiters in schools ? Or gung-ho war movies like the latest version of Midway , timed for Veterans Day weekend 2019 and marking America's 1942 naval victory over Japan, when we were not only the good guys but the underdogs? ..."
"... Roughly two-thirds of the federal government's discretionary budget for 2020 will, unbelievably enough, be devoted to the Pentagon and related military functions, with each year's "defense" budget coming ever closer to a trillion dollars ..."
"... The U.S. military remains the most trusted institution in our society, so say 74% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll. ..."
"... A state of permanent war is considered America's new normal. ..."
"... America's generals continue to be treated, without the slightest irony, as "the adults in the room." ..."
"... The media routinely embraces retired U.S. military officers and uses them as talking heads to explain and promote military action to the American people. ..."
"... America's foreign aid is increasingly military aid. ..."
"... In that context, consider the militarization of the weaponry in those very hands, from .50 caliber sniper rifles to various military-style assault rifles. ..."
"... Paradoxically, even as Americans slaughter each other and themselves in large numbers via mass shootings and suicides (nearly 40,000 gun deaths in 2017 alone), they largely ignore Washington's overseas wars and the continued bombing of numerous countries. ..."
"... 9. Even as Americans "support our troops" and celebrate them as "heroes," the military itself has taken on a new " warrior ethos " that would once -- in the age of a draft army -- have been contrary to this country's citizen-soldier tradition , especially as articulated and exhibited by the "greatest generation" during World War II. ..."
"... Democracy shouldn't be about celebrating overlords in uniform. A now-widely accepted belief is that America is more divided, more partisan than ever, approaching perhaps a new civil war , as echoed in the rhetoric of our current president. Small wonder that inflammatory rhetoric is thriving and the list of this country's enemies lengthening when Americans themselves have so softly yet fervently embraced militarism. ..."
Killing Me Softly with Militarism - The Decay of Democracy in America
When Americans think of
militarism
,
they may imagine jackbooted soldiers goose-stepping through the streets as flag-waving crowds exult
;
or, like
our
president
, they may think of enormous parades featuring troops and missiles and tanks, with
warplanes soaring overhead. Or nationalist dictators wearing military uniforms
encrusted
with
medals, ribbons, and badges like so many barnacles on a sinking ship of state. (Was Donald
Trump
only
joking
recently when he said he'd like to award himself a Medal of Honor?)
And what
they may also think is: that's not us. That's not America. After all, Lady Liberty used to welcome
newcomers with a torch, not an
AR-15
.
We don't
wall
ourselves
in while
bombing others
in
distant parts of the world, right?
But militarism is more than thuggish dictators, predatory weaponry, and steely-eyed
troops. There are softer forms of it that are no less significant than the "hard" ones.
In
fact, in a self-avowed democracy like the United States, such softer forms are often more effective
because they seem so much less insidious, so much less dangerous. Even in the heartland of Trump's
famed base, most Americans
continue
to reject
nakedly bellicose displays like phalanxes of tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue.
But who can object to celebrating "
hometown
heroes
" in uniform, as happens regularly at sports events of every sort in twenty-first-century
America? Or polite and smiling military recruiters
in
schools
? Or gung-ho war movies like the latest version of
Midway
, timed for Veterans
Day weekend 2019 and marking America's 1942 naval victory over Japan, when we were not only the
good guys but the underdogs?
What do I mean by softer forms of militarism?
I'm a football fan, so one recent
Sunday afternoon found me watching an NFL game on CBS. People deplore violence in such games, and
rightly so, given the number of injuries among the players, notably concussions that debilitate
lives. But what about
violent
commercials
during the game? In that one afternoon, I noted repetitive commercials for
SEAL
Team
,
SWAT
, and
FBI
,
all CBS shows from this quietly militarized American moment of ours. In other words, I was exposed
to lots of guns, explosions, fisticuffs, and the like, but more than anything I was given glimpses
of hard men (and a woman or two) in uniform who have the very answers we need and, like the
Pentagon-supplied
police
in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, are armed to the teeth. ("Models with guns," my wife
calls them.)
Got a situation in Nowhere-stan? Send in the Navy SEALs. Got a murderer on the loose? Send in
the SWAT team. With their superior weaponry and can-do spirit, Special Forces of every sort are
sure to win the day (except, of course, when they don't, as in America's current series of
never-ending
wars
in distant lands).
And it hardly ends with those three shows.
Consider, for example, this
century's update of
Magnum P.I.
, a CBS
show featuring a kickass private investigator. In the original
Magnum
P.I.
that I watched as a teenager, Tom Selleck played the character with an easy charm.
Magnum's military background in Vietnam was acknowledged but not hyped. Unsurprisingly, today's
Magnum is proudly billed as an ex-Navy SEAL.
Cop and military
shows are nothing new on American TV, but never have I seen so many of them,
new and old, and so well-armed.
On CBS alone you can add to the mix
Hawaii
Five-O
(yet more models with guns updated and up-armed from my youthful years), the three
NCIS
(Naval
Criminal Investigative Service) shows, and
Blue
Bloods
(ironically starring a more grizzled and less charming Tom Selleck) -- and who
knows what I haven't noticed? While today's cop/military shows feature far more diversity with
respect to gender, ethnicity, and race compared to hoary classics like
Dragnet
,
they also feature far more gunplay and other forms of bloody violence.
Look, as a veteran, I have nothing against realistic shows on the military. Coming from a family
of first responders -- I count four firefighters and two police officers in my immediate family --
I loved shows like
Adam-12
and
Emergency!
in
my youth. What I'm against is the strange militarization of everything, including, for instance,
the idea, distinctly of our moment, that first responders need their very own version of the
American flag to mark their service. Perhaps you've seen those
thin
blue line
flags, sometimes augmented with a red line for firefighters. As a military veteran,
my gut tells me that there should only be one American flag and it should be good enough for all
Americans. Think of the proliferation of flags as another soft type of up-armoring (this time of
patriotism).
Speaking of which, whatever happened to
Dragnet
's Sergeant Joe Friday, on the
beat, serving his fellow citizens, and pursuing law enforcement as a calling?
He didn't
need a thin blue line battle flag. And in the rare times when he wielded a gun, it was .38 Special.
Today's version of Joe looks a lot more like G.I. Joe, decked out in body armor and carrying an
assault rifle as he exits a tank-like vehicle, maybe even a
surplus
MRAP
from America's
failed
imperial
wars.
Militarism in the USA
Besides TV shows, movies, and commercials, there are many signs of the increasing embrace of
militarized values and attitudes in this country. The result: the acceptance of a military in
places where it
shouldn't be
, one that's
over-celebrated,
over-hyped
,
and given
far too much
money and cultural
authority, while becoming
virtually immune
to
serious criticism.
Let me offer just nine signs of this that would have been so much less conceivable when
I was a young boy watching reruns of
Dragnet
:
1. Roughly
two-thirds
of
the federal government's discretionary budget for 2020 will, unbelievably enough, be devoted to
the Pentagon and related military functions, with each year's "defense" budget coming ever
closer to a
trillion
dollars
. Such colossal sums are rarely debated in Congress; indeed, they enjoy wide
bipartisan support.
2. The U.S. military remains the
most
trusted
institution in our society, so say 74% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll. No
other institution even comes close, certainly not the presidency (37%) or Congress (which
recently rose to a monumental
25%
on
an impeachment high). Yet that same military has produced disasters or quagmires in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere. Various "surges" have repeatedly failed. The
Pentagon itself can't even pass
an
audit
. Why so much trust?
3. A state of permanent war is considered America's new normal. Wars are now automatically
treated as multi-generational with little concern for how
permawar
might
degrade our democracy. Anti-war protesters are rare enough to be
lone
voices
crying in the wilderness.
4. America's generals continue to be treated, without the slightest irony, as "the adults in
the room." Sages like former Secretary of Defense
James
Mattis
(
cited
glowingly
in the recent debate among 12 Democratic presidential hopefuls) will
save
America
from unskilled and tempestuous politicians like one Donald J. Trump. In the 2016
presidential race, it seemed that neither candidate could run without being endorsed by a
screaming general (
Michael
Flynn
for Trump;
John
Allen
for Clinton).
5. The media routinely embraces retired U.S. military officers and uses them as
talking
heads
to explain and promote military action to the American people. Simultaneously, when
the military goes to war, civilian journalists are "embedded" within those forces and so are
dependent on them in every way. The result tends to be a cheerleading media that supports the
military in the name of patriotism -- as well as higher ratings and corporate profits.
6. America's foreign aid is increasingly military aid. Consider, for instance, the current
controversy over the aid to Ukraine that President Trump blocked before his infamous phone call,
which was, of course,
partially
about weaponry
. This should serve to remind us that the United States has become the
world's
foremost
merchant of death, selling far more weapons globally than any other country. Again,
there is no real debate here about the morality of profiting from such massive sales, whether
abroad
($55.4
billion in arms sales for this fiscal year alone, says the Defense Security Cooperation Agency)
or
at home
(a
staggering 150 million new guns produced in the USA since 1986, the vast majority remaining in
American hands).
7. In that context, consider the militarization of the weaponry in those very hands, from .50
caliber
sniper rifles
to
various military-style assault rifles. Roughly
15
million
AR-15s are currently owned by ordinary Americans. We're talking about a gun designed
for battlefield-style rapid shooting and maximum damage against humans. In the 1970s, when I was
a teenager, the hunters in my family had bolt-action rifles for deer hunting, shotguns for
birds, and pistols for home defense and plinking. No one had a military-style assault rifle
because no one needed one or even wanted one. Now, worried suburbanites buy them, thinking
they're getting their "
man
card
" back by toting such a weapon of mass destruction.
8. Paradoxically, even as Americans slaughter each other and themselves in large numbers via
mass shootings and suicides (nearly 40,000
gun
deaths
in 2017 alone), they largely ignore Washington's overseas wars and the
continued
bombing
of numerous countries. But ignorance is not bliss. By tacitly giving the military a
blank check, issued in the name of securing the homeland, Americans embrace that military,
however loosely, and its misuse of violence across significant parts of the planet. Should it be
any surprise that a country that kills so wantonly overseas over such a prolonged period would
also experience mass shootings and other forms of violence at home?
9. Even as Americans "support our troops" and celebrate them as "heroes," the military itself
has taken on a new "
warrior
ethos
" that would once -- in the age of a draft army -- have been contrary to this
country's
citizen-soldier tradition
,
especially as articulated and exhibited by the "greatest generation" during World War II.
What these nine items add up to is a paradigm shift as well as a change in the
zeitgeist. The U.S. military is no longer a tool that a democracy funds and uses reluctantly. It's
become an alleged force for good, a virtuous entity, a band of brothers (and sisters), America's
foremost missionaries overseas and most lovable and admired heroes at home.
This embrace
of the military is precisely what I would call soft militarism. Jackbooted troops may not be
marching in our streets, but they increasingly seem to be marching unopposed through -- and
occupying
--
our minds.
The Decay of Democracy
As Americans embrace the military, less violent policy options are downplayed or
disregarded.
Consider the State Department, America's diplomatic corps, now a
tiny
,
increasingly
defunded
branch
of the Pentagon led by Mike Pompeo (celebrated by Donald Trump as a tremendous leader because he
did
well
at West Point). Consider President Trump as well, who's been labeled an isolationist, and
his
stunning
inability
to truly withdraw troops or end wars. In Syria, U.S. troops were recently redeployed,
not withdrawn, not from the region anyway, even as
more
troops
are being sent to Saudi Arabia. In Afghanistan, Trump sent a few thousand more troops in
2017, his own modest version of a mini-surge and they're still there, even as peace negotiations
with the Taliban have been abandoned. That decision, in turn, led to a new surge (a "
near
record high
") in U.S. bombing in that country in September, naturally in the name of advancing
peace.
The result: yet higher levels of
civilian
deaths
.
How did the U.S. increasingly come to reject diplomacy and democracy for militarism and
proto-autocracy?
Partly, I think, because of the absence of a military draft. Precisely
because military service is voluntary, it can be valorized. It can be elevated as a calling that's
uniquely heroic and sacrificial. Even though most troops are drawn from the working class and
volunteer for diverse reasons, their motivations and their imperfections can be ignored as
politicians praise them to the rooftops. Related to this is the Rambo-like cult of the warrior and
warrior
ethos
, now celebrated as something desirable in America. Such an ethos fits seamlessly with
America's generational wars. Unlike conflicted draftees, warriors exist solely to wage war. They
are less likely to have the questioning attitude of the citizen-soldier.
Don't get me wrong: reviving the draft isn't the solution; reviving democracy is.
We need the active involvement of informed citizens, especially resistance to
endless
wars
and
budget-busting
spending
on American weapons of mass destruction. The true cost of our previously soft (now
possibly hardening) militarism isn't seen only in this country's quickening march toward a
militarized authoritarianism. It can also be measured in the dead and wounded from our wars,
including the
dead, wounded
, and
displaced
in
distant lands. It can be seen as well in the rise of increasingly well-armed, self-avowed
nationalists domestically who promise solutions via walls and weapons and "good guys" with guns.
("Shoot them in the legs," Trump is
alleged
to
have said about immigrants crossing America's southern border illegally.)
Democracy shouldn't be about celebrating overlords in uniform.
A now-widely
accepted belief is that America is more divided, more partisan than ever, approaching perhaps a
new
civil
war
, as echoed in the rhetoric of our current president. Small wonder that inflammatory
rhetoric is thriving and the list of this country's enemies lengthening when
Americans
themselves have so softly yet fervently embraced militarism.
With apologies to the great
Roberta Flack
,
America is killing itself softly with war songs.
"Police who deployed explosives and armored vehicles to flush
out a man –who'd stolen two belts and a shirt from a Greenwood
Village Walmart– from the house of Leo and Alfonsia Lech, are
not required to compensate the couple for destroying their
home, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled
on
Tuesday."
Those police destroyed a house worth well over 200K since
it's in metro Denver...and all to apprehend a punk that
shoplifted less than $100 of merchandise...something
terribly wrong, all the govt units, local on up are high on
the arrogance of power with impunity.
To give Trump his due, his original announcement that he was removing ALL U.S. troops from
Syria made powerful new enemies in the Israel Lobby, which has been backing the president
because of his many favors to Tel Aviv but which has never really liked or trusted him. Israel
has long, and even openly, promoted the breaking up of Syria into its component tribal and
religious parts to enable the acquisition of even more land in the Golan Heights and to reduce
dramatically the threat coming from any unified government in Damascus. It has also seen the
Syrian civil war as a proxy conflict fought by the its poodle the United States against Iran.
Israel and its friends in Congress and the media will, to say the least, be disappointed if the
war is now truly ended and the U.S. military is withdrawn.
Trump also must continue to deal with the fallout from his Democratic Party opponents,
having given them a cudgel to beat him over the head with as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and
Adam Schiff all wax emotional over how they really love those "freedom fighting" Kurds. The
Democrats, having denounced Trump with one voice, were joined by Republicans like Mitch
McConnell, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney and the ever-versatile Lindsay Graham, all dedicated to the
continuation of an interventionist foreign policy, though they would never quite call it that.
It is not likely that any of them are really pleased with a deal to end the Syrian
fighting.
So the opposition, coming from multiple directions against a Donald Trump also on the
impeachment block for Ukraine, will continue and as of this writing it is by no means clear
what will happen vis-à-vis the Pentagon announcing that some troops, augmented by armor
units, would remain in Syria to
protect the oil fields . Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper
explained to reporters that the remaining U.S. troops would seek "to deny access,
specifically revenue to ISIS and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable
their own malign activities." The president
has also suggested , in true Trumpean fashion, that "We want to keep the oil, and we'll
work something out with the Kurds. Maybe we'll have one of our big oil companies to go in and
do it properly," a step that even the feckless Obama Administration had hesitated to take on
legal grounds as the oil unquestionably belongs to Syria. Trump's amigo Senator Lindsey
Graham
elaborated on the plan , saying bluntly that "We can use some of the revenues from future
Syrian oil sales to pay our military commitment in Syria."
And there will be additional fallout from Syria in the damaged relationships in the region.
Demonstrating that it could actually screw up two things simultaneously, the White House had
unleashed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who warned last Tuesday that the United States was
ready to go to war against Turkey if it proved necessary.
He said "We prefer peace to war But in the event that kinetic action or military action is
needed, you should know that President Trump is fully prepared to undertake that action."
Pompeo's comment comes on top of Trump warnings that he would "obliterate" or "destroy" the
Turkish economy, statements that did not sit well in Ankara and will predictably only create
new problems with a NATO member that has the largest army and economy in the Middle East.
And in another maladroit move, the White House has just announced that it will be giving
$4.5 million to the so-called White Helmets, the major propaganda arm of the Syrian
"resistance." Falsely claiming to be a humanitarian rescue and relief organization, the White
Helmets produced carefully edited films of "heroism under fire" that have been released
worldwide. The films conceal the White Helmets' relationship with the al-Qaeda affiliated group
Jabhat al-Nusra and its participation in the torture and execution of "rebel" opponents.
Indeed, the White Helmets only operated in rebel held territory, which enabled them to shape
the narrative both regarding who they were and what was occurring on the ground.
The White Helmets travelled to bombing sites with their film crews trailing behind them.
Once at the sites, with no independent observers, they are able to arrange or even stage what
was filmed to conform to their selected narrative. Perhaps the most serious charge against the
White Helmets consists of the evidence that they
actively participated in the atrocities , to include torture and murder, carried out by
their al-Nusra hosts. There have been numerous photos of the White
Helmets operating directly with armed terrorists and also celebrating over the bodies of
execution victims and murdered Iraqi soldiers. The group's jihadi associates regard the White
Helmets as fellow "mujahideen" and "soldiers of the revolution."
Trump using our troops to occupy Syrian oil fields -- part of our regime change war to
topple the Syrian government by crippling their economy -- is a modern-day siege that will
hurt the Syrian people the most.
Lindsey Graham elaborated on the plan, saying bluntly that "We can use some of the
revenues from future Syrian oil sales to pay our military commitment in Syria."
And Trump's statement that Saudi would pay for our troops in Saudi.
So now the US is whoring out our military . They are all insane .all of them.
Our politicians are whores for Israel and then middle men pimps who whore out Americans and
our troops.
The best thing that could or can be said of Orange Donald is that Hillary would've been
worse. Every time I see and hear him speak I can only imagine the intense embarrassment that
thinking Americans must feel. Yes, Obama was worse, as was Bill, but Trumpenstein is a sick
joke of a president by any measure. Sad indeed. It's Halloween every day in America these
days it seems.
excerpts
.
"An ally's value is not just a function of interests and capabilities, however; it may also
depend on how it treats its partners. A good ally doesn't interfere too much in one's own
domestic politics and doesn't overtly favor one political faction over another. A good ally
is (mostly) truthful and doesn't lie to you or deliberately feed faulty information to your
intelligence agencies. All nations spy on one another to some extent, but a good ally doesn't
do so with abandon. Needless to say, a good ally doesn't cut deals with your biggest rivals
and isn't constantly hunting for a better deal from some other patron.
Allies that violate one or more of these strictures are more problematic partners. That
does not necessarily mean that the alliance should be terminated, but the net value of an
otherwise useful ally will decline if it becomes unstable, repeatedly gets into trouble and
has to be bailed out, becomes weaker with time and requires more and more protection , makes
promises and doesn't keep them, and repeatedly flirts with one's rivals. The more that such
behaviors become commonplace, the more the alliance's value should be questioned.
With respect to the Middle East, therefore, the United States should adopt a more
conditional and businesslike approach to its current partners and its present adversaries.
None of its current allies are so valuable or virtuous to deserve unconditional U.S. support,
and confining U.S. policy toward Iran to the imposition of even-stricter sanctions just
limits U.S. leverage even more. Why should any of its current allies do its bidding when they
know it'll back them no matter what? And if the Saudis, Israelis, Egyptians, and others knew
the United States was also talking to Iran (something China and Russia do routinely), they
might be inclined to do more to keep Washington happy.
The obvious solution to this dilemma is to be more selective in extending commitments in the
first place. This is the essence of foreign-policy restraint: The United States should define
its interests somewhat more narrowly and then defend those interests more consistently and
vigorously. In alliance terms, it means extending commitments only when vital U.S. interests
are at stake. Carefully considered commitments will be highly credible, because both allies
and adversaries can see for themselves why it is in the U.S. interest to fulfill them. (Pro
tip: When it is hard to convince some other country that you really will fight for them,
maybe that's telling you something important about their strategic value.)
Everyone with brains saw this coming. This is so typically Donald Trump. He doesn't have a
clue at all. The most righteous thing that the US can do is to fail in Syria. But this will
also doom the empire itself. Hopefully it will also spell the end for Israel.
But this game is far from over yet. Hezbollah is denounced as a terrorist organisation as
another step in the war against the region. US and Israel will continue until the very last
end. They will never quit because their empires are at stake.
" White House ..will be giving $4.5 million to the ..White Helmets, the major propaganda
arm of the Syrian "resistance.". the "major propaganda arm of the Syrian resistance"?
I just don't see how investing in propaganda in Syria can make a profit for the
white house ?
What American interest in Syria would support challenging the world to take on the USA
military?
Seems kind of risky to me.. if someone accepts, or false flags, the challenge, the result
might initiate WW III.
I am pretty tough on the president. However, on this issue, I would have grant him credit for
being prudent, even if his frustration in that mode is to grant interventionists some of what
they want.
I don't like ironing his suits every other day -- however, if anything can be drawn from
all of the hysteria, it is that the president is slowly making some headway. And had he not,
no daylight would be visible on this issue. it took all of about a day before the
interventionists demonstrated just how entrenched this policy is.
The real damage is what this policy has done to US credibility on the whole. I am aware
that lost of very smart people consider "credibility" a nonissue. But I disagree. Anyone
wanting to check Russian influence would not have invaded Iraq or Afghanistan and had they
done so, they would have done so by exercising full force and owning the countries in
full.
Attempting to hold Afghanistahn to development -- could never have been piecemeal work and
it was folly. Not to mention wholly unnecessary to the purpose. Even the invasion to capture
twenty wanted suspects of 9/11 -- uh conspiracy aside -- was ineffectual.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
Before the waxing on about Israel starts. Clearly, we must take responsibility for our
foreign policy.
Decision-makers in Western capitals had long viewed the Assad regime as a grim model of
Middle Eastern stability, but in 2011, they suddenly thought that "people power" would
bring down Assad as it had other Arab despots. The Assad regime, however, had something the
others didn't. "Popular resistance" strategies work well against authoritarian systems
whose leadership come from the country's ethnic and sectarian majority , such as Egypt.
Soldiers ordered to turn their guns on protestors are faced with a choice: Shoot their
brethren among the protestors, or help get rid of those ordering them to do so. This causes
a split in the army and security services, which can lead to a toppling of the
government.
Assad's by contrast is a minority government with a kind of fortress of sectarian
interests around it. Minority Alawites serve at the core, followed by concentric rings of
other minorities (Christians, Shia, etc.), and finally by coopted Sunnis who represent the
majority in Syria. Minority army and security officers are therefore farther removed
from the majority Sunni population, making them more likely to order fire against
protestors than to topple their brethren in power.
Trump has told us at least twenty times how ISIS has been defeated so if that is truly the
case then the oil fields aren't in need of protection by the U.S. military. The last remnants
of ISIS and their bloodthirsty leader, Al-Baghdadi, were supposedly just killed in the
weekend raid, so while ISIS may live on in the hearts of some Muslims it has lost almost all
of its leadership and military potential to threaten the oil fields.
Trump says he wants to end "these stupid wars" but by his rhetoric and schizophrenic
policy seems possibly on the verge of starting new ones.
Russia is correct in saying that the continued U.S. presence in Syria preventing Assad
from assuming control over his own oil constitutes "international state banditry". On that
point I say the U.S. has learned the craft of banditry well from its Israeli handlers and
masters.
Not sure the US empire have allies.
There are vassals, the occupied and conquered, the colonies, euphemistically called "allies",
and there is an enemy parasite euphemistically called "ally", Israel.
Then there is maybe sort of "junior" ally in crime, the Brits, who are more or less
vassals too.
US Admiral Inman called Israel an enemy, who is aggressively spying.
as of this writing it is by no means clear what will happen vis-à-vis the
Pentagon announcing that some troops, augmented by armor units, would remain in Syria to
protect the oil fields.
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper explained to reporters that the remaining U.S. troops
would seek "to deny access, specifically revenue to ISIS and any other groups that may want
to seek that revenue to enable their own malign activities." The president has also
suggested, in true Trumpean fashion, that "We want to keep the oil, and we'll work
something out with the Kurds. Maybe we'll have one of our big oil companies to go in and do
it properly,"
Embarrassing.
" We want to keep the oil ." That's the oil in Syria? A foreign country and
sovereign state.
This is something like a bad caricature, a comedy sketch.
Trump says he is a nationalist. He is a one-step-forward-two-steps-back nationalist.
@renfro The
US military is nothing but a make work program for middle America. But keeping them engaged
in countless overseas "conflicts" the power that be hope to keep them from noticing that the
jobs they used to do either don't exist or are being done by illegals all while funneling tax
dollars into the military industrial complex. The bonus is that in the process you kill or
maim a disproportionate number of traditional Americans while the folks at home encourage the
whole thing
It's funny the Isreal lobby has gotten more out of Trump than the American public, and they
are still complaining and don't trust him. Why would anyone work with these ghastly wretches
after seeing this kind of temperament. The Isreal lobby in America enjoys more privileges and
benefits that any other individual group, yet it's never enough. Notice how Obama wanted
regime change in Syria, and then it's neocons who are urging the fight to continue today.
What did this tiny ethnic minority ever do to earn the absolute devotion of the entire US
government.
Now as to the challenge of governing effectively, Trump must be allowed two "excuses" for
his less-than-ideal governance. One, the major one, is that he is being obstructed --
attacked actually -- by the entire entrenched Establishment which has been looting the
country forever, in good times and bad, and wishes to preserve that status quo. The other is
the personal limitations inherent in every human being. We all have our strengths and
weaknesses. Trump is a bright guy, and a very strong personality, but clearly not omniscient.
On his own, he will not be able to get it right every time. So, subject to these two factors,
Trump will have -- has had -- diminished effectiveness. That said, he's incredibly nimble,
and can "flip-flop" -- ie turn on a dime, to change direction -- when something isn't
working. That's in stark contrast to the "foolish consistency [that] is the hobgoblin of
[the] little minds" -- ie rigidity -- of the professional political class. In any event, the
game will take a while, and Trump will stick with it and he knows how to win.
The Trump-haters won't acknowledge this, of course, and his supporters may be unable to
properly assess the obstacles he has to deal with so as to be able to accept a certain level
of disappointment. But unless Tulsi can break out, Trump will have five+ more years -- that's
four more plus the fourteen months remaining of this, his first term -- to work on fixing the
US.
Personally, I don't give a damn -- I'm safe and prosperous and outside the nuclear blast
zone -- and as a Trump supporter who wants to see him burn Washington to the ground, I'm
enjoying -- thoroughly enjoying -- the spectacle. I'm particularly excited by the prospect of
the coming take-down of the Deep State coup plotters. Brennan, Clapper, and Comey:
perp-walked, in the dock, orange jump-suits, etc. Bring it!
I look at actions and their results, not the noise of rhetorical "perception
management"/mind-rape.
He has half the nation, 95+ percent of Washington, DC, 95+ of NYC elites, 95+ percent of
the media, 100% of the Democrats, half the Republicans, 95+ percent of the world's people,
including their leaders
who hate his guts with a netherworld insanity, and would like to see him and the
Deplorables castrated and then burned alive. In that order.
So is it any surprise that his rhetoric is disjointed and contradictory?
Is it Donald Trump who's torturing Julian Assange, or the Deepstate scum who also hate
Donald Trump?
I've said all along, that the day he starts a war with Iran, (or anyone else, for that
matter), is the day I damn his soul. (insofar as a mortal can do so ; ).
But he hasn't started a war with Iran. All screeching- from every orifice of the
media and Deepstate and Zion and zio-Christians and MIC and CIA; ad infinitum.-
notwithstanding.
As you so colorfully put it, "I wouldn't give a damn if Trump wore a tutu and farted and
belched.." his Tweets, so long as we get no war with Iran, and the troops ebb their way out
of the Eternal Wars.
That's how I see it all. The guy is swimming in a septic tank full of Chuck Schumer's
turds and Nancy Pelosi's acid piss. The pure hatred of the media, and a very significant
percentage of Mitts and Marcos and other assorted human excrement. He's hated by most of the
world for simply being an unapologetic white guy, as opposed to the leaders of Germany and
France and Canada and England, where sniveling, abased self-loathing is de rigueur.
I certainly don't approve of everything he does, but considering that the alternative
would have meant the end of even the pretense of human freedom in my lifetime, at least in
the (dying) Western world- what he's done is given us a precious few more years. That's
critical time to plan an escape rout, and get thee to Uruguay. If for no other reason, I'm
grateful to Trump for that.
Improvement of this sorry state would take lots of painstaking capacity building to offset
CIA's ongoing capacity demolition. Everybody at State is a CIA focal point or an actual
official-cover fake dip, a professional ratfucker ratfucking Assad or Assange or everybody
else A-Z. They could not negotiate their way out of a paper bag. They have no inkling what
authorities govern their official functions.
I looked at the foreign service exam once and thought, who would waste their precious
moments on this shit? Grade-school civics, Microsoft office tips & tricks, just crap
insulting your intelligence. They're churning out statesmooks who don't know what the UN
Charter says. They know nothing about diplomatic history. They spy on foreign diplomats
instead of just like asking them what they think.
Your whole fucking country is a joke, a laughingstock, cause CIA knuckle-draggers wrecked
it. And it's extra funny now that Russia can make Langley, the Farm, Camp Swampy, No Man's
Island and all your fusion centers into big sinkholes of molten basalt and there ain't nothin
you can do about it, so you just got to watch the whole world laugh in your face and blow you
off.
The long nightmare in Syria might finally be coming to an end, but not thanks to the United
States and the administration of President Donald Trump.
Trump's boast that "this was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else"
was as empty as all the other rhetoric coming out of the White House over the past two and a
half years. Nevertheless, it now appears that the U.S. military just might finally be bidding
farewell to an exercise that began under President Barack Obama as a prime bit of liberal
interventionism, with American forces illegally entering into a conflict that the White House
barely understood and subsequently meddling and prolonging the fighting.
The fundamental reason why the U.S. was so ineffective was that the Obama Administration's
principal objective from the beginning was to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, yet
another attempt at "humanitarian" regime change similar to that which produced such a wonderful
result in Libya. Al-Assad was never in serious danger as he had significant popular support,
including from the country's Christian minority, and American piecemeal attempts to negotiate
some kind of exit strategy were doomed as they eschewed any dealing with the legitimate
government that was in place. The Syrian civil war supported and even enabled by Washington
caused more than 500,000 deaths, created some 9 million internal and external refugees, and
destroyed the Syrian economy and infrastructure while also almost starting a war between the
U.S. and Turkey.
The Russians understood the American mistake and consequently were able to arrange a
settlement which now appears to be viable. They were able to deal with the Syrian government,
Turkey, and the Kurds who had been set adrift by Washington. The arrangement arrived at has a
number of significant features. First, it guarantees Syria's territory integrity, which
presumably means the U.S. will eventually have to evacuate its remaining positions in the oil
region. Second, it satisfies Turkish legitimate security demands for a disarmed safe zone,
which means that Kurdish militias will have to disarm and/or move twenty miles away from the
border. The safe zone will be patrolled by the Syrian Army and the Russians with Turkish
observers. Third, all separatist groups (terrorists) will be hunted down and eliminated and
further attempts by them to reestablish in Syria will be opposed by all parties to the
agreement. Fourth, steps will be taken to make possible the orderly return of refugees to
Syria.
It is undeniably true that throughout the Syrian farrago, President Trump's admittedly
inherited policy could not possibly have been more incoherent, occasionally bizarre,
predictably inconsistent, and actually dangerous to genuine American interests in the region.
It is to everyone's benefit that the game is finally over, but one can expect the
neoconservatives in the United States to do their best to bring about yet another reversal by
Trump.
It must be conceded that along the way, President Trump was not exactly acting with a free
hand. He has been beleaguered by a Deep State conspiracy against him that began even before he
was nominated, though he didn't have to help his enemies by shooting himself in the head at
every opportunity through tweets and demeaning language. The apparent commitment to withdraw
all U.S. forces from Syria was long overdue as Washington's involvement in the fighting was
wrong by every measure right from the beginning and remaining has only served to make more
complicated the country's recovery from eight years of conflict. It also was contrary to its
publicly stated objective of destroying ISIS. A strong Syrian government was and is best placed
to do just that and Washington, in a panic to recruit, train and arm mercenaries to fight
Damascus often wound up arming terrorists.
But doing what is right does not go far in today's United States of America and the fact
that Trump is now taking credit for a ceasefire and by extension a settlement of the conflict
means little as he has predictably folded already once on plans to withdraw. The argument that
the Kurds have been betrayed has a certain cogency, but the reality is that the Kurdish leaders
entered into a relationship with the U.S. military based on their own interests with no
expectation that Washington would be backing them up forever. They are now well placed to cut
their own deals with both Damascus and Ankara, with Russia in the middle working to sustain the
agreement to end the fighting and restore the Syrian state's status ante bellum.
To give Trump his due, his original announcement that he was removing ALL U.S. troops from
Syria made powerful new enemies in the Israel Lobby, which has been backing the president
because of his many favors to Tel Aviv but which has never really liked or trusted him. Israel
has long, and even openly, promoted the breaking up of Syria into its component tribal and
religious parts to enable the acquisition of even more land in the Golan Heights and to reduce
dramatically the threat coming from any unified government in Damascus. It has also seen the
Syrian civil war as a proxy conflict fought by the its poodle the United States against Iran.
Israel and its friends in Congress and the media will, to say the least, be disappointed if the
war is now truly ended and the U.S. military is withdrawn.
Trump also must continue to deal with the fallout from his Democratic Party opponents,
having given them a cudgel to beat him over the head with as Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and
Adam Schiff all wax emotional over how they really love those "freedom fighting" Kurds. The
Democrats, having denounced Trump with one voice, were joined by Republicans like Mitch
McConnell, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney and the ever-versatile Lindsay Graham, all dedicated to the
continuation of an interventionist foreign policy, though they would never quite call it that.
It is not likely that any of them are really pleased with a deal to end the Syrian
fighting.
So the opposition, coming from multiple directions against a Donald Trump also on the
impeachment block for Ukraine, will continue and as of this writing it is by no means clear
what will happen vis-à-vis the Pentagon announcing that some troops, augmented by armor
units, would remain in Syria to
protect the oil fields . Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper
explained to reporters that the remaining U.S. troops would seek "to deny access,
specifically revenue to ISIS and any other groups that may want to seek that revenue to enable
their own malign activities." The president
has also suggested , in true Trumpean fashion, that "We want to keep the oil, and we'll
work something out with the Kurds. Maybe we'll have one of our big oil companies to go in and
do it properly," a step that even the feckless Obama Administration had hesitated to take on
legal grounds as the oil unquestionably belongs to Syria. Trump's amigo Senator Lindsey
Graham
elaborated on the plan , saying bluntly that "We can use some of the revenues from future
Syrian oil sales to pay our military commitment in Syria."
And there will be additional fallout from Syria in the damaged relationships in the region.
Demonstrating that it could actually screw up two things simultaneously, the White House had
unleashed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who warned last Tuesday that the United States was
ready to go to war against Turkey if it proved necessary.
He said "We prefer peace to war But in the event that kinetic action or military action is
needed, you should know that President Trump is fully prepared to undertake that action."
Pompeo's comment comes on top of Trump warnings that he would "obliterate" or "destroy" the
Turkish economy, statements that did not sit well in Ankara and will predictably only create
new problems with a NATO member that has the largest army and economy in the Middle East.
And in another maladroit move, the White House has just announced that it will be giving
$4.5 million to the so-called White Helmets, the major propaganda arm of the Syrian
"resistance." Falsely claiming to be a humanitarian rescue and relief organization, the White
Helmets produced carefully edited films of "heroism under fire" that have been released
worldwide. The films conceal the White Helmets' relationship with the al-Qaeda affiliated group
Jabhat al-Nusra and its participation in the torture and execution of "rebel" opponents.
Indeed, the White Helmets only operated in rebel held territory, which enabled them to shape
the narrative both regarding who they were and what was occurring on the ground.
Some White Helmets continue to operate in Syria's terrorist-controlled Idlib province,
raising the question whether the United States is prepared to give more taxpayer derived money
directly to terrorists. Several months ago, as the Syrian Army closed in on some of the other
pockets where the White Helmets operated, the U.S. and Israel mounted an operation to evacuate
many of them. Some of them and their families were moved to Israel and Jordan and many of them
have wound up in Canada. If the White House again does a flip-flop and pulls the plug on the
money earmarked for them it would truly be a welcome sign that the U.S. has realized that the
game is over and its direct involvement in Syria should be ended.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected] .
Trump using our troops to occupy Syrian oil fields -- part of our regime change war to
topple the Syrian government by crippling their economy -- is a modern-day siege that will
hurt the Syrian people the most.
You wouldn't know it from today's news headlines, but there's a major scandal unfolding
with potentially far-reaching consequences for the entire international community.
The political/media class has been dead silent about the fact that
there
are now
two
whistleblowers
whose revelations have cast serious doubts on a chemical
weapons watchdog group that is widely regarded as authoritative
, despite the fact that
this same political/media class has been
crowing
all month
about how important whistleblowers are and how they need to be protected ever since
a
CIA
spook
exposed some dirt on the Trump administration.
When the
Courage
Foundation
and
WikiLeaks
published the findings
of an interdisciplinary panel which received an extensive presentation from a whistleblower from
the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigation of an alleged 2018
chlorine gas attack in Douma, Syria, it was left unclear (perhaps intentionally) whether this was
the same whistleblower who
leaked
a dissenting Engineering Assessment
to the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media this
past May or a different one. Subsequent
comments
from British journalist Jonathan Steele
assert that there are indeed two separate
whistleblowers from within the OPCW's Douma investigation, both of whom claim that their
investigative findings differed widely from the
final
OPCW Douma report
and were suppressed from the public by the organization.
The official final report aligned with the mainstream narrative promulgated by America's
political/media class that the Syrian government killed dozens of civilians in Douma using
cylinders of chlorine gas dropped from the air, while the two whistleblowers found that this is
unlikely to have been the case.
The official report did not explicitly assign blame to
Assad, but it said its findings were in alignment with a chlorine gas attack and included a
ballistics report which strongly implied an air strike (opposition fighters in Syria have no air
force). The whistleblowers dispute both of these conclusions.
At the very least we can conclude from these revelations that the OPCW hid information
from the public that an international watchdog organization has no business hiding about an event
which led to an act of war
in the form of an
airstrike
by the US, UK and France
. We may also conclude that skepticism of their entire body of work
around the world is perfectly legitimate until some very serious questions are answered. Right now
no attempt is being made by the organization to bring about the kind of transparency which would
help restore trust, with
multiple
journalists
now reporting that the OPCW is refusing to answer their questions.
It is also not at all unreasonable to question whether the OPCW could have been
influenced in some way by the United States behind the scenes,
given how its now-dubious
final report aligns so nicely with the narratives promoted by the CIA and US State Department, and
given how we know for a fact that the US has aggressively manipulated the OPCW before in order to
advance its regime change agendas.
In June of 2002, as the United States was preparing to invade Iraq,
Mother
Jones
published an article titled "
A
Coup in The Hague
" about the US government's campaign to oust the OPCW's very first Director
General, José Bustani. If you've been following the recent OPCW revelations you will recall that
Bustani was one of the panelists at the Courage Foundation whistleblower presentation in Brussels
on October 15, after which he wrote the following:
"
The convincing evidence of irregular behavior in the OPCW investigation of the
alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had.
I could
make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of
investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very
disturbing."
Mother Jones
(which used to be a decent outlet for the record) breaks down
how
the US government was able to successfully bully the OPCW into ousting the very popular Bustani
from his position as Director General in April 2002
by threatening to withdraw funding
from the organization. This was done because Bustani was having an uncomfortable amount of success
bringing the Saddam Hussein government to the negotiating table, and his efforts were perceived as
a threat to the war agenda.
"Indeed, US officials have offered little reason for its opposition to Bustani, saying only that
they questioned his 'management style' and differed with several of Bustani's decisions,"
Mother
Jone
s reports.
"Despite this, Washington waged an unusually public and vocal campaign to unseat
Bustani, who had been unanimously reelected to lead the 145-nation body in May, 2000.
Finally, at a 'special session' called after the US had threatened to cut off all funding for the
organization, Bustani was sent packing."
This happened despite broad international support for Bustani, including from
then-Secretary of State Colin Powell who'd written to the renowned Brazilian diplomat praising his
work in February 2001.
According to the report's author Hannah Wallace, the US was able to
oust a unanimously re-elected Director General due to the disproportionate amount of financial
influence America had over the OPCW.
"[I]n March of 2002, Bustani survived a US-led motion calling for a vote of no confidence in
his leadership," Wallace writes. "Having failed in that effort, Washington increased the
pressure, threatening to cut off funding for the organization -- a significant threat given that
the US underwrites 22 percent of the total budget. A little more than a month later, Bustani was
out."
"Bustani suggests US officials were particularly displeased with his attempts to persuade
Iraq to sign the chemical weapons treaty, which would have provided for routine and unannounced
inspections of Iraqi weapons plants," Wallace reported. "Of course, the Bush White House has
recently cited Iraq's refusal to allow such inspections as one justification for a new attack on
Saddam Hussein's regime."
"Of course, had Iraq [joined the OPCW], a door would be opened towards the return of
inspectors to Bagdad and consequently a viable, peaceful solution to the impasse," Bustani told
Mother
Jones
. "Is that what Washington wants these days?"
Bustani told
Mother Jones
that
he was already seeing a shift in the OPCW into
alignment with US interests.
Again, this was back in 2002.
"The new OPCW, after my ousting, is already undergoing radical structural changes, along the
lines of the US recipe, which will strike a definitive blow to the post of the Director General,
making it once and for all a mere figurehead of a sham international regime," he said.
"Bustani traces the shift to the influence of several hawkish officials in the Bush State
Department, particularly Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security,
John Bolton," Wallace wrote.
Indeed, we've learned since that Bolton took it much further than that.
Bustani
reported
to
The Intercept
last year
that Bolton literally threatened to harm his children if he
didn't resign from his position as Director General.
"You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this
decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you," Bolton reportedly told him
,
adding after a pause, "We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York."
The Intercept
reports that Bolton's office did not deny Bustani's claim when asked for
comment.
It is worth noting here that John Bolton was serving in the Trump administration as
National Security Advisor throughout the entire time of the OPCW's Douma investigation.
Bolton held that position from April 9, 2018 to September 10, 2019. The OPCW's Fact-Finding
mission
didn't
arrive in Syria until April 14 2018
and didn't begin its investigation in Douma until several
days after that, with its final report being released in March of 2019.
It is perfectly reasonable, given all this, to suspect that the US government may have
exerted some influence over the OPCW's Douma investigation.
If they were depraved enough
to not only threaten to withdraw funding from a chemical weapons watchdog in order to attain their
warmongering agendas but actually threaten a diplomat's family, they're certainly depraved enough
to manipulate an investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack. This would explain the
highly suspicious omissions and discrepancies in its report.
It is
a
well-established fact
that the US government has long sought regime change in Syria, not just
in 2012
with
Timber Sycamore
and
the official position of "Assad must go", but even before the violence began in 2011. I've compiled
multiple primary source pieces of evidence in an article you can read by
clicking
here
that the US government and its allies have been planning to orchestrate an uprising in
Syria exactly as it occurred with the goal of toppling Assad, and a former Qatari Prime Minister
revealed
on television in 2017
that the US and its allies were involved in that conflict from the very
moment it first started.
So to recap, we know that the US government has manipulated the OPCW in order to advance
regime change agendas in the past, and we know that the US government has long had a regime change
agenda against Syria.
Many questions will need to be answered before we can rule out the
possibility that these two facts converged in an ugly way upon the OPCW's Douma investigation.
I dunno, Public Servants have a whole heap of responsibility
thrust upon them, i mean coming up with all these new taxes and
stuff requires a lot of scheming. I hope they're receiving a
good pension on the way out the door to non-exec dir MIC/XYZFinancial.
Yeah, serving one's country selflessly takes a special breed .
. . . of scum.
Denmark was instructed to delay the European/Russian
Nordstream2 approval. The delay forced the consortium to
redirect the pipeline to avoid Danish waters and so now
whatever they decide is completely moot and irrelevant. They
are only trying to save face because they recently approved a
pipeline to Poland for expensive US freedom gas. This is how it
works, small countries like Denmark and Poland have no say of
their own when the US wants something.
Trump is told what to do. Many of the appointments that
Trump has done have been highly questionable and suspect. This
says more about the people behind him who are calling the shots
and which is why people seriously need to question the whole
Q-anon thing because it reeks of a psy-op. Trump himself
probably has good intentions and believes in what he does but
he doesn't understand the bigger picture, he only wants for the
US to be returned to the better days he remembers.
What
he did in Syria should concern most Americans. Not because he
made it clear he wants US troops out of there, that is
something most will agree to, but rather what we see happening
now. The military and CIA have been running things there and
this was surely the issue that made Bolton loose his temper
with Trump and he got fired for it. The plan to overthrow Syria
and Iran is still on for them and they will not let a President
get in their way.
Nimrata Nikki Haley Randhawa to the UN for one, after a
dinner date at Trump H/Q with Mutt Romney; Notice how the
anti-Iran, pro Israeli rhetoric increased several decibels.
Maybe Trump just wants an easy life, to bag a few billion
(am sure his Goldman after dinner speeches will be funnier
than Hillary's ) and to join Obama & The Clinton's in
building a trophy/show room.
Nicky Haley was a complete IQ relieved tool. I don't hold
it as an impossibility that Trump himself has been
hoodwinked. The biggest threat to the NWO crowd is when
the US population wakes up and smells the coffee. That is
when these parasites know that they have lost. If they
can accelerate their plans while pacifying the public
enough through some clever perception management program
that is what they'll do and that is precisely what I
believe is happening. Plausible deniability has always
been the best cover and so to have the President himself
sold on this fairy tale is perfect through their
perspective.
I disagree. As more and more people see the big
picture and agenda they will not fall victim to it.
The divide and conquer tactics only work as long as
people fall into that trap. Right now it looks
quite dark but that is always the case before real
and proper change occurs. Many believe extreme
hardship only creates conflict but that is not
always the case. Sometimes extreme hardship creates
new communities and bonds between folks through
which real information can spread very quickly. No
wonder they are in such a panic to censor
everything.
Sadly the OPCW is no different than most other UN umbrella
organizations. Finally people are starting to see how all of these
international organizations have been used to roll out an agenda
right under our noses. This method of using politically powerful
organizations as cover for something completely different is not
something new. What we see today most probably took off when the
United States introduced the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue
Service. That was when the super wealthy families in the US had
maneuvered themselves (and their wealth) beyond reach through
foundations, trusts and endowments. So called Philanthropy is
still popular in the US and this is how generational wealth is
insulated to do as they please.
What they created was not only
to avoid taxes but to concentrate power/influence and do pretty
much anything they desired without any kind of insight or
scrutiny. The United Nations is a perfect example where the
Rockefeller family donated land and huge amounts of money to start
this massive trojan horse whose goal is to usurp all national
governments and spearhead the creation of a global governance
structure. Don't be fooled, nothing these people do has anything
to do with democracy or freedom. Just like psychopaths and
sociopaths they have learned how to dress it all up so that people
go along with it all.
If only enough people would spend the time and effort to learn
how this all works. We are told to believe that these are all
benign and altruistic when the truth is the exact opposite. It's
somewhat ironic that the UN's main headquarter is located in the
US which it was set up to destroy from within. The OPCW is located
in the Hague Netherlands but all these international bodies are
nothing but vehicles to push an agenda. That agenda is not what
people think it is.
OPCW is operated out of the Hague, in coordianation with the UN.
One of it's Director Generals (of the four Spain, Argentina,
Brazil, and Turkey... Donmeh and jews, naturlich) is one Ahmet
Uzumcu. Nobel Peace Prize, Consul of general of Aleppo, Syria,
Order of Saint Michael and Saint George...
The OPCW is a sham "legit" organization, especially when it
wins the Hague award... like that's not boosterish. Nobel Prizes
and Hague awards are red flags. CF Obama.
You've got Bolton and Bustani in 2002, Brazil.
Pfirter and Brazil are connected on nuclear. World Economic
Forum guy.
Arias, UN diplomat point man. All these people are unelected
crooks and bagmen.
The OPCW is a UN agency run out of the Hague for purposes of
narrative control like any intel SAP. It's just like Hillary
Clinton sending a child protector to Haiti to smuggle children for
human trafficking under guise of a foundation. These people are
career criminals and liars with their legitimacy ops preaching
world peace for cover. They are all high born **** crooks.
Bolton is a traitor and he deserves a military tribunal, along
with all the last presidents since JFK, even goober. MAGA.
all syria's oil is less than 0.01% ...
what they were saying ... ISIS is making 30 million a month ...
a lot of money for these scumbags but for Trump and the US ???
common ... the interest on US debt is 7-8 billion a day
they can always buy oil with printed money ... like they do
in all these gulf countries making them trillioners in paper
there is more to killing a million syrians and removing 10
million out of their land of thousands of years ...
It's not about the oil per se, it is about how that oil is
priced. That is what Kissinger's plan was all along, tie
important global commodities to the USD to lock in its
global reserve currency status. As that setup is now
seriously starting to fail all attempts to restore it are
jumped on if for nothing else than to delay the inevitable
collapse of the USD and US economy.
The people behind all of this are evil. They know very
well what power used to rule over this world. We are
the ignorant ones but things have changed now. In the
not too distant future when people look back at these
times they will be in awe at how we managed to break
this total evil control.
The funniest part is the Satanist, Bolton, probably thinks he's
going to be on the winning side.
How laughable it will be in a
few years, in the end times, when Bolton is told he -- as "the best
among the goyim" -- is to be the first to die on the ***'s
sacrificial altar.
Then immediately upon rising again, he'll meet the real
God, only to be thrown straight into the hellfire. 😁😁😁😁
Curses be upon this scumbag who no doubt schemed in an attempt
to kill millions more innocent people in the Middle East for his
Zionist entity.
"You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't
comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate
against you," Bolton reportedly told him, adding after a pause,
"We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York."
Nice family you got there. Be a shame if something happened to
them.
Is there any difference between .gov and the mafia?
Funny most ((( hollywood ))) mobster movies show italian
gangsters. When in fact a large percentage are kosher
nostra like Meyer Lansky, Moe Dalitz, Sidney Korshak, Lew
Wasserman, Sam Bronfman and Semion Mogilevich.
((( They
))) wouldn't misrepresent the truth about organized crime
would they? You know, because it makes the tribe look
bad.
Don't worry. It's rhetorical. Of course they would.
Just like all the lies they spin about WWII, the
bolsheviks, etc.
Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, who provided key testimony to the Democrats' controversial
impeachment inquiry last week, led an election observation delegation in Ukraine earlier this year for a George
Soros-funded organization that at the time boasted Hunter Biden on its small chairman's council.
Two months before he came out of retirement to serve as the highest ranking U.S. official in Ukraine, Taylor led
an election observer delegation to Ukraine's April 21, 2019 second round presidential election for the National
Democratic Institute (NDI) organization.
The delegation's mission, according to NDI
literature
, was to "accurately and impartially assess various aspects of the election process, and to offer
recommendations to support peaceful, credible elections and public confidence in the process."
Taylor led the team along with former Director of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office
for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) Audrey Glover and former Minister for European Union
Affairs Birgitta Ohlsson.
Hunter Biden at the time served on NDI's ten person Chairman's Council, which
describes itself
as
bringing together "leaders from corporate, philanthropic, and academia sectors to provide expertise, counsel and
resources to help the Institute meet these evolving challenges."
Biden was engaged in Ukraine in his role as a board member for Burisma, the Ukranian natural gas company at the
center of allegations regarding Joe Biden's involvement in Ukraine policy during the Obama administration while his
son was being paid by Burisma.
NDI did not immediately respond to a Breitbart News inquiry about when Hunter Biden was removed from the
organization's chairman's council. The WayBack Internet archive
shows
Biden was
listed on NDI's website in that position until at least August 2019, encompassing the period when Taylor led the
organization's delegation.
Earlier this month, an attorney for Biden
said
the former vice president's son had stepped down from the Burisma board and that he planned to step down
from the board of BHR, a Chinese company seeking to invest Chinese funds outside China.
The NDI is not Taylor's only seemingly conspicuous link. Last week, Breitbart News
reported
that Taylor has evidenced a close relationship with the Atlantic Council think tank, writing Ukraine
policy pieces with the organization's director and analysis articles published by the Council. The Atlantic
Council is
funded
by
and works in partnership with Burisma.
In addition to a direct relationship with the Atlantic Council, Taylor for the last nine years also served as a
senior adviser to the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC), which has
co-hosted
events
with the Atlantic Council and has participated in events co-hosted
jointly
by
the Atlantic Council and Burisma. USUBC events have been financially sponsored by Burisma.
Another senior
adviser
to
the USUBC is David J. Kramer, a long-time adviser to late Senator John McCain. Kramer played a central role in
disseminating the anti-Trump dossier to the news media and Obama administration.
Taylor participated in events and initiatives organized by Kramer.
The links may be particularly instructive after Breitbart News
reported
that
itinerary for a trip to Ukraine in August organized by the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council for ten Congressional
aides reveals that a staffer on Rep. Adam Schiff's House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a meeting
during the trip with Taylor. The pre-planned trip took place after the so-called whistleblower officially filed his
August 12 complaint and
reportedly
after
a Schiff aide was contacted by the so-called whistleblower.
Common funding themes
Meanwhile, NDI, where Taylor led the election observation delegation,
lists
partners and sponsors who "provide much-needed resources," including Soros's Open Society Foundation, Google Inc.,
the National Endowment for Democracy, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S.
Department of State.
Besides Burisma funding, the Atlantic Council is also financed by Soros's Open Society Foundations, Google, and
the U.S. State Department. Another Atlantic Council funder is the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.,
Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund, and an agency of the State Department each also
finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in
the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference
from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race.
The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the so-called whistleblower's document and released by the Google
and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public
precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower's own claims, as Breitbart News
documented
.
One key section of the so-called whistleblower's document claims that "multiple U.S. officials told me that Mr.
Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff
Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."
This was allegedly to follow up on Trump's call with Zelensky in order to discuss the "cases" mentioned in that
call, according to the so-called whistleblower's narrative. The complainer was clearly referencing Trump's request
for Ukraine to investigate the Biden corruption allegations.
Even though the statement was written in first person – "multiple U.S. officials told me" – it contains a footnote
referencing a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
That footnote reads:
In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on 22 July, two associates
of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser,
Mr. Serhiy Shefir.
The so-called whistleblower's account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three more occasions. It does
so to:
Write that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko "also stated that he wished to communicate directly
with Attorney General Barr on these matters."
Document that Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani "had spoken in late 2018 to former Prosecutor General Shokin, in a
Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani."
Bolster the charge that, "I also learned from a U.S. official that 'associates' of Mr. Giuliani were trying to
make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team." The so-called whistleblower then relates in another footnote, "I
do not know whether these associates of Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by
OCCRP, referenced above."
The OCCRP
report
repeatedly
referenced is actually a "joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and
BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and business records in the United States and Ukraine."
BuzzFeed infamously also first
published
the
full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. The
dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and was produced by the
Fusion GPS opposition dirt outfit.
The OCCRP and BuzzFeed "joint investigation" resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed publishing similar lengthy pieces
on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump's political
rivals.
The so-called whistleblower's document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP and does not reference
BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia collusion claims.
Taylor, Atlantic Council, Kramer
Multiple U.S. media outlets last week
obtained
Taylor's
full opening statement to the House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees.
In the leaked pre-written full opening statement, Taylor alluded to work he said he did for a "small Ukrainian
non- governmental organization" but he omitted the name of the organization.
"In the intervening 10 years, I have stayed engaged with Ukraine, visiting frequently since 2013 as a board member
of a small Ukrainian non- governmental organization supporting good governance and reform," he said.
The name of the organization is the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC), where Taylor served for nine years as
senior advisor. The USUBC has co-hosted or participated in scores of events with the Atlantic Council. Taylor has
also authored numerous analysis pieces published by the Atlantic Council itself and has co-authored opeds written
together with the Atlantic Council's director.
Burisma is a key financial backer of the Atlantic Council. In 2017, Burisma and the Atlantic Council
signed
a
cooperative agreement to develop transatlantic programs with Burisma's financial support reportedly to focus "on
European and international energy security." Burisma specifically finances the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.
Besides funding the Atlantic Council, Burisma also routinely partners with the think tank. Only four months ago,
the company
co-hosted
the
Atlantic Council's second Annual Kharkiv Security Conference. Burisma
advertises
that
it committed itself to "15 key principles of rule of law and economic policy in Ukraine developed by the Atlantic
Council."
In March, three months before he became Trump's ambassador to Ukraine, the Atlantic Council
featured
an
oped co-authored by Taylor in which the diplomat argued Ukraine "has further to travel toward its self-proclaimed
European goal" of reformation.
In 2017, Taylor wrote a
piece
for
the Atlantic Council about a Ukrainian parliament vote on health care reform.
Last year, he
participated
in
an online Atlantic Council Q & A on the Crimea.
In November 2011, the Atlantic Council
hosted
Taylor
as the featured speaker at a discussion event when he was appointed that year as Special Coordinator for Middle East
Transitions at the State Department.
In March 2014, Taylor co-authored an analysis piece at Foreign Policy
magazine
written
together with John E. Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who serves as director of the Eurasia Center for
the Atlantic council – the same Eurasia Center that is specifically funded by Burisma.
That same year, Taylor also co-authored a
New York Times
op-ed
with
the Atlantic Council's Herbst on Ukraine. The duo co-authored another
Times
op-ed
one
year later on the future of Ukraine. The op-ed was
reprinted
on
the USUBC's website.
The USUBC, where Taylor was a senior adviser for nine years along with Kramer, has
hosted
Herbst
for briefings and other events.
Kramer of the USUBC, infamous for his role in disseminating the anti-Trump dossier, also held a November 2011
event
at
the Atlantic Council's D.C. offices for a group that he heads called Freedom House. Taylor was one of six featured
speakers at Kramer's event.
The Atlantic Council published what it deemed a
24-point
plan
for ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In conjunction with the plan, Kramer, in his role as
director of Freedom House, organized a letter by American and European experts and former officials urging Russia to
end its conflict with Ukraine. Signatories of the letter,
published
on
the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council's website, include Taylor, Kramer and the Atlantic Council's Herbst.
As late as this past March, Taylor was
listed
as
one of nine members of the Friends of Ukraine Network Economic Security Task Force. Another member is Kramer.
When he deployed to Ukraine as Trump's ambassador in June, the USUBC
authored
a
piece in the Kyiv Post welcoming him.
In the USUBC
piece
welcoming
Taylor to Ukraine, Kramer himself commented about Taylor's ambassador position. "He's a great choice for now," Kramer
gushed.
The USUBC's piece noted that the "USUBC has worked closely with Ambassador Taylor for many years," touting his
role as the business group's senior adviser.
On June 26, just nine days after arriving in Ukraine as ambassador, the USUBC already
hosted
Taylor
for a roundtable discussion about his new position.
Vadym Pozharskyi, adviser to the board of directors at Burisma Holdings, was also previously
hosted
as
a USUBC featured speaker.
Geysha Gonzalez is the sponsoring Atlantic Council officer listed on the Congressional disclosure form for the
Schiff staffer's trip to Ukraine in August. She is deputy director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.
Gonzalez is also one of eleven members of the rapid response
team
for
the Ukrainian Election Task Force, which says it is working to expose "foreign interference in Ukraine's democracy."
Another
member
of
the team is Kramer.
Kramer revealed in testimony that he held a meeting about the anti-Trump dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed
News, who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer's permission when he left the room to
go to the bathroom. That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.
BuzzFeed infamously
published
the
Christopher Steele dossier on January 10, 2017, setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.
The Washington Post
reported
last
February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it.
In a deposition taken on December 13, 2017, and
posted
online
earlier this year, Kramer revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials to inquire about
whether the anti-Trump dossier was being taken seriously.
In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council
official Celeste Wallander.
In the deposition, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December 2016 to meet about the dossier
with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry's State Department.
Taylor testimony and Burisma
In his testimony to the Democrats secretive impeachment inquiry, Taylor said that he "understood" from U.S.
Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland that a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky "was dependent on a public announcement of the investigations." Taylor was referring to the announcement of
an investigation that included Burisma, as well as alleged Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Taylor's testimony was
characterized
by
CNN as "explosive" and was similarly hyped by other news media outlets despite it not being unusual for the U.S. to
condition aspects of relations on participation in ongoing American investigations involving the foreign country in
question.
Still, Taylor conceded that there was no quid pro quo.
"Ambassador Sondland said that he had talked to President Zelensky and Mr. Yermak and told them that, although
this was not a quid pro quo, if President Zelensky did not 'clear things up' in public, we could be at a 'stalemate.'
I understood 'stalemate to mean that Ukraine would not receive the much-needed military assistance," Taylor
testified.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau
chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk
radio program, "
Aaron
Klein Investigative Radio
." Follow him on
Twitter
@AaronKleinShow.
Follow him on
Facebook.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.
In addition to the fired Shokin's claim that President Poroshenko warned him not to
investigate Burisma because it was not in the Bidens' interest, the notes say, the prosecutor
also said he "was warned to stop" by the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt .
The State Department declined to explain this assertion about Pyatt, who was ambassador to
Ukraine from 2013 to 2016 and now is Ambassador to Greece. The Biden presidential campaign did
not respond to a request for comment.
Recounting Shokin's version of events, the notes say he "was called into Mr. Poroshenko's
office and told that the investigation into Burisma and the Managing Director where Hunter
Biden is on the board, has caused Joe Biden to hold up one billion dollars in U.S. aid to
Ukraine." Poroshenko later told Shokin that "he had to be fired as the aid to the Ukraine was
being withheld by Joe Biden," the Giuliani interview notes say.
Trump has claimed that Vice
President Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Shokin because he was investigating
his son's employer.
"I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really
unfair," the president said, referring to Shokin in his July 25 phone call with Ukraine's
president, Volodymyr Zelensky. That call triggered the current impeachment crisis after a CIA
whistleblower alleged that Trump had pressured the Ukrainian leader to investigate Biden in
return for military aid.
A Politico
investigation in 2017 found that officials in Poroshenko's government helped Hillary
Clinton allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, notably Paul Manafort,
who before joining the Trump campaign was a political consultant for ousted Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovych.
Poroshenko's administration insisted at the time that Ukraine stayed neutral in the
race.
Following a short artillery and air engagement with Syria over raids by exiled Palestinian
guerillas, Egypt mobilized against her nemesis in 1967. President Nasser sent six divisions to
the Sinai, removed the UN peacekeeping force, and closed the Straits of Tiran south of Israel.
Israel struck first, fearing annihilation.
As Israeli historian Martin Van Creveld states in
The Transformation of War , "for six glorious days war was Israel and Israel was war."
The result was a smashing victory for the Israelis
, who lost around 800 soldiers, as opposed to 20,000 for Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. The Sinai
peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights were added to
Israel's territory.
Compare this short war with another conflict that played out in 2006. For 34 days, Israel
battled Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in response to the Shia terrorist group's killing and
capturing of several Israeli soldiers in cross-border raids. Israel launched a massive air and
artillery campaign, followed by a ground invasion in late July. When the ceasefire was signed
on August 14, both sides claimed victory, but as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt noted in
The Israel Lobbyand U.S. Foreign
Policy , "it was clear to most independent experts" that "Hezbollah had come out ahead
in the fight." The IDF chief of staff resigned, and an Israeli government investigation rebuked
the planning and handling of the campaign, stating that the military had "pursued goals that
were not clear and could not be achieved."
Worse still, the air, artillery, and naval campaign killed an estimated 1,183 Lebanese (a
third of them children) and devastated the country's infrastructure. These actions drew strong
condemnation from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for causing "destruction on a
catastrophic scale." During the last three days of the war, the IDF fired over one million
cluster bombs into southern Lebanon, "saturating the area." The leader of an IDF rocket unit called these actions
"insane and monstrous."
War can still be won by being nasty and short, as shown in the first Gulf War, but time is
not on the side of the powerful. Escalation by a powerful state against a poorly equipped
adversary almost always works to the advantage of the weaker side. Van Creveld compares this
situation to an adult who "administers a prolonged, violent beating to a child in a public
place." Observers will sympathize with the child and intervene, regardless of its prior
behavior.
With the Palestinians, the position of weakness is even more extreme. Israel dominates the
lives of 3.8 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, controlling air, land, and sea
access, in a situation that's been compared to "living in a cage" by Swedish foreign minister
Jan Eliasson. Despite numerous American attempts to secure Palestinian statehood and resolve
the conflict, the present situation seems worse than ever.
The Trump administration, on the other hand, has made it clear that Israel will be supported
through thick and thin. And the world has slowly but surely begun to take notice. The
BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction), initially confined to college campuses and
Palestine, spilled into the national news when Democratic lawmakers Ilhan Omar and Rashida
Talib spearheaded a movement opposing bills aimed at criminalizing support of BDS. Some
Republicans, namely Senator Rand Paul, have opposed those bills, too, on
free speech grounds.
Recently, after the congresswomen were denied entry to Israel because of their support of
BDS, liberal Jewish journalist Peter Beinart defended their stance. Speaking on a CNN panel , he openly
sympathized with the plight of the Palestinians, claiming their treatment by Israel constitutes
an "indefensible denial of basic human rights." Fellow panelists attempted to tie support for
Palestine to terrorism, a common tactic. But terrorism in that part of the world is nothing
new. Israel's defenders tend to forget or are ignorant of the fact that beginning in 1937, the
militant Zionist group Irgun
was responsible for placing bombs in buses and large crowds. One of its leaders during Israel's
war for independence, future prime minister Menachem Begin, was referred to by Prime Minister
Levi Eshkol simply as "the terrorist."
Modern Israel is no longer a weak state in danger of annihilation. The IDF is highly
motivated, trained, and funded. Emboldened by the financial and moral backing of the United
States and powerful lobbying groups, its treatment of Palestinians and other enemies has become
steadily more severe.
With recent
elections still contested , it remains to be seen whether these policies will continue. But
militarily, Israel's position is not tenable. You can win at the tactical level and rack up a
higher body count, but still lose the war. As frequent TAC contributor and military historian
William S. Lind notes, "in the 3,000 years that the story of David and Goliath has been told,
how many listeners have identified with Goliath?"
Israel will last as long as Wash. extorts money from our wages and supports it. Without the
US taxpayer, Israel wouldn't exist, both from its beginning to right now.
I think the lack of sympathy for Israel is not that it s the "Goliath" of this story but
that it is allowing settlers to live in the Occupied Territories.
So TAC is standing with the Palestinians now I see. Will it stand with those other Davids,
the intersectional allies of the BDS crowd too? namely Black Lives Matter, illegal Latino
migrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and other assorted SJW types?
We are now in the end times; when it comes to Israel, all is in the hands of the Lord. As
the nations of the earth seek to attack and destroy Israel, they fall into ruin: look at
the entire Muslim world; look at what's happening to Europe. Most of all, look at the
astonishing rise and continued power of Donald Trump, the man who recognized Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel. Pick your side and accept your fate accordingly.
"Escalation by a powerful state against a poorly equipped adversary almost always
works to the advantage of the weaker side."
I don't always buy this. For me this only works if the powerful state is in the wrong.
And sadly, in this situation, Israel is deeply in the wrong.
But what does happen is over time, the weak becomes slowly stronger. Because they are
always studying their enemies. They are learning their tactics and how to defeat them. This
may take decades, but eventually the weak become the strong.
This is why it is always best to quickly offer a hand of friendship to a vanquished
enemy. If you don't, you'll eventually trade places.
The author seems to be writing an interesting fiction, reminds one of a Hollywood movie
about a Russian oligarch at the behest of a senior Russian government official, attempting
to engineer wall street crash.
Taking out a newspaper advertisement with proper representation to state one's case can't
be compared with the US funded National Endowment for Democracy's funding of Hong Kong's
increasingly violent rioting.
This is like apple and orange, not comparable. China did not interfere in
NBA's affairs, just reacting to her citizens uproar against the infamous now
deleted tweet. Thus many Chinese Chinese sponsors pulled out. This is no
different to sponsors pulling out of US athletes endorsements from time to
time when there are scandals.
Whereas NED is US intelligence cover for interference in targeted countries
like Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran and many Islamic countries around the world, to
advance US political agenda.
And in breaking news. 39 Britons have been found dead in a container
trying to be smuggled fromt eh failed UK state to the successful state
run by the CCP.
Did I get that the right-way round ?
This is a paper or news site about asia. It is written in English? What does this tell
you? The audience ostensibly consists of westerners (or educated people from asia or
elsewhere) who want to read an alternative to the drivel and rubbish that's propagated in
copious quantities by the scat factories of the west and their zionist-oligarch dominated
news conglomerates...
Who is interfering in elections? Does china name some loser guaido as president of
venezuela or support terrorists in syria? Is china sanctioning (with financial warfare)the
whole world including their own allies? You must have no modicum of shame to come up with
this absolute smorgasbord of rancid festering bollocks that you think is befitting of
"reporting." You are bettet off taking a sabbatical and never coming back... i would tell
you all of this to your face with the utmost respect that i could muster before i
vomited...
Presidents come and go... the empire, deep state bureaucrats, and their slavish
dual-state minions such as yourself will march on no matter what until your rotten seed
perpetuate the corruption and degeneracy passed down through your genes. That xyz is
president makes zero difference in deterring the momentum of evil that lurks within the
diseased sociopaths such as yourself.
You are an unmitigated disgrace to true journalism and do a grave disservice to this
site's reputation.
CIA uses fake identities for the propaganda articles. If a nation is building close
ties with China, automatically an author with a name from that nation appears. They
also have groups posting propaganda under a single fake name. There are only a few
genuine Asian CIA hacks making a living off the CIA.
USA is heading for multiple
recessions possibly a depression unless they change their current anti China
policies.
In fact, in military, fake identities for information warfare are assigned to
one person, so that it multiplies the effect. To keep track of these
"personas" per each real person, and their postings -- a "persona" data bases
are needed to keep track of their activities. And unfortunately , there are
always some technicians who are more then happy to talk about it.
It would not surprise me if he worked for the CIA... this organization is, by
its mission, embedded into all public spheres...
What is worrisome is that
the cia has no accountability to anyone. It is one great example of deep state
operator. Also, cia is heavily infiltrated by mossad. In other words, cia is a
parallel drug traffickers organization that dabbles in news, democracy
promotion, torture, coups, blackmail, assasibation, rendition...
It is accountable to no one ... their actions are conducted in secrecy and
cannot be scrutinized... the president can't control them... these
organizations are a manifest example of why this article is a huge fallacy
dressed up in cured excrement.
These people are outrageously shameless in their assertion that they can openly interfere
in the internal affairs of other countries, like the recent bills passed by the US House
of Representatives in support of the Blackshirts of HK, but they would not brook any
interference from China in their election, not that it's true at all.
This is a good example of how the US apply its Orwellian ideology of "American
Exceptionalism" - "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" -
George Orwell's "Animal Farm."
Another guy cashing in on the evil China fad, pathetic. It is the US who conducts
financial warfare by imposing illegal sanctions and restrictions on other countries using
the dominance of the dollar in international trade.
If it is so easy to have a country's financial system snd stock markets manipulated -- how
do know that our own financial sharks are not already manipulating market to enrich them
selves , while making it appear that everything is fine? Or that they are not crashing
markets in order to profit?
There is something not right about a country with financial and market systems living off
the fumes of news cycle?
Look at how many times West attacked Russian financial systems
and markets, blocking whole companies and financial institutions -- yet nothing crashed.
Currency lost some value helping exports, while those earning in dollars simply had more
money to spend domestically. And by placing sanctions kn European food products -- they
shot up to the first place globally in wheat production.
I am wondering if the difference is Russia's large currency and gold reserves. As
opposed US economy that sits atop a large debt bubble? Than anything can spook it.
Bill Gertz is running out of stuff to bad mouth China. He is eager to make some money now
that he's been fired by Washington Free Beacon for having some shady deals with the
Chinese billionaire fugitive Guo who is the subject covered in his reporting.
Maybe Gertz can tell us who China wants to be elected by staging these financial influence
campaign? Gertz is sounding utterly ridiculous now.
american are losers, foreign influence here and there, well thanks to your own foreign
policies bombing here and there and regime change everywhere, you sow what you get. if you
don't want foreign influence. just build a great wall and extend it to these. not only no
5G, ditch all comunications including mail
This is a nonsense article. Lots of hypotheticals with no proof presented of China's
intention or cases of actually trying to influence any American election.
This is more
how Western countries behave with their Machivellian modus operandi overthrowing
governments in Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc. This author and American officials are
merely voicing what the USA is already capable of doing rather than what China has in
place.
In fact there is a debate among Chinese officials and think tanks that they might want
Trump to have a second term because as the USA p@sses off many countries including those
allied with the USA that might help China down the line.
Wait a minute -- Russia wants Trump to be reelected, and China wants him to lose?
With US creating legislation for the whole world -- our sanctions whose enforcement is
imposed in others -- means that other people must have the right to elect the president?
How can the world accept such financial burden on others with no right to vote.
Remember
America next time you vote for sanctions, tariffs etc. -- no taxation without
representation.
Global presidents must be elected globally!
There's no need for the Chinese to rely on 'covert' operation to influence the election's
outcome. For instance, if China just cancels the buying of the agricultural goods from the
US that it has dealt with Trump in what is being called the partial deal from the trade
war, it would be already enough to influence in the election. Lol!
"... The brother of the current Chilean president, scions of one of the richest families in Chile, became famous for introducing, as Minister of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet, a funded system of pensions where employees make compulsory contributions from their wages into one of several pension funds, and after retirement receive pensions based on investment performance of such funds. Old-age pensions thus became a part of roulette capitalism. But In the process, the pension funds, charging often exorbitant fees, and their managers became rich. ..."
"... José Piñera had tried to "sell" this model to Yeltsin's Russia and to George Bush's United States, but, despite the strong (and quite understandable) support of the financial communities in both countries, he failed. Nowadays, most Chilean pensioners receive $200-$300 per month in a country whose price level (according to International Comparison Project, a worldwide UN- and World Bank-led project to compare price levels around the world) is about 80% of that of the United States. ..."
"... the combined wealth of Chilean billionaires' (there were twelve of them) was equal to 25% of Chilean GDP. The next Latin American countries with highest wealth concentrations are Mexico and Peru where the wealth share of billionaires is about half (13 percent of GDP) of Chile's. But even better: Chile is the country where billionaires' share, in terms of GDP, is the highest in the world (if we exclude countries like Lebanon and Cyprus) where many foreign billionaires simply "park" their wealth for tax reasons. The wealth of Chile's billionaires, compared to their country's GDP, exceeds even that of Russians. [Graph] ..."
"... Such extraordinary inequality of wealth and income, combined with full marketization of many social services (water, electricity etc.), and pensions that depend on the vagaries of the stock market has long been "hidden" from foreign observers by Chile's success in raising its GDP per capita. ..."
"... if there Is no social justice and minimum of social cohesion, the effects of growth will dissolve in grief, demonstrations, and yes, in the shooting of people. ..."
Chile: The poster boy of neoliberalism who fell from grace
It is not common for an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development county to
shoot and kill 16 people in two days of socially motivated riots. (Perhaps only Turkey, in
its unending wars against the Kurdish guerrilla, comes close to that level of violence.) This
is however what Chilean government, the poster child of neoliberalism and transition to
democracy, did last week in the beginning of protests that do not show the signs of subsiding
despite cosmetic reforms proposed by President Sebastian Piñera.
The fall from grace of Chile is symptomatic of worldwide trends that reveal the damages
causes by neoliberal policies over the past thirty years, from privatizations in Eastern
Europe and Russia to the global financial crisis to the Euro-related austerity. Chile was
held, not the least thanks to favorable press that it enjoyed, as a exemplar of success.
Harsh policies introduced after the overthrow of Salvador Allende in 1973, and the murderous
spree that ensued afterwards, have been softened by the transition to democracy but their
essential features were preserved. Chile indeed had a remarkably good record of growth, and
while in the 1960-70s it was in the middle of the Latin American league by GDP per capita, it
is now the richest Latin American country. It was of course helped too by high prices for its
main export commodity, copper, but the success in growth is incontestable. Chile was
"rewarded" by the membership in the OECD, a club of the rich nations, the first South
American country to accede to it.
Where the country failed is in its social policies which somewhat bizarrely were
considered by many to have been successful too. In the 1980s-90s, the World Bank hailed
Chilean "flexible" labor policies which consisted of breaking up the unions and imposing a
model of branch-level negotiations between employers and workers rather than allowing an
overall umbrella union organization to negotiate for all workers. It was even more bizarrely
used by the World Bank as a model of transparency and good governance, something that the
transition countries in Eastern Europe should have presumably copied from Chile. The
brother of the current Chilean president, scions of one of the richest families in Chile,
became famous for introducing, as Minister of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet, a
funded system of pensions where employees make compulsory contributions from their wages into
one of several pension funds, and after retirement receive pensions based on investment
performance of such funds. Old-age pensions thus became a part of roulette capitalism. But In
the process, the pension funds, charging often exorbitant fees, and their managers became
rich.
José Piñera had tried to "sell" this model to Yeltsin's Russia and to
George Bush's United States, but, despite the strong (and quite understandable) support of
the financial communities in both countries, he failed. Nowadays, most Chilean pensioners
receive $200-$300 per month in a country whose price level (according to International
Comparison Project, a worldwide UN- and World Bank-led project to compare price levels around
the world) is about 80% of that of the United States.
While Chile leads Latin America in GDP per capita, it also leads it terms of inequality.
In 2015, its level of income inequality was higher than in any other Latin American country
except for Colombia and Honduras. It exceeded even Brazil's proverbially high inequality. The
bottom 5% of the Chilean population have an income level that is about the same as that of
the bottom 5% in Mongolia. The top 2% enjoy the income level equivalent to that of the top 2%
in Germany. Dortmund and poor suburbs of Ulan Bataar were thus brought together.
Chilean income distribution is extremely unequal. But even more so is its wealth
distribution. There, Chile is an outlier even compared to the rest of Latin America.
According to the Forbes' 2014 data on world billionaires, the combined wealth of Chilean
billionaires' (there were twelve of them) was equal to 25% of Chilean GDP. The next Latin
American countries with highest wealth concentrations are Mexico and Peru where the wealth
share of billionaires is about half (13 percent of GDP) of Chile's. But even better: Chile is
the country where billionaires' share, in terms of GDP, is the highest in the world (if we
exclude countries like Lebanon and Cyprus) where many foreign billionaires simply "park"
their wealth for tax reasons. The wealth of Chile's billionaires, compared to their country's
GDP, exceeds even that of Russians.
[Graph]
Such extraordinary inequality of wealth and income, combined with full marketization of
many social services (water, electricity etc.), and pensions that depend on the vagaries of
the stock market has long been "hidden" from foreign observers by Chile's success in raising
its GDP per capita.
But the recent protests show that the latter is not enough. Growth is
indispensable for economic success and reduction in poverty. But it is not enough: if there
Is no social justice and minimum of social cohesion, the effects of growth will dissolve in
grief, demonstrations, and yes, in the shooting of people.
Dan Drezner jumps
to a shaky conclusion on public opinion and foreign policy:
What is striking about arguments like these is the near-complete absence of any discussion
of public opinion polling to buttress their argument. If the Blob's policy preferences are
truly disconnected from those of the American public, that would be a powerful populist
talking point. This has been made in the past with a heavy reliance on polling data. Both
Trumpists and progressives should be trumpeting public opinion surveys from the rooftops that
highlight the disconnect with the Blob.
They are not doing that, however, and I think I know why. It turns out that what the
American people want in foreign policy looks an awful lot like what the Blob wants.
I am neither a Trumpist nor a progressive, but I do advocate for foreign policy restraint,
so it may be worth noting that I have
called attention to public opinion surveys that
show that most Americans want a more restrained foreign policy. These surveys do not
show that most Americans want "what the Blob wants." Quite the contrary. The disconnect with
"the Blob" is hard to miss.
The findings of the Eurasia Group Foundation's survey point to the very
"chasm" between the public and foreign policy experts that Drezner says doesn't really
exist:
A new, national survey commissioned by the Eurasia Group Foundation (EGF) reveals the
American public supports a more restrained approach to international relations and military
interventions. However, this desire for a more focused foreign policy is at odds with the
more expansive role generally favored by foreign policy experts.
A separate study commissioned by the Center for American Progress found
a similar preference for what they call "restrained engagement":
The findings in this survey suggest that American voters are not isolationist. Rather,
voters are more accurately described as supporting "restrained engagement" in international
affairs -- a strategy that favors diplomatic, political, and economic actions over military
action when advancing U.S. interests in the world. American voters want their political
leaders to make more public investments in the American people in order to compete in the
world and to strike the right balance abroad after more than a decade of what they see as
military overextension.
In contrast to much of the debate among political leaders and foreign policy experts
today, voters in this survey express little interest in the processes and tactics of foreign
policy or the workings of international alliances and institutions. They generally support
cooperation and engagement with allies, but these are not top-tier objectives on their
own.
One example of the "chasm" between foreign policy experts and the public from the EGF survey
concerned the appropriate response to atrocities committed by foreign governments:
While there is some support among the surveyed experts for a restrained approach or a
U.N.-led response, a large majority of them favors U.S.-led intervention (61%). The public
leans heavily in the opposite direction with 43% in favor of restraint and 34% that prefer a
U.N.-led response. When it comes to deciding when to initiate interventions and attack other
states, there clearly is a yawning gap between the public and the foreign policy establishment.
The latter is much more open to unilateral or U.S.-led military action in this instance.
The EGF survey found a similar gap when they asked about the prospect of retaliation in the
event of an attack on a NATO ally:
While there is a slight majority in favor of retaliation, the public is much more evenly
divided. The foreign policy experts are almost unanimously in favor. The gap is real and it is
huge. Using Bremmer's categories, we see that expressed again in preferences for the U.S. role
in the world:
Roughly half of the experts prefer America as the "indispensable nation" compared with less
than 10% of the public. The "independent" America that is most closely identified with foreign
policy restraint has the backing of 44% of the public and just 9% of the experts. One can argue
that the experts are right and the public is wrong, or vice versa, but one cannot say that they
all want the same thing.
Drezner cites public opinion on Syria as evidence in favor of the proposition that the
public and "the Blob" are much more closely aligned than critics of "the Blob" allow, but this
is not as compelling as he thinks it is. He finds that opinion at the start of this year was
evenly split between pro- and anti-withdrawal blocs. The Pew
poll he cites breaks down the responses by political affiliation, and there is a clear
partisan split with far more Republicans in favor of withdrawal and most Democrats opposed.
Most of the respondents are reacting to the proposed withdrawal in a partisan fashion:
Democrats opposed it because Trump supposedly wanted it, and Republicans supported it for the
same reason. There is now apparently more opposition to withdrawal, but that is presumably
informed by the arbitrary and incompetent way in which the quasi-withdrawal has been executed.
It may also be influenced by the fact that Trump's so-called withdrawal isn't really a
withdrawal, but just a chaotic redeployment that may end up leaving more U.S.
troops in Syria than before . That is not surprising. The public tends to turn against
policies that are being carried out ineptly, no matter what their other policy preferences
might be. The association with the increasingly unpopular Trump is probably also causing more
people to reject whatever it is they think the president favors.
To understand the gap between foreign policy establishment and the public on Syria, we need
to look at Americans' views over many years. Most Americans have been strongly against U.S.
involvement in Syria over the years. The popular
backlash against the proposed attack on the Syrian government in 2013 was
strong enough that it blocked the intervention from happening. Many people in the foreign
policy establishment have been calling for a more activist and interventionist Syria policy
from the earliest days of the war in Syria, and there has been tremendous resistance
from the public for almost all of this time. Obama caught ten kinds of hell from "the Blob" for
his entire second term because he would not commit the U.S. to the larger role in the Syrian
war that so many of them were demanding. Support for fighting ISIS from the air is the only
thing that has consistently commanded broad
support . When it comes on whether to send U.S. forces into a conflict, the public has
consistently been much more reluctant to support this than the foreign policy establishment,
and that is especially true when there don't appear to be any vital U.S. interests at
stake.
Drezner concludes:
None of this is to say that the Blob or the American people are right about any particular
foreign policy issue. I am
all for serious debates about the future of American foreign policy. But advocates of
restraint need to stop claiming that the Blob is acting in an undemocratic manner. Because it
just ain't so.
Our objection to Syria policy isn't so much that "the Blob" is behaving in an undemocratic
way as it is that the U.S. government has illegally involved itself in a war in Syria for the
last five years without
Congressional authorization or any legal justification whatsoever . U.S. forces were sent
into Syria without the consent of the American people and our representatives, and they have
been kept there all this time without that consent. If that doesn't demonstrate that our
foreign policy today has become far too undemocratic, I don't know what would. If most
Americans now disapprove of the Trump administration's haphazard, clownish management of Syria
policy, that does not mean that they agree with "the Blob" about the larger policy questions.
The divide between the public and "the Blob" is quite large on some of the most important
questions, and if there is occasional agreement on a specific issue that shouldn't cause us to
forget how wide that divide is.
Trump's problem is that his "restraint" is quit selective -- Not Iran, Not Saudi Arabia,
Not Israel -- and where exercised, exaggerated. One need not withhold military aid from
Ukraine in order to avoid a shooting war with Russia over Crimea, or abandon the Kurds to
draw down the commitment in Syria.
MOSCOW, October 26, 2019 – RIA Novosti – The Russian Ministry of Defense has
published satellite intelligence images , showing American oil smuggling from Syria.
Image 1: Situation in the Syrian Arab Republic as of October 26, 2019.
According to the ministry, the photos confirm that "Syrian oil, both before and after the
routing defeat of the Islamic State terrorists in land beyond the Euphrates river , under the
reliable protection by US military servicemen, oil was actively being extracted and then the
fuel trucks were massively being sent for processing outside of Syria."
Image 2: Daman oil gathering station, Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 42 km east of Deir
ez-Zor, August 23, 2019.
Here, in a picture of the Daman oil gathering station (42 kilometers east of the Deir-ez-Zor
province), taken on August 23, a large amount of trucks were spotted. "There were 90 automotive
vehicles, including 23 fuel trucks," the caption to the image said.
In addition, on September 5, there were 25 vehicles in the Al-Hasakah province, including 22
fuel trucks. Three days later, on September 8, in the vicinity of Der Ez-Zor, 36 more vehicles
were recorded (32 of them were fuel trucks). On the same day, 41 vehicles, including 34 fuel
trucks, were in the Mayadin onshore area.
Image 3: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Al-Hasakah province, 8 km west of Al-Shaddadi,
September 5, 2019.
As the official representative of the Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov noted, the Americans
are extracting oil in Syria with the help of equipment, bypassing their own sanctions.
Igor Konashenkov:
"Under the protection of American military servicemen and employees of American PMCs, fuel
trucks from the oil fields of Eastern Syria are smuggling to other states. In the event of
any attack on such a caravan, special operations forces and US military aircraft are
immediately called in to protect it," he said.
According to Konashenkov, the US-controlled company Sadcab , established under the so-called
Autonomous Administration of Eastern Syria , is engaged in the export of oil, and the income of
smuggling goes to the personal accounts of US PMCs and special forces.
The Major General added that as of right now, a barrel of smuggled Syrian oil is valued at
$38, therefore the monthly revenue of US governmental agencies exceeds $30 million.
Image 4: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 10 km east of Mayadin,
September 8, 2019.
"For such a continuous financial flow, free from control and taxes of the American
government, the leadership of the Pentagon and Langley will be ready to guard and defend oil
fields in Syria from the mythical 'hidden IS cells' endlessly," he said.
According to Konashenkov, Washington, by holding oil fields in eastern Syria, is engaged in
international state banditry.
Image 5: Gathering of vehicles in Syria, Deir ez-Zor province, 14 km east of Mayadin,
September 8, 2019.
The reason for this activity, he believes, "lies far from the ideals of freedom proclaimed
by Washington and their slogans on the fight against terrorism."
Igor Konashenkov:
"Neither in international law, nor in American legislation itself – there is not and
cannot be a single legal task for the American troops to protect and defend the hydrocarbon
deposits of Syria from Syria itself and its own people, " the representative of the Defense
Ministry concluded.
A day earlier, the Pentagon's head, Mark Esper declared that the United States is studying
the situation in the Deir ez-Zor region and intends to strengthen its positions there in the
near future "to ensure the safety of oil fields."
The Ruskies are mad - Trump is stopping them from taking the oil, it belongs to the Kurds
for their revenue and if US wants to help them have it so what....US is staying to secure
those oilfields against ISIS taking it again!
If everyone listened to the President when he talks there wouldn't be any spin that anyone
could get away with.
The oil is on Kurdish land. This part of Syria is just a small sector of Kurdish territory
that has been stolen from them by dividing it between four "countries", each of which has
oil. This is why the territory was stolen and why the Kurds have become the world's best
fighters.
Putin brokered a deal to stop Turkey wiping the Kurds by having their fighting force
assimilate with the Syrian military and required Russian observers access to ensure the Turks
keep their word and not invade to wipe all the Kurd civilians in order to also take their
Syrian oil.
So the corrupt US generals get caught in the act. Their senators and reps on the payroll
are going to need some more of that fairy tale PR for POTUS to read to us at bedtime.
If we are to believe that this is to protect the oil fields then the oil revenue should be
going to Syria, even though the Kurds are on the land. Follow the money to find the truth
because there is no one you can trust on this stage.
MSM are simply not covering this story. Or the other story about the supposed gas attack
at Douma where evidence was adulterated and/or ignored completely under US pressure.
Expect the same from MH17.
WTF is going on with our leaders and corporate MSM....can no one in a leadership position
distinguish between lies and the truth? Or fantasy and reality? Where are the 'journalists'
who will stand up and tell the truth in MSM? They no longer exist.
18 wheel fuel trucks around here hold 10K gal. 50 truck loads 500K of un processed oil if
it's true? I though they just got there. but no telling who might steal under those
conditions.
That was August. this is now. The Russians must have really wanted that oil to finance
their occupation. Trump is preventing ISIS from using the oil as their piggy bank.
Wasn't Erdogan doing the same not too long ago? Shortly after Erdogan became close friends
with Putin. Does this mean Trump and Putin will become close friends as well? Or is this
simply a common practice between two people who undeservingly place relatives in government
positions? First Turkey hands over Al Baghdadi (he received medical treatment in Southern
Turkey in a private clinic owned by Erdogan's daughter guarded by MIT agents) so that they
can continue to commit genocide against Kurds in Turkey and Syria... and now the US is
stealing Syrian oil like how the Turks initially were doing. What a mess and a
disappointment. Hopefully Erdogan visits DC and unleashes his security guards beating any
person freely walking the streets while Trump smiles and describes him as a great leader.
Watch in coming weeks as the tanker convoys are proven to be rogue operations from an out
of control CIA / Cabal network. Trump removed the troops, and now Russia is shining a light
on it.
No coincidence another article on ZH brung attention to the Ukrainian wareehouse arsos..12
in 2 yrs..2017-2018 where stored munition were carted away...not to fight rebels n Donbass
but sold to Islamic groups in Syria..it was one of Bidens pals..one keeps the wars going
while the others steal siphon of resources..whatever isn't nailed down..I've never seen
anything like this..Democrats are truly CRIME INC
w/o that oil..Syria can never reconstruct itself..Usually in a War or ,after that is, the
victors help rebuild..what we see is pillaging and salting the earth and walk away.. as the
Romans did to enemies like Carthage..it will resemble Libya ...a shambles
So the smuggling is protected by air cover and special forces? Light up the fields using
some scud missiles. I'm sure Iran or Iraq have a few they could lend Syria. Can't sell it if
its burning.
Brits and Americans have pillaged, as any other empire, wherever they conquered.
After WW1 the 'Allies' robbed Germany of all foreign currency and its entire gold. This
triggering hyperinflation and mega crisis.
During WW2 central bank gold was pillaged from countries that were 'liberated' across
Europe.
In more recent history, the gold of Iraq, Ukraine and Libya was flown to Fort Knox.
All well documented.
This is common practice by empires. Just please stop pretending you were the good
guys , spreading freedom and democracy, because that's really a mockery and the
disgusting part of your invasions.
During WW2 central bank gold was pillaged from countries that were 'liberated'.
Exactly, that's where the US got its 8,000 tons of gold. Before WWII, the US had 2000 tons
of gold, after WWII it had 8,000 tons. Even today the US always steals the gold of the
countries it "liberates"
Help me understand why the USA would want to smuggle oil from Syria. When the USA has more
oil than all of the middleast.
Now I can see why Russia would blame the USA if smuggling Oil from Syria. Russia needs
that oil really bad. So to get the USA away from the Syrian oil fields they would of course
create a reason for the rest of the world that the USA is Dishonerable and must not be
trusted with Syrian oil. It is just too obvious to me, what Russia is trying to
accomplish.
Huh? The US is stealing the oil to deprive the Syrian people energy they need to rebuild
the country we destroyed. This is collective punishment of Syrians because they won't
overthrow Assad.
Collective punishment is a crime against humanity according to international law. There's
your impeachable offense. But don't worry, that kind of crime is ok with Shifty Schiff and
the rest of the Israel ***-kissers in Congress.
The US is NOT stealing the oil - the American Military have become PIRATES - no different
than Somali Red Sea Pirates or looters in Newark stealing diapers and TV's
This is nothing new. We've been stealing oil from dozens of countries for the past 75
years since WWII. The only difference is that Trump is being blatant about it which in a way
is weirdly refreshing.
This implicates State Department in the attempt to run a false flag operation. If we add that the State Department is the
key organization behind for color revolution against Trump that picture becomes even more disturbing. This is really a neocon
vipers nest.
Notable quotes:
"... This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun. ..."
"... "I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017," Cox told me on Twitter earlier today. ..."
"... And, like clockwork, on April 7 2018 dozens of civilians in Douma were killed in an incident which was quickly reported as a Syrian government chemical attack by all the usual establishment narrative managers on Syria , with everyone from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke loudly flagging it on social media to draw the attention of mainstream news outlets who were slower to pick up the story. ..."
"... Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed, the US State Department declared it to have been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests. ..."
"... On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France launched an airstrike on the Syrian government as punishment for using chemical weapons, citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation could take place. ..."
"... The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018 published an interim report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits like Charles Lister who claimed that sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population." ..."
"... In May of this year, a leaked internal document from the OPCW investigation was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government. ..."
"... The OPCW indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by clicking here . Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work. ..."
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ." ..."
"... "The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. " ..."
"... "The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact, acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported." ..."
"... "One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics were noted in the leaked study ." ..."
"... "Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to, or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma investigation." ..."
The Courage Foundation , an international
protection and advocacy group for whistleblowers, has
published the findings of a panel it
convened last week on the extremely suspicious behavior of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its
investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. After hearing an extensive presentation from a member of the
OPCW's Douma investigation team, the panel's members (including a world-renowned former OPCW Director General)
report that they are "unanimous in expressing
our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus
on 7 April 2018."
I'll get to the panel and its findings in a moment, but first I should provide some historical background so that readers who
aren't intimately familiar with this ongoing scandal can fully appreciate the significance of this new development.
In late March of last year, President Trump
publicly
stated that the US military would soon be withdrawing troops from Syria, causing some with an ear to the ground like
independent US congressional candidate Steve
Cox to predict that there would shortly be a false flag chemical weapons attack in that nation. This was because the public had
already
been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal
of standing US Syria policy, as I
noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun.
"I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017,"
Cox told me on Twitter earlier
today.
"Khan Shaykhun also occurred within days of the Trump Admin saying we're leaving Syria."
There was immediate skepticism, partly because
acclaimed journalists like Sy Hersh have
been highlighting plot holes in the official story about chemical weapons in Syria since 2013, partly because Assad would stand nothing
to gain and everything to lose by using a banned yet
highly ineffective
weapon in a battle he'd already essentially
won in that region, and partly because the people controlling things on the ground in Douma were the
Al Qaeda-linked
extremist group Jaysh-al Islam and the incredibly shady
narrative management operation known as the White Helmets. Those groups, unlike the Assad government, most certainly would stand
everything to gain by staging a chemical attack in the desperate hope that it would draw NATO powers into attacking the Syrian government
and perhaps saving their necks.
Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed,
the US State Department declared it to have
been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that
Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests.
On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France
launched an airstrike on the Syrian government
as punishment for using chemical weapons,
citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The
public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation
could take place.
The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018
published an interim
report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental
samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits
like Charles Lister who claimed that
sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW
issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly
implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter
account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted
at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed
chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population."
In May of this year, a leaked
internal document from the OPCW investigation was
published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report
published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment
said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability
both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the
forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government.
The OPCW
indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's
Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by
clicking here . Establishment narrative
managers
had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented
from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications
that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work.
Throughout this time, critical thinkers like myself have been aggressively smeared as deranged conspiracy theorists, war crimes
deniers and genocide deniers for expressing skepticism of the establishment-authorized narrative on Douma. Which takes us to today.
The Courage Foundation panel who met with the OPCW whistleblower consists of former OPCW Director General
José Bustani (whose highly successful peacemongering
once saw the lives of his
children threatened by John Bolton during the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in an attempt to remove him from his position), WikiLeaks
editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson , Professor of
International Law Richard Falk , former British Army
Major General John Holmes , Dr Helmut
Lohrer of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, German professor
Dr Guenter Meyer of the Centre for Research on the Arab
World, and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East Elizabeth Murray of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity.
So these are not scrubs. These are not "conspiracy theorists" or "Russian propagandists". These are highly qualified and reputable
professionals expressing deep concerns in the opaque and manipulative way the OPCW appears to have conducted its investigation into
the Douma incident. Some highlights from their joint
statement and analytical points are
quoted below, with my own emphasis added in bold:
"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma,
near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical
analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained
conclusion ."
"The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts
and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of
investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. "
~ Bustani
"A critical analysis of the
final report of the Douma
investigation left the panel in little doubt that conclusions drawn from each of the key evidentiary pillars of the investigation
(chemical analysis, toxicology, ballistics and witness testimonies,) are flawed and bear little relation to the facts. "
From the section on Chemical Analysis:
"The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking
gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in
the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact,
acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such
chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground
would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported."
"Although the report stresses the 'levels' of the chlorinated organic chemicals as a basis for its conclusions (para 2.6),
it never mentions what those levels were -- high, low, trace, sub-trace? Without providing data on the levels of these so-called
'smoking-gun' chemicals either for background or test samples, it is impossible to know if they were not simply due to background
presence . In this regard, the panel is disturbed to learn that quantitative results for the levels of 'smoking gun' chemicals
in specific samples were available to the investigators but this decisive information was withheld from the report ."
"The final report also acknowledges that the tell-tale chemicals supposedly indicating chlorine use, can also be generated
by contact of samples with sodium hypochlorite, the principal ingredient of household bleaching agent (para 8.15). This game-changing
hypothesis is, however, dismissed (and as it transpires, incorrectly) by stating no bleaching was observed at the site of investigation.
(' At both locations, there were no visible signs of a bleach agent or discoloration due to contact with a bleach agent' ). The
panel has been informed that no such observation was recorded during the on-site inspection and in any case dismissing the hypothesis
simply by claiming the non -observation of discoloration in an already dusty and scorched environment seems tenuous and unscientific
."
From the section on Toxicology:
"The toxicological studies also reveal inconsistencies, incoherence and possible scientific irregularities. Consultations with
toxicologists are reported to have taken place in September and October 2018 (para 8.87 and Annex 3), but no mention is made of
what those same experts opined or concluded. Whilst the final toxicological assessment of the authors states ' it is not possible
to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical ' (para 9.6) the report nonetheless concludes there
were reasonable grounds to believe chlorine gas was the chemical (used as a weapon)."
"More worrying is the fact that the panel viewed documented evidence that showed other toxicologists had been consulted in
June 2018 prior to the release of the interim report. Expert opinions on that occasion were that the signs and symptoms observed
in videos and from witness accounts were not consistent with exposure to molecular chlorine or any reactive-chlorine-containing
chemical. Why no mention of this critical assessment, which contradicts that implied in the final report, was made is unclear
and of concern. "
From the section on Ballistic Studies:
"One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical
crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because
of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics
were noted in the leaked study ."
From the section titled "Exclusion of inspectors and attempts to obfuscate":
"Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the
inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to,
or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational
efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma
investigation."
Oct 26 2019 American foreign policy elites are in near-unanimous agreement that President
Trump's withdrawal of troops from northern Syria, along with the ensuing influx of Russian and
Syrian troops, is a "gift to Putin." Some variant of that phrase has over the past two weeks
appeared in headlines from the venerable New York Times, the venerable Foreign Affairs, and the
quasi-venerable CNN, among other mainstream outlets.
Russian elites have
joined their American counterparts in viewing recent developments in Syria as a zero-sum
game that Russia won and the United States lost. One Russian newspaper touted Russia's "triumph
in the Middle East," and an analyst on Russian TV said this triumph is "sad for America."
There are certainly things to be sad about. It's sad that Trump's withdrawal -- impulsively
ordered, with no diplomatic preparation -- has caused so much more havoc and suffering,
especially for the Kurds, than was necessary. And to me, at least, it's sad that Trump, in his
record-setting incompetence, is giving military withdrawals a bad name.
But I don't buy the premise of the "gift to Putin" meme -- that a decline of American influence
in Syria, and a commensurate growth in Russian influence, is inherently a sad thing for
America. This shift may well be good for Putin, but it could also be, in the long run, good for
the United States and good for the Middle East broadly.
Some people may find the previous sentence, with it's win-win overtones, deeply disorienting
if not flat-out unintelligible. The Cold War idea that the U.S. and Russia are playing a
zero-sum game has gotten a second wind in recent years, in part because of genuine contentions
between the two but also because of #Resistance psychology. Acting on the intuition that the
friend of my enemy is my enemy, lots of anti-Trumpers look at the often-cozy relationship
between Trump and Vladimir Putin (including their symbiosis during the 2016 presidential
campaign) and conclude that Russia must be thwarted at every stop.
But what most needs thwarting is this archaic way of looking at foreign policy -- as a
Manichaean struggle for influence between the United States and its allies, on the one hand,
and the forces of darkness on the other. The U.S. shares important interests with Russia --
and, for that matter, with Russian allies Syria and Iran -- and the sooner it recognizes that,
the better.
I noted one example of this in last week's newsletter: Russia and Syria and Iran are enemies of
ISIS, one of the final obstacles to firm regime control of Syria. So any reprieve to ISIS
granted by America's abrupt withdrawal may be temporary.
But a larger and more critical point is that the challenge facing Russia and its client regime
in Syria -- not just consolidating control of Syria but rebuilding a devastated country --
leaves Russia with no interest in the further destabilization of the Middle East. Which is
good, because it's hard to imagine the Middle East getting much more unstable -- especially
along the fault line between Iran and Syria on the one hand and Israel and Saudi Arabia on the
other -- without another disastrous war breaking out.
Russia has already shown signs of being able to play a constructive role here -- a fact that,
oddly, has been emphasized even by some who buy the "gift to Putin" thesis. Hal Brands of the
American Enterprise Institute -- in a Bloomberg Opinion
essay titled, "Putin Conquered the Middle East. The U.S. Can Get It Back" -- notes that
"Putin has shown diplomatic flexibility, keeping the lines open to nearly all players
throughout the region."
Brands laments "the collapse of America's position in the region and Moscow's ascendance as the
key power broker in the Syrian civil war." He goes on: "Moscow, in partnership with Iran and
its proxies, has made itself the centerpiece of the diplomacy and regional power struggles
surrounding that conflict. To what other capital would both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
of Israel and Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Quds Force, trek to discuss Middle
Eastern security?"
Not Washington, certainly -- and that's the point! It isn't just that Russia shares America's
interest in a stable Middle East. It's that Russia, unlike America, is in a position to do
something about it. Yet Brands is so busy recoiling at Russia's regional rise that he doesn't
welcome, or perhaps even quite recognize, its potential benefits -- even as he comes
tantalizingly close to spelling them out.
Brands's disposition is shared by many in the American foreign policy establishment. They
combine an awareness that America hasn't translated its regional power into productive
diplomacy with a deep aversion to any waning of that power. This isn't as ironic as it may
sound. Many, perhaps most, of them see America's diplomatic impotence as a product of the Trump
era. They want to preserve American influence so that, once Trump is gone, it can again be used
wisely.
Hope is a wonderful thing, but in this case you have to wonder what its historical basis is.
When exactly in recent American history could you have gotten an Iranian leader, and not
just an Israeli leader, to trek to Washington? Would that be, say, right after George W. Bush
declared Iran part of the "axis of evil"? Even Barack Obama, more intent on improving relations
with Iran than any recent president, never got all the way to rapprochement. To read the rest of this piece, go to
Politico Magazine . [ Back story: A Politico editor who read the piece in last week's NZN that noted
the shared Russian-US interest in subduing ISIS asked me if I wanted to do a piece on other
non-zero-sum aspects of Russia's growing influence in the Middle East -- in other words, a
piece that would rebut the "gift to Putin" argument more broadly. This piece, published in
Politico Magazine a few hours before this week's newsletter came out, is the result.]
Regardless of what do you think about Donald Trump, what intelligence community did was a plain vanilla coup d'état approved by Obama
and coordinated by run by Brennan faction in CIA. With active participation of factions of FBI (Counterintelligence department),
Department of Justice (several highly placed officials) and State Department (which is a real neocon vipers nest so the majority of high level officials,
especially connected with the Ukrainian color revolution participated) eagerly participated in the coup.
They left too many fingerprints in this and now Barr hopefully will brings some individuals to justice for this coup.
Notable quotes:
"... I was fortunate to participate in a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community. ..."
I was fortunate to participate in
a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted
coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community.
This implicates State Department in the attempt to run a false flag operation. If we add that the State Department is the
key organization behind for color revolution against Trump that picture becomes even more disturbing. This is really a neocon
vipers nest.
Notable quotes:
"... This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun. ..."
"... "I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017," Cox told me on Twitter earlier today. ..."
"... And, like clockwork, on April 7 2018 dozens of civilians in Douma were killed in an incident which was quickly reported as a Syrian government chemical attack by all the usual establishment narrative managers on Syria , with everyone from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke loudly flagging it on social media to draw the attention of mainstream news outlets who were slower to pick up the story. ..."
"... Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed, the US State Department declared it to have been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests. ..."
"... On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France launched an airstrike on the Syrian government as punishment for using chemical weapons, citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation could take place. ..."
"... The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018 published an interim report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits like Charles Lister who claimed that sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population." ..."
"... In May of this year, a leaked internal document from the OPCW investigation was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government. ..."
"... The OPCW indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by clicking here . Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work. ..."
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ." ..."
"... "The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. " ..."
"... "The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact, acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported." ..."
"... "One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics were noted in the leaked study ." ..."
"... "Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to, or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma investigation." ..."
The Courage Foundation , an international
protection and advocacy group for whistleblowers, has
published the findings of a panel it
convened last week on the extremely suspicious behavior of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its
investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. After hearing an extensive presentation from a member of the
OPCW's Douma investigation team, the panel's members (including a world-renowned former OPCW Director General)
report that they are "unanimous in expressing
our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus
on 7 April 2018."
I'll get to the panel and its findings in a moment, but first I should provide some historical background so that readers who
aren't intimately familiar with this ongoing scandal can fully appreciate the significance of this new development.
In late March of last year, President Trump
publicly
stated that the US military would soon be withdrawing troops from Syria, causing some with an ear to the ground like
independent US congressional candidate Steve
Cox to predict that there would shortly be a false flag chemical weapons attack in that nation. This was because the public had
already
been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal
of standing US Syria policy, as I
noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun.
"I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017,"
Cox told me on Twitter earlier
today.
"Khan Shaykhun also occurred within days of the Trump Admin saying we're leaving Syria."
There was immediate skepticism, partly because
acclaimed journalists like Sy Hersh have
been highlighting plot holes in the official story about chemical weapons in Syria since 2013, partly because Assad would stand nothing
to gain and everything to lose by using a banned yet
highly ineffective
weapon in a battle he'd already essentially
won in that region, and partly because the people controlling things on the ground in Douma were the
Al Qaeda-linked
extremist group Jaysh-al Islam and the incredibly shady
narrative management operation known as the White Helmets. Those groups, unlike the Assad government, most certainly would stand
everything to gain by staging a chemical attack in the desperate hope that it would draw NATO powers into attacking the Syrian government
and perhaps saving their necks.
Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed,
the US State Department declared it to have
been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that
Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests.
On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France
launched an airstrike on the Syrian government
as punishment for using chemical weapons,
citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The
public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation
could take place.
The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018
published an interim
report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental
samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits
like Charles Lister who claimed that
sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW
issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly
implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter
account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted
at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed
chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population."
In May of this year, a leaked
internal document from the OPCW investigation was
published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report
published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment
said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability
both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the
forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government.
The OPCW
indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's
Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by
clicking here . Establishment narrative
managers
had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented
from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications
that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work.
Throughout this time, critical thinkers like myself have been aggressively smeared as deranged conspiracy theorists, war crimes
deniers and genocide deniers for expressing skepticism of the establishment-authorized narrative on Douma. Which takes us to today.
The Courage Foundation panel who met with the OPCW whistleblower consists of former OPCW Director General
José Bustani (whose highly successful peacemongering
once saw the lives of his
children threatened by John Bolton during the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in an attempt to remove him from his position), WikiLeaks
editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson , Professor of
International Law Richard Falk , former British Army
Major General John Holmes , Dr Helmut
Lohrer of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, German professor
Dr Guenter Meyer of the Centre for Research on the Arab
World, and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East Elizabeth Murray of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity.
So these are not scrubs. These are not "conspiracy theorists" or "Russian propagandists". These are highly qualified and reputable
professionals expressing deep concerns in the opaque and manipulative way the OPCW appears to have conducted its investigation into
the Douma incident. Some highlights from their joint
statement and analytical points are
quoted below, with my own emphasis added in bold:
"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma,
near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical
analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained
conclusion ."
"The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts
and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of
investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. "
~ Bustani
"A critical analysis of the
final report of the Douma
investigation left the panel in little doubt that conclusions drawn from each of the key evidentiary pillars of the investigation
(chemical analysis, toxicology, ballistics and witness testimonies,) are flawed and bear little relation to the facts. "
From the section on Chemical Analysis:
"The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking
gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in
the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact,
acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such
chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground
would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported."
"Although the report stresses the 'levels' of the chlorinated organic chemicals as a basis for its conclusions (para 2.6),
it never mentions what those levels were -- high, low, trace, sub-trace? Without providing data on the levels of these so-called
'smoking-gun' chemicals either for background or test samples, it is impossible to know if they were not simply due to background
presence . In this regard, the panel is disturbed to learn that quantitative results for the levels of 'smoking gun' chemicals
in specific samples were available to the investigators but this decisive information was withheld from the report ."
"The final report also acknowledges that the tell-tale chemicals supposedly indicating chlorine use, can also be generated
by contact of samples with sodium hypochlorite, the principal ingredient of household bleaching agent (para 8.15). This game-changing
hypothesis is, however, dismissed (and as it transpires, incorrectly) by stating no bleaching was observed at the site of investigation.
(' At both locations, there were no visible signs of a bleach agent or discoloration due to contact with a bleach agent' ). The
panel has been informed that no such observation was recorded during the on-site inspection and in any case dismissing the hypothesis
simply by claiming the non -observation of discoloration in an already dusty and scorched environment seems tenuous and unscientific
."
From the section on Toxicology:
"The toxicological studies also reveal inconsistencies, incoherence and possible scientific irregularities. Consultations with
toxicologists are reported to have taken place in September and October 2018 (para 8.87 and Annex 3), but no mention is made of
what those same experts opined or concluded. Whilst the final toxicological assessment of the authors states ' it is not possible
to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical ' (para 9.6) the report nonetheless concludes there
were reasonable grounds to believe chlorine gas was the chemical (used as a weapon)."
"More worrying is the fact that the panel viewed documented evidence that showed other toxicologists had been consulted in
June 2018 prior to the release of the interim report. Expert opinions on that occasion were that the signs and symptoms observed
in videos and from witness accounts were not consistent with exposure to molecular chlorine or any reactive-chlorine-containing
chemical. Why no mention of this critical assessment, which contradicts that implied in the final report, was made is unclear
and of concern. "
From the section on Ballistic Studies:
"One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical
crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because
of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics
were noted in the leaked study ."
From the section titled "Exclusion of inspectors and attempts to obfuscate":
"Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the
inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to,
or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational
efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma
investigation."
The US regularly rotates general officers in and out of war-zones annually, but when
a foreign leader is occasionally (and supposedly) lost it's a big publicity deal. Do they
think we're stupid?
So I can't help but conclude that making such a big publicity deal of this is only
intended to motivate the enemy to fight harder, which it does, and so prolong the almost
never-ending war against ISIS, to which ground troops are rarely employed, if ever.
Plus having citizens focus on foreign enemies to gain domestic advantage is an old
strategy dating back to Randolph Bourne's "The State" here (1918) .
I have little doubt Baghdadi lives, but this incarnation is finished. He might be recycled
after plastic surgery and sho up in a place like southern Yemen or Kazakhstan...
Takeouts of guys like him and Osama are news icons saying the big boys are finishing up
their public games/involvement in an area.
The good news is that this signals the end of US and EU overt support for the Syrian
jihadists. The bad news - and perhaps more dangerous- is that Western influence goes back to
being covert
Several years ago Syrper had a detailed article on Baghdadi- a lot of it quoting info from
Syrian intelligence ( who are good at their job). IIRC it detailed a stint in an Israeli
treatment center, American handlers, the works. With all that Baghdadi has since done for
them, he is simply too useful to be disposed of.
The giveaway was the relocation of the ISIS leaders harem to Iraq two weeks ago at the
start of the US withdrawal. ISIS called for their secure relocation and US forces jumped to
it (and moved them to Iraq) They did not relocate SDF families to safety...
Occupying Tanf has nothing to do with the oil-fields, they are far away. The objective is
disrupting Syria. Providing a base for the US-supported militias, who didn't succeed when
trained outside the country, and are not likely to do better when trained in Tanf. The Tanf
lot haven't achieved much, other than defending themselves. At least they're not in Jordan or
Iraq, where there might be questions. A base in the middle of the desert works as long as
you're willing to pay for it. Probably they even have to have water trucked in from over the
border.
Peter...I don't think the Russian statement was that ambiguous...
Strikes with munitions purportedly preceded the landings...so 'no airstrikes' would
contradict that...
As for hiding from radar, that's possible but looking at a topo map of the area it seems
difficult...
The route in from Turkey to the north and west is mostly flat, although it does start to
rise south of Barisha...
Those big Russian SAM radars would be on high ground in the An Nusayrah range that runs
along the coast of Latakia...if you wanted to come in nap of the earth, you would need to
plan specifically for that...
And then there is sigint plus humint on the ground in Idlib, which the Russians do
have...
So it's a he said, she said...
Right now I'm filing this one under 'questionable'...
This report came in the night before the purported commando raid:
MYSTERIOUS HELICOPTERS ATTACK TERRORISTS' POSITIONS ALONG TURKISH-SYRIAN BORDER (VIDEOS)
https://southfront.org/mysterious-helicopters-attack-terrorists-positions-along-turkish-syrian-border-videos/
The video indicates helicopters firing but does not appear to indicate anyone firing from the
ground toward the helicopters.
FRESH PHOTOS FROM SITE OF U.S. RAID TO ELIMINATE AL-BAGHDADI https://southfront.org/fresh-photos-from-site-of-u-s-raid-to-eliminate-al-baghdadi/
Photos indicate grenade sized shells designed for helicopter guns had been fired at the
compound. Nothing in Trump's statement or the "time line" in Reuters indicates aerial
bombardment. Nothing commandos fired from ground positions would reduce a compound to rubble.
If any of this is real, they reduced the compound to rubble before landing. The Russians have
contradicted Trump's statements, and they have evidenced considerable skepticism of this
report.
The area in which this allegedly happened is dense with Al Quaeda / Al Nusra militants and
controlled by them. It is unlikely the ISIS leader would reside there.
Bagdhadi is said to have run down a tunnel with three sons, pursued by dogs, and blown
himself up with a suicide belt. The explosion allegedly caused the tunnel to collapse.
Somehow the suicide belt which killed four failed to inflict any damage upon the commandos.
Yet it was sufficiently powerful to collapse the tunnel. Presumably that is why the video of
the area after the fact does not suggest a tunnel. The collapse of this tunnel did not entrap
any of the commandos. And they were subsequently able to retrieve Bagdhadi's body from the
collapsed tunnel, within one hour and forty five minutes, allowing fifteen minutes to confirm
his DNA. And round up a bunch of children and a bunch of militants, without incurring a
single casualty. As well as retrieve considerable highly sensitive intelligence
materials.
If you've read this far, I thank you for assisting me with my therapy in writing this up - in
hopes of recovering from the violent assault this story made upon my intelligence.
You forgot to mention that Trump watched the assault "like a movie" but only a small
snippet of video has been released.
No explanation of where they got the DNA. In a TV news interview I saw earlier today, the
Administration/Military spokesperson wouldn't even say where the body is now.
And lastly, ISIS is defeated and Baghdadi is dead . . . but USA must still hold the oil
fields? Was Trump's language designed to incite ISIS because USA needs an "ISIS resurgence"
to justify holding the oil fields?
Jackrabbit !! I don't understand all the fuss. Al-Baghdadi has been a American puppet
since at least '05. Cast yer minds back to the AQ in Iraq days when his mob would do
something over the top to excuse/instigate some evil imperial atrocity. His job has always
been to give amerika an excuse to stay. Which was isis/daesh raison d'etre The colour
revolution is being touted as the best way to go so the imperialists are tidying up loose
ends.
Trump stated emphatically that all Iraqi oil must go to amerikan corporations the day he
announced they were gonna steal Syria's oil. Then Iran's.
They musta decided Al-Baghdadi was a liability, one that couldn't be trusted so they
killed him where-ever he was being kept 'n that's where the DNA is from. Expect to see parts
of the vid as soon as it gets back from post processing & editing.
The dems will stay schtum cos acknowledging that level of deceit has no upside, they are
already sailing close to the wind with the Biden stuff, where their excuse is Trump broke the
secret of imperial corruption first by going straight to Uke prez instead of a quiet
character assassination which woulda left the chumps in the dark.
Read the transcript of Trump's announcement this morning. He explicitly says he is keeping
the oil, and might invite in Exxon to use it. Logistics are sketchy, because who will buy it?
The pipelines will go through Syrian controlled territory. But he also says that a deal might
be possible. It's ridiculous.
Revenue from Syria's oilfields is about a $million/day. That is a small fraction of what it
costs to maintain even one little US military base in Syria.
Try to hold tight to a sense of perspective, folks. Trump is a businessman. Not a very
good one, perhaps, but certainly not so stupid that he cannot see that as an incredibly bad
deal. This "keeping the oil" nonsense is empty posturing intended to appeal to shallow
thinkers who don't know the difference between Syria and Venezuela and who don't really care
what American foreign policy is so long as it is done with an arrogant swagger. Now that may
be the majority of the US population, but these kinds are not even going to remember the
tweet this time next week, much less even care.
"Keeping the oil" is not only tactically, strategically, and logistically
untenable, it is such a baldfaced violation of so many US and international laws, treaties,
and agreements that even America's fig leaf of last resort, Canada, would have to condemn it.
This is just childish posturing to throw the appearance of bravado on America's exit from the
theatre. People functioning at the level of many posters here need to stop taking it so
seriously.
Revenue from Syria's oilfields is about a $million/day. That is a small fraction of what it
costs to maintain even one little US military base in Syria.
Try to hold tight to a sense of perspective, folks.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 27 2019 18:18 utc | 45
The point of "keeping the oil" is not to profit from it, but to deny it to the Syrians.
That's what Bibi wants.
@ 53
"Keeping the oil" is also meant to send a political message that you-know-who is still in
charge here, a Carter Doctrine policy that has been in tatters recently.
On the Syrian oil, US apparently was raking in 30 million a month in an operation that was
small enough to be kept from the public. If they take over the oilfields publicly and boost
oil infrastructure, the monthly take will rise considerably.
The oil fields on the east bank of the Euphrates produced the bulk of Syrian oil. If
production there was only 50% of Syrian production, the figures in dollar terms would still
be high.
200,0000 BPD would be just over half Syria pre war oil production, so 200,000 X say $40
per barrel brings the take up to $8 million per day. Not bad when its money for nothing.
William Gruff
Trump has made no effort or even noises to pull out of Tanf. I think he wants to continue
holding the Syrian border where he can. Denying the oil to Syria is a plus for him and that
also has the bonus of partly paying the cost of stationing the US along that border.
Zionism, oil, getting returns on military expenditure seems to be Trump's foreign policy or
as foreign policy is termed in the US 'War Policy"
"Keeping the oil" is also meant to send a political message that you-know-who is still in
charge here, a Carter Doctrine policy that has been in tatters recently.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 27 2019 18:51 utc | 60
Sure, that's also true. The NeoCon warmongers only got convincing very late in the game,
when US Special Forces were already withdrawing from most of Rojava, and could not be
stopped, except for this massively mounted late defence of the oil-fields. As the NeoCons
were resisting from the beginning, what was it that changed Trump's mind? Bibi sounds like
the answer, but I'm open to others.
"So why did Trump state so emphatically that Russia and China love U.S. presence
there???"
Reverse psychology. If Trump can get that narrative to fly then the mindless Russophobic
and Sinophobic brainwash victims in the US will start screaming for the US to get out. After
all, jello-brained Americans believe they must do the opposite of whatever China and Russia
think is good. The USA certainly cannot do anything that China or Russia might approve of,
right? So if they want us to stay then we have to leave.
Russia loves the US stealing Syria's oil. Listen, Russia delivered a beat down to murican
regime change policy the likes of which the world has never seen before. It is epic
humiliation beyond all endurance! The Syrian state is saved and the prospects of a Libya just
a few hours from Russia's border are now gone! The US is scared shittless to attack Iran head
on, so the status quo is returning to this region faster than murica's tiny brain can
process. So what to do? Grab the oil! Be a thug and criminal! No more pretense, just sin
proudly like the evil turd you are! Lol! And Russia can point at that turd and condemn it on
the world stage for the whole world to see. No excuses...no sympathy. Of course that bravado
wont last long. When push comes to shove, murica will fold like the dodgy piece of toilet
paper it is and go home. Be patient and enjoy the Evil Empire's death agony a while
longer...make popcorn...
The Redirection, Mar 5, 2007
Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
By Seymour M. Hersh
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in
effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has
cooperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are
intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has
also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of
these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant
vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. . . here
InsurgeIntel, May 22, 2015
Pentagon report predicted West's support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS
Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to 'isolate' Assad, rollback 'Shia
expansion'
by Nafeez Ahmed
The newly declassified DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency -- headed by General Flynn!] document
from 2012 confirms that the main component of the anti-Assad rebel forces by this time
comprised Islamist insurgents affiliated to groups that would lead to the emergence of ISIS.
Despite this, these groups were to continue receiving support from Western militaries and
their regional allies. . .
here
Some more history on how Russia's changed the US attitude toward Syria oil shipments to
foreign customers. Specifically, whereas until 2015 US air force pilots were not given
permission to fire on ISIS oil shipments, that policy changed when Russia entered the war.
In September 2015, the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament authorised
the Russian president to use armed forces in Syria.[9][10] Russia acknowledged that Russian
air and missile strikes targeted not only ISIL, but also rebel groups in the Army of Conquest
coalition like al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, and even FSA.
On 30 September 2015, Russia launched its first airstrikes against targets in Rastan,
Talbiseh, and Zafaraniya in Homs province of Syria. Moscow gave the United States a one-hour
advance notice of its operations. The Homs area is crucial to President Bashar al-Assad's
control of western Syria. -- wiki here
CBSNEWS, Nov 23, 2015
U.S. airstrikes against ISIS target oil tanker trucks
Two airstrikes, the most recent over the weekend, have destroyed almost 500 tanker trucks
ISIS uses to smuggle oil and sell it on the black market.
By one estimate, these attacks have destroyed roughly half the trucks ISIS uses to bring in
$1 million a day in revenues.
Until now, the U.S. has not gone after the tankers for fear of killing the civilian drivers.
. . here
That's the first time (and probably the last time) ever that the US military had any
consideration for civilian casualties. But they were ISIS employees so. . .cut 'em some
slack. Still, only half the trucks were destroyed at that time (more were destroyed much
later).
Last week, Thierry Meyssan posted an excellent paper ( https://www.voltairenet.org/article208007.html),
in which he states that the recent events in Syria, in which 'a quarter of the country was
freed in a week' is not only a victory for Assad, but the defeat of the 'military strategy to
establish the supremacy of financial capitalism'. These events mark the overturning of the
world order that has been in place since the end of WWII.
What I find remarkable is how quickly the old order has been overturned. The old order was
initially a bi-polar world, which evolved, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, into a
Uni-Polar World Order under the control of 'financial capitalism' (i.e. the 'Globalists',
also referred to as 'international financial elites', 'Anglo-Zionists', the 'Davos Crowd',
etc.). Arguably the Uni-Pole's power peaked in the early 2000s after the creation of the EU
and the eastern expansion of NATO. The first cracks in the Uni-Pole's hegemonic power
appeared in 2003 with the fiasco in Iraq, and in 2008 with the Global Financial Crisis. But
even as late as 2015, when Obama dismissed Russia's entry into Syria as nothing but Russia
stepping into a quagmire, the 'Globalists' could foresee no opposing force that would prevent
them from consolidating their Uni-Polar World Order into an enduring world-wide system of
'Global Governance' through a 'Rules-based International Order' under the 'Globalists'
control and enforced by the U.S. and NATO. But now, as Meyssan suggests, only four years
later, the Uni-Polar World Order has been toppled.
In its place a 'Multi-Polar World' order is emerging. I would like to suggest that the
outlines of this emerging order are as follows:
1. The dominant pole of this Multi-polar World is that led by the alliance of Russia and
China. Spanning Eurasia from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, this pole includes the
countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Union, and
includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, and possibly, in the future, Turkey.
2. The second pole will be the remnants of the 'Globalist' empire, stripped, however, of
Europe (ex. U.K.) and any Asian representation, i.e. the U.S., U.K., Israel and likely
Canada.
3. A third group consists of countries that are currently either occupied militarily by
the U.S. or are part of NATO, but are either economically dependent on China or are in
economic competition with the U.S. This includes most of Europe, Japan, South Korea,
Australia, New Zealand, and the GCC countries (KSA, UAE, etc.). These countries cannot be
considered as poles by themselves, for while some of them may have the economic weight to be
considered a pole, such as Germany and Japan, they lack the geo-political weight. These
countries are likely to try to escape from their status as American ('Globalist') vassals and
become independent nations dealing equitably with all the poles of the new Multi-Polar World.
In my view, it is unlikely that the EU will survive the birth of this new-world order in its
current form. At best it is likely to revert back to a European free trade area, in which
each country will recapture its sovereignty and its own currency.
4. A fourth group consists of countries that, while not being a part of the Russia/China
pole will be under its wing, with Russia providing military, political and geo-political
support, and China providing economic support. This group includes countries which are
currently either under threat from the 'Globalists' (ie. Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia,
etc.), are in turmoil due to exploitation by the 'Globalists' (ie. Chile, Argentina, Brazil,
etc.) or are outright failed states (most of Africa). Under the protection of Russia and
China, they will once again have a chance to overcome the anarchy of the past 20 or so years
and to return to peaceful development.
5. A fifth group consists of what will likely end up as secondary poles of the Multi-Polar
World. These are countries that today are both independent and have the geo-political and
economic weight to continue to function independently. This group includes the likes of India
and the ASEAN countries.
Uncertain is the time that it will take for this emerging order to stabilize. In my view,
this depends to a great extent on whether Trump survives impeachment and wins in 2020. If he
does then the emergence of the Multi-Polar World Order could be quite quick and painless, as
it is aligned with the policies that Trump has been espousing from the beginning of his
presidential campaign in 2015. To 'Make America Great Again' requires that the U.S. recover
its sovereignty and redevelop its industrial power. After all, a countries wealth, and thus
its power, is what it produces, and a country that doesn't produce as much as it consumes
will, in the end, consume itself. To redevelop its industrial power the U.S. needs to isolate
itself, as Trump is attempting to do behind a wall of tariff barriers and a devalued
currency. The Multi-Polar World Order will allow the U.S. the opportunity it needs isolate,
and then rebuild, itself. One must remember that it was the isolation of the U.S. in the 19th
and early 20th centuries that enabled the U.S. to become so powerful in the first place.
If, on the other hand, Trump is either overthrown by the 'Globalists' or defeated in 2020
then the emergence of the Multi-Polar World Order will be fraught with conflict. The
'Globalists' will fight it every step of the way, using all tools at their disposal, and
particularly the military muscle of the U.S. and NATO. For the 'Globalists' the Multi-Polar
World Order means the dispossession of their power and wealth. However, I believe that will
simply be a case of the losers continuing to fight long after the war has been lost. It is
only a question of how much time that it will take, and death and destruction that will
occur, before the U.S. and NATO are exhausted.
The emergence of the Multi-Polar World Order, once it stabilizes, is likely to usher in a
new era of peace and human development, similar to that which the world experienced in the
decades following WWII.
I agree with dh-mtl that we are entering a multi-polar world but that is happening because of
the deep corruption and divisions within the Washington Deep State. Still, the imperial
forces are formidable and should any faction get full control of them an expansion of current
wars is very possible. Trump is trying to fashion and has been trying to fashion a coalition
but he's failed and is failing. Media narratives, in the USA, always represent the interests
of the factions in power and they are all against Trump. This election is critical to world
history. Will we get a restoration with Biden (or Buttigieg) or Pence or will we start moving
in a new direction with Warren or Sanders? If the latter then the Deep State may move in a
new direction and begin to negotiated with Russia/China. If Trump then more chaos.
Sorry John, the quote that you posted was not taken from Thierry Meyssan, but is my
original work. I only quoted from Meyssan in the first paragraph.
The decades after WW2 may have spawned the CIA and their dirty tricks, but in spite of
this, the stand off between the U.S. and Russia, the bi-polar world, ensured a level of peace
and stability that lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union. These decades were undoubtedly
on of the greatest eras of human development that mankind has experienced.
I think those 5 categories are pretty much spot on. They also appear to be in sync with
Russia's envisioned relation with the main elements of those categories, as they develop in
practice. China's positioning looks more obscure though, but that must be due to lack of
information on my part more than anything else. What Russia initiates, China consolidates in
its broad strokes, but i am missing how coherent the details where the space of action
actually overlaps between the two.
The switch between the first and second category members from the previous status quo
appears to be settled along with tolerable levels of conflict. Circe won't like to hear it,
but in my opinion, we have Trump to thank for that, not because he intended for the switch,
but because he stresses on the US economical system the main effective capitalist
contradiction: productive vs financial capital. The tumultuous social and psychological state
of the US, attest to that contradiction despite emerging as very heated but apparently
distant themes (immigration, gender issues, the personality and conduct of the president,
etc..), Circe would have us believe it is all kabuki. I believe it is real, commonly
misanalysed but very very real.
What I have yet to see though is the multi-polar trend to take root. Obvious signs would
be Germany and Europe in general of course, but at best as a block of sovereigns, and for
that, Frankfurt will have to surrender before the remaining capitals. That may actually come
about as production takes the main stage, and this could be very sudden.
This is obvious positive thinking. An anecdote:
Once I super glued the tip of my finger. I had a box cutter nearby and I just thought - I
simply must use it as a razor blade to scrap the glue out, movements perpendicular to the
blade, and I'll be fine - whatever I do just don't move along the .... zaaaat - here's the
scar. The point being: as soon as the wrong thought crossed my mind, my hand simply ignored
the "don't do" part of the thinking and obeyed the rest.
"... The below analysis is provided by " Ehsani " -- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical analysis blog, Syria Comment . ..."
"... An M1 Abrams tank at the Udairi Range Complex in Kuwait, via Army National Guard/Military Times. ..."
Here's
Why Trump's "Secure Syria's Oil" Plan Will Prove Practically Impossible
by
Tyler Durden
Sat, 10/26/2019 - 23:30
0
SHARES
The below analysis is provided by "
Ehsani
" -- a Middle
East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst who visits the region frequently and writes
for the influential geopolitical analysis blog,
Syria Comment
.
Much has been debated since President Trump tweeted that
"The U.S has secured the oil"
in Syria. Is this feasible? Does it make any sense? The below will
explain how and why
the answer is a resounding
NO
.
Al-Omar and Conoco fields are already secured by Kurdish-led SDF and U.S forces. Some of the oil
from these fields was being sold through third parties to Syria's government by giving it in crude
form and taking back half the quantity as refined product
(the government owns the
refineries).
Syria's government now has access to oil fields inside the 32km zone
(established
by the Turkish military incursion and subsequent withdrawal of Kurdish forces). Such fields can produce
up to 100K barrels a day and will already go a long way in terms of meeting the country's immediate
demand.
So the importance of accessing oil in SDF/U.S hands is not as pressing any longer.
SDF/U.S forces can of course decide to sell the oil to Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)
but Syria's government now has control over the border area connecting Syria to KRG territory through
both Yaaroubia and Al-Mallkiya.
The Syrian government also now has control over supply of electricity. This was made possible by
taking control of the Tishreen and Furat dams.
Operating those fields needs electric power
supply and the state is now the provider.
Securing and operating these fields also entails paying salaries to those operating the fields.
International companies would be very reluctant to get involved without legal backing to operate
the fields.
"Securing the oil" therefore
can only mean preventing the Syrian state from accessing al-Omar/Conoco
only (not oil in the north)
. It's unlikely anything can be sold or transported.
And let's not forget "securing" this oil would need
ready air cover, and all for what?
SDF composition included Arab fighters and tribes who accepted Kurds in leadership since they had
American support and key cities in north. Many of those Arabs are already switching and joining the
Syrian Army.
"Securing" oil for benefit of the Kurds is likely to antagonize the Arab fighters
and tribes in the region.
Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more
than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of
"securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level
.
The psychopaths destroyed the last secular country in the ME. Same
with Lybia. Now all we get are extremists on all sides. Mossad doing
what it knows best, bringing chaos for the psychopaths.
By withdrawing from Northern Kurdistan and by making an exception
for the oil fields, Genius President Trump just told the world a number
of things:
To trust the U.S.A. as an ally is sheer stupidity
The "alternative media" theory that it is all about oil (and
possible gas) has been proven true
The U.S.A. is being ruled by a hobbyist who has no strategic
plans, replacing them with a "random walk" concept
Of course, the European allies (except Turkey) are still refusing
to learn from this experience. "Duck and cover until November 2020"
is their current tactics. Not sure if this is a good idea.
Turkey has learned to go their own ways, but I don't think it is
a good idea to create ever more enemies at one's borders. Greece,
Armenia, the Kurdish regions, Syria, Cyprus, not sure how their stance
is towards Iran. Reminds me of Germany before both World Wars. Won't
end well.
"America/The US", a label, is
actually just a location on a map and is not a reference to the actual
identities of those who start wars for profit.
Also it is hilarious to use that label as if an area of the planet
is or has attacked another area. Land can not attack itself, ever,
just as guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Trump is not claiming posession of oil in syria by leaving some
troops behind. Just as he did not declare war, nor start any EVER.
Every conflct on earth has it's roots with very specific individuals,
none of whom are even related to Trump.
Syria was a conflicting mess before he took office and he is dutifully
attempting to pull US soldiers out of a powder keg of nonsense he
wants no part of. Nor does any sane American want more conflict in
battles we can't afford, in countries we'll never even visit.
Like I said before, Trump can't just abruptly yank all our troops.
It's simply not that simple. And for those pretending he is doing
syria a disservice, I dare any one of you to go there yourselves and
see if you bunch of complete dipshits can do better. Who knows, maybe
you'll find the love of your life, ******* idiots.
First, the US invades Syria in violation of the Geneva Convention
on War making it an international criminal. Then it funds and equips
the most vile terrorists on the planet which leads to the killing
of thousands of innocent Syrians. And now it has decided to stay and
steal oil from Syria. The US is now the Evil American Empire owned
and run by crooks, gangsters and mass murderers. The Republic is dead
along with morality, justice and freedom.
Let's limit the culprits to: The Obama regime... and
not all the US. This is why these devils need to be brought
to trial and their wealth clawed out of their hiding places to
pay reparations to some of the victims.
The US has been an Evil American Empire for a long time, since
at least the Wilson administration, and Republican or Democrat...it
make little difference. World wars, the Fed, IRS, New Deal,
Korea, Vietnam, War OF Terror, assassinations, coups, sanctions,
Big Pharma, Seeds of Death and Big Agri...and the list goes
on and on. Please understand that America is not great and one
day all Americans will have to account for what their country
did in their name. If you believe in the Divine, then know that
their will be a reckoning.
The Obama regime was merely a continuation of the Chimpy Bush
regime, which was merely a continuation of the Clinton regime,
which was merely a continuation of the Pappy Bush regime, which
was merely a continuation... etc.
More chinks in the petrodollar armor will be the outcome of this. The credibility of murica is withering
away as every day passes. Iraqi pressure upon foreign troops there
to leave and/or drawdown further will also make this venture even
more difficult to manage.
The Kurds
may not be the smartest with regards to picking allies, but even they
may by now have learned that sticking to murica any longer will destroy
any semblance of hope for any autonomy status whatsoever once the
occupants have left. Likewise, the Sunni tribes around this area don't
want to become another Pariah group once things revert to normal.
Assad will eventually retake all his territory and
this is speeding up the process of eventual reconciliation in Syria.
They've spent far more on these wars than they've made back by stealing
other countries' resources. Trillions wasted in exchange for mere
billions in profit, to say nothing of the massive loss of life and
destruction incurred.
'The below analysis is provided by "
Ehsani
"
-- a Middle East expert, Syrian-American banker and financial analyst
who visits the region frequently and writes for the influential geopolitical
analysis blog,
Syria Comment
.'
this quote was my first red flag.
so POTUS outsmarts Erdongan, takes out ISIS leader BAGHDADI along
with Erdongan MIT agents meeting with him. sorry, Ehsani, i think
your full of sh*t.
CIA & MOSSAD LLC
friends ISIS is just the excuse the american
an israeli terrorists used and use in order to keep trying to remove
Assad from the Government.
They just can't accept defeat and absolute failure. What's worse
than an american/israeli terrorist destroyed ego?!
All info needs verification. US sources are not trustworthy including
anyone where money originates from the usual fake info instigators/
players.
POTUS is so misled by the deep state MIC /CIA/ FBI et al and their
willing fake media cohorts that he agreed to give the White Helmets
more public money for more fake movies, as has been properly proven
and widely reported.
Either they have taken control of his mind with a chip insert or
they have got his balls to the knife.
The false flags have been discredited systematically and only a
very brainwashed or a very frightened person would believe anything
from the same source until after a thorough scourge is proven successfully
undertaken.
It is evident that even the last hope department has been got at
by the money-power.
If they can do 9/11 and get away with it, as they have, then they
will stop at nothing to remain entrenched.
90% of oil is traded in U.S. dollars if that stops living standards
will drop in the U.S.. We dropped from 97% look how bad its now
with 7% imagine going down to 50% life would be unlivable
here.
...meanwhile, both according to
russia today
as well as the
(otherwise lying rag of a newspaper)
guardian
, the russian
government seems to take a different position to the views expressed
here by "a middle east expert".
russian state media is reporting that US troops are in the process
of taking control of syrian oil fields in the deir el-zour region
and have described such actions as "banditry". the crux of the matter
is this: if the US were not actually illegally taking control of Syrian
oil, then Russia would not be reporting this. Contrary to western
mainstream media, Russian sources have repeatedly shown themselves
to be factual.
Shame the "withdrawl" from Syria is tainted with "securing the oil".
US doesnt need that oil at all. So Orwellian! Unless the Kurds somehow
get rights to it.
Preventing rise of ISIS is likely to entail securing support of the region's Arabs and tribes more than that of the Kurds. This Kurd/Arab issue is yet another reason why President Trump's idea of
"securing" the oil for the benefit of the Kurds just doesn't make sense nearly on every level
.
Trump
is
securing
the
oil
not
for
the
Kurds
or
anything
in
the
middle
east-
his
doing
it
as
a response
to
the
media
backlash
he
received
when
he
announced
he's
abandoning
the
Kurds.
this is nonsense. thinking of the kurds and their interests is the absolutely last thing on trump`s mind: what counts for trump is how he is viewed by his voter base, no more, no less.
"... This is really going to piss off the Deep State. All their plans initiated by Obama and Hillary are being destroyed by the red haired road runner known as Trump. ..."
"... If these reports are true of the oil tanker smuggling operation, then the Syrian Kurds do not have clean hands. ..."
"... Kind of sounds to me like Erdogan and Trump made a deal. ..."
"... Baghdadi wasn't the jihadis' only loss today. Abu-Hassan al-Muhajir, the likely successor to Baghdadi, was blown away near Jarabulus in a US strike. Here's a couple of tweets about these events: ..."
"... "Led by the 4th Armored Division, the Syrian Arab Army began their attack around 10 A.M. on Saturday, when their troops began to storm the Zuwayqat Mountain and its corresponding hills. Following a heavy battle that lasted for several hours, the Syrian Arab Army was able to take hold of the Zuwayqat Mountain, giving their forces fire control over the remaining hills south of Kabani. The Syrian Arab Army is now trying to push their way into Kabani; however, they are facing heavy resistance from the jihadist rebels of Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP)." ..."
What does a radical Islamic mother say to another radical Islamic mother? Children, they blow up so fast.
What a contrast with the raid that killed Bin Laden in May 2011. The Obama Administration came out with conflicting accounts and
required the SEALS who carried out the attack to sign non-disclosure agreements. Why? Because the raid was conducted with the cooperation
and knowledge of the Pakistani government; the SEALS faced no guard force; Bin Laden was a cripple unable to get out of bed and was
shot so many times by the SEALs his body has to be dumped in the ocean.
Al Baghdadi? It is now clear he was protected by someone in Turkey. The Turks knew where he was and, until yesterday, kept him
safe. Trump's actions over the last three weeks with respect to U.S. forces in Syria set the table for this operation. A combination
of pressure and incentives confronted Turkey's President Erdogan and he rolled over.
It is telling that there was not a huge fire fight going in. Where was the Baghdadi security team? This is a further indicator
that Baghdadi was betrayed by folks he thought were protecting him. Baghdadi fled his house and jumped into a tunnel. Baghdadi is
reported to have blown himself up. Looks like the mission was carried out by Delta Force. They are accompanied by Malanois dogs (looks
a little like a German shepherd). Based on what Trump briefed today the dog followed Baghdadi down into the tunnel. The dog can run
faster than any soldier in such an environment. Once Baghdadi was trapped he detonated his suicide vest. Fortunately, the dog was
not killed (but probably suffered some frag wounds.)
(Someone needs to re-write the Peter and Gordon lyrics on "I Go to Pieces" in honor of Baghdadi's passing.)
Don't believe the media reports that the U.S. forces launched from Iraq. Just look at a map. Al Baghdadi was hiding out in Idlib
province, which is in northwest Syria. Flight time in helicopters from Iraq is three hours plus. Flight time from the U.S. Air Force
base in Incirlik, Turkey is about one hour. This came out of Turkey. That is why the U.S. coordinated/deconflicted the flight path
with Russia. Flying from Turkey into northwest Syria takes one directly over territory controlled by the Russians and Syrians.
Trump's press conference was amazing. He did not divulge key operational details and did a good job of obfuscating the intel sources
that provided the break on Al Baghdadi's location.
One thing is certain--most of the anti-Trump crowd will look for some reason to criticize Trump's victory. The anti-Trumper crowd
looks pretty stupid now. They were predicting the resurgence of ISIS. Whoops!! There goes that narrative. The new status quo in Syria
means the end of the U.S. policy of regime change and the beginning of the rehabilitation of Syria as a legitimate nation state.
This is really going to piss off the Deep State. All their plans initiated by Obama and Hillary are being destroyed by the red
haired road runner known as Trump.
But what about Trump's comments about keeping the oil, and protecting it with heavy fire power, and inviting in Exxon, etc. He
did say a deal might be possible.
Watch what he does, not what he says. He thinks while talking. This is a bad habit since he does not speak English well. I
am told that this is a characteristic of people from the Outer Boroughs of NY City.
Russia's defense ministry has no reliable
information about an operation by US forces in the Turkey-controlled part of the Idlib de-escalation zone aimed at another extermination
of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ministry's spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, said"
Artemesia
...I weep for my country that the way that its leader re-establishes his bona fides is by celebrating brutal murder, and many
Americans will celebrate that murder right along with him.
HillaryObama did the same thing; so did G H W Bush with the "precision bombing" of Iraq that became a thing of pride; the capture
of Saddam in his "spider hole;" Hillary's glee over the sodomized assassination of Qaddafi.
We have been inured to outrages to human beings, especially if they are "over there," and many who have become wealthy producers
of popular culture have played a major role in conditioning the American people to celebrate blood and gore in the name of American
Values.
Col. Lang -- Your post on Comments is at the back of my mind. I like to think I'm complying; that if I hated USA it would not
bother me that we are conditioned to celebrate killing. It does bother me. I don't think the killing of el Baghdadi is something
that enhances the moral stature of USA -- particularly when it is coupled, as it was in Trump's speech -- with the bold declaration
that US intends to steal Syria's oil.
"Real Men Go To Tehran."
Real Man James Jeffrey has been hot to bankrupt Syria for at least a year, his scheme to make reconstruction of Syria impossible
unless / until Syria ejects Iran & complies with the Borg's demands.
Erdogan's Islam views appears to be genuine. Rather than terrible Turk, Erdogan is strongly Islamic and taking Turkey from a secular
state back to and Islamic state. Turkey put off as long as possible declaring AQ a terrorist organization. AQ have no problems
having the Turk bases through Idlib.
Turkey was buying oil from ISIS earlier in the piece. There was some fighting when Erdogan
first moved his jihadis into Syria but large number of ISIS left Manbij once they had nutted out a deal.
Turk border in Idlib may well have been the safest place for Baghdadi to stay.
Baghdadi wasn't the jihadis' only loss today. Abu-Hassan al-Muhajir, the likely successor to Baghdadi, was blown away near
Jarabulus in a US strike. Here's a couple of tweets about these events:
"So SDF and Iraq shared intel with US on position of ISIS leader Baghdadi - 3.5 miles from border with Turkey. And SDF shared
intel with US on the position of ISIS spox Muhajir - just outside Turkish Euphrates Shield city of Jarablus. Doesn't look *great*
for Turkey, have to say"
We believe ISIS spox. Al-Muhajir was in Jarablus to facilitate Baghdadi's entry to Euphrates Shield area. The two US-led operations
have effectively disabled top ISIS leadership who were hiding [in] NW Syria. More still remain hiding in the same area."
The SAA did well at Kabani... if they can keep it this time. From Al Masdar:
"Led by the 4th Armored Division, the Syrian Arab Army began their attack around 10 A.M. on Saturday, when their troops
began to storm the Zuwayqat Mountain and its corresponding hills. Following a heavy battle that lasted for several hours, the
Syrian Arab Army was able to take hold of the Zuwayqat Mountain, giving their forces fire control over the remaining hills south
of Kabani. The Syrian Arab Army is now trying to push their way into Kabani; however, they are facing heavy resistance from the
jihadist rebels of Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP)."
Maybe with Baghdadi's ass now far from his head, perhaps the HTS and TIP will loose some of their enthusiasm for defending
Kabani. They have been tenacious.
"... The Democrats are the ones who are twisting the "protocols" regarding private hearings to protect the seditious liars and their lies... To paraphrase the Washington Post : "Democracy Dies In The Darkness"... The Darkness created by the shadowy deep state and those who dwell in it ! ..."
"... Without expressing any opinion on the truth or falsity of Taylor's testimony or any of it, the idea that being a West Point graduate and Vietnam vet is some kind of assurance of probity is a joke. ..."
"... Have you learned nothing from RussiaGate, from the various imperial wars on Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Serbia, etc.? All these were based on flat out lies promoted by cleancut, well dressed, well spoken, impeccably credentialed monsters. Many of them veterans themselves. All of them lying without shame, and lauded for telling lies. ..."
"... You realize that we are an empire, and our institutions act the way that imperial institutions do? Imperial institutions cannot be hindered by things like honesty and "rule of law", because the empire cannot survive if its freedom of action is restrained. ..."
"... Is your anti Russian phobia a product of Slavic racism or of disliking orthodox countries or what? Why do you pro war liberals obsess over Russia so much? I think it is empire envy. ..."
"... I Keep reading about this "aid to ukraine" improperly tied to an investigation of a rival. But this "aid" to Ukraine is really just weapons isn't it? Weapons meant to stoke conflict with a nuclear power. The deep state and the pro war liberals will never let This country move past militarism ..."
I'd like to commend Rep. Gaetz for this very well justified act of 'civil disobedience' to draw attention to this farce of a travesty
of a sham of a mockery of a witchhunt. This so-called "impeachment" is totally consistent with the manufacturing of "evidence"
to justify an "investigation" of Trump's campaign to keep him from being elected as well.
I'm glad we have someone standing up to these corrupt lying leaking Democrat bullies. It would be nice if we could have an
investigation of the actual and documented illegal campaign contributions of Hillary to her attorney to Chris Steele, but that
water has passed under the bridge by now.
But if we're going to go down the rabbit hole of campaign finance law violations, I'd like to propose that the quite obvious
main and only real (non-manufactured) reason for these so-called "impeachment" hearings is to prevent Trump from being re-elected
(as opposed to investigating "corruption").
Thus the Democrats' activities are quite obviously a misappropriation of taxpayer funds and an illegal donation to the political
campaigns of the Democratic party. I demand an investigation. In secret of course.
As you rightfully said, the rule of law is a pain in the butt, after all. The double standard is infuriating.
We are coming to a point in American society where the only meaningful "truth" belongs to whoever wins. If that is true, under
those circumstances, you've got to decide whom you trust more to protect your interests. Is it Adam Schiff or Donald Trump? If
you choose not to decide, you've still made a choice. Or are elections only supposed to have consequences if Democrats win them?
Matt Gaetz is one of those few Republicans in on the fundamental truth of our country: We are an empire in decline and politics
is 100% theatre. And so he puts on one of the best shows on television.
Yeah, he is likely a nihilist, but I can't really call him a grifter any more than you could call Milo or Jacob Wohl grifters.
They are performance artists, dressing up in conservative drag and giving everyone the show of their lifetime, and they are so
dedicated to it they don't break character. In wrestling it is called kayfebe.
If you are in on the joke, these people are amazing, true heroes of late capitalism, exposing the absurdities of our commodified
democracy and news cycle.
The standards for a sitting Congressman representing 800,000 Americans should probably be a bit higher than the standards for
alt-right YouTube dancing bears.
As our country winds down and enters the end of its natural lifespan, and every country has a lifespan, don't fool yourself, because
no human creations last forever, some of the dancing bears we get aren't going to be quite as funny as Matt Gaetz, and there are
only going to be more and more of them coming out of the woodwork.
So I think we should appreciate people like him while we can, who at least elevate the art to something legitimately entertaining,
and are generally pretty harmless. "I love the president so much I may never love another president again." is an amazing line,
for instance, and I'll never understand anyone who doesn't appreciate it. That's something he put care and thought into.
People like entertainment. They elected an entertainer as president for a reason, and he is representing a lot more than 800,000
Americans. But I'm sure those 800,000 Americans are pretty happy with the entertainment they are getting from Gaetz too, even
if they might not appreciate the nuances of his performance and only like that he is "triggering the libs" or somesuch. And maybe
some of them do see how his performance implicates them too and they just don't care because it is such a fun show. I know if
Matt Gaetz were running for president (Against some neo-liberal like Buttigieg, not against someone I like) I'd be tempted to
vote for him just to add fuel to the fire.
The Democrats are the ones who are twisting the "protocols" regarding private hearings to protect the seditious liars and their
lies...
To paraphrase the Washington Post : "Democracy Dies In The Darkness"... The Darkness created by the shadowy deep state and those who dwell in it !
"The seditions liars and their lies"? Bill Taylor is a West Point graduate, decorated Vietnam vet, and was G.W. Bush's appointee
to be Ukraine ambassador. The smears aren't going to stick to him.
Like they didn't stick to Mueller, Comey, Mattis, McCain, Romney, and whoever else is the white knight of the week who will save
liberal decadence from Trump. As if!
He will be down in the mud with the rest of them, loathed by Trump's base and forgotten by the Democrats once the next savior
conservative messiah comes along. Eventually there won't be enough Never Trump zombies in the Bush establishment morgue left to
revive, and what then?
They certainly aren't going to work with the left to concentrate on substance and policy rather than the Trump news cycle,
so I imagine liberals will just all collectively die from despair
Without expressing any opinion on the truth or falsity of Taylor's testimony or any of it, the idea that being a West Point graduate
and Vietnam vet is some kind of assurance of probity is a joke.
Have you learned nothing from RussiaGate, from the various imperial wars on Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Serbia, etc.? All these
were based on flat out lies promoted by cleancut, well dressed, well spoken, impeccably credentialed monsters. Many of them veterans
themselves. All of them lying without shame, and lauded for telling lies.
Not "misspeaking", as if they were merely overenthusiastic in defense of the Freedom, but lying. And their lies killed innocent
people on a hitlerian scale.
You only don't recognize this, because you are fortunate enough to live in America, where you don't have to see your children
droned and your country destroyed because some monster claims to be bringing you the freedom.
You realize that we are an empire, and our institutions act the way that imperial institutions do? Imperial institutions cannot
be hindered by things like honesty and "rule of law", because the empire cannot survive if its freedom of action is restrained.
Is your anti Russian phobia a product of Slavic racism or of disliking orthodox countries or what? Why do you pro war liberals
obsess over Russia so much? I think it is empire envy.
If the Democrats are so concerned with confidentiality then why are the anti-Trump snippets of testimony the only things getting
leaked?
Bill Taylor's testimony was shredded in 90 seconds of cross-examination by a Republican member of the Committee. Funny, that
didn't make the time breathless coverage of the umpteenth bombshell. (Or is it "The Walls Are Closing In!" this week?
By any standard of fairness, Schiff should have recused himself due to a monumental conflict of interest. He had contact with
the main complainant prior to the filing of the complaint. A Dem Senator visited Taylor in the Ukraine several weeks ago. Nothing
to see here.
As Ben Franklin was noted as saying: "Well, Doctor, what have we got -- a Republic or a Monarchy?"
"A Republic, if you can keep it."
Well, we didn't keep it. This is purely Political Kabuki Theater. Both sides deserve to lose. At this point, with the Dems
tilting so hard left, and the Rockefeller Wing (Re-branded as NeoCons for some silly reason) of the Republicans ever-waiting for
their ascendance it remains for most of the country wish both sides could lose - if for nothing else than to just stop the noise.
"A nation is born a stoic and dies an epicurean" Will Durant
I do not trust our "betters" to hold closed door trials. After 2 years of Russia Russia Russia I don't believe a word they say.
Shiff told us he had ironclad evidence of Russian collusion, I saw him say it at the interview. He lied. When a politician says
"trust me" the last thing we should do is trust him. Open hearings, transparency, due process...we should demand
That's what they're afraid of: a veritable conga line of skeletons, loosed from the Trumpian closet, cha-chaing across the Senate
chamber in front of the whole world.
Actually that did involve intelligence NOT an impeachment. Apples and oranges. But thanks for reminding us of the lies and ineptitude
that got American's killed by Obama and Clinton in Libya. They lied and people died.
If Schiff weren't selectively leaking like a sieve, your argument might have some merit.
As it is, easily the best reason to believe they are doing as they are doing is FOR the purpose of only leaking the parts they
want.
And it goes far beyond simply "closed door" - the controls enacted are extreme, at least for the Republicans, yet somehow,
certain *very convenient* bits find their way to the press, time after time. After time. After TIME.
The whole thing is a farce, designed to allow control of the narrative, facts be hanged.
Brilliant comparison to that Animal House scene - thanks for that! The facts on the ground are so devastating to Trump than even
his most lickspittle toadies can't properly defend them, and so they scheme up weak stunts like this. The mind boggles.
I suppose all the Trump supporters would be on this very page defending Barack Obama if he called the Saudi Crown Prince in 2011
and told him that any military aid is contingent on investigating the Bush family and any business ties they have with Saudi Arabia
because Jeb Bush might run in 2012. Totally legal. No problem and nothing to see.
That is not the point. What you write is simply deflection. If any President other than Trump did this, Republicans would be (correctly)
moving to impeach and remove. So I ask again: would it have been OK if Obama called the Saudis and held up military aid until
they provided him information damaging to the Bush family?
The picture is funny, but you're on the wrong side of this, Dreher. I've finally realized why Schiff and his merry men, but especially
Schiff, give me such agita.
Let's pick a date, or an incident: Bork. Since then, long before then, but let's pick a date, the Democrats have stood for
moral anarchy . The only chance they had to show they retained a shred of principle was the Gulf War (both Gulf Wars, actually,
but let's take the second), and there their response was, at least legislatively, muted to say the least (considering their Senatorial
champion was the Lion of Chappaquiddick...) Since then it's been what? Feminism, abortion, and that more abundantly, all LGBTQ
all the time, micro regulation of speech and behavior, race hustling, and--ha ha--more unjust unnecessary wars and the destruction
of the white middle class. The soft totalitarianism we talk about in these boxes--no need to go on. The usual menu of "liberal"
horror.
And this guy is to be impeached because he cusses in public? It's not adding up for me. Schiff's behavior is outrageous (read
Kim Strassel today) but he's getting the job done. You might want to call it soft Leninism.
Not sure why so many conservatives hang their hat on Bork. This man was the guy who committed the Saturday Night Massacre, this
is who you stake your moral ground on?
Conservatives are so angry Dems stopped the guy who tried to shield Nixon from accountability? It's moral anarchy for Congress
to refuse to confirm a president's nomination for the Supreme Court? Congress is supposed to give a president's nominee a hearing
and a vote, not a rubber stamp. Congress if fully within it's constitutional rights to not confirm a president's nominee, and
it's hard to find a less fit man for the Supreme Court than Bork was.
Meanwhile your guys refused to even grant a hearing to President Obama's nominee. I guess that's OK because you don't acknowledge
the rights of Democrats under the Constitution.
You don't really think the Democrats got together to destroy Bork professionally and personally because he signed off on Nixon's
firings, do you? You can't be that dumb. If you'd like to know why, it was keeping Roe v. Wade alive. And that is moral anarchy,
pal.
You know what's moral anarchy? Supporting an immoral character like Bork because you think he's going to help you get rid of
Roe vs Wade. Kind of reminds of the deal you RWers have struck with Trump. You support a man you know is morally debased because
you think he will help you restore a white Christian conservative America.
It just boggles my mind you RWers are mad Democrats refused to confirm a man who help cover up one of the most egregious acts
an American president has ever committed. A person who would commit such an unethical act was not fit for a seat on the Supreme
Court, I shouldn't even have to say this.
And you offer an unsupported calumny. Bork was "morally debased"? By what standard? By whose standard? John Dean's? Elliot Richardson's?
Remember when they rifled through his borrowing habits at Blockbuster and it turned out he was a Fred Astaire fan? They were expecting
maybe Leni Riefenstahl. Or hoping for it. And a conspiracy is usually thought of as somewhat secret. The Lion of Chappaquiddick
was pretty up front about what he didn't like about Bork.
And I think Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was far worse than anything Nixon did. Have fun with that one, pal.
"The Democrats have offered no plausible and persuasive rationale for holding these proceedings in secret and keeping the evidence
and testimony behind closed doors."
Other than that they're simply following the rules established by a previous Republican congress.
Below, someone wrote: "By any standard of fairness, Schiff should have recused himself due to a
monumental conflict of interest. He had contact with the main
complainant prior to the filing of the complaint."
Using that standard, Barr should have recused himself a thousand times over, no?
Coined by a Randian objectivist fantasy author. It is absolute truth, but knowing the source will become the utmost irony because
for some, it will be personal proof of it.
People will believe a lie because they're afraid it might be true, or because they want it to be true.
The Trump candidacy and tenure in office is a non-stop series of examples proving this.
Yet again, I note Rod, that there is more than one explanation over this hysterical impeach Trump nonsense.
This 'aid' is actually 'US military assistance'. Did it ever occur to you 'impeachers' that Trump may have deliberately been
avoiding such a meeting with his top 4 warmongers precisely so as to avoid US 'aid' escalating the military tension betwen Ukraine
and Russia? (and getting the US firmly tied into that fight?)
Trump was elected in part on a platform of no more foreign wars, and he seems genuinely committed to that (at least when he
thinks he can). Maybe the withheld 'aid' was all just leverage for a Biden investigation, but it may also be Trump trying not
to get pressured and bullied into more conflicts (which all prior Presidents were happy to go along with) in the face of a deep
state totally committed to a condition of forever war.
As an anti-war activist who campaigned against the Afghan and Iraq wars, in Trump's shoes I would also have tried to avoid
fueling an existing dangerous conflict that brings no benefit to my nation (other than a few arms sales) but may drag us into
a war with major nations. Same situation repeating right now in Syria - no major benefit to US in staying, and staying may drag
US into conflict between Turks and Kurds and Syria & Russia.
Not saying Trump has acted lawfully always - just that he may have been trying to avoid military escalation (at the same time
as getting dirt on Biden). Lets not jump to obvious conclusions when they may not be so obvious.
Thugs disrupting a Constitutional and legal proceeding doing the people's business in order to protect their Dear Leader -- that's
not frat-boy stuff. There's a much better "f" word to label that.
If these people were testifying in public, I'm sure the Trumpists would find a reason to oppose that as well. But I hope they
are ready for the public phase when they will need to defend Trump on the substance rather than voice procedural complaints. And
calling people like Taylor never-Trumpist "human scum" (what a classy president we have) is not going to cut it.
Democrats say these House Intelligence Committee procedures
aren't official hearings, but rather the equivalent of depositions,
meant to gather facts that will later be examined and argued over in
public hearings.
If that's the case they shouldn't be characterizing themselves as having an "impeachment inquiry." This is not in any legal
sense an impeachment. It's an inquiry without a cause...political games. The abberant activities of Dems trying to remove the
US President where there are no crimes justifies abberant reactions from the opposition. Since they are going to abuse the House
of Representatives and pursue unprincipled and unprecedented antagonism of a co-equal branch of government, why should the GOP
be idealistic and proper under such circumstances? I find Schiff to be a lot more of a problem than Gaetz.
No, it's the first stage of an inquiry. They're gathering evidence -- and Republican reps are there to question too -- that will
be used in open impeachment hearings.
Concerning Republican reps on the committee...apparently they're not getting all the evidence. If they're not it's not bi-partisan,
and it's irregular. Also, Schiff did not notify Republicans on the committee of an intelligence official who came to one of his
aides with concerns about President Trump before filing a whistleblower complaint. If that's true he's withholding evidence. I'm
sure he has a good reason for that...if you know what I mean.
October 18, 2019 By Chrissy Clark
All nine GOP members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence penned a letter to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.,
lambasting him for hiding documents related to Democrats' impeachment inquiry.
"We are concerned that the Majority is knowingly withholding Committee documents related to your so-called 'impeachment
inquiry' from the Minority," the letter reads. " it has come to our attention that the Majority is not uploading (or providing
physical copies of) certain
Committee documents related to your 'impeachment inquiry' to its document repository, thus withholding the existence of such
documents from the Minority."
I think you don't like the Republicans playing by the same rules and tricks Democrats do. Looks different when the shoe is on
the other foot, huh? Think KFC eating and setting all night on the senate floor.
"The Democrats have offered no plausible and persuasive rationale for holding these proceedings in secret and keeping the evidence
and testimony behind closed doors. Given the character of the people in question, it is safe to assume that their reasons for
doing so are corrupt and motivated by narrowly calculated political self-interest. "
That's a heck of a leap in logic there, Kevin. And kind of incredible in light of Kevin McCarthy previously admitting on national
television that the Benghazi Select Committee's purpose was to tank Clinton's poll numbers. Would Kevin agree that committee was
corrupt then, I guess?
These are depositions, not hearings. Public hearings come later, once depositions are complete, and there's no more opportunity
for deposed subjects to coordinate details. Then a Senate trial after that, where Trump gets all the "due process" he has been
disingenuously complaining about.
It's amusing to me how it seems to be lost in all of this, that half of the people sitting in on these depositions are REPUBLICANS.
I Keep reading about this "aid to ukraine" improperly tied to an investigation of a rival. But this "aid" to Ukraine is really
just weapons isn't it? Weapons meant to stoke conflict with a nuclear power. The deep state and the pro war liberals will never
let This country move past militarism
If you supported the Schiff parody-as-truth from the other week but this bothers you, then you are an anti-Trump partisan. Conversely,
if you support this but had a problem with Schiff, you are a pro-Trump partisan. And that is okay because impeachment is a political
act. Just don't dress it up and pretend your side follows the rule of law and the other side doesn't. Both sides are engaging
in politics to convince the public. And we'll be just fine as long as both sides stick with that, and obey the constitutional
rules for impeachment. We'll only get in serious trouble if folks decide to go extra constitutional:
The picture is funny, but you're on the wrong side of this, Dreher. I've finally realized why Schiff and his merry men, but especially
Schiff, give me such agita.
Let's pick a date, or an incident: Bork. Since then, long before then, but let's pick a date, the Democrats have stood for
moral anarchy . The only chance they had to show they retained a shred of principle was the Gulf War (both Gulf Wars, actually,
but let's take the second), and there their response was, at least legislatively, muted to say the least (considering their Senatorial
champion was the Lion of Chappaquiddick...) Since then it's been what? Feminism, abortion, and that more abundantly, all LGBTQ
all the time, micro regulation of speech and behavior, race hustling, and--ha ha--more unjust unnecessary wars and the destruction
of the white middle class. The soft totalitarianism we talk about in these boxes--no need to go on. The usual menu of "liberal"
horror.
And this guy is to be impeached because he cusses in public? It's not adding up for me. Schiff's behavior is outrageous (read
Kim Strassel today) but he's getting the job done. You might want to call it soft Leninism.
Yet again, I note Rod, that there is more than one explanation over this hysterical impeach Trump nonsense.
This 'aid' is actually 'US military assistance'. Did it ever occur to you 'impeachers' that Trump may have deliberately been
avoiding such a meeting with his top 4 warmongers precisely so as to avoid US 'aid' escalating the military tension betwen Ukraine
and Russia? (and getting the US firmly tied into that fight?)
Trump was elected in part on a platform of no more foreign wars, and he seems genuinely committed to that (at least when he
thinks he can). Maybe the withheld 'aid' was all just leverage for a Biden investigation, but it may also be Trump trying not
to get pressured and bullied into more conflicts (which all prior Presidents were happy to go along with) in the face of a deep
state totally committed to a condition of forever war.
As an anti-war activist who campaigned against the Afghan and Iraq wars, in Trump's shoes I would also have tried to avoid
fueling an existing dangerous conflict that brings no benefit to my nation (other than a few arms sales) but may drag us into
a war with major nations. Same situation repeating right now in Syria - no major benefit to US in staying, and staying may drag
US into conflict between Turks and Kurds and Syria & Russia.
Not saying Trump has acted lawfully always - just that he may have been trying to avoid military escalation (at the same time
as getting dirt on Biden). Lets not jump to obvious conclusions when they may not be so obvious.
"The Democrats have offered no plausible and persuasive rationale for holding these proceedings in secret and keeping the evidence
and testimony behind closed doors. Given the character of the people in question, it is safe to assume that their reasons for
doing so are corrupt and motivated by narrowly calculated political self-interest. "
That's a heck of a leap in logic there, Kevin. And kind of incredible in light of Kevin McCarthy previously admitting on national
television that the Benghazi Select Committee's purpose was to tank Clinton's poll numbers. Would Kevin agree that committee was
corrupt then, I guess?
These are depositions, not hearings. Public hearings come later, once depositions are complete, and there's no more opportunity
for deposed subjects to coordinate details. Then a Senate trial after that, where Trump gets all the "due process" he has been
disingenuously complaining about.
It's amusing to me how it seems to be lost in all of this, that half of the people sitting in on these depositions are REPUBLICANS.
I Keep reading about this "aid to ukraine" improperly tied to an investigation of a rival. But this "aid" to Ukraine is really
just weapons isn't it? Weapons meant to stoke conflict with a nuclear power. The deep state and the pro war liberals will never
let This country move past militarism
If you supported the Schiff parody-as-truth from the other week but this bothers you, then you are an anti-Trump partisan. Conversely,
if you support this but had a problem with Schiff, you are a pro-Trump partisan. And that is okay because impeachment is a political
act. Just don't dress it up and pretend your side follows the rule of law and the other side doesn't. Both sides are engaging
in politics to convince the public. And we'll be just fine as long as both sides stick with that, and obey the constitutional
rules for impeachment. We'll only get in serious trouble if folks decide to go extra constitutional:
As is usually the case in theaters of combat, reality on the ground differs widely from the
sharp and clear lines that are presented to uninformed outside observers. Good case in point is
the state of Syrian oil. I am told by a well-informed source that the Syrian Democratic Forces
led by the Kurds have been selling much of the oil in northeast Syrian territory they
controlled until recently to the Syrian National Oil Company--the Assad government.
Some of that oil has also been sold to the Turks,,,
As we know, in the past, when ISIS controlled some of the Syrian oil, they were trucking it
across the border to Turkey and selling it to Erdogan's minions at a steep discount. The SDF
has continued doing that.
... Those tanker lines that Daesh was running into Turkey were done with the blessing of the
US. It was the resistance and in particular Russia that blew all that up.
What Harper meant to say is that some of the oil goes by tanker TRUCK from Turkey to Iran.
The oil thus trans-shipped to Iran is sold on as refined product to North Korea. The Turks
have been getting it at a very cheap prices from the SDF The Iranians add these products to
domestic production shipped east.
So, an oil-swap deal? Just like the currently defunct gas-swap deal that used to obtain
between Iran and Turkmenistan a few years back. Kurds and Turks acting like middlemen; how
very Middle-eastern!
The SDF/SNOC oil deal was negotiated by Russia 18 months ago. The SDF does NOT sell the oil
to the SNOC. Under the Russian deal, they get a share of the oil. The rest is turned over to
a broker from Raqqa who transports it in tanker trucks to Baniyas and Homs refineries.
If any oil is being diverted to Turkey, the it is the Raqqa brokers doing so. They are the
reportedly the brokers that used to deliver ISIS oil to Turkey via Erdogan's son-in-law.
... it was a deal negotiated by Russia with full agreement of Assad and his government and
the SNOC. My understanding is also that they did not choose the middleman from Raqqa.
Apparently he was the only one with tankers and with drivers who had no problem driving
through areas controlled by SDF, other areas controlled by SAA, and a few risky areas where
Daesh hijackings were a possibility.
Oct 25, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Curiously, this reticence doesn’t extend to voting on resolutions that seek to
preserve America’s military presence in the Middle East. Legislators are more interested in stopping troop withdrawals from
unauthorized conflicts than authorizing those conflicts in the first place.
Ask Congress to engage in an honest, open, and
transparent national conversation before launching the first cruise missile and they run for the hills like villagers from a
flash flood.
But ask them to spend an hour on the floor blasting the president for losing his “resolve” or upending American “leadership”
(those favorite Beltway buzzwords), and they arrive with speeches in hand. It would all be hilarious if it wasn’t so depressing.
It's way too late to be saying "the longer this continues". Undeclared wars have been
standard practice from the start. WW1 and WW2 were extremely unusual exceptions to the
normal rule.
It also begs the question who exactly is war supposed to be declared on here? Syria,
Turkey, Iran or Russia, and for what reason are they going to declare this war for?
Sorry, but the only one who's moaning here is you. While the article tells hard facts by
saying that there would be nothing to hold Trump to account for regarding foreign policy,
since he wouldn't have inherited any war, had the parliament done its job and denied Bush
II and Obama the authorization of the said wars. Now, it doesn't mean that those wars
wouldn't have happened, since the MIC, oil companies, pharmaceutical industry et al. could
have easily staged a coup to get rid of such an inconvenient parliament, but in such a case
the said (former) parliament could, at least, speak from a morally high ground. While now
their complaints sound like laments about a streak of assassinations from those who
prepared sniper nests for hitmen every single time.
The mistake the president made was to extend an olive branch to his opponents by hiring
them in the first place.
Whatever one thinks of Mr Bannon. He came out with a clear understanding . . . whatever
agenda or intent was had to reduce our use of force to regime change --
"fo ged aboud it . . . "
And while, I think he may have overstated the matter. It's clear that agenda was not
aided by those appointments to is cabinate.
Goodwill to policy goodbye.
It is farcical and painful to watch.
Note:
one aspect of my opposition to the conflict was the strategy chosen. And it that
strategy unfortunately did not include "pulling out all the stops."
BTW. the author states: "Most lawmakers accepted the administration's arguments with barely
a blink, which enabled one of the gravest U.S. foreign policy blunders (the second Iraq
War) in modern history."
Most of the Democrats were opposed, but remembering how they were raked over the coals
for opposing the first Iraq War, voted in favor of a war to cover their butts.
It doesn't matter why Team D voted the way they did - it's not like a whole hearted vote
in favor of aggressive war counts double, or the kids on the other end of the drone don't
really die if you feel sad when you push the "yes" button.
For that matter, it's not as if Team D are engaged in a wholesale mea culpa after
they claimed to have been rooked.
If our military members refuse to uphold their oath to constitution it's time to disband
the standing army as it has become nothing more than the tool of foreign occupiers who have
purchased our government. Revoke all their benifit packages, no more free college, no more
subsidized loans for housing. If these people are nothing but mercenaries then stop paying
them for violating the contract.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas
drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about
Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge
Trump at first threw down the gauntlet to the spies and proclaimed his autocratic
prerogative when God held off the rain for his inauguration (!) but now he would gladly get
on his knees between Gina Haspel's legs if the CIA would only help him stay in power.
What distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured.
He made it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context,
media and process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American
dream. It was a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"! It's staring us all in the face.
"... On February 2 Shokin confiscated four large houses Zlochevsky owned plus a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a "Knott 924-5014 trainer". (Anyone know what that is?) Ten days later Biden goes into overdrive to get him fired. Within one week he personally calls Poroshenko three times with only one major aim: to get Shokin fired. ..."
"... Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out. ..."
"... Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky. ..."
"... Is the "conspiracy theory" about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election really "debunked"? It is, of course, not. The facts show that the interference happened. It was requested by the Democratic National Committee and was willingly provided by Ukrainian officials. ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia , according to people with direct knowledge of the situation. ..."
"... In March 2016 Chalupa went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC and requested help from the Ukrainian ambassador to go after Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort. In August 2016 the Ukrainians delivered a secret "black ledger" that allegedly showed that Manafort had illegally received money for his previous work for the campaign of the former Ukrainian president Yanukovych. ..."
"... Serhin A. Leshchenko, the member of the Ukrainian parliament who published the dubious ledger, was rabidly anti-Trump. Shortly after providing the "secret ledger" he talked with the Financial Times and promised to continue to meddle in the U.S. election. The FT headline emphasized the fact: ..."
"... insisting on innocence of Biden will have a political cost. ..."
"... That term "conspiracy theory" has been so widely abused that, to me at least, it now means something that the author wishes were not true but almost certainly is. ..."
"... Joe Biden needs to STFU, and go away. He and his ilk are part of the problem, not the solution. The rulers of America insist on pushing this sycophant for the empire down our throats. And, he can take HRC and her crowd with him. It's high time for some new blood, IF, TPTB, will even allow that to happen, which I very much doubt.... ..."
"... If you were referring to Trump's convo with Zelensky specifically, reasonable people might disagree over whether that was an abuse of power or sleazy and dumb (in being unnecessary)--which of course shouldn't mean the Bidens get a pass here, which none of these young journalists are suggesting. ..."
"... Well, there you have it--proof that BigLie Media indeed specializes in publishing Big Lies that ought to reduce such outlets to the status of Tabloids. Of course, the media is free to lie all it wants within the limits of slander and libel, but most people don't like being lied to particularly over matters of importance. ..."
"... Larry Johnson has a piece at SST on a CIA task force set up to compromise Trump and prevent him becoming president. That Trump avoided all the traps set for him (even the Mueller investigation could pin nothing on Trump) and won the election says a bit for Trump ..."
"... Alexandra Chalupa's connection to the thinktank The Atlantic Council should be borne in mind in the developing discussion in the comments forum. Her sister Irena is or has been a non-resident Senior Fellow there. Irena Chalupa has also been a senior editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. ..."
"... Also the founder and CEO of the Crowdstrike company in charge of cybersecurity for the DNC during the 2016 presidential election campaign was Dmitri Alperovich who is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council. It was Crowdstrike who came up with the idea that Trump had to be under the Kremlin's thumb and from there the hysterical witch-hunt and associated actions known as Russiagate began. ..."
"... I'm surprised that at this point in time, Bellingcat has not been included in digging up "dirt" on Trump ..."
"... Lee Stranahan of Radio Sputnik has been reporting on Alexandra Chalupa's role for a number of years now. I hope he gets proper credit as this story comes out. ..."
"... It seems some corners are coming unglued if the ZH link below is any indication: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-entrapped-flynn-manipulated-evidence-clapper-allegedly-issued-kill-shot-order ..."
"... The take away quote from a Matt Taibbi twit "LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to CNN about the Durham probe: "It's frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done... what we were told to do by the president of the United States." ..."
"... Prescient observation by Aaron Mate : "When CNN & MSNBC now cover the criminal inquiry into conduct of intel officials in Russia probe, they are literally covering their employees -- John Brennan (MSNBC); James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Baker (CNN). I avoid the term, but it's appropriate here: Deep State TV." ..."
"... The take away quote: "Joe Biden intervened at least two times on matters his son Hunter's firms was being paid to lobby on, according to government records reviewed by the Washington Examiner." ..."
"... Indeed, the guilty are hiding in plain sight. It appears sinister, and is, but I think its a positive development of late, as it would suggest that big media are scrambling to preserve the status quo by legitimising these deep state actors. ..."
"... Obama orchestrated the regime change operation in Ukraine. As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe. To promote containment of the Russian menace, the US got in bed with Ukrainian fascists and successfully exploited political tensions in that country resulting in the removal of the duly elected Yanukovitch. A right wing billionaire then took the reigns and Putin orchestrated a referendum in Crimea in retaliation that resulted in its return to Russia. The Crimeans were and continue to be happy, happier than the rest of Ukrainians under Kiev neo-fascist free market exploitation. ..."
"... It is natural that neo-fascist Ukrainians would express their disapproval of Trump, who was making nice with Putin. No matter what his motives were, he was bucking US anti-Russian policy. I liked Trump at that time for this willingness to end a Cold War policy sponsored by the US military industrial complex. You can cal it "deep state" if you like. It's not deep and it's not a shadow government. It's the war party. It's the elite profiting from weapons manufacture. Trump has no principles except expedience and his pro-Russian stance is likely owing to the money laundering he's been doing for Russian criminals since he is such a lousy business man. ..."
"... The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101. ..."
"... Empires don't act on facts: they are all-powerful, so they sculpt reality as they see fit. What determines this is class struggle: the inner contradictions of a society that results in a given consensus, thus forming a hegemony. ..."
"... Again, not surprised at all. Pro-democratic/anti-Trump media write articles (obviously made-to-order) to whitewash already badly discredited Biden, and present all the arguments in favor of his dark connections with Ukraine as a kind of "conspiracy theory". This is a common practice. Not having sufficient competence to reasonably refute the arguments of opponents, MSM (as well as all sorts of "experts") immediately mark the position of opponents with "conspiracy theory" (there are also other options to choose from: "Putin's agent", "Putin's useful idiot", "Kremlin's agent", "pro-Russian propaganda", etc.). It is assumed that this makes unnecessary/optional (and even "toxic") all further conversations with the opponent (that is, there is no need to answer him, to prove something with facts, etc.), because his position is a "conspiracy theory". ..."
"... Western MSM are actively using this simplest propaganda technique of information warfare. For example, this was the case when reporting on events in Syria - those journalists, the media, experts who did not agree with the lie of MSM about Assad's use of the chemical weapons were declared "conspiracy theorists" (and also "Assad apologists"). This method was also used to cover "the Skripal case" - those who questioned the British authorities' version of the "Novichok poisoning" were declared "conspiracy theorists". ..."
"... This is the way the controlled media works. They provide half a story, half truths, straw-man facts, selective quotes and 'expert' comment, opinion and unwarranted assumption presented as fact that all together cover the spectrum from black to white, spread across the many titles. ..."
"... They also disseminate a fine dusting of lies and actual truth here and there. The result is the public have a dozen 'truths' to pick from, none of which are real, while the outright lies and actual truths get dismissed as not credible and the half-truths and straw-man truths appear to carry some validity. ..."
"... If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge. ..."
"... as Caitlin Johnstone lets to say - who gets to decide what the narrative is here? i don't have an answer for this, but those who appear to be taking a side in all of this - including you with the quote i make - seem to think that it has to be the issue of trumps extortion of Ukraine, verses what appears to me the CIA - Dem party extortion of the ordinary USA persons mind... ..."
"... Has mccarthyism version 2 come to life since the advent of what happened in the Ukraine from 2014 onward?? is the issue of a new cold war with Russia been on the burner for at least 5 or more years here and began before trump was even considered a potential candidate for the republican party? did Russia take back Crimea, which wasn't supposed to happen? is this good for military industrial complex sales? and etc. etc. ..."
"... i am sure biden is small potatoes in the bigger picture here, but if taking a closer examination of what took place in ukraine leading into 2014, with the victoria nulands and geoffrey pyatts and etc. etc. of usa diplomatic corps, usa dept of state and etc. could lead to a better understanding of how the usa has went down the road it has for the past 60 years of foreign policy on the world stage, it would be a good start... so, to me - it ain't about trump.. it is about usa foreign policy and how it has sucked the big one on the world stage for at least since the time of vietnam when i was a teenager.. ..."
Several mainstream media have made claims that Joe Biden's intervention in the Ukraine and
the Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election are "conspiracy theories" and "debunked". The
public record proves them wrong. By ignoring or even contradicting the facts the media create
an opening for Trump to rightfully accuse them of providing "fake news".
[In late 2018], Giuliani began speaking to current and former Ukrainian officials about the
Biden conspiracy theory, and meeting with them repeatedly in New York and Europe. Among those
officials was Viktor Shokin, a former top Ukrainian prosecutor who was sacked in March, 2016,
after European and U.S. officials, including Joe Biden, complained that he was lax in curbing
corruption. Shokin claimed that he had lost his powerful post not because of his poor
performance but rather because Biden wanted to stop his investigation of Burisma, in order to
protect his son. The facts didn't back this up. The Burisma investigation had been dormant
under Shokin.
Several other
media outlets also made the highlighted claim to debunk the "conspiracy theory". But is it
correct?
We have looked into the claim that Shorkin's investigation against Burisma owner Zlochevsky
was dormant, as the New Yorker says, and found it to be false :
The above accounts are incorrect. Shokin did go after Zlochevsky. He opened two cases against
him in 2015. After he did that Biden and his crew started to lobby for his firing. Shokin was
aggressively pursuing the case. He did so just before Biden's campaign against him went into
a frenzy.
... On February 2 Shokin confiscated four large houses Zlochevsky owned plus a Rolls-Royce
Phantom and a "Knott 924-5014 trainer". (Anyone know what that is?) Ten days later Biden goes
into overdrive to get him fired. Within one week he personally calls Poroshenko three times
with only one major aim: to get Shokin fired.
... Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin
started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to
lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the
Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on
vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into
office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out.
Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of
show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky.
It is quite astonishing that the false claims, that Shokin did not go after Burisma owner
Zlochevsky, is repeated again and again despite the fact that the public record , in form of a report
by Interfax-Ukraine , contradicts it.
On Thursday Buzzfeed Newswrote
about a different Ukrainian prosecutor who in early 2019 was approached to set up meetings
with President Donald Trump's private lawyer Rudy Giuliani:
[Gyunduz] Mamedov's role was key. He was an intermediary in Giuliani's efforts to press
Ukraine to open investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and the debunked
conspiracy theory about the country's interference in the 2016 presidential election , a
collaboration between BuzzFeed News, NBC News, and the Organized Crime and Corruption
Reporting Project (OCCRP) can reveal.
The OCCRP is funded by the
UK Foreign Office, the US State Dept, USAID, Omidyar Network, Soros' Open Society, the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund and others. Most of these entities were involved in the 2014 coup
against the elected government of the Ukraine.
Is the "conspiracy theory" about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election really
"debunked"? It is, of course, not. The facts show that the interference happened. It was requested by
the Democratic National Committee and was willingly provided by Ukrainian officials.
As Politico reported shortly after Trump had won the election, it was the Democratic
Party organization, the DNC, which had asked the
Ukrainians for dirt that could be used against the campaign on Donald Trump:
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly
questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump
aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after
the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his
advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee
met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties
between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia , according to people with direct
knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort's resignation
and advancing the narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine's foe to
the east, Russia.
The Ukrainian-American who was the go between the DNC and the government of Ukraine had
earlier worked for the Clinton administration:
Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named
Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the
Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for
Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to
Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that
time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats
around the world.
In March 2016 Chalupa went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC and requested help from
the Ukrainian ambassador to go after Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort. In August 2016 the
Ukrainians delivered
a secret "black ledger" that allegedly showed that Manafort had illegally received money
for his previous work for the campaign of the former Ukrainian president Yanukovych.
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr.
Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to
Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the
disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included
election officials.
"Paul Manafort is among those names on the list of so-called 'black accounts of the Party
of Regions,' which the detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine are
investigating," the statement said. "We emphasize that the presence of P. Manafort's name in
the list does not mean that he actually got the money, because the signatures that appear in
the column of recipients could belong to other people."
The provenance of the ledger is highly dubious. It was allegedly found in a burned out
office of Yanukovych's old party:
The papers, known in Ukraine as the "black ledger," are a chicken-scratch of Cyrillic
covering about 400 pages taken from books once kept in a third-floor room in the former Party
of Regions headquarters on Lipskaya Street in Kiev.
...
The accounting records surfaced this year, when Serhiy A. Leshchenko, a member of Parliament
who said he had received a partial copy from a source he did not identify, published line
items covering six months of outlays in 2012 totaling $66 million. In an interview, Mr.
Leshchenko said another source had provided the entire multiyear ledger to Viktor M. Trepak,
a former deputy director of the domestic intelligence agency of Ukraine, the S.B.U., who
passed it to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Anti-corruption groups in Ukraine said the black ledger detailing payments was probably
seized when protesters ransacked the Party of Regions headquarters in February 2014.
The pages from the ledger, which had come from anonymous sources probably
supported by John Brennan's CIA , were never proven to be genuine. But the claims were
strong enough to get Manafort fired as campaign manager for Donald Trump. He was later
sentenced for unrelated cases of tax evasion.
Serhin A. Leshchenko, the member of the Ukrainian parliament who published the dubious
ledger, was rabidly anti-Trump. Shortly after providing the "secret ledger" he talked with the
Financial Times and promised to continue to meddle in the U.S. election. The FT
headline emphasized the fact:
The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming
leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's wider
political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene,
however indirectly, in a U.S. election.
...
Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their efforts
to prevent a candidate - who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed
two years ago - from reaching the summit of American political power.
"A Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy," Mr
Leshchenko, an investigative journalist turned MP, told the Financial Times. "For me it was
important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate
who can break the geopolitical balance in the world."
...
If the Republican candidate loses in November, some observers suggest Kiev's action may have
played at least a small role.
A Democratic Party operative asked the Ukrainian ambassador to find dirt on Trump's campaign
manger Paul Manafort. A few month later a secret "black ledger" emerges from nowhere into the
hands of dubious Ukrainian actors including a 'former' domestic intelligence director.
The ledger may or may not show that Manafort received money from Yanukovych's party. It was
never verified. But it left Trump no choice but to fire Manafort. Ukrainian figures who were
involved in the stunt openly admitted that they had meddled in the U.S. election, promised to
do more of it and probably did.
The Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election is well documented. How the Buzzfeed
News author can claim that it is a "debunked conspiracy theory" is beyond me.
1. The Contracting States shall provide mutual assistance, in accordance with the provisions
of this Treaty, in connection with the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of
offenses, and in proceedings related to criminal matters.
2. Assistance shall include: (a) taking the testimony or statements of persons; (b)
providing documents, records, and other items; (c) locating or identifying persons or items;
(d) serving documents; (e) transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes;
(f) executing searches and seizures; (g) assisting in proceedings related to immobilization
and forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and (h) any other form of
assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested State.
3. Assistance shall be provided without regard to whether the conduct that is the subject
of the investigation, prosecution, or proceeding in the Requesting State would constitute an
offense under the laws of the Requested State.
When Trump
asked the current Ukrainian President Zelensky to help with an investigation into the above
matters he acted well within the law and within the framework of the treaty. It was certainly
not illegitimate to do that.
But when mainstream media deny that Biden's interference in Ukraine's prosecutor office is
suspect, or claim that the Ukraine did not interfere in the U.S. elections, they make it look
as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not in this case. To use
it a basis of an 'impeachment inquiry' is political bullshit.
Making these false claims will come back to haunt those media outlets. Sooner or later the
public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the already low trust in the
media even more.
Posted by b on October 26, 2019 at 17:51 UTC |
Permalink
"Sooner or later the public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the
already low trust in the media even more."
More precisely, there exit Trump-friendly media with millions of followers, so insisting
on innocence of Biden will have a political cost. Not to mention leftist media reminiscing
how Senator Biden championed the cause of MBNA (credit cart giant) when it was also a
generous employer of his dear son. Of course, given the size of Delaware, it could be just a
coincidence.
Thanks b for providing the nitty gritty details of this sorry saga. That term "conspiracy
theory" has been so widely abused that, to me at least, it now means something that the
author wishes were not true but almost certainly is.
What is certain is that if Biden is selected as the Dem candidate and ends up as President,
the GOP (if it retains influence in Congress) will open an investigation into his actions on
behalf of his son. Russia-gate is the gift that keeps on giving!
Thanks b, for the reality check.
Joe Biden needs to STFU, and go away. He and his ilk are part of the problem, not the
solution. The rulers of America insist on pushing this sycophant for the empire down our
throats. And, he can take HRC and her crowd with him. It's high time for some new blood, IF, TPTB, will even allow that to happen, which I very
much doubt....
Thanks for another informative and insightful commentary, B. It's like a drink of cool, clean
water after staggering through a volcanic landscape full of fumaroles belching sulfurous
plumes of superheated gas.
Sometimes my hobby horses merrily hop along under me without any effort on my part. I just
hang onto the reins and howl. So: it's bad enough that the US mass-media
consent-manufacturers, aka the CIA/Deep State's "Mighty Wurlitzer", gin up endless propaganda
to discredit the facts you mention; their mission is to fool enough of the public that
there's no "there" there, and prop up Biden's presidential campaign in the bargain.
But what increasingly bugs me is so-called "alternative" news outlets and independent
journalists buying into the spin that Trump and his associates are using the pretext of
investigating corruption as a means to illegally and illicitly "dig up dirt on political
rivals". Put the other way around, they concede that Biden and other Team Obama honchos are
indeed "dirty", and that their Ukraine adventure was reprehensibly illicit or illegal and
self-serving-- but they return to faulting Trump for impermissibly exploiting these
circumstances in order to gain political advantage.
It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi are careful
to affirm that Trump et al 's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power. But, sadly,
even journalists like Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, and Michael Tracey have
echoed this rote condemnation.
My guess is that this arises from two acronyms: incipient TDS, which compels even
"alternative" US journalists to regard Trump as the "heel" in the staged
"professional"-wrestling scam of US electoral politics. Also, CYA; I suspect that these
relatively young, professionally vulnerable journalists are terrified of coming off as
"defending" or "excusing" Trump, lest they trigger wrathful excoriation from their peers and
the hordes of social-media users whose custom they cultivate.
This is why I appreciate your clarity and forthrightness on this fraught topic.
Rereading your post, and agreeing with some it, I find I disagree less with its conclusions
than on first reading.
If you were referring to Trump's convo with Zelensky specifically, reasonable people might
disagree over whether that was an abuse of power or sleazy and dumb (in being
unnecessary)--which of course shouldn't mean the Bidens get a pass here, which none of these
young journalists are suggesting.
But where I would disagree is if you were suggesting that Taibbi, Mate and Blumenthal are
making obligatory objections to Trump more generally, in order to curry favour with their
peers. I think each of them would readily reel off lists of things (more substantive than
Ukrainegate -- and probably not including Russia collusion) that they think Trump should be
castigated, impeached and perhaps prosecuted for.
Well, there you have it--proof that BigLie Media indeed specializes in publishing Big Lies
that ought to reduce such outlets to the status of Tabloids. Of course, the media is free to
lie all it wants within the limits of slander and libel, but most people don't like being
lied to particularly over matters of importance.
Larry Johnson has a piece at SST on a CIA task force set up to compromise Trump and prevent
him becoming president.
That Trump avoided all the traps set for him (even the Mueller investigation could pin
nothing on Trump) and won the election says a bit for Trump. He definitely is more than the
twitter reality TV persona that he puts up as a public face.
With the Barr investigation, it looks like the non Trump section of the swamp will be drained
in the near future.
Possibly an irrelevant point, but Shokin's replacement Lutsenko was the prosecutor who
resurrected the "deceased", self declared journalist, Arkady Babchenko. The story was full of
plot twists, involving a Boris German/Herman, who was Russian. B kept Us regaled with events.
I'd post a link, but have witnessed too many thread expansions too risk it.
I think a lot of people give the MSM too much credit. Of course editorials etc. can influence
people's thinking but the media, and journalists in general, are loathed by the people who
voted for Trump. It's a big reason he was elected.
Ort @ 8 said;"It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi
are careful to affirm that Trump et al's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power."
Co-Opted, or truthful, depending on what you believe. You, have every right to your
opinion, but, when push comes to shove, think I'll give my opinion being swayed or not, by
giving more credibility to the five names you've decided to "shade".
DJT has a record of behavior, and so do the five you've mentioned. My choice is clear,
I'll believe the five..
Alexandra Chalupa's connection to the thinktank The Atlantic Council should be borne in mind
in the developing discussion in the comments forum. Her sister Irena is or has been a
non-resident Senior Fellow there. Irena Chalupa has also been a senior editor at Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty.
Also the founder and CEO of the Crowdstrike company in charge of cybersecurity for the DNC
during the 2016 presidential election campaign was Dmitri Alperovich who is a Senior Fellow
at The Atlantic Council. It was Crowdstrike who came up with the idea that Trump had to be
under the Kremlin's thumb and from there the hysterical witch-hunt and associated actions
known as Russiagate began.
I'm surprised that at this point in time, Bellingcat has not been included in digging up
"dirt" on Trump, Manafort or anyone Manafort supposedly had connections with who is also
mentioned in the "black ledger" but maybe that's because with the garbage that Bellingcat has
so delivered, Eliot Higgins and company can't be trusted any more. Their masters should have
known though, that when you give your subordinates base material to work with, they can only
come up with base results: garbage in, garbage out.
Thanks for your ongoing documentation of the political criminality in the US b. The recent events are playing out like a two-bit soap opera rerun in a nursing home for
America's brainwashed. Maybe Trump could start a new TV game show called Apprentice Corruption and instead of
saying "Your Fired!" it could be "Your Guilty!"
As an American it is difficult to watch the country that I was taught such good things
about in school be exposed as a criminal enterprise running cover for the elite cult that
owns global private finance and manipulates Western not-so-civilized culture.
I hope all this BS we are going through wakes up enough of the semi-literate public to
overthrow the criminal sect and restore the Founding Fathers motto and concept of E Pluribus
Unum.
Lee Stranahan of Radio Sputnik has been reporting on Alexandra Chalupa's role for a number of
years now. I hope he gets proper credit as this story comes out.
Given the fact that she got a first hand look at the Outlaw US Empire's injustice system and
its tie-in with BigLie Media, the comments by the now back in Russia Maria Butina carry some legitimate weight that're
worth reading: "'I believe that the Americans are wonderful people, but they have lost their legal
system,' Butina said. 'What is more, they are routinely losing their country. They will lose
it unless they do something'.... "'I am very proud of my country, of my origin,' Butina stressed. 'And I come to realize it
more and more.'"
Should I bold the following, maybe make the lettering red, and put it in all caps:
"They are routinely losing their country."
I know this is an international bar, but the general focus has long been on the Outlaw US
Empire. IMO, Maria Butina is 100% correct. The topic of this thread is just further proof of
that fact. As I tirelessly point out, the federal government has routinely violated its own
fundamental law daily since October 1945. The media goes along with it robotically. And aside
from myself, I know of no other US citizen that's raised the issue--not Chomsky, not Zinn,
not anyone with more credentials and public accessibility than I. I sorta feel like Winston
Smith: Am I the only one who sees and understands what's actually happening?! Well, I've
shared what I know, so I'm no longer alone. But that's not very satisfying, nor is it
satisfactory.
The take away quote from a Matt Taibbi twit
"LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to
CNN about the Durham probe: "It's frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done...
what we were told to do by the president of the United States."
"
Prescient observation by Aaron Mate :
"When CNN & MSNBC now cover the criminal inquiry into conduct of intel officials in
Russia probe, they are literally covering their employees -- John Brennan (MSNBC); James
Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Baker (CNN). I avoid the term, but it's appropriate here: Deep
State TV."
Sure, he sees it, many of us barflies see it, but it's the public within the Outlaw US
Empire that must see and understand this dynamic. If they don't or won't, then
Butina's words are even more correct--They are losing their country.
The take away quote:
"Joe Biden intervened at least two times on matters his son Hunter's firms was being paid to
lobby on, according to government records reviewed by the Washington Examiner."
The merry-go-round scenario you post would indicate a broken state. Biden's been in office
for 43 years, Trump 3 yrs... the potential for dirt is large, mix it with even larger GOP
vengeance should that scenario arise and this will drag on through the decades.
Part and parcel of democracy. Western style democracy at least. Perhaps others can set
theirs up better, though allways, the achilles heel of democracy is information, or media.
Who oversees ensuring voters recieve accurate information.
It took complaints from the public and investigated them. They did not have power to bring
charges, but for a time findings were made public. Once it got onto a money trail it would
keep following and that would lead to other money trails. It was a state agency and had to
stop at state borders but most money trails led to federal politics. It was defanged when
they came too close to federal politics.
Something like this in a countries constitution could work though it could be corrupted the
same as anything else.
Indeed, the guilty are hiding in plain sight. It appears sinister, and is, but I think its a
positive development of late, as it would suggest that big media are scrambling to preserve
the status quo by legitimising these deep state actors.
It wasn't so long ago these deep state types would rather steer clear of the media. Now
they are out there earning bread driving the narrative. Are these deep state media faces a
tactical last resort...?
Obama orchestrated the regime change operation in Ukraine. As we know from Wayne Madsen's
little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a
suckling babe. To promote containment of the Russian menace, the US got in bed with Ukrainian
fascists and successfully exploited political tensions in that country resulting in the
removal of the duly elected Yanukovitch. A right wing billionaire then took the reigns and
Putin orchestrated a referendum in Crimea in retaliation that resulted in its return to
Russia. The Crimeans were and continue to be happy, happier than the rest of Ukrainians under
Kiev neo-fascist free market exploitation.
It is natural that neo-fascist Ukrainians would express their disapproval of Trump, who was making nice with Putin. No
matter what his motives were, he was bucking US anti-Russian policy. I liked Trump at that time for this willingness to end a
Cold War policy sponsored by the US military industrial complex. You can cal it "deep state" if you like. It's not deep and
it's not a shadow government. It's the war party. It's the elite profiting from weapons manufacture. Trump has no principles
except expedience and his pro-Russian stance is likely owing to the money laundering he's been doing for Russian criminals
since he is such a lousy business man. Putin and other Russian kleptocrats saved Trump boy's bacon. So it's very
confusing when bed actors do good things.
Biden is no doubt quite corrupt. But that's got little to do with Trumps quid pro quo with
Ukraine. You say that Ukrainian interference in US elections is well documented. You don't
offer any documents, b. Anti-Putin Ukrainians were naturally anti-Trump. So what? Where's the
beef? Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel bills and gave
the world Chernobyl, interfered in US elections.
Your defense of Trump is getting tiresome. He's a criminal with no respect for the US
Constitution and he deserves to be impeached. This is not to say that Joe Biden or his drug
addict son are not also shit stains. I am just dismayed that you, an ostensibly intelligent
independent commentator would go to bat for an ignoramus like Trump.
The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well
laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101.
President Harry Truman probably received as much flak as any politician ever did,
especially after he canned war-hero General MacArthur. But Truman wasn't a candy-ass current
politician complaining about dirt-digging. No, he gave back more than he got, in spades.
What was "give-em-hell" Harry Truman's attitude? Some Truman quotes:
--"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."
--"It's the fellows who go to West Point and are trained to think they're gods in uniform
that I plan to take apart"
--"I didn't fire him [General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he
was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them
would be in jail."
-- "I'll stand by [you] but if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen ."
That's what Trump is doing and will probably continue to do with fake news. (And he coined
the phrase.)
I'll repeat what I posted here some days ago: this is not a battle between truth vs lies, but
between which is the truth that will guide the USA for the forseeable future.
Empires don't act on facts: they are all-powerful, so they sculpt reality as they see fit.
What determines this is class struggle: the inner contradictions of a society that results
in a given consensus, thus forming a hegemony.
It's not that the liberals deny Biden did what he did, but that they disagree with Trump's
interpretation over what he did. This is what the doctrine of the vital center is all about:
some facts are more facts than others, prevailing the one which maintains the cohesion of the
empire.
There's a battle for America's soul; the American elite is in flux: Russia or China?
In 1984 , the narrative was now 100% in your face and everything had to be
manipulated to match it, which apparently hadn't been needed previously. But we aren't told
if that was done as a "last resort." I would think not given continuing polls showing ongoing
distrust of media, thus the difficulty of manufacturing consent. Look at the great popularity
enjoyed by Sanders amongst 18-30 year-olds who get most of their information online or via
social media and the measures being taken to try and manipulate those realms. Then there're
efforts to counter the misinformation and manipulation by numerous activists, many of which
get cited here.
Another thought: They're out front now because the Establishment's deemed the fight to
control the narrative's being lost, and they've been drafted to rectify the situation. If
correct, they ought to keep failing.
The international nature of this bar and its many flies is that mostly (from what I read)
they have an immense respect for the rule of law. It is this singular concept that we trust
will transcend religion and the quasi religiosity of political allegiances.
The rule of law is a deity-like singularity that embraces all beings equally, or
should. Assaulting that legitimate expectation of the law applying equally is what confronts us
daily in so many ways and when it is observed being assaulted by the highest office bearers
in political and corporate life that we barflies get mighty annoyed. The gross vista of assumed immunity demonstrated by Nixon is equaled by the antics of the
Clinton foundation and its Directors. Each and every one of them.
But it is far worse than that as the assault on the rule of law is daily carried out by
the mafias that infest our societies, the corrupt and violent police that cant/wont protect
our citizens, the international warmongering criminal classes that propagandise us to accept
warring as a legitimate exercise of power even though we recognise it as a crime against
humanity.
So when we see the deplorable state of media and jurisprudence and fairness we can only
think as Maria Butina does "that we are routinely losing our countries" and I would add our
civil societies. The latter is vastly more concerning than the former IMO.
Again, not surprised at all. Pro-democratic/anti-Trump media write articles (obviously
made-to-order) to whitewash already badly discredited Biden, and present all the arguments in
favor of his dark connections with Ukraine as a kind of "conspiracy theory". This is a common
practice. Not having sufficient competence to reasonably refute the arguments of opponents,
MSM (as well as all sorts of "experts") immediately mark the position of opponents with
"conspiracy theory" (there are also other options to choose from: "Putin's agent", "Putin's
useful idiot", "Kremlin's agent", "pro-Russian propaganda", etc.). It is assumed that this
makes unnecessary/optional (and even "toxic") all further conversations with the opponent
(that is, there is no need to answer him, to prove something with facts, etc.), because his
position is a "conspiracy theory".
Western MSM are actively using this simplest propaganda technique of information warfare.
For example, this
was the case when reporting on events in Syria - those journalists, the media, experts
who did not agree with the lie of MSM about Assad's use of the chemical weapons
were declared "conspiracy theorists" (and also "Assad apologists"). This method was
also used to cover "the Skripal case" - those who questioned the British authorities'
version of the "Novichok poisoning" were declared "conspiracy
theorists".
When I see words like "conspiracy theory" in the headlines and see what media use them,
then, you know, it's all clear. No chance for such articles/media to be taken seriously.
@32 jadan quote "Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel
bills...." are you familiar with the name porkoshenko, or any other one of the numbers of
kleptomaniacs in positions of power in the ukraine? how do you think they got their, if
''that little piss ant country' can't even pay it's bills? i am sure you are capable of
adding 2 + 2...
b isn't defending trump here.. he's highlighting how corrupt the msm is! it looks like you
missed that.. check the headline..
This is the way the controlled media works. They provide half a story, half truths, straw-man
facts, selective quotes and 'expert' comment, opinion and unwarranted assumption presented as
fact that all together cover the spectrum from black to white, spread across the many titles.
They also disseminate a fine dusting of lies and actual truth here and there. The result is
the public have a dozen 'truths' to pick from, none of which are real, while the outright
lies and actual truths get dismissed as not credible and the half-truths and straw-man truths
appear to carry some validity. If you look for it you can find it applying in almost every
bit of 'news', if it is in any way controversial, whether it is partisan politics, Climate
Change or Brexit to give examples.
As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama
has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas
drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about
Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge.
Ukraine was just one hell of a honey pot that too many couldn't resist visiting.
Kind of like Russia (Uranium One and HRC) or China (Biden for a start).
Giulani is going to be very busy - he still hasn't produced anything that wasn't already
published, but I bet he has much more.
... smart enough to understand and agree that they needed someone like Trump?
Yes, I do think they are smart enough and agreed to act in their collective best interest.
Kissinger first wrote of MAGA in a WSJ Op-Ed in August 2014. Trump entered the race in June
2015, IIRC.
Do you think that Trump - who failed at multiple businesses - just woke up one day and
became a political and geopolitical genius? As a candidate he said he'd "take the oil" and
now, more than 3 years later, he has! LOL.
And JUST AFTER the Mueller investigation formally ends, Trump ONCE AGAIN solicits a
foreign power to interfere in a US election. The biggest beneficiary? Deep State BIDEN! Who
now gets all the media attention.
FYI Wm Gruff makes your same point often: that Deep State mistakes demonstrate that they
couldn't possible pull of a Trump win (if that's what they wanted). I disagree.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
I very much doubt that anyone will go to jail - or serve any meaningful jail time if they
do - over the Deep State shenanigans. Nor will people 'wake up' and see how they've been
played anytime soon. Even the smarter, more savvy denizens of the moa bar have much
difficulty connecting dots. Dots that they don't want to see.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas
drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about
Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge
Trump at first threw down the gauntlet to the spies and proclaimed his autocratic
prerogative when God held off the rain for his inauguration (!) but now he would gladly get
on his knees between Gina Haspel's legs if the CIA would only help him stay in power.
What
distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured. He made
it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context, media and
process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American dream. It was
a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"! It's staring us all in the face.
Oh, but Deep State DID interfere.
FACT: Deep Stater Hillary colluded with DNC against Sanders. ( But she would NEVER
participate in collusion that caused her to lose an election./sarc LOL)
And now pro-Trump people say Clapper, Brennan, and Comey interfered in the 2016 election
OR committed treason by trying to unseat the President!
So we can talk about Deep State interference . . . as long as it follows the partisan
narrative that's been established for us.
I have news for you. USA Presidents use strong coercive persuasive arguments or means of
speech ALL THE TIME. And always have. Sometimes they can be subtle and allude to an action
that might make them happy and sometimes they can be blunt. Its a presidential thing. It is
what statespeople do when they 'negotiate' for their desired outcome.
It is not illegal or corrupt. It is power nakedly exercised. Just because Biden is a
candidate for the same presidential role does not confer immunity for Biden's graft in favor
of his son a few years back. You make a mockery of your position.
One USA President visited Australia once and when confronted with a roadblock of
demonstrators seeking peace in Vietnam demanded of the Australian Premier to "drive over the
bastards". That didn't happen but the President continued to drive all over the Vietnamese
innocents.
Trump may be a grifter and a scumbag but there are warmongers well ahead of him in the cue
for justice. Take Hillary Clinton for example. She is a ruthless killer and the greatest
breach of USA national Security ever with her Secretary of State emails held on an unsecured
server in her closet.
The same powers some call "deep state," are the same powers that have given us ALL modern day
presidents, probably from FDR on.
IMO, they are nothing more, nothing less than the "captains of commerce", who, through the
vast accumulation of wealth by monopoly, buy our "representatives" to legislate rules and
regulations to benefit themselves.
Our so-called "leaders" work for them, with very few exceptions, and transcends all
political parties, and now also the Supreme Court.
$ has been ruled speech, unlimited $ is allowed to be given to politicians for elections.
How could anything but massive corruption take place under this kind of system?
they make it look as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not
in this case.
You suffer from TDS. What on Earth are you talking about here? Plenty of that? Say what?
Why do you undercut your entire point in your article with this little piece of utter
nonsense?
Name one thing that Trump that has done that is illegal. Name one thing that is crazy. Stop apologizing to the crazies by denigrating Trump. Your entire article was all about
how none of the bs is true. And then you put your own brand of bs in there at the end. Cut it
out.
@ 54 jadan... thanks for your comments... i am feeling more philosophical tonight, as i don't
have a gig and have some time to express myself a bit more here.. first off, i don't like any
of these characters - trump, biden, and etc. etc.. i have no horse in the game here, and it
sounds like you don't either.. your comment- "The issue is Trump's extortion of Ukraine, not
Biden's extortion of Ukraine." i can go along with that until i reflect back onto what
increasingly looks like an agenda to get trump even prior to when he was elected, at which
point i want to say why are we only examining trump in all of this? who gets to decide what
the issue is, or as Caitlin Johnstone lets to say - who gets to decide what the narrative is
here? i don't have an answer for this, but those who appear to be taking a side in all of
this - including you with the quote i make - seem to think that it has to be the issue of
trumps extortion of Ukraine, verses what appears to me the CIA - Dem party extortion of the
ordinary USA persons mind...
let me back up... Has mccarthyism version 2 come to life since the advent of what happened
in the Ukraine from 2014 onward?? is the issue of a new cold war with Russia been on the
burner for at least 5 or more years here and began before trump was even considered a
potential candidate for the republican party? did Russia take back Crimea, which wasn't
supposed to happen? is this good for military industrial complex sales? and etc. etc..
so, i don't think it is fair to only consider the latest boneheaded thing trump did when i
consider the bigger picture unfolding here.. now, maybe you think i am a trump apologist... i
am just saying what the backdrop looks like to me here.. i am sure biden is small potatoes in
the bigger picture here, but if taking a closer examination of what took place in ukraine
leading into 2014, with the victoria nulands and geoffrey pyatts and etc. etc. of usa
diplomatic corps, usa dept of state and etc. could lead to a better understanding of how the
usa has went down the road it has for the past 60 years of foreign policy on the world stage,
it would be a good start... so, to me - it ain't about trump.. it is about usa foreign policy
and how it has sucked the big one on the world stage for at least since the time of vietnam
when i was a teenager..
i suppose it depends on the time frame one wants to take.. my time frame will be
considered an evasion of the moment to some, but it is how i see it.. sure, trump is scum,
but the bigger issue to me is the usa's foreign policy agenda.. anything that can pull back
the covers on that would be an extremely good thing... now, perhaps this is the straw that
broke trumps back and the deep state will not tolerate being scrutinized.. that i could
understand, but i am not going to be putting it all on trump as the reason the covers have to
remain on all the shit the usa has been responsible for on the world stage to date and
especially the past 10 years.. i am not able to blame trump for all of that.. and as you can
see, i would prefer to get down to the nitty gritty of who is zooming who here... the msm for
all intensive purposes is complicit in duping the american public.. that to me is the gist of
b's comment here, not that he is cheer-leading for trump.. i just don't see it that way...i'm
definitely not!
The State Department is a neoliberal Trojan horse in the USA government, with strong
globalist ethos. They will sabotage any change of foreign policy. and they intend to kick the
neoliberal can down the road as long as possible. They are the same type of neoliberals as Joe
Biden and Hillary Clinton. Probably less corrupt them those two, but still.
They are imperial soldiers par excellence; these whole life concentrated on serving the
imperial interests, and strive for the strengthening and expansion of neoliberal empire via
opening new markets for the expansions of US based multinationals, staging wars and color
revolutions to overthrows the governments which resists Washington Consensus, etc.
They probably can't be reformed, only fired, or forced into retirement. 72 years old neocon
stooge Taylor is just the tip of the iceberg.
From Wikipedia: He directed a Defense Department think tank at Fort Lesley J. McNair . Following that
assignment, he went to Brussels for a five year assignment as the Special
Deputy Defense Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to NATO From 1992 until 2002 Taylor served with the rank of
ambassador coordinating assistance to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union , followed by an assignment in
Kabul coordinating U.S. and
international assistance to Afghanistan . In 2004 he was transferred to
Baghdad as Director of the
Iraq Reconstruction Management Office
Taylor was nominated by President George W. Bush to be United States ambassador to
Ukraine while he was serving as Senior Consultant to the Coordinator of Reconstruction and
Stabilization at the Department of State. [10] He was
confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 26, 2006, and was
sworn in on June 5, 2006. At the time Taylor assumed responsibilities at the embassy it was, with
over 650 employees from nine U.S. government departments and agencies, the fifth-largest
bilateral mission in Europe
Notable quotes:
"... As William Taylor's testimony about Ukraine creates shock waves in Washington, a self-anointed mandarin class or, if you prefer, deep state, that has largely operated unmolested until the advent of Trump now appears to believe that it can foil, or even subvert, the policies of a president it deems unfit for office, a development that should worry Democrats and Republicans alike. ..."
"... One reason is that those who seek to repair the damage caused by a thirty-year deterioration in trust and cooperation face an uphill battle against what recently has been given the colloquial name, "the Blob." The term, coined by Obama White House staffer Ben Rhodes, refers to the foreign-policy establishment, mostly located in Washington, DC and constantly focused on the putative decline of American influence abroad. It has been distinguished by its unwillingness, or inability, to reconsider or reprioritize national interests that were first defined after World War II, and then continued, by and large, on auto-pilot after the end of the Cold War. ..."
"... Another reason is that Trump himself has been largely indifferent to who assumes positions in his administration, calculating that by sheer force of will he, and he alone, can be the decider. In September, Trump referred to his search for a fresh national security adviser in the following terms: "It's great because it's a lot of fun to work with Donald Trump, and it's very easy, actually, to work with me. You know why it's easy? Because I make all the decisions. They don't have to work." This insouciant approach has now boomeranged on Trump. ..."
"... Taylor, as his testimony made clear, was able to observe first-hand many of the Trump administration's ham-fisted moves to extract, in one form another, concessions from Ukraine. But however clumsy and counterproductive Trump's moves may have been, Taylor offered an overly simplistic survey of events in the region. Indeed, his Manichean introductory and concluding remarks suggested that he views Russia as an inveterate enemy of America and Ukraine as a white knight. ..."
"... Foreign policy is rarely a morality play and the fairy-tale that Taylor presented was more redolent of a post–Cold War cold warrior who, like too many of his colleagues at the foreign desk, are committed to retrograde thinking, than of an official offering an incisive look at a complex and troubled region. It is not as though Ukraine, where Taylor served as ambassador during the George W. Bush administration, has ever been free from the plague of corruption or murky machinations by local competing factions. Reflexively taking the side of Ukraine does not serve American interests any more than trying to pummel it for political favors. The testimony of Taylor and other State Department witnesses before the House Intelligence Committee is a case in point. ..."
"... ow that the fight between Trump and the permanent bureaucracy is now in the open? ..."
"... Vice President Mike Pence told Laura Ingraham , host of Fox's The Ingraham Angle , "There is no question when President Trump said we were going to drain the swamp, but an awful lot of the swamp has been caught up in the State Department bureaucracy and we're just going to keep fighting it. And we are going to fight it with the truth." For his part, Evans thinks that there is a modicum of hope for improved relations with Moscow. "Taylor will have to resign now," he says. "We might even see a moderation of the uncritical support for Ukraine, as some of the ugly underside starts to emerge, although anti-Russian sentiment is the mother's milk of Congress." ..."
As William Taylor's testimony about Ukraine creates shock waves in Washington, a
self-anointed mandarin class or, if you prefer, deep state, that has largely operated
unmolested until the advent of Trump now appears to believe that it can foil, or even subvert,
the policies of a president it deems unfit for office, a development that should worry
Democrats and Republicans alike.
President Donald Trump campaigned and was elected on a platform of improved relations with
Russia. Yet, three years after his election, no real improvement has materialized and, if
anything, they have deteriorated. Why?
One reason is that those who seek to repair the damage caused by a thirty-year
deterioration in trust and cooperation face an uphill battle against what recently has been
given the colloquial name, "the Blob." The term,
coined by Obama White House staffer Ben Rhodes, refers to the foreign-policy establishment,
mostly located in Washington, DC and constantly focused on the putative decline of American
influence abroad. It has been distinguished by its unwillingness, or inability, to reconsider
or reprioritize national interests that were first defined after World War II, and then
continued, by and large, on auto-pilot after the end of the Cold War. Now Trump is
taking a wrecking ball to
this world order. But a self-anointed mandarin class or, if you prefer, deep state, that has
largely operated unmolested until the advent of Trump now appears to believe that it can foil,
or even subvert, the policies of a president it deems unfit for office, a development that
should worry Democrats and Republicans alike.
Another reason is that Trump himself has been largely indifferent to who assumes
positions in his administration, calculating that by sheer force of will he, and he alone, can
be the decider. In September, Trump referred to his search for a fresh national security
adviser in the following terms: "It's great because it's a lot of fun to work with Donald
Trump, and it's very easy, actually, to work with me. You know why it's easy? Because I make
all the decisions. They don't have to work." This insouciant approach has now boomeranged on
Trump.
Enter William B. Taylor, Jr. Taylor has been the U.S. Chargé d 'Affaires Ukraine
since June of this year (having previously held the position of ambassador 2006–2009),
and yesterday he testified behind-closed-doors as part of the House impeachment inquiry into
Trump. Taylor, as his testimony made clear, was able to observe first-hand many of the
Trump administration's ham-fisted moves to extract, in one form another, concessions from
Ukraine. But however clumsy and counterproductive Trump's moves may have been, Taylor offered
an overly simplistic survey of events in the region. Indeed, his Manichean introductory and
concluding remarks suggested that he views Russia as an inveterate enemy of America and Ukraine
as a white knight.
In his opening statement, Taylor emphasized that Ukraine is a strategic partner of the
United States that is "important for the security of our country as well as Europe," as well as
a country that is "under armed attack from Russia." Well, yes. But this sweeping description
occludes more than it reveals. Foreign policy is rarely a morality play and the fairy-tale
that Taylor presented was more redolent of a post–Cold War cold warrior who, like too
many of his colleagues at the foreign desk, are committed to retrograde thinking, than of an
official offering an incisive look at a complex and troubled region. It is not as though
Ukraine, where Taylor served as ambassador during the George W. Bush administration, has ever
been free from the plague of corruption or murky machinations by local competing factions.
Reflexively taking the side of Ukraine does not serve American interests any more than trying
to pummel it for political favors. The testimony of Taylor and other State Department witnesses
before the House Intelligence Committee is a case in point.
Will anything change n ow that the fight between Trump and the permanent bureaucracy is
now in the open? On Tuesday night, Vice President Mike Pence told Laura
Ingraham , host of Fox's The Ingraham Angle , "There is no question when President
Trump said we were going to drain the swamp, but an awful lot of the swamp has been caught up
in the State Department bureaucracy and we're just going to keep fighting it. And we are going
to fight it with the truth." For his part, Evans thinks that there is a modicum of hope for
improved relations with Moscow. "Taylor will have to resign now," he says. "We might even see a
moderation of the uncritical support for Ukraine, as some of the ugly underside starts to
emerge, although anti-Russian sentiment is the mother's milk of Congress."
Hunter DeRensis is a reporter at the National Interest .
There was always an element of this in US foreign policy. Teddy Roosevelt took the
opportunity of the Navy Sec being out for the weekend to send orders for the Asiatic
Fleet to move to position to attack the Philippines. The returning Sec was appalled, but
it was too late. For that adventure, he was rewarded by becoming President in due
time.
Forty years later, the US oil embargo on Japan happened the same way. The boss away
for the weekend, the deputy ordered it, and then left his bosses the options of
supporting it or appearing weak and appearing to make a concession by withdrawing it. For
that adventure, he was rewarded by becoming Sec of State in due time.
The pattern is not new. Doing it domestically is new. Doing it to remove a President
is new. Doing it to reverse a US election is new, though reversing foreign elections that
way by the same people was routine.
If we are to fix this, we need to face that it is a problem very deeply embedded. It
is not new, and does not have recent nor shallow roots.
"What goes unmentioned is that many of the dead are Eastern Ukrainians with deep
language and cultural connections to Russia, who acted upon secessionist impulses only
after the emergence of the new regime in Kiev."
This is true. Putin/Lavrov team gets a lot criticism for that in Russia. Maybe, of all
those Kalibrs going to Raqqa, Syria, just a few could make a detour to Lvov, Ukraine, for
demonstration purposes? While I greatly respect the diplomatic acumen of the Russian
leadership, i think support for pro-Russia East Ukrainians has been insufficient. More
could and should have been done. Donbass people were allowed to receive Russian passports
recently, so hopefully this will change things for the better, and more Russian support
will arrive, but we will see. West won't like a more pro-active Russian approach, but
since Russia-West relations won't improve in a foreseeable future, Russia can safely
discard Western opinion and agree to disagree on this particular matter.
According to Deng Xiaoping's maxim, we should "seek truth from facts," and after three
years Trump recognizes the fact that it is in U.S. national interest to avoid great power
conflict either with China or Russia. If we were to be honest and "seek truth from facts"
judging Putin with fairness by his action, we would see that Putin's intellect and
character have benefitted the international community at large in every regions across
the globe. Sadly, the American mandarin class is like Mao's Chinese Gang of Four who
insisted on continuing with outdated Cold War political ideology. Americans would never
vote for any chaos president, and Trump realizes that in time for 2020.
Russia has its own fair share of neo-naztis, so what?
Ukrainian neo-nazis (Azov etc.) get paided and armed by the Ukrainian state.
On Wednesday, New York Rep. Max Rose, who chairs the
counterterrorism subcommittee, submitted a letter to the State
Department, co-signed by 39 members of Congress . It urged the department
to designate Azov Battalion (a far-right paramilitary regiment in
Ukraine), National Action (a neo-Nazi group based in the U.K.), and
Nordic Resistance Movement (a neo-Nazi network from Scandinavia) as
terrorist organizations .
The reason they think Azov is neo-nasti organization is because the suspect in
Christchurch mosque got military
training in Ukraine.
I think this is typical illustration of the "Post hoc" fallacy.
There are no records of Azov perpetuating anti semitic or anti muslim actions in
Ukraine, so it is not clear if there is a relation.
Russia, on the other hand, openly peddling supremacy - Russian civilization, Russian
world, Russian character, Russian language - are the best and superior to anything
else.
"... "What they did was treasonous, OK? It was treasonous," he told author Doug Wead for his upcoming book, " Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story of His Presidency." ..."
President Trump has ratcheted up his claim that the Obama White House spied on his 2016 campaign, charging in a new book that
it was a "treasonous" act by the former Democratic president.
"The interesting thing out of all of this is that we caught them spying on the election. They were spying on my campaign. So you
know? What is that all about?" said Trump.
"I have never ever said this, but truth is, they got caught spying. They were spying," said Trump who then added, "Obama."
In 2017, Trump tweeted that he felt the Obama White House "had my wires tapped" in Trump Tower. He later said he didn't mean it
literally but that he felt his campaign was being spied on.
Attorney General William Barr earlier this year said he was looking into whether "improper surveillance" may have occurred in
2016.
He has tasked a prosecutor to look into Obama officials and other officials who sparked the Russia collusion investigation into
Trump after a report showed no collusion. New reports on that investigation described it as "criminal" in nature.
"It turned out I was right. By the way," Trump told Wead in excerpts provided to Secrets.
"In fact, what I said was peanuts compared to what they did. They were spying on my campaign. They got caught and they said,
'Oh we were not spying. It was actually an investigation.' Can you imagine an administration investigating its political opponents?"
said the president.
In the book, Trump said that the Russia investigation undercut his presidency.
" Anybody else would be unable to function under the kind of pressure and distraction I had. They couldn't get anything done.
No other president should ever have to go through this. But understand, there was no collusion. They would have had to make something
up," he said.
Technically, it was sedition, unless Trump can show that Obama was acting for a foreign power. There definitely were foreign
powers involved, the question is who was in charge?
The attempt to circumvent democracy and ensure Hillary's victory in the elections with falsified Russian collusion allegations
along with a constant communist media bombardment to discredit Trump, absolutely constitutes treason. What you need to understand
is that socialist progressives serve a different god - lucifer - and a different nation - Israel; that they do not have your best
interests at heart is a given.
Everything they do is to undermine traditional morality and the moral fabric that holds civilization together. Ordo Ab Cao.
Yes, neocons still dominate the USA foreign policy which is evident in resolutions of the House of Representatives (were
Clinton warmongers now in power ) and Mitch McConnel reaction (which is for all practical purposes is MIC reaction) .
But their power is on decline and there are forces that want a different foreign policy, and who are afraid that
overstretching of the empire might bring the rebellion in the USA due to sliding standard of living. We already observe
Latin-Americanization of the US politics. Probably those forces were are behind Trump decision.
Notable quotes:
"... After U.S. President Donald Trump announced a withdrawal from Syria, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution denouncing it as “a benefit to adversaries of the United States government, including Syria, Iran and Russia." ..."
"... Six days later, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, introduced a similar resolution. “If not arrested,” he said, “withdrawing from Syria will invite more of the chaos that breeds terrorism and create a vacuum our adversaries will certainly fill.” ..."
"... Such bipartisan agreement is rare in Washington these days. But it underestimates the wisdom of Trump’s decision, the benefits for U.S. interests in the Middle East and the nasty trick he has played on Russian President Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Russia cannot afford a project of this magnitude. It’s possible that Putin expects EU countries to foot the bill — motivated either by humanitarian impulses or by the desire to forestall another wave of destitute immigrants. But this is wishful thinking. Faced with a potential influx of Syrian refugees, Europe is more likely to raise barriers on its southern and eastern borders than to invest in affordable housing in the ruins of Aleppo and Homs. ..."
"... Another headache for Putin is the ongoing Israel-Iran war, which is being fought largely in Syrian territory. ..."
"... Critics who see the U.S. withdrawal as an act of weakness that will hurt American prestige and influence in the Middle East are wrong. ..."
"... For that is what the U.S. is. It has far more naval power, air dominance, strategic weaponry and intelligence assets than any other country in the region, including Russia. And its allies are the richest, best situated and most militarily potent countries in the Middle East. Not one of them will trade its relationship with Washington for an alliance with Moscow, and Trump knows this. As far as he’s concerned, Putin is welcome to the sandbox and the briar patch. ..."
After U.S. President Donald Trump announced a withdrawal from Syria, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution
denouncing it as “a benefit to adversaries of the United States government, including Syria, Iran and Russia."
Six days later, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, introduced a similar resolution. “If not arrested,” he said,
“withdrawing from Syria will invite more of the chaos that breeds terrorism and create a vacuum our adversaries will certainly fill.”
Such bipartisan agreement is rare in Washington these days. But it underestimates the wisdom of Trump’s decision, the benefits for
U.S. interests in the Middle East and the nasty trick he has played on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump calls Syria a “bloody sandbox.” He’s right about that. It is also a briar patch of warring tribes and sects, inexplicable ancient
animosities and irreconcilable differences.
The president is not prepared to take responsibility for this complicated place, or to get caught up in it. If leaving creates an
opportunity for Russia to fill the vacuum, as American lawmakers believe, then it is one Trump is happy to cede. The Russian leader
struts on the world stage, but he has not exactly won a victory.
Sooner or later, al-Qaeda, Islamic State or the next iteration of jihad will break loose in Syria. When that happens, the Russians
will be the new Satan on the block. Their diplomats in Damascus will come under attack, as will Russian troops. More troops will be
sent to defend them. Putin’s much-prized Mediterranean naval installations will require reinforcement. And so on. Soon enough, jihad
will inflame Russia’s large Muslim population. Moscow itself will become a terrorist target.
The “safety zone” that Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have recently carved from northern Syria will collapse. Syrian
leader Bashar al-Assad rightly considers it a violation of his country’s sovereignty, and if he can persuade his Russian patrons to
shut down the zone, Erdogan will threaten another invasion. If Putin then sides with Turkey, Assad will take matters into his own hands.
His army may not be fit for fighting armed opponents, but the Kurds are and can act as Assad’s proxies.
If and when such a border fight develops, Putin will find himself between Assad and Erdogan. Whatever he does, he will wind up in
that most vulnerable of Middle Eastern positions, the friend of somebody’s enemy.
As the big power in charge, Russia also will be expected to help its Syrian client rebuild the damage from the civil war. Physical
reconstruction alone is expected to cost $400-500 billion. This is a bill Trump had no intention of paying — and one more reason he
was glad to hand northern Syria to Putin.
Russia cannot afford a project of this magnitude. It’s possible that Putin expects EU countries to foot the bill — motivated either
by humanitarian impulses or by the desire to forestall another wave of destitute immigrants. But this is wishful thinking. Faced with
a potential influx of Syrian refugees, Europe is more likely to raise barriers on its southern and eastern borders than to invest in
affordable housing in the ruins of Aleppo and Homs.
What’s more, Syria needs more than new housing. It needs an entire economy. Tourism, once a major industry, has vanished. The country’s
relatively insignificant oilfields are inoperable, or in the hands of the tiny contingent of U.S. troops that’s left to guard them. And
the country’s biggest export product is spice seeds.
Another headache for Putin is the ongoing Israel-Iran war, which is being fought largely in Syrian territory. So far, Russia has
been studiously neutral. The powerful Israel Defense Forces are engaged against what their leaders regard as a strategic threat. And,
unlike the Kurds, Israel is not a disposable American ally. Putin knows this and will not risk a military confrontation no matter how
many Syrian-based Iranian munitions warehouses Israel destroys or how hard Assad pushes him to retaliate.
Critics who see the U.S. withdrawal as an act of weakness that will hurt American prestige and influence in the Middle East are wrong.
The Arab world understands realpolitik and will read Trump’s indifference to the fate of Syria as the self-serving behavior of the strong
horse.
For that is what the U.S. is. It has far more naval power, air dominance, strategic weaponry and intelligence assets than any other
country in the region, including Russia. And its allies are the richest, best situated and most militarily potent countries in the Middle
East. Not one of them will trade its relationship with Washington for an alliance with Moscow, and Trump knows this. As far as he’s
concerned, Putin is welcome to the sandbox and the briar patch.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Zev Chafets is a journalist and author of 14 books. He was a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the founding
managing editor of the Jerusalem Report Magazine. To contact the author of this story: Zev Chafets at [email protected]
Zev, if you know the future so well why dont you just trade the market. We are hearing
this song for many years - Russia will collapse, it will get stuck in Syria, second
'Afghanistan' etc, etc. So far it's all 'sour grapes' and pipe dreams. So far reality is
diverging from perceptions not to benefit of the West - Russia goes from strength to
strength, and despite enourmous efforts the West has not managed to knock down even Iran.
Crisis in Syria was partially created by drought, neoliberal policies by Assad and overpopulation. Overpopulation is now
is less an issue as many Syrian left the country and many were killed. But the threat of self-defeating neoliberal
policies remains. Also Israel will do its best to destabilize the country, as strong Syria is a direct threat to annexation
of Golan Heights. Wikipedia: "On 25 March 2019, U.S. President
Donald Trump proclaimed that "the United States
recognizes that the Golan Heights are part of the State of Israel", making the United States the first and only country to
recognize Israeli sovereignty over the effectively annexed regions of the Golan Heights.[25][26]
The 28 member states of the European Union
declared in turn they do not recognize Israeli sovereignty, and several Israeli experts on international law stated the principle
remains that land gained by defensive or offensive wars cannot be annexed under international law.[27][28][29]
"
The Golan Heights supply 15% of Israel's water.[45]
Notable quotes:
"... Rubbish. There is no political crisis in Syria except the one created by the vile regime in Washington and its allies. Syrian Kurds are Syrian citizens and those who ally themselves with US, after 'our' government sent head-chopping jihadists to destabilize and destroy the country, are traitors. ..."
"Bali claimed that "all parties must recognize that there is a political crisis that needs
to be resolved by political means". "
Rubbish. There is no political crisis in Syria except the one created by the vile regime
in Washington and its allies. Syrian Kurds are Syrian citizens and those who ally themselves
with US, after 'our' government sent head-chopping jihadists to destabilize and destroy the
country, are traitors.
Good. About time someone called game off on the PNAC Obama-Hillary Muslim Spring regime
change industry.
No reason why helpful Kurds can't get a visa, EBT cards and free rent vouchers in
Chappaqua, NY. Why not. As the "DNC-media" tells me they have done more than 99.8% of
Baltimore and Chicago hood rats who get it all for free.
The US use of liver eating jihadis extends through the regimes of Carter, Reagan, Clinton,
Bush, and Obama. Trump is cutting US backing of the liver eaters but he is overly trying to
use the US military to steal resources. But even that will end when all the states around the
US in eastern Syria want the Kurds down and the US to get out.
Wow 300 more people with 33 more.cars , it
is their neck of the woods, the Oilfield will Not fall into hostile hands because President
Trump reserves it for whoever homesteads the War Ruined Cities by rebuilding infrastructure
!
The five overthrows and revolutions in Syria, which were historically unprecedented for
hundreds of years, before Hafez were ALL orchestrated by the CIA as the agency and its
lackeys proudly admit. Syria was a peaceful country before the crooked Zionists and their
proxies began tearing up the country.
Well, since the British and the French carved Syria out of the remnants of the Ottoman
Empire after the end of WWI I guess you could say they were relatively peaceful up until the
end of WWII when the Five Eyes turned their gaze on the oil riches in the area.
You remember ?? Then you would know that Assad father was also fighting jihadist. The
Muslim Brotherhood was and still is a terror org. Know what you're talking bout. The US isn't
the only country in the world that can define terrorist. You're prolly the type that think
Syrian army is fighting their own countrymen ...they're fighting an invading horde of jihadi
scum from N. Africa to the Uhgar Chinese nationals. They came from all corners of the earth
to buy into Isis propaganda of Islam and booty. Stop watching CNN
Since the end of WW2 the CIA has run regime change operations in Syria using the Muslim
Brotherhood with the usual results.
Proud-Christian-White-American-Man , 34 minutes ago
link
Russia destroyed ISIS after Obama was bombing empty desert. Putin's intervention in Syria
at the urging of the Russian Orthodox church saved many Syrian Christian lives. He can figure
out how to deal with the Kurds. It is about time that nations other than the US get involved
in peacekeeping or oil keeping.
It seems some of those US troops that re-entered Syria from Iraq didn't go to occupy oil
fields...
"U.S. occupation forces' convoy -consists of 13 military vehicles and dozens of soldier-,
which entered Syria today, have settled in Qasrak illegal base on Tell Tamr-Qamishli road,"
the SANA's reporter in al-Hasakah said.
The US and Pissrael must pay war reparations to Syria and all other nations they crippled
and set back their economic prosperity decades behind. This is how these imbred zionists are
able to beat their chests at being "superior" - by setting their neighbours back decades, and
preventing re-construction. What a bunch of oppressor scum. The Yehudi get Uncle Scam to do
the pillaging for them.
Sanctions on Syria are criminal. Preventing people from recovering from war crimes, is
satanic. **** the USA and Israel.
SDF are traitors, you can't trust them like Zionists. Proceed with caution.
If you want Russian and Syrian protection, you can't allow American squatting in Deir el
Zor, nor the illegal smuggling of Syrian oil. I hope Putin and Assad lay it all out to these
turds, errr Kurds.
You either join the Syrian army and allow full access to the SAA, or you keep sucking Zio
**** and selling out. In that case, you deserve to face the Turks on your own.
Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch have published formerly classified
documents from the U.S. Department of Defence which reveals the agencies earlier views on
ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they
should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
Levantreport.com reports:
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND
TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A
DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS
IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN
REGIME ".
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was
circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS,
NGA, State Dept., and many others.
The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the
group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.
Government watchdog Judicial Watch published more than 100 pages of formerly classified
documents from the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department.
The documents obtained through a federal lawsuit, revealed the agencies earlier views on
ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they
should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
The U.S. intelligence documents not only confirms suspicions that the United States and
some of its coalition allies had actually facilitated the rise of the ISIS in Syria –
as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also that ISIS
members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency
at facilities in Jordan in 2012.
[MORE]
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publication, this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters
trained in Jordan became members of the ISIS after their training.]
JERUSALEM – Syrian rebels who would later join the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan,
according to informed Jordanian officials.
The officials said dozens of future ISIS members were trained at the time as part of
covert aid to the insurgents targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in
Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future campaign in
Iraq.
The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria
were first vetted for any links to extremist groups like al-Qaida.
In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a
training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern
desert region.
That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.
Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in
Jordan.
Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it
was not clear whether the Americans worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but
the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms. The training in Jordan reportedly focused on
use of anti-tank weaponry.
The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three
months amid U.S. plans to train a total of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps
in the south and the east of Jordan.
Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding
Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British and French instructors.
Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on
the German magazine's report. The French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense
ministries also would not comment to Reuters.
"... As for impeachment, ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff is surely steaming straight into his own historic Joe McCarthy moment when somebody of incontestable standing denounces him as a fraud and a scoundrel and the mysterious workings of nonlinear behavior tips the political mob past a criticality threshold, shifting the weight of consensus out of darkness and madness. It has happened before in history. ..."
It was interesting to watch the Cable News divas go incandescent under the glare of their
own gaslight late yesterday
when they received the unpleasant news that the Barr & Durham
"review" of RussiaGate had been officially
upgraded to a "criminal investigation."
Rachel Maddow's trademark pouty-face got a workout as she strained to imagine " what
the
thing
is that Durham might be looking into."
Yes, that's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery,
inside an enigma, all right with a sputtering fuse sticking out of it. Welcome to the Wile E. Coyote
Lookalike Club, Rache. You'll have a lot of competition when the Sunday morning news-chat shows rev
up.
Minutes later, the answer dawned on her:
"It [
the thing
] follows the wildest conspiracy theories from Fox News!"
You'd think that someone who invested two-plus years of her life in the Mueller report, which blew
up in her pouty-face last spring, might have felt a twinge of journalistic curiosity as to the
sum-and-substance of the thing. But no, she just hauled on-screen RussiaGate intriguer David Laufman,
a former DOJ lawyer who ran the agency's CounterIntel and Export Control desk during the RussiaGate
years, and also helped oversee the botched Hillary Clinton private email server probe.
"They have this theory," Rachel said, "that maybe Russia didn't interfere in the election ."
"It's preposterous," said Laufman, all lawyered up and ready to draw a number and take a seat
for his own grand jury testimony.
Over in the locked ward of CNN, Andy Cooper and Jeff Toobin attempted to digest the criminal
investigation news as if someone had ordered in a platter of shit sandwiches for the green room just
before air-time.
Toobin pretended to not know exactly who the mysterious Joseph Misfud was,
and struggled to even pronounce his name: " Mifsood? Misfood ? You mean the Italian professor?"
No Jeff, the guy employed by several "friendly" foreign intelligence agencies, and the CIA,
to sandbag Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, and failed. I guess when you're at the beating
heart of TV news, you don't have to actually follow any of the stories reported outside your locked
ward, and maybe entertain a few angles outside your
purview
, i.e. your range of thought and
experience.
Next Andy hauled onscreen former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (now a
paid CNN "contributor") to finesse a distinction between the "overall investigation of the Russian
interference" or "the counterintelligence investigation that was launched by the FBI."
Consider that Mr. Clapper was right in the middle between the CIA and the FBI. Since he is known to be
a friend of Mr. Comey's and a not-friend of Mr. Brennan's one can easily see which way Mr. Clapper is
tilting. One can also see the circular firing squad that this is a setup for. And, of course, Mr.
Clapper himself will be a subject in Mr. Durham's criminal case proceedings. I predict October will be
the last month that Mr. Clapper draws a CNN paycheck -- as he hunkers down with his attorneys awaiting
the subpoena with his name on it.
The
New
York Times story
on this turn of events Friday morning is a lame attempt to rescue former FBI
Director Jim Comey by pinning the blame for RussiaGate on the CIA, shoving CIA John Brennan under the
bus.
The Times report says: "Mr. Durham has also asked whether C.I.A. officials might have
somehow tricked the F.B.I. into opening the Russia investigation." There's the next narrative for you.
Expect to hear this incessantly well into 2020.
I wonder if there is any way to hold the errand boys-and-girls in the news media accountable for
their roles as handmaidens in what will be eventually known as a seditious coup to overthrow a
president.
We do enjoy freedom of the press in this land, but I can see how these birds merit
charges as unindicted co-conspirators in the affair.
One wonders if the various boards of
directors of the newspaper and cable news outfits might seek to salvage their self-respect by firing
the executives who allowed it happen. If anything might be salutary in the outcome of this hot mess,
it would be a return to respectability of the news media.
As for impeachment, ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff is surely steaming straight into his own
historic Joe McCarthy moment when somebody of incontestable standing denounces him as a fraud and a
scoundrel
and the mysterious workings of nonlinear behavior tips the political mob past a
criticality threshold, shifting the weight of consensus out of darkness and madness. It has happened
before in history. Two centuries before Joe McCarthy, the French national assembly suddenly turned on
the Jacobins Robespierre and St. Just after their orgy of beheading 17,000 enemies. The two were
quickly dispatched themselves to the awe of their beloved guillotine and the Jacobin faction was not
heard of again -- until recently in America, where it first infected the Universities and then sickened
the polity at large almost unto death
Rachel Maddow's trademark pouty-face got a workout as she strained to imagine " what the
thing is that Durham might be looking into." Yes, that's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside
an enigma, all right with a sputtering fuse sticking out of it.
... ... ...
Over in the locked ward of CNN, Andy Cooper and Jeff Toobin attempted to digest the criminal
investigation news as if someone had ordered in a platter of shit sandwiches for the green room
just before air-time. Toobin pretended to not know exactly who the mysterious Joseph Misfud
was, and struggled to even pronounce his name
... ... ...
As for impeachment, ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff is surely steaming straight into his own
historic Joe McCarthy moment when somebody of incontestable standing denounces him as a fraud
and a scoundrel and the mysterious workings of nonlinear behavior tips the political mob past a
criticality threshold, shifting the weight of consensus out of darkness and madness. It has
happened before in history.
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
"... It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East. ..."
"... Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ..."
"... They've re-started the Cold War. Keeps all the warmongers in business. Surely they're not stupid enough to want a hot one are they? ..."
"... It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold. ..."
"... "Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and influence it continues to bestow on them." ..."
There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision
to pull troops out of Syria.
One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure
of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger
picture.
The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the
paper writes
that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".
Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the
last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.
Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the
Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains
of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington,
in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.
No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to
the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance
at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State
– and they didn't care.
Overthrow, not regime change
You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to
be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined
in international law as "the supreme war crime".
The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states
with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book
Israel and the Clash of Civilisations
, these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.
The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied
in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.
The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region.
The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction,
the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable
population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".
The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as
new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about
building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.
Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of
dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted
– from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning
from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based
community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."
The birth of Islamic State
The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these
societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they
were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest
public health services.
Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to
prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture
I want to address.
The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create
a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be
found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.
The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing,
flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in
the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even
more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.
A dark US vanity project
After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always
abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.
The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis
saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned
state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.
This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before
their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building
their state on parts of Syria.
Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that
in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the
moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.
The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through
Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.
From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of
thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became
instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.
A giant red herring
Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly
only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East,
one intimately tied to Islamic State.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they
are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was
inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with
money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.
Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival
of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.
With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project
is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its
Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.
Doomed Great Game
The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in
northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds
too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army,
which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.
The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best
hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.
That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those
deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly
became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western
military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.
Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is
really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama
spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against
the head-chopping extremists?
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to
silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political
realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues
to bestow on them.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair"
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.
The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism
that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish
credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.
ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme
and immediate solution and broke away.
-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme
ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim
Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.
-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New
Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.
One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the
problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving
the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to
the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution.
If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside
forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".
Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not?
Forces outside of what?
ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created
the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.
Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011,
the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal
of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern
Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge"
in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent
and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.
While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over
most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.
And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left
ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could
be dealt with later after Assad was gone.
That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed
the situation.
The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis
who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of
them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated
to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously:
Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.
And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel
statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.
So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates
and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste
under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.
We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless
of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political
and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.
The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing
that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly
alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts
on this site?
Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read
it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who
they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.
Given the craziness of Wahhabism
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country
– Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that
the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are
the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and
fully implement the New World (banking) Order.
Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring
they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .
My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel
isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" --
instead of our own lying eyes.
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and
Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.
"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section
of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small
group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."
Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct
It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.
This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly
and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency
of having clothes on .
"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region."-
This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.
Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain
and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with
Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally
better than Hitlery Clinton.
Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate
change led to repeated crop failures?"
Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run
out of water because of "climate change," that's false.
The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made
the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic
Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).
The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which
point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical
care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).
Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year
there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored
in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there
is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.
Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically
as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell
as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination,
but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and
later senators who become lobbyists are doing.
I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled,
or even dead, it was all for naught.
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.
We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.
Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist
attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to
happen to Israel since 9/11.
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "
That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's
meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the
most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like
it – was inevitably going to fill."
Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created.
IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in
the existence of (international) banks.
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing
the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib
"don't measure up?")
I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian
aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been
President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last
100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition!
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about
Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power
Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.
I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis.
Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction
of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized.
In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for
Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical
care for their wounded, training and weapons.
WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006
Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and
create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence
Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.
From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American
Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.
Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in
Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about
chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor
a preordained conclusion.
We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts
to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments
-- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring
the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.
Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention
the weak sheep-dog Sanders).
The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be
the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos
masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans
or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and
evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.
But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.
Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting"
neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"
Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a
charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as
a third-party candidate.
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.
Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one
of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks
watching the headlights approach:
1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting
mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas
Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.
2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child
policy.
Climate:
If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back
a few years, at most.
The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree
with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often
triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European
and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration
and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.
It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing
their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and
influence it continues to bestow on them."
FTFY
Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest,
the country be damned.
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more,
that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for
their lifestyle.
As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to
Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the
Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human
beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.
Rachel Maddow's trademark pouty-face got a workout as she strained to imagine " what the
thing is that Durham might be looking into." Yes, that's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside
an enigma, all right with a sputtering fuse sticking out of it.
... ... ...
Over in the locked ward of CNN, Andy Cooper and Jeff Toobin attempted to digest the criminal
investigation news as if someone had ordered in a platter of shit sandwiches for the green room
just before air-time. Toobin pretended to not know exactly who the mysterious Joseph Misfud
was, and struggled to even pronounce his name
... ... ...
As for impeachment, ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff is surely steaming straight into his own
historic Joe McCarthy moment when somebody of incontestable standing denounces him as a fraud
and a scoundrel and the mysterious workings of nonlinear behavior tips the political mob past a
criticality threshold, shifting the weight of consensus out of darkness and madness. It has
happened before in history.
"... Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the Middle East. ..."
"... No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State – and they didn't care. ..."
"... The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest public health services. ..."
"... After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered. ..."
"... The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria. ..."
"... This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building their state on parts of Syria. ..."
"... We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements. ..."
"... Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally better than Hitlery Clinton. ..."
"... The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.). ..."
"... Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless. ..."
"... Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination, but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and later senators who become lobbyists are doing. ..."
"... Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to happen to Israel since 9/11. ..."
"... I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis. Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests ..."
There is something profoundly deceitful in the way the Democratic Party and the corporate media are framing Donald Trump's decision
to pull troops out of Syria.
One does not need to defend Trump's actions or ignore the dangers posed to the Kurds, at least in the short term, by the departure
of US forces from northern Syria to understand that the coverage is being crafted in such a way as to entirely overlook the bigger
picture.
The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". Explaining why she and other senior Democrats stormed out, the
paper writes
that "it became clear the president had no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East".
Hang on a minute! Let's pull back a little, and not pretend – as the media and Democratic party leadership wish us to – that the
last 20 years did not actually happen. Many of us lived through those events. Our memories are not so short.
Islamic State, or Isis, didn't emerge out of nowhere. It was entirely a creation of two decades of US interference in the
Middle East. And I'm not even referring to the mountains
of evidence that US officials backed their Saudi allies in directly funding and arming Isis – just as their predecessors in Washington,
in their enthusiasm to oust the Soviets from the region, assisted the jihadists who went on to become al-Qaeda.
No, I'm talking about the fact that in destroying three key Arab states – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that refused to submit to
the joint regional hegemony of Saudi Arabia and Israel, Washington's local client states, the US created a giant void of governance
at the heart of the Middle East. They knew that that void would be filled soon enough by religious extremists like Islamic State
– and they didn't care.
Overthrow, not regime change
You don't have to be a Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar Assad apologist to accept this point. You don't even have to
be concerned that these so-called "humanitarian" wars violated each state's integrity and sovereignty, and are therefore defined
in international law as "the supreme war crime".
The bigger picture – the one no one appears to want us thinking about – is that the US intentionally sought to destroy these states
with no obvious plan for the day after. As I explained in my book
Israel and the Clash of Civilisations
, these haven't so much been regime-change wars as nation-state dismantling operations – what I have termed overthrow wars.
The logic was a horrifying hybrid of two schools of thought that meshed neatly in the psychopathic foreign policy goals embodied
in the ideology of neoconservatism – the so-called "Washington consensus" since 9/11.
The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region.
The second was the Chicago school's Shock Doctrine, as explained in Naomi Klein's book of that name. The chaotic campaign of destruction,
the psychological trauma and the sense of dislocation created by these overthrow wars were supposed to engender a far more malleable
population that would be ripe for a US-controlled "colour revolution".
The recalcitrant states would be made an example of, broken apart, asset-stripped of their resources and eventually remade as
new dependent markets for US goods. That was what George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Halliburton really meant when they talked about
building a New Middle East and exporting democracy.
Even judged by the vile aims of its proponents, the Shock Doctrine has been a half-century story of
dismal economic failure everywhere it has been attempted
– from Pinochet's Chile to Yeltsin's Russia. But let us not credit the architects of this policy with any kind of acumen for learning
from past errors. As Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove explained to a journalist whom he rebuked for being part of the "reality-based
community": "We're an empire now and, when we act, we create our own reality."
The birth of Islamic State
The barely veiled aim of the attacks on Iraq, Libya and Syria was to destroy the institutions and structures that held these
societies together, however imperfectly. Though no one likes to mention it nowadays, these states – deeply authoritarian though they
were – were also secular, and had well-developed welfare states that ensured high rates of literacy and some of the region's finest
public health services.
Given how closed a society Syria was and is, and how difficult it therefore is to weigh the evidence in ways that are likely to
prove convincing to those not already persuaded, let us set that issue aside too. Anyway, it is irrelevant to the bigger picture
I want to address.
The indisputable fact is that Washington and its Gulf allies wished to exploit this initial unrest as an opportunity to create
a void in Syria – just as they had earlier done in Iraq, where there were no uprisings, nor even the WMDs the US promised would be
found and that served as the pretext for Bush's campaign of Shock and Awe.
The limited uprisings in Syria quickly turned into a much larger and far more vicious war because the Gulf states, with US backing,
flooded the country with proxy fighters and arms in an effort to overthrow Assad and thereby weaken Iranian and Shia influence in
the region. The events in Syria and earlier in Iraq gradually transformed the Sunni religious extremists of al-Qaeda into the even
more barbaric, more nihilistic extremists of Islamic State.
A dark US vanity project
After Rove and Cheney had had their fill playing around with reality, nature got on with honouring the maxim that it always
abhors a vacuum. Islamic State filled the vacuum Washington's policy had engineered.
The clue, after all, was in the name. With the US and Gulf states using oil money to wage a proxy war against Assad, Isis
saw its chance to establish a state inspired by a variety of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabist dogma. Isis needed territory for their planned
state, and the Saudis and US obliged by destroying Syria.
This barbarian army, one that murdered other religious groups as infidels and killed fellow Sunnis who refused to bow before
their absolute rule, became the west's chief allies in Syria. Directly and covertly, we gave them money and weapons to begin building
their state on parts of Syria.
Again, let us ignore the fact that the US, in helping to destroy a sovereign nation, committed the supreme war crime, one that
in a rightly ordered world would ensure every senior Washington official faces their own Nuremberg Trial. Let us ignore too for the
moment that the US, consciously through its actions, brought to life a monster that sowed death and destruction everywhere it went.
The fact is that at the moment Assad called in Russia to help him survive, the battle the US and the Gulf states were waging through
Islamic State and other proxies was lost. It was only a matter of time before Assad would reassert his rule.
From that point onwards, every single person who was killed and every single Syrian made homeless – and there were hundreds of
thousands of them – suffered their terrible fate for no possible gain in US policy goals. A vastly destructive overthrow war became
instead something darker still: a neoconservative vanity project that ravaged countless Syrian lives.
A giant red herring
Trump now appears to be ending part of that policy. He may be doing so for the wrong reasons. But very belatedly – and possibly
only temporarily – he is seeking to close a small chapter in a horrifying story of western-sponsored barbarism in the Middle East,
one intimately tied to Islamic State.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring they
are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like it – was
inevitably going to fill. Then, it allowed those seeds to flourish by assisting its Gulf allies in showering fighters in Syria with
money and arms that came with only one string attached – a commitment to Sunni jihadist ideology inspired by Saudi Wahhabism.
Isis was made in Washington as much as it was in Riyadh. For that reason, the only certain strategy for preventing the revival
of Islamic State is preventing the US and the Gulf states from interfering in Syria again.
With the Syrian army in charge of Syrian territory, there will be no vacuum for Isis to fill. The jihadists' state-building project
is now unrealisable, at least in Syria. Islamic State will continue to wither, as it would have done years before if the US and its
Gulf allies had not fuelled it in a proxy war they knew could not be won.
Doomed Great Game
The same lesson can be drawn by looking at the experience of the Syrian Kurds. The Rojava fiefdom they managed to carve out in
northern Syria during the war survived till now only because of continuing US military support. With a US departure, and the Kurds
too weak to maintain their improvised statelet, a vacuum was again created that this time has risked sucking in the Turkish army,
which fears a base for Kurdish nationalism on its doorstep.
The Syrian Kurds' predicament is simple: face a takeover by Turkey or seek Assad's protection to foil Turkish ambitions. The best
hope for the Kurds looks to be the Syrian army's return, filling the vacuum and regaining a chance of long-term stability.
That could have been the case for all of Syria many tens of thousands of deaths ago. Whatever the corporate media suggest, those
deaths were lost not in a failed heroic battle for freedom, which, even if it was an early aspiration for some fighters, quickly
became a goal that was impossible for them to realise. No, those deaths were entirely pointless. They were sacrificed by a western
military-industrial complex in a US-Saudi Great Game that dragged on for many years after everyone knew it was doomed.
Nancy Pelosi's purported worries about Isis reviving because of Trump's Syria withdrawal are simply crocodile fears. If she is
really so worried about Islamic State, then why did she and other senior Democrats stand silently by as the US under Barack Obama
spent years spawning, cultivating and financing Isis to destroy Syria, a state that was best placed to serve as a bulwark against
the head-chopping extremists?
Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's bad faith – and that of the corporate media – are revealed in their ongoing efforts to
silence and smear Tulsi Gabbard, the party's only candidate for the presidential nomination who has pointed out the harsh political
realities in Syria, and tried to expose their years of lies.
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power – and the personal wealth and influence it continues
to bestow on them.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair"
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
The problem largely traces back to simple mistakes by prior Saudi administrations.
The Wahhabi were a threat to the royal family. So, the royal family funded them to go elsewhere. Given the craziness of Wahhabism
that made sense at the time. Crazy usually dies out. However, in this case the Crazy came with enough money in hand to establish
credibility. The extremist Muslim Brotherhood is a direct result of these exported extremism.
ISIS is the result of a schism inside the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. A "direct action" group wanted an even more extreme
and immediate solution and broke away.
-- Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability. Violent, ultra-extreme
ISIS fanatics would not follow the commands of infidel heretics. The Saudi royal family by this point realized that the Muslim
Brotherhood was a threat to them just like the original Wahhabi, but they had no good way to undo their prior mistake.
-- Did Turkey attempt to use ISIS to weaken Syria and Iraq? This is far more probable. Turkey's AK party is also a schismatic
offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, there is a great deal of opportunity for the two troops to find common cause. The New
Ottoman Empire needs to absorb Syrian and Iraqi land, so undermining those governments would be step #1.
One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution. If the
problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside forces driving
the Craziness. There is no "plug to pull".
The wild savage dogs of ISIS are the Khmer Rouge of Islamic fundamentalism and their rise and violence should be attributed to
the liberal interventionism that has proven to be a disaster not only for the region but those who carried out the intervention.
"One does not need outside actors to explain how the hole was dug. Unfortunately, that means there is no good solution.
If the problem was driven by outside forces, those forces could stop it. However, the reality is that there are no outside
forces driving the Craziness. There is no 'plug to pull'".
Absolute nonsense. And what do you mean by "outside forces." The US and Israel count as outside forces but Turkey does not?
Forces outside of what?
ISIS emerged out of ISI, Zarqawi's Islamic State in Iraq, an affiliate, for a while, of AQ. The US invasion of Iraq created
the political and military space in Iraq for transnational terror groups.
Meanwhile, the US, at Israel's instigation, had been working to weaken Assad in Syria. After the rebellion against him in 2011,
the US, along with Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, Israel and others, began to support various jihadi groups inside Syria with the goal
of eliminating the Assad government, each for his own reasons. Syria began lost control of its border with Iraq and much of eastern
Syria and the Euphrates valley as well. This process allowed ISIS to emerge from an ISI under stress during the so-called "surge"
in 2007-10 and establish itself in Syria. In 2014, ISIS, now a powerful well-armed group went back into Iraq to defeat the incompetent
and unmotivated Iraq Security Forces that the US had established.
While the US moved against ISIS in Iraq after 2014, it left ISIS in Syria alone since it was depriving Assad of control over
most of Syria's oil and much of its arable land.
And yes, of course the US, instigated by Israel, didn't "deploy" ISIS in the sense of directing its operations. But they left
ISIS largely unimpeded to play a role in the overthrow of Assad which was always the primary goal. ISIS, it was thought, could
be dealt with later after Assad was gone.
That plan would probably have worked eventually, but the Russians entered the picture in the second half of 2015 and changed
the situation.
The US had been nominally supporting the usual "freedom fighters" but in effect supplying the more competent and vicious jihadis
who could take the TOW missiles and other weapons the US was providing to the approved sad-sacks and make more effective use of
them. Finally, with Russia and Iran facilitating the roll-back of all the jihadis, and the US threatened with being relegated
to the sidelines, Obama jumped on the SDF (Kurdish) bandwagon and actually started doing what the US had not done previously:
Taking serious action against ISIS so that a Russian/Iranian-backed Syrian reconquest of eastern Syria could be pre-empted.
And of course, the biggest supporter of the Kurds has consistently been Israel, who sees the possibility of creating pro-Israel
statelets or at least enclaves in the midst of a Turkish, Iranian and Arab region that detests the Judenreich.
So in order to eliminate another of Israel's enemies, reduce a unified Syrian state to a handful of even more impotent emirates
and ensure that Bibi would not be pestered with legal questions over the seizure and retention of the Golan, Syria was laid waste
under the guise of "promoting democracy" and then further devastated under the guise of combatting ISIS.
We have done more than enough damage at the behest of Israel and its fifth column in the US. ISIS might well have emerged regardless
of US actions, but it was the Jew-induced insanity of US regime-change/COIN policies that created the geographical, political
and military space in Iraq and Syria for the jihadists and the ensuing physical destruction of so much of those countries.
The best solution would be to facilitate the re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over all of Syria. But instead of doing
that, Trump has instead facilitated the entry of Turkish forces and allied jihadis in an attempt to mend fences with a thoroughly
alienated Erdogan. We'll see if Putin can mitigate the brutal incompetence of Israel-infected US policy.
@A123 For fuck's sake. Is there any way to stop Hasbara agents from effectively using software to get consistent first posts
on this site?
Their mere presence is annoying. Whatever they have to say, on any topic and no matter what it is, no one here wants to read
it because they are not beginning with any credibility whatsoever. As they are are religiously-avowed enemies of the West (who
they hold to be the continuation of Rome) and the demonstrated fervent enemies of non-Jewish Whites.
Given the craziness of Wahhabism
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
A very real but completely unadvertised reality of these regime changes was that the publicly owned central bank of the country
– Iraq and Libya – was eliminated and changed to a private central bank. Iraq and Libya both succumbed and Ron Paul related that
the smoke had barely cleared in Libya before the private central bank charter was drafted and implemented. Syria and Iran are
the last two countries that do not have a private central banks. Hence the drive by the neo-cons to destroy those countries and
fully implement the New World (banking) Order.
Not widely discussed but (I think) vitally important to understanding foreign policy.
What of the supposed concerns of Pelosi and the Democratic Party under whose watch the barbarism in Syria took place. They should
have no credibility on the matter to begin with.
But their claims that Trump has "no plan to deal with a potential revival of Isis in the Middle East" is a giant red herring
they are viciously slapping us in the face with in the hope the spray of seawater blinds us.
I love the second para. Getting slapped with a red herring with hope that the salt water blinds us .
My only gripe with Jonathan Cook is that this and all mid-eastern conflicts are engineered by the dual citizens and Israel
isn't called out by him as the chief instigator. The saudis are slave of the west and amount to nothing.
@A123 " Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability"
Perhaps. Except that it did happen in plain daylight, before our eyes, but we should, of course, trust your "reasonability" --
instead of our own lying eyes.
@A123 US President Donald Trump said Monday that a small number of US troops remain in Syria at the request of Israel and
Jordan, with some positioned near the borders with Jordan and Israel and others deployed to secure oil fields.
"The other region where we've been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section
of Syria, near Jordan, and close to Israel," Trump said when asked whether he would leave soldiers in Syria. "So we have a small
group there, and we secured the oil. Other than that, there's no reason for it, in our opinion."
Times of Israel
and J Post 21st oct
It 's all about Israel and for its "royal patsy when not for royal patsy it's for the cannon fodder/ foot solder of Israel.
This mayhem from 2003 hasn't seen the full effects of the blow-back yet .Just starting . Tulsi Gabbard and Trump have knowingly
and sometime unknowingly have told the master that the king never had any clothes even when the king was talking about the decency
of having clothes on .
"The first was Israel's long-standing approach to the Palestinians. By constantly devastating any emerging Palestinian institution
or social structures, Israel produced a divide-and-rule model on steriods, creating a leaderless, ravaged, enfeebled society that
sucked out all the local population's energy. That strategy proved very appealing to the neoconservatives, who saw it as one they
could export to non-compliant states in the region."-
This sums up everything one want to know about certain human clones and the impact of the clones on the humanity.
Who will ever blame the victims for creating a future Hitler among them ?
We cannot, of course, forget an assistance this witch had from very GOPiish Senators such as late American hero John McCain
and his buddy Lindsey Graham. They played a key role in supporting all kinds of jihadist elements.
Let's be accurate: It was US Democrats AND REPUBLICANS who helped cultivate the barbarism of Isis. The mess was started with
Bush/Cheney/Powell. McCain was probably the biggest ISIS guy ever. Graham, Romney and friends are the same, and at best marginally
better than Hitlery Clinton.
Lock them all up, regardless of party affiliation.
Many interesting points here, and I agree with a lot of them. But:
[MORE]
"Or was it driven by something else: as a largely economic protest by an under-class suffering from food shortages as climate
change led to repeated crop failures?"
Syria did run out of water, and it's hard not to see that as a major driver of the chaos that unfolded. But Syria didn't run
out of water because of "climate change," that's false.
The explanation is that the Syrian government deliberately engineered a massive population explosion. Seriously, they made
the sale and possession of contraceptives a crime! (See "Demographic Developments and Population: Policies in Ba'thist Syria (Demographic
Developments and Socioeconomics)", by Onn Winkler).
The population of Syria increased exponentially right up through 2010, with a doubling time of about 18 years, at which
point food ran out and population started trending downwards (not so much due to outright famine, as to poverty, lack of medical
care, warfare, and people fleeing the country.).
Now as far as weather goes, there were a couple of dry years before the collapse, but weather is always like that. Last year
there were record rainfalls. If Syria's population had been stable at 5 or even 10 million, they could have coasted on water stored
in the aquifers until the rains came back. But when the population increases so much that you drain the aquifers even when there
is plenty of rain, then when a temporary drought hits you have no reserve and it all falls apart.
Check out the section in wikipedia on Syria's aquifers and groundwater – the water table had been dropping drastically
as far back as 1985. Long before the post-2010 dry spell, Syria's rapid population growth had been consuming more water than fell
as rain – EVEN DURING WET YEARS. The low rainfall post-2010 was an early trigger, but the collapse would have come regardless.
simple and straightforward journalism that cuts through the "corporate veil." Tulsi may not win the democratic nomination,
but I see her determination to educate the majority of Americans of what our government/deep state/military industrial complex/and
later senators who become lobbyists are doing.
I also feel for our veterans who are indoctrinated to protect freedom, but in the end, when they come home injured and disabled,
or even dead, it was all for naught.
I find some of the rhetoric in this piece irritating and repetitive -- but the analysis is essentially correct.
We created a power vacuum that was almost certain to give rise to something like ISIS.
Worse, I suspect that many weren't too disturbed by this prospect. After all, ISIS and its incredibly vicious terrorist
attacks in the West did a great deal to fuel Islamophobia -- and Islamophobia has its uses. ISIS was probably the best thing to
happen to Israel since 9/11.
"The problem is neatly illustrated in this line from a report by the Guardian newspaper of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting
this week with Trump, who is described as having had a "meltdown". "
That's a poorly written statement. It reads as though Trump was the one having a meltdown. How about: "House Speaker Pelosi's
meltdown during a meeting with Trump." ?
@MarathonMan That is a fact that should be kept foremost in the discussions of "why regime change is necessary". It is the
most basic and obvious reason for all this war in the ME.
"First, Washington sowed the seeds of Islamic State by engineering a vacuum in Syria that Isis – or something very like
it – was inevitably going to fill."
Not quite accurate. The US Government "sowed the seeds of" ISIS by giving them material support before the vacuum was created.
IS is mainly a creature of empire, including the US and older remnants of empire in the UK and Europe which survives mainly in
the existence of (international) banks.
@Christian truth Project "Tulsi is/was a member of the CFR". Aren't all Congressmen members? Doesn't that come with signing
the AIPAC form, getting the secret decoder ring from Adam Schiff, and the free trip to Israel? (maybe Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib
"don't measure up?")
I believe CFR was the organization Biden was regaling with his story of holding up $one billion in Ukrainian
aid unless the Ukrainians fired the investigator of his son Hunter "who did nothing wrong". Can you imagine if Biden had been
President rather than VP? This would have been a scandal!
@A123 One does not need outside actors, but then there would be a lot of 'dark matter' in the history of the ME over the last
100 years. Personally it's plain state terrorism to me, and the Brits have a good definition!
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/part/I
Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about
Assad, or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of American power
Correction: They only care about the maintenance and expansion of Israeli power.
I think it is worse than that : ISIS was a creation by the Israel-US- Saudi Arabia-Gulf States-axis.
Significantly ISIS never attacked Israeli interests, and when it once did so by accident, it apologized to Israel. The destruction
of Syria is part of Israel's notorious Oded Yinon plan, according to which all states in Israel's neighborhood need to be fragmentized.
In Iraq and Libya that was a success, in Syria, thanks to Iran, Hizbollah and Russia, it failed. The US is simply a puppet for
Israel's foreign policy, but nobody in the US, not even Tulsi Gabbard, dares to say so.
@A123 Sorry Bibi, but your beloved Israel played a BIG part in establishing ISIS, then supporting it with shekels, medical
care for their wounded, training and weapons.
WikiLeaks: US, Israel, And Saudi Arabia Planned Overthrow Of Syrian Govt. In 2006
Cables reveal that before the beginning of the Syrian revolt and civil war, the United States hoped to overthrow Assad and
create strife between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Let's not forget that when the term ISIS first came out, the Tel Aviv war mongers realized it stood for Israeli Secret Intelligence
Services and changed that to ISIL, which their adoring MSM gladly obliged by parroting that change.
From the Israeli masterminded 9/11 False Flag to the destruction of Syria, there's one common factor, Israel and her American
Jew sayanim who keep pushing America into forever wars so Israel can finish off the Palestinians and steal more land.
@Digital Samizdat Absolutely. Gabbard is the "Democrat" Trump. A Jew puppet presented as an outsider. They're exactly the
same. Even Obama was presented that way to an extent.
Yet the dumb goyim will fall for it for the third time in a row.
Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in
Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about
chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor
a preordained conclusion.
We have learned of disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts
to raise legitimate concerns, highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments
-- a right explicitly conferred on inspectors in the Chemical Weapons Convention, evidently with the intention of ensuring
the independence and authoritativeness of inspection reports.
Fixed "report" of OPCW was necessary to maintain anti-Assad narrative which is now unchallenged even by Gabbard (not to mention
the weak sheep-dog Sanders).
@Ilyana_Rozumova The US does not have to directly support the jihadists. It just has to manage the chaos, for whatever be
the action on the ground and whoever is killed or not killed, as long as there is chaos within their chosen sandbox, the chaos
masters in Israel wins and that is all that counts with all too many Americans. It doesn't matter how many Arabs, Turks, Etruscans
or Kurds are killed, as long as Israel's interests are taken care of, the results are "worth it". Its a very deeply cynical, and
evil policy that the US has pursued all these years in the Mid-East.
But fortunately the Russians have turned things around.
@MarathonMan Gangster business and slavery are OK so long as our central bank gets our cut. ME is also about "fragmenting"
neighboring countries so Israel can expand. Yinon Plan.
Oct 18, 2019 Tulsi Gabbard responds to Hillary Clinton: Clinton "knows she can't control me"
Hillary Clinton implied Russians are "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate to disrupt the election, a
charge which Gabbard denies. In a live interview with CBSN, Gabbard responds to Clinton's claims and says she will not run as
a third-party candidate.
And now, according to the latest news, Trump will send tanks into Syria to help the Kurds secure the oil for Israel. It's hard
to understand why the Elders of the Deep State want to impeach Trump. He has done everything they wanted, moved the embassy, gave
Syria's Golan Heights to Israel, never criticizes the illegal settlements in Palestine. What else do they want from him?
What do you mean Pelosi has no credibility? Have you checked her bank balance lately? Nancy, had she not waded into politics,
would have been a pole dancer she had the goods for it.
@TG Excellent post. You bring up 2 very important but rarely discussed issues.
Demographics: Population is one of the most easily predictable developments within a country, and you'd think it might be one
of the most publically-discussed, and therefore, best-managed. Au contraire. Assad wasn't the only one who stood on the tracks
watching the headlights approach:
1. The EU is having problems with an aging native population because it earlier encouraged low birth rates, and is now promoting
mass immigration of rapidly-breeding immigrants who threaten to at least overwhelm if not overrun European society. Yet, as Douglas
Murray points out in his book The Strange Death of Europe, openly talking about this problem has been, and still is, verboten.
2. China is now wondering to do with its preponderance of young men, caused very predictably by the Communist Party's one-child
policy.
Climate:
If the rains had been good every single year – which is impossible – it would only have pushed the point of collapse back
a few years, at most.
The Syrian case you cite shows how even relatively minor climate changes can carry events past a tipping point. I do agree
with you that effects of APGW on climactic conditions are greatly exaggerated, yet changes in climate, for good or ill, have often
triggered much larger historical events. The cooling that caused a famine and that preceded the Justinian Plague weakened European
and Sassanian civilizations. These misfortunes paved the way for the Islamic takeover that followed. Contrariwise, Norse exploration
and the Renaissance, to give 2 examples of increasing activity, both occurred during the Medieval Warming Period.
When it comes to senior American politihoes, no one is ever right. Pelosi may be cultivating the ISIS, but Gabbard is busy blowing
assorted dictators and more closer to the heart, the hindoo nationalist queers, as impotent (I mean that in a literal sexual context,
as their elites don't marry) as they might be.
Tulsi needs to conduct herself with gravitas, because of her age. However, she is helped by the fact that the leader of the progressive
wing is a former bartender, and the leader of the environmental resistance is a high-school sophomore.
@MarathonMan It goes without comment that the first act of the US following Nudelman's (Why do these fuckers keep changing
their names?) Ukraine coup was to steal its gold.
"Pelosi and most of the Democratic leadership don't care about Syria, or its population's welfare. They don't care about Assad,
or Isis. They care only about the maintenance and expansion of their own Democratic Party power – for the personal wealth and
influence it continues to bestow on them."
FTFY
Just as the GOP is precisely and thoroughly corrupt in exactly the same way, focused exclusively on their own craven self-interest,
the country be damned.
There is nothing in Sunni Islam that does not have its root in Judaism. To state otherwise is to be a typical Semitic liar.
Lol! Deceitful lies from some godless/pagan whitrash.
If you are referring to some self-perceived notions of barbarity/deception/etc., within Islam, then you are a deceitful !@#
who is trying to cover up the sheer savagery/psychopathy/deception/hypocrisy/etc., of the Christoo whitrash race.
Again, as far as the roots of Islam being in Judaism, that is laughable. It is Christooism which is clearly having roots in
Judaism (there have been so many here who have quoted from your pagan scriptures about the haloed position of the Jooscum)
and Hindooism .
In-his-image mangods/womangods, Trinity/Trimurthi, the human body is the temple of god the list is long where you all share
your pagan theologies.
Islam utterly rejects all such pagan abominations. The following verses of the Holy Quran amply proves the simplest and purest
form of monotheism, that is Islam;
Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born , Nor is there to Him
any equivalent ."
@A123 "Did the U.S. or Israel attempt to deploy ISIS? This is far-fetched beyond the bounds of reasonability."
Wrong.
The Oded Yinon Plan employs exactly this strategy, and along with the Neocon dominated State Dept with its Regime Change program
(Oded Yinon plan in stealth mode) is the predicate. Meanwhile, once it emerged, Obama & Kerry sought to preserve ISIS as a means
to pressure Assad. Neocon Zionist fifth column in the US, & Israel-behind-the-scenes are the dual agency-behind-the-curtain of
US regime-change wars ***EVERYWHERE*** (because they hate Russia, too.).
@DESERT FOX And rule, finally, over a smoldering wreck of a planet? They already rule most of it, they're at the Endgame of
their long match with the world. Not that they eschew violence and mass murder. Indeed, they got their start thousands years ago
by worshiping a god who told them to genocide all their neighbors and steal all their goods.
@really no shit I'm in the same age cohort as most of these shameless grifters, so I know the end of this run on earth is
drawing near. I know that no one can take whatever they accumulate in this life with them into oblivion or whatever their imagined
version of paradise might be. The loot stays here in this vale of tears.
ALL of these players busy ruining and ending lives, like Pelosi, the Clintons and the Bush family, are multi-millionaires at
the least–and all on the taxpayers' dime. Why do they desperately seek to add ever more cash to their bank accounts by bringing
yet more misery into the world? It won't be very long and either the collection of psychopaths known as the government of the
United States and its ruthless war machine will end up with the proceeds or they will pass down to further generations of these
congenital parasites and deadbeats.
Does Joe ask himself whether it was worthy to spend his wretched life accumulating ill-gotten wealth to pass on to Hunter and
his ilk? Or for Hillary to set up Chelsea and the next generation of Rodham Clinton lampreys? Jimmy Carter seems to have been
the only American president who didn't constantly grasp for money once out of office and the world never heard a peep about Amy
ever again.
[MORE]
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publication, this story has been corrected to clarify that the fighters trained in Jordan became members
of the ISIS after their training.]
JERUSALEM – Syrian rebels who would later join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S.
instructors working at a secret base in Jordan, according to informed Jordanian officials.
The officials said dozens of future ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting
the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future
campaign in Iraq.
The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any links to
extremist groups like al-Qaida.
In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in
the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern desert region.
That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.
Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in Jordan.
Quoting what it said were training participants and organizers, Der Spiegel reported it was not clear whether the Americans
worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army, but the magazine said some organizers wore uniforms. The training in Jordan
reportedly focused on use of anti-tank weaponry.
The German magazine reported some 200 men received the training over the previous three months amid U.S. plans to train a total
of 1,200 members of the Free Syrian Army in two camps in the south and the east of Jordan.
Britain's Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British
and French instructors.
Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the German magazine's report. The
French foreign ministry and Britain's foreign and defense ministries also would not comment to Reuters.
Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch have published formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defence
which reveals the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that
they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
Levantreport.com reports:
Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION
THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR),
AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME ".
The DIA report, formerly classified "SECRET//NOFORN" and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government
agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others.
The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic
asset.
Government watchdog Judicial Watch published more than 100 pages of formerly classified documents from the U.S. Department
of Defense and the State Department.
The documents obtained through a federal lawsuit, revealed the agencies earlier views on ISIS, namely that they were a desirable
presence in Eastern Syria in 2012 and that they should be "supported" in order to isolate the Syrian regime.
The U.S. intelligence documents not only confirms suspicions that the United States and some of its coalition allies had actually
facilitated the rise of the ISIS in Syria – as a counterweight to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad- but also
that ISIS members were initially trained by members and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency at facilities in Jordan
in 2012.
@Anonymous Jimmah was the last honest man in American politics. But since he told Americans that gas was going to cost more,
that perhaps they needed to drive a wee bit less, the Americans hated him. They didn't like the "malaise" of having to pay for
their lifestyle.
As for the Israelis, what did Jimmah not to do for them : Got Egypt out of the Arab alliance, arranged the annual tribute to
Israel, started the ball rolling on the Holocaust religion, paid off Egypt and Jordan to stay away from any alliance against the
Israelis. But what did he get in return; branded as anti-Semite merely for mentioning that the Palestinians had rights, were human
beings too. With the Zionist Jews, one is always on probation. No point playing their silly games.
The path of U.S.-Israeli arrogance and domination, with its various dimensions, and with its direct and indirect extensions
and alliances, which is witnessing military defeats and political failures, reflected successive defeats for the American strategies
and plans, one after the other. All this has led [the U.S.] to a state of indecision, retreat, and inability to control the progress
of events in our Arab and Islamic world. There is a broader international context for this – a context that, in its turn, helps
to expose the American crisis, and the decline of the [U.S.] unipolar hegemony, in the face of pluralism, the characteristics
of which are yet to be stabilized.
"The crisis of the arrogant world order is deepened by the collapse of U.S. and international stock markets, and by the confusion
and powerlessness of the American economy. This reflects the height of the structural crisis of the model of capitalist arrogance.
Therefore, it can be said that we are in the midst of historic transformations that foretell the retreat of the USA as a hegemonic
power, the disintegration of the unipolar hegemonic order, and the beginning of the accelerated historic decline of the Zionist
entity.
After World War II, the U.S. has adopted the leading, central hegemonic project. At its hands, this project has witnessed great
development of the means of control and unprecedented subjugation. It has benefited from an accumulation of multi-faceted accomplishments
in science, culture, technology, knowledge, economy, and the military, which was supported by an economic political plan that
views the world as nothing but open markets subject to the laws of [the U.S.].
"The most dangerous aspect of Western logic of hegemony in general, and the American logic of hegemony in particular, is their
basic belief that they own the world, and have the right to hegemony due to their supremacy in several fields. Thus, the Western,
and especially American, expansionist strategy, when coupled with the enterprise of capitalist economy, has become a strategy
of a global nature, whose covetous desires and appetite know no bounds.
The barbaric capitalism has turned globalism into a means to spread disintegration, to sow discord, to destroy identities,
and to impose the most dangerous form of cultural, economic, and social plunder. Globalization reached its most dangerous phase,
when it was transformed into military globalization by the owners of the Western hegemony enterprise, the greatest manifestation
of which was evident in the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq, to Palestine, and to Lebanon.
There is no doubt that American terrorism is the source of all terrorism in the world. The Bush administration has turned the
U.S. into a danger threatening the whole world, on all levels. If a global opinion poll were held today, the United States would
emerge as the most hated country in the world.
The most important goal of American arrogance is to take control of the peoples politically, economically, and culturally,
and to plunder their resources.
– Hassan Nasrallah December 8, 2009
and Trump IS NOT "pulling out" Will Tulsi? One way to find out. Doesn't look good though, unless shes willing to splinter the
C.I.A. into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds, as they say..
Where's the proof that she is CFR member, I see sock puppets parrot this line all the time but offer no proof. Her serving
on the armed & financial services committees and doing a speech for them doesn't make her a member. I'd take her over Trump any
day.
Hundreds of Islamic State fighters, both Syrian and foreign, were covertly evacuated by US,
UK and Kurdish forces from the besieged city of Raqqa last month and freed to "spread out far
and wide across Syria and beyond".
Although reports on the convoy surfaced at the time, BBC journalists Quentin Sommerville
and Riam Dalati have revealed the details in their documentary Raqqa's Dirty Secret.
Their investigation describes how the convoy carrying 250 fighters, 3,500 family members,
and lorry loads of arms and possessions, was arranged for October 12th by local officials in
meetings attended by a western officer.
During a visit to Syria in mid-October, The Irish Times was told not only about the
evacuation but also that senior Islamic State commanders and their families, 45 people in
all, had been airlifted out of Raqqa by a US helicopter and flown to the Kurdish region in
northern Iraq.
Fighters escaping Raqqa were said to have been given passage across the desert to join
comrades battling the Syrian army and its allies in Deir al-Zor.
Among the people the BBC team interviewed for the exposé were drivers paid by the
Islamic State to drive the buses and trucks carrying the evacuees. According to driver Abu
Fawzi, men, women and children wore suicide vests and the trucks had been booby-trapped in
case "something went wrong".
The convoy contained 50 trucks, 13 buses, and more than 100 of the fighters' own vehicles.
Although it had been agreed they would take only personal weapons, they filled 10 trucks with
arms and ammunition.
Three-day convoy
It had also been stipulated that no foreigners would leave, but drivers told the BBC that
French, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Pakistani, Yemeni, Saudi, Chinese, Tunisian and Egyptians had
joined the exodus. The only restriction observed was a ban against flags and banners.
Whenever it passed through a village or hamlet, fighters warned frightened bystanders they
would return, a villager called Muhanad told the BBC, "running a finger across their
throats".
Two Humvees led the convoy into the desert where the going was rough. Coalition aircraft
and drones hovered above, dropping flares after dark to light the way. When the motorcade
reached Islamic State-held territory, fighters and civilians departed with their arms and
possessions and drivers returned home.
The BBC investigation compelled Col Ryan Dillon, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve,
to admit to the deal. He told the team: "We didn't want anyone to leave. But this goes to the
heart of our strategy 'by, with and through' local leaders on the ground.
His statement on foreign fighters contradicted information given to the BBC by drivers and
people along the route as well as a statement about strategy made by US defence secretary
James Mattis in May.
Gosh! The UN General Assembly actually affirmed that Israel's continued occupation of the
Golan Heights is 'a violation of international law'!! But the USA voted against the
resolution. Does that mean the USA supports violations of international law, or that it
believes it has the right to decide what does or does not constitute violations thereof? My
vote is with option B. As others have pointed out, the USA loves to throw the weight of
'international law' about, often when there is no such backing and even more often without
getting any more specific than just 'international law'. The supposed annexation of Crimea is
a natural example – the USA and Ukraine monotonously refer to the transfer of Crimea to
the Russian Federation as such a violation, but do not specify what law was violated, instead
bleating about the Budapest Memorandum. The latter is not international law, and more
importantly, it assumed that conditions which prevailed at the time of signing would endure;
no provision was made for a bloody coup right next door, and nobody would be fool enough to
sign such an agreement as unconditional. Not to blame it all on the USA and Ukraine, either
– the USA's retinue of lickspittles who depend on it for trade and economic reasons are
happy to parrot it as a 'violation of international law'. That only shows you how easily an
action the west routinely lauds as the very essence of democratic principles – a
declaration of independence supported by a huge majority of the inhabitants – can be
made to seem 'a violation of international law': simply refuse to recognize the decision as
the will of the people, and characterize it as a forced decision made under duress. Because
America says the Crimean referendum was not legal or proper, Crimea should have been forced
against its will to remain a possession of Ukraine – the very and complete polar
opposite of the USA's customary prancing and whooping about 'freedom'.
I wouldn't want to be a Russian in Ukraine now, though. Hysteria will be high, and the
nationalists will be looking for an outlet for their frustration and hate.
Since a nation's territorial Waters extend 12 miles beyond its coast, doesn't that put the
entirety of the Ketch strait in Russian territorial waters ??
BTW What happens where the 12 mile extensions of two nations overlap???
The usual anti-Russian subject in "western" political circles use the incident to
demand more measures against Russia. Fronting the effort is the weapon industry lobbying
group Atlantic Council:
Anders Åslund, a resident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center,
said: "NATO and the United States should send in naval ships in the Sea of Azov to guarantee
that it stays open to international shipping."
Such action, Åslund said, "would be in full compliance with the UN Law of the Sea
Convention of 1982 and the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits of
1936."
Anders Aslund is listed as member of the "U.S. & Canadian Cluster" of the secret
influence operation by the British Foreign Office describe here two days ago. He is obviously
unable to read a map, sea chart, or UN convention. The Ukrainian attempt to pass through the
Kerch Strait without Russian consent is a breach of Article 7, 19 and 21 of the UN Law of the
Sea Convention (pdf):
Article 7: "Subject to this Convention, ships of all States, whether coastal or
land-locked, enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial sea."
Article 19-1: "Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good
order or security of the coastal State. Such passage shall take place in conformity with this
Convention and with other rules of international law."
Article 21-4: "Foreign ships exercising the right of innocent passage through the
territorial sea shall comply with all such [coastal state] laws and regulations and all
generally accepted international regulations relating to the prevention of collisions at
sea."
There will now be again a lot of noise in the media about the 'nefarious Russians' and
new demands for even more useless sanctions. But the legal case is clear. It was the
Ukrainian navy that willfully attempted to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov
through Russian territorial waters without regard to the laws and regulations of the coastal
state. Russia was within its full rights to prevent the passage and to seize the Ukrainian
boats.
Dear God; Anders Aslund. Now he's an expert in maritime law. Might as well, I guess; he's a
chrome-plated clusterfuck as an economist – good on you, Anders, to make a career
change so late in life.
Anders Aslund is a wooden-head whose sole useful function is to give the veneer of
academia to agit-prop.
The Atlantic Council seems to attract many people who have quite sudden and dramatic mid-life
career changes, for example that former women's lingerie salesman turned investigative
journalist Eliot Higgins.
On one hand, you're totally right about the necessity of reducing the number of NATO members. On the other hand, the problem is
that without Turkey NATO will militarily become only a little more than a bilateral Franco-American agreement plus those 215 British
warheads.
The problem with Trump is he has no morals, values, and/or convictions. He does what he thinks will be the most popular and what
will make him LOOK NOT weak.
Motto for the USA: Whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine
Lemme know when Syria sends troops to support some group or to fight some group in the US won't you?
Let me know when Syria or any nation in the Middle East bombs American military bases in the US because they believe that the
US government mis-treated some group or area in the US.
Then let me know who the hell the US government and military think they are...
talking about Syria and Turkey as if it's any of you alls damn business-oh yeah, you're the good guys right? You preach to other
nations and cultures?
Have you any decency left, when you demand this or that from other nations?
After it was and is proven that, since 1945, the US has murdered more civilians around the world than any other nation? That the
US and it's fine 'civilized' military and agencies like the CIA tortured people in and from Iraq and other places in the MIddle
East?
And, what business is it of yours what religion Turkey has?
Is Turkey telling America what it must do on America's borders?
You arrogant hypocrites. Was it Moslem nations that did the terror in Russia starting in 1917? World War 1 and mustard gas and
so on?
World War 11 and that suffering? How about the US bombing northern Korea and Vietnam in the 50' and 60's? Over a million humans
slaughtered there!!
How would you feel if it was a close relative of yours that got blown apart by the fine US military in Iraq and Afghanistan or
in Syria?
I'll tell you 'know it's all' something which including the above article writer:
if true justice were to happen the US and NATO nations would be brought to trial for high crimes against humanity and trillions
of dollars in reparations paid to nations the US and NATO destroyed and those leaders such as Bush, HIllary Clinton, Condi Rice,
Obama and their neo-con owners would be jailed, at the very least. So, how about throw the US and NATO out of NATO? As in, disband
that criminal enterprise. NATO: a question why do you even exist?
You know, the politicians in D.C. don't care and the American people will never get it-what I mean from my words above. Dig?
Syria may be the biggest defeat for the CIA since Vietnam. ... (right click) ...
https://www.strategic-cultu... .... Trump strikes back at the CIA (deep state) and the CIA will be after his scalp till Kingdom
Come.
The real corruption in Ukraine started in February of 2014 (right click)
https://www.strategic-cultu... when Obama/Biden and ZioCON Communist Victoria Nuland "ILLEGALLY OVERTHREW" the Ukraine
Government and INSTALLED a corrupt illegal dictator handpicked by Obama and Nuland.
The real question is: Would we be here today if Obama/Biden had not taken part in an illegal overthrow of Ukraine? If you follow
actual events, the people of Crimea were so upset they voted, LAWFULLY, to return to Russia. The two Eastern regions of Ukraine
voted to join Russia too; but President Putin refused to accept them.
The vultures also descended on Ukraine to make a profit and Hunter Biden was one of them and an honest prosecutor started to
investigate, and Joe Biden blackmailed the "installed" President to fire him.
When the people of Ukraine got fed up with the "installed" President, they voted a COMEDIAN, who ran as a joke, into office.
Now the conspirators have a new ball game and, before this is over, the CORRUPTION will come out and impeachment will only speed
it up.
So, bring on the impeachment and let the truth come out as it should. Before this is over, this could be the Dimms last Rodeo
for a long, long time.
The failed coup against Erdogan marked a turn from Erdogan away from US and towards Russia. Might well be that Turkey didn't view
US a a "good ally" since that coup.
I agree. Turkey should be expelled but I think its not as easy as simple expulsion. I think its a matter of timing and justification
otherwise it will appear anti-muslim and we may need Turkey at some point in the future (and I think we are keeping that ace in
the hand just a little longer before playing it).
I suspect that it is time for the US to leave NATO.
Create a new alliance with Canada and Britain and let the continent create it's own alliance. They will be forced to use their
own money and
"... As a reminder, after ordering all U.S. forces out of northeastern Syria in early October, Trump has already modestly reversed
his position, agreeing (after Sen. Lindsey Graham outlined the potential importance of the oil) to leave about 200 troops in northeast
Syria to safeguard oil fields . ..."
"... Perhaps the Deep State's grip is a little firmer, ..."
"... One thing is for sure, if this reversal takes place, Putin and Erdogan will not be pleased at all, ..."
he options for tanks and troops, which
The Journal notes hasn't been decided upon yet , has the smell of a strawman from the neocons - bargaining over troop numbers
and logistics - in an effort to gauge the base's reaction and to then provide some leverage on the president to reverse his position
more aggressively.
As a reminder, after ordering all U.S. forces out of northeastern Syria in early October, Trump has already modestly reversed
his position, agreeing (after Sen. Lindsey Graham outlined the potential importance of the oil) to leave about 200 troops in northeast
Syria to safeguard oil fields .
Of course, it is still unclear what will be done with the approximately 1,000 troops - mostly special ops - but, as Senator Graham
made clear - they're not coming home any time soon:
"There are some plans coming together from the Joint Chiefs that I think may work, that may give us what we need to prevent
ISIS from coming back, Iran taking the oil, ISIS from taking the oil," he said.
"I am somewhat encouraged that a plan is coming about that will meet our core objectives in Syria."
Perhaps the Deep State's grip is a little firmer, and Graham's marshalling of Senate votes to 'save' Trump from impeachment,
than the president initially conceived.
One thing is for sure, if this reversal takes place, Putin and Erdogan will not be pleased at all, and with Defense Secretary
Mark Esper, in Brussels, alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, noting that NATO ally Turkey "put us all in a terrible
situation," one could imagine this strategy is one of stalling while the nukes can be moved from Incirlik to another 'ally' ahead
of the planned votes next week on additional Turkish sanctions (as questions about the viability of Turkey as a NATO ally so closely
aligned with Russia are growing stronger - in rhetoric only for now).
The devastation created in Syria by the USA and its allies who recruited and armed the ISIS fighters and "moderate islamists"
with weapons captured in Libya after fall of Libyan government and start of the civil war will be remembered for generations.
Obama and Hillary were key war criminals in this game.
But the gamble to remove Assad using Islamists as the driving force and then somehow deal with islamists failed.
Now the USA, Israel and KSA suffered a geopolitical defeat.
Notable quotes:
"... The Russia-Turkey deal establishes a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border – something Erdogan had been gunning for since 2014. There will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols. The Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units), part of the rebranded, US-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces, will need to retreat and even disband, especially in the stretch between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and they will have to abandon their much-cherished urban areas such as Kobane and Manbij. The Syrian Arab Army will be back in the whole northeast. And Syrian territorial integrity – a Putin imperative – will be preserved. ..."
"... This is a Syria-Russia-Turkey win-win-win – and, inevitably, the end of a separatist-controlled Syrian Kurdistan. Significantly, Erdogan's spokesman Fahrettin Altun stressed Syria's "territorial integrity" and "political unity." That kind of rhetoric from Ankara was unheard of until quite recently. ..."
Russia-Turkey deal establishes 'safe zone' along Turkish border and there will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols
The negotiations in Sochi were long – over six hours – tense and tough. Two leaders in a room with their interpreters and several
senior Turkish ministers close by if advice was needed. The stakes were immense: a road map to pacify northeast Syria, finally.
The press conference afterwards was somewhat awkward – riffing on generalities. But there's no question that in the end Russian
President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan managed the near impossible.
The Russia-Turkey deal establishes a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border – something Erdogan had been gunning for since
2014. There will be joint Russia-Turkey military patrols. The Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units), part of the rebranded, US-aligned
Syrian Democratic Forces, will need to retreat and even disband, especially in the stretch between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and
they will have to abandon their much-cherished urban areas such as Kobane and Manbij. The Syrian Arab Army will be back in the whole
northeast. And Syrian territorial integrity – a Putin imperative – will be preserved.
This is a Syria-Russia-Turkey win-win-win – and, inevitably, the end of a separatist-controlled Syrian Kurdistan. Significantly,
Erdogan's spokesman Fahrettin Altun stressed Syria's "territorial integrity" and "political unity." That kind of rhetoric from Ankara
was unheard of until quite recently.
Putin immediately called Syrian President Bashar al Assad to detail the key points of the memorandum of understanding. Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov once again stressed Putin's main goal – Syrian territorial integrity – and the very hard work ahead to form
a Syrian Constitutional Committee for the legal path towards a still-elusive political settlement.
Russian military police and Syrian border guards are already arriving to monitor the imperative YPG withdrawal – all the way to
a depth of 30 kilometers from the Turkish border. The joint military patrols are tentatively scheduled to start next Tuesday.
On the same day this was happening in Sochi, Assad was visiting the frontline in Idlib – a de facto war zone that the Syrian army,
allied with Russian air power, will eventually clear of jihadi militias, many supported by Turkey until literally yesterday. That
graphically illustrates how Damascus, slowly but surely, is recovering sovereign territory after eight and a half years of war.
Who gets the oil?
For all the cliffhangers in Sochi, there was not a peep about an absolutely key element: who's in control of Syria's oilfields
, especially after President Trump's now-notorious tweet stating, "the US has secured the oil." No one knows which oil. If he meant
Syrian oil, that would be against international law. Not to mention Washington has no mandate – from the UN or anyone else – to occupy
Syrian territory.
The Arab street is inundated with videos of the not exactly glorious exit by US troops, leaving Syria pelted by rocks and rotten
tomatoes all the way to Iraqi Kurdistan, where they were greeted by a stark reminder. "All US forces that withdrew from Syria received
approval to enter the Kurdistan region [only] so that they may be transported outside Iraq. There is no permission granted for these
forces to stay inside Iraq," the Iraqi military headquarters in Baghdad said.
The Pentagon said a
"residual force" may remain in the Middle Euphrates river valley, side by side with Syrian Democratic Forces militias, near a
few oilfields, to make sure the oil does not fall "into the hands of ISIS/Daesh or others." "Others" actually means the legitimate
owner, Damascus. There's no way the Syrian army will accept that, as it's now fully engaged in a national drive to recover the country's
sources of food, agriculture and energy. Syria's northern provinces have a wealth of water, hydropower dams, oil, gas and food.
As it stands, the US retreat is partial at best, also considering that a small garrison remains behind at al-Tanf, on the border
with Jordan. Strategically, that does not make sense, because the al-Qaem border between Iran and Iraq is now open and thriving.
Map: Energy Consulting Group
The map above shows the position of US bases in early October, but that's changing fast. The Syrian Army is already working to
recover oilfields around Raqqa, but the strategic US base of Ash Shaddadi still seems to be in place. Until quite recently US troops
were in control of Syria's largest oilfield, al-Omar, in the northeast.
There have been accusations by Russian sources that
mercenaries recruited by private US military companies trained jihadi militias such as the Maghawir al-Thawra ("Army of Free
Tribes") to sabotage Syrian oil and gas infrastructure and/or sell Syrian oil and gas to bribe tribal leaders and finance jihadi
operations. The Pentagon denies it.
Gas pipeline
As I have argued for years, Syria to a large extent has been a key '
Pipelineistan' war – not
only in terms of pipelines inside Syria, and the US preventing Damascus from commercializing its own natural resources, but most
of all around the fate of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline which was agreed in a memorandum of understanding signed in 2012.
This pipeline has, over the years, always been a red line, not only for Washington but also for Doha, Riyadh and Ankara.
The situation should dramatically change when the $200 billion-worth of reconstruction in Syria finally takes off after a comprehensive
peace deal is in place. It will be fascinating to watch the European Union – after NATO plotted for an "Assad must go" regime change
operation for years – wooing Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus with financial offers for their gas.
NATO explicitly supported the Turkish offensive "Operation Peace Spring." And we haven't even seen the ultimate geoeconomic irony
yet: NATO member, Turkey, purged of its neo-Ottoman dreams, merrily embracing the Gazprom-supported Iran-Iraq-Syria 'Pipelineistan'
road map .
NATO explicitly supported the Turkish offensive "Operation Peace Spring." And we haven't even seen the ultimate geoeconomic
irony yet: NATO member, Turkey, purged of its neo-Ottoman dreams, merrily embracing the Gazprom-supported Iran-Iraq-Syria
'Pipelineistan' road map .
except, I thought the EU and the US cut Erdogan off from military supplies?
Oct 14, 2019 - European leaders warn of ISIS revival with Turkish invasion of Syria ... condemned the Turkish
incursion and agreed on an informal, E.U. -wide ban on arms sales to Ankara. ... That is a
direct security threat to the European Union." AD ... who escape from Syrian prison camps could make their
way to France.
And, six hours isn't ****. The deal was cut long before that meeting. Funny Assad wasn't there -- it's his country. Or is it?
given that he couldn't resupply his army, what choice did he have?
...oh to be rid of this vipers nest of **** bought to you by George Sr and Jnr, Obamawambachamawamba and of course Killary
and Co along with quite a few Repub. necons...
I worked in Syria before all this **** went down and I can tell you it was thriving and probably the best exemplar in the mid
east; I hope they get back to where they should never have been torn down from...
Trump is the one that deserves the credit here, no one else...
Read the entire crap all through again as well as anything that is published in the Saker blog. While they feign sympathy for
Syria (with oodles of Zionist plots to get the reader emotionally-activated), their true intent is to promote Turkey's interests.
There is hardly any mention of Turkey's role in the genocide in Syria, and the sex-slave and organ trafficking markets it had
facilitated. Turkey appears white as snow and anything bad can be blamed on an exiled Gulen.
Who is threatening to flood White Europe with millions Muslim refugees...? ...
Russia and Ukraine are topics on all Americans' minds only because the Obama Administration made the collossal mistake of trying
to turn Ukraine into a de facto American base. Under Obama, the US sponsored a coup which put Ukraine under the control of anti-Russian
nationalists. The ultimate goal for the US and the Ukrainian nationalists was to turn Ukraine into a NATO member.
Clearly, the Obama Administration attacked Russia on a geopolitical and geostrategic level. Unsurprisingly, Russia fought back
ferociously, just as the Russian have always done when their existential needs and vital national security interests are threatened.
Consequently, the Ukrainian nationalists have been defeated in war and at the polls in Ukraine. America must now make its exit
from Ukraine in as graceful and organized a way as possible. Nobody wants to see US helicopters fleeing the rooftops of Kiev.
Trump has the right idea about pulling America out of Ukraine. The US should never have been in that country in the first place.
Ukraine is part of Russia's zone of influence. Nothing will ever change that.
"when an experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile exploded during testing along the shores of the White Sea."
Except it wasn't. A damaged nuclear reactor with highly enriched uranium for fuel would still be glowing to this day. Also,
while tragic, seven people dead is less than a pipeline explosion, if that's the worst that can happen, it's pretty safe technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...
Russia reported radioisotopes for power source (radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs), which makes more sense. RTGs
are used for long term power needs (such as batteries on Voyager spacecraft that are still going strong). That makes them ideal
for robotic sleeper drones (Poseidon/Status 6 types) that will go undetected to the ocean floor and then get activated in the
event of nuclear war.
""The American television channel CNBC recently reported that the test of the Petrel missile near Arkhangelsk was the fifth
in a row, and all five were unsuccessful. Is this an acceptable number of failures for a new project?""
Yes. That's how you learn - by building and testing. Also, I strongly doubt Russian military invites CNBC to every classified
weapons test. Five tests may have been unsuccessful, but there could have been more tests that CNBC doesn't know about.
"but this record illustrates an "emergency situation" and indeed a "failed development process.""
It doesn't. Nuclear powered propulsion is a difficult subject and very few countries can do it successfully. Especially at
small size.
"So, "this missile is only necessary in the circumstance that we and America depart from all arms agreements and beat each
other with missiles until we are blue"
United States is indeed leaving all arms agreements and is preparing for nuclear war.
"The best explanation Gorbachevsky can find for this weapon is "domestic consumption.""
If that's the case, then Gorbachevsky is not well informed.
The reason that Russia will continue to invest in nuclear weapons and their modernization regardless of the cost is that it
is still cheaper than the alternative.
Having a western Army murder and slaughter its way to your capital as it did in 1941 is the one thing you definitely avoid
if you have a viable nuclear deterrance.
For Russia it is the ultimate insurance policy and the threat of a preemptive nuclear strike is the one effective guarantee
against any western power once again launching another invasion against Russia.And is relatively cheap at the price!
They have sufficient numbers of existing nuclear weapons to protect themselves from some imaginary western Army. Where they
need to worry is in their far east that is where the real threat will come from. Spending additional monies on nuclear weapons
is overkill and the money is better spent diversifying the economy.
You overlook that the real issue isn't war or nuclear war, but the stationing of US military assets all along Russia's borders.
If that happens, America will have established coercive influence over Russia. That's because Russia will have to spend untold
billions countering the fleets of American F-35's that are parked only minutes away from the RF's cities and defensive bastions.
That's the kind of stress that the US is trying to impose on Russia. That's why Russia wants the US and NATO out of the former
Soviet Union, and for good reason.
Your remark about Russia's far east comes across as Sinophobia, BTW.
Russian Federation: 146 million, China: 1.4 billion a 10 to 1 advantage in population in a country with little to no natural
resources and little usable open space. Lebensraum has been used many times in the past as a reason to start a war.
As I pointed in another post the irony is that NATO was pretty timid up until 2008 and Putin's first little go at a mini war in
Georgia then invade and annex Crimea followed by fostering war in Donbas. Of course NATO responded to those Russian aggressions
and low and behold we now have Putin pouting about NATO an the US surrounding Russia.
You have missiles in Kaliningrad aimed at Europe same in Sevastopol. The basic problem is that no one trusts Russia and no one
really likes Russia. Putin started this and now he will need to change his tack if he wants the "stress" to start to be relieved.
NATO is a defensive organization and they are deploying in a defensive manner in other NATO countries.
Nuclear propulsion research is by definition diversifying the economy. It is far more high tech than "like" button on Facebook
or whatever passes for "high tech" in Silicon Valley.
Considering the Soviet Union was working on this in the 1970's it really doesn't count as "diversification" in the traditional
economic sense. Why not work with the US, UK, Canada, France on nuclear fusion? That would truly take man kind a lot further than
nuclear powered cruise missiles.
NATO will have to stop expanding into the former USSR before Russia can realistically be expected to work the US, UK, Canada,
and France on nuclear fusion.
Western aggression against Russia must stop. That's step number one towards solving the West vs East problem.
Russia is a part of the ITER project, so it does work with the West in fusion research. As far as Burevestnik goes, i view
it in the same venue as NASA Kilopower type small reactors (or Soviet TOPAZ line). If it is light enough to power a cruise missile,
it is light enough to provide power to spacecraft. This will be very economically important in the near future.
Fair enough regarding the joint study on Fusion. However the nuclear powered cruise missile is for domestic consumption and
to incite the western MSM. It makes little sense to pile more nuclear weapons on top of the existing ones. As the article mentions
there are a lot nuclear reactors that need maintenance in Russia old Soviet era designs that pose a safety risk.
As long as the US is setting up bases in the Baltics and ramping up mililtary aid to Ukraine, and as long as the West is trying
to turn Ukraine into a NATO member, then Russia has no option except to fight back. That means Russia must develop new missiles
and even more destructive WMD's.
American and the Ukrainian nationalists have suffered a humiliating defeat in Donbass. It looks like peace will be made there
on Russian terms, and that the US and its allies will pull out of Ukraine. Upon completion of that retreat, the relationship between
Russia and the West can be reassessed. But not until then.
It is rather ironic that there were no NATO forces in the Baltic states until Putin invaded and annexed Crimea and tried the
same in Donbas. Naturally the countries such as the Baltic states who have experienced Russian/Soviet occupation tend too get
nervous when Putin decides to play war in the neighborhood.
As far as Ukraine the amount of military aid provided by the US, Canada, Poland is relatively small with regard to major arms
systems. The only major arms system is Javelin which is a defensive weapon.
You obviously have little or no knowledge of nuclear weapons and MAD. Russia has plenty of nuclear warheads in fact the most of
any nation on planet Earth.
There are no NATO forces anywhere near the line of contact in Donbas. Any peace accord/deal has nothing to do with the US or NATO
it is between Ukraine and Russia with the pawns being the poor saps called separatists.
The only major arms system is Javelin which is a defensive weapon.
Javelins can be used to support offensive operations. They can serve to neutralize the enemy's ability to use tanks on the
defensive, or to squelch the enemy's counteroffensive.
It's a very thin line that differentiates offense from defense.
True but all weapons have a certain amount of offensive capability. Javelin is designed for infantrymen to take out advancing
armor. Artillery and tanks are offensive.
Artillery and tanks are also used for counter-offensives, so the defender can repulse the aggressor.
There are hawks in the West who are hoping that Ukraine launches one more major military offensive against Donbass. In that
case, the Ukrainians will attack with superior numbers of tanks and troops. If the Ukrainians capture ground (which is unlikely),
they will use their Javelins to try to prevent the Russians and rebels from using tanks to recapture that ground.
That's the real significance of the Javelin missile. That's why American warmongers are sending this weapon to Kiev.
It is rather ironic that there were no NATO forces in the Baltic states until Putin invaded and annexed Crimea...
You are in denial of the facts again. The reality is that the Baltics joined NATO in 2004. That means, since that year, the
US could put any weapons systems it so desires in the Baltics, and there's nothing Russia can do about it short of war.
If that's not a threatening situation for Russia, then I don't know what is.
There was nothing in the Baltic's until after Putin's venture into Crimea and Ukraine proper. He miscalculated as to the push
back regarding both operations and now you are complaining. Those nations are tiny and have almost no defensive capability hence
the deployment of US, UK, Canadian and the NATO troops.
Well, nuclear weapons get obsolete like anything else. ICBMs travel in predictable trajectories and silos are vulnerable to
first strikes. Hence the need for technology evolution.
And sure, old Soviet reactors are getting up there in age. Rosatom is replacing them with modern VVER-1200 designs, not just
in Russia, but all over the world. Rosatom is like the largest and most productive nuclear corporation in the world. in general
though, i would argue that fears of nuclear power are vastly overblown, and it is one of the safest, most reliable forms of power
available.
I'm not anti nuclear power however like everything mechanical it has a safe life time. Weapons of course need modernizing and
that can be done without designing an entirely new weapons system.
MAD is still relevant today as it was during the Cold War. Ultimately I would like to see a reduction in the number of war heads
that the US, Russia have as China, France, UK, India, Pakistan and Israel have far fewer.
I think, US people have enough of their own internal problems. Isn't it better to concentrate on them? Slavics will deal with
their problems themselves. US already piled fantastic bunch of sh@t in Ukraine. As well as in the Middle East.
Current trends of immigration and birthrates in the west mean that by 2070 Russia will be the last homogeneous all white conservative
christian democracy left on earth.
It's possible that there are actually 11,400,000 Moslems in Russia, but nobody knows for certain. Either way, it's rubbish
to claim that there are "25 million Moslems" in the RF.
as famous Russian classics once meticulously observed - Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house [Всё смешалось
в доме Облонских]
Same is this article - first they "scare" you with this "Vergeltungswaffe" of the Soviet designed ca 1970, and, consequently,
abandoned around same time for multiple reasons.
Then they praise the wisdom of not helping Ukraine with real weapons - because Russia was not able achieve much in the current
status quo, so it was wise not to arm Ukraine.
The only thing one can learn from this article (or, more accurately, despite) is that to get a degree in Slavic Studies, ability
to use colloquial phrases in Russian only will not cut it. Even superficially, one should drop Polish or Czech, or, god forbid,
Ukrainian words of wisdom - [Кохайтеся, чорнобриві,. Та не з москалями]
"... All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world. ..."
"... That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security." ..."
"... The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap. ..."
"... There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land. ..."
The chaos arising from U.S. interventionism in Syria provides an excellent opportunity to explore the interventionist mind.
Consider the terminology being employed by interventionists: President Trump's actions in Syria have left a "power vacuum," one
that Russia and Iran are now filling. The United States will no longer have "influence" in the region. "Allies" will no longer be
able to trust the U.S. to come to their assistance. Trump's actions have threatened "national security." It is now possible that
ISIS will reformulate and threaten to take over lands and even regimes in the Middle East.
This verbiage is classic empire-speak. It is the language of the interventionist and the imperialist.
Amidst all the interventionist chaos in the Middle East, it is important to keep in mind one critically important fact: None of
it will mean a violent takeover of the U.S. government or an invasion and conquest of the United States. The federal government will
go on. American life will go on. There will be no army of Muslims, terrorists, Syrians, ISISians, Russians, Chinese, drug dealers,
or illegal immigrants coming to get us and take over the reins of the IRS.
Why is that an important point? Because it shows that no matter what happens in Syria or the rest of the Middle East, life will
continue here in the United States. Even if Russia gets to continue controlling Syria, that's not going to result in a conquest of
the United States. The same holds true if ISIS, say, takes over Iraq. Or if Turkey ends up killing lots of Kurds. Or if Syria ends
up protecting the Kurds. Or if Iran continues to be controlled by a theocratic state. Or if the Russians retake control over Ukraine.
It was no different than when North Vietnam ended up winning the Vietnamese civil war. The dominoes did not fall onto the United
States and make America Red. It also makes no difference if Egypt continues to be controlled by a brutal military dictatorship. Or
that Cuba, North Korea, and China are controlled by communist regimes. Or that Russia is controlled by an authoritarian regime. Or
that Myanmar (Burma) is controlled by a totalitarian military regime. America and the federal government will continue standing.
America was founded as a limited government republic, one that did not send its military forces around the world to slay monsters.
That's not to say that bad things didn't happen around the world. Bad things have always happened around the world. Dictatorships.
Famines. Wars. Civil wars. Revolutions. Empires. Torture. Extra-judicial executions. Tyranny. Oppression. The policy of the United
States was that it would not go abroad to fix or clear up those types of things.
All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire,
pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world.
That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners,"
and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security."
That's when U.S. forces began invading and occupying other countries, waging wars of aggression against them, intervening in foreign
wars, revolutions, and civil wars, initiating coups, destroying democratic regimes, establishing an empire of domestic and foreign
military bases, and bombing, shooting, killing, assassinating, spying on, maiming, torturing, kidnapping, injuring, and destroying
people in countries all over the world.
The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans.
That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and
dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck
to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap.
The shift toward empire and interventionism has brought about the destruction of American liberty and privacy here at home. That's
what the assassinations, secret surveillance, torture, and indefinite detentions of American citizens are all about -- to supposedly
protect us from the dangers produced by U.S. imperialism and interventionism abroad. One might call it waging perpetual war for freedom
and peace, both here and abroad.
There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial
complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism.
A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist
foreign policy to our land.
"... Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit. ..."
"... At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown. ..."
"... For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria. ..."
"... This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics. ..."
"... During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy. ..."
"... The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world. ..."
"... Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. ..."
"... Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc ..."
"... Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds? ..."
"... Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks. ..."
"... It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it. ..."
"... Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria. ..."
"... He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress. ..."
"... The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/ ..."
"... It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change. ..."
"... Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests. ..."
"... Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist. ..."
"... IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause ..."
"... The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it. ..."
"... "This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth. ..."
"... On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/ ..."
"... TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them. ..."
"... ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously. ..."
"... That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds ..."
"... the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous. ..."
"... we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power. ..."
"... He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers. ..."
"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst, Chairman of the
Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) and Graduate
Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night. Dobbs appears to have
developed a deep suspicion of this paladin. He stood up to Keane remarkably well. This was
refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.
In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the
other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the
Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the
Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the
oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property of the Syrian people and their government
owned oil company. The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates.
Pilgrims! It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and
its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot!
Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the
national army of that country. If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own
palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party
air forces (Russia) who support them
This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and
stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.
IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession
and they are a danger to us all. pl
If only General Keane was as willing to defend America and America's oil on the Texas-Mexico
border. Or hasn't anyone noticed that Mexico just a lost a battle with the Sinaloa drug
cartel?
I view them as selling their Soul for a dollar. Keane comes across as dense enough to believe
his bile but Graham comes across as an opportunist without any real ideology except power.
Its probably one step at a time for the Syrians, although the sudden move over the past
couple of weeks must have been a bit of a God given opportunity for them.
Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart.
After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I
can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their
exit.
As I posted in the other thread, the Syrian Government is the only real customer for their
oil and the Kurds already have a profit share agreement in place, so the US, if they allow
any oil out, will effectively be protecting the fields on behalf of Assad. Surely not what
Congress wants?
At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a
steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is
unknown.
I think this might be President Putin's next problem to solve. As far as I know, there is no
legal reason for us to be there, not humanitarian, not strategic not even tactical. We simply
are playing dog-in-the-manger.
My guess is that we will receive an offer to good to refuse from Putin.
For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny
relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the
SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore
social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to
the policy of FUKUSing Syria.
Why is the Champs Elise' Regime still committed to putting the F in UKUS?
(I can understand why UKUS would want to keep France involved. Without France, certain nasty
people might re-brand UKUS as USUK. And that would be very not nice.)
Because France wants to be on the good side of the United States, and as you indicate, the
United States is in Syria to turn that country into a failed state and for no other reason.
A good antidote for Joltin' Jack Keane's madness would be for Lou Dobbs and other mainstream
media (MSM) to have Col Pat Lang as the commentator for analysis of the Syrian situation.
Readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Col. Lang's knowledge of the peoples of the
region and their customs is a national treasure.
This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning
of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut
instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact --
saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane,
Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where
they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics.
In WWI millions of soldiers died fighting for imperial designs. They did not know it. They
thought they were fighting for democracy, or to stop the spread of evil, or save their
country. They were not. Secret treaties signed before the war started stated explicitly what
the war was about.
Now "representatives" of the military, up to and including the Commander in Chief say it's
about conquest, oil. The cards of the elite are on the table. How do you account for this?
During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when
asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy.
The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that
200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or
keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is
threaten to blow up the world.
Justin Trudeau was elected Monday in Canada with a minority in Parliament joining the
United Kingdom and Israel with governments without a majority's mandate. Donald Trump's
impeachment escalates. MbS is nearing a meat hook in Saudi Arabia. This is not a coincidence.
The Elites' flushing government down the drain succeeded.
Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer,
but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police
and the military to protect them. Already California electricity is being cut off for a
second time due to wildfires and PG&E's corporate looting. The Sinaloa shootout reminds
me of the firefight in the first season of "True Detectives" when the outgunned LA cops tried
to go after the Cartel. The writing is on the wall, California is next. Who will the lawmen
serve and protect? Their people or the rich? Without the law, justice and order, there is
chaos.
Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural
plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador,
Peru, etc
No doubt that Keane and his ilk want endless war and view Trump as a growing obstacle. Trump
is consistent: He wanted out of JCPOA, and after being stalled by his national security
advisors, he finally reached the boiling point and left. The advisors who counseled against
this are all gone. With Pompeo, Enders and O'Brien as the new key security advisors, I doubt
Trump got as much push back. He wanted out of Syria in December 2018 and was slow-walked.
Didn't anyone think he'd come back at some point and revive the order to pull out? The talk
with Erdogan, the continuing Trump view that Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia
should bear the burden of sorting out what is left of the Syria war, so long as ISIS does not
see a revival, all have been clear for a long time.
My concern is with Lindsey Graham, who is smarter and nastier than Jack Keane. He is also
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may hold some blackmail leverage over the
President. If the House votes up impeachment articles, Graham will be overseeing the Senate
trial. A break from Trump by Graham could lead to a GOP Senate stampede for conviction. No
one will say this openly, as I am, but it cannot be ignored as a factor for "controlling"
Trump and keeping as much of the permanent war machine running as possible.
Trump has committed the United States to a long war against the Shia Crescent. He has ceded
to Turkey on Syrian Kurds, but has continued with his operations against SAR. US needs
Turkey, Erdogan knows that. Likewise in regards to Russia, EU, and Iran. Turkey, as is said
in Persian, has grown a tail.
Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has
released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds?
Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE
pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success.
During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of
curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and
banks.
It was also reported in September that in Dubai that recent US Treasury sanctions were
beginning to have a devastating effect. Iranian businessmen were being squeezed out. Even
leaving the Emirates. Yet only a few days ago--a month later-- there are now reports that
Iranian exchange bureaus have suddenly reopened in Dubai after a long period of closure.
Also, billions of dollars in contracts were signed between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE
during Putin's recent visit to the region. It seems to me that this is real news. Something
big seems to be happening. It looks to me as if there could be a serious confrontation
between the Trump administration and MBZ in the offing.
Do you have an opinion on the Iranian situation in Dubai at the moment?
I have my doubt that Sen. Graham will lead any revolt, but if it starts to look like Trump
will lose big next year, there will be a stampede looking like the Nile getting through a
cataract.
They will not want to go down the tube with Trump. I still maintain that there is a good
reason for him to resign before he loses an election or an impeachment. It will come down to
the price.
Lose big to whom in the next election? Biden got 300 people to show up for his rally in his hometown of Scranton and he is
supposedly the front runner. Bernie got 20,000 to show up at his rally in NY when he was
endorsed by The Squad and Michael Moore. Do you think the Dem establishment will allow him to
be the nominee?
Trump in contrast routinely can fill up stadiums with 30,000 people. That was the
indicator in the last election, not the polls. Recall the NY Times forecasting Hillary with a
95% probability of winning the day before the election.
As Rep. Al Green noted , the only way the Democrats can stop him is for the Senate to
convict him in an impeachment trial. Who do you believe are the 20 Republican senators that
will vote to convict?
Trump barely won the last time and while he currently has wide support in the GOP, it is not
nearly as deep as his cultists believe. When half the country, and growing, want him removed,
there is trouble ahead. Republicans are largely herd animals and if spooked, will create a
stampede.
You can tell that there are problems when his congressional enablers are not defending him
on facts and just using gripes about processes that they themselves have used in the past. In
addition to circus acts.
I realize that many do not want to admit that they made a mistake by voting for him. I am
not so sure they want to repeat that mistake.
It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the
compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore..
representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it.
It's not a question if he barely won. The fact is he competed with many other Republican
candidates including governors and senators and even one with the name Bush. He was 1% in the
polls in the summer of 2016 and went on to win the Republican nomination despite the intense
opposition of the Republican establishment. He then goes on to win the general election
defeating a well funded Hillary with all her credentials and the full backing of the vast
majority of the media. That is an amazing achievement for someone running for public office
for the first time. Like him or hate him, you have to give credit where it's due. Winning an
election for the presidency is no small feat.
There only two ways to defeat him. First, the Senate convicts him in an impeachment trial
which will require at least 20 Republican senators. Who are they? Second, a Democrat in the
general election. Who? I can see Bernie with a possibility since he has enthusiastic
supporters. But will the Democrat establishment allow him to win the nomination?
We're no longer having to listen to Yosemite Sam Bolton. His BFF Graham is left to fight on
his own. I don't think Trump feels the need to pay that much attention to Graham. He didn't
worry about him during the primary when Graham always seemed to be on the verge of crying
when he was asked questions.
Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies
so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and
failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria.
He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he
simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress.
What the Colonel calls the Borg is akin to an aircraft carrier that has been steaming at near
flank speed for many years too long, gathering mass and momentum since the end of Cold War I.
With the exception of Gulf War I, none of our interventions have gone well, and even the
putative peace at the end of GUlf War I wasn't managed well because it eventuated in Gulf War
Ii which has been worst than a disaster because the disaster taught the Borg nothing and
became midwife to additional disasters.
It probably should come as no surprise to us that
Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many
deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive
to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a
platform of change.
Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen.
At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy--
turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the
dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard
against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual
interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying
degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests.
With that said, I doubt very much whether the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in
an impeachment trial. Trump's argument that the process is a political coup is arguably
completely true, or certainly true enough that his political base in the electorate will not
tolerate his abandonment by Republican politicians inside the Beltway. I think there is even
some chance that Trump, were he to be removed from office by what could be credibly portrayed
as a political coup, would consider running in 2020 as an independent. The damage that would
cause to the Republican Party would be severe, pervasive, and possibly fatal to the Party as
such. I doubt Beltway pols would be willing to take that chance.
I don't think Keane or Trump are focused on the oil. Keane just used that as a lens to focus
Trump on Iran. That's the true sickness. Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity
towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see
beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia
Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This
administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist.
And in response, Russia killed and captured hundreds of US Special forces and PMC's alongside
SAS in East Ghouta . It is said that the abrupt russian op on East Ghouta was a response to
the Battle of Khasham.
The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media
is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the
MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them
distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of
affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking
points without understanding any of it.
While it will always be mystifying to me why so many people on the street blindly support
America fighting and dying in the middle east, the support of the MSM and the paid hacks for
eternal war is no surprise. I hope they get to send their children and grandchildren to these
wars. More than that, I hope we get out of these wars. Trump might be able to put an end to
it, and not just in Syria, if he wins a second term, which he will if he is allowed to
contest the next election. There is however a chance that the borg will pull the rug from
under him and bar him from the elections. Hope that doesn't come to pass.
No, they just have to sit there and be an excuse to fly Coalition CAPs that would effectively
prevent SAA from crossing the Euphrates in strength. Feasible until the SAA finishes with
Idlib and moves some of its new Russian anti-aircraft toys down to Deir Ezzor.
TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the
permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless
covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them.
Colonel Lang, I am well aware of the power seekers who gravitate towards Trump or whoever
holds power not out of loyalty, but because they covet access to power. The neocons and
Zionists flock to Trump because they can manipulate him to do their bidding. That fact
certainly doesn't make me feel any better about Trump as President. The man needs help.
you are an experienced clan case officer. You do not know that most people are more than a
little mad? Hillary is more than a little nuts. Obama was so desperately neurotically in need
of White approval that he let the WP COIN generals talk him into a COIN war in Afghanistan. I
was part of that discussion. All that mattered to him was their approval. FDR could not be
trusted with SIGINT product and so Marshall never gave him any, etc., George Bush 41 told me
that he deliberately mis-pronounced Saddam's name to hurt his feelings. Georgie Junior let
the lunatic neocons invade a country that had not attacked us. Trump is no worse than many of
our politicians, or politicians anywhere. Britain? The Brexit disaster speaks for itself, And
then there is the British monarchy in which a princeling devastated by the sure DNA proof
that he is illegitimate is acting like a fool. The list is endless.
CK, the people surrounding Trump are largely appointees. Keane doesn't have to be let into
the WH. His problem is that those who would appeal to his non-neocon tendencies are not
people he wants to have around him. Gabbard, for instance, would be perfect for helping Trump
get ourselves out of the ME, is a progressive. Non-interventionists are hard to come by.
Those who he does surround himself with are using him for their own ideologies, mostly neocon
and Zionist.
Bacevich interview:
> Andrew Bacevich, can you respond to President Trump pulling the U.S. troops away from
this area of northern Syria, though saying he will keep them to guard oil fields?
> ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at
any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that
you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are
going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens
back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is
a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that
seriously.
> That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again,
is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy
or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And
here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our
abandonment of the Kurds.
> Let's stipulate. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds was wrong, it was callous, it was
immoral. It was not the first betrayal by the United States in our history, but the fact that
there were others certainly doesn't excuse this one. But apart from those concerned about the
humanitarian aspect of this crisis -- and not for a second do I question the sincerity of
people who are worried about the Kurds -- it seems to me that the controversy has gotten as
big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are
concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of
U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of
bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism.
Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen
to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a
fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment
nervous.
> NERMEEN SHAIKH: As you mentioned, Professor Bacevich, Trump has come under bipartisan
criticism for this decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria. Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell was one of the many Republicans to criticize Trump for his decision. In an
opinion piece in The Washington Post McConnell writes, quote, "We saw humanitarian disaster
and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the
groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama's
retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners
and retreat from these conflicts before they are won." He also writes, quote, "As
neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more
talk of 'endless wars.' But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars
are won or lost." So Professor Bacevich, could you respond to that, and how accurate you
think an assessment of that is? Both what he says about Afghanistan and what is likely to
happen now with U.S. withdrawal.
> ANDREW BACEVICH: I think in any discussion of our wars, ongoing wars, it is important to
set them in some broader historical context than Senator McConnell will probably entertain. I
mean, to a very great extent -- not entirely, but to a very great extent -- we created the
problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power.
> People like McConnell, and I think other members of the political establishment, even
members of the mainstream media -- _The New York Times_, The Washington Post -- have yet to
reckon with the catastrophic consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in 2003. And if
you focus your attention at that start point -- you could choose another start point, but if
you focus your attention at that start point, then it seems to me that leads you to a
different conclusion about the crisis that we are dealing with right now. That is to say,
people like McConnell want to stay the course. They want to maintain the U.S. presence in
Syria. U.S. military presence. But if we look at what the U.S. military presence in that
region, not simply Syria, has produced over the course of almost two decades, then you have
to ask yourself, how is it that we think that simply staying the course is going to produce
any more positive results?
> It is appalling what Turkey has done to Syrian Kurds and the casualties they have
inflicted and the number of people that have been displaced. But guess what? The casualties
that we inflicted and the number of people that we displaced far outnumbers what Turkey has
done over the last week or so. So I think that we need to push back against this tendency to
oversimplify the circumstance, because oversimplifying the circumstance doesn't help us fully
appreciate the causes of this mess that we're in.
In addition to oil from Iran, Assad also gets oil from the SDF and the Kurds. Supposedly a
profit sharing arrangement as commented on by JohninMK in a previous post.
This oil sharing deal was also mentioned by Global Research and Southfront back in June of
2018:
Colonel Lang, the only way to "overthrow" Trump is through impeachment in the House and
conviction in the Senate. That is a Constitutional process, not a coup. The process is
intentionally difficult. Was the impeachment of Clinton an attempted coup?
In the first place isn't the dissolution of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq and Libya and Yemen
exactly what we have wished to achieve, and wouldn't an intelligent observer, such as
Vladimir Putin, want to do exactly the same thing to us, and hasn't he come very close to
witnessing the achievement of this aim whether he is personally involved or not? What goes
around comes around?
But that is relatively unimportant compared to the question whether dissolution of the
Union is a bad thing or a good thing. Preserving it cost 600,000 lives the first time. One
additional life would be one additional life too many. Ukraine is an excellent example.
Western Ukraine has a long history support for Nazi's. Eastern Ukraine is Russian. Must a war
be fought to bring them together? Or should they be permitted to go their separate ways?
As Hector said of Helen of Troy, "She is not worth what she doth cost the keeping."
After hanging up from a call to Putin, thanking him for Russia's help with the Turks, YPG
leader Mazloum Kobane returned to the Senate hearings in which he alternately reminded his
flecless American allies of their failure, not only to protect Rojava from the Turks, but
didn't even give them a heads up about what was about to happen and begged an already angry
[at Trump] Senate about their urgent need for a continued American presence in the territory.
It seems that some in the USG do not understand that all the land on the east bank of the
Euphrates is "Rojava" or somehow is the mandate of the Kurds to continue to control. For a
long time, now, the mainly Arab population of that region have been chafing under what is
actually Kurdish rule. This could be a a trigger for ISIS or some other jihadis to launch
another insurgency, or at the least, low level attacks, especially in Rojava to the
north.
To remind, the USG is not using military personnel, but also contracts, about 200 troops in
one field and 400 contractors in the other.
There is video of the SAA escorting the Americans to the Iraqi border. PM Abdel Hadi has
reiterated that the US cannot keep these troops in Iraq, as they go beyond the agreed upon
number. It is quite likely that the anti-Iranian aspect of the border region is NOT something
they wish to see.
"Iranian proxies" refers to Hezbollah, the various Shia militia groups from Pakistan and
Afghanistan, and of course, others, not the SAA.
Objectively this should be a death sentence for Trump reelection -- war criminals should
never be reelected: he proved to be yet another MIC stooge. And his government is not that
different form Hillarie's: it is the same government of lies by lies for liars (from MIC)...
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the experts pointed out. ..."
"... Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best." ..."
"... Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being politically compromised when it comes to Syria. ..."
A whistleblower with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),
responsible for conducting an independent investigation into the alleged chemical attack in the
Syrian town of Douma on April 7, 2018, has presented WikiLeaks with a body of evidence
suggesting the chemical weapons watchdog agency manipulated and suppressed evidence .
A prior official OPCW
report of the investigation issued last March found "reasonable grounds" for believing a
toxic chemical was used against civilians, likely chlorine. Long prior to any independent
investigators reaching the site, however, Washington had launched major tomahawk airstrikes
against Damascus in retribution for "Assad gassing his own people" .
WikiLeaks published documents based on evidence presented by the internal OPCW whistleblower
to an expert review panel on Wednesday. "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt
on the integrity of the OPCW," WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson wrote.
An official WikiLeaks press release said as follows :
Kristinn Hrafnsson took part in the panel to review the testimony and documents from the
OPCW whistleblower. He says: "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the
integrity of the OPCW. Although the whistleblower was not ready to step forward and/or
present documents to the public, WikiLeaks believes it is now of utmost interest for the
public to see everything that was collected by the Fact Finding Mission on Douma and all
scientific reports written in relation to the investigation."
"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text
exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over
unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the
experts pointed out.
"We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses,
toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed,
ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ."
The testimony further revealed "disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the
investigation whilst thwarting their attempts to raise legitimate concerns , highlight
irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments."
The new information was enough to convince José Bustani, former director-general of
the OPCW to conclude there is now "convincing evidence" of irregularities .
According to a summary of the latest controversy to cast doubt on the dominant mainstream
narrative related to Douma, Middle East analysis site Al-Bab noted Bustain
harbored prior doubts :
Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in
Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the
international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at
best."
Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the
international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being
politically compromised when it comes to Syria.
"Because of my great wisdom as a stable genius, i launched major tomahawk airstrikes
against Damascus in retribution for Assad gassing his own people" .
I am Ironman!
Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all
Or if he moves will he fall?
Tell that to the Syrians who were killed, both soldiers and civilians, as well as those
having to pay for the lost property that was destroyed. It was thrown out there, purely out
of thin air, that nothing of substance was hit and it was just a show by Trump, despite
reports by those terrorized by the attacks.
It's the same lying neocon **** that cried out "Darfur!"..."Donbass!"...the exact same
lying ****. **** them all to hell, I wish I could exterminate their voices forever.
The Gas Lighting, PsyOp & False Flags will continue until the masses are completely
Frightened & Brainwashed.
US Interference and Regime Change PsyOp
"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate
that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners
quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the
uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of
completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar
Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria."
Regime change is the only reason we or any of our proxies are there. We have NO GOOD
REASON being there other than this BS.
The US Congress has not approved the US being in Syria.
The UN Security Council has not approved the US presence in Syria.
President Assad of Syria did not invite the US or approve the US presence in
Syria.
Only the US deep state neocons have approved the US presence in the context of "regime
change".
I mean C'mon now? These Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Deep State CIA, MI6,
Mossad Psychopaths couldn't write up a different Scripted False Narrative PsyOp to sell to
the World & American People.
CHEM ATTACK PART III RETURN OF THE ASSAD.
The Lack of creativity among those in the Pentagram & Deep Staters is downright
pathetic.
Bolton was nothing more than a mere Agent of Chaos with his mission the for continuation
of the Yinon Plan.
I'd respect them more if they'd just said, "we seeking regime change to secure the better
interests of Israel, the US & World Community."
Wink, wink, nod, nod...those better interest are the Qatari Pipeline to provide continued
SA & Petro Dollar Hegemony among Vassel States. While simultaneously eliminating Russia's
& Gasprom's ability to supply European Oil.
if motives can signal the future, the present convulsions in the US government signal that
America has been taken over by the Zionists who populate all avenues of US power structures.
It is inconceivable that Trump who has been up to now catering to AIPAC and the Israeli
lobbies and actors would be subjected to ignominy because he seems to want to abandon Syria.
But. let's face it, Israel wants mayhem to engulf Syria, an ally of Iran and the
Hezbollah.
American troops' withdrawal from Syria is seen as anathema by Zionists and Israeli
likewise.
The Jewish interests can pull numerous strings in America to prevent this from happening.
Trump is caught between a hammer and a nail. He wants to be reelected so he has to fulfill
his promises
to his bases. Bring the troops home and all this nice stuff.
But his Israeli masters will make life difficult for him as long as he is not pandering to
Israel's wishes.
There is a subtle game whereas the MSM assaults Trump but his actions are all in favor of
his MSM detractors. Actor or puppet remains to be elucidated. No tax on the rich, Jerusalem,
Golan Heights, the West Bank,, the Jordan Valley, all gifts to the criminal state of
Israel.
And then, sanctions on China? If Trump wants to return the industrial jobs to America, he
has to put tariffs on all imported goods, regardless of origin. Not only from Germany and
China because they are successful exporters to America.
He would also have to put a stop on the expatriation of capital to other countries in view
of reducing the ability of Wall Street to export jobs.
We do not see any of these actions from the WH so DJT is not the angel he wants to project
himself to be.
For the time being, his orders of withdrawal are freeing some of the Syrian territories
recently under US watch. The best thing for Syria is that it now has control over most of its
territory. Much to the disgust of Israel.
I can see that Israel's greatest wish is to see a conflagration between Iran and the USA.
There will be more false flags until one is so painful that Israel will be destroyed.
The Samson option is anti-Jewish. Will Israel bomb The City, New York and other great
congregations of Zionists?
"... All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world. ..."
"... That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security." ..."
"... The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap. ..."
"... There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land. ..."
The chaos arising from U.S. interventionism in Syria provides an excellent opportunity to explore the interventionist mind.
Consider the terminology being employed by interventionists: President Trump's actions in Syria have left a "power vacuum," one
that Russia and Iran are now filling. The United States will no longer have "influence" in the region. "Allies" will no longer be
able to trust the U.S. to come to their assistance. Trump's actions have threatened "national security." It is now possible that
ISIS will reformulate and threaten to take over lands and even regimes in the Middle East.
This verbiage is classic empire-speak. It is the language of the interventionist and the imperialist.
Amidst all the interventionist chaos in the Middle East, it is important to keep in mind one critically important fact: None of
it will mean a violent takeover of the U.S. government or an invasion and conquest of the United States. The federal government will
go on. American life will go on. There will be no army of Muslims, terrorists, Syrians, ISISians, Russians, Chinese, drug dealers,
or illegal immigrants coming to get us and take over the reins of the IRS.
Why is that an important point? Because it shows that no matter what happens in Syria or the rest of the Middle East, life will
continue here in the United States. Even if Russia gets to continue controlling Syria, that's not going to result in a conquest of
the United States. The same holds true if ISIS, say, takes over Iraq. Or if Turkey ends up killing lots of Kurds. Or if Syria ends
up protecting the Kurds. Or if Iran continues to be controlled by a theocratic state. Or if the Russians retake control over Ukraine.
It was no different than when North Vietnam ended up winning the Vietnamese civil war. The dominoes did not fall onto the United
States and make America Red. It also makes no difference if Egypt continues to be controlled by a brutal military dictatorship. Or
that Cuba, North Korea, and China are controlled by communist regimes. Or that Russia is controlled by an authoritarian regime. Or
that Myanmar (Burma) is controlled by a totalitarian military regime. America and the federal government will continue standing.
America was founded as a limited government republic, one that did not send its military forces around the world to slay monsters.
That's not to say that bad things didn't happen around the world. Bad things have always happened around the world. Dictatorships.
Famines. Wars. Civil wars. Revolutions. Empires. Torture. Extra-judicial executions. Tyranny. Oppression. The policy of the United
States was that it would not go abroad to fix or clear up those types of things.
All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire,
pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world.
That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners,"
and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security."
That's when U.S. forces began invading and occupying other countries, waging wars of aggression against them, intervening in foreign
wars, revolutions, and civil wars, initiating coups, destroying democratic regimes, establishing an empire of domestic and foreign
military bases, and bombing, shooting, killing, assassinating, spying on, maiming, torturing, kidnapping, injuring, and destroying
people in countries all over the world.
The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans.
That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and
dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck
to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap.
The shift toward empire and interventionism has brought about the destruction of American liberty and privacy here at home. That's
what the assassinations, secret surveillance, torture, and indefinite detentions of American citizens are all about -- to supposedly
protect us from the dangers produced by U.S. imperialism and interventionism abroad. One might call it waging perpetual war for freedom
and peace, both here and abroad.
There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial
complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism.
A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist
foreign policy to our land.
"... Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit. ..."
"... At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown. ..."
"... For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria. ..."
"... This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics. ..."
"... During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy. ..."
"... The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world. ..."
"... Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. ..."
"... Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc ..."
"... Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds? ..."
"... Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks. ..."
"... It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it. ..."
"... Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria. ..."
"... He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress. ..."
"... The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/ ..."
"... It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change. ..."
"... Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests. ..."
"... Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist. ..."
"... IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause ..."
"... The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it. ..."
"... "This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth. ..."
"... On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/ ..."
"... TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them. ..."
"... ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously. ..."
"... That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds ..."
"... the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous. ..."
"... we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power. ..."
"... He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers. ..."
"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst, Chairman of the
Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) and Graduate
Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night. Dobbs appears to have
developed a deep suspicion of this paladin. He stood up to Keane remarkably well. This was
refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.
In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the
other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the
Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the
Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the
oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property of the Syrian people and their government
owned oil company. The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates.
Pilgrims! It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and
its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot!
Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the
national army of that country. If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own
palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party
air forces (Russia) who support them
This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and
stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.
IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession
and they are a danger to us all. pl
If only General Keane was as willing to defend America and America's oil on the Texas-Mexico
border. Or hasn't anyone noticed that Mexico just a lost a battle with the Sinaloa drug
cartel?
I view them as selling their Soul for a dollar. Keane comes across as dense enough to believe
his bile but Graham comes across as an opportunist without any real ideology except power.
Its probably one step at a time for the Syrians, although the sudden move over the past
couple of weeks must have been a bit of a God given opportunity for them.
Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart.
After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I
can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their
exit.
As I posted in the other thread, the Syrian Government is the only real customer for their
oil and the Kurds already have a profit share agreement in place, so the US, if they allow
any oil out, will effectively be protecting the fields on behalf of Assad. Surely not what
Congress wants?
At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a
steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is
unknown.
I think this might be President Putin's next problem to solve. As far as I know, there is no
legal reason for us to be there, not humanitarian, not strategic not even tactical. We simply
are playing dog-in-the-manger.
My guess is that we will receive an offer to good to refuse from Putin.
For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny
relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the
SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore
social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to
the policy of FUKUSing Syria.
Why is the Champs Elise' Regime still committed to putting the F in UKUS?
(I can understand why UKUS would want to keep France involved. Without France, certain nasty
people might re-brand UKUS as USUK. And that would be very not nice.)
Because France wants to be on the good side of the United States, and as you indicate, the
United States is in Syria to turn that country into a failed state and for no other reason.
A good antidote for Joltin' Jack Keane's madness would be for Lou Dobbs and other mainstream
media (MSM) to have Col Pat Lang as the commentator for analysis of the Syrian situation.
Readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Col. Lang's knowledge of the peoples of the
region and their customs is a national treasure.
This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning
of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut
instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact --
saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane,
Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where
they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics.
In WWI millions of soldiers died fighting for imperial designs. They did not know it. They
thought they were fighting for democracy, or to stop the spread of evil, or save their
country. They were not. Secret treaties signed before the war started stated explicitly what
the war was about.
Now "representatives" of the military, up to and including the Commander in Chief say it's
about conquest, oil. The cards of the elite are on the table. How do you account for this?
During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when
asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy.
The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that
200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or
keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is
threaten to blow up the world.
Justin Trudeau was elected Monday in Canada with a minority in Parliament joining the
United Kingdom and Israel with governments without a majority's mandate. Donald Trump's
impeachment escalates. MbS is nearing a meat hook in Saudi Arabia. This is not a coincidence.
The Elites' flushing government down the drain succeeded.
Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer,
but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police
and the military to protect them. Already California electricity is being cut off for a
second time due to wildfires and PG&E's corporate looting. The Sinaloa shootout reminds
me of the firefight in the first season of "True Detectives" when the outgunned LA cops tried
to go after the Cartel. The writing is on the wall, California is next. Who will the lawmen
serve and protect? Their people or the rich? Without the law, justice and order, there is
chaos.
Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural
plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador,
Peru, etc
No doubt that Keane and his ilk want endless war and view Trump as a growing obstacle. Trump
is consistent: He wanted out of JCPOA, and after being stalled by his national security
advisors, he finally reached the boiling point and left. The advisors who counseled against
this are all gone. With Pompeo, Enders and O'Brien as the new key security advisors, I doubt
Trump got as much push back. He wanted out of Syria in December 2018 and was slow-walked.
Didn't anyone think he'd come back at some point and revive the order to pull out? The talk
with Erdogan, the continuing Trump view that Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia
should bear the burden of sorting out what is left of the Syria war, so long as ISIS does not
see a revival, all have been clear for a long time.
My concern is with Lindsey Graham, who is smarter and nastier than Jack Keane. He is also
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may hold some blackmail leverage over the
President. If the House votes up impeachment articles, Graham will be overseeing the Senate
trial. A break from Trump by Graham could lead to a GOP Senate stampede for conviction. No
one will say this openly, as I am, but it cannot be ignored as a factor for "controlling"
Trump and keeping as much of the permanent war machine running as possible.
Trump has committed the United States to a long war against the Shia Crescent. He has ceded
to Turkey on Syrian Kurds, but has continued with his operations against SAR. US needs
Turkey, Erdogan knows that. Likewise in regards to Russia, EU, and Iran. Turkey, as is said
in Persian, has grown a tail.
Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has
released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds?
Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE
pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success.
During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of
curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and
banks.
It was also reported in September that in Dubai that recent US Treasury sanctions were
beginning to have a devastating effect. Iranian businessmen were being squeezed out. Even
leaving the Emirates. Yet only a few days ago--a month later-- there are now reports that
Iranian exchange bureaus have suddenly reopened in Dubai after a long period of closure.
Also, billions of dollars in contracts were signed between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE
during Putin's recent visit to the region. It seems to me that this is real news. Something
big seems to be happening. It looks to me as if there could be a serious confrontation
between the Trump administration and MBZ in the offing.
Do you have an opinion on the Iranian situation in Dubai at the moment?
I have my doubt that Sen. Graham will lead any revolt, but if it starts to look like Trump
will lose big next year, there will be a stampede looking like the Nile getting through a
cataract.
They will not want to go down the tube with Trump. I still maintain that there is a good
reason for him to resign before he loses an election or an impeachment. It will come down to
the price.
Lose big to whom in the next election? Biden got 300 people to show up for his rally in his hometown of Scranton and he is
supposedly the front runner. Bernie got 20,000 to show up at his rally in NY when he was
endorsed by The Squad and Michael Moore. Do you think the Dem establishment will allow him to
be the nominee?
Trump in contrast routinely can fill up stadiums with 30,000 people. That was the
indicator in the last election, not the polls. Recall the NY Times forecasting Hillary with a
95% probability of winning the day before the election.
As Rep. Al Green noted , the only way the Democrats can stop him is for the Senate to
convict him in an impeachment trial. Who do you believe are the 20 Republican senators that
will vote to convict?
Trump barely won the last time and while he currently has wide support in the GOP, it is not
nearly as deep as his cultists believe. When half the country, and growing, want him removed,
there is trouble ahead. Republicans are largely herd animals and if spooked, will create a
stampede.
You can tell that there are problems when his congressional enablers are not defending him
on facts and just using gripes about processes that they themselves have used in the past. In
addition to circus acts.
I realize that many do not want to admit that they made a mistake by voting for him. I am
not so sure they want to repeat that mistake.
It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the
compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore..
representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it.
It's not a question if he barely won. The fact is he competed with many other Republican
candidates including governors and senators and even one with the name Bush. He was 1% in the
polls in the summer of 2016 and went on to win the Republican nomination despite the intense
opposition of the Republican establishment. He then goes on to win the general election
defeating a well funded Hillary with all her credentials and the full backing of the vast
majority of the media. That is an amazing achievement for someone running for public office
for the first time. Like him or hate him, you have to give credit where it's due. Winning an
election for the presidency is no small feat.
There only two ways to defeat him. First, the Senate convicts him in an impeachment trial
which will require at least 20 Republican senators. Who are they? Second, a Democrat in the
general election. Who? I can see Bernie with a possibility since he has enthusiastic
supporters. But will the Democrat establishment allow him to win the nomination?
We're no longer having to listen to Yosemite Sam Bolton. His BFF Graham is left to fight on
his own. I don't think Trump feels the need to pay that much attention to Graham. He didn't
worry about him during the primary when Graham always seemed to be on the verge of crying
when he was asked questions.
Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies
so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and
failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria.
He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he
simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress.
What the Colonel calls the Borg is akin to an aircraft carrier that has been steaming at near
flank speed for many years too long, gathering mass and momentum since the end of Cold War I.
With the exception of Gulf War I, none of our interventions have gone well, and even the
putative peace at the end of GUlf War I wasn't managed well because it eventuated in Gulf War
Ii which has been worst than a disaster because the disaster taught the Borg nothing and
became midwife to additional disasters.
It probably should come as no surprise to us that
Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many
deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive
to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a
platform of change.
Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen.
At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy--
turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the
dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard
against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual
interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying
degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests.
With that said, I doubt very much whether the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in
an impeachment trial. Trump's argument that the process is a political coup is arguably
completely true, or certainly true enough that his political base in the electorate will not
tolerate his abandonment by Republican politicians inside the Beltway. I think there is even
some chance that Trump, were he to be removed from office by what could be credibly portrayed
as a political coup, would consider running in 2020 as an independent. The damage that would
cause to the Republican Party would be severe, pervasive, and possibly fatal to the Party as
such. I doubt Beltway pols would be willing to take that chance.
I don't think Keane or Trump are focused on the oil. Keane just used that as a lens to focus
Trump on Iran. That's the true sickness. Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity
towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see
beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia
Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This
administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist.
And in response, Russia killed and captured hundreds of US Special forces and PMC's alongside
SAS in East Ghouta . It is said that the abrupt russian op on East Ghouta was a response to
the Battle of Khasham.
The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media
is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the
MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them
distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of
affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking
points without understanding any of it.
While it will always be mystifying to me why so many people on the street blindly support
America fighting and dying in the middle east, the support of the MSM and the paid hacks for
eternal war is no surprise. I hope they get to send their children and grandchildren to these
wars. More than that, I hope we get out of these wars. Trump might be able to put an end to
it, and not just in Syria, if he wins a second term, which he will if he is allowed to
contest the next election. There is however a chance that the borg will pull the rug from
under him and bar him from the elections. Hope that doesn't come to pass.
No, they just have to sit there and be an excuse to fly Coalition CAPs that would effectively
prevent SAA from crossing the Euphrates in strength. Feasible until the SAA finishes with
Idlib and moves some of its new Russian anti-aircraft toys down to Deir Ezzor.
TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the
permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless
covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them.
Colonel Lang, I am well aware of the power seekers who gravitate towards Trump or whoever
holds power not out of loyalty, but because they covet access to power. The neocons and
Zionists flock to Trump because they can manipulate him to do their bidding. That fact
certainly doesn't make me feel any better about Trump as President. The man needs help.
you are an experienced clan case officer. You do not know that most people are more than a
little mad? Hillary is more than a little nuts. Obama was so desperately neurotically in need
of White approval that he let the WP COIN generals talk him into a COIN war in Afghanistan. I
was part of that discussion. All that mattered to him was their approval. FDR could not be
trusted with SIGINT product and so Marshall never gave him any, etc., George Bush 41 told me
that he deliberately mis-pronounced Saddam's name to hurt his feelings. Georgie Junior let
the lunatic neocons invade a country that had not attacked us. Trump is no worse than many of
our politicians, or politicians anywhere. Britain? The Brexit disaster speaks for itself, And
then there is the British monarchy in which a princeling devastated by the sure DNA proof
that he is illegitimate is acting like a fool. The list is endless.
CK, the people surrounding Trump are largely appointees. Keane doesn't have to be let into
the WH. His problem is that those who would appeal to his non-neocon tendencies are not
people he wants to have around him. Gabbard, for instance, would be perfect for helping Trump
get ourselves out of the ME, is a progressive. Non-interventionists are hard to come by.
Those who he does surround himself with are using him for their own ideologies, mostly neocon
and Zionist.
Bacevich interview:
> Andrew Bacevich, can you respond to President Trump pulling the U.S. troops away from
this area of northern Syria, though saying he will keep them to guard oil fields?
> ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at
any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that
you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are
going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens
back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is
a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that
seriously.
> That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again,
is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy
or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And
here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our
abandonment of the Kurds.
> Let's stipulate. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds was wrong, it was callous, it was
immoral. It was not the first betrayal by the United States in our history, but the fact that
there were others certainly doesn't excuse this one. But apart from those concerned about the
humanitarian aspect of this crisis -- and not for a second do I question the sincerity of
people who are worried about the Kurds -- it seems to me that the controversy has gotten as
big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are
concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of
U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of
bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism.
Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen
to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a
fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment
nervous.
> NERMEEN SHAIKH: As you mentioned, Professor Bacevich, Trump has come under bipartisan
criticism for this decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria. Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell was one of the many Republicans to criticize Trump for his decision. In an
opinion piece in The Washington Post McConnell writes, quote, "We saw humanitarian disaster
and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the
groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama's
retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners
and retreat from these conflicts before they are won." He also writes, quote, "As
neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more
talk of 'endless wars.' But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars
are won or lost." So Professor Bacevich, could you respond to that, and how accurate you
think an assessment of that is? Both what he says about Afghanistan and what is likely to
happen now with U.S. withdrawal.
> ANDREW BACEVICH: I think in any discussion of our wars, ongoing wars, it is important to
set them in some broader historical context than Senator McConnell will probably entertain. I
mean, to a very great extent -- not entirely, but to a very great extent -- we created the
problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power.
> People like McConnell, and I think other members of the political establishment, even
members of the mainstream media -- _The New York Times_, The Washington Post -- have yet to
reckon with the catastrophic consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in 2003. And if
you focus your attention at that start point -- you could choose another start point, but if
you focus your attention at that start point, then it seems to me that leads you to a
different conclusion about the crisis that we are dealing with right now. That is to say,
people like McConnell want to stay the course. They want to maintain the U.S. presence in
Syria. U.S. military presence. But if we look at what the U.S. military presence in that
region, not simply Syria, has produced over the course of almost two decades, then you have
to ask yourself, how is it that we think that simply staying the course is going to produce
any more positive results?
> It is appalling what Turkey has done to Syrian Kurds and the casualties they have
inflicted and the number of people that have been displaced. But guess what? The casualties
that we inflicted and the number of people that we displaced far outnumbers what Turkey has
done over the last week or so. So I think that we need to push back against this tendency to
oversimplify the circumstance, because oversimplifying the circumstance doesn't help us fully
appreciate the causes of this mess that we're in.
In addition to oil from Iran, Assad also gets oil from the SDF and the Kurds. Supposedly a
profit sharing arrangement as commented on by JohninMK in a previous post.
This oil sharing deal was also mentioned by Global Research and Southfront back in June of
2018:
Colonel Lang, the only way to "overthrow" Trump is through impeachment in the House and
conviction in the Senate. That is a Constitutional process, not a coup. The process is
intentionally difficult. Was the impeachment of Clinton an attempted coup?
In the first place isn't the dissolution of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq and Libya and Yemen
exactly what we have wished to achieve, and wouldn't an intelligent observer, such as
Vladimir Putin, want to do exactly the same thing to us, and hasn't he come very close to
witnessing the achievement of this aim whether he is personally involved or not? What goes
around comes around?
But that is relatively unimportant compared to the question whether dissolution of the
Union is a bad thing or a good thing. Preserving it cost 600,000 lives the first time. One
additional life would be one additional life too many. Ukraine is an excellent example.
Western Ukraine has a long history support for Nazi's. Eastern Ukraine is Russian. Must a war
be fought to bring them together? Or should they be permitted to go their separate ways?
As Hector said of Helen of Troy, "She is not worth what she doth cost the keeping."
After hanging up from a call to Putin, thanking him for Russia's help with the Turks, YPG
leader Mazloum Kobane returned to the Senate hearings in which he alternately reminded his
flecless American allies of their failure, not only to protect Rojava from the Turks, but
didn't even give them a heads up about what was about to happen and begged an already angry
[at Trump] Senate about their urgent need for a continued American presence in the territory.
It seems that some in the USG do not understand that all the land on the east bank of the
Euphrates is "Rojava" or somehow is the mandate of the Kurds to continue to control. For a
long time, now, the mainly Arab population of that region have been chafing under what is
actually Kurdish rule. This could be a a trigger for ISIS or some other jihadis to launch
another insurgency, or at the least, low level attacks, especially in Rojava to the
north.
To remind, the USG is not using military personnel, but also contracts, about 200 troops in
one field and 400 contractors in the other.
There is video of the SAA escorting the Americans to the Iraqi border. PM Abdel Hadi has
reiterated that the US cannot keep these troops in Iraq, as they go beyond the agreed upon
number. It is quite likely that the anti-Iranian aspect of the border region is NOT something
they wish to see.
"Iranian proxies" refers to Hezbollah, the various Shia militia groups from Pakistan and
Afghanistan, and of course, others, not the SAA.
"... The Russian-Turkish Memorandum confirms the legality of the Turkish "Operation Spring Peace" within a border area of 32 kilometers with the exception of the city of Qamishli. It makes no mention of US demands to shut down the northern land corridor linking Tehran to Beirut. Moreover, it does not set a deadline for the withdrawal of the Turkish army, which is now likely to impose a military occupation, as it has done in Cyprus and Iraq. ..."
After one of the longest, bitterest negotiations ever held between President Vladimir Putin
and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov forced the Turks into an agreement for a Turkish military enclave
inside Syrian territory between Tal Abiad and Ras Al-Ain (Sari Kani). That is less than
one-quarter of the Syrian territory Erdogan was demanding at the start of the Sochi talks.
Craig Murray's report on the farcical yet deeply disturbing court appearance for Julian
Assange should be as widely distributed as possible. Please share with colleagues and request
they do the same.
The Russian-Turkish Memorandum confirms the legality of the Turkish "Operation Spring
Peace" within a border area of 32 kilometers with the exception of the city of Qamishli. It
makes no mention of US demands to shut down the northern land corridor linking Tehran to
Beirut. Moreover, it does not set a deadline for the withdrawal of the Turkish army, which
is now likely to impose a military occupation, as it has done in Cyprus and Iraq.
Regarding article @ 3: It does make sense that Erdogan had the leverage in his negotiation
with Putin.
Russia's interest is in brokering peace and keeping its bases and influence in Syria/ME.
It's not to openly antagonize Turkey economically or militarily. Therefore, Putin can state
his commitment to a unified Syria free from foreign occupation as an aspirational goal, but
can't demand it or force it to happen as things stand.
Lavrov and Shoygu's press conference shortly after the signing of the Russia-Turkey
memorandum of understating. Lavrov verbally pokes at the Outlaw Empire, and Shoygu uses some
sarcasm. Quite informative with the Q&A segment ...
Objectively this should be a death sentence for Trump reelection -- war criminals should
never be reelected: he proved to be yet another MIC stooge. And his government is not that
different form Hillarie's: it is the same government of lies by lies for liars (from MIC)...
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the experts pointed out. ..."
"... Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best." ..."
"... Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being politically compromised when it comes to Syria. ..."
A whistleblower with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),
responsible for conducting an independent investigation into the alleged chemical attack in the
Syrian town of Douma on April 7, 2018, has presented WikiLeaks with a body of evidence
suggesting the chemical weapons watchdog agency manipulated and suppressed evidence .
A prior official OPCW
report of the investigation issued last March found "reasonable grounds" for believing a
toxic chemical was used against civilians, likely chlorine. Long prior to any independent
investigators reaching the site, however, Washington had launched major tomahawk airstrikes
against Damascus in retribution for "Assad gassing his own people" .
WikiLeaks published documents based on evidence presented by the internal OPCW whistleblower
to an expert review panel on Wednesday. "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt
on the integrity of the OPCW," WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson wrote.
An official WikiLeaks press release said as follows :
Kristinn Hrafnsson took part in the panel to review the testimony and documents from the
OPCW whistleblower. He says: "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the
integrity of the OPCW. Although the whistleblower was not ready to step forward and/or
present documents to the public, WikiLeaks believes it is now of utmost interest for the
public to see everything that was collected by the Fact Finding Mission on Douma and all
scientific reports written in relation to the investigation."
"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text
exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over
unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the
experts pointed out.
"We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses,
toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed,
ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ."
The testimony further revealed "disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the
investigation whilst thwarting their attempts to raise legitimate concerns , highlight
irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments."
The new information was enough to convince José Bustani, former director-general of
the OPCW to conclude there is now "convincing evidence" of irregularities .
According to a summary of the latest controversy to cast doubt on the dominant mainstream
narrative related to Douma, Middle East analysis site Al-Bab noted Bustain
harbored prior doubts :
Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in
Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the
international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at
best."
Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the
international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being
politically compromised when it comes to Syria.
"Because of my great wisdom as a stable genius, i launched major tomahawk airstrikes
against Damascus in retribution for Assad gassing his own people" .
I am Ironman!
Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all
Or if he moves will he fall?
Tell that to the Syrians who were killed, both soldiers and civilians, as well as those
having to pay for the lost property that was destroyed. It was thrown out there, purely out
of thin air, that nothing of substance was hit and it was just a show by Trump, despite
reports by those terrorized by the attacks.
It's the same lying neocon **** that cried out "Darfur!"..."Donbass!"...the exact same
lying ****. **** them all to hell, I wish I could exterminate their voices forever.
The Gas Lighting, PsyOp & False Flags will continue until the masses are completely
Frightened & Brainwashed.
US Interference and Regime Change PsyOp
"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate
that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners
quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the
uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of
completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar
Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria."
Regime change is the only reason we or any of our proxies are there. We have NO GOOD
REASON being there other than this BS.
The US Congress has not approved the US being in Syria.
The UN Security Council has not approved the US presence in Syria.
President Assad of Syria did not invite the US or approve the US presence in
Syria.
Only the US deep state neocons have approved the US presence in the context of "regime
change".
I mean C'mon now? These Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Deep State CIA, MI6,
Mossad Psychopaths couldn't write up a different Scripted False Narrative PsyOp to sell to
the World & American People.
CHEM ATTACK PART III RETURN OF THE ASSAD.
The Lack of creativity among those in the Pentagram & Deep Staters is downright
pathetic.
Bolton was nothing more than a mere Agent of Chaos with his mission the for continuation
of the Yinon Plan.
I'd respect them more if they'd just said, "we seeking regime change to secure the better
interests of Israel, the US & World Community."
Wink, wink, nod, nod...those better interest are the Qatari Pipeline to provide continued
SA & Petro Dollar Hegemony among Vassel States. While simultaneously eliminating Russia's
& Gasprom's ability to supply European Oil.
Supporting neoliberalism is the key treason of contemporary intellectuals eeho were instrumental in decimating the New Deal capitalism,
to say nothing about neocon, who downgraded themselves into intellectual prostitutes of MIC mad try to destroy post WWII order.
Notable quotes:
"... More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. ..."
"... "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration. ..."
"... In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates' devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles sounds! ..."
"... In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other 'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time." ..."
"... In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him. ..."
"... His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ." ..."
"... From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm is erupting in every corner of cultural life today. ..."
"... Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned by the court of diversity." ..."
"... Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit." ..."
"... Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason ..."
"... In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity." ..."
"... The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. ..."
"... In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things, this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual divisions ..."
"... Granted, the belief that there is "Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science": these are among today's talismanic fetishes. ..."
"... Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism." The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational animus in the mid-1940s. ..."
"... Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce, anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity." ..."
"... The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. ..."
"... There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual in favor of the group ..."
"... To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection of culture to anthropology. ..."
"... In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than Shakespeare." ..."
"... The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? ..."
"... . Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference: Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value ..."
"... The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim." ..."
"... "'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children and of the detractors of the West. ..."
"... There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. ..."
"... As the impassioned proponents of "diversity" meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom. ..."
"... Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but the idea of a world common to all men." ..."
On the abandonment of Enlightenment intellectualism, and the emergence of a new form of Volksgeist.
When hatred of culture becomes itself a part of culture, the life of the mind loses all meaning. -- Alain Finkielkraut,
The Undoing of Thought
Today we are trying to spread knowledge everywhere. Who knows if in centuries to come there will not be universities
for re-establishing our former ignorance? -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
I n 1927, the French essayist Julien Benda published his famous attack on the intellectual corruption of the age, La Trahison
des clercs. I said "famous," but perhaps "once famous" would have been more accurate. For today, in the United States anyway,
only the title of the book, not its argument, enjoys much currency. "La trahison des clercs": it is one of those memorable phrases
that bristles with hints and associations without stating anything definite. Benda tells us that he uses the term "clerc" in "the
medieval sense," i.e., to mean "scribe," someone we would now call a member of the intelligentsia. Academics and journalists, pundits,
moralists, and pontificators of all varieties are in this sense clercs . The English translation, The Treason of the Intellectuals
,
1 sums it up neatly.
The "treason" in question was the betrayal by the "clerks" of their vocation as intellectuals. From the time of the pre-Socratics,
intellectuals, considered in their role as intellectuals, had been a breed apart. In Benda's terms, they were understood to
be "all those whose activity essentially is not the pursuit of practical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice
of an art or a science or a metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession of non-material advantages." Thanks to such men,
Benda wrote, "humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honored good. This contradiction was an honor to the human species, and
formed the rift whereby civilization slipped into the world."
According to Benda, however, this situation was changing. More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to
the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal
of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. The attack on the universal went forward
in social and political life as well as in the refined precincts of epistemology and metaphysics: "Those who for centuries had exhorted
men, at least theoretically, to deaden the feeling of their differences have now come to praise them, according to where the sermon
is given, for their 'fidelity to the French soul,' 'the immutability of their German consciousness,' for the 'fervor of their Italian
hearts.'" In short, intellectuals began to immerse themselves in the unsettlingly practical and material world of political passions:
precisely those passions, Benda observed, "owing to which men rise up against other men, the chief of which are racial passions,
class passions and national passions." The "rift" into which civilization had been wont to slip narrowed and threatened to close
altogether.
Writing at a moment when ethnic and nationalistic hatreds were beginning to tear Europe asunder, Benda's diagnosis assumed the
lineaments of a prophecy -- a prophecy that continues to have deep resonance today. "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual
organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in
the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little
more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the
greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration.
J ulien Benda was not so naïve as to believe that intellectuals as a class had ever entirely abstained from political involvement,
or, indeed, from involvement in the realm of practical affairs. Nor did he believe that intellectuals, as citizens, necessarily
should abstain from political commitment or practical affairs. The "treason" or betrayal he sought to publish concerned the
way that intellectuals had lately allowed political commitment to insinuate itself into their understanding of the intellectual vocation
as such. Increasingly, Benda claimed, politics was "mingled with their work as artists, as men of learning, as philosophers." The
ideal of disinterestedness, the universality of truth: such guiding principles were contemptuously deployed as masks when they were
not jettisoned altogether. It was in this sense that he castigated the " desire to abase the values of knowledge before the values
of action ."
In its crassest but perhaps also most powerful form, this desire led to that familiar phenomenon Benda dubbed "the cult of success."
It is summed up, he writes, in "the teaching that says that when a will is successful that fact alone gives it a moral value, whereas
the will which fails is for that reason alone deserving of contempt." In itself, this idea is hardly novel, as history from the Greek
sophists on down reminds us. In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates'
devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts
Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully
pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles
sounds!
In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles
espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism
by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other
'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things
were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time."
In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him.
To appreciate the force of Benda's thesis one need only think of that most influential modern Callicles, Friedrich Nietzsche.
His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and
evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real
problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all
values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated
but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ."
Benda understood that the stakes were high: the treason of the intellectuals signaled not simply the corruption of a bunch of
scribblers but a fundamental betrayal of culture. By embracing the ethic of Callicles, intellectuals had, Benda reckoned, precipitated
"one of the most remarkable turning points in the moral history of the human species. It is impossible," he continued,
to exaggerate the importance of a movement whereby those who for twenty centuries taught Man that the criterion of the morality
of an act is its disinterestedness, that good is a decree of his reason insofar as it is universal, that his will is only moral
if it seeks its law outside its objects, should begin to teach him that the moral act is the act whereby he secures his existence
against an environment which disputes it, that his will is moral insofar as it is a will "to power," that the part of his soul
which determines what is good is its "will to live" wherein it is most "hostile to all reason," that the morality of an act is
measured by its adaptation to its end, and that the only morality is the morality of circumstances. The educators of the human
mind now take sides with Callicles against Socrates, a revolution which I dare to say seems to me more important than all political
upheavals.
The Treason of the Intellectuals is an energetic hodgepodge of a book. The philosopher Jean-François Revel recently
described it as "one of the fussiest pleas on behalf of the necessary independence of intellectuals." Certainly it is rich, quirky,
erudite, digressive, and polemical: more an exclamation than an analysis. Partisan in its claims for disinterestedness, it is ruthless
in its defense of intellectual high-mindedness. Yet given the horrific events that unfolded in the decades following its publication,
Benda's unremitting attack on the politicization of the intellect and ethnic separatism cannot but strike us as prescient. And given
the continuing echo in our own time of the problems he anatomized, the relevance of his observations to our situation can hardly
be doubted. From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands
for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues
to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm
is erupting in every corner of cultural life today.
In 1988, the young French philosopher and cultural critic Alain Finkielkraut took up where Benda left off, producing a brief
but searching inventory of our contemporary cataclysms. Entitled La Défaite de la pensée
2 ("The 'Defeat' or 'Undoing' of Thought"), his essay is in part an updated taxonomy of intellectual betrayals. In this
sense, the book is a trahison des clercs for the post-Communist world, a world dominated as much by the leveling imperatives
of pop culture as by resurgent nationalism and ethnic separatism. Beginning with Benda, Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent
strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century
German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that
of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned
by the court of diversity."
Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit."
Quoting the French historian Joseph Renan, he describes the idea as "the most dangerous explosive of modern times." "Nothing," he
writes, "can stop a state that has become prey to the Volksgeist ." It is one of Finkielkraut's leitmotifs that today's multiculturalists
are in many respects Herder's (generally unwitting) heirs.
True, Herder's emphasis on history and language did much to temper the tendency to abstraction that one finds in some expressions
of the Enlightenment. Ernst Cassirer even remarked that "Herder's achievement is one of the greatest intellectual triumphs of the
philosophy of the Enlightenment."
Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction
of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason. Finkielkraut opposes this just as the
mature Goethe once took issue with Herder's adoration of the Volksgeist. Finkielkraut concedes that we all "relate to a particular
tradition" and are "shaped by our national identity." But, unlike the multiculturalists, he soberly insists that "this reality merit[s]
some recognition, not idolatry."
In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes
the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive
worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity."
The Undoing of Thought resembles The Treason of the Intellectuals stylistically as well as thematically. Both
books are sometimes breathless congeries of sources and aperçus. And Finkielkraut, like Benda (and, indeed, like Montaigne), tends
to proceed more by collage than by demonstration. But he does not simply recapitulate Benda's argument.
The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still
had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much
attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. Finkielkraut's distinctive contribution is to have taken the
measure of the cultural swamp that surrounds us, to have delineated the links joining the politicization of the intellect and its
current forms of debasement.
In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things,
this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual
divisions.
The humanizing "reason" that Enlightenment champions is a universal reason, sharable, in principle, by all. Such ideals have not
fared well in the twentieth century: Herder's progeny have labored hard to discredit them. Granted, the belief that there is
"Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular
chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science":
these are among today's talismanic fetishes.
Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism."
The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason
and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other
absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer
and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational
animus in the mid-1940s.
Safely ensconced in Los Angeles, these refugees from Hitler's Reich published an influential essay on the concept of Enlightenment.
Among much else, they assured readers that "Enlightenment is totalitarian." Never mind that at that very moment the Nazi war machine
-- what one might be forgiven for calling real totalitarianism -- was busy liquidating millions of people in order to fulfill
another set of anti-Enlightenment fantasies inspired by devotion to the Volksgeist .
The diatribe that Horkheimer and Adorno mounted against the concept of Enlightenment reminds us of an important peculiarity about
the history of Enlightenment: namely, that it is a movement of thought that began as a reaction against tradition and has now emerged
as one of tradition's most important safeguards. Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce,
anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity."
The chief enemy of Enlightenment was "superstition," an omnibus term that included all manner of religious, philosophical, and
moral ideas. But as the sociologist Edward Shils has noted, although the Enlightenment was in important respects "antithetical to
tradition" in its origins, its success was due in large part "to the fact that it was promulgated and pursued in a society in which
substantive traditions were rather strong." "It was successful against its enemies," Shils notes in his book Tradition (1981),
because the enemies were strong enough to resist its complete victory over them. Living on a soil of substantive traditionality,
the ideas of the Enlightenment advanced without undoing themselves. As long as respect for authority on the one side and self-confidence
in those exercising authority on the other persisted, the Enlightenment's ideal of emancipation through the exercise of reason
went forward. It did not ravage society as it would have done had society lost all legitimacy.
It is this mature form of Enlightenment, championing reason but respectful of tradition, that Finkielkraut holds up as an ideal.
W hat Finkielkraut calls "the undoing of thought" flows from the widespread disintegration of a faith. At the center of that faith
is the assumption that the life of thought is "the higher life" and that culture -- what the Germans call Bildung -- is its
end or goal.
The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many
anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed
with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. "It
is," he writes, "the first time in European history that non-thought has donned the same label and enjoyed the same status as thought
itself, and the first time that those who, in the name of 'high culture,' dare to call this non-thought by its name, are dismissed
as racists and reactionaries." The attack is perpetrated not from outside, by uncomprehending barbarians, but chiefly from inside,
by a new class of barbarians, the self-made barbarians of the intelligentsia. This is the undoing of thought. This is the new "treason
of the intellectuals."
There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's
scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual
in favor of the group . "Their most extraordinary feat," he observes, "is to have put forward as the ultimate individual liberty
the unconditional primacy of the collective." Western rationalism and individualism are rejected in the name of a more "authentic"
cult.
One example: Finkielkraut quotes a champion of multiculturalism who maintains that "to help immigrants means first of all respecting
them for what they are, respecting whatever they aspire to in their national life, in their distinctive culture and in their attachment
to their spiritual and religious roots." Would this, Finkielkraut asks, include "respecting" those religious codes which demanded
that the barren woman be cast out and the adulteress be punished with death?
What about those cultures in which the testimony of one man counts for that of two women? In which female circumcision is practiced?
In which slavery flourishes? In which mixed marriages are forbidden and polygamy encouraged? Multiculturalism, as Finkielkraut points
out, requires that we respect such practices. To criticize them is to be dismissed as "racist" and "ethnocentric." In this secular
age, "cultural identity" steps in where the transcendent once was: "Fanaticism is indefensible when it appeals to heaven, but beyond
reproach when it is grounded in antiquity and cultural distinctiveness."
To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection
of culture to anthropology. Finkielkraut speaks in this context of a "cheerful confusion which raises everyday anthropological
practices to the pinnacle of the human race's greatest achievements." This process began in the nineteenth century, but it has been
greatly accelerated in our own age. One thinks, for example, of the tireless campaigning of that great anthropological leveler, Claude
Lévi-Strauss. Lévi-Strauss is assuredly a brilliant writer, but he has also been an extraordinarily baneful influence. Already in
the early 1950s, when he was pontificating for UNESCO , he was urging all and sundry to "fight against ranking cultural differences
hierarchically." In La Pensée sauvage (1961), he warned against the "false antinomy between logical and prelogical mentality"
and was careful in his descriptions of natives to refer to "so-called primitive thought." "So-called" indeed. In a famous article
on race and history, Lévi-Strauss maintained that the barbarian was not the opposite of the civilized man but "first of all the man
who believes there is such a thing as barbarism." That of course is good to know. It helps one to appreciate Lévi-Strauss's claim,
in Tristes Tropiques (1955), that the "true purpose of civilization" is to produce "inertia." As one ruminates on the proposition
that cultures should not be ranked hierarchically, it is also well to consider what Lévi-Strauss coyly refers to as "the positive
forms of cannibalism." For Lévi-Strauss, cannibalism has been unfairly stigmatized in the "so-called" civilized West. In fact, he
explains, cannibalism was "often observed with great discretion, the vital mouthful being made up of a small quantity of organic
matter mixed, on occasion, with other forms of food." What, merely a "vital mouthful"? Not to worry! Only an ignoramus who believed
that there were important distinctions, qualitative distinctions, between the barbarian and the civilized man could possibly
think of objecting.
Of course, the attack on distinctions that Finkielkraut castigates takes place not only among cultures but also within a given
culture. Here again, the anthropological imperative has played a major role. "Under the equalizing eye of social science," he writes,
hierarchies are abolished, and all the criteria of taste are exposed as arbitrary. From now on no rigid division separates masterpieces
from run-of-the mill works. The same fundamental structure, the same general and elemental traits are common to the "great" novels
(whose excellence will henceforth be demystified by the accompanying quotation marks) and plebian types of narrative activity.
F or confirmation of this, one need only glance at the pronouncements of our critics. Whether working in the academy or other
cultural institutions, they bring us the same news: there is "no such thing" as intrinsic merit, "quality" is an only ideological
construction, aesthetic value is a distillation of social power, etc., etc.
In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the
name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and
say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than
Shakespeare."
Those whom Finkielkraut calls "postmodernists," waving the standard of radical chic, declare that Shakespeare is no better than
the latest fashion -- no better, say, than the newest item offered by Calvin Klein. The litany that Finkielkraut recites is familiar:
A comic which combines exciting intrigue and some pretty pictures is just as good as a Nabokov novel. What little Lolitas read
is as good as Lolita . An effective publicity slogan counts for as much as a poem by Apollinaire or Francis Ponge . The
footballer and the choreographer, the painter and the couturier, the writer and the ad-man, the musician and the rock-and-roller,
are all the same: creators. We must scrap the prejudice which restricts that title to certain people and regards others as sub-cultural.
The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high
culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? Anyone
who thinks so should take a moment to recall the major exhibition called "High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture" that the Museum
of Modern Art mounted a few years ago: it might have been called "Krazy Kat Meets Picasso." Few events can have so consummately summed
up the corrosive trivialization of culture now perpetrated by those entrusted with preserving it. Among other things, that exhibition
demonstrated the extent to which the apotheosis of popular culture undermines the very possibility of appreciating high art on its
own terms.
When the distinction between culture and entertainment is obliterated, high art is orphaned, exiled from the only context in which
its distinctive meaning can manifest itself: Picasso becomes a kind of cartoon. This, more than any elitism or obscurity,
is the real threat to culture today. As Hannah Arendt once observed, "there are many great authors of the past who have survived
centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version
of what they have to say."
And this brings us to the question of freedom. Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar
to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference:
Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of
the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value.
For the postmodernist, then, "culture is no longer seen as a means of emancipation, but as one of the élitist obstacles to this."
The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism
promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is
a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change
one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim."
What Finkielkraut has understood with admirable clarity is that modern attacks on elitism represent not the extension but the
destruction of culture. "Democracy," he writes, "once implied access to culture for everybody. From now on it is going to mean everyone's
right to the culture of his choice." This may sound marvelous -- it is after all the slogan one hears shouted in academic and cultural
institutions across the country -- but the result is precisely the opposite of what was intended.
"'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children
and of the detractors of the West." The irony, alas, is that by removing standards and declaring that "anything goes," one does
not get more culture, one gets more and more debased imitations of culture. This fraud is the dirty secret that our cultural commissars
refuse to acknowledge.
There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common
humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. "A careless indifference to grand
causes," Finkielkraut warns, "has its counterpart in abdication in the face of force." As the impassioned proponents of "diversity"
meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom.
Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but
the idea of a world common to all men."
Julien Benda took his epigraph for La Trahison des clercs from the nineteenth-century French philosopher Charles Renouvier:
Le monde souffre du manque de foi en une vérité transcendante : "The world suffers from lack of faith in a transcendent truth."
Without some such faith, we are powerless against the depredations of intellectuals who have embraced the nihilism of Callicles as
their truth.
1The Treason of the Intellectuals, by Julien Benda, translated by Richard Aldington, was first published in 1928.
This translation is still in print from Norton.
2La Défaite de la pensée , by Alain Finkielkraut; Gallimard, 162 pages, 72 FF . It is available in English, in
a translation by Dennis O'Keeffe, as The Undoing of Thought (The Claridge Press [London], 133 pages, £6.95 paper).
Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. His latest book
is The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia (St. Augustine's Press)
Neocons are lobbyists for MIC, the it is MIC that is the center of this this cult. People like Kriston, Kagan and Max Boot are
just well paid prostituttes on MIC, which includes intelligence agencies as a very important part -- the bridge to Wall Street so to
speak.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us. ..."
Glenn Greenwald has just published a very important
article in The Intercept that I would have everyone in America read if I could. Titled "With New D.C. Policy Group,
Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons", Greenwald's excellent piece details the frustratingly under-reported
way that the leaders of the neoconservative death cult have been realigning with the Democratic party.
This pivot back to the party of neoconservatism's origin is one of the most significant political events of the new millennium,
but aside from a handful of sharp political analysts like Greenwald it's been going largely undiscussed. This is weird, and we need
to start talking about it. A lot. Their willful alignment with neoconservatism should be the very first thing anyone ever talks about
when discussing the Democratic party.
When you hear someone complaining that the Democratic party has no platform besides being anti-Trump, your response should be,
"Yeah it does. Their platform is the omnicidal death cult of neoconservatism."
It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard
as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly
calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever
existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions
with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a
world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan
member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Check out leading neoconservative Bill Kristol's response to the aforementioned Intercept article:
... ... ...
Okay, leaving aside the fact that this bloodthirsty psychopath is saying neocons "won" a Cold War that neocons have deliberately
reignited by fanning the flames of the Russia hysteria and
pushing for more escalations , how insane is it that we live in a society where a public figure can just be like, "Yeah, I'm
a neocon, I advocate for using military aggression to maintain US hegemony and I think it's great," and have that be okay? These
people kill children. Neoconservatism means piles upon piles of child corpses. It means devoting the resources of a nation that won't
even provide its citizens with a real healthcare system to widespread warfare and all the death, destruction, chaos, terrorism, rape
and suffering that necessarily comes with war. The only way that you can possibly regard neoconservatism as just one more set of
political opinions is if you completely compartmentalize away from the reality of everything that it is.
This should not happen. The tensions with Russia that these monsters have worked so hard to escalate could blow up at any moment;
there are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. The last Cold War brought our species
within a hair's
breadth of total annihilation due to our inability to foresee all possible complications which can arise from such a contest,
and these depraved death cultists are trying to drag us back into another one. Nothing is worth that. Nothing is worth risking the
life of every organism on earth, but they're risking it all for geopolitical influence.
... ... ...
I've had a very interesting last 24 hours. My
article about Senator John
McCain (which I titled "Please Just Fucking Die Already" because the title I really wanted to use seemed a bit crass) has received
an amount of attention that I'm not accustomed to, from
CNN to
USA Today to the
Washington Post . I watched Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar
talking about me on The View . They called me a "Bernie
Sanders person." It was a trip. Apparently some very low-level Republican with a few hundred Twitter followers went and retweeted
my article with an approving caption, and that sort of thing is worthy of coast-to-coast mainstream coverage in today's America.
This has of course brought in a deluge of angry comments, mostly from people whose social media pages are full of Russiagate
nonsense , showing
where McCain's current support base comes from. Some call him a war hero, some talk about him like he's a perfectly fine politician,
some defend him as just a normal person whose politics I happen to disagree with.
This is insane. This man has actively and enthusiastically pushed for every single act of military aggression that America has
engaged in, and some that
it hasn't , throughout his entire career. He makes Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton look like a dove. When you look
at John McCain, the very first thing you see should not be a former presidential candidate, a former POW or an Arizona Senator; the
first thing you see should be the piles of human corpses that he has helped to create. This is not a normal kind of person, and I
still do sincerely hope that he dies of natural causes before he can do any more harm.
Can we change this about ourselves, please? None of us should have to live in a world where pushing for more bombing campaigns
at every opportunity is an acceptable agenda for a public figure to have. Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless
hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are
traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any
kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are
whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around
what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us.
-- -- --
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me on Facebook , following me on
Twitter , or throwing some money into my hat on
Patreon .
Former national security officials fight back as Trump attacks impeachment as 'deep
state' conspiracy
"What is happening currently is not normal," said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, who served as
a U.S. intelligence officer on Russia and Eurasia before stepping down in 2018. "This
represents a deviation from the way that these institutions regularly function. And when the
institutions don't work, that is a national security threat."
She was among 90 national security veterans who signed an open letter published Sunday
in support of the anonymous whistleblower who filed a complaint that Trump had acted
improperly in asking the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden in a July phone
call.
Trump has attempted to intimidate other government officials into not cooperating by
casting those who offered information to the whistleblower as "close to spies." The open
letter emphasized that the whistleblower "is protected from certain egregious forms of
retaliation."
With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls, the Democrats have declared that the
decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country
has done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to
endless war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed
them off, declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the
choice of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by
Turkey as an existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's
a big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort
of hand wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable
person could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees.
Why must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops
to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These
forces do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed
their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John
Kerry admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign
policy was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
gjohnsit on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 5:38pm With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls,
the Democrats have declared that the decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has
done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to endless
war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed them off,
declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the choice
of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by Turkey as an
existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's a
big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort of hand
wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable person
could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees. Why
must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to
Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces
do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their
attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John Kerry
admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign policy
was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public relations
companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of the
public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
The New Arab article quote "public relations firms to brandish their image in the US" has a word usage problem. The correct
word would be burnish, not brandish. You brandish your weapon. You burnish your image.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public
relations companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of
the public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the United
States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability to
go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing a long-term
buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by Syrian/Russian/Kurdish
forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the whole
thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking Syrian
forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where it dies
down in a couple weeks.
"Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness" won't happen. The MSM won't allow it.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the
United States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability
to go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing
a long-term buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by
Syrian/Russian/Kurdish forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the
whole thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking
Syrian forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where
it dies down in a couple weeks.
(as Kurdish Syria is sometimes called) is that one
of the Kurd leaders became a follower of Murray Bookchin after spending a bunch of time as a Marxist-Leninist, and so portions
of Kurdish society are an experiment in Bookchinism. Here is a
piece by Bookchin's daughter on the correspondence between him and the Kurds. Hopefully the Kurds will find some protection
in the new Putin-brokered Syria.
Otherwise, yeah, the Kurds are an ally of convenience for the Democratic Party and its apologists on that most disgusting of
propaganda instruments, National Public Radio.
but it should have also been illegal for us to arm the same people that we had declared terrorists. Now those people are killing
the people who fought on our side against the ones now doing the killing.. my head is spinning with all the insane talking points
coming from people who have never met a war they didn't support.
This is a good read.
Former and current US officials have slammed the Turkish mercenary force of "Arab militias" for executing and beheading Kurds
in northern Syria. New data from Turkey reveals that almost all of these militias were armed and trained in the past by the CIA
and Pentagon.
By Max Blumenthal
Left: John McCain with then-FSA chief Salim Idriss (right) in 2013; Right: Salim Idriss (center) in October, announcing the establishment
of the National Front for Liberation, the Turkish mercenary army that has invaded northern Syria.
Hmm..kinda hard to explain that huh? The article talks about Idriss in detail. As well as Obama and Hillary's roles in the
'no boots on the ground' war.
This should embarrass every person who is moaning over Trump's actions in Syria. Turkey was coming in one way or another and
the only way to stop them was for our troops to stand in their way. But what really ticks me off is all of that equipment they
left behind on their bug out. Not just tents , TVs and air conditioners and everything in between, but they left weapons and bombs
there and they just blew them up. This will make the defense companies very happy!
After the ceasefire, US backed
#Kurds are deciding to hand over the north of
#Syria to Turkey rather than the
Syrian army. All trump had to promise them was a stake in
#Syria 's oil fields.
https://t.co/euat8DvIa4
Syrian Girl lives in Syria and has been a good source of information, but I'm not sure if what she is reporting is true. But
wouldn't that shut lots of people up?
Obama kept troops out of Syria until the last minute. Then he took a force small enough to justify his successor's escalation.
So when the Turks tried to genocide the Kurds - like they were certain to do - Trump gets the blame. But it was supposed to be
Hillary. What was in it for her? The joy of another country seeing genocide?
The Kurds were promised land and valuable oil fields in North Eastern Syria by... the US. What's wrong with this picture? Damascus
has I invited the Kurds to be part of the multi-ethnic Syria. The Kurds refused and took America's deal. We armed them to the
teeth with 10s of billions of dollars of weapons. What could go wrong? Well just about everything as the US offer was highly illegal,
they are stealing Syrian oil, and Turkey will not accept any Kurdish permanent enclave on her border. Syria, Russia, Iran, China,
Hezbollah, Iraq and more support the reunification of all of Syria. Why were the Kurds so stupid? Go it? Blind belief in the all
powerful US!
Supporting neoliberalism is the key treason of contemporary intellectuals eeho were instrumental in decimating the New Deal capitalism,
to say nothing about neocon, who downgraded themselves into intellectual prostitutes of MIC mad try to destroy post WWII order.
Notable quotes:
"... More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. ..."
"... "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration. ..."
"... In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates' devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles sounds! ..."
"... In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other 'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time." ..."
"... In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him. ..."
"... His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ." ..."
"... From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm is erupting in every corner of cultural life today. ..."
"... Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned by the court of diversity." ..."
"... Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit." ..."
"... Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason ..."
"... In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity." ..."
"... The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. ..."
"... In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things, this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual divisions ..."
"... Granted, the belief that there is "Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science": these are among today's talismanic fetishes. ..."
"... Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism." The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational animus in the mid-1940s. ..."
"... Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce, anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity." ..."
"... The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. ..."
"... There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual in favor of the group ..."
"... To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection of culture to anthropology. ..."
"... In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than Shakespeare." ..."
"... The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? ..."
"... . Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference: Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value ..."
"... The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim." ..."
"... "'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children and of the detractors of the West. ..."
"... There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. ..."
"... As the impassioned proponents of "diversity" meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom. ..."
"... Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but the idea of a world common to all men." ..."
On the abandonment of Enlightenment intellectualism, and the emergence of a new form of Volksgeist.
When hatred of culture becomes itself a part of culture, the life of the mind loses all meaning. -- Alain Finkielkraut,
The Undoing of Thought
Today we are trying to spread knowledge everywhere. Who knows if in centuries to come there will not be universities
for re-establishing our former ignorance? -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
I n 1927, the French essayist Julien Benda published his famous attack on the intellectual corruption of the age, La Trahison
des clercs. I said "famous," but perhaps "once famous" would have been more accurate. For today, in the United States anyway,
only the title of the book, not its argument, enjoys much currency. "La trahison des clercs": it is one of those memorable phrases
that bristles with hints and associations without stating anything definite. Benda tells us that he uses the term "clerc" in "the
medieval sense," i.e., to mean "scribe," someone we would now call a member of the intelligentsia. Academics and journalists, pundits,
moralists, and pontificators of all varieties are in this sense clercs . The English translation, The Treason of the Intellectuals
,
1 sums it up neatly.
The "treason" in question was the betrayal by the "clerks" of their vocation as intellectuals. From the time of the pre-Socratics,
intellectuals, considered in their role as intellectuals, had been a breed apart. In Benda's terms, they were understood to
be "all those whose activity essentially is not the pursuit of practical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice
of an art or a science or a metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession of non-material advantages." Thanks to such men,
Benda wrote, "humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honored good. This contradiction was an honor to the human species, and
formed the rift whereby civilization slipped into the world."
According to Benda, however, this situation was changing. More and more, intellectuals were abandoning their attachment to
the traditional panoply of philosophical and scholarly ideals. One clear sign of the change was the attack on the Enlightenment ideal
of universal humanity and the concomitant glorification of various particularisms. The attack on the universal went forward
in social and political life as well as in the refined precincts of epistemology and metaphysics: "Those who for centuries had exhorted
men, at least theoretically, to deaden the feeling of their differences have now come to praise them, according to where the sermon
is given, for their 'fidelity to the French soul,' 'the immutability of their German consciousness,' for the 'fervor of their Italian
hearts.'" In short, intellectuals began to immerse themselves in the unsettlingly practical and material world of political passions:
precisely those passions, Benda observed, "owing to which men rise up against other men, the chief of which are racial passions,
class passions and national passions." The "rift" into which civilization had been wont to slip narrowed and threatened to close
altogether.
Writing at a moment when ethnic and nationalistic hatreds were beginning to tear Europe asunder, Benda's diagnosis assumed the
lineaments of a prophecy -- a prophecy that continues to have deep resonance today. "Our age is indeed the age of the intellectual
organization of political hatreds ," he wrote near the beginning of the book. "It will be one of its chief claims to notice in
the moral history of humanity." There was no need to add that its place in moral history would be as a cautionary tale. In little
more than a decade, Benda's prediction that, because of the "great betrayal" of the intellectuals, humanity was "heading for the
greatest and most perfect war ever seen in the world," would achieve a terrifying corroboration.
J ulien Benda was not so naïve as to believe that intellectuals as a class had ever entirely abstained from political involvement,
or, indeed, from involvement in the realm of practical affairs. Nor did he believe that intellectuals, as citizens, necessarily
should abstain from political commitment or practical affairs. The "treason" or betrayal he sought to publish concerned the
way that intellectuals had lately allowed political commitment to insinuate itself into their understanding of the intellectual vocation
as such. Increasingly, Benda claimed, politics was "mingled with their work as artists, as men of learning, as philosophers." The
ideal of disinterestedness, the universality of truth: such guiding principles were contemptuously deployed as masks when they were
not jettisoned altogether. It was in this sense that he castigated the " desire to abase the values of knowledge before the values
of action ."
In its crassest but perhaps also most powerful form, this desire led to that familiar phenomenon Benda dubbed "the cult of success."
It is summed up, he writes, in "the teaching that says that when a will is successful that fact alone gives it a moral value, whereas
the will which fails is for that reason alone deserving of contempt." In itself, this idea is hardly novel, as history from the Greek
sophists on down reminds us. In Plato's Gorgias , for instance, the sophist Callicles expresses his contempt for Socrates'
devotion to philosophy: "I feel toward philosophers very much as I do toward those who lisp and play the child." Callicles taunts
Socrates with the idea that "the more powerful, the better, and the stronger" are simply different words for the same thing. Successfully
pursued, he insists, "luxury and intemperance are virtue and happiness, and all the rest is tinsel." How contemporary Callicles
sounds!
In Benda's formula, this boils down to the conviction that "politics decides morality." To be sure, the cynicism that Callicles
espoused is perennial: like the poor, it will be always with us. What Benda found novel was the accreditation of such cynicism
by intellectuals. "It is true indeed that these new 'clerks' declare that they do not know what is meant by justice, truth, and other
'metaphysical fogs,' that for them the true is determined by the useful, the just by circumstances," he noted. "All these things
were taught by Callicles, but with this difference; he revolted all the important thinkers of his time."
In other words, the real treason of the intellectuals was not that they countenanced Callicles but that they championed him.
To appreciate the force of Benda's thesis one need only think of that most influential modern Callicles, Friedrich Nietzsche.
His doctrine of "the will to power," his contempt for the "slave morality" of Christianity, his plea for an ethic "beyond good and
evil," his infatuation with violence -- all epitomize the disastrous "pragmatism" that marks the intellectual's "treason." The real
problem was not the unattainability but the disintegration of ideals, an event that Nietzsche hailed as the "transvaluation of all
values." "Formerly," Benda observed, "leaders of States practiced realism, but did not honor it; With them morality was violated
but moral notions remained intact, and that is why, in spite of all their violence, they did not disturb civilization ."
Benda understood that the stakes were high: the treason of the intellectuals signaled not simply the corruption of a bunch of
scribblers but a fundamental betrayal of culture. By embracing the ethic of Callicles, intellectuals had, Benda reckoned, precipitated
"one of the most remarkable turning points in the moral history of the human species. It is impossible," he continued,
to exaggerate the importance of a movement whereby those who for twenty centuries taught Man that the criterion of the morality
of an act is its disinterestedness, that good is a decree of his reason insofar as it is universal, that his will is only moral
if it seeks its law outside its objects, should begin to teach him that the moral act is the act whereby he secures his existence
against an environment which disputes it, that his will is moral insofar as it is a will "to power," that the part of his soul
which determines what is good is its "will to live" wherein it is most "hostile to all reason," that the morality of an act is
measured by its adaptation to its end, and that the only morality is the morality of circumstances. The educators of the human
mind now take sides with Callicles against Socrates, a revolution which I dare to say seems to me more important than all political
upheavals.
The Treason of the Intellectuals is an energetic hodgepodge of a book. The philosopher Jean-François Revel recently
described it as "one of the fussiest pleas on behalf of the necessary independence of intellectuals." Certainly it is rich, quirky,
erudite, digressive, and polemical: more an exclamation than an analysis. Partisan in its claims for disinterestedness, it is ruthless
in its defense of intellectual high-mindedness. Yet given the horrific events that unfolded in the decades following its publication,
Benda's unremitting attack on the politicization of the intellect and ethnic separatism cannot but strike us as prescient. And given
the continuing echo in our own time of the problems he anatomized, the relevance of his observations to our situation can hardly
be doubted. From the savage flowering of ethnic hatreds in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to the mendacious demands
for political correctness and multiculturalism on college campuses across America and Europe, the treason of the intellectuals continues
to play out its unedifying drama. Benda spoke of "a cataclysm in the moral notions of those who educate the world." That cataclysm
is erupting in every corner of cultural life today.
In 1988, the young French philosopher and cultural critic Alain Finkielkraut took up where Benda left off, producing a brief
but searching inventory of our contemporary cataclysms. Entitled La Défaite de la pensée
2 ("The 'Defeat' or 'Undoing' of Thought"), his essay is in part an updated taxonomy of intellectual betrayals. In this
sense, the book is a trahison des clercs for the post-Communist world, a world dominated as much by the leveling imperatives
of pop culture as by resurgent nationalism and ethnic separatism. Beginning with Benda, Finkielkraut catalogues several prominent
strategies that contemporary intellectuals have employed to retreat from the universal. A frequent point of reference is the eighteenth-century
German Romantic philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. "From the beginning, or to be more precise, from the time of Plato until that
of Voltaire," he writes, "human diversity had come before the tribunal of universal values; with Herder the eternal values were condemned
by the court of diversity."
Finkielkraut focuses especially on Herder's definitively anti-Enlightenment idea of the Volksgeist or "national spirit."
Quoting the French historian Joseph Renan, he describes the idea as "the most dangerous explosive of modern times." "Nothing," he
writes, "can stop a state that has become prey to the Volksgeist ." It is one of Finkielkraut's leitmotifs that today's multiculturalists
are in many respects Herder's (generally unwitting) heirs.
True, Herder's emphasis on history and language did much to temper the tendency to abstraction that one finds in some expressions
of the Enlightenment. Ernst Cassirer even remarked that "Herder's achievement is one of the greatest intellectual triumphs of the
philosophy of the Enlightenment."
Nevertheless, the multiculturalists' obsession with "diversity" and ethnic origins is in many ways a contemporary redaction
of Herder's elevation of racial particularism over the universalizing mandate of reason. Finkielkraut opposes this just as the
mature Goethe once took issue with Herder's adoration of the Volksgeist. Finkielkraut concedes that we all "relate to a particular
tradition" and are "shaped by our national identity." But, unlike the multiculturalists, he soberly insists that "this reality merit[s]
some recognition, not idolatry."
In Goethe's words, "A generalized tolerance will be best achieved if we leave undisturbed whatever it is which constitutes
the special character of particular individuals and peoples, whilst at the same time we retain the conviction that the distinctive
worth of anything with true merit lies in its belonging to all humanity."
The Undoing of Thought resembles The Treason of the Intellectuals stylistically as well as thematically. Both
books are sometimes breathless congeries of sources and aperçus. And Finkielkraut, like Benda (and, indeed, like Montaigne), tends
to proceed more by collage than by demonstration. But he does not simply recapitulate Benda's argument.
The geography of intellectual betrayal has changed dramatically in the last sixty-odd years. In 1927, intellectuals still
had something definite to betray. In today's "postmodernist" world, the terrain is far mushier: the claims of tradition are much
attenuated and betrayal is often only a matter of acquiescence. Finkielkraut's distinctive contribution is to have taken the
measure of the cultural swamp that surrounds us, to have delineated the links joining the politicization of the intellect and its
current forms of debasement.
In the broadest terms, The Undoing of Thought is a brief for the principles of the Enlightenment. Among other things,
this means that it is a brief for the idea that mankind is united by a common humanity that transcends ethnic, racial, and sexual
divisions.
The humanizing "reason" that Enlightenment champions is a universal reason, sharable, in principle, by all. Such ideals have not
fared well in the twentieth century: Herder's progeny have labored hard to discredit them. Granted, the belief that there is
"Jewish thinking" or "Soviet science" or "Aryan art" is no longer as widespread as it once was. But the dispersal of these particular
chimeras has provided no inoculation against kindred fabrications: "African knowledge," "female language," "Eurocentric science":
these are among today's talismanic fetishes.
Then, too, one finds a stunning array of anti-Enlightenment phantasmagoria congregated under the banner of "anti-positivism."
The idea that history is a "myth," that the truths of science are merely "fictions" dressed up in forbidding clothes, that reason
and language are powerless to discover the truth -- more, that truth itself is a deceitful ideological construct: these and other
absurdities are now part of the standard intellectual diet of Western intellectuals. The Frankfurt School Marxists Max Horkheimer
and Theodor Adorno gave an exemplary but by no means uncharacteristic demonstration of one strain of this brand of anti-rational
animus in the mid-1940s.
Safely ensconced in Los Angeles, these refugees from Hitler's Reich published an influential essay on the concept of Enlightenment.
Among much else, they assured readers that "Enlightenment is totalitarian." Never mind that at that very moment the Nazi war machine
-- what one might be forgiven for calling real totalitarianism -- was busy liquidating millions of people in order to fulfill
another set of anti-Enlightenment fantasies inspired by devotion to the Volksgeist .
The diatribe that Horkheimer and Adorno mounted against the concept of Enlightenment reminds us of an important peculiarity about
the history of Enlightenment: namely, that it is a movement of thought that began as a reaction against tradition and has now emerged
as one of tradition's most important safeguards. Historically, the Enlightenment arose as a deeply anti-clerical and, perforce,
anti-traditional movement. Its goal, in Kant's famous phrase, was to release man from his "self-imposed immaturity."
The chief enemy of Enlightenment was "superstition," an omnibus term that included all manner of religious, philosophical, and
moral ideas. But as the sociologist Edward Shils has noted, although the Enlightenment was in important respects "antithetical to
tradition" in its origins, its success was due in large part "to the fact that it was promulgated and pursued in a society in which
substantive traditions were rather strong." "It was successful against its enemies," Shils notes in his book Tradition (1981),
because the enemies were strong enough to resist its complete victory over them. Living on a soil of substantive traditionality,
the ideas of the Enlightenment advanced without undoing themselves. As long as respect for authority on the one side and self-confidence
in those exercising authority on the other persisted, the Enlightenment's ideal of emancipation through the exercise of reason
went forward. It did not ravage society as it would have done had society lost all legitimacy.
It is this mature form of Enlightenment, championing reason but respectful of tradition, that Finkielkraut holds up as an ideal.
W hat Finkielkraut calls "the undoing of thought" flows from the widespread disintegration of a faith. At the center of that faith
is the assumption that the life of thought is "the higher life" and that culture -- what the Germans call Bildung -- is its
end or goal.
The process of disintegration has lately become an explicit attack on culture. This is not simply to say that there are many
anti-intellectual elements in society: that has always been the case. "Non-thought," in Finkielkraut's phrase, has always co-existed
with the life of the mind. The innovation of contemporary culture is to have obliterated the distinction between the two. "It
is," he writes, "the first time in European history that non-thought has donned the same label and enjoyed the same status as thought
itself, and the first time that those who, in the name of 'high culture,' dare to call this non-thought by its name, are dismissed
as racists and reactionaries." The attack is perpetrated not from outside, by uncomprehending barbarians, but chiefly from inside,
by a new class of barbarians, the self-made barbarians of the intelligentsia. This is the undoing of thought. This is the new "treason
of the intellectuals."
There are many sides to this phenomenon. What Finkielkraut has given us is not a systematic dissection but a kind of pathologist's
scrapbook. He reminds us, for example, that the multiculturalists' demand for "diversity" requires the eclipse of the individual
in favor of the group . "Their most extraordinary feat," he observes, "is to have put forward as the ultimate individual liberty
the unconditional primacy of the collective." Western rationalism and individualism are rejected in the name of a more "authentic"
cult.
One example: Finkielkraut quotes a champion of multiculturalism who maintains that "to help immigrants means first of all respecting
them for what they are, respecting whatever they aspire to in their national life, in their distinctive culture and in their attachment
to their spiritual and religious roots." Would this, Finkielkraut asks, include "respecting" those religious codes which demanded
that the barren woman be cast out and the adulteress be punished with death?
What about those cultures in which the testimony of one man counts for that of two women? In which female circumcision is practiced?
In which slavery flourishes? In which mixed marriages are forbidden and polygamy encouraged? Multiculturalism, as Finkielkraut points
out, requires that we respect such practices. To criticize them is to be dismissed as "racist" and "ethnocentric." In this secular
age, "cultural identity" steps in where the transcendent once was: "Fanaticism is indefensible when it appeals to heaven, but beyond
reproach when it is grounded in antiquity and cultural distinctiveness."
To a large extent, the abdication of reason demanded by multiculturalism has been the result of what we might call the subjection
of culture to anthropology. Finkielkraut speaks in this context of a "cheerful confusion which raises everyday anthropological
practices to the pinnacle of the human race's greatest achievements." This process began in the nineteenth century, but it has been
greatly accelerated in our own age. One thinks, for example, of the tireless campaigning of that great anthropological leveler, Claude
Lévi-Strauss. Lévi-Strauss is assuredly a brilliant writer, but he has also been an extraordinarily baneful influence. Already in
the early 1950s, when he was pontificating for UNESCO , he was urging all and sundry to "fight against ranking cultural differences
hierarchically." In La Pensée sauvage (1961), he warned against the "false antinomy between logical and prelogical mentality"
and was careful in his descriptions of natives to refer to "so-called primitive thought." "So-called" indeed. In a famous article
on race and history, Lévi-Strauss maintained that the barbarian was not the opposite of the civilized man but "first of all the man
who believes there is such a thing as barbarism." That of course is good to know. It helps one to appreciate Lévi-Strauss's claim,
in Tristes Tropiques (1955), that the "true purpose of civilization" is to produce "inertia." As one ruminates on the proposition
that cultures should not be ranked hierarchically, it is also well to consider what Lévi-Strauss coyly refers to as "the positive
forms of cannibalism." For Lévi-Strauss, cannibalism has been unfairly stigmatized in the "so-called" civilized West. In fact, he
explains, cannibalism was "often observed with great discretion, the vital mouthful being made up of a small quantity of organic
matter mixed, on occasion, with other forms of food." What, merely a "vital mouthful"? Not to worry! Only an ignoramus who believed
that there were important distinctions, qualitative distinctions, between the barbarian and the civilized man could possibly
think of objecting.
Of course, the attack on distinctions that Finkielkraut castigates takes place not only among cultures but also within a given
culture. Here again, the anthropological imperative has played a major role. "Under the equalizing eye of social science," he writes,
hierarchies are abolished, and all the criteria of taste are exposed as arbitrary. From now on no rigid division separates masterpieces
from run-of-the mill works. The same fundamental structure, the same general and elemental traits are common to the "great" novels
(whose excellence will henceforth be demystified by the accompanying quotation marks) and plebian types of narrative activity.
F or confirmation of this, one need only glance at the pronouncements of our critics. Whether working in the academy or other
cultural institutions, they bring us the same news: there is "no such thing" as intrinsic merit, "quality" is an only ideological
construction, aesthetic value is a distillation of social power, etc., etc.
In describing this process of leveling, Finkielkraut distinguishes between those who wish to obliterate distinctions in the
name of politics and those who do so out of a kind of narcissism. The multiculturalists wave the standard of radical politics and
say (in the words of a nineteenth-century Russian populist slogan that Finkielkraut quotes): "A pair of boots is worth more than
Shakespeare."
Those whom Finkielkraut calls "postmodernists," waving the standard of radical chic, declare that Shakespeare is no better than
the latest fashion -- no better, say, than the newest item offered by Calvin Klein. The litany that Finkielkraut recites is familiar:
A comic which combines exciting intrigue and some pretty pictures is just as good as a Nabokov novel. What little Lolitas read
is as good as Lolita . An effective publicity slogan counts for as much as a poem by Apollinaire or Francis Ponge . The
footballer and the choreographer, the painter and the couturier, the writer and the ad-man, the musician and the rock-and-roller,
are all the same: creators. We must scrap the prejudice which restricts that title to certain people and regards others as sub-cultural.
The upshot is not only that Shakespeare is downgraded, but also that the bootmaker is elevated. "It is not just that high
culture must be demystified; sport, fashion and leisure now lay claim to high cultural status." A grotesque fantasy? Anyone
who thinks so should take a moment to recall the major exhibition called "High & Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture" that the Museum
of Modern Art mounted a few years ago: it might have been called "Krazy Kat Meets Picasso." Few events can have so consummately summed
up the corrosive trivialization of culture now perpetrated by those entrusted with preserving it. Among other things, that exhibition
demonstrated the extent to which the apotheosis of popular culture undermines the very possibility of appreciating high art on its
own terms.
When the distinction between culture and entertainment is obliterated, high art is orphaned, exiled from the only context in which
its distinctive meaning can manifest itself: Picasso becomes a kind of cartoon. This, more than any elitism or obscurity,
is the real threat to culture today. As Hannah Arendt once observed, "there are many great authors of the past who have survived
centuries of oblivion and neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version
of what they have to say."
And this brings us to the question of freedom. Finkielkraut notes that the rhetoric of postmodernism is in some ways similar
to the rhetoric of Enlightenment. Both look forward to releasing man from his "self-imposed immaturity." But there is this difference:
Enlightenment looks to culture as a repository of values that transcend the self, postmodernism looks to the fleeting desires of
the isolated self as the only legitimate source of value.
For the postmodernist, then, "culture is no longer seen as a means of emancipation, but as one of the élitist obstacles to this."
The products of culture are valuable only as a source of amusement or distraction. In order to realize the freedom that postmodernism
promises, culture must be transformed into a field of arbitrary "options." "The post-modern individual," Finkielkraut writes, "is
a free and easy bundle of fleeting and contingent appetites. He has forgotten that liberty involves more than the ability to change
one's chains, and that culture itself is more than a satiated whim."
What Finkielkraut has understood with admirable clarity is that modern attacks on elitism represent not the extension but the
destruction of culture. "Democracy," he writes, "once implied access to culture for everybody. From now on it is going to mean everyone's
right to the culture of his choice." This may sound marvelous -- it is after all the slogan one hears shouted in academic and cultural
institutions across the country -- but the result is precisely the opposite of what was intended.
"'All cultures are equally legitimate and everything is cultural,' is the common cry of affluent society's spoiled children
and of the detractors of the West." The irony, alas, is that by removing standards and declaring that "anything goes," one does
not get more culture, one gets more and more debased imitations of culture. This fraud is the dirty secret that our cultural commissars
refuse to acknowledge.
There is another, perhaps even darker, result of the undoing of thought. The disintegration of faith in reason and common
humanity leads not only to a destruction of standards, but also involves a crisis of courage. "A careless indifference to grand
causes," Finkielkraut warns, "has its counterpart in abdication in the face of force." As the impassioned proponents of "diversity"
meet the postmodern apostles of acquiescence, fanaticism mixes with apathy to challenge the commitment required to preserve freedom.
Communism may have been effectively discredited. But "what is dying along with it is not the totalitarian cast of mind, but
the idea of a world common to all men."
Julien Benda took his epigraph for La Trahison des clercs from the nineteenth-century French philosopher Charles Renouvier:
Le monde souffre du manque de foi en une vérité transcendante : "The world suffers from lack of faith in a transcendent truth."
Without some such faith, we are powerless against the depredations of intellectuals who have embraced the nihilism of Callicles as
their truth.
1The Treason of the Intellectuals, by Julien Benda, translated by Richard Aldington, was first published in 1928.
This translation is still in print from Norton.
2La Défaite de la pensée , by Alain Finkielkraut; Gallimard, 162 pages, 72 FF . It is available in English, in
a translation by Dennis O'Keeffe, as The Undoing of Thought (The Claridge Press [London], 133 pages, £6.95 paper).
Roger Kimball is Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books. His latest book
is The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia (St. Augustine's Press)
Neocons are lobbyists for MIC, the it is MIC that is the center of this this cult. People like Kriston, Kagan and Max Boot are
just well paid prostituttes on MIC, which includes intelligence agencies as a very important part -- the bridge to Wall Street so to
speak.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us. ..."
Glenn Greenwald has just published a very important
article in The Intercept that I would have everyone in America read if I could. Titled "With New D.C. Policy Group,
Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons", Greenwald's excellent piece details the frustratingly under-reported
way that the leaders of the neoconservative death cult have been realigning with the Democratic party.
This pivot back to the party of neoconservatism's origin is one of the most significant political events of the new millennium,
but aside from a handful of sharp political analysts like Greenwald it's been going largely undiscussed. This is weird, and we need
to start talking about it. A lot. Their willful alignment with neoconservatism should be the very first thing anyone ever talks about
when discussing the Democratic party.
When you hear someone complaining that the Democratic party has no platform besides being anti-Trump, your response should be,
"Yeah it does. Their platform is the omnicidal death cult of neoconservatism."
It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard
as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly
calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever
existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions
with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a
world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan
member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Check out leading neoconservative Bill Kristol's response to the aforementioned Intercept article:
... ... ...
Okay, leaving aside the fact that this bloodthirsty psychopath is saying neocons "won" a Cold War that neocons have deliberately
reignited by fanning the flames of the Russia hysteria and
pushing for more escalations , how insane is it that we live in a society where a public figure can just be like, "Yeah, I'm
a neocon, I advocate for using military aggression to maintain US hegemony and I think it's great," and have that be okay? These
people kill children. Neoconservatism means piles upon piles of child corpses. It means devoting the resources of a nation that won't
even provide its citizens with a real healthcare system to widespread warfare and all the death, destruction, chaos, terrorism, rape
and suffering that necessarily comes with war. The only way that you can possibly regard neoconservatism as just one more set of
political opinions is if you completely compartmentalize away from the reality of everything that it is.
This should not happen. The tensions with Russia that these monsters have worked so hard to escalate could blow up at any moment;
there are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. The last Cold War brought our species
within a hair's
breadth of total annihilation due to our inability to foresee all possible complications which can arise from such a contest,
and these depraved death cultists are trying to drag us back into another one. Nothing is worth that. Nothing is worth risking the
life of every organism on earth, but they're risking it all for geopolitical influence.
... ... ...
I've had a very interesting last 24 hours. My
article about Senator John
McCain (which I titled "Please Just Fucking Die Already" because the title I really wanted to use seemed a bit crass) has received
an amount of attention that I'm not accustomed to, from
CNN to
USA Today to the
Washington Post . I watched Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar
talking about me on The View . They called me a "Bernie
Sanders person." It was a trip. Apparently some very low-level Republican with a few hundred Twitter followers went and retweeted
my article with an approving caption, and that sort of thing is worthy of coast-to-coast mainstream coverage in today's America.
This has of course brought in a deluge of angry comments, mostly from people whose social media pages are full of Russiagate
nonsense , showing
where McCain's current support base comes from. Some call him a war hero, some talk about him like he's a perfectly fine politician,
some defend him as just a normal person whose politics I happen to disagree with.
This is insane. This man has actively and enthusiastically pushed for every single act of military aggression that America has
engaged in, and some that
it hasn't , throughout his entire career. He makes Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton look like a dove. When you look
at John McCain, the very first thing you see should not be a former presidential candidate, a former POW or an Arizona Senator; the
first thing you see should be the piles of human corpses that he has helped to create. This is not a normal kind of person, and I
still do sincerely hope that he dies of natural causes before he can do any more harm.
Can we change this about ourselves, please? None of us should have to live in a world where pushing for more bombing campaigns
at every opportunity is an acceptable agenda for a public figure to have. Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless
hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are
traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any
kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are
whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around
what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us.
-- -- --
I'm a 100 percent reader-funded journalist so if you enjoyed this, please consider helping me out by sharing it around, liking
me on Facebook , following me on
Twitter , or throwing some money into my hat on
Patreon .
"... Clearly, the US hopes wrench Turkey from the Russian embrace. Moscow's studied indifference toward the US-Turkish cogitations betrays its uneasiness. Conceivably, Erdogan will expect Putin to take a holistic view, considering Russia's flourishing and high lucrative economic and military ties with Turkey and the imperative to preserve the momentum of Russia-Turkey relationship. ..."
"... If the US policy in Syria in recent years promoted the Kurdish identity, it has now swung to the other extreme of stoking the fires of Turkish revanchism. This is potentially catastrophic for regional stability. ..."
"... the main outcome will be that Turkey feels it has western support for its long-term occupation of Syrian territory. ..."
"... Arguably, US expects Turkey's cooperation to strengthen its strategy in Syria (and Iraq) where it seeks to contain Iran's influence. From Ankara, Pompeo travelled to Jerusalem to brief Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. " ..."
Now, [..] the sense of betrayal among the Kurds [..] is matched only by their outrage at who
will move in: Turkish soldiers supported by Syrian fighters the United States had long
rejected as extremists, criminals and thugs .
...
The deadly battles [..] have also given new leeway to Syrian fighters once considered too
extreme or unruly to receive American military support.
...
Grandly misnamed the Syrian National Army, this coalition of Turkish-backed militias is in
fact largely composed of the dregs of the eight-year-old conflict's failed rebel movement.
Early in the war [..] the military and the C.I.A. sought to train and equip moderate,
trustworthy rebels to fight the government and the Islamic State.
A few of those now fighting in the northeast took part in those failed programs, but most
were rejected as too extreme or too criminal . Some have expressed extremist sensibilities or
allied with jihadist groups.
The reality is the opposite of what the NYT claims. The majority of the groups now
fighting with the Turkish army had earlier received support from the U.S. Even their nominal
leader is the same one who the U.S. earlier paid, armed and promoted.
On August 31, the Syrian National Coalition came together and elected the president and the
cabinet of the Syrian Interim Government in which Abdurrahman Mustafa was elected president
and Salim Idriss was elected defense minister . With the new cabinet, the Syrian Interim
Government became more active on the ground, started visiting each faction of the National
Army, and accelerated the stalled negotiations to unite the National Army and the NLF under
one command.
Among the 41 factions that joined the merger, 15 are from the NLF and 26 from the National
Army. Thirteen of these factions were formed after the United States cut its support to the
armed Syrian opposition. Out of the 28 factions, 21 were previously supported by the United
States , three of them via the Pentagon's program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions
were supplied by the CIA via the MOM Operations Room in Turkey, a joint intelligence
operation room of the 'Friends of Syria' to support the armed opposition. Fourteen factions
of the 28 were also recipients of the U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank guided missiles.
The SETA study provides a detailed list of the groups involved in the current Turkish
invasion of Syria. Not only is their commander Salim Idriss a former U.S. stooge but the
majority of these groups did receive U.S. support and weapons.
The New York Times claim that only "a few of those" who now fight the YPG Kurds
took part in the U.S. programs is a blatant lie.
The NYT piece quotes three 'experts' who testify that the 'rebels' the U.S. had
armed are really, really bad:
"These are the misfits of the conflict, the worst of the worst," said Hassan Hassan, a
Syrian-born scholar tracking the fighting. "They have been notorious for extortion, theft and
banditry, more like thugs than rebels -- essentially mercenaries."
It was Hassan Hassan who since the start of the conflict lobbied for
arming the rebels from his perch at the UAE's media flagship The National .
Another 'expert' quoted is the Israeli propagandist Elizabeth Tsurkov:
"They are basically gangsters, but they are also racist toward Kurds and other minorities,"
said Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. "No human should
be subjected to their rule."
Tsurkov earlier
lauded the Israeli hiring and arming of the very same 'Syrian rebels'.
Another 'expert' quoted by the Times is a co-chair of the 'congressionally
sponsored bipartisan Syrian Study Group':
"We are turning areas that had been controlled by our allies over to the control of criminals
or thugs, or that in some cases groups were associated or fighting alongside Al Qaeda," said
Ms. Stroul, of the Syrian Study Group. "It is a profound and epic strategic blunder."
The 'Syrian Study Group' wants to prolong the war on Syria. Ms.
Stroul and her co-chair Michael Singh reside at the Washington
Institute which is a part of the Zionist lobby and has long
argued for 'arming the Syrian rebels'.
The Times report does not mention that the 'experts' it quotes all once lobbied for
arming the very same groups they are now lamenting about. When these groups ran rampant in the
areas they took from the Syrian government the Times and its 'experts' were lauding
them all the way. No effort to support them was big enough. All crimes they committed were
covered up or excused.
Now, as the very same rebels attack the Kurds, they are suddenly called out for being what
they always have been.
Posted by b on October 20, 2019 at 11:19 UTC |
Permalink
Hah! More lies from the NYT....mainstream media in the west has deteriorated into a
propaganda channel for the Military Industrial Complex and the oligarchy, pumping out a never
ending tide of lying filth aimed at more and more war (more and more weapon sales) and
promoting and preserving predatory capitalism (more money for the Billionaire class, less for
you).
In my own reading of MSM press and my own watching of the MSM Talking Heads I believe I've
indentified 8 techniques that amoral, dangerous, barely competent idiots that have the cheek
to call themselves journalists use to lie to you, the reader/viewer/listener. Here's my
list...
Okay how practical.
Now only is the NYT trying to whitewash themselves by faking, they are also kind enough to do
the same for their Jihadi lovin partners in crime.
How empathic! How sensible! Like a true moral authority.
BTW: It seems my previous claims were right. The Turks made a 180 and allied with the US
again, reviving the NATO allaince. Now that the Kurds are out of the way in Turk-US
relations, US and NATO has much more to offer than Russia, and noe Erdogan has support from
NATO and will not be deterred by Putin.
B, i respect you immensly, but your belief the Turkish invasion was Erdogan doing some secret
Putin plan was unproven at the time, and now, AT LEAST since the US-Turk deal, is
obsolte.
Read M. K. BHADRAKUMARs blog, he thought like you, but after the US-Turk deal, EVERYTHING
HAS CHANGED:
"The extraordinary US overture to Turkey regarding northern Syria resulted in a joint
statement on Thursday, whose ramifications can be rated only in the fulness of time , as
several intersecting tracks are running.
The US objectives range from Trump's compulsions in domestic politics to the future
trajectory of the US policies toward Syria and the impact of any US-Turkish rapprochement on
the geopolitics of the Syrian conflict.
Meanwhile, the US-Turkish joint statement creates new uncertainties. The two countries
have agreed on a set of principles -- Turkey's crucial status as a NATO power ; security of
Christian minorities in Syria; prevention of an ISIS surge; creation of a "safe zone" on
Turkish-Syrian border; a 120-hour ceasefire ("pause") in Turkish military operations leading
to a permanent halt, hopefully.
The devil lies in the details. Principally, there is no transparency regarding the future
US role in Syria . The Kurds and the US military will withdraw from the 30-kilometre broad
buffer zone. What thereafter? In the words of the US Vice-President Mike Pence at the press
conference in Ankara on Thursday,
"Kurdish population in Syria, with which we have a strong relationship, will continue to
endure. The United States will always be grateful for our partnership with SDF in defeating
ISIS, but we recognise the importance and the value of a safe zone to create a buffer between
Syria proper and the Kurdish population and -- and the Turkish border. And we're going to be
working very closely ."
To be sure, everything devolves upon the creation of the safe zone. Turkey envisages a
zone stretching across the entire 440 kilometre border with Syria upto Iraqi border, while
the US special envoy James Jeffrey remains non-committal, saying it is up to the "Russians
and the Syrians in other areas of the northeast and in Manbij to the west of the Euphrates"
to agree to Turkey's maximalist stance.
Herein lies the rub. Jeffrey would know Ankara will never get its way with Moscow and
Damascus. In fact, President Bashar al-Assad told in unequivocal terms to a high-level
Russian delegation visiting Damascus on Friday, "At the current phase it is necessary to
focus on putting an end to aggression and on the pullout of all Turkish, US and other forces
illegally present in Syrian territories."
Is there daylight between Moscow and Damascus on this highly sensitive issue? Turkish
President Recep Erdogan's forthcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi
on October 22 may provide an answer.
Clearly, the US hopes wrench Turkey from the Russian embrace. Moscow's studied
indifference toward the US-Turkish cogitations betrays its uneasiness. Conceivably, Erdogan
will expect Putin to take a holistic view, considering Russia's flourishing and high
lucrative economic and military ties with Turkey and the imperative to preserve the momentum
of Russia-Turkey relationship.
If the US policy in Syria in recent years promoted the Kurdish identity, it has now
swung to the other extreme of stoking the fires of Turkish revanchism. This is potentially
catastrophic for regional stability. The heart of the matter is that while Turkey's
concerns over terrorism and the refugee problem are legitimate, Operation Peace Spring has
deeper moorings: Turkey's ambitions as regional power and its will to correct the perceived
injustice of territorial losses incurred during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The
ultra-nationalistic Turkish commentator (and staunch supporter of Erdogan) wrote this week in
the pro-government daily Yeni Safak:
"Turkey once again revived the millennium-old political history on Anatolian
territory. It took action with a mission that will carry the legacy of the Seljuks, the
Ottomans, the Republic of Turkey to the next stage It is not possible to set an equation in
this region by excluding Turkey – it will not happen. A map cannot be drawn that
excludes Turkey – it will not happen. A power cannot be established without Turkey
– it will not happen. Throughout history, both the rise and fall of this country has
altered the region the mind in Turkey is now a regional mind, a regional conscience, a
regional identity. President Erdoğan is the pioneer, the bearer of that political
legacy from the Seljuks, the Ottomans, and the Turkish Republic to the future."
Trump is unlikely to pay attention to the irredentist instincts in Turkish regional
policies. Trump's immediate concerns are to please the evangelical Christian constituency in
the US and silence his critics who allege that he threw the Kurds under the bus or that a
ISIS resurgence is imminent. But there is no way the US can deliver on the tall promises made
in the joint statement. The Kurds have influential friends in the Pentagon. (See the article
by Gen. Joseph Votel, former chief of the US Central Command, titled The Danger of Abandoning
our Partners.) Nonetheless, the main outcome will be that Turkey feels it has western
support for its long-term occupation of Syrian territory.
All in all, it's a "win-win" for Erdogan insofar as he got what he wanted -- US' political
and diplomatic support for "the kind of long-term buffer zone that will ensure peace and
stability in the region", to borrow the words of Vice President Pence. A Turkish withdrawal
from Syrian territory can now be virtually ruled out. State secretary Mike Pompeo added at
the press conference in Ankara on Thursday that there is "a great deal of work to do in the
region. There's lots of challenges that remain."
Pompeo said Erdogan's "decision to work alongside President Trump will be one that I think
will benefit Turkey a great deal." Arguably, US expects Turkey's cooperation to
strengthen its strategy in Syria (and Iraq) where it seeks to contain Iran's influence. From
Ankara, Pompeo travelled to Jerusalem to brief Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. "
Add to that, that the Turks now threaten SAA with "full out war".
John Helmers latest post sheds light on the fact, that the Russian military leadership and
the Stavka in general has warned Putin since the Idlib deal again and again to no avail that
the Turks would do this.
Which seems now to have been proven true since the US-Turk deal, which in essence changed
everything overnight.
As the extremity of propaganda in mainstream news becomes more obvious a few American
consumers of news do begin to have doubts. Most continue to be entirely uncritical. The
barflies here are in the habit of being critical, analytic, skeptical when reading any news
from any source. That is not the American way.
The cohort of educated prosperous middle class readers of the NYT has total faith in NYT.
Having the paper edition on the doorstep in the morning is a badge of membership. A totem
that gives them status. Questioning any word or phrase or clause that appears in print is
wrong. Asking questions means something is wrong with you. The Times is never wrong. Those
who doubt the Times have mental health issues. Or they are alt-right. Or they are deplorable.
For the intended audience the propaganda feed is always completely effective. Readers of the
Times will never untie the knot.
As the extremity of propaganda in mainstream news becomes more obvious a few American
consumers of news do begin to have doubts. Most continue to be entirely uncritical. The
barflies here are in the habit of being critical, analytic, skeptical when reading any news
from any source. That is not the American way.
The cohort of educated prosperous middle class readers of the NYT has total faith in NYT.
Having the paper edition on the doorstep in the morning is a badge of membership. A totem
that gives them status. Questioning any word or phrase or clause that appears in print is
wrong. Asking questions means something is wrong with you. The Times is never wrong. Those
who doubt the Times have mental health issues. Or they are alt-right. Or they are deplorable.
For the intended audience the propaganda feed is always completely effective. Readers of the
Times will never untie the knot.
"Why" always seem like a good question, eh? The NYT lies...why?
This quote caught my attention> " The powerful and historical walls to study today are
those of the Kremlin." (Fisk, information clearing house)
As it was for Winston's "Ministry of Truth" (Orwell) the NYT article is necessary. That's
the significance - not the lies but the necessity of lies...
And under what situations are lies required? Think about that when (if) you read Fisk's
analysis. (I am not a fan of Fisk, but his views in this instance align with my own rather
well)
Fisk article title> "Trump's disgrace in the Middle East is the death of an empire.
Vladimir Putin is Caesar now"
Some may recall that the monks on Mt Athos quietly elected VVP as the Byzantine Emperor
(about 2 years ago) - the Eastern branch of Christianity continues whilst nominally
christian(western) branch is fake and perverse ritual and worse...while his Popeness in Rome
has as Luther saw... I think Luther said it was a vast brothel...
Does this need Daniel to read the writing...
which is?
mene mene tekel upharsin (well somebody said..)
By the way my vote for the clown-man was cast because I reasoned the best esthetic feature
in the freak parade at the end of empire would be a clown act. I am indebted to the late
George Carlin for the symbolism.
I am proved right? I think so. Dogs bark and caravan continue...and many expect dollars to
go weimarish. then?
Ahh.. "experts"... Hassan Hassan is not a Syrian-born scholar, but a Syrian "born-scholar"...
Nuance. Or is it "a natural-born-scholar"? ...
As for Israeli propagandist Elizabeth Tsurkov, those very same "bad extremists" she now
repudiates on Twitter she once excused for mutilating children "because they were deeply
traumatised"... A very coherent "expert"!!
From The Grayzone, Ben Norton and Aaron Maté (and Dan Cohen) about Tsurkov: Western
pundits who lobbied for Syrian rebels now admit they are jihadist extremists, Oct. 16 (about
Tsurkov, go about 1:45 and the rest): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tkg4wJFpc_E
Now Tsurkov seems rather busy rooting for some "color revolution" to take place in Lebanon.
Where is Israel?...
As for the picture of Guy Verhofstadt next to Salim Idriss, it seems very aptly to epitomize
the EU "politics" about the Syrian conflict: "How tasty those American boots are!! Wanna lick
more American boots, please!!"
Ahh.. "experts"... Hassan Hassan is not a Syrian-born scholar, but a Syrian
"born-scholar"... Nuance. Or is it "a natural-born-scholar"? ...
If he is writing nothing but lies he is not any kind of scholar at all except a
fake scholar. Nor is he a journalist. He is a propagandist, nothing else. Call a spade
a spade.
-----
Ahhh, I've just posted to the Media and Pundits thread, but it should have come here much
more sensibly. Anyway the post is top a new page over there, on Trump and Syria's oil
fields.
The new narrative seems to me to have everything to do with Turkey and nothing to do with
Russia.
A comment in the last Syria-related thread.
Then again there are so many loose ends concerning Turkey that almost anything could
happen (coup attempt and "cleansing", dead ambassadors, Cyprus, Greece, Armenia, Syria, ISIS
and others, Kurds, weapon deals, shooting down a Russian plane, annoying Europe and the EU as
well as the US and just about everybody, some only politically but many militarily as well
(at least the US, Germany, and France), the list surely goes on).
As I commented I'm not convinced Turkey will survive this, are they able to stop and
reverse if they find they've set themselves up?
Turkey might be playing a double-game, or plan to betray one side - whether it'll be US or
Russia remains to be seen. But that this is all a clever NATO plot conflicts a bit with the
fact that the US is systematically destroying its bases in NE Syria. Sure, that might be
because they don't want the SAA to use them and to plunder them for techs and scraps, but
that would also make things more complicated for a Turkish take-over - it will surely
considerably slow the process if the Turkish army and its lackeys have to do everything back
from scratches.
Besides, odds are that Putin has taken that into consideration and has some contingency
measures ready, just in case - not that they could fully stop Turkish aggression in its
tracks in a couple of hours, but still.
Meanwhile Nicholas Kristof at the NYTimes also is whitewashing Obama's Syrian policy. He
conveniently forgets Timber Sycamore (the CIA's second largest operation, over $1 billion) to
overthrow Assad - 2013-2017, that allowed ISIS to get a firm foothold.
Trump Takes Incoherence and Inhumanity and Calls It Foreign Policy
"It was just five years ago that an American president, faced with a crisis on Syria's
border, acted decisively and honorably."
"Barack Obama responded with airstrikes and a rescue operation in 2014 when the Islamic
State started a genocide against members of the Yazidi sect, slaughtering men and forcing
women and girls into sexual slavery. Obama's action, along with a heroic intervention by
Kurdish fighters, saved tens of thousands of Yazidi lives."
"Contrast Obama's move, successfully working with allies to avert a genocide, with
President Trump's betrayal this month of those same Kurdish partners in a way that handed a
victory to the Islamic State, Turkey, Syria, Iran -- and, of course, Russia, ."
@ Walter 5: "I reasoned the best esthetic feature in the freak parade at the end of empire
would be a clown act"
Just love it!!
On a side note. Last night met with a new friend couple for dinner. Both are highly
educated and work in technical professions. Accordingly they pride themselves in logical
thinking ability. I wanted to check out their political leanings and asked about Trump's
troop pullback in Syria. Not surprisingly, both were outraged. When asked about their
rationale the expected answer was Trump's betrayal of the Kurds. I politely pointed out that
our troops' presence in Syria violates both domestic and international laws. That was news to
them!!! One of them did lamely point out that Assad is a brutal dictator. Being new
"friends", we refrained from further in depth political discussions. That incidence further
convinced me of the impending total collapse of the empire.
There has been some discussion regarding Syrian oilfields, here's some more on that.
The Syrian Democratic Council is the political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces in the
Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, including sites of Syrian oilfields. The
SDC's stated mission is working towards the implementation of a "secular, democratic and
decentralized system for all of Syria. The Syrian Democratic Council was established on 10
December 2015 in Al-Malikiyah.
Here is a
letter dated Jan 21, 2019 from the SDC to the CEO of Global Development Corporation (GDC)
Inc. in New Jersey, "a formal acceptance of your company, GDC, to represent the Syrian
Democratic Council (SDC) in all matters related to the sale of oil owned by SDC . .the
estimate off production of crude oil to be 400,000 barrels per day. . .current daily
production is 125,000 barrels. ."
The CEO of New Jersey's GDC (no mention on the web) is Mordechai (Moti) Kahana (Hebrew:
מוטי כהנא; born February 28, 1968,
Jerusalem, Israel) is an Israeli-American businessman and philanthropist. He is most notable
for his work for the civil war refugees in Syria. . .Since 2011 he heads a group of Israeli
businessmen and American Jews who travel to the Syrian refugee camps to provide humanitarian
aid to Syrian Civil War refugees.. . He paid for Senator John McCain's trip to war-torn
Syria. . . here
.
The GDC mailing address is the Roxbury Mall, 275 Route 10 E, Succasunna, NJ.
re: Salim Idriss a former U.S. stooge
WSJ, Jun 12, 2013 Rebels Plead for Weapons in Face of Syrian Onslaught
A top Syrian rebel commander has issued a desperate plea for weapons from Western
governments to prevent the fall of his forces in Aleppo, pushing the Obama administration
to decide quickly whether to agree to arm rebels for the first time or risk the loss of
another rebel stronghold just days after the regime's biggest victory.
Gen. Salim Idris, the top Syrian rebel commander backed by the West, issued a detailed
request in recent days to the U.S., France and Britain for antitank missiles, antiaircraft
weapons and hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds, according to U.S. and European
officials and Mr. Idris's request to the Americans, a copy of which was reviewed by The
Wall Street Journal.
Gen. Idris's call comes at a pivotal moment in Syria's war, following rapid-fire gains
by Bashar al-Assad forces, including last week's recapture of Qusayr, a strategic town near
the Lebanon border. Fighters from Hezbollah, which were crucial in helping the Assad regime
to take Qusayr, are now massing around Aleppo, say rebels and Western officials. . .
here
This was after H. Clinton (SecState) and D. Petraeus (CIA) wanted to fully arm the
US-supported rebels but President Obama declined. Clinton had resigned Feb 1, 2013.
thanks b... stellar writing and comments throughout... i especially liked your last line
:
"Now, as the very same rebels attack the Kurds, they are suddenly called out for being what
they always have been."
@13 don bacon - the address says it all.. The GDC mailing address is the Roxbury Mall, 275
Route 10 E, Succasunna, NJ.
regarding the nyt, larry johnson has a post up on sst
here.. i quote from it :
"Let us start with a reminder of how damn corrupt the NY Times and its reporters are.
Consider this paragraph penned by Adam Goldman and William Rashbaum:
Closely overseen by Mr. Barr, Mr. Durham and his investigators have sought help from
governments in countries that figure into right-wing attacks and unfounded conspiracy
theories about the Russia investigation, stirring criticism that they are trying to deliver
Mr. Trump a political victory rather than conducting an independent review.
"Unfounded conspiracy theories?" What a damn joke."
Wow! Quite a knee jerk reaction by the NY Times to Max
Blumenthal's 16 Oct article in The Grayzone , "The US has backed 21 of the 28
'crazy' militias leading Turkey's brutal invasion of northern Syria," which I linked to
Friday. It's great to see such a reaction to what for most people's an obscure online
publication.
Notice of MoA website change: I must now type in my name and email every time I want to
comment after years of never needing to do so. My issue might be related to the one ben
encountered in thinking he couldn't comment, which you can't if those two fields aren't
filled.
"Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government.
When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be
employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press
and a mere token opposition party..."
Trump should not have sent Pence and Pompeo to Turkey. They will do everything possible to
derail the rollback of the US in Syria. They are both more subtle than Bolton, but they are
both neocons. If you want anything done, you have to do it yourself.
"... The first, Afghanistan, represents the epitome of covert American meddling in regional affairs -- Operation Cyclone , the successful CIA-run effort to arm and equip anti-communist rebels in Afghanistan to confront the Soviet Army from 1979 to 1989. The success of the Afghanistan experience helped shape an overly optimistic assessment by the administration of President Barack Obama that a similarly successful effort could be had in Syria by covertly training and equipping anti-Assad rebels. ..."
"... The second, Astana , is the capital city of Kazakhstan, recently renamed Nur Sultan in March 2019. Since 2017, Astana has played host to a series of summits that have become known as " the Astana Process ," a Russian-directed diplomatic effort ostensibly designed to facilitate a peaceful ending to the Syrian crisis, but in reality part of a larger Russian-run effort to sideline American regime change efforts in Syria. ..."
"... The resulting agreement, known as the Adana Agreement , helped prevent a potential war between Turkey and Syria by formally recognizing the respective sovereignty and inviolability of their common border. In 2010, the two nations expanded the 1998 deal into a formal treaty governing cooperation and joint action, inclusive of intelligence sharing on designated terrorist organizations (i.e., the PKK). The Adana Agreement/Treaty was all but forgotten in the aftermath of the 2011 Syrian crisis, as Turkey embraced regime change regarding the Assad government, only to be resuscitated by Russian President Vladimir Putin during talks with Erdogan in Moscow in January 2019. The re-introduction of the moribund agreement into the Syrian-Turkish political dynamic successfully created a diplomatic bridge between the two countries, paving the way for a formal resolution of their considerable differences. ..."
"... Russia backed Turkey's demand for a security corridor along the Turkish-Syrian border, and accepted Ankara's characterization of the American-backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) as "terrorists." This agreement, combined with Turkey's willingness to recognize the outcome of Syrian presidential elections projected to take place in 2021, paved the way for the political reconciliation between Turkey and Syria. It also hammered the last nail in the coffin of America's regime change policy regarding Bashar al-Assad. ..."
"... there's only a skewed version of reality, which portrays the American military presence in Syria as part and parcel of a noble alliance between the U.S. and the Kurdish SDF to confront the ISIS scourge. This ignores the reality that the U.S. has been committed to regime change in Syria since 2011, and that the fight against ISIS was merely a sideshow to this larger policy objective. ..."
"... One of the byproducts of the work initiated by ISOG was the creation of Syrian political opposition groups that were later morphed by the Obama administration into an entity known as the Syrian National Council, or SNC . When Obama demanded that Assad must step aside in August 2011, he envisioned that the Syrian president would be replaced by the SNC ..."
"... Faced with this diplomatic failure, Obama turned to the CIA to undertake an Afghanistan-like arming of Syrian rebels to accomplish on the ground what could not be around a table in Geneva. ..."
"... In 2013, the CIA took direct control of the arm and equip program, sending teams to Turkey and Jordan to train the FSA. This effort, known as Operation Timber Sycamore , was later supplemented with a Department of Defense program to provide anti-tank weapons to the Syrian opposition. ..."
"... American efforts to create a viable armed opposition ultimately failed, with many of the weapons and equipment eventually falling into the hands of radical jihadist groups aligned with al-Qaeda and, later, ISIS. The emergence of ISIS as a regional threat in 2014 led to the U.S. building ties with Syrian Kurds as an alternative vector for implementation of its Syrian policy objectives. ..."
"... While the fight against ISIS was real, it was done in the context of the American occupation of fully one third of Syria's territory, including oil fields and agricultural resources. As recently as January 2019, the U.S. was justifying the continued presence of forces in Syria as a means of containing the Iranian presence there; the relationship with the SDF and Syrian Kurds was little more than a front to facilitate this policy. ..."
"... But the American misadventure in Syria was never going to end well -- bad policy never does. For the American troops caught up in the collapse of the decades-long effort of the United States to overthrow the Assad government, the retreat from Syria was every bit as ignominious as the retreats of all defeated military forces before them. ..."
"... The U.S presidents all seemed to believe that they had /have the holy right to murder whomever they want and demand /take whatever their want. This is not good, but evil. May they and all of those who followed their orders "rot in hell". ..."
"... Why can't he use a euphemism for the US arming them? Americans are not ready for the truth. Tulsi got called out for calling a regime change war, a regime change war. We both know the US armed the terrorists, but the American people do not want to know. They have a (false) narrative that they are comfortable with. ..."
How events in Afghanistan, Astana, Adana, and Ankara all led to the victory of
Russian diplomacy over U.S. force...
The ceasefire agreement brokered by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
on Thursday accomplishes very little outside of putting window dressing on a foregone conclusion.
Simply put, the Turks will be able to achieve their objectives of clearing a safe zone of Kurdish
forces south of the Turkish border, albeit under a U.S. sanctioned agreement. In return, the U.S.
agrees not to impose economic sanctions on Turkey.
So basically it doesn't change anything that's already been set into motion by the Turkish
invasion of northern Syria. But it does signal the end of the American experiment in Syrian regime
change, with the United States supplanted by Russia as the shot caller in Middle Eastern affairs.
To understand how we got to this point, we need to navigate the four A's that
underpin America's failed policy vis-à-vis Syria -- Afghanistan, Astana, Adana, and Ankara.
The first, Afghanistan, represents the epitome of covert American meddling in regional
affairs --
Operation
Cyclone
, the successful CIA-run effort to arm and equip anti-communist rebels in Afghanistan to
confront the Soviet Army from 1979 to 1989.
The success of the Afghanistan experience
helped shape an overly optimistic assessment by the administration of President Barack Obama that a
similarly successful effort could be had in Syria by covertly training and equipping anti-Assad
rebels.
The second,
Astana
, is
the capital city of Kazakhstan,
recently renamed Nur Sultan in March 2019. Since 2017,
Astana has played
host to a series of summits that have become known as "
the
Astana Process
,"
a Russian-directed diplomatic effort ostensibly designed to
facilitate a peaceful ending to the Syrian crisis, but in reality part of a larger Russian-run
effort to sideline American regime change efforts in Syria.
The Astana Process was sold as a complementary effort to the U.S.-backed, UN-brokered
Geneva
Talks
, which were initially convened in 2012 to bring an end to the Syrian conflict. The
adoption by the U.S. of an "Assad must go" posture doomed the Geneva Talks from the outset. The
Astana Process was the logical outcome of this American failure.
The third "A" --
Adana
-- is a
major city located in southern Turkey, some 35 kilometers inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It's
home to the
Incirlik Air Base
,
which hosts
significant U.S. Air Force assets, including some
50
B-61 nuclear bombs
. It also hosted a meeting between Turkish and Syrian officials in October
1998 for the purpose of crafting a diplomatic solution to the problem presented by forces belonging
to the
Kurdish
People's Party, or PKK
, who were carrying out attacks inside Turkey from camps located within
Syria.
The resulting agreement, known as the
Adana
Agreement
, helped prevent a potential war between Turkey and Syria by formally recognizing the
respective sovereignty and inviolability of their common border. In 2010, the two nations expanded
the 1998 deal into
a
formal treaty
governing cooperation and joint action, inclusive of intelligence sharing on
designated terrorist organizations (i.e., the PKK). The Adana Agreement/Treaty was all but
forgotten in the aftermath of the 2011 Syrian crisis, as Turkey embraced regime change regarding
the Assad government, only to be resuscitated by Russian President Vladimir Putin during
talks
with Erdogan in Moscow
in January 2019. The re-introduction of the moribund agreement into the
Syrian-Turkish political dynamic successfully created a diplomatic bridge between the two
countries, paving the way for a formal resolution of their considerable differences.
The final "A" -- Ankara -- is perhaps the most crucial when it comes to understanding the
demise of the American position in Syria.
Ankara
is
the Turkish capital, situated in the central Anatolian plateau. In September 2019, Ankara played
host
to a summit
between Erdogan, Putin, and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani.
While the
ostensible focus of the summit was to negotiate a ceasefire in the rebel-held Syrian province of
Idlib, where
Turkish-backed
militants were under incessant attack
by the combined forces of Russia and Syria, the real
purpose was to facilitate an endgame to the Syrian crisis.
Russia's rejection of the Turkish demands for a ceasefire were interpreted by the Western media
as a sign of the summit's failure. But the opposite was true -- Russia backed Turkey's demand for a
security corridor along the Turkish-Syrian border, and accepted Ankara's characterization of the
American-backed
Syrian
Defense Forces (SDF)
as "terrorists." This agreement, combined with Turkey's willingness to
recognize the outcome of Syrian presidential elections projected to take place in 2021, paved the
way for the political reconciliation between Turkey and Syria. It also hammered the last nail in
the coffin of America's regime change policy regarding Bashar al-Assad.
There is little mention of the four A's in American politics and the mainstream
media.
Instead there's only a skewed version of reality, which portrays the American
military presence in Syria as part and parcel of a noble alliance between the U.S. and the Kurdish SDF to confront the ISIS scourge. This ignores the reality that the U.S. has been committed to
regime change in Syria since 2011, and that the fight against ISIS was merely a sideshow to this
larger policy objective.
"Assad must go."
Those three words have defined American policy on
Syria since they were first alluded to by President Obama in an
official
White House statement
released in August 2011. The initial U.S. strategy did not involve an
Afghanistan-like arming of rebel forces, but rather a political solution under the auspices of
policies and entities created under the administration of President George W. Bush. In 2006, the
State Department created the
Iran-Syrian
Operations Group
, or ISOG, which oversaw interdepartmental coordination of regime change
options in both Iran and Syria.
Though ISOG was disbanded in 2008, its mission was continued by other American agencies.
One of the byproducts of the work initiated by ISOG was the creation of Syrian political opposition
groups that were later morphed by the Obama administration into an entity known as the
Syrian
National Council, or SNC
. When Obama demanded that Assad must step aside in August 2011, he
envisioned that the Syrian president would be replaced by the SNC. This was the objective of the
Geneva Talks brokered by the United Nations and the Arab League in 2011-2012. One of the defining
features of those talks was the insistence on the part of the U.S., UK, and SNC that the
Assad
government not be allowed to participate
in any discussion about the political future of Syria.
This condition was rejected by Russia, and the talks ultimately failed. Efforts to revive the
Geneva Process likewise floundered on this point.
Faced with this diplomatic failure, Obama turned to the CIA to undertake an
Afghanistan-like arming of Syrian rebels to accomplish on the ground what could not be around a
table in Geneva.
The CIA took advantage of Turkish animosity toward Syria in the aftermath of suppression of
anti-Syrian government demonstrations in 2011 to
funnel
massive quantities of military equipment
, weapons, and ammunition from Libya to Turkey, where
they were used to arm a number of anti-Assad rebels operating under the umbrella of the so-called "
Free
Syrian Army
," or FSA.
In 2013, the CIA took direct control of the arm and equip
program, sending teams to Turkey and Jordan to train the FSA.
This effort, known as
Operation
Timber Sycamore
, was later supplemented with a Department of Defense program to provide
anti-tank weapons to the Syrian opposition.
American efforts to create a viable armed opposition ultimately failed,
with
many of the weapons and equipment eventually falling into the hands of radical jihadist groups
aligned
with al-Qaeda
and, later, ISIS. The emergence of ISIS as a regional threat in 2014 led to the
U.S. building ties with Syrian Kurds as an alternative vector for implementation of its Syrian
policy objectives.
While the fight against ISIS was real, it was done in the context of the American occupation of
fully one third of Syria's territory, including oil fields and agricultural resources. As recently
as January 2019, the U.S. was
justifying
the continued presence of forces in Syria
as a means of containing the Iranian presence there;
the relationship with the SDF and Syrian Kurds was little more than a front to facilitate this
policy.
Turkish incursion into Syria is the direct manifestation of the four A's that define the
failure of American policy in Syria -- Afghanistan, Astana, Adana and Ankara.
It represents
the victory of Russian diplomacy over American force of arms. This is a hard pill for most
Americans to swallow, which is why many are busy crafting a revisionist history that both glorifies
and justifies failed American policy by wrapping it in the flag of our erstwhile Kurdish allies.
But the American misadventure in Syria was never going to end well -- bad policy never
does.
For the American troops caught up in the collapse of the decades-long effort of the
United States to overthrow the Assad government, the retreat from Syria was every bit as
ignominious as the retreats of all defeated military forces before them. But at least our forces
left Syria alive, and not inside body bags -- which was an all too real alternative had they remained
in place to face the overwhelming forces of geopolitical reality in transition.
The U.S presidents all seemed to believe that they had /have the
holy right to murder whomever they want and demand /take whatever
their want. This is not good, but evil. May they and all of those
who followed their orders "rot in hell".
Why can't he use a euphemism for the US arming them? Americans
are not ready for the truth.
Tulsi got called out for calling
a regime change war, a regime change war.
We both know the US armed the terrorists, but the American
people do not want to know. They have a (false) narrative that
they are comfortable with.
There must be loads of space in GITMO that can accommodate the
IS/US Proxies on the run or in jail in NE Syria. Keep them in cold
storage as such for when other opportunities present themselves
down the road. I believe they'd go willingly too as they wont find
Russia-SAA as accommodating and genial as their previous hosts.
Only a handful of Americans, Israelis, Brits, French and Saudis
stood to benefit and despite this expensive epic failure,
clusterfuck, those same bastards will be closing the book and
calling the shots on the next genocidal mission impossible.
"
How events in Afghanistan, Astana, Adana, and Ankara all
led to the victory of Russian diplomacy over U.S. force..." What
about Aleppo? Alliteration is fun.........
the root of the failure of usa foreign policy all over the world
is the opening that russia and china are creating for escape from
the zionazi predation of countries in every corner of the globe.
both russia and china are positioning themselves as an alternative
or at least a foil for countries to help them resist the predatory
dollar. ecuador is a great present example. morales was just
re-elected in bolivia and brazil won't stay quiet for long as
maduro hangs on in vz.
Outside the 50 states of USA, none of the land is ours and so ALL
these ******* ILLEGAL wars & permanent bases are for one reason
and one dumbass reason only.
For Israels security because the
Oxford University Press and The Scofield Bible. (cue in the
retarded kid Nathan's voice from Southpark)
Looks like a testimony of a member of Nuland neocons clique.
A reasonable Trump administration gesture of delaying military aid now is interpreted as a
pressure on Zelensky government. But not everybody in Zelensky government is interesting in the
USA military aid; most including probably Zelensky himself understand that this carrot s the way
US neocon push Ukraine in self-destructive game of to catching hot potatoes from the fire to
advance the USA strategic anti-Russian interests in the region.
Trump is right that Ukraine participated in Russiagate, but he is wrong that Poroshenko
administration acted as a supplementary force in Russiagate on its own initiative: in reality
Poroshenko was the USA marionette fully controlled from Washington and would do anything to
please Obama administration.
Notable quotes:
"... "He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of 'terrible people.' He said they 'tried to take me down.' ..."
"Second, in May of this year, I became concerned that a negative narrative about Ukraine,
fueled by assertions made by Ukraine's departing Prosecutor General, was reaching the President
of the United States, and impeding our ability to support the new Ukrainian government as
robustly as I believed we should."
"Fifth and finally, I strongly supported the provision of U.S. security assistance,
including lethal defensive weapons, to Ukraine throughout my tenure."
...While Volker said Biden did not come up explicitly in his conversations, he made a point
of defending the former vice president in his remarks. "I have known former Vice President
Biden for 24 years, and the suggestion that he would be influenced in his duties as Vice
President by money for his son simply has no credibility to me," he wrote. "I know him as a man
of integrity and dedication to our country."
... ... ...
Volker also testified that while he was aware that the Trump administration
had put a hold on needed military aid to Ukraine at the same time that he was connecting
Giuliani with Zelensky's government, "I did not perceive these issues to be linked in any way."
Volker said that "no reason was given" for the holdup, but it concerned him; he "stressed"
to staff at the State Department, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council that the aid
was vital to Ukraine's security, "deterrence of Russian aggression," and Ukraine's relationship
with the US.
"That said, I was not overly concerned about the development because I believed the decision
would ultimately be reversed," Volker told Congress, citing the "unanimous position" of
Congress, the State Department, the Pentagon, and the NSC in favor of restoring the aid. "I
knew it would just be a matter of time."
...On his contacts with Rudy Giuliani, Volker said he became aware early this year about "an
emerging, negative narrative about Ukraine in the United States, fueled by accusations made by
the then–prosecutor general of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko, that some Ukrainian citizens may
have sought to influence" the 2016 presidential election in the US, "including by passing
information that was detrimental to" Trump, which they hoped would reach Hillary Clinton's
campaign.
"I believed that these accusations by Mr. Lutsenko were themselves self-serving, intended to
make himself appear valuable to the United States, so that the United States might weigh in
against his being removed from office by the new government," Volker said.
...Volker told Congress that he learned in May this year that Giuliani planned to travel to
Ukraine to look into the unsubstantiated allegations that Biden had used his position as vice
president to benefit his son Hunter Biden. Volker said he contacted Giuliani to say that
Lutsenko was not credible -- Volker said they had a brief phone call, but didn't say how
Giuliani responded. Giuliani later canceled his trip. Volker noted that Giuliani claimed at the
time that Zelensky was surrounded "by enemies of the United States," a sentiment that Volker
said he "fundamentally disagreed" with.
...Giuliani came up repeatedly in Volker's conversations with Zelensky and the Ukrainian
president's administration. Volker said he had a private conversation with Zelensky in early
July, and told Zelensky that a "negative view" of Ukraine -- one that Giuliani held -- was
"likely making its way to" Trump. A week later, Volker met with Yermak, the Zelensky aide, who
asked to be connected to Giuliani.
...
Volker also testified to Congress that he met with Trump in May and suggested that
the president invite Zelensky to the White House, arguing Zelensky could help clean up
corruption in Ukraine. But Volker said that Trump was "very skeptical" of Zelensky at the
time.
"He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of 'terrible people.' He said they
'tried to take me down.' In the course of that conversation, he referenced conversations
with Mayor Giuliani," Volker said. "It was clear to me that despite the positive news and
recommendations being conveyed by this official delegation about the new President, President
Trump had a deeply rooted negative view on Ukraine rooted in the past. He was clearly receiving
other information from other sources, including Mayor Giuliani, that was more negative, causing
him to retain this negative view."
Michael McFaul was the key person in failed "white color revolution in Russia in 2011-2012
designed to prevent reelection of Putin. h was recalled soon after Putin elections. So his praise
instantly suggests that the other person might be a color revolution specialist as well
In this sense his participation in Ukrainegate is just a top of his long carier as colore
revolution specialist. Ukrainegate does looks like the second Maydan.
Michael
McFaul, who served as the US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, called Taylor, who he's
known for three decades, "just a consummate public servant."
"I do remember when he was ambassador to Ukraine he saw the bigness of the moment -- this is
well before Russia annexed Crimea and went into Donbass -- that fighting for sovereignty for
Ukraine and democracy and anti-corruption, he was very committed to that," McFaul said.
So, it looks like that's it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his
conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have "hacked," or "influenced," or "meddled in" our democracy.
Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up
a last-minute military coup , it's four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers
patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration camps, gigantic banners with the faces of
Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public schools,
National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death's heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards.
Looks like a testimony of a member of Nuland neocons clique.
A reasonable Trump administration gesture of delaying military aid now is interpreted as a
pressure on Zelensky government. But not everybody in Zelensky government is interesting in the
USA military aid; most including probably Zelensky himself understand that this carrot s the way
US neocon push Ukraine in self-destructive game of to catching hot potatoes from the fire to
advance the USA strategic anti-Russian interests in the region.
Trump is right that Ukraine participated in Russiagate, but he is wrong that Poroshenko
administration acted as a supplementary force in Russiagate on its own initiative: in reality
Poroshenko was the USA marionette fully controlled from Washington and would do anything to
please Obama administration.
Notable quotes:
"... "He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of 'terrible people.' He said they 'tried to take me down.' ..."
"Second, in May of this year, I became concerned that a negative narrative about Ukraine,
fueled by assertions made by Ukraine's departing Prosecutor General, was reaching the President
of the United States, and impeding our ability to support the new Ukrainian government as
robustly as I believed we should."
"Fifth and finally, I strongly supported the provision of U.S. security assistance,
including lethal defensive weapons, to Ukraine throughout my tenure."
...While Volker said Biden did not come up explicitly in his conversations, he made a point
of defending the former vice president in his remarks. "I have known former Vice President
Biden for 24 years, and the suggestion that he would be influenced in his duties as Vice
President by money for his son simply has no credibility to me," he wrote. "I know him as a man
of integrity and dedication to our country."
... ... ...
Volker also testified that while he was aware that the Trump administration
had put a hold on needed military aid to Ukraine at the same time that he was connecting
Giuliani with Zelensky's government, "I did not perceive these issues to be linked in any way."
Volker said that "no reason was given" for the holdup, but it concerned him; he "stressed"
to staff at the State Department, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council that the aid
was vital to Ukraine's security, "deterrence of Russian aggression," and Ukraine's relationship
with the US.
"That said, I was not overly concerned about the development because I believed the decision
would ultimately be reversed," Volker told Congress, citing the "unanimous position" of
Congress, the State Department, the Pentagon, and the NSC in favor of restoring the aid. "I
knew it would just be a matter of time."
...On his contacts with Rudy Giuliani, Volker said he became aware early this year about "an
emerging, negative narrative about Ukraine in the United States, fueled by accusations made by
the then–prosecutor general of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko, that some Ukrainian citizens may
have sought to influence" the 2016 presidential election in the US, "including by passing
information that was detrimental to" Trump, which they hoped would reach Hillary Clinton's
campaign.
"I believed that these accusations by Mr. Lutsenko were themselves self-serving, intended to
make himself appear valuable to the United States, so that the United States might weigh in
against his being removed from office by the new government," Volker said.
...Volker told Congress that he learned in May this year that Giuliani planned to travel to
Ukraine to look into the unsubstantiated allegations that Biden had used his position as vice
president to benefit his son Hunter Biden. Volker said he contacted Giuliani to say that
Lutsenko was not credible -- Volker said they had a brief phone call, but didn't say how
Giuliani responded. Giuliani later canceled his trip. Volker noted that Giuliani claimed at the
time that Zelensky was surrounded "by enemies of the United States," a sentiment that Volker
said he "fundamentally disagreed" with.
...Giuliani came up repeatedly in Volker's conversations with Zelensky and the Ukrainian
president's administration. Volker said he had a private conversation with Zelensky in early
July, and told Zelensky that a "negative view" of Ukraine -- one that Giuliani held -- was
"likely making its way to" Trump. A week later, Volker met with Yermak, the Zelensky aide, who
asked to be connected to Giuliani.
...
Volker also testified to Congress that he met with Trump in May and suggested that
the president invite Zelensky to the White House, arguing Zelensky could help clean up
corruption in Ukraine. But Volker said that Trump was "very skeptical" of Zelensky at the
time.
"He said that Ukraine was a corrupt country, full of 'terrible people.' He said they
'tried to take me down.' In the course of that conversation, he referenced conversations
with Mayor Giuliani," Volker said. "It was clear to me that despite the positive news and
recommendations being conveyed by this official delegation about the new President, President
Trump had a deeply rooted negative view on Ukraine rooted in the past. He was clearly receiving
other information from other sources, including Mayor Giuliani, that was more negative, causing
him to retain this negative view."
Michael McFaul was the key person in failed "white color revolution in Russia in 2011-2012
designed to prevent reelection of Putin. h was recalled soon after Putin elections. So his praise
instantly suggests that the other person might be a color revolution specialist as well
In this sense his participation in Ukrainegate is just a top of his long carier as colore
revolution specialist. Ukrainegate does looks like the second Maydan.
Michael
McFaul, who served as the US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, called Taylor, who he's
known for three decades, "just a consummate public servant."
"I do remember when he was ambassador to Ukraine he saw the bigness of the moment -- this is
well before Russia annexed Crimea and went into Donbass -- that fighting for sovereignty for
Ukraine and democracy and anti-corruption, he was very committed to that," McFaul said.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Some of the "virtual facts:" ..."
"... The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist and an inevitable and indeed indispensable enemy of the US. Anyone who challenges that certitude is an obvious agent of the Russian government. ..."
"... Iran is the "greatest supporter of terrorism" in the world." ..."
"... The Syrian Arab Government is an abomination on the scale of Nazi Germany and must be destroyed and replaced by God knows what . ..."
"... Saudi Arabia is a deeply friendly state and ally of the US. ..."
"... It is beyond scary to see just how entrenched and powerful Deep State is and how it involves/controls both political parties ..."
"... I doubt there is any magic bullet website or other source of information that would turn people over night. A good start would be encouraging them to read transcripts of various Putin and Lavrov speeches and pressers, also Valdai Club, economic forum ect. ..."
"... The colonel's complaint implicitly assumes that things were not always thus. My adult experience since I saw a war up close has been that the "facts" of our public discourse are always simplified and usually grossly distorted. ..."
"... Not only are the MSM married to a narrative but they feel compelled to attack the few who ever challenge the orthodoxy. For example, 'Tulsi Gabbard met with the war criminal Assad'. ..."
"... It is certainly true that Russia is being demonized in all the MSM I have sampled. A frequent criticism is that Putin, like Assad, and earlier Saddam and Quadaffi, is essentially an illegitimate ruler of his country, ruling through brute force and without the consent of his countrymen. (Thus the WaPo editorials routinely call Putin a "thug", just as they call Assad a "butcher".) ..."
"... Not to defend Trump and his balance sheet mindset with respect to the Saudis, the reality is that both parties and presidents from George H.W to Bill Clinton to W and Obama have treated the Saudi monarchy as our "friend", even when they sponsored the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11. ..."
"... Tony Blair became a wealthy man after his prime ministership on the back of money thrown his way by the Arab sheikhs ..."
Mika B remarked a couple of years ago on the show that she and her sex slave stage in the
early morning that the social media were out of control because it is the job of the MSM to
tell people what to think. The Hillary stated recently that life was better when there were
only three TeeVee news outlets because it was easier to keep things under control. Now? My God!
Any damned fool can propagate unauthorized "facts." What? Who?
Well, pilgrims, the US government (along with our British and Israeli helpmates and masters)
are the preeminent creators and purveyors of the manufactured virtual facts on which we base
our policy. These "facts" are "ginned up" in the well moneyed hidden staff groups of "hidden"
candidates that are devoted to the seizure of power made possible by a deluded electorate.
These "facts" are then propagated and reinforced through relentless IO campaigns run by
executive "bots" in the MSM and in such remarkable and imaginative efforts as the "White
Helmets" film company manned by jihadis and managed by clubby Brits left over from the Days of
The Raj (sob). These "facts" are now so entrenched in the general mind that they can be used to
denounce people like Rep. (major ) Gabbard as traitors because they challenge them.
Some of the "virtual facts:"
The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist and an inevitable and indeed
indispensable enemy of the US. Anyone who challenges that certitude is an obvious agent of
the Russian government.
Iran is the "greatest supporter of terrorism" in the world." Iran is so designated by the
State Department on the annual list of terrorism supporting states which asserts this to be
true on the basis of Iranian support of Lebanese Hizbullah and Palestinian Hamas, calling
them "terrorist" groups rather than anti -Israeli nationalist resistance organizations. This
Zionist inspired propaganda is spread far and wide by neocon "useful idiots" like Maria
Bartiromo and Jesse Watters.
The Syrian Arab Government is an abomination on the scale of Nazi Germany and must be
destroyed and replaced by God knows what ... "They gassed their own people!" Bullshit! There
is no objective evidence for that. There are nothing but propaganda statements by the FUKUS
governments unsupported by any real evidence. The MI-6 funded (with USAID money) Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights (located in a basement in England) as well as the White Helmets
murder/propaganda operation states that the SAG is guilty as charged but independent
investigation says that assertions of SAG guilt are untrue.
Saudi Arabia is a deeply friendly state and ally of the US. How mad an idea is this! This
theocratic, absolute monarchy is a friend of the US? How insane an idea! Trump has a balance
sheet where a soul should be and that is the basis for the belief that MBS and/or his
"country" are our friends. pl
Yes I fully concur. We have gone from fact-based news to faith-based fake news led by the
MSM. I recall at the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, the line was out that British PM
Tony Blair was George W. Bush's "poodle," forgetting entirely that it was the first of the
British "dodgy dossiers" that made the totally discredited claim that Saddam had gotten tons
of yellow cake from Niger. So the British have no military resources but they continue to
maintain the idea that they can manipulate the U.S. and make up for the demise of the old
British empire.
The Steele dossier was the second British "dodgy dossier" that got the ball rolling on
Trump the Russian mole and Putin's "poodle."
So much fraud. But now social media must be patrolled and anyone daring to challenge the
voice of the MSM must be purged by Google, Facebook, Twitter et al.
My question is: When will the machinations of the Big Lie MSM Wurlitzer cross the line and
trigger the backlash that they secretly fear so much? MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or
else his "fake news" polemic will stick... because there is no much truth to it. The
messenger may be crude, but he has the bully pulpit to have a real impact.
I await the release, as Larry Johnson pointed out, of the Horowitz IG report on the
origins of the fake Trump-Russia collusion line. Also the pending Barr-Durham larger report
which is zeroing in on John Brennan.
"MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or else..."
The MSM are joined by all those folks who were wined, dined, and degraded by Jeffrey Epstein
and Hollywood hero Harvey Weinstein. Nobody seems to care about who Jeffrey abused, or who
enjoyed his island paradise. Harvey, he's about to buy a free ride out of jail. Meanwhile we
jail idiots who "bribe" there kids way into that "elite" institution - UCLA.
an ideal study would no doubt want to look into the Italy-GB-US angle already concerning
the "first dossier", or whatevers. Didn*t that have mediawise an intermediate French
angle?
This is what happens when the deciders believe their own propaganda. The media now says
that a residual force of American troops and contractors will stay behind at the Deir ez-Zor
oil fields and Al-Tanf base near the Jordon border. The media moguls dare not mention that
the real intention is to prevent the Syrian Arab Army from retaking its own territory or that
Turkey is seizing thousands of square miles of Syria. Syrians with Russia, Chinese and
Iranian aid won't quit until Syria is whole again and rebuilt. This means that America
continues its uninvited unwinnable war in the middle of nowhere with no allies for no reason
at all except to do Israel's bidding and to make money for military contractors. The swamp's
regime change campaign failed. The Houthis' Aramco attack shows that the gulf oil supply is
at risk and can be shut down at will. Continuing these endless wars that are clearly against
the best interests of the American people is insane.
It strikes me, as a matter of observable fact, that the Houthi attack had almost no long run
affect on oil production. Everything was back to normal within 10 days. I think that the
attack was allowed to occur for exactly one reason and that was to start a shooting war
between the USA as KSA's great defender and Iran as the horrible nation that has a mild
dislike for Israel.
It failed. So far.
To believe that the 24/7/52 AWACS, Ground radar, Israeli radar, and the overlapping close in
radar coverage of the Saudi oil fields all failed to detect the drones and cruise missiles is
to believe in more miracles than I can handle on a good day. It also means that assets in
other parts of this world covered by these same type of radars are just as vulnerable to
local disaffected groups.
The FUKUS thinks we are all a bunch of brainless sheep to be led by a ring in our noses. The
'Muktar' is clueless regarding our Saudi brethren, he's supposed to administer how the
overlords say he's to administer, nothing more. The CIA administration still has a hard-on
because they blew it regarding Iran and they're still embarrassed about it.
In two days, counting closer to a day and a half will be the sad anniversary (October 23)
where the Israeli government willfully with forethought let our Marines and other service
personnel bunked with them at the barracks in Beirut die needlessly, because Nahum Admoni
wanted U.S. to get our noses bloodied.
Never mind that the Russians lost close to 30 million to the brotherhood of the Operation
Paper Clip, and the Bormann Group that today controls from behind the scenes most of the
World's money thanks to Martin creating over 750 corporations initially to start with, that
has expanded like a Hydra. Any time that truth (Russia is no longer Communist) rears its ugly
head, the Bormann group goes into overdrive to ensure that the big lie perpetuates.
The FUKUS think we're all a bunch of sheep to be led off a cliff, and the propaganda mills
have created the trail right up to the edge of the precipice that the sheep are trotting.
Amen. The landslide of disinformation and bullshit disseminated on a daily basis by a pliant
media is happily lapped up by ignorant, uninformed Americans. I've had quite an exchange with
a liberal friend of mine who was shrieking MSNBC talking points on Syria and the Kurds. Mind
you, this fellow never served a day in the military. Never held a clearance in his life.
Didn't know a thing about JOPES and how Special Ops forces use a series of written orders
signed off on by the CJCS. Yet, he was qualified to criticize Trump. At the same time not one
of his kids or grandkids are signed up to fight on that frontline. I told him politely to
STFU and get educated before trying to comment on something he knows nothing about.
Thanks Colonel.
I am British and did consider the military in my youth but if I were that age now I would
not. Having seen what my political master, and yours, have asked the military to do the
danger of being sent on some counter product regime change mission or to prop-up someone I
would rather fight is just too great. I would only end up refusing to follow orders which I
understand the military takes a rather dim view of.
... regime change mission or to prop-up someone I would rather fight is just too
great.
once upon a time, and strictly I had opted not to believe either side before that, but
yes, at one point I wondered fully aware they may be legitimate complaints, how would the
UCK, or the Kosovo Liberation Army become the "Western" partner in war.
In hindsight I was made aware of this one grandiose British officer ... once upon a
time.
"if I were that age now..." That is the same line used by the American left since the
'60s.
"I would only end up refusing to follow orders..."
Samantha Power at the UN and James Comey at the FBI both had a "higher loyalty" than to the
elected government or the Constitution on which it is based. That's why they are busy trying
to subvert it.
There's a lot of truth there, Colonel. Life would be better with just three TV new outlets,
huh. Which three? Can you imagine being limited to three cable new outlets? Actually most
people probably limit themselves to three news outlets or less. They find an echo chamber and
stick with it. I thank God I don't have cable or satellite TV and I have too many interests
to engage with talk radio.
I couldn't agree more with your characterization of "virtual facts" about Iran, Syria and
Saudi Arabia. I also agree that those who continue to view Russia as an implacable enemy bent
on our destruction and world domination are liars and/or fools. The Soviet Union was just a
phase, a phase now past. Russia never ended. Conversely, those who insist that Russia is a
newly minted nation of glitter farting unicorns incapable of nefarious behavior are also
fools and/or liars. Russia is a formidable competitor, fully capable and willing to take
prudent actions in pursuit of her interests. We should respect her and seek cooperation where
we can and tolerance where we must.
How the never-Trumpers treat Tulsi Gabbard is shameful. What Clinton recently said is mild
compared to what others have been saying for quite some time. Calling Tulsi a Russian asset
is foolishly wrong. That Russia may prefer Tulsi over other potential Presidential candidates
should be seen as a positive thing. A policy of mutual respect, cooperation and tolerance
between our two countries would benefit the entire world.
America needed to restore the Kuwait monarchy for freedom and democracy. Remember defense
Secretary Dick Cheney sending captured Iraq arms to the Taliban.
Same play book was used to run Libyan arms through Bengazi to Wahhabism freedom fighter
"ISIS" and the al Lindsey McCain head choppers.
The nonsense will end since not even the United States can endure these costs. Did you hear
Trump? 8 trillion yankee dollars and nothing to show for it.
What is highly alarming, almost terrifying, is that really well educated people who have
achieved great things in their careers and are pillars of society believe this crap.
I had dinner guests last week; a former Chairman of a bank and his wife who is a highly
acclaimed Professor of public Health and Epidemiology who told me how awful Trump and Putin
are neither of these friends are what you could remotely classify as Social Justice
leftists.
My problem is that I don't know where to start to try and put them right without them
thinking I'm a tinfoil hatted conspiracy nut. I wish there was a website dedicated solely to
purveying basic truthful information that is not perhaps as esoteric as SST. Should I try and
start one or are there already good examples to point to?
I'm thinking this is so far and so deep there is nothing that can or will be done. Trump's
election and presidency has lifted the curtain on the puppet show. This recent Syria troop
removal is Trump's second attempt at openly declaring troops will be pulled out of Syria only
to have the military has said, "Um, no, we will stay and simply relocate."
Trump openly
called for FISA warrants to be declassified only to have the DOJ and FBI either ignore and
defy him. Groups like Judicial Watch and others go into court to get the requested
information through FOIA and DOJ and FBI lawyers and the courts block them.
It is beyond
scary to see just how entrenched and powerful Deep State is and how it involves/controls both
political parties. Trump has faced hurricane winds of opposition from day one and has been
constantly subverted by his own party and his own people. I don't know how he can get up
every day and continue to fight the obvious and concerted Deep State coup against him. I pray
for him. I pray the rosary for him.
There are members within Trump's own party who have agreed that there should be an
investigation into the impeachment of Trump for running a yellow light (at most). Again,
members of his own party. Renowned Constitutional lawyers John Yoo and Alan Dershowitz, from
Cal-Berkeley and Harvard laws schools respectively, have said that not only has Trump done
nothing, even remotely, which could trigger an impeachment inquiry but if Congress were to do
so it would be unconstitutional and illegal. But alas, who would enforce this? Deep State
snakes like John Roberts at the Supreme Court? Robert has already signed off on the coup (
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/john-roberts-mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment-trial.amp).
The only thing that separates America from falling into the abyss is Trump, a handful of
people in Washington, a few conservative talk show hosts, and about 40% of America. Many
people have talked a good game at points but I think in the end are just double agents of the
dark side/Deep State (Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, ... IG Horowitz, etc.). And some, such
as Chris Wray, are unabashed dark side/Deep State agents in good standing.
As St. Thomas More said, "The times are never so bad that a good man cannot live in them."
I have faith in Barr. I have faith in Durham. Two men whose Catholic faith is integral to
every aspect of their lives and work. But with as pervasive, entrenched, and powerful as the
Deep State is I'm skeptical they have the power to do anything. Btw, here's U.S. Attorney
John Durham's lecture before the Thomistic Institute at Yale (hosted by the Dominican Order):
https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/perspective-of-a-catholic-prosecutor-honorable-john-durham
One thing that really amuses me is that the marionettes of Deep State in the media and
politics actually believe that once Trump is gone their puppet show theatre can resume like
nothing happened. Sorry, but there is no coming back from this. They will be lucky if the
worst thing that happens is a sizable part of of the American populace protests by throwing
sand in the gears. I'm afraid it will end much worse.
I doubt there is any magic bullet website or other source of information that would turn
people over night. A good start would be encouraging them to read transcripts of various
Putin and Lavrov speeches and pressers, also Valdai Club, economic forum ect.
Most only get to see the odd sentence or paragragh in western MSM with an entirely
fictional story built around it, so perhaps and MSM piece like that and the transcript of the
relevant presser or speech alongside it.
I suspect the fine detail in Putin and Lavrov's replies to press questions
rather than cliches would surprise many people.
Walrus--100% my experience as well. Many dinners with "liberal" even "progressive" friends,
mostly of the retired kind require great psychic energy. Their Overton Window is 1"-square,
making exchanges very difficult to squeeze even minimal bits of political reality.
My daily
blog tour, like MW's above, takes me through: Moon of Alabama, Naked Capitalism, SST, Caitlin
Johnstone, Grayzone and a few others. I'm intel gathering -- but I need to figure out how to
convey broader perspectives even to my 40-45 year-old children and their friends. Inside the
Beltway assumptions are hard to de-program.
While I agree with the essence of the post I disagree with the characterization of SOHR. It
tends to get its stuff right. I have listed several significant events where SOHR disagreed
with the official narrative: On Sources And Information - The Syrian
Observatory For Human Rights . Those are exactly the moments where SOHR is disregarded by
the pressitude.
It is the selective quoting of such sources that paint them as partisan even as they try
to stay somewhat neutral.
---
@Pat - Any comment to the Gen. McRaven op-ed in the NYT? Our Republic
Is Under Attack From the President If President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time
for a new person in the Oval Office.
Isn't it a call to mutiny? It seems to me to be far beyond the allowed political comment
from a retired General.
Those that look up the pole, all they see is assholes. Those that look down all they see is
assholes, but those that look straight ahead, they see which path to take.
The colonel's complaint implicitly assumes that things were not always thus. My adult
experience since I saw a war up close has been that the "facts" of our public discourse are
always simplified and usually grossly distorted.
Is the Iranian regime terrible? Well, yes,
but it is also a regime that holds real elections and often loses them. Not in the same
league of awful with Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
Similarly with the other examples. The
"facts" have in each case a basis in truth but do not by themselves give a true picture. Is
our discourse more unfair to Russia than it was to Nasser's Egypt? Is our promotion of Saudi
Arabia any worse than our adulation of Chiang Kai-shek?
Not only are the MSM married to a narrative but they feel compelled to attack the few who
ever challenge the orthodoxy. For example, 'Tulsi Gabbard met with the war criminal Assad'.
It would do our vaunted free press wonders if they traveled to Damascus instead of
repeating the same tired talking points about Syria. I'll never forget the look on Gabbard's
face when she talked about the Syrians came up to her and said, 'why are you attacking us,
what did we do to you'. Meeting real people can undo a lifetime of blather and must be
stopped at all cost.
b Perhaps memory fails me but I think SOHR propagated the SAG gas attacks mythology. I have
stated that McRaven should be recalled to active duty and court-martialed. I could find
several punitice articles in UCMJ under which he could be charged.
When McCain returned from the Hanoi Hilton he could have been prosecuted for treason he was
not because "peace with honour" overrode UCMJ and honour. McRaven is being offered up as a
distraction. Call him back to active duty yes, and assign him somewhere dreary, unimportant
and far from CONUS. Ignore the stuff he is blathering while he is retired, if he repeats
blather while on active duty then the navy might be able to recover some honour.
No...your memory does not fail you, Colonel, the SOHR was the main source cited at MSM level
on the alleged protests which gave place to the destruction of Syria and the legitimation and
labelling of alleged "moderate rebels" which then resulted being but terrorist jihadi groups
brought mainly from abroad under financing and mtrainning of non Syrian actors...
The source on the alleged atrocities commited by Assad was SOHR at the first years of the
war on Syria, along with Doctors Without Borders and "special envoys" by British and French
main papers reporting from the former, and first, "Baba Amr" caliphate in Homs....I am
meaning the times of Sunday Times´ Marie Colvin and the other woman from Le
Figaro , who then resulted or KIA or caught amongst the jihadists ranks along with other
foreign "special envoys" who then were released in a truce with Assad through a safe
corridor, especially made for that end, to Lebanon.
I fear SOHR was the source of the super-trolling consisting on inundating the MSM comments
sections, like that of El País , with dozens of vertical doctored photographs
every time any of us aware entered commenting to debunk their fake news.
I remember this since that was the starting point of Elora as net activist...( till then,
just a baby, peacefully growing up...unaware....but had no election, felt it was a duty,
since, as you comment here, so few people aware...Having known Syria few years before she
could not believe what they were telling about Assad, who, eventhough not being perfect, as
it has been long ago proved any other leader in the world is, had managed to show the
visitant a flourishing Syria where misery present at other ME countries was almost
absent...
It is only lately, when the Syrian war was obviously lost for the US coalition, that the
SOHR started contradicting some fake claims by the White Helmets, especially last two alleged
chemical attacks, if Elora´s not wrong.
Why this, why now, why in this form? Probably those powers behind SOHR trying to secure a
part in the cake of reconstruction and future of Syria...since, it got obvious, love for
Syria is not amongst one of their mottos...
Trump approves $4.5 million in aid for Syria's White Helmets
WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump has authorized $4.5 million in aid for Syria's
White Helmets group, famed for rescuing wounded civilians from the frontlines in the civil
war, the White House says today...
Thank you for this refuge from the noise. How long before the strangling of information makes
its way here, and to Craig Murray, Naked Capitalism, and others who look on with clear eyes?
Humans are copy/paste artists and generally not very good at creative thinking. When shown a
series of steps to achieve a reward people will repeat all the steps including clearly
unnecessary ones. Monkeys will drop unnecessary steps and frequently show more creativity by
using a different method to achieve the reward instead of copying.
The old story goes how a woman always cut the ends off a roast before putting it in a pan.
When her daughter asks why she doesn't know, asks her mother who doesn't know and asks the
great grandmother who laughs and says her pan was too small.
I suspect it is a functional tradeoff that lets us transfer great amounts of cultural
information and maintain a civilization of sorts. It creates a tough environment for
innovators and allows for easy manipulation of the majority.
Nature of course always has a sprinkling of minority traits in the gene pool to allow for
sudden changes in the environment. Most likely those of us that are more critical thinkers
and like in depth, multi-dimensional viewpoints and historical knowledge are always going to
be standing by watching the crowd do their copy/paste thing.
The rise of the internet giving easy access to more "sources" means more fragmentation in
worldviews than ever before depending on where people copy/paste from.
Re: only three TV channels and they all said the same thing!
Once Upon a Time, not so long ago, publishing news was hard. For one thing, you needed a
printing press, which was big, expensive and required housing and specialized technicians to
operate it. Not only that, but a printing press cost money for every sheet of paper printed,
and you had to spend more money to distribute what he printed.
They say that "freedom of the press belongs to those who own one" but there's more! Unless
you were already rich and planned to publish as an expensive and time-consuming hobby, you
needed an income stream. You would get some money from subscriptions, but subscriptions are
really a means to sell advertising. Dependence on advertising meant that there were some
people the publisher had to keep happy, and others he could not afford to annoy.
Anyone who knows anything about local news knows this. At best, it's a tightrope walk
between giving subscribers the news they want to know, and not infuriating your advertisers.
The result was a sort of natural censorship. Publishers had to think long and hard before
they published anything that would tork the bigwigs off. The fact that a publisher was tied
to a physical location and physical assets also made libel suits much easier.
The same thing applied to broadcast TV, only more so. It took orders of magnitude more
money, and you were restricted to a limited amount of bandwidth.
The internet changed all that. Now, any anonymous toolio with a laptop ($299 cheap at
WallyWorld) and WiFi (free at many businesses) can go into the news publishing business by
nightfall, and with worldwide distribution and an advertising revenue stream, to boot.
Marginal cost of readership is zero.
Needless to say, this development has The People That Matter very concerned, and they are
working hard to stuff that genie back into the bottle.
For what it's worth, I found the late Udo Ulfkotte's personal-experience book "Bought
Jounalism" to be quite interesting on this topic, as it details the kind of nuts-and-bolts of
print-media prostitution. But I would really like to see an org-chart sometime of the
overlapping, possibly competing, mission control centers (if that's the right phrase) that
control the various "Wurlitzer" messaging and who, ultimately, is on charge of these. It has
been intriguing to watch, since Kerry uttered his "the Internet makes it very hard to govern"
line years ago, the blurry outline of a vast operation to shut down any non-approved media
messages, now including all social media. To give credit where credit is due, "they" sure
have done a bang-up job in feeding bullshit across all platforms down the throats of a
Western people, like a goose being fattened up for foie gras.
"...the US government (along with our British and Israeli helpmates and masters) are the
preeminent creators and purveyors of the manufactured virtual facts on which we base our
policy."
Sir
I've been perplexed for some time what the objectives are of these virtual fact creators?
When one digs into who the movers & shakers are in the virtual fact creation apparatus
then it seems very much analogous to the Jeffrey Epstein orbit. Folks bound together through
the carrot of extraordinary personal gain and the stick of personal destruction. Your
Drinking the Koolaid, is a seminal work in exploring how these virtual facts are created and
how those who challenge the creation are marginalized and even destroyed personally.
IMO, policy making on the basis of virtual facts extends beyond foreign policy to economic
and financial policy as well as healthcare policy in the US. The symptoms are seen in growing
wealth inequality and increased market concentration globally and financial policy completely
unmoored from common sense and sophistry an important element in virtual fact creation.
We're seeing signs of the early breakdown in social cohesion with social unrest in France,
Spain, Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, Ecuador. Brexit and the election of Trump despite the
intensity and vitriolic nature of how the media was used against them. The impeachment of
Trump another tool in the desperate attempt to retain and consolidate power. Maybe we're in
the Fourth Turning as Howe & Strauss label it.
"The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist ..."
In the interest of specificity and accountability, where/who in the MSM are asserting
that?
You (PL) are making a serious charge.
Just who is guilty of perpetrating such a blatant falsehood?
well it seems to me that the groundwork is being laid for an authoritarian state - and it
already has sophisticated tools that are unprecedented in their scope and depth and ability
to store data. And the whole enterprise is based on three rules:
1) secrecy - data is restricted to "insiders";
2) deception - the "outsiders" (you know, the citizens) are regarded as a herd of cattle to
be managed - with lies and disinformation so we don't get any ideas;
3) ruthless enforcement to dehumanize and destroy dissent. Just consider the torture and
destruction of Journalist Julian Assange: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
Not sure what the appropriate response is but I spend a lot of time at my camp working in
the woods. Thanks, Colonel Lang, for maintaining this site.
Keith Harbaugh
This is my opinion. I am uninterested in proving anything to you. If you listen to what is
said on the MSM (including Fox) it is evident that in the "minds" of the media squirrels
Russia is just the USSR in disguise. Try listening to what they are saying as sub-text.
The request was not just for my benefit, but with the thought that it would be useful to
document the occurrences of such clearly false statements in the media.
It is certainly true that Russia is being demonized in all the MSM I have sampled.
A frequent criticism is that Putin, like Assad, and earlier Saddam and Quadaffi,
is essentially an illegitimate ruler of his country,
ruling through brute force and without the consent of his countrymen.
(Thus the WaPo editorials routinely call Putin a "thug",
just as they call Assad a "butcher".)
I am certainly not endorsing that view, just reporting what I hear and read.
When I hear that, I harken back to my graduate school days,
when the same sort of charges were leveled against America, which was usually spelled
"Amerika", or sometimes "AmeriKKKa", and described as a racist, imperialist, fascist country
whose establishment must be "Smashed".
I believe the core group of people who so wanted a revolution in America in 1970
(which they essentially got, as we have seen over the last 50 years)
are much the same as those now demonizing Russia.
Here is some specificity on their complaints against Russia back then:
They were not opposed to the USSR, or communism.
Many of them were in effect communists.
The cry among many was : "Marx, Mao, and Marcuse" (Herbert Marcuse was a former Brandeis professor who extolled cultural Marxism).
What they did have, in spades, was a feeling that their ancestors had been victimized by the
Czarist regime in Russia,
which, among other supposed sins, had not done enough to prevent pogroms against them.
They seemed to have a deep fear of the Russian people,
based on their long experience with them.
My suspicion (actually, belief) is that the opposition to Putin is based on the fact that
he is sometimes viewed as a throwback to the the Czars,
and that is definitely not something looked upon favorably by many Jews.
"Trump has a balance sheet where a soul should be and that is the basis for the belief
that MBS and/or his "country" are our friends."
Not to defend Trump and his balance sheet mindset with respect to the Saudis, the reality
is that both parties and presidents from George H.W to Bill Clinton to W and Obama have
treated the Saudi monarchy as our "friend", even when they sponsored the terrorists that
attacked us on 9/11.
Tony Blair became a wealthy man after his prime ministership on the back of money thrown
his way by the Arab sheikhs.
A Memorandum of Understanding between the Russian Federation and the Republic of
Turkey
22 Oct 2019
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed on the
following.
1. Both parties reaffirm their commitment to preserve political unity and territorial
integrity of Syria, as well as national security of Turkey.
2. They reiterate their resolve to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and
to resist separatist aspirations in the Syrian territory.
3. In this context, existing the status quo in the current operations area "Source of
peace" between tel-Abyad and RAS Al ain to a depth of 32 km is saved.
4. Both sides confirmed are important the value of the Adana agreement, the Russian
Federation will assist the implementation of the Adana agreement in modern conditions.
5. Starting from 12.00 on 23 October 2019 on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Turkish border
outside the area of operation "The source of peace" entered the units of the military police
and Syrian border service. They will facilitate the withdrawal of the KOS and their arms at
30 km from the Syrian-Turkish border, which should be completed within 150 hours after 12.00
noon on 23 October 2019 this moment will start joint Russian-Turkish patrol to a depth of 10
km from the border to the West and to the East of the operations area "Source world", in
addition to the city of Qamishli.
6. All divisions of CBS and their weapons will be withdrawn from Manuja and tal Rifat.
7. Both sides will take the necessary steps to prevent the infiltration of terrorist
elements.
8. Will be undertaken by joint efforts to promote the safe and voluntary return of
refugees.
9. Will set up a joint mechanism monitoring and verification for reviewing and
coordinating the implementation of this Memorandum.
10. Both sides will continue to work on the search for a political solution to the Syrian
conflict in the framework of the "mechanism of Astana" and will support the activities of the
constitutional Committee.
will start joint Russian-Turkish patrol to a depth of 10 km from the border to the West
and to the East of the operations area "Source world", in addition to the city of
Qamishli.
Oh, the perils of machine translation! The document actually says " except the
city of Qamishli".
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/05/us-attacks-syrian-government-forces-it-now-has-to-make-its-choice.
"The coalition led by the U.S. military claimed it asked Russia to intervene and that Russia
tried to deter the Syrian force to move towards al-Tanf. I am told that this claim is
incorrect. Russia supports the Syrian move to the east and the retaking of the border. The
move will be reinforced and continue. The revamped Syrian air defense will actively protect
it. Russia will support it with its own forces if needed.
The illegitimate occupation forces, the U.S. and British forces and their proxies, will
have to move out of al-Tanf or they will have to directly fight the Syrian government forces
and all its allies. They have no right to be there at all. The Iraqi PMU in Syria, some of
which were hurt in yesterday's U.S. attack, are an active part of the coalition against ISIS
in Iraq. If the U.S. fights it in Syria it will also have to fight it in Iraq (and
elsewhere). Russia is able and willing to reinforce its own contingent in Syria to help the
government to regain the Syrian east."
...........
As to the US setting up a similar operation on the Deir Ezzor oilfields, much will depend
on Iraq.
Iraq have allowed the US to hit the Iraqi militias with impunity, Trump flew into the US
base in Iraq and flew out again without bothering to meet the Iraqi president or PM, nor ask
permission to come to Iraq, treating the base as sovereign US territory (perhaps it is).
Going on past performance, US forces leaving Syria will most likely be positioned in
Iraq regardless of what Iraq says.
Oilfields in north eastern toe of Syria will be within SAA zone on the border.
Esper has stated US forces stationed near the oil fields have not been given orders to
pull out. Supposedly that will be a second stage of the pull out.
Allowing Syria to regain the oilfields would defeat the purpose of the oil blockade so
enthusiastically enforced by US and UK, as once up and running, the oilfield would supply the
bulk of Syria's requirements.
I do not agree that the US withdrawal from Northern Syria is that disorderly. When a war is lost and
withdrawal is the only option it will look very disorderly. That is the nature of war.
Look at Vietnam when Nixon first became president. He basically campaigned on getting
out of that war -- the slogan was peace with honor. That "orderly" process began in 1969.
The first stage was "Vietamization". The US began an "orderly" withdrawal. That withdrawal
took four years and involved the deaths of 25,000 US troops (yes half of all US casualties
in that war happened during the withdrawal).
The final stage of this "orderly" withdrawal
happened in 1975 was captured in those iconic photos of US marine helicopters evacuating US
embassy personal from the roof of the US embassy. And then there was the mass exodus of
millions of Vietnamese US collaborators that fled and became the boat people. That lasted
about three years.
So compare to Trump's Syrian withdrawal. US casualties: 0. Kurdish causualites: likely
less than a few hundred. US collaborators that must flee their homes: Not clear but no
likely to exceed a few 10s of thousands.
I would likely to offer that this Trump instigated withdrawal is very likely much more
orderly than if it was carefully planned by the US DOD in collaboration with all 17
intelligence agencies and the US DOS.
The Russian Defense Minister said all foreign forces (the US) had 90 minutes to withdraw
from Northen Syria. I don't think the Russians were going to agree to the US holding that oilfield.
I've rarely read of them making such a strong statement.
The commandos at the pentagon still think they lost the vietnam war because they did not
have enough support.. Losing 10,000 planes and using more bombs than used in WW2 and
dropping daisy cutters and other chemical weapons etc etc etc was all just shy of not
enough and if only they had a little more.. half a million men was also not enough now that
the Red army was not tying up 90% of the enemy.. Also harder to bribe true communists than
most others like they did in Iraq and afghanistan and even in Syria and you wonder why the
place is run like al capone's garage, thats because the US hires thugs and criminals
because those are the only ones who blatantly betray their countries.. same as random
guiado and his ilk..
Some people on this site refuse to give Trump credit for anything, but the results speak
for themselves. In less than a week, two of the main participants (Russia and Turkey) have
consummated an historic deal that could resolve issues on the border. Allow Turkey to
resettle tens of thousands of refugees in syria, and clear the way for an end to the war.
No matter how you cut it, this is a major achievement.
It's worth noting that the Syria war was never going to end as long as the US occupied
territory east of the Euphrates. So, if peace finally breaks out, it will be largely
because of the change in US policy. Trump deserves credit for that.
Trump might not be the president that everyone wanted, but he's sure done a heck'uva a
lot more than warmonegring Obama.
If this is to be congruent one must take the oil without endless war. Occupation
is endless war thus it's not an option. The more expensive the "taking the oil" is or
becomes the less interesting it should be for a society on the whole (as it turns defense
into wealth distribution at a loss). "Taking the oil" is heavily dependent on time.
Maybe Trump never really thought that far, maybe no one else did either, and maybe he's
simply wrong about the oil but that's okay if "no endless wars" (and at this point in time
most wars tend towards either "endless" or "instant mutual defeat") takes precedence and so
far for as little or much as it is worth that is the difference between him and '"business"
as usual'.
b notes: "Not only would this be obviously illegal but nobody seems to have given
a thought on how the logistics for such remote unit could be sustained ."
This is just a small detail to highlight the point that b makes above, but fuel
airlifted in to run base generators and power the troops' vehicles and such ends up costing
about $400/gallon. This assumes the base has a regular runway that cargo aircraft can use
and not that the fuel has to be relayed from a nearby airfield by helicopter. And even just
200 troops will burn through a lot of fuel... many hundreds of gallons per day even if they
are trying to conserve. Figure about 1,200 gallons per day just for electricity alone if
the base can get by with a modest 1000kw genset. That works out to almost half a $million
per day just for electricity for your soda coolers and air conditioners and battlefield
radar.
These little details are not what people like to think about when they propose
that some troops just camp out around some oil wells.
"... And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party ..."
"... Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . ..."
"... Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic candidate debate the New York Times ..."
"... quid pro quos ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
There was what might be described as an extraordinary amount of nonsense being promoted by
last week's media. Unfortunately, some of it was quite dangerous. Admiral William McRaven, who
commanded the Navy Seals when Osama bin Laden was captured and killed and who has been riding
that horse ever since, announced that if Donald Trump continues to fail to provide the type of
leadership the country needs, he should be replaced by whatever means are necessary. The
op-ed entitled "Our Republic is Under Attack by the President" with the subtitle "If
President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time for a
new person in the Oval Office" was featured in the New York Times, suggesting that the Gray
Lady was providing its newspaper of record seal of approval for what might well be regarded as
a call for a military coup.
McRaven's exact words, after some ringing praise for the military and all its glorious deeds
in past wars, were that the soldiers, sailors and marines now must respond because "The America
that they believed in was under attack, not from without, but from within."
McRaven then elaborated that "These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen
the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State
Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen,
preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have
heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort
Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, 'I don't like the
Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!'"
It is a call to arms if there ever was one. Too bad Trump can't strip McRaven of his pension
and generous health care benefits for starters and McRaven might also consider that he could be
recalled to active duty by Trump and court martialed under the Uniform Code of Military
Justice. And the good admiral, who up until 2018 headed the state university system in Texas,
might also receive well merited pushback for his assessment of America's role in the world over
the past two decades, in which he was a major player, at least in terms of dealing out
punishment. He wrote ""We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the
good guys. We are the most powerful nation in the world because our ideals of universal freedom
and equality have been backed up by our belief that we were champions of justice, the
protectors of the less fortunate."
Utter bullshit, of course. The United States has been acting as the embodiment of a rogue
nation, lashing out pointlessly and delivering death and destruction. If McRaven truly believes
what he says he is not only violating his oath to defend the constitution while also toying
with treason, he is an idiot and should never have been allowed to run anything more demanding
than a hot dog stand. Washington has been systematically blowing people up worldwide for no
good reasons, killing possibly as many as 4 million mostly Muslims, while systematically
stripping Americans of their Bill of Rights at home. "Good guys" and "champions of justice"
indeed!
And then there is the Great Hillary Clinton caper. In an
interview last week Hillary claimed predictably that Donald Trump is "Vladimir Putin's
dream," and then went on to assert that there would be other Russian assets emerging, including
nestled in the bosom of her own beloved Democratic Party . She said, clearly suggesting
that it would be Tulsi Gabbard, that "They're also going to do third-party again. I'm not
making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the
Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of
the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far."
Clinton explained how the third-party designation would work, saying of Jill Stein, who ran
for president in 2016 as a Green Party candidate, "And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it
up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset -- I
mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate. So I don't know who
it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in
the key states that they most needed."
Tulsi responded courageously and accurately "Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton . You, the queen of warmongers,
embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party
for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my
candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was
behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies
in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It's now clear that this
primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race
directly."
Tulsi has in fact been attacked relentless by the Establishment since she announced that
she would be running for the Democratic nomination. Shortly before last Tuesday's Democratic
candidate debate the New York Timesran an
article suggesting that Gabbard was an isolationist, was being promoted by Russia and was
an apologist for Syria's Bashar al-Assad. In reality, Gabbard is the only candidate willing to
confront America's warfare-national security state.
The Hillary Clinton attack on Gabbard and on the completely respectable Jill Stein is to a
certain extent incomprehensible unless one lives in the gutter that she and Bill have wallowed
in ever since they rose to prominence in Arkansas. Hillary, the creator of the private home
server for classified information as well as author of the catastrophic war against Libya and
the Benghazi debacle has a lot to answer for but will never be held accountable, any more than
her husband Bill for his rapes and molestations. And when it comes to foreign interference,
Gabbard is being pilloried because the Russian media regards her favorably while the Clinton
Foundation has taken
tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments and billionaires seeking quid pro
quos , much of which has gone to line the pockets of Hillary, Bill and Chelsea.
Finally, one comment about the Democratic Party obsession with the Russians. The media was
enthusing last Friday over a photo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi standing up across a table from
President Trump and pointing at him before walking out of the room. The gushing regarding how a
powerful, strong woman was defying the horrible chief executive was both predictable and
ridiculous. By her own admission Pelosi's
last words before departing were "All roads lead to Putin." I will leave it up to the
reader to interpret what that was supposed to mean.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected]
Turkey and Syria are conducting previously-unknown negotiations in an attempt to avert
direct conflict in northeast Syria in the wake of a US withdrawal from the region, according to
the
Jerusalem Post , citing Turkish officials.
The announcement comes as Russian-backed Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad
sweep back into the region - heading for incoming Turkish troops moving in from the north.
Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan has backed anti-Assad rebels during Syria's eight-year
civil war, calling Assad a terrorist who should be driven from power.
The newly revealed backchannels were first initiated over a separate escalation in northwest
Syria, at a time when Russian-backed Syrian troops launched an assault in the Idlib region
which contained Turkish forces. Those same channels are now being used to avoid direct conflict
, according to the report.
"We have been in contact with Syria on military and intelligence issues for some time in
order to avoid any problems on the field," a Turkish official told Reuters, adding " Contact
with Syria has largely been through Russia, but this communication was done directly between
Turkey and Syria at times to avoid Syrian and Turkish soldiers engaging in direct confrontation
."
While the Turkish government insists that it has not changed its stance towards Assad, the
security contacts with Damascus reflect a growing reality that it cannot ignore the Syrian
president's steady restoration of control over his country .
Russia's position as go-between also points to the central role played by Moscow - Assad's
most powerful backer - in Syria since President Donald Trump said he was pulling U.S. troops
out of northern Syria.
Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on
Tuesday for talks which are likely to shape the next steps in northeast Syria.
" We will also receive information about Syria's perspective and the steps it will take
during the meeting with Putin ," a senior Turkish official said. -
Jerusalem Post
On October 9 , Turkey launched a cross-border offensive against Kurdish-led forces to
establish a 20-mile "safe zone" near the border. Once this is completed, Erdogan is preparing
to settle up to 2 million Syrian refugees.
Meanwhile, a 5-day ceasefire expires late Tuesday focusing on two Syrian border towns; Tel
Abyad and Ras al Ain - the latter of which the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)
announced their withdrawal from on Sunday . That said, a spokesman for the Turkish-backed
Syrian rebels said the withdrawal was not yet complete. Turkey, meanwhile, says it's in control
of Tel Abyad.
Last week, Erdogan announced that he would accept Syrian forces entering the border town of
Manbij as long as the Kurdish YPG militia - the core component of the SDF considered a
terrorist group by Ankara - was removed.
Moscow mules
While Russia and Syria are longstanding allies in the region, Ankara and Moscow have grown
closer according to the report - as their ties have strengthened over joint energy projects as
well as Turkey's purchase of Russian missile defense systems over comparable US equipment.
As Erdogan and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence hammered out a surprise Syria truce under
the glare of international media on Thursday, Russia's Syria envoy quietly met Erdogan's
national security aide in another part of the president's palace.
Syrian media reported that envoy Alexander Lavrentiev met Assad in Damascus the next day,
without saying whether he had brought a message from Ankara.
A third Turkish official said Lavrentiev's talks in Turkey had focused on preparations for
Erdogan and Putin's meeting.
Turkey and Russia have cooperated more closely on Syria since agreeing two years ago to
work along with Assad's other main ally, Iran, to contain the fighting. -
Jerusalem Post
Turkey insists that Syria must conduct free elections overseen by the United Nations , and
has vowed to work with whoever wins a "fair vote."
Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops who had been protecting the SDF (Syrian
democratic forces) in the northeast of Syria, prompting Kurdish leadership and the Damascus
governed to strike a deal allowing Syrian Arab Army to retake control of the border with Turkey
after nearly six years.
... ... ..
Given that the deep state retains ultimate control of US foreign policy, Trump
is allowed to do and say what he wants – provided it is only within the confines of his
media playpen, safe in the knowledge that his motivations are purely electoral and not really
aimed and upending the foreign-policy consensus of the US establishment.
If we look beyond Trump's histrionics, we can see that the US deep state continues its
illegal stay in Syria, with Trump in reality having no intention of opposing the
military-industrial complex (indeed often appointing its members to serve in his
administration), with these two parties finding a common point of agreement in the alleged
threat posed by Iran.
US troops will only shift near Iraq, looking at disrupting any form of cooperation between
Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran.
Trump's Saudi and Israeli allies in the region have long been conspiring with the Pentagon
to bring down the Islamic Republic of Iran.
That said, the possibility of war with Iran does not align well with Trump's focus on
securing a second term. In any such war, Israel and Saudi Arabia would bear the brunt of
hostilities, making pointless their support for Trump. The price of oil would rise sharply,
throwing the financial markets into chaos; and all this would conspire to ensure that Trump
lost the 2020 election. Trump, therefore, has nothing to gain from war and will prefer dialogue
and negotiation with the likes of North Korea, even if it does not bear much fruit.
Trump's main problem lies in the long-term damage his actions and statements may do to the
credibility of the US empire. The photo-op with Kim was criticized by many in mainstream media
for giving credibility to a "dictator". But the anger of the military and intelligence
community really lay in leaving Washington with nowhere to go after Trump's threats of
annihilation only led to negotiations that did not go anywhere.
I have previously written about the effectiveness of Pyongyang's nuclear and conventional
deterrence, something well known to US policy makers, making them careful to avoid exposing
themselves too much such that Pyongyang calls their bluff, thereby revealing to the world that
Washington's bark is worse than its bite. To avoid such an embarrassing situation, Obama and
his predecessors were always careful to refuse to meet with the North Korean leader.
The United States bases much of its military strength on the display of power, advertising
its theoretical ability to annihilate anyone anywhere. By North Korea calling its bluff and
revealing that the most powerful country in the world cannot in actual fact attack it, the
projected image of American invincibility is thus punctured.
Similarly, when Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from the northeast of Syria
(quickly downsized by the Pentagon), and above all gave the green light to Turkey to occupy the
area vacated, the political establishment and mainstream media swung into action to dissuade
Trump from communicating to the world that America does not stick with its allies. Even Fox
News, now siding with the Democrats, started giving wide coverage to Trump's impeachment story,
inviting in the process an angry Twitter response from Trump.
Trump is of course more than aware that a complete US withdrawal from Syria would go against
the interests of Riyadh and Tel Aviv, those who actually have an influence on him.
Turkey's aspirations to occupy the northeast Syria are part of Erdogan's strategy to improve
negotiating positions with Damascus and Moscow with regard to the jihadists in Idlib. Erdogan
hopes to be able to annex Syrian territory and fill them with the jihadists and their families
who lost the war in Syria and who otherwise pose the security risk of invading Turkey from
Idlib. Erdogan seems to have come to some kind of understanding with the US, which has hitherto
been the protector of the SDF.
Erdogan and Trump didn't seem to consider the possibility of the SDF and Damascus finding
common ground, but this is exactly what happened.
The Syrian Arab Army is now in the North East of the country, protecting its borders against
an invading army. Russia and Iran will try and convince Erdogan to downplay the operation in
exchange for some sort of arrangement regarding Idlib. The Syrian government in the near future
should be able to take back the rich oil fields, boosting its economy.
Turkey and the US have have for years armed and financed terrorism in the region, as have
Qatar and Saudi Arabia (in spite of their ideological differences). Even the Syrian Democratic
Forces (SDF) were involved in the destabilization of Syria.
All this chaos is ultimately supervised and directed by the United States, which has for
years been coordinating in the region color revolutions, the Arab Spring, and proxy wars. Any
other interpretation of events would be disingenuous and untruthful.
The withdrawal of US troops from Syria simply reinforces Damascus's position as the only
legitimate authority in Syria, undermines confidence of European allies in the US, and
emphasizes the consistency of Moscow's actions, which has always been opposed to Washington's
chaotic actions in the region.
Amidst this generalized chaos and confusion, Russia, Iran and Syria are trying to put the
house back in order again, which includes the international system where sovereign states are
respected.
The unipolarists have been suffering pronounced setbacks of late. The expensive air-defense
systems of the United States were shown by the Houthis in the last month to be rather
ineffectual; Saudi troops soon after this suffered a humiliating defeat in the south of their
own country; Washington saw its high-tech drone shot down by Iran; and numerous European and
Middle Eastern allies have lost faith in the US, as they watch factions fighting with each
other over control for US foreign policy
The US is the victim of a unipolar world order onto which it desperately hangs without any
thought of letting go, even as the rest of the world inexorably moves towards a multipolar
world order, one that becomes ever more difficult to subdue with every waking day.
So, it looks like that's it for America, folks. Putin has gone and done it again. He and his
conspiracy of Putin-Nazis have "hacked," or "influenced," or "meddled in" our democracy.
Unless Admiral Bill McRaven and his special ops cronies can ginny up
a last-minute military coup , it's four more years of the Trumpian Reich, Russian soldiers
patrolling the streets, martial law, concentration camps, gigantic banners with the faces of
Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, mandatory Sieg-heiling in the public schools,
National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, death's heads, babushkas, the whole nine yards.
"... During this period of Trump's ruling, the Middle East became a huge warehouse of advanced weapons from varied sources. Every single country (and some non-state actors) has armed drones -- and some even have precision and cruise missiles. But superiority in armaments by itself counts for very little, and its very balance is not enough to shift the weight to one side or another. Even the poorest country, Yemen, has done significant damage to oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a country highly equipped, militarily, and with the most modern US hardware in the Middle East. ..."
"... Trump's move offered an unexpected victory to Damascus . The Syrian government is now slowly recovering its most important source of food, agriculture and energy. North-East Syria represents a quarter of the country's geography. ..."
"... Assad trusts that Russia will succeed in halting the Turkish advance and reduce its consequences, perhaps by asking the Kurds to pull back to a 30 km distance from the Turkish borders to satisfy President Erdogan's anxiety. That could also fit the Turkish-Syrian 1998 Adana agreement (5 km buffer zone rather than 30 km) and offer tranquillity to all parties involved. ..."
"... Moscow mediated between the Syrian Kurds and the central government in Damascus even when these had been under US control for years. Putin behaved wisely with Israel even when he accused Tel Aviv of provoking the killing of his officers, and stayed relatively neutral in relation to the Iran-Israel struggle. ..."
"... On the other hand, Tel Aviv never thought Syria would be reunited . Today Damascus has armed drones, precision and cruise missiles from Iran, supersonic anti-ship Russian missiles -- and has survived the destruction of its infrastructure and so many years of war. ..."
"... Israel has lost the prospect of a Kurdish state (Rojava) as an ally ..."
"... Israel now has to deal with the Russian presence in the Middle East and bear the consequences of the victory achieved by Assad, the Russians, and the Iranians. ..."
"... After the Kurds, Israel is the second biggest loser- even if it has suffered no financial damage and no Israeli lives have been lost in combat. ..."
The United States of America emerged victorious from the Second World War, and came out stronger
than any other country in the world. The allies- notably the Soviet Union- won the war but emerged
much weaker.
They needed to reconstruct their countries and rebuild their economies, with the US demanding
huge retrospective
payments
for
its support. The US became a superpower with nuclear bomb capability and an imposing power of
dominance. Industrial countries rebuilt in what the Germans called their
Wirtschaftswunder
and
the French
les
Trentes Glorieuses
, the thirty years of post-war prosperity. Meanwhile the US leveraged
its prosperity to spread its hegemony around the world.
US power was enhanced with the beginning of
Perestroika
and
after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the new millennium the US establishment declared the "
War
on Terror
" as justification to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, while attempting to
subdue
Hezbollah
in Lebanon, changing the régime in Libya and attempting to destroy Syria,
all with the goal
of reshuffling and forming a "
New
Middle East
"
.
In the Levant, the US has dramatically failed to reach its objectives, but it has
succeeded in waking Russia from its long hibernation
, to challenge the US unilateral
hegemony of the world and to develop new forms of alliance.
Iran has also challenged the US hegemony incrementally since the 1979 "Islamic Revolution". Iran
has planned meticulously, and patiently built a chain of allies connecting different parts of the
Middle East.
Now, after 37 years, Iran can boast a necklace of robust allies in Palestine,
Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan
- who are all ready, if necessary, to take up
arms to defend Iran.
Iran, in fact, has greatly benefited from US mistakes. Through its lack of understanding of
populations and leaders around the world, it has universally failed to win "hearts and minds" in
every Middle Eastern country where it imposed itself as a potential ally. The arrival of President
Donald Trump to power helped US allies and the anti-US camp to discover, together,
the
limits and reach of US sanctions
.
Russia and China took the lead in offering a new, softer model of an alliance
,
which apparently does not aim to impose another kind of hegemony. The offer of an economic alliance
and partnership is especially attractive to those who have tasted US hegemony and wish to liberate
themselves from it by means of a more balanced alternative.
During this period of Trump's ruling, the Middle East became a huge warehouse of advanced
weapons from varied sources.
Every single country (and some non-state actors) has armed
drones -- and some even have precision and cruise missiles.
But superiority in armaments by
itself counts for very little, and its very balance is not enough to shift the weight to one side
or another. Even the poorest country, Yemen, has done significant damage to oil-rich Saudi Arabia,
a country highly equipped, militarily, and with the most modern US hardware in the Middle East.
US President Trump was informed about the evident failure to change the régime in Syria and the
equal impossibility of dislodging Iran from the Levant. He most probably aimed to avoid the loss of
lives and therefore decided to abandon the country that his forces have occupied for the past few
years. Nonetheless, his sudden withdrawal, even if so far it is partial (because he says, a small
unit will remain behind at al-Tanf, to no strategic benefit since al-Qaem border crossing is now
operational) – came as a shock to his Kurdish and Israeli allies.
Trump proved his
readiness to abandon his closest friends & enemies overnight.
Trump's move offered an
unexpected victory to Damascus
. The Syrian government
is now slowly recovering its most important source of food, agriculture and energy. North-East
Syria represents a quarter of the country's geography. The northern provinces have exceptional
wealth in water, electricity dams, oil, gas and food.
President Trump has restored it to
President Bashar al-Assad. This will also serve Trump's forthcoming election campaign.
Assad trusts that Russia will succeed in halting the Turkish advance and reduce its
consequences, perhaps by asking the Kurds to pull back to a 30 km distance from the Turkish borders
to satisfy President Erdogan's anxiety. That could also fit the Turkish-Syrian 1998 Adana agreement
(5 km buffer zone rather than 30 km) and offer tranquillity to all parties involved. Turkey wants
to make sure the Kurdish YPG, the PKK Syrian branch, is disarmed and contained.
Nothing
seems difficult for Russia to manage, particularly when the most difficult objective has already
been graciously offered: the US forces' withdrawal.
President Assad will be delighted to trim the Kurds' nails. The Kurds offered Afrin to Turkey to
prevent the Syrian government forces controlling it. The Kurds, in exchange for the State of their
dreams (Rojava), supported US occupation
and
Syria's enemy, Israel. Prime Minister
Benyamin Netanyahu bombed hundreds of targets in Syria, preferring ISIS to dominate the country and
pushing Trump to give him the Syrian-occupied Golan Heights as a gift- although the US has no
authority over this Syrian territory.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed, millions of refugees were driven from their homes
and hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on destroying Syria. Nonetheless, the Syrian state
and President Assad have prevailed. Notwithstanding the consequences of the war, Arab and Gulf
countries are eager to return to Syria and participate in reconstruction.
Whoever rules
Syria, the attempt to destroy the Syrian state and change the existing régime has failed.
Russia is one of the most successful players here, on numerous fronts, and is now
in a
position President Putin could only have dreamed about before 2015
. Numerous analysts and
think tanks predicted Moscow would sink into the Syrian quagmire, and they mocked its arsenal. They
were all wrong. Russia learned its lesson from the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. It offered air and
missile coverage and brilliantly cooperated with Iran and its allies as ground forces.
President Putin skillfully managed the Syrian war, striking a balance and creating good
ties with Turkey, a NATO ally- even after the downing of his jet by Ankara in 2015.
Russia
wanted to collaborate with the US but was faced with an administration with persistent "Red-Soviet"
phobia. Moscow proceeded without Washington to solve the Syrian war
and
defeat the
jihadists who had flocked to the country with support from the West (via Turkey and Jordan) from
all over the world.
Russia showed off its new arsenal and managed to sell a lot of its weapons. It has trained its
Air Force using real battle scenarios, fought alongside the Syrian and Iranian armies, and a
non-state actor (Hezbollah). It defeated ISIS and al-Qaeda 40 years after its defeat in
Afghanistan. President Putin has distinguished himself as a trustworthy partner and ally, unlike
Trump- who abandoned the Kurds, and who blackmails even his closest ally (Saudi Arabia).
Russia imposed the Astana process instead of Geneva for peace talks, it offered countries to use
their local currencies for commerce rather than the dollar, and it is dealing pragmatically with
Iran and Saudi Arabia, and with Assad and Erdogan. The Americans, by their recklessness, showed
themselves incapable of diplomacy.
Moscow mediated between the Syrian Kurds and the central government in Damascus even
when these had been under US control for years.
Putin behaved wisely with Israel even when
he accused Tel Aviv of provoking the killing of his officers, and stayed relatively neutral in
relation to the Iran-Israel struggle.
On the other hand,
Tel Aviv never thought Syria would be reunited
. Today
Damascus has armed drones, precision and cruise missiles from Iran, supersonic anti-ship Russian
missiles -- and has survived the destruction of its infrastructure and so many years of war.
Israel has lost the prospect of a Kurdish state (Rojava) as an ally.
This dream
has gone now for many decades to come and with it the partition of Syria and Iraq. The "Deal of the
Century" makes no sense anymore and the non-aggression deal with the Arab states is a mirage.
Everything that Trump's close advisor, Prime Minister Netanyahu, wanted has lost its meaning, and
Israel now has to deal with the Russian presence in the Middle East
and
bear the
consequences of the victory achieved by Assad, the Russians, and the Iranians.
After the Kurds, Israel is the second biggest loser- even if it has suffered no financial damage
and no Israeli lives have been lost in combat.
Netanyahu's ambitions can no longer be used
in his election scenario. Israel needs to prepare for living next door to Assad
, who will
certainly want back Syria's Golan- a priority for Damascus to tackle once domestic reconstruction
is on its way. He has been preparing the local resistance for years, for the day when Syria will
recover this territory.
"... How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook expansion.. NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the target area. ..."
"... Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. ..."
"... Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to mind. ..."
"... A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion? ..."
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled
man.
Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the
Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.
I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so
years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected
affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU
academic nor an Upper West Side resident.
And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt
politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the
target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials. Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of
the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to
mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said
to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the
exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can
be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other
plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with
inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor
Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to
presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would
have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level.
This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change
for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has
existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast
majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.
To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under
the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to
Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for
re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96%
turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with
all the international mandates.
It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people
read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held
perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception
of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.
All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia
invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!
@Carlton
Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that
he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of
Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi
Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared
Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.
The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN
Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major
warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State
knew it.
Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact
his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks
for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and
frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped
and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.
The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence
this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth
talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US
always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly
acquired ones.
The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt,
that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was
dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.
These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an
Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights,
those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate
flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice
won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this
impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable
damage will be done to our country and its institutions.
Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot
argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.
On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to
acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards
transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union
should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even
more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means
American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.
We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.
@Ron
Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any
push-back from the interviewer) says:
Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States
and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision
would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore
accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the
governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a
coup d'etat against Yanukovich.
Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies
with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank
in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the
Ukraine coup ?
Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next
president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week
later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor
Cohen ascribes to the US.
These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good
professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after
seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.
No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does
suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia
itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the
oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to
ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.
In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is
the staging post for an attack on Russia.
The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even
though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical
conclusion.
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't
this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got
involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking
crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of
Europe.
Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under
the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion,
according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some
similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and,
according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which
as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.
According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital,
which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1
million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of
Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the
Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of
Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools'
endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous
populations they claim to protect.
@Mikhail
Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia
was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and
West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars
from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was
added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to
do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern
Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
@anon
American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That
historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems
and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run
by the same puppet master.
Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites
have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump
won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him,
like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the
rat).
@follyofwar
The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have
this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.
But it is probably not worth the aggravation.
Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other
innovations.
@AP
Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to
think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election
than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You
say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan
democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?
Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there
was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' –
actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your
either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in
hell of joining EU.
@Skeptikal
Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its
production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market
for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got
immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away.
Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with
the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).
So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially
considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for
transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports,
Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to
despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the
transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also
virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own
it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.
@Sergey
Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."
-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white
like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because
of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to
Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the
coziness of western life?
S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent
and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet
regime."
@AP
Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them,
there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it
already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be
a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed
suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and
blew it.
@AnonFromTN
I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups
– it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.
In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a
country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government
would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming
election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one
could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could
stage a ' revolution '.
AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some
face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with
changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost
feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.
Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed,
Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left
office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on
that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so
blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.
We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU,
or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part
of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.
Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete
disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an
individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.
@AP
You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic
elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989,
had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.
So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a
preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If
you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might
happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.
You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the
unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound
even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not
Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a
success?
@Beckow
True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true
believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country
with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of
Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me.
@AnonFromTN
You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies,
and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.
What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about '
EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it
because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises
is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.
What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to
grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well,
all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve
espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal',
almost as good as 2013 . Right.
@AP
I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:
lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians
Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the
living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can
trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of
its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask:
why? did the authors of that policy think it through?
@AP
I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth'
under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.
One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association
treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a
decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see
today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on
Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.
If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian
puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was
fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got
outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.
@Beckow
Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might
have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.
Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood.
Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown
in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a
murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes
than Porky.
There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell
Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to
South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets,
etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more,
most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if
Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).
Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for
has befallen us". End of story.
@Peter
Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead
from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths
in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current
population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even
40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing.
Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when
die off very real one is going right under your nose.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original
German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is
disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are
heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes
to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender.
Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.
Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main
rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine.
Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed
for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the
Euromaidan.
Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to
others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and
the deaths of law enforcement personnel.
In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If
I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that
Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.
@Beckow
The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number
of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for
favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
@AP
Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's
happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev
putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert
Trump's investigation of those crimes.
Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned
by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24
report fairly objective?
Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?
@AP
This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage-
is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.
@AP
"Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they
watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by
@TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"
@Malacaay
Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.
This probably explains their differences with Russia.
Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the
Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later
grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world
these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the
rest of Russia.
The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the
peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A
huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the
Soviet Union.
Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime
Minister.
Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia
ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine,
Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.
But its not just the US that is a war machine. Bourne's statement equally applies to _all_
states everywhere, past present and future.
If any state appears to not be making war on other countries at any particular time,
its only because it is too busy making war on its own citizens [ eg taxes, drug laws,
weapons/gun laws, religion laws, speech laws, environmental laws etc.etc. etc.], and has not
yet created enough fake money via its central bank to enable it to debt-fund consistent
overseas aggressions against others.
Wars by the US will never end because arms manufactures own Trump. Almost one half of the
US budget goes for the security of the state, domestic and abroad. New weapon development
would come to a halt if the US was not threatened. Fake news about China and Russia planning
to attack the US keeps the arms industry humming. Over a million national security workers
and their families would be devastated if Trump stopped fighting fake wars. God bless
imagined threat of wars.
This has strengthened the possibility of the revival of the Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). There are around 10,000 such ISIS fighters currently lodged in
prisons run by the SDF.
And with this, "the war on terror" is guaranteed to go on, and on, and on..
Just in case you hadn't heard the good news, the last man from the president's foreign
policy "team" still standing, Trump whisperer Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently left
National Security Advisor John Bolton in the dust.
June 27, 2018 Harvard Research Scholar Explains How America Created Al-Qaeda & The
ISIS Terror Group
It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past 5
years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas
ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.
What Trump wants to do and what he can do are two very different things. The MIC/Zionist rot
in DC is way too deep and entrenched for any one man to tackle.
Trump could make all his Schiffty problems go away by bombing Iran. Overnight, the man
would be lauded as the president we need and that aging hack Pelosi would suddenly drop that
phony impeachment hearing.
Trump is finding out that when making foreign policy, the safest route to take is to first
ask, "Is this good for Israel?"
I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego. Let's
inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he hasn't
vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego will
opt for the former
@DESERT
FOX Exactly, with thousands of ISIS,ISIL(American/Israeli proxy forces)types now being
freed due to Turkey's incursions into Syria, these "rebels" will be free to re-group and
fight another day. Hence the need for American forces to STAY deployed in the Area. This is
nothing more than a distraction move by Trump, which will result in the opposite "intended"
actions of American forces being withdrawn from Syria. This will also guarantee the "need"
for a strong Soviet presence in Syria.
America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria, the only point of
contention between America/Israel and Russia was whether Assad was to be forced from power or
would be allowed to remain President as a puppet of Putin and the Russians. Syria was to
never remain a sovereign nation.
The US still hasn't acknowledged the Armenian Massacre by the Turks. Why should it care
about Kurds. US is the nation that said killing 500,000 kids in Iraq was worth it.
Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind
of peace.
Not really. All are still standing and not under US control. Iraq now leans even more
toward Iran and Syria toward Russia ..and that outcome in these countries has made Israel's
goal of destroying Iran much harder and less likely .
The curtailment of the Kurds, Israel's long time friends and proxy , is another blow to
Israel's plot.
It appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and
borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey
loose to do that job.
@WJ
Right. But as Giraldi always points out, Trump almost attacked Venezuela. He said mean
words and rattled sabres! As opposed to Obama, who said no mean words ('cause he upheld the
"dignity of the office") but sent the fighter jets into Libya and turned that country from a
stable, secular regime into a human trafficking warzone. And also got an ambassador killed.
Here are some of Giraldi's gems from April 2011:
Libya is a humanitarian mission
it [the invasion] has no clearly stated objective except to protect Libyan
civilians
it is now clear that the rebels do not have any military organization to speak of and
Gaddafi has the whip hand
Nice analysis there, Mr. CIA lifer and Obama lickspittle. I can only assume Giraldi was
part of the crack CIA team of Sovietologists who were utterly blindsided when the Soviet
Union broke up. It's amazing how much slack he's given around here for his anti-Israel stuff.
It's like Teflon for him.
@Priss
Factor Agree, and the ZUS has killed millions in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and
Syria, for their zionist masters, the only lives the ZUS cares about is zionists.
@NoseytheDuke
The only question you failed to address is what was the true motives of Putin's intervention
into the whole mess. A few good points:
As in Ukraine, Putin will stay in Syria until it no longer suits him. He has no
long-term strategic goals beyond creating chaos and weakening the alliances of the free
world wherever possible. This allows him to play the big man on the international stage, an
essential element of his domestic appeal. 24/7 propaganda and Soviet nostalgia have turned
Putin's invasion into a domestic hit in Russia. In contrast, Russians have no interest in
Syria or Assad, but who cares what they want? Unlike the leaders of Europe, the U.S., and
other democratic countries, Putin doesn't have to worry about how popular his foreign
adventures are at home. There are no checks and balances in the Russian government, no free
media to criticize him, and no popularity polls that matter more than ranks of well-armed
riot police.
Licks for Giraldi: Giraldi has been careless but not where he lists Trumps lies about ending
'silly' wars. from what Trump has actually done compared to what he says about ending
America's wars he is a liar of clear and complete proportions
"the military the only real source of pride the only thing Americans feel they excel at"
An insightful point. Politicians support the military and its deployments for economic
reasons, but the support of the public might derive from "what else is there?" Examples of
institutional and private-sector failure abound in the news over recent years, and every day.
The Boeing Max. The hotel collapse. 250,000 deaths per year from medical negligence. Power
shutoffs. Useless college. The dive boat. A relaxed performance standard. The demise of
meritocracy and rationality. During Katrina, every agency except the Coast Guard went into
gridlock. There are remaining islands of expertise, but the unraveling is contagious.
The dirty, filthy hand of the Jew is all over America's Mideast policy. Israel backs ISIS in
Syria with weapons. The Israeli-Occupied Government in Washington D.C. has even protected
ISIS in Syria at times. The Jew-owned media gives no credit to Iran and Russia for defeating
Jew and American-supported terrorists inside Syria. Now the Jew-owned government is aching
for war with Iran, which is not a threat to Gentile America.
The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime
are still there. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Replacing Assad was an Globalist goal, heavily pushed by Erdogan. We also remember the
failed presidency of Barak Hussein that never represented the citizens of the U.S. So it
would be more precise to say that:
-- George Soros, Erdogan, Obama, Wahhabism, and the Globalists are losing.
-- Putin, Trump, Assad, and Populism are winning.
The real test will be Putin getting all other foreign troops & proxies to leave. The
Globalist agenda is to keep the fight between Iran (Shia) and Turkey (Sunni) going, when they
both leave combatants in Syria. Hopefully, Putin will be able to fully rout the Globalists
and move out both Turkish and Iranian agitators.
@Johnny
Walker Read Maybe you don't know who the author of that article is .Garry Kasparov
Kasparov might be great at chess but in Russia he was big fail as a politician .couldn't
get any votes on his campaign to make Russia like America. He went into a self-imposed exile
in the West. claiming Putin ruined his political campaigning.
Now everything Putin does infuses all Kasparov's punditry
Kasparow's love for Bolton should clue you to what he is about.
Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) · Twitter
As I said about Bolton entering the Trump admin nearly 3 years ago, you may not agree with
his views as much as I generally do, but he puts US interests first, not Trump's. Can't say
same about Pompeo & the rest.
31 mins ago
The short story on Syria, Turkey, USAISRAEL, Russia –
Turkey-Syria offensive: Russia vows to prevent clashes with Assad forces
BBC
Takeaways
THEN .
"When the US decided to equip and train Syrian Kurds, as well as some Arabs, to fight IS,
they were aware of a potential problem, that their would-be Kurdish allies were regarded as
terrorists by their Nato ally, Turkey. Washington turned a blind eye to a problem that could
be kicked into the future. Now the future is here, and it has blown up."
NOW .
"On Sunday the Kurds announced a deal with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
agreeing that its troops could advance into the zone that had not been controlled by Damascus
since 2012, right up to the border with Turkey. That is a big victory for the regime. The
troops moved quickly out of bases they maintained in the north-east. Assad loyalists dug out
regime flags.
It was a disastrous day for American Middle East policy. The alliance with the Kurds, and the
security guarantee safeguarding their self-governing slice of Syria, gave the Americans a
stake in the war's endgame. It was also a way of pushing against the backers of the Assad
regime: Russia and Iran. The departure of the Americans, and the advance of the Syrian army,
are victories for them too.
European governments, rattled in the way that happens when the problems of the Middle East
come knocking at their doors, are calling on Turkey to stop the offensive. Some Nato members
can see a nightmare scenario unfolding, with Syria, backed by Russian power, potentially
facing off against Turkey, a fellow Nato member. The Russians say they are in regular contact
with Turkey. But in a fluid, violent theatre of war. the chances for misperception, mistakes
and escalation are always present.
Perhaps what has happened in the last week simplifies the endgame of the Syrian war. Two
major players, the Americans and the Kurds, look to be out of the picture. And President
Assad, along with his allies from Russia and Iran, continue to solidify their victory in
Syria's catastrophic war."
WHAT IS BEING LEFT OUT OF THE CURRENT COMBING THRU THE ASHES OF THE SYRIAN WAR IS THE FACT
SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR.
The discussion, if one might even call it that, regarding the apparent President Donald
Trump decision to withdraw at least some American soldiers from Syria has predictably
developed along partisan, ideologically fueled lines.
Not too sure where this partisan line is, Dr. G.
It looks like they're screeching from both sides of the isle.
Both powerful Republican Liz Cheney and Hillary called the pull out "sickening".
While Republican Senator Rand Paul applauds the decision, Tulsi Gabbard condemns it.
As for 'ideological', we all know that ideologically, the vast majority of all
congress-critters (99+%) from both sides of the isle, are motivated by the ideology of
doing "what's good for the Jew$"
NATO agreement stipulates that if an alliance member is threatened, other members must
support it in its defense. Turkey has not made that claim, but it is completely
plausible that it should do so .
Are you joking, Dr. G?
Hasn't Turkey been engaged in waging an aggressive war on Syria these last few years?
Wouldn't Turkey demanding military aid from NATO, (for a "threat" from the Kurds or
Syria), amount to the US demanding NATO aid for a "threat" from Iran?
IOW, it's Turkey that has been the murderous aggressor, and the Kurds and Syrians their
victims. Not to mention that Turkey's military could make mince-meat out of the Kurdish
"threat" in a New York minute.
So it seems to me that the only thing holding Turkey back, is orders from the ZUSA and
Russia. Russia is certainly a large part of this equation, IMHO.
did not understand the Turkish mindset regarding the Kurdish threat, which they regard
as existential.
'Existential'?
Would a limited autonomy Kurdish state on Turkey's southern border, perhaps incorporating
a small swath of Turkey, be the end of Turkey's existence?
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the world demanded that Germany sacrifice some of its
territory as recompense for its aggressive military imperialism.
If I were in a position to do so, I'd hand Syria a slice of Israel's and Saudi Arabia's
and Turkey's territory – as a punishment for their depraved attacks on an innocent and
unthreatening Syria.
Definitely the Hatay province, which arguably belongs to Syria anyways.
I'm sure Turkey would call that an existential! calamity, but I'd tell them 'karma's a
bitch'.
Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's
actual record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more
soldiers to no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special
ops forces in numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in
Venezuela, continues to support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors
and has exited to from treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed
conflict less likely. And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in
Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity
and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump
is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than
all of his predecessors. These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to
end wars
I remain you most loyal fan, Dr. G. But I confess this sounds to me like you think the
situation above started on the day of Trump's inauguration.
He inherited those things by the former ZUS regimes.
He has tried over and over again to disengage, only to be dragged back by the screeching
from the members of his own party. Not to mention the ((media)).
There are a lot of reasons to condemn the actions of Trump. The Golan Heights, for
instance. But it seem glaringly obvious to me at least, that Trump is not ideologically
committed to Eternal Wars.
As you put it, he threatened regime change in Venezuela.
He wanted to have talks with the Taliban, (and the whole deepstate and their ((media))
screeched)
He "continues to support Saudi Arabia" but as Pat Buchannan points out.. "The Saudis
got the message when the U.S., in response to a missile and drone strike from Iran or
Iranian-backed militias, which shut down half of Riyadh's oil production, did
nothing.
Said Washington, this is between Saudi Arabia and Iran."
And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that
the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now
experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds
You really do make it sound like all that is his fault.
I love your work Dr. G. And consider you one of the very best, most honorable and most
courageous writers out there.
But I confess, (like so many others!), it seems like to me that you have an irrational,
personal hatred for Donald Trump that colors your perspective.
IMHO.
I didn't have time to write this response well, have to go. Hope it's not too off
base..
@animalogicMore information on Trump & drone attacks would be useful & welcome.
There is a gigantic problem in America. It makes us dysfunctional. Certain news cannot get
to the American people.
Everyone in the know gets it – do not go to the NY Times with anti-Israel news. Do
NOT buck the AIPAC agenda – period. The darkest element of the ADL will be at your door
within minutes. The US government will soon follow.
It is obvious – when it comes to Jew matters, US government employees fear for their
jobs, if not their lives. Same for the MSM.
US President Donald Trump has lambasted American broadcaster ABC News for airing a video from
Knob Creek Gun Range in the town of West Point, Kentucky, claiming that the network used
footage from the facility to depict a Turkish attack on Kurdish civilians in northern Syria.
Trump called the mistake "a big scandal" and "a real disgrace".
"A big scandal at @ABC News. They got caught using really gruesome FAKE footage of the
Turks bombing in Syria. A real disgrace", the president wrote on Twitter early Tuesday
morning.
@renfro
The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in February–March 2014.
Despite all the protests about Crimea, the Donbass invasion using asymmetric tactics with
Putin out outright denying responsability, Ukraine is a vital interest for Putin, and he
would have been willing to confront America and Nato there because it is his home ground and
advantage. But Russia is powerful enough to; Putin only went into Syria after Obama decided
not to overthrow Assad. No one particularly cares about Syria and neither do they care about
the Kurds (despite them having as good a case as the Palestinians to be given a state) and
that is why jumped up Turkey can get away with invading Syria and attacking Kurds, just like
they INVADED Cyprus.
This whole thing is probably a a storm in a teacup, but if Turkey gets into trouble they
know, because they were already told very clearly over Cyprus, that if they play Lone Ranger,
Nato does not have their back. Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey
threatening to get their own nuclear weapons because Israel has them is not very good
diplomacy from Turkey's point of view. It is begining to experience delusions of its own
importance.
@renfroIt appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and
borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey
loose to do that job.
Here is a very good video – Putin being interviewed. They asked him hard questions.
He came across as being very rational.
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen
People! The internet is there for you to verify/debunk any statement you question. Running a
website is a lot of work, why don't you guys collect the information you demand from Mr. Unz,
and share with us?
Or are you looking at others to supply you with ready-made opinions?
@onebornfree
Thanks for the link about Mr.Bourne and you correct about his statement applying to ALL
states.
They are more like progressive, merciful and humanitarian slave owners.
Be free
I wonder why the "high IQ" westerners have never deemed it fit to study their undeniable mass
psychopathy.
If they were indeed as smart as claimed, they would begin to admit it, and given the claim
to their innate highly civilised humanitarian inclinations *cough* , they would come to the
conclusion that this world needs less of their cursed kind.
Since that is not going to happen, I guess nature has its way
@Rev.
Spooner The point he makes is extremely vague. No specificity. None. Yet 10's of
thousands are dead. Ok, how about some evidence.
Why don't you go back to kindergarten, Rev?
@SafeNow
The support of the public for the military derives from constant and pervasive propaganda
particularly through movies and TV shows , David Sirota calls it the "Military
Entertainment
Complex".
Zero Hedge : " Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon , CIA
& NSA ".
@Johnny
Walker Read I was making a rhetorical point. I don't think the U.S. can decouple from the
Middle East.
I do, however, think that Trump wants value for blood and treasure.
Long-term, America simply lacks the financial strength to continue to project power. The
MIC costs the U.S. a tremendous amount of money. Budget to the MIC will continue to be
slashed over time. The Deep State in the U.S. will contract simply due to financial
realities.
Israel will be less and less of a priority.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio relative to
the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.
@Whitewolf
Yes, lack of talent and totall inane radical left wing proposals whiped up by the AOC wing
and swallowed by all the candidates 'hook, line and stinker '.
@OscarWildeLoveChild
After JFK's assassination, every successive president is/was shown a film clip of JFK's head
exploding from an angle nobody's ever seen.
It doesn't matter what party they're from; they'll tow TPTB's line. All of them.
US Foreign Policy = Occupied Palestine Foreign Policy.
That's all that's wrong with US foreign policies in a nutshell.
@Bragadocious
Whether he or his father served is irrelevant. Carter was in the Naval Academy, Reagan and
Bush 43 were in the reserves. Clinton had none and neither did Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge,
Harding, or Wilson.
What is telling, is the "alleged bone spurs", and "Trump's surname was changed from the
original German Drumpf".
An allegation is an unproven accusation. What Giraldi is stating, is that Trump's physician
falsified records. You think old man Trump sent Donnie for a megadollar military academy
education so he could avoid the military?
As for Drumpf, I was acquainted with a couple of Schmidts who became Smith, a Bryjolfson who
became Byron, a Pachkowski who became Berry and, no one says Roosevelt's name was changed
from Rosenfeld. The snide commentary doesn't help.
I have said all along, that there is a lot not to like about Trump, but let's keep it in the
realm of reality. Whether he wants to end the stupid wars or not, he will never be allowed
to, as long as Giraldi's old employer is in business and making up non-existent bullshit
"threats to American interests", whatever they are.
@Sean
"Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey threatening to get their own nuclear
weapons because Israel has them is not very good diplomacy from Turkey's point of view"
Israel is known to puff and bluff . It is grandiose polemic or rabid canine barking. It
was not exposed by the west . But the west now knows it ,thanks to Hizbullah
@anon
Getting women to work had nothing to do with their 'liberation.'
Even though my mom had her own [private] school, my dad's salary was enough to provide for
all 5 of us, go on annual holidays abroad and put three kids through college, loan-free.
To TPTB, it's better to tax 2 people instead of 1.
To them it's just a number game, like the 'Torches of Freedom' gambit, all spiel, smoke
and mirrors, to fool us gullible idiots into believing we do have a say
We should really start to use our guns and rifles to free the country and rid it of the
rot that's smothering it.
Oh, look, another Cartra$$hian selfie butt shot on Instagram!!!!!!
It's very old habit.Very much ingrained . It is also generational . Increasingly and suddenly
religious also as the feckless toothless Evangelicals are rooting for 1 second fame .
But here is a short chronology–
1 Plans for mayhem in Syria have been on the imperial table since the 1950s (Operation
Straggle).
2 US general Wesley Clark gave the game away years ago when he revealed US intentions in
the Middle East after 9/11: seven countries were to be invaded
3 Seymour Hersh gave the game away too in his 2007 New Yorker article: "The Redirection".
In this piece he revealed how the US were hooking up once again with the Saudi/Sunni
fundamentalists in and around Syria.
4 France's ex-foreign minister Roland Dumas also gave the game away when he revealed that the
British State (a definite CIA asset) was preparing for a war on Syria two years before the
start of the Syrian Holocaust in 2011.
"This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June,
"goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."
As we recently learned from former French Foreign Minister Dumas, it was also about that
time, that actors in the United Kingdom began planning the subversion of Syria with the help
of "rebels"' (Christof Lehmann, Interview with Route Magazine)
Between 2006 to 2010, the US spent 12 million dollars in order to support and instigate
demonstrations and propaganda against the Syrian government. 6,3 million dollars was funneled
to the Movement for Justice and Development, a Syrian dissident organization based in London.
The Movement operated the Barada satellite channel
@Johnny
Walker Read Quote: "America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "
Reply: Kindly allow me to correct your statement.
"America/Israel have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "
Russia has a wet entrance into the Med via Syria.
Perhaps you've dozed off a bit over the past few years, but Russia has been destroying and
killing the FUKZUIS 'war' machine goons in Syria [aka the takfiri terrorist].
They're assisting in getting the country back [on its feet] as a whole again.
@anon
I'll keep it short. You can find the beginnings back in the 2012 coverage.
In 2012 Saudi sent Saudi Prince Bandar to Syria to be in charge of helping Syrian rebels
bring down Assad, an ally of Riyadh's biggest regional rival Iran.
They were originally created, set up and armed and financed by Saudi.
The Saudis were then joined by Israel and Qatari and finally by the US under Obama.
A new twist appeared in the Saudi rebels war with Assad when ISI appeared and joined the
fight.
This scared Saudi shitless as they thought this ISI version of ALQ might be a threat to them
and lead to an invasion of Saudi as ALQ always saw it as a' westernerized' Saudi.
Everyone doubled down on both fighting Assad and fighting ISI ..which was a FUBAR if there
ever was one.
Then enter the proxies, the Kurds, the PPK terrorist group all fighting for their own
agendas within and under cover of the original war on Assad.
What could possibility go wrong in all this? LOL
Then enter Russia. Which gave some pause to the US in how far they wanted to go to throw
Assad out for Saudi and Israel and open a gateway to get Iran.
So now we are headed to the ending of the Saud and others Syrian adventure which is probably
best expressed by the fable of the fox and his shadow.
"A fox arose in the morning and saw his large shadow cast in the morning sun and said " I
will have a camel for lunch today'. The fox hunted all day for the camel without success. As
he paused in the afternoon setting sun he saw his shadow was much smaller and said "A mouse
will do after all."
In 1992, Alexandra Zapruder began to collect diaries written by children during
the Holocaust. These diaries speak eloquently of both hope and despair.
[Alexandra said:] "Anne Frank's diary was the first diary that was published. And her
voice was so powerful that it captured the voices of all the children and all the people
who had been killed. That's the way it's framed. And that by reading her diary and sort of
taking her into our hearts, we could redeem her life. . . ." [US Holocaust Memorial Museum
https://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/alexandra-zapruder
]
Alexandra Zapruder is the author of Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the
Zapruder Film.
Her grandfather was Abraham Zapruder, who took a twenty-six second home movie of President
John F. Kennedy's assassination[1] -- now known as the Zapruder film.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Zapruder
]
From a strategic point of view it is very noteworthy to observe that Kurdish troops are
fully positioned east of the Euphrates River. The Kurds are allies of Israel and a vital
proxy implemented to fracture Syria along the lines envisioned for Greater Israel (Oded Yinon
Plan).
It is perceived that Russia is an ally of Syria. However, Putin has not prevented Kurdish
troops from establishing themselves firmly within Syrian territory.
Israel along with their diaspora will never relent until their abomination of "Eretz
Yisrael" is achieved. It's not an accident that the ISIS flag is marked "All Jew."
@NoseytheDuke
Washingtonsblog : " Balkanizing the Middle East – The real goal of America and Israel :
shatter Iraq and Syria into many small pieces "
Thomas Harrington : " One of the prime goals of every empire is to foment ongoing internecine
conflict in the territories whose resources and/or strategic outposts they covet "
Sanchez : " Plan B is to Balkanize Israel is endorsing its plan B for Syria just when its
enemies are making it clear that its plan A (Assad must go) is not happening anytime soon ."
Pro-Israel America launched Tuesday endorsing 27 candidates -- 14 Democrats and 13
Republicans. All have long histories of working with the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee to advance the brand of pro-Israel legislation it favors. Its endorsements on its
website praise the named lawmakers for their actions favoring the legislative agenda closely
identified with the lobby: funding for Israel's defense, sanctions on Iran and its regional
proxies, and bills that seek to counter the boycott Israel movement.
They include Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del.; Rep. Steny Hoyer,
D-Md., the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy,
R-Calif., the minority leader; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, that committee's ranking Republican.
here are all of them listed .make sure you don't vote for one:
@barr
Blaming Saudi or Turkey or UAE has possibly some validity but as far as far the effect of the
independent move by any of them is concerned , it has less than zero effect on Syria on its
own.
It is like a hypothetical scenario where Florida and Alabama are independent countries .
Rest of America is splintered into 50 different states and Canada is trying to get rid of
Cuban regime for 50 years and only in last 5 years Florida and Alabama have joined the scheme
under dubious circumstances of pressure bribery and blackmail.
@NoseytheDuke
Israel was more powerful and also more favorite of the west across ideological drive until
2003
It is not a normal country . Somewhere that guilt and remorse of stealing and killing have
left a mark on its psyche . It doesn't know how to settle and be normal
It doesn't know the meaning of the power, advantage or gain . The paranoia drives to more
dangerous world of fear and insecurity . It can't rest . Even if it is left alone, he talks
to itself and bangs it head against wall . Recent election is the manifestation of more
madness . It's begging jaunt to Russia and screaming through US media show how badly weakened
the country is.
The countries that bow to Israel – UK, USA, Egypt, Saudi are finding themselves also
badly weakened ,
A seed was planted in 2006 in Lebanon . That tree is growing taller and establishing roots
, Israel will be a shrub hiding in the shadow of that tree in a few years time.
Soviet and Russia were both almost destroyed by Jews . Now they look for the Russian shadow
to hide .
@renfro
A pack of lions can bring down an adult elephant at night when they have the advantage, but
they are careful not to choose a really big strong one. Russia is fighting in the Ukraine its
traditional heartland and what H. Mackinder called the Heartland of the World Island. A
victory in Syria that only came because Obama chose to not crush Assad with a couple of days
of air raids is hardly evidence of the Empire falling.
The real meaning of Trump is the facing of the threat from China, and if the neocons want
to play games in the Middle East so what? There is a fight coming with China and it is a
match for the West led by giant Bull Elephant America, Backward ME shitholes all together
could not take down America in a thousand years.
And what were the Kurds in Iraq called?
Didn't Saddam use some type of gas on them and that's why we were siding with them? Who told
about the incubator babies, maybe some other terrorist group?
@renfro
Mmmm, okay, you must have meant something like 'organized shooting' when you said, "SAUDI
STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR." Sorry I bit on false advertising.
As you see from 'barr' at #119 above, your starting point is months, years, even decades
too late. For a fact (I've met some of the Syrians who met with Robert Ford in Damascus, now
here and still lobbying for regime-change), the US was meddling, encouraging, prompting the
anti-Assadists well before the 2011 demonstrations.
@Daniel
Rich Putin is not the nice guy we have been told he is. He is in Syria for a reason, and
that is not simply because he wants Syria returned to al-Assad. Syria is only one cog in the
wheel. World wide Communism marches on, if you hadn't noticed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=4sKxkY0Tz5s
LOL. My favourite rapid US evacuation was the CIA flying off the roof of the Saigon
Embassy while the Viet Kong were busting in through the door and running up the stairs.
who benefits from these wars – isn't it just one small but powerful segment of
America – AIPAC. Isn't it time to call these wars by the honest truthful term –
"AIPAC Wars?"
Except the main beneficiary of these wars is George Soros and his anti-Semitic Globalist
movement.
Soros intentionally orchestrated the ultra-weak, time limited JCPOA treaty to create a
nuclear arms race among Iran, SA, Turkey, and possibly other MENA nations. That way he and
his buddies with MIC investments could profit by selling weapons to all sides.
So let's put in everyone's face with a factual term
Trump confuses tweeting with taking action. How many times has he mentioned 'birthright
citizenship' and then done nothing about it?
A: Every time.
If Trump drives too hard, too early and the case arrives at the Supreme Court while it is
split 5-4 in favor of 'birthright citizenship' Is that a win? Or, a loss?
There is a huge difference between 'failed action' and 'successful action'.
Given the proven hostility of the deep state establishment, it makes a great deal of sense
to lay groundwork now (via tweets), but only launch the correct constitutional action once
the courts are prepared to support it.
With class, Philip Giraldi amused me by his article's mere title, "Trump wants to end the
"Stupid Wars?"
Oh yea! Thanks, Phil , & please continue with offering dashes of intelligent,
dissident, & unflappable humor. Haha. For example, "Trump's surname was changed from the
original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs at Normandy, they were undoubtedly on
the German side."
(Zigh) The insatiable global tag team, M.I.C. and The Land of Bilk & Money , want "Big
Time" and more stupidly unnecessary & immoral wars. (Zigh) One sure path to a 2nd term
for President Bonespur is for him to get off the "low energy" Turkey/Syria skirmish, &
get on with real war against Iran , for Israel.
Thanks, Phil! Fyi, I think Senator Lindsey Graham wants to get Bolton back in The Blue
& White House, and sanction Camp Mar a Lago.
P.S.: For all commenters assembled here, linked below is Stephen Colbert's satiric
covering of President Drumpf's having followed Israel's yonder (fallen) , and establishing a
US Space Force Command! To that, Colbert quipped, "Trump can not join it because of his
galactic bonespur."
@9/11
Inside job Seven Nations to Destroy for the nine eleven false flag. Wesley Clark
mentioned the seven – Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.
Seven Nations to Destroy for Yahweh's Israel – Deut. 7:1-2 –
Tanakh/OT.
Iraq 2003 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces
Libya 2011 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces
How four other nations on the list that were destroyed.
Somalia –
Since 2006 it has been a mess with Israel/US Al-Qaeda running the show.
Bizarre article about US/Israel terrorists "worried" about the environment.
Somalia-based militant group Al-Shabab has reportedly announced a ban on the use of
single-use plastic bags in territories under its control.
The Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization, which has been blamed for thousands of deaths
since its inception in 2006, dubbed plastic a "serious threat to the well-being of both
humans and animals," the BBC reported, citing Al-Shabab's radio station Radio Andalus.
It even mentions that Osama Bin Laden, the puppet of Israel/US, was "worried" about the
environment too. It makes one wonder if this Climate Change thing and Imperialism terror are
connected.
Bin Laden wrote that Americans needed to save Obama from corporate and other nefarious
influences to empower him to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its
destiny."
He added that the world would be better off fighting climate change than waging what he
claimed was a war against Islam.
Sudan
Divided in two in 2011. Israel/US is pushing for more divisions.
Asked about his demand for protection during his meeting with Putin, al-Bashir said we
wanted to highlight "the big U.S. pressure and conspiracy" on Sudan in Darfur crisis and
the huge pressure exerted on his government to separate the South Sudan.
"Now we have information that the American quest is to divide the Sudan into five
countries If we do not find protection and security. America took the world leadership and
devastated the Arab world. (See) what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Iraq, what
happened in Syria, what happened in Yemen and what happened in Sudan," said al-Bashir.
Lebanon
Invaded by Israel in the summer of 2006. It made a mess out of Lebanon. Israel had a lot
of trouble fighting off Hezbollah. This is the reason that Israel fears going into Lebanon
again. After this adventure, Golems like US and its friends are the go to for Israel's war
adventures.
Initially, both Israel and Hezbollah claimed victory in the war, with Nasrallah
declaring that Hezbollah had achieved a "divine, historic and strategic victory". Some
international observers saw the fact that Hezbollah had survived the Israeli assault,
despite the asymmetrical power balance, as a PR victory for the group. According to
Reuters, the Lebanese government estimated direct war damage at $2.8 billion, and lost
output and income for 2006 at $2.2 billion. The economy also shrank five per cent, with
tourism effectively halted.
Six of the seven were messed up, destroyed. It leaves only Iran left. Iran is in the
"news" everyday for this reason.
Trump is flawed, ok then, but we had Clinton as the alternative. She would have been ten
times worse so what choice did the American people have? He's rolling up the Obama-Clinton
project in Syria which was a huge atrocity. Can you imagine the bloodbath that would have
ensued had the US backed jihadi cannon fodder actually succeeded in overthrowing Assad? It's
not a one man show and Trump has to go along with much of what has been taking place. Much of
this has been imposed upon the American people as well as on Trump.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish PKK. Why
so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have been resisting
for so long. But yet the mighty Turks are going to defeat the Kurds of Syria even as they
can't defeat the ones living in their own country? Perhaps they'll take on the inferior
Syrian army at the same time. After all, they're a big NATO ally with lots of weapons to dump
on lightly armed foes. Reality is they haven't fought anyone in a hundred years so who knows
how well they'd do.
Quit calling Afghanistan a "war". It's an occupation with anti-guerilla operations going on.
Apparently they don't like being occupied so they fight on.
Trump's name is Trump, not Drumpf. Or do we now refer to people by the family name used a
hundred years ago, or why not five hundred years ago?
Excerpt from
"Trump Mistake: Allowing Turkish Invasion of Northern Syria"
by Joel Skousen (there is no direct link to it but it is/was on his website World Affairs Brief ):
This week in a telephone conversation with Turkish dictator Recep Erdogan he [President
Trump] assented to Erdogan's demand from over a year ago to let them enter Turkey and
establish a buffer zone where Turkey can resettle the hundreds of thousands of Syrian
refugees that have burdened Turkey since the beginning of the US-created terror attacks on
Syria. But as part of that strategy, and without emphasizing that to Trump, Erdogan intends
to drive out or destroy the Syrian Kurds which occupy northern Syria. Erdogan calls them
terrorists because the US-backed YPG Kurds are affiliated with the homegrown Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) which represents about 20% of the Turkish population, and which has
been fighting for independence from Turkey. So while the Turkish Foreign Minister plays lip
service to Syrian sovereignty, Turkey has already begun the invasion and occupation of
northern Syria. While Trump claims he is fulfilling a campaign promise to remove troops
from Syria, this isn't really a pullout at all since only two observation posts in the path
of the Turkish invasion are pulling out. There are thousands of other US troops elsewhere
in Syria protecting US-backed terrorist rebels.
@Johnny
Walker Read H.E. Mr. Putin has clearly stated it's up to the Syrian population to choose
who leads them, not him.
Tartus has a port Russia needs and uses.
Khmeimim Air Base is also needed and used by the Russian AF.
These are military strategic assets and used to counter balance the FUKZUS 'war' machine's
bases dotted around the ME region. Of course, those you don't mention.
No president actually controls the government, least of all Trump. The Deep State controls
the government. Trump is a an interloper. Why does one have to remind the author of this
elementary fact? The threat to destroy the economy of Turkey was made by Stephen Israel
Mnuchin. Trump had to make noises as if it was his "decision" when in fact he had nothing to
do with it. What Trump wants to do, and what he can do, are entirely different things. And
anyone who has anything to do with Americans knows what happened to all the previous allies.
Mnuchin has clued in those Turks who may have had illusions.
@renfro
very bad US is indeed . It continues to sabotage ,cast evil eye,try to strangle ,and continue
to punish Cuba . That long history is really long punctuated by half hearted Obama attempt
.
Once empire decided a project,it becomes , NASA , Present Danger , PNAC or NED . The project
goes on losing the aim . The project goes on because the vested interest
,employees,pensioner,glory seeking men, arm merchant, politicians and expatriate find means
to rake up profit and launder dishonest living into honest lifestyle . Name is changed when
it suits the project . Aim is not lost. It becomes the final destination . It never stops
energegizing the dishonest, looter,profit seekers, and opportunists . Often the brains that
gather under the flag are not that intelligent or ideologically certain.
Money and corruption drive them.
It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past
5 years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas
ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.
Going broke happens slowly at first, then quickly. The Western cities are going broke, as
are those in the Third World. Nothing else changes peoples minds like having their basic
income reduced or eliminated.
All the promises (including self-governmement and freedom and equality) have turned out to
be lies, smoke. Computers, which were supposed to be a seamless adjunct to human existence, a
source of education and information, and a liberation from the bad parts of part of reality,
have turned into (poor but cheap) entertainment, gossip, a drug substitute, and a propaganda
source. The result is shock and horror, sometimes followed by violent psychosis [1] (e.g.
antifa).
Once again, I recommend "Marat/Sade"
(1967). It gives you a feel for what a revolution is like once the revolution gets going.
Note the movie's final scene, which almost breaks the "fourth wall" convention. It was made
during our last revolution, and the director wanted to record the spirit of what he had
seen.
@Art I
like it, very catchy, original, Art said: "AIPAC Wars."
Oh yea, Art, thanks, and a "spade is a spade" when one manages to get the hell out of the
AIPAC shade.
Unfortunately tonight, millions of process estranged Amerikan Democrat & GOP voters
are now "beamed up" to an AIPAC-approved strange & hostile telescreen's DebateLand.
(Zigh) Across aisle, including a possible Beaming Bloomberg entry, , "winnable" 2020
presidential nomination contestants shall pick & choose, finagle & sell, an either/or
USrael foreign policy posture, as regrettably follows:
1.) The Zio-Democrat War to end the deplorable Trump's stupid call to end all Amerika's
endless Wars just for the paltry good of gradually achieving Greater Israel's unending
endgame. or,
2.) The Zio-GOP's War to end all Democrat Party hopefuls' stupid call to end all US endless
wars just because a lefty AIPAC-Branch put an Israel Labor Party "bug in their ear" about
having lowly dead-ender 'Merikan workers fucking pay for it.
Thanks again, Art, and "Good night America."*
* Phil Giraldi inhabits Sinatra's City That Never Sleeps.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio
relative to the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.
Agree.
And the financial debt must be augmented by degradation of physical infrastructure
(especially in cities and city support infrastructure) and the degradation of human capital
by importation of low IQ populations and effective destruction of education. And the capital
misallocation that continues today.
The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as global
trade will end with it.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish
PKK. Why so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have
been resisting for so long.
Turkish birth rate low (lower in cities than in hinterlands), Kurdish birth rate high.
Kurds replace Turks in a few decades. Kurds don't follow Turkish cultural norms, nor Turks
follow Kurdish. Kurds don't want to wait a few decades, want power _now_ (c.f. Black Power
and Whiteness in USA). Kurds use destructive commando raides ("terrorism") to get power now.
Turks don't like that, respond with same.
Long term: demography wins barring very large change.
Please correct parts of this that are wrong. I'm not following this conflict closely.
Latest TruNews godcast, E. Michael Jones: The Deception Facing the Church by Christian
Zionism
YT Description:
Today on TruNews, Dr. E. Michael Jones joins us to talk about the influence of modern
Christian Zionism upon the American Church, and how that has led to a dramatic
radicalization of US foreign policy in favor of one nation, Israel.
Prof. Jones takes the deluded xian Zionists to task, calling them "useful idiots." My
favourite passage starts @ 18:58:
.. which means you got a lot of Christians who don't understand the gospel. Because
there are plenty of Christians out there who are Christian Zionists. It's a simple fact of
life. I think it can be traced to Jewish influence in our culture Jewish influence over the
publishing industry, for example. How did the Scofield Bible end up being published by
Oxford University Press? Because it's a great scholarly work? No! Because of people like
Mr. Untermeyer pulled strings. This is the way this happened. It's the biggest issue facing
American politics, right now. The role that Zionism is playing right now, in corrupting the
government of the United States, in diverting American resources into a quagmire in the
Middle East, which doesn't serve the interests of the American people at all and is all
done in the name of Israel.
@Counterinsurgency
I'm kind of having a mental barrier with this now.
There is a guy in Vancouver who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, Jensen I believe (he
wrote to the Bank of Canada and a list of people in 2006). He argues that the fundamentals
are even worse now due to the failure to finance these foreign adventures and other factors
(expenditures on domestic expenses not matching tax income, etc.).
I haven't even taken the time to consider the knock on effects. Mentally, I've been more
focused on having to sit through the screaming match that is going to occur over who is to
blame and the lying that will go on with respect to needing to move to a sound money system
but having bankers et al try to argue for a rollover into a new currency. It is going to be
ugly, I can feel it. It will provide an opportunity for some serious structural change and
constitutional amendments. A whole host of reforms are open when you have a debt induced
currency collapse. I just know it could be really ugly and I've been dreading thinking
through how this will play out. I keep thinking that I never expected to live in a time like
this; I think back to being a teenager during the Reagan years and, despite the Cold
War-nuclear war scenario hanging over our heads, it seemed a much more optimistic time.
I am not optimistic. I'm very worried.
@Robjil
Somalia under a failing Siad Barre regime was going to the dogs with various warlords
cannibalising each other. Then the Americans were told in the flush of victory in the Gulf in
1991, that they should just kick the door in to save the dumb Muslims. It is not the fault of
the late senior Bush that Somalia is compounded of that specimen of humanity that emerges
like clockwork when African tribalism is married to Islamic fanaticism (but is there any
other kind?) . The Americans were minding their own business, but were told that it was the
humanitarian thing (and furthermore quite cheap to boot) to do at little cost to themselves
to save Muslim chillun'.
Afghanistan was no better : The idiot, the younger George Bush instead of bombing the the
hell out of Al-Queda and leaving was instead misled by mystagogues of various hues, including
his own self into sinking lives and treasure in a vain attempt to civilise the Afghans.
The truth is the further you keep away from Muslims, the better it is for your health and
sanity, notwithstanding the parallel machinations of various neocohens, for Islam is a
pernicious religion that breeds insanity, intolerance and bloodshed all by itself.
E. Michael Jones: a very wise man. He believes in free speech and is hated by Jews who, of
course, label him an 'anti-semite'. I would argue they are 'truth averse' fanatical
maniacs.
He makes a good case that 'Christian Zionism' is a heresy. I don't believe he uses that term
BUT I do.
It's just another bubbling that is bursting.
What will they do besides scream and throw tantrums? Is it time for another false flag 911
type event?
What the media never really exposed was how Syria, and every Middle East country that has
been attacked by the DeepStateZio monster, has seen the oldest Christian communities on the
planet under attack. Strange pattern. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, initiated by the
British alliance with the Wahabi's and the Saud Family and furthered by the CIA/Mossad in
Afghanistan, has corresponded with the destruction and diasporas of the world's oldest
Christian communites.
Somehow, Europe has ended up with a bunch of Muslims when these Christians would have fit
into their societies much better.
I think that none of this just 'happened'. I strongly suspect that if we were to kick over
some rocks we would find the usual suspects: the Khazar/Black Nobility Alliance.
@renfro
How?????????????????????????????????????????
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I do think it was Mc Cain.
Concerning historically lazy Saudis I am entirely confident that they were only taking care
of payroll.
( I am not entirely confident but there is a possibility that CIA did channel some profits
from Afghanistan poppy fields for this noble cause.
@Counterinsurgency
Quote: "The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as
global trade will end with it."
Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road project,
[IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global trade will
not nosedive along with it.
Too much a stake for the multinationals [not necessary a good thing, but alas].
Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was Washington
that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which
later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were,
at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.
It's very challenging to come up with any foreign policy initiatives that do not serve
Zionist Israel's interests, first and foremost. Israeli interests have defined American
foreign policy objectives in the ME for much of the post-WWII era. Not at Israel's behest,
but on Israel's instructions and demands via pro-Zionist lobbies and the infestation of the
Administration with Israel First officials, Israeli citizens and spies. Add to that the
Israel First MSM.
@ivan
Is it methamphetamine instead of regular fentanyl ? Anyway, this logic and perverted emotion
make sense to you. Unfortunately it will reinforce your decision to switch . Business will
sure be coming back from China to rural America.
@A123 I
respectfully disagree on this particular matter. There is no US law bestowing birthright
citizenship. All that would change is recognition of what the law really says.
Trump waiting to win another 4 (still a gamble) AND for RBG's animatronics to fizzle out
AND for her replacement to not be another skunk like Roberts is foolish.
There is no underwater 38th-dimensional quantum chess being played here, and we still have
no wall.
Oops, I posted this under another writer. (Small wonder I got no answer.) Since then, someone
else remarked that at the end of WWI this land (northern Syria) was taken from Turkey. So
this is a long grievance, with deep sense of entitlement.
Rurik wrote, " .the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they
use Libya's stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "
Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this
conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring that
Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the team.
Maybe Phil can enlighten us:
We know that Robert Ford, US Embassador to Syria, was meeting privately with Syrian "civil
society" activists before the 2011 demonstrations.
-- Was Erdogan/Turkey also involved in infiltrating, inflaming those anti-Assad
elements?
-- How did Turkey involvement begin?
-- Was the CIA actively involved in Syria before the fall of Libya?
C'mon guys.
Using prior military service as some sort of litmus test to the right to critique involvement
and opinion sharing today plays to an audience mentality that encourages blind
patriotism.
There really are no necessary wars these days as they are all being fought for the banker
elite which holds no loyalty to country though it plays on ppl's ignorance to use such
loyalties for propaganda purposes.
There is no justification for US troops to be all over the world as a banker mercenary force
and this site acknowledges 911 was an Israeli- internationalist false flag which removes all
justifications for the meddling in Israeli neighbor's internal affairs.
Tolerating this to get air time with magazines that lie for power is encouraging this
negative behavior for personal advantage in a country and world striving to control the most
minute areas of our lives.
Going along to get along only brings the eternal boot down of the forehead forever@!
The fact that none of these bickering forces are targeting Israel who always was the
catalyst for the divisions there, is a huge clue that we and Israel are the problem causers
primarily. Of course we need false flags to excite the population to support the fake war on
terror within the US and Europe (as well as justify the reverse colonialism going on). Jews
for hundreds of years have counted on stupid goyim to do the fighting but now that Israel is
a supposed stand alone nation, that should be harder to accomplish but apparently total
corporate media control keeps the truth hidden from 85% of the public.
Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road
project, [IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global
trade will not nosedive along with it.
I actually hadn't thought of that. Now that you point it out, of course the dollar trade
will decrease. Negative interest rates are, in a way, saying that nobody wants US Dollars
anymore, and trades that are not in US Dollars are being actively sought. The decrease will
happen a bit before the USN becomes ineffective. And that will be hard on the
multi-nationals, but I can't say I have much sympathy. They were firmly behind the move of
Western manufacturing to East Asia – what did they think would happen?
But I do disagree over the assertion that global trade will remain about as it is.
The New Silk Road. Interesting topic.
Well, first of all it's a reasonable thing for the PRC to do. Historically, the Silk
Road has paid off for China, at least in terms of precious metals, and being dependent on a
single transportation mode for one's raw materials is strategically undesirable. It's a
good move. It's also an attempt to realize McKinder's proposed making the World Island into
a unified state[1].
But a couple of points:
a) New Silk Road is much more expensive than sea transport [2]. If sea lanes are cut
off, China's raw materials costs increase by several times.
b) New Silk Road recapitulates the interaction of European empires of the 1800s through
1900s with ethnicities along the Silk Road. The Europeans were resented and eventually
ejected. The Chinese are having similar problems.
China has loaned money to various nations which have then spent that money on immediate
consumption and are attempting to repudiate the debt. The Chinese (who have no compunctions
about debt repudiation through currency devaluation) are apparently taking over completion
of the Silk Road facilities for which the natives can no longer pay (having spent the money
on other things). Local rulers are saying that this makes the Chinese foreign invaders (on
a very low level so far). Just like the Europeans.
Chinese society also does not mix well with either Islamic or African tribal society, yet
the Silk Road crosses both cultural territories.
So far as I know, the Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal since the US evacuation has gone
well. Last I heard, a few years back, Panama had started teaching Chinese in its public
schools. Chinese operations in South and Meso America are increasing, however, and I know
little about how they are going.
The nice thing about policed sea lanes is that shippers don't have to worry much about
the natives. Piracy is and has been a problem, but so far not a serious one. New Silk Road
goes overland, and that has (historically) always led to security problems with the locals,
whoever the locals may be.
So: Let's suppose that the USN were to become ineffective. Only the part of the Silk
Road guarded by the Russian Federation would remain secure. The rest would be subject to
local raids and extortion from the local government. Note that raw materials costs would
increase drastically for everybody (because of less shipping), so local governments and
bandits would have motives for confiscating goods.
This would be especially the case in Africa, which is largely dependent on food imports.
That conflict could become severe, as China is increasingly dependent on Africa for raw
materials (as is the rest of the world).
In other words, sole reliance on the New Silk Road (should that ever be necessary) would
be expensive in terms of shipping and in terms of security / warfare costs. China's
bellicose policy is, IMHO, counterproductive. China should be positioning itself to police
the sea lanes cooperatively but reluctantly with a declining USN, gradually assuming the
mantle of worldwide protection of the sea lanes that China needs so badly. Current efforts
to be able to interdict the sea lanes are not in the PRC's interest, as the PRC needs these
sea lanes open. It's sort of like developing a hyperbomb to make the Sun go nova. Under
what circumstances would you use such a device? Under what circumstances would China want
to cease shipping by sea?
So, what's likely to happen? The USN will decline because it needs recapitalization due
to age and a changing threat, and the US is instead devoting its income to debt repayment
and immediate social stability expenditures. The PRC, which has never been a naval power,
will still attempt to keep global trade alive. When that fails, the PRC will trade more
with the Russian Federation It will also take what sea and land it has, make an
expeditionary force out of it, and deploy it in some trading zones (possibly in countries
that have resources China needs) rather than see its population starve and itself
overthrown. That's the standard response from any H. Sap. political organization. Things
will get very messy.
And please remember that I'm like the weatherman: I report, I don't cause.
@Stan
Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the
West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility. A
confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on
tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state
would weaken the West,
@Daniel
Rich What part of BOTH the US and Russia are only there to serve their own
interest don't people understand. My only point is Russia is not there out of the goodness of
their hearts. People who claim Russia is fighting the globalist juggernaut and is only in
Syria to "fight ISIS/ISL" and to make Syria "safe for Democracy" aren't seeing the big
picture. Russia is working hand in hand with China to make sure America is reduced to a
second rate global power. Assad has become nothing more than Putin's puppet on a string.
Syria will need money for re-construction, thanks to Russia destroying much of their
infrastructure, that money more than likely will come from China(China's version of "Economic
Hit Men"). All the while, lurking in the back ground, that little shit stain known as Israel.
This report will present the reality of Russia's Syrian campaign. Russia launched air
strikes on hospitals, water treatment plants, and mosques. Russia used cluster bombs.
Russia almost exclusively targeted non-ISIS targets. These are the truths that Russia will
not admit, and the truths that must be understood when negotiating with Russia as a
potential partner.
It's all about the "Belt and Road Initiative". There are no good guy's in this mess, and
the real losers in this conflict are the citizens of Syria. Russia is a main partner in
"Globalization".
One of the main problems of the People's Republic is to connect the "Belt" with the
"Road". For China it is crucial to be able to bypass the choke points represented by the
straits that separate the South China Sea from the Indian Ocean (Malacca, Sunda and Lombok)
that, being controlled by the US, prevent the Chinese maritime power to fully develop. A
first important asset in this sense is represented by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,
which connects by land Eastern China to the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, in turn connected
to the String of Pearls.
Why Syria?
In this perspective, Syria becomes a crucial junction within the BRI: a possible
development of its transport and port infrastructures, properly connected with each other
and with the Belt and Road Initiative, would allow China a further maritime outlet for its
land trade and a formidable trade post in the Mediterranean. A further advantage is
represented by the increased quantity of goods that China could deliver into the
Mediterranean, overcoming the further bottleneck of the Suez Canal.
Syria also has at least two important factors that represent opportunities to be
exploited by Beijing: the country's urgent need to obtain funds to be allocated to
reconstruction and development and the simultaneous disengagement of the United States from
the Middle East, an empty space not filled by the EU. Syria is therefore an extremely
interested and receptive partner to the proposals of the Chinese government, which finds
itself at the same time freed from any diplomatic controversy that could slow down its
action.
@Counterinsurgency
Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and other
third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn sour for
them eventually.
@Abdul
Alhazred Thank you for that video. I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my
life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering to people like me,
but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said.
More on Trump by Shamir's recent article:
What is much worse for Israel, is Trump's intent to leave the region. There is a good
chance you haven't seen relevant tweets of the President, for the MSM doomed to surround it
by the wall of silence. That is what the President said while ordering withdrawal:
"Fighting between various groups that has been going on for hundreds of years. USA
should never have been in Middle East. The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending! The
United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East.
Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have
died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN THE
HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers
& military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE!"
Just for this recognition "GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN
THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY" and for this promise "The stupid endless wars, for us, are
ending!" Trump deserves to be re-elected and remembered as the most courageous and
independent US President since Richard Nixon.
His efforts on withdrawing from the Middle East remind of Nixon's hard struggle to leave
Vietnam and to make peace with Russia and China. If he succeeds in this endeavour, he will
be rewarded by the American people in 2020..
If he succeeds, then he sure will have my support!
One of the main instigators of the Syrian imbroglio – Saudi Arabia – had
been beaten in Yemen and is no longer eager for battle; ditto Qatar and UAE. Europe is less
keen on removing "bloody dictators" than it was. CIA, Jewish Lobby and Clintonite Democrats
would keep Syria boiling, but mercifully they are not in full command in Washington. .
@A123
What is allegedly being built is the same worthless fence. The wall prototypes couldn't
legally be used per a clause in one of the terrible spending bills hastily signed by "Master
Negotiator" Trump.
Better than cacklin' cankles? Yes, but so is my last bowel movement.
Even if we got a real wall, Orangemeister wants legal gimmegrants in record numbers. We
just can't effing win.
Don't you think Trump was a tad premature in announcing "Only I can fix," to all these
problems?
Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and
other third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn
sour for them eventually.
Every high value PRC project in Africa seems to come with as suspiciously large number of
military age, ethnic Han Chinese staff.
The PRC colonization effort is informed by the lessons of former Euro colonies. They have
built-in measures to make them very hard to displace. And, should they eventually be forced
out, the locals will get nothing but destroyed and poisoned lands.
@geokat62
Know more News with Adam News covers the Christian Zionist story. He is still on you
tube.
Jones was banned from that platform recently. He can still be heard on bitchute as well as
his own website, Culturewars.com
the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they use Libya's
stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "
Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this
conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring
that Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the
team.
I have a metric that I use.
If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is
suspect, at best.
Insofar as Erdogan has been aligned with Israel and its interests and agendas (the
destruction and carving up of Syria)- is the degree to which he has been a malefactor on the
world's stage.
/
Vs. the degree to which he's opposed to Israel's nefarious agendas;
– he's demonstrated actual statesmanship.
So that's my metric. That's why generally I don't have to pour over the minutia of every
action or issue with a fine tooth comb, rather I just ask, 'is this person or action aligned
with Israel's agenda.. (genocide, theft, murder, hegemony, strife ), and the question always
seems to answer itself!
Just consider the Obama regime. When I approved of what Obama was doing- peace with Iran-
it was when he was in Israel's crosshairs.
When I disapproved of Obama's treasons, it was when his actions were perfectly aligned
with Israel – destruction of Libya, destruction of Syria and so forth.
It really is a near perfect, if not perfect metric.
When Trump is betraying America and Americans, is when he's serving Israel – open
borders, drones, sanctions on Iran and Russia and others..
When he's acting like an actual American president, in the service of this nation, is when
he's in direct opposition to Israel's agenda – ending the Eternal Wars, making videos
about dead American soldiers, firing Bolton, talking about nationalism at the UN..
I'm really sort of waiting for this test to ever fail, it's been so reliably perfect for
so long.
So if you want to know if Erdogan is acting in good faith, just check to see if what he's
doing pleases Israel, and you'll know all you need to know!
Is a Kurdish state a good thing?
Well, what does the 'metric' say?
Is Turkey's incursion into Syria a good thing?
Here, a mouthpiece of Zion posits 'no'.
The Turkish government is no longer interested in helping Syrians liberate themselves
from Assad's murderous regime.
The video is very powerful, and this video linked in this link features Trump's speaking
with attendant images of the families of the soldiers and what they have to go through
.because of the lies of the warmongers.
@Rurik
As Commander in Chief tRump wanted to kill Syria President Basher Assad for having gassed his
own people & having to be restrained by his Generals, Amerikans now see another side to
their president which Rurik observed on video & gushed: "I've never been so proud of a
U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering
to people like me, but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said Thank
God. Peace."
Am sincerely glad you're "happy," Rurik, that Trumpstein moved to shed some of his
Adelson/Netantahu skin implants. Nonetheless, & I don't want to be a GOP Likud-Party
pooper, but am sticking with Philip Giraldi's advisory to, "Let's see what he actually
does."
At any rate, linked below (& fyr in ), is Brother Nathanael's latest video. In order
to stave off our nation's descent into Greater Sodom & Gomorrah, it's understandable to
me how Bro Nat prefers "The Chosen One" to continue as ZUS president over his uber-liberal
& decadent Zio-Democrat opponents.
Thanks Rurik, and enjoy the good times of tRump's proclamation of an end to endless wars
for Greater Israel while it lasts!
"Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue
for the West . . . A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons"
Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is at the heart of US
FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's
rise.
The wonderful context is, it's not up to Trump. It's not up to the US government. The world
will squeeze the CIA regime out of Syria. Russian doctrine of coercion to peace works equally
well on degenerate great powers, with the minor filip of face-saving subterfuge for routed US
functionaries.
Lindsay Graham gets to shake his tiny fist ineffectually at a sneering NATO ally instead
of shaking his tiny fist ineffectually at a nuclear power with overwhelming hypersonic
nonballistic missile capability. Much safer.
@Wally
The only way to change this cast of filthy charACTORs we have running this country is to have
a "NONE OF THE ABOVE" box located prominently at the bottom of every ballot. One I
would take the time and effort needed to check.
@Cloak And
Dagger Trump's problem is that he has very little support for his MAGA agenda in his own
party. People like Lindsey Graham who support him here and there will not hesitate to turn on
him if he takes positions that offend Sheldon Adelson. Trump's none-too-sophisticated,
none-too-affluent base is opposed by the media, academe, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the FBI
and CIA, and the Rainbow Coalition assemblage of minority voices. Even Fox News (apart from
Tucker) opposes Trump's agenda even as it defends Trump against spurious charges of colluding
with the Russians. For example, Hannity regularly charges the Democrats with being in league
with Putin, in effect conceding that the Russians are evil enemies. Yet Trump's MAGA proposal
was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian) Russia.
At the end of the day, the 4D Chess view seems more right than wrong. While Trump's
commitment to the right is both shallow and wavery, in the present setting he cannot do more
than hold the enemy at bay and wait for reinforcements to show up. That means it's up to US,
his supporters, to find ways to weigh in on his side. As the fascists used to say, a bundle
of sticks can be strong even if the individual sticks are weak.
@Sean
My question to you is: a confrontation between who or what and China? To the extent that
America collapses into a post-Christian, post-European congeries of plutocrats and their
commercial interests, such a confrontation has no clear shape. The evolving character of
American society has been put on the table by the Trump/populist revolution, and the role of
Jews in our cultural evolution is part of that even if it is taboo to discuss it. The issue
over the Palestinians is the only way to challenge the successful assumption of moral carte
blanche by the secular Jewish community, which Jewish thought leaders have parlayed into an
effective assault on freedom of speech and assembly (particularly in Europe but also here),
and a campaign to stigmatize whiteness, Christianity, and the nuclear family.
Conclusion: The issue of Palestine is a proxy for the larger issue of whether secular
Judaism deserves its current status as moral hegemon. It is the only way to raise this issue
that is not instantly dismissed as neo-Nazism.
@SolontoCroesus
SolontoCroesus wrote: "Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is
at the heart of US FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's rise."
To All commenters,
Above, when SolontoCroesus speaks, I listen & learn.
When President Bonespur speaks, it pains to listen, & I can potentially become
deceived.
Will likely get friendly fire from Rurik, but I truly wish he reads your comment &
astutely watches the very informative linked Talpiot video. Hurts when I see good men (like
him) gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.
Thanks for your patriotic servus, S2C!
P.S.: Behind D.C.'s Blue & White House curtain, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin licks his
choppers in anticipation of effectual ZUS sanctions, & the Chinese communist government's
finally granting Goldman Sachs Group permission to do "untethered" investment business" in
the mainland; the largest consumer market on the planet.
@Sean'Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for
the West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility.
A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on
tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state
would weaken the West,'
As usual you've being dishonest. You agree Israel is a 'shitty little country' -- but
manage to insinuate we should continue to support it.
After all, we don't have to spend a penny to 'play Santa' to the Palestinians (as if we
had nothing to do with their expulsion.). It's the Israelis we subsidize and protect, not the
Palestinians.
In fact, we can help the Palestinians and save money too! Yank Israel off our tit and we
get to have our cake and eat it too. The Palestinians get their home back, and we save
billions every year. All we have to do is to stop funding their tormentors,
If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is
suspect, at best.'
It is always wrong to support Israel.
In 2008, I voted for McCain instead of Obama. I told myself they'd both be equally
supportive of Israel, but I knew deep down inside that was a lie.
I voted for McCain because he wasn't black. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is
that I allowed some other consideration to seduce me into supporting Israel -- however
trivially and as it turned out ineffectually.
If you establish 911 was a fraud then subsequent war on terror is a fraud. The West will
exhaust themselves waging war against Islam and the Muslims despite killing millions of
people. They will dig their own graves and cast themselves in hell fire for eternal damnation
for subscribing to Santa Claus lies and Jesus died for their evils by supporting the money
changer's ideology for greater Israel project to usher in their Anti-Christ as their Messiah.
Anti-Christ Dajjal will take them for a ride to hell. He will play them "By way of Deception"
just as they are playing the rest of the world "By way of Deception wage wars." So how many
of us are willing to sell our souls in exchange for the worldly gains and pay a penalty for
eternal damnation?
gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.
"I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video.
"
Gushing?
Perhaps, I suppose, depending on your definition.
But when's the last time you heard a Z.U.S. president speak of the war dead with
compassion and pathos? Hell, when's the last time you heard them speak of these tragic
victims of American f0lly (treason and war crimes), and their families- at all?
He was saying 'enough of this madness!'
And from what I understand, American troops are indeed vacating Syrian bases.
BTW, leaving for a few days, so keep up the good fight, Brother Chuck!
@Wally
Wally likes to cheap shot P.G., haha, and once again futilely asked him: "Has Giraldi ever
stated which current candidate is his preference vs. Trump?"
Get on the ball, wailing Wall! (zzZigh) Likely, even some knowledgeable CODAH associates
will inform that YOU'LL get what Supremacist Jews give you.
Haha. The Zionized D.N.C. is presently fretting over which Jewish Lobby-approved
presidential 2020 candidate they should give to their "base" voters. Haha. Liberal tribe
chieftains are confident that even Mayor Pete Buttigieg will make incumbent, Trumpstein,
Tweet-out "endless" sweat on election night.
Nonetheless, had Amerika a real choice, , Ron Paul would be my #1 "anti-Chosen One"
alternative. Refer to his article below, wailing Wall?
Yet Trump's MAGA proposal was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian)
Russia.
That's why the NeoCohens hate Putin so much, for re-establishing Russian Christian
Orthodoxy as the 'national' religion. Trump, on the other hand, admires Putin for his
nationalism and wants white Christian Russia to be friends with nominally Christian
America. Unfortunately he must bow down to the Satanic anti Christ power brokers, the Cabal,
that keeps him in power and checks his nationalist leanings. Hopefully he will overcome this
in a second term but I've been saying that about presidents for years!
@ChuckOrloski
Thanks ChuckOrloski.
Undeserved, tho -- I was just being a shepherd guiding the flock to other people's good work,
a practice I learned from your comment style.
I don't want to be in the business of educating you on un-American actions undertaken by
"Z.U.S. presidents." You really know better, but since Jacques Sheete, peace be upon him, is
M.I.A., I will now do my best.
No doubt, Trumpstein is different. Please pause momentarily and consider how he very
recently wanted to sell/provide nuclear weapons systems to Saudi Arabia. Fyi, and lucky for
the entire Middle East's general population, Trump's lack of "compassion" was overuled by
those higher in the ZUS's Blue & White House Lowerarchy. (Note: He ain't "The Decider,"
he is the ever useful & divisive Zion Tweet-Chord)
So given the U.R. Moderator sword is not activated, linked down below, is a joint radio
show, hosted by Dr. David Duke & Ryan Dawson. Ideally, this action will take the job of
trying to educate YOU from off my shoulders, Rurik. No reading needed, & just carefully
listen!
Fyi, Dr. Duke and Mr. Dawson will provide the means by which an anti-Zionist &
patriotic American can resist the evil sway dished-out daily by our "Homeland's" Zionist
Corporate Media. These largely demonized gentlemen/scholars explain how Zionized Republicans
& Democrats are curiously "on the same page" when it comes to humanely protecting the
Kurds.
But when it comes to supporting & defending The Land of Bilk & Money, they unite.
Yippie! On other hand, and when it comes to actually helping the restless & sorry lot of
dumb goyim working Amerikans, they fight like , er, "Tom and Jerry." (Zigh) Why Trumpstein
even moved to kill the underachieving & oft unaffordable "Affordable Care Act," a.k.a.,
Obamacare.
Enjoy your time off, my Brother Rurik, and I suggest, at minimum, partial evacuation from
the dug-in Jewish Corporate Media "bases."
@Rurik'That's a very honest act of self-reflection, Colin.
I voted for Ron Paul, (If I recall, I wrote in his name).
I would have preferred the racist commie to the war mongering scumbag, but only because by
then I understood the nature of McCain all too well '
Now you're reminding me of 2012. Of course, I was going to vote for Obama over Israel's
man-in-the-White House-to-be. An unpleasant choice, but there it was
So my wife and I were down in Alameda at a winery. Somewhat incongruously, the server was
right-wing, and started praising Romney. I stayed tactful, as I didn't want to kill my buzz,
but my wife -- who is easily influenced -- came out of there going 'Romney number one.
Yeah -- I'm going to vote for him!'
In an unusual display of wisdom, I bit my tongue. We'll see how this plays out
You need to understand my wife comes from a poor background. If you want to meet 'the
working poor,' go see her relatives.
So the very next day, Romney comes out with his '49%' remark. It was classic.
@Johnny
Walker Read Right. This happens every so often. I am not recommending de Sade or any of
his works.
I'm recommending the movie:
"The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the
Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade ", play 1963, movie 1967 [1].
The movie has very little to do with the writings of the original Marquis de Sade [2], but it
does do a good job of showing the spirit of revolutions.
de Sade had a good reputation with the revolutionaries. He was elected a delegate to the
French National Convention, but fell during the Reign of Terror [3]. He really did direct
publicly presented plays at Charenton starting in 1803, but was eventually arrested and
denied paper and pen in 1809. Died 1815, and several large manuscripts were subsequently
burned by his son, who apparently thought that de Sade had done quite enough harm
already.
Insofar as tje video has anything to do with the real de Sade, it is that the director
(fictional de Sade) manages to stage a small revolution himself in the final scene, _after_
demonstrating that the audience is little more sane than de Sade is ("15 glorious years"
scene). As in the link given by Read [4], de Sade acts as the philosophical godfather of
revolution and revolt as an end in itself.
The really pathetic attempt by ABC to pass off Kentucky gun range footage as a Syrian
conflict zone is a good example of the consequences of Congress' horrible 2013 decision
(that you may not have heard of) to totally legalize domestic propaganda. @_whitneywebb
In the age of legal, weaponized propaganda directed against the American people, false
narratives have become so commonplace in the mainstream media that they have essentially
become normalized, leading to the era of "fake news" and "alternative facts."
The bad and ugly shepherds persistently hit vulnerable & trusting Unzers with their
"best shot." For one example, the currently M.I.A. commenter, Maven Sam Shama.
Subsequently, I see no valid reason why intelligent & good men -- like you! -- should
not give their "best shot" and attempt to support & rescue lost sheeple who regularly
appear here.*
* Some lost sheep simply like it that way, and therefore, bad shepherds, for one example,
the featherweight commenter "Sean," get lots of practice at misguiding the flock.
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen
Right, what to do is the question now that everybody has been taken by surprise.
I'd say that the advice "get out of debt, get out of the major cities" is fairly good, and
fairly obvious, and has been so for some time. As to income, I just don't know. You might try
linking up to some group (non-Left) that seems to be cohesive and has _some_ plan of action
that isn't too weird. Under stress, cohesive groups can survive better than individuals.
You might also remember the rule of thumb that prophets can predict either what or when,
but not both. It's obvious that the US in general and cities in particular are in severe
decline, but _when_ the current system will cast off much of the population it now supports
is simply not known. Abandon it too soon and you end up extremely poor, so a sharp break is
extremely risky. I'd say that retiring debt, hardening your house against home invasion, and
finding some group as above, would be about all that would be justified right now. If your
neighborhood is deteriorating, it might be a good idea to go to another one that isn't, since
the deterioration is unlikely to reverse itself. If you're in with an ethnic group that
doesn't like your ethnic group, it might be a good idea to displace, if only to avoid the
unpleasantness.
@jack
daniels The current US system / world order will end within the next decade no matter
what Trump does. Trump is trying to shut it down with minimal casualties and replace it with
something viable, which is a good thing to do, but if Trump were to vanish tomorrow the
current US system / world order would still end within the next decade, maybe two decades if
things went very badly wrong.
Trump has the wind at his back, he's trying to do things that would do themselves (although
not as well) and that's why the appearance of 4D Chess. But, as you point out, Trump leads a
very small force of government officials, and would lose without the strength given by his
supporters. Continued support, in word and in deed, should reduce casualties (to include
Trump and his family) during the current transition.
MEANWHILE, Millions Hungry and Food Insecure in the US
"According to the US Department of Agriculture in 2018, food insecurity affects 37 million
Americans, including over 11 million children -- the numbers likely way understated."
"Around 40 million Americans experience hunger annually."
"At least 15 million US households endure food insecurity."
"Hunger is caused by poverty and inadequate financial resources, a nationwide
problem."
"Around 45 million Americans rely on food stamps, an eroding program providing inadequate
help."
"1 in 6 American children may not know where their next meal is coming from."
"22 million children in America rely on the free or reduced-price lunch they receive at
school, but as many as 3 million children still aren't getting the breakfast they need."
@Rurik
I applaud the sentiment too.
I'm hearing rumours that Trump has put a thousand troops into Saudi Arabia and claimed they
are paying for it.
Is it now America's lot to be not just Israel's but SA's mercenaries?
2020 can't come fast enough. I'd love to see a Trump super majority and some serious
reform.
It's pretty clear the Evangelical Zionist's are Israelis' b@tches.
America, it seems, must not only reclaim itself but also it's religion. EV is a heresy and
the leaders are on their knees f@llating Israel. It is disgusting to watch.
Yes, I agree, having trucks and trains go overland and via various countries comes with
the risk of conflicts erupting between 2 or more states participating in Chinese projects.
China burnt itself badly in Libya, where Hillary " We Came, We Saw, He Died! Haw, haw,
haw " Rotham Clingon ran amok.
China is actively setting up routes via the attic as well, so I think China carefully
weighs all its options, but doing business comes with certain risks, those are
unavoidable.
When I was in Africa [The Gambia and there about], I noticed a lot of Chinese merchandise
being sold all over the place. I heard stories of some Chinese being attacked and/or murdered
elsewhere in Africa, but haven't dealt with any Chinese businessman myself or heard their
stories in person.
Having been on that vast continent doesn't make me an expert whatsoever, but I see Africa
become a huge anchor around the world's neck. Can't use a single brush to paint entire
nations, I know, but what I saw didn't look good.
side note : I didn't live in a hotel with armed guards, I lived in a compound with
Africans, so it's not that I have no up close experience. Furthermore, I was always treated
with kindness, respect and warmth.
"... Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018, was hired in February, while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint . ..."
"... The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and who has expertise in Ukraine, the Washington Examiner has reported . ..."
"... later emerged that a member of his staff had spoken to the whistleblower before his complaint was submitted on Aug. 12. The Washington Post concluded that Schiff "clearly made a statement that was false. ..."
"... Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence. ..."
"... Trump's been having a bad time with public opinion in the wake of the Schiff operation orchestrating the media coverage as well. But the facts on the ground suggest it was all an illegal spying operation on the president. ..."
"... It's an abuse of his office, for sure, given that Schiff is supposed to be focused on intelligence ..."
"... Image credit: Caricature by Donkey Hotey via Flickr , CC BY-SA 2.0 . ..."
"... Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence. ..."
Seems every day brings a new revelation about Democratic efforts to rig an impeachment of
the president. The false claims and astonishing conflicts of interest being thrown out there
are piling up fast.
The latest, from the San Francisco Examiner, exposes House Intelligence Committee chairman
Adam Schiff's choice of staffers, who it turns out were
two disgruntled Deep-Staters from the White House
who had actually worked with the
so-called "whistleblower":
Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018,
was hired in February,
while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's
committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted
his
complaint
.
The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and
who has expertise in Ukraine,
the Washington Examiner has reported
.
A career CIA analyst with Ukraine expertise, the whistleblower aired his concerns about a
phone conversation
between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to
a House Intelligence Committee aide on Schiff's staff. He had previously informed the CIA's
legal counsel's office.
Schiff
initially denied
he knew anything about the complaint before it was filed, stating on
Sep. 17: "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to."
But it
later emerged that a member of his staff
had spoken to
the whistleblower before his complaint was submitted on Aug. 12. The
Washington Post
concluded that
Schiff "clearly made a statement that was false.
"
Grace, 36,
was hired
to help Schiff's committee investigate the Trump White House. That month, Trump
accused Schiff
of
"stealing people who work at White House." Grace
worked at the NSC
from 2016 to 2018 in
U.S.-China relations and
then briefly
at the Center for a New American
Security think tank, which
was founded by
two former senior Obama administration officials.
So these people were all buddies beforehand, and this would explain why the so-called
whistleblower had been sneaking around with Schiff's staff before he made his whistleblower
complaint.
And that came only after someone with influence was able to get the inspector general of the
Intelligence Community (IGIC) to change the rules about whistleblowers needing no firsthand
knowledge about the wrongdoing they were supposedly reporting. Once that rules change was put
into place, the whistleblower got going.
More and more, this sounds like a pre-planned setup. One Trump operative has a very good
summary of what seems to have been really going on as these anything but exculpatory stories
mount:
Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting
his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so
they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic
efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own
business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence.
Experienced intelligence operatives, and apparently this Trump operative has this sort of
background, like to say there are no coincidences.
As facts continue to roll out, it's getting more and more obvious that Schiff's operation
was to orchestrate this impeachment scenario all along, going into high gear with the flame-out
of the Mueller investigation.
Trump's been having a bad time with public opinion in the wake of the Schiff operation
orchestrating the media coverage as well. But the facts on the ground suggest it was all an
illegal spying operation on the president.
It's an abuse of his office, for sure, given that Schiff is supposed to be focused on
intelligence
, not on being one of those creepy secret police characters in The Lives of
Others . It's also an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars. In light of this Schiff spy
operation, and if Democrats don't want some backatcha next time there's a Dem in office with a
Republican House, it really ought to be every last one of them signed up to that Biggs
list.
Image credit:
Caricature by Donkey Hotey via
Flickr
,
CC BY-SA
2.0
.
Seems every day brings a new revelation about Democratic efforts to rig an
impeachment of the president. The false claims and astonishing conflicts of interest being
thrown out there are piling up fast.
The latest, from the San Francisco Examiner, exposes House Intelligence Committee chairman
Adam Schiff's choice of staffers, who it turns out were
two disgruntled Deep-Staters from the White House
who had actually worked with the
so-called "whistleblower":
Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018,
was hired in February,
while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's
committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted
his
complaint
.
The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and
who has expertise in Ukraine,
the Washington Examiner has reported
.
A career CIA analyst with Ukraine expertise, the whistleblower aired his concerns about a
phone conversation
between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to
a House Intelligence Committee aide on Schiff's staff. He had previously informed the CIA's
legal counsel's office.
Schiff
initially denied
he knew anything about the complaint before it was filed, stating on
Sep. 17: "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to."
But it later emerged that a member of his staff
had spoken to
the whistleblower before his complaint was submitted on Aug. 12. The
Washington Post
concluded that
Schiff "clearly made a statement that was false."
Grace, 36,
was hired
to help Schiff's committee investigate the Trump White House. That month, Trump
accused Schiff
of
"stealing people who work at White House." Grace
worked at the NSC
from 2016 to 2018 in
U.S.-China relations and
then briefly
at the Center for a New American
Security think tank, which
was founded by
two former senior Obama administration officials.
So these people were all buddies beforehand, and this would explain why the so-called
whistleblower had been sneaking around with Schiff's staff before he made his whistleblower
complaint.
And that came only after someone with influence was able to get the inspector general of the
Intelligence Community (IGIC) to change the rules about whistleblowers needing no firsthand
knowledge about the wrongdoing they were supposedly reporting. Once that rules change was put
into place, the whistleblower got going.
More and more, this sounds like a pre-planned setup. One Trump operative has a very good
summary of what seems to have been really going on as these anything but exculpatory stories
mount:
Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House,
recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing
the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the
lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding
their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a
coincidence.
Experienced intelligence operatives, and apparently this Trump operative has this sort of
background, like to say there are no coincidences.
As facts continue to roll out, it's getting more and more obvious that Schiff's operation
was to orchestrate this impeachment scenario all along, going into high gear with the flame-out
of the Mueller investigation.
Trump's been having a bad time with public opinion in the wake of the Schiff operation
orchestrating the media coverage as well. But the facts on the ground suggest it was all an
illegal spying operation on the president.
And that's a far more concrete crime than anything Trump is accused of committing. Right
now, Schiff has 109 congressional representatives
signed on to GOP rep. Andy
Biggs of Arizona's
call to condemn and censure Schiff for this sick little illegal
freelance operation to spy on Trump.
It's an abuse of his office, for sure, given that Schiff is supposed to be focused on
intelligence, not on being one of those creepy secret police characters in
The Lives of
Others
. It's also an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars. In light of this Schiff spy
operation, and if Democrats don't want some backatcha next time there's a Dem in office with a
Republican House, it really ought to be every last one of them signed up to that Biggs
list.
"... inspector general of the Intelligence Community (IGIC) to change the rules about whistleblowers needing no firsthand
knowledge about the wrongdoing they were supposedly reporting. Once that rules change was put
into place, the whistleblower got going." Doesn't that beg the question IF Atkinson had any past
relationships with any of these people in his former position? I believe I read somewhere that
Atkinson somehow was involved in the Steele Dossier from his former job.
Our government has always operated this way. Nothing new here. It only seems "run worse" because the results are out in the
open for all to see. Whereas, the same thing could be done in secret and you'd never know
about it (the changes in the rules).
Which do you prefer? The sloppy American way, or the secretive Chinese way?
I'm sorry to say we have only these two choices. The sloppy American way is preferable to
me because it's the better part of our openly democratic republic and our Constitution.
The current problems and distractions we are dealing with are the result of Biden,
Schiff, and the Democrat's attempts to be secretive about what they're doing. So, we have to
wonder why these people don't want their actions to be known.
We should delight in seeing such illegitimate secrets exposed.
"...The sloppy American way, or the secretive Chinese way?"
What difference does it make if the criminals
are never indicted? The fact that I know of don't know makes no difference. We know
politicians are dirty scum, anyway..
But I think it's not good enough to just accept rampant corruption, surely things
could be better than this?
Also, it's not so much the Dems in question but the entire system.
And I see little evidence that the system is changing.
Though as you point out, one big shift is that more of us have become aware of how
bad it is.
And as you point out, it's always been that way, going back at least to 1913... but
more like forever and with all systems.
And if it is forever and all systems, then maybe it's better we DON'T get to see
all the dirty laundry all the time, including that nothing is done about it. Maybe
better not to know! Maybe that's the only way to make the country 'great' again!?
"... It was the Obama administration who engineered the 2014 right-wing, Neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine as part of its agenda to undermine Russia. A neo-liberal/neo-conservative agenda. This is, or should be, common knowledge. Obama put it in his typically slick way in a 2015 interview with CNN's Fareed Zakiria, saying that the United States "had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine." ..."
"... This is Orwellian language at its finest, from a warmonger who received the Nobel Prize for Peace while declaring he was in support of war. That the forces that have initiated a new and highly dangerous Cold War, a nuclear confrontation with Russia, demonized Vladimir Putin, and have overthrown the elected leader of a country allied with Russia on its western border, dares from the day he was elected in 2016 to remove its own president in the most obvious ways imaginable seems like bad fiction. But it is fact, and the fact that so many Americans approve of it is even more fantastic. ..."
"... It is well known that the United States is infamous for engineering coups against democratically elected governments worldwide. Voters' preferences are considered beside the point. Iran and Mosaddegh in 1953, Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Indonesia and Sukarno in 1965-7, Allende in Chile in 1973, to name a few from the relatively distant past. ..."
"... Recently the Obama administration worked their handiwork in Honduras and Ukraine. It would not be hyperbolic to say that overthrowing democratic governments is as American as apple pie. It's our "democratic" tradition – like waging war. ..."
"... What is less well known is that elements within the U.S. ruling power elites have also overthrown democratically elected governments in the United States. One U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated because he had turned toward peace and opposed the forces of war within his own government. He is the lone example of a president who therefore was opposed by all the forces of imperial conquest within the ruling elites. ..."
"... Others, despite their backing for the elite deep state's imperial wars, were taken out for various reasons by competing factions within the shadow government. Nixon waged the war against Vietnam for so long on behalf of the military-industrial complex, but he was still taken down by the CIA, contrary to popular mythology about Watergate. ..."
"... Jimmy Carter was front man for the Tri-Lateral Commission's deep-state faction, but was removed by the group represented by George H. Bush, William Casey, and Reagan through their traitorous actions involving the Iran hostages. ..."
"... Obama, CIA groomed, was smoothly moved into power by the faction that felt Bush needed to be succeeded by a slick smiling assassin who symbolized "diversity," could speak well, and played hoops. ..."
"... Take your pick – heads or tails. Hillary Clinton was expected to complete the trinity. ..."
"... The day after his surprise election, the interlocking circles of power that run the show in sun and shadows – what C. Wright Mills long ago termed the Power Elite – met to overthrow him, or at least to render him more controllable. ..."
"... Trump, probably never having expected to win and as shocked as most people when he did, made some crucial mistakes before the election and before taking office. Some of those mistakes have continued since his inauguration ..."
"... Trump's fatal mistake was saying that he wanted to get along with Russia, that Putin was a good leader, and that he wanted to end the war against Syria and pull the U.S. back from foreign wars ..."
"... This was verboten. And when he said nuclear war was absurd and would only result in nuclear conflagration, he had crossed the Rubicon. That sealed his fate ..."
"... "Only the shallow know themselves," said Oscar Wilde. ..."
"... ...The first step in dealing with this is to combat ignorance and misinformation. There may not be one undeniable truth but we can certainly squash blatant mis-truths. ..."
"... If you read Professor Antony C Sutton's books about Wall Street, the Bolshevik Revolution and Hitlers rise to power, it is possible, as Sutton did, to examine the methodology, ideology and psychology of the string pullers in depth. For exposing them, Hutton was as he said " persecuted but not prosecuted ". ..."
This article was first published on February 21, 2017, one month after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, more than two-and-a
half years ago. What was true then is even truer now, and so I am reprinting it with this brief introduction since I think it describes
what is happening in plain sight today.
Now that years of Russia-gate accusations have finally fallen apart, those forces intent on driving Trump from office have had
to find another pretext. Now it is Ukraine-gate, an issue similar in many ways to Russia-gate in that both were set into motion by
the same forces aligned with the Democratic Party and the CIA-led Obama administration.
It was the Obama administration who engineered the 2014 right-wing, Neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine as part of its agenda to undermine
Russia. A neo-liberal/neo-conservative agenda. This is, or should be, common knowledge. Obama put it in his typically slick way in
a 2015 interview with CNN's Fareed Zakiria, saying that the United States "had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine."
This is Orwellian language at its finest, from a warmonger who received the Nobel Prize for Peace while declaring he was in support
of war. That the forces that have initiated a new and highly dangerous Cold War, a nuclear confrontation with Russia, demonized Vladimir
Putin, and have overthrown the elected leader of a country allied with Russia on its western border, dares from the day he was elected
in 2016 to remove its own president in the most obvious ways imaginable seems like bad fiction. But it is fact, and the fact that
so many Americans approve of it is even more fantastic.
Over the past few years the public has heard even more about the so-called "deep state," only to see its methods of propaganda
become even more perversely cynical in their shallowness.
No one needs to support the vile Trump to understand that the United States is undergoing a fundamental shift wherein tens of
millions of Americans who say they believe in democracy support the activities of gangsters who operate out in the open with their
efforts to oust an elected president.
We have crossed the Rubicon and there will be no going back.
In irony a man annihilates what he posits within one and the same act; he leads us to believe in order not to be believed;
he affirms to deny and denies to affirm; he creates a positive object but it has no being other than its nothingness."
Jean-Paul Sartre
It is well known that the United States is infamous for engineering coups against democratically elected governments worldwide.
Voters' preferences are considered beside the point. Iran and Mosaddegh in 1953, Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954, Indonesia and Sukarno
in 1965-7, Allende in Chile in 1973, to name a few from the relatively distant past.
Recently the Obama administration worked their handiwork in Honduras and Ukraine. It would not be hyperbolic to say that overthrowing
democratic governments is as American as apple pie. It's our "democratic" tradition – like waging war.
What is less well known is that elements within the U.S. ruling power elites have also overthrown democratically elected governments
in the United States. One U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated because he had turned toward peace and opposed the forces
of war within his own government. He is the lone example of a president who therefore was opposed by all the forces of imperial conquest
within the ruling elites.
Others, despite their backing for the elite deep state's imperial wars, were taken out for various reasons by competing factions
within the shadow government. Nixon waged the war against Vietnam for so long on behalf of the military-industrial complex, but he
was still taken down by the CIA, contrary to popular mythology about Watergate.
Jimmy Carter was front man for the Tri-Lateral Commission's deep-state faction, but was removed by the group represented by George
H. Bush, William Casey, and Reagan through their traitorous actions involving the Iran hostages.
The emcee for the neo-liberal agenda,
Bill Clinton, was rendered politically impotent via the Lewinsky affair, a matter never fully investigated by any media.
Obama, CIA groomed, was smoothly moved into power by the faction that felt Bush needed to be succeeded by a slick smiling
assassin who symbolized "diversity," could speak well, and played hoops. Hit them with the right hand; hit them with the
left. Same coin: Take your pick – heads or tails. Hillary Clinton was expected to complete the trinity.
But surprises happen, and now we have Trump, who is suffering the same fate – albeit at an exponentially faster rate – as his
predecessors that failed to follow the complete script. The day after his surprise election, the interlocking circles of power that
run the show in sun and shadows – what C. Wright Mills long ago termed the Power Elite – met to overthrow him, or at least to render
him more controllable.
These efforts, run out of interconnected power centers, including the liberal corporate legal boardrooms that were the backers
of Obama and Hillary Clinton, had no compunction in planning the overthrow of a legally elected president.
Soon they were joined by their conservative conspirators in doing the necessary work of "democracy" – making certain that only
one of their hand-picked and anointed henchmen was at the helm of state. Of course, the intelligence agencies coordinated their efforts
and their media scribes wrote the cover stories. The pink Pussyhats took to the streets. The deep state was working overtime.
Trump, probably never having expected to win and as shocked as most people when he did, made some crucial mistakes before the
election and before taking office. Some of those mistakes have continued since his inauguration.
Not his derogatory remarks about minorities, immigrants, or women. Not his promise to cut corporate taxes, support energy companies,
oppose strict environmental standards. Not his slogan to "make America great again." Not his promise to build a "wall" along the
Mexican border and make Mexico pay for it. Not his vow to deport immigrants. Not his anti-Muslim pledges. Not his insistence that
NATO countries contribute more to NATO's "defense" of their own countries. Not even his crude rantings and Tweets and his hypersensitive
defensiveness. Not his reality-TV celebrity status, his eponymous golden tower and palatial hotels and sundry real estate holdings.
Not his orange hair and often comical and disturbing demeanor, accentuated by his off the cuff speaking style.
Surely not his massive wealth.
While much of this was viewed with dismay, it was generally acceptable to the power elites who transcend party lines and run the
country. Offensive to hysterical liberal Democrats and traditional Republicans, all this about Trump could be tolerated, if only
he would cooperate on the key issue.
Trump's fatal mistake was saying that he wanted to get along with Russia, that Putin was a good leader, and that he wanted to
end the war against Syria and pull the U.S. back from foreign wars.
This was verboten. And when he said nuclear war was absurd and would only result in nuclear conflagration, he had crossed the
Rubicon. That sealed his fate.
Misogyny, racism, support for Republican conservative positions on a host of issues – all fine. Opposing foreign wars, especially
with Russia – not fine.
Now we have a reality-TV president and a reality-TV coup d'etat in prime time. Hidden in plain sight, the deep-state has gone
shallow. What was once covert is now overt. Once it was necessary to blame a coup on a secretive "crazy lone assassin," Lee Harvey
Oswald. But in this "post-modern" society of the spectacle, the manifest is latent; the obvious, non-obvious; what you see you don't
see. Everyone knows those reality-TV shows aren't real, right?
It may seem like it is a coup against Trump in plain sight, but these shows are tricky, aren't they? He's the TV guy. He runs
the show. He's the sorcerer's apprentice. He wants you to believe in the illusion of the obvious. He's the master media manipulator.
You see it but don't believe it because you are so astute, while he is so blatant. He's brought it upon himself. He's bringing himself
down. Everyone who knows, knows that.
I am reminded of being in a movie theatre in 1998, watching The Truman Show, about a guy who slowly "discovers" that he has been
living in the bubble of a television show his whole life. At the end of the film he makes his "escape" through a door in the constructed
dome that is the studio set.
The liberal audience in a very liberal town stood up and applauded Truman's dash to freedom. I was startled since I had never
before heard an audience applaud in a movie theatre – and a standing ovation at that. I wondered what they were applauding. I quickly
realized they were applauding themselves, their knowingness, their insider astuteness that Truman had finally caught on to what they
already thought they knew. Now he would be free like they were. They couldn't be taken in; now he couldn't.
Except, of course, they were applauding an illusion, a film about being trapped in a reality-TV world, a world in which they stood
in that theatre – their world, their frame. Frames within frames. Truman escapes from one fake frame into another – the movie. The
joke was on them. The film had done its magic as its obvious content concealed its deeper truth: the spectator and the spectacle
were wed. McLuhan was here right: the medium was the message.
This is what George Trow in 1980 called "the context of no context."
Candor as concealment, truth as lies, knowingness as stupidity. Making reality unreal in the service of an agenda that is so obvious
it isn't, even as the cognoscenti applaud themselves for being so smart and in the know.
The more we hear about "the deep state" and begin to grasp its definition, the more we will have descended down the rabbit hole.
Soon this "deep state" will be offering courses on what it is, how it operates, and why it must stay hidden while it "exposes" itself.
Right-wing pundit Bill Kristol tweets:
Liberal CIA critic and JFK assassination researcher, Jefferson Morley, after defining the deep state, writes:
With a docile Republican majority in Congress and a demoralized Democratic Party in opposition, the leaders of the Deep State
are the most – perhaps the only – credible check in Washington on what Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) calls Trump's "wrecking ball
presidency."
These are men who ostensibly share different ideologies, yet agree, and state it publically, that the "deep state" should take
out Trump. Both believe, without evidence, that the Russians intervened to try to get Trump elected. Therefore, both no doubt feel
justified in openly espousing a coup d'etat. They match Trump's blatancy with their own. Nothing deep about this.
Liberals and conservatives are now publically allied in demonizing Putin and Russia, and supporting a very dangerous military
confrontation initiated by Obama and championed by the defeated Hillary Clinton. In the past these opposed political factions accepted
that they would rotate their titular leaders into and out of the White House, and whenever the need arose to depose one or the other,
that business would be left to deep state forces to effect in secret and everyone would play dumb.
Now the game has changed. It's all "obvious." The deep state has seemingly gone shallow. Its supporters say so. All the smart
people can see what's happening. Even when what's happening isn't really happening.
"Only the shallow know themselves," said Oscar Wilde.
Edward Curtin Edward Curtin writes, and his
writing on varied topics has appeared widely over many years. He writes as a public intellectual for the general public, not as a
specialist for a narrow readership. He believes a non-committal sociology is an impossibility and therefore sees all his work as
an effort to enhance human freedom through understanding. His website is edwardcurtin.com
Frank Speaker
I remember this excellent piece the first time around. It's indeed even more pertinent today,
Martin Usher
...The first step in dealing with this is to combat ignorance and misinformation. There may not be one undeniable truth but we
can certainly squash blatant mis-truths. This arena isn't just political -- our culture has a habit of reworking our past in a
contemporary image and so subtly warping the lessons of history. Hollywood is a prime offender but then its no surprise to discover
that the original master of propaganda, Goebbels, recognized that entertainment that pushed cultural values was a far more powerful
tool for propaganda than the media that was, and still is, traditionally associated with propaganda.
John Deehan
If you read Professor Antony C Sutton's books about Wall Street, the Bolshevik Revolution and Hitlers rise to power, it is possible,
as Sutton did, to examine the methodology, ideology and psychology of the string pullers in depth. For exposing them, Hutton was
as he said " persecuted but not prosecuted ".
nottheonly1
Sadly though, an old wisdom brings itself into this ludicrous scenery. It also makes the comparison with the Truman show so apt.
You can't fix stupid.
Now, [..] the sense of betrayal among the Kurds [..] is matched only by their outrage at who
will move in: Turkish soldiers supported by Syrian fighters the United States had long
rejected as extremists, criminals and thugs .
...
The deadly battles [..] have also given new leeway to Syrian fighters once considered too
extreme or unruly to receive American military support.
...
Grandly misnamed the Syrian National Army, this coalition of Turkish-backed militias is in
fact largely composed of the dregs of the eight-year-old conflict's failed rebel movement.
Early in the war [..] the military and the C.I.A. sought to train and equip moderate,
trustworthy rebels to fight the government and the Islamic State.
A few of those now fighting in the northeast took part in those failed programs, but most
were rejected as too extreme or too criminal . Some have expressed extremist sensibilities or
allied with jihadist groups.
The reality is the opposite of what the NYT claims. The majority of the groups now
fighting with the Turkish army had earlier received support from the U.S. Even their nominal
leader is the same one who the U.S. earlier paid, armed and promoted.
On August 31, the Syrian National Coalition came together and elected the president and the
cabinet of the Syrian Interim Government in which Abdurrahman Mustafa was elected president
and Salim Idriss was elected defense minister . With the new cabinet, the Syrian Interim
Government became more active on the ground, started visiting each faction of the National
Army, and accelerated the stalled negotiations to unite the National Army and the NLF under
one command.
Among the 41 factions that joined the merger, 15 are from the NLF and 26 from the National
Army. Thirteen of these factions were formed after the United States cut its support to the
armed Syrian opposition. Out of the 28 factions, 21 were previously supported by the United
States , three of them via the Pentagon's program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions
were supplied by the CIA via the MOM Operations Room in Turkey, a joint intelligence
operation room of the 'Friends of Syria' to support the armed opposition. Fourteen factions
of the 28 were also recipients of the U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank guided missiles.
The SETA study provides a detailed list of the groups involved in the current Turkish
invasion of Syria. Not only is their commander Salim Idriss a former U.S. stooge but the
majority of these groups did receive U.S. support and weapons.
The New York Times claim that only "a few of those" who now fight the YPG Kurds took
part in the U.S. programs is a blatant lie.
The NYT piece quotes three 'experts' who testify that the 'rebels' the U.S. had armed
are really, really bad:
"These are the misfits of the conflict, the worst of the worst," said Hassan Hassan, a
Syrian-born scholar tracking the fighting. "They have been notorious for extortion, theft and
banditry, more like thugs than rebels -- essentially mercenaries."
It was Hassan Hassan who since the start of the conflict lobbied for
arming the rebels from his perch at the UAE's media flagship The National .
Another 'expert' quoted is the Israeli propagandist Elizabeth Tsurkov:
"They are basically gangsters, but they are also racist toward Kurds and other minorities,"
said Elizabeth Tsurkov, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. "No human should
be subjected to their rule."
Tsurkov earlier
lauded the Israeli hiring and arming of the very same 'Syrian rebels'.
Another 'expert' quoted by the Times is a co-chair of the 'congressionally sponsored
bipartisan Syrian Study Group':
"We are turning areas that had been controlled by our allies over to the control of criminals
or thugs, or that in some cases groups were associated or fighting alongside Al Qaeda," said
Ms. Stroul, of the Syrian Study Group. "It is a profound and epic strategic blunder."
The 'Syrian Study Group' wants to prolong the war on Syria. Ms.
Stroul and her co-chair Michael Singh reside at the Washington
Institute which is a part of the Zionist lobby and has long
argued for 'arming the Syrian rebels'.
The Times report does not mention that the 'experts' it quotes all once lobbied for
arming the very same groups they are now lamenting about. When these groups ran rampant in the
areas they took from the Syrian government the Times and its 'experts' were lauding them
all the way. No effort to support them was big enough. All crimes they committed were covered
up or excused.
Now, as the very same rebels attack the Kurds, they are suddenly called out for being what
they always have been.
Posted by b on October 20, 2019 at 11:19 UTC |
Permalink
Hah! More lies from the NYT....mainstream media in the west has deteriorated into a
propaganda channel for the Military Industrial Complex and the oligarchy, pumping out a never
ending tide of lying filth aimed at more and more war (more and more weapon sales) and
promoting and preserving predatory capitalism (more money for the Billionaire class, less for
you).
In my own reading of MSM press and my own watching of the MSM Talking Heads I believe I've
indentified 8 techniques that amoral, dangerous, barely competent idiots that have the cheek
to call themselves journalists use to lie to you, the reader/viewer/listener. Here's my
list...
Okay how practical.
Now only is the NYT trying to whitewash themselves by faking, they are also kind enough to do
the same for their Jihadi lovin partners in crime.
How empathic! How sensible! Like a true moral authority.
BTW: It seems my previous claims were right. The Turks made a 180 and allied with the US
again, reviving the NATO allaince. Now that the Kurds are out of the way in Turk-US
relations, US and NATO has much more to offer than Russia, and noe Erdogan has support from
NATO and will not be deterred by Putin.
B, i respect you immensly, but your belief the Turkish invasion was Erdogan doing some secret
Putin plan was unproven at the time, and now, AT LEAST since the US-Turk deal, is
obsolte.
Read M. K. BHADRAKUMARs blog, he thought like you, but after the US-Turk deal, EVERYTHING HAS
CHANGED:
"The extraordinary US overture to Turkey regarding northern Syria resulted in a joint
statement on Thursday, whose ramifications can be rated only in the fulness of time , as
several intersecting tracks are running.
The US objectives range from Trump's compulsions in domestic politics to the future
trajectory of the US policies toward Syria and the impact of any US-Turkish rapprochement on
the geopolitics of the Syrian conflict.
Meanwhile, the US-Turkish joint statement creates new uncertainties. The two countries
have agreed on a set of principles -- Turkey's crucial status as a NATO power ; security of
Christian minorities in Syria; prevention of an ISIS surge; creation of a "safe zone" on
Turkish-Syrian border; a 120-hour ceasefire ("pause") in Turkish military operations leading
to a permanent halt, hopefully.
The devil lies in the details. Principally, there is no transparency regarding the future
US role in Syria . The Kurds and the US military will withdraw from the 30-kilometre broad
buffer zone. What thereafter? In the words of the US Vice-President Mike Pence at the press
conference in Ankara on Thursday,
"Kurdish population in Syria, with which we have a strong relationship, will continue to
endure. The United States will always be grateful for our partnership with SDF in defeating
ISIS, but we recognise the importance and the value of a safe zone to create a buffer between
Syria proper and the Kurdish population and -- and the Turkish border. And we're going to be
working very closely ."
To be sure, everything devolves upon the creation of the safe zone. Turkey envisages a
zone stretching across the entire 440 kilometre border with Syria upto Iraqi border, while
the US special envoy James Jeffrey remains non-committal, saying it is up to the "Russians
and the Syrians in other areas of the northeast and in Manbij to the west of the Euphrates"
to agree to Turkey's maximalist stance.
Herein lies the rub. Jeffrey would know Ankara will never get its way with Moscow and
Damascus. In fact, President Bashar al-Assad told in unequivocal terms to a high-level
Russian delegation visiting Damascus on Friday, "At the current phase it is necessary to
focus on putting an end to aggression and on the pullout of all Turkish, US and other forces
illegally present in Syrian territories."
Is there daylight between Moscow and Damascus on this highly sensitive issue? Turkish
President Recep Erdogan's forthcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi
on October 22 may provide an answer.
Clearly, the US hopes wrench Turkey from the Russian embrace. Moscow's studied
indifference toward the US-Turkish cogitations betrays its uneasiness. Conceivably, Erdogan
will expect Putin to take a holistic view, considering Russia's flourishing and high
lucrative economic and military ties with Turkey and the imperative to preserve the momentum
of Russia-Turkey relationship.
If the US policy in Syria in recent years promoted the Kurdish identity, it has now swung
to the other extreme of stoking the fires of Turkish revanchism. This is potentially
catastrophic for regional stability. The heart of the matter is that while Turkey's concerns
over terrorism and the refugee problem are legitimate, Operation Peace Spring has deeper
moorings: Turkey's ambitions as regional power and its will to correct the perceived
injustice of territorial losses incurred during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The
ultra-nationalistic Turkish commentator (and staunch supporter of Erdogan) wrote this week in
the pro-government daily Yeni Safak:
"Turkey once again revived the millennium-old political history on Anatolian territory. It
took action with a mission that will carry the legacy of the Seljuks, the Ottomans, the
Republic of Turkey to the next stage It is not possible to set an equation in this region by
excluding Turkey – it will not happen. A map cannot be drawn that excludes Turkey
– it will not happen. A power cannot be established without Turkey – it will not
happen. Throughout history, both the rise and fall of this country has altered the region the
mind in Turkey is now a regional mind, a regional conscience, a regional identity. President
Erdoğan is the pioneer, the bearer of that political legacy from the Seljuks, the
Ottomans, and the Turkish Republic to the future."
Trump is unlikely to pay attention to the irredentist instincts in Turkish regional
policies. Trump's immediate concerns are to please the evangelical Christian constituency in
the US and silence his critics who allege that he threw the Kurds under the bus or that a
ISIS resurgence is imminent. But there is no way the US can deliver on the tall promises made
in the joint statement. The Kurds have influential friends in the Pentagon. (See the article
by Gen. Joseph Votel, former chief of the US Central Command, titled The Danger of Abandoning
our Partners.) Nonetheless, the main outcome will be that Turkey feels it has western support
for its long-term occupation of Syrian territory.
All in all, it's a "win-win" for Erdogan insofar as he got what he wanted -- US' political
and diplomatic support for "the kind of long-term buffer zone that will ensure peace and
stability in the region", to borrow the words of Vice President Pence. A Turkish withdrawal
from Syrian territory can now be virtually ruled out. State secretary Mike Pompeo added at
the press conference in Ankara on Thursday that there is "a great deal of work to do in the
region. There's lots of challenges that remain."
Pompeo said Erdogan's "decision to work alongside President Trump will be one that I think
will benefit Turkey a great deal." Arguably, US expects Turkey's cooperation to strengthen
its strategy in Syria (and Iraq) where it seeks to contain Iran's influence. From Ankara,
Pompeo travelled to Jerusalem to brief Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. "
Add to that, that the Turks now threaten SAA with "full out war".
John Helmers latest post sheds light on the fact, that the Russian military leadership and
the Stavka in general has warned Putin since the Idlib deal again and again to no avail that
the Turks would do this.
Which seems now to have been proven true since the US-Turk deal, which in essence changed
everything overnight.
As the extremity of propaganda in mainstream news becomes more obvious a few American
consumers of news do begin to have doubts. Most continue to be entirely uncritical. The
barflies here are in the habit of being critical, analytic, skeptical when reading any news
from any source. That is not the American way.
The cohort of educated prosperous middle class readers of the NYT has total faith in NYT.
Having the paper edition on the doorstep in the morning is a badge of membership. A totem
that gives them status. Questioning any word or phrase or clause that appears in print is
wrong. Asking questions means something is wrong with you. The Times is never wrong. Those
who doubt the Times have mental health issues. Or they are alt-right. Or they are deplorable.
For the intended audience the propaganda feed is always completely effective. Readers of the
Times will never untie the knot.
"... "Over 18 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and beyond to show for it," she added. "That's nearly the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare for All (though estimates vary)." ..."
"... cancellation of current plans to develop more nuclear weapons, saving $20 billion a total nuclear weapons ban, saving $43 billion ending military partnerships with private contractors, saving $364 billion production cuts for the F-35 -- a military plane with 900 performance deficiencies, according to the Government Accountability Office -- saving $17.7 billion a shift of $33 billion per year, currently used to provide medical care to veterans, servicemembers, and their families, to Medicare for All's annual budget. ..."
"... "The public rejects the predominant, fear-based framing and policies; instead, they want to see a revamped, demilitarized American foreign policy focused on international cooperation, human rights, and peacebuilding," wrote Data for Progress. ..."
Yves here. For those of you who have friends and colleagues who would go on tilt if you tried educating them about MMT, a simpler
approach to persuade them that Medicare for All is affordable is to sell them on another worthy goal, cutting the military-surveillance
state down to size.
Even then, I still encourage you to set them up for a later conversation about MMT: "Even if you accept the idea that taxes pay
for spending, which actually isn't true for the Federal government, we can still get the money for Medicare for All by ."
Note also that the Pentagon has various black budgets, an "official" one and covert ones.
By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Originally published at
Common Dreams
The Institute for Policy Studies on Thursday shared the results of extensive research into how the $750 billion U.S. military
budget could be significantly slashed, freeing up annual funding to cover the cost of Medicare for All -- calling into question the
notion that the program needs to create any tax burden whatsoever for working families.
Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), took aim in a
New York Times op-ed at a "chorus of scolds" from both sides of the aisle who say that raising middle class taxes is the
only way to pay for Medicare for All. The pervasive claim was a primary focus of Tuesday night's debate, while Medicare for All proponents
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) attempted to focus on the dire need for a universal healthcare program.
At the Democratic presidential primary debate on CNN Tuesday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was
criticized
by some opponents for saying that "costs will go down for hardworking, middle-class families" under Medicare for All, without using
the word "taxes." Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), on the other hand, clearly stated that taxes may go up for some middle class families
but pointed out that the increase would be more than offset by the fact that they'll no longer have to pay monthly premiums, deductibles,
and other medical costs.
"All these ambitious policies of course will come with a hefty price tag," wrote Koshgarian. "Proposals to fund Medicare for All
have focused on raising taxes. But what if we could imagine another way entirely?"
"Over 18 years, the United States has spent $4.9 trillion on wars, with only more intractable violence in the Middle East and
beyond to show for it," she added. "That's nearly the $300 billion per year over the current system that is estimated to cover Medicare
for All (though estimates vary)."
"While we can't un-spend that $4.9 trillion," Koshgarian continued, "imagine if we could make different choices for the next 20
years."
Koshgarian outlined a multitude of areas in which the U.S. government could shift more than $300 billion per year, currently used
for military spending, to pay for a government-run healthcare program. Closing just half of U.S. military bases, for example, would
immediately free up $90 billion.
"What are we doing with that base in Aruba, anyway?" Koshgarian asked.
Other areas where IPS identified savings include:
cancellation of current plans to develop more nuclear weapons, saving $20 billion a total nuclear weapons ban, saving $43 billion
ending military partnerships with private contractors, saving $364 billion production cuts for the F-35 -- a military plane with
900 performance deficiencies, according to the Government Accountability Office -- saving $17.7 billion a shift of $33 billion
per year, currently used to provide medical care to veterans, servicemembers, and their families, to Medicare for All's annual
budget.
"This item takes us well past our goal of saving $300 billion," Koshgarian wrote of the last item.
As Koshgarian published her op-ed in the Times , progressive think tank Data for Progress released
its own report showing that a majority
of Americans support a "progressive foreign policy" far less focused on decades-long on-the-ground wars, establishing military bases
around the world, drone strikes, and arms sales.
"The public rejects the predominant, fear-based framing and policies; instead, they want to see a revamped, demilitarized American
foreign policy focused on international cooperation, human rights, and peacebuilding," wrote Data for Progress.
"Voters want to see U.S. funding go to domestic needs such as healthcare, or to other national security tools like diplomacy,
instead of to the Pentagon and more endless war," according to the report.
Polling more than 1,000 ppl with YouGov, Data for Progress found that 73 percent of Democratic primary voters ranked numerous
issues -- including economic challenges and the climate -- as more important to them than national security and military funding.
Progressive national security proposals proved popular with respondents, including closing Guantanamo Bay, ending arms sales to
Saudi Arabia, and leveraging military aid to Israel to force it to adopt better human rights policies toward Palestinians.
"There is a clear appetite for progressive reforms to U.S. foreign policy," wrote Data for Progress.
In her op-ed, Koshgarian acknowledged that remaking the U.S. military as a truly "defense-based institution, rather than a war
machine and A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes."
But, she wrote, "that's no excuse for continuing to spend hundreds of billions in ways that make our world more dangerous and
deny us the ability to seriously invest in things like jobs, healthcare, education, and all that makes our lives better."
I would love to see it, but I strongly doubt this would happen in my lifetime. The Pentagon budget seems to be one of those
political "third rail" issues like Social Security.
Many people are so paranoid that I think it constitutes a mass hysteria; others are propagandized into 24×7 jingoism. I'm not
talking concepts here, I deal with pro-military people almost daily. Its the glorifying and fetishizing of the military that bothers
me.
Most if not all pro-military types are also deeply conservative; bring up *any* social program and they will wonder how to
pay for it.
I don't know, how many "third rail" type taboos has Trump danced on and become more popular because he did? I think the average
voter would be *extremely* receptive to a well-crafted message promoting the redirection of resources away from forever foreign
wars and bases to concrete material benefits for Americans. I don't even think it'd be a hard sell, once the pearls had been gathered
up.
What's so maddening about this question is the fact that we know that the military budget is probably much more than 750 billion
per year, but we can never know how much more, because the government is expressly allowed to hide and even fake spending totals.
What matters is whether the goods and services are there for them to buy with that money, and this is where real wealth lies.
Governments can create all the money they want, but if they create too much you will get inflation, or hyper-inflation if they
type in too many zero's when creating money.
Money has no intrinsic value; its value comes from what it can buy.
Banks create money from loans and that's easy too, just type the numbers in.
They can dash wildly into the latest fad, like the dot.com boom, and finance it with money they create out of nothing.
What could possibly go wrong?
Bankers do need to ensure the vast majority of that money gets paid back, and this is where they keep falling flat on their
faces.
Banking requires prudent lending, that is all there is to it.
If someone can't repay a loan, they need to repossess that asset and sell it to recoup that money. If they use bank loans to
inflate asset prices they get into a world of trouble when those asset prices collapse.
"It's nearly $14 trillion pyramid of super leveraged toxic assets was built on the back of $1.4 trillion of US sub-prime
loans, and dispersed throughout the world" All the Presidents Bankers, Nomi Prins.
When this little lot lost almost all its value overnight, the Western banking system became insolvent. Wall Street can turn
a normal asset price bubble into something that will take out the global economy using leverage.
Bankers create money out of nothing and the monetary system requires that nearly all that money they loaned out gets paid back.
Bank credit is a claim on future prosperity, and when you realise all that debt can't be paid back, a financial black hole
opens up, as it did in 2008.
When governments create too much money you tend to see it in consumer price inflation.
When banks create too much money you tend to see it in asset price inflation.
We see inflation in asset prices as good and consumer price inflation as bad.
The asset price boom will crash the economy, but no one realises while it's happening.
They believed in the markets and neoclassical economics in the 1920s and after 1929 they had to reassess everything. They had
placed their faith in the markets and this had proved to be a catastrophic mistake.
This is why they stopped using the markets to judge the performance of the economy and came up with the GDP measure instead.
In the 1930s, they pondered over where all that wealth had gone to in 1929 and realised inflating asset prices doesn't create
real wealth, they came up with the GDP measure to track real wealth creation in the economy.
The transfer of existing assets, like stocks and real estate, doesn't create real wealth and therefore does not add to GDP.
The real wealth creation in the economy is measured by GDP.
Inflated asset prices aren't real wealth, and this can disappear almost over-night, as it did in 1929 and 2008.
Real wealth creation involves real work, producing new goods and services in the economy.
Banking requires prudent lending, that is all there is to it. Sound of the Suburbs
100% private banks with 100% voluntary depositors means we (the general public) wouldn't have to give a flip if banks lent
prudently or not since we would have an additional but risk-free payment system consisting of debit/checking accounts for all
who want one at the Central Bank (or Treasury) itself.
Moreover without government privileges and without captive depositors and unable to hold the economy hostage via a SINGLE payment
system that must work through them, you can rest assured that banks WOULD lend prudently or go under, like they should, if they
don't.
So what is required is 100% private banks with 100% voluntary depositors and that situation has NEVER before existed in history
so it cannot be said to have failed.
When governments create too much money you tend to see it in consumer price inflation. Sound of the Suburbs
Because the DEMAND for fiat is suppressed in that only depository institutions may use it in the private sector.
Fix that injustice and eliminate all other privileges for banks and then government should be able to create much MORE fiat
for the general welfare since banks would be much LESS able to create deposits for the private welfare of themselves and for the
so-called "worthy" of what is, currently, the public's credit but for private gain.
if they [governments] create too much you will get inflation
Is this true, or is it an economist's assumption? Here's the other thought:
Capitalism embraces borrowing for investment. Real estate development is an example. Borrowing involves an assumption of paying
back more than was borrowed, but at a future date. When that future date arrives, it is in the borrower's best interest if the
face value dollars are wroth less in spending power that the face value of the loan. You stated that, but the link to inflation
is fuzzy. Bank credit is a claim on future prosperity
Rather than the government's causality, and a nebulous prosperity, it may be the borrower's CFO who then decides to raise consumer
prices to keep up with expenses. The borrowed dollars came from a banker-created asset, but the inflation is tied to a direct
result similar to the so-called "wage-price spiral." In this case, the "interest-price spiral" that is not visibly tied to the
supply of money.
I've got a new disconnect. I understand and appreciate how MMT works. It is the only way, imo, for a sovereign country to pay
for the social costs of a good society. And, of course, the government does not charge itself interest, does not expect to be
"paid back" at all. The tradeoff for the government is the betterment of society. So if your neighbor loans you $500 and you tell
him you'll pay him back as soon as your check comes in and with some interest that seems fair bec. you're dealing with two private
budgets. But when a licensed bank loans you money for a new house under the terms that you pay it back over 30 years with interests
that amounts to triple the original cost of the house – then you are not dealing as one private person to another. You are then
dealing with usury. Made legal by the private financial industry. This private industry does not use its own money – it uses the
government's money by a computer click. And the government then lets it profiteer on this tiny transaction of apples and oranges
to the degree that over time the money "earned" by the private bank accumulates and topples the steady state of the economy. At
that point there's no place left to invest that "private" profit and the whole financial system goes haywire in a panic not to
"lose" money. Money that should never have been given to them in the first place. It's an oxymoron – demanding that money be paid
back with interest when it's not your money in the first place and you do nothing to stabilize your profligate profiteering. Nothing.
Just a thought.
Zimbabwe found it all too easy to create so much money they caused hyper-inflation.
Yes, after destroying their Ag Industry, and having no Ag products to export, because Mugabe and his party assumed all the
white farmers just sat around drinking beer while the dark farm workers did all the work.
After Mugabe took the land, there was no collateral for the farmers to get loans for the next planting season.
Who knew that managing the farm was so much work? /s
Inflation in Zimbabwe first came from shortages, especially food, as things looted rhe country of 4x and mismanaged the economy,
like farm price controls under cost of production.
Historically shortages cause high inflation.
"In her op-ed, Koshgarian acknowledged that remaking the U.S. military as a truly 'defense-based institution, rather than a
war machine and A.T.M. for private contractors, will require major changes.'"
Interesting. Beyond cost cutting, what exactly would it take to remake the military into a true defense-based institution ?
How would assets be deployed? What weapons systems would be prioritized and ultimately receive funding? What doctrines would need
to change to flip from an offensive mindset to a defensive mindset? What alliances would we maintain and what alliances would
we discard?
I see that the article offers some examples, but I think crafting a progressive foreign policy would entail answering these
kinds of more fundamental military questions. Cost cutting is a laudable goal but it strikes me that there's much more to it if
real transformation is desired.
As a civil servant working for the Department of Defense, I can tell you that this would be a difficult shift in priorities
for Congress to accept. It all comes down to the defense industry political donations they receive year after year, and the jobs
the defense industry provides their constituents (no matter how meager or sub-optimal). Since defense spending is basically this
nation's sole industrial policy, I think that finding employment for displaced workers (whether defense civil servants or contractors)
is the biggest hurdle to address; a green new deal would solve the problem. We'd also need political campaign reform to force
Congress off of the teet of defense industry political contributions.
Finding employment for displaced defense civil servants or contractors? We've done that before . . . we tell them to train
for the jobs of the future as we did for manufacturing workers and leave it at that. The same goes for the parasites working in
health insurance companies, pharmacy benefit management and healtcare administration when M4A becomes a reality.
I have no sympathy for those people nor care for their well being as they deliberately, and with malice aforethought, make
life meaner for us all.
I remember when the defense/aerospace industry collapsed in Southern California in the early 1970's as the Vietnam war was
winding down.
Tech jobs were scarce.
The political sphere is well aware of potential job loss due to defense cutbacks.
I have mentioned before, the relatively liberal CA Senator Barbara Boxer fought to preserve Mare Island Naval Shipyard, in
Vallejo, CA, when it was slated to be shut down in the 1990's.
One could suggest that Vallejo has not fully recovered.
It is a tragedy of immense proportions, as I believe a future historian will remark that the USA, a nation that in its 200
+ year history had only one large deadly war on its soil (the internal Civil War), re-titled its WWII "War Department" as "Defense
Department" and then consumed tremendous resources in its purported defense for the next 70+ years.
A recent discussion with someone, that I regard as a "Northern California Liberal", about Trump's pullout of Syria further
re-enforced that the resistance to ANY change in the MIC in the USA is formidable.
He was sure that Trump would be deservedly impeached because he was pulling out of Syria and abandoning our allies, the Kurds.
And he is old enough to remember Vietnam.
The USA news media and entertainment industries (big sports/Hollywood) are fully on board with the righteous USA "war is good"
meme.
Given how the USA economy has restructured much employment and lifelihoods in costly sectors (finance, education, medicine,
military) it is difficult for me to see how there would be political will to downsize the military to any extent as "good paying"
jobs of politically powerful people would be lost.
Many of the manufacturing jobs have been moved overseas.
There is some hope for policy redirection in the Administration's recent Turkey-Syria-Kurd action. If there really is a shift
away from foreign nation building and away from endless wars over endless enmities, then that could lead to redirection and reduction
of military budgets. Watching the defenders of those engagements fall all over themselves recently has reconfirmed my notion that
they are not acting in the best interests of their constituents. Meanwhile, the sun rose today.
The current defense spending and growth of national debt
more or less "prove" the validity of MMT. This has supported the channeling of resources and energy into military activity (and
profits for enterprizes). Something similar is happening with healthcare; maybe it's inelastic
demand. (The similar something is ever-increasing costs.)
Healthcare at the moment seems to be outside of
the scope of current uses of MMT. But there are major
cost-control issues with it nonethess.
In what direction will things head if healthcare is
swept under the government MMT umbrella in the form of medicare for all? Will the government negotiate prices
with providers (hospitals, staff, pharma)? Certainly military procurement is no leading light.
While cutting the bloated Pentagon's budget is a very good idea, why is no one talking about the fringe benefit that is employer
provided healthcare? I do believe a sizable fraction of folks on private insurance (maybe 40%?) get their health coverage through
a fringe benefit from their employer. If that coverage is no longer necessary under universal coverage, it seems contractually
that the money spent on the fringe benefit should go to the employees. That money is enough to pay for their insurance under universal
coverage, so the employer pays it to the employee, the government taxes part of that to pay for the universal healthcare and everyone
is better off. The employee, due to savings in the system, ends up with more money in pocket. The employer is out from under the
ever increasing costs of the fringe benefit (plus can now claim to be paying higher salaries), and, well, the insurance companies
are left behind to pick up "expanded coverage" for those wanting to pay for it.
This and "defense" spending cuts could pay for the whole system easily, no?
The relative value of small business based jobs would increase with a functional health care system. There would be an outflow
of employees from jobs with healthcare benefits.
With single payer, looking for a less stressful job becomes an alternative. Big employers know this.
It also means people may retire earlier if they don't need their employer-provided health insurance.
Health insurance becomes a minor consideration in selecting which employer to work for.
Companies and state/local governments that provide health care coverage in retirement should see their liabilities for that
plummet as healthcare costs drop and public insurance improves.
COULD employers give the surplus to employees?
Technically, yes.
WOULD employers give the surplus to employees?
Not in this age of activist stockholders seeking new sources of "revenue." Everywhere. Benefits are simply a "cost." Human Resources
is a "cost center." Defined benefits that averaged out the risk among many have segued to defined contribution that is no more
than a tax-abated savings account. Risk has monetary value, but risk invisibly is shifting more and more to the individual.
After the last Democratic debate, it is safe say anti-war Progressivism is dead. Everyone was frothing at the mouth to prove
how much they care for the Kurds, and our nation's honor, and that we should stay in the ME. Except Tulsi, but her response fell
flat with the audience, and judging by my Left friends/family on Facebook, fell flat with them too. Having the same position as
Trump is a death sentence. My faith in my fellow citizens is at quite a low ebb.
Cheer up. No matter what you used to think of Lindsay Graham, he is setting the pace for a representative to think for him/herself.
Commentators reported surprise that he was "formerly in Trump's corner." Think about how easily we accept that the future is secured
by a majority in either house. The outrageous president is inspiring elected Republicans to analyze issues (imagine!). Even if
it is cold and calculated to influence their own voters, let's begin to applaud and encourage those who seem to think for them/ourselves.
We don't suffer from a lack of ideas in this area; no, we lack the ability (political will) to accomplish it. Thus, another
exercise in mental masturbation.
we lack the ability (political will) to accomplish it. Carl
A Citizen's Dividend would be the camel's nose under the tent since the less wasted by government, the more that could be distributed
to citizens to counter price deflation.
And it's only justice that all fiat creation, beyond that created for government to spend for the general welfare, be in the
form of an equal Citizen's Dividend.
Funny you should mention Europe since an equal Citizen's Dividend for all Euro zone citizens would be a way to eliminate austerity
that even Germany might not object to since Germans would receive it too.
For example, Italy gives the unemployed 500 euros per month and tries to find them any sort of job. I think you're a little
behind. But by all means, keep tilting at windmills.
i was just thinking about that this am while finishing my fence like in alaska.
i figger that after 40+ years of declining or stagnant wages, a majority of us are owed some frelling back-pay.
but "dividend" works just as well.
a majority of us are owed some frelling back-pay. Amfortas the hippie
The Citizen's Dividend would vary as required to counter price deflation but during the period when the banks are progressively
de-privileged, it would have to be quite high to provide for the conversion of bank deposits to fiat deposits at the Central Bank
– with the banks, by necessity, having to borrow the needed fiat from citizens.
Its still the wrong set of arguments. The problem in the US is not that Medicare-for-All would require new taxes that need
funding. The problem is that the US spends twice per capita on healthcare what the average OECD country spends. The US spends
more public tax money on healthcare per capita than Canada does, and Canada insures the entire population.
We can pay for our entire military budget as it exists if we simply drop our per capita healthcare spending to less than what
Switzerland pays. Name one other thing that costs more in the US than in Switzerland.
Americans simply cannot comprehend how exorbitantly expensive and unequal the US healthcare system is compared to the rest
of the developed world.
While I gladly accept the results of these surveys, I question the reasons they seem to have garnered from the public. To most
citizens, lower taxes mean much more than non-aggresive foreign policy and peaceful diplomacy. If the question was phrased in
such a way that respondents were replying to the lower cost AND the concomitant peace-oriented habits that should (would?) come
from it, then it is an issue whether they agreed with both statements. Further, this reorientation of spending would have to be
bully-pulpited quite strongly to educate the US as to its long-term benefits since most of us have been prepped to be anxious
about foreign nations and the paranoia of saving us from the evil dictator "X". Oh, yes, peace should come, but compare the Syria
brou-ha-ha to what would descend upon us when peace broke out. The elites won't disappear.
Bizarre. The question is: How can we afford something that's half as expensive as what we're already paying? I wouldn't expect
that level of insanity from someone in a straitjacket yet it's a commonplace in these discussions.
Even worse: the argument that government is financially constrained. It's not "tax & spend," it can't be. Where would taxpayers
get dollars to pay those taxes if government didn't spend them first?
So it must be "spend first & then ask for some back in taxes." This is how reality works. And what do we call the dollar financial
assets left in the economy, not retrieved by taxes? a) The dollar financial assets of the citizens, i.e. their savings or (same
thing) b) National 'Debt'
National 'Debt' is completely unlike household debt. It's like bank debt. If you have a bank account, that's your asset, but
to the bank, it's a liability. It's the money they owe you. It's their debt.
Now imagine a mob of depositors marching down to the bank to demand it reduce the size of its debt (i.e. make their accounts
smaller) Crazy? Yes, but that's the austerian line of talk.
Finally, the inflationistas: "If you just print money, you'll have [gasp][hyper-]inflation!" This is the finest quality bullshit,
and people spout it practically without prompting. The truth: The Fed extended $16 – $29 trillion in credit to cure the frauds
of the financial sector in 2007-8. I defy anyone to find a measurement of inflation that says there was any then.
Was there central-bank-run-amok inflation in the classical cases (Weimar, Zimbabwe). Nope. Not even there. Yes they did print
lots of Deutchmarks and Zimbabwe currency, but only after a shortage of good occurred that actually caused the inflation.
Just printing money, especially if there's spare capacity, does not cause inflation. You need a bidding war for some commodity
that's become scarce (like oil in the '70s). So Weimar had the burden of war reparations, a balance of payments problem, and when
they delayed sending some telephone poles to France, the French military shut down the German equivalent of Ohio (the Ruhr). Shortages
led to the hyperinflation. Similarly, the Rhodesian colonists left Zimbabwe, which had previously fed itself, and food shortages
led to the hyperinflation.
The Cato study of 56 hyperinflationary episodes in human history also validates the above. In *no* case did a central bank
"run amok" and print too much to kick off the hyperinflation. Always the cost push of a shortage of goods drove it.
Gosh, it's all so simple. We just need to take on the military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex, and our
corrupt political system all at the same time.
Researchers Detail How Slashing the Social Security and Medicare Budgets Could Pay for More Pointless Wars While Creating the
Progressive Wall Street Bailouts Americans Want.
It should be observed that the Syrian incursion by the American military, which was
initiated by President Barack Obama and his band of lady hawks during the so-called "Arab
Spring" of 2011, was illegal from the gitgo. Syria did not threaten the United States, quite
the contrary. Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was
Washington that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003,
which later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which
were, at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.
When American soldiers first arrived in Syria the U.S. War Powers act was ignored, making
the incursion illegal. Nor was there any mandate authorizing military intervention emanating
from any supra-national agency like the United Nations. The excuse for the intervention was
plausibly enough to destroy ISIS, but the reality was much more complex, with U.S. forces in
addition seeking to limit Iranian and Russian presence in Syria while also bringing about
regime change. The objectives were from the start unattainable as Iran and Russia were
supporting the Syrian Army in doing most of the hard fighting against ISIS while the regime of
President Bashar al-Assad was not threatened by a so-called democratic alternative which only
existed in the minds of Samantha Powers and Susan Rice.
Unwilling to see large numbers of Americans coming home in caskets, the United States
inevitably began to search for proxies to carry out the fighting on the ground and wound up
willy-nilly arming, training and otherwise supporting terrorists, to include the al-Qaeda
affiliate al-Nusra. The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces eventually became the principal tool
of U.S. military, but it must be observed that the Kurds in all likelihood had no illusions
about the staying power of their American patrons. They were fighting Syrian forces as well as
ISIS because they were seeking to carve out their own homeland of Kurdistan from the ruins of
the Syrian state. Their expansion into northern Syria, aided by the U.S., was at the expense of
the local population, which was overwhelmingly not Kurdish. Their occupation of that area was
not reported honestly in the U.S. media, but other sources suggest that their behavior was
often brutal.
So the lament about abandoning one's Kurdish allies has a kernel of truth, but the Senator
Lindsey Graham response, to include sanctioning Turkey, should be considered to be little more
than a dangerous misstep that would lead to acquiring a new and more powerful enemy. And, of
course, the argument in favor of leaving the Kurds to their fate found its most ridiculous
expression from the mouth of Donald Trump himself, who, up until recently had praised the Kurds
as friends who had "fought and died for us." Trump is now observing
that "they [the Kurds] didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with
Normandy." As President Trump did not serve his country in Vietnam due to alleged bone spurs
and his father Fred likewise did not serve in the military, the comment is particularly ironic.
Trump's surname was changed from the original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs
present at Normandy they were undoubtedly on the German side.
Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's actual
record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more soldiers to
no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special ops forces in
numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in Venezuela, continues to
support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors and has exited to from
treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed conflict less likely. And he has
five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that the United States
basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now experiencing a wave of
rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using
drones based mostly on profile targeting than all of his predecessors. These are not the
actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars even if one does not consider the
economic warfare that is currently taking place through the use of sanctions that is reportedly
killing tens of thousands.
So should one take Donald Trump seriously when he says he wants to end the pointless wars?
Perhaps not, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he should be judged by his actions,
not by his words and, apart from the withdrawal of a handful of soldiers from the actual front
lines in Syria, nothing has changed. It is quite possible that nothing will change.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected]
The Turkish Army, which is one of the most powerful in NATO, will do whatever is
necessary to crush them. Trump should have realized that before he started talking.
IDK, Phil. I am not sure that he didn't. My sense is that he has been pandering to the
neocons in the hope of a compromise that would allow him to deliver enough of his campaign
promises to permit his re-election. I think hiring Bolton was just such a move –
thinking that keeping his enemies closer would permit him more control.
Recently, he has expressed frustration with his staff and I speculate that he has come to
realize that pandering to the jews is going to be a one-way street. He has given them a score
of concessions, including Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. He hasn't received anything in
return, except for the onslaught of palace coups, one after the other, orchestrated by the
very same zionist forces in both parties.
My hypothesis is that the man, narcissistic as he is, has reached the end of his tether.
Faced with the potential to not get re-elected, he has mounted a counteroffensive against
them. He, rightly, believes that the people who got him elected are the only ones who can get
him re-elected. So, his recent tweets are both an attempt to recapture us to his side, while
at the same time slapping the zionists across their faces with a show of power, as he is
won't to do in business negotiations where he feels that he has been betrayed.
I could be completely wrong as I try to pry into his mind.
So should one take Donald Trump seriously when he says he wants to end the pointless
wars? Perhaps not, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he should be judged by his
actions, not by his words and, apart from the withdrawal of a handful of soldiers from the
actual front lines in Syria, nothing has changed. It is quite possible that nothing will
change.
It serves us naught to take this pessimistic stance in the absence of a replacement
candidate. I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego.
Let's inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he
hasn't vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego
will opt for the former.
Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting
than all of his predecessors.
These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars even if one does not
consider the economic warfare that is currently taking place through the use of sanctions
that is reportedly killing tens of thousands
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Mr. Giraldi,
Could you please elaborate on the first point: the use of drones. Who and where?
Secondly, economic warfare: are you referring to Iran or Venezuela? Could you
elaborate?
@A123
NATO members will not help the New Ottoman Empire "offensive".
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Wow, Israeli is really terrified. What will they do when the U.S. decouples from the Middle
East completely? It's pretty clear that, short of running to Russia and fellating Putin, Bobo
the Clown of Tel Aviv has no plan.
Tic Toc.
The fact of the matter is that President Donald Trump is a Corrupt "Crypto Jew" in spite of
the American people may think Trump is as he was chosen by the Elite to serve and protect
Israel and churn profits for Elite owned and controlled Armaments industry in promoting wars
against the Best interests of the citizens of United States of America.
If Washington withdraws its military, spooks and mercenaries the Syrian Curds will go back to
being Syrians. Syria, Iran, Russia and Turkey will negotiate the peace. The U.S., Israel,
Saudi Arabia and Turkey will have been defeated in their war against Assad. Syria, unlike
Iraq and Libya will remain standing.
Everyone loves to hate on Erdogan. I was hoping for a more nuanced view than [he] "is just
crazy enough to do that." Remember when George Galloway called him "a lion," awestruck at his
reaction to the Israeli murders of Turks on the boat to Gaza? Is it true that Turkey has made
tremendous economic gains under his administration? He has much support, as shown by the
[popular] squelching of attempted coup.
I've just never understood why he facilitated the chaos on his border, harboured the White
Helmets, probably murdered Serena Shim, etc. And now, what will he do with his jihadi proxy
army? As far as his threats to release migrants to Europe, I have no sympathy for EU
countries who've been part of the war on the ME. What goes around, comes around. Same for the
Kurds.
There have been some suggestions that the Kurds could make nice with the Damascus
government and rely on the protection of the Syrian Army to deter the Turks, an option that
they have already begun to exercise.
The Kurds have caved. Plus our radical Islamic rebels are going over, with our equipment
etc to the Ass man.
Updated Oct. 14, 2019 6:48 pm ET. WSJ
ISTANBUL -- Syrian troops entered areas that have been outside their control for years on
Monday, after a quickly forged pact between Kurdish forces and the Syrian government to
confront a Turkish military campaign reshaped alliances in Syria.
That pact transformed the Kurds, an erstwhile partner of the U.S. in the fight against
Islamic State, into a force more closely aligned with Russia and Iran, as the U.S. began
withdrawing its troops from northeastern Syria.
Until recently, thousands of U.S.-backed fighters had trained at a military base in the
town of Ain Eissa. After the Syrian military arrived on Monday morning, soldiers raised the
tricolor Syrian flag in the town center.
The US gets out of the way, and Assad, who won the Civil War, immediately settles with the
Kurds and Nustra.
So, it wasn't many troops, but we had successfully prevented Assad from absorbing
(voluntarily) two groups in the Civil War. Meaning we (US) alone was preventing settlement.
The. deep state has thwarted Trump's intentions to leave for 3 years.
"Or the Turks might be willing to escalate their own offensive to take on the inferior Syrian
Army and the Kurds together." It is a stretch without careful analysis.
Many people said the same about the world's most cowardice army, the Israeli. There is an
agreement between the parties and Erdogan will comply. The Kurds are the West-Israel proxy
terrorists. They proved their usefulness many times.
But in pursuing their aspirations for self-rule, Syria's Kurds risked overreach and
miscalculation. American officials have long made clear in meetings and public comments
that U.S. military backing never amounted to an endorsement of Kurdish political
ambitions.
In December, U.S. envoy to Syria James Jeffrey likened the partnership with the SySo he
rian Kurds to a "transactional relationship for a specific goal."
Trump got it basically right -- time to leave and we never promised Kurds a Rose
Garden.
His bumbling ruling decrees via Twitter stem from the lack of loyal staff. His decisions
are ignored or subverted when he goes through channels. So he announces it and works from
there. This is the 3rd Time Trump has announced withdrawal from Syria. Although the neocon
press and Hawkish politicians howled.
Trump also implemented the Pivot to Asia (an Obama failure) by engaging China
diplomatically through efforts at trade reform. Much more nuanced that fortifying bases.
Its never pretty, but Trump tends to stubbornly pursue a less warlike agenda.
The mideast is where everybody backstabs everybody recalling the CIA used to deliver
renditioned prisoners to Assad to be tortured along lines a bit more than 'enhanced'
interrogations (karma could be a b *** h.) The soup only gets thicker as the pot boils down.
Remember those NATO nukes kept at Incirlik?
Why had NATO (the USA particularly) sat on its hands these past 3+ years? It's not like no
one was aware there could be a serious problem with 50 (or more) tactical nukes in the hands
of the paranoid narcissist Erdogan:
@A123
"that is, the goods and services produced by the economy -- rises faster than the money
created, so there is no inflation, and rises faster than the debt created, so the country's
debt burden doesn't increase."
"The long term prospects for peace are still there. A return to the status quo ante. Russia
remains as guarantor of the peace and all other foreign fighters and their proxies exit the
nation."
Spot on.
Given cast-iron assurances re the PKK & it's Syrian cousins that Nth Syria will cease to
be a zone for organising attacks (or any kind of nefarious Kurdish behaviour) on Turkey, I
think Erdogan would likely consider a withdrawal of his forces.
i think there are few unknowns between Russia, Turkey, Syria; the plan seems to be to get
ISIS, SDF, the PYD/YPD without regard to who is supporting them. Unleash ISIS, even those in
prisons so they can move against Assad to be destroyed ? Those trapped in Idlib can either
commit suicide or wait for the executioner. I have no facts, but by observing that the
sanctions warfare is directed at those who intend to destroy ISIS, SDF, PYD/YPD and Israelis
and Iranians visiting in Syria I conclude Russia and Turkey have skunked the Pentagon (maybe
Trump is also in on it?) .
Russia and Syria have agreed to stand by while Turkey engages in some target practice at
unwanted visitors in Syria? Invade Syria even North Western Iraq.. rid the world of pesky,
trouble making, fake news head chopping face book and Twitter super stars, destroy all traces
of Kurds, remove all non Syrian others threatening the Ottoman, Syrian Turf. Don't look now,
but Iran seems to be on the Turkey list of non Syrians ?. ..After the area is cleared Assad's
problem, will be, what if Turkey (Erdogan) refuses to return to Turkey, and that return to
Turkey promise has probably been be guaranteed to Assad by Russia.
I read a Russian statement somewhere last year [early 2018], in which they unequivocal said
there would never be an autonomous Kurdish state. They [the Kurds] could stick to some of
their customs, but legally and lawfully they would fall on Damascus' rule/s.
Trump's foreign policy constitutes an egregious betrayal of his election platform which was
to "stay neutral" on Israel/Palestine, withdraw remaining troops and avoid any further
entanglements. He reneged on all pledges.
The recent announcement that he was withdrawing troops from Syria was followed the next
day by an announcement of 2,000 US troops being deployed to Saudi Arabia to protect that
country from Iran. Say what?
It was totally predictable five years ago that Turkey was in Israel's gunsights, and as
usual Israel tends to destroy others by proxy. They can sit back and savor Turkey destroying
more of Syria, while US sanctions destroy more of Turkey.
The waves of death and destruction that have hammered the Middle East for the last seventy
years are all symptoms of one problem and that is the illegitimate "state of Israel".
Most Americans seem obsessed with stupid wars. For example the vast majority of people in the
UK see the Iraq War as a catastrophic mistake and despise Tony Blair, yet in the US most
people still seem to see the Iraq War as a good thing. The mentality is far apart.
Americans seem a very insecure people, projecting military power is all they really have.
If America is not constantly embroiled in a war somewhere then most Americans feel they have
nothing to be proud of. I would go as far to say that the military is the only real source of
pride in America, it's the only thing Americans feel they undeniably excel at.
There are no "stupid wars", every slaughter of millions was long time in planning and was
based on greed and racism of the "master" races vs. "subhumans".
USA corporation, can not and will not survive without WARS.
Complete "economy" is a WAR machine, USA corporations has WEAPONIZED it ALL.
It is nice to dream, even HollyWood supports and promotes it.
Whiskey Rebellion me think was the Birthday of citizen USA and blessed it's associates
with representation by corrupt and greedy anointed by others rushing to become corrupt and
greedy.
Trump has shown himself to be completely unreliable on every important issue; I do not
see why it will be different this time -- his desire for approval from the Establishment is
apparently far stronger than any principles he may hold -- you can see this in practically
everything he does, perhaps most notably in his constant bleating about black and Hispanic
unemployment -- he simply can't be trusted.
On the other hand Trump has not started any new wars (so far). He is also resisting the elite
of Deep State (MIC) and the mdia, probably in his own weird way by making confusing
statements keeping them off balance. No body knows we are all simply speculating. Time will
tell.
@WorkingClass
Not really. The goal all along was not to "take" Syria so much as to destroy it and leave it
in fragments. Mission accomplished! Syria, or at east large swathes of it has been reduced to
rubble, its economy is gutted and its people are scattered to the winds. The US had no goals
there to begin with and has just been acting in the service of its "great friend and ally"
Israel. Your tax dollars at work.
Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind
of peace. Solitudenum facient, pacem appellant said Tacitus. They make desolation and call it
peace.
@Europe
natonalist I agree. Worship of the military is surely modern America's most cringeworthy
and repellent aspect. The war hero is the American equivalent of the medieval saint, and you
can't even blame the Jews for it. It's clearly a whitey thing. Get a few bullets shot at you
by some primitive and soon to be obliterated savages and you can live large on your war
stories for the rest of your comfortably pensioned days. The sad thing is that there are no
wars for the US military to fight these days except those they create themselves.
America, an exceptionally immature, warlike and stupid nation. And they worship Jesus! Who
of course will just laugh when he presses the button and sends them all into the lake of fire
without a second thought.
@Cloak And
Dagger Interesting, I've been mulling over this possibility recently and was thinking
about it earlier as a potential outcome-based upon basic game theory.
What I don't understand is, if there be an alleged discreet hidden super-hand of
power controlled by the Jewish elite, and Trump seemed to be doing their bidding (moving the
Embassy), where are all the "compromising photos" and "Blasey Ford's" for the Warren's and
Biden's of the world? Certainly some damaging (and likely private) material, or "witnesses"
from the past exist, against those who attack Trump? Certainly the Mossad and/or other hidden
forces have such information, that could protect Trump. Here's a guy with a (now) Jewish
daughter and a Jewish son-in-law, doing positive things for Israel and the Jewish elite in
the US/West, and yet, he has been subject to continual attacks, as have those around him, and
now he is facing impeachment?
I don't see Israel getting it any better if Warren is elected (certainly not by her base,
which is turning more toward a BDS worldview). It just makes me think their power is not as
great as conspiracy theorists alleged, or in the alternative (perhaps likely) their "power"
is superseded by an even greater hidden force of elites. If their power is as awesome and
infiltrating as alleged, why isn't he president for life at this point? Using the media,
politics, blackmail, international banking, this guy could usher in Israel as the capital of
the universe, but yet none of that is happening. He is betrayed at every corner and faces
removal from office, disgrace (for actually being the removed, i.e. the other side actually
"winning" against him), and probably the destruction of any chance Ivanka and Jared had of
becoming the first couple, in the future.
So perhaps as you offer, he's going for broke and just doing whatever he wants or wanted
to do in the beginning. Time will tell. Strange times indeed.
@Contraviews
, Contraviews said: "He (Trump) is also resisting the elite of Deep State (MIC) and the mdia,
probably in his own weird way by making confusing statements keeping them off balance."
No! Zionist Jews & Israel are keeping you and almost all of Amerika "off balance."
Refer to Jerusalem Post article (linked below) and you will distinguish "confusing
statements" by Trump from the reality of mandatory ZUS endless ME wars since 9/11.
Everybody should be happy Uncle Sam is getting out of Syria. Look at the disasters the US
created in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. and all the money wasted which could have been
better spent here at home.
Much of what's being said in the MSM has to do with the American narrative that Turkey and
Syria are bad guys for the unspoken reason that they have opposed the zionist enterprise.
What American national interest justified the occupation and dismemberment of Syria? Why
should we support terrorist groups like the PPK against NATO member Turkey? Why should we
ally with al-Qaeda affiliate HTS for israel's benefit?
@anon
Good point about DJT needing to use Twitter to announce his decisions since they'd otherwise
be thwarted or outright ignored going through normal channels. But, how can he actually be
against these wars when they're contrasted with his embarrassing servility toward Israel,
which in actuality is an enemy state responsible for Lavon, Liberty, and 9/11, not to mention
it's theft of our technology that's used against us by Israel's intel tech companies for
profit and communications espionage at the deepest levels of our government? The canard about
other, overriding strategic interests doesn't hold water since the $trillions wasted on these
wars could have secured our economic and military interests a hundredfold through trade and
cultural interaction. As much as I want to trust DJT and would stand with him and the
deplorables at the barricades if necessary, I cannot overcome my repugnance at his support
for Israel, knowing as he now must know that Israel did 9/11.
The reason America was pushed into the mideast wars was the attack on the WTC 911 by Israel
and traitors in the ZUS government and this attack was blamed on the Arabs and America was
tricked into attacking Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria, all this for Israels goal of greater
Israel, and all this at the cost of millions in lives and 7 trillion and counting in
taxpayers money.
To top off the deception, AL CIADA aka ISIS is a creation of the CIA and the Mossad and
MI6, and these are the real terrorists!
The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced a deal with the Syrian
government of president Bashar al-Assad to resist the ongoing Turkish invasion. Syrian forces
have already moved into Kobane and Manbij. If Turkey continues with its push southwards into
Syria, a war between the Turkish and Syrian forces seems imminent.
As per the deal signed on October 13, the SDF will dissolve its Autonomous Administration
of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, and hand over the control of cities, such as
Kobane and Manbij to the Syrian government. Talks between the SDF and the Syrian government
were facilitated by the Russians at their Syrian base at Hmeimim in Latakia.
Turkey and its ally, the Free Syrian Army – many of whose members were directly
affiliated to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups – continue their offensive and
atrocities. The FSA has reportedly already illegally executed 13 people. The victims include
Hervin Khalaf, leader of the Future Syria Party, and her two drivers.Turkey launched
'Operation Peace Spring' on October 9. The operation has already led to the death of around
60 Kurdish and 18 Turkish fighters. It has already caused the displacement of more than
130,000 people.
How has the discussion predictably developed along partisan lines? Trump said he wants out of
Syria. That united the war mongers in the house and senate because war means massive profits
to the military industrial complex and congress works for them. Trump said something that
affects the bottom line of the rich and they reacted predictably.
@A123
You can google and watch what Assad told the Kurds in a press conference. It will contradict
part of your statement. The Kurds risked and lost. Great warriors, but weak diplomats and
strategists.
1BEIRUT, LEBANON (11:50 A.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has taken over the U.S.
military base in Manbij after entering the city last night.
According to a military source in the Aleppo Governorate, the Syrian Arab Army has
deployed several units to Manbij as they look to block any potential Turkish offensive to
capture the city.
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On Tuesday, the Anna News Agency reported from Manbij, as they showed the deployment of
the Syrian Army and their eventual take over of the U.S. military base there. -- AMN news
.
2 A stunning development in the key northern Syrian city of Manbij -- the Pentagon has
confirmed a planned handover to Russian military forces is underway amid a Turkish military
assault on the region. This also hours after President Trump tweeted that Assad "wants
naturally to protect the Kurds" and that the problem should be left to local powers.
Late Monday the main US base in Manbij was filmed empty of US forces, and American convoys
were also spotted hastily pulling out of the city as Syrian national forces entered,
following Sunday's historic deal between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and
the Assad government. Newsweek reports the developments follows:
I think Russia has allowed Turkey to attack Syria to satisfy Turke's main objective of
rooting out the Kurd on the condition of returning the territory to Syria . It has given Kurd
the bleak choice of oblivion or self preservation . America suffers from PTSD . The flashback
of Saigon on the roof top reappeared again . It ran. Good a sensible job by Trump.
@WJ The
machinations people are making on this topic are truly stunning when it's clear Trump is
doing the right thing. Today are reports that US positions and bases in N. Syria have been
turn keyed over the Assad and Russian forces. Trump IS Protecting the Kurds, just not with
American blood, as he promised.
The one thing Turkey has always wanted is a broken Syria so it can gobble up the remnants.
Past US (and many current) leaders and Democrats were complicit in this by funneling cash and
weapons to Syrian opposition, which directly led to the rise of Isis and deaths of thousands
– can you say evil?
I have hope that Trumps current actions will bring an end to thus war for good –
Turkey was OK to beat up on some kurds but war with Russia is something else.
@OscarWildeLoveChild
imho Jewish power keeps Trump on a perpetual short leash (Schiff is this month's designee to
'walk the dog') until Iran is wrecked.
[edit: renfro commented on Giraldi's earlier thread reminding readers that Israel has a
major interest in the Kurds, their territory, which is oil rich. Remember the proposals to
divide Iraq into three ]
Warren -- BDS is one thing, but her agenda to tax >$50million -- that's the part people
hear & cheer: Hooray! Soak the rich!
The next thing she says is, "Use the money to pay for universal child care, universal
kindergarten, increase pay for child care workers."
This gets cheers from millennials struggling to keep two people employed and kids cared
for.
But think about how drastically anti-family those proposals are.
TOTALLY turn over the care of our children to the loving embrace of the federal government
aka the Frankfurt school
The combined synthesis of social theory and psychoanalysis thus allows resituating on
new bases the Marxist optimism according to which the working class, due to its position in
the relations of production, is disposed to adopt a point of view scientifically based on
reality as well as promote legitimate forms of action.
Knowledge of the forms of the becoming-adult of humanity conceived by Freud, in the form
of a theory of passage through different stages that must result in an assumed genital
sexuality, leads to the recognition of a working class that is believed to be less
encumbered by typically bourgeois prejudices and perversities.
@NoseytheDuke
The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime are
still there. Where is Saddam Hussein? Where is Muammar Gaddafi? After seven years of war in
Syria the victors are Syria, Iran and Russia. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia
and Turkey. The real losers of course are the dead and the maimed. The widows and orphans.
And the millions who have been displaced and have become refugees. All are victims of
Imperial aggression. And the real winners of course are the war profiteers who have grown
fatter and fatter since 9/11.
"... Russia hating is the lynchpin of oligarchic deepstate MIC MSM propaganda. Take that away and the fat cats are revealed as the naked face of evil that they are. Hating Russia (and China) supposedly justifies all their crimes. ..."
The transcript of President Trump's July 25 telephone conversation with Ukraine's recently
elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has ignited the usual anti-Trump bashing in American
political-media circles, even more calls for impeachment, with little, if any, regard for the
national security issues involved. Leave aside that Trump should not have been compelled to
make the transcript public and ask: Which, if any, foreign leaders will now feel free to
conduct personal telephone diplomacy with an American president directly or indirectly, of the
kind that helped end the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, knowing that his or her comments might
become known to domestic political opponents? Consider instead only the following undiscussed
issues:
§ Even if former vice president Joseph Biden, who figured prominently in the
Trump-Zelensky conversation, is not the Democratic nominee, Ukraine is now likely to be a
contested, and poisonous, issue in the 2020 US presidential election. How did the United States
become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is
NATO expansion, as some of us who opposed that folly back in the 1990s warned would be the
case, and not only in Ukraine. The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in
2013 -- 14 resulted in the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally
elected president Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass. All
those fateful events infused the Trump-Zelensky talk, if only between the lines.
§ Russia shares centuries of substantial civilizational values, language, culture,
geography, and intimate family relations with Ukraine. America does not. Why, then, is it
routinely asserted in the US political-media establishment that Ukraine is a "vital US national
interest" and not a vital zone of Russian national security, as by all geopolitical reckoning
it would seem to be? The standard American establishment answer is: because of "Russian
aggression against Ukraine." But the "aggression" cited is Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea
and support for anti-Kiev fighters in the Donbass civil war, both of which came after, not
before, the Maidan crisis, and indeed were a direct result of it. That is, in Moscow's eyes, it
was reacting, not unreasonably, to US-led "aggression." In any event, as opponents of eastward
expansion also warned in the 1990s, NATO has increased no one's security, only diminished
security throughout the region bordering Russia.
§ Which brings us back to the Trump-Zelensky telephone conversation. President Zelensky
ran and won overwhelmingly as a peace-with-Moscow candidate, which is why the roughly $400
million in US military aid to Ukraine, authorized by Congress, figured anomalously in the
conversation. Trump is being sharply criticized for withholding that aid or threatening to do
so, including by Obama partisans. Forgotten, it seems, is that President Obama, despite
considerable bipartisan pressure, steadfastly refused to authorize such military assistance to
Kiev, presumably because it might escalate the Russian-Ukrainian conflict (and Russia, with its
long border with Ukraine, had every escalatory advantage). Instead of baiting Trump on this
issue, we should hope he encourages the new peace talks that Zelensky has undertaken in recent
days with Moscow, which could end the killing in Donbass. (For this, Zelensky is being
threatened by well-armed extreme Ukrainian nationalists, even quasi-fascists. Strong American
support for his negotiations with Moscow may not deter them, but it might.)
§ Finally, but not surprisingly, the shadow of Russiagate is now morphing into
Ukrainegate. Trump is also being sharply criticized for asking Zelensky to cooperate with
Attorney General William Barr's investigation into the origins of Russiagate, even though
the role of
Ukrainian-Americans and Ukraine itself in Russiagate allegations against Trump on behalf of
Hillary Clinton in 2016 is now well-documented
.
We need to know fully the origins of Russiagate, arguably the worst presidential scandal in
American history, and if Ukrainian authorities can contribute to that understanding, they
should be encouraged to do so. As I've argued repeatedly, fervent anti-Trumpers must decide
whether they loathe him more than they care about American and international security. Imaging,
for example, a Cuban missile -- like crisis somewhere in the world today where Washington and
Moscow are militarily eyeball-to-eyeball, directly or through proxies, from the Baltic and the
Black Seas to Syria and Ukraine. Will Trump's presidential legitimacy be sufficient for him to
resolve such an existential crisis peacefully, as President John F. Kennedy did in 1962?
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York
University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book War
With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and
in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now in
their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com.
Trump is an agent of the Deep State, playing good cop to the bad cop Deep State. I have been
saying this since mid April 2017. His multitude of actions belie his promises. Trump is a
quisling to his supporters.
Here is an excellent article that comports with my view of Trump.
I am puzzled why Cohen is permitted to publish in the Nation. Is it due to his marriage
to its publisher or to the magazine's remnant infatuation with the Soviet state? Just
asking.
The whole situation is a rather ironic
Prof. Cohen is certainly one of America's most eminent Russia scholars, and I think that
for decades he was regarded as one of the most left-leaning ones, regularly denounced for his
leftism by all the Neocons and other rightwingers. I remember I used to see him on the PBS
Newshour, sometimes paired with a conservative critic of the Soviets. I'd guess that past
history plus being married to the publisher of The Nation is what gives him his
residual foothold there.
I'd suspect that if someone had told him a couple of decades ago that by the late 2010s
he'd be blacklisted from the MSM and denounced as a "Russian agent," he probably would have
been greatly saddened at the disheartening turn in American society, but not totally shocked.
He probably would have regarded such a scenario as having a 10% possibility.
But if someone would have told him that the people denouncing and blacklisting him would
have been the *liberal Democrats* and some of their most "excitable" elements would be
accusing him of being a "Neo-Nazi White Supremacist Russian Agent" he would have thought the
entire country had gone on LSD.
It's sad that our entire country has gone on LSD
The whole situation is actually a perfect parallel to the various past American purges
I've often covered in my articles:
Russia is the excuse for US actions in the Ukraine as it was in the ME.
What is America without a big bad boogeyman like Russia?.
Certainly not a “Superpower’ defending the world.
Without enemies like Russia we would be nothing but big rich country.
And all the Neos and Zios and politicians would have to use Viagra instead of war to squirt
out their poison.
A lot of countries like the Ukraine have gotten a lot of US taxpayer money by
‘standing up to a Russian takeover’….and are laughing all the way to
their bank.
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine’s torturous and famously
corrupt politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in
the target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs
of the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes
to mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump
said to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is
the exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption
can be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of
other plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
It is more than ironic that the Dems (and their like-minded cronies in Big Media) are up in
arms over Trump’s attempt in find ‘dirt’ about Joe Biden when the
‘dirt’ looks and smells like actual corruption. Have laws been broken? Was
Biden selling influence through his son? Stranger things have happened. At the very least,
it looks as though Joe Biden crossed an ethical line. This will likely cost him the
nomination.
Similarly, the news media should–if it was doing its job–pursue leads that
would help find the source behind the missing server and the Fake News that helped justify
the toxic and duplicitous ‘Russiagate’ investigation. But they’d rather
pursue Trump instead. I have never witnessed a more partisan and bloodthirsty Fourth
Estate.
Why is the media so utterly uninterested in finding out who/how the fake
Putin-Trump ‘conspiracy’ was cooked up in the first place? Doesn’t it
make sense the Trump would want to find out more? Justice demands it. False intelligence
can sow chaos and start wars.
Consider, for instance, the manufactured lies (Saddam’s phantom WMD, links to 911,
etc) that were used to justify Zio-America’s annihilation of Iraq. What intelligence
agency cooked up these falsehoods? Who spoon-fed these fairy tales to G.W. Bush and Colin
Powell?
Not only have these questions never been answered, they are seldom even asked! The Deep
State has gone rogue. And Big Media is covering it up.
This whole ridiculous drama may profit the Dem’s in the longer term — that is,
by removing that corrupt, dementia ridden nit-wit Biden from the presidential
competition.
As president, Biden would be a greater sock puppet than even GWB…of course,
“sock puppet” maybe just what the Dem’s want….
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with inevitable
impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
@Ron Unz Thanks to Tucker Carlson’s show, some folks on the left like Cohen, Mate
and Greenwald, are more likely to get air time on Fox News than MSNBC and CNN.
The current CIA talking point is that it is illegal for the President to seek foreign
assistance for his campaign. One might also slant it that the President of the United
States has an obligation to the people who elected him to require an allied, friendly
government to reopen the investigation of Biden because there is adequate reason to suspect
that the Democrats are running yet another corrupt criminal for President. Incidentally,
this puts Zelensky in a very awkward position, as one of the backers of his transition from
sitcom star to President of Ukraine was a principal in Burisma
It is not the threat of impeachment that will energize Trump’s base; it is the
grotesque, constant character assassination in the (largely CIA manipulated) media that
will return him to the White House. The American people have a sense of fairness. They have
always been of better character than the reprobates we are allowed to vote for. Whatever
happened to trusting the democratic process, instead of using intelligence assets to
engineer domestic regime change?
History is not made by nice guys. Trump has torn a big hole in the tissue of lies about
what this country is and what it stands for, and that is too much for those who make their
living deceiving us.
Russia hating is the lynchpin of oligarchic deepstate MIC MSM propaganda. Take that
away and the fat cats are revealed as the naked face of evil that they are. Hating Russia
(and China) supposedly justifies all their crimes.
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country’s constitutionally elected president
Viktor Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment — none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) — how fucking hypocritical is it
to presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? — none of
it would have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
Looks like our stable genius" pushed Putin against Erdogan and sided with Erdogan in the
process.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. has seven NATO allies on the Med -- Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Albania, Greece and Turkey, and two on the Black Sea, Romania and Bulgaria. We have U.S. forces and bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Djibouti. Russia has no such panoply of bases in the Middle East or Persian Gulf. ..."
"... There is first President Erdogan, who is demanding a 20-mile deep strip of Syrian borderland to keep the Syrian Kurds from uniting with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Erdogan wants the corridor to extend 280 miles, from Manbij, east of the Euphrates, all across Syria, to Iraq. ..."
"... Then there is Bashar Assad, victorious in his horrific eight-year civil war, who is unlikely to cede 5,000 square miles of Syrian territory to a permanent occupation by Turkish troops. ..."
"... The Syria of which Putin is now supposedly king contains Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS, Iranians, Kurds, Turks on its northern border and Israelis on its Golan Heights. Five hundred thousand Syrians are dead from the civil war. Half the pre-war population has been uprooted, and millions are in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe. ..."
"... Our foreign policy elites have used Trump's decision to bash him and parade their Churchillian credentials. But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining American values. ..."
"... Endless demonization of Putin by the elitist press is pure idiocy. Putin's aim is no different from any decent leader. Do the best for your countrymen and countrywomen; yet without harming others. ..."
"... The answer lies in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Sadly, today's USA revenue to large extent dependent on militaristic revenue; even though most of that revenue ends up in the coffers of the MIC, supported by the media that is sustained by the MIC. Yet, I still believe that with a bit of pain Americans can turn around this horrid situation. ..."
"... The war in Syria and the growth of ISIS was entirely the result of actions by the Obama administration - and it is an outrage that no one in a position of power, not even Donald Trump, has called the Democrats out on this. ..."
"... Oh yeah, Name you seem to have forgotten Obama authorizing CIA training the moderate rebels (AKA Al qaida or moderate head choppers). By the way we handed the ME at least to Iran when Bush invaded Iraq under the false pretenses. Saintly Obama wanted to look forward but not backward on the false pretenses and he in turn engaged on the same BS as Bush. When history is written in a few years all this will come out. ..."
"... ISIS formed in the chaos that was the Iraq War, neat how you guys never accept blame for anything. ..."
"... The people who are obsessed w/staying in Syria, just for the sake of denying Russia a 'victory', at admitting that they just want to be a spoiler. They want to keep Syria partitioned into two weak states and not allow it to reform into a single state and heal. ..."
"... Our imperialists must have misread Tacitus, because it seems they aspire to making peaceful deserts. ..."
"... Putin is trusted in the middle east (and in most of the rest of the world) because he is an intelligent, consistent and respected world leader. Now compare this to the clown show of US politicians (Republican and Democrat). ..."
"... No serious person can say that US politicians are better than Putin, which is also the reason Putin is so demonized by the US political elite. ..."
"Russia Assumes Mantle of Supreme Power Broker in the Middle East," proclaimed Britain's
Telegraph .
The article began:
"Russia's status as the undisputed power-broker in the Middle East was cemented as Vladimir
Putin continued a triumphant tour of capitals traditionally allied to the U.S."
"Donald Trump Has Handed Putin the Middle East on a Plate" was the title of yet another
Telegraph column. "Putin Seizes on Trump's Syria Retreat to Cement Middle East Role,"
declared the Financial Times .
The U.S. press parroted the British: Putin is now the new master of the Mideast. And woe is
us.
Before concluding that Trump's pullout of the last 1,000 U.S. troops in Syria is America's
Dunkirk, some reflection is needed.
Yes, Putin has played his hand skillfully. Diplomatically, as the Brits say, the Russian
president is "punching above his weight."
He gets on with everyone. He is welcomed in Iran by the Ayatollah, meets regularly with Bibi
Netanyahu, is a cherished ally of Syria's Bashar Assad, and this week was being hosted by the
King of Saudi Arabia and the royal rulers of the UAE. October 2019 has been a triumphal
month.
Yet, consider what Putin has inherited and what his capabilities are for playing power
broker of the Middle East.
He has a single naval base on the Med, Tartus, in Syria, which dates to the 1970s, and a new
air base, Khmeimim, also in Syria.
The U.S. has seven NATO allies on the Med -- Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Albania,
Greece and Turkey, and two on the Black Sea, Romania and Bulgaria. We have U.S. forces and
bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Djibouti. Russia has no such
panoply of bases in the Middle East or Persian Gulf.
We have the world's largest economy. Russia's economy is smaller than Italy's, and not a
tenth the size of ours.
And now that we are out of Syria's civil war and the Kurds have cut their deal with
Damascus, consider what we have just dumped into Vladimir Putin's lap. He is now the man in the
middle between Turkey and Syria.
He must bring together dictators who detest each other. There is first President
Erdogan, who is demanding a 20-mile deep strip of Syrian borderland to keep the Syrian Kurds
from uniting with the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. Erdogan wants the corridor to extend 280 miles,
from Manbij, east of the Euphrates, all across Syria, to Iraq.
Then there is Bashar Assad, victorious in his horrific eight-year civil war, who is
unlikely to cede 5,000 square miles of Syrian territory to a permanent occupation by Turkish
troops.
Reconciling these seemingly irreconcilable Syrian and Turkish demands is now Putin's
problem. If he can work this out, he ought to get the Nobel Prize.
"Putin is the New King of Syria," ran the op-ed headline in Thursday's Wall Street
Journal.
The Syria of which Putin is now supposedly king contains Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS,
Iranians, Kurds, Turks on its northern border and Israelis on its Golan Heights. Five hundred
thousand Syrians are dead from the civil war. Half the pre-war population has been uprooted,
and millions are in exile in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe.
If Putin wants to be king of this, and it is OK with Assad, how does that imperil the United
States of America, 6,000 miles away?
Wednesday, two-thirds of the House Republicans joined Nancy Pelosi's Democrats to denounce
Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and dissolve our alliance with the Kurds. And
Republican rage over the sudden abandonment of the Kurds is understandable.
But how long does the GOP believe we should keep troops in Syria and control the
northeastern quadrant of that country? If the Syrian army sought to push us out, under what
authority would we wage war against a Syrian army inside Syria?
And if the Turks are determined to secure their border, should we wage war on that NATO ally
to stop them? Would U.S. planes fly out of Turkey's Incirlik air base to attack Turkish
soldiers fighting in Syria?
If Congress believes we have interests in Syria so vital we should be willing to go to war
for them -- against Syria, Turkey, Russia or Iran -- why does Congress not declare those
interests and authorize war to secure them?
Our foreign policy elites have used Trump's decision to bash him and parade their
Churchillian credentials. But those same elites appear to lack the confidence to rally the
nation to vote for a war to defend what they contend are vital American interests and defining
American values.
If Putin is king of Syria, it is because he was willing to pay the price in blood and
treasure to keep his Russia's toehold on the Med and save his ally Bashar Assad, who would have
gone under without him.
Who dares wins. Now let's see how Putin likes his prize.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.
Endless demonization of Putin by the elitist press is pure idiocy. Putin's aim is no
different from any decent leader. Do the best for your countrymen and countrywomen; yet
without harming others. At a recent interview with Arabic media a UAE journalist tried to
drive a wedge between Russia and Iran in favor of Saudi Kingdom by challenging Putin to
condemn Iran for alleged attacks on Saudi oil installations by Iran.
To which Putin
skillfully replied: "Russia will never be friends 'with one country against another' in the
Middle East". Nor would Putin condemn Iran unless he was presented with clear evidence - not
just accusations - of Iran's guilt. Point in case: Putin does it better than others; sure,
but why is that bad?
Oh of course envy and fear of one being exposed for inept leadership.
Time long overdue to shake hands with Putin and Russia.
https://www.rt.com/russia/o...
I haven't a concern for Russia in the middle east.
Russia is doing the US the biggest unasked favor proving where our friends and allies
loyalties in the middle east lay by forcing them to make choices in the face of shifting
alliances that they wouldn't reveal if the US continued its presence.
Russia is depopulating and it has choke points with China, with Central Asia, with the
middle east and Europe. Russia will eventually not have the population to defend all these
choke points and will eventually withdraw and focus on its own national security. At that
time, I think its possible to see Russia shift its relationship in eastern Europe while
distancing itself from Chinese expansionism that might one day want its old north pacific
territories back (like what is today Vladivostok and Sakhalin).
Depopulating? Where did you get that from? Population decrease in Russia stopped. By the
latest stats it is just about breaking even (death rates = birth rates). Moreover, population
is growing albeit very slowly. Sorry but Russkies won't die out like extinct species. As far
as its own national security; well, the old notion of "Russia is, more or less, a giant gas
station pretending to be a real country." is as dead as Senator McCain, who pretended to know
something about Russia; alas he was sadly and dangerously uninformed.
https://www.forbes.com/site...
The US has troops and a base or more in Syria?
I don't see any Syrian army bases in the US...
And, the US is telling/demanding where the Syrian army come and goes in...Syria?
What the hell is wrong with this picture?
You know!?
Oh, now hypocrite neo-con enabler Pelosi and some of the freaky other politicians are
concerned with human lives in Syria? Ha ha
But...not about the lives of children dying in Yemen and Afghanistan and Gaza?
How come?
And, the US is telling Turkey what it had better do with it's border? Also, friends and enemies o' mine,just which entity, nation and group is not a US ally?
Ally? What does that mean?
As if the American people know the hell that words means anymore and as if there's even a
meaning to that. And the American people do not watch the news, read magazines (news) as they
did before.
They don't know what is going on in the world, they gave up.
People under 50 automatically tune world news out, thanks mostly to the phonies at CNN and
the major, basically neo-con supporting networks confusing the public, purposely so that they
don't see the misery that is in the nations of the MId-East thanks to US invasions and
bombings. Just look at cnn-they spend all day talking about what Trump or some politician
said, no coverage of battles overseas, unless it benefits the continuing spinning of the news
for intervention and so on.
The US won't get a grip and stop threatening nation after nation
(while Russia does not) and so, people all over the world are thinking,
you now what, look at how dumb Americans are that they allow people from Obama, Hillary,
Schumer, Pelosi, Graham and more to conduct foreign policy that makes enemies for America
daily. And don't forget Cheney and that group, too from before. These people are actually an
insult to America.
Compare how the leaders of Russia and America talk and conduct themselves.
Russia has Lavrov, the gentleman diplomat, the US has Pompeo and the likes of Bolton and
Kushner, the Israeli lobbyist and the Presidents son in law.
How does a so-called Republic allow the President to have his daughter and Kushner, her
husband, to be security/foreign policy advisers. You're really losing it, America.
"But those same elites appear to lack the
confidence to rally the nation to vote for a war to defend what they
contend are vital American interests and defining American values."
No, they don't lack "confidence". They've got all the confidence in the world. What they
lack is competence, integrity, and credibility with the American people and the rest of the
world. They have dragged America through the mud in the Middle East for nearly two decades.
They transformed the once proud American military and diplomatic corps into a customer
service operation for Israel and Saudi Arabia.
We don't need more lectures and directives about "our interests" and "Western values" that
always turn out to be Israeli and Saudi Arabian interests and values. We need new foreign
policy elites, free of the current elite's miserable record of failure, corruption, and
subordination to foreign interests. Above all, we need to get out of the Mideast swamps that
the younger Bush and Obama pushed us into, bring our troops back to America, start defending
America and American interests again.
How simple and true what U've said. Sounds like a sound position and logical too. So why is
this not happening? The answer lies in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Sadly, today's
USA revenue to large extent dependent on militaristic revenue; even though most of that
revenue ends up in the coffers of the MIC, supported by the media that is sustained by the
MIC. Yet, I still believe that with a bit of pain Americans can turn around this horrid
situation.
The war in Syria and the growth of ISIS was entirely the result of actions by the Obama
administration - and it is an outrage that no one in a position of power, not even Donald
Trump, has called the Democrats out on this.
Oh yeah, Name you seem to have forgotten Obama authorizing CIA training the moderate rebels
(AKA Al qaida or moderate head choppers). By the way we handed the ME at least to Iran when
Bush invaded Iraq under the false pretenses. Saintly Obama wanted to look forward but not
backward on the false pretenses and he in turn engaged on the same BS as Bush. When history
is written in a few years all this will come out.
The people who are obsessed w/staying in Syria, just for the sake of denying Russia a
'victory', at admitting that they just want to be a spoiler. They want to keep Syria
partitioned into two weak states and not allow it to reform into a single state and heal.
Trump is indeed our Dorian Gray, he is just outwardly reflecting our narcissism, 'if we
don't get to do it then no one else can'.
Obvious Pat we have no consistent foreign policy in the region since we inherited the mantle
from the Brit Empire post WW 2. Oil and Israel were a marketable justification for our wars
and changing partners ( regime change ), for a long time. Now neither is relevant. We have
all the fossil fuels we need, and Israel is all powerful.. Long term I doubt the Russians
will make a difference, in the Muslim quest to resurrect the Ottoman Empire. We have lost too
many of our sons and daughters. get out.
Trump is a genius.
At the moment, Syria is a poisoned chalice to anyone accepting responsibility for it.
Russia is only there because they cannot get a naval base in any other Mediterranean
country.
When, or if peace is achieved in Syria, it will be the US that swoops in to market the
brands the Arabs love. The Syrians won't be buying Russian products.
Name an American brand the "Arabs love": Toyota, Lexis, Rollex, Sony, Nikon, Panasonic,
Samsung, iPhone (made in China)? Which one(s). While their infrastructure and basic
technology are and will continue to be Russian.
Putin is trusted in the middle east (and in most of the rest of the world) because he is an
intelligent, consistent and respected world leader. Now compare this to the clown show of US
politicians (Republican and Democrat).
No serious person can say that US politicians are better than Putin, which is also the
reason Putin is so demonized by the US political elite.
The Middle East is home to oil, terrorism, access points for maritime transportation (The Red
Sea, The Bosphorus, Suez Canal, Persian Gulf). It is strategically important. It was a
mistake for Obama to leave Iraq before there was a stable situation and it is a mistake for
Trump to leave before there is a stable situation.
To say, "Just let them all fight it out" is foolhardy and likely just a rationalization
for your mistake to support the narcissistic fool in the White House.
I don't think Putin is going to be unhappy about it. The various powers of the ME will now go
to him for favors, and he will get favors in return. I doubt US interests will be among them.
Putin said, I've got your no fly zone right here. After Russian deployment of the SA400's,
america had no choice but to begin withdrawal.
And kind of missing from Buchanan's list of
putin friends, is erdogan himself.
So, it will be interesting to see what happens now. Putin
holds all the cards and is in the best position of anybody on the planet to broker a deal
between assad and erdogan. Part of that deal will likely be very bad for those who threw
their lot in with the US.
Turkey is not a small country and has an enormous military.
Buchanan himself said that we should stay out of Syria and let the Turks deal with ISIS.
But
they were too smart for that, and had their own coup to worry about. I have always thought
that the US should have brokered a homeland for the kurds. It would have been hard, but now
it is impossible.
Turkey is now a client state of Russia much more than a member of NATO. At
least in appearance. They now buy SA400's and SU-57's from mother russia.
Who supplies and
maintains your best weapon systems indicates who your real allies are. What has the US lost?
I would say we lost anybody across the globe that we ever hoped would ally with us against
the new sino-russian superpower. Russia has unlimited space and resources. China has
unlimited people and no limits on its technical growth and markets. The US? We are the
biggest debtor third world nation that has ever existed. But hey, we have the most stable
genius as our president, and the sky is the limit for what he will accomplish other than
permanent tax cuts for corporations. Right? The right again.
Except for 2 wrongs, they
wouldn't even exist. Can faith overcome inconvenient truth? Real faith probably could by
accepting inconvenient truth. But real faith is mostly dead. It was replaced with tax free
religiosity and assault weaponry sponsored by corporate fascist government. I watched it
happen. And his story is being rewritten in days or weeks instead of years and decades.
It's not often that I would agree with Pat B. Essentially never.
But on this point, yes. If Putin wants the Middle East, by all means proceed.
That region has been messing up our politics for literally my whole life - It is most
decidedly not a Promised Land for the United States. Let the Saudis and the
Iranians and the Russians and the Turks fight it out. It should be lovely. The Israelis call
sell weapons to all of them.
Thank you for this small bit of obvious wisdom, Mr. Buchanan. Your insights are very common
sensical here, and thus, most valuable. Too bad they will mostly fall on the deaf ears of our
moronic "Elites".
I believe Obama said that Putin would be overwhelmed in Syria. However, Putin has overseen an
excellent strategy of picking an area of insurgents, militarily pounding them, then offering
them free passage to a safe area (Idlib). After doing this across Syria, he and Assad now
have all of the jihadist groups in one place where they can pound them senseless or just sit
back and wait for them to start shooting each other.
Trump did not screw up the Kurds' clearing of ISIS above the Euphrates. Now he has given
Putin and Assad the results of that. I expect the PA team will stabilize that area in short
order.
So, Idlib and NW Syria will be a cauldron for a while. Now Al Tanf is the only insurgent
holdout. Be interesting to see how that unfolds.
Lest Trumpland forget, there is a reason we got involved in the region. Jihadists can and
will use neglect to later come after us.
Putin shows us how its done. 3 billion or so, find good Muslims (anyone other than Sunni
islamists) and help them blow up, conquer, and occasionally repress the bad Muslims.
We spent several TRILLION ourselves and thousands of American lives for nothing. We never
had a single achievable objective in any of these conflicts.
Donald is a moron for selling out the Kurds, who it cost nothing to back, to Turkey but
the DC elites made this inevitable by refusing to cut a deal with Assad for the Kurds. He's
been the only realistic option for a long time now.
But its not just the US that is a war machine. Bourne's statement equally applies to _all_
states everywhere, past present and future.
If any state appears to not be making war on other countries at any particular time,
its only because it is too busy making war on its own citizens [ eg taxes, drug laws,
weapons/gun laws, religion laws, speech laws, environmental laws etc.etc. etc.], and has not
yet created enough fake money via its central bank to enable it to debt-fund consistent
overseas aggressions against others.
Wars by the US will never end because arms manufactures own Trump. Almost one half of the
US budget goes for the security of the state, domestic and abroad. New weapon development
would come to a halt if the US was not threatened. Fake news about China and Russia planning
to attack the US keeps the arms industry humming. Over a million national security workers
and their families would be devastated if Trump stopped fighting fake wars. God bless
imagined threat of wars.
This has strengthened the possibility of the revival of the Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL or ISIS). There are around 10,000 such ISIS fighters currently lodged in
prisons run by the SDF.
And with this, "the war on terror" is guaranteed to go on, and on, and on..
Just in case you hadn't heard the good news, the last man from the president's foreign
policy "team" still standing, Trump whisperer Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently left
National Security Advisor John Bolton in the dust.
June 27, 2018 Harvard Research Scholar Explains How America Created Al-Qaeda & The
ISIS Terror Group
It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past 5
years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas
ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.
What Trump wants to do and what he can do are two very different things. The MIC/Zionist rot
in DC is way too deep and entrenched for any one man to tackle.
Trump could make all his Schiffty problems go away by bombing Iran. Overnight, the man
would be lauded as the president we need and that aging hack Pelosi would suddenly drop that
phony impeachment hearing.
Trump is finding out that when making foreign policy, the safest route to take is to first
ask, "Is this good for Israel?"
I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego. Let's
inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he hasn't
vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego will
opt for the former
@DESERT
FOX Exactly, with thousands of ISIS,ISIL(American/Israeli proxy forces)types now being
freed due to Turkey's incursions into Syria, these "rebels" will be free to re-group and
fight another day. Hence the need for American forces to STAY deployed in the Area. This is
nothing more than a distraction move by Trump, which will result in the opposite "intended"
actions of American forces being withdrawn from Syria. This will also guarantee the "need"
for a strong Soviet presence in Syria.
America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria, the only point of
contention between America/Israel and Russia was whether Assad was to be forced from power or
would be allowed to remain President as a puppet of Putin and the Russians. Syria was to
never remain a sovereign nation.
The US still hasn't acknowledged the Armenian Massacre by the Turks. Why should it care
about Kurds. US is the nation that said killing 500,000 kids in Iraq was worth it.
Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind
of peace.
Not really. All are still standing and not under US control. Iraq now leans even more
toward Iran and Syria toward Russia ..and that outcome in these countries has made Israel's
goal of destroying Iran much harder and less likely .
The curtailment of the Kurds, Israel's long time friends and proxy , is another blow to
Israel's plot.
It appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and
borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey
loose to do that job.
@WJ
Right. But as Giraldi always points out, Trump almost attacked Venezuela. He said mean
words and rattled sabres! As opposed to Obama, who said no mean words ('cause he upheld the
"dignity of the office") but sent the fighter jets into Libya and turned that country from a
stable, secular regime into a human trafficking warzone. And also got an ambassador killed.
Here are some of Giraldi's gems from April 2011:
Libya is a humanitarian mission
it [the invasion] has no clearly stated objective except to protect Libyan
civilians
it is now clear that the rebels do not have any military organization to speak of and
Gaddafi has the whip hand
Nice analysis there, Mr. CIA lifer and Obama lickspittle. I can only assume Giraldi was
part of the crack CIA team of Sovietologists who were utterly blindsided when the Soviet
Union broke up. It's amazing how much slack he's given around here for his anti-Israel stuff.
It's like Teflon for him.
@Priss
Factor Agree, and the ZUS has killed millions in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and
Syria, for their zionist masters, the only lives the ZUS cares about is zionists.
@NoseytheDuke
The only question you failed to address is what was the true motives of Putin's intervention
into the whole mess. A few good points:
As in Ukraine, Putin will stay in Syria until it no longer suits him. He has no
long-term strategic goals beyond creating chaos and weakening the alliances of the free
world wherever possible. This allows him to play the big man on the international stage, an
essential element of his domestic appeal. 24/7 propaganda and Soviet nostalgia have turned
Putin's invasion into a domestic hit in Russia. In contrast, Russians have no interest in
Syria or Assad, but who cares what they want? Unlike the leaders of Europe, the U.S., and
other democratic countries, Putin doesn't have to worry about how popular his foreign
adventures are at home. There are no checks and balances in the Russian government, no free
media to criticize him, and no popularity polls that matter more than ranks of well-armed
riot police.
Licks for Giraldi: Giraldi has been careless but not where he lists Trumps lies about ending
'silly' wars. from what Trump has actually done compared to what he says about ending
America's wars he is a liar of clear and complete proportions
"the military the only real source of pride the only thing Americans feel they excel at"
An insightful point. Politicians support the military and its deployments for economic
reasons, but the support of the public might derive from "what else is there?" Examples of
institutional and private-sector failure abound in the news over recent years, and every day.
The Boeing Max. The hotel collapse. 250,000 deaths per year from medical negligence. Power
shutoffs. Useless college. The dive boat. A relaxed performance standard. The demise of
meritocracy and rationality. During Katrina, every agency except the Coast Guard went into
gridlock. There are remaining islands of expertise, but the unraveling is contagious.
The dirty, filthy hand of the Jew is all over America's Mideast policy. Israel backs ISIS in
Syria with weapons. The Israeli-Occupied Government in Washington D.C. has even protected
ISIS in Syria at times. The Jew-owned media gives no credit to Iran and Russia for defeating
Jew and American-supported terrorists inside Syria. Now the Jew-owned government is aching
for war with Iran, which is not a threat to Gentile America.
The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime
are still there. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Replacing Assad was an Globalist goal, heavily pushed by Erdogan. We also remember the
failed presidency of Barak Hussein that never represented the citizens of the U.S. So it
would be more precise to say that:
-- George Soros, Erdogan, Obama, Wahhabism, and the Globalists are losing.
-- Putin, Trump, Assad, and Populism are winning.
The real test will be Putin getting all other foreign troops & proxies to leave. The
Globalist agenda is to keep the fight between Iran (Shia) and Turkey (Sunni) going, when they
both leave combatants in Syria. Hopefully, Putin will be able to fully rout the Globalists
and move out both Turkish and Iranian agitators.
@Johnny
Walker Read Maybe you don't know who the author of that article is .Garry Kasparov
Kasparov might be great at chess but in Russia he was big fail as a politician .couldn't
get any votes on his campaign to make Russia like America. He went into a self-imposed exile
in the West. claiming Putin ruined his political campaigning.
Now everything Putin does infuses all Kasparov's punditry
Kasparow's love for Bolton should clue you to what he is about.
Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) · Twitter
As I said about Bolton entering the Trump admin nearly 3 years ago, you may not agree with
his views as much as I generally do, but he puts US interests first, not Trump's. Can't say
same about Pompeo & the rest.
31 mins ago
The short story on Syria, Turkey, USAISRAEL, Russia –
Turkey-Syria offensive: Russia vows to prevent clashes with Assad forces
BBC
Takeaways
THEN .
"When the US decided to equip and train Syrian Kurds, as well as some Arabs, to fight IS,
they were aware of a potential problem, that their would-be Kurdish allies were regarded as
terrorists by their Nato ally, Turkey. Washington turned a blind eye to a problem that could
be kicked into the future. Now the future is here, and it has blown up."
NOW .
"On Sunday the Kurds announced a deal with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
agreeing that its troops could advance into the zone that had not been controlled by Damascus
since 2012, right up to the border with Turkey. That is a big victory for the regime. The
troops moved quickly out of bases they maintained in the north-east. Assad loyalists dug out
regime flags.
It was a disastrous day for American Middle East policy. The alliance with the Kurds, and the
security guarantee safeguarding their self-governing slice of Syria, gave the Americans a
stake in the war's endgame. It was also a way of pushing against the backers of the Assad
regime: Russia and Iran. The departure of the Americans, and the advance of the Syrian army,
are victories for them too.
European governments, rattled in the way that happens when the problems of the Middle East
come knocking at their doors, are calling on Turkey to stop the offensive. Some Nato members
can see a nightmare scenario unfolding, with Syria, backed by Russian power, potentially
facing off against Turkey, a fellow Nato member. The Russians say they are in regular contact
with Turkey. But in a fluid, violent theatre of war. the chances for misperception, mistakes
and escalation are always present.
Perhaps what has happened in the last week simplifies the endgame of the Syrian war. Two
major players, the Americans and the Kurds, look to be out of the picture. And President
Assad, along with his allies from Russia and Iran, continue to solidify their victory in
Syria's catastrophic war."
WHAT IS BEING LEFT OUT OF THE CURRENT COMBING THRU THE ASHES OF THE SYRIAN WAR IS THE FACT
SAUDI STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR.
The discussion, if one might even call it that, regarding the apparent President Donald
Trump decision to withdraw at least some American soldiers from Syria has predictably
developed along partisan, ideologically fueled lines.
Not too sure where this partisan line is, Dr. G.
It looks like they're screeching from both sides of the isle.
Both powerful Republican Liz Cheney and Hillary called the pull out "sickening".
While Republican Senator Rand Paul applauds the decision, Tulsi Gabbard condemns it.
As for 'ideological', we all know that ideologically, the vast majority of all
congress-critters (99+%) from both sides of the isle, are motivated by the ideology of
doing "what's good for the Jew$"
NATO agreement stipulates that if an alliance member is threatened, other members must
support it in its defense. Turkey has not made that claim, but it is completely
plausible that it should do so .
Are you joking, Dr. G?
Hasn't Turkey been engaged in waging an aggressive war on Syria these last few years?
Wouldn't Turkey demanding military aid from NATO, (for a "threat" from the Kurds or
Syria), amount to the US demanding NATO aid for a "threat" from Iran?
IOW, it's Turkey that has been the murderous aggressor, and the Kurds and Syrians their
victims. Not to mention that Turkey's military could make mince-meat out of the Kurdish
"threat" in a New York minute.
So it seems to me that the only thing holding Turkey back, is orders from the ZUSA and
Russia. Russia is certainly a large part of this equation, IMHO.
did not understand the Turkish mindset regarding the Kurdish threat, which they regard
as existential.
'Existential'?
Would a limited autonomy Kurdish state on Turkey's southern border, perhaps incorporating
a small swath of Turkey, be the end of Turkey's existence?
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the world demanded that Germany sacrifice some of its
territory as recompense for its aggressive military imperialism.
If I were in a position to do so, I'd hand Syria a slice of Israel's and Saudi Arabia's
and Turkey's territory – as a punishment for their depraved attacks on an innocent and
unthreatening Syria.
Definitely the Hatay province, which arguably belongs to Syria anyways.
I'm sure Turkey would call that an existential! calamity, but I'd tell them 'karma's a
bitch'.
Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's
actual record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more
soldiers to no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special
ops forces in numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in
Venezuela, continues to support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors
and has exited to from treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed
conflict less likely. And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in
Iraq, a country that the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity
and which is now experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump
is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting than
all of his predecessors. These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to
end wars
I remain you most loyal fan, Dr. G. But I confess this sounds to me like you think the
situation above started on the day of Trump's inauguration.
He inherited those things by the former ZUS regimes.
He has tried over and over again to disengage, only to be dragged back by the screeching
from the members of his own party. Not to mention the ((media)).
There are a lot of reasons to condemn the actions of Trump. The Golan Heights, for
instance. But it seem glaringly obvious to me at least, that Trump is not ideologically
committed to Eternal Wars.
As you put it, he threatened regime change in Venezuela.
He wanted to have talks with the Taliban, (and the whole deepstate and their ((media))
screeched)
He "continues to support Saudi Arabia" but as Pat Buchannan points out.. "The Saudis
got the message when the U.S., in response to a missile and drone strike from Iran or
Iranian-backed militias, which shut down half of Riyadh's oil production, did
nothing.
Said Washington, this is between Saudi Arabia and Iran."
And he has five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that
the United States basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now
experiencing a wave of rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds
You really do make it sound like all that is his fault.
I love your work Dr. G. And consider you one of the very best, most honorable and most
courageous writers out there.
But I confess, (like so many others!), it seems like to me that you have an irrational,
personal hatred for Donald Trump that colors your perspective.
IMHO.
I didn't have time to write this response well, have to go. Hope it's not too off
base..
@animalogicMore information on Trump & drone attacks would be useful & welcome.
There is a gigantic problem in America. It makes us dysfunctional. Certain news cannot get
to the American people.
Everyone in the know gets it – do not go to the NY Times with anti-Israel news. Do
NOT buck the AIPAC agenda – period. The darkest element of the ADL will be at your door
within minutes. The US government will soon follow.
It is obvious – when it comes to Jew matters, US government employees fear for their
jobs, if not their lives. Same for the MSM.
US President Donald Trump has lambasted American broadcaster ABC News for airing a video from
Knob Creek Gun Range in the town of West Point, Kentucky, claiming that the network used
footage from the facility to depict a Turkish attack on Kurdish civilians in northern Syria.
Trump called the mistake "a big scandal" and "a real disgrace".
"A big scandal at @ABC News. They got caught using really gruesome FAKE footage of the
Turks bombing in Syria. A real disgrace", the president wrote on Twitter early Tuesday
morning.
@renfro
The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in February–March 2014.
Despite all the protests about Crimea, the Donbass invasion using asymmetric tactics with
Putin out outright denying responsability, Ukraine is a vital interest for Putin, and he
would have been willing to confront America and Nato there because it is his home ground and
advantage. But Russia is powerful enough to; Putin only went into Syria after Obama decided
not to overthrow Assad. No one particularly cares about Syria and neither do they care about
the Kurds (despite them having as good a case as the Palestinians to be given a state) and
that is why jumped up Turkey can get away with invading Syria and attacking Kurds, just like
they INVADED Cyprus.
This whole thing is probably a a storm in a teacup, but if Turkey gets into trouble they
know, because they were already told very clearly over Cyprus, that if they play Lone Ranger,
Nato does not have their back. Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey
threatening to get their own nuclear weapons because Israel has them is not very good
diplomacy from Turkey's point of view. It is begining to experience delusions of its own
importance.
@renfroIt appears to me that Putin's idea is to force everyone back into their own countries and
borders .he may have shared that plan with Trump and that may have resulted in turning Turkey
loose to do that job.
Here is a very good video – Putin being interviewed. They asked him hard questions.
He came across as being very rational.
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen
People! The internet is there for you to verify/debunk any statement you question. Running a
website is a lot of work, why don't you guys collect the information you demand from Mr. Unz,
and share with us?
Or are you looking at others to supply you with ready-made opinions?
@onebornfree
Thanks for the link about Mr.Bourne and you correct about his statement applying to ALL
states.
They are more like progressive, merciful and humanitarian slave owners.
Be free
I wonder why the "high IQ" westerners have never deemed it fit to study their undeniable mass
psychopathy.
If they were indeed as smart as claimed, they would begin to admit it, and given the claim
to their innate highly civilised humanitarian inclinations *cough* , they would come to the
conclusion that this world needs less of their cursed kind.
Since that is not going to happen, I guess nature has its way
@Rev.
Spooner The point he makes is extremely vague. No specificity. None. Yet 10's of
thousands are dead. Ok, how about some evidence.
Why don't you go back to kindergarten, Rev?
@SafeNow
The support of the public for the military derives from constant and pervasive propaganda
particularly through movies and TV shows , David Sirota calls it the "Military
Entertainment
Complex".
Zero Hedge : " Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon , CIA
& NSA ".
@Johnny
Walker Read I was making a rhetorical point. I don't think the U.S. can decouple from the
Middle East.
I do, however, think that Trump wants value for blood and treasure.
Long-term, America simply lacks the financial strength to continue to project power. The
MIC costs the U.S. a tremendous amount of money. Budget to the MIC will continue to be
slashed over time. The Deep State in the U.S. will contract simply due to financial
realities.
Israel will be less and less of a priority.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio relative to
the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.
@Whitewolf
Yes, lack of talent and totall inane radical left wing proposals whiped up by the AOC wing
and swallowed by all the candidates 'hook, line and stinker '.
@OscarWildeLoveChild
After JFK's assassination, every successive president is/was shown a film clip of JFK's head
exploding from an angle nobody's ever seen.
It doesn't matter what party they're from; they'll tow TPTB's line. All of them.
US Foreign Policy = Occupied Palestine Foreign Policy.
That's all that's wrong with US foreign policies in a nutshell.
@Bragadocious
Whether he or his father served is irrelevant. Carter was in the Naval Academy, Reagan and
Bush 43 were in the reserves. Clinton had none and neither did Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge,
Harding, or Wilson.
What is telling, is the "alleged bone spurs", and "Trump's surname was changed from the
original German Drumpf".
An allegation is an unproven accusation. What Giraldi is stating, is that Trump's physician
falsified records. You think old man Trump sent Donnie for a megadollar military academy
education so he could avoid the military?
As for Drumpf, I was acquainted with a couple of Schmidts who became Smith, a Bryjolfson who
became Byron, a Pachkowski who became Berry and, no one says Roosevelt's name was changed
from Rosenfeld. The snide commentary doesn't help.
I have said all along, that there is a lot not to like about Trump, but let's keep it in the
realm of reality. Whether he wants to end the stupid wars or not, he will never be allowed
to, as long as Giraldi's old employer is in business and making up non-existent bullshit
"threats to American interests", whatever they are.
@Sean
"Doing something Israel is not happy about and Turkey threatening to get their own nuclear
weapons because Israel has them is not very good diplomacy from Turkey's point of view"
Israel is known to puff and bluff . It is grandiose polemic or rabid canine barking. It
was not exposed by the west . But the west now knows it ,thanks to Hizbullah
@anon
Getting women to work had nothing to do with their 'liberation.'
Even though my mom had her own [private] school, my dad's salary was enough to provide for
all 5 of us, go on annual holidays abroad and put three kids through college, loan-free.
To TPTB, it's better to tax 2 people instead of 1.
To them it's just a number game, like the 'Torches of Freedom' gambit, all spiel, smoke
and mirrors, to fool us gullible idiots into believing we do have a say
We should really start to use our guns and rifles to free the country and rid it of the
rot that's smothering it.
Oh, look, another Cartra$$hian selfie butt shot on Instagram!!!!!!
It's very old habit.Very much ingrained . It is also generational . Increasingly and suddenly
religious also as the feckless toothless Evangelicals are rooting for 1 second fame .
But here is a short chronology–
1 Plans for mayhem in Syria have been on the imperial table since the 1950s (Operation
Straggle).
2 US general Wesley Clark gave the game away years ago when he revealed US intentions in
the Middle East after 9/11: seven countries were to be invaded
3 Seymour Hersh gave the game away too in his 2007 New Yorker article: "The Redirection".
In this piece he revealed how the US were hooking up once again with the Saudi/Sunni
fundamentalists in and around Syria.
4 France's ex-foreign minister Roland Dumas also gave the game away when he revealed that the
British State (a definite CIA asset) was preparing for a war on Syria two years before the
start of the Syrian Holocaust in 2011.
"This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June,
"goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."
As we recently learned from former French Foreign Minister Dumas, it was also about that
time, that actors in the United Kingdom began planning the subversion of Syria with the help
of "rebels"' (Christof Lehmann, Interview with Route Magazine)
Between 2006 to 2010, the US spent 12 million dollars in order to support and instigate
demonstrations and propaganda against the Syrian government. 6,3 million dollars was funneled
to the Movement for Justice and Development, a Syrian dissident organization based in London.
The Movement operated the Barada satellite channel
@Johnny
Walker Read Quote: "America/Israel/Russia have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "
Reply: Kindly allow me to correct your statement.
"America/Israel have always wanted the partitioning of Syria "
Russia has a wet entrance into the Med via Syria.
Perhaps you've dozed off a bit over the past few years, but Russia has been destroying and
killing the FUKZUIS 'war' machine goons in Syria [aka the takfiri terrorist].
They're assisting in getting the country back [on its feet] as a whole again.
@anon
I'll keep it short. You can find the beginnings back in the 2012 coverage.
In 2012 Saudi sent Saudi Prince Bandar to Syria to be in charge of helping Syrian rebels
bring down Assad, an ally of Riyadh's biggest regional rival Iran.
They were originally created, set up and armed and financed by Saudi.
The Saudis were then joined by Israel and Qatari and finally by the US under Obama.
A new twist appeared in the Saudi rebels war with Assad when ISI appeared and joined the
fight.
This scared Saudi shitless as they thought this ISI version of ALQ might be a threat to them
and lead to an invasion of Saudi as ALQ always saw it as a' westernerized' Saudi.
Everyone doubled down on both fighting Assad and fighting ISI ..which was a FUBAR if there
ever was one.
Then enter the proxies, the Kurds, the PPK terrorist group all fighting for their own
agendas within and under cover of the original war on Assad.
What could possibility go wrong in all this? LOL
Then enter Russia. Which gave some pause to the US in how far they wanted to go to throw
Assad out for Saudi and Israel and open a gateway to get Iran.
So now we are headed to the ending of the Saud and others Syrian adventure which is probably
best expressed by the fable of the fox and his shadow.
"A fox arose in the morning and saw his large shadow cast in the morning sun and said " I
will have a camel for lunch today'. The fox hunted all day for the camel without success. As
he paused in the afternoon setting sun he saw his shadow was much smaller and said "A mouse
will do after all."
In 1992, Alexandra Zapruder began to collect diaries written by children during
the Holocaust. These diaries speak eloquently of both hope and despair.
[Alexandra said:] "Anne Frank's diary was the first diary that was published. And her
voice was so powerful that it captured the voices of all the children and all the people
who had been killed. That's the way it's framed. And that by reading her diary and sort of
taking her into our hearts, we could redeem her life. . . ." [US Holocaust Memorial Museum
https://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/alexandra-zapruder
]
Alexandra Zapruder is the author of Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the
Zapruder Film.
Her grandfather was Abraham Zapruder, who took a twenty-six second home movie of President
John F. Kennedy's assassination[1] -- now known as the Zapruder film.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Zapruder
]
From a strategic point of view it is very noteworthy to observe that Kurdish troops are
fully positioned east of the Euphrates River. The Kurds are allies of Israel and a vital
proxy implemented to fracture Syria along the lines envisioned for Greater Israel (Oded Yinon
Plan).
It is perceived that Russia is an ally of Syria. However, Putin has not prevented Kurdish
troops from establishing themselves firmly within Syrian territory.
Israel along with their diaspora will never relent until their abomination of "Eretz
Yisrael" is achieved. It's not an accident that the ISIS flag is marked "All Jew."
@NoseytheDuke
Washingtonsblog : " Balkanizing the Middle East – The real goal of America and Israel :
shatter Iraq and Syria into many small pieces "
Thomas Harrington : " One of the prime goals of every empire is to foment ongoing internecine
conflict in the territories whose resources and/or strategic outposts they covet "
Sanchez : " Plan B is to Balkanize Israel is endorsing its plan B for Syria just when its
enemies are making it clear that its plan A (Assad must go) is not happening anytime soon ."
Pro-Israel America launched Tuesday endorsing 27 candidates -- 14 Democrats and 13
Republicans. All have long histories of working with the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee to advance the brand of pro-Israel legislation it favors. Its endorsements on its
website praise the named lawmakers for their actions favoring the legislative agenda closely
identified with the lobby: funding for Israel's defense, sanctions on Iran and its regional
proxies, and bills that seek to counter the boycott Israel movement.
They include Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chris Coons, D-Del.; Rep. Steny Hoyer,
D-Md., the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy,
R-Calif., the minority leader; Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, that committee's ranking Republican.
here are all of them listed .make sure you don't vote for one:
@barr
Blaming Saudi or Turkey or UAE has possibly some validity but as far as far the effect of the
independent move by any of them is concerned , it has less than zero effect on Syria on its
own.
It is like a hypothetical scenario where Florida and Alabama are independent countries .
Rest of America is splintered into 50 different states and Canada is trying to get rid of
Cuban regime for 50 years and only in last 5 years Florida and Alabama have joined the scheme
under dubious circumstances of pressure bribery and blackmail.
@NoseytheDuke
Israel was more powerful and also more favorite of the west across ideological drive until
2003
It is not a normal country . Somewhere that guilt and remorse of stealing and killing have
left a mark on its psyche . It doesn't know how to settle and be normal
It doesn't know the meaning of the power, advantage or gain . The paranoia drives to more
dangerous world of fear and insecurity . It can't rest . Even if it is left alone, he talks
to itself and bangs it head against wall . Recent election is the manifestation of more
madness . It's begging jaunt to Russia and screaming through US media show how badly weakened
the country is.
The countries that bow to Israel – UK, USA, Egypt, Saudi are finding themselves also
badly weakened ,
A seed was planted in 2006 in Lebanon . That tree is growing taller and establishing roots
, Israel will be a shrub hiding in the shadow of that tree in a few years time.
Soviet and Russia were both almost destroyed by Jews . Now they look for the Russian shadow
to hide .
@renfro
A pack of lions can bring down an adult elephant at night when they have the advantage, but
they are careful not to choose a really big strong one. Russia is fighting in the Ukraine its
traditional heartland and what H. Mackinder called the Heartland of the World Island. A
victory in Syria that only came because Obama chose to not crush Assad with a couple of days
of air raids is hardly evidence of the Empire falling.
The real meaning of Trump is the facing of the threat from China, and if the neocons want
to play games in the Middle East so what? There is a fight coming with China and it is a
match for the West led by giant Bull Elephant America, Backward ME shitholes all together
could not take down America in a thousand years.
And what were the Kurds in Iraq called?
Didn't Saddam use some type of gas on them and that's why we were siding with them? Who told
about the incubator babies, maybe some other terrorist group?
@renfro
Mmmm, okay, you must have meant something like 'organized shooting' when you said, "SAUDI
STARTED THE WHOLE FUCKING SYRIAN WAR." Sorry I bit on false advertising.
As you see from 'barr' at #119 above, your starting point is months, years, even decades
too late. For a fact (I've met some of the Syrians who met with Robert Ford in Damascus, now
here and still lobbying for regime-change), the US was meddling, encouraging, prompting the
anti-Assadists well before the 2011 demonstrations.
@Daniel
Rich Putin is not the nice guy we have been told he is. He is in Syria for a reason, and
that is not simply because he wants Syria returned to al-Assad. Syria is only one cog in the
wheel. World wide Communism marches on, if you hadn't noticed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=4sKxkY0Tz5s
LOL. My favourite rapid US evacuation was the CIA flying off the roof of the Saigon
Embassy while the Viet Kong were busting in through the door and running up the stairs.
who benefits from these wars – isn't it just one small but powerful segment of
America – AIPAC. Isn't it time to call these wars by the honest truthful term –
"AIPAC Wars?"
Except the main beneficiary of these wars is George Soros and his anti-Semitic Globalist
movement.
Soros intentionally orchestrated the ultra-weak, time limited JCPOA treaty to create a
nuclear arms race among Iran, SA, Turkey, and possibly other MENA nations. That way he and
his buddies with MIC investments could profit by selling weapons to all sides.
So let's put in everyone's face with a factual term
Trump confuses tweeting with taking action. How many times has he mentioned 'birthright
citizenship' and then done nothing about it?
A: Every time.
If Trump drives too hard, too early and the case arrives at the Supreme Court while it is
split 5-4 in favor of 'birthright citizenship' Is that a win? Or, a loss?
There is a huge difference between 'failed action' and 'successful action'.
Given the proven hostility of the deep state establishment, it makes a great deal of sense
to lay groundwork now (via tweets), but only launch the correct constitutional action once
the courts are prepared to support it.
With class, Philip Giraldi amused me by his article's mere title, "Trump wants to end the
"Stupid Wars?"
Oh yea! Thanks, Phil , & please continue with offering dashes of intelligent,
dissident, & unflappable humor. Haha. For example, "Trump's surname was changed from the
original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs at Normandy, they were undoubtedly on
the German side."
(Zigh) The insatiable global tag team, M.I.C. and The Land of Bilk & Money , want "Big
Time" and more stupidly unnecessary & immoral wars. (Zigh) One sure path to a 2nd term
for President Bonespur is for him to get off the "low energy" Turkey/Syria skirmish, &
get on with real war against Iran , for Israel.
Thanks, Phil! Fyi, I think Senator Lindsey Graham wants to get Bolton back in The Blue
& White House, and sanction Camp Mar a Lago.
P.S.: For all commenters assembled here, linked below is Stephen Colbert's satiric
covering of President Drumpf's having followed Israel's yonder (fallen) , and establishing a
US Space Force Command! To that, Colbert quipped, "Trump can not join it because of his
galactic bonespur."
@9/11
Inside job Seven Nations to Destroy for the nine eleven false flag. Wesley Clark
mentioned the seven – Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.
Seven Nations to Destroy for Yahweh's Israel – Deut. 7:1-2 –
Tanakh/OT.
Iraq 2003 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces
Libya 2011 invaded Purim – shattered in pieces
How four other nations on the list that were destroyed.
Somalia –
Since 2006 it has been a mess with Israel/US Al-Qaeda running the show.
Bizarre article about US/Israel terrorists "worried" about the environment.
Somalia-based militant group Al-Shabab has reportedly announced a ban on the use of
single-use plastic bags in territories under its control.
The Al-Qaeda-affiliated organization, which has been blamed for thousands of deaths
since its inception in 2006, dubbed plastic a "serious threat to the well-being of both
humans and animals," the BBC reported, citing Al-Shabab's radio station Radio Andalus.
It even mentions that Osama Bin Laden, the puppet of Israel/US, was "worried" about the
environment too. It makes one wonder if this Climate Change thing and Imperialism terror are
connected.
Bin Laden wrote that Americans needed to save Obama from corporate and other nefarious
influences to empower him to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its
destiny."
He added that the world would be better off fighting climate change than waging what he
claimed was a war against Islam.
Sudan
Divided in two in 2011. Israel/US is pushing for more divisions.
Asked about his demand for protection during his meeting with Putin, al-Bashir said we
wanted to highlight "the big U.S. pressure and conspiracy" on Sudan in Darfur crisis and
the huge pressure exerted on his government to separate the South Sudan.
"Now we have information that the American quest is to divide the Sudan into five
countries If we do not find protection and security. America took the world leadership and
devastated the Arab world. (See) what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in Iraq, what
happened in Syria, what happened in Yemen and what happened in Sudan," said al-Bashir.
Lebanon
Invaded by Israel in the summer of 2006. It made a mess out of Lebanon. Israel had a lot
of trouble fighting off Hezbollah. This is the reason that Israel fears going into Lebanon
again. After this adventure, Golems like US and its friends are the go to for Israel's war
adventures.
Initially, both Israel and Hezbollah claimed victory in the war, with Nasrallah
declaring that Hezbollah had achieved a "divine, historic and strategic victory". Some
international observers saw the fact that Hezbollah had survived the Israeli assault,
despite the asymmetrical power balance, as a PR victory for the group. According to
Reuters, the Lebanese government estimated direct war damage at $2.8 billion, and lost
output and income for 2006 at $2.2 billion. The economy also shrank five per cent, with
tourism effectively halted.
Six of the seven were messed up, destroyed. It leaves only Iran left. Iran is in the
"news" everyday for this reason.
Trump is flawed, ok then, but we had Clinton as the alternative. She would have been ten
times worse so what choice did the American people have? He's rolling up the Obama-Clinton
project in Syria which was a huge atrocity. Can you imagine the bloodbath that would have
ensued had the US backed jihadi cannon fodder actually succeeded in overthrowing Assad? It's
not a one man show and Trump has to go along with much of what has been taking place. Much of
this has been imposed upon the American people as well as on Trump.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish PKK. Why
so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have been resisting
for so long. But yet the mighty Turks are going to defeat the Kurds of Syria even as they
can't defeat the ones living in their own country? Perhaps they'll take on the inferior
Syrian army at the same time. After all, they're a big NATO ally with lots of weapons to dump
on lightly armed foes. Reality is they haven't fought anyone in a hundred years so who knows
how well they'd do.
Quit calling Afghanistan a "war". It's an occupation with anti-guerilla operations going on.
Apparently they don't like being occupied so they fight on.
Trump's name is Trump, not Drumpf. Or do we now refer to people by the family name used a
hundred years ago, or why not five hundred years ago?
Excerpt from
"Trump Mistake: Allowing Turkish Invasion of Northern Syria"
by Joel Skousen (there is no direct link to it but it is/was on his website World Affairs Brief ):
This week in a telephone conversation with Turkish dictator Recep Erdogan he [President
Trump] assented to Erdogan's demand from over a year ago to let them enter Turkey and
establish a buffer zone where Turkey can resettle the hundreds of thousands of Syrian
refugees that have burdened Turkey since the beginning of the US-created terror attacks on
Syria. But as part of that strategy, and without emphasizing that to Trump, Erdogan intends
to drive out or destroy the Syrian Kurds which occupy northern Syria. Erdogan calls them
terrorists because the US-backed YPG Kurds are affiliated with the homegrown Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) which represents about 20% of the Turkish population, and which has
been fighting for independence from Turkey. So while the Turkish Foreign Minister plays lip
service to Syrian sovereignty, Turkey has already begun the invasion and occupation of
northern Syria. While Trump claims he is fulfilling a campaign promise to remove troops
from Syria, this isn't really a pullout at all since only two observation posts in the path
of the Turkish invasion are pulling out. There are thousands of other US troops elsewhere
in Syria protecting US-backed terrorist rebels.
@Johnny
Walker Read H.E. Mr. Putin has clearly stated it's up to the Syrian population to choose
who leads them, not him.
Tartus has a port Russia needs and uses.
Khmeimim Air Base is also needed and used by the Russian AF.
These are military strategic assets and used to counter balance the FUKZUS 'war' machine's
bases dotted around the ME region. Of course, those you don't mention.
No president actually controls the government, least of all Trump. The Deep State controls
the government. Trump is a an interloper. Why does one have to remind the author of this
elementary fact? The threat to destroy the economy of Turkey was made by Stephen Israel
Mnuchin. Trump had to make noises as if it was his "decision" when in fact he had nothing to
do with it. What Trump wants to do, and what he can do, are entirely different things. And
anyone who has anything to do with Americans knows what happened to all the previous allies.
Mnuchin has clued in those Turks who may have had illusions.
@renfro
very bad US is indeed . It continues to sabotage ,cast evil eye,try to strangle ,and continue
to punish Cuba . That long history is really long punctuated by half hearted Obama attempt
.
Once empire decided a project,it becomes , NASA , Present Danger , PNAC or NED . The project
goes on losing the aim . The project goes on because the vested interest
,employees,pensioner,glory seeking men, arm merchant, politicians and expatriate find means
to rake up profit and launder dishonest living into honest lifestyle . Name is changed when
it suits the project . Aim is not lost. It becomes the final destination . It never stops
energegizing the dishonest, looter,profit seekers, and opportunists . Often the brains that
gather under the flag are not that intelligent or ideologically certain.
Money and corruption drive them.
It's truly amazing how much the consciousness of the planet has changed within the past
5 years alone, and it's not just happening within one topic, but in several different areas
ranging from health to geopolitics and everything in-between.
Going broke happens slowly at first, then quickly. The Western cities are going broke, as
are those in the Third World. Nothing else changes peoples minds like having their basic
income reduced or eliminated.
All the promises (including self-governmement and freedom and equality) have turned out to
be lies, smoke. Computers, which were supposed to be a seamless adjunct to human existence, a
source of education and information, and a liberation from the bad parts of part of reality,
have turned into (poor but cheap) entertainment, gossip, a drug substitute, and a propaganda
source. The result is shock and horror, sometimes followed by violent psychosis [1] (e.g.
antifa).
Once again, I recommend "Marat/Sade"
(1967). It gives you a feel for what a revolution is like once the revolution gets going.
Note the movie's final scene, which almost breaks the "fourth wall" convention. It was made
during our last revolution, and the director wanted to record the spirit of what he had
seen.
@Art I
like it, very catchy, original, Art said: "AIPAC Wars."
Oh yea, Art, thanks, and a "spade is a spade" when one manages to get the hell out of the
AIPAC shade.
Unfortunately tonight, millions of process estranged Amerikan Democrat & GOP voters
are now "beamed up" to an AIPAC-approved strange & hostile telescreen's DebateLand.
(Zigh) Across aisle, including a possible Beaming Bloomberg entry, , "winnable" 2020
presidential nomination contestants shall pick & choose, finagle & sell, an either/or
USrael foreign policy posture, as regrettably follows:
1.) The Zio-Democrat War to end the deplorable Trump's stupid call to end all Amerika's
endless Wars just for the paltry good of gradually achieving Greater Israel's unending
endgame. or,
2.) The Zio-GOP's War to end all Democrat Party hopefuls' stupid call to end all US endless
wars just because a lefty AIPAC-Branch put an Israel Labor Party "bug in their ear" about
having lowly dead-ender 'Merikan workers fucking pay for it.
Thanks again, Art, and "Good night America."*
* Phil Giraldi inhabits Sinatra's City That Never Sleeps.
The next financial crisis is already beginning. The U.S. has a massive debt ratio
relative to the Money Supply. It is now 5:1. Good luck with that. It will be needed.
Agree.
And the financial debt must be augmented by degradation of physical infrastructure
(especially in cities and city support infrastructure) and the degradation of human capital
by importation of low IQ populations and effective destruction of education. And the capital
misallocation that continues today.
The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as global
trade will end with it.
The brave Turks have been fighting a thirty year war against the "terrorist" Kurdish
PKK. Why so long? Maybe the Turks oppress them? There has to be a reason the Kurds have
been resisting for so long.
Turkish birth rate low (lower in cities than in hinterlands), Kurdish birth rate high.
Kurds replace Turks in a few decades. Kurds don't follow Turkish cultural norms, nor Turks
follow Kurdish. Kurds don't want to wait a few decades, want power _now_ (c.f. Black Power
and Whiteness in USA). Kurds use destructive commando raides ("terrorism") to get power now.
Turks don't like that, respond with same.
Long term: demography wins barring very large change.
Please correct parts of this that are wrong. I'm not following this conflict closely.
Latest TruNews godcast, E. Michael Jones: The Deception Facing the Church by Christian
Zionism
YT Description:
Today on TruNews, Dr. E. Michael Jones joins us to talk about the influence of modern
Christian Zionism upon the American Church, and how that has led to a dramatic
radicalization of US foreign policy in favor of one nation, Israel.
Prof. Jones takes the deluded xian Zionists to task, calling them "useful idiots." My
favourite passage starts @ 18:58:
.. which means you got a lot of Christians who don't understand the gospel. Because
there are plenty of Christians out there who are Christian Zionists. It's a simple fact of
life. I think it can be traced to Jewish influence in our culture Jewish influence over the
publishing industry, for example. How did the Scofield Bible end up being published by
Oxford University Press? Because it's a great scholarly work? No! Because of people like
Mr. Untermeyer pulled strings. This is the way this happened. It's the biggest issue facing
American politics, right now. The role that Zionism is playing right now, in corrupting the
government of the United States, in diverting American resources into a quagmire in the
Middle East, which doesn't serve the interests of the American people at all and is all
done in the name of Israel.
@Counterinsurgency
I'm kind of having a mental barrier with this now.
There is a guy in Vancouver who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, Jensen I believe (he
wrote to the Bank of Canada and a list of people in 2006). He argues that the fundamentals
are even worse now due to the failure to finance these foreign adventures and other factors
(expenditures on domestic expenses not matching tax income, etc.).
I haven't even taken the time to consider the knock on effects. Mentally, I've been more
focused on having to sit through the screaming match that is going to occur over who is to
blame and the lying that will go on with respect to needing to move to a sound money system
but having bankers et al try to argue for a rollover into a new currency. It is going to be
ugly, I can feel it. It will provide an opportunity for some serious structural change and
constitutional amendments. A whole host of reforms are open when you have a debt induced
currency collapse. I just know it could be really ugly and I've been dreading thinking
through how this will play out. I keep thinking that I never expected to live in a time like
this; I think back to being a teenager during the Reagan years and, despite the Cold
War-nuclear war scenario hanging over our heads, it seemed a much more optimistic time.
I am not optimistic. I'm very worried.
@Robjil
Somalia under a failing Siad Barre regime was going to the dogs with various warlords
cannibalising each other. Then the Americans were told in the flush of victory in the Gulf in
1991, that they should just kick the door in to save the dumb Muslims. It is not the fault of
the late senior Bush that Somalia is compounded of that specimen of humanity that emerges
like clockwork when African tribalism is married to Islamic fanaticism (but is there any
other kind?) . The Americans were minding their own business, but were told that it was the
humanitarian thing (and furthermore quite cheap to boot) to do at little cost to themselves
to save Muslim chillun'.
Afghanistan was no better : The idiot, the younger George Bush instead of bombing the the
hell out of Al-Queda and leaving was instead misled by mystagogues of various hues, including
his own self into sinking lives and treasure in a vain attempt to civilise the Afghans.
The truth is the further you keep away from Muslims, the better it is for your health and
sanity, notwithstanding the parallel machinations of various neocohens, for Islam is a
pernicious religion that breeds insanity, intolerance and bloodshed all by itself.
E. Michael Jones: a very wise man. He believes in free speech and is hated by Jews who, of
course, label him an 'anti-semite'. I would argue they are 'truth averse' fanatical
maniacs.
He makes a good case that 'Christian Zionism' is a heresy. I don't believe he uses that term
BUT I do.
It's just another bubbling that is bursting.
What will they do besides scream and throw tantrums? Is it time for another false flag 911
type event?
What the media never really exposed was how Syria, and every Middle East country that has
been attacked by the DeepStateZio monster, has seen the oldest Christian communities on the
planet under attack. Strange pattern. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, initiated by the
British alliance with the Wahabi's and the Saud Family and furthered by the CIA/Mossad in
Afghanistan, has corresponded with the destruction and diasporas of the world's oldest
Christian communites.
Somehow, Europe has ended up with a bunch of Muslims when these Christians would have fit
into their societies much better.
I think that none of this just 'happened'. I strongly suspect that if we were to kick over
some rocks we would find the usual suspects: the Khazar/Black Nobility Alliance.
@renfro
How?????????????????????????????????????????
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I do think it was Mc Cain.
Concerning historically lazy Saudis I am entirely confident that they were only taking care
of payroll.
( I am not entirely confident but there is a possibility that CIA did channel some profits
from Afghanistan poppy fields for this noble cause.
@Counterinsurgency
Quote: "The world will be surprised at what happens when the US power projection ends, as
global trade will end with it."
Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road project,
[IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global trade will
not nosedive along with it.
Too much a stake for the multinationals [not necessary a good thing, but alas].
Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was Washington
that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003, which
later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which were,
at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.
It's very challenging to come up with any foreign policy initiatives that do not serve
Zionist Israel's interests, first and foremost. Israeli interests have defined American
foreign policy objectives in the ME for much of the post-WWII era. Not at Israel's behest,
but on Israel's instructions and demands via pro-Zionist lobbies and the infestation of the
Administration with Israel First officials, Israeli citizens and spies. Add to that the
Israel First MSM.
@ivan
Is it methamphetamine instead of regular fentanyl ? Anyway, this logic and perverted emotion
make sense to you. Unfortunately it will reinforce your decision to switch . Business will
sure be coming back from China to rural America.
@A123 I
respectfully disagree on this particular matter. There is no US law bestowing birthright
citizenship. All that would change is recognition of what the law really says.
Trump waiting to win another 4 (still a gamble) AND for RBG's animatronics to fizzle out
AND for her replacement to not be another skunk like Roberts is foolish.
There is no underwater 38th-dimensional quantum chess being played here, and we still have
no wall.
Oops, I posted this under another writer. (Small wonder I got no answer.) Since then, someone
else remarked that at the end of WWI this land (northern Syria) was taken from Turkey. So
this is a long grievance, with deep sense of entitlement.
Rurik wrote, " .the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they
use Libya's stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "
Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this
conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring that
Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the team.
Maybe Phil can enlighten us:
We know that Robert Ford, US Embassador to Syria, was meeting privately with Syrian "civil
society" activists before the 2011 demonstrations.
-- Was Erdogan/Turkey also involved in infiltrating, inflaming those anti-Assad
elements?
-- How did Turkey involvement begin?
-- Was the CIA actively involved in Syria before the fall of Libya?
C'mon guys.
Using prior military service as some sort of litmus test to the right to critique involvement
and opinion sharing today plays to an audience mentality that encourages blind
patriotism.
There really are no necessary wars these days as they are all being fought for the banker
elite which holds no loyalty to country though it plays on ppl's ignorance to use such
loyalties for propaganda purposes.
There is no justification for US troops to be all over the world as a banker mercenary force
and this site acknowledges 911 was an Israeli- internationalist false flag which removes all
justifications for the meddling in Israeli neighbor's internal affairs.
Tolerating this to get air time with magazines that lie for power is encouraging this
negative behavior for personal advantage in a country and world striving to control the most
minute areas of our lives.
Going along to get along only brings the eternal boot down of the forehead forever@!
The fact that none of these bickering forces are targeting Israel who always was the
catalyst for the divisions there, is a huge clue that we and Israel are the problem causers
primarily. Of course we need false flags to excite the population to support the fake war on
terror within the US and Europe (as well as justify the reverse colonialism going on). Jews
for hundreds of years have counted on stupid goyim to do the fighting but now that Israel is
a supposed stand alone nation, that should be harder to accomplish but apparently total
corporate media control keeps the truth hidden from 85% of the public.
Reply: Given the vast sums of money set aside to implement China's 1 belt 1 road
project, [IMO] the global dollar trade will turn into a trickle over time, but the global
trade will not nosedive along with it.
I actually hadn't thought of that. Now that you point it out, of course the dollar trade
will decrease. Negative interest rates are, in a way, saying that nobody wants US Dollars
anymore, and trades that are not in US Dollars are being actively sought. The decrease will
happen a bit before the USN becomes ineffective. And that will be hard on the
multi-nationals, but I can't say I have much sympathy. They were firmly behind the move of
Western manufacturing to East Asia – what did they think would happen?
But I do disagree over the assertion that global trade will remain about as it is.
The New Silk Road. Interesting topic.
Well, first of all it's a reasonable thing for the PRC to do. Historically, the Silk
Road has paid off for China, at least in terms of precious metals, and being dependent on a
single transportation mode for one's raw materials is strategically undesirable. It's a
good move. It's also an attempt to realize McKinder's proposed making the World Island into
a unified state[1].
But a couple of points:
a) New Silk Road is much more expensive than sea transport [2]. If sea lanes are cut
off, China's raw materials costs increase by several times.
b) New Silk Road recapitulates the interaction of European empires of the 1800s through
1900s with ethnicities along the Silk Road. The Europeans were resented and eventually
ejected. The Chinese are having similar problems.
China has loaned money to various nations which have then spent that money on immediate
consumption and are attempting to repudiate the debt. The Chinese (who have no compunctions
about debt repudiation through currency devaluation) are apparently taking over completion
of the Silk Road facilities for which the natives can no longer pay (having spent the money
on other things). Local rulers are saying that this makes the Chinese foreign invaders (on
a very low level so far). Just like the Europeans.
Chinese society also does not mix well with either Islamic or African tribal society, yet
the Silk Road crosses both cultural territories.
So far as I know, the Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal since the US evacuation has gone
well. Last I heard, a few years back, Panama had started teaching Chinese in its public
schools. Chinese operations in South and Meso America are increasing, however, and I know
little about how they are going.
The nice thing about policed sea lanes is that shippers don't have to worry much about
the natives. Piracy is and has been a problem, but so far not a serious one. New Silk Road
goes overland, and that has (historically) always led to security problems with the locals,
whoever the locals may be.
So: Let's suppose that the USN were to become ineffective. Only the part of the Silk
Road guarded by the Russian Federation would remain secure. The rest would be subject to
local raids and extortion from the local government. Note that raw materials costs would
increase drastically for everybody (because of less shipping), so local governments and
bandits would have motives for confiscating goods.
This would be especially the case in Africa, which is largely dependent on food imports.
That conflict could become severe, as China is increasingly dependent on Africa for raw
materials (as is the rest of the world).
In other words, sole reliance on the New Silk Road (should that ever be necessary) would
be expensive in terms of shipping and in terms of security / warfare costs. China's
bellicose policy is, IMHO, counterproductive. China should be positioning itself to police
the sea lanes cooperatively but reluctantly with a declining USN, gradually assuming the
mantle of worldwide protection of the sea lanes that China needs so badly. Current efforts
to be able to interdict the sea lanes are not in the PRC's interest, as the PRC needs these
sea lanes open. It's sort of like developing a hyperbomb to make the Sun go nova. Under
what circumstances would you use such a device? Under what circumstances would China want
to cease shipping by sea?
So, what's likely to happen? The USN will decline because it needs recapitalization due
to age and a changing threat, and the US is instead devoting its income to debt repayment
and immediate social stability expenditures. The PRC, which has never been a naval power,
will still attempt to keep global trade alive. When that fails, the PRC will trade more
with the Russian Federation It will also take what sea and land it has, make an
expeditionary force out of it, and deploy it in some trading zones (possibly in countries
that have resources China needs) rather than see its population starve and itself
overthrown. That's the standard response from any H. Sap. political organization. Things
will get very messy.
And please remember that I'm like the weatherman: I report, I don't cause.
@Stan
Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for the
West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility. A
confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on
tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state
would weaken the West,
@Daniel
Rich What part of BOTH the US and Russia are only there to serve their own
interest don't people understand. My only point is Russia is not there out of the goodness of
their hearts. People who claim Russia is fighting the globalist juggernaut and is only in
Syria to "fight ISIS/ISL" and to make Syria "safe for Democracy" aren't seeing the big
picture. Russia is working hand in hand with China to make sure America is reduced to a
second rate global power. Assad has become nothing more than Putin's puppet on a string.
Syria will need money for re-construction, thanks to Russia destroying much of their
infrastructure, that money more than likely will come from China(China's version of "Economic
Hit Men"). All the while, lurking in the back ground, that little shit stain known as Israel.
This report will present the reality of Russia's Syrian campaign. Russia launched air
strikes on hospitals, water treatment plants, and mosques. Russia used cluster bombs.
Russia almost exclusively targeted non-ISIS targets. These are the truths that Russia will
not admit, and the truths that must be understood when negotiating with Russia as a
potential partner.
It's all about the "Belt and Road Initiative". There are no good guy's in this mess, and
the real losers in this conflict are the citizens of Syria. Russia is a main partner in
"Globalization".
One of the main problems of the People's Republic is to connect the "Belt" with the
"Road". For China it is crucial to be able to bypass the choke points represented by the
straits that separate the South China Sea from the Indian Ocean (Malacca, Sunda and Lombok)
that, being controlled by the US, prevent the Chinese maritime power to fully develop. A
first important asset in this sense is represented by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor,
which connects by land Eastern China to the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, in turn connected
to the String of Pearls.
Why Syria?
In this perspective, Syria becomes a crucial junction within the BRI: a possible
development of its transport and port infrastructures, properly connected with each other
and with the Belt and Road Initiative, would allow China a further maritime outlet for its
land trade and a formidable trade post in the Mediterranean. A further advantage is
represented by the increased quantity of goods that China could deliver into the
Mediterranean, overcoming the further bottleneck of the Suez Canal.
Syria also has at least two important factors that represent opportunities to be
exploited by Beijing: the country's urgent need to obtain funds to be allocated to
reconstruction and development and the simultaneous disengagement of the United States from
the Middle East, an empty space not filled by the EU. Syria is therefore an extremely
interested and receptive partner to the proposals of the Chinese government, which finds
itself at the same time freed from any diplomatic controversy that could slow down its
action.
@Counterinsurgency
Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and other
third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn sour for
them eventually.
@Abdul
Alhazred Thank you for that video. I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my
life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering to people like me,
but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said.
More on Trump by Shamir's recent article:
What is much worse for Israel, is Trump's intent to leave the region. There is a good
chance you haven't seen relevant tweets of the President, for the MSM doomed to surround it
by the wall of silence. That is what the President said while ordering withdrawal:
"Fighting between various groups that has been going on for hundreds of years. USA
should never have been in Middle East. The stupid endless wars, for us, are ending! The
United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East.
Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have
died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN THE
HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers
& military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE!"
Just for this recognition "GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN
THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY" and for this promise "The stupid endless wars, for us, are
ending!" Trump deserves to be re-elected and remembered as the most courageous and
independent US President since Richard Nixon.
His efforts on withdrawing from the Middle East remind of Nixon's hard struggle to leave
Vietnam and to make peace with Russia and China. If he succeeds in this endeavour, he will
be rewarded by the American people in 2020..
If he succeeds, then he sure will have my support!
One of the main instigators of the Syrian imbroglio – Saudi Arabia – had
been beaten in Yemen and is no longer eager for battle; ditto Qatar and UAE. Europe is less
keen on removing "bloody dictators" than it was. CIA, Jewish Lobby and Clintonite Democrats
would keep Syria boiling, but mercifully they are not in full command in Washington. .
@A123
What is allegedly being built is the same worthless fence. The wall prototypes couldn't
legally be used per a clause in one of the terrible spending bills hastily signed by "Master
Negotiator" Trump.
Better than cacklin' cankles? Yes, but so is my last bowel movement.
Even if we got a real wall, Orangemeister wants legal gimmegrants in record numbers. We
just can't effing win.
Don't you think Trump was a tad premature in announcing "Only I can fix," to all these
problems?
Chinese seem very naive in their willingness to deal with and trust black Africans and
other third worlders to honour deals and not be corrupt, etc. I suspect it will all turn
sour for them eventually.
Every high value PRC project in Africa seems to come with as suspiciously large number of
military age, ethnic Han Chinese staff.
The PRC colonization effort is informed by the lessons of former Euro colonies. They have
built-in measures to make them very hard to displace. And, should they eventually be forced
out, the locals will get nothing but destroyed and poisoned lands.
@geokat62
Know more News with Adam News covers the Christian Zionist story. He is still on you
tube.
Jones was banned from that platform recently. He can still be heard on bitchute as well as
his own website, Culturewars.com
the Americans (Obama regime), created ISIS- with the intention that they use Libya's
stolen arms caches to hack and slaughter their way across Syria "
Yes, and that's why I'm skeptical of dumping of Erdogan. How eager was he for this
conflict? Did the Obama CIA promise him N. Syria for his complicity? Doubtless assuring
that Assad would fall quickly! Or maybe they dangled EU membership, if he joined the
team.
I have a metric that I use.
If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is
suspect, at best.
Insofar as Erdogan has been aligned with Israel and its interests and agendas (the
destruction and carving up of Syria)- is the degree to which he has been a malefactor on the
world's stage.
/
Vs. the degree to which he's opposed to Israel's nefarious agendas;
– he's demonstrated actual statesmanship.
So that's my metric. That's why generally I don't have to pour over the minutia of every
action or issue with a fine tooth comb, rather I just ask, 'is this person or action aligned
with Israel's agenda.. (genocide, theft, murder, hegemony, strife ), and the question always
seems to answer itself!
Just consider the Obama regime. When I approved of what Obama was doing- peace with Iran-
it was when he was in Israel's crosshairs.
When I disapproved of Obama's treasons, it was when his actions were perfectly aligned
with Israel – destruction of Libya, destruction of Syria and so forth.
It really is a near perfect, if not perfect metric.
When Trump is betraying America and Americans, is when he's serving Israel – open
borders, drones, sanctions on Iran and Russia and others..
When he's acting like an actual American president, in the service of this nation, is when
he's in direct opposition to Israel's agenda – ending the Eternal Wars, making videos
about dead American soldiers, firing Bolton, talking about nationalism at the UN..
I'm really sort of waiting for this test to ever fail, it's been so reliably perfect for
so long.
So if you want to know if Erdogan is acting in good faith, just check to see if what he's
doing pleases Israel, and you'll know all you need to know!
Is a Kurdish state a good thing?
Well, what does the 'metric' say?
Is Turkey's incursion into Syria a good thing?
Here, a mouthpiece of Zion posits 'no'.
The Turkish government is no longer interested in helping Syrians liberate themselves
from Assad's murderous regime.
The video is very powerful, and this video linked in this link features Trump's speaking
with attendant images of the families of the soldiers and what they have to go through
.because of the lies of the warmongers.
@Rurik
As Commander in Chief tRump wanted to kill Syria President Basher Assad for having gassed his
own people & having to be restrained by his Generals, Amerikans now see another side to
their president which Rurik observed on video & gushed: "I've never been so proud of a
U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video. He may have been cynically pandering
to people like me, but I don't care. Even if he was pandering, he said what he said Thank
God. Peace."
Am sincerely glad you're "happy," Rurik, that Trumpstein moved to shed some of his
Adelson/Netantahu skin implants. Nonetheless, & I don't want to be a GOP Likud-Party
pooper, but am sticking with Philip Giraldi's advisory to, "Let's see what he actually
does."
At any rate, linked below (& fyr in ), is Brother Nathanael's latest video. In order
to stave off our nation's descent into Greater Sodom & Gomorrah, it's understandable to
me how Bro Nat prefers "The Chosen One" to continue as ZUS president over his uber-liberal
& decadent Zio-Democrat opponents.
Thanks Rurik, and enjoy the good times of tRump's proclamation of an end to endless wars
for Greater Israel while it lasts!
"Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue
for the West . . . A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons"
Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is at the heart of US
FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's
rise.
The wonderful context is, it's not up to Trump. It's not up to the US government. The world
will squeeze the CIA regime out of Syria. Russian doctrine of coercion to peace works equally
well on degenerate great powers, with the minor filip of face-saving subterfuge for routed US
functionaries.
Lindsay Graham gets to shake his tiny fist ineffectually at a sneering NATO ally instead
of shaking his tiny fist ineffectually at a nuclear power with overwhelming hypersonic
nonballistic missile capability. Much safer.
@Wally
The only way to change this cast of filthy charACTORs we have running this country is to have
a "NONE OF THE ABOVE" box located prominently at the bottom of every ballot. One I
would take the time and effort needed to check.
@Cloak And
Dagger Trump's problem is that he has very little support for his MAGA agenda in his own
party. People like Lindsey Graham who support him here and there will not hesitate to turn on
him if he takes positions that offend Sheldon Adelson. Trump's none-too-sophisticated,
none-too-affluent base is opposed by the media, academe, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the FBI
and CIA, and the Rainbow Coalition assemblage of minority voices. Even Fox News (apart from
Tucker) opposes Trump's agenda even as it defends Trump against spurious charges of colluding
with the Russians. For example, Hannity regularly charges the Democrats with being in league
with Putin, in effect conceding that the Russians are evil enemies. Yet Trump's MAGA proposal
was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian) Russia.
At the end of the day, the 4D Chess view seems more right than wrong. While Trump's
commitment to the right is both shallow and wavery, in the present setting he cannot do more
than hold the enemy at bay and wait for reinforcements to show up. That means it's up to US,
his supporters, to find ways to weigh in on his side. As the fascists used to say, a bundle
of sticks can be strong even if the individual sticks are weak.
@Sean
My question to you is: a confrontation between who or what and China? To the extent that
America collapses into a post-Christian, post-European congeries of plutocrats and their
commercial interests, such a confrontation has no clear shape. The evolving character of
American society has been put on the table by the Trump/populist revolution, and the role of
Jews in our cultural evolution is part of that even if it is taboo to discuss it. The issue
over the Palestinians is the only way to challenge the successful assumption of moral carte
blanche by the secular Jewish community, which Jewish thought leaders have parlayed into an
effective assault on freedom of speech and assembly (particularly in Europe but also here),
and a campaign to stigmatize whiteness, Christianity, and the nuclear family.
Conclusion: The issue of Palestine is a proxy for the larger issue of whether secular
Judaism deserves its current status as moral hegemon. It is the only way to raise this issue
that is not instantly dismissed as neo-Nazism.
@SolontoCroesus
SolontoCroesus wrote: "Israel's overall shiftiness IS not at all a "side issue" to USA, it is
at the heart of US FP dysfunction.
According to the video below, Israel is firmly on board and participating in China's rise."
To All commenters,
Above, when SolontoCroesus speaks, I listen & learn.
When President Bonespur speaks, it pains to listen, & I can potentially become
deceived.
Will likely get friendly fire from Rurik, but I truly wish he reads your comment &
astutely watches the very informative linked Talpiot video. Hurts when I see good men (like
him) gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.
Thanks for your patriotic servus, S2C!
P.S.: Behind D.C.'s Blue & White House curtain, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin licks his
choppers in anticipation of effectual ZUS sanctions, & the Chinese communist government's
finally granting Goldman Sachs Group permission to do "untethered" investment business" in
the mainland; the largest consumer market on the planet.
@Sean'Israel is a shitty little country but its treatment of the Palestinians is side issue for
the West, just as the way the Kurds are treated is unfortunate but hardly our responsibility.
A confrontation with burgeoning China beckons, and America needs to be united. Going off on
tangents to play Santa to peoples who lost the geopolitical game and are without a state
would weaken the West,'
As usual you've being dishonest. You agree Israel is a 'shitty little country' -- but
manage to insinuate we should continue to support it.
After all, we don't have to spend a penny to 'play Santa' to the Palestinians (as if we
had nothing to do with their expulsion.). It's the Israelis we subsidize and protect, not the
Palestinians.
In fact, we can help the Palestinians and save money too! Yank Israel off our tit and we
get to have our cake and eat it too. The Palestinians get their home back, and we save
billions every year. All we have to do is to stop funding their tormentors,
If a person or action is in anyway aligned with Israel, then that person or action is
suspect, at best.'
It is always wrong to support Israel.
In 2008, I voted for McCain instead of Obama. I told myself they'd both be equally
supportive of Israel, but I knew deep down inside that was a lie.
I voted for McCain because he wasn't black. That doesn't bother me. What bothers me is
that I allowed some other consideration to seduce me into supporting Israel -- however
trivially and as it turned out ineffectually.
If you establish 911 was a fraud then subsequent war on terror is a fraud. The West will
exhaust themselves waging war against Islam and the Muslims despite killing millions of
people. They will dig their own graves and cast themselves in hell fire for eternal damnation
for subscribing to Santa Claus lies and Jesus died for their evils by supporting the money
changer's ideology for greater Israel project to usher in their Anti-Christ as their Messiah.
Anti-Christ Dajjal will take them for a ride to hell. He will play them "By way of Deception"
just as they are playing the rest of the world "By way of Deception wage wars." So how many
of us are willing to sell our souls in exchange for the worldly gains and pay a penalty for
eternal damnation?
gush while listening to "The Chosen One's" tear jerking words.
"I've never been so proud of a U.S. president in my life, as I was watching that video.
"
Gushing?
Perhaps, I suppose, depending on your definition.
But when's the last time you heard a Z.U.S. president speak of the war dead with
compassion and pathos? Hell, when's the last time you heard them speak of these tragic
victims of American f0lly (treason and war crimes), and their families- at all?
He was saying 'enough of this madness!'
And from what I understand, American troops are indeed vacating Syrian bases.
BTW, leaving for a few days, so keep up the good fight, Brother Chuck!
@Wally
Wally likes to cheap shot P.G., haha, and once again futilely asked him: "Has Giraldi ever
stated which current candidate is his preference vs. Trump?"
Get on the ball, wailing Wall! (zzZigh) Likely, even some knowledgeable CODAH associates
will inform that YOU'LL get what Supremacist Jews give you.
Haha. The Zionized D.N.C. is presently fretting over which Jewish Lobby-approved
presidential 2020 candidate they should give to their "base" voters. Haha. Liberal tribe
chieftains are confident that even Mayor Pete Buttigieg will make incumbent, Trumpstein,
Tweet-out "endless" sweat on election night.
Nonetheless, had Amerika a real choice, , Ron Paul would be my #1 "anti-Chosen One"
alternative. Refer to his article below, wailing Wall?
Yet Trump's MAGA proposal was detente and friendly cooperation with (now-Christian)
Russia.
That's why the NeoCohens hate Putin so much, for re-establishing Russian Christian
Orthodoxy as the 'national' religion. Trump, on the other hand, admires Putin for his
nationalism and wants white Christian Russia to be friends with nominally Christian
America. Unfortunately he must bow down to the Satanic anti Christ power brokers, the Cabal,
that keeps him in power and checks his nationalist leanings. Hopefully he will overcome this
in a second term but I've been saying that about presidents for years!
@ChuckOrloski
Thanks ChuckOrloski.
Undeserved, tho -- I was just being a shepherd guiding the flock to other people's good work,
a practice I learned from your comment style.
I don't want to be in the business of educating you on un-American actions undertaken by
"Z.U.S. presidents." You really know better, but since Jacques Sheete, peace be upon him, is
M.I.A., I will now do my best.
No doubt, Trumpstein is different. Please pause momentarily and consider how he very
recently wanted to sell/provide nuclear weapons systems to Saudi Arabia. Fyi, and lucky for
the entire Middle East's general population, Trump's lack of "compassion" was overuled by
those higher in the ZUS's Blue & White House Lowerarchy. (Note: He ain't "The Decider,"
he is the ever useful & divisive Zion Tweet-Chord)
So given the U.R. Moderator sword is not activated, linked down below, is a joint radio
show, hosted by Dr. David Duke & Ryan Dawson. Ideally, this action will take the job of
trying to educate YOU from off my shoulders, Rurik. No reading needed, & just carefully
listen!
Fyi, Dr. Duke and Mr. Dawson will provide the means by which an anti-Zionist &
patriotic American can resist the evil sway dished-out daily by our "Homeland's" Zionist
Corporate Media. These largely demonized gentlemen/scholars explain how Zionized Republicans
& Democrats are curiously "on the same page" when it comes to humanely protecting the
Kurds.
But when it comes to supporting & defending The Land of Bilk & Money, they unite.
Yippie! On other hand, and when it comes to actually helping the restless & sorry lot of
dumb goyim working Amerikans, they fight like , er, "Tom and Jerry." (Zigh) Why Trumpstein
even moved to kill the underachieving & oft unaffordable "Affordable Care Act," a.k.a.,
Obamacare.
Enjoy your time off, my Brother Rurik, and I suggest, at minimum, partial evacuation from
the dug-in Jewish Corporate Media "bases."
@Rurik'That's a very honest act of self-reflection, Colin.
I voted for Ron Paul, (If I recall, I wrote in his name).
I would have preferred the racist commie to the war mongering scumbag, but only because by
then I understood the nature of McCain all too well '
Now you're reminding me of 2012. Of course, I was going to vote for Obama over Israel's
man-in-the-White House-to-be. An unpleasant choice, but there it was
So my wife and I were down in Alameda at a winery. Somewhat incongruously, the server was
right-wing, and started praising Romney. I stayed tactful, as I didn't want to kill my buzz,
but my wife -- who is easily influenced -- came out of there going 'Romney number one.
Yeah -- I'm going to vote for him!'
In an unusual display of wisdom, I bit my tongue. We'll see how this plays out
You need to understand my wife comes from a poor background. If you want to meet 'the
working poor,' go see her relatives.
So the very next day, Romney comes out with his '49%' remark. It was classic.
@Johnny
Walker Read Right. This happens every so often. I am not recommending de Sade or any of
his works.
I'm recommending the movie:
"The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the
Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade ", play 1963, movie 1967 [1].
The movie has very little to do with the writings of the original Marquis de Sade [2], but it
does do a good job of showing the spirit of revolutions.
de Sade had a good reputation with the revolutionaries. He was elected a delegate to the
French National Convention, but fell during the Reign of Terror [3]. He really did direct
publicly presented plays at Charenton starting in 1803, but was eventually arrested and
denied paper and pen in 1809. Died 1815, and several large manuscripts were subsequently
burned by his son, who apparently thought that de Sade had done quite enough harm
already.
Insofar as tje video has anything to do with the real de Sade, it is that the director
(fictional de Sade) manages to stage a small revolution himself in the final scene, _after_
demonstrating that the audience is little more sane than de Sade is ("15 glorious years"
scene). As in the link given by Read [4], de Sade acts as the philosophical godfather of
revolution and revolt as an end in itself.
The really pathetic attempt by ABC to pass off Kentucky gun range footage as a Syrian
conflict zone is a good example of the consequences of Congress' horrible 2013 decision
(that you may not have heard of) to totally legalize domestic propaganda. @_whitneywebb
In the age of legal, weaponized propaganda directed against the American people, false
narratives have become so commonplace in the mainstream media that they have essentially
become normalized, leading to the era of "fake news" and "alternative facts."
The bad and ugly shepherds persistently hit vulnerable & trusting Unzers with their
"best shot." For one example, the currently M.I.A. commenter, Maven Sam Shama.
Subsequently, I see no valid reason why intelligent & good men -- like you! -- should
not give their "best shot" and attempt to support & rescue lost sheeple who regularly
appear here.*
* Some lost sheep simply like it that way, and therefore, bad shepherds, for one example,
the featherweight commenter "Sean," get lots of practice at misguiding the flock.
@steinbergfeldwitzcohen
Right, what to do is the question now that everybody has been taken by surprise.
I'd say that the advice "get out of debt, get out of the major cities" is fairly good, and
fairly obvious, and has been so for some time. As to income, I just don't know. You might try
linking up to some group (non-Left) that seems to be cohesive and has _some_ plan of action
that isn't too weird. Under stress, cohesive groups can survive better than individuals.
You might also remember the rule of thumb that prophets can predict either what or when,
but not both. It's obvious that the US in general and cities in particular are in severe
decline, but _when_ the current system will cast off much of the population it now supports
is simply not known. Abandon it too soon and you end up extremely poor, so a sharp break is
extremely risky. I'd say that retiring debt, hardening your house against home invasion, and
finding some group as above, would be about all that would be justified right now. If your
neighborhood is deteriorating, it might be a good idea to go to another one that isn't, since
the deterioration is unlikely to reverse itself. If you're in with an ethnic group that
doesn't like your ethnic group, it might be a good idea to displace, if only to avoid the
unpleasantness.
@jack
daniels The current US system / world order will end within the next decade no matter
what Trump does. Trump is trying to shut it down with minimal casualties and replace it with
something viable, which is a good thing to do, but if Trump were to vanish tomorrow the
current US system / world order would still end within the next decade, maybe two decades if
things went very badly wrong.
Trump has the wind at his back, he's trying to do things that would do themselves (although
not as well) and that's why the appearance of 4D Chess. But, as you point out, Trump leads a
very small force of government officials, and would lose without the strength given by his
supporters. Continued support, in word and in deed, should reduce casualties (to include
Trump and his family) during the current transition.
MEANWHILE, Millions Hungry and Food Insecure in the US
"According to the US Department of Agriculture in 2018, food insecurity affects 37 million
Americans, including over 11 million children -- the numbers likely way understated."
"Around 40 million Americans experience hunger annually."
"At least 15 million US households endure food insecurity."
"Hunger is caused by poverty and inadequate financial resources, a nationwide
problem."
"Around 45 million Americans rely on food stamps, an eroding program providing inadequate
help."
"1 in 6 American children may not know where their next meal is coming from."
"22 million children in America rely on the free or reduced-price lunch they receive at
school, but as many as 3 million children still aren't getting the breakfast they need."
@Rurik
I applaud the sentiment too.
I'm hearing rumours that Trump has put a thousand troops into Saudi Arabia and claimed they
are paying for it.
Is it now America's lot to be not just Israel's but SA's mercenaries?
2020 can't come fast enough. I'd love to see a Trump super majority and some serious
reform.
It's pretty clear the Evangelical Zionist's are Israelis' b@tches.
America, it seems, must not only reclaim itself but also it's religion. EV is a heresy and
the leaders are on their knees f@llating Israel. It is disgusting to watch.
Yes, I agree, having trucks and trains go overland and via various countries comes with
the risk of conflicts erupting between 2 or more states participating in Chinese projects.
China burnt itself badly in Libya, where Hillary " We Came, We Saw, He Died! Haw, haw,
haw " Rotham Clingon ran amok.
China is actively setting up routes via the attic as well, so I think China carefully
weighs all its options, but doing business comes with certain risks, those are
unavoidable.
When I was in Africa [The Gambia and there about], I noticed a lot of Chinese merchandise
being sold all over the place. I heard stories of some Chinese being attacked and/or murdered
elsewhere in Africa, but haven't dealt with any Chinese businessman myself or heard their
stories in person.
Having been on that vast continent doesn't make me an expert whatsoever, but I see Africa
become a huge anchor around the world's neck. Can't use a single brush to paint entire
nations, I know, but what I saw didn't look good.
side note : I didn't live in a hotel with armed guards, I lived in a compound with
Africans, so it's not that I have no up close experience. Furthermore, I was always treated
with kindness, respect and warmth.
That's it, I quit. I can't be expected to compete with this.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 9, 2019
His Excellency
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
President of the Republic of Turkey
Ankara
Dear Mr. President:
Let's work out a good deal! You don't want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of
people, and I don't want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy -- and I will.
I've already given you a little sample with respect to Pastor Brunson.
1 have worked hard to solve some of your problems. Don't let the world down. You can make
a great deal. General Mazloum is willing to negotiate with you, and he is willing to make
concessions that they would never have made in the past. I am confidentially enclosing a copy
of his letter to me, just received.
History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It
will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don't happen. Don't be a tough guy.
Don't be a fool!
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled
man.
Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the
Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.
I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so
years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected
affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU
academic nor an Upper West Side resident.
And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!
Read More • Replies: @Mikhail
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Comments
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt
politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the
target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of
the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to
mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said
to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the
exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can
be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other
plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with
inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor
Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to
presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would
have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level.
This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change
for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has
existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast
majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.
To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under
the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to
Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for
re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96%
turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with
all the international mandates.
It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people
read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held
perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception
of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.
All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia
invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!
@Carlton
Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that
he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of
Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi
Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared
Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.
The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN
Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major
warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State
knew it.
Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact
his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks
for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and
frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped
and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.
The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence
this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth
talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US
always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly
acquired ones.
The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt,
that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was
dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.
These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an
Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights,
those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate
flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice
won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this
impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable
damage will be done to our country and its institutions.
Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot
argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.
On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to
acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards
transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union
should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even
more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means
American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.
We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.
@Ron
Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any
push-back from the interviewer) says:
Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States
and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision
would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore
accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the
governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a
coup d'etat against Yanukovich.
Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies
with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank
in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the
Ukraine coup ?
Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next
president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week
later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor
Cohen ascribes to the US.
These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good
professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after
seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.
No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does
suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia
itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the
oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to
ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.
In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is
the staging post for an attack on Russia.
The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even
though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical
conclusion.
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't
this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got
involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking
crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of
Europe.
Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under
the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion,
according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some
similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and,
according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which
as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.
According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital,
which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1
million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of
Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the
Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of
Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools'
endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous
populations they claim to protect.
@Mikhail
Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia
was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and
West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars
from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was
added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to
do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern
Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
@anon
American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That
historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems
and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run
by the same puppet master.
Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites
have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump
won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him,
like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the
rat).
@follyofwar
The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have
this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.
But it is probably not worth the aggravation.
Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other
innovations.
@AP
Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to
think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election
than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You
say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan
democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?
Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there
was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' –
actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your
either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in
hell of joining EU.
@Skeptikal
Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its
production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market
for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got
immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away.
Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with
the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).
So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially
considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for
transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports,
Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to
despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the
transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also
virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own
it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.
@Sergey
Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."
-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white
like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because
of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to
Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the
coziness of western life?
S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent
and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet
regime."
@AP
Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them,
there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it
already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be
a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed
suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and
blew it.
@AnonFromTN
I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups
– it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.
In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a
country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government
would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming
election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one
could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could
stage a ' revolution '.
AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some
face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with
changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost
feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.
Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed,
Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left
office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on
that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so
blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.
We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU,
or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part
of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.
Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete
disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an
individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.
@AP
You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic
elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989,
had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.
So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a
preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If
you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might
happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.
You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the
unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound
even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not
Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a
success?
@Beckow
True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true
believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country
with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of
Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me.
@AnonFromTN
You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies,
and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.
What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about '
EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it
because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises
is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.
What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to
grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well,
all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve
espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal',
almost as good as 2013 . Right.
@AP
I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:
lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians
Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the
living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can
trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of
its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask:
why? did the authors of that policy think it through?
@AP
I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth'
under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.
One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association
treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a
decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see
today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on
Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.
If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian
puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was
fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got
outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.
@Beckow
Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might
have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.
Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood.
Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown
in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a
murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes
than Porky.
There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell
Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to
South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets,
etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more,
most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if
Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).
Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for
has befallen us". End of story.
@Peter
Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead
from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths
in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current
population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even
40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing.
Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when
die off very real one is going right under your nose.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original
German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is
disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are
heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes
to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender.
Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.
Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main
rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine.
Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed
for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the
Euromaidan.
Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to
others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and
the deaths of law enforcement personnel.
In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If
I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that
Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.
@Beckow
The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number
of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for
favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
@AP
Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's
happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev
putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert
Trump's investigation of those crimes.
Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned
by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24
report fairly objective?
Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?
@AP
This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage-
is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.
@AP
"Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they
watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by
@TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"
@Malacaay
Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.
This probably explains their differences with Russia.
Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the
Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later
grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world
these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the
rest of Russia.
The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the
peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A
huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the
Soviet Union.
Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime
Minister.
Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia
ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine,
Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled
man.
Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the
Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.
I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so
years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected
affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU
academic nor an Upper West Side resident.
And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!
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Comments
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt
politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the
target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of
the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to
mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said
to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the
exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can
be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other
plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with
inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor
Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to
presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would
have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level.
This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change
for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has
existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast
majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.
To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under
the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to
Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for
re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96%
turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with
all the international mandates.
It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people
read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held
perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception
of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.
All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia
invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!
@Carlton
Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that
he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of
Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi
Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared
Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.
The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN
Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major
warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State
knew it.
Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact
his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks
for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and
frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped
and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.
The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence
this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth
talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US
always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly
acquired ones.
The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt,
that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was
dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.
These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an
Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights,
those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate
flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice
won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this
impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable
damage will be done to our country and its institutions.
Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot
argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.
On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to
acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards
transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union
should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even
more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means
American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.
We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.
@Ron
Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any
push-back from the interviewer) says:
Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States
and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision
would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore
accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the
governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a
coup d'etat against Yanukovich.
Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies
with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank
in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the
Ukraine coup ?
Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next
president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week
later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor
Cohen ascribes to the US.
These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good
professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after
seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.
No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does
suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia
itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the
oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to
ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.
In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is
the staging post for an attack on Russia.
The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even
though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical
conclusion.
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't
this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got
involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking
crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of
Europe.
Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under
the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion,
according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some
similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and,
according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which
as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.
According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital,
which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1
million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of
Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the
Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of
Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools'
endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous
populations they claim to protect.
@Mikhail
Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia
was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and
West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars
from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was
added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to
do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern
Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
@anon
American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That
historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems
and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run
by the same puppet master.
Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites
have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump
won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him,
like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the
rat).
@follyofwar
The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have
this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.
But it is probably not worth the aggravation.
Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other
innovations.
@AP
Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to
think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election
than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You
say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan
democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?
Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there
was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' –
actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your
either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in
hell of joining EU.
@Skeptikal
Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its
production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market
for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got
immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away.
Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with
the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).
So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially
considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for
transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports,
Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to
despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the
transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also
virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own
it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.
@Sergey
Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."
-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white
like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because
of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to
Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the
coziness of western life?
S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent
and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet
regime."
@AP
Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them,
there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it
already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be
a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed
suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and
blew it.
@AnonFromTN
I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups
– it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.
In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a
country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government
would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming
election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one
could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could
stage a ' revolution '.
AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some
face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with
changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost
feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.
Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed,
Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left
office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on
that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so
blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.
We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU,
or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part
of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.
Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete
disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an
individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.
@AP
You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic
elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989,
had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.
So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a
preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If
you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might
happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.
You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the
unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound
even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not
Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a
success?
@Beckow
True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true
believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country
with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of
Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me.
@AnonFromTN
You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies,
and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.
What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about '
EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it
because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises
is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.
What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to
grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well,
all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve
espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal',
almost as good as 2013 . Right.
@AP
I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:
lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians
Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the
living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can
trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of
its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask:
why? did the authors of that policy think it through?
@AP
I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth'
under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.
One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association
treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a
decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see
today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on
Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.
If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian
puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was
fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got
outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.
@Beckow
Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might
have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.
Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood.
Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown
in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a
murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes
than Porky.
There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell
Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to
South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets,
etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more,
most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if
Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).
Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for
has befallen us". End of story.
@Peter
Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead
from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths
in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current
population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even
40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing.
Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when
die off very real one is going right under your nose.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original
German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is
disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are
heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes
to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender.
Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.
Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main
rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine.
Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed
for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the
Euromaidan.
Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to
others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and
the deaths of law enforcement personnel.
In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If
I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that
Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.
@Beckow
The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number
of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for
favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
@AP
Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's
happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev
putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert
Trump's investigation of those crimes.
Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned
by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24
report fairly objective?
Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?
@AP
This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage-
is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.
@AP
"Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they
watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by
@TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"
@Malacaay
Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.
This probably explains their differences with Russia.
Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the
Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later
grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world
these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the
rest of Russia.
The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the
peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A
huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the
Soviet Union.
Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime
Minister.
Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia
ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine,
Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.
"... I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against 'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans. ..."
"... This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a good description ..."
"... The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely two branches of the Business Party. ..."
"... Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points across at the same time. ..."
"... Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment. ..."
"... Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local. ..."
Hillary Clinton appeared to suggest that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is the "favorite of the Russians" to win the 2020 presidential
election and is being groomed by Moscow to run as a third-party candidate against the eventual Democratic nominee.
...
The Russians already have their "eye on somebody who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party
candidate," she said, in an apparent reference to Gabbard.
"She's the favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her, so far," Clinton
told David Plouffe, the podcast's host and the campaign manager for former President Obama's 2008 campaign.
"And that's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she's also a Russian asset," Clinton added, referring
to the 2016 Green Party presidential candidate.
The responses were appropriate:
Tulsi Gabbard @TulsiGabbard - 22:20 UTC
· Oct 18, 2019
Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that
has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy,
there has been a ...
... concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know -- it was always you, through
your proxies and ...
... powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose.
It's now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don't cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.
The Streisand effect of Clinton's shoddy remark will help Tulsi Gabbard with regards to name recognition. It will increase her
poll results. With Joe Biden faltering and Elizabeth Warren increasingly exposed as a phony Clinton copy, Bernie Sanders could become
the Democrats leading candidate. Then the “favorite of the Russians” smear will be applied to him.
Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party for damaging it's chances to regain the White House. But the Democratic
establishment would rather sabotage the election than to let one of the more progressive candidates take the lead.
Voters do not like such internal squabble and shenanigans. The phony Ukrainegate 'impeachment inquiry' is already
a gift for Trump. Messing with the candidate field on top
of that will inevitably end with another Trump presidency.
and Suspend her from what? a lamp post? That's a little bit harsh.
Hillary is actually doing something constructive for the first time in her career - by giving a boost to Tulsi Gabbard who
is the only candidate who challenges the military industrial complex, which has probably caused more death and destruction than
anyone else in history.
I suspect that Gabbard has very little chance of beating Trump because he is also campaigning - quite successfully - against
'endless wars', and Gabbard is too radical for most Americans.
But none of the other Democratic candidates stand a chance of beating Trump either. The two front-runners are medically unfit
for any important challenging job - Biden (senility) and Sanders (recent heart attack/stroke?).
Tulsi is urging Hillary to "enter the race" !! Hillary is foaming at the mouth with desire to enter the 2020 race. Is Tulsi
working for Hillary?
Behind the scenes it was decided to make HunterBidenGate the pretext for a Trump impeachment. This, it
was thought, would damage Trump AND Biden and make way for the resurrection of Hillary Clinton. There were so many other pretexts
available but they chose this one.
"Clinton should be suspended from the Democratic Party"
This sparks some interesting questions, such as, exactly who are party members, and how do they become members? The actual
structure and functioning of political parties in the US is seldom discussed, and I wonder why that is. "Opaque" seems to be a
good description. Even a quick review of the Wikipedia entry reveals little.
As best I can tell, a person is a party member by checking the box on the voter registration form. The few times I have registered,
I did not check a box for any party. It is none of the state's business who I associate with or vote for.
It is also not the state's business to supervise and fund the selection of party candidates. But that is what happens in the
US. The primary voting system is a huge financial subsidy to the two officially approved parties, which are, of course, merely
two branches of the Business Party.
"It didn't come much clearer nor more explicit than when Gabbard fired up the Democratic TV debate this week. It was billed
as the biggest televised presidential debate ever, and the Hawaii Representative told some prime-time home-truths to the nation:
"Donald Trump has blood of the Kurds on his hands, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have
supported this ongoing regime-change war in Syria that started in 2011 along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing
and cheer-leading this regime-change war."
The 38-year-old military veteran went on to denounce how the US has sponsored Al Qaeda terrorists for its objective of overthrowing
the government in Damascus."
Good for Tulsi. I love the way she punches. She not only decked Clinton in one, but she got a lot of other important points
across at the same time. The way she tries to finesse her stances on Iran, India and Israel is disturbing though.
Whenever she tries to curve her stance close to the establishment, she comes off as someone who is running for Secretary
of State or Secretary of Defense; as someone with her eyes on a high status job in the establishement.
When she's forthright, punches hard and says the things that many people are thinking but few dare say - as she did in her
statement on Syria, but didn't in her statement on Iran - she comes off as the first real candidate for President that I've seen
in my lifetime (I don't count the likes of Dennis Kucinich, who never seemed to actually want to win).
If Tulsi is serious about doing the world good, this is the path she needs to take. Speak the truths no one else is willing
to say; punch hard; stick with it. Yeah and be willing to die for it. If they can't stop you, which I don't think they can, they'll
come gunning for you...
Finally, at last, foreign affairs (i.e wars) has made it into a presidential campaign, and by a veteran, with veterans currently
being sanctified in the U.S. The women (Tulsi, Jill and Hillary) are getting down and dirty, too, which is always a good thing
and a feature of politics in time past, as in the Truman era. President Harry Truman: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of
the kitchen. If you cannot handle the pressure, you should not remain in a position where you have to deal with it."
Let's hope that they get into the details of Hillary's failures, including Libya, Somalia, and especially Syria. Let's get
it on! In the last election she never was forced to answer for her specific failures. Now's the time.
Hillary Clinton can't be thrown out of the Dem party because she in a sense IS the Dem party as it stands now, a long way
from its roots. The Dem party now has been fully integrated into the bureaucracy, the intelligence services and the corporate
media similar to how Tony Blair in the UK took the Labour Party to be deeply embedded in the UK establishment.
What Trump has successfully done from the right that Sanders/Gabbard (like Corbyn in the UK) are struggling to do from the
left is to attack the establishment that's in a permanent state of warfare abroad and at home against its "enemies" and unfettered
capitalism at home For a brief moment it was hoped by progressives that Obama - who defeated the faces of the establishment, Clinton
and McCain in 2008 - would really fight the establishment but he ended up becoming more of a celebrity politician like Trudeau
who talked a good game but was unable to effect real change on the ground which of course led to a large number or African Americans
not voting in 2016 and a lot of white blue collar Obama 2008 voters going for Trump.
The corporate media which has been totally corrupted and infiltrated by intelligence agencies - quote openly versus covertly
as in the past - is going to make every effort to shut down not just Gabbard but Sanders and ensure that Warren - a wannabe feel-gooder
like Obama - be completely neutered to effect real change.
Hillary is still around because she literally owns the Democrat party. Follow the funding: in 2016, almost all of it flowed
through HRC. Not just the presidential, but the state and significant part of the local.
"... For the love of Pete, will TAC quit with offering limited concessions to the neocon position in an attempt to appear "serious" and "reasonable". ..."
"... I counted only once the word "aggressive" attributed to Washington. And no peep about the oversees Ukrainians as most likely descendants of individuals (maybe I am exaggerating a bit, there was quite some emigration at the end of 1800 beginning of 1900 from that area in Canada and US) that probably fought along the Nazi Germany, see current Canadian Foreign Minister. ..."
"... I am sure you're right about this. Diana Johnstone covered the role of the children of Croatian fascist exiles in the break-up of Yugoslavia and the US/NATO bombing campaign in her book, "Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions." ..."
"... The US supports democracy? Depends on who got elected, apparently. ..."
Isn't that right!. I counted only once the word "aggressive" attributed to Washington. And no peep about the oversees Ukrainians
as most likely descendants of individuals (maybe I am exaggerating a bit, there was quite some emigration at the end of 1800 beginning
of 1900 from that area in Canada and US) that probably fought along the Nazi Germany, see current Canadian Foreign Minister.
I am sure you're right about this. Diana Johnstone covered the role of the children of Croatian fascist exiles in the break-up
of Yugoslavia and the US/NATO bombing campaign in her book, "Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions."
"... For those who don't speak fluent neoconservative, "isolationist" here means taking even one small step in any direction other than continued military expansionism into every square inch of planet Earth, and "We are becoming isolationist" here means "We have hundreds of military bases circling the globe, our annual military budget is steadily climbing toward the trillion-dollar mark, and we are engaged in countless undeclared wars and regime change interventions all around the world." ..."
"... a war criminal with a blood-soaked legacy of mass murder, torture and military expansionism telling Trump that he is endangering peace with his "isolationism" ..."
"... Nobody actually believes that US foreign policy is under any threat of anything remotely resembling isolationism. The real purpose of this buzzword is to normalize the forever war and drag the Overton window so far in the direction of ghoulish hawkishness that the opposite of "war" is no longer "peace", but "isolationism". By pulling this neat little trick, the propagandists of the political/media class have successfully made endless war seem like a perfectly normal thing to be happening and any small attempt to scale it back look weird and freakish, when the truth is the exact opposite. War is weird, freakish and horrific, and peace is of course normal. This is the only healthy way to see things. ..."
Humanity was treated to an important lecture on peace at a recent event for the NIR School of the Heart by none other than Ellen
Degeneres BFF and world-renowned peace expert George W Bush.
"I don't think the Iranians believe a peaceful Middle East is in their national interest," said the former president according
to The Washington Post 's Josh Rogin, whose
brief Twitter thread on the subject appears
to be the only record of Bush's speech anywhere online.
"An isolationist United States is destabilizing around the world," Bush said during the speech in what according to Rogin was
a shot at the sitting president.
"We are becoming isolationist and that's dangerous for the sake of peace."
For those who don't speak fluent neoconservative, "isolationist" here means taking even one small step in any direction other
than continued military expansionism into every square inch of planet Earth, and "We are becoming isolationist" here means "We have
hundreds of military bases circling the globe, our annual military budget is steadily climbing toward the trillion-dollar mark, and
we are engaged in countless undeclared wars and regime change interventions all around the world."
It is unclear why Bush is choosing to present himself as a more peaceful president than Trump given that by this point in his
first term Bush had launched not one but two full-scale ground invasion wars whose effects continue to ravage the Middle East to
this very day, especially given the way both presidents appear to be in furious agreement on foreign policy matters like Iran. But
here we are.
From a certain point of view it's hard to say which is stranger:
(A) a war criminal with a blood-soaked legacy of mass murder, torture and military expansionism telling Trump that he is
endangering peace with his "isolationism", or
(B) the claim that Trump is "isolationist" at all.
But these bogus warnings about a dangerous, nonexistent threat of isolationism are nothing new for Dubya. In
his farewell address to the nation , Bush said the following:
"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism
and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity
at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."
As we discussed
recently , use of the pro-war buzzword "isolationism" has been re-emerging from its post-Bush hibernation as a popular one-word
debunk of any opposition to continued US military expansionism in all directions, and it is deceitful in at least three distinct
ways. Firstly, the way it is used consistently conflates isolationism with non-interventionism, which
are two wildly
different things . Secondly, none of the mainstream political figures who are consistently tarred with the "isolationist" pejorative
are isolationists by any stretch of the imagination, or even proper non-interventionists; they all support many interventionist positions
which actual non-interventionists object to. Thirdly, calling someone who opposes endless warmongering an "isolationist" makes as
much sense as calling someone who opposes rape a man-hating prude; opposing an intrinsically evil act is not the same as withdrawing
from the world.
Nobody actually believes that US foreign policy is under any threat of anything remotely resembling isolationism. The real
purpose of this buzzword is to normalize the forever war and drag the Overton window so far in the direction of ghoulish hawkishness
that the opposite of "war" is no longer "peace", but "isolationism". By pulling this neat little trick, the propagandists of the
political/media class have successfully made endless war seem like a perfectly normal thing to be happening and any small attempt
to scale it back look weird and freakish, when the truth is the exact opposite. War is weird, freakish and horrific, and peace is
of course normal. This is the only healthy way to see things.
It would actually be great if George W Bush could shut the fuck up forever, ideally in a locked cell following a public war tribunal.
Failing that, at the very least people should stop looking at him as a cuddly wuddly teddy bear with whom it's fun to
share a sporting arena suite or a
piece of hard candy or to
hang award medals on for his treatment of veterans. This mass murdering monster has been
growing more and more popular with
Democrats lately just because he offers mild criticisms of Trump sometimes, as have war pigs like
Bill Kristol and Max Boot and even John
Bolton for the same reason, and it needs to stop. And in the name of a million dead Iraqis, please don't start consulting this
man on matters of peace.
"... As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians. ..."
"... The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly acquired ones. ..."
"... Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor Cohen ascribes to the US. ..."
"... We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU, or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay. ..."
"... Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an individual example with AP, but they all seem like that. ..."
Thanks for your sharing you views about Prof Cohen, a most interesting and principled
man.
Only after reading the article did I realize that the UR (that's you) also provided the
Batchelor Show podcast. Thanks.
I've been listening to these broadcasts over their entirety, now going on for six or so
years. What's always struck me is Cohen's level-headeness and equanimity. I've also detected
affection for Kentucky, his native state. Not something to be expected from a Princeton / NYU
academic nor an Upper West Side resident.
And once again expressing appreciation for the UR!
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Comments
How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt
politics?
The short answer is NATO expansion <= maybe something different? I like pocketbook
expansion..
NATO Expansion provides cover and legalizes the private use of Presidential directed USA
resources to enable a few to make massively big profits at the expense of the governed in the
target area.
Behind NATO lies the reason for Bexit, the Yellow Jackets, the unrest in Iraq and Egypt,
Yemen etc.
Hypothesis 1: NATO supporters are more corrupt than Ukraine officials.
Hypothesis 2: NATO expansion is a euphemism for USA/EU/ backed private party plunder to
follow invade and destroy regime change activities designed to dispossess local Oligarchs of
the wealth in NATO targeted nations? Private use of public force for private gain comes to
mind.
I think [private use of public force for private gain] is what Trump meant when Trump said
to impeach Trump for investigating the Ukraine matter amounts to Treason.. but it is the
exactly the activity type that Hallmarks CIA instigated regime change.
A lot of intelligence agency manipulation and private pocketbook expanding corruption can
be hidden behind NATO expansion.. Please prove to me that Biden and the hundreds of other
plunders became so deeply involved in Ukraine because of NATO expansion?
The key question is what is the gain in separating Ukraine from Russia, adding it to NATO,
and turning Russia and Ukraine into enemies. And what are the most likely results, e.g. can
it ever work without risking a catastrophic event?
There are the usual empire-building and weapons business reasons, but those should
function within a rational framework. As it is right now, the most likely outcome of the
Western initiative in Ukraine will be substantially lower living standards than there would
be otherwise for most Ukrainians. And an increase in tensions in the region with
inevitable impact on the business there. So what exactly is the gain and for whom?
The Washington-led attempt to fast-track Ukraine into NATO in 2013–14 resulted in
the Maidan crisis, the overthrow of the country's constitutionally elected president Viktor
Yanukovych, and to the still ongoing proxy civil war in Donbass.
Which exemplifies the stupidity and arrogance of the American
military/industrial/political Establishment -- none of that had anything to do with US
national security (least of all antagonizing Russia) -- how fucking hypocritical is it to
presume the Monroe Doctrine, and then try to get the Ukraine into NATO? -- none of it would
have been of any benefit whatsoever to the average American.
According to a recent govt study, only 12% of Americans can read above a 9th grade level.
This effectively mean (((whoever))) controls the MSM controls the world. NOTHING will change
for the better while the (((enemy))) owns our money supply.
There was NO "annexation" of Crimea by Russia. Crimea WAS annexed, but by Ukraine.
Russia and Crimea re-unified. Crimea has been part of Russia for long than America has
existed – since it was taken from the Ottoman Empire over 350 yrs ago. The vast
majority of the people identify as Russian, and speak only Russian.
To annex, the verb, means to use armed force to seize sovereign territory and put it under
the control of the invading forces government. Pretty much as the early Americans did to
Northern Mexico, Hawaii, etc. Russia used no force, the Governors of Crimea applied for
re-unification with Russia, Russia advised a referendum, which was held, and with a 96%
turnout, 97% voted for re-unification. This was done formally and legally, conforming with
all the international mandates.
It is very damaging for anyone to say that Russia "annexed" Crimea, because when people
read, quickly moving past the world, they subliminally match the word to their held
perception of the concept and move on. Thus they match the word "annex" to their conception
of the use of Armed Force against a resistant population, without checking.
All Cohen is doing here is reinforcing the pushed, lying Empire narrative, that Russia
invaded and used force, when the exact opposite is true!!
@Carlton
Meyer One wonders if Mr. Putin, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, fancies that
he should have rolled the Russian tanks into Kiev, right after the 2014 US-financed coup of
Ukraine's elected president, which was accomplished while he was pre-occupied with the Sochi
Olympics, and been done with it. He had every justification to do so, but perhaps feared
Western blowback. Well, the blowback happened anyway, so maybe Putin was too cautious.
The new Trump Admin threw him under the bus when it installed the idiot Nikki Haley as UN
Ambassador, whose first words were that Russia must give Crimea back. With its only major
warm water port located at Sevastopol, that wasn't about to happen, and the US Deep State
knew it.
Given how he has been so unfairly treated by the media, and never given a chance to enact
his Russian agenda, anyone who thinks that Trump was 'selected' by the deep state has rocks
for brains. The other night, on Rick Sanchez's RT America show, former US diplomat, and
frequent guest Jim Jatras said that he would not be too surprised if 20 GOP Senators flipped
and voted to convict Trump if the House votes to impeach.
The deep state can't abide four more years of the bombastic, Twitter-obsessed Trump, hence
this Special Ops Ukraine false flag, designed to fool a majority of the people. The smooth
talking, more warlike Pence is one of them. The night of the long knives is approaching.
The US actions in Ukraine are typical, not exceptional. Acting as an Empire, the US
always installs the worst possible scum in power in its vassals, particularly in newly
acquired ones.
The "logic" of the Dem party is remarkable. Dems don't even deny that Biden is corrupt,
that he blatantly abused the office of Vice-President for personal gain. What's more, he was
dumb enough to boast about it publicly. Therefore, let's impeach Trump.
These people don't give a hoot about the interests of the US as a country, or even as an
Empire. Their insatiable greed for money and power blinds them to everything. By rights,
those who orchestrated totally fake Russiagate and now push for impeachment, when Russiagate
flopped miserably, should be hanged on lampposts for high treason. Unfortunately, justice
won't be served. So, we have to be satisfied with an almost assured prospect of this
impeachment thing to flop, just like Russiagate before it. But in the process incalculable
damage will be done to our country and its institutions.
Those who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia without Serbian consent cannot
argue against separation of Crimea from Ukraine without the consent of Kiev regime.
On the other hand, those who believe that post-WWII borders are sacrosanct have to
acknowledge that Crimea belongs to Russia (illegally even by loose Soviet standards
transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1956), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Soviet Union
should be restored, and Germany should be re-divided.
At least now I know why Ukraine is so essential to American national security. It's so even
more of my and my families' taxes can pay for a massive expansion of Nato, which means
American military bases in Ukraine. Greenland to the borders of China.
We're encircling the earth, like those old cartoons about bankers.
@Ron
Unz I had to stop listening after the 10th min. where the good professor (without any
push-back from the interviewer) says:
Victor Yanukovich was overthrown by a street coup . at that moment, the United States
and not only the United States but the Western European Governments had to make a decision
would they acknowledge the overthrow of Yannukovic as having been legitimate, and therefore
accept whatever government emerged, and that was a fateful moment within 24hours, the
governments, including the government of president Obama endorsed what was essentially a
coup d'etat against Yanukovich.
Has the good Professor so quickly forgotten about Victoria Nuland distributing cookies
with John McCain in the Maidan as the coup was still unfolding? Her claim at the think tank
in DC where she discusses having spent $30million (if I remember correctly) for foisting the
Ukraine coup ?
Has he forgotten the historical conversation of Nuland and Payatt picking the next
president of Ukraine "Yats is our guy" and "Yats" actually emerging as the president a week
later ? None of these facts are in any way remotely compatible with passive role professor
Cohen ascribes to the US.
These are not simple omissions but willful acts of misleading of fools. The good
professor's little discussed career as a resource for the secret services has reemerged after
seemingly having been left out in the cold during the 1st attempted coup against Trump.
No, the real story is more than just a little NATO expansion as the professor does
suggest, but more directly, the attempted coup that the US is still trying to stage in Russia
itself, in order to regain control of Russia's vast energy resources which Putin forced the
oligarchs to disgorge. The US desperately wants to achieve this in order to be able to
ultimately also control China's access to those resources as well.
In the way that Iraq was supposed to be a staging post for an attack on Iran, Ukraine is
the staging post for an attack on Russia.
The great Russian expert stirred miles very clear of even hinting at such scenarios, even
though anyone who's thought about US world policies will easily arrive at this logical
conclusion.
What about the theft of Ukraine's farmland and the enserfing of its rural population? Isn't
this theft and enserfing of Ukrainians at least one major reason the US government got
involved, overseeing the transfer of this land into the hands of the transnational banking
crime syndicate? The Ukraine, with its rich, black soil, used to be called the breadbasket of
Europe.
Consider the fanatical intervention on the part of Victoria Nuland and the Kagans under
the guise of working for the State Dept to facilitate the theft. In a similar fashion,
according to Wayne Madsen, the State Dept. has a Dept of Foreign Asset Management, or some
similar name, that exists to protect the Chabad stranglehold on the world diamond trade, and,
according to Madsen, the language spoken and posters around the offices are in Hebrew, which
as a practical matter might as well be the case at the State Dept itself.
According to an article a few years ago at Oakland Institute, George Rohr's NCH Capital,
which latter organization has funded over 100 Chabad Houses on US campuses, owns over 1
million acres of Ukraine farmland. Other ownership interests of similarly vast tracts of
Ukraine farmland show a similar pattern of predation. At one point, it was suggested that the
Yinon Plan should be understood to include the Ukraine as the newly acquired breadbasket of
Eretz Israel. It may also be worth pointing out that now kosher Ivy League schools'
endowments are among the worst pillagers of native farmland and enserfers of the indigenous
populations they claim to protect.
@Mikhail
Well, if we really go into it, things become complicated. What Khmelnitsky united with Russia
was maybe 1/6th or 1/8th of current Ukraine. Huge (4-5 times greater) areas in the North and
West were added by Russian Tsars, almost as great areas in the South and East taken by Tsars
from Turkey and affiliated Crimean Khanate were added by Lenin, a big chunk in the West was
added by Stalin, and then in 1956 moron Khrushchev "gifted" Crimea (which he had no right to
do even by Soviet law). So, about 4/6th of "Ukraine" is Southern Russia, 1/6th is Eastern
Poland, some chunks are Hungary and Romania, and the remaining little stub is Ukraine proper.
@anon
American view always was: "yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch". That
historically applied to many obnoxious regimes, now fully applies to Ukraine. In that Dems
and Reps always were essentially identical, revealing that they are two different puppets run
by the same puppet master.
Trump is hardly very intelligent, but he has some street smarts that degenerate elites
have lost. Hence their hatred of him. It is particularly galling for the elites that Trump
won in 2016, and has every chance of winning again in 2020 (unless they decide to murder him,
like JFK; but that would be a real giveaway, even the dumbest sheeple would smell the
rat).
@follyofwar
The only reason I can imagine that Putin/Russia would want to "take over" Ukraine and have
this political problem child back in the family might be because of Ukraine's black soil.
But it is probably not worth the aggravation.
Russia is building up its agricultural sector via major greenhouse installations and other
innovations.
@AP
Well, you are a true simpleton who repeats shallow conventional views. You don't ever seem to
think deeper about what you write, e.g. if Yanukovitch could beat anyone in a 1-on-1 election
than he obviously wasn't that unpopular and that makes Maidan illegal by any standard. You
say he could beat Tiahnybok, who was one of the leaders of Maidan, how was then Maidan
democratic? Or you don't care for democracy if people vote against your preferences?
Trade with Russia is way down and it is not coming back. That is my point – there
was definitely a way to do this better. It wasn't a choice of 'one or the other' –
actually EU was under the impression that Ukraine would help open up the Russian market. Your
either-or wasn't the plan, so did Kiev lie to EU? No wonder Ukraine has a snowball chance in
hell of joining EU.
@Skeptikal
Russia moved to the first place in the world in wheat exports, while greatly increasing its
production of meat, fowl, and fish. Those who supplied these commodities lost Russian market
for good. In fact, with sanctions, food in Russia got a lot better, and food in Moscow got
immeasurably better: now it's local staff instead of crap shipped from half-a-world away.
Funny thing is, Russian production of really good fancy cheeses has soared (partially with
the help of French and Italian producers who moved in to avoid any stupid sanctions).
So, there is no reason for Russia to take Ukraine on any conditions, especially
considering Ukraine's exorbitant external debt. If one calculates European demand for
transplantation kidneys and prostitutes, two of the most successful Ukrainian exports,
Ukraine will pay off its debt – never. Besides, the majority of Russians learned to
despise Ukraine due to its subservient vassalage to the US (confirmed yet again by the
transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ze), so the emotional factor is also
virtually gone. Now the EU and the US face the standard rule of retail: you broke it, you own
it. That infuriates Americans and EU bureaucrats more than anything.
@Sergey
Krieger "Demography statistic won't support fairy tales by solzhenicin and his kind."
-- What's your point? Your post reads like an attempt at saying that Kaganovitch was white
like snow and that it does not matter what crimes were committed in the Soviet Union because
of the "demography statistic" and because you, Sergey Krieger, are a grander person next to
Solzhenitsyn and "his kind." By the way, had not A. I. S. returned to Russia, away from the
coziness of western life?
S.K.: "You should start research onto mass dying of population after 1991 and subsequent
and ongoing demographic catastroph in Russia under current not as "brutal " as soviet
regime."
@AP
Maidan was an illegal coup that violated Ukrainian constitution (I should say all of them,
there were too many) and lots of other laws. And that's not the worst part of it. But it
already happened, there is no going back for Ukraine. It's a "yes or no" thing, you can't be
a little bit pregnant. We can either commiserate with Ukraine or gloat, but it committed
suicide. Some say this project was doomed from the start. I think Ukraine had a chance and
blew it.
@AnonFromTN
I usually refrain from labelling off-cycle changes in government as revolutions or coups
– it clearly depends on one's views and can't be determined.
In general, when violence or military is involved, it is more likely it was a coup. If a
country has a reasonably open election process, violently overthrowing the current government
would also seem like a coup, since it is unnecessary. Ukraine had both violence and a coming
election that was democratic. If Yanukovitch would prevent or manipulate the elections, one
could make a case that at that point – after the election – the population could
stage a ' revolution '.
AP is a simpleton who repeats badly thought out slogans and desperately tries to save some
face for the Maidan fiasco – so we will not change his mind, his mind is done with
changes, it is all about avoiding regrets even if it means living in a lie. One can almost
feel sorry for him, if he wasn't so obnoxious.
Ukraine has destroyed its own future gradually after 1991, all the elites there failed,
Yanukovitch was just the last in a long line of failures, the guy before him (Yushenko?) left
office with a 5% approval. Why wasn't there a revolution against him? Maidan put a cherry on
that rotting cake – a desperate scream of pain by people who had lost all hope and so
blindly fell for cheap promises by the new-old hustlers.
We don't know what happens next, but we know the following: Ukraine will not be in EU,
or Nato. It will not be a unified, prosperous country. It will continue losing a large part
of its population. And oligarchy and 'corruption' is going to stay.
Another Maidan would most likely make things even worse and trigger a complete
disintegration. Those are the wages of stupidity and desperation – one can see an
individual example with AP, but they all seem like that.
@AP
You intentionally omitted the second part of what I wrote: 'a reasonably democratic
elections', neither 18th century American colonies, nor Russia in 1917 or Romania in 1989,
had them. Ukraine in 2014 did.
So all your belly-aching is for nothing. The talk about 'subverting' and doing a
preventive 'revolution' on Maidan to prevent 'subversion' has a very Stalinist ring to it. If
you start revolutionary violence because you claim to anticipate that something bad might
happen, well, the sky is the limit and you have no rules.
You are desperately trying to justify a stupid and unworkable act. As we watch the
unfolding disaster and millions leaving Ukraine, this "Maidan was great!!!" mantra will sound
even more silly. But enjoy it, it is not Somalia, wow, I guess as long as a country is not
Somalia it is ok. Ukraine is by far the poorest large country in Europe. How is that a
success?
@Beckow
True believers are called that because they willfully ignore facts and logic. AP is a true
believer Ukie. Ukie faith is their main undoing. Unfortunately, they are ruining the country
with their insane dreams. But that cannot be helped now. The position of a large fraction of
Ukrainian population is best described by a cruel American saying: fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me.
@AnonFromTN
You are right, it can't be helped. Another saying is that it takes two to lie: one who lies,
and one to lie to. The receiver of lies is also responsible.
What happened in Ukraine was: Nuland&Co. went to Ukraine and lied to them about '
EU, 'Marshall plan', aid, 'you will be Western ', etc,,,'. Maidanistas swallowed it
because they wanted to believe – it is easy to lie to desperate people. Making promises
is very easy. US soft power is all based on making promises.
What Nuland&Co. really wanted was to create a deep Ukraine-Russia hostility and to
grab Crimea, so they could get Russian Navy out and move Nato in. It didn't work very well,
all we have is useless hostility, and a dysfunctional state. But as long as they serve
espresso in Lviv, AP will scream that it was all worth it, 'no Somalia', it is 'all normal',
almost as good as 2013 . Right.
@AP
I don't disagree with what you said, but my point was different:
lower living standards than there would be otherwise for most Ukrainians
Without the unnecessary hostility and the break in business relations with Russia the
living standards in Ukraine would be higher. That, I think, noone would dispute. One can
trace that directly to the so-far failed attempt to get Ukraine into Nato and Russia out of
its Crimea bases. There has been a high cost for that policy, so it is appropriate to ask:
why? did the authors of that policy think it through?
@AP
I don't give a flying f k about Yanukovitch and your projections about what 'would be growth'
under him. He was history by 2014 in any case.
One simple point that you don't seem to grasp: it was Yanuk who negotiated the association
treaty with EU that inevitably meant Ukraine in Nato and Russia bases out of Crimea (after a
decent interval). For anyone to call Yanuk a 'pro-Russian' is idiotic – what we see
today are the results of Yanukovitch's policies. By the way, the first custom restrictions on
Ukraine's exports to Russia happened in summer 2013 under Y.
If you still think that Yanukovitch was in spite of all of that somehow a 'Russian
puppet', you must have a very low opinion of Kremlin skills in puppetry. He was not, he was
fully onboard with the EU-Nato-Crimea policy – he implemented it until he got
outflanked by even more radical forces on Maidan.
@Beckow
Well, exactly like all Ukrainian presidents before and after him, Yanuk was a thief. He might
have been a more intelligent and/or more cautious thief that Porky, but a thief he was.
Anyway, there is no point in crying over spilled milk: history has no subjunctive mood.
Ukraine has dug a hole for itself, and it still keeps digging, albeit slower, after a clown
in whole socks replaced a clown in socks with holes. By now this new clown is also a
murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although so far he has committed fewer crimes
than Porky.
There is no turning back. Regardless of Ukrainian policies, many things it used to sell
Russia won't be bought any more: Russia developed its own shipbuilding (subcontracted some to
South Korea), is making its own helicopter and ship engines, all stages of space rockets,
etc. Russia won't return any military or high-tech production to Ukraine, ever. What's more,
most Russians are now disgusted with Ukraine, which would impede improving relations even if
Ukraine gets a sane government (which is extremely unlikely in the next 5 years).
Ukraine's situation is best described by Russian black humor saying: "what we fought for
has befallen us". End of story.
@Peter
Akuleyev How many millions? It is same story. Ukraine claims more and more millions dead
from so called Hilodomor when in Russia liberals have been screaming about 100 million deaths
in russia from bolsheviks. Both are fairy tales. Now you better answer what is current
population of ukraine. The last soviet time 1992 level was 52 million. I doubt you got even
40 million now. Under soviet power both ukraine and russia population were steadily growing.
Now, under whose music you are dancing along with those in Russia that share your views when
die off very real one is going right under your nose.
By now this new clown is also a murderer, as he did not stop shelling Donbass, although
so far he has committed fewer crimes than Porky.
Have you noticed that the Republicans, while seeming to defend Trump, never challenge the
specious assertion that delaying arms to Ukraine was a threat to US security? At first I
thought this was oversight. Silly me. Keeping the New Cold War smoldering is more important
to those hawks.
Tulsi Gabbard flipping to support the impeachment enquiry was especially disappointing.
I'm guessing she was under lots of pressure, because she can't possibly believe that arming
the Ukies is good for our security. If I could get to one of her events, I'd ask her direct,
what's up with that. Obama didn't give them arms at all, even made some remarks about not
inflaming the situation. (A small token, after his people managed the coup, spent 8 years
demonizing Putin, and presided over origins of Russiagate to make Trump's [stated] goal of
better relations impossible.)
Not really. Ukies are wonnabe Nazis, but they fall way short of their ideal. The original
German Nazis were organized, capable, brave, sober, and mostly honest. Ukie scum is
disorganized, ham-handed, cowardly, drunk (or under drugs), and corrupt to the core. They are
heroes only against unarmed civilians, good only for theft, torture, and rape. When it comes
to the real fight with armed opponents, they run away under various pretexts or surrender.
Nazis should sue these impostors for defamation.
Yanukovych signed an internationally brokered power sharing agreement with his main
rivals, who then violated it. Yanukovych up to that point was the democratically elected
president of Ukraine.
Since his being violently overthrown, people have been unjustly jailed, beaten and killed
for politically motivated reasons having to do with a stated opposition to the
Euromaidan.
Yanukovych refrained from using from using considerably greater force, when compared to
others if put in the same situation, against a mob element that included property damage and
the deaths of law enforcement personnel.
In the technical legal sense, there was a legit basis to jail the likes of Tymoshenko. If
I correctly recall Yushchenko offered testimony against Tymoshenko. Rather laughable that
Poroshenko appointed the non-lawyer Lutsenko into a key legal position.
@Beckow
The undemocratic aspect involving Yanukovych's overthrow included the disproportionate number
of Svoboda members appointed to key cabinet positions. At the time, Svoboda was on record for
favoring the dissolution of Crimea's autonomous status
@AP
Grest comment #159 by Beckow. Really, I'm more concerned with the coup against POTUS that's
happening right now, since before he took office. The Ukraine is pivotal, from the Kiev
putschists collaborating with the DNC, to the CIA [pretend] whistleblowers who now subvert
Trump's investigation of those crimes.
Tragic and pitiful, the Ukrainians jumped from a rock to a hard place. Used and abandoned
by the Clinton-Soros gang, they appeal to the next abusive Sugar-Daddy. Isn't this FRANCE 24
report fairly objective?
Revisited: Five years on, what has Ukraine's Maidan Revolution achieved?
@AP
This from BBC is less current. (That magnificent bridge -the one the Ukies tried to sabotage-
is now in operation, of course.) I'm just trying to use sources that might not trigger you.
@AP
"Whenever people ask me how to figure out the truth about Ukraine, I always recommend they
watch the film Ukraine on Fire by director @lopatonok and executive produced by
@TheOliverStone. The sequel Revealing Ukraine will be out soon proud to be in it."
– Lee Sranahan (Follow @stranahan for Ukrainegate in depth.)
" .what has really changed in the life of Ukrainians?"
@Malacaay
Baltics, Ukrainians and Poles were part of the Polish Kingdom from 1025-1569 and the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1764.
This probably explains their differences with Russia.
Russia had this area in the Russian Empire from 1764-1917. Russia called this area the
Pale of Settlement. Why? This Polish Kingdom since 1025 welcomed 25000 Jews in, who later
grew to millions by the 19th century. They are the Ashkenazis who are all over the world
these days. The name Pale was for Ashkenazis to stay in that area and not immigrate to the
rest of Russia.
The reasoning for this was not religious prejudice but the way the Ashkenazis treated the
peasants of the Pale. It was to protect the Russian peasants. This did not help after 1917. A
huge invasion of Ashkenazis descended all over Russia to take up positions all over the
Soviet Union.
Ukraine US is like the Pale again. It has a Jewish President and a Jewish Prime
Minister.
Ukraine and Poland were both controlled by Tartars too. Ukraine longer than Russia. Russia
ended the Tartar rule of Crimea in 1783. The Crimean Tartars lived off raiding Ukraine,
Poland, and parts of Russia for Slav slaves. Russia ended this Slav slave trade in 1783.
From nearly the start of the now eight-year long war in Syria, analysts and commentators
polarized into two camps, with some calling the conflict a "popular uprising" in cause of
democracy against a brutal dictator, and with others seeing it as a 'regime change
war' fueled largely by US imperialist interests.
While there's many layers to what most can now acknowledge long ago became a complex
international proxy war, America's commander-in-chief just issued an astounding admission that
has a number of pundits scratching their heads .
Following a Friday morning phone call with Turkey's Erdogan over Thursday's newly inked
ceasefire deal with the Kurds, President Trump tweeted " The U.S. has secured the Oil , &
the ISIS Fighters are double secured by Kurds & Turkey..."
Starting in 1963, the Baath party, secular and nationalist, took over Syria, finally
consolidating its power in 1970 with Hafez al-Assad, who instead of just relying on his Alawite
minority, built a humongous, hyper-centralized state machinery mixed with a police state. The
key actors who refused to play the game were the Muslim Brotherhood, all the way to being
massacred during the hardcore 1982 Hama repression.
Secularism and a police state: that's how the fragile Syrian mosaic was preserved. But
already in the 1970s major fractures were emerging: between major cities and a very poor
periphery; between the "useful" west and the Bedouin east; between Arabs and Kurds. But the
urban elites never repudiated the iron will of Damascus: cronyism, after all, was quite
profitable.
Damascus interfered heavily with the Lebanese civil war since 1976 at the invitation of the
Arab League as a "peacekeeping force." In Hafez al-Assad's logic, stressing the Arab identity
of Lebanon was essential to recover Greater Syria. But Syrian control over Lebanon started to
unravel in 2005, after the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, very close to
Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) eventually left.
Bashar al-Assad had taken power in 2000. Unlike his father, he bet on the Alawites to run
the state machinery, preventing the possibility of a coup but completely alienating himself
from the poor, Syrian on the street.
What the West defined as the Arab Spring, began in Syria in March 2011; it was a revolt
against the Alawites as much as a revolt against Damascus. Totally instrumentalized by the
foreign interests, the revolt sprang up in extremely poor, dejected Sunni peripheries: Deraa in
the south, the deserted east, and the suburbs of Damascus and Aleppo.
What was not understood in the West is that this "beggars banquet" was not against the
Syrian nation, but against a "regime." Jabhat al-Nusra, in a P.R. exercise, even broke its
official link with al-Qaeda and changed its denomination to Fatah al-Cham and then Hayat Tahrir
al-Cham ("Organization for the Liberation of the Levant"). Only ISIS/Daesh said they were
fighting for the end of
Sykes-Picot.
By 2014, the perpetually moving battlefield was more or less established: Damascus against
both Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS/Daesh, with a wobbly role for the Kurds in the northeast,
obsessed in preserving the cantons of Afrin, Kobane and Qamichli.
But the key point is that each katiba ("combat group"), each neighborhood, each
village, and in fact each combatant was in-and-out of allegiances non-stop. That yielded a
dizzying nebulae of jihadis, criminals, mercenaries, some linked to al-Qaeda, some to Daesh,
some trained by the Americans, some just making a quick buck.
For instance Salafis -- lavishly financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait -- especially Jaish
al-Islam, even struck alliances with the PYD Kurds in Syria and the jihadis of Hayat Tahrir
al-Cham (the remixed, 30,000-strong al-Qaeda in Syria). Meanwhile, the PYD Kurds (an emanation
of the Turkish Kurds' PKK, which Ankara consider "terrorists") profited from this unholy mess
-- plus a deliberate ambiguity by Damascus – to try to create their autonomous
Rojava.
That Turkish Strategic Depth
Turkey was all in. Turbo-charged by the neo-Ottoman politics of former Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu, the logic was to reconquer parts of the Ottoman empire, and get rid of Assad
because he had helped PKK Kurdish rebels in Turkey.
Davutoglu's Strategik Derinlik ("Strategic Depth'), published in 2001, had been a
smash hit in Turkey, reclaiming the glory of eight centuries of an sprawling empire, compared
to puny 911 kilometers of borders fixed by the French and the Kemalists. Bilad al Cham, the
Ottoman province congregating Lebanon, historical Palestine, Jordan and Syria, remained a
powerful magnet in both the Syrian and Turkish unconscious.
No wonder Turkey's Recep Erdogan was fired up: in 2012 he even boasted he was getting ready
to pray in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, post-regime change, of course. He has been gunning
for a safe zone inside the Syrian border -- actually a Turkish enclave -- since 2014. To get
it, he has used a whole bag of nasty players -- from militias close to the Muslim Brotherhood
to hardcore Turkmen gangs.
With the establishment of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), for the first time Turkey allowed
foreign weaponized groups to operate on its own territory. A training camp was set up in 2011
in the sanjak of Alexandretta. The Syrian National Council was also created in Istanbul
– a bunch of non-entities from the diaspora who had not been in Syria for decades.
Ankara enabled a de facto Jihad Highway -- with people from Central Asia, Caucasus, Maghreb,
Pakistan, Xinjiang, all points north in Europe being smuggled back and forth at will. In 2015,
Ankara, Riyadh and Doha set up the dreaded Jaish al-Fath ("Army of Conquest"), which included
Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda).
At the same time, Ankara maintained an extremely ambiguous relationship with ISIS/Daesh,
buying its smuggled oil, treating jihadis in Turkish hospitals, and paying zero attention to
jihad intel collected and developed on Turkish territory. For at least five years, the MIT --
Turkish intelligence – provided political and logistic background to the Syrian
opposition while weaponizing a galaxy of Salafis. After all, Ankara believed that ISIS/Daesh
only existed because of the "evil" deployed by the Assad regime.
... ... ...
The ultimate American aim was to consistently keep the north of the Euphrates under U.S.
power, via their proxies, the SDF and the Kurdish PYD/YPG. That American dream is now over,
lamented by imperial Democrats and Republicans alike.
The CIA will be after Trump's scalp till Kingdom Come.
... ... ...
The West, with typical Orientalist haughtiness, never understood that Alawites, Christians,
Ismailis and Druze in Syria would always privilege Damascus for protection compared to an
"opposition" monopolized by hardcore Islamists, if not jihadis. The West also did not
understand that the government in Damascus, for survival, could always count on formidable
Baath party networks plus the dreaded mukhabarat -- the intel services.
New data from Turkey reveals almost all the mercenary force of "Arab militias" getting
slammed by former and current U.S. officials were armed and trained in the past by the CIA and
Pentagon, reports Max Blumenthal.
F ootage showing members of Turkey's mercenary "national army"
executing Kurdish captives as they led the Turkish invasion of northern Syria touched off a
national outrage, provoking U.S. government officials, pundits and major politicians to rage
against their brutality.
In The Washington Post , a U.S. official condemned the militias as a "crazy and
unreliable." Another official called them "thugs and bandits
and pirates that should be wiped off the face of the earth." Meanwhile, former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton described the scene as a
"sickening horror," blaming President Donald Trump exclusively for the atrocities.
But the fighters involved in the atrocities in northern Syria were not just random tribesmen
assembled into an ad hoc army. In fact, many were former members of the Free Syrian Army, the
force once armed by the CIA and Pentagon and branded as "moderate rebels." This disturbing
context was conveniently omitted from the breathless denunciations made by U.S. officials and
Western pundits.
Left: The late Sen. John McCain with then-FSA chief Salim Idriss, on his right, in 2013;
Right: Salim Idriss, in center, in October, announcing the establishment of the National Front
for Liberation, the Turkish mercenary army that has invaded northern Syria.
According to a research paper published this
October by the pro-government Turkish think tank, SETA, "Out of the 28 factions [in the Turkish
mercenary force], 21 were previously supported by the United States, three of them via the
Pentagon's program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions were supplied by the CIA via the
MOM Operations Room in Turkey, a joint intelligence operation room of the 'Friends of Syria' to
support the armed opposition. Fourteen factions of the 28 were also recipients of the
U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank guided missiles." (A graph by SETA naming the various militias and
the type of U.S. support they received is at the end of this article).
In other words, virtually the entire apparatus of insurgents arrayed against President
Bashar al-Assad's regime -- and armed and equipped under the Obama administration -- has been
repurposed by the Turkish military to serve as the spearhead of its brutal invasion of northern
Syria. The leader of this force is Salim Idriss, now the "defense minister" of Syria's
Turkish-backed "interim government." He's the same figure who hosted John McCain when the late
senator made his infamous 2013 incursion into Syria.
The Ukraine situation is complex to be certain, but ending military aid and letting Russia
clean up seems like a bad idea.
This week we saw Russian forces occupy US bases abandoned when Trump ordered our troops
to withdraw from the Turkish border. And now the author is arguing we should do something
similar in the Ukraine.
When did Russian appeasement become so important to conservative foreign policy?
Mate, Russians were in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. US troops are
there illegally (no Congress mandate, no international mandate, no invitation). US is an
occupying, destabilizing, terrorist protecting force in Syria and Americans should look
beyond their self esteem before commenting on this "shameful" retreat. US does not have the
right to put its troops wherever it fancies.
This win or loose mentality will be the death of you. Who do you think is threatening
the US, when it has the biggest moats protecting its shores? The only thing that is
happening is that the hegemonic role, that of controlling everyone's economy for its own
elites benefit is being denied.
This is what you are complaining mate, the the rich Americans cannot get richer? Do you
think they will share with you, or that, like the good English boys of the past, you will
not be able to land a job with East India Co. and despoil the natives for a while?
One can be opposed to both foreign engagements and to abandoning our allies.
We retreated from the border in order to allow the Turkish and Russian advance. More
baffling still, we have just announced a five-day ceasefire where the US will assist in
moving the Kurds out of their border territory. The US is now assisting in an ethnic
cleansing.
I do agree that the US made plenty of poor (even cynical) decisions in the past in the
use of military force. However, the suggestion that we should simply pull out and trust
Russia to do the right thing seems naive at best and disingenuous at worst.
Well maybe if the Kruds hadn't been murdering Turks on a weekly basis for years they
wouldn't be in this mess, or are our Turkish allies just supposed to suck it up and die?
Why don't their lives matter?
Other people can play your "our poor betrayed allies!!!" game too.
The Turkish invasion, the US has now agreed, is a NATO operation under the treaty's
collective defence Article 5 ; this implies the
threat of US reprisals if the Turkish advance is fought by Kurdish, Syrian and Russian forces .
johnhelmer.net
"This is an incredible outcome," President Donald Trump has declared. "We got everything we
ever could have dreamed of." Trump thinks he has Putin's capitulation.
The U.S. media get yesterday's talks between U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and the Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan all wrong. Those talks were just a show to soothe the
criticism against President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeast
Syria.
The fake negotiations did not change the larger
win-win-win-win plan or the facts on the ground. The Syrian Arab Army is replacing the
Kurdish PKK/YPG troops at the border with Turkey. The armed PKK/YPG forces, which had
deceivingly renamed
themselves (vid) "Syrian Democratic Forces" to win U.S. support, will be disbanded and
integrated into the Syrian army. Those moves are sufficient to give Turkey the security
guarantees it needs. They will prevent any further Turkish invasion.
... ... ...
Only a few pundits in the U.S. recognize reality. Stephen
Walt :
The bottom line: The solution to the situation in Syria is to acknowledge Assad's victory
and work with the other interested parties to stabilize the situation there.
Unfortunately, that sensible if unsavory approach is anathema to the foreign-policy
"Blob" -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- and its members are marshaling the usual
tired arguments to explain why it's all Trump's fault and the United States should never
have withdrawn a single soldier.
I am confident for now that the blob will be held off by Trump and that the Win
4 plan will succeed. Erdogan will soon travel to Russia to discuss the next
steps towards peace in Syria. The talks will be about a common plan to liberate the Jihadi
controlled governorate of Idleb. That step may require a summit between the Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad and Erdogan which Russia and Iran will help to facilitate.
With the U.S. removed from the Syria scenario such steps towards peace will now be much
easier. I really hope this analysis is correct. It means there is a future. Thousands of
soldiers and contractors survive. Killing of civilians stops. Refugees return home.
The agitprop of western media and democrats is astonishingly scary. Solely for the
benefit of war profiters. Based on fear, it is detached from history. In truth, peace is
only possible if the Syrian government regains control of its territory within borders
agreed to with its neighbors. The Kurds and Jihadists become non-issues if reintegrated
into Syria. The only way for the House of Saud to keep its wealth is to end the Yemen
war.
Forever wars are pointless. Nations must coordinate, keep their agreements and regulate
corporations. Cooperation is the only way humans can overcome climate change and avoid a
nuclear war. Then future generations will continue live on the tiny blue globe in the Milky
Way.
Syria has gained much ground to date with the arrangements. A win already for Syria. A deal
between Trump and Erdogan will comprise of the PKK and border areas.
Erdogan will not dump his cards in the bin just to be a nice bloke. He will play the cards
he has as an independent player.
It will still be some time before US leaves east Syria. Trump will try to hold onto the
oil.
Trump has pulled out of a number of agreements. As Putin has said, US is not
agreement capable.
The only difference between Obama and Trump in that respect is that hopefully Trump
will not shit on the chessboard and kick off nuclear war. In the meantime, Russia will have
to make their moves to counter whatever moves Trump and Erdo have cooked up.
The question is now if the U.S. will stick to the deal or if the pressure on
President Trump will get so heavy that he needs to retreat from the common deal.
If so, will the US order the SAA and Russia back out of the areas they have already
taken control of, and order the SDF to cease cooperation with the SAA? That is impossible,
it cannot be done. If the US try to back out now they are automatically militarily defeated
and out-gunned by the militarily far superior Russians and SAA who now almost completely
surrounded them - completely, if the Iraqi PMU's cover the Iraqi border. If Trump really
wanted to pull the US soldiers out of northeastern Syria permanently, as soon they allowed
the Russians and SAA to flood in, Trump got fait accompli .
The US military are risk-averse, and trying to hold on to the oil would be military
suicide. The Russians might step back a couple of steps and let the SAA do most of the
action, but expecting the SAA to back off would be unrealistic. They have international law
on their side, they have morality on their side, they have the guns on their side, and they
have the boots on the ground on their side. Just as Iran forced the British warship to hold
back while the Iranian navy boarded and took control of the British tanker, so to the US in
that situation would back off from the oil fields. Since they are so risk-averse, they
would try to avoid even being put in that situation They might yet try to bluff their
control of the oil fields, but will readily back down as soon as the Syrians call their
bluff). The Russians can impose a no-fly zone at any time. The US will not push their luck
that far at so much risk.
The absolute most the US could do is to try to delay, but they won't get away with much
delay either, I think. Russia/SAA can always subtly increase the pressure, making the US
soldiers ever hotter and hotter under the collar.
As for al Tanf, once the US has quit the formerly SDF controlled parts of Syria which will
happen, any idea of regime change is completely off the table so al Tanf becomes pointless.
Why leave any Americans in harms way for anything that's utterly and totally pointless
except kissing Tel Aviv's arse. Let the Israelis defend that bit of the border. When Trump
does pull out of al Tanf expect it to be met with the usual objections from the usual
suspects which will rise to a crescendo when they understand how that "idiot" Trump has
played them. Generally I don't like Trump but if this little project is actually what it
seems to be then I'll really enjoy watching the agony and hatred of the corporate
Democrats. Fuck them.
All well, but the big question, as Magnier also wrote: Will the Turks just end their
occupation? I seriously doubt it.
Like expected for a long time, Erdogan and Putin will "swap" liberating Idlib with
Erdogan having his north Syria colony. Erdogan has executed a pre planed agenda in the
occupied areas of "Turkeyzation", meaning enforcing and teaching Turkish language in
schools and administration, and replacing anything Syrian with Turkish.
He went also through great lenghts, to brainwash the Syrian refugees in Turkey into
being loyal followers.
The "safe zone" will be seen as a Turkish colony, even if the doublespeak says
otherwise.
Erdogan wont give this up without being forced to. No "peace" process will change that,
like with Cyprus.
Fun fact from Elijahs report: When the SAA+Russian troops went into the area of the
turkish observation post in Idlib, they automatically received a text message, saying:
"Welcome to Turkey".
Erdogan sees the occupied territorys as part of his Turkish empire. He may swap (like
Idlib with N. Syria), but he will NEVER just give it up. Only when being forced.
So we better get used to the idea, that the promised respect of Syrias integrity ends
for Erdogan where his empire begins, and that Assad can write off the safe zone as Syrian
territory.
Not officially, and next to no country will recognize Erdogans occupation, but like with
Cyprus, this is of no concern to Erdogan.
Despite all the PR statements he signed at Astana.
Excellent analysis b. You have nailed this story to a tee. Also today
Pepe Escobar has a great historical analysis on the significance of these developments
on consolidating Syria as unified nation. Pepe's piece complements bs perfectly.
The following letter from the American Jewish Congress could be a clue why the mainly
Jewish owned US MSM chooses to misreport the situation in Syria. What happens in Syria is
not in Israels interest.
The American Jewish Congress opposes the U.S. decision to withdraw troops from Syria
and strongly condemns Turkey's actions in Syria against the Kurds. In addition to
endangering a U.S. ally, the Kurds, it also poses a great threat to Israel and to the
region's stability overall. Israel shares a border with Syria and is affected by what
happens within Syria.
Syria has become a hotbed of Hezbollah and Iranian activity, which poses a direct
threat to Israel; as a result of this decision, Turkey, Iran and Hezbollah win while Israel
loses. Ultimately, the impact of this decision may come to outweigh President Trump's
historic actions in support of Israel. Regional stability and the security of our allies
must be paramount for U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Jack Rosen
President
American Jewish Congress
American Jewish Congress
745 5th Ave., 30th Floor
New York NY 10151 United States
This is Spengler on Strategic Culture. He is a Trumpist and generally not my cup of tea,
but every once in a while he comes up with something interesting:
China has had its issues with Turkey's volatile and ambitious leader, to be sure. Turkey
in the past styled itself the protector of China's Uyghur minority, some 15 million
Muslims who speak a dialect of Turkish and live mainly in China's Xinjiang Province.
China reportedly has incarcerated between 1 and 2 million Uyghurs in "re-education camps"
where they are forced to learn Chinese culture to the detriment of their Islamic
identity. Erdogan in the past had accused China of "genocide" against the Uyghurs. After
the Chinese bailout, however, Erdogan declared that the Uyghurs are "living happily" in
China.
Turkey has changed from Ataturk to Rent-A-Turk. China likes to keep its friends close
and its enemies closer. China built the Great Wall to repel Turkic invasions, among
others, and warred with nomadic peoples on its borders for centuries. Now Beijing
believes that its $2 trillion Belt and Road Initiative will assimilate the Turkic peoples
of Central Asia into its sphere of economic influence. The Turkic countries seem eager to
sign up.
I think Mr Lieven's analysis is a little too rational -
"Anatol Lieven describes the mess of U.S. Middle Eastern strategy: ..."
Basically, utimately, a bureauraucracy has something of a mind apart from the
individuals (otherwise described as "mob rule" with a touch of hysteria), wherein certain
boiler plate methods become tools of choice and there is a detachment from the impact on
humanity. As we say in engineering: "It looked good on paper."
For me being of child-like mentality, I believe simple things in life often bear great
opportunities for learning and I often find mysel remembering the animated feature "Iron
Giant" (an under appreciated masterpiece of wit and story telling) when the (stupid,
self-serving and narcissistic) FBI agent says: "we done know what it is or who sent it so
therefor we've got to blow it to smithereens..". He then goes on to try to destroy the
thing by launching a missile directed at themselves. OK, that's all I know, I am tired
now.
The video on RT or Brother Erdo in confab/photo-op with That Good Man VP (The Grise) Pence,
suggests by VP's body language that one ought to bear in mind that Betrayal and Victory are
a pair-twin gods of conflict. Trump has made with considerable help from Fate and Putin a
"victory" inasmuch as retreat from Imperial War constitutes a victory in fact for ordinary
US people, and people in the area, of course...
Pence wants power...and status. If we consider what he shows of himself, which is a
costume of course, he's saying his basic assumption about himself.
"I am fraudulent and worthless."
Lean and hungry men>
Caesar:
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2
Trumpie the clown better "stay outta Dallas"...remember Lyndon fellas...
see photo> search images for "Johnson Kennedy good one at
morganreynolds.files.wordpress
[dot com]/2013/06/lbj-jfk[dot] png
I do hope I have not post wrongly, puter skill in me does not exist.
My post 37. was not clear
The 500 + 3500 are the Terrorists.
Meanwhile the Russian and the SAA have been building up steadily - probably to try to take
Kobani.
The question I have is - how many troops are now available for the SSA to take further
action as there are supposed to be 10'000 on the "Turkish front"?
"The agitprop of western media and democrats is astonishingly scary. Solely for the benefit
of war profiteers." @10
Not just them. The Democrats, and most Republicans, fellow members of the duopoly, are
intent on using every opportunity to whip up the apathetic public into believing that the
most urgent business is to impeach Trump.
Why? Because if Trump is not eliminated by impeachment he will have to be campaigned
against in an election.
And the US ruling class doesn't like elections when there is a possibility of politics
arising.
There is no doubt that in 2020 the Democrats will either lose to Trump, by running a
candidate who can't win (the First Gay candidate with a husband; the first female of
colour; the first Obama from Newark NJ: the first member of the Biden family to go to
University; the first First Lady to run and be defeated and run again...and so on ad
nauseam) or beat Trump by running a candidate opposed not to the Arms industries but to Big
Pharma, the Healthcare industry, the insurance companies, the Union racketeers who want to
continue acting as middlemen for all of the above, and the entire universe of privatised
public services, from prisons to charter schools.
The threat of Medicare for All is not just that it challenges the profit centres of those
who make a killing out of dying, the fear of death and ill health, but that a public
healthcare system would logically be bound to address the causes of ill health. Such as,
for example, agriculture's reliance on pesticides and chemicals to cut labour costs and
increase profit margins. Such as the malpractices at the heart of the food processing
industries.
Recently Bernie Sanders talked of the enormous cost, to ordinary people, of fighting
cancer. In doing so he highlighted the reality that "cancer" is one of the country's
leading industries, a major source of profit for investors and far too important to be left
to the tender mercies of american families prejudiced against it.
For the likes of Pelosi, Schumer and 90% of Congress elections are just a reminder that
they haven't shaken down their capitalist sponsors for a year or two and the Fund Raising
season has come again. The last thing they want to do is get involved in debates over
things that matter, like living standards, public services, jobs, the cost of education and
other sordid matters.
If Trump is impeached there will be no reason for the Democrats to run a candidate who can
beat him. Instead they will run another one who will be-in almost all respects-
indistinguishable politically from him, someone like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama or their
female equivalents, who can be relied upon to keep things going the way they have been
since 1944.
Of course, the problem, that nobody in Congress wants to think about is that that
particular game-NATO, Bretton Woods, US triumphalism- is rapidly coming to an end.
The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced a deal with the Syrian
government of president Bashar al-Assad to resist the ongoing Turkish invasion. Syrian forces
have already moved into Kobane and Manbij. If Turkey continues with its push southwards into
Syria, a war between the Turkish and Syrian forces seems imminent.
As per the deal signed on October 13, the SDF will dissolve its Autonomous Administration
of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, and hand over the control of cities, such as
Kobane and Manbij to the Syrian government. Talks between the SDF and the Syrian government
were facilitated by the Russians at their Syrian base at Hmeimim in Latakia.
Turkey and its ally, the Free Syrian Army – many of whose members were directly
affiliated to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups – continue their offensive and
atrocities. The FSA has reportedly already illegally executed 13 people. The victims include
Hervin Khalaf, leader of the Future Syria Party, and her two drivers.Turkey launched
'Operation Peace Spring' on October 9. The operation has already led to the death of around
60 Kurdish and 18 Turkish fighters. It has already caused the displacement of more than
130,000 people.
How has the discussion predictably developed along partisan lines? Trump said he wants out of
Syria. That united the war mongers in the house and senate because war means massive profits
to the military industrial complex and congress works for them. Trump said something that
affects the bottom line of the rich and they reacted predictably.
@A123
You can google and watch what Assad told the Kurds in a press conference. It will contradict
part of your statement. The Kurds risked and lost. Great warriors, but weak diplomats and
strategists.
1BEIRUT, LEBANON (11:50 A.M.) – The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has taken over the U.S.
military base in Manbij after entering the city last night.
According to a military source in the Aleppo Governorate, the Syrian Arab Army has
deployed several units to Manbij as they look to block any potential Turkish offensive to
capture the city.
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On Tuesday, the Anna News Agency reported from Manbij, as they showed the deployment of
the Syrian Army and their eventual take over of the U.S. military base there. -- AMN news
.
2 A stunning development in the key northern Syrian city of Manbij -- the Pentagon has
confirmed a planned handover to Russian military forces is underway amid a Turkish military
assault on the region. This also hours after President Trump tweeted that Assad "wants
naturally to protect the Kurds" and that the problem should be left to local powers.
Late Monday the main US base in Manbij was filmed empty of US forces, and American convoys
were also spotted hastily pulling out of the city as Syrian national forces entered,
following Sunday's historic deal between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and
the Assad government. Newsweek reports the developments follows:
I think Russia has allowed Turkey to attack Syria to satisfy Turke's main objective of
rooting out the Kurd on the condition of returning the territory to Syria . It has given Kurd
the bleak choice of oblivion or self preservation . America suffers from PTSD . The flashback
of Saigon on the roof top reappeared again . It ran. Good a sensible job by Trump.
@WJ The
machinations people are making on this topic are truly stunning when it's clear Trump is
doing the right thing. Today are reports that US positions and bases in N. Syria have been
turn keyed over the Assad and Russian forces. Trump IS Protecting the Kurds, just not with
American blood, as he promised.
The one thing Turkey has always wanted is a broken Syria so it can gobble up the remnants.
Past US (and many current) leaders and Democrats were complicit in this by funneling cash and
weapons to Syrian opposition, which directly led to the rise of Isis and deaths of thousands
– can you say evil?
I have hope that Trumps current actions will bring an end to thus war for good –
Turkey was OK to beat up on some kurds but war with Russia is something else.
@OscarWildeLoveChild
imho Jewish power keeps Trump on a perpetual short leash (Schiff is this month's designee to
'walk the dog') until Iran is wrecked.
[edit: renfro commented on Giraldi's earlier thread reminding readers that Israel has a
major interest in the Kurds, their territory, which is oil rich. Remember the proposals to
divide Iraq into three ]
Warren -- BDS is one thing, but her agenda to tax >$50million -- that's the part people
hear & cheer: Hooray! Soak the rich!
The next thing she says is, "Use the money to pay for universal child care, universal
kindergarten, increase pay for child care workers."
This gets cheers from millennials struggling to keep two people employed and kids cared
for.
But think about how drastically anti-family those proposals are.
TOTALLY turn over the care of our children to the loving embrace of the federal government
aka the Frankfurt school
The combined synthesis of social theory and psychoanalysis thus allows resituating on
new bases the Marxist optimism according to which the working class, due to its position in
the relations of production, is disposed to adopt a point of view scientifically based on
reality as well as promote legitimate forms of action.
Knowledge of the forms of the becoming-adult of humanity conceived by Freud, in the form
of a theory of passage through different stages that must result in an assumed genital
sexuality, leads to the recognition of a working class that is believed to be less
encumbered by typically bourgeois prejudices and perversities.
@NoseytheDuke
The goal was to topple Assad. Remember Obama? Assad must go? Assad and the Assad regime are
still there. Where is Saddam Hussein? Where is Muammar Gaddafi? After seven years of war in
Syria the victors are Syria, Iran and Russia. The losers are the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia
and Turkey. The real losers of course are the dead and the maimed. The widows and orphans.
And the millions who have been displaced and have become refugees. All are victims of
Imperial aggression. And the real winners of course are the war profiteers who have grown
fatter and fatter since 9/11.
It should be observed that the Syrian incursion by the American military, which was
initiated by President Barack Obama and his band of lady hawks during the so-called "Arab
Spring" of 2011, was illegal from the gitgo. Syria did not threaten the United States, quite
the contrary. Damascus had supported U.S. intelligence operations after 9/11 and it was
Washington that soured the relationship beginning with the Syria Accountability Act of 2003,
which later was followed by the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act of 2015, both of which
were, at least to a certain extent, driven by the interests of Israel.
When American soldiers first arrived in Syria the U.S. War Powers act was ignored, making
the incursion illegal. Nor was there any mandate authorizing military intervention emanating
from any supra-national agency like the United Nations. The excuse for the intervention was
plausibly enough to destroy ISIS, but the reality was much more complex, with U.S. forces in
addition seeking to limit Iranian and Russian presence in Syria while also bringing about
regime change. The objectives were from the start unattainable as Iran and Russia were
supporting the Syrian Army in doing most of the hard fighting against ISIS while the regime of
President Bashar al-Assad was not threatened by a so-called democratic alternative which only
existed in the minds of Samantha Powers and Susan Rice.
Unwilling to see large numbers of Americans coming home in caskets, the United States
inevitably began to search for proxies to carry out the fighting on the ground and wound up
willy-nilly arming, training and otherwise supporting terrorists, to include the al-Qaeda
affiliate al-Nusra. The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces eventually became the principal tool
of U.S. military, but it must be observed that the Kurds in all likelihood had no illusions
about the staying power of their American patrons. They were fighting Syrian forces as well as
ISIS because they were seeking to carve out their own homeland of Kurdistan from the ruins of
the Syrian state. Their expansion into northern Syria, aided by the U.S., was at the expense of
the local population, which was overwhelmingly not Kurdish. Their occupation of that area was
not reported honestly in the U.S. media, but other sources suggest that their behavior was
often brutal.
So the lament about abandoning one's Kurdish allies has a kernel of truth, but the Senator
Lindsey Graham response, to include sanctioning Turkey, should be considered to be little more
than a dangerous misstep that would lead to acquiring a new and more powerful enemy. And, of
course, the argument in favor of leaving the Kurds to their fate found its most ridiculous
expression from the mouth of Donald Trump himself, who, up until recently had praised the Kurds
as friends who had "fought and died for us." Trump is now observing
that "they [the Kurds] didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with
Normandy." As President Trump did not serve his country in Vietnam due to alleged bone spurs
and his father Fred likewise did not serve in the military, the comment is particularly ironic.
Trump's surname was changed from the original German Drumpf and if there were any Drumpfs
present at Normandy they were undoubtedly on the German side.
Finally, there is one other important issue that should be observed. Donald Trump's actual
record on ending useless wars is not consistent with his actions. He has sent more soldiers to
no good purpose in support of America's longest war in Afghanistan, has special ops forces in
numerous countries in Asia and Africa, has threatened regime change in Venezuela, continues to
support Saudi Arabia and Israel's bloody attacks on their neighbors and has exited to from
treaties and agreements with Russia and Iran that made armed conflict less likely. And he has
five thousand American soldiers sitting as hostages in Iraq, a country that the United States
basically destroyed as a cohesive political entity and which is now experiencing a wave of
rioting that has reportedly killed hundreds. Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using
drones based mostly on profile targeting than all of his predecessors. These are not the
actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars even if one does not consider the
economic warfare that is currently taking place through the use of sanctions that is reportedly
killing tens of thousands.
So should one take Donald Trump seriously when he says he wants to end the pointless wars?
Perhaps not, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he should be judged by his actions,
not by his words and, apart from the withdrawal of a handful of soldiers from the actual front
lines in Syria, nothing has changed. It is quite possible that nothing will change.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected]
The Turkish Army, which is one of the most powerful in NATO, will do whatever is
necessary to crush them. Trump should have realized that before he started talking.
IDK, Phil. I am not sure that he didn't. My sense is that he has been pandering to the
neocons in the hope of a compromise that would allow him to deliver enough of his campaign
promises to permit his re-election. I think hiring Bolton was just such a move –
thinking that keeping his enemies closer would permit him more control.
Recently, he has expressed frustration with his staff and I speculate that he has come to
realize that pandering to the jews is going to be a one-way street. He has given them a score
of concessions, including Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. He hasn't received anything in
return, except for the onslaught of palace coups, one after the other, orchestrated by the
very same zionist forces in both parties.
My hypothesis is that the man, narcissistic as he is, has reached the end of his tether.
Faced with the potential to not get re-elected, he has mounted a counteroffensive against
them. He, rightly, believes that the people who got him elected are the only ones who can get
him re-elected. So, his recent tweets are both an attempt to recapture us to his side, while
at the same time slapping the zionists across their faces with a show of power, as he is
won't to do in business negotiations where he feels that he has been betrayed.
I could be completely wrong as I try to pry into his mind.
So should one take Donald Trump seriously when he says he wants to end the pointless
wars? Perhaps not, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt, he should be judged by his
actions, not by his words and, apart from the withdrawal of a handful of soldiers from the
actual front lines in Syria, nothing has changed. It is quite possible that nothing will
change.
It serves us naught to take this pessimistic stance in the absence of a replacement
candidate. I have always contended that the best way to use Trump is to support his ego.
Let's inundate him with praise for withdrawing from the Kurdish/Turkish quagmire. Sure, he
hasn't vacated Syria yet, however, he has no choice but to vacate or be evacuated. His ego
will opt for the former.
Trump is also assassinating more foreigners using drones based mostly on profile targeting
than all of his predecessors.
These are not the actions of a president who seriously wants to end wars even if one does not
consider the economic warfare that is currently taking place through the use of sanctions
that is reportedly killing tens of thousands
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Mr. Giraldi,
Could you please elaborate on the first point: the use of drones. Who and where?
Secondly, economic warfare: are you referring to Iran or Venezuela? Could you
elaborate?
@A123
NATO members will not help the New Ottoman Empire "offensive".
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Wow, Israeli is really terrified. What will they do when the U.S. decouples from the Middle
East completely? It's pretty clear that, short of running to Russia and fellating Putin, Bobo
the Clown of Tel Aviv has no plan.
Tic Toc.
The fact of the matter is that President Donald Trump is a Corrupt "Crypto Jew" in spite of
the American people may think Trump is as he was chosen by the Elite to serve and protect
Israel and churn profits for Elite owned and controlled Armaments industry in promoting wars
against the Best interests of the citizens of United States of America.
If Washington withdraws its military, spooks and mercenaries the Syrian Curds will go back to
being Syrians. Syria, Iran, Russia and Turkey will negotiate the peace. The U.S., Israel,
Saudi Arabia and Turkey will have been defeated in their war against Assad. Syria, unlike
Iraq and Libya will remain standing.
Everyone loves to hate on Erdogan. I was hoping for a more nuanced view than [he] "is just
crazy enough to do that." Remember when George Galloway called him "a lion," awestruck at his
reaction to the Israeli murders of Turks on the boat to Gaza? Is it true that Turkey has made
tremendous economic gains under his administration? He has much support, as shown by the
[popular] squelching of attempted coup.
I've just never understood why he facilitated the chaos on his border, harboured the White
Helmets, probably murdered Serena Shim, etc. And now, what will he do with his jihadi proxy
army? As far as his threats to release migrants to Europe, I have no sympathy for EU
countries who've been part of the war on the ME. What goes around, comes around. Same for the
Kurds.
There have been some suggestions that the Kurds could make nice with the Damascus
government and rely on the protection of the Syrian Army to deter the Turks, an option that
they have already begun to exercise.
The Kurds have caved. Plus our radical Islamic rebels are going over, with our equipment
etc to the Ass man.
Updated Oct. 14, 2019 6:48 pm ET. WSJ
ISTANBUL -- Syrian troops entered areas that have been outside their control for years on
Monday, after a quickly forged pact between Kurdish forces and the Syrian government to
confront a Turkish military campaign reshaped alliances in Syria.
That pact transformed the Kurds, an erstwhile partner of the U.S. in the fight against
Islamic State, into a force more closely aligned with Russia and Iran, as the U.S. began
withdrawing its troops from northeastern Syria.
Until recently, thousands of U.S.-backed fighters had trained at a military base in the
town of Ain Eissa. After the Syrian military arrived on Monday morning, soldiers raised the
tricolor Syrian flag in the town center.
The US gets out of the way, and Assad, who won the Civil War, immediately settles with the
Kurds and Nustra.
So, it wasn't many troops, but we had successfully prevented Assad from absorbing
(voluntarily) two groups in the Civil War. Meaning we (US) alone was preventing settlement.
The. deep state has thwarted Trump's intentions to leave for 3 years.
"Or the Turks might be willing to escalate their own offensive to take on the inferior Syrian
Army and the Kurds together." It is a stretch without careful analysis.
Many people said the same about the world's most cowardice army, the Israeli. There is an
agreement between the parties and Erdogan will comply. The Kurds are the West-Israel proxy
terrorists. They proved their usefulness many times.
But in pursuing their aspirations for self-rule, Syria's Kurds risked overreach and
miscalculation. American officials have long made clear in meetings and public comments
that U.S. military backing never amounted to an endorsement of Kurdish political
ambitions.
In December, U.S. envoy to Syria James Jeffrey likened the partnership with the SySo he
rian Kurds to a "transactional relationship for a specific goal."
Trump got it basically right -- time to leave and we never promised Kurds a Rose
Garden.
His bumbling ruling decrees via Twitter stem from the lack of loyal staff. His decisions
are ignored or subverted when he goes through channels. So he announces it and works from
there. This is the 3rd Time Trump has announced withdrawal from Syria. Although the neocon
press and Hawkish politicians howled.
Trump also implemented the Pivot to Asia (an Obama failure) by engaging China
diplomatically through efforts at trade reform. Much more nuanced that fortifying bases.
Its never pretty, but Trump tends to stubbornly pursue a less warlike agenda.
The mideast is where everybody backstabs everybody recalling the CIA used to deliver
renditioned prisoners to Assad to be tortured along lines a bit more than 'enhanced'
interrogations (karma could be a b *** h.) The soup only gets thicker as the pot boils down.
Remember those NATO nukes kept at Incirlik?
Why had NATO (the USA particularly) sat on its hands these past 3+ years? It's not like no
one was aware there could be a serious problem with 50 (or more) tactical nukes in the hands
of the paranoid narcissist Erdogan:
@A123
"that is, the goods and services produced by the economy -- rises faster than the money
created, so there is no inflation, and rises faster than the debt created, so the country's
debt burden doesn't increase."
"The long term prospects for peace are still there. A return to the status quo ante. Russia
remains as guarantor of the peace and all other foreign fighters and their proxies exit the
nation."
Spot on.
Given cast-iron assurances re the PKK & it's Syrian cousins that Nth Syria will cease to
be a zone for organising attacks (or any kind of nefarious Kurdish behaviour) on Turkey, I
think Erdogan would likely consider a withdrawal of his forces.
i think there are few unknowns between Russia, Turkey, Syria; the plan seems to be to get
ISIS, SDF, the PYD/YPD without regard to who is supporting them. Unleash ISIS, even those in
prisons so they can move against Assad to be destroyed ? Those trapped in Idlib can either
commit suicide or wait for the executioner. I have no facts, but by observing that the
sanctions warfare is directed at those who intend to destroy ISIS, SDF, PYD/YPD and Israelis
and Iranians visiting in Syria I conclude Russia and Turkey have skunked the Pentagon (maybe
Trump is also in on it?) .
Russia and Syria have agreed to stand by while Turkey engages in some target practice at
unwanted visitors in Syria? Invade Syria even North Western Iraq.. rid the world of pesky,
trouble making, fake news head chopping face book and Twitter super stars, destroy all traces
of Kurds, remove all non Syrian others threatening the Ottoman, Syrian Turf. Don't look now,
but Iran seems to be on the Turkey list of non Syrians ?. ..After the area is cleared Assad's
problem, will be, what if Turkey (Erdogan) refuses to return to Turkey, and that return to
Turkey promise has probably been be guaranteed to Assad by Russia.
I read a Russian statement somewhere last year [early 2018], in which they unequivocal said
there would never be an autonomous Kurdish state. They [the Kurds] could stick to some of
their customs, but legally and lawfully they would fall on Damascus' rule/s.
Trump's foreign policy constitutes an egregious betrayal of his election platform which was
to "stay neutral" on Israel/Palestine, withdraw remaining troops and avoid any further
entanglements. He reneged on all pledges.
The recent announcement that he was withdrawing troops from Syria was followed the next
day by an announcement of 2,000 US troops being deployed to Saudi Arabia to protect that
country from Iran. Say what?
It was totally predictable five years ago that Turkey was in Israel's gunsights, and as
usual Israel tends to destroy others by proxy. They can sit back and savor Turkey destroying
more of Syria, while US sanctions destroy more of Turkey.
The waves of death and destruction that have hammered the Middle East for the last seventy
years are all symptoms of one problem and that is the illegitimate "state of Israel".
Most Americans seem obsessed with stupid wars. For example the vast majority of people in the
UK see the Iraq War as a catastrophic mistake and despise Tony Blair, yet in the US most
people still seem to see the Iraq War as a good thing. The mentality is far apart.
Americans seem a very insecure people, projecting military power is all they really have.
If America is not constantly embroiled in a war somewhere then most Americans feel they have
nothing to be proud of. I would go as far to say that the military is the only real source of
pride in America, it's the only thing Americans feel they undeniably excel at.
There are no "stupid wars", every slaughter of millions was long time in planning and was
based on greed and racism of the "master" races vs. "subhumans".
USA corporation, can not and will not survive without WARS.
Complete "economy" is a WAR machine, USA corporations has WEAPONIZED it ALL.
It is nice to dream, even HollyWood supports and promotes it.
Whiskey Rebellion me think was the Birthday of citizen USA and blessed it's associates
with representation by corrupt and greedy anointed by others rushing to become corrupt and
greedy.
Trump has shown himself to be completely unreliable on every important issue; I do not
see why it will be different this time -- his desire for approval from the Establishment is
apparently far stronger than any principles he may hold -- you can see this in practically
everything he does, perhaps most notably in his constant bleating about black and Hispanic
unemployment -- he simply can't be trusted.
On the other hand Trump has not started any new wars (so far). He is also resisting the elite
of Deep State (MIC) and the mdia, probably in his own weird way by making confusing
statements keeping them off balance. No body knows we are all simply speculating. Time will
tell.
@WorkingClass
Not really. The goal all along was not to "take" Syria so much as to destroy it and leave it
in fragments. Mission accomplished! Syria, or at east large swathes of it has been reduced to
rubble, its economy is gutted and its people are scattered to the winds. The US had no goals
there to begin with and has just been acting in the service of its "great friend and ally"
Israel. Your tax dollars at work.
Syria, Iraq, Libya are now less of a threat to Israel than ever before so that is a kind
of peace. Solitudenum facient, pacem appellant said Tacitus. They make desolation and call it
peace.
@Europe
natonalist I agree. Worship of the military is surely modern America's most cringeworthy
and repellent aspect. The war hero is the American equivalent of the medieval saint, and you
can't even blame the Jews for it. It's clearly a whitey thing. Get a few bullets shot at you
by some primitive and soon to be obliterated savages and you can live large on your war
stories for the rest of your comfortably pensioned days. The sad thing is that there are no
wars for the US military to fight these days except those they create themselves.
America, an exceptionally immature, warlike and stupid nation. And they worship Jesus! Who
of course will just laugh when he presses the button and sends them all into the lake of fire
without a second thought.
@Cloak And
Dagger Interesting, I've been mulling over this possibility recently and was thinking
about it earlier as a potential outcome-based upon basic game theory.
What I don't understand is, if there be an alleged discreet hidden super-hand of
power controlled by the Jewish elite, and Trump seemed to be doing their bidding (moving the
Embassy), where are all the "compromising photos" and "Blasey Ford's" for the Warren's and
Biden's of the world? Certainly some damaging (and likely private) material, or "witnesses"
from the past exist, against those who attack Trump? Certainly the Mossad and/or other hidden
forces have such information, that could protect Trump. Here's a guy with a (now) Jewish
daughter and a Jewish son-in-law, doing positive things for Israel and the Jewish elite in
the US/West, and yet, he has been subject to continual attacks, as have those around him, and
now he is facing impeachment?
I don't see Israel getting it any better if Warren is elected (certainly not by her base,
which is turning more toward a BDS worldview). It just makes me think their power is not as
great as conspiracy theorists alleged, or in the alternative (perhaps likely) their "power"
is superseded by an even greater hidden force of elites. If their power is as awesome and
infiltrating as alleged, why isn't he president for life at this point? Using the media,
politics, blackmail, international banking, this guy could usher in Israel as the capital of
the universe, but yet none of that is happening. He is betrayed at every corner and faces
removal from office, disgrace (for actually being the removed, i.e. the other side actually
"winning" against him), and probably the destruction of any chance Ivanka and Jared had of
becoming the first couple, in the future.
So perhaps as you offer, he's going for broke and just doing whatever he wants or wanted
to do in the beginning. Time will tell. Strange times indeed.
@Contraviews
, Contraviews said: "He (Trump) is also resisting the elite of Deep State (MIC) and the mdia,
probably in his own weird way by making confusing statements keeping them off balance."
No! Zionist Jews & Israel are keeping you and almost all of Amerika "off balance."
Refer to Jerusalem Post article (linked below) and you will distinguish "confusing
statements" by Trump from the reality of mandatory ZUS endless ME wars since 9/11.
Everybody should be happy Uncle Sam is getting out of Syria. Look at the disasters the US
created in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. and all the money wasted which could have been
better spent here at home.
Much of what's being said in the MSM has to do with the American narrative that Turkey and
Syria are bad guys for the unspoken reason that they have opposed the zionist enterprise.
What American national interest justified the occupation and dismemberment of Syria? Why
should we support terrorist groups like the PPK against NATO member Turkey? Why should we
ally with al-Qaeda affiliate HTS for israel's benefit?
@anon
Good point about DJT needing to use Twitter to announce his decisions since they'd otherwise
be thwarted or outright ignored going through normal channels. But, how can he actually be
against these wars when they're contrasted with his embarrassing servility toward Israel,
which in actuality is an enemy state responsible for Lavon, Liberty, and 9/11, not to mention
it's theft of our technology that's used against us by Israel's intel tech companies for
profit and communications espionage at the deepest levels of our government? The canard about
other, overriding strategic interests doesn't hold water since the $trillions wasted on these
wars could have secured our economic and military interests a hundredfold through trade and
cultural interaction. As much as I want to trust DJT and would stand with him and the
deplorables at the barricades if necessary, I cannot overcome my repugnance at his support
for Israel, knowing as he now must know that Israel did 9/11.
That's it, I quit. I can't be expected to compete with this.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 9, 2019
His Excellency
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
President of the Republic of Turkey
Ankara
Dear Mr. President:
Let's work out a good deal! You don't want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of
people, and I don't want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy -- and I will.
I've already given you a little sample with respect to Pastor Brunson.
1 have worked hard to solve some of your problems. Don't let the world down. You can make
a great deal. General Mazloum is willing to negotiate with you, and he is willing to make
concessions that they would never have made in the past. I am confidentially enclosing a copy
of his letter to me, just received.
History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It
will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don't happen. Don't be a tough guy.
Don't be a fool!
"... Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor. ..."
"... I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil - they didn't. ..."
"... I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique. ..."
"... And as is the case in developing countries, what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot. ..."
"... How the civil unrest spun out of control the second time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement. ..."
Time to Extricate From Ukraine Kiev has become a drag on Trump, but if we don't watch out, it could turn into a geopolitical
threat to everyone. By Doug Bandow •
October 17, 2019
Recently Ukraine has been thrown into the spotlight as Democrats gear up to impeach President Donald Trump. More important, though,
is its role in damaging America's relations with Russia, which has resulted in a mini-Cold War that the U.S. needs to end.
Ukraine is in a bad neighborhood. During the 17th century, the country was divided between Poland and Russia, and eventually ended
up as part of the Russian Empire. Kiev then enjoyed only the briefest of liberations after the 1917 Russian Revolution, before being
reabsorbed by the Soviet Union. It later suffered from a devastating famine as Moscow confiscated food and collectivized agriculture.
Ukraine was ravaged during Germany's World War II invasion, and guerrilla resistance to renewed Soviet control continued for years
afterwards.
In 1991, the collapse of the U.S.S.R. gave Ukraine another, more enduring chance for independence. However, the new nation's development
was fraught: GDP dropped by 60 percent and corruption burgeoned. Ukraine suffered under a succession of corrupt, self-serving, and
ineffective leaders, as the U.S., Europe, and Russia battled for influence.
In 2014, Washington and European governments backed a street putsch against the elected, though highly corrupt, pro-Russian president,
Viktor Yanukovych. The Putin government responded by annexing Crimea and backing separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine's Donbass region.
Washington and Brussels imposed economic sanctions on Russia and provided military aid to Kiev.
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The West versus Russia quickly became a "frozen" conflict. Moscow reincorporated Crimea into Russia, from which it had been detached
in 1954 as part of internal Soviet politics. In the Donbass, more than a score of ceasefires came and went. Both Ukraine and Russia
failed to fulfill the 2016 Minsk agreements, which sought to end the conflict.
In excess of 13,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, are known to have died in this war, and some two million have been forced from
their homes. The economy of eastern Ukraine has collapsed. Ukraine has suffered through painful economic dislocation and political
division. Meanwhile, several hundred Russians are believed to have been killed fighting in the Donbass. Western sanctions have damaged
Russia's weak economy. And although the majority of Crimeans probably wanted to join Russia, opposition activists and journalists
have been abducted, brutalized, and/or imprisoned. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been closed and Tartars have been persecuted.
The most important geopolitical impact has been to poison Russia's relations with the West. Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine
cannot be justified, but the U.S. and Europe did much to create the underlying suspicion and hostility. Recently declassified documents
reveal the degree to which Western officials misled Moscow about their intention to expand NATO. Allied support for adding Georgia
and Ukraine, which would have greatly expanded Russian vulnerability, generated a particularly strong reaction in Moscow. The dismemberment
of Serbia with no consideration of Russia's interests was another irritant, along with Western support for "color revolutions" elsewhere,
including in Tbilisi. The ouster of Yanukovych finally triggered Putin's brutal response.
Washington and Brussels apparently did not view their policies as threatening to Russia. However, had Moscow ousted an elected
Mexican president friendly to America, while inviting the new government to join the Warsaw Pact, and worked with a coalition of
Central American states to divert Mexican trade from the U.S., officials in Washington would not have been pleased. They certainly
wouldn't have been overly concerned about juridical niceties in responding.
This explains (though does not justify) Russia's hostile response. Subsequent allied policies then turned the breach in relations
into a gulf. The U.S. and European Union imposed a series of economic sanctions. Moreover, Washington edged closer to military confrontation
with its provision of security assistance to Kiev. Moscow responded by challenging America from Syria to Venezuela.
It also began moving towards China. The two nations' differences are many and their relationship is unstable. However, as long
as their antagonism towards Washington exceeds their discomfort with each other, they will cooperate to block what they see as America's
pursuit of global hegemony.
Why is the U.S. entangled in the Ukrainian imbroglio? During the Cold War, Ukraine was one of the fabled "captive nations," backed
by vigorous advocacy from Ukrainian Americans. After the Soviet Union collapsed, they joined other groups lobbying on behalf of ethnic
brethren to speed NATO's expansion eastward. Security policy turned into a matter of ethnic solidarity, to be pursued irrespective
of cost and risk.
To more traditional hawks who are always seeking an enemy, the issue is less pro-Ukraine than anti-Russia. Mitt Romney, the Republican
Party's 2012 presidential nominee, improbably attacked Russia as America's most dangerous adversary. Hence the GOP's counterproductive
determination to bring Kiev into NATO. Originally Washington saw the transatlantic alliance as a means to confront the Soviet menace;
now it views the pact as a form of charity.
After the Soviet collapse, the U.S. pushed NATO eastward into nations that neither mattered strategically nor could be easily
protected, most notably in the Balkans and Baltics. Even worse were Georgia and Ukraine, security black holes that would bring with
them ongoing conflicts with Russia, possibly triggering a larger war between NATO and Moscow.
Ukraine never had been a matter of U.S. security. For most of America's history, the territory was controlled by either the Russian
Empire or the Soviet Union. Washington's Cold War sympathies represented fraternal concerns, not security essentials. Today, without
Kiev's aid, the U.S. and Europe would still have overwhelming conventional forces to be brought into any conflict with Moscow. However,
adding Ukraine to NATO would increase the risk of a confrontation with a nuclear armed power. Russia's limitations when it comes
to its conventional military would make a resort to nuclear weapons more likely in any conflict.
Nevertheless, George W. Bush's aggressively neoconservative administration won backing for Georgian and Ukrainian membership in
NATO and considered intervening militarily in the Russo-Georgian war. However, European nations that feared conflict with Moscow
blocked plans for NATO expansion, which went into cold storage. Although alliance officials still officially backed membership for
Ukraine, it remains unattainable so long as conflict burns hot with Russia.
In the meantime, Washington has treated Ukraine as a de facto military ally, offering economic and security assistance. The U.S.
has provided $1.5 billion for Ukrainian training and weapons, including anti-tank Javelin missiles. Explained Obama administration
defense secretary Ashton Carter: "Ukraine would never be where it is without that support from the United States."
Equally important, the perception of U.S. backing made the Kiev government, headed by President Petro Poroshenko, less willing
to pursue a diplomatic settlement with Russia. Thus did Ukraine, no less than Russia, almost immediately violate the internationally
backed Minsk accord.
Kiev's role as a political football highlights the need for Washington to pursue an enduring political settlement with Russia.
European governments are growing restless; France has taken the lead in seeking better relations with Moscow. Germany is unhappy
with U.S. attempts to block the planned Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has campaigned
to end the conflict.
Negotiators for Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe recently met in Minsk to revive the
agreement previously reached in the Belarus capital. They set an election schedule in the contested east, to be followed by passage
of Ukrainian legislation to grant the region greater autonomy and separatists legal immunity. Despite strong opposition from nationalists,
passage is likely since Zelensky's party holds a solid legislative majority.
Many challenges remain, but the West could aid this process by respecting Russian security concerns. The U.S. and its allies should
formally foreclose Ukraine's membership in the transatlantic alliance and end lethal military aid. After receiving those assurances,
Moscow would be expected to resolve the Donbass conflict, presumably along the lines of Minsk: Ukraine protects local autonomy while
Russia exits the fight. Sanctions against Russia would be lifted. Ukrainians would be left to choose their economic orientation,
since the country would likely be split between east and west for some time to come. The West would accept Russia's control of Crimea
while refusing to formally recognize the conquest -- absent a genuinely independent referendum with independent monitors.
Such a compromise would be controversial. Washington's permanent war lobby would object. Hyper-nationalistic Ukrainians would
double down on calling Zelensky a traitor. Eastern Europeans would complain about appeasing Russia. However, such a compromise would
certainly be better than endless conflict.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author
of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
I credit Mr. Bandow for his largely fair and accurate description of the events in Ukraine of five years ago, and for his ultimate
policy proposal for the US to extricate itself from its close involvement in the area. However, I'm a little confused by what
exactly the author means by "Moscow's aggressions against Ukraine" and "Putin's brutal response" (aside from the treatment
of dissidents and journalists as he specifically mentioned) to the Maidan Revolution.
Was it aggressive and brutal for Russia to support separatists in the Donbass who were facing the prospect of legal discrimination
and violence by a criminal, neo-fascist government in Kiev, not to mention de-industrialization, the gutting of the agriculture
sector and the forced economic migration of an enormous number of its young workers (assuming that Ukraine's economic deal
with the EU followed the script of every other Easter European's country's deal with the EU)? If Yanukovych had fled to the
Donbass and proclaimed himself still the freely elected (though certainly corrupt) President of the nation, Russia's support
for the region would have even had a shiny brass legal fig leaf, wouldn't it?
As for the supposed "conquest" of Crimea, that's a rather strong word to use considering that all of two members of the
Ukrainian military were killed, and 60-80 of them detained, while 15,000 defected to Russia. Compared to the violence in Kiev
and Odessa, what happened in Crimea almost qualifies as a bloodless coup. But then Mr. Bandow shies away from using the word
"hegemony" to describe the foreign policy of the United States, figuratively putting the word in the mouths of those bad men
(which they are) in Moscow and Beijing. It's a pity that Mr. Bandow felt the need to make linguistic concessions to the foreign
policy establishment in what was otherwise a useful and balanced piece.
Even though the overall idea of ending the sponsoring of the conflict by Washington is plausible there are a number of shortcomings
in the article to put it mildly. I realize though that the author has to make Washington look innocent and Russia look bad
to escape the danger of being stigmatized as a pro-Russian traitor.
I understand why you want to thread the needle. After the invasions, having to add more failure or at the very least recognition
of dysfunction to our foreign policy choices and consequences is a bitter pill. But as you note had the US and the EU seriously
had the desire to add the Ukraine into the western European sphere of influence, they could have offered a better deal on oil
- they didn't.
I think we have got to stop accusing the then existing government of corruption. As your own article states, the history
of unstable governance with accompanying "corruption" seems a staple and nonunique.
And as is the case in developing countries,
what we call corruption is a cultural staple of how business and affairs are conducted. Whatever the issues, the Ukrainian
public was not overly beset by the results so as to spontaneously riot.
How the civil unrest spun out of control the second
time in ten years, can be linked directly to US and EU involvement.
It is a deeply held belief that democracy is a system that by definition a generally acceptable path forward. That belief
is false as democracy is still comprised of human beings. And democracy in their hands is no "cure all". It can be a turbulent
and jerky bureaucratic maze process that pleases no one and works over time.
The US didn't accomplish it without violence until after more than 130 years, when the native populations were finally subdued.
And as for a system that embodied equal treatment to similar circumstance -- we are still at it. But a violent revolution every
ten years certainly isn't the most effective road to take.
-----------------
Why we insistent on restarting the cold war is unclear to me save that it served to create a kind of strategic global clarity
Though what that means would troublesome because Russia's ole would now be as a developing democratic state as opposed to a
communist monolith. And that means unfettered from her satellites and empowered by more capital markets her role as adversary
would be more adroit. As time after time, Ores Putin has appeared the premier diplomat for peace and stability in situations
in which the US was engaged or encouraging violence.(the Ukraine). I certainly don't think that our relations with Russia or
China are a to be kumbaya love fests, there is still global competition and there's no reason to pretend it would be without
tensions. But seriously, as a democratic/capital market player -- there really was no way to contain Russia.
----------------------
Given what we experienced during 2007 --- corruption comes in a mryiad of guises.
The Ukraine situation is complex to be certain, but ending military aid and letting Russia clean up seems like a bad idea.
This week we saw Russian forces occupy US bases abandoned when Trump ordered our troops to withdraw from the Turkish border.
And now the author is arguing we should do something similar in the Ukraine.
When did Russian appeasement become so important to conservative foreign policy?
Mate, Russians were in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. US troops are there illegally (no Congress mandate,
no international mandate, no invitation). US is an occupying, destabilizing, terrorist protecting force in Syria and Americans
should look beyond their self esteem before commenting on this "shameful" retreat. US does not have the right to put its troops
wherever it fancies.
This win or loose mentality will be the death of you. Who do you think is threatening the US, when it has the biggest moats
protecting its shores? The only thing that is happening is that the hegemonic role, that of controlling everyone's economy
for its own elites benefit is being denied.
This is what you are complaining mate, the the rich Americans cannot get richer? Do you think they will share with you,
or that, like the good English boys of the past, you will not be able to land a job with East India Co. and despoil the natives
for a while?
If the US were smart then they would lead some sort of negotiation where eastern Europe and Ukraine and Russia were allowed
only mutually agreed defensive weapons systems. A demilitarization of say 200 miles on each side of the Russia border. The
strategy should be to encourage trade between Eastern Europe and Russia where Russia has influence but is not threatening.
It may be slow to build that trust but the real question is whether the US and Europe and NATO want peace with Russia or whether
they are using fear of Russia to keep eastern Europe united with the US and Europe. This may be the case but the future will
have China as a greater threat than Russia (China will even be a threat to Russia). Any shift in Russian relations will take
decades of building trust on both sides.
Good article and excellent history of facts. If I recall during the last Bush administration W hosted a Putin and his then
spouse, at a visit at his ranch. Putin informed W," the Ukraine belongs to Russia. end of sentence.
The author forgot the critical role of Sevastopol in the Crimea. It is Russia's only warm water port and there was no way that
it was going to allow this area to become a NATO naval base. Secretary of State Clinton and her sidekick for Ukraine, Victoria
Nuland should have known this before they started supporting the overthrow of the pro-Russia government in Kiev.
If you look at a historical atlas, you won't find an independent country called Ukraine before 1991. When my parents were
born, near what is now called Lviv, the area was called Galicia and Lemberg was its provincial capital. A gold medal issued
in 1916 in honor of Franz Josef's 85th birthday noted that he was the Kaiser of Austria, Hungary, Galicia and Lodomeria.
When the old Soviet Union agreed to allow East and West Germany to reunify, it was with the understanding that NATO would
not extend membership to former Soviet block countries and that there would be no NATO bases in these areas either. NATO and
the US broke their oral commitment to Russia a few years later.
The US should get out of the business of trying to spread democracy in third world countries and interfering in the affairs
of foreign governments. We can't afford to be the policeman of the world. We don't even have the ability to make many of our
own central cities safe for Americans. Think Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, all four of which appear on Wikipedia's
list of the 50 murder capitals of the world (per thousand population).
"... "I'm getting us out of unnecessary foreign wars"......by appointmentIng the most pro-Israel, rabid Yosemite Sam lookalike warmonger ever! Makes perfect sense. 4D chess at its finest. Nobody is asking for perfection, but John ******* Bolton? The guy who was part of Project for a New American Century, John Bolton?.... the same guy who is buddies with all Bushites responsible for Iraq part one, part two and Afghanistan? **** me thats dumb. ..."
Message to Don: Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. See what you get for playing nice
with neocon deep state shitbags like Bolton. Stop draining the swamp into your
administration.
I await the "trust the plan" and "keep your enemies closer" comments.
"I'm getting us out of unnecessary foreign wars"......by appointmentIng the most
pro-Israel, rabid Yosemite Sam lookalike warmonger ever! Makes perfect sense. 4D chess at its
finest. Nobody is asking for perfection, but John ******* Bolton? The guy who was part of
Project for a New American Century, John Bolton?.... the same guy who is buddies with all
Bushites responsible for Iraq part one, part two and Afghanistan? **** me thats dumb.
And how many wars has he gotten us into? And how many times has he been attacked for even
suggesting getting us out of wars?
Never-Trumpers want to pretend that Trump is a failure because he is NOT a dictator, which
only PROVES they are not conservative, as conservatives recoil at the thought of a
dictatorial unconstitutional monarchy.
Trump is fighting fort his life in this ******* swamp, a swamp we can see and smell from
our own living rooms. Only the retarded and ******* LIARS would attempt to condemn him for
not doing more. Retards who have done NOTHING more with their lives than BITCH about other's
failures.
Again, why did he hire him in the first place? WHY? Bolton is a VERY well known commodity.
You can keep making excuses for Trump all you want, but there's a pattern emerging here where
he hires horrible people, then tries to act like he's surprised when they **** him over.
To satiate those who demand war. Trump is in the ******* SWAMP. They are trying to impeach
him AGAIN. Do you really think he can do everything as hew wishes...especially when easily
half the republicans would throw him to the wolves tomorrow if there was self preservation or
gain in it for them?
Democrats don't want to know as it could impede their agenda, the ends fully justifying
the means.
Republicans don't want to know as they fear being tarred by the progressive assassin
media, their futures put at risk.
Ultimately Trump will be thrown to the wolves the moment republicans perceive him weak.
Thieves, assassins and cowards. Hell of group we have "leading" us.
The difference IS that Obama fulfilled his every banker's dream, whereas Bolton left
defeated, and now he and every other rat out there is gunning for Trump for ******* up their
dreams of eternal war.
Yes brilliant 4d move to invite the fox into the hen house. The real brilliant move
would've been to tear up his resume when came across his desk so he couldn't cause any
mischief. I get it though.... The diehard Trump people refuse except reality. It was
dumb....full stop.
Look at what they have done to virtually every true conservative Trump has nominated to
any position. They have destroyed every single one. Trump, given his choices, has put certain
people into the light for all to see exactly WHO they are. Trump is simply the most
illuminating president in history, exciting those around him to glow, to feel empowered and
allowed to show themselves without fear of consequence or accountability.
Progressives are conflicted horribly as they have always known that their true intents
were best left in secret, but with Trump, they simply cannot help themselves.
Simply LOOK at the 2020 democratic lineup. Who could have imagined just a few short years
ago that democrats would be finally coming out of the closet?
Bolton Opposed Ukraine Investigations; Called Giuliani "A Hand Grenade" by
Tyler Durden Tue, 10/15/2019 - 12:25 0 SHARES
Former national security adviser John Bolton was 'so alarmed' by efforts to encourage Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and 2016
election meddling that he told an aide, Fiona Hill, to alert White House lawyers, according to the
New York Times
.
When Hill confronted Sondland, he told her that he was 'in charge' of Ukraine, "a moment she compared to Secretary of State Alexander
M. Haig Jr.'s declaration that he was in charge after the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt, according to those who heard the testimony,"
according to the Times.
Hill says she asked Sondland on whose authority he was in charge of Ukraine, to which he replied 'the president.' She would later
leave her post shortly before a July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president which is currently at the heart of an impeachment inquiry.
Meanwhile, the Times also notes that "House Democrats widened their net in the fast-paced inquiry by summoning Michael McKinley,
a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who abruptly resigned last week, to testify Wednesday."
Career diplomats have expressed outrage at the unceremonious
removal of Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch from Ukraine after she came under attack by Mr. Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and
two associates who have since been arrested on charges of campaign violations.
Three other Trump admin officials are scheduled to speak with House investigators this week, including Sondland - who is now set
to appear on Thursday. On Tuesday, deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent will testify, while on Friday, Laura K. Cooper
- a a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia policy, will speak with lawmakers as well.
Looks like we have our whistleblower. My only question is, how does one whistle with such a bristly moustache draping their
hairlip?
So now we have Mr. Neocon and Mr. Liddle Kidz conjugating as the strangest of bedfellows? How will this play to their respective
bases? Are we to assume these people think this nations top law enforcement agent (POTUS) is to abdicate his duties therewith
just because the criminal is (at least according to our two tiered justice system) supposed to be beyond reproach?
Mr. Bolton, bright and determined as he is, has hitched his wagon to mad mare galloping full tilt over a precipice.
Looking for a return of uranium one to the headlines soon. In due time we will stich this Russia/Ukraine narrative back together
from a patchwork of facts. You traitors are fucked...royally fucked...and you know it.
So, Mr bolton, explain to us in simple terms how you appraise America's security and her related interests. Your camp is in
eclipse.
John Bolton:
"I was appauled...just flabbergasted...that the president was concerned that our intelligence apparatus was politicized to
the extent that its highest echelons were arrayed in an attempt to subvert a lawful and legitimate election. Never mind that six
other nations were tasked with abetting this treasonous plot...this is an outrage!!! The whole point of intelligence agencies
is to skirt the law with impunity, and once we (the unelected permanent breacracy) tell one of our minions like Biden or Hillary
that they're permanently immune from prosecution, we can't have some earnest pact of Patriots running around demanding law and
order."
What a sorry bunch of cretians.
We were so close...so close...to losing it all. But since the enemy is making clear we're playing zero sum, we're going to
end up with everything.
Brace yourself, California. If I were you, I'd study the legal framework of Reconstruction. Your plight will be of a kind.
Your state has been engaged in a systematic attempt to overthrow the government. Your leaders will be appointed for a generation
after this all comes out. Don't look to Beijing to save you...they kinda have their hands full.
So, I guess Bolton is no longer collecting free money like Hunter Biden was. I get it now how all these politicians have kids
overseas and open foreign corporations which our tax money goes in to by way of cutting deals overseas public officials to line
their pockets with our money. This how they get into government poor and become very rich! Giuliani is pointing this fact out
to the public with Trump and the swamp HATES IT!
The public now knows how these corrupt PUBLIC OFFICIALS in America have been fleecing the tax payers. This is a major hit on
the swamp.
Trump & Giuliani we're behind you thank you for showing us how the swamp has been ******* us for all these years.
Understand that the reason Schitt head won't allow public hearings is because the former Ambassador to Ukraine--Volker, shot
this whole **** fest down when he testified. There is no "there" there.
Bolton and the others are crying because of Trump's pull out. The left jumped on the war bandwagon under Billary a long time
ago. Necons work both parties.
If Bolton dislikes Guiliani that's the best endorsement of Rudy I can imagine. Bolton is a complete warmongering traitor who,
like McShitstain, desires a nice case of brain cancer.
Go Rudy, expose the corrupt Demonrats! We deplorables love human hand grenades. That's why we elected the Donald, and you apparently
are the perfect lawyer for our great God emperor.
"Schiff simply does not have the gravitas that a weighty procedure such as impeachment requires," Biggs wrote in an opinion
piece for Fox News. "He has repeatedly shown incredibly poor judgment. He has persistently and consistently demonstrated that
he has such a tremendous bias and animus against Trump that he will say anything and accept any proffer of even bogus evidence
to try to remove the president from office."
Both EuroMaydan cope d'état and the civil war in Ukraine was unleashed with the help and encouragement from Washington, DC
because it suits geopolitical goals of the USA in the region.
Notable quotes:
"... As the furor over "Ukrainegate" continues, Biden and his allies are soldiering ahead, insisting that scrutiny of his activities in Ukraine constitute nothing more than a vast right-wing conspiracy. ..."
"... So the Russiagate claims against Russia were generated by cold warriors to justify a warmer war against Russia. Poor Hunter was caught in the graft that surrounds the US's relationship with Ukraine. ..."
"... Burisma has been described at Moon Of Alabama as a money-laundering entity. ..."
"... I suspect that these NGO non-profits such as the Atlantic Council are simply fronts for the U.S. intelligence community. ..."
"... The "King of Orange" is still publicly boring holes in the hull of the Ship of State and nothing happens except Dims and Repugs claim some honor in joining to condemn a foreign EU allied country for doing what "The King of Orange" approved that he do. ..."
"... The whole Ukraine story is an enormous blunder for the West . not only did it give Russia the opportunity to reclaim Crimea but the West now also has to finance a corrupt, unstable and bankrupt country. Not funny ! ..."
"... Excellent research. The deep state is indeed international and takes care of its own. Christopher Hunter, who, after Trump's election, resigned from the DOJ, then ran unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for Congress, was then parachuted into the Atlantic Council as senior fellow. He then proceeded to provide expert advice to Al Jazeera about why Trump should be impeached. So you now have the US State Department paying $1 million tax dollars to the Atlantic Council, at least one member of which is using his "expertise" to impeach President Trump. ..."
"... Dmitri Alperovitch, Hillary's own Russian Head of Crowdstrike and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, went to great lengths to prove that RUSSIANS!!! had hacked into Ukrainian artillery, and claimed the same methodology was used to prove that RUSSIANS!!! had hacked into the DNC ..."
"... These were Crowdstrike's bonafides (and thus no reason to look closely at the DNC servers). Of course, it later turned out that the Russians had NOT hacked Ukrainian artillery, Crowdstrike had lied, and hacking of the DNC was more likely initially done by Crowdstrike/ New Knowledge and the Atlantic Council, not the Russians. ..."
"... Think tanks should be responsible, with jail times and fines, for the discord they sow. ..."
"... The UK seizure of the 23mil was not accidental, i expect the US had all the banks of Europe watching this guys asset for this leverage. So they freeze his money, open a criminal investigation and put him on a wanted list. ..."
"... Just a couple weeks later Biden joins the board. This was a State Dept/CIA play. ..."
"... They went to Zlochevsky or the oligarch behind him and presented them with the only way out of ruin. Several months later, UK unfreezes 23mil and closes the case. USAID comes calling on Burisma, Atlantic Council attaches themselves. This was a well planned takeover and Biden was a beneficiary, but doing the bidding of the hidden hands. ..."
W ith its relentless focus on corruption in Russia and Ukraine, the Atlantic Council has
distinguished itself from other top-flight think tanks in Washington. Over the past several
years, it has held innumerable conferences and panel discussions, issued a string of reports,
and published literally hundreds of essays on Russia's "kleptocracy" and the scourge of Kremlin
disinformation.
At the same time, this institution has posed as a faithful partner to Ukraine's imperiled
democracy, organizing countless programs on the urgency of economic reforms to tamp down on
corruption in the country.
But behind the curtain, the Atlantic Council has initiated a lucrative relationship with a
corruption-tainted Ukrainian gas company, the Burisma Group, that is worth as much as $250,000
a year. The partnership has paid for lavish conferences in Monaco and helped bring Burisma's
oligarchic founder out of the cold.
This alliance has remained stable even as official Washington goes to war over allegations
by President Donald Trump and his allies that former Vice President Joseph Biden fired a
Ukrainian prosecutor to defend his son's handsomely compensated position on Burisma's
board.
As Biden parries Trump's accusations, some of the former vice president's most ardent
defenders are emerging from the halls of the Atlantic Council, which featured Biden as a star
speaker at its awards ceremonies over the years. These advocates include
Michael Carpenter , Biden's longtime foreign policy advisor and specialist on Ukraine, who
has taken to the national media to support his embattled boss.
Even as Burisma's trail of influence-buying finds its way into front page headlines, the
Atlantic Council's partnership with the company is scarcely mentioned. Homing in on the
partisan theater of "Ukrainegate" and tuning out the wider landscape of corruption, the Beltway
press routinely runs quotes from Atlantic Council experts on the scandal without acknowledging
their employer's relationship with Hunter Biden's former employer.
This case of obvious cronyism has not been overlooked because the Atlantic Council is a bit
player, but because of its success in leveraging millions from foreign governments, the arms
and energy industries, and Western-friendly oligarchs to bring its influence to bear in the
nation's capital.
Biden has been among the think tank's most enthusiastic and well-placed allies.
In 2011, then-Vice President Biden delivered the keynote address at the Atlantic Council's
distinguished leadership awards. He returned to the think tank again in 2014 for another
keynote at its "Toward A Europe Whole
and Free" conference, which was dedicated to expanding NATO's influence and countering
"Russian aggression." Throughout the event, speakers like Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S.
national security adviser, sniped at President Barack Obama for his insufficiently bellicose
posture toward Russia, while former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright fretted over polls
showing low public support for U.S. interventionism overseas.
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In his
own comments , Biden emphasized the need to power Europe with non-Russian sources of
natural gas. This provided a prime opportunity to Ukrainian suppliers like Burisma and U.S.
energy titans. Many of these energy companies, from Chevron to Noble Energy, also happen to be
top
donors to the Atlantic Council.
"This would be a game-changer for Europe, in my view, and we're ready to do everything in
our power to help it happen," Biden promised his audience.
Joe Biden, second from right, while U.S. vice president, at 2011 Atlantic Council
distinguished leadership awards ceremony.
At the time, the Atlantic Council was pushing to ramp up the proxy war against pro-Russian
forces in Ukraine. In 2015, for instance, the think tank helped prepare a
proposal for arming the Ukrainian military with offensive weaponry like Javelin anti-tank
missiles.
Given that the Atlantic Council has been funded by the two manufacturers of the Javelin
system, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, this created at least the appearance of a conflict of
interest. In fact, the think tank
presented its Distinguished Business Leadership Award to Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson that
same year.
Dubious arrangements like these are not limited to arms manufacturers. Anders Aslund, a
neoliberal economist who helps oversee the Atlantic Council's programming on Russia and Eastern
Europe, was
quietly paid by a consortium of Latvian banks to write an October 2017 paper highlighting
the supposed progress they had made in battling corruption.
Aslund was asked to write the piece by Sally Painter, a longtime lobbyist for Latvian
financial institutions who was appointed to the Atlantic Council board in 2017. At the time,
one of those banks was seeking access to the U.S. market and facing allegations that it had
engaged in money laundering.
Pay-for-play collaborations have helped grow the Atlantic Council's annual revenue from $2
million to over $20 million in the past decade. In almost every case, the think tank has
churned out policy prescriptions that seem suited to its donors' interests.
Government contributors
to the Atlantic Council include Gulf monarchies, the U.S. State Department and various Turkish
interests.
... ... ...
Among the think tank's top individual contributors is Victor Pinchuk, one of the wealthiest
people in Ukraine and a prolific donor to the Clinton Foundation. Pinchuk donated
$8.6 million to the Clintons' non-profit throughout Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of
state.
Asked if Pinchuk was lobbying the State Department on Ukraine, his personal foundation told
The Wall Street Journal , "this cannot be seen as anything but a good thing."
Obama's 'Point Person' on Ukraine
In mainstream media reports about the Bidens, scarcely any attention is given to the
critical role that Joe Biden and other Obama administration officials played in the 2013-2014
Maidan revolt that replaced a fairly elected ,
Russian-oriented government with a Western vassal. In a relatively sympathetic New Yorker profile of Hunter Biden, for example, the regime change operation was
described by reporter Adam Entous as merely "public protests."
During the height of the "Revolution of Dignity" that played out in Kiev's Maidan Square,
then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland boasted that the U.S. had "invested $5 billion" since 1991 into
Ukrainian civil society. On a December 2013 tour of the Maidan, Nuland personally handed
out cookies to protesters alongside Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the
time.
In a phone
conversation that leaked two months later, the two U.S. diplomats could be heard plotting
out the future government of the country, discussing Ukrainian politicians as though they were
chess pieces. "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience," Nuland said,
essentially declaring Arseniy Yatsenyuk the next prime minister. Frustrated with the European
Union's reluctance to inflame tensions with Moscow, Nuland exclaimed, "Fuck the EU."
By February 2014, the Maidan revolt had succeeded in overthrowing President Viktor
Yanukovich with the help of far-right ultra-nationalist street muscle. With a new,
U.S.-approved government in power, Biden assumed a personal role in dictating Ukraine's
day-to-day affairs.
"No one in the U.S. government has wielded more influence over Ukraine than Vice President
Joe Biden," Foreign Policy
noted . The Atlantic Council also
described Biden as "the point person on Ukraine in the Obama administration."
"Ukraine was the top, or one of the top three, foreign policy issues we were concentrating
on," said
Carpenter, Biden's foreign policy adviser. "[Biden] was front and center."
Biden made his first visit to the post-Maidan government of Ukraine in April 2014, just
as Kiev was launching its "anti-terrorist operation" against separatists who broke off from the
new, NATO-oriented Ukraine and its nationalist government and formed so-called people's
republics in the Russophone Donbass region. The fragmentation of the country and its grinding
proxy war flowed directly from the regime-change operation that Biden helped oversee.
Addressing the parliament in Kiev, Biden
declared that "corruption can have no place in the new Ukraine," stating that the "United
States has also been a driving force behind the IMF, working to provide a multi-billion package
to help Ukraine."
That same month, Hunter Biden was appointed to the board of Burisma. Hunter Biden starred at
one of Burisma's energy conferences in Monaco, which are today sponsored by the Atlantic
Council.
Burisma Recruits Hunter Biden
The ouster of Yanukovych put the founder and president of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, in a
delicate spot. Zlochevsky had served as the environment minister under Yanukovych, handing out
gas licenses to cronies. Having watched the president flee Ukraine for his life, currying favor
with the Obama administration was paramount for Zlochevsky.
He was also desperate to get out of legal trouble. At the time, a corruption investigation
in the U.K. had resulted in the freezing of $23 million of Zlochevsky's assets. Then, in August
2014, the oligarch was forced
to follow Yanukovych into exile after being accused of illegally enriching himself.
The need to refurbish Burisma's tattered image, as well as his own, prompted Zlochevsky to
resort to a tried and true tactic for shadowy foreign entities: forking over large sums of
money to win friends in Washington. Hunter Biden and the Atlantic Council were soon to become
two of his best friends.
Hunter Biden was no stranger to trading on his father's name for influence. He had served on
the board of Amtrak, the train line his father famously rode
more than 8,000 times, earning himself the nickname "Amtrak Joe." Somehow, he also rose to
senior vice president at MBNA, the bank that was the top contributor to Joe Biden's
Senate campaigns.
Moreover, the vice president's son reaped a board position at the
National Democratic Institute, a U.S.-funded "democracy promotion" organization that was
heavily involved in pushing regime change in Ukraine. And then there was Burisma, which handed
him a position on its board despite his total lack of experience in the energy industry and in
Ukrainian affairs.
Hunter Biden tried to repay the $50,000-a-month gig Zlochevsky had handed him by enlisting a
top D.C. law firm, Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, where he served as co-counsel, to
help "improve [Burisma's] corporate governance." By the following January, Zlochevsky's
assets were
unfrozen by the U.K.
Back in Washington, the arrangement between the son of the vice president and a less than
scrupulous Ukrainian oligarch was raising eyebrows. During a May 13, 2014, press conference,
Matt Lee of the Associated Press
grilled State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki about Hunter Biden's role on Burisma's
board.
"Does this building diplomatically have any concerns about potential perceptions of conflict
or cronyism – which is what you've often accused the Russians of doing?" Lee asked
Psaki.
"No, he's a private citizen," Psaki responded, referring to Hunter Biden.
In a December 2015 op-ed, the editorial board of The New York Timestook
both Bidens to task for the unseemly business arrangement: "It should be plain to Hunter
Biden that any connection with a Ukrainian oligarch damages his father's efforts to help
Ukraine. This is not a board he should be sitting on."
For a paper that had firmly supported the installation of a U.S.-aligned government in Kiev,
this was a striking statement.
Hunter Biden maintained that he had only a brief conversation with his father about his work
at Burisma. "Dad said, 'I hope you know what you are doing,' and I said, 'I do,'" Hunter
recalled to The New Yorker .
Despite his constant focus on Ukraine, the elder Biden claimed this September that he never
spoke to his son about his business dealings in the country.
Disaster for Ukrainians, Boon for the Bidens
On Jan. 12, 2017, the criminal probes of Zlochevsky and Burisma were officially closed under
the watch of a new Ukrainian prosecutor.
Less than a week later, Biden returned to Ukraine to make his
final speech as vice president. By this point, three years after the Maidan uprising
overthrew Yanukovych, it was clear that the national project the vice president personally had
presided over was a calamitous failure.
As even the Atlantic Council's Aslund was willing to admit
, Ukraine had become the poorest country in Europe. The country had also become the
top recipient of remittances in Europe, with a staggering percentage of its population
migrating abroad in search of work.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International stated : "Ukraine is
descending into chaos of uncontrolled use of force by radical [far-right] groups. Under these
conditions, no person in Ukraine may feel safe." As the country's proxy conflict with
pro-Russian separatists dragged on, it
transformed into a supermarket for the international arms trade.
Meanwhile, Biden's son Hunter was making a small fortune by simply warming a seat on
Burisma's board of directors.
During his 2017
press conference in Kiev, Biden seemed oblivious to the trends that were driving Ukraine
into ruin. He encouraged Ukraine's leadership to continue on an IMF-led path of privatization
and austerity.
He then urged Kiev to "press forward with energy reforms that are eliminating Ukraine's
dependence on Russian gas," once again advancing policy that would serve as a boon to the
energy firms plowing their cash into the Atlantic Council.
Mykola Zlochevsky, former employer of Hunter Biden and current partner of the Atlantic
Council.
Burisma Recruits the Atlantic Council
Even with Hunter Biden on his company's board, Zlochevsky was still seeking influential
allies in Washington. He found them at the Atlantic Council in 2017, literally hours after he
was cleared of corruption charges in Ukraine.
On Jan. 19, 2017 -- just two days after the investigation of Zlochevsky ended -- Burisma
announced a major "cooperative agreement" with the Atlantic Council. "It became possible to
sign a cooperative agreement between Burisma and the Atlantic Council after all charges against
Burisma Group companies and its owner [Mykola] Zlochevskyi were withdrawn," the
Kyiv Post reported at the time.
The deal was inked by the director of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia program, a former U.S.
ambassador to Ukraine named John Herbst.
Since then, Burisma helped bankroll Atlantic Council programming, including an
energy security conference held this May in Monaco, where Zlochevsky currently lives.
"[Zlochevsky] invited them purely for whitewashing purposes, to put them on the
façade and make this company look nice," Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of Ukraine's
Anti-Corruption Action Center, said of the Monaco event to The Financial Times .
At one such conference in Monaco, then-Burisma board member Hunter Biden declared, "One of
the reasons that I am proud to be a member of the board at Burisma is that I believe we are
trying to figure out the way to create a radical change in the way we look at energy." (Hunter
Biden left Burisma with $850,000 in earnings when his father launched his presidential campaign
this year).
While the Atlantic Council was bringing Burisma in from the cold, the company was still too
toxic for much of the business world to touch.
As The Financial Timesnoted ,
the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine had rejected Burisma's application for membership.
"We've never worked with them for integrity reasons. Never passed our due diligence," a Western
financial institution told the newspaper.
"The company just does not pass the smell test," a businessman in Ukraine told The
Financial Times . "Their reputation is far from squeaky clean because of their baggage, the
background and attempts to whitewash by bringing in recognizable Western names on to the
board."
In fact, a year before the Atlantic Council initiated its partnership with Burisma, the
think tank published a
paper describing Zlochevsky as "openly on the take" and deriding board members Hunter Biden
and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski as his "trophy foreigners." (Kwasniewski is
today a member of the
Atlantic Council's international advisory board).
For Herbst, however, Burisma's generosity seemed too hard to resist.
"If there are companies that want to support my work, if those companies are not doing
anything that I know to be illegal or unethical, I'll consider their support," Herbst stated in
reply to questions about the Burisma partnership from the Ukrainian news site,
Hromadske .
"They've been good partners," he added.
Men of Integrity
The Atlantic Council has provided more than just a web of influence for figures like Biden
and Zlochevsky. It extended into the Trump administration, through a former employee who served
as the president's lead envoy to Ukraine.
On the sidelines of a September 2018 Atlantic Council event in New York City, Burisma
adviser Vadym Pozharskyi held a
meeting with Kurt Volker, then the State Department's special liaison to Ukraine. A
former senior adviser to the Atlantic Council and national security hardliner, Volker had
earned praise from Biden as a "solid guy."
At the time, Volker also served as the executive director of the McCain Institute, named for
the senator, John McCain, who authored the congressional provision requiring the U.S. to budget
20 percent of all aid to Ukraine for offensive weapons. As I
reported in 2017, the McCain Institute's financial backers included the BGR group, whose
designated lobbyist, Ed Rogers, was a lobbyist for Raytheon – the company that produced
the Javelin missiles that both Volker and the Atlantic Council wanted sold to Ukraine.
Following his abrupt resignation this September, Volker was called to testify before the
House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on the so-called Ukrainegate affair.
There, he
defended Biden as "a man of integrity and dedication to our country" who would never be
"influenced in his duties as Vice President by money for his son "
Key Biden Adviser Joins Atlantic Council
Throughout Biden's tenure as the "point person" on Ukraine, one figure was constantly by his
side: Michael Carpenter, a former Pentagon specialist on Eastern Europe who became a key
adviser to Biden on the National Security Council. When Carpenter
traveled with Biden to Ukraine in 2015, he helped
provide the vice president with talking points throughout his trip.
Once Trump was inaugurated, Carpenter followed fellow members of the Democratic foreign
policy apparatus into the think tank world. He accepted a fellowship at the Atlantic
Council, and assumed a position as senior director of newly founded Penn Biden Center for
Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which
provided office space to Biden when he was in Washington.
At the Jan. 23, 2018 Council on Foreign Relations event where Biden made his now-notorious
comments about threatening the Ukrainian government with the withdrawal of a one billion dollar
loan if it did not fire Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin – "well son of a
bitch, he got fired!" Biden
exclaimed – Carpenter was by his side, rattling off tough talking points about
Russian interference. [Shokin testified under oath that Biden had him fired
because he was investigating Burisma.]
Since then, Carpenter has remained engaged in Ukrainian politics, throwing his weight behind
some of the country's most hardline elements. In July 2018, for instance, he helped welcome
Andriy Parubiy , the speaker of the Rada (the Ukrainian parliament), to a series of
meetings on Capitol Hill.
Parubiy is the founder of the Social-National Party, which The Washington Post's
Eugene Robinson
described as "openly neo-fascist." In fact, Parubiy appeared in a Nazi-style uniform,
packing a pistol beneath a Wolfsangel symbol on the cover of his Mein Kampf-style memoir, "A
View From The Right."
After the Senate meeting with Parubiy, I challenged Carpenter over bringing the far-right
politician to Capitol Hill. "Andriy Parubiy is a conservative nationalist who is also a patriot
who cares about his country," Carpenter told me. "I don't think he has any neo-Nazi
inclinations, nor background." He went on to dismiss the basis of my question as "mostly
Russian propaganda."
Months later, Carpenter staged a meltdown on Twitter over the incident, fabricating quotes by
me, branding me as a "sleeze"
[sic] and "pro-Asad and pro-Putin scumbag," while falsely and baselessly claiming I "enlist[ed]
RT," the Russian-backed news network, "to do an exposé on him."
Asked by The Grayzone about Carpenter's work for a think tank funded by Burisma while
simultaneously involving himself in Biden's political machine, Atlantic Council media relations
deputy director Alex Kisling stated, "Council staff and fellows are free to participate in
election activity as individuals and on their own time, provided they do so in a way that could
not be seen as acting as a representative of the Council or implying Council endorsement of
their activity or views. Michael's affiliations and previous service are on our website. (He is
not part of our full time staff)."
The Penn Biden Center did not respond to a question on whether it supported Carpenter's work
at the Burisma-backed Atlantic Council.
As the scrutiny of Biden's dealings in Ukraine intensifies, Carpenter has thrust himself
into the media limelight to defend his longtime boss.
In an Oct. 7 Washington Post
op-ed denouncing Trump's "smear campaign" against Biden, Carpenter insisted that Biden had
gone to great lengths to remove the Ukrainian prosecutor, Shokin, for his failure to take
action against Burisma. That evening, Carpenter
took to Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC to reinforce the message that Biden moved against
"corrupt players" in Ukraine, presumably referring to Burisma.
At no point did he mention that Burisma was funding the think tank that hosted him as a
senior fellow.
In publishing an
"explainer" purporting to debunk the charges against Biden, the Atlantic Council also
failed to mention its ongoing relationship with Burisma. Atlantic Council media relations
deputy director Kisling dismissed the non-disclosure, telling The Grayzone , "The
Council discloses its funding from Burisma on its website and whenever asked." (Ironically, the
Atlantic Council has
pushed for greater transparency in political advertising on Facebook, one of the top donors
to the think tank).
Perhaps the most absurd omission took place in a
GQ article about Ukrainegate by reporter and Russia-watcher Julia Ioffe. In painting
Ukraine -- the largest nation entirely located in Europe -- as a "small country" drowning in
corruption, Ioffe noted, "the best way to launder one's shady reputation and shine for
international investors is to hire big-name Western consultants – as Burisma did."
In the very next paragraph, Ioffe quoted Daniel Fried, a former State Department official
now serving as a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "It's a country where there's a lot of
freelance money and a lot of competing interests," Fried remarked.
Revealingly, Ioffe failed to acknowledge that Fried was one of those "big-named Western
consultants" helping to launder Zlochevsky and Burisma's "shady reputation" through the
Atlantic Council.
In fact, Fried was
photographed in a one-on-one meeting with Burisma advisor Vadim Pozharskyi at a September
2018 Atlantic Council conference in New York City.
As the furor over "Ukrainegate" continues, Biden and his allies are soldiering ahead,
insisting that scrutiny of his activities in Ukraine constitute nothing more than a vast
right-wing conspiracy.
Meanwhile, the Beltway press shrugs at Burisma's buying of influence at a powerful think
tank intertwined with Biden's political operation.
Russia might be a "kleptocracy" and Ukraine might endemically corrupt, but in Washington,
this is all business as usual.
Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling
" Republican
Gomorrah ," " Goliath ," "
The
Fifty One Day War " and " The Management of
Savagery ." He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many
video reports and several documentaries including " Killing Gaza " and " Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie ." Blumenthal founded the Grayzone
Project in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its
dangerous domestic repercussions.
Robert , October 15, 2019 at 13:50
Thank you for the excellent research. I'll add that the Department of State's contribution
to Atlantic Council is $1 million annually of US taxpayer dollars. Christopher Hunter, a
lawyer with the DOJ when Trump was elected, resigned and ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a
Democrat, then parachuted into Atlantic Council as a Senior Fellow. Several weeks ago, in an
interview with Al Jazeera, he affirmed that Trump should definitely be impeached. Although
introduced as a Fellow of the Atlantic Council, he did nothing to indicate that he was in a
conflict of interest position because of Burisma donations to the Council or that his
opinions were not those of the Atlantic Council. Essentially, US tax $$ are being used to
promote the impeachment of the President of the United States.
Karl Brantz , October 15, 2019 at 12:27
Excellent investigative journalism from Max Blumenthal and Grayzone! The death and
destruction wrought in Ukraine by both U.S. political party operatives is appalling, as is
their horrendous murders of civilians and combatants alike throughout the world today. That
journalists go forth every day to document this atrocious conduct, risking their freedom and
their lives to uncover the truth is an amazing and courageous service to the citizens of our
world. I have nothing but praise for them. I only wish that some one would turn their
piercing perception and integrity upon the apparently untouchable yet still festering account
of the truth of the 9/11 events. All the facts are available and many of the perps are still
walking around. I'm dying to know just what was going on as Dick Cheney commandeered the PEOC
on that fateful morning. Or what took place at Offutt AFB as the towers were blown to dust in
NYC. We've got a fairly good idea thanks to the last 19 years of research and reporting, but
this story never seems to rise above the traditional scandal/bribery/corruption/war news that
daily rains down upon the hapless plebes.
Bob in Portland , October 15, 2019 at 12:15
More inconvenience for the Atlantic Council: When the DNC claimed that Russia hacked its
computers, it never allowed the FBI or any other intelligence agency to examine the
computers. Instead, they used a private company, Crowdstrike. CrowdStrike, owned by Dmitri
Alperovitch, still is the only known entity to have examined those computers. Dmitri
Alperovitch has a chair at the Atlantic Council. Readers here at ConsortiumNews know all the
flaws, okay, lies that William Binney uncovered.
So the Russiagate claims against Russia were generated by cold warriors to justify a
warmer war against Russia. Poor Hunter was caught in the graft that surrounds the US's
relationship with Ukraine.
In World War Two the Nazis ran the fascists in Ukraine who in turn ran Operation
Nightingale, the genocidal program to kill the Jews and other ethnic enemies of Berlin's
thinkers. After WWII the US, very soon represented by the CIA, supported a rebel force in
Ukraine against the USSR. The US also embraced the Ukrainian fascists, being a part of the
Republican Heritage Council. Members were imported into the US under the CIA's Crusade For
Freedom. Ronald Reagan, the spokesman for CFF, first used his "freedom fighter" describing
these Ukrainian fascists with the term later resurrected for the death squads and
anti-democratic forces in Latin America.
Burisma has been described at Moon Of Alabama as a money-laundering entity.
Poor Hunter. Welcome to the working week.
Skip Scott , October 15, 2019 at 12:09
This is a great article that gets into the nitty-gritty of UkraineGate. There is no doubt
in this day and age that "the Mighty Wurlitzer" will drown out the facts presented here. If
Biden becomes too difficult of a sell for the Oligarchy, they have plenty of other servants
to choose from.
robert e williamson jr , October 15, 2019 at 11:57
I'm no religious zealot. After 70 years on the planet I'm firmly agnostic and view too
many organized religions with great dread., that said I suspect that these NGO non-profits
such as the Atlantic Council are simply fronts for the U.S. intelligence community.
If churches tried to get away with what these think tanks do going through millions of
dollars to lobby for special interest groups they would surely lose the their tax exempt
status. Something I feel very strongly the IRS should investigate also.
Or would they. I suspect the IRS could care less about either type of entity considering
that the Service is so under funded it cannot enforce the tax laws on the books, but that
story is for a different time.
I keep reading these headlines which seem to cry "surprise, we found corruption here"!
Give me a break by now everyone should see it coming.
The "King of Orange" is still publicly boring holes in the hull of the Ship of State and
nothing happens except Dims and Repugs claim some honor in joining to condemn a foreign EU
allied country for doing what "The King of Orange" approved that he do.
The problem here is not Turkey, my friends, the problem is the U.S. intelligence community
and the corrupt think tanks fronts that facilitate their evil machinations.
Thank you Max for the expose' obviously far too many American are fooled by this B.S.
stuff that goes on in D.C.
Drew Hunkins , October 15, 2019 at 11:15
The AC is arguably the most potentially dangerous organization in the world today. It's
essentially a Bill Kristol neo-conservative outfit that's set on destroying any semblance of
an independent Russia. It's closely connected to the Atlanticist Integrationists in
Moscow.
The AC's a de facto NATO think [sic] tank that could possibly lead the world to nuclear
war. It also totally belies the notion that Putin is somehow under the thumb of
Netanyahu.
Eugenie Basile , October 15, 2019 at 11:13
The whole Ukraine story is an enormous blunder for the West . not only did it give Russia
the opportunity to reclaim Crimea but the West now also has to finance a corrupt, unstable
and bankrupt country. Not funny !
Robert , October 15, 2019 at 11:06
Excellent research. The deep state is indeed international and takes care of its own.
Christopher Hunter, who, after Trump's election, resigned from the DOJ, then ran
unsuccessfully as a Democratic candidate for Congress, was then parachuted into the Atlantic
Council as senior fellow. He then proceeded to provide expert advice to Al Jazeera about why
Trump should be impeached. So you now have the US State Department paying $1 million tax
dollars to the Atlantic Council, at least one member of which is using his "expertise" to
impeach President Trump.
The article notes that Hunter Biden left Ukraine with $850K. Does that include any fees he
might have collected as co-counsel noted below?
"Hunter Biden tried to repay the $50,000-a-month gig Zlochevsky had handed him by
enlisting a top D.C. law firm, Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, where he served as co-counsel,
to help "improve [Burisma's] corporate governance." By the following January, Zlochevsky's
assets were unfrozen by the U.K."
Curious.
michael , October 15, 2019 at 07:48
Dmitri Alperovitch, Hillary's own Russian Head of Crowdstrike and a Senior Fellow at the
Atlantic Council, went to great lengths to prove that RUSSIANS!!! had hacked into Ukrainian
artillery, and claimed the same methodology was used to prove that RUSSIANS!!! had hacked
into the DNC.
These were Crowdstrike's bonafides (and thus no reason to look closely at the
DNC servers). Of course, it later turned out that the Russians had NOT hacked Ukrainian
artillery, Crowdstrike had lied, and hacking of the DNC was more likely initially done by
Crowdstrike/ New Knowledge and the Atlantic Council, not the Russians.
Think tanks should be responsible, with jail times and fines, for the discord they sow.
Sally Snyder , October 15, 2019 at 07:15
There is a binding treaty between the United States and Ukraine that would serve as a
precedent for Donald Trump's request.
Interestingly, the mainstream media in the United States has almost completely ignored
this reality their haste to impeach the current president.
Daryl , October 15, 2019 at 04:51
My take is that this Zlochevsky and his energy co. was identified and targeted while he
was part of the govt the US helped to overthrow. Rather than the story of a Ukrainian seeking
western favor, i suspect he was made an offer he could not refuse.
The UK seizure of the
23mil was not accidental, i expect the US had all the banks of Europe watching this guys
asset for this leverage. So they freeze his money, open a criminal investigation and put him
on a wanted list.
Just a couple weeks later Biden joins the board. This was a State Dept/CIA
play.
They went to Zlochevsky or the oligarch behind him and presented them with the only way
out of ruin. Several months later, UK unfreezes 23mil and closes the case. USAID comes calling
on Burisma, Atlantic Council attaches themselves. This was a well planned takeover and Biden
was a beneficiary, but doing the bidding of the hidden hands.
Jeff Harrison , October 15, 2019 at 00:02
The sarcasm at the end is great. I have only one comment. This piece, like so many others
about Ukraine uses the phrase "pro-Russian forces in Ukraine". That's crap. Yeah, they are
pro Russian, but more importantly, they are ethnically Russian and when you have a regime in
Kiev that is trying to suck up to the US and passing anti Russian and Russian language
legislation and breaking all ties to Russia to please their masters in Washington, is it a
surprise that those ethnic Russian Ukrainians might look for a champion?
Abby , October 14, 2019 at 23:11
Wow. This article is a must read for people to get up to date on the Ukraine coup. On
Hunter and Joe ByeDone's actions after it and the many players involved. Well done, Max!
But Russia right?
Bolton Opposed Ukraine Investigations; Called Giuliani "A Hand Grenade" by
Tyler Durden Tue, 10/15/2019 - 12:25 0 SHARES
Former national security adviser John Bolton was 'so alarmed' by efforts to encourage Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and 2016
election meddling that he told an aide, Fiona Hill, to alert White House lawyers, according to the
New York Times
.
When Hill confronted Sondland, he told her that he was 'in charge' of Ukraine, "a moment she compared to Secretary of State Alexander
M. Haig Jr.'s declaration that he was in charge after the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt, according to those who heard the testimony,"
according to the Times.
Hill says she asked Sondland on whose authority he was in charge of Ukraine, to which he replied 'the president.' She would later
leave her post shortly before a July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president which is currently at the heart of an impeachment inquiry.
Meanwhile, the Times also notes that "House Democrats widened their net in the fast-paced inquiry by summoning Michael McKinley,
a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who abruptly resigned last week, to testify Wednesday."
Career diplomats have expressed outrage at the unceremonious
removal of Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch from Ukraine after she came under attack by Mr. Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and
two associates who have since been arrested on charges of campaign violations.
Three other Trump admin officials are scheduled to speak with House investigators this week, including Sondland - who is now set
to appear on Thursday. On Tuesday, deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent will testify, while on Friday, Laura K. Cooper
- a a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia policy, will speak with lawmakers as well.
Looks like we have our whistleblower. My only question is, how does one whistle with such a bristly moustache draping their
hairlip?
So now we have Mr. Neocon and Mr. Liddle Kidz conjugating as the strangest of bedfellows? How will this play to their respective
bases? Are we to assume these people think this nations top law enforcement agent (POTUS) is to abdicate his duties therewith
just because the criminal is (at least according to our two tiered justice system) supposed to be beyond reproach?
Mr. Bolton, bright and determined as he is, has hitched his wagon to mad mare galloping full tilt over a precipice.
Looking for a return of uranium one to the headlines soon. In due time we will stich this Russia/Ukraine narrative back together
from a patchwork of facts. You traitors are fucked...royally fucked...and you know it.
So, Mr bolton, explain to us in simple terms how you appraise America's security and her related interests. Your camp is in
eclipse.
John Bolton:
"I was appauled...just flabbergasted...that the president was concerned that our intelligence apparatus was politicized to
the extent that its highest echelons were arrayed in an attempt to subvert a lawful and legitimate election. Never mind that six
other nations were tasked with abetting this treasonous plot...this is an outrage!!! The whole point of intelligence agencies
is to skirt the law with impunity, and once we (the unelected permanent breacracy) tell one of our minions like Biden or Hillary
that they're permanently immune from prosecution, we can't have some earnest pact of Patriots running around demanding law and
order."
What a sorry bunch of cretians.
We were so close...so close...to losing it all. But since the enemy is making clear we're playing zero sum, we're going to
end up with everything.
Brace yourself, California. If I were you, I'd study the legal framework of Reconstruction. Your plight will be of a kind.
Your state has been engaged in a systematic attempt to overthrow the government. Your leaders will be appointed for a generation
after this all comes out. Don't look to Beijing to save you...they kinda have their hands full.
So, I guess Bolton is no longer collecting free money like Hunter Biden was. I get it now how all these politicians have kids
overseas and open foreign corporations which our tax money goes in to by way of cutting deals overseas public officials to line
their pockets with our money. This how they get into government poor and become very rich! Giuliani is pointing this fact out
to the public with Trump and the swamp HATES IT!
The public now knows how these corrupt PUBLIC OFFICIALS in America have been fleecing the tax payers. This is a major hit on
the swamp.
Trump & Giuliani we're behind you thank you for showing us how the swamp has been ******* us for all these years.
Understand that the reason Schitt head won't allow public hearings is because the former Ambassador to Ukraine--Volker, shot
this whole **** fest down when he testified. There is no "there" there.
Bolton and the others are crying because of Trump's pull out. The left jumped on the war bandwagon under Billary a long time
ago. Necons work both parties.
If Bolton dislikes Guiliani that's the best endorsement of Rudy I can imagine. Bolton is a complete warmongering traitor who,
like McShitstain, desires a nice case of brain cancer.
Go Rudy, expose the corrupt Demonrats! We deplorables love human hand grenades. That's why we elected the Donald, and you apparently
are the perfect lawyer for our great God emperor.
"Schiff simply does not have the gravitas that a weighty procedure such as impeachment requires," Biggs wrote in an opinion
piece for Fox News. "He has repeatedly shown incredibly poor judgment. He has persistently and consistently demonstrated that
he has such a tremendous bias and animus against Trump that he will say anything and accept any proffer of even bogus evidence
to try to remove the president from office."
I'm starting to wonder whether or not this whole time the phrase 'two state solution'
meant Israel and Ukraine.
An attempted return to the pale of settlement while maintaining what's thus far been
captured?
Seems to me zbigs axiom (without the Ukraine Russia isn't an empire) may be cover for
other ends. Why were IDF commandos leading Nazi units west of Kiev?
The scope of all this is far bigger than it appears.
The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) is deeply embedded in the US' mainstream media
and Fox . It has become a standard of patriotism to be lock step with Kagans and Wm Krystol.
Clinton and Obama are true believers, in a very liberal interventionists, responsibility
to bomb to protect, subtle (scamming) kind of agenda.
PNAC calls for turning Syria over to al Qaeda/breaking it up, keeping US troops in
Afghanistan because it is in the "land mass", and insisting Donbass self determination is a
threat to you and me! Fairly consistent on ends.
But in some ways it act like Hitler on Czechoslovakia and in others it acts like the
French in 1938.
Best keep the people in turmil over threats!
"... if this is to inform us that Kerry is a duplicitous weasel,then id guess this has been known for at least a decade ..."
"... He is just a puppet of some big families and interest groups. He is their voice. He is maybe good in tactics but not in strategy. That's why he made a faulty assumption in Syria. ..."
"... I can't remember exactly what, but I noticed he was inconsistent in his bullcrapping. So he wanted an election, and democracy – gotta mouth 'democracy' -and he didn't. ..."
"... He of course expected to 'negotiate' with Assad, assuming that after Assad tasted fire he'd get lost, but that didn't go well when the evilest people around, the Russians, who just don't care about international law, were invited in to Syria, lol, because the law is the law. He was all over the place! ..."
"... Meanwhile, How many different scholars and politicians declaim loudly that the US should forget about international law?, starting with Michael Glennon. ..."
"... Those are Kerry's words. Among other things of interest, the recording also shows that the establishment actually do mouth their lies even to themselves, perhaps as a means of disciplining their own ranks. It's institutionalized schizophrenia. ..."
"... It is not a "free and fair" election without US interference! ..."
"... "Democracy has some virtues, folks" – so sayeth the old Bonesman. Enjoy your retirement , John. ..."
On Wednesday, Wikileaks released new evidence of US President-elect On Wednesday, Wikileaks
released new evidence of US President-elect
Donald Trump 's assertion
that Barack Obama was the founder of ISIS – a leaked audio of US Secretary of State John
Kerry's meeting with members of the Syrian opposition at the Dutch Mission of the UN on
September 22.
The audio also is an evidence of the fact that mainstream media colluded with the
Obama's administration in order to push the narrative for regime change in Syria, hiding the
truth about arming and funding ISIS by the US, as it exposed a 35 minute conversation that was
omitted by CNN.
Kerry admits that the primary goal of the
Obama's administration in Syria was regime change and the removal of Syrian President Bahar
al-Assad, as well as that
Washington
didn't calculate that Assad would turn to Russia for help.
In order to achieve this goal, the
White House allowed the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group to rise. The Obama's administration
hoped that growing power of the IS in Syria would force Assad to search for a diplomatic
solution on US terms, forcing him to cede power. In its turn, in order to achieve these two
goals, Washington intentionally armed members of the terrorist group and even attacked a In
order to achieve this goal, the White House allowed the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group to
rise.
The Obama's administration hoped that growing power of the IS in
Syria would force Assad to search for a diplomatic solution on US terms, forcing him to cede
power. In its turn, in order to achieve these two goals, Washington intentionally armed members
of the terrorist group and even attacked a
Syrian
government military convoy, trying to stop a strategic attack on the IS, killing 80 Syrian
soldiers.
According to Wikileaks, "the audio gives a glimpse into what goes on outside
official meetings. Note that it represents the US narrative and not necessarily the entire true
narrative." Earlier the audio was published by the "And we know that this was growing, we were
watching, we saw that DAESH [the IS] was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was
threatened," Kerry said during the meeting.
. "(We)
thought, however," he continued to say, "We could probably manage that Assad might then
negotiate, but instead of negotiating he got Putin to support him." "I lost the argument for
use of force in Syria," Kerry concluded.
Note that it represents the US narrative and not
necessarily the entire true narrative." Earlier the audio was published by the "I lost the
argument for use of force in Syria," Kerry concluded.
Earlier the audio was published by the
New York Times and CNN,
however, the both outlets chose only some its part, reporting on certain aspects, and omitted
the most damning comments made by Kerry. In fact, they tried to hide the statements that would
allow public to understand what has actually taken place in Syria.
The full audio has never
been published by the New York Times; the outlet released only selected snippets. The full
audio has never been published by the New York Times; the outlet released only selected
snippets. The full audio has never been published by the New York Times; the outlet released
only selected snippets.
Mickey
What a surprise!!
Don Rhudy
We know by observation and by reports from the sailors who served with Kerry on a Swiftboat
that Kerry is a coward, liar, and enemy of the United States of America. He faked three
Purple hearts to leave Swiftboat service early and return to the states, and he lied to the
U.S. Congress while under oath. He belongs in Federal Prison.
JamesH
US Secretary of State John Kerry: "The problem is we in the US care about international law
and Russia does not. This is the reason why we can't directly attack Assad forces.
The only
way we can directly intervene is if we have a UN Security Council resolution, or if our
forces are under attack by theirs, or if we are invited by the LEGITIMATE regime well not
saying here they're "legitimate" ok, Assad's regime. The Russians were invited in and we're
not."
The U.S. knows their presence in Syria is illegal
Kerry contradicts himself when he said that Russia does not care about international law when
fact is Russia is legally allowed to operate in Syria at the invitation of the "legitimate"
Syrian regime (admittedly, his tongue slipped at that point)
Cynthia Banks
You are so right and it has been proven, Kerry and Hillary are the ones who armed ISIS a d
ISIS was the one doing the gas attacks. Assad has the right to his nation and Kerry promised
these rebels they could win and they are only seventeen percent of the populace. The people
of Syria support Assad. It was a civil uprising we had no right to get involved in. But as we
learned the US was trying to take over seven nations in seven years.
Its not about Syrian regime change, US also wanted to topple Shiite Iraqi Government through
ISIS to install Sunni/Wahhabi regime to counter the Tehran influences in Iraq.
doug
I had come to the conclusion many years ago that democrats can never be trusted. All the do
is lie and plot and cheat and cast aspersions and smears on everyone who disagrees with them.
The smears are usually them trying to smear others with lacks in character that almost always
apply to themselves. This news is nothing new. Glenn Beck for just one example has claimed
this for years. He has maintained from the fall of Libya and the attack in Benghazzi that it
was all about moving arms to Syria to arm and bolster ISIS.
Barbara
The reason why we can no longer trust the Democrats is because they have been infiltrated by
the Communist party.
Barbara
Also remember this, the war criminals Rumsfeld and Chaney went to Syria to organize and start
pumping out the Syrian oil. They just couldn't wait to get their hands on it. It's about the
oil.
George Cornell
And even that wasn't enough to make honest people out of them.
Inerich
Wrong. No UN resolution when Trump attacked 2 Russian chemical weapons bases in Syria. As
Commander in Chief, President Trump made the decision to bomb and destroy.
Cynthia Banks
You can't trust the RINO's either. Bush got us into this and I voted for him twice.
https://youtu.be/9RC1Mepk_Sw
JDD
PUT him in a rioom with families of the victims of 911. Lock the door.
pavlovscat7
Put him in a room with the families of Sandy Hook and he'd have to take out his wallet again.
D3F1ANT
None of this evidence matters. Look at what happened with Hillary and the proof of her MYRIAD
crimes. Someone could post a video a Democrat breaking the law and it wouldn't matter. Lynch
and Comey and their minions have proven that power-brokers on the Left are simply beyond the
reach of the "long-arm" of the Law.
antirepublocrat
Treason.
Lumpy Gravy
CNN deleted the audio at all, explaining this with the request of
some of the participants out of concern for their personal safety.
So, who then took part in the meeting at the Dutch UN mission? What are the names and the
whereabouts of these so called Syrian opposition types? What are the names of the colluding
Dutch mission staff? Seeing that none them ever cared in the least about the safety of the
Syrian people, why should anyone care for their personal safety? With hundreds of thousands
dead, millions of refugees or internally displaced and the country in ruins these people have
a lot to answer for. I do hope that they and the hyena who over the past five years so
eagerly promoted this mayhem in the western media will be held to account for their crimes at
some point.
bill
if this is to inform us that Kerry is a duplicitous weasel,then id guess this has been known
for at least a decade
Sam
He is just a puppet of some big families and interest groups. He is their voice. He is maybe
good in tactics but not in strategy. That's why he made a faulty assumption in Syria.
I
really hope that all the responsibles of casualties of civilians and innocent people will
face an international tribunal or face the direct cosmic judgement. They betrayed all the
secular and tolerant forces in the Middle East by creating a religious confusion. Just to
remove Assad? What about the feudal system in Saudia, Qatar (slavery, stoning, beheading )?
Where are the Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Who voted democratically for all those
wars in the US? What is the power of Congress ? Who is going to bring back or payback
taxpayers money? Poverty is rising in the US and the number of homeless people becomes
astronomical.
Ronald Smith
A decade? I've known since he was in Vietnam. Him an John McCain we're both traitors to our
country.
I hope someone, at some point, will be able to provide a transcript. It was a bit hard to
follow, hard as I did. The women talked fast and maybe the accent didn't help.
The audio, which gives us a glimpse into the pathology of politicians who sell their souls
for gain and have to do verbal contortions, speaking in code even to each other (lest
somebody want to stab someone else in the back), in order to communicate. There was so much
vileness attached to Kerry's inconsitent comments.
BigB
Hear hear! I got most of the slime coming from Kerry (and the 2nd American?) – but the
female and particularly the male opposition rep – I couldn't quite pick.
I did get the bit when she had a meltdown when Kerry suggested an open election (because the
US is big on free and fair elections – including their own as we have just seen.)
Apparently the Syrian opposition aren't that keen on them either.
Do I take it from this that the Americans think that if the 'diaspora' is included in the
vote, that there are enough Syrians abroad inculcated by western propaganda to ouster Assad?
Or will that just blowback in their face?
BTW – as most regular commenters are well aware – the recent 2014 Syrian election
was completely 'free and fair' – certainly by American standards. Assad won by a
landslide.
Yes, I think that you have that right. Kerry is keen on an American managed election (a la
Haiti or Honduras) and must believe that the diaspora is sufficiently bamboozled for that to
go swimmingly.
BigB
Kerry said that Assad was worried by the prospect of an election. I wonder where he gets his
intel from – WaPo or the CIA?
Mind you, that's a single-source these days!
I can't remember exactly what, but I noticed he was inconsistent in his bullcrapping. So he
wanted an election, and democracy – gotta mouth 'democracy' -and he didn't.
He of
course expected to 'negotiate' with Assad, assuming that after Assad tasted fire he'd get
lost, but that didn't go well when the evilest people around, the Russians, who just don't
care about international law, were invited in to Syria, lol, because the law is the law. He
was all over the place!
Meanwhile, How many different scholars and politicians declaim loudly
that the US should forget about international law?, starting with Michael Glennon.
Pierre-henri Bredontiot
"the Russians, who just don't care about international law, "
How can you say such a thing?
Only Russians are allowed to fight in Syria. Assad has been choosed by his people, and call
Russia for help, nobody else.
No country but Russia is allowed to put a foot in Syria: that is International Right. That is
ONU's law.
USA, GB, France, Qatar, South Arabia, THEY don't care about international law.
Please excuse my bad language, I'm French. But you understand what I mean.
Those are Kerry's words. Among other things of interest, the recording also shows that the
establishment actually do mouth their lies even to themselves, perhaps as a means of
disciplining their own ranks. It's institutionalized schizophrenia.
Ron
Amen. Kerry babbled about 'all the people in the camps" voting. Yeah, we know how 'free and
fair' the voting will be in Erdogan's camps! -- And we know -- and these hotel-dwelling
shysters know -- how many Syrian missions were closed, as in the US, Australia and many other
countries -- or were denied allowing voting, because they knew bloody well who ex-pat Syrians
would vote for! Over a million Syrian refugees in Lebanon trekked many miles, though
Hariri-occupied salafist ghettos, to vote in 2014, so many that there was chaos finding
enough voting slips. And ALL for Assad!
The tone of this cabal is all. It's losers, and so they will remain.
bevin
"Do I take it from this that the Americans think that if the 'diaspora' is included in the
vote, that there are enough Syrians abroad inculcated by western propaganda to ouster
Assad?"
He was obviously hinting that the opposition need not worry about the 'free and fair' bit.
After all we have seen, in Haiti most clearly, what they will do to ensure that the people
they don't want lose. In Haiti Aristide- a shoo-in- was not allowed to compete. In Yemen only
one (US/Saudi approved) name was allowed on the ballot for President. In Iraq no Socialists
were allowed to run. In Ukraine the Communist Party was banned. The beauty if the diaspora
option is that it would allow ballot boxes to be stuffed in every city in Europe and Arabia,
away from the supervision of the election authorities.
But poor old Kerry's audience didn't understand him-they are afraid he really believes in
'democracy'. They probably think that they are smarter than him and have cheated him by
pretending to subscribe to democracy!
The U.S. Government Supplied ISIS' Iconic Pickup Trucks
Posted on October 12, 2015 by WashingtonsBlog
U.S. counter-terror officials have launched an investigation into how ISIS got so many of
those identical Toyota pickup trucks which they use in their convoys.
They don't have to look very far
The Spectator reported last year:
The [Toyota] Hilux [pics] is light, fast, manoeuvrable and all but indestructible ('bomb-proof' might not, in this instance, be a happy usage). The weapons experts Jane's claimed for the Hilux a similar significance to the longbows of Agincourt or the Huey choppers of Nam.
A US Army Ranger said the Toyota sure 'kicks the hell out of a Humvee' (referring to the clumsy and over-sized High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle made by AM General).
The fact is the Toyotas were supplied by the US government to the Al Nusra Front as
'non-lethal aid' then 'acquired' by ISIS. Al Nusra Front is literally Al Qaeda.
The US govt via the CIA provided Ford F250 in their thousands to "liberation" movements in
Africa back in the 70's.
Brian Harry, Australia
So, the U.S. taxpayers paid for the vehicles. No wonder the USA's National Debt is heading
towards $19 TRILLION. There seems to be no end to the stupidity in America, giving Israel
$3BILLION/year, fighting Israel's wars, and supplying their mercenaries, while the debts keep
piling higher???
Not to mention sacrificing young American soldiers etc.
Is it any wonder that the people who put Obama in the White House(to act as their stooge) are
now in panic mode as Trump readies for the White House, having thumbed his nose at them(by
threatening to "Drain the Swamp"). Despite the USA's image as "The most powerful nation on
Earth", the people in charge now find themselves in a very weak position, and in danger of
loosing control. Trump will need to watch his back during his term as President, the people
behind the façade of Freedom and Democracy will do ANYTHING to hold their grip on
power.
Sav
Wondering if John Hinckley Jr's release was for a reason 🙂
BigB
LMFAO – I expect he'll be having dinner with the Bush family soon! That cut throat
gesture by the old man HW was a promise – not a threat!
Brian Harry, Australia
Sav. Good comment, but, I'm sure the CIA have a ready supply of 'guns for hire' ..
Assad was going to cut a deal with Russia regarding the Russian pipeline through Syria, Iran
and on to China. No way could the US allow this to happen. How to destroy Assad's plan?
Deploy murderous nutters and pretend it was all Assad's own fault with a prepared false
narrative which the complicit MSM would spoon feed their public with. Simple.
Enter Russia's
Putin with the most sophisticated and advanced military force in the world, add
Hezbollah/Iran and China and watch the carnage the US and it's backers have unleashed.
Simple, effective, murderous and criminal.
How much more evidence does one need these days to have these people tried for crimes against
humanity
Hers some historical facts.
Germany in the 30's invaded Czechoslovakia
US and Nato bombed Yugoslavia in the 90's
Germany invaded Poland in the late 30's
US and Nato bombed and invaded Afghanistan in 2001
Germany and Italy bombed Spain in the 30's
Us and nato bombed Iraq in the first Gulf war in 1991
Germany invade France and western europe in the 40's
US and Nato have the biggest military buildup on Russians border since the second world
war
Germany in 42 initiate operation barbarossa and invade the USSR
... ... ...
Using critical thinking and historical analysis.
The difference in time is circa 70 years . All we hear in the west is Russian aggression ,
Chinese aggression, Iranian aggression. The parody is amazing .
FREEDOM JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY IS LOOKING LIKE FASCISM THE FASCIST WAY.
The washington consensus is loosing badly and just like most bullies is behaving badly and
here where the danger lies. These establishment characters whom ever they may be ( mind u
most of my fellow bloggers know full well whom they r) r dying for a war .
Seeing that their
terrorist islamaphobic narrative can only carry so much destruction we need to really muddy
the waters with a Russia whom historically speaking has been such a bogie man for the west
going back to Peter the Great.
Yet another female neocon hawk of the mold of Samantha Power. Hillary have found not only
Nuland, but several of them ;-) She denied that Nulandgate create a civil war in Ukraine to
advance the US geopolitical goals. She also denied influencing Ukrainian leadership, while in
reality Ukraine now is governed from the US embassy (which is sometimes called by locals called
Washington Obcom) . Such a hypocrite.
As for "do not prosecute" list -- do not believe anything government officials say
until it is officially denied.
And that EuroMaydan actually promote corruption to the level unheard during Yanukovich tenure
but with different players.
Notable quotes:
"... creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and profit. ..."
"... the Embassy's April 2016 letter to the Prosecutor General's Office about the investigation into the Anti-Corruption Action Center or AntAC ..."
"... the departure from office of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin ..."
"... As Mr. Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General has recently acknowledged, the notion that I created or disseminated a "do not prosecute" list is completely false ..."
"... Equally fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President Trump. I have heard the allegation in the media that I supposedly told the Embassy team to ignore the President's orders "since he was going to be impeached." That allegation is false. I have never said such a thing, to my Embassy colleagues or to anyone else. ..."
"... I have never met Hunter Biden, nor have I had any direct or indirect conversations with him. And although I have met former Vice President Biden several times over the course of our many years in government, neither he nor the previous Administration ever, directly or indirectly, raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me. ..."
"... With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contacts with him -- a total of three that I recall. None related to the events at issue. I do not know Mr. Giuliani's motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine. ..."
The Revolution of Dignity, and the Ukrainian people's demand to end corruption, forced the
new Ukrainian government to take measures to fight the rampant corruption that long permeated
that country's political and economic systems. We have long understood that strong
anti-corruption efforts must form an essential part of our policy in Ukraine; now there was a
window of opportunity to do just that.
Why is this important? Put simply: anti-corruption efforts serve Ukraine's interests. They
serve ours as well. Corrupt leaders are inherently less trustworthy, while an honest and
accountable Ukrainian leadership makes a U.S.-Ukraine partnership more reliable and more
valuable to the U.S. A level playing field in this strategically located country -- one with a
European landmass exceeded only by Russia and with one of the largest populations in Europe --
creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and
profit. Corruption is a security issue as well, because corrupt officials are vulnerable
to Moscow. In short, it is in our national security interest to help Ukraine transform into a
country where the rule of law governs and corruption is held in check.
Two Wars
But change takes time, and the aspiration to instill rule-of-law values has still not been
fulfilled. Since 2014, Ukraine has been at war, not just with Russia, but within itself, as
political and economic forces compete to determine what kind of country Ukraine will become:
the same old, oligarch-dominated Ukraine where corruption is not just prevalent, but is the
system? Or the country that Ukrainians demanded in the Revolution of Dignity -- a country where
rule of law is the system, corruption is tamed, and people are treated equally and according to
the law? During the 2019 presidential elections, the Ukrainian people answered that question
once again. Angered by insufficient progress in the fight against corruption, Ukrainian voters
overwhelmingly elected a man who said that ending corruption would be his number one priority.
The transition, however, created fear among the political elite, setting the stage for some of
the issues I expect we will be discussing today.
... ... ...
I arrived in Ukraine on August 22, 2016 and left Ukraine permanently on May 20, 2019.
Several of the events with which you may be concerned occurred before I was even in
country.
Here are just a few:
the release of the so-called "Black Ledger" and Mr. Manafort's subsequent resignation
from the Trump campaign;
the Embassy's April 2016 letter to the Prosecutor General's Office about the
investigation into the Anti-Corruption Action Center or AntAC ; and
the departure from office of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin .
Several other events occurred after I was recalled from Ukraine. These include:
President Trump's July 25 call with President Zelenskiy;
All of the discussions surrounding that phone call; and
Any discussions surrounding the reported delay of security assistance to Ukraine in
Summer 2019.
During my Tenure in Ukraine
As for events during my tenure in Ukraine, I want to categorically state that I have
never myself or through others, directly or indirectly, ever directed, suggested, or in any
other way asked for any government or government official in Ukraine (or elsewhere) to
refrain from investigating or prosecuting actual corruption. As Mr. Lutsenko, the former
Ukrainian Prosecutor General has recently acknowledged, the notion that I created or
disseminated a "do not prosecute" list is completely false -- a story that Mr. Lutsenko,
himself, has since retracted.
Equally fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President Trump. I have heard
the allegation in the media that I supposedly told the Embassy team to ignore the President's
orders "since he was going to be impeached." That allegation is false. I have never said such
a thing, to my Embassy colleagues or to anyone else.
Next, the Obama administration did not ask me to help the Clinton campaign or harm the
Trump campaign, nor would I have taken any such steps if they had.
I have never met Hunter Biden, nor have I had any direct or indirect conversations
with him. And although I have met former Vice President Biden several times over the course
of our many years in government, neither he nor the previous Administration ever, directly or
indirectly, raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me.
With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contacts with him -- a total
of three that I recall. None related to the events at issue. I do not know Mr. Giuliani's
motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr.
Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our
anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.
Yet another female neocon hawk of the mold of Samantha Power. Hillary have found not only
Nuland, but several of them ;-) She denied that Nulandgate create a civil war in Ukraine to
advance the US geopolitical goals. She also denied influencing Ukrainian leadership, while in
reality Ukraine now is governed from the US embassy (which is sometimes called by locals called
Washington Obcom) . Such a hypocrite.
As for "do not prosecute" list -- do not believe anything government officials say
until it is officially denied.
And that EuroMaydan actually promote corruption to the level unheard during Yanukovich tenure
but with different players.
Notable quotes:
"... creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and profit. ..."
"... the Embassy's April 2016 letter to the Prosecutor General's Office about the investigation into the Anti-Corruption Action Center or AntAC ..."
"... the departure from office of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin ..."
"... As Mr. Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian Prosecutor General has recently acknowledged, the notion that I created or disseminated a "do not prosecute" list is completely false ..."
"... Equally fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President Trump. I have heard the allegation in the media that I supposedly told the Embassy team to ignore the President's orders "since he was going to be impeached." That allegation is false. I have never said such a thing, to my Embassy colleagues or to anyone else. ..."
"... I have never met Hunter Biden, nor have I had any direct or indirect conversations with him. And although I have met former Vice President Biden several times over the course of our many years in government, neither he nor the previous Administration ever, directly or indirectly, raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me. ..."
"... With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contacts with him -- a total of three that I recall. None related to the events at issue. I do not know Mr. Giuliani's motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine. ..."
The Revolution of Dignity, and the Ukrainian people's demand to end corruption, forced the
new Ukrainian government to take measures to fight the rampant corruption that long permeated
that country's political and economic systems. We have long understood that strong
anti-corruption efforts must form an essential part of our policy in Ukraine; now there was a
window of opportunity to do just that.
Why is this important? Put simply: anti-corruption efforts serve Ukraine's interests. They
serve ours as well. Corrupt leaders are inherently less trustworthy, while an honest and
accountable Ukrainian leadership makes a U.S.-Ukraine partnership more reliable and more
valuable to the U.S. A level playing field in this strategically located country -- one with a
European landmass exceeded only by Russia and with one of the largest populations in Europe --
creates an environment in which U.S. business can more easily trade, invest and
profit. Corruption is a security issue as well, because corrupt officials are vulnerable
to Moscow. In short, it is in our national security interest to help Ukraine transform into a
country where the rule of law governs and corruption is held in check.
Two Wars
But change takes time, and the aspiration to instill rule-of-law values has still not been
fulfilled. Since 2014, Ukraine has been at war, not just with Russia, but within itself, as
political and economic forces compete to determine what kind of country Ukraine will become:
the same old, oligarch-dominated Ukraine where corruption is not just prevalent, but is the
system? Or the country that Ukrainians demanded in the Revolution of Dignity -- a country where
rule of law is the system, corruption is tamed, and people are treated equally and according to
the law? During the 2019 presidential elections, the Ukrainian people answered that question
once again. Angered by insufficient progress in the fight against corruption, Ukrainian voters
overwhelmingly elected a man who said that ending corruption would be his number one priority.
The transition, however, created fear among the political elite, setting the stage for some of
the issues I expect we will be discussing today.
... ... ...
I arrived in Ukraine on August 22, 2016 and left Ukraine permanently on May 20, 2019.
Several of the events with which you may be concerned occurred before I was even in
country.
Here are just a few:
the release of the so-called "Black Ledger" and Mr. Manafort's subsequent resignation
from the Trump campaign;
the Embassy's April 2016 letter to the Prosecutor General's Office about the
investigation into the Anti-Corruption Action Center or AntAC ; and
the departure from office of former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin .
Several other events occurred after I was recalled from Ukraine. These include:
President Trump's July 25 call with President Zelenskiy;
All of the discussions surrounding that phone call; and
Any discussions surrounding the reported delay of security assistance to Ukraine in
Summer 2019.
During my Tenure in Ukraine
As for events during my tenure in Ukraine, I want to categorically state that I have
never myself or through others, directly or indirectly, ever directed, suggested, or in any
other way asked for any government or government official in Ukraine (or elsewhere) to
refrain from investigating or prosecuting actual corruption. As Mr. Lutsenko, the former
Ukrainian Prosecutor General has recently acknowledged, the notion that I created or
disseminated a "do not prosecute" list is completely false -- a story that Mr. Lutsenko,
himself, has since retracted.
Equally fictitious is the notion that I am disloyal to President Trump. I have heard
the allegation in the media that I supposedly told the Embassy team to ignore the President's
orders "since he was going to be impeached." That allegation is false. I have never said such
a thing, to my Embassy colleagues or to anyone else.
Next, the Obama administration did not ask me to help the Clinton campaign or harm the
Trump campaign, nor would I have taken any such steps if they had.
I have never met Hunter Biden, nor have I had any direct or indirect conversations
with him. And although I have met former Vice President Biden several times over the course
of our many years in government, neither he nor the previous Administration ever, directly or
indirectly, raised the issue of either Burisma or Hunter Biden with me.
With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contacts with him -- a total
of three that I recall. None related to the events at issue. I do not know Mr. Giuliani's
motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr.
Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our
anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.
At its core, exceptionalism places America outside of normal history into a category of its
own. Our initial "escape" from history followed two interrelated tracks: one was the religious
radicalism of the Puritans, the other was the frontier experience. Both paths were the
warpath.
The early settlers believed that they were "chosen" -- blessed by a special relationship to
their God. They viewed their " errand in the wilderness " as
a holy mission destined to bring a new and better way of life to the world. God's judgment on
their progress was revealed in the bounty of a harvest or the outcome of a war.
Exceptionalism was not a free-floating idea but was forged into a lasting culture by the
frontier wars aimed at the elimination or assimilation of native people and the conquest of
land. America's frontier history produced a lasting mythology that popularized empire and white
settler culture while cloaking their many contradictions.
I know it is hard to believe that the Puritans are still camped out in our minds. The old
religious radicalism has taken modern form in the liberal-sounding belief that the US military
is a "force for good (read God) in the world." The double-edged sword of exceptionalism traps
us into repeating history: our high moral standards and special role in the world gives us
license for wars and aggressions. It is the liberal elements of exceptionalism that are most
seductive, most difficult to wrap our heads around, and the most effective at winning our
consent to war.
Exceptionalism Wins Our Consent to War With A One-Two Punch
On the one hand, we have the "hard" exceptionalism like that of the Cold War (New and Old)
and the War on Terrorism. These war stories revolve around a rigid binary of good and evil.
After 9/11, in scores of speeches, George W. Bush repeated the mantra that there were "no gray
areas" in the struggle between good and evil.
On the other hand, "soft" exceptionalism takes a slightly different tack by appealing to the
liberal in us. Stories of rescue, protection, democracy and humanitarian efforts assure us of
our goodness. Obama mastered this narrative by claiming the US had a "duty to protect" the weak
and vulnerable in places like Libya.
These two strains of war stories are the narrative one-two punch, winning our consent to war
and empire.
Here is how war propaganda works: if authority figures in government and media denounce
foreign leaders or countries or immigrants as an evil threat and repeat it thousands of times,
they do not even have to say, "We are the chosen people destined to bring light to the world."
They know that millions of Americans will unconsciously refer to the exceptionalist code by
default because it's so deeply embedded in our culture. Once made brave by our exceptional
character and sense of superiority, the next moves are war, violence and white
supremacy.
Myth Meets the American War in Vietnam
The Vietnam War, and the resistance to it, profoundly challenged all existing war stories.
At the heart of this disruption was the soldier's revolt. Thousands of
US soldiers and veterans came to oppose the very war they fought in . An anti-war movement
inside the military was totally unprecedented in US history. The war-makers have been
scrambling to repair the damage ever since.
Following the defeat of US forces in Vietnam, the elites shifted gears. The idea that the US
could create a new democratic nation -- South Vietnam -- was an utter illusion that no amount
of fire-power could overcome. In truth, the US selected a series of petty tyrants to rule that
could never win the allegiance of the Vietnamese people because they were the transparent
puppets of American interests. The ruling class learned a lesson that forced them to abandon
the liberal veneer of "nation-building."
The Next Generation of War Stories: From "Noble
Cause" to "Humanitarian War."
Ronald Regan tried to repair the damaged narratives by recasting the Vietnam War as a "Noble
Cause." The Noble Cause appealed to people hurt and confused by the US defeat, as well as the
unrepentant war-makers, because it attempted to restore the old good vs. evil narrative of
exceptionalism. For Regan, America needed to rediscover its original mission as a
"city on a hill" -- a shining example to the world. Every single President since has
repeated that faith.
The Noble Cause narrative was reproduced in numerous bad movies and dubious academic studies
that tried to refight the war (and win this time!). Its primary function was to restore
exceptionalism in the minds of the American people. While Regan succeeded to a considerable
degree -- as we can see in the pro-war policy of both corporate parties -- "nation-building"
never recovered its power as a military strategy or war story.
The next facade was Clinton's "humanitarian war." Humanitarian war attempted to relight the
liberal beacon by replacing the problems of nation-building with the paternalistic do-gooding
of a superior culture and country. In effect, the imperialists recycled the 19th Century war
story of "Manifest Destiny" or "White Man's Burden." That "burden" was the supposed duty of
white people to lift lesser people up to the standards of western civilization -- even if that
required a lot of killing.
This kind of racist thinking legitimized the US overseas empire at its birth. Maybe it would
work again in empires' old age?
From the "War on Terrorism" to the "Responsibility to
Protect."
After the shock of 9/11 the narrative shifted again. Bush's "global war on terrorism"
reactivated the good vs. evil framing of the Cold War. The "war on terror" was an incoherent
military or political strategy except for its promise of forever wars.
Just as the Cold War was a "long twilight struggle" against an elusive but ruthless
communist enemy, terrorists might be anywhere and everywhere and do anything. And, like the
fight against communism, the war on terrorism would require the US to wage aggressive wars,
launch preemptive strikes, use covert activities and dodge both international law and the US
Constitution.
9/11 also tapped into deeply-rooted nationalistic and patriotic desires among everyday
people to protect and serve their country. The first attack on US soil in modern memory
powerfully restored the old binary: when faced with unspeakable evil, the US military became a
"force for good in the world." It's easy to forget just how potent the combination is and how
it led us into the War in Iraq. According to
The Washington Post :
Nearing the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, seven in 10
Americans continue to believe that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks, even
though the Bush administration and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of
this.
The mythology is so deep that at first the people, soldiers especially, just had to believe
there was a good reason to attack Iraq. So we fell back on exceptionalism despite the total
absence of evidence. Of course Bush made no attempt to correct this misinformation. The myth
served him too well -- as did the official propaganda campaign claiming Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction.
But in due course, some of the faithful became doubters. A peace movement of global
proportions took shape. But in the US far too much of what appeared as resistance was driven by
narrow partisan
opposition to Republicans rather than principled opposition to war and empire.
But fear not war-makers -- Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton came to the rescue! As they
continued Bush's wars in the Middle East and expanded the war zone to include Libya, Syria and
then all of Africa, they sweetened "humanitarian war" with a heaping dose of cool-coated
"Responsibility to Protect." Once again, American goodness and innocence made the medicine go
down and our wars raged on.
Obama restored legitimacy to the empire so effectively that it took years for the illegal,
immoral, racist and "unwinnable" wars to reveal themselves to the public. I was told by one of
the leaders of About Face: Veterans
Against War that they almost had to close shop after Obama was elected because their donor
base dried up. Obama's hope was our dope. Just as the daze was finally lifting, Trump started
to take the mask off.
Is The Mask Off?
Today's we face an empire with the mask half off. Trump's doctrine -- "We are not
nation-building again, we are killing terrorists." -- is a revealing take on military trends
that began with the first US – Afghan War (1978-1992). US leaders gave up nation-building
and opted for failed states and political chaos instead of the strong states that
nation-building, or its illusion, required. The US military began to rely on
mercenaries and terrorists to replace the American
citizen-soldier. The
soldier revolt of the Vietnam Era already proved that everyday Americans were an unreliable
force to achieve imperial ambitions.
Nothing rips the mask off of the humanitarian justifications better than the actual
experience of combat in a war for oil and power -- so the war managers tried to reduce combat
exposure to a few. And they succeeded. The number of official US troops abroad
reached a 60-year low by 2017 . Even still
a new resistance movement of veterans is gathering steam .
Can
the "Green New Military" Put The Mask Back On?
The recycled imperial justifications of the past are losing their power: Manifest Destiny,
White Mans' Burden, leader of the free world, nation-building, humanitarian war, war against
terrorism, responsibility to protect -- what's next? If only the military could be seen as
saviors once again.
So far the New Cold War against Russia and China has recycled the anti-communist conspiracy
of the old Cold War into the xenophobic conspiracy theory of Russia-gate. Even a trusted tool
like Mueller could not make it work as a coherent narrative but no matter -- the US did not
skip a beat in building up
military bases on Russia's borders .
The media and political attacks on Russia or China or immigrants, or Iran or Syria are
likely to continue because propagandists cannot activate the exceptionalist code without an
evil enemy. Still, it takes more than evil. An effective war story for the US ruling class must
project the liberal ideas of helping, protection, saving and the spread of democracy in order
to engineer mass consent to war. Hence the need for "Humanitarian War," "Duty to Protect" or
maybe the"Green New Military."
Let anyone propose a retreat from any battlefield and the "humanitarian" war cry will rally
the empire's pawns and savior-types. If we practice our exceptionalism religiously -- and
religion it is -- then the US empire will never ever pull back from any war at any time. There
is always someone for the empire to "protect and save:" from the "Noble Savages" and innocent
white settlers of the frontier, to the Vietnamese Catholics, to the women of Afghanistan, to
the Kurds of Syria.
We so want to see our wars as a morality play, just as the Puritans did, but the empire is
all about power and profit.
"War is the Continuation of Politics by Other Means." -- Carl
von Clausewitz
All the Big Brass study Clausewitz because he is the founder of western military science --
but they are so blinded by the dilemmas of empire that they make a mess of his central
teaching: War is politics.
None of the war narratives and none of the wars can solve the most important question of
politics: governance . Who will govern the colonies? The overwhelming verdict of history is
this: colonies cannot be democratically or humanely governed as long as they are colonies.
Until the empire retreats its heavy hand will rule in places like Afghanistan.
The empire is reaching the limits of exceptionalism as both war narrative and national
mythology. This is why our rulers are forced to desperate measures: perpetual war, occupation,
intense propaganda campaigns like Russia-gate, the reliance on mercenaries and terrorists, and
the abuse and betrayal of their own soldiers.
Just as damning to the war machine is the collapse of conventional ideas about victory and
defeat. The US military can no longer "win." The question of victory is important on a deep
cultural level. According to the original mythology, the outcome of wars waged by "the chosen
people" are an indication of God's favor or disfavor. In modern terms, defeat delegitimizes the
state. Endless war is no substitute for "victory."
But it's not military victory we want. Our victory will be in ending war, dismantling the
empire, abolishing the vast militarized penal system and stopping irreparable climate chaos.
Our resistance will create a new narrative but it can only be written when millions of people
become the authors of their own history.
The empire is slipping into decline and chaos – one way or another. Will we be actors
deciding the fate of the American Empire or will it's collapse dictate our fate? But these wars
will, sooner or later, become the graveyard of empire -- or else America is truly exceptional
and we really are God's chosen people.
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily
uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits
as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person
of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane
Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials
responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over
the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more
to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.
George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether
he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only
moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:
And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has
many deaths on his conscience:
Here's the money quote from her apologia:
"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio
audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be
kind to everyone."
This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it
should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still
have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end
of his days.
Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:
There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong,
and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion,
I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues
the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief
extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency
to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes
from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that
his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency
has to die.
DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity.
From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems
very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."
...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.
Tulsi Gabbard
Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago
.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear
us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha,
& work together for the people.
There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.
"... George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game: ..."
"... This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end of his days. ..."
"... DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity. From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power." ..."
"... There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect. ..."
"Comedian Ellen DeGeneres loves to tell everyone to be kind. It's a loose word, kindness; on her show, DeGeneres customarily
uses it to mean a generic sort of niceness. Don't bully. Befriend people! It's a charming thought, though it has its limits
as a moral ethic. There are people in the world, after all, whom it is better not to befriend. Consider, for example, the person
of George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of people are dead because his administration lied to the American public about the presence
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and then, based on that lie, launched a war that's now in its 16th year. After Hurricane
Katrina struck and hundreds of people drowned in New Orleans, Bush twiddled his thumbs for days. Rather than fire the officials
responsible for the government's life-threateningly lackluster response to the crisis, he praised them, before flying over
the scene in Air Force One. He opposed basic human rights for LGBT people, and reproductive rights for women, and did more
to empower the American Christian right than any president since Reagan.
George W. Bush's presidency wasn't just morally bankrupt. In a superior reality, the Hague would be sorting out whether
he is guilty of war crimes. Since our international institutions have failed to punish, or even censure him, surely the only
moral response from civil society should be to shun him. But here is Ellen DeGeneres hanging out with him at a Cowboys game:
And here is Ellen DeGeneres explaining why it's good and normal to share laughs, small talk, and nachos with a man who has
many deaths on his conscience:
Here's the money quote from her apologia:
"We're all different. And I think that we've forgotten that that's okay that we're all different," she told her studio
audience. "When I say be kind to one another, I don't mean be kind to the people who think the same way you do. I mean be
kind to everyone."
This is what we say to children who don't want to sit next to the class misfit at lunch. It is not -- or at least it
should not -- be the way we talk about a man who used his immense power to illegally invade another country where we still
have troops 16 years later. His feet should bleed wherever he walks and Iraqis should get to throw shoes at him until the end
of his days.
Nevertheless, many celebrities and politicians have hailed DeGeneres for her radical civility:
There's almost no point to rebutting anything that Chris Cillizza writes. Whatever he says is inevitably dumb and wrong,
and then I get angry while I think about how much money he gets to be dumb and wrong on a professional basis. But on this occasion,
I'll make an exception. The notion that DeGeneres's friendship with Bush is antithetical to Trumpism fundamentally misconstrues
the force that makes Trump possible. Trump isn't a simple playground bully, he's the president. Americans grant our commanders-in-chief
extraordinary deference once they leave office. They become celebrities, members of an apolitical royal class. This tendency
to separate former presidents from the actions of their office, as if they were merely actors in a stage play, or retired athletes
from a rival team, contributes to the atmosphere of impunity that enabled Trump. If Trump's critics want to make sure that
his cruelties are sins the public and political class alike never tolerate again, our reflexive reverence for the presidency
has to die.
DeGeneres isn't a role model for civility. Her friendship with Bush simply embodies the grossest form of class solidarity.
From a lofty enough vantage point, perhaps Bush's misdeeds really look like minor partisan differences. Perhaps Iraq seems
very far away, and so do the poor of New Orleans, when the stage of your show is the closest you get to anyone without power."
...I am all in favor of Tulsi Gabbard's anti-war stance, but this comment shows me she is too childish to hold any power.
Tulsi Gabbard
Verified account @TulsiGabbard
22h22 hours ago
.@TheEllenShow msg of being kind to ALL is so needed right now. Enough with the divisiveness. We can't let politics tear
us apart. There are things we will disagree on strongly, and things we agree on -- let's treat each other with respect, aloha,
& work together for the people.
There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect.
"... "Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars -- emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted. ..."
"... While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for which Bush is condemned today. ..."
"... From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan, establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria – Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner. ..."
"... *Nobel Peace Drones™ ..."
"... "Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for the displacement and death of millions," ..."
Actor Mark Ruffalo was shredded for double standards after he posted a "callout" tweet
assailing George Bush for the sins of the Iraq War, with many netizens noting his aversion to
slamming Barack Obama's military adventures. Weighing into a controversy kicked off by TV
personality Ellen Degeneres, who came under fire for schmoozing it up with former President
George W. Bush at a football game last weekend, Ruffalo insisted no quarter or kindness should
be offered to perpetrators of heinous war crimes until they face consequences, including
Bush.
"Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War,
(including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars --
emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even
begin to talk about kindness," the actor of Incredible Hulk fame tweeted.
Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War,
(including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths & displacement, and the deep scars --
emotional & otherwise -- inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can't even
begin to talk about kindness. https://t.co/dpMwfck6su
While some online were appreciative of the anti-Bush sentiment, many wondered aloud why
similar treatment was rarely afforded to Bush's successor, Barack Obama, who is largely given a
pass despite pursuing – in some cases escalating – many of the same policies for
which Bush is condemned today.
Claiming Bush is some monster while worshipping Obama even though they did the same things
abroad🤔
From a massive escalation of the Afghan war in 2009, ramping up drone bombings on Pakistan,
establishing a secret presidential "kill list" that included American citizens, leading
a NATO operation that left Libya in ruin, or arming violent Islamist militants in Syria –
Obama still has much to answer for, but is rarely asked to do so. Despite bragging that he'd
already bombed seven countries by 2015, liberal celebrities like Ruffalo have had few harsh
words for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
"Woke Twitter, [including] Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call outs," one user
observed, noting the several occasions former first lady Michelle Obama posed affectionately
with Bush without facing a similar wave of outrage from figures like Ruffalo.
People ripping Jameela Jamil and the celebs in these screenshots but it was tumbleweed 101
when Michelle Obama was getting regular sweeties fixes from George W. Bush & going above
and beyond duty in friendly optics. Woke Twitter, incl Mark Ruffalo, are selective about call
outs. pic.twitter.com/snNYZEbAWM
It's funny how Mark Ruffalo can criticize Ellen, who was an actual person affected by
Bush's ignorance, but not a peep about Michelle Obama who admits to having a special
FRIENDSHIP with GW. https://t.co/9UM1BP8GpY
Another commenter seconded Ruffalo's views on Bush, but encouraged the actor to take his
criticism further, applying the same humanitarian standard evenly, regardless of the party in
power.
"Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible
for the displacement and death of millions," the user said.
The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush.
However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over.
Mark Ruffalo (correctly) calling out George Bush for being a war criminal, responsible for
the displacement and death of millions
The same is true for Obama. He started 5 wars and displaced even more people than Bush
However, Obama is a media darling who Mark gushes over
100% on Bush. You forgot to add Obama & Clinton though. No reason to root for justice
against one war criminal, while giving a free pass to others. It makes it partisan, rather
than ethical.
I did not vote for Trump, or for Hillary, but I firmly agree with analysis of Bacevich here:
> Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental hubris. When it comes to tallying
up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who sold the war don't particularly matter. The results include thousands
of Americans killed; tens of thousands wounded, many grievously, or left to struggle with the effects of PTSD; hundreds of thousands
of non-Americans killed or injured; millions displaced; trillions of dollars expended; radical groups like ISIS empowered (and
in its case even formed inside a US prison in Iraq); and the Persian Gulf region plunged into turmoil from which it has yet to
recover. How do Trump's crimes stack up against these?
> The Great Recession stemmed directly from economic policies implemented during the administration of President Bill Clinton
and continued by his successor. Deregulating the banking sector was projected to produce a bonanza in which all would share. Yet,
as a direct result of the ensuing chicanery, nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, while overall unemployment shot up to
10 percent. Roughly 4 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The stock market cratered and millions saw their life
savings evaporate. Again, the question must be asked: How do these results compare to Trump's dubious dealings with Ukraine?
Looks like Us politicians adopted the stance: if you can't win against Israel lobby,
join... And yea we should talk about Zionists as a flavor of far right nationalism, nit about Jews, per se. The latter smells with
anti-Semitism as it accuses the ethnic group as a whole. Which is not only false, but also self-defeating stance:
Russophobia is "politically correct" anti-Semitism in the USA.
Notable quotes:
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
"... I would suggest to Phil Giraldi to talk about Zionists instead of Jews doing Israel's bidding. These Zionists adhere to the most racist and Apartheid ideology under the sun; Zionism. Not every Jew is a Zionist. Therefore it's an insult to those Jews who do not adhere to this wicked ideology and resist it. The notion of the right-wing Zionist regime in Israel to speak in the name of world Jewry should be rejected not only by the Jewish citizens of each country but by the public in general. It's amount to the hijacking of Jews in the name of a vile racist and occupation regime. Such a claim puts the local Jewish population in a precarious position, which could reproach in "dual loyalty." As Giraldi has pointed out numerous times, the majority of Americans have lost control of their Middle Eastern policy. A group of people whose loyalty to the US can cautiously describe as vague are in charge. ..."
"... I read in a sidebar on Antiwar.com that Sigal Mandelker was one of the attorneys representing Jeffrey Epstein in 2008. ..."
"... Mandelker was one of the DOJ officials who signed off on Epstein's sweetheart nonprosecution agreement. One suspects she was the superior of Alexander Acosta who told him that Epstein belonged to intelligence and was above Acosta's pay grade. ..."
Given Israel's clearly demonstrated ability to manipulate and manage American government at
all levels, there is inevitably considerable speculation about the presence of actual Israeli
citizens in the federal and state bureaucracies. Very often, lists that appear on the internet
focus on Jewish legislators, but in reality, few of them are likely to have Israeli citizenship
even if they regularly exhibit what amounts to "dual loyalty" sympathy for the Jewish state.
Nevertheless, Jews who are Zionists are
vastly overrepresented in all government agencies that have anything at all to do with the
Middle East.
There are, of course, some Jews who flaunt their identification with Israel, to include
current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who describes himself as "protector" of Israel and
former Senator Frank Lautenberg, frequently referred to as "Israel's Senator." One might also
include Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff and mayor of Chicago, who reportedly
served as a
volunteer in the Israeli Army, and Doug Feith, who caused so much mischief from his perch
at the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq War. Feith had a law office in Jerusalem, suggesting
that he might have obtained Israeli citizenship.
To be sure there are many non-Jews in the American government who have hitched their star to
the Israeli wagon because they know it to be career enhancing. One only has to observe in
action Senator Lindsay Graham, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and perhaps the most
revolting of all, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who ran for office proclaiming that he would
be the most pro-Israel governor in the United States. After being elected he traveled to
Jerusalem with a large entourage of Zionist supporters to hold the first meeting of the Florida
state government cabinet. According to some authorities in Florida, the meeting was supposed to
be held in the state capitol Tallahassee and was therefore illegal, but DeSantis was undaunted
and made clear to observers where his loyalty lies.
Part of the problem is that Israeli citizenship is obtained virtually automatically upon
application by any Jew and once obtained it is permanent, only revocable by petitioning the
Israeli government. Nor is there anything equating to a list of citizens, so it is possible to
be an Israeli citizen while also holding American citizenship and no one would be the wiser. As
the United States permits American citizens to have multiple passports and therefore
nationalities there is, in fact, nothing in U.S. law that prohibits being both Israeli and
American.
Having dual nationality only a real issue when the policies of one citizenship conflict with
the other, and that is precisely where the problem comes in with Israeli dual nationals in the
United States, particularly if they wind up in the government. Frank Lautenberg, for example,
was responsible for the "Lautenberg amendment" of 1990 which brought many thousands of Russian
Jews into the United States as refugees, even though they were not in any danger and were
therefore ineligible for that status. As refugees, they received significant taxpayer provided
housing, subsistence and educational benefits.
Some other current officials in the government who may or may not have dual nationality and
are in policy making positions might include U.S. (sic) Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and
the recently resigned international negotiator Jason Greenblatt. Both have long histories of
pro-Israel advocacy to include supporting illegal settlements on the West Bank. And there is
also someone named Jared Kushner, whose ties to Israel are so close that Benjamin Netanyahu
once slept in his father and mother's apartment. If the metric to judge the actions – and
loyalty – of these individuals is their willingness to place American interests ahead of
those of Israel, they all would fail the test.
That said, there was one individual dual national who truly stood out when it came to
serving Israeli interests from inside the United States government. She might be worthy of the
nickname "Queen of Sanctions" because she was the Department of the Treasury's Under Secretary
for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI), who handed the punishment out and had her hand
on the throttle to crank the pain up. She is our own, unfortunately, and also Israel's own
Sigal Pearl Mandelker, and is its wonderful to be able to say that she
finally resigned last week!
OFTI's
website proclaims that it is responsible for "safeguarding the financial system against
illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats," but
it has from its founding been really all about safeguarding Israel's perceived interests.
Grant Smith notes how "the secretive office has a special blind spot for major terrorism
generators, such as tax-exempt money laundering from the United States into illegal Israeli
settlements and proliferation financing and weapons technology smuggling into Israel's
clandestine nuclear weapons complex."
To be sure, sanctions have been the key weapon in the ongoing unending war against perceived
"enemies" like Russia and Venezuela, but they have been laid on most promiscuously in the case
of Iran, Israel's number one enemy du jour, which has also been demonized by Washington even
though it is no threat to the United States. And it should be recognized that sanctions are not
a bloodless exercise used to pressure a recalcitrant government. They disproportionately affect
the poor and powerless, who starve and are denied access to medicines, but they rarely have any
impact on those who run the government. Five-hundred thousand Iraqi children died from
sanctions imposed by President Bill Clinton and his vulturine Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright. Currently, Iranians and Venezuelans are dying, by some estimates in their tens of
thousands.
Once on a sanctions list administered by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC) , there is no actual appeal process and no getting off the hook unless Mandelker
said so. And anyone who has any contact with the sanctioned entity can be in for trouble,
including American citizens who will find themselves no longer having rights to free speech and
association. The terms for violation of sanctions used by OFAC are "transaction" and "dealing
in transactions," broadly construed to include not only monetary dealings or exchanges, but
also "providing any sort of service" and "non-monetary service," including giving a
presentation at a conference or speaking or writing in support of a sanctioned group or
individual.
OFAC has a broad mandate to punish anyone who has anything to do with any Iranian group or
even any individual as Iran is considered a country that is "comprehensively sanctioned." To
cite just one example of how indiscriminately the sanctions regime works, Max Blumenthal
has
described how the FBI recently, acting under Mandelker's orders, warned a number of
Americans who had planned on speaking at an Iranian organized conference in Beirut that they
might be arrested upon their return.
Mandelker was born in Israel and largely educated in the United States. She is predictably a
lawyer. She has never stated how many citizenships she holds while repeated inquiries as to
whether she retains her Israeli citizenship have been ignored by the Treasury Department. It is
not clear how she managed to obtain a security clearance given her evident affinity to a
foreign country. The position that she held until last Wednesday was created in 2004 by George
W. Bush and is something of a "no Gentiles need apply" fiefdom. Its officials travel regularly
on the taxpayer's dime to Israel for consultations and also collaborate with pro-Israel
organizations like AIPAC, WINEP and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Mandelker's predecessor was Adam Szubin and he was preceded by David Cohen and, before that, by
the office's founder Stuart Levey, who is currently Group Legal Manager and Group Managing
Director for global bank HSBC. Since its creation, OFTI has not surprisingly focused on what
might be described as Israel's enemies, most notably among them being Iran.
Mandelker was clear about her role, citing her personal and business relationship with "our
great partner, Israel." Referring to sanctions on Iran, she has said that "Bad actors need
money to do bad things. That is why we have this massive sanctions regime Every time we apply
that pressure, that crunch on them, we deny them the ability to get that kind of revenue, we
make the world a safer place." In support of the pain she is inflicting to no real purpose
other than to force complete Iranian capitulation, she cites alleged Iranian misdeeds, foremost
of which is its alleged threatening of Israel. She also condemns Iran's support for Syria's
Bashar al-Assad, who she claims has killed his own people with chemical weapons, an assertion
that has proven to be untrue.
Mandelker touted her personal history as a claimed child of the seemingly ubiquitous
"holocaust survivors." In a speech at the Holocaust Museum in April she claimed that her
parents went underground in Eastern Europe: "They were hiding underground, in forests, in
ditches and under haystacks. I grew up hearing their stories, including about moments of great
courage, some of which resulted in survival and others that ended in death."
To be sure, Mandelker and her predecessors have been going after Iran's money since the 1979
Islamic Revolution, constantly devising new restrictions and rules to make it hard for Tehran
to do business with any other country. In 2006 Levey's office began to focus on cutting off
Iran from the global financial system. Currently the Trump administration is applying what it
describes as "maximum pressure" in seeking to sink Iran's economy by blocking all oil exports.
Since May, any country buying Iranian oil has been vulnerable to secondary sanctions by
Washington, all set up and choreographed by Mandelker.
That Mandelker and company have been engaging in economic warfare with a country with which
the United States is not at war seems to have escaped the notice of the media and Washington's
chattering class, not surprisingly as Israel is a beneficiary of the policy. And the fact that
the way sanctions are being enforced against American citizens is clearly unconstitutional has
also slipped by the usual watchdogs. Sigal Mandelker was a prime example of why anyone who is
either an actual dual national or plausibly possesses dual loyalty should not hold high office
in the United States government and is a blessing that she is gone, though one imagines she
will be replaced by another Zionist fanatic. If anyone wonders why Israel gets away with what
it does the simple answer would be that there are just too many people at the federal level who
think that serving Israel is the same as serving the United States. That is just not so and it
is past time that the American public should wake up to that fact.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected] .
As refugees, they received significant taxpayer provided housing, subsistence and
educational benefits.
Including free Social Security, even though they never paid any money into that fund.
And it's not merely thousands, but hundreds and hundreds of thousands, all living off the
generosity of the American taxpayer. But Shhh, don't say anything, why that would be
anti-Semitic!
Talk about welfare Queens.
Those covered by the Lautenberg Amendment are eligible for Special Cash Assistance and
for Federal Public Assistance Programs including, but not limited to, Social Security,
Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
CRS statistics indicate that over 370,000 refugees were admitted from the Former
Soviet Union in the first ten years of the Lautenberg Amendment. In October 2002 the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that "The Lautenberg Amendment allowed some 350,000 to
400,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union to gain entry into the United States without
having to prove they were individually persecuted." In 2010 the Hebrew Immigrant Aid
Society cited Eric Rubin, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow stating
that the amendment had resulted in almost 440,000 refugees from the former Soviet Union
and other regions of the world.
*Eric Alterman made extended remarks in 2009 at the 92d Y, celebrating his dual loyalty:
"You know, one of the touchiest words you can say when you're discussing Jews and Israel
is the word dual loyalty. It's sort of one of those words that American Jewish officialdom
has ruled out of the discourse. If you say dual loyalty, you're playing into the hands of
anti-semites, because it's been a consistent trope among anti-Semites that you can't trust
Jews. etc. etc. And I find this very confusing because I was raised dually loyal my whole
life. When I went to Hebrew school, the content of my Hebrew school was all about supporting
Israel. When my parents who I think are here tonight sent me to Israel when I was 14, on a
ZOA [Zionist Organization of America]-sponsored trip it was drummed into me that I should do
what's best for Israel.
I was at the Center for Jewish History not long ago where I heard Ruth Wisse, the Yiddishist
professor at Harvard instruct a group of young Jewish journalists that they should think of
themselves as members of the Israeli army.
I am a dual loyal Jew and sometimes I'm going to actually go with Israel, because the United
States can take an awful lot of hits and come up standing. Whereas if Israel takes one
serious bad hit it could disappear. So there's going to be some cases where when Israel and
the United States conflict I'm going to support what's best for Israel rather than what I
think is best for the United States.
Then-editor of the Forward Jane Eisner: Can you imagine a time where you would feel that dual
loyalty and go with Israel?
Alterman: I just said, there are many occasions.
Eisner: Can you give us an example?
Alterman: I think that bin Laden and 9/11 were to some degree inspired by U.S. support of
Israel. I think a great deal of the terrorist attacks and the sort of pool of potential
terrorists who want to attack the United States are inspired by the United States support for
Israel. I'm not saying we shouldn't support Israel for that reason. I'm saying, Dammit if
that's the price we have to pay, then I'm willing to pay it. I'm just saying Let's be honest
about it.".>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Just think that what Alterman said is not condemned ..he suffers nothing for admitting
that he is basically a traitor who would sacrifice Americans for the Jewish state.
Unbelievable ..staggers the mind how this kind of Jew treason is so accepted in America
..just staggering.
How did this kind of treason come to be O.K. for the Jews?
It came from this kind of treason .. Nancy Pelosi Addressing AIPAC in December of last
year:
"I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the
one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don't even call it our aid,
our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are.""
If there was a terrorist out there worth a damn he would be bombing congress instead of
Wal-Mart's.
"'You can assume that these terrorists are fighting for Israel. If they aren't part of the
regular Israeli army, they're fighting for Israel. Israel has common goals with Turkey, the
United States, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries,' Assad was quoted by
Ynet" – https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4946010,00.html
Dammit if that's the price we have to pay, then I'm willing to pay it
Altermann is being slippery here, saying HE would be willing to pay the price of some
neoCONs or Zionists dragging the USA into another war for Israel.
What he should of said is that as a member of the Jewish dominated MSM, they are more than
willing to trick, deceive, bamboozle and pull us by our Star of David shaped nose ring into
endless wars for the glory of Apartheid Israel and if you disagree, why you're just a mouth
breathing, knuckle-dragging anti-Semite.
They need to live for 3 months in Israel (after attaining the correct visa) to attain the
citizenship, or a year of living in Israel for the passport (unless they changed this
recently or accelerated it).
What you are confused with is obtaining the repatriation visa and the temporary card. The
visa they can issue before people arrive in Israel, and the temporary identity card at the
airport. But those are only useful if you will live for the following months in Israel.
I would suggest to Phil Giraldi to talk about Zionists instead of Jews doing Israel's
bidding. These Zionists adhere to the most racist and Apartheid ideology under the sun;
Zionism. Not every Jew is a Zionist. Therefore it's an insult to those Jews who do not adhere
to this wicked ideology and resist it. The notion of the right-wing Zionist regime in Israel
to speak in the name of world Jewry should be rejected not only by the Jewish citizens of
each country but by the public in general. It's amount to the hijacking of Jews in the name
of a vile racist and occupation regime. Such a claim puts the local Jewish population in a
precarious position, which could reproach in "dual loyalty." As Giraldi has pointed out
numerous times, the majority of Americans have lost control of their Middle Eastern policy. A
group of people whose loyalty to the US can cautiously describe as vague are in charge.
"As the United States permits American citizens to have multiple passports and therefore
nationalities there is, in fact, nothing in U.S. law that prohibits being both Israeli and
American".
Although I have not checked recently, I am fairly sure that is not the whole story by any
means.
It is quite true that ordinary citizens can go a lifetime with dual nationality and feel
no pain. I am one such, as my parents were British by birth but I was born in Argentina. Like
the USA, Argentina grants nationality to everyone born there (or, perhaps more accurately,
claims such people as its citizens).
However I think you will find that US law forbids anyone with dual US-anything nationality
to serve as an officer (or perhaps in any rank) in the other nation's armed forces, or to
accept political office in the other nation's government. There may well be other
restrictions.
The exceptions I have pointed out are very relevant indeed to the dual US-Israeli citizens
mentioned in the article, as many of them have served in the Israeli armed forces. Indeed is
that not compulsory for any Israeli citizen resident in Israel)? Some of them have also held
political office, had civil service jobs, etc.
For such people to remain anonymous is a scandal and, frankly, a serious national security
risk for the USA.
"Israeli citizenship is obtained virtually automatically upon application by any Jew and once
obtained it is permanent, only revocable by petitioning the Israeli government".
Neat and effective. "It's a kopeck to get in, but a ruble to get out".
'OFTI's website proclaims that it is responsible for "safeguarding the financial system
against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security
threats" '
Doesn't the US government mind this office setting itself up against the power of
Washington?
Illicit use of funds – check.
Rogue nation – check.
Terrorist facilitators – check in CAPITAL LETTERS. (Also actual terrorists).
WMD – check. (No other nation's government still maintains nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons).
Money launderers – Hell, Washington is the world's biggest counterfeiter.
Drug kingpins – check, although that is mostly delegated to the CIA.
Other national security threats – check, Washington is a national security threat to
every other nation in the world except Israel.
To be sure there are many non-Jews in the American government who have hitched their
star to the Israeli wagon because they know it to be career enhancing.
It can only be career enhancing if whites allow it.
One only has to observe in action Senator Lindsay Graham, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki
Haley and perhaps the most revolting of all, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who ran for
office proclaiming that he would be the most pro-Israel governor in the United States.
With the exception of Nikki Haley, who was appointed by an elected official, the other two
were elected by the majority white electorate. Jews have inordinate power in our country
because whites allow it.
To be clear any problems caused by Jews are the result of white insouciance.
I read in a sidebar on Antiwar.com that Sigal Mandelker was one of the attorneys
representing Jeffrey Epstein in 2008.
If it is true, then she,like Alexander Acosta, is guilty of breaking the law by entering
into judgement a plea deal without first notifying the plaintiffs of what that deal was, and
whether or not it met to their satisfaction.
The fact that it was MORE important to Mandelker to reward a child rapist/ pedophile with
a super sweet, totally cush deal , than to seek justice for his numerous victims , indicates
, with extreme clarity , she has no business working in our treasury department, let alone
our OFAC.
Individuals, who breach our laws and rules of ethics to ensure pedophiles and child
rapists are free to roam our streets, have no business working in the United States
Government, in any capacity.
The fact that both Mendaker AND Acosta were given prominent positions of power , with the
full awareness of their actions by those who appointed them, is very, very troubling.
It is simply NOT acceptable to the American People that there may be pedophiles and/or
child rapists serving within, and/ or influencing , our representative bodies.
The fact there has been no investigation into any of this, as well as Mandelkers
connection, is an absolute disgrace.
It seems to me, that until all the facts are clear, President Trump should order a "clean
sweep protocol" As soon as possible.
Child rapists , and their enablers , belong in only one place .and that is Federal Prison.
.
It is not just a matter of ethics it is a matter of National Security.
Zionists have thoroughly infiltrated and compromised the US Treasury. This is news. Watch
it be ignored.
Crypto-Israelis have captured (and partly converted) a US Federal agency for the purpose
of crippling the economies of any state that interferes with the far-flung agenda of global
Zionism. Their duplicitous mission borders on treason.
Using American resources to target Israel's far-away foes has nothing to do with advancing
the interests of the American people. To the contrary. It damages us economically and
strategically. It also undermines us domestically since these actions allow a foreign-based
faction to seize and exploit US power for its own nefarious ends.
Crypto-Zionist penetration of Washington is a backdoor assault on US sovereignty. We are
being parasitized.
Incredibly, Israeli influence over Washington has become so embedded that's it's now taken
for granted by Jews and acquiescing gentiles alike. Success in Washington now requires one to
A) fully understand (and respect) Jewish privilege, while B) never transgressing upon the
taboos that protect this indomitable group.
Indeed, just examining the range and depth of Jewish power in America is a forbidden topic
(except by Jewish scholars for a Jewish audience).
But for the rest of us, just noticing Jewish power is a risky enterprise. (So say
nothing.)
Officially, there's no such thing. Only Jewish victims.
Hapless Americans are confused. For Diaspora Jews however these artful deceptions
constitute a familiar gameplan. Organized Jewish subversion dates back to ancient Persia.
Jews celebrate it. (See: Purim)
Today, Israeli operatives are all over Washington, Wall Street, Hollywood and beyond. And
they're not the least bit ashamed about it. No siree. It's what they do.
Activist Jews are deeply committed to weaving Israel's economic and political needs into
the very fabric of American life. They are succeeding.
When Zio-America's corrupt, bloodthirsty, and over-extended empire finally collapses,
Diaspora Jews can simply cash in their chips and migrate to Israel. America's demise will
mark a new chapter in their glorious, wandering, drama-filled history.
Unfortunately, we goyim are expected to go down with the American ship.
To see just how 'entitled' the Jewish State thinks it is read these two articles. They
are aflame over Trump decision not to interfere in the Turkey Kurd dispute on the Turkey
Syrian border.
Speaking of aflame, I would recommend a third. It's an article by Yossi Alpher, who is a
former Mossad official and former director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for
Strategic Studies.
Concluding paragraphs from, What Trump's Withdrawal From Syria Means For The Kurds
– And For Israel :
At the end of the day, there are two basic lessons here for Israel and its supporters.
For anyone who has entertained doubts about the need for a state for the Jewish people, the
Kurds represent a tragic reminder. They are consistently being abandoned to an ugly fate
because they don't have a country.
The second lesson is that Israel cannot and must not depend on Trump. The cries of alarm
in Israel in recent days about a looming security threat do not only reflect lessons drawn
from Iran's (or one of its proxy's) spectacular attack on Saudi Arabia's energy
infrastructure. The alarms also reflect concern over the precedent set by Trump's refusal
to get involved militarily after Washington's Saudi ally was the victim of naked aggression
from Iran.
From that standpoint, America abandoning the Syrian Kurds is just icing on the cake of
Trump's Middle East non-strategy.
@alexanderMandelker was one of the DOJ officials who signed off on Epstein's sweetheart
nonprosecution agreement. One suspects she was the superior of Alexander Acosta who told him
that Epstein belonged to intelligence and was above Acosta's pay grade.
"'You can assume that these terrorists are fighting for Israel. If they aren't part of the
regular Israeli army, they're fighting for Israel. Israel has common goals with Turkey, the
United States, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries,' Assad was quoted by
Ynet" – https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4946010,00.html
Turkey wants to replace those Kurds with the Syrian mob that it armed and supported against
the Syrian government troops. These people and their families currently live in Turkey. To move
them into north Syria would be one of the largest ethnic cleansing operation the world has seen
in recent times.
A saying goes "The Kurds have no friends but the mountains." But there are no mountains in
Syria's north east. While the YPG might want to fight off a Turkish invasion they have little
chance to succeed. The land is flat and the YPG forces only have light arms.
There is only one solution for them. They will have to call up the Syrian government and ask
it to come back into the north east. That would remove the Turkish concerns and would likely
prevent further Turkish moves.
Trump has opened the door to a
Turkish incursion into Syria:
Donald Trump has given the green light to a contentious Turkish military operation in
north-east Syria against the main US allies in the battle with Isis, triggering alarm in
Washington and Europe and plunging the campaign against jihadis into uncertainty.
The US has started withdrawing troops from the vicinity of a looming Turkish incursion,
following Mr Trump's phone call with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's president, on Sunday
night.
The White House said the US military, which has about 1,000 troops in Syria, would not
"support or be involved in the operation" that Turkey has repeatedly threatened to launch
against US-backed Kurdish militias. In a statement, it said US forces would "no longer be in
the immediate area".
Removing U.S. forces from the area avoids having them caught up in the Turkish military
operation. Unless the U.S. was prepared to oppose Turkey and defend the YPG, it's not clear
what purpose would be served by keeping those forces where they were. Our absurd Syria policy
has put us in the untenable position of trying to keep the peace between mutually hostile
"allies" for years, and eventually the U.S. was going to have to choose which "ally" it was
going to side with. It is worth remembering that Turkey is a treaty ally and the YPG is at most
a proxy that has proven to be useful over the last few years. If the U.S. is going to favor one
or the other, it was never likely that our government would take the side of the YPG over
Turkey.
This dilemma wouldn't exist if the U.S. hadn't been waging an illegal war in Syria for the
past five years, and this should teach us to think very carefully about whether we should
support armed groups in a conflict where we have few clear interests. The U.S. has a long
history of supporting and then discarding armed proxies, and this will keep repeating itself as
long as the U.S. gets involved in unnecessary wars that it will sooner or later quit. The
solution isn't to use U.S. forces as a buffer with no end in sight, as quite a few critics of
this decision seem to want, but to refrain from sending U.S. forces into conflicts that don't
matter for U.S. security in the first place. Eventually our forces are going to leave places on
the other side of the planet, and it is unrealistic and unfair to make promises of a more
enduring commitment that everyone has to know won't be kept.
Having said all that, the administration has handled all this very poorly. Like almost every
Trump decision, the decision was made hastily and without coordinating with any of the people
that would be affected by it. It isn't clear that all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Syria
anytime soon, so it is possible that the illegal deployment there will continue somewhere else.
And it wouldn't be a Trump foreign policy decision if it didn't involve making insane threats
about destroying a country if its government does something he doesn't like:
Trump clearly wants to have things both ways, but it won't work. He is obviously wrong to
threaten to "destroy and obliterate" the Turkish economy, and the language in his statement is
deranged. Anyone who refers to his own "great and unmatched wisdom" obviously doesn't have any
wisdom to speak of, and it shows in this unhinged threat. For one thing, the threat isn't
likely to deter Erdogan from ordering an attack on Kurdish forces. The Turkish government sees
the YPG as part of an intolerable threat, and they aren't going to be coerced into changing
their position on that. Following through on the threat would mean inflicting punishment on the
people of Turkey for something their government has done, which would both inflame hostility to
the U.S. and harm tens of millions of people without achieving anything.
These are all the
ugly results of an absurd Syria policy and an illegal war that Trump escalated when he came
into office. It should serve as a warning to future administrations about the pitfalls of
involving the U.S. in wars we don't need to fight and throwing our support behind "allies" that
we will eventually leave in the lurch.
Update: The movement of U.S. forces is just a redeployment inside Syria:
US troops are *not* leaving Syria and will simply be moved out of area Turkey may attack,
senior administration official says. Number moving is 50 special operators.
Rep. Justin Amash says it best:
He's not bringing home the troops. He's not ending any war. Stop falling for it.
"...if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off
limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I've done before!)."
WHO SAYS THIS?
Forget the self-aggrandizing wording, which is beyond satire... Turkey are a treaty
ally! He's casually musing and threatening, in public, about "obliterating" the economy of
a treat ally!
It's going to be fascinating to see what the American history books have to say about
this time we are living through.
BTW, just as background: apparently Trump's threat to "destroy and obliterate" the Turkish
economy relates to a massive fine the US is "entitled" to assess on some Turkish interests
regarding a huge money-laundering scheme to evade financial sanctions on dealing with Iran.
Which fine we have not yet officially levied out of the goodness of our hearts...
"When it comes to U.S. foreign policy, the unchallenged world record holders for 'second
chances' and 'failing upward' are America's neoconservatives.", Stephen Walt
Actually, many of them should have been considered candidates for war criminals. "Waging the
war of agression" was part of the Nuremberg trials. This was the media called euphemistically
"the war of choice"!
"When it comes to U.S. foreign policy, the unchallenged world record
holders for 'second chances' and 'failing upward' are America's neoconservatives. Beginning in
the mid-1990s, this influential network of hard-line pundits, journalists, think tank analysts,
and government officials developed, purveyed, and promoted an expansive vision of American
power as a positive force in world affairs.
They conceived and sold the idea of invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein and insisted
that this bold move would enable the United States to transform much of the Middle East into a
sea of pro-American democracies.
What has become of the brilliant strategists who led the nation into such a disastrous
debacle? None of their rosy visions have come to pass, and if holding people to account were a
guiding principle inside the foreign policy community, these individuals would now be marginal
figures commanding roughly the same influence that Charles Lindbergh enjoyed after making naive
and somewhat sympathetic statements about Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.",
Walt, S. (2018). The Hell of good intentions: America's foreign policy elite and the decline
of US primacy. Straus and Giroux, p. 190.
You would have thought that these cheerleaders of invasion of Iraq and violation of the UN
charter would have run far, far away so that we never hear from them again--but no, they are
back explaining the world for us and making money doing that.
[ Milanovic was referring to a new column in Project Syndicate that I was confused by
before I noticed this reference to the column. Among the points of Milanovic, we find the
same self-defeating foreign policy being pushed by the same elite opinion-makers who hurt us
so much by taking us to war in Iraq and beyond.
"... If Biden is innocent of corruption, why does it look like he's not? What does that say about the nature of corruption itself in the entire DC establishment? ..."
"... One scenario that Neuburger hasn't considered: perhaps the Democrats are trying impeachment now because they are out of ammo and getting scared about 2020. Rather than lose the election, they are attempting a pre-emptive strike. ..."
"... Or is it a pre-emptive defensive strike by the CIA/Blob? With Trump seeming to ask Ukraine about Crowdstrike, and Barr asking for help from Australia on the Mueller investigation origins (as well as investigating the way the dossier was used), Trump and Barr might be trying to turn TrumpRussia into a counterattack on their establishment enemies, just in time for the election. Buckle up, indeed. ..."
"... The CIA credentials of the "whistleblower" are somehow too convenient, too familiar. The Dems are already more or less in bed with the CIA/Blob, so it is as if they are acting more to aid a "messenger" ..."
"... The intelligence community is rife with dissension and conflict; not over their need to service the multi-national firms and their congressional sycophants they really represent, but rather the speed at which they need to react to challenges coming from our limited free flow of information that contradicts their "stories" and propaganda. ..."
"... Yup, but this is still mislabeled "whistleblowing", which would be such if he/she were ratting on the CIA. ..."
"... I assumed that the much delayed Mueller report finally came out when it did and with the conclusion it did because the CIA was finally convinced that it had Trump sufficiently cowed. The July 27 phone call made it clear to them that it didn't. ..."
"... And Pelosi, when asked by the CIA to jump, immediately responded, "How high?" ..."
"... There are several plausible explanations. If you consider Pelosi's motivations, you have to look no further than her constituency, the donor class. ..."
"... Indeed, we might as well argue that Obama should have been impeached for turning the Espionage Act against reporters. I see that as more damaging to the US than most of Trump's harmful acts to date. ..."
"... Obama successfully convinced people that he WANTED to do the right things but was prevented from doing them by the evil Republicans. Despite the insurance/drug company friendly implementation of ObamaCare, assertion of the most transparent administration, ever, brutally coming down on government whistleblowers, killing overseas citizens via drone, not prosecuting financial misdeeds, and destroying Libya, Obama is seen as righteous. ..."
"... In my view, a truly great con man remains unacknowledged/undetected. ..."
"... Once is the intra-elite competition between the intelligence community and Trump. ..."
"... Trump is more acceptable to Wall Street than the left agenda. These attacks serve to consolidate Trumps base; I've seen more Trump 2020 bumper stickers in my very-blue town than any other candidates. ..."
"... I'm not sure that the Democrats yelling "impeachment!" will register loud enough to overcome the substance of the election campaign. Not enough people care about it. ..."
"... The public discourse is presently in the hands of partisan hacks, of mainly one ideology; Rentier Capitalism. One main American political faction will characterize the obscurantist process as "White Noise. The other main faction will characterize it as "Rainbow Noise." Both will be correct about the "Noise" part. ..."
"... The current equation of Warren and Sanders is the point problem of that coherence. Sanders is weak on foreign policy particulars (Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine are waffled responses, more afraid to alienate rather than state), Warren is totally absent because she has supported those policies in the past. ..."
"... Both committed to regulation, Warren wanting existing govt. style while Sanders wants the beginning of a bottom-up approach. Details are left on the "debate-stage floor", as what we have had so far is a Sideshow Bob presentation of policy, a Q&A for the media, which leads us nowhere unless you are fanatically political, which most of the nation has been educated/innoculated against. ..."
"... And not a word about Clinton approving arms sales while Secretary of State and accepting gifts to their foundation? ..."
"... What you are seeing is called "hypocrisy", writ large. The Democrats are finally discovering that they actually need the voters that they've been dissing for decades, and they really don't want to admit how badly they've screwed the pooch. ..."
"... That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff to the fore in place of the more irascible and prosecutorial Nadler suggests she does not want to give the public a clear narrative, so much as to keep them calm, as if the Trump administration were in charge instead of being in office. ..."
"... Yes, Pelosi put the Intelligence Committee (Schiff) in charge, as opposed to the Judiciary Committee (Nadler). Odd. ..."
"... Don't forget too that Pelosi is related by marriage to Governor Gavin Newsom (his aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, brother-in-law to Nancy). It's one big happy Resistance family! Corruption is okay as long as they do it. Their hypocrisy has no limits. ..."
"... Just imagine if corrupt California elites could rule the United States! ..."
"... Nor was it in 2006, when, after recapturing the House, Pelosi took impeachment "off the table," even though the Bush Administration committed multiple felonies in its warrantless surveillance program, in addition to completely destroying the Fourth Amendment. (Obama later normalized and rationalized all this, of course.) ..."
"... In a very real sense, it is a partisan war where there are penalties for losing. ..."
"... Pelosi has clearly seen the dangers of democrat complicity and corruption before; what's changed? If she was acutely (off the table) aware of the dirty utterly filthy linen danger before, then why not now when it's, if anything, more obvious than ever? ..."
"... It's the ill conceived nature of this, the mess the democrats are creating for themselves, that suggests to me that shifting the focus away from popular programs such as medicare for all is unintended even if successful. It's like stabbing yourself in the arm to divert attention from robbing the church collection. Not a good analogy but anyway ..."
"... a world in which it's perfectly acceptable for the children of elites to trail around after their parents and help smooth the wider asset-grabbing through personal enrichment. ..."
"... Pelosi wants the scope very narrow. That's quite telling. Even more telling, and offensive, when you think about it, is her decision to have this inquiry be led by the House Intelligence Committee. This pretty much guarantees that at least some of the proceedings will happen behind closed doors. ..."
"... Revenge, like any addiction, doesn't brook common sense. The author of the article is spot on when he points out that it's just too late to impeach on the high road even if the democrat party did have something, anything, to distinguish them ethically from the republicans or Trump (other than bombast). ..."
"... Team Blue elites need #resistance happy because it's their base. ..."
"... As far as the primary is concerned, it reaffirms support for Biden by party leadership. His campaign requires "electability in the general", so not clear how that's helping the cause. ..."
"... Perhaps they figured Biden was gonna get hit anyway for making Poroshenko fire the guy running the office prosecuting Biden's son (whereupon the investigation was, by coincidence, halted). Thus get everything together hit back in the month or so before the details emerged in US media? ..."
"... I think it's a colossal mistake, and now Pelosi is all-in (together with a bunch of Representatives in deep purple congressional districts roped into going on record supporting the impeachment investigation), so all this ain't going nowhere. ..."
"... Maybe I missed it, and so I (as a veteran) must make sure it is said: if the Congress will not list, as the first Article of Impeachment, the slaughter of innocent people in wars not declared by Congress, then I don't see how any other possible Article would matter ..."
"... Here, Trump has aided and abetted the slaughter and unending misery for hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, in a country against which the U.S. never declared war, by keeping the House of Saud armed. And this reasoning would include the killing of innocent people outside any consideration of war and peace, a crime which can be incontrovertibly attributed to decisions emanating from the Oval Office regarding people who come to our borders to seek economic or political refuge. ..."
"... The problem, of course, is that the war in Yemen started under O'Bomber. One of those rare achievements of the Trump administration, in fact, is that he hasn't actually started any brand-spanking new wars at all–just continued the old ones started by Bushbama. ..."
"... Well, bush got congress to approve Iraq, so impeaching him would have been on account of the lies. Libya is on Obama Hillary. It wasn't 'we came, we saw, he died', cackle, it was 'a peaceful, prosperous country died', one with equal Ed for women, a rarity in ME. ..."
"... I have been hoping and praying that disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe has gone "John Dean" (of Watergate infamy) and the National Security State knows it. If that dream is a reality then maybe, just maybe, I'll have to buy a television set to watch that theater live on a 60 inch screen. ..."
"We've got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden," said Biden's
brother James according to
this Politico story about how the Biden family cashes in on their well-placed relative.
... ... ...
If Biden is innocent of corruption, why does it look like he's not? What does that
say about the nature of corruption itself in the entire DC establishment?
Two traps for a party that much of the nation depends on to rid them of the man the last
election elevated to power. Two reasons for independent voters -- those not Party loyalists,
not blue-no-matter-who, not Never-Trumpers, voters who never turn out for elections or rarely
do -- to not turn out for this one, when their voice and vote is needed most in this greatest
of watershed years
.
What's decided now, in this year and the next, will set the course of the nation and the
world for a dozen years to come -- or a dozen millennia if the chaos predicted by the most
pessimistic among us takes root and grows. After all, social and political chaos is a breeding
ground for authoritarian "solutions." We don't need any of those, and this may be the last
electoral chance to avoid them.
To reiterate a comment in the recent Water Cooler (this article is a better forum):
One scenario that Neuburger hasn't considered: perhaps the Democrats are trying
impeachment now because they are out of ammo and getting scared about 2020. Rather than lose
the election, they are attempting a pre-emptive strike.
Or is it a pre-emptive defensive strike by the CIA/Blob? With Trump seeming to ask Ukraine
about Crowdstrike, and Barr asking for help from Australia on the Mueller investigation
origins (as well as investigating the way the dossier was used), Trump and Barr might be
trying to turn TrumpRussia into a counterattack on their establishment enemies, just in time
for the election. Buckle up, indeed.
Yes, I've been wondering this also. The CIA credentials of the "whistleblower" are somehow
too convenient, too familiar. The Dems are already more or less in bed with the CIA/Blob, so
it is as if they are acting more to aid a "messenger", as @InquiringMind
put it during the latest Water Cooler.
A recent decision was made by the intelligence organs to allow reporting of second-hand
information and be titled a whistleblower for your efforts. it is acceptable to spy (which
this is an example of, since it is not whistleblowing) and listen to conversations saying
they heard this or that was happening, report that through legal channels, and have it
accepted BECAUSE IT APPEALS POLITICALLY to the agency or the particular representative.
The intelligence community is rife with dissension and conflict; not over their need to
service the multi-national firms and their congressional sycophants they really represent,
but rather the speed at which they need to react to challenges coming from our limited free
flow of information that contradicts their "stories" and propaganda. We're getting wise
– not completely, not with any assuredness that our info is complete, but enough to
cause tremendous doubt and distrust of the messaging coming from government and media
propagandists.
To me, the danger of this period is exactly the lack of organized opposition, politically
at home and among the nations of the globe, to this onslaught and flooding of the ears with
lies that become real due to that repetition. We are not united, and the convenient and quick
answers are flawed. The Communist Party was deeply flawed, and the International a craven
defender of Stalin, but we could certainly use some organization similar to fight this neocon
cancer now, before it metastisizes into worse, if that is possible. That being said,
impatience drives tribal thinking, already invading academia and the few public intellectuals
existing. I await the working classes hitting their limit. Buckle up, indeed
Hey, I'm not posing an answer, and see fear of one everywhere, so don't thank me. There is
a inchoate and diffuse anger brewing "out there", but it does not reflect our measured,
rather moderate knowledge of crime and abuse of power we observe daily. It will, given the
money and influence of the right wing, push over to such violent reaction it will make the
1930s seem like a birthday party. The left, or what is loosely left of it, badly needs
discipline and structure, but its traditional organs have been rent asunder and are not
trustworthy.
A thinktank? New party? Dunno it has to have room to grow, and our secret-sauce parties
and intel outfits have "six ways from Sunday" to mess with any of it. Clarity of political
thought seems to come from crisis and being cornered, but that clarity is not guaranteed to
be "healthy", babies going with the bath water-wise. Bernie is a short-term stopgap to the
bleeding IF he can wrap his mind around the movement and an understanding of the immediate
threats to its existence- i.e., the DNC.
Regarding the first sentence of your comment: The requirements of the law never changed,
the whistleblower used an old form anyway, and the recently changed form has been
replaced.
In any case, the IG's process for handling whistleblower allegations is determined not
by a form but by the law and related policy documents. The key document, ICD 120, has been
virtually unchanged since 2014. Contrary to the speculation, the whistleblower used the
2018 form, not the new online form. The IG then investigated and found that his allegations
were credible and that Congress should be notified.
Yup, but this is still mislabeled "whistleblowing", which would be such if he/she were
ratting on the CIA. This hearsay would be laughed out of a court of law absent other proof.
Further, I think we can dismiss the IG investigation as being anything not pressured by
establishment types threatened by Trump's vendetta against Obama and his wing of the neo-lib
global corporation, as it promises to open the can of worms that both parties are united in
foreign policy and who we deal with, and that unity spills over into McCarthy-like reaction
to any unpredictability and unreliability such as Trump's. We can't "get him" on his real
crimes, as that would leave all "them guys" exposed.
I assumed that the much delayed Mueller report finally came out when it did and with the
conclusion it did because the CIA was finally convinced that it had Trump sufficiently cowed.
The July 27 phone call made it clear to them that it didn't.
And Pelosi, when asked by the
CIA to jump, immediately responded, "How high?" It will be extremely interesting to see how
much influence the CIA has over Republican Senators who will be casting decisive votes.
Thirty-three Republicans Senators will be excused and given cover. Is there a thirty-fourth
with the cojones to vote against removal and against the CIA's efforts to impose a color
revolution on American soil?
If this is really about 2020 then Democrats are even more stupid than I'm inclined to
believe. Krystal Ball said this morning that only 35% of the public supports impeachment. All
this effort will do is rile up Trump supporters. I recall what happened in the 1998 midterms
after the Clinton impeachment. There's every reason to believe this will turn around and bite
the Democrats in 2020.
Pelosi and Schumer are fine with that. If Democrats were to actually win, they'd have to
govern, and they can't do that.
There are several plausible explanations. If you consider Pelosi's motivations, you have
to look no further than her constituency, the donor class.
From their perspective there has been too many uncomfortable policy debates, including
climate change, occurring on the campaign trail. As with Russiagate all of these discussions
will vanish from the corporate media.
Also, some of the donors have stated they will not donate to the Dems, and may in fact
donate to Trump, if Warren gets nominated.
Finally, purely for display of party unity, protecting Joe Biden, even if it brings him
down will have value. Also, this specific charge will not bring up any of other former "suits" illegal
actions.
Inasmuch as polling showing the combined popularity of Sanders and Warren exceed 30% while
Biden is down to 19%, if you can end with a inconclusive first round of voting at the
Democratic Convention, you can bring in the Supers and name the person of your choice.
As to the question of 'why now?', my guess is because the 'resistance' types see the
writing on the wall that they are going to lose with anybody but Sanders as the candidate,
and they aren't about to allow Sanders to win. RussiaRussiaRussia, porn stars, and everything
else they tried didn't work and they've got nothing else that would give the public at large
something to vote for .
As to that writing on the wall, I will offer some very anecdotal evidence, but I found it
telling. A few days ago I went to a rural county fair. Now granted these fairs likely attract
a more conservative crowd, however this particular fair was in the most liberal county in the
state. Took a look at the exhibition hall at the fair, full of quilts, 4th grade artwork,
canned tomatoes, etc. as well as booths for both the Republican and Democrat parties.
At the Democrat party booth, they had put out poster boards with a list of issues and you
were supposed to put a little round sticker next to the issue you felt was most important.
Boring policy wonk stuff. I don't even remember if anyone was manning the booth when we
stopped by, but if they were they made no attempt whatsoever to speak with us. My wife put
one sticker on a poster and walked away and we were the only people there at the time. In
fairness, clearly there had been people there earlier since there were a lot of stickers
stuck to posters.
At the Republican booth, there were a number of people in line engaging with those manning
the booth. And rather than just pining little stickers on a poster, the Republicans were
handing out Trump 2020 swag and letting people get photos with a big Trump cutout. IDoing fun
stuff. Walking around the fair later I saw one of the few Hispanics in attendance (this is a
very white county in an extremely white state) sporting a Trump 2020 tote bag as he and his
wife walked through the fair.
If I were to base a prediction on the evidence alone, I would say Trump and the Elephants
are going to hand the Asses their asses in 2020 and they can feel it coming.
I really don't see how this doesn't blow up in their faces, but they've got nothing
else.
This is my feeling on it. It's the Democrats' Benghazi, a string of congressional hearings
designed to produce dirt on Trump to sink him in the election. Actual impeachment and removal
is nahgunnahappen, as that requires 67 senators, which would require all Democrats in the
Senate, both independents, and 20 Republicans . It would be a minor miracle if five
Republicans signed onto impeachment.
However, with dirt slinging as the only useful outcome possible, it shows how incompetent
Pelosi is by limiting the inquiry to just the Ukraine business. The damning dirt could come
in any form out of any corner of Trump's ongoings, so why would you limit the dirt digging to
something that, on the face of it, doesn't scream it went any deeper than Trump's
implication. Especially as it didn't happen that long ago.
God, this is so stupid. Look, perhaps it is because I live in a different continent or I
have a twisted turn of mind but I am seeing something completely different at work here. Is
Trump Corrupt? Of course he is but in a completely ham-fisted way that makes it blatantly
obvious. With Trump you always have low expectations. But Thomas Neuburger talks about ICE
deaths, Puerto Rico, the Muslim ban but so what? Obama was guilty of far worse but no
Democrats will criticize him for any of it. An example? If you cover up an international war
crime such as torture, that is an international crime too and Obama definitely covered up for
the CIA tortures and "looked forward". And one ramification for that was the US now having a
ex-torturer as head of the CIA.
So here is my take. The past few months Americans were finally having subjects like
healthcare and college debt forgiveness getting some air time and some serious traction. The
Democrat candidates were being forced to give answers on their positions on such ideas. But
now? The Democrats have introduced impeachment which has all the success prospects of
Russiagate. Expect copious amounts of verbal diarrhea in the next few months which will allow
for no time for discussion of subjects like healthcare anymore. The DNC will shout down
anyone trying to do so by shouting "Impeachment!". And when the elections rock around in a
year's time and there is finally some minor space to start talking about such subjects, the
DNC will tell progressives "You know, you should have really brought this up in 2019 while
there was time to talk about it. Your bad."
Indeed, we might as well argue that Obama should have been impeached for turning the
Espionage Act against reporters. I see that as more damaging to the US than most of Trump's
harmful acts to date.
I tell people that Trump is a minor league con man because so many people assert that he
is a con man
Obama successfully convinced people that he WANTED to do the right things but was
prevented from doing them by the evil Republicans. Despite the insurance/drug company
friendly implementation of ObamaCare, assertion of the most transparent administration, ever,
brutally coming down on government whistleblowers, killing overseas citizens via drone, not
prosecuting financial misdeeds, and destroying Libya, Obama is seen as righteous.
In my view, a truly great con man remains unacknowledged/undetected.
Obama is in a con man league of his own, as he benefits from the left's form of Obama
Derangement Syndrome.
Interesting that attacking trump on this is attacking Biden did dem elites give up on him?
don't see how he can survive, which seems to open the field for Warren sanders if so, not
what donors want, pelosi musta been forced by blue dogs cia.
Maybe good for sanders he needs rest, the stents will require recovery msm can't focus away
from impeach to celebrate his health problems
How long? Say one month?
Hopefully the dems great white hope Biden will be down and out by primaries Bernie might find
help in the south this time where it was a wall last time
Ca dem elites don't want Bernie, but electorate doesn't want Kamala
And Tulsi back on stage with her useful to focus on wars.
I think this vectors the right direction, Rev Kev. White noise to drown out clearly
articulated messages. If any of this were about actual evidence, Binney would've been called
to undercut the Crowdstrike assertions.
There are a couple of things that seem real. Once is the intra-elite competition between
the intelligence community and Trump. Epstein cracked a door and some light got through.
Trump seems to have taken the standard operating procedures personally.
Despite this, Trump is more acceptable to Wall Street than the left agenda. These attacks
serve to consolidate Trumps base; I've seen more Trump 2020 bumper stickers in my very-blue
town than any other candidates.
The endgame comes with the primaries. Sander's campaign income has a verisimilitude with
greater weight than the polls. Even polls which aren't specifically rigged can't cope with
modern communications. The problem is, with electronic vote-flipping on top of old-school
methods, unless the paper ballots get in (which is against status quo interests), how can it
be made clear the vote is being rigged? Could public gatherings outside the polling places be
enough to offer an alternative count?
Plus, Sanders has set himself up as TINA. He has not spread his wealth of four decades of
credibility to anyone else. No Hindu is getting the Oval, so Gabbard is a gadfly, not an
option. Trump and the top three Democratic candidates could all actually die of old age.
The only thing I'd actually put a bet on in all this is that Trump will not be removed
from office via impeachment.
I'm not sure that the Democrats yelling "impeachment!" will register loud enough to
overcome the substance of the election campaign. Not enough people care about it.
The real determinate is which people 'care' about it. The public discourse is presently in the hands of partisan hacks,
of mainly one ideology; Rentier Capitalism.
One main American political faction will characterize the obscurantist process as "White
Noise. The other main faction will characterize it as "Rainbow Noise." Both will be correct
about the "Noise" part.
According to Ball in the "Rising" video, the percentage of people who support impeachment
is 35%. That pretty much covers all the "partisan hacks" you refer to.
To the average voter? This is just noise and nonsense. Regardless of how impeachment ends
(and one doesn't have to be a genius to figure out that it will go nowhere), the concerns and
the anger of average voters are not going away.
Ditto, Ambrit- a rational response bestride the not caring noise.
The current equation of Warren and Sanders is the point problem of that coherence. Sanders
is weak on foreign policy particulars (Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine are waffled responses,
more afraid to alienate rather than state), Warren is totally absent because she has
supported those policies in the past.
Both committed to regulation, Warren wanting existing
govt. style while Sanders wants the beginning of a bottom-up approach. Details are left on
the "debate-stage floor", as what we have had so far is a Sideshow Bob presentation of
policy, a Q&A for the media, which leads us nowhere unless you are fanatically political,
which most of the nation has been educated/innoculated against.
Right now, probably true. However, we've been victim to propaganda many times before
– WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etc.etc. We have an apparatus that has honed its abilities
to reach millions immediately through TV, press, video, websites, that puts former agit-prop
to shame. We have been swarmed with the same message, basically allowing those caught in lies
previously to suddenly be believed today, "because"
The truth of any proposition comes down to its provenance and our ability to get tired of
the repetition and cacophony surrounding us, thus surrendering the ground. If enough believe
the initial message, if enough see their bread buttered by it, then the rest of us are prone
to that surrender unless an outside agency we CAN rely on exists.
It is sad to say that "not caring" becomes a positive. 50% of the voting public does not
vote, and most who vote do not care if their vote is even counted properly. Do not care
equals no democracy at all.
What you are seeing is called "hypocrisy", writ large. The Democrats are finally
discovering that they actually need the voters that they've been dissing for decades, and
they really don't want to admit how badly they've screwed the pooch.
Perhaps Ms. Pelosi's caucus finally made her do what she despises doing. That it should
benefit her party leadership's choice to replace Donald Trump is, of course,
coincidental.
There's still the nit that there's been no congressional vote authorizing her impeachment
inquiry, which will keep the process in the courts and delay proceedings longer than
necessary.
Ms. Pelosi's actions bring to mind the contradictory naval order, proceed with all
deliberate speed. It is a sign that the admirals acknowledge the necessity of doing
something, but tell their commanders it's on them if it goes South.
That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff to the fore in place of the more irascible and
prosecutorial Nadler suggests she does not want to give the public a clear narrative, so much
as to keep them calm, as if the Trump administration were in charge instead of being in
office.
California is the vanguard of the "Resistance" to Trump. Pelosi is from California, as is
Schiff. Two of the Intelligence Committee members are also from California (Jackie Speier and
Eric Swalwell) as the LA Times pointed out a few days ago ("
California to play an outsize role in impeachment inquiry of Trump "). This is probably
why the whole impeachment inquiry is centered in the Intelligence committee and not the
Judiciary.
Various Obama officials live or work in California. For example, Eric Holder was hired by
the California Legislature to fight Trump. David Plouffe, who works with the Chan Zuckerberg
Initiative among other Silicon Valley groups, is helping a liberal group called ACRONYM with
anti-Trump digital messaging.
Don't forget too that Pelosi is related by marriage to Governor Gavin Newsom (his aunt was
married to Ron Pelosi, brother-in-law to Nancy). It's one big happy Resistance family!
Corruption is okay as long as they do it. Their hypocrisy has no limits.
Just imagine if corrupt California elites could rule the United States! The Wash Post even
had a fantasy piece about "President Pelosi" just a few days ago.
Thanks for that, saved me a bit of rushed commenting because I was going to quickly
comment on it before I noticed you had already.
California has 6 of the 24 members of the House Intelligence Committee: 4 of those 6
members hold 100% of Democratic (Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff) and Republican (Kevin McCarthy
and Devin Nunes) leadership roles; there are 4 out of 14 in the total Democratic membership,
and 2 out of 10 in the Republican membership.
Also, Californian members make up 100% of the House membership of the Gang of Eight, , 2
Democratic and 2 Republican: respectively, Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff; and Kevin McCarthy
and Devin Nunes.
And lastly, both California Senators Dianne Feinstein, and Kamala Harris (despite her
newbiness), are on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the only State to have both Senators as
members.
As a decades long California resident, what sickens me the most about this is California
legislators (overwhelmingly Democratic Party, but may as well be Republican given the
stunning inequality/austerity imposed in California) preside over the highest numbers of
unsheltered homeless in the country. A full third of California residents have been forced
onto Medi-Cal (where millions can't find a treating doctor for the life of them), or don't
qualify (despite not being able to afford their rents), yet can't afford any insurance.
Concurrently, State Legislators and that duplicitous, slimy creep Newsom just signed off on
an Obama inspired California
Healthcare Mandate Penalty , although there were crickets at California's Franchise Tax
Board when it came to following the IRS in going after Facebook's stunning and blatant 2010
Ireland Asset transfers Tax evasion (to the tune of billions now, and next to impossible to
determine what the current status of it is), they would much rather go after their
increasingly impoverished populace who can't afford a CPA, let alone an attorney.
> In other words, the rightness of impeachment was never a consideration for Democratic
Party leaders.
Nor was it in 2006, when, after recapturing the House, Pelosi took impeachment "off the
table," even though the Bush Administration committed multiple felonies in its warrantless
surveillance program, in addition to completely destroying the Fourth Amendment. (Obama later
normalized and rationalized all this, of course.)
So one would not have expected principle or the "rule of law" or any of those other
shibboleths to enter into the liberal Democrat decision-making process. It never does.
This person starts out with an establishing remark that convicts Trump, and goes on from
there. Unlike a true impeachment process, no 'real' groundwork is laid down. Furthermore, by
half-heartedly mentioning "issues" with the Pelosi formulation, in effect, that Biden is just
as bad as Trump, the author lays the groundwork for the 'impeachment' of both Party's "main"
candidates. The piece reminds me of the logic of the Alice in Wonderland trial: "Sentence
first – verdict afterwards." All this, my cynical sensibility reminds me, sotto voice,
for an insane Queen.
Impeachment has always been a political process. After all, it is a function of the Congress,
the prototype of politics. To take the authors buttressing point, that the 'essence' of
impeachment should be the pure logic of the deeds in question casts the entire process of
impeachment in the light of virtue signalling. How else would a disinterested observer
characterize a process where the process itself is not initiated with the anticipation of a
useful outcome? In a very real sense, it is a partisan war where there are penalties for
losing.
This piece, if any, shows plainly the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the American
political process today. The two "leading" candidates of the "rival" Partys are both
delineated to be frauds, figuratively and literally. Turning the mentioning of the earlier
English Parliamentary 'version' of impeachment on, as it were, it's head, one is lead to
consider that only something as all encompassing and determinative as an actual bloodletting
will be of any use to the Nation.
Be very careful what you ask for. You might get it.
"Impeachment is the Constitution's version of the English Civil War, minus the war."
It could be argued that getting rid of a Prime Minister via a vote of no confidence is
orders of magnitude simpler than impeachment. In fact, it seems to happen about every ten or
twenty years on average in the UK. And no civil war required either.
The best analogue of today with then is that the English Civil War did not just remove the
Royalist leadership of the time, but an entire generation of Royalists. Does America really
want a twenty year interregnum?
We are already in the Interregnum. Trump was 'none of the above'. People talked about a
'clown car' and then Trump showed that a clown could actually accede to power, insofar as a
clown can manage the role. The Democrats responded with a clown show of their own. It's a
circus, although the clowns are pretty malign. Maybe people like that. Meanwhile, serious
people with serious political proposals, like Sanders, are on the outside looking in.
Someone's going to have to break a window.
Pelosi has clearly seen the dangers of democrat complicity and corruption before; what's
changed? If she was acutely (off the table) aware of the dirty utterly
filthy linen danger before, then why not now when it's, if anything, more obvious than
ever?
All I can think of is that the Clinton derangement syndrome – the bitterness and
perceived injustice that the anointed one didn't get anointed – still has an iron grip
on the psyche of the DC Daristocrats. They're stone drunk on hatred, spite, and lust for
revenge and are hallucinating in broad daylight that they've got the hook to sell it.
I like the idea that this is all a clever ruse to keep the focus away from sanity in
health care etc., but it just doesn't look like they have that much sense. From the UK to the
the US, everyone's going nuts.
I bet it's good for fund raising, those I know who are most embarrassed by trump have a
fair amount of money and currently they are very excited. Whatever it is, it's not bernie (or
should I say &@cking bernie), it's not M4A, and it's not student loans, as commented on
above this line
It's the ill conceived nature of this, the mess the democrats are creating for themselves,
that suggests to me that shifting the focus away from popular programs such as medicare for
all is unintended even if successful. It's like stabbing yourself in the arm to divert
attention from robbing the church collection. Not a good analogy but anyway
There is a huge amount of pressure from the public to get rid of Trump any way possible
and a lot of that, ironically, has been manufactured by the democrats themselves. That, I
suspect, combined with Hillary syndrome, is more what's behind this than the criminal, but
lucid, plan to obscure the popularity of programs benefiting the public.
Perhaps you should go back and re-read the last 5 years of commentary then -- there's been
plenty of substance offered by those who are just as powerless as you.
Imagine Trump were to overthrow Maduro in a coup. He installs his puppet Guido who
immediately gives Ivanka a seat on the board of a Venezuelan oil company at 50K a month, or
more. Would the Democrats be screaming 'nothing to see here' in that scenario?
It's not clear the Democrats would notice any impropriety. What would be tearing them
apart is that they didn't get a seat at the trough (on the board) as well.
I would say 'Joe Biden's son's integrity' and 'the dubious right-wing Democratic Party
CIA-led arms sales-drive policy in the Ukraine.'
I don't think that Biden himself is particularly corrupt; the guy really is a terrible
hack. And I don't think legal corruption is necessarily what's at issue, but a world in which
it's perfectly acceptable for the children of elites to trail around after their parents and
help smooth the wider asset-grabbing through personal enrichment.
The wider context–villifying Russia, cleaning up Ukraine enough to justify
consorting with fascists and the far-right to keep all the balls in the air, needs to be
exposed.
There is a right way to do impeachment, and this ain't it. They could investigate the
Trump administrator for its rampant corruption – it's a very target-rich environment.
Instead, Pelosi wants the scope very narrow. That's quite telling. Even more telling, and
offensive, when you think about it, is her decision to have this inquiry be led by the House
Intelligence Committee. This pretty much guarantees that at least some of the proceedings
will happen behind closed doors.
So, they think that they're going to remove the duly elected
President behind closed doors, and they think the population will be okay with this? Do they
really live in such a bubble that they think people trust their judgment enough to do this?
It boggles the mind.
Revenge, like any addiction, doesn't brook common sense. The author of the article is spot
on when he points out that it's just too late to impeach on the high road even if the
democrat party did have something, anything, to distinguish them ethically from the
republicans or Trump (other than bombast).
Also, just a thought, having this discussion behind closed doors makes sense if Pelosi is
hoping they will come to their senses.
As to the right or wrong way to do impeachment, I think the democrats like the republicans
are simply beyond that or any notion of it other than the residue of dim memory that ends up
entirely as the decorative part in public speeches. I suspect they are quite simply oblivious
to such niceties as anything being wrong with using impeachment as a weapon rather than as a
means for justice.
I'm pretty sure Pelosi doesn't want it and wanted to repeat her 2007 play, but she doesn't
have 2008 certainty to offer (keep the powder dry I know but this was what that was about).
Team Blue elites need #resistance happy because it's their base. The people who missed brunch
aren't exactly rationale or going to have this explained to them behind closed doors. Pelosi
has been slowly losing with the caucus, but most of the members are terrible and vulnerable
to an AOC-esque challenge especially in safe seats which most of the seats are. Again without
theven #resistance, safe seat Team Blue types are very vulnerable.
Adding that, imo, the rank and file voters did the work of electing Democrats to a House
majority, motivated partly by Clinton revenge, but also by policy issues. There's been
noticeable dismay in the corners of twitter where I wander at Pelosi's taking so long to act,
the inept performances of the few hearings so far, and now the proposed narrow focus.
my take is they're never actually going to pass articles of impeachment, which would hand
the process over to McConnell in the Senate. It will stay in the House and they will attempt
to nab Trump or perhaps one of his sidekicks like Giuliani on obstruction of the House
investigation. This is by now a fairly transparent strategy, and we will find out what the
elusive PA swing voter thinks of it soon enough.
As far as the primary is concerned, it reaffirms support for Biden by party leadership.
His campaign requires "electability in the general", so not clear how that's helping the
cause.
Perhaps they figured Biden was gonna get hit anyway for making Poroshenko fire the guy
running the office prosecuting Biden's son (whereupon the investigation was, by coincidence,
halted). Thus get everything together hit back in the month or so before the details emerged
in US media?
I think it's a colossal mistake, and now Pelosi is all-in (together with a bunch of
Representatives in deep purple congressional districts roped into going on record supporting
the impeachment investigation), so all this ain't going nowhere.
Maybe I missed it, and so I (as a veteran) must make sure it is said: if the Congress will
not list, as the first Article of Impeachment, the slaughter of innocent people in wars not
declared by Congress, then I don't see how any other possible Article would matter.
Here,
Trump has aided and abetted the slaughter and unending misery for hundreds of thousands of
Yemenis, in a country against which the U.S. never declared war, by keeping the House of Saud
armed. And this reasoning would include the killing of innocent people outside any
consideration of war and peace, a crime which can be incontrovertibly attributed to decisions
emanating from the Oval Office regarding people who come to our borders to seek economic or
political refuge.
Wasn't the power to go to war exclusively reserved for Congress, to try to make sure that
the country wouldn't go to war on a lark? And wasn't the Bill of Rights enshrined to make
sure that the U.S. Government could not put people to death, at least without due
process?
I realize that this might mean that Congress would have had to impeach presidents left and
right. So be it; enlisted women and men can be severely punished for killing innocent people
(and for far less, such as disobeying orders). Why should presidents and vice-presidents
escape responsibility for high crimes of unjustifiable homicide (and, I must add,
countenancing torture)?
The problem, of course, is that the war in Yemen started under O'Bomber. One of those rare
achievements of the Trump administration, in fact, is that he hasn't actually started any
brand-spanking new wars at all–just continued the old ones started by Bushbama.
Well, bush got congress to approve Iraq, so impeaching him would have been on account of
the lies.
Libya is on Obama Hillary. It wasn't 'we came, we saw, he died', cackle, it was 'a peaceful,
prosperous country died', one with equal Ed for women, a rarity in ME.
Is this the last desperation Hail Mary by the Democratic Party and the National Security
State to save themselves?
Has it already happened?
I have been hoping and praying that disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew
McCabe
has gone "John Dean" (of Watergate infamy) and the National Security State knows it. If that dream is a reality then maybe, just maybe, I'll have to buy a television set to
watch that theater live
on a 60 inch screen.
"... If Biden is innocent of corruption, why does it look like he's not? What does that say about the nature of corruption itself in the entire DC establishment? ..."
"... One scenario that Neuburger hasn't considered: perhaps the Democrats are trying impeachment now because they are out of ammo and getting scared about 2020. Rather than lose the election, they are attempting a pre-emptive strike. ..."
"... Or is it a pre-emptive defensive strike by the CIA/Blob? With Trump seeming to ask Ukraine about Crowdstrike, and Barr asking for help from Australia on the Mueller investigation origins (as well as investigating the way the dossier was used), Trump and Barr might be trying to turn TrumpRussia into a counterattack on their establishment enemies, just in time for the election. Buckle up, indeed. ..."
"... The CIA credentials of the "whistleblower" are somehow too convenient, too familiar. The Dems are already more or less in bed with the CIA/Blob, so it is as if they are acting more to aid a "messenger" ..."
"... The intelligence community is rife with dissension and conflict; not over their need to service the multi-national firms and their congressional sycophants they really represent, but rather the speed at which they need to react to challenges coming from our limited free flow of information that contradicts their "stories" and propaganda. ..."
"... Yup, but this is still mislabeled "whistleblowing", which would be such if he/she were ratting on the CIA. ..."
"... I assumed that the much delayed Mueller report finally came out when it did and with the conclusion it did because the CIA was finally convinced that it had Trump sufficiently cowed. The July 27 phone call made it clear to them that it didn't. ..."
"... And Pelosi, when asked by the CIA to jump, immediately responded, "How high?" ..."
"... There are several plausible explanations. If you consider Pelosi's motivations, you have to look no further than her constituency, the donor class. ..."
"... Indeed, we might as well argue that Obama should have been impeached for turning the Espionage Act against reporters. I see that as more damaging to the US than most of Trump's harmful acts to date. ..."
"... Obama successfully convinced people that he WANTED to do the right things but was prevented from doing them by the evil Republicans. Despite the insurance/drug company friendly implementation of ObamaCare, assertion of the most transparent administration, ever, brutally coming down on government whistleblowers, killing overseas citizens via drone, not prosecuting financial misdeeds, and destroying Libya, Obama is seen as righteous. ..."
"... In my view, a truly great con man remains unacknowledged/undetected. ..."
"... Once is the intra-elite competition between the intelligence community and Trump. ..."
"... Trump is more acceptable to Wall Street than the left agenda. These attacks serve to consolidate Trumps base; I've seen more Trump 2020 bumper stickers in my very-blue town than any other candidates. ..."
"... I'm not sure that the Democrats yelling "impeachment!" will register loud enough to overcome the substance of the election campaign. Not enough people care about it. ..."
"... The public discourse is presently in the hands of partisan hacks, of mainly one ideology; Rentier Capitalism. One main American political faction will characterize the obscurantist process as "White Noise. The other main faction will characterize it as "Rainbow Noise." Both will be correct about the "Noise" part. ..."
"... The current equation of Warren and Sanders is the point problem of that coherence. Sanders is weak on foreign policy particulars (Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine are waffled responses, more afraid to alienate rather than state), Warren is totally absent because she has supported those policies in the past. ..."
"... Both committed to regulation, Warren wanting existing govt. style while Sanders wants the beginning of a bottom-up approach. Details are left on the "debate-stage floor", as what we have had so far is a Sideshow Bob presentation of policy, a Q&A for the media, which leads us nowhere unless you are fanatically political, which most of the nation has been educated/innoculated against. ..."
"... And not a word about Clinton approving arms sales while Secretary of State and accepting gifts to their foundation? ..."
"... What you are seeing is called "hypocrisy", writ large. The Democrats are finally discovering that they actually need the voters that they've been dissing for decades, and they really don't want to admit how badly they've screwed the pooch. ..."
"... That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff to the fore in place of the more irascible and prosecutorial Nadler suggests she does not want to give the public a clear narrative, so much as to keep them calm, as if the Trump administration were in charge instead of being in office. ..."
"... Yes, Pelosi put the Intelligence Committee (Schiff) in charge, as opposed to the Judiciary Committee (Nadler). Odd. ..."
"... Don't forget too that Pelosi is related by marriage to Governor Gavin Newsom (his aunt was married to Ron Pelosi, brother-in-law to Nancy). It's one big happy Resistance family! Corruption is okay as long as they do it. Their hypocrisy has no limits. ..."
"... Just imagine if corrupt California elites could rule the United States! ..."
"... Nor was it in 2006, when, after recapturing the House, Pelosi took impeachment "off the table," even though the Bush Administration committed multiple felonies in its warrantless surveillance program, in addition to completely destroying the Fourth Amendment. (Obama later normalized and rationalized all this, of course.) ..."
"... In a very real sense, it is a partisan war where there are penalties for losing. ..."
"... Pelosi has clearly seen the dangers of democrat complicity and corruption before; what's changed? If she was acutely (off the table) aware of the dirty utterly filthy linen danger before, then why not now when it's, if anything, more obvious than ever? ..."
"... It's the ill conceived nature of this, the mess the democrats are creating for themselves, that suggests to me that shifting the focus away from popular programs such as medicare for all is unintended even if successful. It's like stabbing yourself in the arm to divert attention from robbing the church collection. Not a good analogy but anyway ..."
"... a world in which it's perfectly acceptable for the children of elites to trail around after their parents and help smooth the wider asset-grabbing through personal enrichment. ..."
"... Pelosi wants the scope very narrow. That's quite telling. Even more telling, and offensive, when you think about it, is her decision to have this inquiry be led by the House Intelligence Committee. This pretty much guarantees that at least some of the proceedings will happen behind closed doors. ..."
"... Revenge, like any addiction, doesn't brook common sense. The author of the article is spot on when he points out that it's just too late to impeach on the high road even if the democrat party did have something, anything, to distinguish them ethically from the republicans or Trump (other than bombast). ..."
"... Team Blue elites need #resistance happy because it's their base. ..."
"... As far as the primary is concerned, it reaffirms support for Biden by party leadership. His campaign requires "electability in the general", so not clear how that's helping the cause. ..."
"... Perhaps they figured Biden was gonna get hit anyway for making Poroshenko fire the guy running the office prosecuting Biden's son (whereupon the investigation was, by coincidence, halted). Thus get everything together hit back in the month or so before the details emerged in US media? ..."
"... I think it's a colossal mistake, and now Pelosi is all-in (together with a bunch of Representatives in deep purple congressional districts roped into going on record supporting the impeachment investigation), so all this ain't going nowhere. ..."
"... Maybe I missed it, and so I (as a veteran) must make sure it is said: if the Congress will not list, as the first Article of Impeachment, the slaughter of innocent people in wars not declared by Congress, then I don't see how any other possible Article would matter ..."
"... Here, Trump has aided and abetted the slaughter and unending misery for hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, in a country against which the U.S. never declared war, by keeping the House of Saud armed. And this reasoning would include the killing of innocent people outside any consideration of war and peace, a crime which can be incontrovertibly attributed to decisions emanating from the Oval Office regarding people who come to our borders to seek economic or political refuge. ..."
"... The problem, of course, is that the war in Yemen started under O'Bomber. One of those rare achievements of the Trump administration, in fact, is that he hasn't actually started any brand-spanking new wars at all–just continued the old ones started by Bushbama. ..."
"... Well, bush got congress to approve Iraq, so impeaching him would have been on account of the lies. Libya is on Obama Hillary. It wasn't 'we came, we saw, he died', cackle, it was 'a peaceful, prosperous country died', one with equal Ed for women, a rarity in ME. ..."
"... I have been hoping and praying that disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe has gone "John Dean" (of Watergate infamy) and the National Security State knows it. If that dream is a reality then maybe, just maybe, I'll have to buy a television set to watch that theater live on a 60 inch screen. ..."
"We've got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden," said Biden's
brother James according to
this Politico story about how the Biden family cashes in on their well-placed relative.
... ... ...
If Biden is innocent of corruption, why does it look like he's not? What does that
say about the nature of corruption itself in the entire DC establishment?
Two traps for a party that much of the nation depends on to rid them of the man the last
election elevated to power. Two reasons for independent voters -- those not Party loyalists,
not blue-no-matter-who, not Never-Trumpers, voters who never turn out for elections or rarely
do -- to not turn out for this one, when their voice and vote is needed most in this greatest
of watershed years
.
What's decided now, in this year and the next, will set the course of the nation and the
world for a dozen years to come -- or a dozen millennia if the chaos predicted by the most
pessimistic among us takes root and grows. After all, social and political chaos is a breeding
ground for authoritarian "solutions." We don't need any of those, and this may be the last
electoral chance to avoid them.
To reiterate a comment in the recent Water Cooler (this article is a better forum):
One scenario that Neuburger hasn't considered: perhaps the Democrats are trying
impeachment now because they are out of ammo and getting scared about 2020. Rather than lose
the election, they are attempting a pre-emptive strike.
Or is it a pre-emptive defensive strike by the CIA/Blob? With Trump seeming to ask Ukraine
about Crowdstrike, and Barr asking for help from Australia on the Mueller investigation
origins (as well as investigating the way the dossier was used), Trump and Barr might be
trying to turn TrumpRussia into a counterattack on their establishment enemies, just in time
for the election. Buckle up, indeed.
Yes, I've been wondering this also. The CIA credentials of the "whistleblower" are somehow
too convenient, too familiar. The Dems are already more or less in bed with the CIA/Blob, so
it is as if they are acting more to aid a "messenger", as @InquiringMind
put it during the latest Water Cooler.
A recent decision was made by the intelligence organs to allow reporting of second-hand
information and be titled a whistleblower for your efforts. it is acceptable to spy (which
this is an example of, since it is not whistleblowing) and listen to conversations saying
they heard this or that was happening, report that through legal channels, and have it
accepted BECAUSE IT APPEALS POLITICALLY to the agency or the particular representative.
The intelligence community is rife with dissension and conflict; not over their need to
service the multi-national firms and their congressional sycophants they really represent,
but rather the speed at which they need to react to challenges coming from our limited free
flow of information that contradicts their "stories" and propaganda. We're getting wise
– not completely, not with any assuredness that our info is complete, but enough to
cause tremendous doubt and distrust of the messaging coming from government and media
propagandists.
To me, the danger of this period is exactly the lack of organized opposition, politically
at home and among the nations of the globe, to this onslaught and flooding of the ears with
lies that become real due to that repetition. We are not united, and the convenient and quick
answers are flawed. The Communist Party was deeply flawed, and the International a craven
defender of Stalin, but we could certainly use some organization similar to fight this neocon
cancer now, before it metastisizes into worse, if that is possible. That being said,
impatience drives tribal thinking, already invading academia and the few public intellectuals
existing. I await the working classes hitting their limit. Buckle up, indeed
Hey, I'm not posing an answer, and see fear of one everywhere, so don't thank me. There is
a inchoate and diffuse anger brewing "out there", but it does not reflect our measured,
rather moderate knowledge of crime and abuse of power we observe daily. It will, given the
money and influence of the right wing, push over to such violent reaction it will make the
1930s seem like a birthday party. The left, or what is loosely left of it, badly needs
discipline and structure, but its traditional organs have been rent asunder and are not
trustworthy.
A thinktank? New party? Dunno it has to have room to grow, and our secret-sauce parties
and intel outfits have "six ways from Sunday" to mess with any of it. Clarity of political
thought seems to come from crisis and being cornered, but that clarity is not guaranteed to
be "healthy", babies going with the bath water-wise. Bernie is a short-term stopgap to the
bleeding IF he can wrap his mind around the movement and an understanding of the immediate
threats to its existence- i.e., the DNC.
Regarding the first sentence of your comment: The requirements of the law never changed,
the whistleblower used an old form anyway, and the recently changed form has been
replaced.
In any case, the IG's process for handling whistleblower allegations is determined not
by a form but by the law and related policy documents. The key document, ICD 120, has been
virtually unchanged since 2014. Contrary to the speculation, the whistleblower used the
2018 form, not the new online form. The IG then investigated and found that his allegations
were credible and that Congress should be notified.
Yup, but this is still mislabeled "whistleblowing", which would be such if he/she were
ratting on the CIA. This hearsay would be laughed out of a court of law absent other proof.
Further, I think we can dismiss the IG investigation as being anything not pressured by
establishment types threatened by Trump's vendetta against Obama and his wing of the neo-lib
global corporation, as it promises to open the can of worms that both parties are united in
foreign policy and who we deal with, and that unity spills over into McCarthy-like reaction
to any unpredictability and unreliability such as Trump's. We can't "get him" on his real
crimes, as that would leave all "them guys" exposed.
I assumed that the much delayed Mueller report finally came out when it did and with the
conclusion it did because the CIA was finally convinced that it had Trump sufficiently cowed.
The July 27 phone call made it clear to them that it didn't.
And Pelosi, when asked by the
CIA to jump, immediately responded, "How high?" It will be extremely interesting to see how
much influence the CIA has over Republican Senators who will be casting decisive votes.
Thirty-three Republicans Senators will be excused and given cover. Is there a thirty-fourth
with the cojones to vote against removal and against the CIA's efforts to impose a color
revolution on American soil?
If this is really about 2020 then Democrats are even more stupid than I'm inclined to
believe. Krystal Ball said this morning that only 35% of the public supports impeachment. All
this effort will do is rile up Trump supporters. I recall what happened in the 1998 midterms
after the Clinton impeachment. There's every reason to believe this will turn around and bite
the Democrats in 2020.
Pelosi and Schumer are fine with that. If Democrats were to actually win, they'd have to
govern, and they can't do that.
There are several plausible explanations. If you consider Pelosi's motivations, you have
to look no further than her constituency, the donor class.
From their perspective there has been too many uncomfortable policy debates, including
climate change, occurring on the campaign trail. As with Russiagate all of these discussions
will vanish from the corporate media.
Also, some of the donors have stated they will not donate to the Dems, and may in fact
donate to Trump, if Warren gets nominated.
Finally, purely for display of party unity, protecting Joe Biden, even if it brings him
down will have value. Also, this specific charge will not bring up any of other former "suits" illegal
actions.
Inasmuch as polling showing the combined popularity of Sanders and Warren exceed 30% while
Biden is down to 19%, if you can end with a inconclusive first round of voting at the
Democratic Convention, you can bring in the Supers and name the person of your choice.
As to the question of 'why now?', my guess is because the 'resistance' types see the
writing on the wall that they are going to lose with anybody but Sanders as the candidate,
and they aren't about to allow Sanders to win. RussiaRussiaRussia, porn stars, and everything
else they tried didn't work and they've got nothing else that would give the public at large
something to vote for .
As to that writing on the wall, I will offer some very anecdotal evidence, but I found it
telling. A few days ago I went to a rural county fair. Now granted these fairs likely attract
a more conservative crowd, however this particular fair was in the most liberal county in the
state. Took a look at the exhibition hall at the fair, full of quilts, 4th grade artwork,
canned tomatoes, etc. as well as booths for both the Republican and Democrat parties.
At the Democrat party booth, they had put out poster boards with a list of issues and you
were supposed to put a little round sticker next to the issue you felt was most important.
Boring policy wonk stuff. I don't even remember if anyone was manning the booth when we
stopped by, but if they were they made no attempt whatsoever to speak with us. My wife put
one sticker on a poster and walked away and we were the only people there at the time. In
fairness, clearly there had been people there earlier since there were a lot of stickers
stuck to posters.
At the Republican booth, there were a number of people in line engaging with those manning
the booth. And rather than just pining little stickers on a poster, the Republicans were
handing out Trump 2020 swag and letting people get photos with a big Trump cutout. IDoing fun
stuff. Walking around the fair later I saw one of the few Hispanics in attendance (this is a
very white county in an extremely white state) sporting a Trump 2020 tote bag as he and his
wife walked through the fair.
If I were to base a prediction on the evidence alone, I would say Trump and the Elephants
are going to hand the Asses their asses in 2020 and they can feel it coming.
I really don't see how this doesn't blow up in their faces, but they've got nothing
else.
This is my feeling on it. It's the Democrats' Benghazi, a string of congressional hearings
designed to produce dirt on Trump to sink him in the election. Actual impeachment and removal
is nahgunnahappen, as that requires 67 senators, which would require all Democrats in the
Senate, both independents, and 20 Republicans . It would be a minor miracle if five
Republicans signed onto impeachment.
However, with dirt slinging as the only useful outcome possible, it shows how incompetent
Pelosi is by limiting the inquiry to just the Ukraine business. The damning dirt could come
in any form out of any corner of Trump's ongoings, so why would you limit the dirt digging to
something that, on the face of it, doesn't scream it went any deeper than Trump's
implication. Especially as it didn't happen that long ago.
God, this is so stupid. Look, perhaps it is because I live in a different continent or I
have a twisted turn of mind but I am seeing something completely different at work here. Is
Trump Corrupt? Of course he is but in a completely ham-fisted way that makes it blatantly
obvious. With Trump you always have low expectations. But Thomas Neuburger talks about ICE
deaths, Puerto Rico, the Muslim ban but so what? Obama was guilty of far worse but no
Democrats will criticize him for any of it. An example? If you cover up an international war
crime such as torture, that is an international crime too and Obama definitely covered up for
the CIA tortures and "looked forward". And one ramification for that was the US now having a
ex-torturer as head of the CIA.
So here is my take. The past few months Americans were finally having subjects like
healthcare and college debt forgiveness getting some air time and some serious traction. The
Democrat candidates were being forced to give answers on their positions on such ideas. But
now? The Democrats have introduced impeachment which has all the success prospects of
Russiagate. Expect copious amounts of verbal diarrhea in the next few months which will allow
for no time for discussion of subjects like healthcare anymore. The DNC will shout down
anyone trying to do so by shouting "Impeachment!". And when the elections rock around in a
year's time and there is finally some minor space to start talking about such subjects, the
DNC will tell progressives "You know, you should have really brought this up in 2019 while
there was time to talk about it. Your bad."
Indeed, we might as well argue that Obama should have been impeached for turning the
Espionage Act against reporters. I see that as more damaging to the US than most of Trump's
harmful acts to date.
I tell people that Trump is a minor league con man because so many people assert that he
is a con man
Obama successfully convinced people that he WANTED to do the right things but was
prevented from doing them by the evil Republicans. Despite the insurance/drug company
friendly implementation of ObamaCare, assertion of the most transparent administration, ever,
brutally coming down on government whistleblowers, killing overseas citizens via drone, not
prosecuting financial misdeeds, and destroying Libya, Obama is seen as righteous.
In my view, a truly great con man remains unacknowledged/undetected.
Obama is in a con man league of his own, as he benefits from the left's form of Obama
Derangement Syndrome.
Interesting that attacking trump on this is attacking Biden did dem elites give up on him?
don't see how he can survive, which seems to open the field for Warren sanders if so, not
what donors want, pelosi musta been forced by blue dogs cia.
Maybe good for sanders he needs rest, the stents will require recovery msm can't focus away
from impeach to celebrate his health problems
How long? Say one month?
Hopefully the dems great white hope Biden will be down and out by primaries Bernie might find
help in the south this time where it was a wall last time
Ca dem elites don't want Bernie, but electorate doesn't want Kamala
And Tulsi back on stage with her useful to focus on wars.
I think this vectors the right direction, Rev Kev. White noise to drown out clearly
articulated messages. If any of this were about actual evidence, Binney would've been called
to undercut the Crowdstrike assertions.
There are a couple of things that seem real. Once is the intra-elite competition between
the intelligence community and Trump. Epstein cracked a door and some light got through.
Trump seems to have taken the standard operating procedures personally.
Despite this, Trump is more acceptable to Wall Street than the left agenda. These attacks
serve to consolidate Trumps base; I've seen more Trump 2020 bumper stickers in my very-blue
town than any other candidates.
The endgame comes with the primaries. Sander's campaign income has a verisimilitude with
greater weight than the polls. Even polls which aren't specifically rigged can't cope with
modern communications. The problem is, with electronic vote-flipping on top of old-school
methods, unless the paper ballots get in (which is against status quo interests), how can it
be made clear the vote is being rigged? Could public gatherings outside the polling places be
enough to offer an alternative count?
Plus, Sanders has set himself up as TINA. He has not spread his wealth of four decades of
credibility to anyone else. No Hindu is getting the Oval, so Gabbard is a gadfly, not an
option. Trump and the top three Democratic candidates could all actually die of old age.
The only thing I'd actually put a bet on in all this is that Trump will not be removed
from office via impeachment.
I'm not sure that the Democrats yelling "impeachment!" will register loud enough to
overcome the substance of the election campaign. Not enough people care about it.
The real determinate is which people 'care' about it. The public discourse is presently in the hands of partisan hacks,
of mainly one ideology; Rentier Capitalism.
One main American political faction will characterize the obscurantist process as "White
Noise. The other main faction will characterize it as "Rainbow Noise." Both will be correct
about the "Noise" part.
According to Ball in the "Rising" video, the percentage of people who support impeachment
is 35%. That pretty much covers all the "partisan hacks" you refer to.
To the average voter? This is just noise and nonsense. Regardless of how impeachment ends
(and one doesn't have to be a genius to figure out that it will go nowhere), the concerns and
the anger of average voters are not going away.
Ditto, Ambrit- a rational response bestride the not caring noise.
The current equation of Warren and Sanders is the point problem of that coherence. Sanders
is weak on foreign policy particulars (Middle East, Venezuela, Ukraine are waffled responses,
more afraid to alienate rather than state), Warren is totally absent because she has
supported those policies in the past.
Both committed to regulation, Warren wanting existing
govt. style while Sanders wants the beginning of a bottom-up approach. Details are left on
the "debate-stage floor", as what we have had so far is a Sideshow Bob presentation of
policy, a Q&A for the media, which leads us nowhere unless you are fanatically political,
which most of the nation has been educated/innoculated against.
Right now, probably true. However, we've been victim to propaganda many times before
– WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, etc.etc. We have an apparatus that has honed its abilities
to reach millions immediately through TV, press, video, websites, that puts former agit-prop
to shame. We have been swarmed with the same message, basically allowing those caught in lies
previously to suddenly be believed today, "because"
The truth of any proposition comes down to its provenance and our ability to get tired of
the repetition and cacophony surrounding us, thus surrendering the ground. If enough believe
the initial message, if enough see their bread buttered by it, then the rest of us are prone
to that surrender unless an outside agency we CAN rely on exists.
It is sad to say that "not caring" becomes a positive. 50% of the voting public does not
vote, and most who vote do not care if their vote is even counted properly. Do not care
equals no democracy at all.
What you are seeing is called "hypocrisy", writ large. The Democrats are finally
discovering that they actually need the voters that they've been dissing for decades, and
they really don't want to admit how badly they've screwed the pooch.
Perhaps Ms. Pelosi's caucus finally made her do what she despises doing. That it should
benefit her party leadership's choice to replace Donald Trump is, of course,
coincidental.
There's still the nit that there's been no congressional vote authorizing her impeachment
inquiry, which will keep the process in the courts and delay proceedings longer than
necessary.
Ms. Pelosi's actions bring to mind the contradictory naval order, proceed with all
deliberate speed. It is a sign that the admirals acknowledge the necessity of doing
something, but tell their commanders it's on them if it goes South.
That she has shoved the bankeresque Schiff to the fore in place of the more irascible and
prosecutorial Nadler suggests she does not want to give the public a clear narrative, so much
as to keep them calm, as if the Trump administration were in charge instead of being in
office.
California is the vanguard of the "Resistance" to Trump. Pelosi is from California, as is
Schiff. Two of the Intelligence Committee members are also from California (Jackie Speier and
Eric Swalwell) as the LA Times pointed out a few days ago ("
California to play an outsize role in impeachment inquiry of Trump "). This is probably
why the whole impeachment inquiry is centered in the Intelligence committee and not the
Judiciary.
Various Obama officials live or work in California. For example, Eric Holder was hired by
the California Legislature to fight Trump. David Plouffe, who works with the Chan Zuckerberg
Initiative among other Silicon Valley groups, is helping a liberal group called ACRONYM with
anti-Trump digital messaging.
Don't forget too that Pelosi is related by marriage to Governor Gavin Newsom (his aunt was
married to Ron Pelosi, brother-in-law to Nancy). It's one big happy Resistance family!
Corruption is okay as long as they do it. Their hypocrisy has no limits.
Just imagine if corrupt California elites could rule the United States! The Wash Post even
had a fantasy piece about "President Pelosi" just a few days ago.
Thanks for that, saved me a bit of rushed commenting because I was going to quickly
comment on it before I noticed you had already.
California has 6 of the 24 members of the House Intelligence Committee: 4 of those 6
members hold 100% of Democratic (Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff) and Republican (Kevin McCarthy
and Devin Nunes) leadership roles; there are 4 out of 14 in the total Democratic membership,
and 2 out of 10 in the Republican membership.
Also, Californian members make up 100% of the House membership of the Gang of Eight, , 2
Democratic and 2 Republican: respectively, Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff; and Kevin McCarthy
and Devin Nunes.
And lastly, both California Senators Dianne Feinstein, and Kamala Harris (despite her
newbiness), are on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the only State to have both Senators as
members.
As a decades long California resident, what sickens me the most about this is California
legislators (overwhelmingly Democratic Party, but may as well be Republican given the
stunning inequality/austerity imposed in California) preside over the highest numbers of
unsheltered homeless in the country. A full third of California residents have been forced
onto Medi-Cal (where millions can't find a treating doctor for the life of them), or don't
qualify (despite not being able to afford their rents), yet can't afford any insurance.
Concurrently, State Legislators and that duplicitous, slimy creep Newsom just signed off on
an Obama inspired California
Healthcare Mandate Penalty , although there were crickets at California's Franchise Tax
Board when it came to following the IRS in going after Facebook's stunning and blatant 2010
Ireland Asset transfers Tax evasion (to the tune of billions now, and next to impossible to
determine what the current status of it is), they would much rather go after their
increasingly impoverished populace who can't afford a CPA, let alone an attorney.
> In other words, the rightness of impeachment was never a consideration for Democratic
Party leaders.
Nor was it in 2006, when, after recapturing the House, Pelosi took impeachment "off the
table," even though the Bush Administration committed multiple felonies in its warrantless
surveillance program, in addition to completely destroying the Fourth Amendment. (Obama later
normalized and rationalized all this, of course.)
So one would not have expected principle or the "rule of law" or any of those other
shibboleths to enter into the liberal Democrat decision-making process. It never does.
This person starts out with an establishing remark that convicts Trump, and goes on from
there. Unlike a true impeachment process, no 'real' groundwork is laid down. Furthermore, by
half-heartedly mentioning "issues" with the Pelosi formulation, in effect, that Biden is just
as bad as Trump, the author lays the groundwork for the 'impeachment' of both Party's "main"
candidates. The piece reminds me of the logic of the Alice in Wonderland trial: "Sentence
first – verdict afterwards." All this, my cynical sensibility reminds me, sotto voice,
for an insane Queen.
Impeachment has always been a political process. After all, it is a function of the Congress,
the prototype of politics. To take the authors buttressing point, that the 'essence' of
impeachment should be the pure logic of the deeds in question casts the entire process of
impeachment in the light of virtue signalling. How else would a disinterested observer
characterize a process where the process itself is not initiated with the anticipation of a
useful outcome? In a very real sense, it is a partisan war where there are penalties for
losing.
This piece, if any, shows plainly the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the American
political process today. The two "leading" candidates of the "rival" Partys are both
delineated to be frauds, figuratively and literally. Turning the mentioning of the earlier
English Parliamentary 'version' of impeachment on, as it were, it's head, one is lead to
consider that only something as all encompassing and determinative as an actual bloodletting
will be of any use to the Nation.
Be very careful what you ask for. You might get it.
"Impeachment is the Constitution's version of the English Civil War, minus the war."
It could be argued that getting rid of a Prime Minister via a vote of no confidence is
orders of magnitude simpler than impeachment. In fact, it seems to happen about every ten or
twenty years on average in the UK. And no civil war required either.
The best analogue of today with then is that the English Civil War did not just remove the
Royalist leadership of the time, but an entire generation of Royalists. Does America really
want a twenty year interregnum?
We are already in the Interregnum. Trump was 'none of the above'. People talked about a
'clown car' and then Trump showed that a clown could actually accede to power, insofar as a
clown can manage the role. The Democrats responded with a clown show of their own. It's a
circus, although the clowns are pretty malign. Maybe people like that. Meanwhile, serious
people with serious political proposals, like Sanders, are on the outside looking in.
Someone's going to have to break a window.
Pelosi has clearly seen the dangers of democrat complicity and corruption before; what's
changed? If she was acutely (off the table) aware of the dirty utterly
filthy linen danger before, then why not now when it's, if anything, more obvious than
ever?
All I can think of is that the Clinton derangement syndrome – the bitterness and
perceived injustice that the anointed one didn't get anointed – still has an iron grip
on the psyche of the DC Daristocrats. They're stone drunk on hatred, spite, and lust for
revenge and are hallucinating in broad daylight that they've got the hook to sell it.
I like the idea that this is all a clever ruse to keep the focus away from sanity in
health care etc., but it just doesn't look like they have that much sense. From the UK to the
the US, everyone's going nuts.
I bet it's good for fund raising, those I know who are most embarrassed by trump have a
fair amount of money and currently they are very excited. Whatever it is, it's not bernie (or
should I say &@cking bernie), it's not M4A, and it's not student loans, as commented on
above this line
It's the ill conceived nature of this, the mess the democrats are creating for themselves,
that suggests to me that shifting the focus away from popular programs such as medicare for
all is unintended even if successful. It's like stabbing yourself in the arm to divert
attention from robbing the church collection. Not a good analogy but anyway
There is a huge amount of pressure from the public to get rid of Trump any way possible
and a lot of that, ironically, has been manufactured by the democrats themselves. That, I
suspect, combined with Hillary syndrome, is more what's behind this than the criminal, but
lucid, plan to obscure the popularity of programs benefiting the public.
Perhaps you should go back and re-read the last 5 years of commentary then -- there's been
plenty of substance offered by those who are just as powerless as you.
Imagine Trump were to overthrow Maduro in a coup. He installs his puppet Guido who
immediately gives Ivanka a seat on the board of a Venezuelan oil company at 50K a month, or
more. Would the Democrats be screaming 'nothing to see here' in that scenario?
It's not clear the Democrats would notice any impropriety. What would be tearing them
apart is that they didn't get a seat at the trough (on the board) as well.
I would say 'Joe Biden's son's integrity' and 'the dubious right-wing Democratic Party
CIA-led arms sales-drive policy in the Ukraine.'
I don't think that Biden himself is particularly corrupt; the guy really is a terrible
hack. And I don't think legal corruption is necessarily what's at issue, but a world in which
it's perfectly acceptable for the children of elites to trail around after their parents and
help smooth the wider asset-grabbing through personal enrichment.
The wider context–villifying Russia, cleaning up Ukraine enough to justify
consorting with fascists and the far-right to keep all the balls in the air, needs to be
exposed.
There is a right way to do impeachment, and this ain't it. They could investigate the
Trump administrator for its rampant corruption – it's a very target-rich environment.
Instead, Pelosi wants the scope very narrow. That's quite telling. Even more telling, and
offensive, when you think about it, is her decision to have this inquiry be led by the House
Intelligence Committee. This pretty much guarantees that at least some of the proceedings
will happen behind closed doors.
So, they think that they're going to remove the duly elected
President behind closed doors, and they think the population will be okay with this? Do they
really live in such a bubble that they think people trust their judgment enough to do this?
It boggles the mind.
Revenge, like any addiction, doesn't brook common sense. The author of the article is spot
on when he points out that it's just too late to impeach on the high road even if the
democrat party did have something, anything, to distinguish them ethically from the
republicans or Trump (other than bombast).
Also, just a thought, having this discussion behind closed doors makes sense if Pelosi is
hoping they will come to their senses.
As to the right or wrong way to do impeachment, I think the democrats like the republicans
are simply beyond that or any notion of it other than the residue of dim memory that ends up
entirely as the decorative part in public speeches. I suspect they are quite simply oblivious
to such niceties as anything being wrong with using impeachment as a weapon rather than as a
means for justice.
I'm pretty sure Pelosi doesn't want it and wanted to repeat her 2007 play, but she doesn't
have 2008 certainty to offer (keep the powder dry I know but this was what that was about).
Team Blue elites need #resistance happy because it's their base. The people who missed brunch
aren't exactly rationale or going to have this explained to them behind closed doors. Pelosi
has been slowly losing with the caucus, but most of the members are terrible and vulnerable
to an AOC-esque challenge especially in safe seats which most of the seats are. Again without
theven #resistance, safe seat Team Blue types are very vulnerable.
Adding that, imo, the rank and file voters did the work of electing Democrats to a House
majority, motivated partly by Clinton revenge, but also by policy issues. There's been
noticeable dismay in the corners of twitter where I wander at Pelosi's taking so long to act,
the inept performances of the few hearings so far, and now the proposed narrow focus.
my take is they're never actually going to pass articles of impeachment, which would hand
the process over to McConnell in the Senate. It will stay in the House and they will attempt
to nab Trump or perhaps one of his sidekicks like Giuliani on obstruction of the House
investigation. This is by now a fairly transparent strategy, and we will find out what the
elusive PA swing voter thinks of it soon enough.
As far as the primary is concerned, it reaffirms support for Biden by party leadership.
His campaign requires "electability in the general", so not clear how that's helping the
cause.
Perhaps they figured Biden was gonna get hit anyway for making Poroshenko fire the guy
running the office prosecuting Biden's son (whereupon the investigation was, by coincidence,
halted). Thus get everything together hit back in the month or so before the details emerged
in US media?
I think it's a colossal mistake, and now Pelosi is all-in (together with a bunch of
Representatives in deep purple congressional districts roped into going on record supporting
the impeachment investigation), so all this ain't going nowhere.
Maybe I missed it, and so I (as a veteran) must make sure it is said: if the Congress will
not list, as the first Article of Impeachment, the slaughter of innocent people in wars not
declared by Congress, then I don't see how any other possible Article would matter.
Here,
Trump has aided and abetted the slaughter and unending misery for hundreds of thousands of
Yemenis, in a country against which the U.S. never declared war, by keeping the House of Saud
armed. And this reasoning would include the killing of innocent people outside any
consideration of war and peace, a crime which can be incontrovertibly attributed to decisions
emanating from the Oval Office regarding people who come to our borders to seek economic or
political refuge.
Wasn't the power to go to war exclusively reserved for Congress, to try to make sure that
the country wouldn't go to war on a lark? And wasn't the Bill of Rights enshrined to make
sure that the U.S. Government could not put people to death, at least without due
process?
I realize that this might mean that Congress would have had to impeach presidents left and
right. So be it; enlisted women and men can be severely punished for killing innocent people
(and for far less, such as disobeying orders). Why should presidents and vice-presidents
escape responsibility for high crimes of unjustifiable homicide (and, I must add,
countenancing torture)?
The problem, of course, is that the war in Yemen started under O'Bomber. One of those rare
achievements of the Trump administration, in fact, is that he hasn't actually started any
brand-spanking new wars at all–just continued the old ones started by Bushbama.
Well, bush got congress to approve Iraq, so impeaching him would have been on account of
the lies.
Libya is on Obama Hillary. It wasn't 'we came, we saw, he died', cackle, it was 'a peaceful,
prosperous country died', one with equal Ed for women, a rarity in ME.
Is this the last desperation Hail Mary by the Democratic Party and the National Security
State to save themselves?
Has it already happened?
I have been hoping and praying that disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew
McCabe
has gone "John Dean" (of Watergate infamy) and the National Security State knows it. If that dream is a reality then maybe, just maybe, I'll have to buy a television set to
watch that theater live
on a 60 inch screen.
Ukraine's most recent popularity among cold warriors started when Bill Clinton decided that
NATO should surround Russia. Coincidental with breaking and continuity of certain oligarchs'
fortunes. up Serbia.
Then the pro West coup in 2014....
Maybe as part of the impeachment the house could go in to what US was doing in Kyiv up to
and through the coup.
Note in the article Javelin systems are a foreign military sales case, run by the DoD,
"approved" by Depts of Commerce and State.
Javelin, guided anti tank missile system, is not solely a defensive weapon unless you look
at U S Grant on Richmond as a defensive campaign...... Reply Monday, September 30, 2019 at 06:50 AM ilsm said in reply to
Fred C. Dobbs... "Deductive reasoning" within the media message is mob control.
"It ain't what you know... it's what you know that ain't so"#. Keep reading the mainstream
media!
Given enough time [and strategy wrt 2020 election] we will get to the bottom of Obama's
"criminal influence" on 2016 election.
It takes a lot more to debunk the Biden, Clinton, Nuland, Obama Ukraine drama. To my mind,
Ukraine needs to be clean as driven snow* to "earn" javelins to kill Russian speaking
rebels.
Why do US from Obama+ fund rebels in Syria (Sunni radicals mainly) and want to send tank
killers to suppress rebels where we might get in to the real deal?
# conservatives have been saying that about the 'outrage' started by the MSM for
decades.
Seems that the opposition press wants us to display mob outrage to make Trump foreign
policy for him.
The democrats are painting a picture aimed at handcuffing any attempt to determine if the
regime in Kyiv [Saudi ARAMCO, UAE,....]is worth tilting world war over.
A novel approach while Trump at odds with the neocon currents in State, CIA and
FBI.
It takes a lot more than some good at grammar NYTimes writer to substantiate claims that
allegations against the former VP and his son's cushy Ukraine oligarch job are
unsubstantiated. That is work for prosecutors and defense attorneys.
The Biden oligarch links go back to before the Obama neocon [Nuland] coup in 2014 when
Biden was VP. Out of context is no reason to make a conclusion.
Why I support impeachment. The evidence will be put out and the solicitors will argue on
complete evidentiary lines. It is getting to be anything Trump wants to do they find some
phony reason to be outraged.
I did a 20 minute telephone poll today. They called me! You can count on one respondent
"strongly opposed" to impeachment for trying to get to the bottom of Biden family
corruption.
"A novel approach while Trump at odds with the neocon currents in State, CIA and
FBI."
No. Nothing new here. This is just Russiagate II. Same actors, same methods.
But it is unclear to me why they even bothered? Trump folded long ago, In April 2017 to be
exact. And before impeachment, his chances in 2020 were far from certain. Especially against
Warren.
Also Biden should not even be discussed anymore. At this point he is history.
Warren now is the official frontrunner. Which is probably the only good thing emerging out
of this CIA-inspired mess.
The democrats are in the midst (started when Obama ignored the source of the fallacious
dossier which started the FISA spying on a campaign) of a strategic blunder. The polling on
Ukrainegate show it is libelously political. Democrat respondents largely see it serious,
independents are about 40% and GOP about 30%. This nugatory+, political ambush is not playing
well to independents!
No one is asking if this nugatory, political ambush the CIA/democrats are using to run a
circus in congress is troubling about Biden. As you say Biden is history, as are the
democrats' chances in 2020 for every national office.
"... The senior prosecutor Kostiantyn Kulyk never got an answer, and he says it's because the visas were blocked by the U.S. Ambassador. The Ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch is a career diplomat (since 1986) who served under both Democratic and Republicans and was appointed to her present position in August 2016 by former President Obama. ..."
The FBI knew the
Steele dossier was nonsense before they used it to get the FISA court to issue the warrant
to begin spying on Carter Page leading to the Russia collusion hoax. John Solomon of
The Hill found a second document that the FBI knew contained false information, but they
used it to get the search warrant against Paul Manafort anyway.
Per Solomon:
The second document, known as the "black cash ledger," remarkably has escaped the same
scrutiny, even though its emergence in Ukraine in the summer of 2016 forced Paul Manafort to resign as
Trump's campaign chairman and eventually face U.S. indictment.
In search warrant affidavits, the FBI portrayed the ledger as one reason it resurrected a
criminal case against Manafort that was dropped in 2014 and needed search warrants in 2017
for bank records to prove
he worked for the Russian-backed Party of Regions in Ukraine.
There's just one problem: The FBI's public reliance on the ledger came months after the
feds were warned repeatedly that the document couldn't be trusted and likely was a fake,
according to documents and more than a dozen interviews with knowledgeable sources.
When
the NY Times reported the news about the ledger, they positioned it as a big scandal as
they do with almost everything associated with Donald Trump:
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr.
Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to
Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the
disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included
election officials.
( ) The papers, known in Ukraine as the "black ledger," are a chicken-scratch of Cyrillic
covering about 400 pages taken from books once kept in a third-floor room in the former Party
of Regions headquarters on Lipskaya Street in Kiev. The room held two safes stuffed with $100
bills, said Taras V. Chornovil, a former party leader who was also a recipient of the money
at times. He said in an interview that he had once received $10,000 in a "wad of cash" for a
trip to Europe.
Nazar Kholodnytsky, Ukraine's top anti-corruption prosecutor, told John Solomon that he had
told his State Dept contacts and FBI agents that his colleagues who found the ledger thought it
was bogus around the same time the Times published the story late August 2916.
"It was not to be considered a document of Manafort. It was not authenticated. And at that
time it should not be used in any way to bring accusations against anybody," Kholodnytsky
said, recalling what he told FBI agents.
This is the second incident of Obama's State Department ignoring Ukraine evidence.
Two months ago we
learned that senior member of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's International Legal
Cooperation Dept. told John Solomon that since last year, he's been blocked from getting visas
for himself and a team to go to the U.S. to deliver evidence of Democratic party wrongdoing
during the 2016 election to the DOJ. The senior prosecutor Kostiantyn Kulyk never got an
answer, and he says it's because the visas were blocked by the U.S. Ambassador. The Ambassador,
Marie L. Yovanovitch is a career diplomat (since 1986) who served under both Democratic and
Republicans and was appointed to her present position in August 2016 by former President
Obama.
Solomon gives some more examples of the FBI being told the ledger was as real as a
three-dollar bill. But that's when it gets really dicey because according to three of Solomon's
sources, Mueller's team of political hitmen and the FBI were given copies of one of the
warnings.
Because they knew the ledger was false Mueller and the FBI couldn't use the ledger to
establish probable cause to investigate Manafort because it " would require agents to discuss
their assessment of the evidence -- and instead cited media reports about it." Even though the
feds assisted on one of those stories as sources
For example, agents mentioned the ledger in an affidavit
supporting a July 2017 search warrant for Manafort's house, citing it as one of the reasons
the FBI resurrected the criminal case against Manafort.
"On August 19, 2016, after public reports regarding connections between Manafort, Ukraine
and Russia -- including an alleged 'black ledger' of off-the-book payments from the Party of
Regions to Manafort -- Manafort left his post as chairman of the Trump Campaign," the July
25, 2017, FBI agent's affidavit stated.
Three months later, the FBI went further in
arguing probable cause for a search warrant for Manafort's bank records, citing a
specific article about the ledger as evidence Manafort was paid to perform U.S. lobbying work
for the Ukrainians.
"The April 12, 2017, Associated Press article
reported that DMI [Manafort's company] records showed at least two payments were made to DMI
that correspond to payments in the 'black ledger,' " an FBI agent
wrote in a footnote to the affidavit.
Guess who helped the AP with their story -- the DOJ's Andrew Weissmann who later moved to
the special prosecutor's office and became Mueller's chief hit-man.
So just as they had done in the anti-Trump investigation "the FBI cited a leak that the
government had facilitated and then used it to support the black ledger evidence, even though
it had been clearly warned about the document."
Whether or not Paul Manafort deserved to be jailed is irrelevant. Part of the search
warrants against him were lies that the prosecutors knew were false. The judgments against him
should be tossed out because they contain the fruit of the poisonous tree. Our justice system
promises equal justice for all, but the FBI and Special Prosecutor cheated in the case of
Manafort.
How a Shadow Foreign Policy in Ukraine Prompted
an Impeachment Inquiry https://nyti.ms/2m0n5aY
NYT - Kenneth P. Vogel, Andrew E. Kramer
and David E. Sanger - September 28
WASHINGTON -- Petro O. Poroshenko was still the president of Ukraine earlier this year
when his team sought a lifeline. With the polls showing him in clear danger of losing his
re-election campaign, some of his associates, eager to hold on to their own jobs and
influence, took steps that could have yielded a signal of public support from a vital ally:
President Trump.
Over several weeks in March, the office of Ukraine's top prosecutor moved ahead on two
investigations of intense interest to Mr. Trump. One was focused on an oligarch -- previously
cleared of wrongdoing by the same prosecutor -- whose company employed former Vice President
Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s son. The other dealt with the release by a separate Ukrainian law
enforcement agency to the media of information that hurt Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign.
The actions by the prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, did not come out of thin air. They were the
first visible results of a remarkable behind-the-scenes campaign to gather and disseminate
political dirt from a foreign country, encouraged by Mr. Trump and carried out by his
personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani. In the last week their engagement with Ukraine has
prompted a formal impeachment inquiry into whether the president courted foreign interference
to hurt a leading political rival.
The story of how Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani operated in Ukraine has emerged gradually in
recent months. It was laid out in further detail in the past week in a reconstructed
transcript of Mr. Trump's phone call this summer with a new Ukrainian president and in a
complaint filed by a whistle-blower inside the United States government.
Along with documents and interviews with a wide variety of people in Ukraine and the
United States, the latest revelations show that Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani ran what amounted
to a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine that unfolded against the backdrop of three elections
-- this year's vote in Ukraine and the 2016 and 2020 presidential races in the United
States.
Despite the findings of United States intelligence agencies and the Justice Department
that Russia was responsible for interfering in the 2016 election, Mr. Trump was driven to
seek proof that the meddling was linked to Ukraine and forces hostile to him, even fixating
on a fringe conspiracy theory suggesting that Hillary Clinton's missing emails might be found
there.
Backed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani, who once aspired to be secretary of state, sought to
tar Mr. Biden with unsubstantiated accusations of impropriety, while he and associates
working with him in Ukraine on the president's agenda pursued their own personal business
interests.
With the political landscape scrambled by Mr. Poroshenko's defeat in April and the arrival
of a new cast of Ukrainian officials, the approach pursued by Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump
undercut official United States diplomacy.
And the signals sent by Mr. Trump -- long skeptical of the strategic value of backing
Ukraine against Russia, its menacing neighbor to the east -- complicated efforts by the new
Ukrainian government to fortify itself against Moscow.
The intensifying overlap this summer between Mr. Trump's political agenda in Ukraine and
his official foreign policy apparatus is now at the center of an impeachment inquiry that
will examine whether the president of the United States directed or encouraged his
subordinates to lean on a vulnerable ally for personal political gain.
Among the subjects covered in a subpoena sent Friday by House Democrats to Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo and demands for depositions from American diplomats was Mr. Trump's
decision to freeze a $391 million military aid package to Ukraine this summer not long before
his July 25 call with Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who defeated Mr.
Poroshenko this spring.
Democrats are also looking into the recall in the spring of the United States ambassador
to Kiev, Marie L. Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer who was seen as
insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump by some of his conservative allies. On Friday evening, the
State Department's special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, abruptly resigned, not long after
receiving a summons from House Democrats to sit for a deposition in the coming week.
Mr. Trump has dismissed the impeachment investigation as another "witch hunt."
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Giuliani defended his efforts to push the Ukrainians to
investigate Mr. Biden, his son, Hunter Biden, and others. He asserted that he was not doing
it to try to influence the 2020 presidential election, though Mr. Biden is a leading
contender for the Democratic nomination to challenge Mr. Trump.
"I was doing it to dig out information that exculpates my client, which is the role of a
defense lawyer," he said.
Mixing Business and Politics
In the months before the steps taken in March on the politically explosive investigations
sought by Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani had met at least twice with the man who would become a
central figure in his efforts and a target of criticism in both countries: Mr. Lutsenko, 54,
Ukraine's top prosecutor.
First at a meeting in New York and later in Warsaw, Mr. Giuliani pushed Mr. Lutsenko for
information about -- and investigations into -- a pair of cases of keen interest to his
client.
They included the Bidens' activities in Ukraine and the release during the 2016 campaign
of incriminating records about Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's campaign chairman. Mr. Giuliani
said early this year he had become increasingly convinced that the Manafort records were
doctored and disseminated by critics of Mr. Trump to sabotage his campaign, and later used to
spur the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
No evidence supports this idea and Mr. Manafort's own retroactive filings under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act corroborated the Ukrainian documents, which also matched
financial records in the United States.
Still, it was not long before Mr. Trump, sensitive to any questions about the legitimacy
of his 2016 victory, began echoing Mr. Giuliani's language about what they viewed as the
Ukrainian origins of the Russia investigation.
But Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani had also taken a growing interest in the role played by Mr.
Biden, as vice president, in the dismissal of a previous Ukrainian prosecutor who had
oversight of investigations into an oligarch who had served in a previous Ukrainian
government and whose company had employed Hunter Biden. No evidence has surfaced that the
former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the dismissal of
that prosecutor, whose ouster was being sought by other Western governments and institutions
concerned about corruption in the Ukrainian government.
In their first meeting, in January, Mr. Lutsenko later told people, Mr. Giuliani called
Mr. Trump and excitedly briefed him on the discussions. And once Mr. Lutsenko's office took
procedural steps to advance investigations involving the Manafort records and the oligarch
linked to Hunter Biden, Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump and their allies aggressively promoted
stories about the developments to conservative journalists at home, further turning a foreign
government's action to the president's advantage.
"As Russia Collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges," Mr. Trump wrote on
Twitter in March, echoing the headline of one of the first such pieces by a Trump-friendly
journalist.
Mr. Giuliani had seemed to slide eagerly into his new role. After his hopes of becoming
secretary of state were dashed -- in part, former administration officials said, because of
his extensive foreign business ties -- he became a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump when the
president came under scrutiny by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Mr. Trump was publicly lobbying his own Justice Department for an investigation of Mrs.
Clinton and other Democrats. When he got no satisfaction on that score, Mr. Giuliani
volunteered to take on the role of independent investigator, empowered by nothing other than
Mr. Trump's blessing.
Mr. Giuliani rejected the suggestion that he was interfering in the execution of American
foreign policy, noting that Mr. Volker and the State Department eventually helped connect him
with a top aide to Mr. Zelensky.
"If they were concerned, I don't think they would ask me to handle a mission like this
that's sensitive," he said. "I feel perfectly comfortable with what we did in Ukraine."
Ukraine was familiar ground to Mr. Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and presidential
candidate who had built a thriving consulting and security business.
Mr. Giuliani's activity on behalf of Mr. Trump allowed him to maintain, and increase, his
marketability to prospective clients around the world. Hiring him came to be seen as a way to
curry favor with the Trump administration. ...
Kurt Volker, Trump's Envoy for Ukraine,
Resigns https://nyti.ms/2mex0tH
NYT - Peter Baker -September 27
WASHINGTON -- Kurt D. Volker, the State Department's special envoy for Ukraine who got
caught in the middle of the pressure campaign by President Trump and his lawyer, Rudolph W.
Giuliani, to find damaging information about Democrats, abruptly resigned his post on
Friday.
Mr. Volker, who told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday that he was stepping down,
offered no public explanation, but a person informed about his decision said he concluded
that it was impossible to be effective in his assignment given the developments of recent
days.
His departure was the first resignation since revelations about Mr. Trump's efforts to
pressure Ukraine's president to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and
other Democrats. The disclosures have triggered a full-blown House impeachment inquiry, and
House leaders announced on Friday that they planned to interview Mr. Volker in a deposition
on Thursday.
Mr. Volker, a widely respected former ambassador to NATO, served in the part-time, unpaid
position of special envoy to help Ukraine resolve its armed confrontation with
Russia-sponsored separatists. He was among the government officials who found themselves in
an awkward position because of the search for dirt on Democrats, reluctant to cross the
president or Mr. Giuliani yet wary of getting drawn into politics outside their purview.
The unidentified intelligence official who filed the whistle-blower complaint that brought
the president's actions to light identified Mr. Volker as one of the officials trying to
"contain the damage" by advising Ukrainians how to navigate Mr. Giuliani's campaign.
Mr. Volker facilitated an entree for Mr. Giuliani with the newly elected government in
Ukraine, acting not at the instruction of Mr. Trump or Mr. Pompeo, but at the request of the
Ukrainians, who were worried because Mr. Giuliani was seeking information about Mr. Biden and
other Democrats and had denounced top Ukrainian officials as "enemies of the president."
...
(CNN) -- Former US Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker plans to appear at his deposition
next Thursday in front of the House Foreign Affairs committee, according to a source familiar
with his plans.
The source would not say if the White House is seeking to use executive privilege to
constrict Volker in terms of what he can say or provide.
Volker's appearance before the committee was announced just hours before the news broke
Friday evening that he had resigned.
Volker didn't offer a comment when contacted Saturday by CNN.
The former US special envoy is expected to face tough questioning after finding himself in
the middle of the controversy surrounding the intelligence whistleblower who had alleged a
coverup by the White House over a call made by President Donald Trump to Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky. That whistleblower also mentioned Volker's name in his complaint when
discussing interactions between himself and Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani,
concerning pushing Ukraine to look into activities of Joe Biden's son, Hunter.
There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe or Hunter Biden. ...
NYT: ... the United States Embassy in Kiev (Ukraine) is still without an ambassador after the
administration yanked home Marie L. Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who was targeted by the
president and Mr. Giuliani for ostensibly being insufficiently loyal, a charge heatedly
disputed by her colleagues. ...
Ukraine is the place where US politicians, like the bear in Winne the Pooh, get their heads
caught in the honey jar.
As Andrew Higgins writes today: "Ukraine's allure for American carpetbaggers, political
consultants and adventurers has put it at the center of not just one but now two presidential
elections in the United States and a host of second-tier scandals...
Caught between the clashing geopolitical ambitions of Russia and the West, Ukraine has for
years had to balance competing outside interests and worked hard to cultivate all sides, and
also rival groups on the same side -- no matter how incompatible their agendas -- with offers
of money, favors and prospects for career advancement."
For Democrats and Republicans alike, Ukraine is a place where dirt on opponents can be
fabricated and distributed, free from the prying eyes of fact checkers. Biden swears that any
corruption on his part has been firmly debunked by Ukrainians who are part of a regime he
brought into existence and whose careers he helps determine. Right!
All we know for certain is, like Mark Twain once said, "An honest politician is somebody
who, when he is bought, stays bought." IMO, this is how we need to interpret any story that
is sourced from the Ukraine.
Trump is trying to get to the bottom of that story by making it clear that the success of
the regime now depends on him. He wants reliable source information to create a narrative
about how Democrats tried to delegitimize him. Good Luck!
Meanwhile, Democrats and top figures in the intelligence services are pushing back, trying
to preserve their original, Trump-Putin conspiracy narrative, created in part from dubious
Ukranian sources.
So now the world is going to be subjected to these dueling narratives, neither of which
can ever be verified or confirmed because they originated in the shadowy world of the
Ukraine.
Ulimately, it will be up to Congress and the American people to decide which narrative
they prefer: Trump's or the one pushed by Biden, Team Pelosi and their allies in the
intelligence services.
Personally, I hope they both embarrass themselves to the point where we can finally be rid
of both sides.
Concerns about Biden are all false narrative specifically injected to generate hysteria:
Biden is a dream opponent for Trump. The best he can expect.
Ukraine is a client state in which intelligence services are controlled by CIA, who has their
people on the floor. So the leaker invents the risks: "I am also concerned that these actions
pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine the U.S. Government's efforts to deter and
counter foreign interference in U.S. elections."
The document also looks like an attempt of cover-up of Crowdstrike efforts and DNC (and the
make the the key to the document -- Brennan people smelled something) : "assist in purportedly
uncovering that allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election
originated in Ukraine, with a specific request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over
servers used by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cyber security
firm Crowdstrike,3 which initially reported that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC's
networks in 2016; and"
The leaker also overplay the natural efforts of WH to hide Trump lack of diplomatic skills
and bulling of Zelensky: "In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple U.S.
officials that senior White House officials had intervened to "lock down" all records of the
phone call, especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced -- as
is customary -- by the White House Situation Room"
The key new question is "did Crowdstrike transferred images of DNC servers to Ukraine for the
analysis? "
Also document dances around the fact that Poroshenko government in tandem in Us embassy was
trying to undermine Trump
Notable quotes:
"... that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv -- specifically, U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who had criticized Mr. Lutsenko's organization for its poor record on fighting corruption -- had allegedly obstructed Ukrainian law enforcement agencies' pursuit of corruption cases, including by providing a "do not prosecute" list, and had blocked Ukrainian prosecutors from traveling to the United States expressly to prevent them from delivering their "evidence" about the 2016 U.S. election; ..."
I am deeply concerned that the actions described below constitute "a serious or flagrant
problem, abuse, or violation of law or Executive Order" that "does not include differences of
opinions concerning public policy matters," consistent with the definition of an "urgent
concern" in 50 U.S.C. §3033(k)(5)(G). I am therefore fulfilling my duty to report this
information, through proper legal channels, to the relevant authorities.
I am also concerned
that these actions pose risks to U.S. national security and undermine theU.S. Government's
efforts to deter and counter foreign interference in U.S. elections.
... ... ...
Multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me that, after an
initial exchange of pleasantries, the President used the remainder of the call to advance his
personal interests. Namely, he sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help
the President's 2020 reelection bid. According to the White House officials who had direct
knowledge of the call, the President pressured Mr. Zelenskyy to, inter alia:
initiate or
continue an investigation 2 into the activities of former Vice President Joseph
Biden and his son, Hunter Biden; assist in purportedly uncovering that allegations of Russian
interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine, with a specific
request that the Ukrainian leader locate and turn over servers used by the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) and examined by the U.S. cyber security firm Crowdstrike,3 which initially
reported that Russian hackers had penetrated the DNC's networks in 2016; and meet or speak with
two people the President named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matters, Mr. Giuliani
and Attorney General Barr, to whom the President referred multiple times in tandem.
The President also praised Ukraine's Prosecutor General, Mr. Yuriy Lutsenko, and suggested
that Mr. Zelenskyy might want to keep him in his position. (Note: Starting in March 2019, Mr.
Lutsenko made a series of public allegations -- many of which he later walked back -- about the
Biden family's activities in Ukraine, Ukrainian officials' purported involvement in the 2016
U.S. election, and the activities of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. See Part IV for additional
context.)
The White House officials who told me this information were deeply disturbed by what had
transpired in the phone call. 2 They told me that there was already a "discussion
ongoing" with White House lawyers about how to treat the call because of the likelihood, in the
officials' retelling, that they had witnessed the President abuse his office for personal
gain.
The Ukrainian side was the first to publicly acknowledge the phone call. On the evening of
25 July, a readout was posted on the website of the Ukrainian President that contained the
following line (translation from original Russian-language readout):
"Donald Trump expressed his conviction that the new Ukrainian government will be able to
quickly improve Ukraine's image and complete the investigation of corruption cases that have
held back cooperation between Ukraine and the United States."
Aside from the above-mentioned "cases" purportedly dealing with the Biden family and the
2016 U.S. election, I was told by White House officials that no other "cases" were
discussed.
Based on my understanding, there were approximately a dozen White House officials who
listened to the call -- a mixture of policy officials and duty officers in the White House
Situation Room, as is customary. The officials I spoke with told me that participation in the
call had not been restricted in advance because everyone expected it would be a "routine" call
with a foreign leader. I do not know whether anyone was physically present with the President
during the call.
In addition to White House personnel, I was told that a State Department
official, Mr. T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, also listened in on the call. I was not the only non-White
House official to receive a readout of the call. Based on my understanding, multiple State
Department and Intelligence Community officials were also briefed on the contents of the call
as outlined above. IV. Circumstances leading up to the 25 July Presidential phone call
Beginning in late March 2019, a series of articles appeared in an online publication called
The Hill. In these articles, several Ukrainian officials -- most notably, Prosecutor General
Yuriy Lutsenko -- made a series of allegations against other Ukrainian officials and current
and former U.S. officials. Mr. Lutsenko and his colleagues alleged, inter alia:
In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on 22
July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019, and met with Mr.
Bakanov and another close Zelenskyy adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.
that they possessed evidence
that Ukrainian officials -- namely, Head of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine Artem
Sytnyk and Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko -- had "interfered" in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election, allegedly in collaboration with the DNC and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv
that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv -- specifically, U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who
had criticized Mr. Lutsenko's organization for its poor record on fighting corruption -- had
allegedly obstructed Ukrainian law enforcement agencies' pursuit of corruption cases, including
by providing a "do not prosecute" list, and had blocked Ukrainian prosecutors from traveling to
the United States expressly to prevent them from delivering their "evidence" about the 2016
U.S. election; and that former Vice President Biden had pressured former Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko in 2016 to fire then Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in
order to quash a purported criminal probe into Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company on
whose board the former Vice President's son, Hunter, sat. In several public comments, Mr.
Lutsenko also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these
matters. The allegations by Mr. Lutsenko came on the eve of the first round of Ukraine's
presidential election on 31 March. By that time, Mr. Lutsenko's political patron, President
Poroshenko, was trailing Mr. Zelenskyy in the polls and appeared likely to be defeated. Mr.
Zelenskyy had made known his desire to replace Mr. Lutsenko as Prosecutor General.
On 21 April, Mr. Poroshenko lost the runoff to Mr. Zelenskyy by a landslide. See Enclosure
for additional information.
Mr. Sytnyk and Mr. Leshchenko are two of Mr. Lutsenko's main domestic rivals. Mr. Lutsenko
has no legal training and has been widely criticized in Ukraine for politicizing criminal
probes and using his tenure as Prosecutor General to protect corrupt Ukrainian officials. He
has publicly feuded with Mr. Sytnyk, who heads Ukraine's only competent anticorruption body,
and with Mr. Leshchenko, a former investigative journalist who has repeatedly criticized Mr.
Lutsenko's record. In December 2018, a Ukrainian court upheld a complaint by a Member of
Parliament, Mr. Boryslav Rozenblat, who alleged that Mr. Sytnyk and Mr. Leshchenko had
"interfered" in the 2016 U.S. election by publicizing a document detailing corrupt payments
made by former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych before his ouster in 2014. Mr. Rozenblat
had originally filed the motion in late 2017 after attempting to flee Ukraine amid an
investigation into his taking of a large bribe. On 16 July 2019, Mr. Leshchenko publicly stated
that a Ukrainian court had overturned the lower court's decision.
Mr. Lutsenko later told Ukrainian news outlet The Babel on 17 April that Ambassador
Yovanovitch had never provided such a list, and that he was, in fact, the one who requested
such a list.
Mr. Lutsenko later told Bloomberg on 16 May that former Vice President Biden and his son
were not subject to any current Ukrainian investigations, and that he had no evidence against
them. Other senior Ukrainian officials also contested his original allegations; one former
senior Ukrainian prosecutor told Bloomberg on 7 May that Mr. Shokin in fact was not
investigating Burisma at the time of his removal in 2016.
See, for example, Mr. Lutsenko's comments to The Hill on 1 and 7 April and his interview
with The Babel on 17 April, in which he stated that he had spoken with Mr. Giuliani about
arranging contact with Attorney General Barr.
In May, Attorney General Barr announced that he was initiating a probe into the "origins" of
the Russia investigation. According to the above-referenced OCCRP report (22 July), two
associates of Mr. Giuliani claimed to be working with Ukrainian officials to uncover
information that would become part of this inquiry. In an interview with Fox News on 8 August,
Mr. Giuliani claimed that Mr. John Durham, whom Attorney General Barr designated to lead this
probe, was "spending a lot of time in Europe" because he was "investigating Ukraine." I do not
know the extent to which, if at all, Mr. Giuliani is directly coordinating his efforts on
Ukraine with Attorney General Barr or Mr. Durham.
A widely criticized Ukrainian prosecutor
piqued Mr. Trump's and Mr. Giuliani's interest by floating allegations to The Hill -- but then
backtracked. In the July 25 phone call, Mr. Trump was apparently referring to Mr. Lutsenko when
he told the Ukrainian president that, "I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he
was shut down and that's really unfair." It was also publicly reported that Mr. Giuliani had
met on at least two occasions with Mr. Lutsenko: once in New York in late January and again in
Warsaw in mid-February. In addition, it was publicly reported that Mr. Giuliani had spoken in
late 2018 to former Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of
Mr. Giuliani. On 25 April in an interview with Fox News , the President called Mr.
Lutsenko's claims "big" and "incredible" and stated that the Attorney General "would want to
see this."
On or about 29 April, I learned from U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the situation
that Ambassador Yovanovitch had been suddenly recalled to Washington by senior State Department
officials for "consultations" and would most likely be removed from her position.
Around the
same time, I also learned from a U.S. official that "associates" of Mr. Giuliani were trying to
make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team. On 6 May, the State Department announced that
Ambassador Yovanovitch would be ending her assignment in Kyiv "as planned." However, several
U.S. officials told me that, in fact, her tour was curtailed because of pressure stemming from
Mr. Lutsenko's allegations. Mr. Giuliani subsequently stated in an interview with a Ukrainian
journalist published on 14 May that Ambassador Yovanovitch was "removed...because she was part
of the efforts against the President."
On 9 May, The New York Times reported that Mr. Giuliani planned to travel to
Ukraine to press the Ukrainian government to pursue investigations that would help the
President in his 2020 reelection bid.
In his multitude of public statements leading up to
and in the wake of the publication of this article, Mr. Giuliani confirmed that he was focused
on encouraging Ukrainian authorities to pursue investigations into alleged Ukrainian
interference in the 2016 U.S. election and alleged wrongdoing by the Biden family. On the
afternoon of 10 May, the President stated in an interview with Politico that he
planned to speak with Mr. Giuliani about the trip. A few hours later, Mr. Giuliani publicly
canceled his trip, claiming that Mr. Zelenskyy was "surrounded by enemies of the [U.S.]
President...and of the United States."
On 11 May, Mr. Lutsenko met for two hours with President-elect Zelenskyy, according to a
public account given several days later by Mr. Lutsenko. Mr. Lutsenko publicly stated that he
had told Mr. Zelenskyy that he wished to remain as Prosecutor General.
See, for example, the above-referenced articles in Bloomberg (16 May) and OCCRP (22
July).
I do not know whether these associates of Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in
the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced above.
See, for example, Mr. Giuliani's appearance on Fox News on 6 April and his tweets
on 23 April and 10 May. In his interview with The New York Times , Mr. Giuliani stated
that the President "basically knows what I'm doing, sure, as his lawyer." Mr. Giuliani also
stated: "We're not meddling in an election, we're meddling in an investigation, which we have a
right to do... There's nothing illegal about it... Somebody could say it's improper. And this
isn't foreign policy -- I'm asking them to do an investigation that they're doing already and
that other people are telling them to stop. And I'm going to give them reasons why they
shouldn't stop it because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may
turn out to be helpful to my government."
Starting in mid-May, I heard from multiple U.S. officials that they were deeply concerned by
what they viewed as Mr. Giuliani's circumvention of national security decision making processes
to engage with Ukrainian officials and relay messages back and forth between Kyiv and the
President.
These officials also told me:
that State Department officials, including Ambassadors
Volker and Sondland, had spoken with Mr. Giuliani in an attempt to "contain the damage" to U.S.
national security; and that Ambassadors Volker and Sondland during this time period met with
members of the new Ukrainian administration and, in addition to discussing policy matters,
sought to help Ukrainian leaders understand and respond to the differing messages they were
receiving from official U.S. channels on the one hand, and from Mr. Giuliani on the other.
During this same timeframe, multiple U.S. officials told me that the Ukrainian leadership
was led to believe that a meeting or phone call between the President and President Zelenskyy
would depend on whether Zelenskyy showed willingness to "play ball" on the issues that had been
publicly aired by Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Giuliani. (Note: This was the general understanding of
the state of affairs as conveyed to me by U.S. officials from late May into early July. I do
not know who delivered this message to the Ukrainian leadership, or when.) See Enclosure for
additional information.
Shortly after President Zelenskyy's inauguration, it was publicly reported that Mr. Giuliani
met with two other Ukrainian officials: Ukraine's Special Anticorruption Prosecutor, Mr. Nazar
Kholodnytskyy, and a former Ukrainian diplomat named Andriy Telizhenko. Both Mr. Kholodnytskyy
and Mr. Telizhenko are allies of Mr. Lutsenko and made similar allegations in the
above-mentioned series of articles in The Hill .
On 13 June, the President told ABC 's George Stephanopoulos that he would accept damaging
information on his political rivals from a foreign government.
On 21 June, Mr. Giuliani tweeted: "New Pres of Ukraine still silent on investigation of
Ukrainian interference in 2016 and alleged Biden bribery of Poroshenko. Time for leadership and
investigate both if you want to purge how Ukraine was abused by Hillary and Clinton
people."
In mid-July, I learned of a sudden change of policy with respect to U.S. assistance for
Ukraine. See Enclosure for additional information.
"... Of course, I understand your motives for Impeachment are not wholly altruistic. With corporate donations drying up and growing pressure from Progressive primary challengers making Establishment incumbents increasingly nervous, you need some way to excite your old school base for the important election season to come. ..."
Thank you so much for inviting me to your Impeachment Party. It's really great to hear
you've finally found something to nail Trump with. Good for you! You've been looking so hard
these past three years. So nice to see all that effort finally pay off!
(Of course, some might say you should have spent that time looking for solutions to all the
problems the country is facing, but hey, let's not get crazy! Right?) And your amazing valor
doesn't stop at Biden. Oh no. You are even willing to let Republicans dredge up Hillary's email
scandal long after people had all but forgotten about Crowdstrike. The Romans who stood in
front of the charging elephants at Cannae would be proud.
... ... ...
Of course, I understand your motives for Impeachment are not wholly altruistic. With
corporate donations drying up and growing pressure from Progressive primary challengers making
Establishment incumbents increasingly nervous, you need some way to excite your old school base
for the important election season to come.
That's why it's even more testament to your pluck that you would choose such a transparently
hypocritical and overtly political hill on which to take your final stand, especially after
2016 showed so clearly that going after Trump personally only makes him more popular.
So I
say onward Impeachment soldier!
By the time the primaries roll around, your brave Establishment beserkers will have divided
the party and discredited the leadership to such an extent that rank and file Dems will be
begging for a Progressive intervention.
"... "During the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them." --Victoria Nuland. ..."
"... More information on Hunter Biden. He served on the President's Advisory Council of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up after Congress banned the CIA from pursuing regime change. A lot of the coordination and assistance for the Ukraine coup probably passed through that 'non-profit.' Joe Biden was Obama's point person, and Hunter Biden was probably Joe's eyes, ears, and gopher at NDI. ..."
"... As a side benefit, Hunter Biden would have been in an excellent position, both from his work at NDI and at Burisma, to meet the movers and shakers in post-coup Ukraine and coordinate disinformation campaigns as needed. The Ukrainians would have been eager to help as the solvency of the country depended on US loans. ..."
"During the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who
were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine,
what was going on between them." --Victoria Nuland.
More information on Hunter Biden. He served on the President's Advisory Council of the
National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy,
which was set up after Congress banned the CIA from pursuing regime change. A lot of the
coordination and assistance for the Ukraine coup probably passed through that 'non-profit.'
Joe Biden was Obama's point person, and Hunter Biden was probably Joe's eyes, ears, and
gopher at NDI.
Immediately after the coup, Hunter was appointed to the board of the strategically
critical Burisma energy company, Ukraine's largest producer of natural gas. From what I have
seen, the US likes to have its assets sit on the Board of strategically critically energy
companies.
And is Ukraine ever strategically important!!! Apart from the fact the Russian pipelines
pass through the country, "Ukraine has an estimated 42 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of
technically recoverable shale gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration (EIA), ranking its deposits as the fourth largest in Europe." https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ukraine_and_fracking
Again, Hunter Biden's appointment would not have been by chance. He would have been put
there to once again to be Joe Biden's eyes, ears, and gopher.
As a side benefit, Hunter Biden would have been in an excellent position, both from his
work at NDI and at Burisma, to meet the movers and shakers in post-coup Ukraine and
coordinate disinformation campaigns as needed. The Ukrainians would have been eager to help
as the solvency of the country depended on US loans.
So are we about to witness the first color revolution on US soil? Could be
A presentation and reading by Hamilton Gregory, author of "McNamara's Folly: The Use of
Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam." Because so many college students were avoiding military service
during the Vietnam War, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered mental standards to induct
354,000 low-IQ men. they were known as McNamara's "Moron Corps." Their death toll in combat was
appalling. Gregory indicates at the end of his talk that the situation didn't really change.
The same practice is taking place nowadays.
England patriot says:
September
24, 2019 at 5:27 pm GMT 100 Words A lot of people mistake low IQ brutishness for genuine
bravery and strength, which is why blacks are considered by many whites to be the toughest race
and probably why they are favoured by the military.
A big weakness of the US and UK militaries is the assumption that street thugs make the most
effective and capable troops, in reality such people are often the most useless and cowardly in
an actual war zone. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All
Comments
The story is definitely true. Not only were there low moron troops but even the so called
West Point graduates with no experience in war were complete idiots. It was a two fold fiasco
because these graduates couldn't read coordinates on maps and the morons couldn't find them
and thus they often bombed our own troops.
There were a lot "friendly fire" deaths that were never reported. The carnage of Vietnam
was a disgrace from poor military strategies to morons and incompetents running them. We were
not prepared for the "Jungle Type Gorilla War" our leaders got us into and the results are
told forever on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. What did they die for? Another
"Communist" are taking over Domino Policy when the true Communist Jews were running the stuff
in the USA and destroying us.
Two destroyers were recently collided into by slow-moving merchant ships. Someone said that
this is like a Chevy Corvette being struck by a bulldozer on the Bonneville Salt Flats while
a team of trained experts had the job of keeping the Corvette from being hit.
@A123
Any civilization that sends their Best and Brightest to the front lines is taking huge risks.
Cannon fodder troops generally come (and should come) from the lower tiers of society. This
promotes a nation's long-term health and vitality.
There is no starvation–only fasting–during Ramadan. Fasting occurs each day
from sunrise to sundown. On the other hand, Israel's high fertility rates among Orthodox and
Sephardic Jews has dysgenics written all over it. This explains why Israel's average IQ
average remains below 100. Highly religious and less-intelligent Jews are producing a
disproportionate number of the births inside Israel.
It's a lesson the US could've learned back in World War II. The US deployed black troops in
France, and instead of proving that the blacks were just as capable fighters as the whites,
the blacks engaged in typical black behavior of rape and thievery. It got so bad in areas
like Cherbourg that the local population preferred the Germans over their supposed
'liberators'.
The same thing happened earlier in the war when the Allies deployed Moroccan mercenaries
in Italy.
After the battle of Monte Cassino, these savages could rape Italian women with impunity, they
wouldn't be stopped by the French, the British or indeed the Americans, and as a result more
than 30.000 Italian women became victims of these vicious assaults.
But I bet it was all in good faith of course, after all the US was making Europe safe for
stali I mean, 'democracy'
Politicians did not want the war to become an issue among the affluent. It was the old adage
about wars: "Rich men start them; poor men fight them." There were plenty of chicken hawks
around.
The article and comments, so far, are interesting.
A military is a tool of the ruling class/caste/layer/whatever. What is moronic, or not, is
for them to decide. The only principle: is the tool good for the job?
There are several very good reasons to have "low-level IQ" troops in the military, a
modern war/combat in particular.
In an infantry company of, say, 160 men, a smart O.C. would love to have 10-20 of those
types. Plenty of jobs/assignments for them and definitely attributing to combat efficiency of
the unit.
Even better in logistics, especially in higher units/rear areas. Comparison:
warehouse/storage facilities employees in civvy street.
BTW, those guys, if/when properly treated (LEADERSHIP) can be utterly loyal and
dependable. For "experts" around, there are plenty of miserable, mind-numbing jobs/tasks in
the military, plus quite dangerous, which those guys shall do when others won't. If .treated
properly
And, one more element, especially in contemporary wars: certain moral attitude, "relaxed"
approach to human life and limb etc. Ability to commit acs of war other, more, say, smart,
"sensitive" troops, are reluctant to do.
Israel. IDF as the state tool to keep Palestinians under control.
Occupation forces of The Empire in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And one more thing: for suppressing possible internal unrest in a Western country ..For
that job you really don't want very intelligent/sensitive people.
Etc.
Big topic but, of course, not for this thread, for obvious reasons. Program.
Sorry for the interruption, guys. Feel free to resume the "bashing".
Infantry in Vietnam was known to be awful. Everyone in the military knew to avoid it. It was
openly used as a threat for non-compliance to troops elsewhere.
There were certainly exceptions. Some Marines, people wanting or needing to get their
ticket punched, etc. But before anything, Vietnam Infantry was getting the dregs. Not that I
doubt McNamera leaned into it as an opportunity.
Why in the world did they want or need all these troops? Westmorland kept asking for more
and more. After 500,000, per the pentagon papers, the JCS mood Westmorland that given US
presence in Europe, Japan, Korea, etc., there were no more extra troops.
Too bad that the US military has made a cottage industry out of revisionist accounts
regarding how it could have been "won". Showing a remarkable lack of insight into what it
means to win.
@A123
Interesting to see how a conniving Jew takes a piece about Vietnam and uses it to further his
objective of trying (quite unsuccessfully, one infers) to generate sympathy for the
Judenreich. He then doubles down with a further tangent leading somehow to Ramadan (!) It's
almost comical how transparent Jew scheming has become. It makes one wonder if the Hasbara
brigades have had to go low-IQ at this point?
Both in terms of IQ and class background, infantry in Vietnam were generally
representative of the general population. As one author assessed, "If they [soldiers in
combat units] were not the social and intellectual cream of American youth, neither were they
its dregs or castoffs."
nI saw the author of the book give at talk. I believe it was at a Tennessee Unversity. What
he described he saw as an enlisted man if I remember correctly. He was sent to OCS later and
sounded a very decent man. The conditions were awful for these guys. They were treated as
expendable by peers and officers alike.
I wonder how the IDF works this issue out. The Israelis are masters of the universe at
everything don't you know. They are utter geniuses.
"... Citing a "political and humanitarian crisis" committed by Caracas, the White House Office of the Press Secretary issued a "suspension of entry as immigrants and nonimmigrants of persons who threaten Venezuela's democratic institutions." ..."
"... The move comes as the latest effort from the Trump administration to oust Venezuela's president. ' ..."
'US President Donald Trump has moved to suspend Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's
senior officials, relatives, and others who receive financial benefits from entering into
the US in Wednesday press release from the White House.
Citing a "political and humanitarian crisis" committed by Caracas, the White House
Office of the Press Secretary issued a "suspension of entry as immigrants and nonimmigrants
of persons who threaten Venezuela's democratic institutions."
The move comes as the latest effort from the Trump administration to oust Venezuela's
president. '
Netanyahu's coalition was given the nod because they have 55 seats to the other side's
54.
There's still some question about whether Netanyahu can form a governing coalition.
But
Netanyahu now has 42 days to convince his former Defense Minister(!) Lieberman
(who heads the Yisrael Beiteinu Party) to join the coalition led by Likud.
"... One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very top. ..."
"... To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD? ..."
One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in
Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical
subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on
the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very
top.
To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And
what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD?
This brings us to Hunter Biden's appointment to Ukrainian energy giant Burisma. After the
coup in 2014, why wouldn't Biden want a trusted asset on the board of the biggest natural gas
producer in Ukraine? IOW it was unpublicized standard operating procedure.
Feb 7 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. State Department officer and the ambassador to Ukraine
apparently used unencrypted cellphones for a call about political developments in Ukraine that
was leaked and touched off an international furor, U.S. officials said in Washington on
Friday.
In the call, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland used an expletive in apparently
disparaging the idea of relying on help from the European Union in negotiating a political
solution in Ukraine.
The U.S. officials said the conversation between Nuland and ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt was
likely intercepted at the Ukraine end and that they believe both Ambassador Pyatt and Nuland
were speaking on cellphones.
An official familiar with the matter said State Department employees, including officials at
a senior level, are not issued cellphones that use encryption.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed this at a regular briefing. "All Department
of State government-owned BlackBerry devices have data encryption. However, they don't have
voice encryption," she said.
The U.S. officials said Pyatt was in Ukraine at the time of the call, although it was not
clear where Nuland was.
They did not give the date of the call, although they said it was recent. The issues that
Nuland and Pyatt discussed occurred in the last few days of January.
The audio clip was first posted on Twitter by Dmitry Loskutov, an aide to Russian Deputy
Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, a diplomatic source said. A second intercepted audio
conversation, between senior European Union diplomats, was posted on YouTube around the same
time.
The Obama Administration has not formally acknowledged the authenticity of the audio clip or
accused any specific party of recording it.
"IMPRESSIVE TRADECRAFT"
Nuland, who met President Viktor Yanukovich in Kiev on Thursday, described the bugging and
leaks as "pretty impressive tradecraft" but said it would not hurt her ties with the Ukrainian
opposition.
In the call, apparently made at a time when opposition leaders were considering an offer
from President Viktor Yanukovich to join his cabinet, she suggested that one of three leading
figures might accept a post but two others should stay out. In the end, all three rejected the
offer.
The leak coincided with accusations from Moscow of U.S. interference in Ukraine. Washington
and European countries back those opposing Yanukovich, a close Kremlin ally.
On Friday one senior U.S. official in Washington said: "The quality of the recording would
certainly indicate that this was not the work of simple hackers, but rather an intelligence
service with an interest in distracting from the efforts of the people of Ukraine to recover
their own government."
The posting of the conversation surfaced as the U.S. faces international uproar over its own
electronic eavesdropping disclosed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden
last year.
One document leaked by Snowden appeared to indicate that the U.S. had tapped the cellphone
of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, prompting President Barack Obama to announce that spying on
foreign leaders was being curtailed.
Mark Weatherford, a former deputy under secretary for cybersecurity with the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security, said that some senior government officials were issued mobile handsets
that are capable of encrypting conversations but typically do not use them.
"It is expensive. They are different phones. They are cumbersome," said Weatherford, now a
principal with the Chertoff Group, a Washington-based consulting firm led by former senior U.S.
security and intelligence officials.
He said that the conversation that was intercepted would have remained private had the two
officials used encrypted devices.
Chris Morales, research director with the cybersecurity firm NSS Labs, said hacking into an
unencrypted mobile phone line does not require a lot of training and can typically be done
using equipment and software that is widely available. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed
and Jim Finkle; editing by David Storey and David Gregorio)
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon,
administering the occasional rap on the knuckles
to those acting in bad faith"
". Meanwhile, the system's multilateral institutions,
especially the International Monetary Fund,
helped countries in dire need of funds,
provided they followed the rules."
Behind the escalating global conflict over trade and technology is a larger breakdown of the
postwar rules-based order, which was based on a belief that any country's growth benefits
all. Now that China is threatening to compete directly with the United States, support for
the system that made that possible has disappeared.
By RAGHURAM G. RAJAN
CHICAGO – Another day, another attack on trade. Why is it that every dispute –
whether over intellectual property (IP), immigration, environmental damage, or war
reparations – now produces new threats to trade?
For much of the last century, the United States managed and protected the rules-based
trading system it created at the end of World War II. That system required a fundamental
break from the pre-war environment of mutual suspicion between competing powers. The US urged
everyone to see that growth and development for one country could benefit all countries
through increased trade and investment.
Under the new dispensation, rules were enacted to constrain selfish behavior and coercive
threats by the economically powerful. The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering
the occasional rap on the knuckles to those acting in bad faith. Meanwhile, the system's
multilateral institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund, helped countries in
dire need of funds, provided they followed the rules....
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to
those acting in bad faith"
USA foreign policy since 70th was controlled by neocons who as a typical Trotskyites
(neoliberalism is actually Trotskyism for the rich) were/are hell-bent of world domination
and practice gangster capitalism in foreign policy. Bolton attitude to UN is very symptomatic
for the neocons as a whole.
Madeline "not so bright" Allbright was the first swan. As well as Clinton attempts to
bankrupt and subdue Russia and criminal (in a sense of no permission from the UN) attack on
Yugoslavia. Both backfired: Russia became permanently hostile. The fact he and his coterie
were not yet tried by something like Nuremberg tribunal is only due to the USA dominance at
this stage of history.
The truth is that the dissolution of the USSR the USA foreign policy became completely
unhinged. And inside the country the elite became cannibalistic, as there was no external
threat to its dominance in the form of the USSR.
The USA stated to behave like a typical Imperial state (New Rome, or, more correctly,
London) accepting no rules/laws that are not written by themselves (and when it is convenient
to obey them) with the only difference from the classic imperial states that the hegemony it
not based on the military presence/occupation ( like was the case with British empire)
Although this is not completely true as there are 761 US Military Bases across the planet
and only 46 Countries with no US military presence. Of them, seven countries with 13 New
Military Bases were added since 09/11/2001. In 2001 the US had a quarter million troops
posted abroad.
Still as an imperial state that is the center of neoliberal empire the USA relies more on
financial instruments and neoliberal comprador elite inside the country.
With the collapse of neoliberal ideology in 2008 the USA centered neoliberal empire
experiences first cracks. Brexit and election of Trump widened the cracks in a sense of
further legitimizing the ruling neoliberal elite (big middle finger for Hillary was addressed
to the elite as whole)
If oil price exceed $100 per barrel there will yet another crack or even repetition of the
2008 Great Recession on a new level (although we may argue that the Great Recession never
ended and just entered in Summers terms "permanent stagnation" phase)
Although currently with unhinged Trump at the helm the USA empire still going strong in
forcing vassals and competitors to reconsider their desire to challenge the USA. Trump
currently is trying to neutralize the treat from China by rejecting classic neoliberal
globalization mechanism as well as signed treaties like WTO. He might be successful in the
short run.
In the long run the future does not look too bright as crimes committed by the USA during
triumphal period of neoliberalism hangs like albatross around the USA neck.
EU now definitely wants to play its own game as Macron recently stated and which Merkel
tacitly supports. If EU allies with Russia it will became No.1 force in the world with the
USA No. 2. With severe consequences for the USA.
If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position will hinge of keeping EU vassals in
check and NATO in place. Without them it will became No.2 with fatal consequences for the
dollar as world reserve currency and sudden change of the USA financial position due to the
level of external debt and required devaluation of the dollar.
Looks like 75 year after WWII the world started to self-organize a countervailing force
trying to tame the USA with some interest expressed by such players as EU, Russia, China,
India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and even Saudi Arabia. As well as ( in the past; and possibly
in the future as neoliberal counterrevolutions in both countries probably will end badly) by
Brazil and Argentina.
Only Canada, Australia and probably UK can be counted as the reliable parts of the USA
empire. That's not much.
"If Russia allied with China the USA No.1 position "........
Think Italy moving into the Axis in 1937? Or the Soviet German Non Aggression Pact.
Nuclear weapons removes the incentive for large "rearmaments" or not?
Would the Britain to France 1938 relationship describe the US to EU? Thinking in 1939
(1914?) terms Europe is less stitched together than in 1936.
"... CIA decided under Dulles that they were the only ones capable of leading this country, mainly because they wanted it ran their way and no other. Don't take my word for it though, read Arthur B. Darling's "THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT TO 1950 copy right 1990 Penn State Press. (This work was classified for quite a long while.) ..."
"... So the first thing that works in CIA et al's favor is politicians who have been in DC long enough to be worn down and thoroughly compromised by blackmail of one sort or another and there fore vulnerable. ..."
It has been my contention that Biden's powerful backers from the
military-industrial-intelligence-media complex are fully aware of his mental state, and that
is precisely why they want him to be president. Why? He would only be a figure-head
president. He would be given a suggested running mate as well as a list of candidates for
cabinet and other appointed positions (as Obama was given) and Biden would follow that in
making appointments. Policies of his administration would be consistent with the interests of
the military-industrial-intelligence-media complex.
robert e williamson jr , September 20, 2019 at 15:19
Kids this is exactly what the intelligence community wants, someone who they can claim
needs to be told what to do or be kept discreetly out of the loop, so currently Joe maybe the
chosen one just as Bill Barr is reported to have told Slick Willy.
We end up where we are at the moment because our security state apparatus is ran by the
intelligence community who do not really want a strong intelligent, clear minded president
who can actually think for himself. Ask Barrack Obama!
For years I've used this analogy, crude as it maybe, that when the newly elected president
is called on for his national security briefing it is always a tense encounter because this
"Newby" is about to have a come to Jesus meeting with this most abusive of all government
entities. The intelligence community. He is "shown the way"he will act because if he doesn't
this community who has relieved him of one his go -- -s will come and relieve him of the
other.
This started as a joke on my part, I'm now convinced it reflects reality.
At some point many here will understand that since around the time of the murder of JFK ,
CIA has framed things in this manner.
CIA decided under Dulles that they were the only ones capable of leading this country,
mainly because they wanted it ran their way and no other. Don't take my word for it though,
read Arthur B. Darling's "THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT TO
1950 copy right 1990 Penn State Press. (This work was classified for quite a long
while.)
Doing so will help make your mind more flexible , jeesh what a slog to get through it.
So the first thing that works in CIA et al's favor is politicians who have been in DC
long enough to be worn down and thoroughly compromised by blackmail of one sort or another
and there fore vulnerable.
I figured if Caitlin could say "dog balls " which I think was a great analogy I could say
gonads.
Time to sit down Joe.
Thanks again to Consortium News for their great efforts at informing the masses.
Rudy Giuliani leveled serious new claims at the Bidens in a series of Monday morning tweets.
Chief among them is a claim that $3 million was laundered to former Vice President Joe Biden's
son, Hunter , via a "Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US" route - a revelation he claims was "kept from
you by Swamp Media."
NEW FACT: One $3million payment to Biden's son from Ukraine to Latvia to Cyprus to US.
When Prosecutor asked Cyprus for amount going to son, he was told US embassy (Obama's)
instructed them not to provide the amount. Prosecutor getting too close to son and Biden had
him fired.
Today though it's the $3 million laundered payment, classical proof of guilty knowledge
and intent, that was kept from you by Swamp Media. Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US is a usual route
for laundering money. Obama's US embassy told Cyprus bank not to disclose amount to Biden.
Stinks!
Trump's personal attorney then
mentioned China - where journalist Peter Schweizer reported Joe and Hunter Biden flew in
2013 on Air Force Two. Two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1
billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5
billion , according to an article by Schweizer's in the New
York Post .
Biden scandal only beginning. Lots more evidence on Ukraine like today's money
laundering of $3 million. 4 or 5 big disclosures. Also the $1.5 billion China gave to
Biden's fund while Joe was, as usual, failing in his negotiations with China is worse.
Giuliani then went on to tweet that the Bidens lied about not discussing Hunter's
overseas business .
On Saturday, Joe Biden said he "never" spoke with Hunter about the Ukrainian energy company
that Hunter sat on the board of while being paid $50,000 per month. As you're doubtless
aware by now, the elder Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees from
Ukraine if they didn't fire the investigator probing the company, Burisma.
Biden says he never talked to his son about his overseas business. Do you think we can
prove, with our fact a day disclosures, it's a lie-a false exculpatory statement. Do we have
to prove, or do you already know, it's a lie, and an incriminating statement.
Hunter, however,
admitted in July that the two did speak about his Ukraine business "just once," telling the
New Yorker " Dad said, 'I hope you know what you are doing,' and I said, 'I do' "
Rudy then lashed out at the Democratic party, which he said would "own" Biden's scandals if
hey don't "call for investigation of Bidens' millions from Ukraine and billions from
China."
If Dem party doesn't call for investigation of Bidens' millions from Ukraine and billions
from China, they will own it. Bidens' made big money selling public office. How could Obama
have allowed this to happen? Will Dems continue to condone and enable this kind
pay-for-play?
Here's what we know about Hunter's dealings in China based on Schweizer's
reporting via our
May report :
Hunter Biden and his partners created several LLCs involved in multibillion-dollar
private equity deals with Chinese government-owned entities.
The primary operation was Rosemont Seneca Partners - an investment firm founded in 2009
and controlled by Hunter Biden, John Kerry's stepson Chris Heinz, and Heniz's longtime
associate Devon Archer. The trio began making deals "through a series of overlapping
entities" under Rosemont.
In less than a year, Hunter Biden and Archer met with top Chinese officials in China ,
and partnered with the Thornton Group - a Massachusetts-based consultancy headed by James
Bulger - son nephew of famed mob hitman James "Whitey" Bulger (h/t @Guerrilla_Magoo
for the correction).
According to the Thornton Group's Chinese-language website, Chinese executives "extended
their warm welcome" to the "Thornton Group, with its US partner Rosemont Seneca chairman
Hunter Biden (second son of the now Vice President Joe Biden."
Officially, the China meets were to "explore the possibility of commercial cooperation
and opportunity," however details of the meeting were not published to the English-language
version of the website.
"The timing of this meeting was also notable. It occurred just hours before Hunter
Biden's father, the vice president, met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington as
part of the Nuclear Security Summit ," according to Schweizer.
Perhaps most damning in terms of timing and optics, just twelve days after Hunter and Joe
Biden flew on Air Force Two to Beijing, Hunter's company signed a "historic deal with the
Bank of China ," described by Schweizer as "the state-owned financial behemoth often used as
a tool of the Chinese government." To accommodate the deal, the Bank of China created a
unique type of investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). According to BHR, Rosemont
Seneca Partners is a founding partner .
It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest
competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers
.
Chris Heinz claims neither he nor Rosemont Seneca Partners, the firm he had part ownership
of, had any role in the deal with Bohai Harvest. Nonetheless, Biden, Archer and the Rosemont
name became increasingly involved with China . Archer became the vice chairman of Bohai
Harvest, helping oversee some of the fund's investments. - New
York Post
And while Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the
Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business
opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.
Also in December 2014, a Chinese state-backed conglomerate called Gemini Investments
Limited was negotiating and sealing deals with Hunter Biden's Rosemont on several fronts.
That month, it made a $34 million investment into a fund managed by Rosemont.
The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca,
announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the compan y. The terms of
the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US
properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont.
"Rosemont, with its comprehensive real-estate platform and superior performance history, was
precisely the investment opportunity Gemini Investments was looking for in order to invest in
the US real estate market," said Li Ming, chairman of Sino-Ocean Land Holdings Limited and
Gemini Investments. " We look forward to a strong and successful partnership. "
The morning after the car was dropped off, a phone number belonging to a renowned local
"Colon Hydrotherapist" called the Hertz . The caller identified himself as "Joseph McGee," who
told the employees that the keys were located in the gas cap as opposed to the drop box.
Amazing how so many countries would scramble to do business with Hunter - a guy with
virtually no experience who was discharged
from the Navy after testing positive for cocaine - who just happened to be the Vice
President's son.
This is a apt demonstration of the raw power of the US neoliberal MSM propaganda.
Notable quotes:
"... This is a very interesting process: no matter how absurd is the particular notion and how many contravening facts exist, the power of neoliberal MSM is such that soon enough it is viewed as an established and indisputable fact. As you aptly call it "an article of faith". ..."
"... So we can state that neoliberal MSM are performing part of functions that in Medieval Europe was performed by the Church. Kind of giant televangelism pulpit in the mega church of neoliberalism ..."
Interesting – apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential
election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world
regards as established fact, it is safe to advance on that a little. Now Donald Trump
actually asked Vladimir Putin to hack the emails of his democratic rival.
Curiously, the Washington Post's recently-adopted new slogan is "Democracy dies in
darkness". So telling the readers any old shit that you made up and can offer no proof
whatsoever is true is infinitely better than darkness. And they wonder why academic standards
are slipping, and why Americans faithfully believe things that few other countries accept as
true. All the while they are cultivating a nation of dunces which believes anything it is
told by its government.
likbez
"apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip
the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as
established fact,"
Mark, you are a very astute political observer!
This is a very interesting process: no matter how absurd is the particular notion and how
many contravening facts exist, the power of neoliberal MSM is such that soon enough it is
viewed as an established and indisputable fact. As you aptly call it "an article of
faith".
So we can state that neoliberal MSM are performing part of functions that in Medieval
Europe was performed by the Church. Kind of giant televangelism pulpit in the mega church
of neoliberalism
Rudy Giuliani leveled serious new claims at the Bidens in a series of Monday morning tweets.
Chief among them is a claim that $3 million was laundered to former Vice President Joe Biden's
son, Hunter , via a "Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US" route - a revelation he claims was "kept from
you by Swamp Media."
NEW FACT: One $3million payment to Biden's son from Ukraine to Latvia to Cyprus to US.
When Prosecutor asked Cyprus for amount going to son, he was told US embassy (Obama's)
instructed them not to provide the amount. Prosecutor getting too close to son and Biden had
him fired.
Today though it's the $3 million laundered payment, classical proof of guilty knowledge
and intent, that was kept from you by Swamp Media. Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US is a usual route
for laundering money. Obama's US embassy told Cyprus bank not to disclose amount to Biden.
Stinks!
Trump's personal attorney then
mentioned China - where journalist Peter Schweizer reported Joe and Hunter Biden flew in
2013 on Air Force Two. Two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1
billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5
billion , according to an article by Schweizer's in the New
York Post .
Biden scandal only beginning. Lots more evidence on Ukraine like today's money
laundering of $3 million. 4 or 5 big disclosures. Also the $1.5 billion China gave to
Biden's fund while Joe was, as usual, failing in his negotiations with China is worse.
Giuliani then went on to tweet that the Bidens lied about not discussing Hunter's
overseas business .
On Saturday, Joe Biden said he "never" spoke with Hunter about the Ukrainian energy company
that Hunter sat on the board of while being paid $50,000 per month. As you're doubtless
aware by now, the elder Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees from
Ukraine if they didn't fire the investigator probing the company, Burisma.
Biden says he never talked to his son about his overseas business. Do you think we can
prove, with our fact a day disclosures, it's a lie-a false exculpatory statement. Do we have
to prove, or do you already know, it's a lie, and an incriminating statement.
Hunter, however,
admitted in July that the two did speak about his Ukraine business "just once," telling the
New Yorker " Dad said, 'I hope you know what you are doing,' and I said, 'I do' "
Rudy then lashed out at the Democratic party, which he said would "own" Biden's scandals if
hey don't "call for investigation of Bidens' millions from Ukraine and billions from
China."
If Dem party doesn't call for investigation of Bidens' millions from Ukraine and billions
from China, they will own it. Bidens' made big money selling public office. How could Obama
have allowed this to happen? Will Dems continue to condone and enable this kind
pay-for-play?
Here's what we know about Hunter's dealings in China based on Schweizer's
reporting via our
May report :
Hunter Biden and his partners created several LLCs involved in multibillion-dollar
private equity deals with Chinese government-owned entities.
The primary operation was Rosemont Seneca Partners - an investment firm founded in 2009
and controlled by Hunter Biden, John Kerry's stepson Chris Heinz, and Heniz's longtime
associate Devon Archer. The trio began making deals "through a series of overlapping
entities" under Rosemont.
In less than a year, Hunter Biden and Archer met with top Chinese officials in China ,
and partnered with the Thornton Group - a Massachusetts-based consultancy headed by James
Bulger - son nephew of famed mob hitman James "Whitey" Bulger (h/t @Guerrilla_Magoo
for the correction).
According to the Thornton Group's Chinese-language website, Chinese executives "extended
their warm welcome" to the "Thornton Group, with its US partner Rosemont Seneca chairman
Hunter Biden (second son of the now Vice President Joe Biden."
Officially, the China meets were to "explore the possibility of commercial cooperation
and opportunity," however details of the meeting were not published to the English-language
version of the website.
"The timing of this meeting was also notable. It occurred just hours before Hunter
Biden's father, the vice president, met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington as
part of the Nuclear Security Summit ," according to Schweizer.
Perhaps most damning in terms of timing and optics, just twelve days after Hunter and Joe
Biden flew on Air Force Two to Beijing, Hunter's company signed a "historic deal with the
Bank of China ," described by Schweizer as "the state-owned financial behemoth often used as
a tool of the Chinese government." To accommodate the deal, the Bank of China created a
unique type of investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). According to BHR, Rosemont
Seneca Partners is a founding partner .
It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest
competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers
.
Chris Heinz claims neither he nor Rosemont Seneca Partners, the firm he had part ownership
of, had any role in the deal with Bohai Harvest. Nonetheless, Biden, Archer and the Rosemont
name became increasingly involved with China . Archer became the vice chairman of Bohai
Harvest, helping oversee some of the fund's investments. - New
York Post
And while Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the
Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business
opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.
Also in December 2014, a Chinese state-backed conglomerate called Gemini Investments
Limited was negotiating and sealing deals with Hunter Biden's Rosemont on several fronts.
That month, it made a $34 million investment into a fund managed by Rosemont.
The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca,
announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the compan y. The terms of
the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US
properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont.
"Rosemont, with its comprehensive real-estate platform and superior performance history, was
precisely the investment opportunity Gemini Investments was looking for in order to invest in
the US real estate market," said Li Ming, chairman of Sino-Ocean Land Holdings Limited and
Gemini Investments. " We look forward to a strong and successful partnership. "
The morning after the car was dropped off, a phone number belonging to a renowned local
"Colon Hydrotherapist" called the Hertz . The caller identified himself as "Joseph McGee," who
told the employees that the keys were located in the gas cap as opposed to the drop box.
Amazing how so many countries would scramble to do business with Hunter - a guy with
virtually no experience who was discharged
from the Navy after testing positive for cocaine - who just happened to be the Vice
President's son.
Ukrainian Fatigue Syndrom (UFS) is a serious affliction. If you suffer from this affliction,
ask your Doctor about Rid-Uk. Do not continue to take Rid-Uk if you experience the following
side effects: Historical clarity, soundness of reasoning, logical interpretation, factual
evidence, economic utility, diplomatic success.
The head of the White House, Donald Trump, declared that American policy towards the
Ukraine was senseless of and added that Moscow should be a friend of Washington, and that no
one cared about the Ukrainians. The day before, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that
the European Union was experiencing fatigue from the Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump considers US actions in the Ukraine senseless, which actions
at the same time aggravate relations with Russia, The Washington Post reports, citing a
former senior White House official.
According to the newspaper interlocutor, the president takes the position that
"Russians should be our friends".
"What we do in the Ukraine is pointless and annoying Russia", he said, describing the
president's opinion.
Earlier, former US Vice President Joe Biden called on Trump to publish a transcript of
a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
She did make him look stupid – all he had was a handful of talking points. Occasionally
he did try to talk over her to hammer home his points, but often he sat quietly and let her
finish. When your interviewer lets you speak, he's interested in what you have to say, or if
opposed to you, in letting you hang yourself.
When he talks over you, he's simply trying to do all the talking while offering the
pretense of an interview.
This is a apt demonstration of the raw power of the US neoliberal MSM propaganda.
Notable quotes:
"... This is a very interesting process: no matter how absurd is the particular notion and how many contravening facts exist, the power of neoliberal MSM is such that soon enough it is viewed as an established and indisputable fact. As you aptly call it "an article of faith". ..."
"... So we can state that neoliberal MSM are performing part of functions that in Medieval Europe was performed by the Church. Kind of giant televangelism pulpit in the mega church of neoliberalism ..."
Interesting – apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential
election to tip the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world
regards as established fact, it is safe to advance on that a little. Now Donald Trump
actually asked Vladimir Putin to hack the emails of his democratic rival.
Curiously, the Washington Post's recently-adopted new slogan is "Democracy dies in
darkness". So telling the readers any old shit that you made up and can offer no proof
whatsoever is true is infinitely better than darkness. And they wonder why academic standards
are slipping, and why Americans faithfully believe things that few other countries accept as
true. All the while they are cultivating a nation of dunces which believes anything it is
told by its government.
likbez
"apparently now that the notion Russia interfered in the US presidential election to tip
the vote to Trump has become an article of faith that much of the world regards as
established fact,"
Mark, you are a very astute political observer!
This is a very interesting process: no matter how absurd is the particular notion and how
many contravening facts exist, the power of neoliberal MSM is such that soon enough it is
viewed as an established and indisputable fact. As you aptly call it "an article of
faith".
So we can state that neoliberal MSM are performing part of functions that in Medieval
Europe was performed by the Church. Kind of giant televangelism pulpit in the mega church
of neoliberalism
"... Erm, I think China was the first country to ground Boeing 737 MAX jets over the Angle of Attack sensor issue that caused the Indonesian and Ethiopian Boeing 737 MAX planes to crash after take-off, killing a combined total of 346 people. ..."
"... the company has a lot of work to do: either swallow its pride, redesign the jets to balance properly and work properly and retrain the pilots appropriately; or be prepared for any consequences if one of its airliners fails a third time because of the same problem. ..."
Boeing forecasts that China will need 8,090 new commercial aircraft over the next 20 years
in addition to $1.6 billion in services related to passenger air transport.
Its 2019 China Commercial Market Outlook for the next two decades sees the entire
aircraft and services market through 2038 reaching $2.9 trillion, a 7% increase over its
forecast last year.
####
What a tough one for Boeing. On the one hand it sells airliners to China, on the other it
makes and sells weapons to fire at China! Like Russia, be in no doubt that China will work
hard to minimize any dependence on the West (sic the USA) for any critical equipment like
aero engines. The West seems to have learned nothing that threats and sanctions against
strong countries will ultimately cost them much more in the long run, good will and more
importantly trust , burnt to a cinder.
Erm, I think China was the first country to ground Boeing 737 MAX jets over the Angle of
Attack sensor issue that caused the Indonesian and Ethiopian Boeing 737 MAX planes to crash
after take-off, killing a combined total of 346 people.
f Boeing is keen to sell airliners
to China, and especially its 737 MAX jets (because they're expected to be the workhorses of
Boeing's range of passenger aircraft), the company has a lot of work to do: either swallow
its pride, redesign the jets to balance properly and work properly and retrain the pilots
appropriately; or be prepared for any consequences if one of its airliners fails a third time
because of the same problem.
The Chinese would need their heads examined if they bought Boeing after the graphic example
they are even now observing, that the United States will leverage any advantage in order to
demand concessions. Other countries – like Iran – who have bought American
aircraft have seen the USA cut them off from spare parts and withdraw all the American
technicians they insist do the maintenance routines. Justin Trudeau might fly around in a 737
just to demonstrate how confident he feels in American know-how and technology, but there's
no reason for anyone else to act like such a retard.
Boeing does make a good aircraft. But Airbus is just as good, and more importantly, it's
not American. It's bad enough that it's French, considering how the French under Hollande
bent over for Washington, and canceled the warship contract they had signed with Russia when
the first ship was already built and ready for delivery. Hopefully they learned a lesson,
considering how bitter the French builders were at Hollande's spinelessness. But there's no
reason China can't build its own airliners in cooperation with Russia. The USA will make a
big noise about not certifying it, but the threat by China to junk its remaining Boeings
would strike fear into Boeing's heart, and it has many lobbyists at court.
I hope everyone can see that this is only fairness in action. Americans proclaim
themselves the champions of fairness – well, then, surely they will understand how,
after the US government bullying everyone and American steelworkers smirking over the
advantages Trump's tariffs on its neighbours bestowed upon them, other countries suddenly
were not eager to buy American products. Trump's technique is to gain market share by
prohibiting competition. Nobody should be surprised when American products in foreign markets
are shunned.
It's interesting that Boeing has a 737 fitting and completion center in Zhoushan, China
whereas Airbus builds entire A320s at Tianjin (50 p/y starting 2009) as it also does in
Mobile, Alabama. And let us not forget that a VIP 767 ordered for Chairman Jiang Zemin was
found to be bugged back in 2003
"The Israeli military is armed with the latest fast jets and precision weaponry, yet it has
turned to its fleet of drones to hit targets in Iraq. Deniability has played a big factor
– the ability of drones to elude radar and therefore keep targets guessing about who
actually bombed them is playing well for Israeli leaders who are trying to prevent an
increasingly lethal shadow war with Iran from developing into an open conflict."
Right! If you get into the cui bono game, the list is pretty long including US shale oil
companies.
Russia, too. I'm surprised that the 'Russia dun it crowd' (Team Pelosi) hasn't blamed it
all on Putin. I mean, isn't everything bad that happened since Nov. 2016 Putin's fault.
But now it would appear that Iran is the villain du jour. Maybe they'll even get blamed
for Trump's reelection next year!
In terms of cui bono, you can group Wall Street investors and banksters in with shale oil
companies they desperately need the shale oil companies to finally start generating some
profits. What better way than to knock out shal oil's biggest competitor?
But, as I said, Iran has become the villain du jour, even though they have the deterrent
capability of closing the Strait of Hormuz and taking most ME oil off line. To hear the
neocons, even that deterrence is not enough to dissuade them from a war on Israel's behalf.
To them war is certainly preferable to trying to make room for Iranian sovereignty and assure
the flow of ME oil to world markets.
Could this be the sort of false-flag
op where explosives are planted by
non-foreign operators to make a lot of
smoke and minimal real damage, and make
it look like the work of 'enemy missiles',
sort of like the 'Wag The Dog' plot. It
might be well worth it to Certain Parties
to even do a modest amount of real damage.
Iran's Foreign Minister Vows 'All-Out War'
if US or Saudis Strike https://nyti.ms/2AxMgFi
NYT - Richard Pérez-Peña - September 19
A military strike against Iran by the United States or Saudi Arabia would result in "an
all-out war," Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Thursday, repeating his
government's denial of responsibility for an attack last week that damaged Saudi oil
facilities.
The Houthi rebel faction in Yemen -- supported by Iran in its fight against a Saudi-led
coalition -- claimed responsibility for the Saturday attack. But Saudi and American officials
blamed Iran, raising the threat of military retaliation. But so far it is not clear how they
will react.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of carrying out an "act of war" with the
aerial attacks, but President Trump has appeared reluctant to order a military strike.
...
----
Trump's National Security Aides to Meet on
Possible Iran Options https://nyti.ms/2QgO2pa
NYT - Eric Schmitt - September 19
WASHINGTON -- Senior national security officials from across the government are scheduled
to meet Thursday to refine a list of potential targets to strike in Iran, should President
Trump order a military retaliation for missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabian oil fields
last weekend, officials said.
Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, are to present the updated options to Mr. Trump at a National Security
Council meeting scheduled for Friday, a senior American official said.
In advance of being presented with the newest set of options, Mr. Trump has sent different
signals on his intentions. He has threatened to order "the ultimate option" of a strike on
Iran to punish the nation for its behavior, but also has made clear his continued opposition
to ordering the United States into another war in the Middle East.
The Pentagon is advocating military strikes that one senior official described as at the
lower end of options. The official said that any retaliation could focus on more clandestine
operations -- actions that military planners predict would not prompt an escalation by Iran.
...
"The Russian Foreign Ministry issued an immediate response to the new US measures
denouncing them as "illegitimate."
"This will not affect our approaches to Iran," said Zamir Kabulov, the director of the
Russian Foreign Ministry Second Asian Department. "As we planned, we will continue to
cooperate with Iran in the banking sector. This will have no effect [on Moscow's position]
"
While Beijing, which counts Saudi Arabia as its second-largest source of oil imports, was
somewhat more circumspect, it is highly unlikely that any new measures will affect its own
ties to Iran. China accounts for half of Iran's sharply reduced oil exports, and Beijing and
Tehran this month signed $400 billion worth of deals connected to Beijing's Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) of which Iran is a key component.
The sanctions imposed by the Trump administration after ripping up the nuclear agreement
in May 2018 amount to an economic blockade, tantamount to a state of war. They have led to
shortages of food and medicines, leaving cancer patients to die."
"Tehran has vehemently denied these accusations. The Houthi rebels, who control the
bulk of Yemen, claimed responsibility, declaring the attacks an act of self-defense against
the murderous US-backed war that the Saudi monarchy has waged against Yemen for nearly
four-and-a-half years, killing nearly 100,000 Yemenis and driving 8 million more to the brink
of starvation."
"The cost of the Patriot missile defense systems run into the billions while the price of
each missile that they fire is estimated at $5 million. This massively expensive weaponry
proved useless in countering drones costing a few thousand dollars that devastated the
world's largest oil refining facility."
The comments
"Authoritarian Western governments like the US, the UK, and Sweden preach an enlightened,
exalted rhetorical reverence for "the rule of law" and absolute dedication to "justice",
civil rights and due process. Meanwhile, whenever it serves their interests, their actions
are heinously and ruthlessly tyrannical, brutal, hypocritical, and capricious.
As we have seen over and over with Julian Assange, governments and their ministers of
(ostensible) justice will simply run roughshod over any technicalities and niceties that
ordinarily compel the release of incarcerated persons."
Pepe Escoabar (via Saker) has an interesting take on the Houthis capabilities and potential.
He suggests that they could destabilize Saudi Arabia via a lightning grab of Mecca and an
uprising of Shia in the eastern provinces. The recent successful drone attacks certainly must
have brought a smile to the Shia in that region and shown the ineptness of the Saudi military
and their US backers.
It is amusing to watch the US squirm over the failure of its radars and missile systems to
detect the attack. Also, if there any doubt, it was clearly the Houthis's handiwork likely
with help from Hezbollah. There was a good story on the drone's technical capabilities which
IIRC, carries a 100 pound warhead, flies at about 120 miles per hour and has a 1,000 mile
range approximately. Presumably, it uses GPS for guidance. Here is the link to the Escobar
story:
Mecca and the Red Sea port city of Jeddah are well within the range of drone and missile
strikes by the Houthis. They are not much farther away from the Yemeni border than Abqaiq is.
The Abqaiq attack serves as a warning to Riyadh of how vulnerable Mecca and Jeddah are, and
that warning could even have been the original intention of the attack.
I notice that Andrei Martyanov says that the Patriot systems have blind zones since they are
restricted to operate 7 degrees above the horizontal. According to Martyanov, this is in
contrast to the Russian S-series AD systems where missiles are launched vertically and then
take "a ride on the beam" towards the target. (This seems to explain the launch pattern of
these missiles where they are "popped" out vertically, whence their engines ignite sending
the missile off, (often) very low and flat towards their targets. http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2019/09/why-would-you-ask.html
From what Martyanov writes, it would seem that the US stuff has very serious design flaws.
Thanks for posting, I LOVED this episode of Crosstalk, because it was so contentious.
That delicious catfight between the "Arab" and the "Persian".
Arab guy clearly a vicious moron.
Persian guy seemed rational and logical compared to Arab guy, and then he goes on that
delicious rant about "What we will do to you, fucking Saudis, if you attack us!"
And not only Saudi Arabia will descend into Dante's hell, but AmeriKKKa too!
In complete fairness, though, Peter does simply talk over panelists he doesn't like until
they have to stop talking, because listeners can't make sense of two people talking loudly at
the same time. CrossTalk has its own politics, and the Arab was never going to get equal time
or have his viewpoints uncritically aired. He should have been allowed the same courtesy
everyone else was. I disagree strongly with what he was saying, but the immediate rejection
of his views and shouting him down did absolutely nothing to make the Kingdom look like the
party in the wrong.
Washington now claims cruise missiles were involved as well as drones. What bullshit. (a) An
enemy who was able to strike the Saudi oil fields with cruise missiles sent over drones as
well? (b) The Saudis had 50% of their damaged capacity back online in only a day, driving the
oil price spike back down? After a cruise-missile strike? Did they carry a warhead the size
of an orange? The Saudi oil fields are defenseless against a cruise-missile attack?
It's hard to say because some stuff is clearly being held back from public scrutiny. We don't
even know which weapons were fired at what targets.
My only thoughts about the domes is that they only need to be punctured by a high speed
delayed incendiary. If it is a weight trade off for range fuel v. warhead, then range wins if
popping a hole and igniting the gas is the aim. I don't know enough about the other
targets.
As others have pointed out, what is the intent behind these attacks? Is it an 'act
of war', a 'warning shot' or other? There are games within games and bluffs within bluffs
being played here.
You know who I feel sorry for in Saudi Arabia right now? The Air Defense Forces officer
in charge of the short range air defenses at the Abqaiq oil facility. He'll be lucky to get
out of this with his life.
On the one hand, elements within the USA want war with Iran really, really badly. Of slightly
greater value, though, is the opportunity to portray Trump as weak and dithering because he
hesitates to commit to it. But usually if Washington claims to have 'evidence it cannot
reveal publicly' , that's because it is making it up. When it makes up evidence which it
claims clearly demonstrates this or that, it always has a reason. I'm not sure yet what it
is, but the USA is very serious about putting Iran in the frame for it. They may have had
something to do with it, but like the so-convenient 'chemical attacks' in Syria. Iran would
have been beyond foolish to do something like that right now, while their attitude suggests
if they had done it, they'd be quite happy to own it.
It was a mystery to me how cruise missiles, drones or whatever could have evaded detection,
much less engagement, by US-supplied air defense systems. Per MOA, it was easy – US
systems such as the Patriot stare in one direction.
The PAC-2 and PAC-3 systems are sector defenses as their radars do not rotate. They can
only see an arc of 120°. In the case of the Saudis those radars only look towards the
east to Iran whcih is the most likely axis of attack. That left the crude oil processing
plant in Abqaiq completely unprotected against attacks from any other direction. Neither
Saudi Arabia nor the U.S. know from where the attack really came.
The foregoing explains why the US is unsure where the missiles originated despite the
knee-jerk braying by Pompeo. Moreover, it be be assumed that US Navy ships in the Gulf
certainly were scanning the skies yet apparently detected nothing from Iran. So it really
does look like the missiles originated from Yemen way.
I'd be careful about blaming Iran, in view of the allegation that the US-supplied air
defenses are focused in that direction and apparently did not even see the attack coming. It
also casts doubt on American bellowing that they have loads of new evidence that Iran was
responsible. If they had, why didn't they try to stop it?
What I find really amazing in that paragraph quoted from MoA is that these radars have such a
limited capability in surveying the skies. A 120° arc is about the same as the vision
span / field of view of one human eye. Two eyes working together increase the span to
210° or just over. How is it that current US radar defence technology development can't
produce a system of radars so that each can rotate at least 180° and can be paired with
another radar to provide a full 360° range of surveillance?
MOA suggests that the US has become stuck in the mindset that it will be always on the
offense thus has no need for a real defensive capability. That sort of worked with Iraq and
Grenada but against a country that can hit back, not so much. That profoundly inept piece of
junk Patriot missile system is proof positive.
I am not sure that stupidity is ever amazing- after all, it is very easy to do stupid things.
(Think Singapore, 1941) In all this, what took me a long time to accept is how
technologically advanced the Russian missile technology is- for example, it seems that
frequent swarm attacks by drones on the Russian air base at all been destroyed. Many decades
of research have clearly gone into the development of this technology. I suspect that the key
to this development was the strategic decision made by the Soviets back in the 70's to
develop missiles to destroy US carrier groups. Over a long period of time their missiles
became supersonic, and eventually the manoeuvrable hypersonic missiles that they have today.
Putin seems very confident that it will take many years for the US to catch up. He might be
right: "even 9 women cannot produce a baby within a month".
Kalen • 16 hours ago
There is no doubt that growing global tensions provocative rhetoric, erratic reckless
behavior of leadership , irrationality in global diplomatic , political or economic relations
permeating official propaganda narratives serve overall purpose of stoking nationalism as
counteroffensive to exploding class struggle worldwide.
In case of Saudis though it is all about destabilization of outdated medieval regime by US
and Israel via enticing trained in cruelty MbS to unnecessary useless and most of all
un-winnable Yemen war that in fact presents existential threat to the very existence of Saudi
puppet regime itself.
It is likely that Saudis regime will be at some point swept from power in the name of
progressive .. nationalism in fact fascism one way or another via sort of Arab color
revolution, as this medieval circus of flaccid clowns is too easy target for socialist
revolution.
In fact Saudi Arabia is ironically the prime place with required conditions for socialist
revolution to erupt not only because class division is so sharp and visible even embedded
into state law but also because working class there is truly international from Philippines,
Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and entire MENA and level of their exploitation is horrific
practically amounts to slavery.
The fragility of Saudi regime was clearly shown by this attack on practically unprotected
critical oil infrastructure from low intensity warfare threat Saudi are engaged in fact by
proxy in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere, while spending $billions on useless junk that
in fact does not work at all as Houti ballistic missile attacks proved as while Soviet era
shor range ballistic missile missed the targets most of damage was done by falling patriot II
missiles falling down after missing their targets.
And hence Saudis and Turkey long wanted to buy Russian air defense systems already bought
by China, India and others triggering US sanctions against companies and individuals
involved.
US Empire is already a technical and scientific failure founded on fraud in military area
as well.
The question if quite primitive Houti forces were possibly able to pull of such attack of
about twenty armed drones (claimed by Houties 1500 km range) must be answered yes, with
recent technical support of Iranians (after reimposition of embargo) and local
spotters/controllers on the ground.
The similar swarm drone attacks was pulled by AQ terrorist affiliated forces (with US
training) several times against Russian Air and Navy base in Syria all unsuccessfully mostly
due to Russia electronic warfare capability and Panzir 2 system purposefully designed to
defend from drone swarm attacks.
The rather meek and balanced response of markets and politicians so far to this on its
face conditions imminent regional war involving nuclear powers tells me that there is no real
intention so far to start a war not because of better angel of ruling elites nature but
because they do not yet feel directly threatened by socialist revolution.
For them much valuable counterrevolutionary tool is inspiring nationalism simple threat of
war rather than war itself as it always unleashing law of unforeseen consequences and fuels
real political instability potentially threatening their own empires of domination.
Best way to prevent war is not defending national elites but engaging in international
socialist revolution.
jplotinus Kalen • 12 hours ago
In my view, the fact that Saudi Arabia's air defense system was unable to thwart an attack on
major oil infrastructure is quite damning and worthy of being the leading element of this
incident. However, as the Saudis have bought and paid for the very expensive but apparently
ineffective Patriot air defense system means that as little coverage as possible of this
aspect of the story will likely ensue in mainstream media.
I've noticed Putin has publicly offered to sell Saudi Arabia Russia's S-300 and S-400 air
defense systems. Hmmm
There will be no major war against Iran. The US will continue to try to strangle Iran but
success is becoming increasingly unlikely.
If there were to be a serious attack on Iran and Iran responded with its full capacity,
KSA could kiss its ass goodby. Desalination facilities would be targeted, oil infrastructure
would be destroyed including pipelines and loading facilities and power plants knocked out
all by missiles, US warships in the Gulf would be in dire straits as well. Yes, a social
revolution could then take place. I do wonder about the UAE. I hear that they are distancing
themselves from the Saudis lately.
The article and the comments..Absolute must read!!! (IMO)
e.g.
"Whatever the exact circumstances of the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities, they are being
exploited for the purpose of dragging the American people and all of humanity into a war that
can rapidly escalate into a regionwide and even global conflagration.
US strikes against Iran carried out under the pretext of retaliation for the attacks on
Saudi Arabia can trigger Iranian counterstrikes, sending US warships to the bottom of the
Persian Gulf and wreaking havoc on American military bases throughout the region.
The prospect of thousands of US soldiers and sailors dying as a result of Washington's
conspiracies and aggression carries with it the threat of the US government assuming
emergency powers and implementing police-state measures in the US itself in the name of
"national security."
This would, by no means, be an unintended consequence. The buildup to war is driven in
large measure by the escalation of social tensions and class struggle within the United
States itself, which has found fresh expression in the strike by 46,000 autoworkers against
General Motors. "
OR
"Charlotte Ruse • 12 hours ago
"If there is, as Washington claims, "no evidence' that the attacks were launched from Yemen,
one could, with equal if not greater justification, observe that there is likewise "no
evidence' that they were not launched by the US itself, or by its principal regional ally,
Israel.
If one proceeds from the age-old detective maxim of Cui bono? or Who benefits? Tehran is
the least likely suspect. There is clearly more to Washington's rush to judgment than meets
the eye."
Yes, Cui bono–who benefited most by this attack–all the usual neoconservative
warmongers who've been biting at the chomp for decades to go to War with Iran–the
"non-interventionist buffoon" may grant them their wish.
And undoubtedly, the usual Wall Street scum secured a financial "killing" as "Oil prices
rose 10 percent on Monday.
I think Tulsi Gabbard's tweet perfectly sums up who's in-charge of US foreign policy:
"Trump awaits instructions from his Saudi masters. Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's
bitch is not "America First." https://twitter.com/realDon
Iran having carried out the attack on the Abqaiq facilities from a southwest direction (when
it is to the northeast of the area of the attack) was a stunning achievement. How could Saudi
defences, aided by US satellites – and Israeli defences for that matter – have
possibly missed the Iranian drones or missiles as they circled around the entire Middle
Eastern region without being shot down before hitting those oil storage tanks?
"The barbaric war waged by Saudi Arabia on Yemen, with US military assistance, has been all
but omitted from the media coverage of the drone strikes. Since 2015, Saudi-led air strikes
on towns and cities in Houthi-held areas have killed tens of thousands of civilians, while
leaving 80 percent of the population in need of food aid and several million on the brink of
starvation.
Saudi war planes, armed with US and British bombs and provided with targeting information by
US officers based in Saudi Arabia, have carried out repeated attacks on civilian targets,
including schools, hospitals, residential areas, mosques and markets. Up to the end of last
year, the US also provided mid-air refueling for the Saudi-led onslaught.
Saudi Arabia has a huge military budget. Last year it ranked as the world's third highest
spender on military equipment, splurging for an estimated $67.6 billion. The ability of the
Houthi rebels to penetrate Saudi defences and strike crucial oil infrastructure has
heightened fears of further attacks."
(comment)
"Ric Size
The Trump administration & entire US political establishment must line-up behind the
narrative that Iran is responsible for this devastating drone strike. As noted in this
excellent article, Saudi Arabia now spends ~$68 billion annually on its military, and most of
this comes in the form of sophisticated weaponry from the US. But these expensive
instruments-of-death were unable to stop a coordinated drone attack from Yemeni rebels. This
calls into question the usefulness of Saudi Arabia-US alliance, and the sustainability of the
global petrodollar market.
A scapegoat is needed, and quickly. Look for an all-out war drive in the media, against Iran,
as a cover-up to this disaster. Gasoline prices will rise by at least a dollar a gallon
within a month, which is another embarrassment for political leaders during an election
cycle, and an added expense for workers who commute by vehicle."
"... The head of the White House, Donald Trump, declared that American policy towards the Ukraine was senseless of and added that Moscow should be a friend of Washington, and that no one cared about the Ukrainians. The day before, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that the European Union was experiencing fatigue from the Ukraine. ..."
The head of the White House, Donald Trump, declared that American policy towards the
Ukraine was senseless of and added that Moscow should be a friend of Washington, and that no
one cared about the Ukrainians. The day before, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said that
the European Union was experiencing fatigue from the Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump considers US actions in the Ukraine senseless, which actions
at the same time aggravate relations with Russia, The Washington Post reports, citing a
former senior White House official.
According to the newspaper interlocutor, the president takes the position that
"Russians should be our friends".
"What we do in the Ukraine is pointless and annoying Russia", he said, describing the
president's opinion.
Earlier, former US Vice President Joe Biden called on Trump to publish a transcript of
a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
"... Ukraine have never kept to the ceasefire and have been destroying settlements -- once they get control of the border – Donbass is finished. ..."
"... You mention the killing in Mariupol. The assassinations will continue and the people of Donbass will be made to pay. ..."
"... Five years has shown that real hatred has been unleashed – this is not going to go away. ..."
"... the Steinmeir formula is a con to hasten the end of Donbass. This was the guy who signed the agreement with Yanukovich on early elections etc and then stood back when he was overthrown. ..."
"... I also agree. This is a trap. No treaty should be signed unless DPR/LPR are guaranteed to control the border with Russia. ..."
"... The best defense against that would be the vote, which must take place first and under OSCE supervision, without Ukrainian meddling or coercion. If the vote indicated that a majority wants to return to Kiev's control, then that's what should happen. But I don't see it going that way. ..."
Major issue with this formula is "The transfer of the border"
Ukraine have never kept to the ceasefire and have been destroying settlements -- once they
get control of the border – Donbass is finished.
You mention the killing in Mariupol. The assassinations will continue and the people of Donbass will be made to pay.
Five years has shown that real hatred has been unleashed – this is not going to go
away.
Germany in my view plays a double game – they want this to happen – the Steinmeir formula is a con to hasten the end of Donbass. This was the guy who signed the
agreement with Yanukovich on early elections etc and then stood back when he was
overthrown.
We'll see. According to the Minsk Agreement, the elections and the autonomous status were
supposed to be settled before the border was returned to Ukrainian control. That has always
been an issue for Kuh-yiv. It wants to be trusted to have control over the Donbas before the
other elements are fulfilled. But as His Nibs Shaun Of The Dead Walker has pointed out before
now, 'the border' in that region is largely an illusion, and checkpoints are for those who
have to travel by road. Military units, especially heavy armor, do not.
I think what is most likely to happen is little troublesome uprisings across a broad
front, initiated by Azov Battalion and other Ukie militias and making use of 'loyal'
Ukrainians in Donbas and Lugansk.
This would create a governance problem for the regions, and
be portrayed in the western press as an earnest desire among the inhabitants to return to
Ukraine, 'now that the Russians have gone'.
The best defense against that would be the vote,
which must take place first and under OSCE supervision, without Ukrainian meddling or
coercion. If the vote indicated that a majority wants to return to Kiev's control, then
that's what should happen. But I don't see it going that way.
But what of the Russian army that has supposedly been entrenched in the Donbass these past
few years?
Surely, the Russian Army will not allow this ethnic cleansing to happen, for that surely
is what will happen, albeit "ethnic" is not the right word, even though the brain-dead Nazi
"true Slavs" from the West believe it is.
"Our actions have to become offensive and have the disintegration of the Russian
Federation as a conscious ultimate goal. This is the only effective long-term solution that
the vast majority of countries will benefit from.
attempts to pacify Russia lead only to the growth of its arrogance, as was was the case
with the return of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe.
Attempts to reach an agreement in a civilised way with the Russian Federation are also
doomed to fail, "since such a decision contradicts the main expansionist thinking of the
Kremlin regime".
"The Russian Federation, in its present borders and with its present resources, is never
capable of becoming a normal civilised state", said the diplomat.
Aleksandrovich emphasises that "ways of disintegrating the Russian Federation don't demand
conducting military operations".
The ambassador lists a number of tools via which it is possible to "pacify Russia":
1. personal sanctions against bosses with the freezing of assets and a ban on
entrance;
2. tight restrictions for energy, bank, and financial-military and technical sectors;
3. a ban on the sale of modern technologies;
4 .a collapse in oil prices.
"There comes a time when the last evil empire has to fall," summarized the Ukrainian
diplomat.
In his recent interview, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych claimed Russia 'uses Serbia to
destabilize situation in Western Balkans and thereby destroy Europe'
09:15, 3 November 2017
Ukrainian ambassador's views on Russia-Serbia relations and Russia's role in
continental security, all the more expressed publicly, are unacceptable. Ivica Tonchev, the
State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia said this as quoted by
Frontnews International, commenting on the statement recently made by the Ukrainian
diplomat.
'The main role of ambassadors is to do everything to improve bilateral relations,
primarily political and economic, as well as all other forms of cooperation. The Ambassador
of Ukraine to Serbia, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych, seems to be constantly forgetting this, since
all his activities are reduced to fruitless attempts to break relations between the Republic
of Serbia and the Russian Federation. In the latest series of scandalous interviews he gave,
he said that the Republic of Serbia does not pursue an independent foreign policy, that is,
it is in the hands of Russia, thus destabilizing the entire region of the Western Balkans,
thereby 'destroying Europe,' Tonchev said.
He also called on the Ukrainian government to take action on the Ambassador and his
unacceptable behavior so that Serbia 'was not forced to make the usual steps in such
situations.'
In recent interviews with Serbian media, Ukraine's Ambassador to Serbia Alexander
Alexandrovich said that Russia is using Serbia to destabilize the situation in the region, in
particular, encouraging separatism in Bosnia and trying to influence Macedonia. The
ambassador also mentioned the Serbian mercenaries fighting on the side of the Russian armed
formations in Donbas.
Oleksandr Oleksandrovych: he might be better suited to playing Count Dracula in horror
movies.
In fact, the ambassador stepped so much out of line in November 2017 that even
Rumpleklimkin, then Banderastan Foreign Minister, was forced to call him to hold
consultations in Kiev because of his statements to the Serbian media.
At the same time, Ivica Toncev, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
Serbia, stated that the Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Oleksandrovych's statements concerning
Russian influence on Serbia were unacceptable and threatened him with possible consequences
in accordance with the Vienna Convention.
Novosad is a graduate of the humanitarian lyceum in Kiev, and in 2011 she ended a
bachelor degree at the National University "Kiyevo-Mogilyansky Academy" as a "political
scientist". Two years later she received a master's degree in the Dutch Maastricht. She
studied in Spain and the Czech Republic, and was a scholar of the Soros fund. In addition, as Novosad wrote on Facebook, she took part in the Ukrainian-Canadian administrative program,
within the framework of which she attended a special course ran by the Canadian
authorities.
I.e., as we see, Anna Novosad is the classical representative of the new "Ukrainian
elite", which was raised and brought up abroad and which already is almost not connected to
Ukraine even at the mental level. And the reset of the Ukrainian authorities in the form of
"Zelensky's victory" was started to a large extent for the mass invasion of such artificially
grown mankurts that are supposed to completely remove people with a Soviet past and any ties
(family, friendly, business) with Russia from the country's governance structures.
And they absolutely do not need either knowledge of Ukrainian, knowledge of national
history, or understanding of what's admissible. Even intellectual qualities aren't especially
required from them, because their task is relaying the will of their masters and to control
their implementation.
And Farion doesn't like her because she can't talk the shitkicker Slav dialect as good as
she can. In fact, it's debatable whether Novosad can talk Yukie with any competence at
all.
Yes, what's the matter with her? Real Ukrainians ride sturdy ponies and wear their hair in
the khokol style. Government superiors are referred to as 'Hetman'. And there's a lot of
kneeling. The age of machines is an utter betrayal of Kievan ideals.
ISIS 'rebels' have their backs up against the wall in Syria and, whaddya know; the UN
proposes a ceasefire. Just like it always does when Washington wants to buck up the 'rebels',
resupply them with arms and ammunition and call up reinforcements.
Russia and China vetoed it, and put forward their own resolution which also addressed a
ceasefire, but it was rejected. When Russia and China veto a UN resolution, the western press
is at great pains to point them out as having voted against it. When a Russia/China
resolution is shot down, it 'failed to secure enough votes'. Those who voted against it are
not identified.
This tradition extends even to the UN website itself, where "Belgium, Germany and Kuwait
tabled a draft proposing a humanitarian ceasefire, which garnered 12 out of 15 votes.
Permanent members Russia and China used their right to veto, blocking its adoption." Whereas
"Their own resolution, which highlighted terrorism concerns by extremist groups operating
inside the region, also failed to pass, with nine members voting against and four
abstaining." Who voted against? You tell me.
This follows a well-established pattern of the USA using the UN Security Council to
introduce resolutions which forestall the eradication of ISIS in Syria, and intervene on
'humanitarian grounds' to create an opportunity to resupply extremist forces and stave off
their defeat, or even sometimes to evacuate them before they can be overrun, whereupon they
pop up someplace else and the effort to wipe them out must begin again.
Although the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs stipulated that "a
unilateral ceasefire announced by Russia on 30 August has reportedly led to a decline in
fighting in the northwestern region", it evidently did not provide the degree of freedom to
dabble sought by western nations, and the French twit currently in residence there complained
that Russia is 'carpet-bombing' Syria. Apparently when Russia drops bombs, only civilians are
killed.
"... The United States hasn't "grown lazy and risk-averse"--and Breshidsky wouldn't know it even if explained--it was made such by Real Revolution in Military Affairs whose arrival through new technological means, operational concepts and new force structure , simply removed most (not all) "advantages", often grossly exaggerated, the United States thought it enjoyed for the last 30 years or so. ..."
Leonid Bershidsky is (butt) hurt, badly. So, after
Vladimir Putin's air and anti missile defense trolling yesterday--you can see (in Russian)
Rouhani's and Erdogan's priceless reactions here:
whose biography you can read here , for
some reason (wink, wink) takes it too personally and lets it rip in his piece at
Bloomberg (another "fine" specimen of US "fair and balanced" propaganda outlet). Here is
what bothers Mr. Bershidsky:
One can almost feel Bershidsky's pain but the problem with this statement is not
the fact that there is only one gangster in this story, and that is not Russia, but in the fact
that Bershidsky, who hails from an army of brilliant (ahem) "influencers" with degrees in
anything but applicable serious professional skills crucial for military and geopolitical
analysis, has, as expected, misrepresented risk-aversion for the exercise of sound
operational judgement.
The United States hasn't "grown lazy and risk-averse"--and Breshidsky
wouldn't know it even if explained--it was made such by Real Revolution in Military Affairs
whose arrival through new technological means, operational concepts and new force structure , simply
removed most (not all) "advantages", often grossly exaggerated, the United States thought it
enjoyed for the last 30 years or so.
Actually, one of the major reasons this had happened was
the category of public with MBAs, stock trading, marketing, finances, banking and journalism
backgrounds who could understand some financial bottom lines, for which they tirelessly worked,
but had and continue (as Bershidsky so vividly demonstrates) to have huge difficulties with
grasping technological, tactical, operational and strategic realities of our modern world.
Then, Bershidsky makes this bizarre assertion (one would expect it from an amateur):
In reality, it's the S-400 that Russia has been trying hard to sell to Saudi Arabia, so far without
success. It has also offered the missiles to Qatar. Neither the S-300 nor the S-400 has seen
any real combat use . Theoretically, and as seen in exercises, these are powerful weapons.
But not even Syria's Bashar Al-Assad, who has had a few opportunities to use the S-300s he
received from Russia last year, has done so.
First, Bashar Assad doesn't have full control of S-300 in Syria, at least not yet
and it is Russia which defines S-300s use within her military and diplomatic agenda in Syria,
not Syrians. It is an obvious fact, which was confirmed couple of days ago:
Unlike Israelis or US Military-Industrial-Media Complex Russians, when the deal is
a very serious real kinetic military affair between Russia and nations which matter globally
(US), or regionally (Israel), seldom runs around praising oneself and own capabilities, since
this may adversely affect, usually behind the scene, diplomatic effort. It is one thing to show
off salvos of 3M14 burning jihadists in their compounds in Syria, or reveal weapons, such as in
Putin's speech on March 1, 2018, to cool the heads of some homicidal lunatics in D.C., totally
another--describing everyday contingencies between all players in the region. In fact, Russia
officially was very low key on that and that is understandable.
There is, however, a risible line in Bershidsky's "assertion" about S-300 and S-400 not seeing
"any combat use". I would love to use Sergei Lavrov's meme here but I have to restrain myself,
because at this stage it wouldn't help the situation. Evidently, Leonid Bershidsky who never
spent a day in any serious military position, thinks that "combat use" is when things only
"shoot". Well, there is one problem, well, actually two, with this assertion because from the
get go he misses:
1. Both S-300 and S-400 systems were delivered to Syria with one thought in mind--to precisely
prevent this "combat use" by means of deploying capability which drastically reduces tactical
and operational options for all bogeys (Israel, ahem) to make them much more cooperative in a
political, as opposed to combat, field. It worked, brilliantly in a strategic sense--with IAF
being effectively pushed out of Syria's airspace, while reducing the number of its sorties
drastically still. This is not to mention the fact that other systems, such as S1 and Tor M2s,
not to mention a very well organized work of Battle Management Centers and Early Warning and
Electronic Warfare systems, performing admirably by shooting down all, but one, jihadists'
drones and missiles. That is real combat performance and a very impressive one. I will abstain
from describing Trump's "very smart missiles"
70% of which (including, rumor has it, JASSM) had been taken down by Syrian Air Defense
.
2. Now, most important--COMBAT record of the Soviet/Russian Air Defense systems. Discarding a
fear of being called a Russian chauvinist, nationalist or accused of gloating (been there, done
that), specifically for Bershidsky--combat record of Soviet/Russian AD systems is without
equals in history. No one comes even close to a number of combat episodes Soviet/Russian
systems took part in and came out victorious against bogeys. Not least among them is Israeli
Air Force. I will quote from my latest:
While estimates vary wildly, approximately 1,737 U.S. aircraft (not counting helicopters)
have been lost to hostile actions between 1961 and 1973 in South East Asia, largely over
Vietnam.1 The majority of these losses were due to AAA (Anti-Air Artillery) and SAMs (Surface
to Air Missiles). During almost 24 months of the Rolling Thunder operation the U.S. lost 881
aircraft; in 1967 alone, the United States lost 62 aircraft to SAMs while losing 205 to AAA.
In 1973, during the 19-days long Yom Kippur War, the Israeli Air Force lost over 100
aircraft, most of them to SAMs.
This is just a highly abbreviated list of Surface-to-Air
missiles engaging all kinds of aerial threats from high value attack and fighter jet
aircraft, to bombers, to cruise missiles since the early 1960s. The feature which unifies all
entries in this list is the fact that all these surface-to-air missiles and the targeting and
launch systems for them were and are Soviet/Russian made.
Putting it in simpler, more
straightforward language -- Soviet/Russian Air Defense systems, when used by skilled
operators, have an unrivaled combat history. No other nation has a comparable record of the
use of such systems in combat and thus of gaining such a combat experience.
For Bershidsky--all data was taken specifically from Western sources to avoid
being accused of pro-Russian bias. Numbers do not lie, when confirmed. Those have been
confirmed (unlike modern-day economic fuzzy data) and even at the lower end of estimates (not
to mention a factor of often NON-Soviet/Russian manning of systems--in stochastic combat models
multipliers less than 1 are introduced for degraded capability) make a dramatic impression.
So, in this case, one has to start thinking what this record means for new systems? It means an
enormous array of data which is behind honing, design concepts, algorithms, sensors, targeting
systems that is, which allow for steady improvements in capability. In the end, this was a
major reason Turks "exchanged" F-35 for S-400. I am sure they were made privy to mathematical
expectations and probabilities of success for various air attack scenarios against Turkey.
They, obviously, loved what they heard and saw and now Turkish officers (the second team) are
in Russia training for S-400. So, unless the whole Saudi (ARAMCO) oil facility attack is a
false flag by Saudis themselves or by a triumvirate of purveyors of liberty and democracy in
the Middle East, aka KSA, Israel and USA, there is pretty much only one thing Saudis can do
about defending oil facilities against drone and missile attacks--get systems which work. I
know, that makes Leonid Bershidsky's life miserable--after all, he dedicated his journo carrier
to writing on things most of which he cannot grasp or doing a hack job for
someone else's interests .
But in general, I am getting really tired when majors in
marketing or broadcasting pretend to be "experts" in fields which are beyond their grasp. No
wonder the West is in steep decline. Posted by smoothiex12
The above summary does not do justice to Martyanov's truly seminal book. I can only say that I
consider this book as an absolutely indispensable "must read" for every person in the USA who
loves his/her country and for every person who believes that wars, especially nuclear ones,
must be avoided at all costs. Asia Times About The Book
In Losing Military Supremacy, his latest, groundbreaking book, crack Russian military-naval
analyst Andrei Martyanov deconstructs in detail how, "the United States faces two nuclear and
industrial superpowers, one of which fields a world-class armed forces. If the
military-political, as opposed to merely economic, alliance between Russia and China is ever
formalized – this will spell the final doom for the United States as a global power."
My Blog List
Seeing that both the Canadian ambassador to Banderastan and his boss the Canadian Foreign
Minister having family histories rooted in western Ukraine / Banderastan Ground Zero –
Waschuk's father and Freeland's maternal grandmother both from Ivano-Frankivsk – what
thoughts are we expected to have on Waschuk's participation and Freeland's approval for him
to attend other than that cliche: "Birds of a feather flock together?"
Ivano-Frankivsk; formerly Stanyslaviv, Stanislau, or Stanisławów. Became part of
the UkSSR within the USSR as per the shifting of the pre-WWII Eastern Polish frontier (set by
the Treaty of Versailles, 1919, but ignored by Poland) westwards and the transference of the
Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire's Kronland of Galitsia, capital Krakow and
administrative language Polish and not German as in other Kronländer , with the
exception of Hungarian in the Hungarian part of the dual Hapsburg Empire.
Religion: Roman Catholic or Greek Uniate, depending whether you are a Polish Pan or a
Ruthenian peasant shitkicker.
Built in the mid-17th century as a fortress of the Polish Potocki family,
Stanisławów was annexed to the Habsburg Empire during the First Partition of
Poland in 1772, after which it became the property of the State within the Austrian
Empire.
The fortress was slowly transformed into one of the most prominent cities at the foothills
of the Carpathian Mountains. After World War I, for several months, it served as a temporary
capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic.
Galitsia, as Porky Poroshenko said, is the essence of Banderastan the Ukraine.
"Higher Justice is always done Once again, using humanistic principles, I address the
enemies of the Ukraine: 'Surrender to Ukrainian law enforcement! Voluntarily go to Ukrainian
prisons and don't leave them! Because God's punishment will inevitably come! Glory to the
nation! Death to enemies!'" -- Dmitry Yarosh, commenting on his Facebook page on the
murder of a DPR militiaman in Mariupol.
What can be said about this? A day has already passed since this extremist statement
was made, but no human rights organisation or international observer has reacted. The murder
of a DPR militiaman in Mariupol is obviously on the hands of nationalist battalions, but this
case, like many others, will be registered as unsolved or fabricated. The fact of the
exemplary punishment of people who supported the creation of the People's Republics testifies
to the true attitude of Kiev towards the residents of Donbass. That is why Zelensky is
against amnesty and wants elections after the People's Militia lays down their arms. As soon
as the UAF come here, objectionable persons will be simply slashed and killed, and Yarosh
only confirms this
I'll say it again, the world's great democracies don't have a problem with little
nazis and extremists. After all, they can be put back in their boxes when time is due,
just as they did with Adolf Hitler and just as they did with ISIS in Syria.
You wonder how many times these countries go around this bush of backing 'small groups'
that they then 'lose control of' leading to a much larger conflagration.
Accidental? Unintended? Repetitive? You won't have the great and good democratic
institutions or the representatives of the great free press publicizing cause and
effect much at all. What a bunch of Britneys!
As I understand it if a scope equipped assault automatic weapon can be targeted at point A to
point B, its versatility enables it to operate the other way 'round..from B to A.
And as regards the "crimes" in the Ukraine that he mentions, I should not imagine that
amongst those he includes the very recent and public murder of a Mariupol "Vatnik" and the
praise for which crime the murderer/s has/have very publicly received in Banderastan.
The clipped paragraph in Boyes' Times article above reads:
Now we're at it again. Thirty-five Ukrainians, including a film director and two dozen
hapless sailors, were this month traded for some hardnut separatists including Vladimir
Tsemakh, the commander of a Russian-backed unit in Donetsk which shot down the civilian MH17
airliner in 2014.
Plenty of Dutch and Australian relatives of the victims of that Malaysian Airlines
flight are unhappy that Tsemakh is
Perhaps it seems to Trump that Putin is the lever that will raise his moral weight and
authority. Perhaps he seems to him to be a useful partner in times of extreme global
confusion and volatility. It is possible that, in the opinion of the American president, a
rapprochement with Putin will strengthen his reputation in the world, and will by no means
will look like a fatal retreat. However, the principle should be that relations with Russia
cannot return to normal, as long as it keeps the Crimea, cynically taken away from the
Ukraine five years ago.
The Kremlin will try to fool the new and inexperienced president of the Ukraine, hoping
that Western leaders will put pressure on him and forget a lot. However, the country where
Sergey Skripal and his daughter were poisoned right before everyone's eyes should not
silently watch this rehabilitation.
[back translation from the Russian]
Hear him, hear him, I say!
Let's hear it again for Great Britain!!!!
Those British are no fools and know full well what those damned Russkies are up to!
Wherever you may now be, eat your heart out La Russophobe !
I can't remember if I have mentioned this earlier, but last Sunday lunchtime, when I was
out in the sticks, I heard this snippet of information on the lunchtime radio news: Russian
secondary schools ("high schools" in US usage and literally "middle schools" in Russian) have
now been internationally recognized as the best in the world.
I have tried to follow it up on the Internet, but nothing there about it, so it must be
Russian propagandistic "fake news", mustn't it, because if it were true, then it would have
been announced in the Western news media -- wouldn't it?
Moscow State University came first again in the ICPC finals in 2019. Other universities in
the top 12 included two other Russian universities and universities in Poland (2), Hong Kong
(2), the two Koreas (1 each), Iran (1), Japan (1), Taiwan (1) and the United States (1).
Do I detect a University of Sydney prejudice here? You could have easily drawn attention to
the fact that my old institution came 6th. It seems UNSW didn't put a team in this year. I
have had an interest in Mathematical Olympiads for many years and a keen academic convenor is
necessary for success. As far as ME's comment about Russian secondary schools being the
World's best, I would love to have a reference. I find the claim hard to believe simply
because the parameters used to determine these rankings invariably depend on the most recent
(Western) fads in education. This is one reason why Russian universities have such mediocre
international rankings. On the other hand, I have noticed how enthusiastic Putin is about the
Russian education system.
That's right, folks! Lest you should forget, Russians are inveterate boozers!
The article has limited access, but here's its writer's opening line:
We can probably assume absolutist monarch Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Vladimir
Lenin, the Bolshevik revolutionary who displaced him in 1917, didn't see eye to eye.
The Commie and the Autocrat, eh?
One small point: Lenin did not displace Nicholas II in October [OS] 1917, when the
Bolshevik coup took place.
In February [OS] 1917, Nicholas II was advised to abdicate by the army chief and two duma
deputies. He accepted their advice and abdicated.
Oh, and another thing: the Orcs aren't the top boozers in Europe.
The world top 10 countries as regards litres of pure alcohol consumption per capita
are:
Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of eastern Polish territories.
I get sick to death of reading articles in Western rags and in comments to them, and of
the opinions of the ignorant on social networks, that the USSR and Nazi Germany jointly
invaded Poland on 1st September 1939, thereby triggering off WWII in Europe and that that war
was the result of the complicity of two totalitarian states.
The following article concerning this accusation was published in KP on 16 September of
this year :
Poland did everything for Stalin to attack it 17 days after Hitler
The September Red Army campaign in the west: was it for "the liberation of Old Russian lands"
or an occupation?
Our Slavic neighbours once again have a reason to attack Russia. Exactly 80 years ago, on
September 17, 1939, the Red Army crossed the Polish border and annexed to the USSR the
current territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. This happened only 17 days after
the Wehrmacht had invaded Poland, thereby starting the Second World War, and just
three-and-a-half weeks after the conclusion of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact.
So it turns out that "the dictators Stalin and Hitler together divided the freedom-loving
republic", and we are the same international criminals as were the German Nazis or are we?
"KP" and Dmitry Surzhik, a candidate for historical sciences and an expert on World War II,
have dissected the myths about that campaign.
Myth number 1. Stalin cynically attacked a democratic country.
On September 17, 1939, the troops of the Commonwealth [Poland -- ME] had already
been defeated by the Wehrmacht and the Polish government had fled abroad. Let me remind you
that Stalin himself acted quite differently during the critical days of the 1941 invasion
[of the USSR by Nazi Germany and its fascist allies -- ME] : his phone call to the army
was known to all: "The headquarters remains at the front, I remain in Moscow. Get hold of
shovels and dig graves for yourself". Why did he say this? Because everyone was well aware of
the fact that when there is no central government, then there is no state participating in a
war: it disappears in every sense of the word, including as a subject of international law.
This was understood even by the then Polish government. Caught in exile in France, it issued
its first document, the Angers Declaration, in which it stated that it was at war with the
Soviet Union but de jure it did not declare war, realizing, perhaps, that there were
no legal grounds for this.
Myth number 2. Poland fell victim to the collusion of two totalitarian regimes.
They like to reproach us with "the pre-war alliance of Stalin and Hitler": they recall
the joint parade of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht (held on September 21, 1939 in the former
Polish, and now Byelorussian Brest), but the chief satellite of Nazi Berlin in Eastern Europe
was only Warsaw. The Germans had concluded a non-aggression pact with Poland back in 1934 --
the so-called Pilsudski-Hitler Pact. Jozef Pilsudski was considered one of the founding
fathers of independent Poland; in Germany a translation of his memoirs had been pompously
published. And if we are going to talk about joint parades, such a parade was held in Warsaw
on November 11, 1938 in honour of the independence of Poland, when the German military was
present as guests of honour. There was even the likelihood of an "allied" Polish-German
invasion of the USSR -- such prospects had been analyzed in a spring of 1938 note made by the
Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Boris Shaposhnikov made for the People's Commissar
of Defence. So for Warsaw to point its finger at us for concluding a "Soviet-German alliance"
is the height of cynicism.
Myth number 3. The USSR invaded the eastern parts of Poland (just as Germany had done
in the western parts).
The interwar relations between Moscow and Warsaw were really tense. The eastern policy
of Poland was the so-called "Prometheism" -- a plan for splitting up the USSR according to
the nationalities within it. To this end, Warsaw worked with anti-Soviet immigrants,
including Ukrainian and Georgian nationalists. The ultimate task was to create a "Poland from
sea to sea" (from the Baltic to the Crimea) at the expense of Russian lands. [In Soviet
times, it was not acceptable to talk about the pre-war "Prometheism" of fraternal socialist
Poland. In the West, however, this project has been well studied -- for example, in the
historical studies at the Hoover Institute in the USA - -- Ed.]. Moscow, of course, knew
about these plans. However, during its Polish campaign, the Red Army did not advance too
deeply, stopping only at the Curzon Line. This line, the ethnic border between the Poles, on
the one hand, and Ukrainians and Belarusians on the other, had been agreed upon by the
Entente after the First World War and was to have become the eastern border of Poland. But
Warsaw, because of the weakness of Soviet Russia after the civil war, had been able to seize
these territories.
Myth number 4. That invasion violated even international law then, not to mention
current international law.
They have now forgotten In the West that in 1938 Poland, together with Hitler,
participated in the partition of Czechoslovakia. The Teshinsky region was seized under the
pretext that many ethnic Poles lived there. The guarantor of Czechoslovak security under
international agreements was then the Soviet Union. On the 23rd of September, 1938, shortly
before the shameful partition of this Slavic country, the USSR presented an ultimatum to
Warsaw, namely that if it took part in this partition, then Moscow would withdraw its
obligation not to attack Poland in the future. But our neighbours remained silent, thereby
predetermining their fate by opening the "diplomatic gate" for a future Polish Red Army
campaign.
Here it is interesting to recall the words that Winston Churchill said after September
17, 1939:
"Russia pursues a cold policy in its own interests. We should prefer that the Russians
remain in their current positions (Curzon Lines in 1939 – Ed.) as friends and allies of
Poland, and not as invaders. But to protect Russia from the Nazi threat, it was clearly
necessary for the Russian armies to stay on this line", said one of the then key British
politicians. That is, at that time, for some reason, no one considered the actions of the
USSR to be a "crime", including even the "Western partners".
This Russian historian, in quoting Churchill above, is perhaps thinking of Churchill's
"riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" speech, made when he was not prime minister of
the UK and still an "outsider", as it were, in his own Conservative party, which Churchillian
phrase is often quoted in the West and out of context, of course, but seldom given in
full:
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery
inside an enigma. But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. It
cannot be in accordance with the interest or the safety of Russia that Germany should plant
itself upon the shores of the Black Sea, or that it should overrun the Balkan States and
subjugate the Slavonic peoples of South-Eastern Europe. That would be contrary to the
historic life-interests of Russia" -- broadcast in London , 1st October, 1939.
And the key question really is this: if the UK and France had promised that they would
declare war against Germany if it should invade Poland, then why did those countries not
declare war on 17th September, 1939, against Germany's "ally", the USSR, which state,
according to present day historical revisionists, was jointly responsible for the onset of
WWII?
How Poland, shoulder to shoulder with Germany, prepared for war against the
USSR
Best of friends?
Statement by the Soviet Government to the Polish Government
23 September 1938
The Government of the USSR has received reports from various sources that troops of the
Polish Government are concentrated on the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia, preparing to
cross the border and forcefully occupy part of the territory of the Czechoslovak Republic.
Despite the widespread and alarming nature of these reports, the Polish Government has not
yet refuted them. The Government of the USSR expects such a refutation to follow immediately.
Nevertheless, in the event that such a refutation does not follow and if, in confirmation of
these reports, Polish troops have really crossed the border of the Czechoslovak Republic and
occupied its territory, the Government of the USSR considers it timely and necessary to warn
the Government of the Polish Republic, on the basis of Art. 2 of the non-aggression pact
concluded between the USSR and Poland on July 25, 1932, the Government of the USSR, in view
of this act of aggression committed by Poland against Czechoslovakia, would be forced to
denounce the aforementioned agreement without warning.
Source: "Izvestia" No. 225 (6692). 26 September 1938
The statement was transmitted at about 4 a.m. on September 23, 1938, by Deputy People's
Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, V.P. Potemkin, to the Chargé d'Affaires of
Poland to the USSR, T. Yankovsky.
Note: the USSR, France and Czechoslovakia were bound by an agreement to give military
assistance to Czechoslovakia in the event of aggression by third countries against it. So the
USSR had every right to point out to Poland that it was acting aggressively.
Transcript of the Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs with the chargé
d'affaires of Poland to the USSR
23 September 1938
The Polish chargé d'affaires, who asked me for an appointment today at 7
o'clock, came to me with the following message from his government:
"1. The measures taken in connection with the defence of the Polish state depend solely
on the government of the Polish Republic, which is not obligated to give explanations to
anyone.
2. The Government of the Polish Republic certainly knows the texts of the treaties that
it has concluded".
The response of the Polish government was drawn up in Polish and handed to me and
signed by the chargé d'affaires. An exact Russian translation of this text was agreed
upon by both Yankovsky and me. After a written communication, the chargé d'affaires
made the following oral statement to me: "The Polish government is surprised by the current
démarche of the USSR government, because no measures have been taken by the Polish
government on the Polish-Soviet border".
To this I replied that the démarche of the Soviet government was caused by
events on the Polish-Czechoslovak border. If the same measures were carried out by the Polish
government on the border of Poland and the USSR, the likely consequence would be not
diplomatic démarches, but appropriate counter-measures by the USSR government.
My answer was recorded by Jankowski.
V. Potemkin
Source: "Documents and materials on the history of Soviet-Polish relations", vol. VI. M ..
1969. with 364.
The response of the Poles was quite arrogant by reason of the fact that they were
already preparing to conclude a Polish-German Pact against the Soviet Union. For example,
here is what the Polish Ambassador in Paris, Lukasiewicz, wrote to the Ambassador of the USA
on 5 September 1938:
"A religious war is beginning between fascism and Bolshevism, and if the Soviet Union
renders aid to Czechoslovakia, Poland is ready to fight shoulder to shoulder with Germany
against the USSR.
The Polish government is confident that within three months Russian troops will be
completely defeated and Russia will no longer be even a semblance of a state".
As a result, Poland, not paying attention to our warnings, invaded the Czech Republic
and captured the Tieszyn region.
Already in December 1938, a report by the 2nd (reconnaissance) department of the main
headquarters of the Polish Army stated in plain terms that:
"The dismemberment of Russia lies at the basis of Polish politics in the East
Therefore, our possible position will be reduced to the following formula: who will take part
in this dismemberment? Poland should not remain passive during this wonderfully historical
moment. The task is to prepare well, both physically and spiritually, in advance The main
goal is to weaken and defeat Russia".
Source: "Z dziejow stosunkow polsko-radzieckich. Studia i materialy", T.III. Warszawa,
1968, S. 262, 287.
From all these materials, it is clear that pre-war Poland was an extremely toxic
military dictatorship, which posed a danger not only to its neighbours, but to itself. As a
result, this hyena, imagining itself to be a large European predator, would pay for its sins
within a year. True, all the peoples of Eastern Europe would suffer from this, while the
runaway Polish government would sit in London .
By referring to Poland as a "hyena", the writer of the above (partly translated) article
has clearly been inspired by none other than Winston Churchill:
"And now, when every one of these aids and advantages has been squandered and thrown
away, Great Britain advances, leading France by the hand, to guarantee the integrity of
Poland -- that very Poland which with hyena appetite had only six months before joined in the
pillage and destruction of the Czechoslovak State."
Interesting and new to me as well. I do recall reading several articles that the Mig 15 was a
huge leap in military technology and the Mig 17 was the best subsonic fighter ever fielded.
The MiG Alley battles produced many fighter aces. The top aces were Russian. Nikolay
Sutyagin claimed 21 kills, including nine F-86s, one F-84 and one Gloster Meteor in less than
seven months. His first kill was the F-86A of Robert H. Laier on 19 June 1951 (listed by the
Americans as missing in action), and his last was on 11 January 1952, when he shot down and
killed Thiel M. Reeves, who was flying an F-86E (Reeves is also listed as MIA). Other famous
Soviet aces include Yevgeni G. Pepelyayev, who was credited with 19 kills, and Lev Kirilovich
Shchukin, who was credited with 17 kills, despite being shot down twice himself.
During the Korean War, NATO Allies wanted so badly to examine a MiG at close quarters
that they offered a US$100,000 reward for any pilot who would defect and bring his MiG-15
with him. When a North Korean pilot, Lt. Ro Kun Suk, did defect in September of 1953, he was
not aware of the reward, but was given it anyway.
I had heard that the Mig 17 was deliberately kept out of the war as it would have decimated
the US Air Force forcing them to do something really stupid like drop a nuke. Could be an
urban legend.
I don't see how he could have handled it better. He was polite and well-spoken, never
flustered or defensive, and the talking heads tumbled over one another in their eagerness to
be properly judgmental, to talk over him and recite their own talking points, and ended up
looking like buffoons. He will be a tough nut to crack, and so far the American regime has
done nothing to convince ordinary people that he is a cowardly traitor. Putting him on
television only makes him look more heroic.
And a US "talking" head, in reply to Snowdon's belief that he would not get a fair trial in
the USA (a US human rights issue, is that not, Mr.Snowdon?) says that criminals and alleged
criminals do not customarily get to determine the terms of their trial: they broke the law
and they face the consequences "
Guilty before proven innocent?
Presumption of innocence: an international human right under the UN Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, Article 11.
Nor, to the best of my recollection, did it have an Abu Ghraib. The United States actually
has a pretty shitty human-rights record if you consider it from the viewpoint of how it treas
others than Americans, and – going further back – only white Americans. The west
always tries to factor in the Holodomor, too, how Russia deliberately starved the Ukrainians
to death, as an example of their horrible human rights record.
I cringed at that one too. But I forgive Edward, because I think he was trying to make a
tactical debating point, namely:
I am not a Russia stooge, I have my criticisms of the Russian regime yada yada, and I
agree with you talking heads that their human rights record is not well received in the West.
And yet they scored a human-rights trifecta when they let me in, when not one single
"democracy" would defend me or give me asylum.
In other words, he would concede, for argumentation purposes, that Russia is bad, only to
stick it to them that Russia did well by him and scored propaganda points against the West.
It's a particular debating tactic, whose Latin name I cannot recall.
Unfortunately, Edward never got to finish his point, because those bitches cut him off
before he could even get to the punchline.
"Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single
crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the
Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," he noted. Read also Three layers of Russian air defense at Hmeymim air base in
Syria When the drones met with the electronic countermeasures of the Russian systems, they
switched to a manual guidance mode, he said. "Manual guidance is carried out not by some
villagers, but by the Poseidon-8, which has modern equipment. It undertook manual control," the
deputy defense minister noted.
"When these 13 drones faced our electronic warfare screen, they moved away to some distance,
received the corresponding orders and began to be operated out of space and receiving help in
finding the so-called holes through which they started penetrating. Then they were destroyed,"
Fomin reported.
"This should be stopped as well: in order to avoid fighting with the high-technology weapons
of terrorists and highly-equipped terrorists it is necessary to stop supplying them with
equipment," the deputy defense minister concluded.
The Russian Defense Ministry earlier said that on January 6 militants in Syria first
massively used drones in the attack on the Russian Hmeymim airbase and the Russian naval base
in Tartus. The attack was successfully repelled: seven drones were downed, and control over six
drones was gained through electronic warfare systems. The Russian Defense Ministry stressed
that the solutions used by the militants could be received only from a technologically advanced
country and warned about the danger of repeating such attacks in any country of the
world.
The forum
The eighth Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security will run until October 26 in Beijing. It was
organized by the Chinese Ministry of Defense, China Association for Military Science (CAMS) and
China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS). Representatives for defense
ministries, armed forces and international organizations, as well as former military officials,
politicians and scientists from 79 countries are taking part in the forum.
"... As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with. And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of the population eventually fall on their own sword. ..."
"... And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with Iran and Islamic state jihadists.) ..."
"... So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role. ..."
"... It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed. ..."
"... So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite). ..."
"... The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how much money to bribe top officials. ..."
"... As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR. ..."
"... The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't care less about regular citizens and their sufferings. ..."
"... BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say. ..."
"... BTW few republics in former USSR space managed to achieve the standard of living equal to the best years of the USSR (early 80th I think) See https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf ..."
"... Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe. ..."
"... Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is corruptible and can eventually change sides. ..."
"... But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie" state. ..."
This is a very complex issue. And I do not pretend that I am right, but I think Brad is way too superficial to be taken seriously.
IMHO it was neoliberalism that won the cold war. That means that the key neoliberal "scholars" like Friedman and Hayek and
other intellectual prostitutes of financial oligarchy who helped to restore their power. Certain democratic politicians like Carter
also were the major figures. Carter actually started neoliberalization of the USA, continued by Reagan,
Former Trotskyites starting from Burnham which later became known as neoconservatives also deserve to be mentioned.
It is also questionable that the USA explicitly won the cold war. Paradoxically the other victim of the global neoliberal revolution
was the USA, the lower 90% of the USA population to be exact.
So there was no winners other the financial oligarchy (the transnational class.)
As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with.
And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of
the population eventually fall on their own sword.
And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level
of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with
Iran and Islamic state jihadists.)
The degeneration started with the death of the last charismatic leader (Stalin) and the passing of the generation which remembers
that actual warts of capitalism and could relate them to the "Soviet socialism" solutions.
So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to
produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the
theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role.
With bolshevism as the official religion, which can't be questioned, the society was way too rigid and suppressed "entrepreneurial
initiative" (which leads to enrichment of particular individuals, but also to the benefits to the society as whole), to the extent
that was counterproductive. The level of dogmatism in this area was probably as close to the medieval position of Roman Catholic
Church as we can get; in this sense it was only national that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became a pope John Paul II -- he was very
well prepared indeed ;-).
It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level
of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created
the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed.
So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects
the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite).
The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how
much money to bribe top officials.
As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And
the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of
Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and
by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive
efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR.
Explosion of far right nationalist sentiments without "Countervailing ideology" as Bolshevism was not taken seriously anymore
was the key factor that led to the dissolution of the USSR.
Essentially national movements allied with Germany that were defeated during WWII became the winners.
The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal
West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't
care less about regular citizens and their sufferings.
And the backlash created conditions for Putin coming to power.
BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably
by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of
Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say.
The majority of the xUSSR space countries have now dismal standard of living and slided into Latin American level of inequality
and corruption (not without help of the USA).
Several have civil wars in the period since getting independence, which further depressed the standard living. Most deindustrialize.
Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse
of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe.
Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion
to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is
corruptible and can eventually change sides.
But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism
is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie"
state.
So in the worst case it is the USA which might follow the path of the USSR and eventually disintegrate under the pressure of
internal nationalist sentiments. Such a victor...
Even now there are some visible difference between former Confederacy states and other states on the issues such as immigration
and federal redistributive programs.
"... Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been arrested relatively recently and charged with espionage. They had been apprehended while flying a drone around a military establishment not far from Tehran. ..."
"... They claim to be innocent civilians who had been flying their drone, taking vids with it and publishing them online in every country they drove through on the overland/sea jaunt from Darwin to London. ..."
"... Although the internet & associated cryptography has likely made such laws irrelevant, I cannot believe that a couple of months ago when the Grace II thing was kicking off any brit or australian could think flying drones around Iranian bases wouldn't get them into trouble. ..."
"... Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong? ..."
"... Well don't her specialties line up closely with another brit educated woman caught teaching local Iranians how to stir trouble online in Iran, one Zaghari-Ratcliffe convicted of espionage after now england PM, then secretary of foreign affairs B Johnson, slipped up and admitted she had been training Iranians, in Iran. ..."
"... This attempt to propagandize the arrests of spies may even succeed I suppose as most people just don't follow this stuff closely enough and the praised to the max western media is unlikely to disabuse them of their ignorance. ..."
"... The ruins of Angkor Wat Cambodia are a sacred place and you are warned that no drones are permitted, but you still are flying your drone and that all females must be fully covered, but you don't care, you just think you are untouchables, but you will fly your drone once too often in a restricted area and be caught. ..."
in response of how NK treats journalists, Eva Bartlett of Syria fame did a number of reports from NK and she said she had more
freedom than in many western countries. As long as you dont show fake propaganda and show the NK'ians in favorable ie real light,
they have no problems. They were not asked to take particular shots or taken to particular places but left to do everything themselves.
I remember cops pulling me over for taking pics of barns in south dakota.. Many such events.. I remember cops pulling me over
so many times I can write a book on it. Once for having a white bag on the front seat.. For looking too young.. For looking like
a car bugler because I was under the dash fixing speaker wires.. For having driving lights on before they had those on cars as standard..
For changing lanes to avoid police.. Free country my testicles..
I dunno how many have been following the issue of the 'brit-australian' trio who are in custody in Iran, but there are some oddities
about these cases which suggest MI6/
ASIS are moronic and barefaced
enough to try and propagandise the inevitable result of their own hamfisted stupidity.
No one had heard of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, Jolie King and Mark Firkin a week ago, then John Bolton copped the flick and suddenly
australians & englanders are told that Iran has more than British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe slotted up, that two pom/oz
types and a genuine Australian were also being held.
Jolie King and Mark Firkin had been arrested relatively recently and charged with espionage. They had been apprehended
while flying a drone around a military establishment not far from Tehran.
They claim to be innocent civilians who had been flying their drone, taking vids with it and publishing them online in
every country they drove through on the overland/sea jaunt from Darwin to London. Apparently both are University graduates
who claim they didn't see the harm in doing what they were doing . . . yeah right, I guess it is possible to be that stupid but
it is pretty unlikely. I'm old enough to remember that it wasn't that long ago when going into many of the nations between Oz
and Iran with a ghetto blaster that would allow you to record and which had an AM or FM radio receiver would get you into the
slammer quick smart.
Although the internet & associated cryptography has likely made such laws irrelevant, I cannot believe that a couple of
months ago when the Grace II thing was kicking off any brit or australian could think flying drones around Iranian bases wouldn't
get them into trouble.
Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort
Dietrick or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't
that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong?
But that is nothing cos up until today we have been told that nothing is known about another woman who has been in prison for
a year on 'unknown charges'.
According to
today's graun we still don't know the charges, but we do know she is another pom/oz type, Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated
academic who we are told:
"The University of Melbourne's website lists Dr Moore-Gilbert on its "Find an expert" page as a lecturer at the university's
Asia Institute.
It says she "specializes in Middle Eastern politics, with a particular focus on the Arab Gulf states," and that she had
published work on the 2011 Arab uprisings, authoritarian governance, and on the role of new media technologies in political
activism."
Well don't her specialties line up closely with another brit educated woman caught teaching local Iranians how to stir
trouble online in Iran, one Zaghari-Ratcliffe convicted of espionage after now england PM, then secretary of foreign affairs B
Johnson, slipped up and admitted she had been training Iranians, in Iran.
This attempt to propagandize the arrests of spies may even succeed I suppose as most people just don't follow this stuff
closely enough and the praised to the max western media is unlikely to disabuse them of their ignorance.
Would anyone care to imagine what would happen to someone on holiday from Iran who got spotted flying a drone around Fort Dietrick
or similar? No matter how many posts they had made about doing the same in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama & Mexico. Wouldn't
that appear as if it were just cover lest something did go wrong?
They were well aware that using drones could get them into trouble, they said so themselves talking about Cambodia, so in no doubt
the same applied to Iran. https://www.instagram.com/p/BngpgAIHqpD/
The ruins of Angkor Wat Cambodia are a sacred place and you are warned that no drones are permitted, but you still are
flying your drone and that all females must be fully covered, but you don't care, you just think you are untouchables, but you
will fly your drone once too often in a restricted area and be caught.
The defense minister also stressed that the number of threats to Russia is not declining
MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The United States' belief in its own superiority could lead to
various unreasonable ideas, posing a major threat to Russia and other states, Russian Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu said in his
interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets published on Sunday.
"When you think - as the United States continues to believe so by inertia - that the
balance of power has developed in your favor, various ideas may come to your head, including
unreasonable ones. I consider this situation now as the main threat, and not only for Russia,"
Shoigu said.
Meanwhile, the recognition of your vulnerability and a wish to maintain balance and
universal equal security "makes you turn your head on," the defense minister said, also
stressing that the number of threats to Russia is not declining.
At the same time, Shoigu voiced hope that a full-scale war is not on the horizon.
The priority task now is to ensure information security, he stressed, noting that "at the
current level of informatization and automation, there is a high probability of errors in the
weapons control system.".
The Beeb continues to blather on about Smolenkov being an absolutely top-hole high-level aide
to Vladimir Putin, practically running the place, Darling, probably called each other
'Vladdy' and 'Smoky' when the peasants weren't around.
Includes the mandatory reference to Putin verifiably having ordered the election-meddling
that put Trump in the White House. I have to wonder if this isn't an American dodge so they
can say they were tricked by this fake spy into believing a nonsense story. Not much in the
way of interest from Russia, mostly mockery about the American fondness for pulp fiction, but
I notice the 'our American partners' line fell by the wayside some time ago.
Are political tell-alls a popular subgenre now? Everyone's in on it! Rachel Maddow, Samantha
Power, Andrei Kovalev, Vladimir Yakunin, some Lebedev banker guy whose upcoming title I
forgot to bookmark
Young people in the west, generally speaking, are know-it-alls convinced of their own
absolute currency of knowledge, and most of what they believe they know comes from reading
newspapers and watching television. I say this from experience as, like all of us, I was
young once and thought I knew it all, and I got almost all my information from newspapers and
television news, although some came from professional journals like the US Naval Institute
Proceedings. I grew up believing Russia was a grey and colourless place where hopeless people
in shabby, ill-fitting clothes trudged dispiritedly from one line-up to another, then home to
their tenth-floor walk-up concrete box shared with from eight to a dozen other family members
and relatives.
Of course, it WAS like that for some people. Just as it likely was for the poor in the
west, although they were all but invisible then save for occasional charity drives to 'help
the less fortunate'. I was a huge fan of the United States, loving pretty much everything
about it, as my first foreign trips with the Navy were to places like New London, Connecticut
(right across the river from Groton, the headquarters of submarine builders Electric Boat)
and Boston. I was a big fan of the U.S. Navy, and in many respects I still am – it was
and is mostly a professional service with capable leaders and sound ethics common to seagoing
services the world over.
It was in the area of the USA's political system that gradual and then total
disillusionment took place. Any respect I might once have had for the media vanished at about
the same time.
The media has become a cesspool of bottom-feeders all looking for the 'gotcha' moment,
while the business and profession of journalism in general has morphed to uncritical relay of
government propaganda.
From that same link, a very interesting dissection of the Salisbury poisonings. We've
become used to mocking or horrified refutations of the UK government's line that it could
only have been Russia, but this source does it with considerable detail; for instance, the
formula originally devised by Vil Marzayanov and his compatriots in the Soviet Union was
later patented by a US Chemical lab.
"... Margolis also says the KSA's US made air defences "failed" to protect their oil installations. This maybe so. But apart from the fact that their air defences are orientated away from Yemen there's a good chance the defences were turned OFF -- apparently this is common practice in the KSA, esp on weekends. I don't believe that Margolis's "mystery" is anywhere as deep as he suggests. The Houthis have received weapons & training from Iran/Hezbollah & have demonstrated an ability to hit KSA targets with unmanned aerial weapons. ..."
"... Until better evidence appears, I'm willing to give it to the Houthis -- if for no other reason than that they deserve to get in some good licks against that vile "Kingdom" (I'd suggest they next hit the water purification plants that serve Riyadh with all its water – apparently, the city has about 3 days of water stored. Evacuating 6 million from the Capital, the Sauds would be exposed as the corrupt, negligent, incompetent, stupid, vicious frauds we all know they are. ..."
"... These Hawks are under delusional assumption that an American led war against Iran would be a "Cakewalk" ..."
"... What they do know for sure is that the military industrial complex will increase its budget during and after such a war. Follow the money! ..."
Who Launched That Mystery Attack? Eric Margolis September 21, 2019 700 Words
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The Mideast has its own variety of crazy humor. The Saudis have been blasting and bombing
wretched Yemen, one of this world's poorest nations, since 2015.
These US-supported attacks and a naval blockade of Yemen imposed by Saudi Arabia and its
sidekick ally, the United Arab Emirates, have caused mass starvation. No one knows how many
Yemenis have died or are currently starving. Estimates run from 250,000 to one million.
The black humor? The Saudis just claimed they were victims of Iranian `aggression' this past
week after the kingdom's leading oil treatment facility at Abqaiq was hit by a flight of armed
drones or cruise missiles. The usual American militarists, now led by State Secretary Mike
Pompeo after the demented warmonger, John Bolton, was finally fired, are calling for military
retaliation against Iran even though the attack was claimed by Yemen's Shia Houthi
movement.
This drama came at roughly the same time that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a
close ally of US president Donald Trump, vowed to annex Palestine's entire Jordan Valley if
elected. Not a peep of protest came from the US, which recently blessed Netanyahu's annexation
of Syria's Golan Heights while scourging Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, for annexing Crimea
– a Russian possession for over 300 years.
I studied US photos of the damaged Saudi oil installations. Its oil tanks appear to be
precisely hit at the same place. After the attack, the Saudis claimed half of their oil
production was knocked out; but a day later, they vowed production would be resumed within a
week. Parts of so-called drones were shown that appeared way beyond the technological
capabilities of Yemen or even Iran. The missiles may have been supplied by Ukraine.
The Saudis, like their patron in Washington, have a poor record for truthfulness. Remember
the Saudi denials about the murder of journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi? More
important, we have been waiting for more false flag attacks in the Gulf designed to justify a
US attack on Iran.
The pattern of so-called drone attacks against the Saudi oil installations is just too neat
and symmetrical. The Israelis have a strong interest in promoting a US-Saudi War. The attacks
in Saudi came ironically right after the anniversary of 9/11 that plunged the US into war
against large parts of the Muslim world.
As a long-time military observer, I find it very hard to believe that drones could be guided
over such long distances and so accurately without aircraft or satellites to guide them. In
Yemen, which is just creeping into the 12th century, changing a flat tire is a major
technological achievement. To date, Iran's missile arsenal has poor reliability and major
guidance problems.
Adding to the questions, the Saudis have spent billions on US-made air defense systems. They
failed to protect the oil installations. The Saudis would have been better off buying air
defenses from the Russians, at a quarter of the US selling price.
ORDER IT NOW
Trump at least showed some wisdom by so far rejecting demands from the neocons that surround
him to launch major attacks on Iran. Blasting Iran would not serve much purpose and would
expose US forces in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Somalia, and Syria to Iranian guerrilla
attacks. Saudi oil installations – after what we saw last week – are
vulnerable.
Attacking Iran, even if just from the air, risks a much wider Mideast war just as the Trump
administration – which originally campaigned against 'stupid' Mideast wars – faces
next year's elections. But the administration is under intense pressure from its pro-Israel
base to go after Iran.
Bombing Iran's oil infrastructure would be relatively easy and has been intensively planned
since early 2002. But what next? So-called 'regime change' (Washington's favorite euphemism for
overthrowing disobedient foreign governments) rarely works as planned and can get the US into
horribly messy situations. The CIA overthrew Iran's democratic government in 1953 and look
where we are today.
Perhaps the attacks on Abqaiq may cause the reckless Saudi leaders to stop devastating Yemen
and throttle back on their proxy war against Iran which has gone on since 1979. But don't count
on it.
The so called "Zionist Hawks" in Israel and Washington, who want to start a war between
the USA and Iran.
These Hawks are under delusional assumption that an American led war against Iran would be
a "Cakewalk", and that Iranians have no means to defend themselves, will capitulate –
these are of course delusional assumptions – only found in disturbed minds of a bunch
of Go-Getter Zionist Think-Tanks in Washington, DC who are eager to serve their own tribal
interests at the US expense.
The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003, both are still ongoing –
have long proven how delusional are these ridiculous assumptions – Iran will be at
least 10 times harder nut to crack than Iraq was under Saddam Hussein – at least not
without serious consequences to the security of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and the
US itself, along with serious ramification to the post WWII international order under the
USA; established since 1945.
By now, president Trump knows too well that he is being poorly served by these so called
"Zionist Hawks" – who have instigated the US unilateral withdrawal from the Iranian
Nuclear Agreement – but thanks to Trump's own instinct, and his close relationship with
Emmanuel Macron; Shinzo Abe; and of course Vladimir Putin – so far, Trump has resisted
the temptation of going to all out war against Iranians.
President Trump should ban these" Go-Getter Zionist Hawks" from the White House; they are
"Disloyal Jews" – who are eager to serve their own tribal interests at the US
expense.
Trump at least showed some wisdom by so far rejecting demands from the neocons that
surround him to launch major attacks on Iran.
He doesn't want to get involved in another Iraq (or worse) which makes excellent sense for
the US and himself on many levels.
However, if the US Deep State (with the Israelis) could set up 9/11 without President Bush
in the loop, then they could also arrange a False Flag attack on these oil installations,
without Trump's knowledge.
The CIA looks very much like an independent international criminal enterprise, and they're
used to working with their Israeli and Saudi friends.
This is a seriously flawed analysis of Yemen's and Iran's actual capabilities. We've already
seen Iran's precision strike capability in Iran and Syria and we've seen Yemen's homemade
drones and missiles do similar to this at slightly lesser differences. The parts shown by SA
are matches to Yemeni made missiles and drones such as Iran has been sharing around with
their allies. The reason they avoided the US defences was that they came from a direction
these do not cover, being pointed as they are at Iran. I'd say this was a Houthis attack and
as they say, more will be coming if the aggression from SA against Yemen does not stop. One
thing this attack has done is cool the heels of US, Saudi and Zionist warmongers. The damage
done here by relatively small attack and cheap means gives some inkling of what things might
look like after an attack on Iran. This was doubtless supported by Iran and as such a
masterstroke. We enter a new paradigm.
Saudi Arabian oil pipelines have always been vulnerable to attack. They are not well guarded
at all. This is well known by Security Experts worldwide but not well known, it would seem,
by hack 'journalists'.
Saudi Arabia is attacking Yemen as part of a long term plan to reroute it's oil pipelines
to the other side of it's country, the Red Sea side, so that it is no longer vulnerable at
the Strait of Hormuz 'choke point'. In order to get rid of the Iranian threat to it's oil as
it leaves port in the Persian Gulf, the Saudi's must sustain huge costs and PR losses to
"stabilize" Yemen by a brutal war and then transit it's oil via the Red Sea. This is also
well known by Security Experts but not 'hack journalist'.
Trump rejected neocon demands for a war with Iran as he saw his chances for re-election
vanish in the smoke of an US-Iran war. If Trump is reelected Americans will have to worry
every day about a US-Iran war.
I love this comment by Margolis, that the KSA & US have a "poor record for truthfulness"
Priceless. Apparently Genghis Khan had a poor record for brushing his feet on the mat
before entering a town for a bit of light shopping.
Margolis also says the KSA's US made air defences "failed" to protect their oil
installations. This maybe so. But apart from the fact that their air defences are orientated
away from Yemen there's a good chance the defences were turned OFF -- apparently this is
common practice in the KSA, esp on weekends.
I don't believe that Margolis's "mystery" is anywhere as deep as he suggests. The Houthis
have received weapons & training from Iran/Hezbollah & have demonstrated an ability
to hit KSA targets with unmanned aerial weapons.
Until better evidence appears, I'm willing to give it to the Houthis -- if for no other
reason than that they deserve to get in some good licks against that vile "Kingdom" (I'd
suggest they next hit the water purification plants that serve Riyadh with all its water
– apparently, the city has about 3 days of water stored. Evacuating 6 million from the
Capital, the Sauds would be exposed as the corrupt, negligent, incompetent, stupid, vicious
frauds we all know they are.
Next time, just shoot the plane down. You can always claim afterward that it was a mistake
and you were shooting at something else, or cleaning the missile launcher and it went off;
something like that. It works great for the Israelis.
"Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single
crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the
Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," he noted. Read also Three layers of Russian air defense at Hmeymim air base in
Syria When the drones met with the electronic countermeasures of the Russian systems, they
switched to a manual guidance mode, he said. "Manual guidance is carried out not by some
villagers, but by the Poseidon-8, which has modern equipment. It undertook manual control," the
deputy defense minister noted.
"When these 13 drones faced our electronic warfare screen, they moved away to some distance,
received the corresponding orders and began to be operated out of space and receiving help in
finding the so-called holes through which they started penetrating. Then they were destroyed,"
Fomin reported.
"This should be stopped as well: in order to avoid fighting with the high-technology weapons
of terrorists and highly-equipped terrorists it is necessary to stop supplying them with
equipment," the deputy defense minister concluded.
The Russian Defense Ministry earlier said that on January 6 militants in Syria first
massively used drones in the attack on the Russian Hmeymim airbase and the Russian naval base
in Tartus. The attack was successfully repelled: seven drones were downed, and control over six
drones was gained through electronic warfare systems. The Russian Defense Ministry stressed
that the solutions used by the militants could be received only from a technologically advanced
country and warned about the danger of repeating such attacks in any country of the
world.
The forum
The eighth Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security will run until October 26 in Beijing. It was
organized by the Chinese Ministry of Defense, China Association for Military Science (CAMS) and
China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS). Representatives for defense
ministries, armed forces and international organizations, as well as former military officials,
politicians and scientists from 79 countries are taking part in the forum.
The defense minister also stressed that the number of threats to Russia is not declining
MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The United States' belief in its own superiority could lead to
various unreasonable ideas, posing a major threat to Russia and other states, Russian Defense
Minister Sergei Shoigu said in his
interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets published on Sunday.
"When you think - as the United States continues to believe so by inertia - that the
balance of power has developed in your favor, various ideas may come to your head, including
unreasonable ones. I consider this situation now as the main threat, and not only for Russia,"
Shoigu said.
Meanwhile, the recognition of your vulnerability and a wish to maintain balance and
universal equal security "makes you turn your head on," the defense minister said, also
stressing that the number of threats to Russia is not declining.
At the same time, Shoigu voiced hope that a full-scale war is not on the horizon.
The priority task now is to ensure information security, he stressed, noting that "at the
current level of informatization and automation, there is a high probability of errors in the
weapons control system.".
I think the EU may have just fucked Nord Stream II. An EU General Court overturned the 2016
EU Commission decision to allow Gazprom to use more than 50% of the Opal pipeline, a critical
choke point for both legs of Nord Stream II to get gas to the hub. If that decision can't be
reversed again, a reasonable argument will be made that Nord stream II is not necessary, as
Nord Stream alone can easily supply 50% capacity. The kicker is they do not have any other
exporter who could make up the other 50% to use the pipeline to capacity. But this is a very
shrewd move, as the Opal pipeline was always the weak link.
Ukraine, of course, will be dancing in the streets with delight. But I wouldn't be too
quick to do that. Russia might still decline to renew the contract with Ukraine, and just let
Europe go short, to teach it a lesson. Past time, in my opinion. Of course Uncle Sam will see
that as the opportunity long looked for, and offer to step up with LNG imports. And that
might be good, too, for a couple of years – let the Yurrupeans pay extortionate gas
prices, and learn to be wary of America's temper tantrums translated to supply 'problems'
which can only be resolved by making political concessions. Russia has always pretty much let
Europe do its thing without pressuring it much, despite the hysterics you see in the media
about weaponization of energy.
It is absolutely typical of Europe to wait until the pipeline is almost complete to
offload that bomb. I suppose they figure Russia will have to agree to anything they say so as
not to waste all that work and money. It also showcases Europe's complete unreliability in
any business relationship, exactly in lock-step with American unreliability.
I saw that news too. But then remember the original Nord Stream had a cap that was then
lifted. If the EU insists on paying top $$$ for imported LNG from the US rather than lifting
any sort of cap, I'd be interested to see how they justify that to EU citizen consumers.
I think the point is, again, not to react immediately to whatever outrage Brussels or its
friends pick out of their ass. I could well imagine that NSII partners may well sue Brussels
about this, actually file the papers. Brussels would argue 'But it's not us, it's the court',
to which the lawyers would say 'We specifically asked you, and you came up with nothing in
law'.
I think we will find the general court has taken a certain 'interpretation' of competition
law that was 'advised' by Brussles. How NSII could get this far after all of these years and
have a court come out with such a ruling. Expect egg on face and 'It's not me!'. I don't see
how this 'ruling' can stand.
"The Europeans apply antitrust legislation, which is designed to develop the competition.
Why it is necessary to free up 50% of the gas pipeline's capacity? According to the idea of
the legislators, it has to allow competition to arise. But when nobody can physically come to
the start point of the OPAL gas pipeline, alternative suppliers have nowhere to come from.
There physically isn't and can't be another supplier in OPAL!!! It's like banning water from
being carried in full buckets!"
The very inspiration of competition is the introduction of anti-monopoly procedures to
establish a lowest price by pitting the competitors against one another. I am pretty
confident that Russia has always had the lowest prices, and can usually be induced to do a
deal for lower prices yet in exchange for other considerations. When other countries do it,
it's what dealing's all about – when Russia does it, it's weaponizing energy.
If you have a reliable supplier who has access to years of reserves and who consistently
sells to you at a reasonable price, why do you have to impose a raft of new rules to bring in
competitors who cannot match its prices and do not have access to plentiful supplies? Once
again, for Yurrupeans who do not get it, competition is to arrive at a low price. If you
start from a low price, it is stupid to mandate room for competitors who cannot get under
it.
I suspect the Poles are behind this latest charade. But why is Germany going along with
it? Opal lies entirely within Germany, and anything that risks constraining available supply
risks Germany's status as a gas hub.
Anyway, as I suggested earlier, it would do Europe a world of good for Russia to short
them gas for a little while and let them pay prices for outside supplies that would have
their hair on fire. A period of throwing money away when you know there is a cheaper supply
to which you cannot get access can be extremely educational. Uncle Sam would jump at the
chance to sell Europe LNG and, at least in the beginning, would cut prices to the bone in
order to establish market share. But it would still insist on making a profit, and it can't
do that and match Russian prices, while its lengthy logistic chain depends on a lot of
factors. If it became confident that its market share was both secure and relied upon,
Europeans would quickly see how it was leveraged against them to American advantage.
Helping the Ukraine in it's gas talks fit in my opinion. This 50% cap can be lifted,
reintroduced/whatever and whenever by Brussels. It's a gangsta move.
Well, actually, it can't. Be lifted and re-imposed willy-nilly, I mean. If it is, it would be
pointless to build the pipeline in the first place, as Opal would merely take the place of
Ukraine. The western tacticians want to keep Ukraine in the mix because they can use it to
introduce complications and problems in gas delivery from Russia, which can at the same time
be used to paint Russia as an unreliable partner. If Opal can't be relied upon to supply the
opportunity to transit major volumes, Russia will have to make a deal with Ukraine so as to
preserve a Plan B option. It would have been better to not build the pipeline, and still
cease transit through Ukraine, labeling it instead as the unreliable part of the logistics
chain, and Europe would just have to be satisfied with what it could get out of existing
pipelines – minus Ukraine – running flat-out. After all, Europe maintained that a
twin line for Nord Stream was not needed; mind you, when they said that, they were
envisioning continued transit through Ukraine, complete with the prima donna antics Ukraine
exhibits when it believes it has leverage.
The price of gas would go through the roof, and Russia would probably make just as much
money, while the Europeans were weeping and tearing out their hair.
Ukraine's offer for the gas talks is 60 Billion Cubic Meters transit annually for 10
years. Russia will tell them to go fuck themselves. They're basically asking for a contract
to transit the same amount they're transiting now, when there is no alternative, for ten more
years.
I wish I could be so sure. Brussels likes to think it is kleva (sic 'field pipes'/TAP
exemptions). I've looked for more details, and it is appealable (is that a word)?
For several years, Russia could use only 50% of the pipeline's capacity, as prescribed
in the EU's Third Energy Package. Gazprom asked for permission to use OPAL's 100%
capacity,
.In the summer of 2017, the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court decided to remove interim
measures on Gazprom's use of Opal's facilities imposed by the lawsuit. Poland finds that now
the decision of the European Court of Justice will not allow Gazprom to abandon gas transit
through the territory of Ukraine.
On September 10, on considering Poland's lawsuit, the EU Court of Justice overturned
the European Commission's decision of 2016, according to which Gazprom could fully use the
capacities of the OPAL gas pipeline. The Russian company reserves the right to use 50% of
OPAL's capacity, but it will no longer be able to participate in auctions for the remaining
40%.
####
So it is a continuation of previous legal ding-dongs.
The ruling is also important because of the reasoning behind it. The justices said the
main reason for their decision was not to preserve third-party access to pipelines that run
through Europe but to maintain the EU's energy-solidarity policy. This opens the door to
future litigation based on such policy
####
WTF? So it's not about allowing 3rd party access after all. The Court is ruling on
a completely different aspect! So this is about a different rule of the EU's Third Energy
Package that a) post dates the original Nord Stream; b) ignores that NSII follows the
same route and is not substantially different to NS1. The Third Energy Package entered in to
legislation in September 2009.* Excuse me, but 10 years late?
So it looks to me that the multipronged offensive against NSII though it has failed to
stymie off-shore NSII because it is almost completely outside the EU (well, we'll see what
happend with Denmark), it's temporarily struck gold with OPAL because it is on-shore EU.
Buuut, in leverageing against Russia to the benefit of Ukraine, it will directly impact
Russia-EU-Ukraine talks:
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak "I think that, in terms of negotiations, this
situation will be taken into account," **
Yet: Šefčovič said the decision was still very fresh, that his
services were still studying it, and that it underlined how important the principle of energy
solidarity is for Europe.
The ECJ ruled that the 2016 decision is "in breach of the principle of energy
solidarity" because it failed to properly assess how to balance Germany's interests against
the negative impacts on other EU member states .
Šefčovič avoided a direct answer, but insisted in the need of
long-term contracts with Gazprom .
He explained that the Ukrainian side was willing to apply European law, saying this
would bring clarity, transparency and efficiency. The letters sent by the Commission to both
parties also stressed the importance of long-term contracts, he said . ***
Cake and eat it, Brussels? Kiev complying with 'European Law' when even EU member states
do not? Ha ha ha! It all rather looks like vague horseshit to me. Open to creative
interpretation a la Marcel Marceau.
When I said, "Actually, it can't", I didn't mean Europe can't do it, I meant that the
uncertainty it introduces will not likely prove satisfactory for Russia to play the game,
since Brussels could arbitrarily decide to apply the cap any time it wishes Russia to transit
more gas through Ukraine, and pay it more money. The only real solution for Russia is to make
it crystal clear to Brussels that it is not going to sign a big fat transit contract with
Ukraine, and then business as usual, with Ukraine getting up to its monkeyshines and
demanding cheaper gas against the possibility of restricting exports to Europe. Ukraine has
demonstrated that it is just like the United States in the sense that if it has any leverage
over you, it will use it for its own ends. The west has made it clear it approves of these
tactics, even when they cause a temporary shutdown of gas exports to Europe.
Brussels thinks it is being cute, and that Russia will now have to do as Brussels wants it
to. Russia has little choice but to play hardball, and let it be known that it has no
intention of signing a long-term agreement with Ukraine to transit the same volumes of gas it
always did – what the fuck was Nord Stream II all about? If Europe – and
especially those perfidious krauts – want to cap the amount going through the Opal line
at 50% of capacity, so be it. Europe will just have to adjust to 60 BcM less supply; maybe
Uncle Sugar can send a fleet of LNG tankers to make up the difference, at double the cost.
But if Russia signs on to transit 60 BcM annually through Ukraine, it is right back where it
started, and built an expensive pipeline for nothing. Stand firm, Russia. Europe does not
have an alternative gas supplier, and nothing would teach it that lesson like a year or so of
scraping to find enough gas, and paying through the nose for it. It's always chunnering about
alternative suppliers – go and find them!
Absolutely insane. The EU/Anglo/US fascists are making their last stand and forcing Russia
into a corner with the only way out to continue transit through Ukraine. Oh, the humiliation
will be so sweet!
I think the Russian reaction will be a big Fuck You. Its all about LNG and the need to
save the US gas frackers and their debt. Oh, and to drive a wedge to further separate Russia
from Europe. Perfect, Russia can now focus on its future and forget that rotting corpse of
Western civilization.
Oh, I think Nord Stream II will still go through anyway, in the end. But a great deal depends
on Russia not signing another 10-year gas deal with Ukraine for 60 BcM annually. If it does
that, then there really is no difference from today, and Nord Stream II would just be an
extra line for use in emergencies. I can't believe any of the partners want that, as there
would be little opportunity for them to profit, which is why I wonder why Germany is being so
passive. Have they been persuaded to take one for Team Ukraine? Again, I find that hard to
believe. It is essentially a question of Ukraine being Europe's gas hub, or Germany. And it
should be more than plain to Europe by now that Ukraine will happily toss a wrench in the
transit works any time Washington tells it to.
Europe needs Russian gas. But it wants it on entirely its own terms, with Brussels in
control. Apparently it is not obvious that Europe is already in control – it is the
buyer. If it doesn't want gas, it doesn't need to buy it. But it does want it. It just wants
to wave the rule-book around every time it makes a purchase. Which would be obvious to it, if
ever there came a time when it wanted it and couldn't get it.
"... Under international law, a state is accountable for the unlawful actions of a proxy only if an organ of the state ordered the proxy to commit the act. It is not sufficient simply to have provided material support or even encouraged the unlawful act. For example, in the 1980s, the International Court of Justice found the United States not liable for Contra violations of international humanitarian law, even after concluding that the United States had "financed, organized, trained, supplied, equipped and armed" the Contras, even to the point of providing training materials that discussed "shoot civilians attempting to leave a town, neutralize local judges and officials, hire professional criminals to carry out 'jobs,' and provoke violence at mass demonstrations to create 'martyrs'." ..."
It's become standard procedure for the US and its MSM to consider that Iran is totally
responsible for all anti-US events in the Middle East because of actions by Iran's "proxy
forces" in other countries. While these events usually have more diverse objectives, it's
often Iran did this and Iran did that. But there's no legal basis for that.
Here's some words on proxy relationships from DefenseOne: (excerpts)
Iran's proxy relationships have given it an extraordinary ability to impose costs on its
adversaries while obscuring its role. Doing so allows it to manage its risks while
politically constraining its adversaries' response. It might seem intuitive to simply
declare Iran responsible, and satisfying to retaliate against it directly. But
international law sets a high bar for holding a proxy's benefactor responsible for the
actions of its proxy, making it difficult to build the kind of international consensus
necessary to the legitimacy for any retaliation.
Under international law, a state is accountable for the unlawful actions of a proxy
only if an organ of the state ordered the proxy to commit the act. It is not sufficient
simply to have provided material support or even encouraged the unlawful act. For example,
in the 1980s, the International Court of Justice found the United States not liable for
Contra violations of international humanitarian law, even after concluding that the United
States had "financed, organized, trained, supplied, equipped and armed" the Contras, even
to the point of providing training materials that discussed "shoot civilians attempting to
leave a town, neutralize local judges and officials, hire professional criminals to carry
out 'jobs,' and provoke violence at mass demonstrations to create 'martyrs'."
Setting the bar so high establishes perverse incentives. A state that employs proxies is
discouraged from moderating their behavior, since any attempt at moderation could imply
effective control, and even from acknowledging the proxy relationships. So without proof
that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which typically manages Iran's proxy
relationships, ordered or participated in the attacks, there is little for which Saudi
Arabia or the United States can hold Iran legally accountable.. .
here
In 2001, drones were just a distant dream. It also involves a chain of once in a lifetime
of human errors by at least three governmental institutions (CIA, FBI and Pentagon).
What the Houthi did in 2019 is not that far fetched. Drones are a much more developed and
cheap technology, and Saudi Arabia is a basket case of a country. Surprise is how much soft
power they did enjoy in the West, since many commenters here still insist Saudi Arabia is
some kind of fascist utopia that couldn't be tricked by a bunch of stone age cave dwellers
(which the Houthi aren't any way). Looks like the USA's aura of invincibility is
contagious.
Jackrabbit #16. Perhaps increased tensions are enough to get Nuttyahoo elected (which I think
fits with the supposition that this attack is false flag). However My guess is that the
Houthis will prosecute this war to the very doorsteps of the holy mosques in KSA and exact
immense retribution if they can. They are responding to 5 years of geocidal assault and
cannot but fight to the death.
Trump and his immaculate surrounds of holy zionists and pentecostal towel boys are in
thrall. Mesmerised by their inspired service to the holy writ. No doubt they consult daily
with their personal rabbi who talks through his fedora as O would have it. But they are
beholden to something evil and beneath the dignity of humankind.
Perhaps war will be avoided by dithering and too elaborate plotting but I still consider
that justice might manifest in a meteor strike on their heads.
"... Yet in spite of all this American sacrifice, the Taliban controls more territory than at any time since 2001. ..."
"... After all, President Trump hasn't even signed off on Khalilzad's draft deal, and even if he does, he could always change his mind. The ability of the Blob to swallow presidents is not to be underestimated -- and Trump is a case in point. For decades, reaching back to his career as a businessman, Trump had been a skeptic of foreign military engagements, and he explicitly campaigned against "endless wars" in 2016. ..."
"... Yet since then, the Blob has been extending pseudopods of keep-the-status-quo cajolery deep within his administration. Trump has thus been persuaded to keep the U.S. engaged, or, if one prefers, quagmired ..."
"... The Taliban are not an invading military force. The struggle as it is has been one of internal forces and players sharing the land and never having been but various communities that fought, lived and negotiated agreements all nearly all of the countries history, unlike Vietnam which has almost entire history had a North/South division. ..."
"... Quit calling the Kabul regime a "client". It's a puppet. The minute US forces leave Afghanistan, the puppet government in Kabul will fall. Don't be surprised if it collapses before the last US transport has its landing gear all the way up. Notwithstanding 2., yes, it's over. Time to pack up and move on. However, Trump can't do that. ..."
"... If Trump had really wanted to leave Afghanistan, the time to do it was when he first entered office. Blame his predecessors and wash his hands of the situation while the political price was at its lowest. But Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. He listened to the generals, and the price of leaving has only risen and will only keep rising. ..."
"... They aren't much good for anything but staging, but Trump wants those Afghan outposts for the war on Iran that his Saudi owners and Israeli masters so crave. ..."
"... All the Democrats should be on the bandwagon for withdrawal yesterday because Trump's October Surprise could be announcing peace in our time and getting the hell out. It is a promise he can actually keep. It is not like he is getting his wall. ..."
"... Trump has become, himself, part of "the Blob." By hiring Pompeo and Bolton to head his foreign policy team he has abandoned any pretense of being an anti-war pro-restraint president. He's gone full neo-con and it's long past time conservatives stop pretending he hasn't. ..."
Needless to say, the news from Afghanistan is always murky, and the U.S. is far from gone.
Still, the BBC headline from September 3 tells us a lot:
"Afghanistan war: US-Taliban deal would see 5,400 troops withdraw." U.S. negotiator Zalmay
Khalilzad has hammered out an agreement, "in principle," with the Taliban.
He has now shared some of the details with the Afghan government -- which, revealingly,
hasn't been involved in the negotiations -- and with the world as well. In other words, the
U.S. has been bypassing its Kabul client regime in pursuit of a deal with the Taliban.
Obviously, the fact that our Afghan ally has been left out of the negotiations is not a good
sign for its relevance -- or its viability.
To be sure, even if those 5,400 American troops leave, another 8,600 would remain, plus an
unknown number of contractors and operatives. Yet it's obvious that if the U.S. couldn't pacify
Afghanistan with
100,000 troops at the beginning of this decade, it's not going to do much with a tiny
fraction thereof. In fact, our current dealings with the Taliban recall our dealings with North
Vietnam in the early '70s.
Back then, President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger were
looking to negotiate with North Vietnam to find a way out. Their hope was for "peace with
honor." Yet the appearance of "peace with honor" is not necessarily the same thing as
the reality . Behind the scenes, it was grubbier. Nixon and Kissinger understood that
the South Vietnamese government was deathly afraid of a U.S. deal with North Vietnam because
Saigon understood that any such agreement would leave it in the lurch, unable to defend itself.
North Vietnam, after all, was supported by both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of
China. And so Nixon and Kissinger simply pushed South Vietnam out of the loop. Indeed, South
Vietnamese fears would have been fully confirmed had they heard Kissinger speaking to Nixon
inside the White House in October 1972, as recorded by the notorious secret taping system.
As Kissinger put it, the U.S. should be hoping for a
"decent interval" between the American departure and the inevitable fall of the Saigon
government. And that's what happened: the Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973,
and barely more than two years later, on April 30, 1975, Saigon fell. Understandably, millions
of South Vietnamese sought to flee the communists, and that, again, is how D.C. -- and the U.S.
as a whole -- gained so many new restaurants. All that history is familiar to the policymakers
and pundits of today. And so inside the Beltway, the debate over the future of Afghanistan --
more precisely, U.S. involvement in the conflict -- is far from over.
As TAC contributor
Doug Bandow noted on August 29, the foreign policy establishment, a.k.a. "the
Blob," is perpetually in favor of staying in Afghanistan, because, well, establishments are
always perpetually in favor of doing everything that they're doing, perpetually. After all, who
wants to admit a mistake? Especially when establishmentarians can snugly oversee the war from
their armchairs in a Massachusetts Avenue think-tank? In the meantime, American losses continue
to mount. On August 29, another G.I. was killed in Afghanistan; that would be Army Sergeant
First Class
Dustin B. Ard of Idaho Falls, Idaho. He leaves behind his pregnant wife Mary and daughter
Reagan. Ard's death was the 15th this year, bringing the total of American military deaths in
Afghanistan to nearly 2,400
.
Yet in spite of all this American sacrifice, the Taliban controls more territory than at
any time since 2001. Indeed, the Taliban has proven its ability to strike anywhere,
including inside Kabul; just on September 3, suicide bombers struck an international compound,
killing at least 19. Tellingly, local Afghans now want the international residents out of their
neighborhood, because they know the presence of foreigners is a magnet for Taliban killers --
whom nobody seems able to stop.
We can pause to observe that such popular fatalism dooms a regime. It makes people --
especially those with links to the West -- likely to flee. To be sure, there's no telling
exactly when the Kabul government will crumble, as well as how, exactly, it will crumble.
After all, President Trump hasn't even signed off on Khalilzad's draft deal, and even if
he does, he could always change his mind. The ability of the Blob to swallow presidents is not
to be underestimated -- and Trump is a case in point. For decades, reaching back to his career
as a businessman, Trump had been a skeptic of foreign military engagements, and he explicitly
campaigned against "endless wars" in 2016.
Yet since then, the Blob has been extending pseudopods of keep-the-status-quo cajolery
deep within his administration. Trump has thus been persuaded to keep the U.S. engaged, or, if
one prefers, quagmired .
Remarkably, in August 2017, Trump even delivered a primetime speech on Afghanistan in which
he pledged
"victory." Even if Trump doesn't talk up victory anymore, nobody can say what exactly he
will do. Does he want to get credit for extricating the U.S., finally, from an unpopular
war?
Or does he not want to see a foreign capital fall on his watch? Whatever the case, it seems
evident that the remaining sand is running out of the Afghan hourglass.
In the two years since that go-get-'em speech, Trump has expended zero rhetorical effort in
support of the Afghan mission; instead he and his administration have shifted their focus to
China. (And yes, there's also that fascination with Iran, although there again, because Trump
is Trump, it's hard to know what will come of it. It could be anything from an armed conflict
to a Kim Jong-un-ish summit.) In the meantime, the Democrats, too, have moved on. It wasn't
that long ago that Barack Obama was referring to Afghanistan as the "good war," while surging
American troops; Obama, too, was pseudopod-ed by the Blob. And while the 44th president soon
enough realized that the new doctrine of counter-insurgency wasn't working any better than the
old doctrine of counter-terrorism, he chose not to get cross-wise with the Blob -- and so
American troops stayed. Yet today, nobody in the 2020 Democratic presidential field -- not even
Obama alum Joe Biden -- has any enthusiasm for the Afghan mission. So whether it's a re-elected
Trump or a newly elected Democrat in the White House in 2021, the U.S. is going to be looking
for that fig-leafy "decent interval." It could come in the form of a bilateral agreement, or
perhaps an international conference, complete with the promise of U.N. peacekeepers (although
unless they're Pakistani or Chinese "peacekeepers," any foreign force will likely wilt in the
face of the Taliban, which is nothing if not good at killing). Yes, it's intriguing to note
that Afghanistan has trillions of dollars' worth of natural
resources waiting to be mined. And so if a stable regime could ever be established in that
war-crossed land, great wealth could spring forth. But that's a manifest
destiny for someone else, not Uncle Sam. What we're going to get stateside when this
misadventure finally comes to an end is a lot of new refugees -- and a lot of new
restaurants.
James P. Pinkerton is an author and contributing editor at . He served as a White
House policy aide to both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
IMHO, we should have left Afghanistan years ago. I'll settle for yesterday. To hell with the
Rare Earth and our warmongers running/ruining foreign affairs!
Too late. The "decent interval" ended well over fifteen years ago.
I'm actually surprised that Trump isn't getting us out of there. He's told a lot of lies
and broken a lot of promises, but that's one that would have been easy to keep, and he didn't
do it. No spine.
This all depends on one simple factor. The integrity of the Taliban verses the integrity of
the communists in North Vietnam.
And trying to hedge a "we lost in Vietnam" slip and slide assail has no more veracity
here than it had in 1975.
The Taliban are not an invading military force. The struggle as it is has been one of
internal forces and players sharing the land and never having been but various communities
that fought, lived and negotiated agreements all nearly all of the countries history, unlike
Vietnam which has almost entire history had a North/South division.
We are going to have foreign restaurants regardless, but interventions just invite more of
them.
Quit calling the Kabul regime a "client". It's a puppet. The minute US forces leave
Afghanistan, the puppet government in Kabul will fall. Don't be surprised if it collapses
before the last US transport has its landing gear all the way up. Notwithstanding 2., yes,
it's over. Time to pack up and move on. However, Trump can't do that.
a. If Trump were to order a withdrawal from Afghanistan, his political opponents would
pounce. Expect lots of cries of "Putin puppet", angry denunciations of "Who lost
Afghanistan?" and heart-rending images depicting the fates of suffering girls. Not to mention
the grisly fates those persons so foolish as to cooperate with the United States.
Let us not kid ourselves - some of these images will in fact be genuine.
Also, Sunni Islamicists will be emboldened. It took some 18 years, but in the end, they
sent the Americans home packing.
No matter how you spin it, they won and we lost. Yes, the much hyped and much bloated
United States military was unable to defeat some medieval farmers in flip flops, who cannot
boast so much as a Piper Cub to their name, much less a drone or a cluster bomb.
If Trump had really wanted to leave Afghanistan, the time to do it was when he first
entered office. Blame his predecessors and wash his hands of the situation while the
political price was at its lowest. But Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated. He
listened to the generals, and the price of leaving has only risen and will only keep
rising.
b. They aren't much good for anything but staging, but Trump wants those Afghan outposts
for the war on Iran that his Saudi owners and Israeli masters so crave.
Of course, eighteen odd years and countless dollars, only to be defeated by peasants
without a single fighter jet or drone is not exactly great PR for the folks trying to
convince us that they really can win this time, why, Iran will be a walk in the park!
Trump is an imbecile, of course, but he is doing about the only thing he can do in
Afghanistan, which is, to try and maintain a semblance of control over major population
centers and pretend we're not losing.
All the Democrats should be on the bandwagon for withdrawal yesterday because Trump's October
Surprise could be announcing peace in our time and getting the hell out. It is a promise he
can actually keep. It is not like he is getting his wall.
'Does he want to get credit for extricating the U.S., finally, from an unpopular war? Or does
he not want to see a foreign capital fall on his watch?'
Any politician with sense knows that the American public could not care less about the
fall of Kabul (what's a kabul?). That's the American people. Campaign contributions from the
MIC is a different matter.
Trump has become, himself, part of "the Blob." By hiring Pompeo and Bolton to head his
foreign policy team he has abandoned any pretense of being an anti-war pro-restraint
president. He's gone full neo-con and it's long past time conservatives stop pretending he
hasn't.
Who gets to decide how many "refugees" the US will get from Afghanistan? Some of us would
gladly forgo all these wonderful new restaurants to protect our communities from yet another
"refugee" surge.
"... As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with. And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of the population eventually fall on their own sword. ..."
"... And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with Iran and Islamic state jihadists.) ..."
"... So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role. ..."
"... It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed. ..."
"... So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite). ..."
"... The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how much money to bribe top officials. ..."
"... As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR. ..."
"... The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't care less about regular citizens and their sufferings. ..."
"... BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say. ..."
"... BTW few republics in former USSR space managed to achieve the standard of living equal to the best years of the USSR (early 80th I think) See https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf ..."
"... Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe. ..."
"... Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is corruptible and can eventually change sides. ..."
"... But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie" state. ..."
This is a very complex issue. And I do not pretend that I am right, but I think Brad is way too superficial to be taken seriously.
IMHO it was neoliberalism that won the cold war. That means that the key neoliberal "scholars" like Friedman and Hayek and
other intellectual prostitutes of financial oligarchy who helped to restore their power. Certain democratic politicians like Carter
also were the major figures. Carter actually started neoliberalization of the USA, continued by Reagan,
Former Trotskyites starting from Burnham which later became known as neoconservatives also deserve to be mentioned.
It is also questionable that the USA explicitly won the cold war. Paradoxically the other victim of the global neoliberal revolution
was the USA, the lower 90% of the USA population to be exact.
So there was no winners other the financial oligarchy (the transnational class.)
As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with.
And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of
the population eventually fall on their own sword.
And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level
of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with
Iran and Islamic state jihadists.)
The degeneration started with the death of the last charismatic leader (Stalin) and the passing of the generation which remembers
that actual warts of capitalism and could relate them to the "Soviet socialism" solutions.
So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to
produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the
theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role.
With bolshevism as the official religion, which can't be questioned, the society was way too rigid and suppressed "entrepreneurial
initiative" (which leads to enrichment of particular individuals, but also to the benefits to the society as whole), to the extent
that was counterproductive. The level of dogmatism in this area was probably as close to the medieval position of Roman Catholic
Church as we can get; in this sense it was only national that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became a pope John Paul II -- he was very
well prepared indeed ;-).
It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level
of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created
the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed.
So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects
the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite).
The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how
much money to bribe top officials.
As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And
the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of
Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and
by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive
efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR.
Explosion of far right nationalist sentiments without "Countervailing ideology" as Bolshevism was not taken seriously anymore
was the key factor that led to the dissolution of the USSR.
Essentially national movements allied with Germany that were defeated during WWII became the winners.
The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal
West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't
care less about regular citizens and their sufferings.
And the backlash created conditions for Putin coming to power.
BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably
by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of
Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say.
The majority of the xUSSR space countries have now dismal standard of living and slided into Latin American level of inequality
and corruption (not without help of the USA).
Several have civil wars in the period since getting independence, which further depressed the standard living. Most deindustrialize.
Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse
of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe.
Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion
to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is
corruptible and can eventually change sides.
But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism
is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie"
state.
So in the worst case it is the USA which might follow the path of the USSR and eventually disintegrate under the pressure of
internal nationalist sentiments. Such a victor...
Even now there are some visible difference between former Confederacy states and other states on the issues such as immigration
and federal redistributive programs.
If this not of the Biden run, I do not know what can be. He now has an albatross abound his neck in the form of interference
in Ukrainian criminal investigation to save his corrupt to the core narcoaddict son. Only the raw power of neoliberal MSM
to suppress any information that does not fit their agenda is keeping him in the race.
But a more important fact that he was criminally involved in EuroMaydan (at the cost to the USA taxpayers around five billions) is swiped under the carpet. And will never be discussed
along with criminality of Obama and Nuland.
As somebody put it "with considerable forethought [neoliberal MSM] are attempting to create a nation of morons who will
faithfully go out and buy this or that product, vote for this or that candidate and faithfully work for their employers for as low a
wage as possible."
For days we've been treated to MSM insinuations that President Trump may have betrayed the United States after a whistleblower
lodged an 'urgent' complaint about something Trump promised another world leader - the details of which the White House has refused
to share.
Here's the scandal; It appears that Trump, may have made promises to newly minted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - very
likely involving an effort to convince Ukraine to reopen its investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter, after Biden strongarmed
Ukraine's prior government into firing its top prosecutor - something Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have pursued for months
. There are also unsupported rumors that Trump threatened to withhold $250 million in aid to help Ukraine fight Russian-backed separatists.
And while the MSM and Congressional Democrats are starting to focus on the sitting US president having a political opponent investigated,
The New
York Times admits that nothing Trump did would have been illegal , as "while Mr. Trump may have discussed intelligence activities
with the foreign leader, he enjoys broad power as president to declassify intelligence secrets, order the intelligence community
to act and otherwise direct the conduct of foreign policy as he sees fit."
Moreover, here's why Trump and Giuliani are going to dig their heels in; last year Biden openly bragged about threatening to hurl
Ukraine into bankruptcy as Vice President if they didn't fire their top prosecutor , Viktor Shokin - who was leading a wide-ranging
corruption investigation into a natural gas firm whose board Hunter Biden sat on.
In his own words, with video cameras rolling,
Biden described
how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in
U.S. loan guarantees , sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn't immediately fire Prosecutor General
Viktor Shokin. -
The Hill
"I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them
and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the
conversation with Poroshenko.
" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired . And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council on
Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat.
In short, there's both smoke and fire here - and what's left of Biden's 2020 bid for president may be the largest casualty of
the entire whistleblower scandal.
And by the transitive properties of the Obama administration 'vetting' Trump by sending spies into his campaign, Trump can simply
say he was protecting America from someone who may have used his position of power to directly benefit his own family at the expense
of justice.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, are acting as if they've found the holy grail of taking Trump down. On Thursday, the House
Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) interviewed inspector general Michael Atkinson, with whom the whistleblower
lodged their complaint - however despite three hours of testimony, he repeatedly declined to discuss the content of the complaint
.
Following the session, Schiff gave an angry speech - demanding that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire share
the complaint , and calling the decision to withhold it "unprecedented."
"We cannot get an answer to the question about whether the White House is also involved in preventing this information from coming
to Congress," said Schiff, adding "We're determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is to make sure
that the national security is protected."
According to Schiff, someone "is trying to manipulate the system to keep information about an urgent matter from the Congress
There certainly are a lot of indications that it was someone at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence," according
to the
Washington Post .
On thursday, Trump denied doing anything improper - tweeting " Virtually anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand
that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself. "
"Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on
such a potentially 'heavily populated' call. "
Giuliani, meanwhile, went on CNN with Chris Cuomo Thursday to defend his discussions with Ukraine about investigating alleged election
interference in the 2016 election to the benefit of Hillary Clinton conducted by Ukraine's previous government. According to Giuliani,
Biden's dealings in Ukraine were 'tangential' to the 2016 election interference question - in which a Ukrainian court ruled that
government officials meddled
for Hillary in 2016 by releasing details of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's 'Black Book' to Clinton campaign staffer Alexandra
Chalupa.
And so - what the MSM doesn't appear to understand is that President Trump asking Ukraine to investigate Biden over something
with legitimate underpinnings.
Which - of course, may lead to the Bidens'
adventures in China , which Giuliani referred to in his CNN interview. And just like his
Ukraine scandal
, it involves actions which may have helped his son Hunter - who was making hand over fist in both countries.
Journalist Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now
Secret Empires discovered
that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's
Journalist Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now
Secret Empires discovered
that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's
firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5
billion
Meanwhile, speculation is rampant over what this hornet's nest means for all involved...
The latest intell hit on Trump tells me that the deep-state swamp rats are in a panic over the Ukrainian/Obama admin collusion
about to be outed in the IG report. They're also freaked out over Biden's shady Ukrainian deals with his kid.
Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which
expanded to $1.5 billion
Lets clarify this a bit. The 1 billion came from the RED CHINESE ARMY, lets call spade a spade here. And why? To buy into (invest
in ) DARPA related contractors. The RED CHINESE NAVY was so impressed with little sonny's performance (meaning daddy's help),
that they handed over an additions 500,000.
Without daddy's influence as VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and that FREE PLANE RIDE on Air Force TWO with daddy holding
sonny's little hand, little sonny never would have gotten past the ticket booth.
"House Democrats are also looking into whether Giuliani flew to Ukraine to 'encourage' them to investigate Hunter Biden and
his involvement with Burisma."
LOL looking into someone looking into a crime that may have been committed by a Democrat... they're some big brained individuals
these dummycrats.
Putting him in the hot seat would be to ask why he sponsored a coup and backed a neo Nazi party. When he starts to lie, put
up images of the party he back wearing inverted Das Reich arm bands and flying flags. Now that would be real journalism.
The Bidens show precisely that power corrupts. They both need to be investigated and then jailed. To the countries of the world
that depend on the USA for any kind of help, they had to deal with Joe 'what's in-it-for-me' Biden? What a disgrace for America.
I think every sitting President, Vice President, senator, and representative needs a yearly lie-detector test that asks but
one question: "did you do anything in your official duties that personally benefited you or your family?"
Didn't you ever wonder how so many senators and representatives end up multi-millionaires after a couple terms in office?
Why the fuuk do we have have to put up with this jackass. All the talk on cable, etc, is all ********. Trump is a fuuking crook,
and Barr is his bag man,. He has surrounded hinmself with toadies, cowards , incompetents and a trash family. Rise up, call your
representatives, March on DC get this crook out of office.
Call anyone you can think of, challenge them to overcome their cowardice, including members of congress, cabinet, your governor
Same could be said for the Democrats and all their Russian collusion lies and Beto wants to FORCE people to sell their weapons
to the government, right.......
" ...The complaint <against the president> involved communications with a foreign leader and a "promise" that Trump made, which
was so alarming that a U.S. intelligence official <who monitored Trumps call> who had worked at the White House went to the inspector
general of the intelligence community, two former U.S. officials said. ..."
What this tells:
1. If president Trump is monitored this way our spooks know the number of hairs in our crotches...
2. If we convicted on promises most in congress would be hung by the neck til dead for treason for not following the constitution...
Anybody that thinks that Trump, having had Roy Cohn as his mentor, and working in cut-throat NY real estate for years, AND
having dealt with political snakes for many years..would allow himself to be taped saying something on a call that he KNOWS the
Intel Community is listening in, is not paying attention.
This will backfire on the Dems and the media. Trump set them all up again..
My guess is the Dems will be hounding the IC for the complaint, will call Barr and the DNI in an investigation ran live on
CNN and MSNBC..that will show how corrupt Biden was. Everytime you hear Alexandra Chalupa's name come up, look for the MSM to
go ballistic..she is the tell in this one also. It cannot be allowed for the plebes to find out how Manafort was setup, Ukraine
assisted the DNC in the fake Russian election interference farce..hey, guess what, guess who is an ardent Ukraininan nationalist?
The head of Crowdstrike. Chalupa and Alparovich, the names that will bring down more dirty Dems than anyone in history.
For days we've been treated to MSM insinuations that President Trump may have betrayed the United States
Trump is a traitor, but he does not work for either Ukraine nor Russia but instead he works for Israel first and foremost!
He even admits it himself. Lol he doesn't even give a shite when Israel taps his phone :)
House Democrats are also looking into whether Giuliani flew to Ukraine to 'encourage' them to investigate Hunter Biden and
his involvement with Burisma.
This bunch of filthy swine should be looking up each others asses for answers. Actually the Ukrainians have been screaming
for over a year at the DOJ and FBI to take the evidence they have. But the rotten to the core Democrat socialist lefties wanted
to block it.
If this not of the Biden run, I do not know what can be. He now has an albatross abound his neck in the form of interference
in Ukrainian criminal investigation to save his corrupt to the core narcoaddict son. Only the raw power of neoliberal MSM
to suppress any information that does not fit their agenda is keeping him in the race.
But a more important fact that he was criminally involved in EuroMaydan (at the cost to the USA taxpayers around five billions) is swiped under the carpet. And will never be discussed
along with criminality of Obama and Nuland.
As somebody put it "with considerable forethought [neoliberal MSM] are attempting to create a nation of morons who will
faithfully go out and buy this or that product, vote for this or that candidate and faithfully work for their employers for as low a
wage as possible."
For days we've been treated to MSM insinuations that President Trump may have betrayed the United States after a whistleblower
lodged an 'urgent' complaint about something Trump promised another world leader - the details of which the White House has refused
to share.
Here's the scandal; It appears that Trump, may have made promises to newly minted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - very
likely involving an effort to convince Ukraine to reopen its investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter, after Biden strongarmed
Ukraine's prior government into firing its top prosecutor - something Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani have pursued for months
. There are also unsupported rumors that Trump threatened to withhold $250 million in aid to help Ukraine fight Russian-backed separatists.
And while the MSM and Congressional Democrats are starting to focus on the sitting US president having a political opponent investigated,
The New
York Times admits that nothing Trump did would have been illegal , as "while Mr. Trump may have discussed intelligence activities
with the foreign leader, he enjoys broad power as president to declassify intelligence secrets, order the intelligence community
to act and otherwise direct the conduct of foreign policy as he sees fit."
Moreover, here's why Trump and Giuliani are going to dig their heels in; last year Biden openly bragged about threatening to hurl
Ukraine into bankruptcy as Vice President if they didn't fire their top prosecutor , Viktor Shokin - who was leading a wide-ranging
corruption investigation into a natural gas firm whose board Hunter Biden sat on.
In his own words, with video cameras rolling,
Biden described
how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in
U.S. loan guarantees , sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn't immediately fire Prosecutor General
Viktor Shokin. -
The Hill
"I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them
and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the
conversation with Poroshenko.
" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired . And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council on
Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat.
In short, there's both smoke and fire here - and what's left of Biden's 2020 bid for president may be the largest casualty of
the entire whistleblower scandal.
And by the transitive properties of the Obama administration 'vetting' Trump by sending spies into his campaign, Trump can simply
say he was protecting America from someone who may have used his position of power to directly benefit his own family at the expense
of justice.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, are acting as if they've found the holy grail of taking Trump down. On Thursday, the House
Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) interviewed inspector general Michael Atkinson, with whom the whistleblower
lodged their complaint - however despite three hours of testimony, he repeatedly declined to discuss the content of the complaint
.
Following the session, Schiff gave an angry speech - demanding that acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire share
the complaint , and calling the decision to withhold it "unprecedented."
"We cannot get an answer to the question about whether the White House is also involved in preventing this information from coming
to Congress," said Schiff, adding "We're determined to do everything we can to determine what this urgent concern is to make sure
that the national security is protected."
According to Schiff, someone "is trying to manipulate the system to keep information about an urgent matter from the Congress
There certainly are a lot of indications that it was someone at a higher pay grade than the director of national intelligence," according
to the
Washington Post .
On thursday, Trump denied doing anything improper - tweeting " Virtually anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand
that there may be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from the other country itself. "
"Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on
such a potentially 'heavily populated' call. "
Giuliani, meanwhile, went on CNN with Chris Cuomo Thursday to defend his discussions with Ukraine about investigating alleged election
interference in the 2016 election to the benefit of Hillary Clinton conducted by Ukraine's previous government. According to Giuliani,
Biden's dealings in Ukraine were 'tangential' to the 2016 election interference question - in which a Ukrainian court ruled that
government officials meddled
for Hillary in 2016 by releasing details of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's 'Black Book' to Clinton campaign staffer Alexandra
Chalupa.
And so - what the MSM doesn't appear to understand is that President Trump asking Ukraine to investigate Biden over something
with legitimate underpinnings.
Which - of course, may lead to the Bidens'
adventures in China , which Giuliani referred to in his CNN interview. And just like his
Ukraine scandal
, it involves actions which may have helped his son Hunter - who was making hand over fist in both countries.
Journalist Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now
Secret Empires discovered
that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's
Journalist Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now
Secret Empires discovered
that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's
firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5
billion
Meanwhile, speculation is rampant over what this hornet's nest means for all involved...
The latest intell hit on Trump tells me that the deep-state swamp rats are in a panic over the Ukrainian/Obama admin collusion
about to be outed in the IG report. They're also freaked out over Biden's shady Ukrainian deals with his kid.
Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which
expanded to $1.5 billion
Lets clarify this a bit. The 1 billion came from the RED CHINESE ARMY, lets call spade a spade here. And why? To buy into (invest
in ) DARPA related contractors. The RED CHINESE NAVY was so impressed with little sonny's performance (meaning daddy's help),
that they handed over an additions 500,000.
Without daddy's influence as VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and that FREE PLANE RIDE on Air Force TWO with daddy holding
sonny's little hand, little sonny never would have gotten past the ticket booth.
"House Democrats are also looking into whether Giuliani flew to Ukraine to 'encourage' them to investigate Hunter Biden and
his involvement with Burisma."
LOL looking into someone looking into a crime that may have been committed by a Democrat... they're some big brained individuals
these dummycrats.
Putting him in the hot seat would be to ask why he sponsored a coup and backed a neo Nazi party. When he starts to lie, put
up images of the party he back wearing inverted Das Reich arm bands and flying flags. Now that would be real journalism.
The Bidens show precisely that power corrupts. They both need to be investigated and then jailed. To the countries of the world
that depend on the USA for any kind of help, they had to deal with Joe 'what's in-it-for-me' Biden? What a disgrace for America.
I think every sitting President, Vice President, senator, and representative needs a yearly lie-detector test that asks but
one question: "did you do anything in your official duties that personally benefited you or your family?"
Didn't you ever wonder how so many senators and representatives end up multi-millionaires after a couple terms in office?
Why the fuuk do we have have to put up with this jackass. All the talk on cable, etc, is all ********. Trump is a fuuking crook,
and Barr is his bag man,. He has surrounded hinmself with toadies, cowards , incompetents and a trash family. Rise up, call your
representatives, March on DC get this crook out of office.
Call anyone you can think of, challenge them to overcome their cowardice, including members of congress, cabinet, your governor
Same could be said for the Democrats and all their Russian collusion lies and Beto wants to FORCE people to sell their weapons
to the government, right.......
" ...The complaint <against the president> involved communications with a foreign leader and a "promise" that Trump made, which
was so alarming that a U.S. intelligence official <who monitored Trumps call> who had worked at the White House went to the inspector
general of the intelligence community, two former U.S. officials said. ..."
What this tells:
1. If president Trump is monitored this way our spooks know the number of hairs in our crotches...
2. If we convicted on promises most in congress would be hung by the neck til dead for treason for not following the constitution...
Anybody that thinks that Trump, having had Roy Cohn as his mentor, and working in cut-throat NY real estate for years, AND
having dealt with political snakes for many years..would allow himself to be taped saying something on a call that he KNOWS the
Intel Community is listening in, is not paying attention.
This will backfire on the Dems and the media. Trump set them all up again..
My guess is the Dems will be hounding the IC for the complaint, will call Barr and the DNI in an investigation ran live on
CNN and MSNBC..that will show how corrupt Biden was. Everytime you hear Alexandra Chalupa's name come up, look for the MSM to
go ballistic..she is the tell in this one also. It cannot be allowed for the plebes to find out how Manafort was setup, Ukraine
assisted the DNC in the fake Russian election interference farce..hey, guess what, guess who is an ardent Ukraininan nationalist?
The head of Crowdstrike. Chalupa and Alparovich, the names that will bring down more dirty Dems than anyone in history.
For days we've been treated to MSM insinuations that President Trump may have betrayed the United States
Trump is a traitor, but he does not work for either Ukraine nor Russia but instead he works for Israel first and foremost!
He even admits it himself. Lol he doesn't even give a shite when Israel taps his phone :)
House Democrats are also looking into whether Giuliani flew to Ukraine to 'encourage' them to investigate Hunter Biden and
his involvement with Burisma.
This bunch of filthy swine should be looking up each others asses for answers. Actually the Ukrainians have been screaming
for over a year at the DOJ and FBI to take the evidence they have. But the rotten to the core Democrat socialist lefties wanted
to block it.
"... American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. ..."
"... A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some ..."
"... U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is: ..."
"... Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be. ..."
"... Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. ..."
"... The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. ..."
"... Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense. ..."
"... any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it. ..."
"... Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. ..."
"... Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment. ..."
"... I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power. ..."
"... Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion. ..."
"... What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure. ..."
"... We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt. ..."
"... I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets. ..."
"... The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged. ..."
"... It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting. ..."
"... I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries. ..."
"... The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. ..."
Stephen Wertheim explains
what is required to bring an end to unnecessary and open-ended U.S. wars overseas:
American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe.
Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do
what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace.
Any government that presumes to be the world's hegemon will be fighting somewhere almost all of the time, because its political
leaders will see everything around the world as their business and it will see every manageable threat as a challenge to their "leadership."
A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire
itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some.
U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at
the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to
use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is:
Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military
force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be.
Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and
intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts.
Our government's frenetic interventionism and meddling for the last thirty years hasn't made our country the slightest bit more secure,
but it has sown chaos and instability across at least two continents. Wertheim continues:
Continued gains by the Taliban, 18 years after the United States initially toppled it, suggest a different principle: The profligate
deployment of force creates new and unnecessary objectives more than it realizes existing and worthy ones.
The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the
idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous
goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. Constant warfare achieves nothing except to provide an excuse
for more of the same. The longer that a war drags on, one would think that it should become easier to bring it to an end, but we
have seen that it becomes harder for both political and military leaders to give up on an unwinnable conflict when it has become
an almost permanent part of our foreign policy. For many policymakers and pundits, what matters is that the U.S. not be perceived
as losing, and so our military keeps fighting without an end in sight for the sake of this "not losing."
Wertheim adds:
Despite Mr. Trump's rhetoric about ending endless wars, the president insists that "our military dominance must be unquestioned"
-- even though no one believes he has a strategy to use power or a theory to bring peace. Armed domination has become an end in
itself.
Seeking to maintain this dominance is ultimately unsustainable, and as it becomes more expensive and less popular it will also
become increasingly dangerous as we find ourselves confronted with even more capable adversaries. For the last thirty years, the
U.S. has been fortunate to be secure and prosperous enough that it could indulge in decades of fruitless militarism, but that luck
won't hold forever. It is far better if the U.S. give up on hegemony and the militarism that goes with it on our terms.
Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership,
resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense.
Truth be told, as your article states, any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is
considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it.
It makes us less safe. Isolationism did not cause 9/11. In the 90's when we were being attacked by Al Qaeda we were too distracted
dancing on Russia's bones to pay any attention to them. While Al Qaeda was attacking our troops and blowing up our buildings we
were bombing Serbia, expanding NATO and reelecting Yeltsin and sticking it to Iran.
It goes beyond that. Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan.
We later abandoned them when the job was done: a pack hound we trained, pushed to fight, then left in the forest abandoned and
starved. Then we wonder why it came back growling.
Isolationism may not be the most effective solution to things, but I'll admit a LOT of pain, on ourselves and others, would've
never happened if we took that policy.
Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only
from reward and punishment.
So far, they only have been rewarded for their crimes.
While I think the economic basis of the Soviet Union was faulty, and it had lost the popular support it might have had in early
days, the USSR's military aggression, particularly in Afghanistan, was a major precipitating factor in its downfall. It would
have eventually crumbled, I believe, anyway, but had they taken a less aggressive stance I think they would have lasted several
decades longer.
Is it really in our hands to actually disengage though? Is this politically feasible?
How does this work? The US gets up one day and says "We're pulling all of our troops out of Saudi and SK. No more funding for
Israel! No bolstering the pencil-thin government of Afghanistan. All naval bases abroad will be shut down. Longstanding alliances
and interests be damned!"
I sympathize very strongly with the notion that we must use military force wisely and with restraint, and perhaps even that
the post-WW2 expansion abroad was a mistake, but I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without
destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power.
This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not, and barring some military or economic disaster that forces a strategic
realignment or retreat (like WW2 did for the old European powers) I don't know how you practically pull back. Empires have
a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion.
What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our
debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure.
We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending
and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt.
Sure. That doesn't mean American withdrawal would create less instability in toto. Maybe it would. Who knows? We mortals can only
take counterfactuals so far.
I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/
hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets.
The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled
congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged.
It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The
money and power is too corrupting.
Maybe, just maybe, however, as we are at $22 trillion in debt and counting (just saw a total tab for F-35 of $1.5 trillion)
that the money will run out, and zero interest rate financing is not all that awesome, this unsustainable mindlessness will be
curtailed or even better, changed.
It's not really hegemony. Old-fashioned empires took over territory in order to gain resources and labor. We haven't done that
since 1920. Especially since 1990 we've been making war purely to destroy and obliterate. When our war is done there's nothing
left to dominate or own.
Domestically we've been using politics and media and controlled culture to do the same thing. Create "terrorists" and "extremists"
on "two" "sides", set them loose, enjoy the resulting chaos. Chaos is the declared goal, and it's been working beautifully for
70 years.
China is expanding empire in Africa and Asia the old-fashioned way, improving farms and factories in order to have exclusive
purchase of their output.
Could not have said it better. "On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own
hands, I hope. But chanches are slim, history shows empires must fall hard and break a leg or so first before anything changes.
Iran, Saudi-arabia, the greater ME, China, the trade wars and the world economy are coming together for a perfect storm it seems.
The problem with US hegemony is Israel. Look around the world. Neither Japan nor South Korea nor Vietnam nor Philippines nor India
nor Indonesia nor Australia (the same can be said for South and Central America, Mexico, Canada and Europe) require a significant
US presence.
None of them are asking for a greater presence in their country (except Poland) while being perfectly happy with
our alliance, joint defense, trade, intelligence and technology sharing.
It is only Israel and Saudi Arabia which are constantly pushing the US into middle eastern wars and quagmires that we have
no national interest. Trump sees the plain truth that the US is in jeopardy of losing its manufacturing and its technological
lead to China. If we (US) dont start to rebuild our infrastructure, our defense, our cities, our communities, our manufacturing,
our educational system then our nation is going to follow California into a 3rd world totalitarian state dominated by democratic
voting immigrants whose only affiliation to our country and our constitutional republic is a welfare check, free govt programs
and incestuous govt contracts which funnel govt dollars into the re-election PACs of democratic / liberal elected officials.
The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking.
Defeat is now when war's income streams end. The only wars that are lost, are those that end, defeating the winning of war profits.
War, as a financial success story, has become an end in itself, and an empire that looks for more to wage means some mighty big
wages with more profit opportunities. Victory is to be avoided - red ink being spilled through peace detestable - and blood spilled
profitably to be encouraged.
"... The United States also cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials seemingly can't even decide which faction it wants to back. Washington's official policy continues to support the GNA, which the United Nations recognizes as the country's legitimate government -- even though its writ extends to little territory beyond the Tripoli metropolitan area. President Donald Trump, however, had an extremely cordial, lengthy telephone conversation in April with Haftar and appeared impressed with Haftar's professed determination to combat terrorist groups and bring order and unity to Libya. Neither Libyan faction now seems certain about Washington's stance. ..."
"... One poster child for such continuing arrogance is Samantha Power, an influential national security council staffer in 2011 and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In her new book, The Education of an Idealist , Power takes no responsibility whatever for the Libya debacle. Indeed, flippant might be too generous a term for her treatment of the episode. "We could hardly expect to have a crystal ball when it came to accurately predicting outcomes in places where the culture was not our own," she contends. American Conservative analyst Daniel Larison correctly excoriates her argument as "a pathetic attempt by Power to deny responsibility for the effects of a war she backed by shrugging her shoulders and pleading ignorance. If Libyan culture was so opaque and hard for the Obama administration to understand, they should never have taken sides in an internal conflict there. If the 'culture was not our own' and they couldn't anticipate what was going to happen because of that, then how arrogant must the policymakers who argued in favor of intervention have been?" ..."
"... Obama and company not only destroyed Libya, they also helped to unleash a wave of jihadis who are terrorizing vast swaths of west Africa, especially Mali and Burkina Faso. Their stupidity and lack of foresight is mind-boggling! ..."
"... I understand the role which the Obama administration played in getting the Libyan intervention started. However the major destruction of Libya's fragile structure of governance under Qaddafi was done by the French, Brits, and Italians. ..."
The United States cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials can't seem to
decide which faction they want to back.
The Western-created disaster in Libya continues to grow worse. Fighting between Field
Marshal Khalifa Haftar's so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) and the even more misnamed
Government of National Accord (GNA) has intensified in and around Tripoli. The LNA boasted on
September 11 that its forces had routed troops of the Sarraj militia, a GNA ally, killing
about two hundred of them. That total may be exaggerated, but there is no doubt that the
situation has become increasingly violent and
chaotic in Tripoli and other portions of Libya, with innocent civilians bearing the brunt
of the suffering.
An article in Bloomberg News provides a
succinct account of the poisonous fruits of the U.S.-led "humanitarian" military
intervention in 2011. "Libya is enduring its worst violence since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster
of Muammar el-Qaddafi, which ushered in years of instability that allowed Islamist radicals to
thrive and turned the country into a hub for migrants destined to Europe. Haftar had launched
the war as the United Nations was laying the ground for a political conference to unite the
country. It is now more divided than ever." The country has become the plaything not only of
rival domestic factions but major
Middle East powers , including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab
Emirates. Those regimes are waging a ruthless geopolitical competition, providing arms and in
some cases even launching airstrikes on behalf of their preferred clients.
The United States also cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials seemingly
can't even decide which faction it wants to back. Washington's official policy continues to
support the GNA, which the United Nations recognizes as the country's legitimate government
-- even though its writ extends to little territory beyond the Tripoli metropolitan area.
President Donald Trump, however, had an extremely cordial, lengthy telephone conversation in
April with Haftar and
appeared impressed with Haftar's professed determination to combat terrorist groups and
bring order and unity to Libya. Neither Libyan faction now seems certain about Washington's
stance.
Given the appalling aftermath of the original U.S.-led intervention, one might hope that
advocates of an activist policy would be chastened and back away from further meddling in that
unfortunate country. Yet, that is not the case. Neither the Trump administration nor the
humanitarian crusaders in Barack Obama's administration who caused the calamity in the first
place seem inclined to advocate a more cautious, restrained U.S. policy.
One poster child for such continuing arrogance is Samantha Power, an influential
national security council staffer in 2011 and later U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In
her new book, The Education of an
Idealist , Power takes no responsibility whatever for the Libya debacle. Indeed,
flippant might be too generous a term for her treatment of the episode. "We could hardly expect
to have a crystal ball when it came to accurately predicting outcomes in places where the
culture was not our own," she contends. American Conservative analyst Daniel Larison
correctly
excoriates her argument as "a pathetic attempt by Power to deny responsibility for the
effects of a war she backed by shrugging her shoulders and pleading ignorance. If Libyan
culture was so opaque and hard for the Obama administration to understand, they should never
have taken sides in an internal conflict there. If the 'culture was not our own' and they
couldn't anticipate what was going to happen because of that, then how arrogant must the
policymakers who argued in favor of intervention have been?"
The answer to Larison's rhetorical question is "extraordinarily arrogant." It is not as
though prudent foreign-policy experts didn't warn Power and her colleagues about the probable
consequences of intervening in a volatile, fragile country like Libya. Indeed, as Robert Gates,
Obama's secretary of defense, confirms in his memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War , the Obama
administration itself was deeply divided about the advisability of intervention. The Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Vice President Joe Biden, and Gates were opposed. Among the most outspoken
proponents of action were Power and her mentor, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gates notes
further that Obama was deeply torn, later telling his secretary of defense that the decision
was a "51 to 49" call.
The existence of a sharp internal division is sufficient evidence by itself that Power's
attempt to absolve herself and other humanitarian crusaders of responsibility for the
subsequent tragedy is without merit. Indeed, it has even less credibility than Pontius Pilate's
infamous effort to evade guilt. They were warned of the probable outcome, yet they chose to
disregard those warnings.
Power, Clinton, Obama and other proponents of ousting Qaddafi turned Libya into a chaotic
Somalia on the Mediterranean, and the blood of innocents shed since 2011 is on their hands.
Given the stark split within the president's national security team, the Libya intervention was
especially reckless and unjustified. The default option in such a case should have been against
intervention, not plunging ahead.
The Trump administration should learn from the blunders of its predecessor and resist any
temptation to meddle further. America does not have a dog in the ongoing fight between Haftar
and the GNA, and we should simply accept whatever outcome emerges. Washington's arrogant
interference has caused enough suffering in Libya already.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a
contributing editor at the National Interest , is the author of thirteen books and more than
eight hundred articles on international affairs. His latest book is NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur .
The outcome in Libya is what the intent was - chaos, per the Yinon plan. The side effect
of mass immigration to Europe was warned by Gaddafi! All was known, yet the destabilization
war continued.
Obama and company not only destroyed Libya, they also helped to unleash a wave of jihadis
who are terrorizing vast swaths of west Africa, especially Mali and Burkina Faso. Their
stupidity and lack of foresight is mind-boggling!
Libya was and still is the case of a civil war into which foreign powers have intervened.
The major parties of that war have always been the Tripolitanian West and the Cyrenaican
East. Whoever is on top considers the others to be the rebels. That is how the demise of
Qaddafi began. For him Benghazi was the rebel's nest which needed some cleaning. Nothing has
changed. Haftar is the new Qaddafi.
I understand the role which the Obama administration played in getting the Libyan
intervention started. However the major destruction of Libya's fragile structure of
governance under Qaddafi was done by the French, Brits, and Italians.
You can always make things worse. It is one thing that Trump and friends are good at.
They don't consider that a criticism either, since they want what the rest of us consider
worse -- more war, more enemies, more inequality in outcomes at home, more desperation at
home giving more power to the haves over the have-nots.
Mortimer Adler's "How to Read a Book" is a timeless classic that still applies to articles
produced for electronic consumption. One of Adler's primary admonitions was to consider the
author's expertise, credibility, and potential biases. With regard to this article, scrolling
down to the end reveals the author's association with the Koch Brother financed Cato
Institute. The Koch Brothers and their money have done more to destroy American democracy
than any foreign tyrant or Presidential folly.
And oh, by the way, what did the Neocons and the Vulcans of the W Administration do to the
entire Middle East other than create a contiguous geographic belt of Iranian Shiite influence
from Tehran to Beirut?
@b - "Iran has thereby plausible deniability when attacks like the recent one on Abquiq
happen. That Iran supplied drones with 1,500 kilometer reach to its allies in Yemen means
that its allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq and elsewhere have access to similar means."
I read the Tyler Rogoway WarZone article you linked to, and it was the first time I'd seen
the concept that Iran "has built a plausible deniability environment" for itself, but I think
Rogoway is missing a serious point. If Iran has such deniability, I don't think this exists
by contrivance. I think the truth of the situation has created such plausible deniability, if
in fact such a thing even exists, or if such a thing is even desired by Iran or any of its
allies.
I would like to offer a more nuanced view of the relationship between Iran and its allies.
Specifically regarding your view that Iran's allies are "willing to act on Iran's behalf
should the need arise."
I get the impression that it's more a case that all these allies see themselves in the
same existential position, and have developed, and are continuing to refine, an "all for one
and one for all" approach to the regional security of all the sovereign allies.
Sharmine Narwani explained this very thing in her recent interview with Ross Ashcroft,
where she said that if one of the allies is attacked by the US or Israel, all of the allies
will join in immediately and without reservation, because for each of them it is the same
existential threat: What's the real plan
with Iran?
And the interview you link to by Nader Talebzadeh with IRGC General Amir Ali Hajizadeh
concludes with the general's statement that "...in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen;
now Muslims are all a coalition standing next to each other". How likely is the
possibility of a military conflict between Iran and the US?
~~
I'm not trying to split hairs here, but it strikes me as important to note that these
countries have moved on from being isolated, and are in fact in a coalition, albeit still
coalescing. Their militaries have trained together and established joint command centers in
recent times.
As the general explained, when the threat of attack by the US seemed imminent - at the
time Iran downed the drone - Iran was fully prepared to attack and destroy several US bases.
One hopes that the Pentagon can understand that any attack on one of these members of the
coalition will be met with a coordinated and unreserved response by all allies.
Given such a geopolitical situation now throughout the region, the concept of Iran's
having "plausible deniability" for other countries to act on its behalf seems too narrow a
view. And this is why all the fevered discussion about who "owns" the Houthi strike is
missing the main strategic point that the whole region "owns" it - and why it is sufficient
that the Houthi did in fact act alone, but not alone, because none of these forces is now
alone. It is, one gathers, a brotherly coalition that has formed and is becoming yet
stronger
So it need not be the case that everything flows from Iran, or revolves around Iran. The
whole region is now the steel trap not to step on.
Iran has incentives to increase the chance of a Democrat administration, bearing in mind the
great deal they got from the last one and the lack of anything they can expect from Trump Term
Two.
You have several thousand soldiers in Iraq and Syria. These countries have large proxy
forces of Iran's allies in the form of Shia militias in Iraq and actual Iranian Quds Force
troops in Syria. These forces will be used to attack and kill our soldiers.
The Iranians have significant numbers of ballistic missiles which they have already said
will be used against our forces
The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Navy and the IRGC
Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed. In that
process the US Navy will loose men and ships.
In direct air attacks on Iran we are bound to lose aircraft and air crew.
The IRGC and its Quds Force will carry out terrorist attacks across the world.
Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge? Don't let the neocons like Pompeo sell you on war.
Make the intelligence people show you the evidence in detail. Make your own judgments.
pl
Vegetius,
re " Trump knows that he can't sell a war to the American people "
Are you sure? I am not.
Reflection, self criticism or self restraint are not exactly the big strengths of Trump.
He prefers solo acts (Emergency! Emergency!) and dislikes advice (especially if longer than 4
pages) and the advice of the sort " You're sure? If you do that the the shit will fly in
your face in an hour, Sir ".
A good number of the so called grownups who gave such advice were (gameshow style) fired,
sometimes by twitter.
Trump can order attacks and I don't expect much protest from Mark Esper and it depends on
the military (which likely will obey).
These so called grownups have been replaced by (then still) happy Bolton (likely, even
after being fired, still war happy) and applauders like Pompeo and his buddy Esper.
Israel could, if politically just a tad more insane, bomb Iran and thus invite the
inevitable retaliation. When that happens they'll cry for US aid, weapons and money because
they alone ~~~
(a) cannot defeat Iran (short of going nuclear) and ...
(b) Holocaust! We want weapons and money from Germany, too! ...
(c) they know that ...
(d) which does not lead in any way to Netanyahu showing signgs of self restraint or
reason.
Netanyahu just - it is (tight) election time - announced, in his sldedge hammer style
subtlety, that (he) Israel will annect the palestinian west jordan territory, making the
Plaestines an object in his election campaign.
IMO that idea is simply insane and invites more "troubles". But then, I didn't hear
anything like, say, Trump gvt protests against that (and why expect that from the dudes who
moved the US embassy to Jerusalem).
Vegetius,
as for Trump and Netanyahu ... policy debate ... I had that here in mind, which pretty speaks
for itself. And I thought Trumo is just running for office in the US. Alas, it is a Netanyaho
campaign poster from the current election:
I generously assume that things like that only happen because of the hard and hard
ly work of Kushner on his somewhat elusive but of course GIGANTIC and
INCREDIBLE Middle East peace plan.
Kushner is probably getting hard and hard ly supported by Ivanka who just said that
she inherited her moral compass from her father. Well ... congatulations ... I assume.
I disagree. Trump maybe the only person who could sell a war with Iran. What he has
cultivated is a rabid base that consists of sycophants on one extreme end and desperate
nationalists on the other. His base must stick with him...who else do they have?
The Left is indifferent to another war. Further depleting the quality stock of our
military will aid there agenda of international integration. A weaker US military will force
us to collaborate with the world community and not lead it is their thinking.
Need I trot out Goering's statement regarding selling a war once more?
Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a
farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back
to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor
in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after
all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple
matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a
Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the
matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can
declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are
intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy
does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we
could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies.
If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL
The 'ivestigations are a formality. The Saudis (with U.S. backing) are already saying that
the missiles were Iranian made and according to them, this proves that Iran fired them. The
Saudis are using the more judicious phrase 'behind the attack' but Pompeo is running with the
fired from Iran narrative.
How can we tell the difference between an actual Iranian manufactured missile vs one that
was manufactured in Yemen based on Iranian designs? We only have a few pictures Iranian
missiles unlike us, the Iranians don't toss them all over the place so we don't have any
physical pieces to compare them to.
Perhaps honest investigators could make a determination but even if they do exist they
will keep quiet while the bible thumping Pompeo brays and shamelessly lies as he is prone to
do.
These kinds of munition will leave hundreds of bits scattered all over their targets. I'm
waiting for the press conference with the best bits laid out on the tables.
I doubt that there will be any stencils saying 'Product of Iran', unless the paint smells
fresh.
1. I am still waiting to read some informed discussion concerning the *accuracy* of the
projectiles hitting their targets with uncanny precision from hundreds of miles away. What
does this say about the achievement of those pesky Eye-rainians? https://www.moonofalabama.org/images9/saudihit2.jpg
2. "The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Navy and the
IRGC Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed.:
Ahem, Which forces are utterly destroyed? With respect colonel, you are not thinking
straight. An army with supersonic land to sea missiles that are highly accurate will make
minced meat of any fool's ship that dare attack it. The lesson of the last few months is that
Iran is deadly serious about its position that if they cannot sell their oil, no one else
will be able to either. And if the likes of the relatively broadminded colonel have not yet
learned that lesson, then this can only mean that the escalation ladder will continue to be
climbed, rung by rung. Next rung: deep sea port of Yanbu, or, less likely, Ra's Tanura.
That's when the price of oil will really go through the roof and the Chinese (and possibly
one or two of the Europoodles) will start crying Uncle Scam. Nuff Sed.
It sounds like you are getting a little "help" with this. You statement about the result
of a naval confrontation in the Gulf reflects the 19th Century conception that "ships can't
fight forts." that has been many times exploded. You have never seen the amount of firepower
that would be unleashed on Iran from the air and sea. Would the US take casualties? Yes, but
you will be destroyed.
We will have to agree to disagree. But unless I am quite mistaken, the majority view if not
the consensus of informed up to date opinion holds that the surest sign that the US is
getting ready to attack Iran is that it is withdrawing all of its naval power out of the
Persian Gulf, where they would be sitting ducks.
Besides, I don't think it will ever come to that. Not to repeat myself, but taking out
either deep sea ports of Ra's Tanura and/ or Yanbu (on the Red Sea side) will render Saudi
oil exports null and void for the next six months. The havoc that will play with the price of
oil and consequently on oil futures and derivatives will be enough for any president and army
to have to worry about. But if the US would still be foolhardy enough to continue to want to
wage war (i.e. continue its strangulation of Iran, which it has been doing more or less for
the past 40 years), then the Yemeni siege would be broken and there would be a two-pronged
attack from the south and the north, whereby al-Qatif, the Shi'a region of Saudi Arabia where
all the oil and gas is located, will be liberated from their barbaric treatment at the hands
of the takfiri Saudi scum, which of course is completely enabled and only made possible by
the War Criminal Uncle Sam.
AFAIK the only "US naval power" currently is the Abraham Lincoln CSG and I haven't seen any
public info that it was in the Persian Gulf. Aside from the actual straits, I'm not sure of
your "sitting ducks" assertion. First they wouldn't be sitting, and second you have the
problem of a large volume of grey shipping that would complicate the targeting problem. Of
course with a reduced time-of-flight, that also reduces target position uncertainty.
Forts are stationary.
Nothing I have read implies that Iran has a lot of investment in stationary forts.
Millennium Challenge 2002, only the game cannot be restarted once the enemy does not behave
as one hopes. Unlike in scripted war simulations, Opfor can win.
I remember the amount of devastation that was unleashed on another "backwards nation"
Linebackers 1 - 20, battleship salvos chemical defoliants, the Phoenix program, napalm for
dessert.
And not to put to fine a point on it, but that benighted nation was oriental; Iran is a
Caucasian nation full of Caucasian type peoples.
Nothing about this situation is of any benefit to the USA.
We do not need Saudi oil, we do not need Israel to come to the defense of the USA here in
North America, we do not need to stick our dick into the hornet's nest and then wonder why
they sting and it hurts. How many times does Dumb have to win?
3. Also, I can't imagine this event as being a very welcome one for Israeli military
observers, the significance of which is not lost on them, unlike their US counterparts. If
Yemen/ Iran can put the Abqaiq processing plant out of commission for a few weeks, then
obviusly Hezbollah can do the same for the giant petrochemical complex at Haifa, as well as
Dimona, and the control tower at Ben Gurion Airport. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/239251
It was late at night when I wrote this. Yeah, Right. the Iranians could send their massive
ground force into Syria where it would be chewed up by US and Israeli air. Alternatively they
could invade Saudi arabia.
Thank you for the reply but actually I was thinking that an invasion of Afghanistan would be
the more sensible ploy.
To my mind if the Iranian Army sits on its backside then the USAF and IAF will ignore it
to roam the length and breadth of Iran destroying whatever ground targets are on their
long-planned target-list.
Or that Iranian Army can launch itself into Afghanistan, at which point all of the USA
plans for a methodical aerial pummelling of Iran's infrastructure goes out the window as the
USAF scrambles to save the American forces in Afghanistan from being overrun.
Isn't that correct?
So what incentive is there for that Iranian Army to sit around doing nothing?
Iran will do what the USAF isn't expecting it to do, if for no other reason that it upsets
the USA's own game-plan.
There seems to be a bit of a hiatus in proceedings - not in these columns but on the ground
in the ME.
Everyone seems to be waiting for something.
Could this "something" be the decisive word fron our commander in chief Binyamin
Netanyahu?
The thing is he has just pretty much lost an election. Likud might form part of the next
government of Israel but most likely not with him at its head.
Does anyone have any ideas on what the future policy of Israel is likely to be under Gantz
or whoever? Will it be the same, worse or better?
The correct US move would be to ignore an Iranian invasion of Afghanistan and continue
leaving the place. The Iranian Shia can then fight the Sunni jihadi tribesmen.
Oh, I completely agree that if the Iranians launch an invasion of Afghanistan then the only
sensible strategy would be for the US troops to pack up and get out as fast as possible.
But that is "cut and run", which many in Washington would view as a humiliation.
Do you really see the beltway warriors agreeing to that?
A flaw in your otherwise sound argument is that the US military has not been seriously
engaged for several years and has been reconstituting itself with the money Trump has given
them.
Re-positioning of forces does not indicate that a presidential decision for war has been
made. The navy will not want to fight you in the narrow, shallow waters of the Gulf.
I would think that Mr. Trump would have a hard time sell a war with Iran over an attack on
Saudi Arabia. The good question about how would that war end will soon be raised and I doubt
there are many good answers.
The US should have gotten out of that part of the world a long time ago, just as they
should have paid more attention to the warnings in President Eisenhower's farewell
address.
The Perfumed Fops in the DOD restarted Millennium Challenge 2002,because Gen Van Riper had
used 19th and early 20th century tactics and shore based firepower to sink the Blue Teams
carrier forces. There was a script, Van Riper did some adlibbing. Does the US DOD think that
Iran will follow the US script? In a unipolar world maybe the USA could enforce a script,
that world was severely wounded in 1975, took a sucking chest wound during operation Cakewalk
in 2003 and died in Syria in 2015. Too many poles too many powers not enough diplomacy. It
will not end well.
We would crush Iran at some cost to ourselves but the political cost to the anti-globalist
coalition would catastrophic. BTW Trump's "base" isn't big enough to elect him so he cannot
afford to alienate independents.
Even if Rouhani and the Iranian Parliament personally designed, assembled, targeted and
launched the missiles (scarier sounding version of "drones"), then they should be
congratulated, for the Saudi tyrant deserves every bad thing that he gets.
prawnik (Sid) in this particular situation goering's glittering generalization does not
apply. Trump needs a lot of doubting suburbanites to win and a war will not incline them to
vote for him.
Looks like President Trump is walking it back, tweet: I have just instructed the Secretary of
the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!
I doubt there will be armed conflict of any kind.
Everything Trump does from now (including sacking the Bolton millstone) will be directed at
winning 2020, and that will not be aided by entering into some inconclusive low intensity
attrition war.
Iran, on the other hand, will be doing everything it can to increase the chance of a Democrat
administration, bearing in mind the great deal they got from the last one and the lack of
anything they can expect from Trump Term Two.
This may be a useful tool for determining their next move, but the limit of their actions
would be when some Democrats begin making the electorally damaging mistake of critising Trump
for not retaliating against Iranian provocations.
Should the warrior who currently inhabits the position of Secretary of State use his
influence to persuade Donald Trump to enter what would likely be a very lengthy war of
attrition in Iran, it may prove to be a very costly move for the Republican Party in November
of 2020 given the level of support for such actions among Main Street Americans.
Looks like Cheney protégé Victoria Nuland played an important role in Steele dossier saga.
I wonder why female neocons are so nasty. Is this this suppressed "Inferiority
complex" or what ?
Notable quotes:
"... A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was filed against the US Justice Department on Wednesday by legal watchdog group Judicial Watch , ..."
"... According to August 2018 testimony by the DOJ's former #4 official Bruce Ohr, dossier author Christopher Steele gave two memos from his salacious, Clinton-funded opposition research to Gaeta. ..."
"... According to the Epoch Times ..."
"... For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, who had been the recipient of many of Steele's reports, gave permission for the more formal meeting. On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. ..."
"... Victoria Nuland???? Oh, waits, that Nuland. The qwm who orchestrated the Ukraine mess. Now I've got it, whew, thought I was losing my memory there for a bit. ..."
A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was filed against the US Justice Department on
Wednesday by legal watchdog group
Judicial Watch , seeking records concerning FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta - an
agency Legal Attaché in Rome who helped circulate the infamous Steele Dossier.
Expect the name Michael Gaeta to become a household name very soon regarding
spygate.
The JW lawsuit seeks:
All records of communications, including emails (using [his or her] own name or aliases),
text messages, instant chats and encrypted messages, sent to and from former FBI Legal
Attaché in Rome, Special Agent Michael Gaeta, mentioning the terms "Trump", "Clinton",
"Republican", "Democrat", and/or "conservatives."
All SF50s and SF52s of SA Michael Gaeta.
All expense reports and travel vouchers submitted for SA Michael Gaeta.
According to August 2018 testimony by the DOJ's former #4 official Bruce Ohr, dossier author
Christopher Steele gave two memos from his salacious, Clinton-funded opposition
research to Gaeta.
In the July 30 meeting, Chris Steele also mentioned something about the doping -- you
know, one of the doping scandals. And he also mentioned, I believe -- and, again, this is
based on my review of my notes -- that he had provided Mr. Gaeta with two reports "
The only thing I recall him mentioning is that he had provided two of his reports to
Special Agent Gaeta.
According to the Epoch Times , Gaeta was authorized by former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria
Nuland to meet with Steele at his London office in order to obtain dossier materials.
The purpose of the London visit was clear. Steele was personally handing the first memo in
his dossier to Gaeta for ultimate transmission back to the FBI and the State Department.
For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland, the assistant
secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, who had been the recipient of
many of Steele's reports, gave permission for the more formal meeting. On July 5, 2016, Gaeta
traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis.
The FBI's scramble to vet the dossier's claims are well known. According to an April, 2017
NYT
report , the FBI agreed to pay Steele $50,000 for "solid corroboration" of his claims .
Steele was apparently unable to produce satisfactory evidence - and was not paid for his
efforts :
Mr. Steele met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October, bringing a stack of new
intelligence reports. One, dated Sept. 14, said that Mr. Putin was facing "fallout" over his
apparent involvement in the D.N.C. hack and was receiving "conflicting advice" on what to
do.
The agent said that if Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I.
would pay him $50,000 for his efforts, according to two people familiar with the offer.
Ultimately, he was not paid . - NYT
Still, the FBI used the dossier to obtain the FISA warrant on former Trump campaign aide
Carter Page - while the document itself was heavily shopped around to various media outlets .
The late Sen. John McCain provided a copy to Former FBI Director James Comey, who already had a
version, and briefed President Trump on the salacious document. Comey's briefing to Trump was
then used by CNN and BuzzFeed to justify reporting on and publishing the
dossier following the election.
" The FBI is covering up its role in the Russiagate hoax ," said Judicial Watch
President Tom Fitton. "Judicial Watch has had to fight the FBI 'tooth and nail' for every scrap
of information about the illicit targeting of President Trump."
Great news that Ted is finally (after 30+ years of discussion) introducing a term limits
amendment.
Along with term limits for legislature, we need to kill the deep state as well. The
government needs to be reduced significantly. I say we go back to spoils. If a federal role
is needed, then it must be hired/re-hired by the whitehouse. Every FBI agent, etc. Trump has
proven that most current direct appointments are waste of money and unnecessary.
Limits restricting ex-politicians and military from lobbying, but also partners and
nepotism need to be codified and restricted for politician families.
Whether it's MARK MEADOWS, DOUG COLLINS, JIM JORDAN, LINDSEY GRAHAM or any of the others,
I've come to the conclusion that the ONLY PERSON seriously taking on those who were involved
in THE ATTEMPTED COUP TO TAKE DOWN TRUMP is TOM FITTON of JUDICIAL WATCH.
Misfud was in Rome too. The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital St John - present
sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II. Was he a bailiff or a knight, question...?
Talk talk talk, its cheap, and boring with the same criminals appearing over and over, but
no action ever taken and the Traitors don't look very nervous. Why doesn't Trump issue an
Executive Order to direct employees of the DOJ and the FBI etc., to fully cooperate with
investigators?
Agreed. This guy Wray has been slow-walking and standing in the way of anything happening
at every turn. I am convinced he is absolutely there to protect the FBI and nothing else. He
is definitely acting like a "company man".
And, I'm not gonna give Trump any more free passes for what seems to be a lot of BAD picks
in his appointments. In this respect I think it's where Trump has been the most
disappointing.
Victoria Nuland???? Oh, waits, that Nuland. The qwm who orchestrated the Ukraine mess.
Now I've got it, whew, thought I was losing my memory there for a bit.
but who is Evelyn Farkas? Gotta' think on that one.
"Ukrainians are happy today. They showed the world that they remain unbowed in the face
of aggression and are committed to a future in the democratic West."
Looks like Trump just increased his chances to lose to Warren in 2020 elections.
Notable quotes:
"... O'Brien advised the Romney 2012 campaign, and he also advised the short-lived Scott Walker campaign in the 2016 cycle. He is a typical hawkish Republican. ..."
"... Obviously, "Bolton lite" isn't much of an improvement over Bolton, and it seems unlikely that there will be any significant improvement in administration foreign policy over the next fifteen months. The summary of O'Brien's book confirms as much: ..."
"... Back in 2014, he was praising Romney for his "Churchill-like warning of a resurgent Russia," and I pointed out that Romney had said a lot of ignorant, knee-jerk things about Russia that were wrong. The fact that O'Brien thought and probably still thinks that "Romney was right" about anything related to foreign policy is more evidence that Trump made a very poor choice again. ..."
"... Let's be serious, Mr Trump did not pick Mr Robert O'Brien. ..."
Trump announced
the selection of his fourth National Security Advisor:
President Trump announced Wednesday that Robert O'Brien, the special envoy for hostage
affairs at the State Department, will be his next national security advisor.
O'Brien previously served in the Bush administration's State Department. Hugh Hewitt, who
wrote the foreword to O'Brien's
book , has
described him as a "long time colleague of John Bolton." Since the Bush years, O'Brien
advised the Romney 2012 campaign, and he also advised the short-lived Scott Walker campaign in
the 2016 cycle. He is a typical hawkish Republican. Curt Mills
referred to him in his recent report on the race to replace Bolton this way:
Robert O'Brien, the Trump hostage negotiator whose stock has risen in the administration
in recent months, is "Bolton lite," according to a source who has known O'Brien for
years.
Obviously, "Bolton lite" isn't much of an improvement over Bolton, and it seems unlikely
that there will be any significant improvement in administration foreign policy over the next
fifteen months. The summary of
O'Brien's book confirms as much:
The world has become steadily more dangerous under President Obama's "lead from behind"
foreign policy. The Obama Administration's foreign policy has emboldened our adversaries and
disheartened our allies. Indeed, Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is a 1938 moment. At the same
time, the U.S. military has been cut and risks returning to the hollow force days of the
1970s. O'Brien lays out the challenges and provides the common sense "peace through strength"
solutions that will allow the next president to make America great again.
There is nothing surprising in here, and a lot that is embarrassingly wrong, but it is
consistent with the GOP's bankrupt foreign policy worldview. A friendly review of the book
describes that worldview in boilerplate terms:
Robert writes from a series of beliefs and assumptions that I also hold: a deep belief in
American Exceptionalism, that peace comes through strength, that the United States is
stronger when it partners with its allies and when America is a reliable friend to its
allies, that the greatness of America comes from a people that respect tradition and the rule
of law, and that (yes) we are the good guys and there are some bad guys out there.
I have had occasion to criticize O'Brien's writings in the past. Back in 2014, he was praising Romney for his
"Churchill-like warning of a resurgent Russia," and I
pointed out that Romney had said a lot of ignorant, knee-jerk things about Russia that were
wrong. The fact that O'Brien thought and probably still thinks that "Romney was right" about
anything related to foreign policy is more evidence that Trump made a very poor choice
again.
O'Brien's most recent high-profile assignment was to be sent to Sweden as part of the
president's embarrassing fixation on the case of the rapper ASAP
Rocky , who had been detained in Sweden and was facing charges for assault. It would not
surprise me if this silly episode and waste of government resources was quite important in
winning the president's favor. O'Brien probably wasn't the worst choice Trump could have made,
but Trump's fourth choice for National Security Advisor is still a bad one.
Who says Mr Trump is unpredictable? Is there anybody expected anything else from Mr Trump
when it comes to picking his advisers or making thoughtful decisions? Let's be serious, Mr
Trump did not pick Mr Robert O'Brien. The Bolton, Pompeo, Pence triumvirate picked Trump's
NSA; naturally.
The new US National Security Advisor is lawyer Robert C. O'Brien, best known as author of his
2016 book "While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis."
Amazon 2016 blurb:
Robert C. O'Brien's collection of essays on U.S. national security and foreign policy, with
a forward by Hugh Hewitt, is a wake up call to the American people. The world has become
steadily more dangerous under President Obama's "lead from behind" foreign policy. The
Obama Administration's foreign policy has emboldened our adversaries and disheartened our
allies. Indeed, Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is a 1938 moment. At the same time, the U.S.
military has been cut and risks returning to the hollow force days of the 1970s. O'Brien
lays out the challenges and provides the common sense "peace through strength" solutions
that will allow the next president to make America great again. . . here
There was a moment in Viet Nam when I questioned whether everything I had been taught
about "America" was one big fabricated lie – a huge pretend. It was April 1969, and I had
just experienced witnessing the aftermath of a series of bombings of supposed military targets.
They were in fact inhabited, undefended villages where virtually everyone in those villages
perished from low flying bombings, that included napalming. The majority of dead –
murdered – were young burned children. On several occasions I observed those bodies up
close, sickened by the sight, now burdened by the criminal nature of the US war. The policy of
accumulating massive numbers of body counts was an inkling of the Grand Lie. Reading the
entrance sign to my squadron in-country headquarters, "Welcome to Indian Country," was a first
clue.
My duty station was the "home" of the fighter-bombers and pilots who followed orders to
destroy those "enemy targets", i.e., villages. I was the USAF night security commander
following orders to protect those soldiers and planes from mortar and sapper attacks.
A few days later I was reading an article in Stars and Stripes , an official,
independent newspaper for soldiers, reporting on a recent Supreme Court decision (
Street v . New York , 1969) that upheld the right of desecrating our "sacred"
symbol – the US flag. During a period of increased burnings of the US American flag in
protests of the US wars against African-Americans at home, and Asians abroad, an
African-American veteran recipient of a Bronze Star, Sidney Street , publicly burned his
personal flag on a New York City street corner for which he was arrested and convicted.
Depressed, I pondered how it is that one could be arrested for burning a piece of cloth
– even a national symbol – that represented an official policy of criminally
burning innocent human beings, including large numbers of young children, while the
pilot-perpetrators were commended, and whom, in my duties I was protecting? Initially suicidal,
I had difficulty wrapping my head around this dystopian nightmare. I was in psychic shock from
extreme cognitive dissonance.
Our behavior against the Vietnamese, a nation of peasants with one-sixth the population of
the USA, one-thirtieth its size, certainly must rank as one of the worst of a number of
barbarisms in the 20 th Century. The US left 26 million bomb craters, sprayed
21 million gallons of DNA-altering chemical warfare on the landscape and people,
murdered some 6 million Southeast Asians, destroyed by bombing over 13,000 of Viet Nam's
21,000 villages, 950 churches and pagodas, 350 clearly marked hospitals, 3,000 high schools and
universities, 15,000 bridges, etc.
Why all this overwhelming firepower and destruction? Incredulously, to prevent the
Vietnamese from enjoying their self-determination, absurdly touted as necessary to stop
"communism." Does there in fact exist a kind of psychopathy in our cultural DNA? Though I
hadn't fired a bullet myself, or dropped a bomb, I had been a compliant participant in a
mindless murder machine. Viet Nam was not an aberration, but consistent with a long history of
arrogant interventions revealing something very dark about who we are. Was I part of a savage
culture of unthinking sadists, I wondered?
Learning Real People's Versus Fake, Kool Aid US History
I have spent countless hours studying a more comprehensive people's version of world and US
history. Study of US history of course is part of the Eurocentric globalization/colonization
over the past 500 years. The 20 percent Eurocentric "developed-world" is a product of
self-proclaimed "superiors" violently and deceitfully stealing resources and labor from the
other 80 percent, all cloaked in the conceited rhetoric of spreading "civilization." This
patriarchal policy is totally unsustainable from a social, political, ecological,
psychological, and moral perspective.
It is instructive to learn that the "Founding Fathers" chose, not democracy, but
oligarchy/plutocracy "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." Jefferson's
"empire of liberty" was a vision to expand private property for large landowners. Our
Constitution is more a document to preserve freedom of "property" and commercial transactions,
than it is to preserve human liberty, of which free speech is the most fundamental. Historian
Staughton Lynd summarized it thus: inherited land replaced inherited government. Recently the
highest court of the land ruled the legal fiction that property (money) is a person with free
speech rights, as preposterous as the earlier legal fiction that a person (slave) is
property.
A fear-laden gun culture originating in violent settler-colonialism and white
nationalism-supremacy serve as a basis for the founding ideology and military strategy of the
United States. Slave patrols and Indian fighters were our first "special operations,"
establishing the essential White character of our militarized culture. As the systematic
dispossession project continued, the US government signed over 400 treaties with Indigenous
nations, violating every one of them, establishing deceit and outright lying as part of
our cultural DNA.
The politics of violence based on classism and racism has been incessant throughout our
history. Examining the US criminal injustice system housing a quarter of all the world's
prisoners reveals brutal truth when comparing extreme disparities in punishments by race, and
class. Justice?
I studied the history of the city of my birth – Geneva, New York, which in the 1700s
was Kanadesaga, capitol of the Seneca nation. On September 8, 1779, Major General John Sullivan
and his forty-five hundred soldiers eradicated these "merciless Indian Savages" in the largest
Revolutionary War battle of 1779 – a terrorist, scorched-earth campaign massacring
civilians while destroying all forty of the well-established Seneca towns, including
Kanadesaga. By 1788, the European settlers renamed it Geneva, as if nothing had happened, a
deserved reward for superiors.
All those arrowheads I enjoyed collecting as a child possessed a profound dark secret about
the nature and character of my ancestors. However, I would only discover their secret after
deep reflections from my Viet Nam awakening.
Official US military interventionism began with the US Marine invasion of the Dominican
Republic in 1798 during the undeclared naval war with France. However, hundreds of settler
paramilitary units had been killing Indians since the 1620s. But imperialism has been
explicit policy since the late 1890s to assure domestic prosperity. In 1907,
Woodrow Wilson while president of Princeton University (six years before being elected US
president) lectured:
"Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world
as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are
closed against him must be battered down. .Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order
that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused."
President McKinley, and various Senators continued to advocate "a foreign market for our
surplus products." US meddling, both "soft," and hard, has never stopped.
Traveling to a number of nations in Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East have exposed me
to details of hundreds of US overt interventions, and thousands of covert
destabilization actions. These policies have caused the murders of millions, 20 to 30
million alone since WWII during the so-called "Cold War". Only five of these nearly 600
military interventions have been declared wars as required by the Constitution, clearly
indicating our sacred document is not taken seriously. This also tells us the system has no
interest in being accountable to its own Constitution, or international law. Speaking with
peasants in these victim-countries invariably reveals the horrendous cruelty of US interveners
and their surrogates. Does the US possess any intentions to be law-abiding? Does the US possess
any feelings for others, or only selfish imperial ambitions? And does anyone care?
Violence against even White citizens has matched violence we have carried out in foreign
policy. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1917-18 were enacted to suppress anti-war dissent
against US entrance into World War I. Thousands of US Americans were deported and
imprisoned following World War I for "radical" anti-war expressions, including labor leaders
and socialists. Some were tortured in US prisons. Ironically, free speech dissent is most
critical when a government decides to go to war. The original Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798
stifled free speech of US citizens, including elected officials, who objected to the undeclared
war against France. Free speech? Huh?
While the US was locking up and deporting citizens for opposing World War I, the FBI was
ignoring extremely violent KKK supremacist groups whose six million members –
nearly 25 percent of the white male population at the time – were lynching with impunity
an average of six African-Americans a month. Equal protection?
The first known use of air power against civilians was committed by US Marines in Haiti in
1919. But, the second known use of US air power against civilians occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
May 31-June 1, 1921, when hundreds of economically successful Black residents living in a
36-square block community were murdered, including from low flying white-piloted planes
dropping incendiaries, destroying nearly 1,300 buildings. How many US Americans know about this
abomination?
Walter White, a longtime leader in the National Association for Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), concluded that southerners fear of Negro progress offends the
intangible feeling of racial superiority, explaining the intensity of White savagery. The sense
of established White superiority (or anyone possessing those feelings) often leads to an
insecure character from lack of practicing accountability with others in a world of varied,
challenging relationships. Those feelings easily morph into paranoia of others, and delusions
of self grandeur – one of the most difficult psychological orders to treat, as the
persistent pathology of racism (and classism) so attests.
The third known use of US bombing civilians occurred at Blair Mountain, West Virginia,
August-September 1921. As many as 15,000 striking coal miners attempting to unionize were
attacked by 2,000 armed sheriff's deputies, coal company paramilitaries, US troops, and US Army
Martin MB-1 bombers, killing as many as 100 miners, with many more wounded. Before the battles
had ended, more than a million ammunition rounds had been fired. Nearly 1,000 miners were
ironically indicted for murder of the nearly 30 deaths among the miner's attackers. Over 700
union organizers have been murdered in our history. Is this known by many?
We continue to be obsessed with personal and government guns (police and military) as a
guarantor of our security. Those who question easy access to guns, even assault weapons, or the
ridiculously wasteful military spending, are thought of as nearly traitorous. US citizens
personally own nearly 400 million firearms, or 40 percent of all private guns in the world. On
average, three US citizens are killed every day by police, disproportionately
African-Americans. So far in 2019, the US has experienced more than one mass shooting (4 or
more shot) every day. Our gun death rate is ten times above that of other high income
countries. Using violence as a default position historically ends in disaster, as it has been
proven over and over that violence spirals out of control into more violence, while distracting
from serious discourse. Why the incredible record of violence? Insecurity?
Under its doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance, the US government routinely dispatches
military ships to every sea space, military planes to every airspace, hundreds of satellites
into outer space, while ordering Special Forces units to operate clandestinely in nearly
three-fourths of the world's countries. Additionally, of the 1.4 million US soldiers in the
world, nearly 200,000 are positioned in as many as 150 countries, most stationed at 800 major
military bases in 80 nations. The US also possesses a large percentage of the world's weapons
of mass destruction, and recently has dispensed with any genuine effort at containing the
spread of nuclear weapons. The annual military budget, including hidden costs, amounts to an
exorbitant $1.25 trillion a year, more money than the next seven countries combined spend on
their militaries. If you want to be guaranteed health care and a modest house, join the Army.
Otherwise these human rights are "unaffordable." If you want gun control, start at the top.
How to explain the extent and breadth of our violent militarism and global imperialism?
Paranoia? It seems that our sense of superiority justifies hurtful dispossession from others to
acquire and preserve undeserved privilege.
After exiting the military in 1970, my opinions about the US war against the Vietnamese were
affirmed with the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers revealing the more than 20 years of
criminal intentions, and deceit, to thwart Vietnamese aspirations for self-determination.
Earlier in 1971, January 31-February 2, Vietnam Veterans Against the War conducted the "Winter
Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes" when nearly 120 veterans testified
about the war crimes and atrocities they committed or witnessed in Viet Nam. I was aghast when
learning about Nixon's intended Huston plan to criminally interrupt antiwar activities, the
FBI's sixteen-year COINTELPRO of more than 2,000 illegal actions against innocent US citizens,
the CIA's Operation CHAOS keeping tabs on 300,000 citizens opposed to the Viet Nam war, and the
National Security Agency's Operation SHAMROCK watch lists of those communicating with people
overseas. Respect for the law? Huh? Further research revealed that as early as 1934 President
Roosevelt instituted a long-standing joint FBI-military program to conduct domestic
intelligence with broad investigative scope. The "American" Kool Aid indeed has sedated us.
Today our freedoms are further curtailed, for example, as the National Security Agency (NSA)
spies on every US American, the Authorization of Military Force Act (AUFA) allows
warrantless electronic surveillance of anyone suspected of aiding terrorism, and the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) enables indefinite detention of US citizens, even arrest by
the military. Where is the Constitution when we need it? Or was it ever really there for
us?
One of the most revealing chapters in our history is the incredible sympathy the US
possessed for authoritarian Nazi Germany. Even though the Soviet military was most critical in
defeating the Nazis in World War II, deep fear of the Bolsheviks (the emergence of an
alternative social-economic system to capitalism) motivated US America's wealthy class, with
complicity of the US government, to support the rise of Nazi Germany from the mid-1930s
into the war years themselves. The US capitalists supported the Nazi capitalists to defeat the
"threat" of socialism. Elite power brokers included leaders of Wall Street and wealthy "barons"
such as the Rockefellers and Andrew Mellon, and businesses such as Ford Motor, IBM (tabulating
daily location of Jews in the Holocaust), General Motors, General Electric, Standard Oil,
Texaco, ITT, International Harvester, Chase Manhattan Bank, the House of Morgan banking
dynasty, DuPont, United Aircraft, etc., who enjoyed huge profits from the war. And following
the war, the US's "Operation Gladio" systematically defeated popular anti -Nazi groups
throughout Europe, while "Operation Paperclip" secretly brought Nazi scientists and other
professionals to the US. Our affinity for fascism has been established.
Psychologically, it is important to note that our national identity has consistently
been markedly defined by demonizing others – "merciless savages", "uppity ni**ers",
"anarchists", "radicals", "communists", "Russians", "alien filth", "narco-traffickers",
"terrorists", "shithole countries", "vermin", etc., echoing psychologist Carl Jung's principle
of "shadow projection." Jung described a cowardly trick we play on ourselves: avoid looking in
the mirror so as not to take responsibility for seeing our own demons. We "see" the evil in
others, perpetuating a nation addicted to war against them, obscenely profiting as we
self-righteously deny our own severe pathologies. If we had looked in the mirror we would have
learned what Pogo told us, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Eco-psychologist Chellis Glendinning suggests that modern humans suffer from deep insecurity
that emerged from collective traumas hundreds of generations ago. A serious disconnect from
intimacy with the earth occurred when our ancient ancestors began controlling nature through
agriculture and animal domestication. Evolutionary philosopher Gregory Bateson concludes that
addictive behavior is consistent with the Western approach to life that pits mind against body,
while behaving as if the natural world is a commodity. We seek various distractions to numb our
pain from this feeling of aloofness. Technology, not Nature, has become our God.
Recognizing the Lie
Could it be that virtually everything I was taught by my parents, community, school, church,
and political leaders in terms of factual history, morality, ethics, and rational thinking
about "America" was the opposite of what had been represented? How could that be?
Yes, I have been conditioned by an incredibly comfortable fairy tale, a massive cultural
system denying or distorting historic realities, founded on shameful genocides. I had been
betrayed. We are told we are the greatest, even as we (s)elect imperial Presidents and
Congresspeople in an orgy of fantastic fiction about "democracy." The US Senate is a
millionaire's club, with many members of the US House also in that class. Indian author
Arundhati Roy describes "democracy" and "pro-democracy" as the "Free World's whores", hollow
words satisfying a whole range of tastes, available to be used and abused at will where facts
don't matter.
US America loves its myth of being committed to justice for all, but in fact it is a society
ruled and funded by a wealthy elite. This is not a government of, by and for the people!
It is a ruthless oligarchy sanctioned by a majority of the people believing their vote
counts. Money has always mattered, severely rigging the game in many ways toward an
upper class (obscenely bribing candidates, corporate personhood power, gerrymandering,
proprietary election software, hacking capacity to effect results, Jim Crow laws, voter
suppression, etc.). The oligarchy approves "acceptable" candidates, while contrived rhetoric,
propaganda, and our education system keep us faithful to our political system comprised of one
party with two right wings, the winner ruling by tyranny of its majority. But the bottom line
is that (s)elected representatives obey their large donors who thrive on war-making against
vulnerable others.
Nonetheless, these facts do not preclude existence of individual conscientious politicians.
However, the political economic system itself is fixed, it is not broken, a dilemma every
honest politician must face. This delicious Kool Aid has in fact concealed a delusional
madness, a Kafkaesque, Orwellian nightmare. Our political leaders have consistently and
collectively acted outside the Constitution, while selectively applying laws that
preserve the cabal in power. It has always been this way, though the social revolution of the
1960s threatened to overturn the oligopoly. This revolution was unfortunately unsuccessful but
the fearful system's repressive reaction is now in its fifth decade. In the end, we are in fact
a nation of men, not laws.
So, in effect, our mythological story made me functionally stupid, a "good kid" who became
complicit in mindless, mass murder. And I am suggesting that it has created a society comprised
of millions of functionally stupid people. This is different from intelligence. This is not
idiocy. This is serious non -thinking of intellectually capable people who, in effect,
have suspended their autonomous critical thinking, basking in an intoxicated spell of our sense
of national invincibility. It has enhanced the Friedman era of neoliberal privatization,
worshipping greed, while millions are without health care and homeless. This is mass
psychopathy, a dangerous cultural mental illness.
German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer , while a prisoner in one of Hitler's jails,
wrote about the role of stupidity in the German people that substantially contributed to the
rise of Nazism and worship of savior Hitler. He argued that it is very separate from
intellectual capacity but occurs when a cult-like belief system dangerously suspends critical
thinking, bringing collective relief to an emotionally anxious population. It is a form of
voluntary servitude more dangerous than malice, an entrenched belief system that makes genuine
dialogue and education almost impossible. (Bonhoeffer was hung in April 1945).
As US Americans we possess no visceral memory of the two unspeakable genocides
our ancestors shamefully committed, forcefully dispossessing Indigenous Africans of their
labor, and genuine Americans of their land, murdering millions with impunity. Even though we
are superficially taught about slavery and conquering the Indigenous, their egregious suffering
has been outsourced outside our feeling fields for 25 generations . Thus, was
established our cultural "DNA" of achieving expansion benefitting a few (mostly White males and
those who think like them) through any means while escaping any accountability
whatsoever. Now nearly 600 overt, and thousands of covert interventions later, US Americans
still know little or nothing about our unspeakable imperialism. Why not? Isn't it critically
important that we seriously grapple with our diabolical history?
In 2019, the President, US military, CIA, and other "regime change" entities like the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and their funders in Congress, continue to intervene
almost everywhere, destabilizing with crippling sanctions, sadistically causing suffering,
causing chaos, creating kill lists, murdering, bombing, etc. Does any of this criminal insanity
even happen? Has it ever? Does it matter to most people? I believe there is a deep shame
that burdens us. It is understandable to avoid looking at shame, but the cost is perpetual war
for perpetual peace until we are all dead. The era of privilege is over, as we enter the
terrifying era of consequences, bringing fear, insecurity and anxiety to many heretofore
privileged folks. Denial becomes a lethal seduction.
Our amnesia has precluded emotional intelligence, a depth of character, so necessary
for mature development, with little understanding of historical context. We are effectively
emotionally retarded, blocking the universal embedded human feeling of empathy, and the
collective solidarity that emerges therefrom. Thus, "America" is very insecure having been
conveniently wrapped in a fake, pretend narrative, convincing us of our "exceptional" nature,
ignoring both our systemic pattern of domestic violence, and global imperialism. The corporate
media, and corporate-owned social media platforms, serve as stenographers for our oligarchic
policies and values. They create an agenda-driven narrative that inoculates our minds with
constant group think untruths of neo-liberal capitalism.
We now live in a post-truth world, where narcissistic life is experienced as virtual, not
real. Do we feel the pain of the Afghani, Yemeni, the Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, Libyan, Somali,
the Russian, the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Honduran, Guatemalan, Mexican, Palestinian in Gaza, or
our neighbor down the street whose cancer left her homeless due to foreclosure? How much do we
care? Answering these questions can tell us a lot about our own survival, including yours and
mine.
Serious discussion and debate of a broad range and depth of ideas is virtually
nonexistent. Mention of "socialism" is considered traitorous to the religion of neoliberal
corporatism. In reality, we promote individualism over community, competition over cooperation,
and acquisitiveness over inquisitiveness. These capitalist characteristics condition human
development in a way that is diametrically opposed to our inherent, genetic nature as a social
species requiring for survival cooperation in all our relations.
The economy and political system is now virtually dependent upon what Eisenhower proclaimed
as the military/security industrial complex, and that complex thrives on creation of endless
"enemies" which produce obscene war profits for a very few. Community and family units have
disintegrated, and citizenship is less engaged as life is increasingly defined in terms of
commodities. Everything and everybody is for sale to the highest bidder. This leads to anomie,
violence and madness. And yet, we continue to enjoy shopping as the government conducts its
daily bombing. How can this be? How can we pay taxes and go about our business as usual when so
many people in the world are being impoverished or eliminated by US policies facilitating the
wealthy getting richer?
The Deep Divide – 1959 – 2019
Having graduated from a rural upstate New York high school in 1959 at the height of
post-WWII Cold War euphoria, in the midst of the short historic blip of aspiring consumerism,
the "American" Kool Aid I and my 28 fellow graduates drank at that time was delicious. I was
raised in a lower middle class home by conservative, religious parents, not dissimilar to the
upbringings of many of my classmates. Life seemed great, and simple. However, my Viet Nam
experience rudely exposed the poisonous nature of this delicious drink and its true
ingredients.
Discovering information about my former classmates finds several still living in the same
area we grew up, possessing similar views to that which we believed in 1959 – religiously
and politically conservative, but now supporters of MAGA, Trump and Israel. One classmate who
had been a basketball cheerleader, still married to her high school sweetheart after 60 years,
read my Facebook postings from Nicaragua, then declared me "a fool" admonishing me to "stay
there." This same cheerleader chanted for each starter before games, such as "Brian, Brian,
he's our man, if he can't do it, nobody can."
Being raised in and conditioned by US America instills a desire to preserve a fantasy of
post-WWII euphoria for many, at least until President Reagan. But experiential reality
painfully destroys make-believe. I argue that the USA has never been great, but suspect many of
my 1959 classmates would vehemently disagree.
Trump Exposes the Pretend Society
The phenomenon of the Presidency of Donald John Trump disturbingly "offers" our culture, and
the world, an overdue undisguised photo of our real culture and its politics. Some say
Trump brings out the worst in people – hatred, self-centeredness, cruelty, insensitivity,
crassness, racism, insulting language, poisonous divisiveness, adolescent delinquency, etc. But
is it possible that his language and demeanor are validating expressions of historically
suppressed feelings and values which have never been sufficiently addressed or openly
acknowledged in our Eurocentric, capitalist, money-oriented, nature-defying, often
mean-spirited culture? These censored feelings once unleashed, no matter how adolescent they
seem, are capable of manifesting in a vicious authoritarian and neo-fascist state, as they did
in Germany nearly 100 years ago. It seems we are at that point again.
The "developed" world, now led by the United States of America, has historically been built
on egregious exploitation and violence hidden under fanciful rhetoric. Inevitably, the chickens
will come home to roost. As Eurocentrics we have been lying to ourselves and the world with our
highly touted economic system and "democracy," fooling ourselves by myths and lies we have long
believed about our "superiority" built on the suffering of others. As stated above, we have
(s)elected leaders who are to varying degrees corrupted by money who use politically "correct"
language and a finessed demeanor to gain approval. In fact, they have consistently been
imperial and oligarchic, selfishly stealing to assure an insatiably consumptive lifestyle for
under 5 percent of the world's population (but only benefitting a minority of its own people),
while gobbling up anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of the globe's resources (depending on the
resource and era examined). We ad nauseum excuse our interventions using "national
security" or "humanitarian justice." We have followed in the footsteps of our imperial teachers
in the United Kingdom. Fair? Sustainable? Ever thought about the structural unfairness and
gross arrogance that has enabled 500 years of colonization? Trump's Presidency reveals a lot
about us that we have not wanted to recognize. Scary? Our historical chronic complicity in this
horror story cannot be ignored.
Trump serves as an avatar, or caricature, of a collective, creepy, violent, disgusting,
mean-spirited, immature culture, at least as experienced by large numbers of people both in the
US and the world. Trump's appeal can largely be attributed to the fact that he has taken the
clothes off of Pretend . His childish nature of lying, tweeting and exaggerating,
ironically reveals an ugly "truth" about our modern selves that has been drowned under
incredible "public relations" – education, the media, Hollywood, sports, the State
Department, etc. His extreme personal narcissism matches well our extreme collective
exceptionalism. Is it clearer now just how big the LIE has been, protected by our comfortable
500-year myths? Welcome to dystopia, Kafka, and Orwell.
Conclusion
The 400-year history of Western dualistic Cartesian thinking (named after French philosopher
Rene Descartes' view of reductionist mind-body dualism) divorcing human beings from study of
observable nature, has produced a terribly flawed epistemology. The opposite basis for
knowledge is holism, a framework that enables comprehension of multiple interconnections and
historical context. Dispensing with any serious concern for consequences, the insatiably
consumer-driven materialistic Western Way of Life has ironically and blissfully been destroying
life itself by its addiction to burning finite fossil fuels. The harsh truth is that a
capitalist system is on a direct collision course with sustainable societies that require
conserving healthy interconnected relationships with each other and the earth's eco-system. We
have become accustomed to wishful thinking that resources are infinite, and that they belong to
us. This theft can only happen, of course, by force or its threat, and deceit, while living in
the toxic illusion we are better than others. Does this suggest a kind of arrogant
collective stupidity?
Nature bats last, something our cortex apparently chose to fatally ignore. We now face the
greatest existential crisis as Nature bats last humbling modern humans into extinction, or near
so. We somehow forgot the most critical truth of all – that we all part of the One. If we
can now recognize our various levels of "stupidity", we have an adrenaline opportunity to leap
out of our heretofore seductive comfortable fantasy, choosing instead to access our buried
human characteristic of interconnection with everything and everybody, i.e., mutual respect and
accountability. This leap now must be of a revolutionary nature, rocketing us out of our
historic arrogant pleasureableness. Our survival foundation: embracing the evolutionary feeling
of empathy. Saving ourselves is pretty damn important, and that means saving life for all.
Let's do it! We are not worth more; they are not worth less.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Brian Willson, Viet Nam veteran and trained lawyer, has been a lifelong critic of US
domestic and foreign policy. His essays and biography are found at his website:
brianwillson.com. His recent book, "Don't Thank Me for My Service: My Viet Nam Awakening to the
Long History of US Lies" is published by Clarity Press (2018). His psycho-historical memoir,
"Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson" was published by PM Press (2011).
A documentary, "Paying the Price for Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson" was produced in 2016
by Bo Boudart Productions.
Bacevich is wrong: it is all about the control of oil producing nations in the Middle East and the preservation "oil for
dollars only" regime (with the help of Israel as the forward base of the US imperialism in the Middle East)
Notable quotes:
"... In this piece, I want to draw attention to the systemic problem of "Iran expertise" in Washington, which is neither new nor limited to the hawkish political factions now running this country's foreign policy. ..."
"... I assert that the US foreign policy establishment[i] has collectively created a culture of expert impunity when it comes to Iran, which has contributed in no small part to the unstable and dangerous policy conditions we see under Trump today. ..."
"... Supporting Iraq in its foolhardy war with Iran in the 1980s proved to be strategically shortsighted in the extreme. It yielded vastly more problems than it solved. It set in train a series of costly wars that have produced negligible benefits. Supporting Saudi Arabia today in its misbegotten war in Yemen is no less shortsighted. ..."
"... Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so by recognizing that Saudi Arabia's folly need not be our problem." ..."
"... Iran has a much longer history of managing pawns and vassal states than the USA. So too has Russia. Now replace 'Iran' with 'Israel' and you can recognise the belligerent initiator/opponent of the conflict. Trouble is that Trump is captive of the Israelis (and his petty ego) while being tormented and impoverished by all those countries that the USA invaded at the Israeli's behest. ..."
"... The dumb oafish response of the USA giant with its five eyes as it stomps about the planet enthralled by prospect of egomaniacle rapture is what endagers humanity. Leave the middle east and everyone else to their own conflict resolution I say. ..."
In this piece, I want to draw attention to the systemic problem of "Iran expertise" in
Washington, which is neither new nor limited to the hawkish political factions now running
this country's foreign policy.
I assert that the US foreign policy establishment[i] has
collectively created a culture of expert impunity when it comes to Iran, which has
contributed in no small part to the unstable and dangerous policy conditions we see under
Trump today.
"I am not suggesting that Washington is supporting the wrong side in Yemen. I am
suggesting, however, that neither side deserves support. Iran may well qualify as America's
"enemy." But Saudi Arabia is not a "friend," regardless of how many billions Riyadh spends
purchasing American-manufactured weaponry and how much effort Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman invests in courting President Trump and members of his family.
The conviction, apparently widespread in American policy circles, that in the Persian Gulf
(and elsewhere) the United States is compelled to take sides, has been a source of recurring
mischief. No doubt the escalating rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran poses a danger of
further destabilizing the gulf. But the United States is under no obligation to underwrite
the folly of one side or the other.
Supporting Iraq in its foolhardy war with Iran in the 1980s proved to be strategically
shortsighted in the extreme. It yielded vastly more problems than it solved. It set in train
a series of costly wars that have produced negligible benefits. Supporting Saudi Arabia today
in its misbegotten war in Yemen is no less shortsighted.
Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so
by recognizing that Saudi Arabia's folly need not be our problem."
Iran has a much longer history of managing
pawns and vassal states than the USA. So too has Russia. Now replace 'Iran' with 'Israel' and
you can recognise the belligerent initiator/opponent of the conflict. Trouble is that Trump is
captive of the Israelis (and his petty ego) while being tormented and impoverished by all
those countries that the USA invaded at the Israeli's behest.
The dumb oafish response of the USA giant with its five eyes as it stomps about the planet
enthralled by prospect of egomaniacle rapture is what endagers humanity. Leave the middle
east and everyone else to their own conflict resolution I say.
Yeah, I'm reminded--again--of Milo Mindbender's racket in Catch-22 , which was 100%
greed driven. But we mustn't forget the vaunted Vietnam Syndrome assorted POTUS have set out
to quell. Trump just played on that theme today in a portion of his speech I cited. As
psychohistorian reported on the open thread, the next round of QE has commenced in an effort
to bolster Trump's electability--lots of that money just went to shorting oil. Tomorrow will
surely bring forth new revelations, accusations, and denials.
For any barflies in the vicinity, Iran opens "an exhibition of
hunted/captured drones in #Tehran from September 22 to October 7" that will draw more than
the curious. I'm sure pics will get tweeted.
https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=8810&cat_id=1
"Air Force of the Yemeni Army and Popular Committees, Saturday morning carried out a
large-scale operation with 10 drones, targeting Abqaiq and Khurais refineries east of Saudi
Arabia. The operation is called the 2nd Operation of Balanced Deterrence."
"... Someone should tell Mike that our credibility as a nation is further damaged with claims that are in need of supporting evidence. ..."
"... Did Fat Mike rub the head camel jockey's glowing orb? ..."
"... America is a bomb-happy empire - we kill illiterate peasants and destroy mud-walled villages. We are really good at it. ..."
"... Mike, it may be an "act of war" for Saudi Arabia but it's not an act of war for the United States. We weren't attacked, they were. Let them unfuck the situation. ..."
"... No more wars Mr. Trump, no more wars. Plus, we need to prepare to defend our Constitution on our own shores. ..."
Mike, it may be an "act of war" for Saudi Arabia but it's not an act of war for the United
States. We weren't attacked, they were. Let them unfuck the situation.
I am pro military and I have many friends who have served or currently serve. And I have
kids. I'm not sending my kids to kill Iranians for the Saudi's, for Israel or for any other
fucked-up nation in the Middle East. And I don't want 18-year-old American kids getting
killed or wounded for those ungrateful ***** either.
No more wars Mr. Trump, no more wars. Plus, we need to prepare to defend our Constitution
on our own shores.
Sep 16, 2019 Welcome
to the world where things don't add up. For instance, some people did some things to
the Saudi Arabian oil refinery at Abqaiq over the weekend. Like, sent over a salvo of cruise
missiles and armed drone aircraft to blow it up. They did a pretty good job of disabling the
works. It is Saudi Arabia's largest oil processing facility, and for now, perhaps months, a
fair amount of the world's oil supply will be cut off. President Trump said "[we] are waiting
to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what
terms we would proceed!" Exclamation mark his.
How many times the past few years has our government declared that "we have the finest
intelligence services in the world." Very well, then, why are we waiting for the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia to tell us who fired all that stuff into Abqaiq? Whoever did it, it was
unquestionably an act of war. And, of course, what are we going to do about it? (And what will
some people do about it?)
Let's face it: the USA has had a hard-on for Iran for forty years, ever since they overthrew
their shah, invaded the US embassy in Tehran, and took fifty-two American diplomats and staff
hostage for 444 days. On the other hand, the Arabians and Iranians have had a mutual hard-on
for centuries, long before the Saud family was in charge of things, and back when Iran was
known as Persia, a land of genies, fragrant spices, and a glorious antiquity (while Arabia was
a wasteland of sand populated by nomads and their camels). The beef was formerly just about
which brand of Islam would prevail, Sunni or Shia. Lately (the past fifty years) it has been
more about the politics of oil and hegemony over the Middle East. Since the US invaded Iraq and
busted up the joint, the threat has existed that Iran would take over Iraq, with its majority
Shia population, especially the oil-rich Basra region at the head of the Persian Gulf. The
presence of Israel greatly complicates things, since Iran has a hard-on for that nation, too,
and for Jews especially, often expressed in the most belligerent and opprobrious terms, such as
"wiping Israel off the map." No ambiguity there. The catch being that Israel has the capability
of turning Iran into an ashtray.
The world has been waiting for a major war in the Middle east for decades, and it might have
one by close of business today. Or perhaps some people will do nothing . The
Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen supposedly claimed responsibility for the attack. That's
rich. As if that rag-tag outfit has a whole bunch of million-dollar missiles and the knowledge
and capacity to launch them successfully, not to mention the satellite guidance mojo. A
correspondent suggests that the missiles were fired from a pro-Iranian military base in Iraq,
with the Houthis brought in on flying carpets to push the launch buttons.
President Trump is trumpeting America's "energy independence," meaning whatever happens over
there won't affect us. Well, none of that is true. We still import millions of barrels of oil a
day, though much less from Saudi Arabia than before 2008. The shale oil "miracle" is hitting
the skids these days. Shale oil production has gone flat, the rig-count is down, companies are
going bankrupt, and financing for the debt-dependent operations is dwindling since the
producers have demonstrated that they can't make a profit at it. They're trapped in the
quandary of diminishing returns, frontloading production, while failing to overcome steep
decline curves in wells that only produce for a couple of years.
It's also the case that shale oil is ultra-light crude, containing little heavier
distillates such as diesel and aviation fuel (basically kerosene). Alas, American refineries
were all built before shale oil came along. They were designed to crack heavier oil and can't
handle the lighter shale. The "majors" don't want to invest their remaining capital in new
refineries, and the many smaller companies don't have the ability. So, this makes necessary a
high volume of oil swapping around the world. Without diesel and aviation fuel, US trucking and
commercial aviation has a big problem, meaning the US economy has a big problem.
With the new crisis in the Middle East, benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil is up from
around $55-a-barrel to just over $60 at the market open (European Brent crude is just above
$70). That's a pop, but not a spectacular one, considering that a whole lot more damage might
ensue in the days ahead. China, Korea, and Japan stand to lose bigly if the players in the
Middle East really go at it and bust up each other's assets. If that happens, the world will
never be the same. You can kiss the global economy goodbye for good. Let's hope some people
don't do something.
Not just the Saudi's. The Houthis support Palestine, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
They also control the Straits of Mandeb where most of Israel's oil transits to Asia.
Hence the war in Yemen an the problems in the Sudan. So its no wonder its not just
the Saudi's who are fighting the Houthis. The Houthis are fighting against the U.K.,
Germany, the U.S., Israel and the UAE, who are all supporting the Saudi's. Yemen, one
of the worlds oldest civilizations
Iran never said "wiping Israel off the map."It was Ahmadinejad that said "..wipe
the Zionist entity off the map".
This author should know better than to repeat Zionist lies.
Kunstler has some huge holes in his game. He seems to take many of the US MSM
talking points as good coin. Like, exhibit A, the "wipe Israel off the map" quote
which has long since been shown to be a mis-translation. Often his bigotry also slips
like when he dismisses Houthi capabilities and gets wrong what actually hit the
refineries. These were DRONES not missiles. That is why they were able to evade the
Saudi air defenses. But Houthis are to uncouth to pull of such an operation and
moreover how dare they defend themselves or accept assistance from Iran even if it
were true they are supplying the Houthis with weapons and intelligence. Of course, he
also fails to explain, following like a dog on a leash the US media, why Iran would
launch such an attack considering it may provoke the Israelis or the US. Sure they
may hate the Saudis but they certainly do not want a war where, though they would not
technically lose, would see their society destroyed. Again Cui Bono.
Kunstlers's roots are definitely showing here. His usual barbed wit has simply
disappeared and he seems to have bitten off and swallowed whole the officialbullshit , very unwise at this stage.
"A correspondent suggests" just doesn't cut it. Correspondents have suggested all
sorts of things and he should learn to ignore these voices and rely on facts
instead.
He forgets the fact that Saudi Arabia has been waging war on Yemen since 2015 and
that the damage inflicted upon the Saudi oil installations is only a tiny fraction of
the retribution that the Saudis deserve.
Kunstler predictably forgets the fact that Israel has been illegally attacking
Iranian interests in Syria for several years and that as a result many Iranians have
been killed by Israel in recent times. The fact is that these illegal forays are also
acts of war, which of course Kunstler forgets to tell us.
One other fact pertains to his boasting that Israel could wipe Iran off the map,
which is not just bad taste, but ignores the fact that Iran has enough conventional
power to do the same to its postage stamp sized and bellicose neighbour.
We now know that when the chips are down, Kunstler will simply revert to type and
tow the crooked official zio line. We don't need Kunstler for that, we all ready have
a zionist media, a craven Congress and Trump's government of crazies, very important
facts.
If the Yemenis are being assisted by Iran I say that's a good thing. The Saudi
beasts are being assisted by our jew rulers. If I was a Yemeni blowing up that oil
infrastructure would have been on top of my list. And Israel is the country that
would be turned into an ashtray. The US is gone, over run invaded, already lost.
"Let's face it:" says Kunstler. Iran started it forty years ago, "ever since they
overthrew their shah ..." Bad Iranians attacking the USA.
But if we go back a few decades further, we find USUKisrael smashing the elected
government of Iran and installing The Shah! So Kunstler is lying when he says "their
shah"; he should say OUR shah. I think he probably knows this. He's not accidentally
mixing things up.
Catastrophic or not the neocons are itching for a big confrontation and Iran fits
the bill.
Keep in mind that most collateral damage will be suffered by the Saudis.
The US is now the biggest producer of oil, just imagine the boost that the US shale
investors will get in an industry that was about to have its bubble burst.
No longer will it struggle to break even, no it will make a good profit, more
importantly the bubble will not hit the financial sector hard.
Now KSA will suffer a blow, but that will only serve the US - new loans and new
contracts will reverse the money stream and tie the Saudi regime even more to
Washington.
As a bonus it will please the Israelis when finally Iran will be taken out and
Hezbollah isolated.
Wild cards - how hard can Iran retaliate beyond KSA, is it able and willing to
strike against Israel? How hard can it strike US targets in the region? And finally
will they go full on against the Arabian energy infrastructure. If a couple of Houthi
cruise missiles in a single strike can drop total oil production by 5% and raise
prices by 20%, imagine what kind of havoc a real Iranian campaign can cause (again
ignoring the oil bonanza the US oil industry will score).
I really believe there is now a 50/50% that Washington will gamble a full blown
war against Iran, its perceived benefits outweighing the dangers.
If anything Israel will be the deciding factor, if Tel Aviv does not fear Iranian
retribution and gives the go ahead, we'll have a war on our hands,
The US is certainly stretched thin defending the national and security interest
across the globe - aka defending and expanding the empire.
However there is enough fire power to defeat the Iranian military as an organized
force and Teheran as a government, it all depends on the US rules of engagement and
how far they are willing to push this war.
But afterwards it will be no better than Iraq or Afghanistan.
That may actually be the excuse to do what some strategists have been itching to
do since the Korean war, that is to use a couple of tactical nukes - the ultimate
terror weapon of state.
The current NPR is a strong sign in favor of nuclear weapons in conflict as it
greatly reduces the threshold. Iran's perceived threat to global oil production could
be used to set an example.
In what condition will Saudi Arabia be in, after Iran has been subdued? Also the
plethora of US bases in the area will also be fat juicy targets for Iranian
missiles.
Did the condition of South East Asia other than the ubiquitous Domino Theory,
worry many when they went to war in Viet Nam, what about Iraq?
Oil and Israel are key.
Oil prices and Israel's safety.
They want to take out Iran, but this small attack shows how vulnerable the
regional energy infrastructure really is. That can be a temporary advantage, in
boosting US oil income, but that can be easily off set by the impact of rising oil
prices on all other sectors and the public.
That's why I think it is 50/50 at best, and slowly leaning to less likely we'll
see a major escalation.
Otoh, if I were the Houthis, I'd launch a couple of additional strikes to press
the message.
Saudi Arabia supplies oil to China, so to believe Iran was behind the drone attack
on Saudi oil is a bit of a stretch. The question is was it the U.S. and Israel
coordinating that attack? Israel's influence on the U.S. in the middle east is what
is getting America running in circles
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said recent drone attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure were
a proportionate Yemeni response to years of daily bombings carried out by a Saudi-led
coalition.
Speaking to reporters in Ankara following three-way talks between the presidents
of Turkey, Russia and Iran, Rouhani suggested the drone attacks were a legitimate act of
self-defense.
"On a daily basis Yemen is being bombarded and innocent civilians are dying so they have
to retaliate," Rouhani explained.
Yemeni people are exercising their legitimate right of defense the attacks were a
reciprocal response to aggression against Yemen for years.
Rouhani added his hope that the conflict in Yemen would be resolved through diplomacy, and
said that such a process might even mirror Syria's Astana talks.
Addressing the same question, Turkish President Recep Erdogan also pointed out that it was
Saudi Arabia who'd started the cycle of attacks. He said the international community should
inquire into the causes of Yemen's crisis, noting the country had been "basically
destroyed" during its four-year conflict, and called on other world powers to consider how
to rebuild Yemen "from scratch" and "put it back on its feet."
While Russia's President Vladimir Putin said the drone attacks had not been discussed at
Monday's meeting, he noted the "humanitarian catastrophe" in the country and urged a
diplomatic solution to the conflict.
The war in Yemen began in earnest in March 2015, when a coalition of states, led by Saudi
Arabia and backed by the US and Britain, launched a bombing campaign in an attempt to defeat
the rebel Houthi movement and restore the rule of President Mansour Hadi, who'd been ousted in
2014. In addition to tens of thousands killed in the fighting, the conflict has sparked one of
the world's worst humanitarian crises, leaving millions without food, water or healthcare, and
dependent on international aid.
Pat Lang won't let me post on his site, so I'll have to point this out here instead.
He has just posted an open letter to Trump regarding a war with Iran, and he points out
(correctly) that:
1) Iran can set its proxy forces in Syria and Iraq loose on US troops in those countries
2) Iran will fire every missile in its arsenal at any US troops within range
3) Iran will fire its AA missiles at any and all USAF planes
4) Iran will keep attacking the 5th fleet until they run out of boats
All true, and all well and good as far as it goes.
But Pat seems to have the same blind spot as all other US pundits, in that they apparently
have forgotten all about the Iranian Army.
They do have an Army, and can muster half a million fighting men.
Which, indeed, is probably ten times as many ground troops that CENTCOM possesses.
Seems to me that the Iranians can think of several good uses for such an army.
For one thing, they can launch an invasion of Afghanistan with the intention of killing each
and every GI who has the misfortune of being in-theatre.
They'll have at least a 10-to-1 advantage of men.
Not so much a fight as a slaughter.
Bernhard, excellent article, as usual, thank you. The recent situation in KSA is just a small
example of the collapse on classic warfare, we have seen it closely in Vietnam, Lebanon 2006,
then Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and for 2,500 years in Afghanistan, time and time again. The
supposed richer countries trying to impose their will and military power when facing
organized societies with, purpose and means to defend, do exactly that, they fend off the
aggressors.
In the case of Yemen, which has not been conquered due to the terrain and its people
(similar to Afghanistan), they, as few other cases, had friends that supplied means of
defense and attack, this is why Yemen/Houthis, after 5 years of war of aggression against
them, they can hit back, in a way that KSA is not able to defend, small drones, flying low
and hard to be spotted with a long range, this is the perfect weapon to demoralize arrogant
regimes, it creates terror and damages in highly explosive places. Yemen will not back down
until KSA leaves its aggressive policy and pay reparations, or Yemen will continue to inflict
damages, slowly bleeding KSA and demoralizing its corrupt leadership.
I my view a decision to remove the current royalty from KSA was already taken, I mean, The
Resistance will pursue it, slowly, will create situations for an internal coup, internal
revolts and so on, KSA's security is mostly done by foreigners, many from Pakistan, Sudan
etc...these people are treated as slaves, very badly, a time bomb when an opportunity arises,
and KSA is approaching that dangerous zone, few more well placed strikes that put KSA on its
knees and expose wide open its vulnerability will be the sign for the large & oppressed
Shia population to revolt, with it goes Bahrain as well.
Lets remember that Qatar is a mortal enemy for KSA, and has its own ambitions to expand
territory beyond its tiny area, KSA is playing with fire by bending to the US,Uk and Israel,
it is risking being retaliated in pieces.
Grieved @80 noted that "...these countries... are in fact in a coalition..."
The response to that from imperial loyalists is not unexpected: "Nooo! Primitive sand
people cannot put aside the identity politics differences that our empire cultivates in them
and unite against us!"
The imperial loyalists, despite considering themselves to be "woke" and
"inclusive" and unbigoted and moral, find it inconceivable that any peoples other than
those of northern European and anglo descent could unite in the face of an existential
threat. To be certain, these empire loyalists cannot even see themselves as being the
existential threat that is uniting peoples, despite having literally slaughtered millions of
innocents over the last half century or so. Their sense of moral and cultural superiority is
an axiom that must remain beyond question lest their all-important identities be
exposed as cheap narcissism, so they pour into the forum to promote conspiracy theories about
how the stunning successes of the coalition that Grieved notes above are actually convoluted
and inscrutably super-sophisticated moves on a Grand Chessboard . To maintain this
fiction they must overlook the fact that their empire's best strategists reached the limits
of their geostrategic talent playing the board game Risk . Consider that the imperial
mass media has begun to refer to pompous Pompeo as "the next Kissinger" , and recall
that even the former Kissinger was never really that bright but was just ruthless and totally
lacking a conscience.
Face reality, imperial loyalists: The Houthis, whom you cannot even credit with being
human, have just successfully wounded your lackeys in the Middle East. The Houthis
accomplished this with skill, intelligence, and determination.
"... And President Trump himself said Wednesday from the White House that it looks like Iran did it but that he still hopes to avoid war . He announced via a statement on Twitter that, "I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!" -- ..."
"... Pompeo is in Jedda where he's expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to evaluate a possible response, where the are expected to "coordinate efforts to counter Iranian aggression in the region," according to a State Department statement . ..."
"... Wednesday's Saudi Def. Ministry press briefing showcasing missile and drone debris alleged "evidence" the Iranians were behind attack. ..."
"... The fact that Johnson's statement included the word "diplomatic" - along with Trump's emphasis on extending stronger sanctions - is a good sign however, that the White House is not prepping for war. ..."
What's the end game here? Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has just arrived in Jeddah for talks with Saudi leaders over a response
to the weekend attacks on two of the kingdom's major oil facilities.
After a prior press conference by the Saudi Defense Ministry
where it for the first time assigned public blame on Iran for the attacks which initially knocked out half of the kingdom's daily
oil output, saying the air attacks "unquestionably" had Iranian state sponsorship, Pompeo
has announced the Aramco attacks constitute
an "act of war" by Iran .
And President Trump himself said Wednesday from the White House that it looks like Iran did it but that he still hopes to avoid
war . He announced via a statement on Twitter that, "I have just instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to substantially increase
Sanctions on the country of Iran!" -- in what appears an alternative to launching a military response.
"I'm not looking to get into new conflict, but sometimes you have to," Trump told reporters Wednesday.
Pompeo's new "act of war" declaration indeed takes the potential for escalation right back to boiling point.
Pompeo is in Jedda where he's expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to evaluate a possible response, where
the are expected to "coordinate efforts to counter Iranian aggression in the region," according to
a State Department
statement .
Meanwhile, if the 'military option' is being considered, it appears we could be in the beginning phases of an international coalition
response. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced he and Trump held a phone call to discuss the need for a "united diplomatic response
from international partners" after the Aramco attacks.
The fact that Johnson's statement included the word "diplomatic" - along with Trump's emphasis on extending stronger sanctions
- is a good sign however, that the White House is not prepping for war.
"... the attack dented the image of invincibility of Aramco's infrastructure ..."
"... Saudi Military stated the Aramco facilites were attacked with 18 missiles and 7 drones. They state cruise missiles were used. However, now they state the attack was simply "backed" by Iran. The weapons were all Iranian design. ..."
"... That Iran is backing the Houthis we already knew and nobody doubts. But those drones and missiles didn't come from Iranian territory nor were they operated by Iranian personel. It's a free market world, and everybody can buy weapons from anybody. ..."
"... The GOAL of exaggerating the attack could be to simply increase oil prices or to justify war with Iran. Tensions with Iran will be elevated for weeks, if not months. That will mean higher oil prices than otherwise. ..."
"... The timing is also suspicious because it comes just before the Israeli election and just after John Bolton was dismissed. ..."
"... Russian oil experts say 3 to 6 months to repair damage from strike as components must come from Europe according to TASS. As the remains of the uavs have been recovered their effective range can be determined. I suspect they were launched from within Saudi territory. ..."
"... It is embarrassing to the Saudis because they scarcely bother to unpack the weapons the US sends them-at premium prices - and dare not allow any of their countrymen to learn how to use them. And it is embarrassing to the Americans because they understand all this and ship over arms that don't work simply to ensure that those petrodollars circulate. ..."
"... Hence the current campaign to convince us that Iran was responsible. Mind you, that propaganda is only effective so long as the American people don't really believe it because, if they did, they might demand war (you can imagine Pelosi, Schumer and Biden insisting on it) and Washington doesn't want that. Jingoism isn't about fighting it's about threatening. ..."
1) USA: that would only help if Trump was decided to go to a hot war against Iran. By his
declarations since yesterday, we already know that isn't going to happen. He didn't even jump
to the "Iran did it!" bandwagon right away. He said he increased sanctions against Iran --
but Iran is already sanctioned to the maximum by the USA, so that's empty rhetoric.
2) Israel: wars in Israel only work as an election boost to the incumbent Prime Minister when Israel emerges with a clear
victory. ...
3) Saudi Arabia: it has a 188 billion barrel reserve to cover up for the losses for a
couple of days, so they benefited a little bit from the 20% price rise. But so did everybody
else -- including enemies of the USA, such as Russia and Venezuela. Besides, the attack
dented the image of invincibility of Aramco's infrastructure, and Saudi Arabia's image as a
neofascist ideal State.
4) Iran: Iran can block the Hormuz Strait -- a much more benign and cheap way to stop
Saudi oil from being exported. If Iran attacks its neighbors' oil infrastructure, then it
kind of states it's fair game for its neighbors to attack theirs. This is bad move for Iran
from a purely game theory standpoint, let alone from the geopolitical one.
5) Masters of the Universe: yes, the oil price went up 20% in one day. But let's remember
that even a USD 100.00 a barrel isn't that impressive from a historical standpoint: when the
Iraq invasion happened, the barrel reached USD 300.00. Yes, a selected elite benefited a lot
from this, but the USA didn't become a capitalist utopia because of that. We must not
overestimate the effects of oil prices on capitalism and, specially, on the USA: the West is
in terminal decline for a myriad of factors, not because of one silver bullet. Higher oil
prices won't save the West.
My hypothesis is this: the USA/Saudi Arabia are too embarassed to admit their
anti-aircraft weapons and systems are useless against puny drones and created a big,
subterranean enemy in the form of Iran in order to avoid public embarassment.
The Houthis are telling the truth, and they will do more attacks if the Saudis don't stop
with theirs and settle for peace.
The headline calls that the Saudi Military stated the Aramco facilites were attacked with
18 missiles and 7 drones. They state cruise missiles were used. However, now they state the
attack was simply "backed" by Iran. The weapons were all Iranian design.
That Iran is backing the Houthis we already knew and nobody doubts. But those drones and
missiles didn't come from Iranian territory nor were they operated by Iranian personel. It's
a free market world, and everybody can buy weapons from anybody.
US and Saudis say that over 20 missiles and drones were used in the attack. They say that
this showed that Iran did the attack or participated in the attack because the Houthi only
claim to have used 10 drones.
Peter AU 1 and I have said that it's possible to account for the excess damage as an
attempt to exaggerate damage caused by the Houthi attack.
The GOAL of exaggerating the attack could be to simply increase oil prices or to justify
war with Iran. Tensions with Iran will be elevated for weeks, if not months. That will mean
higher oil prices than otherwise.
The timing is also suspicious because it comes just before the Israeli election and
just after John Bolton was dismissed.
And despite Trump's backing away from his asinine "locked and loaded" comment, war with
Iran is still very possible. The Iraq War started 18 months after 9-11.
Russian oil experts say 3 to 6 months to repair damage from strike as components must come
from Europe according to TASS. As the remains of the uavs have been recovered their effective
range can be determined. I suspect they were launched from within Saudi territory.
Their main argument is that the attacks came "from the north".
If that's true, then the question remains: why didn't the Saudi radars detect it? Either b
is lying, or the Saudi military is lying.
It's really hilarious at this point: the attack caught the West so low-guarded and stunned
them so much that they can't even come up with a unified official narrative.
Houthi Armed Forces Spokesman
is at this moment tweeting a series of statements explaining how the last attack was done
that includes drone capabilities and types of munitions used!!!!!!!!!!! An example:
"Drones have fission heads carrying four precision bombs."
Given that the entire relationship between the USA and the KSA is an elaborate protection
racket the failure of all those high priced systems to protect the oil fields against
Ansrullah drones is particularly embarrassing.
It is embarrassing to the Saudis because they scarcely bother to unpack the weapons the
US sends them-at premium prices - and dare not allow any of their countrymen to learn how to
use them. And it is embarrassing to the Americans because they understand all this and ship
over arms that don't work simply to ensure that those petrodollars circulate.
Hence the current campaign to convince us that Iran was responsible. Mind you, that
propaganda is only effective so long as the American people don't really believe it because,
if they did, they might demand war (you can imagine Pelosi, Schumer and Biden insisting on
it) and Washington doesn't want that.
Jingoism isn't about fighting it's about threatening.
And, now that 57 varieties of Israeli Fascism are squabbling about whether the Prime
Minister goes to jail for theft, even that distraction is no longer useful.
Statement from the Iranians "Saudi press conference shows they are clueless about how attack
was executed and know nothing about the military capabilities of their adversary".
Seems about right. Statement by bevin is on target.
The recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities by Yemeni Houthi forces demonstrate once again
that an aggressive foreign policy often brings unintended consequences and can result in
blowback. In 2015 Saudi Arabia attacked its neighbor, Yemen, because a coup in that country
ousted the Saudi-backed dictator. Four years later Yemen is in ruins, with nearly 100,000
Yemenis killed and millions more facing death by starvation. It has been rightly called the
worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet.
But rich and powerful Saudi Arabia did not defeat Yemen. In fact, the Saudis last month
asked the Trump Administration to help facilitate talks with the Houthis in hopes that the war,
which has cost Saudi Arabia tens of billions of dollars, could finally end without Saudi crown
prince Mohammad bin Salman losing too much face. Washington admitted earlier this month that
those talks had begun.
The surprise Houthi attack on Saturday disrupted half of Saudi Arabia's oil and gas
production and shocked Washington. Predictably, however, the neocons are using the attack to
call for war with Iran!
Sen. Lindsay Graham, one of the few people in Washington who makes John Bolton look like a
dove, Tweeted yesterday that, "It is now time for the US to put on the table an attack on
Iranian oil refineries " Graham is the perfect embodiment of the saying, "when all you have is
a hammer, everything looks like a nail." No matter what the problem, for Graham the solution is
war.
Likewise, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – who is supposed to represent US diplomacy
– jumped to blame Iran for the attack on Saudi Arabia, Tweeting that, "Iran has now
launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply." Of course, he provided no
evidence even as the Houthis themselves took responsibility for the bombing.
What is remarkable is that all of Washington's warmongers are ready for war over what is
actually a retaliatory strike by a country that is the victim of Saudi aggression, not the
aggressor itself. Yemen did not attack Saudi Arabia in 2015. It was the other way around. If
you start a war and the other country fights back, you should not be entitled to complain about
how unfair the whole thing is.
The establishment reaction to the Yemeni oilfield strike reminds me of a hearing in the
House Foreign Affairs Committee just before the US launched the 2003 Iraq war. As I was arguing
against the authorization for that war, I pointed out that Iraq had never attacked the United
States. One of my colleagues stopped me in mid-sentence, saying, "let me remind the gentleman
that the Iraqis have been shooting at our planes for years." True, but those planes were
bombing Iraq!
The neocons want a US war on Iran at any cost. They may feel temporarily at a disadvantage
with the departure of their ally in the Trump Administration, John Bolton. However, the sad
truth is that there are plenty more John Boltons in the Administration. And they have allies in
the Lindsay Grahams in Congress.
Yemen has demonstrated that it can fight back against Saudi aggression. The only sensible
way forward is for a rapid end to this four-year travesty, and the Saudis would be wise to wake
up to the mess they've created for themselves. Whatever the case, US participation in Saudi
Arabia's war on Yemen must end immediately and neocon lies about Iran's role in the war must be
refuted and resisted.
"... Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen. Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution, they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. ..."
"... "Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the region." ..."
"... "The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued. ..."
"... Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing a successful bill to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen. ..."
"... "It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest between the Saudis and Iranians." ..."
"... "Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.), who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran. ..."
"... "This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not a walk in the park." ..."
"... "In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's desulphurization capacity out of commission. ..."
"... "This little accident was designed to be maximally disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil in the long run. ..."
"... On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump understands." ..."
Retired Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis pointed out that the puncture marks do not actually show
the origin of the attack. "Missiles can fly from almost anywhere. They have the ability to
maneuver! And certainly drones can, too," the Defense Priorities senior fellow told the
National Interest . "There hasn't been the time to do an actual analysis on the
ground, so let's wait and see."
Mark Latham, managing partner at the London-based analysis firm Commodities Intelligence,
told the National Interest that the puncture marks pointed to a cruise missile with no
explosive warhead. Removing the payload would allow the missile to carry more fuel and launch
from farther away from its target.
... ... ...
"Mr. X is a sophisticated fellow. He's sourced some Iranian cruise missiles.
He's removed the explosive payload. He's replaced the explosive payload with fuel," he said.
"So this isn't your twenty dollar Amazon drone. This is a sophisticated military operation."
"The culprit behind the Abqaiq attack is most definitely the Islamic Republic, either
directly or through one of its proxies," argued Varsha Koduvayur, a senior research analyst at
the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
"The attack fits the pattern of Iran signaling to the Gulf states that if it can't get its
oil out, it will cause their oil exports to become collateral damage," Koduvayur told the National Interest . "It's because of how strong our coercive financial tools are that
Iran is resorting to attacks like this: it's lashing out."
Violating an Obama-era agreement to regulate Iran's nuclear research program, the Trump
administration imposed massive sanctions on Iran's oil industry beginning in May 2018. The goal
of this "maximum pressure" campaign was to force Iran to accept a "better" deal. Since then,
Iranian forces have captured a British oil tanker and allegedly sabotaged tankers from other
countries.
There were some signals that Trump was planning to use the ongoing United Nations General
Assembly in New York to open a new
diplomatic channel with Iran, especially after the
firing of hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton. But the weekend attack sent Trump
into reverse.
"Remember when Iran shot down a drone, saying knowingly that it was in their 'airspace'
when, in fact, it was nowhere close. They stuck strongly to that story knowing that it was a
very big lie," he said in a Monday morning Twitter post, referring to a June incident
when Iranian and American forces almost went to war. "Now they say that they had nothing to do
with the attack on Saudi Arabia. We'll see?"
He also hinted at a violent U.S. response.
"There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on
verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of
this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" Trump wrote on Sunday.
"Saudi Arabia is not a formal treaty ally of ours, so there are no international agreements
that obligate us to come to their defense," John Glaser, director of foreign-policy studies at
the CATO Institute, stated. "This does not amount to a clear and present danger to the United
States, so no self-defense justification is relevant. He would therefore need authorization
from Congress."
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had mixed reactions to the attack.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) proposed putting "on the table an attack on Iranian oil
refineries" in order to "break the regime's back." His press office did not respond to a
follow-up question from the National Interest asking whether the president would have
the authority to do so.
Amy Grappone, spokeswoman for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), told the National Interest
that the Senator "will support an appropriate and proportionate response" after "studying the
latest intelligence pertaining to Iran's malign activities, including these recent attacks in
Saudi Arabia."
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, condemned the attack with
a backhanded insult towards Saudi Arabia. "Despite some ongoing policy differences with the
kingdom, no nation should be subjected to these kinds of attacks on it soil and against its
people," he wrote on Twitter, declining to name Iran as the culprit.
Committee members Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.) explicitly announced
their opposition to war with Iran. And prominent war powers critic Sen.
Jeff Markley (D-Ore.) quipped that, "[b]ack when Presidents used to follow the Constitution,
they sought consent for military action from Congress, not foreign governments that murder
reporters," referring to the assassination of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
"Diplomacy by Twitter has not worked so far and it surely is not working with Iran. The
president needs to stop threatening military strikes via social media," said Sen. Ben Cardin
(D-Mary.) in response to a question from the National Interest . "The attack on Saudi
Arabia is troubling whether it was perpetrated by Houthi rebels or Iran. The U.S. should regain
its leadership by working with our allies to isolate Iran for its belligerent actions in the
region."
"The U.S. should not be looking for any opportunity to start a dangerous and costly war with
Iran. Congress has not authorized war against Iran and we've made it crystal clear that Saudi
Arabia needs to withdraw from Yemen," he continued.
Asked how he would vote on a declaration of war, the senator told the National
Interest : "Let's hope it does not come to that. Congress has not authorized war against
Iran. The majority voted to engage them diplomatically to slow their nuclear ambitions. The
international community is ready to work with the U.S. again to ease economic pressure on Iran
in exchange for their restraint. We are at a dangerous precipice."
In a statement emailed to the National Interest and posted to Twitter, Sen. Tim
Kaine (D-Va.) was even more direct: "The US should never go to war to protect Saudi oil."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has long been a critic of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, proposing
a successful bill
to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort. (He did not have enough votes to override
the veto.) After the attacks, he wrote a long Twitter thread
explaining how "the Saudis sowed the seeds of this mess" in Yemen.
"It's simply amazing how the Saudis call all our shots these days. We don't have a mutual
defense alliance with KSA, for good reason. We shouldn't pretend we do," Murphy added. "And
frankly, no matter where this latest drone strike was launched from, there is no short or long
term upside to the U.S. military getting more deeply involved in the growing regional contest
between the Saudis and Iranians."
But the reaction did not fall neatly along party lines.
"Iran is one of the most dangerous state sponsors of terrorism. This may well be the thing
that calls for military action against Iran, if that's what the intelligence supports," said
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) in a Monday interview with Fox News. Others pointed out that
attacking Iran would contradict Trump's own principles.
"Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not 'America First,'" said Democratic
presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, invoking a popular Trump slogan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ken.),
who had invoked Trump's antiwar message in a public feud
with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) over the weekend, took to CNN to warn against striking Iran.
"This is a regional conflict, that there's no reason the superpower of the United States
needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran. It would be a needless escalation of this," he
told journalist Jake Tapper. "Those who loved the Iraq War, the Cheneys, the Boltons, the
Kristols, they all are clamoring and champing at the bit for another war in Iran. But it's not
a walk in the park."
Davis agreed with Paul's assessment. "There's too many people who have lost touch with
understanding what war is all about. They think it's easy," he told the National
Interest . "Just imagine this. What we go ahead and do this, and Iran makes good on their
threats, and American warships get sunk in the Gulf?" "This is not America's fight," he
concluded. "The American armed forces are not on loan as a Saudi defense force."
"There's another claim that the impact on oil markets is sufficient to impact the vital U.S.
interest in the free flow of energy coming out of that region, but that argument quickly
descends into absurdity when we remember that the Trump administration has been trying to
zero-out Iranian oil exports, for a host of spurious reasons," Glaser told the National
Interest . "Washington is also aggressively sanctioning Venezuela, making it harder for
Caracas to bring oil to market, too. If we really cared about the supply of oil, we wouldn't be
doing this."
In any case, the attack may not have affected oil markets in such a straightforward way.
Latham says that the attack struck an oil desulphurization facility. At the moment,
desulphurized fuel is in high demand from the shipping industry, which is rushing to comply
with new international environmental regulations.
"In order to have clean ships by the first of January next year, all the world's shipping
fleet from about now until the end of the year are busy emptying their tanks of heavy sulphur
fuel oil and filling their tanks with low sulphur fuel oil, which is the new standard," Latham
explained, claiming that the attack could have taken up to 20 percent of the world's
desulphurization capacity out of commission.
"This little accident was designed to be maximally
disruptive to the world's oil market. It could not have happened at a worse time." "But what is
really interesting is in Amsterdam this morning, I saw that for fuel oil -- the sulphurous
stuff -- the price went down," Latham continued, speculating that international powers might
delay the new environmental regulations by months and inadvertently drive down the price of oil
in the long run.
On Sunday, Trump tapped into emergency U.S. oil reserves, in order to stabilize prices. It's
not clear, however, that the United States has enough oil to cope with wider attacks on energy
infrastructure. "If the Iranians did this, they have shown they have pretty immense
capabilities clearly," Parsi told the National Interest . "In the case of a full-scale
war, imagine what this will do for the global economy. It's not that difficult to imagine what
that will do to Trump's re-election prospects. I think that is something Trump
understands."
Matthew Petti is a national security reporter at the National Interest.
"... American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe. ..."
"... A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some ..."
"... U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is: ..."
"... Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be. ..."
"... Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts. ..."
"... The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. ..."
"... Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership, resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense. ..."
"... any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it. ..."
"... Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan. ..."
"... Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment. ..."
"... I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power. ..."
"... Empires have a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion. ..."
"... What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure. ..."
"... We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt. ..."
"... I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/ hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets. ..."
"... The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged. ..."
"... It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The money and power is too corrupting. ..."
"... I'm not sure that most of the citizens in those European countries we occupy actually support our permanent military presence in their countries. ..."
"... The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking. ..."
Stephen Wertheim explains
what is required to bring an end to unnecessary and open-ended U.S. wars overseas:
American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military dominance across the globe.
Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do
what they most resist: end America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace.
Any government that presumes to be the world's hegemon will be fighting somewhere almost all of the time, because its political
leaders will see everything around the world as their business and it will see every manageable threat as a challenge to their "leadership."
A government that imagines that it has both the right and responsibility to police the entire planet will find an excuse to mire
itself in one or more conflicts on a regular basis, and if there isn't one available to join it will start some.
U.S. military dominance should have at least guaranteed that we remained at peace once our major adversary had collapsed at
the end of the Cold War, but the dissolution of the USSR encouraged the U.S. to become much more aggressive and much more eager to
use force whenever and wherever it wanted. Wertheim provides an answer for why this is:
Why have interventions proliferated as challengers have shrunk? The basic cause is America's infatuation with military
force. Its political class imagines that force will advance any aim, limiting debate to what that aim should be.
Using force appeals to many American leaders and policymakers because they imagine that frequent military action cows and
intimidates adversaries, but in practice it creates more enemies and wastes American lives and resources on fruitless conflicts.
Our government's frenetic interventionism and meddling for the last thirty years hasn't made our country the slightest bit more secure,
but it has sown chaos and instability across at least two continents. Wertheim continues:
Continued gains by the Taliban, 18 years after the United States initially toppled it, suggest a different principle: The profligate
deployment of force creates new and unnecessary objectives more than it realizes existing and worthy ones.
The constant warfare of the last two decades in particular has corroded our political system and inured the public to the
idea that it is normal that American soldiers and Marines are always fighting and dying in some foreign country in pursuit of nebulous
goals, but nothing could be more abnormal and wrong than this. Constant warfare achieves nothing except to provide an excuse
for more of the same. The longer that a war drags on, one would think that it should become easier to bring it to an end, but we
have seen that it becomes harder for both political and military leaders to give up on an unwinnable conflict when it has become
an almost permanent part of our foreign policy. For many policymakers and pundits, what matters is that the U.S. not be perceived
as losing, and so our military keeps fighting without an end in sight for the sake of this "not losing."
Wertheim adds:
Despite Mr. Trump's rhetoric about ending endless wars, the president insists that "our military dominance must be unquestioned"
-- even though no one believes he has a strategy to use power or a theory to bring peace. Armed domination has become an end in
itself.
Seeking to maintain this dominance is ultimately unsustainable, and as it becomes more expensive and less popular it will also
become increasingly dangerous as we find ourselves confronted with even more capable adversaries. For the last thirty years, the
U.S. has been fortunate to be secure and prosperous enough that it could indulge in decades of fruitless militarism, but that luck
won't hold forever. It is far better if the U.S. give up on hegemony and the militarism that goes with it on our terms.
Our establishment would rather give up their skin. They don't call it hegemony, they call it the post ww2 order, leadership,
resisting isolationism or some other such nonsense.
Truth be told, as your article states, any country that attempts to gain enough power to assert its own sovereignty is
considered a threat that must be crushed and we roll out all of the tools at our disposal to do it.
It makes us less safe. Isolationism did not cause 9/11. In the 90's when we were being attacked by Al Qaeda we were too distracted
dancing on Russia's bones to pay any attention to them. While Al Qaeda was attacking our troops and blowing up our buildings we
were bombing Serbia, expanding NATO and reelecting Yeltsin and sticking it to Iran.
It goes beyond that. Al Qaeda's attack on us was due to us using them as a tool to stop Russia's push into Afghanistan.
We later abandoned them when the job was done: a pack hound we trained, pushed to fight, then left in the forest abandoned and
starved. Then we wonder why it came back growling.
Isolationism may not be the most effective solution to things, but I'll admit a LOT of pain, on ourselves and others, would've
never happened if we took that policy.
Good luck with that. We are ruled by people who are functionally indistinguishable from sociopaths, and sociopaths learn only
from reward and punishment.
So far, they only have been rewarded for their crimes.
While I think the economic basis of the Soviet Union was faulty, and it had lost the popular support it might have had in early
days, the USSR's military aggression, particularly in Afghanistan, was a major precipitating factor in its downfall. It would
have eventually crumbled, I believe, anyway, but had they taken a less aggressive stance I think they would have lasted several
decades longer.
Is it really in our hands to actually disengage though? Is this politically feasible?
How does this work? The US gets up one day and says "We're pulling all of our troops out of Saudi and SK. No more funding for
Israel! No bolstering the pencil-thin government of Afghanistan. All naval bases abroad will be shut down. Longstanding alliances
and interests be damned!"
I sympathize very strongly with the notion that we must use military force wisely and with restraint, and perhaps even that
the post-WW2 expansion abroad was a mistake, but I do not see a politically feasible way to end our global empire without
destabilizing that same globe that has come to rely on our military power.
This is the world we live in, whether we like it or not, and barring some military or economic disaster that forces a strategic
realignment or retreat (like WW2 did for the old European powers) I don't know how you practically pull back. Empires have
a sort of inertia, and few in history voluntarily give up dominion.
What is unsustainable is the current rate of government spending. The current rate of military spending is driving up our
debt and making it impossible to reinvest in desperately needed infrastructure.
We have been coasting on the infrastructure investments of the 50's and 60's but if we don't start cutting military spending
and redirecting that money elsewhere we are going to be bankrupt.
Sure. That doesn't mean American withdrawal would create less instability in toto. Maybe it would. Who knows? We mortals can only
take counterfactuals so far.
I agree that it is almost impossible to conceive of any scenario whereby this "ideology" of so-called world order and/
hegemony would change in the US and in its puppets.
The deck is so totally stacked in favor of this ideology, the totally controlled MSM, the MIC, the corrupt and controlled
congress, and the presidential admin structure itself, would never allow this mantra to be challenged.
It is all about greed and power-the psychopaths pursuing and defending this 'ideology' would never ever go quietly. The
money and power is too corrupting.
Maybe, just maybe, however, as we are at $22 trillion in debt and counting (just saw a total tab for F-35 of $1.5 trillion)
that the money will run out, and zero interest rate financing is not all that awesome, this unsustainable mindlessness will be
curtailed or even better, changed.
It's not really hegemony. Old-fashioned empires took over territory in order to gain resources and labor. We haven't done that
since 1920. Especially since 1990 we've been making war purely to destroy and obliterate. When our war is done there's nothing
left to dominate or own.
Domestically we've been using politics and media and controlled culture to do the same thing. Create "terrorists" and "extremists"
on "two" "sides", set them loose, enjoy the resulting chaos. Chaos is the declared goal, and it's been working beautifully for
70 years.
China is expanding empire in Africa and Asia the old-fashioned way, improving farms and factories in order to have exclusive
purchase of their output.
Could not have said it better. "On our terms" would mean that Europe is forced to take matters of military security in it's own
hands, I hope. But chanches are slim, history shows empires must fall hard and break a leg or so first before anything changes.
Iran, Saudi-arabia, the greater ME, China, the trade wars and the world economy are coming together for a perfect storm it seems.
The problem with US hegemony is Israel. Look around the world. Neither Japan nor South Korea nor Vietnam nor Philippines nor India
nor Indonesia nor Australia (the same can be said for South and Central America, Mexico, Canada and Europe) require a significant
US presence.
None of them are asking for a greater presence in their country (except Poland) while being perfectly happy with
our alliance, joint defense, trade, intelligence and technology sharing.
It is only Israel and Saudi Arabia which are constantly pushing the US into middle eastern wars and quagmires that we have
no national interest. Trump sees the plain truth that the US is in jeopardy of losing its manufacturing and its technological
lead to China. If we (US) dont start to rebuild our infrastructure, our defense, our cities, our communities, our manufacturing,
our educational system then our nation is going to follow California into a 3rd world totalitarian state dominated by democratic
voting immigrants whose only affiliation to our country and our constitutional republic is a welfare check, free govt programs
and incestuous govt contracts which funnel govt dollars into the re-election PACs of democratic / liberal elected officials.
The new paradigm is that private militarism dominates government, turning it to its preferred priorities of moneymaking warmaking.
Defeat is now when war's income streams end. The only wars that are lost, are those that end, defeating the winning of war profits.
War, as a financial success story, has become an end in itself, and an empire that looks for more to wage means some mighty big
wages with more profit opportunities. Victory is to be avoided - red ink being spilled through peace detestable - and blood spilled
profitably to be encouraged.
Last month, the Council of Economic Advisers, an agency of the Trump White House, released
an extraordinary report titled "The Opportunity Costs of Socialism." The report begins with the
statement: "Coincident with the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth, socialism is making a
comeback in American political discourse. Detailed policy proposals from self-declared
socialists are gaining support in Congress and among much of the younger electorate."
The very fact that the US government officially acknowledges a growth of popular support for
socialism, particularly among the nation's youth, testifies to vast changes taking place in the
political consciousness of the working class and the terror this is striking within the ruling
elite. America is, after all, a country where anti-communism was for the greater part of a
century a state-sponsored secular religion. No ruling class has so ruthlessly sought to exclude
socialist politics from political discourse as the American ruling class.
The 70-page document is itself an inane right-wing screed. It seeks to discredit socialism
by identifying it with capitalist countries such as Venezuela that have expanded state
ownership of parts of the economy while protecting private ownership of the banks, and, with
the post-2008 collapse of oil and other commodity prices, increasingly attacked the living
standards of the working class.
It identifies socialism with proposals for mild social reform such as "Medicare for all,"
raised and increasingly abandoned by a section of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton
Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of "economic freedom," i.e., the
unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and to denounce all social reforms, business
regulations, tax increases or anything else that impinges on the oligarchy's
self-enrichment.
The report's arguments and themes find expression in the fascistic campaign speeches of
Donald Trump, who routinely and absurdly attacks the Democrats as socialists and accuses them
of seeking to turn America into another "socialist" Venezuela.
What has prompted this effort to blackguard socialism?
A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular
disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by
the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would
participate in a "large-scale uprising." Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, "Banks and
money rule the world."
Last November, a poll conducted by YouGov showed that 51 percent of Americans between the
ages of 21 and 29 would prefer to live in a socialist or communist country than in a capitalist
country.
In August of this year, a Gallup poll found that for the first time since the organization
began tracking the figure, fewer than half of Americans aged 18–29 had a positive view of
capitalism, while more than half had a positive view of socialism. The percentage of young
people viewing capitalism positively fell from 68 percent in 2010 to 45 percent this year, a
23-percentage point drop in just eight years.
This surge in interest in socialism is bound up with a resurgence of class struggle in
the US and internationally. In the United States, the number of major strikes so far this
year, 21, is triple the number in 2017. The ruling class was particularly terrified by the
teachers' walkouts earlier this year because the biggest strikes were organized by
rank-and-file educators in a rebellion against the unions, reflecting the weakening grip of the
pro-corporate organizations that have suppressed the class struggle for decades.
The growth of the class struggle is an objective process that is driven by the global
crisis of capitalism , which finds its most acute social and political expression in the
center of world capitalism -- the United States. It is the class struggle that provides the key
to the fight for genuine socialism.
Masses of workers and youth are being driven into struggle and politically radicalized by
decades of uninterrupted war and the staggering growth of social inequality. This process has
accelerated during the 10 years since the Wall Street crash of 2008. The Obama years saw the
greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in history, the escalation of the wars
begun under Bush and their spread to Libya, Syria and Yemen, and the intensification of mass
surveillance, attacks on immigrants and other police state measures.
This paved the way for the elevation of Trump, the personification of the criminality and
backwardness of the ruling oligarchy.
Under conditions where the typical CEO in the US now makes in a single day almost as much
as the average worker makes in an entire year, and the net worth of the 400 wealthiest
Americans has doubled over the past decade, the working class is looking for a radical
alternative to the status quo. As the Socialist Equality Party wrote in its program eight
years ago, " The Breakdown of Capitalism and the
Fight for Socialism in the United States ":
The change in objective conditions, however, will lead American workers to change their
minds. The reality of capitalism will provide workers with many reasons to fight for a
fundamental and revolutionary change in the economic organization of society.
The response of the ruling class is two-fold. First, the abandonment of bourgeois democratic
forms of rule and the turn toward dictatorship. The run-up to the midterm elections has
revealed the advanced stage of these preparations, with Trump's fascistic attacks on
immigrants, deployment of troops to the border, threats to gun down unarmed men, women and
children seeking asylum, and his pledge to overturn the 14th Amendment establishing birthright
citizenship.
That this has evoked no serious opposition from the Democrats and the media makes clear that
the entire ruling class is united around a turn to authoritarianism. Indeed, the Democrats are
spearheading the drive to censor the internet in order to silence left-wing and socialist
opposition.
The second response is to promote phony socialists such as Bernie Sanders, the Democratic
Socialists of America (DSA) and other pseudo-left organizations in order to confuse the working
class and channel its opposition back behind the Democratic Party.
In 2018, with Sanders totally integrated into the Democratic Party leadership, this role has
been largely delegated to the DSA, which functions as an arm of the Democrats. Two DSA members,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Detroit, are likely to win seats in
the House of Representatives as candidates of the Democratic Party.
The closer they come to taking office, the more they seek to distance themselves from their
supposed socialist affiliation. Ocasio-Cortez, for example, joined Sanders in eulogizing the
recently deceased war-monger John McCain, refused to answer when asked if she opposed the US
wars in the Middle East, and dropped her campaign call for the abolition of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The working class and youth are increasingly looking for a socialist alternative, but their
understanding of socialism and its history is limited. Here the role of the revolutionary
party, the Socialist Equality Party, is critical. It alone seeks to arm the emerging mass
movement of the working class with a genuine revolutionary, socialist and internationalist
program.
The SEP fights to mobilize and unite the working class in the US and internationally in
opposition to the entire ruling elite and all of its bribed politicians and parties. As our
program explains:
But socialism will be achieved only through the establishment of workers' power. This will
be a difficult struggle Socialism is not a gift to be given to the working class. It must be
fought for and won by the working class itself.
The task facing workers and youth looking for the way to fight against war, inequality,
poverty and repression is to join and build the Socialist Equality Party to lead the coming
mass struggles of the working class.
After 2008 free market economists should be treated at their face value: as academic
charlatans. Now they are treated as goods which are past their shelf life in China and that's a
progress.
Notable quotes:
"... The Chinese don't need, and don't want, a bunch of arrogant pro-US intellectuals giving them lectures. I can't say I blame them. ..."
"... No, that is because after WW2 the US was the only major economy left standing that hadn't been wrecked, and they were in the box seat to set the agenda post Bretton-Woods (and cement for themselves the leading dominant role). The USD is being used increasingly as a cudgel to enforce US hegemony, and that will lead much of the world to seek alternatives. It's happening now, slowly at first, and will only gain speed from here. ..."
During my last visit I stopped by the offices of what remained of the Unirule Institute of
Economics. The well-respected organization was formed in 1993 by six economists, most
importantly Mao Yushi (no relation to Mao Zedong) and Sheng Hong. My organization, the Cato
Institute, gave the former the 2012 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty to honor his
work on behalf of human freedom. Now retired at the age of ninety, Mao Yushi paid a price for
activism. Noted his award citation, Mao "has faced severe punishment, exile, and near
starvation for remarks critical of a command-based economy and society." The late Liu Xiaobo, a
Nobel laureate, said of Mao: his "bravery is worthy of our respect."
However, despite the hardship of its founder, Unirule was no revolutionary political
organization. Its name stood for "universal rules," essentially the rule of law. Its focus was
moving toward a more market-oriented economy. The group's work was scholarly, performed by
economists and academics. Its publications were high-brow, its books often published in China.
Unirule's international contacts were mainstream and focused on economic reform.
That Unirule prospered demonstrated how far the PRC had come from the bad old days under Mao
Zedong. Economic integration with the West by no means delivered a libertarian China. Still,
the increasingly vibrant private economy expanded personal autonomy, opening up space absent
since the PRC's founding seventy years ago.
As for politics, other than the question of the Chinese Communist Party's monopoly of power,
most issues could be at least discussed and sometimes debated in academic and other settings. A
vaguely independent media developed, which reported on misdeeds of local governments and
officials. Although this slightly diluted authoritarianism might have appeared to be weakness
to a few who pined for the days of the Cultural Revolution, the system offered a release valve
for people who had no control over their rulers.
That gave CCP officials additional ideas to consider and solutions to employ. Unirule
sponsored lectures, ran conferences, and published books. The group consulted with both local
governments and state companies. Even the national authorities appeared to respect if not
necessarily love Unirule. (In 1980 the government even invited Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman
to Beijing to get his advice.) Asked Jude Blanchette, at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies: "Without independent voices offering alternative viewpoints, how can
China's leaders make effective decisions."
Allowing discussion -- if not exactly dissent -- also might have drained away some of the
dissatisfaction that otherwise would have accumulated against the regime. The pervasiveness of
corruption and intensity of resulting public disgust highlighted the threat both from and to
Communist rule, which came much more from the natural consequences of the monopoly of power
rather than from the expression of discontent with that monopoly.
However, Xi Jinping's ascension to head of both party and government became a dramatic
political inflexion point...
... ... ...
The state agency which sponsored it dropped the affiliation. Newspapers stopped running
articles by its staffers. Discussions of its activities on social media, including the Chinese
phenomenon WeChat, were blocked. Venues cancelled Unirule events. The website was closed down.
Then the organization was twice pushed out of professional spaces. Last year the landlord,
under pressure from regulators, welded the office door shut with staffers still inside; they
had to call the police for rescue. About ten employees and a mass of books, papers and files
ultimately crammed into a small apartment ten floors up in an aged apartment building in a
distant suburb.
The group's latest book, a collection of academic papers, is ready for publication but was
rejected by the PRC's information overseers. The process has been transferred from state to
party, ensuring that everything will be assessed for its propaganda value. More seriously,
Unirule's business license was cancelled, a move the group was fighting. Sheng said he planned
to focus on economic research if the CCP interdict took hold.
... ... ...
A few weeks after my visit Unirule's life appears to have run out. The group announced that
the local government had declared it to be "unregistered and unauthorized." Although Unirule
plans to fight the diktat in court, Sheng admitted that it had essentially no chance of
prevailing and has begun the liquidation process. "We no longer have any space for survival,"
Sheng told the Wall Street Journal . He previously noted that Unirule had been careful
to follow the rules, so the Xi regime wished for the reformers to "disappear by ourselves."
Apparently Xi or someone else high up grew tired of waiting.
... ... ...
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .
Nixon's initiative to integrate China with the USA was the biggest strategic mistake the
US ever did. It did not lead to democratization, but rather helped build a powerful
totalitarian Orwellian state.
China clearly has a long term strategic plan how to become the
world leader, and to this end, it steals western technology, locks other nations into dept
traps, builds fifth columns in other countries, uses propaganda and cultural subversion. It
is not yet too late to withdraw all western investment from China and to isolate the country.
Due to the behavior of the CCP, it has very few actual friends.
The strategic plan and task to defeat capitalism had been handed over to China after the
Soviet Union has failed in this endeavor because economically it was no match for capitalist
USA, plus it did not integrate science and technological innovation which without it
capitalism can not be defeated.
China has achieved economic quantity and quality, and is
heading towards full scientific and technological superiority over capitalist USA in the long
run.
In this way socialism through science defeats and overtakes capitalism. Science and more
science, the only way to defeat capitalism.
out of the 3 countries - USA, Russia, China - most of the world is clearly happy with USA
having the leading role, because it is the least evil. Yes, USA is not perfect, Trump is not
a great leader (to say it diplomatically), they have made mistakes (the invasion of Iraq
etc), but they are still much better than USSRv2.0 or totalitarian China.
Even in Asia, China
is widely disliked due to its arrogant and bullying behavior. The Japanese, the Koreans, the
Vietnamese, the Indonesians, none of them really like China.
The fact, that US dollar is the
leading currency has much to do with the world public perception of the stability of the
country. Ie all countries believe the US is the most stable country. So China will have real
trouble convincing the world that yuan is better. I do not believe that China will become a
leading power anytim soon.
You can keep telling yourself that, but its a crock and we non-Americans know it only too
well. Dishonesty and an inability to face truth seems to be an American trait, and the
corruption is only growing worse as the US declines.
"The Japanese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Indonesians, none of them really like
China"
News for you buddy. None of these nations like each other... LOL!! You ever hear Koreans
talking about the Japanese? Now that's hatred...
" The fact, that US dollar is the leading currency has much to do with the world public
perception of the stability of the country."
No, that is because after WW2 the US was the only major economy left standing that hadn't
been wrecked, and they were in the box seat to set the agenda post Bretton-Woods (and cement
for themselves the leading dominant role). The USD is being used increasingly as a cudgel to
enforce US hegemony, and that will lead much of the world to seek alternatives. It's
happening now, slowly at first, and will only gain speed from here.
Pound Sterling used to dominate the world, now where is it? In the future, people will say
the same of the greenback.
I traveled for 1 year across Asia - SE Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia
and 5 months across china. China is almost universally disliked all over Asia due to its
arrogant behavior. And even the famous Chinese investments are increasingly being perceived
as a form of Chinese neocolonialism and rejected
https://www.washingtonpost....
You know how African-Americans commit all sorts of violent crimes, hate speech, and racist
slurs just because they were victims of racial discrimination in America decades ago? It's
the same justification for violence Chinese mainlanders commit against everyone else just
because they suffered from century of humiliation. I'm suspecting that the CCP/PLA is being
coached by the black lefists in the US who have deep hatred against their perceived WASP
establishment. The pattern of angst and diatribes are almost the same.
In the survey you posted above, China is more popular than the USA in Indonesia. Other
countries like Malaysia, Laos, Bangladesh, North Korea are missing. Also, people generally tell to English speaking foreigners what they expect they want to
hear. If the survey was made by Chinese, the results would be different.
The answer is simple and obvious. Democracy and rule of law means that they all go to
jail. In all post-authoritarian shifts, the judicial branch of the government goes into
overdrive, prosecuting past leaders for their crimes. They're really stuck to
authoritarianism no-matter how hard they want democracy.
The CCP is just like a mafia. You won't get in unless you have blood in your hands, and
death is the only way out (unless you can defect to another country and if you can stomach
your immediate family members going to jail for you).
China is doing just great. Its citizens are enjoying a quality of life unprecedented in
China's history (even the author do not dispute this). So why should a democratic majority
89% (PEW) happy individuals must suffer for the selfish few?
History has shown that intellectuals make lousy leaders but great at fomenting chaos +
rebellions. And everyone knows that "soft-spoken criticisms", when weaponized, can kill
millions just as effectively as a nuclear bomb!
A retired Australian diplomat who served in Moscow dissects the emergence of the new Cold
War and its dire consequences.
I n 2014, we saw violent U.S.-supported regime change and civil war in Ukraine. In February,
after months of increasing tension from the anti-Russian protest movement's sitdown strike in
Kiev's Maidan Square, there was a murderous clash between protesters and Ukrainian police,
sparked off by hidden shooters (we now know that were expert Georgian snipers) , aiming at
police. The elected government collapsed and President Yanukevich fled to Russia, pursued by
murder squads.
The new Poroshenko government pledged harsh anti-Russian language laws. Rebels in two
Russophone regions in Eastern Ukraine took local control, and appealed for Russian military
help. In March, a referendum took place in Russian-speaking Crimea on leaving Ukraine, under
Russian military protection. Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, a request promptly
granted by the Russian Parliament and President. Crimea's border with Ukraine was secured
against saboteurs. Crimea is prospering under its pro-Russian government, with the economy
kick-started by Russian transport infrastructure investment.
In April, Poroshenko ordered full military attack on the separatist provinces of Donetsk and
Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine. A brutal civil war ensued, with aerial and artillery bombardment
bringing massive civilian death and destruction to the separatist region. There was major
refugee outflow into Russia and other parts of Ukraine. The shootdown of MH17 took place in
July 2014.
Poroshenko: Ordered military attack.
By August 2015, according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
estimates, 13,000 people had been killed and 30,000 wounded. 1.4 million Ukrainians had been
internally displaced, and 925,000 had fled to neighbouring countries, mostly Russia and to a
lesser extent Poland.
There is now a military stalemate, under the stalled Minsk peace process. But random fatal
clashes continue, with the Ukrainian Army mostly blamed by UN observers. The UN reported last
month that the ongoing war has affected 5.2 million people, leaving 3.5 million of them in need
of relief, including 500,000 children. Most Russians blame the West for fomenting Ukrainian
enmity towards Russia. This war brings back for older Russians horrible memories of the Nazi
invasion in 1941. The Russia-Ukraine border is only 550 kilometres from Moscow.
Flashpoint Syria
Russian forces joined the civil war in Syria in September 2015, at the request of the Syrian
Government, faltering under the attacks of Islamist extremist rebel forces reinforced by
foreign fighters and advanced weapons. With Russian air and ground support, the tide of war
turned. Palmyra and Aleppo were recaptured in 2016. An alleged Syrian Government chemical
attack at Khan Shaykhun in April 2017 resulted in a token U.S. missile attack on a Syrian
Government airbase: an early decision by President Trump.
NATO, Strategic Balance, Sanctions
An F-15C Eagle from the 493rd Fighter Squadron takes off from Royal Air Force Lakenheath,
England, March 6, 2014. The 48th Fighter Wing sent an additional six aircraft and more than 50
personnel to support NATO's air policing mission in Lithuania, at the request of U.S. allies in
the Baltics. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Emerson Nunez/Released)
Tensions have risen in the Baltic as NATO moves ground forces and battlefield missiles up to
the Baltic states' borders with Russia. Both sides' naval and air forces play dangerous
brinksmanship games in the Baltic. U.S. short-range, non-nuclear-armed anti-ballistic missiles
were stationed in Poland and Romania, allegedly against threat of Iranian attack. They are
easily convertible to nuclear-armed missiles aimed at nearby Russia.
Nuclear arms control talks have stalled. The INF intermediate nuclear forces treaty expired
in 2019, after both sides accused the other of cheating. In March 2018, Putin announced that
Russia has developed new types of intercontinental nuclear missiles using technologies that
render U.S. defence systems useless. The West has pretended to ignore this announcement, but we
can be sure Western defence ministries have noted it. Nuclear second-strike deterrence has
returned, though most people in the West have forgotten what this means. Russians know exactly
what it means.
Western economic sanctions against Russia continue to tighten after the 2014 events in
Ukraine. The U.S. is still trying to block the nearly completed Nordstream Baltic Sea
underwater gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Sanctions are accelerating the division of the
world into two trade and payments systems: the old NATO-led world, and the rest of the world
led by China, with full Russian support and increasing interest from India, Japan, ROK and
ASEAN.
Return to Moscow
In 2013, my children gave me an Ipad. I began to spend several hours a day reading well
beyond traditional mainstream Western sources: British and American dissident sites, writers
like Craig Murray in UK and in the U.S. Stephen Cohen, and some Russian sites – rt.com,
Sputnik, TASS, and the official Foreign Ministry site mid.ru. in English.
In late 2015 I decided to visit Russia independently to write Return to Moscow , a
literary travel memoir. I planned to compare my impressions of the Soviet Union, where I had
lived and worked as an Australian diplomat in 1969-71, with Russia today. I knew there had been
huge changes. I wanted to experience 'Putin's Russia' for myself, to see how it felt to be
there as an anonymous visitor in the quiet winter season. I wanted to break out of the familiar
one-dimensional hostile political view of Russia that Western mainstream media offer: to take
my readers with me on a cultural pilgrimage through the tragedy and grandeur and inspiration of
Russian history. As with my earlier book on Spain 'Walking the Camino' , this was not
intended to be a political book, and yet somehow it became one.
I was still uncommitted on contemporary Russian politics before going to Russia in January
2016. Using the metaphor of a seesaw, I was still sitting somewhere around the middle.
My book was written in late 2015 – early 2016, expertly edited by UWA Publishing. It
was launched in March 2017. By this time my political opinions had moved decisively to the
Russian end of the seesaw, on the basis of what I had seen in Russia, and what I had read and
thought during the year.
I have been back again twice, in winter 2018 and 2019. My 2018 visit included Crimea, and I
happened to see a Navalny-led Sunday demonstration in Moscow. I thoroughly enjoyed all three
independent visits: in my opinion, they give my judgements on Russia some depth and
authenticity.
Russophobia Becomes Entrenched
Russia was a big talking point in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the initially
unlikely Republican candidate Donald Trump's chances improved, anti-Putin and anti-Russian
positions hardened in the outgoing Obama administration and in the Democratic Party
establishment which backed candidate Hillary Clinton.
Russia and Putin became caught up in the Democratic Party's increasingly obsessive rage and
hatred against the victorious Trump. Russophobia became entrenched in Washington and London
U.S. and UK political and strategic elites, especially in intelligence circles: think of
Pompeo, Brennan, Comey and Clapper. All sense of international protocol and diplomatic
propriety towards Russia and its President was abandoned, as this appalling Economist
cover from October 2016 shows.
My experience of undeclared political censorship in Australia since four months after
publication of 'Return to Moscow' supports the thesis that:
We are now in the thick of a ruthless but mostly covert Anglo-American alliance
information war against Russia. In this war, individuals who speak up publicly in the cause of
detente with Russia will be discouraged from public discourse.
In the Thick of Information War
When I spoke to you two years ago, I had no idea how far-reaching and ruthless this
information war is becoming. I knew that a false negative image of Russia was taking hold in
the West, even as Russia was becoming a more admirable and self-confident civil society, moving
forward towards greater democracy and higher living standards, while maintaining essential
national security. I did not then know why, or how.
I had just had time to add a few final paragraphs in my book about the possible consequences
for Russia-West relations of Trump's surprise election victory in November 2016. I was right to
be cautious, because since Trump's inauguration we have seen the step-by-step elimination of
any serious pro-detente voices in Washington, and the reassertion of control over this
haphazard president by the bipartisan imperial U.S. deep state, as personified from April 2018
by Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Adviser Bolton. Bolton has now been thrown
from the sleigh as decoy for the wolves: under the smooth-talking Pompeo, the imperial policies
remain.
Truth, Trust and False Narratives
Let me now turn to some theory about political reality and perception, and how national
communities are persuaded to accept false narratives. Let me acknowledge my debt to the
fearless and brilliant Australian independent online journalist, Caitlin Johnstone.
Behavioural scientists have worked in the field of what used to be called propaganda since
WW1. England has always excelled in this field. Modern wars are won or lost not just on the
battlefield, but in people's minds. Propaganda, or as we now call it information warfare, is as
much about influencing people's beliefs within your own national community as it is
about trying to demoralise and subvert the enemy population.
The IT revolution of the past few years has exponentially magnified the effectiveness of
information warfare. Already in the 1940s, George Orwell understood how easily governments are
able to control and shape public perceptions of reality and to suppress dissent. His brilliant
books 1984 and Animal Farm are still instruction manuals in principles of
information warfare. Their plots tell of the creation by the state of false narratives, with
which to control their gullible populations.
The disillusioned Orwell wrote from his experience of real politics. As a volunteer fighter
in the Spanish Civil War, he saw how both Spanish sides used false news and propaganda
narratives to demonise the enemy. He also saw how the Nazi and Stalinist systems in Germany and
Russia used propaganda to support show trials and purges, the concentration camps and the
Gulag, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, German master race and Stalinist class enemy
ideologies; and hows dissident thought was suppressed in these controlled societies. Orwell
tried to warn his readers: all this could happen here too, in our familiar old England. But
because the good guys won the war against fascism, his warnings were ignored.
We are now in Britain, U.S. and Australia actually living in an information warfare world
that has disturbing echoes of the world that Orwell wrote about. The essence of information
control is the effective state management of two elements, trust and fear , to
generate and uphold a particular view of truth. Truth, trust and fear : these are the
three key elements, now as 100 years ago in WWI Britain.
People who work or have worked close to government – in departments, politics, the
armed forces, or top universities – mostly accept whatever they understand at the time to
be 'the government view' of truth. Whether for reasons of organisational loyalty, career
prudence or intellectual inertia, it is usually this way around governments. It is why moral
issues like the Vietnam War and the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq were so distressing for
people of conscience working in or close to government and military jobs in Canberra. They were
expected to engage in 'doublethink' as Orwell had described it:
Even in Winston's nightmare world, there were still choices – to retreat into the
non-political world of the proles, or to think forbidden thoughts and read forbidden books.
These choices involved large risks and punishments. It was easier and safer for most people to
acquiesce in the fake news they were fed by state-controlled media.
'Trust, Truth and False Narratives'
Fairfax journalist Andrew Clark, in the Australian Financial Review , in an essay
optimistically titled "Not fake news: Why truth and trust are still in good shape in
Australia", (AFR Dec. 22, 2018), cited Professor William Davies thus:
"Most of the time, the edifice that we refer to as "truth" is really an investment of
trust in our structures of politics and public life' 'When trust sinks below a certain point,
many people come to view the entire spectacle of politics and public life as a sham."
Here is my main point: Effective information warfare requires the creation of enough
public trust to make the public believe that state-supported lies are true.
The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted
voices. Once a critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks
in: its dissemination becomes self-sustaining.
" Power is being able to control what happens. Absolute power is being able
to control what people think about what happens. If you can control what happens,
you can have power until the public gets sick of your BS and tosses you out on your ass. If
you can control what people think about what happens, you can have power forever. As
long as you can control how people are interpreting circumstances and events, there's no
limit to the evils you can get away with."
The Internet has made propaganda campaigns that used to take weeks or months a matter of
hours or even minutes to accomplish. It is about getting in quickly, using large enough
clusters of trusted and diverse sources, in order to cement lies in place, to make the
lies seem true, to magnify them through social messaging: in other words, to create credible
false narratives that will quickly get into the public's bloodstream.
Over the past two years, I have seen this work many times: on issues like framing Russia for
the MH17 tragedy; with false allegations of Assad mounting poison gas attacks in Syria; with
false allegations of Russian agents using lethal Novichok to try to kill the Skripals in
Salisbury; and with the multiple lies of Russiagate.
It is the mind-numbing effect of constant repetition of disinformation by many eminent
people and agencies, in hitherto trusted channels like the BBC or ABC or liberal Anglophone
print media that gives the system its power to persuade the credulous. For if so many diverse
and reputable people repeatedly report such negative news and express such negative judgements
about Russia or China or Iran or Syria, surely they must be right?
We have become used to reading in our quality newspapers and hearing on the BBC and ABC and
SBS gross assaults on truth, calmly presented as accepted facts. There is no real public debate
on important facts in contention any more. There are no venues for dissent outside contrarian
social media sites.
Sometimes, false narratives inter-connect. Often a disinformation narrative in one area is
used to influence perceptions in other areas. For example, the false Skripals poisoning story
was launched by British intelligence in March 2018, just in time to frame Syrian President
Assad as the guilty party in a faked chemical weapons attack in Douma the following month.
The Skripals Gambit
The Skripals gambit was also a failed British attempt to blight the Russia –hosted
Football World Cup in June 2018. In the event, hundreds of thousands of Western sports fans
returned home with the warmest memories of Russian good sportsmanship and hospitality.
How do I know the British Skripals narrative is false? For a start, it is illogical,
incoherent, and constantly changes. Allegedly, two visiting Russian FSB agents in March 2018
sprayed or smeared Novichok, a deadly toxin instantly lethal in the most microscopic
quantities, on the Skripals' house front doorknob. There is no video footage of the Skripals at
their front door on the day. We are told they were found slumped on a park bench, and that is
maybe where they had been sprayed with nerve gas? Shortly afterwards, Britain's Head of Army
Nursing who happened to be passing by found them, and supervised their hospitalisation and
emergency treatment.
Allegedly, much of Salisbury was contaminated by Novichok, and one unfortunate woman
mysteriously died weeks later, yet the Skripals somehow did not die, as we are told. But where
are they now? We saw a healthy Yulia in a carefully scripted video interview released in May
2018, after an alleged 'one in a million' recovery. We were assured her father had recovered
too, but nobody has seen him at all. The Skripals have simply disappeared from sight since 16
months ago. Are they now alive or dead? Are they in voluntary or involuntary British
custody?
A month after the poisoning, the UK Government sent biological samples from the Skripals to
the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , for testing. The OPCW sent the
samples to a trusted OPCW laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland.
Lavrov Spiez BZ claims, April 2018
A few days later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dramatically announced in Moscow
that the Spiez lab had found in the samples a temporary-effect nerve agent BZ, used by U.S. and
UK but not by Russia, that would have disabled the Skripals for a few days without killing
them. He also revealed the Spiez lab had found that the Skripal samples had been twice tampered
with while still in UK custody: first soon after the poisoning, and again shortly before
passing them to the OPCW. He said the Spiez lab had found a high concentration of Novichok,
which he called A- 234, in its original form. This was extremely suspicious as A-234 has high
volatility and could not have retained its purity over a two weeks period. The dosage the Spiez
lab found in the samples would have surely killed the Skripals. The OPCW under British pressure
rejected Lavrov's claim, and suppressed the Spiez lab report.
Let's look finally at the alleged assassins.
'Boshirov and Petrov'
These two FSB operatives who visited Salisbury under the false identities of 'Boshirov' and
'Petrov' did not look or behave like credible assassins. It is more likely that they were sent
to negotiate with Sergey Skripal about his rumoured interest in returning to Russia. They
needed to apply for UK visas a month in advance of travel: ample time for the British agencies
to identify them as FSB operatives, and to construct a false attempted assassination narrative
around their visit. This false narrative repeatedly trips over its own lies and contradictions.
British social media are full of alternative theories and rebuttals. Russians find the whole
British Government Skripal narrative laughable. They have invented comedy skits and video games
based on it. Yet it had major impact on Russia-West relations.
The Douma False Narrative
I turn now to the claimed Assad chemical weapons attack in Douma in April 2018.This falsely
alleged attack triggered a major NATO air attack on Syrian targets, ordered by Trump. We came
close to WWIII in these dangerous days. Thanks to the restraint of the then Secretary of
Defence James Mattis and his Russian counterparts, the risk was contained.
The allegation that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used outlawed chemical weapons
against his own people was based solely on the evidence of faked video images of child victims,
made by the discredited White Helmets, a UK-sponsored rebel-linked 'humanitarian' propaganda
organisation with much blood on its hands. Founded in 2013 by a British private security
specialist of intelligence background, James Le Mesurier, the White Helmets specialised in
making fake videos of alleged Assad regime war crimes against Syrian civilians. It is by now a
thoroughly discredited organisation that was prepared to kill its prisoners and then film their
bodies as alleged victims of government chemical attacks.
White Helmets
As the town of Douma was about to fall to advancing Syrian Government forces, the White
Helmets filled a room with stacked corpses of murdered prisoners, and photographed them as
alleged victims of aerial gas attack. They also made a video alleging child victims of this
attack being hosed down by White Helmets. A video of a child named Hassan Diab went viral all
over the Western world.
Hassan Diab later testified publicly in The Hague that he had been dragged terrified from
his family by force, smeared with some sort of grease, and hosed down with water as part of a
fake video. He went from hero to zero overnight, as Western governments and media rejected his
testimony as Russian and Syrian propaganda.
In a late development, there is proof that the OPCW suppressed its own engineers' report
from Douma that the alleged poison gas cylinders could not have possibly been dropped from the
air through the roof of the house where one was found, resting on a bed under a convenient hole
in the roof.
I could go on discussing the detail of such false narratives all day. No matter how often
they are exposed by critics, our politicians and mainstream media go on referencing them as if
they are true. Once people have come to believe false narratives, it is hard to refute
them.
So it is with the false narrative that Russian internet interference enabled Trump to win
the 2016 U.S. presidential elections: a thesis for which no evidence was found by [Special
Counsel Robert] Mueller, yet continues to be cited by many U.S. liberal Democratic media as if
it were true. So, even, with MH17.
Managing Mass Opinion
This mounting climate of Western Russophobia is not accidental: it is strategically
directed, and it is nourished with regular maintenance doses of fresh lies. Each round of lies
provides a credible platform for the next round somewhere else. The common thread is a claimed
malign Russian origin for whatever goes wrong.
So where is all this disinformation originating? Information technology firms in Washington
and London that are closely networked into government elites, often through attending the same
establishment schools or colleges like Eton and Yale, have closely studied and tested the
science of influencing crowd opinions through mainstream media and online. They know, in a way
that Orwell or Goebbels could hardly have dreamt, how to put out and repeat desired media
messages. They know what sizes of 'internet attraction nodes' need to be established online, in
order to create diverse critical masses of credible Russophobic messaging, which then attracts
enough credulous and loyal followers to become self-propagating.
Firms like the SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories) and the now defunct
Cambridge Analytica pioneered such work in the UK. There are many similar firms in Washington,
all in the business of monitoring, generating and managing mass opinion. It is big business,
and it works closely with the national security state.
Starting in November 2018, an enterprising group of unknown hackers in the UK , who go by
the name 'Anonymous', opened a remarkable window into this secret world. Over a few weeks, they
hacked and dumped online a huge volume of original documents issued by and detailing the
activities of the Institute for Statecraft (IfS) and the Integrity initiative
(II). Here is the first page of one of their dumps, exposing propaganda against Jeremy
Corbyn.
We know from this material that the IfS and II are two secret British disinformation
networks operating at arms' length from but funded by the UK security services and broader UK
government establishment. They bring together high-ranking military and intelligence personnel,
often nominally retired, journalists and academics, to produce and disseminate propaganda that
serves the agendas of the UK and its allies.
Stung by these massive leaks, Chris Donnelly, a key figure in IfS and II and a former
British Army intelligence officer, made a now famous seven-minute YouTube video in December
2018, artfully filmed in a London kitchen, defending their work.
He argued – quite unconvincingly in my opinion – that IfS and II are simply
defending Western societies against disinformation and malign influence, primarily from Russia.
He boasted how they have set up in numerous targeted European countries, claimed to be under
attack from Russian disinformation, what he called 'clusters of influence' , to
'educate' public opinion and decision-makers in pro-NATO and anti-Russian directions.
Donnelly spoke frankly on how the West is already at war with Russia, a 'new kind of
warfare', in which he said 'everything becomes a weapon'. He said that 'disinformation is the
issue which unites all the other weapons in this conflict and gives them a third
dimension'.
He said the West has to fight back, if it is to defend itself and to prevail.
We can confirm from the Anonymous leaked files the names of many people in Europe being
recruited into these clusters of influence. They tend to be significant people in journalism,
publishing, universities and foreign policy think-tanks: opinion-shapers. The leaked documents
suggest how ideologically suitable candidates are identified: approached for initial screening
interviews; and, if invited to join a cluster of influence, sworn to secrecy.
Remarkably, neither the Anonymous disclosures nor the Donnelly response have ever been
reported in Australian media. Even in Britain – where evidence that the Integrity
Initiative was mounting a campaign against [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn provoked brief media
interest. The story quickly disappeared from mainstream media and the BBC. A British
under-foreign secretary admitted in Parliamentary Estimates that the UK Foreign Office
subsidises the Institute of Statecraft to the tune of nearly 3 million pounds per year. It also
gives various other kinds of non-monetary assistance, e.g. providing personnel and office
support in Britain's overseas embassies.
This is not about traditional spying or seeking agents of influence close to governments. It
is about generating mass disinformation, in order to create mass climates of belief.
In my opinion, such British and American disinformation efforts, using undeclared clusters
of influence, through Five Eyes intelligence-sharing, and possibly with the help of British and
American diplomatic missions, may have been in operation in Australia for many years.
Such networks may have been used against me since around mid-2017, to limit the commercial
outreach of my book and the impact of its dangerous ideas on the need for East-West detente;
and efficiently to suppress my voice in Australian public discourse about Russia and the West.
Do I have evidence for this? Yes.
It is not coincidence that the Melbourne Writers Festival in August 2017 somehow lost all my
sign-and-sell books from my sold-out scheduled speaking event; that a major debate with
[Australian writer and foreign policy analyst] Bobo Lo at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne was
cancelled by his Australian sponsor, the Lowy institute, two weeks before the advertised date;
that my last invitation to any writers festival was 15 months ago, in May 2018; that Return
to Moscow was not shortlisted for any Australian book prize, though I entered it in all of
them ; that since my book's early promotion ended around August 2017, I have not been invited
to join any ABC discussion panels, or to give any talks on Russia in any universities or
institutes, apart from the admirable Australian Institute of International Affairs and the
ISAA.
My articles and shorter opinion commentaries on Russia and the West have not been published
in mainstream media or in reputable online journals like Eureka Street, The Conversation,
Inside Story or Australian Book Review . Despite being an ANU Emeritus Fellow, I
have not been invited to give a public talk or join any panel in ANU (Australian National
University) or any Canberra think tank. In early 2018, I was invited to give a private briefing
to a group of senior students travelling on an immersion course to Russia. I was not invited
back in 2019, after high-level private advice within ANU that I was regarded as too
pro-Putin.
In all these ways – none overt or acknowledged – my voice as an open-minded
writer and speaker on Russia-West relations seems to have been quietly but effectively
suppressed in Australia. I would like to be proved wrong on this, but the evidence is
there.
This may be about "velvet-glove deterrence" of my Russia-sympathetic voice and pen, in order
to discourage others, especially those working in or close to government. Nobody is going to
put me in jail, unless I am stupid enough to violate Australia's now strict foreign influence
laws. This deterrence is about generating fear of consequences for people still in their
careers, paying their mortgages, putting kids through school. Nobody wants to miss their next
promotion.
There are other indications that Australian national security elite opinion has been
indoctrinated prudently to fear and avoid any kind of public discussion of positive engagement
with Russia (or indeed, with China).
There are only two kinds of news about Russia now permitted in our mainstream media,
including the ABC and SBS: negative news and comment, or silence. Unless a story can be given
an anti-Russian sting, it will not be carried at all. Important stories are simply spiked, like
last week's Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivistok, chaired by President Putin and attended by
Prime Ministers Abe, Mahathir and Modi, among 8500 participants from 65 countries.
The ABC idea of a balanced panel to discuss any Russian political topic was exemplified
in an ABC Sunday Extra Roundtable panel chaired by Eleanor Hall on July, 22 2018, soon after
the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki. The panel – a former ONA Russia analyst, a professor
of Soviet and Russian History at Melbourne University, and a Russian émigré
dissident journalist introduced as the 'Washington correspondent for Echo of Moscow radio'
spent most of their time sneering at Putin and Trump. There were no other views.
A powerful anti-Russian news narrative is now firmly in place in Australia, on every topic
in contention: Ukraine, MH17, Crimea, Syria, the Skripals, Navalny and public protest in
Russia. There is ill-informed criticism of Russia, or silence, on the crucial issues of arms
control and Russia-China strategic and economic relations as they affect Australia's national
security or economy. There is no analysis of the negative impact on Australia of economic
sanctions against Russia. There is almost no discussion of how improved relations with China
and Russia might contribute to Australia's national security and economic welfare, as American
influence in the world and our region declines, and as American reliability as an ally comes
more into question. Silence on inconvenient truths is an important part of the disinformation
tool kit.
I see two overall conflicting narratives – the prevailing Anglo-American false
narrative; and valiant efforts by small groups of dissenters, drawing on sources outside the
Anglo-American official narrative, to present another narrative much closer to truth. And this
is how most Russians now see it too.
The Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018 was damaged by the Skripal and Syria
fabrications. Trump left that summit friendless, frightened and humiliated. He soon surrendered
to the power of the U.S. imperial state as then represented by [Mike] Pompeo and [John] Bolton,
who had both been appointed as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser in April 2018
and who really got into their stride after the Helsinki Summit. Pompeo now smoothly dominates
Trump's foreign policy.
Self-Inflicted Wounds
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Gage Skidmore)
Finally, let me review the American political casualties over the past two years –
self-inflicted wounds – arising from this secret information war against Russia. Let me
list them without prejudging guilt or innocence. Slide 20 – Self-inflicted wounds:
casualties of anti-Russian information warfare.
Trump's first National Security Adviser, the highly decorated Michael Flynn lost his job
after only three weeks, and soon went to jail. His successor H R McMaster lasted 13 months
until replaced by John Bolton. Trump's first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lasted just 14
months until his replacement by Trump's appointed CIA chief (in January 2017) Mike Pompeo.
Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon lasted only seven months. Trump's former campaign
chairman Paul Manafort is now in jail.
Defence Secretary James Mattis lasted nearly two years as Secretary of Defence, and was an
invaluable source of strategic stability. He resigned in December 2018. The highly capable
Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman lasted just two years: he is resigning next month. John Kelly
lasted 18 months as White House Chief of Staff. Less senior figures like George Papadopoulos
and Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen both served jail time. The pattern I see here is that
people who may have been trying responsibly as senior U.S. officials to advance Trump's initial
wish to explore possibilities for detente with Russia – policies that he had advocated as
a candidate – were progressively purged, one after another . The anti-Russian U.S.
bipartisan imperial state is now firmly back in control. Trump is safely contained as far as
Russia is concerned .
Russians do not believe that any serious detente or arms control negotiations can get under
way while cold warriors like Pompeo continue effectively to control Trump. There have been
other casualties over the past two years of tightening American Russophobia. Julian Assange and
Chelsea Manning come to mind. The naive Maria Butina is a pathetic victim of American judicial
rigidity and deep state vindictiveness.
False anti-Russian Government narratives emanating from London and Washington may be laughed
at in Moscow , but they are unquestioningly accepted in Canberra. We are the most gullible of
audiences. There is no critical review. Important contrary factual information and analysis
from and about Russia just does not reach Australian news reporting and commentary, nor –
I fear – Australian intelligence assessment. We are prisoners of the false narratives fed
to us by our senior Five Eyes partners U.S. and UK.
To conclude: Some people may find what I am saying today difficult to accept. I understand
this. I now work off open-source information about Russia with which many people here are
unfamiliar, because they prefer not to read the diverse online information sources that I
choose to read. The seesaw has tilted for me: I have clearly moved a long way from mainstream
Western perceptions on Russia-West relations.
Under Trump and Pompeo, as the Syria and Iran crises show, the present risk of global
nuclear war by accident or incompetent Western decision-making is as high as it ever was in the
Cold War. The West needs to learn again how to dialogue usefully and in mutually respectful
ways with Russia and China. This expert knowledge is dying with our older and wiser former
public servants and ex-military chiefs.
These remarks were delivered by Tony Kevin at the Independent Scholars Association of
Australia in Canberra, Australia on Wednesday.
Watch Tony Kevin interviewed Friday night on CN Live!
Tony Kevin is a retired Australian diplomat who was posted to Moscow from 1969 to 1971,
and was later Australia's ambassador to Poland and Cambodia. His latest book is Return to
Moscow, published by UWA Publishing.
Bruce , September 17, 2019 at 08:58
Excellent article. It's very interesting to see how the state and its media lackey set the
narrative.
Most of this comment relates to the Skripals but also applies to other matters (the
Skripals writing was some of Craig Murray's finest work in my opinion). One of the hallmarks
of a hoax is a constantly evolving storyline. I think governments have learned from past
"mistakes" with their hoaxes/deception where they've given a description of events and then
scientists/engineers/chemists etc have come in and criticised their version of events with
details and scientific arguments. Nowadays, governments are very reluctant to commit to a
version of events, and instead rely on the media (their propaganda assets) to provide a
scattergun set of information to muddy the waters and thoroughly confuse the population. The
government is then insulated from some of the more bizarre allegations (the headlines of
which are absorbed nonetheless), and can blame it on the media (who would use an anonymous
government source naturally). Together with classifying just about everything on national
security grounds, they can stonewall for as long as they want.
The British are masters of propaganda. They maintained a global empire for a very long
time, and the prevailing view (in the west at least) was probably one of tea-drinking cricket
playing colonials/gentlemen. But you don't maintain an empire without being absolutely
ruthless and brutal. They've been doing this for a very long time.
When we hear something from the BBC or ABC, we should think "State Media".
That's probably why its got a nice folksy nickname of "aunty" .build up the trust.
Society is suffering the extreme paradox; there is the potential for everyone to have a
voice, but the last vestiges of free speech have been whittled away. Fake news is universal,
assisted by the fake "left". It is impossible to get published any challenge to even the most
outlandish versions of identity politics. As the experience of Tony Kevin exemplifies, all
avenues for dissent against hegemonic orthodoxies are closed off.
Disinformation is now an essential weapon in waging hot and cold wars. Cold War historians
are well informed on false flags, "black ops", and other organised dirty tactics. I do not
know what happened to the Skripals, and while it is legitimate to bear in mind KGB
assassinations, despite the enormous resources at its disposal, the English security state
has been unable to construct a credible case. Surely scepticism is provoked by the leading
role being played by the notorious Bellingcat outfit.
Zenobia van Dongen , September 17, 2019 at 00:29
Here is part of an eyewitness account:
"After the Orange Revolution which began in Kiev, the country was divided literally into two
parts -- the supporters of integration with Russia and the supporters of an independent
Ukraine. For almost 100 years belonging to the Soviet Union, the propaganda about the
assistance and care from our "big brother" Russia, in Ukraine as a whole and the Donbass in
particular has borne fruit. At the end of February 2014, some cities of the Southeast part
were boiling with mass social and political protest against the new Ukrainian government in
defense of the status of the Russian language, voicing separatist and pro-Russian slogans.
The division took place in our city of Sloviansk too. Some people stood for separation from
Ukraine, while Ukrainian patriots stood for the unity of our country.
On April 12, 2014 our city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region was seized by Russian
mercenaries and local volunteers. From that moment onward, armed assaults on state
institutions began. The city police department, the Sloviansk City Hall, the building of the
Ukraine Security Service was occupied. Armed militants seized state institutions and
confiscated private property. They threatened and beat people, and those who refused to obey
were taken away to an unknown destination and people started disappearing. The persecution
and abduction of patriotic citizens began."
Michael McNulty , September 16, 2019 at 11:36
Watching Vietnam news coverage as a kid in the '60s I noticed the planes carpet-bombing
South East Asia were American, not Russian. And as I only watched the footage and never
listened to the commentary (I was waiting for the kids programs that followed) the BS they
came out with to explain it all never reached me. I saw with my own eyes what the US really
was and is, and always believed growing up they were the belligerent side not Russia. Once
the USSR fell it was clear there were no longer any constraints on US excesses.
dean 1000 , September 15, 2019 at 18:17
Doublethink, not to mention doublespeak, is so apt to describe what is happening. If
Orwell was writing today it would have to be classified as non-fiction.
Free speech is impossible unless every election district has a radio/TV station where
candidates, constituents, and others can debate, discuss and speak to the issues without
bending a knee to large campaign contributors or the controllers of corporate or government
media. It may start with low-power pirate radio/TV broadcasts. No, the pirate speakers will
not have to climb a cell tower to broadcast an opinion to the neighborhood or precinct.
If genuine free speech is going to exist it will start as something unauthorized and
unlawful. If it sticks to the facts it will quickly prove its value.
Excellent article. The only exhibit missing was reference to Bill Browder's lies.
Browder's rubbish has been exposed by intrepid journalists and documentary makers such as
Andrei Nekrasov, Sasha Krainer and Lucy Komisar but to read or listen to our media, you'd
think BB was some sort of human rights hero. That's because BB's fairy tale fits nicely into
the MSM's hatred of Putin and Russia. Debunk Browder and a major pillar of anti-Russia
prejudice collapses. Therefore, Browder will never face any serious questions by the MSM.
John A , September 16, 2019 at 09:18
judges of the European Court of Human Rights published a judgement a fortnight ago which
utterly exploded the version of events promulgated by Western governments and media in the
case of the late Mr Magnitskiy. Yet I can find no truthful report of the judgement in the
mainstream media at all. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/09/the-magnitskiy-myth-exploded/
MSM propaganda by omission. Anything that doesn't fit the government narrative gets zero
publicity.
I have stopped following australian mainstream media including the darlings of the 'left'
ABC/SBS over a decade ago, completely. My disgust with their 'coverage' of the 2008 GFC was
more than enough. Since 2008-9 things have deteriorated drastically into conspiracy theory
propaganda by omission la-la land *it seems*, given I don't tune in at all.
The author has a well supported view. I find it a little naive in him thinking that the
MSM has that much power over shaping public opinion in australia.
People who want to be informed do so. The half intelligent conformists on hamster wheel of
lifetime mortgage debt have 'careers' to hold onto, so parroting the group think or living in
ignorance is much easier. The massive portion of australian racists, inbred bogans and idiots
that make up the large LNP, One Nation etc. voting block are completely beyond salvation or
ability to process, and critically evaluate any information. The smarter ones drool on about
the 'UN Agenda 21' conspiracy at best. Utterly hopeless.
I don't expect things to change as the australian economy is slowly hollowed out by the
rich, and the education system (that has always been about conforming, wearing school uniform
and regurgitating what the teacher/lecturer says at best) is gutted completely. Welcome to
australistan.
Fran Macadam , September 14, 2019 at 19:21
Note that the prohibition against false propaganda to indoctrinate the domestic population
by the American government was lifted by President Obama at the tail end of his
administration. The Executive Order legalizes all the deceptive behavior Tony itemizes in his
article.
Josep , September 17, 2019 at 04:10
I thought it was Reagan who did that by abolishing the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. At least
in terms of television and radio (?) broadcasts.
Thank you Tony for your thoughtful talk (and interview on CN Live! too).
What's encouraging is this cohort of what might be called 'millennial journalists' coming
through willing to do 'shoe-leather' journalism and stand up to smears and flack for
revealing uncomfortable facts and truth. They're the online 5th estate holding the 4th to
account (to steal Ray McGovern's apt view), and they're congealing against the onslaught.
Some include Max Blumenthal and Rania Kahlek (both now being pilloried by MSM and others
for visiting Syrian government held areas and reporting that life isn't hellish as MSM would
have everyone believe heaven forbid); Vanessa Bealey who's exposed a lot of White Helmet
horrors and false-flag attacks in Syria (and being attacked by all and sundry for exposing
the White Helmets in particular); Abby Martin whose Empire Files are excellent and always
edifying; Dan Cohen who has written the best expose of the actors behind the Hong Kong
rioting and co-authored the best expose of the background of Guaido et al.; Whitney Webb of
Mint Press whose series on Epstein is overwhelming and likely a ticking timebomb; Caitlin
Johnstone of course; and Aaron 'Buzzsaw' Mate who made his first mark with a wonderful
takedown interview of Russiaphobe MI6 shill Luke Harding. Others too of course, with most
appearing or having written pieces on CN. John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Greg Palast, et al. won't
drop off their twigs disappointed.
This, along with the fact that MSM -- that cowed and compromised fourth estate --
increasingly is held in such laughable contempt by most people under about 50 yr, is highly
encouraging indeed. Truth is the new black.
nwwoods , September 15, 2019 at 11:49
The Blogmire is an excellent resource for detailed analysis of the Skripal hoax. The
author happens to be a long-time resident of Salisbury, and is intimately familiar with the
topography, public services, etc., and a very thorough investigator.
John Wright , September 14, 2019 at 18:35
I'm not surprised that Mr. Kevin is being isolated and shunned by the Australian
establishment. Truth and truth tellers are always the first casualties of war. I do hope that
his experience will encourage him to increase his resistance to the corrosiveness of
mendacious propaganda and those who promulgate it.
Truth is the single best weapon when fighting for a peaceful future.
If Australia is to flourish in the 21st century, it really needs to understand Russia and
China, how they relate to each other, and how this key alliance will interface with the rest
of the world. Australia and Australians simply cannot afford to get sucked down further by
facilitating the machinations of the collapsing Anglo-American Empire. They have served the
empire ably and faithfully, but now need to take a cold hard look at reality and realign
their long-term interests with the coming global power shift. If not, they could literally
find themselves in the middle of an unwinnable and devastating war.
* * *
The first Anglo-American Russian cold war began with the Russian revolution and was only
briefly suspended when the West needed the Soviet people to throw themselves in front of the
Nazi blitzkrieg in order to save Western Europe. Following their catastrophically costly
contribution to the victory on the Continent, the Russians were greeted with an American
nuclear salute on their eastern periphery, signalling their return to the diplomatic and
economic deep freeze.
While the Anglo-American Empire solidified and extended its hold on the globe, the
enlarged but war-ravaged and isolated Soviet Union hunkered down and survived on scraps and
sheer will until its collapse in 1989. Declaring the cold war over, and with promises to help
their new Russian friends build a prosperous future, the duplicitous West then ransacked
their neighbors resources and sold them into debt peonage. The Russians cried foul, the West
shrugged and Putin pushed back. Unable to declaw the bear, the west closed the cage door
again and the second cold war commenced.
* * *
The first cold war was essentially an offensive war disguised as a defensive war. It
enabled the Anglo-American Empire to leverage its post-war advantage and establish near total
dominance around the globe through naked violence and monetary hegemony.
Today, with its dominance rapidly slipping away, the Anglo-American Empire is waging a
truly defensive cold war. On the home front, they fight to convince their subjects of their
eternal exceptionalism with ever more absurd and vile propaganda denigrating their
adversaries . Abroad, they disrupt and defraud in a desperate attempt to delay the demise of
the PetroDollar ponzi.
The Russians and the Chinese, having both been brutally burned by the Western elites, will
not be fooled into abandoning their natural geographic partnership. They are no longer
content to sit quietly at the kids' table taking notes. While they may not demand to sit at
the head of the table, it is clear that they will insist on a round table, and one that is
large enough to include their growing list of friends.
If the Americans don't smash the table, it could be the first of many peaceful pot
lucks.
John Read , September 15, 2019 at 02:11
Well said. Great comments. Thanks to Tony Kevin.
Mia , September 14, 2019 at 18:33
Thank you Tony for continuing to shine light on the pathetic propaganda information bubble
Australians have been immersed in .. you demonstrate great courage and you are not alone
??
Peter Loeb , September 14, 2019 at 12:58
WITH THANKS TO TONY KEVIN
An excellent article.
There is a lack of comments from some of the common writers upon whose views I often
rely.
Personally, I often avoid the very individual responses from websites as I have no way
of checking out previous ideas of theirs. Who funds them? With which organizations are
they
affiliated? And so forth and so on.
Peter Loeb, Boston, Massachusetts
Peter Sapo , September 14, 2019 at 10:24
As a fellow Australian, everything Tony Kevin said makes perfect sense. Our mainstream
media landscape is designed to distribute propaganda to folk accross the political spectrum.
Have you noticed that the ABC regurgitates stories from the BBC? The BBC has a long history
(at least since WW2) of supporting government propaganda initiatives. Based on this fact, it
is hard to see how ABC and SBS don't do the same when called upon by their minders.
Francis Lee , September 14, 2019 at 09:48
I just wonder where the Anglo-Zionist empire thinks it is going. It should be obvious that
any NATO war against Russia involving a nuclear exchange is unwinnable. It seems equally
likely the even a conventional war will not necessarily bring the result expected by the
assorted 'experts' – nincompoops living in their own fantasy world. The idea that the
US can fight a war without the US homeland becoming very much involved basically ended when
Putin announced the creation of Russia's set of advanced hypersonic missile system. But this
was apparently ignored by the 'defence' establishment. It was not true, it could not possibly
be true, or so we were told.
Moreover the cost of such wars involving hundreds of thousands of troops and military
hardware are massively expensive and would occasion a massive resistance from the populations
affected. It was the wests wars in Korea, and Indo-China that bankrupted the US and led to
the US$ being removed from the gold standard. The American military is rapidly consuming the
American economy, or at least what is left of it. From a realist foreign policy perspective
this is simply madness. Great powers end wars, they don't start them. Great powers are
creditor nations, not debtor nations. Such is the realist foreign policy view. But foreign
policy realists are few and far between in the Washington Beltway and MIC/NSA Pentagon and
US/UK/AUSTRALIAN MSM.
Thus the neo-hubris of the English speaking world is such that if it is followed to its
logical conclusion then total annihilation would be the logical outcome. A sad example of not
very bright people who face no domestic opposition, believing in their own bullshit:
"American elites proved themselves to be master manipulators of propaganda constructs But
the real danger from such manipulations arises not when those manipulations are done out of
knowledge of reality, which is distorted for propaganda purposes, but when those who
manipulation begin to sincerely believe in their own falsifications and when they buy into
their own narrative. They stop being manipulators and they become believers in a narrative.
They become manipulated themselves." (Losing Military Supremacy – Andrei,
Martyanov)
Or maybe just the whole thing is a bluff. Those policy elites maybe just want to loot the
US Treasury for more cash to be put their way.
John Wright , September 15, 2019 at 19:15
The self-serving Israeli Zionists know that the American cow is running dry and their days
of freely milking it are coming to an end. They have an historic relationship with Russia
and, leveraging their nuclear arsenal, know they can make a deal with the emerging
China-Russia-centric global paradigm to extort enough protection to maintain their armed
enclave for the foreseeable future. Their no so hidden alliance with the equally sociopathic
Saudis will become even more obvious for all to see.
Israel, like China and Russia, knows how to play a long game. Thus, Israel will
consolidate its land grab with the just announced expansion into the Jordan Valley and
quietly continue as much ethnic cleansing as possible while the rest of the world is
preoccupied with the incipient global power shift (True victims of history, the Palestinians
have no real friends). While they will bemoan the loss of their muscular American stooge,
Israel enjoyed a very lucrative 70 year run and will part with a pile of useful and deadly
toys. They're also fully aware that no one else will ever let them take advantage to the
degree they've been able to with the U.S.A. (Unlimited Stupidity of Arrogance?)
Eventually, the social schizophrenia that is the state of Israel will catch up with them
and they will implode. Let's hope that breakdown doesn't involve the use of their nuclear
arsenal.
Yes, the U.S. Treasury will continue to be looted until the last teller turns the lights
out or the electricity is shut off, whichever comes first.
The Western transnational financial elites will accept their losses, regroup and make
deals with the new bosses where they can; but their days of running the game unopposed are
over.
Today is a good day to learn Mandarin (or Russian, if you prefer to live in Europe).
Bill , September 16, 2019 at 03:36
Very well said and I agree with a lot of what you say.
Tiu , September 14, 2019 at 06:01
Won't be too long before writing articles like this will get you busted for "hate-speech"
(e.g. anything that is contrary to the official version prescribed by the "democratically
elected" government) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-tony-blair-think-tank-proposes-end-free-speech
Personally I always encourage people to read George Orwell, especially 1984. We're there, and
have been for a long time.
geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 01:15
Tony Kevin – Nice rundown of what ails society. You have a fine writing style that
gets the point across to the reader. Kudos and cheers.
Michael , September 13, 2019 at 22:34
The 'modernization' of the Smith Mundt Act in 2013 "to authorize the domestic
dissemination of information and material [PROPAGANDA] about the United States intended
primarily for foreign audiences" was a major nail in the Democracy coffin, consolidating the
blatant ruling of the US Police State by our 17 Intelligence Agencies (our betters). The
Telecommunications Act of 1996 lead to ownership of (>80%) of our media (the MSM by a
handful of owners, all disseminating the same narratives from above (CIA, State Department,
FBI etc) and squelching any dissenting views, particularly related to foreign policies.
Tony's article sadly just confirms the depth and breadth of our Global Stasi, with improved,
innovative and (mostly) subtle surveillance, and the controlling constant interference with
alternate viewpoints and discussions, the real basis for free societies. It is bad enough to
be ruled by neoliberal psychopathic hyenas and jackals, soon we won't be able to even bitch
about what they are doing.
Tom Kath , September 13, 2019 at 21:42
The most impressive article I have read in a very long time. I congratulate and thank
Tony.
I have myself recently addressed the issue of whether it is a virtue to have an "open mind".
– The ability to be converted or have your mind changed, or is it the ability to change
your own mind ?
Tony Kevin clearly illustrates the difference.
Litchfield , September 13, 2019 at 16:11
Great article.
Please keep writing.
Do start a website, a la Craig Murray.
There are people who are proactively looking for alternative viewpoints and informed
analysis.
How about starting a website and publishing some excerpts of your book there?
Or, sell chapters separately by download from your website?
You could also have a discussion blog/forum there.
John Zimmermann , September 13, 2019 at 16:02
Excellent essay. Thanks Mr. Kevin.
rosemerry , September 13, 2019 at 15:37
At least Tony Kevin was an Australian ambassador, not like Mike Morrell and the chosen
russop?obes the USA assumes are needed as diplomats!! Now he is treated as Stephen Cohen is-
a true expert called "controversial" as he dares to go by real facts and evidence, not
prejudice.
If instead of enemies, the West could consider getting to understand those they are wary
of, and give them a chance to explain their point of view and actually listen and reflect on
it.
(Dmitri Peskov valiantly explained the Russian official response as soon as the "Skripal
poisoning" story broke, but it was fully ignored by UK/US media, while all of Theresa May's
fanciful imaginings were respectfully relayed to the public).
geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 23:26
As you usually are with your comments, you are spot on again, rosemerry.
Martin - Swedish citizen , September 13, 2019 at 14:46
Excellent article!
I find the mechanics of how the propaganda is spread and the illusion upheld the most
important part of this article, since this knowledge is required to counter it.
When (not if) the fraud becomes more common knowledge, our societies are likely to
tumble.
Pablo Diablo , September 13, 2019 at 14:45
Whoever controls the media, controls the dialogue.
Whoever controls the dialogue, controls the agenda.
' The present risk of global nuclear war is as high as it ever was in the Cold War.' And
possibly higher. The Cold War, though dangerous, was the peace. The world has experienced
periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty Years Peace between the
two Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after the Congress of Vienna,
to name a few. The Congress System finally collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One.
That conflict was followed by the League of Nations. It did not stop World War Two. That was
followed by the United Nations and other post-war institutions. But all the indications are
they will not prevent a third world war. The powers that are leading us towards conflagration
see this as a re-run of the first Cold War. They are dangerously mistaken. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Guy , September 13, 2019 at 13:21
With so many believing the lies ,how will this mess ever come to light . I don't reside in
Australia but anywhere in the Western world the shakedown is the same .In my own house ,the
discussion on world politics descends into absolute stupidity . As one can't get past the
constant programming that has settled in the minds of the comfortable with the status quo of
lies by our media. There are intelligent sources of news sources but none get past the
absolutely complete control of MSM.So the bottom line is ,for now ,the lies and liars are
winning the propaganda war.
He speaks the truth. Liars and dissemblers have won over the minds and hearts of so many
lazy shameful citizens who will not accept the truth Tony Kevin wants to share with the
world.
Washington resumes military assistance to Kyiv. According to American lawmakers, Ukraine
is fighting one of the main enemies. "Contain Russia": what the US pays for Ukraine
Anyone or article who spells Kiev as Kyiv can be safely ignored as western anti-Russia
propaganda. It's a true tell.
Robert Edwards , September 13, 2019 at 12:53
The Cold war is totally manufacture to keep the dollars flowing into the MIC – what
a sham . and a disgrace to humanity.
Cavaleiro Marginal , September 13, 2019 at 12:52
"The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted voices. Once a
critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks in: its
dissemination becomes self-sustaining."
This had occurred in Brazil since the very first day of Lula's presidency. Eleven years
late, 2013, a color revolution began. Nobody (and I mean REALLY nobody) could realize a color
revolution was happening at that time. In 2016, Dilma Rousseff was kicked from power
throughout a ridiculous and illegal coup perpetrated by the parliament. In 2018 Lula was
imprisoned in an Orwellian process; illegal, unconstitutional, with nothing (REALLY nothing)
proved against him. Then a liar clown was elected to suppress democracy
I knew on the news that in Canada and Australia the police politely (how civilized ) went
to some journalist's homes to have a chat this year. Canadians and Aussies, be aware. The
fascism's dog is a policial state very well informed by the propaganda they call news.
Robert Fearn , September 13, 2019 at 12:48
As a Canadian author who wrote a book about various tragic American government actions,
like Vietnam, I can relate to the difficulties Tony has had with his book. I would mail my
book, Amoral America, from Canada to other countries, like the US, and it would never arrive.
Book stores would not handle it, etc. etc.
Josep , September 17, 2019 at 05:21
Not to disagree, but some years ago I read about anecdotes of anti-Americanism in Canada,
coming from both USians and Canadians, whether it be playful banter or legitimate criticism.
I believe it is more concentrated among the people than among the governmental elites (with
the exception of the Iraq War era when both the people and the government were against it).
And considering what you describe in your book and the difficulty you've faced in
distributing it abroad, maybe the said people are on to something.
Stephen , September 13, 2019 at 11:44
This interview by Abby Martin with Mark Ames is a little dated but is a fairly accurate
history. I post it to try and counter the nonsense.
Outstanding article and analysis. Thank you Sir! Jeremy Kuzmarov
Jeff Harrison , September 13, 2019 at 10:17
Thank you, sir. A far better peroration than I could have produced but what I have
concluded nonetheless.
Skip Scott , September 13, 2019 at 10:10
Fantastic article. Left unmentioned is the origin of the west's anti-Russia narrative.
Russia was being pillaged by the west under Yeltsin, and Russia was to become our newest
vassal. Life expectancy dropped a full decade for the average Russian under Yeltsin. The
average standard of living dropped dramatically as well. Putin reversed all that, and enjoys
massive popular support as a result. The Empire will never tolerate a national leader who
works for the benefit of the average citizen. It must be full-on rape, pillage and plunder-
OR ELSE. Keep that in mind as we watch the latest theatrical performances by our DNC
controlled "Commander in Chief" wannabes.
Realist , September 17, 2019 at 05:48
?The ongoing success of the "Great Lie" (that Washington is protecting the entire world
from
anarchy perpetrated by a few bad actors on the global stage) and all of its false narrative
subtexts
(including but far from limited to the Maidan, Crimea, Donbass, MH-17, the Skripals,
gassing
"one's own people," piracy on the high Mediterranean, etc) just underscores how successful
was
the false flag operation known as 9-11, even as the truth of that travesty is slowly
being
unraveled by relentless truth-seekers applying logic and the scientific method to the
problem.
Most Americans today would gladly concur, if queried, that Osama bin Laden was most
certainly
a perfidious tool of Russia and its diabolical leader, Mr. Putin (be sure to call him "Vlad,"
to
conjure up images of Dracula for effect). The Winston Smith's are rare birds in America or
in
any of its reliable vassal states. Never mind that the spooks from Langley (and the late
"chessmaster") concocted and orchestrated all these tales from the crypt.
Lily , September 13, 2019 at 07:54
Great summary of the developement of a new cold war. The narrative of the Mainstream Media
is dangerous as well as laughable. I am glad to hear the Russian reaction to this bullshit
propaganda. As often the people are so much wiser than their government – at least in
the West.
During the Football WM a famous broadcaster of the German State TV channel ARD, who is a
giftet propagandist, regrettet publicly the difficulty to convince the stubborn Germans to
look at Russia as an enemy because they have started to look at Russia as a friend long
ago.
Contrary to the people and the big firms who are completely against the sanctions against
Russia and 100 % pro Northstream the German government with Chancelor Merkel is one of the
top US vassalles. Even the Green Party which started as an environmental and peace party are
now against North Stream and in favour of the filthy US fracking gas thanks to NATO
propaganda although Russia has never let them down. Most of "Die Grünen" party have been
turned into fervent friends of our American occupants which is very sad.
Thank you Tony Kevin. It has been great to read your article. I cant wait to read your
book 'Return to Moscow' and to watch your interview on CN Live.
Godfree Roberts , September 13, 2019 at 07:37
Good summary of the status quo. From my experience of writing similarly about China,
precisely the same policies and forces are at work.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the end of the war in Syria and the
country's return to a state of peace. "Syria is returning to normal life": Lavrov announced
the end of the war
You hit several nails squarely on the head with your excellent article Tony. Thank you for
the truth of how the media is in Australia. It is indeed chilling where all this is leading.
The blatant lies just spewed out as fact by both ABC and SBS. They, in my opinion are nothing
but stenographers for the Empire, of which Australia is a fully subservient vassal state,
with no independence.
I try to boycott all Australian presstitutes . Oops, I mean 'media' now. Occasionally, I do
slip up and watch SBS or The Drum or News on ABC.
Virtually all my news comes from independent news sites like this one.
I have been accused of being a 'Putin lover', a Russian troll, a conspiracy theorist, while
people I know have claimed that "Putin is a monster whose murdered millions of people".
On and on this crap goes. And the end result? Ask Stephen Cohen. Things are very surreal now.
Sadly, you've been made an Unperson Tony.
Robyn , September 13, 2019 at 04:08
Bravo, Tony, great article. I enjoyed your book and recommend it to CN readers who haven't
yet read it.
The world looks entirely different when one stops reading/watching the MSM and turns to
CN, Caitlin Johnstone and many others who are doing a sterling job.
Cascadian , September 13, 2019 at 03:52
I don't know which is worse, to not know what you are (reliably uninformed) and be happy,
or to become what you've always wanted to be (reliably informed) and feel alone.
Realist , September 14, 2019 at 00:19
Knowing the truth has always seemed paramount to me, even if it means realising that the
entire world and all in it are damned, and deliberately by our own actions. Hope is always
the last part of our essence to die, or so they say: maybe we will somehow be redeemed
through our own self-immolation as a species.
Deb , September 13, 2019 at 02:54
As an Australian I have no difficulty accepting what Tony Kevin has said here. He should
do what Craig Murray has done start a website.
@Anonymous
At some point when an foreign intelligence service has a critical mass of politicians
blackmailed it becomes "domestic intelligence" or "domesticated intelligence". :-)
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been
found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non
stop.
@Cloak And
Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the
few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA
"... The last three decades have seen the United States engaged in continuous and ever-expanding warfare under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The drive to conquer and subjugate the lands of the Middle East and Central Asia is a consensus policy of the American ruling class. The results have included over a million dead in Iraq and hundreds of thousands more across Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen. ..."
"... Meanwhile the Pentagon released a seemingly lunatic "joint doctrine" that goes well beyond Dr. Strangelove. It states: "nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability. Specifically, the use of nuclear weapons will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and develop situations that call for commanders to win." ..."
"... There is a worried sense within ruling circles that three decades of war have only created a series of debacles, and that US imperialism is confronting what is termed, in military and foreign policy circles, as "strategic competition" from Russia and China. At the same time, ever-sharper conflicts are emerging between Washington and its erstwhile NATO partners, in particular Germany, against which the US fought in two world wars. ..."
"... Zakaria pays special tribute to the individual who popularized the concept of the "unipolar moment," the extreme right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer, who wrote an article with that title, also in Foreign Affairs , in 1991. He promoted an unvarnished perspective of the unilateral use of US military aggression to assert the dominance of American capitalism around the globe. ..."
"... He further insisted that if US imperialism proved unable to maintain its unipolar moment it would be "not for foreign but for domestic reasons. ... stagnant productivity, declining work habits, rising demand for welfare state entitlements and new taste for ecological luxuries." He charged that while "defense spending declined, domestic entitlements nearly doubled." And, above all, he blamed "America's insatiable desire for yet higher standards of living without paying any of the cost." [3] ..."
"... For America's ruling elite, long at each other's throats, the path should be clearer now to reforming a working consensus about the US's world role. Some of the policy-making world's most divisive issues now look settled. Force is a legitimate tool of policy; it works. For the elites themselves, the message is America can lead, stop whining, think more boldly. Starting now. [5] ..."
"... We understood this editorial, by the mouthpiece of US finance capital, as an accurate reflection of the pathological triumphalism prevailing within the American bourgeoisie. ..."
"... A third of the population is functionally illiterate. Not even the mass media can avoid reporting on a daily basis some of the more spectacular 'horror stories' of lives destroyed by the impact of the social crisis: homeless people freezing in cardboard boxes, cancer victims being denied treatment because they have no medical insurance and unemployed workers and their families committing suicide ..."
"... This position dovetailed neatly with that of German imperialism, which was backing Croatian and Slovenian independence as part of a post-reunification reassertion of its power in Europe. German imperialism was returning to the scenes of its crimes in 1914 and 1941, unilaterally defying the United States, the United Nations and the European Commission. ..."
"... This was patently the case in Yugoslavia, where the first impulse to break up the existing federation came from Slovenia and Croatia, the wealthiest regions of the country, where local ruling elites calculated that they could fare better by breaking with the poorer republics and establishing their own independent ties to European governments, banks and corporations. ..."
"... In conclusion: the so-called "Unipolar Moment" of 1990 and 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the launching of the Gulf War, marked the collapse of the post-World War II equilibrium, established on the basis of the hegemony of American capitalism and the collaboration of the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy. It signaled the beginning of a new period of uninterrupted war, the growth of inter-imperialist rivalries ..."
This lecture was delivered by Bill Van Auken, senior writer for the World Socialist Web Site , at the Socialist Equality
Party (US) Summer School on July 25, 2019.
It is now nearly three decades since the deliberate liquidation of the Soviet Union by the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy and the
launching of the First Persian Gulf War, which began in January 1991. This war, which involved the deployment of over half a million
US troops -- more than twice the number sent into the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- clearly marked a turning point in the development
of US and world imperialism.
It likewise marked a turning point for the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). Objective developments,
in particular the disintegration of Stalinism, intersected with the protracted struggle of the ICFI against Pabloite revisionism,
culminating in the 1985 split and the consolidation of control by the orthodox Trotskyists, for the first time since the founding
of the International Committee in 1953. This signaled a fundamental change in the relationship between the Fourth International and
the working class.
Grasping that change, the ICFI sought to shoulder the immense political responsibility of leading the international working class,
which found concrete expression in the convening of the extraordinarily important "World Conference of Workers against War and Colonialism"
held in Berlin in November 1991, to which we will return.
The sharp turn by US imperialism toward unilateralism and militarism, consummated in the Gulf War of 1991, was bound up with the
protracted crisis of American capitalism and the relative decline of its domination of the global economy. With the demise of the
USSR, US imperialism concluded that it could now offset the challenge that American corporations faced from rivals in Europe and
Japan, which had been growing since the 1970s, through the relatively untrammeled use of the US armed forces.
Demolished vehicles line Highway 80, also known as the "Highway of Death", the route fleeing Iraqi forces took as they retreated
fom Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. [Credit: U.S. Air Force]
In the case of the Persian Gulf, the US military could be used to secure unchallenged American supremacy in the world's most important
oil-producing region, which would put Washington in a position to blackmail its oil-import-dependent European and Asian imperialist
rivals with the threat of cutting off their energy supplies. As President George H.W. Bush would declare, in the run-up to the Gulf
war, an attack on Iraq would give the US "persuasiveness that will lead to more harmonious trading relationships."
This was not a development that took us by surprise. In its 1988 Perspectives Resolution, the ICFI warned:
Despite the loss of its economic hegemony, the United States remains, militarily, the most powerful imperialist country, and
reserves to itself the role of global policeman. But the conditions which prevailed in 1945 at the beginning of the so-called
American Century have been drastically transformed. The loss of the economic preponderance which once made its word "law" among
the major capitalist nations compels the United States to place ever-greater reliance on the brute force of its military strength.
[1]
The resolution went on to declare that a prophecy made by Trotsky was about to be vindicated, quoting his War and the Fourth
International from 1934. "The world is divided? It must be re-divided. For Germany it was a question of 'organizing Europe.'
The United States must organize the world. History is bringing humanity face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism."
This was confirmed in barely two years.
There is an obvious continuity between these events of nearly 30 years ago and the present global political situation. The struggle
to assert US hegemony over the Persian Gulf threatens to ignite a new and even more terrible war against Iran, a country with three
times the population and four times the landmass of Iraq. The outbreak of a military confrontation is only a matter of time.
The last three decades have seen the United States engaged in continuous and ever-expanding warfare under both Democratic
and Republican administrations. The drive to conquer and subjugate the lands of the Middle East and Central Asia is a consensus policy
of the American ruling class. The results have included over a million dead in Iraq and hundreds of thousands more across Afghanistan,
Libya, Syria and Yemen.
More and more these various conflicts threaten to metastasize into a Third World War. Preparations for a nuclear confrontation
with Russia and China were chillingly described recently by the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the military's
No. 1 priority. Meanwhile the Pentagon released a seemingly lunatic "joint doctrine" that goes well beyond Dr. Strangelove. It
states: "nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability. Specifically, the
use of nuclear weapons will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and develop situations that call for commanders to win."
There is a worried sense within ruling circles that three decades of war have only created a series of debacles, and that
US imperialism is confronting what is termed, in military and foreign policy circles, as "strategic competition" from Russia and
China. At the same time, ever-sharper conflicts are emerging between Washington and its erstwhile NATO partners, in particular Germany,
against which the US fought in two world wars.
The contradiction between the interdependent character of the global economy and the capitalist nation-state system is leading
inexorably to a new world war.
Under these conditions, there have been several recent commentaries by US foreign policy analysts bemoaning the end of the "unipolar
moment" proclaimed nearly 30 years ago, and looking back upon it with a certain nostalgia.
Among them is a piece published in Foreign Affairs by CNN's multi-millionaire pseudo-intellectual charlatan Fareed Zakaria,
titled "The Self-Destruction of American Power." He writes:
Ever since the end of World War I, the United States has wanted to transform the world. In the 1990s, that seemed more possible
than ever before. Countries across the planet were moving toward the American way. The Gulf War seemed to mark a new milestone
for world order, in that it was prosecuted to uphold a norm legitimized by international law. [2]
The American way, world order, norms and international law: this is how these layers fondly recall a mass slaughter.
Zakaria pays special tribute to the individual who popularized the concept of the "unipolar moment," the extreme right-wing
columnist Charles Krauthammer, who wrote an article with that title, also in Foreign Affairs , in 1991. He promoted an unvarnished
perspective of the unilateral use of US military aggression to assert the dominance of American capitalism around the globe.
Our best hope for safety in such times is in American strength and will to lead a unipolar world, unashamedly laying down the
rules of world order and being prepared to enforce them," he wrote.
He went on to present the pretext for the next major US war: "There is no alternative to confronting, deterring and, if necessary,
disarming states that brandish and use weapons of mass destruction. And there is no one to do that but the United States."
He further insisted that if US imperialism proved unable to maintain its unipolar moment it would be "not for foreign but for
domestic reasons. ... stagnant productivity, declining work habits, rising demand for welfare state entitlements and new taste for
ecological luxuries." He charged that while "defense spending declined, domestic entitlements nearly doubled." And, above all, he
blamed "America's insatiable desire for yet higher standards of living without paying any of the cost." [3]
This, after a decade of unrelenting attacks on working class living standards in the wake of the breaking of the 1981 PATCO strike.
The message was clear: imperialist war abroad had to be accompanied by an intensification of social counterrevolution and class war
in the US itself.
Bush himself, in the run-up to the Gulf War, proclaimed that the unleashing of US military power, against a relatively defenseless
oppressed country, would inaugurate a "New World Order."
The content of this "new world order" was never explained. The only thing that was clear was that the old world order had broken
down and what was to replace it, in the first instance, was an eruption of US military violence.
The catastrophic breakdown of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union -- celebrated by facile bourgeois
intellectuals as the "end of history" and the "triumph of capitalism" -- had removed a key prop of the old post-World War II order.
Moreover, the very same forces of globalization of capitalist production and technological development that had fatally undermined
the autarchic Stalinist economies were driving the entire world capitalist order into profound crisis.
... ... ...
It justified this threat on the basis of the "overwhelming dependence of Western nations on vital oil supplies from the Middle
East." Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, introduced the "Reagan corollary," vowing that the US would defend these vital oil interests
against internal threats to stability as well.
The US government deliberately manufactured the pretext for its military intervention in the Persian Gulf. Tensions between Iraq
and Kuwait had been growing since the end of the Iran-Iraq war, in which Washington had provided significant aid to the Iraqi regime
of Saddam Hussein. Kuwait's lowering of oil prices and its demand for debt payments had further undermined an Iraqi economy that
had been battered by the war, while Baghdad claimed that Kuwait was carrying out slant drilling into Iraq's Rumaila oil field, on
the border between the two countries.
The US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, used a meeting on July 25, 1990 -- just weeks before Bush was to announce his "line
in the sand" and launch the drive to war -- to assure Saddam Hussein of US friendship and sympathy, while telling him that Washington
had "no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait."
The trap having been laid, Saddam Hussein, driven by desperation over the mounting economic and social crisis in Iraq, quickly
walked into it.
Like every US imperialist war waged in the name of liberation and democracy, the Gulf War was based on deception and lies.
The attempt was made to equate Saddam Hussein, whom Washington had only recently courted as an ally, with Adolf Hitler. This demonization
would become a standard feature of every succeeding US war. It had, in fact, been used in what amounted to a dress rehearsal for
the Gulf War, less than two years earlier. In preparing the invasion of Panama, the US State Department compared the involvement
in the drug trade of Manuel Noriega -- a longtime CIA asset -- with Hitler's invasion of Poland.
A massive propaganda campaign was waged to sway US public opinion toward support for the Gulf war. This infamously included the
testimony given by a 15-year-old girl to Congress, in which she tearfully recounted seeing armed Iraqi troops invading a hospital
to steal incubators, throwing babies onto the floor to die. Only later was it revealed that the story was a complete fabrication.
The girl had not been in Kuwait before, during or after the Iraqi invasion. She was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington
and a member of the royal family, sent to read a script written by a major US PR firm.
Finally, Bush justified military intervention by claiming an imminent threat posed by Iraq's massing of 120,000 troops on Saudi
Arabia's border. Satellite images subsequently revealed that there was nothing on the Kuwait-Saudi border but desert sand.
A critically important part of the report to the Special Congress of the Workers League in 1990 was the clarification of our attitude
toward Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Initial responses within the International Committee had included its condemnation as
an "act of aggression" by the British section, in an initial article published in its newspaper. On the other hand, there was a suggestion
from within the Australian section, that we support the annexation of Kuwait as a "small step" in advancing "the unfulfilled national
and democratic tasks of the Arab revolution."
The report made clear that we had no reason to condemn Iraqi aggression. Given the economic warfare waged by Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia against Iraq in the run-up to the invasion, our concern was not who fired the first shot. Moreover, to take such a position
would be to support the territorial integrity of Kuwait, a Sheikdom created by British imperialism, carved out of the southern Iraqi
province of Basra, as a means of better dominating the Arabian Peninsula. The same is the case with virtually all the borders drawn
by imperialist powers in the Middle East.
At the same time, in response to the suggestion from a member of the Australian section that we support Kuwait's annexation, it
affirmed:
To attribute any progressive role to Hussein's invasion would lead the ICFI in a false direction and undermine the theoretical
and political gains that have been made since 1985, in our collective struggle against the WRP's betrayal of the program of world
socialist revolution.
Of course, this refers to the struggle waged against the Workers Revolutionary Party's abandonment of the Theory of Permanent
Revolution, particularly in relation to its opportunist relations with various Arab regimes, systematically subordinating the independent
struggle of the working class to the supposedly anti-imperialist stance of one or another bourgeois nationalist leader.
... ... ...
The US launched the Gulf War on January 16, 1991. Operation Desert Storm, as it was dubbed, consisted mainly of one of the most
intensive air bombardments in military history. Eighty-eight thousand tons of munitions were dropped on Iraq in the course of just
42 days. This is roughly equivalent to one-fourth of the total bomb tonnage dropped on Germany during the entire Second World War.
The Iraqi casualty totals were estimated at 135,000. Much of Iraq's conscript army was wiped out, with soldiers incinerated from
the air or buried alive in their trenches. Hundreds of thousands more Iraqis, of course, died as a result of the systematic destruction
of the country's infrastructure.
On the so-called Highway of Death, the US launched wave after wave of bombings against a defenseless, miles-long column of vehicles,
carrying Iraqi troops as well as civilians withdrawing from Kuwait on the orders of the Hussein government, which announced that
it was complying with a UN Resolution demanding the withdrawal.
As we stated in response to this war crime:
The US war against Iraq is among the most terrible crimes of the twentieth century, a slaughter that future generations will
look back on with shame. It has demonstrated that the ruling class of so-called democratic America is just as capable of mass
murder as the Nazis. [4]
The Wall Street Journal responded to the Gulf War with an editorial that stated:
For America's ruling elite, long at each other's throats, the path should be clearer now to reforming a working consensus about
the US's world role. Some of the policy-making world's most divisive issues now look settled. Force is a legitimate tool of policy;
it works. For the elites themselves, the message is America can lead, stop whining, think more boldly. Starting now. [5]
We understood this editorial, by the mouthpiece of US finance capital, as an accurate reflection of the pathological triumphalism
prevailing within the American bourgeoisie.
The 11th Plenum of the International Committee was held on March 5, 1991, less than a week after the end of the Gulf War. Its
opening report stated:
The American bourgeoisie is serving notice that American imperialism will seek through force to overcome problems arising from
the protracted economic decline of the US. For all the problems of American capitalism -- the decay of its industrial base, the
loss of its overseas markets, the massive trade deficits and budget deficits, the collapse of its banking system, the gangrenous
growth of social ills -- the bourgeoisie believes it has found an answer: Force!
The report quotes the extremely relevant passage from Anti-Dühring , written 113 years earlier, in which Engels delivered
a Marxist response to Dühring's claim that force was the decisive element in history:
...its own productive forces have grown beyond its control and, as if necessitated by a law of nature, are driving the whole
of bourgeois society towards ruin, or revolution. And if the bourgeoisie now make their appeal to force in order to save the collapsing
"economic situation" from the final crash, this only shows that they are laboring under the same delusion as Herr Dühring: the
delusion that "political conditions are the decisive cause of the economic situation"; this only shows that they imagine, just
as Herr Dühring does, that by making use of "the primary," "the direct political force," they can remodel those "facts of the
second order," the economic situation and its inevitable development; and that therefore the economic consequences of the steam-engine
and the modern machinery driven by it, of world trade and the banking and credit developments of the present day, can be blown
out of existence by them with Krupp guns and Mauser rifles. [6]
Substitute computerization for the steam engine and smart bombs and cruise missiles for Krupp guns and Mausers and this statement
stands as a fitting refutation of the triumphalist rantings of the US ruling class in the wake of the Gulf War.
... ... ...
Moreover, in the context of the Gulf War, the call for revolutionary defeatism from the standpoint of fighting the US military
to the last Iraqi was senseless and reactionary. The military balance of forces was such that -- outside of the revolutionary mobilization
of the masses of the Middle East and the working class in the US and beyond -- the military victory of the US was virtually assured.
More fundamentally, it betrayed a complete disdain for and hostility to the fight against war based upon the struggle of the working
class. It was entirely bound up with the Pabloite perspective that one or another form of "armed struggle," waged by non-proletarian
forces, was the substitute for the revolutionary mobilization of the working class internationally, and particularly in the advanced
capitalist countries.
The most decisive response of the ICFI to the Gulf War, US imperialism's "unipolar moment" and the march toward the restoration
of capitalism and dissolution of the USSR, was the calling of the Berlin Conference against imperialist war and colonialism.
... ... ...
The war ushered in a period of capitalist disequilibrium that would last for three decades, dominated by capitalist crisis and
overshadowed by the successful October 1917 Revolution in Russia, calling into question the very survival of the capitalist order.
The absence, however, of revolutionary parties -- particularly in Europe -- on a par with the Bolsheviks in Russia, allowed the
bourgeoisie to defeat a series of revolutionary struggles. But they were unable to create a new equilibrium to replace what was shattered
by 1914.
The rise of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, led by Stalin, and the terrible degeneration of the Communist International as
it was subordinated to the Stalinist theory of "socialism in one country" and Moscow's maneuvers with imperialism, led to a series
of catastrophic defeats, above all in Germany. The coming to power of the Nazis in 1933, without a shot being fired, exposed the
counterrevolutionary character of Stalinism, leading Trotsky to found the Fourth International.
The document establishes that the ability of the bourgeoisie to achieve a new equilibrium in the aftermath of World War II, which
they could not do following World War I, was based not merely on the rise of US imperialism as a hegemonic power, but also the indispensable
role of Stalinism. It opposed and sabotaged the revolutionary struggles of the working class in the aftermath of the war, particularly
in Italy, France and Greece. In Eastern Europe, its establishment of so-called buffer states served not only to suppress the working
class and any genuine struggle for socialism, but also to pacify a fractious region that had been a source of European instability
since the dawn of the 20th century.
The equilibrium established at the end of World War II, however, as the document makes clear, was mined with its own contradictions.
Its revival of world trade and rebuilding of capitalism in Europe and Japan led to the gradual decline of US hegemony, leading to
mounting US deficits which, by 1985, had transformed America into a debtor nation.
Turning to the crisis in the United States, the manifesto sketches out a portrait that seems altogether contemporary:
Not a single significant piece of social legislation has passed through Congress in more than two decades [now we can say
five decades ]. Massive budget cuts have destroyed what remains of the old social programs. The crime statistics are merely
the most obvious symptoms of the malignant state of social relations. Amidst rapidly growing unemployment and, for those who still
have jobs, declining wages, the state of education, housing and medical care is nothing less than catastrophic.
A third of the population is functionally illiterate. Not even the mass media can avoid reporting on a daily basis some of
the more spectacular 'horror stories' of lives destroyed by the impact of the social crisis: homeless people freezing in cardboard
boxes, cancer victims being denied treatment because they have no medical insurance and unemployed workers and their families
committing suicide. [10]
... ... ...
The manifesto warned that these conflicts were being manipulated and exploited by the imperialist powers, while capitalism sought
to divert popular indignation over social inequality into the blind alley of national and ethnic conflict.
The ability of reactionary petty-bourgeois demagogues to agitate for communal violence it said, "is to be attributed not to the
intellectual and moral power of nationalism, but to the political vacuum left by the prostration of the traditional organizations
of the working class, which offer no way out of the crisis of the capitalist system."
Between the calling of the conference on May 1, 1991 and its convening on November 16, events moved very rapidly, with Croatia
and Slovenia both declaring their independence on June 25 of that year. Macedonia followed suit soon after, and the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
began its fragmentation into warring ethnic cantons. Armed clashes had broken out, particularly around the coastal city of Dubrovnik.
US Army combat engineer vehicle demolishes a Bosnian Serb bunker near Dubrave, January 1996
The promotion of virulent ethno-chauvinism and national separatism was led by former bureaucrats of Yugoslavia's ruling League
of Communists. They sought, on the one hand, to divide and suppress the Yugoslav working class, which had carried out a wave of mass
strikes against the austerity measures imposed by the IMF as part of capitalist restoration. On the other, they were driven to carve
out ethnic states in order to forge their own independent relations with imperialism as a new ruling class of comprador capitalists.
In his report to the conference, comrade North pointed to the attitude adopted by the Pabloite leader Ernest Mandel, who advocated
unconditional support for the self-determination of Croatia, regardless of the character of the regime. Mandel moreover issued a
call for direct imperialist intervention, denouncing Serbian chauvinism, while turning a blind eye to Croatian chauvinism.
This position dovetailed neatly with that of German imperialism, which was backing Croatian and Slovenian independence as part
of a post-reunification reassertion of its power in Europe. German imperialism was returning to the scenes of its crimes in 1914
and 1941, unilaterally defying the United States, the United Nations and the European Commission.
The Berlin conference adopted a resolution titled "On the Defense of the Working Class in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union"
which stated the following:
Everywhere rival capitalist cliques are stirring up nationalism and chauvinism, in order to incite the workers against each
other and to preempt an uprising against the old and new oppressors. The bloodbath in Yugoslavia is a result of these policies.
This war has nothing to do with the right of nations to self-determination. Serbian and Croatian nationalists are merely fighting
to secure for themselves a larger portion of the exploitation of the working class. [19]
The history of Yugoslavia, its rise and fall, could be the subject for an entire school, as could the national question and the
slogan of "self-determination." Clearly that cannot be accomplished in this lecture.
... ... ...
Not only the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia, but more fundamentally, the development of capitalist
globalization, gave rise to a new type of nationalist movement, seeking the dismemberment of existing states -- including those that
emerged out of the previous national struggles against colonialism -- to further the interests of rival bourgeois factions in establishing
the most advantageous relations to imperialism and transnational capital.
This was patently the case in Yugoslavia, where the first impulse to break up the existing federation came from Slovenia and Croatia,
the wealthiest regions of the country, where local ruling elites calculated that they could fare better by breaking with the poorer
republics and establishing their own independent ties to European governments, banks and corporations.
Similar considerations have motivated a whole series of national separatist movements, including in Europe, in the cases of the
right-wing Northern League in Italy and Catalan nationalism in Spain.
... ... ...
In conclusion: the so-called "Unipolar Moment" of 1990 and 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the launching of
the Gulf War, marked the collapse of the post-World War II equilibrium, established on the basis of the hegemony of American capitalism
and the collaboration of the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy. It signaled the beginning of a new period of uninterrupted war, the growth
of inter-imperialist rivalries, and inevitably, a global rise in the class struggle and socialist revolution.
... .. ...
Footnotes:
[1] The World Capitalist Crisis and the Tasks of the Fourth International, Perspectives Resolution of the International Committee
of the Fourth International , (Detroit: Labor Publications, 1988), p. 66.
[2] Fareed Zakaria, "The Self-Destruction of American Power," Foreign Affairs , Vol. 98, No. 4, (July/August 2019)
[3] Charles Krauthammer, "The Unipolar Moment," Foreign Affairs , Vol. 70, No. 1, (1990/1991), pp. 23–33
[4] The Bulletin , March 1, 1991, "Bush is Guilty of Mass Murder"
[5] Cited in Desert Slaughter, The Imperialist War Against Iraq , (Detroit: Labor Publications, 1991), p. 232.
[6] Karl Marx Frederick Engels, Collected Works , Vol. 25, p. 153.
[7] The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, The Transitional Program , (New York: Labor
Publications, 1981), p. 20.
[8] Workers League Internal Bulletin, Vol. 4, No. 15, p. 31.
[9] Workers League Internal Bulletin , Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 2.
[10] Oppose Imperialist War & Colonialism, Manifesto of the International Committee of the Fourth International , (Detroit:
Labor Publications, 1991), p. 12.
[11] Ibid., p. 24.
[12] The Fourth International , Vol. 19, No. 1, Fall-Winter 1992, p. 11.
[13] Ibid., p. 7.
[14] Ibid., p. 9.
[15] Ibid., p. 10
[16] Ibid., p. 14
[17] Ibid., p. 13.
[18] Oppose Imperialist War & Colonialism , p. 16.
[19] The Fourth International , Vol. 19, No. 1, p. 38.
[20] On the Manifesto of the Armenian Social Democrats , Iskra, No. 33, Feb. 1, 1903, Lenin, Collected Works , Vol.
6, pp. 326–329.
While the Trump Administration seems to be cozying up to America's Jewish voters, here is an
article that outlines what American Jews really think of Donald Trump and his leadership:
A retired Australian diplomat who served in Moscow dissects the emergence of the new Cold
War and its dire consequences.
I n 2014, we saw violent U.S.-supported regime change and civil war in Ukraine. In February,
after months of increasing tension from the anti-Russian protest movement's sitdown strike in
Kiev's Maidan Square, there was a murderous clash between protesters and Ukrainian police,
sparked off by hidden shooters (we now know that were expert Georgian snipers) , aiming at
police. The elected government collapsed and President Yanukevich fled to Russia, pursued by
murder squads.
The new Poroshenko government pledged harsh anti-Russian language laws. Rebels in two
Russophone regions in Eastern Ukraine took local control, and appealed for Russian military
help. In March, a referendum took place in Russian-speaking Crimea on leaving Ukraine, under
Russian military protection. Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, a request promptly
granted by the Russian Parliament and President. Crimea's border with Ukraine was secured
against saboteurs. Crimea is prospering under its pro-Russian government, with the economy
kick-started by Russian transport infrastructure investment.
In April, Poroshenko ordered full military attack on the separatist provinces of Donetsk and
Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine. A brutal civil war ensued, with aerial and artillery bombardment
bringing massive civilian death and destruction to the separatist region. There was major
refugee outflow into Russia and other parts of Ukraine. The shootdown of MH17 took place in
July 2014.
Poroshenko: Ordered military attack.
By August 2015, according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
estimates, 13,000 people had been killed and 30,000 wounded. 1.4 million Ukrainians had been
internally displaced, and 925,000 had fled to neighbouring countries, mostly Russia and to a
lesser extent Poland.
There is now a military stalemate, under the stalled Minsk peace process. But random fatal
clashes continue, with the Ukrainian Army mostly blamed by UN observers. The UN reported last
month that the ongoing war has affected 5.2 million people, leaving 3.5 million of them in need
of relief, including 500,000 children. Most Russians blame the West for fomenting Ukrainian
enmity towards Russia. This war brings back for older Russians horrible memories of the Nazi
invasion in 1941. The Russia-Ukraine border is only 550 kilometres from Moscow.
Flashpoint Syria
Russian forces joined the civil war in Syria in September 2015, at the request of the Syrian
Government, faltering under the attacks of Islamist extremist rebel forces reinforced by
foreign fighters and advanced weapons. With Russian air and ground support, the tide of war
turned. Palmyra and Aleppo were recaptured in 2016. An alleged Syrian Government chemical
attack at Khan Shaykhun in April 2017 resulted in a token U.S. missile attack on a Syrian
Government airbase: an early decision by President Trump.
NATO, Strategic Balance, Sanctions
An F-15C Eagle from the 493rd Fighter Squadron takes off from Royal Air Force Lakenheath,
England, March 6, 2014. The 48th Fighter Wing sent an additional six aircraft and more than 50
personnel to support NATO's air policing mission in Lithuania, at the request of U.S. allies in
the Baltics. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Emerson Nunez/Released)
Tensions have risen in the Baltic as NATO moves ground forces and battlefield missiles up to
the Baltic states' borders with Russia. Both sides' naval and air forces play dangerous
brinksmanship games in the Baltic. U.S. short-range, non-nuclear-armed anti-ballistic missiles
were stationed in Poland and Romania, allegedly against threat of Iranian attack. They are
easily convertible to nuclear-armed missiles aimed at nearby Russia.
Nuclear arms control talks have stalled. The INF intermediate nuclear forces treaty expired
in 2019, after both sides accused the other of cheating. In March 2018, Putin announced that
Russia has developed new types of intercontinental nuclear missiles using technologies that
render U.S. defence systems useless. The West has pretended to ignore this announcement, but we
can be sure Western defence ministries have noted it. Nuclear second-strike deterrence has
returned, though most people in the West have forgotten what this means. Russians know exactly
what it means.
Western economic sanctions against Russia continue to tighten after the 2014 events in
Ukraine. The U.S. is still trying to block the nearly completed Nordstream Baltic Sea
underwater gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Sanctions are accelerating the division of the
world into two trade and payments systems: the old NATO-led world, and the rest of the world
led by China, with full Russian support and increasing interest from India, Japan, ROK and
ASEAN.
Return to Moscow
In 2013, my children gave me an Ipad. I began to spend several hours a day reading well
beyond traditional mainstream Western sources: British and American dissident sites, writers
like Craig Murray in UK and in the U.S. Stephen Cohen, and some Russian sites – rt.com,
Sputnik, TASS, and the official Foreign Ministry site mid.ru. in English.
In late 2015 I decided to visit Russia independently to write Return to Moscow , a
literary travel memoir. I planned to compare my impressions of the Soviet Union, where I had
lived and worked as an Australian diplomat in 1969-71, with Russia today. I knew there had been
huge changes. I wanted to experience 'Putin's Russia' for myself, to see how it felt to be
there as an anonymous visitor in the quiet winter season. I wanted to break out of the familiar
one-dimensional hostile political view of Russia that Western mainstream media offer: to take
my readers with me on a cultural pilgrimage through the tragedy and grandeur and inspiration of
Russian history. As with my earlier book on Spain 'Walking the Camino' , this was not
intended to be a political book, and yet somehow it became one.
I was still uncommitted on contemporary Russian politics before going to Russia in January
2016. Using the metaphor of a seesaw, I was still sitting somewhere around the middle.
My book was written in late 2015 – early 2016, expertly edited by UWA Publishing. It
was launched in March 2017. By this time my political opinions had moved decisively to the
Russian end of the seesaw, on the basis of what I had seen in Russia, and what I had read and
thought during the year.
I have been back again twice, in winter 2018 and 2019. My 2018 visit included Crimea, and I
happened to see a Navalny-led Sunday demonstration in Moscow. I thoroughly enjoyed all three
independent visits: in my opinion, they give my judgements on Russia some depth and
authenticity.
Russophobia Becomes Entrenched
Russia was a big talking point in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the initially
unlikely Republican candidate Donald Trump's chances improved, anti-Putin and anti-Russian
positions hardened in the outgoing Obama administration and in the Democratic Party
establishment which backed candidate Hillary Clinton.
Russia and Putin became caught up in the Democratic Party's increasingly obsessive rage and
hatred against the victorious Trump. Russophobia became entrenched in Washington and London
U.S. and UK political and strategic elites, especially in intelligence circles: think of
Pompeo, Brennan, Comey and Clapper. All sense of international protocol and diplomatic
propriety towards Russia and its President was abandoned, as this appalling Economist
cover from October 2016 shows.
My experience of undeclared political censorship in Australia since four months after
publication of 'Return to Moscow' supports the thesis that:
We are now in the thick of a ruthless but mostly covert Anglo-American alliance
information war against Russia. In this war, individuals who speak up publicly in the cause of
detente with Russia will be discouraged from public discourse.
In the Thick of Information War
When I spoke to you two years ago, I had no idea how far-reaching and ruthless this
information war is becoming. I knew that a false negative image of Russia was taking hold in
the West, even as Russia was becoming a more admirable and self-confident civil society, moving
forward towards greater democracy and higher living standards, while maintaining essential
national security. I did not then know why, or how.
I had just had time to add a few final paragraphs in my book about the possible consequences
for Russia-West relations of Trump's surprise election victory in November 2016. I was right to
be cautious, because since Trump's inauguration we have seen the step-by-step elimination of
any serious pro-detente voices in Washington, and the reassertion of control over this
haphazard president by the bipartisan imperial U.S. deep state, as personified from April 2018
by Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Adviser Bolton. Bolton has now been thrown
from the sleigh as decoy for the wolves: under the smooth-talking Pompeo, the imperial policies
remain.
Truth, Trust and False Narratives
Let me now turn to some theory about political reality and perception, and how national
communities are persuaded to accept false narratives. Let me acknowledge my debt to the
fearless and brilliant Australian independent online journalist, Caitlin Johnstone.
Behavioural scientists have worked in the field of what used to be called propaganda since
WW1. England has always excelled in this field. Modern wars are won or lost not just on the
battlefield, but in people's minds. Propaganda, or as we now call it information warfare, is as
much about influencing people's beliefs within your own national community as it is
about trying to demoralise and subvert the enemy population.
The IT revolution of the past few years has exponentially magnified the effectiveness of
information warfare. Already in the 1940s, George Orwell understood how easily governments are
able to control and shape public perceptions of reality and to suppress dissent. His brilliant
books 1984 and Animal Farm are still instruction manuals in principles of
information warfare. Their plots tell of the creation by the state of false narratives, with
which to control their gullible populations.
The disillusioned Orwell wrote from his experience of real politics. As a volunteer fighter
in the Spanish Civil War, he saw how both Spanish sides used false news and propaganda
narratives to demonise the enemy. He also saw how the Nazi and Stalinist systems in Germany and
Russia used propaganda to support show trials and purges, the concentration camps and the
Gulag, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, German master race and Stalinist class enemy
ideologies; and hows dissident thought was suppressed in these controlled societies. Orwell
tried to warn his readers: all this could happen here too, in our familiar old England. But
because the good guys won the war against fascism, his warnings were ignored.
We are now in Britain, U.S. and Australia actually living in an information warfare world
that has disturbing echoes of the world that Orwell wrote about. The essence of information
control is the effective state management of two elements, trust and fear , to
generate and uphold a particular view of truth. Truth, trust and fear : these are the
three key elements, now as 100 years ago in WWI Britain.
People who work or have worked close to government – in departments, politics, the
armed forces, or top universities – mostly accept whatever they understand at the time to
be 'the government view' of truth. Whether for reasons of organisational loyalty, career
prudence or intellectual inertia, it is usually this way around governments. It is why moral
issues like the Vietnam War and the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq were so distressing for
people of conscience working in or close to government and military jobs in Canberra. They were
expected to engage in 'doublethink' as Orwell had described it:
Even in Winston's nightmare world, there were still choices – to retreat into the
non-political world of the proles, or to think forbidden thoughts and read forbidden books.
These choices involved large risks and punishments. It was easier and safer for most people to
acquiesce in the fake news they were fed by state-controlled media.
'Trust, Truth and False Narratives'
Fairfax journalist Andrew Clark, in the Australian Financial Review , in an essay
optimistically titled "Not fake news: Why truth and trust are still in good shape in
Australia", (AFR Dec. 22, 2018), cited Professor William Davies thus:
"Most of the time, the edifice that we refer to as "truth" is really an investment of
trust in our structures of politics and public life' 'When trust sinks below a certain point,
many people come to view the entire spectacle of politics and public life as a sham."
Here is my main point: Effective information warfare requires the creation of enough
public trust to make the public believe that state-supported lies are true.
The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted
voices. Once a critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks
in: its dissemination becomes self-sustaining.
" Power is being able to control what happens. Absolute power is being able
to control what people think about what happens. If you can control what happens,
you can have power until the public gets sick of your BS and tosses you out on your ass. If
you can control what people think about what happens, you can have power forever. As
long as you can control how people are interpreting circumstances and events, there's no
limit to the evils you can get away with."
The Internet has made propaganda campaigns that used to take weeks or months a matter of
hours or even minutes to accomplish. It is about getting in quickly, using large enough
clusters of trusted and diverse sources, in order to cement lies in place, to make the
lies seem true, to magnify them through social messaging: in other words, to create credible
false narratives that will quickly get into the public's bloodstream.
Over the past two years, I have seen this work many times: on issues like framing Russia for
the MH17 tragedy; with false allegations of Assad mounting poison gas attacks in Syria; with
false allegations of Russian agents using lethal Novichok to try to kill the Skripals in
Salisbury; and with the multiple lies of Russiagate.
It is the mind-numbing effect of constant repetition of disinformation by many eminent
people and agencies, in hitherto trusted channels like the BBC or ABC or liberal Anglophone
print media that gives the system its power to persuade the credulous. For if so many diverse
and reputable people repeatedly report such negative news and express such negative judgements
about Russia or China or Iran or Syria, surely they must be right?
We have become used to reading in our quality newspapers and hearing on the BBC and ABC and
SBS gross assaults on truth, calmly presented as accepted facts. There is no real public debate
on important facts in contention any more. There are no venues for dissent outside contrarian
social media sites.
Sometimes, false narratives inter-connect. Often a disinformation narrative in one area is
used to influence perceptions in other areas. For example, the false Skripals poisoning story
was launched by British intelligence in March 2018, just in time to frame Syrian President
Assad as the guilty party in a faked chemical weapons attack in Douma the following month.
The Skripals Gambit
The Skripals gambit was also a failed British attempt to blight the Russia –hosted
Football World Cup in June 2018. In the event, hundreds of thousands of Western sports fans
returned home with the warmest memories of Russian good sportsmanship and hospitality.
How do I know the British Skripals narrative is false? For a start, it is illogical,
incoherent, and constantly changes. Allegedly, two visiting Russian FSB agents in March 2018
sprayed or smeared Novichok, a deadly toxin instantly lethal in the most microscopic
quantities, on the Skripals' house front doorknob. There is no video footage of the Skripals at
their front door on the day. We are told they were found slumped on a park bench, and that is
maybe where they had been sprayed with nerve gas? Shortly afterwards, Britain's Head of Army
Nursing who happened to be passing by found them, and supervised their hospitalisation and
emergency treatment.
Allegedly, much of Salisbury was contaminated by Novichok, and one unfortunate woman
mysteriously died weeks later, yet the Skripals somehow did not die, as we are told. But where
are they now? We saw a healthy Yulia in a carefully scripted video interview released in May
2018, after an alleged 'one in a million' recovery. We were assured her father had recovered
too, but nobody has seen him at all. The Skripals have simply disappeared from sight since 16
months ago. Are they now alive or dead? Are they in voluntary or involuntary British
custody?
A month after the poisoning, the UK Government sent biological samples from the Skripals to
the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , for testing. The OPCW sent the
samples to a trusted OPCW laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland.
Lavrov Spiez BZ claims, April 2018
A few days later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dramatically announced in Moscow
that the Spiez lab had found in the samples a temporary-effect nerve agent BZ, used by U.S. and
UK but not by Russia, that would have disabled the Skripals for a few days without killing
them. He also revealed the Spiez lab had found that the Skripal samples had been twice tampered
with while still in UK custody: first soon after the poisoning, and again shortly before
passing them to the OPCW. He said the Spiez lab had found a high concentration of Novichok,
which he called A- 234, in its original form. This was extremely suspicious as A-234 has high
volatility and could not have retained its purity over a two weeks period. The dosage the Spiez
lab found in the samples would have surely killed the Skripals. The OPCW under British pressure
rejected Lavrov's claim, and suppressed the Spiez lab report.
Let's look finally at the alleged assassins.
'Boshirov and Petrov'
These two FSB operatives who visited Salisbury under the false identities of 'Boshirov' and
'Petrov' did not look or behave like credible assassins. It is more likely that they were sent
to negotiate with Sergey Skripal about his rumoured interest in returning to Russia. They
needed to apply for UK visas a month in advance of travel: ample time for the British agencies
to identify them as FSB operatives, and to construct a false attempted assassination narrative
around their visit. This false narrative repeatedly trips over its own lies and contradictions.
British social media are full of alternative theories and rebuttals. Russians find the whole
British Government Skripal narrative laughable. They have invented comedy skits and video games
based on it. Yet it had major impact on Russia-West relations.
The Douma False Narrative
I turn now to the claimed Assad chemical weapons attack in Douma in April 2018.This falsely
alleged attack triggered a major NATO air attack on Syrian targets, ordered by Trump. We came
close to WWIII in these dangerous days. Thanks to the restraint of the then Secretary of
Defence James Mattis and his Russian counterparts, the risk was contained.
The allegation that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used outlawed chemical weapons
against his own people was based solely on the evidence of faked video images of child victims,
made by the discredited White Helmets, a UK-sponsored rebel-linked 'humanitarian' propaganda
organisation with much blood on its hands. Founded in 2013 by a British private security
specialist of intelligence background, James Le Mesurier, the White Helmets specialised in
making fake videos of alleged Assad regime war crimes against Syrian civilians. It is by now a
thoroughly discredited organisation that was prepared to kill its prisoners and then film their
bodies as alleged victims of government chemical attacks.
White Helmets
As the town of Douma was about to fall to advancing Syrian Government forces, the White
Helmets filled a room with stacked corpses of murdered prisoners, and photographed them as
alleged victims of aerial gas attack. They also made a video alleging child victims of this
attack being hosed down by White Helmets. A video of a child named Hassan Diab went viral all
over the Western world.
Hassan Diab later testified publicly in The Hague that he had been dragged terrified from
his family by force, smeared with some sort of grease, and hosed down with water as part of a
fake video. He went from hero to zero overnight, as Western governments and media rejected his
testimony as Russian and Syrian propaganda.
In a late development, there is proof that the OPCW suppressed its own engineers' report
from Douma that the alleged poison gas cylinders could not have possibly been dropped from the
air through the roof of the house where one was found, resting on a bed under a convenient hole
in the roof.
I could go on discussing the detail of such false narratives all day. No matter how often
they are exposed by critics, our politicians and mainstream media go on referencing them as if
they are true. Once people have come to believe false narratives, it is hard to refute
them.
So it is with the false narrative that Russian internet interference enabled Trump to win
the 2016 U.S. presidential elections: a thesis for which no evidence was found by [Special
Counsel Robert] Mueller, yet continues to be cited by many U.S. liberal Democratic media as if
it were true. So, even, with MH17.
Managing Mass Opinion
This mounting climate of Western Russophobia is not accidental: it is strategically
directed, and it is nourished with regular maintenance doses of fresh lies. Each round of lies
provides a credible platform for the next round somewhere else. The common thread is a claimed
malign Russian origin for whatever goes wrong.
So where is all this disinformation originating? Information technology firms in Washington
and London that are closely networked into government elites, often through attending the same
establishment schools or colleges like Eton and Yale, have closely studied and tested the
science of influencing crowd opinions through mainstream media and online. They know, in a way
that Orwell or Goebbels could hardly have dreamt, how to put out and repeat desired media
messages. They know what sizes of 'internet attraction nodes' need to be established online, in
order to create diverse critical masses of credible Russophobic messaging, which then attracts
enough credulous and loyal followers to become self-propagating.
Firms like the SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories) and the now defunct
Cambridge Analytica pioneered such work in the UK. There are many similar firms in Washington,
all in the business of monitoring, generating and managing mass opinion. It is big business,
and it works closely with the national security state.
Starting in November 2018, an enterprising group of unknown hackers in the UK , who go by
the name 'Anonymous', opened a remarkable window into this secret world. Over a few weeks, they
hacked and dumped online a huge volume of original documents issued by and detailing the
activities of the Institute for Statecraft (IfS) and the Integrity initiative
(II). Here is the first page of one of their dumps, exposing propaganda against Jeremy
Corbyn.
We know from this material that the IfS and II are two secret British disinformation
networks operating at arms' length from but funded by the UK security services and broader UK
government establishment. They bring together high-ranking military and intelligence personnel,
often nominally retired, journalists and academics, to produce and disseminate propaganda that
serves the agendas of the UK and its allies.
Stung by these massive leaks, Chris Donnelly, a key figure in IfS and II and a former
British Army intelligence officer, made a now famous seven-minute YouTube video in December
2018, artfully filmed in a London kitchen, defending their work.
He argued – quite unconvincingly in my opinion – that IfS and II are simply
defending Western societies against disinformation and malign influence, primarily from Russia.
He boasted how they have set up in numerous targeted European countries, claimed to be under
attack from Russian disinformation, what he called 'clusters of influence' , to
'educate' public opinion and decision-makers in pro-NATO and anti-Russian directions.
Donnelly spoke frankly on how the West is already at war with Russia, a 'new kind of
warfare', in which he said 'everything becomes a weapon'. He said that 'disinformation is the
issue which unites all the other weapons in this conflict and gives them a third
dimension'.
He said the West has to fight back, if it is to defend itself and to prevail.
We can confirm from the Anonymous leaked files the names of many people in Europe being
recruited into these clusters of influence. They tend to be significant people in journalism,
publishing, universities and foreign policy think-tanks: opinion-shapers. The leaked documents
suggest how ideologically suitable candidates are identified: approached for initial screening
interviews; and, if invited to join a cluster of influence, sworn to secrecy.
Remarkably, neither the Anonymous disclosures nor the Donnelly response have ever been
reported in Australian media. Even in Britain – where evidence that the Integrity
Initiative was mounting a campaign against [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn provoked brief media
interest. The story quickly disappeared from mainstream media and the BBC. A British
under-foreign secretary admitted in Parliamentary Estimates that the UK Foreign Office
subsidises the Institute of Statecraft to the tune of nearly 3 million pounds per year. It also
gives various other kinds of non-monetary assistance, e.g. providing personnel and office
support in Britain's overseas embassies.
This is not about traditional spying or seeking agents of influence close to governments. It
is about generating mass disinformation, in order to create mass climates of belief.
In my opinion, such British and American disinformation efforts, using undeclared clusters
of influence, through Five Eyes intelligence-sharing, and possibly with the help of British and
American diplomatic missions, may have been in operation in Australia for many years.
Such networks may have been used against me since around mid-2017, to limit the commercial
outreach of my book and the impact of its dangerous ideas on the need for East-West detente;
and efficiently to suppress my voice in Australian public discourse about Russia and the West.
Do I have evidence for this? Yes.
It is not coincidence that the Melbourne Writers Festival in August 2017 somehow lost all my
sign-and-sell books from my sold-out scheduled speaking event; that a major debate with
[Australian writer and foreign policy analyst] Bobo Lo at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne was
cancelled by his Australian sponsor, the Lowy institute, two weeks before the advertised date;
that my last invitation to any writers festival was 15 months ago, in May 2018; that Return
to Moscow was not shortlisted for any Australian book prize, though I entered it in all of
them ; that since my book's early promotion ended around August 2017, I have not been invited
to join any ABC discussion panels, or to give any talks on Russia in any universities or
institutes, apart from the admirable Australian Institute of International Affairs and the
ISAA.
My articles and shorter opinion commentaries on Russia and the West have not been published
in mainstream media or in reputable online journals like Eureka Street, The Conversation,
Inside Story or Australian Book Review . Despite being an ANU Emeritus Fellow, I
have not been invited to give a public talk or join any panel in ANU (Australian National
University) or any Canberra think tank. In early 2018, I was invited to give a private briefing
to a group of senior students travelling on an immersion course to Russia. I was not invited
back in 2019, after high-level private advice within ANU that I was regarded as too
pro-Putin.
In all these ways – none overt or acknowledged – my voice as an open-minded
writer and speaker on Russia-West relations seems to have been quietly but effectively
suppressed in Australia. I would like to be proved wrong on this, but the evidence is
there.
This may be about "velvet-glove deterrence" of my Russia-sympathetic voice and pen, in order
to discourage others, especially those working in or close to government. Nobody is going to
put me in jail, unless I am stupid enough to violate Australia's now strict foreign influence
laws. This deterrence is about generating fear of consequences for people still in their
careers, paying their mortgages, putting kids through school. Nobody wants to miss their next
promotion.
There are other indications that Australian national security elite opinion has been
indoctrinated prudently to fear and avoid any kind of public discussion of positive engagement
with Russia (or indeed, with China).
There are only two kinds of news about Russia now permitted in our mainstream media,
including the ABC and SBS: negative news and comment, or silence. Unless a story can be given
an anti-Russian sting, it will not be carried at all. Important stories are simply spiked, like
last week's Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivistok, chaired by President Putin and attended by
Prime Ministers Abe, Mahathir and Modi, among 8500 participants from 65 countries.
The ABC idea of a balanced panel to discuss any Russian political topic was exemplified
in an ABC Sunday Extra Roundtable panel chaired by Eleanor Hall on July, 22 2018, soon after
the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki. The panel – a former ONA Russia analyst, a professor
of Soviet and Russian History at Melbourne University, and a Russian émigré
dissident journalist introduced as the 'Washington correspondent for Echo of Moscow radio'
spent most of their time sneering at Putin and Trump. There were no other views.
A powerful anti-Russian news narrative is now firmly in place in Australia, on every topic
in contention: Ukraine, MH17, Crimea, Syria, the Skripals, Navalny and public protest in
Russia. There is ill-informed criticism of Russia, or silence, on the crucial issues of arms
control and Russia-China strategic and economic relations as they affect Australia's national
security or economy. There is no analysis of the negative impact on Australia of economic
sanctions against Russia. There is almost no discussion of how improved relations with China
and Russia might contribute to Australia's national security and economic welfare, as American
influence in the world and our region declines, and as American reliability as an ally comes
more into question. Silence on inconvenient truths is an important part of the disinformation
tool kit.
I see two overall conflicting narratives – the prevailing Anglo-American false
narrative; and valiant efforts by small groups of dissenters, drawing on sources outside the
Anglo-American official narrative, to present another narrative much closer to truth. And this
is how most Russians now see it too.
The Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018 was damaged by the Skripal and Syria
fabrications. Trump left that summit friendless, frightened and humiliated. He soon surrendered
to the power of the U.S. imperial state as then represented by [Mike] Pompeo and [John] Bolton,
who had both been appointed as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser in April 2018
and who really got into their stride after the Helsinki Summit. Pompeo now smoothly dominates
Trump's foreign policy.
Self-Inflicted Wounds
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Gage Skidmore)
Finally, let me review the American political casualties over the past two years –
self-inflicted wounds – arising from this secret information war against Russia. Let me
list them without prejudging guilt or innocence. Slide 20 – Self-inflicted wounds:
casualties of anti-Russian information warfare.
Trump's first National Security Adviser, the highly decorated Michael Flynn lost his job
after only three weeks, and soon went to jail. His successor H R McMaster lasted 13 months
until replaced by John Bolton. Trump's first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lasted just 14
months until his replacement by Trump's appointed CIA chief (in January 2017) Mike Pompeo.
Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon lasted only seven months. Trump's former campaign
chairman Paul Manafort is now in jail.
Defence Secretary James Mattis lasted nearly two years as Secretary of Defence, and was an
invaluable source of strategic stability. He resigned in December 2018. The highly capable
Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman lasted just two years: he is resigning next month. John Kelly
lasted 18 months as White House Chief of Staff. Less senior figures like George Papadopoulos
and Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen both served jail time. The pattern I see here is that
people who may have been trying responsibly as senior U.S. officials to advance Trump's initial
wish to explore possibilities for detente with Russia – policies that he had advocated as
a candidate – were progressively purged, one after another . The anti-Russian U.S.
bipartisan imperial state is now firmly back in control. Trump is safely contained as far as
Russia is concerned .
Russians do not believe that any serious detente or arms control negotiations can get under
way while cold warriors like Pompeo continue effectively to control Trump. There have been
other casualties over the past two years of tightening American Russophobia. Julian Assange and
Chelsea Manning come to mind. The naive Maria Butina is a pathetic victim of American judicial
rigidity and deep state vindictiveness.
False anti-Russian Government narratives emanating from London and Washington may be laughed
at in Moscow , but they are unquestioningly accepted in Canberra. We are the most gullible of
audiences. There is no critical review. Important contrary factual information and analysis
from and about Russia just does not reach Australian news reporting and commentary, nor –
I fear – Australian intelligence assessment. We are prisoners of the false narratives fed
to us by our senior Five Eyes partners U.S. and UK.
To conclude: Some people may find what I am saying today difficult to accept. I understand
this. I now work off open-source information about Russia with which many people here are
unfamiliar, because they prefer not to read the diverse online information sources that I
choose to read. The seesaw has tilted for me: I have clearly moved a long way from mainstream
Western perceptions on Russia-West relations.
Under Trump and Pompeo, as the Syria and Iran crises show, the present risk of global
nuclear war by accident or incompetent Western decision-making is as high as it ever was in the
Cold War. The West needs to learn again how to dialogue usefully and in mutually respectful
ways with Russia and China. This expert knowledge is dying with our older and wiser former
public servants and ex-military chiefs.
These remarks were delivered by Tony Kevin at the Independent Scholars Association of
Australia in Canberra, Australia on Wednesday.
Watch Tony Kevin interviewed Friday night on CN Live!
Tony Kevin is a retired Australian diplomat who was posted to Moscow from 1969 to 1971,
and was later Australia's ambassador to Poland and Cambodia. His latest book is Return to
Moscow, published by UWA Publishing.
Bruce , September 17, 2019 at 08:58
Excellent article. It's very interesting to see how the state and its media lackey set the
narrative.
Most of this comment relates to the Skripals but also applies to other matters (the
Skripals writing was some of Craig Murray's finest work in my opinion). One of the hallmarks
of a hoax is a constantly evolving storyline. I think governments have learned from past
"mistakes" with their hoaxes/deception where they've given a description of events and then
scientists/engineers/chemists etc have come in and criticised their version of events with
details and scientific arguments. Nowadays, governments are very reluctant to commit to a
version of events, and instead rely on the media (their propaganda assets) to provide a
scattergun set of information to muddy the waters and thoroughly confuse the population. The
government is then insulated from some of the more bizarre allegations (the headlines of
which are absorbed nonetheless), and can blame it on the media (who would use an anonymous
government source naturally). Together with classifying just about everything on national
security grounds, they can stonewall for as long as they want.
The British are masters of propaganda. They maintained a global empire for a very long
time, and the prevailing view (in the west at least) was probably one of tea-drinking cricket
playing colonials/gentlemen. But you don't maintain an empire without being absolutely
ruthless and brutal. They've been doing this for a very long time.
When we hear something from the BBC or ABC, we should think "State Media".
That's probably why its got a nice folksy nickname of "aunty" .build up the trust.
Society is suffering the extreme paradox; there is the potential for everyone to have a
voice, but the last vestiges of free speech have been whittled away. Fake news is universal,
assisted by the fake "left". It is impossible to get published any challenge to even the most
outlandish versions of identity politics. As the experience of Tony Kevin exemplifies, all
avenues for dissent against hegemonic orthodoxies are closed off.
Disinformation is now an essential weapon in waging hot and cold wars. Cold War historians
are well informed on false flags, "black ops", and other organised dirty tactics. I do not
know what happened to the Skripals, and while it is legitimate to bear in mind KGB
assassinations, despite the enormous resources at its disposal, the English security state
has been unable to construct a credible case. Surely scepticism is provoked by the leading
role being played by the notorious Bellingcat outfit.
Zenobia van Dongen , September 17, 2019 at 00:29
Here is part of an eyewitness account:
"After the Orange Revolution which began in Kiev, the country was divided literally into two
parts -- the supporters of integration with Russia and the supporters of an independent
Ukraine. For almost 100 years belonging to the Soviet Union, the propaganda about the
assistance and care from our "big brother" Russia, in Ukraine as a whole and the Donbass in
particular has borne fruit. At the end of February 2014, some cities of the Southeast part
were boiling with mass social and political protest against the new Ukrainian government in
defense of the status of the Russian language, voicing separatist and pro-Russian slogans.
The division took place in our city of Sloviansk too. Some people stood for separation from
Ukraine, while Ukrainian patriots stood for the unity of our country.
On April 12, 2014 our city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region was seized by Russian
mercenaries and local volunteers. From that moment onward, armed assaults on state
institutions began. The city police department, the Sloviansk City Hall, the building of the
Ukraine Security Service was occupied. Armed militants seized state institutions and
confiscated private property. They threatened and beat people, and those who refused to obey
were taken away to an unknown destination and people started disappearing. The persecution
and abduction of patriotic citizens began."
Michael McNulty , September 16, 2019 at 11:36
Watching Vietnam news coverage as a kid in the '60s I noticed the planes carpet-bombing
South East Asia were American, not Russian. And as I only watched the footage and never
listened to the commentary (I was waiting for the kids programs that followed) the BS they
came out with to explain it all never reached me. I saw with my own eyes what the US really
was and is, and always believed growing up they were the belligerent side not Russia. Once
the USSR fell it was clear there were no longer any constraints on US excesses.
dean 1000 , September 15, 2019 at 18:17
Doublethink, not to mention doublespeak, is so apt to describe what is happening. If
Orwell was writing today it would have to be classified as non-fiction.
Free speech is impossible unless every election district has a radio/TV station where
candidates, constituents, and others can debate, discuss and speak to the issues without
bending a knee to large campaign contributors or the controllers of corporate or government
media. It may start with low-power pirate radio/TV broadcasts. No, the pirate speakers will
not have to climb a cell tower to broadcast an opinion to the neighborhood or precinct.
If genuine free speech is going to exist it will start as something unauthorized and
unlawful. If it sticks to the facts it will quickly prove its value.
Excellent article. The only exhibit missing was reference to Bill Browder's lies.
Browder's rubbish has been exposed by intrepid journalists and documentary makers such as
Andrei Nekrasov, Sasha Krainer and Lucy Komisar but to read or listen to our media, you'd
think BB was some sort of human rights hero. That's because BB's fairy tale fits nicely into
the MSM's hatred of Putin and Russia. Debunk Browder and a major pillar of anti-Russia
prejudice collapses. Therefore, Browder will never face any serious questions by the MSM.
John A , September 16, 2019 at 09:18
judges of the European Court of Human Rights published a judgement a fortnight ago which
utterly exploded the version of events promulgated by Western governments and media in the
case of the late Mr Magnitskiy. Yet I can find no truthful report of the judgement in the
mainstream media at all. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/09/the-magnitskiy-myth-exploded/
MSM propaganda by omission. Anything that doesn't fit the government narrative gets zero
publicity.
I have stopped following australian mainstream media including the darlings of the 'left'
ABC/SBS over a decade ago, completely. My disgust with their 'coverage' of the 2008 GFC was
more than enough. Since 2008-9 things have deteriorated drastically into conspiracy theory
propaganda by omission la-la land *it seems*, given I don't tune in at all.
The author has a well supported view. I find it a little naive in him thinking that the
MSM has that much power over shaping public opinion in australia.
People who want to be informed do so. The half intelligent conformists on hamster wheel of
lifetime mortgage debt have 'careers' to hold onto, so parroting the group think or living in
ignorance is much easier. The massive portion of australian racists, inbred bogans and idiots
that make up the large LNP, One Nation etc. voting block are completely beyond salvation or
ability to process, and critically evaluate any information. The smarter ones drool on about
the 'UN Agenda 21' conspiracy at best. Utterly hopeless.
I don't expect things to change as the australian economy is slowly hollowed out by the
rich, and the education system (that has always been about conforming, wearing school uniform
and regurgitating what the teacher/lecturer says at best) is gutted completely. Welcome to
australistan.
Fran Macadam , September 14, 2019 at 19:21
Note that the prohibition against false propaganda to indoctrinate the domestic population
by the American government was lifted by President Obama at the tail end of his
administration. The Executive Order legalizes all the deceptive behavior Tony itemizes in his
article.
Josep , September 17, 2019 at 04:10
I thought it was Reagan who did that by abolishing the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. At least
in terms of television and radio (?) broadcasts.
Thank you Tony for your thoughtful talk (and interview on CN Live! too).
What's encouraging is this cohort of what might be called 'millennial journalists' coming
through willing to do 'shoe-leather' journalism and stand up to smears and flack for
revealing uncomfortable facts and truth. They're the online 5th estate holding the 4th to
account (to steal Ray McGovern's apt view), and they're congealing against the onslaught.
Some include Max Blumenthal and Rania Kahlek (both now being pilloried by MSM and others
for visiting Syrian government held areas and reporting that life isn't hellish as MSM would
have everyone believe heaven forbid); Vanessa Bealey who's exposed a lot of White Helmet
horrors and false-flag attacks in Syria (and being attacked by all and sundry for exposing
the White Helmets in particular); Abby Martin whose Empire Files are excellent and always
edifying; Dan Cohen who has written the best expose of the actors behind the Hong Kong
rioting and co-authored the best expose of the background of Guaido et al.; Whitney Webb of
Mint Press whose series on Epstein is overwhelming and likely a ticking timebomb; Caitlin
Johnstone of course; and Aaron 'Buzzsaw' Mate who made his first mark with a wonderful
takedown interview of Russiaphobe MI6 shill Luke Harding. Others too of course, with most
appearing or having written pieces on CN. John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Greg Palast, et al. won't
drop off their twigs disappointed.
This, along with the fact that MSM -- that cowed and compromised fourth estate --
increasingly is held in such laughable contempt by most people under about 50 yr, is highly
encouraging indeed. Truth is the new black.
nwwoods , September 15, 2019 at 11:49
The Blogmire is an excellent resource for detailed analysis of the Skripal hoax. The
author happens to be a long-time resident of Salisbury, and is intimately familiar with the
topography, public services, etc., and a very thorough investigator.
John Wright , September 14, 2019 at 18:35
I'm not surprised that Mr. Kevin is being isolated and shunned by the Australian
establishment. Truth and truth tellers are always the first casualties of war. I do hope that
his experience will encourage him to increase his resistance to the corrosiveness of
mendacious propaganda and those who promulgate it.
Truth is the single best weapon when fighting for a peaceful future.
If Australia is to flourish in the 21st century, it really needs to understand Russia and
China, how they relate to each other, and how this key alliance will interface with the rest
of the world. Australia and Australians simply cannot afford to get sucked down further by
facilitating the machinations of the collapsing Anglo-American Empire. They have served the
empire ably and faithfully, but now need to take a cold hard look at reality and realign
their long-term interests with the coming global power shift. If not, they could literally
find themselves in the middle of an unwinnable and devastating war.
* * *
The first Anglo-American Russian cold war began with the Russian revolution and was only
briefly suspended when the West needed the Soviet people to throw themselves in front of the
Nazi blitzkrieg in order to save Western Europe. Following their catastrophically costly
contribution to the victory on the Continent, the Russians were greeted with an American
nuclear salute on their eastern periphery, signalling their return to the diplomatic and
economic deep freeze.
While the Anglo-American Empire solidified and extended its hold on the globe, the
enlarged but war-ravaged and isolated Soviet Union hunkered down and survived on scraps and
sheer will until its collapse in 1989. Declaring the cold war over, and with promises to help
their new Russian friends build a prosperous future, the duplicitous West then ransacked
their neighbors resources and sold them into debt peonage. The Russians cried foul, the West
shrugged and Putin pushed back. Unable to declaw the bear, the west closed the cage door
again and the second cold war commenced.
* * *
The first cold war was essentially an offensive war disguised as a defensive war. It
enabled the Anglo-American Empire to leverage its post-war advantage and establish near total
dominance around the globe through naked violence and monetary hegemony.
Today, with its dominance rapidly slipping away, the Anglo-American Empire is waging a
truly defensive cold war. On the home front, they fight to convince their subjects of their
eternal exceptionalism with ever more absurd and vile propaganda denigrating their
adversaries . Abroad, they disrupt and defraud in a desperate attempt to delay the demise of
the PetroDollar ponzi.
The Russians and the Chinese, having both been brutally burned by the Western elites, will
not be fooled into abandoning their natural geographic partnership. They are no longer
content to sit quietly at the kids' table taking notes. While they may not demand to sit at
the head of the table, it is clear that they will insist on a round table, and one that is
large enough to include their growing list of friends.
If the Americans don't smash the table, it could be the first of many peaceful pot
lucks.
John Read , September 15, 2019 at 02:11
Well said. Great comments. Thanks to Tony Kevin.
Mia , September 14, 2019 at 18:33
Thank you Tony for continuing to shine light on the pathetic propaganda information bubble
Australians have been immersed in .. you demonstrate great courage and you are not alone
??
Peter Loeb , September 14, 2019 at 12:58
WITH THANKS TO TONY KEVIN
An excellent article.
There is a lack of comments from some of the common writers upon whose views I often
rely.
Personally, I often avoid the very individual responses from websites as I have no way
of checking out previous ideas of theirs. Who funds them? With which organizations are
they
affiliated? And so forth and so on.
Peter Loeb, Boston, Massachusetts
Peter Sapo , September 14, 2019 at 10:24
As a fellow Australian, everything Tony Kevin said makes perfect sense. Our mainstream
media landscape is designed to distribute propaganda to folk accross the political spectrum.
Have you noticed that the ABC regurgitates stories from the BBC? The BBC has a long history
(at least since WW2) of supporting government propaganda initiatives. Based on this fact, it
is hard to see how ABC and SBS don't do the same when called upon by their minders.
Francis Lee , September 14, 2019 at 09:48
I just wonder where the Anglo-Zionist empire thinks it is going. It should be obvious that
any NATO war against Russia involving a nuclear exchange is unwinnable. It seems equally
likely the even a conventional war will not necessarily bring the result expected by the
assorted 'experts' – nincompoops living in their own fantasy world. The idea that the
US can fight a war without the US homeland becoming very much involved basically ended when
Putin announced the creation of Russia's set of advanced hypersonic missile system. But this
was apparently ignored by the 'defence' establishment. It was not true, it could not possibly
be true, or so we were told.
Moreover the cost of such wars involving hundreds of thousands of troops and military
hardware are massively expensive and would occasion a massive resistance from the populations
affected. It was the wests wars in Korea, and Indo-China that bankrupted the US and led to
the US$ being removed from the gold standard. The American military is rapidly consuming the
American economy, or at least what is left of it. From a realist foreign policy perspective
this is simply madness. Great powers end wars, they don't start them. Great powers are
creditor nations, not debtor nations. Such is the realist foreign policy view. But foreign
policy realists are few and far between in the Washington Beltway and MIC/NSA Pentagon and
US/UK/AUSTRALIAN MSM.
Thus the neo-hubris of the English speaking world is such that if it is followed to its
logical conclusion then total annihilation would be the logical outcome. A sad example of not
very bright people who face no domestic opposition, believing in their own bullshit:
"American elites proved themselves to be master manipulators of propaganda constructs But
the real danger from such manipulations arises not when those manipulations are done out of
knowledge of reality, which is distorted for propaganda purposes, but when those who
manipulation begin to sincerely believe in their own falsifications and when they buy into
their own narrative. They stop being manipulators and they become believers in a narrative.
They become manipulated themselves." (Losing Military Supremacy – Andrei,
Martyanov)
Or maybe just the whole thing is a bluff. Those policy elites maybe just want to loot the
US Treasury for more cash to be put their way.
John Wright , September 15, 2019 at 19:15
The self-serving Israeli Zionists know that the American cow is running dry and their days
of freely milking it are coming to an end. They have an historic relationship with Russia
and, leveraging their nuclear arsenal, know they can make a deal with the emerging
China-Russia-centric global paradigm to extort enough protection to maintain their armed
enclave for the foreseeable future. Their no so hidden alliance with the equally sociopathic
Saudis will become even more obvious for all to see.
Israel, like China and Russia, knows how to play a long game. Thus, Israel will
consolidate its land grab with the just announced expansion into the Jordan Valley and
quietly continue as much ethnic cleansing as possible while the rest of the world is
preoccupied with the incipient global power shift (True victims of history, the Palestinians
have no real friends). While they will bemoan the loss of their muscular American stooge,
Israel enjoyed a very lucrative 70 year run and will part with a pile of useful and deadly
toys. They're also fully aware that no one else will ever let them take advantage to the
degree they've been able to with the U.S.A. (Unlimited Stupidity of Arrogance?)
Eventually, the social schizophrenia that is the state of Israel will catch up with them
and they will implode. Let's hope that breakdown doesn't involve the use of their nuclear
arsenal.
Yes, the U.S. Treasury will continue to be looted until the last teller turns the lights
out or the electricity is shut off, whichever comes first.
The Western transnational financial elites will accept their losses, regroup and make
deals with the new bosses where they can; but their days of running the game unopposed are
over.
Today is a good day to learn Mandarin (or Russian, if you prefer to live in Europe).
Bill , September 16, 2019 at 03:36
Very well said and I agree with a lot of what you say.
Tiu , September 14, 2019 at 06:01
Won't be too long before writing articles like this will get you busted for "hate-speech"
(e.g. anything that is contrary to the official version prescribed by the "democratically
elected" government) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-tony-blair-think-tank-proposes-end-free-speech
Personally I always encourage people to read George Orwell, especially 1984. We're there, and
have been for a long time.
geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 01:15
Tony Kevin – Nice rundown of what ails society. You have a fine writing style that
gets the point across to the reader. Kudos and cheers.
Michael , September 13, 2019 at 22:34
The 'modernization' of the Smith Mundt Act in 2013 "to authorize the domestic
dissemination of information and material [PROPAGANDA] about the United States intended
primarily for foreign audiences" was a major nail in the Democracy coffin, consolidating the
blatant ruling of the US Police State by our 17 Intelligence Agencies (our betters). The
Telecommunications Act of 1996 lead to ownership of (>80%) of our media (the MSM by a
handful of owners, all disseminating the same narratives from above (CIA, State Department,
FBI etc) and squelching any dissenting views, particularly related to foreign policies.
Tony's article sadly just confirms the depth and breadth of our Global Stasi, with improved,
innovative and (mostly) subtle surveillance, and the controlling constant interference with
alternate viewpoints and discussions, the real basis for free societies. It is bad enough to
be ruled by neoliberal psychopathic hyenas and jackals, soon we won't be able to even bitch
about what they are doing.
Tom Kath , September 13, 2019 at 21:42
The most impressive article I have read in a very long time. I congratulate and thank
Tony.
I have myself recently addressed the issue of whether it is a virtue to have an "open mind".
– The ability to be converted or have your mind changed, or is it the ability to change
your own mind ?
Tony Kevin clearly illustrates the difference.
Litchfield , September 13, 2019 at 16:11
Great article.
Please keep writing.
Do start a website, a la Craig Murray.
There are people who are proactively looking for alternative viewpoints and informed
analysis.
How about starting a website and publishing some excerpts of your book there?
Or, sell chapters separately by download from your website?
You could also have a discussion blog/forum there.
John Zimmermann , September 13, 2019 at 16:02
Excellent essay. Thanks Mr. Kevin.
rosemerry , September 13, 2019 at 15:37
At least Tony Kevin was an Australian ambassador, not like Mike Morrell and the chosen
russop?obes the USA assumes are needed as diplomats!! Now he is treated as Stephen Cohen is-
a true expert called "controversial" as he dares to go by real facts and evidence, not
prejudice.
If instead of enemies, the West could consider getting to understand those they are wary
of, and give them a chance to explain their point of view and actually listen and reflect on
it.
(Dmitri Peskov valiantly explained the Russian official response as soon as the "Skripal
poisoning" story broke, but it was fully ignored by UK/US media, while all of Theresa May's
fanciful imaginings were respectfully relayed to the public).
geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 23:26
As you usually are with your comments, you are spot on again, rosemerry.
Martin - Swedish citizen , September 13, 2019 at 14:46
Excellent article!
I find the mechanics of how the propaganda is spread and the illusion upheld the most
important part of this article, since this knowledge is required to counter it.
When (not if) the fraud becomes more common knowledge, our societies are likely to
tumble.
Pablo Diablo , September 13, 2019 at 14:45
Whoever controls the media, controls the dialogue.
Whoever controls the dialogue, controls the agenda.
' The present risk of global nuclear war is as high as it ever was in the Cold War.' And
possibly higher. The Cold War, though dangerous, was the peace. The world has experienced
periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty Years Peace between the
two Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after the Congress of Vienna,
to name a few. The Congress System finally collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One.
That conflict was followed by the League of Nations. It did not stop World War Two. That was
followed by the United Nations and other post-war institutions. But all the indications are
they will not prevent a third world war. The powers that are leading us towards conflagration
see this as a re-run of the first Cold War. They are dangerously mistaken. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Guy , September 13, 2019 at 13:21
With so many believing the lies ,how will this mess ever come to light . I don't reside in
Australia but anywhere in the Western world the shakedown is the same .In my own house ,the
discussion on world politics descends into absolute stupidity . As one can't get past the
constant programming that has settled in the minds of the comfortable with the status quo of
lies by our media. There are intelligent sources of news sources but none get past the
absolutely complete control of MSM.So the bottom line is ,for now ,the lies and liars are
winning the propaganda war.
He speaks the truth. Liars and dissemblers have won over the minds and hearts of so many
lazy shameful citizens who will not accept the truth Tony Kevin wants to share with the
world.
Washington resumes military assistance to Kyiv. According to American lawmakers, Ukraine
is fighting one of the main enemies. "Contain Russia": what the US pays for Ukraine
Anyone or article who spells Kiev as Kyiv can be safely ignored as western anti-Russia
propaganda. It's a true tell.
Robert Edwards , September 13, 2019 at 12:53
The Cold war is totally manufacture to keep the dollars flowing into the MIC – what
a sham . and a disgrace to humanity.
Cavaleiro Marginal , September 13, 2019 at 12:52
"The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted voices. Once a
critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks in: its
dissemination becomes self-sustaining."
This had occurred in Brazil since the very first day of Lula's presidency. Eleven years
late, 2013, a color revolution began. Nobody (and I mean REALLY nobody) could realize a color
revolution was happening at that time. In 2016, Dilma Rousseff was kicked from power
throughout a ridiculous and illegal coup perpetrated by the parliament. In 2018 Lula was
imprisoned in an Orwellian process; illegal, unconstitutional, with nothing (REALLY nothing)
proved against him. Then a liar clown was elected to suppress democracy
I knew on the news that in Canada and Australia the police politely (how civilized ) went
to some journalist's homes to have a chat this year. Canadians and Aussies, be aware. The
fascism's dog is a policial state very well informed by the propaganda they call news.
Robert Fearn , September 13, 2019 at 12:48
As a Canadian author who wrote a book about various tragic American government actions,
like Vietnam, I can relate to the difficulties Tony has had with his book. I would mail my
book, Amoral America, from Canada to other countries, like the US, and it would never arrive.
Book stores would not handle it, etc. etc.
Josep , September 17, 2019 at 05:21
Not to disagree, but some years ago I read about anecdotes of anti-Americanism in Canada,
coming from both USians and Canadians, whether it be playful banter or legitimate criticism.
I believe it is more concentrated among the people than among the governmental elites (with
the exception of the Iraq War era when both the people and the government were against it).
And considering what you describe in your book and the difficulty you've faced in
distributing it abroad, maybe the said people are on to something.
Stephen , September 13, 2019 at 11:44
This interview by Abby Martin with Mark Ames is a little dated but is a fairly accurate
history. I post it to try and counter the nonsense.
Outstanding article and analysis. Thank you Sir! Jeremy Kuzmarov
Jeff Harrison , September 13, 2019 at 10:17
Thank you, sir. A far better peroration than I could have produced but what I have
concluded nonetheless.
Skip Scott , September 13, 2019 at 10:10
Fantastic article. Left unmentioned is the origin of the west's anti-Russia narrative.
Russia was being pillaged by the west under Yeltsin, and Russia was to become our newest
vassal. Life expectancy dropped a full decade for the average Russian under Yeltsin. The
average standard of living dropped dramatically as well. Putin reversed all that, and enjoys
massive popular support as a result. The Empire will never tolerate a national leader who
works for the benefit of the average citizen. It must be full-on rape, pillage and plunder-
OR ELSE. Keep that in mind as we watch the latest theatrical performances by our DNC
controlled "Commander in Chief" wannabes.
Realist , September 17, 2019 at 05:48
?The ongoing success of the "Great Lie" (that Washington is protecting the entire world
from
anarchy perpetrated by a few bad actors on the global stage) and all of its false narrative
subtexts
(including but far from limited to the Maidan, Crimea, Donbass, MH-17, the Skripals,
gassing
"one's own people," piracy on the high Mediterranean, etc) just underscores how successful
was
the false flag operation known as 9-11, even as the truth of that travesty is slowly
being
unraveled by relentless truth-seekers applying logic and the scientific method to the
problem.
Most Americans today would gladly concur, if queried, that Osama bin Laden was most
certainly
a perfidious tool of Russia and its diabolical leader, Mr. Putin (be sure to call him "Vlad,"
to
conjure up images of Dracula for effect). The Winston Smith's are rare birds in America or
in
any of its reliable vassal states. Never mind that the spooks from Langley (and the late
"chessmaster") concocted and orchestrated all these tales from the crypt.
Lily , September 13, 2019 at 07:54
Great summary of the developement of a new cold war. The narrative of the Mainstream Media
is dangerous as well as laughable. I am glad to hear the Russian reaction to this bullshit
propaganda. As often the people are so much wiser than their government – at least in
the West.
During the Football WM a famous broadcaster of the German State TV channel ARD, who is a
giftet propagandist, regrettet publicly the difficulty to convince the stubborn Germans to
look at Russia as an enemy because they have started to look at Russia as a friend long
ago.
Contrary to the people and the big firms who are completely against the sanctions against
Russia and 100 % pro Northstream the German government with Chancelor Merkel is one of the
top US vassalles. Even the Green Party which started as an environmental and peace party are
now against North Stream and in favour of the filthy US fracking gas thanks to NATO
propaganda although Russia has never let them down. Most of "Die Grünen" party have been
turned into fervent friends of our American occupants which is very sad.
Thank you Tony Kevin. It has been great to read your article. I cant wait to read your
book 'Return to Moscow' and to watch your interview on CN Live.
Godfree Roberts , September 13, 2019 at 07:37
Good summary of the status quo. From my experience of writing similarly about China,
precisely the same policies and forces are at work.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the end of the war in Syria and the
country's return to a state of peace. "Syria is returning to normal life": Lavrov announced
the end of the war
You hit several nails squarely on the head with your excellent article Tony. Thank you for
the truth of how the media is in Australia. It is indeed chilling where all this is leading.
The blatant lies just spewed out as fact by both ABC and SBS. They, in my opinion are nothing
but stenographers for the Empire, of which Australia is a fully subservient vassal state,
with no independence.
I try to boycott all Australian presstitutes . Oops, I mean 'media' now. Occasionally, I do
slip up and watch SBS or The Drum or News on ABC.
Virtually all my news comes from independent news sites like this one.
I have been accused of being a 'Putin lover', a Russian troll, a conspiracy theorist, while
people I know have claimed that "Putin is a monster whose murdered millions of people".
On and on this crap goes. And the end result? Ask Stephen Cohen. Things are very surreal now.
Sadly, you've been made an Unperson Tony.
Robyn , September 13, 2019 at 04:08
Bravo, Tony, great article. I enjoyed your book and recommend it to CN readers who haven't
yet read it.
The world looks entirely different when one stops reading/watching the MSM and turns to
CN, Caitlin Johnstone and many others who are doing a sterling job.
Cascadian , September 13, 2019 at 03:52
I don't know which is worse, to not know what you are (reliably uninformed) and be happy,
or to become what you've always wanted to be (reliably informed) and feel alone.
Realist , September 14, 2019 at 00:19
Knowing the truth has always seemed paramount to me, even if it means realising that the
entire world and all in it are damned, and deliberately by our own actions. Hope is always
the last part of our essence to die, or so they say: maybe we will somehow be redeemed
through our own self-immolation as a species.
Deb , September 13, 2019 at 02:54
As an Australian I have no difficulty accepting what Tony Kevin has said here. He should
do what Craig Murray has done start a website.
Pompeo is just MIC lobbyst who got position of the Secretary of State due to Trump
incompetence of pressure from donors like Adelson. Nothing good can come from this strange choice
of warmonger and neocon hawk, not that different from Hillary Clinton.
Notable quotes:
"... It may be that U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region have gone from being an intimidating tool of American coercion to a strategic vulnerability. ..."
"... The first priority was to deny the Iranian leadership resources. Previous administration taken a different approach. It said olly olly oxen free, here's all the money you can possibly stand to build out your terror campaign, to build your nuclear weapons system, to take nuclear physicists, all of the things that money can deliver – terror against Israel out of Hizballah and from Syria. Our – the first proposition for our campaign was to deny wealth and resources for the Iranian leadership, and it has been enormously successful in doing so. You can see it. Hizballah is passing the tin cup. ..."
It may be that U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf region have gone from being an
intimidating tool of American coercion to a strategic vulnerability.
For hawks like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, American power, as the Bolshevik adage goes,
cannot fail, it can only be failed. For many of his ilk, the superiority of American power
means the willingness to project it is the only thing needed to earn the capitulation of foes
and the only way America loses is if it chooses to relent. Donald Trump, however, watched
George W. Bush's presidency burn in the Iraq war and is unlikely to embrace the chaos of war
heading into an election year. President Trump would be wise to heed the lessons of the most
recent volatile security episode in the Persian Gulf region, especially as it pertains to his
administration's campaign against Tehran.
... ... ...
Without the basic ability to guard against even crude air assets, any notion of the United
States empowering its regional network to dictate terms to Iranian allies with military action
seems impractical. The credibility of U.S. anti-missile capabilities were
already in question . For Saudi Arabia and hawks inside the U.S. government, the notion
that a tribal force like the Houthis could reach into their territory and engage in this kind
of tactical action is militarily embarrassing and practically discrediting from a policy
standpoint.
...If it is conceivable that Iranian cruise missiles -- the newest and least tested section
of Iran's missile fleet -- flew across the militarized Persian Gulf and evaded both Saudi and
American sensors and air-defenses to hit an oil facility, then how much safer are U.S. forces
in the region?
...Add to this the survivability and precision that Pompeo is now attributing to Iranian
missiles and the conclusion very well may be that U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf
region have gone from being an intimidating tool of American coercion to a strategic
vulnerability.
... ... ...
Pompeo has been on a months-long media campaign promoting, among other
things, what he describes as the success of the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. But
Pompeo's primary argument for the success of the anti-Iran efforts centers on the narrative
that U.S. sanctions have severely damaged Iran's alliance network in the region. Consider the
way he framed
the issue to a right-wing talk show host in July:
The first priority was to deny the Iranian leadership resources. Previous administration
taken a different approach. It said olly olly oxen free, here's all the money you can possibly
stand to build out your terror campaign, to build your nuclear weapons system, to take nuclear
physicists, all of the things that money can deliver – terror against Israel out of
Hizballah and from Syria. Our – the first proposition for our campaign was to deny wealth
and resources for the Iranian leadership, and it has been enormously successful in doing so.
You can see it. Hizballah is passing the tin cup.
...The attack on the Saudi refiner disrupted Pompeo's public victory lap in a particularly
bright and striking way.
... ... ...
Simply put, Washington's hopes to stop Iran from supporting its allies by pressing the
Iranian economy is unlikely to work. Iran's support for its alliance network is largely
dismissed in Washington as a frivolous imperial project that Iran can simply choose to abandon.
But for Iran, its non-state allies are a core national-security issue and will, therefore, be
prioritized in budgetary considerations especially when tensions are high. Iran's support for
non-state actors, like Hezbollah, are also not financially intensive and therefore can continue
under sanctions.
Alireza Ahmadi is a researcher and analyst focused on U.S. foreign policy towards the
Middle East. His work has been published by the National
Interest ,
The
Hill and Al-Monitor
. Follow him on Twitter @AliAhmadi_Iran.
Casting itself once again as the world's judge, jury and executioner, US imperialism is
recklessly hurtling toward yet another war in the Middle East, with catastrophic
implications. This time, Washington has seized upon Saturday's attacks on Saudi installations
as its pretext for war against Iran.
The reaction of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to these attacks, which have cut the
kingdom's oil production by almost half and slashed global daily output by 6 percent, was as
noteworthy for its haste as for its peculiar wording.
"Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply," Pompeo
tweeted late Saturday, adding, "There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."
This
image provided on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2019, by the U.S. government and DigitalGlobe and
annotated by the source, shows damage to the infrastructure at Saudi Aramco's Abaqaiq oil
processing facility in Buqyaq, Saudi Arabia. (U.S. government/Digital Globe via AP)
The indictment of Iran for attacks that set off a series of fires which devastated two oil
facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia came without a shred of supporting evidence, outside of
the bald assertion that there was "no evidence" that they were launched from Yemen.
Yemen had to be discounted, according to the secretary of state's predatory logic, because
the Houthi rebels, who control most of the country, had claimed responsibility for the
attacks and had a clear motive -- given the kingdom's near-genocidal war against Yemen's
civilian population -- for carrying them out. The US mass media has by and large echoed
Pompeo's allegations as absolute truth. On Monday night, television news broadcasts quoted
unnamed intelligence sources, citing unspecified evidence, claiming Iranian responsibility
for the attacks. No doubt this "evidence" will prove just as compelling as that of the Gulf
of Tonkin in Vietnam and "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. These same media outlets have
made virtually no mention of Saudi crimes in Yemen.
For the last four and a half years, Saudi Arabia has waged a near-genocidal war against
Yemen, the Middle East's poorest country. The violence has claimed the lives of nearly
100,000 Yemenis outright -- the greatest share through a relentless bombing campaign against
civilian targets -- while pushing some 8 million more to the brink of starvation.
Washington is a direct accomplice in this bloodbath, providing the warplanes, bombs and
missiles used to carry it out, along with logistical support and, until the end of last year,
mid-air refueling that allowed Saudi bombers to carry out uninterrupted carnage. Meanwhile,
the US Navy has helped enforce a blockade that has starved Yemen of food and medicine.
If what the Yemeni Houthis say is true, that they sent a swarm of 10 weaponized drones to
attack the Saudi facilities, then the action was clearly an act of self-defense, far less
than proportionate to the slaughter inflicted by the Saudi regime against Yemen.
Meanwhile, Washington's new ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, repeated the
charges against Iran on Monday before a United Nations Security Council meeting on Yemen.
Providing no more proof than Pompeo did two days earlier, merely repeating the formulation
that "there is no evidence that the attacks came from Yemen," she described the damage to the
Saudi oil installations as "deeply troubling."
Like the government she represents, the UN ambassador -- the wife of billionaire Kentucky
coal baron Joe Craft and a top Republican donor -- clearly finds the spilt oil of the Saudi
monarchy far more upsetting than the spilt blood of tens of thousands of Yemeni men, women
and children.
On Saturday night, President Donald Trump made a call to Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman,
the kingdom's de facto ruler, offering his condolences and unqualified support to a man
exposed as a cold-blooded murderer. Bin Salman is responsible not only for the grisly
assassination and dismemberment of the Washington-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the
Saudi consulate in Istanbul nearly a year ago, but also the beheadings of at least 134 people
in just the first half of this year, 34 of them political activists slaughtered en masse on
April 23.
Trump subsequently announced that the US was "locked and loaded" to avenge Saudi oil with
military force. (This was a variation on his assertion in June that the Pentagon had been
"cocked and loaded" when he came, by his own account, within 10 minutes of launching
devastating attacks on Iran after it shot down an unmanned US spy drone over its
territory.)
If there is, as Washington claims, "no evidence" that the attacks were launched from
Yemen, one could, with equal if not greater justification, observe that there is likewise "no
evidence" that they were not launched by the US itself, or by its principal regional ally,
Israel.
If one proceeds from the age-old detective maxim of Cui bono? or "Who benefits?",
Tehran is the least likely suspect. There is clearly more to Washington's rush to judgment
than meets the eye.
The attack on the Saudi oil facilities provides a casus belli desired by a major
section of the US ruling oligarchy and its military and intelligence apparatus, which is
determined to prosecute a war for regime change in Iran. Such a war would be the latest
installment in Washington's protracted drive to reverse by military means the decline of US
imperialism's global hegemony, in particular by claiming unfettered US control over the
world's energy reserves and the power to deny them to its rivals.
The thinking within these layers was expressed in an editorial published Monday by the
Wall Street Journal, the mouthpiece of US finance capital. The Journal
warned that Iran was "probing Mr. Trump as much as the Saudis." It continued, "They are
testing his resolve to carry out his 'maximum pressure' campaign, and they sense weakness."
It pointed disapprovingly to Trump's failure to launch airstrikes in June following the
downing of the US drone.
The Journal approvingly cited calls by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham for
bombing Iranian oil refineries in order to "break the regime's back" and suggested that Trump
"apologize to John Bolton, who warned repeatedly that Iran would take advantage of perceived
weakness in the White House." Bolton, a long-time advocate of bombing Iran, resigned as
Trump's national security adviser last week, reportedly over differences on policy toward
Tehran.
The attack on the Saudi oil facilities also provides leverage for Washington in corralling
the Western European powers -- the UK, France and Germany -- behind US war aims. Signatories
to the Iranian nuclear accord that the Trump administration renounced, they have made feeble
gestures toward countering Washington's "maximum pressure" sanctions regime in an attempt to
salvage their own imperialist interests. While thus far failing to endorse US charges of
Iranian responsibility, they could, by means of the attack on Saudi Arabia, be swung behind
the US drive to war.
Israel and its beleaguered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also have ample motive to
stage a military action aimed at provoking war with Iran. On the eve of Tuesday's Israeli
election, the threat of a major war with Iran serves the political interests of Netanyahu,
whose political fortunes are inextricably tied to the escalation of military conflict in the
Middle East. The Israeli state, moreover, had become increasingly concerned over an apparent
cooling of the appetite of the ruling monarchies in both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates for a confrontation with Iran.
Recent drone strikes against Shia militias in Iraq that had allegedly received Iranian
weapons were, according to a report by the web site Middle East Eye, staged by Israeli drones
operating out of bases controlled by the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the main
US proxy force in Syria. A similar covert US-Israeli collaboration could easily have produced
the attacks on the Saudi oil installations.
Whatever the exact circumstances of the attacks on the Saudi oil facilities, they are
being exploited for the purpose of dragging the American people and all of humanity into a
war that can rapidly escalate into a regionwide and even global conflagration.
US strikes against Iran carried out under the pretext of retaliation for the attacks on
Saudi Arabia can trigger Iranian counterstrikes, sending US warships to the bottom of the
Persian Gulf and wreaking havoc on American military bases throughout the region.
The prospect of thousands of US soldiers and sailors dying as a result of Washington's
conspiracies and aggression carries with it the threat of the US government assuming
emergency powers and implementing police-state measures in the US itself in the name of
"national security."
This would, by no means, be an unintended consequence. The buildup to war is driven in
large measure by the escalation of social tensions and class struggle within the United
States itself, which has found fresh expression in the strike by 46,000 autoworkers against
General Motors. There is a powerful incentive for the US ruling class to direct these
tensions outward in the eruption of military conflict, while creating the pretext for mass
repression.
The threat of a US assault on Iran paving the way to a third world war must be answered
through a politically conscious and independent intervention of the working class to put an
end to imperialism and reorganize society on socialist foundations.
gjohnsit on Tue, 09/17/2019 - 3:10pm Remember in 2002 when the neocons in Washington
told us that we had to attack Iraq because of 9/11, eventhough Iraq had nothing to do with
it?
So now Iran is being blamed for the attack on Saudi oil fields, and
anonymous warmongers claim that they have proof.
The United States has identified the exact locations in Iran from which a combination of more
than 20 drones and cruise missiles were launched against Saudi oil facilities over the
weekend, a senior U.S. official told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin on
Tuesday. The official said the locations are in southern Iran, at the northern end of the
Persian Gulf.
What a coincidence! That also happens to be around Iran's major oil fields.
What's more, the Saudi air defenses would have stopped it if it came from Yemen.
Saudi Arabia's air defenses have been aimed south for months, to protect against missile
attacks launched by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, so they were useless against the
missiles and drones coming in from the north, the official told Martin.
Let's put a pin in that for now.
Washington immediately dismissed the Houthi's claim of responsibility for the attack. Why?
Because the Houthis don't have the
knowledge or the means to carry it out.
But U.S. officials have cast doubt on the Houthis’ claim, arguing that the
sophisticated nature of the attack suggested that it was beyond the capabilities of the rebel
group.
Analysts say this is what the Houthis appear to have used to hit the Abha International
Airport in southern Saudi Arabia a few months ago. But the Quds 1 lacks the range to get from
northern Yemen to the oil installations in Saudi Arabia.
The range, scale and precision of the latest attack — including the successful
penetration of Saudi air defenses and the avoidance of obstacles like power lines and
communication towers — far exceeds anything the Houthis have ever done.
So it's all wrapped up. The Houthis aren't capable of doing it, and we have proof that Iran
did it. We just can't show it to you.
It makes a good story if you have no long-term memory.
Because
this happened less than a month ago.
A drone attack launched by Yemen’s Houthi group on an oilfield in eastern Saudi Arabia
on Saturday caused a fire at a gas plant but had no impact on oil production, state-run oil
company Saudi Aramco said.
A Houthi military spokesman said earlier that the group had targeted the Shaybah oilfield
with 10 drones, in what he said was the “biggest attack in the depths” of the
kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter, by the Iran-aligned group.
Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih described Shaybah as a “vital
facility”.
That oilfield is 900 kilometres away from Yemen.
Literally everything about this Houthi attack is the same as Saturday's attack, except for
fewer explosions. So what the fuck is the NY Times talking about?
To make this even more interesting, I happened upon
this report by the UAE following the Houthi attack from last month.
The report also reveals critical Saudi defence weaknesses to the weaponised drones used by
the Houthis.
It reports that from January to May there were 155 such attacks against Saudi targets in
Yemen and throughout the Gulf, a much higher figure than previously admitted.
“The attack on the Lahj Military Base demonstrates a weakness in Saudi air defences
and the lack of capacity in electronic war if we take into account that these drones are
basic and are not launched on tarmac,” the report says.
“Air defences such as the Patriot are not capable of spotting these drones because
the systems are designed to intercept long and medium range Scud missiles.”
Najran airport has been hit repeatedly by Houthi drones despite being protected by a
Patriot battery, the report reveals.
155 drone attacks? U.S. Patriot missiles unable to detect and stop them?
Why that sounds a lot different than what we are being told.
Recall that the Houthis had brought
down a U.S. drone just a few weeks ago. That was the second U.S. drone they shot down just
this summer.
Recall that the Houthis have been
hitting Riyadh with missiles for over a year.
All the evidence points to the Houthis being more than capable of not just being responsible
for this attack, but for repeating this attack in a matter of weeks Mark F. McCarty
and probably most of the UN, they are going to have a harder time getting anyone on board
the Pompeo Holy War train. We are going to have to show our allies totally verifiable
evidence that Iran lobbed those drones, and it looks like we can't do that.
Probably because they didn't do it! And once that starts looking clear to the world, the
last remnants of US credibility will fly away for good.
We are going to have to show our allies totally verifiable evidence that Iran lobbed those
drones, and it looks like we can't do that.
If we had proof it was Iran we would have shown it to someone by now.
Aren't we monitoring the airspace around Iran?
And what is Iran's motivation?
It's not worth the risk for Iran if they were caught.
OTOH, if Iran gives the weapons to the Houthis...that makes a Hell of a lot more
sense.
and probably most of the UN, they are going to have a harder time getting anyone on
board the Pompeo Holy War train. We are going to have to show our allies totally
verifiable evidence that Iran lobbed those drones, and it looks like we can't do
that.
Probably because they didn't do it! And once that starts looking clear to the world,
the last remnants of US credibility will fly away for good.
"... Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is possible but I don't believe it." ..."
"... So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution? ..."
Just bewildering to read the Left's continuing insistence that Israel is best understood as
'just another outpost of the American empire'. This is probably the most damaging idea in
circulation right now, as its diversionary effect is only matched by its absurdity.
The Left simply cannot 'go there' though, no matter how much factual evidence is stacked up.
(On top of the spying and theft we have 'The Lobby' documentary, the defence pact, party
funding, etc. etc.). They have to avoid the reality, one which can only be explained through
cross border tribal allegiances and religious history going back many centuries. These, of
course, lay outside the Left's purview, and any consideration of them is dogmatically
opposed. It is getting to be a kind of insanity.
Tulsi can allege that Saudi Arabia was behind the 9/11 attacks and that they pull the
strings in Washington, (and many on the Left will applaud) but she cannot point out the
rather more glaring 9/11 connections to Israel and the whole machinery of control that lies
at the centre of American empire.
As she votes against BDS, has there ever been a more ridiculous double standard ?
Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual
personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think
the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is
possible but I don't believe it."
So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution?
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been
found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non
stop.
@Cloak And
Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the
few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA
"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them. It just
boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all
the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people
understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would RISE UP IN ARMS.
Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." – Admiral Thomas Moorer, head
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, interview, 24 Aug. 1983
Admiral Moorer, "the dirty anti-semite," was one of the few people with influence to call
out Israel for their deliberate attack on the USS Liberty – https://www.erasingtheliberty.com/
The American Legion continues to wet its pants apparently believing that kissing (((ass)))
is more patriotic than standing up for America and members of the Navy.
Whats new about Israeli spying against the zio/US, hell the government is full of zionists in
every facet of the government, they run every department, including and especially the CIA ,
which would be better named the Mossad West, in fact the Mossad is so embedded in the CIA
that the only way to end this would be to as JFK said to scatter it to the winds aka abolish
the Mossad infested CIA.
Iran Rejects US Accusation It Is Behind
Saudi Attacks https://nyti.ms/30iNte7
NYT - Michael Wolgelenter - September 15
Iran on Sunday forcefully rejected charges by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that it was
responsible for drone attacks that caused serious damage to two crucial Saudi Arabian oil
installations, with the foreign minister dismissing the remarks as "max deceit."
The attacks on Saturday, which hold the potential to disrupt global oil supplies, were
claimed by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Mr. Pompeo said that Iran had launched "an unprecedented
attack on the world's oil supply," although he did not offer any evidence and stopped short
of saying that Iran had carried out the missile strikes.
The Houthis are part of a complex regional dynamic in the Middle East, receiving support
from Iran while the Saudis, Tehran's chief rival for supremacy in the region and the leader
of a coalition that is fighting the Houthis in Yemen, are aligned with the United States.
Seyed Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, castigated the Saudis
for their role in the war in Yemen, where the Saudis have directed airstrikes that have
caused heavy civilian casualties and exacerbated a humanitarian crisis. He also ridiculed Mr.
Pompeo's comments.
The semiofficial Fars news agency reported on its English-language website that Mr.
Mousavi described Mr. Pompeo's allegations as "blind and fruitless remarks" that were
"meaningless" in a diplomatic context.
Saudi Arabia has yet to publicly accuse Iran of involvement in the attack. On Sunday, its
Foreign Ministry urged international action to preserve the world oil supply in response to
the attack, but it said nothing about assigning blame or striking back.
The developments come at a moment of rising tensions between Iran and the United States,
which have mounted since President Trump pulled out of the 2015 accord in which Iran agreed
with the West to restrict its nuclear program. Since the American withdrawal, Iran has
gradually pulled away from its some obligations under the agreement. ...
... "US & its clients are stuck in Yemen because of illusion that weapon superiority will
lead to military victory," Mr. Zarif wrote on Twitter. "Blaming Iran won't end disaster.
Accepting our April '15 proposal to end war & begin talks may.
The attack on Saturday, which the Houthis said involved 10 drones, represented the rebels'
most serious strike since Saudi Arabia inserted itself into the conflict in Yemen four years
ago. That the rebels could cause such extensive damage to such a crucial part of the global
economy astonished some observers. ...
It's Monday September 16th, 2019 and the weeks starts off like this:
GM's UAW Strike
Yemeni Houti Rebels Drones wipe out 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil production
Trump tweets in response is "locked and loaded" implying a new US war in the ME
One of Trump's White House flunky's declared "it is better if Trump does not study an
issue" before making decisions (oh yea,"Stupid is what Stupid does")
Biden and S. Warren tied in the DEM race for 2020
Piketty's new Economics tome is out
PM Netanyahu is losing his re-election bid in Israel, to be determined by tomorrow's
Election
We live in interesting times...
...the question I pose for the times is 'Are the People are better lead by businessmen,
politicians, academics, or intellectuals?
"... Then the question arose whether drones had been used at all, or whether the attack might in fact have been a missile strike ..."
"... But regardless, the game has escalated up one more rung up the ladder. How many more will it take for the world to put its interests ahead of Israel's? ..."
"... Next escalation rung: a loading dock for supertankers: either the port of Yanbu or Ra's Tanura. Followed by desalination facilities, if Western politicians still pretend to turn a blind eye and prefer to follow the dictates of their Israeli masters. Nuff Sed. ..."
"... In asking the question, qui bono, you do have to include Netanyahu, who is up for reelection tomorrow. There's nothing like striking fear into the heart of the electorate on the eve of an election for firming up support for a proven incumbent. And if the US attacks Iran before tomorrow, so much the better for Netanyahu. ..."
"... That said, I don't think that Netanyahu's buddies in Riyadh would be amused if this were proven. However, poking a friend in the eye never seemed to stop Israel before think USS Liberty. ..."
"... Israel has the means, plus the motive (Bib's reelection), and might have taken the opportunity to attribute the attack to Iran and force Trump's hand. ..."
"... I am assuming, myself, personally, this action was taken to prevent a meeting in NYC between Trump and the President of Iran. That is my guess. ..."
"... There was never going to be a meeting between Rouhani and Trump. I expect to be dead of old age before there would be any substantive meetings between Iran and the United States. ..."
"... Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei has said there will be no meeting until the U.S.ends sanctions. ..."
"... I do not for a moment believe Bolton would have stood for it, and even though he's gone, neither will Pompeo or Pence. Both appear to be fanatically devoted to Israel. There may be meetings between low level functionaries, and Trump seems to want one very much, but Rouhani has said there is no way to trust America, so no point to talking. The situation may change if Netanyahu loses the election, although I have no reason to believe Avigdor will be any better. ..."
"... However, if Trump DOES cut a deal, he will not try and fluff it off as an "Executive Agreement"....if Trump cuts a deal he knows he will have to bring it to Congress. Thee Lobby may kill it there...or not. We'll see. ..."
"... It's not just Yemen. People forget there is an oppressed Shiite minority near the Aramco HQ (dispossessed of the oil fields, located in their ancestral area & treated like sub-sub-citizens); they get periodically beheaded" ..."
"... The Al Saud gang, under the Clown Prince Muhammad Bone Saw, can not count on those Shiite inhabitants of the oil rich region, not necessarily because of the latter's sympathy for Iran but because they were brutalized for almost a century. ..."
"... One to benefit from it that I see so far is Saudi's Aramco IPO which is critical to Saudi . According to WSJ they were considering delaying it because of low oil prices, they needed oil to reach $80 barrel to make it viable. The attack sent prices up but now market is talking about risk if there are 'on going attacks'. What could we deduce if there are no on going attacks and the IPO proceeds? ..."
"... We know Yemen has the Quds-1 and has surprised us before with their technical capability. Combine that with the video of Yahya Sari claiming full responsibility for the attack and I'm not sure there is any reason to speculate about conspiracies involving other actors. ..."
"... In addition, the specificity of the targets hit suggests good intel. I would suspect that Houthi's have linked with disaffected groups in SA (lots!) and improved their Humint. It seems highly unlikely that Iran would do something like this AND leave their fingerprints behind - at least based on recent events. ..."
"... Never underestimate the feckless laziness of the Saudis. In my experience they turn off all ATC and air defense systems that require manning or watch keeping when they find them inconvenient as on the weekend. IMO if Ansarallah did this they will do something similar soon to prove they are responsible. ..."
"... israel gets a lot of press and speculation on this board as well as everywhere else for all their conspiracies and supposed omnipotent power and control but in this writers opinion THEY have been punching way above their actual weight for years and current reality has exposed how feckless and puny they really are in the scheme of things. ..."
"... ''i suspect the whole 'jew' thing regarding israel is what animates people so much. if israel were all zoroastrians i doubt the world would credit them with all the machinations israel is viewed as responsible for.'' A Cult is a Cult regardless of it members makeup. And Israel is looking more like a Jim Jones farm every day. ..."
"... And Iran has demonstrated that they can cause months worth of damage on the KSA, the UAE, and Kuwait. I can't believe the number of Congressman who simultaneously believe that Iran was able to glide over U.S. made air defenses without detection and also believe that we can simply carpet bomb their refineries without any repercussion. How can one believe both things at the same time? That Iran is responsible for a sophisticated ghost attack and that they are incapable of retaliating in a target rich environment. ..."
"... Not only did Graham say this but the loon from Maryland repeated it. These people are insane but MSM hosts encourage it, just saw Cavuto snear at Ron Paul because he actually made sense. We are so messed up. ..."
"... Everyone keeps misunderestimating the Yemenis. The Houthis are fighting as part of a coalition that includes a large part of the Yemeni military and intelligence services. This coalition is carrying out a war under guerrilla conditions, but that war is led by professional military men. ..."
"... It is the benefit of being a perfumed prince or fop or neo-con that history has no meaning because history ended sometime in the 90's. Somehow I hear the voice of a Rove lecturing: ..."
"... "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ..."
"... Yes indeed. Dave deserves hearty congratulations though we might add a caveat. The said "valves" could have been blown out in advance via software or person throwing a switch (humint or cyber component to one attack vector). ..."
"... It cries out "sure, it's bad, but it is reversible." ..."
"... Houthis have every reason to utilize their advanced weapons systems against Saudi targets to bring the war to an end. As for Iran, seems they have been on a semi-successful diplomatic campaign to counter US maximum pressure with their own maximum pressure on Europeans, Russia and China to deliver on the economic benefits that are as important in JCPOA as the curtailing of Iran's nuclear program. ..."
"... Trump talking about meeting Rouhani in New York, Zarif in China getting at least $50-100 billion in pledged economic support, Russia suggesting $10 billion investment in the Iranian energy sector: Why would Iran at this moment make a direct move to turn the world fully against them? Perhaps a rogue faction of IRGC out to stop any diplomatic action, but even that would have to come with OK from Khamenei--or there would be strong action against the rogues. ..."
"... Pressure on Trump to maintain the hardline against Iran following Bolton ouster? Pompeo has been leading the diplomatic back channels and repeating Trump's goal of forcing Iran to the table. Even the Saudis are for the moment hesitant to blame Iran, actually calling for a UN investigation into the source of the attacks. ..."
"... "The Iran did it" narrative as an attempt to keep on undermining the pro-Syrian government coalition. ..."
What made this attack different from other recorded Houthi drone attacks was not only the
unprecedented amount of material damage caused but also lingering doubt about the nature and
the attribution of the attack. First,
a video allegedly showing flying objects entering Kuwaiti airspace led to speculation that
like a
previous "Houthi" drone attack this strike might actually have originated in Iraq or even
Iran. While the video remains unverified, the fact that the Kuwaiti government
launched a probe into the issue lends some credence to the idea that something might have
happened over Kuwait that day. Speculation about the origins of the attack was further fueled
by a tweet
by Mike Pompeo in which he claimed that there was no evidence the attacks came from
Yemen.
Then the question arose whether drones had been used at all, or whether the attack might in
fact have been a missile strike. Previous Houthi drone strikes against oil facilities tended to
result in quite limited damage which could be an indication that a different weapons system was
used this time. Indeed, Aramco
came to the conclusion that its facilities were attacked by missiles. Even more curious,
several pictures began to emerge on social media purportedly showing the wreckage of a missile
in the Saudi desert. While the images appear real, neither the date the photos were taken nor
their location can be verified.
Social media users quickly claimed the images showed a crashed
Iranian-made Soumar cruise missile. The Soumar and its updated version, the Hoveyzeh, are
Iran's attempts at reverse-engineering the Soviet-designed KH-55 cruise missile, several of
which the country
illegally imported from Ukraine in the early 2000s . Others claimed it was the Quds 1, a
recently unveiled Houthi cruise missile often claimed to be a rebranded Soumar."
armscontrolwonl
---------------
TTG raised the issue of whether or not this wave of strikes was done by UAVs or cruise
missiles. IMO this cruise missile could be built in Yemen with Iranian assistance. I am very
interested in the question of what the actual vector of the attacks was in this case. pl
The accuracy of the strikes in the spherical pressurized gas storage containers all being in
the same place relative to each target is the place to start for those who, unlike me, are
capable of analyzing these things.
But regardless, the game has escalated up one more rung up the ladder. How many more will
it take for the world to put its interests ahead of Israel's?
Next escalation rung: a loading dock for supertankers: either the port of Yanbu or Ra's
Tanura. Followed by desalination facilities, if Western politicians still pretend to turn a
blind eye and prefer to follow the dictates of their Israeli masters. Nuff Sed.
In asking the question, qui bono, you do have to include Netanyahu, who is up for reelection
tomorrow. There's nothing like striking fear into the heart of the electorate on the eve of
an election for firming up support for a proven incumbent. And if the US attacks Iran before
tomorrow, so much the better for Netanyahu.
That said, I don't think that Netanyahu's buddies in Riyadh would be amused if this were
proven. However, poking a friend in the eye never seemed to stop Israel before think USS
Liberty.
"The Israeli military is armed with the latest fast jets and precision weaponry, yet it has
turned to its fleet of drones to hit targets in Iraq. Deniability has played a big factor
– the ability of drones to elude radar and therefore keep targets guessing about who
actually bombed them is playing well for Israeli leaders who are trying to prevent an
increasingly lethal shadow war with Iran from developing into an open conflict."
The Samad 3 is laden with explosives that allow it to detonate a shaped charge which
explodes downwards towards its target. Footage provided to MintPress by Yemen's Operations
Command Center shows the Samad landing on an asphalt runway, confirming that the drone is
now capable of conducting operations and then returning to base.
There is a huge sea water desalination plant not far away that provides all the treated water
via pipeline for injection into the oil reservoirs to improve recovery of oil. Target that
and not only have you already impacted the processing of the oil produced but would then
impact the total volume of oil available for processing.
I can see no happy ending short of
negotiation between interested parties. MBZ looks to have already reached that conclusion in
respect of the UAE. what will be the self preservation response for the House of Saud
Could the Committee speculate on possible 'steps of retaliation' operating, for theoretical
purposes, at the moment, on the assumption that regardless of where the 'bullets' were fired
from, or from what 'gun' they were fired, Iran paid for deed. What steps are open for action?
I am assuming, myself, personally, this action was taken to prevent a meeting in NYC between
Trump and the President of Iran. That is my guess.
There was never going to be a meeting between Rouhani and Trump. I expect to be dead of old age before there would be any substantive meetings between Iran
and the United States.
Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei has said there will be no meeting until the U.S.ends sanctions.
I
do not for a moment believe Bolton would have stood for it, and even though he's gone,
neither will Pompeo or Pence. Both appear to be fanatically devoted to Israel. There may be
meetings between low level functionaries, and Trump seems to want one very much, but Rouhani
has said there is no way to trust America, so no point to talking. The situation may change
if Netanyahu loses the election, although I have no reason to believe Avigdor will be any
better.
With all due respect, I think one of us fails to grasp the true nature of Trump. If he puts
his mind to it, and thinks it will benefit him, nobody, not Bolton, not Pompeo, not the whole
Neocon cabal, Israeli govt, the present one or the next one, will stop him if he is President
and alive. He will do what is best for Trump.
And trust has nothing to do with this. Why in the hell should I trust Iran? Hell, why
should I trust the UK? I trust that people and nations have interests. That's all I trust.
But that does mean I could not reach a deal with them. Now, as to whether that deals
holds...that is another question. However, if Trump DOES cut a deal, he will not try and
fluff it off as an "Executive Agreement"....if Trump cuts a deal he knows he will have to
bring it to Congress. Thee Lobby may kill it there...or not. We'll see.
Babak, I value your input here. However, I hope you are wrong and that a meeting or meetings
(substantive or not) will start as soon as the dealbreaker is out of office, and the
sanctions are called off. But I would never wish you an early death. May you live a hundred years.
Thank you very kindly.
I would like to ask the following questions:
Will the United States restore sovereign immunity to Iran?
Will the United States Congress rescind all the laws against Iran that form the basis of
economic war against Iran?
Will the United States rescind the sanctions against Ayatollah Khamenei, Dr. Zarif,
General Soleimani, etc., etc. etc.?
Will the Protestant Christians in the United States ever tire of their unrequited love for
all things Old Testament?
In my opinion, the answer to all of these are "no". Unfortunately, even if a man with the caliber of an FDR or a Nixon is elected to the US
Presidency, he will not be able to accomplish much because of the difficulty, nay the
impossibility, of untangling the rules and regulations that US has woven against Iran.
In my opinion, all of that was predicated on the strategic defeat of Iran and her
surrender.
If I WERE ANSWERING. I got some demands of my own..but we can put them aside for the moment.
In general, I would be inclined to respond: Yes, to the "sovereign immunity" question.
Certainly. Regarding "economic warfare", you would have to give me your legal definition of
such a broad phrase, but in principle, yes. Whole heartedly yes. Sanctions against Iran, and
it individuals officers? Yes, absolutely. Sick of sanctions, in general. It is not in my
power to answer the "unrequited love" issue, but I do solemnly state that I would agree to
stop laughing--in public, anyway, at the question. Wanna meet?
Nassim Nicolaas Taleb, author of "Black Swan":
"SAUDI FIELDS It's not just Yemen. People forget there is an oppressed Shiite minority near the Aramco HQ
(dispossessed of the oil fields, located in their ancestral area & treated like
sub-sub-citizens); they get periodically beheaded"
The Al Saud gang, under the Clown Prince Muhammad Bone Saw, can not count on those Shiite
inhabitants of the oil rich region, not necessarily because of the latter's sympathy for Iran
but because they were brutalized for almost a century.
Why would Iran have done it? Just to show they can or to provoke a attack on Iran?
One to benefit from it that I see so far is Saudi's Aramco IPO which is critical to Saudi
. According to WSJ they were considering delaying it because of low oil prices, they needed
oil to reach $80 barrel to make it viable. The attack sent prices up but now market is
talking about risk if there are 'on going attacks'. What could we deduce if there are no on
going attacks and the IPO proceeds?
Only other beneficiary would be Israel if the attack actually does and likely has killed
any Trump-Iran meeting.
Yemenis claimed credit for it, Iran and Iraq said they didn't do it. First word out of US
mouth is Iran did it. The mouth I am least likely to believe is the US. I remember Iraq has
WMDs propaganda....and those it came from.
Oh well, if Iran says they did not do it.......the US govt lies. The Iranian govt lies, the
Saudis surely lie. This is not about innocents. That search is for children and mighty young
ones at that.
The Quds-1 cruise missile is a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). The remotely piloted aerial
vehicles, which are more commonly referred to as drones are also UAVs. The difference is in
the degree of autonomy in flight control. On board autonomous flight control negates the need
for LOS radio or satellite communications with the cruise missile. Cruise missiles, with
their autonomous control, were always characterized by their high degree of accuracy.
I've
started looking a little closer at the Arduino/RasberryPi and model aircraft hobbyist groups.
With the availability of affordable microcontrollers and sensors, along with the massive
library of open source software, I am convinced a hobbyist could put together a guidance
system in his garage workshop capable of doing what the Quds-1 just did in SA. I also agree
with Colonel Lang that an airframe like the Quds-1 could easily be built in war-torn Yemen. A
cave would make an outstanding workshop.
Even if Iran exported dual use components or even blue prints; it should be counted as part
of the unfortunate world weapons market & wouldn't be illegal.
Your point TTG was nicely illustrated in b's video of the Russian guy building in his
workshopa turbofan engine that flew . Providing there is a set of plans it can be constructed
and it only has to have a one time reliability.
Evidence for what delivered the strike will be found within the complex and there will be a
lot of skills on the ground looking for those answers. The projectiles that struck the
spheres looked to have had penetrating qualities rather than high explosive, putting a hole
in a pressure vessel is sufficient to destroy its usefulness. I would be interested to know
if the projectiles that struck the train were explosive to maximise damage there. Do we need
to be considering what could deliver multiple targeted projectiles or were there simply
multiple independent units or some combination as there were more strikes logged over two
target complexes than the ten delivery platforms mentioned in the Al Ansar press release. Was
there a flight controller and if so where were they located also comes to mind.
There is also the TJ200 built bij Polaris from Brazil with the following description::
"Turbine TJ200:
TJ200 was specially designed to be used in either small cruise missiles or small high
performance UAVs. The most important advantage of TJ200 engine is small diameter and a
relatively low SFC (Specific Fuel Consumption) when compared to other engines of the same
thrust, what makes TJ200 perfect to be used in long range small missiles."
http://www.polaristec.com.br/products.html
That's a pretty specific description. So there are a number of COTS engines out there.
I'd have more confidence in the reporting if I could match it up better with what I can see
in Google Maps/Earth.
The only two satellite pictures I've seen of "burning oil plants" disticntly show a large
plume of black smoke centered a little ways away from the actual refinery area, in some kind
of rectangular area outside the actual "plant". Are those wellheads burning? or adjacent
underground storage? or what?
And the pictured of a burning plant labeled "Haradh Gas Plant" is actually (according to
Google Maps & my eyeballs) the Hawiyah Gas Plant, about 60 miles NNE of Haradh.
In Google Maps/Earth, the Abqaiq facility is on the East side of the city/town of Buquaiq,
and the details match the recent pix. The plume lines up with an empty square patch of desert
at the end of a pipeline running SSE out of the plant.
I've looked all around Khurais, and haven't found anything which could possibly be the
"Oil/Gas Infrastructure at Khurais", as the pictures of the damaged facility there are
labeled.
Elkern, I was referring to the pictures of the cruise missile parts in the sand. Seems to me
they are old from previous attacks.
As far as I can tell the pics of damage at Buqaiq and Khurais are valid. With the
exception of the eleven spherical tanks, which I believe were NOT hit. But I've been wrong
before and am no expert on imagery analysis.
We know Yemen has the Quds-1 and has surprised us before with their technical capability.
Combine that with the video of Yahya Sari claiming full responsibility for the attack and I'm
not sure there is any reason to speculate about conspiracies involving other actors.
The Houthis are not an Iranian "proxy" and I highly doubt they would accept responsibility
for something they didn't do.
Moon of Alabama links some photos and has discussion that suggests very high precision
5-10 m. That is not easily achievable with commercial GPS absent a lot of additional
correction hardware. On the other hand, drones can easily do so. Further, it would be
negligent for SA not to have GPS jamming around such facilities.
In addition, the specificity of the targets hit suggests good intel. I would suspect that
Houthi's have linked with disaffected groups in SA (lots!) and improved their Humint. It
seems highly unlikely that Iran would do something like this AND leave their fingerprints
behind - at least based on recent events.
Never underestimate the feckless laziness of the Saudis. In my experience they turn off
all ATC and air defense systems that require manning or watch keeping when they find them
inconvenient as on the weekend. IMO if Ansarallah did this they will do something similar
soon to prove they are responsible.
imo, the saudi's and washington are going to have to take one for the team. the team being
the global oil based world economy and all the notional value FOR THE present ONLY oil
derivatives and interest rate derivatives burdening the western banking system.... think the
insolvent deutsche bank et al.
a war on iran will do every bit as much damage or MORE to the west as it does to iran
which both russia and china can not.. will not allow to die.
israel gets a lot of press and speculation on this board as well as everywhere else for
all their conspiracies and supposed omnipotent power and control but in this writers opinion
THEY have been punching way above their actual weight for years and current reality has
exposed how feckless and puny they really are in the scheme of things.
i suspect the whole 'jew' thing regarding israel is what animates people so much. if
israel were all zoroastrians i doubt the world would credit them with all the machinations
israel is viewed as responsible for.
''i suspect the whole 'jew' thing regarding israel is what animates people so much. if israel
were all zoroastrians i doubt the world would credit them with all the machinations israel is
viewed as responsible for.'' A Cult is a Cult regardless of it members makeup.
And Israel is looking more like a Jim Jones farm every day.
Only one tank appears to have minor sooting or scorching. As though they were emptied after
an initial strike then targeted in a second strike, but no reports of a second strike.
In the sat pic showing targets in red boxes, top square, the target appears to be smaller
spheres which do look darkened.
Several correspondents here, including Adrestia and b, seem to lack faith in an autonomous
navigation and terminal guidance system for these cruise missiles. They do not need a radio
or cell phone communication link. This could have been even without a GPS signal. Given that
the strikes appear to come from the west, the smartest route would be to fly north to the
pipelines and then east to the targets. Once the missiles are close to the target either a
visual terminal guidance system could take over or the targets are marked and the missiles'
terminal guidance systems just home in on the marked targets. The marks could be laser
illumination, small IR strobes or offset targeting devices. These offset targeting devices
are emplaced with the exact azimuth and distance to the desired target programmed into the
missiles' terminal guidance system. As I said before, we did this in the early 80s. In the
90s, I used the IR strobes. These were tiny lights snapped to the top of a 9V battery. You
could carry a dozen in your pocket. I personally like the idea of emplacing small IR strobes
on target or a set distance and azimuth from the target. The missiles could home on a spot
say due east and 100 meters from the strobe. I'm sure there are other methods I haven't
thought of yet. My educated guess is that this strike was well thought out with both
intelligence and operational support on and near the target site. Anyone who thinks the
Houthi and their Yemeni allies are incapable of planning and executing this is magnificently
ignorant.
GPS is not accurate enough for the last 10-30 feet. Another possiblity that doesn't need
any human terminal guidance could be a creative use of sensors.
Using CARVER select suitable targets. Pick something that is hot, big or fumes gas.
Then use a combination of gas-sensing, parking-sensors, heat-sensing sensors for the last
few feet.
I'm reading the manual for an FY41AP autopilot right now. About $250, made in china.
As for optical guidance, the attacks happened about 0400 - night or dawn?
This autopilot has a video link as well as autonomous and ground based control modes I think.
If the Yemenis had a guy with a transceiver near abqaiq, then maybe they could send these
things over from yemen using gps and a guy with transceiver provided terminal guidance. If
that were to happen the drones would need to be launched at set intervals.
Your last sentence is true enough as far as it goes, but also, if Israel were all
Zoroastrians (or any other group) the world would have dealt with their paranoid and
psychopathic behavior decades ago. The only reason they get away with everything is because
they are Jewish.
Bacevich in NYT op ed. Behind a paywall, here is a copy. Please do not post if it is too long or off topic
Iran Might Be America's Enemy, but Saudi Arabia Is No Friend
After last week's refinery attack, Trump should be careful about throwing America's weight
behind an unreliable "ally."
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Mr. Bacevich is president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Sept. 16, 2019
Image The American frigate Stark, which was hit by two missiles fired from an Iraqi fighter
plane during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987. The American frigate Stark, which was hit by two missiles fired from an Iraqi fighter
plane during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987.
In 1987, an Iraqi warplane attacked an American Navy frigate, the Stark, on patrol in the
Persian Gulf. Accepting Saddam Hussein's explanation that the attack, which killed 37
sailors, had been an accident, American officials promptly used the incident, which came at
the height of the Iran-Iraq war, to ratchet up pressure on Tehran. The incident provided the
impetus for what became a brief, and all but forgotten, maritime war between the United
States and Iran.
Last week, someone -- precisely who remains to be determined -- attacked two oil
refineries in Saudi Arabia. American authorities have been quick to blame Iran, and the
possibility of a violent confrontation between the two countries is once again growing.
Before making a decision on whether to pull the trigger, President Trump would do well to
reflect on that 1987 episode and its legacy.
Back then, the United States had become involved in the very bloody and seemingly
interminable Iran-Iraq war, which Hussein had instigated in 1980 by invading Iran. As that
war turned into a brutal stalemate, President Ronald Reagan and his advisers persuaded
themselves that it was in America's interests to come to Iraq's aid. Iran was the "enemy" so
Iraq became America's "friend."
After the Stark episode, American and Iranian naval forces in the Gulf began jousting, an
uneven contest that culminated in April 1988 with the virtual destruction of the Iranian
Navy.
Yet the United States gained little from this tidy victory. The principal beneficiary was
Hussein, who wasted no time in repaying Washington by invading and annexing Kuwait soon after
his war with Iran ground to a halt. Thus did America's "friend" become America's "enemy."
The encounter with Iran became a precedent-setting event and a font of illusions. Since
then, a series of administrations have indulged the fantasy that the direct or indirect
application of military power can somehow restore stability to the Gulf.
In fact, just the reverse has occurred. Instability has become chronic, with the
relationship between military policy and actual American interests in the region becoming
ever more difficult to discern.
In 2019, this now well-established penchant for armed intervention finds the United States
once more involved in a proxy conflict, this time a civil war that has ravaged Yemen since
2015. Saudi Arabia supports one side in this bloody and interminable conflict, and Iran the
other.
Under President Barack Obama and now President Trump, the United States has thrown in its
lot with Saudi Arabia, providing support comparable to what the Reagan administration gave
Saddam Hussein back in the 1980s. But American-assisted Saudi forces have exhibited no more
competence today than did American-assisted Iraqi forces back then. So the war in Yemen drags
on.
ImageSmoke billowing from one of the oil facilities hit by drone attacks on two Saudi Aramco
oil facilities in Abqaiq, in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, on Saturday.
Smoke billowing from one of the oil facilities hit by drone attacks on two Saudi Aramco oil
facilities in Abqaiq, in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, on Saturday.CreditAgence
France-Presse -- Getty Images
Concrete American interests in this conflict, which has already claimed an estimated
70,000 lives while confronting as many as 18 million with the prospect of starvation, are
negligible. Once more, as in the 1980s, the demonization of Iran has contributed to a policy
that is ill advised and arguably immoral.
I am not suggesting that Washington is supporting the wrong side in Yemen. I am
suggesting, however, that neither side deserves support. Iran may well qualify as America's
"enemy." But Saudi Arabia is not a "friend," regardless of how many billions Riyadh spends
purchasing American-manufactured weaponry and how much effort Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman invests in courting President Trump and members of his family.
The conviction, apparently widespread in American policy circles, that in the Persian Gulf
(and elsewhere) the United States is compelled to take sides, has been a source of recurring
mischief. No doubt the escalating rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran poses a danger of
further destabilizing the Gulf. But the United States is under no obligation to underwrite
the folly of one side or the other.
Supporting Iraq in its foolhardy war with Iran in the 1980s proved to be strategically
shortsighted in the extreme. It yielded vastly more problems than it solved. It set in train
a series of costly wars that have produced negligible benefits. Supporting Saudi Arabia today
in its misbegotten war in Yemen is no less shortsighted.
Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so by
recognizing that Saudi Arabia's folly need not be our problem.
Andrew J. Bacevich is president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the
author of the forthcoming "The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War
Victory."
"a war on iran will do every bit as much damage or MORE to the west as it does to iran"
And Iran has demonstrated that they can cause months worth of damage on the KSA, the UAE,
and Kuwait. I can't believe the number of Congressman who simultaneously believe that Iran
was able to glide over U.S. made air defenses without detection and also believe that we can
simply carpet bomb their refineries without any repercussion. How can one believe both things
at the same time? That Iran is responsible for a sophisticated ghost attack and that they are
incapable of retaliating in a target rich environment.
Not only did Graham say this but the loon from Maryland repeated it. These people are
insane but MSM hosts encourage it, just saw Cavuto snear at Ron Paul because he actually made
sense. We are so messed up.
use the pic released by USG of the damage to get an idea of the orientation of the incoming
projectiles, I used that rectangularish pond behind as an aid,
Everyone keeps misunderestimating the Yemenis. The Houthis are fighting as part of a coalition that includes a large part of the Yemeni
military and intelligence services. This coalition is carrying out a war under guerrilla
conditions, but that war is led by professional military men. Yemen had a serious air force
consisting mostly of missile systems before the war. Much of it was destroyed by the bombing
campaign carried out for Saudi Arabia, but the military organization survived. They have now
reconstituted the Yemeni air forces under fire and in the midst of famine, blockade and
invasion.
Stock up on popcorn, the show has only just begun.
Using my CAD and graphic tools and Google Earth along with the photo showing the four
perforated pressure tanks, I have estimated the four vectors as:
E1 280W. E2 279W, E3 281W and E4 273W. I have numbered the tanks from the most eastwards (the
furthermost away in the photo). Angles from true north (0/360 deg). This averages as 278N
with a STDEV of 3 degrees. Its almost due west. Must be very difficult for autopilots (or
real pilots) could perform more than one group-turning maneuver and still maintain final-run
accuracy to what was achieved.
p.s. I'm not specialist in this field apart from terrestrial navigation and drafting
experience.
RobW
The Czech company which produces the TJ100 does have strong links with Iran.
"2005 TPP Iranshahr Iran, the largest project in the company's history, a turnkey project
- four power plant units." But then again. Creating a crash site in the desert with some COTS components in it is
also easy to do. I would be surprised if Iran is launching missiles now. That would be pretty
stupid to do.
I know. I was attempting a comparison between the way most Americans perceive the desert
peoples and the way most Americans fail to extrapolate from their beliefs of one groups
capabilities and motivations and another group closer to home. The perfumed fops in Ryadh and
the Perfumed Princes in DC are very similar under the perfume.
I remember in the mid sixties how the "benighted" Vietnamese and VC were on their last legs,
unable to do anything militarily significant, that the war would be over in 67. This was that
generations perfumed princes attitude towards a people who had been fighting against invaders
since the 1850s. I remember 68 and the most unexpectedly successful operational and strategic
level victory by the NVA and the VC that was TET.
From an infotainment/Cronkite perspective
the important thing was that the Saigon embassy was broached. From and operational
perspective a "defeated" enemy launched several hundred simultaneous attacks all over South
Vietnam while holding down as a diversion the Dien Bien Phu look alike that was Khe San. 51
years 2 and 1/2 generations and today we make the exact same mistakes in evaluating the
current situation.
It is the benefit of being a perfumed prince or fop or neo-con that history has no meaning
because history ended sometime in the 90's. Somehow I hear the voice of a Rove lecturing:
"That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and
when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality --
judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can
study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you,
will be left to just study what we do."
I have seen articles over the last month or so (sorry, no links) saying that because they are
not able to send large amounts of material aid through the Saudi and U.S. Navy blockade of
Yemen, the Iranians sent blueprints and a few engineers and the Ansar Allah have been
building them in Yemen.
What looks like missile hits at identical positions on those spherical tanks are not.
They are the locations of pressure relief valvaes that blew when the towers hit, venting gas
up out and away.
I am in full agreement with your assessment Dave. I don't see any penetrations on those 11
spherical tanks. Look at the complete devastation on the three smaller spherical pressure
tanks.
Unless we get higher resolution pics that definitely show those tanks were pierced there
is no way I am going to believe those tiny scorch marks are UAV or missile hits. Much too
symmetrical! No amount of geometrical explaining of drone tracks will account for that
symmetry.
Yes indeed. Dave deserves hearty congratulations though we might add a caveat. The said
"valves" could have been blown out in advance via software or person throwing a switch
(humint or cyber component to one attack vector). Yes, tremors or shakes triggering sensor
which blows valve is possible, I suppose. But the thing that had me up at night was the
nagging sense that this was a prearranged message of sorts.
It cries out "sure, it's bad, but
it is reversible." So I had been wondering about invitation for pow-wows given UN upcoming
meeting in NY. I'm tending to lean toward an advance blowout rather than blowout in reaction
to stress. Why damage such delicate, custom equipment as those beautiful tanks? As you say,
it has to be something intrinsic/internal to the construction of the tanks. So - before or
after remains to be discussed. Assuming the pics are legitimate. But that's why I thought
especially there was a subtle message sent. If they are legit - see above. If not legit -
then it is howling reversibility or caution at the very least.
The processor trains are a linear series of stabilizer columns that help separate the sour
hydrogen sulfide gas from the crude oil. They are at the heart of the process and probably
the highest value target. They are to the left of the 11 pressure tanks in the pictures
shown, or perhaps just NNW of those tanks.
I buy the idea of HUMINT assets having collected target informatoin but the idea of
mini-strobes, etc. seems to me to be too difficult to do given the separation of the missile
force and the HUMINT assets. Very hard to coordinate.
Houthis have every reason to utilize their advanced weapons systems against Saudi targets to
bring the war to an end. As for Iran, seems they have been on a semi-successful diplomatic
campaign to counter US maximum pressure with their own maximum pressure on Europeans, Russia
and China to deliver on the economic benefits that are as important in JCPOA as the
curtailing of Iran's nuclear program.
Trump talking about meeting Rouhani in New York, Zarif
in China getting at least $50-100 billion in pledged economic support, Russia suggesting $10
billion investment in the Iranian energy sector: Why would Iran at this moment make a direct
move to turn the world fully against them? Perhaps a rogue faction of IRGC out to stop any
diplomatic action, but even that would have to come with OK from Khamenei--or there would be
strong action against the rogues.
Pressure on Trump to maintain the hardline against Iran following Bolton ouster? Pompeo
has been leading the diplomatic back channels and repeating Trump's goal of forcing Iran to
the table. Even the Saudis are for the moment hesitant to blame Iran, actually calling for a
UN investigation into the source of the attacks.
2) a general redirection of attention is achieved from 2 points:
- from Syria
In the issue of National Geographic Bulgaria of 04.2019, April 2019 number 4 (162),on p.29
there is a map of the migratory route of a bird - Ethiopia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
Turkey, Bulgaria. BUT the name of Syria is missing, just an empty space within its current
borders.
Maybe, I sincerely hope not, it was just a part of a campaign of mass indoctrination - the
"former Syria" to be divided between neighbors with a US military base here and there or to
turn onto a No Man's land of lawlessness right there, flanking the EU, Russia's Muslim areas,
China's silk road etc
"The Iran did it" narrative as an attempt to keep on undermining the pro-Syrian government
coalition.
- from the temptation to mix with West's "rivals" internal issues
A strange coincidence that there was such a recent burst of "opposition" activity first in
Russia, then in China. The velvet revolution recipe of the Arabian spring, Ukraine, etc (if
it was such) didn't quite work however.
And the "empires strike back" - subtly and not so subtly. China offers for the London
stock exchange (let's not forget that the Chinese take-over of the London metal exchange went
without a fuss). Saudi Arabia next.
Maybe the message is "Just stay out of your ex-colonies"
Richard Gill, managing director of the UK company Drone Defence:
"But [drone defence is] military-grade technology and it's massively expensive. To install a
defensive system is extremely complex and the threat is evolving at such a rate that it's
very hard to keep up to date, because the adversaries change the type of technology they use
in a way that almost renders the defence moot."
The strikes, which unidentified U.S. officials have said involved at least 20 drones and
several cruise missiles, forced Saudi Arabia to shut down half its oil production capacity, or
5.7 million barrels per day of crude -- 5% of the world's global daily oil production.
The images, first obtained by The Associated Press, show that at least 19 strikes were
launched and 17 actually hit targets." CNBC
------------ --
I get a big kick out of those of you who think someone faked this attack for, what; An excuse to go to war with Iran?
An opening gambit to get the Iranians to talk to Trump at the UN? If so, that did not work.
Khamenei has said unequivocally that they are not going to talk to the US.
Mikey Pompeo is now going to travel to Saudi Arabia to see if he can jawbone the Saudis into
saying that it was undoubtedly the Iranians who done it. Would that be going on if the Saudis
had been in the plot?
So, some of you think that the Saudis blew up their own processing plant for some nefarious
reason.
Or, maybe the Izzies blew it up to start a war?Will wonders never cease? I mean you, not the attack. pl
"Iran has launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply,"
declared Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Putting America's credibility on the line, Pompeo accused Iran of carrying out the devastating
attack on Saudi oil facilities that halted half of the kingdom's oil production, 5.7 million
barrels a day.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump did not identify Iran as the attacking nation, but did appear,
in a tweet, to back up the secretary of state:
"There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on
verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) as to who they believe
was the cause of this attack and under what terms we would proceed!"
Yemen's Houthi rebels, who have been fighting Saudi Arabia for four years and have used drones
to strike Saudi airport and oil facilities, claim they fired 10 drones from 500 kilometers away to
carry out the strikes in retaliation for Saudi air and missile attacks.
Pompeo dismissed their claim,
"There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen."
But while the Houthis claim credit,
Iran denies all responsibility.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif says of Pompeo's charge, that
the U.S. has simply
replaced a policy of "maximum pressure" with a policy of "maximum deceit." Tehran is calling us
liars.
And, indeed, a direct assault on Saudi Arabia by Iran, a Pearl Harbor-type surprise attack on
the Saudis' crucial oil production facility, would be an act of war requiring Saudi retaliation,
leading to a Persian Gulf war in which the United States could be forced to participate.
Tehran being behind Saturday's strike would contradict Iranian policy since the U.S. pulled out
of the nuclear deal. That policy has been to avoid a military clash with the United States and
pursue a measured response to tightening American sanctions.
U.S. and Saudi officials are investigating the sites of the attacks, the oil production facility
at Abqaiq and the Khurais oil field.
According to U.S. sources, 17 missiles or drones were fired, not the 10 the Houthis
claim, and cruise missiles may have been used. Some targets were hit on the west-northwest facing
sides, which suggests they were fired from the north, from Iran or Iraq.
But according to The New York Times, some targets were hit on the west side, pointing away from
Iraq or Iraq as the source. But as some projectiles did not explode and fragments of those that did
explode are identifiable, establishing the likely source of the attacks should be only a matter of
time. It is here that the rubber meets the road.
Given Pompeo's public accusation that Iran was behind the attack, a Trump meeting with Iranian
President Hassan Rouhani at the U.N. General Assembly's annual gathering next week may be a dead
letter.
The real question now is what do the Americans do when the source of the attack is known and the
call for a commensurate response is put directly to our "locked-and-loaded" president.
If the perpetrators were the Houthis, how would Trump respond?
For the Houthis, who are native to Yemen and whose country has been attacked by the Saudis for
four years, would, under the rules of war, seem to be entitled to launch attacks on the country
attacking them.
Indeed, Congress has repeatedly sought to have Trump terminate U.S. support of the Saudi
war in Yemen.
If the attack on the Saudi oil field and oil facility at Abqaiq proves to be the work of Shiite
militia from inside Iraq, would the United States attack that militia whose numbers in Iraq have
been estimated as high as 150,000 fighters, as compared with our 5,000 troops in-country?
What about Iran itself?
If a dozen drones or missiles can do the kind of damage to the world economy as did those fired
on Saturday -- shutting down about 6% of world oil production -- imagine what a U.S.-Iran-Saudi war
would do to the world economy.
In recent decades, the U.S. has sold the Saudis hundreds of billions of dollars of military
equipment. Did our weapons sales carry a guarantee that we will also come and fight alongside the
kingdom if it gets into a war with its neighbors?
Before Trump orders any strike on Iran, would he go to Congress for authorization for his act of
war?
Sen. Lindsey Graham is already urging an attack on Iran's oil refineries to "break the
regime's back,"
while Sen. Rand Paul contends that "there's no reason the superpower of
the United States needs to be getting into bombing mainland Iran."
Divided again:
The War Party is giddy with excitement over the prospect of war
with Iran, while the nation does not want another war.
How we avoid it, however, is becoming difficult to see.
John Bolton may be gone from the West Wing, but his soul is marching on.
@Anonymous
At some point when an foreign intelligence service has a critical mass of politicians
blackmailed it becomes "domestic intelligence" or "domesticated intelligence". :-)
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been
found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non
stop.
@Cloak And
Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the
few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA
Trump speaks at Washington rally against the Iran deal back in September 2015. Credit:
Olivier Douliery/Sipa USA/Newscom Paul Pillar comments
on the attack on the Saudi oil facility at Abqaiq, and he connects it to the administration's
dangerous, failing "maximum pressure" campaign:
Iranian leaders have been explicit in warning that if Iran could not export its oil, then
other Persian Gulf producers would not be able to either. Was anyone in the Trump
administration listening?
To borrow another formulation from Pompeo's tweet, there is no evidence that in the
absence of the administration's economic warfare against Iran, Iran would do anything like
attack the Abqaiq facility or have any incentive to conduct such an attack. If Iran did do
the attack, then it was a direct and unsurprising result of the administration's policy of
unrelenting hostility and of inflicting economic pain with no apparent end.
The Trump administration's economic war on Iran has not achieved anything except to
destabilize the region further and impoverish the Iranian people. It is the cause of the
current crisis with Iran, and were it not for this economic war we can reasonably assume that
there would have been no attacks on tankers, pipelines, and possibly oil facilities in the last
few months. As Pillar notes, the administration has shown Iran unrelenting hostility, and they
have continued to apply one set of sanctions after another, and then the administration
pretends that its own actions have not created the present mess. A smart administration would
start lifting sanctions, but then a smart administration would never have imposed them in the
first place.
Under no circumstances should the U.S. increase its involvement in Yemen and do more to
devastate that country, as
this former admiral has suggested that we do in an interview with Foreign Policy .
The U.S. should have ended our involvement in the war on Yemen long ago. It is an ongoing
disgrace that the administration continues to support and arm the governments that have been
destroying and starving Yemen. Our involvement in the war is already unauthorized and illegal,
and directly launching attacks alongside the Saudi coalition would make things even worse.
Deescalating tensions with Iran is the only sane way forward, so of course the only thing
being seriously considered right now in Washington is a possible attack on Iran. It can't be
stressed enough that the U.S. has no justification, legal or otherwise, to launch an attack on
Iran. Not only is the U.S. not obliged to come to the defense of Saudi Arabia, but our
government is bound by the U.N. Charter that prohibits using force against another state except
in self-defense. No one can seriously claim that a U.S. strike on Iran right now would be
anything other than an illegal attack in clear violation of international law.
The only sane thing MBS can do is to declare defeat and withdraw from Yemen, tout
suite .
The problem is that there is no way for him to do so without humiliation. Shame and
honor are paramount in Saudi society, and MBS has just gotten a very nasty and very public
punch in the nose. Anything less than brutal escalation, and his honor and prestige will be
seriously damaged.
The Saudi tyrants are stuck in Yemen so deep, that they have little choice but to keep
doubling down.
"... USA has been doing nearly everything in the Yemen war except pilot the planes. That Yemen can sneak some drones into sensitive Saudi areas would seem to raise some questions... ..."
"... Strategically what this means is that after wantonly bombing and attacking woefully poor Yemen for years, rich Saudi Arabia is not capable of protecting almost the entire source of its wealth. ..."
It's Monday September 16th, 2019 and the weeks starts off like this:
GM's UAW Strike
Yemeni Houti Rebels Drones wipe out 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil production
Trump tweets in response is "locked and loaded" implying a new US war in the ME
One of Trump's White House flunky's declared "it is better if Trump does not study an
issue" before making decisions (oh yea,"Stupid is what Stupid does")
Biden and S. Warren tied in the DEM race for 2020
Piketty's new Economics tome is out
PM Netanyahu is losing his re-election bid in Israel, to be determined by tomorrow's
Election
We live in interesting times...
...the question I pose for the times is 'Are the People are better lead by businessmen,
politicians, academics, or intellectuals?
Personally, I choose to be lead by people that do the right thing long term for the People,
not the most politically expedient or the one that makes the most money in the short run or
the smartest, etc.
USA has been doing nearly everything in the Yemen war except pilot the planes. That Yemen can
sneak some drones into sensitive Saudi areas would seem to raise some questions about USA
capability. Have not yet seen any press questions in that direction.
USA has been doing nearly everything in the Yemen war except pilot the planes. That Yemen can
sneak some drones into sensitive Saudi areas would seem to raise some questions...
Strategically what this means is that after wantonly bombing and attacking woefully poor
Yemen for years, rich Saudi Arabia is not capable of protecting almost the entire source of
its wealth.
The U.S. thought it was cleverly choking the regime, but now it's clear that 'maximum
pressure' goes both ways.
• The Saturday attack on Saudi oil facilities, which
took 5.7 million barrels of oil per day offline, is the escalation that wasn't supposed to
happen. Now that it has happened, we enter perilous new terrain.
America has blamed Iran and
hinted at some sort of retaliation . Iran has denied responsibility, while the Houthis
gladly take it. There are conflicting reports of where the missiles or drones were launched
from, which we will learn more about in the coming days.
In the meantime, Trump is in a tight spot of his own making, with neither escalation nor
retrenchment looking to be attractive options.
It is still uncertain when Saudi Aramco can get everything back on line. The attack showed
sophistication. Critical nodes were hit. If the facilities are quickly repaired, that lessens
the gravity of this event. The Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s showed the resiliency of oil
installations, as Iraqi bombers pounded Kharg Island, where Iran exported much of its oil, yet
the Iranians managed to keep the exports flowing. This suggests that a war of attrition today
would be possible without major disruptions, though the impact of new technologies of attack
and resistance makes any guess hazardous.
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If past crises are any indication, a sustained loss of 5.7 million barrels per day, over
five percent of world oil consumption, would likely quadruple oil prices. Strategic petroleum
reserves can cover this to a certain extent: the U.S. system can pump 4.4 million barrels per
day. But it would exhaust its reserves in 150 days at that pace. We do not know whether more
strikes will be forthcoming or whether such efforts can be successfully suppressed with
airpower or invigorated defenses. All we can say is that the great game has advanced to a new
stage.
From the beginning, escalation has seemed the likely consequence of the Trump
administration's decision to asphyxiate the Iranian regime by cutting off its ability to export
oil. This was a declaration of economic war. That is the polite term, as it is an action every
international lawyer on the planet, back in the day when these things mattered, would have
called an act of war without any precious qualifiers.
It turns out that there may be some street cred to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's
assertion that if Iran isn't allowed to export oil, others will face obstacles too. Tit for
tat. Got a quid? Here's a quo. The funny thing is that any significant threat to Saudi capacity
creates a pressing need to get Iran's spare capacity onto the world market. As to which side
now has more leverage, in a position to squeeze harder, that's a tough question. Putting it
nicely, the Iranians can, if their will is stout, impose huge costs on the United States and
the world economy. They would only consider that if pressed extremely hard, yet the United
States has been pressing them extremely hard for over a year now.
Remember that the purpose of America's economic war on Iran was to force Iran to submit to
12 demands issued by Pharaoh Mike Pompeo
in his edict delivered on May 21, 2018. It was really disappointing that Pompeo didn't
raise the obvious thirteenth demand and insist that the embargo would not be lifted until an
American regent was appointed in Tehran, taking the Islamic Revolution under neoliberal
guidance until circumstances changed, after which Iranian democracy would be restored to its
former lack of glory. That was implied, to be sure, but we didn't get much straight talk from
Mr. Pompeo on that point.
This ultimatum was reminiscent of the demands that the Austro-Hungarians made on the Serbs
on a certain date in 1914. Make them as extreme as you can, said the inspired diplomatists
looking for war. World reaction was then unfavorable. Winston Churchill, in charge of Britain's
navy, called it "the most insolent document of its kind ever devised." The resemblance to
Pompeo's ultimatums hardly shows the imminence of a 1914-like crisis today, but there is a
certain arrogance to both the U.S. warmongers and Austro-Hungarians. The Austrians got the war
they were looking for; the neocons may yet get theirs.
Trump's renunciation of the Iran nuclear deal is mostly about Israel and its perceived
security requirements. Not only must Iran not have a single nuclear weapon, it must not have
the theoretical capability to produce a weapon, were the Iranians to break from their pledges
under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the JCPOA. This imposes a requirement on the Islamic
Republic that no other medium-sized power has had to endure. That the Iranians are bearers of
an ancient civilization makes the humiliation all the more painful. Those 12 demands were not
designed to produce a settlement; they were designed to produce a crisis, as they now have
done. Regime change lies back of them -- that or simply the immiseration of another Muslim
country.
American policy toward Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has recently been mostly about arms
sales. People say all the time that the oil companies are the heavyweights in this drama. In
fact, they are secondary. What has driven events in the recent past is the military-industrial
complex salivating over the sales of high-priced and high-tech U.S. armaments to sheikdoms with
money to burn. The MIC plunderers, like the Hollywood moguls, understand that you simply must
have the foreign market to make the big profits. Politicians see such sales as a way of making
our own arms purchases remotely affordable and thereby politically palatable. For these
reasons, foreign arms sales to reprehensible characters is Washington's go-to move, a win-win
for the plutocrats and the praetorians.
The United States acted under no prompting of national interest in so aiding and abetting
the Saudi war in Yemen, but its hankering after all those lucrative contracts was just too much
temptation. When the flesh is weak, as it seems to be in Washington, burning flesh is not a
problem. Trump saw it as a great business deal and had no compunctions about the human fallout
in Yemen. The Democrats -- a certain Democrat, especially -- did what was once said of Austrian
Queen Maria Theresa after the Partition of Poland in 1772: "She wept, but she took."
The president may have outsmarted himself this time. He got rid of National Security Adviser
John Bolton because he didn't like Bolton's across-the-board hawkish recommendations, but he
signed on to the very big change in U.S. policy towards Iran that Bolton had recommended. Trump
thought he was in control of the escalation. But when you declare your intention to asphyxiate
another country, you've committed an act of war. Retaliation from the other side usually
follows in some form or fashion. You can then advance to your ruin or retreat in ignominy.
Trump has threatened retaliation, but he surely does not want a big war with Iran. His
supporters definitely do not want a war with Iran. Americans in general are opposed to a war
with Iran. Mysteriously, however, the U.S. declaration of war on Iran in fact -- though not, of
course, in name, heaven forbid -- escaped notice by the commentariat this past year. The
swamp's seismograph doesn't record a reading when we violate the rules, but when the other guy
does, it's 7.8 on the Richter Scale.
The whole drama, in a nutshell, is just the old-fashioned hubris of the imperial power,
issuing its edicts, and genuinely surprised when it encounters resistance, even though such
resistance confirms for the wunderkinds their view of the enemy's malevolence.
Is Trump trapped? That is the question of the hour. He faces strong pressure to do something
in retaliation, but that something may aggravate the oil shock and imperil his re-election. As
he dwells on that possibility, he will probably look for ways to back down. He will try to get
out of the trap set by the U.S. economic war on Iran without abandoning the economic war on
Iran. But that probably won't work; that was Iran's message over the weekend. Were he to
abandon the economic war, however, he would get a ton of flak from both sides of the aisle in
Congress. The commentators would scream "appeasement!" In Washington lobby-land, we'd be back
to 1938 in a flash.
Does the president have the gumption to resist that tired line? I hope so.
David Hendrickson teaches history at Colorado College and is the author of Republic
in Peril: American Empire and the Liberal Tradition.
Bibi is desperate for war with Iran to avoid election defeat and prison and Bolton is
fired/resigns only to predict "Iranian deception" on the way out the door.
Today, Brent climbed as much as 12% towards $70 per barrel and the US crude oil rose 10%
to nearly $61. Historically, Brent crude oil reached an all time high of 147.50 in July of
2008. Remember what happened next?
Qui Bono?
KSA, UAE, Qatar
Russia
US Oil Majors, State of Texas
OPEC
UK
Norway
Who suffers?
China
Japan
India
Transportation costs and cost of goods
Commuters costs
Heating costs going into winter
Airlines and air travel
Iraq, Libya, Venezuela and Iran are a mess and cannot produce to make a difference.
This will be the catalyst for the economic downturn.
"American war-making will persist so long as the United States continues to seek military
dominance across the globe. Dominance, assumed to ensure peace, in fact guarantees war. To
get serious about stopping endless war, American leaders must do what they most resist: end
America's commitment to armed supremacy and embrace a world of pluralism and peace."
Carter suggested that instead of war, China has been investing in its own infrastructure,
mentioning that China has 18,000 miles of high-speed railroad.
"How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?"
Zero, the congregation answered.
"We have wasted I think $3 trillion," Carter said of American military spending. " It's
more than you can imagine. China has not wasted a single penny on war and that's why they're
ahead of us. In almost every way."
The Americans have gotten themselves in a real bind with their maximum pressure campaign on Iran. This latest attack on Saudi
Arabia's oil production looks like an escalation of the previous attacks on shipping and the spy drone. It is not evident how
the Americans can respond to this latest attack.
As I see it their options are:
1. To let KSA respond to the Houthi attack and continue with their campaign to shut down Iranian oil production, without any
direct U.S. response to the attack. However this will achieve nothing, as next month Iran will up pressure again with another
attack on Middle-East oil assets, and we'll be back to the same place.
2. To bomb Iran's oil industry, as Pompeo and Graham suggest. However this risks blowing up the whole Middle East, as well
as the World's oil market and their own (Western) economies.
3. Forget about Iran and move the fight to maintain U.S. global hegemony to another front: back to Venezuela? Serbia? Hong
Kong? Taiwan? However the end result of such a move would more than likely be another humuliating defeat for the U.S.
4. Do as Stephen Wertheim / New York Times suggest and sue for peace. This will end the dream of U.S. World dominance, Globalization
and the current western based financial system. The U.S. will become no more than a heavily indebted regional power in a 'Multi-polar
World Order' led by China and Russia.
As I see it, the U.S. is out of options to continue their war for global dominance. #4 is the only viable option. But, as one
author argued in a recent paper (I don't have the reference), wars continue long after the victor is clear, because the loser
can't admit defeat (at heavy additional costs to the loser). I think that this is the position that the U.S. finds itself in now.
What the attack on Saudi oil infrastructure shows us, is that now Iran has united her proxys into one united front.
While they were cautious to not leave evidence of their involvment with the Houtis before, they now are putting their support
more and more into the open.
The attack seemed to have involved not only Houti drones (already build with help from Iran), but also Iranian backed forces
in Iraq, AND pro Iranian forces in Saudi Arabia itself. And maybe even other actors.
This is a major new development. Not only for the war on Yemen, but also in the context of Iran providing a credile detterence
against US+Saudi aggression.
They excalated with increasing levels, and one wonders, what could top this last attack off.
And i am pretty sure, we will find out sooner rather than later.
@ 27
WaPo: Abqaiq . .damaged on the west-northwest sides
That's it! It was Hezbollah for sure. (not)
Actually there were two targets, the Buqaiq (Abqaiq) oil processing plant and the Khurais oil field, both in the Eastern Province.
These attacks are not the first -- from longwarjournal:
Last month, the Houthis claimed another drone operation against Saudi's Shaybah oil field near the United Arab Emirates. At
more than 1,000 miles away from it's Yemen territory, that strike marked one of the Houthis farthest claimed attacks.
The Houthis also claimed a drone strike on the Abu Dhabi airport last year, but that has been denied by Emirati officials.
Additionally, a drone strike on Saudi's East-West oil pipeline near Riyadh earlier this year, which the Houthis claimed responsibility,
was allegedly conducted by Iranian-backed Iraqi militants. If accurate, that means the Houthi claim of responsibility acted
as a type of diplomatic cover for the Iraqi militants.
Since beginning its drone program last year, the Houthis have launched at least 103 drone strikes in Yemen and Saudi Arabia
according to data compiled by FDD's Long War Journal. . .
here . . .and more
here .
Really appreciated the write up on the Houthis attack.
Sounds like the attack left substantial damage. Another bigger issue underlying all of this, aside from Saudi inability to get
what it wants now from it's IPO, is the fact that the US Patriots did not detect this attack.
The Saudis spent billions last year on this defense system. Sounds like the clown Prince better give Russians a call about their
S-400.
But the US wouldn't appreciate that much, would they?
"... Like the Cold War, the new cold war was triggered by an American lie. It was a lie so duplicitous, so all encompassing, that it would lead many Russians to see the agreement that ended the cold war as a devastating and humiliating deception that was really intended to clear the way for the US to surround and finally defeat the Soviet Union. It was a lie that tilled the soil for all future "Russian aggression." ..."
"... That key promise made to Gorbachev was shattered, first by President Clinton and then subsequently supported by every American President: NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, most recently, Montenegro. ..."
"... When Clinton decided to break Bush's promise and betray Russia, George Kennen, father of the containment policy, warned that NATO expansion would be "the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-cold-war era." "Such a decision," he prophesied, "may be expected to . . . restore the atmosphere of the cold war in East-West relations . . .." ..."
"... As Matlock explains, the urgent transition allowed "privileged insiders[to] join the criminals who had been running a black market [and to] steal what they could, as fast as they could." The sudden, uncompromising transition imposed on Russia by the United States enabled, according to Cohen, "a small group of Kremlin-connected oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty and misery." ..."
"... The rape of Russia was funded, overseen and ordered by the United States and handed over by President George H.W. Bush to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Much of their advice, Matlock says generously, "was not only useless, but sometimes actually damaging." ..."
"... The economic policies wrestled onto Russia by the US and the transition experts and international development experts it funded and sent over led to, what Cohen calls, "the near ruination of Russia." Russia's reward for ending the Cold War and joining the Western economic community was, in Cohen's words, "the worst economic depression in peacetime, the disintegration of the highly professionalized Soviet middle class, mass poverty, plunging life expectancy [for men, it had fallen below sixty], the fostering of an oligarchic financial elite, the plundering of Russia's wealth, and more." ..."
"... By the time Putin came to power in 2000, Cohen says, "some 75% of Russians were living in poverty." 75%! Millions and millions of Russian lives were destroyed by the American welcoming of Russia into the global economic community. ..."
"... But before Putin came to power, there was more Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a necessity for Clinton and the United States because Yeltsin was the pliable puppet who would continue to enforce the cruel economic transition. But to continue the interference in, and betrayal of, the Russian people economically, it would now be necessary to interfere in and betray the Russian democracy. ..."
"... Intoxicated with American support, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament that had rescinded his powers and abolished the constitution of which he was in violation. In a 636-2 vote, the Russian parliament impeached Yeltsin. But, President Clinton again sided with Yeltsin against the Russian people and the Russian law, backed him and gave him $2.5 billion in aid. Clinton was blocking the Russian people's choice of leaders. ..."
"... "Funded by the US government," Cohen reports, Americans "gave money to favored Russian politicians, instructed ministers, drafted legislation and presidential decrees, underwrote textbooks, and served at Yeltsin's reelection headquarters in 1996." ..."
"... Asserting its right as the unipolar victor of a Cold War it never won, betraying the central promise of the negotiated end of the cold war by engulfing Russia's neighbors, arming those nations against its written and signed word and stealing all Russian hope in capitalism and democracy by kidnapping and torturing Russian capitalism and democracy, the roots of the new cold war were not planted by Russian lies and aggression, as the doctrinal Western version teaches, but by the American lies and aggression that the fact checked, demythologized version of history reveals. ..."
When Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev received his peace prize in 1990, the Nobel Prize committee
declared that "the two mighty power blocs,
have managed to abandon their life-threatening confrontation" and confidently expressed that "It is our hope that we are now celebrating
the end of the Cold War." Recently, U.N. General Secretary António Guterres funereally closed the celebrations with the
realization that "The Cold War is back."
In a very short span of history, the window that had finally opened for Russia and the United States to build a new international
system in which they work cooperatively to address areas of common interest had slammed back closed. How was that historic opportunity
wasted? Why was the road from the Nobel committee's hope to the UN's eulogy such a short one?
The doctrinal narrative that is told in the U.S. is the narrative of a very short road whose every turn was signposted by Russian
lies, betrayal, deception and aggression. The American telling of history is a tale in which every blow to the new peace was a Russian
blow. The fact checked version offers a demythologized history that is unrecognizably different. The demythologized version is also
a history of lies, betrayal, deception and aggression, but the liar, the aggressor, is not primarily Russia, but America. It is the
history of a promise so historically broken that it laid the foundation of a new cold war.
But it was not the first promise the United States broke: it was not even the first promise they broke in the new cold war.
The Hot War
Most histories of the cold war begin at the dawn of the post World War II period. But the history of U.S-U.S.S.R. animosity starts
long before that: it starts as soon as possible, and it was hot long before it turned cold.
The label "Red Scare" first appeared, not in the 1940s or 50s, but in 1919. Though it is a chapter seldom included in the history
of American-Russian relations, America actively and aggressively intervened in the Russian civil war in an attempt to push the Communists
back down. The United States cooperated with anti-Bolshevik forces: by mid 1918, President Woodrow Wilson had sent 13,000 American
troops to Soviet soil. They would remain there for two years, killing and injuring thousands. Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev would
later remind America of "the time you sent your troops to quell the revolution." Churchill would record for history the admission
that the West "shot Soviet Russians on sight," that they were "invaders on Russian soil," that "[t]hey armed the enemies of the Soviet
government," that "[t]hey blockaded its ports, and sunk its battleships. They earnestly desired and schemed for its downfall."
When the cause was lost, and the Bolsheviks secured power, most western countries refused to recognize the communist government.
However, realism prevailed, and within a few short years, by the mid 1920s, most countries had recognized the communist government
and restored diplomatic relations. All but the US It was not until several years later that Franklin D. Roosevelt finally recognized
the Soviet government in 1933.
The Cold War
It would be a very short time before the diplomatic relations that followed the hot war would be followed by a cold war. It might
even be possible to pin the beginning of the cold war down to a specific date. On April 22 and 23, President Truman told Soviet foreign
minister Vyacheslav Molotov to "Carry out his agreement" and establish a new, free, independent government in Poland as promised
at Yalta. Molotov was stunned. He was stunned because it was not he that was breaking the agreement because that was not what Roosevelt,
Churchill and Stalin had agreed to at Yalta. The final wording of the Yalta agreement never mentioned replacing Soviet control of
Poland.
The agreement that Roosevelt revealed to congress and shared with the world – the one that still dominates the textbook accounts
and the media stories – is not the one he secretly shook on with Stalin. Roosevelt lied to congress and the American people. Then
he lied to Stalin.
In exchange for Soviet support for the creation of the United Nations, Roosevelt secretly agreed to Soviet predominance in Poland
and Eastern Europe. The cold war story that the Soviet Union marched into Eastern Europe and stole it for itself is a lie: Roosevelt
handed it to them.
So did Churchill. If Roosevelt's motivation was getting the UN, Churchill's was getting Greece. Fearing that the Soviet Union
would invade India and the oil fields of Iran, Churchill saw Greece as the geographical roadblock and determined to hold on to it
at all cost. The cost, it turned out, was Romania. Churchill would give Stalin Romania to protect his borders; Stalin would give
Churchill Greece to protect his empire's borders. The deal was sealed on October 9, 1944.
Churchill says that in their secret meeting, he asked Stalin, "how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in
Romania, for us to have ninety percent predominance in Greece? . . ." He then went on to offer a fifty-fifty power split in in Yugoslavia
and Hungary and to offer the Soviets seventy-five percent control of Bulgaria. The exact conversation may never have happened, according
to the political record, but Churchill's account captures the spirit and certainly captures the secret agreement.
Contrary to the official narrative, Stalin never betrayed the west and stole Eastern Europe: Poland, Romania and the rest were
given to him in secret. Then Roosevelt lied to congress and to the world.
That American lie raised the curtain on the cold war.
The New Cold War
Like the Cold War, the new cold war was triggered by an American lie. It was a lie so duplicitous, so all encompassing, that
it would lead many Russians to see the agreement that ended the cold war as a devastating and humiliating deception that was really
intended to clear the way for the US to surround and finally defeat the Soviet Union. It was a lie that tilled the soil for all future
"Russian aggression."
At the close of the cold war, at a meeting held on February 9, 1990, George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State, James Baker, promised
Gorbachev that if NATO got Germany and Russia pulled its troops out of East Germany, NATO would not expand east of Germany and engulf
the former Soviet states. Gorbachev records in his memoirs that he agreed to Baker's terms "with the guarantee that NATO jurisdiction
or troops would not extend east of the current line." In Super-power Illusions , Jack F. Matlock Jr., who was the American
ambassador to Russia at the time and was present at the meeting, confirms Gorbachev's account, saying that it "coincides with my
notes of the conversation except that mine indicate that Baker added "not one inch." Matlock adds that Gorbachev was assured that
NATO would not move into Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact moved out, that "the understanding at Malta [was] that the United States
would not 'take advantage' of a Soviet military withdrawal from Eastern Europe." At the February 9 meeting, Baker assured Gorbachev
that "neither the President or I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place."
But the promise was not made just once, and it was not made just by the United States. The promise was made on two consecutive
days: first by the Americans and then by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. According to West German foreign ministry documents,
on February 10, 1990, the day after James Baker's promise, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher told his Soviet counterpart
Eduard Shevardnadze "'For us . . . one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.' And because the conversation revolved
mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: 'As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.'"
A few days earlier, on January 31, 1990, Genscher had said in a major speech that there would not be "an expansion of NATO territory
to the east, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union."
Gorbachev says the promise was made not to expand NATO "as much as a thumb's width further to the east." Putin also says mourns
the broken promise, asking at a conference in Munich in February 2007, "What happened to the assurances our Western partners made
after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them."
Putin went on to remind his audience of the assurances by pointing out that the existence of the NATO promise is not just the
perception of him and Gorbachev. It was also the view of the NATO General Secretary at the time: "But I will allow myself to remind
this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. [Manfred] Woerner in Brussels on 17 May
1990. He said at the time that: 'The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet
Union a firm security guarantee.' Where are those guarantees?"
Recent scholarship supports the Russian version of the story. Russian expert and Professor of Russian and European Politics at
the University of Kent, Richard Sakwa says that "[r]ecent studies demonstrate that the commitment not to enlarge NATO covered the
whole former Soviet bloc and not just East Germany." And Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Politics at Princeton University and
of Russian Studies and History at New York University, adds that the National Security Archive has now published the actual
documents detailing what Gorbachev was promised. Published on December 12, 2017, the documents finally, and authoritatively,
reveal that "The truth, and the promises broken, are much more expansive than previously known: all of the Western powers involved
– the US, the UK, France, Germany itself – made the same promise to Gorbachev on multiple occasions and in various emphatic ways."
That key promise made to Gorbachev was shattered, first by President Clinton and then subsequently supported by every American
President: NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia
and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, most recently, Montenegro.
It was this shattered promise, this primal betrayal, this NATO expansion to Russia's borders that created the conditions and causes
of future conflicts and aggressions. When, in 2008, NATO promised Georgia and Ukraine eventual membership, Russia saw the threat
of NATO encroaching right to its borders. It is in Georgia and Ukraine that Russia felt it had to draw the line with NATO encroachment
into its core sphere of influence. Sakwa says that the war in Georgia was "the first war to stop NATO enlargement; Ukraine was the
second." What are often cited as acts of Russian aggression that helped maintain the new cold war are properly understood as acts
of Russian defense against US aggression that made a lie out of the promise that ended the Cold War.
When Clinton decided to break Bush's promise and betray Russia, George Kennen, father of the containment policy,
warned that NATO expansion would be
"the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-cold-war era." "Such a decision," he prophesied, "may be expected
to . . . restore the atmosphere of the cold war in East-West relations . . .."
The broken promise restored the cold war. Though it is the most significant root of the new cold war, it was not the first. There
was a prior broken promise, and this time the man who betrayed Russia was President H.W. Bush.
The end of the Cold War resulted from negotiations and not from any sort of military victory. Stephen Cohen says that "Presidents
Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated with the last Soviet Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, what they said was the end of the
Cold War on the shared, expressed premise that it was ending 'with no losers, only winners.'"
The end of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union occurred so closely chronologically that it permitted the American mythologizers
to conflate them in the public imagination and create the doctrinal history in which the US defeat of the Soviet Union ended the
cold war. But the US did not defeat the Soviet Union. Gorbachev brought about what Sakwa calls a "self-willed disintegration of the
Soviet bloc." The Soviet Union came to an end, not by external force or pressure, but out of Gorbachev's recognition of the Soviet
Union's own self interest. Matlock flatly states that "pressure from governments outside the Soviet Union, whether from America or
Europe or anywhere else, had nothing to do with [the Soviet collapse]." "Cohen demythologizes the history by reinstating the chronological
order: Gorbachev negotiated the end of the cold war "well before the disintegration of the Soviet Union." The Cold War officially
ended well before the end of the Soviet Union with Gorbachev's December 7, 1988 address to the UN
Matlock says that "Gorbachev is right when he says that we all won the Cold War." He says that President Reagan would write in
his notes, "Let there be no talk of winners and losers." When Gorbachev compelled the countries of the Warsaw Pact to adopt reforms
like his perestroika in the Soviet Union and warmed them that the Soviet army would no longer be there to keep their communist
regimes in power, Matlock points out in Superpower Illusions that "Bush assured Gorbachev that the United States would not
claim victory if the Eastern Europeans were allowed to replace the Communist regimes that had been imposed on them." Both the reality
and the promise were that there was no winner of the Cold War: it was a negotiated peace that was in the interest of both countries.
When in 1992, during his losing re-election campaign, President Bush arrogantly boasted that "We won the Cold War!" he broke his
own promise to Gorbachev and helped plant the roots of the new cold war. "In psychological and political terms," Matlock says, "President
Bush planted a landmine under the future U.S.-Russian relationship" when he broke his promise and made that claim.
Bush's broken promise had two significant effects. Psychologically, it created the appearance in the Russian psyche that Gorbachev
had been tricked by America: it eroded trust in America and in the new peace. Politically, it created in the American psyche the
false idea that Russia was a defeated country whose sphere of interest did not need to be considered. Both these perceptions contributed
to the new cold war.
Not only was the broken promise of NATO expansion not the first broken American promise, it was also not the last. In 1997, when
President Clinton made the decision to expand NATO much more than an inch to the east, he at least signed the
Russia-NATO Founding Act , which explicitly
promised that as NATO expanded east, there would be no "permanent stationing of substantial combat forces." This obliterated American
promise planted the third root of the new cold war.
Since that third promise, NATO has, in the words of Stephen Cohen, built up its "permanent land, sea and air power near Russian
territory, along with missile-defense installations." US and NATO weapons and troops have butted right up against Russia's borders,
while anti-missile installations have surrounded it, leading to the feeling of betrayal in Russia and the fear of aggression. Among
the earliest moves of the Trump administration were the moving of NATO troops into Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and nearby Norway.
Mikhail Gorbachev, who offered the West Russia and cooperation in place of the Soviet Union and Cold War, was rewarded with lies,
broken promises and betrayal. That was the sowing of the first seeds of the new cold war. The second planting happened during the
Yeltsin years that followed. During this stage, the Russian people were betrayed because their hopes for democracy and for an economic
system compatible with the West were both destroyed by American intervention.
The goal, Matlock too gently explains, "had to be a shift of the bulk of the economy to private ownership." What transpired was
what Naomi Klein called in The Shock Doctrine "one of the greatest crimes committed against a democracy in modern history."
The States allowed no gradual transition. Matlock says the "Western experts advised a clean break with the past and a transition
to private ownership without delay." But there was no legitimate private capital coming out of the communist system, so there was
no private money with which to privatize. So, there was only one place for the money to come. As Matlock explains, the urgent
transition allowed "privileged insiders[to] join the criminals who had been running a black market [and to] steal what they could,
as fast as they could." The sudden, uncompromising transition imposed on Russia by the United States enabled, according to Cohen,
"a small group of Kremlin-connected oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its
people into poverty and misery."
The rape of Russia was funded, overseen and ordered by the United States and handed over by President George H.W. Bush
to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Much of their advice, Matlock says generously, "was not only useless, but
sometimes actually damaging."
Sometimes damaging? In the first year, millions lost their entire life savings. Subsidy cuts meant that many Russians didn't get
paid at all. Klein says that by 1992, Russians were consuming 40% less than they were the year before, and one third of them had
suddenly sunk below the poverty line. The economic policies wrestled onto Russia by the US and the transition experts and international
development experts it funded and sent over led to, what Cohen calls, "the near ruination of Russia." Russia's reward for ending
the Cold War and joining the Western economic community was, in Cohen's words, "the worst economic depression in peacetime, the disintegration
of the highly professionalized Soviet middle class, mass poverty, plunging life expectancy [for men, it had fallen below sixty],
the fostering of an oligarchic financial elite, the plundering of Russia's wealth, and more."
By the time Putin came to power in 2000, Cohen says, "some 75% of Russians were living in poverty." 75%! Millions and millions
of Russian lives were destroyed by the American welcoming of Russia into the global economic community.
But before Putin came to power, there was more Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a necessity for Clinton and the United States because
Yeltsin was the pliable puppet who would continue to enforce the cruel economic transition. But to continue the interference in,
and betrayal of, the Russian people economically, it would now be necessary to interfere in and betray the Russian democracy.
In late 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin won a year of special powers from the Russian Parliament: for
one year, he was to be, in effect, the dictator of Russia to facilitate the midwifery of the birth of a democratic Russia. In March
of 1992, under pressure from the, by now, impoverished, devastated and discontented population, parliament repealed the dictatorial
powers it had granted him. Yeltsin responded by declaring a state of emergency, re-bestowing upon himself the repealed dictatorial
powers. Russia's Constitutional Court ruled that Yeltsin was acting outside the constitution. But the US sided – against the Russian
people and against the Russian Constitutional Court – with Yeltsin.
Intoxicated with American support, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament that had rescinded his powers and abolished the constitution
of which he was in violation. In a 636-2 vote, the Russian parliament impeached Yeltsin. But, President Clinton again sided with
Yeltsin against the Russian people and the Russian law, backed him and gave him $2.5 billion in aid. Clinton was blocking the Russian
people's choice of leaders.
Yeltsin took the money and sent police officers and elite paratroopers to surround the parliament building. Clinton "praised the
Russian President has (sic) having done 'quite well' in managing the standoff with the Russian Parliament," as The New York Timesreported at the time.
Clinton added that he thought "the United States and the free world ought to hang in there" with their support of Yeltsin against
his people, their constitution and their courts, and judged Yeltsin to be "on the right side of history."
On the right side of history and armed with machine guns and tanks, in October 1993, Yeltsin's troops opened fire on the crowd
of protesters, killing about 100 people before setting the Russian parliament building on fire. By the time the day was over, Yeltsin's
troops had killed approximately 500 people and wounded nearly 1,000. Still, Clinton stood with Yeltsin. He provided
ludicrous cover for Yeltsin's
massacre , claiming that "I don't see that he had any choice . If such a thing happened in the United States, you would have
expected me to take tough action against it." Clinton's Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, said that the US supported Yeltsin's
suspension of parliament in these "extraordinary times."
In 1996, elections were looming, and America's hegemonic dreams still needed Yeltsin in power. But it wasn't going to happen without
help. Yeltsin's popularity was nonexistent, and his approval rating was at about 6%. According to Cohen, Clinton's interference in
Russian politics, his "crusade" to "reform Russia," had by now become
official policy . And so, America
boldly interfered directly in Russian elections . Three American political consultants, receiving "direct assistance from Bill
Clinton's White House," secretly ran Yeltsin's reelection campaign.
As Time magazine
broke the story , "For four months, a group of American political consultants clandestinely participated in guiding Yeltsin's
campaign."
"Funded by the US government," Cohen reports, Americans "gave money to favored Russian politicians, instructed ministers,
drafted legislation and presidential decrees, underwrote textbooks, and served at Yeltsin's reelection headquarters in 1996."
More incriminating still is that Richard Dresner, one of the three American consultants, maintained a direct line to Clinton's
Chief Strategist, Dick Morris. According to
reporting by Sean Guillory , in his book, Behind the Oval Office , Morris says that, with Clinton's approval, he received
weekly briefings from Dresner that he would give to Clinton. Based on those briefings, Clinton would then provide recommendations
to Dresner through Morris.
The US not only helped run Yeltsin's campaign, they helped pay for it. The US backed a $10.2 billion International Monetary Fund
(IMF) loan for Russia, the second-biggest loan the IMF had ever given. The New York Timesreported
that the loan was "expected to be helpful to President Boris N. Yeltsin in the presidential election in June." The Times explained
that the loan was "a vote of confidence" for Yeltsin who "has been lagging well behind in opinion polls" and added that the US Treasury
Secretary "welcomed the fund's decision."
Yeltsin won the election by 13%, and Time magazine's cover declared: "Yanks to the rescue: The secret story of how American
advisers helped Yeltsin win". Cohen reports that the US ambassador to Russia boasted that "without our leadership we would see a
considerably different Russia today." That's a confession of election interference.
Asserting its right as the unipolar victor of a Cold War it never won, betraying the central promise of the negotiated end
of the cold war by engulfing Russia's neighbors, arming those nations against its written and signed word and stealing all Russian
hope in capitalism and democracy by kidnapping and torturing Russian capitalism and democracy, the roots of the new cold war were
not planted by Russian lies and aggression, as the doctrinal Western version teaches, but by the American lies and aggression that
the fact checked, demythologized version of history reveals.
Ted Snider writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.
An Iranian parliamentary faction has come up with the idea of establishing a club of
sanctioned countries for concerted action against the US economic terrorism.
The chairman of the Parliament's faction on countering sanctions, Poormokhtar, gave a report
on the formation of the faction and its activities, as well as the ongoing efforts to establish
the club of sanctioned countries. Iran's FM, Zaraf, said this would be enhancing the already
existing alliance of Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela against US economic
terrorism.
PressTV: Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela are among the nations that have
come out against the United States' use of sanctions to enforce its foreign policy around the
world. In what ways can they fight these US sanctions as a group?
Peter Koenig: Brilliant idea! Solidarity makes stronger and eventually will attract other
countries who are sick and tired of the US sanction regime, and since they have the backing of
Russia and China, that's a very strong alliance, especially an economic alliance. The sanction
regime can only be broken through economics, meaning decoupling from the western monetary
system. I said this before and say it again, at the risk of repeating myself.
After all, China is the world's largest and strongest economy in Purchasing Power GDP
measures which is the only comparison that really counts. I believe this solidarity alliance
against US sanctions is certainly worth a trial.
And personally, I think it will be a successful trial, as more countries will join, possibly
even non-sanctioned ones, out of solidarity against a common tyrant.
The countries in solidarity against sanctions, in addition to ignoring them -- and the more
they ignore them, the more other countries will follow-suit -- that's logical as fear
disappears and solidarity grows.
For example, Iran and Venezuela, oil exporting countries, could accompany their tankers by
war ships. Yes, it's an extra cost, but think of it as temporary and as a long-term gain. Would
"Grace I" have been accompanied by an Iranian war ship the Brits would not have dared
confiscating it. That's for sure.
PressTV: Many of the US sanctions have led to death of civilians in those particular
countries. At the same time, sanctions have also led to the improvement of these countries to
the point where domestic production in various fields advanced. Don't sanctions become
country-productive to US aims?'
PK: Of course, the sanctions are counter-productive. They have helped Russia to become
food-self-sufficient, for example. That was not Washington's intention and less so the
intention of the EU, who followed Washington's dictate like puppets.
Sanctions are like a last effort before the fall of the empire, to cause as much human
damage as possible, to pull other nations down with the dying beast. It has always been like
that starting with the Romans through the Ottoman's. They realize their time has come but can't
see a world living in peace. So they must plant as much unrest and misery as possible before
they disappear
That's precisely what's happening with the US.
Intimidation, building more and more military bases, all with fake money, as we know the
dollar is worth nothing – FIAT money – that the world still accepts but less
and less so, therefore military bases, deadly sanctions, and trade wars. Trump knows that a
trade war against China is a lost cause. Still, he can intimidate other countries by insisting
on a trade war with China or that's what he thinks.
PressTV: The more countries US sanctions, illegally, more people turn against the US:
doesn't that defeat the US so-called fight against terrorism and violence?
PK: Well, US sanction and the entire scheme of US aggression has nothing to do with fighting
terrorism, as you know. It's nothing but expanding US hegemony over the world, and if needed,
and more often than not, the US finances terrorism to fight proxy wars against their so-called
enemies, meaning anybody not conforming to their wishes and not wanting to submit to their
orders and not letting them exploit – or rather steal – their natural
resources.
Syria is a case in point. ISIL is funded and armed by the Pentagon, who buys Serbian
produced weapon to channel them through the Mid-East allies to Syrian terrorists, the ISIL or
similar kinds with different names -- just to confuse.
Venezuela too – the opposition consist basically of US trained, financed and armed
opposition "leaders" – who do not want to participate in totally democratic elections
– order of the US – boycott them. But as we have seen as of this day, the various
coup attempts by the US against their legitimate and democratically elected President,
Nicolás Maduro, have failed bitterly, and this despite the most severe sanctions regime
South American has known, except for Cuba, against whom the US crime has been perpetuated for
60 years.
So, nobody should have the illusion that Washington's wars are against terrorism. Washington
is THE terrorist regime that fights for world hegemony.
"... Like the Cold War, the new cold war was triggered by an American lie. It was a lie so duplicitous, so all encompassing, that it would lead many Russians to see the agreement that ended the cold war as a devastating and humiliating deception that was really intended to clear the way for the US to surround and finally defeat the Soviet Union. It was a lie that tilled the soil for all future "Russian aggression." ..."
"... That key promise made to Gorbachev was shattered, first by President Clinton and then subsequently supported by every American President: NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, most recently, Montenegro. ..."
"... When Clinton decided to break Bush's promise and betray Russia, George Kennen, father of the containment policy, warned that NATO expansion would be "the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-cold-war era." "Such a decision," he prophesied, "may be expected to . . . restore the atmosphere of the cold war in East-West relations . . .." ..."
"... As Matlock explains, the urgent transition allowed "privileged insiders[to] join the criminals who had been running a black market [and to] steal what they could, as fast as they could." The sudden, uncompromising transition imposed on Russia by the United States enabled, according to Cohen, "a small group of Kremlin-connected oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty and misery." ..."
"... The rape of Russia was funded, overseen and ordered by the United States and handed over by President George H.W. Bush to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Much of their advice, Matlock says generously, "was not only useless, but sometimes actually damaging." ..."
"... The economic policies wrestled onto Russia by the US and the transition experts and international development experts it funded and sent over led to, what Cohen calls, "the near ruination of Russia." Russia's reward for ending the Cold War and joining the Western economic community was, in Cohen's words, "the worst economic depression in peacetime, the disintegration of the highly professionalized Soviet middle class, mass poverty, plunging life expectancy [for men, it had fallen below sixty], the fostering of an oligarchic financial elite, the plundering of Russia's wealth, and more." ..."
"... By the time Putin came to power in 2000, Cohen says, "some 75% of Russians were living in poverty." 75%! Millions and millions of Russian lives were destroyed by the American welcoming of Russia into the global economic community. ..."
"... But before Putin came to power, there was more Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a necessity for Clinton and the United States because Yeltsin was the pliable puppet who would continue to enforce the cruel economic transition. But to continue the interference in, and betrayal of, the Russian people economically, it would now be necessary to interfere in and betray the Russian democracy. ..."
"... Intoxicated with American support, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament that had rescinded his powers and abolished the constitution of which he was in violation. In a 636-2 vote, the Russian parliament impeached Yeltsin. But, President Clinton again sided with Yeltsin against the Russian people and the Russian law, backed him and gave him $2.5 billion in aid. Clinton was blocking the Russian people's choice of leaders. ..."
"... "Funded by the US government," Cohen reports, Americans "gave money to favored Russian politicians, instructed ministers, drafted legislation and presidential decrees, underwrote textbooks, and served at Yeltsin's reelection headquarters in 1996." ..."
"... Asserting its right as the unipolar victor of a Cold War it never won, betraying the central promise of the negotiated end of the cold war by engulfing Russia's neighbors, arming those nations against its written and signed word and stealing all Russian hope in capitalism and democracy by kidnapping and torturing Russian capitalism and democracy, the roots of the new cold war were not planted by Russian lies and aggression, as the doctrinal Western version teaches, but by the American lies and aggression that the fact checked, demythologized version of history reveals. ..."
When Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev received his peace prize in 1990, the Nobel Prize committee
declared that "the two mighty power blocs,
have managed to abandon their life-threatening confrontation" and confidently expressed that "It is our hope that we are now celebrating
the end of the Cold War." Recently, U.N. General Secretary António Guterres funereally closed the celebrations with the
realization that "The Cold War is back."
In a very short span of history, the window that had finally opened for Russia and the United States to build a new international
system in which they work cooperatively to address areas of common interest had slammed back closed. How was that historic opportunity
wasted? Why was the road from the Nobel committee's hope to the UN's eulogy such a short one?
The doctrinal narrative that is told in the U.S. is the narrative of a very short road whose every turn was signposted by Russian
lies, betrayal, deception and aggression. The American telling of history is a tale in which every blow to the new peace was a Russian
blow. The fact checked version offers a demythologized history that is unrecognizably different. The demythologized version is also
a history of lies, betrayal, deception and aggression, but the liar, the aggressor, is not primarily Russia, but America. It is the
history of a promise so historically broken that it laid the foundation of a new cold war.
But it was not the first promise the United States broke: it was not even the first promise they broke in the new cold war.
The Hot War
Most histories of the cold war begin at the dawn of the post World War II period. But the history of U.S-U.S.S.R. animosity starts
long before that: it starts as soon as possible, and it was hot long before it turned cold.
The label "Red Scare" first appeared, not in the 1940s or 50s, but in 1919. Though it is a chapter seldom included in the history
of American-Russian relations, America actively and aggressively intervened in the Russian civil war in an attempt to push the Communists
back down. The United States cooperated with anti-Bolshevik forces: by mid 1918, President Woodrow Wilson had sent 13,000 American
troops to Soviet soil. They would remain there for two years, killing and injuring thousands. Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev would
later remind America of "the time you sent your troops to quell the revolution." Churchill would record for history the admission
that the West "shot Soviet Russians on sight," that they were "invaders on Russian soil," that "[t]hey armed the enemies of the Soviet
government," that "[t]hey blockaded its ports, and sunk its battleships. They earnestly desired and schemed for its downfall."
When the cause was lost, and the Bolsheviks secured power, most western countries refused to recognize the communist government.
However, realism prevailed, and within a few short years, by the mid 1920s, most countries had recognized the communist government
and restored diplomatic relations. All but the US It was not until several years later that Franklin D. Roosevelt finally recognized
the Soviet government in 1933.
The Cold War
It would be a very short time before the diplomatic relations that followed the hot war would be followed by a cold war. It might
even be possible to pin the beginning of the cold war down to a specific date. On April 22 and 23, President Truman told Soviet foreign
minister Vyacheslav Molotov to "Carry out his agreement" and establish a new, free, independent government in Poland as promised
at Yalta. Molotov was stunned. He was stunned because it was not he that was breaking the agreement because that was not what Roosevelt,
Churchill and Stalin had agreed to at Yalta. The final wording of the Yalta agreement never mentioned replacing Soviet control of
Poland.
The agreement that Roosevelt revealed to congress and shared with the world – the one that still dominates the textbook accounts
and the media stories – is not the one he secretly shook on with Stalin. Roosevelt lied to congress and the American people. Then
he lied to Stalin.
In exchange for Soviet support for the creation of the United Nations, Roosevelt secretly agreed to Soviet predominance in Poland
and Eastern Europe. The cold war story that the Soviet Union marched into Eastern Europe and stole it for itself is a lie: Roosevelt
handed it to them.
So did Churchill. If Roosevelt's motivation was getting the UN, Churchill's was getting Greece. Fearing that the Soviet Union
would invade India and the oil fields of Iran, Churchill saw Greece as the geographical roadblock and determined to hold on to it
at all cost. The cost, it turned out, was Romania. Churchill would give Stalin Romania to protect his borders; Stalin would give
Churchill Greece to protect his empire's borders. The deal was sealed on October 9, 1944.
Churchill says that in their secret meeting, he asked Stalin, "how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in
Romania, for us to have ninety percent predominance in Greece? . . ." He then went on to offer a fifty-fifty power split in in Yugoslavia
and Hungary and to offer the Soviets seventy-five percent control of Bulgaria. The exact conversation may never have happened, according
to the political record, but Churchill's account captures the spirit and certainly captures the secret agreement.
Contrary to the official narrative, Stalin never betrayed the west and stole Eastern Europe: Poland, Romania and the rest were
given to him in secret. Then Roosevelt lied to congress and to the world.
That American lie raised the curtain on the cold war.
The New Cold War
Like the Cold War, the new cold war was triggered by an American lie. It was a lie so duplicitous, so all encompassing, that
it would lead many Russians to see the agreement that ended the cold war as a devastating and humiliating deception that was really
intended to clear the way for the US to surround and finally defeat the Soviet Union. It was a lie that tilled the soil for all future
"Russian aggression."
At the close of the cold war, at a meeting held on February 9, 1990, George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State, James Baker, promised
Gorbachev that if NATO got Germany and Russia pulled its troops out of East Germany, NATO would not expand east of Germany and engulf
the former Soviet states. Gorbachev records in his memoirs that he agreed to Baker's terms "with the guarantee that NATO jurisdiction
or troops would not extend east of the current line." In Super-power Illusions , Jack F. Matlock Jr., who was the American
ambassador to Russia at the time and was present at the meeting, confirms Gorbachev's account, saying that it "coincides with my
notes of the conversation except that mine indicate that Baker added "not one inch." Matlock adds that Gorbachev was assured that
NATO would not move into Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact moved out, that "the understanding at Malta [was] that the United States
would not 'take advantage' of a Soviet military withdrawal from Eastern Europe." At the February 9 meeting, Baker assured Gorbachev
that "neither the President or I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place."
But the promise was not made just once, and it was not made just by the United States. The promise was made on two consecutive
days: first by the Americans and then by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. According to West German foreign ministry documents,
on February 10, 1990, the day after James Baker's promise, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher told his Soviet counterpart
Eduard Shevardnadze "'For us . . . one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.' And because the conversation revolved
mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: 'As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.'"
A few days earlier, on January 31, 1990, Genscher had said in a major speech that there would not be "an expansion of NATO territory
to the east, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union."
Gorbachev says the promise was made not to expand NATO "as much as a thumb's width further to the east." Putin also says mourns
the broken promise, asking at a conference in Munich in February 2007, "What happened to the assurances our Western partners made
after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them."
Putin went on to remind his audience of the assurances by pointing out that the existence of the NATO promise is not just the
perception of him and Gorbachev. It was also the view of the NATO General Secretary at the time: "But I will allow myself to remind
this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. [Manfred] Woerner in Brussels on 17 May
1990. He said at the time that: 'The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet
Union a firm security guarantee.' Where are those guarantees?"
Recent scholarship supports the Russian version of the story. Russian expert and Professor of Russian and European Politics at
the University of Kent, Richard Sakwa says that "[r]ecent studies demonstrate that the commitment not to enlarge NATO covered the
whole former Soviet bloc and not just East Germany." And Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Politics at Princeton University and
of Russian Studies and History at New York University, adds that the National Security Archive has now published the actual
documents detailing what Gorbachev was promised. Published on December 12, 2017, the documents finally, and authoritatively,
reveal that "The truth, and the promises broken, are much more expansive than previously known: all of the Western powers involved
– the US, the UK, France, Germany itself – made the same promise to Gorbachev on multiple occasions and in various emphatic ways."
That key promise made to Gorbachev was shattered, first by President Clinton and then subsequently supported by every American
President: NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia
and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, most recently, Montenegro.
It was this shattered promise, this primal betrayal, this NATO expansion to Russia's borders that created the conditions and causes
of future conflicts and aggressions. When, in 2008, NATO promised Georgia and Ukraine eventual membership, Russia saw the threat
of NATO encroaching right to its borders. It is in Georgia and Ukraine that Russia felt it had to draw the line with NATO encroachment
into its core sphere of influence. Sakwa says that the war in Georgia was "the first war to stop NATO enlargement; Ukraine was the
second." What are often cited as acts of Russian aggression that helped maintain the new cold war are properly understood as acts
of Russian defense against US aggression that made a lie out of the promise that ended the Cold War.
When Clinton decided to break Bush's promise and betray Russia, George Kennen, father of the containment policy,
warned that NATO expansion would be
"the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-cold-war era." "Such a decision," he prophesied, "may be expected
to . . . restore the atmosphere of the cold war in East-West relations . . .."
The broken promise restored the cold war. Though it is the most significant root of the new cold war, it was not the first. There
was a prior broken promise, and this time the man who betrayed Russia was President H.W. Bush.
The end of the Cold War resulted from negotiations and not from any sort of military victory. Stephen Cohen says that "Presidents
Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated with the last Soviet Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, what they said was the end of the
Cold War on the shared, expressed premise that it was ending 'with no losers, only winners.'"
The end of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union occurred so closely chronologically that it permitted the American mythologizers
to conflate them in the public imagination and create the doctrinal history in which the US defeat of the Soviet Union ended the
cold war. But the US did not defeat the Soviet Union. Gorbachev brought about what Sakwa calls a "self-willed disintegration of the
Soviet bloc." The Soviet Union came to an end, not by external force or pressure, but out of Gorbachev's recognition of the Soviet
Union's own self interest. Matlock flatly states that "pressure from governments outside the Soviet Union, whether from America or
Europe or anywhere else, had nothing to do with [the Soviet collapse]." "Cohen demythologizes the history by reinstating the chronological
order: Gorbachev negotiated the end of the cold war "well before the disintegration of the Soviet Union." The Cold War officially
ended well before the end of the Soviet Union with Gorbachev's December 7, 1988 address to the UN
Matlock says that "Gorbachev is right when he says that we all won the Cold War." He says that President Reagan would write in
his notes, "Let there be no talk of winners and losers." When Gorbachev compelled the countries of the Warsaw Pact to adopt reforms
like his perestroika in the Soviet Union and warmed them that the Soviet army would no longer be there to keep their communist
regimes in power, Matlock points out in Superpower Illusions that "Bush assured Gorbachev that the United States would not
claim victory if the Eastern Europeans were allowed to replace the Communist regimes that had been imposed on them." Both the reality
and the promise were that there was no winner of the Cold War: it was a negotiated peace that was in the interest of both countries.
When in 1992, during his losing re-election campaign, President Bush arrogantly boasted that "We won the Cold War!" he broke his
own promise to Gorbachev and helped plant the roots of the new cold war. "In psychological and political terms," Matlock says, "President
Bush planted a landmine under the future U.S.-Russian relationship" when he broke his promise and made that claim.
Bush's broken promise had two significant effects. Psychologically, it created the appearance in the Russian psyche that Gorbachev
had been tricked by America: it eroded trust in America and in the new peace. Politically, it created in the American psyche the
false idea that Russia was a defeated country whose sphere of interest did not need to be considered. Both these perceptions contributed
to the new cold war.
Not only was the broken promise of NATO expansion not the first broken American promise, it was also not the last. In 1997, when
President Clinton made the decision to expand NATO much more than an inch to the east, he at least signed the
Russia-NATO Founding Act , which explicitly
promised that as NATO expanded east, there would be no "permanent stationing of substantial combat forces." This obliterated American
promise planted the third root of the new cold war.
Since that third promise, NATO has, in the words of Stephen Cohen, built up its "permanent land, sea and air power near Russian
territory, along with missile-defense installations." US and NATO weapons and troops have butted right up against Russia's borders,
while anti-missile installations have surrounded it, leading to the feeling of betrayal in Russia and the fear of aggression. Among
the earliest moves of the Trump administration were the moving of NATO troops into Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and nearby Norway.
Mikhail Gorbachev, who offered the West Russia and cooperation in place of the Soviet Union and Cold War, was rewarded with lies,
broken promises and betrayal. That was the sowing of the first seeds of the new cold war. The second planting happened during the
Yeltsin years that followed. During this stage, the Russian people were betrayed because their hopes for democracy and for an economic
system compatible with the West were both destroyed by American intervention.
The goal, Matlock too gently explains, "had to be a shift of the bulk of the economy to private ownership." What transpired was
what Naomi Klein called in The Shock Doctrine "one of the greatest crimes committed against a democracy in modern history."
The States allowed no gradual transition. Matlock says the "Western experts advised a clean break with the past and a transition
to private ownership without delay." But there was no legitimate private capital coming out of the communist system, so there was
no private money with which to privatize. So, there was only one place for the money to come. As Matlock explains, the urgent
transition allowed "privileged insiders[to] join the criminals who had been running a black market [and to] steal what they could,
as fast as they could." The sudden, uncompromising transition imposed on Russia by the United States enabled, according to Cohen,
"a small group of Kremlin-connected oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its
people into poverty and misery."
The rape of Russia was funded, overseen and ordered by the United States and handed over by President George H.W. Bush
to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Much of their advice, Matlock says generously, "was not only useless, but
sometimes actually damaging."
Sometimes damaging? In the first year, millions lost their entire life savings. Subsidy cuts meant that many Russians didn't get
paid at all. Klein says that by 1992, Russians were consuming 40% less than they were the year before, and one third of them had
suddenly sunk below the poverty line. The economic policies wrestled onto Russia by the US and the transition experts and international
development experts it funded and sent over led to, what Cohen calls, "the near ruination of Russia." Russia's reward for ending
the Cold War and joining the Western economic community was, in Cohen's words, "the worst economic depression in peacetime, the disintegration
of the highly professionalized Soviet middle class, mass poverty, plunging life expectancy [for men, it had fallen below sixty],
the fostering of an oligarchic financial elite, the plundering of Russia's wealth, and more."
By the time Putin came to power in 2000, Cohen says, "some 75% of Russians were living in poverty." 75%! Millions and millions
of Russian lives were destroyed by the American welcoming of Russia into the global economic community.
But before Putin came to power, there was more Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a necessity for Clinton and the United States because
Yeltsin was the pliable puppet who would continue to enforce the cruel economic transition. But to continue the interference in,
and betrayal of, the Russian people economically, it would now be necessary to interfere in and betray the Russian democracy.
In late 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin won a year of special powers from the Russian Parliament: for
one year, he was to be, in effect, the dictator of Russia to facilitate the midwifery of the birth of a democratic Russia. In March
of 1992, under pressure from the, by now, impoverished, devastated and discontented population, parliament repealed the dictatorial
powers it had granted him. Yeltsin responded by declaring a state of emergency, re-bestowing upon himself the repealed dictatorial
powers. Russia's Constitutional Court ruled that Yeltsin was acting outside the constitution. But the US sided – against the Russian
people and against the Russian Constitutional Court – with Yeltsin.
Intoxicated with American support, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament that had rescinded his powers and abolished the constitution
of which he was in violation. In a 636-2 vote, the Russian parliament impeached Yeltsin. But, President Clinton again sided with
Yeltsin against the Russian people and the Russian law, backed him and gave him $2.5 billion in aid. Clinton was blocking the Russian
people's choice of leaders.
Yeltsin took the money and sent police officers and elite paratroopers to surround the parliament building. Clinton "praised the
Russian President has (sic) having done 'quite well' in managing the standoff with the Russian Parliament," as The New York Timesreported at the time.
Clinton added that he thought "the United States and the free world ought to hang in there" with their support of Yeltsin against
his people, their constitution and their courts, and judged Yeltsin to be "on the right side of history."
On the right side of history and armed with machine guns and tanks, in October 1993, Yeltsin's troops opened fire on the crowd
of protesters, killing about 100 people before setting the Russian parliament building on fire. By the time the day was over, Yeltsin's
troops had killed approximately 500 people and wounded nearly 1,000. Still, Clinton stood with Yeltsin. He provided
ludicrous cover for Yeltsin's
massacre , claiming that "I don't see that he had any choice . If such a thing happened in the United States, you would have
expected me to take tough action against it." Clinton's Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, said that the US supported Yeltsin's
suspension of parliament in these "extraordinary times."
In 1996, elections were looming, and America's hegemonic dreams still needed Yeltsin in power. But it wasn't going to happen without
help. Yeltsin's popularity was nonexistent, and his approval rating was at about 6%. According to Cohen, Clinton's interference in
Russian politics, his "crusade" to "reform Russia," had by now become
official policy . And so, America
boldly interfered directly in Russian elections . Three American political consultants, receiving "direct assistance from Bill
Clinton's White House," secretly ran Yeltsin's reelection campaign.
As Time magazine
broke the story , "For four months, a group of American political consultants clandestinely participated in guiding Yeltsin's
campaign."
"Funded by the US government," Cohen reports, Americans "gave money to favored Russian politicians, instructed ministers,
drafted legislation and presidential decrees, underwrote textbooks, and served at Yeltsin's reelection headquarters in 1996."
More incriminating still is that Richard Dresner, one of the three American consultants, maintained a direct line to Clinton's
Chief Strategist, Dick Morris. According to
reporting by Sean Guillory , in his book, Behind the Oval Office , Morris says that, with Clinton's approval, he received
weekly briefings from Dresner that he would give to Clinton. Based on those briefings, Clinton would then provide recommendations
to Dresner through Morris.
The US not only helped run Yeltsin's campaign, they helped pay for it. The US backed a $10.2 billion International Monetary Fund
(IMF) loan for Russia, the second-biggest loan the IMF had ever given. The New York Timesreported
that the loan was "expected to be helpful to President Boris N. Yeltsin in the presidential election in June." The Times explained
that the loan was "a vote of confidence" for Yeltsin who "has been lagging well behind in opinion polls" and added that the US Treasury
Secretary "welcomed the fund's decision."
Yeltsin won the election by 13%, and Time magazine's cover declared: "Yanks to the rescue: The secret story of how American
advisers helped Yeltsin win". Cohen reports that the US ambassador to Russia boasted that "without our leadership we would see a
considerably different Russia today." That's a confession of election interference.
Asserting its right as the unipolar victor of a Cold War it never won, betraying the central promise of the negotiated end
of the cold war by engulfing Russia's neighbors, arming those nations against its written and signed word and stealing all Russian
hope in capitalism and democracy by kidnapping and torturing Russian capitalism and democracy, the roots of the new cold war were
not planted by Russian lies and aggression, as the doctrinal Western version teaches, but by the American lies and aggression that
the fact checked, demythologized version of history reveals.
Ted Snider writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.
The USA might eventually pay the price for the economic rape and alienation of Russia by
criminal Clinton and his coterie
Notable quotes:
"... Madeline "not so bright" Allbright was the first swan. As well as Clinton attempts to bankrupt and subdue Russia and criminal (in a sense of no permission from the UN) attack on Yugoslavia. Both backfired: Russia became permanently hostile. The fact he and his coterie were not yet tried by something like Nuremberg tribunal is only due to the USA dominance at this stage of history. ..."
"... The truth is that after the dissolution of the USSR the USA foreign policy became completely unhinged. And inside the country the elite became cannibalistic, as there was no external threat to its dominance in the form of the USSR. ..."
"... Still as an imperial state and the center of neoliberal empire the USA relies more on financial instruments and neoliberal comprador elite inside the country. ..."
"The US served as a benevolent hegemon, administering the occasional rap on the knuckles to
those acting in bad faith"
USA foreign policy since 70th was controlled by neocons who as a typical Trotskyites
(neoliberalism is actually Trotskyism for the rich) were/are hell-bent of world domination
and practice gangster capitalism in foreign policy.
Bolton attitude to UN is very symptomatic for the neocons as a whole.
Madeline "not so bright" Allbright was the first swan. As well as Clinton attempts to
bankrupt and subdue Russia and criminal (in a sense of no permission from the UN) attack on
Yugoslavia. Both backfired: Russia became permanently hostile. The fact he and his coterie
were not yet tried by something like Nuremberg tribunal is only due to the USA dominance at
this stage of history.
The truth is that after the dissolution of the USSR the USA foreign policy became
completely unhinged. And inside the country the elite became cannibalistic, as there was no
external threat to its dominance in the form of the USSR.
The USA stated to behave like a typical Imperial state (New Rome, or, more correctly,
London) accepting no rules/laws that are not written by themselves (and when it is convenient
to obey them) with the only difference from the classic imperial states that the hegemony it
not based on the military presence/occupation ( like was the case with British empire)
Although this is not completely true as there are 761 US Military Bases across the planet
and only 46 Countries with no US military presence. Of them, seven countries with 13 New
Military Bases were added since 09/11/2001.In 2001 the US had a quarter million troops posted
abroad.
Still as an imperial state and the center of neoliberal empire the USA relies more
on financial instruments and neoliberal comprador elite inside the country.
With the collapse of neoliberal ideology in 2008 the USA centered neoliberal empire
experiences first cracks. Brexit and election of Trump widened the cracks in a sense of
further legitimizing the ruling neoliberal elite (big middle finger for Hillary was addressed
to the elite as whole)
If oil price exceed $100 per barrel there will yet another crack or even repetition of the
2008 Great Recession on a new level (although we may argue that the Great Recession never
ended and just entered in Summers terms "permanent stagnation: phase)
Although currently with a bully at the helm the USA empire still going strong in forcing
vassals and competitors to reconsider their desire to challenge the USA that situation will
not last. Trump currently is trying to neutralize the treat from China by rejecting classic
neoliberal globalization mechanism as well as signed treaties like WTO. He might be
successful in the short run but in the "long run" that undermines the USA centered neoliberal
empire and speed up its demise. .
In the long run the future does not look too bright as crimes committed by the USA during
triumphal period of neoliberalism hangs like albatross around the USA neck.
EU now definitely wants to play its own game as Macron recently stated and which Merkel
tacitly supports. If EU allies with Russia it will became No.1 force in the world with the
USA No. 2. With severe consequences for the USA.
If Russia allied with China the USA Np.1 position will hinge of keeping EU vassals in
check and NATO in place. Without them it will became No.2 with fatal consequences for the
dollar as world reserve currency and sudden change of the USA financial position due to the
level of external debt and requires devaluation of the dollar.
Looks like 75 year after WWII the world started to self-organize a countervailing force
trying to tame the USA with some interest expressed by such players as EU, Russia, China,
India, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and even Saudi Arabia. As well as ( in the past; and possibly
in the future as neoliberal counterrevolutions in both countries probably will end badly) by
Brazil and Argentina.
Only Canada, Australia and probably UK can be counted as the reliable parts of the USA
empire. That's not much.
According to reports in both Israeli and Arabic regional media, Israel this past week was preparing
to expand major airstrikes against "Iran-backed" targets in Syria, but Moscow imposed its red
line.
The Independent
has
published a story describing that Russia's military in Syria
threatened to shoot down any
invading Israeli warplanes using fighter jets or their S-400 system
.
The
Jerusalem Post
, citing sources in the
UK
Independent (Arabia)
, writes just after the latest meeting in Sochi between Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin:
According to the report,
Moscow has prevented three Israeli airstrikes on
three Syrian outposts recently, and even threatened that any jets attempting such a thing would
be shot down, either by Russian jets or by the S400 Anti-aircraft missiles
. The source
cited in the report claims a similar situation has happened twice, and that during August,
Moscow stopped an airstrike on a Syrian outpost in Qasioun, where a S300 missile battery is
placed.
Netanyahu's hasty trip to meet with Putin on Thursday - even in the final days before Tuesday's
key election - was reportedly with a goal to press the Russian president on essentially
ignoring Israel's attacks in Syria.
According to the Russian source, Putin let Netanyahu know that his country will not allow any
damage to be done to the Syrian regime's army, or any of the weapons being given to it...
Israel sources cited by the Arabic newspaper described Netanyahu's attempts to persuade Putin
as
"a failure"
. This in spite of Netanyahu telling reporters after the meeting
that his relations with Moscow were stronger than ever.
Moscow is said to be particularly resistant given the Israeli military's recent spate of attacks
on targets in Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria.
The Russian source said:
"Putin has expressed his dissatisfaction from Israel's
latest actions in Lebanon"
and even emphasized to Netanyahu that he "Rejects the
aggression towards Lebanon's sovereignty" something which has never been heard from him. Putin
further stated that someone is cheating him in regards to Syria and Lebanon and that he will not
let it go without a response. According to him, Netanyahu was warned not to strike such targets
in the future.
It could also be simply that Putin understands that Netanyahu, now desperate to extend his
political career to a record fifth term as prime minister as next week's elections loom, could be
ready to risk a major and very unnecessary Middle East conflagration in order to continue to appeal
to Israeli right wing and nationalist voters.
Say what you want about Putin, this guy has balls. I wish we had a
leader like him. it's been way too long we're being governed by
weak zio puppets pussies.
Netanyahu traveled to the
Black Sea resort to meet the Russian leader – just five days
before the election – in a move widely seen as an effort to
woo elder Russian-speaking immigrants.
The US and Israel are
discussing a mutual defense treaty that would further cement the
already "tremendous" alliance between the two countries, President
Donald Trump has revealed.
"I had a call today with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss
the possibility of moving forward with a Mutual Defense Treaty,
between the United States and Israel, that would further anchor
the tremendous alliance between our two countries,"
Trump
tweeted.
And just two days ago, Israel was caught again places spy
devices in Wash. But today the POTUS is going to sign on for
sacrificing what's left of our sovereignty to Israel so they
can go around MENA pounding their chest and threatening
everyone.
https://www.israellobbyus.org/transcripts/1.1Grant_Smith.htm
Interesting body language/facials -- Nutty still with the smirk,
but VVP and background say a grave/serious word has gone out ...
similar as the Izzies bend to listen very carefully to the erect
and confident-looking Russkies ...
********'s over, Bibi, where
it goes from here depends on your nasty little country ... maybe
others in your region looking for 70-odd years payback for your
murders terrorism land-confiscation cruelty against those weaker
than your miserable selves.
********'s over, Bibi, where it goes from here depends on
your nasty little country
Not so fast, Israel will try not to step on Putin's tows but
it can't afford the Iranians to build that ring of missiles
around Israel. It's not that Israel does not have leverage too,
it can make things complicated for Putin, like one small bomb
on Assad's resident in Damascus.
... one small bomb on Assad's resident in Damascus.
You can certainly shoot out the ******** yourself,
Einstein.
Surely you must be aware that your namesake condemned the
founding of Israel in 1948, which has turned out to be the
all-round disaster he predicted. Not alone, many Jewish
voices round the world continue to condemn it. How
inconvenient for you and your bombs on Assad's house ... lol
...
"I am in favor of Palestine being developed as a
Jewish Homeland but not as a separate State. It seems
to me a matter for simple common sense that we cannot
ask to be given the political rule over Palestine
where two thirds of the population are not Jewish.
What we can and should ask is a secured bi-national
status in Palestine with free immigration. If we ask
more we are damaging our own cause and it is difficult
for me to grasp that our Zionists are taking such an
intransigent position which can only impair our
cause," Einstein said in a letter in 1946,
according to the
Shapell Manuscript Foundation.
Theocratic of neo-theocratic states do not last long. So Gilad Atzmon is probably right. The writing for theocratic Israel
might well be on the wall, much like it was for the USSR. At some point the majority of population just became sick
and tied of the theocratic elite and stops believing the official propaganda. .
Trump strong connecting and deference to Zionists means that he will lose certain strata of voters that previously voted for
him. Will money form Zionist billionaire donors outweigh this factor is difficult to say.
This conflict at the heart of Israeli politics is a window into the Jewish state and its
fears. Israel is rapidly becoming an Orthodox Jewish state. Israel's Orthodox Jews are the
fastest growing group in the country. They are also the country's poorest population,
45 percent live below the poverty line in segregated communities. Ordinarily, one would
expect the poor to support the left, but Israeli Torah Jews are rabid nationalists and openly
lend their support to Benjamin Netanyahu and his party.
Prof. Dan
Ben-David of Tel Aviv University warned recently that Israel could cease to exist in a
couple of generations. He pointed to the astonishingly high birth rate among ultra Orthodox
Jews and predicted that, based on current trends, they will comprise 49% of Israel's population
by 2065. The ultra Orthodox parties are destined to dominate the Knesset within a generation or
less. Ben David predicts that their dependence on Israel's welfare system will lead to a rapid
decline is Israel's economy. This is economically damaging enough and is made worse by the
refusal of most rabbinical schools to incorporate standard Western subjects such as
mathematics, science and English into their core curriculum. Consequently, Israel is educating
a growing percentage of its population in a fashion that fails to equip them to contribute to
the needs of a hi-tech society that is immersed in a conflict for survival.
The picture that comes across is peculiar. As Israel becomes increasingly Jewish and
fundamentalist in its nationalist and religious ethos, it has also become more divided on
everything else. The Russian immigrants find it impossible to live alongside the ultra Orthodox
and vice versa. The secular enclave in Tel Aviv is committed to seeing their metropolis as an
extension of NY.
The Israeli Left has morphed into an LGBT hasbara unit. It has practically removed itself
from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Jewish settlers adhere to the concept of a 'Two Jewish
States Solution.' They want to see the West Bank become a Jewish land. Orthodox Jews are barely
concerned with any of these political issues. They well know that the future of the Jewish
state belongs to them. All they need to do is sustain a productive secular Jewish minority to
serve as their milk cow. On top of all of that we face Bibi's survival wars that threaten to
escalate any minute into a world conflict.
This is why I'm more optimistic the more Trump embraces Israel. He seems to have clearly
decided not to get caught in Syria and so has to keep them off his back in some other way,
moving the embassy and presumably giving Netanyahu the greenlight for annexation of more of
the West Bank is a good thing.
It means Israel incorporates more and more Palestinians that it can't disengage from by
keeping within it's existing borders and it means damaging the bi-partisan consensus with
Trump's polarising association.
Everything Netanyahu does is just pulling back the sinews for the final reckoning. Instead
of staying within reasonable borders and seeking a reconciliation with neighbours, Israel
just gets more demanding, more unreasonable, breaks more promises and makes itself impossible
to negotiate with and runs headlong into more and more Palestinian citizens.
What's unfortunate is that Europe and the US will be forced to put up with the millions of
vagrant Sabras when it all goes kaput. Instead of becoming less anti-social, the Sabra became
a magnificent compilation of every annoying and anti-social habit of the nations. Israelis
make Sicilians look like Swedes.
@Altai I agree Altai .
at the end of the day this entire mess will fall on Europe and The USA but if I read the map
correctly the tolerance and empathy to the primacy of Jewish suffering is running out..the
situation is getting complicated
@Altai I agree Altai .
at the end of the day this entire mess will fall on Europe and The USA but if I read the map
correctly the tolerance and empathy to the primacy of Jewish suffering is running out..the
situation is getting complicated
@Robert Dolan
Absolutely correct. If not for the US and it's Jewish Controlled Congress that never met a
money bill for the Magic Jews Israel would be under water already. Our infrastructure is
collapsing but we continue to find money for Israel no matter that we have cities with
thousands of homeless people with the threat of disease and Middle Age plagues on our door
step. Orthodox Jews are like Muslims in many ways because they love the "Welfare State" and
they stay on it forever. Sections of New York are saturated with these Orthodox Welfare Jews
and idiots like DeBlasio caters to them.
There is now a backlash by both blacks who hate them and want to kill them for their
business practices in real estate and upper middle class residents that refuse to allow them
to build their so called "Jewish Orthodox Communes" and take over the areas.
Israel may have overplayed their hand but that doesn't mean they will just disappear. They
are sick enough to take mankind with them with their eternal wars. Hopefully Netanyahu is
crazy enough to start a conflict with Iran who will bomb the shit out of them and then
Hezabollah will destroy the wimp military the IDF.
We can only hope and perhaps mankind will have a chance .
It is more accurate to call them Talmudists. They are not "Jews". Jew is a recent
abbreviation of Judean. The Ashkenazi came from Asia. They don't follow the Old Testament.
They follow the Talmud, which is Maciavellian to the core. Pure evil. Since God made the man
Jesus to be Lord, eventually, their works will be judged, they are headed for destruction
morally, you reap what you sew. Israel is the most anti-Semitic country on earth. Which makes
them hypocrites. The Arabs and Palestinians are a Semitic people and no one hates and kills
them more that Israel.
@Colin Wright As you
may know Zionism was born as a reaction to antisemitsm and this fact alone suggests that
people including Jews were aware of the problem before Israel was formed
I don't want to ruin the party but as far as I can tell Israel is not the problem it is
just a symptom of the problem peculiarly, Israel was born to fix the problem
Interesting point of view, actually, one of the most profound things I have ever read. If
this is their calling, and I too somehow believe it is, they need to turn around, because
they are kind of falling down on the job. So I look forward to that great day of turning.
However, when they call you names, anti-Semite, self-hating Jew, or whatever else they might
dig up, they greatly err, because you are a watchman on the wall.
@Saggy Gilad has
expressed his views on this topic many, many times. The early Zionists desired a Jewish State
to make Jews human. By this, I mean that they were well aware of the Jewish Question and the
repeated bad behavior of Jews in host societies, both Muslim and Christian. They were
conscious of the economic role of powerful Jews, particularly with their usurious financial
practices, but also as tax collectors and enforcers for the aristocracy. This, along with
their tilted ethnocentric business practices, favoring their own while fleecing the goyim,
invariably led to their control of what were traditionally local businesses, creating a
growing resentment in local societies that reached critical mass. What followed were pogroms
and expulsion. This occurred in both Muslim and Christian lands, but were especially
pronouncrd in Christian Europe, which took more aggressive protective actions to shield
itself.
The early Zionists wanted to be the midwives of a Jewish State that would solve the JQ by
making a nation of Jews, in which Jews carried out all of the work, took all the jobs, from
garbage collecting to farming, from street cleaner to bank president. They wanted to stop the
pogroms and expulsions, but at the same time they were keenly aware that these were effects
of Jewish behavior and actions, not senseless anti-Semitism of the goyim. So, yes Israel was
conceived and born to solve the problem.
As you may know Zionism was born as a reaction to antisemitsm and this fact alone
suggests that people including Jews were aware of the problem before Israel was formed
Was it? Or was antisemitism the solution by the jewish leadership to the dissolution of
their community in modern arreligious society? Was antisemitism the virtual ghetto wall?
Tell the people within that those outside want to kill them, at the same time having a small
faction of very cunning Jews who go outside and produce trouble that then by necessity falls
back on the whole community?
I find it quite astonishing when I read how privileged certain Jews were in European
states, compared to what was the norm for regular Christian folks.
And indeed, also Christians were butchered, expelled etc in more religious times.
I have heard you say this before and remain surprised that you seem to believe this. The
whole " people like any other people" hasbara may have been a sales approach tailored to a
particular audience at some point, but any sincerity behind it has been demonstrably beside
the point. Israel has been a projection of raw power from the start.
@niteranger Are you
sure => "we continue to find money for Israel" <=unless you are among the elected 527
that run the USA you probably are not included in the WE.. did you vote (either yes or no) to
send money to Israel?
Three votes (one to select a person to fill one of (1/425) jobs in the house of
representatives, and 1 vote to select each of 2 persons to fill two senate jobs (2/100) does
not make most Americans into deciding members of the USA. Not only that, at election time,
American votes for President or VP do not count, because the electoral college vote decides
who shall be President or vice President? So why do the candidates spend billions on the
presidential elections?
350,000,000 Americans are governed by 527 salaried persons, who are elected to work at the
USA.
Israel is a product of the bankers and their corporations; it began in earnest in 1897 in
Switzerland.
The great success of Zionism (not racially or religiously connected) has been its
networking ability. It can identify and intercept opposing forces, transport resources($, and
people) in invisible ways, to/from multi many places, to focus on and to support a target
project (local, regional, national or international) . The network that facilitates this
"always win intention" works like a newspaper on one side, keeping all elements informed, and
on the other side, like a powerful, but invisible government; seeking or willing to invade,
protect or promote a place, project or person on the other side.
The network can concentrate fire power, vote power, impose political pressure, control the
media, and develop the means to take advantage of, or put down, situation or opportunity or
it can protect a friend in need. In a few days, a local situation or a massive opportunity
can be "crowd funded" or "petition protected" via the network. For hypothetical example, say
the NYT comes up for sale, in a short while a person with meager credit, tenders a
multi-billion dollar offer backed with financing sufficient to acquire the opportunity? So
how did the credit come to make this possible?
Its not Israel per se..that the USA congress supports: its the banking establishments and
their powerful multi nation corporations, seeking to control the middle east, seeking to use
"in the course of commerce" as their excuse for invisible weapon, mind control, and spy
technology development. Its Economic Zionism that explains the foreign nation state support
for Israel. IMO except for the propaganda value, race or religion has little to do with
it.
@Gilad Atzmon Why not
infuse Israel with the tons of fanatical leftist(godless) Jews we have in Germany and Europe?
They could counter the orthodox leeching by providing work force, and could additionally work
their bottoms off on "racism", transform settlements in gay discos and do all the other
professional complaints they make in Europe, like open borders.
The Jews in Europe are always scared, if Netanyahu calls them to Israel due to
"anti-semitism". If a non Jew says something similar, its evil and "anti-semitic" of course.
It is quite interesting to note, that Israel develops in a theocracy(always has been in my
view), while the Jews outside Israel seek to disprove/kill god and are in rebellion against
god, nature, more or less play god.
@FvS"It is the
patriotic duty of all American Jews to relocate to Israel and help their nation thrive.
Remember the holocaust. Also, democracy is garbage."
You could be an American patriot who doesn't want to pay 3.8 billion per year.
@Gilad Atzmon The issue
is that regular Europeans have diminishing rates of sympathy for Jews and the only reason
European politics don't trash Israel is largely vassalage to America and not having an
independent foreign policy.
With Americans ruining their relations with everyone, this will most likely change since
there's no real reason for Europeans to source military equipment from outside the EU, have
sanctions on Iran or Russia instead of backing their infrastructure projects, not back China
in the Pacific if it offers a better deal etc.
Essentially, Jews will be America's problem and rightfully so considering right wing
Americans can't seem to stop sucking Jewish dick.
@A123 The only
realistic plan would probably involve Israel not violating the fourth Geneva convention
anymore which would mean the Jewish settlements on territories outside the pre-1967 borders
will cease to exist as Jewish in any way.
Once you reject international law, you can't appeal to it anymore, but you must be Jewish
if you think you can pick and choose what suits you. Lol
The loonie Avi Lieberman is salivating at the thought being Israeli PM, and the loonie
Nuttyahoo is salivating at the thought of staying PM and using that power to keep his sorry
ass out of prison.
Presented with those two choices is like a robber asking its victim, "Do you want to be
stabbed with a knife or shot with a gun?"
@Robert Dolan America
will never be shed of this parasite until the fundamentalist Christian Zionist/NeoCons are
swept from power. They are every bit as insane as the radicalized Muslims. You tell me which
country this clown truly servers!!
Few goyim will make the leap to figure out the modern implications of the Moses
mythology.
You should discuss that with @ Dennis Gannon, who
appears to be tangled in a ball of misunderstanding or ignorance, especially of Machiavelli,
evident when he wrote:
The Ashkenazi came from Asia. They don't follow the Old Testament. They follow the
Talmud, which is Maciavellian to the core. Pure evil.
Crack open The Prince: Machiavelli "figured out the modern implications of the
Moses mythology." Of three candidates Machiavelli considered, he selected Moses as the model
Prince. Certain "evil" behavior that became necessary to save his beloved city, Florence, and
make it a Republic of and for the people of Florence, was acceptable, inasmuch as Moses,
whose chief counselor was god himself, used whatever means necessary to achieve the wellbeing
of the conquerors of Canaan.
If only the people of the USA had a Prince as evil, and as dedicated to the
wellbeing of the American people, as Machiavelli was to Florence.
@Brewer "Zionism was
born as a reaction to antisemitism." Gilad is correct, but I believe that implicit in his
statement is the understanding that the "antisemitism" is reactionary: it is born out of the
anti gentile behavior and actions of Jews in gentile host societies. Gilad, please correct me
if I've misrepresented you.
Israel is a terrorist state ran by terrorists for terrorists and its goal is to destroy the
mideast for its greater Israel agenda and with the help of the zionist controlled zio/US
government and the American taxpayers funding of these wars and providing the military muscle
the zionists are now their way to armageddon!
Israel is not an ally of the United States of America.
Israel is a client-state millstone of the American Empire that uses diasporan Jews such as
Shelly Adelson to buy off politicians such as President Trump.
Andrew Jackson and George Washington would immediately sever all ties to Israel and they
would make sure that diasporan Jews that put the interests of Israel over and ahead of the
interests of the USA were strongly encouraged to permanently leave the USA. Those Jews who
put the interests of Israel over and ahead of the interests of the USA should be disallowed
from gaining entry into any other European Christian nation such as Canada, Australia,
Germany, France, England, Italy, Spain etc.
It would also be a no-go Blavatsky for these diasporan Jews who put the interests of
Israel ahead of the interests of the USA to go to South America or Asia or anywhere else.
Israel must be made into a receptacle that will contain and constrain the ability of
diasporan Jews and Israeli Jews from interfering in the governmental affairs of any other
nation.
One of the reasons I will not vote for Trump and the Republican Party is that Trump and
the Republicans put the interests of Israel over and ahead of the interests of the United
States of America.
Trump seems to get the fact that the American Empire is a completely and totally separate
entity from the United States of America. Trump seems to understand that resistance to Shelly
Adelson's demands about foreign policy decisions regarding Israel is the best way to show
patriotism to the USA.
The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire is a clear and present threat to the
safety, security and sovereignty of the United States of America
Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the
USA.
Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to President
Trump and the Republican Party over the years.
What has all that loot bought for diasporan Jew Adelson?
Is Adelson buying the foreign policy of the USA?
How come that dumb boob Chris Christie
used the word "occupied" in front of Adelson when Christie was trying to pry some loot out of
Adelson's checkbook? DUMMY!
The ruling class in Israel wants to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight wars
on behalf of Israel.
The ADL puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States of
America.
The ADL is an evil and immoral JEW PRESSURE GROUP that pushes mass legal immigration and
mass illegal immigration and REFUGEE OVERLOAD and ASYLUM SEEKER INUNDATION and multicultural
mayhem and all manner of other anti-White crud.
@Charles Pewitt Agree,
the zionists have controlled the American people since 1913 when they fastened their
privately owned central bank aka the FED and IRS on to the American people and then came the
foreign wars and debt and total control of the American people by the zionists and their
banking kabal.
Nathan Rothschild infamously said; I care not what puppet is place on the throne of
England for the man who controls the money supply controls the British Empire, and I am that
man!
The same holds true here in the zio/US the zionists have control of the money supply via
the FED and we are slaves on the zionist plantation aka America, and a central bank and the
income tax are 2 of the 10 planks of the communist manifesto, and zionism = communism!
So the Orthodox will turn Israel into a big shtetl within the span of next fifty years with
the financial help of the "secular" Jews in the West and then they would want to do away with
the LGBTQ crowd out of Tel Aviv you reap what you sow!
The key question is why Trump hired Bolton in the first place, not why he was sucked...
This guy is a reckless imperialist, staunch neocon and a war criminal. No person who promoted
or voted in the Congress for Iraq war can held government or elected position. They are
compromised for the rest of their miserable lifes.
I'm no fan of Trump, but I would like to see a comparison of the total "US instigated
foreign fatalities" for his last 2 & 1/2 years compared with Obama's last 2 & 1/2
years, and what we guess the number would have been under Hillary. I'm sorry, but I think
Trump's number would be the lowest. In coming up with an explanation, I like to use the
"Reality Show Entertainment Value" theory which many have described. In this case, people
like to watch Trump bullshitting and freaking out the establishment, but they really don't
like watching dead bodies burn up or be carried away in body bags. That reality is not
attractive entertainment, despite the fantasy of it being bankable entertainment when
Tarantino flame throws a teenager at the end of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."
Obama and Hillary are not "reality TV fans." They are more immersed in their megalomaniac
view of themselves as world actors, and will willfully kill a few hundred thousand if they
think it advances their misguided objectives.
"... Trade wars and sanctions are economic weapons against rival regimes, and like actual military warfare, often lead to unanticipated and sometimes devastating blowback from the targeted regimes. ..."
"... At the same time, western companies were forced to withdraw from Russian mega-deals because of sanctions. The best-known example was Exxon, forced by sanctions to walk away from an Arctic joint venture with Russia's state-owned oil giant, Rosneft, where it had invested $3.2 billion. In their very first effort, the partners successfully drilled oil wells containing 750 million barrels. ..."
"... The trade war with China that has led to tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese exports to the US, and as a result, Russia and China have moved even closer. It remains an absolute mystery why no one in the west had foreseen the blowback from economic warfare leading to an alliance between two of its most powerful adversaries. ..."
"... The US acts as if it has been blind-sided by the Russian/China moves, even though years before it undertook economic warfare against them, China, the world's largest energy importer, agreed to finance oil and gas multi-billion-dollar pipelines in neighboring Russia. Now Russia has become China's largest energy supplier, equaling or perhaps even surpassing its energy supplies to Europe. ..."
"... As stated by Global Village Space (GBS) , China and Russia rushed to aid Iran, with China replacing Total, in a 25-year deal estimated to be worth some $400 billions. With that, China inherits a bonanza, providing much needed finance and technology to a country that was and could again become one of the world's leading energy producers. China is looking to finance $280 billion to develop Iran's gas, oil and petrochemicals industries, along with $120 billion to improve transport and manufacturing, making it a key partner in China's Road and Belt program. ..."
"... The deal also gives China the right to buy any or all Iranian oil, gas, and petrochemicals products at a minimum guaranteed 12% discount to global benchmarks, plus an additional discount of 6-8% for risk adjusted compensation. Financing will proceed using local currencies, avoiding the costs of converting to a hard currency like the US dollar or the Euro, giving the Beijing yet another 10% cost advantage. ..."
"... In direct defiance of US sanctions against Iran, China has stepped into the breach, increasing its oil purchases from Iran while becoming Iran's major energy trade and finance partner. Like Russia, it seems that Iran is moving towards a military alliance with China. If the west worries about China's expansive moves in the South China Sea, along China's own borders, what to make then of China moving in on Hormuz, where some 30% of world oil is transited each day? ..."
"... It is well known that the US has been in secret meetings with Iran representatives, much to the dismay of the Saudi Arabia and Israel. As Bloomberg reports, after the G7 meeting, Trump publicly and repeatedly stated he was ready to meet with Iran's President, Hassan Rouhani. Bloomberg also reported that in a meeting with his Cabinet, Trump announced that he was ready to ease sanctions as a possible way to open negotiations between the two countries. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin agreed with the President, while National Security Advisor Bolton voiced strong opposition, that only one day later, led to his firing. Secretary of State Pompeo stated that Trump may meet on the sidelines of the upcoming UN meeting with Iran's President. ..."
"... The EU defence industry initiative, the ECB's money transfer service, the EU army (or defence collaboration :) are all longer term policies aimed at reducing the EU's reliance on systems that are controlled by the USA. ..."
"... Sanctions are the modern equivalent of siege warfare, only the target is a nation, not a city. ..."
"... John Bolton is clueless. He's a throwback to ruthless American competition and cowboy capitalism. And he appears to be an idiot. ..."
"... Consumer spending is going to struggle the rest of the year as it rebalances and manufacturing is heading to a full blown recession by December as auto companies try and get their balance sheets under control. ..."
Yves here. Even though most
readers know the general point very well, that US trade and financial sanctions haven't brought
targets to their knees, and had instead pushed them to find allies, but it's useful to have
detail to flesh out the story. There are some bits one can quibble with, like the "annexation
of Crimea" bit, and the US objectives for its sanctions against Russia. At least under the
Obama Administration, the belief was that they would damage the economy severely and force a
regime change.
By Robert Berke, an energy financial analyst with experience as a government consultant
to the State of Alaska. Originally published at
OilPrice
Trade wars and sanctions are economic weapons against rival regimes, and like actual
military warfare, often lead to unanticipated and sometimes devastating blowback from the
targeted regimes.
A prime example was President Obama sanctioning Russia over its annexation of Crimea. The
sanctions were designed to block Russia from any access to western financing, aimed at causing
a dire financial and economic crisis in Russia that would force it to relinquish Crimea and end
support for Ukraine's breakaway territories.
In fact, the sanctions did cause Russia to enter a short-lived recession. But it also had
other, much more drastic results for the West. It forced Russia to move closer to China, and
Moscow saw Beijing as a great alternative to western financing for Russian industries.
At the same time, western companies were forced to withdraw from Russian mega-deals because
of sanctions. The best-known example was Exxon, forced by sanctions to walk away from an Arctic
joint venture with Russia's state-owned oil giant, Rosneft, where it had invested $3.2 billion.
In their very first effort, the partners successfully drilled oil wells containing 750 million
barrels.
As noted by Reuters, the withdrawal was costly:
Exxon will post an after-tax loss of $200 million as a result of pulling out of the
Rosneft deal, but the true costs for the company run much deeper. Exploring and developing
giant offshore fields in Russia was supposed to provide long-term growth for the company,
and, in recent years, has seen falling reserves.
But the opportunity losses are likely to be far higher for Exxon, the company that famously
missed the US shale revolution. The long-term deal with Rosneft, expected to continue for
decades, included exploration for oil in the Black Sea, enormous shale resources in Western
Siberia, and the development of three large blocks in the Arctic (Kara Sea).
The trade war with China that has led to tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese exports
to the US, and as a result, Russia and China have moved even closer. It remains an absolute
mystery why no one in the west had foreseen the blowback from economic warfare leading to an
alliance between two of its most powerful adversaries.
China's major state-owned oil companies and its Silk Road fund each became 10% partners in
Russia's first major Arctic LNG (liquified natural gas), project in the Yamal Peninsula,
undertaken with Novatek, Russia's largest independent gas producer. The project offers great
prospects for enormous expansion.
The US acts as if it has been blind-sided by the Russian/China moves, even though years
before it undertook economic warfare against them, China, the world's largest energy importer,
agreed to finance oil and gas multi-billion-dollar pipelines in neighboring Russia. Now Russia
has become China's largest energy supplier, equaling or perhaps even surpassing its energy
supplies to Europe.
A similar scenario is taking place in the Persian Gulf where the US has withdrawn from the
Iran nuclear deal, while imposing economic sanctions on Iranian oil exports. The French energy
giant, Total, that in recent years has been a leading international oil company in that
country, was forced to withdraw because of sanctions, just like Exxon in Russia's Arctic, it
left billions of dollars on the table.
This may also answer the question as to why French Prime Minister Macron was so intent on
inviting the Iranian Foreign Secretary to the recent G7 meeting in France. It's also no secret
that French carmakers Peugeot and Renault are the main suppliers to Iran's auto assembly
plants.
As stated by
Global Village Space (GBS) , China and Russia rushed to aid Iran, with China replacing
Total, in a 25-year deal estimated to be worth some $400 billions. With that, China inherits a
bonanza, providing much needed finance and technology to a country that was and could again
become one of the world's leading energy producers. China is looking to finance $280 billion to
develop Iran's gas, oil and petrochemicals industries, along with $120 billion to improve
transport and manufacturing, making it a key partner in China's Road and Belt program.
The deal also gives China the right to buy any or all Iranian oil, gas, and
petrochemicals products at a minimum guaranteed 12% discount to global benchmarks, plus
an additional discount of 6-8% for risk adjusted compensation. Financing will proceed using
local currencies, avoiding the costs of converting to a hard currency like the US dollar or the
Euro, giving the Beijing yet another 10% cost advantage.
GBS further reports that the security for these projects will include up to 5,000 Chinese
security personnel on the ground in Iran to protects Chinese projects and to safeguard the
transit of energy products from Iran to China, including security for the very strategic Hormuz
Straits.
In direct defiance of US sanctions against Iran, China has stepped into the breach,
increasing its oil purchases from Iran while becoming Iran's major energy trade and finance
partner. Like Russia, it seems that Iran is moving towards a military alliance with China. If
the west worries about China's expansive moves in the South China Sea, along China's own
borders, what to make then of China moving in on Hormuz, where some 30% of world oil is
transited each day?
If these are considered winning policies for the West, one has to ask what failure looks
like.
The West is already slowly becoming aware of the blowback this disastrous policy has caused.
Evidence for this can be found in Macron's efforts to persuade Trump towards a peaceful
resolution with Iran.
It is well known that the US has been in secret meetings with Iran representatives, much to
the dismay of the Saudi Arabia and Israel. As Bloomberg reports, after the G7 meeting, Trump
publicly and
repeatedly stated he was ready to meet with Iran's President, Hassan Rouhani. Bloomberg
also reported that in a meeting with his Cabinet, Trump announced that he was ready to ease
sanctions as a possible way to open negotiations between the two countries. Treasury Secretary
Mnuchin agreed with the President, while National Security Advisor Bolton voiced strong
opposition, that only one day later, led to his firing. Secretary of State Pompeo stated that
Trump may meet on the sidelines of the upcoming UN meeting with Iran's President.
The firing of Bolton was
immediately followed by a fall in the price of oil and gold. Allowing Iran to continue to
increase supplies into already well supplied oil markets will add downward pressure on oil
prices. For the Trump administration, this is not necessarily a bad thing unhappy consumers at
the gas pump make for unhappy voters.
Similarly, the Trump Administration badly needs to move towards ending the trade war with
China in order to calm global markets. The recent announcement of the resumption of trade talks
between the US and China in October may provide an opportunity for a similar easing of tariffs
and a path towards further resolution.
Although these actions could help to quell global tensions, it may be too late to reverse
some of the serious damage caused by US-led economic warfare. Once China positions itself in
Iran, it will not likely be interested in withdrawing from its new strategic position in the
Middle East, that it gained as a result of US near sighted foreign policy.
Prior to the election, we may see a breakthroughs in the trade war, and the alleviation of
sanctions with Russia, Iran, China, and perhaps even North Korea, but the US will almost
certainly see the negative consequences from adversaries it helped to expand and
strengthen.
Can't speak much about the effects of the Chinese sanctions but I know a little bit about
the Russian ones. These Russian sanctions are biting hard but not the way they were intended
and it is not only the big oil companies that are losing big. Since they kicked in Russia has
lost about $50 billion in trade with the European Union which kinda stings. But in the same
time frame, the European Union has lost about $240 billion.
Considering that fact that these
sanctions were never for their benefit but for solidarity with the US, that is a very
expensive price tag. The US lost only about $17 billion but I remember reading that after the
sanctions kicked in, trade between the U and Russia actually increased. Europe is a big loser
here, particularly with agriculture. When the EU sanctioned Russian products to the EU, the
Russians did the same to them a few weeks later which came as a shock. Since then Russia has
made huge investments into growing their own food crops and those markets will never come
back again for the EU. As an example, Russia is once more a world leader in the production of
wheat second only to the US and has learned the value of autarky.
You see these results in all sorts of areas as the country started phasing out imports and
replacing them with domestically made products. They even started making marine engines out
of necessity as they were denied purchase of foreign ones. People might remember how Russia
was going to buy two specially built ships from France but France reneged under pressure from
Washington.
France not only had to give back all the money the Russians paid but also had to
compensate Russia for all related costs that the Russians made. In the end France paid Russia
over a billion dollars which was triple what the Russians initially paid. And now the
Russians are constructing their own ships of this class in the Crimea using the knowledge
acquired from France. Perhaps it is things like this that has cause Macron to open up
contacts with Russia once more in spite of what Washington demands.
Add in the purchase of gold stocks, developing financial systems in case the US cuts
Russia off from the SWIFT clearance systems, the development of weaponry that makes the
deployment of nuclear missile systems in Europe futile, you realise that Washington has
massively underestimated the response of counties like Russia, China and Iran and depended on
unicorn wishes instead.
But in the same time frame, the European Union has lost about $240 billion. Considering
that fact that these sanctions were never for their benefit but for solidarity with the US,
that is a very expensive price tag.
Well, Looks like Donald Trump let "The Swamp(tm)" run loose and they went and over-torqued
the screws!
Some decision makers in within the EU have begun to see the US sanctions against
everything and everyone as having the true goals of ablating EU's influence on the world
while hampering EU-based businesses. There are initiatives and polices that hints at "cutting
the cord" are quietly being introduced.
The EU defence industry initiative, the ECB's money transfer service, the EU army (or
defence collaboration :) are all longer term policies aimed at reducing the EU's reliance on
systems that are controlled by the USA.
The 'North Stream' pipeline and keeping the Iran deal kinda alive are more immediate and
direct challenges, as was the total unwillingness to join in any of the planned military
adventures involving Syria and Iran.
France is being rather open about about it. Possibly to test out on behalf of the EU what
the USA is actually willing to do to exact revenge and enforce compliance, possibly also
because opposing the USA in France remains a reliable way to win votes.
It's not just Trump. Our Congress is totally at the beck of special pleaders such as LNG
exporters and arms companies. All seek to use the US economic weapon to further their own
interests.
Plus, Russia is determinedly GMO free. The more the US goes down the GMO route, the less
likely the food trade with the EU – the European dogs wont eat GMO dogfood.
Post Brexit perhaps, Britain will accept US foods, all the more reason to insist on a proper
border if NI remains part of the 'UK'.
It's not just GMO, but the level and quality of technocratic oversight. US government
agencies are incapable of regulating anything in the private sector. While the EU is still
greatly influenced by private money, it has not completely sold out.
What is ignored by media is the harm sanctions inflict on the people living in these
countries. I think it should be considered a crime against humanity and our leaders should be
prosecuted. Sanctions are a weapon that is just as harmful as weapons to kill. We only seem
to look at the economic effects and ignore the social effects.
Sanctions are the modern equivalent of siege warfare, only the target is a nation, not a
city.
I've known in a vague intuitive way that US sanctions would alienate nations and isolate
the US, it's useful seeing how exactly these sanctions are backfiring with more nuance!
What is the next step after you have sanctioned everything and everyone and the reaction
is a shrug and a work around? Sanctions do have their bite, but they are, or are becoming, a
more effective tool for global economic and political realignment than a means to accomplish
their stated purpose.
Good question. I am wondering the same thing. There is a vague pattern here with Russia,
the most resource-rich oil producer. We don't want Russia to take off too fast. What can be
left in the ground should be left in the ground. And maybe that was the existential threat
posed by Exxon – a private, profit seeking US corporation geared to do everything fast
in order to make their profits.
Just thinking about slamming the breaks on manufacturing and
consumption and how this can make a mess of the oil industry if it is going for profits
– race to the bottom (currently). Rather, anyone thinking straight would want to
conserve oil, control it's production and marketing. John Bolton is clueless. He's a
throwback to ruthless American competition and cowboy capitalism. And he appears to be an
idiot.
There was a discussion of China's role in manufacturing drugs for Big Pharma on the news
last night, truly frightening.
They've already been found to be selling us contaminated drugs, what happens when they
refuse to deliver anything other than fentanyl?
I find it hard to understand how we're going to recover from the damage done by the
short-sighted, wholesale outsourcing of our manufacturing to China.
Given the centrality of drugs to American life, we should categorize them as sensitive
items of national security and declare a war on foreign drugs. That would brilliantly combine
the failed policies of the past with the failed policies of the present. We could make
exceptions for most-favored nations like Colombia or Afghanistan.
As in military conflicts, the fog of geoeconomic war together with partisan lens and poor
leadership can prevent adversaries from developing an accurate assessment of reality. The
writer has raised some examples that support his view pertaining to pushback, and he could be
right as The Rev Kev so eloquently pointed out here WRT Russia. However, whether his article
provides an accurate overview of the current state of play remains an open question IMO.
Setting aside deeply troubling questions about our national values and whether sanctions
should ever be employed due to their very damaging effects on domestic populations, together
with their evident past failure to realize policy goals, there are credible accounts that
China is now confronting a U.S. dollar shortage; that China has significant issues in its
financial system and economy; and that the people of China are seeing sharply rising food
prices as a result of decreased supplies of pork and soybeans. These issues are being
perceived as sufficient to cause China's leaders to be receptive to negotiating resolution of
the current tariffs, trade, intellectual property, and investment impasse on terms favorable
to the U.S. Whether this will be so remains to be seen, of course.
A multi-polar world became a uni-polar world with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Francis
Fukuyama said it was the end of history. It was all going so well, until the neoliberals got to work. The US created an open, globalised world with the Washington Consensus. China went from almost nothing to become a global super power.
That wasn't supposed to happen, let's get the rocket scientists onto it. Maximising profit is all about reducing costs. China had coal fired power stations to provide cheap energy.
China had lax regulations reducing environmental and health and safety costs.
China had a low cost of living so employers could pay low wages.
China had low taxes and a minimal welfare state.
China had all the advantages in an open globalised world. "The Washington Consensus was always going to work better for China than the US"
the rocket scientists.
If the US left this running it would be China first and America second. PANIC!
It seems since about the Vietnam war era, US FP has been run by hubristic idiots with
delusions of grandeur. Its foreign policy 101 that you never, never, set policy to drive your
2 largest rivals to alliance.
Yet these morons did exactly that. Since Trump, there have been many retirements form the
State Dept.
And maybe that's not such a bad thing. They show no evidence of competence.
Russia is leasing out old collective farm lands that was abandoned in the eastern part of
the country to Asian countries to farm and grow the export food products needed. It seems the
collective farms were abandoned and now the Russian government is re-purposing the vast
amounts of land available.
"Russia is now considering requests from Asian firms to farm another 1 million hectares
(2.5 million acres) -- an area roughly the size of Jamaica, according to the head of a
government agency."
It may be said that Trump's tariffs are the best things that could have happened to China
and Russia.
Frankly, I think it has pushed up consumer spending and that is about it. In other words,
this economy has overcapacity problems in the auto sector and its relation to junk corporate
debt, is not good.
Consumer spending is going to struggle the rest of the year as it rebalances and
manufacturing is heading to a full blown recession by December as auto companies try and get
their balance sheets under control.
Then having very (unsafely) gone off the Gaderene cliff deep end, you opined, "Trump
seems to understand that resistance to Shelly Adelson's demands about foreign policy
decisions regarding Israel is the best way to show patriotism to the USA."
Let me elaborate further on that sentence.
Trump has acceded to 2 of the 4 demands of Republican Party donor and Jew billionaire
Shelly Adelson in regards to Israel:
1) Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and 2) Trump has moved the US embassy to
Jerusalem.
But,
3) Trump has refused to invade Iran or start a war with Iran and 4) Trump has not dropped
a nuclear bomb on Iran.
Shelly Adelson wants the US military to invade Iran and Shelly Adelson wants the US
military to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.
Trump knows that there is a difference between the American Empire and the United States
of America. Trump pushes military Keynesianism for the jobs and the loot for the American
people, but Trump doesn't think that the American Empire must continually be at war to
justify the war expenditures. Trump gave an interview where he spoke of the
military-industrial complex and Trump is a baby boomer who remembers Ike and his warnings
about the profiteers and scoundrels who would use the American Empire to profit off the
USA.
Trump made the wise decision to not go to war against Iran with that drone incident, and
that is a good thing. Trump may have thought about oil at two hundred dollars a barrel or he
might have thought it's better to pop the Iranians surreptitiously rather than televised on
CNN with air strikes and the like.
I do think that Trump puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the USA, but
a lot of the ruling class slobs who run the American Empire don't even think that the USA
exists anymore. A lot of us voted for Trump to reclaim the sovereignty and independence of
the USA from the American Empire.
So I think Trump is in his own way being patriotic to a certain extent by giving Shelly
Adelson some of what Adelson wanted but not all.
Trump may also understand that German American women and other American women in the Great
Lakes states don't want their sons or husbands or uncles or fathers getting killed or
horribly wounded in endless wars that only benefit Israel. The German Americans, bless them,
have historically shown great reluctance to get caught up in all the endless war crud that
the JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire cooks up.
I won't vote for Trump because of his backstab on immigration, but I think Trump knows
that he is the government leader of a big monster and that big monster is the creature that
encompasses both the American Empire and the United States of America.
I was long winded, but there's a point in there somewhere!
" My relationship with Israel has been great," Trump said, listing some of his pro-Israel
accomplishments. "Anything is possible," he conceded, "but I don't believe it."
"Yesterday you heard the lies that Israel tried to spy on the White House, a complete
lie," Netanyahu said in a Hebrew-language video.
He then quoted Mark Levin as saying on his show that "this is exactly like the tricks
carried out by Joel Benenson. He was an adviser to Obama and now he is the adviser to [Blue
and White leaders Benny] Gantz and [Yair] Lapid."
@Charles Pewitt Trump
certainly deserves criticism for his ME policies.
However, it's pure folly to think that the alternatives to Trump would be any better, in
fact I suggest that most would be worse.
It's always interesting to see those here who are so quick to bash Trump never tell us
which of the alternative candidates they are willing to endorse and why.
The key question is why Trump hired Bolton in the first place, not why he was sucked...
This guy is a reckless imperialist, staunch neocon and a war criminal. No person who promoted
or voted in the Congress for Iraq war can held government or elected position. They are
compromised for the rest of their miserable lifes.
"... Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down. ..."
"... Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as whatever was most useful politically. ..."
"Carlson concluded by warning about the many other Boltons in the federal bureaucracy,
saying that "war may be a disaster for America, but for John Bolton and his fellow neocons,
it's always good business."
He went on to slam Trump's special representative for Iran and contender to replace Bolton,
Brian Hook, as an "unapologetic neocon" who "has undisguised contempt for President Trump, and
he particularly dislikes the president's nationalist foreign policy." Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif echoed Carlson hours later in a tweet, arguing that "Thirst for war
– maximum pressure – should go with the warmonger-in-chief." Reuters and
Haaretz
-------------
Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar
of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite
German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them
allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not
accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down.
Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they
developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like
Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic
campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as
whatever was most useful politically.
They are not conservative at all, not one bit. Carlson was absolutely right about that.
They despise nationalism. They despise the idea of countries. In that regard they are like
all groups who aspire to globalist dominion for their particular ideas.
It seems since about the Vietnam war era, US FP has been run by hubristic idiots with
delusions of grandeur. Its foreign policy 101 that you never, never, set policy to drive your
2 largest rivals to alliance.
Yet these morons did exactly that. Since Trump, there have been many retirements from
the State Dept. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. They show no evidence of
competence.
Ukraine is mainly the result of attempt of the USA to encircle Russia well as EU design for economic
Drang nach Osten -- attempt to displace Russia in xUSSR
republics.
So they pushed Ukraine into the pat that Baltic republic were already known for.
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine's newly elected comedian president Volodymyr Zelensky called the prisoner exchange a "first step" in ending the war in Eastern Ukraine, which has killed an estimated 13,000 civilians. ..."
"... In a subsequent referendum, 89% in Donetsk and 96% in Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine voted for independence, which the new government of Petro Poroshenko government did not accept. ..."
"... She told U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in a telephone conversation that was tapped and later leaked that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, neoliberal head of the "Fatherland" Party, should be Prime Minister as he was thought to have the "economic" and "governing experience." ..."
"... Nuland further revealed that the U.S. had invested over $5 billion in "democracy promotion" in Ukraine since 1991 through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was carrying on the kind of work previously undertaken by the CIA during the Cold War. ..."
"... NED president Carl Gershman called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step towards toppling [Russian President Vladimir] Putin who "may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself." ..."
"... To help achieve this end, the Obama administration pledged $1 billion in loan guarantees to the post-coup government in Ukraine, which Putin considered as the "ideological heirs of [Stephen] Bandera, Hitler's accomplice in World War II." ..."
"... Swayed by a slick lobbying campaign backed by supporters of the Afghan mujahidin in the 1980s looking for a new cause and by the Senate's Ukraine Caucus, the Obama administration further provided nearly $600 million in security assistance to the Ukrainian military. ..."
"... American military advisers embedded in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry provided rocket propelled grenades, carried out training exercises and planned military operations including with members of the fascist Azov battalion, which had Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel patches emblazoned on their sleeves. ..."
On Saturday September 7, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a prisoner swap which has brought
hope of improved relations between the two countries and an end to the 5-year long conflict in
Eastern Ukraine.
A peace accord is being planned for later this month in Normandy involving Ukraine, Russia,
France and Germany.
Ukraine's newly elected comedian president Volodymyr Zelensky called the prisoner exchange a
"first step" in ending the war in Eastern Ukraine, which has killed an estimated 13,000
civilians.
The Ukraine War remains largely unknown to the American public even though the United States
has had a great stake in it.
The war started after a coup d'états in Ukraine in February 2014, which overthrew the
democratically elected pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovuch.
In a subsequent referendum, 89% in Donetsk and 96% in Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine voted for
independence, which the new government of Petro Poroshenko government did not accept.
The United States was a heavy backer of the coup and dirty war that unfolded in the
East.
Victoria Nuland, the head of the State Department's European desk, traveled to Ukraine three
times during the protests that triggered the coup, handing out cookies to demonstrators.
She told U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in a telephone conversation that was tapped and
later leaked that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, neoliberal head of the "Fatherland" Party, should be Prime
Minister as he was thought to have the "economic" and "governing experience."
Nuland further revealed that the U.S. had invested over $5 billion in "democracy promotion"
in Ukraine since 1991 through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was carrying on
the kind of work previously undertaken by the CIA during the Cold War.
Ukraine has long been considered an important bridge between Eastern and Western Europe and
holds lucrative oil and gas deposits.
NED president Carl Gershman called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step
towards toppling [Russian President Vladimir] Putin who "may find himself on the losing end not
just in the near abroad but within Russia itself."
To help achieve this end, the Obama administration pledged $1 billion in loan guarantees to
the post-coup government in Ukraine, which Putin considered as the "ideological heirs of
[Stephen] Bandera, Hitler's accomplice in World War II."
Swayed by a slick lobbying campaign backed by supporters of the Afghan mujahidin in the
1980s looking for a new cause and by the Senate's Ukraine Caucus, the Obama administration
further provided nearly $600 million in security assistance to the Ukrainian military.
It was supplied with counter-artillery radars, anti-tank systems, armored vehicles and
drones in a policy expanded upon by Trump.
Before and after the Ukrainian military's campaign began, Secretary of State John Kerry, CIA
Director John Brennan, and Vice President Joe Biden visited Kiev, followed by a flow of senior
Pentagon officials.
A back-door arms pipeline was set up through the United Arab Emirates and Blackwater
mercenaries were allegedly deployed.
American military advisers embedded in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry provided rocket
propelled grenades, carried out training exercises and planned military operations including
with members of the fascist Azov battalion, which had Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel patches
emblazoned on their sleeves.
Obama's National Security adviser, Samantha Power, claimed that the [Ukrainian] governments
"response [to alleged provocations by eastern rebels] [was] reasonable, it is proportional, and
frankly it is what any of our countries would have done."
The Ukrainian military and allied warlord and neo-Nazi militias were not acting reasonably
or proportionally, however, when they carried out artillery and air attacks on cities and
struck residential buildings, shopping malls, parks, schools, hospitals and orphanages in
Eastern Ukraine, and tortured and executed POWs in what amounted to clear war crimes.
NYU Professor Stephen Cohen notes that even TheNew York Times , which mainly
deleted atrocities from its coverage, described survivors in Slovyansk living "as if in the
Middle Ages."
That the American public knows nothing of these events is a sad reflection of the
superficiality of our media and decline in the quality of international news coverage.
It is also a testament to the failing of the political left, which has embraced the cause of
immigrant and Palestinian rights and fighting climate change, legitimately, but neglected the
plight of the Eastern Ukrainian people. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Jeremy Kuzmarov
"... After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism. ..."
"... In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation. In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." ..."
"... Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high "the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system." ..."
"... The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another. ..."
This is as good a time as any to point to an alternative vision of foreign policy. One based on the principle of non-interference,
respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and, above all, international law. One based on peaceful coexistence and mutual
cooperation. A vision of the world at peace and undivided by arbitrary distinctions. Such a world is possible and even though
there are currently players around the world who are striving in that direction we need look no further than our own history for
inspiration. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one Henry A. Wallace, for your consideration.
(The following excerpts from an article by Dr. Dennis Etler. Link to the full article provided below.) --
The highest profile figure who articulated an alternative vision for American foreign policy was the politician Henry Wallace,
who served as vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940-1944 and ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the
Progressive Party.
After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's
role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with
partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism.
Wallace gave a speech in 1942 that declared a "Century of the Common Man." He described a post-war world that offered "freedom
from want," a new order in which ordinary citizens, rather than the rich and powerful, would play a decisive role in politics.
That speech made direct analogy between the Second World War and the Civil War, suggesting that the Second World War was being
fought to end economic slavery and to create a more equal society. Wallace demanded that the imperialist powers like Britain and
France give up their colonies at the end of the war.
In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation.
In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in
war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and
by such means as we see fit."
Wallace responded to Luce with a demand to create a world in which "no nation will have the God-given right to exploit other
nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there
must be neither military nor economic imperialism." Wallace took the New Deal global. His foreign policy was to be based on non-interference
in the internal affairs of other countries and mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Sadly, since then, despite occasional efforts to head in a new direction, the core constituency for US foreign policy has been
corporations, rather than the "common man" either in the United States, or the other nations of the world, and United States foreign
relations have been dominated by interference in the political affairs of other nations. As a result the military was transformed
from an "arsenal for democracy" during the Second World War into a defender of privilege at home and abroad afterwards.
-- - Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without
political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high
"the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key
policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance
of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system."
--
Wallace's legacy suggests that it is possible to put forth a vision of an honest internationalism in US foreign policy that
is in essence American. His approach was proactive not reactive. It would go far beyond anything Democrats propose today, who
can only suggest that the United States should not start an unprovoked war with Iran or North Korea, but who embrace sanctions
and propagandist reports that demonize those countries.
Rather than ridiculing Trump's overtures to North Korea, they should go further to reduce tensions between the North and the
South by pushing for the eventual withdrawal of troops from South Korea and Japan (a position fully in line with Wallace and many
other politicians of that age).
Rather than demonizing and isolating Russia (as a means to score political points against Trump), progressives should call for
a real détente, that recognizes Russia's core interests, proposes that NATO withdraw troops from Russia's borders, ends sanctions
and reintegrates Russia into the greater European economy. They could even call for an end to NATO and the perpetuation of the
dangerous global rift between East and West that it perpetuates.
Rather than attempt to thwart China's rise, and attack Trump for not punishing it enough, progressives should seek to create new
synergies between China and the US economically, politically and socioculturally.
-- -
In contrast to the US policy of perpetual war and "destroying nations in order to save them," China's BRI proposes an open plan
for development that is not grounded in the models of French and British imperialism. It has proposed global infrastructure and
science projects that include participants from nations in Africa, Asia, South and Central America previously ignored by American
and European elites -- much as Wallace proposed an equal engagement with Latin America. When offering developmental aid and investment
China does not demand that free market principles be adopted or that the public sector be privatized and opened up for global
investment banks to ravish.
-- The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing
its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying
on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with
nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another.
"Support and attend the People's Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine and Save the
Planet, September 20 through 23, in New York City. Christian liberationist intellectual
Cornel West and Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice,
Peace and Reparations will speak, and much of the Black Agenda Report team are
participating.
Iran sanction and the threat of war has nothing to do with its nuclear program. It is about
the USA and by extension Israel dominance in the region. and defencing interesting of MIC, against the interest of general public.
Which is the main task of neocons, as lobbyists for MIC (please understand that MIC includes intelligence agencies and large
part of Wall Street) .
That's why Israel lobby ( and Bloomberg is a part of it ) supports strangulation Iran economy, Iran war and pushes Trump administration into it.
the demand " Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination of Iran's nuclear
activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist
groups across the Middle East -- in exchange for readmission into the world economy" is as close to Netanyahu position as we can
get.
Notable quotes:
"... The Bloomberg editors urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran ..."
"... As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them to yield. ..."
"... They have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons. ..."
"... Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder to justify punitive measures against Iran without end ..."
The
Bloomberg editors
urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran:
Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination
of Iran's nuclear activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its
ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist groups across the Middle East -- in
exchange for readmission into the world economy.
This chance may never come again.
Bloomberg's latest advice to Trump on Iran is terrible as usual, but it is a useful window
into how anti-Iran hard-liners see things. They see the next year as their best chance to push
for their maximalist demands, and they fear the possibility that Trump might settle for
something short of their absurd wish list. If Trump does what they want and "holds out" until
Iran capitulates, he will be waiting a long time. He has nothing to show for his policy except
increased tensions and impoverished and dying Iranians, and this would guarantee more of the
same. The funny thing is that the "extended sunset" they deride is already an unrealistic goal,
and they insist that the president pursue a much more ambitious set of goals that have
absolutely no chance of being reached. As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests
of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them
to yield.
The Bloomberg editorial is ridiculous in many ways, but just one more example will suffice.
At one point it says, "Nor is there any doubt that Iran wants nuclear weapons." Perhaps
ideologues and fanatics have no doubt about this, but it isn't true. If Iran wanted nuclear
weapons, they could have pursued and acquired them by now. They gave up that pursuit and agreed
to the most stringent nonproliferation agreement ever negotiated to prove that they wouldn't
seek these weapons, but the Trump administration chose to punish them for their cooperation.
Iran has not done any of the things that actual rogue nuclear weapons states have done. They
have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the
Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels
needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons.
Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will
continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but
fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners
aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder
to justify punitive measures against Iran without end.
They don't want to resolve the crisis
with Iran, but rather hope to make it permanent by setting goals that can't possibly be reached
and insisting that sanctions remain in place forever.
Well, people talk about Italy – they have to; it was one of the Axis powers, and the
allies had to fight it to subdue it. But now Italy is totally rehabilitated and, aside from a
certain carelessness with money, a valued friend. Just as Germany itself is totally
rehabilitated.
It is only Russia which remains a place of evil, because it will not admit its
Stalinist guilt and pay Billions in reparations to the Ukrainians for starving them all to
death, and atone as the west demands for its sins. Then it will be broke and helpless but
happy.
It's pathetic how Bolton tries to save face (=his walrus face, such as it is) by insisting
that he quit instead of being fired. It's that old canard, "You can't fire me 'cause I quit!"
[snif sob]
A variant of "You didn't break up with ME, I broke up with YOU!" [snif sob]
The problem is not Bolton. It is Trump. Bolton is a well known neocon, who pushed for Iraq
war (which makes his a war criminal) and founded PNAC. So his credentials as a warmonger were
clear. He was/is a typical MIC prostitute, or agent of influence in more politically correct
terms.
But any President who hired Bolton deliberately ositioned himself as a wrecking ball. Such an
art of the deal. Hiring Bolton to a large extent justified Russiagate, because such a President
is clear and present danger for the USA as a country. For the physical existence of this country
and civilization on this territory. All bets for a realistic foreign policy are off. They are
just wishful thinking.
Notable quotes:
"... Bolton would rather blow up Iran than talk to its leaders, engagement Trump has said numerous times he is more than happy to consider (maybe as soon as next week's U.N. General Assembly meeting). ..."
"... On Venezuela, Trump seems to have soured on pushing Nicolás Maduro from power, even as Bolton refers to Caracas as part of the "troika of tyranny." Bolton's obsession with getting North Korea denuclearized in one fell swoop -- an approach that came crashing down on Trump's head during his second summit with Kim Jong-un in February -- is far more likely to lead to an end of diplomacy than an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program (an uphill climb if there ever was one). ..."
"... Bolton, prickly as a porcupine in dealing with colleagues, had long been under Trump's skin. NBC News reports that the two men had a shouting match behind closed doors the night before Bolton's resignation. ..."
"... Whatever finally pushed Bolton out the door, however, is far less relevant than where Trump goes from here. He will announce a new national security adviser next week, and the Washington parlor game is already swirling with names. ..."
"... We don't know who Bolton's replacement will be, but we do know what he or she needs to do: dump most of the previous regime's ideas in the garbage and start over with strategies that actually have a chance at success. ..."
"... Trump needs an adviser who is willing to engage in a pragmatic negotiation and be prepared for uncomfortable but necessary bargaining. He needs someone who will help him end wars -- like the 18-year-long quagmire in Afghanistan -- that have gone on aimlessly and without purpose. ..."
Bolton's is an extreme black-and-white view of the world: if you aren't an ally of the
United States, you are an adversary who needs a boot on your neck in the form of U.S. military
force or economic sanctions. The second- and third-order strategic consequences are no obstacle
in Bolton's mind. Why go through the humiliating spectacle of negotiations when you can simply
bomb Iran's
nuclear facilities or take out the Kim regime by
force ?
Diplomacy, after all, is for wimps, spineless State Department bureaucrats, and appeasers.
If the boss is insisting on diplomacy, then demand the moon, stars, and
everything in between before offering a nickel of sanctions relief.
This is how John Bolton made his career: as the proverbial wrecking ball of arms control
agreements -- and indeed agreements of any kind. And he makes no excuses for it. Indeed, he
takes prideful ownership of his views, seeing anyone who disagrees with him or who isn't on his
level as a weasel. Before Bolton joined the Trump administration as national security adviser,
he was the short-lived ambassador to the United Nations and the undersecretary of state for
arms control, where he attempted to get an intelligence analyst removed
for disagreeing with his position on Cuba's alleged biological weapons program.
All of this is why so many of us were worried and confused when President Trump asked Bolton
to serve as his national security adviser last year. The two men could not have more
fundamental disagreements on foreign policy. While both laugh at the U.N. and international
organizations more broadly, they diverge paths on some of the weightiest issues on the docket.
Bolton would rather blow up Iran than talk to its leaders, engagement Trump has said
numerous times he is more than happy to consider (maybe as soon as next week's U.N. General
Assembly meeting).
On Venezuela, Trump seems to have soured on pushing Nicolás Maduro from power,
even as Bolton refers to Caracas as part of the "troika of tyranny." Bolton's obsession with
getting North Korea denuclearized in one fell swoop -- an approach that came crashing down on
Trump's head during his second summit with Kim Jong-un in February -- is far more likely to
lead to an end of diplomacy than an end to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program (an uphill climb
if there ever was one).
Trump grew tired of Bolton the same way he grew tired of other staffers. Rex Tillerson,
James Mattis, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly were all liked by the
president at one time, only to be fired or convinced to resign. Bolton, prickly as a
porcupine in dealing with colleagues, had long been under Trump's skin. NBC News reports that
the two men had a shouting match behind closed doors the night before Bolton's
resignation.
Whatever finally pushed Bolton out the door, however, is far less relevant than where
Trump goes from here. He will announce a new national security adviser next week, and the
Washington parlor game is already swirling with names.
We don't know who Bolton's replacement will be, but we do know what he or she needs to
do: dump most of the previous regime's ideas in the garbage and start over with strategies that
actually have a chance at success.
Trump needs an adviser who is willing to engage in a pragmatic negotiation and be
prepared for uncomfortable but necessary bargaining. He needs someone who will help him end
wars -- like the 18-year-long quagmire in Afghanistan -- that have gone on aimlessly and
without purpose.
He needs someone who will hold those within the administration accountable when they refuse
to execute policy once it is cleared by the inter-agency. And above all, he or she should prize
restraint and think through all the options when the Beltway loudly urges immediate action.
All of this will be easier with Bolton off the team.
Daniel R. DePetris is a foreign policy analyst, a columnist at Reuters, and a frequent
contributor to The American Conservative.
Iran sanction and the threat of war has nothing to do with its nuclear program. It is about
the USA and by extension Israel dominance in the region. and defencing interesting of MIC, against the interest of general public.
Which is the main task of neocons, as lobbyists for MIC (please understand that MIC includes intelligence agencies and large
part of Wall Street) .
That's why Israel lobby ( and Bloomberg is a part of it ) supports strangulation Iran economy, Iran war and pushes Trump administration into it.
the demand " Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination of Iran's nuclear
activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist
groups across the Middle East -- in exchange for readmission into the world economy" is as close to Netanyahu position as we can
get.
Notable quotes:
"... The Bloomberg editors urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran ..."
"... As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them to yield. ..."
"... They have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons. ..."
"... Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder to justify punitive measures against Iran without end ..."
The
Bloomberg editors
urge Trump not to give up on brain-dead maximalism with Iran:
Rather than push for an extended sunset, Trump should hold out for a complete termination
of Iran's nuclear activities and an end to its other threatening behavior -- such as its
ballistic-missile program and its support for terrorist groups across the Middle East -- in
exchange for readmission into the world economy.
This chance may never come again.
Bloomberg's latest advice to Trump on Iran is terrible as usual, but it is a useful window
into how anti-Iran hard-liners see things. They see the next year as their best chance to push
for their maximalist demands, and they fear the possibility that Trump might settle for
something short of their absurd wish list. If Trump does what they want and "holds out" until
Iran capitulates, he will be waiting a long time. He has nothing to show for his policy except
increased tensions and impoverished and dying Iranians, and this would guarantee more of the
same. The funny thing is that the "extended sunset" they deride is already an unrealistic goal,
and they insist that the president pursue a much more ambitious set of goals that have
absolutely no chance of being reached. As always, hard-liners ignore the agency and interests
of the other government, and they assume that it is simply a matter of willpower to force them
to yield.
The Bloomberg editorial is ridiculous in many ways, but just one more example will suffice.
At one point it says, "Nor is there any doubt that Iran wants nuclear weapons." Perhaps
ideologues and fanatics have no doubt about this, but it isn't true. If Iran wanted nuclear
weapons, they could have pursued and acquired them by now. They gave up that pursuit and agreed
to the most stringent nonproliferation agreement ever negotiated to prove that they wouldn't
seek these weapons, but the Trump administration chose to punish them for their cooperation.
Iran has not done any of the things that actual rogue nuclear weapons states have done. They
have not left the Non-Proliferation Treaty. On the contrary, they have agreed to abide by the
Additional Protocol that has even stricter standards. They are not enriching uranium to levels
needed to make nuclear weapons. They certainly haven't built or tested any weapons.
Iran has jumped through numerous hoops to demonstrate that their nuclear program is and will
continue to be peaceful, and their compliance has been verified more than a dozen times, but
fanatics here and in Israel refuse to take yes for an answer. That is because hard-liners
aren't really concerned about proliferation risk, but seek to use the nuclear issue as fodder
to justify punitive measures against Iran without end.
They don't want to resolve the crisis
with Iran, but rather hope to make it permanent by setting goals that can't possibly be reached
and insisting that sanctions remain in place forever.
This is all false. The goal was establish military bases in former soviet republics to encircle Russia and this goal was
achieved. Putin was probably not so wise giving 100% support to Bush invasion, which was a typical false flag invasion.
Taliban was the creation of the USA to fight Soviets, like political Islam in general so any complains are just pure
hypocity.
Notable quotes:
"... Afghanistan borders China. For that reason alone, we are never leaving whatever the cost in blood or treasure. The country is a very forward, strategic military base that can be used to launch air attacks on Chinese assets and impede China's Belt and Road initiative. ..."
"... Despite his bluster, Trump is very weak and knows the Taliban is winning and fears they will try to drive us out before the election, ushering in his defeat. Most of his time is spent cowering in his golf resorts, ranting and raving on a tiny little cellphone. ..."
"... The Blob will not allow any of his fears to shake the resolve of the Deep State to make Afghanistan a colony for a thousand years. ..."
"... American's negotiating position in every instances with rival nations is to dictate the terms for surrender regardless of the circumstances on the ground. It's an untenable position and guarantees perpetual war and occupation which is precisely the point. ..."
"... It seems to me that if one parsed reports from the Special Inspector General Afghanistan Reconstruction along with the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime's "Afghanistan Opium Survey", any illusions as to what the reasons for the West's intervention in that country were, should dissipate rather speedily. ..."
"... we invaded Afghanistan so that we could steal the foreign aid money that we would give them and could sponsor the opium trade. ..."
"... Gramsci and his like stand vindicated. Capture the academies and the rest of us follow, often willingly. ..."
"... And just a few, of those in the public eye, standing up true and declaring "This emperor has no clothes!" ..."
Where we are now in Afghanistan- Editorial Opinion by PL
(Lt. Hamilton VC at Kabul where he commanded Sir Louis Cavangnari's escort)
A year or so after the US intervention in Afghanistan began in 2001 I perceived that there
was a danger that US public and government opinion might begin to favor the idea of "nation
building" in Afghanistan. From long experience in and study of the area of Islamicate
civilization and its history it seemed clear to me that such an effort would be doomed to
failure at any price that one should be willing to pay in; expended effort over time, money and
blood shed on all sides.
The basic problem with Afghanistan is that there "is no there there." Afghanistan is really
a geographical expression rather than a country in the sense understood of the word in the
post-Westphalian system of independent states.
Across the Islamicate world from Mauritania to BanglaDesh and beyond to Oceania there is a
pronounced tendency to atomization in group perception of identity. Arabs do not identify with
Berbers, etc., Tribes and clans within these groups regard all others as rivals and often
enemies unless they are needed as temporary allies.
The Islamic religion which holds unity to be an ideal is often thought to be a unifier
against the atomizing tendency in these cultures, but in fact there are many, many varieties of
Islam, each one believing that it is uniquely favored by God. This often cancels out whatever
unifying effect Islam, as religion, can have.
Afghanistan, created as a buffer between imperial Russia and British India, is an extreme
case of atomization among the inhabitants of a state which has recognition in the world
political system including membership in the UN. In spite of that status , a status that might
deceive one into believing that there is such a thing as "the Afghan People,"the population of
Afghanistan is actually made up of a number of different ethnic nations; Pushtuns, Hazzara,
Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turcomans, Arabs, etc. These different peoples all speak mutually
unintelligible languages which often have such extreme separation in dialect that this amounts
to uninteligibility as well. Some of these groups are Sunni and others Shia. This is yet
another factor in the separation of the segments of the population.
The country has little substantial physical infrastructure. What there is was largely
constructed in the 50s and 60s as part of Cold War competition between the USSR and the US.
There is very little legal or governmental infrastructure. A commercial company investing its
own or borrowed money in Afghanistan is taking a great risk of never being able to recover its
investment from the local "pirates." Government is generally predatory in its attitude toward
foreign investment funds. I tried to find a safe haven in Afghanistan for some of my company's
funds and could find none. Senior Afghan government people would typically respond to questions
about legal infrastructure with exhortations to "bring your project, all will be well."
Needless to say ...
US intervention in this place was inevitable after 9/11, but what was not necessary or wise
were repeated US decisions for a COIN nation building campaign. As this tendency began to be
evident I argued for a much more limited goal in which the US would keep about 20K troops in
country to maintain a government controlled enclave around Kabul and Bagram. This would enable
pursuit of located international terrorist groups through raiding operations from that base
area. The basis for this strategy was my conclusion that the US could never "pacify" all of the
territory of Afghanistan and that we would "break our teeth" trying.
I pressed this belief in various fora and with various individuals within the Obama
Administration even as Obama endlessly contemplated the entreaties of the COINista generals,
Petraeus, Mattis, McChrystal etc. for a country wide nation building COIN campaign. The most
interesting of these encounters was at an IQ2 debate at NYU in 2009 where I (and teammates)
argued that "The US can never win in Afghanistan." My side lost on points but the leader of the
other team recently told me that he knows now that we were completely correct. Obama gave in to
the generals, and gave them the COIN war that they wanted. I suppose that for "Barry" it was
immensely flattering to have them "butter him up."
It is clear now that the COIN strategy has failed miserable and totally. Afghanistan is not
one bit more united or modernized than it has ever been. The US has spent a sea of money there
and many brave people have perished or been wrecked in chasing the idea of Afghanistan as a
Central Asian Switzerland.
Trump has allowed Zalmai Khalilzad to attempt to achieve a negotiated peace with the
Taliban, the former salafi takfiri, Pushtun rulers of Afghanistan, in the apparent belief that
they could be "talked down out of the tree" just as his business competitors could always be
talked down to meet at a "closing" table where his supposed "closing genius' would bring a
DEAL.
Unfortunately this belief in his closing talent goes unrewarded in Palestine, Syria,
Turkey,Yemen, Iran, China (not yet), North Korea and Afghanistan. IMO his difficulty in finding
solutions lies in his entrapment within his own New York City business model, a model in which
everything is for sale if the deal is structured skillfully to advantage the stronger party
while all the while claiming that the party you are screwing is your friend.
Sadly for The Donald all those "stupid" foreigners do not understand that "everything is for
sale." Among them, the Taliban, an army and religio-political movement are notable for a lack
of belief in the commercial possibilities of selling out to Donald Trump for a "mess of
pottage" or thirty pieces of silver whichever reference you prefer. They want to win, and they
want to be seen to have driven the "crusaders" from Afghanistan and in the process to have
humiliated the US as the leading infidel state. To that end they lie, prevaricate and await the
day when they can crush the puny forces of "modernism" after the American departure. Zalmai
Khalilzad is an Afghan pushtun Sunni by birth and rearing. Did he not know that they could not
be trusted in dealings with the US? I do not blame the Taliban for being what they are. I blame
all the American and NATO fools for believing that they could make the Taliban either go away
or become "happy campers." They were never going to do either of those things. We should have
known that. Some of us did, but Americans are addicted to all the melting pot, right side of
history foolishness so common in "levelled" America,
What should the US do now that the scales have fallen from Trump's eyes and the time of
"good faith" negotiation with the Taliban is "dead?" The first thing to do is to fire
Khalilzad.
Last night, Col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregor told Tucker Carlson that the US should simply
leave, and should have never intervened. IOW we should get the hell out totally and forever.
This is a tempting thought. I have wrestled with the attractiveness of the idea but there are
certain problems with it.
1. We should not want to give the jihadi movements proof of our feckless defeatability. IMO
if we leave suddenly the Afghan government and armed forces will soon collapse. The country
will then further disintegrate into a welter of jihadi factions and regional tribal strongmen,
the strongest of which will be the Taliban.
2. We have encouraged modernist Afghan men, women and girls to emerge from the shadows.
Shall we leave them to their fates under the rule of the jihadis.
3. What about all the translators, base workers and other people who have cast their lots
with us. The Taliban and other jihadis will simply kill them as apostates. We abandoned a lot
of such people in Iraq. Will we do it again?
On balance I would say Macgregor is right that we must leave. The time for a small remaining
presence is past. The forces in the field are too strong for a small force to maintain itself
even with massive long range air support. Think of Sir Louis Cavangnari. No, we should leave,
but we should leave on a schedule that will enable us to control the timing of our going and to
protect the departure of those who wish to leave with us. pl
BTW, SWMBO says that no mutually understood languages = no country.
"We should not want to give the jihadi movements proof of our feckless defeatability."
Gee, like admit to reality?
My view: Acknowledge the U.S. is not omnipotent, and has very limited ability to
influence, let alone, control, other parts of the world other than those to which it has
extremely close ties, most especially the Five Eyes and other parts of what was once called
Western Civilization.
I just want to mention that about once a year I dig the IQ2 debate out and watch it again
in full. Call it a sanity check I suppose. It is clear that you were trying to be substantive
throughout, which was somewhat hampered by the amorphous premise of "success" undergirding
the debate question. The other side (Nagle in particular) was trying to "win" the debate by
defining success so broadly as to exclude questions over the "how," and they used that as an
excuse to dodge your indictment of COIN. But it is very clear who had the right of it, and it
is at least somewhat gratifying to hear that same admission was made to you.
I suspect that we will retain our forces in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. To
understand why you've got to consider the politics rather than the pragmatics.
No president wants to be the one who "lost Afghanistan" (as though it were ours to lose)
or, worse yet, be the president who removed forces from a country from which an attack on the
U. S. would emanate afterwards or be staged from or planned from.
The greatest likelihood of our removing our forces from Afghanistan would be towards the
end of a president's second term, especially if that president were a Democrat and could
expect to take less heat from the media. In other words Obama should have removed our forces
from Afghanistan and if he wouldn't Trump won't, especially not before being re-elected.
These kind of wars seem to take 3 presidents to end. Trump is this war's Nixon and was
elected on a platform which included 'losing' Afghanistan. The media will howl once the
Taliban take over, but it will swiftly pass as they realize Americans have no interest in a
place where their countrymen are no longer dying.
No matter what the US government does or does not do, wouldn't Afghanistan revert to its
natural state as you have described it?
It seems Trump's "negotiated" deal with the Taliban would have been a good approach to
getting out but that's now no longer a possibility. Would supporting the Tajiks through
Russia and India as a counter-balance to the Taliban work to keep them from completely
dominating? Russia and India likely have an interest in preventing jihadis from using Taliban
dominated territory to infiltrate. Is it even worth any effort on the part of the US
government? It would seem Pakistan and China would continue working to influence events
there.
My longstanding belief is that Afghanistan to be 'tamed' requires the type of Steel that only
existed long ago.
The Modern World has modernized beyond the brutal realities that taming it likely
requires, and as such may lose a fraction of the Lives and Treasure as past - but cannot
sustain it politically or socially.
The next Question - If Afghanistan is simply a construct, why not forsake most of it and
develop the regions of Afghanistan that ARE more amiable and Homogenous?
A lot of the Tadzhiks and Uzbeks (varied Turkmen) I suspect could be far more easily
propped up and supported in their own Lands, which back to back with the Central Asian FSU
States is a more viable 'Nation Building' Exercise.
What ultimately tamed the 'Wilds'? The Development of strong local States, Force of Arms
and ultimately - Demographics. If you will not do it yourself, pick a unified Team and back them in doing it. Ironically the means to inflict harm on occupying Militaries seems to go down as those
Armies means to stomach it does also.
The next obvious Question. Is it worth considering (not necessarily for the US and Western
States - who will appear as desperate Losers the idea that Afghanistan if allowed to run as
strong Armed Islamic State, albeit modernized - might actually one day develop into one more
approachable to further modernization?
I agree we should unilaterally withdraw all our forces from Afghanistan. The military can
surely plan and carry out a unilateral withdrawal. Just do it. The Taliban are not al Qaeda
or the Islamic State. Their desires don't extend beyond the mountains of Afghanistan. Hell,
they're fighting IS. Let them do so and don't give them reason to go over to them.
The rub will be all those Afghanis who tied their futures to us. We should resettle them
here or somewhere more familiar to them as part of that withdrawal. The chance of that
happening under the Trump administration is nil.
That is the exact same argument I heard in 72 and again in 75. By early 76 no one cared.
There are in every country and in every involvement Quislings and main chancers who find the
short term gelt available to be worth the future risk of making the wrong and visible
choice.
In the case of most of these Afghanis the tie was a slip knot at best.
A "long, long, time ago" in "a land far away", Najibullah was deposed. Pat, you'll recall
that I was then serving as the chair of the Inter-agency Task Force on Afghanistan. Well, we
had our regular meeting at which a couple of the folks opined that this was a wonderful
development for the country and the folks would now all join hands, dance around the
campfire, and sign Kumbaya. To bring the group back to reality, I asked for someone to
identify the national sport of Afghanistan. One of the group said that, obviously, it was
buzkhasi. So I then asked for someone else to clarify how such a game unfolds and another
stalwart did so. This dialogue quickly brought everyone back to reality. For those unfamiliar
with the sport, buzkhasi consists of two nominal "teams" on horseback trying to get a
headless goat carcass across the opponent's goal line. All goes well at first, but ultimately
the teams disintegrate until it's every man for himself in mass mayhem. Thus, IMHO will go
Afghanistan.
Sadly enough this old quote seems especially true in the case of the "Afghan War" or whatever
it is. Our experts' obdurate insistence on pursuing "peace with honor" or some outcome we can
get our heads around and feel good about has become a receding horizon...
The only way we could "win" would be by waging a war of extermination with the goal of
totally depopulating the entire territory and building an impenetrable barrier around it. But
of course that would be a hard sell for a country with a good guy reputation to protect. And
then what would we do with the land? After all, we still haven't been able to settle most of
Nevada and Wyoming!
"History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about
by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools."
I said at the beginning of this mess that the one sure thing was that we would end up with
chains of Iraqi and afghan restaurants begun by the refugees who had to leave their countries
with us when we left. I just hope we have progressed from leaving behind card indexes of our
in-country supporters for the Taliban to discover, as allegedly happened in Vietnam.
I enjoyed the IQ2 debate you reference, particularly your coining of the word "Vermontize".
Incredible to think this conversation about an 8 year old war was 10 years ago - and we are
still having it. Here is the link for anyone interested:
I really enjoy these type of situational overview and analysis posts, thanks!
Although I see your point about Trump's crass business approach, let's face it... the
military and various US gov't orgs have had any many years to try various approaches to
"solving" (cough, cough) Afghanistan. After all the US has been in Afghanistan since 2001. We
had been in Afghanistan for 15 years before Trump was elected. After all those years of failure
by the Borg I have no problem whatsoever with Trump taking a shot at the situation in his own
way. Trump tried a certain tactic and it didn't work. Oh well, but lessons learned. He'll
regroup, get more advice and try something else. He's making more of an effort to resolve
things than previous presidents, and willing to think outside of the Borg box.
No, all Trump was doing was looking for a re-election publicity stunt and a shot at that
elusive Nobel like Obama got....he's done this kind of thing for the last 40 years - he isn't
going to change his personality now...
If the US leaves and I believe it should it doesn't have to mean the end of days. China,
Russia, Iran, India and Pakistan have all expressed interest in clearing the area of
terrorists. They have all been blocked by the US presence. Preferably the US would work a
deal with those players who are far better connected and prepared to clean up the
neighbourhood than the US is from the other side of the world. Russia was willing to act as
guarantor for the collapsed deal. Work a deal for one or more of them to move in as the US
moves out.
My concern is that with all the big players wanting a piece of the pie that it evolves into
an even worse proxy war. But China, Pakistan, Russia and Iran are all rowing in more or less
the same direction these days and India has bitten off all it can chew in Kashmir so this may
be the perfect time. Americans just have to get over that indispensable nation nonsense.
Thank you for thinking of the women and girls....and perhaps their little boys.
I've lived through the abandonment of Vietnam and the influx of refugees from that part of
the world, the mess after the Iraq War that included bringing to our country many who had
tied their fortunes to us. We can not this time decide to abandon any who have tied their
hopes to us after we came in and caused so much turmoil in their country.
I always thought it was hubris on our part to think we could do what the Soviets failed to
do.
If we bring these people here, my hope is that we examine how our bringing in Somalis has,
in many places, not been a successful effort in regard to integrating them into our society.
(Do not many of us, including Nancy Pelosi, regret the bringing in of at least one Somali
woman?) We need to prepare for their entry into our country in some way that will not mean
just dropping them somewhere and letting them fend for themselves.
I know the government has some sort of protocol for finding them places to live. Often,
however, the people seem to be dropped in and left in some ways to depend on themselves "as
strangers in a strange land." This should be our last time. Stop the "nation-building"
efforts.
I feel that most Americans are welcoming and friendly people, but they often just do not
understand how difficult it is for some to adapt to a very different way of life.
Afghanistan borders China. For that reason alone, we are never leaving whatever the cost in
blood or treasure. The country is a very forward, strategic military base that can be used to
launch air attacks on Chinese assets and impede China's Belt and Road initiative.
Despite his bluster, Trump is very weak and knows the Taliban is winning and fears they
will try to drive us out before the election, ushering in his defeat. Most of his time is
spent cowering in his golf resorts, ranting and raving on a tiny little cellphone.
The Blob will not allow any of his fears to shake the resolve of the Deep State to make
Afghanistan a colony for a thousand years.
They have been successful in implanting in the psyche of every American the incorrect
notion that the Taliban launched 9/11. That notion alone means there is no support for any
truce or treaty with our bete noir.
These lines from Rudyard Kipling immediately came to my mind:
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!"
We are never going to change Afghanistan so getting out and taking those who supported us
is appealing to me.
Maybe that's why Mr. Prince wanted Trump to make him the viceroy of Afghanistan.
What a career that would be - a former SEAL lieutenant, then mercenary, promoted to
something like a field marshal, bringing fabulous quarter numbers, strategy or something like
that, peace and freedom to the place by privatizing the war and fighting it more cost
effective for himself .
It is not a base. It is a sinkhole--A distinction without a difference.
Confusedponderer
Your reference to Mr. Prince was spot on. He understood what the long-term plans for
Afghanistan were and still are. A viceroy is the designated ruling representative of a
colonial power.
American's negotiating position in every instances with rival nations is to dictate the
terms for surrender regardless of the circumstances on the ground. It's an untenable position
and guarantees perpetual war and occupation which is precisely the point.
It seems to me that if one parsed reports from the Special Inspector General Afghanistan
Reconstruction along with the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime's "Afghanistan Opium
Survey", any illusions as to what the reasons for the West's intervention in that country
were, should dissipate rather speedily.
so, your belief is that we invaded Afghanistan so that we could steal the foreign aid money that we would give them and
could sponsor the opium trade. Funny! A joke right?
IMO Trump has no clarity of anyhthing in foreign policy. He is just trying to make a deal
in accordance with his experience of deal making and is not doing well. It will be
interesting to see if he and Trudeau can sell the USMCA to Pelosi. this is clearly a
gooddeal. Let's see how hard he pushes for it. With regard to the ME, have reached the
conclusion that his basic attitudes are formed in the culture of New York City Jewry. A
Christian Brother who had two PH.D.s in STEM and was a New York City guy once told me that I
had to understand that everyone in NY City is to some extent Jewish, even the cardinal
archbishop.
I spent several years in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2014. I was there, with a front row
seat, when the shift to nation-building began. The best days of my life were in Afghanistan,
spent amongst the finest men and women from many nations...including Afghanistan.
We lost the war a long time ago. By 2006, I could see we were losing. By 2008, I knew it
was lost. How many Afghans have hitched their horses to our wagon? More than enough. How many others
chose to live as free men and women because we were there? A significant part of the
population. They face a reckoning for living that hope out loud, in public.
The Afghan people are amazing, and a lot of them believed in us, and in a future where
women could be more than a piece of property. I can see why some would say we should walk
away, and, it's hard to argue against that.
I'll carry what we did in Afghanistan to my grave. DOL,
Colonel ...I agree with your Opinion on this matter of Withdrawal. I have read a Year by Year
timeline of The Millions spent. for the Training Of Afghanistan Military and Security
Forces and Like in Viet Nam..they will fail. Fail to defend themselves..
Their hearts wont be in it..and like Vietnam..It Just made The Communist North Vietnamese the Third Most Powerful
Conventional Weapons stockpile in the World..with all the Equipment we Left
behind...The..billions spent to keep our military presence there..
The millions Spent for VA
Resources to care for our wounded. Many with traumatic head injuries...The loss of Our People
there..Overt and Covert...The loss of Seal Team 6 in the Aftermath of Finally Getting Osama
Bin Laden...It will Never End...
There will always be those willing to die for JiHad..Forever..Over a Trillion Dollars..Plus all The Money we sent to
Pakistan. Which has
been Most of Our Foreign Aid..Its been a Tragic Blunder and there has never been such a
thing as "Mission Accomplished"..
This has been the second most Costly War since WWII.
..Bring Them Home.. ...
9/11/2001,,,,9/11/2019.A War of the Politicians..By The Politicians
For The Politicians.and the Military..Industrial Complex....and Their Egos..and Bank
accounts..Period...Thomas Jefferson Knew This was coming.
I know nothing about Doug Macgregor but he sounds really sane in this interview with
Tucker. If Trump does what he suggests it would be a welcome approach and drive the Borg
insane.
I agreed with sending SOF in to kill AQ being harbored by the Taliban. I said at the time,
"Go in, kill the people who need killing & get the hell out."
There is only one thing that can unify Afgan tribes, that's the presence of foreigners. A
very long history has resulted in the reference to "the graveyard of empires." I don't
believe that the Taliban is a threat to the US outside of Afghanistan. They are a threat to
any American in Afghanistan. Nation building in Afghanistan is domed to failure. The only
issue is what is to be the fate of the Afghani's who assisted us or bought into the idea of
westernization. Our recent history is to abandon these people.
Eventually we will join the list of Afghan invaders from Cyrus, to Alexander, to the
Brits. The only question is how we depart & how much more blood & treasure we
spend.
In my experience, nothing can unify Afghan tribes, or even the sub-tribes. There is a saying
amongst the Pashtun: "Me against my brothers, my brothers and I against my cousins, my
cousins and I against the world." The real Taliban (meaning the political entity, exiled to
the east, also known as "The Quetta Shura," have never been able to get "Taliban" factions in
Afghanistan to unite against anything. COL Lang is spot-on, there is no collective "Afghan"
identity.
Afghanistan is still run by warlords. The vast majority of folks referred to as "Taliban"
are really just warlords (and the warlords' minions) wrapping themselves in the Taliban flag,
as it suits them now. If the Taliban were to come back to controlling power in Afghanistan,
many of the warlords would switch to fighting the Taliban. True territorial gains in
Afghanistan are generally made when warlords switch sides. Afghan warlords are the most loyal
people money can buy...well, rent, anyway.
The IQ2 debate was significant for me personally when I first saw it. The arguments for
staying in Afghanistan were set out coherently and for perhaps the first time I caught a
glimpse of the immense intellectual effort, in the think tanks and the academies, that goes
into justifying the neocon position. That neocon position working through almost by osmosis
to the heavyweight newspapers and media outlets, and providing the narrative framework within
which the Intelligence Initiatives of this world right down to the little propaganda sites
work. Such varied figures as Charles Lister or Peter Tatchell have backup, and how.
It's an intellectual fortress, the whole, and for many of us in the general public
it confirms us comfortably in the neocon rationale. It gives us the arguments, and the
excuses, and as long as one declines to notice that those arguments and excuses do shift
around, we pay our taxes for this or that crazy neocon venture without complaint and often
gladly. Gramsci and his like stand vindicated. Capture the academies and the rest of us
follow, often willingly.
And just a few, of those in the public eye, standing up true and declaring "This emperor
has no clothes!"
Which happened, as I saw several years later when I got to view it, in that IQ2 debate.
Around that time I came across Major Stueber's documentary which had rather more than seven
minutes to lay out how hopeless it was for Western armies to fight alongside local forces,
when those local forces were so hopelessly factional, corrupt, and therefore ineffectual.
And a footnote just recently. I head a Swedish aid worker relating just how impossible it
was for him too to function in Afghanistan. Money put through to local groups swallowed up in
false invoicing, ghost workers whose salaries went to swell the pay packet of their
superiors, slush funds because that was the only way to get things done.
It was never a doable venture, Afghanistan. That was clear to a few in that debate ten
years ago and it's clear to more now. I hope it's possible to get out without leaving the
urban Westernised Afghans too much at the mercy of the rest.
And perhaps, also reflecting that the Rovean narratives that the academies and think tanks
conjure up for us, at such expense and at such effort, all crumble eventually when reality,
as it must finally, breaks through.
Good catch; you were first with that blockbuster. You know who would be a good replacement?
Tulsi Gabbard. It would please those who moan the government is too partisan, it would remove
the only real non-ideologue from the Democratic slate, and leave them with doddering Uncle
Joe and a bunch of no-ideas bobbleheads. Few would dare question her lack of foreign-policy
experience, given her actual experience of being at the sharp end of it with the military.
The American people claim to be sick of war – although not sick enough of it to do any
real protesting against it – and Gabbard is anti-war. She's easy on the eyes, but if
Trump tried his grab-'er-by-the-pussy move, he would find himself only needing one glove this
winter; her obvious toughness would appeal to feminists. I think she'd take it if asked,
because although she despises Trump and his government, she would not be able to resist the
opportunity to shape America's foreign policy. She would eat news outlets who tried to
portray her as an apologist for terror or Putin or whatever for lunch.
Well, she was not on the short list of names I saw for potential Bolton replacements. I don't
see her making president, though, her support base is just not big enough. But if the
Democrats put all their eggs in the Burnout Joe basket, he will in all probability lose to
Trump. Trump's support has eroded, but not so far that very many people want to see Joe Biden
running the country.
I liked Bernie Sanders back when he was getting shafted by the Clinton juggernaut, but since
then a lot of information on his voting record has come to light – not that it was
ferreted out, it's all public information for anyone who chooses to look for it – and I
have become convinced he is just another lifelong political mouthpiece whose first concern
upon getting elected would be getting re-elected.
So I don't really care much for him now, and I think that if he were president, his
policies would differ little from those of Barack Obama, and he would support any war that
appeared to have enough public backing to get it off the ground. His main concern, obviously
– and it will be for anyone who is elected – is preserving US dominance of global
affairs, and trade relationships which gain the United States significant advantages.
Re-establishing a more cooperative relationship between the United States and its allies
and partners is not on anyone's radar. The USA has made its choice, and it likes the idea of
sitting on the throne and detailing off its minions to do busy stuff. Gabbard might have very
slightly different ideas about polishing America's global image so it is not viewed as quite
so much of a bossy prick and grabby selfish jerk, but if she were elected, America's
corporate elite would waste no time in making sure she understood any president who is not
going to be zealous in standing up for expansion of American business would be a one-termer
at best.
Repeating lies over and over makes old-fashioned Joseph Goebbels-type propaganda.
Repeating lies, then contradicting them; moving them from one government-paid think-tank to
another; footnoting a new lie to an older version; quoting policemen and gangsters saying
fatuities; adding slang and the words of pop songs -- this is still Goebbels-type but
stretched out and product-diversified to make its author more money. This is Mark Galeotti's
method .
####
The rest at the link and a deep dive on Galeotti himself.
Blok says the Ukrainian side offered to "postpone" the exchange to give Dutch
prosecutors the opportunity to interview Tsemach again, and adds that this questioning
subsequently took place
Investigators directing the criminal probe into MH17's loss have previously identified
four individuals – three Russians and a Ukrainian, none of which is Tsemach – who
they are seeking to prosecute over the attack.
####
'interview again '. To repeat the f/king obvious, surely if there was sufficient
intelligence/evidence/coffee grounds/magda the gypsy/whatever, then Tsemach would have been
handed over. Did they honestly thing that having another crack at him would have
provided something? Weak as piss.
Of course the Pork Pie New Networks despite being rather more careful than usual in their
reporting of this are having their cake and eating it, i.e. not using phraes like '
smoking gun ' but happy with 'key witness' with no qualifier or anything to
back this up. The insinuation is there, but not the actual words. Spineless mofos.
They're just having so much fun with the ridiculous narrative that Russia moved behind the
scenes to ensure he was included in the prisoner swap – before you know it, the entire
exchange will have been engineered to get Tsemakh out of Ukrainian hands. Why? Well, you know
– where there's smoke, there's a crashed airliner, wink, wink.
Moscow never mentioned Tsemakh; if they sent Ukraine a list of prisoners recommended for
exchange, he was not on it. But the western media planted the seed that his inclusion in the
slate of transferred prisoners was owed to Russian pressure, and it just gets wilder as it
goes along.
I'd have thought that the Dutch investigators would try to persuade the Banderites to keep
Tsemakh in custody on the pretence that his life would be in danger if he were to be returned
to Russia, because Lord Vlademort would be displeased that Tsemakh might have let something
valuable slip from his lips, let alone be inconsiderate enough as to be arrested in the first
place.
Later on in the distant future, after Tsemakh has been transported to The Hague or Rome,
as the court case date draws near, or when Tsemakh is supposed to appear as a "witness" in
court, he can always suddenly and unexpectedly expire in prison from some hitherto
undiagnosed heart condition.
Ukraine released him on bail before the prisoner swap. Obviously they either considered him
an insignificant flight risk – given how difficult it must be to collect a bail bond in
Ukraine – or knew that he had no information which would be useful to anyone. They
might even be using him to spread disinformation in Russia, and all the teeth-grinding from
the west all for show, to make the bait sweeter. You never know. But under normal
circumstances, when a European country said "Jump", Ukraine's response would be "How high"?
If you read the accident investigation report, on page 239 it clearly states that the
Ukrainian army was active with heavy anti-aircraft installations in the eastern part of the
Ukraine. The Ukrainian army has BUK rockets of the type that downed MH17.
The Ukraine had the means and a motive, they should have been treated as a criminal
suspect, yet without further investigation they were promoted to member of the JIT that does
the criminal investigation
"Saudi jets, armed with US and UK bombs and provided with targeting information by US
military intelligence officers stationed in Saudi Arabia, have continued to carry out
repeated attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, residential
neighborhoods, mosques, funerals and markets. The US had provided coalition jets with mid-air
refueling until the end of last year, ensuring maximum carnage."
Well, people talk about Italy – they have to; it was one of the Axis powers, and the
allies had to fight it to subdue it. But now Italy is totally rehabilitated and, aside from a
certain carelessness with money, a valued friend. Just as Germany itself is totally
rehabilitated.
It is only Russia which remains a place of evil, because it will not admit its
Stalinist guilt and pay Billions in reparations to the Ukrainians for starving them all to
death, and atone as the west demands for its sins. Then it will be broke and helpless but
happy.
It's pathetic how Bolton tries to save face (=his walrus face, such as it is) by insisting
that he quit instead of being fired. It's that old canard, "You can't fire me 'cause I quit!"
[snif sob]
A variant of "You didn't break up with ME, I broke up with YOU!" [snif sob]
"It will be well worth while": the state Duma has praised the willingness of the American
Ambassador to come and have a talk following his interview "Komsomolskaya Pravda"
Okhotny Ryad [address of State Duma -- ME] is now waiting for the Ambassador of
the USA to Russia, following his interview with "Komsomolskaya Pravda". We shall remind you,
that Jon huntsman, who, following his resignation, is leaving in October, has stressed that
he is ready to discuss allegations of interference (here he was talking about the publication
on Twitter by his Embassy of the announcement of the rally and a map of its route, together
with a request that these places be avoided these), but there has yet been no invitation made
that he do so.
I would be very happy to discuss this with anyone, but nobody has invited me and I
think I have not been invited because people know the truth, and it consists of the fact that
on the eve of the demonstrations, the Embassy should publish a consular alert and warn its
citizens to stay away from the places where they are to take place. My first responsibility
is to ensure the safety of American citizens.
And if I do not tell people, I would thereby have demonstrated neglect of my duty,
and my official duties. So I did what I did in all other cases – what I was doing in
China and what to do in Singapore when I was Ambassador there: we took documents already in
the public domain, and warned U.S. citizens that they should stay away from specific
locations, and published a map of where these places were marked.
That is what all this is really about, and I am very surprised that the standard
function of the Embassy has been presented as something unusual", said the
Ambassador."
(above) 02.20 2011, Beijing: Huntsman staying away from a specific place that the US
Embassy to China considered as being potentially dangerous to US citizens.
Russia has no net public debt left
06:54 09/10/2019 (updated: 07:26 09/10/2019)
MOSCOW, Sep 10 – RIA News. The net public debt of Russia has become negative for
the first time since the introduction of the first sanctions for the annexation of the Crimea
and the fall in oil prices in 2014, RBC writes, with reference to Ministry of Finance and
Central Bank data.
As of August 1, the volume of public debt of the federal government, regions and
municipalities, including state guarantees for enterprise loans, amounted to 16.2 trillion
rubles.
At the same time, the liquid assets of the state – federal authorities, regions
and extrabudgetary state funds – totalled 17.6 trillion ruble son the same
date.
Thus, in the widest sense, the public debt since mid-2019 has become less than the
liquid assets of the "expanded government", the publication indicates.
As noted, this has became possible owing to record reserves that have fully covered the
state debt. That is to say, if Russia needed to immediately pay off all existing debts, this
could be done at the expense of only government deposits with the Central Bank and commercial
banks.
As the Minister of Economic Development, Maxim Oreshkin, emphasized, "what has been
done in Russian macroeconomics from 2014 to 2019 will definitely fall into the textbooks", At
the same time, the flip side of such a tough approach is the lack of fiscal incentives for
economic development.
Over to you Bloomberg, WSJ, FT etc., etc!
Waddya say to that, arseholes?
And think on this, you happy folk of the Exceptional Nation who prosper ever onwards:
MOSCOW, 16 August 2019/ Radio Sputnik . Russia
continues to reduce investments in US bonds in June, reducing their size to 10.8 billion
dollars, the United States Ministry of Finance has reported.
According to Finance Department data, 5,296 billion dollars of this amount is for
long-term securities and 5,552 billion are short – term.
For comparison, in may, the total amount was $ 12 billion.
As part of the de-dollarization course for Russia, other financial instruments are
gaining importance: gold and investments in European and Asian securities, chief expert of
FinEk agency Mikhail Belyaev said on Sputnik radio.
According to the economist, the instability of the US economy also contributes to the
withdrawal of Russian assets from it.
During the time I am away, KS does both a book review and coverage of Nina Khrushcheva? ))
Dr. Khrushcheva maintains a WordPress blog , which also doubles as her
official webpage for the New School. It is amusing?
Once, still in grad school and a misanthropic Russian to boot (given our totalitarian
history most Russians are unhappy), I wrote a very sad novel Small World, published in
Moscow and quickly out of print. But that was a fluke, living in New York I am much happier
now. And all in all, my favorite theme is political culture in Russia and America.
Politicians lie all the time, but culture never lies about politics. Culture and politics
are symbiotically linked like the famous double-headed Russian eagle that used to be on the
front of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and now is rotting in the backyard of the city's
museum of architecture. It is the perfect symbol of Russia's former political and cultural
grandeur and current decay. American eagle is just one-headed, of course, yet this country
is no less interesting in its own idiosyncratic relations between culture and politics.
I (with the architect colleague Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss) have curated an exhibition
titled Romancing True Power: D20. It ran February 12-26, 2015 at Parsons The New School for
Design, 66 Fifth Avenue (between 12th and 13th St). In the meantime my amazing research
assistant and student Yiqing Wang (who really should be running not-a-small country) and I
have produced a supplement to the exhibition, a D20 Journal, in which we put together
thoughts on true power, dicktatroship, dicktatorial fashion, economics, philosophy, body
count and other stats.
D20 (modeled on G20, group of most industrialized nations) is a selective list of leaders
from present and recent past across continents and different political systems. Romancing
True Power investigates an idea of power: autocratic, authoritarian and dictatorial. This
type of power–the Dick power–could be found in both dictatorships and
democracies. The exhibition looks at dicktatorial construct, its typology and trappings.
What constitutes a "strong leader"? Why does the public often prefer one? Since everyone's
list of dicktators is subjective, at the show visitors were invited to PYOD (Pick Your Own
Dick). For the Dick winners and more information check out the D20 Facebook page.
Other topics I am fond of include politics, and mostly Russian politics, and, of course,
movies. But whatever I do, all fits neatly into the last line of Billy Wilder's 1959
classic Some Like it Hot, the best ever, "Nobody's perfect."
(source: see hyperlink above)
I do not intend to slam the IMO legitimate topic – only the content and tone of this
"analysis." You have a PhD in Comp Lit (Princeton, 1998). You shouldn't be writing like a
second-year undergrad.
Hey, JT – welcome back, where you been? Yes, that attitude is familiar among the emigre
Russian Jews, the too-smart-to-believe Ashkenazim that make American jaws drop with their
brilliance: Russians in Russia are miserable and always unhappy, but put them in America and
they shine like diamonds, they're so fucking hap-hap-happy you'd better just get out of the
way. I don't believe Khrushchev was Jewish, but the complaining sounds just like all the
Jewish 'refugees' like Miriam Elder and Julia Ioffe; Russia was a drag, man – but New
Yawk, Dahling, now there's a city! It's almost as if they feel denigrating the country of
their birth is the price of acceptance. Perhaps it is – for a people who snap to
attention whenever they see the American flag, Americans are awfully smitten with Russians
who dump on Russia, as if it affirms their own beliefs.
Khrushcheva seems very stuck on herself, but perhaps she simply believes all the hype. For
my part, I find her mean-spirited and shallow, prone to go for the cheap laugh, and most
comfortable in a crowd of like-minded 'free thinkers'. It amazes me that anyone who
classified him/herself as a free thinker could see American-style democracy as the last word
in human development, but perhaps I'm just thick.
Between a
lecture Dr. Khruscheva gave at my university a year or so ago and an attempted reading of
her book, In Putin's Footsteps , I have concluded that she is the kind of writer who
takes advantage of an absence of consistent critical voices to let her opinions run wild,
untethered from factual backing, theory, or academic standards.
She lectured at my university with the backing of some powerful people within
"Russia-Watching" (quite literally in this case, as one sat behind her while she lectured).
Although she made her argument sloppily, painting in broad brushstrokes, no one challenged
the argument during Q&A.
Read the preview
of In Putin's Footsteps on A'zon. It's ridiculous. The same generalizing commentary as
before but sprinkled on what reads like an extended TripAdvisor review.
For whatever reason, academia and editors give her a free pass. The resulting writing,
while insightful re: how she thinks, is not useful [to me] in any professional sense.
--
Hey, JT – welcome back, where you been?
Haha I've been doing the blog equivalent of breathing into a brown paper bag. Now that I'm
back at uni with a capstone/distinction project, Russia Reviewed will hopefully regain its
previous sense of direction.
Yes, Russians are so miserable, never smile and are permanently depressed at thought of their
misfortune of having been born in Russia and, therefore, condemned to a life of woe under an
authoritarian regime.
I mean, just look at all those sad bastards who have been celebrating "Moskva Day" since
Thursday, 5 September this year.
I wish I could send you some clips that my permanently depressed because he is a Russian
son sent me late yesterday evening from Red Square: a big firework display and sad looking
Russians pretending to be enjoying themselves.
Most of them, I am sure, had been ordered to go to Tversksya Street and walk down to Red
Square.
Tverskaya has been closed to traffic since Thursday (the bogus celebrations end this
evening) and along its length are the usual Soviet-style distractions that the oppressed
multitudes pretend are so much fun.
Since 5 September until the 8th inclusive the city is celebrating the founding of Moskva
in 1147.
Well, not its founding, really, but the earliest date that they have a written record of a
place called "Moskva" – in a letter from the Prince of the city of Vladimir, Yuri
Dolgoruki, to his brother, inviting him to visit him in Moskva. (Remember, this was when Kiev
was the centre of world civilisation.)
It was during the first of these "Moskva Day" celebrations, held 22 years ago, when on 7
September 1997 I asked Mrs. Exile if she wished to marry me.
It was our first date.
I don't like to waste time over important matters.
She jumped at the offer, of course.
No holding her back!
Luckiest break she's ever had, I reckon, for my ebullient presence in her life has most
certainly rescued her from the pit of permanent gloom that would most certainly have
accompanied her living under this regime and from the likelihood of her being wed to a brute
of a balalaika strumming, vodka swilling Russian husband.
Limp-wristed, tea sipping Englishmen are much more preferable!
HK article gets at the nascent conflicting conflagrations wrt objectives .what is to be cast
into the fire and what is to be taken as a new HK socioeconomic script.
The comments are **well worth** reading ,some of which mirror comments on HK by Stooges. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/09/pers-s09.html
If Carrie Lam had half a brain, she could always threaten to bring back the extradition bill
with a new provision that people who damage essential infrastructure like railway lines and
roads, and who target police with rocks, laser beams and grenades shot from portable grenade
launchers will be extradited to Beijing to stand trial for their misdeeds, if the protesters
keep changing and ramping up their demands.
Carrie Lam chose to play it like Yanukovych, and to give the protesters what they asked for.
That resulted in Yanukovych running for his life, and Lam might well find herself in the same
situation if the police don't get a handle on the hoodlums that are smashing the place up and
hurling stones and Molotov cocktails. Appeasing protesters only makes them feel empowered,
and that empowerment causes them to wonder why they should be satisfied with only what they
originally demanded. That's a natural effect, and this is not a natural protest, but a
destabilization effort instigated and nurtured by foreign interests. So the protesters'
demands are just going to grow and grow, because the goal is either a violent clash with the
police or complete government capitulation. China is not going to let the latter happen.
Lam has said already that there will be no negotiation with groups that destroy public
property, but protesters have vowed not to give an inch. The ball is in Lam's court, and if
she does not harden up and present a credible defense, she will be removed either by China or
by the protesters. Hong Kong is not going to become a democratic independent country –
China is not going to let it be snatched away under their noses. Firm action right now might
be able to get the situation under control with a minimum of violence, but if it goes on much
longer, people are going to be killed And there is zero the west could do to stop it, as it
is a domestic Chinese matter, so their continued egging on of the protesters shows how little
it cares for their lives.
WSWS,org's reporting on the Hong Kong protests has been dismal and ideologically biased. To
my knowledge, the protesters' demands have never covered working conditions, housing
conditions and the tremendous social inequalities (said to be the highest in the world). They
have never covered the state of a tax haven economy used and abused by billionaires in
mainland China to minimise their tax obligations to Beijing or to send money to other
overseas tax havens through registering their offspring or other people as Hong Kong
residents, resulting in money being poured into property speculation which itself has led to
sky-high property prices and the inability of ordinary people to afford to buy or rent homes
of a suitable space at reasonable prices.
The protesters' initial demands were to withdraw the extradition bill, to force Carrie Lam
to resign as Chief Executive and to force her government to investigate what they claimed was
police violence – in spite of the fact that most of the violence and sabotage (which
has now extended to fighting with commuters and throwing things at them, vandalising MTR
stations and throwing rocks and objects onto train lines) has been committed by protesters
themselves – and (as if as a last thought) demanding universal suffrage.
Full 10-minute video of middle-aged and elderly commuters fighting with protesters, the
incident that led to the Prince Edward MTR station staff calling in police over the August /
September weekend to subdue and arrest protesters, some of whom attempted to evade arrest by
changing clothes:
Yes You are correct in that wsws appears to be not on its game in its analysis of the HK
situation,as was noted in some of the comments to the article. Addressing fundamental
economic disparities in HK does not seem to feature in the agenda of the protesters.
Can't wait to see the Chinese headline: "Safe in Hong Kong, Chinese Accused Murderer Wei Tu
Lukky says, 'Thanks for the Democracy, Students!" Of course you'll never see it, because no
western paper would ever print it. As far as the west is concerned, it really is all about
freedom and democracy. Like no such things as extradition treaties exist between democracies.
Canada and the United States have an extradition treaty – aren't they democracies?
Aren't they free?
What it boils down to is that westerners like Bill Browder do not want to be snatched when
they are passing through Hong Kong International Airport, and extradited to China. Westerners
do not particularly care otherwise about the rule of law in China, but the usual
troublemakers sense an opportunity to destabilize and create a problem for China. If China
soft-pedals it, as they have done, it quickly gets out of hand to the point where they are
dealing with rioters rather than protesters, smashing and destroying in an orgy of violence.
Had they cracked down hard in the beginning and kicked out all western journalists reporting
on the issue, the 'protests' would have been strangled in the cradle, and while the west
would have gotten a little mileage out of the brutal Chinese authoritarianism, it would have
been nowhere near as bad as it is now.
The 'student leaders' of the 'protests', Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow, are 22. I suppose
there might be a place somewhere in which 22-year-olds don't feel like they know everything,
but I've never heard of it. With political unit chief of the US Consulate Julie Eadeh
stroking them and telling them she's never seen anyone so brave, they can barely keep the
grins off their faces and fancy they really are somebody important. Lam did indeed flip on
the extradition issue, but it's too late for that now. She is going to learn the Yanukovych
lesson all over again – appeasing protesters, especially when it is part of a
destabilization program, only leads to more demands and more protests.
The Chinese government perhaps thought to go slow and not give the western media any money
shots to make a big issue of. That might have worked, if this was a genuine one-issue
protest. But it isn't – as i just pointed out, extradition treaties have nothing to do
with democracy and freedom, and if a bunch of students think they are going to have their own
country to play Independence Doctor in, they have a big surprise coming. Remember when
Poroshenko was justified in doing whatever he wanted, including taking students right out of
the university parking lot and putting them on a bus to Army training, because he was
'protecting his country'? Well, the Chinese government sees itself as having the same rights
where a small group of students is causing a major problem, and is blatantly violating public
order in an attempt to win western approbation; it is plainly not legal to throw stones and
gas bombs at the police and smash up public infrastructure.
You can't give people whatever they want when they are acting like hooligans – it
only makes them think of more things they want. And that's just what is happening here. If
they are not very careful, the entire Lam government is going to be replaced overnight with
hardliners, and then heads will roll.
Withdrawing the extradition bill is an easy move because Lam can always reintroduce it later
(perhaps in a changed form) though perhaps when that happens, the guy who killed his pregnant
girlfriend in Taiwan on St Valentine's Day in 2018, and used all her bank cards to clear his
own debts will have already gone free and for all we know have left Hong Kong.
Also by withdrawing the bill, Lam takes some of the wind out of the sails of the protest
movement. If the protesters are not happy over the withdrawal and ratchet up their demands
that Lam and her entire government resign, then Beijing knows this is a Color Revolution
protest movement and might start to press Hong Kong to expel British and American consular
staff stationed in the territory and shut down British and American NGOs and think-tanks
using whatever the laws of Hong Kong permit Lam to use against them. Lam may not be able to
stop the protests from escalating but she can slow them down by cutting off their funding,
advice and support.
Yes, it's curious that western governments are justified in using whatever force they feel is
necessary to put down anti-government protests, or just to keep order in general –
reports abound of ordinary people not doing anything wrong meeting up with a mean cop who
decides to slam them around a little in the process of establishing their identity, and the
aversion of the American police to bystanders filming them is well-known. But in certain
countries – and sometimes just certain governments in those countries – dispersal
of protesters or those posing as peaceful protesters is always 'brutal'. So it is in Hong
Kong, where 'pro-democracy protesters' – which is a label used to justify pretty much
any behavior – throw stones and gas bombs at police and destroy public property
(rioting by another, more palatable name). Nothing Saakashvili did to put down protests was
ever described by western media as 'brutal' in my recollection.
Zelenskiy bends over for western corporate interests, and orders his government to get a law
ready which will allow the sale of Ukrainian farmland. Bye-bye, black earth; if the investors
can't stay in Ukraine, they'll take it with them, once they've bought it. Get ready for
hammering on the door to let GMO agricultural imports in, Europe.
Speaking of GMO, over 80% of soybeans and corn grown in the USA are GMO's. Which strongly
suggests the American soybeans Canada is buying to send to the crushers, since the Americans
can't get rid of them and have a year's harvest already in storage, are GMO. And are muscling
out Canadian-grown soybeans, so that we have to look for new markets for our own.
I see the French Ambassador to Ukraine expects 'Normandy Four' meetings to resume by the end
of this month. Just to make sure everyone knows not to actually expect any progress, the Rada
issued an official statement on non-recognition of elections held in 'occupied Crimea'. The
people of Crimea – as far as Kuh-yiv is concerned – can have a say in who local
leaders should be once they have pledged fealty to Kuh-yiv, and not until.
Actually, Ukraine is just using Crimea, which it knows it is never going to get back
again, as a reason not to fulfill any of its own obligations under the Minsk Accords. And so
the Normandy Four sessions will resume with no hope of ever seeing any results; it's just a
chance to get away from the wife and kiddies for a couple of days, fly First Class and have a
couple of meals in nice restaurants and stay in a comfortable hotel, all in exchange for
spending a few hours in conversations that might as well be barked like dogs for all the
actual use they will be.
Ukraine's ruling party on Tuesday passed legislation that allows a sitting president to
be impeached if they break the law, acting on an election pledge by President Volodymyr
Zelenskiy on the campaign trail this year
But opponents of Tuesday's vote said the legislation was rushed through without proper
consultation and that the law itself was so convoluted as to be meaningless.
The law was passed at a first reading and then immediately voted on again a second
time. Typically, legislation is sent to a committee for further scrutiny before being voted
on again
####
Meaningless? It's on the books. If there is confusion then it will be up the to judicia
branch to make sense of it, but knowing the expresse intent should go most of the way.
It's not meaningless, because in all probability it will be retroactively applied to the
illegal ouster of Yanukovych. Several sources pointed out, after the Junta appointed itself
and graced the nation with Wabbit Senya as Prime Minister, that Yanukovych was still the
legal president of Ukraine, as he had never been legally and properly impeached, and could
not after he was driven from power.
Who are these opponents of the impeachment law? The article doesn't say. Presumably the
opponents are those politicians allied to the previous Porky Pig president. Saying that the
bill was "rushed" through the Verkhovna Rada without "proper consultation" (meaning: the bill
has to be watered down through endless debate and discussion and inspection with microscopes
and tweezers to throw out annoying bits to the point where it has all water and none of the
substance of the original bill) and that the law is half-baked is just a ploy to try to stop
it from being passed.
Ha, ha!! Classic narrative management – we are supposed to believe a Ukrainian
investigation of Motor Sich when it was about to be sold to a Chinese company 'triggered'
concern in Washington. Sure it did. I would bet quite a bit that concern in Washington
triggered the Ukrainian investigation.
And I frankly doubt there were any subversive plans to sell engines or engine components
to Russia.
That was just the excuse used to nix the sale due to an investigation. But it sends a
clear message both to Ukrainian companies and the Ukrainian administration – the United
States very much wants extensive privatization of state assets; let's get those companies
thinking profits instead of subsidies.
But the privatization must be carried out so that western investors get first crack; after
all, they've been feeding Ukraine subsistence 'loans' for 5 years now. Only when westerners
have decided a company or asset is of no value may it be considered for sale to
outsiders.
As far as I can see, Motor Sich is as good as dead, unless the Chinese are allowed to
buy it. It only benefits from current installed base and future projects – of which
there is nothing of note. Russia's future platforms will have indigenous designs and old
platforms will become obsolete, so even if Motor Sich does somehow survive it will be
competing with Russia (and not western designs) which is far more sustainable. Who else makes
economic sense but China? The best case for a western buyer that I can see is if it is used
as a low-cost second tier component manufacturer and also take advantage of what little local
expertize remains.
But the west – like the oil companies we discussed who buy the design rights to
fuel-saving technologies and then shelve them, or so they are reputed to do – would be
perfectly content to see Motor Sich become a low-level component manufacturer, or disappear
altogether, so long as it is taken off the board where a Chinese buy is concerned. It has
become a symbol now out of all proportion to its actual worth, in a ball-swinging contest
which will see it interpreted as a Chinese victory if it ends up with control, and a western
victory if it manages to prevent such a buy. What happens to the Ukrainians employed there is
of no concern to anyone but themselves. I guess there's no need to mention how little effect
the Ukrainian government has on how it will come out.
Motor Sich won't just be a low-cost second-tier component manufacturer, it'll also be a
useful tax shelter for whichever Western company buys it to park profits that can be taxed at
a low percentage rate in Ukraine and the income of which (Motor Sich, that is) doesn't need
to be declared in the country where the Western country is domiciled.
The buy, if it happens, would be in favour of 'a US company through the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation (OPIC)'. If you were wondering what that is, it's just like it sounds
– a branch of the US Treasury, used to invest taxpayer money in snapping up foreign
companies for US interests, and finance American influence-peddling operations abroad which
further its foreign-policy goals.
But the new measure passed easily by 373 votes in the 450-seat parliament
A pre-election survey by the National Democratic Institute in May said only 5% of
Ukrainians thought political parties represented citizens' interests and just 3% said
politicians met their expectations. On the other hand, 87% believed political parties were
engaged in corruption
Olson's doubts deepened. In spring 1953, he visited the top-secret Microbiological
Research Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire, where government scientists were studying
the effects of sarin and other nerve gases. On 6 May, a volunteer subject, a 20-year-old
soldier, was dosed with sarin there, began foaming at the mouth, collapsed into convulsions,
and died an hour later. Afterward, Olson spoke about his discomfort with a psychiatrist who
helped direct the research, William Sargant .
####
That's very unBritish! Not really. This is not the first time that something that has been
declassified in the United States and uncovered British (shameful) secrets. The thing is the
Brits like to see themselves as not 'going as far' as their American cousins and this myth is
perpetuated – a bit like the British sense of 'fairness'. Yet again we discover
that the UK has worked hand in glove in the deepest of sh*t, something that most probably
would have been buried forever under their Secrets Act if it wasn't for the US' relative
openness.
Olson's doubts deepened. In spring 1953, he visited the top-secret Microbiological
Research Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire, where government scientists were studying
the effects of sarin and other nerve gases. On 6 May, a volunteer subject, a 20-year-old
soldier, was dosed with sarin there, began foaming at the mouth, collapsed into convulsions,
and died an hour later. Afterward, Olson spoke about his discomfort with a psychiatrist who
helped direct the research, William Sargant .
####
That's very unBritish! Not really. This is not the first time that something that has been
declassified in the United States and uncovered British (shameful) secrets. The thing is the
Brits like to see themselves as not 'going as far' as their American cousins and this myth is
perpetuated – a bit like the British sense of 'fairness'. Yet again we discover
that the UK has worked hand in glove in the deepest of sh*t, something that most probably
would have been buried forever under their Secrets Act if it wasn't for the US' relative
openness.
One reaction Americans are unaccustomed to is pity. When I meet them on the boats, traveling,
I am always extra nice to them, because I feel sorry for them. They have to go back. They're
nice people, mostly, they've never done anything to me personally. But sooner or later, they
have to go back to where those license plates were issued. They can't stay here. And I'm
sorry for them. But I would imagine most of them feel they are envied, and their citizenship
is coveted by the less-fortunate. That might be true in some third-world hellholes where
people would go anywhere to get out, but it certainly isn't so here.
The stars-and-stripes-wavers you meet in comment forums are usually blissfully ignorant,
happy in their fool's paradise where everyone wants to be an American, and resistance to
Uncle Sam's ruthless bullying is inspired by jealousy and inadequacy. For them, simply
acknowledging that Washington sometimes makes mistakes – which it's allowed to do,
because it's exceptional – is the essence of responsibility and fairness. There, I said
we aren't always right – what could be more fair? But when America invades a country
that did nothing to provoke it except refuse when it was ordered to do this or that,
sometimes things it couldn't do, like abandon the nuclear weapons program it didn't have
well, that was a mistake, but it was an honest mistake because no end of smart people the
world over agreed they did indeed have a nuclear weapons program. I mean, if you don't do
something quick, the consequences could be a mushroom cloud, ya know. And when it orders the
democratically-elected president of a country to stand down and make way for a hand-picked
replacement, it's not being arrogant. No; it's taking necessary on behalf of that leader's
benighted people, who suffer awful oppression at his hands, and America only wants them to be
free to make good choices.
A lot of those comments go unanswered; some because many of those forums now insist you
sign in with Facebook so they can go behind the scenes and see who and where you are and gain
all sorts of personal information about you, because dimwits love to blabber their entire
personal lives on Facebook. But some go unanswered simply because there is no real use in
trying to change such made-up minds. You will never dent the my-country-right-or-wrong
blathering of ignorant people who know nothing beyond what they see on CNN.
Ukraine appears not to have noticed that its backing for the United States to persuade Europe
to reject Nord Stream II is supporting American pressure for Europe to buy American LNG
instead. Would they be transiting that to Europe through Ukraine? Hardly.
President Trump has repeatedly criticized the project, saying it would make Germany
"captive" to Russian interests, and urging the Europeans to buy fuel from the U.S. instead.
During their talks in Kyiv this week, Danilyuk discussed this issue at length with Bolton,
and he urged the U.S. government to block the project by imposing economic sanctions against
it. "Bolton was very supportive," Danilyuk says. "He understands that Nord Stream 2 is bad
for the United States."
If – extremely unlikely – that initiative were ever successful, and the EU
blew off Nord stream II in favour of American imported LNG the Ukies would still be out $3
Billion a year in transit fees. The USA wants to replace Russian gas supplies to Europe, not
supplement them.
As usual, Ukraine is so eager to hurt Russia that it does not care if it hurts itself in
doing it. Just the sort of ally the USA loves.
David Warner Mathisen definitely know what he is talking about due to his long military career... Freefall speed
is documented and is an embarrassment to the official story, because freefall is impossible for a naturally
collapsing building.
Now we need to dig into the role of Larry Silverstein in the
Building 7 collapse.
Notable quotes:
"... Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001. ..."
"... The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004. ..."
"... Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7 ..."
"... This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001. ..."
"... its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview. ..."
"... the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building ..."
"... Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states). ..."
"... Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day. ..."
"... In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019. ..."
"... on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. ..."
"... Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here . ..."
"... The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare: ..."
"... David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University. ..."
Below is a video showing several film sequences
taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen
years ago on September 11, 2001.
The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative"
promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004.
Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska
published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7, which was not hit by any airplane
on September 11, 2001, and concluded that fires could not possibly have caused the collapse of that 47-story steel-frame building
-- rather, the collapse seen could have only been caused by the near-simultaneous failure of every support column (43 in number).
This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue
to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001.
Various individuals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tried to argue that the collapse of Building
7 was slower than freefall speed, but its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed,
as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an
interview
here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview.
Although the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all
the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to
prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building prior to the flight of the aircraft into the Twin Towers of the World
Trade Center (Buildings One and Two), as well as the power to cover up the evidence of this criminal activity and to deflect questioning
by government agencies and suppress the story in the mainstream news, the collapse of Building 7 is by no means the only evidence
which points to the same conclusion.
Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly
during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting
the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states).
However, eighteen years later there is simply no excuse anymore -- except for the fact that the ramifications of the admission
that the official story is a flagrant fraud and a lie are so distressing that many people cannot actually bring themselves to consciously
admit what they in fact already know subconsciously.
For additional evidence, I strongly recommend the work of the indefatigable Kevin Robert Ryan , whose blog at Dig Within should be required reading for every man and woman in the united
states -- as well as those in the rest of the world, since the ramifications of the murders of innocent men, women and children on
September 11, 2001 have led to the murders of literally millions of other innocent men, women and children around the world since
that day, and the consequences of the failure to absorb the truth of what actually took place, and the consequences of the
failure to address the lies that are built upon the fraudulent explanation of what took place on September 11, continue to
negatively impact men and women everywhere on our planet.
Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan
but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters
to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a
jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless
the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day.
I would also strongly recommend listening very carefully to the series of five interviews with Kevin Ryan on Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner, which can be found in the
Guns and Butterpodcast archive here . These interviews,
from 2013, are numbered 287, 288, 289, 290, and 291 in the archive.
I would in fact recommend listening to nearly every interview in that archive of Bonnie Faulkner's show, even though I do not
of course agree with every single guest nor with every single view expressed in every single interview. Indeed, if you carefully
read Kevin Ryan's blog which was linked above, you will find a
blog post by Kevin Ryan dated June 24, 2018 in which he
explicitly names James Fetzer along with Judy Woods as likely disinformation agents working to discredit and divert the efforts of
9/11 researchers. James Fetzer appears on Guns and Butter several times in the archived interview page linked above.
That article contains a number of stunning quotations about the ongoing failure to address the now-obvious lies we are being told
about the attacks of September 11. One of these quotations, by astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996), is particularly noteworthy --
even though I certainly do not agree with everything Carl Sagan ever said or wrote. Regarding our propensity to refuse to acknowledge
what we already know deep down to be true, Carl Sagan said:
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even
to ourselves, that we've been taken.
This quotation is from Sagan's 1995 text, The Demon-Haunted World (with which I have points of disagreement, but which
is extremely valuable for that quotation alone, and which I might suggest turning around on some of the points that Sagan was arguing
as well, as a cautionary warning to those who have accepted too wholeheartedly some of Sagan's teachings and opinions).
This quotation shows that on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept
what we already know. This internal division is actually addressed in the world's ancient myths, which consistently illustrate that
our egoic mind often refuses to acknowledge the higher wisdom we have available to us through the reality of our authentic self,
sometimes called our Higher Self. Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character
of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see
here for example,
and also here .
The important author Peter Kingsley has noted that in ancient myth, the role of the prophet was to bring awareness and acknowledgement
of that which the egoic mind refuses to see -- which is consistent with the observation that it is through our authentic self (which
already knows) that we have access to the realm of the gods. In the Iliad, for example, Dr. Kingsley notes that Apollo sends disaster
upon the Achaean forces until the prophet Calchas reveals the source of the god's anger: Agamemnon's refusal to free the young woman
Chryseis, whom Agamemnon has seized in the course of the fighting during the Trojan War, and who is the daughter of a priest of Apollo.
Until Agamemnon atones for this insult to the god, Apollo will continue to visit destruction upon those following Agamemnon.
Until we acknowledge and correct what our Higher Self already knows to be the problem, we ourselves will be out of step with the
divine realm.
If we look the other way at the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001, and deliberately
refuse to see the truth that we already know deep down in our subconscious, then we will face the displeasure of the Invisible Realm.
Just as we are shown in the ancient myths, the truth must be acknowledged and admitted, and then the wrong that has been done must
be corrected.
In the case of the mass murder perpetrated on September 11, eighteen years ago, that admission requires us to face the fact that
the "terrorists" who were blamed for that attack were not the actual terrorists that we need to be focusing on.
Please note that I am very careful not to say that "the government" is the source of the problem: I would argue that the government
is the lawful expression of the will of the people and that the government, rightly understood, is exactly what these criminal perpetrators
actually fear the most, if the people ever become aware of what is going on. The government, which is established by the Constitution,
forbids the perpetration of murder upon innocent men, women and children in order to initiate wars of aggression against countries
that never invaded or attacked us (under the false pretense that they did so). Those who do so are actually opposed to our government
under the Constitution and can be dealt with within the framework of the law as established by the Constitution, which establishes
a very clear penalty for treason.
When the people acknowledge and admit the complete bankruptcy of the lie we have been told about the attacks of September 11,
the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate repeal and dismantling of the so-called "USA PATRIOT Act" which was
enacted in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001 and which clearly violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Additionally, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate cessation of the military operations which were
initiated based upon the fraudulent narrative of the attacks of that day, and which have led to invasion and overthrow of the nations
that were falsely blamed as being the perpetrators of those attacks and the seizure of their natural resources.
The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent
pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media
for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
That human right has been grievously trampled upon under the false description of what actually took place during the September
11 attacks. Numerous technology companies have been allowed and even encouraged (and paid, with public moneys) to create technologies
which flagrantly and shamelessly violate "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" and
which track their every move and even enable secret eavesdropping upon their conversation and the secret capture of video within
their homes and private settings, without any probable cause whatsoever.
When we admit and acknowledge that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, which has been falsely used as a supposed
justification for the violation of these human rights (with complete disregard for the supreme law of the land as established in
the Constitution), then we will also demand the immediate cessation of any such intrusion upon the right of the people to "be secure
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" -- including the cessation of any business models which involve spying on men and
women.
Companies which cannot find a business model that does not violate the Bill of Rights should lose their corporate charter and
the privilege of limited liability, which are extended to them by the people (through the government of the people, by the people
and for the people) only upon the condition that their behavior as corporations do not violate the inherent rights of men and women
as acknowledged in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
It is well beyond the time when we must acknowledge and admit that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, 2001
-- and that we continue to be lied to about the events of that awful day. September 11, 2001 is in fact only one such event in a
long history which stretches back prior to 2001, to other events which should have awakened the people to the presence of a very
powerful and very dangerous criminal cabal acting in direct contravention to the Constitution long before we ever got to 2001 --
but the events of September 11 are so blatant, so violent, and so full of evidence which contradicts the fraudulent narrative that
they actually cannot be believed by anyone who spends even the slightest amount of time looking at that evidence.
Indeed, we already know deep down that we have been bamboozled by the lie of the so-called "official narrative" of September 11.
But until we admit to ourselves and acknowledge to others that we've ignored the truth that we already know, then the bamboozle
still has us .
*
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David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne
Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster
Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature
and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.
David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne
Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster
Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature
and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.
This is a bit like rearranging the chairs on the deck of Titanic.
The problem is we do not know who pressed Trump to appoint Bolton., Rumors were that it was Abelson. In this case nothing
changed.
The other problem with making Bolton firing a significant move is the presence in White House other neocon warmongers. So one
less doe not change the picture. For example Pompeo remains and he is no less warmongering neocon, MIC stooge, and no less
subservant to Israel then Bolton.
Notable quotes:
"... Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT ..."
"... Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday ..."
"... "Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added. Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product." ..."
"... "A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date. ..."
"... As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an announcement next week. ..."
Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to
move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with
another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT.
Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some
of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday, after news of Bolton's
dismissal from the White House.
Also on rt.com Bolton out: Trump ditches hawkish adviser he kept for 18 months despite
'disagreements'
"Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added.
Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled
by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product."
Foreign leaders weren't the only ones who had a problem with Trump's notoriously belligerent
advisor, either.
"A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a
position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep
State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date.
While the uber-hawk's firing came "later than it should be," Paul hoped it would clear the
way for Trump to follow through on the America First, end-the-wars promises that won him so
much support in 2016. "Those of us who would like less intervention, we're very happy with
it."
Also on rt.com War and whiskers: Freshly-resigned John Bolton gets meme-roasting
As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line
significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he
said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an
announcement next week.
"... However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity. ..."
"... It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions. ..."
"... The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who hired him is much more so. ..."
"... As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly with Pence. ..."
The Guardian view on John Bolton: good riddance, but the problem is his
boss
Many will rightly celebrate the departure of the US national security adviser. But
however welcome the news, it reflects the deeper problems with this administration
...
However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be
much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this
administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows
him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity.
It is neither normal nor desirable for the national security adviser to be excluded
from meetings about Afghanistan – even if it is a relief, when the individual concerned
is (or was) Mr Bolton. It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego
than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it
on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions.
The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging
Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's
presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who
hired him is much more so.
I read that the main drivers of getting him kicked or retire himself were Mnuchin and
Pompeo, both afflicted by that nasty goofy smile disease. I am always happy when I see
Mnuchin's hands on the table, eliminating one explanation for the smile.
There is that reported sentence about Bolton - that there is no problem for which war was
not his solution. I read about similar sentence about Pompeo - that he has an IR seeker for
Donald's ass.
That written, good riddance indeed. Likely, if Bolton had his way, the US would likely be
at war with North Korea and Iran.
When I studied I was at the UNFCCC for a time during Bush Jr. presidency and talked about
what Bolton did at the UN with my superior, a 20 year UN veteran.
A 'malicious saboteur arsonist' is a polite summary of what he did there directly and
indirectly, and with given his flirt with MEK and regime change in Iran he has likely not
changed at all.
As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general
mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly
with Pence.
I don't usually find much value at the Atlantic but this article (written before Trump even
fired Bolton) about Trump's FP timeline (and flip flops) and Bolton who was acting like he
was President is very, very good.
It will allow Trump loyalist to more easily support Trump and give everyone else a tad bit of
hope that Trump really won't go bonkers and start any wars.
Since President Trump appears to talk about things and stuff with Tucker Carlson, perhaps he
should ask Tucker Carlson to spend a week thinking . . . and then offer the President some
names and the reasoning for offering those names.
If the President asks the same Establishment who gave him Bolton, he will just be handed
another Bolton. "Establishment" include Pence, who certainly supported Bolton's outlook on
things and would certainly recommend another "Bolton" figure if asked. Let us hope Pence is
not consulted on Bolton's successor.
different clue,
re "Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor."
Understandable point of view but then, Trump still is Trump. He can just by himself and
beyond advice easily find suboptimal solutions of his own.
Today I read that Richard Grenell was mentioned as a potential sucessor.
As far as that goes, go for it. Many people here will be happy when he "who always only
sais what the Whitehouse sais" is finally gone.
And with Trump's biggest military budget in the world he can just continue the arms sale
pitches that are and were such a substantial part of his job as a US ambassador in
Germany.
That said, they were that after blathering a lot about that we should increase our
military budget by 2%, 4%, 6% or 10%, buy US arms, now, and of course the blathering about
Northstream 1 & 2 and "slavedom to russian oil & gas" and rather buy US frack gas of
course.
He could then also take a side job for the fracking industry in that context. And buy
frack gas and arms company stocks. Opportunities, opportunities ...
How about another peacemaker and lady in waiting for the GOP 2024 nomination - Nimrata
"Nikki" Haley. She will immediately call for a Peace & Friendship Treaty with that evil
thug Vladimir Putin.
I'm sure the Administration will give the matter much thought and due deliberation and using
the same selection process as before, choose the candidate most highly
qualified recommended by the Adelsons. Tell me it ain't so.
Lyttennburgh said... Reply 11 September 2019 at 07:05 AM
Subhān Allāh! Sultan Danuld at-Trumphoon al-Quincy dismissed his wazir Yahya al-Boltoni, for verily it’s said to all
Faithful: mustache is Shaitan’s brush. /s
If you think that Russia or China or Iran takes this clown show seriously or trusts in
word one Washington will follow through on what they say i have a bridge to sell you.
even during Obama's second term it was clear Putin and his staff did not trust the Obama
administration to tell the truth about the weather let alone anything important.
to get anything done now with Russia or China or Iran i suspect its become impossible. all
that's left between Washington, Moscow and Beijing is to avoid a nuclear ww3.
we have an impasse which is impossible to bridge. Russia and China are creating a new
world order for those that become a part that's philosophically, morally and economically
incompatible with the one Washington and its European vassals are trying to sustain.
only one winner will emerge from the struggle and i do not mean war although that is not
impossible once one side reaches denouement point of economic degradation.
Its said a reputation arrives on foot and departs on horseback and with ours all you
can see now is the tail wafting the air.
David Warner Mathisen definitely know what he is talking about due to his long military career... Freefall speed
is documented and is an embarrassment to the official story, because freefall is impossible for a naturally
collapsing building.
Now we need to dig into the role of Larry Silverstein in the
Building 7 collapse.
Notable quotes:
"... Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001. ..."
"... The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004. ..."
"... Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7 ..."
"... This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001. ..."
"... its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview. ..."
"... the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building ..."
"... Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states). ..."
"... Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day. ..."
"... In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019. ..."
"... on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. ..."
"... Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here . ..."
"... The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare: ..."
"... David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University. ..."
Below is a video showing several film sequences
taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen
years ago on September 11, 2001.
The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative"
promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004.
Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska
published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7, which was not hit by any airplane
on September 11, 2001, and concluded that fires could not possibly have caused the collapse of that 47-story steel-frame building
-- rather, the collapse seen could have only been caused by the near-simultaneous failure of every support column (43 in number).
This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue
to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001.
Various individuals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tried to argue that the collapse of Building
7 was slower than freefall speed, but its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed,
as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an
interview
here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview.
Although the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all
the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to
prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building prior to the flight of the aircraft into the Twin Towers of the World
Trade Center (Buildings One and Two), as well as the power to cover up the evidence of this criminal activity and to deflect questioning
by government agencies and suppress the story in the mainstream news, the collapse of Building 7 is by no means the only evidence
which points to the same conclusion.
Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly
during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting
the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states).
However, eighteen years later there is simply no excuse anymore -- except for the fact that the ramifications of the admission
that the official story is a flagrant fraud and a lie are so distressing that many people cannot actually bring themselves to consciously
admit what they in fact already know subconsciously.
For additional evidence, I strongly recommend the work of the indefatigable Kevin Robert Ryan , whose blog at Dig Within should be required reading for every man and woman in the united
states -- as well as those in the rest of the world, since the ramifications of the murders of innocent men, women and children on
September 11, 2001 have led to the murders of literally millions of other innocent men, women and children around the world since
that day, and the consequences of the failure to absorb the truth of what actually took place, and the consequences of the
failure to address the lies that are built upon the fraudulent explanation of what took place on September 11, continue to
negatively impact men and women everywhere on our planet.
Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan
but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters
to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a
jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless
the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day.
I would also strongly recommend listening very carefully to the series of five interviews with Kevin Ryan on Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner, which can be found in the
Guns and Butterpodcast archive here . These interviews,
from 2013, are numbered 287, 288, 289, 290, and 291 in the archive.
I would in fact recommend listening to nearly every interview in that archive of Bonnie Faulkner's show, even though I do not
of course agree with every single guest nor with every single view expressed in every single interview. Indeed, if you carefully
read Kevin Ryan's blog which was linked above, you will find a
blog post by Kevin Ryan dated June 24, 2018 in which he
explicitly names James Fetzer along with Judy Woods as likely disinformation agents working to discredit and divert the efforts of
9/11 researchers. James Fetzer appears on Guns and Butter several times in the archived interview page linked above.
That article contains a number of stunning quotations about the ongoing failure to address the now-obvious lies we are being told
about the attacks of September 11. One of these quotations, by astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996), is particularly noteworthy --
even though I certainly do not agree with everything Carl Sagan ever said or wrote. Regarding our propensity to refuse to acknowledge
what we already know deep down to be true, Carl Sagan said:
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even
to ourselves, that we've been taken.
This quotation is from Sagan's 1995 text, The Demon-Haunted World (with which I have points of disagreement, but which
is extremely valuable for that quotation alone, and which I might suggest turning around on some of the points that Sagan was arguing
as well, as a cautionary warning to those who have accepted too wholeheartedly some of Sagan's teachings and opinions).
This quotation shows that on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept
what we already know. This internal division is actually addressed in the world's ancient myths, which consistently illustrate that
our egoic mind often refuses to acknowledge the higher wisdom we have available to us through the reality of our authentic self,
sometimes called our Higher Self. Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character
of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see
here for example,
and also here .
The important author Peter Kingsley has noted that in ancient myth, the role of the prophet was to bring awareness and acknowledgement
of that which the egoic mind refuses to see -- which is consistent with the observation that it is through our authentic self (which
already knows) that we have access to the realm of the gods. In the Iliad, for example, Dr. Kingsley notes that Apollo sends disaster
upon the Achaean forces until the prophet Calchas reveals the source of the god's anger: Agamemnon's refusal to free the young woman
Chryseis, whom Agamemnon has seized in the course of the fighting during the Trojan War, and who is the daughter of a priest of Apollo.
Until Agamemnon atones for this insult to the god, Apollo will continue to visit destruction upon those following Agamemnon.
Until we acknowledge and correct what our Higher Self already knows to be the problem, we ourselves will be out of step with the
divine realm.
If we look the other way at the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001, and deliberately
refuse to see the truth that we already know deep down in our subconscious, then we will face the displeasure of the Invisible Realm.
Just as we are shown in the ancient myths, the truth must be acknowledged and admitted, and then the wrong that has been done must
be corrected.
In the case of the mass murder perpetrated on September 11, eighteen years ago, that admission requires us to face the fact that
the "terrorists" who were blamed for that attack were not the actual terrorists that we need to be focusing on.
Please note that I am very careful not to say that "the government" is the source of the problem: I would argue that the government
is the lawful expression of the will of the people and that the government, rightly understood, is exactly what these criminal perpetrators
actually fear the most, if the people ever become aware of what is going on. The government, which is established by the Constitution,
forbids the perpetration of murder upon innocent men, women and children in order to initiate wars of aggression against countries
that never invaded or attacked us (under the false pretense that they did so). Those who do so are actually opposed to our government
under the Constitution and can be dealt with within the framework of the law as established by the Constitution, which establishes
a very clear penalty for treason.
When the people acknowledge and admit the complete bankruptcy of the lie we have been told about the attacks of September 11,
the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate repeal and dismantling of the so-called "USA PATRIOT Act" which was
enacted in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001 and which clearly violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Additionally, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate cessation of the military operations which were
initiated based upon the fraudulent narrative of the attacks of that day, and which have led to invasion and overthrow of the nations
that were falsely blamed as being the perpetrators of those attacks and the seizure of their natural resources.
The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent
pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media
for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
That human right has been grievously trampled upon under the false description of what actually took place during the September
11 attacks. Numerous technology companies have been allowed and even encouraged (and paid, with public moneys) to create technologies
which flagrantly and shamelessly violate "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" and
which track their every move and even enable secret eavesdropping upon their conversation and the secret capture of video within
their homes and private settings, without any probable cause whatsoever.
When we admit and acknowledge that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, which has been falsely used as a supposed
justification for the violation of these human rights (with complete disregard for the supreme law of the land as established in
the Constitution), then we will also demand the immediate cessation of any such intrusion upon the right of the people to "be secure
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" -- including the cessation of any business models which involve spying on men and
women.
Companies which cannot find a business model that does not violate the Bill of Rights should lose their corporate charter and
the privilege of limited liability, which are extended to them by the people (through the government of the people, by the people
and for the people) only upon the condition that their behavior as corporations do not violate the inherent rights of men and women
as acknowledged in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
It is well beyond the time when we must acknowledge and admit that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, 2001
-- and that we continue to be lied to about the events of that awful day. September 11, 2001 is in fact only one such event in a
long history which stretches back prior to 2001, to other events which should have awakened the people to the presence of a very
powerful and very dangerous criminal cabal acting in direct contravention to the Constitution long before we ever got to 2001 --
but the events of September 11 are so blatant, so violent, and so full of evidence which contradicts the fraudulent narrative that
they actually cannot be believed by anyone who spends even the slightest amount of time looking at that evidence.
Indeed, we already know deep down that we have been bamboozled by the lie of the so-called "official narrative" of September 11.
But until we admit to ourselves and acknowledge to others that we've ignored the truth that we already know, then the bamboozle
still has us .
*
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David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne
Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster
Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature
and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.
David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne
Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster
Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature
and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.
iv> I see the GLOBALIST shills are in full force on this video, trying to artificially
bring down the ratio from probably 99% Positive that such a bad man is gone. Doesn't matter,
the Silent Majority & good people everywhere know that Bolton was a poor candidate for
that job with a catastrophic failure record & everybody is better of with a more
competent person in that position.
John Bolton is owned by foreign powers like many in Washington. They get paid by their
lobby to push the neocon agenda which translates into robbing the US of it's $ to fight wars
that don't benefit the US.
War monger Bolton. How did that Libya thing work out for Europe ? Now after looking back,
I am sure the African invasion into Europe was planned by Obama and his boss Soros.
Tucker while I agree with you on the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya. But one thing
you left out Tucker. Foxnews hired John Bolton as a Contributer for over a decade. How do you
miss that part.
All the policies in the Middle East are complete and other failures. I'm so sick of neo
cons. You can't get rid of them. You can not get rid of them. It doesn't matter who you vote
for. Constant war. Like every regime couldn't be replaced around the world. Absolutely
ridiculous.
"In Washington, nobody cares what kind of job you did, only that you did the job. Nobody
there learns from mistakes, because mistakes are never even acknowledged. Ever." Yes, Tucker
DOES understand Washington!!!
xt" role="article"> If Bolton becomes a Fox News contributor: I will change the channel
immediately... I already do this when Jeff Epstein's, the child trafficker and rapist, good
buddy Alan Dershowitz comes on as a guest... Do not know why Fox News selects guest
contributors that have their morals/values in the wrong directions...
icle"> Bolton was signatory to PNAC- the project for a new american century, like other
progressives and neo-cons of his generation. They do not view the chaos left by taking out
Ghaddafi and Saddam as problems, rather the creation of failed states was their objective all
along. Members of the GOP went along with these plans where they coincided with their own
political and business objectives- the military industrial complex and the oilmen.
September
11, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. Note that for all
of Trump's considerable faults, including hiring John Bolton in the first place and taking too
long to get rid of him, Bolton's opposition to finding a way for the US to extricate itself
from the war in Afghanistan was reportedly the last straw.
When the conflict that the Vietnamese refer to as the American War ended in April 1975, I
was a U.S. Army captain attending a course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. In those days, the student
body at any of our Army's myriad schools typically included officers from the Army of the
Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
Since ARVN's founding two decades earlier, the United States had assigned itself the task of
professionalizing that fledgling military establishment. Based on a conviction that the
standards, methods, and ethos of our armed forces were universally applicable and readily
exportable, the attendance of ARVN personnel at such Army schools was believed to contribute to
the professionalizing of the South Vietnamese military.
Evidence that the U.S. military's own professional standards had recently taken a hit --
memories of the
My Lai massacre were then still fresh -- elicited no second thoughts on our part.
Association with American officers like me was sure to rub off on our South Vietnamese
counterparts in ways that would make them better soldiers. So we professed to believe, even
while subjecting that claim to no more scrutiny than we did the question of why most of us had
spent a year or more of our lives participating in an obviously misbegotten and misguided war
in Indochina.
For serving officers at that time one question in particular remained off-limits (though it
had been posed incessantly for years by antiwar protestors in the streets of America): Why
Vietnam? Prizing compliance as a precondition for upward mobility, military service rarely
encourages critical thinking.
On the day that Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, fell and that country ceased
to exist, I approached one of my ARVN classmates, also a captain, wanting at least to
acknowledge the magnitude of the disaster that had occurred. "I'm sorry about what happened to
your country," I told him.
I did not know that officer well and no longer recall his name. Let's call him Captain
Nguyen. In my dim recollection, he didn't even bother to reply. He simply looked at me with an
expression both distressed and mournful. Our encounter lasted no more than a handful of
seconds. I then went on with my life and Captain Nguyen presumably with his. Although I have no
inkling of his fate, I like to think that he is now retired in Southern California after a
successful career in real estate. But who knows?
All I do know is that today I recall our exchange with a profound sense of embarrassment and
even shame. My pathetic effort to console Captain Nguyen had been both presumptuous and
inadequate. Far worse was my failure -- inability? refusal? -- to acknowledge the context
within which that catastrophe was occurring: the United States and its armed forces had, over
years, inflicted horrendous harm on the people of South Vietnam.
In reality, their defeat was our defeat. Yet while we had decided that we were done paying,
they were going to pay and pay for a long time to come.
Rather than offering a fatuous expression of regret for the collapse of his country, I ought
to have apologized for having played even a miniscule role in what was, by any measure, a
catastrophe of epic proportions. It's a wonder Captain Nguyen didn't spit in my eye.
I genuinely empathized with Captain Nguyen. Yet the truth is that, along with most other
Americans, soldiers and civilians alike, I was only too happy to be done with South Vietnam and
all its troubles. Dating back to the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the United States and
its armed forces had made a gargantuan effort to impart legitimacy to the Republic of Vietnam
and to coerce the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to its north into giving up its determination
to exercise sovereignty over the entirety of the country. In that, we had failed spectacularly
and at a staggering cost.
"Our" war in Indochina -- the conflict we chose to call the Vietnam War -- officially ended
in January 1973 with the signing in Paris of an "Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace
in Vietnam." Under the terms of that fraudulent pact, American prisoners of war were freed from
captivity in North Vietnam and the last U.S. combat troops in the south left for home,
completing a withdrawal begun several years earlier. Primary responsibility for securing the
Republic of Vietnam thereby fell to ARVN, long deemed by U.S. commanders incapable of
accomplishing that mission.
Meanwhile, despite a nominal cessation of hostilities, approximately 150,000 North
Vietnamese regulars still occupied a large swathe of South Vietnamese territory -- more or less
the equivalent to agreeing to end World War II when there were still several German panzer tank
divisions lurking in Belgium's Ardennes Forest. In effect, our message to our enemy and
our ally was this: We're outta here; you guys sort this out . In a bit more than two
years, that sorting-out process would extinguish the Republic of Vietnam.
Been There, Done That
The course Captain Nguyen and I were attending in the spring of 1975 paid little attention
to fighting wars like the one that, for years, had occupied the attention of my army and his.
Our Army, in fact, was already moving on. Having had their fill of triple-canopy jungles in
Indochina, America's officer corps now turned to defending the Fulda Gap, the region in West
Germany deemed most hospitable to a future Soviet invasion. As if by fiat, gearing up to fight
those Soviet forces and their Warsaw Pact allies, should they (however improbably) decide to
take on NATO and lunge toward the English Channel, suddenly emerged as priority number one. At
Fort Knox and throughout the Army's ranks, we were suddenly focused on "high-intensity combined
arms operations" -- essentially, a replay of World War II-style combat with fancier weaponry.
In short, the armed forces of the United States had reverted to "real soldiering."
And so it is again today. At the end of the 17th year of what Americans commonly call the
Afghanistan War -- one wonders what name Afghans will eventually assign it -- U.S. military
forces are moving on. Pentagon planners are
shifting their attention back to Russia and China. Great power competition has become the
name of the game. However we might define Washington's evolving purposes in its Afghanistan War
-- "nation building," "democratization," "pacification" -- the likelihood of mission
accomplishment is nil. As in the early 1970s, so in 2019, rather than admitting failure, the
Pentagon has chosen to change the subject and is once again turning its attention to "real
soldiering."
Remember the infatuation with counterinsurgency (commonly known by its acronym COIN) that
gripped the national security establishment around 2007 when the Iraq "surge" overseen by
General David Petraeus briefly ranked alongside Gettysburg as a historic victory? Well, these
days promoting COIN as the new American way of war has become, to put it mildly, a tough sell.
Given that few in Washington will openly acknowledge the magnitude of the military failure in
Afghanistan, the incentive for identifying new enemies in settings deemed more congenial
becomes all but irresistible.
Only one thing is required to validate this reshuffling of military priorities. Washington
needs to create the appearance, as in 1973, that it's exiting Afghanistan on its own terms.
What's needed, in short, is an updated equivalent of that "Agreement Ending the War and
Restoring Peace in Vietnam."
Until last weekend, the signing of such an agreement seemed imminent. Donald Trump and his
envoy,
former ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, appeared poised to repeat the trick that
President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger pulled off in 1973 in
Paris: pause the war and call it peace. Should fighting subsequently resume after a "decent
interval," it would no longer be America's problem. Now, however, to judge by the president's
twitter
account -- currently the authoritative record of U.S. diplomacy -- the proposed deal has
been postponed, or perhaps shelved, or even abandoned altogether. If National Security Advisor
John Bolton
has his way , U.S. forces might just withdraw in any case, without an agreement of any sort
being signed.
Based on what we can divine from press reports, the
terms of that prospective Afghan deal would mirror those of the 1973 Paris Accords in one
important respect. It would, in effect, serve as a ticket home for the remaining U.S. and NATO
troops still in that country (though for the present
only the first 5,000 of them would immediately depart). Beyond that, the Taliban was to
promise not to provide sanctuary to anti-American terrorist groups, even though the Afghan
branch of ISIS is already
firmly lodged there. Still, this proviso would allow the Trump administration to claim that
it had averted any possible recurrence of the 9/11 terror attacks that were, of course, planned
by Osama bin Laden while residing in Afghanistan in 2001 as a guest of the Taliban-controlled
government.
Mission accomplished , as it were.
Back in 1973, North Vietnamese forces occupying parts of South Vietnam neither disarmed nor
withdrew. Should this new agreement be finalized, Taliban forces currently controlling or
influencing significant
swaths of Afghan territory will neither disarm nor withdraw. Indeed, their
declared intention is to continue fighting.
In 1973, policymakers in Washington were counting on ARVN to hold off Communist forces. In
2019, almost no one expects Afghan security forces to hold off a threat consisting of both the
Taliban and ISIS. In a final insult, just as the Saigon government was excluded from U.S.
negotiations with the North Vietnamese, so, too, has the Western-installed government in Kabul
been excluded from U.S. negotiations with its sworn enemy, the Taliban.
A host of uncertainties remain. As with the olive branches that President Trump has
ostentatiously offered to Russia, China, and North Koea, this particular peace initiative may
come to naught -- or, given the approach of the 2020 elections, he may decide that Afghanistan
offers his last best hope of claiming at least one foreign policy success. One way or another,
in all likelihood, the deathwatch for the U.S.-backed Afghan government has now begun. One
thing only is for sure. Having had their fill of Afghanistan, when the Americans finally leave,
they won't look back. In that sense, it will be Vietnam all over again.
What Price Peace?
However great my distaste for President Trump, I support his administration's efforts to
extricate the United States from Afghanistan. I do so for the same reason I supported the Paris
Peace Accords of 1973. Prolonging this folly any longer does not serve U.S. interests. Rule
number one of statecraft ought to be: when you're doing something really stupid, stop. To my
mind, this rule seems especially applicable when the lives of American soldiers are at
stake.
In Vietnam, Washington wasted 58,000 of those lives for nothing. In Afghanistan, we have
lost more than 2,300
troops , with another 20,000 wounded, again for next to nothing. Last month, two American
Special Forces soldiers were killed in a
firefight in Faryab Province. For what?
That said, I'm painfully aware of the fact that, on the long-ago day when I offered Captain
Nguyen my feeble condolences, I lacked the imagination to conceive of the trials about to
befall his countrymen. In the aftermath of the American War, something on the order of
800,000
Vietnamese took to open and unseaworthy boats to flee their country. According to estimates
by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people
died at sea. Most of those who survived were destined to spend years in squalid refugee camps
scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Back in Vietnam itself, some 300,000 former ARVN officers
and South Vietnamese officials were imprisoned in so-called reeducation camps for up to 18
years. Reconciliation did not rank high on the postwar agenda of the unified country's new
leaders.
Meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, north and south, the American War has in certain ways only
continued. Mines and unexploded ordnance left from that war have inflicted more than 100,000
casualties since the last American troops departed. Even today, the toll caused by Agent
Orange and other herbicides that the U.S. Air Force sprayed with abandon over vast stretches of
territory continues to mount. The Red Cross calculates that more than one million Vietnamese have suffered
health problems, including serious birth defects and cancers as a direct consequence of the
promiscuous use of those poisons as weapons of war.
For anyone caring to calculate the moral responsibility of the United States for its actions
in Vietnam, all of those would have to find a place on the final balance sheet. The 1.3 million
Vietnamese admitted to the United States as immigrants since the American War formally
concluded can hardly be said to make up for the immense damage suffered by the people of
Vietnam as a direct or indirect result of U.S. policy.
As to what will follow if Washington does succeed in cutting a deal with the Taliban, well,
don't count on President Trump (or his successor for that matter) welcoming anything like 1.3
million Afghan refugees to the United States once a "decent interval" has passed. Yet again,
our position will be: we're outta here; you guys sort this out.
Near the end of his famed novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald described two
of his privileged characters, Tom and Daisy, as "careless people" who "smashed up things and
creatures" and then "retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness" to "let other
people clean up the mess they had made." That description applies to the United States as a
whole, especially when Americans tire of a misguided war. We are a careless people. In Vietnam,
we smashed up things and human beings with abandon, only to retreat into our money, leaving
others to clean up the mess in a distinctly bloody fashion.
Count on us, probably sooner rather than later, doing precisely the same thing in
Afghanistan.
Bacevich is right. Vietnam was a tragedy. Here we are at Ground Hog Day in
Afghanistan.
I was touched by the author's recollection of Capt Nguyen. I well know that awful moment
when , reflecting on some past event, I have recognised my own actions as insensitive, crass
and unfeeling. How do we get so wrapped-up in ourselves that the feelings of others hardly
impinge on our sensitivities? What happened to society? Is that where the West has gone
wrong?
Btw, quote "to judge by the president's twitter account -- currently the authoritative
record of U.S. diplomacy" unquote. I hope those owning the Twitter Nest note the future use
of their archive.
Andrew Bacevich is right. However, there is an amazing human disinclination to face facts
but live with delusions which risk extinction for immediate gratification. The lessons from
Vietnam were never learned. The Bush/Cheney fateful decision to occupy Afghanistan at the
same time as invading Iraq ultimately led to the current predatory corporate military rule
that will never voluntarily withdraw from overseas. The intent of the media/intelligence coup
against the President is to prevent peace from breaking out. Executives and wealthy
shareholders would lose their taxpayer gravy train. The troops and contractors now in Eastern
Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are expendable. They will not have two years to get out. No
planning, deep-sixing science, and profits over safety all assure that sooner or later there
will be another black swan event. Be it Brexit, closure of Strait of Hormuz, subprime auto
loans, WWIII, or climate change, assuredly something will give the final push and the
American Empire will collapse.
"Après moi, le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalist and of every
capitalist nation. Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer,
unless under compulsion from society."
Prof. Bacevich is very perceptive and he writes well; his essays are always worth reading.
Nevertheless, he is a retired US Army officer after all and there is that thing about
leopards and spots. There is a tell in this article, when he speaks of the day that Saigon
'fell'. I too remember well that day in April of '75. I was studying in Madison, on the GI
Bill. My friends and I all rejoiced on that day, as Saigon had finally been 'liberated'.
Why rejoice? The point should be that the US had no business in Vietnam, not that one
group finally succeeded in uniting the country under the rule of one dictatorial party. Not
all Vietnamese welcomed the "liberation" and many died fleeing the country.
I am sure this will be misunderstood, so I'll add that I think that the US role was one
massive war crime and we never should have been there at all, that Ho Chi Minh probably would
have won a fair election in the 1950's etc
Being antiwar has nothing necessarily to do with favoring the side our government opposes.
It simply means that there is no moral justification for the US invading Vietnam or Iraq,
supporting jihadists in Syria, helping the Saudis and the Israelis bomb civilians, and so
on.
Prof. Bacevich has an personal stake in what he writes about. His son, Lt. Andrew John
Bacevich, was killed in action by an IED during the occupation back in 2007. He was already a
severe critic of the war at the time but I am guessing that this underlined the futility of
it tall.
Although it is true that the willing of Trump to put an end to the Afghan occupation must
be seen as a positive, his policy of ever increasing military budgets make this affirmation
from Bacevich "the incentive for identifying new enemies in settings deemed more congenial
becomes all but irresistible" truer that ever. These expenditures must be justified in
practical terms and It worries me what the new enemies in Trump's brain are.
Ha, ha hah!
Yes, Hollywood has made a big effort to explain us, the common people, that US's military
expenses will protect us from Centaurians, Klingons, meteorites and some other rogue
invaders. I cannot imagine any other reason.
> Prizing compliance as a precondition for upward mobility, military service rarely
encourages critical thinking.
John Boyd: "And you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to
go." He raised his hand and pointed. "If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have
to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a
member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments." Then Boyd
raised his other hand and pointed another direction. "Or you can go that way and you can do
something -- something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you
decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good
assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to
compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might
make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call.
That's when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?" [Robert
Coram]
Which is worse? Living in a cave in Afghanistan or living in a prison in Europe/US?
If the invasion of Afghanistan was about capturing some people and then imprisoning them then
that question might possibly be relevant.
If the invasion was about prestige then sometimes the best revenge and biggest insult is to
treat that someone as irrelevant and insignificant. If the opportunity presents itself to do
something then by all means do something, do what prestige demands but if that does not
happen then what?
Sometimes the measure of someone is had by the measure of his/her enemies. Giving someone the
significance of being the enemy might provide that someone with a better life. There are
people with money who'd be willing to fund the enemy of their enemy. But how do those
financiers know if they are funding some chancers/charlatans or the real thing? Spread some
uncertainty about who are charlatans/chancers and see what happens to the funding . Maybe the
guilty ones might feel it necessary to publicly provide the necessary proof of their guilt,
doubtful but & if the location of them is found then threaten closure of the diplomatic
missions of the nation where they are unless they are handed over. The diplomatic missions
are cushy positions and closing them will only hurt the 'elite', the general population is
left unharmed.
Afghanistan is unlikely to change anytime soon. As with all predictions of the future that
one might be very wrong. However, the ones predicting that Afghanistan can and will change
due to military occupation are in my opinion the ones who need to somehow provide support for
their prediction.
A few predictions here. After the US and the rest of the Coalition leaves Afghanistan, not
much happens for awhile. But then the government starts to lose ground. Slowly at first, and
then quickly. Eventually Kabul falls. Long before then the US and other countries would have
had evacuated their embassies so that there is no repeat of the frantic helicopter
evacuations like happened in Saigon. There is a swell of refugees, particularly those who
worked with the Coalition but Trump refuses all entry of them into the US saying that there
are "very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers" in
Afghanistan.
Five years after the last troops are out of Afghanistan the war is all but forgotten in the
same way that the vets of the Korean War were forgotten. Not for nothing did they call Korea
the "Forgotten War.' By then the US is immersed in another campaign – probably in
Africa – and news about what is happening in Afghanistan is relegated to the back
pages. The vets will remember, but the nation will ignore them in the same way that Vietnam
vets were forgotten after that war ended until the striking Vietnam Veterans Memorial was
built in Washington by the vets themselves. In West Point text books, the war is relegated to
the back pages as the cadets will instead study peer warfare with Russia and China.
One very important question remains.
By 2001 the Taliban had reduced opium production to virtually zero. Every year since the
US/NATO invasion, opium production has increased.
What will the Afghans do when the US and British are no longer around to facilitate the
heroin trade? Perhaps that's why negotiations are proving so difficult.
The Taliban banned the cultivation of opium in 2001, shortly before being ousted by the
US-led NATO coalition. However, after 2005, the Taliban began to regroup, and encouraged
opium production to finance its insurgency by forcing locals to grow opium and punishing
those who refused. Besides, major opium traffickers annually pay vast amounts to the
Taliban in exchange for safe transport routes secured by the group.
The Taliban uses the money it collects from the opium trade to pay fighters' salaries,
buy fuel, food, weapons and explosives. Based on some reports, around 40% of the Taliban's
funding comes from opium production, while the rest of its expenditure is borne by foreign
patrons and tax collections. The group's annual income from the opium trade was estimated
to be $400 million in 2011, but it is believed to have significantly increased in recent
years.
The Taliban collect two types of taxes from opium businesses: a transportation tax from
drug trafficking and a 10% tax from opium cultivation. In exchange, the group provides
security for the drug convoys and carries out attacks on government institutions like
checkpoints in order to allow drug convoys to pass. The group has also launched attacks on
government forces to safeguard drug labs and factories.
The Taliban don't need US/UK to facilitate things. In fact, getting the US out of the
country might eliminate one of their major Heroin-related business rivals, the CIA.
Bacevich states, "Rule number one of statecraft ought to be: when you're doing something
really stupid, stop. To my mind, this rule seems especially applicable when the lives of
American soldiers are at stake. In Vietnam, Washington wasted 58,000 of those lives for
nothing."
Why does he find his rule especially applicable to the paltry number of US dead, given that
at least fifty times as many Indochinese died?
This attitude is surely one reason for the loathing felt by much of the world toward the USA.
People are justifiably sick of hearing how US lives are inherently more valuable than their
own.
" That said, I'm painfully aware of the fact that, on the long-ago day when I offered
Captain Nguyen my feeble condolences, I lacked the imagination to conceive of the trials
about to befall his countrymen. In the aftermath of the American War, something on the order
of 800,000 Vietnamese took to open and unseaworthy boats to flee their country. According to
estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000
boat people died at sea. Most of those who survived were destined to spend years in squalid
refugee camps scattered throughout Southeast Asia. Back in Vietnam itself, some 300,000
former ARVN officers and South Vietnamese officials were imprisoned in so-called reeducation
camps for up to 18 years. Reconciliation did not rank high on the postwar agenda of the
unified country's new leaders.
Meanwhile, for the Vietnamese, north and south, the American War has in certain ways only
continued. Mines and unexploded ordnance left from that war have inflicted more than 100,000
casualties since the last American troops departed. Even today, the toll caused by Agent
Orange and other herbicides that the U.S. Air Force sprayed with abandon over vast stretches
of territory continues to mount. The Red Cross calculates that more than one million
Vietnamese have suffered health problems, including serious birth defects and cancers as a
direct consequence of the promiscuous use of those poisons as weapons of war.
For anyone caring to calculate the moral responsibility of the United States for its
actions in Vietnam, all of those would have to find a place on the final balance sheet. The
1.3 million Vietnamese admitted to the United States as immigrants since the American War
formally concluded can hardly be said to make up for the immense damage suffered by the
people of Vietnam as a direct or indirect result of U.S. policy ."
Note in particular the phrase "the people of Vietnam" in the last sentence. I find your
criticism to be unwarranted.
I neither missed nor ignored Bacevich's caveat.
I was focusing on his 'rule number one', which seems to make the lives of a few US soldiers
more sacred than those of the many people – civilians as well as soldiers – they
kill.
I am not trying to say that Bacevich is as evil and abhorrent as say Bolton. I don't think he
is, though I suspect he's on the same side when it comes down to it.
I am suggesting that the USA will fail to win the hearts and minds of the world's people
while killing them and belittling their deaths.
(and you might note the phrase "can hardly be said to make up for" in the last
sentence!)
As I remember the movie Dr. Strangelove, as the USA nuclear weapon was launched toward
Russia, Russia was given an option to destroy some USA cities as a way of the USA doing fair
and suitable penance.
I don't imagine the USA's military is viewed in the world as other than operating in the
USA elites' interests, despite any media (Cable, internet, print,Hollywood films) verbiage
about "bringing democracy" or "bringing freedom" to other nations.
I believe the Peace Corps was established as a way to make the world a better place with
USA's expertise and as a way to win "hearts and minds of the world's people".
If you fund, arm, and train an army for a decade and it still can't defend itself against
insurgents, then you have to wonder whose side is right? If it actually had the backing of
the people on the ground and dedicated troops and government, then it should be able to hold
its ground well.
The US has had exactly the same outcomes in Vietnam and Afghanistan with training the
respective armies.
In Iraq, it is largely coherent tribal entities of Kurds and Shiites that have been
providing the backbone of relatively successful military organizations (not the same one
despite being in the same country). Both groups have their own independent goals. The US
forefeited its abiltiy to create a true national army in Iraq when they disbanded the former
Iraqi Army shortly after invading. That resulted in a well-trained insurgency.
"The US has had exactly the same outcomes in Vietnam and Afghanistan with training the
respective armies."
Hardly. From 1979 the US funded, armed and trained the Mujaheddin, who won. I'm not aware of
them funding, arming or training the Viet Cong or Viet Minh.
They didn't win when they backed the losing sides, that's true. But it isn't saying much
beyond the obvious.
I like Bacevich but he really demurred from making his underlying point. He asked "Why
Vietnam" and then he proceeded to fluff through that question. But the analogy to Afghanistan
remains at a much deeper level. That level (imo) is this: Why Vietnam? Because, at that
hysterical cold war turning point, Vietnam was the gateway to Southern China (Gore Vidal).
Our main objective was to position ourselves to invade Southern China and protect the old
imperialist interests of the UK and France (aka Nato). But we dithered and hesitated. Thank
god. It could have been a much worse debacle. So here it is: We invaded Afghanistan and sent
a zillion dollars worth of materiel to Iraq in order to take over the Middle East. And that
meant invading Iran. But just like China, Iran was a dangerous plan. Too many things could go
wrong, so everyone knew they would go wrong. Duh. And so we dithered and hesitated. And made
up for it by blatant propaganda for 15 years. We're "outta there" because we should never
have been in there. And one of the tragedies is our abandonment of the Kurds. Just like the
South Vietnamese. Bacevich didn't mention the Kurds. He implied our abandonment would upset
the poor Afghans. But, they won't care at all. They'll be flipping all of our departing
helicopters the bird. Still there was a point to be made about our fecklessness. Interesting
aside here that Bacevich, a well thought-out moral person, is the new President of the Quincy
Institute. It will probably become famous for deep, murky contradictions. And pompous
rationalizations without ever really making the point. Just to the taste of Soros and the
Kochs.
I suspect, re Afghanistan, there is an upside that will never be made into a finer point.
That is, we have worn out the appetite for a wider war for all concerned and managed to come
to agreement with all parties of interest in Middle East oil. Including Russia. And Israel.
And nobody will make much fuss about it, but we will still leave a very high-tech military
contingent in Afghanistan because Eurasia is a vast opportunity.
Vietnam War strictly motivated by the "Domino Theory" and "monolithic Asian communism",
per Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, et al. Kennedy was said to be having "second thoughts" about
expanded US presence at the time of his assassination; however, LBJ went all-in, urged on by
McNamara and the generals 11 years later it all went tits-up, Nixon ended the draft, all
relatively quiet on the war front, then Carter and Brzezinski funded Islamic militants in
Afghanistan to harry the Russkies and ca. 20yrs later, Cheney-Bush repeat the Russian
quagmire plus ça change etc" .
The author is too limited in his appraisals of USA wars, and the commentariat here too
polite to expand on the list of the criminal wars waged by the USA since Vietnam.
Iraq and Afghanistan were mentioned, yes, but there were also open wars of aggression
against Yugoslavia, then Serbia, Grenada and Libya as well as clandestine wars against a good
chunk of the globe, Israel/Palestine, Russian backyard countries, China, Venezuela, a swathe
of Central American countries, and so on ad infinitum.
USA's holy grail of subjugating all oil producing countries in the world, except for those
that can fight back, and purported payment to those unable to fight back, with readily
printable papers of questionable value, is not a long term strategy. Not long term as in 10
or 20 more years. Then what? John Bolton or his clone on a cocktail of steroids and
amphetamine, lobbing nuclear weapons indiscriminately all over the place?
This is a bit like rearranging the chairs on the deck of Titanic.
The problem is we do not know who pressed Trump to appoint Bolton., Rumors were that it was Abelson. In this case nothing
changed.
The other problem with making Bolton firing a significant move is the presence in White House other neocon warmongers. So one
less doe not change the picture. For example Pompeo remains and he is no less warmongering neocon, MIC stooge, and no less
subservant to Israel then Bolton.
Notable quotes:
"... Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT ..."
"... Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday ..."
"... "Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added. Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product." ..."
"... "A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date. ..."
"... As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an announcement next week. ..."
Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to
move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with
another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT.
Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some
of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday, after news of Bolton's
dismissal from the White House.
Also on rt.com Bolton out: Trump ditches hawkish adviser he kept for 18 months despite
'disagreements'
"Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added.
Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled
by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product."
Foreign leaders weren't the only ones who had a problem with Trump's notoriously belligerent
advisor, either.
"A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a
position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep
State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date.
While the uber-hawk's firing came "later than it should be," Paul hoped it would clear the
way for Trump to follow through on the America First, end-the-wars promises that won him so
much support in 2016. "Those of us who would like less intervention, we're very happy with
it."
Also on rt.com War and whiskers: Freshly-resigned John Bolton gets meme-roasting
As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line
significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he
said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an
announcement next week.
"... However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity. ..."
"... It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions. ..."
"... The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who hired him is much more so. ..."
"... As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly with Pence. ..."
The Guardian view on John Bolton: good riddance, but the problem is his
boss
Many will rightly celebrate the departure of the US national security adviser. But
however welcome the news, it reflects the deeper problems with this administration
...
However satisfying it may be to see him leave, whoever is picked to succeed him may not be
much of an improvement. No one should cheer the chaotic and dysfunctional nature of this
administration. Its boss revels in divisions and factionalism among his staff, which allows
him to continue governing by his whims, kneejerk reactions and vanity.
It is neither normal nor desirable for the national security adviser to be excluded
from meetings about Afghanistan – even if it is a relief, when the individual concerned
is (or was) Mr Bolton. It is more likely that he was fired because he dented his boss's ego
than because his advice was so bad: Mr Trump liked Mr Bolton's bellicose style when he saw it
on Fox News, not when it clashed with his own intentions.
The national security adviser may have been the most ferocious of the voices urging
Mr Trump to turn up the pressure on Iran, but he was certainly not alone . Mr Bolton's
presence in the White House was frightening. But its continued occupation by the man who
hired him is much more so.
I read that the main drivers of getting him kicked or retire himself were Mnuchin and
Pompeo, both afflicted by that nasty goofy smile disease. I am always happy when I see
Mnuchin's hands on the table, eliminating one explanation for the smile.
There is that reported sentence about Bolton - that there is no problem for which war was
not his solution. I read about similar sentence about Pompeo - that he has an IR seeker for
Donald's ass.
That written, good riddance indeed. Likely, if Bolton had his way, the US would likely be
at war with North Korea and Iran.
When I studied I was at the UNFCCC for a time during Bush Jr. presidency and talked about
what Bolton did at the UN with my superior, a 20 year UN veteran.
A 'malicious saboteur arsonist' is a polite summary of what he did there directly and
indirectly, and with given his flirt with MEK and regime change in Iran he has likely not
changed at all.
As far as Pompeo's "moderation" goes, don't expect anything moderate. But general
mailiciousness and opportunism aside, as an evangelical he'll certainly get along perfectly
with Pence.
I don't usually find much value at the Atlantic but this article (written before Trump even
fired Bolton) about Trump's FP timeline (and flip flops) and Bolton who was acting like he
was President is very, very good.
It will allow Trump loyalist to more easily support Trump and give everyone else a tad bit of
hope that Trump really won't go bonkers and start any wars.
Since President Trump appears to talk about things and stuff with Tucker Carlson, perhaps he
should ask Tucker Carlson to spend a week thinking . . . and then offer the President some
names and the reasoning for offering those names.
If the President asks the same Establishment who gave him Bolton, he will just be handed
another Bolton. "Establishment" include Pence, who certainly supported Bolton's outlook on
things and would certainly recommend another "Bolton" figure if asked. Let us hope Pence is
not consulted on Bolton's successor.
different clue,
re "Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor."
Understandable point of view but then, Trump still is Trump. He can just by himself and
beyond advice easily find suboptimal solutions of his own.
Today I read that Richard Grenell was mentioned as a potential sucessor.
As far as that goes, go for it. Many people here will be happy when he "who always only
sais what the Whitehouse sais" is finally gone.
And with Trump's biggest military budget in the world he can just continue the arms sale
pitches that are and were such a substantial part of his job as a US ambassador in
Germany.
That said, they were that after blathering a lot about that we should increase our
military budget by 2%, 4%, 6% or 10%, buy US arms, now, and of course the blathering about
Northstream 1 & 2 and "slavedom to russian oil & gas" and rather buy US frack gas of
course.
He could then also take a side job for the fracking industry in that context. And buy
frack gas and arms company stocks. Opportunities, opportunities ...
How about another peacemaker and lady in waiting for the GOP 2024 nomination - Nimrata
"Nikki" Haley. She will immediately call for a Peace & Friendship Treaty with that evil
thug Vladimir Putin.
I'm sure the Administration will give the matter much thought and due deliberation and using
the same selection process as before, choose the candidate most highly
qualified recommended by the Adelsons. Tell me it ain't so.
Lyttennburgh said... Reply 11 September 2019 at 07:05 AM
Subhān Allāh! Sultan Danuld at-Trumphoon al-Quincy dismissed his wazir Yahya al-Boltoni, for verily it’s said to all
Faithful: mustache is Shaitan’s brush. /s
This is a Marxist critique of neoliberalism. Not necessary right but they his some relevant
points.
Notable quotes:
"... The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. ..."
"... The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. ..."
"... While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand. ..."
"... The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5 ..."
"... This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis. ..."
"... The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6 ..."
"... If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment. ..."
"... The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market ..."
"... In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people ..."
"... In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. ..."
"... The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support. ..."
"... The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism. ..."
"... And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more. ..."
"... Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it. ..."
The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth.
But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this
ideological prop.
Harry Magdoff's The Age of
Imperialism is a classic work that shows how postwar political decolonization does not
negate the phenomenon of imperialism. The book has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, it
follows in V. I. Lenin's footsteps in providing a comprehensive account of how capitalism at
the time operated globally. On the other hand, it raises a question that is less frequently
discussed in Marxist literature -- namely, the need for imperialism. Here, Magdoff not only
highlighted the crucial importance, among other things, of the third world's raw materials for
metropolitan capital, but also refuted the argument that the declining share of raw-material
value in gross manufacturing output somehow reduced this importance, making the simple point
that there can be no manufacturing at all without raw materials. 1
Magdoff's focus was on a period when imperialism was severely resisting economic
decolonization in the third world, with newly independent third world countries taking control
over their own resources. He highlighted the entire armory of weapons used by imperialism. But
he was writing in a period that predated the onset of neoliberalism. Today, we not only have
decades of neoliberalism behind us, but the neoliberal regime itself has reached a dead end.
Contemporary imperialism has to be discussed within this setting.
Globalization and
Economic Crisis
There are two reasons why the regime of neoliberal globalization has run into a dead end.
The first is an ex ante tendency toward global overproduction; the second is that the
only possible counter to this tendency within the regime is the formation of asset-price
bubbles, which cannot be conjured up at will and whose collapse, if they do appear, plunges the
economy back into crisis. In short, to use the words of British economic historian Samuel
Berrick Saul, there are no "markets on tap" for contemporary metropolitan capitalism, such as
had been provided by colonialism prior to the First World War and by state expenditure in the
post-Second World War period of dirigisme . 2
The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages
across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector
of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world
output. As Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy argued in Monopoly Capital , following the lead of
Michał Kalecki and Josef Steindl, such a rise in the share of economic surplus, or a shift
from wages to surplus, has the effect of reducing aggregate demand since the ratio of
consumption to income is higher on average for wage earners than for those living off the
surplus. 3
Therefore, assuming a given level of investment associated with any period, such a shift would
tend to reduce consumption demand and hence aggregate demand, output, and capacity utilization.
In turn, reduced capacity utilization would lower investment over time, further aggravating the
demand-reducing effect arising from the consumption side.
While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous
phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an
explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy?
The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the
first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the
metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in
the latter and meet global demand.
Historically, while labor has not been, and is still not, free to migrate from the third
world to the metropolis, capital, though juridically free to move from the latter to the
former, did not actually do so , except to sectors like mines and plantations, which
only strengthened, rather than broke, the colonial pattern of the international division of
labor. 4
This segmentation of the world economy meant that wages in the metropolis increased with labor
productivity, unrestrained by the vast labor reserves of the third world, which themselves had
been caused by the displacement of manufactures through the twin processes of
deindustrialization (competition from metropolitan goods) and the drain of surplus (the
siphoning off of a large part of the economic surplus, through taxes on peasants that are no
longer spent on local artisan products but finance gratis primary commodity exports to
the metropolis instead).
The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to
the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and
take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of
the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the
third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the
real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was
marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5
At the same time, such relocation of activities, despite causing impressive growth rates of
gross domestic product (GDP) in many third world countries, does not lead to the exhaustion of
the third world's labor reserves. This is because of another feature of contemporary
globalization: the unleashing of a process of primitive accumulation of capital against petty
producers, including peasant agriculturists in the third world, who had earlier been protected,
to an extent, from the encroachment of big capital (both domestic and foreign) by the
postcolonial dirigiste regimes in these countries. Under neoliberalism, such protection
is withdrawn, causing an income squeeze on these producers and often their outright
dispossession from their land, which is then used by big capital for its various so-called
development projects. The increase in employment, even in countries with impressive GDP growth
rates in the third world, falls way short of the natural growth of the workforce, let alone
absorbing the additional job seekers coming from the ranks of displaced petty producers. The
labor reserves therefore never get used up. Indeed, on the contrary, they are augmented
further, because real wages continue to remain tied to a subsistence level, even as
metropolitan wages too are restrained. The vector of real wages in the world economy as a whole
therefore remains restrained.
Although contemporary globalization thus gives rise to an ex ante tendency toward
overproduction, state expenditure that could provide a counter to this (and had provided a
counter through military spending in the United States, according to Baran and Sweezy) can no
longer do so under the current regime. Finance is usually opposed to direct state intervention
through larger spending as a way of increasing employment. This opposition expresses itself
through an opposition not just to larger taxes on capitalists, but also to a larger fiscal
deficit for financing such spending. Obviously, if larger state spending is financed by taxes
on workers, then it hardly adds to aggregate demand, for workers spend the bulk of their
incomes anyway, so the state taking this income and spending it instead does not add any extra
demand. Hence, larger state spending can increase employment only if it is financed either
through a fiscal deficit or through taxes on capitalists who keep a part of their income
unspent or saved. But these are precisely the two modes of financing state expenditure that
finance capital opposes.
Its opposing larger taxes on capitalists is understandable, but why is it so opposed to a
larger fiscal deficit? Even within a capitalist economy, there are no sound economic
theoretical reasons that should preclude a fiscal deficit under all circumstances. The root of
the opposition therefore lies in deeper social considerations: if the capitalist economic
system becomes dependent on the state to promote employment directly , then this fact
undermines the social legitimacy of capitalism. The need for the state to boost the animal
spirits of the capitalists disappears and a perspective on the system that is epistemically
exterior to it is provided to the people, making it possible for them to ask: If the state can
do the job of providing employment, then why do we need the capitalists at all? It is an
instinctive appreciation of this potential danger that underlies the opposition of capital,
especially of finance, to any direct effort by the state to generate employment.
This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as
finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state,
the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second
World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is
globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a
nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large
fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse ,
causing a financial crisis.
The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews
direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since
that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their
social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument,
as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the
pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6
It may be thought that this compulsion on the part of the state to accede to the demand of
finance to eschew fiscal intervention for enlarging employment should not hold for the United
States. Its currency being considered by the world's wealth holders to be "as good as gold"
should make it immune to capital flight. But there is an additional factor operating in the
case of the United States: that the demand generated by a bigger U.S. fiscal deficit would
substantially leak abroad in a neoliberal setting, which would increase its external debt
(since, unlike Britain in its heyday, it does not have access to any unrequited colonial
transfers) for the sake of generating employment elsewhere. This fact deters any fiscal effort
even in the United States to boost demand within a neoliberal setting. 7
Therefore, it follows that state spending cannot provide a counter to the ex ante
tendency toward global overproduction within a regime of neoliberal globalization, which makes
the world economy precariously dependent on occasional asset-price bubbles, primarily in the
U.S. economy, for obtaining, at best, some temporary relief from the crisis. It is this fact
that underlies the dead end that neoliberal capitalism has reached. Indeed, Donald Trump's
resort to protectionism in the United States to alleviate unemployment is a clear recognition
of the system having reached this cul-de-sac. The fact that the mightiest capitalist
economy in the world has to move away from the rules of the neoliberal game in an attempt to
alleviate its crisis of unemployment/underemployment -- while compensating capitalists
adversely affected by this move through tax cuts, as well as carefully ensuring that no
restraints are imposed on free cross-border financial flows -- shows that these rules
are no longer viable in their pristine form.
Some Implications of This Dead End
There are at least four important implications of this dead end of neoliberalism. The first
is that the world economy will now be afflicted by much higher levels of unemployment than it
was in the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, when
the dot-com and the housing bubbles in the United States had, sequentially, a pronounced
impact. It is true that the U.S. unemployment rate today appears to be at a historic low, but
this is misleading: the labor-force participation rate in the United States today is lower than
it was in 2008, which reflects the discouraged-worker effect . Adjusting for this lower
participation, the U.S. unemployment rate is considerable -- around 8 percent. Indeed, Trump
would not be imposing protection in the United States if unemployment was actually as low as 4
percent, which is the official figure. Elsewhere in the world, of course, unemployment
post-2008 continues to be evidently higher than before. Indeed, the severity of the current
problem of below-full-employment production in the U.S. economy is best illustrated by capacity
utilization figures in manufacturing. The weakness of the U.S. recovery from the Great
Recession is indicated by the fact that the current extended recovery represents the first
decade in the entire post-Second World War period in which capacity utilization in
manufacturing has never risen as high as 80 percent in a single quarter, with the resulting
stagnation of investment. 8
If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a
beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the
United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen
the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the
United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already
appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be
because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping
unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we
look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment.
There has been some discussion on how global value chains would be affected by Trump's
protectionism. But the fact that global macroeconomics in the early twenty-first century will
look altogether different compared to earlier has not been much discussed.
In light of the preceding discussion, one could say that if, instead of individual
nation-states whose writ cannot possibly run against globalized finance capital, there was a
global state or a set of major nation-states acting in unison to override the objections of
globalized finance and provide a coordinated fiscal stimulus to the world economy, then perhaps
there could be recovery. Such a coordinated fiscal stimulus was suggested by a group of German
trade unionists, as well as by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
9
While it was turned down then, in the present context it has not even been discussed.
The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large
over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with
protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even
spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world
market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the
ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their
home market.
Such a transition will not be easy; it will require promoting domestic peasant agriculture,
defending petty production, moving toward cooperative forms of production, and ensuring greater
equality in income distribution, all of which need major structural shifts. For smaller
economies, it would also require their coming together with other economies to provide a
minimum size to the domestic market. In short, the dead end of neoliberalism also means the
need for a shift away from the so-called neoliberal development strategy that has held sway
until now.
The third implication is the imminent engulfing of a whole range of third world economies in
serious balance-of-payments difficulties. This is because, while their exports will be sluggish
in the new situation, this very fact will also discourage financial inflows into their
economies, whose easy availability had enabled them to maintain current account deficits on
their balance of payments earlier. In such a situation, within the existing neoliberal
paradigm, they would be forced to adopt austerity measures that would impose income deflation
on their people, make the conditions of their people significantly worse, lead to a further
handing over of their national assets and resources to international capital, and prevent
precisely any possible transition to an alternative strategy of home market-based growth.
In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over
third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits
in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or
that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even
domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people.
The fourth implication is the worldwide upsurge of fascism. Neoliberal capitalism even
before it reached a dead end, even in the period when it achieved reasonable growth and
employment rates, had pushed the world into greater hunger and poverty. For instance, the world
per-capita cereal output was 355 kilograms for 1980 (triennium average for 1979–81
divided by mid–triennium population) and fell to 343 in 2000, leveling at 344.9 in 2016
-- and a substantial amount of this last figure went into ethanol production. Clearly, in a
period of growth of the world economy, per-capita cereal absorption should be expanding,
especially since we are talking here not just of direct absorption but of direct and indirect
absorption, the latter through processed foods and feed grains in animal products. The fact
that there was an absolute decline in per-capita output, which no doubt caused a decline in
per-capita absorption, suggests an absolute worsening in the nutritional level of a substantial
segment of the world's population.
But this growing hunger and nutritional poverty did not immediately arouse any significant
resistance, both because such resistance itself becomes more difficult under neoliberalism
(since the very globalization of capital makes it an elusive target) and also because higher
GDP growth rates provided a hope that distress might be overcome in the course of time.
Peasants in distress, for instance, entertained the hope that their children would live better
in the years to come if given a modicum of education and accepted their fate.
In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with
neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological
prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop
and finds fascism. This changes the discourse away from the material conditions of people's
lives to the so-called threat to the nation, placing the blame for people's distress not on the
failure of the system, but on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority groups, the
other that is portrayed as an enemy. It projects a so-called messiah whose sheer
muscularity can somehow magically overcome all problems; it promotes a culture of unreason so
that both the vilification of the other and the magical powers of the supposed leader
can be placed beyond any intellectual questioning; it uses a combination of state repression
and street-level vigilantism by fascist thugs to terrorize opponents; and it forges a close
relationship with big business, or, in Kalecki's words, "a partnership of big business and
fascist upstarts." 10
Fascist groups of one kind or another exist in all modern societies. They move center stage
and even into power only on certain occasions when they get the backing of big business. And
these occasions arise when three conditions are satisfied: when there is an economic crisis so
the system cannot simply go on as before; when the usual liberal establishment is manifestly
incapable of resolving the crisis; and when the left is not strong enough to provide an
alternative to the people in order to move out of the conjuncture.
This last point may appear odd at first, since many see the big bourgeoisie's recourse to
fascism as a counter to the growth of the left's strength in the context of a capitalist
crisis. But when the left poses a serious threat, the response of the big bourgeoisie typically
is to attempt to split it by offering concessions. It uses fascism to prop itself up only when
the left is weakened. Walter Benjamin's remark that "behind every fascism there is a failed
revolution" points in this direction.
Fascism Then and Now
Contemporary fascism, however, differs in crucial respects from its 1930s counterpart, which
is why many are reluctant to call the current phenomenon a fascist upsurge. But historical
parallels, if carefully drawn, can be useful. While in some aforementioned respects
contemporary fascism does resemble the phenomenon of the 1930s, there are serious differences
between the two that must also be noted.
First, we must note that while the current fascist upsurge has put fascist elements in power
in many countries, there are no fascist states of the 1930s kind as of yet. Even if the fascist
elements in power try to push the country toward a fascist state, it is not clear that they
will succeed. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that fascists in power
today cannot overcome the crisis of neoliberalism, since they accept the regime of
globalization of finance. This includes Trump, despite his protectionism. In the 1930s,
however, this was not the case. The horrors associated with the institution of a fascist state
in the 1930s had been camouflaged to an extent by the ability of the fascists in power to
overcome mass unemployment and end the Depression through larger military spending, financed by
government borrowing. Contemporary fascism, by contrast, lacks the ability to overcome the
opposition of international finance capital to fiscal activism on the part of the government to
generate larger demand, output, and employment, even via military spending.
Such activism, as discussed earlier, required larger government spending financed either
through taxes on capitalists or through a fiscal deficit. Finance capital was opposed to both
of these measures and it being globalized made this opposition decisive . The
decisiveness of this opposition remains even if the government happens to be one composed of
fascist elements. Hence, contemporary fascism, straitjacketed by "fiscal rectitude," cannot
possibly alleviate even temporarily the economic crises facing people and cannot provide any
cover for a transition to a fascist state akin to the ones of the 1930s, which makes such a
transition that much more unlikely.
Another difference is also related to the phenomenon of the globalization of finance. The
1930s were marked by what Lenin had earlier called "interimperialist rivalry." The military
expenditures incurred by fascist governments, even though they pulled countries out of the
Depression and unemployment, inevitably led to wars for "repartitioning an already partitioned
world." Fascism was the progenitor of war and burned itself out through war at, needless to
say, great cost to humankind.
Contemporary fascism, however, operates in a world where interimperialist rivalry is far
more muted. Some have seen in this muting a vindication of Karl Kautsky's vision of an
"ultraimperialism" as against Lenin's emphasis on the permanence of interimperialist rivalry,
but this is wrong. Both Kautsky and Lenin were talking about a world where finance capital and
the financial oligarchy were essentially national -- that is, German, French, or British. And
while Kautsky talked about the possibility of truces among the rival oligarchies, Lenin saw
such truces only as transient phenomena punctuating the ubiquity of rivalry.
In contrast, what we have today is not nation-based finance capitals, but
international finance capital into whose corpus the finance capitals drawn from
particular countries are integrated. This globalized finance capital does not want the world
to be partitioned into economic territories of rival powers ; on the contrary, it wants the
entire globe to be open to its own unrestricted movement. The muting of rivalry between major
powers, therefore, is not because they prefer truce to war, or peaceful partitioning of the
world to forcible repartitioning, but because the material conditions themselves have changed
so that it is no longer a matter of such choices. The world has gone beyond both Lenin and
Kautsky, as well as their debates.
Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge
(of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this
fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a
lingering fascism of less murderous intensity , which, when in power, does not
necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically
annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally.
But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal
strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to
return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will
remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even
while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence
permanently maintaining the "partnership between big business and fascist upstarts."
Put differently, since the contemporary fascist upsurge is not likely to burn itself out as
the earlier one did, it has to be overcome by transcending the very conjuncture that produced
it: neoliberal capitalism at a dead end. A class mobilization of working people around an
alternative set of transitional demands that do not necessarily directly target neoliberal
capitalism, but which are immanently unrealizable within the regime of neoliberal capitalism,
can provide an initial way out of this conjuncture and lead to its eventual transcendence.
Such a class mobilization in the third world context would not mean making no truces with
liberal bourgeois elements against the fascists. On the contrary, since the liberal bourgeois
elements too are getting marginalized through a discourse of jingoistic nationalism typically
manufactured by the fascists, they too would like to shift the discourse toward the material
conditions of people's lives, no doubt claiming that an improvement in these conditions is
possible within the neoliberal economic regime itself. Such a shift in discourse is in
itself a major antifascist act . Experience will teach that the agenda advanced as part of
this changed discourse is unrealizable under neoliberalism, providing the scope for dialectical
intervention by the left to transcend neoliberal capitalism.
Imperialist
Interventions
Even though fascism will have a lingering presence in this conjuncture of "neoliberalism at
a dead end," with the backing of domestic corporate-financial interests that are themselves
integrated into the corpus of international finance capital, the working people in the third
world will increasingly demand better material conditions of life and thereby rupture the
fascist discourse of jingoistic nationalism (that ironically in a third world context is not
anti-imperialist).
In fact, neoliberalism reaching a dead end and having to rely on fascist elements revives
meaningful political activity, which the heyday of neoliberalism had precluded, because most
political formations then had been trapped within an identical neoliberal agenda that appeared
promising. (Latin America had a somewhat different history because neoliberalism arrived in
that continent through military dictatorships, not through its more or less tacit acceptance by
most political formations.)
Such revived political activity will necessarily throw up challenges to neoliberal
capitalism in particular countries. Imperialism, by which we mean the entire economic and
political arrangement sustaining the hegemony of international finance capital, will deal with
these challenges in at least four different ways.
The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation
that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even
before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby
denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only
increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may
well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from
a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers
and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their
support.
Even if capital controls are put in place, where there are current account deficits,
financing such deficits would pose a problem, necessitating some trade controls. But this is
where the second instrument of imperialism comes into play: the imposition of trade sanctions
by the metropolitan states, which then cajole other countries to stop buying from the
sanctioned country that is trying to break away from thralldom to globalized finance capital.
Even if the latter would have otherwise succeeded in stabilizing its economy despite its
attempt to break away, the imposition of sanctions becomes an additional blow.
The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the
sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the
local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of
civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection
generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions,
imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political
elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of
neoliberalism.
And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic
warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military
warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third
world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when
revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more.
Two aspects of such intervention are striking. One is the virtual unanimity among the
metropolitan states, which only underscores the muting of interimperialist rivalry in the era
of hegemony of global finance capital. The other is the extent of support that such
intervention commands within metropolitan countries, from the right to even the liberal
segments.
Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing
for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First
World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state
intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only
occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11
Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize
itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist
intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against
it.
Samuel Berrick Saul, Studies in British Overseas Trade, 1870–1914
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960).
Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1966).
One of the first authors to recognize this fact and its significance was Paul Baran in
The Political Economy of
Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957).
For the role of such colonial transfers in sustaining the British balance of payments and the
long Victorian and Edwardian boom, see Utsa Patnaik, "Revisiting the 'Drain,' or Transfers
from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism," in Agrarian
and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri , ed. Shubhra Chakrabarti and
Utsa Patnaik (Delhi: Tulika, 2017), 277-317.
Federal Reserve Board of Saint Louis Economic Research, FRED, "Capacity Utilization:
Manufacturing," February 2019 (updated March 27, 2019), http://fred.stlouisfed.org .
This issue is discussed by Charles P. Kindleberger in The World in Depression,
1929–1939 , 40th anniversary ed. (Oakland: University of California Press,
2013).
Joseph Schumpeter had seen Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace as
essentially advocating such state intervention in the new situation. See his essay, "John
Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)," in Ten Great Economists (London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1952).
Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987),
The Long Transition (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007). Prabhat Patnaik
is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997),
The Value of Money(2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism(2011).
"... As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns
and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and become
lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime. ..."
"... By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous
and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order. ..."
"... Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist, but
he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization and
relaxation of international tensions. ..."
"... The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution
of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater
the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to delay rather than
hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's.... ..."
"... In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic
or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral aspects
of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity. ..."
Note to Self: The Ten Americans Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War *
Harry Dexter White... George Kennan... George Marshall... Arthur Vandenberg... Paul Hoffman... Dean Acheson... Harry S Truman...
Dwight D. Eisenhower... Gerald Ford... George Shultz
The G.O.P. Won the Cold War? Ridiculous.
By George F. Kennan
The claim heard in campaign rhetoric that the United States under Republican Party leadership "won the cold war" is intrinsically
silly.
The suggestion that any Administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political
upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish. No great country has that sort of influence
on the internal developments of any other one.
As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns
and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and
become lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime.
These thoughts found a place in my so-called X article in Foreign Affairs in 1947, from which the policy of containment is
widely seen to have originated. This perception was even more clearly expressed in a letter from Moscow written in 1952, when
I was Ambassador there, to H. Freeman Matthews, a senior State Department official, excerpts from which also have been widely
published. There were some of us to whom it was clear, even at that early date, that the regime as we had known it would not last
for all time. We could not know when or how it would be changed; we knew only that change was inevitable and impending.
By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous
and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order.
Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist,
but he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization
and relaxation of international tensions.
The downing of the U-2 spy plane in 1960, more than anything else, put an end to this hope. The episode humiliated Khrushchev
and discredited his relatively moderate policies. It forced him to fall back, for the defense of his own political position, on
a more strongly belligerent anti-American tone of public utterance.
The U-2 episode was the clearest example of that primacy of military over political policy that soon was to become an outstanding
feature of American cold war policy. The extreme militarization of American discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line circles
over the ensuing 25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the Soviet Union.
The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution
of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the
greater the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to
delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's....
In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic
or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral
aspects of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity.
Early in my time in the service, when I had time to think being at a remote station I decided the west had the marked economic
advantage, particularly as the green revolution permitted some higher level of nutrition security.
Later on I recall discussions where the collapse of the Soviet Union was assured but would take in to the 21st century to occur.
The big question then was "would a nuclear exchange occur in the way of a peaceful collapse".....
The presence of the A Bomb in some ways prevented war in other encouraged intrigue and small scrapes in to each other's spheres.
There was a bit of the Divine in the world getting through the Cold War.
The Berlin wall came down as hoped but 25 years earlier than I expected.
KENNAN Was a lucky guy. He hit the right notes at the right time and then as he got second thoughts and better vision. Like yugoslaving
peoples China in 1949
He was side tracked and then sent out to ivy pastures
Nonsense. The moment to engage was 1953 -54 and yes a goo regime blocked it
But it was Truman that crossed the parallel in 1950 and tried to liberate north Korea
It was Kennedy that preferred brinksmanship to real engagement. Brush wars and regime change to accommodation. Missile racing
to sensible unilateralism
Yes LBJ was an ignorant oaf on foreign policy. But it was Nixon that finally used PRC as Yugo twenty years too late of course
The cold war was invented by democrats and exploited by republicans for domestic shindiggery. Tragicomedy cinescope scaled
Obviously since there is a determined American Cold War effort being waged right now, American historians were mistaken at the
end of the 1980s. There had been no winning of the Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was
about. If the Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the Soviet Union and Soviet
ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking
policy steps to carry on the Cold War.
What democracy they are talking about? Democracy for whom? This Harvard political prostitutes are talking about democracy for oligarchs
which was the nest result of EuroMaydan and the ability of Western companies to buy assets for pennies on the dollar without the control
of national government like happen in xUSSR space after dissolution of the USSR, which in retrospect can be classified as a color revolution
too, supported by financial injection, logistical support and propaganda campaign in major Western MSM.
What Harvard honchos probably does not understand or does not wish to understand is that neoliberalism as a social system lost its
attraction and is in irreversible decline. The ideology of neoliberalism collapsed much like Bolsheviks' ideology. As Politician like
Joe Boden which still preach neoliberalism are widely viewed as corrupt or senile (or both) hypocrites.
The "Collective West" still demonstrates formidable intelligence agencies skills (especially the USA and GB), but the key question
is: "What they are fighting for?"
They are fighting for neoliberalism which is a lost case. Which looks like KGB successes after WWIII. They won many battles and
lost the Cold war.
Not that Bolsheviks in the USSR was healthy or vibrant. Economics was a deep stagnation, alcoholism among working class was rampant,
the standard of living of the majority of population slides each year, much like is the case with neoliberalism after, say, 1991. Hidden
unemployment in the USSR was high -- at least in high teens if not higher. Like in the USA now good jobs were almost impossible to obtain
without "extra help". Medical services while free were dismal, especially dental -- which were horrible. Hospitals were poor as church
rats as most money went to MIC. Actually, like in the USA now, MIC helped to strangulate the economy and contributed to the collapse.
It was co a corrupt and decaying , led by completely degenerated leadership. To put the person of the level of Gorbachov level of political
talent lead such a huge and complex country was an obvious suicide.
But the facts speak for themselves: what people usually get as the result of any color revolution is the typical for any county
which lost the war: dramatic drop of the standard of living due to economic rape of the country.
While far form being perfect the Chinese regime at least managed to lift the standard of living of the majority of the population
and provide employment. After regime change China will experience the same economic rape as the USSR under Yeltsin regime. So in no
way Hong Cong revolution can be viewed a progressive phenomenon despite all the warts of neoliberalism with Chenese characteristics
in mainland China (actually this is a variant of NEP that Gorbachov tried to implement in the USSR, but was to politically incompetent
to succeed)
CHENOWETH: I think it really boils down to four different things. The first is a large and diverse participation that's
sustained.
The second thing is that [the movement] needs to elicit loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but also other
elites. Security forces are important because they ultimately are the agents of repression, and their actions largely decide
how violent the confrontation with -- and reaction to -- the nonviolent campaign is going to be in the end. But there are other
security elites, economic and business elites, state media. There are lots of different pillars that support the status quo,
and if they can be disrupted or coerced into noncooperation, then that's a decisive factor.
The third thing is that the campaigns need to be able to have more than just protests; there needs to be a lot of variation
in the methods they use.
The fourth thing is that when campaigns are repressed -- which is basically inevitable for those calling for major changes
-- they don't either descend into chaos or opt for using violence themselves. If campaigns allow their repression to throw
the movement into total disarray or they use it as a pretext to militarize their campaign, then they're essentially co-signing
what the regime wants -- for the resisters to play on its own playing field. And they're probably going to get totally crushed.
Wai Sing-Rin @waisingrin • Aug 27
Replying to @ChrisFraser_HKU @edennnnnn_ and 2 others
Anyone who watched the lone frontliner (w translator) sees the frontliners are headed for disaster. They're fighting just
to fight with no plans nor objectives.
They see themselves as heroes protecting the HK they love. No doubt their sincerity, but there are 300 of them left.
This is a Marxist critique of neoliberalism. Not necessary right but they his some relevant
points.
Notable quotes:
"... The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. ..."
"... The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. ..."
"... While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand. ..."
"... The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5 ..."
"... This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis. ..."
"... The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6 ..."
"... If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment. ..."
"... The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market ..."
"... In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people ..."
"... In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. ..."
"... The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support. ..."
"... The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism. ..."
"... And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more. ..."
"... Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it. ..."
The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth.
But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this
ideological prop.
Harry Magdoff's The Age of
Imperialism is a classic work that shows how postwar political decolonization does not
negate the phenomenon of imperialism. The book has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, it
follows in V. I. Lenin's footsteps in providing a comprehensive account of how capitalism at
the time operated globally. On the other hand, it raises a question that is less frequently
discussed in Marxist literature -- namely, the need for imperialism. Here, Magdoff not only
highlighted the crucial importance, among other things, of the third world's raw materials for
metropolitan capital, but also refuted the argument that the declining share of raw-material
value in gross manufacturing output somehow reduced this importance, making the simple point
that there can be no manufacturing at all without raw materials. 1
Magdoff's focus was on a period when imperialism was severely resisting economic
decolonization in the third world, with newly independent third world countries taking control
over their own resources. He highlighted the entire armory of weapons used by imperialism. But
he was writing in a period that predated the onset of neoliberalism. Today, we not only have
decades of neoliberalism behind us, but the neoliberal regime itself has reached a dead end.
Contemporary imperialism has to be discussed within this setting.
Globalization and
Economic Crisis
There are two reasons why the regime of neoliberal globalization has run into a dead end.
The first is an ex ante tendency toward global overproduction; the second is that the
only possible counter to this tendency within the regime is the formation of asset-price
bubbles, which cannot be conjured up at will and whose collapse, if they do appear, plunges the
economy back into crisis. In short, to use the words of British economic historian Samuel
Berrick Saul, there are no "markets on tap" for contemporary metropolitan capitalism, such as
had been provided by colonialism prior to the First World War and by state expenditure in the
post-Second World War period of dirigisme . 2
The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages
across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector
of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world
output. As Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy argued in Monopoly Capital , following the lead of
Michał Kalecki and Josef Steindl, such a rise in the share of economic surplus, or a shift
from wages to surplus, has the effect of reducing aggregate demand since the ratio of
consumption to income is higher on average for wage earners than for those living off the
surplus. 3
Therefore, assuming a given level of investment associated with any period, such a shift would
tend to reduce consumption demand and hence aggregate demand, output, and capacity utilization.
In turn, reduced capacity utilization would lower investment over time, further aggravating the
demand-reducing effect arising from the consumption side.
While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous
phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an
explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy?
The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the
first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the
metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in
the latter and meet global demand.
Historically, while labor has not been, and is still not, free to migrate from the third
world to the metropolis, capital, though juridically free to move from the latter to the
former, did not actually do so , except to sectors like mines and plantations, which
only strengthened, rather than broke, the colonial pattern of the international division of
labor. 4
This segmentation of the world economy meant that wages in the metropolis increased with labor
productivity, unrestrained by the vast labor reserves of the third world, which themselves had
been caused by the displacement of manufactures through the twin processes of
deindustrialization (competition from metropolitan goods) and the drain of surplus (the
siphoning off of a large part of the economic surplus, through taxes on peasants that are no
longer spent on local artisan products but finance gratis primary commodity exports to
the metropolis instead).
The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to
the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and
take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of
the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the
third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the
real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was
marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5
At the same time, such relocation of activities, despite causing impressive growth rates of
gross domestic product (GDP) in many third world countries, does not lead to the exhaustion of
the third world's labor reserves. This is because of another feature of contemporary
globalization: the unleashing of a process of primitive accumulation of capital against petty
producers, including peasant agriculturists in the third world, who had earlier been protected,
to an extent, from the encroachment of big capital (both domestic and foreign) by the
postcolonial dirigiste regimes in these countries. Under neoliberalism, such protection
is withdrawn, causing an income squeeze on these producers and often their outright
dispossession from their land, which is then used by big capital for its various so-called
development projects. The increase in employment, even in countries with impressive GDP growth
rates in the third world, falls way short of the natural growth of the workforce, let alone
absorbing the additional job seekers coming from the ranks of displaced petty producers. The
labor reserves therefore never get used up. Indeed, on the contrary, they are augmented
further, because real wages continue to remain tied to a subsistence level, even as
metropolitan wages too are restrained. The vector of real wages in the world economy as a whole
therefore remains restrained.
Although contemporary globalization thus gives rise to an ex ante tendency toward
overproduction, state expenditure that could provide a counter to this (and had provided a
counter through military spending in the United States, according to Baran and Sweezy) can no
longer do so under the current regime. Finance is usually opposed to direct state intervention
through larger spending as a way of increasing employment. This opposition expresses itself
through an opposition not just to larger taxes on capitalists, but also to a larger fiscal
deficit for financing such spending. Obviously, if larger state spending is financed by taxes
on workers, then it hardly adds to aggregate demand, for workers spend the bulk of their
incomes anyway, so the state taking this income and spending it instead does not add any extra
demand. Hence, larger state spending can increase employment only if it is financed either
through a fiscal deficit or through taxes on capitalists who keep a part of their income
unspent or saved. But these are precisely the two modes of financing state expenditure that
finance capital opposes.
Its opposing larger taxes on capitalists is understandable, but why is it so opposed to a
larger fiscal deficit? Even within a capitalist economy, there are no sound economic
theoretical reasons that should preclude a fiscal deficit under all circumstances. The root of
the opposition therefore lies in deeper social considerations: if the capitalist economic
system becomes dependent on the state to promote employment directly , then this fact
undermines the social legitimacy of capitalism. The need for the state to boost the animal
spirits of the capitalists disappears and a perspective on the system that is epistemically
exterior to it is provided to the people, making it possible for them to ask: If the state can
do the job of providing employment, then why do we need the capitalists at all? It is an
instinctive appreciation of this potential danger that underlies the opposition of capital,
especially of finance, to any direct effort by the state to generate employment.
This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as
finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state,
the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second
World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is
globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a
nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large
fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse ,
causing a financial crisis.
The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews
direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since
that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their
social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument,
as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the
pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6
It may be thought that this compulsion on the part of the state to accede to the demand of
finance to eschew fiscal intervention for enlarging employment should not hold for the United
States. Its currency being considered by the world's wealth holders to be "as good as gold"
should make it immune to capital flight. But there is an additional factor operating in the
case of the United States: that the demand generated by a bigger U.S. fiscal deficit would
substantially leak abroad in a neoliberal setting, which would increase its external debt
(since, unlike Britain in its heyday, it does not have access to any unrequited colonial
transfers) for the sake of generating employment elsewhere. This fact deters any fiscal effort
even in the United States to boost demand within a neoliberal setting. 7
Therefore, it follows that state spending cannot provide a counter to the ex ante
tendency toward global overproduction within a regime of neoliberal globalization, which makes
the world economy precariously dependent on occasional asset-price bubbles, primarily in the
U.S. economy, for obtaining, at best, some temporary relief from the crisis. It is this fact
that underlies the dead end that neoliberal capitalism has reached. Indeed, Donald Trump's
resort to protectionism in the United States to alleviate unemployment is a clear recognition
of the system having reached this cul-de-sac. The fact that the mightiest capitalist
economy in the world has to move away from the rules of the neoliberal game in an attempt to
alleviate its crisis of unemployment/underemployment -- while compensating capitalists
adversely affected by this move through tax cuts, as well as carefully ensuring that no
restraints are imposed on free cross-border financial flows -- shows that these rules
are no longer viable in their pristine form.
Some Implications of This Dead End
There are at least four important implications of this dead end of neoliberalism. The first
is that the world economy will now be afflicted by much higher levels of unemployment than it
was in the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, when
the dot-com and the housing bubbles in the United States had, sequentially, a pronounced
impact. It is true that the U.S. unemployment rate today appears to be at a historic low, but
this is misleading: the labor-force participation rate in the United States today is lower than
it was in 2008, which reflects the discouraged-worker effect . Adjusting for this lower
participation, the U.S. unemployment rate is considerable -- around 8 percent. Indeed, Trump
would not be imposing protection in the United States if unemployment was actually as low as 4
percent, which is the official figure. Elsewhere in the world, of course, unemployment
post-2008 continues to be evidently higher than before. Indeed, the severity of the current
problem of below-full-employment production in the U.S. economy is best illustrated by capacity
utilization figures in manufacturing. The weakness of the U.S. recovery from the Great
Recession is indicated by the fact that the current extended recovery represents the first
decade in the entire post-Second World War period in which capacity utilization in
manufacturing has never risen as high as 80 percent in a single quarter, with the resulting
stagnation of investment. 8
If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a
beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the
United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen
the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the
United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already
appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be
because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping
unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we
look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment.
There has been some discussion on how global value chains would be affected by Trump's
protectionism. But the fact that global macroeconomics in the early twenty-first century will
look altogether different compared to earlier has not been much discussed.
In light of the preceding discussion, one could say that if, instead of individual
nation-states whose writ cannot possibly run against globalized finance capital, there was a
global state or a set of major nation-states acting in unison to override the objections of
globalized finance and provide a coordinated fiscal stimulus to the world economy, then perhaps
there could be recovery. Such a coordinated fiscal stimulus was suggested by a group of German
trade unionists, as well as by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
9
While it was turned down then, in the present context it has not even been discussed.
The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large
over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with
protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even
spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world
market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the
ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their
home market.
Such a transition will not be easy; it will require promoting domestic peasant agriculture,
defending petty production, moving toward cooperative forms of production, and ensuring greater
equality in income distribution, all of which need major structural shifts. For smaller
economies, it would also require their coming together with other economies to provide a
minimum size to the domestic market. In short, the dead end of neoliberalism also means the
need for a shift away from the so-called neoliberal development strategy that has held sway
until now.
The third implication is the imminent engulfing of a whole range of third world economies in
serious balance-of-payments difficulties. This is because, while their exports will be sluggish
in the new situation, this very fact will also discourage financial inflows into their
economies, whose easy availability had enabled them to maintain current account deficits on
their balance of payments earlier. In such a situation, within the existing neoliberal
paradigm, they would be forced to adopt austerity measures that would impose income deflation
on their people, make the conditions of their people significantly worse, lead to a further
handing over of their national assets and resources to international capital, and prevent
precisely any possible transition to an alternative strategy of home market-based growth.
In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over
third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits
in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or
that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even
domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people.
The fourth implication is the worldwide upsurge of fascism. Neoliberal capitalism even
before it reached a dead end, even in the period when it achieved reasonable growth and
employment rates, had pushed the world into greater hunger and poverty. For instance, the world
per-capita cereal output was 355 kilograms for 1980 (triennium average for 1979–81
divided by mid–triennium population) and fell to 343 in 2000, leveling at 344.9 in 2016
-- and a substantial amount of this last figure went into ethanol production. Clearly, in a
period of growth of the world economy, per-capita cereal absorption should be expanding,
especially since we are talking here not just of direct absorption but of direct and indirect
absorption, the latter through processed foods and feed grains in animal products. The fact
that there was an absolute decline in per-capita output, which no doubt caused a decline in
per-capita absorption, suggests an absolute worsening in the nutritional level of a substantial
segment of the world's population.
But this growing hunger and nutritional poverty did not immediately arouse any significant
resistance, both because such resistance itself becomes more difficult under neoliberalism
(since the very globalization of capital makes it an elusive target) and also because higher
GDP growth rates provided a hope that distress might be overcome in the course of time.
Peasants in distress, for instance, entertained the hope that their children would live better
in the years to come if given a modicum of education and accepted their fate.
In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with
neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological
prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop
and finds fascism. This changes the discourse away from the material conditions of people's
lives to the so-called threat to the nation, placing the blame for people's distress not on the
failure of the system, but on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority groups, the
other that is portrayed as an enemy. It projects a so-called messiah whose sheer
muscularity can somehow magically overcome all problems; it promotes a culture of unreason so
that both the vilification of the other and the magical powers of the supposed leader
can be placed beyond any intellectual questioning; it uses a combination of state repression
and street-level vigilantism by fascist thugs to terrorize opponents; and it forges a close
relationship with big business, or, in Kalecki's words, "a partnership of big business and
fascist upstarts." 10
Fascist groups of one kind or another exist in all modern societies. They move center stage
and even into power only on certain occasions when they get the backing of big business. And
these occasions arise when three conditions are satisfied: when there is an economic crisis so
the system cannot simply go on as before; when the usual liberal establishment is manifestly
incapable of resolving the crisis; and when the left is not strong enough to provide an
alternative to the people in order to move out of the conjuncture.
This last point may appear odd at first, since many see the big bourgeoisie's recourse to
fascism as a counter to the growth of the left's strength in the context of a capitalist
crisis. But when the left poses a serious threat, the response of the big bourgeoisie typically
is to attempt to split it by offering concessions. It uses fascism to prop itself up only when
the left is weakened. Walter Benjamin's remark that "behind every fascism there is a failed
revolution" points in this direction.
Fascism Then and Now
Contemporary fascism, however, differs in crucial respects from its 1930s counterpart, which
is why many are reluctant to call the current phenomenon a fascist upsurge. But historical
parallels, if carefully drawn, can be useful. While in some aforementioned respects
contemporary fascism does resemble the phenomenon of the 1930s, there are serious differences
between the two that must also be noted.
First, we must note that while the current fascist upsurge has put fascist elements in power
in many countries, there are no fascist states of the 1930s kind as of yet. Even if the fascist
elements in power try to push the country toward a fascist state, it is not clear that they
will succeed. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that fascists in power
today cannot overcome the crisis of neoliberalism, since they accept the regime of
globalization of finance. This includes Trump, despite his protectionism. In the 1930s,
however, this was not the case. The horrors associated with the institution of a fascist state
in the 1930s had been camouflaged to an extent by the ability of the fascists in power to
overcome mass unemployment and end the Depression through larger military spending, financed by
government borrowing. Contemporary fascism, by contrast, lacks the ability to overcome the
opposition of international finance capital to fiscal activism on the part of the government to
generate larger demand, output, and employment, even via military spending.
Such activism, as discussed earlier, required larger government spending financed either
through taxes on capitalists or through a fiscal deficit. Finance capital was opposed to both
of these measures and it being globalized made this opposition decisive . The
decisiveness of this opposition remains even if the government happens to be one composed of
fascist elements. Hence, contemporary fascism, straitjacketed by "fiscal rectitude," cannot
possibly alleviate even temporarily the economic crises facing people and cannot provide any
cover for a transition to a fascist state akin to the ones of the 1930s, which makes such a
transition that much more unlikely.
Another difference is also related to the phenomenon of the globalization of finance. The
1930s were marked by what Lenin had earlier called "interimperialist rivalry." The military
expenditures incurred by fascist governments, even though they pulled countries out of the
Depression and unemployment, inevitably led to wars for "repartitioning an already partitioned
world." Fascism was the progenitor of war and burned itself out through war at, needless to
say, great cost to humankind.
Contemporary fascism, however, operates in a world where interimperialist rivalry is far
more muted. Some have seen in this muting a vindication of Karl Kautsky's vision of an
"ultraimperialism" as against Lenin's emphasis on the permanence of interimperialist rivalry,
but this is wrong. Both Kautsky and Lenin were talking about a world where finance capital and
the financial oligarchy were essentially national -- that is, German, French, or British. And
while Kautsky talked about the possibility of truces among the rival oligarchies, Lenin saw
such truces only as transient phenomena punctuating the ubiquity of rivalry.
In contrast, what we have today is not nation-based finance capitals, but
international finance capital into whose corpus the finance capitals drawn from
particular countries are integrated. This globalized finance capital does not want the world
to be partitioned into economic territories of rival powers ; on the contrary, it wants the
entire globe to be open to its own unrestricted movement. The muting of rivalry between major
powers, therefore, is not because they prefer truce to war, or peaceful partitioning of the
world to forcible repartitioning, but because the material conditions themselves have changed
so that it is no longer a matter of such choices. The world has gone beyond both Lenin and
Kautsky, as well as their debates.
Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge
(of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this
fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a
lingering fascism of less murderous intensity , which, when in power, does not
necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically
annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally.
But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal
strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to
return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will
remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even
while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence
permanently maintaining the "partnership between big business and fascist upstarts."
Put differently, since the contemporary fascist upsurge is not likely to burn itself out as
the earlier one did, it has to be overcome by transcending the very conjuncture that produced
it: neoliberal capitalism at a dead end. A class mobilization of working people around an
alternative set of transitional demands that do not necessarily directly target neoliberal
capitalism, but which are immanently unrealizable within the regime of neoliberal capitalism,
can provide an initial way out of this conjuncture and lead to its eventual transcendence.
Such a class mobilization in the third world context would not mean making no truces with
liberal bourgeois elements against the fascists. On the contrary, since the liberal bourgeois
elements too are getting marginalized through a discourse of jingoistic nationalism typically
manufactured by the fascists, they too would like to shift the discourse toward the material
conditions of people's lives, no doubt claiming that an improvement in these conditions is
possible within the neoliberal economic regime itself. Such a shift in discourse is in
itself a major antifascist act . Experience will teach that the agenda advanced as part of
this changed discourse is unrealizable under neoliberalism, providing the scope for dialectical
intervention by the left to transcend neoliberal capitalism.
Imperialist
Interventions
Even though fascism will have a lingering presence in this conjuncture of "neoliberalism at
a dead end," with the backing of domestic corporate-financial interests that are themselves
integrated into the corpus of international finance capital, the working people in the third
world will increasingly demand better material conditions of life and thereby rupture the
fascist discourse of jingoistic nationalism (that ironically in a third world context is not
anti-imperialist).
In fact, neoliberalism reaching a dead end and having to rely on fascist elements revives
meaningful political activity, which the heyday of neoliberalism had precluded, because most
political formations then had been trapped within an identical neoliberal agenda that appeared
promising. (Latin America had a somewhat different history because neoliberalism arrived in
that continent through military dictatorships, not through its more or less tacit acceptance by
most political formations.)
Such revived political activity will necessarily throw up challenges to neoliberal
capitalism in particular countries. Imperialism, by which we mean the entire economic and
political arrangement sustaining the hegemony of international finance capital, will deal with
these challenges in at least four different ways.
The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation
that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even
before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby
denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only
increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may
well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from
a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers
and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their
support.
Even if capital controls are put in place, where there are current account deficits,
financing such deficits would pose a problem, necessitating some trade controls. But this is
where the second instrument of imperialism comes into play: the imposition of trade sanctions
by the metropolitan states, which then cajole other countries to stop buying from the
sanctioned country that is trying to break away from thralldom to globalized finance capital.
Even if the latter would have otherwise succeeded in stabilizing its economy despite its
attempt to break away, the imposition of sanctions becomes an additional blow.
The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the
sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the
local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of
civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection
generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions,
imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political
elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of
neoliberalism.
And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic
warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military
warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third
world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when
revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more.
Two aspects of such intervention are striking. One is the virtual unanimity among the
metropolitan states, which only underscores the muting of interimperialist rivalry in the era
of hegemony of global finance capital. The other is the extent of support that such
intervention commands within metropolitan countries, from the right to even the liberal
segments.
Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing
for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First
World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state
intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only
occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11
Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize
itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist
intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against
it.
Samuel Berrick Saul, Studies in British Overseas Trade, 1870–1914
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960).
Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1966).
One of the first authors to recognize this fact and its significance was Paul Baran in
The Political Economy of
Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957).
For the role of such colonial transfers in sustaining the British balance of payments and the
long Victorian and Edwardian boom, see Utsa Patnaik, "Revisiting the 'Drain,' or Transfers
from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism," in Agrarian
and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri , ed. Shubhra Chakrabarti and
Utsa Patnaik (Delhi: Tulika, 2017), 277-317.
Federal Reserve Board of Saint Louis Economic Research, FRED, "Capacity Utilization:
Manufacturing," February 2019 (updated March 27, 2019), http://fred.stlouisfed.org .
This issue is discussed by Charles P. Kindleberger in The World in Depression,
1929–1939 , 40th anniversary ed. (Oakland: University of California Press,
2013).
Joseph Schumpeter had seen Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace as
essentially advocating such state intervention in the new situation. See his essay, "John
Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)," in Ten Great Economists (London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1952).
Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987),
The Long Transition (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007). Prabhat Patnaik
is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997),
The Value of Money(2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism(2011).
"... But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. ..."
"... Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't. ..."
"... It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist. ..."
"... It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One. ..."
"... Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016. ..."
No major politician, not even Barack Obama, excoriated the Iraq war more fiercely than did
Trump during the primaries. He did this in front of a scion of the house of Bush and in the
deep red state of South Carolina. He nevertheless went on to win that primary, the Republican
nomination and the presidency on that antiwar message.
And so, to see Bolton ascend to the commanding heights of the Trump White House shocked many
from the time it was first rumored. "I shudder to think what would happen if we had a failed
presidency," Scott McConnell, TAC' s founding editor, said in late 2016 at our foreign
policy conference, held, opportunely, during the presidential transition. "I mean, John
Bolton?"
At the time, Bolton was a candidate for secretary of state, a consideration scuttled in no
small part because of the opposition of Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. As McConnell
wrote in November of that year: "Most of the upper-middle-level officials who plotted the Iraq
War have retreated quietly into private life, but Bolton has kept their flame alive." Bolton
had already been passed over for NSA, losing out early to the doomed Michael Flynn. Rex
Tillerson beat him for secretary of state. Bolton was then passed over for the role of
Tillerson's deputy. When Flynn flamed out of the White House the following February, Trump
chose a general he didn't know at all, H.R. McMaster, to replace him.
Bolton had been trying to make a comeback since late 2006, after failing to hold his job as
U.N. ambassador (he had only been a recess appointment). His landing spots including a Fox News
contributorship and a post at the vaunted American Enterprise Institute. Even in the early days
of the Trump administration, Bolton was around, and accessible. I remember seeing him multiple
times in Washington's Connecticut Avenue corridor, decked out in the seersucker he notoriously
favors during the summer months. Paired with the familiar mustache, the man is the Mark Twain
of regime change.
But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the
Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive,
influential Mercer billionaires. He also struck a ferocious alliance with the Center for
Security Policy, helmed by the infamous Frank Gaffney, and gave paid remarks to the National
Council for the Resistance of Iran, the lynchpin organization of the People's Mujahideen of
Iran, or MEK. The latter two associations have imbued the spirit of this White House, with
Gaffney now one of the most underrated power players in Washington, and the MEK's "peaceful"
regime change mantra all but the official line of the administration.
More than any of these gigs, Bolton benefited from two associations that greased the wheels
for his joining the Trump administration.
The first was Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist. If you want to
understand the administration's Iran policy under Bolton to date, look no further than a piece
by the then-retired diplomat in conservative mainstay National Review in August 2017,
days after Bannon's departure from the White House: "How to Get Out of the Iran Deal." Bolton
wrote the piece at Bannon's urging. Even out of the administration, the former Breitbart
honcho was an influential figure.
"We must explain the grave threat to the U.S. and our allies, particularly Israel," said
Bolton. "The [Iran Deal's] vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran's
direction; Iran's significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable
conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that [the Iran deal] is
not in the national-security interests of the United States."
Then Bolton, as I
documented , embarked on a campaign of a media saturation to make a TV-happy president
proud. By May Day the next year, he would have a job, a big one, and one that Senator Paul
couldn't deny him: national security advisor. That wasn't the whole story, of course. Bolton's
ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive
Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson
failed to strenuously object.
So will Trump finally do it? Other than White House chief of staff, a position Mick Mulvaney
has filled in an acting capacity for the entire calendar year, national security advisor is the
easiest, most senior role to change horses.
A bombshell Washington Post story lays out the dire truth: Bolton is so distrusted on
the president's central prerogatives, for instance Afghanistan, that he's not even allowed to
see sensitive plans unsupervised.
Bolton has also come into conflict with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to three
senior State Department officials. Pompeo is the consummate politician. Though an inveterate
hawk, the putative Trump successor does not want to be the Paul Wolfowitz of the Iran war.
Bolton is a bureaucratic arsonist, agnostic on the necessity of two of the institutions he
served in -- Foggy Bottom and the United Nations. Pompeo, say those around him, is keen to be
beloved, or at least tolerated, by career officials in his department, in contrast with Bolton
and even Tillerson.
The real danger Bolton poses is to the twin gambit Trump hopes to pull off ahead of, perhaps
just ahead of, next November -- a detente deal with China to calm the markets and ending
the war in Afghanistan. Over the weekend, the president announced a scuttled meeting with the
Taliban at Camp David, which would have been an historic, stunning summit. Bolton was
reportedly instrumental in quashing the meet. Still, there is a lot of time between now and
next autumn, and the cancellation is likely the latest iteration of the president's showman
diplomacy.
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and
ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.
You confuse "politician" and "liar" here, whereas he is "consummate" at neither politics
nor lying. His politicking has been as botched as his diplomacy; his lying has been
prodigious but transparent.
Bolton has been on the way out now for how many months? I will believe this welcome news
when I see his sorry ___ out the door.
I think much of America and the world will feel the same way.
It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't
change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon
interventionist.
It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One.
Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could
replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing
people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat
its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016.
Trump whole administration is just a bunch of rabid neocons who will be perfectly at home (and some were) in Bush II
administration. So firing of Bolton while a step in the right direction is too little, too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud. ..."
"... Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane. ..."
While there was some feverish speculation as to what an impromptu presser at 1:30pm with US
Secretary of State Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and National Security Adviser Bolton
would deliver, that was quickly swept aside moments later when Trump unexpectedly announced
that he had effectively fired Bolton as National Security Advisor, tweeting that he informed
John Bolton "last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House" after "
disagreeing strongly with many of his suggestions. "
... ... ...
Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering
neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even
Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud.
While we await more details on this strike by Trump against the military-industrial
complex-enabling Deep State, here is a fitting closer from Curt Mills via the American
Conservative:
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general
and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he
didn't.
"... Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton believes and does? ..."
"... Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration (as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.) ..."
"... Heinrich Himmler also was consistent and sincere. By your logic, that must mean that Himmler was a credit to the Nazi regime. ..."
"... You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what purpose does such a relationship serve? ..."
"... It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for what was effectively his firing. ..."
"... Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive Trump's Israel policy ..."
"... Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance. ..."
"... Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is their messenger. ..."
"I have to think that NSA Bolton actually believes what he advocates."
There are and have been lots of people who believe what they advocate--Lenin, Trotsky,
Mao, Robespierre, and the Neoconservatives in general among them.
Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton
believes and does?
Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on
behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to
resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in
general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration
(as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.)
Sorry, but Bolton's "service" sure ain't appreciated by me!
Hyperbole much I see.
If you want to honestly assess someone, you might want to avoid that tact. To my knowledge NSA Bolton is not building concentration camps to send undesirables to
an early grave.
I would be curious what you know about what his agenda is or why.
You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The
Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to
advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what
purpose does such a relationship serve?
Nah, they (Bolton and all the neocons) are celebrating the death of another American
soldier killed in a suicide attack just prior to a planned peace summit with the Taliban.
The Taliban and the neocons are two sides that deserve each other, but at the cost of many
innocents.
Its easy to depose any third world government with our military, but one cannot
eradicate an ideology with today's humanitarian standards. So we should just leave and tell
the Taliban they can even take power in Afghanistan again, but if they harbor any groups
that want to attack our country, we'll be back. It only takes a month or so to depose a
third world government. Then we leave again. We can do this over and over again and it'll
be way cheaper than leaving troops there and many fewer casualties.
I don't think Bolton will be in there for the rest of Trump's presidency. Presidential
appointments rarely ever last through the whole administration. Now I'm not when he goes
cause anyone's guess is as good as mine. And will policy actually change for the better or
remain the same?
" If only the Tsar knew how wicked his advisers are! "
We've been hearing of Bolton's imminent demise since the time Trump appointed the
unindicted criminal, and to a position that isn't subject to Congressional advice and
consent.
Bolton is still in office, still making policy, still stovepiping "intelligence" to
Trump, still plotting away like Grima Wormtongue.
If Trump wasn't so close to Bolton, why was he in regular contact with the man before
appointing him, and why does he allow Bolton to control what information Trump gets?
And if you read the latest news, it seems that the occupation of Afghanistan isn't going
anywhere either. Bolton wins again, but some writers at TAC keep holding out hope for
Trump.
"If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson failed to
strenuously object."
Well, isn't that nice? Trump's decision on whether to keep or fire his national security
advisor depends on the whim of the hideous, Israel-uber-alles ideologue Adelson. That sure
makes me feel good. (And by the way, Curt Mills, this is called burying the lede.)
Of course it's only logical. It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in
the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon
allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more
significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national
CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for
what was effectively his firing.
This piece misses what's important about the Trump administration's foreign/security
policy saga and reduces it to a mere matter of personalities and petty politics. File this
under the heading of discretion being the better part of valor.
"Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has
helped drive Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely
be because Adelson failed to strenuously object."
So -- Ilhan Omar was right??? I thought she was a vile anti-Semite echoing an ancient
slur!!
If Bolton does leave, I won't be sorry to see him go. Bolton's Hawkish opinions are
dangerous to the US' economic health.
Want to go into a deep Recession? Start another long-term foreign war that goes on for
decades - and do it on credit, AGAIN.
Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't
want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of
geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance.
The photo accompanying the article sums it up. Pompeo flanked by an American flag, and both
of them dwarfed by a huge projection of the flag of Israel.
Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is
their messenger.
If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons , US would have to keep bombing itself
to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam ..And elsewhere.
"I have to think that NSA Bolton actually believes what he advocates."
There are and have been lots of people who believe what they advocate--Lenin, Trotsky,
Mao, Robespierre, and the Neoconservatives in general among them.
Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton
believes and does?
"... A UN report published last week explicitly held the US, Britain and France liable for complicity in massive war crimes from their unstinting supply of warplanes, munitions and logistics to the Saudi and Emirati warplanes that have indiscriminately bombed civilians and public infrastructure. ..."
"... The infernal humanitarian conditions and complicity in war crimes can no longer be concealed by Washington's mendacity about allegedly combating "Iran subversion" in Yemen. The southern Arabian Peninsula country is an unmitigated PR disaster for official American pretensions of being a world leader in democratic and law-abiding virtue. ..."
"... After four years of relentless air strikes, which has become financially ruinous for the Saudi monarchy and its precocious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who conceived the war, the Houthis still remain in control of the capital Sanaa and large swathes of the country. Barbaric bombardment and siege-starvation imposed on Yemen has not dislodged the rebels. ..."
"... The defeat is further complicated by the open conflict which has broken out over recent weeks between rival militants sponsored by the Saudis and Emiratis in the southern port city of Aden. There are reports of UAE warplanes attacking Saudi-backed militants and of Saudi force build-up. A war of words has erupted between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. There is strong possibility that the rival factions could blow up into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, supposed coalition allies. ..."
"... When the US starts to talk about "ending the war" with a spin about concern for "mutual peace", then you know the sordid game is finally up. ..."
The war was launched by the US-backed Saudi coalition, including the United Arab Emirates,
in March 2015, without any provocation from Yemen. The precipitating factor was that the
Houthis, a mainly Shia rebel group aligned with Iran, had kicked out a corrupt Saudi-backed
dictator at the end of 2014. When he tucked tail and fled to exile in Saudi capital Riyadh,
that's when the Saudis launched their aerial bombing campaign on Yemen.
The slaughter in Yemen over the past four years has been nothing short of a calamity for the
population of nearly 28 million people. The UN estimates that nearly 80 per cent of the nation
is teetering on hunger and disease.
A UN report
published last week explicitly held the US, Britain and France liable for complicity in massive
war crimes from their unstinting supply of warplanes, munitions and logistics to the Saudi and
Emirati warplanes that have indiscriminately bombed civilians and public infrastructure. The UN
report also blamed the Houthis for committing atrocities. That may be so, but the preponderance
of deaths and destruction in Yemen is due to American, British and French military support to
the Saudi-led coalition. Up to 100,ooo civilians may have been killed from the Western-backed
blitzkrieg, while the Western media keep quoting a figure of "10,000", which magically never
seems to increase over the past four years.
Several factors are pressing the Trump administration to wind down the Yemen war.
The infernal humanitarian conditions and complicity in war crimes can no longer be concealed
by Washington's mendacity about allegedly combating "Iran subversion" in Yemen. The southern
Arabian Peninsula country is an unmitigated PR disaster for official American pretensions of
being a world leader in democratic and law-abiding virtue.
When the American Congress is united in calling for a ban on US arms to Saudi Arabia because
of the atrocities in Yemen, then we should know that the PR war has been lost. President Trump
over-ruled Congress earlier this year to continue arming the Saudis in Yemen. But even Trump
must at last be realizing his government's culpability for aiding and abetting genocide is no
longer excusable, even for the most credulous consumers of American propaganda.
After four years of relentless air strikes, which has become financially ruinous for the
Saudi monarchy and its precocious Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who conceived the war, the
Houthis still remain in control of the capital Sanaa and large swathes of the country. Barbaric
bombardment and siege-starvation imposed on Yemen has not dislodged the rebels.
Not only that but the Houthis have begun to take the war into the heart of Saudi Arabia.
Over the past year, the rebels have mounted increasingly sophisticated long-range drone and
ballistic missile attacks on Saudi military bases and the capital Riyadh. From where the
Houthis are receiving their more lethal weaponry is not clear. Maybe from Lebanon's Hezbollah
or from Iran. In any case, such supply if confirmed could be argued as legitimate support for a
country facing aggression.
No doubt the Houthis striking deep into Saudi territory has given the pampered monarchs in
Riyadh serious pause for thought.
When the UAE – the other main coalition partner – announced a month ago that it
was scaling back its involvement in Yemen that must have rattled Washington and Riyadh that the
war was indeed futile.
The defeat is further complicated by the open conflict
which has broken out over recent weeks between rival militants sponsored by the Saudis and
Emiratis in the southern port city of Aden. There are reports of
UAE warplanes attacking Saudi-backed militants and of Saudi force build-up. A war of words has
erupted between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. There is strong possibility that the rival factions could
blow up into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, supposed coalition allies.
Washington has doubtless taken note of the unstoppable disaster in Yemen and how its
position is indefensible and infeasible.
Like so many other obscene American wars down through the decades, Washington is facing yet another ignominious defeat in
Yemen. When the US starts to talk about "ending the war" with a spin about concern for "mutual peace", then you know the
sordid game is finally up.
Trump whole administration is just a bunch of rabid neocons who will be perfectly at home (and some were) in Bush II
administration. So firing of Bolton while a step in the right direction is too little, too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud. ..."
"... Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane. ..."
While there was some feverish speculation as to what an impromptu presser at 1:30pm with US
Secretary of State Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and National Security Adviser Bolton
would deliver, that was quickly swept aside moments later when Trump unexpectedly announced
that he had effectively fired Bolton as National Security Advisor, tweeting that he informed
John Bolton "last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House" after "
disagreeing strongly with many of his suggestions. "
... ... ...
Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering
neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even
Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud.
While we await more details on this strike by Trump against the military-industrial
complex-enabling Deep State, here is a fitting closer from Curt Mills via the American
Conservative:
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general
and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he
didn't.
We have been in Afghanistan for how long? 16 years? It is our longest war. How much progress
have we actually made?
1. The government that we have tried so long to nurture controls a shrinking percentage of
both territory and population.
2. How much money have we poured into the pockets of crooks of all nationalities? In spite
of that the country is severely lacking in physical, social, legal, and business
infrastructure.
3. The country's armed forces have been expanded under NATO tutelage to such a size that the
small GDP will never be able to pay for them on its own. In spite of that they are unable even
to defend their own installations.
4. The country is still racked by tribal, ethnic and jihadi wars. It has always been thus
with the exception of a golden age when the last Afghan king ruled in the 50s and 60s. How did
he do that? He did it by careful inter-ethnic diplomacy and a minimum effort to "unify" his
realm.
5. Attacks on NATO personnel by Afghan soldiers and police continue.
6. The capital, Kabul, is not secured and is regularly attacked.
7. The much vaunted COIN doctrine has failed there as it has failed in so many places in the
world.
In spite of this the generals and the COIN nuts persist in trying to reverse Obama's policy
of withdrawal from the "country" (a geographical expression really). President Trump, who knows
nothing of things military or geo-political is about to begin the process of re-introducing US
combat and training forces into this blank space on the map, a space filled with hostile
tribesmen and religious fanatics. This blank space was given the dubious status of a state in
the international system of states because the Russians and the British wanted to establish a
buffer entity between the Tsar's empire and the Raj.
President Trump should be told that there is nothing there of real importance to the US,
nothing worth more vast quantities of our money and more rivers of our blood. Let the Afghans,
Chinese, Pakistanis, Iranians and Russians deal with the chaos. pl
"... As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns
and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and become
lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime. ..."
"... By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous
and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order. ..."
"... Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist, but
he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization and
relaxation of international tensions. ..."
"... The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution
of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater
the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to delay rather than
hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's.... ..."
"... In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic
or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral aspects
of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity. ..."
Note to Self: The Ten Americans Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War *
Harry Dexter White... George Kennan... George Marshall... Arthur Vandenberg... Paul Hoffman... Dean Acheson... Harry S Truman...
Dwight D. Eisenhower... Gerald Ford... George Shultz
The G.O.P. Won the Cold War? Ridiculous.
By George F. Kennan
The claim heard in campaign rhetoric that the United States under Republican Party leadership "won the cold war" is intrinsically
silly.
The suggestion that any Administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic political
upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish. No great country has that sort of influence
on the internal developments of any other one.
As early as the late 1940's, some of us living in Russia saw that the regime was becoming dangerously remote from the concerns
and hopes of the Russian people. The original ideological and emotional motivation of Russian Communism had worn itself out and
become lost in the exertions of the great war. And there was already apparent a growing generational gap in the regime.
These thoughts found a place in my so-called X article in Foreign Affairs in 1947, from which the policy of containment is
widely seen to have originated. This perception was even more clearly expressed in a letter from Moscow written in 1952, when
I was Ambassador there, to H. Freeman Matthews, a senior State Department official, excerpts from which also have been widely
published. There were some of us to whom it was clear, even at that early date, that the regime as we had known it would not last
for all time. We could not know when or how it would be changed; we knew only that change was inevitable and impending.
By the time Stalin died, in 1953, even many Communist Party members had come to see his dictatorship as grotesque, dangerous
and unnecessary, and there was a general impression that far-reaching changes were in order.
Nikita Khrushchev took the leadership in the resulting liberalizing tendencies. He was in his crude way a firm Communist,
but he was not wholly unopen to reasonable argument. His personality offered the greatest hope for internal political liberalization
and relaxation of international tensions.
The downing of the U-2 spy plane in 1960, more than anything else, put an end to this hope. The episode humiliated Khrushchev
and discredited his relatively moderate policies. It forced him to fall back, for the defense of his own political position, on
a more strongly belligerent anti-American tone of public utterance.
The U-2 episode was the clearest example of that primacy of military over political policy that soon was to become an outstanding
feature of American cold war policy. The extreme militarization of American discussion and policy, as promoted by hard-line circles
over the ensuing 25 years, consistently strengthened comparable hard-liners in the Soviet Union.
The more America's political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather than political resolution
of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the
greater the braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime. Thus the general effect of cold war extremism was to
delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980's....
In the competition between major powers and/or alliances there are several somewhat complementary aspects of power: economic
or physical aspect to create things of "value" (added by the commerce and industry of the entity), the military power, and moral
aspects of the entity in terms of political and cultural resolve and unity.
Early in my time in the service, when I had time to think being at a remote station I decided the west had the marked economic
advantage, particularly as the green revolution permitted some higher level of nutrition security.
Later on I recall discussions where the collapse of the Soviet Union was assured but would take in to the 21st century to occur.
The big question then was "would a nuclear exchange occur in the way of a peaceful collapse".....
The presence of the A Bomb in some ways prevented war in other encouraged intrigue and small scrapes in to each other's spheres.
There was a bit of the Divine in the world getting through the Cold War.
The Berlin wall came down as hoped but 25 years earlier than I expected.
KENNAN Was a lucky guy. He hit the right notes at the right time and then as he got second thoughts and better vision. Like yugoslaving
peoples China in 1949
He was side tracked and then sent out to ivy pastures
Nonsense. The moment to engage was 1953 -54 and yes a goo regime blocked it
But it was Truman that crossed the parallel in 1950 and tried to liberate north Korea
It was Kennedy that preferred brinksmanship to real engagement. Brush wars and regime change to accommodation. Missile racing
to sensible unilateralism
Yes LBJ was an ignorant oaf on foreign policy. But it was Nixon that finally used PRC as Yugo twenty years too late of course
The cold war was invented by democrats and exploited by republicans for domestic shindiggery. Tragicomedy cinescope scaled
Obviously since there is a determined American Cold War effort being waged right now, American historians were mistaken at the
end of the 1980s. There had been no winning of the Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was
about. If the Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the Soviet Union and Soviet
ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking
policy steps to carry on the Cold War.
The American military is advanced over both Russia and China in one sense - they have access
to endless taxpayers' dollars to fund their programs, many of which are complete failures.
Putin can offer Trump hyper-sonic missiles knowing he cannot accept. To accept
these would display the USA's technical military inferiority for all to see. The msm ,
Hollywood, etc. all sing from the same song-sheet. "USA is great", ignore all the wars they
have lost, ignore the astronomical military financial expenditure (declared and hidden).
Just
like Reagan's star-wars program public perception is everything
What democracy they are talking about? Democracy for whom? This Harvard political prostitutes are talking about democracy for oligarchs
which was the nest result of EuroMaydan and the ability of Western companies to buy assets for pennies on the dollar without the control
of national government like happen in xUSSR space after dissolution of the USSR, which in retrospect can be classified as a color revolution
too, supported by financial injection, logistical support and propaganda campaign in major Western MSM.
What Harvard honchos probably does not understand or does not wish to understand is that neoliberalism as a social system lost its
attraction and is in irreversible decline. The ideology of neoliberalism collapsed much like Bolsheviks' ideology. As Politician like
Joe Boden which still preach neoliberalism are widely viewed as corrupt or senile (or both) hypocrites.
The "Collective West" still demonstrates formidable intelligence agencies skills (especially the USA and GB), but the key question
is: "What they are fighting for?"
They are fighting for neoliberalism which is a lost case. Which looks like KGB successes after WWIII. They won many battles and
lost the Cold war.
Not that Bolsheviks in the USSR was healthy or vibrant. Economics was a deep stagnation, alcoholism among working class was rampant,
the standard of living of the majority of population slides each year, much like is the case with neoliberalism after, say, 1991. Hidden
unemployment in the USSR was high -- at least in high teens if not higher. Like in the USA now good jobs were almost impossible to obtain
without "extra help". Medical services while free were dismal, especially dental -- which were horrible. Hospitals were poor as church
rats as most money went to MIC. Actually, like in the USA now, MIC helped to strangulate the economy and contributed to the collapse.
It was co a corrupt and decaying , led by completely degenerated leadership. To put the person of the level of Gorbachov level of political
talent lead such a huge and complex country was an obvious suicide.
But the facts speak for themselves: what people usually get as the result of any color revolution is the typical for any county
which lost the war: dramatic drop of the standard of living due to economic rape of the country.
While far form being perfect the Chinese regime at least managed to lift the standard of living of the majority of the population
and provide employment. After regime change China will experience the same economic rape as the USSR under Yeltsin regime. So in no
way Hong Cong revolution can be viewed a progressive phenomenon despite all the warts of neoliberalism with Chenese characteristics
in mainland China (actually this is a variant of NEP that Gorbachov tried to implement in the USSR, but was to politically incompetent
to succeed)
CHENOWETH: I think it really boils down to four different things. The first is a large and diverse participation that's
sustained.
The second thing is that [the movement] needs to elicit loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but also other
elites. Security forces are important because they ultimately are the agents of repression, and their actions largely decide
how violent the confrontation with -- and reaction to -- the nonviolent campaign is going to be in the end. But there are other
security elites, economic and business elites, state media. There are lots of different pillars that support the status quo,
and if they can be disrupted or coerced into noncooperation, then that's a decisive factor.
The third thing is that the campaigns need to be able to have more than just protests; there needs to be a lot of variation
in the methods they use.
The fourth thing is that when campaigns are repressed -- which is basically inevitable for those calling for major changes
-- they don't either descend into chaos or opt for using violence themselves. If campaigns allow their repression to throw
the movement into total disarray or they use it as a pretext to militarize their campaign, then they're essentially co-signing
what the regime wants -- for the resisters to play on its own playing field. And they're probably going to get totally crushed.
Wai Sing-Rin @waisingrin • Aug 27
Replying to @ChrisFraser_HKU @edennnnnn_ and 2 others
Anyone who watched the lone frontliner (w translator) sees the frontliners are headed for disaster. They're fighting just
to fight with no plans nor objectives.
They see themselves as heroes protecting the HK they love. No doubt their sincerity, but there are 300 of them left.
G W Bush was responsible for North Korea developing nuclear weapons, the North Koreans did a
deal whereby the US would supply several light water reactors and 500,000 tons of oil per
year in exchange for NK not pursuing its nuclear program, the US accused the Koreans of
cheating [with no proof] and cancelled the agreement, thinking that sanctions and military
pressure would force Korea to capitulate. North Korea then decided to go nuclear. That same
US mistake is happening again with Iran, US hubris is on full display,but this time Iran has
the 'arc of resistance. on its side plus Russia and China. Trump will not go back to the
JCPOA it is not in his nature, the only thing we can hope for is a Trump defeat at the next
election, and hope an adult wins.
Harry Law #15. Harry, have you seen the people running for the Democratic nomination? Hope is
not a word I would use. Gabbard at least wants peace, but she will not be allowed to win the
nomination (she is too young in any case). And if by some miracle she were to be nominated
and win, she would not be allowed to carry out her own goals for peace. She would be defeated
or failing that, killed. As would anyone who really went up against the most powerful
political party in America, the War Party.
"... But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. ..."
"... Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't. ..."
"... It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist. ..."
"... It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One. ..."
"... Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016. ..."
No major politician, not even Barack Obama, excoriated the Iraq war more fiercely than did
Trump during the primaries. He did this in front of a scion of the house of Bush and in the
deep red state of South Carolina. He nevertheless went on to win that primary, the Republican
nomination and the presidency on that antiwar message.
And so, to see Bolton ascend to the commanding heights of the Trump White House shocked many
from the time it was first rumored. "I shudder to think what would happen if we had a failed
presidency," Scott McConnell, TAC' s founding editor, said in late 2016 at our foreign
policy conference, held, opportunely, during the presidential transition. "I mean, John
Bolton?"
At the time, Bolton was a candidate for secretary of state, a consideration scuttled in no
small part because of the opposition of Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. As McConnell
wrote in November of that year: "Most of the upper-middle-level officials who plotted the Iraq
War have retreated quietly into private life, but Bolton has kept their flame alive." Bolton
had already been passed over for NSA, losing out early to the doomed Michael Flynn. Rex
Tillerson beat him for secretary of state. Bolton was then passed over for the role of
Tillerson's deputy. When Flynn flamed out of the White House the following February, Trump
chose a general he didn't know at all, H.R. McMaster, to replace him.
Bolton had been trying to make a comeback since late 2006, after failing to hold his job as
U.N. ambassador (he had only been a recess appointment). His landing spots including a Fox News
contributorship and a post at the vaunted American Enterprise Institute. Even in the early days
of the Trump administration, Bolton was around, and accessible. I remember seeing him multiple
times in Washington's Connecticut Avenue corridor, decked out in the seersucker he notoriously
favors during the summer months. Paired with the familiar mustache, the man is the Mark Twain
of regime change.
But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the
Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive,
influential Mercer billionaires. He also struck a ferocious alliance with the Center for
Security Policy, helmed by the infamous Frank Gaffney, and gave paid remarks to the National
Council for the Resistance of Iran, the lynchpin organization of the People's Mujahideen of
Iran, or MEK. The latter two associations have imbued the spirit of this White House, with
Gaffney now one of the most underrated power players in Washington, and the MEK's "peaceful"
regime change mantra all but the official line of the administration.
More than any of these gigs, Bolton benefited from two associations that greased the wheels
for his joining the Trump administration.
The first was Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist. If you want to
understand the administration's Iran policy under Bolton to date, look no further than a piece
by the then-retired diplomat in conservative mainstay National Review in August 2017,
days after Bannon's departure from the White House: "How to Get Out of the Iran Deal." Bolton
wrote the piece at Bannon's urging. Even out of the administration, the former Breitbart
honcho was an influential figure.
"We must explain the grave threat to the U.S. and our allies, particularly Israel," said
Bolton. "The [Iran Deal's] vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran's
direction; Iran's significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable
conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that [the Iran deal] is
not in the national-security interests of the United States."
Then Bolton, as I
documented , embarked on a campaign of a media saturation to make a TV-happy president
proud. By May Day the next year, he would have a job, a big one, and one that Senator Paul
couldn't deny him: national security advisor. That wasn't the whole story, of course. Bolton's
ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive
Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson
failed to strenuously object.
So will Trump finally do it? Other than White House chief of staff, a position Mick Mulvaney
has filled in an acting capacity for the entire calendar year, national security advisor is the
easiest, most senior role to change horses.
A bombshell Washington Post story lays out the dire truth: Bolton is so distrusted on
the president's central prerogatives, for instance Afghanistan, that he's not even allowed to
see sensitive plans unsupervised.
Bolton has also come into conflict with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to three
senior State Department officials. Pompeo is the consummate politician. Though an inveterate
hawk, the putative Trump successor does not want to be the Paul Wolfowitz of the Iran war.
Bolton is a bureaucratic arsonist, agnostic on the necessity of two of the institutions he
served in -- Foggy Bottom and the United Nations. Pompeo, say those around him, is keen to be
beloved, or at least tolerated, by career officials in his department, in contrast with Bolton
and even Tillerson.
The real danger Bolton poses is to the twin gambit Trump hopes to pull off ahead of, perhaps
just ahead of, next November -- a detente deal with China to calm the markets and ending
the war in Afghanistan. Over the weekend, the president announced a scuttled meeting with the
Taliban at Camp David, which would have been an historic, stunning summit. Bolton was
reportedly instrumental in quashing the meet. Still, there is a lot of time between now and
next autumn, and the cancellation is likely the latest iteration of the president's showman
diplomacy.
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and
ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.
You confuse "politician" and "liar" here, whereas he is "consummate" at neither politics
nor lying. His politicking has been as botched as his diplomacy; his lying has been
prodigious but transparent.
Bolton has been on the way out now for how many months? I will believe this welcome news
when I see his sorry ___ out the door.
I think much of America and the world will feel the same way.
It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't
change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon
interventionist.
It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One.
Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could
replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing
people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat
its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016.
"... Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton believes and does? ..."
"... Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration (as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.) ..."
"... Heinrich Himmler also was consistent and sincere. By your logic, that must mean that Himmler was a credit to the Nazi regime. ..."
"... You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what purpose does such a relationship serve? ..."
"... It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for what was effectively his firing. ..."
"... Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive Trump's Israel policy ..."
"... Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance. ..."
"... Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is their messenger. ..."
"I have to think that NSA Bolton actually believes what he advocates."
There are and have been lots of people who believe what they advocate--Lenin, Trotsky,
Mao, Robespierre, and the Neoconservatives in general among them.
Yeah, consistency may be nice, but what about the actual substance of what Bolton
believes and does?
Personally, I'm not interested in trying to starve Iran into submission or attack it on
behalf of Israel. And I would be interested in actually pursuing a meaningful attempt to
resolve the Korea issue. Bolton is not only on the wrong side of these issues, he is in
general the principal malign force pushing foreign policy insanity in this administration
(as opposed to Adelson et all pushing policy insanity from outside the administration.)
Sorry, but Bolton's "service" sure ain't appreciated by me!
Hyperbole much I see.
If you want to honestly assess someone, you might want to avoid that tact. To my knowledge NSA Bolton is not building concentration camps to send undesirables to
an early grave.
I would be curious what you know about what his agenda is or why.
You can't serve a president well if you're constantly at odds with him. The
Commander-in-Chief has to have his or her own mind about things, advisors are there to
advise. If you want to do one thing but you're being counseled to do otherwise, what
purpose does such a relationship serve?
Nah, they (Bolton and all the neocons) are celebrating the death of another American
soldier killed in a suicide attack just prior to a planned peace summit with the Taliban.
The Taliban and the neocons are two sides that deserve each other, but at the cost of many
innocents.
Its easy to depose any third world government with our military, but one cannot
eradicate an ideology with today's humanitarian standards. So we should just leave and tell
the Taliban they can even take power in Afghanistan again, but if they harbor any groups
that want to attack our country, we'll be back. It only takes a month or so to depose a
third world government. Then we leave again. We can do this over and over again and it'll
be way cheaper than leaving troops there and many fewer casualties.
I don't think Bolton will be in there for the rest of Trump's presidency. Presidential
appointments rarely ever last through the whole administration. Now I'm not when he goes
cause anyone's guess is as good as mine. And will policy actually change for the better or
remain the same?
" If only the Tsar knew how wicked his advisers are! "
We've been hearing of Bolton's imminent demise since the time Trump appointed the
unindicted criminal, and to a position that isn't subject to Congressional advice and
consent.
Bolton is still in office, still making policy, still stovepiping "intelligence" to
Trump, still plotting away like Grima Wormtongue.
If Trump wasn't so close to Bolton, why was he in regular contact with the man before
appointing him, and why does he allow Bolton to control what information Trump gets?
And if you read the latest news, it seems that the occupation of Afghanistan isn't going
anywhere either. Bolton wins again, but some writers at TAC keep holding out hope for
Trump.
"If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson failed to
strenuously object."
Well, isn't that nice? Trump's decision on whether to keep or fire his national security
advisor depends on the whim of the hideous, Israel-uber-alles ideologue Adelson. That sure
makes me feel good. (And by the way, Curt Mills, this is called burying the lede.)
Of course it's only logical. It was clearly Adelson and his ilk who got Bolton hired in
the first place when Trump had initially been unimpressed. In "Fire and Fury," Steve Bannon
allegedly says that Trump didn't think Bolton looked the part of NSA. And it's even more
significant that Adelson and others of a similar cast--e.g., Safra Catz, the dual-national
CEO of Oracle-- engineered a whispering campaign against McMaster that paved the way for
what was effectively his firing.
This piece misses what's important about the Trump administration's foreign/security
policy saga and reduces it to a mere matter of personalities and petty politics. File this
under the heading of discretion being the better part of valor.
"Bolton's ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has
helped drive Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely
be because Adelson failed to strenuously object."
So -- Ilhan Omar was right??? I thought she was a vile anti-Semite echoing an ancient
slur!!
If Bolton does leave, I won't be sorry to see him go. Bolton's Hawkish opinions are
dangerous to the US' economic health.
Want to go into a deep Recession? Start another long-term foreign war that goes on for
decades - and do it on credit, AGAIN.
Besides, it's not like Bolton was a military man, he openly acknowledges that he didn't
want to go and 'die on some rice paddy' in Vietnam. But, he's willing to send other people's kids to fight and die in some pointless show of
geopolitical power, If he goes, good riddance.
The photo accompanying the article sums it up. Pompeo flanked by an American flag, and both
of them dwarfed by a huge projection of the flag of Israel.
Israel and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia drive Trump's Iran policy, and Pompeo is
their messenger.
If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons , US would have to keep bombing itself
to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam ..And elsewhere.
As newly appointed US Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, was reported to have claimed about
wanting for Russia to ''behave like a normal country'', Sergey Lavrov urged for him to
clarify what he means by ''normality'' during a press conference in the Russian capital; if
Russia was to behave like the US, it would have had to bomb Iraq, Libya, supporting an armed,
anti-constitutional coup in Kiev, and allocating millions in the interference in the affairs
of other countries, as in the ''promotion of democracy'' in Russia.
Sergey Shoygu did not have much to add, but what he did add could not be clearer: Russia
will probably have to remain being ''not normal''.
"... For the detached observer the juvenile behavior of groups of Americans is plain to see, both in this comment section and in the world at large. ..."
"... This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similiar phrase as applied to Russia. Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law " ..."
"... If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't think of which one it would be ..."
"... I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy. ..."
"... This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similar phrase as applied to Russia. ..."
"... Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law " ..."
"... Similar to his rhetoric about other countries not following the "rules-based order". The US, which abandons and ignores treaties, or doesn't enter them in the first place but lectures others who have that they need to follow them. Who refuses to be judged by the ICC, UN and others yet wants them to hold others to account. And who call for regime-change of others based on rigged or suspect elections, yet refuses to fix its own crappy system and corruption. ..."
This can never happen. All Americans are inherently childish. They are all a product of the same environment, the same educational
system and the same all pervasive 'cultural' influences. This transcends ethnic boundaries for those born in the US or those who
arrived at an early age.
For the detached observer the juvenile behavior of groups of Americans is plain to see, both in this comment section and in
the world at large.
A recurring theme in international relations and diplomacy is that dealing with 'the Americans' is like dealing with children.
Of course when the American is trying to kill you, as they a often want to do, the actions of the petulant child take on new meaning.
This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similiar phrase
as applied to Russia.
Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and
Libya in blatant violation of international law "
" If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't
think of which one it would be."
I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy.
This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used
similar phrase
as applied to Russia.
Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and
Libya in blatant violation of international law "
" If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't
think of which one it would be."
I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy.
Similar to his rhetoric about other countries not following the "rules-based order". The US, which abandons and ignores treaties,
or doesn't enter them in the first place but lectures others who have that they need to follow them. Who refuses to be judged
by the ICC, UN and others yet wants them to hold others to account. And who call for regime-change of others based on rigged or
suspect elections, yet refuses to fix its own crappy system and corruption.
This is also a thing about leftists with Trump Derangement Syndrome, who are oh-so-upset about Trump, either ignorant or lying
that he's at all an aberration. The US has consistently flouted international law, waged illegal wars and staged violent coups
and assassinations, and killed tens of thousands of innocents, under nearly all Presidents, including Obama.
"... I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this. ..."
I think it is highly unlikely Trump can pull off detente with the Chinese or anyone else before the next election. He has, unfortunately,
shown himself to be completely untrustworthy on the international stage. Under what circumstance are the Chinese going to sign
some agreement with him, when he might just throw out new tariffs a week later?
What are the Taliban going to agree to when the US wants to leave thousands of troops in Afghanistan?
I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get
a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this.
The main achievement of neoliberal and imperial (warmongering) propaganda in the USA is that it achieved the complete,
undisputed dominance in MSM
Pot Calling the Kettle Black: "The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and
internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions
about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield
may be the fight of the 21st century."
Notable quotes:
"... Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to "court the compatible left." ..."
"... The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites. ..."
"... Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media (The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world. ..."
Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to "court the compatible left."
Right-wing and left-wing collaborators were needed to create a powerful propaganda apparatus that would be capable of hypnotizing
audiences into believing the myth of American exceptionalism and its divine right to rule the world.
The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites.
Frances Stonor Saunders comprehensively covers this in her 1999 book, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA And The World Of Arts
And Letters, and Joel Whitney followed this up in 2016 with Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers,
with particular emphasis on the complicity between the CIA and the famous literary journal, The Paris Review.
By the mid-1970s, as a result of the Church Committee hearings, it seemed as if the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. had been caught in flagrante
delicto and disgraced, confessed their sins, and resolved to go and sin no more.
Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media
(The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world.
It seemed as if all would be hunky-dory now with the bad boys purged from the American “free” press. Seemed to the most naïve,
that is, by which I mean the vast numbers of people who wanted to re-stick their heads in the sand and believe, as Ronald Reagan’s
team of truthtellers would announce, that it was “Morning in America” again with the free press reigning and the neo-conservatives,
many of whom had been “converted” from their leftist views, running things in Washington.
USAGM provides consistently accurate and compelling journalism that reflects the values of our society: freedom, openness,
democracy, and hope. Our guiding principles—enshrined in law—are to provide a reliable, authoritative, and independent source
of news that adheres to the strictest standards of journalism…
Russian Disinformation. And make no mistake, we are living through a global explosion of disinformation, state propaganda,
and lies generated by multiple authoritarian regimes around the world. The weaponization of information we are seeing today is
real. The Russian government and other authoritarian regimes engage in far-reaching malign influence campaigns across national
boundaries and language barriers.
The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and
internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions
about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield
may be the fight of the 21st century.
Then research the history of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Voice of America, Radio and Television Marti, etc. You will
be reassured that Lansing’s July testimony was his job interview to head National Propaganda Radio.
Edward Curtin writes, and his writing on varied topics has appeared widely over many years. He writes as a public
intellectual for the general public, not as a specialist for a narrow readership. He believes a non-committal sociology is an
impossibility and therefore sees all his work as an effort to enhance human freedom through understanding. His website is
edwardcurtin.com
"... And behind it all, the demonization (demonetization) of Russia (and Putin) still continues. ..."
"... is admittedly so cool (given the advanced technology) to be dropping bombs on women and children for the uncountable time, clearly we now know we are going broke killing the innocent. We are bludgeoning them to the point that we have broken our rifles on their corpses. Time to let off. ..."
Very well written and keeping focus on what's important. Very useful, revealing event with many issues remaining to be fully
considered regarding behaviors of
- the elected officials,
- the "intelligence" "community",
- the media,
- the public.
And behind it all, the demonization (demonetization) of Russia (and Putin) still continues.
There likely are cases where Russia is acting nefariously or in bad faith, but who could tell given all the b/s they are feeding
us.
So it's clear (to anyone interested) that they are misleading us, and (I think) clear why they are misleading us, but that
does stop the the constant stream of crap in the media - "news" and "entertainment".
Is their target audience the most obtuse among us?
While is admittedly so cool (given the advanced technology) to be dropping bombs on women and children for the uncountable
time, clearly we now know we are going broke killing the innocent. We are bludgeoning them to the point that we have broken our
rifles on their corpses. Time to let off.
Leaving aside the need to feed the war machine (particularly in light of slowing economy), many on both sides seemed to fear
that the public had succeeded in electing a populist and that could not be allowed. So they attacked him knowing the technocratic
state would support them. But Trump out-smarted them and went all in deep state, elitest and sooth the worried vested interests
and their owners. So that's all past us now. Still, kind of hard to over-look. Does Shiff take himself seriously?
Many voice conflicting judgments, but an impartial look back on history produces the unequivocal conclusion: yes,
mistakes and shortcomings were many, but without perestroika the world would have never been what it is today
MOSCOW, April 24. /TASS/. Thirty years after the Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on a policy of
reforms that would go down in history under a name sounding very oddly to a foreign ear - perestroika - Russians are
discussing those events of their country's recent history again. Many voice conflicting judgements, but an impartial
look back on history produces the unequivocal conclusion: yes, mistakes and shortcomings were many, but without
perestroika the world would have never been what it is today.
On April 23, 1985 the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party gathered for its historic full-scale meeting to
set course towards what was described as fundamental reorganization and acceleration of the Soviet Union's economic
development after a long period of what was condemned as stagnation. The new course, originally expected to overhaul
and invigorate the Soviet system, ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"The gist of what happened
then was simple: at the very top a decision was a made the people are free to express their thought in public and for
that they will neither risk losing their life or go to jail or even go jobless," says the founder of the Yabloko
party, Grigory Yavlinsky. "There emerged the freedom of speech. The feeling of fear vanished. Full stop. All other
processes that followed were nothing but consequences. The previous political system was built on falsehoods. The
advent of truth caused a lethal effect on that system, and it fell apart."
"Perestroika's worst problem was there was no strategic planning. The reform plan and its end goal were very
unclear all along," Sergey Filatov, the former chief of staff of Russia's first president Boris Yeltsin told TASS.
"Without a plan the policy was doomed to fail."
And still, Filatov said, perestroika caused a tremendous impact: it triggered reforms and showed the people that
changes were possible even under the old system.
"Perestroika was an intricate process," says Aleksei Makarkin, the first deputy president of the Political
Technologies Centre. "It was first a belated attempt to reform the economy, then the ensuing chaos, and ultimately an
attempt to defuse popular anger with political reform. The process eventually broke bounds. It all ended with the
collapse of the country. Gorbachev merely tried to make that process controllable more or less," Makarkin told TASS.
Gorbachev was forced to launch economic reforms, because the main engine that kept the Soviet economy going was
the export of oil. When oil prices slumped, something had to be done right away," Makarkin recalled. "His
predecessors had drawn up no strategic plans. Nobody dared touch the system. Later, when some steps began to be taken
at last, it turned out that no one had the slightest idea of how to go about that business. Conflicting decisions
followed in quick succession. First, an attempt was made to speed up economic development and diversify the economy
at a time when oil prices plummeted. In 1987 the attempt failed. Other remedies began to be tried. Some traces of a
free market economy began to develop, such as cooperatives in the services and public catering. Some components of a
controlled market economy cropped up."
The rapprochement with the West under Gorbachev was started with a far-reaching aim, Makarkin believes. In that
situation the Soviet economy was no longer capable of carrying the burden of the Cold War and the arms race. "Without
that no rapprochement might have ever happened. Also, there was the war in Afghanistan that had to be curtailed."
"In general, the Gorbachev era in home and foreign policies was that of haste, inconsistency, belated decisions
and forced moves. In the meantime, the people's living standards slumped and protest sentiment soared. Attempts to
woo the general public reached nowhere. In 1987-1988 social discontent soared and Boris Yeltsin emerged as its
embodiment."
"Hoping to ease tensions in society political reforms were declared only to cause centrifugal processes," Makarkin
recalls. "As a result, the Soviet republics began to drift ever farther apart - some before the August 1991 coup, and
others after. A counter-attempt to create something like a federation or confederation drew strong objections from
the hard-line conservatives, which led to the country's utter collapse.
But perestroika should not be painted only in dark colours, Makarkin said.
"One should remember that Gorbachev gave the people freedom - first, economic, and then political. For instance,
the freedom to travel out of the country and back: something everybody takes for granted. It was under Gorbachev that
the Church regained full legitimacy. Lastly, the freedom of speech, which has long become a fact of life."
"Also, Gorbachev largely takes the credit for avoiding a large-scale civil war and chaos and total chaos in a vast
country, however tragic the unrest in Tbilisi, Vilnius and Nagorno-Karabakh of those days may still look these days.
He decided against the extreme scenario implying the use of force, which many interpreted as a sign of weakness. It
should be remembered: those who dared use force merely accelerated the country's collapse."
The policy of perestroika proclaimed in the Soviet Union in 1985 has caused more harm than good, say 55% of
Russians, as follows from a Levada poll held in March. In contrast to this, ten years ago 70% said perestroika was a
bad choice.
Probably an important factor here in the gamesmanship between Trump and Iran is Trump's
re-election campaign next year. Consider – Trump probably realizes that if he is no
longer President by 2021, then the democrats and a host of others will have the knives out
for him and seek to drag him through a series of courts to convict him of something,
anything. It sounds so Roman that. Proof of this was the Meuller investigation which went
nowhere but which was used to beat him over the head with for nearly three years. Another
four more years of Presidency will keep him safe from these attacks.
If a war breaks out then at a minimum Saudi Arabia's oil fields and water filtration
installations along with their capital is toast! The oil route through the Straits of Hormuz
are blocked and the war may spread to other countries as well, including Israel. I would
guess that this would result in more economic turmoil than the 2008 crash at a minimum
. And there would go Donald's chances of re-election. I know that some people may be
surprised that Trump may put his personal interests ahead of that of the country but there it
is. So, irony of irony, Trump may be the one factor stopping the trouble here from breaking
out into a full blown war.
PATRICK
COCKBURN: I'm a bit doubtful about it. They have done a certain amount, this offer of a $15
billion credit line, to make up for the loss of Iranian oil revenue It was a French idea
originally, but they are asking Iran to step right back into the old nuclear deal, but the
Iranians are not likely to do that while they're subject to US sanctions. US sanctions and the
sanctioning of European companies or banks that deal with Iran, basically means that Iran is
facing an economic siege.
So these are maneuvers. The Iranians want to show they're being kind of moderate. They want
to preserve this deal as they do. At the same time, they don't want to look as though they're
pushovers, that sanctions are squeezing them to death, and they've got no alternative but to
give up. This would be to surrender to what Trump calls the policy of maximum pressure. I think
we're a long way from any real agreement on this. It's still escalating. GREG WILPERT: Iran
also just recently announced that it is releasing seven of the 23 crew members it is holding of
a Swedish-owned, but British-registered tanker that Iran had seized last July. Iran's
Revolutionary Guard seized that tanker in retaliation for the British seizing an Iranian tanker
near Gibraltar in early July, but the Iranian tanker has now been released. Now, how do you see
the situation of these tankers evolving? Could such seizures of oil tankers eventually lead to
an escalation and to even war?
PATRICK COCKBURN: Yes, they could. This is sort of a game of chicken. As you said, it
started off on the 4th of July when the British rather melodramatically dropped 30 Royal Marine
commandos on the deck of this vessel saying, "It was heading for Syria. This had nothing to do
with sanctions on Iran, but was a breach of sanctions on Syria imposed by the EU." This never
sounded right because it's a peculiar moment for Britain to suddenly put such energy into
enforcing EU sanctions, when we all know that Britain is trying to leave the EU at the moment.
There's a great political crisis here in Britain about this. This looked as though it was on
the initiative of Washington. Then, as was inevitable, the Iranians retaliated against
British-flagged vessels in the Gulf. There was an escalation that seems to have died down at
the moment.
As I see it, the Iranian policy is to maintain pressure by sort of pinprick attacks. There
were some small mines placed on oil tankers of the United Arab Emirates. Then when we had the
shooting down of the American drone, a whole series of events to show that they're not
frightened, that they can retaliate, but not bring it up to the level of war. That's sort of
the way the Iranians often react to this sort of thing, with some covert military measures and
to create an atmosphere of crisis, but not bring a war about.
Of course, once you start doing this, it could slip over the edge of the cliff at any
moment. The Iranians did a sort of mirror image of the British takeover of their tanker when
they took over the British tanker crew, which are just being released, as you mentioned. They
dropped 30 commandos on the deck. There was a British Naval vessel not so far away, not far
enough to stop this, but let's say that Naval vessel had been closer. Would they have opened
fire on a helicopter dropping these 30 Iranian commandos on the boat? That would have brought
us – would have been a war, and could have very rapidly escalated. We're always on, as I
said, the edge of the cliff in the Gulf with each side sort of daring the other to go further.
PATRICK COCKBURN: Well, it's falling apart by inches, but there's still quite a long way to go
on that. I think the one thing that has emerged is that the US, Trump and Iran, don't want war.
At one time, the US was calling on – some of its senior officials were calling for a
regime change. How far do they really believe this? When Trump decided not to retaliate for the
drone being shot down, that shows that he wants to rely on sanctions on this sort of very
intense economic siege of Iran, but I don't think the Iranians are going to come running. Once
they know there isn't going to be an all-out war, they'll try to sustain these sanctions, and
the situation isn't quite as desperate as it looks. Obviously, they're suffering a lot. On the
other hand, they're not isolated. China and Russia give them a measure of support.
The EU, rather pathetically, says it's trying to maintain the nuclear deal of 2015, but it's
rather underlining the political and military weakness of the EU that they haven't been able to
do much about it. Big companies are too frightened of US sanctions against them if they have
any relations with Iran. So the Europeans aren't coming well out of it. Obviously, their
relations with Trump are pretty frosty. They also probably don't think it's worth a really big
crisis between the EU, the European states, and America on this issue, but they are looking
pretty feeble at the moment.
There's one thing that continues to puzzle me about the sanctions.
My understanding of these sanctions is that they are designed to prevent the Iranians from
importing certain goods from Western countries, and prevent export of and payments for
Iranian goods to Western countries.
Why are these sanctions effective?
Iran has demonstrated that they can manufacture. They have open trading relations with
Russian and China, which gives them access to materials and manufactures they might not be
able to source within Iran.
They can trade oil for goods, and that oil can readily be absorbed by China or re-packaged
and sold by Russia if it chose to. Both Russia and China are highly motivated to bypass the
SWIFT payments system.
Both Russia and China have a roughly analagous situation re: trade with the West, and they
have been coping with it for over a decade in the case of Russia, somewhat less for
China.
Why isn't Iran re-directing external purchasing toward domestic sources, and using that
pressure as a means to build their internal economic capacity?
My two cents worth.
Alas, this is now a sort of, kind of, globalized economic system. Even prior to the
'Neo-Liberal Dispensation,' the world had international trade in raw materials and some
manufactured goods. As a side effect of this, internal national development of all sorts of
materials and merchandise languished. Why build an expensive factory or mine to get something
when you could buy it cheaper overseas? Where your idea has merit is in 'national security'
goods production. The things that make a country 'safe' should be sourced, if at all
possible, at home, where supply can be protected and controlled.
The second point I'd like to stress is how that oil is paid for and delivered. If I read
aright, most Persian oil is shipped to the end user. Thus, control of the seaways and vessles
plying same is crucial. That's why these somewhat symbolic oil tanker 'grabs' are important.
This demonstrates to the world at large one's ability to control the trans-shipment of oil,
from anywhere, to anywhere. The seizure of the oil transit ships was a message to the entire
oil using world: "We can shut down your economy whenever we want." As Lambert sometimes
quotes from Frank Herbert: "The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over
it."
The replacement of the SWIFT system would free the world from American economic thuggery.
When oil is finally priced, in significant amounts anyway, in something other than American
dollars, then will the world economy begin to regain equitability.
Of course if the option of trade is available, it's in everyone's interest to trade, under
the "caparative advantage" principle which underlies the dogma of free trade.
However, there isn't free trade for Iran, China, Russia, N. Korea, etc. So, they have to
improvise. Some countries, like China, are re-directing trade inwards. If Google won't
license the Android OS to Huawei, for example, Huawei makes their own smart phone OS.
So the question becomes "why hasn't Iran instituted a crash program to build Iran-based
companies to enable Iran to substitute Iran-manufactured/sourced products for ones formerly
obtained abroad?
Russia and China have both done this very successfully, and there are many economic as
well as "security" reasons to do it.
With respect to the "selling oil to end-users .vs. to brokers" the end-user would probably
prefer to buy direct from the source, to cut out the middle-man's fee. I don't see how that
presents an obstacle to buying Iran's oil.
Lastly, if it's a question of whether or not the oil can be delivered, the rest of the
world won't side with the U.S. if we seize cargoes on the high seas. That's what the fiasco
with the Grace 1 demonstrated. Furthermore, the sales contract could simply specify that the
goods are to be picked up dockside @ Iran, transferring the transport risk to the buyer (e.g.
China, for ex). Nobody is going to hijack a Chinese oil freighter.
Another farthings worth of comment.
For the last point, I see two possibilities. First, the Neocons in Washington may not care
what the rest of the world thinks, under the (fallacious) assumption that America IS the
world. Second, the 'disruptions' of oil sea transport can be carried out by "arms length"
third parties, viz. the recent spate of tanker 'minings' in the Persian Gulf being 'sourced'
to dissident elements within the Arab world. So, some "Somali Pirates" would be the obvious
choice for 'hijackings' of Chinese flagged tankers, or "Yemeni Pirates," or "Baluch Pirates,"
etc. etc.
In reference to other points you raise, there is a lag time in the implementation of
industrial policy. During WW2, America already had heavy industry available for war
production. The lag time was determined by the length of time needed for retooling of those
extant factories. When there is no extant heavy industry plant available, the lag time
becomes much longer. Having worked in commercial construction during my life, I attest that
planning, preparing for, and building industrial capacity, takes years. Iran could well be in
the middle of an industrial building phase right now. Add to the usual worries attendant to
industrial construction the worry of some outside hostile actor coming over and bombing your
shiny new factory back to rubble and you have added a new layer of complexity to the
endeavour. Air defense for industrial base has not usually been part of an average country's
economic planning regime.
One reason I can think of as to why Russia and China have embarked on an "internalization"
program way in advance of, say, Iran's is that the two former State Socialist countries have
weathered nearly a centuries worth of hostility, both rhetorical and military, emanating from
the West. Their latest 'internalization' programs could be the result of several generations
worth of institutional memory residing within the nomenklaturas of the two states.
Iran, on the other hand, has had an up and down relationship with the West.
At one time, a client state of the West, at another, in a fiercely nationalistic
confrontation with the West, in both regimes, a trading partner with the West as far as oil
goes.
The promise of present day Iran for the world in general is that it is finally trying to
forge an independent self-identity. Someone in power in the West must realize that, if Iran
slips the leash of the West, then other countries will follow. Nothing less than Western
Hegemony is at stake.
Or if oil is progressively transcended and deleted from more and more of the world's
energy portfolio.
That would give those who "don't need oil anymore" some new post-petro freedom of action.
One area where oil will be needed for the foreseeable future is in the lubrication of
moving parts. I have yet to see a true "Buckey Ball" lubricant on the market.
Good question. No answers here, but another observation and question:
While I don't endorse it, what about the legitimacy of Nation-states to pursue their best
interest, and the implied hubris/ arrogance that counters with actions and policy precluding
that autonomy? The Great Game ™?
Cuba blockades. They have done pretty well, despite nearly 70 years of very harsh
blockade. Look how much the US has punished the least amongst the Cuban human beings, some
for their entire life
Venezuela?
North Korea and Iran aspire to have the ultimate WMD. Why does the US get to have the say?
My measuring stick senses that the US hardly holds the moral high ground.
Then, the counter-point that we have never tried in the recent history of man–global
cooperation and no more war. The image of our earth floating in space, the big blue marble,
akin to a Star Trek enterprise ship, with all of the war-ing beyond-memory enemies all on
board. Give every deck and wing some nukes. Avail them with the information on how to
conserve and create renewable energy, to grow and put food by, to access clean drinking
water, modest but efficient shelter, and access to books, education, and the arts. Awareness
of ecology, full life cycle of plants, animals, and man-made products. The experiment that we
must ever allow. Sharing.
The big question in my mind is, why does the rest of the world allow that sort of
bullying, or more to the point, allow themselves to be vulnerable to it? Somebody's been
careless. We now see both Russia and China taking steps to be more autarkic, and even the EU
waking up to the danger. It may be they just haven't had time to develop new
institutions.
The rest-of-the-world could straight-up GIVE Iran the survival-critical things that Iran
would otherwise have to import. The rest of the world could do that in return for Iran
staying in the agreement till the next American election. This would give everyone time to
see if America would elect a pro-deal-ante Democrat to the Presidency.
( This would require the rest of the world to actually be willing to give Iran that kind
of c"cold-war-support" aid till the American election. It would also require the IranGov to
be willing to stay in the agreement until the American election results shake out. It would
need a lot of people to be willing to take a lot of slow long-term chances. Would everyone
involved be willing to do that in a harmonized way?)
The EU LeaderLords have no bravery and no taste for conflict with the TrumpAdmin. Not only
will they not lift a fear-quivering finger to save the accords, they will not even buy and
donate to Iran the goods and services Iran would need to survive until the next American
election.
It is too bad that Rouhani ( and his boss the Supreme Leader Khamenei) cannot have a
remote long-distance Vulcan mind-meld with the DemParty nominee-wannabes in this country.
Because if they could have such a remote long-distance Vulcan mind-meld, here is what they
might well decide. Every DemParty nominee-wannabe would PROMise ( and MEAN IT) to take
America right back into the JCPOA if elected, and to rescind every re-sanction that the
TrumpAdmin imposed. And Rouhani ( at Supreme Leaders's direction) would agree to keep Iran
"in" the JCPOA till the winner of the American Presidential election were announced. Maybe
such a remote mind-meld agreement openly and overtly stated might raise the chances of a
DemParty victory and lower the chances of an Iran-America war.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) released a video showing a convoy
of fuel tanks crossing toward areas controlled by the Syrian Army, supposedly coming from
SDF-held territories.
The footage was filmed in Manbij crossing located to the southwest of Manbij city, located
in northeast Aleppo."
Erdo's doing his bit and pushing the Kurds away from the yanks and back to Syria.
"... There had been no winning of the Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was about. ..."
"... If the Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the Soviet Union and Soviet ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking policy steps to carry on the Cold War. ..."
Obviously since there is a determined American Cold War effort being waged right now,
American historians were mistaken at the end of the 1980s.
There had been no winning of the
Cold War, nor even a clear and shared understanding of what the Cold War was about.
If the
Cold War was only about balancing the Soviet Union and developing economically far beyond the
Soviet Union and Soviet ideas faltering, that happened. However, there was obviously more or
with no Soviet Union to counter we would not now be taking policy steps to carry on the Cold
War.
"... No, America lost the Cold War. We may be richer than when it started, but a larger portion of our incomes go to the government . Even worse, the United States now leads the world in imprisonment –not just by rate but in absolute terms as well, with 1 out of every 150 Americans behind bars. This is largely a consequence of the War on Drugs, which is a war the American government wages upon its own citizens. In the years of the Cold War and since, we have become substantially less free. ..."
As everyone should know by now but probably does not, this is the twentieth anniversary of
the fall of the Berlin Wall. The first breach in that wall set off a chain reaction that would
eventually topple Communist governments and liberate people across half of Europe. It would
also end the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Block, substantially diminishing the
possibility for nuclear annihilation. However, when people say that the West–or more
particularly, America–won the Cold War, I'm not exactly sure what they mean.
Of course, America still exists as a country while the Soviet Union does not, but in a war
that is supposedly about ideas and ideals, victory must me something more than outlasting your
opponent.
I think the more appropriate way to look at the matter is to ask: who has benefited the most
from the end of the Cold War? Clearly, it is the peoples of East Germany, Poland, Estonia, etc.
that have gained the most. They are far richer than they were twenty years ago, and more
importantly they are able to speak and think as they please without fear of imprisonment,
torture, and possibly death at the hands of their governments. Even Russia, which is still far
from free, is a much freer place than it was under the Soviets. Dissident journalists do still
turn up missing, but to be known as a dissident journalist in the Soviet Union was almost an
impossibility. The post-Communist states all have a long way to go to complete freedom, but
with few exceptions , they are all now much
closer to that ideal than they were twenty years ago.
But can we say that the people of the United States also won the Cold War? Sadly, I
do not believe so. After World War II, the United States' standing army likely would have
shrunk back to the small peacetime numbers that existed for most of our history if it weren't
for the Cold War. Instead, the U.S. military spread across the world, allegedly to keep the
country free from the horrors of Communism. Ironically, keeping the people of America free
required enslaving a large percentage of her young men through the country's first peacetime
draft. And of course, soldiers must be housed, equipped, fed, and paid, which required a higher
level of taxation than Americans were used to in peacetime. Twenty years ago, the United States
could have reversed this course and reaped the peace dividend, but instead the government
pressed ahead and extended American influence into the former Soviet Block–taking on new
powers and responsibilities along the way.
No, America lost the Cold War. We may be richer than when it started, but a larger portion
of our incomes go to the government .
Even worse, the United States now leads the world in imprisonment
–not just by rate but in absolute terms as well, with 1 out of every 150 Americans behind
bars. This is largely a consequence of the War on Drugs, which is a war the American government
wages upon its own citizens. In the years of the Cold War and since, we have become
substantially less free.
One right that is still largely intact is the Freedom of Religion, but most versions of
American Christianity today bear little resemblance to the teachings found in the Gospels. In
this country today, people tend to worship the American Jesus , more known for killing
"hajis" than offering salvation. Christianity has become a state religion in this country as it
was for the Roman Emperor Constantine, and it is put to the same use of justifying military
power. Perhaps even worse than using the Prince of Peace for war, the president (provided he is
of the right party, of course) is now viewed by most as an avatar of God on Earth if not God
himself. Many American Christians have rendered everything unto Caesar and have nothing left
for God.
The world is a far freer place than it was twenty years ago, but America is not. Kierkegaard
once wrote "What slave in chains is as unfree as a tyrant!" As the tyrant of the world,
America is enslaved to all. Truly, America has gained the world, but lost her soul.
And yet we had plenty of (perhaps more) morality laws before the War on
Drugs
Perhaps the problem is that the government does not defend its borders (well, that and the
intelligence agencies have long funded some operations with drug money look at
Afghanistan!)?
Not everything illegal has a special allure, it really depends on enforcement of the
law.
And, John, a lot of Eastern Europe is NOT better off than it was 20 years ago, particularly
now that their speculative bubbles have burst. The signs are shinier, there are more decent
restaurants, but many other economic, social, and moral declines. And East Europeans have
gained freedom in many ways, but lost it in others.
People forget that many of the anti-Communist movements like the New Forum activists in the
DDR or Solidarnosc in Poland claimed they were pro-socialist (just for a more democratic,
participatory regime). The original point was not joining NATO and mass privatisation, but
rather civil liberties, and, sometimes, true conservative principles (pro-church, rediscovering
a spiritual mission of their people). But church attendance has increased slightly while
(corporal, at least) immorality has increased significantly! What gain is that? Much of the
national infrastructure was stolen by oligarchs who took the money to Switzerland, much others
were sold to foreigners.
Basically, (most of) East Europe has been absorbed into the control of the international
financial elite (or NWO or whatever you prefer to term it).
There are some very secular, more generous welfare states with considerably more civil
liberties. Of course they have their own problems, but that is not the source of our War of
Terror, War on Drugs, USA Patriot Act, etc. Paleoconservatives are too often naifs in
suggesting, essentially, that some lead us on the road to Hell with good intentions. It is
actually direct corruption in our govt that is the source of all our greatest national
catastrophes.
I found a figure for Cuba. The 2005 official statistics put it at about 490 per 100K, so
about 70% the US rate – still high, but no cigar. Oh I see a more recent (2008?) rate of
531, but still keeping pace with the US at about 70% its rate. That is a British univeristy
study – they estimate the Sudanese rate about 1/20 the US rate (so they had a civil war,
but they aren't totalitarian, what did you think?). Zimbabwe is given as about 1/5 the US rate.
The link, if it works to post it here-
Thomas, were you referring to England and the continental welfare
states with their anti free speech laws, confiscatory taxation and intrusive regulation of
every stage of life? Welfare states must be coercive in order to function. That's why
conservatives off all types abhor them.
The percentage of population in incarceration can be a deceptive statistic. States lie about
these things for a start. Totalitarian states like Cuba and China have the option of simply
killing offenders and of course many people just flee state control.
The US has a large degree of incarceration due to the popularity of "Get tough on drug
offender" legislation. We have a large criminal underclass in this country and after decades of
revolving door justice, the public just got fed up. It may not be humane, but it works. That's
democracy for you.
By the way, there is no system more involved in the criminal justice system than our welfare
bureaucracy. Most criminals are born into to welfare, graduate to truancy and addiction and
then crime, all under the watchful eye of social workers, guidance counselors, school
psychologists, court appointed counselors and probation officers, etc. etc. But this shouldn't
take any of the luster off welfare states, right?
Actually, China records their executions, they do not just shoot
criminals on sight. Neither does Cuba. And neither of those countries would qualify as the top
10 or 20 draconian, authoritarian states (i.e., where citizens shake in fear of the police) at
the moment.
England is widely known to be the most surveillance over its population, but it also has the
weakest welfare state in Western Europe!!!! Scandinavia has much more freedom in general and
much stronger welfare. Your attempt to make some sort of correlation is ridiculous. None of
these countries has a PATRIOT ACT, where you can be deemed an enemy and held indefinitely.
Britain has tried several times to enact something similar, but the Lords always block it. It
would be absurd in Germany even.
The United States is simply no longer a beacon of civil liberties even compared with true
welfare states. Sorry.
And if you are worried about the existence of a criminal underclass, you can probably blame
the extreme inequalities of wealth, the co-existence of hyper-First World and quasi-Third World
elements. All of Latin America has the same, though their welfare states are rarely very
advanced. I think you would find the same trend in Africa.
Mind you, I don't want to be like Sweden. I would prefer America to return to the 50s (not
entirely, but overall it would be an improvement). In the 50s there was a more even
redistribution of wealth and less nanny statism because there was more direct dirigisme. The
State was more involved in industrial planning and regulated trade and financial institutions.
Individuals paid less tax because corporations paid more. If the economy is planned such that
productive employment is a priority, then you can maintain a stable working class. If you take
that away, like the US and UK have done, then you get a permanent underclass with no prospects
of a stable life.
The problem with the 1950's is that they inevitably evolve into the
1960's. And soon we're where we are now. That's the way of welfare states, they introduce such
dependency, indolence and corruption that they just grow. But hey they always have their
defenders. As for the lack of a Patriot Act in Europe, you must be kidding. The least you could
do is read the British press. British subjects can be criminally charged for suggesting that
heterosexual couples make better adoptive parents than homosexuals. The French police do as
they please, and always have. The British do have preventative detention.
Nobody said that the Chinese and or Cubans shot people out of hand. But they do shoot people
rather than feed them for long periods, as we do. You can believe their statistics if you want
to.
Our underclass remains a dangerous nuisance despite public education, taxpayer supported
charity care, a multitude of Federal and State programs and affirmative action. Of course we
are importing more every day, adding to the income disparity you speak of. Perhaps we should
deport people to level out the disparity a bit. What do you think?
I like your idea of our no longer being a beacon. It's attracting the wrong sort.
Yes, of course we should deport people. Illegal immigration is not the
source of the US socioeconomic problems, but it compounds them by a serious factor.
Being a former resident of Houston, where parts of the city (probably the most red-voting
major city in the US) were literally crawling with illegals who undercut everyone else's wages
(that's why they are here), I can attest a bit to the corrupting effect this has on everyone
involved.
"... Westad faults Truman for being unwilling or unable to extend Franklin Roosevelt's friendly policy toward the USSR. ..."
"... "The Soviet assistance program for China was not only the biggest Moscow ever undertook outside its own borders," Westad writes. "It was also, in relative terms, the biggest such program undertaken by any country anywhere, including the US Marshall Plan for Europe." Within a decade following this generosity, they almost fought a nuclear war. ..."
"... WESTAD ALSO wrote a book on the fall of détente, for which he distinctly blames Americans. "Nixon and Kissinger had gone further in attempting to manage the Cold War together with the Soviet Union than most Americans were willing to accept," he writes. "Most Americans were simply not willing to tolerate that the United States could have an equal in international affairs, in the 1970s or ever." This is where Gaddis's immersion in American documents might have been helpful. Most Americans, at least on the anti-détente side, were worried not that the Soviet Union was at parity with the United States, but that it had actually exceeded America's capabilities. However wrongheaded and overly alarmist that perspective was, its importance in explaining American behavior should not be overlooked. ..."
"... Westad will have none of it. "Intent to move away from the Cold War as a national emergency, Eisenhower ended up institutionalizing it as policy and doctrine," he writes. "On the Korean War, the new president simply got lucky. . . . The turn toward a policy of massive nuclear retaliation meant preparing for strategic warfare on a scale that so far had seemed unimaginable." Pages later, he adds, ..."
"... Eisenhower lacked the imagination and political will to think about ending the Cold War after Stalin's death. This is a provocative portrayal of Eisenhower, a welcome antidote to the revisionism that can approach hagiography. But it is undercut by Westad's slight documentation. ..."
"... Cold War triumphalism has had pernicious effects on American foreign policy. A straight line can be drawn from the idea that Ronald Reagan's military buildup and assertive rhetoric ended the Cold War to the fantasy that the United States could rebuild the Middle East. The prominence of neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration was due largely to the widespread belief that they had been right in seeing the transformative potential of American power during the Cold War. Though Donald Trump was able, in the Republican primaries in 2016, to counter delusions of American omnipotence with delusions of American seclusion, the messianic streak still runs strong in the Republican Party and in segments of the Democratic Party. Its absence in current political debates should be seen as temporary. When it inevitably arises again, trouble will ensue. "We all lost the cold war," Gorbachev once said. The difficulty arises when one party thinks it won. ..."
Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History
(New York: Basic Books, 2017), 720 pp., $35.00.
IN 2005
, the Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis released his book,
The Cold War: A New History
. Glowing
reviews of the book followed in the
New York Times
and
Foreign Affairs
. Among the few dissenters was Tony Judt, a
New York University historian who died in 2010. Judt had opposed the Iraq War, when so many other intellectuals -- including
Gaddis -- joined in the delusions that George W. Bush could, should and would democratize the Middle East. By 2005, those fantasies
were discredited by events in Mesopotamia (though Gaddis was unchastened, arguing in the American Interest
as late as 2008
that the senior goal of American foreign policy should be "ending tyranny").
In the
New York Review of Books
, Judt argued that "John Lewis Gaddis has written a history of America's cold war: as
seen from America, as experienced in America, and told in a way most agreeable to many American readers." However brilliant his
works had been during the Cold War, Gaddis became an American triumphalist once the Berlin Wall collapsed. He had comparatively
little understanding of the Soviet experience and, most egregiously, didn't seem to care much about the enormous damage both
superpowers inflicted on what was then called the Third World. The result, Judt argued, was that the Cold War was "a story still to
be told."
With Odd Arne Westad's new book, the story is now told. Westad is the coauthor of several books on the Cold War, as well as
coeditor of the three-volume Cambridge History of the Cold War
. He also wrote
The Global Cold War: Third World
Interventions and the Making of Our Times
, which won the Bancroft Prize. As its title indicates,
The Global Cold War
suggested that the Cold War was very much a globe-spanning conflict, migrating into areas far beyond the borders of the two
superpowers.
His new book integrates that focus on the developing world with a more traditional emphasis on the great powers. It is aimed at a
general rather than a scholarly audience, with far fewer footnotes or archival research than his previous works (more on that
later).
The Cold War: A World History
is told chronologically, but unlike most books on the subject, it begins with the
right period.
THE FIRST
well-regarded book on the war written from a post–Berlin Wall perspective was Martin Walker's
Cold
War,
published in 1994. Like so many others to come, it began with the dissension in the Allied ranks in the closing years of
World War II. By beginning with an earlier period, Westad advances beyond that approach. He is able to devote some attention to the
ideological sources of the struggle, which began with Lenin's interpretation of communism, prioritizing global revolution and
antagonism toward the noncommunist world. "The Cold War was born from the global transformations of the late nineteenth century and
was buried as a result of tremendously rapid changes a hundred years later," he writes. Those changes include decolonization, the
ascension of the United States to world power and the gradual decline of scientific socialism, as well as the two world wars. "The
Great War jumpstarted the destinies of the two future Cold War Superpowers. It made the United States the global embodiment of
capitalism and it made Russia a Soviet Union, a permanent challenge to the capitalist world." Westad also makes the
thought-provoking claim, rather unusual in a book on the Cold War, that
it is therefore quite possible that the Cold War will be reduced in significance by future historians, who from their vantage
point will attach more significance to the origins of Asian economic power, or the beginning of space exploration, or the
eradication of smallpox.
Westad proceeds from there through all the stops along the way to the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Separate chapters
examine India, China, the Middle East and Latin America, as well as summaries of Richard Nixon's diplomacy and the reigns of
Kennedy, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. That he manages to do all this in largely sequential fashion is doubly impressive.
The Cold War
evinces a lifetime of research and thought on the subject. Compelling ideas and valuable insights appear
frequently, such as: "In spite of their attractiveness on a global scale, neither the Soviet nor the US system was ever fully
replicated elsewhere." Or the explanation for communism's appeal in Vietnam: "One reason, ironically, was the integration of
Vietnamese elites into French culture and education, from whence the post-1914 generation took over the radicalization that was
prevalent among French youth, too." Or: "In Asia as in Europe, US policy in the early Cold War was more oriented toward the
expansion of capitalism as such than toward a unique preservation of US national economic advantage or the interests of specific US
companies."
Westad's assessment is that some sort of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union was inevitable once the common
foe of Nazi Germany was extinguished. "Leaders of the two countries had seen each other as adversaries ever since the Russian
Revolution of 1917, and in some cases even before that," he writes. Illustrative of his measured approach throughout the book,
Westad assigns blame for the conflict to both parties, though not so much that he is unable to make moral distinctions. Stalin's
determination to establish control in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, contributed greatly to the breakdown of good relations
with Britain and the United States. But, he writes, "it was containment that made postwar conflict into a Cold War." The United
States was unwilling to grant the Soviets a traditional sphere of influence, let alone see them as a comparable power deserving of
commensurate respect. Seen from 2017, it might seem absurd that so many Europeans, even in England, looked upon the Soviet Union
with admiration and gratitude. But, however much Americans like to forget it, it was the Red Army that "tore the guts out of the
German military machine," in Winston Churchill's colorful phrase.
Westad faults Truman for being unwilling or unable to extend Franklin Roosevelt's friendly policy toward the USSR. Stalin might
have hunkered down and developed foreign-policy paranoia regardless of Truman's behavior, he concedes. "But the intensity of the
conflict, including the paranoia that it later produced on both sides, might have been significantly reduced if more attempts had
been made by the stronger power to entice Moscow toward forms of cooperation." This is somewhat unfair to Truman. The day he was
sworn in as president after Roosevelt's death, Truman said in a statement he intended "to carry on as he believed the President
would have done." There is little reason to doubt his sincerity. In From Roosevelt to Truman
, University of Notre Dame
professor Wilson Miscamble credibly argued that Truman began his presidency with open-mindedness toward the Soviets but was
convinced by events that cooperation was impossible. He wasn't alone.
ASIA, MEANWHILE
, experienced rapid decolonization. Both the United States and the Soviet Union were resolutely
opposed to traditional European imperialism, however much they acted as imperialist powers in their own regions. Combined with the
destitution of the former colonial powers, this meant that Asian nations were freer to pursue their own destinies. Of course, in
Japan and Korea, those destinies were determined by their occupiers, who molded these societies in their own images. It is a sign of
Westad's attentiveness to facts that, without ever succumbing to anything resembling American chauvinism, he can write something as
direct as: "The Korean War came from Stalin's change of mind. If he had not given the go-ahead to Kim, there would have been no
war."
Westad betrays no romanticism toward the Soviet Union or its communist admirers -- that might seem like a low bar, but there are
still scholars like Bruce Cumings who look fondly on the Marxist regimes -- but the book makes the clear-eyed observation,
Only by industrializing fast could a country become socialist and modern. The policy had an obvious appeal: in countries on
the European periphery, where there was a profound sense of having fallen behind, and in countries outside of Europe, such as China,
Korea, and Vietnam, rapid industrialization seemed indeed to be the way forward.
Westad might have added that the Soviet Communist Party's untouchable command of power was similarly appealing to political
leaders and intellectuals worldwide.
Immediately prior to
The Cold War
, Westad's latest book was a study of China's foreign policy since 1750. His mastery of
the subject is evident in a chapter called "China's Scourge." It is valuable not only for a discussion of how the Chinese Communist
Party managed to win the civil war against the Nationalists, but also for a succinct reminder of why and how swiftly relations
dissolved between the CCP and the Soviets. "The Soviet assistance program for China was not only the biggest Moscow ever undertook
outside its own borders," Westad writes. "It was also, in relative terms, the biggest such program undertaken by any country
anywhere, including the US Marshall Plan for Europe." Within a decade following this generosity, they almost fought a nuclear war.
Similarly incisive here is a chapter on India. Often neglected in general histories of the Cold War, India was for a while the
leader of the Non-Aligned nations. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was progressive, but intent on keeping his newly independent
country truly independent. This, of course, infuriated the Americans, for whom any friendliness with the USSR was interpreted as
hostility to them. And yet, when India's moral purity conflicted with its conflict with China, nationalism prevailed, leading to a
brief war. "In spite of its many efforts, even a country as a significant as India was never able to fully break away from the
global conflict molding its policies," Westad concludes.
WESTAD ALSO
wrote a book on the fall of détente, for which he distinctly blames Americans. "Nixon and Kissinger
had gone further in attempting to manage the Cold War together with the Soviet Union than most Americans were willing to accept," he
writes. "Most Americans were simply not willing to tolerate that the United States could have an equal in international affairs, in
the 1970s or ever." This is where Gaddis's immersion in American documents might have been helpful. Most Americans, at least on the
anti-détente side, were worried not that the Soviet Union was at parity with the United States, but that it had actually exceeded
America's capabilities. However wrongheaded and overly alarmist that perspective was, its importance in explaining American behavior
should not be overlooked.
Indeed, Westad's decision to reduce the research shown to the readers in this book makes some of his unorthodox judgments
difficult to credit. Most conspicuously, Westad assesses Dwight Eisenhower harshly, but without offering enough support for his
claims. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the evaluation of Ike was decidedly mixed. He was too complacent, it was said, too moderate and
timid. He favored a strategic posture built around nuclear weapons that led to an arms race. He failed to confront Joe McCarthy and
McCarthyism. He initiated the first of many ill-considered CIA interventions in foreign countries, in Guatemala and Iran. And he
added a religious dimension to the Cold War, which elevated the conflict beyond the already-dangerous levels that existed when he
took power in 1953.
That perception gave way in the 1980s to a consideration that Eisenhower was not complacent, but subtle. The opening of archives
in the 1970s convinced many that his was, as the political scientist Fred Greenstein put it in his 1982 book of the same name, "the
hidden-hand presidency." The popular historian Stephen Ambrose did much to further this view, first in 1981's
Ike's Spies:
Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment
, and then in a biography, released in two volumes in 1983 and 1984. (Writing in the
New Republic
in 2006, the journalist John Judis observed that Ambrose's books "changed many a liberal's view of the general,"
counting himself among them.)
The revisionist view of Eisenhower has now become orthodoxy. He routinely numbers among historians' rankings of the top ten
presidents. Far from sharing the contemporary perception of him as popular but ineffectual -- "It's just like Eisenhower. The worse I
do, the more popular I get," JFK said after the Bay of Pigs disaster -- we like Ike as much as the people who wore his campaign
buttons. Celebrity architect Frank Gehry designed an Eisenhower memorial that Congress has funded to the tune of $100 million, to
sit across from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, on Washington's Independence Avenue.
Most scholars lean toward the view that Ike was a first-rate Cold War strategist. He balanced the budget thrice, halting the
unsustainable economic and military buildup that resulted from the Korean War. He set diplomatic precedents by meeting with Soviet
leaders and organizing purposeful summits. And he outflanked domestic hysteria, establishing a bipartisan commitment to a strategy
of containment. Predominant is the view expressed by Robert Bowie and Richard Immerman in their book, Waging Peace: How
Eisenhower Shaped a Cold War Strategy
:
Later events . . . have enhanced appreciation of his prudent and sober judgment. In a turbulent and dangerous stage of
East-West relations, with an untested and erratic Soviet leadership and a changing strategic environment, Eisenhower managed a
succession of crises and set a course that preserved both security and peace.
Westad will have none of it. "Intent to move away from the Cold War as a national emergency, Eisenhower ended up
institutionalizing it as policy and doctrine," he writes. "On the Korean War, the new president simply got lucky. . . . The turn
toward a policy of massive nuclear retaliation meant preparing for strategic warfare on a scale that so far had seemed
unimaginable." Pages later, he adds,
If the president was not a Cold War hysteric, neither was he someone who could conceive of a world without the confrontation
with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower lacked the imagination and political will to think about ending the Cold War after Stalin's death. This is a provocative portrayal of Eisenhower, a welcome antidote to the revisionism that can approach hagiography. But it is
undercut by Westad's slight documentation.
Cold War triumphalism has had pernicious effects on American foreign policy. A straight line can be drawn from the idea that
Ronald Reagan's military buildup and assertive rhetoric ended the Cold War to the fantasy that the United States could rebuild the
Middle East. The prominence of neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration was due largely to the widespread belief that
they had been right in seeing the transformative potential of American power during the Cold War. Though Donald Trump was able, in
the Republican primaries in 2016, to counter delusions of American omnipotence with delusions of American seclusion, the messianic
streak still runs strong in the Republican Party and in segments of the Democratic Party. Its absence in current political debates
should be seen as temporary. When it inevitably arises again, trouble will ensue. "We all lost the cold war," Gorbachev once said.
The difficulty arises when one party thinks it won.
Jordan Michael Smith is the author of the Kindle single
Humanity: How Jimmy Carter Lost an Election and Transformed the
Post-Presidency
.
"... Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering, rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran. ..."
"... This does not imply some rabid anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the Middle East is running down ..."
"... [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as the last. ..."
"... "And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran. The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'. ..."
"... "If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an incumbent President)." ..."
Speculation's abounded about the political loyalty of the head of Russia's central bank
Elvira Nabullina. Luongo simply explains:
"Nabullina has always been a controversial figure because she is western trained and because
the banking system in Russia is still staffed by those who operate along IMF prescriptions on
how to deal with crises.
"But those IMF rules are there to protect the IMF making the loans to the troubled nation,
not to assist the troubled nation actually recover....
"The fundamental problem is a miseducation about what interest rates are, and how they
interact with inflation and capital flow. Because of this, the medicine for saving an economy
in trouble is, more often than not, worse than the disease itself.
"If Argentina's fourth default in twenty years doesn't prove that to you, nothing will."
It sounds like he's been reading Hudson's J is for Junk Economics !
The real rescue is Putin's aggressive de-dollarization policy that's finally rid Russia of
"dollar-dependency":
"She [Nabullina] keeps jumping at the shadows of a dollar-induced crisis. But the Russian
economy of 2019 is not the Russian economy of 2015. Dollar lending has all but evaporated and
the major source of demand for dollars domestically are legacy corporate loans not converted to
rubles or euros."
The key for me is to weave the content emphasis of Putin's Eastern Economic Conference speech with
his increasing pressure on Nabullina for the bank to support this very important development
policy direction and show China and other nations that Russia's extremely serious about the
direction being taken. Just Putin's language about mortgage rate reductions as an attracter
ought to be a huge message for Nabullina to respond properly. And a further kick in the pants
was provided by the massive deal announced between China and Iran. Luongo briefly alludes to
foreign policy in his article, its regional economic aspects, while omitting aspects hidden by
the US-China Trade War, specifically Russia's now very clear technological supremacy to the
Outlaw US Empire.
This brings us to Crooke's article in which he inadvertently tells us the #1 false
assumption in Trump's Trade War policy with China:
"To defend America's technology leadership , policymakers must upgrade their toolkit
to ensure that US technology leadership can withstand the aftershocks." [My
Emphasis]
Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology
leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering,
rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host
of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced
during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own
propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran.
I could write further about the supposed handcuffing of POTUS by the unconstitutional and
illegal sanction regime "imposed" by the US Congress. Crooke mentions as a significant
hindrance--but if it was indeed a hindrance, any POTUS could break it by suing to prove its
unconstitutional, illegal standing, yet no effort is put into that, begging the question Why?
Crooke spends lots of space about this but fails to see the above solution:
"The pages to that chapter have been shut. This does not imply some rabid
anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock
being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the
Middle East is running down , and not the 'clock' of US domestic politics. The old adage
that the 'sea is always the sea' holds true for US foreign policy.
And [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is,
of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as
the last.
"And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with
Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran.
The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of
interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even
Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of
US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in
the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'.
"If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in
the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the
US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once
poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an
incumbent President)."
Being British, we should excuse Crooke for not knowing about the crucial Supremacy Clause
within the US Constitution, but that doesn't absolve any POTUS if that person is really intent
on talking with Iran--or any other sanctioned nation. IMO, the Iranians know what I know and
have finally decided the Outlaw US Empire's marriage to Occupied Palestine won't suffer a
divorce anytime soon. The result is the recent very active change in policy direction aimed at
solidifying the Arc of Resistance and establishing a Persian Gulf Collective Security Pact that
will end in check mating the Empire's King thus causing further economic problems for the
Empire.
Crooke does a good job of summarizing my comment and many more made over the year regarding
the reasons for the utter failure of Outlaw US Empire policy:
"Well, here is the key point: Washington seems to have lost the ability to summon the
resources to try to fathom either China, or the Iranian 'closed book', let alone a 'Byzantine'
Russia. It is a colossal attenuation of consciousness in Washington; a loss of conscious
'vitality' to the grip of some 'irrefutable logic' that allows no empathy, no outreach, to
'otherness'. Washington (and some European élites) have retreated into their 'niche'
consciousness, their mental enclave, gated and protected, from having to understand – or
engage – with wider human experience."
The only real way for the Outlaw US Empire to regain its competitive "niche" with the rest
of the world is to mount a massive program of internal reform verging on a revolution in its
outcome. It's patently obvious that more of the same will yield more of the same--FAILURE--and
the chorus of inane caterwauling by BigLie Media over where to place the blame.
"... " Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten military misadventures. ..."
"... Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism), immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty. ... ..."
In a provocative new book, three scholars from the
libertarian Cato Institute -- John Glaser, Christopher A. Preble and A. Trevor Thrall --
counsel the United States to abandon the pursuit of global primacy for a policy of prudence and
restraint. " Fuel to the Fire: How
Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding
indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national
security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten
military misadventures. American foreign policy professionals may cast the United States as
a benevolent hegemon, defending the liberal or "rules-based" international order. But this
self-serving argument is hard to take seriously, they write, given the hubris, hypocrisy and
coerciveness of the American imperium.
The most surprising argument in "Fuel to the Fire" is that this misguided orientation has
persisted under Donald Trump. This seems counterintuitive. Washington's mandarins have recoiled
in bipartisan horror as the president dismantles their handiwork and pursues his "America
First" agenda. Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least
experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark
than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism),
immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they
perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted
by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has
doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending
and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for
continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty.
...
Harry Dexter White: Treasury Assistant Secretary* who was the major force behind the
Bretton Woods Conference and the institutional reconstruction of the post-World War II world
economy. He accepted enough of John Maynard Keynes's proposals to lay the groundwork for the
greatest generation of economic growth the world has ever seen. It was the extraordinary
prosperity set in motion by the Bretton Woods' System and institutions--the "Thirty Glorious
Years"--that demonstrated that political democracy and the mixed economy could deliver and
distribute economic prosperity.
George Kennan: Author of the "containment" strategy that won the Cold War.
Argued--correctly--that World War III could be avoided if the Western Alliance made clear its
determination to "contain" the Soviet Union and World Communism, and that the internal
contradictions of the Soviet Union would lead it to evolve into something much less dangerous
than Stalin's tyranny.
George Marshall: Architect of victory in World War II. Post-World War II Secretary of
State who proposed the Marshall Plan, another key step in the economic and institutional
reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II.
Arthur Vandenberg: Leading Republican Senator from Michigan who made foreign policy truly
bipartisan for a few years. Without Vandenberg, it is doubtful that Truman, Marshall,
Acheson, and company would have been able to muster enough Congressional support to do their
work.
Paul Hoffman: Chief Marshall Plan administrator. The man who did the most to turn the
Marshall Plan from a good idea to an effective aid program.
Dean Acheson: Principal architect of the post-World War II Western Alliance. That
Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, and the United States reached broad consensus on how to
wage Cold War is more due to Dean Acheson's diplomatic skill than to any single other
person.
Harry S Truman: The President who decided that the U.S. had to remain engaged
overseas--had to fight the Cold War--and that the proper way to fight the Cold War was to
adopt Kennan's proposed policy of containment. His strategic choices were, by and large, very
good ones.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: As first commander-in-chief of NATO, played an indispensable role
in turning the alliance into a reality. His performance as President was less satisfactory:
too many empty words about "rolling back" the Iron Curtain, too much of a willingness to try
to skimp on the defense budget by adopting "massive retaliation" as a policy, too much trust
in the erratic John Foster Dulles.
Gerald Ford: In the end, the thing that played the biggest role in the rise of the
dissident movement behind the Iron Curtain was Gerald Ford's convincing the Soviet Union to
sign the Helsinki Accords. The Soviet Union thought that it had gained worldwide recognition
of Stalin's land grabs. But what it had actually done was to commit itself and its allies to
at least pretending to observe norms of civil and political liberties. And as the Communist
Parties of the East Bloc forgot that in the last analysis they were tyrants seated on thrones
of skulls, this Helsinki commitment emboldened their opponents and their governments'
failures to observe it undermined their own morale.
George Shultz: Convinced Ronald Reagan--correctly--that Mikhail Gorbachev's "perestroika"
and "glasnost" were serious attempts at reform and liberalization, and needed to be taken
seriously. Without Shultz, it is unlikely that Gorbachev would have met with any sort of
encouragement from the United States--and unlikely that Gorbachev would have been able to
remain in power long enough to make his attempts at reform irreversible.
*Also, almost surely
an "Agent of Influence" and perhaps an out-and-out spy for Stalin's Russia. If so, never did
any intelligence service receive worse service from an agent than Stalin's Russia did from
Harry Dexter White....
I'm reading "The
Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World
Order (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Princeton University Press))" by Benn Steil and
wanted to share this quote with you.
"As regards the economics White advocated, they were hardly Marxist. They were by this time
what would be described as thoroughly Keynesian. He insisted that government should take an
active role in supporting economic activity; certainly more so than was orthodox before the
Great Depression, but he never pushed for broad government control of the means of production.
His writings on international monetary affairs express a concern with the need to fashion a
system that "reduces the necessity of restrictions on private enterprise."As for White's
domestic politics, these were mainstream New Deal progressive, and there is no evidence that he
admired communism as a political ideology."
ReplyFebruary 15, 2019 at 12:49
jorgensen said...
Vannevar Bush pushed for government support of science after the Second
World War and should get some credit for America's scientific dominance through the Cold War.
ReplyFebruary 16, 2019 at 15:38
andres said... The above list is old hat, so to speak. I would add the following two
lists:
Russians Who Did the Most to Win the Cold War (for both sides):
1. Georgi Zhukov (Was an unbelievable s.o.b. during WWII, but did the right thing having the
Red Army side with Khruschev and Malenkov against Beria). 2. Nikita Khruschev (secret speech, ousting of Stalin's old cronies and final unwillingness to
go to war over Cuba outweigh Hungary and U-2 incident, imo). 3. Aleksandr Solshenitsyn (self-explanatory). 4. Boris Pasternak (Dr. Zhivago is a better read than The Gulag Archipelago). 5. Roy Medvedev (Let History Judge). 6. Vasili Arkhipov (Don't Push the Button I). 7. Andrei Sakharov (self-explanatory). 8. Stanislav Petrov (Don't Push the Button II). 9. Mikhail Gorbachev (glasnost plus withdrawal from Afghanistan). 10. Boris Yeltsin (lousy president, but energetic opposition to August 1991 coup was
vital).
Americans Who Tried Their Best to Make the U.S. Lose the Cold War.
1. Douglas MacArthur. 2. John Foster Dulles. 3. Allen Dulles. 4. Barry Goldwater. 5. Robert McNamara/McGeorge Bundy/Maxwell Taylor/W.W. Rostow (joint award for Vietnam) 6. William Westmoreland (made it even worse). 7. Richard Nixon (carpet bomber in chief, plus undermined 1968 Vietnam peace talks). 8. Henry Kissinger (took over from JF Dulles as military coup enabler in chief, and nearly
pushed India to Russia's side after giving a blank check to Pakistan). 9. Ronald Reagan (was clearly pointed toward WWIII before Schultz and GHW Bush brought him
around).
(There are lots more, but I've tried to limit the list to those who were either in the
executive branch or came close (Goldwater). LBJ could also be included, but it is still being
argued whether he led his cabinet or his cabinet led him into Vietnam).
ReplyFebruary 16, 2019 at 22:52
This Is How a War With China Could Begin
First, the lights in Taiwan go out.
By Nicholas Kristof
TAIPEI, Taiwan -- If the United States gets embroiled in a war with China, it may begin
with the lights going out here in Taipei.
Tensions are rising across the Taiwan Strait, and there's a growing concern among some
security experts that Chinese President Xi Jinping might act recklessly toward Taiwan in the
next few years, drawing the United States into a conflict....
[ Nuttier and nuttier but there we are, and as Les Gelb explained, the foreign policy
community at such times have become incapable of independent thought. ]
Mission Unaccomplished: Meet the press -- and see why it failed at several crucial points
during the Iraq War
By Leslie H. Gelb with Jeanne-Paloma Zelmati - Council on Foreign Relations
My initial support for the war was symptomatic of unfortunate tendencies within the
foreign policy community, namely the disposition and incentives to support wars to retain
political and professional credibility. We "experts" have a lot to fix about ourselves, even
as we "perfect" the media. We must redouble our commitment to independent thought, and
embrace, rather than cast aside, opinions and facts that blow the common -- often wrong --
wisdom apart. Our democracy requires nothing less.
This Is How a War With China Could Begin
First, the lights in Taiwan go out.
By Nicholas Kristof
[ Though this essay is nutty, the implications are really frightening to me. We have
reached a point where New York Times columnists are imagining the bombing of China. This, to
my imagination, was precisely what was imagined during the height of the supposedly won Cold
War. ]
The atomic scientists should move their clock half the distance to mid night.
A side benefit of the US finding an excuse to terminate Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty of 1987 is to ring China with INF banned weapon systems!
The new, made up, cold war has two major fronts, Europe and the Pac Rim, whereas the
Soviet based [my] cold war only had Russia ringed from Germany Belgium UK and Spain.....
US Sanctions Are Designed to Kill
By Kevin Cashman and Cavan Kharrazian
Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif recently visited the Group of Seven (G7) at
the invitation of French president Emmanuel Macron, in what was seen as an overture to the
Trump administration to negotiate over sanctions that have plagued the Iranian economy. Back
in 2018, after months of increasingly hostile rhetoric, the US government withdrew from the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or "Iran Deal," and imposed a "maximum pressure" campaign
that included unilateral, economy-wide sanctions. The Iran Deal was an agreement that
provided Iran relief from existing sanctions in exchange for limits on its enrichment of
uranium, among other concessions. These sanctions hampered trade between the European Union,
whose leaders have sought to salvage the Iran Deal.
When President Trump reimposed sanctions in November 2018, it cut off Iran's oil exports
and access to the international financial system. At the time, he announced that Iran could
comply with new US demands or face "economic isolation." Additional US sanctions issued since
then have specifically targeted a thousand individuals and entities with the goal of reducing
Iran's oil revenues to "zero." More recently, Trump said that although "[Iran's] economy is
crashing...it's very easy to straighten [it] out or it's very easy for us to make it a lot
worse."
And so, according to Trump himself, the United States has the power to solve -- or
exacerbate -- Iran's current economic problems. What is left unsaid, including by much of the
media, is that sanctions that "crash" the economy are an attack on the country's civilian
population and create widespread human misery. Indeed, they appear to be contributing to
widespread shortages of medicine and medical equipment, particularly affecting cancer
patients. In Venezuela, which is under a similar US sanctions regime, there have been similar
effects, with more than 40,000 people estimated to have died from 2017 to 2018 due to the
"collective punishment" inflicted on them.
Yet other statements from US administration officials often contend that sanctions have
negligible economic or social effects on the general population of Iran. For example, the US
State Department's special representative for Iran, Brian Hook, recently denied that US
sanctions on Iran affect the availability of medicine and agricultural products. In this
argument, Hook divorces the connection between the economic damage caused by sanctions in
Iran and the lack of basic necessities like medicine and food, preferring to instead lay
blame on the Iranian government, not what the Trump administration calls "targeted"
sanctions.
Are the sanctions causing Iran's economic problems, or simply a way to punish individual
actors? Answering this question requires an examination of the impact sanctions have on
Iran's economy and the mechanisms by which sanctions work -- two important areas of inquiry
that seldom receive attention in the US press.
Sanctions are severely impacting Iran's oil production
Looking at Iran's oil sector, which has been directly targeted by the sanctions regime, is
a good way to get a sense of how the sanctions have affected the country's economy, which
remains dependent on the production and export of oil, according to a number of indicators.
For example, around 70 percent of Iran's merchandise exports consists of fuel. Although this
dependence on oil production has decreased over the last decade, in large part due to
government efforts to diversify the economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported
in March 2018 (before the announcement of the resumption of US sanctions) that oil revenues
accounted for nearly 40 percent of government revenues in fiscal year 2016–17, and
projected a similar number for fiscal year 2017–18 (assuming, then, that there would be
no new sanctions). Clearly, a large reduction in Iran's oil production would pose significant
challenges to its ability to provide services to its people, as well as maintain essential
imports including some foreign-produced medicines and other healthcare and life-saving
goods.
Unsurprisingly, Iran's oil production moves very much in tandem with the enactment and
repeal of broad sanctions over time (see the figure below). US sanctions in 2010 affected
investment in Iran's oil infrastructure and prohibited some international transactions. Then,
in early 2012, the United States and the European Union banned oil imports from Iran and
froze its central bank assets. Shortly thereafter, oil production plummeted and reached its
nadir in late 2012. After the Iran Deal was enacted in early 2016 and US and EU sanctions
were repealed, Iran's oil production rapidly recovered to 2007 levels. This level of
production was maintained until the announcement by the Trump administration in May 2018 that
the United States was withdrawing from the Iran Deal. Since May 2018, Iran's oil production
has fallen precipitously; it is down by over 40 percent over the last year. Waivers the
United States issued to purchasers of Iranian oil have expired over the last few months,
eliminating one of the remaining factors that put upward pressure on production.
[Graph]
To get a sense of the size of these impacts, it's useful to compare what they would look
like in the US economy. If applied to the United States, they would be comparable to a budget
reduction of $521 billion or 16 percent in 2018. However, this would also represent about 85
percent of nonmilitary discretionary spending. While the United States would be able to
borrow or create money to fill this deficit, Iran has much less capacity to do either without
triggering more economic difficulties.
Broader economic impacts are also visible. The IMF lowered growth projections for Iran due
to the "crippling effect of tighter US sanctions" in its July update. Based on this
projection, it is estimated that the economy will contract by 9.3 percent in 2019. This is a
downward revision from a previous projection in April of a decline of 6.0 percent. (Before
the sanctions, the economy was projected to grow by 4.0 percent.) Other indicators also
worsened after the reimposition of sanctions: the unemployment rate is estimated to be 25
percent; inflation has risen to 80 percent; and the currency has lost over half its
value.
Sanctions are exacerbating social problems
The main mechanism by which oil production has fallen is the same mechanism that prevents
Iran from importing food and medicine: Iran cannot find buyers for its oil on the open
market, just like it cannot buy food or medicine on the open market. In effect, it is cut off
from the US-dominated international financial system.
Uniquely, the United States exerts broad control over international banking transactions.
One way is via the SWIFT and CHIPS systems, which handle the vast majority of those
transactions. The SWIFT system, which provides a common communication system for banks, is
controlled by US banks, which own the majority of the system and have officials on its board.
On top of that, despite not being located in the United States, SWIFT makes all of the
system's data available to the US government, even if those transactions do not involve the
United States. The CHIPS system, which provides communication as well as settlement
functions, is governed by US law, has many US banks as owners, and is directly overseen by US
authorities. These systems rely on a network of correspondent banks -- which link banks that
might not have relationships with one another -- to complete transactions. The apex of the
correspondent system is the New York Federal Reserve Bank, under the control of US banking
authorities, which also serves as a lender of last resort to other central banks.
A system designed in this way ensures that banks with no relationship with each other
still can transact in a common currency (dollars) via a common bank (the New York Fed) in an
agreed-upon framework (SWIFT and CHIPS). However, it also means that the United States has
disproportionate power over transactions. Formally, the United States government, via the
Office of Foreign Assets Control, can prohibit transactions involving Iran to pass through
systems and banks in which it has jurisdiction. More informally, the US government can
pressure SWIFT, other central banks, correspondent banks, and even specific firms to adopt
policies of refusing to do business with Iran. Since these players fear retribution from US
authorities (e.g., being sanctioned themselves), they are usually unwilling to take the risk
of doing business with Iran unless they have no other business that might involve the United
States or financial entities that can be pressured by the United States.
Because the international banking system is designed in this way, US sanctions on the
Iranian economy effectively mean that not only can Iran not easily sell oil on the open
market, it cannot easily buy food or medicine either, even if the latter are nominally
exempt, as Hook says. This is because sanctioned Iranian banks and officials are ultimately
involved in these transactions in the same way that they are with oil, often by virtue of the
position they hold in the Iranian banking system. It is telling that hours after an October
2018 ruling by the International Court of Justice ordering the United States to "remove any
impediments" that affect the importation of medicine, food, and civil aviation products
(including impediments to payments and other transfers of funds related to these products),
the US withdrew from the treaty that formed the basis of the ruling, instead of complying
with it. Unsurprisingly, efforts at importing food and medicine via the technical exemptions
that do exist often fail. It appears that the technical exemptions are used more to deflect
criticism of sanctions overall than to actually permit the importation of food and
medicine.
But on top of these issues, even if food and medicine were, in reality, exempt from the
sanctions regime, the "crippling effect" on Iran's economy would impact the Iranians'
financial ability to acquire food and medicine anyway. Iran would have fewer resources to
devote to domestic food and medicine production, and many fewer resources to import the same
products.
Adapting to US sanctions
It is surprisingly difficult to bypass this financial system because it is so entrenched,
although it is not impossible. For example, countries might set up a bilateral or
multilateral system to carry out transactions in their own currencies and settle accounts in
a currency other than the dollar. Iran could negotiate bilateral trades with India: in
exchange for oil, Iran would accept rupees, and then use those rupees to purchase Indian
products. The downsides are that mechanisms would be needed to support these transactions
(i.e., establishing parallel payment and banking functions). In addition, Iran would need to
find a use for the rupees it received in exchange for oil, usually by buying Indian goods
(this is because it would be difficult to exchange rupees for other currencies on the open
market due to the sanctions).
One promising new multilateral mechanism, dubbed INSTEX, would allow trade between EU
countries and Iran without relying on direct transfer of funds or the use of the US-dominated
financial system. While in its beginning stage it will only deal with humanitarian trade,
INSTEX's model could potentially create a new path to buy Iranian oil. It is telling,
however, that EU countries set up an entirely different financial mechanism to use for
humanitarian trade, rather than risk drawing the ire of the United States by using
established channels.
Yet these alternative mechanisms are not immune from US influence either. In recent cases
where countries have announced intentions to develop alternative trade arrangements, the
United States has applied political pressure to nip them in the bud. This involves overt
economic threats as well as rhetoric urging countries like India to refrain from using a
"narrow bilateral lens" in economic trade.
In the meantime, Iran is able to sell some oil to countries such as China, Russia, and
India; either to pay back debt or because some banks in these countries do not have a
significant business that can be impacted by US retaliation. It also has had some success in
covertly transferring oil to buyers, but this does not always escape US control. Similarly,
Iran is able to maintain imports of some items, like bananas, outside of the established
financial system primarily due to the experience and ingenuity of importers, although usually
at lower volumes.
It should be clear that the US is uniquely positioned to choke off imports and exports
from a targeted country using sanctions, with deep, negative consequences for that country's
economy as well as severe constraints on its government's ability to address economic
problems.
In Iran's case, US sanctions mean that production of oil -- a vital export -- is in free
fall, unemployment is on the rise, and record inflation due to scarce imports has made it
harder for everyday Iranians to buy basic goods and access life-saving medicine. Recent
reports have detailed harrowing stories of hospitals running out of crucial cancer medicines
and patients struggling to afford or even find their prescriptions. As in Venezuela and other
targeted countries, US sanctions undoubtedly have a human toll associated with them, which
will only grow as time goes on. This human impact is one of the main reasons that experts in
international law argue unilateral sanctions are illegal under the United Nations Charter and
international human rights law.
While Iran has been exploring alternative ways of exporting and importing goods, it's
unclear what more it could do absent relief from sanctions. Even so, US officials will
typically place responsibility for the social and economic problems resulting from the
sanctions on the Iranian government, as Hook does. But Trump's comments are more revealing.
Sanctions only work because they cause suffering in the first place. In effect, the United
States is risking -- and sometimes ending -- the lives of thousands of Iranians with the hope
that the Iranian government acquiesces to its demands or is replaced by a more compliant
government. That the United States could carry out such a strategy in the first place should
raise serious questions among concerned US citizens and within the international community,
especially among those who respect international law.
Here are just some of the twists and turns in the case, which has gone on for more than
three years.
Flynn's trip to Russia in 2015, where it was claimed Flynn went without the knowledge or
approval of the DIA or anyone in Washington,
was proven not to be true .
Flynn was suspected of being compromised by a supposed Russian agent, Cambridge academic
Svetlana Lokhova, based on allegations from Western intelligence asset Stefan Halper.
This was also proven to be not true.
The very strange post-dated FD-302 form on the FBI's January 2017 interview of Flynn that
wasn't filled out until August 2017, almost seven months afterward, is
revealed in a court filing by Flynn's defense team .
FBI agent Pientka became the
"DOJ's Invisible Man," despite the fact that Congress has repeatedly called for him to
testify. Pientka has remained out of sight and out of mind more than a year and a half since
his name first surfaced in connection with the Flynn case.
Now, it's not that far-fetched of an idea that the Mueller special counsel prosecutors would
hide exculpatory evidence from the Flynn defense team, since they've just admitted to having
done exactly that in another case their
office has been prosecuting .
The defense team for Internet Research Agency/Concord, more popularly known as "the Russian
troll farm case," hasn't been smooth going for the Mueller prosecutors.
Then, in a
filing submitted to the court on Aug. 30, the IRA/Concord defense team alerted Judge
Friedrich that the prosecutors just got around to handing them key evidence the prosecutors had
for the past 18 months. The prosecution gave no explanation whatsoever as to why they hid this
key evidence for more than a year.
It's hard to see at this point how the entire IRA/Concord case isn't tossed out.
What would it mean for Flynn's prosecutors to have been caught hiding exculpatory evidence
from him and his lawyers, even after the presiding judge explicitly ordered them in February to
hand over everything they had?
It would mean that the Flynn case is tossed out, since the prosecution team was caught
engaging in gross misconduct.
Now you can see why Flynn refused to withdraw his guilty plea when Judge Sullivan gave him
the opportunity to do so in late December 2018.
A withdrawal of the guilty plea or a pardon would let the Mueller prosecution team off the
hook.
And they're not getting off the hook.
Flynn hired the best lawyer he possibly could have when it comes to exposing prosecutorial
misconduct. Nobody knows the crafty, corrupt, and dishonest tricks federal prosecutors use
better than Powell, who actually wrote a compelling book about such matters, entitled "
License to Lie: Exposing
Corruption in the Department of Justice ."
Everything this Mueller prosecution team did in withholding exculpatory evidence from
Flynn's defense team -- and continued to withhold even after Judge Sullivan specifically issued
an order about it -- is going to be fully exposed.
Defying a federal judge's Brady order is a one-way ticket to not only getting fired, it's a
serious enough offense to warrant disbarment and prosecution.
If it turns out Mueller special counsel prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence -- not
only in the IRA/Concord case, but also in the cases against Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael
Cohen, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and others -- that will have a huge impact.
If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn't they do the
same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven't they have already demonstrated they
are willing to break the rules? Tags
We have become a third-world country. Even throwing Mueller and his entire prosecutors'
team in jail would not be enough to restore confidence in our legal system. But it would be a
start.
On or about December 28, 2016, the Russian Ambassador contacted FLYNN.
c. On or about December 29, 2016, FLYNN called a senior official of the Presidential
Transition Team ("PTT official"), who was with other senior ·members of the
Presidential Transition Team at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss
what, if anything, to communicate to the Russian Ambassador about the U.S. Sanctions. On that
call, FLYNN and 2 Case 1:17-cr-00232-RC Document 4 Filed 12/01/17 Page 2 of 6 the PTT
official discussed the U.S. Sanctions, including the potential impact of those sanctions on
the incoming administration's foreign policy goals. The PIT official and FLYNN also discussed
that the members of the Presidential Transition Team at Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to
escalate the situation. d. Immediately after his phone call with the PTT official, FLYNN
called the Russian Ambassador and requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only
respond to the U.S. Sanctions in a reciprocal manner. e. Shortly after his phone call with
the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with the PTT official to report on the substance of his
call with the Russian Ambassador, including their discussion of the U.S. Sanctions. f. On or
about December 30, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a statement indicating
that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the U.S. Sanctions at that
time. g. On or about December 31, 2016, the Russian Ambassador called FLYNN and informed him
that Russia had chosen not to retaliate in response to FL YNN's request. h. After his phone
call with the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with senior members of the Presidential
Transition Team about FL YNN's conversations with the Russian Ambassador regarding the U.S.
Sanctions and Russia's decision not to escalate the situation.
The coup plot between the international intelligence community (which includes our
FBI-CIA-etc) and their unregistered foreign agents in the multinational corporate media is
slowly being revealed.
Here’s another possibility... elites in the US Gov set on running a soft coup
against a duly elected president and his team made up a whole pile of **** and passed it off
as truth.
The Manafort thing has me totally riled since HRC's "Password" guy and his brother were
PARTNERS with manafort, did the same damn things, and were NOT investigated.
Donald Trump is many things to many people, but is not his social personna to be patient.
He is being VERY patient to let this unfold, to "give a man enough rope" or political party
and its owner, as it may be....
Donna Brazile's book is under-rated: it holds they keys as to who ran the DNC and why
after Obie bailed.
Our local community rag (Vermont) had an opinion piece last week about "The slide towards
Facism", where the author breathlessly stated that she had learned from a MSNBC expose by
Rachel Maddow that the administration was firing researchers at NASA and EPA as well as
cutting back funding for LGBTQ support groups. Oh the horror. The author conveniently forgot
that the same dyke had lied for 2 years about Russia,Russia,Russia but it's still OK to
believe any **** that drops out of her mouth.
This is the level of insanity happening around here. Of course it is Bernie's turf.
People who are so stupid and gullible deserve everything they are gonna get.
Poor Flynn. Rail-roaded by ZOG and Obama and Hillary and Co. I hope beyond hope that the
truth is revealed and that he can sue the **** out of the seditionists/(((seditionists))) who
put him into this mess such that his great-great-grandchildren will never have to work.
I also blame Trump for throwing Flynn under the bus.
If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn’t they
do the same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven’t they have already
demonstrated they are willing to break the rules?
Duh! Because it's easy and the media never covers it and AG Barr and FBI director Wray
will cover it all up. America no longer operates under rule of law, and now we all know it.
Never cooperate with them!
flynn didn't rape children, to buzy trying to fight liberators of iraq and afganistan from
invasion... that's his major crime.
I guess, kelly, mattis, mcmaster neither are on the child rape trend. but what can they
do? when the entire cia and doj and fbi are full on controlled and run by the pedos? it's
like when all the cardinals and the pope are pedos, what a bishop to do...
Why would CIA Rothschild'd up puppet Trump pick only the best William Barr?
Who told Acosta to cut no prosecution deal with Epstein? George Bush? Robert Mukasey? or
Bob Mueller?
Trump, Barr, Bush, Mueller all on the same no rule of law national no government
pys op , for Epstein & 9/11 clean op team Poppa Bush, Clinton, &
Mossad.
Barr: CIA operative
It is a sobering fact that American presidents (many of whom have been corrupt) have gone
out of their way to hire fixers to be their attorney generals.
Consider recent history: Loretta Lynch (2015-2017), Eric Holder (2009-2015), Michael
Mukasey (2007-2009), Alberto Gonzales (2005-2007), John Ashcroft (2001-2005),Janet Reno
(1993-2001), **** Thornburgh (1988-1991), Ed Meese (1985-1988), etc.
Barr was a full-time CIA operative, recruited by Langley out of high school, starting
in 1971. Barr’s youth career goal was to head the CIA.
CIA operative assigned to the China directorate, where he became close to powerful CIA
operative George H.W. Bush, whose accomplishments already included the CIA/Cuba Bay of
Pigs, Asia CIA operations (Vietnam War, Golden Triangle narcotics), Nixon foreign policy
(Henry Kissinger), and the Watergate operation.
When George H.W. Bush became CIA Director in 1976, Barr joined the CIA’s
“legal office” and Bush’s inner circle, and worked alongside Bush’s
longtime CIA enforcers Theodore “Ted” Shackley, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines,
and others, several of whom were likely involved with the Bay of Pigs/John F. Kennedy
assassination, and numerous southeast Asian operations, from the Phoenix Program to Golden
Triangle narco-trafficking.
Barr stonewalled and destroyed the Church Committee investigations into CIA
abuses.
Barr stonewalled and stopped inquiries in the CIA bombing assassination of Chilean
opposition leader Orlando Letelier.
Barr joined George H.W. Bush’s legal/intelligence team during Bush’s vice
presidency (under President Ronald Reagan) Rose from assistant attorney general to Chief
Legal Counsel to attorney general (1991) during the Bush 41 presidency.
Barr was a key player in the Iran-Contra operation, if not the most important member of
the apparatus, simultaneously managing the operation while also “fixing” the
legal end, ensuring that all of the operatives could do their jobs without fear of exposure
or arrest.
In his attorney general confirmation, Barr vowed to “attack criminal
organizations”, drug smugglers and money launderers. It was all hot air: as AG, Barr
would preserve, protect, cover up, and nurture the apparatus that he helped create, and use
Justice Department power to escape punishment.
Barr stonewalled and stopped investigations into all Bush/Clinton and CIA crimes,
including BCCI and BNL CIA drug banking, the theft of Inslaw/PROMIS software, and all
crimes of state committed by Bush
Barr provided legal cover for Bush’s illegal foreign policy and war crimes
Barr left Washington, and went through the “rotating door” to the corporate
world, where he took on numerous directorships and counsel positions for major companies.
In 2007 and again from 2017, Barr was counsel for politically-connected international law
firm Kirkland
& Ellis . Among its other notable attorneys and alumni are Kenneth Starr, John
Bolton, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and numerous Trump administration attorneys.
K&E’s clients include sex trafficker/pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and Mitt
Romney’s Bain Capital.
A strong case can be made that William Barr was as powerful and important a figure in the
Bush apparatus as any other, besides Poppy Bush himself.
there is a war on america, and the DoD and men like flynn are too arrogant, dumb, and
proud to admit they have been fucked and conned deeply by men way smarter than them...
we don't need ******* brains, but killers to wage this revolution against the american
pedostate.
and that, what they master, they don't want to do.
if they want money, they should have learned to trade and not kill...
""Certain key unknown figures in the Federal Reserve may have 'conspired' with key unknown
figures at the Bank of New York to create a situation where $240 billion in off balance sheet
securities created in 1991 as part of an official covert operation to overthrow the Soviet
Union, could be cleared without publicly acknowledging their existence. These securities,
originally managed by Cantor Fitzgerald, were cleared and settled in the aftermath of
September 11th
through the BoNY. The $100 billion account balance bubble reported by the Wall Street
Journalas being experienced in the BoNY was tip of a three day operation, when these
securities were moved from off-balance-sheet to the balance sheet.
Beyond the question of Jared's omnipresence is his apparent knack for political survival.
Although Trump tends to go through officials as rapidly as he tweets, Jared has managed thus
far to ride out the storm. Of course, firing Jared – husband of Trump's daughter, Ivanka
– would be more than your average political decision, which is probably why Trump should
never have dabbled in nepotism to begin with. Or perhaps Jared Kushner remains in his top-level
position not because he is the son-in-law of Donald Trump, or because he is so politically
astute (thus far it would seem he is not), but precisely because the Deep State wants him
there.
Whatever the case may be, it is notable that while Trump's main allies – guys like
Mike Flynn, Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus (all of whom were loathed by the Deep State,
incidentally) – fell to the wayside one after another, Kushner alone remains from the
original Trump lineup. And his popularity among the establishment elite remains high.
Reminiscent of the day when Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize without ever
negotiating a single peace deal, Time magazine just named Jared Kushner among its '100 Most
Influential People'. And it was none other than Henry Kissinger, 93, the fiercely criticized
former US statesman, who penned the blurb that accompanied Jared's honorable mention.
Kissinger, expert practitioner of the "strategic lie", says he first met Kushner "about 18
months ago, when he introduced himself after a foreign policy lecture I had given." The very
next line strongly suggests that Kissinger
is lurking in the shadows of the Trump administration. "We have sporadically exchanged views
since."
Really? That short sentence should have set alarms ringing. What exactly does Kissinger mean
by "sporadically," and what is it that he and Jared discuss? Somehow I doubt the weather. And
is Trump aware of the content of these "sporadic" conversations, or is he content to get the
Cliff Notes courtesy of Kushner?
Considering Henry Kissinger's extremely checkered past – for starters, he convinced
Nixon to bomb Cambodia and Laos, and replace the democratically elected government of Chile
with a brutal military dictatorship – these are no idle questions. And as it turns out,
there is already some whiff of mischief in the air that directly involves Jared Kushner, and,
indirectly or otherwise, Henry Kissinger.
The Art of The Dumb
To date, President Trump has made two critical decisions that, for many analysts, defied
logic and even common sense and were, in short, disastrous. The first involved the firing of
Michael Flynn less than a month after he was named national security adviser. The stated reason
for that decision was due to conversations Flynn had with former Russian Ambassador Sergey
Kislyak a month before Trump formally took office. However, Flynn was doing nothing more
'subversive' than attempting to tamp down Russia's understandable fury at being treated so
brusquely by the Obama administration.
In the tidal wave of Russophobia that swept through Washington following Hillary Clinton's
dramatic defeat, Barack Obama – after originally acknowledging the election to have been
fair – suddenly changed his tune. Apparently somebody had a talk with him, and on
December 29, based on the groundless claims of Russian tampering the elections, Obama expelled
35 Russian embassy staff, as well as imposing sanctions – all just days before the New
Year.
It was in the course of this dramatic diplomatic meltdown between the world's two nuclear
powers that Flynn and Kislyak spoke on the telephone on several occasions in an effort to
repair the damage (It should be noted that Jared Kushner also participated in an earlier
meeting at Trump Tower with Michael Flynn and Sergey Kislyak. The purpose of that meeting was
to "establish a line of communication" between the soon-to-be Trump administration and the
Kremlin, the White House told the New York Times). All things considered, it was the honorable
thing to do. Others, of course, saw things differently. Yet Flynn got the sack, while Kushner
continues in his post relatively unscathed.
When the wolves in the Democratic Party came a knocking, Trump probably thought he could
satisfy the Deep State, obviously hell-bent on sabotaging US-Russia relations, by sacrificing
Flynn like an easily disposable pawn. The maverick of Manhattan gambled wrong. Trump now
reportedly "
regrets " firing Flynn, who he says got a "very bad deal" from the media.
The second even more mysterious event involved the firing of James Comey, the FBI Director
who was in the process of investigating claims of collusion between Trump and Russia in the
course of the 2016 presidential election. It did not take a political genius to understand that
firing Comey while he was investigating claims of "Russian collusion" would only serve to
fortify that very myth – and worse, appear as an attempt at a Trump cover-up. The US
president, understandably at wits end over the ongoing witch-hunt, now seemed guilty of
attempting to 'disappear' the nosy Comey. What he got instead was just more barbarians at the
gate.
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, yet another dedicated Trump loyalist who
got served a pink slip,
told Charlie Rose in an interview that President Trump's decision to fire James Comey was
"the biggest mistake in modern political history."
So who gave Trump such horrible advice? Some reports point to Kushner.
According to a Vanity Fair
report , "Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of
Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller's appointment." That comment was allegedly
based on a phone call between Bannon and Trump. In another conversation, political analyst
Roger Stone supposedly told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, and Trump
agreed.
"Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history," former Trump
campaign aide Sam Nunberg told the magazine. "I'm only saying publicly what everyone says
behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress."
However, Nunberg's judgment is only true if we assume that Kushner is really dedicated to
faithfully serving Donald Trump, but is just awful at his job. Or, alternatively, if he is
instead accepting the demands and advice being given to him from people like Henry Kissinger,
representatives of the Deep State. In that case, it could be argued he is doing a remarkable
job.
Welcome back, Henry Kissinger
Keeping in mind Mark Twain's observation that "history does not repeat itself, but it does
rhyme," it was impossible to miss the historical coincidence of Kissinger appearing next to
Donald Trump in May shortly after the latter unceremoniously canned Comey. Why was it a
coincidence?
Because decades earlier, Henry Kissinger, while serving under Richard Nixon as National
Security Adviser and Secretary of State, played a major role in the so-called 'Saturday Night
Massacre,' which saw Nixon fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was attempting
to retrieve telephone recordings connected to the case.
What followed from that disastrous decision was Nixon being eventually forced to resign in
disgrace, a political calamity that some experts say could eventually happen to Trump if
'Russiagate' gets any more out of control.
"The unexpected firing of a high-profile investigator looking into potential political
malfeasance connected to the White House, followed by a visit by Henry Kissinger to the Oval
Office. No, this is not October 1973," began an ABC News
report detailing Kissinger's strangely timed invitation to the White House.
Trump said the meeting with Kissinger, now 93, focused on Russia, Syria and "various other
matters," calling Kissinger a "friend for a long time."
Coincidence or otherwise, Kissinger was one of Nixon's closest confidants and also met with
him after the Saturday Night Massacre.
"I don't think we can read too much into that, but it would be interesting if they were
consulting him on troubleshooting, in which case, Kissinger wouldn't be the first person I
would turn to," David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism and media studies at
Rutgers University in New Jersey, told ABC News.
In any case, if it really was Jared Kushner who advised Trump to dump both Flynn and Comey,
as many analysts suggest, then the sudden appearance of geopolitical guru Kissinger in the
White House shortly afterwards is peculiar to say the least.
1001 Arabian arrests
Just this month, we may have witnessed, albeit from second-hand accounts, Jared Kushner
taking his first steps as a Kissinger geopolitical protégé.
On November 3rd, Saudi Arabia placed a call to Lebanon's then Prime Minister Saad Hariri,
demanding that he pay a visit to Riyadh. Hariri wasted no time at all, reportedly flying to
Saudi Arabia without his regular staff. The next day, Hariri did something completely out of
the ordinary: In a televised appearance, from the Saudi capital, he announced that he was
resigning from his post as prime minister.
Western media greatly played down the fact that Hariri made his announcement on foreign
soil, not least of all Saudi soil, while giving extra attention to Hariri's explanation for his
sudden retirement: Iran and Hezbollah, which just helped Syria liberate itself from ISIS
terrorists.
"Wherever Iran settles, it sows discord, devastation and destruction, proven by its
interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries," he said in his prepared statement. He
also said he feared for his life.
That evening, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrested 11 Saudi princes, 4 government
officials and dozens of businessmen, while also claiming that Saudi Arabia had intercepted a
ballistic missile launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen. The blame for that unconfirmed event
naturally went to Iran as well.
Iran's Foreign Ministry said Hariri's resignation was a ploy to "create tension in Lebanon
and the region."
"Hariri's resignation was done with planning by Donald Trump, the president of America, and
Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the crown prince of Saudi Arabia,"
said Hussein Sheikh al-Islam, adviser to Iran's supreme leader.
However, Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took the blame game one step further,
pointing to Jared Kushner as the cause of the spectacle.
"Visits by Kushner & Lebanese PM led to [Saad] Hariri's bizarre resignation while
abroad," Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted
. "Of course, Iran is accused of interference."
Indeed, Kushner paid a visit to Saudi Arabia in October as part of a four-day trip that also
included stops in Israel, Jordan and Egypt.
The Washington Post
provided some scant details on Kushner's secretive meeting with MbS: "MBS is emboldened by
strong support from President Trump and his inner circle It was probably no accident that last
month, Jared Kushner, Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, made a personal visit to Riyadh.
The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories
and planning strategy."
Meanwhile, Israel's interest in what transpires between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon is also of
no small concern, given its wariness of Iranian moves in the region,
as noted by The Spectator : "The Jewish state is hardly a natural ally for Saudi Arabia,
but they have long shared a common enemy: Iran. Both fear the latter is exploiting the opening
created by the fall of Isis, and the triumph of the Assad regime in Syria, to dominate the
region "
The question, however, comes down to what role Jared Kushner has been playing in all of
this, and to what end? Is he loyally and dutifully serving the interests of Donald Trump, while
being groomed as the next Henry Kissinger, possibly eventually moving seamlessly between
consecutive administrations, as Kissinger did when he survived the downfall of Nixon and went
on to serve under Gerald Ford?
Or is Jared Kushner, despite being the son-in-law and top adviser of Donald Trump, heeding
the demands of a different master?
"... The man was remarkable at one specific thing: pleasing his bosses and single-minded self-promotion. Sure he lacked anything resembling empathy, saw his troops as little more than tools for personal advancement, and his overall personality disturbingly matched the clinical definition of sociopathy. Details, details ..."
It has taken me years to tell these stories. The emotional and moral wounds of the
Afghan War have just felt too recent, too raw.
After all, I could hardly write a thing
down about my Iraq War experience for nearly ten years, when, by accident, I churned out a
book
on
the subject. Now, as the American war in Afghanistan – hopefully – winds to something approaching a
close, it's finally time to impart some tales of the madness. In this new, recurring, semi-regular
series, the reader won't find many worn out sagas of heroism, brotherhood, and love of country. Not
that this author doesn't have such stories, of course. But one can find those sorts of tales in
countless books and numerous trite, platitudinal Hollywood yarns.
With that in mind, I propose to tell a number of very different sorts of stories –
profiles, so to speak, in absurdity.
That's what war is, at root, an exercise in
absurdity, and America's hopeless post-9/11 wars are stranger than most. My own 18-year long quest
to find some meaning in all the combat, to protect my troops from danger, push back against the
madness, and dissent from within the army proved Kafkaesque in the extreme.
Consider what
follows just a survey of that hopeless journey...
The man was remarkable at one specific thing: pleasing his bosses and single-minded
self-promotion.
Sure he lacked anything resembling empathy, saw his troops as little more
than tools for personal advancement, and his overall personality disturbingly matched the clinical
definition of sociopathy. Details, details
Still, you (almost) had to admire his drive, devotion, and dedication to the cause of
promotion, of rising through the military ranks.
Had he managed to channel that
astonishing energy, obsession even, to the pursuit of some good, the world might markedly have
improved. Which is, actually, a dirty little secret about the military, especially ground combat
units; that it tends to attract (and mold) a disturbing number of proud owners of such personality
disorders. The army then positively reinforces such toxic behavior by promoting these sorts of
individuals – who excel at mind-melding (brown-nosing, that is) with superiors – at
disproportionate rates. Such is life.
Only there are
real
consequences,
real
soldiers,
(to say nothing of local civilians) who suffer under their commanders' tyranny.
Back in 2011-12, the man served as my commander, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.
As such, he led – and partly
controlled the destinies of – some 500 odd soldiers
.
Then a lowly captain, I commanded about one-fifth of those men and answered directly to the
colonel.
I didn't much like the guy; hardly any of his officers did.
And he didn't
trust my aspirational intellectualism, proclivity to ask "why," or, well,
me
in general.
Still, he mostly found this author an effective middle manager. As such, I was a means to an end
for him – that being self-advancement and some positive measurable statistics for his annual
officer evaluation report (OER) from his own boss. Nonetheless, it was the army and you sure don't
choose your bosses.
So it was, early in my yearlong tour in the scrublands of rural Kandahar province, that
the colonel treated me to one his dog-and-pony-show visits.
Only this time he had some
unhappy news for me. The next day he, and the baker's dozen tag-alongs in his ubiquitous entourage,
wanted to walk the few treacherous miles to the most dangerous strongpoint in the entire
sub-district. It was occupied, needlessly, by one of my platoons in perpetuity and suffered under
constant siege by the local Taliban, too small to contest the area and too big to fly under the
radar, this – at one point the most attacked outpost in Afghanistan – base just provided an
American flag-toting target. I'd communicated as much to command early on, but to no avail. Can-do
US colonels with aspirations for general officer rank hardly
ever
give up territory to the
enemy – even if that's the strategically sound course.
Walking to the platoon strongpoint was dicey on even the best of days. The route between
our main outpost and the Alamo-like strongpoint was flooded with Taliban insurgents and provided
precious little cover or concealment for out patrols.
On my first jaunt to the outpost, I
(foolishly, it must be said) walked my unit into an ambush and was thrown over a small rock wall by
the blast of a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) with my apparent name on it. Since then, it was
standard for our patrols to the strongpoint to suffer multiple ambushes during the roundtrip
rotation. Sometimes our kids got wounded or killed; sometimes they were lucky. Mercifully, at
least, my intelligence section – led by my
friend
and
rebranded artillery lieutenant – did their homework and figured out that the chronically lazy local
Taliban didn't like to fight at night or wake up early, so patrols to the strongpoint that stepped
off before dawn had a fighting chance of avoiding the worst of ambush alley.
I hadn't wanted to take my colonel on a patrol to the outpost. His entourage was
needlessly large and, when added to my rotational platoon, presented an unwieldy and inviting
target for Taliban ambush.
Still I knew better than to argue the point with my
disturbingly confident and single-minded colonel. So I hedged. Yes, sir, we can take you along,
with one caveat:
we have to leave before dawn!
I proceeded to explain why, replete with
historical stats and examples, we could only (somewhat) safely avoid ambush if we did so.
That's when things went south.
The colonel insisted we leave at nine,
maybe even ten, in the morning, the absolute
peak
window for Taliban attack. This prima
donna reminded me that he couldn't possibly leave any earlier.
He had a "battle rhythm,"
after all, which included working out in the gym at his large, safe,
distant-from-the-roar-of-battle base each morning.
How could I expect him to alter that
predictable schedule over something as minor as protecting the lives and limbs of his own troopers?
He had "to set an example," he reminded me, by letting his soldiers on the base "see him in the
gym" each and every morning. Back then, silly me, I was actually surprised by the colonel's absurd
refusal; so much so that I pushed back, balked, tried to rationally press my point. To no avail.
What the man said next has haunted me ever since.
We would leave no
earlier than nine AM, according to his preference. My emotional pleas – begging really – was not
only for naught but insulted the colonel. Why? Because, as he imparted to me, for my own growth and
development he thought,
"Remember: lower caters to higher, Danny!"
That, he reminded me, was the way of the military world, the key to success and advancement. The
man even thought he was being helpful, advising me on how to achieve the success he'd achieved.
My heart sank forever, and never recovered.
The next day he was late. We didn't step off until nearly ten AM. The ambush, a massive
mix of RPG and machine gun fire, kicked off – as predicted – within sight of the main base. The
rest was history, and certainly could've been worse.
On other, less lucky, days it was.
But I remember this one profound moment. When the first rocket exploded above us, both the colonel
and I dove for limited cover behind a mound of rocks. I was terrified and exasperated. Just then we
locked eyes and I gazed into his proverbial soul. The man was incapable of fear. He wasn't scared,
or disturbed; he didn't care a bit about what was happening. That revelation was more terrifying
than the ongoing ambush and would alter my view of the world irreparably.
Which brings us to some of the discomfiting morals – if such things exist – of this
story.
American soldiers fight and die at the whims of career-obsessed officers as much they do
so at the behest of king and country.
Sometimes its their own leaders – as much as the
ostensible "enemy" – that tries to get them killed. The plentiful sociopaths running these wars at
the upper and even middle-management levels are often far less concerned with long-term, meaningful
"victory" in places like Afghanistan, than in crafting – on the backs of their soldiers sacrifices
– the
illusion
of progress, just enough measurable "success" in their one year tour to
warrant a stellar evaluation and, thus, the next promotion. Not all leaders are like this. I, for
one, once worked for a man for whom I – and all my peers – would run through walls for, a (then)
colonel that loved his hundreds of soldiers like they were his own children. But he was the
exception that proved the rule.
The madness, irrationality, and absurdity of my colonel was nothing less than a
microcosm of America's entire hopeless adventure in Afghanistan.
The war was never
rational, winnable, or meaningful. It was from the first, and will end as, an exercise in futility.
It was, and is, one grand patrol to my own unnecessary outpost, undertaken at the wrong time and
place. It was a collection of sociopaths and imbeciles – both Afghan and American – tilting at
windmills and ultimately dying for nothing at all. Yet the young men in the proverbial trenches
never flinched, never refused. They did their absurd duty because they were acculturated to the
military system, and because they were embarrassed not to.
The Major totally failed to mention
the Patriot Act and the removal of
US Constitutional rights from
Americans based on a false flag
attack that cold bloodily murdered
3,000 people and cost the taxpayers
over 10 trillion dollars.
Just to put it in perspective, the US has been in Afghanistan
for 18 years and has lost less than 3000 troops and just over
20000 wounded. The US was in Vietnam 20 years and loss nearly
60000 troops and 150000 wounded. This not to diminish the
misery of those that served in either war, but not really
comparable in scope.
You did what you had to do, Major. You were a good shabbos goy
for world financial oligarchy but now they don't need you any more
so go shoot heroin up your veins or jump off a ******* building,
but you dare not even so much as ask for a "thank you" from the
financial oligarchy!
"... It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception of the environment. ..."
"... literal medical necessity ..."
"... @humphrey ..."
"... My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs? ..."
Imagine if America had to answer for its war crimes
gjohnsit on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 5:25pm Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demonstrated what the term "ugly American" meant the
other day when he
bragged about his defeat of the International Criminal Court.
"Americanism means taking care of our own," said Pompeo.
"We stopped international courts from prosecuting our service members," Pompeo continued, adding that the potential probe "was
an outrage."
...
Pompeo confirmed earlier this year that the administration would revoke or deny visas for ICC personnel who try to investigate
or prosecute U.S. officials or key allies for potential war crimes. A month later, in April, the administration followed through
and revoked prosecutor Bensouda's visa for entry into the U.S.
Just because you defeated justice doesn't mean the crimes go away.
However, it does mean that there is no incentive to stop committing war crimes.
That brings us to today's news from Yemen .
The UK, US, France and Iran may be complicit in possible war crimes in Yemen over their support for parties to the conflict there,
UN experts say.
A new report warns the countries they could be held responsible for aiding or assisting the commission of violations.
The Western powers provide weapons and logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's government, while Iran backs
the Houthi rebels.
...
The UN says the four-year conflict has claimed the lives of at least 7,290 civilians and left 80% of the population - 24 million
people - in need of humanitarian assistance or protection, including 10 million who rely on food aid to survive.
Yemen has gotten a significant amount of much needed attention in recent years, but just across the Gulf of Aden another
humanitarian disaster of gigantic size is happening in
near total silence and obscurity.
"In the absence of humanitarian assistance, up to 2.1 million people across Somalia face severe hunger through December," the
UN warned, citing the 2019 Post-Gu report's conclusion that this would bring the total number of Somalis expected to be food insecure,
to 6.3 million by year's end.
1 million children are expected to be malnourished in Somalia by year's end.
The United States may have committed war crimes as it bombed al-Shabab militants in Somalia, a new report Amnesty International
alleges...
They found that the airstrikes killed farmers, women and an eight-year-old girl, whom the group assessed had no ties to al-Shabab.
"Due to the nature of the attacks, the U.S. government is violating international humanitarian law and these violations may
amount to war crimes," Hassan said.
While the United States has been bombing Somalia for more than a decade, the Trump administration has accelerated the attacks.
The insurgency there is fueled by
Somali rage over now decades-long American interference in their country.
Why Americans cannot bring themselves to care about Somalia is something I will never understand.
Meanwhile in Libya things have gone from
bad to worse .
"Unless action is taken in the near term, it is highly likely that the current conflict will escalate into full civil war," Guterres
said on Thursday in his latest report on the UN Support Mission in Libya.
AFRICOM says that a civil war would "give existing terrorist elements in Libya oxygen."
The leading instigator of the fighting is General Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar, after the defeat of the Libyan troops he was commanding in 1987, he offered his services to
the CIA
, which backed him for years as he awaited the opportunity to topple Muammar Gaddafi.
Is it really any surprise that
Trump loves him
?
An airstrike by Khalifa Haftar's forces hit a migrant detention center east of Tripoli yesterday and killed at least 44 people
and wounded up to 130. Haftar and his forces are mainly backed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and this airstrike is part
of the assault on the Libyan capital that Trump reportedly endorsed when it began. The Trump administration is now shielding Haftar
from condemnation by the Security Council by blocking the statement promoted by the U.K.
The
ICC plans to investigate these war crimes, but since the Trump Administration won't even allow a condemnation, and considering
how much Washington hates the ICC, i wouldn't count on this investigation going very far.
The idea that POMPEO is "outraged" is...well, he's a Nazi. So is anybody who thinks that way (lookin' at you, Dubya & Friends).
THEY ARE DETERMINED TO OBLITERATE THE ENTIRE 20TH CENTURY, THE CENTURY THAT MADE AMERICA GREAT PRECISELY BECAUSE, FOR A BRIEF
MOMENT IN TIME, IT CAST OFF AND STOOD AGAINST THAT VERY MENTALITY.
Men like him belong in their own torture-camps...or a short distance under them.
I've said it before, I'll say it again:
NUREMBERG II: JUDGMENT DAY.
It is what they most dread.
It is the least they deserve.
It is what the entire world - the American people most of all - NEEDS NOW. It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception
of the environment.
FIAT JUSTICIA, RUUAT CAELUM: "Let there be Justice, though the Heavens may fall".
I believe that Justice (REAL Justice, not just the way it's been redefined by some as "goodies for my clique"), delivered in
a timely, precise, and reliable manner, is nothing short of a literal medical necessity - and the truth is, Caelum IS
Ruuating PRECISELY BECAUSE there has been no Justicia.
Our war crimes go way back and they continue to today.
Unfortunately, the US is the 800 lb gorilla on the world stage and no one is willing or courageous enough to challenge that
gorilla.
thank you. i look forward to reading it more carefully later, especially your link on somalia. i remember bill clinton's hypocritical
R2P only too well.. which precious Somalian mineral was the hegemon really after?
In the book The Ugly American, the ugly guy was actually the good guy who understood and respected local culture; he was just
ugly and unsmooth. The "pretty" Americans were the villains. IIRC, it's been over 50 years. Might be worth re-reading.
Are we surprised? This is the Pax (or Bellus?) Americana. Since the USSR folded, the UN is toothless and GodGun$Gut$ dominates
the world with endless war -- or thinks it does; after all, one in six humans is Chinese.
My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall
for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs?
"... It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception of the environment. ..."
"... literal medical necessity ..."
"... @humphrey ..."
"... My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs? ..."
Imagine if America had to answer for its war crimes
gjohnsit on Thu, 09/05/2019 - 5:25pm Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demonstrated what the term "ugly American" meant the
other day when he
bragged about his defeat of the International Criminal Court.
"Americanism means taking care of our own," said Pompeo.
"We stopped international courts from prosecuting our service members," Pompeo continued, adding that the potential probe "was
an outrage."
...
Pompeo confirmed earlier this year that the administration would revoke or deny visas for ICC personnel who try to investigate
or prosecute U.S. officials or key allies for potential war crimes. A month later, in April, the administration followed through
and revoked prosecutor Bensouda's visa for entry into the U.S.
Just because you defeated justice doesn't mean the crimes go away.
However, it does mean that there is no incentive to stop committing war crimes.
That brings us to today's news from Yemen .
The UK, US, France and Iran may be complicit in possible war crimes in Yemen over their support for parties to the conflict there,
UN experts say.
A new report warns the countries they could be held responsible for aiding or assisting the commission of violations.
The Western powers provide weapons and logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's government, while Iran backs
the Houthi rebels.
...
The UN says the four-year conflict has claimed the lives of at least 7,290 civilians and left 80% of the population - 24 million
people - in need of humanitarian assistance or protection, including 10 million who rely on food aid to survive.
Yemen has gotten a significant amount of much needed attention in recent years, but just across the Gulf of Aden another
humanitarian disaster of gigantic size is happening in
near total silence and obscurity.
"In the absence of humanitarian assistance, up to 2.1 million people across Somalia face severe hunger through December," the
UN warned, citing the 2019 Post-Gu report's conclusion that this would bring the total number of Somalis expected to be food insecure,
to 6.3 million by year's end.
1 million children are expected to be malnourished in Somalia by year's end.
The United States may have committed war crimes as it bombed al-Shabab militants in Somalia, a new report Amnesty International
alleges...
They found that the airstrikes killed farmers, women and an eight-year-old girl, whom the group assessed had no ties to al-Shabab.
"Due to the nature of the attacks, the U.S. government is violating international humanitarian law and these violations may
amount to war crimes," Hassan said.
While the United States has been bombing Somalia for more than a decade, the Trump administration has accelerated the attacks.
The insurgency there is fueled by
Somali rage over now decades-long American interference in their country.
Why Americans cannot bring themselves to care about Somalia is something I will never understand.
Meanwhile in Libya things have gone from
bad to worse .
"Unless action is taken in the near term, it is highly likely that the current conflict will escalate into full civil war," Guterres
said on Thursday in his latest report on the UN Support Mission in Libya.
AFRICOM says that a civil war would "give existing terrorist elements in Libya oxygen."
The leading instigator of the fighting is General Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar, after the defeat of the Libyan troops he was commanding in 1987, he offered his services to
the CIA
, which backed him for years as he awaited the opportunity to topple Muammar Gaddafi.
Is it really any surprise that
Trump loves him
?
An airstrike by Khalifa Haftar's forces hit a migrant detention center east of Tripoli yesterday and killed at least 44 people
and wounded up to 130. Haftar and his forces are mainly backed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and this airstrike is part
of the assault on the Libyan capital that Trump reportedly endorsed when it began. The Trump administration is now shielding Haftar
from condemnation by the Security Council by blocking the statement promoted by the U.K.
The
ICC plans to investigate these war crimes, but since the Trump Administration won't even allow a condemnation, and considering
how much Washington hates the ICC, i wouldn't count on this investigation going very far.
The idea that POMPEO is "outraged" is...well, he's a Nazi. So is anybody who thinks that way (lookin' at you, Dubya & Friends).
THEY ARE DETERMINED TO OBLITERATE THE ENTIRE 20TH CENTURY, THE CENTURY THAT MADE AMERICA GREAT PRECISELY BECAUSE, FOR A BRIEF
MOMENT IN TIME, IT CAST OFF AND STOOD AGAINST THAT VERY MENTALITY.
Men like him belong in their own torture-camps...or a short distance under them.
I've said it before, I'll say it again:
NUREMBERG II: JUDGMENT DAY.
It is what they most dread.
It is the least they deserve.
It is what the entire world - the American people most of all - NEEDS NOW. It is what all people of knowledge and conscience must prioritize accomplishing over any and all other concerns with the exception
of the environment.
FIAT JUSTICIA, RUUAT CAELUM: "Let there be Justice, though the Heavens may fall".
I believe that Justice (REAL Justice, not just the way it's been redefined by some as "goodies for my clique"), delivered in
a timely, precise, and reliable manner, is nothing short of a literal medical necessity - and the truth is, Caelum IS
Ruuating PRECISELY BECAUSE there has been no Justicia.
Our war crimes go way back and they continue to today.
Unfortunately, the US is the 800 lb gorilla on the world stage and no one is willing or courageous enough to challenge that
gorilla.
thank you. i look forward to reading it more carefully later, especially your link on somalia. i remember bill clinton's hypocritical
R2P only too well.. which precious Somalian mineral was the hegemon really after?
In the book The Ugly American, the ugly guy was actually the good guy who understood and respected local culture; he was just
ugly and unsmooth. The "pretty" Americans were the villains. IIRC, it's been over 50 years. Might be worth re-reading.
Are we surprised? This is the Pax (or Bellus?) Americana. Since the USSR folded, the UN is toothless and GodGun$Gut$ dominates
the world with endless war -- or thinks it does; after all, one in six humans is Chinese.
My own take is that "America" is meaningless; world capital calls the shots. The US functions as a mercenary hiring hall
for the owners, ever since Iraq I. You think the owners will let anybody mess with their mercs?
I was just pointing out that the S-300 would be a waste of resources based on the
comparative effectiveness of the various Russian made missiles during the April 14th 2018
FUKUS attack on Syria. In this instance, of the 103 missiles launched, the Syrian missile
defense forces shot down 71 and the S-300 had the poorest kill ratio of the defensive
missiles fired and the Pantsier-S1/S2 had the highest kill ratio. As I remember the BUK-M2
systems came in a close second. Am I incorrect?
I recognized that I should have cited the UNZ.com articles rather than Zero Hedge after I
pressed send.
My understanding was that the combined Syrian/Russian defense system includes the
following launchers as of mid 2018. Perhaps it is not complete, in which case I would
appreciate any corrections.
I also understand that radar tracking systems are what really causes FUKUS to pause in
their tracks. Any comments on the Chinese quantum computing detection systems?
S-125 (SA-3) (Pechora-2M)
Syria has about 145 Pechora and 12 Pechora-2M each with four missiles per launcher. (628
launch ready missiles- range 32 km).
Same as was used by Yugoslav Army 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade to shoot down a F-117 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-125_Neva/Pechora
S-200 systems (SA-5) (upgraded)
Syria has two S-200 batteries consisting of 44 launchers at Kweires airport (range 350 km). A
Syrian S-200 missile was used to shoot down an Israeli F-16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-200_%28missile%29
Kvadrat (SA-6)
Syria has 195 2K12s systems with three missiles per launcher. (585 launch ready missiles
– range 22 km)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K12_Kub
Osa (SA-8)
Syria had 14 batteries consisting of 60 launchers with six short range missiles per launcher.
(360 launch ready missiles – range 15 km)) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K33_Osa
Tor-M2E (SA-15D)
Russia has installed both the land based systems (SA-9) and integrated them in their ships at
sea (SA-N-9). The launchers come with either 8 or 16 missiles with a range of 16 km
Syria has a number of the older Tor-M1(V) systems with 4-8 launch ready missiles –
range 12 km.
Iskander (SS-26)
Russia has at least one Iskander nuclear capable ballistic missile systems in Syria -range
400-500 km. These are ship killers along with the Zircon missiles to take out carriers. http://defense-update.com/20170106_iskander-in-syria.html
9K35 Strela-10 (SA-13)
Syria has 35 launchers – four missiles per launcher, reload time 3 minutes- range 5
km http://military.wikia.com/wiki/9K35_Strela-10
This discussion avoids comparing society in the mid-19th century and today. It really isn't that long ago. I've lived through
almost half of it. Except for officers most of the soldiers I served with were conscripted or enlisted because of the draft. In
a war your choices are limited. If they were in the march, driving wagons, armed to the teeth, they were soldiers; no matter how
they got there.
Today's volunteer Army most of the soldiers and contractors are there because they couldn't get a better job unless they are
adrenaline junkies or psychopaths. The current neoliberal economy purposefully exploits people and the environment to make a profit.
Today's soldiers aren't too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome. Perhaps, "warriors" isn't that much of a misnomer.
I'm willing to wager that Trump will order the US military to enter that war on the side
of Bibi.
IMO, Bibi knows Trump is weak to zionist & neocon instigated media hysteria. This will
be his "war president" moment. He'll have the full backing of Chuckie and Nancy and the rest
of the Congressional crew as AIPAC calls in their check. I recall well in the heat of the
Russia Collusion media hysteria when he ordered the missile strike in Syria how the media
were calling it his presidential moment.
I believe Bibi for his own domestic political reasons as well as knowing that Trump is a
fully bought and paid for Zionist asset has been probing what he can instigate that will
cause the US to do his work. My question to this committee of military experts is what will
this war look like? How will Syria and Iran respond, since both have an obligation to
Hezbollah? And what will Putin do with his forces in the middle of a war zone?
I wonder if the Israeli Government has decided that time is not on their side, leading to a
decision to act now?
The game changer for Israel would be the resolution of the Syrian civil war.
That would result in a battle hardened and capable SAA being free to operate along the
Southern border and on the flank of any Israeli incursion into Lebanon.
Then there is the possibility of Syria extending its air defense network to include
Lebanon.
Then there is the question of money to be made in reconstructing Syria, building transport
infrastructure for the Iran to Mediterranean leg of OBOR as well as perhaps other projects-
this economic activity increases the political power of Syria, Iran, Lebanon and China.
Is there any circumstance that you see where the US will not get militarily involved if
thousands are killed in Israel even if it is in response to an Israeli provocation?
It would seem that the pressure on any US president would be immense. Hezbollah after all
has been demonized for so long as an Islamic terrorist organization. The support for military
intervention here would be universal and bipartisan. And the ziocon media would be in full on
escalation propaganda mode showing images of Israeli kids in rubble and malevolent images of
the evil Nasrallah.
The likely only opposition voices would be Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan and Tulsi Gabbard and
they will be maligned quickly as irrelevant.
Universal means the majority across all geographies from the two coasts to the mid-west and
south. The people have been conditioned for decades that Hezbollah is a terrorist
organization.
The only way to judge a person is how they acted in the past under similar conditions.
Tulsi has shown courage of conviction in the past in opposing the very popular Obama's Syria
policy of supporting & arming Al Qaeda when it was not popular to do that and she's
paying for it by being labeled an Assad apologist among the establishment. And resigning from
the DNC to endorse Bernie.
Now of course you are entitled to your own opinion which doesn't have to be based on any
facts.
If the IDF general command has any say in the matter they are telling Bibi - DO NOT wage a
total war in Lebanon. The only way Israel can keep Hezballah defanged is to occupy most of
Lebanon - something the IDF and it reliance on reserve soldiers is NOT equiped to do except
for a very short time. Southern Lebanon is crisscrossed with hundreds of tunnels, an issue
where IAF saturation bombing proved to be ineffective. The IDF and their tanks were hit with
withering fire from the rear and IDF operational discipline broke down quickly. There is no
cohesion between the Professional soldiers in the IDF and the reservists and this makes large
scale operations very difficult. Among the professional IDF, you would be hard pressed to
find a single soldier who wants to fight Hezballah again.
I think Trump would gladly join Israel in a war in Lebanon and that would turn the tide in
Israel's favor temporarily. However, Hezballah would not give a moments peace to any Israeli
or U.S. soldier on the ground in Lebanon and the entire population of Lebanon would support
Hezballah to throw the invaders out of the country. It would be a bloody occupation for
however long it lasted.
One of my nephews is an F-16 pilot in the IAF and there is significant concerns about
Hezballah's limited air defense capabilities. Israeli intelligence on Hezballah's
capabililiies and location is very poor. The IAF has lost several planes in Syria in recent
years and are loath to fly over Lebanon proper. The usual tactic is for the IAF planes to fly
out to sea and fire missiles from there. Without good intelligence the IAF bombing runs
usually end up churning up a lot of dirt.
So the IDF has to penetrate the first line, which they barely managed the first time, then
they face a second line of prepared defenses? How much recent combat experience do they have?
If I recall correctly at least some of the Lebanese have served in Syria in one capacity or
another. It certainly wasn't West Bank occupation duty.
It seems as if Israel is ready to re-fight the last war, and Hezbollah has prepared for
the next. More importantly, if war is politics by other means, I see no clear Israeli
political objectives nor any indication as to why they think a do over of 2006 will lead to a
better outcome.
Absent contributing an occupation force for Lebanon, what would US contribute? Bombing
targets in Lebanon? Israel will have taken out all significant targets in a few days and long
term bombing changes little. I am sure Bolton is whispering in Trumps ear that Hezbollah will
surrender once the might of the US enters the fray.
Given this discussion, it throws a bit more weight on the side of the recent air strikes by
IAF in Iraq and Lebanon as an initial nibble, weighing responses from various parties in
order to adjust course.
I'm quite confident that there are enough munitions that are deliverable from unmanned
systems to waste Hizbulla's defenses.
The question to be weighed is whether Hizbullah can count on Israel's uncertainty as a
deterrent to a massive attack against Lebanon. The Samson effect cuts both ways if Iran jumps
in. Unless tptb decide to go with theatre-level weaponry, what is left of Israel even if Iran
and Lebanon are squashed?
Even more interesting, if Trump jumps in with his typically flaccid braggadocio, does his
action endanger Israel by falling short of the killer punch?
stumpy, If Israeli saturation bombing of Lebanon achieved nothing in 2006 (except defeat),
why exactly do you argue it will have an effect this time?
Moreover, there likely will be a highly complex EW environment, with which Israel has no
experience. Did you notice at all what happened to the US Tomahawk volley? Those missiles you
admire or worship (missiles - what a novel idea), without IDF on the ground for spotters and
to consolidate gains (and die) will push dirt.
Try and name ANY case where air power has been decisive politically without ground forces.
You cant for a reason.
"... But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental stagnation? ..."
"... You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're "how" thinkers not "if" thinkers. ..."
"... This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside. ..."
"... Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day against the forces of change in modern warfare ..."
"... "[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests." ..."
"... "By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says Macgregor. ..."
Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy
op-ed written by former secretary of defense James Mattis, his first public statement since
his resignation in December. The article is adopted from his forthcoming book, Call Sign
Chaos: Learning to Lead , out this week.
The former Pentagon chief opens a window into his decision making process, explaining that
accepting President Trump's nomination was part of his lifelong devotion to public service:
"When the president asks you to do something, you don't play Hamlet on the wall, wringing your
hands. So long as you are prepared, you say yes." Mattis's two years at DoD capped off 44 years
in the Marine Corps, where he gained a popular following as a tough and scholarly leader.
Mattis received widespread praise from the foreign policy establishment when he resigned in
protest over President Trump's directive for a full U.S. military withdrawal from Syria and a
partial withdrawal from Afghanistan. "When my concrete solutions and strategic advice,
especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite
the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution," he
writes.
But did Mattis really offer "concrete solutions and strategic advice" regarding America's
two decades of endless war? spoke with four military experts, all veterans, who painted a very
different picture of the man called "Mad Dog."
"I think over time, in General Mattis's case a little over 40 years, if you spend that many
years in an institution, it is extremely hard not to get institutionalized," says Gil
Barndollar, military fellow-in-residence at the Catholic University of America's Center for the
Study of Statesmanship. Barndollar served as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps and
deployed twice to Afghanistan. "In my experiences, there are not too many iconoclasts or really
outside-the-box people in the higher ranks of the U.S. military."
It's just that sort of institutionalized thinking that makes the political establishment
love Mattis. "[A] person with an institutional mind-set has a deep reverence for the
organization he has joined and how it was built by those who came before. He understands that
institutions pass down certain habits, practices and standards of excellence," wrote David
Brooks in a hagiographic New York Timescolumn .
But what happens when those "standards of excellence" lead to 20 years of fighting
unwinnable wars on the peripheries of the planet? When do habits and practices turn into mental
stagnation?
"The problem is, from at least the one-star the whole way through, for the last two decades,
you've seen them do nothing but just repeat the status quo over and over," observes Lieutenant
Colonel Daniel L. Davis, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, who served 21 years in the U.S.
Army and deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan. "I mean every single general that was in
charge of Afghanistan said almost the same boilerplate thing every time they came in (which was
nearly one a year). You see the same results, nothing changed."
"And if those guys took someone from a major to a two-star general, we'd probably have a lot
of better outcomes," he adds.
Major Danny Sjursen, who served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, agrees:
You know when it comes to generals, whether they're Marines, whether they're Army, whether
they're Mattis who's supposedly this "warrior monk," these guys talk tactics and then claim
it's strategy. What they consider to be strategic thinking really is just tactical thinking
on a broad scale . I think the biggest problem with all the four-star generals are they're
"how" thinkers not "if" thinkers.
Barndollar says: "The vast majority of military leaders, up to and including generals at the
three-, four-star level, are not operating at the strategic level, in terms of what that word
means in military doctrine. They're not operating at the level of massive nation-state
resources and alliances and things like that. They're at the operational level or often even at
the tactical level."
This inability of America's elites (including its generals) to grapple with strategic
concepts is a result of the United States' post-Cold War unipolar moment. When there's only one
superpower, geopolitics and the need for international balancing fall by the wayside.
The only component of national security policy Mattis discusses in his op-ed is America's
system of alliances, which he believes is the key to our preeminence on the world stage.
"Returning to a strategic stance that includes the interests of as many nations as we can make
common cause with, we can better deal with this imperfect world we occupy together," he
writes.
"Mattis, like virtually all of his four-star peers, is a reactionary, fighting every day
against the forces of change in modern warfare," counters Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who served
28 years in the U.S. Army. "He lives in denial of the technological breakthroughs that make the
World War II force structure (that he as SecDef insisted on funding) an expensive tribute to
the past."
Mattis muses that the Department of Defense "budget [is] larger than the GDPs of all but two
dozen countries." Yet having acknowledged that disparity, how can such underpowered foreign
nations possibly contribute to American security?
"He has that line in there about bringing as many guns as possible to a gun fight. What are
those guns?" asked Barndollar. For example, the British Royal Navy is the United States' most
significant allied naval force. But the United Kingdom has
only seven vessels stationed in the Persian Gulf and they're "stretched to the absolute
limit to do that."
"Our problem has been double-edged," says Davis of America's reliance on others. "On the one
hand, we try to bludgeon a lot of our allies to do what we want irrespective of their interests
as an asset. And then simultaneously, especially in previous administrations, we've almost gone
too far [in] the other direction: 'we'll subordinate our interests for yours.'"
"[W]hen you shave it all down, his problem with being the epitome of establishment
Washington is that he sees the alliance as the end, not as a means to an end," says Davis. "The
means should be to the end of improving American security and supporting our interests."
Sjursen says:
Mattis's view is the old Einstein adage: "doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting a different result is the definition of insanity." Well that's all he's proposed.
He has no new or creative solutions. For him, it's stay the course, more of the same, stay in
place, fight the terrorists, maintain the illegitimate and corrupt governments that we back.
That's what he's been talking about for 18 years. It's all the same interventionist dogma
that's failed us over and over again since September 12, 2001.
"In the two years he was in office, what did he do that changed anything? He was a caretaker
of the status quo. That's the bottom line," says Davis, adding, "you need somebody in that job
especially that is willing to take some chances and some risk and is willing to honestly look
at 18 consecutive years of failure and say, 'We're not doing that anymore. We're going to do
something different.' And that just never happened."
Barndollar is more generous in his estimation of Mattis: "He needs to be lauded for standing
for his principles, ultimately walking away when he decided he could no longer execute U.S.
national security policy. I give him all the credit for that, for doing it I think in a
relatively good manner, and for trying to do his best to stay above the fray and refuse to be
dragged in at a partisan level to this point."
Mattis ends his Wall Street Journal op-ed by recounting a vignette from the 2010
Battle of Marjah, where he spoke with two soldiers on the front lines and in good cheer. But
his story didn't sit well with Sjursen, who says it encapsulates Mattis' inability to ask the
bigger questions: "He never talks about how those charming soldiers with the can-do attitude
maybe shouldn't have been there at all. Maybe the mission that they were asked to do was
ill-informed, ill-advised, and potentially unwinnable."
All this suggests that a fair evaluation of Mattis is as a soldier who is intelligent but
unoriginal. A homegrown patriot, but one who'd like to plant the Stars and Stripes in Central
Asia forever. A public servant, but one who would rather resign than serve the cause of
restraint.
"By clinging to unsustainable military solutions from the distant past, he has condemned
future generations of soldiers and marines to repeat disasters like Pickett's Charge," says
Macgregor.
Hunter DeRensis is a reporter for The National Interest .Follow him on
Twitter@HunterDeRensis
.
When
"disinformation" is redefined
to include all potentially
polarizing stories that don't conform to the establishment narrative,
reality is
discarded as so much fake news and replaced with Pentagon-approved pablum
...
... ... ...
But
perhaps the worst part about all of this is that the government itself, including the
Pentagon, has an
extensive
history of running fake social media profiles to collect data on persons of interest
,
including through the NSA's JTRIG information-war program revealed in
the
Snowden documents.
Agents regularly deploy reputational attacks against dissidents using false
information. Fake identities are used to cajole unsuspecting individuals into collaborating in fake
FBI "terror" plots, a phenomenon which might once have been called entrapment but is merely business
as usual in the post-9/11 U.S.SA.
All of this begs the question: how will DARPA determine
the "intent" behind any meme or bit of information?
Will they punish journalists who push
fakes for the political establishment? Probably not. This is where the "impact" and "intent" fields
come in handy for them: fakes from "trusted sources" will be let through, while fakes and real stories
designed to "undermine key individuals and organizations" (dissent and those who seek freedom from the
political class) will be terminated before they have an impact on the thoughts of others.
When
"disinformation" is redefined to include all potentially polarizing stories that don't conform to the
establishment narrative, reality is discarded as so much fake news and replaced with Pentagon-approved
pablum.
The Soviets tried to police thought but it was an embarrassing
failure. What makes America think they can achieve better results?
Rather than risk the embarrassment of failure, perhaps the pentagon
should simply exterminate the human population and replace us with
robots programmed to consume and obey. Consume and obey. That's all
they want from us. And in refusing to do so, the people have failed
the ruling class.
The author should use the word "neoliberal" instead of "debauched"
Notable quotes:
"... When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control. ..."
"... In the political realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power. ..."
"... The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy? ..."
"... Class warfare tends to resonate most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives." In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution. ..."
"... Belligerent intervention is not nationalism! It is Neocon Texas - Harvard Redneckism ..."
"... I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy. Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler, Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it. ..."
"... The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the country out. ..."
"... We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families, we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us. ..."
"... It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment. ..."
"... The problem is that we are led by sociopaths. ..."
"... This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever). Get absolute power, get corrupted. ..."
"... I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters. Destroying historic value sets is part of this package. ..."
TAC are no doubt familiar with the truism that "politics is downstream of culture." This maxim, which is undoubtedly true,
should not, however, only be applied to social issues. In fact, culture shapes our public policy very broadly, far more than do dispassionate
"policymakers" exercising careful reason and judgment. The nature of our governance tends to reflect the cultural and philosophical
orientation of our elites, and this orientation is increasingly debauched.
When talking about politics, we should be careful not to define "debauched" too narrowly. While debauchery is typically associated
with over-indulgence of the sensual pleasures, a more fitting political definition is a general loss of self-control.
All the great religious and philosophical traditions understood that there is a part of our nature that can get out of control
and a divine part that can exert control. A culture thus becomes debauched when elites lose the sense that they need to rein themselves
in, that "there is an immortal essence presiding like a king over" their appetites, as Walter Lippmann put it. In the political
realm, debauchery is less characterized by the sensual vices than by an overzealous desire for power.
The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is all one needs to see that many elites are very debauched as regards social mores. Yet how
might a debauched culture be reflected in the realms of domestic and foreign policy?
Let's start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home? One might surmise, for example, that
their lack of self-control might cause them to spend federal money as a means of keeping themselves in power. They might also attempt
to bribe their constituents by promising a variety of domestic programs while also pledging that the programs will be funded out
of the pockets of others. If they were really debauched, they might even borrow money from future generations to pay for these incumbency
protection initiatives. They might run up staggering
debt for the sake of their expedient political needs and promise that "the rich" can provide for it all. In short, the hallmark
domestic policy of a debauched democracy is, and has always been, class warfare.
It should be pointed out that class warfare is not simply a creation of demagogues on the left. Class warfare tends to resonate
most broadly when the wealthy become self-indulgent and unworthy, and dissolute plutocracies are oft times defended by "conservatives."
In the terminal phase of a democracy, this can portend domestic revolution.
While most conservatives might agree about the dangers of class warfare, it is on the foreign policy front where they seem most
debauched themselves. They remain stuck in a vortex of GOP clichés, with standard references to Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill,
leaders who were closer in their time to the American Civil War than we are to them now. For many of these "conservatives," every
contemporary authoritarian leader is the progeny of Hitler and any attempt to establish cordial relations is a rerun of Munich 1938.
As with domestic policy, the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power
reflected in attempts to exert dominion over others with no particular nexus to the national interest. A debauched foreign policy
might just look like the decision to invade Iraq -- a war whose supporters offered numerous justifications, including alleged weapons
of mass destruction, democracy promotion, and anti-terrorism. Yet in hindsight, its real cause seems to have been the simple desire
by our leaders to impose their will. In a debauched democracy, class warfare is the paradigmatic domestic policy and profligate war
making is the paradigmatic foreign policy.
Given that self-control and restraint are the hallmarks of a genuinely conservative foreign policy -- because they remain humble
about what human nature can actually achieve -- one should receive the recent conference on
national conservatism with some
skepticism . The
retinue of experts who spoke generally espoused a foreign policy that sought dominion over others -- in other words, a continuation
of the belligerent interventionism that characterized the second Bush administration. This may be nationalism, but it seems not to
be conservatism.
One hopes that the leaders of this new movement will re-consider their foreign policy orientation as they have increasingly formidable
resources to draw upon. The creation of the Quincy Institute and the rise of
an intellectually formidable network of foreign policy "restrainers" provide hope.
Given that culture is king, however, these intellectuals may want to keep top of mind that restraint is not simply a policy option
but a character trait -- a virtue -- that needs to be developed in leaders who are then elevated. Prudent policies are no doubt essential
but the most important challenge in politics is, and always will be, attracting and encouraging the best leaders to rule. Our system
often does the opposite. This is at root a cultural problem.
William S. Smith is research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Catholic University
of America, and author of the new book
Democracy and Imperialism .
I'm not sure I agree with the author's thesis: that debauchery or gratuitous political leadership results in immoral foreign policy.
Were the highly-disciplined and self-sacrificing Japanese militarists who bombed Pearl Harbor and aligned with the Axis (Hitler,
Mussolini) guided by any more virtuous foreign policy than say, "debauched" Churchill and Roosevelt? I doubt it.
Moreover, has the author never heard of the concept "reasons of state"?: a purely political reason for action on the part of
a ruler or government, especially where a departure from openness, justice, or honesty is involved (e.g. "the king returned that
he had reasons of state for all he did"). In an existential emergency, would the leader of a nation be justified in using amoral
means to save his nation; but in all other circumstances should rely on conventional Christian morality as the default position?
This is what Pres. Truman apparently did when he dropped a-bombs on two Japanese cities. What Dietrich Bonhoeffer was apparently
involved with in the assassination attempt on Hitler. What Moses was embroiled with when he slayed 3,000 of his "debauched" followers
in the Exodus from Egypt.
The article lacks specifics on how America's leaders are debauched and how this debauchery influences foreign policy, other
than to say they are "unrestrained". But is non-restraint debauchery? Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was running a gratuitous
non-profit institute to shake down foreign rulers in return for promising political favors if elected. She was going to sell the
country out.
The opponent who beat her in the election promised the opposite and pretty much has delivered on his promises. Just
how is the current administration "unrestrained" other than he has not fulfilled pacifist's fantasies of pulling out of every
foreign country and conflict? Such pull outs have to be weighed on a case by case basis to determine the cost to human life and
world order. If the current administration has a policy it is that our allies have to fight and fund their own wars and conflicts
rather than rely on the U.S. to fight their wars for them.
The article is full of inflationary clichés ('politics is downstream of culture', 'class warfare', etc. And just how does the
author connect the dots between pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was elected to nothing and held no power over anyone, and our "debauched'
foreign policy? Correlation is not causation but there isn't even a correlation there.
The more one reads opinions of Intellectuals , and as anyone with half a brain knows, to never believe a Politician, I am always
reminded, after considerable research why I personally choose Realism . Realism is certainly not new and has some varied forms.
Realism re-surfaced leading up to and during WW 2.
"...the true sign of a debauched foreign policy is a loss of self-control and an excessive will to power reflected in attempts
to exert dominion over others"
I love this.
We stole Venezuela's assets in the U.S. and even denied their baseball players the ability to send money back to their families,
we really love them. We have an oil embargo on Syria and we are the only reason the Saudis are able to starve Yemen. None of these
countries have ever done anything to us but it feels good that we can do this and even get most of the world to support us.
This reminds me of a Nick Pemberton article when he wrote ...
"We still play the victim. And amazingly we believe it ... We believe we can take whatever we want. We believe that this world
does not contain differences to be negotiated, but foes to be defeated."
I could never get this out of my head.
It drives me crazy that devout Protestants in govt who believe that human nature is corrupt act as if they are standing in the
gap while being belligerent and never questioning their own judgment.
Trump the adulterer was the one who decided against bombing
because he did not have a taste for blood while the pious were eager for it.
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth."
-Matthew 5:5
"Meek" is the wrong word/translation. In the original Greek, the word is "preais" and it does not mean docile and submissive.
Rather the word means gentleness blended with restrained strength/power.
The passage should read, "Blessed are those who have swords and know how to use them but keep them sheathed: for they shall
inherit the Earth."
There is a simpler explanation of what has happened to the US. When it comes to human beings, the only thing you need to remember
is Lord Acton's dictum: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This current round of unprovoked aggression against small countries started when Clinton attacked Serbia even though he did
not have authorization from the UN. He did it because he could -- Russia had collapsed by then so they were powerless to prevent
NATO from attacking their ally. No one had the power to stop the hegemon so it was a short journey from the relative restraint
of George W. Bush to going beserk all over the world (of course in the name of stopping genocide, ecocide, insecticide or whatever).
Get absolute power, get corrupted.
The same thing is true domestically in the US. A small ethnic minority gave 50% and 25% of the money spent by the Democrats
and Republicans in the last presidential election. That gives them huge influence over the foreign policy of the country. Best
of all, no one else can question what is going on because classic tropes etc. Give a small group absolute power, get the swamp.
I think people like Epstein are state sponsored to use the warped values of the elites to gain political advantage for their masters.
Destroying historic value sets is part of this package.
The destruction of main core Christianity has not helped stem this tide
(subtle Happy Holidays, CE, BCE, etc.) . Brave women and men must arise and sewerize (drain the swamp) this mob of miscreants
defiling our belief system. .They have a right to exist but not dictate by subterfuge and fake news our values as they have been
doing.
Remove the OP pic of the Marines NOW, and fix the rest of your whine later.
This is America, we have no "betters" and our "gov't" has never, and will never, be comprised of anything other than our idiot
ay-whole neighbors who needed a job, whose sole job it is to govern the machinations of gov't and not us, as an un-self-governed
Society is otherwise un-governable.
And [due to human nature and physics (of which neither has or will change in the entire history of humanity)] sometimes you
have to go to war at the slightest of hints of provocation in order to achieve "illimitably sustainable conflict" of "Society"
[J.M. Thomas R., TERMS, 2012] not have to haphazardly fight minute to minute of every day.
“ If when Political objects are unimportant, motives weak, the excitement of forces small, a cautious commander tries
in all kinds of ways, without great crises and bloody solutions, to twist himself skillfully into peace through the characteristic
weakness of his enemy in the field and in the cabinet, we have no right to find fault with him, if the premise on which he
acts are well founded and justified by success;
still we must require him to remember that he only travels on forbidden tracks,
where the God of War may surprise him; that he ought always to keep his eye on the enemy, in order that he may not have to defend
himself with a dress rapier if the enemy takes up a sharp sword ”.
(Clausewitz, “On War” pg. 137)
Loosely paraphrased: " peaceable resolution to conflict is only effective, and should only be sought and relied upon, when
it is certain that the other party will never resort to arms, with the implication that that is never " [J.M.Thomas R., TERMS,
2012 Pg. 80]
Weakness is provocative don't provoke your enemies. Quit whining.
Let’s start with domestic policy. How would debauched elites govern a democracy at home?
Let's see. They'd likely repeatedly cut taxes on the wealthiest and on corporations and skyrocket deficits. They'd likely increase
military spending to insane levels to the benefit of the military industrial complex. They'd likely perform wide scale deregulation
on polluting industries. They'd ignore all inconvenient science, especially that which didn't support the fossil fuel industry.
They'd likely avoid meaningful action on a healthcare system that is more broken and expensive than any other OECD nation. Then
they'd look for targets, the "others", to bash and attack in attempt to hide the real world consequences of what they were doing.
Why would they do this? They do it for campaign contributions, "a means of keeping themselves in power."
I believe we are in the hands of:
The Demons of “Democracy”
The demons of “democracy” speak of “peace”
While their selling of weapons does not cease
Hypocrites from hell who posture on the world stage
When they should be in a gigantic prison cage
Evil reprobates in positions of power Anything that’s good they devour Destroying countries and families too This is the satanic work they do
Fancy titles are given to their names
Such is the state of a system insane
Madness and filth has become “normal”
Nobody speaks or asks: “Is it moral”?
Principals and ethics, they are of them, devoid Speaking of decency and truth has them annoyed Pimping for war is their diabolical expertise Killing and bombing is the forte of this demonic sleaze
Training and supporting terrorists, they do this as well
Will nobody arrest this treacherous crew from hell?
These people are devils and full of hypocrisy
We need to be freed from these, demons of “democracy”...
"... It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1 threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent accusation. ..."
"... Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the election? ..."
"... Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. ..."
"... Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began -- by whom, when, and why. ..."
"... Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? ..."
"... the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely culprits. ..."
"... First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.) ..."
"... At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy. ..."
It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic
allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then
president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016
presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1
threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent
accusation.
Even leaving aside the misperception
that Russia is the primary threat to America in world affairs, no aspect of this allegation has
turned out to be true, as should have been evident from the outset. Major aspects of the now
infamous Steele Dossier, on which much of the allegation was based, were themselves not merely
"unverified" but plainly implausible.
Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of
international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or
control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning
anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the
election? Nonetheless, the American mainstream media and other important elements of the
US political establishment relied on Steele's allegations for nearly three years, even
heroizing him -- and some still do, explicitly or implicitly.
Not surprisingly, former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of "collusion"
between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. No credible evidence has been produced that
Russia's "interference" affected the result of the 2016 presidential election in any
significant way. Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital
Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than
President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the
reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996.
Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political
life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for
Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed
people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began
-- by whom, when, and why.
Officially, at least in the FBI's version, its operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the
counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in mid-2016 was due to
suspicious remarks made to visitors by a young and lowly Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. This
too is not believable, as I pointed out previously .
Most of those visitors themselves had ties to Western intelligence agencies. That is, the young
Trump aide was being enticed, possibly entrapped, as part of a larger intelligence operation
against Trump. (Papadopoulos wasn't the only Trump associate targeted, Carter Page being
another.)
But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems
clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? A reflexive answer
might be because candidate Trump promised to "cooperate with Russia," to pursue a
pro-détente foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive,
advocacy by a would-be Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in
the 20th century had been initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and
Reagan.
So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful
reservation and so intrusively into American presidential politics? Investigations being
overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers -- or not. Barr has already
leveled procedural charges against James Comey, head of the FBI under President Obama and
briefly under President Trump, but the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having
initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a
president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and
Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely
culprits.
The FBI is no longer the fearsome organization it once was and thus not hard to investigate,
as Barr has already shown. The others, particularly the CIA, are a different matter, and Barr
has suggested they are resisting. To investigate them, particularly the CIA, it seems, he has
brought in a veteran prosecutor-investigator, John Durham.
Which raises other questions. Are Barr and Durham, whose own careers include associations
with US intelligence agencies, determined to uncover the truth about the origins of Russiagate?
And can they really do so fully, given the resistance already apparent? Even if so, will Barr
make public their findings, however damning of the intelligence agencies they may be, or will
he classify them? And if the latter, will President Trump use his authority to declassify the
findings as the 2020 presidential election approaches in order to discredit the role of Obama's
presidency and its would-be heirs?
Equally important perhaps, how will mainstream media treat the Barr-Durham investigation and
its findings? Having driven the Russiagate narrative for so long and so misleadingly -- and
with liberals perhaps finding themselves in the incongruous position of defending rogue
intelligence agencies -- will they credit or seek to discredit the findings?
It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal
investigators of Intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly
bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the
mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US
intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable,
and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.
There are also, however, the ongoing and upcoming Democratic presidential debates. First
and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not
about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in
Russiagate.)
At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked
about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would
do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host ofThe John Batchelor Show
. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are atTheNation.com .
Stephen
F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New
York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book
War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback
and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now
in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com .
Libya war was a pure oil grab. Pretexts always can be found.
Notable quotes:
"... Is intervention likely to impel more violence in the long term? Do policymakers actually know enough about the situation on the ground to make the "right" decisions? Is the American public willing to commit itself to years-long reconstruction efforts? Honest answers here may not sit well with idealism. In many instances, the most moral act is not to act at all. ..."
"... The most telling part of Power's career in government was that she served as ambassador to the U.N. at a time when the U.S. was enabling and supporting the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and as part of the administration she had nothing to say about the crimes being committed against Yemeni civilians by coalition forces with U.S. military assistance and weapons. ..."
"... As Bessner notes, she doesn't have much to say about the abuses of U.S. clients in her book. She has been eager to advocate for using force against hostile or pariah regimes when they commit atrocities, but when client states use American weapons to commit the same atrocities while enjoying full U.S. backing Power didn't so much as utter a protest. After she left government and Trump became president, Power criticized U.S. support for the war, but when she was in a position to challenge a monstrous policy from inside the administration she apparently said nothing. ..."
"... And no one with enough intellectual honesty to mention that she was among the greatest enablers of Yemenis' suffering yet before the said "Tyrant" (who might be a tyrant to anyone but her social class) entered the office. Profiles in cowardice, all of them. ..."
Daniel Bessner has written a very interesting
review of Sar's memoir, The Education of an Idealist . Here he focuses on her narrow thinking about "humanitarian" intervention:
If you accept Power's premises, then humanitarian intervention boils down to a purely philosophical inquiry: Is it right to
save lives if one has the capacity to do so? The answer, of course, is yes. The problem, though, is that intervention is not a
thought experiment; it takes place in a world of brutal realities. In particular, humanitarian forces confront radical uncertainty.
Is intervention likely to impel more violence in the long term? Do policymakers actually know enough about the situation on the
ground to make the "right" decisions? Is the American public willing to commit itself to years-long reconstruction efforts? Honest
answers here may not sit well with idealism. In many instances, the most moral act is not to act at all.
Can military intervention ever be humanitarian? It may be possible in theory, but as Bessner notes it doesn't work that way in
practice. "Humanitarian" interventionists want the wars they support to be judged by their intentions to save lives and not by the
results of ensuing chaos, instability, and violence. Taking sides in foreign conflicts inevitably means deciding that our government
should end the lives of some people that have done nothing to us because we have concluded that it is the right thing to do. That
takes for granted that our government has the right to act as judge and executioner in other people's wars simply because we have
the power to affect the outcome. When we think about "humanitarian" intervention this way, we can see that it is driven by the worst
kind of arrogant presumption. The first question we should ask is this: what gives us the authority to interfere in another country's
internal conflict? We should also ask ourselves what gives us the right to cast aside international law whenever we deem it necessary.
Isn't "humanitarian" intervention in practice little more than international armed vigilantism?
The Libyan war is one example of just such a "good" intervention that pretty clearly caused more harm than it prevented. It also
violated most of the requirements of the "responsibility to protect" doctrine that was invoked to justify it. Like more than a few
other die-hard Libyan war supporters, Power remains convinced that it was the right decision, because she doesn't ask the questions
that would force her to confront the harm that the intervention did to Libya and the surrounding region. Bessner comments:
Power never really asked these questions, because ultimately, as the historian Stephen Wertheim has argued, she considers humanitarian
intervention a categorical imperative (as long as it doesn't involve U.S. allies, of course).
That last qualification is an important one, and it gets at the heart of what is wrong with "humanitarian" interventionism in
the U.S. and the West. If a government is considered to be on "our" side, it can commit war crimes with impunity, devastate whole
countries, and starve tens of millions of people, and the most vocal "humanitarian" interventionists will usually have nothing to
say about it. I have remarked on several occasions that "humanitarian" interventionists just ignored the catastrophe in Yemen despite
the fact that it was the world's worst man-made humanitarian disaster, and it has only been in the last year or two that any of them
have spoken up about it now that it is Trump's policy.
The most telling part of Power's career in government was that she served as ambassador to the U.N. at a time when the U.S. was
enabling and supporting the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and as part of the administration she had nothing to say about the crimes
being committed against Yemeni civilians by coalition forces with U.S. military assistance and weapons.
As Bessner notes, she doesn't
have much to say about the abuses of U.S. clients in her book. She has been eager to advocate for using force against hostile or
pariah regimes when they commit atrocities, but when client states use American weapons to commit the same atrocities while enjoying
full U.S. backing Power didn't so much as utter a protest. After she left government and Trump became president, Power criticized
U.S. support for the war, but when she was in a position to challenge a monstrous policy from inside the administration she apparently
said nothing.
Bessner observes that railing against hostile and pariah states while letting clients off the hook makes no sense if the goal
is to minimize the harm to civilians:
Her approach does not make much sense from a pragmatic perspective either: U.S. officials have the highest likelihood of ending
human rights abuses in countries that depend on us; there is little point in spending political capital in a mostly quixotic attempt
to transform antagonists like North Korea.
Of course, it is much safer politically to denounce the states with which our government has no ties or influence, and it is much
easier to remain silent about the crimes of client states that have significant clout in Washington. The point here is not just that
Power failed her own test when she served in government, but that the impulse to intervene on "humanitarian" grounds amounts to agitating
for war against certain governments while giving U.S. clients a free pass to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with our
government's blessing.
There's yet one more reason to why she wasn't saying anything about Yemen when in office beside the one that it were her guys
who directed that war then. Perhaps less phony, but, I'd rather say, more tragic. It's much easier to criticize someone for neglecting
his duties than not to neglect those duties when you've got them yourself.
I almost see those lemmings on her Twitter chirping:
'Oh, you're so brave, you're standing up to the Terrible Orange Tyrant.' (Not that the "Tyrant" was even aware that she's standing
up to him).
And no one with enough intellectual honesty to mention that she was among the greatest enablers of Yemenis' suffering
yet before the said "Tyrant" (who might be a tyrant to anyone but her social class) entered the office. Profiles in cowardice,
all of them.
This discussion avoids comparing society in the mid-19th century and today. It really isn't that long ago. I've lived through
almost half of it. Except for officers most of the soldiers I served with were conscripted or enlisted because of the draft. In
a war your choices are limited. If they were in the march, driving wagons, armed to the teeth, they were soldiers; no matter how
they got there.
Today's volunteer Army most of the soldiers and contractors are there because they couldn't get a better job unless they are
adrenaline junkies or psychopaths. The current neoliberal economy purposefully exploits people and the environment to make a profit.
Today's soldiers aren't too different than the slave legions of ancient Rome. Perhaps, "warriors" isn't that much of a misnomer.
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Pat Buchanan continues to be one of the few publicly visible political analysts currently
active who dares to tell it like it is when it comes to Israel's power in America. His
article
last week "Will Israel's War Become America's War" as always gets to the heart of the
problem, i.e. that the completely contrived "special relationship" with Israel could easily
lead the United States into another totally unnecessary war or even a series of wars in the
Middle East.
Pat starts with "President Donald Trump, who canceled a missile strike on Iran after the
shoot-down of a U.S. Predator drone to avoid killing Iranians, may not want a war. But the same
cannot be said of Bibi Netanyahu." He observes that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing
re-election on September 17 th , and though most polls indicate that he will win,
the opposition to him is strong based on his personal corruption and his pandering to the
country's most extreme right-wing parties. So Bibi is concerned that he might lose and even go
to jail and there is nothing like a little war to make a leader look strong and righteous, so
he is lashing out at all his neighbors in hopes that one or more of them will be drawn into
what would be for Israel, given its massive military superiority, a manageable
confrontation.
Buchanan sums up Netanyahu's recent escalation, writing that on "Saturday, Israel launched a
night attack on a village south of Damascus to abort what Israel claims was a plot by Iran's
Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force Sunday, two Israeli drones crashed outside the media offices
of Hezbollah in Beirut. Israel then attacked a base camp of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine-General Command in north Lebanon. Monday, Israel admitted to a strike
on Iranian-backed militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq. And Israel does not deny
responsibility for last month's attacks on munitions dumps and bases of pro-Iran militias
[also] in Iraq. Israel has also confirmed that, during Syria's civil war, it conducted hundreds
of strikes against pro-Iranian militias and ammunition depots to prevent the transfer of
missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon."
So, Israel has staged literally hundreds of attacks against targets in Lebanon, Syria and
now Iraq while it is also at the same time shooting scores of unarmed demonstrators inside Gaza
every Friday. Netanyahu has also threatened both perennial foe Iran and the Houthi rebels in
Yemen. As the Jewish state is not at war with any of those countries it is engaging in war
crimes. Both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force are vowing
revenge.
Pat Buchanan goes on to make the case that Netanyahu is willy-nilly pulling the United
States into a situation from which there is no exit. Indeed, one might well conclude that the
trap has already been sprung as the Trump Administration is reflexively blaming Israel's
actions on Iran. The Jewish state's escalation produced a telephone call to Bibi by American
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promising that the United States would unconditionally support
Israel. Vice President Mike Pence
also joined in , boasting of a "great conversation" with Netanyahu and tweeting that "The
United State fully supports Israel's right to defend itself from imminent threats. Under
President @realDonaldTrump, America will always stand with Israel!"
So, if a war in the Middle East does begin one can count on a number of developments in
Washington, all of which favor Netanyahu. As Pompeo and Pence have made clear, the Trump
Administration already accepts that whatever Israel does is fully justified and there are even
reports that the White House will endorse Israeli
annexation of all the illegal settlements on the West Bank at some point either before
or
immediately after the upcoming Knesset election to help Bibi. And don't look for any
dissent from even the most extreme views developing inside the White House or the State
Department. The president has completely surrendered to the Israel Lobby while National
Security Adviser John Bolton, Pence and Pompeo are all outspoken supporters of war with Iran.
And nearly all the important government posts dealing with the Middle East are staffed by
Jewish Zionists, to include the president's son-in-law and two Donald Trump lawyers. The most
recent addition to that sorry line-up is Peter Berkowitz, who has been appointed head of the
Policy Planning Staff at State. Berkowitz studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is
co-founder and director of
the "Israel Program on Constitutional Government."
And Congress would also be singing the "amen" chorus in support of U.S. intervention to help
the country it has ridiculously but nevertheless repeatedly described as America's "best friend
and closest ally." The occupied mainstream media would echo that line, as would the millions of
Christian Zionists and every one of the more than 600 American Jewish organizations that in one
way, shape or form support Israel.
Buchanan warns that the U.S. could find itself in real trouble, particularly given the
attacks on Iraq, where Washington still has 5,000 troops, hugely outnumbered by the local
pro-Iranian militias. And American aircraft carriers could find themselves vulnerable if they
dare to enter the Straits of Hormuz or Persian Gulf, where they would be in range of the
Iranian batteries of anti-ship missiles. He concludes that a war for Israel that goes badly
could cost Trump the election in 2020, asking " have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation
should ever cede to another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their
choosing but not of ours?"
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected] .
The president has completely surrendered to the Israel Lobby while National Security
Adviser John Bolton
To be fair, Trump never promised to curb Israeli aggression during his campaign. He promised
to back them and that's what he's doing. So this suggestion that "he's letting us all down"
is just silly. Now, on other stuff, yeah, you can make a case. And let's be real, if Jeb Bush
or Bernie Sanders or Hillary were in office they'd be backing "our ally in the Middle East"
too.
@Lot Iran was invited by
Syrian legit gov. Lebanon was prevented from total rout by Hezbollah from the actions of the
evil Zionist .Hezbollah sought and received help to confront evil Zionist. Who ever asked the
Jews to show up in ME anywhere in the ME? Who? Yemen is a war that ahs been fought by Houthis
. Houthis has been there for centuries They are fighting a war instigated by Israeli vassal
Saudi . Iraq has been turned into dust by Jew run USA attack It is slowly coming to life.
Now don't read the script from the middle Start from the beginning . Start from the
beginning ad be ready for the end . End will not be written by devious Jewish country .
"'But there is an even more important reason to give two cheers for Israel and to think of
it, despite its excesses, as exemplary: Israel is nationalist."'
Maybe McConnell is paid to praise Israel or maybe he just your typical simple minded
tunnel vision conservative. I gotta say my kind of conservative values, or maybe they should
be called traditional values will likely stay the same but what wont stay the same is my
voting for any of these conservative stupids.
I'm a registered Independent voter independent because I believed Americans should be
independent of 'political parties' and not follow them like sheep, but vote for the closest
thing they can get to a candidate of good character, some brains and a sense of fairness for
the people. I voted for the actual America first GOP presidents, the elder Bush I and Nixon,
otoh I also voted for the Dem America first presidents Kennedy and Carter.
Independent voters like myself make up 37% of registered voters in the US .that makes both
the dems and repubs 'minority parties' ..neither of them can win without us.
Independent voters got to be independent because they paid more attention to the big picture
and issues in politics overall than the followers of the parties .most of them are more
'traditional', including objecting to US entanglement with foreign nations. .the exact
opposite of current GOP conservatism.
So it is absolute nitwittery to try and attract traditional voters by championing Israel as a
model for US nationalism. Israel gives nationalism a bad name. It is asking us to step in a
pile of steaming cow shit to pattern the US after Israel.
A lot of these Israeli provocations are, as noted, Netanyahu electioneering. Hence, they are
likely to stop or be diminished (the Gaza border massacres excepted) if Bibi either wins the
election and can form a new government or loses and is driven from power with the opposition
forming a new government. Worst case scenario is a continuation of the present situation with
Bibi unable to form a government and having to fight yet another election. This would result
in still further Israeli escalation until finally Iran or Hezbollah retaliates and the US is
dragged in. Or he might just formally annex the West Bank and drive out the Palestinians to
the applause of Trump and his supporters.
There are other dangers as well, especially the collapse of Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a
result of their defeat in Yemen. The US is sending 5,000 troops to SA just in time to defend
the House of Saud from a possible overthrow or to fight on behalf of one part of that
sociopathic family against another part.
"President Donald Trump, who canceled a missile strike on Iran after the shoot-down of a
U.S. Predator drone to avoid killing Iranians, may not want a war. But the same cannot be
said of Bibi Netanyahu." He observes that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing
re-election on September 17th, and though most polls indicate that he will win, the
opposition to him is strong based on his personal corruption and his pandering to the
country's most extreme right-wing parties. So Bibi is concerned that he might lose and even
go to jail and there is nothing like a little war to make a leader look strong and
righteous, so he is lashing out at all his neighbors in hopes that one or more of them will
be drawn into what would be for Israel, given its massive military superiority, a
manageable confrontation.
It's a good analysis, but a little different to the subjugation of US interests to Israeli
ones that is normally talked about inasmuch Netanyahu personal advantage is the key factor. I
don't think many people in Israel would approve of Netanyahu doing something so obvious as
getting Israel into an inconclusive war just before an election. Especially as the war is one
that might bring the US in but would be unlikely to motive the US to destroy the Iranian
regime, wiche had time to make their facilities (nuclear) too duplicated and dispersed for
airstrikes to work.
The Palestinians are the ones Israelis are happy to get tough with, even the supposedly
leftist Ehud Barak has said the Palestinians of Gaza must be deterred more. Talk of war with
Iran is just that, it really is, unless they do something stupid.
For Israel, getting the US to totally crush Iran would be great, but that will require
America to be provoked by Iran, which is something they are loath to do. Iran is not going to
fight a war they cannot possibly hope to win if they can help it, and they have said there
will not be one. I don't think Bolton is any influence on Trump, and Pompeo is a
never-Trumper turned Trump boot licker rather that a force in the administration in his own
right.
He concludes that a war for Israel that goes badly could cost Trump the election in
2020, asking " have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to another,
even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not of
ours?"
Trump never loses sight of his own self interest. A war before the Israeli election is not
going to help Trump win reelection, and he did say recently he was open to talks with Iran,
which left a distraught Netanyahu unsuccessfully trying to get through to Trump and gave Ehud
Barack one of his few opportunities to criticise the utility for Israel of Netanyahu's
relationship with Trump.
"... As for the Israelis, they don't want the man who thinks he might be "King of Israel" talking to the Hitlerite Persians. They suddenly sprayed Iran's local Middle East proxies with drone-fired rockets – in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – just in case the wretched, financially broken and inflation-doomed Iranians were tempted to chat to the crackpot in the White House. But the Israelis wasted their ammunition. Rouhani is not mad. America has to drop its sanctions against Iran if Trump wants to talk, he said. ..."
"... And when Rouhani made it clear that he was not interested in "photo-ops" – an obvious allusion to the pictures of Trump and Little Rocket Man – what did the po-faced Washington Post ..."
"... Indeed, had Ahmadinejad's further political ambitions not been firmly crushed by his country's "supreme leader", Ayatollah Khamenei, we might just have witnessed a meeting between two of the world's leading political nutcases. Ahmadinejad, it may be recalled, was the Iranian who claimed that a holy cloud was suspended over his head for 20 minutes when he addressed the United Nations in New York. Now that is a phenomenon which Trump may also have experienced – although at least he had the good sense not to tell us of it. ..."
"... In the first eight months after Rouhani became president in 2013, the Iranian state hanged at least 537 people. In January of 2014, he had, according to a report in the Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat ..."
"... When the shah of Iran wanted to acquire nuclear technology in 1974, according to documents in the US National Security Archive, he said that Iran had an "inalienable right" to the nuclear cycle and that it would not accept obligations "dictated by the nuclear-have nations". ..."
"... In theory, what Macron is trying to do, if Le Monde ..."
"... But what Macron is really doing – which is what almost every EU leader is doing – is trying to preserve the peace of the Middle East long enough for the Americans to elect a serious, intelligent, boring and moderately honest political leader to replace the mentally unbalanced and very dangerous current holder of the highest office in the US. ..."
"... Robert Fisk writes for the Independent , where this column originally appeared. ..."
History in the Middle East is unkind to us westerners. Just when we thought we were the good
guys and the Iranians were the bad guys, here comes the ghostly, hopeless possibility of a
Trump-Rouhani summit to remind us that the apparent lunatic is the US president and the
rational, sane leader who is supposed to talk to him is the president of the Islamic Republic
of Iran . All these
shenanigans are fantasy, of course – like the "imminent" war between America and Iran
– of which more later.
As for the Israelis, they don't want the man who thinks he might be "King of Israel"
talking to the Hitlerite Persians. They suddenly sprayed Iran's local Middle East proxies with
drone-fired rockets – in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – just in case the wretched,
financially broken and inflation-doomed Iranians were tempted to chat to the crackpot in the
White House. But the Israelis wasted their ammunition. Rouhani is not mad. America has to drop
its sanctions against Iran if Trump wants to talk, he said.
It still amazes me that we have to take all this stuff at face value. No sooner had Trump
waffled on about Rouhani being "the great negotiator" than we saw all the White House
correspondents dutifully taking this nonsense down in their notebooks – as if the
American president was presidential, as if the old dream-bag was real, as if what he was saying
had the slightest bearing on reality.
And when Rouhani made it clear that he was not interested in "photo-ops" – an
obvious allusion to the pictures of Trump and Little Rocket Man – what did the po-faced
Washington Post tell us in its subsequent report? Why, that Rouhani had "dashed hopes
of a potential meeting with his US counterpart". Ye Gods! What "hopes" do they still have in
their homegrown crackpot president after these two and a half years of his threats and lies and
racism? Have they learned nothing?
It's as if – for the American media – Trump is unhinged in Washington but a
Kissinger the moment he lands in Biarritz (or London or Riyadh or Panmunjom or a Scottish golf
course, or perhaps, one day, Greenland). And Rouhani – who may be a "great negotiator"
but is also a very ruthless man – is therefore supposed to play the role of Iran's
previous president, the raving, crazed, Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Indeed, had Ahmadinejad's further political ambitions not been firmly crushed by his
country's "supreme leader", Ayatollah Khamenei, we might just have witnessed a meeting between
two of the world's leading political nutcases. Ahmadinejad, it may be recalled, was the Iranian
who claimed that a holy cloud was suspended over his head for 20 minutes when he addressed the
United Nations in New York. Now that is a phenomenon which Trump may also have experienced
– although at least he had the good sense not to tell us of it.
Ahmadinejad, you may also remember, was the president whose claim to have won the 2009
presidential elections brought millions of protestors onto the streets of Iranian cities until
they were brutalised and imprisoned into submission. His cheeky smile, chipmunk eyes and
Spanish armada beard could not persuade Iranians that the "alternative facts" of his
presidential victory were real.
Everyone knew that Ahmadinejad would never be given a finger on any nuclear button –
many doubted if he knew the difference between nuclear physics and electricity – but he
provided at the time a hate figure to rival Gaddafi or any other of the ravers of the Middle
East.
But now Trump wears Ahmadinejad's international mantle of insanity and the Iranian
presidential seat is today held by a far more pragmatic individual. For let's not be romantic
about Hassan
Rouhani . Back in 1999, when he was a humble deputy chief of Iran's Supreme National
Security Council, Rouhani condemned pro-democracy demonstrators as " muhareb " and "
mofsad " (corrupt on earth) – opponents of the Islamic Republic, whose
punishment would be death.
In the first eight months after Rouhani became president in 2013, the Iranian state
hanged at least 537 people. In January of 2014, he had, according to a report in the Arabic
daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat , visited Ahwaz to deal with "a number of sensitive files"
left untouched by Ahmadinejad. These included Hashem Shaabani and Hadi Rashedi – both
human rights activists in the minority Arab community in southwest Iran – who had been
condemned to death for "waging war on God", "spreading corruption on earth" and "questioning
the principle of velayat-e faqih" (guardianship of the jurist).
Shaabani's poetry, in both Persian and Arabic, was famous; he was a founder of an institute
which encouraged Arabic literature and culture among Iranians. Rouhani signed off on the
executions; Shaabani and Rashedi were hanged in a still-unidentified prison.
But it is Rouhani's negotiating skill which has apparently impressed Trump, who also has
little time for minorities. And when you recall that one of Trump's Republican predecessors in
the White House, Ronald Reagan, arranged for the Israelis to deliver missiles to Iran in 1985
in return for the release of US hostages in Beirut, you can see why Trump might think it
strange that Rouhani would turn down a meeting with him. After all, during the Iran-Contra
affair the then Iranian speaker of parliament, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was deeply involved in
the enterprise.
But even if Rouhani was fool enough to flirt with Trump's offer – which he was not
– his fate would have been similar to the poet Shaabani's if he had dared to talk to the
US president without the full restoration of the nuclear treaty.
It doesn't take much spreading of "corruption on earth" in Iran – let alone disavowing
the views of the Supreme Leader Khamanei – to catapult a learned cleric into prison.
Having learned from his foreign minister in Biarritz what the American deal was supposed to be,
Rouhani wisely did not touch it. The US had broken the nuclear treaty and reimposed sanctions
– so Trump would have to rejoin the treaty signatories and lift sanctions for any hope of
a meeting with the president of the Islamic Republic.
Of course, the Iranians will no more go to war with America than America will go to war with
Iran. We all know that – except for those who blast us all with "brink-of-war" scenarios
in the Gulf. We've been through Iranian ship-minings in 1987 without declarations of war.
Besides, what's so new about an Iran insisting on its "sovereign" right to peaceful nuclear
power?
When the shah of Iran wanted to acquire nuclear technology in 1974, according to
documents in the US National Security Archive, he said that Iran had an "inalienable right" to
the nuclear cycle and that it would not accept obligations "dictated by the nuclear-have
nations".
Which is pretty much what Iran did accept in the nuclear agreement which Trump tore
up on behalf of the United States. And I still have a clipping from The Times of
November 1972, in which my then colleague David Housego was reporting from Tehran that the shah
had declared that Iran's defensive frontiers extended beyond the Persian Gulf into the Indian
Ocean!
In five years, the shah calculated, his arms build-up would make Iran the largest military
power in the Middle East. The shah ruled with torture and executions, was crazed about the
dangers of communism, and power-mad to the extent of celebrating his empire's rule in 1971 with
what he called "the biggest party on earth" in the ruins of Persepolis. How Trump would love to
have been there.
Well, Macron may be able to turn himself into the "Great G7 Intermediary", although all
others who have tangled with Iran have been brought low by the experience. Think poor old Jimmy
Carter, destroyed by the hostage-takers at the US embassy in Tehran. Think Reagan, almost
brought low by Irangate. Think Colonel Oliver North. Or envoy Robert McFarlane. Or Terry Waite.
Or Barack Obama, for that matter, his Iranian policy torn up by Trump.
In theory, what Macron is trying to do, if Le Monde has got it right, is
persuade Trump to allow Iran's principal petroleum importers to continue buying oil from the
Islamic Republic. This includes Turkey, China, Japan, India and South Korea. In return, Iran
would itself return to the original nuclear agreement. That's the message Macron sent back to
Tehran with Iran's foreign minister, who airbussed into Biarritz for his briefest of meetings
with the French president.
But what Macron is really doing – which is what almost every EU leader is doing
– is trying to preserve the peace of the Middle East long enough for the Americans to
elect a serious, intelligent, boring and moderately honest political leader to replace the
mentally unbalanced and very dangerous current holder of the highest office in the US.
Well, good luck to the Americans. For at present, they are confronting not the lunatic rogue
state which Messers Bolton and Pompeo have nightmared up for Trump, but a nation governed by
bravely defiant, ruthless, and – yes – devious men. For Iranians understand America
far better than Americans will ever understand Iran.
The USA centered global neoliberal empire falls from grace at alarming speed.
Just the discussion of this possibility would be unthinkable in 90th -- the period of triumphal advance of neoliberalism all over
the globe. So thinks did change although it is unclear what is that direction of the social change -- neo-fascism or some kind of return
to the New Del Capitalism (if so who will replace previous, forged by Great Depression political alignment between trade unions and
management against the financial oligarchy, which financial oligarchy managed to broke using neoliberalism as the Trojan horse and bribing
CEOs)
Om a was original fascist movements were also a protest against the rule of financial oligarchy. Even anti-Semitism in Germany was
a kind of perverted protest against financial oligarchy as well. They were quickly subverted and in Germany anti-Semitism degenerated
into irrational hatred and genocide, , but the fact remains. Just looks at
NSDAP program of 1920 . Now we have somewhat
similar sentiments with Wexner and Meta group in the USA. To say that they do not invoke any sympathy is an understatement.
The problem with empires that they do not only rob the "other people". They rob their own people as well, and rob them hard. The
USSR people were really robbed by Soviet military industrial complex and Soviet globalist -- to the far greater extent then the USA
people now. People were really as poor as church rats. Epidemic of alcoholism in the USA resembles the epidemic of narcoaddtion in the
USA --- both are signs of desire then there is no jobs and now chances.
Like the collapse of the USSR was the result of the collapse of bolshevism, the collapse of the USA can be the result of the collapse
of neoliberalism. Whether it will take 10 or 50 years is unclear, but the general tendency is down.
The competitors has grown much strong now and they want their place under then sub. That means squeezing the USA. Trump did agrat
job in alientaing the US and that was probably the most important step is dismantling the USA empire that was taken. Add to that trade
war with China and we have the situation that is not favorable to the USA politically in two important parts of the globe.
Add to this Brexit and we have clear tendency of states to reassert their sovereignty, which start hurting the USA based multinationals.
The only things that work in favor of the USA is that currently there is no clear alternative to neoliberalism other then some kind
of restoration of the New Deal capitalism or neo-fasist dictatorship.
Notable quotes:
"... Self-discipline, self sacrifice and self restraint are the prices which must be paid for a civilization to survive, much less flourish, and Americans are increasingly unwilling to pay up. The America of a generation or two down the road will have the social cohesion of El Salvador. ..."
"... Being that history is always written by the tyrant of the time (which in our case was definitely behind the two last empires and a big player in Rome as and Spain as well) people are also led to believe that empire is a desireable state of cicumstance. It never was. Its the ambitions and conquistador actions of the collective psychopath. They feed on the strength of civilizations and utilize it for megalomaniac ambitions over power of others and power over everything. ..."
"... Those of you hoping for the end of American Empire need to think about what would replace it. ..."
"... You are completely delusional. The world is not better off under American stewardship. We don't need and shouldn't want anything to replace it. We don't need and shouldn't want any empire ruling the world. We would be better off without any state at all, so we could finally be free people. ..."
"... And no it probably wouldn't be better off under the Chinese. Although if the world stopped respecting American IP law, that would be a huge positive step forward. ..."
Years ago, Doug Casey mentioned in a correspondence to me, "Empires fall from grace with alarming speed."
Every now and then, you receive a comment that, although it may have been stated casually, has a lasting effect, as it offers
uncommon insight. For me, this was one of those and it's one that I've kept handy at my desk since that time, as a reminder.
I'm from a British family, one that left the UK just as the British Empire was about to begin its decline. They expatriated to
the "New World" to seek promise for the future.
As I've spent most of my life centred in a British colony – the Cayman Islands – I've had the opportunity to observe many British
contract professionals who left the UK seeking advancement, which they almost invariably find in Cayman. Curiously, though, most
returned to the UK after a contract or two, in the belief that the UK would bounce back from its decline, and they wanted to be on
board when Britain "came back."
This, of course, never happened. The US replaced the UK as the world's foremost empire, and although the UK has had its ups and
downs over the ensuing decades, it hasn't returned to its former glory.
And it never will.
If we observe the empires of the world that have existed over the millennia, we see a consistent history of collapse without renewal.
Whether we're looking at the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, or any other that's existed at one time, history
is remarkably consistent: The decline and fall of any empire never reverses itself; nor does the empire return, once it's fallen.
But of what importance is this to us today?
Well, today, the US is the world's undisputed leading empire and most Americans would agree that, whilst it's going through a
bad patch, it will bounce back and might even be better than ever.
Not so, I'm afraid. All empires follow the same cycle. They begin with a population that has a strong work ethic and is self-reliant.
Those people organize to form a nation of great strength, based upon high productivity.
This leads to expansion, generally based upon world trade. At some point, this gives rise to leaders who seek, not to work in
partnership with other nations, but to dominate them, and of course, this is when a great nation becomes an empire. The US began
this stage under the flamboyant and aggressive Teddy Roosevelt.
The twentieth century was the American century and the US went from victory to victory, expanding its power.
But the decline began in the 1960s, when the US started to pursue unwinnable wars, began the destruction of its currency and began
to expand its government into an all-powerful body.
Still, this process tends to be protracted and the overall decline often takes decades.
So, how does that square with the quote, "Empires fall from grace with alarming speed"?
Well, the preparation for the fall can often be seen for a generation or more, but the actual fall tends to occur quite rapidly.
What happens is very similar to what happens with a schoolyard bully.
The bully has a slow rise, based upon his strength and aggressive tendency. After a number of successful fights, he becomes
first revered, then feared. He then takes on several toadies who lack his abilities but want some of the spoils, so they do his
bidding, acting in a threatening manner to other schoolboys.
The bully then becomes hated. No one tells him so, but the other kids secretly dream of his defeat, hopefully in a shameful
manner.
Then, at some point, some boy who has a measure of strength and the requisite determination has had enough and takes on the
bully.
If he defeats him, a curious thing happens. The toadies suddenly realise that the jig is up and they head for the hills, knowing
that their source of power is gone.
Also, once the defeated bully is down, all the anger, fear and hatred that his schoolmates felt for him come out, and they
take great pleasure in his defeat.
And this, in a nutshell, is what happens with empires.
A nation that comes to the rescue in times of genuine need (such as the two World Wars) is revered. But once that nation morphs
into a bully that uses any excuse to invade countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, its allies may continue to bow
to it but secretly fear it and wish that it could be taken down a peg.
When the empire then starts looking around for other nations to bully, such as Iran and Venezuela, its allies again say nothing
but react with fear when they see the John Boltons and Mike Pompeos beating the war drums and making reckless comments.
At present, the US is focusing primarily on economic warfare, but if this fails to get the world to bend to its dominance, the
US has repeatedly warned, regarding possible military aggression, that "no option is off the table."
The US has reached the classic stage when it has become a reckless bully, and its support structure of allies has begun to de-couple
as a result.
At the same time that allies begin to pull back and make other plans for their future, those citizens within the empire who tend
to be the creators of prosperity also begin to seek greener pastures.
History has seen this happen countless times. The "brain drain" occurs, in which the best and most productive begin to look elsewhere
for their future. Just as the most productive Europeans crossed the Pond to colonise the US when it was a new, promising country,
their present-day counterparts have begun moving offshore.
The US is presently in a state of suspended animation. It still appears to be a major force, but its buttresses are quietly disappearing.
At some point in the near future, it's likely that the US government will overplay its hand and aggress against a foe that either
is stronger or has alliances that, collectively, make it stronger.
The greatest (so called) threats to America- the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, ISIS, ( fill in the blank for
the latest overseas bogeyman-of-the-week ) pale into a wisp beside the ongoing disintegration of American traditional family life.
Self-discipline, self sacrifice and self restraint are the prices which must be paid for a civilization to survive, much less
flourish, and Americans are increasingly unwilling to pay up. The America of a generation or two down the road will have the social
cohesion of El Salvador.
You also cant warn people about the collapse of empire either. People notoriously go into denial about it and it shocks the
**** out of everybody. Since empires bluff and bluster at the end its all to easy for people want to believe.
Being that history is always written by the tyrant of the time (which in our case was definitely behind the two last empires
and a big player in Rome as and Spain as well) people are also led to believe that empire is a desireable state of cicumstance.
It never was. Its the ambitions and conquistador actions of the collective psychopath. They feed on the strength of civilizations
and utilize it for megalomaniac ambitions over power of others and power over everything.
Those of you hoping for the end of American Empire need to think about what would replace it. if you think that the world would
enter the age of Aquarius and peace will rule the planet you are extremely naive and stupid. If you think that the Chinese would
be more benign rulers you are mistaken. The only reason China doesn't use its military to dominate other countries is because
it is kept in check by the US.
You are completely delusional. The world is not better off under American stewardship. We don't need and shouldn't want anything
to replace it. We don't need and shouldn't want any empire ruling the world. We would be better off without any state at
all, so we could finally be free people.
And no it probably wouldn't be better off under the Chinese. Although if the world stopped respecting American IP law, that
would be a huge positive step forward.
In the real world, Chinese terrorists are just as bad as American terrorists. Despite the most popular hypnosis gripping the
American psyche, you can't have liberty or justice as long as either one is in charge. Whether the Chinese would be worse is debatable.
It's not like America has some great track record to compete against. Their reign has been a complete disaster for human rights.
If China became the new empire we wouldnt live under it. It would be at least 100 years out. This empire will screw everybody
epically first, plus we have decline weather patterns with super solar grand minimum. Also those people's who may see that next
empire will deal with whatever circumstances present themselves and they wont give one **** what we think about it.
Basically power has kept moving west. Nobody will forget the depravity of this one. If written about accurately this one will
be remembered most for the medical tyranny and intentional damage it did to human beings through injections and modified good
supply, as well as moral depravity and proxy sadistic terrorism. Remember empire backed terrorist groups trafficked children and
harvested organs. You can miss it if you want, few will.
I do not _hope_ for an end of the American Empire, and I dread what is going to replace it. Howsoever, no empire lasts forever,
and our empire is near its end. The Chinese are relentlessly cruel, and that's in their genotype. I probably won't live to see
them take over the scraps and bits and pieces of our former empire. Those who are alive and in the prime of their lives when that
happens will suffer unimaginably while they live, and their blood will cry out from the grave after they die. It makes me so heart-sick
I can't bear to think about it for long, but our progeny will be forced to live it without let or hindrance.
Lets find out the whole details of what they have done to our biology and our children's first before we say how cruel China
might be. For starters look at what US and British did in Africa compared to China and Russia's involvement there. They are doing
deals and not killing anybody, same with Venezuela.
Where else you going to go? What nation ISN'T broke? Europe is going to hell. So is South America. Africa has always been hell.
Asia? Look what's going down in Hong Kong. China's broke. Make no mistake, the USA is in decline. But so is the rest of the world...
regardless of what is printed China is not falling, they have a plan and have only advanced it. The debt side will not hurt
them because they have been poor before and they have a route to success. They do not have resources but the industrial side is
needed everywhere in the world. We are talking about a nation that literally prospered off of our garbage and resells it back
to us! Think about it we use something up and pay them to take it away, they recycle it and resell it to us again and moved a
nation 4x our population forward!
You really think debt will hurt them, especially the way the US determines debt! A huge portion of it is in the infrastructucture
in China and along the BRI which will have returns over time, just as if we in the states rebuilt all our infrastructure by living
wage employment rather than MIC investment!
Yes, all are broke. Assisted suicides of countries all over the world. Emphasise on "assisted".
Nations have been demoralized (the US most certainly, check Yuri Bezmenov) we are in destabilization phase already, collapse
has to be next, it is unavoidable now. This will not end well, ignore at your own risk!
I am not talking about countries, just some Life Hedge Regions left in the world. People with brains and resources, you don
need a Life Hedge Property! Away from Northern Hemisphere, away from Ring of Fire, etc... Get in touch. lifehedge(at)
protonmail.com
What got America into trouble was when Americans who thought of themselves as being "exceptional" became exceptionally stupid.
The best and the brightest have already left America. Any wonder why we now depend on Russia to send our astronauts up on their
rockets into space, or depend on China, South Korea, and Japan for our electronic products, or why better health care is found
in other places outside the U.S., why our educational system has become poorer than what it was 60 years ago, etc.,?
When we decided to financialize everything and make nothing but investments we crippled our advancement.
When we decided to take the brightest minds in the world and recruit them into the US and then rather than advance the world
with true science, we offer them lucrative money to enter financial markets to use their knowledge in that field.
We take the ones with morals and principles that choose to actually remain in science and then corrupt them over time with
money/fame to regurgetate whatever their contractor chooses or lose funding for their projects.
We have corrupted every aspect of advancement and now just use our fake printed money to force the desperate to bend to our
will.
Good read on the subject of empires Sir John Glubb - The fate of empires and Search for survival.
We are probably near the end of the American Empire. And a fascinating by product of the HK protests is that we may well be near the end of Chinese Communism.
Nothing moves forward in a straight line. They move up and down. Empires are no exception. The Romans had their ups and downs
throughout the course of their empire. You never know when a down cycle is the end but people who want it to end will always write
articles like this.
American dominance might be drawing to an end....or it might be gearing up to go another 200 years. Nobody knows so it's a
waste of time to speculate.
Peter Harris continently forget that the USA is imperial power with expansionist, imperial
goals in the Middle East (Iraq war was about oil) and unrelenting support of Israel. Which in
turn is a destabilizing force in the Middle East. The only state with not no accepted borders
which recently annexed Holland heights.
recenthistory of
engineering the downfall of foreign regimes. Second, the U.S. military's top priority should be
to eliminate terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. From these two premises, a third
foundation of Gabbard's foreign policy can be inferred: that the United States must sometimes
tolerate the existence of brutal foreign governments, especially if they share a common
interest in fighting the same terrorist groups as America.
None of these are radical assumptions about American foreign policy. Indeed, Gabbard's
anti-interventionism is tightly aligned with the prevailing zeitgeist in U.S. politics.
According to polling data, voters today are opposed to U.S. involvement in
Yemen , supportive of a withdrawal from
Afghanistan , and roughly
evenly split on the question of whether the United States should cease operations in Syria.
Military veterans are among those
most critical of the so-called "forever wars" in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
Gabbard's insistence that the U.S. military should focus on counterterrorism rather than
regime change is also well within the mainstream of political opinion. In this regard, Gabbard
is
not unlike the last Democratic occupant of the Oval Office. After all, it was Barack Obama
who, as a candidate for the presidency, explicitly coupled his headline promises to end the
Iraq War and shrink America's overall military footprint with a commitment to ramp up the fight
against Al Qaeda and their Taliban enablers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
... ... ..
Peter Harris is an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State
University. You can follow him on Twitter: @ipeterharris .
I vote for taking Tulsi seriously. Pres Trump should consider her as Sec Defense or
head of the DNI. We've ruined the lives of the Syrian people with our intervention and
who the f decided we have a say? The U.S. needs to stop being interventionist for the
most part and in the event another country invades us, then and only then should be blow
them the F up!
Working with Assad and Russia to rid Syria of the remaining terrorists makes sense. It
would stop the "cleansing" of Idlib from Kurds, Christians and moderate Muslims by Al
Qaeda/ex-ISIS forces supported by Turkey. It would force Turkey to withdraw its forces
from Syria, and isolate Turkey from Russian influence. Iranian proxy militias would no
longer be needed in Syria to fight Al Qaeda. Finally, it would facilitate return of
Syrian refugees. The US should also remove existing sanctions on Syria which are
preventing economic reconstruction of the country.
Tulsi Gabbard is our only chance to beat Trump, and yet the media refuses to print
much about her, or her policies. I don't get it?
Anyway, thank you for this article you posted.
You can find all that on YouTube, where she has posted dozens of her campaign chats.
See also Joe Rogan interviews. The connection between foreign and domestic policy is that
trillions wasted on endless wars make health, education, infrastructure, etc.
unaffordable and therefore pie-in-the-sky until we come to our senses. She seems to offer
more detailed positions and more practical proposals on most of those issues -- and more
-- than the rest of the candidates put together. Is she too good to be true? Perhaps. Is
she a candidate we need in coming debates? Definitely. Could she beat Trump? In debates,
easily and decisively; in November 2020, not sure, but I think she has better odds than
the rest. What sort of president would she be? The wildest of wild cards, possibly one of
the greatest, possibly something else. At the rate things are going, it might be a lot
riskier NOT to take a chance on her.
The US administration shifted its policy to "no boots on the ground" during Pres.
Obama. Russia exploited the opportunity to reinstate its "boots" in the region and even
put a wedge between NATO and Turkey. To me it looks that this policy is detrimental to
the US hegemony in the region. Besides, I scream:'the King is naked' and claim that
people's interest or wellbeing in this region comes last, if at all, in the list of
priorities of all the regional and global superpowers, including the US administration.
Finally, collaborating with thugs like current rulers of Syria, Iran and similar was
proved a wrong policy by their infamous predecessor, 'Mr.' Adolf H., how respectfully Mr.
Chamberlain called him.
Most politicians don't learn from history.
Lots of Historians say that Stalin was as bad as Hitler, arguably even worse, in terms
of body counts. But if Churchill and Roosevelt had not engaged with Stalin, defeating the
Third Reich might have taken the rest of the 20th century. The crucial difference is
between Chamberlain and Churchill. It not how evil our negotiating partners are but how
strong and clear-sighted we are that determines the outcome.
https://www.youtube.com/wat... Until you listen to this by Col Lawrence Wilkerson
whose Truth-Telling is never carried on MSM then you can fall for this Drivel Propaganda
about Assad and him being a brutal dictator who in fact DID NOT Gas his people. This is
all Israeli Likud extremists who have been trying to illegally seize land in Syria, steal
oil, and destabilize it for 65 yrs. The Zionist White Helments are using human shields.
Assad is a sovereign and if you think Iran, Russia, and their other allies are going to
let them fail with US-sponsored Terrorists then you are wrong. Wilkerson says he wishes
he could slap Clinton, Pelosi, and all the hysterical pundits screamin about pulling out
of Syria in the face. He goes on to say there are 50 Air, Naval, & Army bases
surrounding Iran and Syria, the largest on Earth, and that the only solution is Diplomacy
or Nuclear War.
israel shoots up civilians in gaza not a problem, saudis behead homosexuals not a big
deal, assad fights against alqaeda and isis omg he is worst than hitler this cannot be
happening >.<
Wow, just came across two pro-Tulsi articles in a row on my Google feed. What is going
on? Varitas got Google shook, or Dems finally realizing Tulsi the only chance they have
against Trump. No, Dems will never forgive her for defecting to Bernie, they bite their
own nose off first. Must be the Varitas stuff. Things will get back to hate Tulsi normal
soon I'm sure
The worst by far are the Saudis. But they our ally so can't talk about them. They buy
billions worth of US weaponry, keep economy going, yippie. I remember when Saddam was a
rock star, on USA magazine covers, hailed as progressive. Kadahfy too. Kadahfy was a
actually a pretty decent guy. He truly was progressive. It is strange world when you
realize up is down and down is up , 2+2=5
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Film 'Official Secrets' is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg August 29, 2019 •
37 Comments
A new film depicting the whistleblower Katherine Gun, who tried to stop the Iraq invasion,
is largely accurate, but the story is not over, says Sam Husseini.
T wo-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley is known for being in "period pieces" such as "Pride
and Prejudice," so her playing the lead in the new film "Official Secrets," scheduled to be
released in the U.S. on Friday, may seem odd at first. That is until one considers that the
time span being depicted -- the early 2003 run-up to the invasion of Iraq -- is one of the most
dramatic and consequential periods of modern human history.
It is also one of the most poorly understood, in part because the story of Katharine Gun,
played by Knightley, is so little known. Having followed this story from the start, I find this
film to be, by Hollywood standards, a remarkably accurate account of what has happened to
date–"to date" because the wider story still isn't over.
Katharine Gun
worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent
of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. She tried to stop the impending invasion of
Iraq in early 2003 by exposing the deceit of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their claims
about that country. For doing that she was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act -- a
juiced up version of the U.S. Espionage Act, which in recent years has been used repeatedly by
the Obama administration against whistleblowers and now by the Trump administration against
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.
Gun was charged for exposing -- around the time of
Colin Powell's infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq's alleged WMDs – a top secret
U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an illegal spying "surge" against other U.N.
Security Council delegations in an effort to manipulate them into voting for an Iraq invasion
resolution. The U.S. and Britain had successfully
forced through a trumped
up resolution, 1441 in November 2002. In early 2003, they were poised to threaten, bribe or
blackmail their way to get formal United Nations authorization for the invasion. [See
recent interview with Gun .]
Katherine Gun The leaked memo, published by the British Observer , was big news in
parts of the world, especially the targeted countries on the Security Council, and helped
prevent Bush and Blair from getting the second UN Security Council resolution they said they
wanted. Veto powers Russia, China and France were opposed as well as U.S. ally Germany.
'Most Courageous Leak' It was the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy,
where I work ( accuracy.org ), Norman
Solomon, as well as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who in the U.S. most
immediately saw the importance of what Gun had done. Ellsberg would later comment: "No one else
-- including myself -- has ever done what Katharine Gun did: Tell secret truths at personal
risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it. Hers was the most important --
and courageous -- leak I've ever seen, more timely and potentially more effective than the
Pentagon Papers."
Daniel Ellsberg on the cover of Time after leaking the Pentagon Papers
Gun said: "I went to the local bookshop, and I went into the political section. I found two
books, which had apparently been rushed into publication, one was by Norman Solomon and Reese
Erlich, and it was called Target Iraq . And the
other one was by Milan Rai. It was called War
Plan Iraq . And I bought both of them. And I read them cover to cover that weekend, and
it basically convinced me that there was no real evidence for this war. So I think from that
point onward, I was very critical and scrutinizing everything that was being said in the
media." Thus, we see Gun in "Official Secrets" shouting at the TV to Tony Blair that he's not
entitled to make up facts. The film may be jarring to some consumers of major media who might
think that Donald Trump invented lying in 2017. Gun's immediate action after reading critiques
of U.S. policy and media coverage makes a strong case for trying to reach government workers by
handing out fliers and books and putting up
billboards outside government offices to encourage them to be more critically minded.
Solomon and Ellsberg had debunked Bush administration propaganda in real time. But Gun's
revelation showed that the U.S. and British governments were not only lying to invade Iraq,
they were violating international law to blackmail whole nations to get in line.
Mainstream reviews of "Official Secrets" still seem to not fully grasp the importance of
what they just saw. The trendy AV
Club review leads : "Virtually everyone now agrees that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a
colossal mistake based on faulty (at best) or fabricated (at worst) intelligence." "Mistake" is
a serious understatement even with "colossal" attached to it when the movie details the
diabolical, illegal lengths to which the U.S. and British governments went to get other
governments to go along with it.
Gun's revelations showed before the invasion that people on the inside, whose livelihood
depends on following the party line, were willing to risk jail time to out the lies and
threats.
Portrayal of The Observer
Other than Gun herself, the film focuses on a dramatization of what happened at her work; as
well as her relationship with her husband, a Kurd from Turkey who the British government
attempted to have deported to get at Gun. The film also portrays the work of her lawyers who
helped get the Official Secrets charge against her dropped, as well as the drama at The
Observer , which published the NSA document after much internal debate.
Observer reporter Martin Bright, whose strong work on the original Gun story was
strangely followed by an ill-fated stint at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, has recently noted
that very little
additional work has been done on Gun's case. We know virtually nothing about the apparent
author of the NSA document that she leaked -- one "Frank Koza." Other questions persist, such
is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign governments to get UN votes or for other
purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with allegations made by former NSA analyst
Russ
Tice about the NSA having massive files on political people?
Observer reporter Ed Vulliamy is energetically depicted getting tips from former CIA
man Mel Goodman. There do seem to be subtle but potentially serious deviations from reality in
the film. Vulliamy is depicted as actually speaking with "Frank Koza," but that's not what he
originally
reported :
"The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency
which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The
Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the
United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the
assistant had just said this was Koza's extension, the assistant repeated that it was an
erroneous extension, and hung up."
There must doubtlessly be many aspects of the film that have been simplified or altered
regarding Gun's personal experience. A compelling part of the film -- apparently fictitious or
exaggerated -- is a GCHQ apparatchik questioning Gun to see if she was the source.
Little is known about the reaction inside the governments of Security Council members that
the U.S. spied on. After the invasion, Mexican Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser spoke in blunt
terms about U.S. bullying -- saying it viewed Mexico as its patio trasero , or back yard
-- and was Zinser was compelled to resign by President Vicente Fox. He then,
in 2004 , gave details about some aspects of U.S. surveillance sabotaging the efforts of
the other members of the Security Council to hammer out a compromise to avert the invasion of
Iraq, saying the U.S. was "violating the U.N. headquarters covenant." In 2005, he tragically
died in a car crash
.
Documents
leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept in 2016 boasted of how the NSA
"during the wind-up to the Iraq War 'played a critical role' in the adoption of U.N. Security
Council resolutions. The work with that customer was a resounding success." The relevant
document specifically cites resolutions 1441 and 1472 and quotes John Negroponte ,
then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: "I can't imagine better intelligence support
for a diplomatic mission." (Notably, The Intercept has never published a word on "
Katharine Gun ." )
Nor were the UN Security Council members the only ones on the U.S. hit list to pave the way
for the Iraq invasion. Brazilian Jose Bustani, the director-general of the international
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. was ousted in an effective coup by John
Bolton in April of 2002 . Bolton is now national security adviser.
"Official Secrets" director Gavin Hood is perhaps more right than he realizes when he says
that his depiction of the Gun case is like the "tip of an iceberg," pointing to other deceits
surrounding the Iraq war. His record with political films has been uneven until now. Peace
activist David Swanson, for instance, derided his film on drones, " Eye in the Sky ." At a D.C. showing of "Official Secrets,"
Hood depicted those who backed the Iraq war as being discredited. But that's simply untrue.
Keira Knightley appears as Katherine Gun in Official Secrets (Courtesy of Sundance
Institute.)
Leading presidential candidate Joe Biden -- who not only voted for the Iraq invasion, but
presided over rigged
hearings on in 2002 – has recently falsified
his record repeatedly on Iraq
at presidential debates with hardly a murmur. Nor is he alone. Those refusing to be held
accountable for their Iraq war lies include not just Bush and Cheney, but John Kerry and
Nancy
Pelosi .
Biden has actually faulted Bush for not doing enough to get United Nations approval for the
Iraq invasion. But as the Gun case helps show, there was no legitimate case for invasion and
the Bush administration had done virtually everything, both legal and illegal, to get UN
authorization.
Many who supported the invasion try to distance themselves from it. But the repercussions of
that illegal act are enormous: It led directly or indirectly to the rise of ISIS, the civil war
in Iraq and the war in Syria. Journalists who pushed for the Iraq invasion are prosperous and
atop major news organizations, such as Washington Post editorial page editor
Fred Hiatt. The
editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer , Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News.
After Gun's identity became known, the Institute for Public Accuracy brought on Jeff Cohen,
the founder of FAIR, to work with program director Hollie Ainbinder to get prominent
individuals to support
Gun . The film -- quite plausibly -- depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the
simple reason that the British government feared that a high profile proceeding would
effectively put the war on trial, which to them would be have been a nightmare.
Sam Husseini is an independent journalist, senior analyst at the Institute for Public
Accuracy and founder of VotePact.org .
Follow him on twitter: @samhusseini .
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
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David G , August 31, 2019 at 19:49
Saw the film today. Solid work; recommended.
Did her ultimate court appearance really go down in such a dramatic fashion? I suppose I
shouldn't be surprised if it did: English courtroom proceedings may not deliver better
justice than U.S. ones, but they're definitely more entertaining.
William , August 31, 2019 at 19:06
U.S. Government officials should be indicted for war crimes. It is quite clear that U.S.
officials conspired to ensure that an invasion
of Iraq would take place. The U.S. and Britain -- George Bush and Tony Blair -- initiated a
war of aggression against Iraq, and under
international law should be tried for war crimes, just as numerous German officials were
tried and convicted of war crimes.
No U.S. politician has called for investigation, and the main stream media has not touched
this topic. It is unquestionably clear that
the U.S. congress is a collection of spineless, cowardly, corrupt, greedy men and women. They
have allowed the U.S. to become a rogue,
criminal nation.
Katherine Gun is awesome! I heard her speak as part of a panel of whistleblowers –
wish there were many more like her
michael , August 31, 2019 at 08:15
Inequality.org reports that the majority of our top 1% are corporate executives. Finance,
which reportedly accounted for 3% of our economy in 1980, now accounts for 30%. Many of the
US's 585 billionaires have monopolies in their business domain, no different from the Robber
Barons of the late 19th and early 20th century. "Stability is more important than democracy",
the market hates uncertainty, and our foreign policies, determined by think tanks staffed and
funded by our "allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia, will continue to push for the greed of our
Richest. "Democracy" is a just a hypocritical bon mot for stealing and destroying.
The Republicans have always supported these people. What is worrisome is that the Democrats
have come to the same place as the GOP, since donations– pay-to-play- lead to
re-elections. The Democrats have deserted the Poor and working class, since they have no
money for pay-to-play. Our 17 technologically advanced Stasis work in concert with Congress,
our entitled government bureaucrats, and their lapdog main stream media to "make things
happen" for our Richest. How long before people like Assange, Katherine Gunn, Chelsea
Manning, Edward Snowden, Binney, Kiriakou etc learn that it pays to keep their mouths shut?
Transparency and whistleblowing is punished. Maybe other approaches are needed?
Tony , August 31, 2019 at 07:26
Very interesting to see what inspired her to act the way that she did.
Of course, the supporters of the war had various motives.
But one motive behind President Bush's plan was revealed by Russ Baker in his book 'Family of
Secrets' page 423.
He recalls a conversation with Bush family friend and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. He
says that he told him:
"He (George W. Bush) was thinking about invading in 1999."
Bush apparently said:
"If I have a chance to invade if I had that much (political) capital, I'm not going to
waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed, and I'm going to have
a successful presidency."
So there we have it, he thought that a war would boost his presidency.
David G , August 31, 2019 at 05:16
"The editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer, Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News."
That's a repulsive little nugget I would never have known otherwise.
Thanks to Sam Husseini for this account. The film is playing in my town, at least for this
coming week; I plan to get to it.
RomeoCharlie29 , August 30, 2019 at 19:24
This is a really interesting story and one I knew nothing about, although I was one who
opposed the Iraq war because to me it was obvious the whole WMD issue was bullshit. Now I
understand the perception that that war was an American/ Brit thing but you might recall that
America's deputy Sheriff in the Pacific, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, was Gung
ho for the war and committed Australian troops to the ill-fated endeavour with the result
that our country has subsequently become a target for ISIS inspired terrorism. Australia's
Opposition Leader at the time, Simon Crean led a vocal opposition to the war but "Little
Johnny" as we called him was not to be denied. Incidentally I don't think he has ever
admitted being wrong on this.
Xander Arena , August 30, 2019 at 18:15
Tip of an iceberg is right. Iraq was the second big lie of the 21st century. I wonder how
the world will react to the University of Alaska Fairbanks report which proves fraud at NIST,
and arguably reveals aiding and abetting of treason by the contractors who wrote NIST's
analysis of the WTC7 destruction. The UAF report drops Tuesday 9/3/19, and chisels away at
the big lie that preceded all the related Iraq deceit. BTW great article :)
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:49
I enjoyed the article and learned some things, but it does seem a bit of Hollywood
promotion at the same time.
If only Gun's sacrifice had stopped the invasion it would have been a sensation. As is,
the UN did not sanction the invasion, making that effort a bit moot, and since the reveal of
NSA bugging the world under Obama that dulls the sensibilities of those who might today have
otherwise been shocked, shocked like the Gary Powers U-2 spy plane downing over the USSR and
Ike being caught in a lie on TV.
But overall, knowing the downhill Gun's livelihood has taken over the 15 years makes the
story more of a warning for whistle blowers than inspiration. Maybe Gun will be well
compensated by the movie makers!
Neil E Mac , August 30, 2019 at 15:54
En fin!
bevin , August 30, 2019 at 14:13
One thing is certain: The Observer of 2019 would not publish a story like this. That is
one of the major changes since 2003: the capitalist media has tightened up. There are no
longer papers competing to attract readers at risk of cozy relations with the State. The
Observer/Guardian today – since the Snowden revelations- does what it is told.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:16
"In 2005, he tragically died in a car crash."
Unfortunately -- or fortunately? -- this no longer seems to be credible when it comes to
those who have gone ouit on a limb to challenge the Deep State, or the US version of the Deep
State.
Can Bush and Blair be charged with crimes? In connection with the Third Reich there is
AFAIK no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. Well, Iraq was also full of
'humanity." These guys belong in The Hague. Or in Iraq, doing community service.
In connection with Ellsberg's reviewing the evidence and concluding there was no
evidentiary justification for invading Iraq -- I wanna say, you didn't need to be Ellsberg or
any kind of expert to see clearly that there was no evidence that justified invading Iraq.
Millions of common folk could see this clearly. That is why over 14 million people worldwide
demonstrated against the planned illegal invasion. That is why people like me when to NYC, to
Washington, and also the front our local US Post Office in small towns all over the country
to protest the country's being lied into war. And were greeted mostly with thumbs-up from the
passers- and drivers-by.
The people knew it was all a pack of lies. It was the gullible PRESS that ginned up this
show. Remember Judith what's her name at the NYT? These people also should be indicted as war
criminals.
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:19
Judith Miller, the NYTimes reporter who did maybe the most to make the invasion of Iraq,
is the last name you were seeking.
SteveF , August 30, 2019 at 12:22
The timescales are interesting, we have the alleged US blackmail to get this illegal war
'approved' by the UN and in the same timescale we have the Jeffery Epstein story unfolding
and the corresponding allegations that he was a CIA/Mossad agent operating honey traps to
entangle the rich and famous.
The evil machinations of our governments are indeed breathtaking.
As we can see from so very many modern instances, it matters not at all that truth is on
your side, if what you are doing is attacking those with money and power.
And there's an entire American establishment dedicated to keeping it just that way.
America's history of the last half century, at least so far as foreign relations and
control of an empire, is almost entirely an artificial construct.
Absolutely no truth in everything from John Kennedy's assassination, which was intimately
concerned with America's relationship with Cuba, and the despicable Vietnam War to 9/11 and
the despicable Neocon Wars in the Middle East.
From hundreds of millions of printed newspapers and television broadcasts to speeches from
prominent American politicians, you have tissue of lies not unlike that that was constantly
being created by Oceania's Inner Party in 1984.
That's not even the slightest exaggeration, but, truly, are Americans in general the least
concerned or bothered?
We have no evidence of significant concern. None.
The Democratic Party just weeded out the only candidate it had, brave and informed enough
to speak to truth in some of these matters.
The ten left just represent varying degrees of hopelessness. On and on with weaving dreams
about this or that creative social program while the resources and close attention dedicated
to destruction in a dozen lands make them all impossible.
At the sae time, there is an almost complete lack of information and courage about
anything that is happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, in Israel, and in such massively
important countries as China, Russia, and Iran.
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are brave contemporary examples of the American
establishment's methods for shutting down truth and punishing severely those who reveal it.
While they have followers and supporters, I am always amazed at how relatively small their
numbers are.
And we have remarkably few individuals like Manning or Assange, especially when you
consider the scale and scope of America's many dark works. Mostly, we see only "willing
helpers" carrying on with their sensitive, secretive careers in government.
In the Democratic nomination contest, the "star" liberals, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren, are virtually no different in these absolutely critical matters than a confirmed old
puke of a war criminal like Joe Biden, someone who probably deserves recognition as father of
Obama's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing project with drones and Hellfire missiles
making legally-innocent people in a dozen countries just disappear. Biden has a long record
of smarmy deeds and lack of courage and principles. He is, of course, most likely to get the
nomination too.
Act, from America's CIA, no different in principle and in law to those of the old
Argentine military junta's massive efforts at dragging people off the streets, drugging them,
and throwing them out of planes over the ocean, something they did to thousands. Oh, and
during that wonderful project there were no objections from America, only silence.
Aimee , August 30, 2019 at 22:31
Excellent post. Agree completely. Tulsi was our only hope and she never had a chance. We
are doomed.
Coleen Rowley , August 30, 2019 at 23:29
Here are some of the reasons for the ever lessening concern over US-NATO-Israel-Saudi's
(aka our current Empire's) wars: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/04/recipe-concocted-for-perpetual-war-is-a-bitter-one/
By the way my co-author and I tried unsuccessfully to get this published in about 15
different US papers before Robert Parry posted it on Consortiumnews.
Robert Edwards , August 30, 2019 at 11:17
It's time these liers and war criminals are brought to Justice – I know that's
wishful , but sometimes wishes come true America must get back to a country run on integrity
and honesty, otherwise all will be lost in the spiral of evil
Sorry, but, oh please, America is lost. Has been so for a very long time.
Only tremendous outside influences like depression or war and the growth of competing
states and the loss of the dollar's privileged status, are going to change the reality.
America's feeble democratic system is capable of changing almost nothing. After all, it
was constructed with just that in mind.
john wilson , August 31, 2019 at 05:07
I think think the real worry is that these days they don't even bother to lie anymore and
they just do what they want. Think Venezuela.
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:42
"Other questions persist, such is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign
governments to get UN votes or for other purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with
allegations made by former NSA analyst Russ Tice about the NSA having massive files on
political people?"
This also stands out , as given what we now know is standard modus opendi of CIA / Mossad
operations ,due to the Epstein arrest and ensuing information , who knows what is used to
leverage other nations to follow along with US and in this case UK demands.Birds of a feather
fly together.
Very good report by Sam Husseini.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:32
Absolutely. It is an obvious avenue now to investigate: How did the Epstein operation
impact on the decision to invade Iraq? How were teh votes wrung out for the war authorization
in October 2002?
Regarding Kerry, as a resident of Mass. I couldn't believe that Vietnam vet Kerry would
vote Yes on the war authorization act. I called his office a number of time to beg him to
vote no. Rumors emanated from within his office in Boston or wherever that phone calls from
constituents were running 180 to 1 urging him to vote NO. But he voted YES anyhow.
I simply believe that Yalie Kerry didn't see what was up with the obvious lying that drove
the runup to an illegal invasion. This is the kind of scenario where one now has to wonder --
and ask openly -- whether Kerry had been compromised in some way that made him vulnerable to
blackmail. Why the hell else would he vote so stupidly?
Recall that Scott Ritter ran afoul of some kind of sex trap and so he, one of the most
knowledgeable and outspoken critics of the fake WMD narrative, was effectively muzzled.
Did Kerry have a little skeleton in the closet somewhere?
The same could be asked of all the esp. Democratic legislators who voted YES. Because we
now understand which state in the EAstern Med wanted the war most and profited the most from
it. We now know how deep and how wide the tentacles of that state's intelligence service
intrude into our own national sphere, our Congress, our own intelligence services, our media,
and, most likely, our military. Epstein seems to been part f this web of pressure and
blackmail.
Epstein is gone, but Ghislaine Maxwell apparently still runs free.
Let's bring her in for questioning specifically about pressure applied on the Oct. 2002 vote.
(Although some speculate that she, too, is already dead.)
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:23
At a time when despair in political affairs is very depressing ,it is very refreshing to
see that the voices of reason are being vindicated.
I really want to see this film as this is the first time that I hear of the voice of
Katherine Gun .Bless her heart for standing up and her efforts to warn of deception . Does
the film make any mention of Dr.David Kelly's so-called suicide / murder ? Will have to wait
ans see.
Thank you CN for once again coming through for your excellent report.
Pablo , August 30, 2019 at 10:15
Lawrence Wilkerson (Powell's Chief of Staff?) told me that Collin knew Bush was
fabricating, but went to the U.N. as a "loyal foot soldier".
AnneR , August 30, 2019 at 08:25
Thank you, Sam Husseini, for this overview of the background – real story – to
the film Official Secrets.
To be frank, I'd not heard of Katherine Gun's revelations at the time – not
surprising because I don't think that the US MSM gave the leak any oxygen. They were all too
gung-ho for the war.
While the film undoubtedly soft-pedals some of the story and likely doesn't reveal or make
explicit as much as we'd all hope, I really do hope that it receives at least as much
publicity (good) and viewing as that execrable film Zero dark Thirty which basically
supported the CIA and its torturers. But somehow I doubt that.
TomR , August 31, 2019 at 06:19
Zero Dark Thirty is just about the worst bullshit fake narrative put out by the CIA that
I've ever seen. I watched it but cringed with the dramatized fake narrative that the CIA is
famous for – think the bullshit 9/11 US govt. narrative – if you or anyone else
believes that totally bunkum govt. narrative – well, I feel sorry for you.
Druid , August 31, 2019 at 17:28
Im a good- movie buff. I avoided Zero Dark Thirty. Not a farthing for those lies
Sylvia Bennet , August 30, 2019 at 07:51
I applaud Keira Knightley and all who were involved in bringing this story to the public.
It is vital that more people who have the eyes and ears of the public speak out on these
issues. Sadly, most of them keep their heads below the parapet. With the Main Stream Media
colluding with corrupt corporations and governments to lie or distort the truth, we need
decent people with influence to step up before it is too late.
Toxik , August 30, 2019 at 02:42
Looked at my local theaters and Official Secrets will not be shown.
jmg , August 29, 2019 at 18:39
Katharine Gun's case can also be very relevant for Julian Assange's defense:
"Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer
evidence. . . . The day before the trial, Gun's defence team had asked the government for any
records of advice about the legality of the war that it had received during the run-up to the
war. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny as the defence
were expected to argue that trying to stop an illegal act (that of an illegal war of
aggression) trumped Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act 1989. . . . In 2019 The
Guardian stated the case was dropped 'when the prosecution realised that evidence would
emerge that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful.'"
So Katharine Gun, like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, etc., by revealing corruption and
crimes, maybe didn't obey the code of silence of organized crime, government sector, but
that's not a law.
For example, the US Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information,
explicitly outlaws any classification that covers up crimes or embarrassing information.
This means that whistleblowers like Katharine Gun or Chelsea Manning, and investigative
journalists like Julian Assange are the ones defending the law here, while the US and UK
governments are the criminals.
lindaj , August 29, 2019 at 22:10
Hear, Hear!
Me Myself , August 30, 2019 at 12:11
The espionage act has and would protect those who were responsible for the war I
believe.
If we could Abrogate the espionage act it would make are representatives more
accountable.
I was unaware of Katherine Gun she is clearly a standout person and will join the ranks of
are most respected truthers.
WTF Burkie , August 31, 2019 at 14:05
Our not are.b.c. burkhart
evelync , August 30, 2019 at 13:34
And the secrecy, apparently, is required in the name of "national security" .that's what I
was told by a Harvard JFK School of Government associate when I emailed 200+ of 'em to
express my outrage over their withdrawal of Chelsea Manning's honorary degree when Pompeo and
Morrell bullied them. I responded with – that's INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE at Harvard
– as a "respected" educational institution you should be front and center critiquing
foreign policy instead of helping to bury the wrongdoing ..no wonder voters didn't trust the
establishment candidates in 2016 but the DNC was too much a part of it all to see or care
what was going on. Except for Tulsi Gabbard who resigned at DNC VP in protest for what was
being done to the Sanders campaign and to endorse Sanders instead of Clinton. The DNC knee
capped the campaign of the one person who had won peoples' trust for his honesty.
We have incompetent people with no moral fiber making terrible decisions and burying the
mistakes under secrecy, a fear based "code of silence", as you say.
Biden touts his being chosen by Obama for VP; therefore "he's qualified".
Since Clinton and Biden were the most dangerously ambitious critics of Obama, I think he may
have chosen to add them to his administration as VP and Sec of State to practice "keep your
friends close and your enemies closer" .but his decision was very costly to the lives of
people around the world including the Caribbean and South American countries whose wealth our
oligarchs coveted.
And as far as Honduras is concerned those political choices by Obama sadly explains refugees
fleeing from that violent country even now ..thanks to our failing to declare the 2009 Coup a
"military coup". One of Clinton's "hard choices". Obama and Biden went along with that of
course.
Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire" tells the sordid tale of how waterboarding was
used long before Bush II – used on the freedom fighters for their independence in the
Philippines after the Spanish American War and we took over as imperialists ..
Most people, I think, don't know all the gruesome details of our aggression but they now know
enough to be troubled by it. Few political candidates have the backbone to criticize
wrongheaded foreign policy.
I'm disappointed that Tulsi Gabbard won't be permitted to join Bernie Sanders at the
September 12 2019 "debate" as the only ones who speak out on how wrong for this country and
the world our foreign policies have been. This courageous woman should be heard.
When Bernie was challenged in the 2016 Miami debate on his enlightened views on Cuba and
other Caribbean and South American countries, Clinton used Cold War rhetoric to attack him.
She was shocked, I tell you, shocked that he would not grind his heel on the Cuban people. I
wondered at the time whether she really believed the crap she was selling or just put on a
good political show for the national security state.
We so need transparency if we want to be a real democracy.
Sam F , August 30, 2019 at 21:06
Very true that transparency is essential to democracy. That also requires lifelong
monitoring of officials and their relatives for paybacks and other influence. But (for
example) Florida has an Sunshine Act that merely moves the bribes into other channels, and
may be the most corrupt state. I am investigating extensive racketeering there involving
state officials stealing conservation funds. They can be quire careless because their party
runs the entire state including state and federal judiciary, and instantly approves whatever
their rich "donors" want to steal. But the FBI and DOJ refuse to take action when given the
evidence on a silver platter – no doubt because they are appointed by the same party.
Theft is their sacred right and duty, to protect their country from its people.
michael , August 31, 2019 at 07:30
Florida's Sunshine laws were on display at Epstein's only trial, much of it still sealed
from public view.
"Assad (and by implication Assad's forces alone) killed 500,000 Syrians."
"Israel is just defending itself."
I can't squeeze the dishonesty about the war in Yemen into a short slogan, but I know from
personal experience that getting liberals to care when it was Obama's war was virtually
impossible. Even under Trump it was hard, until Khashoggi's murder. On the part of
politicians and think tanks this was corruption by Saudi money. With ordinary people it was
the usual partisan tribal hypocrisy.
Clinton’s vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq puts her in the cold-blooded
murderer class. By the standards of the Nuremberg Trials, many of the people in power at that
time were and are war criminals, and Clinton was certainly one of the people who could be
charged with war crimes. (But I suppose she could have pleaded ignorance, incompetence, and
indolence in mitigation.) All of this is completely out in the open.
I don’t know if it should be considered ‘corruption’, however. A crime
against humanity is not exactly corrupt if the perpetrators and almost everyone else believe
the perpetrators ought to be doing the crime, that it is their duty, their job. It might be
better if they were corrupt, if they slacked off. But Clinton, going by some of her other
well-known activities, seems to have been enthusiastically industrious at getting people
killed — or maimed, tortured, terrorized, raped, starved, impoverished, and the other
normal works of war. Not that this makes her much different from a lot of other people.
“We came, we saw, he died. Tee hee hee!”
“Did it have anything to do with your visit?”
“I’m sure it did.”
From a non-legal perspective at least, that makes her an accessory to murder, doesn’t
it?
Things have been going swimmingly for the SAA for the last couple of weeks. Initial SAA
operations were characterized by slow going with jihadi counterattacks often succeeding. This
was to be expected. The jihadis have been concentrating in the Idlib area for years,
replenishing, refitting and preparing defenses. SAA operations were frequently halted by
unexplainable ceasefires. But the combined air attacks by Syrian and Russian air assets and SAA
indirect fire finally took their toll on the jihadis. The result was the encirclement of Khan
Sheikhoun and all the jihadis south of there. The resulting cauldron was quickly reduced
leaving the Turkish observation post at Morek surrounded by SAA and Russian troops. I bet the
Turks feel silly sitting there. Operation Idlib Dawn continues.
-- -- -- -- --
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have secured the key town of al-Tamanah in the
southeastern countryside of Idlib. In the early hours of August 30, the army was able to
besiege the remaining militants inside the town after capturing the northeastern hill of
Soukaiyate and the northwestern hill of Sidi Ali. After securing the town, the SAA began a new
push in the western direction, capturing the hilltops of Jabal Saghir, Turki and Sidi
Jaffar.
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the al-Qaeda-affiliated Wa Harid al-Muminin operations room
and the Turkish-backed National Front for Liberation (NFL) attempted to hold onto their
positions in al-Tamanah and its surroundings with their full strengths.
Pro-government sources are now claiming that the SAA will continue its operation and
advance towards the city of Ma`arat al-Nu`man. However, this is yet to be confirmed. (South
Front)
-- -- -- -- --
Al Tamanah lies about six miles east of Khan Shaikhoun. Its capture by the SAA secures the
recent gains spearheaded by the Tiger Force or I should say the SAA's new 25th Special Forces
Division as the Tiger Force is now called. As part of the new name, the 25th is now fully
integrated into the SAA command rather than being a militia force affiliated with Syrian Air
Force Intelligence. This is a wise move undoubtedly orchestrated by the Russian advisors. There
is no change in leadership within the 25th and probably no major organizational changes. What
this does is normalize the Tiger Force and improve command/control and logistical support.
The real question is what's next for Operation Idlib Dawn. Will the SAA move to take Kabani
and the al Ghaab Plain or will the 25th Division spearhead a drive up the M5 to Ma`arat
al-Nu`man? I don't know and neither do the jihadis. That's the way it should be. Slap a violent
surprise on those sons of bitches.
Today the Russian Reconciliation Center announced another one sided ceasefire. These are
exasperating to this observer. However, there may be a good reason for this. The Khan Sheikhoun
cauldron collapsed quickly, perhaps too quickly. I saw no reports of jihadis streaming
northward to avoid the encirclement. Perhaps they went to ground in tunnels, caves and among
the locals. This hidden enemy must be dug out and exterminated in order to eliminate the
possibility of an ugly surprise when the SAA does move north to liberate more of Idlib
governorate.
I hope the SAA doesn't move too cautiously, though. The jihadi defenses appear to be rapidly
collapsing and their ability to counterattack appears to be near gone. The SAA should not allow
them to recover once again. Fortune favors the bold.
Footage by ANNA News of the fighting culminating in the capture of KS doesn't really
indicate any major resistance by the jihadists groups. It's my suspicion that they were
either permitted to slip out of the cauldron or simply did so using seeing the greater
operational situation and given several days that the M5 highway remained open to them.
And let's hope the integration of the Tigers gets them into some sort of regular uniform
and equipment, because they look like a raggedy-ass militia with their worn down vehicles and
technicals.
The Syrian army around Kabani has showed poor, un-inspired leadership and their elements
near Kabani have spent months with no progress. Very frustrating.
Unhinged, the last thing I want to see is the Tiger Force soldiers saddled with 50 lbs of
body armor and battery operated gizmos. That raggedy-ass light infantry working with the
thermal sight equipped T-90 tanks and field modified technicals is a deadly combination. I'd
be proud to serve with them as they are.
I would guess the ceasefires are to do with the politics of the operation, at some point an
awful lot of Jihadi's are logically going to be rounded up, what's to be done with them ?
Turkey appears to have closed its borders to any retreat into Turkey. I understand that a
significant number of those left are foreign fighters, are they to be sent back whence they
came, will the home state be willing to accept them, China might for the ~18k Uigher, or will
they. Hard choices, difficult politics.
As Clausewitz said "war is the mere continuation of politics by other means", now the
Russians and Syrians (no Iranians, Hezbollah, Iraqi PMU or Yemeni Houthis) will go back to
doing the "politics". Yesterday's protests at the al-Bab Crossing are the start of that.
Erdogan has shown he'll cast all the jihadists aside except perhaps for TIP, so they can stay
in Idlib and face certain death, they can try going underground in Turkey, or they can
establish ratlines and escape back to the whence they came -provided that's not Russia, do
the Russians care?
As for the encirclement south of Khan Sheikyhun, leaving the door open for a few days allowed
all the jihadists to escape - I seem to recall looking at a map of the conflict before going to work one day and
finding that the encirclement had ceased to exist except for the Turkish outpost when I got
home that evening. HTS had quite obviously failed to make their promised stand. They have
lost in Syria and they know it. Like East Aleppo and Douma, there will be no last minute
"miracles" but they'll most likely remember who failed them in the end.
BTW, I bet Erdogan regrets that he allowed that Russian jet to be shot down. The subliminal
message, "don't fuck with the Russians".
It was actually WEST Aleppo that the R+6 re=took from the jihadis. The government never
lost control of EAST Aleppo. I remain convinced that the basic motivating factor for Erdo and
co. is neo-Ottoman irredentism in Syria and he will settle for what he can get there. If
Idlib is not possible, then something less, all the while talking about terrorists. The
recent retirement of several Turkish generals who did nt wish to serve in Syria says a
lot.
Jihadis captured in Syria? I suggest drum-head courts martial in the field. These
creatures wish to face God and abjure the rights of Man. They should be sent to what they
imagine will be their reward.
The campaign to re-capture the whole province should continue apace. "A beaten enemy must
be pursued." IMO an effort in the Ghaab Plain should be a secondary line of advance with the
main effort along the axis of the M5. The government has a lot of militia forces that can be
used to clean up behind the spearheads.
The reports I saw at the time said that the terrorists were streaming south out of Khan
Sheikyhun as the town was cut off, so your assumption that they went to ground could be a
good one.
TTG, moon of alabama (b) suggests Turkey has cut off weapons to the idlib jihadi's and is
clearly attempting to prevent entry into Turkey (being invited to purchase Su-57s after the
US blocked Turkey from joining the F-35 boondoggle seems to have swung the current Turkish
allegiance).
Good point of many militia's for cleanup allowing pursuit. Do you think the situation is
such that hard pursuit would create a culmination point?
----
Separately, I wonder if the wooing of Turkey was a strategic Russian goal (and thus Syria's
by default) that drove the decision to very slowly and cautiously liberate Idlib while busing
jihadi's from around the country there as Reconciliation ceasefires - I recall Colonel Lang
had recommended speedy liberation of Idlib to block the Turkish land grab.
OTH, the US has certainly done its best to push Turkey away in its (Israeli favored)
policy of supporting the Kurds (and ineffectively harassing Assad from the east - ineffective
as the US seldom now conducts aerial operations worth braggin' about these months - too much
Russian EW.
IMO US strategic mistakes have been to Israel's (short-term) advantage.
"... So, a well-meaning Westerner suggests Gene Sharp's well-known 198 Methods of Non-Violent Action to a HKer, who politely informs him that Sharp's work is already available in Chinese ..."
"... You don't have to wait for your CIA handler to vouchsafe The Sacred Texts. Very sophisticated and tested protest tactics are all available on the Internet, if you research the media coverage of Tahrir Square, los indignados in Spain, the state capital occupations in the United States, Occupy proper, the Carré Rouge in Quebec, and many, many other examples (including the Umbrella movement organic to Hong Kong). It's not all Maidan -- which is on the Internet too, and I don't regard it was useful to forcefit all protests into that model. ..."
"... If they have factories in China now, and they are the invisible hands, I think they (and their factories) would be in trouble already, as in 'now,' and they don't have to worry about being extradited in the future. ..."
"... Me neither. That's a concern. However, there is the idea that "you taught me" that non-violence doesn't work (in 2014), "you" being the Chinese government. There is also the idea that the Mainland is no more agreement-capable than the United States," since they have no intention of adhering to the Basic Law on matters like universal suffrage . If the attitude among a great mass of the protestors is that they have nothing to lose, some sort of Masada-like scenario seems likely. ..."
"... And exactly whose interests would that serve? The interests of the students? The interests of Hong Kong generally? Answering that question will begin to take you down the rabbit hole. ..."
"... Now, it is true that "color revolution" in strong form seems to have lost some credibility, and that, if I may characterize the discourse collectively, we see a strategic retreat to formulations like "I'm sure the protestors have legitimacy," but they're still "manipulated," because, by gawd, that's what the US does. ..."
"... And then we get NGOs (been around for years) and Jimmy Lai (been around for years). Constants, that is, where the protests are a variable (which is why the heavy-breathing GrayZone post about xenohobia doesn't impress me all that much). ..."
"... So will this protest end the way Occupy ended here in "democratic" USA? One has to suspect the secessionist aim that is one of the apparent motives will not be rewarded. ..."
"... US funding and influence was quite well-attested then, for those who were paying attention. Oddly, or not, there seems to be no Victoria Nuland-equivalent for HK. One could argue, of course, that there's an invisible Nuland, but Occam's Razor eliminates that. I never followed Ukraine closely, I admit, partly because Ukraine is fabulously corrupt, and partly because (like Syria) it seemed impossible to separate fact from fiction on the ground. (The only rooting interest I have in Ukraine is their wonderful enormous airplanes.) I think for HK we have a lot more well-attested information. That's what the post is about, in fact. ..."
"... There is video of HKers using 3-person surgical tubing catapults to return to sender tear gas cannisters. I've seen pranksters use these "slingshots" to lob water balloons into unsuspecting civilians, but they are much better suited to return cannisters to the police. ..."
"... I know enough about HK to be a little suspicious of the motives of *some* protestors, but I'm in awe of their inventiveness and raw courage. And believe me, to protest publicly in HK/China requires real physical courage that is not required anywhere in the west, anyone who thinks otherwise is entirely clueless about the nature of the Chinese government and what it is capable of. ..."
"... The fact that neo-con elements in the US are happy about the protests is entirely irrelevant, it really is. Its like saying that when RT had approving articles about Occupy or Black Lives Matter that this proves the Russians were behind it. It really is that stupid and US centric an opinion. ..."
"... But here's the rub. Can you imagine what would happen if this all happened in a western country? Imagine this happening in New York for example. Actually we don't. The authorities came down on the Occupy Wall Street movement like a ton of bricks so we had a taste of what would happen. ..."
"... I am not saying that the Chinese government is right but I can understand their position here. They give Hong Kong a 'special deal' and the rest of China will want their own special deals. ..."
"... Just like the Chinese elites, the U.S. elites don't want to deal with the citizenry, and protest is something that shocks them. ..."
"... What really makes most HK skeptics suspicious is the way the media and the political establishment in the West are constantly slathering the students there with pure, unadulturated praise, while lambasting us skeptics as 'conspiracy theorists'. So comparisons of HK to Maidan are indeed apt. And please contrast the media's treatment of this protest with their (non-)treatment of the gilets jaunes movement in France. On that rare occasion when the MSM did deign to mention the gilets jaunes , they always faithfully accused them of 'racism' and 'anti-semitism'. But note how the HK protesters get pass for using Pepe the Frog as their symbol! ..."
"... The idea of protest is to disrupt the system and generally gum up the works, raising the costs of the offending campaign, hopefully to the point where the material and reputational damage makes the whole thing no longer worth pursuing. This is the end game. ..."
"... To paraphrase Noam Chomsky: Elites want a smoothly-running system of oppression. There is no reason to give them this gift. ..."
"... In general, the techniques described here seem unreliable and dangerous if masking your identity from surveillance is vital. The idea that you are going to identify and precisely target every video camera that can see you, 100% of the time, esp. in a moving and rapidly changing environment, seems extremely naive. Video cameras are small, cheap, inconspicuous, and easy to disguise. All that's needed by the opponent is a single video frame that shows your face clearly. ..."
Let me start out with a sidebar on "add oil" (加油), which you see all over the
coverage of the Hong Kong protests: It originated, says the OED , as a
cheer at the Macau Grand Prix in the 1960s, meaning "step on the gas" (which is good to know,
because I thought that the underlying metaphor was adding cooking oil to a wok preparatory to
frying). It translates roughly to " go for it !" Here, an apartment block encourages
the protesters by chanting it:
Sidebar completed, this post will have a simple thesis: The people of Hong Kong have
considerable experience in running protests, and we don't need to multiply invisible
entities ("hidden hands") to give an account of what they're doing. For example, it's not
necessary to postulate that the participants in the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill
protests consulted CIA handlers on tactics; their tactics are often available, in open
source , on the Internet; other tactics are based on Hong Kong material culture ,
things and situations that come readily to hand and can be adapted by creative people (which
the protesters clearly are).
I started thinking about this post when I read this tweet:
So, a well-meaning Westerner suggests Gene Sharp's well-known 198 Methods of
Non-Violent Action to a HKer, who politely informs him that Sharp's work is already
available in Chinese .
Clearly, #genesharptaughtme is alive and well! (In
fact, I remember Black Lives Matter using the same hashtag.)
I am well-aware of Gene
Sharp's equivocal role as a defense intellectual -- in strong form, the Godfather of "color
revolutions" -- but at this point Sharp's influence is attenuated. Out here in reality,
information on non-violent strategy and tactics has gone global, like everything else.
You don't have to wait for your CIA handler to vouchsafe The Sacred Texts. Very
sophisticated and tested protest tactics are all available on the Internet, if you research the
media coverage of Tahrir Square, los indignados in Spain, the state capital occupations
in the United States, Occupy proper, the Carré Rouge in Quebec, and many, many other
examples (including the Umbrella movement organic to Hong Kong). It's not all Maidan -- which
is on the Internet too, and I don't regard it was useful to forcefit all protests into that
model.
So, I'm going to go through a few of the tactics used in the 2019 Hong Kong protests:
Umbrellas, Laser Pointers, Lennon Walls, and a Human Chain. For each tactic, I will throw it
into the open source bucket, or the material culture bucket; in either case,
there need be no "hidden hand." Also, I find protest tactics fascinating in and of themselves;
I think a movement is healthy if its tactics are creative, and when they are so no longer, the
movement has not long to live. (For example, Black Lives Matter started to disintegrate as a
national movement when the college die-ins stopped (and when the liberal Democrats co-opted it
by elevating Deray.) To the tactics!
Umbrellas
Umbrellas were already a symbol of protest in Hong Kong, from the Umbrella Movement of
2014. Here we see umbrellas being used to shield protestors from surveillance cameras
(although they can also be used as shields against kinetic effects).
One can indeed see that Maidan protestors using literal shields:
However, I would classify umbrella tactics as deriving from Hong Kong's material
culture ; Hong
Kong is sub-tropical ; there are typhoons; there is rain, fog, drizzle; and there is also
the sun. Massed umbrellas scale easily from the tens to the hundreds; they create a splendid
visual effect en masse ; and they are available in any corner shop. So, it is not
necessary to postulate an entity translating Maidan's heavy medieval shields to Hong Kong
umbrellas; the protestors would have worked out the uses of umbrellas themselves, adapting
the tools that come to hand to the existing conditions.
Laser Pointers
Hong Kong, under Mainland influence, is increasingly a surveillance state; it makes sense
that HKers would give considerable thought to surveillance, and how to avoid it, in the
normal course of events. How much more so protestors:
I would classify the laser pointers tactic open source , since that's how I found out that yes,
laser poinerns can knock out surveillance cameras . Again, there's no need to postulate
that some unknown entity gave the protesters the idea; anybody with a little creativity and
some research skills could come up with it, given the proper incentives (like being arrested,
say).
The idea that one may "post" anything has been actualized with Post-It Notes, giving HK
walls a digital, pixelated look:
And the authorities have just begun to tear them down: Reminds me of the NYPD bulldozing
the Zucotti Park library, sadly.
I would classify Lennon Walls in both categories: They originated, conceptually, in Prague
(so open source ) but they are well adapted for massed protest in the material
culture of Hong Kong. (Like massed umbrellas, massed PostIt notes scale easily from the
tens to the thousands; they create a splendid visual effect en masse ; and they are
available in any corner shop.)
Human Chain
Here is a poster publicizing "the Hong Kong Way," a human chain across Hong Kong: Here is
the beautiful result:
I would classify "the Hong Kong Way" as open source , since the idea originated
from " the Baltic Way
," where some two million people joined hands to form a human chain across the three Baltic
states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
Conclusion
Just to tweak the "It's a color revolution!" crowd, here's an image of HKers watching a
movie about Maidan:
I hope I have persuaded you that (a) this Maidan movie is open source "; knowledge of
Maidan as a worthy object of study, that (b) by Occam's Razor, it doesn't take a CIA handler to
tell this to HKers, and that (c) if the HKers end up building catapults , they will be
adapted to Hong Kong's material culture (i.e., probably not medieval in appearance or
structure).[1]
NOTES
[1] The HKers may also be sending a message to the authorities: If Maidan is what you want,
bring it!
Maciej Cegłowski has written a first-hand account that helped me understand some of
the tactics the protesters employ. I see he's written a follow-on piece, too. https://idlewords.com/2019/08/a_walk_in_hong_kong.htm
Another claim is that rich Hong Kongers are behind the protests, fearing extradition.
If they have factories in China now, and they are the invisible hands, I think they (and
their factories) would be in trouble already, as in 'now,' and they don't have to worry about
being extradited in the future.
Ok. I really did not want to post any more comments on Hong Kong, or China for that matter,
here at NC. But I am genuinely puzzled, and I have to say concerned, about the way this issue
has been framed here. One does not have to accept the argument that *either* (1) the protests
are completely spontaneous and genuine; *or* (2) the protests are mainly the product of CIA
manipulation of otherwise clueless dupes (a whole lot of them apparently!). This is a false
dichotomy. None of the critics of the mainstream Hong Kong narrative that I am familiar with
take a position any where close to (2). It is a straw-man position if applied to most reputable
"skeptics."
Rather, the argument I have seen most often among these skeptics (including some commenters
here) is that, while the protests *were* authentic and directed at real issues of concern to
protesters, there have also been efforts on the part of Western agents to manipulate this
situation. This included support of particular, strategically significant leaders and groups
and, of course, control of the Western media narrative. We have pictures and stories in even
the mainstream press of US officials and representatives of western NGOs meeting with such
individuals. Hell, we have US politicians bragging about it. These connections are pretty
clear, whether or not HKers can find Gene Sharp's work on the internet.
I have no doubt that many HKers are opposed to mainland rule, so China hands here need not
lecture me condescendingly on that issue. On the other hand, I have no doubt that Chinese
officials are justified in suspecting covert action by the CIA to stir things up even more
(though a lot of the activity is actually pretty overt). Looking at the postwar actions of the
US and its allies all over the world, including China in the past, they would have to be idiots
not to. And they are not idiots.
Good post. As usual, reality is far more complex and not reducible to simplistic either/or
narratives. Protest, rebellion, and unrest are endemic in Chinese (and world) history. In a
globalized and interconnected modern world, of course there is widespread awareness and cross
fertilization of movements. The "West" did not start this fire, though no doubt they are doing
some fanning of the flames.
What worries me is that I do not understand the endgame of the protesters. If you are facing
a power far greater than your own, guerilla tactics are in order, but you have to know when to
declare victory and back off for awhile. They seem to want to keep pushing and pushing until
another Tienanmen may become inevitable.
The HK protesters recognize that they have enough bodies to literally bring parts of the
city to a halt. Soon the authorities will realize that they don't have enough police to
maintain order and some sort of compromise will be in order.
Imagine if 200 cars stopped on an LA freeway. Traffic would be halted for hours before
enough tow trucks could be put in service. Bodies in the street (cars on the freeway) can be
enough to stop "business as usual".
> I do not understand the endgame of the protesters
Me neither. That's a concern. However, there is the idea that "you taught me" that
non-violence doesn't work (in 2014), "you" being the Chinese government. There is also the idea
that the Mainland is no more agreement-capable than the United States," since they have no
intention of adhering to the Basic Law on matters like universal suffrage
. If the attitude among a great mass of the protestors is that they have nothing to lose, some
sort of Masada-like scenario seems likely.
As for the rest of the comment, meh. It's simultaneously an initial withdrawal of the
debunked "color revolution" theory, and a mushy reformulation of same in different terms ("no
doubt that Chinese officials are justified in suspecting covert action by the CIA"). Either you
believe that the Hong Kong protests are organic in origin and execution, or you don't.
See my comment
here .
My sympathy for the HK protesters is somewhat impaired by their antipathy for mainlanders
and mainlander immigration to HK. Its worth reading Carl Zha on Tiananmen. I thought i knew
what happened in Tiananmen, but it turned out i didn't.
I'm a bit leery of Chongqing native Carl Zha and his sudden
elevation. Let's remember that the Mainland is just as sophisticated in its information
campaigns as the US. For example, a claim that he has revealed what really happened, as we say,
at Tien An Man, without an explanation what his views are is a red flag to me. (In the
worse case scenario, disinformation is infesting the NC comments section.) No, I'm not going to
"just listen to the YouTube" because I don't have time to devote to it, as opposed to reading a
transcript quickly.
I've just come across Zha once or twice and I certainly would not consider him a reliable
source. The 'official' narrative around Tiannanman in China (as taught to Chinese people) has
changed more than once, his seems to match the current version. This doesn't mean he is lying
or wrong, I'm just suspicious about anyone who claims to know the 'truth' about such a chaotic
and charged event, and some of the things he has written is simply not a reflection of what
Chinese people I know think about it.
Its worth pointing out of course that almost all the evidence suggests that the Chinese
intelligence penetration of the US has been far more competent than vice versa. The narrative
that somehow the CIA was behind Tiananmen (which even MoA has pushed) and the current protests
simply strains all credulity. There is no doubt they would provide any help they could to
anti-government movements within China, but there is no evidence that they've done anything
more than promote a few fringe dissidents.
Zha (to my recollection) did not suggest the CIA was behind Tiananmen. He did suggest that
the amount of violence and the cause of the violence was not as reported in the West. There was
little corroboration though. That said, he had quite an interesting take on the lone man with
shopping bag stopping tank column. Perhaps it is common knowledge but he suggested that event
took place on the day after Tiananmen, when the tanks were trying to head back to base. Just
cos he said that don't make it true of course. But it did make me ask how i know what i think i
know.
I apologize for not outlining his views. I thought it better to just suggest him as a
possible reference and allow people to come to their own conclusions. I came across him cos I
follow Mark Ames on twitter. I know of Ames cos I spent time in Moscow in the 90s. So I
considered it a good recommendation -- but hardly foolproof. Zha suggests that students in
Tienamin set a bus on fire in the square (of heavenly peace?) which unfortunately contained a
number of PLA soldiers who were burned alive. I have no way of knowing whether this account is
true. However he also suggested the iconic man in front of tank column took place on the
following day. Which was news to me, and seemed quite plausible when you consider the
interaction. But I have no reason to believe this anymore than I should believe the BBC or CNN.
Its just that where I have listened to the BBC on subjects I am personally familiar with, they
have occasionally been rather "economical" with inconvenient truths. Mr Zha has the advantage
of Ames recommendation, a clean slate, and an interesting but unproven assertion.
His take on HK protests is that they have become rather violent, with the aim being to
prompt a violent response from the Chinese authorities.
HKers appear to view themselves as distinct from mainlanders, and do not seem to welcome
mainland immigration. Fascinating to see british colonial flags brandished when telling
Mandarin speakers to "go home". But even here I am relying on the translations applied by the
makers of the videos. I dont speak Cantonese or Mandarin.
They seem to want to keep pushing and pushing until another Tienanmen may become
inevitable.
And exactly whose interests would that serve? The interests of the students? The
interests of Hong Kong generally? Answering that question will begin to take you down the
rabbit hole.
> But I am genuinely puzzled, and I have to say concerned, about the way this issue has
been framed here. One does not have to accept the argument that *either* (1) the protests are
completely spontaneous and genuine; *or* (2) the protests are mainly the product of CIA
manipulation of otherwise clueless dupes (a whole lot of them apparently!). This is a false
dichotomy. None of the critics of the mainstream Hong Kong narrative that I am familiar with
take a position any where close to (2). It is a straw-man position if applied to most reputable
"skeptics."
Nonsense. If you say that the HK protests were a "color revolution," which was the original
claim ( following Moon of
Alabama here , with the most frequent analogy being Ukraine, #2 ("clueless dupes") is
exactly what you're saying.
So, I'm not "straw manning" at all, but replying directly to a criticism expressed here.
Please follow the site more closely before you mischaracterize what I wrote.
Now, it is true that "color revolution" in strong form seems to have lost some
credibility, and that, if I may characterize the discourse collectively, we see a strategic
retreat to formulations like "I'm sure the protestors have legitimacy," but they're still
"manipulated," because, by gawd, that's what the US does.
And then we get NGOs (been around for years) and Jimmy Lai (been around for years).
Constants, that is, where the protests are a variable (which is why the heavy-breathing
GrayZone post about xenohobia doesn't impress me all that much).
The formulation employed in your comment is even weaker:
there have also been efforts on the part of Western agents to manipulate this situation.
This included support of particular, strategically significant leaders and groups and, of
course, control of the Western media narrative.
I don't know what "efforts by" even means. (I mean, there were "efforts by" various odd
Russians to meet with Trump, but no hotel was build, and so, so what?) Nor do I think that
editorials in the Times have the slightest influence either on the Hong Kong protestors or the
Mainland. I can't imagine why anybody would take them seriously.
What I am here to say is that the HK protests are organic to HK. They are organized and
directed by HKers, many of whom have a lot of experience protesting. There is no need to
multiply entities -- whether in strong form the CIA or in very weak form "the connections are
pretty clear" -- to give an account of them. Now, as I said here,
I'm sure Five Eyes are "sniffing around." Probably Taipei, Japan, Indonesia, even the French
and the Dutch; anyone with an interest in events in the South China Sea. But IMNSHO the
protestors have full agency . (It's also hard to avoid that there's a whiff of colonialism
here, too: How is it possible that mere Chinese people could achieve such things without
Western help?
And so, like clockwork -- I've noticed this in other comments that start out with the weak
form of "manipulation" and end up with the strong form of "control" -- we come right back to
that claim!
On the other hand, I have no doubt that Chinese officials are justified in suspecting
covert action by the CIA to stir things up even more (though a lot of the activity is
actually pretty overt)
(So "overt" that you can't even link to whatever the activity might be. Fine.) First,
we come back to the Mandy Rice-Davies rule: They would say that, wouldn't they? Second, so
I wasn't straw-manning at all, then, was I? Third, after I went to the trouble of applying
Occam's Razor to your claims, you just repeat them!
NOTE * "We have pictures and stories in even the mainstream press of US officials and
representatives of western NGOs meeting with such individuals." The picture is in a
hotel ffs. Pretty low level of operational security, if you ask me.
So will this protest end the way Occupy ended here in "democratic" USA? One has to
suspect the secessionist aim that is one of the apparent motives will not be rewarded.
I've often inveighed against YouTube links that don't summarize the content. In this case,
those interested in "connecting the dots" and following the money might be interested to know
that the videocaster, Sarah Flounders, is a member of the Secretariat of Workers World
Party :
The Workers World Party (WWP) is a revolutionary Marxist -- Leninist political party in
the United States founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party
(SWP). Marcy and his followers split from the SWP in 1958 over a series of long-standing
differences, among them their support for Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party in 1948, the
positive view they held of the Chinese Revolution led by Mao Zedong and their defense of the
1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary, all of which the SWP opposed.
Immediately before and during the Tienanmen Square days, China appeared to be in danger of
disintegrating into warlordism. This was overcome and the decentralizing process that
threatened to emerge was eliminated. That was a victory of socialism.
The question of how far the Chinese government can go with the capitalist reforms will
certainly be up for review, notwithstanding a constitutional provision meant to make the
reforms a permanent feature in Chinese society.
One fact has certainly emerged: the millions who left the rural areas for the great cities
of China and were absorbed into the proletariat have given the Chinese government and
Communist Party the opportunity to strengthen the socialist character of the state. The
growth of the proletariat is the objective factor most needed for the building of
socialism.
I don't think its surprising that Flounders and the WWP would retail the mainland line.
I guess that this comes about seeing what happened to all the young people who supported the
Ukrainian "revolution" for a free, just society. Twice! How did that work out for them? How is
the Ukraine going these days? What did they say when they found out that that so-called
"revolution" last time had a $5 billion 'Made-in-the-USA' sticker on it? Conspiracy theory at
the time. Recorded fact now.
> Conspiracy theory at the time. Recorded fact now.
Not so. US funding and influence was quite well-attested then, for those who were paying
attention. Oddly, or not, there seems to be no Victoria Nuland-equivalent for HK. One could
argue, of course, that there's an invisible Nuland, but Occam's Razor eliminates that. I never
followed Ukraine closely, I admit, partly because Ukraine is fabulously corrupt, and partly
because (like Syria) it seemed impossible to separate fact from fiction on the ground. (The
only rooting interest I have in Ukraine is their wonderful enormous airplanes.) I think for HK
we have a lot more well-attested information. That's what the post is about, in fact.
Re similarities or otherwise with Kiev, we will have to wait and see if there is any sniper
crowd killings in HK as with the 'Heavenly Hundred' in Kiev. At the time, the shootings were
blamed on the government, but compelling evidence since points to US backed snipers from
Georgia.
Compelling might be pushing a point. There is certainly evidence, and some of it is quite
persuasive. However I dont consider some Georgians snipers on Italian tv compelling
evidence.
There is video of HKers using 3-person surgical tubing catapults to return to sender
tear gas cannisters. I've seen pranksters use these "slingshots" to lob water balloons into
unsuspecting civilians, but they are much better suited to return cannisters to the
police.
I did a brief search on the Internet for some video but couldn't find it.
The Maidan catapult had its own Twitter account. Here's what it looked like:
I doubt very much that a catapult designed by HKers would look like this; it is not
constructed of materials that come readily to hand. (And perhaps massed slingshots would be
more effective anyhow.)
(I can't read any languages written in Cyrillic, so I defer to any readers who can on my
interpretation.)
Endless wars. Smoke filled skies. Hurricanes, drought, flooding. No purpose in life.
Incarceration, surveillance and insurmountable debt. Arrogant incompetence.
Change is coming. People need hope. A movement will be born.
"Bring it on" -- "Pa'lante" in Spanish.
Hurray For The Riff Raff -- Pa'lante
"And do my time, and be something
Well I just wanna prove my worth --
On the planet Earth, and be, something"
"To all who had to hide, I say, iPa'lante!
To all who lost their pride, I say, ¡Pa'lante!
To all who had to survive, I say, ¡Pa'lante!"
"To my brothers, and my sisters, I say, ¡Pa'lante!"
Para Alante. Pa'lante for forward/move forward/go forward/go to the front/continue/keep
pushing forward/don't stop
Different Spanish interpretations depending on which blend of the language your ears become
attuned to .mine flow from cuban, with a twist of Puerto Rican/Newrican, a dabble of dominican,
some mexican icing and a little Columbian sprinkles on top
Thank you for this Lambert. Perhaps its my perspective of coming from a small country, but I
find the anti-HK protestor comments I see here and elsewhere baffling coming from supposed
progressives. Sometimes, really, its not all about the US, or even US Imperialism.
I know enough about HK to be a little suspicious of the motives of *some* protestors,
but I'm in awe of their inventiveness and raw courage. And believe me, to protest publicly in
HK/China requires real physical courage that is not required anywhere in the west, anyone who
thinks otherwise is entirely clueless about the nature of the Chinese government and what it is
capable of.
The fact that neo-con elements in the US are happy about the protests is entirely
irrelevant, it really is. Its like saying that when RT had approving articles about Occupy or
Black Lives Matter that this proves the Russians were behind it. It really is that stupid and
US centric an opinion.
As to the questions about the endgame, I really don't know, and I suspect the protestors
don't know either. My own opinion is that this is as much a nationalist movement as a political
one. Many HKers see themselves as a nation with one foot in the east and one in the west and
want to preserve this status, but nobody has to my knowledge articulated how they can achieve
this. Many of them have a romantic notion of what western 'freedoms' mean, but not quite as
romantic as people think, as so many HKers have lived in the US or UK or elsewhere and are not
entirely politically naive. But they sure as hell know they do not want to live in an
autocratic State led by Beijing, and they are perfectly entitled to that view.
Your last part of your comment makes the protestors sound like the Brexiteers of the Far
Fast. People who want radical change but are uncertain how to go about it and with no clear aim
in mind. They may not want to live in an autocratic State led by Beijing but according to the
map that I use, Hong Kong is within the borders of China. They are not going to get
independence and they cannot go back to the way things were so they had better sort out what it
is they want their relationship to Beijing to be before it is decided for them.
No. But their five demands don't sound like a winning combination. It doesn't make them
sound even serious about full-fledged change-
1-The complete withdrawal of the proposed extradition bill
2-The government to withdraw the use of the word "riot" in relation to protests
3-The unconditional release of arrested protesters and charges against them dropped
4-An independent inquiry into police behaviour
5-Implementation of genuine universal suffrage
That's a demand that Mainland China adhere to the Basic Law that transferred Hong Kong from
British sovereignty to PRC sovereignty. What's unserious about that?
Agreed about that last demand but it is the outlier on that list. Demands 2, 3 and 4 sound
like they are trying to 'prepare the battlefield' for the next series of protests by
undermining the ability of the Hong Kong Police to do their work. Demand 1 is just fulfilling
the casus belli for this series of protests.
> 'prepare the battlefield' for the next series of protests by undermining the ability of
the Hong Kong Police to do their work
In what sense is that not serious? (I'll say again that I think the HKers want what they
think is liberal democracy as the US/UK may once be said to have had it this is not a
proletarian revolution. Hence, the presence of billionaire Lai is unproblematic, despite heavy
breathing at Grey Zone.)
In what sense is asking for one's first demand not serious? Is it more serious to write it
off?
I realize that this is not a popular line of thought but I believe that you do have to
consider all aspects of such a big event to be fair. I mean, even Paul Joseph Watson came out
with a video supporting the protests-
But here's the rub. Can you imagine what would happen if this all happened in a western
country? Imagine this happening in New York for example. Actually we don't. The authorities
came down on the Occupy Wall Street movement like a ton of bricks so we had a taste of what
would happen.
I am not saying that the Chinese government is right but I can understand their position
here. They give Hong Kong a 'special deal' and the rest of China will want their own special
deals.
Hong Kong already has its own special deal, 'one nation, two systems' is the official slogan
from Beijing. Its Beijing that is backing away from this, not the protestors.
That's right. A 50-year deal and China was not in much of a position to do a lot about it.
Times change and I guess that the Chinese feel that it is time to redress the wrongs of the
past according to their lights. I wonder if Macau has the same issues.
So if China is, as accused, reneging on the "two systems" then where are the protestors on
the "one nation"? To some of us it appears that these young people simply don't want to be a
part of China. If true then that's an aim that goes far beyond mere reform.
And the reason USG involvement matters is that some of us don't believe the US should be
meddling in other countries -- even ones as unfree as China. The protestors could reassure
about the purity of their aims by renouncing US support or the sanctions that some Republicans
in Congress are threatening rather than waving US and British flags.
A 50-year deal and China was not in much of a position to do a lot about it.
Where on earth did you get that idea? It was actually China's idea, promoted by Deng
Xiaoping -- part of their strategy to woo Taiwan and ease the concerns of their neighbours.
Plus, it made perfect sense for them economically.
> The fact that neo-con elements in the US are happy about the protests is entirely
irrelevant, it really is. Its like saying that when RT had approving articles about Occupy or
Black Lives Matter that this proves the Russians were behind it. It really is that stupid and
US centric an opinion.
PK: Thanks. You mention coming from a small country, and I think it would benefit all U.S.
peeps here to adjust their perspectives accordingly. Good advice.
Second is dispelling the typical "Don't know much about history" attitude in the U S of A. I
notice how Lambert Strether ties together several recent organic protest movements. (Should we
also throw in Iranian protests after the presidential election in 2009, Taksim protests in
Istanbul, and Greek protests against austerity? All of which were organic and fit these models
-- the chants from the apartment building remind me of the videos of call and response at night
in Iranian cities during those protests.)
Americans like to act as if every event is brand new. And the "don't know much about about
history" attitude means being "nonjudgmental" -- which means having no control to assess facts
and not much concern for critical thinking.
One question to be asked here would be: How can protest in the U S of A be raised to the HK
or Taksim level of disruption?
Just like the Chinese elites, the U.S. elites don't want to deal with the citizenry, and
protest is something that shocks them.
And the endgame? The endgame is protest. What comes next? We may be in an era where more
protest is needed. Time to study again the disruptions of 1848?
What really makes most HK skeptics suspicious is the way the media and the political
establishment in the West are constantly slathering the students there with pure, unadulturated
praise, while lambasting us skeptics as 'conspiracy theorists'. So comparisons of HK to Maidan
are indeed apt. And please contrast the media's treatment of this protest with their
(non-)treatment of the gilets jaunes movement in France. On that rare occasion when the
MSM did deign to mention the gilets jaunes , they always faithfully accused them of
'racism' and 'anti-semitism'. But note how the HK protesters get pass for using Pepe the Frog
as their symbol!
Whom the media cover and how they cover them will always tell you a lot about who is really
behind a protest movement and who really stands to benefit from it.
Let me start out with a sidebar on "add oil" (加油), which you see all over
the coverage of the Hong Kong protests: It originated, says the OED, as a cheer at the Macau
Grand Prix in the 1960s, meaning "step on the gas" (which is good to know, because I thought
that the underlying metaphor was adding cooking oil to a wok preparatory to frying). It
translates roughly to "go for it!"
I have noticed that Germans often the phrase Gas geben (to floor it, to accelerate)
with roughly the same colloquial meaning of 'to get a move on'.
I do not understand the endgame of the protesters.
The idea of protest is to disrupt the system and generally gum up the works, raising the
costs of the offending campaign, hopefully to the point where the material and reputational
damage makes the whole thing no longer worth pursuing. This is the end game.
To paraphrase Noam Chomsky: Elites want a smoothly-running system of oppression. There
is no reason to give them this gift.
XXYY: Yes. And there were a few essays recently about disobedience. The question isn't why
people disobey. The true question is: Why is the mass of citizens so obedient?
During the Occupy protests one continually heard this question: What do they want?!?!
Leaving aside the fact that a group of 5000 people carrying large signs generally makes
answering this question pretty easy, there seemed to be a limited ability to grasp the idea
that protest is in fact an end .
I think we have somehow been seduced or indoctrinated with the idea that if you do A, it
must be strictly in service of getting B. Often the motivations are just inchoate rage or
anger, and often the intention is just to call attention to something or just f*ck sh*t
up!
As we saw with Occupy, a major turning point in US history and society and the origin of
much that was to come, it's fine to just trust the universe to helpfully spin your actions in
ways your never could have predicted.
To what end? That doesn't boost the number of cops. China brings in the tanks? That maybe
ends hk usefulness to China as offshore financial center and certainly ends rapprochement with
Taiwan.
IMO China's instinct for heavy handed response has led them to a series of mistakes. Perhaps
the trade war has them on edge.
In general, the techniques described here seem unreliable and dangerous if masking your
identity from surveillance is vital. The idea that you are going to identify and precisely
target every video camera that can see you, 100% of the time, esp. in a moving and rapidly
changing environment, seems extremely naive. Video cameras are small, cheap, inconspicuous, and
easy to disguise. All that's needed by the opponent is a single video frame that shows your
face clearly.
A much better approach to work on seems like trying to obscure your own identifying
features. Obviously people are doing this with masks, hoods, goggles, hard hats, umbrellas, and
everything else.
One thing I haven't seen too much about is strategies specifically intended to defeat facial
recognition technology. AI-based recognizers seem to be extremely brittle; small and even
undetectable modifications to the source data seem to be able to throw them off completely
(e.g. https://mashable.com/2017/11/02/mit-researchers-fool-google-ai-program/
). One can imagine these approaches being deployed deliberately as camoflauge or a "disguise".
Obviously the problem would be finding robust techniques.
I am not sure that the three names mentioned means anything to most Americans. But the name
Abelson probably is better known. And now Wexner and his Meta group were added.
Primitive anti-Semitism lost attraction in the USA as people are better educated now and
generally are able to distinguish between bankers and particular tribe (inability to see the
difference was one factor that fueled anti-Semitism in Europe in the past). If you wish
anti-Semitism was displaced by Russophobia, which now is a politically correct
anti-Semitism.
Haaretz
delivered a warning today to American Jewry. "If Trump falls, the testimonies of Cohen, Pecker
and Weisselberg could spark an anti-Semitic Backlash."
Many have passed through the Trump Administration's revolving door and faded away quietly
but those who may bring the president down are "the lawyer-fixer (Michael Cohen), the
smut-dealing publisher (David Pecker) and the numbers whiz who knows it all (Alan
Weisselberg)." Prominent Haaretz correspondent Chemi Shalev is honest enough to openly
acknowledge that "the trio's public profile is a Jewish stereotype."
Shalev dared to write the article every other political analyst has dreaded putting into
words let alone text. "The name of the lawyer who implicated Donald Trump in the commission of
federal crimes is Cohen. The name of the publisher who has agreed to tell investigators how he
turned his newspaper into a clearinghouse for Cohen's payments to women is Pecker. And the name
of the accountant who has been granted immunity in order to testify about the role played by
the Trump Organization in Cohen's endeavors is Weisselberg. The common denominators of
Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg, beside their willingness to do whatever it takes for Trump in
the past and their apparent willingness to inform on him now , is that all three are
indisputably and recognizably Jewish."
If you wonder why no one in America was courageous enough to write about Trump being
betrayed by his closest Jewish aids, Shalev's answer is "anyone who does so risks being accused
of generalizing, if not actively encouraging anti-Semitism." But this is just the first stage
in this saga according to Haaretz 's correspondent. "Somewhere down the line. The
racist, supremacist and neo-Nazi element of Trump's base is already drooling at the impending
opportunity of enlisting disgruntled rank and file Trump fans in a battle against the Jewish
conspiracy aimed at their idol."
Shalev realises that Trump's days are numbered. And he believes the actions of Cohen, Pecker
and Wiesselberg make Trump's political survival unlikely. "Cohen's admissions in a New York
courtroom last week that his payments to porn's Stormy Daniels and Playboy's Karen MacDougal
were made in accordance with Trump's instructions have cast the President as a criminal who
violated campaign finance laws. Pecker's testimony could reportedly make clear that the two
payments were part of a nefarious system. And Weisselberg's account, though currently limited
to Cohen's payments, could pave the way to exposure of the long line of alleged misdeeds
carried out by Trump as real estate mogul, franchising czar, reality star, presidential
candidate and commander in chief."
When Trump was elected some saw him as the "First Jewish President," At the moment it looks
as if it his Trump's closest Jewish aides who may provide the final nails in his presidential
coffin. Enacting astute Jewish pre traumatic instinct, Shalev notes that "Trump repeatedly and
profusely praises Paul Manafort, who isn't Jewish, for remaining loyal despite the past and
future convictions awaiting him. Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg, who sound like a stand-up's
Jewish law firm, are, by implication, part of the vast conspiracy that seeks to bring the
President down and to undermine the voters' verdict."
Shalev uses the clearest possible language. "If Trump emerges unscathed, a scenario that
seems increasingly unlikely, fears of anti-Semitic backlash could recede. If Trump is
impeached, or forced to resign, or impaired in any other way, shape or form, the outrage
against his incriminators and their common heritage could turn into a clear and present danger
for American Jews." You ask, 'what about Israel?' Shalev doesn't shy away from the question.
"The American right's adoration of Israel won't be an obstacle: Many of Trump's constituents,
like Netanyahu's, can easily ignore the common bonds between Israel and its greatest Diaspora.
Israel is the country of proud and nationalistic Jew-heroes that man the West's forward outpost
against radical Islam and who play a critical role in advancing the End of Days."
Maybe the above explains the Trump administration's indication yesterday that it is set to
announce it rejects Palestinian 'right of return.' If Shalev is correct then the message here
could be interpreted as follows -- we are still supporting Israel, Zionism, we are totally anti
Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims but we don't trust Jews either. This is, in fact, a common
Zionist anti Semitic position. I.e., 'We like and support Jews as long as they are somewhere
else, preferably Zion.'
According to Shalev, "from the moment Cohen turned his back on Trump, and more so since
Pecker and Weisselberg apparently joined him, the neo-Nazi network is busy preparing the flip
side of the coin, the analogy that could impress Trump's followers, if he falters: The three
are portrayed as successors to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus to authorities." I guess that
you have noticed that while Shalev seems to be comfortable pointing at the ethnicity of Cohen,
Pecker and Weisselberg he seems to refer to Goyim who do the same as 'neo-Nazis' and
'supremacists.'
Shalev writes that before Trump's elections, "American Jewish organizations were quick to
call out Trump for the suspected anti-Semitic messages in his statements and campaign." But
their voices receded "with the prodding of Netanyahu and the vouching of Sheldon Adelson
Trump's disturbing words were swept under the carpet of his decidedly pro-Israeli
polices."Trump's allegedly Jew-hating supporters were somehow ignored by the American
media.
However, this may change very soon. "The Jewishness of the three former Trump aides who have
now decided to testify against him could mar the artificial tranquility and, in a worst-case
scenario, spark a dangerous wave of anti-Semitism. American Jewish leaders would do well to
prepare for such a stormy day, as would Netanyahu, who has placed all of his prestige on Trump
and the American right."
Shalev sarcastically suggests that "if Netanyahu is forced to choose between the
administration's pro-settler, anti-Palestinian policies and his duty to fight anti-Semitism and
stand up for beleaguered American Jews, they (America Jews) would do well to start seeking
their salvation elsewhere."
@anonymous The Christian Zionists, exemplified by John Hagee and his "Christians United
for Israel." for years, from the pulpi has pleaded for the bombing of Iran. He is Netanyahu's
Useful Idiot.
The 60-70 million strong Christian Zionists are Trump's base. He has no hope of being
re-elected without them. Thus, Trump is just as beholden to these dispensationalists as he is
to Adelson and Netanyahu. The same can be said for the entire republican party.
It is apparent that the caricature of the Soviet Union in both productions is really a stand-in for the present-day Russian government
under Vladimir Putin. As only American exceptionalism could permit, Hollywood did not hold the same disdain for his predecessor,
Boris Yeltsin, whose legacy of high inflation and national debt have since been eliminated. In fact, most have forgotten that the
same filmdom community outraged about Russia's supposed interference in the 2016 U.S. election made a celebratory movie back in 2003,
Spinning Boris , which practically boasted about the instrumental role the West played in Yeltsin's 1996 reelection in Russia.
The highly unpopular alcoholic politician benefited from a near universal media bias as virtually all the federation's news outlets
came under the control of the 'oligarchs' (in America known simply as billionaires) which his economic policies of mass privatization
of state industry enriched overnight.
Yeltsin initially polled at less than 10% and was far behind Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov until he became the recipient
of billions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) thanks to his corrupt campaign manager, Anatoly Chubais, now one of the most
hated men in all of Russia. After the purging of votes and rampant ballot-box stuffing, Yeltsin successfully closed the gap between
his opponent thanks to the overt U.S. meddling.
Spinning Boris was directed by Roger Spottiswoode, who previously helmed an installment in the James Bond series, Tomorrow
Never Dies . The 1997 entry in the franchise is one of thousands of Hollywood films and network television shows exposed by journalists
Matthew Alford and Tom Secker as having been influenced or directly assisted by the Pentagon and CIA in their must-read book National
Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood. Based on evidence from documents revealed in Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) requests, their investigation divulges the previously unknown extent to which the national security complex
has gone in exerting control over content in the film industry. While it has always been known that the military held sway over movies
that required usage of its facilities and equipment to be produced, the level of impact on such films in the pre-production and editing
stages, as well as the control over non-military themed flicks one wouldn't suspect to be under supervision by Washington and Langley,
is exhaustively uncovered.
As expected, Hollywood and the military-industrial complex's intimate relationship during the Cold War is featured prominently
in Alford and Secker's investigative work. It is unclear whether HBO or Netflix sought US military assistance or were directly involved
with the national security state in their respective productions, but these are just two recent examples of many where the correlated
increase in geopolitical tensions with Moscow is reflected. The upcoming sequel to DC's Wonder Woman set to be released next
year , Wonder Woman 1984, featuring the female superhero " coming into conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War
in the 1980s ", is yet another. Reprising her role is Israeli actress and IDF veteran is Gal Gadot as the title character, ironically
starring in a blockbuster that will demonize the Eurasian state which saved her ethnicity from extinction. Given the Pentagon's involvement
in the debacle surounding 2014's The Interview which provoked very real tensions with North Korea, it is likely they are at
least closely examining any entertainment with content regarding Russia, if not directly pre-approving it for review.
Ultimately, the Western panic about its imperial decline is not limited to assigning blame to Moscow. Sinophobia has manifested
as well in recent films such as the 2016 sci-fi film Arrival where the extra-terrestrials who reach Earth seem more interested
in communicating with Beijing as the global superpower than the U.S. However, while the West forebodes the return of Russia and China
to greater standing, you can be certain its real fear lies elsewhere. The fact that Chernobyl and Stranger Things are
as preoccupied with portraying socialism in a bad light as they are in rendering Moscow nefarious shows the real underlying trepidation
of the ruling elite that concerns the resurgence of class consciousness. The West must learn its lesson that its state of perpetual
war has caused its own downfall or it could attempt a last line of defense that would inevitably conscript all of humanity to its
death as the ruling class nearly did to the world in 1914 and 1939.
Obama's Unending Wars is impeccably researched,
revealing the reality of Barak Obama's devastating eight years in the White House, built by
African slaves. Obama became rich doing the white neo-colonialists bidding by warring
against more countries at once than any white president. True to Franz Fanon's classic
work, the author peals the imperial white mask off the black skin of Obama, whose father
was a Kenyan black man. Jeremy Kuzmarov documents how the drone president stood for seven
aggressive wars, and put into practice the George Bush AFRICOM plan to dominate the African
continent. Obama convinced or forced the governments of 53 of Africa's 54 governments to
accept US military bases/facilities and troops. US military will thereby directly assist
US's agricultural-multinationals to rape the continent once again.
Writing to white and
black readers sans condensation, Kuzmarov shows how many white progressives and former
revolutionaries, who, in their anxiety to reject any racist appearance, embraced this
warmongering president. Obama also convinced most African-Americans to give him leeway to
do them justice, which he never did. And now, for the first time in history, a large
percentage of black people in the US support the white Establishment's wars for
profit.
"... Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has long pushed for Kiev to investigate Vice President Joe Biden's attempt in 2016 to get the country's top prosecutor removed at a crucial moment during an ongoing investigation into Burisma Holdings -- the Ukrainian natural gas company advised at the time by Biden's son Hunter. ..."
"... As the The New York Times reported previously, during the final year of the Obama presidency, Vice President Joe Biden "threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine's leaders did not dismiss the country's top prosecutor" -- Viktor Shokin -- "who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite." ..."
Also interesting is that Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani has long pushed for
Kiev to investigate Vice President Joe Biden's attempt in 2016 to get the country's top
prosecutor removed at a crucial moment during an ongoing investigation into Burisma Holdings --
the Ukrainian natural gas company advised at the time by Biden's son Hunter.
As the The New York Times
reported previously, during the final year of the Obama presidency, Vice President Joe Biden
"threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine's leaders did
not dismiss the country's top prosecutor" -- Viktor Shokin -- "who had been accused of turning
a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite."
Crucially last week Giuliani was reported to have again raised the issue with Ukrainian
officials , according to CNN
.
As CNN cynically put it in its
latest report , this suggests "the former New York mayor is making a renewed push for the
country to investigate Trump's political enemies."
But then again maybe it's as simple as the US not actually having a deep national security
interest in propping up Ukraine's military at a moment when international missile treaties with
Russian are unraveling and the war in Donbass is at a bloody stalemate.
The looming potential for a controversial cut in aid to Ukraine will make Trump's upcoming
meeting with still relatively new "political outsider" President Volodymyr Zelenskyy set for
next week all the more interesting. A final decision on the military aid is expect after this
crucial meeting.
More reason for Pappy Biden to pull out of race. Now he does not stand a chance to defeat
Trump because Hunter corruption in Ukraine and China will be center stage during election.
Obviously "lock them up " will be the battle cry. With China's latest backpedaling on tariff
retaliation, Trump can only be defeated from within Republican party by new impeachable
revelations.
Wait, so does the US still want to split China and Russia?
At G7 Macron and Trump both were talking up Putin and wanting to allow Russia back into
G8.
Then i read another interesting article about Macron inviting Putin to France:
"The dynamics of the New
Cold War might undergo a dramatic transformation if the geopolitical game-changer of a
“New Detente” between Russia and the West succeeds, which is becoming
increasingly possible as proven by recent events.
President Putin’s meeting earlier this week with his French counterpart in Paris
saw Macron repeatedly emphasizing Russia’s European
identity in a clear sign that this rapprochement is making visible progress. Macron is
motivated to play the role of mediator between the US and Russia for two main reasons, namely
that he wants to position France as a possible replacement to inevitably post-Merkel Germany
as the EU’s leading country and also to reach an accommodation with Moscow in Africa
after the completion of the country’s “
African Transversal ” earlier this summer
began to
threaten Paris’ interests in the continent. Putin responded extremely positively and reminded Macron of their
two Great Powers’ decades-long shared desire to forge “a common Europe from
Lisbon to Vladivostok”, reaffirming that Russia regards itself more as a European
country than a “Eurasian” or Asian one, which has important implications for
International Relations.
Both the Mainstream and Alternative Medias
had hitherto exaggerated the nature of the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership for their
own reasons, with the former wanting to portray it according to the paradigm of the so-called
“Russian threat” in order to justify a more muscular American military buildup
against them while the latter imagined that the two were “allies” jointly working
together without any disagreements whatsoever in order to accelerate the emerging Multipolar
World Order that would presumably be “anti-American”. The reality of their
relations is a lot less sexy and it’s that Russia was pushed into reorientating its
strategic focus as a result of the West’s anti-Russian sanctions following
Crimea’s reunification, which served as the catalyst for Moscow’s decision to
embrace Beijing. Russia probably wouldn’t have undertaken this move had it not been for
American pressure, but it felt compelled to since it didn’t want to remain a
“junior partner” in the US’ “New World Order”, instead
endeavoring to return to its historical role as a Great Power among equals.
In pursuit of this, it’s much easier for Russia to simply reintegrate into a
reformed “New World Order” than to build an entirely new one from scratch
alongside China, which is why the possibility of a “New Detente” is so enticing
to its leadership, though provided of course that the West is sincere in finally treating
Russia as an equal Great Power"
BASTARDS! If i had a DIME for every time Obama EXPLOITED vulnerable Americans for his road
and pony show I would be a rich woman.
I'll never forget Obama interview in prison with a few younger African American kids.
Talkin to then as if he knew what they were going through. His black *** raised WHITE and who
had ZERO clue what it was to live black and supporting the very oppressive system that jailed
them in the first place. All that after he bailed out banks and then QE under the Fed for his
wealthy CITI, Goldman and *** friends.
Could President Trump be poised to dramatically draw back the heavy US military and foreign
aid investment in Ukraine that his administration inherited from the Obama White House? Since
the US-backed coup against Russia-friendly Viktor Yanukovich on the back of the Euromaidan
protests in 2014, Washington has given Ukraine over $1 billion in security assistance to
bolster its national armed forces as they clash with pro-Russian separatists in the country's
east.
And now CNN
reports a possible drastic reversal: President Trump has "seriously considered for the
past several weeks cutting $250 million the United States is providing in military assistance
to Ukraine." The original Politico
report which broke the news said the White House has already notified Congress and multiple
US agencies of its intent to cut the aid.
Pull all military aid. This war is not wanted by Ukrainians or ethnic Russians. 75%
Ukraine wants peace, but Poroshenko government forced war so they continue stealing foreign
aid. People voted Zelenskey on his promise to end the war, jail the thief's This war is
forced by corrupt oligarchs with a help of Bidens money laundering on the people of Ukraine.
The public opinion in Ukraine is overwhelmingly to end the war, but government and the
corrupt continue to fight it.
...and instigate undemocratic coups that install anti-Russian oligarchs, and support the
Nazi Azov Battalion, and little things like that...But it's bound to be Russia's fault
somehow.
I am quite aware that it was an undemocratic coup d'etat. I was in Ukraine in 2014 when
everything was unfolding. The coup d'etat was organized via Facebook from the US Embassy.
people were paid to show up but nobody was to show up until there were guarantees from enough
people that there would be a certain minimum attendance.
That's assuming the war state would let him pull the money.
Seems to me like anytime Trump mentions dialing back hostilities anywhere with anybody at
any time for any reason, the corporate media and war-loving Congressworms start shreiking
doom, the military turtles up and ignores him, and nothing changes. Maybe this time will be
different, but I doubt it.
Just theater for distraction of the sheeple. 250mil or 1 bil does not even equate to tiny
drop in a bucket. Why don't they talk about 34 billion given to an ethnic group in the Middle
East.
trump's neocons are all in a lather about a Chinese company's bid to purchase a majority
stake in a Ukrainian aircraft engine company. I think they sent Pompeo over just recently to
ride roughshod on the new Ukie admin to get the deal blocked, so this flap might be another
way to pressure them
As for Burisma Holdings, if you pry the rock off of that be prepared to see a whole lot of
**** roaches scatter including Ihor Kolomoisky, the character who the newly installed
President of Ukraine worked for in the TV series where he played the part of President.
Kolomoisky owned Burisma through his Privat Bank which also underwent some extraordinary
upheaval not long ago, which is typical of Ihor's past dealings.
You could spend hours researching Ihor as I did and I guarantee you'd find it a real eye
opener. Robert Parry of Consortium News described him thusly:
In the never-never land of how the mainstream U.S. press covers the Ukraine crisis, the
appointment last year of thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to govern one of the country's
eastern provinces was pitched as a democratic "reform" because he was supposedly too rich
to bribe, without noting that his wealth had come from plundering the country's
economy.
In other words, the new U.S.-backed "democratic" regime, after overthrowing
democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych because he was "corrupt," was rewarding
one of Ukraine's top thieves by letting him lord over his own province, Dnipropetrovsk
Oblast, with the help of his personal army.
Restricting the freedom of Xinjiang jihadis is a thorn in the backside of the criminals in
Washington as they see their ability to brainwash, recruit and train more terrorists from the
area is hugely reduced.
One of the cancers that needs to be eliminated is the propaganda device called VOA, voice
of america. It needs to be dealt with and eliminated from all Asian countries. Even today, in
VietNam, there are brainaltered creatures who listen to VOA and believe that the US is a
force for freedom and democracy.
vexarb
Andre: "Suddenly "
You wrote of course "Suddenly" as shorthand for 7 years of blood sweat and tears by the
Axis of Resistance (Syria, Hezb'Allah, Iran and Russia). Preceded by decades of individual
resistance before these Allies came together in a united front.
"A thousand years is but the blink of an eyelid to The Lord". -- Old Testament
mark
Cue more crocodile tears for "the poor Uighurs" from the same people who killed half a
million Iraqi children under 5 in Iraq.
mark
I'm just a suspicious of stories about 6 million moslem Uighurs in concentration camps being
turned into lamp soap and shades from the same people who are currently waging a hybrid war
against China, and who are obviously so, so concerned about the welfare of moslems.
uncle tungsten
The USA is soooo concerned about theUighurs that it totally forgot to reserve some concern
for the Venezuelan people that it is currently starving and denying national wealth to so
they can purchase hospitals, expand education services build new infrastructure etc.
The USA has so much concern that even its poodle over the Atlantic at airstrip one has
stolen the Venezuelan people's gold so they cannot improve health services, expand education
etc etc. The five eyes look on approvingly and should any vassal blink then the USA will
simply push up the price of oil as punishment. That increase will not affect the USA as it
continues to stripmine the wealth of its future generations to achieve self sufficiency right
now.
The poorest country in Asia – Afghanistan – has totally collapsed
under NATO occupation.
Complete BS! It is the continued Pakistani ISI influence in
Afghanistan presently though their Haqqani Taliban network plus ISIS that is terrorizing Afghanistan,
including intentional bombings of wedding parties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadahan_wedding_bombing
&
https://www.apnews.com
/b5ceb0cfb33d4d73aaaadf5eee19fe9d
The Pakistani army wants Afghanistan as "strategic depth" in case of a conflict with India.
Tony
Ah! So the US-led invasion, with it's endless stream of weak US-approved 'governments', has had
nothing to do with Afghanistan's continued instability then. Got it!!!
Pakistan is the only overland supply route available for the US military; roads via Iran and
Russia are politically out. All their fuel, ammo and food towards Afghanistan is under Pakistani
ISI control from 1978 till now, with the interruption of 2009 – 2015 .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_logistics_in_the_Afghan_War#History
mark
Afghanistan has been the victim and playground for Neocon intrigue for years.
A liberal, progressive left wing regime that furthered women's rights and social provision was
destroyed by Uncle Sam in its own interests to weaken Russia.
Bin Laden and his splendid chaps were put on the CIA payroll for the purpose.
The result was a long running bloodbath with 28,000 Russian and 1,4 million Afghan dead.
Followed by years of civil war, US invasion and the imposition of a narco warlord puppet government
on the country.
Tony
Hasn't Afghanistan gone from having hardly any opium production prior to the US-led invasion, to
currently being the source of something like 99% of the world's source for heroin?
mark
The Cocaine Import Agency runs the coke trade out of South America.
Might as well run the heroin trade out of Afghanistan as well.
Martin Usher
Have you considered that the Pakistan of 1980 may not be the same country with the same players as
the Pakistan of 2019? Also, when you get a weak/chaotic government then its quite likely that
different factions or forces within a country may pursue widely different goals?
"... etanyahu bet the farm on Trump and Trump failed to deliver. They were countered at every turn by patient and scrupulous opponents who read the board better and didn't respond muscularly to repeated provocations. They let events come to them and waited for the moment of over-commitment. ..."
"... "Iraqi Intelligence: 'The Israeli drones that have been attacking our nation in the past few weeks are operating out of a base in YPG/SDF held areas in Syria and these operations are co-financed by Saudi Arabia. Israeli military personnel are on the ground in Northern Syria.'" ..."
Magnier on Nuttyahoo's escalating provocations encapsulates the most recent series of
events, although he doesn't attempt to link the actions to the upcoming elections. Hezbollah
threatened direct retaliation against Occupied Palestine; Iraq chose to blame the Outlaw US
Empire; Syria remained silent; the G-7 said nothing. The recent proposal by Iran to refurbish
one pipeline and build another to Syria's coastline would certainly become a Zionist target.
So, for the project to have the proper security, Occupied Palestine needs to be liberated.
Nasrallah isn't known as a bluffer, while Nuttyahoo's prone to be too aggressive. Do the
Zionists see the current situation as possibly the final time they have some sort of an
advantage as Magnier seems to imply and attack since they know the Outlaw US Empire won't?
But, in spite of the whole US paleo-conservative spectre, along with "alt-right", always
telling us it is Israel who forces the US to wage war in the ME...now, Israeli politics and
experts, say the last attacks on Irak, Syria and Lebanon have been made only as electoral
maneuver by Netanyahu and not only, but have stated that it is the US who wants Israel doing
their dirty job in the ME...This, reported by Al Manar ....not a Jewish source....
In his speech on August 25, the secretary general of Hezbollah made a double promise: the
Resistance will now attack the drones of Israel and attack the Israeli troops not in Shebaa
but in Lebanon itself. For those Israeli generals who experienced the 2006 war and the ups
and downs of Syria, these are not just warnings. These soldiers even seem to have been
sensitive to Nasraláh's warning that Netanyahu's attacks are intended to win votes
for the next election and avoid imprisonment. "The current threat to Israel, which is even
more serious than terrorism, missiles and Iran, is the collapse of the interior of Israel,"
warned former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
"By the way, Netanyahu's air operations against Syria, Lebanon and Iraq pursue internal
political goals, which is very unfortunate", said Moshe Yaalon, a leader of the Blue and
White opposition coalition and former Israeli Minister of Military Affairs, according to
the agency Palestinian Maa.
"The threat of the collapse of the interior of Israel is even more serious than the
missiles and Iran. The destruction of democracy and corruption within government apparatus
will lead us to collapse", said Ehud Barak in a video posted on his Twitter page.
"The attack on Syria was not a preventive action and will harm Israel," Barak told
Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, having apparently understood the warning issued by
Nasralá.
Other Israeli experts share this opinion. Yaari Ehud, an Israeli journalist and expert
in the Middle East said on Channel 12 of Israeli television that Netanyahu and his security
cabinet "perpetrated these attacks on behalf of the US" and run the risk of "exposing
Israel." "In fact, the missions that Americans refuse to do, they entrust them to Israel.
We have been commissioned to do the dirty work at the risk of jeopardizing our security,
"he added before saying", Tel Aviv will pay for it."
Who is lying? The Israelis or the Americans? Or both?
Mangier writes a follow-up to his post that I criticized @29. I think that his latest post
also falls well short of his vaunted reputation.
Magnier's interpretation of events lauds Netanyahu's chess playing. He compares
inconsequential attacks with past strategic actions (almost gleefully as he describes
those past glories at some length) .
He makes broad, unsupported statements like:
It should be recognized that Israel's assessment of the reaction of Iran's allies in
Syria and Iraq is spot on.
And repeats that Israel is hitting "hundreds" of sites FOUR TIMES. Making it
seem as though the Israeli campaign is much greater than it really is. AFAICT those attacks
have actually been spread out over more than a year.
Yet it's all preliminary to this gem:
Netanyahu forced Hezbollah's leader to threaten Israel ...
Forced?Really? AFAICT the red lines in Lebanon have been clear
for a long time. Each side will defend theirs.
Which leaves me scratching my head as to why Magnier isn't using his platform to point out
Netanyahu's irresponsible, self-serving actions. Netanyahu will NOT pay a price for his
craven machinations - which could mean Israeli dead and injured and/or another war in Lebanon
- when even "critics" like Magnier dress them up as heroic acts of patriotism.
Netanyahu's widening of Israel's war with Iran and its proxies into Lebanon and Iraq -- and
perhaps beyond -- and his acknowledgement of that wider war raise questions for both
nations.
Israel today has on and near her borders hostile populations in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon,
Iran, and Iraq. Tens of millions of Muslims see her as an enemy to be expelled from the
region.
While there is a cold peace with Egypt and Jordan, the Saudis and Gulf Arabs are
temporary allies as long as the foe is Iran.
Is this pervasive enmity sustainable?
As for America, have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to
another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not
of ours?
On a not completely different subject-that of the Empire's demise- there is a Tom Luongo
article at Strategic Culture, which is pretty good. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/27/first-many-cauldrons-form-middle-east/
It ends
"So, the cauldron around Israel is forming. With the Saudis in deep trouble, Egypt refusing
to go along with any of Trump's plans – Arab NATO, the Kushner Deal of the Century
– the game board has fundamentally shifted against them.
"N etanyahu bet the farm on Trump and Trump failed to deliver. They were countered at
every turn by patient and scrupulous opponents who read the board better and didn't respond
muscularly to repeated provocations. They let events come to them and waited for the moment
of over-commitment.
"Now the counter attack will commence, I suspect, with brutal precision"
I don't quite agree with his assessment and conclusions. He is grossly underestimating the
axis of resistance and their will to push back. Also, Israelis are overestimating the
American support, no matter what. Not if it is going to cost them American lives. Hitting a
few ammo depots in isolation is one thing, but getting Americans to die for Israeli
intransigence is another. Not much stomach for that here in US, no matter how much they push
the special relationship.
Israelis are playing backgammon while Iran and axis playing chess, being a grandmaster at
that. Check mate will be ugly.
@177 Israel shouldn't take American support for granted. According to this article some
Evangelicals are starting to have second thought...
"Why do we have pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ values, and we do not have more freedom to protect
our faith? We are persecuted now," Yanko says about evangelical Christians like herself.
"[Jews] say, 'We've got America. We control America.' That's what I know."
"Iraqi Intelligence: 'The Israeli drones that have been attacking our nation in the
past few weeks are operating out of a base in YPG/SDF held areas in Syria and these
operations are co-financed by Saudi Arabia. Israeli military personnel are on the ground in
Northern Syria.'"
Is it a feint to get SAA to cease Idlib Dawn and drive the Zionists out, or are Zionist
drones really being flown from there? Regardless, it's time to end the Kurd's games, drive
out the Outlaw US Empire and all other illegal forces and reclaim Syrian sovereignty. Iraq
must do the same.
Over the past several days, Israel has attempted to prevent attacks by Iranian forces
and their allies by striking targets in Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq.
Really? AFAIK, Israel hasn't described specific attacks that were thwarted.
Snyder then uses Iraqi and Hezbollah's anger at Israel's acts of war (cause, um ...
that's what they are) as examples of pre-crime hatred that justifies
Netanyahu's Israel's attacks.
Netanyahu's self-serving deviousness has blown up his face. Hasbara media assets are busy
trying to recover the high ground. IMO their attempt to do so will fail miserably as it's
transparent and thus digs the hole deeper. Leading to the question: Will Netanyahu accept
defeat at the polls or will he continue with the dirty tricks (at the risk of war)?
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
The above should be read in conjunction with my criticism of Magnier @29 and @148.
"... Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him. ..."
"... Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid. ..."
It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR.
Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by
contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him.
Those funds came from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus, donors who have made no secret of their desire for
the United States to destroy the Islamic Republic.
Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are
the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past
two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid.
Sheldon Adelson BRIBED Trump and the Republicans .... This does not include the "favorable
and unusual" so-called loans granted Kushner and ?Trump?
Who is notorious for being in financial difficulty and is desperately hiding his taxes.
Trump has lots of energy for defending his tax returns but very little for defending Our
borders.
Trump's lawyers will appeal and fight this tooth and nail for his Taxes. But when some
P.O.S. "judge" treasonously rules against defending this Nation's borders from Invaders Trump
just shruggs and submits. Makes empty threats about where to put the Invaders, and goes back
to putting ISRAEL FIRST.
Will Trump's intimations about meeting with Rouhani win the footrace? His competitor?
Israel's determination to get the Mideast theater of WW3 started in earnest. Racking up two
declarations of war in as many days (Lebanon and Iraq) ain't too shabby a head-start. The
game is to deprive Trump of the initiative. The Israelis are smelling capitulation and a
fresh outbreak of post-JCPOA yakking. The time is now. Trump had better get with the program.
He still has a chance to look like Presidential Instigator. Failing that, he'll just have to
be dragged in unceremoniously and then scramble post facto to look like Instigator. It's a PR
dilemma. His military's already there, poised for action. This may be the first war to launch
right over the head -and better judgement- of JCS Head Dunsford himself. False flag momentum
is a funny thing. The time couldn't be riper for war to get a jump on cooler heads.
After all, War has its own thoughts on the matter and will only let human beings dither
for so long before taking the helm and asserting its own predilections:
"Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation
survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."
--Lincoln Second Inagural
Magnier on Nuttyahoo's escalating provocations encapsulates the most recent series of
events, although he doesn't attempt to link the actions to the upcoming elections. Hezbollah
threatened direct retaliation against Occupied Palestine; Iraq chose to blame the Outlaw US
Empire; Syria remained silent; the G-7 said nothing. The recent proposal by Iran to refurbish
one pipeline and build another to Syria's coastline would certainly become a Zionist target.
So, for the project to have the proper security, Occupied Palestine needs to be liberated.
Nasrallah isn't known as a bluffer, while Nuttyahoo's prone to be too aggressive. Do the
Zionists see the current situation as possibly the final time they have some sort of an
advantage as Magnier seems to imply and attack since they know the Outlaw US Empire won't?
Iran for Multilateralism and Rule of Law, trusting themselves to abide by JCPOA, even if,
as defined as failing, an invitation to Europeans to decide not be tempted by the US to
remove themselves from their only future, and an appeal to the US to honour the
responsibility of their veto sit on the UNSC where the lengthiest document was signed.
The main problem was the the USA elite after the dissolution of the USSR was hell-bent on world dominance. And Clinton
was in the vanguard of this trend.
Clinton has pretty destructive, toxic legacy, is not he? He and his administration
essentially acted as a short sited and greedy gangster and he sowed the teeth of dragon into US-Russia relations.
Clinton tried to exploit Russian weakness during this period to the fullest extent possible,. This is the policy similar to
policy of GB toward Germany after WWI. In short Clinton was a typical imperialist from the very beginning and like all subsequent
Presidents valued international treaties and obligation only when they benefited the USA. The stance that illegal bombing of
Serbia only confirmed. At this point by Nuremberg standards he and all top official ion his administration and first of all
Madeline not so bright Albright became war criminals. The fact they they were not prosecuted is just a historical aberration
stemming from the dominant USA position at this time.
Essentially Clinton transformed NATO into aggressive alliance which is an expansion of the USA military.
Notable quotes:
"... As President Bill Clinton repeatedly remarked, the two key questions about enlargement were when and how ..."
Newly available sources show how the 1993–95 debate over the best means of expanding
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization unfolded inside the Clinton administration. This
evidence comes from documents recently declassified by the Clinton Presidential Library, the
Defense Department, and the State Department because of appeals by the author.
As President Bill Clinton repeatedly remarked, the two key questions about enlargement
were when and how . The sources make apparent that, during a critical decision making
period twenty-five years ago, supporters of a relatively swift conferral of full membership to
a narrow range of countries outmaneuvered proponents of a slower, phased conferral of limited
membership to a wide range of states.
Pleas from Central and Eastern European leaders, missteps by Russian President Boris
Yeltsin, and victory by the pro-expansion Republican Party in the 1994 U.S. congressional
election all helped advocates of full-membership enlargement to win.
The documents also reveal the surprising impact of Ukrainian politics on this debate and the
complex roles played by both Strobe Talbott, a U.S. ambassador and later deputy secretary of
state, and Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian foreign minister.
Finally, the sources suggest ways in which the debate's outcome remains significant for
transatlantic and U.S.-Russian relations today.
... ... ...
In other words, the Bush administration performed the first “ratcheting down” of options, a process not without its costs. It
raised the question, controversial to this day, of whether the Bush administration promised Moscow that, in exchange for
tolerating the extension of NATO across a united Germany, the alliance would not seek further expansion eastward. Opinions on
this topic range from absolutely not to absolutely yes.15
... ... ...
Without advance warning, Yeltsin decided to vent his frustrations publicly at the Budapest summit with Clinton in attendance.
The Russian president accused the United States, in the interest of NATO expansion, of risking a “‘cold peace’” to follow the
Cold War.108
On the flight back from Budapest to Washington, Talbott recalled that the president “was furious at his foreign-policy team for
dragging him across the Atlantic to serve as a punching bag for Yeltsin.”
... ... ...
The shift in U.S. thinking unsurprisingly contributed to more tensions with Moscow, as evidenced by Talbott's subsequent
negotiations. Kozyrev tried to convince Talbott that a better idea would be to transform NATO into “a collective security
organization rather than a vehicle for containment” by amending the North Atlantic Treaty.122
Talbott rejected the idea, saying “no way are we going to entertain the possibility of redefining NATO in any way that
compromises its basic mission.”123
Put bluntly, “We're not in the business of having to ‘compensate’ Russia or buy it off. Russia is not doing us a favor by
allowing NATO to expand.”124
...Finally, interacting with the other five factors was President Clinton's increasing sympathy to the appeals of
CEE leaders, which inclined him toward those aides pushing for full Article 5 expansion, and his personal optimism that Russia
would eventually tolerate enlargement.
...In Perry's view, arms control—most notably, START II, which would have eliminated two-thirds of the U.S. and Russian
arsenals, but never went into effect—ended up being “‘a casualty of NATO expansion’” and of fighting between the Kremlin and the
Duma.139
START III suffered a similar fate, not even progressing to a signing. Looking back in 2015, Perry concluded: “The downsides of
early NATO membership for Eastern European nations were even worse than I had feared.”140
.... Viewed from twenty-five years on, with U.S.-Russian confrontation on the rise, democracy crumbling in Hungary
and Poland, and U.S. tanks returning to Europe, there is room for doubt. Given that the window of opportunity for changes is now
firmly shut, however, NATO must make the best of the status quo; for the foreseeable future, confrontation with Russia is once
again the order of the day.
Netanyahu policies toward Palestinians are actually a threat to Israel. Having implacable
enemy, completely alienated population within the borders is not that any state desires.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid: $3.8 billion annually. AIPAC is the chief Israel lobby in the United States and a consistent apologist for Israel's oppressive policies toward the Palestinians. ..."
"... Sen. Bernie Sanders said , "The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage," adding, "And if Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to get a firsthand look at what's going on maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel." ..."
"... Israel had approved the Tlaib/Omar trip last month. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer said , "Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America," Israel would not deny entry "to any member of Congress." ..."
"... But Donald Trump reportedly told several of his advisers that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should bar Tlaib and Omar because they supported BDS. Hours after Israel cancelled the trip, Trump tweeted , "It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people." ..."
"... In These Times. ..."
"... UN Security Council Resolution 242 describes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and calls for the "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the [1967] conflict." ..."
"... Tampa Bay Times ..."
"... "The absence of chatter from the Democrats obviously reflects the misgivings that the Democratic base has about the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel," Philip Weiss and Michael Arria wrote at Mondoweiss ..."
"... The outrageous exclusion of members of Congress from Israel-Palestine has focused unprecedented attention on the Israeli occupation and the BDS movement. This is the time to pressure congressional representatives to rethink their uncritical support for Israel and the $3.8 billion annually the United States provides to Israel. ..."
Trump and Netanyahu thought they were pulling a fast one on two U.S. congresswoman, but it
has blown up in their faces, as Marjorie Cohn explains.
By Marjorie CohnTruthout
D uring Congress's August recess, a group of 41 Democratic and 31 Republican congressmembers
traveled to Israel on a delegation sponsored by American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC). AIPAC subsidizes congressional trips to Israel in order to further the "special
relationship" between Israel and the United States.
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid: $3.8 billion annually. AIPAC is
the chief Israel lobby in the United States and a consistent apologist for Israel's oppressive
policies toward the Palestinians.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, had
planned their own "Delegation to Palestine," scheduled to begin on August 17. Tlaib, who was
born in the U.S., planned to travel to the West Bank to visit her 90-year old Palestinian
grandmother, whom she hasn't seen for a decade. But, aided and abetted by Donald Trump, Israel
withdrew permission for the trip unless Tlaib agreed to remain silent about Israel's
mistreatment of the Palestinians. She refused to abide by the gag order and the trip was
cancelled.
Tlaib
said in a statement , "Visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions meant to
humiliate me would break my grandmother's heart. Silencing me with treatment to make me feel
less-than is not what she wants for me – it would kill a piece of me that always stands
up against racism and injustice." She added, "Being silent and not condemning the human rights
violations of the Israeli government is a disservice to all who live there, including my
incredibly strong and loving grandmother."
Tlaib during her campaign. (Wikimedia)
Omar, who
expressed "strength and solidarity" with Tlaib in a tweet,
told reporters, "[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu's decision to deny us entry might be
unprecedented for members of Congress. But it is the policy of his government when it comes to
Palestinians. This is the policy of his government when it comes to anyone who holds views that
threaten the occupation." She tweeted, "We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in hiding the
cruel reality of the occupation from us."
Israel's refusal to allow members of the U.S. Congress entry into Israel-Palestine without
muzzling them backfired. It has
garnered widespread criticism, even
by AIPAC , and focused the national
discourse on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which Tlaib and Omar
support.
Omar, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
said , "It is my belief that as legislators, we have an obligation to see the reality there
for ourselves. We have a responsibility to conduct oversight over our government's foreign
policy and what happens with the millions of dollars we send in aid." She says the
U.S. must ask Netanyahu's government to "stop the expansion of settlements on Palestinian land
and ensure full rights for Palestinians if we are to give them aid."
Sen. Bernie Sanders
said , "The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which,
by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage,"
adding, "And if Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their
country to get a firsthand look at what's going on maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully decline
the billions of dollars that we give to Israel."
Tlaib and Omar Planned to Witness
Occupation
Tlaib and Omar were scheduled to meet with members of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) and
Palestinian and leftist Israeli activists and nonprofits, as well as international human rights
organizations in Jerusalem and the West Bank. They were also set to confer with members of
Breaking the Silence, a group of former members of the Israel Defense Forces who now actively
oppose Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands. Omar
tweeted that the goal of the delegation "was to witness firsthand what is happening on the
ground in Palestine and hear from stakeholders -- our job as Members of Congress."
The visit by Tlaib and Omar "was to be something else" in contrast to the AIPAC delegation,
James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute ,
wrote in the Forward. Tlaib and Omar "weren't going to focus on officials,"
according to Zogby. "They were going to expose the
reality of Palestinian daily life under occupation. They were going to visit the Wall that
separates Palestinians from their lands. They were going to refugee camps now cut off from US
funding. They were going to see how Hebron has been horridly deformed by a settler invasion and
military occupation."
Israel had approved the Tlaib/Omar trip last month. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron
Dermer said
, "Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America,"
Israel would not deny entry "to any member of Congress."
But Donald Trump reportedly told several of his advisers that Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu should bar Tlaib and Omar because they supported BDS. Hours after Israel cancelled
the trip, Trump
tweeted , "It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to
visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people."
The Israeli government agreed to allow Tlaib to visit her grandmother, provided she agree in
writing not to discuss her support for BDS. But after emotional conversations with her family,
Tlaib refused to submit to the condition that she not discuss the Israeli occupation.
Tlaib "was forced to make a choice between her right to visit her grandmother and her right
to political speech against Israeli oppression," Sandra Tamari
wrote at In These Times. Tamari has been barred from seeing her family in
Palestine for more than 10 years because of her advocacy for Palestinian freedom and justice.
Tlaib "ultimately chose the collective over the personal: She refused Israel's demeaning
conditions that would have granted her a 'humanitarian' exception to enter Palestine, so long
as she refrained from advocating for a boycott of Israel during her visit," Tamari
added.
What Is the BDS Movement?
In 2005, Palestinian civil society -- including 170 Palestinian unions, political parties,
refugee networks, women's organizations, professional associations, popular resistance
committees and other Palestinian civil society bodies -- issued a call for Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions.
BDS is a nonviolent movement for social change in the tradition of boycotts of South Africa
and the southern United States. It is aimed at ending Israel's illegal occupation. In 1967,
Israel took control of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights by military
force.UN Security
Council Resolution 242 describes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by
war" and calls for the "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the
[1967] conflict."
Security Council adopts Res. 242, Nov. 1967 (Getty)
But Israel continues its illegal occupation and exercises total control over the lives of
Palestinians in the occupied territories. Israel regulates the ingress and egress of the
people, as well as the borders, airspace, seashore and waters off the coast of Gaza. Israel
expels Palestinians from their homes and builds illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied
Palestinian territories.
Israel's 2014 massacre in Gaza led to the deaths of 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462
civilians, and the wounding of 11,231 Palestinians. These actions likely constituted war
crimes, according
to the UN Human Rights Council's independent, international commission of inquiry.
Former UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, Flavia Pansieri,
said that human rights violations "fuel and shape the conflict" in the occupied Palestinian
territories and "[h]uman rights violations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are both
cause and consequence of the military occupation and ongoing violence, in a bitter cyclical
process with wider implications for peace and security in the region."
Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa,
writing in the Tampa Bay Times , cited the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which
"describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two
populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential
services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on
Palestinians." Tutu wrote, "This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable."
The call for BDS describes boycotts, divestment and sanctions as "non-violent punitive
measures" that should last until Israel fully complies with international law by (1) ending its
occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the barrier wall; (2) recognizing
the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and (3)
respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their land
as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.
What Are Boycotts,
Divestment and Sanctions?
Boycotts encompass the withdrawal of support for Israel and Israeli and
international companies which are violating Palestinian human rights, including Israeli
sporting, cultural and academic institutions.
Divestment campaigns urge churches, banks, local councils, pension funds and
universities to withdraw investments from all Israeli companies and international companies
involved in the violation of Palestinian rights.
Sanctions campaigns pressure governments to hold Israel legally accountable by
ending military trade and free-trade agreements and expelling Israel from international
fora.
The BDS movement has had a major impact on Israel. BDS was a critical factor in the 46
percent reduction in foreign direct investment in Israel in 2014, according to
the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Individuals and entities who have
heeded the call for divestment include George Soros, the Bill Gates Foundation, TIAA-CREF
public sector pension fund, Dutch pension giant PGGM and Norwegian bank Nordea.
Several churches, including the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the
United Church of Christ and many Quaker meetings, have divested from companies the BDS movement
has targeted. The security services company G4S is planning to sell its subsidiary in Israel
because the Stop G4S campaign resulted in a loss of millions of dollars in contracts. The
withdrawal of French multinational utility company Veolia from Israel led to billions of
dollars in lost contracts.
Tutu, who finds striking parallels between apartheid South Africa and Israel's oppression of
the Palestinians, supports BDS. He has
called on "people and organizations of conscience to divest from Caterpillar, Motorola
Solutions and Hewlett Packard," which profit "from the occupation and subjugation of
Palestinians."
Twenty-seven
states have enacted legislation targeting boycotts of Israel, but activists have
successfully defeated anti-boycott laws in several states. These bills are unconstitutional
infringements on protected First Amendment activity.
In banning Tlaib and Omar, Israel relied on its
2017 law prohibiting entry to any non-Israeli citizen who "has knowingly published a public
call to engage in a boycott" against Israel "or has made a commitment to participate in such a
boycott."
And the United States' overwhelming support for Israel is reflected in a resolution the
House of Representatives adopted on July 23. H. Res. 246 , which
passed easily on a 398-17 vote, opposes the BDS movement. Tlaib and Omar voted against the
resolution.
Questioning U.S. Aid to Israel
Interestingly, although the Republicans on the AIPAC trip tweeted vociferously about their
visit, there was near silence on Twitter from the Democratic members of the delegation,
although the group had given Netanyahu a standing ovation. "The absence of chatter from the
Democrats obviously reflects the misgivings that the Democratic base has about the special
relationship between the U.S. and Israel," Philip Weiss and Michael Arria wrote at
Mondoweiss . "A recent survey shows that a
majority of Democrats support sanctions against Israel over settlements, even as the House
votes overwhelmingly to condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign."
The outrageous exclusion of members of Congress from Israel-Palestine has focused
unprecedented attention on the Israeli occupation and the BDS movement. This is the time to
pressure congressional representatives to rethink their uncritical
support for Israel and the $3.8 billion annually the United States provides to Israel.
Copyright Truthout
. Reprinted with permission. Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School
of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the
International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans
for Peace. She is a contributor to the new book,
Reclaiming Judaism From Zionism: Stories of Personal Transformation .
DAMASCUS – The Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) of the US-led international coalition fighting
Daesh* has confirmed to Sputnik that the coalition was training the armed rebel group, Maghawir al-Thawra, near Syria's Al-Tanf,
stressing that the group was efficient in countering Daesh.
"Coalition partner forces in the vicinity of Al-Tanf, Syria are the Maghawir al-Thawra. The MaT has demonstrated its effectiveness
in interdicting Daesh and maintaining security within the Al-Tanf de-confliction zone. We will continue to train and advise coalition
forces in the vicinity of Al-Tanf in pursuit of the enduring defeat of Daesh and to set conditions for regional stability", the CJTF-OIR
said, commenting on Rudskoy's statement.
The Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, Col. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, said on Monday that the
United States was training 2,700 militants from the Syrian opposition group in the vicinity of the 55-kilometre (34-mile) US-controlled
zone around its unauthorised
military
base in Syria's Al-Tanf .
Rudskoy also stated that the US Air Force was sending some of the militants to the east bank of the Euphrates River upon completing
the training.
According to the chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, the militants were tasked with carrying
out
attacks targeting government forces and also destroying oil and gas infrastructure facilities.
In December of last year, US President Donald Trump stated that he had decided to
withdraw troops from
Syria promising to bring about 2,000 US servicemen back home. The reason for the move, according to him, was the defeat of the
Daesh terrorist group in Syria. However, no exact deadline for the return of the troops has been revealed by US officials yet.
We have the power to bring peace and prosperity to that region or unleash the dogs of war. We chose the latter while China
is choosing the former.
soon China's commercial presence in the Middle East will eclipse America. I hope that happens soon for the good of everyone.
typical of the dysfunctional states of A, throwing good money (well well) after bad when it's hard to accept defeat and defeat
they will face, in Afghanistan, in Iran and in Syria and in Yemen and in Venezuela. tough to be the party that has a) listed the
greatest number of wars and also lists the greatest number of defeats. but, on the other hand, perpetual war is good for shareholders
in the mic but not so much for the average tax paying under-educated american.
all they, the washington dc morons, need to do is to let go of the squatters, to tend for themselves and spend half of the
pentagon cash at home, in infrastructure projects and health services and education and matters will be rectified in heartbeat.
but no, not as long as the washington dc morons have sold out the country to the squatters and their fifth columns, like sheldon
adelson and athers of that ilk.
"... According to the Times of Israel newspaper, Netanyahu is now officially lobbying for a public statement by US President Donald Trump to back Israel's annexation of the West Bank. ..."
"... Although the White House refused to comment on the story, and an official in Netanyahu's office claimed that it was "incorrect", the Israeli right is on the fast track of making that annexation possible. ..."
"... Netanyahu had, himself, hinted at that possibility in August during a visit to the illegal settlement of Beit El. "We come to build. Our hands will reach out and we will deepen our roots in our homeland – in all parts of it," Netanyahu said, during a ceremony celebrating the expansion of the illegal settlements to include 650 more housing units. ..."
According to the Times of Israel newspaper, Netanyahu is now officially lobbying for a
public statement by US President Donald Trump to back Israel's annexation of the West Bank.
Although the White House refused to comment on the story, and an official in Netanyahu's
office claimed that it was "incorrect", the Israeli right is on the fast track of making that
annexation possible.
Encouraged by US Ambassador David Friedman's comment that "Israel has the right to retain
some of the West Bank", more Israeli officials are speaking boldly and openly regarding their
intentions of making that annexation possible.
Netanyahu had, himself, hinted at that possibility in August during a visit to the illegal
settlement of Beit El. "We come to build. Our hands will reach out and we will deepen our roots
in our homeland – in all parts of it," Netanyahu said, during a ceremony celebrating the
expansion of the illegal settlements to include 650 more housing units.
Unlike Netanyahu, former Israeli justice minister and leader of the newly-formed United
Right, Ayelet Shaked, didn't speak in code. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, she called
for the full annexation of Area C, which constitutes nearly 60 percent of the West Bank. "We
have to apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria," she said, referring to the Palestinian land
using biblical designations.
Public Security, Strategic Affairs and Information Minister Gilad Erdan, however, wants to
go the extra mile. According to Arutz Sheva and The Jerusalem Post, Erdan has called for the
annexation of all illegal settlements in the West Bank and the ouster of Palestinian Authority
(PA) President Mahmoud Abbas as well.
Now situated at the center of Israeli politics, Jewish settlers are enjoying the spectacle
as they are being courted by all major political parties. Their increased violence in the West
Bank is a form of political muscle-flexing, an expression of dominance and a brutish display of
political priorities.
"There's only one flag from the Jordan to the sea – the flag of Israel," was the
slogan of a rally involving over 1,200 Jewish settlers who roamed the streets of the
Palestinian city of Hebron (Al-Khalil) on August 14. The settlers, together with Israeli
soldiers, stormed al-Shuhada street and harassed Palestinians and international activists in
the beleaguered Palestinian city
... ... ...
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest
book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in
Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center
for Global and International Studies, UCSB.
Khan Shaykhun and all surrounding villages are now liberated. There was little
resistance left as most of the Jihadis had slipped out of the encirclement before it
closed. The Syrian army is now concentrating forces to go further north towards Maarat
al-Numan. The preparing bombing campaign is ongoing.
Last night Israel bombed a Hezbullah workshop south of Damascus. Three Hizbullah
engineers were killed and two were wounded. Additionally an Israeli short-range drone
landed on Hizbullah's media office in Beirut, Lebanon. A second drone, probably sent to
destroy the first one, appeared and exploded. No one was hurt. The drone operators must
have been relatively nearby, most likely on some boat off Beirut.
Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah addressed Israel in his
July 12 speech: "You kill one of our own in Syria and we will respond and respond from
Lebanon." Nasrallah, who tends to hold his promises, is due to speak today at 17:00 local
time. Expect some fireworks ...
Khan Shaykhun and all surrounding villages are now liberated. There was little
resistance left as most of the Jihadis had slipped out of the encirclement before it
closed. The Syrian army is now concentrating forces to go further north towards Maarat
al-Numan. The preparing bombing campaign is ongoing.
At the time the cauldron was not yet closed, I think the most natural reflection from
outside would be that the SAA wanted to hold as many of the Jihadis in the cauldron as
possible and then remove them from the balance sheet of the military equation, as it
were. That, if I understand correctly, is how a cauldron would traditionally be used. But
seeing as the Jihadis had built up extra-strong defences on their southern boundary (and
all the Idleb boundaries?) and were relying heavily on the success of those defences, I
would take it that the SAA aim was in fact somewhat different - let the jihadis escape
from the cauldron so that the cauldron can be quickly stabilised, and the breach of the
defences quickly set is stone so that reserve forces can quickly push northwards from
Khan Shaykhun where the defenses are minimal, and thereby quickly roll up a large area of
jihadi-occupied territory without problems of remaining jihadis in their rear. The M5 is
then simultaneously transport medium for the roll-up, raison de non-être for major
defences, transport medium for reinforcements and for defence against re-occupation, and
vehicle for the next cauldron - everything to the east of the M5 (up to ... no idea).
Expect the next cauldron pretty soon, I say, probably a big one. The reserve forces have
been waiting immediately to the south of the first cauldron, I understand, now they will
swing into action through Khan Shaykhun.
@BM Yes, it is not the situation where SAA kept a cauldron not fully closed for a couple days.
See earlier Idlib campaign. It seems to implement a "golden bridge to escape"
Nice plan, except it's too late. I don't think Russia will agree to this proposal. The
West is very antagonized both in Russian elites and common people. Even if some high
ranking officials will be happy to struck a deal common people will still perceive USA
and the west as enemies. On the contrary China's reputation and karma is not as tainted
as America's in the eyes of the majority in Russia. At this point any concession given to
West will be met with disdain.
Correct. NATO has thousands of troops on the Russian border and surrounds Western
Russia by land and sea ... meanwhile the US preparing new cruise missile programs to be
stationed in the EU... Putin would be a fool to play nice in the face of such a military
buildup... in fact, he'd be deposed if he tried. No... the die is cast... the
Russia-China Alliance is tightly cemented.
Doug Bandow gives fair and reasoned arguments. The current trend appears to be towards
war. The question of enticing Moscow away from Beijing is a logical one. But does Russia
fear China as an enemy more than it fears America? Who would benefit from hostilities
between these two – America? That would not serve Russia's strategic interests.
The challenge in the 21st century is not repeating the mistakes of the twentieth.
History shows vital interests drive nations to war: but it is in nobody's interest to
fight a third world war.
https://www.ghostsofhistory...
I don't think here in Russia we fear anyone. We live in an era of powerful
thermonuclear weapons. Russia has fully operational nuclear triad with thousands of
warheads. Any military scenario against us trigger a final judgement day for human
civilization. President Putin openly said that. At this point Russia is more or less
isolationist trying to sever itself from global production chains to be more independent.
The trade with US is minuscule, so basically US has the stick but lacks carrot. On the
other hand China lacks what Russia really needs, so it's more of an allie of convenience.
Basically all Russia needs is being left alone and being able to influence it's own
region. Vast natural resources and population can really provide this kind of
isolationism. But the US can't stop poking the bear, so enraged bear can really be pissed
and provide China a helping hand.
Isolated from US and vassals doesn't mean completelly isolated. As author mentioned G7
is only 1/10 of World's population. And France, Germany and Italy are eager to restore
pre-sanction relations. Also having China, power on the rise (contrary to declining West)
in your corner is a very good thing.
"However, Beijing's widespread, sometimes brutal crackdown at home, increasingly
threatening approach to both Hong Kong and Taiwan, and more aggressive stance toward
territorial disputes challenge common Western interests and values. "
What "brutal crackdown"? I presume he means HK but the response of the Chinese gov is
hardly brutal. On the contrary, the authorities there have been been far more passive and
restrained than the west would be. Try shutting down a major US airport with a
demonstration and see long it takes for US robo-cops to cover the tiled floors in
protester blood and fill jail cells with unconscious bodies. Consider the (mostly
unreported) brutality in France as M(i)cron orders his gendarmes to use force to suppress
growth of the Gilets Jaunes movement.
What "aggressive stance" to territorial disputes? Chinese aren't blockading any areas
of the SCS and are not preventing freedom of navigation. They have claimed a number of
SCS rocks and minor islands, but the fact remains that none of the largest 18 islands are
Chinese controlled yet no-one wants to level the same charges against Taiwan,
Philippines, Vietnam or Malaysia that control them. The Chinese maintain an active
military presence around their own bases in the SCS, but they don't act to stop other
traffic in the area, and no-one has any actual legitimate business with these isolated
rocks, either now or before the ChiComs claimed them.
Bandow is spinning a load of BS with these and other assertions of a fake reality. Its
just part of a superficial narrative intended to support the idea of a "benevolent and
democratic" US selflessly guarding the "free world" against an "authoritarian police
state" that is "challenging and undermining the global rules-based system". It a load of
baloney that well-expired but Bandow the organ-grinder keep turning the handle to make
the public monkies dance for the amusement and hidden agendas of Cato Institutes elites
paymasters.
"Kyiv would be left to forge whatever economic ties it desired east and west."
Really? When did the ruling elites of the US and EU change their policies? It was the
refusal of the Eurotrash to accept Ukraine accepting Russian cash and economic assistance
in 2014 that led to the Ultra-nationalist putsch with US/EU full support. Yanukovich
wanted a deal and the EU refused to give him one he could accept, then threw their weight
behind his forced removal and shut-out the possibility of Ukraine having economic
relations with its largest trading partner (Russia).
BTW in English we have always spelled the city as Kiev, not Kyiv. Bandow is clearly
pandering to the Ukropi nationalists and anti-Russia radicals.
"In return, Russia could abandon support for Donbas rebels in Ukraine, grant Kyiv full
navigational access in contested waters, and stop using natural gas as a weapon."
Russia isn't about to abandon Donbass while the Ukies show no regard for civilian
lives in their incessant shelling attacks and repeated violations of "truces". Kiev is
attacking Donbass and intent on advancing, not the other way around, so a cessation of
conflict is in their court, not Donetsk or Lugansk.
Kiev has full access to "contested waters" (presumably access to the Azov Sea) but
they need to follow protocols. It is their refusal to play by the rules (and the
deliberate provocations by the SBU) that is the crux of the problems.
Russia doesn't use natural gas as a weapon. She simply sells gas to willing customers
(who buy it from her due to good prices and a long established record as a reliable
supplier). Russia is understandably looking for alternative routes of transit to avoid
nations that are her traditional antagonists and who wish to use gas transit as leverage
over her. Why should Russia allow unfriendly nations to have the ability to shutdown her
gas exports? Ukraine was stealing gas for years which led to the cessation of gas
supplies while custody transfer violations were investigated and stopped. Why should
Russia maintain transit through unfriendly nations and allow them to gain transit fees?
If they cease their Russia-baiting BS things might change, but that is their decision to
make, and Russia will act in the meantime according to her interests.
Doug Bandow tries to play the moderate but he recycles the worst agitprop tropes about
Russia. To be expected from a minion of the Cato Institute I suppose...
I would highly recommend that Doug Bandow get a lecture in Russian Foreign Politics.
This is not just a market with a handful dollar. Bandow might be a visiting Student a
MGIMO for Russian Foreign Politics which is based on trust and reliability for years.
Besides, Peking is by far the largest economic Partner of Russia. President Putin is not
interested on G7 membership. It lacks results and is a further "bla, bla" Organisation
without any success. Economic sanctions are more an issue for western Europe. As example
Francs lost 50% of their Russian Trade about 12B USD.
US inferior Foreign Politics lacks all of it. It's an Ad-Hoc organised Ministry with
interference from the President.
Aren't these guys really stup!d? They are discussing should Russia be in G8 or not,
while Putin many times said that this organization is useless for Russia! :-)))
"... The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, stated that he's going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all Venezuelans indebted to this predatory institution. Guaidó spends the money, the poor and working people work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest. ..."
"... The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism and its rules in an increasingly globalized and U.S.-dominated world. ..."
"... Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted countries. IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states with the largest say are the ones that own the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have always been the United States and its allies. ..."
"... This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called Washington Consensus, a set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by U.S. think tanks, the IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department. The Washington Consensus is as follows: ..."
Think about who gets rich off of the Venezuela regime-change agenda. It's the same people
that said we had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people
who said the world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and
Syria.
Transcript -- This video was produced as part of a MintPress News and Grayzone collaboration -- Of all the reasons to
plot an elaborate and risky coup, there's one reason that always stands out: profit. Money
makes the world go around and in far more ways than we might think. Here are the top five
special interest groups and institutions that seek to benefit from the U.S. backed coup in
Venezuela.
Number 1: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which wants to saddle the
Venezuelan people with enormous debt to the IMF
The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, stated
that he's going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all
Venezuelans indebted to this predatory institution. Guaidó spends the money, the poor
and working people work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest.
The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism
and its rules in an increasingly globalized and U.S.-dominated world.
Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted
countries. IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states
with the largest say are the ones that own the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have
always been the United States and its allies.
This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called
Washington Consensus, a set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by U.S. think tanks, the
IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department. The Washington Consensus is as follows:
In exchange for a loan, often with a high-interest rate that many would call predatory, the
IMF overhauls the protective and redistributive policies of a country for neoliberal policies,
making the target country ripe for finance capital investment and profit-making.
Number
2: The Oil Industry, out to control the oil reserves
There's little doubt that the oil industry is pushing the U.S. to overthrow the Maduro
government, especially when National Security Advisor John Bolton openly states this on
national television.
Bolton was himself once part of the oil industry, serving as the director of Diamond
Offshore Drilling, Inc. in 2007. He's no stranger to advocating for the interests of the
fossil-fuel industry.
Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves by far and Washington won't let that wealth
go unexploited, or worse, be shared among its enemies like the Maduro government, Russia,
China, or Iran.
And with so many politicians, Republican and Democratic, bought off by industry players --
companies like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Chevron -- it's impossible to imagine anyone in
Washington successfully advocating for Venezuela maintaining ownership over its own sovereign
natural resources.
Number 3: The Military-Industrial Complex, working to military
dominance and arm another U.S. puppet
One of the most bizarre things about America is that we've created one of the world's
largest private industries around arms dealing. And like any industry, whether it be JDAM bombs
or beef, private businesses often resort to lobbying Congress to squeeze political favors out
of the government in the form of subsidies -- or in the case of the military industrial
complex, a foreign policy of endless war, one based on elusive ideas like combating terrorism
or defending democracy.
You can see that wherever the U.S. goes, expensive construction projects follow. Behind
every multi-billion dollar base construction, some private contractor is there reaping the
profits.
Once our military presence is firmly established, the weapons sales begin. And we all know
no U.S. ally or puppet state is complete without a full fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16s -- then
they'll be able to fend off all of those pesky leftist rebels with freedom missiles.
With Venezuela's neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, growing closer to NATO and accepting U.S.
military presence in their countries, we can only assume Venezuela is Washington's next
target.
As the strategic approach of regime change evolves, new industries arise to meet these
needs.
After the massive anti-war protests following the invasion of Iraq, outright invasion and
occupation are no longer viable strategies, owing to negative public opinion. So Washington
sought to disguise war propaganda using humanitarian rhetoric.
Number 4: "Humanitarian"
NGOs to create and implement the alibi
Privately owned NGOs dedicated to human rights and promoting "American style" democracy have
played a much larger role in regime-change operations in recent years. They serve as soft-power
institutions that attempt to subtly sway a population against its own government through
propaganda laced with words like freedom, democracy, and human rights.
These NGOs are given the full blessing of the U.S. government and the two often work in
tandem. Don't believe me? Take it from former CIA case officer Phillip Agee.
The US Agency for International Development's (USAID) regime-change arm, the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED), funded opposition groups in Nicaragua, Venezuela (during the
2002 coup), Haiti, Ukraine, and most recently China and North Korea. And whenever U.S. foreign
policy sets its sights on a certain target, private industries usually develop to help meet
that goal as well as make a quick buck along the way.
For example, Thor Halvorssen -- the first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, the founder of Juan
Guaidó's party, Popular Will -- calls himself a human-rights activist. He founded the
notorious Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and makes a living giving speeches and TV appearances
talking about why the governments of Venezuela or North Korea are not legitimate and need to be
overthrown.
Unsurprisingly, HRF is funded by the conservative Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is itself
funded by think tanks like the top neoconservative think tank, the American Enterprise
Institute, as well as the Heritage Foundation. HRF is also funded by the Donors Capital Fund
and the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, which are also funded by the American Enterprise
Institute. It's one big web of moving money that all leads back to the same cast of
characters.
The crisis in Venezuela has been a huge gift for people like Halvorssen, who use the U.S.'s
war on Venezuela to promote themselves and their organizations.
Number 5: Think Tanks
selling reports that tell the MIC what it wants to hear
Like NGOs, think tanks also play an important role in giving regime change a sense of
legitimacy -- in their case, intellectual legitimacy. Think tanks rely on donations to operate
and many find willing donors among the capitalist class. These fat cats pay for fancy looking
reports meant to justify their desired goal, the delegitimization of socialist governments and
the legitimization of coup governments that uphold the Washington Consensus.
The Cato Institute has been deeply involved in overthrowing the Venezuelan government. In
2008, Cato awarded Venezuelan opposition leader, Yon Goicoechea, the Milton Friedman Prize for
Advancing Liberty and $500,000 for his role in disrupting a constitutional referendum in
Venezuela. That money was used to finance the political rise of Juan Guaidó, and his
clique known as Generation 2007.
These seemingly independent research groups have intimate networks that they leverage to
amplify the message their donors have given them. Here's an article in the Washington
Post written by a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute saying the U.S.'s failure to
intervene in Venezuela has caused the Maduro government to destabilize the region.
Whether it was the bank bailouts following the 2008 crisis, or the lack of action on climate
disaster, in America it seems the government always puts the interests of the rich ahead of the
poor and working class, and the situation in Venezuela is no exception.
As the U.S. continues to attack the Maduro government, keep these special interests in mind.
Think about who gets rich off of the regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we
had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people who said the
world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and Syria.
Now they're trying to get us to support war in Venezuela. You won't be any freer or more
prosperous after the Maduro government is toppled. It's just war propaganda.
Top photo | A worker counts Venezuelan bolivar notes at a parking lot in Caracas, Venezuela
May 29, 2018. Marco Bello | Reuters
Kei Pritsker is a journalist and activist located in Washington DC. Kei focuses on
international politics and economics. He previously worked as a producer at RT America.
While this is a Russian site with specific audience, comments show that people reject the USA policy which might creates problems
for the USA in the future. Not the USA neoliberal/neocon elite cares.
This decisions just had shown to the whole would that Trump is a clown capable of twitting, not much more. Other people make key
decisions for the county.
The deep state that controls the US are lying criminal psychopaths. Any agreements and treaties negotiated with them aren't
worth the time or paper they are written on.
all.putin wants world peace but the Americans whats to tell everyone what to do and start wars what.they.sould buid a wall.around
america stop them getting out
le"> We can certainly expect Poland and Romania to be targeted with Nuclear munitions at the very least. There will likely
be an official Russian announcement of this fact as well. In the event of a breakout of hostilities with Nato then Russia will
target the military infrastructure in both countries and vaporise them immediately. Unfortunately a very large number of Polish
and Romanian civilians will be caught in the blasts. That will be tragic of course.
I live in the Netherlands and I am on the side of Russia. Europe is disgusting for not condemning the USA intentions. Eu will
regret it. When bombs fall on Europe because of these incompetent leaders we will not forget.
icle"> The Western public MUST, MUST become very familiar pronto with the few intellectuals, scholars, journalists, writers
and authors who have been at the forefront for global peace and world justice for decades! It's our only hope! Right now the only
sane voice on the national stage is Tulsi Gabbard. People must start reading: John Pilger, James Petras, Diana Johnstone, Stephen
Lendman, Ray McGovern, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek, Michael Parenti, Stephen Cohen, The Saker, Caitlin Johnstone, Paul Craig
Roberts.
USA a decadent nation run by global mafia . Cannot trust what they say , is proven by their actions Sold their soul to the
devil for money and power. Yet they will fail God is in charge!
e"> The double standard in the West is breathtaking. It's as simple as the Golden Rule: merely try to imagine the reaction
in New York, London, Washington, Paris, Chicago, Boston if Russia or China were to do the exact same thing in southern Canada
or the Caribbean. The Washington military empire builders could possibly destroy humanity with their reckless and imperial behavior.
They simply cannot accept any sovereign nation-states that 1.) give the finger to Wall Street or the idea of the uni-polar world
Washington's intent on establishing, or 2.) gives diplomatic support to the Palestinians or is even a mild thorn in the side of
Israel. For further reading, see the following scholars, intellectuals, journalists and writers: James Petras, Diana Johnstone,
John Pilger, Stephen Lendman, Michael Parenti, Finian Cunningham, Andre Vltchek and a few others I'm forgetting at the moment.
e"> Under Trump the USA are rapidly steering towards an open dictatorship, something they've been doing for years but more
covertly. The USA have always been shouting the loudest about democracy and freedom but that's just a façade while they bully
the world and their own people into submission. The curtain is falling faster and faster now. Oh, and ask the American Natives
what the Americans do with treaties...
The US does not want friendship with Russia, it seeks to either control it or destroy it. Since the first option isn't going
to happen, it's obvious what's next and it'll start with more sanctions, expanding NATO into Georgia and Ukraine and placing nuclear
missiles on Russia's Eastern and Western border.
"comment-renderer-text-content expanded"> All it takes, is 1 single warhead fired from ex. Poland to reach Moscow. How many
launchers do USA have placed in these countries near Russia? Is Moscow more than 500 KM away from any NATO border? If the enemy
sets up catapults outside your city walls, isn't that a clear sign the enemy intend to fire those catapults against your walls?
So what do you do? Do you sit and wait? Or do you take out the catapults before they break down your walls? As far as any strategist
see this, it can be only one solution for survival.
omment-renderer-text-content expanded"> During FDR's 'Pearl Harbor' speech he said, "It will be recorded that the distance
of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago." There are echoes
of this speech in Putin's words (
02:18 ) and the
type of treachery referred to by Roosevelt applies to the American exit from the INF. America has become a nation holding "a big
stick" and loudly shouting about it (contrary to an earlier Roosevelt's advice). The White House acknowledged (and the NYT reported)
that we are involved in seven wars right now (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Niger). We have 38 "named" foreign
military bases as well as upwards of 600 overseas military installations of some sort including "lily pads," i.e., "cooperative
security locations" and an undisclosed number of "black" locations. Our military budget is pushing towards a trillion dollars
per year ($717 billion this year). We are threatening small countries such as Venezuela with military action (and yes, something
needs to be done for the good of the people there but that should not include an American military attack which President Trump,
our Secretary of State ("and his colleague") have said is "on the table." And now, we are dumping nuclear weapons treaties. We
have truly become a country which "lives by the sword." Good luck to us all.
Okay , so this is a broadcast of the President of Russia speaking to his security council right , this is official researched
factual intel ....has to be on that level ...right . Now to the few negative responses I have come across ,what intel do you have
and where did you get it...
Instead of addressing and trying to ameliorate this most dangerous development, let's instead focus on Trump's idiotic and
diversionary comments and tweets about buying Greenland or some such other nonsense.
"... Throughout, the militias reportedly have committed serious human rights abuses, including numerous extrajudicial killings of civilians. CIA sponsorship ensures that their operations are clouded in secrecy. There is virtually no public oversight of their activities or accountability for grave human rights abuses. " ..."
Been reading an interesting report from
Brown University's Watson Institute about "the CIA army and [it's] threat to human rights
and an obstacle to peace in Afghanistan."
"Afghan paramilitary forces working with the United States Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) have long been a staple in the US war on terrorism in Afghanistan and the
border region with Pakistan. The problems associated with these militias take on new
significance given the recent momentum in talks between the US government and the
Taliban about the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. Whose interests do the
militias represent? How can they be integrated into a peace agreement – if at all?
Will
their use value for the US in future counterterrorist operations outweigh the case for
closing them down in the service of human rights and a sustainable peace?
The
militias
are at least nominally controlled by their CIA paymaster, but to what extent will the
operations of the CIA be monitored and streamlined with overall US policy towards
Afghanistan?
The CIA-supported militias are a particularly troublesome version of the
regionally based militias in Afghanistan that have developed over the years around
local
strongmen with external support. The present units originate in the 2001 invasion,
when US military forces and the CIA organized Afghan militias to fight Islamist
militants.
Almost two decades later, the CIA is still running local militias in operations against
the
Taliban and other Islamist militants.
Throughout, the militias reportedly have
committed serious human rights abuses, including numerous extrajudicial killings of
civilians. CIA sponsorship ensures that their operations are clouded in secrecy. There
is
virtually no public oversight of their activities or accountability for grave human
rights
abuses. "
[My emphasis]
Appears making peace with Afghanistan will be as elusive as any of the other American
regime's various 'wars' and invasions.
"Afghanistan seems doomed to suffer from factionalism long after all NATO/CIA forces are
removed as the longstanding goal for the Outlaw US Empire is to deter Eurasian unity, which
is why Afghanistan was invaded in the first place."
Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 22 2019 23:32 utc | 58
I would say it is more about the drugs and minerals.
During the 1980s, the CIA's secret war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan helped
transform the Afghani-Pakistani borderlands into a launchpad for the global heroin trade. "In
the tribal area," the US state department reported in 1986, "there is no police force. There
are no courts. There is no taxation. No weapon is illegal Hashish and opium are often on
display."
By then, the process of guerrilla mobilisation to fight the Soviet occupation was
long under way. Instead of forming its own coalition of resistance leaders, the CIA had
relied on Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and its Afghan
clients, who soon became key players in the burgeoning cross-border opium traffic.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-explains-the-us-uk-failure-in-afghanistan
Ahmed Wali Karzai was a drug trafficker on the CIA payroll who happens to be the half
brother of Hamid Karzai the US puppet to lead Afghanistan
The fact that Afghanistan sits on lucrative natural resources was recognized indirectly back
in 2010 when the Afghan ministry of mines rolled out a $1b (!) estimate of what the country
might have, and The New York Times quoted a source in the US Administration as saying that
Afghanistan's list of reserves included copper, gold, cobalt, and even lithium on which the
present-day industry is heavily dependent. A Pentagon memo actually described Afghanistan's
potential lithium holdings as big enough to make it the "Saudi Arabia of lithium". Somehow,
the news flew below the radars of most watchers worldwide.
Afghanistan war was more about TAPI pipeline and securing a friendly government to sign
the contracts and then protect UNOCAL´s investment throughout. Also,ENRON at the time
had their eyes on this and had bet the farm on it before they folded, among other reasons.
That´s why as soon as the Taliban fell out of favor for one reason or another, Hamid
Kharzai and Zalmay Khalilzad, UNOCAL agents were placed in charge of the country.
It didn't come to be of course, since the Taliban had other ideas. This was also ensured
with a little help from friends in Russia and China. The article below is from 2002 but sheds
a lot of light on the actual events of the day.
Now the focus has shifted to stopping BRI. But US empire will never lose sight of their
original investment, nor the reserves in Caspian.
I agree to a degree that US will continue with their divide and conquer policies long
after they pull out. However, if the Taliban who will eventually rule the country can be
shown a different way of life by China and Russia which would lead to new roads, hospitals,
schools and normal farming as oppose to death an destruction, opium and Tribalism, we might
actually see a major change in Afghanistan.
Too optimistic? Perhaps, but the air is ripe.
TAPI might eventually be built, but not for UNOCAL. Have no doubt the Chinese will offer a
much sweeter deal all around.
The problem with Trump is that everything in him is second rate. Even bulling. and many americans were aware of that and
voted for him just because that thought that Hillary was worse. Much worse.
And Daniel
Larison is correct: when Trump faces strong backlash he just declare the partner in negotiation "terrible" and walks out and try
to justify his defeat ex post facto.
Notable quotes:
"... As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation. ..."
"... The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender. ..."
"... he is so clueless about international relations and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up. ..."
"... "Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas." ..."
"... The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price. ..."
"... "Trump has always been a lousy negotiator." ..."
"... But, but, but... he is very good in breaking up negotiated treaties, and breaking up negotiation itself. ..."
Michael Hirsh
reminds us
that Trump has always been a lousy negotiator:
Michael D'Antonio, a Trump biographer who interviewed him many times, agrees with Lapidus that there is no discernible difference
in the way Trump negotiates today, as president, compared to his career in business. "His style involves a hostile attitude and
a bullying method designed to wring every possible concession out of the other side while maximizing his own gain," D'Antonio
said. "As he explained to me, he's not interested in 'win-win' deals, only in 'I win' outcomes. When I asked if he ever left anything
on the table as a sign of goodwill so that he might do business with the same party in the future he said no, and pointed out
that there are many people in the world he can work with, one at a time."
As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work
because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation.
The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them.
He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something.
Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of
them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender.
He seems particularly obsessed with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) because the trade-off inherent in any agreement
made with Iran was that they would regain access to frozen assets, and he ignorantly equates this with "giving" them money. The fact
that the JCPOA heavily favored the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1 doesn't interest Trump. Iran was allowed to come away with something
at the end, and even the little bit they were able to get is far too much for him. This is one reason he has been so closely aligned
with Iran hawks over the last four years, and it helps explain why he endorses absurd, unrealistic demands and "maximum pressure"
of collective punishment. He is doing more or less the same thing he has always done, and he is so clueless about international relations
and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing
or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up.
Here is another relevant point from the article:
"Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He
doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so
personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied
and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas."
The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when
he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price.
Pulling off that "greatest trick" was amazing easy, actually: all Trump and his creatures had to do was go on the assumption that
most Americans will readily believe what they see on television. Especially when it jibes with their prejudices.
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of
them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been
any good at it."
While I agree with pretty much all of the article, let us not forget that a majority of Americans was not, in fact, fooled.
Americans are certainly paying a price Benjamin Franklin warned about. But as for other countries, theirs is due strictly to their
own doing, for relying excessively on the goodwill of America and turning a blind-eye to our imperialism. Quite frankly, up to
now, US allies have been enablers.
Add to that, " When someone hits me, I hit them back ten times harder."
This is not what we teach our children. It is a miserable way to live, or to run a country. No wonder the President is longer
referred to as "the leader of the free world." He gave up that title. These are sad days.
Yes, he is utterly incompetent on his main selling point, his supposed skill at negotiating. It is very inconvenient having Trump
as our standard-bearer.
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he
has never been any good at it."
Actually, the people who voted for Trump and who support him now love him for being a bully. That's what they want. They want
a Tony Soprano as their president, a guy who will go out and beat up all the people they hate. They don't want "negotiation".
They want a guy who has a baseball bat and knows how to use it. What's "interesting" is that despite all of Trump's appeals to
violence, and his willingness to support violence (for example, Saudi Arabia), he largely shrinks from it himself. We've seen
far fewer Tomahawks than one might have expected, particularly considering the great press he received the first time around.
Will we continue to be lucky? I hope so, but it's hard to be optimistic.
"... President Trump said Wednesday that Jewish Americans who vote for Democratic candidates are "very disloyal to Israel," expanding on his remarks from the previous day and dismissing criticism that his remarks were anti-Semitic. ..."
"... "I think if you vote for a Democrat, you are very, very disloyal to Israel and to the Jewish people," Trump said in an exchange with reporters outside the White House before departing for an event in Kentucky. ..."
"... The president is using explicit anti-Semitic rhetoric here, and he is attacking most American Jews because they are not loyal to a foreign country. ..."
"... Because Trump has made a habit of indulging the Israeli government and giving Netanyahu everything he wants regardless of the consequences for the U.S., he apparently assumes that this is the attitude everyone else should have. ..."
"... Trump's attacks are the latest example of how Israel and U.S. policy towards Israel have been made into part of the domestic culture war where being a "pro-Israel" hard-liner is associated with nationalism at home. "Pro-Israel" nationalists imagine that they have more in common with hard-liners in other countries than they do with their fellow citizens, and they see no contradiction in being aggressively nationalist here while also subordinating U.S. interests overseas to the preferences of a small client state. ..."
President Trump said Wednesday that Jewish Americans who vote for Democratic candidates are "very disloyal to Israel," expanding
on his remarks from the previous day and dismissing criticism that his remarks were anti-Semitic.
"I think if you vote for a Democrat, you are very, very disloyal to Israel and to the Jewish people," Trump said in an exchange
with reporters outside the White House before departing for an event in Kentucky.
There wasn't really any doubt about what Trump meant the first time when he launched this attack on the vast majority of American
Jews, and now he has removed any doubt that might have remained. The president is using explicit anti-Semitic rhetoric here, and
he is attacking most American Jews because they are not loyal to a foreign country.
Because Trump has made a habit of indulging
the Israeli government and giving Netanyahu everything he wants regardless of the consequences for the U.S., he apparently assumes
that this is the attitude everyone else should have. This is the twisted logic of the "pro-Israel" hawk who assumes that Jewish people
everywhere should be "loyal" to Israel and should be condemned if they are deemed not to be. It turns the old anti-Semitic attack
upside down, but retains the same ugly core of singling out fellow citizens as disloyal because of their identity and vilifying them
for political purposes. In one of the more disgraceful episodes of Trump's presidency, he once again denounces Jewish Americans for
putting America and our values first.
Trump's attacks are the latest example of how Israel and U.S. policy towards Israel have been made into part of the domestic culture
war where being a "pro-Israel" hard-liner is associated with nationalism at home. "Pro-Israel" nationalists imagine that they have
more in common with hard-liners in other countries than they do with their fellow citizens, and they see no contradiction in being
aggressively nationalist here while also subordinating U.S. interests overseas to the preferences of a small client state.
Paul Pillar touched on some of this in his
recent article :
First, viewpoints that do not prevail in domestic political competition are seen not just as losing arguments regarding the
best way to pursue the national interest but rather as not a worthy part of the nation at all. Second, some foreign interests
are seen not just as allies or means that can be used to pursue the U.S. national interest but rather as objects of affection
or identity in their own right. These two developments are two sides of the same coin. The more that the concept of a national
interest breaks down domestically into a sharp division between one viewpoint to be cherished and an opposing one to be scorned,
the more natural a step it is to identify with like-minded elements overseas rather than with one's own fellow citizens.
It isn't possible to put America and Americans first when the president and his allies are determined to take the side of a foreign
government against American citizens and members of Congress. If we want a foreign policy that actually serves the American interest,
we can't tolerate political leaders that attack fellow Americans to score points with foreign leaders and cast hateful aspersions
against minorities in the name of promoting a relationship with another country. Trump is incapable of conducting such a foreign
policy, and these anti-Semitic outbursts are the latest reminder of why he can't.
It has become common knowledge that some American politicians and officials cater to Israel for the money and votes, but it's
still shocking to have Trump lay it all out so starkly. Nonetheless, at least now we know how things are, and we can decide where
we stand.
I've voted Republican most of my adult life, for Tea Party candidates in 2010, and Trump in 2016, but all I want now is to
get this disgusting freak out of the White House. Him and his establishment GOP enablers.
The problem with Trump is that everything in him is second rate. Even bulling. and many americans were aware of that and
voted for him just because that thought that Hillary was worse. Much worse.
And Daniel
Larison is correct: when Trump faces strong backlash he just declare the partner in negotiation "terrible" and walks out and try
to justify his defeat ex post facto.
Notable quotes:
"... As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation. ..."
"... The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them. He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something. Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender. ..."
"... he is so clueless about international relations and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up. ..."
"... "Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas." ..."
"... The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price. ..."
"... "Trump has always been a lousy negotiator." ..."
"... But, but, but... he is very good in breaking up negotiated treaties, and breaking up negotiation itself. ..."
Michael Hirsh
reminds us
that Trump has always been a lousy negotiator:
Michael D'Antonio, a Trump biographer who interviewed him many times, agrees with Lapidus that there is no discernible difference
in the way Trump negotiates today, as president, compared to his career in business. "His style involves a hostile attitude and
a bullying method designed to wring every possible concession out of the other side while maximizing his own gain," D'Antonio
said. "As he explained to me, he's not interested in 'win-win' deals, only in 'I win' outcomes. When I asked if he ever left anything
on the table as a sign of goodwill so that he might do business with the same party in the future he said no, and pointed out
that there are many people in the world he can work with, one at a time."
As we have seen, Trump's bullying, maximalist approach does not work with other governments, and this approach cannot work
because the president sees everything as a zero-sum game and winning requires the other side's capitulation.
The result is that no government gives Trump anything and instead all of them retaliate in whatever way is available to them.
He can't agree to a mutually beneficial compromise because he rejects the idea that the other side might come away with something.
Because every existing agreement negotiated in the past has required some compromise on our government's part, he condemns all of
them as "terrible" because they did not result in the other party's surrender.
He seems particularly obsessed with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) because the trade-off inherent in any agreement
made with Iran was that they would regain access to frozen assets, and he ignorantly equates this with "giving" them money. The fact
that the JCPOA heavily favored the U.S. and the rest of the P5+1 doesn't interest Trump. Iran was allowed to come away with something
at the end, and even the little bit they were able to get is far too much for him. This is one reason he has been so closely aligned
with Iran hawks over the last four years, and it helps explain why he endorses absurd, unrealistic demands and "maximum pressure"
of collective punishment. He is doing more or less the same thing he has always done, and he is so clueless about international relations
and diplomacy that he still thinks it can get him what he wants. The reality is that all of his foreign policy initiatives are failing
or have already failed, and the costs for ordinary people in the targeted countries and here at home keep going up.
Here is another relevant point from the article:
"Temperamentally, the president is unprepared for diplomacy and negotiations with sovereign states," said D'Antonio. "He
doesn't know how to practice the give-and-take that would produce bilateral or multilateral achievements and he takes things so
personally that he considers those with a different point of view to be enemies. He is offended when others decline to be bullied
and angered by those who counter his proposals with their own ideas."
The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when
he has never been any good at it. Now the U.S. and many other countries around the world are paying the price.
Pulling off that "greatest trick" was amazing easy, actually: all Trump and his creatures had to do was go on the assumption that
most Americans will readily believe what they see on television. Especially when it jibes with their prejudices.
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of
them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he has never been
any good at it."
While I agree with pretty much all of the article, let us not forget that a majority of Americans was not, in fact, fooled.
Americans are certainly paying a price Benjamin Franklin warned about. But as for other countries, theirs is due strictly to their
own doing, for relying excessively on the goodwill of America and turning a blind-eye to our imperialism. Quite frankly, up to
now, US allies have been enablers.
Add to that, " When someone hits me, I hit them back ten times harder."
This is not what we teach our children. It is a miserable way to live, or to run a country. No wonder the President is longer
referred to as "the leader of the free world." He gave up that title. These are sad days.
Yes, he is utterly incompetent on his main selling point, his supposed skill at negotiating. It is very inconvenient having Trump
as our standard-bearer.
"The greatest trick that Trump pulled on Americans was to make many of them believe that he understood how to negotiate when he
has never been any good at it."
Actually, the people who voted for Trump and who support him now love him for being a bully. That's what they want. They want
a Tony Soprano as their president, a guy who will go out and beat up all the people they hate. They don't want "negotiation".
They want a guy who has a baseball bat and knows how to use it. What's "interesting" is that despite all of Trump's appeals to
violence, and his willingness to support violence (for example, Saudi Arabia), he largely shrinks from it himself. We've seen
far fewer Tomahawks than one might have expected, particularly considering the great press he received the first time around.
Will we continue to be lucky? I hope so, but it's hard to be optimistic.
survey
shows that most Americans don't want war with Iran. Only 18% of all American adults favor
military action against Iran, and even among Republicans that number is just 25%. 78% favor
economic and diplomatic efforts. That's fine as far as it goes, and it shows that there is very
little support for a new war at this time. The framing of the question is the bigger problem
and makes the results from the poll much less useful.
The poll asks, "What do you think the United States should do to get Iran to shut down its
nuclear program -- take military action against Iran, or rely mainly on economic and diplomatic
efforts?" The question assumes that it is within our government's power to "get Iran to shut
down its nuclear program," when the experience of the last twenty years tells us that it is
not. The nuclear negotiations that produced the JCPOA show beyond any doubt that there are
limits to what Iran is willing to concede on this point. It is good that most Americans prefer
non-military options to pursue this fantastical goal, but the assumption that Iran will one day
"shut down" its nuclear program is completely unrealistic. On the contrary, the more pressure
that the U.S. puts on Iran in an attempt to force such a shutdown, the more inclined Iran's
government is to build up its program.
If Iran's nuclear program remains peaceful, there is no need for them to shut it down. The
long-term goal of the JCPOA has been to demonstrate to the satisfaction of all parties that
Iran's nuclear program is and will remain peaceful, and then at that point Iran will be treated
like any other member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The U.S. doesn't need to do
anything to "get" Iran to do this because the goal of shutting down the program is a foolish
and impossible one. Perceiving Iran's possession of a peaceful nuclear program as a problem to
be solved is one of the reasons why our debate over Iran policy is so warped and biased in
favor of coercive measures. The idea that Iran has to "shut down" a program that it is legally
entitled to have under the NPT is bizarre, but it is obviously a common view here in the
U.S.
The question is misleading in another way, since it suggests that military action could be
effective in forcing Iran to "shut down" the program. In reality, attacking Iran's nuclear
facilities would at most set back the program, but it would give the Iranian government a
strong incentive to develop and build a deterrent that would discourage the U.S. from launching
more attacks in the future. Attacking a country when it doesn't have nuclear weapons is a good
way to encourage them to acquire those weapons as quickly as possible.
That makes the results to the follow-up question all the more dispiriting. The poll also
asks, "Suppose U.S. economic and diplomatic efforts do not work. If that happens, do you think
the United States should -- or should not -- take military action against Iran?" Once again,
the question assumes that getting Iran to "shut down" its nuclear program is both a legitimate
and realistic goal. If non-military measures "do not work," there is additional support for
military action from a depressing 42% of those who initially favored "economic and diplomatic
efforts." Put them together with the initial supporters of military action, and you have a
narrow majority of all American adults that thinks the U.S. should take military action:
The 42% of those who favor military action if nonmilitary efforts fail translates to 35%
of all U.S. adults. Combining that group with the 18% who favor military action outright
means a slim majority of Americans, 53%, would support military action against Iran if
diplomatic and economic efforts are unsuccessful.
There is a disturbingly high level of support for launching an illegal attack on another
country for something it is legally permitted to have. The assumption that "economic and
diplomatic efforts" will be "unsuccessful" if they don't force Iran to abandon its nuclear
program helps to push respondents to give that answer, but they wouldn't endorse a military
option if they hadn't been led to think that Iran's nuclear program is an intolerable danger.
That is partly because of the bad framing of the questions, but it is also a product of decades
of relentless propagandizing about a supposed threat from Iran's nuclear program that is
completely divorced from reality. We need better poll questions on this subject, but we also
need better, more informed debate about Iran and we have to stamp out the threat inflation that
poisons and distorts the public's perceptions of threats from other states.
The White House policy of taking Iranian oil exports to "zero" still has a long way to go,
thanks in no small part to China ,
and also despite Pompeo
touting this week that US sanctions have removed nearly 2.7 million barrels of Iranian oil
from global markets.
US frustration was evident upon the release of the Adrian Darya 1, with Gibraltar resisting
Washington pressures to hand over the Iranian vessel, given as its en route to Greece, American
officials are now warning that they will sanction anyone
who touches the tanker .
Seizing on Washington's frustration as part of its own "counter-pressure" campaign of recent
weeks, Iran has again stated if it can't export its own oil, it will make waterways unsafe and
"unpredictable" for anyone else to to so .
Biden (D)(2): "Biden's Complicity in Obama's Toxic Legacy" [ Counterpunch
(Re Silc)]. "Central to [Biden's] narrative is the presentation of the difference between Trump
and Obama as akin to the difference between Hitler and Gandhi. A better analogy –
especially when it comes to foreign policy – would be the difference between John Wayne
Gacy, the serial killer who was known for dressing up as a clown at public events, and Ted
Bundy, the tall, handsome serial killer who enticed his victims into his car with his charm and
good looks." • I picked out the sickest burn, if we still say that, but the article as
whole is quite a bill of particulars.
Obama reportedly asked his senior staff to "fix this problem with Biden" -
something they never quite got a handle on. Thus, Biden went on embarrassing the top of his
ticket during both private fundraisers with big-time donors, and with the general public.
The bitterness only escalated from there, especially as Biden began making more frequent
gaffes on the campaign trail. In the final week of September alone, Biden "equated paying
higher taxes with patriotism," told voters both he and Obama were opposed to coal -- contrary
to their platform – and second guessed the campaign's messaging strategy.
In the wake of such gaffes, Obama purportedly told his staff to "fix this problem with
Biden," but refrained from getting involved himself. All of that changed two weeks before
Election Day, when Biden claimed at a fundraiser that Obama, if elected, would stare down an
international crisis in his first six-months.
The prophesy would not have stirred much concern, except Biden gave the impression to
those in attendance and the media that he was "showing off" for wealthy donors, and the
crisis in question would be "generated."
"Mark my words," Biden told the crowd. "It will not be six months before the world tests
Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a
generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
Biden's inability to stop making cracks about Obama's 'lack of experience' infuriated the
candidate in a way that even the sharpest jabs from Hillary never quite managed to do. Halperin
and Heilemann described how, during one call not long after the above-mentioned remark, a
furious Obama fumed about "how many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?"
On Obama's nightly call, the candidate hit the ceiling. ([Chief strategist David] Axelrod
was already up there, needing to be peeled off, having let fly a string of F-bombs when he
first found out what Biden had said.) 'Golly, man!' Obama said, with more anger in his voice
than 'gollys' normally carry. He was, in fact, as pissed off as most people on the call had
ever heard him, more so than he'd been at even the wickedest jabs from Hillary Clinton. 'How
many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?'"
Not long after, Obama set up a private call with Biden where he laid into his running mate,
accusing him of failing to 'have his back.'
A couple of days later, Obama phoned Biden and laid into him. You were supposed to have my
back, he said, not be out there creating problems...More than that, though, what rankled
Obama was that Biden hadn't bothered to pick up the phone and apologize. Worse, Biden didn't
say that he was sorry when Obama called; he showed no remorse for his...comments or
understanding that they posed a real political problem.
All of this is why Obama reportedly told Biden during a private call before the 76-year-old
launched his campaign that he 'didn't need to do this.'
"You don't have to do this, Joe, you really don't," Obama told Biden before the
76-year-old formally launched his campaign in April.
For Democratic primary voters, this is definitely something worth keeping in mind.
I'm inclined to agree with James @ 21 and some others that President Erdogan would like to cut the takfiris in Idlib province
loose, since most of them are not originally Turkish citizens anyway but have come from Central Asia and western China (Xinjiang
province) on false Turkish passports and moreover brought their families and are bringing them up in their extremist ways. The
foot-dragging delay that Turkey has made over the past year or so in clearing out Idlib, to the extent that the Russians and Syrians
must have lost patience with Ankara as far back as last century, could be explained by Turkey's reluctance and inability to take
these Central Asians and Uyghurs into its own territory and resettle them without their causing problems for its own people.
Turkey's purchase of the S-400 missile defence systems from Russia probably makes little difference to the situation in Idlib
or northern Syria because the systems are designed to defend against NATO weapons, not Russian ones. Also, where have the systems
been placed in Turkey? Are they around the capital Ankara or Erdogan's hometown Istanbul or the country's borders? If they are
around the city where Erdogan spends most of his time, then he is afraid of another US-made coup against him.
The turkish regime military convoy was roughly for show, no one believe 28 vehicles would change a thing against thousands of
SAA soldiers and well equipped, the Turkish regime gambled and lost big time, but on the eyes of their terrorists it may actually
worked out, at least to some of them...on the other side, expect terrorists to kill each other as well, the loss of all northern
Hama will cost them immensely, this was a frontline built for years, a sort of terrorists' maginot line, which si gone for good,
meaning Inside Idlib Province there is no major frontlines, which tends to equate to faster liberation at lower cost by the SAA.
The pincer move was instrumental and well executed by the SAA, forcing the terrorists to flee the cauldron which is exactly
what happened today.
The turkish backed terrorists were badly defeated in the past 2-3 days but they are still a dangerous force, equipped by Turkey
with thousands of ATGM/TOWs and MANPADS, the offensive will continue, though there is a delay from Kabanah, without controlling
Kabanah the SAA can not attempt a larger pincer move...down the hill from Kabanah on the M4 and a new frontline to be open near
Saraqib.
God bless the SAA and its heroes, alive or martyred, they are doing a favor to all humanity.
One imagines that the Yankees squatting on Syria's oil resources will be 'reviewing their options'. It'd be Karmic if Syria's
Spook Service could persuade some jihadis to eliminate the Yankee cancer in return for amnesty/ repatriation...
If I am advising Mr President Assad , I will tell him to inform Putin and Iran leaders to help him get all of his lands including
Adlib , north eastern Syria by putting pressure on Turkey and the USA . Or he will go and meet with Mr Trump , May be he will
get a better deal with a peace with Israel and the USA .
He and the Syrian people will be better off with this scenario unless immediate help from Iran and Russia to do as above and supply
the country with petroleum and basic needs .
The Syrian citizens waiting hours to get basic life support including gasoline for their cars and heat for their homes.
Enough is enough , it seems to me that Putin and Khamenei have other interests .
Turkey's problem (since Erdogan's rise to power) is the same as Germany's: it still thinks it has a viable shot at being an empire
(which, in the modern sense of the word would mean one of the "poles" in the new multipolar order).
At least Germany has the Euro Zone and a legacy of a (for now) strong export base in value terms. Turkey is just a neoliberal
banana republic a la Brazil who happened to be blessed with what may be the best geopolitical geographic position of our post-war
era.
I would say the article is trying to do two things, embarrass Trump by implying that he "failed to destroy Isis" and remind
Americans that they must stay in Iraq and Syria forever to "fight" Isis. Imperial thinking and Trump Derangement syndrome have
infected the political class completely now, they simply are incapable of thinking of anything except expanding the empire and
taking down what Trump represents to his blue collar followers.
"The leader of Faylq al-Sham, a 'Syrian rebel' group controlled by the Turkish intelligence service, was escorting the Turkish
army convoy in a technical. He was killed. No Turkish soldiers were harmed. The convoy stopped and will have to return to Turkey.
The tanks and the ammunition will not reach the jihadis in Khan Shaykhun."
What comical bullshit was it not just last month Turkey and Russia furthering partnershship were going to "tip the scales in the
Middle East?"
"Senators are now urging President Donald Trump to slap sanctions on Turkey. Erdogan "has chosen a perilous partnership
with (Putin) at the expense of Turkey's security, economic prosperity and the integrity of the NATO alliance," four senators,
including chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a bipartisan statement
last week."
I must confess I hadn't made the connection you seem to have made - that a second US-made coup against Erdogan would be made
by the very takfiris he has cultivated over the years, among others. The purchase of the S-400 missile defence systems might therefore
be one part of a strategy Erdogan is creating to protect himself against a hydra monster he helped create.
@Jen | 40
Not sure where the S-400s will be placed or whom they'll be used against - might just be a showpiece purchase for Russia - but
the issue of the jihadists swarming into Turkey is ooenly discussed in Turkey and is definitely a security threat. (Of course
no one in Turkey openly makes the connection that they are indeed Turkey's own proxies!))))
I concur that Ergodan is the quintessential weasel and will say anything and use anyone if he thinks it will help him gain power
(or at this point, hang on to it). I don't believe he wants these radical head choppers in Turkey, he wants them to die while
looking like he's "got their back." When I hear that a terrorist leader was killed but not a single Turk, it really smells like
this was theater from the start, and the Turkish military may well have tipped off the Russians with all the details of this little
excursion, asking them to please take out the lead vehicle but nothing else so that they could go home. This would also explain
the presence of RuAF in the attack--normally if there was a risk of accidentally striking Turks, the Russians would probably prefer
the SAAF carry out the strike, but if the fix was in, and what was needed was ultra-high precision, you'd want Russian's and their
most accurate guided weapons for the strike.
I can't help but notice over and over that the terrorists seem absolutely unable to grasp the concept of defense-in-depth.
They fight like the devils they are from their Western-prepared tunnels and front lines, but once broken and relying upon their
own skills, they seem to have nothing.
almasdar news reports that 2 Russian fighter jets intercepted and forced to retreat some Turkish war planes from over the southern
countryside of the Idlib Governorate , near the action at Khan Sheikhoun - those turks skidaddled from Syria pretty fast.
I don't think these comments about the military re-supply attempt by the turks to the jihadists being a ruse of some sort are
not accurate
BM @ 5:57
wiki "A technical is a light improvised fighting vehicle, typically an open-backed civilian pickup truck or four-wheel drive vehicle
mounting a heavy weapon, such as a machine gun, anti-aircraft gun, rotary cannon, anti-tank weapon, anti-tank gun, ATGM, mortar,
howitzer, multiple rocket launcher, or recoilless rifle, etc"
chu teh , Aug 20 2019 6:05 utc |
51Grieved , Aug 20 2019 6:14 utc |
52
@46 Jen - "wherewithal to be able to survive or figure out things on their own"
They're not on their own. Officers of the empire are with them, to the extent they can guide them, preserve them and re-deploy
them. That extent is not absolute. There will be losses.
It would be useful to see analysis on the strength and demographics of the irregular terrorist forces available for the use
of the rich and privileged throughout this world and time. That would make a nice discussion.
Larchmonter over at the Saker says that the US has a quarter of a million terrorist/contractors at its disposal. As we have
seen, it tries to save all the fighters it can, but only as a resource for further mayhem. And it seems the impressive logistical
capacity of the Pentagon exists in part to move these pawns across the entire board at need. And my thought is that we seem to
live in an age where these people will fight because they have nowhere else to go, no matter their previous situation, and no
matter how harsh the present terms. So that force cannot be dissipated except by death.
This said, it also seems clear that an indigenous fighting force such as the SAA - aided by its allies with all their various
weapons - cannot any longer be overcome by all these contractors, if this is all there are.
If all the world can supply is 250,000 amoral fighters to be brought into fighting shape as an army - and a hunch tells me
this is all the world can supply - then all the aggravations can be slapped aside by the locals, such as Hezbollah and the Houthi
and the SAA and the PMU of Iraq. Not to mention the IRGC of Iran and the PLA of China and the Russian Armed Forces.
And all these national and indigenous forces are joining together in mutual security pacts.
~~
Frankly, many of us were surprised and overwhelmed by the size of the ISIS force when it first appeared in its Toyota caravan
of plunder - because who could have thought a non-state actor such as the CIA could afford such an army? But I think this will
not take any of the general staffs of the axis by surprise in the future, and the goal will be to whittle down the numbers of
these forces at every chance.
And eventually there will be more dead of these tormented beings than alive.
@52 "It would be useful to see analysis on the strength and demographics of the irregular terrorist forces available for the use
of the rich and privileged throughout this world and time. That would make a nice discussion."
Attended a conference back a decade where at a German professor set out his stats and thesis on the (at the time) ME issues.
The major correlation with 'troubles' was to the number of 2nd+ born males. 1st born are kept back to get the 'farm' and continue
lineage etc. The remainder are sent off to find their fortune or disappear etc. Sounded plausible at the time and supported by
fertility stats. Once 1st son and lineage is at risk then peace magically breaks out. I never followed it up but if would be interesting
to see the demographics of the current round of ME and European invasions. Odds-on they are mainly 2nd-3rd sons on the loose etc.
Happy to be corrected with facts.
imo - 53
"The major correlation with 'troubles' was to the number of 2nd+ born males. 1st born are kept back to get the 'farm' and continue
lineage etc. The remainder are sent off to find their fortune or disappear etc. Sounded plausible at the time and supported by
fertility stats. Once 1st son and lineage is at risk then peace magically breaks out."
To an extent, this is what fuelled the crusades back between 1100 and early 1200s - then the toll of both crusades and growing
inter-European wars put a stop to it -, and what fuelled Spanish conquest of America (and most possibly previous Reconquista).
I can't help but notice over and over that the terrorists seem absolutely unable to grasp the concept of defense-in-depth.
Posted by: J Swift | Aug 20 2019 3:23 utc
D-i-D is a rather expensive gadget.
Actually they had it, in the prime time of ISIS.
Remember 2015 - many months, after arraiving - Russian AirForce was doing what? Bombing out the depots, the logistic paths, the
storngholds. While frontlines were more or less standing still. RAF did not offered air support for gorund offensive. It was just
boringly and methodically blasting depots. IOW RuAF was wipoing off that very defense in depth.
Will ISIS pretend a state again and defence into D-i-D infrastructure again - what you would see is probably the same as it
was in 2015: frontlines stop moving and "heavy gear" starts flying like Tu-22M, Tu-95 and Kalibr.
Since D-i-D installations does not fight back to the bombs falling from a-high, it would actually a good think to Syria and friends
if wakhabi would try to rebuild their D-i-d thingies.
This said, it also seems clear that an indigenous fighting force such as the SAA - aided by its allies with all their various
weapons - cannot any longer be overcome by all these contractors, if this is all there are.
Posted by: Grieved | Aug 20 2019 6:14 utc
It is not about "any longer", they never could. They are by their origin guerilleros, who can inflict "thousand cuts" but can
not claim land control like regular armies do.
It was why US and French army had to war in Libya, destroying Libyan army before "rebels" could take power, calling their invasion
"no fly zones".
It was why US invaded Iraq, where Hussein (Baathist like Assad and remnant of the same United Arab Republic dream) and his army
never let ISIS (maiden name Al Qaeda in Iraq, before west-helped rebranding) raise their head up, so USA had to destroy that army.
It was why NATO invaded Serbia to gave Kosovo Liberation "Army" air support.
It was why USA and friends did and still occasionally do bomb Syrian army units and installations, and Clinton made war with Russia
promise part of her public election interview, using the same fake term from Libyan war.
Insane bloodthirsty headchoppers are good to terrorize civilians and held them captive, and that is what western Army can no
do so well because they need to pretend wearing "white gloves". But to do it efficiently they need to be matched agaisnt civilians,
not against army. And that is where NATO kicks in, preemptively destroying everyone who would offer resistance to Al Qaeda and
co. Then they resupply Al Qaeda on their military bases, like they did in Mosul in summer 2014, when SAA seemed to overcome initial
Al Qaeda inroads and started to pushing them outside.
@michaelj72 | 47
Turkey is a master of distraction so I'd wait and see what happens. Don't forget that Erodgan creates an entire parallel reality
for Turkish consumption- hence complete media control - , this may be part of it. (Remember Bahceli's comment about Erdogan "bombing
empty mountains" in NIraq?)
@C I eh? | 18
Interesting point about Erdogan transitioning. We are already seeing signs of another transformation. There was even talk about
a new AK Party. Need to remember that he is first and foremost a mafia head. He will protect himself and his own. Also he doesn't
have many scapegoat candidates left, but Bahceli himself may be next ...)))
"I don't think these comments about the military re-supply attempt by the turks to the jihadists being a ruse of some sort
are accurate"
AtaBrit @64
there certainly are difference between what leaders say for public/domestic consumption and what they then say and then do for
real/to other world leaders or in private.
Russia is the cat, and Erdogan is the king of rats ....trying to run around/outsmart or outflank the cat at Khan Shaykhun.
I doubt it will work... the Russian and syrian militaries drew the line by bombing that convoy
"...Muraselon News has learned that a Turkish Army convoy, accompanied by Ankara-backed insurgents, attempting to reach the
city of Khan Sheykhun was engaged by the Syrian Air Force as it passed south from Marat al-Numan on the M5 Highway in south Idlib
Sources report that an unspecified number of militants from the Free Syrian Army's Rahman Legion were caught in the strikes
by Syrian warplanes and killed. It is unknown if Turkish service personnel were harmed....."
I thought Turkey's interest in this was in protecting against infiltration by the kurds?
I don't see why they would have interest in harrassing Syria, unless it were to serve interests of U.S.
Though I gather Erdogan is a bit of an opportunist.
Any info re. status of Syrian northeast?
Is that where Syria will move next or is that untouchable for the near term?
It is important to fix the wrong article title. Russia did not bomb Turkey reinforcement
column. According to Syrian sources, it is the Syrian Arab Army's AirForce which "bombed the
road" in which a column of vehicles from Turkey was present. Nevertheless Turkey AirForce was
also lurking around Idlib.
Later followed / intercepted by Russia Su-35 .
It is also curious the following warning: China
warns of next jihadist wave in Syria . Indicates a new wave of groups are being
resurrected (as in sleeping cells), to commit crimes. Interesting to see how China enters the
international arena in openly talking about this in public. Maybe willing to even enter the
conflict in Syria to fight a group of "chinese muslims that might be around there". This
could put pressure in Turkey, as everybody else is willing to fight "bad rebels", instead of
using the conflict [for another purpose?].
"... EU is the power, that took part in creating narco-haven in Kosovo, murdering children of Iraq, building sex slaves markets in Libya, destroying what was left of democracy in Ukraine. EU power is diminishing? Let it crash and burn if you ask me. ..."
> Further US sanctions on Russia. Russian gdp growth is very low now, forecasts are
about mere 1,2 % per anum, and thus Russia's share of world GDP is declining.
Posted by: Passer by | Aug 20 2019 13:15 utc
You think "harming Russia" is a good answer to question "how does it boost USA the
hegemon?". Well, let's suppose it...
Problem then is, Russia does not care that much about nominal GDP and even about PPP GDP.
It is "average temperature in hospital", where some patients are in 41C fever and others in
4C morgue, but on average they all have that healthy 36,6C.
However, even for those sanctions that did hit Russia and EU hard (and those were enacted
mostly in 2015), under the "China-Russia double helix" model, economic soft power is Chinese
responsibility, so targetting EU and Russia economically was perhaps a mis-aiming, like would
be targetting China militarily.
Also, take a single line - "congress obliges Trump to enlist Russian officials for
sanctions" and do the search in both pro-Clinton Google and in DDG. first page of Google has
zero relebvant results. DDG however starts with
Trump Administration Sends Congress List of Possible Russia ...
www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/politics/trump-russia-sanctions.html
Congress has tied Trump's hands on Russian sanctions - Vox
www.vox.com/2017/7/29/16061878/trump-russian-sanctions-sign
Congress Forces Trump to Sanction Russia - Fash the Nation
fashthenation.com/2018/03/congress-forces-trump-to-sanction-russia/
Trump Finally Imposes Russia Sanctions That Congress Ordered ...
www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/03/trump-finally-imposes-russia-sanctions-that-congress-ordered-months-ago/
Is 2017 so far ago that we already forgot it? Trump has no freedom of choice to sanction
Russia or not. It is not his authority to make this choice. Trump is ordered to sanction and
he would do. If he has any leeway, it is to how specifically sanction, but even that choice
is framed into UIS domestic politic fuel, as a vehicle to fry Trump over being "Putin's shil"
and looking "not enough" into evil Russians.
> China postponed for overtaking the US in gdp MER to 2032 from 2024.
Estimations are just that, estimations. Guesses into the future mixed with propaganda. If
you don't buy Trump's tweets about "China begging for deal" and Obama's about "Russian
economy in tatters" - why to buy these estimations?
> Indian growth downgraded - which taken together with China means slowing down Asia's
rise.
Pro-American Modi in power of India was a definite win for USA. But I do not think Trump
did it in 2016. Such events are grown for years and years of undercover works.
Same for the Brazil fiasco, which i perceive was much heavier blow upon BRICS than Modi.
But Brazilian coup was in preparation yet before Trump's oath. May 2016 was the FINAL act,
prepared months before:
nytimes.com/interactive/2016/world/americas/brazil-dilma-rousseff-impeachment.html
> Iran in recession - long term growth is low - it means that Iran's share of the world
economy is now declining. This will lower Iranian influence in the long term.
Long term? like Trump is planning for long term? Would he, like Putin, still be American
president in 2016+18=2034 ?
Well, maybe. However does it boost much US the hegemon position today?
Also notice how this pushes Iran back to Russian bucket. Before JCPOA Iran was flirting
with "Lesser Satan" a lot, promising to buy russian airliners, promising to barter Iranian
goods (oil and others) for Russian goods, thus de facto letting Russia be quasi-monopolistic
seller of Iranian goods on world market for any margin Russia would manage to extract. All
those hints and kinda-plans were squashed instantly after JCPOA. Iran rushed to trade with EU
directly, to buy Boeing and Airbis jets.... But was shot into the leg before it started. I
think China would also find their way to be "big helping brother" to Iranian economy, on some
conditions of course.
> Venezueala in deep recession
True, and this is again fitting the isolationist bill, to a degree. If Team Trump ready to
exclude USA from global trade - it would have to secure oil supply. Enslaving a nearby
oil-containing nation would do.
Additionally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States–Venezuela_relations
lists 2014 as start of economic sanctions against Venezuela. So, Trump has inherited "office
of Venezuelan affairs" from Cinton/Obama. And... he brought it to light and headlines by
making that idiotic wannabe-coup. The sh*t that previously USA did silently pretending
whitegloved "shining beacon", Trump exposed.
Did it really made USA position better in 2018 than it was in 2014? I doubt. To me it
seemes more like T.T. accelerated things and "threw it all on the table" making Venezuela
"hit the rock bottom". Now Venezuela can adjust to the new brave world, while USA would
probably not be in position to tighten its grip - it already burned all the reserves and in
so clumsy way, that Bolton and Co became a laughing stock. If anything, it exposed that while
most gov't there would be paying lip service to USA, none would go with something material.
France invaded with USA Libya, Germany invaded with USA Serbia, but none enlisted to invade
Venezuela with USA.
> In Latin America most governments are now US puppet governments.
Brazil was indeed a huge blow into the BRICS dream. But i see it more of that indirect,
covert "soft power" that USA secret services prepared and rushed to implement before
Trump.
> Weakened the EU, via support for Brexit and other ways - it means that the euro will
not be a viable alternative for replacing the dollar
Basically turning EU elites against USA and splitting "Western Hegemony" into rivaling
factions.
From multipolar view circa 2010, would it be much difference for, say, Russia or China or
Iran, whether USD or EUR would be "reserve currency"?
After Alexander of Macedonia died his empire split to pieces, and some of those pieces
soon started warring. Did this enhance Greek hegemony or reduced it?
When COMECOM and Warsaw Pact disbanded did it enhanced Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe
or reduced it? But it slashed exports of those lands, Bulgaria is not more agriculture
super-power it used to be, "Ikarus" bus is still often meet in Moscow street but in the
"remnants of old times still able to run" kind, Poland is no more producing ocean-grade
ships. So, was it enhancing USSR share of world economy then?
Also, didn't he kind of forced EU elites into Chinese OBOR camp? That said, similarly
Russia was forced towards China in 2013-2014 by Western lunacy, so i would not say it was
Trump's novelty to push EU eastwards.
EU was in with US in looting Libya, EU was in with US in looting Serbia, now US calls for
EU to join in "patrolling" Persian Gulf and response is... like the one about invading
Venezuela. Hegemon became stronger?
> Trade wars seem to be hitting EU's export dependent economy pretty hard.
And i wish to see more of those wars not less. Won't you? EU is the power, that took
part in creating narco-haven in Kosovo, murdering children of Iraq, building sex slaves
markets in Libya, destroying what was left of democracy in Ukraine. EU power is diminishing?
Let it crash and burn if you ask me.
> Turkey has serious economic problems - partly due to the US again - which again means
slowing down multipolarity
Wasn't in 2012 Turkey part of Hegemon entourage neck-deep in bloody ISIS affair?
Wasn't Turkey for decades be knockign into closed EU membership doors?
Wasn't Turkey send their people into Germany to intertwine and cross-influence?
Turkey as part of multipolarity? Maybe. But exactly because it was prohibited from what
they see their place in global western world. However i am not very sure that would West
offer "larger piece" to Turkey in their crippling hegemony, turkey would not turn back yet
again. Goog thing, it would be hard to do as few believe western promises today, but again,
didn't Trump (but other western politicians too, and including many pre-Trump) invested into
making West glaringly "not agreement-capable" in but everyone's view?
Trump could smash Turkey and instate Kudistan.
Trump could smash Kurds and make amends with Erdo.
Instead Trump is breaking pots with both. Neither Kurds not Turks no trust "the shining
beacon".
> Overall situation - the US share in the world economy is declining at slower rates
than before
Won't this mean Trump's economic policy is if limited success?
> the retarding of growth of everyone else, which means defacto slowing down
multipolarity and the replacement of the US dollar
That may be what some faction of Team Trump counting upon. But i have reservations.
Uni-polarity is not about economic growth. It is about trading on One True Market, hegemon's
one.
And when everything goes down, another factors start to weigh in. Like elasticity of demand
and replacement with cheaper substitutes. Like, if i need a tooling for my house, i would
perhaps want to purchase Japanese Makita or German Bosh. Those are famous brands with decades
of well earned reputation. But if i only can salivate on them, then perhaps i can go with
some cheaper Chinese knock-off? Or perhaps to blow the dust from my grandpa's old tool and
purchase nothing at all? If i can buy genuine American Levi's it is a fad, but if i can, then
perhaps i will make it in Turkey-made or China-made or Philipinnes-made or even Syria-made
jeans? You know, their cut is not that fitting as European or American, but perhaps we can
deal with it for the price? If in Russia i can no more buy Czech or German beer as before
2014, then perhaps i can sooth myself with apple cidre from semi-eastern Altai region of
Russia? And then, will my gov't still had the same need for USD for those adjusted trade
transactions, as it used to?
>Problem then is, Russia does not care that much about nominal GDP and even about PPP
GDP
GDP does matter, lowering the GDP of certain country weakens the country. Other factors
matter too, such as demographics or landmass and natural resources.
>targetting EU and Russia economically was perhaps a mis-aiming
I would not call it misaiming, Europe has one of the largest economies in the world and
the Euro is the second most important currency in the World. As long as Russia and the EU
attack each other - it is a win for the US.
>Also, take a single line - "congress obliges Trump to enlist russian officials for
sanctions"
It is not simply Congress, the Trump Admin is hawkish on Russia by itself. Pompeo and
Bolton are anti-russian and were instrumental in the US leaving the INF. The pressure against
Nord Sream is greater than during the Obama Admin, Second Fleet was activated for containing
Russia, a russian consulate was captured in pretty brutal manner, etc. Recently, another set
of sanctions were enacted by the Trump Admin.
>Estimations are just that, estimations. Guesses into the future mixed with
propaganda.
I'm not dismissive of growth estimates and forecasts, this is the job of various
companies, organisations and universities. Overall things could be predicted roughly, for
example via demographics, median age of population, labour force growth, total factor
productivity. The OECD for example is an international organisation working on such
forecasts. They can get the rough shapes of growth patterns right - for example it is pretty
clear that India or China would be growing faster than, let say, Germany or the US. And this
is what their forecasts show. So these are not guestimates.
>Pro-American Modi in power of India was a definite win for USA. But i do not think
Trump did it in 2016. Such events are grown for years and years of undercover works.
This is not what i had in mind. While this is true, you did not take into account the
prefidy of the US Government, which is working to retard indian economic growth via tarrifs
and by trying to remove the WTO perks for developing countries. Even when Modi is frendly to
the US, this is still not enough, because the growth of Asia, including India, threatens the
dollar.
>Well, maybe. However does it boost much US the hegemon position today?
Iranian economy was booming after the JCPOA was signed. If the Plan remained, Iran would
be stronger than today. The whole point is to retard iranian economic growth, which would be
far stronger without the sanctions.
>Also notice how this pushes Iran back to Russian bucket
Even back in 2015, Iran did not stop being an israeli adversary, which means that the US
would have targeted it one way or another. Plus the US was not in position to gain much from
the iranian market, due to their still strained relations caused by the israeli lobby in the
US, which caused all types of sabotage in the Iran - US trade relations, the process of
removal of sanctions, etc. A big beneficiary from the JCPOA was the EU, and the main losses
from the sactions (outside from Iran) were for the EU again. Retarding the EU economy via
blocking its trade with Iran (or Russia) is a benefit for the US.
>Venezueala in deep recession. True, and this is again fitting the isolationist bill,
to a degree.True, and this is again fitting the isolationist bill, to a degree.
This isn't about isolationism, but about retarding the economy of the rest of the world,
and especially of still uncontrolled countries. The point is to preserve the share of
relative power the US has, or to slow down its decline as much as possible.
>Now Venezuela can adjust to the new brave world
The point is that Venezuela would be growing far faster without sanctions, thus the US is
weakening the independent multipolar world and slowing down its rise.
>Did it really made USA position better in 2018 than it was in 2014?
Obviously. Venezuela today, vis a vis the US, is weaker in relative power terms than in
2014. For the US its better to wreck Venezuela's economy than to allow it to flourish and
expand its influence.
>Basically turning EU elites against USA and splitting "Western Hegemony" into rivaling
factions.
They are not turning them against the US, that's the point. Europe is too much of a puppet
of the US. The US causes various conficts on Europe's perifery in order to turn it against
Russia and make it dependent on itself. Divide and Rule.
>would it be much difference for, say, Russia or China or Iran, whether USD or EUR
Yes, Europe is less hawkish than the US overall. If it was up to Europe JCPOA will still
be here and there would be no trade wars with China.
>Also, didn't he kind of forced EU elites into Chinese OBOR camp
Its more about economic weakness. Those in Europe with poor economy signed up for BRI -
such as eastern Europe and Italy. The big 3 - Germany, France and the UK refuse to join BRI
(which is different than AIIB) as of now. I do not see greater western european - China
cooperation today than before 5 years. The EU commission declared China a european rival.
>EU was in with US in looting Libya, EU was in with US in looting Serbia, now US calls
for EU to join in "patrolling" Persian Gulf and response is... like the one about invading
Venezuela. Hegemon became stronger?
The iranian issue has always been a red card for Europe as it fears a really big war in
the Gulf. There is nothing new in that. If you are going to talk about "now", the EU did join
the US against Syria, its sanctions against Syria still remain, and it does support removing
Maduro from power. It did put sanctions against Venezuela, although not at the same level as
the US. It is no friend of the Maduro Government.
>And i wish to see more of those wars not less. Won't you?
Currently the result of them is weakeing multipolarity by retarding growth in most of the
world. They have negative impact on the global economy.
>EU is the power, that took part in creating narco-haven in Kosovo, murdering children
of Iraq, building sex slaves markets in Libya, destroying what was left of democracy in
Ukraine. EU power is diminishing? Let it crash and burn if you ask me.
Yes, but the US does not want to crush and burn the EU, it simply wants to make it weak
and dependent on itself. A colony.
>Wasn't in 2012 Turkey part of Hegemon entourage neck-deep in bloody ISIS affair?
The more players around, the better. Strong Turkey will be more independent from the US,
the US understand that, this is why it want weak Turkey
>Trump could smash Turkey and instate Kudistan.
Trump can not directly smash Turkey, the moment an attempt like this is made is the moment
Turkey will invite Russia and China into the country. Rather, a hybrid war is being waged on
Turkey, with the aim of weakening Erdogan and replacing him with a reliable puppet.
> Overall situation - the US share in the world economy is declining at slower rates
than before Won't this mean Trump's economic policy is if limited success?
No. There is nothing better than this that could be done to stop the US relative decline,
it depends on the cards one has to play. Economic convergence process and technological
diffusion, driven by globalisation, means that it is impossible the fully stop the rise of
the developing world. But if the US did not react like it reacted, and just stayed on its
hands, i think its power would have been gone in 2 - 3 years.
>Uni-polarity is not about economic growth.
It is also about the economy and growth. You can't have unipolarity if you don't have the
largest economic, as well as military power. One needs to have the largest economy to rule
the world (among other things), or they will fail. You can't have it without the dollar
dominance as well.
While the USA run the show, EU was complicit in this war.
Notable quotes:
"... The American Conservative, ..."
"... In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities that included murdering persons to extract and sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts ..."
"... Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor of a special European Union task force, declared in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites." ..."
"... a Council of Europe investigative report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation. ..."
In a 2011 review for The American Conservative, I scoffed, "After NATO planes
killed hundreds if not thousands of Serb and ethnic Albanian civilians, Bill Clinton could
pirouette as a savior. Once the bombing ended, many of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo were
slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground. NATO's 'peace' produced a quarter million
Serbian, Jewish, and Gypsy refugees."
In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton
empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities that included murdering persons to extract and
sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts .
Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor of a special European Union task force, declared
in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful
killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and
Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements of individuals from their homes and communities,
and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites."
The New York Times reported that the trials of Kosovo body snatchers may be stymied
by cover-ups and stonewalling: "Past investigations of reports of organ trafficking in Kosovo
have been undermined by witnesses' fears of testifying in a small country where clan ties run
deep and former members of the KLA are still feted as heroes. Former leaders of the KLA occupy
high posts in the government." American politicians almost entirely ignored the scandal. Vice
President Joe Biden hailed former KLA leader and Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in 2010 as
"the George Washington of Kosovo." A few months later, a Council of Europe investigative
report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation.
Clinton's war on Serbia opened a Pandora's box from which the world still suffers. Because
politicians and pundits portrayed that war as a moral triumph, it was easier for subsequent
presidents to portray U.S. bombing as the self-evident triumph of good over evil. Honest
assessments of wrongful killings remain few and far between in media coverage.
"... the Iranian economy is in a free fall with oil exports down as much as 90 percent from mid-2018 levels. As far as Iran is concerned, this means that it's already at war with the United States and has less and less to lose the longer the U.S. embargo goes on. ..."
"... MBS, as he's known, celebrated by launching an air war in neighboring Yemen two months later – and then disappearing on a week-long vacation in the Maldives – and by funneling hundreds of U.S.-made TOWs (anti-tank guided missiles) to Syrian rebels under the command of Al-Nusra, the local Al-Qaeda affiliate, for use in an offensive in that country's northwest province of Idlib. ..."
"... For the Saudis, it was a neo-medieval crusade whose goal was to topple two religio-political allies of Iran, the Alawite-dominated government in Damascus and Yemen's Houthis, who adhere to a non-Iranian form of Shi'ism that is no less anathema to the Sunni Wahhabist theocracy in Riyadh. ..."
"... Just two days after the start of the Saudi air assault in Yemen, Obama meanwhile telephoned Salman to assure him of U.S. support. When asked why America would back a war by one of the Middle East's richest countries against the very poorest, another anonymous U.S. official told The New York Times (April 2, 2015): ..."
"... "If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." ..."
"... The Obama administration was so anxious to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers and tone down criticism of the impending Iranian accord that it felt it had no choice but say yes to Saudi aggression. ..."
"... The American empire was possibly so over-extended that it was at the mercy of its ostensible clients. Even while making peace with Iran, Obama thus green-lit Saudi wars that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Syria and another 100,000 or so in Yemen while triggering a surge of international terrorism and the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. While reducing tensions in some respects, the 2015 nuclear negotiations, paradoxically, caused them to explode in others. ..."
"... Announcing his presidential bid in June 2015, he launched into a typical Trumpian rant against China, Japan, Mexico – and Obama's nuclear talks. "Take a look at the deal he's making with Iran," he said. "He makes that deal, Israel maybe won't exist very long." A month later, he tweeted that the agreement, just inked in Vienna, "poses a direct national security threat." Two months after that, he told a Tea Party rally in Washington: ..."
"... Trumpian isolationism was fleeting, if it ever existed at all. Under intense pressure from neoconservatives, the Zionist lobby, and pro-Israel Democrats such as Russiagate attack dog Rep. Adam Schiff demanding stepped-up opposition with Iran , Trump did an about-face. In May 2017, he flew to Riyadh, announced an unprecedented $110-billion arms deal, and proclaimed himself the kingdom's newest BFF – best friend forever. ..."
"... He echoed the Saudis by accusing Iran of funding "terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region" and backed a Saudi blockade of neighboring Qatar. When ISIS launched a bloody assault on central Tehran in early June that killed 12 people and injured 42, the only White House response was to declare that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." ..."
"... It was Democrats who, in a typical attempt to outflank Trump on the right, introduced legislation in June 2017 by forcing him to impose penalties on Russia, North Korea, and Iran as well. But after repudiating the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal) in May 2018, Trump upped sanctions even more in November – not only against the Iranian government but against some 700 individuals, entities, aircraft, and vessels. After Iran shot down a $130-million U.S. surveillance drone last month, Trump imposed sanctions on "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his office, and his closest associates. Two weeks ago, he imposed penalties on Mohammad Javad Zarif , Iran's U.S.-educated foreign minister. ..."
"... It was a gesture of contempt for the very idea of diplomacy. So what happens next? The problem is that re-starting negotiations would not be enough. Instead, Iran has demanded that the U.S. remove all sanctions and apologize before agreeing to a new round of talks. Since this would be tantamount to re-authorizing the JCPOA, it's unlikely in the extreme. While Trump is known for changing his mind in a flash, a course correction of this magnitude is hard to imagine. ..."
"... The pro-Israel Lobby owns both Republican and Democrat Russiagate enthusiasts and is the source of near hysterical demands for opposition with Iran. ..."
"... But in June 1914, clearly there were multiple political and military leaders in Europe for whom war was far from inconceivable. War was simply a question of timing and so it would be better to have a war when the circumstances were most propitious. "I consider a war inevitable", declared senior German generals such as Helmuth von Moltke the Younger in 1912. "The sooner the better". ..."
"... such blatant and reprehensible behavior carries risks for everyone but mostly the targets of our barbaric behavior seems never to enter the President, his neocon handlers' and his rabid supporters' minds. ..."
"... "If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." That is unmitigated nonsense. Why not be honest. We don't want to stop it. ..."
"... To "stop it", Uncle Sam would have to first cease being a part of it. The bombing of Yemen came courtesy of U.S. mid-air refueling efforts, targeting "intelligence", and "made in America" weaponry. The blockade (starvation) of Yemen is also a duel accompaniment. It's supposed to look like a Saudi "thing", but in actuality, it's just more Uncle Sam doing his thing. Obama called it "leading from behind". ..."
T raffic accidents normally take just a second or two. But the coming collision in the
Persian Gulf, the equivalent of a hundred-vehicle pile-up on a fog-bound interstate , has been in the
works for years. Much of it is President Donald Trump's fault, but not all. His contribution
has been to take an insane policy and make it even crazier.
The situation is explosive for two reasons. First, the Iranian economy is in a free fall with oil exports down
as much as 90 percent from mid-2018 levels. As far as Iran is concerned, this means that it's
already at war with the United States and has less and less to lose the longer the U.S. embargo
goes on.
Second, after Trump denounced the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord from the moment he began his
presidential run , it's all but impossible at this point for him to back down. The result
is a classic collision between the immovable and the unstoppable with no apparent way out.
How did the world bring itself to the brink of war? The answer, ironically, is by bidding
for peace.
The process began in early 2015 just as the nuclear talks were entering their final stages.
Despite last-minute
hand-wringing , it was clear that success was in sight simply because the participants
– China, France, Russia, Germany, Britain, the European Union, Iran and the U.S. –
all wanted it.
Saudi Proxy War
But other regional players felt differently, Saudi Arabia first and foremost. The kingdom's
survival strategy depends on its special relationship with America, its patron since the 1940s.
Hence, it was panic-stricken by anything smacking of a U.S. rapprochement with its
long-standing arch-enemy Iran. The upshot was a proxy war in which the Saudis set out to roll
back Iranian power by striking out at pro-Iranian forces.
The offensive began after a new Saudi monarch ascended the throne in January 2015. King
Salman, a doddering 79-year-old reportedly suffering from
Alzheimer's , immediately handed over the reins to his favorite son, 29-year-old Muhammad
bin Salman, whom he named deputy crown prince and minister of defense. MBS, as he's known,
celebrated by launching an air war in neighboring Yemen two months later – and then
disappearing on a week-long vacation in the Maldives
– and by funneling hundreds of U.S.-made TOWs (anti-tank guided missiles) to Syrian
rebels under the command of Al-Nusra, the local Al-Qaeda affiliate, for use in an offensive in
that country's northwest province of Idlib.
For the Saudis, it was a neo-medieval crusade whose goal was to topple two religio-political
allies of Iran, the Alawite-dominated government in Damascus and Yemen's Houthis, who adhere to
a non-Iranian form of Shi'ism that is no less anathema to the Sunni Wahhabist theocracy in
Riyadh.
President Barack Obama went along. With regard to Syria, an unidentified "senior
administration official"
toldTheWashington Post that while the White House was "concerned that Nusra
has taken the lead," all he would say in response to U.S.-made missiles winding up in Al-Qaeda
hands was that it was "not something we would refrain from raising with our partners." (See "
Climbing into Bed with
Al-Qaeda ," May 2, 2015.)
Just two days after the start of the Saudi air assault in Yemen, Obama meanwhile
telephoned Salman to assure him of U.S. support. When asked why America would back a war by
one of the Middle East's richest countries against the very poorest, another anonymous U.S.
official told The New York Times (April 2, 2015):
"If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have been
allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they were
being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." But plainly the nuclear negotations were key. The Obama administration was so anxious to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers
and tone down criticism of the impending Iranian accord that it felt it had no choice but say
yes to Saudi aggression.
The upshot has been Saudi wars claiming hundreds of thousands of lives in Syria and another
100,000 or so in Yemen while triggering a surge of international terrorism and the greatest
refugee crisis since World War II. While reducing tensions in some respects, Obama's efforts to
reach a nuclear deal with Iran, paradoxically, caused them to explode in others.
Over-Extended Empire
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama with King Salman bin Abdulaziz at Erga
Palace in Riyadh, Jan. 27, 2015. (White House/Pete Souza/Flickr)
The American empire was possibly so over-extended that it was at the mercy of its ostensible
clients. Even while making peace with Iran, Obama thus green-lit Saudi wars that claimed
hundreds of thousands of lives in
Syria and another
100,000 or so in Yemen while triggering a surge of international terrorism and the greatest
refugee crisis since World War II. While reducing tensions in some respects, the 2015 nuclear
negotiations, paradoxically, caused them to explode in others.
The results were so devastating in a region torn by war, sectarianism, and economic collapse
that Trump could not possibly make them any worse – except that he did.
Announcing his presidential bid in June 2015, he launched into a typical Trumpian rant
against China, Japan, Mexico – and Obama's nuclear talks. "Take a look at the deal he's
making with Iran," he said. "He makes that deal, Israel maybe won't exist very long." A month
later, he tweeted that the
agreement, just
inked in Vienna, "poses a direct national security threat." Two months after that, he
told a Tea Party
rally in Washington:
"Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as
our deal with Iran . They rip us off, they take our money, they make us look like fools, and
now they're back to being who they really are. They don't want Israel to survive, they will
not let Israel survive, [and] with incompetent leadership like we have right now, Israel will
not survive."
Iran's Landmark Concession
It was all nonsense. Rather than threatening the Jewish state, the treaty represented a
landmark concession on Iran's part, since Israel, with an estimated 80 to 90 nuclear warheads in its
arsenal and enough fissile material for a hundred more, would maintain its nuclear monopoly in
the Middle East indefinitely. As for "our money," the $150 billion in various foreign accounts
were actually Iranian assets that had been frozen for years – a sum, moreover, that was
closer to $56 billion once
Iran settled its foreign debts. Once sanctions were lifted, it was hardly unreasonable that
such assets be restored.
Still there was hope. While railing against Iran, Trump also taunted the Saudis for their
role in 9/11: "Who blew up the World Trade Center?" he told
Fox & Friends. "It wasn't the Iraqis, it was Saudi [Arabia]." He repeatedly assailed the
2003 invasion of Iraq – even if he exaggerated his own role
in opposing it – and criticized Obama for supporting Saudi-backed jihadis seeking to
topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"Assad is bad," he said in an October 2015
interview . "Maybe these people could be worse."
Trumpian isolationism was fleeting, if it ever existed at all. Under intense pressure from
neoconservatives, the Zionist lobby, and pro-Israel Democrats such as Russiagate attack dog
Rep. Adam Schiff demanding
stepped-up opposition with Iran , Trump did an about-face. In May 2017, he flew to Riyadh,
announced an unprecedented $110-billion arms deal, and proclaimed himself the kingdom's newest
BFF – best friend forever.
He echoed the Saudis by
accusing Iran of funding "terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread
destruction and chaos across the region" and backed a Saudi blockade of neighboring Qatar. When
ISIS launched a bloody assault on central Tehran in early June that killed 12 people and
injured 42, the only White House response was to declare
that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."
But back in September 2003, some 60,000 Iranian soccer fans had observed a moment of silence
in honor of the victims of the World Trade Center while then-President Mohammad Khatami
declared on nationwide TV:
"My deep sympathy goes out to the American nation, particularly those who have suffered
from the attacks and also the families of the victims. Terrorism is doomed, and the
international community should stem it and take effective measures in a bid to eradicate
it."
Yet all the Trump administration could say was that Iran had it coming.
It was Democrats who, in a typical attempt to outflank Trump on the right, introduced
legislation in June 2017 by forcing him to impose penalties
on Russia, North Korea, and Iran as well. But after repudiating the JCPOA (the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal) in May 2018, Trump upped
sanctions even more in November – not only against the Iranian government but against
some 700
individuals, entities, aircraft, and vessels. After Iran shot down a $130-million U.S.
surveillance drone last month, Trump imposed sanctions on "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, his office, and his closest associates. Two weeks ago, he imposed penalties on
Mohammad
Javad Zarif , Iran's U.S.-educated foreign minister.
Crowd at Tea Party rally listening to Donald Trump denounce the Iran Nuclear Agreement,
Sept. 9, 2015. (YouTube)
It was a gesture of contempt for the very idea of diplomacy. So what happens next? The
problem is that re-starting negotiations would not be enough. Instead, Iran has demanded that
the
U.S. remove all sanctions and apologize before agreeing to a new round of talks. Since this
would be tantamount to re-authorizing the JCPOA, it's unlikely in the extreme. While Trump is
known for changing his mind in a flash, a course correction of this magnitude is hard to
imagine.
Thus, the confrontation is set to continue. Iran may respond by seizing more oil tankers or
downing more drones, but the problem is that the U.S. will undoubtedly engage in tit-for-tat
escalation in response until, eventually, some kind of line is crossed.
If so, the consequences are unpredictable. U.S. firepower is overwhelming ,
but Iran is not without
resources of its own , among them anti-ship ballistic missiles, mobile short-range rockets
that can hit naval targets, plus heavily-armed high-speed boats, mini-subs, and even "
ekranoplans ," floating planes designed to skim the waves at
115 miles per hour. Such weaponry could prove highly effective in the 35-mile-wide Strait of
Hormuz. Iran also has allies such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has an estimated 130,000
missiles and rockets in its own arsenal, Assad's battle-hardened military in Syria, Yemen's
Houthis, and pro-Iranian forces in Shi'ite-majority Iraq.
The upshot could be a war drawing in half a dozen countries or more. A confrontation on that
scale may seem inconceivable. But, then, war seemed inconceivable in the wake of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand's assassination in June 1914.
Daniel Lazare is the author of "The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing
Democracy" (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a
wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique and blogs
about the Constitution and related matters at D aniellazare.com.
Jeff Davis , August 20, 2019 at 12:42
America is Israel's b*tch.
The American experiment is over. A variety of corporate/neoliberal interests and foreign
interests have hollowed it out, and soon, when every last bit of loot has been extracted, the
dried up husk of the Empire will collapse. There is no saving it because the looters are
still in control. Their control is unbreakable because buying Congress is such a minor and
manageable expense for them, and the Congressmen/women are simply incapable of setting aside
personal interest and personal ambition for the good of the country. Incapable, because if
they ever chose country over their own careers , the "owners" -- ie donors/looters -- would
find someone to replace them. There is no way out until it comes crashing down.
Don Bacon , August 20, 2019 at 11:33
Iran whipped the US in Syria, cementing the 'Shia crescent' from Tehran to Beirut, which
gives Iran the mantle of ME leadership. Washington had to respond to that fact because it
threatens the US and its Carter-Doctrine position as the predominate ME power. So don't blame
Israel.
Zhu , August 20, 2019 at 05:44
You forgot to mention pressure from Religious Right Republicans, eager for the Rapture,
the Return of Jesus, etv., etc. Christism Zionists in short.
Broompilot , August 20, 2019 at 01:19
I find it interesting that there is no mention of Netanyahu appearing before Congress or
the U.N. drawing silly looking pictures of bombs. Or Netanyahu claiming he had jacked some
new documents from Iran proving they had a nuclear weapons program. Or Netanyahu
disrespecting Obama with his appearance in Congress. Or Bibi's landing in L.A. with a
motorcade that screwed up traffic all over town to demonstrate who is really important in
this country. Reading this piece you would think this is 95% about Saudis and has very little
to do with Israel. There is no doubt that the gulf monarchies do not want successful
representative governments breaking out on their borders and giving their citizens ideas, but
I doubt they have anything resembling the Israeli lobbies and their influence operating in
the U.S. with the power to influence Iran policy.
AnneR , August 20, 2019 at 08:23
True, Broompilot. And I too awaited throughout the article for Mr Lazare to discuss the
really existing and marked part that Israel has played and is playing in all of the more
recent destruction in neighboring countries, and that illegitimate state's huge influence on
this country's politics, military actions (in the MENA countries when those actions might
benefit Israel), administration decisions (not to mention the cooperation among US and
Israeli secret services *and* electronic-internet companies which anyway themselves both
derive from the military and remain closely entwined with it).
Most US presidents – and seemingly all US Congresses – since WWII have aided
and abetted Israel and its appalling human rights record which never ends and continues with
impunity. But Trump is perhaps more so than most if only because his daughter, a convert to
Judaism, is married to an ardent Zionist, and buddy-buddy to Netanyahu. Lazare hints at
Trump's pro-Zionism (whatever its basis) but leaves it there.
Marko , August 19, 2019 at 22:50
"Trump's Persian-Gulf Car Crash"
When you view foreign policy as a Demolition Derby competition , as Trump and the neocons
do , this is called "Winning !"
Gregory Herr , August 19, 2019 at 20:44
The war of terrorism waged upon the people of Syria didn't come about because the U.S. was
"possibly so over-extended that it was at the mercy of its ostensible clients", or because
the "Obama administration was so anxious to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers and tone down
criticism of the impending Iranian accord that it felt it had no choice but say yes to Saudi
aggression."
Washington's Long War on Syria (Stephen Gowans) began well before Obama, Yahoo, Erdogan,
and Petraeus set up rat lines of weaponry and training for terrorists in Jordan and Turkey.
The current iteration of "topple thru terror" was in the offing, with or without Saudi
"impetus".
Syria stands in the way of Greater Israel and Wall Street/central bank dominance.
Obama "went along" alright. But it wasn't the Saudis he was "appeasing".
Obama should have normalised relations with Iran and disavowed all the b.s. rhetoric about
them. His "deal" had "made to be broken" written all over it because of his rhetoric. All
done in bad faith with the Path to Persia kept open.
Jeff Harrison , August 19, 2019 at 18:30
The big problem is that the US is convinced that it knows what it's doing when, in fact,
it is clueless. The US also is perpetually optimistic when it has nothing upon which to base
said optimism. It's not as if we've actually defeated anybody in the Middle East. Revoltin'
Bolton may think he's scaring people with aircraft carriers and B52s but you'll notice that
Iran snatched the British tanker and the Iraqi tanker after the US moved it's carrier and
bombers into the Gulf. They also shot down our drone in the same time frame.
We're playing a losing strategy.
Jeff Davis , August 20, 2019 at 12:11
We're playing a losing strategy because America is Israel's bitch.
The American experiment is over. A variety of corporate/neoliberal interests and foreign
interests have hollowed it out, and soon, when every last bit of loot has been extracted, the
dried up husk of the Empire will collapse. There is no saving it because the looters are
still in control. Their control is unbreakable because buying Congress is such a minor and
manageable expense for them, and the Congressmen/women are simply incapable of setting aside
personal interest and personal ambition for the good of the country. Incapable, because if
they ever chose country over their own careers , the "owners" -- ie donors/looters -- would
find someone to replace them. There is no way out until it comes crashing down.
Don Bacon , August 19, 2019 at 18:29
"It was all nonsense. Rather than threatening the Jewish state, the treaty represented a
landmark concession on Iran's part,. . ."
Calling the Obama agreement a treaty is nonsense, rather it was an agreement involving
only the executive branch and not the Senate as required by the Constitution for treaties.
Obama needed an achievement for his presidential library, so he waited until his term was
almost over to do what he could have done, with Brazil and Turkey, in 2010. Therefore Trump
had every right to overturn an agreement made by his hated predecessor, with the knowledge
that the Senate never would have approved it since they are all corrupted.
This is another example (Bush-43 on Iraq withdrawal was another) of what the US has come
to. This so-called "rules-based democracy" has become a stomping ground for the
"commander-in-chief" to display his executive privilege and do any damned thing he takes a
mind to, including war, with nary a peep from the so-called "checks and balance" folks who
are supposed to be looking after US democracy, but aren't.
"Trumpian isolationism was fleeting, if it ever existed at all."
It never existed.
A clueless Lazare has been repeatedly informed of the fact in the comments of his CN
articles.
Now he's feebly wondering "if".
"Under intense pressure from neoconservatives, the Zionist lobby, and pro-Israel Democrats
such as Russiagate attack dog Rep. Adam Schiff demanding stepped-up opposition with Iran,
Trump did an about-face."
The pro-Israel Lobby owns both Republican and Democrat Russiagate enthusiasts and is the
source of near hysterical demands for opposition with Iran.
Trump has never been under "intense pressure" and has not done "an about-face" because he
has always been avowedly "1000 percent" pro-Israel.
A worse than clueless Lazare has been repeatedly informed of the fact in the comments of
his CN articles.
Lazare apparently finds lots of things "hard to imagine", even "inconceivable".
But in June 1914, clearly there were multiple political and military leaders in Europe for
whom war was far from inconceivable. War was simply a question of timing and so it would be
better to have a war when the circumstances were most propitious. "I consider a war
inevitable", declared senior German generals such as Helmuth von Moltke the Younger in 1912.
"The sooner the better".
Current Israeli leadership holds such a view. The Trump administration foreign policy purchased by the pro-Israel Lobby reflects this
view.
But for the obviously very well informed but perpetually clueless Lazare, it all somehow
remains "inconceivable"
Trump has walked away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and has
performed numerous other services, including threatening war on Iran, precisely because the
Israelis wanted them done.
Don't confuse Trump's servility to the pro-Israel Lobby for "isolationism".
The arrogant aggression of the Trump-Bolton-Pompeo troika is bought and paid for by
Israel.
Depressing. Having defended Trump because attacks were directed at the President of the
United States, any president, it is hard to support a man whose every move is a political
calculation. That such blatant and reprehensible behavior carries risks for everyone but
mostly the targets of our barbaric behavior seems never to enter the President, his neocon
handlers' and his rabid supporters' minds.
One comment in this depressing article caught my eye.
"If you ask why we're backing this, beyond the fact that the Saudis are allies and have
been allies for a long time, the answer you're going to get from most people – if they
were being honest – is that we weren't going to be able to stop it." That is unmitigated nonsense. Why not be honest. We don't want to stop it. The We, of
course, being our decision makers and a too large segment of our brainwashed electorate.
Gregory Herr , August 19, 2019 at 19:52
To "stop it", Uncle Sam would have to first cease being a part of it. The bombing of Yemen
came courtesy of U.S. mid-air refueling efforts, targeting "intelligence", and "made in
America" weaponry. The blockade (starvation) of Yemen is also a duel accompaniment. It's
supposed to look like a Saudi "thing", but in actuality, it's just more Uncle Sam doing his
thing. Obama called it "leading from behind".
Most powerfully, the SAA demonstrated today with squeezing the Hama salient that when it
decides to move there is fuck all that the jihadists can do to stop it. In historical terms
this is akin to the Battle of St Quentin Canal back in WW1 where part of the British Fourth
Army including British and Australian divisions with two US divisions tore a 17km gap in the
strongest part of the Hindenberg Line and demonstrated that the Imperial German Army was
fucked, as the western allies could pretty much to what they wanted where and when they
decided.
There will be no race to capture Idlib City as that will mean taking a lot of jihadists
prisoner and why should the Syrians have to deal with the foreign jihadists? Instead, war
will be replaced with politics and the foreign jihadists will be "encouraged" to return to
their own countries. Either that or take the war to Turkey because of Erdogan's complete
failure to support them. And all the other countries that failed the jihadists will be
"remembered" sometime in the future.
As for the Russians, the jihadists will remember that the Russian intervention in Syria
was trivial in the scheme of things (less than a hundred aircraft?) and that if the jihadists
try to mess with Russia again, will understand what a full-blown intervention by Russia will
look like.
There might be some holdouts in Idlib but they will be dealt with, and today the balance
of power in the Middle East and also the world tilted notably in favour of "the axis of evil"
(yet another example of American projection because the United States and its poodles are the
real axis of evil!
Pat lost its touch with reality " Around the world, America is involved in quarrels, clashes
and confrontations with almost too many nations to count." That's what empires do. Why he can't
understand this simple fact?
Friday, President Donald Trump met in New Jersey with his national security advisers and
envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is negotiating with the Taliban to bring about peace, and a U.S.
withdrawal from America's longest war.
U.S. troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, in a war that has cost 2,400
American lives.
Following the meeting, Trump tweeted, "Many on the opposite sides of this 19 year war, and
us, are looking to make a deal -- if possible!"
Some, however, want no deal; they are fighting for absolute power.
Saturday, a wedding in Kabul with a thousand guests was hit by a suicide bomber who,
igniting his vest, massacred 63 people and wounded 200 in one of the greatest atrocities of the
war. ISIS claimed responsibility.
Monday, 10 bombs exploded in restaurants and public squares in the eastern city of
Jalalabad, wounding 66.
Trump is pressing Khalilzad to negotiate drawdowns of U.S. troop levels from the present
14,000, and to bring about a near-term end to U.S. involvement in a war that began after we
overthrew the old Taliban regime for giving sanctuary to Osama bin Laden.
Is it too soon to ask: What have we gained from our longest war? Was all the blood and
treasure invested worth it? And what does the future hold?
If the Taliban could not be defeated by an Afghan army, built up by the U.S. for a decade
and backed by 100,000 U.S. troops in 2010-2011, then are the Taliban likely to give up the
struggle when the U.S. is drawing down the last 14,000 troops and heading home?
The Taliban control more of the country than they have at any time since being overthrown in
2001. And time now seems to be on their side.
Why have they persevered, and prevailed in parts of the country?
Motivated by a fanatic faith, tribalism and nationalism, they have shown a willingness to
die for a cause that seems more compelling to them than what the U.S.-backed Afghan government
has on offer.
They also have the guerrillas' advantage of being able to attack at times and places of
their own choosing, without the government's burden of having to defend towns and cities.
Will these Taliban, who have lost many battles but not the war, retire from the field and
abide by democratic elections once the Americans go home? Why should they?
The probability: When the Americans depart, the war breaks out anew, and the Taliban
ultimately prevail.
And Afghanistan is but one of the clashes and conflicts in which America is engaged.
Severe U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have failed to bring down the Nicholas Maduro regime in
Caracas but have contributed to the immiseration of that people, 10% of whom have left the
country. Trump now says he is considering a quarantine or blockade to force Maduro out.
Eight years after we helped to overthrow Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya is still mired in civil
war, with its capital, Tripoli, under siege.
Yemen, among the world's humanitarian disasters, has seen the UAE break with its Saudi
interventionist allies, and secessionists split off southern Yemen from the Houthi-dominated
north. Yet, still, Congress has been unable to force the Trump administration to end all
support of the Saudi war.
Two thousand U.S. troops remain in Syria. The northern unit is deployed between our Syrian
Kurd allies and the Turkish army. In the south, they are positioned to prevent Iran and
Iranian-backed militias from creating a secure land bridge from Tehran to Baghdad to Damascus
to Beirut.
In our confrontation with Iran, we have few allies.
The Brits released the Iranian tanker they seized at Gibraltar, which had been carrying oil
to Syria. But when the Americans sought to prevent its departure, a Gibraltar court ruled
against the United States.
Iran presents no clear or present danger to U.S. vital interests, but the Saudis and
Israelis see Iran as a mortal enemy, and want the U.S. military rid them of the menace.
Hong Kong protesters wave American flags and seek U.S. support of their demands for greater
autonomy and freedom in their clash with their Beijing-backed authorities. The Taiwanese want
us to support them and sell them the weapons to maintain their independence. The Philippines
wants us to take their side in the dispute with China over tiny islets in the South China
Sea.
We are still committed to go to war to defend South Korea. And the North has lately
test-fired a series of ballistic missiles, none of which could hit the USA, but all of which
could hit South Korea.
Around the world, America is involved in quarrels, clashes and confrontations with almost
too many nations to count.
In how many of these are U.S. vital interests imperiled? And in how many are we facing
potential wars on behalf of other nations, while they hold our coat and egg us on?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and
Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
"For the US its better to wreck Venezuela's economy than to allow it to flourish and expand
its influence.."
Not necessarily. The US is gambling that it will beat Venezuela. But if it doesn't, if
Venezuela simply outlasts the imperialist sanctions, it will emerge much stronger.
In recent years there has been a drift towards compromise with the US in Venezuela. Chavez
was always very generous towards his opponents and this has continued. As a result the old
Creole ruling class has been relatively undisturbed. It has retained its power over the
media, for example and left in a position to sabotage the economy through its control of
supermarkets, banks and commerce. It has retained its landholdings and maintained its
agribusiness.
And now, in cahoots with the imperialists, it has come out against the government and
chavismo. Its racist, neo fascist propensities and its contempt for its own countrymen and
women- the poor and the working class- have been revealed. While the people are fighting to
defend themselves against imperialism, Guido and the Venezuelan right, the capitalist class
have made their positions very obvious. Given any sort of opportunity they will smash the
social security and food security networks that keep the poor from starvation. They will
privatise- Honduras style- and death squads will roam the working class districts torturing
and killing.
In short the people of Venezuela have been shown exactly what to expect if the US wins. And
the allies of the US have been revealed to be the country's worst enemies: traitors and
Quislings.
In the end, if the US does not replace the Maduro government, it will find itself much
worse off. All its Fifth Columnist friends will be in exile or hiding. All their wealth will
have been distributed to the poor or nationalised.
And the US will have one more sworn and permanent enemy, the people of Venezuela.
This is a very weak article full of emotion but does not clarifing anything. Zionisn is just
far right Jewish nationalism colored by the occupation of Palestine. Nothing special about it and
in a sense critique of Israel for Zionism falls short. whether Zionists control the USA via fifth
column or the USA elite thinks that Zionist policies in Middle East are perfectly compatible with
the USA geopolitical goals in the region remains to be seen. I suspect the latter.
In this case calling Trump Zionist puppet completely misses the point. The USA and Israel
currently are fellow travelers. That might change in the future.
Incident with Representative [Ilhan] Omar and Representative [Rashida] Tlaib is just a minor
insident and should be trated as such.
Notable quotes:
"... The likelihood that Donald Trump will be impeached (and it's the House of Representatives that impeaches, not the Senate) for any action that pleases Israel is zero. ..."
"... "Why not just support a Gabbard campaign?" Because we've been swindled by two "antiwar" candidates in a row already. We don't want to be slow learners, do we? ..."
"... If the Zionist Enterprise and Uncle Sam (and their apologists) are resentful about the strategic depth Iran has created in Syria they should not have supported a bunch of whack job head choppers like HTS, Al Qaeda, ISIL, etc., etc. Blow back pure and simple like 9/11 and US intervention in Afghanistan. ..."
"... On November 22, 1963, our last Constitutional Government was overthrown in a Coup D'état, with our last Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy , assassinated in a hail of bullets. ..."
"... You really have to have a lot of chutzpah to claim that Trump isn't presidential. After 32 years of Clinton, Bush II, Obama? What is wrong with you, Phil? ..."
"... I like Giraldi generally, that said the whole "acting Presidential" thing is way, way overrated -- that's what we've had for decades an "actor" reading a teleprompter, part of the Uniparty team selected to screw average normal Americans of all races ..."
"... As though the ziostate is a separate country from the Imperialist States of Amerikastan, instead of a parasitic twin. And as though the Imperialist States of Amerikastan is in any way innocent of the crimes of the ziostate. ..."
"... Old pensioners , even younger are political, pathetic amateurs.. Amateurs or worse. Daily declarations of never ending and growing up and up "Uber Love" for Israel means what ? Emptiness , absence of any ability ? ..."
"... Looks like President and administrations become more and more lost and lost their way in our world ? Can not USA acts and even understand, on its own, what is going on around?? ..."
"... They push Iran and Russia together,after they did the same with China, Venezuela /with 6 millions of Columbians in there/, and Turkey, before.. USA lost Syria ..."
"... And if you need a good reason to not impeach Trump here it is: Mike Pence would become President. ..."
"... Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Story at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal ..."
"... The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations. ..."
"... "Hey, let's buy Greenland!", "Let's send a guy to Mars!". Swear to God, every day's a new adventure with this guy. ..."
"... Ignoring someone is the strongest form of bullying. BDS is this stupid path that will lead to violence just like picking up a stick in the first place. The way to deal with Israel and the Empire is by demanding the declassification of all historical secrets, and having an open conversation. We haven't done this for a century as a society. ..."
"... When that happens, it will become clear Israel has always been a colonial project of European and Jewish elites (at the top the %es warrant the statement), that human rights interventions have been designed with neo-colonial intentions in mind from the get-go (after all the creation of Israel was the first such neo-colony), and that the only way to solve this issue is through full on decolonisation. ..."
"... Trump is an idiot and a puppet of Israel. Our Congress is controlled by Israel. Trump isn't Presidential is true. But Giraldi once again seems to be clueless of all the underhanded foreign policy games Obama played. Obama is a cool Crime Lord if there ever was one. ..."
"... The CIA and the other Intelligence agencies protected Obama because he let them do whatever they wanted. Obama's fiasco in Libya was covered up and according to my friends in the CIA is one the greatest foreign policy failures in American history. But Giraldi once again ignores this type of stuff. ..."
"... Pence is also an idiot and nutbag ZioChristian. What Giraldi doesn't seem to understand is that even though Trump is an idiot etc. look at the Democrats and what does the populace see? For many they see that he is less evil than all the Democrats running. ..."
"... First I was glad to see Tlaib had the smarts to tell the Likudniks to pound sand with their new invitation. It would to me, quickly evolve into a fiasco (probably as soon as she got off her flight). Good move by the Rep. If this is a zero-sum game, she wins not Trump/Netanyahu. ..."
"... I see no stomach for impeachment during the election cycle. As well as no chance for a senate conviction. Vile crook that he is, he was elected. Now it's up to voters to make that decision again. Yes on a personal level he's terrible but if we are lucky he won't do catastrophic damage. Like Bush. ..."
"... I agree with Mr. Giraldi entirely on this matter. Unfortunately, given that the Democratic Party is determined to present voters with less than reasonable alternatives, I am fully confident that we will be enjoying another four-year term with this imbecilic, Zionist bootlick as our head-of-state ..."
"... But it is true that Trump -- like every President since LBJ -- has become an obsequious waterboy for the Zionist mafia. For me, this marks Trump's greatest failure. Wasn't he going to 'Make America Great Again'? How can a nation be great if it is not sovereign? ..."
"... A guy with interesting views about the end of the world probably shouldn't be put in a position where he could actually end it. ..."
"... Business as usual for US Presidents for at least 70 years, perhaps at least 120 years. Under the principles of equity, these would not justify impeachment. ..."
"... I really hate to admit this but you may be correct. I do think Trump is anti-war. But he's too erratic and nobody should trust him. Netanyahu is gaming him but I don't think he trusts Trump either. ..."
"... Impeachment is inherently political and there are plenty of good reasons to impeach Trump as there were to impeach Obama, Bush II, Clinton and for that matter such all time greats as Lincoln and FDR. There are better reasons not to impeach him. If impeachment fails it paves the way for a backlash that would lead to Trump's re-election by a landslide and more subservience to Israel than ever. ..."
"... If it succeeds, he is followed by Pence and more subservience to Israel than ever. And if a Democrat other than Tulsi Gabbard gets elected in 2020, keep in mind that the Democratic establishment is solidly pro-Israel as well. Only among some of the Democratic rank-and-file is there any opposition to doing the bidding of the Israeli government. ..."
"... Haven't you Bush-Cheney-Trump Republicans noticed that every four years Americans rent a pig in a poke for the next four years. ..."
It is astonishing to observe some Americans twisting themselves into pretzels so they can
continue to make excuses to explain the bizarre behavior of President Donald Trump on the world
stage. The line most commonly heard is that he has "kept us out of new wars." The reality is
somewhat different. He has kept us in old wars in Afghanistan and Syria that he could have
ended while also needlessly ratcheting up tension with countries like Russia, Venezuela, Iran
and China that could easily escalate into armed conflict. The situation with Moscow is
particularly dangerous as President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that his country's
defense doctrine includes going nuclear if there is an attack on Russia by a superior
force.
But the most frightening aspect of the current situation is the feeling that the man whose
finger is on America's nuclear trigger is not quite sane. The steady stream of insulting and
vulgar tweets that seem to serve as a substitute for more substantial mental activity reveals a
man who is profoundly ignorant, completely narcissistic and hopelessly insecure. To say the
least, Trump is not presidential. He is not even rational except in a conniving, manipulative
fashion intended to embarrass his adversaries and place them on the defensive. And his enemies
list appears to include all Americans who are not "with him."
The Constitution of the United States in Articles I and II details the procedure for
impeachment by the Senate of a president who commits "treason, bribery, or other high crimes
and misdemeanors." I believe that threshold has finally been crossed. It was crossed last
Thursday when
President Trump telephoned either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or some other senior
Israeli government official before, one hour later, tweeting the following: "It would show
great weakness if Israel allowed Representative [Ilhan] Omar and Representative [Rashida] Tlaib
to visit. They hate Israel and all Jewish people. And there is nothing that can be said or done
to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in
office. They are a disgrace!"
Netanyahu then followed Trump's lead with a series of tweets of his own,
banning the visit of the two congresswomen because "Only a few days ago, we received their
itinerary for their visit in Israel, which revealed that they planned a visit whose sole
objective is to strengthen the boycott against us and deny Israel's legitimacy. For instance:
they listed the destination of their trip as Palestine and not Israel the itinerary of the two
Congresswomen reveals that the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase
incitement against it."
The two women are in fact the only two congressional supporters of the non-violent Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use economic pressure to convince Israel
to end its brutal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, meaning that the other 533
members of congress are not so inclined. BDS supporters have been blocked from travel to Israel
under an anti-boycott law passed by the Knesset in March 2017, suggesting that free speech in
Israel is conditional.
Even though BDS is a non-violent protest movement, it has been condemned by the U.S.
Congress and also by nearly all Jewish groups in America, quite possibly because it is having a
real impact in an environment where legitimate criticism of Israel is effectively forbidden.
There is considerable irony in the fact that Jewish groups have in the past used boycotts to
advance their own tribal interests while condemning the use of the same tactic when it is
employed against Israeli oppression.
The Israeli ban was subsequently partially lifted to allow Tlaib to travel to the occupied
West Bank to visit her 90 year old grandmother, but the congresswoman indicated that
she has refused the offer as she is being treated "like a criminal." Clearly, Netanyahu and
Trump saw political benefit coming out of the exchange. Netanyahu is facing re-election in two
weeks and will be able to boast of his demonstrated ability as a "strong leader" to obtain
maximum support for anything he does from the White House. Trump is also already running for
re-election next year and is working hard to make Israel an issue, labeling the Democrats as
the party that is anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. He will also expect Netanyahu to do him favors
as appropriate closer to the actual U.S. election.
So much for the view from the two heads of government. The other perspective, and why the
president should be impeached, is that Trump's decision was, as usual, to propagate a
disgusting and deliberate lie that is also extremely damaging to actual United States interests
as well as to our form of government.
To put it in simplest terms, President Trump is conniving with a foreign government headed
by a war criminal to block the entry of and also demonize two congresswomen whose political
views differ from his own. He is endangering the women, who have already received death
threats, by expanding on the lies that are being circulated about them due to their criticism
of Israel's appalling human rights record.
Netanyahu, for his part, would prefer that prominent observers not be able to report on the
actual conditions prevailing on the West Bank and in Gaza. Indeed, Israel's occupation of much
of the West Bank is an ongoing crime that is carefully hidden from most foreign visitors.
Netanyahu's government already carefully manages the summer recess annual pilgrimage by members
of Congress, such as the one that ended last week where 31 Republicans and 41 Democrats made
the journey to kiss the prime minister's ring. And it should be noted that as Omar and Tlaib
are only two of a handful of Democratic lawmakers who dare to criticize Israel, their impact on
party policy is decidedly limited, rendering even more incomprehensible the panic over their
travels.
There are a number of other things wrong with what took place between Trump and Netanyahu
vis-à-vis the two congresswomen. First of all, Israel is the top recipient of U.S.
military aid at more than $3 billion each year. It also profits from trade arrangements,
co-production projects and charitable contributions from American Jews and Christian Zionists
that amount to an estimated three times that much annually. That members of Congress should
have the right, even the obligation, to visit Israel to see where all that money goes should be
unquestioned and it has, indeed, been unchallenged prior to this incident. Tlaib and Omar are
the first congressmen to be denied entry to Israel. That Trump apparently orchestrated the
entire incident in connivance with a foreign government in support of his own political
ambitions and that foreign power's narrow interests is a clear abuse of executive power.
To be sure, numerous Democrats have decried the Israeli decision, but they have tended to
frame it in such a way as to praise Israel while also slamming Trump. They note, in a friendly
way, that it will hurt Israel's otherwise pristine image as an upstanding democracy and close
ally, both of which assertions are in any event demonstrably false. Speaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi issued a statement
that was typical, saying "As one who loves Israel, I am deeply saddened by the news that Israel
has decided to prevent Members of Congress from entering the country. Last month, Israeli
Ambassador Dermer stated that, 'Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance
between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any Member of Congress into Israel.'
This is a sad reversal and is deeply disappointing. I pray that the Government of Israel will
reverse that denial. Israel's denial of entry to Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar is a sign of
weakness, and beneath the dignity of the great State of Israel. The President's statements
about the Congresswomen are a sign of ignorance and disrespect, and beneath the dignity of the
Office of the President."
Senator Bernie Sanders was one of the few legislators to actually approach the heart of the
matter,
saying "The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which,
by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage.
And if Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to get
a firsthand look at what's going on -- and I've been there many, many times -- but if he
doesn't want members to visit, maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully decline the billions of
dollars that we give to Israel."
Even the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) disapproved of the decision,
stating in a tweet that "We disagree with Reps. Omar and Tlaib's support for the
anti-Israel and anti-peace BDS movement, along with Rep. Tlaib's calls for a one-state
solution. We also believe every member of Congress should be able to visit and experience our
democratic ally Israel firsthand."
One of the few Republicans to enter into the discussion was Senator Marco Rubio of Florida,
who
characteristically tweeted what amounted to an attack on the congresswomen, stating that it
was a mistake for the Israeli government to deny them entry because "Being blocked is what they
really hoped for all along in order to bolster their attacks against the Jewish state."
Trump's attack on the two congresswomen comes on top of another bizarre foreign policy
related intervention. It involved
sending his official hostage negotiator Robert O'Brien to Stockholm on the taxpayers' dime
to obtain freedom for an American rap musician ASAP Rocky who was in jail after having gotten
into a fight with some local boys. Trump did not actually know Rocky, but he was vouched for by
the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, both of whom have had nice things to say about the
president. Trump also exercised his usual disregard for standard diplomatic courtesy by
tweeting
furiously against Sweden's prime minister, Stefan Lofven, over Rocky's detention. The
negotiator was instructed to threaten Sweden that if they did not release Rocky there would be
"negative consequences" for the bilateral relationship.
And if you need more good reasons to impeach Donald Trump, here they are:
Trump has twice
attacked Syria with cruise missiles based on flawed intelligence without a declaration of war
and without Damascus representing an actual threat. That is a war crime and the stationing of
American soldiers in Syria without the consent of that country's government is also illegal.
The Trump administration's "Justice" Department is seeking to extradite truth-teller Julian
Assange of WikiLeaks so he can be locked up for life or killed in prison like Jeffrey Epstein.
America's Secretary of State and National Security Advisors are implementing policies that
impose punitive sanctions that have served to starve or otherwise kill thousands of
Venezuelans, Iranians and Yemenis. Far from being Russian President Vladimir Putin's patsy,
Trump has unnecessarily escalated tensions with Moscow more than any American president since
the end of the cold war by moving NATO troops up to the Russian border and arming Ukraine,
putting our nation and much of the world at risk of a nuclear exchange whether by accident or
design. Trump has unnecessarily withdrawn from an Iranian nuclear agreement and from two arms
treaties with Russia, all of which enhanced the national security of the United States. The
Trump administration has continued to lavish support on the Middle East's two kleptocracies
Saudi Arabia and Israel, endorsing everything they do. The tilt towards Israel, including U.S.
recognition of sovereignty over illegally occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, has
been particularly unfortunate as it could lead to a major war in the region with the U.S.
placed right in the middle of the conflict.
Finally, there are certainly some who oppose getting rid of Trump because it would give us
Mike Pence as acting president. True enough, and Mike certainly has some interesting Christian
Zionist views about the end of the world, but how could he possibly be worse than Donald
Trump?
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is [email protected] .
Let me help. What you are actually advocating is better represented by this:
GIRALDI Endorses MIKE PENCE for President
Did you forget that the VP takes the Presidency if the sitting President is impeached?
Do you really believe that PENCE would be better than Trump on foreign policy?
__________
He has kept us in old wars in Afghanistan and Syria that he could have ended
Trump has drawn down troops from Afghanistan.
The primary issue with pulling troops out of Syria is Iran, although Turkey and the deep
state bureaucracy are also complicating factors. Hopefully, Iran's impending exit from Syria
will allow Trump to also exit.
Iranian troops are in conflict with Assad and they are rapidly wearing out its welcome in
Syria (1):
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards "took over the al-Nurain Mosque and houses around it on
Korniche Street in the city, where they prevented civilians, members of regime forces, and
NDF from entering or passing through the area, without orders from the command forces
located in al-Mayadin."
Iran is also intentionally provoking Russia and undermining Putin's credibility (2):
due to the permanent infiltration efforts conducted by Iran and Hizbullah, a very unique
situation has unfolded on the ground. Hizbullah and pro-Iranian proxies' checkpoints,
coordinated by the regime's Fourth Division deployed in the area, have been erected almost
adjacent to the Russian checkpoints. Pro-Iranian patrols have been patrolling the area in
the very same axis patrolled by the Russians. As a result, frictions between the Russian
and the pro-Iranian proxies occur from time to time, creating tensions between Moscow and
Tehran.
It is now a test of wills between Ayatollah Khamenei and Putin, and it is pretty clear
that Putin is going to win.
It's not saying much but Trump seems to be the sanest of the bunch. Even Sanders wants more
militarism. His support for Israel, though less overtly obnoxious, achieves the same end
result. I could possibly exclude Gabbard. Why not just support a Gabbard campaign?
The likelihood that Donald Trump will be impeached (and it's the House of Representatives
that impeaches, not the Senate) for any action that pleases Israel is zero.
Tulsi Gabbard should embrace the BDS movement and move ahead of the other candidates. This is
in spite of her ill-advised vote recently to condemn BDS. It would be a dramatic about face
-- she will be vilified no matter what she does, but she will please a large and growing
segment of the electorate, not unlike Ross Perot's Independence Party.
"Mike certainly has some interesting Christian Zionist views about the end of the world, but
how could he possibly be worse than Donald Trump?"
Mike Pence could be worse than Hillary Clinton without half trying. For that matter, he
could be worse than GW Bush without breaking a sweat. You underestimate him, Phil.
"Why not just support a Gabbard campaign?" Because we've been swindled by two
"antiwar" candidates in a row already. We don't want to be slow learners, do we?
If the Zionist Enterprise and Uncle Sam (and their apologists) are resentful about the
strategic depth Iran has created in Syria they should not have supported a bunch of whack job
head choppers like HTS, Al Qaeda, ISIL, etc., etc. Blow back pure and simple like 9/11 and US
intervention in Afghanistan.
Yes, The entire post November 22, 1963 American Government, with only a few exceptions
should be Impeached.
On November 22, 1963, our last Constitutional Government was overthrown in a Coup
D'état, with our last Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy , assassinated in a
hail of bullets.
If you (Giraldi), read Unz' article on the subject of the Coup, and just who performed the
Coup, or a dozen other articles to the point, you should understand that our
post-constitutional government has been increasingly controlled by Foreign Zionist Banking
Oligarchs. Our so-called 'elected Representatives' function as bought Minions of the
Rothschilds , and live in fear of their MOSSAD and puppet CIA police.
I assume you have read your own articles on the subject of just who controls the USA. Or
do I have to cite them for you?
You advocate an Impeachment Process to be brought against Casino Trump . And who,
pray tell, will do the impeaching? You are advocating an effort that lends a certain
Legitimacy to a pathetic Puppet government, long at the service of the Zionist World Order.
Do you dream that the pathetic band of almost 537 Traitors are up to the task?
You expect a Congress, perhaps led by the Democrap Gangers, to begin the process of
removing the current Hollywood actor ("You're Fired"), in a pretend Constitutional Process
performed by a Pretend Constitutional Government.
Ron Unz -- er. Philip Giraldi, our Yellow Brick Road to Liberty involves, of
necessity, a Restoration of Our Republic, with a restoration of our Constitution, with a
restoration of our honor, and a restoration of our Beloved Nation's Sovereignty.
But I will deal with you as a well meaning and brave American, a friend. If you have a way
to trigger, or begin the process of impeachment of Casino Trump, even in the Pretend World we
will have to live in to swallow the Show, I and my friends will do all we can to follow your
lead.
This is your article and your lead. Hell! We might get lucky. On with the show. You will
not fight alone.
Now. if your article is just an intellectual appeal to the powers that be (whomever they
are), to advance an impeachment show for us to passively observe, a show where nothing
essential will change, and nothing will be learned, then our Citizens will have no option but
to continue following the Foreign Zionist controlled Democrap & Republicant Gangs to
Hell.
You really have to have a lot of chutzpah to claim that Trump isn't presidential. After
32 years of Clinton, Bush II, Obama? What is wrong with you, Phil?
You evidently are a one-issue guy with a hitherto serious case of Trump Derangement
Syndrome.
You've know joined the ranks of The Mooch and that lunatic Kristol.
I like Giraldi generally, that said the whole "acting Presidential" thing is way, way
overrated -- that's what we've had for decades an "actor" reading a teleprompter, part of the
Uniparty team selected to screw average normal Americans of all races
Ppersonally not having been a Trump fan ever -- I like the fact that he doesn't act like
an actor teleprompter reading robot and that he swings back at the lying Propagandist
Mainslime Media and Dems who are complete insane lunatics at this point (I was a Dem myself
for 40 years and even voted for Obama the first time -- no more.
They are actively plotting to destroy the country by importing "replacement" illegal
aliens to vote for them as sane people won't and Identity "hate whitey" politics -- why would
any sane "white" person vote for them?).
Do I like all Trump is doing? No. His Israel "love" and Javanka etc .But who exactly would
Mr. Giraldi recommend we support/vote for that has any possible chance of getting elected who
is not a pre-selected Uniparty stooge/traitor? Trump is all we got, and by his wide range of
obvious enemies we can tell he is also obviously not fully "on board" with the cretins of the
Deep State -- and those who "run" things view him as a threat, gotta like that .
If I have to choose between Trump and those two harpies then Trump is in. Those two women are
fake Americans who should go back to where they came from.
As though the ziostate is a separate country from the Imperialist States of Amerikastan,
instead of a parasitic twin. And as though the Imperialist States of Amerikastan is in any
way innocent of the crimes of the ziostate.
@getaclue Elites do not
let anybody from the younger generation up , through filter. Old pensioners , even
younger are political, pathetic amateurs.. Amateurs or worse. Daily declarations of never
ending and growing up and up "Uber Love" for Israel means what ? Emptiness , absence of any
ability ?
Looks like President and administrations become more and more lost and lost their way
in our world ? Can not USA acts and even understand, on its own, what is going on
around??
They push Iran and Russia together,after they did the same with China, Venezuela /with
6 millions of Columbians in there/, and Turkey, before.. USA lost Syria ..And what about
Yemen ? At the same time they expose Israel, towards many dangerous developments in that area
around .And in the whole world.. Negativity against Israel is growing..
They/together/ never solve and end, this horrible situation with Palestine.. Sanction are
deadly weapon against all children and their future everywhere..Are the they blind ? As well
? Have They declared sanctions on their own sights ??
Your ridiculous, TDS-fueled list of President Trump's alleged sins does not include a
single high crime or misdemeanor. It merely states your despicable preference for a world run
by Mohammedans and a country run by the likes of those Mohammedan Congress-snakes.
Repeat these words in front of your local imam -- hopefully as the blood spurts from a
camel's throat on Eid; it earns you extra points and a delicious camel steak.
"There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet."
Until you do that, we will know that you lack the courage of your convictions.
Would changing potus or any puppet make any real difference, at all, when the clear
cancerous origin of the decline of the usa, and in fact, the entire western world is not
completely eliminated?
With US Liberty, JFK, and 911 in mind, here is an opportunity to expose and eliminate.
Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Story at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein
Scandal
The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single
intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and
officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and
intelligence ties in both nations.
"Hey, let's buy Greenland!", "Let's send a guy to Mars!". Swear to God, every day's a new
adventure with this guy. The Gonzo Presidency, like going to Vegas with Hunter S.
Thompson.
Ignoring someone is the strongest form of bullying. BDS is this stupid path that will
lead to violence just like picking up a stick in the first place. The way to deal with Israel
and the Empire is by demanding the declassification of all historical secrets, and having an
open conversation. We haven't done this for a century as a society.
When that happens, it will become clear Israel has always been a colonial project of
European and Jewish elites (at the top the %es warrant the statement), that human rights
interventions have been designed with neo-colonial intentions in mind from the get-go (after
all the creation of Israel was the first such neo-colony), and that the only way to solve
this issue is through full on decolonisation.
Trump is an idiot and a puppet of Israel. Our Congress is controlled by Israel. Trump
isn't Presidential is true. But Giraldi once again seems to be clueless of all the
underhanded foreign policy games Obama played. Obama is a cool Crime Lord if there ever was
one.
He is most likely a product of his mother and other relatives being in the CIA chain if
you investigate thoroughly. The CIA and the other Intelligence agencies protected Obama
because he let them do whatever they wanted. Obama's fiasco in Libya was covered up and
according to my friends in the CIA is one the greatest foreign policy failures in American
history. But Giraldi once again ignores this type of stuff.
America is a Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State. Our leaders are just players
in the game. Trump realizes he is not in charge of the foreign policy and most of the
Intelligence Agencies have gone rogue. They answer to the Corporations of the World not to
Nations. Just look at the debacle of the FBI and the Trump investigation. Who was in charge
and what were they trying to do? They were trying to prevent Trump from becoming president
and the NSA who were monitoring everything did what? Just like William Binney former NSA
intelligence officer stated how far they have gone in their own game plan against the
citizens of the USA.
Pence is also an idiot and nutbag ZioChristian. What Giraldi doesn't seem to
understand is that even though Trump is an idiot etc. look at the Democrats and what does the
populace see? For many they see that he is less evil than all the Democrats running.
Once again this seems like a rather naive analysis from someone with the credentials of
Giraldi.
@obwandiyag I wonder why
Obama, the Clintons, Bush 1&2, etc. get no "good reasons to impeach" list.
Trump is small beer in comparison. Generally you do good work, Phil Giraldi, but this time
your avoiding the big picture . while you ignore the 2016 alternative, Hillary.
First I was glad to see Tlaib had the smarts to tell the Likudniks to pound sand with
their new invitation. It would to me, quickly evolve into a fiasco (probably as soon as she
got off her flight). Good move by the Rep. If this is a zero-sum game, she wins not
Trump/Netanyahu.
I see no stomach for impeachment during the election cycle. As well as no chance for a
senate conviction. Vile crook that he is, he was elected. Now it's up to voters to make that
decision again. Yes on a personal level he's terrible but if we are lucky he won't do
catastrophic damage. Like Bush.
# As an aside just a note on Sen. Gillibrand calling for forgiveness in the cases of Al
Franken and Mark Halperin. The NY'er is a skilled politician but this is a bit too obvious.
Would she be calling for second chances if their surnames were Smith and Jones? I don't think
so. Not in the current atmosphere of 'me to.'
She was doing this to make amends for damage done to her among liberals and Jews. Not
because she has second thoughts, about whether she was wrong about them initially.
I agree with Mr. Giraldi entirely on this matter. Unfortunately, given that the
Democratic Party is determined to present voters with less than reasonable alternatives, I am
fully confident that we will be enjoying another four-year term with this imbecilic, Zionist
bootlick as our head-of-state .
My take on Trump is that he knows something that not every politician knows: to bring down
those who are the greatest threat to your country, you sometimes have to give them all they
want and more, after which you'll shed crocodile tears at the news of their demise. Just give
them more rope!
Interesting article (as usual) by Philip Giraldi. I'm not sure that I'm ready to throw in the
towel on Trump however -- though I'm getting close.
As for Trump, he is far more of a leader and independent thinker than his VP, so the idea
of having Zio-devout, 'end-of-times' Pence take over for Trump seems rash.
But it is true that Trump -- like every President since LBJ -- has become an
obsequious waterboy for the Zionist mafia. For me, this marks Trump's greatest failure.
Wasn't he going to 'Make America Great Again'? How can a nation be great if it is not
sovereign?
Trump is manifesting some of the usual, toxic symptoms and embracing some of the bizarre,
extra-national 'values' that make a politician 'mainstream' in America.
These values include 1) eager capitulation to the Zionist community involving all 'matters
of concern' to World Jewry, and 2) don't forget the first part.
These crypto-Zionist 'values' however cause immense and toxic distortions in US policies,
our nation's intellectual climate, and American culture in general. This is no small matter.
As a consequence, the issue of oversized Jewish influence in the West is not supposed to be
addressed -- much less critically examined and dealt with.
If a problem cannot be addressed, how can it be understood and contained?
It can't.
... ... ...
Exhibiting a 'hostility' towards Israel or discharging a virulent 'whiff' of anti-Semitism
can easily become a political death sentence. This is power. This is Jewish-Israeli
power.
Americans exist in a heavily monitored, strategically censored, post-Holocaust,
pro-Zionist, white-guilt-tripping, fabricated kosher wonderland. Therefore, do say the
right thing. Never say the wrong thing. Never. Indelicate speech has how been
criminalized. That's BAD.
Preemptive bombing and wholesale annihilation on the other hand has been sanctified.
Democracy! It's all very strange and twisted. But perfectly normal now.
If nothing else, 'reckless and insane' Trump's steady and deliberate subservience
to the Zionist establishment proves how astonishingly powerful they are.
Mike certainly has some interesting Christian Zionist views about the end of the world,
but how could he possibly be worse than Donald Trump?
You've answered your own question. A guy with interesting views about the end of the
world probably shouldn't be put in a position where he could actually end it.
I believe that threshold has finally been crossed. It was crossed last Thursday when
President Trump telephoned either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or some other senior
Israeli government official before, one hour later, tweeting the following .
Not a crime, not an impeachable offence.
The other perspective, and why the president should be impeached, is that Trump's
decision was, as usual, to propagate a disgusting and deliberate lie
Impeaching a politician for lying; now that's rich!
that is also extremely damaging to actual United States interests as well as to our form
of government.
Trump would be at the end of a very long line if you are talking about his collaboration
with Israel.
beneath the dignity of the Office of the President.
Still no crime or impeachable offence there. Dignity of the Office of the President? The
Rubicon was crossed a long time ago.
And if you need more good reasons to impeach Donald Trump, here they are .
Business as usual for US Presidents for at least 70 years, perhaps at least 120 years.
Under the principles of equity, these would not justify impeachment.
I must disagree with Mr. Giraldi on this one. Trump is smart like a fox. He KNOWS the
machinations and dirty dealings of the jews as he has had to deal with jews all of his life.
There is a saying: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer". It is possible that
Trump is doing just that.
Trump KNOWS that the "deep state" is real and has "eliminated" those who do not "toe the
line" and is smart enough to know that. Trump's "weak spot" is the appointment of his
son-in-law Kushner to handle his "foreign policy" arrangements. All in all, Trump IS "getting
things done".
With any other president but Trump, you would be doing Israel's fighting
I really hate to admit this but you may be correct. I do think Trump is anti-war. But
he's too erratic and nobody should trust him. Netanyahu is gaming him but I don't think he
trusts Trump either. Bottom line is Trump doesn't think spending the money is worth it
and not even the Israel lobby can convince him (we hope). Bottom line is everyone who deals
with him thinks he's nuts. Sooner or later that's going to catch up and bite us.
@Olifant So that's how
44D chess is played? You give the enemy so much support and resources that they just seize up
from all the goodies? Sounds legit.
Man, I wish I was smart enough to play on that level.
@Rich Yes I agree, it's
all about the Benjamin's. Neither of the two women are anti-white or anti-American but it
sounds like you in fact are a racist, just like Trump.
Holy smokes is there a lot of MAGA boomers railing in defence of Trump. The orange clown
should have been booted out of office on the very day he invited the swamp to infest his
government.
@Olifant It is this
idiotic hope that puts you on equal footing with any Clintonista, Bushie, Obama Maniac or
Drumpfter.
They are all the same idiotic "believers". No. Trump is owned lock, stock and barrel by
Chabad sect. To suggest anything different is foolish or obvious deception.
-- France wants cooperation with Russia.
-- Germany wants cooperation with Russia.
-- Russia should rejoin G8, according to these European countries.
-- American's hubris is now plain to see for everyone.
-- Israel's hubris is now plain to see for everyone.
-- We are not going to buy expensive American LNG.
-- Our gas will not flow through Ukraine.
Before Trump this was unthinkable! I don't know how that would work out with Pence.
Changing foolishness for pure evil is risky. Please let us hate Trump but don't get rid of
him!
@Wally What is the point
of giving reasons to impeach the Clintons and Bushes, when it is Trump who is the incumbent
of the White House? Your post makes absolutely no sense and seems little more than a feeble
attempt at giving cover in regard to Trump's erratic behaviour.
Trump letting the neocons back into the White House, particularly giving the egregious Bolton
the NSA chair, was a much more momentous event than mean tweets or interference in the Squad
Qwainz travel plans. Syria and Iran sabre-rattling and ham-fisted destabilization efforts in
Venezuela and Hong Kong are a lot worse than this as well. None of it is impeachment-worthy.
Phil's venting here. No one's more critical of Trump's Zio-cucking than I am, but talking
about impeachment over this or any of the other aggregate offenses he lists isn't serious.
Phil's not writing a Hopkins Russiagate /sarc piece but it comes across like one.
The entire US Congress is Israeli-occupied territory (h/t Pat Buchanan). Mossad's latest
blackmailer of America's Davos-tier was just strangled to death in custody. If Zio-cuckery is
impeachable, we might as well call a new constitutional convention and send all three
branches packing. That's the ugly truth and worrying over the Qwainz is just a trivial
sideshow distraction for the cucks and anti-cucks alike.
November 2020 is roughly 15 months away. I watched a Trump rally on Fox the other night. He
was sharp as a razor. Even when speaking impromptu on a few subjects, he didn't misspeak or
struggle for or with words. One might not like a great deal of what he does, but he is quite
in control of his faculties.
@Kelso Agreed. Tulsi
needs to get off the fence and make a clear statement regarding Israel and her own plans, if
any, to deal with Zionist influence on the US gov.
It's not President Trump that needs impeaching, it's the entire Federal Government that
should be excised from the planet. It's the system, not any particular individual that's the
real problem. It's the concentration of power and the usurpation of control by unelected
bureaucrats commonly referred to as the 'deep state' that threatens the entire world.
"The way to get rid of corruption in high places is to get rid of high places." -- Frank
Chodorov
Get rid of Trump and a new moron will take his place. We need to get rid of the Nancy
Pelosi's and the Chuck Shumer's along with the monstrosities like the NSA, CIA, Air Force,
Army, Raytheon, etc so the people of the 50 states can separately decide on how they want to
proceed. It is the monopoly of the Fed Gov that's the real problem not any particular
pinhead.
Impeachment is inherently political and there are plenty of good reasons to impeach Trump
as there were to impeach Obama, Bush II, Clinton and for that matter such all time greats as
Lincoln and FDR. There are better reasons not to impeach him. If impeachment fails it paves
the way for a backlash that would lead to Trump's re-election by a landslide and more
subservience to Israel than ever.
If it succeeds, he is followed by Pence and more subservience to Israel than ever. And
if a Democrat other than Tulsi Gabbard gets elected in 2020, keep in mind that the Democratic
establishment is solidly pro-Israel as well. Only among some of the Democratic rank-and-file
is there any opposition to doing the bidding of the Israeli government.
Pence could be much worse than Trump; he could be Trump unleashed to do what Trump only
threatened. Trump is just the tail of the dog anyway. It is the power of the deep state that
needs to be diminished, and there are many peaceful ways to accomplish that.
Trump is a wholly owned promoter of zionism and a puppet of the zionists who has sold out
America and Americans who thought they were getting a change from the warmongers and the MIC
and the zionist control over the zio/US government only to find they elected a Trojan Horse
of zionism who will do anything his zionist overlords tell him to do.
JFK was the last patriot POTUS and that is why he was shot in full view of the American
people, shot as an example that the satanic overlords of America were still in charge!
If interested read the book JFK, the CIA and Vietnam by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, can be
had on amazon.
@Lot Attacking Israel
involves attacking the system which supports Israel. It is 1 pragmatic . It is 2 moral and 3
ethical to do so when it is found out that these forces have been lassoed roped penned and
put into serving parasitic Israel 24/7 . At least the offspring of the skates will have a
better future .
@Charles Martel I told
you not to read that Scofield Bible again but you didn't listen . Not only that you also sat
down bowed head listening to fat misshaped Hagee in your local CUFI outlet . Don't do that .
Get some crayons and start drawing Star of David on your viagra worked dick . There is
Canadian nurse who I knew in Detroit , used to talk a lot about My Brothers Keeper . May be
she also knew the real keeper Epstein . Lot of kept .
No one (who I ever hear or read) who claims Trump should be impeached knows what that even
means. Similarly to being indicted, being impeached means a political figure stands trial.
Being impeached guarantees nothing -- Bill Clinton was impeached and naturally it turned into
a farce, whether he was provably guilty of what he was accused or not. Even more importantly
there's the little matter of having a REASON to impeach. Hating an individual -- even when
that person is an oddball, as is certainly the case with Trump -- because that person behaves
eccentrically in your eyes is not and never will be "impeachable".
Phil, here's the thing: on the evil scale of 1 to 10 Trump is a 9.5, but everyone else around
him is a 9.9 or 10. So we are stuck with the fool for now.
Accidental war is possible but the trend is towards more shouting and screaming followed by
climb down. Unless Pompeo fat or Bolton walrus drown accidentally or intentionally in some
Israeli supplied water , war remains a possibility , Even the frowning might not help . It
can be blamed on Iran . Israel might supply the water if it feels Pomeo might get tired of
being told what to do and start telling the truth behind war against Iran .
The real concern is recession . If that hurts Trump's re-election , he might do something
stupid . He might buy the water from Israel with trillions of dollars ( just the advice on
how to initiate the war against Iran but AIPAC-Likud charges for that ) and drown the USA .
There is no climbdown. Iran will be in ruins . Trump will be the president . America has seen
it's last president .
Another ' Richard Pearle ' will say to Americans "Pompeo and Bolton didn't do the job and
Neither Trump did as was told . They didn't listen . We tried to help but they couldn't carry
out . They are not Roosevelt Churchill or Reagan . We were mistaken , "
Trump has not broken any laws, even though his behavior is inappropriate. Even if he colluded
with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign, he did not break any laws in doing so.
Even though his collaboration with Israel is inappropriate, he did not break any laws in
collaborating. Neither in the case of collaborating with Russia nor with Israel did he commit
treason against the USA or accept illegal campaign contributions from their governments,
which would be the only way the collaboration would be illegal. So there is no legal basis on
which to impeach him. Additionally, there is a principle of sovereign immunity that, in fact
if not in theory, has some limited application to the president, it would not be possible to
successfully remove a president from office, even if he was guilty of a crime, unless it was
an extremely serious one. So trying to impeach Trump would be a complete waste of time.
Impeaching Trump would be even more ridiculous than impeaching Clinton was.
And the CANNON FODDER occupation of the shithole Afghanistan will continue apace during the
reign of the OLD FARTING BOOMER GRANNY POTUS Elizabeth Warren .on the advice of Irish Skank
Samantha Powers and the midget mulato negro Susan Rice .
Sorry you Goys are all doomed. The next president ,Democrat or the orangegutan will continue
to bow before the real emperor, Netanyahu.
The only way to get rid of virus of Zionism is to implement a real American constitutional
government where loyalty will be 100% to the US and not to foriegn governments. Best of luck
to all of you Goys.
@Wally I concur, Wally,
exept for your use of the term "small beer." Love him or hate him, there's nothing small beer
about Mr. Trump.
It seems to me that those advocating for Trump's impeachment could, unwittingly, guarantee
his re-election. Most, I think, don't like a legally elected president to be impeached over
policy differences. Using that criteria, every president could be impeached.
Mr. Giraldi asks if VP Pence could "possibly be worse than Donald Trump." Emphatically I
say that he not only COULD be, but quite likely WOULD be. One example: Trump should have
never sent such a huge naval presence into the Persian Gulf, but, who knows, Pence may have
done so even sooner. And, after that Iranian shoot down of the US drone, would Pence, an
Israel-first neocon in good standing, have held back from retaliating?
Lastly, I find it a little odd that Mr. Giraldi uses the Omar/Tlaib incident as grounds
for impeachment. Trump was ill-advised to say what he did (sadly a nearly daily occurrence),
but that seems like a minor incident, similar in severity to the republicans ridiculous
attempt to impeach Clinton over lying about Lewinsky's semen stained blue dress. The easy way
to get rid of Trump is the way this country usually does it -- vote him out of office at the
ballot box, not make him a martyr by trying to get rid of him a few months before next
November's election. Besides, the Senate will never convict.
In regards to impeachment, we patriots are screwed, Pence is just as bad as Trump , and in
regards to the elections for POTUS , the demon-rats and the republi-cons are the same zionist
controlled bullshit, until Americans wake up to that fact, nothing will change. The
demon-rats are the zio/US version of the bolsheviks and the republi-cons are a farce!
rich: abundant possessions, especially material wealth.
selfish: unquiet with one's own well-being without regard for others.
beggar: one who lives by asking for gifts or charity.
Now Trump has done more for Israel as per request of Israel, US media and some in Israeli
media are blaming Trump for wrecking"bipartisan support" to Israel and for endangering
"special relationship"
Thats the way Zionist work . They prod they force they bribe or blackmail and get the
things done .Then they blame the perpetrator for doing what Israel has been asking them them
do.
Iran war will be another example of 'wrecking bipartisan relationship" or "special
relationship being endangered " by the Zionist media because of the danger of Israel would be
pointed out correctly to be the mastermind to be the payer to be the controller to be the
open and only figure forcing some corrupt lawmakers do it
@anon Warning: prions in
camel steaks have an adverse effect on peoples' brains to the extent that they can't frame a
coherent thought. Lay off the steaks!
Haven't you Bush-Cheney-Trump Republicans noticed that every four years Americans rent a
pig in a poke for the next four years.
Four years later, the voters can extend the rental or rent a new pig.
No accountability, other than impeachment, which like the presidential election, is
political.
By impeaching Sheldon Adelson's pet pig, Americans hold the Bitter Twitter accountable for
risking an accidental or insane nuclear exchange with Russia. Hold him accountable for
exploding the national debt to create an asset bubble for the finance racket. And hold him
accountable for flooding the country with legal and illegal immigrants and prisoners released
to keep up with the Kardashians.
That's why Philip Giraldi is right about impeachment. Where his critics show their
ignorance is their certainty that the process automatically leads to Pence. It could easily
lead to the Nixon alternative. The bipartisan impeachment of Nixon was the last step of a
negotiated deal as Watergate unfolded. First Agnew resigned. Then Nixon and the House made
Gerald Ford vice president. "We gave Nixon no choice but Ford," House Speaker Carl Albert
recalled later (Ford's Wikipedia page).
In the last act, Tricky Dick resigned in return for a pardon. The danger of Pence begs for
a similar outcome.
-- Comparatively speaking, Trump is indeed small beer next to the warmongering of Hillary
'forcefully ending the Russian presense in Syria' Clinton, for example.
-- And while Trump blusters about places like Iran, he's nowhere close to McCain school of
'attack now, ask questions later'.
-- Trump's "sending" of naval forces is hardly the same as actually attacking with those
forces.
-- BTW, the impeachment of Clinton was based upon his lying under oath concerning his
sexual abuse of Gennifer Flowers, not about his semen on Lewinsky.
-- Trump's re-election is guaranteed. Hell, he now has a +50% rating with Hispanics and
there are more & more some blacks who are tired of being on the neo-Marxist plantation
and are seeing through their game.
Well Doc Giraldi, as an outsider, I understand your disgust and change of tack. However,
although I don't know about Tlaib, she seems rather sensible, unlike her three insane allies.
Also, Omar is a multiple violator of your U.S. immigration law. That is a fact. Easy to
ascertain. It is only by many others of the same stripe being dumped in the same area, many
also liars, and I would not doubt, many voters intimidated by people with whom she is
conected (the large Somali population dumped there and/or brainwashing, from mainly Jewish
sources) other voters had no say in her election.
So. impeach Trump on the grounds you state, it would be great for your USA. It would never
be permitted. He is the greatest dupe of your colonial masters in Israel to date. You would
know that. Likewise, ejection of Omar from her seat and deportation for immigration fraud are
perfectly legal and sane, and will never happen.
I must have missed the part where Giraldi offered up a list of replacement politicians who,
as President, who could be relied upon to put illegal immigration on the front burner (until
Trump, that was a grand total of ZERO) ..rework the insane, suicidal sweetheart deal we had
previously arranged with China .and could credibly give Israel and its countless agents,
apologists and apparatchiks throughout the West, what-for.
All things considered, two out of three ain't bad.
Hey, nobody (except the neverTrumpers who intend to shit all over him and his family the
very moment he's out of office, the same as any michaelmoore would) is happy about
Trump's kowtowing to Team Shmuel certainly nobody in his "base" is crazy about this setup
.but I have the oddest feeling that Trump assiduously licks those Hebraic hindquarters as the
Cost of Doing Business (ie, the only reliable Assassination Insurance an American President
can hope to purchase).
In the end, it's all about the art of the deal; and from Robert Maxwell to Jeffrey Epstein
and all points between, history tells us that the greatest ability any power-broker can
demonstrate is survivability . Ask Bubba.
Trump and his opponents are all scum. Trump is a 'racist' in the sense that he favors Zionist
supremacism over the much-oppressed Palestinians. He also praises criminal blacks while
having done nothing for whites. But of course, NYT is okay with Trump's pro-Zionist bigotry.
@Buzz
Baldrin As I type this I am listening to Mike Pence lead an all-star cast to discuss the
Trump-PENCE space initiative (s), including the 6th branch of DoD, the Space Force.
It should be excitin g but it is terrifying: DoD is "unified" with the intelligence
agencies & space force -- to ensure a total, space-based surveillance state.
US will collaborate "with its allies" -- i.e. Israel. Pence's quasi-religious delusions,
and the broadly shared Abrahamic ideology: that Abrahamics possess the RIGHT idea, and have
not only the RIGHT but the obligation to impose that ideology on all mankind -- will have at
his ready access the most powerful & intrusive technology.
Those technologies will be militarized.
It would be a mistake to misunderestimate the ambition, cunning, and delusional vision of
Mike Pence.
@Realist "Trump
like most elected officials serves at the pleasure of the Deep State." If that were true,
there would have been no Spygate coup. The Deep State doesn't quite have the lock on US
elections you think it does.
I am actually thinking, Trump is a true gift. He keeps showing the US unmasked, raw, vile and
criminal as it is, and in good company with the criminal jewish entity.
What has been done for decades, masked and filtered away as democracy BS, freedom defending
BS, "american values" aka corruption, intimidation and threats, is becoming under Trump just
blatantly obvious for every one to see. The US administration are a mafia, a crime syndicate
that spreads tumors with its military.
With television cameras rolling, on February 12, 1999 the whole world watched as the
senators stood up to vote inside the chamber. 55 Senators voted "not guilty" on the charge
of perjury. The Senate split 50/50 against Clinton when it came to the charge of
obstruction of justice. This meant that the 2/3 majority was not achieved, the President
was acquitted and allowed to serve out the rest of his term of office up until January
2001.
A month later and twelve days after his get of Dodge card was given to him, the war on
Yugoslavia was put in place.
Twenty years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. "The operation was code-named "Allied Force " -- a cold,
uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker" according to Nebosja Malic.
Impeachment is the branding rode for Z Puppet Presidents by the our warmongering ZUS
rulers. Our "presidents" are treated like cattle too, just like us little people.
"... Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them. ..."
"... The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best." That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history. ..."
"... As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion. ..."
"... Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before." ..."
"... The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans. ..."
"... As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq. ..."
"... Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security." He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous, to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question. ..."
"... The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes? ..."
"... Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic war. ..."
Gabbard calls out the betrayers; Dems try to forget their heroes Mueller and Biden are among them.
Estimates of the number of civilians who died during the war in Iraq range from 151,000 to 655,000. An additional 4,491 American
military personnel perished in the war. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, toxicologist at the University of Michigan, has organized several
research expeditions to Iraq to measure the contamination and pollution still poisoning the air and water supply from the tons of
munitions dropped during the war. It does not require any expertise to assume what the studies confirm: disease is still widespread
and birth defects are gruesomely common. Back home, it is difficult to measure just how many struggle with critical injuries and
post-traumatic stress disorder.
The gains of war in Iraq remain elusive, especially considering that the justifications for invasion -- weapons of mass destruction,
Saddam Hussein's connection to al-Qaeda, the ambition to create a Western-style democracy at gunpoint -- remain "murky at best."
That's a quote from the 9/11 Commission's conclusion on the so-called evidence linking Iraq to Osama bin Laden's group, which actually
did carry out the worst terrorist attack in American history.
As far as stupid and barbarous decisions are concerned, it is difficult to top the war in Iraq. It is also difficult to match
its price tag, which, according to a recent Brown University study, amounts to $1.1 trillion.
Gore Vidal once christened his country the "United States of Amnesia," explaining that Americans live in a perpetual state
of a hangover: "Every morning we wake up having forgotten what happened the night before."
The war in Iraq ended only nine years ago, but it might as well have never taken place, given the curious lack of acknowledgement
in our press and political debates. As families mourn their children, babies are born with irreversible deformities, and veterans
dread trying to sleep through the night, America's political class, many of whom sold the war to the public, have moved on. When
they address Iraq at all, they act as though they have committed a minor error, as though large-scale death and destruction are the
equivalent of a poor shot in golf when the course rules allow for mulligans.
As the Robert Mueller fiasco smolders out, it is damning that the Democratic Party, in its zest and zeal to welcome any critical
assessment of Trump's unethical behavior, has barely mentioned that Mueller, in his previous role as director of the FBI, played
a small but significant role in convincing the country to go to war in Iraq.
Mueller testified to Congress that "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program poses a clear threat to our national security."
He also warned that Saddam could "supply terrorists with radiological material" for the purposes of devising a nuclear bomb. Leaving
aside any speculation about Mueller's intentions and assuming he had only the best of motives, it is quite bizarre, even dangerous,
to treat as oracular someone who was wrong on such a life-or-death question.
Far worse than the worship of Mueller is the refusal to scrutinize the abysmal foreign policy record of Joe Biden, currently the
frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Of the Democrats in the Senate at that time, Biden was the most
enthusiastic of the cheerleaders for war, waving his pompoms and cartwheeling in rhythm to Dick Cheney's music. Biden said repeatedly
that America had "no choice but to eliminate the threat" posed by Saddam Hussein. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
his blustering was uniquely influential.
The former vice president now claims that his "only mistake was trusting the Bush administration," implying he was tricked
into supporting the war. This line is not as persuasive as he imagines. First, it raises the question -- can't we nominate someone
who wasn't tricked? Second, its logic crumbles in the face of Biden's recent decision to hire Nicholas Burns, former U.S. ambassador
to NATO, as his campaign's foreign policy advisor. Burns was also a vociferous supporter of the war. An enterprising reporter should
ask Biden whether Burns was also tricked. Is the Biden campaign an assembly of rubes?
Instead, the press is likelier to interrogate Biden over his holding hands and giving hugs to women at public events. Criticism
of Biden's "inappropriate touching" has become so strident that the candidate had to record a video to explain his behavior. The
moral standards of America's political culture seem to rate kissing a woman on the back of the head as a graver offense than catastrophic
war.
Polling well below Biden in the race is the congresswoman from Hawaii, Tulsi Gabbard. She alone on the Democratic stage has made
criticism of American militarism central to her candidacy. A veteran of the Iraq war and a highly decorated major in the Hawaii Army
National Guard, Gabbard offers an intelligent and humane perspective on foreign affairs. She's called the regime change philosophy
"disastrous," advocated for negotiation with hostile foreign powers, and backed a reduction in drone strikes. She pledges if she
becomes president to end American involvement in Afghanistan.
When Chris Matthews asked Gabbard about Biden's support for the Iraq war, she said, "It was the wrong vote. People like myself,
who enlisted after 9/11 because of the terrorist attacks, were lied to. We were betrayed."
Her moral clarity is rare in the political fog of the presidential circus. She cautions against accepting the "guise of humanitarian
justification for war," and notes that rarely does the American government bomb and invade a country to actually advance freedom
or protect human rights.
Gabbard's positions are vastly superior to that of the other young veteran in the race, Pete Buttigieg. The mayor of South Bend
recently told New York that one of his favorite novels is The Quiet American , saying that its author, Graham Greene,
"points out the dangers of well-intentioned interventions."
Buttigieg's chances of winning the nomination seem low, and his prospects of becoming a literary critic appear even lower.
The Quiet American does much more than raise questions about interventions: it is a merciless condemnation of American exceptionalism
and its attendant indifference to Vietnamese suffering.
Americans hoping for peace won't find much comfort in the current White House either. President Trump has made the world more
dangerous by trashing the Iran nuclear deal, and his appointment of John Bolton, a man who makes Donald Rumsfeld look like Mahatma
Gandhi, as national security advisor is certainly alarming.
America's willful ignorance when it comes to the use of its own military exposes the moral bankruptcy at the heart of its political
culture. Even worse, it makes future wars all but inevitable.
If no one can remember a war that ended merely nine years ago, and there's little room for Tulsi Gabbard in the Democratic primary,
how will the country react the next time a president, and the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declare that they
have no choice but to remove a threat?
Norman Solomon, journalist and founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy, knows the answer to that question. He provides it
in the title of his book on how the media treats American foreign policy decisions: War Made Easy .
Where ae the people who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Should they be tried for lying to the American public?
4500 troops killed and over $1.1 TRILLION wasted with no good results .With hundreds of thousands of Iraq's killed. .
Where are they, indeed? They are still running US foreign policy; that's where they are. They are pundits in all the major media;
that's where they are.
I cannot even imagine what historians will say about the uncanny persistence of these charlatans' influence in this era after
a consistent record of disastrous, abysmal misadventures.
You don't have to look too hard to find them. Bolton, Pompeo, and other neocons are hiding in plain sight. The Military Industrial
Complex is embedded in our foreign policy like a tick on a dog.
Because you'd be knocking out a storm trooper instead of the emperor, at least as far as Bush goes. Same for why the focus is
on Bolton rather than simply Trump.
I CAN see an argument that Trump/Bush knew what they were doing when they brought those people in though. f you feel that way
and see it more of an owner of a hostile attack dog then yeah, you'd want to include those two too.
Here stands Tulsi. A woman, who, unlike their conventional troupe, can win this election. They reject her because... what? Moar
war? She's not the member of the Cult? Or it's simply some sort of collective political death wish?
They reject her because she had the temerity to speak truth to power and supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 race. She stepped
down from her position as Vice Chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders. She has real courage, and earned their wrath. She's not perfect
but she's braver and stronger than almost the entire field. Only Bernie is on par.
And Bernie is the one they also hate, maybe a little bit less openly. Thus they reject those who can win the election. It's either
a self-destructiveness or they think that it's better to keep on losing than to rebuild the party into what it needs to be.
Democrats and the Republican establishment, both, love war. It wasn't a coincidence that Hillary Clinton chose Madeleine Albright
to be a keynote speaker at "her" party convention ("we think the deaths of a half million children are worth it"). Liberals know
that there isn't really any "free" free, and that taxing the rich won't match their dreams -- it is the blood and bones of innocent
foreigners that must pay for their lust. Establishment Republicans are more straightforward: they simply profit off the death
and destruction.
This is why Trump is being destroyed, and why Tulsi is attacked. If only "she" (the one who gloated over Khameni's murder)
had been elected, we'd be in a proxy war with Russia now! A real war with Iran! This is what the American people want, and what
they'll likely get when they vote another chicken-hawk in come 2020.
Tulsi, like Sanders is a 'danger' to everything Israel wants.
So, all...all the main 'news' networks and online sites don't like them and give more coverage to the same old Dem bull peddlers
like ignorant Booker and the lousy opportunist low IQ Kamala Harris and Gillibrand.
Manafort and his ilk can be tried and convicted for their lies. I guess if the lie is big enough we grant a pass on any need for
prosecution. Justice for all? I don't think so.
Max Blumenthal posted a powerful piece at Consortium News (7/31/2019) about Biden's central and south American mis-adventures.
Biden still extols his own policies however disastrous. The hubris of the man is worse than nauseating.
Whether one thinks Gabbard has a shot at the nomination or not, it's important to keep her on the stage in the next round of debates.
Go to Tulsi2020.com
and give her just one dollar (or more if you can)
so she has enough unique contributors to make the next round. And if you get polled,early on give her your vote.
The total US costs related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to be considerably larger than $1.1 trillion, according
to this study:
https://www.hks.harvard.edu...
Try $4-$6 trillion, according to the author of the study.
Long after I, Andrew Bacevitch and Hillary Clinton have gone to our reward, there will still be thousands of wounded warriors
from these US Middle East adventures dependent on VA benefits for their survival and competing with civilian seniors for government
handouts. A war with Iran would make the US fiscal situation that much worse.
The religious folks who were so anxious to protect family values only a few years ago seem to have their heads in the sand
when it comes to the financial future of today's young Americans.
A few weeks ago, I made a token contribution to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign to help her qualify for the July Democratic debates.
She will need more new contributors to qualify for the next round of debates.
Tulsi hasn't a chance of the nomination, but she's exposing things and maybe more people will get a clue about what's really going
on with American lives and taxes being squandered for the profit of the few who benefit from these atrocities and wars abroad,
done in the name of all Americans.
Being a supporter of Tulsi Gabbard for the very reasons that the author writes, has me agreeing with everything he has promoted
in his piece.
However, to answer his own question as to why Americans are lured into commenting on such innocuous and foolish things in such
an important election such as Biden's touching of women, is answered by the author's own prose.
He states that Americans are only provided such nonsense from the press that is monitoring the election process. What else
can people talk about? And even if many Americans are clearheaded enough to understand the charade of the current Democratic debates,
what or who will actually provide legitimate coverage with the exception of online sites as the American Conservative, among others?
If most Americans were actually thinking individuals, Tulsi Gabbard would be a shoo-in for the presidency in 2020. However,
given the two factors of a highly corrupted mainstream press and too many Americans not studying enough civics to understand what
is going on around them, it is highly unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard will even get close to the possibility of being nominated...
Cheney, mentioned in the article, was pure evil. I voted for GB2 for two reasons. 1) He was a very good Texas governor. He actually
got anti-tax Texas to raise taxes dedicated to support education, in return for stricter standards for teachers. A good trade
since Texas public schools were awful. 2) Dick Cheney. I thought he was the adult in the room that would provide steady and reliable
guidance for Bush.
Boy was I wrong about Cheney. "Deficits don't matter". Just watch the movie Vice. Christian Bale does an incredible job portraying
the pure evil of Cheney and the Military Industrial Complex. The movie is chilling to watch. And it is basically true. Politifact
does a good job of scoring the accuracy of Cheney's role in the Bush administration as portrayed in the movie.
U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, President Trump and National Security Advisor John Bolton at the NATO
Foreign Ministerial in Brussels, Belgium on July 12, 2018. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
Matt Lee
reports
on the Trump administration obsessive
use of sanctions:
Call it the diplomacy of coercion.
The Trump administration is aggressively pursuing economic sanctions as a primary foreign policy tool to an extent
unseen in decades, or perhaps ever. Many are questioning the results even as officials insist the penalties are
achieving their aims.
It is true that the Trump administration is using economic coercion as its default approach to almost everything, but
there doesn't appear to be any diplomacy involved. There is such a thing as "coercive diplomacy," but there is no
evidence that Trump and his officials understand the first thing about it. An administration that genuinely wanted to
secure lasting diplomatic agreements with other states would apply pressure only as a means to a specific, achievable
goal, but with this administration they are waging purely destructive economic wars that the targeted states cannot end
without capitulating. The "maximum pressure" description implies an unwillingness to relieve pressure short of the other
side's surrender.
It is not just that it is a "combination of more sticks and fewer carrots." The Trump administration's policies are
all punishment and no reward. In the case of Iran, it could hardly be otherwise when the administration chose to
penalize Iran with sanctions for daring to comply with a multilateral nonproliferation agreement. Iran behaved
constructively and acceded to the demands of the P5+1 four years ago, and in return for their cooperation they have been
subjected to a grueling economic war despite fully complying with their commitments. When our government punishes
another state for doing what previous administrations wanted them to do, no amount of punishment could force that state
to trust our government a second time.
The administration approaches each case in the same way: they impose penalties, they make threats, they offer no
incentives, and they make outrageous, far-fetched demands that no government would ever accept. Trump handles the trade
wars in much the same way that he handles the "maximum pressure" campaigns against intransigent governments, and he
fails every time because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement and therefore refuses to compromise.
Trump's "diplomacy" is no diplomacy at all, but a series of insults, sanctions, tariffs, and threats that achieve
nothing except to cause disruption and pain. Unsurprisingly, a pressure campaign that is aimed at toppling a government
or forcing it to give up everything it has cannot be successful on its own terms as long as the targeted government
chooses to resist, and the stakes for the targeted government will always higher than they are for the administration.
In a contest of wills, the party that is fighting to preserve itself has the advantage.
Someday, when everybody in the world hates America, these economic atrocities will come
back to the USA with violence. You can't do these things to people and not expect
retaliation. When people are hungry from sanctions and can't get medicine for their
children, they will fight back. Wouldn't you? But, it won't affect Wash., just innocent
people, like the innocent people abroad suffering from Wash. policy. Americans will reap
what Wash. sows.
Late Justin
Raimondo was an astute analyst of events in Syria... This is his analysys from 2015. It is
still cogent as of August 2019.
Notable quotes:
"... "War on terrorism" turns into cold war against Russia ..."
"... By the way, according to the Pentagon's own testimony before a congressional committee, only sixty "vetted" fighters were sent into Syria to take on both Assad and ISIS. And while they denied, at first, that their pet "moderates" betrayed Washington and handed over most of their weapons and other equipment to al-Qaeda in return for "safe passage," the Pentagon later admitted it . ..."
"... [I]t is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms trade ..."
"... It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you'll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them. ..."
"... "I'd like to tell those who engage in this: Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it's a big question: who's playing who here? The recent incident where the most 'moderate' opposition group handed over their weapons to terrorists is a vivid example of that. ..."
"War on terrorism" turns into cold war against Russia
Posted on August
19, 2019 August 18, 2019In both Yemen and Syria, the War Party has found an
ally that they can get behind, you know, one that really supports our values: al-Qaeda.
From time to time they have even managed to get President Trump to go along with this
nonsense – presumably due to the baleful influence of John Bolton. (See
Ron Paul's recent discussion of recent developments.) It is worth a look back at an
earlier high-points in this strange alliance between the West and al-Qaeda against Russia and
Syria. Justin's column from four years ago (October 2, 2015) analyzes it in depth.
Originally published October 2, 2015
As Russian fighter jets target al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, the Western media is up in arms
– and
in denial . They deny the Russians are taking on ISIS – and they are indignant that
Putin is
targeting al-Qaeda , which is almost never referred to by its actual name, but is instead
described as " al-Nusra ," or the more inclusive "
Army of Conquest
," which are alternate names for the heirs of Osama bin Laden.
And there are no ideological lines being drawn in this information war: both the left and
the right – e.g. the left-liberal Vox and the Fox News
network – are utilizing a map put out by
the neoconservative
"Institute for the Study of War" to "prove" that Putin isn't really attacking ISIS
– he's actually only concerned with destroying the "non-ISIS" rebels and propping up
the faltering regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The premise behind this kind of propaganda is that there really is some difference between
ISIS and the multitude of Islamist groups proliferating like wasps in the region: and that,
furthermore, al-Qaeda is "relatively" moderate when compared to the Islamic State. Yes,
incredibly, the US and British media are pushing the line that the al-Qaeda fighters in
Syria, known as al-Nusra, are really the Good Guys.
Didn't you know that we have always been at war with Eastasia?
There is
much whining , this [Thursday] morning, that a supposedly US-"vetted" group known as
Tajammu al-Aaza has felt Putin's wrath – but when we get down into the weeds, we
discover that this outfit is fighting alongside al-Qaeda:
"Jamil al-Saleh, a defected Syrian army officer who is now the leader of the rebel
group Tajammu al-Aaza,
told AlSouria.net that the Russian airstrikes targeted his group's base in
al-Lataminah, a town in the western Syrian governorate of Hama. That area represents one of
the farthest southern points of the rebel advance from the north and is therefore a crucial
front line in the war. An alliance of Syrian rebel factions, including both the al
Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and groups considered by Washington to be more
moderate, successfully drove Assad regime forces out of the northern governorate of Idlib
and are now pushing south into Hama."
By the way, according to the Pentagon's own testimony
before a congressional committee, only sixty "vetted" fighters were sent into Syria to take
on both Assad and ISIS. And while they denied, at first, that their pet "moderates"
betrayed Washington and
handed over most of their weapons and other equipment to al-Qaeda in return for "safe
passage," the Pentagon later
admitted it . Furthermore, we were told that these were the only "vetted" fighters
actually in the field, but now we are confronted with "Tajammu al-Aaza," which – it's
being reported – is deploying US-supplied missile guidance systems against Syrian
government forces.
So a handful of "vetted" fighters suddenly turns into an entire armed force – one
which, you'll note, has effectively merged with al-Qaeda.
The lies are coming at us so fast and thick in the first 24 hours of the Russian strikes
that we face a veritable blizzard of obfuscation. They range from the egregious –
alleged photos of "civilian casualties" that
turn out to be fake – to the more subtle: a supposed Free Syrian Army commander is
reported killed by a Russian air strike, and yet it appears that very same commander was
kidnapped by ISIS last year . We are told that the town of Rastan, the site of Russian
strikes, isn't under the control of ISIS – except it was when
ISIS was executing gay men there .
The Russians make no bones about their support of Assad: in his speech to the United
Nations, Putin stated his position clearly: "We think it's a big mistake to refuse to
cooperate with the Syrian authorities and government forces who valiantly fight terrorists on
the ground." On the other hand, the objectives of the Western alliance in Syria aren't so
clear: on the one hand, Washington claims to be directing the main blow against ISIS, but its
claims of success have been
greatly exaggerated . Yet we have spent many millions arming and training "vetted" rebels
who have been defecting to ISIS and al-Qaeda in droves.
It's almost as if we're keeping ISIS around so as to put pressure on Assad to get out of
Dodge. As Putin put it in his UN speech :
" [I]t is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of
terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support
terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms
trade .
" It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve
your political goals, hoping that later you'll find a way to get rid of them or somehow
eliminate them.
"I'd like to tell those who engage in this: Gentlemen, the people you are dealing with
are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it's a big question: who's
playing who here? The recent incident where the most 'moderate' opposition group handed over
their weapons to terrorists is a vivid example of that. "
The reality is that there are no "moderates" in Syria, and certainly not among the rebel
Islamist groups: they're all jihadists who want to impose Sharia law, drive out Christians,
Alawites, and other minority groups, and set up an Islamic dictatorship. These are our noble
"allies" – the very same people who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on
September 11, 2001, and against whom our perpetual "war on terrorism" was launched.
It was the World's largest war at that time and surpassed WW II in many statistics, although
probably not "tonnage of bombs dropped". That latter was WW II, not surpassed until the Gulf
War when USAF used up all it's old arsenal (the better to let more contracts, my dear).
To be fair, military aviation was in its infancy then. The slaughter on the Western front broke
England's Social Structure and paved the way for the destruction of the British Empire. Four
other empire's died as a consequence of WW I (German, Austrian, Russian, and Turkish)
Note: "Kaiser" derives from "Caesar" which was an Imperial title of the late Roman Empire
besides being Gaius Julius Caesar's family name). Promises made to both Arabs and Jews by the
two-faced British Foreign Office paved the way for today's Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
It was a shattering event which tend to occur at 100 year intervals. The one previous was the
Napoleonic Wars. I forget the one before that. War of the Spanish succession? And
coincidentally, we are now living a hundred years later in the Middle east Forever war, which I
fully expect to have similar consequences. The rights and civil liberties of free Americans are
already a casualty.
The Great War set the stage for the Great Depression. I think a similar depression occurred
after the War of 1812 (Napoleonic War in Europe). I'd have to consult a history text to see
about others, but our 1970's economic travails were mirrored after the Civil war and the dot
com bust is eerily similar to the Depression of 1890.
There is a theory that wars and revolutions occur at two cycles of approximately 100 and 170
years based on temperature and rainfall cycles. Every 500 years they coincide in a 5-3
resonance and whole civilizations fall or are transformed. Toynbee's 1000 year cycles can be
seen as two such resonances. Following his analysis, the first crisis turns the civilization
inwards and autocratic. The second breaks it entirely. Religions change too. I forget how. My
Toynbee is packed away. does anyone here know what were the religious changes? Interestingly,
the next 500 year supercycle fell in 2000 AD, so we are now in the first major crisis of
Western Technical Civilization? (my name for the Renaissance and beyond, usually prosaically
called "Modern"). this should turn WTC inward and autocratic, eventually dying in the next
event around 2500 AD which should entire the collapse of civilization and a great
folk-wandering sparked by environmental collapse. (loss of Eurasian pasture in the case of
500AD, turning steppe peoples westward (China was having a civilization peak, no way were the
Huns turning east. In fact, they were expelled from China.
A statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his dog Fala are seen at the FDR Memorial September 20, 2012 in Washington,
DC.
KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images
Along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt is often hailed as one of the United States'
greatest presidents. FDR gave Americans hope during the Great Depression, created key institutions like Social Security
that remain broadly popular today, led the country to victory in World War II, and created a broad political coalition
that endured for decades. He made mistakes -- as all presidents do -- but it's no wonder he's still regarded with reverence.
On Aug. 14, 1936 -- 83 years ago -- FDR gave a
speech
at
Chautauqua in upstate New York, fulfilling a promise he had made at his inauguration in 1933. It is a remarkable speech,
where FDR lays out his thoughts on the proper American approach to international affairs. He explains his "good
neighbor" policy toward Latin America, along with his belief that although a more liberal international trade may not
prevent war, "without a more liberal international trade, war is a natural sequence."
For me, the most remarkable feature of this speech is Roosevelt's blunt, vivid, and passionate denunciation of war,
expressed with a candor that is almost entirely absent from political discourse today. After making it clear that "we
are not isolationists, except insofar as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war," he acknowledges that "so
long as war exists on Earth, there will be some danger that even the nation which most ardently desires peace may be
drawn into war."
But then he goes on:
"I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men
coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping,
exhausted men come out of line -- the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen
children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war."
Roosevelt then reminds his listeners that war can result from many causes (including, in a passage that surely speaks
to us today, "political fanaticisms in which are intertwined race hatreds"). He hopes to preserve U.S. neutrality should
conflict erupt elsewhere and warns against the few selfish men who would seek to embroil the country in war solely to
reap war profits. To make sure the country does not foolishly choose profits over peace, he calls for the "meditation,
the prayer, and the positive support of the people of America who go along with us in seeking peace."
Yet, for all that, FDR leaves no doubt that the American people will defend themselves and their interests if war is
forced on them. In his closing paragraph, he declares: "If there are remoter nations that wish us not good but ill, they
know that we are strong; they know that we can and will defend ourselves and defend our neighborhood." And it is
precisely what Roosevelt ultimately did.
Seriously, can you think of a recent U.S. president who spoke of war and peace in similar terms, with equal passion
and frankness?
Bill Clinton was no militarist, but he was so worried about being labeled a dove that he kept boosting defense
spending, firing off cruise missiles without thinking, and blindly assuming that exporting democracy, expanding trade,
and issuing open-ended security guarantees would suffice to bring peace around the world. And when he had a golden
opportunity to broker a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace, he whiffed.
By contrast, George W. Bush was a swaggering frat boy who brought wars to several places and peace nowhere. He liked
to pose in a
nifty flight suit
and give
high-minded, tough-talking speeches, but the unnecessary wars he launched killed hundreds of thousands of people and
severely damaged America's global position.
Barack Obama may have agonized over every targeted killing and major military decision, but he also ramped up the
drone war, sent additional troops to Afghanistan to no good purpose, helped turn Libya into a failed state, and tacitly
backed the Saudi-led war in Yemen. And when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (!), his acceptance speech focused as
much on defending America's role in the world -- including its widespread use of military force -- as it did on extolling the
virtues of peace and the measures that must be taken to advance it.
Ironically, though Donald Trump loves military parades, flybys, and the other visible trappings of military power, he
seems rather leery of war. Like former Vice President Dick Cheney, who sought and received
five separate deferments
from the draft during Vietnam, Trump (or his father) apparently saw military service as
something that
only less
fortunate people
ought to participate in. As president, he does seem to recognize that starting some new war could
hurt him politically, even as his
more hawkish
advisors
keep pushing him in that direction. And we've yet to hear him extolling the virtues of peace as candidly as
Roosevelt did in 1936.
Look, you don't have to tell a realist like me that we live in an imperfect world and that perpetual peace is a pipe
dream. But the difficulty of the task is precisely why it merits serious attention. Yet instead of embracing peace as a
virtue, U.S. politicians go to great lengths to show how tough they are and how ready they are to send Americans into
harm's way in order to take out some alleged enemy. But how often do they talk about trying to understand the complex
origins of most contemporary conflicts? How often do they try to empathize with the United States' adversaries, not in
order to agree with them but so as to understand their position and to figure out a way to change their behavior without
resorting to threats, coercion, or violence? How often do prominent politicians say, as Roosevelt did, that they "hate
war"?
As I've
said before
, the U.S. disinterest in peace isn't just morally dubious; it's strategically myopic.
The United States should not shrink from fighting if such fighting is forced on it, but it should be the country's
last resort rather than its first impulse. The United States is remarkably secure from most external dangers, and apart
from political malfeasance at home (see: the Trump administration), the only thing that could really screw things up in
the short term is a big war. War is bad for business (unless you're Boeing or Lockheed Martin), and it tends to elevate
people who are good at manipulating violence but not so good at building up institutions, communities, or companies.
When you're already on top of the world, encouraging the use of force isn't prudent; it's dumb. Peace, in short, is
almost always in America's strategic interest.
Which makes it even more surprising that the word has mostly vanished from Americans' strategic vocabulary, and here
I think two big factors are responsible. First, fewer politicians (and especially presidents) have "seen war" in the way
that Roosevelt had. Harry Truman did, and so did Dwight D. Eisenhower (obviously), John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon,
Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush. Needless to say, none of the post-Cold War presidents ever saw war in
the same way.
Equally important, both the political class and the public have been imbibing an intoxicating brew of militarist
rhetoric, imagery, and argument for decades. Americans cheer the troops at baseball games, wave giddily at thunderous
aerial flybys, and finance all of their military adventures by borrowing money so that no one has to make obvious
sacrifices now.
In Roosevelt's era, Americans were still reluctant to "go abroad in search of monsters to destroy," but they fought
with unexpected ferocity when attacked. They were slow to anger but united in response. The situation today is the exact
opposite -- they are quick on the trigger provided that none of them have to do very much once the bullets are flying.
Instead of seeing war as a tragic necessity that is to be avoided if at all possible, Americans regard it as a rather
sanitary "policy option" that takes place in countries most of them cannot locate and is conducted primarily by drones,
aircraft, and volunteers. Americans fight all the time but without clear purpose or firm resolve. As one would expect,
they usually lose, although others often
pay a much larger price
than
they do.
There are faint signs that this situation is changing, after nearly 25 years of mostly failed adventures abroad. The
foreign-policy elite
may have acquired a certain
addiction to war
, but longtime addicts
sometimes decide to turn their lives around and kick the habit. As noted above, Trump hasn't started any new wars yet,
and his various Democratic challengers aren't pushing for more war either. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Tulsi
Gabbard have pretty fair (
but
not perfect
) records on this broad issue, and each has been vocal in opposing U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in
Yemen. Pete Buttigieg wants the United States to rely less on military force in some places (but not others), Kamala
Harris has been mostly silent on the issue, and the other leading candidates have more mixed records. Don't forget that
Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War, and both Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar lean in more hawkish directions.
I'm waiting for one of them to start talking openly and intelligently about peace. What is needed to promote it, and
how can the United States use its still considerable power to keep itself out of war and to help others escape its
destructive clutches? If any of the 2020 candidates decide to tackle this issue head-on, they might start by reading
what a great president once said, 83 years ago.
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It's pretty clear. Saudi Arabia has lost, and,
notes Bruce Riedel, "the Houthis and Iran are the strategic winners". Saudi proxies in Aden
– the seat of Riyadh's Yemeni proto-'government' – have been turfed out by secular,
former Marxist, southern secessionists. What can Saudi Arabia do? It cannot go forward. Even
tougher would be retreat. Saudi will have to contend with an Houthi war being waged
inside the kingdom's south; and a second – quite different – war in Yemen's
south. MbS is stuck. The Houthi military leadership are on a roll , and
disinterested – for now – in a political settlement. They wish to accumulate more
'cards'. The UAE, which armed and trained the southern secessionists has opted out. MbS is
alone, 'carrying the can'. It will be messy.
So, what is the meaning in this? It is that MbS cannot 'deliver' what
Trump and Kushner needed, and demanded from him: He cannot any more deliver the Gulf 'world'
for their grand projects – let alone garner together the collective Sunni 'world' to
enlist in a confrontation with Iran, or for hustling the Palestinians into abject
subordination, posing as 'solution'.
What happened? It seems that MbZ must have bought into the Mossad 'line' that Iran was a
'doddle'. Under pressure of global sanctions, Iran would quickly crumble, and would beg for
negotiations with Trump. And that the resultant, punishing treaty would see the dismantling of
all of Iran's troublesome allies around the region. The Gulf thus would be free to continue
shaping a Middle East free from democracy, reformers and (those detested) Islamists.
What made the UAE – eulogised in the US as tough 'little Sparta' – back off? It
was not just that the Emirs saw that the Yemen war was unwinnable. That was so; but more
significantly, it dawned on them that Iran was going to be no 'doddle'. But rather, the US
attempt to strangulate the Iranian economy risked escalating beyond sanctions war, into
military confrontation. And in that eventuality, the UAE would be devastated. Iran warned
explicitly that a drone or two landed into the 'glass houses' of their financial districts, or
onto oil and gas facilities, would set them back twenty years. They believed it.
But there was another factor in the mix. "As the world teeters on the edge of another
financial crisis", Esfandyar Batmanghelidj has
noted , "few places are being gripped by anxiety like Dubai. Every week a new headline
portends the coming crisis in the city of skyscrapers. Dubai villa prices are at their lowest
level in a decade, down 24 percent in just one year. A slump in tourism has seen Dubai hotels
hit their lowest occupancy rate since the 2008 financial crisis – even as the country
gears up to host Expo 2020 next year. As Bloomberg's Zainab Fattah reported in November of last
year, Dubai has begun to "lose its shine," its role as a center for global commerce "undermined
by a global tariff war -- and in particular by the US drive to shut down commerce with nearby
Iran"".
An extraneous Houthi drone landing in Dubai's financial zone would be the 'final nail in the
coffin' (the expatriates would be out in a flash) – a prospect far more serious than the
crisis of 2009, when Dubai's real estate market collapsed, threatening insolvency for several
banks and major development companies, some of them state-linked – and necessitating a
$20 billion bailout.
In short, the Gulf realised MbS' confrontation project with Iran was far too risky,
especially with the global financial mood darkening so rapidly.
Emirati leaders faced off with MbZ, the confrontation ideologue – and the UAE came
out of Yemen formally (though leaving in situ its proxies), and initiated outreach to
Iran, to take it out of that war, too.
It is now no longer conceivable that MbS can deliver what Trump and
Netanyahu desired . Does this then mean that the US confrontation with Iran, and Jared
Kushner's Deal of the Century, are over? No. Trump has two key US constituencies: AIPAC
and the Christian Evangelical 'Zionists' to 'stroke' electorally in the lead up to the 2020
elections. More 'gifts' to Netanyahu in the lead into the latter's own election campaign are
very likely also, as a part of that massaging of domestic constituencies (and donors).
In terms of the US confrontation with Iran, it seems that Trump is turning-down the volume
on belligerence toward Iran, hoping that economic sanctions will work their 'magic' of bringing
the Islamic Republic to its knees. There is no sign of that however – and no sign of any
realistic US plan 'B'. (The Lindsay Graham initiative is not one).
Where does that leave MbS in terms of US and Israeli interests? Well, to be brutal, and
despite the family friendships 'expendable', perhaps? The scent of an eventual US
disengagement from the region is again hanging in the air.
The deeper meaning in the 'lost Yemen war', ultimately, is an end to Gulf hopes that
'magician' Trump would undo the earlier Gulf panic that the West would normalise with Iran
(through the JCPOA), thus leaving Iran as the paramount regional power. The advent of Trump,
with all his affinity towards Saudi Arabia, seemed to Gulf States to promise the opportunity
again to 'lock in' the US security umbrella over Gulf monarchies, protecting these states from
significant change, as well as leaving Iran 'shackled', and unable to assume regional
primacy.
A secondary meaning to Yemen is that Trump and Netanyahu's heavy investment in MbS and MbZ
has proved to be chimeric. These two, it turned out were 'naked' all along. And now the world
knows it. They can't deliver. They have been bested by a ragtag army of tough Houthi
tribesmen.
The region now observes that 'war' isn't happening (although only by the merest hair's
breadth): Trump is not – of his own volition – going to bomb Iran back to the
1980s. And Gulf States now see that if he did, it is they – the Gulf States – who
would pay the highest price. Paradoxically, it has fallen to the UAE, the prime agitator in
Washington against Iran, to lead the outreach toward Iran. It represents a salutary lesson in
realpolitik for certain Gulf States (and Israel). And now that it has been learned, it is hard
to see it being reversed quite so easily.
The strategic shift toward a different security architecture is already underway, with
Russia
and China proposing an international conference on security in the Persian Gulf: Russia and
Iran already have agreed joint naval exercises in in the Indian Ocean and Hormuz, and China is
mulling sending its warships there too, to protect its tankers and commercial shipping.
Plainly, there will be some competition here, but Iran has the upper hand still in Hormuz. It
is a powerful deterrent (though one best threatened, but not used).
Of course, nothing is assured in these changing times. The US President is fickle, and prone
to flip-flop. And there are yet powerful interests in the US who do want see Iran
comprehensively bombed. But others in DC – more significantly, on the (nationalist) Right
– are much more outspoken in challenging the Iran 'hawks'. Maybe the latter have missed
their moment? The fact is, Trump drew back (but not for the stated reasons) from military
action. America is now entering election season – and it is fixated on its navel. Foreign
policy is already a forgotten, non-issue in the fraught partisan atmospherics of today's
America.
Trump likely will still 'throw Israel a few bones', but will that change anything? Probably,
not much. That is cold comfort – but it might have been a lot worse for the Palestinians.
And Greater Israel? A distant, Promethean hope.
miscalculation that the rotten West will help them instead of use them to create a
festering sore on Russian border for just a few billion dollars in loans.
A possibly a fatal miscalculation for Ukraine, but there is also an ideology involved. In
Maidan-Ukrainians case that ideology is Ukrainian nationalism combined with a servile Western
worship of almost cargo-cult level. An odd combination that has led to odd result.
West wanted Zelensky to win, the question is why. Tactically, Zelensky neutralized large
Russia-leaning block of voters: the 70% vote would have gone somewhere and they were not going
to vote for Poroshenko or Tymoshenko. So that misdirection was successful. But what was the
point? Let's look at what Zelensky is actually doing (not the throw-away comedy and rhetoric):
he is trying to allow sale of Ukrainian land to foreign investors. My guess is that he will
push it through and that will his main legacy. Buying up Ukrainian arable land has been a wet
dream for many in the West since 1991. Zelensky could deliver on it, and then move on.
In 3-5 years we could have an interesting scenario in Ukraine with land (its main wealth)
owned by foreign investors and a large % of population with Russian or Polish and other EU
passports. As always with ideology, the result is the exact opposite of what that ideology
claims: the dictatorship of proletariat impoverished and killed proletariat, Nazis dramatically
shrunk German lebensraum, liberals obsession with ' liberty and universal brotherhood '
is leading to censorship, suppression and group hostilities. But here we are and the
ideological idiocy that Maidan-Ukrainians embraced might not be reversible. This is not good
for anybody.
EU might decide to send its US overlords to Hell and pay Russia to take the hand
grenade away from the monkey.
How would EU go against its overlord? Even if EU would try, the existential
nihilism in Kiev will prevent compromise. Ideologues can't admit that their 'idea' didn't work,
they prefer destroying everything around. West is also at this point incapable of admitting an
error – they literally can't do it, the lying has to go on. That means that even
groundwork for any possible compromise can't be put in place. This is all the way down with
fireworks and it won't be pretty.
There is such a thing as a catastrophic error and the last 5 years in Ukraine comes
pretty close to it. That is not really fixable. The monkey night as well use the
grenade.
It's very sad that Ukraine is just a pawn in dirty geopolitical games of the USA, the EU and Russia.
Notable quotes:
"... In 3-5 years we could have an interesting scenario in Ukraine with land (its main wealth) owned by foreign investors and a large % of population with Russian or Polish and other EU passports. As always with ideology, the result is the exact opposite of what that ideology claims: the dictatorship of proletariat impoverished and killed proletariat, Nazis dramatically shrunk German lebensraum, liberals obsession with ' liberty and universal brotherhood ' is leading to censorship, suppression and group hostilities. But here we are and the ideological idiocy that Maidan-Ukrainians embraced might not be reversible. This is not good for anybody. ..."
"... For Ukraine these are all irreversible losses, but from Western perspective, these are little victories: Russia was forced to spend more. As the West does not give a hoot about Ukraine, the US and its vassals can freely celebrate these victories. ..."
"... So, it all depends on the point of view. The West never cared about aborigines, so their point of view does not come into its calculations. ..."
"... Currently prevailing mood in Russia is that Ukraine, whoever is the power there, gets nothing, nada, zilch. ..."
"... But Ukrainian authorities worked pretty hard to achieve it, and now Ukraine has to live with this new reality. It won’t be pretty. The US was simply following its standard policy: leave a pile of shit, declare victory, and leave, waiting for someone else to clean up. ..."
"... Now there is only one way Russia would clean up: if the EU pays full price for it. As this is unlikely, the aborigines are going to bear the brunt of the consequences. ..."
miscalculation that the rotten West will help them instead of use them to create a
festering sore on Russian border for just a few billion dollars in loans.
A possibly a fatal miscalculation for Ukraine, but there is also an ideology involved. In
Maidan-Ukrainians case that ideology is Ukrainian nationalism combined with a servile Western
worship of almost cargo-cult level. An odd combination that has led to odd result.
West wanted Zelensky to win, the question is why. Tactically, Zelensky neutralized large
Russia-leaning block of voters: the 70% vote would have gone somewhere and they were not
going to vote for Poroshenko or Tymoshenko. So that misdirection was successful. But what was
the point?
Let's look at what Zelensky is actually doing (not the throw-away comedy and
rhetoric): he is trying to allow sale of Ukrainian land to foreign investors. My guess is
that he will push it through and that will his main legacy. Buying up Ukrainian arable land
has been a wet dream for many in the West since 1991. Zelensky could deliver on it, and then
move on.
In 3-5 years we could have an interesting scenario in Ukraine with land (its main wealth)
owned by foreign investors and a large % of population with Russian or Polish and other EU
passports. As always with ideology, the result is the exact opposite of what that ideology
claims: the dictatorship of proletariat impoverished and killed proletariat, Nazis
dramatically shrunk German lebensraum, liberals obsession with ' liberty and universal
brotherhood ' is leading to censorship, suppression and group hostilities. But here we
are and the ideological idiocy that Maidan-Ukrainians embraced might not be reversible. This
is not good for anybody.
Why does the Saker think that Ze had any choice? He is a puppet, a stuffed shirt brought to
”power” by Kolomoisky and allied oligarchs. The only goal was to chase Porky and
allied thieves from the trough to be able to steal more.
Now, the people of Ukraine had choice. But they blew it again, like many times before:
each Ukrainian “president” is worse than his predecessor. As the saying goes,
“fool me once, shame on you…” Ukrainians let themselves be fooled six
times already, so there is no doubt where the shame goes.
It was said that the nationalism is the last resort of a scoundrel. But it isn’t the
only one. Nationalism, stupid unrealistic dreams to feed sheeple, fairy tales about
aggression, and the war create perfect smokescreen for blatant thievery. It continues
unabated, ever since 1991.
Russia does need to make its choice. But it is complicated by the role of Russian thieves
(polite word is oligarchs) in current Russian state. Putin kicked some out. The remaining
ones have enough brains to figure that they need a strong state to protect them, lest their
loot be stolen by Western thieves. So, they are a step ahead of Ukrainian thieves who did not
tumble even to this simple realization. But no more than one step ahead.
The economic reality is that Russian state does not have the resources to restore Ukraine,
even if sane forces come to power there. So, Ukraine would likely keep festering, losing
millions of working age people (like today), possibly losing chunks of territory (as the joke
has it, whoever remains in Ukraine pays off the debt). The problems of that huge Somalia can
only be solved by concerted effort of many European countries and Russia. This is not on the
cards, at least not until Ukies create yet another Chernobyl. Then the EU might decide to
send its US overlords to Hell and pay Russia to take the hand grenade away from the monkey. I
don’t think Putin will live long enough to see that happen.
…EU might decide to send its US overlords to Hell and pay Russia to take the hand
grenade away from the monkey.
How would EU go against its overlord? Even if EU would try, the existential nihilism in
Kiev will prevent compromise. Ideologues can’t admit that their ‘idea’
didn’t work, they prefer destroying everything around. West is also at this point
incapable of admitting an error – they literally can’t do it, the lying has to go
on. That means that even groundwork for any possible compromise can’t be put in place.
This is all the way down with fireworks and it won’t be pretty.
There is such a thing as a catastrophic error and the last 5 years in Ukraine comes pretty
close to it. That is not really fixable. The monkey night as well use the grenade.
Minsk agreement was an incredibly generous deal, if Poroshenko had half a brain he would
had jumped on it and today Donbas would be a remote backwater with autonomy.
That would be true if Porky was interested in Ukraine. As it is, his only interest and
loyalty was and is his personal loot. To keep stealing, he (and allied thieves) needed the
smokescreen of war, fairy tales of “aggression”, and pipe dreams of “greater
Ukraine” for the sheeple. He succeeded in his thievery for five years. Now another gang
of thieves pushed his gang from the trough. End of story.
Are you a teenager unaware of the history of the Maidan regime-change
“revolution?” Here are two most influential Ukranian parties-participants in the
“revolution:” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svoboda_(political_party)
The Svoboda Party was founded in 1991 as the Social-National Party of Ukraine … It
is widely considered a fascist..party….
Time has described it [the Right Sector Party] as a “radical right-wing group
… a coalition of militant ultra-nationalists” with an ideology that
“borders on fascism”.
Die Welt, The New York Times, and Le Monde Diplomatique have described some of
Right Sector’s constituent groups as radical right-wing, neofascist, or
neo-Nazi…
You are a pessimist (or a fatalist). I agree that EU is shamefully subservient to the US,
but when some of their core interests are at stake, even slavish EU can show some teeth. Just
think of Nord Stream-2: the US is jumping out of its skin to damage this project, but Germany
stands remarkably firm.
From Western point of view, Ukie provocation was not a complete failure (even though
it’s a catastrophic failure from Ukrainian point of view): Russia had to spend a lot to
develop the production of military things it used to import from Ukraine, like ships, ship
engines, helicopter engines, spaceship control systems, etc.
Now that it acquired the
capability to produce these things, there will be no going back regardless who rules Ukraine:
it’s industries that used to export to Russia are doomed. These include such giants as Nikolaev shipbuilding plant, Motor Sich in Zaparozie, Antonov aircraft building plant in Kiev,
etc. The same goes for transit.
It is not just natural gas transit everybody talks about.
Russia used to transport ammonia to Odessa, where it was partially exported and partially
converted into fertilizers. The plant that used to do that is dead.
Ukraine tried to sell it
for $5 billion under Yanuk and got no takers, about a year ago it tried to sell it for 10% of
that price, and got no takers again.
There also used to be substantial Russian payments for
transport via the railway going across Eastern Ukraine.
Russia built an alternative bypassing
Ukraine, so they might as well dismantle the rails on their route.
For Ukraine these are all
irreversible losses, but from Western perspective, these are little victories: Russia was
forced to spend more. As the West does not give a hoot about Ukraine, the US and its vassals
can freely celebrate these victories.
So, it all depends on the point of view. The West never cared about aborigines, so their
point of view does not come into its calculations.
That’s true, when it comes to resources, there are always alternatives how to spend
them.
Currently prevailing mood in Russia is that Ukraine, whoever is the power there, gets
nothing, nada, zilch.
Considering how closely Ukrainians are related to Russians, this feat
wasn’t easy.
But Ukrainian authorities worked pretty hard to achieve it, and now Ukraine
has to live with this new reality. It won’t be pretty. The US was simply following its
standard policy: leave a pile of shit, declare victory, and leave, waiting for someone else to
clean up.
Now there is only one way Russia would clean up: if the EU pays full price for it. As
this is unlikely, the aborigines are going to bear the brunt of the consequences.
Saker is naive and badly educated. It is stupid to call Ukraine an oligarchy. All countries on Earth are oligarchies.
The real question is which group of oligarchs is in power. In case of Ukraine those are privatization sharks, the worst kind
of neoliberal financial scum. Often real criminals.
Otto von Bismarck created a powerful German state which exists to this day. While vassal of the USA it is still a state
now. And Merkel role in EuroMaidan definitely reminds Drang
nach Osten in neoliberal packaging. Neocolonialism in its pure form
Ukraine is just a pawn in a bigger geopolitical game of the USA and EU against Russia. That explains in the current state of
Ukrainian economics and the level of Ukrainian population sufferings. Ukrainian
nationalist paradoxically served as the fifth column for the neoliberal oligarchy. The phenomenon similar to the US
nationalists role under Trump.
At the same time despite dismally low standard of living Ukrainian population is showing great resilience in the current
hardships and infrastructure while completely worn out still works. But Ukraine is now completely Latin-Americanized, which was
the goal of the USA from the very beginning for all Soviet space. Ukraine now is a debt slave of the West which
is completely opposite to any nationalist movement goals.
According to
Wikipedia just
5% of population lives of less than $5.50 a day. That's baloney. In reality the percentage is probably two-three times times
higher (average monthly pension is typically less then $1500 grivna which is less then $60) so most of pensioners live on
less then $2 a day. 8 million of the approximately 12 million of Ukrainian pensioners were receiving the minimum pension of
1312 (around $50) while medium pension amounted to 1886 UAH (Pensions
in Ukraine - Wikipedia) And 12 million is 28% of Ukrainian population (around 42-43 million total down from 45.55 before
EuroMaydan ). It is declining around 200 persons daily. On average there are 462,052 births and 662,571 deaths in Ukraine
per year.
While pensioners are definitely starving the situation at least stabilized with grivna around 25 per dollar (something like
300% after the EuroMaydan). So Nuland advantures cost dearly for average Ukrainian.
Notable quotes:
"... These guys are a minority, a pretty small one even, but they have enough muscle and even firepower to threaten any nominal Ukrainian leader. ..."
As I have indicated in a recent article , the Ukraine is not a
democracy but an oligarchy : ever since 1991 the most prosperous Soviet republic
was mercilessly plundered by an entire class (in the Marxist sense of the word) of oligarchs
whose biggest fear has always been that the same "horror" (from their point of view) which
befell Russia with Putin, would eventually arrive at the Ukraine.
Here we need to make something clear: this is NOT, repeat, NOT about nationality or
nationalism. The Ukrainian oligarchs are just like any other oligarchs: their loyalty is to
their money and nothing else. If you want to characterize these oligarchs, you could think of
them as culturally "post-Soviet" meaning that they don't care about nationality, and even
though their prime language is Russian, they don't give a damn about Russia or Russians (or
anybody else, for that matter!). Since many of them are Jews, they have a network of
supporters/accomplices in Israel of course, but also in the West and even in Russia. In truth,
these guys are the ultimate "internationalists" in their own, toxic, kind of way.
Some fine specimens of "ochlocrats"
The other significant force in the Ukraine is the West Ukrainian (Galician) Nazi
death-squads and mobs. Their power is not a democracy either, but an ochlocracy .
These guys are a minority, a pretty small one even, but they have enough muscle and even
firepower to threaten any nominal Ukrainian leader.
Can you stop with the Ukronazi crap, what kind of Nazi Government has a Jewish PM and Jewish
President ?
Azov guys dying in Donbass and the street thugs in Kiev are just cannon fodder, they don't
run shit
The majority of Ukranians don't want to be in this conflict, I don't see the point in
demonizing all of them because of some fascist larpers
People need to move on from the past and stop all that hating others for some past deeds.
Polish or Western Ukrainian hatred for Russians, Russian hatred for Germans, Chinese &
Korean hatred for the Japanese, Indian hatred for the British or the Chinese, Black South
African hatred for Afrikaners. All these are counter productive for the people and are
emotions which can be whipped up by the elites to have commoners die like cannon fodder at
worst or to take away attention towards a past historic enemy to hide their own corruption/
incompetence at best.
People need to see things from the other side as well.
As far as the Satanic Zio elite pigs, they will use any ideology as long as it serves
them. Democracy, Communism, anti-Communism, Islamic fundamentalism, anti-Islam, Jingoistic
Nationalism, Anti-Nationalism/One Worldism, feminism, Hindutva, Buddhist fundamentalism (Sri
Lanka BBS and the secret Zionist hand), Neo-Conservatism, Leftism, Colonialism,
anti-Colonialism as long it suits them. They use them and discard them away when needed. But
this seems to be the most extreme case ever. For the first time the Zio elites are using
National Socialism as an ideology to serve them. The ideology which was probably the greatest
enemy and threat to the Zio elites, in human history. Freakin crazy!!!
More grist for Saker's suckers. The Galicians (and Ukro-Nazi Jews) are behind
everything. In Saker's simplistic mind the Galicians have infiltrated all of Ukrainian
society and run the whole show, when in fact this is just a bunch of nonsense. Well, at least
Saker is putting to use his favorite Ukrainian pejorative do I really need to repeat it
again, ad nauseum?
"The other significant force in the Ukraine is the West Ukrainian (Galician) Nazi
death-squads and mobs."
Where are death camps for the Jews? Where are racial laws that expel non-Ukrainians? Where
is the propaganda of eugenics and healthy lifestyle? Where are construction projects bringing
in jobs, and state-subsidized recreation tours?
Ukraine is a Jew-driven shithole that has nothing to do with National Socialism. They
don't even honour the sacrifice of the SS Galizien.
"but what they are genuinely fantasizing about is the territory, and only the territory.
As for the 2 million-plus virulently anti-Nazi people currently living on these lands, they
simply want them either dead or expelled)."
A lie. Currently, more than a half of those "expelled" have migrated inside Ukraine. A
stark contrast to Croatia where the Serbs were driven out of the country, and their land
given to Croats.
Again, Ukraine is suicidal and full of civic nationalism, nothing about it is
blood-based.
"They and their Polish supporters want Russia to break apart in numerous small state-lets
which they (or, in their delusional dreams, the Chinese) could dominate."
Why do you consider this as a negative for the Russian people? The current Russian state
is in its death throes as much as the US and France – the ethnic Russians are dying
out, fleeing and being replaced. Any alternative might prove out more hopeful.
"In contrast, the LDNR forces seem to be doing pretty well, and their morale appears to be
as strong as ever (which is unsurprising since their military ethos is based in 1000 years of
Russian military history)."
I have to remind you that the Donbass was colonized far more recently than Ukraine –
in the 18-19th centuries. What "ancient" traditions?
"but Novorussia also is a never healing wound in the side of Nazi-occupied Ukraine"
The Donbass has never been part of Novorussia which is to the west, from Dniepropetrovsk
to Odessa. Admittedly, Novorussia's colonists were mostly from Ukraine – it is clearly
seen on the language maps.
"The problem with this slogan is that there is simply no way the (relatively small)
Galician population can ever succeed in permanently defeating their much bigger (and,
frankly, much smarter) Jewish, Polish or Russian neighbors."
Khmelnitsky managed to do just that – 100k dead Jews. And he's on the Ukrainian
currency. Too bad modern "Nazi" Ukrainians have elected a Jew President. This is not the
Khmelnitsky uprising, this is Kiev under the Khazar Khaganate before Oleg came from the
North.
It's a of nonsense as usual. This piece is quickly refuted:
ever since 1991 the most prosperous Soviet republic
People who spread this myth are ignorant or liars. It's a common one, though.
In 1990 Ukraine's per capita GDP was $1570.
Russia's was $3485.
Belarus was $2124.
So in Soviet times, Ukraine was the poorest of the three Slavic Soviet Republics. It still
is, the position hasn't changed. It's just fallen further behind.
::::::::
Everything else is just as nonsensical, I won't even bother to detail it, most of the
commenters here are as dumb/ignorant/dishonest (take your pick) as the author pretends to
be.
I don't know where Saker sources his history. Lenin had nothing to do with the creation of
Ukraine.
I live in Western Canada, where Ukrainians come starting in the late 19th century. I'm not
referring to the primarily German speaking Mennonites that left South Central Ukraine, in the
1870s, fleeing religious persecution. By WWI, more than 200,000 were in Western Canada from
all parts of Ukraine. They considered themselves Ukrainians, not Russians, or Galicians. They
were, and to a great extent, still are Ukrainian nationalists. There continues to be friction
with Polish and German local populations, although prior to the "rebirth" of Ukraine, it had
largely subsided. Recent Russian immigrants are shunned as much as the "Poles" and "Germans".
Politically, they are generally left of center, and have been since their arrival, although
in recent decades more have become "conservative" (whatever that means these days). A long
ago former Russian Jewish co-worker who was a late 60s "escapee" from the USSR, told me that
he would never vote for one of our political parties, because there were "too many
Ukrainians" in the party. I asked a "Ukrainian" friend, who I had known since grade school,
what that meant. His explanation was that there had always been tensions between Jews and
Ukrainians, for centuries, because of what Ukrainians believed was exploitation by the Jews.
Other "Ukrainians" and "Jews" have confirmed this.
The reality is, that most people in most countries just want to live their lives in peace,
with a job good enough to provide a decent home and food for the family. That 70% of
Ukrainians want that is not surprising, it's normal. That doesn't mean they aren't
nationalists, and it doesn't mean they are Nazis. However screwed up they are in trying to do
so, Ukrainians are struggling to retain their identity and culture. IMO, they are up against
internationalist forces from all sides, and none are interested in letting that happen.
@Curmudgeon
The Nazi name-calling is over the top, and not just with regard to Ukraine or Galicia.
Historical grievances or revisions are not 'Nazism'. Too many people look at Ukraine and
over-interpret the nostalgia for Bandera or simple national self-assertion.
But I think Saker is right about where this is going. Russian side has local dominance and
that will not change. The only game in town for the last 5 years has been to see if the
Western squeeze of Russia will work faster than the Russian squeeze of Ukraine. By now it is
obvious that it won't.
Kiev has made some fatal mistakes. E.g. Minsk agreement was an incredibly generous deal,
if Poroshenko had half a brain he would had jumped on it and today Donbas would be a remote
backwater with autonomy . So? The state would be intact, taxes would be paid,
passports centrally issued, etc The eastern European dynamic is that any population always
ends up disliking its immediate rulers – how long before local leaders in Donbas would
be challenged by some younger corruption fighters.
The whole Maidan thing was also terribly mismanaged – at its core it was about
getting the best potential deal for Ukraine with EU (and Russia). In the middle of the
negotiation suddenly Maidanistas decided that symbols are more important than reality and
basically folded in front of EU. Consequently Russia walked. Thus Kiev got justa bout the
worst possible combination on non-EU and deep hostility with Russia. Smarter guys would had
handled it much better, playing both sides against each other – raising the stakes.
And let's not even get started on Crimea, while Ukies ate stale cookies, they lost
overnight their most valuable possession – they couldn't anticipate it? Being able to
anticipate is a key to intelligence and in playing any game.
So we can talk about what or who is driving modern Ukraine, oligarchs, Galicians, Jews,
Kiev thugs, Canadians – it doesn't matter, what matters is that they are incompetent.
From Yushenko to Zelensky they are amateurs driven by emotion and greed. There is no
state-forming force, there is no true Ukrainian nationalism that would play up Ukraine's
strengths and manage its weaknesses. Saker is basically right – they are in a no-win
cul-de-sac, at this point any move will make their situation worse. Their best (only?) hope
is a collapse of Russia. Now, how likely is that?
@Felix
Keverich Autism of this degree does not pop out of nowhere
You had Cossacks and Mercenaries from the Ukraine joining up with the Poles, Swedes,
Napoleon, Germans and others. Calling diaspora nationalists stupid is all fine and dandy but
the constant bickering between people in current Ukraine and in Russia stinks of divide and
conquer (which is what Ukraine vs Russia conflicts always were)
Calling them stupid and calling their ethnicity fake(which they make an actual effort to
preserve, such as it is) stinks of hypocrisy when so many Great Russians were willing to tear
their country, religion and people apart in 1917 and join up with the Bolsheviks in the rape
and pillaging
You'd probably get far more progress calling them a branch of Russian civilization, you
can cite Belarus and Siberian Ukraine as examples
It's easy to dogpile on some poor Hohol since they will always be on the defensive, but it's
much harder to understand him and admit your own faults while not backing down from your
standpoint that you are both one people
Serbs often made the same mistakes with Montenegro, and the result is the modern day
shitfest where both it and Ukraine are run by hostile US puppets
The Saker is correct that reality and pragmatism are essential 'when trying to figure out
what is going on and what might happen next.' It is a hard calculation to make in a world
increasingly chaotic and dark. The Minsk Accord is probably the only glimmer of light for
Ukraine, but then all the lights – across the world – are going out. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
However screwed up they are in trying to do so, Ukrainians are struggling to retain
their identity and culture. IMO, they are up against internationalist forces from all
sides, and none are interested in letting that happen.
What you posted is called a generic "to be against everything bad, for everything good".
Living in a world of unicorns and having rainbows as result of bowel movement is, of course,
a worthy aspiration but reality with Ukraine is a teeny-weeny bit more complicated than mere
attempts to "retain their identity and culture". I'll give you a hint, vast swaths of
Ukrainian population (including in the East Ukraine) believe, as an example, that Ukrainian
civilization precedes a Sumerian one. Many, very many, also still believe that valiant
Ukrainian Armed Forces still fight, for the 5th year in a row, mighty Russian Army in the
East. We are talking here about down right mental breakdown on a national level, granted, as
I always say, modern Ukraine did happen, that is coalesced, as a political nation.
In the thirteenth century, both the Ukrainians and the Russians faced more dire threats
than each other.
In the 13th century there were no Ukrainians or Ukraine. There was Russia though, Rus'.
Imagine a US state becoming independent today, from the rest of the US.. like Ohio.. and
people are going to say "the first man on the moon was an Ohioan (Armstrong), not an
American. Sorry, doesn't work like that..
You have to admit that's an impressive combination.
Yes, but it wasn't the Saker who invented it; it does seem to reflect what's going on
there. My only criticism is that he has given more prominence to the Nazis than the Jews,
unless we consider "oligarchs" as a synonym for Jews.
Like you have said in the past he is taking the Russian side. I think it's a fairly good
analysis of the situation if you go beyond his propagandistic terminology and what he leaves
unsaid. Russia really doesn't want to engage directly in the conflict but its best policy
would be to bide its time and to encourage more pro-Russian separatism in Odessa and all
other regions along the coast so as to eventually cut off Ukraine from access to the sea
altogether. That would serve Russian interests best and strengthen its position against NATO,
the EU, and the rump Ukraine, for whatever is to follow. It's a shame for any real Ukranian
nationalists but then they should have been smarter than to join all those colour revolutions
on Maidan organised by the CIA, Soros, Jewish oligarchs, etc.
That's a frozen conflict for now. Let's have another article on UR about the latest from
the US sponsored colour revolution in Hong Kong and what are the best measures that PR China
can take to quell the riots. And it's about time they took back Formosa, but it won't be as
easy as the Russian takeover of Crimea, unless they can send a million Red Army guards there
disguised as tourists to stage a silent putsch.
@Bardon
Kaldian Neonazis is a good term for the people used in the Ukrainian ZUS coup. That is
the people that was used to gain control of Ukraine for ZUS.
This coup in Ukraine, woke me up.
V. Nuland's war cry to bless the coup was "F–k The EU"
She used Neonazis to take over Ukraine.
Wait. She is Jewish. I guess the 6 million story must be bogus. She admitted it, since if
the 6 million story was real. She would have a great fear of a tidal wave of anti-S'ism
overcoming her and her people. She had no fear. Thus, the 6 million story was proved to be
false by V. Nuland. Thanks V. Nuland for freeing the world of that nightmarish propaganda
that has saddled humanity for seventy odd years.
Secondly, she told the world the reality of J. Supremacism by stating " F..k the EU". The
world thought that ZUS loved the EU as its sister in world domination. I guess not. Would V.
Nuland ever say "F..k Israel"? I think not.
Thanks V. Nuland. A new Queen Esther or Queen Victoria.
Yep, agree with Saker – I lived there before , during and now after the Maidan and he's
spot on with most of everything – he has been, since the beginning. Zelinsky has a
dozen or more bosses and he has Zero experience in what he's doing. . Zionist Bankers and
their arms dealers, Nato, Banderas gang,Washington, US Navy, Monsanto/Bayer, Royal Dutch
{shell oil }, Dupont, Lilly Pharma, Cargill, and the list could go on. He'll be lucky if he
isn't in Diapers by the time his term is up, otherwise he will be rich. I see that
Poroshanster is being called out for taking 8 billion bucks out of Ukie-Ville. I wonder how
much Trump and his family will end up stealing?. Thanks Unz Review.
Thus Kiev got justa bout the worst possible combination on non-EU and deep hostility
with Russia. Smarter guys would had handled it much better, playing both sides against each
other – raising the stakes.
As usual, you nailed it Beckow.
Also, Saker often misunderstands things but he is right that Ukraine is in a one way street
mainly because of the out-of-this-World miscalculation that the rotten West will somehow help
them instead of use them to create a festering sore on Russian border for just a few billion
dollars in loans. It is the rest of Ukraine, excluding Donbas, that will have to pay off
these war loans already stolen by the oligarchs.
@Commentator
Mike I recall that at the time of the Zionist coup (We do remember Ms Noodleman's : "fuck
the EU" don't we?) Ukrainian Nazi's were a leading force in kicking things off.
@Mr.
Hack "In Saker's simplistic mind the Galicians have infiltrated all of Ukrainian society
and run the whole show, "
This was not what I read.
The Saker said that oligarchs and Nazi militia groups have enough power to impose their will
and their agenda on the rest of the population.
When I see words like "Nazis" in relation to Ukrainians, I know that article is sh!t
& not worth reading.
This is because you don't know what Raguli(stan) is and you cannot possibly know, because
there are no "books" written yet which would encapsulate this whole phenomenon. Of course,
Ukies have no relation to Fichte and Volkskrieg. Other than that you will find an attentive
audience among local ignoramuses.
We all know the Hypocrisy of that War. Clinton had to distract the masses from MonicaGate
and Hillary had to prove to the MIC that she could be beneficial to them.
Result : Those Kosovo Albanians had a state handed to them, and instead of building
it(with uncle Sam's and EU help) as prosperous country, they used their weapons and
"expertise" in becoming the low level gangsters of Europe. Every Europol analysis points to
the direction of Kosovo Albanians as the criminal thugs in prostitution and drug trade and
protection rackets. The largest percentage of a single ethnic group in European jails is that
of Albanians.
The most unjust and illegal of wars in the late 20c.
There was only one reason to bomb white Christian brothers in Serbia thereby aiding the
Muslim of Kosovo and Albania, and that was Russia, which by that stage had got its act
together and dealt with the traitorous oligarchs who had sold their country out to the
west.
Hillary and her cronies no doubt lost a lot of money when the Russians shut their rat
lines down.
I hope I live long enough to see those fuckers swing, and Tony Blair, Alistair Campnell
and Peter Mandelson as well.
Again, your Muslims are to blame for everything. Muslims are all different. And it is
necessary to separate the faithful Muslims from the bandits who are only covered by Muslim
slogans.
NATO and your godless government are to blame!
An Afghan Freedom Fighter in Donbass - ENG SUBTITLE
It happened at the time of the Lewinsky affair and the possible impeachment of Clinton.
They needed a distraction.
Milosevic btw. agreed to all conditions imposed on the FR of Yugoslavia except for one
condition that nobody would accept: the full and unhindered access to the territory of FRY by
NATO troops. That effectively meant an occupation. Nobody would agree to that. NATO and
Albright deliberately came up with that condition for they knew it was unacceptable. Even
Kissinger said that condition was over the top. NATO and Albright wanted that war. Serbia
btw. saved Albright twice when she was still a little Slovakian Jewish girl whose family
found refuge twice in Serbia. Once they escaped the Nazis that way and the second time the
communists.
NATO thought they would need 48 hours but they needed 78 days and Milosevic only gave in
after NATO switched from hitting military targets to civilian targets: Hospitals, commuter
trains, civilian industry, an open market, random houses in random villages. After Milosevic
pulled out his troops out of Kosovo, the KLA started killing Serbs and moderate Albanians,
not to mention engage in organ trafficking (...). As the article said, well over 200k Serbs,
moderate Albanians, Roma and other minorities were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo.
The US also used cluster bombs and DU weapons. Of the 4000 Italian KFOR troops that went
into Kosovo after the bombing, 700 are dead from cancer and leukemia with several hundreds
more seriously ill. The American KFOR troops wore hazmat suits. The Italians did not have
them and were not warned. Today, many people in southern Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo itself
are sick and dying.
yes just like USA tried to help Vietnam against communists... by killing 2 million
Vietnamese. and tried to help Korea by killing 20 % of the population. and by helping Iraq
get rid of "bad" Saddam Hussein by killing 2 million Iraqies.
Not disagreeing with you but lets remember that communists were killing a lot of people in
other areas not long before those wars in SE Asia. May have been a wash in the end.
Bring back the draft. On the whole Americans have no idea what the carnage of combat
produces. Combat vets do. And the ones that aren't natural psychopaths never want to
experience it again. This volunteer army we have is over loaded with a them. A military draft
will actually bring some sort civilian control.
Such ********. Do the millions we kill have any human rights? It's been going on for 4000
years. Ruthless pursuit of empire and fabricating phony justifications.
Hillary seems to enjoy killing people. If it wasn't Gaddaffi, it was all the people on her
body bag count, and now it's known she encouraged killing people in Serbia. Someone needs to
take that old cow out into the center of the town and burn her at the stake.
Partially true, otherwise as usually excellent Dr. Paul, ... The Pandora's box situation
was opened years before Clinton's bombing of Serbia, which was part of a larger scheme
started nearly a decade before.
That was when the US armed the religious extremists in Bosnia, in order to bring war,
"civil war" and chaos, and disintegration, the way they more recently tried to do with Syria,
or "succeeded" in doing in Libya, bringing chaos and open-air slave markets in a country that
was one of the most developed on the African continent under Gaddafi (a truth that was so
easily erased by propaganda).
And the whole neocon scheme started two decades before, with the Zbigniew Brzezinski
doctrine, when the US started arming the mujahedin in Afghanistan, provoking the trap for the
Soviet invasion of 1979, which was the real opening of US neocon's Pandora's box we are
regrettably so familiar with by now. We've all fallen in that old
neocon/military-industrial-congressional-complex trap by now. And there seems to be no end in
sight to those eternal wars "for civilization" (the old colonial trope dressed under new
fatigues). Unless serious societal and political changes take place in the US to put an end
to the US "imperial" death drive.
"... "Designed to provoke Tehran: Just as #Iran-UK-#Gibraltar were set to have #Grace1 tanker released today, #Trump admin moves in to spoil the effort. Will become another source of tension in Europe-US relations over Iran policy," Ellie Geranmayeh, Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted . ..."
"... As TAC previously reported , the legal rationale for detaining the Iranian vessel and its crew is questionable, because Iran is not a member of the European Union and thus can not violate EU sanctions. ..."
"... "The UK had no legal right to enforce those sanctions," writes Gareth Porter, and the seizure "was a blatant violation of the clearly defined global rules that govern the passage of merchant ships through international straits." ..."
British Gibraltar ordered the ship's release to ease tensions. Washington wasn't having any of it.
•
A ship approaches supertanker Grace 1 off the coast of Gibraltar on July 6, 2019. – Iran demanded on July 5, 2019
that Britain immediately release an oil tanker it has detained in Gibraltar, accusing it of acting at the bidding of
the United States. Photo by JORGE GUERRERO / AFP) (Photo credit should read JORGE GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images)
Despite eleventh hour efforts on the part of the U.S. to detain the Grace
1 Iranian oil tanker seized by the Royal Navy in July, the vessel was released Thursday. Gibraltar's Chief Minister said
he had accepted a pledge from Iran that if the tanker was released, it would not be taken to Syria.
The Grace 1 was seized last month by the British Royal Navy for alleged
European Union sanctions violations. The British claimed that Iran was using the tanker to ship oil to Syria.
Before the last minute U.S. legal action, authorities in Gibraltar had
announced they would release the Grace 1 and drop legal actions against the ship's captain and crew in order to ease
tensions.
The U.S. application was scheduled to be heard later on Thursday by the
Gibraltar Supreme Court. The U.S. Department of Justice sought to extend the detention of the oil tanker, but the
Gibraltar Supreme Court later dropped the detention order, essentially moving evaluation of the U.S. request to another
government agency for consideration,
according
to CBS. In the mean time, the tanker is free to leave.
The U.S. filing seems to confirm
reports
that the U.S. urged the British detention of the Iranian ship in July.
"
Having failed to accomplish its objectives
through its
#EconomicTerrorism
-- including
depriving cancer patients of medicine -- the US attempted to abuse the legal system to steal our property on the high
seas," tweeted Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. "This piracy attempt is indicative of Trump admin's contempt for the
law."
After the British decision to detain the Grace 1 in July, Iran seized
the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero as it traveled through the Strait of Hormuz.
Tensions with Tehran have escalated since the Trump administration
withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and resumed economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Without citing specific
evidence, the
U.S. has blamed Iran
for recent attacks on other oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
"Designed to provoke Tehran: Just as #Iran-UK-#Gibraltar were set to have
#Grace1 tanker released today, #Trump admin moves in to spoil the effort. Will become another source of tension in
Europe-US relations over Iran policy," Ellie Geranmayeh, Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations,
tweeted
.
As
TAC
previously
reported
,
the legal rationale for detaining the Iranian vessel and its crew is questionable, because Iran is not a member of the
European Union and thus can not violate EU sanctions.
"The UK had no legal right to enforce those sanctions,"
writes
Gareth Porter, and the seizure "was a blatant violation of the clearly defined global rules that govern the passage of
merchant ships through international straits."
It is unclear whether UK Prime Minister
Boris Johnson
will support Washington's maximum pressure campaign
against Iran. But the American decision to pursue its case in
Gibraltar's courts may indicate that Britain is unwilling to further escalate tensions with the Islamic Republic.
Barbara Boland is
's foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her
on Twitter
@BBatDC.
How current prices correlate with Pompeo statement that "We have taken over 95 percent of the
crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the
market." ? Something really strange is happening here.
Notable quotes:
"... Given these statements, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Pompeo is not being entirely honest when he claims the maximum pressure campaign is succeeding. Rather than leveling with the American people and making an argument about why the administration is persisting with the policy in spite of the lack of progress, he has chosen to deceive the public in order to defend a dangerous policy. ..."
"... Pompeo has made a habit of deceiving the public as Secretary of State on a range of issues from Yemen to North Korea, but for the most part he has been allowed to get away with that. ..."
"... When Pompeo has been asked for proof that the sanctions are "working," he cannot point to any positive change in the Iranian government's behavior, and instead he boasts about the harm that has been done to Iran's economy and its people: ..."
"... We have taken over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the market. ..."
"... Pompeo is deception, lies, absolute dishonesty. But of course that is the mark of the trump regime in general terms. ..."
Given these statements, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Pompeo is not
being entirely honest when he claims the maximum pressure campaign is succeeding. Rather than
leveling with the American people and making an argument about why the administration is
persisting with the policy in spite of the lack of progress, he has chosen to deceive the
public in order to defend a dangerous policy.
Pompeo has made a habit of deceiving the public as Secretary of State on a range of
issues from Yemen to North Korea, but for the most part he has been allowed to get away with
that. He probably thinks that there is no price to be paid for constantly lying and
misrepresenting things to the public and Congress, and so he keeps doing it.
The more important reason why Pompeo keeps deceiving the public is that he is also eager to
please the president, and so he has to keep claiming success for failing policies because
reports of success are what the president wants to hear. When Pompeo's ridiculous op-ed came
out last week, one of the common questions that many people asked was, "Who is the audience for
this?" The point these people were making was that the "argument" in the op-ed was so facile
and nonsensical that it can't possibly have been intended to persuade anyone, so the purpose of
it had to be to placate Trump and reassure him that the policy "works."
Miller does an outstanding job picking apart Pompeo's various claims and using Pompeo's
previous contradictory claims against him, and he shows that the Secretary's defense of
"maximum pressure" is a joke to any minimally informed person. But as far as Pompeo is
concerned, all that matters is that Trump sticks with the policy. When Pompeo has been
asked for proof that the sanctions are "working," he cannot point to any positive change in the
Iranian government's behavior, and instead he
boasts about the harm that has been done to Iran's economy and its people:
I remember, David – I'm sure no one in this room, but many here in Washington
said that American sanctions alone won't work. Well, they've worked.We have taken
over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we
have taken it off the market.
Miller addressed Pompeo's use of economic damage as proof of the policy's success this
way:
Using economic damage to gauge the success of sanctions is like using body counts to
measure success in counter-insurgency -- it's an indicator that your policy is having an
effect, but does not necessarily imply you're any closer to achieving strategic
objectives.
For a hard-liner like Pompeo, continuing with a destructive and bankrupt policy is a matter
of ideology and an expression of hostility towards the targeted country. It doesn't matter to
hard-liners if the policy actually achieves anything as long as it does damage, and so they
take pride in the damage that they cause without any concern for the consequences for the U.S.
and Iran. Rational critics of this policy rightfully object that this is just aimless
destruction, but the destruction is the point of the policy.
It only appears incompetent until you discover who benefits, and it isn't the majority of
Americans. Who has benefited so far? The Plutocrats, oligarchs, Israel, Saudi, MIC, Big Oil,
Big Rx, immigration related services. This is just a partial list, but guess who it doesn't
include?
Any nation that allows "freedom of speech" has made the assumption that either everyone is
honest or everyone is smart enough to know bull sh !t when they hear it.
Former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko trace to Steele dossier is a real shocker.
Notable quotes:
"... On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. ..."
"... If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI. ..."
"... What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr. ..."
"... FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble. ..."
"... It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from... ..."
"... So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination.. ..."
"... I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations? ..."
"... So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? ..."
"... Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment. ..."
"... They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose. ..."
"... Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'??? ..."
"... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort. ..."
"... So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election! ..."
"... The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement, became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good. ..."
There are many moving pieces in the drama surrounding the Deep State attempt to kill the Trump Presidency. God Bless Judicial
Watch. I think most of the key evidence that has surfaced came courtesy of Tom Fitton, Chris Farrell and their team of tireless workers.
I want to bring you back to
Mr. Felix Sater . He was part of Bayrock, which worked closely with Donald Trump's organization and, most importantly of all,
was an FBI Confidential Human Source since December of 1998.
Thanks to Judicial Watch we have a new dump of Bruce Ohr emails, which include several from his wife, Nellie. There are 330 pages
to wade thru (you can
see
them here ). There
is one item in particular I encourage you to look at:
On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled "
WhosWho19Sept2016
." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures,
many of whom were Russians. This list of individuals allegedly "linked to Trump" include: a Russian involved in a "gangland
killing;" an Uzbek mafia don; a former KGB officer suspected in the murder of Paul Tatum; a Russian who reportedly "buys up banks
and pumps them dry"; a Russian money launderer for Sergei Magnitsky; a Turk accused of shipping oil for ISIS; a couple who lent their
name to the Trump Institute, promoting its "get-rich-quick schemes"; a man who poured him a drink; and others.
The spreadsheet starts on page 301. If you search the document for the name Felix Sater, he will pop up. Now here is the curious
and, I suppose, reassuring thing about this document--Nellie Ohr did not have a clue that Felix Sater was an active FBI informant.
We can at least give the FBI credit for protecting Sater's identity from Nellie Ohr and, more importantly, her husband, DOJ official
Bruce Ohr.
If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don
Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being
used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI.
One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the
other "suspects" she exhaustively listed.
Shifting gears, there are two very important pieces recently posted at The Conservative Tree House that I encourage you to read:
What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the
investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr.
You can find this information in the
Bruce
Ohr 302s that Judicial Watch also secured. Marina Butina was unfairly and unjustly portrayed and prosecuted as a Russian intelligence
agent. It was a damn lie.
I do not ever want to hear another American complaining about an American State Department or CIA employee who is entrapped and
unfairly prosecuted in Russia.
We have done the same damn thing that we have accused the Soviets of doing. The same thing. It is shameful.
The
second piece is the ultimate feel good piece. Kudos to its author, Sundance.
He details how a Federal Judge, infuriated by the FBIs stupidity and mendacity, tells the Bureau to go pound sand. The FBI is
frantically trying to prevent the Archey Declarations from being revealed thanks to a lawsuit brought by CNN (finally, CNN did something
right).
The Archey Declarations provide a detailed description of the memos written and illegally removed from FBI Headquarters by that
sanctimonious twit, Jim Comey. More shoes will be dropping in the coming days.
It appears that Inspector General Horowitz is going to present at least one report on Jim Comey and one report on the FISA abuse
by the FBI.
FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal
into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble.
Finally, Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft put up an important piece today (
see here ). Here is the bottomline, and keep this in mind as you read the piece, on June 20, 2016 the FBI signed off on a deal
with Hillary Clinton's attorney's that gave Hillary's team the right to destroy computers and emails.
It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day,
Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
The fix was in more than a month before Jim Comey appeared on camera to try to explain why he was not recommending prosecution
of Hillary for putting Top Secret information on her unclassified server.
Jim Comey lied when he declared that could not prove "intent."
I am sure that those of you who have never held a clearance and handled Top Secret material probably believed that lie.
But anyone who knows how the TS system is set up knows that the ONLY WAY, I repeat, the ONLY WAY to put TS material on an unclassified
server is to do so intentionally. There is no way to do this mistakenly.
Jim Ticehurst said in reply to Jim Ticehurst... ,
Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from...
So..the Timeline Indicates
Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates
for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination..
creating Phase 2..Operations..
"The Washington Free Beacon ".Has an Editor in Chief ..who is William Kristols Son In Law..And William Kristols ..Father....Irving
Kristol..is Called..."the God Father of Neo Conservatism". William Kristol..was a John McCain supporter..
Thus Fusion GPS..retained Nellie Ohr..(strangly..NO Wiki Profile) who apparently had to Use her husbnd Bruce Ohrs Clearances,,to
continue Her Collaberation with Fusion GPS..
By June 2016 the Strategy was to bring in Christopher Steele..who was know to Bruce Ohr back to 2006.. Strange.. NO early life
BIOS for Bruce or Nellie Ohr..
I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos
and Archey Declarations?
The Gateway Pundit item about the ridiculously unfair and unethical deals made in Hillary Clinton's email scandal investigation
is just further proof of how the Clinton taint infected the FBI. "Crooked" is a very apt epithet, that's for sure. I'd love to
know how much Bill and Hill raked in during her Sec'y. of State racketeering.
You say: "One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or
one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed."
This is true, but it is also true that Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make
false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for
his impeachment.
They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose.
Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'???
... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian
presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort.
Why is that significant? Tymoshenko and Hillary Clinton had a simpatico relationship after the former secretary of State
went out of her way in January 2013 to advocate for Tymoshenko's release from prison on corruption charges.
So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher
but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign
influence in a U.S. election!
...
The tales of Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, Yulia Tymoshenko, and those DEA and TSA agents raise a stark warning:
The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest
and law enforcement,
became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good.
The person responsible for securing the release of Yulia Tymoshenko was Chancellor Merkel. Further, that USA opposed Tymoshenko.
quote
As for one of the leaders of the war party in Kiev, Merkel has privately and publicly endorsed every claim of Yulia Tymoshenko,
promoting her release from prison and protecting her campaigns for war against Russia, even though – according to the high-level
German source – “they [Chancellery, Foreign Ministry] have known for years that [Tymoshenko] was a crook.”
endquote
There is a lot more detail Tymoshenko's corruption and Merkel's rescue here:
STEPHEN COHEN: I'm not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The European Commission, if you're talking about the 2008 war,
the European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia, which was backed by the United States, fighting with an
American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that he
began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin, which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and
Obama's best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country
would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what
essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.
So that- Russia didn't begin that war. And it didn't begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by [continents], the overthrow
of the Ukrainian president in [20]14 after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to happen. And I think it happened
within 36 hours. The Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and betrayed. They use this word, predatl'stvo,
betrayal, about American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when it wasn't just President George Bush, all the documents have
been published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union
that under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two
inches to the east.
Now NATO is sitting on Russia's borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So Russians aren't fools, and they're good-hearted, but they
become resentful. They're worried about being attacked by the United States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily,
we are under attack by the United States. And this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being put out that Russia
somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been sleeping. I didn't see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is reckless, dangerous,
warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has a better case for saying they've been attacked by us since 1991. We put our military
alliance on the front door. Maybe it's not an attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.
Real politik. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Don't start fights in the first place. The idea that American leadership
is any better than mid-Victorian imperialism, is laughable.
AARON MATE: We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement
with the very corruption of Russia you're speaking about
Few appear to be aware that Bill Browder is single-handedly responsible for starting, and spreading, the rumor that Putin's
net worth is $200 billion (for those who are unfamiliar with Browder, I highly recommend watching Andrei Nekrasov's documentary
titled " The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes "). Browder
appears to have first
started this rumor early in 2015 , and has repeated it ad nauseam since then, including in
his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 . While Browder has always framed the $200 billion figure as his own
estimate, that subtle qualifier has had little effect on the media's willingness to accept it as fact.
Interestingly, during the press conference at the Helsinki Summit, Putin claimed Browder sent $400 million of ill-gotten gains
to the Clinton campaign. Putin
retracted the statement and claimed to have misspoke a week or so later, however by that time the $400 million figure had
been cited by numerous media outlets around the world. I think it is at least possible that Putin purposely exaggerated the amount
of money in question as a kind of tit-for-tat response to Browder having started the rumor about his net worth being $200 billion.
The stories I saw said there was a mistranslation -- but that the figure should have $400 thousand and not $400 million. Maybe
Putin misspoke, but the $400,000 number is still significant, albeit far more reasonable.
Putin never was on the Forbes list of billionaires, btw, and his campaign finance statement comes to far less. It never seems
to occur to rabid capitalists or crooks that not everyone is like them, placing such importance on vast fortunes, or want to be
dishonest, greedy, or power hungry. Putin is only 'well off' and that seems to satisfy him just fine as he gets on with other
interests, values, and goals.
Yes, $400,000 is the revised/correct figure. My having written that "Putin retracted the statement" was not the best choice
of phrase. Also, the figure was corrected the day after it was made, not "a week or so later" as I wrote in my previous comment.
From the Russia Insider link:
Browder's criminal group used many tax evasion methods, including offshore companies. They siphoned shares and funds from
Russia worth over 1.5 billion dollars. By the way, $400,000 was transferred to the US Democratic Party's accounts from these
funds. The Russian president asked us to correct his statement from yesterday. During the briefing, he said it was $400,000,000,
not $400,000. Either way, it's still a significant amount of money.
There's something weird about the anti-Putin hysteria. Somehow, many, many people have come to believe they must demonstrate
their membership in the tribe by accepting completely unsupported assertions that go against common sense.
In a sane world we the people would be furious with the Clinton campaign, especially the D party but the R's as well, our media
(again), and our intel/police State (again). Holding them all accountable while making sure this tsunami of deception and lies
never happens again.
It's amazing even in time of the internetz those of us who really dig can only come up with a few sane voices. It's much worse
now in terms of the numbers of sane voices than it was in the run up to Iraq 2.
Regardless of broad access to far more information in the digital age, never under estimate the self-preservation instinct
of American exceptionalist mythology. There is an inverse relationship between the decline of US global primacy and increasingly
desperate quest for adventurism. Like any case of addiction, looking outward for blame/salvation is imperative in order to prevent
the mirror of self-reflection/realization from turning back onto ourselves.
we're not to believe we're not supposed to believe we're supposed to believe
Believe whatever you want, however your comment gives the impression that you came to this article because you felt the need
to push back against anything that does not conform to the liberal international order's narrative on Putin and Russia, rather
than "with an eagerness to counterbalance the media's portrayal of Putin". WRT to whataboutism, I like
Greenwald's definition of the term :
"Whataboutism": the term used to bar inquiry into whether someone adheres to the moral and behavioral standards they seek
to impose on everyone else. That's its functional definition.
aye. I've never seen it used by anyone aside from the worst Hill Trolls.
Indeed, when it was first thrown at me, I endeavored to look it up, and found that all references to it were from Hillaryites
attempting to diss apostates and heretics.
The degree of consistency and or lack of hypocrisy based on words and actions separates US from Russia to an astonishing level.
That is Russia's largest threat to US, our deceivers. The propaganda tables have turned and we are deceiving ourselves to points
of collective insanity and warmongering with a great nuclear power while we are at it. Warmongering is who we are and what we
do.
Does Russia have a GITMO, torture Chelsea Manning, openly say they want to kill Snowden and Assange? Is Russia building up
arsenals on our borders while maintaining hundreds of foreign bases and conducting several wars at any given moment while constantly
threatening to foment more wars? Is Russia dropping another trillion on nuclear arsenals? Is Russia forcing us to maintain such
an anti democratic system and an even worse, an entirely hackable electronic voting system?
You ready to destroy the world, including your own, rather than look in the mirror?
You're talking about extending Russian military power into Europe when the military spending of NATO Europe alone exceeds Russia's
by almost 5-1 (more like 12-1 when one includes the US and Canada), have about triple the number of soldiers than Russia has,
and when the Russian ground forces are numerically smaller than they have been in at least 200 years?
" to put their self-interests above those of their constituents and employees, why can't we apply this same lens to Putin and
his oligarchs?"
The oligarchs got their start under Yeltsin and his FreeMarketDemocraticReformers, whose policies were so catastrophic that
deaths were exceeding births by almost a million a year by the late '90s, with no end in sight. Central to Yeltsin's governance
was the corrupt privatization, by which means the Seven Bankers came to control the Russian economy and Russian politics.
Central to Putin's popularity are the measures he took to curb oligarchic predation in 2003-2005. Because of this, Russia's
debt:GDP ratio went from 1.0 to about 0.2, and Russia's demographic recovery began while Western analysis were still predicting
the death of Russia.
So Putin is the anti-oligarch in Russian domestic politics.
I know of many people who sacrifice their own interests for those of their children (over whom they have virtually absolute
power), family member and friends. I know of others who dedicate their lives to justice, peace, the well being of their nation,
the world, and other people -- people who find far greater meaning and satisfaction in this than in accumulating power or money.
Other people have their own goals, such as producing art, inventing interesting things, reading and learning, and don't care two
hoots about power or money as long as their immediate needs are met.
I'm cynical enough about humans without thinking the worst of everyone and every group or culture. Not everyone thinks only
of nails and wants to be hammers, or are sociopaths. There are times when people are more or less forced into taking power, or
getting more money, even if they don't want it, because they want to change things for the better or need to defend themselves.
There are people who get guns and learn how to use them only because they feel a need for defending themselves and family but
who don't like guns and don't want to shoot anyone or anything.
There are many people who do not want to be controlled and bossed around, but neither want to boss around anyone else. The
world is full of such people. If they are threatened and attacked, however, expect defensive reactions. Same as for most animals
which are not predators, and even predators will generally not attack other animals if they are not hungry or threatened -- but
that does not mean they are not competent or can be dangerous.
Capitalism is not only inherently predatory, but is inherently expansive without limits, with unlimited ambition for profits
and control. It's intrinsically very competitive and imperialist. Capitalism is also a thing which was exported to Russia, starting
soon after the Russian Revolution, which was immediately attacked and invaded by the West, and especially after the fall of the
Soviet Union. Soviet Russia had it's own problems, which it met with varying degrees of success, but were quite different from
the aggressive capitalism and imperialism of the US and Europe.
The pro-Putin propaganda is pretty interesting to witness, and of course not everything Cohen says is skewed pro-Putin – that's
what provides credibility. But "Putin kills everybody" is something NOBODY says (except Cohen, twice in one interview) – Putin
is actually pretty selective of those he decides to have killed. But of course, he doesn't kill anyone, personally – therefore
he's an innocent lamb, accidentally running Russia as a dictator.
The most recent dictator in Russian history was Boris Yeltsin, who turned tanks on his legislature while it was in the legal
and constitutional process of impeaching him, and whose policies were so catastrophic for Russians (who were dying off at the
rate of 900k/yr) that he had to steal his re-election because he had a 5% approval rating.
But he did as the US gvt told him, so I guess that makes him a Democrat.
Under Putin Russia recovered from being helpless, bankrupt & dying, but Russia has an independent foreign policy, so that makes
Putin a dictator.
"Does any sane person believe that there will ever be a Putin-signed contract provided as evidence? Does any sane person believe
that Putin actually needs to "approve" a contract rather than signaling to his oligarch/mafia hierarchy that he's unhappy about
a newspaper or journalist's reporting?"
Why do you think Putin even needs, or feels a need, to have journalists killed in the first place? I see no evidence to support
this basic assumption.
The idea of Russia poised to attack Europe is interesting, in light of the fact that they've cut their military spending by
20%. And even before that the budgets of France, Germany, and the UK combined well exceeded that of Russia, to say nothing of
the rest of NATO or the US.
Putin's record speaks for itself. This again points to the absurdity of claiming he's had reporters killed: he doesn't need
to. He has a vast amount of genuine public support because he's salvaged the country and pieced it back together after the pillaging
of the Yeltsin years. That he himself is a corrupt oligarch I have no particular doubt of. But if he just wanted to enrich himself,
he's had a very funny way of going about it. Pray tell, what are these 'other interpretations'?
"The US foreign policy has been disastrous for millions of people since world war 2. But Cohen's arguments that Russia isn't
as bad as the US is just a bunch of whattaboutism."
What countries has the Russian Federation destroyed?
Here is a fascinating essay ["Are We Reading Russia Right?"] by Nicolai N. Petro who currently holds the Silvia-Chandley Professorship
of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island. His books include, Ukraine
in Crisis (Routledge, 2017), Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004), The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard, 1995), and Russian
Foreign Policy, co-authored with Alvin Z. Rubinstein (Longman, 1997). A graduate of the University of Virginia, he is the recipient
of Fulbright awards to Russia and to Ukraine, as well as fellowships from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the National
Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington,
D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, he served as special assistant
for policy toward the Soviet Union in the U.S. Department of State from 1989 to 1990. In addition to scholarly publications
on Russia and Ukraine, he has written for Asia Times, American Interest, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian
(UK), The Nation, New York Times, and Wilson Quarterly. His writings have appeared frequently on the web sites of the Carnegie
Council for Ethics in International Affairs and The National Interest.
Thanks for so much for this. Great stuff. Cohen says the emperor has no clothes so naturally the empire doesn't want him on
television. I believe he has been on CNN one or two times and I saw him once on the PBS Newshour where the interviewer asked skeptical
questions with a pained and skeptical look. He seems to be the only prominent person willing to stand up and call bs on the Russia
hate. There are plenty of pundits and commentators who do that but not many Princeton professors.
It has been said in recent years that the greatest failure of American foreign policy was the invasion of Iraq. I think that
they are wrong. The greatest failure, in my opinion, is to push both China and Russia together into a semi-official pact against
American ambitions. In the same way that the US was able to split China from the USSR back in the seventies, the best option was
for America to split Russia from China and help incorporate them into the western system. The waters for that idea have been so
fouled by the Russia hysteria, if not dementia, that that is no longer a possibility. I just wish that the US would stop sowing
dragon's teeth – it never ends well.
The best option, but the "American exceptionalists" went nuts. Also, the usual play book of stoking fears of the "yellow menace"
would have been too on the nose. Americans might not buy it, and there was a whole cottage industry of "the rising China threat"
except the potential consumer market place and slave labor factories stopped that from happening.
Bringing Russia into the West effectively means Europe, and I think that creates a similar dynamic to a Russian/Chinese pact.
The basic problem with the EU is its led by a relatively weak but very German power which makes the EU relatively weak or controllable
as long as the German electorate is relatively sedate. I think they still need the international structures run by the U.S. to
maintain their dominance. What Russia and the pre-Erdogan Turkey (which was never going to be admitted to the EU) presented was
significant upsets to the existing EU order with major balances to Germany which I always believed would make the EU potentially
more dynamic. Every decision wouldn't require a pilgrimage to Berlin. The British were always disinterested. The French had made
arrangements with Germany, and Italy is still Italy. Putting Russia or Turkey (pre-Erdogan) would have disrupted this arrangement.
The Crimea voted to be annexed by Russia by a clear majority. The US overran Hawaii with total disregard for the wishes of
the native population. Your comparison is invalid.
"Putin's finger prints are all over the Balkan fiasco".How is that with Putin only becoming president in 2000 and the Nato
bombing started way beforehand. It's ridiculous to think that Putin had any major influence at that time as govenor or director
of the domestic intelligence service on what was going during the bombing of NATO on Belgrad. Even Gerhard Schroeder, then chancellor
of the Federal Republic of Germany, admitted in an interview in 2014 with a major German Newspaper (Die Zeit) that this invasion
of Nato was a fault and against international law!
Can you concrete what you mean by "fingerprints" or is this just another platitudes?
I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].
Symptoms include:
o Eager and uncritical ingestion and social-media regurgitation of even the most patently absurd MSM propaganda. For example,
the meme that releasing factual information about actual election-meddling (as Wikileaks did about the Dem-establishment's rigging
of its own nomination process in 2016) is a grave threat to American Democracy™;
o Recent-onset veneration of the intelligence agencies, whose stock in trade is spying on and lying to the American people,
spreading disinformation, election rigging, torture and assassination and its agents, such as liar and perjurer Clapper and torturer
Brennan;
o Rehabilitation of horrid unindicted GOP war criminals like G.W. Bush as alleged examples of "norms-respecting Republican
patriots";
o Smearing of anyone who dares question the MSM-stoked hysteria as an America-hating Russian stooge.
Former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko trace to Steele dossier is a real shocker.
Notable quotes:
"... On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. ..."
"... If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI. ..."
"... What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr. ..."
"... FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble. ..."
"... It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from... ..."
"... So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination.. ..."
"... I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations? ..."
"... So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? ..."
"... Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment. ..."
"... They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose. ..."
"... Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'??? ..."
"... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort. ..."
"... So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election! ..."
"... The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement, became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good. ..."
There are many moving pieces in the drama surrounding the Deep State attempt to kill the Trump Presidency. God Bless Judicial
Watch. I think most of the key evidence that has surfaced came courtesy of Tom Fitton, Chris Farrell and their team of tireless workers.
I want to bring you back to
Mr. Felix Sater . He was part of Bayrock, which worked closely with Donald Trump's organization and, most importantly of all,
was an FBI Confidential Human Source since December of 1998.
Thanks to Judicial Watch we have a new dump of Bruce Ohr emails, which include several from his wife, Nellie. There are 330 pages
to wade thru (you can
see
them here ). There
is one item in particular I encourage you to look at:
On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled "
WhosWho19Sept2016
." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures,
many of whom were Russians. This list of individuals allegedly "linked to Trump" include: a Russian involved in a "gangland
killing;" an Uzbek mafia don; a former KGB officer suspected in the murder of Paul Tatum; a Russian who reportedly "buys up banks
and pumps them dry"; a Russian money launderer for Sergei Magnitsky; a Turk accused of shipping oil for ISIS; a couple who lent their
name to the Trump Institute, promoting its "get-rich-quick schemes"; a man who poured him a drink; and others.
The spreadsheet starts on page 301. If you search the document for the name Felix Sater, he will pop up. Now here is the curious
and, I suppose, reassuring thing about this document--Nellie Ohr did not have a clue that Felix Sater was an active FBI informant.
We can at least give the FBI credit for protecting Sater's identity from Nellie Ohr and, more importantly, her husband, DOJ official
Bruce Ohr.
If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don
Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being
used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI.
One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the
other "suspects" she exhaustively listed.
Shifting gears, there are two very important pieces recently posted at The Conservative Tree House that I encourage you to read:
What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the
investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr.
You can find this information in the
Bruce
Ohr 302s that Judicial Watch also secured. Marina Butina was unfairly and unjustly portrayed and prosecuted as a Russian intelligence
agent. It was a damn lie.
I do not ever want to hear another American complaining about an American State Department or CIA employee who is entrapped and
unfairly prosecuted in Russia.
We have done the same damn thing that we have accused the Soviets of doing. The same thing. It is shameful.
The
second piece is the ultimate feel good piece. Kudos to its author, Sundance.
He details how a Federal Judge, infuriated by the FBIs stupidity and mendacity, tells the Bureau to go pound sand. The FBI is
frantically trying to prevent the Archey Declarations from being revealed thanks to a lawsuit brought by CNN (finally, CNN did something
right).
The Archey Declarations provide a detailed description of the memos written and illegally removed from FBI Headquarters by that
sanctimonious twit, Jim Comey. More shoes will be dropping in the coming days.
It appears that Inspector General Horowitz is going to present at least one report on Jim Comey and one report on the FISA abuse
by the FBI.
FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal
into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble.
Finally, Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft put up an important piece today (
see here ). Here is the bottomline, and keep this in mind as you read the piece, on June 20, 2016 the FBI signed off on a deal
with Hillary Clinton's attorney's that gave Hillary's team the right to destroy computers and emails.
It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day,
Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
The fix was in more than a month before Jim Comey appeared on camera to try to explain why he was not recommending prosecution
of Hillary for putting Top Secret information on her unclassified server.
Jim Comey lied when he declared that could not prove "intent."
I am sure that those of you who have never held a clearance and handled Top Secret material probably believed that lie.
But anyone who knows how the TS system is set up knows that the ONLY WAY, I repeat, the ONLY WAY to put TS material on an unclassified
server is to do so intentionally. There is no way to do this mistakenly.
Jim Ticehurst said in reply to Jim Ticehurst... ,
Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from...
So..the Timeline Indicates
Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates
for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination..
creating Phase 2..Operations..
"The Washington Free Beacon ".Has an Editor in Chief ..who is William Kristols Son In Law..And William Kristols ..Father....Irving
Kristol..is Called..."the God Father of Neo Conservatism". William Kristol..was a John McCain supporter..
Thus Fusion GPS..retained Nellie Ohr..(strangly..NO Wiki Profile) who apparently had to Use her husbnd Bruce Ohrs Clearances,,to
continue Her Collaberation with Fusion GPS..
By June 2016 the Strategy was to bring in Christopher Steele..who was know to Bruce Ohr back to 2006.. Strange.. NO early life
BIOS for Bruce or Nellie Ohr..
I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos
and Archey Declarations?
The Gateway Pundit item about the ridiculously unfair and unethical deals made in Hillary Clinton's email scandal investigation
is just further proof of how the Clinton taint infected the FBI. "Crooked" is a very apt epithet, that's for sure. I'd love to
know how much Bill and Hill raked in during her Sec'y. of State racketeering.
You say: "One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or
one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed."
This is true, but it is also true that Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make
false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for
his impeachment.
They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose.
Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'???
... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian
presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort.
Why is that significant? Tymoshenko and Hillary Clinton had a simpatico relationship after the former secretary of State
went out of her way in January 2013 to advocate for Tymoshenko's release from prison on corruption charges.
So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher
but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign
influence in a U.S. election!
...
The tales of Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, Yulia Tymoshenko, and those DEA and TSA agents raise a stark warning:
The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest
and law enforcement,
became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good.
The person responsible for securing the release of Yulia Tymoshenko was Chancellor Merkel. Further, that USA opposed Tymoshenko.
quote
As for one of the leaders of the war party in Kiev, Merkel has privately and publicly endorsed every claim of Yulia Tymoshenko,
promoting her release from prison and protecting her campaigns for war against Russia, even though – according to the high-level
German source – “they [Chancellery, Foreign Ministry] have known for years that [Tymoshenko] was a crook.”
endquote
There is a lot more detail Tymoshenko's corruption and Merkel's rescue here:
By all measures Clinton is a war criminal... Hilary is a female sociopath or worse.
Notable quotes:
"... Hillary Clinton revealed to an interviewer in the summer of 1999, "I urged him to bomb. You cannot let this go on at the end
of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" ..."
"... The Kosovo Liberation Army's savage nature was well known before the Clinton administration formally christened them "freedom
fighters" in 1999. ..."
"... Sen. Joe Lieberman whooped that the United States and the KLA "stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA
is fighting for human rights and American values." ..."
"... Clinton administration officials justified killing civilians because, it alleged the Serbs were committing genocide in Kosovo.
After the bombing ended, no evidence of genocide was found, but Clinton and Britain's Tony Blair continued boasting as if their war
had stopped a new Hitler in his tracks. ..."
Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton commenced bombing Serbia in the name of human rights, justice, and ethnic tolerance.
Approximately 1,500 Serb civilians were killed by NATO bombing in one of the biggest sham morality plays of the modern era. As British
professor Philip Hammond recently noted, the 78-day bombing campaign "was not a purely military operation: NATO also destroyed what
it called 'dual-use' targets, such as factories, city bridges, and even the main television building in downtown Belgrade, in an
attempt to terrorise the country into surrender."
Clinton's unprovoked attack on Serbia, intended to help ethnic Albanians seize control of Kosovo, set a precedent for "humanitarian"
warring that was invoked by supporters of George W. Bush's unprovoked attack on Iraq, Barack Oba-ma's bombing of Libya, and Donald
Trump's bombing of Syria.
Clinton remains a hero in Kosovo, and there is an 11-foot statue of him standing in the capitol, Pristina, on Bill Clinton Boulevard.
A commentator in the United Kingdom's Guardian newspaper noted that the statue showed Clinton "with a left hand raised, a
typical gesture of a leader greeting the masses. In his right hand he is holding documents engraved with the date when NATO started
the bombardment of Serbia, 24 March 1999." It would have been a more accurate representation if Clinton was shown standing on the
corpses of the women, children, and others killed in the U.S. bombing campaign.
Bombing Serbia was a family affair in the Clinton White House. Hillary Clinton revealed to an interviewer in the summer of
1999, "I urged him to bomb. You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What
do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" A biography of Hillary Clinton, written by Gail Sheehy and published
in late 1999, stated that Mrs. Clinton had refused to talk to the president for eight months after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke.
She resumed talking to her husband only when she phoned him and urged him in the strongest terms to begin bombing Serbia; the president
began bombing within 24 hours. Alexander Cockburn observed in the Los Angeles Times,
It's scarcely surprising that Hillary would have urged President Clinton to drop cluster bombs on the Serbs to defend "our
way of life." The first lady is a social engineer. She believes in therapeutic policing and the duty of the state to impose
such policing. War is more social engineering, "fixitry" via high explosive, social therapy via cruise missile . As a tough therapeutic
cop, she does not shy away from the most abrupt expression of the therapy: the death penalty.
I followed the war closely from the start, but selling articles to editors bashing the bombing was as easy as pitching paeans
to Scientology. Instead of breaking into newsprint, my venting occurred instead in my journal:
April 7, 1999: Much of the media and most of the American public are evaluating Clinton's Serbian policy based on
the pictures of the bomb damage -- rather than by asking whether there is any coherent purpose or justification for bombing.
The ultimate triumph of photo opportunities . What a travesty and national disgrace for this country.
April 17: My bottom line on the Kosovo conflict: I hate holy wars. And this is a holy war for American good deeds
-- or for America's saintly self-image? Sen. John McCain said the war is necessary to "uphold American values." Make me barf!
Just another Hitler-of-the-month attack.
May 13: This damn Serbian war is a symbol of all that is wrong with the righteous approach to the world and to problems
within this nation.
The KLA
The Kosovo Liberation Army's savage nature was well known before the Clinton administration formally christened them "freedom
fighters" in 1999. The previous year, the State Department condemned "terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army."
The KLA was heavily involved in drug trafficking and had close to ties to Osama bin Laden. Arming the KLA helped Clinton portray
himself as a crusader against injustice and shift public attention after his impeachment trial. Clinton was aided by many congressmen
eager to portray U.S. bombing as an engine of righteousness. Sen. Joe Lieberman whooped that the United States and the KLA "stand
for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values."
In early June 1999, the Washington Post reported that "some presidential aides and friends are describing [bombing] Kosovo
in Churchillian tones, as Clinton's 'finest hour.'" Clinton administration officials justified killing civilians because, it
alleged the Serbs were committing genocide in Kosovo. After the bombing ended, no evidence of genocide was found, but Clinton and
Britain's Tony Blair continued boasting as if their war had stopped a new Hitler in his tracks.
In a speech to American troops in a Thanksgiving 1999 visit, Clinton declared that the Kosovar children "love the United States
because we gave them their freedom back." Perhaps Clinton saw freedom as nothing more than being tyrannized by people of the same
ethnicity. As the Serbs were driven out of Kosovo, Kosovar Albanians became increasingly oppressed by the KLA, which ignored its
commitment to disarm. The Los Angeles Times reported on November 20, 1999,
As a postwar power struggle heats up in Kosovo Albanian politics, extremists are trying to silence moderate leaders with a
terror campaign of kidnappings, beatings, bombings, and at least one killing. The intensified attacks against members of the moderate
Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, have raised concerns that radical ethnic Albanians are turning against their own out of fear
of losing power in a democratic Kosovo.
American and NATO forces stood by as the KLA resumed its ethnic cleansing, slaughtering Serbian civilians, bombing Serbian
churches, and oppressing non-Muslims. Almost a quarter million Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, and other minorities fled Kosovo after Clinton
promised to protect them. In March 2000 renewed fighting broke out when the KLA launched attacks into Serbia, trying to seize
territory that it claimed historically belonged to ethnic Albanians. UN Human Rights Envoy Jiri Dienstbier reported that "the [NATO]
bombing hasn't solved any problems. It only multiplied the existing problems and created new ones. The Yugoslav economy was destroyed.
Kosovo is destroyed. There are hundreds of thousands of people unemployed now."
U.S. complicity in atrocities
Prior to the NATO bombing, American citizens had no responsibility for atrocities committed by either Serbs or ethnic Albanians.
However, after American planes bombed much of Serbia into rubble to drive the Serbian military out of Kosovo, Clinton effectively
made the United States responsible for the safety of the remaining Serbs in Kosovo. That was equivalent to forcibly disarming a group
of people, and then standing by, whistling and looking at the ground, while they are slaughtered. Since the United States promised
to bring peace to Kosovo, Clinton bears some responsibility for every burnt church, every murdered Serbian grandmother, every new
refugee column streaming north out of Kosovo. Despite those problems, Clinton bragged at a December 8, 1999, press conference that
he was "very, very proud" of what the United States had done in Kosovo.
I had a chapter on the Serbian bombing campaign titled "Moralizing with Cluster Bombs" in Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion
and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton–Gore Years (St. Martin's Press, 2000), which sufficed to spur at least one or two
reviewers to attack the book. Norman Provizer, the director of the Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership, scoffed in the
Denver Rocky Mountain News, "Bovard chastises Clinton for an illegal, undeclared war in Kosovo without ever bothering to mention
that, during the entire run of American history, there have been but four official declarations of war by Congress."
As the chaotic situation in post-war Kosovo became stark, it was easier to work in jibes against the debacle. In an October 2002
USA Today article ("Moral High Ground Not Won on Battlefield") bashing the Bush administration's push for war against Iraq,
I pointed out, "A desire to spread freedom does not automatically confer a license to kill . Operation Allied Force in 1999 bombed
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, into submission purportedly to liberate Kosovo. Though Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic raised the white flag,
ethnic cleansing continued -- with the minority Serbs being slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground in the same way the
Serbs previously oppressed the ethnic Albanians."
In a 2011 review for The American Conservative, I scoffed, "After NATO planes killed hundreds if not thousands of Serb
and ethnic Albanian civilians, Bill Clinton could pirouette as a savior. Once the bombing ended, many of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo
were slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground. NATO's 'peace' produced a quarter million Serbian, Jewish, and Gypsy refugees."
In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities
that included murdering persons to extract and sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts. Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor
of a special European Union task force, declared in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful
killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements
of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites."
The New York Times reported that the trials of Kosovo body snatchers may be stymied by cover-ups and stonewalling: "Past
investigations of reports of organ trafficking in Kosovo have been undermined by witnesses' fears of testifying in a small country
where clan ties run deep and former members of the KLA are still feted as heroes. Former leaders of the KLA occupy high posts in
the government." American politicians almost entirely ignored the scandal. Vice President Joe Biden hailed former KLA leader and
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in 2010 as "the George Washington of Kosovo." A few months later, a Council of Europe investigative
report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation.
Clinton's war on Serbia opened a Pandora's box from which the world still suffers. Because politicians and pundits portrayed that
war as a moral triumph, it was easier for subsequent presidents to portray U.S. bombing as the self-evident triumph of good over
evil. Honest assessments of wrongful killings remain few and far between in media coverage.
This article was originally published in the July 2019 edition ofFuture of Freedom .
James Bovard is a policy adviser to The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is a USA Today columnist and has written
for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New Republic, Reader's Digest, Playboy, American Spectator,
Investors Business Daily, and many other publications. He is the author of Freedom Frauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty
(2017, published by FFF); Public Policy Hooligan (2012); Attention Deficit Democracy (2006); The Bush Betrayal
(2004); Terrorism and Tyranny (2003); Feeling Your Pain (2000); Freedom in Chains (1999); Shakedown (1995);
Lost Rights (1994); The Fair Trade Fraud (1991); and The Farm Fiasco (1989). He was the 1995 co-recipient of
the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the recipient of the 1996 Freedom
Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. His book Lost Rights received the
Mencken Award as Book of the Year from the Free Press Association. His Terrorism and Tyranny won Laissez Faire Book's Lysander
Spooner award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. Read his blog . Send
him email .
In July 30, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported
that the Afghan government and international military forces, primarily
the United States , caused most of the civilian deaths in Afghanistan during the first six
months of 2019. That's more killings than those perpetrated in the same time period by the
Taliban and ISIS combined.
Aerial operations were responsible for 519 civilian casualties (356 deaths and 156
injuries), including 150 children (89 deaths and 61 injuries). That constitutes a 39 percent
increase in overall civilian casualties from aerial attacks. Eighty-three percent of civilian
casualties from aerial operations were carried out by the international forces.
The targeting of civilians amounts to war crimes under the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court (ICC).
... ... ...
Team Trump's deadly actions are a continuation of the Bush and Obama
administrations' commission of the most heinous crimes in Afghanistan. On April 12, the ICC's
Pre-Trial Chamber found a "reasonable basis" to
believe that the parties to the Afghan conflict, including the U.S. military and the CIA,
committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, most of them occurring between 2005 and 2015.
They include "the war crimes of torture and cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity,
and rape and other forms of sexual violence pursuant to a policy approved by the U.S.
authorities."
The chamber, however, refused to open a formal investigation into those crimes, as
recommended by ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. In concluding that "an investigation
into the situation in Afghanistan at this stage would not serve the interests of justice," the
chamber questioned the feasibility of such a probe. An investigation would be "very wide in
scope and encompasses a high number of alleged incidents having occurred over a long time
period," the chamber wrote. It noted the extreme difficulty in gauging "the prospects of
securing meaningful cooperation from relevant authorities for the future" and found "the
current circumstances of the situation in Afghanistan are such as to make the prospects for a
successful investigation and prosecution extremely limited."
Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of
the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of
Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent
book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues.
STEPHEN COHEN: I'm not aware that Russia attacked Georgia. The European Commission, if you're talking about the 2008 war,
the European Commission, investigating what happened, found that Georgia, which was backed by the United States, fighting with an
American-built army under the control of the, shall we say, slightly unpredictable Georgian president then, Saakashvili, that he
began the war by firing on Russian enclaves. And the Kremlin, which by the way was not occupied by Putin, but by Michael McFaul and
Obama's best friend and reset partner then-president Dmitry Medvedev, did what any Kremlin leader, what any leader in any country
would have had to do: it reacted. It sent troops across the border through the tunnel, and drove the Georgian forces out of what
essentially were kind of Russian protectorate areas of Georgia.
So that- Russia didn't begin that war. And it didn't begin the one in Ukraine, either. We did that by [continents], the overthrow
of the Ukrainian president in [20]14 after President Obama told Putin that he would not permit that to happen. And I think it happened
within 36 hours. The Russians, like them or not, feel that they have been lied to and betrayed. They use this word, predatl'stvo,
betrayal, about American policy toward Russia ever since 1991, when it wasn't just President George Bush, all the documents have
been published by the National Security Archive in Washington, all the leaders of the main Western powers promised the Soviet Union
that under Gorbachev, if Gorbachev would allow a reunited Germany to be NATO, NATO would not, in the famous expression, move two
inches to the east.
Now NATO is sitting on Russia's borders from the Baltic to Ukraine. So Russians aren't fools, and they're good-hearted, but they
become resentful. They're worried about being attacked by the United States. In fact, you read and hear in the Russian media daily,
we are under attack by the United States. And this is a lot more real and meaningful than this crap that is being put out that Russia
somehow attacked us in 2016. I must have been sleeping. I didn't see Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and 2016. This is reckless, dangerous,
warmongering talk. It needs to stop. Russia has a better case for saying they've been attacked by us since 1991. We put our military
alliance on the front door. Maybe it's not an attack, but it looks like one, feels like one. Could be one.
Real politik. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Don't start fights in the first place. The idea that American leadership
is any better than mid-Victorian imperialism, is laughable.
AARON MATE: We hear, often, talk of Putin possibly being the richest person in the world as a result of his entanglement
with the very corruption of Russia you're speaking about
Few appear to be aware that Bill Browder is single-handedly responsible for starting, and spreading, the rumor that Putin's
net worth is $200 billion (for those who are unfamiliar with Browder, I highly recommend watching Andrei Nekrasov's documentary
titled " The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes "). Browder
appears to have first
started this rumor early in 2015 , and has repeated it ad nauseam since then, including in
his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 . While Browder has always framed the $200 billion figure as his own
estimate, that subtle qualifier has had little effect on the media's willingness to accept it as fact.
Interestingly, during the press conference at the Helsinki Summit, Putin claimed Browder sent $400 million of ill-gotten gains
to the Clinton campaign. Putin
retracted the statement and claimed to have misspoke a week or so later, however by that time the $400 million figure had
been cited by numerous media outlets around the world. I think it is at least possible that Putin purposely exaggerated the amount
of money in question as a kind of tit-for-tat response to Browder having started the rumor about his net worth being $200 billion.
The stories I saw said there was a mistranslation -- but that the figure should have $400 thousand and not $400 million. Maybe
Putin misspoke, but the $400,000 number is still significant, albeit far more reasonable.
Putin never was on the Forbes list of billionaires, btw, and his campaign finance statement comes to far less. It never seems
to occur to rabid capitalists or crooks that not everyone is like them, placing such importance on vast fortunes, or want to be
dishonest, greedy, or power hungry. Putin is only 'well off' and that seems to satisfy him just fine as he gets on with other
interests, values, and goals.
Yes, $400,000 is the revised/correct figure. My having written that "Putin retracted the statement" was not the best choice
of phrase. Also, the figure was corrected the day after it was made, not "a week or so later" as I wrote in my previous comment.
From the Russia Insider link:
Browder's criminal group used many tax evasion methods, including offshore companies. They siphoned shares and funds from
Russia worth over 1.5 billion dollars. By the way, $400,000 was transferred to the US Democratic Party's accounts from these
funds. The Russian president asked us to correct his statement from yesterday. During the briefing, he said it was $400,000,000,
not $400,000. Either way, it's still a significant amount of money.
There's something weird about the anti-Putin hysteria. Somehow, many, many people have come to believe they must demonstrate
their membership in the tribe by accepting completely unsupported assertions that go against common sense.
In a sane world we the people would be furious with the Clinton campaign, especially the D party but the R's as well, our media
(again), and our intel/police State (again). Holding them all accountable while making sure this tsunami of deception and lies
never happens again.
It's amazing even in time of the internetz those of us who really dig can only come up with a few sane voices. It's much worse
now in terms of the numbers of sane voices than it was in the run up to Iraq 2.
Regardless of broad access to far more information in the digital age, never under estimate the self-preservation instinct
of American exceptionalist mythology. There is an inverse relationship between the decline of US global primacy and increasingly
desperate quest for adventurism. Like any case of addiction, looking outward for blame/salvation is imperative in order to prevent
the mirror of self-reflection/realization from turning back onto ourselves.
we're not to believe we're not supposed to believe we're supposed to believe
Believe whatever you want, however your comment gives the impression that you came to this article because you felt the need
to push back against anything that does not conform to the liberal international order's narrative on Putin and Russia, rather
than "with an eagerness to counterbalance the media's portrayal of Putin". WRT to whataboutism, I like
Greenwald's definition of the term :
"Whataboutism": the term used to bar inquiry into whether someone adheres to the moral and behavioral standards they seek
to impose on everyone else. That's its functional definition.
aye. I've never seen it used by anyone aside from the worst Hill Trolls.
Indeed, when it was first thrown at me, I endeavored to look it up, and found that all references to it were from Hillaryites
attempting to diss apostates and heretics.
The degree of consistency and or lack of hypocrisy based on words and actions separates US from Russia to an astonishing level.
That is Russia's largest threat to US, our deceivers. The propaganda tables have turned and we are deceiving ourselves to points
of collective insanity and warmongering with a great nuclear power while we are at it. Warmongering is who we are and what we
do.
Does Russia have a GITMO, torture Chelsea Manning, openly say they want to kill Snowden and Assange? Is Russia building up
arsenals on our borders while maintaining hundreds of foreign bases and conducting several wars at any given moment while constantly
threatening to foment more wars? Is Russia dropping another trillion on nuclear arsenals? Is Russia forcing us to maintain such
an anti democratic system and an even worse, an entirely hackable electronic voting system?
You ready to destroy the world, including your own, rather than look in the mirror?
You're talking about extending Russian military power into Europe when the military spending of NATO Europe alone exceeds Russia's
by almost 5-1 (more like 12-1 when one includes the US and Canada), have about triple the number of soldiers than Russia has,
and when the Russian ground forces are numerically smaller than they have been in at least 200 years?
" to put their self-interests above those of their constituents and employees, why can't we apply this same lens to Putin and
his oligarchs?"
The oligarchs got their start under Yeltsin and his FreeMarketDemocraticReformers, whose policies were so catastrophic that
deaths were exceeding births by almost a million a year by the late '90s, with no end in sight. Central to Yeltsin's governance
was the corrupt privatization, by which means the Seven Bankers came to control the Russian economy and Russian politics.
Central to Putin's popularity are the measures he took to curb oligarchic predation in 2003-2005. Because of this, Russia's
debt:GDP ratio went from 1.0 to about 0.2, and Russia's demographic recovery began while Western analysis were still predicting
the death of Russia.
So Putin is the anti-oligarch in Russian domestic politics.
I know of many people who sacrifice their own interests for those of their children (over whom they have virtually absolute
power), family member and friends. I know of others who dedicate their lives to justice, peace, the well being of their nation,
the world, and other people -- people who find far greater meaning and satisfaction in this than in accumulating power or money.
Other people have their own goals, such as producing art, inventing interesting things, reading and learning, and don't care two
hoots about power or money as long as their immediate needs are met.
I'm cynical enough about humans without thinking the worst of everyone and every group or culture. Not everyone thinks only
of nails and wants to be hammers, or are sociopaths. There are times when people are more or less forced into taking power, or
getting more money, even if they don't want it, because they want to change things for the better or need to defend themselves.
There are people who get guns and learn how to use them only because they feel a need for defending themselves and family but
who don't like guns and don't want to shoot anyone or anything.
There are many people who do not want to be controlled and bossed around, but neither want to boss around anyone else. The
world is full of such people. If they are threatened and attacked, however, expect defensive reactions. Same as for most animals
which are not predators, and even predators will generally not attack other animals if they are not hungry or threatened -- but
that does not mean they are not competent or can be dangerous.
Capitalism is not only inherently predatory, but is inherently expansive without limits, with unlimited ambition for profits
and control. It's intrinsically very competitive and imperialist. Capitalism is also a thing which was exported to Russia, starting
soon after the Russian Revolution, which was immediately attacked and invaded by the West, and especially after the fall of the
Soviet Union. Soviet Russia had it's own problems, which it met with varying degrees of success, but were quite different from
the aggressive capitalism and imperialism of the US and Europe.
The pro-Putin propaganda is pretty interesting to witness, and of course not everything Cohen says is skewed pro-Putin – that's
what provides credibility. But "Putin kills everybody" is something NOBODY says (except Cohen, twice in one interview) – Putin
is actually pretty selective of those he decides to have killed. But of course, he doesn't kill anyone, personally – therefore
he's an innocent lamb, accidentally running Russia as a dictator.
The most recent dictator in Russian history was Boris Yeltsin, who turned tanks on his legislature while it was in the legal
and constitutional process of impeaching him, and whose policies were so catastrophic for Russians (who were dying off at the
rate of 900k/yr) that he had to steal his re-election because he had a 5% approval rating.
But he did as the US gvt told him, so I guess that makes him a Democrat.
Under Putin Russia recovered from being helpless, bankrupt & dying, but Russia has an independent foreign policy, so that makes
Putin a dictator.
"Does any sane person believe that there will ever be a Putin-signed contract provided as evidence? Does any sane person believe
that Putin actually needs to "approve" a contract rather than signaling to his oligarch/mafia hierarchy that he's unhappy about
a newspaper or journalist's reporting?"
Why do you think Putin even needs, or feels a need, to have journalists killed in the first place? I see no evidence to support
this basic assumption.
The idea of Russia poised to attack Europe is interesting, in light of the fact that they've cut their military spending by
20%. And even before that the budgets of France, Germany, and the UK combined well exceeded that of Russia, to say nothing of
the rest of NATO or the US.
Putin's record speaks for itself. This again points to the absurdity of claiming he's had reporters killed: he doesn't need
to. He has a vast amount of genuine public support because he's salvaged the country and pieced it back together after the pillaging
of the Yeltsin years. That he himself is a corrupt oligarch I have no particular doubt of. But if he just wanted to enrich himself,
he's had a very funny way of going about it. Pray tell, what are these 'other interpretations'?
"The US foreign policy has been disastrous for millions of people since world war 2. But Cohen's arguments that Russia isn't
as bad as the US is just a bunch of whattaboutism."
What countries has the Russian Federation destroyed?
Here is a fascinating essay ["Are We Reading Russia Right?"] by Nicolai N. Petro who currently holds the Silvia-Chandley Professorship
of Peace Studies and Nonviolence at the University of Rhode Island. His books include, Ukraine
in Crisis (Routledge, 2017), Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004), The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard, 1995), and Russian
Foreign Policy, co-authored with Alvin Z. Rubinstein (Longman, 1997). A graduate of the University of Virginia, he is the recipient
of Fulbright awards to Russia and to Ukraine, as well as fellowships from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the National
Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington,
D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, he served as special assistant
for policy toward the Soviet Union in the U.S. Department of State from 1989 to 1990. In addition to scholarly publications
on Russia and Ukraine, he has written for Asia Times, American Interest, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian
(UK), The Nation, New York Times, and Wilson Quarterly. His writings have appeared frequently on the web sites of the Carnegie
Council for Ethics in International Affairs and The National Interest.
Thanks for so much for this. Great stuff. Cohen says the emperor has no clothes so naturally the empire doesn't want him on
television. I believe he has been on CNN one or two times and I saw him once on the PBS Newshour where the interviewer asked skeptical
questions with a pained and skeptical look. He seems to be the only prominent person willing to stand up and call bs on the Russia
hate. There are plenty of pundits and commentators who do that but not many Princeton professors.
It has been said in recent years that the greatest failure of American foreign policy was the invasion of Iraq. I think that
they are wrong. The greatest failure, in my opinion, is to push both China and Russia together into a semi-official pact against
American ambitions. In the same way that the US was able to split China from the USSR back in the seventies, the best option was
for America to split Russia from China and help incorporate them into the western system. The waters for that idea have been so
fouled by the Russia hysteria, if not dementia, that that is no longer a possibility. I just wish that the US would stop sowing
dragon's teeth – it never ends well.
The best option, but the "American exceptionalists" went nuts. Also, the usual play book of stoking fears of the "yellow menace"
would have been too on the nose. Americans might not buy it, and there was a whole cottage industry of "the rising China threat"
except the potential consumer market place and slave labor factories stopped that from happening.
Bringing Russia into the West effectively means Europe, and I think that creates a similar dynamic to a Russian/Chinese pact.
The basic problem with the EU is its led by a relatively weak but very German power which makes the EU relatively weak or controllable
as long as the German electorate is relatively sedate. I think they still need the international structures run by the U.S. to
maintain their dominance. What Russia and the pre-Erdogan Turkey (which was never going to be admitted to the EU) presented was
significant upsets to the existing EU order with major balances to Germany which I always believed would make the EU potentially
more dynamic. Every decision wouldn't require a pilgrimage to Berlin. The British were always disinterested. The French had made
arrangements with Germany, and Italy is still Italy. Putting Russia or Turkey (pre-Erdogan) would have disrupted this arrangement.
The Crimea voted to be annexed by Russia by a clear majority. The US overran Hawaii with total disregard for the wishes of
the native population. Your comparison is invalid.
"Putin's finger prints are all over the Balkan fiasco".How is that with Putin only becoming president in 2000 and the Nato
bombing started way beforehand. It's ridiculous to think that Putin had any major influence at that time as govenor or director
of the domestic intelligence service on what was going during the bombing of NATO on Belgrad. Even Gerhard Schroeder, then chancellor
of the Federal Republic of Germany, admitted in an interview in 2014 with a major German Newspaper (Die Zeit) that this invasion
of Nato was a fault and against international law!
Can you concrete what you mean by "fingerprints" or is this just another platitudes?
I believe that the full and proper name of the psychiatric disorder in question is Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome [PTDS].
Symptoms include:
o Eager and uncritical ingestion and social-media regurgitation of even the most patently absurd MSM propaganda. For example,
the meme that releasing factual information about actual election-meddling (as Wikileaks did about the Dem-establishment's rigging
of its own nomination process in 2016) is a grave threat to American Democracy™;
o Recent-onset veneration of the intelligence agencies, whose stock in trade is spying on and lying to the American people,
spreading disinformation, election rigging, torture and assassination and its agents, such as liar and perjurer Clapper and torturer
Brennan;
o Rehabilitation of horrid unindicted GOP war criminals like G.W. Bush as alleged examples of "norms-respecting Republican
patriots";
o Smearing of anyone who dares question the MSM-stoked hysteria as an America-hating Russian stooge.
The title sounds like it was written yesterday, despite the fact the article is two years
ago. That suggest that Russophobia is the official policy of both parties. Why they are trying to
remove Trump, who folded after thee month in power, is less clear. May be the crimes they
committed are such that anybody in power then Clinton gang is very dangerous for them.
Please looks also at selected comments. They are definitely sounds as written yesterday.
Notable quotes:
"... Congressional Democrats and their media allies have renewed their offensive in the past two weeks. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) even argues that the evidence already amassed seems to be enough to warrant President Trump's impeachment. It was especially notable that no prominent Democrat denounced such an inflammatory accusation. Indeed, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee appear to be escalating their concept of what constitutes a thorough investigation, now insisting that any contact by advisers to the Trump campaign with any Russian official be subject to scrutiny. ..."
"... They and their neoconservative allies also insist on a laser-like focus on the alleged misdeeds of the Trump people and nothing else. ..."
"... Such an outrageous accusation might have made even the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy blush. That it came from a prominent Republican also suggests that the current bout of Russophobia is not purely a partisan phenomenon. The broader implications are extremely worrisome. A campaign appears to be underway to intimidate and silence critics of the current policy toward Russia, and even policy regarding NATO. ..."
"... The track record on previous group think on such decisions as the military interventions in Vietnam, Iraq, and Libya also confirms that it can produce truly tragic results. Creating a similar situation of stifling debate regarding U.S. policy toward a nation armed with thousands of nuclear weapons is the essence of folly. ..."
or a brief period in April, it appeared that the campaign that Democrats and
neo-conservative Republicans were waging for a comprehensive investigation into the Trump
campaign's alleged collusion with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential
election had peaked and was beginning to ebb. The Trump administration's decision to launch
missile strikes against a Syrian air base despite Russian President Vladimir Putin vehement
objections to the assault on his ally, quieted accusations that Trump was Putin's puppet.
Indeed, hawks in bothparties praised
Trump for taking action in Syria, and the president's supporters at Fox News and elsewhere
contended that the U.S. attack discredited the notion that he was guilty of appeasing
Russia.
But the hiatus in the allegations of collusion was only temporary. Worse, the resurgent
anti-Russia hysteria has broader, ominous implications for U.S. foreign policy and the health
of political discourse in the United States.
Congressional Democrats and their media allies have renewed their offensive in the past
two weeks. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) even argues
that the evidence already amassed seems to be enough to warrant President Trump's impeachment.
It was especially notable that no prominent Democrat denounced such an inflammatory accusation.
Indeed, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee appear to be escalating their concept of
what constitutes a thorough investigation, now insisting that any contact by advisers to the
Trump campaign with any Russian official be subject to scrutiny.
They and their neoconservative allies also insist on a laser-like focus on the alleged
misdeeds of the Trump people and nothing else. The current scandal erupted full force when
leaked reports from the U.S. intelligence community that newly installed National Security
Adviser Michael Flynn had met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign and
discussed sensitive issues, including the ongoing U.S. economic sanctions against Russia, thus
apparently undermining the Obama administration's policies. Flynn's action showed poor
judgment, and his attempt to conceal the contact from Vice President Mike Pence, was even
worse. A recent Washington Post article
contends that Flynn went ahead with his meeting even though senior Trump campaign officials
cautioned against it and warned him that it was almost certain that U.S. intelligence agencies
were electronically monitoring Kislyak and all of his contacts.
Examining Flynn's behavior is appropriate, but even that investigation should focus not only
on his questionable Russia contacts but on the leak of the intelligence report outing him.
Indeed, an intelligence official's unmasking the identity of an American citizen in that
fashion constitutes a felony. However, except for perfunctory statements from a few Democratic
members of Congress that such an illegal leak also needed to be investigated, little interest
has emerged in actually doing so.
Such an outrageous accusation might have made even the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy
blush. That it came from a prominent Republican also suggests that the current bout of
Russophobia is not purely a partisan phenomenon. The broader implications are extremely
worrisome. A campaign appears to be underway to intimidate and silence critics of the current
policy toward Russia, and even policy regarding NATO.
Attempting to enshrine Washington's group think on crucial issues is unhealthy for any
democratic system. The track record on previous group think on such decisions as the
military interventions in Vietnam, Iraq, and Libya also confirms that it can produce truly
tragic results. Creating a similar situation of stifling debate regarding U.S. policy toward a
nation armed with thousands of nuclear weapons is the essence of folly.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor
at the National Interest, is the author of 10 books, the contributing editor of 10 books, and
the author of more than 650 articles on international affairs.
Mr. Carpenter makes the excellent point that political sobriety, rational thought and
action, and responsible dialogue is missing from the cadre of drum beating anti-Trump die
hearts, who are using the made-up Trump collusion story to destroy the Trump
presidency.
Their kamikaze style political tactics will end badly for the democrats, who will be
pulverized during the next election for neglecting the people’s business in favor
of political scandal, turmoil and extremist partisan behavior.
Keep it up Chuck, you are working overtime to insure greater Republican gains.
Actually, I am an agent of all people who disapprove of Washington’s willingness
to use nuclear war in order to establish Washington’s hegemony over the world, but
let us understand what it means to be a “Russian agent.”
It means to respect international law, which Washington does not. It means to respect
life, which Washington does not. It means to respect the national interests of other
countries, which Washington does not. It means to respond to provocations with diplomacy
and requests for cooperation, which Washington does not. But Russia does. Clearly, a
“Russian agent” is a moral person who wants to preserve life and the national
identity and dignity of other peoples.
Aren't people in the US getting tired of the Russia bashing? Really. And don't the
Russia bashers know that the longer this goes on, without evidence, the public is slowly
waking up to the truth. Now to blame Russia for the US failings in Afghanistan is beyond
ridiculous. Keep it up, kiddies.
The success of the web of lies that got 65 to 75 percent of Americans to believe that
Saddam had WMD and was responsible for 9/11 only encourages these regime-change lunatics.
All they have to do now is articulate the equivalent of Bush’s “We cannot
wait for the smoking gun, which might come in the form of a mushroom cloud,”
— i.e., we don’t need evidence, we just need to generate enough fear —
and they’ll have all the public support they could possibly need to commence with
their program of regime change at home, followed by regime change in Russia. That’s
the diabolical beauty of governing a population through the politics of fear —
which has been the practise since the beginning of the first Cold War.
It's interesting that the Democrats and the media didn't seem very interested in
Hillary Clinton's foreign ties (and the money she received), or the potential blackmail
that could have been tied to any of her "missing" emails that the Russians and others
probably have.
I can't share it with you because it's classified and I don't (unlike Trumps
administration) believe in sharing sensitive information with Russian stooges.
Russia [aka Soviet Union] was simply a "red herring" (pun intended) during the Cold
War days when the Left always blamed American first. Now post-Soviet autocratic Russia is
a lethal menace behind every GOP trash can. The irony is so rich.
I am old enough to have a conscious memory of the end days of the McCarthy smears.
This seems a lot like that. Wild charges, no evidence. Senator McCarthy always "had" a
list of 57, 95, or 212 active communists in the State Department, he just never got
around to disclosing names. Evidence? The Democrats don't seem to need it. Just
investigate, investigate, investigate. Anything to distract from the true reasons for
Clinton's loss. The party of FDR wrote off the white working class. They thought they'd
have enough minority and female voters to win. They didn't.
Oh, oh. Mike Rogers, Obama's head of the NSA is testifying that the NSA did NOT have
high confidence that the wusskies interfered to help Trump win. I wonder if Boris
Badanoff and Natasha threatened him and his family?
Look, Democrats just cannot bring themselves to accept the blame for their loss, no
surprise, they truly believe they are on the right side of history, Cuba, North Korea,
and venezuela not withstanding. But the aging cold warriors, like McNasty, pine for the
days when people used to seek their opinion on the USSR.
Thank you for an excellent article. Building a sense of hysteria against the one
country in the world with as many nuclear weapons as us is truly foolish and
dangerous.
And the best part in this fishing expedition of democRATS and politicized government
agencies is that they have found NOTHING, only the daily, weekly and monthly fabrications
cooked backstage by MSM and accomplices agents leaning or part of Obanus regime..
Really good piece. So why does DC go bonkers over Russia but not deeper and more
problematic connections of politicians and public figures such as with Turkey, China, or
Israel? It's all about the emails and Hillary's lame excuses.
I find it ironic because during the Cold War, it was generally Republicans who opposed
the Soviet Union and its foreign policy the most strongly, with both language and action,
while Democrats favored conciliation with American rivals. Nowadays, however,
conservatives seem more pro-Russia while liberals seem much more hostile.
Let's be realistic, given the enormous number of leaks about Trump, if there was
anything to this we would know by now.
That's why I say :. Bring on the investigation!
It will just end in the entire media/Dem establishment looking bad.
Also:. Why would Putin want a US president that has a very aggressive pro drilling
stance and who wants a larger US military?
I would imagine it's the last thing he wants. Putin would probably *VASTLY* prefer
Sanders who is anti-energy, anti-military and honeymooned in Moscow during the cold war
as a political statement.
Buhaha You assume that I am a russian/live in Russia because I dare (oh, by the Gods
what a sacrilege!) to support russian foreign policy..
This alone is a good example of the delusional and zealot-like nature of russophobes such
as you..
Learn my uneducated "friend" that I live in an EU country, born and raised here-and
judging by the median US salary there is a great chance I make more $$ than you..But then
again only a cretin would judge a country based solely on these metrics..(Well, a cretin
and a russophobe in your case..)
Americans don't see it, but this anti-russian craze is creating serious pressures in
Europe, where voters more and more consider EU governments' blind following of U.S.
foreign policy as dangerous to their interests. Contrary to U.S. establishment, we
Europeans are not supremacists who believe that only their opinions and ways are the
right ones and the whole world needs to bow down to them. Remember what is the basis of
democracy? It's pluralism of opinions and civilised discussion. If Washington continues
this ideological war for longer time, it may cause serious problems for NATO.
This fight in the so-called DMZ has been going on for some time. I find it impossible to
believe that these Sunni militants are not getting logistical support from
outside.(Washington or Ankara??) Otherwise, how could a group of no-account jihadists be able
to stave off a conventional military for so long??
And once the zone is cleared of jihadis, then what?? Will Putin support an attack on the
Turkish units that are holding territory in North syria?
No way.
Putin has done an admirable job preventing the jihadist alliance (US-Turkey-S Arabia??)
from toppling the Assad government and turning the country into another Libya, but the
borders in the North and east have already been redrawn by the invaders. It doesn't look to
me like that will change. But I could be wrong.
Plantman, of course the jihadis are being resupplied, rearmed and reinforced through Turkey.
It's been that way since the beginning. Didn't you see the M-16 with night sight captured
from the jihadis in the video. There have been many photos of the brand new Turkish APCs
filled with jihadis.
I doubt the SAA will attack the Turkish observation posts, but they will choke them out
and make the Turks life a living hell if they don't withdraw. It may take a long time, but
I'm fairly confident Damascus will eventually regain control over all Syrian territory. Ten
towns in Raqqa governorate signed on with Damascus recently. More will follow as the FUKUS
alliance proves its fecklessness.
Any thoughts on the next cauldron after Khan Sheikoun? I see there have been a lot of
airstrikes softening up defenses on secondary roads on the way to Maarat al-Nu'man - parallel
to the M5 on its western side. If so, that would put two more Turkish OPs in the pot.
Jihadis are bragging they shot down a Syrian AF Sukhoi near Khan Sheikoun. Sounds like
propaganda to compensate for their loss of so much territory there.
Yes, I finally saw that the Syrian AF has confirmed they lost radar contact with it. There
are conflicting reports though from the jihadis about how it was shot down, one said MANPAD,
another said HMG.
The SU-22 is a 50+ year old design still flying. And since 2011 the Syrian AF has been
flying more sorties with the SU-22 than these aircraft were designed to handle. Many "failed
and crashed or simply wore out and had to be grounded."
So I wonder if the one lost just now in Idlib is one of the ten Iranian SU-22s that were
gifted to the Syrian AF in early 2015? Those ten were some of the same aircraft that the
Iraqi Air Force flew to Iran during the 1991 war for safekeeping. Iran confiscated them as
war reparations. And five years ago the IRGC restored ten to operational condition by raiding
spares from hangar queens and gave them to the Syrian AF along with spares and maintenance
support.
Great update, TTG! Seems like the terrorists are leaving Khan Shaykhun fast. So if there's
any evidence of the poison gas incident left, or witnesses, they may not have time to remove
it or eliminate the witnesses. It would be good to get that incident finally cleared up.
The Russian reconciliation teams are reported to be working out of the airbase, not on the
ground. Is that a dud report or are they tackling reconciliation differently in Idlib? Just
wonder how the civilian leaders would be getting to the airbase through it all.
A SyAAF Su-22 has been lost in South Idlib Area, Pilot Captured by those on the Ground -
Hopefully he can be rescued through talks or force. I would not envy his Fate.
What I do wonder is - having taken many losses of late - but having had a long period of
relative quiet to refit and reinforce - how serious could those in the 'Cauldron' resist or
is it better to leave the Door open for a contested withdrawl through Khan Sheykhun? (with
those from Tal Sukayk moving north to At Tamanyah first)
Normally I think the approach best (unless overwhelming means is available) - is to leave
the Lid off the Pot, encouraging a withdrawl - that you contest. But Khan Sheykhun has it
seems few Elevations near by to guard its approach or exit, and no doubt Civil Traffic will
be heavy as Civilians try avoid the likely battle... So mining the exit and attacking light
forces is a major Issue...
I just worry how many might be in that Area around Murak etc, that may again slow down the
advance of SAA forces that ideally would like to move North into the interior of Enemy
Lines.
With a Lid on the Pot the TKK troops near Morek would be surrounded. The Turkish
government would have to beg the Russians to protect them and help with an evacuation. Assad
and many in Damascus would probably love to humiliate Erdogan.
IMO with the jihadis retreating in disarray the SAA should pursue them north along the M5
corridor, leading with the armored teams and conducting a series of shallow double
envelopments as they move north. the important thing is to keep up the pace and the pressure
using Syrian and RU air to create a "pont au feu" (bridge of fire) over which the advance can
continue. If you will pardon a historical conceit, this would be much like Sherman's advance
to Atlanta from north Georgia.
Whilst I agree a lot, the Issue with this is two Fold.
Depth of Force - These Forces may already have a good motivation to stay and fight given
prexistant positions.. - which if sufficient Number - may reduce that advance we all desire
beyond... allowing the bulk to dig in again...
Making sure any advance does not indeed promote them to stand fast as opposed to continual
withdrawal - A good part of this depends on the depth of SAA Forces
What happens if a heavily armed Jihadi rump retreats and finds itself with its back on the
Syrian-turkish border? Is Erdogan going to let these bastards retreat into Turkish territory
with weapons and units intact? I would have thought not because they then could threaten the
region if they get loose. There are a lot of European, and American tourists all over Turkey
who are potential targets.
I would hope that the Turkish Army would seal the border, providing an anvil against which
the jihadis can be crushed.
I also think we are due for a White helmet compassion attack shortly. You know - poison
gas/barrel bombing/hospitals/dead children etc. Probably timed for the weekend talk
shows.
Idlib could yet prove to be Erdogan's nemesis. Will he escalate to protect the TAF forces in
the OP's once they start (soon) to be cut off? Russia has surely anticipated this possibility
and neutralized the threat. Alternatively, if the jihadis see TAF forces pulling out and
realize they have been betrayed, will they let them do so unimpeded, or perhaps look for some
hostages to force Turkey's hand?
I can't imagine Erdogan will let the takfiris back into Turkey, for the reasons you set
out. But if Turkish forces are used to kill them in order to prevent this, Turkey itself
could immediately become Global Jihad enemy #1.
The time bomb of close to 4m Syrian refugees is a third third problem. Hostility towards
their guests has been increasing in Turkey and a flood of yet more from Idlib may result in
outright violence directed against them and maybe even the government. This would be far from
the image of Turkey as Leader of the Islamic World which the Sultan wishes to portray. What a
mess.
Turkish press still has almost nothing on Idlib despite the recent advances by the SAA,
Syrian column inches are all taken up with speculations about the Safe Zone plans.
Previously, Turkish press has played up Turkey's role in protecting the Ummah in Syria. The
relative silence now suggests to me that Erdogan will seek to cut his losses in Idlib. Russia
has the ability to make this excruciatingly difficult, or not. I'd therefore expect Erdogan
to be forced to accept terms dictated by Russia/SAG in due course and the longer he delays
the worse those terms will be for Turkish interests in NW Syria.
I suspect if the Jihadis are routed in Turkey they will ether be flown to the new safe zone
or flown out of the country, likely to do some work around Libya.
I hope that the leveled Khan Shaykhoun is paved over and the Syrians erect a 500 m statue of
Hafez extending the middle finger in the general direction of Turkey, for its role in the gas
attack hoax.
Unhinged,
The operation to eliminate Assad was not of Turkish origin, even though the current regime
took an active and enthusiastic part in it. FYI, the plot is still alive. The FUKUS-I gang is
still trying to oust Assad through their PKK/PYG proxies. The game might get even more
interesting when/if the SAA finally meets PKK/PYG and their "advisors".
Ishmael Zechariah
It would be useful to know just which groups they are fighting and where. Is HTS heavily
involved, Ahrar al Sham or what? Where are the Chechens or other foreign groupings now?
When last heard from, they were in Idlib except for those who fight with ISIS. In Idlib, the
Chechen jihadis heard that the Russian MP unit which was tasked with interaction with the
civilian populations in areas retaken by the SARG [as they did in Aleppo] was in fact made up
of [obviously loyalist] Chechens [and other Muslims from the RF], they went on the attack and
the SAA and Russians had to go in and save them.
Neither the Uighurs nor the Central Asians have anywhere to retreat to, which is also the
case for the Chechens. I would assume that they would be more inclined to fight alongside the
AQ types rather than the "Syrian" groups, but I do not know. From what I recall earlier,
these were each separate ethnic units that fought with but not necessarily under the central
jihadi organizations.
In the former ISIS-land, the dead RF jihadis left behind many orphans. The RF sent in
native speakers of all the Caucasian languages to determine their origin. With the help of
DNA, they were able to get many back into their families back home. Where there are living
mothers, I don't know if the RF has a systematic policy of what to do with these widows.
Jane, HTS is taking the brunt of the beating in southern Idlib/northern Hama. Turkey is now
moving NLF jihadis down from Afrin to reinforce the Khan Sheikhoun front. The NLF is a
coalition of jihadis closely aligned with Turkey. The HTS has its roots in Syrian al Qaeda/al
Nusra. NLF and HTS jihadis fight each other when they're not fighting the SAA.
The Colonel is mentioning the "FUKUS" alliance in northern Syria, but I am not sure that
there is still a willingness to fight the Syrians and the Russians among the French component
of this "force". Macron knows that the French public opinion is fed up with this war and does
not believe anymore the French mainstream medias reports. Many Frenchs are in favor of
getting some sort of agreement with the Russians (if not with Assad) to get rid of the
jihadists, especially the 1 to 2 thousands French warriors amongst them. Nobody - not even
Macron - want them to be rapatriated in France for trial, preferring the issue to be delt
with local (syrian, irakis) authorities, whatever severe would be the punishments. Only the
"islamo-gauchistes" (islamo-leftits) are defending this "solution". Sometimes I have the
feeling that the French are siding the US in northern Syria only by fidelity to an old ally,
rather than to defend some French interests - a part the long time alliance between the the
French socialists et the Muslim Brothers, against the secular regimes of Libya, Egypt, and
Syria, since the Suez Operation en 1956. Macron and Putin will meet on august 19th, in
southern France. We will see if there is an official inflexion of the French policy in this
region.
In fairness, it was TTG and Ishmael Zechariah that mentioned FUKUS, and not the Colonel.
There is no "willingness to fight the Syrians and the Russians" in the US and the UK as
well as in France. In the past we unfortunately did have that willingness. But only through
ill-chosen proxies who have now been either incorporated into the ranks of HTS, or who have
fled the country to become refugees, or are dead.
"... The field's distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis' drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis' new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant and Dubai's busy international airport within their range. ..."
"... The outcome was a forgone conclusion. The smash, destroy, and destabilize campaign in the region could have only come from the most powerful lobby in the US. We all know who that is. ..."
Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen. It has no defenses against new weapons
the Houthis in Yemen acquired. These weapons threaten the Saudis economic lifelines.
This today
was the decisive attack:
Drones launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked a massive oil and gas field deep inside
Saudi Arabia's sprawling desert on Saturday, causing what the kingdom described as a
"limited fire" in the second such recent attack on its crucial energy industry. ... The Saudi acknowledgement of the attack came hours after Yahia Sarie, a military spokesman
for the Houthis, issued a video statement claiming the rebels launched 10 bomb-laden drones
targeting the field in their "biggest-ever" operation. He threatened more attacks would be
coming.
New drones and missiles
displayed in July 2019 by Yemen's Houthi-allied armed forces bigger
Today's attack is a check mate move against the Saudis. Shaybah is some 1,200 kilometers
(750 miles) from Houthi-controlled territory. There are many more important economic targets
within that range:
The field's distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the
Houthis' drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis' new UAV-X drone, found in recent
months during the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500
kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear
power plant and Dubai's busy international airport within their range.
Unlike sophisticated drones that use satellites to allow pilots to remotely fly them,
analysts believe Houthi drones are likely programmed to strike a specific latitude and
longitude and cannot be controlled once out of radio range. The Houthis have used drones,
which can be difficult to track by radar, to attack Saudi Patriot missile batteries, as
well as enemy troops.
The attack conclusively demonstrates that the most important assets of the Saudis are now
under threat. This economic threat comes on top of a seven percent budget deficit
the IMF predicts for Saudi Arabia. Further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have
very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state.
The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will. There is a lesson to learn from that. But it is doubtful that the borg in Washington DC
has the ability to understand it.
The outcome was a forgone conclusion. The smash, destroy, and destabilize campaign in the
region could have only come from the most powerful lobby in the US. We all know who that
is.
I'm afraid the only lesson the Borg in Washington will learn is to continue squandering US
resources and manpower on pursuing and inflicting chaos and violence in the Middle East.
Clown prince Mohammed bin Salman will not learn anything either other than to bankrupt his
own nation in pursuing this war.
Israel has driven itself into its own existential hell by persecuting Palestinians over
70+ years and doing a good job of annihilating itself while denying its own destruction. If
Israel can do it, the Christian crusaders dominating the govts of the Five Eyes nations
supporting Israel will follow suit in propping up an unsustainable fantasy. Samson option
indeed.
I am sure that the Suads will be looking to their zionist allies to supply them with the Iron
Dome system that the US military just wasted millions of tax payer dollars and purchased
several days ago. The irony of that system is that is was overwhelmed several times when the
Palestinian freedom fighters launched a wave of home made rockets at Occupied Palestine. I
hope the Sauds learn a lesson..doubt it though.
let me throw something out there. Israel has entrenched itself in the US political and media
systems. There is no logical path to eliminate or reduce that influence, and thus perhaps the
plan that has been hatched is to strengthen Iran to the point that it can confront Israel.
I anticipated just this sort of event 2+ months ago to go along with the tanker sabotaging to
expand on b's thesis about Iran having the upper hand in the current hybrid Gulf War. The
timing of this new ability dovetails nicely with the recent Russian collective security
proposal, with the Saudis being the footdraggers in agreeing about its viability due to its
pragmatic logic. So, as I wrote 2 days ago, we now have an excellent possibility of seeing an
end to this and future Persian Gulf Crises along with an idea that can potentially become the
template for an entire Southwest Asian security treaty, whose only holdout would be Occupied
Palestine. The Outlaw US Empire is effectively shutout of the entire process. And as I also
wrote, it's now time for the Saudis to determine where their future lies--with Eurasia or
with a dying Empire.
So the U.S. bought the Iron Dome stuff from Israel? I guess that means we paid for it
twice, eh? Glad to know my tax dollars are hard at work "keeping us safe."
Wonder what they might be planning for with that one?
The Yemenese military had lots of technological capabilities remaining from the Cold War
along with factories, technicians and raw materials. For example, Yemen's aerospace forces
allied with the Houthi and are the ones producing and shooting the missiles and drones. One
doesn't need to import a complete drone; technical blueprints on a floppy, CD-ROM, DVD,
thumb-drive, are all that's required. The humanitarian crisis due to food and medicine
shortages played on the minds of people such that an image of a poor, backward,
non-industrial capable society was generated that wasn't 100% correct.
And of course, this makes the threat by Iran to hit back against military and industrial
installations on the other side of the Persian Gulf that much stronger.
It would be rich indeed if Iran were to be the entity that ultimately manages to loosen
the stranglehold that the Zionists have on the USA Congress, media, president, donors to
political parties, etc.
I can imagine the shale oil producers smiling right now...100 a barrel oil will be just
what they need! Cost-push inflation leading to a return of bell bottoms and leisure suits. No
wonder all these 70's band retreads are touring again :)
So, poor Yemen wasted via siege warfare waged by NATO since 2015 though its Saudi, UAE and
terrorist proxies that came very close to success, finds the initiative to counterattack with
what little it has at its disposal--All accusations of Iranian help have never been
proven --and thanks to the Outlaw US Empire's threats against Iran force UAE to
withdrawal and seek peace with Iran with Saudi soon to follow. And the situation is all
Iran's fault?! Note the date above--it precedes Trump's election, his illegal withdrawal from
the JCPOA and institution of the illegal sanctions regime against Iran.
Europe is on board with Russia's collective security proposal. Europe had representatives
at the meet between Khamenei and the Houthi negotiator. Europe--even the UK--still working to
salvage the JCPOA via the non-dollar trade conduit. And you conclude that the Outlaw US
Empire "might actually get European support to attack Iran."
First Afghanistan, then Yemen. Maybe the western media's imaging of these people as towel
headed, sandal wearing primatives is just a tad misguided......
The most dangerous bit of theater involving sanctions initiated by the Trump administration
continues to focus on Iran. Last week, the White House elevated its extreme pressure on the
Iranians by engaging in a completely irrational sanctioning of Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif. The sanctions will have no effect whatsoever and they completely
contradict Donald Trump's repeated assertion that he is seeking diplomacy to resolving the
conflict with Iran. One doesn't accomplish that by sanctioning the opposition's Foreign
Minister. Also, the Iranians have received the message loud and clear that the threats coming
from Washington have nothing to do with nuclear programs. The White House began its sanctions
regime over a year ago when it withdrew from the JCPOA and they have been steadily increasing
since that time even though Iran has continued to be fully compliant with the agreement.
Recently, the US took the unprecedented step of sanctioning the entire Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps, which is part of the nation's military.
American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made clear that the sanctions on Iran are
intended to cause real pain, which, in fact, they have succeeded in doing. Pompeo and his
accomplice in crime National Security Advisor John Bolton believe that enough pressure will
motivate the starving people to rise up in the streets and overthrow the government, an
unlikely prospect as the American hostility has in fact increased popular support for the
regime.
To be sure, ordinary people in Iran have found that they cannot obtain medicine and some
types of food are in short supply but they are not about to rebel. The sanctioning in May of
Iranian oil exports has only been partially effective but it has made the economy shrink, with
workers losing jobs. The sanctions have also led to tit-for-tat seizures of oil and gas
tankers, starting with the British interception of a ship carrying Iranian oil to Syria in
early July.
Another bizarre escalation in sanctions that has taken place lately relates to the Skripal
case in Britain. On August 2 nd , Donald Trump
signed an executive order imposing a package of new sanctions against Moscow over the
alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in March
2018. The order "prohibit[s] any United States bank from making any loan or providing any
credit except for loans or credits for the purpose of purchasing food or other agricultural
commodities or products." The ban also includes "the extension of any loan or financial or
technical assistance by international financial institutions," meaning that international
lenders will also be punished if they fail to follow Washington's lead.
The sanctions were imposed under the authority provided by the US
Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act adopted in 1991, which
imposes penalties for use of chemical weapons. Novichok, which was reportedly used on the
Skripals, is a chemical weapon developed in the labs of the Soviet Union, though a number of
states are believed to currently have supplies of the agent in their arsenals. Russia can
appeal the sanctions with 90 days by providing "reliable assurance" that it will not again use
chemical weapons.
Russia has strenuously denied any role in the attack on the Skripals and the evidence that
has so far been produced to substantiate the Kremlin's involvement has been less than
convincing. An initial package of US-imposed sanctions against Russia that includes the export
of sensitive technologies and some financial services was implemented in August 2018.
Venezuela is also under the sanctions gun and is a perfect example how sanctions can
escalate into something more punitive, leading incrementally to an actual state of war. Last
week Washington expanded its sanctions regime, which is already causing starvation in parts of
Venezuela, to include what amounts to a complete
economic embargo directed against the Maduro regime that is being enforced by a naval
blockade.
The Venezuelan government
announced last Wednesday that the United States Navy had seized a cargo ship bound for
Venezuela while it was transiting the Panama Canal. According to a government spokesman, the
ship's
cargo was soy cakes intended for the production of food. As one of Washington's raisons
d'etre for imposing sanctions on Caracas was that government incompetence was starving the
Venezuelan people, the move to aggravate that starvation would appear to be somewhat capricious
and revealing of the fact that the White House could care less about what happens to the
Venezuelan civilians who are caught up in the conflict.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez
condemned the move as "serious aggression," and accused the Trump Administration of trying
to impede Venezuela's basic right to import food to feed its people.
One of the most pernicious aspects of the sanctions regimes that the United States is
imposing is that they are global. When Washington puts someone on its sanctions list, other
countries that do not comply with the demands being made are also subject to punishment,
referred to as secondary sanctions. The sanctions on Iran's oil exports, for example, are being
globally enforced with some few exceptions, and any country that buys Iranian oil will be
punished by being denied access to the US financial and banking system. That is a serious
penalty as most international trade and business transactions go through the dollar denominated
SWIFT banking network.
Finally, nothing illustrates the absurdity of the sanctions mania as a recent report that
President Trump had
sent his official hostage negotiator Robert O'Brien to Stockholm to obtain freedom for an
American rap musician ASAP Rocky who was in jail after having gotten into a fight with some
local boys. The Trumpster did not actually know the lad, but he was vouched for by the likes of
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, both of whom have had nice things to say about the president.
The negotiator was instructed to tell Sweden that if they did not release Rocky there would be
"negative consequences." Who can doubt that the consequences would undoubtedly have included
sanctions?
It has reached the point where the only country that likes the United States is Israel,
which is locked into a similar cycle of incessant aggression. To be sure Donald Trump's
rhetoric is part of the problem, but the indiscriminate, illegal and immoral use of sanctions,
which punish whole nations for the presumed sins of those nations' leaders, is a major
contributing factor. And the real irony is that even though sanctions cause pain, they are
ineffective. Cuba has been under sanctions, technically and embargo, since 1960 and its ruling
regime has not collapsed, and there is no chance that Venezuela, Iran or Russia's government
will go away at any time soon either. In fact, real change would be more likely if Washington
were to sit down at a negotiating table with countries that it considers enemies and work to
find solutions to common concerns. But that is not likely to happen with the current White
House line-up, and equally distant with a Democratic Party obsessed with the "Russian threat"
and other fables employed to explain its own failings.
But that doesn't bother Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and their mob. They think quarter by quarter.
Immediate gratification is the name of their game. They know that "in the long run we are
all dead". And they don't care what happens then.
Your viewpoint is the same as that of Jonathon Cook. He says "Russiagate" was a faction
fight between two groups of the Power Elites.
One wanted to keep 'putting the lipstick on the pig' which is predatory Capitalism, and
the other wants to let it all hang out and rape the planet NOW.
Just as there was a clueless "liberal" cheering group for Mueller, the Looters have a
fan club among the "right". Both sets of the applauding groups are just puppets. And of
course neither has recognized their true role in the unfolding dramas.
"... “It would be contrary to our interests to give Moscow the impression,” Nixon wrote, “that we are prepared to help only as long as Russia remains on its knees. Russia is a great country that deserves to be treated with appropriate respect.” ..."
"... Nixon was either lying or was outright delusional. The collective West can not operate in terms of friendship. The only motive behind any western foreign policy has always been to gain absolute power with no limits or borders. It happens that Russia is viewed as the only nation that can stop that western culture of domination and offer a multi polar world order, respected national sovereignty and mutual trust. Therefore the animosity towards Russia is inevitable, no matter what, as long as Russia exists. Any other view is a sort of wishful thinking. ..."
"... The constantly escalated lie of America about Russia's aggression is needed to knock out 2% of the military budget from satellites for the purchase of actually American weapons, to support the American military industrial complex. ..."
"... Russia enjoys escalation dominance in its own sphere, all the way up to the use of nukes in defense. America cannot possibly justify using that same kind of escalation, which means America will be the first to blink and then withdraw. ..."
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly sided with opposition groups in Russia and expressed sympathy with mass anti-government
demonstrations whose organizers made no secret of their objective to remove Putin from power. In March 2011, Vice President Joe Biden
told Russian opposition leaders that it would be "bad for the country and for himself" if Putin attempted to run for president the
following year, according to the later murdered Putin critic Boris Nemtsov. I have spoken with people who were present at Biden's
meeting with the Russian opposition, and there was no question in their mind that Biden fully intended to pressure Putin not to run
again. Biden and Clinton were not acting out of turn; the Obama administration put its money where its mouth was, giving millions
of dollars to political opposition groups in Russia. Today, leading Democrats are demanding that Russia refrain from intervening
in the 2020 elections, but what implications do such demands have for America's own willingness to take sides in Russian political
disputes?
... ... ..
Last but not least, we must be willing to be clear that we are not beholden to shaping American policy exclusively to align with
the whims of our allies. Relationships between former iron curtain states are remarkably complex and fraught with centuries of painful
history, making them prone to conflict with one another. It is precisely these parochial European conflicts which George Washington
strongly advised against being involved in, stating in his farewell address that America should be wary of entangling, "our peace
and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice."
WASHINGTON ALSO spoke about those, "ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens," who become so enamored with the causes of their
favorite countries that they not only lose perspective of American interests, but are even prepared to accuse those who disagree
with them of a lack of patriotism and, in modern times, of being a Putin lackey. One does not need to be a supporter of President
Trump to understand that these pseudo-patriots do not serve American interests or American values well. In April 2019, 73 percent
of the Ukrainian people rejected President Petro Poroshenko, who ran on a nationalist, anti-Russian platform. While few American
and European experts were willing to acknowledge that the Poroshenko government was corrupt, inept, and, according to Ukrainian media,
willing to use money to influence the American political process, they were suddenly willing to make such pronouncements as soon
as the election results were solidified. America cannot allow the designation of an "ally" to make any states immune from disagreement
or criticism. When the stakes are as high as nuclear war, America cannot afford to conduct foreign policy based on the whims of its
domestic constituencies or the sentiments of those very "deluded" citizens about whom Washington warned.
Great American presidents of the past knew how to be loyal allies, but to do it in a calibrated and deliberative fashion. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower fully understood the importance of the transatlantic alliance, having fought to preserve it in World War II,
yet in 1956 he refused to support Britain and France during the Suez Crisis when doing so went against America’s national interest.
Similarly, despite being a genuine friend to Israel, Ronald Reagan was willing to condemn it for going overboard in Lebanon in 1982.
But today, to suggest that America is not obliged to support with blood and treasure the actions of our allies and friends is considered
morally unacceptable. That is why whenever Baltic states, Georgia and Ukraine have any disagreement with Russia, America automatically
denounces Russia as the aggressor, regardless of the historical background, geopolitical context, and even, as in the case of Russia’s
war with Georgia in 2008, who attacked whose troops first.
America and Russia appear unlikely to resolve their hostilities any time soon. America has a long tradition of standing tall and
being prepared to be ruthless in the defense of its interests, but also in being careful not to unnecessarily entangle itself in
the conflicts of others. If the United States starts treating Putin’s Russia like it is Hitler’s Germany, moves from supporting Ukrainian
and Georgian sovereignty to encouraging these states to conduct hostile policies towards Moscow, and strengthens NATO’s military
position in the Baltics, Russia may feel confronted by an existential threat.
Dimitri K. Simes, publisher and CEO of the National Interest, is president of the Center for the National Interest.
“It would be contrary to our interests to give Moscow the impression,” Nixon wrote, “that we are prepared to help only
as long as Russia remains on its knees. Russia is a great country that deserves to be treated with appropriate respect.”
Nixon was either lying or was outright delusional. The collective West can not operate in terms of friendship. The only
motive behind any western foreign policy has always been to gain absolute power with no limits or borders. It happens that Russia
is viewed as the only nation that can stop that western culture of domination and offer a multi polar world order, respected national
sovereignty and mutual trust. Therefore the animosity towards Russia is inevitable, no matter what, as long as Russia exists.
Any other view is a sort of wishful thinking.
To save us all from the nuclear catastrophe it is important to remember what Putin once said:
""We are not interested in the world without Russia" (c)
The constantly escalated lie of America about Russia's aggression is needed to knock out 2% of the military budget from
satellites for the purchase of actually American weapons, to support the American military industrial complex. This lie began
with the already proven European aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia. And the RETURN of the Crimea during the anarchy
arranged by America coup in Ukraine. America uses Goebbels propaganda.
Part of the problem is that the establishment Republicans got heady beginning in the early 1990s, thinking that America is
omnipotent and can always get its way in the world. Nowhere was this sentiment stronger than the business elite. This arrogance
continues in our foreign policy with those like John Bolton who figure that firepower is always the answer. The good news is that
this sentiment peaked during the George W. Bush years, when Iraq taught the lesson that solutions are often not quick-and-easy.
I think the proper title of the article should be "Russia continue to be delusional about Ukraine"
Dimitri's is the perfect example of how Russian propaganda wants to cast events in the Ukraine: " In April 2019, 73 percent
of the Ukrainian people rejected President Petro Poroshenko, who ran on a nationalist, anti-Russian platform "
While it is obvious Ukrainians showed Poroshenko the location of the exit door, the main reason was not his so-called anti-Russian
nationalistic platform, but corruption and inability to accelerate necessary reforms.
If the resentment against so called nationalism and anti-Russian policies were material, then the pro-Russian block will have
significantly more votes than it managed to gain.
Dmitri here follows Russian dogma and equates pro Ukrainian to anti Russian. Any move in Ukraine to advance Ukrainian language,
history and culture - in a sense a sort of affirmative action policy - equates to anti Russian nationalism.
And this delusion needed to be fixed in order for Russia to be able to start moving back towards normalcy in relationship with
its neighbors.
Volo, you don't know how public perception works - if you pour dirt on somebody who has wide respect and sound reputation -
it backfires. By badmouthing Dimitri Simes you basically show how foolish you are. You may not feel like it in your little make-believe
Ukranian banderite world - but this is how it is in reality.
Besides, Volo, we both know you're Poroshenko supporter and you supported him because of his nationalistic anti-Russian stance.
So why pretend he's out because he's inefficient manager? Also, there is a so-called Fallacy of a Single Cause, which you seem
to follow. Obviously, there were many reasons for Poroshenko's fall, yet chief among them being ultra-nationalism and administrative
ineptitude
Yeap, educate yourself on the list of
logical fallacies . As I've said, I'm glad I'm a good influence on you
"And this delusion needed to be fixed in order for Russia to be able to start moving back towards normalcy in relationship
with its neighbors."
You can't have normalcy when Ukraine is still ruled on the streets by armed facist ultra-nationalist scumbags. Once these criminals
are disarmed and jailed awaiting trial then normalcy will have a chance.
Seriously?! You really not see the reality... you swallow everything Putin told you... take time and learn a bit about history,
stop to be the little good soldier and became a human!
Yes, seriously. The armed nationalists are a damngerous force in Ukraine and the elected politicans are quite rightly scared
of these radicals. People die in Ukraine if they speak out openly against the Nationalist militants, ask Oles Buzina... oh wait,
we can't cuz they killed him.
Speaking out against the Ukro nationalists in 2019 is like speaking out against the Russian mafia in the 90s and 00s. It's
a great way to get yourself killed.
"Russia’s grievances, real or imagined, are not justifications for the United States abandoning the pursuit of its own
interest and allowing Russian domination of Eurasia.
But the United States has no legitimate interests in the former Soviet Union. For the US to think otherwise is to be power
drunk and blinded by imperial greed.
It scares to me see that so many of my ignorant countrymen in America seem to have a sense of manifest destiny regarding the
former Soviet land mass. This myopic America policy is going to lead to disaster for the US. That's because Russia enjoys
escalation dominance in its own sphere, all the way up to the use of nukes in defense. America cannot possibly justify using that
same kind of escalation, which means America will be the first to blink and then withdraw.
It is amusing how Banderites always blame others for their own failures and utter irrelevance. You violently siezed Ukraine
and proceeded to make a slaughterhouse and a basket-case out of her, but its always someone elses fault... what a good little
empty-headed stormtrooper for Empire you are....
The author likes to write about US "defense of its interests" but what about when those "interests" are in direct opposition
to the real interests of the nations and peoples in those distant lands? Why should the self-declared and often selfish desires
of the US elites be used as justification for political, financial or outright military aggression? Are we really going to accept
law-of-the-jungle in global relations where the strong & wealthy get to attack the weak & impoverished simply because doing so
is ostensibly in their "interests"? A burglar ransacks your house while you're out and kills your dog in the process cuz its in
his "interest', but that doesn't make it OK.
Somewhere we need to accept that morality and ethics should be the primary guide as to how we interact with others. Unfortunately
the US elites have long since abandoned any such constraints or considerations as they aren't really compatible with building
a global hegemony and crushing all resistance to their rule.
"Putin is not blindly militaristic, but always considers the consequences of his actions, even if he has not always managed
to anticipate them correctly (as was the case with Russian interference in U.S. elections)."
"Russia’s interference in the American political process was serious and real"
Gimmee a break.... Russian "interference".... The author feels the need to insert this debunked shibboleth into his article?
Surely there isn't a free-thinking individual alive who still belives this hogwash?
Yeah, he did. Biden bragged about it. Stop this "Russia's paranoia" nonsense, you keep on clinging to it until it's proven
to be truth in some memoir of an ex-cia chief or US offical. Just like with NATO not expanding that was portrayed as a myth until
it appeared they really promised it to Gorbachev.
America and its European allies supported the ousting of Yanukovych in 2014
It was a lot more than simple "support". The U.S., led by State Department Nitwit Vulgarian Victoria Nuland and her barrel
of CIA monkeys directly organized and enabled the Maidan coup debacle. All the U.S. had to do was wait for the next presidential
election in Ukraine. But no, the Global Cop Gorilla had to stick its fat greasy thumb into someone else's soup yet again.
And the Russians knew that following the ham-fisted coup the U.S. would direct its new puppet President in Ukraine to eject
them from their historic naval base in Sevastopol that Russia had occupied for more than 200 years. Ironically, no U.S. facilitated
coup, no annexation of Crimea.
The Global Cop Gorilla wrecks everything that it touches. The one perverse benefit of the Trump presidency is that U.S. foreign
policy pathology is now so visible to the rest of the planet
"At the next revolution, the present rulers would either give up power peacefully or follow the fate of Chaushesqu or Qaddafi."
You mean Russians want NATO to bomb Moscow so that Russian people could get the honor of being sold on the slave markets like
Libyan people are today?
https://www.reuters.com/art...
Qaddafi is indeed a cautionary tale, just not the one you think it is.
Daniel Benaim and Michael Walid Hanna
explain that the U.S. military presence in the Middle East hasn't changed much at all under
Trump, but there has been a reduction in diplomatic engagement:
For all the headlines, the U.S. military presence in the Middle East is fairly consistent.
Despite the administration's intention, laid out in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, to
refocus the U.S. military on great-power competition, the U.S. footprint in the Middle East
remains relatively constant, and seemingly permanent. Instead, what has changed is the scale
of civilian effort that, in most previous administrations, would have accompanied such a
military presence. The Trump administration has left numerous vacancies for key civilian
positions unfilled for long stretches, slashed aid programs, and focused on high-level
personal relations at the expense of broader ties. Altogether, its approach has not been
typified by either retrenchment or interventionism but by what Barry Posen, writing in
Foreign Affairs, has called "illiberal hegemony" -- military superiority shorn of diplomatic
stewardship.
Benaim and Hanna are right about this, and their article is a welcome corrective to the many
false claims that Trump is "retreating" from the region. The administration's disdain for
diplomacy and aid has been impossible to miss over the last two and a half years, and they have
combined that with more or less continuing the military deployments and missions that they
inherited. What that means in practice is that the U.S. remains entangled in the affairs of the
region, but our government's involvement leans even more heavily towards the military. That
leaves every other kind of engagement underfunded, understaffed, and neglected. Since our
foreign policy is already excessively militarized, this makes a bad problem worse. Benaim and
Hanna note this later in the article:
This approach also exacerbates the long-standing problem of overreliance on the military
as the central tool of U.S. Middle East policy. Even on a diplomat's best days, regional
leaders are well aware of the "consul effect" -- the contrast between well-resourced American
military commanders and their relatively impoverished diplomatic colleagues. Further
marginalizing diplomats costs them influence, access, and bargaining power, while positioning
the military and intelligence communities as the only effective U.S. institutional actors in
the region.
Given the reality that the U.S. military presence hasn't been reduced, and has actually
increased in some places over the last two years, how is it that we keep hearing about U.S.
"retreat" and "withdrawal" as if these were happening? Client states have an incentive to whine
about possible "abandonment" no matter what the U.S. does. Either they complain about an
"abandonment" that has supposedly already happened, or they warn against a possible
"abandonment" that might take place in the future. The whining serves the purpose of putting
pressure on every administration to maintain existing commitments and then to add more. Then
there are pundits and analysts at home that constantly fret about U.S. "withdrawal" as a way of
agitating for increased involvement. Then there are the supporters of the president that want
to pretend that the "withdrawal" is really happening in order to credit the president for doing
something he hasn't done. Add them all up, and you get an unfounded consensus that the U.S. is
"retreating" when virtually nothing has changed. In the case of Trump, there is an additional
factor of taking the president's rhetoric at face value while ignoring what his administration
is doing. Trump boasts about some things that never happened and never will happen, and for
some reason he is blamed/credited for things he never does while his real policies often escape
close scrutiny.
Put simply, U.S. military engagement in the Middle East is largely unchanged and has even
escalated to some degree under Trump, but all other kinds of engagement get short shrift. Far
from disentangling the U.S. from its excessive commitments in the region, Trump has embraced
our worst clients and deepened our government's involvement in the worst way for the sake of
arms sales and whipping up anti-Iranian sentiment. This is the exact opposite of what should be
happening, and it is antithetical to a foreign policy that extricates U.S. forces from the
region.
Ukraine was a litmus test as for US relations with Russia. From that point for Russia the USA
represent an eminent threat for the integrity of the country. In other words the most dangerous
adversary which wants to put Russia on its knees by whatever means possible, although Putin
politically and diplomatically calls it partner.
And the role Dick Cheney protégé Victoria Nuland played in this tragic for both
countries (as well as Ukraine) event still need to be clearly analyzed.
It is now clear that Nuland and her neocon fringes in Obama administration sawed dragon teeth
into very fertile ground...
Notable quotes:
"... "It would be contrary to our interests to give Moscow the impression," Nixon wrote, "that we are prepared to help only as long as Russia remains on its knees. ..."
"... As with every divorce, there are contrasting narratives about who bears what responsibility for the dissolution of this once promising relationship. However, it is clear that America's foreign policy establishment, including members of both Congress and the Trump administration, is currently plagued by the tension between its habitual desire to assume the worst of Russia and its simultaneous reluctance to respond to the magnitude of Moscow's challenge in a serious fashion. ..."
"... The same experts who are terrified of confrontation with North Korea, with its rudimentary nuclear arsenal, or Iran, which has no nuclear arsenal at all, take a remarkably cavalier approach towards the prospect of a clash with Russia. ..."
"... It also runs the risk of inadvertently creating a new danger in the form of providing additional incentives for Moscow and Beijing to cooperate with each other against America. As a recent Pentagon white paper observed, Russian president Vladimir Putin could try to play the "China card" to the detriment of America. ..."
TWENTY-SIX years ago at a national policy conference in Los Angeles co-hosted by his
foundation, Richard M. Nixon observed that one of America's most fundamental foreign policy
objectives was to build a new international order after the collapse of the Soviet Union which
included the newly-democratic Russia as a partner. He stated,
In discussing Russia, it is first necessary to dispel a myth. The Russians did not lose
the Cold War. The Communists did. The United States and our allies played a crucial role in
containing communism and in rolling it back, but it was democratic Russia that gave the
knockout blow to communism on December 14th in 1991. So therefore, we should treat Russia
today not as a defeated enemy but as an ally and a friend who joined with us in defeating
communism in Russia.
Nixon warned that if Russia's experiment with democracy and association with the West were
to fail, Russia could fall victim to, "a more authoritarian, aggressive nationalism, which,
shorn of the failed faith of communism, might be an even greater threat to the West than the
old Soviet totalitarianism."
Subsequently, in the book Beyond Peace , which served as the last political message
of his life, Nixon made a strong case that, while ending the Cold War on American terms was a
historic accomplishment, the lasting legacy of this feat would be determined by America's
success in incorporating Russia into the community of democratic free market nations. "It
would be contrary to our interests to give Moscow the impression," Nixon wrote, "that we are
prepared to help only as long as Russia remains on its knees. Russia is a great country
that deserves to be treated with appropriate respect." Nixon's observations were prophetic.
They make it clear that the turn that contemporary events have taken was not inevitable even if
it was foreseeable. Nixon not only sought reconciliation with Russia, but was also convinced
that given sufficient foresight and diplomatic tact Washington could achieve it.
TODAY, IT can be stated with certainty that America has failed at this task. America's new
strategic doctrine views Russia as a major threat to the United States due to its military
prowess, hybrid warfare capabilities, and global drive to undermine the American-led liberal
world order. As with every divorce, there are contrasting narratives about who bears what
responsibility for the dissolution of this once promising relationship. However, it is clear
that America's foreign policy establishment, including members of both Congress and the Trump
administration, is currently plagued by the tension between its habitual desire to assume the
worst of Russia and its simultaneous reluctance to respond to the magnitude of Moscow's
challenge in a serious fashion.
When I hear media pundits and members of Congress describe Russia as a major adversary and,
at the same time, speak and act as though America is immune to the threat posed by the Russian
military, I often wonder whether they know something that I do not. The same experts who
are terrified of confrontation with North Korea, with its rudimentary nuclear arsenal, or Iran,
which has no nuclear arsenal at all, take a remarkably cavalier approach towards the prospect
of a clash with Russia. While this view is common among the national security
establishment, it reflects a serious misunderstanding of Russia's military strength, its
national character and, above all, the way its history continues to shape its foreign policy
decisions. It also runs the risk of inadvertently creating a new danger in the form of
providing additional incentives for Moscow and Beijing to cooperate with each other against
America. As a recent Pentagon white paper observed, Russian president Vladimir Putin could try
to play the "China card" to the detriment of America.
In hindsight, it is clear that the post-Soviet political order in Eastern Europe was never
properly settled by Russia and the West, and that the agreements that emerged after the Cold
War were too ambiguous to offer any real clarity. For instance, the 1994 Budapest Agreement,
which both Russia and the United States signed, guaranteed the territorial integrity of
Ukraine, but also promised the protection of Ukrainian sovereignty, which Russia perceived as a
commitment from the West not to interfere in Ukraine's internal political affairs. Therefore,
when America and its European allies supported the ousting of Yanukovych in 2014, Russia viewed
this as illegal Western interference, which provided Moscow with both the opportunity and the
right to defend its interests in Crimea and Donbass.
In recent years, Putin has unveiled his Avangard hypersonic ICBM system and new RS-28 Sarmat
heavy ballistic missile (both of which are allegedly capable of overcoming any U.S./NATO
missile defenses), and warned that, if push comes to shove, Russia is prepared to stand against
a military challenge from the West even if doing so meant escalating to nuclear war. These
warnings were coupled with the deployment of new brigades to Ukraine's borders starting in 2014
and major improvements of Russia's military capabilities near the Baltic region. Yet again,
these moves were treated as something requiring a vigorous response, but ultimately not
increasing the risk of a military clash. NATO viewed its commitment to restraint as
self-evident, so why would the Kremlin fear Western aggression? And if so, why would anybody
seriously fear a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the West?
... ... ...
UNFORTUNATELY, THE threat of unintentional conflict escalation is not a hypothetical one.
Russian and American troops often operate in the same areas of combat in Syria, and U.S. combat
aircraft and personnel were involved in a devastating attack on Russian paramilitaries in 2018.
In that particular case, Russia gave no advanced warning that Russian fighters were involved,
and later downplayed the incident by noting the fundamental difference between the death of
Russian private military contractors and an attack against its regular forces. But many experts
on both sides privately acknowledge that this incident was a close call that easily could have
resulted in rapid escalation. With more and more NATO ships and planes operating in close
proximity to Russian territory and their Russian counterparts boldly challenging them to prove
their own determination, the potential for a clash in the air or on the seas is becoming more
and more real. Yet Congress has had no meaningful discussions about how the sinking of one ship
or downing of one plane could result in accidental nuclear war between Russia and the United
States.
... ... ...
This shift was marked by the growing disillusionment with both the West and democracy that
became prevalent during the end of the Yeltsin era after the bitter experience of Russia's
economic demise and NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia. Tsipko writes, “I agree with
those who believe that it is the very national character that is to some extent the cause of
the militarization of conscience.” He adds, “It is important to understand that
militarization of conscience brings the killing of the instinct of self-preservation. It is not
just expecting death, but creating a cult of death, making it sacred.”
... ... ...
Nonetheless, Tsipko’s observations reveal much about how Russia might respond to a
confrontation with America and its allies. If the survival of the country, dignity of the
Russian civilization and, yes, legitimacy of the regime are at stake, Russia may be prepared to
accept much higher risks and absorb much greater losses than would be acceptable to Western
democracies.
Russia’s sense of isolation and victimhood are also rooted in an understanding of the
collapse of the Soviet Union that differs wildly from the common Western narrative. Many
Russians view their country as a modern equivalent of Weimar Germany, dismembered by victorious
powers who are responsible for the economic catastrophe, human suffering and great humiliation
of the Russian people. Most Russian citizens identify with Putin’s statement that,
“the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the
century,” and believe that, “for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy.
Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of
Russian territory.” While neither Putin nor the majority of Russians view the recreation
of the USSR as either feasible or desirable, the wounds of the Soviet collapse clearly remain
quite fresh and continue to influence attitudes towards the West.
... ... ...
Accordingly, most Russians deeply resented being treated as a defeated country by the West.
After the Cold War, Russians anticipated that they would be viewed not as a vanquished
adversary, but instead as a courageous ally who played an indispensable role in destroying the
Soviet bloc to achieve a common victory in the Cold War. By repeatedly siding against Moscow in
each of its post-Cold War disputes with its new neighbors, the West treated Russia like a
defeated state that had accepted an unconditional surrender and was now trying, in disregard of
its legal obligations, to establish hegemony over its neighbors. The Russian political elites,
initially strongly pro-Western, felt betrayed and offended. They saw a diktat from the
West.
Many Russians also hold that insidious actions by Western powers greatly contributed to the
Soviet collapse. There is very little evidence to support this claim; as late as August 1991,
President George H.W. Bush argued against Ukraine’s seeking full independence, stating
that “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a
far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aide those who promote a suicidal
nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.” Yet the Russian political class has increasingly
persuaded itself that its country was intentionally destroyed by Western powers, masquerading
as friends of the USSR during perestroika while secretly attempting to sabotage the Soviet
state. It is through the prism of those beliefs that one must look to understand how Russia
might act in the event of a military confrontation with the West.
You lost me when it was claimed the Russia interfered with US elections. The Mueller
report disclosed no such evidence and relied on the DNC consultants CrowdStrike about
hacking DNC servers, without verifying such claims... in fact, Mueller's language slips
into very ambiguous tones as Aaron Mate and others have documented.
“It would be contrary to our interests to give Moscow the impression,”
Nixon wrote, “that we are prepared to help only as long as Russia remains on its
knees. Russia is a great country that deserves to be treated with appropriate
respect.”
Nixon was either lying or was outright delusional. The collective West can not operate
in terms of friendship. The only motive behind any western foreign policy has always been
to gain absolute power with no limits or borders. It happens that Russia is viewed as the
only nation that can stop that western culture of domination and offer a multi polar
world order, respected national sovereignty and mutual trust. Therefore the animosity
towards Russia is inevitable, no matter what, as long as Russia exists. Any other view is
a sort of wishful thinking.
To save us all from the nuclear catastrophe it is important to remember what Putin
once said:
""We are not interested in the world without Russia" (c)
The constantly escalated lie of America about Russia's aggression is needed to knock
out 2% of the military budget from satellites for the purchase of actually American
weapons, to support the American military industrial complex. This lie began with the
already proven European aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia. And the RETURN of
the Crimea during the anarchy arranged by America coup in Ukraine. America uses Goebbels
propaganda.
Part of the problem is that the establishment Republicans got heady beginning in the
early 1990s, thinking that America is omnipotent and can always get its way in the world.
Nowhere was this sentiment stronger than the business elite. This arrogance continues in
our foreign policy with those like John Bolton who figure that firepower is always the
answer. The good news is that this sentiment peaked during the George W. Bush years, when
Iraq taught the lesson that solutions are often not quick-and-easy.
I think the proper title of the article should be "Russia continue to be delusional
about Ukraine"
Dimitri's is the perfect example of how Russian propaganda wants to cast events in the
Ukraine: " In April 2019, 73 percent of the Ukrainian people rejected President Petro
Poroshenko, who ran on a nationalist, anti-Russian platform "
While it is obvious Ukrainians showed Poroshenko the location of the exit door, the
main reason was not his so-called anti-Russian nationalistic platform, but corruption and
inability to accelerate necessary reforms.
If the resentment against so called nationalism and anti-Russian policies were
material, then the pro-Russian block will have significantly more votes than it managed
to gain.
Dmitri here follows Russian dogma and equates pro Ukrainian to anti Russian. Any move
in Ukraine to advance Ukrainian language, history and culture - in a sense a sort of
affirmative action policy - equates to anti Russian nationalism.
And this delusion needed to be fixed in order for Russia to be able to start moving
back towards normalcy in relationship with its neighbors.
Volo, you don't know how public perception works - if you pour dirt on somebody who
has wide respect and sound reputation - it backfires. By badmouthing Dimitri Simes you
basically show how foolish you are. You may not feel like it in your little make-believe
Ukranian banderite world - but this is how it is in reality.
Besides, Volo, we both know you're Poroshenko supporter and you supported him because
of his nationalistic anti-Russian stance. So why pretend he's out because he's
inefficient manager? Also, there is a so-called Fallacy of a Single Cause, which you seem
to follow. Obviously, there were many reasons for Poroshenko's fall, yet chief among them
being ultra-nationalism and administrative ineptitude
Yeap, educate yourself on the list of
logical fallacies . As I've said, I'm glad I'm a good influence on you
"And this delusion needed to be fixed in order for Russia to be able to start moving
back towards normalcy in relationship with its neighbors."
You can't have normalcy when Ukraine is still ruled on the streets by armed facist
ultra-nationalist scumbags. Once these criminals are disarmed and jailed awaiting trial
then normalcy will have a chance.
Seriously?! You really not see the reality... you swallow everything Putin told you...
take time and learn a bit about history, stop to be the little good soldier and became a
human!
Yes, seriously. The armed nationalists are a damngerous force in Ukraine and the
elected politicans are quite rightly scared of these radicals. People die in Ukraine if
they speak out openly against the Nationalist militants, ask Oles Buzina... oh wait, we
can't cuz they killed him.
Speaking out against the Ukro nationalists in 2019 is like speaking out against the
Russian mafia in the 90s and 00s. It's a great way to get yourself killed.
"And this delusion needed to be fixed in order for Russia to be able to start moving
back towards normalcy in relationship with its neighbors."
You can't have normalcy when Ukraine is still ruled on the streets by armed facist
ultra-nationalist scumbags. Once these criminals are disarmed and jailed awaiting trial
then normalcy will have a chance.
Seriously?! You really not see the reality... you swallow everything Putin told you...
take time and learn a bit about history, stop to be the little good soldier and became a
human!
Yes, seriously. The armed nationalists are a damngerous force in Ukraine and the
elected politicans are quite rightly scared of these radicals. People die in Ukraine if
they speak out openly against the Nationalist militants, ask Oles Buzina... oh wait, we
can't cuz they killed him.
Speaking out against the Ukro nationalists in 2019 is like speaking out against the
Russian mafia in the 90s and 00s. It's a great way to get yourself killed.
"Russia’s grievances, real or imagined, are not justifications for the United
States abandoning the pursuit of its own interest and allowing Russian domination of
Eurasia.
But the United States has no legitimate interests in the former Soviet Union. For the
US to think otherwise is to be power drunk and blinded by imperial greed.
It scares to me see that so many of my ignorant countrymen in America seem to have a
sense of manifest destiny regarding the former Soviet land mass. This myopic America
policy is going to lead to disaster for the US. That's because Russia enjoys escalation
dominance in its own sphere, all the way up to the use of nukes in defense. America
cannot possibly justify using that same kind of escalation, which means America will be
the first to blink and then withdraw.
"Russia’s grievances, real or imagined, are not justifications for the United
States abandoning the pursuit of its own interest and allowing Russian domination of
Eurasia.
But the United States has no legitimate interests in the former Soviet Union. For the
US to think otherwise is to be power drunk and blinded by imperial greed.
It scares to me see that so many of my ignorant countrymen in America seem to have a
sense of manifest destiny regarding the former Soviet land mass. This myopic America
policy is going to lead to disaster for the US. That's because Russia enjoys escalation
dominance in its own sphere, all the way up to the use of nukes in defense. America
cannot possibly justify using that same kind of escalation, which means America will be
the first to blink and then withdraw.
It is amusing how Banderites always blame others for their own failures and utter
irrelevance. You violently siezed Ukraine and proceeded to make a slaughterhouse and a
basket-case out of her, but its always someone elses fault... what a good little
empty-headed stormtrooper for Empire you are....
The author likes to write about US "defense of its interests" but what about when
those "interests" are in direct opposition to the real interests of the nations and
peoples in those distant lands? Why should the self-declared and often selfish desires of
the US elites be used as justification for political, financial or outright military
aggression? Are we really going to accept law-of-the-jungle in global relations where the
strong & wealthy get to attack the weak & impoverished simply because doing so is
ostensibly in their "interests"? A burglar ransacks your house while you're out and kills
your dog in the process cuz its in his "interest', but that doesn't make it OK.
Somewhere we need to accept that morality and ethics should be the primary guide as to
how we interact with others. Unfortunately the US elites have long since abandoned any
such constraints or considerations as they aren't really compatible with building a
global hegemony and crushing all resistance to their rule.
"Putin is not blindly militaristic, but always considers the consequences of his
actions, even if he has not always managed to anticipate them correctly (as was the case
with Russian interference in U.S. elections)."
"Russia’s interference in the American political process was serious and
real"
Gimmee a break.... Russian "interference".... The author feels the need to insert this
debunked shibboleth into his article? Surely there isn't a free-thinking individual alive
who still belives this hogwash?
The rise of Putin and anti-American policy was forged in the fires of the former
Yugoslavian conflict where the Russians were dissed by the Clinton administration. The
bombing of the Chinese embassy has also resulted in future ramifications.
I never realized the extent of the Obama administration's interference in the Russian
election. That explains their paranoia about Russian retribution in the 2016 election to
the point where a quasi police state operation interfered in the election and sought to
undermine the Trump administration.
The West looted and pillaged the rest of the world for centuries? What the truth
actually is that many other countries have tried to do the same, but the West was more
successful. ...
I would expect that Putin and his excellent advisors, Lavrov and shoigu, have pretty
much written off any hopes of ever getting a realistic chance for cooperation from the
neo con crowd in Wash, DC. They have said that the us is "agreement incapable," or a
similar phrase.
This neo con crowd sees the loot from wars, military buildups, confrontations, etc and
cannot adjust at all to a multpolar world. The world will continue to suffer from the
bullying, threats, bombast from the neocon crowd.
Right. Russia is a "dangerous adversary" while completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline
with Germany, partnering with Daimler-Benz on the recently constructed $290M Mercedes
factory in Russia, signing a deal with Shell for it to build hundreds of gas stations in
Russia and running a gigantic international trade-expo in St. Petersburg attended by many
big U.S. and European companies looking to cut deals.
Thank God for the Beltway War-Mongers to tell us which way is up...
Thank God for the Beltway War-Mongers to tell us which way is up.. You cannot
blame Beltway War-Mongers for current situation. They know not what war is and they know
not where is up and where is down.
What they do know is how to make a (big) buck - the easy way. There is plenty of money
from the Warfare State / MIC in merely frothing up the Russia fear.
The "scholars" at Heritage, AEI, Brookings and the satellite Neocon "Think Tanks" are
paid multi 6-figures for merely churning out propaganda in service to their MIC
benefactors.
Russia does not threaten to their neighbors. All this propaganda and manipulation is
needed just to frighten Europeans to use their land for US military bases.
Unfortunately too late, Russia is forced towards China, and Russian nationalists
(Kudrin ideology) will rise and next RU president will be right wing populist, and "the
west" will cry for Putin, and for missed chance to contain China!
Agree with your sentiment, but not Kudrin. Russia will become more nationalistic as a
result of Washingtons badly considered policies towards Russia. and the time will come
when they will look back at Putin with regret that they did not consolidate on his
"liberal" (in the true sense) tendencies.
"Russian nationalists (Kudrin ideology)" — what exactly do you mean by that?
Kudrin is on the opposite side of being anything nationalist. Kudrin is a thing like
Kasparov, Illarionov, or Kasyanov... not as of yet been fired in a timely manner due to
some apparent behind-the-scenes arrangement. A treacherous, treasonous mankurt.
Nationalist?
@JW #40
To be fair, the US has a fantastic record of f***ing up countries with aerial bombs. The part
which the Saudis failed to understand is that the US isn't next to any of these countries...
Yemen has a population slightly lower than Texas. Imagine, Washington bombing Texas, only
filled with Texans that have more and heavier weapons(?).
The question mark is because I am not entirely certain that Yemenis are more heavily armed
than Texans, but certainly they're at least as fierce defending themselves.
Wow, that is an outstanding tour d'horizon from Magnier you linked. This is a
keeper to show others who may be amenable to learning about today's Middle East balance of
forces, and how it has been arrived at.
Succinct yet very comprehensive, the piece not only catches up the histories of recent
years, but provides an analysis of today and the near-to-mid-term future - both military and
geopolitical. It speaks of the various lessons learned along the way, including the lessons
being absorbed in real time today as the confrontation between Iran and the US has barely yet
begun and yet racked up totally instructive scores.
The new war is essentially economic; it is a war of sanctions and limiting free movement of
ship movements around the globe. It is a war of tankers and oil platforms. It is a
starvation war where no one can threaten the enemy with a return to the "stone age"
because the firepower is now universally available . Yemen is the best example: the
threat of bombing Dubai forced the Emirates to seek Iranian mediation to prevent a missile
attack against them. The Houthis, despite years of Saudi bombing of Yemen, have also
managed to bomb Saudi airports, military bases and oil stations in the heart of Saudi
Arabia, using cruise missiles and armed drones. [My emphasis]
And Hezbolllah has cemented its standing with nations in the region, expanded its skill
from guerrilla and small-theater to nation-size theater, and this:
It has run intensive courses in the use of its drones, used its precision missiles with
accuracy, produced thousands of highly trained Special Forces and it has fought an enemy
(al-Qaeda) that is much more motivated to fight to the death than any Israeli Special
Forces units. [My emphasis]
Israel is essentially paralyzed. Even to the extent, as Magnier relates, of being careful
to warn Hezbollah drivers before bombing its supply trucks, because "Israel wanted to
avoid human casualties among Hezbollah officers, fully aware of the price of
retaliation. " My emphasis again.
The bad guys have fallen behind - as we know, but as Magnier illustrates so clearly in
this appraisal, with his review of the initial western strategies just a few years ago and
how they have all been rendered null. Even the US now is an antique target for modern missile
and drone technology - and the battle-hardened skill with these weapons definitely resides
with the Levant axis rather than with the imperialists and their dogs.
The future? This:
Gaza, along with Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad, are all highly equipped by Tehran with
sufficient missiles to inflict real damage on Israel and on US forces deployed in the
Middle East. Israel is playing around by targeting various objectives tactically but with
no real strategic purpose- only for Netanyahu to keep himself busy and train his Air Force,
and to gain publicity in the media. Soon, when Syria recovers and Iraq is stronger, the
Israeli promenade will have to cease. Hezbollah in Lebanon may also find a way in the near
future to keep its irregular but organised army busy by firing anti-air missiles against
Israeli jets and imposing new rules of engagement.
That suggest that FBI actions were influenced by Obama administration and CIA to much greater
expent thatn we assuned.
Notable quotes:
"... It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives. ..."
"... The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used.. ..."
In reviewing these 302s there are some salient points I want to bring to your attention.
First, Christopher Steele was terminated as an FBI Confidential Human Source at the end of
September 2016 for leaking to the press. That should have put an end to the relationship.
Instead, the FBI starts using Bruce Ohr, the number four guy at the Department of Justice, as a
cutout. Absolutely no justification for this kind of behavior by the FBI. It is, at a minimum,
unethical and creates a real problem if any of the info collected from Ohr was to be used in a
court proceeding. Something known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" would kick in and the
so-called evidence proffered by Ohr would be inadmissible or unusable because of Steele's
previous lies to the FBI.
Second, Glenn Simpson played a huge role in helping spread anti-Trump propaganda generated
by Steele. In fact, it was Simpson's insistence on Steele speaking with the press that got
Steele terminated as an FBI source.
Third, the FBI knew by mid-December 2016 that Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie, was working with
Simpson and Steele. This too should have set off alarm bells about the potential conflicts of
interest and unethical conduct.
Fourth, evidence used ultimately against Paul Manafort came from Nellie Ohr. If this was not
disclosed to Manafort's attorney's there is a likely Brady violation, which bolster's
Manafort's prospects for an appeal.
Fifth, Steele and Simpson made several claims of fact about Russia ties to the Trump
campaign that were later proven to be false. For example, stating that Michael Cohen was in
Prague meeting the Russians. Important to note that Christopher Steele produced the final
report of the so-called dossier bearing his name on 13 December 2016 yet this information was
"passed" to Ohr one day prior to the date on the report.
Sixth, the "debriefing" of Ohr on 12 December 2016 also provided the foundation for going
after Marina Butina. (See Sara Carter's excellent update on this case
here ). The false information from Steele/Simpson via Bruce Ohr became the pretext for
launching an investigation of Butina, who was working for a wealthy Russian banker, Alexander
Torshin. This too turns out to have been a fabrication. I believe this provides Butina's
attorneys more ammunition for arguing prosecutorial misconduct and failure to provide critical
Brady material.
Seventh, Ohr's report that Simpson and Steele were communicating with the State Department,
including Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland and Kathleen Kavalec makes it clear that State
Department was used as a front to pass on info from the questionable Steele Dossier. This
information was used in the FISA warrant and provided a seemingly reliable justification for
spying on Carter Page (see the Page FISA warrant here
.)
And finally, Fusion GPS, which was hired on behalf of the Clinton Campaign, was regularly
communicating and coordinating with Obama's Department of Justice and Department of State. This
was a complete abuse of power.
Now, here is the summary of the 302s:
11/22/2016 (entered on 12/19/2006)
Ohr met with Steele in 2007 (not sure of date) at a conference.
July 30, 2016 Steele met Ohr for breakfast. Steele claimed Carter Page had met with Russian
Sechin at a conference.
States that Glenn Simpson hired Steele and Ohr's wife to dig up dirt on Trump's connections
to Russia.
Noted that reporting was going to the Clinton Campaign, Jonathan Winer and the FBI.
Ohr met with Steele in late September and was told about Alfa Bank ties to Trump and the
Sergei Millian organization.
Noted that Steele was desperate to stop Trump and to thwart the Kremlin.
Ohr knew that Glenn Simpson and "others" were meeting with Victoria Nuland.
12/05/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (drafted on 12/12/2016)
Glenn Simpson directed Christopher Steele to speak to the press, including David Corn at
Mother Jones.
Ohr provided FBI info on Manafort Chronology prepared by his wife.
12/12/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (Drafted on 12/14/2016)
Ohr states, per Simpson, that Cohen replaced Manafort and Page as the contact with the
Russians.
Says that Cohen met with Russians in Prague.
Claims that Torshin is a Russian mobster and is trying to infiltrate the NRA and was pushing
money to Trump.
Simpson opined that Sergei Millian was an SVR officer and a link to Trump.
12/20/2016 (entered on 12/27/2016)
Thumb drive with Nelly Ohr's research passed to FBI.
1/23/2017 (entered on 1/31/2017) (drafted on 1/25/2017)
Simpson tells Ohr a source will be outed in the coming days.
Steele claims he met with a McCain staffer prior to October 2016
1/25/017 (entered on 1/27/2017)
Ohr spoke with Steele on 25 January 2017.
1/27/2017 (entered on 1/27/2017)
Steele told Ohr he wanted to keep lines of communication open.
02/06/2017 (entered on 02/08/2017)
Ohr contacted by Steele via What'sApp on 31 January 2017. Was reacting to firing of Sally
Yates. Worried that if Ohr got fired he would have no one to talk to.
"Interviewing agents asked Ohr to ask Steele if he would be comfortable getting the name of
an FBI agent."
Ohr reminded agents that Steele had spoken several times prior to 2016 Presidential election
with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec. Ohr identified one of the sources
for Steele's report as a Ukranian.
02/14/2017 (entered on 02/15/2017)
Ohr tells FBI about Steele's concerns about his business. Identifies other lawyer (name
blacked out) he is working with. Steele is preparing a proposal to re-establish his business
releationship with the FBI.
05/08/2017 (entered on 05/10/2017)
Steele tells Ohr that he is worried about Comey's upcoming testimony. Ohr tells Steele what
Comey will say and Steele is "happy."
Ohr said that Glenn Simpson would be visiting Steele soon.
As an aside, note the similarities between Steele and Downer. Both carried some imprimatur of
credibility based on prior government service, and popped up from no where and returned to
relative obscurity after producing a document that was able to be immediately misused by
others for the same purpose.
I'd wondered why anyone would want to involve Downer in these events, the man is a moron.
However, one of his greatest strengths is producing wonderful well written reports, and to
that extent would appear to have been chosen well.
It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining -
that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably
bringing in her ... regime change experience aquired in the Ukraine.
I wonder, did she ever say "Eff the Orange Man too"? Alas. Either way, more interesting to
me is whether she also handed out cookies to Steel and/or Ohr?
As far as financial price of the Ohr & Steel operation goes, compared to the 5+
billion that were according to Nuland proudly poured into Ukraine to get Maidan and backstab
Janukowytsch, hiring Steel to backstab somebody else - Trump - was probably way cheaper -
i.e. 'however illegal, it was more economic'.
That said, I detested Nuland well before this story for her Maidan stuntery and the "Eff
the EU" arrogance, but then, she really made it easy even for an at time even more benevolent
observer.
But the big question that I would be interested to get opinions on is this:
when is all this stuff going to be revealed in a way that not even the readers of the WaPo
NYT et al can deny thet the entire Russia collusion/interference story is false from
beginning to end?
The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is perpetrated,
the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some importance.
Any ideas?
One that occurs to me is that nothing will happen -- it will all dribble out over such a long
time that nothing will ever be ever dramatic and simple enough to make an effect.
My other thought is that Trump & Co wants the big explosive revelations to hit the
street next Mar/Apr so as to destroy the Dems in 2020.
But many of us have known the general outline of the conspiracy for a couple of years, but
nothing big ever hits the street and the lies get dug in a little deeper every day that
they're not exploded.
So, state department honchos--Victoria Nuland, Kavalec and Sally Yates (DOJ)--all had some
knowledge of what was going on, right? And so did national security advisor Susan Rice.
Doesn't that prove that Obama must have been in the loop?
I think it does.
Second, how much of Nellie Ohr's russia research actually ended up in the steele dossier?
I think that it is very unlikely that Chris Steele maintained his sketchy connections in
Russia after the seismic political changes in the early 2000s. It may be that much of the
dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative
that jibed with Simpson's political objectives.
That suggest that FBI actions were influenced by Obama administration and CIA to much greater
expent thatn we assuned.
Notable quotes:
"... It may be that much of the dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative that jibed with Simpson's political objectives. ..."
"... The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used.. ..."
In reviewing these 302s there are some salient points I want to bring to your attention.
First, Christopher Steele was terminated as an FBI Confidential Human Source at the end of
September 2016 for leaking to the press. That should have put an end to the relationship.
Instead, the FBI starts using Bruce Ohr, the number four guy at the Department of Justice, as a
cutout. Absolutely no justification for this kind of behavior by the FBI. It is, at a minimum,
unethical and creates a real problem if any of the info collected from Ohr was to be used in a
court proceeding. Something known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" would kick in and the
so-called evidence proffered by Ohr would be inadmissible or unusable because of Steele's
previous lies to the FBI.
Second, Glenn Simpson played a huge role in helping spread anti-Trump propaganda generated
by Steele. In fact, it was Simpson's insistence on Steele speaking with the press that got
Steele terminated as an FBI source.
Third, the FBI knew by mid-December 2016 that Bruce Ohr's wife, Nellie, was working with
Simpson and Steele. This too should have set off alarm bells about the potential conflicts of
interest and unethical conduct.
Fourth, evidence used ultimately against Paul Manafort came from Nellie Ohr. If this was not
disclosed to Manafort's attorney's there is a likely Brady violation, which bolster's
Manafort's prospects for an appeal.
Fifth, Steele and Simpson made several claims of fact about Russia ties to the Trump
campaign that were later proven to be false. For example, stating that Michael Cohen was in
Prague meeting the Russians. Important to note that Christopher Steele produced the final
report of the so-called dossier bearing his name on 13 December 2016 yet this information was
"passed" to Ohr one day prior to the date on the report.
Sixth, the "debriefing" of Ohr on 12 December 2016 also provided the foundation for going
after Marina Butina. (See Sara Carter's excellent update on this case
here ). The false information from Steele/Simpson via Bruce Ohr became the pretext for
launching an investigation of Butina, who was working for a wealthy Russian banker, Alexander
Torshin. This too turns out to have been a fabrication. I believe this provides Butina's
attorneys more ammunition for arguing prosecutorial misconduct and failure to provide critical
Brady material.
Seventh, Ohr's report that Simpson and Steele were communicating with the State Department,
including Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland and Kathleen Kavalec makes it clear that State
Department was used as a front to pass on info from the questionable Steele Dossier. This
information was used in the FISA warrant and provided a seemingly reliable justification for
spying on Carter Page (see the Page FISA warrant here
.)
And finally, Fusion GPS, which was hired on behalf of the Clinton Campaign, was regularly
communicating and coordinating with Obama's Department of Justice and Department of State. This
was a complete abuse of power.
Now, here is the summary of the 302s:
11/22/2016 (entered on 12/19/2006)
Ohr met with Steele in 2007 (not sure of date) at a conference.
July 30, 2016 Steele met Ohr for breakfast. Steele claimed Carter Page had met with Russian
Sechin at a conference.
States that Glenn Simpson hired Steele and Ohr's wife to dig up dirt on Trump's connections
to Russia.
Noted that reporting was going to the Clinton Campaign, Jonathan Winer and the FBI.
Ohr met with Steele in late September and was told about Alfa Bank ties to Trump and the
Sergei Millian organization.
Noted that Steele was desperate to stop Trump and to thwart the Kremlin.
Ohr knew that Glenn Simpson and "others" were meeting with Victoria Nuland.
12/05/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (drafted on 12/12/2016)
Glenn Simpson directed Christopher Steele to speak to the press, including David Corn at
Mother Jones.
Ohr provided FBI info on Manafort Chronology prepared by his wife.
12/12/2016 (entered on 12/19/2016) (Drafted on 12/14/2016)
Ohr states, per Simpson, that Cohen replaced Manafort and Page as the contact with the
Russians.
Says that Cohen met with Russians in Prague.
Claims that Torshin is a Russian mobster and is trying to infiltrate the NRA and was pushing
money to Trump.
Simpson opined that Sergei Millian was an SVR officer and a link to Trump.
12/20/2016 (entered on 12/27/2016)
Thumb drive with Nelly Ohr's research passed to FBI.
1/23/2017 (entered on 1/31/2017) (drafted on 1/25/2017)
Simpson tells Ohr a source will be outed in the coming days.
Steele claims he met with a McCain staffer prior to October 2016
1/25/017 (entered on 1/27/2017)
Ohr spoke with Steele on 25 January 2017.
1/27/2017 (entered on 1/27/2017)
Steele told Ohr he wanted to keep lines of communication open.
02/06/2017 (entered on 02/08/2017)
Ohr contacted by Steele via What'sApp on 31 January 2017. Was reacting to firing of Sally
Yates. Worried that if Ohr got fired he would have no one to talk to.
"Interviewing agents asked Ohr to ask Steele if he would be comfortable getting the name of
an FBI agent."
Ohr reminded agents that Steele had spoken several times prior to 2016 Presidential election
with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec. Ohr identified one of the sources
for Steele's report as a Ukranian.
02/14/2017 (entered on 02/15/2017)
Ohr tells FBI about Steele's concerns about his business. Identifies other lawyer (name
blacked out) he is working with. Steele is preparing a proposal to re-establish his business
releationship with the FBI.
05/08/2017 (entered on 05/10/2017)
Steele tells Ohr that he is worried about Comey's upcoming testimony. Ohr tells Steele what
Comey will say and Steele is "happy."
Ohr said that Glenn Simpson would be visiting Steele soon.
As an aside, note the similarities between Steele and Downer. Both carried some imprimatur of
credibility based on prior government service, and popped up from no where and returned to
relative obscurity after producing a document that was able to be immediately misused by
others for the same purpose.
I'd wondered why anyone would want to involve Downer in these events, the man is a moron.
However, one of his greatest strengths is producing wonderful well written reports, and to
that extent would appear to have been chosen well.
It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining -
that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably
bringing in her ... regime change experience aquired in the Ukraine.
I wonder, did she ever say "Eff the Orange Man too"? Alas. Either way, more interesting to
me is whether she also handed out cookies to Steel and/or Ohr?
As far as financial price of the Ohr & Steel operation goes, compared to the 5+
billion that were according to Nuland proudly poured into Ukraine to get Maidan and backstab
Janukowytsch, hiring Steel to backstab somebody else - Trump - was probably way cheaper -
i.e. 'however illegal, it was more economic'.
That said, I detested Nuland well before this story for her Maidan stuntery and the "Eff
the EU" arrogance, but then, she really made it easy even for an at time even more benevolent
observer.
But the big question that I would be interested to get opinions on is this:
when is all this stuff going to be revealed in a way that not even the readers of the WaPo
NYT et al can deny thet the entire Russia collusion/interference story is false from
beginning to end?
The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is perpetrated,
the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some importance.
Any ideas?
One that occurs to me is that nothing will happen -- it will all dribble out over such a long
time that nothing will ever be ever dramatic and simple enough to make an effect.
My other thought is that Trump & Co wants the big explosive revelations to hit the
street next Mar/Apr so as to destroy the Dems in 2020.
But many of us have known the general outline of the conspiracy for a couple of years, but
nothing big ever hits the street and the lies get dug in a little deeper every day that
they're not exploded.
So, state department honchos--Victoria Nuland, Kavalec and Sally Yates (DOJ)--all had some
knowledge of what was going on, right? And so did national security advisor Susan Rice.
Doesn't that prove that Obama must have been in the loop?
I think it does.
Second, how much of Nellie Ohr's russia research actually ended up in the steele dossier?
I think that it is very unlikely that Chris Steele maintained his sketchy connections in
Russia after the seismic political changes in the early 2000s. It may be that much of the
dossier was created out of whole cloth by Nellie Ohr who was tasked to create a narrative
that jibed with Simpson's political objectives.
Is this the end of the neoliberal counterrevolution in Argentina ? Moor did its duty moor has
to go -- Macri converted Argentina into the Debt slave again and now to get out of this situation
is nest to impossible.
Argentine president suffers crushing defeat in key primaries ahead of general election
Argentina's President Mauricio Macri suffered a crushing defeat as people voted in party
primaries on Sunday ahead of October's general election.
Given that all of the recession-hit South American country's major parties have already
chosen their presidential candidates, the primaries effectively served as a nationwide
pre-election opinion poll.
Center-left nominee Alberto Fernandez led by around 15 points after partial results were
revealed. Center-right Pro-business Macri admitted it had been "a bad election."
The first round of the presidential election will be held on October 27, with a run-off
– if needed – set for November 24.
With 87 percent of polling station results counted, Fernandez had polled 47.5 percent with
Macri on a little more than 32 percent and centrist former finance minister Roberto Lavagna a
distant third on just 8.3 percent.
Macri had been hoping to earn a second mandate, but his chances appear all but over.
If Fernandez was to register the same result in October, he would be president as
Argentina's electoral law requires a candidate to gain 45 percent for outright victory, or 40
percent and a lead of at least 10 points over the nearest challenger.
Inflation and poverty
"We've had a bad election and that forces us to redouble our efforts from tomorrow," said
Macri, whose popularity has plunged since last year's currency crisis and the much-criticized
56 billion U.S.-dollar bail-out loan he secured from the International Monetary Fund.
"It hurts that we haven't had the support we'd hoped for," he added.
Argentina is currently in a recession and posted 22 percent inflation for the first
half of the year – one of the highest rates in the world. Poverty now affects 32
percent of the population.
Backed by the IMF, Macri has initiated an austerity plan that is deeply unpopular among
ordinary Argentines, who have seen their spending power plummet.
The peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year. The Buenos Aires stock
exchange actually shot up eight percent on Friday amid expectation that Macri would do well
in Sunday's vote.
An important task now is to understand why the IMF assistance to Argentina proved damaging to
the economy from the beginning; the data showed the damage being done. However, there was
almost no mention of the problems that developed outside Argentina and there was surprise
when the failure of the economy was reflected in the serious vote against the current
president.
Of course, Joseph Stiglitz watched the same sort of problems unfold in Argentina almost 20
years ago and was severely criticized for discussing them. How did the problems recur so
readily now? Why is IMF national assistance seemingly so dangerous economically?
State Department was a real neocon rats nest, no question about it.
Notable quotes:
"... It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining - that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably bringing in her ... regime change experience acquired in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is perpetrated, the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some importance. ..."
"... The ukraine is probably behind a great deal of the "info" the democrats and fib used.. ..."
It is, however despicable the whole story is, suggesting - and in its own way entertaining -
that apparently the experienced gutter lady "Eff the EU" Nuland was also involved, probably
bringing in her ... regime change experience acquired in the Ukraine.
I wonder, did she ever say "Eff the Orange Man too"? Alas. Either way, more interesting to
me is whether she also handed out cookies to Steel and/or Ohr?
As far as financial price of the Ohr & Steel operation goes, compared to the 5+
billion that were according to Nuland proudly poured into Ukraine to get Maidan and backstab
Janukowytsch, hiring Steel to backstab somebody else - Trump - was probably way cheaper -
i.e. 'however illegal, it was more economic'.
That said, I detested Nuland well before this story for her Maidan stuntery and the "Eff
the EU" arrogance, but then, she really made it easy even for an at time even more benevolent
observer.
But the big question that I would be interested to get opinions on is this:
when is all this stuff going to be revealed in a way that not even the readers of the WaPo
NYT et al can deny thet the entire Russia collusion/interference story is false from
beginning to end?
The longer the Russia-interfered-in-our-election-and-everybody-else's lie is
perpetrated, the closer we all get to nuclear annihilation. So it's a matter of some
importance.
Any ideas? One that occurs to me is that nothing will happen -- it will all dribble out
over such a long time that nothing will ever be ever dramatic and simple enough to make an
effect.
My other thought is that Trump & Co wants the big explosive revelations to hit the
street next Mar/Apr so as to destroy the Dems in 2020.
But many of us have known the general outline of the conspiracy for a couple of years, but
nothing big ever hits the street and the lies get dug in a little deeper every day that
they're not exploded.
We all know what is to be expected from a "security zone" secured by both, Turkey and USA,
as a sample, Idlib, Al Tanf, Raqqa, and so on...We happen to have the brains to understand,
at this heights, the same than for "humanitarian intervention", just the opposite...
Then all the current and agressive intends of "colour revolutions" in the making in HK and
Russia does not match with "greatly reduce Outlaw Empire" at all, neither do the former
intend of coup d état in Venezuela, looting of all Venezuelan assets, and current
blockade for starvation and deprivation of everything, included medical essentials, plus the
same in Yemen, and continuing without stop for decades now in Cuba...
Why do you, man, along with quite a bunch of others, after all what we have seen and read,
try to again whitewash Trump?
Are you, by any casuality, also one of those beneficiaires, as it is Pat Lang, of the super
tax cut The Donald has awarded to the highest incomes?( no need to be a billionaire, like all
Trump´s friends, it´s enough with having done about six ciphers/year while in the
US military or the MIC...
The U.S. Air Force's Secret X-37B Space Plane: A War Machine?..
The fifth and latest X-37B mission could send the mini-shuttle over large portions of
Russian territory for the first time
####
I don't like Axe and these NI clickbaity/excitable articles, but several things spring to
mind. considering it flies lower than any satellited and takes advantage of aerodynamic drag
to manoeuver (much more efficiently) quickly than any satellite and is testing thermal
systems, is this also could be used in future as an Orbital Bomber, i.e. loaded up with nukes
and dropped on new targets as needed and at short notice? It doesn't need to make economic
sense if it adds capabilities and there is profit to be made by LM/Boeing/Whomever.
My other thought, is the USA dumb enough to fly this low over Russia which would be asking
for it to be shot down? I doubt it, but stupid seems to be the rule rather than the except in
the US. We've already seen over the Gulf of Hormuz that there is a de facto and recognized
disctinction between shooting down an unmanned drone (Globalhawk) and a manned spy plane
(P-8a), particularly near, by or over someone else's borders. The X-37 is certainly no
satellite and even for most of the Cold War the US did not fly a spy plane over the Soviet
Union (apart from when they had the Brits do it for them instead – sic Gary
Powers).
Still, it's interesting that it's popped up now despite being in the news over the last
few years, yet another news item treated as a curiousity rather noted by Defense
correspondents as yet another potential US treaty violation Optics, innit?
I'd like to see Russia put up a giant flying garage, maneuver the X-37B into it, close the
door and take it. Keep it for about a week, and then send it back with a bear painted on the
side, wrapped in a giant diaper, with a poster in the window that reads "Crazy Igor's
Clearance Sale; Novichok Half Off! Everything Must Go!". And when the Americans opened the
door to retrieve the payload, a concealed audio player would play "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy"
in farts. Trolled enough?
"... The Saker also strongly criticized Milosevic for seeking an accommodation with the West after sustaining a brutal 70+ day all-out aerial assault by NATO and ground assault by Albania. He was silent on Russia's cowardly abandonment of Serbia leaving it to face the West utterly alone. ..."
"... The Saker can deliver a good analysis from time to time but can fail spectacularly as well. IIRC, he predicted that no one in Ukraine would lift a finger to stop Western domination (wrong), completely missed Crimea (just about everyone missed that in his defense) and that Russia would never intervene in Syria as it had no compelling national interest to protect (wrong again). He is right just enough to remain interesting. ..."
The Saker is back on his high horse – criticizing Gabbard for not going down in flames
as she tries to navigate the myriad of traps laid out the the US Government and MSM.
The Saker also strongly criticized Milosevic for seeking an accommodation with the West
after sustaining a brutal 70+ day all-out aerial assault by NATO and ground assault by
Albania. He was silent on Russia's cowardly abandonment of Serbia leaving it to face the West
utterly alone.
The Saker can deliver a good analysis from time to time but can fail spectacularly as
well. IIRC, he predicted that no one in Ukraine would lift a finger to stop Western
domination (wrong), completely missed Crimea (just about everyone missed that in his defense)
and that Russia would never intervene in Syria as it had no compelling national interest to
protect (wrong again). He is right just enough to remain interesting.
On September 13, 2018, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard took to the floor of the House
to rebuke the administration, accusing President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence of
protecting "al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria," all the while "threatening Russia,
Syria, and Iran, with military force if they dare attack these terrorists."
####
In under a minute, Gabbard shredded Harris to pieces for jailing more than 1,500
nonviolent marijuana offenders while admitting in a radio interview that she had smoked
marijuana in college, and for her "tough-on-crime" stances. "She blocked evidence that would
have freed an innocent man from death row she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to
use them as cheap labor and she fought to keep the cash bail system in place," Gabbard
continued, leaving Harris unable to counter.
The MSM is having a difficult time ignoring her. She may have a chance. I will make
another donation to her campaign.
She beat Harris like a red-headed stepchild. Her monotonous reiteration "I'm proud of my
record" reminded me of the Breakfast Moment in Happy Gilmour, when Shooter McGavin mocks
Happy for daring to challenge him in golf.
Shooter: "Oh, you're on. But you're in big trouble, pal. I eat pieces of shit like you for
breakfast."
thern Star
August 2, 2019 at 4:31 am Very cogent..
A lot of the crucial but easily overlooked put on the table.
Never underestimate the significance of the obvious!
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August 2, 2019 at 4:44 pm I think a lot of people DID see that coming, to the extent that the
only behavior acceptable today in the American political milieu is a rehash of that sophomore's
question, "Can you say in one sentence or less what makes America the Greatest Country In The
World?" The American media typically pleats that 'the system is broken', but not during election
season. Then, America is the greatest and running on all cylinders, and the successful candidate
is the one who will convince voters that, rather than fix the whatever system, he/she/ze/zir
(it's only a matter of time) will take a system that is the best in the world and make itr
squeeze out even more happiness and satisfaction for Americans. Anyway, if you go off-message
with that, you are under the soulless influence of the Russians.
Anyway, it looks as if the democrats have gone to the well too often with that Russian
bullshit, and people are starting to get impatient with the cop-out – it's just an excuse
for having no good answer. You can always say, "X is because Russia". I think Harris just bit the
dust, and will lose a lot of support over this and gradually drop out. I got a kick out of the
"Gabbard is a non-issue, and won't even make the second debates" or something to that effect.
Whoever smugly said that was apparently asleep when a Ukrainian comedian who plays a president on
TV won the presidency in a landslide. The incumbent once thought it was safe to laugh politely at
him, because he was a non-issue, too.
I saw this story also on the same site, although it was not necessary to click on it, for
obvious reasons.
"A salute to the bravery of Olga Misik, 17, who during recent bloody protests for free
Moscow elections sat before Putin's armed-to-the-teeth goons and calmly read aloud the Russian
constitution, including Article 31 affirming the right to peaceful political assembly. She was
later arrested and allegedly beaten. "Injustice always concerns everyone," said Olga, who takes
the long view of repression. "Today the Moscow City Duma, tomorrow the governor of the region It
is only a matter of time."
'Bloody protests for free Moscow elections'?? They were bloody? Really? and the issue was free
Moscow elections? Not candidates being allowed to run despite having been disqualified for not
reaching the signatory threshold? The game of coming up with enough signatures to demonstrate a
valid support base is an old one, trawling the obituaries and all manner of dodges to come up
with enough for people who don't really have any support, but want a soapbox from which to squawk
their message and then say they were cheated of victory by the Kremlin. Putin's
armed-to-the-teeth goons? Really? American police called to control demonstrations are unarmed?
Since when? Does arming them make them goons? I can't see their teeth – how does the
reporter know they are armed to the teeth? Olga takes the long view of repression, does she? From
the jaded pinnacle of 17? I'm surprised they did not ask her views on gay sex – she's old
enough. Just.
Embarrassing western hyperbole – a Russian review of the PISA tests that descended to
the same level might read, "A salute to the simple-mindedness of the Amerikantsi 'students', who
must have gone to school at a mental institution, or been taught by the homeless lunatics that
abound in and around Amerikantsi cities. Once again they managed to score so poorly that one
might reasonably wonder if they arrived at the testing institution by accident, thinking instead
that they were being taken to see one of the violence-and-profanity-riddled Amerikantsi movies
that pollute the television and cause the Amerikantsi schoolchildren to shoot each other as if
they lived inside a video game where it is not real blood. It's difficult to imagine a sensible
explanation for such a dismal performance, in which they finished below the OECD average in every
category."
But you won't see anything like that in a Russian newspaper, or hear it on a Russian news
program. Because they don't act like the country is run by hysterical 12-year-olds. However, if
the Americans want to pin their new hopes for Putin's political immolation on some 17-year-old
attention-junkie bint, they should knock themselves out. They are merely hardening Russian
opinion against them, and they may not care but some day they will. And then they will wail, "Why
do they hate us? It must be because of our freedom!"
I was particularly intrigued by the mention of the Democrats getting caught fabricating fake
Russian troll accounts to pretend the Russians were trying to influence some state election or
other, I forget what, supposedly reported in the Times. I didn't see that, and I don't recall
anyone mentioning it here.
Like
ReplyMark Chapman
August 2, 2019 at 3:10 pm A very cogent argument for (a) keeping the debates agenda-free and
independently managed, and (2) a less-insane democratic party.
The testimony of Robert Mueller should have marked the end of a national nightmare.
Instead, a new legend was born
This myth died on television .
Mueller on the stand was a potted plant. Reporters saw Moses and Jesus. If you need
evidence we're in a religious mania, look no further. This was a pure exercise in restoring
an idol for worship
In mid-March, just before Mueller's probe wrapped up, CNN found a whopping zero percent
of Americans identified "Russian investigation" as their primary concern heading into 2020.
The network wrote (emphasis mine):..,
ussiagate should be dead. Instead, it's gaining new life, with impeachment looking like
the New Testament phase of the religion
####
Every time I read a piece by Matt Taibbi, I ask myself, "Why don't you read Matt Taibbi more
often?" By God, he can write – I nearly horked up a lung when he described John Brennan
as a 'paranoid outpatient'. His descriptions of the frantic dissembling amongst the Democrats
create passages in which you can actually smell the despair and incoherent rage, like burnt
hair.
The whole Mueller testimonial dirge will turn out to have only divided Americans further.
Republicans will chuckle with satisfaction at watching Mueller fly into a window like a
careless jackdaw, while Democrats will sense that something crazy happened but that this is a
time for blind loyalty. And never the twain shall meet. The fact that that was supposed to be
East and West makes the irony but more pronounced.
I figured that since 'gaslighting' is a relatively new term, and although I already had a
general idea what it meant from context, it would be best to look it up. I was surprised to
learn the concept of ' gaslighting ' has been around since 1938.
"a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a
targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory,
perception, and sanity. Using persistent denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying,
gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim's
belief."
In America's case, gaslighting – like charity – begins at home, and the
full
force of US government efforts to convince the skeptical that America is more powerful and
influential than ever, is still kicking ass and taking names, is felt by Americans.
I repeat the assessment of Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity (VIPS), to the effect
that the hack – if you can call it that – could not have been carried out over
the internet, as the data-transfer rate was far too high. In fact, it had all the
fingerprints of a portable device such as a thumb drive, coupled directly to the server at a
convenient USB port. And then Democratic staffer Seth Rich died, with no convincing
explanation for his death. Conservative American techhies tried to explain it away with a
barrage of bullshit about how that level of bandwidth could be realized over the internet and
how various tags and suchlike proved it was the Russians, but the Russians certainly would
know better by now than to leave those kinds of traces, and the US intelligence agencies are
quite proud of their ability to insert identifiers to make a transmission appear to have
originated someplace else. It's kind of like how Israel and the Ukrainian SBU destroyed
people's faith in voice intercepts.
The latter reference, despite its hopeful headline, merely argues the election was not
'hacked'; it was 'meddled with', and since the Russians wanted Trump to win, they probably
did get up to mischief, we're pretty sure.
This one even speculates that Russia wants American voters to know it can hack them
anytime it likes.
The electorate is now so polarized, demoralized and witless with fear and fury that voting
in America is merely a knee-jerk homage to democracy. Nobody will be remotely surprised if
the winner is not who they voted for, even if everyone says "Hey! I voted for him/her too!!"
They will just look at each other, nod significantly, and whisper "The Russians". And when
you think about it, that's just about where the US government wants them, except for the part
about their legitimacy being conferred by Vladimir Putin. That's going to be a hard one for
the winner to spin away.
US intelligence agencies are quite proud of their ability to insert identifiers to make a
transmission appear to have originated someplace else. ..
Yes, the famous 'Vault 7' set of NSA tools that were leaked, including a reversing tool so
that they can check if someone is trying to pass off their sneaky cyber stuff as American
when it's not.
"PART II: Gaslighting
Author's Note: Because "NATO" these days is little more than a box of spare parts out of
which Washington assembles "coalitions of the willing", it's easier for me to write "NATO"
than "Washington plus/minus these or those minions".
Both Devastating .Absolutely spot on devastating: (Above is excerpt from the first
link)
"The majority of Americans accept mass murder under the pretext of the right to protect,
because their ability to form rational and reasoned opinions has been engineered out of them.
This is now the definition of US exceptionalism. It is their ability to manipulate the world
into accepting their lawlessness and global hegemony agenda. In seeking to impose its own
image upon our world the US has drifted so far from its founding principles, one wonders how
they will ever return to them. They have employed a recognised form of torture to ensure
capitulation to their mission of world domination which entails the mental, physical and
spiritual torture of target civilian populations.
In conclusion, the US has indeed achieved exceptionalism. The US has become an exceptional
global executioner and persecutor of Humanity. Imperialism is a euphemism for the depths of
abuse the US is inflicting upon the people of this world."
Look out for the bad reviews from The Fraudian's writers: Luke Harding can be relied on to
add his 2 cents' worth of conspiracy paranoid garbage, Shaun Walker will be parsing the book
for dill references and non-Russia experts like Marina Hyde and Natalie Nougat-head will want
a crack as well at reviewing the book.
Probably the only half-decent reviews will be from Mary Dejevski and Prof. Stephen Cohen
but theirs will be buried in a back page or inaccessible behind an Error 404 wall.
This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it
6 (UK) Division is the new organisational home for the Army's "asymmetric edge",
comprising all things "Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence, Information Operations, Electronic
Warfare, Cyber and Unconventional Warfare".
Launched this morning, 6 Div is a rebranding of the formation formerly known as Force
Troops Command, which covered a hotchpotch of Royal Signals, Intelligence Corps and other
units, including the infamous 77 Brigade
####
Don't forget to hit the comments for hilarity!
Also, the timing of the announcement says plenty, i.e. slipping it in to the news stream
when people have already gone on holiday and all the BREXIT and other bollocks. I've not seen
this reported on the tv in the UK – which is currently facing severe flooding etc.
Is it just me or is all the PPNN reporting that 'Putin's support has dropped to levels
not seen since 2011!'. Of course they don't actually give you any numbers and cherry pick
dodgy poll numbers but there really is this Pavlovian reaction anytime there is a
demonstration in Russia, like undertakers gathering at an allegedly dangerous road crossing
waiting for some cyclist to be dragged under a trash lorry so that they can tut tut and then
profit from the cyclist's misfortune. Nix that, the PPNN are just professional versions of
MacBeth's witches, something which they don't understand is a story .
Putin is in as much danger of being unceremoniously chucked out of office as he is of choking
to death on his grandmother's knitting. The west is ever hopeful, and dutifully rallies to
the glorification of every new dissident firebrand, but whether or not they know it, they are
just going through the motions. The only group, and I mean the only one, that would benefit
from Putin's overthrow would be the disaffected kreakliy and the poncy forgotten
semi-intellectuals. They would be feted by the west as political visionaries, and perhaps
given minor government positions to satisfy their vanity. But who else would make out like a
bandit? The military? Hardly – the west, after years of giggling about Russia's
decrepit military, lapsed into an uneasy silence on the subject just about the time that
long-distance Kalibr cruise-missile attack took place from the Caspian Sea into Syria, and a
west given meddling-room would want to disband the Russian military, if anything, down to a
token force of absolutely-trustworthy sycophants who would probably be issued with American
weapons. The oligarchs? Hardly – western business would be snapping up former state
assets while simultaneously carrying out an 'anti-corruption drive' under the new President's
imprimatur. Small businesses? Hardly – corporate interest would be in melding large
state interests into the Corporate Borg, and their method is to squeeze out small business in
order to expand market share. The people? Hardly – Russia would be a convenient place
to move all the refugee immigrants from that entire hemisphere, while the stubborn loyalty of
the population to Putin would not be forgotten.
It is no coincidence that it is always the same people who show up to bitch and carp about
how dreadful Putin is, and how Russia needs American-style freedom and democracy and non-stop
Pride parades and all the trappings of fresh admission to Club West. They are the only people
who would stand to benefit from driving Putin out. Nobody else is interested.
They're just trying to get some mileage out of Olga what's-her-name, and make it look like a
drop in Putin's poll numbers happened exactly at the moment this young political firebrand
emerged. Pretty sad, really, but you can't tell 'em, and it wouldn't make any difference.
They have to try, it's the same instinct that makes a dog lick its nose if you smear cheese
on it. The western media would rush to interview and endorse a talking Russian toad if it
said "I hate Putin".
BTW, the i-Sreali papers are claiming that it was Nut&Yahoo who put particular pressure
on t-Rump to drop Turkey from the F-35 program because Turkey was 'no longer reliable and too
close to the Russians'.
This is curious because Nut&Yahoo (and others) valued Russian links but in the last
few years others have spoken openly that Russia was more of a hindrance than a help. So it
looks like the desperate 'election/no-election/election' Nut&Yahoo has shifted
significantly his ground – or should that be burning his bridges . After all, if
he and others cannot be bothered, then the calculation in Moscow changes too.
Which leads us to a stragtegic shift/realignment, i.e. heading in to the unknown which is
quite a risky bet more so Tel Aviv/Washington than Moscow.
If you are interested in reading history, looking for clear events marking big shi(f)ts in
international relations is part of the sothsaying and speculation. Is this one of them?
That might well be true, but only a fucking retard would have listened to him unless he was
proposing some kind of deal in which Israel would either buy another 100 F-35's (a joke in
itself, since it buys most of its American-made 'defense' equipment with American taxpayers'
money), or somehow otherwise make up for the financial loss. Not to mention that every F-35
cancellation – for whatever reason – increases the pressure on other uncertain
buyers who have heard whispers about what a flying Coke machine it is to drop out. This is
supposed to be America's front-line fighter for the next thirty years, allowing for upgrades.
And they just lost a couple of Billion in sales, and made the undelivered future airframes
more expensive, because the money realized from sold aircraft is supposed to go straight back
into production.
The U.S. Air Force's Secret X-37B Space Plane: A War Machine?..
The fifth and latest X-37B mission could send the mini-shuttle over large portions of
Russian territory for the first time
####
I don't like Axe and these NI clickbaity/excitable articles, but several things spring to
mind. considering it flies lower than any satellited and takes advantage of aerodynamic drag
to manoeuver (much more efficiently) quickly than any satellite and is testing thermal
systems, is this also could be used in future as an Orbital Bomber, i.e. loaded up with nukes
and dropped on new targets as needed and at short notice? It doesn't need to make economic
sense if it adds capabilities and there is profit to be made by LM/Boeing/Whomever.
My other thought, is the USA dumb enough to fly this low over Russia which would be asking
for it to be shot down? I doubt it, but stupid seems to be the rule rather than the except in
the US. We've already seen over the Gulf of Hormuz that there is a de facto and recognized
disctinction between shooting down an unmanned drone (Globalhawk) and a manned spy plane
(P-8a), particularly near, by or over someone else's borders. The X-37 is certainly no
satellite and even for most of the Cold War the US did not fly a spy plane over the Soviet
Union (apart from when they had the Brits do it for them instead – sic Gary
Powers).
Still, it's interesting that it's popped up now despite being in the news over the last
few years, yet another news item treated as a curiousity rather noted by Defense
correspondents as yet another potential US treaty violation Optics, innit?
I'd like to see Russia put up a giant flying garage, maneuver the X-37B into it, close the
door and take it. Keep it for about a week, and then send it back with a bear painted on the
side, wrapped in a giant diaper, with a poster in the window that reads "Crazy Igor's
Clearance Sale; Novichok Half Off! Everything Must Go!". And when the Americans opened the
door to retrieve the payload, a concealed audio player would play "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy"
in farts. Trolled enough?
Yet again, lying by omission . Their 'Defense Correspondent' Jonathan Marcus notes
briefly that W. Bush pulled out of the ABM Treaty in 2002 and that Russia announce pulling
out of it in 2007 but does not explain why, i.e. the combination of the following:
a) expanding these 'defensive' ABM sites to the lo-land of Po-land & also Romania
b) the universal Mk.41 launchers can also fire nuclear capable Tomahawk cruise missiles at
Russia from much closer ranges = less reaction time = reduced deterrence effect =
increases the chance of nuclear first strike against Russia, and thus
c) denied/refused Russia any means to verify the non-use of nukes for the launchers just
saying 'Trust us!' which is complete bs considering all the previous promises made and
not kept.
None of the linked articles therein mention Russia's objections. But then Marcus is
only a 'Defence correspondent' (such small details clearly aren't important in the grand
scheme of things) and he can always get a future job at NATO as a Spokesman like previous BBC
journos Oana Lungescu & Mark Laity. In a fight between Jonathan Marcus & Mark Urban,
who do you think would replace Oana? Or someone else? They all do sterling government
service
Oooh, looky here! The BBC inches itself up the line which if crossed would constitute
journalism . Why don't they just jump on in? It's safe as long as your patrons –
Da Gov – and the intelligence services don't go after you (Hello 'Guardian'!):
In an earlier statement, Russia's foreign ministry said the US decision to withdraw was
"a grave mistake".
It also accused America of violating the treaty by deploying MK-41 launchers in Europe,
capable of firing intermediate-range cruise missiles
####
So the plus is, above they actually link to the Russian Foreign Ministry statement, but no
further. The big minus is that they wrote far, far more about Russia's 'violations'.
That t-Rump thinks Russia, let alone China is excited about joining a new deal,
hahahahahahahah!
We also discover that go to and favorite 'defense expert' (MGU Candidate of Sciences
Biology degree!) for the Pork Pie News Networks Pavel Felgenhauer is not dead!
"... Cute – immediate goal, humanitarian aid so everybody gets a couple of free meals and some medicine. Next job, roll back socialism. At which time all the poor will not be able to afford to eat or get medicine. But who'll give a fuck then, right? Because corporate America will already be in charge by then, kicking ass and taking names and privatizing everything so that even Guaido will not be able to say he owns anything in Venezuela but his house. And of course, the equation for Venezuelans has not changed a bit: Captain America really wants to help, but it has to be under Guaido – they're really, really stuck on him for some reason. So it's Guaido or starvation. What's it gonna be, Venezuela? ..."
"In a post-Maduro Venezuela, the U.S. will remove sanctions, foster pro-market and
pro-business reforms and help rebuild confidence, Ross said. An immediate priority will be
providing humanitarian aid, while a medium-term focus will be rolling back socialism, Ross
said."
They are even promising to privatize garbage collection and sewer system! In the
medium-term focus, of course. Immediate focus on reign of terror, while handing out tins of
spam to the swarming masses. After that, setting up slave markets, just like in Tripoli!
Cute – immediate goal, humanitarian aid so everybody gets a couple of free meals and
some medicine. Next job, roll back socialism. At which time all the poor will not be able to
afford to eat or get medicine. But who'll give a fuck then, right? Because corporate America
will already be in charge by then, kicking ass and taking names and privatizing everything so
that even Guaido will not be able to say he owns anything in Venezuela but his house. And of
course, the equation for Venezuelans has not changed a bit: Captain America really wants to
help, but it has to be under Guaido – they're really, really stuck on him for some
reason. So it's Guaido or starvation. What's it gonna be, Venezuela?
I hope somebody else will help them out. I'd dearly love to see Venezuela get on its feet
without American assistance, and then tell the entire Yoo Ess of Aye to kiss its ass. No more
heavy crude for your refineries, maybe you can turn them into basket shops, what say? No
thanks; we'll buy our food elsewhere, if it's all the same to you. Oh, and Bolsonaro? Eat a
bag of shit. Invite your Colombian buddy over for dinner
Yes, I meant to remark on that as well. It's funny that the western regime-change model
relies on countries loaned huge amounts of money to be enslaved by their honesty, and
actually pay it back.
"... Poroshenko has previously been involved in eleven criminal cases, in particular, as regards his abuse of power and his official position in the distribution of posts in "Tsentrenergo", his treason in connection with the incident in the Kerch Strait, his usurpation of judicial power and his misappropriation of the TV channel "Direct", his falsification of documents in the formation of Deputy factions in 2016, and his illegal appointment of a government, and the seizure of power. ..."
"... In addition, as a witness, he was questioned about civilian deaths during the Euromaidan protests in 2014. ..."
"... I could see them having a quiet word with Zelenskiy, maybe leave the old man out of it, what do you say? But Washington is already accused – with substantial justification, I would say – of running the show in Ukraine, and there are limits to how much obvious interfering it can do; especially after Biden's bragging about getting the state prosecutor fired. ..."
Poroshenko has asked the US for help with criminal cases in the Ukraine, writes
media
05:31
MOSCOW, 1 Jul – RIA Novosti.The former President of the Ukraine Petro
Poroshenko is in Istanbul, where he has turned to American companies to lobby for protection
from criminal cases, reports "
Ukraine News " with reference to sources.
It has been noted that in the Ukraine changes have been made as regards the criminal
cases against Poroshenko. In particular, in May 2019, the former-president's lawyer Igor
Golovan stated that these criminal cases would not entail any legal consequences, but now
Poroshenko's entourage realizes that the criminal prosecution of the former president has
noticeably intensified and may have consequences.
Therefore, according to the newspaper, in Turkey Poroshenko has started to lobbying
U.S. companies, in particular, the BGR group, for assistance in resolving these
cases.
"He is well aware that everything that happens in the RRG (State Bureau of
investigation – trans. ed.) is taken very seriously, and he intends to defend himself
against attacks. He can, for example, be expecting public support in Washington if there is
an attempt made to arrest him", said the source.
In addition, the publication cites the words of Ukrainian political scientist Alexei
Yakubin, who has noted that Poroshenko could repeat the "Saakashvili scenario".
"For example, he'll leave for treatment in London, where part of his entourage has
entrenched itself. But this model complicates the public protection of his business assets
within the country, which assets might be seized", he said.
The case against Poroshenko
Poroshenko has previously been involved in eleven criminal cases, in particular, as regards
his abuse of power and his official position in the distribution of posts in "Tsentrenergo",
his treason in connection with the incident in the Kerch Strait, his usurpation of judicial
power and his misappropriation of the TV channel "Direct", his falsification of documents in
the formation of Deputy factions in 2016, and his illegal appointment of a government, and
the seizure of power.
In addition, as a witness, he was questioned about civilian deaths during the
Euromaidan protests in 2014.
Poroshenko himself, speaking at the party congress of "European Business", said that he
is responsible only before the Ukrainian people and is not afraid of persecution.
Quite right, old man; keep your chin up. I daresay they're staying in quite prestigious digs
in Istanbul, as befits visiting royalty. He seems to be labouring under a misapprehension
that he is valuable somehow to Washington, whereas that would only be true if Washington were
unwilling to work with Zelenskiy, and wanted him out of the way.
So far as I can see,
Washington is quite satisfied with Zelenskiy, while the people would not countenance a
Poroshenko return. So he's not really much use, is he? Especially if the USA wishes to
publicly support Zelenskiy's supposed battle with official corruption.
I could see them having a quiet word with Zelenskiy, maybe leave the old man out of it,
what do you say? But Washington is already accused – with substantial justification, I
would say – of running the show in Ukraine, and there are limits to how much obvious
interfering it can do; especially after Biden's bragging about getting the state prosecutor
fired.
Yes, I was sort of getting at the probability that Clan Poroshenko is just installed in a
very nice hotel. I doubt he will want to be plunking down money for an actual property so
long as the status of his assets still in Ukraine is still up in the air. I should imagine
the Ukrainian government will take steps, if it has not already, to prevent his simply
withdrawing their cash value.
The thing about the pindosi, though, is that they always hedge their bets .
I vangize that they will pressure Zel to pardon Porky. So that they have a spare.
I hope I am wrong, but I don't think I am.
I doubt it, simply because it would kick the timbers right out from under Zelenskiy's
anti-corruption platform, which is the issue on which he was voted in, and there would be no
way to do it under the radar. The Ukrainian people must be following Porky's flight with
great interest, and inferring that it means he has something to hide. Therefore an abrupt
discontinuing of the pursuit, and a refocusing elsewhere, would tell them accountability is
not attributed to the powerful and wealthy. Which is uhhh exactly the opposite of Zelenskiy's
message.
It's mostly about the control of Mid East oil and Israel status in the region ...
And despite all those positive things mentioned bellow Iran is still a theocratic state. It
is definitely not Saudi Arabia but still..
Notable quotes:
"... Despite the embargos and terrible intimidation from the West, it still sits at the threshold of the "Very high human development", defined by UNDP; well above such darlings of the West as Ukraine, Colombia or Thailand. ..."
"... Trump is President of the US. He is responsible for the actions of the US in foreign affairs. Trump is a willing sycophant of the Deep State. ..."
"... Yet another article, pointing out that there is no reason for the US to attack Iran. Yes, there is. Iran is an enemy of Israel (although with the US behind them, there isn’t much they can actually do), and Israel wants Iran destroyed. The influence of Israel in American politics is enormous. THAT is the reason. Please stop the head-scratching over why oh why the US would want to destroy Israel. Everyone knows why. ..."
"... Iran’s real “crime” is twofold: 1) It sells oil in denomiations other than the US dollar; and 2) If allowed its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it would be producing vast amounts of low cost molybdenum and/or technetium which are used in medical testing, which would cut into the lucrative US market. ..."
"... There is some truth to claims about Iran’s belligerence…the Russians aren’t thrilled about everything they’re doing in Syria, which includes Shia colonizing in regions they’ve seized, which is a sign of attempting to entrench their agenda in that suffering country…and hence the continuing Israeli attacks, which nobody appreciates… ..."
"... In Iran, sources confirm that “…Russia offered to sell one million barrels daily for Iran, and to replace the European financial system with another if needed. ..."
"... There is also the issue of the illegality of Trump tearing up the deal…which was adopted [unanimously] by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231… ..."
"... The US signed that resolution…and let us remember that UNSC resolutions are INTERNATIONAL LAW…they are LEGALLY BINDING on all UN member states… ..."
"... So the US is breaking international law…the sanctions are illegal also, since only the UNSC had the legal authority to impose sanctions… ..."
"... The US’ disregard for the supreme international legal order…along with Israel similarly flouting UNSC resolutions for 50 years to pull out of the occupied territories…is simply unacceptable… ..."
As I pen this short essay, Iran is standing against the mightiest nation on earth. It is
facing tremendous danger; of annihilation even, if the world does not wake up fast, and rush to
its rescue.
Stunning Iranian cities are in danger, but above all, its people: proud and beautiful,
creative, formed by one of the oldest and deepest cultures on earth.
This is a reminder to the world: Iran may be bombed, devastated and injured terribly, for
absolutely no reason. I repeat: there is zero rational reason for attacking Iran.
Iran has never attacked anyone. It has done nothing bad to the United States, to the United
Kingdom, or even to those countries that want to destroy it immediately: Saudi Arabia and
Israel.
Its only 'crime' is that it helped devastated Syria. And that it seriously stands by
Palestine. And that it came to the rescue of many far away nations, like Cuba and Venezuela,
when they were in awful need.
I am trying to choose the simplest words. No need for pirouettes and intellectual
exercises.
Thousands, millions of Iranians may soon die, simply because a psychopath who is currently
occupying the White House wants to humiliate his predecessor, who signed the nuclear deal. This
information was leaked by his own staff. This is not about who is a bigger gangster. It is
about the horrible fact that antagonizing Iran has absolutely nothing to do with Iran
itself.
Which brings the question to my mind: in what world are we really living? Could this be
tolerable? Can the world just stand by, idly, and watch how one of the greatest countries on
earth gets violated by aggressive, brutal forces, without any justification?
I love Iran! I love its cinema, poetry, food. I love Teheran. And I love the Iranian people
with their polite, educated flair. I love their thinkers. I don't want anything bad to happen
to them.
You know, you were of course never told by the Western media, but Iran is a socialist
country. It professes a system that could be defined as "socialism with Iranian
characteristics". Like China, Iran is one of the most ancient nations on earth, and it is
perfectly capable of creating and developing its own economic and social system.
Iran is an extremely successful nation. Despite the embargos and terrible intimidation
from the West, it still sits at the threshold of the "Very high human development", defined by
UNDP; well above such darlings of the West as Ukraine, Colombia or Thailand.
It clearly has an internationalist spirit: it shows great solidarity with the countries that
are being battered by Western imperialism, including those in Latin America.
I have no religion. In Iran, most of the people do. They are Shi'a Muslims. So what? I do
not insist that everyone thinks like me. And my Iranian friends, comrades, brothers and sisters
have never insisted that I feel or think the same way as they do. They are not fanatics, and
they do not make people who are not like them, feel excluded. We are different and yet so
similar. We fight for a better world. We are internationalists. We respect each other. We
respect others.
Iran does not want to conquer anyone. But when its friends are attacked, it offers a helping
hand. Like to Syria.
In the past, it was colonized by the West, and its democratic government was overthrown, in
1953, simply because it wanted to use its natural resources for improving the lives of its
people. The morbid dictatorship of Shah Pahlavi was installed from abroad. And then, later,
again, a terrible war unleashed against Iran by Iraq, with the full and candid support of the
West.
I promised to make this essay short. There is no time for long litanies. And in fact, this
is not really an essay at all: it is an appeal.
As this goes to print, many people in Iran are anxious. They do not understand what they
have done to deserve this; the sanctions, the US aircraft carriers sailing near their shores,
and deadly B-52s deployed only dozens of miles away.
Iranians are brave, proud people. If confronted, if attacked, they will fight. And they will
die with dignity, if there is no other alternative.
But why? Why should they fight and why should they die?
Those of you, my readers, living in the West: Study; study quickly. Then ask this question
to your government: "What is the reason for this terrible scenario?"
Rent Iranian films; they are everywhere, winning all festivals. Read Iranian poets. Go eat
Iranian food. Search for images of both historic and modern Iranian cities. Look at the faces
of the people. Do not allow this to happen. Do not permit psychopathic reasoning to ruin
millions of lives.
There was no real reason for the wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. The West
perpetrated the most terrible imperialist interventions, ruining entire nations.
But Iran -- it all goes one step further. It's a total lack of logic and accountability on
the part of the West.
Here, I declare my full support to the people of Iran, and to the country that has been
giving countless cultural treasures to the world, for millennia.
It is because I have doubts that if Iran is destroyed, the human race could survive.
[First published by NEO -- New Eastern Outlook]
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has
covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are ...
Thousands, millions of Iranians may soon die, simply because a psychopath who is
currently occupying the White House wants to humiliate his predecessor, who signed the
nuclear deal.
Certainly war with Iran is not because Trump wants to humiliate Obama. There is very
serious pressure on Trump to go to war with Iran, and that pressure comes from sources
including Sheldon Adelson, Netanyahu, John Bolton, and elements within the military
industrial complex and oil industries both of which would be able to capitalize on such a
misadventure. It is very possibly Trump’s misgivings about a war with Iran (in spite of
the idiotic rhetoric) that is keeping the US from attacking Iran.
While I agree with your sentiment in this article, it is unfortunate to make
over-simplifications that cheerlead a false narrative that one person is to blame for a
complex problem that spans party lines and presidencies. It was much to Obama’s credit
to enter into the agreement with Iran, and the opposition to doing so obviously runs much
deeper than Trump’s desire to make Obama look bad.
@Andre
Vltchek Yes, you can’t say everything in every piece that you write, and for
expediency there is simplification. You can get away with it by saying “among other
things, Trump’s desire to humiliate Obama may lead us into a devastating war.”
But the way you wrote it certainly insinuates that it is in fact Trump and his personal
psychopathy driving the country towards war. In that, I think you are mistaken. The jury is
not out on this one yet, and Trump’s resistance to war with Iran is a thread of hope
keeping it from happening. I am not trying to split hairs. It is important because there is a
tendency to focus on the face in the white house and not on the forces that are behind the
mischief. It also probably gets more likes among a broader audience who want to blame Trump
or Obama when they are more like two leaves being blown by a strong wind than the leader of
the free world or any other nonsensical title given to the president. Take it for a slight
literary critique and not for any disagreement with the overall sentiment or quality of the
article.
It was at that point I knew this wasn’t an intellectually honest essay. You
don’t even need to go back six months to see what a peaceful little lamb Iran is, as
it attacked merchant ships in the Straight of Hormuz. Perhaps your intended audience is
ignorant to facts, but Iran is, by no means, a country of innocent intent.
What would USA do if Iranian or any other non-friendly nation surrounded USA, including
sending heavily armed ships into its harbors?
This map from Democratic Underground puts a star on every U.S. military base in the
region, and aside from the Caspian area to the North, American forces pretty much have
Tehran surrounded (via Informed Comment).
[Non-violent resistance is not necessarily futile, but a feint]: We cannot delude
ourselves.
People ask, What about nonviolent, peaceful forms of resistance? And you know, the answer
is, There is no such thing as nonviolence.
Nonviolence is a form of disruption and only works if you are facing those who are
constrained in their use of violence, or works best if you can use your enemy’s
violence against them.
Take for example, Dr. Martin Luther King . . . [he learned from Gandhi and others that]
nonviolence is a mechanism of goading your opponent into being violent.
Once they become violent, you can call on your friends to be even more violent against
them. And he knew he could goad the sheriff into behaving violently and stupidly, and then
the FBI would descend on them.
You know, we always want to delude ourselves that war is not the answer. It would be good
if that were true, but unfortunately it is very often the key answer, the only answer.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?323264-1/the-worth-war&start=599
USA is being deliberately provocative, goading Iran to throw the first punch, whereupon
USA will “descend on them.”
It’s not the first time USA & its allies have used the tactic.
I dunno … If the West was going to attack, it should have happened several weeks ago,
if not earlier. Do you think Trump’s stand-down of an attack allegedly in progress was
to save a couple hundred Iranian lives, or might it make more sense that it became clear a
couple hundreds or thousands of coalition lives were at serious risk? The leadership knows
this will be far messier than Iraq if it goes kinetic, and they would prefer to continue to
starve Iran into submission while making a lot of noise about the ‘evil and suicidal
death-cult’ regime in Tehran.
Andre Vltchek gives a passionate defence of Iran, and the reasons for not attacking it. I
agree there are ‘doubts that if Iran is destroyed, the human race could survive.’
If the US, and its allies, were to destabilize Iran to such an extent as to threaten regime
change China and Russia would have to intervene. The world should avoid war on Iran, even if
it is for selfish reasons. All the indications point to world war. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
@anonymous
Because the JIDF/Zionist has the modus operandi of falsifying consensus. Large numbers of
seemingly reasonable people all pushing the same view point has the unconscious effect of
making an unwary reader adopt that same viewpoint. Of course, they’re hoping you dont
go trawling through their comment history or else the whole thing blows up.
While I agree with your sentiment in this article, it is unfortunate to make
over-simplifications that cheerlead a false narrative that one person is to blame for a
complex problem that spans party lines and presidencies.
Trump is President of the US. He is responsible for the actions of the US in foreign
affairs. Trump is a willing sycophant of the Deep State.
People need to realize that it’s been a RedBlue puppet show of the same empire
since – for purposes of Iran – 1953. Blaming one politician as opposed to the
other plays right into the hands of those who want to run the world from Washington.
The past can not be changed. Trump is responsible for the here and now.
Yet another article, pointing out that there is no reason for the US to attack Iran. Yes,
there is. Iran is an enemy of Israel (although with the US behind them, there isn’t
much they can actually do), and Israel wants Iran destroyed. The influence of Israel in
American politics is enormous. THAT is the reason. Please stop the head-scratching over why
oh why the US would want to destroy Israel. Everyone knows why.
The Iran never attacked anyone narrative has long been a favourite. What is buried somewhere
in cyberspace, is an article written over 20 years ago about the causes of the Iraq –
Iran war. The article laid out several instances of Iranian revolutionaries attacking several
Iraqi border towns. It also pointed out that Iraq’s original invasion into Iran stopped
about 8 miles into Iran, apparently understanding that it was never going to defeat Iran
territorially. The article also stated that Iraq was egged on by the US to attack, in hopes
to dislodge the new regime. However, it was the Shah who attacked Iraq in the 70s over the
Shat al Arab waterway. The subsequent peace agreement settled the issue.
https://www.nytimes.com/1975/03/07/archives/iraq-and-iran-sign-accord-to-settle-border-conflicts-iraq-and-iran.html
One reason given by Iraq for its invasion of Iran, post revolution, was that it viewed the
border attacks by Iranian revolutionaries, as a refutation of the treaty.
Iran’s real “crime” is twofold:
1) It sells oil in denomiations other than the US dollar; and
2) If allowed its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it would be producing
vast amounts of low cost molybdenum and/or technetium which are used in medical testing,
which would cut into the lucrative US market.
The USA-Israel-Nato menaces to Iran are criminal horseshite BUT –
Iran is horrifyingly brutal toward its own citizens, one of the most savage of all
countries in per capita executions of its own people, sometimes hanging 100 people or so in a
month, typically done by slow-torture hanging, often in groups of 6 or 8 people in public
squares.
It seems that usually, Iran does not even try to break the neck of its hanging victims
with a long drop, which can induce a merciful coma before the victim dies, typically some 15
minutes to an hour later. As is often observed in Iran, smaller people such as women
typically die more slowly, their lighter weight leading to a longer period of torturous
choking.
And Iran has a bunch of other Islamic barbarisms … Iran burying women alive up to
their necks, only their veiled heads above the ground, and stoning them to death; the
floggings and amputations, sometimes the victim marked for death is flogged bloody before
being hanged from a crane etc
But André Vltchek thinks Iran is a great place …
Iran is also a bizarre social experiment in extreme social dysfunctionality, with the
‘temporary marriage’ provision in Shia religious practice that is essentially
legalised prostitution. Not only can Iranians have 4 wives as the Sunnis do, one of those can
be a ‘wife for the weekend’, legally, provided you go to the imam to be
officially ‘married’ … you can then divorce Monday morning, e.g., by
saying the word ‘talaq’ 3 times. Iranian women sometimes advertise themselves as
‘temporary wives’ (not ‘prostitutes’ of course!) for a small marital
‘gift’ of € 60 or so.
Between temporary marriage, and Iran’s practice of educating its women – often
‘bad’ for Muslim fertility – Iran’s birth rate has collapsed even
more than in much of Europe.
A great shame the US CIA overthrew the secular socialist Iranian government in 1953. May
the Iranian people be soon free of both Western-Israeli menace, and their own mad
mullahs.
…‘temporary marriage’ provision in Shia religious practice that is
essentially legalised prostitution. Not only can Iranians have 4 wives as the Sunnis do,
one of those can be a ‘wife for the weekend’, legally, provided you go to the
imam to be officially ‘married’ … you can then divorce Monday morning,
e.g., by saying the word ‘talaq’ 3 times. Iranian women sometimes advertise
themselves as ‘temporary wives’ (not ‘prostitutes’ of course!) for
a small marital ‘gift’ of € 60 or so.
May the Iranian people be soon free of both Western-Israeli menace, and their own mad
mullahs.
Well, the price for the later is the former, apparently.
Yes, you can’t say everything in every piece that you write, and for expediency
there is simplification. You can get away with it by saying “among other things,
Trump’s desire to humiliate Obama may lead us into a devastating war.” But the
way you wrote it certainly insinuates that it is in fact Trump and his personal psychopathy
driving the country towards war. In that, I think you are mistaken.
I don’t see it that way…..Vltchek has been around unz for a while…..so
it would not be wrong for him to assume most of unz knows the real forces behind Trump
and the Iran war push.
@Brabantian
You come off sounding like a Soros acolyte by parroting ‘human rights porn’ that
is largely fabricated bullshit…and disseminated by the usual NGO suspects and their
MSM partners…
That’s not to say there is no merit to your basic beef…Iran is a
theocracy…religious fanaticism has been a curse on humanity over the
ages…religion in general really…
Iran does execute a lot of people…Vltchek is overly enthusiastic about
Iran…I would say probably because he sympathizes a lot with their essentially
‘socialist’ approach [as do I]…but Iran is no angel…
But then who is…?…US cops gun down 1,000 people a year…
Also some mitigating facts to consider…a lot of the criminals Iran executes are
drug traffickers…Afghanistan next-door is heroin central…run by the CIA with
help from their ISIS private army…
This is nothing new…the deep state of empire has been running the global drug
racket for a couple of centuries now…and using it as a geopolitical weapon against
perceived ‘enemies’…going back to the opium wars that were used by the
British to ‘crack open’ China…and today aimed against Russia, Central Asia
and Iran…not to mention ‘neutralizing’ large swaths of the domestic
population by turning them into drug zombies…
Iran’s drug laws are not nearly as draconian as in other jurisdictions in the Muslim
world…capital punishment goes only for those caught with over 30 grams of hard drugs
like heroin…which is far bigger than user amounts…the death sentence is not
applied for first offenders, or even for repeat offenders of 30 to 100 grams…so really
it is the hardcore traffickers that are getting offed…I have no problem with
that…[neither do leaders like the Philippines’ Duterte who is much less tolerant
than Iran…]
There is some truth to claims about Iran’s belligerence…the Russians
aren’t thrilled about everything they’re doing in Syria, which includes Shia
colonizing in regions they’ve seized, which is a sign of attempting to entrench their
agenda in that suffering country…and hence the continuing Israeli attacks, which
nobody appreciates…
They are also spurning Russian offers of help…
In Iran, sources confirm that “…Russia offered to sell one million
barrels daily for Iran, and to replace the European financial system with another if
needed.
[Probably because they resent Russia for pressuring them to reign in their activities in
Syria…it just shows the all or nothing mentality of religious fanatics…]
All in all it is crazy to think that religious zealotry can lead to anything
good…it never has…
But there is a bigger principle here… it’s their country…
Nobody gives us the right to tell them how to live their lives…certainly compared
to Saudi Barbaria and the other gulf theocracies…not to mention serial criminal
Israel…nobody has good cause to be pointing fingers at Iran…
The US signed that resolution…and let us remember that UNSC resolutions are
INTERNATIONAL LAW…they are LEGALLY BINDING on all UN member states…
So the US is breaking international law…the sanctions are illegal also, since
only the UNSC had the legal authority to impose sanctions…
The US’ disregard for the supreme international legal order…along with
Israel similarly flouting UNSC resolutions for 50 years to pull out of the occupied
territories…is simply unacceptable…
So let’s not lose sight of the ball…this has nothing to do with Iran’s
domestic behavior…and everything to do with serial criminal USA…
@SteveK9
Yes, SteveK9, but you meant, of course, to say “why oh why the US would want to destroy
Iran”–not Israel. Israel has been trying to maneuver Uncle Sam into a shooting
war with Iran for a decade or more. Israel’s American neocons have succeeded in getting
America to destroy Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran is the last country standing in the
way of Israel’s total dominance of the Middle East. No Israel, no war, it’s as
simple as that.
@Brabantian
Standard muslim stuff. It’s their country so up to them what they do. But Iran was
cooperating with Al Qaida in Bosnia in the 1990s chopping heads of Christians and atheists.
In fact they were aligned with USA and NATO there but now US is using that involvement
against them as proof of “terrorism” activity.
And here’s Andre praising them. It was well known that they were supplying weapons
disguised as humanitarian aid but US and NATO did nothing to stop them at the time.
@Commentator
Mike There was an embargo on any weapons getting through to Bosnia at the time. The
Bosnians were massively outgunned by the Serbs that had possession of almost all the serious
hardware after the break up of Yugoslavia. The Muslim world was not about to let this
discrepancy go unanswered.
AQ at that stage was still mostly the “foreign legion” global defense
initiative that was the initial vision of Shaykh Abdullah Azzam so it’s not surprising
the Iranians were cooperating with them at the time. It would later progressively warp into
the terrorism outfit over time in the 90’s especially with the African embassy
bombings.
@Commentator
Mike Maybe you could take a look at what is going on there as we speak.
As European, you could do it. Americans and the rest of colonists can’t.
Let’s just say there is a significant Iranian presence in Bosnia.
Serbs and Croats in the region won’t be displeased should the regime in Tehran get
smashed into pieces. Really small pieces.
The problem with the Balkans is that there is so much hatred and animosity between the
various white ethnicities, because of historical reasons, that they have a blind spot for the
much greater danger posed to them all by the massive demographic changes taking place in the
world. And if that kind of intra-white hatred were to spread to the rest of Europe it will be
even harder to salvage anything of the white European sovereignty.
Actually one can work even within those hatreds unless they’re given a chance to
flare up, and obviously certain forces work on doing just that, as we have seen in Ukraine.
Oh yes, and the Muslims aren’t helping much to bring peace about in that region.
Thanks but no thanks. Since Supreme Commander Al Baghdadi ordered muslims to get us by any
and every means I strictly avoid eating anywhere muslims work, cook, or serve, despite liking
their food. Didn’t you hear of the three Albanian Kosovars who were arrested in Italy
plotting a bombing campaign? They worked as waiters in Venice, Italy’s tourist hub. I
pity those tourists who went through their restaurant before the Kosovars decided to move
onto bigger actions. And he did mention poison, whatever, even spitting.
The problem with the Balkans is that there is so much hatred and animosity between the
various white ethnicities, because of historical reasons, that they have a blind spot for
the much greater danger posed to them all by the massive demographic changes taking place
in the world.
As for this:
And if that kind of intra-white hatred were to spread to the rest of Europe it will be
even harder to salvage anything of the white European sovereignty.
"... India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya or Syria. ..."
"... Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America. ..."
"... America's Future Is with India and Israel: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-future-india-israel-21629 ..."
Imperial divide and conquer strategy. Global strife aids imperialists. Russia, China, Iran unity threatens global Anglo Zionists.
Consequently, the logical progression is to welcome India into Anglo Zionist alliance with more aid to their extremists (Modi)
Emboldening extremists is always the way to war.
It is not that simple as Saudi sells oil to China, and India, Saudi plus Israel are on speaking terms with Russia plus Saudi
bankrolls Pakistan and US policies might change completely if Trump loses 2020.
Of course all bets are off should Modi manage to provoke a Hindu-Moslim civil war involving Pakistan.
Since I was at the age of having a political opinion, Jammu and Kashmir were part of a collection of areas under constant
conflict.
...
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Aug 5 2019 18:13 utc | 44
Thanks for the reminder. Your use of the term 'constant conflict' reminded me of a military doctrine I stumbled upon in the
early Noughties which was called Constant Conflict. The only thing I could remember about it, today, was that it was written by
a psychopath and I did NOT like what the author was proposing.
It's dated 16.04.2016 and names the author as Retired Lieutenant Colonel of United States Army Ralph Peters and summarises
the crux of Peters' thesis and and his background/mission statement. It also provides enough info to find the original 1997 article
here... https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/articles/97summer/peters.htm
The article concludes thus and there's a footnote...
...
"The next century will indeed be American, but it will also be troubled. We will find ourselves in constant conflict, much of
it violent. The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag. We will wage information warfare, but
we will fight with infantry. And we will always surprise those critics, domestic and foreign, who predict our decline."
--- Major (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for
future warfare. Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer for Eurasia, he served exclusively at the tactical level. He is a graduate
of the US Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master's degree in international relations. Over the past several
years, his professional and personal research travels have taken Major Peters to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary,
the Czech Republic, Pakistan, Turkey, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as the countries of the Andean Ridge. He has
published widely on military and international concerns. His sixth novel, Twilight of Heroes, was recently released by Avon Books.
This is his eighth article for Parameters. The author wishes to acknowledge the importance to this essay of discussions with Lieutenant
Colonels Gordon Thompson and Lonnie Henley, both US Army officers.
India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at
least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya
or Syria.
Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state
of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America.
So perhaps India should emulate its fellow "democratic" ally of America and adopt the same ethnic cleansing tactics in Kashmir
that the Land of the Free has deployed against Native tribes throughout the Indigenous lands that America currently occupies--from
the Trail of Tears of the past to the DAPL pipeline protests today.
"... Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. ..."
"... As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton called for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to " pay a little price ".) ..."
"... Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker. ..."
"... With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals. ..."
"... These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict. ..."
"... The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained extensively why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was unthinkable , bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO somewhat refused to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias. ..."
"... In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies. ..."
"... Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to withdraw from the coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces. ..."
"... An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't want to cross, having so much at stake. ..."
"... With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises. The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its own profits and controls global finance. ..."
"... Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran. ..."
In 2014 we were almost at the point of no return in Ukraine following the coup d'etat supported and funded by NATO and involving
extremist right-wing Ukrainian nationalists. The conflict in the Donbass risked escalating into a conflict between NATO and the Russian
Federation, every day in the summer and autumn of 2014 threatening to be doomsday. Rather than respond to the understandable impulse
to send Russian troops into Ukraine to defend the population of Donbass, Putin had the presense of mind to pursue the less direct
and more sensible strategy of supporting the material capacity of the residents of Donbass to resist the depredations of the Ukrainian
army and their neo-Nazi Banderite thugs. Meanwhile, Europe's inept leaders initially egged on Ukraine's destabilization, only to
get cold feet after reflecting on the possibility of having a conflict between Moscow and Washington fought on European soil.
With the resistance in Donbass managing to successfully hold back Ukrainian assaults, the conflict began to freeze, almost to
the point of a complete ceasefire, even as Ukrainian provocations continue to this day.
Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel,
France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. Russian
intervention in 2015 managed to save the country with no time to spare, destroying large numbers of terrorists and reorganizing the
Syrian armed forces and training and equipping them with the necessary means to beat back the jihadi waves. The Russians also ensured
control of the skies through their network of Pantsir-S1, Pantsir-S2, S-300 and S-400 air-defence systems, together with their
impressive jamming (Krasukha-4), command and control
information management system (Strelets C4ISR System) and electronic-warfare technologies (1RL257 Krasukha-4).
As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack
on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no
secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton
called
for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to "
pay a little price ".)
Since Trump became president, the rhetoric of war has soared considerably, even as the awareness remains that any new conflict
would sink Trump's chances of re-election. Despite this, Trump's bombings in Syria were real and potentially very harmful to the
Syrian state. Nevertheless, they were
foiled by Russia's electronic-warfare capability, which was able to send veering away from their intended target more than 70%
of the latest-generation missiles launched by the British, French, Americans and Israelis.
One of the most terrifying moments for the future of humanity came a few months later when Trump started hurling threats and abuses
at Kim Jong-un , threatening to reduce Pyongyang to ashes. Trump, moreover, delivered his fiery threats in a speech at the United
Nations General Assembly.
Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint
a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens
to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He
then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker.
With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different
results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have
had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies
were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer
has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies
have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals.
The difference between the case of Iran and the aforementioned cases of Ukraine, Syria and North Korea is precisely the direct
involvement of these two lobbies in the decision-making process underway in the US.
These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans
sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the
cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated
by decades of conflict.
What readers can be assured of is that in the cases of Ukraine, Syria, North Korea and Iran, the US is unable to militarily impose
its geopolitical or economic will.
The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained
extensively
why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was
unthinkable
, bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO
somewhat refused
to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias.
In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed
in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously
contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover
and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies.
In North Korea, the country's tactical and strategic nuclear and conventional deterrence discourages any missile attack. Any overland
attack is out of the question, given the high number of active as well as reserve personnel in the DPRK army. If the US struggled
to control a completely defeated Iraq in 2003, how much more difficult would be to deal with a country with a resilient population
that is indisposed to bowing to the US? The 2003 Iraq campaign would really be a "cakewalk" in comparison. Another reason why a missile
attack on North Korea is impossible is because of the conventional power that Pyongyang possesses in the form of tens of thousands
of missiles and artillery pieces that could easily reduce Seoul to rubble in a matter of minutes. This would then lead to a war between
the US and the DPRK being fought on the Korean Peninsula. Moon Jae-in, like Merkel and Sarkozy in the case of Ukraine, did everything
in his power to prevent such a devastating conflict.
Concerning tensions between the US and Iran and the resulting threats of war, these should be taken as bluster and bluff. America's
European allies are heavily involved in Iran and depend on the Middle East for their oil and gas imports. A US war against Iran would
have devastating consequences for the world economy, with the Europeans seeing their imports halved or reduced. As Professor Chossudovsky
of the strategic think tank Global Research has so ably
argued , an attack on Iran is unsustainable, as the oil sectors of the UAE and Saudi Arabia would be hit and shut down. Exports
would instantly end after the pipelines going West are bombed by the Houthis and the Strait of Hormuz closed. The economies of these
two countries would implode and their ruling class wiped out by internal revolts. The state of Israel as well as US bases in the
region would see themselves overwhelmed with missiles coming from Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Iran. The Tel Aviv government
would last a few hours before capitulating under the pressure of its own citizens, who, like the Europeans, are unused to suffering
war at home.
Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against
the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic
resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication
of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to
withdraw from the
coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable
damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces.
An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't
want to cross, having so much at stake.
With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises.
The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its
own profits and controls global finance. And finally, US military planners do not intend to suffer a humiliating defeat in Iran
that would reveal the extent to which US military power is based on propaganda built over the years through Hollywood movies and
wars successfully executed against relatively defenceless countries. Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin
Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them
on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran.
It is telling that Washington, London, Tel Aviv and Riyadh have to resort to numerous but ultimately useless
provocations against Iran, as they
can only rely on hybrid attacks in order to economically isolate it from the rest of the world.
Paradoxically, this strategy has had devastating consequences for the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency together with
the SWIFT system. In today's multipolar environment, acting in such an imperious manner leads to the acceleration of de-dollarization
as a way of circumventing sanctions and bans imposed by the US.
A reserve currency is used to facilitate transactions. If the disadvantages come to exceed the benefits, it will progressively
be used less and less, until it is replaced by a basket of currencies that more closely reflect the multipolar geopolitical reality.
The warmongers in Washington are exasperated by their continuing inability to curb the resilience and resistance of the people
in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Donbass, countries and regions understood by the healthy part of the globe as representing
the axis of resistance to US Imperialism.
America must always threaten someone with war. Syria, Iran, Venezuela, China, Russia, so many to choose from.
Conflicts must never be resolved; they must always kept simmering, so a hot war can be triggered quickly. All Presidents are
turned in the first three months after sworn in.
It's what happens as empires mature. Governance becomes bloated, corrupt and inept (often leading to wars). Maturity time has
become significantly reduced due to the rate of information technology advance. America is five years away from going insolvent
according to most models and forecasts. All new debt after 2024 will be used to pay the interest on existing debts and liabilities.
There is simply no stopping it. The US already pays close to 500 billion in annual interest on debts and liabilities. Factor in
a 600 billion or 700 billion dollar annual military budget, and unrestrained deficit spending clocking in at over a trillion,
and, well, it isn't going to work for long. Considering most new well paying jobs are government jobs... The end is either full
socialism / fascism (folks still don't get how similar these are), a currency crisis and panic, depression and institutional deterioration.
The only good news to libertarians I guess - if you can call it good - is that the blotted government along with the crony corporations
will mostly and eventually collapse. Libertarian governance might not be a choice by an electorate, it might simply become fact
in the aftermath.
I guess Trump eventually will understand this lesson in politics that friendship, mutual respect and helping each other accomplishes
way way more then threatening countries to be bombed back into the stoneage.
Noone likes to do a cutthroat deal enforced upon them by thuggery. Trump's got to learn that you can't run politics like you do
your bussinesses, it's not working unles that was his plan all this time, to destroy America.
"The Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy
goals.
These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans
sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at
the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been
devastated by decades of conflict."
America is increasingly looking like Ancient Rome towards the end. It is overstretched, nearly insolvent, fewer allies want
to be allies, it's population is sick, physically and mentally. Obesity, diabetes, drug use/addiction make it impossible for the
Pentagon to meet recruitment goal. Mental illness causes daily mass killing. The education system is so broken/broke that there
is little real education being done. Americans are among the most ignorant, least educated and least educate-able people in the
developed world.
Militarily, the USA can bomb but that's about it... defeats upon defeats over the past two decades demonstrate the US military
is a paper tiger of astonishing incompetence.
Boeing can't make planes anymore. Lockheed is not much better. Parts of the F-35 are made by Chinese subsidiaries. The most
recently built aircraft carrier cannot launch fighter jets.
Recent estimates indicate that more than 550,000 people experience homelessness in the US on any given night, with about two-thirds
ending up in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, and one-third finding their way to unsheltered locations like
parks, vehicles, and metro stations. According to the Urban Institute, about 25% of homeless people have jobs.
I find that it is difficult for me to wrap my head around pain and suffering on such an immense scale. Americans often think
of the homeless as drug-addicted men that don't want to work, but the truth is that about a quarter of the homeless population
is made up of children.
Seriously, why would Iran want to hijack a German ship? Iran took the UK one in retaliation for the Brits seizing the one at
Gibraltar. Had that not happened, no Brit ships in the Persian Gulf would have been touched. This is all a carefully engineered
USA provocation designed to, inter alia, increase tension in the Persian Gulf, put more nails in coffin of JCPOA...and most importantly
give UK an excuse, as remaining signatory, to call for the original UN sanctions on Iran to be snapped-back.
Federico, let me explain it simply: the U.S. is allied with Israel, and Iran hates Israel. Why, I don't know (nor do I care),
but that's why the U.S. needs to keep Iran in check.
Yet CONGRESS just passed the largest defense bill in history. The WAR industry is bankrupting us financially spiritually and
morally.
A war is coming. But upon whom this time (or STILL?), because with President Bolton and Vice President Adelson in power, China
Iran or Russia or maybe all three, are open options.
Interview with a Russian I saw 2 years ago "USA wants to create local conflicts on foreign shores, ...on our borders, we will
not allow that to happen and make the war international" I will translate: Russia will not be pulled in to some stupid small war
draining their resources while the US sits comfortable, they will throw their missiles around - no escape from nuclear winter.
If spending has reached the limit now, during peacetime....what will happen during a protracted war? Even if it stays conventional,
it would appear that a huge war effort, comparable to WWII, just won't be possible. The US seems to be in a pre-war Britain position,
but there isn't a friendly giant across the water to bail them out with both cash and resources.
Either things become insane in fairly short order, or wiser heads will prevail and the US will step back from the brink. Do
we have any wiser heads at the moment?
I keep seeing John Bolton's moustache, Andi am not filled with confidence.
I would not call this article decent. At best it is half-decent ;-) This is a typical NYT anti-Tulsi propaganda but it does make
several relent observation buried in the sea of anti-Tulsi crapola.
Notable quotes:
"... “We should be coming to other leaders in other countries with respect, building a relationship based on cooperation rather than with, you know, a police baton,” she says. ..."
"... While she is the embodiment of this anti-interventionist message onstage, there is a much larger movement brewing. There is big money in peace. Two billionaire philanthropists from opposite ends of the political spectrum — George Soros and Charles Koch — came together this summer to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank to argue against American intervention abroad. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard Thinks We're Doomed by Nellie Bowles
Tulsi Gabbard is running for president of a country that she believes has wrought horror on the world, and she wants its
citizens to remember that.
She is from Hawaii, and she spends each morning surfing. But that is not what she talks about in this unlikely campaign.
She talks about the horror.
She lists countries: Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Cuba, Vietnam, Iraq. Failure after failure, she says. To drive the point
home, she wants to meet on a Sioux tribe reservation in North Dakota, where, she explains, the United States government committed
its original atrocity.
“These Indigenous people have been disrespected, mistreated with broken promises and desecrated lands,” Ms. Gabbard says.
... ... ...
But her run, and the unusual cross-section of voters she appeals to — Howard Zinn fans, anti-drug-war libertarians, Russia-gate
skeptics, and conservatives suspicious of Big Tech — signifies just how much both parties have shifted, not just on foreign
policy. It could end up being a sign that President Trump’s isolationism is not the aberration many believed, but rather a
harbinger of a growing national sentiment that America should stand alone.
To Ms. Gabbard, it is the United States that has been the cruel and destabilizing force.
... ... ...
“We should be coming to other leaders in other countries with respect, building a relationship based on cooperation rather
than with, you know, a police baton,” she says.
... ... ...
While she is the embodiment of this anti-interventionist message onstage, there is a much larger movement brewing. There
is big money in peace. Two billionaire philanthropists from opposite ends of the political spectrum — George Soros and Charles
Koch — came together this summer to fund the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank to argue against American
intervention abroad.
... ... ...
Ms. Gabbard says she is driven by the feeling that death could come at any moment, which she realized at age 10 but which
became more intense in Iraq.
“My first deployment was at the height of the war in 2005. We were 40 miles north of Baghdad. And there was a huge sign
by one of the main gates that just read: ‘Is today the day?’” she says. “It was such a stark reminder that my time could come
at any moment. That any day could be my last.”
She is not sure who put the sign up or why. But it was this message of potentially imminent doom that she wanted to leave
the audience with at the second Democratic debate.
“As we stand here tonight,” she told the crowd. “There are thousands of nuclear missiles pointing right at us, and if we
were to get an attack, we would have 30 minutes, 30 minutes, before we were hit.”
Ms. Gabbard continued.
“There is no shelter. This is the warmonger’s hoax. There is no shelter. It’s all a lie.”
Nellie Bowles covers tech and internet culture. Follow her on Twitter:
@nelliebowles
Politics is a drity business. The last think any aspiring politician wants is to
fight on two fronts. For example against forign wars and Isreal lobby. that's creates Doublespeak
situation for candidates like Tulsi...
Notable quotes:
"... But the Empire is taking no chances. The Empire has sicced its Presstitute Battalion on her. Josh Rogin (Washington Post), Joy Reid (MSNBC), Wajahat Ali (New York Times and CNN), and, of course the Twitter trolls paid to slander and misrepresent public figures that the Empire targets. Google added its weight to the obfuscation of Gabbard. ..."
It is unfortunate that Tulsi Gabbard succumbed to the Israel Lobby. The forces of the Empire
saw it as a sign of weakness and have set about destroying her.
The ruling elite see Gabbard as a threat just as they saw Trump as a threat. A threat is an
attractive political candidate who questions the Empire's agenda. Trump questioned the
hostility toward Russia orchestrated by the military/security complex. Gabbard questions the
Empire's wars in the Middle East. This is questioning that encroaches on the agendas of the
military/security complex and Israel Lobby. If fear of Israel is what caused Gabbard to vote
the AIPAC line on the bill forbidding criticism of Israel, she won't be able to stick to her
line against Washington's aggression in the Middle East. Israel is behind that aggression as it
serves Israeli interests.
But the Empire is taking no chances. The Empire has sicced its Presstitute Battalion on
her. Josh Rogin (Washington Post), Joy Reid (MSNBC), Wajahat Ali (New York Times and CNN), and,
of course the Twitter trolls paid to slander and misrepresent public figures that the Empire
targets. Google added its weight to the obfuscation of Gabbard.
Wars in the Middle East against Israel's enemies and preparation for major wars against
Iran, Russia, and China are the bread and butter for the powerful US military/security complex
lobby. All that is important to the military/security complex is their profits, not whether
they get all of us killed. In other words, their propaganda about protecting America is a
lie. They endanger us all in order to have enemies in order to justify their massive budget
and power.
Those of us who actually know, such as myself and Stephen Cohen, have been warning for years
that the orchestrated hostility against Russia is producing a far more dangerous Cold War than
the original one. Indeed, beginning with the criminal George W. Bush regime, the arms control
treaties achieved at great political expense by US and Soviet leaders have been abandoned by
Washington. The lastest treaty to be discarded by Washington in service to the
military/security lobby is the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) negotiated by
President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbechev. This treaty banned missiles that
Washington could place in Europe on Russia's border with which to attack Russia with little or
no reaction time, and Russian missiles that could be used to attack Washington's NATO puppet
states in Europe and UK. The treaty resulted in the elimination of 2,692 missiles and a decade
of verification inspections that satisfied both parties to the agreement. But suddenly
Washington has pulled out of the treaty. The main purpose of pulling out of the treaty is to
enable the military/security complex to develop and produce new missiles at the taxpayers'
expense, but Washington also sees a military advantage in withdrawing from the INF treaty.
Washington, of course, blames the US withdrawal on Russia, just as Washington blames every
country that Washington intends to attack. But it is completely obvious even to a moron that
Russia has no interest whatsoever in abandoning the treaty. Russian intermediate-range
missiles cannot reach the United States. Russia has no reason to attack Europe, which has
no military forces of any consequence. It is the American nuclear missiles on European soil
that are the problem
Washington, however, does gain by tearing up the INF treaty. At Europe's risk, not
America's, Washington's intermediate-range nuclear misslies stationed in Europe on Russia's
borders permit a preemptive nuclear attack on Russia. Because of proximity, the warning time is
only a couple of minutes. Washington's crazed war planners believe that so much of the Russian
retaliatory capacity would be destroyed, that Russia would surrender rather than retaliate with
diminished forces and risk a second attack.
Putin stresses this danger as does the Russian military. US missiles on Russia's border puts
the world on a hair trigger. Aside from the fact that a nuclear attack on Russia is the likely
intent of the criminal neoconservatives, nuclear warning systems are notorious for false
alarms. During Cold War I, both sides worked to build trust, but since the criminal Clinton
regime Washington has worked to destroy all trust between the two dominant nuclear powers. All
that is required to obliterate life on earth, thanks entirely to the crazed fools in
Washington, is one false alarm received by the Russians. Unlike past false alarms, next time
the Russians will have no choice but to believe it.
Intermediate-range nuclear missiles leave no time for a phone call between Putin and Trump.
The Russian leader who has suffered hundreds of diplomatic insults, demonization of his person
and his country, illegal sanctions, endless false accusations, and endless threats cannot
assume that the warning is false.
The idiots in Washington and the presstitutes have programmed the end of the world. When the
alarm goes off, the Russian leader has no choice but to push the button.
Any remaining doubt in the Russian government of Washington's hostile intentions toward
Russia has been dispelled by Trump's National Security Advisor, the neocon warmonger John
Bolton. Bolton recently announced that the last remaining arms control agreement, START, will
not be renewed by Washington in 2021.
Thus, the trust built between the nuclear powers that began with President John F. Kennedy
and reached its greatest success with Reagan and Gorbachev has been erased. It will be lucky if
the world survives the destruction of trust between the two major nuclear powers.
ORDER IT NOW
The American government in Washington has been made so utterly stupid by its arrogant hubris
that it has no comprehension of the dangerous situation that it, and it alone, has created. We
are all at risk every minute of our lives because of the power, of which President Eisenhower
warned us more than a half century ago to no avail, of the US military/security complex, an
organized powerful force determined and able to destroy any American president who would
threaten their budget and power by making peace.
Donald Trump is a strong personality, but he has been cowed by the Israel Lobby and the
military/security complex. As reigning president, Trump sat there Twittering while an attack
orchestrated by the military/security complex and the Democratic Party, with 100% cooperation
from the American media, tried to portray him as a Russian agent as grounds for his
impeachment.
A strong personality in what is allegedly the most powerful office in the world who allows
his entire first term to be wasted by his opponents in an attempt to frame him and drive him
from office is all we need to know about the likely fate of Tulsi Gabbard.
"... This is the first major expansion of sanctions against a western hemisphere nation by the US in over 30 years, and is intended to put Venezuela into the same level of economic isolation as similarly restricted Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria. ..."
President Trump signed an executive order late Monday imposing a
full economic embargo against Venezuela , freezing all government assets in the US and
forbidding all transactions of any Venezuelan officials.
This is the first major expansion of sanctions against a western hemisphere nation by the
US in over 30 years, and is intended to put Venezuela into the same level of economic
isolation as similarly restricted Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
The order cites human rights abuses, and the fact that President Maduro is still in power
in Venezuela, even though the US recognized opposition leader Guaido as the rightful ruler of
the country.
This is the latest US effort to try to impose regime change in Venezuela, after a failed
military coup earlier this year. It's not clear how broadly the US intends to enforce the
sanctions, for example if they intend to use military force to prohibit naval trade from the
Venezuelan coast
I think the grievances of the students against the Chinese government had merit. Moreover
yielding to continuing the status quo ante or reversion to Brit colony status were not the
only possible outcomes. The former happens to be the case but things need not have gone
that way. https://www.history.com/topics/china/tiananmen-square
That's probably true, but there is often inflexibility on the part of the protesters as well,
and in cases where they believe they have international backing – spelled U.S.A.
– their demands rarely allow much room for compromise. The government must step down
and yield governing power, usually to a group of ideologues and liberal activists, and the
next step is well-known to everyone. The American 'advisers' are sent in, and state
institutions are rapidly dismantled and privatized for international investment, as happened
in Yeltsin's Russia.
In this case, the students wanted 'more democracy', and that right there suggests they
really did not have any clear goals but change.
So true. When protesters claim to want "more democracy" but cannot even define what
"democracy" means, then it's clear they don't know what they are talking about, and probably
just American stooges.
People in HK do have many grievances but many of their problems, like the insanely high
property prices, the shortage of housing for people who are not billionaires, the pollution,
the crappy infrastructure, the lack of jobs in any industry apart from buying and selling
property, the dismal job prospects of people who have been through an education system that
relies on rote learning and slaving through scads of homework, are problems arising from the
capitalist system they still retain. Unfortunately, for most of its 20-year rule since the
hand-back in 1997, the HK govt has been inept in handling most of these problems.
The thing that sparked this year's protests was the proposed extradition bill that would
establish appropriate extradition arrangements between Hong Kong and every other state or
territory that it currently does not have extradition agreements with, and this included
Mainland China, Macau and Taiwan, in the wake of the 2018 St Valentine's Day murder in which
a 20-year-old HK woman was strangled by her 19-year-old HK boyfriend while holidaying in
Taiwan, who then stuffed her body into a suitcase and left it at a train station in Taiwan
while he returned to HK. The man is currently in jail on charges relating to stealing the
woman's money after her death (he took all her ATM cards and used them) and he is due to be
freed this coming October. The HK govt has currently delayed a second reading of the
extradition bill but haven't withdrawn it entirely, which was one of the protesters'
demands.
The fact that, even after the backdown on the extradition proposal, the protesters
continued escalating their demands to the point of demanding current HK leader Carrie Lam's
removal, demonstrates that there is far more to the protesters' agenda than the extradition
proposal. Add to that the fact that protesters receive cash payments for protesting (with the
amounts jacked up if protesters destroy or damage things) and a CIA operative, Brian Kern,
has been identified as a ring-leader, and it is apparent that a Color Revolution
regime-change operation is in full swing.
The cops in Hong Kong Crown Colony were unbelievably corrupt. I worked with a former Hong
Kong policeman, a British European (the HK Crown Colony police had British senior officers
and Chinese "other ranks") who joined the force "to see the world". He was an idealist and
resigned. He could not stand the corruption that he witnessed there. His father, by the way,
was the local cop where I lived: the "village bobby", so to speak, complete with standard
issue Raleigh bicycle and cycle clips, who was a decent, friendly bloke.
"... “Any US claims to economic stability – the stock market is roaring like a chained tiger, unemployment is at near-record lows – must be balanced against the fact that the country owes its entire GDP plus a considerable amount in accumulated debt. ..."
“Any US claims to economic stability – the stock market is roaring like a chained tiger, unemployment is at near-record
lows – must be balanced against the fact that the country owes its entire GDP plus a considerable amount in accumulated debt.
And growing, if the source is reliable, at 36% faster than the US economy.”
"... India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya or Syria. ..."
"... Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America. ..."
"... America's Future Is with India and Israel: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-future-india-israel-21629 ..."
Imperial divide and conquer strategy. Global strife aids imperialists. Russia, China, Iran unity threatens global Anglo Zionists.
Consequently, the logical progression is to welcome India into Anglo Zionist alliance with more aid to their extremists (Modi)
Emboldening extremists is always the way to war.
It is not that simple as Saudi sells oil to China, and India, Saudi plus Israel are on speaking terms with Russia plus Saudi
bankrolls Pakistan and US policies might change completely if Trump loses 2020.
Of course all bets are off should Modi manage to provoke a Hindu-Moslim civil war involving Pakistan.
Since I was at the age of having a political opinion, Jammu and Kashmir were part of a collection of areas under constant
conflict.
...
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Aug 5 2019 18:13 utc | 44
Thanks for the reminder. Your use of the term 'constant conflict' reminded me of a military doctrine I stumbled upon in the
early Noughties which was called Constant Conflict. The only thing I could remember about it, today, was that it was written by
a psychopath and I did NOT like what the author was proposing.
It's dated 16.04.2016 and names the author as Retired Lieutenant Colonel of United States Army Ralph Peters and summarises
the crux of Peters' thesis and and his background/mission statement. It also provides enough info to find the original 1997 article
here... https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/articles/97summer/peters.htm
The article concludes thus and there's a footnote...
...
"The next century will indeed be American, but it will also be troubled. We will find ourselves in constant conflict, much of
it violent. The United States Army is going to add a lot of battle streamers to its flag. We will wage information warfare, but
we will fight with infantry. And we will always surprise those critics, domestic and foreign, who predict our decline."
--- Major (P) Ralph Peters is assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he is responsible for
future warfare. Prior to becoming a Foreign Area Officer for Eurasia, he served exclusively at the tactical level. He is a graduate
of the US Army Command and General Staff College and holds a master's degree in international relations. Over the past several
years, his professional and personal research travels have taken Major Peters to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Ossetia, Abkhazia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary,
the Czech Republic, Pakistan, Turkey, Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Mexico, as well as the countries of the Andean Ridge. He has
published widely on military and international concerns. His sixth novel, Twilight of Heroes, was recently released by Avon Books.
This is his eighth article for Parameters. The author wishes to acknowledge the importance to this essay of discussions with Lieutenant
Colonels Gordon Thompson and Lonnie Henley, both US Army officers.
India is allied with America and Israel and shares with these fascist "democracies" a national hatred of Muslims--well, at
least those Muslims who are not stupid enough to act as American/Israeli jihadist/terrorist assets around the world like in Libya
or Syria.
Moreover, India is a Hindu fundamentalist nation that has made common religious cause with the Zionist fundamentalist state
of Israel and the Christian fundamentalist state of America.
So perhaps India should emulate its fellow "democratic" ally of America and adopt the same ethnic cleansing tactics in Kashmir
that the Land of the Free has deployed against Native tribes throughout the Indigenous lands that America currently occupies--from
the Trail of Tears of the past to the DAPL pipeline protests today.
"... Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. ..."
"... As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton called for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to " pay a little price ".) ..."
"... Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker. ..."
"... With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals. ..."
"... These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated by decades of conflict. ..."
"... The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained extensively why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was unthinkable , bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO somewhat refused to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias. ..."
"... In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies. ..."
"... Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to withdraw from the coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces. ..."
"... An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't want to cross, having so much at stake. ..."
"... With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises. The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its own profits and controls global finance. ..."
"... Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran. ..."
In 2014 we were almost at the point of no return in Ukraine following the coup d'etat supported and funded by NATO and involving
extremist right-wing Ukrainian nationalists. The conflict in the Donbass risked escalating into a conflict between NATO and the Russian
Federation, every day in the summer and autumn of 2014 threatening to be doomsday. Rather than respond to the understandable impulse
to send Russian troops into Ukraine to defend the population of Donbass, Putin had the presense of mind to pursue the less direct
and more sensible strategy of supporting the material capacity of the residents of Donbass to resist the depredations of the Ukrainian
army and their neo-Nazi Banderite thugs. Meanwhile, Europe's inept leaders initially egged on Ukraine's destabilization, only to
get cold feet after reflecting on the possibility of having a conflict between Moscow and Washington fought on European soil.
With the resistance in Donbass managing to successfully hold back Ukrainian assaults, the conflict began to freeze, almost to
the point of a complete ceasefire, even as Ukrainian provocations continue to this day.
Tensions were then focused on Syria , where a mercenary army of at least 200,000 men, armed and trained by the US, UK, Israel,
France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, almost managed to completely topple the country. Russian
intervention in 2015 managed to save the country with no time to spare, destroying large numbers of terrorists and reorganizing the
Syrian armed forces and training and equipping them with the necessary means to beat back the jihadi waves. The Russians also ensured
control of the skies through their network of Pantsir-S1, Pantsir-S2, S-300 and S-400 air-defence systems, together with their
impressive jamming (Krasukha-4), command and control
information management system (Strelets C4ISR System) and electronic-warfare technologies (1RL257 Krasukha-4).
As the Americans, British, French and Israelis conducted their bombing missions in Syria, the danger of a deliberate attack
on Russian positions always remained, something that would have had devastating consequences for the region and beyond. It is no
secret that US military planners have repeatedly argued for a direct conflict with Moscow in a contained regional theater. (Clinton
called
for the downing of Russian jets over Syria, and former US officials claimed that some Russians had to "
pay a little price ".)
Since Trump became president, the rhetoric of war has soared considerably, even as the awareness remains that any new conflict
would sink Trump's chances of re-election. Despite this, Trump's bombings in Syria were real and potentially very harmful to the
Syrian state. Nevertheless, they were
foiled by Russia's electronic-warfare capability, which was able to send veering away from their intended target more than 70%
of the latest-generation missiles launched by the British, French, Americans and Israelis.
One of the most terrifying moments for the future of humanity came a few months later when Trump started hurling threats and abuses
at Kim Jong-un , threatening to reduce Pyongyang to ashes. Trump, moreover, delivered his fiery threats in a speech at the United
Nations General Assembly.
Trump's dramatic U-turn following his historic meeting with Kim Jong-un (a public relations/photo opportunity) began to paint
a fairly comical and unreliable picture of US power, revealing to the world the new US president's strategy. The president threatens
to nuke a country, but only as a negotiating tactic to bring his opponent to the negotiating table and thereby clinch a deal. He
then presents himself to his domestic audience as the "great" deal-maker.
With Iran, the recent target of the US administration, the bargaining method is the same, though with decidedly different
results. In the cases of Ukraine and North Korea, the two most powerful lobbies in Washington, the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, have
had little to say. Of course the neocons and the arms lobbyists are always gunning for war, but these two powerful state-backed lobbies
were notably silent with regard to these countries, less towards Syria obviously. As distinguished political scientist John J. Mearsheimer
has repeatedly explained , the Israel and Saudi lobbies
have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy goals.
The difference between the case of Iran and the aforementioned cases of Ukraine, Syria and North Korea is precisely the direct
involvement of these two lobbies in the decision-making process underway in the US.
These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans
sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at the
cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been devastated
by decades of conflict.
What readers can be assured of is that in the cases of Ukraine, Syria, North Korea and Iran, the US is unable to militarily impose
its geopolitical or economic will.
The reasons vary with each case, and I have previously explained
extensively
why the possibilities for conflict are unthinkable. With Ukraine, a conflict on European soil between Russia and NATO was
unthinkable
, bringing to mind the type of devastation that was seen during the Second World War. Good sense prevailed, and even NATO
somewhat refused
to fully arm the Ukrainian army with weapons that would have given them an overwhelming advantage over the Donbass militias.
In Syria, any involvement with ground troops would have been collective suicide, given the overwhelming air power deployed
in the country by Russia. Recall that since the Second World War, the US has never fought a war in an airspace that was seriously
contested (in Vietnam, US air losses were only elevated because of Sino-Soviet help), allowing for ground troops to receive air cover
and protection . A ground assault in Syria would have therefore been catastrophic without the requisite control of Syria's skies.
In North Korea, the country's tactical and strategic nuclear and conventional deterrence discourages any missile attack. Any overland
attack is out of the question, given the high number of active as well as reserve personnel in the DPRK army. If the US struggled
to control a completely defeated Iraq in 2003, how much more difficult would be to deal with a country with a resilient population
that is indisposed to bowing to the US? The 2003 Iraq campaign would really be a "cakewalk" in comparison. Another reason why a missile
attack on North Korea is impossible is because of the conventional power that Pyongyang possesses in the form of tens of thousands
of missiles and artillery pieces that could easily reduce Seoul to rubble in a matter of minutes. This would then lead to a war between
the US and the DPRK being fought on the Korean Peninsula. Moon Jae-in, like Merkel and Sarkozy in the case of Ukraine, did everything
in his power to prevent such a devastating conflict.
Concerning tensions between the US and Iran and the resulting threats of war, these should be taken as bluster and bluff. America's
European allies are heavily involved in Iran and depend on the Middle East for their oil and gas imports. A US war against Iran would
have devastating consequences for the world economy, with the Europeans seeing their imports halved or reduced. As Professor Chossudovsky
of the strategic think tank Global Research has so ably
argued , an attack on Iran is unsustainable, as the oil sectors of the UAE and Saudi Arabia would be hit and shut down. Exports
would instantly end after the pipelines going West are bombed by the Houthis and the Strait of Hormuz closed. The economies of these
two countries would implode and their ruling class wiped out by internal revolts. The state of Israel as well as US bases in the
region would see themselves overwhelmed with missiles coming from Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Iran. The Tel Aviv government
would last a few hours before capitulating under the pressure of its own citizens, who, like the Europeans, are unused to suffering
war at home.
Because a war with Iran would be difficult to de-escalate, we can conclude that the possibility of war being waged against
the country is unlikely if not impossible. The level of damage the belligerents would inflict on each other would make any diplomatic
resolution of the conflict difficult. While the powerful Israeli and Saudi lobbies in the US may be beating the war drums, an indication
of what would happen if war followed can be seen in Yemen. Egypt and the UAE were forced to
withdraw from the
coalition fighting the Houthis after the UAE suffered considerable
damage from legitimate retaliatory missile strikes from the Yemen's Army Missile Forces.
An open war against Iran continues to be a red line that the ruling financial elites in the US, Israelis and Saudis don't
want to cross, having so much at stake.
With an election looming, Trump cannot risk triggering a new conflict and betraying one of his most important electoral promises.
The Western elite does not seem to have any intention of destroying the petrodollar-based world economy with which it generates its
own profits and controls global finance. And finally, US military planners do not intend to suffer a humiliating defeat in Iran
that would reveal the extent to which US military power is based on propaganda built over the years through Hollywood movies and
wars successfully executed against relatively defenceless countries. Even if we consider the possibility of Netanyahu and Bin
Salman being mentally unstable, someone within the royal palace in Riyadh or the government in Tel Aviv would have counseled them
on the political and personal consequences of an attack on Iran.
It is telling that Washington, London, Tel Aviv and Riyadh have to resort to numerous but ultimately useless
provocations against Iran, as they
can only rely on hybrid attacks in order to economically isolate it from the rest of the world.
Paradoxically, this strategy has had devastating consequences for the role of the US dollar as a reserve currency together with
the SWIFT system. In today's multipolar environment, acting in such an imperious manner leads to the acceleration of de-dollarization
as a way of circumventing sanctions and bans imposed by the US.
A reserve currency is used to facilitate transactions. If the disadvantages come to exceed the benefits, it will progressively
be used less and less, until it is replaced by a basket of currencies that more closely reflect the multipolar geopolitical reality.
The warmongers in Washington are exasperated by their continuing inability to curb the resilience and resistance of the people
in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Donbass, countries and regions understood by the healthy part of the globe as representing
the axis of resistance to US Imperialism.
America must always threaten someone with war. Syria, Iran, Venezuela, China, Russia, so many to choose from.
Conflicts must never be resolved; they must always kept simmering, so a hot war can be triggered quickly. All Presidents are
turned in the first three months after sworn in.
It's what happens as empires mature. Governance becomes bloated, corrupt and inept (often leading to wars). Maturity time has
become significantly reduced due to the rate of information technology advance. America is five years away from going insolvent
according to most models and forecasts. All new debt after 2024 will be used to pay the interest on existing debts and liabilities.
There is simply no stopping it. The US already pays close to 500 billion in annual interest on debts and liabilities. Factor in
a 600 billion or 700 billion dollar annual military budget, and unrestrained deficit spending clocking in at over a trillion,
and, well, it isn't going to work for long. Considering most new well paying jobs are government jobs... The end is either full
socialism / fascism (folks still don't get how similar these are), a currency crisis and panic, depression and institutional deterioration.
The only good news to libertarians I guess - if you can call it good - is that the blotted government along with the crony corporations
will mostly and eventually collapse. Libertarian governance might not be a choice by an electorate, it might simply become fact
in the aftermath.
I guess Trump eventually will understand this lesson in politics that friendship, mutual respect and helping each other accomplishes
way way more then threatening countries to be bombed back into the stoneage.
Noone likes to do a cutthroat deal enforced upon them by thuggery. Trump's got to learn that you can't run politics like you do
your bussinesses, it's not working unles that was his plan all this time, to destroy America.
"The Israel and Saudi lobbies have unlimited funds for corrupting Democrats and Republicans in order to push their foreign-policy
goals.
These two lobbies (together with their neocon allies) have for years been pushing to have a few hundred thousand young Americans
sent to Iran to sacrifice themselves for the purposes of destroying Iran and her people. Such geopolitical games are played at
the cost of US taxpayers, the lives of their children sent to war, and the lives of the people of the Middle East, who have been
devastated by decades of conflict."
America is increasingly looking like Ancient Rome towards the end. It is overstretched, nearly insolvent, fewer allies want
to be allies, it's population is sick, physically and mentally. Obesity, diabetes, drug use/addiction make it impossible for the
Pentagon to meet recruitment goal. Mental illness causes daily mass killing. The education system is so broken/broke that there
is little real education being done. Americans are among the most ignorant, least educated and least educate-able people in the
developed world.
Militarily, the USA can bomb but that's about it... defeats upon defeats over the past two decades demonstrate the US military
is a paper tiger of astonishing incompetence.
Boeing can't make planes anymore. Lockheed is not much better. Parts of the F-35 are made by Chinese subsidiaries. The most
recently built aircraft carrier cannot launch fighter jets.
Recent estimates indicate that more than 550,000 people experience homelessness in the US on any given night, with about two-thirds
ending up in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, and one-third finding their way to unsheltered locations like
parks, vehicles, and metro stations. According to the Urban Institute, about 25% of homeless people have jobs.
I find that it is difficult for me to wrap my head around pain and suffering on such an immense scale. Americans often think
of the homeless as drug-addicted men that don't want to work, but the truth is that about a quarter of the homeless population
is made up of children.
Seriously, why would Iran want to hijack a German ship? Iran took the UK one in retaliation for the Brits seizing the one at
Gibraltar. Had that not happened, no Brit ships in the Persian Gulf would have been touched. This is all a carefully engineered
USA provocation designed to, inter alia, increase tension in the Persian Gulf, put more nails in coffin of JCPOA...and most importantly
give UK an excuse, as remaining signatory, to call for the original UN sanctions on Iran to be snapped-back.
Federico, let me explain it simply: the U.S. is allied with Israel, and Iran hates Israel. Why, I don't know (nor do I care),
but that's why the U.S. needs to keep Iran in check.
Yet CONGRESS just passed the largest defense bill in history. The WAR industry is bankrupting us financially spiritually and
morally.
A war is coming. But upon whom this time (or STILL?), because with President Bolton and Vice President Adelson in power, China
Iran or Russia or maybe all three, are open options.
Interview with a Russian I saw 2 years ago "USA wants to create local conflicts on foreign shores, ...on our borders, we will
not allow that to happen and make the war international" I will translate: Russia will not be pulled in to some stupid small war
draining their resources while the US sits comfortable, they will throw their missiles around - no escape from nuclear winter.
If spending has reached the limit now, during peacetime....what will happen during a protracted war? Even if it stays conventional,
it would appear that a huge war effort, comparable to WWII, just won't be possible. The US seems to be in a pre-war Britain position,
but there isn't a friendly giant across the water to bail them out with both cash and resources.
Either things become insane in fairly short order, or wiser heads will prevail and the US will step back from the brink. Do
we have any wiser heads at the moment?
I keep seeing John Bolton's moustache, Andi am not filled with confidence.
"... As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95) ..."
"... Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling. ..."
"... The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96) ..."
Andrew Bacevich
calls for
reckoning with the consequences of American colonial empire in the Philippines:
Yet the Philippines represented an altogether different case. By no stretch of the imagination did the archipelago fall within
"our backyard." Furthermore, the Filipinos had no desire to trade Spanish rule for American rule and violently resisted occupation
by U.S. forces. The notably dirty Philippine-American War that followed from 1899 to 1902 -- a conflict almost entirely expunged
from American memory today -- resulted in something like 200,000 Filipino deaths and ended in a U.S. victory not yet memorialized
on the National Mall in Washington.
Bacevich is right when he says that the Philippine War has been "almost entirely expunged from American memory today." It is significant
that one of the only times in recent years that the Philippine War was remembered was so that it could provide fodder for the counterinsurgency
fad among pro-war pundits. Max Boot was one of the chief advocates for counterinsurgency warfare, and he has cited the brutal occupation
campaign in the Philippines as an example of how to win such wars. Greg Bankoff counted the costs of the "small war" in the Philippines
that Boot praised in his book The Savage Wars of Peace , and he
described them in this response to a positive review of the book back in 2002:
Start with the description of the war itself as "small." Granted, the United States suffered only some 7,000 casualties, dead
and wounded. But estimates of Filipino mortality range from 200,000 persons upward. This is hardly small, especially considering
that the total Filipino population at the time was around seven million. Nor is it accurate to say the war ended in 1902, unless
one accepts the terms of President Theodore Roosevelt's November 1902 Brigandage Act, which redefined any band of more than three
men as bandits and subjected them to 20 years imprisonment or the death penalty. In fact, guerrilla warfare continued until 1907,
waged by popular revolutionary leaders who refused to accept the colonial yoke anew -- men such as Luciano San Miguel (who died
on the battlefield of Corral-na-Bato in March 1903), Macario Sakay (who was hanged on September 13, 1907) and Julian Montalan
(who was sentenced to life imprisonment and exiled to Palawan until 1921). No, the war did not actually end in 1902, but the U.S.
colonial authorities conveniently branded everything subsequent to that as ladronism, simple thievery.
Bankoff warned later in the same piece that "a distorted reconstruction of that past is likely to preview an equally distorted
future." Looking back seventeen years later at our multiple protracted wars, all of them enthusiastically supported by Boot and fellow
neo-imperialists, we have to conclude that the future was horribly distorted in part by this willingness to lionize and whitewash
the Philippine War as a model for U.S. foreign policy. Like that war, our ongoing wars have inflicted horrific losses on the local
populations, they are completely divorced from the security of the United States, and the people we are fighting are fighting us
because our forces are in their country.
If Boot's distorted history has contributed to the distortion of our foreign policy, we could do worse than to begin by finding
better reconstructions of the past. Daniel Immerwahr has done some important work in studying the consequences of our colonial empire
on the people in the territories that our government took over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His book
How to Hide an Empire recounts the history of how the U.S. obtained its overseas territories, how it abused them, and how
it has created a very different kind of empire over the last seventy years.
Immerwahr recounts some of the opposition to the Philippine War from members of the Anti-Imperialist League:
As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical
organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic
platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic
and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95)
He also describes the tactics that U.S. forces used in the war:
Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents
could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the
north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling.
The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos
not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96)
If we hope to change U.S. foreign policy and repudiate empire, we have to remember first how we acquired it and the Americans
that organized to oppose it.
P.S. Another similarity between the Philippine War and the wars of the last two decades is the length of the actual fighting.
Immerwahr writes:
Stretching from the outbreak of hostilities in 1899 to the end of military rule in Moroland in 1913, it is, after the war in
Afghanistan, the longest war the United States has ever fought. (p. 107)
Don't Underestimate Iran's Ability to Fight a Bloody War They already proved themselves against Iraq during the 1980s
-- and they're far stronger today. By
Pouya Alimagham •
August 6, 2019
Circa 1980's; an Iranian soldier wearing gas mask during Iran-Iraq War. Iraq used chemical weapons against military and civilian
targets throughout the eight year war. Declassified reports indicate that Saddam Hussein had international assistance in obtaining
the weapons, including from the U.S. and U.K, and the CIA assisted in targeting.
(Creative Commons/Wikipedia) On July 29, President Trump tweeted: "Just remember, Iranians never won a war, but never lost a
negotiation." In just 12 words, Trump leveled a multi-layered, ahistorical insult against both his predecessor, Barack Obama, and
Iran.
More importantly, the remarks betray a dangerously ignorant understanding of Iran that could result in another careless Middle
East war of choice.
The tweet invokes a clichéd, colonial-era stereotype that Iranians, like other Middle Eastern peoples, are wily swindlers -- rapacious,
greedy bazaar merchants who aim to take advantage of honest and unsuspecting Westerners. Trump is hardly the first American leader
to dabble in such denigrating stereotypes. Wendy Sherman, a senior State Department official and former lead negotiator who helped
forge the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, infamously
quipped that
Iranians could not be trusted because they have "deception in their DNA."
The president deployed the stereotype of Iranian cunning to imply that they tricked a naïve president, Barack Obama, into signing
a flawed nuclear deal. According to the world's foremost nuclear security
experts , however, the
accord was ensuring Iran's compliance, thereby preventing a nuclear weapons program -- that is, until Trump subverted the agreement
in 2018.
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More importantly, Trump's words underscore the idea that Iranians are cowardly and militarily ineffectual, but make up for such
unflattering character flaws by swindling their foes during negotiations to achieve victory.
Iran's last war, however, should dispel any notion of cowardice and military weakness -- a history President Trump and anti-Iran
hawks like National Security Adviser John Bolton must face with clear eyes if the United States is to avoid another needless, catastrophic
war in the Middle East.
Iraq Invades Iran
In the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Iran faced one of its most vulnerable moments in modern times. During the
revolutionary upheaval, many arms depots were raided and weapons were distributed to volunteers ready to deliver the monarchy its
coup de grace .
After the watershed moment, the Revolutionary Council feared that, given the Anglo-American coup in 1953 through the Iranian military,
Iran's generals could not be trusted. The subsequent purge resulted in the decimation of the country's military leadership. Moreover,
political infighting between revolutionary factions also led to unrest. To make matters worse, militant students were fearful that
the U.S. was planning to undermine the revolution through a coup -- as it did the nationalist government of Mohammad Mossadeq in
1953 -- so they resolved to ward off any such attempts. Consequently, they seized the U.S. embassy and held its personnel hostage.
The international community responded by isolating Iran for its blatant disregard for international norms.
Capitalizing on Iran's internal post-revolutionary chaos, military disarray, and international isolation, Iraqi strongman Saddam
Hussein ordered the invasion of his neighboring rival on September 22, 1980. Shortly after, Iran's internal power struggle between
the various revolutionary factions erupted into open warfare.
So devastating was the power struggle that many of the leading personalities of the Iranian Revolution died in assassinations
and bomb blasts, including Iran's president and prime minister. Thus, the Iranian state was forced to fight on two battlefronts --
internally against its challengers and externally against Iraqi invaders. The government did not, however, collapse under the weight
of its domestic rivals and foreign aggressors. In fact, the war enlivened Charles Tilly's timeless words: "War makes states."
Iranian Resilience
The Iranian state harnessed a powerful ideology that intertwined nationalism with Islamic revolutionary zeal in order to prompt
Iranians to close rank behind it, marshaling hundreds of thousands of soldiers to liberate Iranian territory occupied by the Iraqi
military. By May 24, 1982, and after tens of thousands of deaths, Iran freed the border city of Khorramshahr after a brutal two-year
siege.
Soon after Khorramshahr's liberation, the invading Iraqis were on the defensive, and Saddam's wartime financiers, namely Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait, offered Iran a multi-billion dollar reparations package to end the war. Iran's leader refused, declaring that
the only way the war would end was with Saddam Hussein's bloody demise. He then spearheaded the conflict onto Iraqi soil for the
first time. Time captured the moment by phrasing the counter-invasion as "
Iran on the march ."
Iran Versus the World
Iraq enjoyed the support of the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and the Arab League -- with
the exception of Syria and Libya -- and even used
chemical weapons on Iranian troops.
Yet Iran persisted despite such horrible odds, and hundreds of thousands continued to go to the battlefront knowing it was possible
that they, too, could fall victim to Iraq's horrific chemical weapons.
The violence dragged on for eight bitter years, making it the longest conventional war of the 20th century -- with an Iranian
death toll estimated between half a million to a million. To put that staggering number into perspective, the conservative estimate
exceeds the total American loss of life in World War II.
The war's conclusion was a failure in Iranian eyes, as it did not end in Saddam Hussein's overthrow and Iraqis and the region
would continue to suffer at his hands. Two years later, he refused to demobilize his million-man army to a jobless future in a war-ravaged
economy, and instead dispatched them across Iraq's border again -- this time to Kuwait.
Yet neither did Iran lose the war. In fact, it was the first conflict since the two 19th-century wars with Czarist Russia in which
Iran did not lose any territory. Above all, the country survived a genocidal conflict -- and survival was its own victory.
Iran Today
Today, Iran's population is more than double what it was in 1980 -- estimated at roughly
83 million . After lacking
military support from abroad during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran now has extensive
domestic
weapons manufacturing capabilities. Also unlike 1980, it has more allies in the region. In other words, if Iran fought so stubbornly
under such dire circumstances during the '80s, it will only fight more effectively today. It has already proven itself militarily
by coordinating the fight alongside the U.S. to defeat ISIS in Iraq while simultaneously working with Russia to help the Syrian government
win an unrelenting civil war.
The Iranian military budget may be a fraction of America's, but the Trump administration -- especially anti-Iran hawks John Bolton
and Mike Pompeo -- should consider this history and current reality objectively. If they don't, if they continue to underestimate
Iran the same way the Bush administration did with a far weaker Iraq in 2003, they risk another war of choice. Indeed, on the eve
of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney infamously
stated : "I think it will
go relatively quickly weeks rather than months." To be sure, history has been unkind to his rosy assessment.
Thinking a war with Iran will be over before it begins -- or that it will, as Senator Tom Cotton
boasted
, not require more than "two strikes, the first strike and the last strike" -- is the first step towards another needless, ruinous
war.
Pouya Alimagham is a historian of the modern Middle East at Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and
author of the forthcoming Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings (Cambridge University Press). Follow him
on Twitter @iPouya .
"... As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95) ..."
"... Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling. ..."
"... The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96) ..."
Andrew Bacevich
calls for
reckoning with the consequences of American colonial empire in the Philippines:
Yet the Philippines represented an altogether different case. By no stretch of the imagination did the archipelago fall within
"our backyard." Furthermore, the Filipinos had no desire to trade Spanish rule for American rule and violently resisted occupation
by U.S. forces. The notably dirty Philippine-American War that followed from 1899 to 1902 -- a conflict almost entirely expunged
from American memory today -- resulted in something like 200,000 Filipino deaths and ended in a U.S. victory not yet memorialized
on the National Mall in Washington.
Bacevich is right when he says that the Philippine War has been "almost entirely expunged from American memory today." It is significant
that one of the only times in recent years that the Philippine War was remembered was so that it could provide fodder for the counterinsurgency
fad among pro-war pundits. Max Boot was one of the chief advocates for counterinsurgency warfare, and he has cited the brutal occupation
campaign in the Philippines as an example of how to win such wars. Greg Bankoff counted the costs of the "small war" in the Philippines
that Boot praised in his book The Savage Wars of Peace , and he
described them in this response to a positive review of the book back in 2002:
Start with the description of the war itself as "small." Granted, the United States suffered only some 7,000 casualties, dead
and wounded. But estimates of Filipino mortality range from 200,000 persons upward. This is hardly small, especially considering
that the total Filipino population at the time was around seven million. Nor is it accurate to say the war ended in 1902, unless
one accepts the terms of President Theodore Roosevelt's November 1902 Brigandage Act, which redefined any band of more than three
men as bandits and subjected them to 20 years imprisonment or the death penalty. In fact, guerrilla warfare continued until 1907,
waged by popular revolutionary leaders who refused to accept the colonial yoke anew -- men such as Luciano San Miguel (who died
on the battlefield of Corral-na-Bato in March 1903), Macario Sakay (who was hanged on September 13, 1907) and Julian Montalan
(who was sentenced to life imprisonment and exiled to Palawan until 1921). No, the war did not actually end in 1902, but the U.S.
colonial authorities conveniently branded everything subsequent to that as ladronism, simple thievery.
Bankoff warned later in the same piece that "a distorted reconstruction of that past is likely to preview an equally distorted
future." Looking back seventeen years later at our multiple protracted wars, all of them enthusiastically supported by Boot and fellow
neo-imperialists, we have to conclude that the future was horribly distorted in part by this willingness to lionize and whitewash
the Philippine War as a model for U.S. foreign policy. Like that war, our ongoing wars have inflicted horrific losses on the local
populations, they are completely divorced from the security of the United States, and the people we are fighting are fighting us
because our forces are in their country.
If Boot's distorted history has contributed to the distortion of our foreign policy, we could do worse than to begin by finding
better reconstructions of the past. Daniel Immerwahr has done some important work in studying the consequences of our colonial empire
on the people in the territories that our government took over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His book
How to Hide an Empire recounts the history of how the U.S. obtained its overseas territories, how it abused them, and how
it has created a very different kind of empire over the last seventy years.
Immerwahr recounts some of the opposition to the Philippine War from members of the Anti-Imperialist League:
As Aguinaldo hoped, the Philippine War tapped a rich vein of anti-imperialism. Even the Democratic Party–hardly a radical
organization in the age of Jim Crow–could go a little spittle-flecked on this issue. The war was "criminal aggression," the Democratic
platform charged in 1900, born of "greedy commercialism" and sure to ruin the country. "No nation can long endure half republic
and half empire," it warned. "Imperialism abroad will lead quickly and inevitably to despotism at home." (p. 95)
He also describes the tactics that U.S. forces used in the war:
Now, with that spotlight switched off, MacArthur just wanted it over. He issued a new set of orders. Captured insurgents
could be killed. Towns supporting them could be destroyed. The preferred method was burning, and since nearly every town in the
north of the Philippines was aiding the rebels in some way, every one was potentially kindling.
The men needed little encouragement to carry out these orders. As MacArthur well knew, his soldiers regarded Filipinos
not at fellow Americans, but as irksome "natives." (p. 96)
If we hope to change U.S. foreign policy and repudiate empire, we have to remember first how we acquired it and the Americans
that organized to oppose it.
P.S. Another similarity between the Philippine War and the wars of the last two decades is the length of the actual fighting.
Immerwahr writes:
Stretching from the outbreak of hostilities in 1899 to the end of military rule in Moroland in 1913, it is, after the war in
Afghanistan, the longest war the United States has ever fought. (p. 107)
The war in
Afghanistan has reached new levels of insanity as a UN report shows US forces are killing more
civilians than ISIS and Taliban combined.
For the last several decades, the US government has openly funded, supported, and armed various
terrorist networks throughout the world to forward an agenda of destabilization and proxy war.
It is not a secret, nor a conspiracy theory -- America arms bad guys
. The situation has
gotten so overtly corrupt that the government admitted in May the Pentagon asked Congress for
funding to reimburse terrorists for their transportation and other expenses. Seriously. But that
was just the tip of the iceberg. A new report from the United Nations shows the US and its allies
in Afghanistan have killed more innocent men, women, and children than the group they claim are the
bad guys, the Taliban.
The now 18-year-old quagmire in Afghanistan is raising serious questions and once again,
it appears that the civilians are taking the brunt of the hit -- not the ostensible enemy.
In the first six months of the year, the conflict killed nearly 1,400 civilians and wounded
about 2,400 more. Afghan forces and their allies caused 52 percent of the civilian deaths
compared with 39 percent attributable to militants -- mostly the Taliban, but also the Islamic
State. The figures do not total 100 percent because responsibility for some deaths could not be
definitively established.
The higher civilian death toll caused by Afghan and American forces comes from their greater
reliance on airstrikes, which are particularly deadly for civilians. The United Nations said
airstrikes resulted in 363 civilian deaths and 156 civilian injuries.
"While the number of injured decreased, the number of civilians killed more than
doubled in comparison to the first six months of 2018, highlighting the lethal character of this
tactic,"
the United Nations report said, referring to airstrikes.
Naturally, the US military calls this report by the UN anti-American propaganda.
"We assess and investigate all credible allegations of noncombatant casualties in this
complex environment, whereas others intentionally target public areas, use civilians as human
shields and attempt to hide the truth through lies and propaganda," Colonel Sonny Leggett, a
spokesman for the United States military, said.
The line between the ostensible "good guys" and the "bad guys" has gotten so blurred
that the good guys are now openly supporting the bad while simultaneously killing more innocent
people than the bad ones.
It's a story straight out of The Onion, but in real life.
While the idea of the US government paying to support terrorists or killing more civilians than
terrorists may seem like a crazed notion it has become so overt in recent years that legislation
was specifically introduced for the sole purpose of banning the the flow of money to terrorist
organizations.
However, given the insidious history of the American empire and its creation and fostering of
terrorist regimes across the globe, it should come as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of
politicians would refuse to sign on to a law that requires them to
'Stop
Arming Terrorists.'
And, in 2017, that is exactly what happened.
The text of the bill was quite simple and contained no hidden agendas. It merely stated that it
prohibits
the use of federal agency funds to provide covered assistance to: (1) Al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh
al-Sham, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or any individual or group that is
affiliated with, associated with, cooperating with, or adherents to such groups; or (2) the
government of any country that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
determines has, within the most recent 12 months, provided covered assistance to such a group or
individual.
The only thing the bill did was prohibit the US government from giving money and weapons to
people who want to murder Americans and who do murder innocent men, women, and children across the
globe. It is quite possibly the simplest and most rational bill ever proposed by Congress. Given
its rational and humanitarian nature, one would think that representatives would have been lining
up to show their support. However, one would be wrong and in the five months after it was proposed,
just 13 members of Congress signed on as co-sponsors.
Not only is the United States refusing to stop arming terrorists, but now they are
becoming more violent than the terrorists they claim to fight. At what point do the American people
wake up to this insanity?
Sadly, it appears that the American people couldn't care less about innocent men women and
children being slaughtered with their tax dollars on the other side of the planet. They only seem
to pay attention to the area when one of these people -- whose seen their children blown to a fine
red mist by a US drone strike -- acts out in a retaliatory way. But instead of understanding that
this is blowback caused by US foreign policy, Boobus Americanus thinks these people simply "hate
our freedom."
Terrorism is necessary for the state. War, is the health of the state.
Without the constant fear mongering about an enemy who 'hates our freedom', Americans begin
questioning things. They challenge the status quo and inevitably desire more freedom. However, when
they are told that boogeymen want to kill them, they become immediately complacent and blinded by
their fear.
While these boogeymen were once mostly mythical, since 9/11, they have been funded and supported
by the US to the point that they now pose a very real threat to innocent people everywhere. As the
horrific attacks earlier this year in Sri Lanka illustrate, terrorists are organizing and
spreading.
Terrorists groups have been exposed inside the UK as well for having ties to the British
government who allowed
them
to freely travel and train with ISIS-linked groups
because those groups were in opposition to
Muammar Gaddafi, who the West wanted to snub out.
It's a vicious cycle of creating terrorists, killing innocence, and stoking war. And,
unless something radical happens, it shows no signs of ever reversing.
The radical change that is necessary to shift this paradigm back to peace is for people to wake
up to the reality that no matter which puppet is in the White House, the status quo remains
unchanged.
Trump is proving that he can lie to get into power and his supporters ignore it. If you doubt
this fact, look at what
Trump
did by calling out Saudi Arabia for their role in 9/11
and their support for terror worldwide
prior to getting elected. He now supports these terrorists and his constituency couldn't care less.
This madness has to stop.
Humanity has to stop being fooled by rhetoric
read from teleprompters by puppets doing the bidding of their masters. If Americans aren't shaken
out of this stupor by the idea that the US military and its allies are now killing more innocent
people than the Taliban and ISIS -- combined -- perhaps
But we love them anyway. They are our heroes, bravely fighting for
our freedoms in Afghanistan. Unless we kill the Afghanis over
there, they'll come here to kill us. Sure, sometimes our boys kill
innocents, but come on, we all know there are no innocent Muslims.
Even if they're kids, they'll eventually grow up to be terrorists
so better to kill them sooner than later. USA! USA! Woof! Woof!
What kind of person, really, joins the US military today?
It was
shown long ago that the Iraq war was based upon lies. Killing
civilians, bombing hospitals, air attacks on weddings, stabbing
captured and unconscious enemy in the throat (and getting away
with it), clearly there is no threat to the US to justify the
killing ...
But the actual killers are getting a bit of a surprise. Women
are being promoted past them and over them. The PC rules are
ruining the boys club and even their language is monitored. The
officers don't give a damn other than progressing to full colonel
at least, retiring with a nice pension and then working for high
pay for the private defense companies. The killers think they
will be admired, but they are just tools and may even be pushed
out.
Interestingly, through all the US bombing and killing, the
population of Afghanistan has increased from about 19 million in
2001 to about 37 million today, nearly doubling during the
senseless US attacks on their culture and people.
Sometimes much can be learned by asking simple questions. Why?
Simple questions most often have answers. Complex questions emerge
because folks can't bear to hear the answers to the simple ones. A
simple question that would be good to ask now is. Why are we
fighting in Afghanistan?
http://quillian.net/blog/your-punishment-for-believing-lies/
BTW, it has become very clear to me that the US withdrawal from the JCPOA with Iran was
co-ordinated with the western European signatories (France, United Kingdom, Germany and EU)
so that "maximum pressure" can be maintained on Iran while F/UK/DE/EU do nothing to honour
their commitments at the same time making it appear that it's Iran in breach rather than the
US/F/UK/DE/EU.
Iran is aware of this and taking action to ensure its preservation . War is coming and
F/UY/DE/EU will be involved on the side of the Great Satan.
With the exception of criminal justice reform Trump proved to be very weak, impulsive and
inefficient President. His neocon foreign policy team is disgusting and his team includes
several Iraq war relics - who by Nierenberg tribunal standard are war criminals. His economic
team is 100% pure neoliberals and criminals, who managed to escaped justice. They are
completely hostile to the interests of working people and lower middle class who ensured Trump
victory in 2016. He capitulation to neocon and licking Israel lobby are disgusting an. he
completely betrayed his 2016 agenda becoming kind of Republican Barak Obama.
Also, if the economics slides into recession due to his "containment of China" steps his
re-election changes will diminish significantly.
But I strongly doubt that Biden can win against Trump. Warren probably can, but not Biden.
also bind is an Iraq war supporter and as such is yet another war criminal.
Trump's personality and campaign strategy have always favored offense over defense,
putting opponents back on their heels through a barrage of attacks. Facing a moderate
candidate would complicate that.
After the second round of Democratic debates earlier this week, President Donald Trump
hosted a rally in
Cincinnati, Ohio, that provides a window into his reelection strategy. "But there never has
been a movement like this. This is a movement the likes of which they've never seen before,
maybe anywhere, but certainly in this country," Trump said, embracing his designation as
leader of a populist movement. "You came from the mountains, and the valleys, and the
rivers, and you came, I mean look, from wherever you came from, there were a lot of
you."
It was non-urban areas that elected Trump in 2016, and it will likely have to be what
wins him reelection in 2020. Despite losing the popular vote by three million, Trump won a
solid margin in the electoral college by marginally increasing vote tallies in Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
"I was watching the so-called debate last night. And I also watched the night before.
That was long, long television. And the Democrats spent more time attacking Barack Obama
than they did attacking me, practically," said Trump.
While I am aware of Eric Zuesse being somewhat controversial to some people, I do concur with
his assessment of the party that should be stripped of the 'Democratic' prefix. There is
nothing democratic in this organization and its members are either willful stooges, or the
most gullible people on earth - responsible for heinous crimes against humanity under the
cover of 'humanitarian aid'.
To even consider to allow this organization to continue in its deception of the American
electorate, shows the deepest infiltration of foreign influence, for whom this deception is
not only natural, but also compulsive. You may have guessed it, it's not the Russians.
However, an article by the Strategic Culture Organization, linked to on MOA yesterday
The 'Special Relationship' is collapsing , goes even further. It makes obvious the unholy
filth that has been plaguing humanity for a very long time. And while some may find it
questionable, it turns out that the Queen does appear to be the longest sitting Fascist in
the history of mankind.
Sometimes it is necessary to connect the dots beyond personal beliefs in regards to the
real conspiracy against working people all over the world.
"... The establishment's "Democracy Works!" propaganda seeks to stifle such Movements, directing attention to establishment candidates voice those concerns. But those candidates invariably prove to be ineffective because they can never get enough support to win and their efforts largely end with the election. ..."
Well you don't trust any of them, but you vote for the ones pushing policy you want to see happen, and you vote for the
ones that try to make that happen, and you abandon them immediately if they renege.
Obama's election and betrayal proved that this strategy doesn't work.
Tulsi is not anti-war', she's anti- dumb wars . Just as Colin Powell was ('Powell Doctrine' LOL). Just as
Obama was ("don't do stupid stuff"). Just as Trump is (amid howls of "isolationist!" LOL).
The fact is, every candidate will salute the flag as soon as the requisite false flag outrage occurs.
Furthermore, even if you ardently support Tulsi because she voices something that appears to be anti-war, you have to contend
with passionate supporters of other candidates: those who want a candidate of color, those who want an older
more experienced candidate, those who want a women candidate; those who want a socialist candidate, etc. In this way the electorate
is played against each other and in the end the establishment's favored candidate emerges naturally as the "democratic choice"
(with the help of establishment money and media support) .
Relying on voting for change is not enough . There has to be independent Movements for each fundamental change:
Democracy, Anti-war; Economic fairness. Like the Yellow Vest Movement.
The establishment's "Democracy Works!" propaganda seeks to stifle such Movements, directing attention to establishment candidates
voice those concerns. But those candidates invariably prove to be ineffective because they can never get enough support to win
and their efforts largely end with the election.
(First published at Strategic Culture Foundation, I put it here to see what the Committee
thinks about it)
Moscow will not engage in an exhausting arms race, and the country's military spending
will gradually decrease as Russia does not seek a role as the "world gendarme," President
Vladimir Putin said. Moscow is not seeking to get involved in a "pointless" new arms race,
and will stick to "smart decisions" to strengthen its defensive capabilities, Putin said on
Friday during an annual extended meeting of the Defense Ministry board. "Intelligence,
brains, discipline and organization" must be the cornerstones of the country's military
doctrine, the Russian leader said. The last thing that Russia needs is an arms race that
would "drain" its economy, and Moscow sure does not want that "in any scenario," Putin
pointed out.
It's easy to forget it today, but the USSR was, in its time, an "exceptionalist" country. It
was the world's first socialist country – the " bright future "; it set an
example for all to follow, it was destined by History. It had a mission and was required by
History to assist any country that called itself "socialist". The USSR had bases and interests
all over the world. As the 1977 USSR Constitution said :
the Soviet state, a new type of state, the basic instrument for defending the gains of the
revolution and for building socialism and communism. Humanity thereby began the epoch-making
turn from capitalist to socialism.
A novus ordo seclorum indeed.
Russia, however, is just Russia. There is no feeling in Moscow that Russia must take the
lead any place but Russia itself. One of the reasons, indeed, why Putin is always talking about
the primacy of the UN, the independence of nation states, the impermissibility to interfere in
internal activities – the so-called " Westphalian "
position – is that
he remembers the exceptionalist past and knows that it led to a dead end . Moscow has no
interest in going abroad in search of internationalist causes.
Internationalism/exceptionalism and nationalism: the two have completely different
approaches to constructing a military. The first is obsessed with " power
projection ", " full spectrum superiority ", it
imagines that its hypertrophied interests are challenged all over the planet. Its wants are
expensive, indeterminate, unbounded. The other is only concerned with dealing with enemies in
its neighbourhood. Its wants are affordable, exact, finite. The exceptionalist/interventionist
has everything to defend everywhere; the nationalist has one thing to defend in one place. It
is much easier and much cheaper to be a nationalist: the exceptionalist/interventionist
USA spends
much more than anyone else but
always needs more ; nationalist Russia can cut its
expenditure .
The USSR's desire to match or exceed the USA in all military areas was a contributing factor
to the collapse of its alliance system and the USSR itself. Estimates are always a matter for
debate, especially in a command economy that hid its numbers (even when they were calculable),
but a common estimate is a
minimum of 15% of the USSR's production went to the military. But the true effort was
probably higher. The USSR was involved all over the world shoring up socialism's "bright
future" and that cost it at home.
Putin & Co's "bright future" is for Russia only and the world may do as it wants about
any example or counterexample it may imagine there. While Putin may occasionally indulge
himself by offering opinions about liberalism and oped writers gas on about the
Putin/Trump populism threat , Putin & Co are just trying to do what they think best for
Russia with, as their trust ratings suggest (in contrast with those of the rulers of the
"liberal" West), the support and agreement of most Russians.
The military stance of the former exceptionalist country is all gone. As the USSR has faded
away, so have its overseas bases and commitments: the Warsaw Pact is gone together with the
forward deployment of Soviet armies; there are no advisors in Vietnam or Mozambique; Moscow
awaits with bemusement the day next January when the surviving exceptionalist power and its
minions will have been in Afghanistan twice as long as the USSR was. The United States, still
exceptionalist, still imagining it is
spreading freedom and democracy, preventing war and creating stability , has bases
everywhere and thinks that it must protect "freedom of navigation" to and from China in the
South China Sea. It has yet to learn the futility of seeing oneself as The World's Example.
Putin & Co have learned: Russia has no World-Historical purpose and its military is just
for Russia. They understand what this means for Russia's Armed Forces:
Moscow doesn't have to match the US military; it just has to checkmate it.
And it doesn't have to checkmate it everywhere, only at home. The US Air Force can rampage
anywhere but not in Russia's airspace; the US Navy can go anywhere but not in Russia's waters.
It's a much simpler job and it costs much less than what Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev were
attempting; it's much easier to achieve; it's easier to plan and carry out. The
exceptionalist/interventionist has to plan for Everything; the nationalist for One Thing.
Study the enemy, learn what he takes for granted and block it. And the two must haves
of American conventional military power as it affects Russia are 1) air superiority and 2)
assured, reliable communications; counter those and it's checkmated: Russia doesn't have to
equal or surpass the US military across the board, just counter its must haves .
Russia's comprehensive and interlocking air defence weaponry is well known and well
respected: it covers the spectrum from defences against ballistic missiles to small RPVs, from
complex missile/radar sets to MANPADS; all of it coordinated, interlocking with many
redundancies. We hear US generals complaining about
air defence bubbles and studies referring to Russia's " anti-access/area-denial
(A2AD) exclusion zones ". Russian air defence has not been put to the full-scale test but
we have two good indications of its effectiveness. The first was the coordinated RPV attack on
Russian bases in Syria last year in which seven were
shot down and six taken over , three
of them landed intact . Then, in the FUKUS attack of April 2018, the Russians say the
Syrian AD system (most of which is old but has benefited from Russian coordination) shot
down a large number of the cruise missiles. ( FUKUS' claims
are not believable ).
In the past two or three decades US air power has operated with impunity; it has assumed
that all GPS-based systems (and there are many) will operate as planned and that communications
will be free and clear. Not against Russia. With those certainties removed, the American war
fighting doctrine will be left scrabbling.
But AD and EW are not the only Russian counters. When President Bush pulled the USA out of
the ABM Treaty in
2001 , Putin warned that Russia would have to respond. Mutual Assured Destruction may
sound crazy but there's a stability to it: neither side, under any circumstance, can get away
with a first strike; therefore neither will try it. Last year we met
the response : a new ICBM, a hypersonic re-entry vehicle, a nuclear-powered cruise missile
with enormous flight time and a similar underwater cruise missile. No defence will stop them
and so MAD returns. A hypersonic anti-shipping missile will keep the US Navy out of Russian
waters. And, to deal with the US Army's risible ground forces in
Europe , with or without NATO's other feeble forces
, Russia has re-created the
First Guards Tank Army . Checkmate again.
No free pass for US air power, strained and uncertain communications, a defeated ground
attack and no defence against Russian nuclear weapons. That's all and that's enough.
And that is how Moscow does it while spending much less money than Washington. It studies
Washington's strengths and counters them: "smart decisions". Washington is starting to realise
Russia's military power but it is blinded and can only see its reflection in the mirror: the
so-called "
rising threat from Russia " would be no threat to a Washington that stayed at home.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred
battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also
suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every
battle.
he is of course correct in his over all views. russian missile and EW technology is already,
today, at least a generation ahead of what the pentagon fields for combat. rendering
effective pentagon military power projection neutered against both russia and china as well
as any ally they choose to support (think syria for sure, iran?, venezuela?)
the problem washington faces is they sold out the federal government decades ago to
banking and corporate interest which as time has proven repeatedly are NOT aligned with the
best interests of the american citizenry, and like anyone who sups with the devil a bargain
is a bargain, once taken there is no going back.
the problem for washington is that banking and corporate interests require plunder to
operate properly as currently structured. maximize short term gain for private ownership
while either put off long terms costs (pollution etc) well into the future or like in 2008
socialize the losses across the entire tax payer (a euphemism for serf) base while handily
keeping all those fed vomited bailouts private.
as russia, china, iran, venezuela erect signs backed up by force saying.."this is a
plunder free zone" and, what with unencumbered assets becoming ever harder to locate for
anglo american capitalism a crisis is emerging as forward motion (real growth) slows to a
crawl or goes below zero which renders all the debt entangled corporations, especially
governments and citizens susceptible to gravity once the trigger of ''no confidence''' hits
the public consciousness. increasing debt is directly correlated to decreasing growth need to
sustain the debt load. like unsuccessfully dieting a vicious circle.
all russia and china have to do to prevail over washington and its empire at this point is
WAIT.... while keeping their swords bright and their domestic intentions true (by taking care
of their own).
gravity once widespread public no confidence emerges will do all heavy lifting.
Excellent analysis, Patrick. It shows what can be accomplished when you don't blow your whole
wad on force projection and seeking full spectrum dominance at the same time. Seeking
dominant capability at our borders and territorial waters is doable, but projecting that all
over the world is a losing proposition. The Russian strategy reminds me of the Swiss
defensive model.
BTW, while the Russian bears and our Grizzlies are both brown bears, they are different
species.
I've always been intrigued by Switzerland -- more guns than anywhere but pretty peaceful;
really understands neutrality (which is actually a pretty cold-blooded position). I remember
reading some time ago that Switzerland General Guisan (hah! name just came to me, ultimate
senility is at least a week away!) told the Germans that, if they invaded, the Swiss would
blow the tunnels thereby rendering Switzerland useless to an invader.
Never seen so many measelshafts as there. (You old Cold Warriors might recognise the term
from Germany back in The Day (not entirely sure of the spelling).
But definitely a country that minds its own business but makes sure its more expensive to
conquer than it's worth. Finland is (or was) another example. (Which is why it's so
disappointing to see the current rulers in Helsinki sucking up to NATO.)
Well, many of us will live to see whether that's correct or not. My assumption is that China
is so arrogant (Middle Kingdom means between Heaven and Earth) that they really don't care
what the rest of us do as long as business happens.
Got me there.
The western alliance - since the fall of the USSR - has been pretty useless if not downright
dangerous.
As for China, they may have gone too far in that "inscrutable oriental" act and begun to
believe their own BS.
Throughout its long history China has never tried to dominate foreign countries. It never
tried to conquer Japan, for example, which had some very productive silver and gold mines. On
the other hand, the Mongols tried twice (unsuccessfully) to invade Japan during their short
period of dominance. China did try meddle in Korean politics and use Korea as a buffer zone,
though a few times the Koreans threw them out. China also tried to secure buffer zones in the
west and south. Even now, though, they seem to feel that they are destined to be the world's
middle country, and they don't seem to have a hankering to invade or directly control foreign
areas to gain Lebensraum, even though they have a huge population. And they have no tradition
of global colonialism. It is not in the culture or the economic history.
As for the New Silk Road, it does not seem to be as self-serving and manipulative as the
DoS and Pompeo are constantly claiming. China has an ancient continuous culture, and the
Chinese seem to know full well by now that lasting prosperity only happens when all parties
prosper. Mutual dependence and mutual recognition are a deep part of Chinese and all east
Asian cultures, though the Japanese samurai ethic briefly went berserk and disregarded that
wisdom back in the 1930s! The Chinese spirit of innovation-within-tradition and dynamic
business management (including state management) is also likely to keep them confident in
their own ability to be creative and cutting edge, so they will probably be less likely to
try to suppress other economies the way Trump is trying to do. I imagine Chinese leaders are
hoping that mutual prosperity and interdependence will make ideologies like "full spectrum
dominance" risible relics of the past. Culture is long, turbulence happens.
Moscow will not engage in an exhausting arms race, and the country's military spending will
gradually decrease as Russia does not seek a role as the "world gendarme," President
Vladimir Putin said
While Vladimir Putin is one of the most astute observers of foreign policy in the world
(running circles around Obama and Trump), he is also a politician. I sincerely doubt that
Russia gradually plans on decreasing spending on their military in any meaningful way. That
is for home consumption because about 35-40 percent of Russians live on $300 per month or
less. Putin's popularity is also dropping even though it remains quite high (Paul Goble:
Window on Eurasia -- New Series: Nearly 40 Percent of Russians Subsist on Less than...
https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/nearly-40-percent-of-russians-subsist.html?spref=tw):
Thirty-seven percent of Russians life on 19,000 rubles or less a month, Rosstat says, a
figure that works out to a subsistence of ten US dollars or a less a day, 23.2 percent live
on less than 15,000 rubles a month (under seven dollars a day); and 12 percent have incomes
under 10,000 rubles a month (five dollars a day).
I'm coming to think that you are that rare species of a POLITE troll. Russians like VVP, they
trust him and buy the package. And they get it that Russia is under attack (they aren't
living in a news bubble. They see Western stuff.)
Nobody in the West comes anywhere close to his numbers.
PS Paul Goble just prints anti-Putin stuff and is mostly entertainment.
After 8 years of the governance of Boris Yeltsin & the Free Market Reformers, 30% of
Russians were living on $1.50/day or less as their country unstoppably descended into social
catastrophe & strategic irrelevance.
What happened to the USSR and it's empire should serve as a warning to the USA. We have two
huge oceans defending us, yet we spend more to maintain our far flung empire than the USSR
ever did. One day, the taxpayers of this country are no longer going to pay for an empire
that they don't profit from.
thanks for the analysis - a shame the general did not expand on what Russian capabilities iN
EW were eye watering.
Interesting "The first was the coordinated RPV attack on Russian bases in Syria last year
in which seven were shot down and six taken over, three of them landed intact." According to
the article, the drones were controlled from 100 km distant. This really doesnt sound like
jihadi technology. So very interesting that Russia was able to take over the RPVs which were
either US or Israeli...
The US (with those two oceans as its eastern and western boundaries) is a maritime power.
We are also still a sufficiently important maritime power that we have some level of
responsibility for maintaining freedom of the seas (as with the issues with the pirates
operating out of Puntland in southern Somalia in the late 2000s), a situation that has
existed (in some form) since the Roman Republic made the Med "Mare Nostrum."
Russia has always been (mostly) a land power.
Given this, the US (even if it does not "seek to fight monsters" in Nietzsche's terms) has
the Force Projection task thrust upon it in a way Russia doesn't.
Even if we sought to be non-interventionist (as I think we should), we still have more on
our plate than Russia. (The PRC has the same inherent problem.)
Since we have a force projection mission thrust upon us as a maritime power, full spectrum
dominance (in at least the areas where our ships operate) is an implied task.
So, I think the two thoughts I have about this article are:
1) we have broader defense needs than the Russians, based on being a maritime power;
and
2) since our plate is already full, it makes little sense to add to that burden.
Britain is an island. Australia, while designated a continent, is also an island. Please
compare their "maritime power" status to ours, their defense spending as a percentage of gdp
to ours, and their number of foreign bases to ours, and explain.
Please compare those things to similar sized maritime nations and evaluate this in the
context of the former preeminence of the Royal Navy and its adjunct forces.
For extra credit consider the likelihood that the Royal Navy is to some degree an adjunct
of the US Navy,
As, for example, the history of the Western Roman Empire indicates (with the possible
exception of the Five Good Emperors and the early Tetrarchy during and immediately following
the reign of Diocletian), authoritarian states have some problems with succession.
Putin seems to have more of a "read" than any other world leader on the global stage right
now, but the answer to who follows him is likely be: "To the strongest."
Putin has been a smarter, more discerning leader than most presently on the world stage
and that has lent credibility. He has an advantage, as a retired LTC in the old KGB of having
some level of training and experience in both geo-politics and reading people and assessing
strengths and weaknesses.
Even given that, Russia has a decided advantage over many places in terms of natural
resources and in controlling what may be thought of as "global key terrain" (Mackinder's
"Heartland").
They have a kind of lasting Jominian advantage. With BRI/OBOR, they are somewhat in the
position of the guy in the Western who owns the land the Railroad is going to come through
(or, possibly, not).
Given its size, position and history, it is questionable if Russia is ever "finished," but
while it has come back from its dire position 20 years ago, it still is notably weaker than
it was in the 1980s. As Mr. Armstrong's article indicates that may matter less than fact it
appears strong enough to advance its own interests.
Trump had recently told reporters he was considering a naval blockade or full "quarantine"
of Venezuela as the latest effort to try to impose regime change, something the US announced
it had recognized month ago but which so far hasn't happened.
President
Maduro denounced the comments , and called on his ambassador to complain to the UN
Security Council about the "illegal" US threat to blockade the Venezuelan coastline. Maduro
added it was "clearly illegal."
Clearly illegal as a practical matter is likely to be very much beside the point for US
policy. Previous indications were that Trump had become bored with Venezuela because of the
lack of progress, and it's likely he'll only try to impose a regime change in this manner if
he believes it will work.
Scott interviews Gareth Porter about John Bolton's most recent efforts to raise tensions
with Iran. He and Scott speculate about Iran's ability to disrupt international trade in the
region by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that they would do so given
the risks of inciting more serious conflict as a result.
Trump wasn't their candidate (which suggests that he's clean), and (so far) he hasn't
enabled a war with Iran, so what happens with him is an open question.
I wonder what makes you (or anyone) so sure that "Trump wasn't their candidate". From the
time that he announced his candidacy in 2015 to the present moment, I have never found
implausible the possibility that the President may be controlled opposition. Or, more
mundanely, simply the self-promoting carnival barker that just about all evidence strongly
suggests that he always was. How closely have you looked at Mr. Trump's actual record,
starting from before he announced?
And, to what extent, since becoming President, has Mr. Trump actually opposed the
Globo-Homo agenda?
Trump wasn't their candidate (which suggests that he's clean), and (so far) he hasn't
enabled a war with Iran, so what happens with him is an open question.
I wonder what makes you (or anyone) so sure that "Trump wasn't their candidate".
The Deep State, Empire, Zio-Glob, or whatever you want to call it, was obviously 100%
behind Hillary Clinton. She and her husband were totally blackmailable, and the media fury
when she lost was something to see.
For his part, Trump looked surprised (and not too happy) that he won. It's clear that he
has links to the Deep State, but he was set up to lose (the media from the start presenting
him as the joke candidate – the irrelevant clown). The script was for serious, boring
and ineffectual Jeb Bush to lose to the heroic champion of Social Justice, and first woman
President Hillary Clinton.
When Trump actually found himself President (and could see the trouble he was in) –
for survival, he fully committed to Israel and the Zionists. The idea was that they would
defend him , against their Cultural Bolshevik cousins in the US. The Adelsons and the
Israelis love him while the US Cultural Bolshevik Jews hate him.
The US public are just extras in this show. If he cared about them he would do something
about 9/11 – which he won't. He's a high rise developer from New York and knows better
than anyone that 9/11 was all fakery. Here's his first public reaction (on the day):
"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody criminality of the Bush years.
He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military
banking complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as a magnet for liberal anger. This
will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump
won't fulfill any of his election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."
Linh Dinh, "Orlando Shooting Means Trump for President," @ The Unz Review (June 12, 2016).
Note how the 'free press' of the US has been not only complicit in all this every step of the way but is coordinated with it,
staying silent about things in front of its nose and launching propaganda campaigns on cue. Obviously the media is in close cooperation
with elements of the political establishment. Oh, but we have the freest media in the world. I know so because I read it in the
newspaper.
@Fran Taubman "Neo-Nazi Azov National Corps march/rally in Odessa to celebrate the 5th
year anniversary of the far-right's instituting "Ukrainian order" [Kaganat of Nuland] in the
city via the massacre of 40+ people in the Trade Unions House on May 2, 2014."
@Fran Taubman Zionist project in Ukraine: "Some of the people in the group [supporters of
the Kiev regime installed by Nuland-Kagan] were wearing ultra-nationalist Right Sector
movement insignia, were armed with chains and bats and carried shields." https://www.rt.com/news/156592-odessa-activists-burnt-alive/
"INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS," President Donald Trump tweeted in April, days before the
Justice Department released the Mueller report to the public.
Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have argued throughout the years-long
investigation into the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia that the entire probe began
based on shoddy intelligence and that federal law enforcement illegally spied on members of
the campaign.
But now that special counsel Robert Mueller's probe has concluded -- and Trump has a
particularly receptive attorney general running the Justice Department -- the push to
"investigate the investigators" has moved from rhetoric to reality.
There are several reviews of the Russia probe currently underway, both of which predate
Barr. They include one by the Justice Department's internal watchdog, whose findings are
expected in the coming weeks, and another inquiry overseen by Utah federal prosecutor John
Huber, which was prompted by Republican complaints about the Russia probe and the handling of
Hillary Clinton-related scandals.
Attorney General William Barr is also conducting his own inquiry. Barr tapped the US
attorney for Connecticut to help examine the origins of the Russia probe.
But media reports suggest the AG is closely invested in this process. And last week, the
president gave Barr's inquiry a substantial boost. At Barr's request, Trump signed a memo
ordering US intelligence agencies to cooperate with Barr and giving the AG sweeping powers to
declassify intelligence documents as part of his audit. ...
You mean the FISA warrant that happened a full 4 months prior to Steele Dossier even
existing? None of what you claim here makes sense unless you are trying to justify these (and
other) illegal acts by POTUS.
... Trump believes that everybody is a crook and views demands that he follow the law as
mere hypocrisy. Here he pivots immediately from his rage that he is being asked to comply
with basic ethical norms -- in this same interview Trump threatened to raise tariffs on
French wine, a move that would benefit Trump's own winery -- to insinuations that President
Obama probably committed financial crimes, too.
Trump's claim that Republicans never investigated Obama is especially bizarre. Congress
held eight separate investigations on Benghazi alone. The redundancy was deemed necessary
because conservatives simply refused to accept findings that no scandal had taken place.
Trump, reaching for evidence that Obama probably did something just as unethical as Trump
did, comes up with Obama's book. You can almost see the wheels turning in Trump's brain as he
tries to summon some damning piece of evidence about his predecessor. ...
None of this makes sense. The FISA warrant came after a Trump staffer drunkenly bragged about
getting info from Russia. This has already been investigated by the FBI. Hint: Hannity,
Levine, and Savage are propaganda mouthpieces. Stop listening to them.
I wonder how Eisenhower was persuaded to permit the 1953 coup in Iran.
The British wanted to preserve BP's oil concessions in Iran, but MI6 was not powerful
enough to stage a coup without help from the CIA. So the Brits pretended that Mosaddegh
leaned towards the Soviets, and the Americans pretended to believe them.
After the coup, the Shah's government transferred the majority of BP's rights to American
oil companies. It would have been much better for the Brits if they had done a deal with
Mosaddegh.
@James N. Kennett 1952: Mosaddeq Nationalization of Iran's Oil Industry Leads to Coup
Time Magazine's Man of the Year cover for 1951. Mohammad Mosaddeq
]
Iranian President Mohammad Mosaddeq moves to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in
order to ensure that more oil profits remain in Iran. His efforts to democratize Iran had
already earned him being named Time Magazine's Man of the Year for 1951. After he
nationalizes it, Mosaddeq realizes that Britain may want to overthrow his government, so he
closes the British Embassy and sends all British civilians, including its intelligence
operatives, out of the country.
Britain finds itself with no way to stage the coup it desires, so it approaches the
American intelligence community for help. Their first approach results in abject failure when
Harry Truman throws the British representatives out of his office, stating that "We don't
overthrow governments; the United States has never done this before, and we're not going to
start now."
After Eisenhower is elected in November 1952, the British have a much more receptive
audience, and plans for overthrowing Mosaddeq are produced. The British intelligence
operative who presents the idea to the Eisenhower administration later will write in his
memoirs, "If I ask the Americans to overthrow Mosaddeq in order to rescue a British oil
company, they are not going to respond. This is not an argument that's going to cut much
mustard in Washington. I've got to have a different argument. I'm going to tell the Americans
that Mosaddeq is leading Iran towards Communism." This argument wins over the Eisenhower
administration, who promptly decides to organize a coup in Iran (see August 19, 1953).
[Stephen Kinzer, 7/29/2003]
Entity Tags: Dwight Eisenhower, Harry S. Truman, Muhammad Mosaddeq
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran, US-Iran (1952-1953)
In Oct it will be 18 full years in Afghanistan. The US is not a learning organization.
If you trust the media, you trust the hugely funded propaganda machine that makes Goebbels
look stone age primitive.
I am a bit sensitive this week, I am finishing Gloria Emerson's "Winner and Losers"
scratching a lot of scars from Vietnam. Not easy reading if you changed your mind once the
blither was exposed.
Somewhere over Delong's it was recommended and amazon had a hardcover for
$1.56........
Bottomline from Winners and Losers: The blither is reminiscent and much of the news topics
the same.
We still do not know how, when and where the Iranian tanker was captured. There are two
mutually exclusive narratives.
1) Grace 1 "freely navigated into UK territorial waters" as Jeremy Hunt claims.
2) The capture of Grace 1 was ordered by the US long before Grace 1 entered
the Strait. Panama revoked the ship's registration and Gibraltar changed its sanction
laws.
Would the US know weeks in advance that Grace 1 is about to stop in Gibraltar? On
the other hand, If Grace 1 had known that its registration had been revoked, would it
not have avoided British waters.
I suspect Grace 1 was captured out on the Atlantic, days before the news was made
public. The Royal Marines would then reprogram the automatic identification system (AIS) to
show Gibraltar as the destination. We still have not heard from the crew. What is their
story?
Thanks for the link to Craig Murray 's article. I have been collecting sources and
analysis on the tanker seizures here
.
If you know which shipping company owns a certain cargo ship or tanker, you can usually
look up that company's database and find the ship's scheduled voyage. This is crucial
knowledge because usually cargo ships will be carrying several lots of cargo to be offloaded
at ports along the way, and new cargo taken on at the same time, so importers and exporters
need to know exactly when the ship docks at X place and when it leaves. It would be very easy
for the UK or the US to know in advance when the Grace 1 docks at Gibraltar; they only
need to know who owns the tanker, find the owner's website and look up the schedules of all
the owner's ships.
In fact the Grace 1 tanker might not have been the specific target; as long as
there was a ship purportedly carrying Iranian oil passing through the Straits of Gibraltar,
it would have been fair game. So all the British would have needed to know is which tanker or
tankers from the Middle East would have been scheduled to dock in at Gibraltar and they get
that information from the relevant port authorities.
"... Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior. ..."
"Empires in decline tend to behave badly. Indeed, whether British, French or Russian, the
twilight years of imperialism often brought brutal repression of subjects abroad, the
suppression of civil liberties at home and general varieties of brutality toward foreigners, be
they refugees or migrants.
Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed
hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks
have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior.
Aggressive wars of choice have ushered in rampant torture, atrocities in Iraq's Abu Ghraib
prison, indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations,
warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance of the citizenry...
It's all connected. The empire -- all empires -- eventually come home."
Maj. Danny Sjursen, An American Tragedy: Empire at Home and Abroad
"... "Russia's Defence Ministry: US private military companies (w 3500+ mercenaries deployed) are busy plundering Syrian oil facilities under the guise of the international anti-terrorist coalition - this crude is being illegally sold and the revenues used to train more militants." ..."
"Russia's Defence Ministry: US private military companies (w 3500+ mercenaries deployed)
are busy plundering Syrian oil facilities under the guise of the international anti-terrorist
coalition - this crude is being illegally sold and the revenues used to train more
militants."
Meanwhile, another tweet advances an unconfirmed possibility of some sort of treaty to be
signed tomorrow by Iran and Russia's Ministry of Defense. I shall watch for confirmation.
Regional experts had immediately suspected the possibility of an Israeli air raid after a
pro-Iranian militia arms depot in Iraq was obliterated during
a mysterious attack
on July 19
, and another reported follow-up attack this past Sunday.
The attack happened around 80 km from the Iranian border and 40 km north-east of Baghdad at Camp
Ashraf, former home to the Iranian exile group Mojahedin-e Khalq, but now reportedly in the hands
of Iranian intelligence and paramilitaries.
Speculation was rampant in the days that followed as to the source of the 'mysterious' air
strikes - or what was also initially reported as a drone strike - however, some pointed the finger
at an American operation targeting Iranian militants inside Iraq.
But now Israeli and regional media, citing western diplomats, have confirmed it was
a
nearly unprecedented Israeli operation on Iraqi soil
--
representing a major
escalation and expansion of Israel's anti-Iran operations.
Israel reportedly launched a total of two separate air strike operations on the camp using its
US-supplied F-35 stealth fighter jets.
Israel has expanded the scope of its anti-Iranian attacks and struck targets in Iraq
,
the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Tuesday.
According to the report, which cites anonymous Western diplomats,
Israel
struck Iranian warehouses storing arms and missiles at Camp Ashraf
, north-east of
Baghdad, twice in the past month.
On July 19, the base was struck by an Israeli F-35 fighter jet, the sources added. The base
was allegedly attacked again on Sunday.
The report alleges the primary target included
a shipment of Iranian ballistic missiles
which recently entered Iraq via the nearby Iranian border.
And though not confirmed, the report further claimed that "Iranian advisers" had been injured in
the series of airstrikes.
Israel has over the past couple of years conducted "hundreds" of attacks inside Syria, which
defense officials have claimed were primarily against Iranian and Hezbollah bases, but if this
month's air strikes on Camp Ashraf are confirmed Israeli assaults, it would constitute a major
widening in terms of the scope of Tel Aviv's "anti-Iran" targeting operations.
The news is also sure to enrage officials in Baghdad, who will mount protests defending Iraqi
sovereignty. Israel hasn't mounted a known significant attack on Iraqi soil since the days of
former dictator Saddam Hussein.
The New Quincy Institute Seeks Warmongering Monsters to Destroy Andrew Bacevich on his new left-right group, which is
going hammer and tongs against the establishment on foreign policy. By
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos •
July 30, 2019
Andrew J. Bacevich participates in a panel discussion at the U.S. Naval War College in 2016. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication
Specialist 1st Class Christian S. Eskelund/Released) For the last month, the foreign policy establishment has been abuzz over the
new kid on the block: the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft , named
for John Quincy Adams. Adams, along with our first president George Washington,
warned of foreign entanglements and the urge to go
abroad in "search of monsters to destroy," lest America's fundamental policy "insensibly change from liberty to force
. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit ."
Those in the foreign policy Blob have had different reactions to the "upstart" think tank. These are the preeminent organizations
that stand imperious in size and square footage, but have lacked greatly in wisdom and clarity over the last 20 years. Quincy will
stand apart from them in two significant ways: it is drawing its intellectual and political firepower from both the anti-war Left
and the realist and restraint Right. And it is poised to support a new "responsible statecraft," one that challenges the conditions
of endless war, including persistent American militarism here and abroad, the military industrial complex, and a doctrine that worships
primacy and a liberal world order over peace and the sovereignty of other nations.
Quincy, which is rolling out its statement of principles this
week (its official launch will be in the fall), is the brainchild of Trita Parsi, former head of the National Iranian-American Council,
who saw an opening to bring together Left and Right academics, activists, and media disenchanted by both sides' pro-war proclivities.
Together with Vietnam veteran and former Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich (also a longtime TAC contributor), the
Carnegie Endowment's Suzanne DiMaggio, Columbia University's Stephen Wertheim, and investigative journalist Eli Clifton, the group
wants to serve as a counterweight to both liberal interventionists like the Brookings Institution and Council on Foreign Relations,
and the war hawks and neoconservatives of the Heritage Foundation and Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
They've already taken hits from both sides of the establishment, dismissed brusquely
as naive , or worse,
isolationist (that swipe from neoconservative Bill Kristol, whose now-defunct Weekly Standard once ran a manifesto headlined
"The Case for American Empire"
). The fact that Quincy will be funded by both George Soros on the Left and the Charles Koch Foundation on the Right has brought
some rebuke from unfriendlies and even some friendlies. The former hate on one or the other powerful billionaire, while the latter
are wary of Soros' intentions (he's has long been a financial supporter of
"soft-power"
democracy movements overseas, some of which have encouraged revolution and regime change).
Advertisement
But Quincy's timing couldn't be more perfect. With a president in the White House who has promised to draw down U.S. involvement
overseas (with the exception of his Iran policy, he has so far held to much of that pledge), and national conservatives coming around
to TAC's long-held worldview on realism and restraint (and an increasing willingness to reach across the aisle to work with
like-minded groups and individuals), Quincy appears poised to make some noise in Washington.
According to the group's new statement of principles , "responsible
statecraft" 1) serves the public interest, 2) engages the world, 3) builds a peaceful world, 4) abhors war, and 5) is democratic.
Andrew Bacevich and Trita Parsi expanded on this further in a recent Q&A with TAC.
(Full disclosure: the author is on Quincy's steering committee and TAC also receives funding from the Charles Koch Foundation.)
TAC : Quincy's principles -- and thus it's name -- are rooted in the mission of "responsible statecraft." Can you give
me a sense of what that means in practical terms, and why you settled on this phrasing for the institute?
AB: With the end of the Cold War, policy elites succumbed to an extraordinary bout of hubris, perhaps best expressed in the claim
that history had designated the United States as its "indispensable nation." Hubris bred recklessness and irresponsibility, with
the Iraq war of 2003 as Exhibit A. We see "responsible statecraft" as the necessary antidote. Its abiding qualities are realism,
restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement. While the QI is not anti-military, we are wary of war except when all other alternatives
have been exhausted. We are acutely conscious of war's tendency to produce unintended consequences and to exact unexpectedly high
costs.
TAC : Quincy is a trans-partisan effort that is bringing together Left and Right for common cause. Is it a challenge?
AB: It seems apparent to us that the myriad foreign policy failures and disappointments of the past couple of decades have induced
among both progressives and at least some conservatives a growing disenchantment with the trajectory of U.S. policy. Out of that
disenchantment comes the potential for a Left-Right coalition to challenge the status quo. The QI hopes to build on that potential.
TAC : Two of the principles take direct aim at the current foreign policy status quo: responsible statecraft abhors war,
and responsible statecraft is democratic (calling out a closed system in which Americans have had little input into the wars waged
in their names). How much of what Quincy aims to do involves upending conventional norms, particularly those bred and defended by
the Washington "Blob"?
AB: In a fundamental sense, the purpose of the QI is to educate the American people and their leaders regarding the Blob's shortcomings,
exposing the deficiencies of old ideas and proposing new ones to take their place.
TAC: That said, how much blowback do you anticipate from the Washington establishment, particularly those think tanks and
individuals whose careers and very existence depend on the wheels of militarism forever turning?
AB : Plenty. Proponents of the status quo are entrenched and well-funded. Breaking old habits -- for example, the practice of
scattering U.S. military bases around the world -- will not come easily.
TAC : There has been much ado about your two primary funders -- Charles Koch and George Soros. What do you say to critics
who suggest you will be tied to/limited by their agendas?
AB: Our funding sources are not confined to Koch and Soros and we will continue to broaden our support base. It's not for me to
speak for Koch or Soros. But my guess is they decided to support the QI because they support our principles. They too believe in
policies based on realism, restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement.
TAC : Better yet, how did you convince these two men to fund something together?
TP: It is important to recognize that they have collaborated in the past before, for instance on criminal justice reform. This
is, however, the first time they've come together to be founding funders of a new entity. I cannot speak for them, but I think they
both recognize that there currently is a conceptual deficit in our foreign policy. U.S. elite consensus on foreign policy has collapsed
and the void that has been created begs to be filled. But it has to be filled with new ideas, not just a repackaging of old ideas.
And those new ideas cannot simply follow the old political alignments. Transpartisan collaboration is necessary in order to create
a new consensus. Koch and Soros are showing tremendous leadership in that regard.
TAC : The last refuge of a scorned hawk is to call his critics "isolationist." It would seem as though your statement of
principles takes this on directly. How else does Quincy take this often-used invective into account?
AB : We will demonstrate through our own actions that the charge is false.
TAC : Critics (including James Traub,
in his own piece on Quincy
) say that Washington leaders, once in office, are "mugged by reality," suggesting that the idea of rolling back military interventions
and avoiding others sounds good on paper but presidents like Barack Obama had no choice, that this is all about protecting interests
and hard-nosed realism. The alternative is a bit naive. How do you respond?
AB: Choices are available if our leaders have the creativity to recognize them and the gumption to pursue them. Obama's patient
and resolute pursuit of the Iran nuclear deal affirms this possibility. The QI will expose the "we have no choice" argument as false.
We will identify and promote choice, thereby freeing U.S. policy from outmoded habits and stale routines.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is e xecutive editor at . Follow her on Twitter
@Vlahos_at_TAC
QI is a welcome change from the endless, whining tirade of the old hawks.
I wish them well in gaining influence in DC.
I hope that they can give voice to the growing numbers of us who do not support illegal invasions, funding dissidents to
foment regime change and our flawed system of selecting key allies (regardless of their human rights records) and protecting
them and their interests at all cost. This has been a drain our economic resources and moral standing.
In this time, when nationalism and disaster capitalism seem to be winning on both sides of the Atlantic, it seems there
is little hope for peace, decency and diplomacy.
QI has a huge challenge to take on the parasitic organism that is the war machine, but any initiative is better than none.
If Quincy is to have any chance of success in its mission, it will have to tackle the issues surrounding Federal election campaign
financing. The current rules give a handful of American billionaires effective control over US Middle East policy. What is
good for donors like Sheldon and Miriam Edelson is not necessarily good for the American public. Donald Trump was elected president
of the US not Prime Minister of Israel.
I did read one of Mr. Basevich's books a few years ago and my take away remains valid today: The US cannot afford to be
the policeman of the world.
Ukraine became a geopolitical pawn. In signing up with the US and EU, there is one guaranteed loser – the Ukrainian people.
Notable quotes:
"... His electorally repudiated predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, backed by supporters in Washington, thwarted almost every preceding opportunity for negotiations both with the Donbass rebels and with Moscow, ..."
"... But the struggle for peace has just begun, with powerful forces arrayed against it in Ukraine, Moscow, and Washington. In Ukraine, well-armed ultra-nationalist -- some would say quasi-fascist -- detachments are terrorizing supporters of Zelensky's initiative, including a Kiev television station that proposed broadcasting a dialogue between Russian and Ukrainian citizens. ..."
"... Which brings us to Washington and in particular to President Donald Trump and his would-be opponent in 2020, former vice president Joseph Biden. Kiev's government, thus now Zelensky, is heavily dependent on billions of dollars of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which Washington largely controls. Former president Barack Obama and Biden, his "point man" for Ukraine, used this financial leverage to exercise semi-colonial influence over Poroshenko, generally making things worse, including the incipient Ukrainian civil war. Their hope was, of course, to sever Ukraine's centuries-long ties to Russia and even bring it eventually into the US-led NATO sphere of influence. ..."
"... Biden, however, has a special problem -- and obligation. As an implementer, and presumably architect, of Obama's disastrous policy in Ukraine, and currently the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden should be asked about his past and present thinking regarding Ukraine. The much-ballyhooed ongoing "debates" are an opportunity to ask the question -- and of other candidates as well. Presidential debates are supposed to elicit and clarify the views of candidates on domestic and foreign policy. And among the latter, few, if any, are more important than Ukraine, which remains the epicenter of this new and more dangerous Cold War. ..."
"... This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com . ..."
The election of Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who won decisively throughout
most of the country, represents the possibility of peace with Russia, if it -- and he -- are
given a chance. His electorally repudiated predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, backed by supporters
in Washington, thwarted almost every preceding opportunity for negotiations both with the
Donbass rebels and with Moscow, notably provisions associated with the European-sponsored Minsk
Accords. Zelensky, on the other hand, has made peace (along with corruption) his top priority
and indeed spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on July 11. The nearly
six-year war having become a political, diplomatic, and financial drain on his leadership,
Putin welcomed the overture.
But the struggle for peace has just begun, with powerful forces arrayed against it in
Ukraine, Moscow, and Washington. In Ukraine, well-armed ultra-nationalist -- some would say
quasi-fascist -- detachments are terrorizing supporters of Zelensky's initiative, including a
Kiev television station that proposed broadcasting a dialogue between Russian and Ukrainian
citizens. (Washington has previously had some shameful episodes of
collusion with these Ukrainian neo-Nazis .) As for Putin, who does not fully control the
Donbass rebels or its leaders, he "can never be seen at home," as
I pointed out more than two years ago , "as 'selling out' Russia's 'brethren' anywhere in
southeast Ukraine." Indeed, his own implacable nationalists have made this a litmus test of his
leadership.
Which brings us to Washington and in particular to President Donald Trump and his
would-be opponent in 2020, former vice president Joseph Biden. Kiev's government, thus now
Zelensky, is heavily dependent on billions of dollars of aid from the International Monetary
Fund, which Washington largely controls. Former president Barack Obama and Biden, his "point
man" for Ukraine, used this financial leverage to exercise semi-colonial influence over
Poroshenko, generally making things worse, including the incipient Ukrainian civil war. Their
hope was, of course, to sever Ukraine's centuries-long ties to Russia and even bring it
eventually into the US-led NATO sphere of influence.
Our hope should be that Trump breaks with that long-standing bipartisan policy, as he did
with policy toward North Korea, and puts America squarely on the side of peace in Ukraine. (For
now, Zelensky has set aside Moscow's professed irreversible "reunification" with Crimea, as
should Washington.) A new US policy must include recognition, previously lacking, that the
citizens of war-ravaged Donbass are not primarily "Putin's stooges" but people with their own
legitimate interests and preferences, even if they favor Russia. Here too Zelensky is embarking
on a new course. Poroshenko waged an "anti-terrorist" war against Donbass: the new president is
reaching out to its citizens even though most of them were unable to vote in the election.
Biden, however, has a special problem -- and obligation. As an implementer, and presumably
architect, of Obama's disastrous policy in Ukraine, and currently the leading candidate for the
Democratic presidential nomination, Biden should be asked about his past and present thinking
regarding Ukraine. The much-ballyhooed ongoing "debates" are an opportunity to ask the question
-- and of other candidates as well. Presidential debates are supposed to elicit and clarify the
views of candidates on domestic and foreign policy. And among the latter, few, if any, are more
important than Ukraine, which remains the epicenter of this new and more dangerous Cold
War.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host of The John Batchelor
Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com .
Looks like the world order established after WWIII crumbed with the USSR and now it is again the law if jungles with the US as the
biggest predator.
Notable quotes:
"... The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. ..."
"... Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy ..."
"... A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest. ..."
"... For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness. ..."
"... Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II. ..."
"... Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards. ..."
"... Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." ..."
"... This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer. ..."
"... England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank." ..."
"... But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium. ..."
"... On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe ..."
"... The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945. ..."
"... By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands. ..."
"... It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. ..."
"... But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid. ..."
"... It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. ..."
"... Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe. ..."
"... It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence. ..."
"... Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority. ..."
"... Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change. ..."
"... Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times. ..."
"... Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. ..."
"... To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles. ..."
"... Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually. ..."
"... So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change. ..."
"... Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. ..."
"... I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. ..."
"... If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing. ..."
"... In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3. ..."
"... Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble." ..."
"... He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas. ..."
"... The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run. ..."
"... Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners. ..."
"... Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap. ..."
"... On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect. ..."
"... Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o ..."
"... Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT. ..."
"... The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy. ..."
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons
who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold
by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries
with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial
institutions.
This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become
the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved
what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter
has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using
Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black
political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense
that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties.
The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together
– the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into
the Eurasian orbit, the "Heartland" nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago.
The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution
of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported
even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States
is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet.
Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign
policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure,
dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank
to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence,
not democracy.
In the Devil's Dictionary that U.S. diplomats are taught to use as their "Elements of Style" guidelines for Doublethink, a "democratic"
country is one that follows U.S. leadership and opens its economy to U.S. investment, and IMF- and World Bank-sponsored privatization.
The Ukraine is deemed democratic, along with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries that act as U.S. financial and military protectorates
and are willing to treat America's enemies are theirs too.
A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public
relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism"
(meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest.
This trajectory could be seen 50 years ago (I described it in Super Imperialism [1972] and Global Fracture [1978].) It had to
happen. But nobody thought that the end would come in quite the way that is happening. History has turned into comedy, or at least
irony as its dialectical path unfolds.
For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that
opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties
that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.)
to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners
and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness.
The reality is that right-wing parties want to get elected, and a populist nationalism is today's road to election victory in
Europe and other countries just as it was for Donald Trump in 2016.
Trump's agenda may really be to break up the American Empire, using the old Uncle Sucker isolationist rhetoric of half a century
ago. He certainly is going for the Empire's most vital organs. But it he a witting anti-American agent? He might as well be – but
it would be a false mental leap to use "quo bono" to assume that he is a witting agent.
After all, if no U.S. contractor, supplier, labor union or bank will deal with him, would Vladimir Putin, China or Iran be any
more naïve? Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible
to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal
to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II.
Dismantling International Law and Its Courts
Any international system of control requires the rule of law. It may be a morally lawless exercise of ruthless power imposing
predatory exploitation, but it is still The Law. And it needs courts to apply it (backed by police power to enforce it and punish
violators).
Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country
have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy
years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which
let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards.
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity
share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy. Without such power, the United States would not join
any international organization. Yet at the same time, it depicted its nationalism as protecting globalization and internationalism.
It was all a euphemism for what really was unilateral U.S. decision-making.
Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international
court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations'
International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture
policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable
basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity."
[1]
Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton erupted in fury, warning in September that: "The United States will use any
means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court," adding that
the UN International Court must not be so bold as to investigate "Israel or other U.S. allies."
That prompted a senior judge, Christoph Flügge from Germany, to resign in protest. Indeed, Bolton told the court to keep out of
any affairs involving the United States, promising to ban the Court's "judges and prosecutors from entering the United States." As
Bolton spelled out the U.S. threat: "We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the
U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We
will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."
What this meant, the German judge spelled out was that: "If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or
investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no
longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted."
The original inspiration of the Court – to use the Nuremburg laws that were applied against German Nazis to bring similar prosecution
against any country or officials found guilty of committing war crimes – had already fallen into disuse with the failure to indict
the authors of the Chilean coup, Iran-Contra or the U.S. invasion of Iraq for war crimes.
Dismantling Dollar Hegemony from the IMF to SWIFT
Of all areas of global power politics today, international finance and foreign investment have become the key flashpoint. International
monetary reserves were supposed to be the most sacrosanct, and international debt enforcement closely associated.
Central banks have long held their gold and other monetary reserves in the United States and London. Back in 1945 this seemed
reasonable, because the New York Federal Reserve Bank (in whose basement foreign central bank gold was kept) was militarily safe,
and because the London Gold Pool was the vehicle by which the U.S. Treasury kept the dollar "as good as gold" at $35 an ounce. Foreign
reserves over and above gold were kept in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, to be bought and sold on the New York and London
foreign-exchange markets to stabilize exchange rates. Most foreign loans to governments were denominated in U.S. dollars, so Wall
Street banks were normally name as paying agents.
That was the case with Iran under the Shah, whom the United States had installed after sponsoring the 1953 coup against Mohammed
Mosaddegh when he sought to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil (now British Petroleum) or at least tax it. After the Shah was overthrown,
the Khomeini regime asked its paying agent, the Chase Manhattan bank, to use its deposits to pay its bondholders. At the direction
of the U.S. Government Chase refused to do so. U.S. courts then declared Iran to be in default, and froze all its assets in the United
States and anywhere else they were able.
This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago,
and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might
be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally
got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult
that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.
But then came Venezuela. Desperate to spend its gold reserves to provide imports for its economy devastated by U.S. sanctions
– a crisis that U.S. diplomats blame on "socialism," not on U.S. political attempts to "make the economy scream" (as Nixon officials
said of Chile under Salvador Allende) – Venezuela directed the Bank of England to transfer some of its $11 billion in gold held in
its vaults and those of other central banks in December 2018. This was just like a bank depositor would expect a bank to pay a check
that the depositor had written.
England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster
his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign
reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank."
Turkey seemed to be a likely destination, prompting Bolton and Pompeo to warn it to desist from helping Venezuela, threatening
sanctions against it or any other country helping Venezuela cope with its economic crisis. As for the Bank of England and other European
countries, the Bloomberg report concluded: "Central bank officials in Caracas have been ordered to no longer try contacting the Bank
of England. These central bankers have been told that Bank of England staffers will not respond to them."
This led to rumors that Venezuela was selling 20 tons of gold via a Russian Boeing 777 – some $840 million. The money probably
would have ended up paying Russian and Chinese bondholders as well as buying food to relieve the local famine.
[4] Russia denied this report, but Reuters has confirmed is that Venezuela has sold 3 tons of a planned 29 tones of gold to the
United Arab Emirates, with another 15 tones are to be shipped on Friday, February 1.
[5] The U.S. Senate's Batista-Cuban hardliner Rubio accused this of being "theft," as if feeding the people to alleviate the
U.S.-sponsored crisis was a crime against U.S. diplomatic leverage.
If there is any country that U.S. diplomats hate more than a recalcitrant Latin American country, it is Iran. President Trump's
breaking of the 2015 nuclear agreements negotiated by European and Obama Administration diplomats has escalated to the point of threatening
Germany and other European countries with punitive sanctions if they do not also break the agreements they have signed. Coming on
top of U.S. opposition to German and other European importing of Russian gas, the U.S. threat finally prompted Europe to find a way
to defend itself.
Imperial threats are no longer military. No country (including Russia or China) can mount a military invasion of another major
country. Since the Vietnam Era, the only kind of war a democratically elected country can wage is atomic, or at least heavy bombing
such as the United States has inflicted on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the
connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium.
Russia and China have already moved to create a shadow bank-transfer system in case the United States unplugs them from SWIFT.
But now, European countries have come to realize that threats by Bolton and Pompeo may lead to heavy fines and asset grabs if they
seek to continue trading with Iran as called for in the treaties they have negotiated.
On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran
and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument
in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored
Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas,
this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions
attack on Europe.
I have just returned from Germany and seen a remarkable split between that nation's industrialists and their political leadership.
For years, major companies have seen Russia as a natural market, a complementary economy needing to modernize its manufacturing and
able to supply Europe with natural gas and other raw materials. America's New Cold War stance is trying to block this commercial
complementarity. Warning Europe against "dependence" on low-price Russian gas, it has offered to sell high-priced LNG from the United
States (via port facilities that do not yet exist in anywhere near the volume required). President Trump also is insisting that NATO
members spend a full 2 percent of their GDP on arms – preferably bought from the United States, not from German or French merchants
of death.
The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above.
In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to
bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945.
The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception
is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is
why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension
services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food
blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.
It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to
become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically
to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports
from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees
across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either.
Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning. A central core has been
to enforce payment of official inter-government debt by withholding IMF credit from countries under default. This rule was instituted
at a time when most official inter-government debt was owed to the United States. But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3
billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country
deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption
to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid.
It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. Europe has taken
notice that its own international monetary trade and financial linkages are in danger of attracting U.S. anger. This became clear
last autumn at the funeral for George H. W. Bush, when the EU's diplomat found himself downgraded to the end of the list to be called
to his seat. He was told that the U.S. no longer considers the EU an entity in good standing. In December, "Mike Pompeo gave a speech
on Europe in Brussels -- his first, and eagerly awaited -- in which he extolled the virtues of nationalism, criticised multilateralism
and the EU, and said that "international bodies" which constrain national sovereignty "must be reformed or eliminated."
[5]
Most of the above events have made the news in just one day, January 31, 2019. The conjunction of U.S. moves on so many fronts,
against Venezuela, Iran and Europe (not to mention China and the trade threats and moves against Huawei also erupting today) looks
like this will be a year of global fracture.
It is not all President Trump's doing, of course. We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Instead of applauding democracy
when foreign countries do not elect a leader approved by U.S. diplomats (whether it is Allende or Maduro), they've let the mask fall
and shown themselves to be the leading New Cold War imperialists. It's now out in the open. They would make Venezuela the new Pinochet-era
Chile. Trump is not alone in supporting Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi terrorists acting, as Lyndon Johnson put it, "Bastards, but they're
our bastards."
Where is the left in all this? That is the question with which I opened this article. How remarkable it is that it is only right-wing
parties, Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), or Marine le Pen's French nationalists and those of other countries that are opposing
NATO militarization and seeking to revive trade and economic links with the rest of Eurasia.
The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like
me. It took a colossal level of arrogance, short-sightedness and lawlessness to hasten its decline -- something that only crazed
Neocons like John Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo could deliver for Donald Trump.
[2] Patricia Laya, Ethan Bronner and Tim Ross,
"Maduro Stymied in Bid to Pull $1.2 Billion of Gold From U.K.," Bloomberg, January 25, 2019. Anticipating just such a double-cross,
President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe.
Well, if the StormTrumpers can tear down all the levers and institutions of international US dollar strength, perhaps they
can also tear down all the institutions of Corporate Globalonial Forced Free Trade. That itself may BE our escape . . . if there
are enough millions of Americans who have turned their regionalocal zones of habitation into economically and politically armor-plated
Transition Towns, Power-Down Zones, etc. People and places like that may be able to crawl up out of the rubble and grow and defend
little zones of semi-subsistence survival-economics.
If enough millions of Americans have created enough such zones, they might be able to link up with eachother to offer hope
of a movement to make America in general a semi-autarchik, semi-secluded and isolated National Survival Economy . . . . much smaller
than today, perhaps likelier to survive the various coming ecosystemic crash-cramdowns, and no longer interested in leading or
dominating a world that we would no longer have the power to lead or dominate.
We could put an end to American Exceptionalism. We could lay this burden down. We could become American Okayness Ordinarians.
Make America an okay place for ordinary Americans to live in.
If Populists, I assume that's what you mean by "Storm Troopers", offer me M4A and revitalized local economies, and deliver
them, they have my support and more power to them.
That's why Trump was elected, his promises, not yet delivered, were closer to that then the Democrats' promises. If the Democrats
promised those things and delivered, then they would have my support.
If the Democrats run a candidate, who has a no track record of delivering such things, we stay home on election day. Trump
can have it, because it won't be any worse.
I don't give a damn about "social issues." Economics, health care and avoiding WWIII are what motivates my votes, and I think
more and more people are going to vote the same way.
Good point about Populist versus StormTrumper. ( And by the way, I said StormTRUMper, not StormTROOper). I wasn't thinking
of the Populists. I was thinking of the neo-etc. vandals and arsonists who want us to invade Venezuela, leave the JCPOA with Iran,
etc. Those are the people who will finally drive the other-country governments into creating their own parallel payment systems,
etc.
And the midpoint of those efforts will leave wreckage and rubble for us to crawl up out of. But we will have a chance to crawl
up out of it.
My reason for voting for Trump was mainly to stop the Evil Clinton from getting elected and to reduce the chance of near immediate
thermonuclear war with Russia and to save the Assad regime in Syria from Clintonian overthrow and replacement with an Islamic
Emirate of Jihadistan.
Much of what will be attempted " in Trump's name" will be de-regulationism of all kinds delivered by the sorts of basic Republicans
selected for the various agencies and departments by Pence and Moore and the Koch Brothers. I doubt the Populist Voters wanted
the Koch-Pence agenda. But that was a risky tradeoff in return for keeping Clinton out of office.
The only Dems who would seek what you want are Sanders or maybe Gabbard or just barely Warren. The others would all be Clinton
or Obama all over again.
I couldn't really find any details about the new INSTEX system – have you got any good links to brush up on? I know they made
an announcement yesterday but how long until the new payment system is operational?
arguably wouldn't it be better if for USD hegemony to be dismantled? A strong USD hurts US exports, subsidizes American consumption
(by making commodities cheaper in relative terms), makes international trade (aka a 8,000-mile+ supply chain) easier.
For the sake of the environment, you want less of all three. Though obviously I don't like the idea of expensive gasoline,
natural gas or tube socks either.
It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive
Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence.
Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs,
but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and
settle for being a dominant minority.
Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast
their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change.
What this change would consist of, and how it would manifest, remained an open question. Would he pursue rapprochement with
Russia and pull troops out of the Middle East as he claimed to want to do during his 2016 campaign, would he doggedly pursue corruption
charges against Clinton and attempt to reform the FBI and CIA, or would he do both, neither, or something else entirely?
Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international
order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment
desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms".
Interesting times.
Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery
going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. Whether or not he ever had or has a coherent plan for the havoc he has
wrought, he has certainly been the agent for change many of us hoped he would be, in stark contrast to the criminal duopoly parties
who continue to oppose him, where the daily no news is always bad news all the same. To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you
don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the
best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles.
Look on some bright sides. Here is just one bright side to look on. President Trump has delayed and denied the Clinton Plan
to topple Assad just long enough that Russia has been able to help Assad preserve legitimate government in most of Syria and defeat
the Clinton's-choice jihadis.
That is a positive good. Unless you are pro-jihadi.
Clinton wasn't going to "benefit the greater good" either, and a very strong argument, based on her past behavior, can be made
that she represented the greater threat. Given that the choice was between her and Trump, I think voters made the right decision.
Hudson's done us a service in pulling these threads together. I'd missed the threats against the ICC judges. One question:
is it possible for INSTEX-like arrangements to function secretly? What is to be gained by announcing them publicly and drawing
the expected attacks? Does that help sharpen conflicts, and to what end?
Maybe they're done in secret already – who knows? The point of doing it publicly is to make a foreign-policy impact, in this
case withdrawing power from the US. It's a Declaration of Independence.
It certainly seems as though the 90 percent (plus) are an afterthought in this journey to who knows where? Like George C.Scott
said while playing Patton, "The whole world at economic war and I'm not part of it. God will not let this happen." Looks like
we're on the Brexit track (without the vote). The elite argue with themselves and we just sit and watch. It appears to me that
the elite just do not have the ability to contemplate things beyond their own narrow self interest. We are all deplorables now.
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected
Is not supported by this (or really the rest of the article). The past tense here, for example, is unwarranted:
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their
equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy.
And this
So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. Germany agreed
to slow down the transfer.
Doesn't show Germany as breaking free at all, and worse it is followed by the pregnant
But then came Venezuela.
Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet
again. Nothing to see here, actually.
So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change.
"So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change."
I'm surprised more people aren't recognizing this. I read the article waiting in vain for some evidence of "the end of our
monetary imperialism" besides some 'grumbling and foot dragging' as you aptly put it. There was some glimmer of a buried lede
with INTEX, created to get around U.S. sanctions against Iran ─ hardly a 'dam-breaking'. Washington is on record as being annoyed.
Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD
as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. World bond market flows are 10X the size
of world stock market flows even though the price of the Dow and Facebook shares etc get all of the headlines.
And foreign exchange flows are 10-50X the flows of bond markets, they're currently on the order of $5 *trillion* per day. And
since forex is almost completely unregulated it's quite difficult to get the data and spot reserve currency trends. Oh, and buy
gold. It's the only currency that requires no counterparty and is no one's debt obligation.
That's not what Hudson claims in his swaggering final sentence:
"The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed
observer like me."
Which is risible as not only did he fail to show anything of the kind, his opening sentence stated a completely different reality:
"The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected" So if we hold him to his first
declaration, his evidence is feeble, as I mentioned. As a scholar, his hyperbole is untrustworthy.
No, gold is pretty enough lying on the bosom of a lady-friend but that's about its only usefulness in the real world.
Always bemusing that gold bugs never talk about gold being in a bubble . yet when it goes south of its purchase price speak
in tongues about ev'bal forces.
thanks Mr. Hudson. One has to wonder what has happened when the government (for decades) has been shown to be morally and otherwise
corrupt and self serving. It doesn't seem to bother anyone but the people, and precious few of them. Was it our financial and
legal bankruptcy that sent us over the cliff?
Indeed! It is to say the least encouraging to see Dr. Hudson return so forcefully to the theme of 'monetary imperialism'.
I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you
haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. You can
find any number of articles on his web site that return periodically to the theme of monetary imperialism. I remember one in particular
that described how the rest of the world was brought on board to help pay for its good old-fashioned military imperialism.
If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt
status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long
as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington
neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be"
to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing.
Until the US returns to the path of genuine wealth creation, it is past time for the rest of the world to go its own way with
its banking and financial institutions.
In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same
pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3.
UK withholding Gold may start another Brexit? IE: funds/gold held by BOE for other countries in Africa, Asian, South America,
and the "stans" with start to depart, slowly at first, perhaps for Switzerland?
Where is the left in all this? Pretty much the same place as Michael Hudson, I'd say. Where is the US Democratic Party in all
this? Quite a different question, and quite a different answer. So far as I can see, the Democrats for years have bombed, invaded
and plundered other countries 'for their own good'. Republicans do it 'for the good of America', by which the ignoramuses mean
the USA. If you're on the receiving end, it doesn't make much difference.
Agreed! South America intervention and regime change, Syria ( Trump is pulling out), Iraq, Middle East meddling, all predate
Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama have nothing to do with any of this.
" So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. "
What proof is there that the gold is still there? Chances are it's notional. All Germany, Venezuela, or the others have is
an IOU – and gold cannot be printed. Incidentally, this whole discussion means that gold is still money and the gold standard
still exists.
What makes you think that the gold in Fort Knox is still there? If I remember right, there was a Potemkin visit back in the
70s to assure everyone that the gold was still there but not since then. Wait, I tell a lie. There was another visit about two
years ago but look who was involved in that visit-
And I should mention that it was in the 90s that between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were manufactured in the
US under Clinton. Since then gold-coated tungsten bars have turned up in places like Germany, China, Ethiopia, the UK, etc so
who is to say if those gold bars in Fort Knox are gold all the way through either. More on this at --
http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html
It wasn't last year that Germany brought back its Gold. It has been ongoing since 2013, after some political and popular pressure
build up. They finished the transaction in 2017. According to an article in Handelblatt (but it was widely reported back then)
they brought back pretty much everything they had in Paris (347t), left what they had in London (perhaps they should have done
it in reverse) and took home another 300t from the NY Fed. That still leaves 1236t in NY. But half of their Gold (1710t) is now
in Frankfurt. That is 50% of the Bundesbanks holdings.
They made a point in saying that every bar was checked and weighed and presented some bars in Frankfurt. I guess they didn't
melt them for assaying, but I'd expect them to be smart enough to check the density.
Their reason to keep Gold in NY and London is to quickly buy USD in case of a crisis. That's pretty much a cold war plan, but
that's what they do right now.
Regarding Michal Hudsons piece, I enjoyed reading through this one. He tends to write ridiculously long articles and in the
last few years with less time and motivation at hand I've skipped most of his texts on NC as they just drag on.
When I'm truly fascinated I like well written, long articles but somehow he lost me at some point. But I noticed that some
long original articles in US magazines, probably research for a long time by the journalist, can just drag on for ever as well
I just tune out.
This is making sense. I would guess that tearing up the old system is totally deliberate. It wasn't working so well for us
because we had to practice too much social austerity, which we have tried to impose on the EU as well, just to stabilize "king
dollar" – otherwise spread so thin it was a pending catastrophe.
Now we can get out from under being the reserve currency – the currency that maintains its value by financial manipulation
and military bullying domestic deprivation. To replace this old power trip we are now going to mainline oil. The dollar will become
a true petro dollar because we are going to commandeer every oil resource not already nailed down.
When we partnered with SA in Aramco and the then petro dollar the dollar was only backed by our military. If we start monopolizing
oil, the actual commodity, the dollar will be an apex competitor currency without all the foreign military obligations which will
allow greater competitive advantages.
No? I'm looking at PdVSA, PEMEX and the new "Energy Hub for the Eastern Mediterranean" and other places not yet made public.
It looks like a power play to me, not a hapless goofball president at all.
So sand people with sociological attachment to the OT is a compelling argument based on antiquarian preferences with authoritarian
patriarchal tendencies for their non renewable resource . after I might add it was deemed a strategic concern after WWII .
Considering the broader geopolitical realities I would drain all the gold reserves to zero if it was on offer . here natives
have some shiny beads for allowing us to resource extract we call this a good trade you maximize your utility as I do mine .
Hay its like not having to run C-corp compounds with western 60s – 70s esthetics and letting the locals play serf, blow back
pay back, and now the installed local chiefs can own the risk and refocus the attention away from the real antagonists.
Indeed. Thanks so much for this. Maybe the RICS will get serious now – can no longer include Brazil with Bolsonaro. There needs
to be an alternate system or systems in place, and to see US Imperialism so so blatantly and bluntly by Trump admin –
"US
gives Juan Guaido control over some Venezuelan assets" – should sound sirens on every continent and especially in the developing
world. I too hope there will be fracture to the point of breakage. Countries of the world outside the US/EU/UK/Canada/Australia
confraternity must now unite to provide a permanent framework outside the control of imperial interests. The be clear, this must
not default to alternative forms of imperialism germinating by the likes of China.
" such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global
power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for
so long that they no longer remember how they got there.
Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it
now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's
inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of
a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble."
I read something like this and I am like, some of these statements need to be qualified. Like: "Driving China and Russia together".
Like where's the proof? Is Xi playing telephone games more often now with Putin? I look at those two and all I see are two egocentric
people who might sometimes say the right things but in general do not like the share the spotlight. Let's say they get together
to face America and for some reason the later gets "defeated", it's not as if they'll kumbaya together into the night.
This website often points out the difficulties in implementing new banking IT initiatives. Ok, so Europe has a new "payment
system". Has it been tested thoroughly? I would expect a couple of weeks or even months of chaos if it's not been tested, and
if it's thorough that probably just means that it's in use right i.e. all the kinks have been worked out. In that case the transition
is already happening anyway. But then the next crisis arrives and then everyone would need their dollar swap lines again which
probably needs to cleared through SWIFT or something.
Anyway, does this all mean that one day we'll wake up and a slice of bacon is 50 bucks as opposed to the usual 1 dollar?
Driving Russia and China together is correct. I recall them signing a variety of economic and military agreement a few years
ago. It was covered in the media. You should at least google an issue before making silly comments. You might start with the report
of Russia and China signing 30 cooperation agreements three years ago. See
https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/06/27/russia-china-sign-30-cooperation-agreements_606505
. There are lots and lots of others.
He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and
WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas.
The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical
foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed
the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run.
Whilst the far right factions fight over the rudder the only new game in town is AOC, Sanders, Warren, et al which Trumps supporters
hate with Ideological purity.
Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On
US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics"
on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners.
On a household level it fits, but there no "loser" household that in infinity can print money that the "winners" can accumulate
in exchange for their resources and fruits of labor.
One wonder what are Trumps idea of US being a winner in trade (surplus)? I.e. sending away their resources and fruits of labor
overseas in exchange for what? A pile of USD? That US in the first place created out of thin air. Or Chinese Yuan, Euros, Turkish
liras? Also fiat-money. Or does he think US trade surplus should be paid in gold?
When the US political and economic hegemony will unravel it will come "unexpected". Trump for sure are undermining it with
his megalomaniac ignorance. But not sure it's imminent.
Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash
will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence.
There will be fierce competition to fill the gap.
On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and
austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top.
I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect.
Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the
rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT.
The trade deficit required a large Government deficit to cover it and the US government could just create the money to cover
it.
Then ideological neoliberals came in wanting balanced budgets and not realising the Government deficit covered the trade deficit.
The US has been destabilising its own economy by reducing the Government deficit. Bill Clinton didn't realize a Government surplus is an indicator a financial crisis is about to hit. The last US Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, they go hand-in-hand with financial crises.
Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use and it's the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).
The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy.
It should be remembered Bill Clinton's early meeting with Rubin, where in he was informed that wages and productivity had diverged –
Rubin did not blink an eye.
"... "After watching seven hours of a spectacle that felt much more cruel than enlightening, I cannot avoid pondering a question which honestly gives me no joy to ponder: just how much damage has MSNBC in particular done to the left?" The Hill's Rising star began, before excoriating her former employer's "fevered speculations" about an "Infowars conspiracy theory" and the way it hosted people like Jonathan "maybe Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s" Chait and "conspiracy gadfly Louise Mensch" in search of ratings bumps. ..."
"... "This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could ever have dreamed up," Ball argued. "Think about all the time and the journalistic resources that could have been dedicated to stories that, I don't know, that a broad swath of people might actually care about? Healthcare, wages, the teachers' movement, whether we're going to war with Iran? I'm just spitballing here. ..."
"... Ball argued that the fact that MSNBC is doing so much damage to the Democratic Party in the name of ratings proves that MSNBC isn't "on Team D in the same way that Fox News is on Team R", saying they're really just in it for the money. But this is where Ball gets it wrong. It is of course true that ratings are a factor, and that conspiracy theories can be used to sell advertising space, but MSNBC would have had a much easier time marketing conspiracy theories about Trump's loyalties to Israel and Saudi Arabia , both of which would have had vastly more factual evidence to back them up. The only difference is that the US-centralized empire doesn't have agendas that it wants to advance against those two countries. ..."
"... Ball is correct that MSNBC doesn't serve the Democratic party, but she's incorrect that it serves only money. MSNBC, which is now arguably a more aggressive war propaganda network than Fox News, serves first and foremost the US national security state. And so do all the other western mainstream news networks. ..."
"... From the Pentagon's point of view, US hegemony good, Russia-China alliance very, very bad. ..."
"... I t was determined with the help of influential neoconservative think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs. As soon as that view became the establishment orthodoxy , any threat to US hegemony was now interpreted as a threat to national security. An "attack" on America was no longer limited to physical attacks on US soil, or even on US allies and assets: any attempt to escape unipolarity is now treated as a direct attack on the empire. ..."
"... This is why we've seen nations like Iraq, Libya and Syria spoken about by the propagandists as "enemies" as though they pose some kind of direct threat to the American people. There was never any actual threat to the physical United States, but those nations were not complying with the dictates of US hegemony, and that noncompliance was treated as a direct attack. ..."
"... This "if you're not obeying us you're attacking us" mentality is ridiculous on its face and no right-thinking citizen would ever consent to it, which is why the consent manufacturers need to promote imaginary nonsense like weapons of mass destruction, a Russian "attack" on American democracy, and a conspiracy theory about the Kremlin infiltrating the highest levels of the US government. It's got nothing to do with actual fears of those nations posing any threat to actual Americans. It's about continuing to rule the world. ..."
"After watching seven hours of a spectacle that felt much more cruel than enlightening, I cannot avoid pondering a question which
honestly gives me no joy to ponder: just how much damage has MSNBC in particular done to the left?" The Hill's Rising star began,
before excoriating her former employer's "fevered speculations" about an "Infowars conspiracy theory" and the way it hosted people
like Jonathan "maybe Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s" Chait and "conspiracy gadfly Louise Mensch" in search of ratings
bumps.
"This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could
ever have dreamed up," Ball argued. "Think about all the time and the journalistic resources that could have been dedicated to stories
that, I don't know, that a broad swath of people might actually care about? Healthcare, wages, the teachers' movement, whether we're
going to war with Iran? I'm just spitballing here.
I actually heard some pundit on Chris Hayes last night opine that independent women in middle America were going to be swayed
by what Mueller said yesterday. Are you kidding me? This is almost as bonkers and lacking in factual basis as that time Mimi Rocah
said that Bernie Sanders is not pro-women because that was what her feelings told her. Rocah, by the way, a political prosecutor
with no political background, is only opining at MSNBC because of her role in leading viewers to believe that any day now SDNY is
going to bring down Trump and his entire family."
Ball argued that the fact that MSNBC is doing so much damage to the
Democratic Party in the name of ratings proves that MSNBC isn't "on Team D in the same way that Fox News is on Team R", saying they're
really just in it for the money. But this is where Ball gets it wrong. It is of course true that ratings are a factor, and that conspiracy
theories can be used to sell advertising space, but MSNBC would have had a much easier time marketing conspiracy theories about Trump's
loyalties to
Israel and
Saudi Arabia , both of which would have had
vastly more factual evidence to back them up. The only difference is that the US-centralized empire doesn't have agendas that
it wants to advance against those two countries.
Ball is correct that MSNBC doesn't serve the Democratic party, but she's incorrect that it serves only money. MSNBC, which is
now arguably a more aggressive war propaganda network than Fox News, serves first and foremost the US national security state.
And so do all the other western mainstream news networks.
Consider the way the Syrian province of Idlib is being reported on right now, to pick one of many possible examples.
Al-Qaeda-controlled
Idlib is the final stronghold of the extremist militant groups that
the US and
its allies flooded Syria with in a
premeditated campaign to effect regime change, and Syria and its allies are fighting to recapture the region. They are using
methods that are identical to those commonly used by the US and its allies, yet the bombing campaigns of the US-centralized empire
receive virtually no critical coverage while western mainstream outlets like
CNN and
the BBC
are churning out brazenly propagandistic pieces about the evils of the Assad coalition's airstrikes.
"Civilians are dying in Idlib, just as they died in their thousands in recent US UK air strikes in eg Raqqa and Mosul," political
analyst Charles Shoebridge
observed on Twitter today. "The difference is that when it's (often unverified) claims that Russia or Syria are doing the killing,
US UK media make it front page news."
There are many gaping plot holes in the Russiagate narrative that outlets like MSNBC have been bashing everyone over the head
with, but the most obvious and easily provable of them is the indisputable fact that Donald Trump
has escalated tensions against Russia more than any US president in decades. You never hear anyone talk about this self-evident
fact in all the endless yammering about Russia, though, because it doesn't advance the agendas of either of America's two mainstream
parties, and it doesn't advance the interests of US imperialism. Democrats don't like acknowledging the fact that Trump has been
consistently and aggressively working directly against the interests of Moscow , and Trump supporters don't like acknowledging
that their president is just as much of a neocon-coddling globalist as those they claim to oppose, so the war machine has gone conveniently
unchallenged in manufacturing new cold war escalations against a nation they've had marked for destruction since the fall of the
Soviet Union.
In a very interesting new Grayzone
interview packed full of ideas that you'll never hear voiced on western mass media, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov
spoke openly about the various ways that Russia, China, and other nations who've resisted absorption into the blob of the US power
alliance have been working toward the creation of a multipolar world. Ryabkov said other nations have been watching the way the dominance
of the US dollar has been used to economically terrorize noncompliant nations into subservience by way of sanctions and other manipulations,
with Washington expecting that the dollar and the US financial system will remain "the cardiovascular system of the whole organism."
"That will not be the case," Ryabkov said. "People will bypass, in literal terms. And people will find ways how to defend themselves,
how to protect themselves, how to guarantee themselves against any emergencies if someone comes up at the White House or whatever,
at the Treasury, at the State, and says 'Hey guys, now we should stop what is going on in Country X, and let's squeeze them out.'
And this country sits on the dollar. So they will be done the moment those ideas will be pronounced. So China, Russia and others,
we create alternatives that we will most probably continue using not just national currencies, but baskets of currencies, currencies
of third countries, other modern barter schemes."
"We will use ways that will diminish the role of dollar and US banking system with all these risks of assets and transactions
being arrested, being stopped," Ryabkov concluded.
That, right there, is the real reason you're being sold Russia hysteria today.
And it isn't just on the matter of financial systems in which the unabsorbed powers are uniting against the imperial blob. Russia
and China
just carried out their first joint air patrol on Tuesday, drawing a hostile response from imperial vassals Japan and South Korea.
"Russian and Chinese bombers on 'first' joint patrol in the Asia-Pacific region. The China-Russia alliance has become a reality
and will last for long time,"
reads a post by one Russian Twitter commentator in response to the news.
The emergence of this alliance, which the Chinese government
has warned Washington is 'not vulnerable to interference', has been something the west has feared for a long time. A
Pentagon white paper published this past May titled "Russian Strategic Intentions" mentions the word "China" 108 times. Some
noteworthy excerpts:
The world system, and American influence in it, would be completely upended if Moscow and Beijing aligned more closely.
The allies' goal should be deterrence. At the same time, the US should bilaterally engage Russia to peel them away from China's
orbit.
He also encourages the development of the US's 'capability to effectively foster distrust and unease between the Russia Federation
and China.'
Along with Beijing, Moscow seeks a multipolar world in which US hegemony comes to an end. As Alexander Lukin recently pointed
out, the 'common ideal of a multipolar world [has] played a significant role in the rapprochement between Russia and China.'
Russia and China were explicitly mentioned in the 2018 National Defense Strategy as the great powers with which the US is
in competition. Both Russia and China have come a long way since the 1990s, and the 'friendship' that emerged in the immediate
post-Tiananmen period and continued to grow over the years now today appears to be one of the strongest bilateral alliances on
the planet.
Together, Russia's tentacles on its former Soviet neighbors and Moscow's strategic alliance with Beijing in pursuit of a multipolar
world (in which the US is no longer the global hegemon) form the two main pillars upon which Putin's grand strategy rests. All
other aspects of its foreign policy behavior can be traced back to this dual-pronged grand strategy.
I think you get the picture. From the Pentagon's point of view, US hegemony good, Russia-China alliance very, very bad.
Analysts like the white paper's authors, and even
The New York Times editorial board
, have urged the drivers of US foreign policy to attempt to lure Moscow away from Beijing, the latter rightly perceived as the greater
long-term threat to US dominance due to China's surging economic power. But diplomacy has clearly been ruled out toward this end,
with only a steadily escalating campaign to shove Russia off the world stage now deemed acceptable.
It
was determined with the help of
influential
neoconservative
think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs. As soon as that view
became the establishment orthodoxy , any threat to US hegemony was now interpreted as a threat to national security. An "attack"
on America was no longer limited to physical attacks on US soil, or even on US allies and assets: any attempt to escape unipolarity
is now treated as a direct attack on the empire.
This is why we've seen nations like Iraq, Libya and Syria spoken about by the propagandists as "enemies" as though they pose
some kind of direct threat to the American people. There was never any actual threat to the physical United States, but those nations
were not complying with the dictates of US hegemony, and that noncompliance was treated as a direct attack.
This "if you're not obeying us you're attacking us" mentality is ridiculous on its face and no right-thinking citizen would
ever consent to it, which is why the consent manufacturers need to promote imaginary nonsense like weapons of mass destruction, a
Russian "attack" on American democracy, and a conspiracy theory about the Kremlin infiltrating the highest levels of the US government.
It's got nothing to do with actual fears of those nations posing any threat to actual Americans. It's about continuing to rule the
world.
Ukraine became a geopolitical pawn. In signing up with the US and EU, there is one guaranteed loser – the Ukrainian people.
Notable quotes:
"... His electorally repudiated predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, backed by supporters in Washington, thwarted almost every preceding opportunity for negotiations both with the Donbass rebels and with Moscow, ..."
"... But the struggle for peace has just begun, with powerful forces arrayed against it in Ukraine, Moscow, and Washington. In Ukraine, well-armed ultra-nationalist -- some would say quasi-fascist -- detachments are terrorizing supporters of Zelensky's initiative, including a Kiev television station that proposed broadcasting a dialogue between Russian and Ukrainian citizens. ..."
"... Which brings us to Washington and in particular to President Donald Trump and his would-be opponent in 2020, former vice president Joseph Biden. Kiev's government, thus now Zelensky, is heavily dependent on billions of dollars of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which Washington largely controls. Former president Barack Obama and Biden, his "point man" for Ukraine, used this financial leverage to exercise semi-colonial influence over Poroshenko, generally making things worse, including the incipient Ukrainian civil war. Their hope was, of course, to sever Ukraine's centuries-long ties to Russia and even bring it eventually into the US-led NATO sphere of influence. ..."
"... Biden, however, has a special problem -- and obligation. As an implementer, and presumably architect, of Obama's disastrous policy in Ukraine, and currently the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Biden should be asked about his past and present thinking regarding Ukraine. The much-ballyhooed ongoing "debates" are an opportunity to ask the question -- and of other candidates as well. Presidential debates are supposed to elicit and clarify the views of candidates on domestic and foreign policy. And among the latter, few, if any, are more important than Ukraine, which remains the epicenter of this new and more dangerous Cold War. ..."
"... This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com . ..."
The election of Ukraine's new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who won decisively throughout
most of the country, represents the possibility of peace with Russia, if it -- and he -- are
given a chance. His electorally repudiated predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, backed by supporters
in Washington, thwarted almost every preceding opportunity for negotiations both with the
Donbass rebels and with Moscow, notably provisions associated with the European-sponsored Minsk
Accords. Zelensky, on the other hand, has made peace (along with corruption) his top priority
and indeed spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on July 11. The nearly
six-year war having become a political, diplomatic, and financial drain on his leadership,
Putin welcomed the overture.
But the struggle for peace has just begun, with powerful forces arrayed against it in
Ukraine, Moscow, and Washington. In Ukraine, well-armed ultra-nationalist -- some would say
quasi-fascist -- detachments are terrorizing supporters of Zelensky's initiative, including a
Kiev television station that proposed broadcasting a dialogue between Russian and Ukrainian
citizens. (Washington has previously had some shameful episodes of
collusion with these Ukrainian neo-Nazis .) As for Putin, who does not fully control the
Donbass rebels or its leaders, he "can never be seen at home," as
I pointed out more than two years ago , "as 'selling out' Russia's 'brethren' anywhere in
southeast Ukraine." Indeed, his own implacable nationalists have made this a litmus test of his
leadership.
Which brings us to Washington and in particular to President Donald Trump and his
would-be opponent in 2020, former vice president Joseph Biden. Kiev's government, thus now
Zelensky, is heavily dependent on billions of dollars of aid from the International Monetary
Fund, which Washington largely controls. Former president Barack Obama and Biden, his "point
man" for Ukraine, used this financial leverage to exercise semi-colonial influence over
Poroshenko, generally making things worse, including the incipient Ukrainian civil war. Their
hope was, of course, to sever Ukraine's centuries-long ties to Russia and even bring it
eventually into the US-led NATO sphere of influence.
Our hope should be that Trump breaks with that long-standing bipartisan policy, as he did
with policy toward North Korea, and puts America squarely on the side of peace in Ukraine. (For
now, Zelensky has set aside Moscow's professed irreversible "reunification" with Crimea, as
should Washington.) A new US policy must include recognition, previously lacking, that the
citizens of war-ravaged Donbass are not primarily "Putin's stooges" but people with their own
legitimate interests and preferences, even if they favor Russia. Here too Zelensky is embarking
on a new course. Poroshenko waged an "anti-terrorist" war against Donbass: the new president is
reaching out to its citizens even though most of them were unable to vote in the election.
Biden, however, has a special problem -- and obligation. As an implementer, and presumably
architect, of Obama's disastrous policy in Ukraine, and currently the leading candidate for the
Democratic presidential nomination, Biden should be asked about his past and present thinking
regarding Ukraine. The much-ballyhooed ongoing "debates" are an opportunity to ask the question
-- and of other candidates as well. Presidential debates are supposed to elicit and clarify the
views of candidates on domestic and foreign policy. And among the latter, few, if any, are more
important than Ukraine, which remains the epicenter of this new and more dangerous Cold
War.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host of The John Batchelor
Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com .
"... Evidence has emerged that the U.S. State Department is tied to a child trafficking operation involving Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. shared the tail number of his Bell Long Ranger 206L3 helicopter (tail number N474AW) with a U.S. State Department OV-10D Bronco ..."
"... . Descriptions of sex between adult males and underage females by XXX company employees in Bosnia in the 2000-2002 time frame coincides with descriptions of sex . on .. aircraft and [at] residences in Palm Beach, Florida; New Mexico; and on the island of Little Saint James in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the "Jane Does" filing suit against the U.S. government for concluding can anyone get the details of these suits? ..."
"... So so disgusting. First there was the catholic church pedophile scandal. Then there is the Epstein scandal ..."
Evidence has emerged that the U.S. State Department is tied to a child trafficking operation involving Billionaire pedophile
Jeffrey Epstein. shared the tail number of his Bell Long Ranger 206L3 helicopter (tail number N474AW) with a U.S. State Department
OV-10D Bronco. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) registration database. Descriptions of sex
between adult males and underage females by XXX company employees in Bosnia in the 2000-2002 time frame coincides with descriptions
of sex . on .. aircraft and [at] residences in Palm Beach, Florida; New Mexico; and on the island of Little Saint James in the
U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the "Jane Does" filing suit against the U.S. government for concluding can anyone get the details of
these suits?
Looks like the world order established after WWIII crumbed with the USSR and now it is again the law if jungles with the US as the
biggest predator.
Notable quotes:
"... The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. ..."
"... Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy ..."
"... A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest. ..."
"... For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness. ..."
"... Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II. ..."
"... Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards. ..."
"... Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." ..."
"... This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer. ..."
"... England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank." ..."
"... But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium. ..."
"... On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe ..."
"... The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945. ..."
"... By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands. ..."
"... It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. ..."
"... But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid. ..."
"... It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. ..."
"... Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe. ..."
"... It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence. ..."
"... Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority. ..."
"... Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change. ..."
"... Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times. ..."
"... Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. ..."
"... To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles. ..."
"... Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually. ..."
"... So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change. ..."
"... Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. ..."
"... I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. ..."
"... If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing. ..."
"... In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3. ..."
"... Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble." ..."
"... He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas. ..."
"... The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run. ..."
"... Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners. ..."
"... Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap. ..."
"... On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect. ..."
"... Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o ..."
"... Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT. ..."
"... The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy. ..."
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons
who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold
by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries
with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial
institutions.
This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become
the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved
what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter
has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using
Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black
political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense
that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties.
The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together
– the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into
the Eurasian orbit, the "Heartland" nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago.
The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution
of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported
even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States
is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet.
Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign
policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure,
dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank
to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence,
not democracy.
In the Devil's Dictionary that U.S. diplomats are taught to use as their "Elements of Style" guidelines for Doublethink, a "democratic"
country is one that follows U.S. leadership and opens its economy to U.S. investment, and IMF- and World Bank-sponsored privatization.
The Ukraine is deemed democratic, along with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries that act as U.S. financial and military protectorates
and are willing to treat America's enemies are theirs too.
A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public
relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism"
(meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest.
This trajectory could be seen 50 years ago (I described it in Super Imperialism [1972] and Global Fracture [1978].) It had to
happen. But nobody thought that the end would come in quite the way that is happening. History has turned into comedy, or at least
irony as its dialectical path unfolds.
For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that
opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties
that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.)
to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners
and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness.
The reality is that right-wing parties want to get elected, and a populist nationalism is today's road to election victory in
Europe and other countries just as it was for Donald Trump in 2016.
Trump's agenda may really be to break up the American Empire, using the old Uncle Sucker isolationist rhetoric of half a century
ago. He certainly is going for the Empire's most vital organs. But it he a witting anti-American agent? He might as well be – but
it would be a false mental leap to use "quo bono" to assume that he is a witting agent.
After all, if no U.S. contractor, supplier, labor union or bank will deal with him, would Vladimir Putin, China or Iran be any
more naïve? Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible
to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal
to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II.
Dismantling International Law and Its Courts
Any international system of control requires the rule of law. It may be a morally lawless exercise of ruthless power imposing
predatory exploitation, but it is still The Law. And it needs courts to apply it (backed by police power to enforce it and punish
violators).
Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country
have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy
years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which
let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards.
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity
share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy. Without such power, the United States would not join
any international organization. Yet at the same time, it depicted its nationalism as protecting globalization and internationalism.
It was all a euphemism for what really was unilateral U.S. decision-making.
Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international
court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations'
International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture
policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable
basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity."
[1]
Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton erupted in fury, warning in September that: "The United States will use any
means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court," adding that
the UN International Court must not be so bold as to investigate "Israel or other U.S. allies."
That prompted a senior judge, Christoph Flügge from Germany, to resign in protest. Indeed, Bolton told the court to keep out of
any affairs involving the United States, promising to ban the Court's "judges and prosecutors from entering the United States." As
Bolton spelled out the U.S. threat: "We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the
U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We
will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."
What this meant, the German judge spelled out was that: "If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or
investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no
longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted."
The original inspiration of the Court – to use the Nuremburg laws that were applied against German Nazis to bring similar prosecution
against any country or officials found guilty of committing war crimes – had already fallen into disuse with the failure to indict
the authors of the Chilean coup, Iran-Contra or the U.S. invasion of Iraq for war crimes.
Dismantling Dollar Hegemony from the IMF to SWIFT
Of all areas of global power politics today, international finance and foreign investment have become the key flashpoint. International
monetary reserves were supposed to be the most sacrosanct, and international debt enforcement closely associated.
Central banks have long held their gold and other monetary reserves in the United States and London. Back in 1945 this seemed
reasonable, because the New York Federal Reserve Bank (in whose basement foreign central bank gold was kept) was militarily safe,
and because the London Gold Pool was the vehicle by which the U.S. Treasury kept the dollar "as good as gold" at $35 an ounce. Foreign
reserves over and above gold were kept in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, to be bought and sold on the New York and London
foreign-exchange markets to stabilize exchange rates. Most foreign loans to governments were denominated in U.S. dollars, so Wall
Street banks were normally name as paying agents.
That was the case with Iran under the Shah, whom the United States had installed after sponsoring the 1953 coup against Mohammed
Mosaddegh when he sought to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil (now British Petroleum) or at least tax it. After the Shah was overthrown,
the Khomeini regime asked its paying agent, the Chase Manhattan bank, to use its deposits to pay its bondholders. At the direction
of the U.S. Government Chase refused to do so. U.S. courts then declared Iran to be in default, and froze all its assets in the United
States and anywhere else they were able.
This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago,
and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might
be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally
got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult
that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.
But then came Venezuela. Desperate to spend its gold reserves to provide imports for its economy devastated by U.S. sanctions
– a crisis that U.S. diplomats blame on "socialism," not on U.S. political attempts to "make the economy scream" (as Nixon officials
said of Chile under Salvador Allende) – Venezuela directed the Bank of England to transfer some of its $11 billion in gold held in
its vaults and those of other central banks in December 2018. This was just like a bank depositor would expect a bank to pay a check
that the depositor had written.
England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster
his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign
reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank."
Turkey seemed to be a likely destination, prompting Bolton and Pompeo to warn it to desist from helping Venezuela, threatening
sanctions against it or any other country helping Venezuela cope with its economic crisis. As for the Bank of England and other European
countries, the Bloomberg report concluded: "Central bank officials in Caracas have been ordered to no longer try contacting the Bank
of England. These central bankers have been told that Bank of England staffers will not respond to them."
This led to rumors that Venezuela was selling 20 tons of gold via a Russian Boeing 777 – some $840 million. The money probably
would have ended up paying Russian and Chinese bondholders as well as buying food to relieve the local famine.
[4] Russia denied this report, but Reuters has confirmed is that Venezuela has sold 3 tons of a planned 29 tones of gold to the
United Arab Emirates, with another 15 tones are to be shipped on Friday, February 1.
[5] The U.S. Senate's Batista-Cuban hardliner Rubio accused this of being "theft," as if feeding the people to alleviate the
U.S.-sponsored crisis was a crime against U.S. diplomatic leverage.
If there is any country that U.S. diplomats hate more than a recalcitrant Latin American country, it is Iran. President Trump's
breaking of the 2015 nuclear agreements negotiated by European and Obama Administration diplomats has escalated to the point of threatening
Germany and other European countries with punitive sanctions if they do not also break the agreements they have signed. Coming on
top of U.S. opposition to German and other European importing of Russian gas, the U.S. threat finally prompted Europe to find a way
to defend itself.
Imperial threats are no longer military. No country (including Russia or China) can mount a military invasion of another major
country. Since the Vietnam Era, the only kind of war a democratically elected country can wage is atomic, or at least heavy bombing
such as the United States has inflicted on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the
connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium.
Russia and China have already moved to create a shadow bank-transfer system in case the United States unplugs them from SWIFT.
But now, European countries have come to realize that threats by Bolton and Pompeo may lead to heavy fines and asset grabs if they
seek to continue trading with Iran as called for in the treaties they have negotiated.
On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran
and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument
in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored
Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas,
this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions
attack on Europe.
I have just returned from Germany and seen a remarkable split between that nation's industrialists and their political leadership.
For years, major companies have seen Russia as a natural market, a complementary economy needing to modernize its manufacturing and
able to supply Europe with natural gas and other raw materials. America's New Cold War stance is trying to block this commercial
complementarity. Warning Europe against "dependence" on low-price Russian gas, it has offered to sell high-priced LNG from the United
States (via port facilities that do not yet exist in anywhere near the volume required). President Trump also is insisting that NATO
members spend a full 2 percent of their GDP on arms – preferably bought from the United States, not from German or French merchants
of death.
The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above.
In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to
bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945.
The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception
is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is
why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension
services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food
blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.
It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to
become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically
to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports
from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees
across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either.
Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning. A central core has been
to enforce payment of official inter-government debt by withholding IMF credit from countries under default. This rule was instituted
at a time when most official inter-government debt was owed to the United States. But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3
billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country
deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption
to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid.
It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. Europe has taken
notice that its own international monetary trade and financial linkages are in danger of attracting U.S. anger. This became clear
last autumn at the funeral for George H. W. Bush, when the EU's diplomat found himself downgraded to the end of the list to be called
to his seat. He was told that the U.S. no longer considers the EU an entity in good standing. In December, "Mike Pompeo gave a speech
on Europe in Brussels -- his first, and eagerly awaited -- in which he extolled the virtues of nationalism, criticised multilateralism
and the EU, and said that "international bodies" which constrain national sovereignty "must be reformed or eliminated."
[5]
Most of the above events have made the news in just one day, January 31, 2019. The conjunction of U.S. moves on so many fronts,
against Venezuela, Iran and Europe (not to mention China and the trade threats and moves against Huawei also erupting today) looks
like this will be a year of global fracture.
It is not all President Trump's doing, of course. We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Instead of applauding democracy
when foreign countries do not elect a leader approved by U.S. diplomats (whether it is Allende or Maduro), they've let the mask fall
and shown themselves to be the leading New Cold War imperialists. It's now out in the open. They would make Venezuela the new Pinochet-era
Chile. Trump is not alone in supporting Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi terrorists acting, as Lyndon Johnson put it, "Bastards, but they're
our bastards."
Where is the left in all this? That is the question with which I opened this article. How remarkable it is that it is only right-wing
parties, Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), or Marine le Pen's French nationalists and those of other countries that are opposing
NATO militarization and seeking to revive trade and economic links with the rest of Eurasia.
The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like
me. It took a colossal level of arrogance, short-sightedness and lawlessness to hasten its decline -- something that only crazed
Neocons like John Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo could deliver for Donald Trump.
[2] Patricia Laya, Ethan Bronner and Tim Ross,
"Maduro Stymied in Bid to Pull $1.2 Billion of Gold From U.K.," Bloomberg, January 25, 2019. Anticipating just such a double-cross,
President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe.
Well, if the StormTrumpers can tear down all the levers and institutions of international US dollar strength, perhaps they
can also tear down all the institutions of Corporate Globalonial Forced Free Trade. That itself may BE our escape . . . if there
are enough millions of Americans who have turned their regionalocal zones of habitation into economically and politically armor-plated
Transition Towns, Power-Down Zones, etc. People and places like that may be able to crawl up out of the rubble and grow and defend
little zones of semi-subsistence survival-economics.
If enough millions of Americans have created enough such zones, they might be able to link up with eachother to offer hope
of a movement to make America in general a semi-autarchik, semi-secluded and isolated National Survival Economy . . . . much smaller
than today, perhaps likelier to survive the various coming ecosystemic crash-cramdowns, and no longer interested in leading or
dominating a world that we would no longer have the power to lead or dominate.
We could put an end to American Exceptionalism. We could lay this burden down. We could become American Okayness Ordinarians.
Make America an okay place for ordinary Americans to live in.
If Populists, I assume that's what you mean by "Storm Troopers", offer me M4A and revitalized local economies, and deliver
them, they have my support and more power to them.
That's why Trump was elected, his promises, not yet delivered, were closer to that then the Democrats' promises. If the Democrats
promised those things and delivered, then they would have my support.
If the Democrats run a candidate, who has a no track record of delivering such things, we stay home on election day. Trump
can have it, because it won't be any worse.
I don't give a damn about "social issues." Economics, health care and avoiding WWIII are what motivates my votes, and I think
more and more people are going to vote the same way.
Good point about Populist versus StormTrumper. ( And by the way, I said StormTRUMper, not StormTROOper). I wasn't thinking
of the Populists. I was thinking of the neo-etc. vandals and arsonists who want us to invade Venezuela, leave the JCPOA with Iran,
etc. Those are the people who will finally drive the other-country governments into creating their own parallel payment systems,
etc.
And the midpoint of those efforts will leave wreckage and rubble for us to crawl up out of. But we will have a chance to crawl
up out of it.
My reason for voting for Trump was mainly to stop the Evil Clinton from getting elected and to reduce the chance of near immediate
thermonuclear war with Russia and to save the Assad regime in Syria from Clintonian overthrow and replacement with an Islamic
Emirate of Jihadistan.
Much of what will be attempted " in Trump's name" will be de-regulationism of all kinds delivered by the sorts of basic Republicans
selected for the various agencies and departments by Pence and Moore and the Koch Brothers. I doubt the Populist Voters wanted
the Koch-Pence agenda. But that was a risky tradeoff in return for keeping Clinton out of office.
The only Dems who would seek what you want are Sanders or maybe Gabbard or just barely Warren. The others would all be Clinton
or Obama all over again.
I couldn't really find any details about the new INSTEX system – have you got any good links to brush up on? I know they made
an announcement yesterday but how long until the new payment system is operational?
arguably wouldn't it be better if for USD hegemony to be dismantled? A strong USD hurts US exports, subsidizes American consumption
(by making commodities cheaper in relative terms), makes international trade (aka a 8,000-mile+ supply chain) easier.
For the sake of the environment, you want less of all three. Though obviously I don't like the idea of expensive gasoline,
natural gas or tube socks either.
It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive
Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence.
Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs,
but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and
settle for being a dominant minority.
Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast
their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change.
What this change would consist of, and how it would manifest, remained an open question. Would he pursue rapprochement with
Russia and pull troops out of the Middle East as he claimed to want to do during his 2016 campaign, would he doggedly pursue corruption
charges against Clinton and attempt to reform the FBI and CIA, or would he do both, neither, or something else entirely?
Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international
order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment
desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms".
Interesting times.
Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery
going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. Whether or not he ever had or has a coherent plan for the havoc he has
wrought, he has certainly been the agent for change many of us hoped he would be, in stark contrast to the criminal duopoly parties
who continue to oppose him, where the daily no news is always bad news all the same. To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you
don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the
best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles.
Look on some bright sides. Here is just one bright side to look on. President Trump has delayed and denied the Clinton Plan
to topple Assad just long enough that Russia has been able to help Assad preserve legitimate government in most of Syria and defeat
the Clinton's-choice jihadis.
That is a positive good. Unless you are pro-jihadi.
Clinton wasn't going to "benefit the greater good" either, and a very strong argument, based on her past behavior, can be made
that she represented the greater threat. Given that the choice was between her and Trump, I think voters made the right decision.
Hudson's done us a service in pulling these threads together. I'd missed the threats against the ICC judges. One question:
is it possible for INSTEX-like arrangements to function secretly? What is to be gained by announcing them publicly and drawing
the expected attacks? Does that help sharpen conflicts, and to what end?
Maybe they're done in secret already – who knows? The point of doing it publicly is to make a foreign-policy impact, in this
case withdrawing power from the US. It's a Declaration of Independence.
It certainly seems as though the 90 percent (plus) are an afterthought in this journey to who knows where? Like George C.Scott
said while playing Patton, "The whole world at economic war and I'm not part of it. God will not let this happen." Looks like
we're on the Brexit track (without the vote). The elite argue with themselves and we just sit and watch. It appears to me that
the elite just do not have the ability to contemplate things beyond their own narrow self interest. We are all deplorables now.
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected
Is not supported by this (or really the rest of the article). The past tense here, for example, is unwarranted:
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their
equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy.
And this
So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. Germany agreed
to slow down the transfer.
Doesn't show Germany as breaking free at all, and worse it is followed by the pregnant
But then came Venezuela.
Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet
again. Nothing to see here, actually.
So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change.
"So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change."
I'm surprised more people aren't recognizing this. I read the article waiting in vain for some evidence of "the end of our
monetary imperialism" besides some 'grumbling and foot dragging' as you aptly put it. There was some glimmer of a buried lede
with INTEX, created to get around U.S. sanctions against Iran ─ hardly a 'dam-breaking'. Washington is on record as being annoyed.
Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD
as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. World bond market flows are 10X the size
of world stock market flows even though the price of the Dow and Facebook shares etc get all of the headlines.
And foreign exchange flows are 10-50X the flows of bond markets, they're currently on the order of $5 *trillion* per day. And
since forex is almost completely unregulated it's quite difficult to get the data and spot reserve currency trends. Oh, and buy
gold. It's the only currency that requires no counterparty and is no one's debt obligation.
That's not what Hudson claims in his swaggering final sentence:
"The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed
observer like me."
Which is risible as not only did he fail to show anything of the kind, his opening sentence stated a completely different reality:
"The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected" So if we hold him to his first
declaration, his evidence is feeble, as I mentioned. As a scholar, his hyperbole is untrustworthy.
No, gold is pretty enough lying on the bosom of a lady-friend but that's about its only usefulness in the real world.
Always bemusing that gold bugs never talk about gold being in a bubble . yet when it goes south of its purchase price speak
in tongues about ev'bal forces.
thanks Mr. Hudson. One has to wonder what has happened when the government (for decades) has been shown to be morally and otherwise
corrupt and self serving. It doesn't seem to bother anyone but the people, and precious few of them. Was it our financial and
legal bankruptcy that sent us over the cliff?
Indeed! It is to say the least encouraging to see Dr. Hudson return so forcefully to the theme of 'monetary imperialism'.
I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you
haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. You can
find any number of articles on his web site that return periodically to the theme of monetary imperialism. I remember one in particular
that described how the rest of the world was brought on board to help pay for its good old-fashioned military imperialism.
If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt
status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long
as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington
neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be"
to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing.
Until the US returns to the path of genuine wealth creation, it is past time for the rest of the world to go its own way with
its banking and financial institutions.
In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same
pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3.
UK withholding Gold may start another Brexit? IE: funds/gold held by BOE for other countries in Africa, Asian, South America,
and the "stans" with start to depart, slowly at first, perhaps for Switzerland?
Where is the left in all this? Pretty much the same place as Michael Hudson, I'd say. Where is the US Democratic Party in all
this? Quite a different question, and quite a different answer. So far as I can see, the Democrats for years have bombed, invaded
and plundered other countries 'for their own good'. Republicans do it 'for the good of America', by which the ignoramuses mean
the USA. If you're on the receiving end, it doesn't make much difference.
Agreed! South America intervention and regime change, Syria ( Trump is pulling out), Iraq, Middle East meddling, all predate
Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama have nothing to do with any of this.
" So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. "
What proof is there that the gold is still there? Chances are it's notional. All Germany, Venezuela, or the others have is
an IOU – and gold cannot be printed. Incidentally, this whole discussion means that gold is still money and the gold standard
still exists.
What makes you think that the gold in Fort Knox is still there? If I remember right, there was a Potemkin visit back in the
70s to assure everyone that the gold was still there but not since then. Wait, I tell a lie. There was another visit about two
years ago but look who was involved in that visit-
And I should mention that it was in the 90s that between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were manufactured in the
US under Clinton. Since then gold-coated tungsten bars have turned up in places like Germany, China, Ethiopia, the UK, etc so
who is to say if those gold bars in Fort Knox are gold all the way through either. More on this at --
http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html
It wasn't last year that Germany brought back its Gold. It has been ongoing since 2013, after some political and popular pressure
build up. They finished the transaction in 2017. According to an article in Handelblatt (but it was widely reported back then)
they brought back pretty much everything they had in Paris (347t), left what they had in London (perhaps they should have done
it in reverse) and took home another 300t from the NY Fed. That still leaves 1236t in NY. But half of their Gold (1710t) is now
in Frankfurt. That is 50% of the Bundesbanks holdings.
They made a point in saying that every bar was checked and weighed and presented some bars in Frankfurt. I guess they didn't
melt them for assaying, but I'd expect them to be smart enough to check the density.
Their reason to keep Gold in NY and London is to quickly buy USD in case of a crisis. That's pretty much a cold war plan, but
that's what they do right now.
Regarding Michal Hudsons piece, I enjoyed reading through this one. He tends to write ridiculously long articles and in the
last few years with less time and motivation at hand I've skipped most of his texts on NC as they just drag on.
When I'm truly fascinated I like well written, long articles but somehow he lost me at some point. But I noticed that some
long original articles in US magazines, probably research for a long time by the journalist, can just drag on for ever as well
I just tune out.
This is making sense. I would guess that tearing up the old system is totally deliberate. It wasn't working so well for us
because we had to practice too much social austerity, which we have tried to impose on the EU as well, just to stabilize "king
dollar" – otherwise spread so thin it was a pending catastrophe.
Now we can get out from under being the reserve currency – the currency that maintains its value by financial manipulation
and military bullying domestic deprivation. To replace this old power trip we are now going to mainline oil. The dollar will become
a true petro dollar because we are going to commandeer every oil resource not already nailed down.
When we partnered with SA in Aramco and the then petro dollar the dollar was only backed by our military. If we start monopolizing
oil, the actual commodity, the dollar will be an apex competitor currency without all the foreign military obligations which will
allow greater competitive advantages.
No? I'm looking at PdVSA, PEMEX and the new "Energy Hub for the Eastern Mediterranean" and other places not yet made public.
It looks like a power play to me, not a hapless goofball president at all.
So sand people with sociological attachment to the OT is a compelling argument based on antiquarian preferences with authoritarian
patriarchal tendencies for their non renewable resource . after I might add it was deemed a strategic concern after WWII .
Considering the broader geopolitical realities I would drain all the gold reserves to zero if it was on offer . here natives
have some shiny beads for allowing us to resource extract we call this a good trade you maximize your utility as I do mine .
Hay its like not having to run C-corp compounds with western 60s – 70s esthetics and letting the locals play serf, blow back
pay back, and now the installed local chiefs can own the risk and refocus the attention away from the real antagonists.
Indeed. Thanks so much for this. Maybe the RICS will get serious now – can no longer include Brazil with Bolsonaro. There needs
to be an alternate system or systems in place, and to see US Imperialism so so blatantly and bluntly by Trump admin –
"US
gives Juan Guaido control over some Venezuelan assets" – should sound sirens on every continent and especially in the developing
world. I too hope there will be fracture to the point of breakage. Countries of the world outside the US/EU/UK/Canada/Australia
confraternity must now unite to provide a permanent framework outside the control of imperial interests. The be clear, this must
not default to alternative forms of imperialism germinating by the likes of China.
" such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global
power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for
so long that they no longer remember how they got there.
Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it
now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's
inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of
a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble."
I read something like this and I am like, some of these statements need to be qualified. Like: "Driving China and Russia together".
Like where's the proof? Is Xi playing telephone games more often now with Putin? I look at those two and all I see are two egocentric
people who might sometimes say the right things but in general do not like the share the spotlight. Let's say they get together
to face America and for some reason the later gets "defeated", it's not as if they'll kumbaya together into the night.
This website often points out the difficulties in implementing new banking IT initiatives. Ok, so Europe has a new "payment
system". Has it been tested thoroughly? I would expect a couple of weeks or even months of chaos if it's not been tested, and
if it's thorough that probably just means that it's in use right i.e. all the kinks have been worked out. In that case the transition
is already happening anyway. But then the next crisis arrives and then everyone would need their dollar swap lines again which
probably needs to cleared through SWIFT or something.
Anyway, does this all mean that one day we'll wake up and a slice of bacon is 50 bucks as opposed to the usual 1 dollar?
Driving Russia and China together is correct. I recall them signing a variety of economic and military agreement a few years
ago. It was covered in the media. You should at least google an issue before making silly comments. You might start with the report
of Russia and China signing 30 cooperation agreements three years ago. See
https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/06/27/russia-china-sign-30-cooperation-agreements_606505
. There are lots and lots of others.
He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and
WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas.
The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical
foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed
the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run.
Whilst the far right factions fight over the rudder the only new game in town is AOC, Sanders, Warren, et al which Trumps supporters
hate with Ideological purity.
Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On
US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics"
on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners.
On a household level it fits, but there no "loser" household that in infinity can print money that the "winners" can accumulate
in exchange for their resources and fruits of labor.
One wonder what are Trumps idea of US being a winner in trade (surplus)? I.e. sending away their resources and fruits of labor
overseas in exchange for what? A pile of USD? That US in the first place created out of thin air. Or Chinese Yuan, Euros, Turkish
liras? Also fiat-money. Or does he think US trade surplus should be paid in gold?
When the US political and economic hegemony will unravel it will come "unexpected". Trump for sure are undermining it with
his megalomaniac ignorance. But not sure it's imminent.
Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash
will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence.
There will be fierce competition to fill the gap.
On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and
austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top.
I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect.
Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the
rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT.
The trade deficit required a large Government deficit to cover it and the US government could just create the money to cover
it.
Then ideological neoliberals came in wanting balanced budgets and not realising the Government deficit covered the trade deficit.
The US has been destabilising its own economy by reducing the Government deficit. Bill Clinton didn't realize a Government surplus is an indicator a financial crisis is about to hit. The last US Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, they go hand-in-hand with financial crises.
Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use and it's the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).
The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy.
It should be remembered Bill Clinton's early meeting with Rubin, where in he was informed that wages and productivity had diverged –
Rubin did not blink an eye.
"... China's crude shipments from Iran totaled 855,638 tons last month, which averages to 208,205 barrels per day (bpd), compared with 254,016 bpd in May, according figures from the General Administration of Customs, cited in a recent Reuters report . ..."
"... Iran's Vice President Jahangiri made the appeal to Beijing and "friendly" countries to up their Iranian crude purchases in statements Monday. "Even though we are aware that friendly countries such as China are facing some restrictions, we expect them to be more active in buying Iranian oil ," Jahangiri reportedly told visiting senior Chinese diplomat Song Tao. He said this while also on Monday issuing a statement saying Iran stood ready to "confront" American aggression in the region and that multilateralism must be upheld. ..."
Following China's crude imports from Iran plunging this summer, sinking almost 60% in June
compared to
a year earlier - which corresponded to Washington shutting down the waiver program in May -
leaders in Tehran are urging China to buy more Iranian oil .
China's crude shipments from Iran totaled 855,638 tons last month, which averages to 208,205
barrels per day (bpd), compared with 254,016 bpd in May, according figures from the General
Administration of Customs, cited in a recent
Reuters report .
Iran's Vice President Jahangiri made the appeal to Beijing and "friendly" countries to up
their Iranian crude purchases in statements Monday. "Even though we are aware that friendly
countries such as China are facing some restrictions, we expect them to be more active in
buying Iranian oil ," Jahangiri
reportedly told visiting senior Chinese diplomat Song Tao. He said this while also on
Monday issuing a statement saying Iran stood ready to "confront" American aggression in the
region and that multilateralism must be upheld.
"The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to protect multilateralism and
confront American hegemony,"
Jahangiri said , according to the IRIB news agency.
He added that Iran's recent move to breach uranium enrichment caps could be reversed should
other parties return to upholding their side of the nuclear agreement.
Simultaneously, China's oil purchases from Iran's rival Saudi Arabia have soared to record
volume , totaling 1.89 million barrels a day last month, according to numbers cited in
Bloomberg . "Shipments from the OPEC producer made up almost a fifth of its total oil
purchases in June and was 64% higher than the previous month," while at the same time "Imports
from Iran fell to the lowest since May 2010," according to
Bloomberg .
Meanwhile, in a crucial development related to Iran's trying to weather the severe US-led
sanctions storm, a long anticipated plan for gasoline export has begun with an inaugural
shipment to neighboring Afghanistan.
The Fars news agency said on Monday that a first consignment of export gasoline will start
trading in Iran's Energy Exchange (IRENEX) later this week .
It said some 10,000 tons of gasoline with octane number of 91 will be available for sale
to Afghanistan through IRENEX on Wednesday, adding that the trade will take place both in the
Iranian rial and in major international currencies.
Iran's refining capacity has grown significantly over the past years as the country slashed
fuel imports while also coping with increased domestic demand.
Officials have expressed hope that Iraq along with Afghanistan, as well as Caspian Sea
countries would become main destinations for gasoline export.
A country knocking on the doors of other countries to be able to sell it's product to
sustain it's economy and support it's population all the while "civilized, humane, peaceful,
and law abiding" people in the west enjoying their lives at the expense of the very same
people who they insult for not being able to stole the way they did, arguing and trying to
convince everyone else how Mullah's are oppressing their people while they're trying to
help.
China will buy more Iranian oil and so will Russia. They will have the last word whilst
the US empire will be the laughing stock of the world (well it already is).
Cruelty and Stupidity are the hallmarks of moves this century.
"What's Iran to do? It seems straightforward. Respond in kind but no more than in kind to
aggression on Iran's interests, make sure the craven Trumpists and allies realize Iran isn't
kidding about shutting down resource shipments through the Persian Gulf and the destruction
of the vast petroleum infrastructure in the Persian Gulf if Iran is attacked militarily, and
above all remain cool headed and patient. The US empire is beginning to implode."
OK so last week there was millions of barrels of Iranian oil sitting in storage tanks in
China but has not officially changed hands because of sanctions. Today imports from Iran to
China have plunged. Do you not see the correlation? It was in your own ******* article. Do
you even read some of the **** you publish?
I miss Marla...**** was straight when she was around.
See what you mean re: Marla. Nowadays most articles get published on the merit of fitting
an agenda, beyond that content seems irrelevant. And I'm not sure 'Tyler' even knows there is
an active comment section, if you see what I mean.
The Chinese have planned for (and thus probably will achieve) a SPR holding 90 days of
oil. They are past 60, maybe already past 70 these days.
Oil consumption is flat thanks to engine improvements. The turd world (Russia included) is
nervous because their oil welfare is going to come to an end.
It would be pretty tough for the U.S. to enforce any sanctions, if China agreed to buy
more oil from Iran. And there is no way the U.S. can stop them, once the Belt and Road system
is completed through the Middle East region. And since China has already lined up 152
countries to cooperate in the BRI, it is extremely difficult for the U.S. to deny them a shot
at improving their economies, especially when it comes to the subject of Iran.
So much for the "China and Russia will save Iran" crowd's desperate assertions. Russia
does not want VZ or Iranian crude on the market as it will push oil prices even lower. As I
said, there will be no WW3 over Iran. There will be no grand assemblage of minor states over
Iran. Iran is on its own.
"... "After watching seven hours of a spectacle that felt much more cruel than enlightening, I cannot avoid pondering a question which honestly gives me no joy to ponder: just how much damage has MSNBC in particular done to the left?" The Hill's Rising star began, before excoriating her former employer's "fevered speculations" about an "Infowars conspiracy theory" and the way it hosted people like Jonathan "maybe Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s" Chait and "conspiracy gadfly Louise Mensch" in search of ratings bumps. ..."
"... "This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could ever have dreamed up," Ball argued. "Think about all the time and the journalistic resources that could have been dedicated to stories that, I don't know, that a broad swath of people might actually care about? Healthcare, wages, the teachers' movement, whether we're going to war with Iran? I'm just spitballing here. ..."
"... Ball argued that the fact that MSNBC is doing so much damage to the Democratic Party in the name of ratings proves that MSNBC isn't "on Team D in the same way that Fox News is on Team R", saying they're really just in it for the money. But this is where Ball gets it wrong. It is of course true that ratings are a factor, and that conspiracy theories can be used to sell advertising space, but MSNBC would have had a much easier time marketing conspiracy theories about Trump's loyalties to Israel and Saudi Arabia , both of which would have had vastly more factual evidence to back them up. The only difference is that the US-centralized empire doesn't have agendas that it wants to advance against those two countries. ..."
"... Ball is correct that MSNBC doesn't serve the Democratic party, but she's incorrect that it serves only money. MSNBC, which is now arguably a more aggressive war propaganda network than Fox News, serves first and foremost the US national security state. And so do all the other western mainstream news networks. ..."
"... From the Pentagon's point of view, US hegemony good, Russia-China alliance very, very bad. ..."
"... I t was determined with the help of influential neoconservative think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs. As soon as that view became the establishment orthodoxy , any threat to US hegemony was now interpreted as a threat to national security. An "attack" on America was no longer limited to physical attacks on US soil, or even on US allies and assets: any attempt to escape unipolarity is now treated as a direct attack on the empire. ..."
"... This is why we've seen nations like Iraq, Libya and Syria spoken about by the propagandists as "enemies" as though they pose some kind of direct threat to the American people. There was never any actual threat to the physical United States, but those nations were not complying with the dictates of US hegemony, and that noncompliance was treated as a direct attack. ..."
"... This "if you're not obeying us you're attacking us" mentality is ridiculous on its face and no right-thinking citizen would ever consent to it, which is why the consent manufacturers need to promote imaginary nonsense like weapons of mass destruction, a Russian "attack" on American democracy, and a conspiracy theory about the Kremlin infiltrating the highest levels of the US government. It's got nothing to do with actual fears of those nations posing any threat to actual Americans. It's about continuing to rule the world. ..."
"After watching seven hours of a spectacle that felt much more cruel than enlightening, I cannot avoid pondering a question which
honestly gives me no joy to ponder: just how much damage has MSNBC in particular done to the left?" The Hill's Rising star began,
before excoriating her former employer's "fevered speculations" about an "Infowars conspiracy theory" and the way it hosted people
like Jonathan "maybe Trump has been a Russian asset since the 1980s" Chait and "conspiracy gadfly Louise Mensch" in search of ratings
bumps.
"This whole setup has done more damage to the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House than anything that Trump could
ever have dreamed up," Ball argued. "Think about all the time and the journalistic resources that could have been dedicated to stories
that, I don't know, that a broad swath of people might actually care about? Healthcare, wages, the teachers' movement, whether we're
going to war with Iran? I'm just spitballing here.
I actually heard some pundit on Chris Hayes last night opine that independent women in middle America were going to be swayed
by what Mueller said yesterday. Are you kidding me? This is almost as bonkers and lacking in factual basis as that time Mimi Rocah
said that Bernie Sanders is not pro-women because that was what her feelings told her. Rocah, by the way, a political prosecutor
with no political background, is only opining at MSNBC because of her role in leading viewers to believe that any day now SDNY is
going to bring down Trump and his entire family."
Ball argued that the fact that MSNBC is doing so much damage to the
Democratic Party in the name of ratings proves that MSNBC isn't "on Team D in the same way that Fox News is on Team R", saying they're
really just in it for the money. But this is where Ball gets it wrong. It is of course true that ratings are a factor, and that conspiracy
theories can be used to sell advertising space, but MSNBC would have had a much easier time marketing conspiracy theories about Trump's
loyalties to
Israel and
Saudi Arabia , both of which would have had
vastly more factual evidence to back them up. The only difference is that the US-centralized empire doesn't have agendas that
it wants to advance against those two countries.
Ball is correct that MSNBC doesn't serve the Democratic party, but she's incorrect that it serves only money. MSNBC, which is
now arguably a more aggressive war propaganda network than Fox News, serves first and foremost the US national security state.
And so do all the other western mainstream news networks.
Consider the way the Syrian province of Idlib is being reported on right now, to pick one of many possible examples.
Al-Qaeda-controlled
Idlib is the final stronghold of the extremist militant groups that
the US and
its allies flooded Syria with in a
premeditated campaign to effect regime change, and Syria and its allies are fighting to recapture the region. They are using
methods that are identical to those commonly used by the US and its allies, yet the bombing campaigns of the US-centralized empire
receive virtually no critical coverage while western mainstream outlets like
CNN and
the BBC
are churning out brazenly propagandistic pieces about the evils of the Assad coalition's airstrikes.
"Civilians are dying in Idlib, just as they died in their thousands in recent US UK air strikes in eg Raqqa and Mosul," political
analyst Charles Shoebridge
observed on Twitter today. "The difference is that when it's (often unverified) claims that Russia or Syria are doing the killing,
US UK media make it front page news."
There are many gaping plot holes in the Russiagate narrative that outlets like MSNBC have been bashing everyone over the head
with, but the most obvious and easily provable of them is the indisputable fact that Donald Trump
has escalated tensions against Russia more than any US president in decades. You never hear anyone talk about this self-evident
fact in all the endless yammering about Russia, though, because it doesn't advance the agendas of either of America's two mainstream
parties, and it doesn't advance the interests of US imperialism. Democrats don't like acknowledging the fact that Trump has been
consistently and aggressively working directly against the interests of Moscow , and Trump supporters don't like acknowledging
that their president is just as much of a neocon-coddling globalist as those they claim to oppose, so the war machine has gone conveniently
unchallenged in manufacturing new cold war escalations against a nation they've had marked for destruction since the fall of the
Soviet Union.
In a very interesting new Grayzone
interview packed full of ideas that you'll never hear voiced on western mass media, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov
spoke openly about the various ways that Russia, China, and other nations who've resisted absorption into the blob of the US power
alliance have been working toward the creation of a multipolar world. Ryabkov said other nations have been watching the way the dominance
of the US dollar has been used to economically terrorize noncompliant nations into subservience by way of sanctions and other manipulations,
with Washington expecting that the dollar and the US financial system will remain "the cardiovascular system of the whole organism."
"That will not be the case," Ryabkov said. "People will bypass, in literal terms. And people will find ways how to defend themselves,
how to protect themselves, how to guarantee themselves against any emergencies if someone comes up at the White House or whatever,
at the Treasury, at the State, and says 'Hey guys, now we should stop what is going on in Country X, and let's squeeze them out.'
And this country sits on the dollar. So they will be done the moment those ideas will be pronounced. So China, Russia and others,
we create alternatives that we will most probably continue using not just national currencies, but baskets of currencies, currencies
of third countries, other modern barter schemes."
"We will use ways that will diminish the role of dollar and US banking system with all these risks of assets and transactions
being arrested, being stopped," Ryabkov concluded.
That, right there, is the real reason you're being sold Russia hysteria today.
And it isn't just on the matter of financial systems in which the unabsorbed powers are uniting against the imperial blob. Russia
and China
just carried out their first joint air patrol on Tuesday, drawing a hostile response from imperial vassals Japan and South Korea.
"Russian and Chinese bombers on 'first' joint patrol in the Asia-Pacific region. The China-Russia alliance has become a reality
and will last for long time,"
reads a post by one Russian Twitter commentator in response to the news.
The emergence of this alliance, which the Chinese government
has warned Washington is 'not vulnerable to interference', has been something the west has feared for a long time. A
Pentagon white paper published this past May titled "Russian Strategic Intentions" mentions the word "China" 108 times. Some
noteworthy excerpts:
The world system, and American influence in it, would be completely upended if Moscow and Beijing aligned more closely.
The allies' goal should be deterrence. At the same time, the US should bilaterally engage Russia to peel them away from China's
orbit.
He also encourages the development of the US's 'capability to effectively foster distrust and unease between the Russia Federation
and China.'
Along with Beijing, Moscow seeks a multipolar world in which US hegemony comes to an end. As Alexander Lukin recently pointed
out, the 'common ideal of a multipolar world [has] played a significant role in the rapprochement between Russia and China.'
Russia and China were explicitly mentioned in the 2018 National Defense Strategy as the great powers with which the US is
in competition. Both Russia and China have come a long way since the 1990s, and the 'friendship' that emerged in the immediate
post-Tiananmen period and continued to grow over the years now today appears to be one of the strongest bilateral alliances on
the planet.
Together, Russia's tentacles on its former Soviet neighbors and Moscow's strategic alliance with Beijing in pursuit of a multipolar
world (in which the US is no longer the global hegemon) form the two main pillars upon which Putin's grand strategy rests. All
other aspects of its foreign policy behavior can be traced back to this dual-pronged grand strategy.
I think you get the picture. From the Pentagon's point of view, US hegemony good, Russia-China alliance very, very bad.
Analysts like the white paper's authors, and even
The New York Times editorial board
, have urged the drivers of US foreign policy to attempt to lure Moscow away from Beijing, the latter rightly perceived as the greater
long-term threat to US dominance due to China's surging economic power. But diplomacy has clearly been ruled out toward this end,
with only a steadily escalating campaign to shove Russia off the world stage now deemed acceptable.
It
was determined with the help of
influential
neoconservative
think tankers that the US must maintain this unipolar paradigm at all costs. As soon as that view
became the establishment orthodoxy , any threat to US hegemony was now interpreted as a threat to national security. An "attack"
on America was no longer limited to physical attacks on US soil, or even on US allies and assets: any attempt to escape unipolarity
is now treated as a direct attack on the empire.
This is why we've seen nations like Iraq, Libya and Syria spoken about by the propagandists as "enemies" as though they pose
some kind of direct threat to the American people. There was never any actual threat to the physical United States, but those nations
were not complying with the dictates of US hegemony, and that noncompliance was treated as a direct attack.
This "if you're not obeying us you're attacking us" mentality is ridiculous on its face and no right-thinking citizen would
ever consent to it, which is why the consent manufacturers need to promote imaginary nonsense like weapons of mass destruction, a
Russian "attack" on American democracy, and a conspiracy theory about the Kremlin infiltrating the highest levels of the US government.
It's got nothing to do with actual fears of those nations posing any threat to actual Americans. It's about continuing to rule the
world.
Looks like the world order established after WWIII crumbed with the USSR and now it is again the law if jungles with the US as the
biggest predator.
Notable quotes:
"... The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. ..."
"... Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy ..."
"... A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest. ..."
"... For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness. ..."
"... Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II. ..."
"... Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards. ..."
"... Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." ..."
"... This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer. ..."
"... England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank." ..."
"... But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium. ..."
"... On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe ..."
"... The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945. ..."
"... By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands. ..."
"... It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. ..."
"... But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid. ..."
"... It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. ..."
"... Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe. ..."
"... It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence. ..."
"... Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority. ..."
"... Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change. ..."
"... Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times. ..."
"... Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. ..."
"... To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles. ..."
"... Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually. ..."
"... So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change. ..."
"... Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. ..."
"... I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. ..."
"... If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing. ..."
"... In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3. ..."
"... Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble." ..."
"... He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas. ..."
"... The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run. ..."
"... Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners. ..."
"... Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap. ..."
"... On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect. ..."
"... Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o ..."
"... Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT. ..."
"... The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy. ..."
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons
who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold
by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries
with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial
institutions.
This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become
the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved
what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter
has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using
Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black
political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense
that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties.
The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together
– the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into
the Eurasian orbit, the "Heartland" nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago.
The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution
of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported
even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States
is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet.
Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign
policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure,
dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank
to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence,
not democracy.
In the Devil's Dictionary that U.S. diplomats are taught to use as their "Elements of Style" guidelines for Doublethink, a "democratic"
country is one that follows U.S. leadership and opens its economy to U.S. investment, and IMF- and World Bank-sponsored privatization.
The Ukraine is deemed democratic, along with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries that act as U.S. financial and military protectorates
and are willing to treat America's enemies are theirs too.
A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public
relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism"
(meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest.
This trajectory could be seen 50 years ago (I described it in Super Imperialism [1972] and Global Fracture [1978].) It had to
happen. But nobody thought that the end would come in quite the way that is happening. History has turned into comedy, or at least
irony as its dialectical path unfolds.
For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that
opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties
that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.)
to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners
and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness.
The reality is that right-wing parties want to get elected, and a populist nationalism is today's road to election victory in
Europe and other countries just as it was for Donald Trump in 2016.
Trump's agenda may really be to break up the American Empire, using the old Uncle Sucker isolationist rhetoric of half a century
ago. He certainly is going for the Empire's most vital organs. But it he a witting anti-American agent? He might as well be – but
it would be a false mental leap to use "quo bono" to assume that he is a witting agent.
After all, if no U.S. contractor, supplier, labor union or bank will deal with him, would Vladimir Putin, China or Iran be any
more naïve? Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible
to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal
to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II.
Dismantling International Law and Its Courts
Any international system of control requires the rule of law. It may be a morally lawless exercise of ruthless power imposing
predatory exploitation, but it is still The Law. And it needs courts to apply it (backed by police power to enforce it and punish
violators).
Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country
have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy
years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which
let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards.
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity
share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy. Without such power, the United States would not join
any international organization. Yet at the same time, it depicted its nationalism as protecting globalization and internationalism.
It was all a euphemism for what really was unilateral U.S. decision-making.
Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international
court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations'
International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture
policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable
basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity."
[1]
Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton erupted in fury, warning in September that: "The United States will use any
means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court," adding that
the UN International Court must not be so bold as to investigate "Israel or other U.S. allies."
That prompted a senior judge, Christoph Flügge from Germany, to resign in protest. Indeed, Bolton told the court to keep out of
any affairs involving the United States, promising to ban the Court's "judges and prosecutors from entering the United States." As
Bolton spelled out the U.S. threat: "We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the
U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We
will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."
What this meant, the German judge spelled out was that: "If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or
investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no
longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted."
The original inspiration of the Court – to use the Nuremburg laws that were applied against German Nazis to bring similar prosecution
against any country or officials found guilty of committing war crimes – had already fallen into disuse with the failure to indict
the authors of the Chilean coup, Iran-Contra or the U.S. invasion of Iraq for war crimes.
Dismantling Dollar Hegemony from the IMF to SWIFT
Of all areas of global power politics today, international finance and foreign investment have become the key flashpoint. International
monetary reserves were supposed to be the most sacrosanct, and international debt enforcement closely associated.
Central banks have long held their gold and other monetary reserves in the United States and London. Back in 1945 this seemed
reasonable, because the New York Federal Reserve Bank (in whose basement foreign central bank gold was kept) was militarily safe,
and because the London Gold Pool was the vehicle by which the U.S. Treasury kept the dollar "as good as gold" at $35 an ounce. Foreign
reserves over and above gold were kept in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, to be bought and sold on the New York and London
foreign-exchange markets to stabilize exchange rates. Most foreign loans to governments were denominated in U.S. dollars, so Wall
Street banks were normally name as paying agents.
That was the case with Iran under the Shah, whom the United States had installed after sponsoring the 1953 coup against Mohammed
Mosaddegh when he sought to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil (now British Petroleum) or at least tax it. After the Shah was overthrown,
the Khomeini regime asked its paying agent, the Chase Manhattan bank, to use its deposits to pay its bondholders. At the direction
of the U.S. Government Chase refused to do so. U.S. courts then declared Iran to be in default, and froze all its assets in the United
States and anywhere else they were able.
This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago,
and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might
be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally
got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult
that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.
But then came Venezuela. Desperate to spend its gold reserves to provide imports for its economy devastated by U.S. sanctions
– a crisis that U.S. diplomats blame on "socialism," not on U.S. political attempts to "make the economy scream" (as Nixon officials
said of Chile under Salvador Allende) – Venezuela directed the Bank of England to transfer some of its $11 billion in gold held in
its vaults and those of other central banks in December 2018. This was just like a bank depositor would expect a bank to pay a check
that the depositor had written.
England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster
his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign
reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank."
Turkey seemed to be a likely destination, prompting Bolton and Pompeo to warn it to desist from helping Venezuela, threatening
sanctions against it or any other country helping Venezuela cope with its economic crisis. As for the Bank of England and other European
countries, the Bloomberg report concluded: "Central bank officials in Caracas have been ordered to no longer try contacting the Bank
of England. These central bankers have been told that Bank of England staffers will not respond to them."
This led to rumors that Venezuela was selling 20 tons of gold via a Russian Boeing 777 – some $840 million. The money probably
would have ended up paying Russian and Chinese bondholders as well as buying food to relieve the local famine.
[4] Russia denied this report, but Reuters has confirmed is that Venezuela has sold 3 tons of a planned 29 tones of gold to the
United Arab Emirates, with another 15 tones are to be shipped on Friday, February 1.
[5] The U.S. Senate's Batista-Cuban hardliner Rubio accused this of being "theft," as if feeding the people to alleviate the
U.S.-sponsored crisis was a crime against U.S. diplomatic leverage.
If there is any country that U.S. diplomats hate more than a recalcitrant Latin American country, it is Iran. President Trump's
breaking of the 2015 nuclear agreements negotiated by European and Obama Administration diplomats has escalated to the point of threatening
Germany and other European countries with punitive sanctions if they do not also break the agreements they have signed. Coming on
top of U.S. opposition to German and other European importing of Russian gas, the U.S. threat finally prompted Europe to find a way
to defend itself.
Imperial threats are no longer military. No country (including Russia or China) can mount a military invasion of another major
country. Since the Vietnam Era, the only kind of war a democratically elected country can wage is atomic, or at least heavy bombing
such as the United States has inflicted on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the
connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium.
Russia and China have already moved to create a shadow bank-transfer system in case the United States unplugs them from SWIFT.
But now, European countries have come to realize that threats by Bolton and Pompeo may lead to heavy fines and asset grabs if they
seek to continue trading with Iran as called for in the treaties they have negotiated.
On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran
and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument
in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored
Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas,
this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions
attack on Europe.
I have just returned from Germany and seen a remarkable split between that nation's industrialists and their political leadership.
For years, major companies have seen Russia as a natural market, a complementary economy needing to modernize its manufacturing and
able to supply Europe with natural gas and other raw materials. America's New Cold War stance is trying to block this commercial
complementarity. Warning Europe against "dependence" on low-price Russian gas, it has offered to sell high-priced LNG from the United
States (via port facilities that do not yet exist in anywhere near the volume required). President Trump also is insisting that NATO
members spend a full 2 percent of their GDP on arms – preferably bought from the United States, not from German or French merchants
of death.
The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above.
In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to
bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945.
The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception
is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is
why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension
services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food
blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.
It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to
become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically
to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports
from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees
across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either.
Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning. A central core has been
to enforce payment of official inter-government debt by withholding IMF credit from countries under default. This rule was instituted
at a time when most official inter-government debt was owed to the United States. But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3
billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country
deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption
to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid.
It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. Europe has taken
notice that its own international monetary trade and financial linkages are in danger of attracting U.S. anger. This became clear
last autumn at the funeral for George H. W. Bush, when the EU's diplomat found himself downgraded to the end of the list to be called
to his seat. He was told that the U.S. no longer considers the EU an entity in good standing. In December, "Mike Pompeo gave a speech
on Europe in Brussels -- his first, and eagerly awaited -- in which he extolled the virtues of nationalism, criticised multilateralism
and the EU, and said that "international bodies" which constrain national sovereignty "must be reformed or eliminated."
[5]
Most of the above events have made the news in just one day, January 31, 2019. The conjunction of U.S. moves on so many fronts,
against Venezuela, Iran and Europe (not to mention China and the trade threats and moves against Huawei also erupting today) looks
like this will be a year of global fracture.
It is not all President Trump's doing, of course. We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Instead of applauding democracy
when foreign countries do not elect a leader approved by U.S. diplomats (whether it is Allende or Maduro), they've let the mask fall
and shown themselves to be the leading New Cold War imperialists. It's now out in the open. They would make Venezuela the new Pinochet-era
Chile. Trump is not alone in supporting Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi terrorists acting, as Lyndon Johnson put it, "Bastards, but they're
our bastards."
Where is the left in all this? That is the question with which I opened this article. How remarkable it is that it is only right-wing
parties, Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), or Marine le Pen's French nationalists and those of other countries that are opposing
NATO militarization and seeking to revive trade and economic links with the rest of Eurasia.
The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like
me. It took a colossal level of arrogance, short-sightedness and lawlessness to hasten its decline -- something that only crazed
Neocons like John Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo could deliver for Donald Trump.
[2] Patricia Laya, Ethan Bronner and Tim Ross,
"Maduro Stymied in Bid to Pull $1.2 Billion of Gold From U.K.," Bloomberg, January 25, 2019. Anticipating just such a double-cross,
President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe.
Well, if the StormTrumpers can tear down all the levers and institutions of international US dollar strength, perhaps they
can also tear down all the institutions of Corporate Globalonial Forced Free Trade. That itself may BE our escape . . . if there
are enough millions of Americans who have turned their regionalocal zones of habitation into economically and politically armor-plated
Transition Towns, Power-Down Zones, etc. People and places like that may be able to crawl up out of the rubble and grow and defend
little zones of semi-subsistence survival-economics.
If enough millions of Americans have created enough such zones, they might be able to link up with eachother to offer hope
of a movement to make America in general a semi-autarchik, semi-secluded and isolated National Survival Economy . . . . much smaller
than today, perhaps likelier to survive the various coming ecosystemic crash-cramdowns, and no longer interested in leading or
dominating a world that we would no longer have the power to lead or dominate.
We could put an end to American Exceptionalism. We could lay this burden down. We could become American Okayness Ordinarians.
Make America an okay place for ordinary Americans to live in.
If Populists, I assume that's what you mean by "Storm Troopers", offer me M4A and revitalized local economies, and deliver
them, they have my support and more power to them.
That's why Trump was elected, his promises, not yet delivered, were closer to that then the Democrats' promises. If the Democrats
promised those things and delivered, then they would have my support.
If the Democrats run a candidate, who has a no track record of delivering such things, we stay home on election day. Trump
can have it, because it won't be any worse.
I don't give a damn about "social issues." Economics, health care and avoiding WWIII are what motivates my votes, and I think
more and more people are going to vote the same way.
Good point about Populist versus StormTrumper. ( And by the way, I said StormTRUMper, not StormTROOper). I wasn't thinking
of the Populists. I was thinking of the neo-etc. vandals and arsonists who want us to invade Venezuela, leave the JCPOA with Iran,
etc. Those are the people who will finally drive the other-country governments into creating their own parallel payment systems,
etc.
And the midpoint of those efforts will leave wreckage and rubble for us to crawl up out of. But we will have a chance to crawl
up out of it.
My reason for voting for Trump was mainly to stop the Evil Clinton from getting elected and to reduce the chance of near immediate
thermonuclear war with Russia and to save the Assad regime in Syria from Clintonian overthrow and replacement with an Islamic
Emirate of Jihadistan.
Much of what will be attempted " in Trump's name" will be de-regulationism of all kinds delivered by the sorts of basic Republicans
selected for the various agencies and departments by Pence and Moore and the Koch Brothers. I doubt the Populist Voters wanted
the Koch-Pence agenda. But that was a risky tradeoff in return for keeping Clinton out of office.
The only Dems who would seek what you want are Sanders or maybe Gabbard or just barely Warren. The others would all be Clinton
or Obama all over again.
I couldn't really find any details about the new INSTEX system – have you got any good links to brush up on? I know they made
an announcement yesterday but how long until the new payment system is operational?
arguably wouldn't it be better if for USD hegemony to be dismantled? A strong USD hurts US exports, subsidizes American consumption
(by making commodities cheaper in relative terms), makes international trade (aka a 8,000-mile+ supply chain) easier.
For the sake of the environment, you want less of all three. Though obviously I don't like the idea of expensive gasoline,
natural gas or tube socks either.
It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive
Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence.
Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs,
but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and
settle for being a dominant minority.
Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast
their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change.
What this change would consist of, and how it would manifest, remained an open question. Would he pursue rapprochement with
Russia and pull troops out of the Middle East as he claimed to want to do during his 2016 campaign, would he doggedly pursue corruption
charges against Clinton and attempt to reform the FBI and CIA, or would he do both, neither, or something else entirely?
Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international
order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment
desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms".
Interesting times.
Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery
going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. Whether or not he ever had or has a coherent plan for the havoc he has
wrought, he has certainly been the agent for change many of us hoped he would be, in stark contrast to the criminal duopoly parties
who continue to oppose him, where the daily no news is always bad news all the same. To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you
don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the
best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles.
Look on some bright sides. Here is just one bright side to look on. President Trump has delayed and denied the Clinton Plan
to topple Assad just long enough that Russia has been able to help Assad preserve legitimate government in most of Syria and defeat
the Clinton's-choice jihadis.
That is a positive good. Unless you are pro-jihadi.
Clinton wasn't going to "benefit the greater good" either, and a very strong argument, based on her past behavior, can be made
that she represented the greater threat. Given that the choice was between her and Trump, I think voters made the right decision.
Hudson's done us a service in pulling these threads together. I'd missed the threats against the ICC judges. One question:
is it possible for INSTEX-like arrangements to function secretly? What is to be gained by announcing them publicly and drawing
the expected attacks? Does that help sharpen conflicts, and to what end?
Maybe they're done in secret already – who knows? The point of doing it publicly is to make a foreign-policy impact, in this
case withdrawing power from the US. It's a Declaration of Independence.
It certainly seems as though the 90 percent (plus) are an afterthought in this journey to who knows where? Like George C.Scott
said while playing Patton, "The whole world at economic war and I'm not part of it. God will not let this happen." Looks like
we're on the Brexit track (without the vote). The elite argue with themselves and we just sit and watch. It appears to me that
the elite just do not have the ability to contemplate things beyond their own narrow self interest. We are all deplorables now.
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected
Is not supported by this (or really the rest of the article). The past tense here, for example, is unwarranted:
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their
equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy.
And this
So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. Germany agreed
to slow down the transfer.
Doesn't show Germany as breaking free at all, and worse it is followed by the pregnant
But then came Venezuela.
Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet
again. Nothing to see here, actually.
So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change.
"So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change."
I'm surprised more people aren't recognizing this. I read the article waiting in vain for some evidence of "the end of our
monetary imperialism" besides some 'grumbling and foot dragging' as you aptly put it. There was some glimmer of a buried lede
with INTEX, created to get around U.S. sanctions against Iran ─ hardly a 'dam-breaking'. Washington is on record as being annoyed.
Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD
as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. World bond market flows are 10X the size
of world stock market flows even though the price of the Dow and Facebook shares etc get all of the headlines.
And foreign exchange flows are 10-50X the flows of bond markets, they're currently on the order of $5 *trillion* per day. And
since forex is almost completely unregulated it's quite difficult to get the data and spot reserve currency trends. Oh, and buy
gold. It's the only currency that requires no counterparty and is no one's debt obligation.
That's not what Hudson claims in his swaggering final sentence:
"The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed
observer like me."
Which is risible as not only did he fail to show anything of the kind, his opening sentence stated a completely different reality:
"The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected" So if we hold him to his first
declaration, his evidence is feeble, as I mentioned. As a scholar, his hyperbole is untrustworthy.
No, gold is pretty enough lying on the bosom of a lady-friend but that's about its only usefulness in the real world.
Always bemusing that gold bugs never talk about gold being in a bubble . yet when it goes south of its purchase price speak
in tongues about ev'bal forces.
thanks Mr. Hudson. One has to wonder what has happened when the government (for decades) has been shown to be morally and otherwise
corrupt and self serving. It doesn't seem to bother anyone but the people, and precious few of them. Was it our financial and
legal bankruptcy that sent us over the cliff?
Indeed! It is to say the least encouraging to see Dr. Hudson return so forcefully to the theme of 'monetary imperialism'.
I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you
haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. You can
find any number of articles on his web site that return periodically to the theme of monetary imperialism. I remember one in particular
that described how the rest of the world was brought on board to help pay for its good old-fashioned military imperialism.
If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt
status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long
as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington
neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be"
to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing.
Until the US returns to the path of genuine wealth creation, it is past time for the rest of the world to go its own way with
its banking and financial institutions.
In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same
pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3.
UK withholding Gold may start another Brexit? IE: funds/gold held by BOE for other countries in Africa, Asian, South America,
and the "stans" with start to depart, slowly at first, perhaps for Switzerland?
Where is the left in all this? Pretty much the same place as Michael Hudson, I'd say. Where is the US Democratic Party in all
this? Quite a different question, and quite a different answer. So far as I can see, the Democrats for years have bombed, invaded
and plundered other countries 'for their own good'. Republicans do it 'for the good of America', by which the ignoramuses mean
the USA. If you're on the receiving end, it doesn't make much difference.
Agreed! South America intervention and regime change, Syria ( Trump is pulling out), Iraq, Middle East meddling, all predate
Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama have nothing to do with any of this.
" So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. "
What proof is there that the gold is still there? Chances are it's notional. All Germany, Venezuela, or the others have is
an IOU – and gold cannot be printed. Incidentally, this whole discussion means that gold is still money and the gold standard
still exists.
What makes you think that the gold in Fort Knox is still there? If I remember right, there was a Potemkin visit back in the
70s to assure everyone that the gold was still there but not since then. Wait, I tell a lie. There was another visit about two
years ago but look who was involved in that visit-
And I should mention that it was in the 90s that between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were manufactured in the
US under Clinton. Since then gold-coated tungsten bars have turned up in places like Germany, China, Ethiopia, the UK, etc so
who is to say if those gold bars in Fort Knox are gold all the way through either. More on this at --
http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html
It wasn't last year that Germany brought back its Gold. It has been ongoing since 2013, after some political and popular pressure
build up. They finished the transaction in 2017. According to an article in Handelblatt (but it was widely reported back then)
they brought back pretty much everything they had in Paris (347t), left what they had in London (perhaps they should have done
it in reverse) and took home another 300t from the NY Fed. That still leaves 1236t in NY. But half of their Gold (1710t) is now
in Frankfurt. That is 50% of the Bundesbanks holdings.
They made a point in saying that every bar was checked and weighed and presented some bars in Frankfurt. I guess they didn't
melt them for assaying, but I'd expect them to be smart enough to check the density.
Their reason to keep Gold in NY and London is to quickly buy USD in case of a crisis. That's pretty much a cold war plan, but
that's what they do right now.
Regarding Michal Hudsons piece, I enjoyed reading through this one. He tends to write ridiculously long articles and in the
last few years with less time and motivation at hand I've skipped most of his texts on NC as they just drag on.
When I'm truly fascinated I like well written, long articles but somehow he lost me at some point. But I noticed that some
long original articles in US magazines, probably research for a long time by the journalist, can just drag on for ever as well
I just tune out.
This is making sense. I would guess that tearing up the old system is totally deliberate. It wasn't working so well for us
because we had to practice too much social austerity, which we have tried to impose on the EU as well, just to stabilize "king
dollar" – otherwise spread so thin it was a pending catastrophe.
Now we can get out from under being the reserve currency – the currency that maintains its value by financial manipulation
and military bullying domestic deprivation. To replace this old power trip we are now going to mainline oil. The dollar will become
a true petro dollar because we are going to commandeer every oil resource not already nailed down.
When we partnered with SA in Aramco and the then petro dollar the dollar was only backed by our military. If we start monopolizing
oil, the actual commodity, the dollar will be an apex competitor currency without all the foreign military obligations which will
allow greater competitive advantages.
No? I'm looking at PdVSA, PEMEX and the new "Energy Hub for the Eastern Mediterranean" and other places not yet made public.
It looks like a power play to me, not a hapless goofball president at all.
So sand people with sociological attachment to the OT is a compelling argument based on antiquarian preferences with authoritarian
patriarchal tendencies for their non renewable resource . after I might add it was deemed a strategic concern after WWII .
Considering the broader geopolitical realities I would drain all the gold reserves to zero if it was on offer . here natives
have some shiny beads for allowing us to resource extract we call this a good trade you maximize your utility as I do mine .
Hay its like not having to run C-corp compounds with western 60s – 70s esthetics and letting the locals play serf, blow back
pay back, and now the installed local chiefs can own the risk and refocus the attention away from the real antagonists.
Indeed. Thanks so much for this. Maybe the RICS will get serious now – can no longer include Brazil with Bolsonaro. There needs
to be an alternate system or systems in place, and to see US Imperialism so so blatantly and bluntly by Trump admin –
"US
gives Juan Guaido control over some Venezuelan assets" – should sound sirens on every continent and especially in the developing
world. I too hope there will be fracture to the point of breakage. Countries of the world outside the US/EU/UK/Canada/Australia
confraternity must now unite to provide a permanent framework outside the control of imperial interests. The be clear, this must
not default to alternative forms of imperialism germinating by the likes of China.
" such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global
power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for
so long that they no longer remember how they got there.
Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it
now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's
inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of
a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble."
I read something like this and I am like, some of these statements need to be qualified. Like: "Driving China and Russia together".
Like where's the proof? Is Xi playing telephone games more often now with Putin? I look at those two and all I see are two egocentric
people who might sometimes say the right things but in general do not like the share the spotlight. Let's say they get together
to face America and for some reason the later gets "defeated", it's not as if they'll kumbaya together into the night.
This website often points out the difficulties in implementing new banking IT initiatives. Ok, so Europe has a new "payment
system". Has it been tested thoroughly? I would expect a couple of weeks or even months of chaos if it's not been tested, and
if it's thorough that probably just means that it's in use right i.e. all the kinks have been worked out. In that case the transition
is already happening anyway. But then the next crisis arrives and then everyone would need their dollar swap lines again which
probably needs to cleared through SWIFT or something.
Anyway, does this all mean that one day we'll wake up and a slice of bacon is 50 bucks as opposed to the usual 1 dollar?
Driving Russia and China together is correct. I recall them signing a variety of economic and military agreement a few years
ago. It was covered in the media. You should at least google an issue before making silly comments. You might start with the report
of Russia and China signing 30 cooperation agreements three years ago. See
https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/06/27/russia-china-sign-30-cooperation-agreements_606505
. There are lots and lots of others.
He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and
WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas.
The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical
foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed
the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run.
Whilst the far right factions fight over the rudder the only new game in town is AOC, Sanders, Warren, et al which Trumps supporters
hate with Ideological purity.
Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On
US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics"
on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners.
On a household level it fits, but there no "loser" household that in infinity can print money that the "winners" can accumulate
in exchange for their resources and fruits of labor.
One wonder what are Trumps idea of US being a winner in trade (surplus)? I.e. sending away their resources and fruits of labor
overseas in exchange for what? A pile of USD? That US in the first place created out of thin air. Or Chinese Yuan, Euros, Turkish
liras? Also fiat-money. Or does he think US trade surplus should be paid in gold?
When the US political and economic hegemony will unravel it will come "unexpected". Trump for sure are undermining it with
his megalomaniac ignorance. But not sure it's imminent.
Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash
will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence.
There will be fierce competition to fill the gap.
On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and
austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top.
I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect.
Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the
rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT.
The trade deficit required a large Government deficit to cover it and the US government could just create the money to cover
it.
Then ideological neoliberals came in wanting balanced budgets and not realising the Government deficit covered the trade deficit.
The US has been destabilising its own economy by reducing the Government deficit. Bill Clinton didn't realize a Government surplus is an indicator a financial crisis is about to hit. The last US Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, they go hand-in-hand with financial crises.
Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use and it's the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).
The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy.
It should be remembered Bill Clinton's early meeting with Rubin, where in he was informed that wages and productivity had diverged –
Rubin did not blink an eye.
"... "You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing.... ..."
"... Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system??? ..."
"... The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme. ..."
Here are some insights into the minds of many movers and shakers in Russiagate:
Key US officials behind the Russia investigation have made no secret of their animus
towards Russia.
"I do always hate the Russians," Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer on the Russia probe,
testified to Congress in July 2018. "It is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals
and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous
threat to that way of life."
As he opened the FBI's probe of the Trump campaign's ties to Russians in July 2016,
FBI agent Peter Strzok texted Page: "fuck the cheating motherfucking Russians Bastards. I
hate them I think they're probably the worst. Fucking conniving cheating savages."
Speaking to NBC News in May 2017, former director of national intelligence James
Clapper explained why US officials saw interactions between the Trump camp and Russian
nationals as a cause for alarm: "The Russians," Clapper said, "almost genetically driven to
co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were
concerned."
In a May interview with Lawfare, former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who helped
oversee the Russia probe, explained the origins of the investigation as follows: "It was
about Russia, period, full stop. When the [George] Papadopoulos information comes across
our radar screen, it's coming across in the sense that we were always looking at Russia.
we've been thinking about Russia as a threat actor for decades and decades."
"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin
rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections
as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty
convincing....
My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of
"Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA
and NSA???
Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies???
And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???
"... "You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing.... ..."
"... Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system??? ..."
"... The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme. ..."
Here are some insights into the minds of many movers and shakers in Russiagate:
Key US officials behind the Russia investigation have made no secret of their animus
towards Russia.
"I do always hate the Russians," Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer on the Russia probe,
testified to Congress in July 2018. "It is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals
and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous
threat to that way of life."
As he opened the FBI's probe of the Trump campaign's ties to Russians in July 2016,
FBI agent Peter Strzok texted Page: "fuck the cheating motherfucking Russians Bastards. I
hate them I think they're probably the worst. Fucking conniving cheating savages."
Speaking to NBC News in May 2017, former director of national intelligence James
Clapper explained why US officials saw interactions between the Trump camp and Russian
nationals as a cause for alarm: "The Russians," Clapper said, "almost genetically driven to
co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were
concerned."
In a May interview with Lawfare, former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who helped
oversee the Russia probe, explained the origins of the investigation as follows: "It was
about Russia, period, full stop. When the [George] Papadopoulos information comes across
our radar screen, it's coming across in the sense that we were always looking at Russia.
we've been thinking about Russia as a threat actor for decades and decades."
"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin
rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections
as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty
convincing....
My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of
"Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA
and NSA???
Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies???
And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???
Evidence accumulates that Obama was the real leader of this color revolution against Trump with Brannan as his chief lieutenant
and Comey as a willing accomplice.
Now that the dust has settled, one must ask why the Deep State wanted Trump gone. Why does the Obama-Clinton mafia hates him so
much? Is this due to Trump committed an unforgivable sin in suggesting we “get along with Russia” and thus potentially cut the
revenues of military-industrial complex ? This is not true -- Trump inflated the Pentagon budget to astronomical height. Then
why ?
Notable quotes:
"... The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama. ..."
"... Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page : ..."
"... We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents. ..."
"... Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane? ..."
"... On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump? ..."
"... Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide. ..."
The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was
not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken
with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama.
As
I have written previously , the claim that Russia tried to hijack our election is a damn lie. But you do not have to take my
word for it. Just listen to Barack Obama speaking in October 2016 in response to Donald Trump's expressed concerns about
election meddling :
"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are
so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this
time," the president said to the future president in October 2016.
"Democracy survives because we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making
sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself. Becasue Democracy works by consent, not by force," Obama said.
"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections
and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert
regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant
voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."
It is important to remember what had transpired in the Trump/Russia collusion case by this point. Operation Crossfire Hurricane
was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations
that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA
and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip
Strozk texted
the following to his mistress, Lisa Page :
Strzok: And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: " the White House is running this. " My answer,
"well, maybe for you they are." And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we've got an hour, but with
Bill [Priestap] there, I've got no control .
Page: Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We've got the emails that say otherwise.
The White House clearly knew. But Strzok's text is not the only evidence. We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials,
such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named
in US intelligence documents.
There are only two possibilities:
Obama was being briefed by Susan Rice and DNI James Clapper and CIA Director about the project
to take out Trump, or
Obama was kept in the dark.
Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known
to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to
hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do
nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane?
On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was
the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election
to install Donald Trump?
My wife was for many years an election official in Virginia. IMO Obama was right in saying that a US presidential election
is impossible to "rig." The US Constitution requires that federal elections be run by the states WITHOUT federal supervision.
As a result the methods and equipment in the states and the various parts of the states vary widely and the state systems are
not tied together with a national electronic network as, for example, the system is in France where the result of a national election
is reported on TeeVee immediately when the polls close.
Asking the question, "Can you cite one specific case where a single vote was definitively changed by Russian meddling?"
causes panic in a person who is declaiming about the evils of Russian meddling in our elections.
When you ask that question, the invariable retort is that the Russians are so clever that you wouldn't know that you were being
gulled; or, when I say that I have never seen a Russian produced facebook ad, the rejoinder is that the Russians concentrated
on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and, of course, I would have been privy to the bot-sent emails and facebook ads generated by
the Internet Research Agency.
You've maintained all along that the Russians interfered in the election, yet I believe it is your position that the Russians
did not change a single vote. Is that correct or do you believe the Russians changed the votes before tabulation?
What did the Russians do that the Trump and Hillary campaigns did not do? Did they also turnout the tens of thousands who showed
up for Trump rallies that Hillary could never muster? Are they still turning out thousands at recent Trump rallies? I'm curious
how come Brennan and Clapper could not turn out thousands to Hillary's rallies when according to our German friend "b", the omnipotent
US Intel services just turned out a quarter of the population of Hong Kong to protest CCP authoritarianism?
Did the Israeli, Saudi and Chinese governments interfere in the election? How would you compare what they did to what you believe
the Russians did?
uieter about it. All that is very different from the absolute covert nature of the Russian IO in the 2016 election. I have
no idea what China did or is doing.
You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication. The lies on this are enormous. If the FBI really had detected
GRU hacking of the DNC in 2015, which is claimed in the fabricated meme, then you would expect the FBI and the other counter intel
elements of the USG to take action. THEY DID NOTHING.
The issue of Russian hacking only emerged when Hillary and the DNC learned that DNC emails were going to be put out by WIKILEAKS.
Again, not one shred of actual evidence that the Russians did it, but blaming the Russians became a convenient excuse in a bid
to divert attention from the real story--i.e,. Hillary and the DNC colluded to defeat Bernie Sanders.
The only real solid evidence of colluding with foreigners, in this case the Ukraine, comes courtesy of Hillary and her campaign.
Hiring a foreign intel officer (ie. Steele) who then takes info from Russians of questionable background and spread it around
as "truth". That was not a Russian IO. Pure Clinton IO.
"What the Russians did was insert misattributed information and disinformation into the election cycle...That is what separates
the Russian IO from anything Clinton, Trump or any of their supporters did."
I believe supporters of both candidates did exactly what you say the Russians did - insert misattributed information & disinformation
into the media stream. If you watch MSNBC or Fox on any given day there is much assertion & opinion masquerading as news. And
the Twitter & Facebook and blog universe are teeming with stories and innuendo that are more fiction than fact all from anonymous
accounts.
The Russia Collusion hysteria is replete with examples of "misattributed information and disinformation". It seems that yellow
journalism is as American as apple pie.
The whole opaque PAC structure with names like "Americans for Democracy" funded by chain structures hiding the real financiers
and calling up down is something that we see growing in every election cycle and is already of significant scale both in terms
of financing and dubiousness.
It is also rather common that "experts" who are called upon to opine on issues routinely never disclose their conflicts of
interest. Jeffrey Sachs and so many others on the payroll of CCP entities never disclose those payments as they extoll the virtues
of offshoring our industrial base to China and are apologists for CCP espionage.
Blue peacock, supporters of Clinton and Trump did not put out misattributed info. They both put out truth, innuendo, exaggerations,
misleading info and even outright lies, but they put it out as themselves. They didn't represent themselves as someone other than
who they were. The PAC structure comes close to skirting this requirement for truthful attribution, but a quick internet search
blows away the facades of these PACs. What the Russians did was pure black propaganda.
You mean the kindly grandmother, Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States, did not inform President Obama that
the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant to surveil the Republican candidate for the presidency and members of his staff becasue he
was working with Russians? Or do you mean that James Comey failed to tell his boss, Loretta Lynch; or do you mean John Brennan
failed to tell Obama about that Steele dossier from Fusion GPS that Mueller know anything about; or do you mean that James Clapper
failed to tell Jeh Johnson about that too? The Russians made them do all those things as part of an interference campaign, right?
It couldn't have been they were corrupt and incompetant.
"Instead, Obama...." made an "If you like your doctor, you can keep you doctor" statement that he knew was completely false.
Trump didn't win, Russians influenced Americans to vote for Trump, just ask the losers of the election, their paid sources and
their colleagues in Congress. In fact Americans love Hilary so much she's just where in the polls right now?
I continue to be astounded by the outrage at "Russian meddling". So some Russians used the internet to post true or false information
on candidates in a election.... so what?...millions of American partisan trolls were doing the same thing for or against a candidate.
We had tons of fake info written by American bloggers and posters all over the net, Facebook, twitter etc..
Its not like Putin came to the US and gave a speech to congress in favor of Trump ...as Netanyahu did in appearing before the
US congress and urging them to go against President Obama's Syria policy for heaven's sake.
It is so ridiculous I have given up hope of finding enough IQs above that of a cabbage to form a sane government.
Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block
the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide.
1. The FBI cannot be trusted to uphold defend and protect our Constitution, as they sought actively
to overturn a duly elected POTUS.; and
2 - Mueller's incompetence is astounding.
Is the only entity of the Defense Department called the U.S. Army the only ones left actually upholding, defending, and protecting
our Constitution and our Constitution processes? I don't see the other entities of the DOD called Navy and Air Force doing their
jobs upholding our Constitution!
Thumbs up to the Army, thumbs down to the Navy and Air Force!
I'm a little more charitable to the FBI. The Trumps lied their asses off to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Which IMO,
wrong or right, left the FBI all but no recourse but to investigate those lies. Even if the lies were simply based in long-seated
personal habits, it takes investigation to prove that is the case.
"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly
saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty
convincing....
My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with
the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???
Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean
we are headed for a one-party system???
Larry, sorry to nitpick, but I have such regard for your work that it pains me to see the typographical error in your second sentence,
where you say "his error" shortly after referring to Trump. I'm guessing that you meant to say "this error", but it reads as if
it means "Trump's error".
And while I'm at it, your last sentence has "it" instead of "if".
Keep up your great work for this excellent website.
Sadly naive in that you think the conspirators were actually acting in good faith. You think they were right when they used
the Steele Dossier in applying for a FISA warrant in Colyyer's Star Chamber? Steele was a paid informant for the FBI as was Page.
uh Hillary Clinton stood with Bush and lied the world into war. Hillary and Obama brought
slavery back to Libya and ISIS and the largest refugee crisis since WW2 to Syria .
Dont forget genocide in Yemen ..
Hillary also supported disastrous free trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA and {TPP that
brought back slavery} that harm workers on both sides of the borders
Hillary also toppled a democratically elected president in Honduras with Death Squads and
Obama killed 40,000 innocent t people with Sanctions in Venezuela
They are fleeing Hillary and Obama's Terror spree ..and cheer on worse WW3 with Russia
Reporter Quits NBC Citing Network's Support For Endless War
c.. Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes, Emma Peele, Without a Doubt – and I absolutely adore your
"Avengers" pseudonym !
Hillary's disgusting crimes, however, seem to me to be an attempt to ingratiate herself
(and the Democrats) with the Ultra Hawkish Bush Era Republicans.
Who can ever forgive & forget her ghoulish pronouncement, "We came, we saw, He
died!!"
(in reference to the ghoulishly brutal public murder of Libya's Qaddafi. {Qaddafi's "Green
Book" was a well imagined Socio-Economic plan for for the economic liberation of Africa from
the economic and cultural strictures of US, European Absolutist Brutal Dominion.} -- As it
was, Libya, under Qaddafi, was a liberal, socialist society with free education, free health
care for all citizens, and a nation with it's own currency , free from US/EURO manipulation
and control.
-- This Is Why We Killed Him. --
This is US Command and Control World-Wide POLICY ! ! ! --
-- Anglo-Saxon Command and Control of the Whole Wide World and all it's resources Owned and
Militarily Controlled by European Bankers
-- - EUROPEAN Bankers, Rothschild Criminal Banker WarMongers/ Wall Street and American
Military Power --
These are They which Evilly Rule the World and Disparage or Murder (annihilate) All Others
at their pleasure, and Trump is an evil antagonist with the personage of a King Leopold.
Please find "KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST' By Adam Hochschild
Evidence accumulates that Obama was the real leader of this color revolution against Trump with Brannan as his chief lieutenant
and Comey as a willing accomplice.
Now that the dust has settled, one must ask why the Deep State wanted Trump gone. Why does the Obama-Clinton mafia hates him so
much? Is this due to Trump committed an unforgivable sin in suggesting we “get along with Russia” and thus potentially cut the
revenues of military-industrial complex ? This is not true -- Trump inflated the Pentagon budget to astronomical height. Then
why ?
Notable quotes:
"... The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama. ..."
"... Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page : ..."
"... We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents. ..."
"... Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane? ..."
"... On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump? ..."
"... Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide. ..."
The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was
not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken
with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama.
As
I have written previously , the claim that Russia tried to hijack our election is a damn lie. But you do not have to take my
word for it. Just listen to Barack Obama speaking in October 2016 in response to Donald Trump's expressed concerns about
election meddling :
"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are
so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this
time," the president said to the future president in October 2016.
"Democracy survives because we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making
sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself. Becasue Democracy works by consent, not by force," Obama said.
"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections
and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert
regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant
voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."
It is important to remember what had transpired in the Trump/Russia collusion case by this point. Operation Crossfire Hurricane
was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations
that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA
and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip
Strozk texted
the following to his mistress, Lisa Page :
Strzok: And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: " the White House is running this. " My answer,
"well, maybe for you they are." And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we've got an hour, but with
Bill [Priestap] there, I've got no control .
Page: Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We've got the emails that say otherwise.
The White House clearly knew. But Strzok's text is not the only evidence. We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials,
such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named
in US intelligence documents.
There are only two possibilities:
Obama was being briefed by Susan Rice and DNI James Clapper and CIA Director about the project
to take out Trump, or
Obama was kept in the dark.
Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known
to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to
hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do
nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane?
On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was
the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election
to install Donald Trump?
My wife was for many years an election official in Virginia. IMO Obama was right in saying that a US presidential election
is impossible to "rig." The US Constitution requires that federal elections be run by the states WITHOUT federal supervision.
As a result the methods and equipment in the states and the various parts of the states vary widely and the state systems are
not tied together with a national electronic network as, for example, the system is in France where the result of a national election
is reported on TeeVee immediately when the polls close.
Asking the question, "Can you cite one specific case where a single vote was definitively changed by Russian meddling?"
causes panic in a person who is declaiming about the evils of Russian meddling in our elections.
When you ask that question, the invariable retort is that the Russians are so clever that you wouldn't know that you were being
gulled; or, when I say that I have never seen a Russian produced facebook ad, the rejoinder is that the Russians concentrated
on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and, of course, I would have been privy to the bot-sent emails and facebook ads generated by
the Internet Research Agency.
You've maintained all along that the Russians interfered in the election, yet I believe it is your position that the Russians
did not change a single vote. Is that correct or do you believe the Russians changed the votes before tabulation?
What did the Russians do that the Trump and Hillary campaigns did not do? Did they also turnout the tens of thousands who showed
up for Trump rallies that Hillary could never muster? Are they still turning out thousands at recent Trump rallies? I'm curious
how come Brennan and Clapper could not turn out thousands to Hillary's rallies when according to our German friend "b", the omnipotent
US Intel services just turned out a quarter of the population of Hong Kong to protest CCP authoritarianism?
Did the Israeli, Saudi and Chinese governments interfere in the election? How would you compare what they did to what you believe
the Russians did?
uieter about it. All that is very different from the absolute covert nature of the Russian IO in the 2016 election. I have
no idea what China did or is doing.
You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication. The lies on this are enormous. If the FBI really had detected
GRU hacking of the DNC in 2015, which is claimed in the fabricated meme, then you would expect the FBI and the other counter intel
elements of the USG to take action. THEY DID NOTHING.
The issue of Russian hacking only emerged when Hillary and the DNC learned that DNC emails were going to be put out by WIKILEAKS.
Again, not one shred of actual evidence that the Russians did it, but blaming the Russians became a convenient excuse in a bid
to divert attention from the real story--i.e,. Hillary and the DNC colluded to defeat Bernie Sanders.
The only real solid evidence of colluding with foreigners, in this case the Ukraine, comes courtesy of Hillary and her campaign.
Hiring a foreign intel officer (ie. Steele) who then takes info from Russians of questionable background and spread it around
as "truth". That was not a Russian IO. Pure Clinton IO.
"What the Russians did was insert misattributed information and disinformation into the election cycle...That is what separates
the Russian IO from anything Clinton, Trump or any of their supporters did."
I believe supporters of both candidates did exactly what you say the Russians did - insert misattributed information & disinformation
into the media stream. If you watch MSNBC or Fox on any given day there is much assertion & opinion masquerading as news. And
the Twitter & Facebook and blog universe are teeming with stories and innuendo that are more fiction than fact all from anonymous
accounts.
The Russia Collusion hysteria is replete with examples of "misattributed information and disinformation". It seems that yellow
journalism is as American as apple pie.
The whole opaque PAC structure with names like "Americans for Democracy" funded by chain structures hiding the real financiers
and calling up down is something that we see growing in every election cycle and is already of significant scale both in terms
of financing and dubiousness.
It is also rather common that "experts" who are called upon to opine on issues routinely never disclose their conflicts of
interest. Jeffrey Sachs and so many others on the payroll of CCP entities never disclose those payments as they extoll the virtues
of offshoring our industrial base to China and are apologists for CCP espionage.
Blue peacock, supporters of Clinton and Trump did not put out misattributed info. They both put out truth, innuendo, exaggerations,
misleading info and even outright lies, but they put it out as themselves. They didn't represent themselves as someone other than
who they were. The PAC structure comes close to skirting this requirement for truthful attribution, but a quick internet search
blows away the facades of these PACs. What the Russians did was pure black propaganda.
You mean the kindly grandmother, Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States, did not inform President Obama that
the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant to surveil the Republican candidate for the presidency and members of his staff becasue he
was working with Russians? Or do you mean that James Comey failed to tell his boss, Loretta Lynch; or do you mean John Brennan
failed to tell Obama about that Steele dossier from Fusion GPS that Mueller know anything about; or do you mean that James Clapper
failed to tell Jeh Johnson about that too? The Russians made them do all those things as part of an interference campaign, right?
It couldn't have been they were corrupt and incompetant.
"Instead, Obama...." made an "If you like your doctor, you can keep you doctor" statement that he knew was completely false.
Trump didn't win, Russians influenced Americans to vote for Trump, just ask the losers of the election, their paid sources and
their colleagues in Congress. In fact Americans love Hilary so much she's just where in the polls right now?
I continue to be astounded by the outrage at "Russian meddling". So some Russians used the internet to post true or false information
on candidates in a election.... so what?...millions of American partisan trolls were doing the same thing for or against a candidate.
We had tons of fake info written by American bloggers and posters all over the net, Facebook, twitter etc..
Its not like Putin came to the US and gave a speech to congress in favor of Trump ...as Netanyahu did in appearing before the
US congress and urging them to go against President Obama's Syria policy for heaven's sake.
It is so ridiculous I have given up hope of finding enough IQs above that of a cabbage to form a sane government.
Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block
the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide.
1. The FBI cannot be trusted to uphold defend and protect our Constitution, as they sought actively
to overturn a duly elected POTUS.; and
2 - Mueller's incompetence is astounding.
Is the only entity of the Defense Department called the U.S. Army the only ones left actually upholding, defending, and protecting
our Constitution and our Constitution processes? I don't see the other entities of the DOD called Navy and Air Force doing their
jobs upholding our Constitution!
Thumbs up to the Army, thumbs down to the Navy and Air Force!
I'm a little more charitable to the FBI. The Trumps lied their asses off to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Which IMO,
wrong or right, left the FBI all but no recourse but to investigate those lies. Even if the lies were simply based in long-seated
personal habits, it takes investigation to prove that is the case.
"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly
saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty
convincing....
My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with
the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???
Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean
we are headed for a one-party system???
Larry, sorry to nitpick, but I have such regard for your work that it pains me to see the typographical error in your second sentence,
where you say "his error" shortly after referring to Trump. I'm guessing that you meant to say "this error", but it reads as if
it means "Trump's error".
And while I'm at it, your last sentence has "it" instead of "if".
Keep up your great work for this excellent website.
Sadly naive in that you think the conspirators were actually acting in good faith. You think they were right when they used
the Steele Dossier in applying for a FISA warrant in Colyyer's Star Chamber? Steele was a paid informant for the FBI as was Page.
I'm glad Democrats are hanging their hat on the fact that a president can be indicted when
he's out of office for obstruction of justice. So they won't object when Barr indicts
Obama.
I'm glad Democrats are hanging their hat on the fact that a president can be indicted when
he's out of office for obstruction of justice. So they won't object when Barr indicts
Obama.
Ukrainian nation is a separate nation with a distinct and rich culture. You can call them Southern Russians but still they are
distinct. That does not mean that Russian language should be suppressed and eliminated from schools, the policy
advocated and implemented by Western Ukrainian nationalists. a better policy would to introduce English language from the first
grade. Attempt to eliminate Russian is viewed by Eastern Ukrainians as the attempt of colonization (which it is) and in a
long run can have the opposite effect like any colonization project.
Two languages can coexist. Ireland and Canada does not stop being distinct countries because they use English language. And
very few people in Canada would support switching to French. Many prominent Russian writers have Ukrainian origin (Nikolai
Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov). Elimination of Russian destroy
common cultural space (which enriches all participating nations not only Russia) establishing during the USSR years and
shrink this common the cultural space.which for Ukraine mean complete domination in Ukrainian cultural space of US culture and
Hollywood with all its excesses and warts.
The break of economic cooperation with Russia after EuroMaydan was Washington policy with willing implementers in the
face of comprador column (Yatsenyuk, Poroshenko) and Western Ukrainian nationalists, which run the
government after EuroMaydan. Among other thing this implies the attempt of colonization of Eastern Ukraine (via forceful Ukrainization) which
backfired with the election of Zelensky.
Notable quotes:
"... Zelensky is of Jewish heritage and from the east Ukraine. He speaks Russian, not Ukrainian. ..."
"... I doubt that Trump cares about Ukraine so the main supporter of the coup is not interested ..."
"... But Zelensky is a new guy without any tail moving into a poisonous and dangerous area without allies (other than the voters of course, but how many guns do they have?) ..."
"... Zelensky didn't 'accidentally' become president. He is a front for Kolomoisky who, amongst other things, wants revenge on Poroshenko. Kolomoisky had vaste swathes of property confiscated under Poroshenko. These were all returned a short while back. Kolomoisky probably wants to dump all post-Maidan stuff on Poroshenko, especially MH17 (which Kolomoisky stated to be 'a trifle' and 'the wrong plane was hit'). Lawsuits against Poroshenko have been started. What happens depends on how much loyalty Poroshenko can buy versus that bought by Kolomoisky. ..."
"... Helmer on Kolomoisky and the vast money stolen with collaboration of Lagarde and Clintons, and the resulting suit, which appears to be aimed at keeping Zelensky on the reservation... ..."
"... "A new Delaware state court filing a month ago, triggering new US media reports, appears to signal a shift in US Government policy towards Kolomoisky. Or else, as some Ukrainian policy experts believe, it is a move by US officials to put pressure on the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Kolomoisky supported in his successful election campaign to replace Poroshenko." ..."
"... It is interesting to read commenters not understanding the concept of colonial outposts like HK, SK, Japan and the attempts to make the Ukraine such. To empire they represent outposts to challenge the adjoining countries that are not part of empire. look at Puerto Rico. Empire favored it and even paid for citizens to go to college free.....until it didn't work to help make Cuba look bad....and so now it is being discarded like a dirty rag. ..."
"... The Gordian knot in Ukraine is that, after Maidan, the Ukrainian Armed Forces essentially dissolved. The neonazi militias then became the only enforcing power for whatever was left of the Ukrainian government -- that's why Poroshenko, albeit elected, could do nothing to stop those militias from doing whatever they pleased (even though he not being a neonazi himself). ..."
"... Ukraine's economy is in absolute tatters. The Ukrainian government just didn't completely dissolve after Maidan because the USA is using the IMF to artificially keep it afloat (which goes completely against the IMF chart, as was the case with Macri's Argentina, where even the legal borrowing limits were extrapolated by a more than 100% margin). ..."
"... Irrespective of evidence, this is Ukraine, and Kolomoisky's influence on Zelensky can safely be assumed. ..."
"... The issue with the association agreement offered by the EU was not just that it offered little. As I recall it meant access for all EU products to the post-Soviet trading block. There would be nothing to prevent EU exporting anything through Ukraine into Russia. ..."
"... Needless to say, Yanukovych's real options have never been discussed much, and Russia has been blamed for the EU's Economic trap. ..."
"... what does Ukraine have to offer Russia? Aside from putting some space between Russia and NATO, what is left of Ukraine after all of this that they can offer? ..."
"... The Soviet Union built up a large amount of high tech and high value industry in Ukraine, but most of that has rusted away since 1991. Russia has found or developed new sources for most of what they previously bought from Ukraine, and those sources are domestic so Russia is unlikely to trade them in for products made from neglected and mostly defunct Ukrainian industries. ..."
"... That Ukraine has to be considered as both a bridge and a no alliance's land between the West and Russia has always been a no-brainer to me ..."
"... As for Zelensky, he has the backing of the people, such a backing that a 3rd colour revolution would be immediately opposed by a bigger counter-manifestation. Besides, he should seek the backing of the rank and file of the Ukrainian army, just in case things go very badly with the fascists; considering his vast support among the people, the upper echelons of the military might not like or follow him, but if he gives orders, the core troopers would. ..."
"... "Revealing Ukraine" documentary aka "В борьбе за Украину" (which includes the interview in Kremlin released 19 July, minus the Skirpal comments) was released in Ukrainian and Russian, 17, 19 July. The version in those languages is eg here, https://my.mail.ru/mail/stelskov/video/235/5800.html ..."
"... "One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He will need their loyalty sooner than he might think." ..."
"... For newcomers, here is the TC-18-01, the American manual for Unconventional Warfare (published in 2010; leaked in 2012): Training">https://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf">Training Circular No. 18-01: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, For the color revolution manual, see Gene Sharp's famous book (From Dictatorship to Democracy, 1994). ..."
"... The Holodomor was real, but then again, so were Stalin's purges in that same era (a little later) and Stalin's ethnic forced migrations from 1930 to 1949. ..."
"... While this doesn't excuse these acts, people should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was under tremendous external and internal pressure at the time. Acts of economic warfare tend to be poorly documented in history - for example, China's famines in the 1960s were exacerbated by a US embargo on wheat imports to China. ..."
"... Ultimately, however, the main reason the Western Ukrainians don't like Russia is because they've always believed Ukraine should be a nation in its own right. The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS , no less. ..."
"... Pre 2014 the Chinese were attracted by the opportunity of a deep water port in Crimea, the sea is too shallow into Ukraine proper. ..."
"... Is it a feature of the "rules based international order" that unelected NGOs can establish "red-lines" on policy and expect adherence? ..."
"... What Ukraine has to offer, William Gruff, if the Biden clan has not stolen it, is some of the best agricultural land in the temperate world. ..."
"... there is the matter of saving those lands from the scourges of American agriculture-GMOs, Roundup et al. ..."
"... This is certainly true: the survivors of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division and their dependents, hangers on and sundry war criminals on the lam certainly came to Canada where they sold their votes en bloc to the Federal Liberal Party. In Alberta they came to control inter alia the University of Alberta. ..."
"... But long before these people came over immigration from Ukraine, including Mennonites, brought their traditional skills and agricultural knowledge to, most notably the Prairies. They knew about growing wheat in the climatic conditions here. They also brought traditions of collective organisation -- they tended to be very left wing, co-operators and were among the founders of the Communist Party and the CCF. ..."
"... "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?" They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change. ..."
"... The main reason, but never disclosed by our corporate press in the West, was the total unacceptable ( hence fullty understandable) of an either/or demand choosing between EU and Russia cooperation btw the lines, as well as an article about military cooperation. Which of course would also exclude Russian partnership. ... that set the stage the humble and charming Mrs "Fuck EU" Nudelman and her cookies at Maidan square. ..."
"... The very fundamental principles of peace, understanding and cooperation of EU was betrayed by their President Baroso. When you add that to the financial rape of Greece by Goldman Sachs & co on his watch, one should think he deserved being executed for high treason! Civil war in Ukraine & and looting of the people of Greece... But guess what... He went directly from EU to .. GOLDMAN SACHS! ..."
"... I appreciate that good concise timeline and explanation of what has happened in Ukraine. I remember finding online a live 24/7 camera feed from Kiev during the Maidan coup, and the fascination but horror of watching the western backed Right Sector thugs wearing neo-nazi Wolfsangel insignias carry out atrocities in real time. ..."
"... Watching what happened live and then following western media disinformation and outright lies was the final slap in the face for me that the corporate media had finally given up any pretenses of journalistic standards. Winter 2013/2014 it finally gasped its last breath and the last nails were hammered into the coffin. From then on we've had non-stop blatantly false narratives presented, with the nutty bogus Russiagate fiction now consuming three years(!) of coverage. ..."
"... Zelensky himself had to brush up on his Ukrainian to be able to run a campaign, which he managed to do with his talents and scripts. ..."
"... Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. No. Ukraine is being run by it's West-leaning leadership and US/NATO is partnered with that leadership. I'm suggesting that Jews are among the most reliably pro-Western people in Ukraine. After all, the "Empire" that you refer to is known as the "Anglo-Zionist Empire". ..."
"... I recall watching the 2014 crisis and civil war in real time. Felt WW-III was upon us. Couldn't believe the outright lies of all Western media and was the straw that broke the back of any remaining faith I had in NYT, The Guardian, BBC, ABC (Australian) etc. The Odessa Massacre was biggest turning point for me. http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened/ ..."
"... In 2014, if I presented evidence against the official Western Ministry of Truth (yeah see the typo but seems worth leaving) on Ukraine I'd get a righteous backlash and called a Putin apologist etc. These days there's blank inward stare of cognitive dissonance, subtle agreement and desire to change topic. Such is the nature of Stockholm Syndrome. ..."
"... My understanding is that of Paora and bevin; there were famines in the Soviet Union, including in Ukraine. The Holodomor myth, if not started there, was massively promoted in the 30s by ... drumroll ... the Hearst empire. ..."
"... Note to snake: not 32 million, but around 5-7 million, probably laughable in itself. (A reference I found for the Ukraine SSR in the 1930s indicates that the population grew during the 1930-33 period, but that should probably be read with great care. It would probably require a study in itself.) ..."
"... On another, but not entirely irrelevant matter, I've always found this wikipedia entry to be vastly entertaining. It gives me a good chuckle to think of Ukrainization -- the promotion of Ukrainian language and culture -- as a communist plot. (It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close enough for a laugh, considering the present.) (And yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but their prejudices lean generally in the other direction.) ..."
"... The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak ..."
"... Russian is still spoken in large parts of Ukraine, including Odessa. The main tourist attraction in Odessa, a beach community known as Arcadia, still uses the Russian word at its entrance. Street signs are still in Russian. People speak Russian. ..."
"... The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language. Everyone must learn it. It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya. It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language whereby everyone in the country may communicate. There is nothing whatsoever radical or even unusual about this. ..."
"... As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption. Even Russians. I lived in Ukraine at that time - mostly in Sevastopol, which was then 90+% Russian (and of course now is part of Russia). Everybody hated him and thought he was utterly corrupt and stole from the people. His thugs would literally walk into a private business with guns and tell the owner "I am buying half your business for $50, here are the papers, sign them now". That is how he operated. Of course they did not want the L'viv folks staging a coup, but the hatred for the corrupt Yanukovych was truly national. ..."
"... All those who say that Zelenski is a puppet or front for Kolomoiski should remember that a certain VV Putin came to power as a puppet or front for Boris Berezovski. And we all know how that (BB) ended. So let's hope for the best - can't get much worse anyway. And Zelenski seems to have acted very smartly so far. Good luck to him - he'll need it! ..."
"... It's my understanding that those Ukrainians who most fervently believe in the Holodomor (that the Soviet govt under Joseph Stalin deliberately targeted ethnic Ukrainians with famine and starvation) live in that part of the modern Ukraine that was under fascist Polish rule in the 1930s. ..."
"... From my own reading, the famines of the early 1930s affected large parts of eastern Ukraine across southen European Russia into Kazakhstan. ..."
"... There's plenty of sources documenting the Ukrainian laws passed since 2014 prohibiting or restricting Russian language in various sectors, including official use, public education, even in films. b was correct in his assessment, and I have no idea where the "hate" accusation came from. I would normally not link to the awful Telegraph of UK, but I assume this story from just three months ago isn't fake news. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/25/ukraine-passes-law-against-russian-language-official-settings/ ..."
"... Most probably, Mariupol 2014-05-09. People wanted to celebrate V-Day, but "democratic" Oleg Lyashko and his "men in black" drove in at attacked demonstration. Local police tried to protect citizens and was ambushed in their own HQ (that very burning house), making last stand. ..."
"... Famines were common in the pre-industrial world. They occured often in the ancient world -- where cities and villages literally disappeared in a matter of decades because of one bad crop and/or one plague (plagues are a side-effect of sedentarism) ..."
"... Wheatcroft uses the 1920s demographic tendency in order to infer "excess deaths" in the USSR in 1932, but he misses the bigger picture: you have to take into account Russian demographic movements in the long term, taking into consideration the cyclic famines. Just to crop a short period from 1926-1932 is scientifically dishonest. ..."
"... It is very unlikely the 1932 famine was an extraordinary famine. The 1937 census registered a population growth in relation to 1926. This alone discards genocide, because, even though excess deaths ocurred (as is the rule in famines), that meant women still had time and resources to biologically reproduce above the population replacement levels. ..."
"... To understand the most important fact of what happened to Ukraine and why, you need to know about the yank neocon PNAC, which trumps (excuse the pun) all: The Project for the New American Century, and the original neocon (jew) wolfowitz doctrine, as revealed in the NYT in 1992: www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html ..."
"... Russia at the moment is correctly perceived as the main opponent to the usa, china too as upcoming, in line with the above, & PNAC is part of trying to keep Russia in its place: 'part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."' And 'to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy'. And 'a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."' Note 'regional' insofar as it concerns Russia wrt ukraine. ..."
"... Also this is why the USG used Maidan (with at least $5 bn - said nuland/jewland, married to the co-founder of PNAC kagan, another jew) against Russia, to cause it problems and to be a thorn in the flesh. ..."
"... Recall the posters in previous threads defending the empire's color revolution attempts in Hong Kong and match the names up with posters here. Are they trying to offer defense of the empire's color revolutions in Ukraine, or do you think they are off-duty now and posting with the sincere intention of initiating open discussion? Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them and pointing out the flaws in their facts and their logic when it is their job to defend the actions of the empire? ..."
"... Too complex? Let's try the Maidan snipers: We are expected to believe that the killers were police or Berkut snipers. What was their motive? Presumably to stop the protests. If that was their motive, then why did the snipers stop sniping before dispersing the protests? If the snipers were trying to end the protests, then why did they shoot just enough to inflame further protests, but not enough to discourage the protests? ..."
"... The answer is simple: The police and/or Berkut were not the Maidan snipers in Kiev. The snipers were provocateurs who intended to amplify the protests. ..."
Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color RevolutionVanWoland , Jul 22
2019 18:55 utc |
1
The Ukraine, translated as 'the borderlands, lies between core Russia and the Europe's
western states. It is a split country. Half the population speaks Russian as its first
language. The industrialized center, east and south are culturally orthodox Russians. Some of
its rural western parts were attached to the Ukraine only after World War II. They have
historically a different culture.
The U.S., supported by the EU, used this split - twice - to instigate 'revolutions' that
were supposed to bring the Ukraine onto a 'western' course. Both attempts were defeated when
the Ukrainians had the chance of a free vote.
The 2004 run-off election for the president of the Ukraine was won by Viktor Yanukovych.
The U.S. disliked the result. Its proxies in Ukraine alleged alleged fraud and instigated a
color revolution. As a result of the 'Orange Revolution' the vote was re-run and the other
candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, was declared the winner. But five years later another vote
defeated the U.S. camp. Yanukovych was declared the winner and became president.
In 2014 the European Union made an attempt to bind the Ukraine to its side through an
association agreement. But what the EU offered to Ukraine was paltry and Russia countered it.
Unlike the Ukraine, which continues to get robbed by its oligarchs ever since its 1991
independence, Russia was economically back and in a much better position. It offered billions
in investments and long term loans. Much of Ukraine's industry depends on Russia and Russian
gas was offered to the Ukraine for less than the international market price. Yanukovych, who
originally wanted to sign the EU association, had no choice but to refuse it, and to take the
much better deal Russia offered.
The U.S. and the EU intervened. They again launched a color revolution, but this time it
was one that would use force. Militarily trained youth from Galicia in the west Ukraine was
bused into Kiev to occupy the central Maidan place and to violently fight the police. Snipers
from Georgia were brought in to fire on both sides. It was then
falsely
alleged that government forces were killing the 'peaceful protesters'.
Yanukovych lost his nerves and fled to Russia. After some
illegal political maneuvers new elections were called up and the oligarch Petro
Poroshenko, bought off by the 'west', was declared the winner. The unreconstructed fascists
from Galicia took over. The population in the industrial heartland in east Ukraine, next to
Russia's border, revolted against the new rulers. A civil war,
not a 'Russian
invasion' , ensued which the Ukrainian government largely lost. Lugansk and Donbas became
rebel controlled statelets which depend of Russia. Russia took back Crimea, which in 1954 had
been illegally gifted to Ukraine by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, himself a
Ukrainian.
To end the war in the east Ukraine, the French, German and Russian leaders pressed
Poroshenko to sign a peace agreement with the eastern leaders. But the Minsk agreement was
seen as a political defeat and Poroshenko never implemented it. The war in the east simmered
on ever since. The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan
coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak.
All opposition was harshly suppressed.
The oligarchs continue their plunder. Everything of value gets sold off to EU countries.
The U.S. is allowed to build bases. Corruption, already endemic, further increased. The
people came to despise Poroshenko.
In an attempt to regain support, Poroshenko
launched a military provocation in the Kerch Strait which is under Russian control. The
stunt
was too obvious . Russia nabbed the sailors Poroshenko had send and confiscated their
boats. No one came to Poroshenko's help.
One can watch the full story of the above in UKRAINE ON FIRE - The Real Story (vid), a
just released 90 minutes long Oliver Stone documentary. An updated version of the documentary
was supposed to run on the Ukraine TV station of pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. The
TV stations was
forced to cancel it after right-wing groups mortared its its building in Kiev.
On March 31 new elections were held. Volodymyr Zelensky, a TV comedian who played a
teacher who accidentally became president, won the first round. Zelensky is of Jewish
heritage and from the east Ukraine. He speaks Russian, not Ukrainian.
An admirable summary.
What's next? There are three causes for cautious optimism
1. The elections were actually allowed to happen without Washington's interference; see 2
2. I doubt that Trump cares about Ukraine so the main supporter of the coup is not
interested
3. EU has its own problems.
But Zelensky is a new guy without any tail moving into a poisonous and dangerous area
without allies (other than the voters of course, but how many guns do they have?)
But you're absolutely correct to see this as the voters gain rejecting a "colour
revolution"imposed from outside
Fine work here, Bernhard. Analysis as clear and cool as a mountain stream.
And now for the march of the Fascists led by the Iron Maidan of Galicia, Chrystia Freeland
employing all Canada's power and credibility to restore the Galician Nazis from whose loins
she came.
Excellent review b, thanks! With the political sea change, Ukraine has an opportunity to
progress, but somehow those pushing and believing their false narrative will need to be
neutralized. It appears the best way forward is to implement the Minsk2 agreements and go
forward from there.
Zelensky didn't 'accidentally' become president. He is a front for Kolomoisky who, amongst
other things, wants revenge on Poroshenko. Kolomoisky had vaste swathes of property
confiscated under Poroshenko. These were all returned a short while back. Kolomoisky probably
wants to dump all post-Maidan stuff on Poroshenko, especially MH17 (which Kolomoisky stated
to be 'a trifle' and 'the wrong plane was hit'). Lawsuits against Poroshenko have been
started. What happens depends on how much loyalty Poroshenko can buy versus that bought by
Kolomoisky.
Kolomoisky will be looking for alternative sources of loot (eg reconstruction funds) which
will only happen if the Donbass situation is wound down. Zelensky has unexpectedly announced
that there will be a political solution to the issue of Russian sailors captured before the
Kerch incident (and one factor in Russia's response to it) in exchange for those held in
Russia. For all this to happen, the neo-Nazis will have to be defused, which may not be as
difficult as it would appear as they are funded and orchestrated by the Ukraine
oligarchs.
Helmer on Kolomoisky and the vast money stolen with collaboration of Lagarde and Clintons,
and the resulting suit, which appears to be aimed at keeping Zelensky on the reservation...
"A new Delaware state court filing a month ago, triggering new US media reports, appears
to signal a shift in US Government policy towards Kolomoisky. Or else, as some Ukrainian
policy experts believe, it is a move by US officials to put pressure on the new Ukrainian
President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Kolomoisky supported in his successful election campaign
to replace Poroshenko."
It is interesting to read commenters not understanding the concept of colonial outposts
like HK, SK, Japan and the attempts to make the Ukraine such. To empire they represent outposts to challenge the adjoining
countries that are not part of empire.
look at Puerto Rico. Empire favored it and even paid for citizens to go to college
free.....until it didn't work to help make Cuba look bad....and so now it is being discarded
like a dirty rag.
Ukraine needed to get out of the rut it has been in and look forward somehow, even if there
are no great changes that happen in the country, much of the previous political heaviness
seem gone, for now at least. It should be a good difference. Thanks for the report.
The Gordian knot in Ukraine is that, after Maidan, the Ukrainian Armed Forces essentially
dissolved. The neonazi militias then became the only enforcing power for whatever was left of
the Ukrainian government -- that's why Poroshenko, albeit elected, could do nothing to stop
those militias from doing whatever they pleased (even though he not being a neonazi himself).
Zelensky will have the same problem: he can pass how much bills he wants -- only those who
the neonazi militias want to be implemented will be enforced. He needs to assemble a brand
new Armed Forces -- with amateur volunteers if necessary -- if he wants to survive: his
Jewish origin alone is already a death certificate for him in the eyes of the neonazis.
The other ace Zelensky has in his hand is the Donbass (Lughansk + Donestk). Those happen
to be the most pro-Russian provinces and also, by far, the two most rich and industrialized
ones. To make things even better, they also happen to be the two provinces that border with
Russia. This peculiar geopolitic configuration is a gift of destiny that, for example,
Brazil, didn't have.
Ukraine's economy is in absolute tatters. The Ukrainian government just didn't completely
dissolve after Maidan because the USA is using the IMF to artificially keep it afloat (which
goes completely against the IMF chart, as was the case with Macri's Argentina, where even the legal borrowing limits were
extrapolated by a more than 100% margin). Russia just needs to wait.
Note: as for the toppled Lenin statues. Please, continue: in one of his birthdays, the
Soviet population made a mass homage to him, gathering in the Red Square and writing him
poems. He was very embarrassed and hated it -- his rationalization was that the Revolution's
main actor was the poeple, not him, and that personality cult was the wrong way to perceive
reality of the times.
2 quibbles. Irrespective of evidence, this is Ukraine, and Kolomoisky's influence on Zelensky
can safely be assumed.
The issue with the association agreement offered by the EU was not just that it offered
little. As I recall it meant access for all EU products to the post-Soviet trading block.
There would be nothing to prevent EU exporting anything through Ukraine into Russia. This is
why the Russians expected to be part of a negotiating group, and why eventually Yanukovych
belatedly realised that EU association would lead direct to dissociation with ex-Soviet
trading partners and an economic catastrophe for Ukraine. Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev
as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to realise the blatantly obvious.
Needless to say, Yanukovych's real options have never been discussed much, and Russia has
been blamed for the EU's Economic trap.
Thing is, in Ukraine as much as in the US, EU, India, or wherever: For a Politician to make a
campaign for a high political position, let alone the highest, one NEEDS Money.
And where is a someone financing a politician, they make themselves vurnable. Thats the
nature of it: No one will give you even a penny, let alone dozens of millions of dollars, if
not for something in return.
So someone HAS to put the money into him, and Kolomoisky is reported not only by NATO, but by
Russian sources too.
Why do i say this? Because i want to have my point that everyone is corrupt, and the world
is dystopia. No, not today:
It is because those "civil organisations" already hinted, that they use Kolomoisky's
financing as the attack vector, should the Ukraine dare to stray off from NATO course.
They said something of the likes of: "We heard of the allegations that Kolomoisky is
having him in his pocket, and we always want to ensure that politics are not corrupted, so we
will watch it". They said that AFAIK some days before the recent threath, so maybe there has
been some signs he does not want to play ball with NATO.
But we will see.. With the US you never know, even more with Donald and his best buddy
neocons.
b says: "The Ukraine can not economically survive without good relations with Russia."
That is true, but what does Ukraine have to offer Russia? Aside from putting some space
between Russia and NATO, what is left of Ukraine after all of this that they can offer?
The
Soviet Union built up a large amount of high tech and high value industry in Ukraine, but
most of that has rusted away since 1991. Russia has found or developed new sources for most
of what they previously bought from Ukraine, and those sources are domestic so Russia is
unlikely to trade them in for products made from neglected and mostly defunct Ukrainian
industries.
Ukraine can go crawling back home to Russia (home being the place where they take you back
in even after you've been a total jerk), but there will be no massive bailout and magical
recovery. Eastern Ukraine will benefit from a peace dividend, but western Ukraine will have
to be satisfied with European sex tourism, with Lvov remaining the gay prostitute capital of
the continent.
@B: One Correction if i see it right: I think linked Documentary "Ukraine on fire" is NOT the
new one, he already made a doc about Ukraine some time ago, and this is it.
The new one is Not released yet, i mean the one with the Interview you posted few days ago.
The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released.
Search your torrent search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on
youtube yet AFAIK.
Sorry, last post: Please barflies, for those you want to support those documentarys, vote for
them on IMDB and write reviews if you saw them. They are being attacked from NATO bots and
voted down to C-Movie level. If you dont want BS like Fast & Furious have better ranking
as those anti-mainstream docs, please take your time and support them!
They are pretty much the only documentarys in mainstream US media that tell the other side!
That Ukraine has to be considered as both a bridge and a no alliance's land between the West
and Russia has always been a no-brainer to me. One that should be imposed from outside if
necessary, if some Ukrainians are foolish enough to pick a side - and, considering its
geographical position, specially if some Ukrainians people want to move "West" full speed
ahead, because the border with Russia will always be there.
As for Zelensky, he has the backing of the people, such a backing that a 3rd colour
revolution would be immediately opposed by a bigger counter-manifestation. Besides, he should
seek the backing of the rank and file of the Ukrainian army, just in case things go very
badly with the fascists; considering his vast support among the people, the upper echelons of
the military might not like or follow him, but if he gives orders, the core troopers would.
For example, I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are actually one people.
Putin adds that it's inevitable that Ukraine will eventually return to good relations with
Russia.
Look, when these lands that are now the core of Ukraine, joined Russia, there were just
three regions – Kiev, the Kiev region, northern and southern regions – nobody
thought themselves to be anything but Russians, because it was all based on religious
affiliation. They were all Orthodox and they considered themselves Russians. They did not
want to be part of the Catholic world, where Poland was dragging them.
Putin is correct, as usual. He is playing the Long Game, just as China has done with Hong
Kong and continues to do with Taiwan. The empire always uses divide and rule. But in the end, empires always bite the dust.
In Ukrainian politics my preferences are with the present Russian viewpoint and not at all
with the Ukrainian Nazis.
Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of
1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.
"Revealing Ukraine" documentary aka "В борьбе
за Украину" (which includes the
interview in Kremlin released 19 July, minus the Skirpal comments) was released in Ukrainian
and Russian, 17, 19 July. The version in those languages is eg here,
https://my.mail.ru/mail/stelskov/video/235/5800.html
b said; "One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick
out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He
will need their loyalty sooner than he might think."
We'll all hope for the Zelensky people to salvage some sanity from another round of the
empire's attacks. They'll never relent.
One would hope the Stone documentary would be seen here, in the U$A, but that's a distant
dream. Should at least be on PBS, but, I doubt it.
As always b, thanks for the therapy, and historical background...
For newcomers, here is the TC-18-01, the American manual for Unconventional Warfare
(published in 2010; leaked in 2012):
Training">https://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf">Training
Circular No. 18-01: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, For the color revolution manual, see Gene Sharp's famous book (From Dictatorship to
Democracy, 1994).
When used at the same time in the same place, they form what Korybko calls Hybrid Warfare
(see his book).
The Holodomor was real, but then again, so were Stalin's purges in that same era (a little
later) and Stalin's ethnic forced migrations from 1930 to 1949.
While this doesn't excuse these acts, people should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was
under tremendous external and internal pressure at the time. Acts of economic warfare tend to
be poorly documented in history - for example, China's famines in the 1960s were exacerbated
by a US embargo on wheat imports to China.
Ultimately, however, the main reason the Western Ukrainians don't like Russia is because
they've always believed Ukraine should be a nation in its own right. The large contingent of
Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting
for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under
the SS , no less.
Some allege that Zelensky is under influence of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. But so far
there is little evidence to provide that.... Zelensky will likely try to move the country
back to a balanced positions between the 'west' and Russia.
There's reason to be skeptical.
Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish).
President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish). Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country? I'll
bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.
"Yats is the guy" ... until he isn't but will the new guy bring real change or just
pretend to?
Not just a bridge between Russia and the EU, the natural partnership that the US really
fears, but, look at the geography, it is the natural entry point into Europe for the new Silk
Road from China. Pre 2014 the Chinese were attracted by the opportunity of a deep water port
in Crimea, the sea is too shallow into Ukraine proper.
"Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of
1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians..."
The 'Holodomor' was not real. No such event occurred. There was no intention of starving
Ukrainians, on the part of the CPSU. In fact most of the Soviet Union suffered from famines
in these years, some regions much more than Ukraine. The causes of the famine were largely
economic sanctions.
It is quite true that the Collectivisation campaigns were, in many ways disastrous, and
carried out with great violence. But the Holodomor myth, invented by Nazi collaborators after
1945 and based on Goebbels's propaganda is Cold War anti-communist hate propaganda of the
worst kind.
Wikipedia is extremely unreliable on matters such as this.
2.As to comedians running governments Hoarsewhisperer, don't forget Italy.
3. What Ukraine has to offer, William Gruff, if the Biden clan has not stolen it, is some
of the best agricultural land in the temperate world. At a time in which the USA's ability to
dump grain on the world market is being employed to conduct terrorist economic warfare
against disobedient countries, the surpluses Ukraine could make available are of cardinal
importance. Then there is the matter of saving those lands from the scourges of American
agriculture-GMOs, Roundup et al.
" The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign
minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS, no
less."
c1ue@26
This is certainly true: the survivors of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division and their
dependents, hangers on and sundry war criminals on the lam certainly came to Canada where
they sold their votes en bloc to the Federal Liberal Party. In Alberta they came to control
inter alia the University of Alberta.
But long before these people came over immigration from Ukraine, including Mennonites,
brought their traditional skills and agricultural knowledge to, most notably the Prairies.
They knew about growing wheat in the climatic conditions here.
They also brought traditions of collective organisation -- they tended to be very left wing,
co-operators and were among the founders of the Communist Party and the CCF. It was with
great relish that the Liberal Party used the former (and lifelong) Nazis to saplit the
community post 1945.
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"
They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind
you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to
change.
re "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the
country?"
(a) Is it true that the population of Ukraine is .2% Jewish?
(b) Is it true that the .2% segment runs the country?
(c) Is it considered racist to ask why you find the two subject sentences indications of
racism?
However, for sake of good order, the EU association agreement proposal to Ukraine of Mr
Baroso, was presented and rejected by Janukovitch beginning of November 2013. ( not 2014).
The main reason, but never disclosed by our corporate press in the West, was the total
unacceptable ( hence fullty understandable) of an either/or demand choosing between EU and
Russia cooperation btw the lines, as well as an article about military cooperation. Which
of course would also exclude Russian partnership. ... that set the stage the humble and
charming Mrs "Fuck EU" Nudelman and her cookies at Maidan square.
The very fundamental principles of peace, understanding and cooperation of EU was betrayed by
their President Baroso. When you add that to the financial rape of Greece by Goldman Sachs
& co on his watch, one should think he deserved being executed for high treason! Civil
war in Ukraine & and looting of the people of Greece... But guess what... He went
directly from EU to .. GOLDMAN SACHS!
I appreciate that good concise timeline and explanation of what has happened in Ukraine. I
remember finding online a live 24/7 camera feed from Kiev during the Maidan coup, and the
fascination but horror of watching the western backed Right Sector thugs wearing neo-nazi
Wolfsangel insignias carry out atrocities in real time. I searched in vain a couple years
later to find the archives of these films. Does anyone know if they still exist? I suspect if
the filming was done by a coup-friendly Kiev TV station they will be kept under wraps unless
some viewer recorded them, as there is a lot of incriminating evidence which could be
exposed.
Watching what happened live and then following western media disinformation and outright
lies was the final slap in the face for me that the corporate media had finally given up any
pretenses of journalistic standards. Winter 2013/2014 it finally gasped its last breath and
the last nails were hammered into the coffin. From then on we've had non-stop blatantly false
narratives presented, with the nutty bogus Russiagate fiction now consuming three years(!) of
coverage.
Here's hoping the pendulum has swung and we'll reclaim some sanity. Current trends don't
favor this, however, and the US may go for the Samson option before conceding to a more
multi-polar world. A smart lady (my wife) says we need 10% of people to accept a new idea or
narrative before a critical mass can occur and it become the dominant narrative. The more
people who understand the issues MOA and others educate about gives us a chance of countering
the Empire's narrative control. Thanks to all for spreading the message and keep sharing with
your friends.
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"
They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks
behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now
going to change.
No, he does not just say "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they
running the country?". He says:
Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish).
President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish).
Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?
I'll bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.
You can't ignore this "interesting" "fact" if it's the fact.
@21 and @26 - regarding the Holodomor, It is true. Millions of people did die, but from what
I can tell, it was a lot more complicated than how it is presented. Here's an article I found
on Counterpunch Holodomor
I am no specialist or anything, but I think the collectivization was a disaster and the war
on the kulaks didn't help anything, and that lead to the Holodomor which is more
genocide-porn used for the same purposes as a few other large scale killings I have heard
about - to make sure we never forget, and more importantly, we never really find out what
really happened, because it is S A C R E D.
I just finished an excellent book on the Ukraine crisis. Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New
Cold War by Kees Van Der Pijl. In the book he says that the Holodomor was used by the Reagan
administration in the second phase of the Cold War as a tool to demonize the Soviet Union.
Sound Familiar? The author says the second phase of the Cold War was launched when detente
was broken with the Soviet Union, any concessions made to domestic labor in the west was to
be dismantled and the goal was regime change in Moscow which happened in 1991. The author
really lays it out and explained the new, third phase of the Cold War which really kicked
into gear in Kiev in the winter or 2014. I found that to be very interesting. I had never
heard it put that way before.
I can't recommend the book enough.
I just started Frontline Ukraine by Sakwa.
Thank you, B and everyone in the MoA community. Please forgive any mistakes I may have made
in describing my interpretation of van Der Pijl's book.
Ukraine is such a unique disaster of a nation precisely because it is not really a nation at
all, just a cobbled together mishmash of people with no history. There is no such thing as a
Ukrainian ethnicity. Ukrainians are ethnic Russians, remnants of the poor souls conquered by
the Poles after the Mongol invasion and treated like dirt for centuries. All through that
horrid time they preserved their identity as Russian, but when the Polish state was removed
from the map, bitter Polish academics pushed the tale that these people were somehow separate
from Russians, i.e. Russia had no right to it's retaken territory. This new foreign composed
identity was forced on them by both carrot and stick in the Austrian Empire, that occupied
Galicia...leading to concentration camps for those who resisted it in WWI. And the saddest
part of the tragedy was when the Soviets founded a Ukrainian republic, lending undeserved
credence to this farce. There is no wonder the country is such a schizophrenic failure. They
have no clear identity and their recent history is nothing but sniveling shame. What is
really the difference between groveling before Nazi invaders or groveling before Nato
invaders? Not much, and the end is the same.
I think over 20% of Ukraine's population is "not Ukrainian".
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2019 21:59 utc | 28
It is quite complicated. For example, Zelensky himself had to brush up on his Ukrainian to
be able to run a campaign, which he managed to do with his talents and scripts. His first
language is Russian, and ancestry... Khazarian? If I recall, he shares first language,
hometown and ancestry with Kolomoysky who was also his employer. What I am trying to say is
that national identification is fluid in this region. You may have Russian nationalists who
speak Ukrainian dialect at home, Ukrainian nationalists with rather incomplete knowledge of
"their language" and many other combinations. That said, Ukrainian is a separate language
that may be hard to understand by someone who knows only Polish or only Russian (but rather
intelligible if you know both).
Occasionally I follow news on RusNext.ru, a news site that seems to be run by Donbass
supporters who fluently translate from Ukrainian and, I guess, use Ukrainian words here and
there.
BTW, the history of Ukraine is quite complicated, including "Polish Conquest" that in
actuality happened as very complex cleaving and coalescing of fragmented states with key
dynasties leaving no descendants BOTH in Poland and the Kingdom of Halich thus leaving both
to the rule of a Hungarian king, to be later partitioned between his two daughters, while the
less populated part of Ukraine was taken over by Lithuanians who had hard time defending
their holdings from Tatars etc. After that, the polity of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
adopted Polish as the common language of nobility, so most of the "cruel Polish lords" that
Ukrainians fought with in 17th century were of Ruthenian (Russian?) origin, some claiming
descent from Rurik (i.e. from the common dynasty of Rus lands). Compare with Irish and
Scottish nobility adopting a Saxon-French mix as their vernacular (now known as English).
I was just discovering the importance of internet world news information when the Maidan
crisis unfolded, and many Ukrainians were putting photos and videos on various blogs about
the horrible events leading up to and following the coup. Russia has made huge strides since
- but we cannot forget that ordinary people who had the ability to send out information as it
happened were to be highly praised for doing so. It wasn't sophisticated, I remember in one
city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the street, showing bodies
on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through the streets - vivid
shots of buildings on fire, a protest by a woman with a toddler at a speechgiving occasion.
Unforgettable.
Ukraine should be proud of being the historic heart of Russia itself, the place where the
State began. That's what Putin is talking about, and even more than Crimea Kiev is the
historical homeland capital city for all Russians; it's part of their heritage. It's as if
separatists in the US got themselves embedded in New York City and declared their
independence of the rest of the country, being more aligned with Canada. (Oh, and everyone in
that northern area now had to speak French.)
Wikipedia
tells us that Jews are 0.2% of the population in Ukraine.
'Jewish' is not a race. It's a religion. Do you think that Israel is a country for
semetic people ? LOL. No, it's a theocracy.
Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. No. Ukraine is being run by it's West-leaning leadership and US/NATO is partnered with
that leadership. I'm suggesting that Jews are among the most reliably pro-Western people in
Ukraine. After all, the "Empire" that you refer to is known as the "Anglo-Zionist
Empire".
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Leads me to wonder if the State Department's recent global antisemitism efforts are mostly
aimed at Ukraine.
If Ukraine itself made such efforts/expenditures it might would draw a backlash from the
Ukrainian people. So the US does it and slyly declares it to be global so no one
notices that it's directed at certain countries (mostly Ukraine?) that have Jewish leadership
that's backed by US/NATO.
As part of the effort to take over Ukraine, US/NATO forged an anti-Russian alliance that
included the anti-Jewish extreme-right in Ukraine as described by
Ukraine and the "Politics of Anti-Semitism" (2014) :
The US and the EU are supporting the formation of a coalition government integrated by
Neo-Nazis which are directly involved in the repression of the Ukrainian Jewish
community.
. . .
Within the Western media, news coverage of the Neo-Nazi threat to the Jewish community in
Ukraine is a taboo. There is a complete media blackout: confirmed by Google News search ...
What is not mentioned is that these "radical elements" supported and financed by the West
are Neo-Nazis who are waging a hate campaign against Ukraine's Jewish community.
. . .
According to the JP [Jerusalem Post] , the issue is one of "transition", which will
be resolved once a new government is installed .
"Despite his [Likhashov's] optimism fear pervades the local Jewish community, as it
does the entire Ukraine, during the transition period."
No doubt Jews would not feel safe with rightists leading the government so arrangements
were made (Democracy Works! LOL). We can surmise that the US State Dept has now
formalized this with funding for a propaganda campaign that seeks to change their views
and/or political slush fund to ensure election of Jewish candidates to high office?
Acar@39 The Globalists/Zionists Good 'Ole Pale of (re)Settlement included Crimea, home of the
Karaites, hence manipulation of the Rusyns, and Neo-fascist Galicians & Podolians. A
strange ethnic Divide et Impera nexus for sure..
"The pneumatics ("spiritual", from Greek πνεῦμα, "spirit")
were, in Gnosticism, the highest order of humans, the other two orders being psychics and
hylics ("matter"). A pneumatic saw itself as escaping the doom of the material world via the
transcendent knowledge of Sophia's Divine Spark within the soul."
No one is disputing that famines occurred in Soviet Ukraine. These famines also occurred
in Belarus and Russia. The extent to which the harsh form of collectivisation institutioned
under Stalin contributed as opposed to climatic and other factors (Western sanctions, crop
destroying pests etc) is a matter for debate. Grover Furr argues the latter forcefully in
'Blood Lies' (2014). The term "Holodomor" refers to an intentional policy of genocide against
the "Ukrainian Nation" by evil Russians/Commies/Jews via intentional starvation. As bevin @32
points out, this concept originated in Nazi ideology. So yes, famine(s) occurred, but the
"Holodomor" did not.
As for the author of the Counterpunch piece, Louis Proyect, he is an imperial apologist of
the worst sort who delights in trolling any forum where anti-imperialists gather. If this
appears to be an Ad Hominum attack, I think you have to be human to be a victim of one of
those.
I also can't recommend the Van der Pijl book enough. Usually if I see a book recommended
by someone who also links to a Louis Proyect article I would avoid it like the plague, but
barflies please don't be discouraged! Van der Pijl is one of the premier exponents of
(non-sectarian) Marxist International Relations, if you've been put off reading Marxist
authors thanks to the likes of Proyect he is the perfect antidote. His "Global Rivalries -
From The Cold War to Iraq" (2007) is also excellent, I would recommend you track that down if
Sakwa has nothing much to add.
Global Research has an extract from "Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War" here:
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Prime minister
. . .
He has played down his Jewish-Ukrainian origins , possibly because of the prevalence
of antisemitism in his party's western Ukraine heartland.
Yatsenyuk resigned in disgrace in April 2016 amid a massive corruption scandal that
first broke in February, when economy minister Aivaras Abromavicius stepped down,
complaining that the Yatsenyuk government was not genuinely committed to fighting
corruption .
One of the many corrupt projects was Yats' border wall, which critics have said
"wouldn't even stop a rabbit." LOL.
The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released. Search your torrent
search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on youtube yet AFAIK.
I just downloaded but got the Russian version without subtitles. I am unable to find the
English version. For those that understand Russian, the magnet link for the download is:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:cbfd33adbd1d2bf3d48aade83a60507fe9f74241
If anyone can find the English version, please post the magnet link or infohash value, but I
guess it has not yet been released.
by: bevin @ 32 < i am particularly interested to know the source of that 1932-1933
Holodomor propaganda.. .. claiming, not merely alleging, the genocidal deaths of 32 million
Ukrainians.. Seems to me these fake claims that appear everywhere, have generally the same
general sources, but are leaked at different places, in different formats, by different
faces.. .. ?
I would like to see if it is possible to prove the source to be a coordinated
amalgam of persons, and more particularly I am looking for the individual names that produce
fake propaganda for a living, where did they study, who trained them, who hired them and so
on.. Seems to me preparing, engineering or delivering fake anything that causes, or leads to
war and death and destruction is a crime against humanity (CAH) with universal application
because CAHs infringe inalienable human rights. There is a great need to make functional, on
a world wide basis, the ICC.. Additionally the ICC cases have the potential to deliver the
truth to History.
Iran, Russian, North Korea and China are positioned to impose ICC court jurisdiction,
Nuclear Non Weapon Proliferation, and 3 vetos required to overrule the findings and mandates
of a majority determination of the UN Security Council on all leaders and all nations and
ruling bodies in the world. War, and in fact the decimation and destruction of the universe,
is possible because these holes in the enforceable rule by law system exist. Fixing these
three holes could have a massive long term effect on the peace and income distribution
throughout the entire globe.
A forth such thing would be to internationalize all resources in the world, and to
allocate ownership to them based on population and finally, the most important change of all,
would be to internationalize education.. to grant one degree for all undergraduate education
based on international subject matter examinations ( does not matter where or how the
knowledge to pass is obtained, so universities and tutors can still play a massive part in
instructing the masses), and one professional degree in law, one in medicine and one in
engineering.. everyone would have to pass examinations and prove fluency in at least three
culturally different, geographically different languages, and prove competency in mathematics
at the differential and integral calculus level to be eligible to sit for an undergraduate
degree and lawyers, doctors, scientist and engineers would be eligible to practice anywhere
in the world, subject only to credential free, local regulation imposed because of local
experience. Local regulation <= not supported by local experience would be overturned.
None of this requires, demands, or needs a king or a president, it just needs to be a part of
the human experience in the earth environment.
Great summary b.
Needed somebody to just spell it out.
I recall watching the 2014 crisis and civil war in real time. Felt WW-III was upon us.
Couldn't believe the outright lies of all Western media and was the straw that broke the back
of any remaining faith I had in NYT, The Guardian, BBC, ABC (Australian) etc.
The Odessa Massacre was biggest turning point for me.http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened/
There's far more evidence Ukraine shot down MH17 than the Donbas rebels did. Go to
www.consortiumnews.com and search 'MH17'
Talking with friends something has shifted for the average Joe and Jane. In 2014, if I
presented evidence against the official Western Ministry of Truth (yeah see the typo but
seems worth leaving) on Ukraine I'd get a righteous backlash and called a Putin apologist
etc. These days there's blank inward stare of cognitive dissonance, subtle agreement and
desire to change topic. Such is the nature of Stockholm Syndrome.
@21 David Park, @26 c1ue, @32 bevin, @34 Ghost Ship, @41 roza shanina, @54 Paora, @58 snake
My understanding is that of Paora and bevin; there were famines in the Soviet Union,
including in Ukraine. The Holodomor myth, if not started there, was massively
promoted in the 30s by ... drumroll ... the Hearst empire.That alone should
tell you something of its reliability. Proyect's piece is interesting, but it doesn't touch
on the Western creation of the "Holodomor," the myth itself of the Soviet
genocide aimed at Ukrainians.
Unfortunately, I'm unable right now to put my hands/keyboard on a good reference for this.
If I'm able to locate one, I'll put it in a comment in an open thread.
Note to snake: not 32 million, but around 5-7 million, probably laughable in itself. (A
reference I found for the Ukraine SSR in the 1930s indicates that the population
grew during the 1930-33 period, but that should probably be read with great
care. It would probably require a study in itself.)
* * * *
On another, but not entirely irrelevant matter, I've always found this wikipedia entry to
be vastly entertaining. It gives me a good chuckle to think of Ukrainization -- the promotion
of Ukrainian language and culture -- as a communist plot. (It's not a perfect analogy, but
it's close enough for a laugh, considering the present.) (And yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but
their prejudices lean generally in the other direction.)
The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited
the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak.
That's a bald-faced lie. Russian is still spoken in large parts of Ukraine,
including Odessa. The main tourist attraction in Odessa, a beach community known as Arcadia,
still uses the Russian word at its entrance. Street signs are still in Russian. People speak
Russian.
The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language. Everyone must learn it. It is
the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya. It is in the nature of a
country to have a universal language whereby everyone in the country may communicate. There
is nothing whatsoever radical or even unusual about this.
Stop spreading hate and lies. This is utter nonsense.
As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption. Even Russians.
I lived in Ukraine at that time - mostly in Sevastopol, which was then 90+% Russian (and of
course now is part of Russia). Everybody hated him and thought he was utterly corrupt and
stole from the people. His thugs would literally walk into a private business with guns and
tell the owner "I am buying half your business for $50, here are the papers, sign them now".
That is how he operated. Of course they did not want the L'viv folks staging a coup, but the
hatred for the corrupt Yanukovych was truly national.
You don't do anyone any favors by publishing lies.
All those who say that Zelenski is a puppet or front for Kolomoiski should remember that a
certain VV Putin came to power as a puppet or front for Boris Berezovski. And we all know how
that (BB) ended. So let's hope for the best - can't get much worse anyway. And Zelenski seems
to have acted very smartly so far. Good luck to him - he'll need it!
It's my understanding that those Ukrainians who most fervently believe in the Holodomor (that
the Soviet govt under Joseph Stalin deliberately targeted ethnic Ukrainians with famine and
starvation) live in that part of the modern Ukraine that was under fascist Polish rule in the
1930s.
From my own reading, the famines of the early 1930s affected large parts of eastern
Ukraine across southen European Russia into Kazakhstan.
The issue though is not so much the details of what actually occurred then as in the
creation of a lie that deliberately equates Nazis with Soviets and thus Nazism with
Communism, and ultimately socialism. If Nazism led to the Holocaust, then Communism and
socialism must be demonstrated to have resulted in equally great horrors such as mass
famines, starvation or incarcerating people in concentration camps on the basis of their
religion. The current demonization of the Chinese govt over its supposed treatment of Falun
Gong followers or Uyghurs follows this pattern.
Accusing b of "spreading hate and lies"? There's plenty of sources documenting the
Ukrainian laws passed since 2014 prohibiting or restricting Russian language in various
sectors, including official use, public education, even in films. b was correct in his
assessment, and I have no idea where the "hate" accusation came from. I would normally not
link to the awful Telegraph of UK, but I assume this story from just three months ago isn't
fake news.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/25/ukraine-passes-law-against-russian-language-official-settings/
> The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language.
...and the ONLY one.
...and the language undeveloped, that lacked words for many modern realities, from helicopter
to condom, so they all had to be invented rashly.
> It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya.
In Russia, Crimean Turks can teach their children, in beginner's school, in k'yrymchi
language. It is one of three official languages of Crimean region. In Ukraine it was impossible then and it is impossible still.
> It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language
...that is only native to less than 20% of the population? Well, it is indeed a nature - of OCCUPIED countries. Like, Norman invasion into England, when elites had one language and serfs - another. And
serf's language was slowly suffocated and replaced by foreign language of occupying
elites. "If to live in comfort you have to rename every major city and tear down every ,ajor
monument - you cam to live on someone's else land".
> whereby everyone in the country may communicate.
If that was the intention - then the language native to population's 83% would become
official, like it is in Ireland. But not in Ukraine.
> As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption.
He was. So you say this makes illegal coup less illegal and bandit Poroshenko less bandit. How
exactly? Or you just throw in irrelevant emotional hitpiece to accuse of "spreading lies" by which
you mean "not spreading your favorite grievances" ?
> Yanukovych.... had no choice but to refuse [Deep and Comprehensive EuroAssociation]
But he did not.
He asked to amend it, to re-negotiate it.
He asked to add there compensation clause from EU to Ukrainian industries. Russia also asked for it to be re-negotiated, but Russia wanted re-negotiation from
scratch into a trilateral treaty. Yanukovich only wanted money to support Ukrainian economic
until his re-election.
Bad for him, but money he asked for "coincidently" were the same, as money Europe promised
to Ukraine for removing of Nuclear weapon and Chernobyl nuclear power. When Ukraine delivered
and asked for money - the 2nd maidan (2004) happened and both Kuchma and his heir Yanukovich
flew down the drain. When Yanukovich was allowed to the throne in 2009 he conveniently forgot
about that story. But the moment he asked EU for money, albeit under pretext of Association
and markets, the 3rd maidan unleashed and Yanukovich went down the drain again. Guess, he had
to learn his lesson without repeats?..
> Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to
realise the blatantly obvious.
Posted by: Michael Droy | Jul 22 2019 20:03 utc | 12
Well, it took Russia to really START implementing trade inhibition, there were few rather
vibrant "scandals" in spring and summer 2014 with Russia banning this or that food/alcohol
form Ukraine, quoting safety hazards, to make Yanukovich understand this time it is for
real.
Most probably Yanukovich was like Saakashvili in 2008, totally programmed that "Russia
would not date" because "Russia is secretly ruled by Jews/NeoLibs/Washington/whatever".
Russia dared. And then Yanukovich understood he was not selected to be a hero bringing
Ukraine to Europe, but a scapegoat to absorb the fallout.
is biased also ? It isn't my argument at all, but I do understand that language is very
important in terms of identity. There is quite a lot of history in that article to take into
account, or argue over I suppose. As it is probably the "go to" reference for people outside
of the region wanting to understand the question of languages in Ukraine, its content is
relevant.
> I remember in one city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the
street, showing bodies on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through
the streets - vivid shots of buildings on fire
Posted by: juliania | Jul 23 2019 1:44 utc | 47
Most probably, Mariupol 2014-05-09. People wanted to celebrate V-Day, but "democratic" Oleg Lyashko and his "men in black"
drove in at attacked demonstration. Local police tried to protect citizens and was ambushed
in their own HQ (that very burning house), making last stand.
"In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election he led his party to win 22 seats."
"In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Lyashko lost his parliamentary seat"
One may also look for Olena Bilozerka, 2013 German "best international blogger."
She is open and vocal part of Right Sector, though allegations were she is inflating
political issues to hide marauding issues.
She blogged back in 2014-02-16 about "next day" meeting of Right Sector representatives with
Merkel "to report about implementation of our part of agreement and to be informed by Merkel
about implementing her part" and regardless of "checking the watches" about armed assault
upon government on 18.02, which indeed happened and was success.
Being open and vocal Nazi she then published many photo and video that were "omitted" by free
world's free media.
This "how many people did Communism killed" question is tiresome.
As I've already commented here in previous posts, there are essentially three methods an
historian can determine if a genocide happened:
1) mass graves (this requires archaeology);
2) written contemporary accounts, and
3) census
In the "Holodomor" case, we only have "2", the most popular one in the West being that
Welsh journalist who travelled to the USSR that time and, based on anecdotal evidence,
"covered" the famine.
Wikipedia's article about the "Holodomor" only mentions one source mentioning concrete
numbers: Wheatcroft, a rather obscure Australian academic who, to his merit, at least made up
the effort to talk with people who had access to the Soviet archives.
The quoted list of his article clearly indicates Wheatcroft bases his numbers on indirect
data. He uses the 1937 census in relation to 1926; in another article, he uses the quantity
of grain stock in 1932. I could go on, but the important thing here is that this guy doesn't
use any extraordinary sources. He certainly didn't go to the Ukraine to do archaeology. The
Ukrainians themselves probably didn't do it either, because, so far, we have no accounts of
mass graves in the region.
Famines were common in the pre-industrial world. They occured often in the ancient world
-- where cities and villages literally disappeared in a matter of decades because of one bad
crop and/or one plague (plagues are a side-effect of sedentarism). The often occured in the
feudal world. They specially happened in tsarist Russia, which has a very peculiar and
hostile climate and land composition for agriculture (only 15% of the USSR's territory was
viable for agriculture even in the industrial era). They certainly are not a communist
invention. We must avoid the "Belle Époque syndrome", that is, adopt the illusion late
tsarist Russia was a paradise that was destroyed by evil Bolsheviks. Tsarist Russia was a
very brutal world, were peasants died like flies every day: Gogol (who lived in Ukrainian
territory) wrote a very funny and politically charged novel about it ("Dead Souls").
Wheatcroft uses the 1920s demographic tendency in order to infer "excess deaths" in the
USSR in 1932, but he misses the bigger picture: you have to take into account Russian
demographic movements in the long term, taking into consideration the cyclic famines. Just to
crop a short period from 1926-1932 is scientifically dishonest.
Yes, forced collectivization probably caused excess deaths in 1932 -- but it's impossible
to calculate how much more it caused in relation to a "normal" famine. Just because a famine
happened during the Soviet era doesn't mean it was caused 100% because of socialism. Constant
excess food production is a very recent phenomenon in human History, to state famines are the
exception and not the rule is contemporary bias.
It is very unlikely the 1932 famine was an extraordinary famine. The 1937 census
registered a population growth in relation to 1926. This alone discards genocide, because,
even though excess deaths ocurred (as is the rule in famines), that meant women still had
time and resources to biologically reproduce above the population replacement levels. Worst
case scenario, this growth happened because birth rates were excessive in the urban areas at
the expense of the rural areas -- an unlikely scenario, since in this case, we would register
mass migration from the rural area to the urban area (because the hypothesis is that the
famine was artificial, so the grains would be in the cities): they would either mass migrate
or die trying, in which case we would have mass graves.
Mass graves are the decisive evidence for a genocide, indeed any mass extermination,
because that would mean death was sudden. When the death process is slow and not
synchronized, people have the time to bury/cremate their dead. That is the case even with
some plagues (e.g. Antonine Plague). Mass graves are an indication people were killed more or
less at the same time, in an artificial way, and in large quantities (since proper burials
are expensive). In a deprived economy like the USSR, it is very unlikely all those bodies
would be properly buried, let alone cremated, was a mass extermination taken place.
The holy grail of evidence for a genocide/mass extermination for any historian is when a
witness points the place of the event and then archaeology finds out a mass grave. This
evidently didn't happen in the case of "Holodomor".
Note: Gorbachev is a Russian who was born and raised in a village that borders modern
Ukraine. His grandparents and parents were victims of the 1932 famine (they all survived).
They continued committed with the Revolution and, according to Gorbachev's own accounts, he's
was not raised believing the 1932 famine was exceptional.
About the "Stalin is a genocidal psychopath" question: it's funny, because forced
collectivization was one of the few points where he and Trotsky agreed.
Whatever happened in macroeconomic reforms after Stalin consolidated power was a
collective work, not the designs of only one man. And, although we can argue against the
means, the fact was that they were successful: the USSR rose from the ruins of a second tier
imperial power (late tsarist Russia) to a global superpower.
To understand the most important fact of what happened to Ukraine and why, you need to know
about the yank neocon PNAC, which trumps (excuse the pun) all: The Project for the New
American Century, and the original neocon (jew) wolfowitz doctrine, as revealed in the NYT in
1992:
www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html
Russia at the moment is correctly perceived as the main opponent to the usa, china too as
upcoming, in line with the above, & PNAC is part of trying to keep Russia in its place:
'part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not
aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate
interests."' And 'to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy'.
And 'a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the
mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or
global role."' Note 'regional' insofar as it concerns Russia wrt ukraine.
Also this is why the USG used Maidan (with at least $5 bn - said nuland/jewland, married
to the co-founder of PNAC kagan, another jew) against Russia, to cause it problems and to be
a thorn in the flesh.
Another important fact is the roman catholic church attack on Russia through ukraine &
the split of the church in ukraine from the Russian Orthodox Church.
> there are essentially three methods an historian can determine if a genocide happened
Four.
There can be comparison of available data in adjacent regions.
In this specific case - in Poland-occupied Western Ukraine. Just "across the line".
Anecdotal evidence states it also had famine, so the famine was not anchored in USSR
specific way of governing.
Some rare online archives of then Poland newspapers photos report some UK delegations raising
concerns, etc.
However, in USSR the famine was a state-acknowledge emergency. USSR prohibited moving
foods out of Ukrainian SSR (and wheat was not the only food! everyone talks about grains,
forgetting potato, fish, mushrooms, etc), broken many Western contracts to repay debts in
grains (West was denying being paid in other assets and was decrying USSR savageness of
refusing to export all the contracted grain with the same zeal it today decry USSR savageness
of exporting at least some of grain), started importing grain from Persia (now Iran). This
emergency let a lot of paper trail, which now is used to "prove" how evil Soviet government
was (and, specifically, not Ukrainian SSR government but central government in Kremlin; and
somehow this is stretched even further to "prove" murderous hatred being part of "Russian
character").
In Poland, well, a dull matter of fact. Bad lack to be peasant, yet worst to be Ukrainian
peasant. S-t happens.
No paper trail - no "historic event" - no accusations. Don't try to fix famines - and you will not be accused of being part of it.
Election apparatus is so easy to corrupt, yet people still vote! Crazy! And, so many
elections have been rigged this way: People are so dumb! Why does nobody insist on
independent, improved equipment? Conditioning makes people ignore the cheat under their
noses.
Recall the posters in previous threads defending the empire's color revolution attempts in
Hong Kong and match the names up with posters here. Are they trying to offer defense of the
empire's color revolutions in Ukraine, or do you think they are off-duty now and posting with
the sincere intention of initiating open discussion? Do you honestly think you can change
their minds by engaging with them and pointing out the flaws in their facts and their logic
when it is their job to defend the actions of the empire?
By the way, do expect and don't be surprised when the same posters referred to above
defend the empire's lawfare coup in Brazil, the attempted lawfare coup in South Africa, and
the attempts to regime change Venezuela when b posts any articles on these issues.
As for holodomor, or the Maidan snipers, or the famine in China, one doesn't need details
to identify fictions. One simply needs to use logic and reason. We need only question simple
points if we suspect that the famine in Ukraine was a deliberate attempt to exterminate
Ukrainians: Was it successfully completed, and if not then why not?
There are obviously still Ukrainians, so it wasn't successful. If we assume the famine was
a deliberate attempt at extermination, then we must ask why was it stopped before it
finished? Did some external factor force Stalin to call off the extermination before it was
completed?
No, the famine was stopped by dramatically improved agricultural practices instituted by
the Soviet Union. This cannot be reconciled with the claim that the famine was a deliberate
attempt by the Soviet Union at extermination, so no matter how much we may cherish the myth
of holodomor, to remain rational individuals we must let that myth go.
Too complex? Let's try the Maidan snipers: We are expected to believe that the killers
were police or Berkut snipers. What was their motive? Presumably to stop the protests. If
that was their motive, then why did the snipers stop sniping before dispersing the protests?
If the snipers were trying to end the protests, then why did they shoot just enough to
inflame further protests, but not enough to discourage the protests?
The answer is simple: The police and/or Berkut were not the Maidan snipers in Kiev.
The snipers were provocateurs who intended to amplify the protests.
It is good to dig deeper into the details of all of these false narratives that we in the
West have been fed, but those details are not absolutely necessary to know that the
narratives are false.
1. If forced collectivization would lead to famine, there would had be no famines in 1920-s
and in 1890-s, before the said collectivization but there were.
2. Before forced collectivization there were many years of attempts at unforced one. They
failed for at least two reasons.
a) many of poor peasants "saw themselves temporarily embarrassed millionaires". While
being target of debt sharks (kulaks, public-devourers
(мироеды)) they still only imagined the life as
being sole owner of their however tiny patch of soil.
b) government attempts they saw as unwarranted advantages from aliens, city-dwellers,
trade partners of hated kulaks, that to be took advantage of using any loopholes. Government
tried to foster grassroots kolkhoz movements by offering bound credits - seeds, fertilizers,
agriculture tools. Peasants started organizing "ten men" kolkhozes in springs, taking those
credits, and then dissolving kolkhozes before gathering crops. "Faked bankruptcy" in modern
parley. If you can have good sides without having bad sides - why opt for bad sides too?
Specifically in Ukraine it could also be boosted by the "national character" formed as
dwellers of centuries-long battle ground between Poland, Russia and Turkey. No positive
long-term planning, everything for instant profits disregarding any consequences. Any
government are occupants and bandits, co-operating with them is futile and silly. We can see
it today marching over once most rich and developed Soviet Republic. Why couldn't the same
happen in 1930-s ?
3. However forced collectivization did achieved a lot. Remember the UK, where "sheep ate
people", for example. Remember latifundists in Latin America. It is largely the same!
a) hugely increased labor efficiency in "village to city" trade metrics.
"товарное
зерно"
b) hugely increased labor efficiency in "men / area" ratio. Use of mechanic tractors and
harvesters, etc. Unemployment among "just my hands" peasantry.
c) increased "capital concentration" provided for use of fertilizer, poisons, etc. Which
contributed to the prior point.
d) now unemployed peasants moved to cities, populating newly built factories. This process
was already going in 1900-s but much slower then. Emergent industrialization in the wake of
WW2 - and a very successful one.
e) end of rural famines. One of the reason 1931 famine is so hyped - it was the last in the
row. Would there be a comparable famine for example in 1970-s - and for political purposes it
would had been much more useful against USSR. But there were none. "Golodomor" was the last
famine, so it became the focal point.
e) end of city famines. Where atomized peasant families could not sustain even a horse or a
cow, one of famines reasons, joint companies (kolkhozes) just like huge private
agri-companies in UK or Argentina, relied upon chemistry and mechanizations, thus needed to
trade with cities, thus were supplying cities with food. All the champions of Golodomor
somehow overlook city famines that were cruel in early USSR in winters.
And one more quirk is almost total lack of photo-evidence behind "Golodomor".
When articles/books are illustrated, it is with photos from 1920-s famine in USSR or in USA,
misattributed.
Allegedly, it is because in Soviet cruel diktatura even NKVD death squads could not make
those photos even for secret important reports.
Reportedly it is because victims of "Goldomor" were dying "fatties", making less convincing
images. The theories were made explaining why it was so, however there seems to be no any
other famine known where those theories worked and people dying of hunger were abnormally
thick.
To Arioch @84, I apologize. You are absolutely correct. Leaving trolls' posts unchallenged
gives the casual reader the impression that those posts are unassailable; nevertheless, I
have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them out.
Posters such as yourself, vk, karlof1, etc who provide detailed and historically accurate
corrections to the false narratives are necessary for the edification of lurkers and casual
readers. I just hope that you don't measure the effectiveness of your posts by whether or not
you change the trolls' minds.
> I have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them
out
This can really work well with people sincerely lost by massive propaganda, people who
succumbed to illusion they know, why they do not.
Wikipedia: The Socratic method, also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or
Socratic debate, is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based
on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and
underlying presuppositions. It is a dialectical method, involving a discussion in which the
defense of one point of view is questioned; one participant may lead another to contradict
themselves in some way, thus weakening the defender's point. This method is named after the
Classical Greek philosopher Socrates and is introduced by him in Plato's Theaetetus as
midwifery (maieutics) because it is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the
interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding.
Sincere person, being guided by questions, would start researching and analyzing. And would
not feel coerced.
But you know, trolls just ignore the questions and keeps hammering talking points by
infinitely going back and repeating them "from starting point".
Avoiding positive argumentation, avoiding claiming something and limiting ourselves to
questioning their weak points, we help them to create another impression: they have a bad
theory when we have no theory at all. They are content with it.
So, putting out competing interpretation is no less important than showing their own
unhonesty.
t
people were able to look past the mistake and not overlook the van der pijl book. Thank you
for letting me know of Mr. Proyect's reputation.
Missing from the comments regarding Ukrainian/Russian dynamics is recognition of the numerous
attempts (dating back to the 17th century) of the Russification of the Ukraine, first by the
Russian Empire and then by the Soviets.
In 1863, minister of internal affairs Pyotr Valuyev issued the so-called Valuev
Circular, in which he stated that the Ukrainian language never existed, doesn't exist, and
cannot exist.
Under Stalin, "korenization" took second stage to the idea of a united Soviet Union,
where competing national cultures were no longer tolerated, and the Russian language
increasingly became the only official language of Soviet socialism
Russification of Soviet-occupied Ukraine intensified in 1938 under Nikita Khrushchev,
then secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, but was briefly halted during World War II,
when Axis forces occupied large areas of the country.
In the 1960s, the Ukrainian language began to be used more widely and frequently in spite
of these policies. In response, Soviet authorities increased their focus on early education
in Russian. After 1980, Russian language classes were instituted from the first grade
onward.
( a reason for so many Russian-speaking Ukrainians??)
In the regions of southern Russian SFSR (North Caucasus and eastern part of Sloboda
Ukraine included into RSFSR) Ukrainization was effectively outlawed in 1932.[18]
Specifically, the December 14, 1932 decree "On Grain Collection in Ukraine, North Caucasus
and the Western Oblasts" by the VKP(b) Central Committee and USSR Sovnarkom stated that
Ukrainization in certain areas was carried out formally, in a "non-Bolshevik" way, which
provided the "bourgeois-nationalist elements" with a legal cover for organizing their
anti-Soviet resistance. In order to stop this, the decree ordered in these areas, among other
things, to switch to Russian all newspapers and magazines, and all Soviet and cooperative
paperwork. By the autumn of 1932 (beginning of a school year), all schools were ordered to
switch to Russian. In addition the decree ordered a massive population swap: all "disloyal"
population from a major Cossack settlement, stanitsa Poltavskaya was banished to Northern
Russia, with their property given to loyal kolkhozniks moved from poorer areas of Russia.[19]
in the 1937 Soviet Census compared to the 1926 First All-Union Census of the Soviet
Union.[18]
This perhaps explains the predominance of Russian in eastern Ukraine.
"... Contrary to the official rationale, the detention of the Iranian tanker was not consistent with the 2012 EU regulation on sanctions against the Assad government in Syria. The EU Council regulation in question specifies in Article 35 that the sanctions were to apply only within the territory of EU member states, to a national or business entity or onboard an aircraft or vessel "under the jurisdiction of a member state." ..."
"... The notice required the Gibraltar government to detain any such ship for at least 72 hours if it entered "British Gibraltar Territorial Waters." Significantly, however, the video statement by Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo on July 4 explaining the seizure of the Grace 1 made no such claim and avoided any mention of the precise location of the ship when it was seized. ..."
"... There is a good reason why the chief minister chose not to draw attention to the issue of the ship's location: it is virtually impossible that the ship was in British Gibraltar territorial waters at any time before being boarded. The UK claims territorial waters of three nautical miles from its coast, whereas the Strait of Gibraltar is 7.5 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point. That would make the limit of UK territory just north of the middle of the Strait. ..."
"... But international straits must have clearly defined and separated shipping lanes going in different directions. The Grace 1 was in the shipping lane heading east toward the Mediterranean, which is south of the lane for ships heading west toward the Atlantic and thus clearly closer to the coast of Morocco than to the coast of Gibraltar, as can be seen from this live view of typical ship traffic through the strait . So it is quite implausible that the Grace 1 strayed out of its shipping lane into British territorial waters at any time before it was boarded. ..."
"... Such a move clearly violates the global treaty governing the issue -- the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . Articles 37 through 44 of that agreement, ratified by 167 states, including the UK and the European Union, establish a "regime of transit passage" for international straits like the Strait of Gibraltar that guarantees freedom of navigation for merchant ships. The rules of that regime explicitly forbid states bordering the strait from interfering with the transit passage of a merchant ship, with very narrowly defined exceptions. ..."
"... The evidence indicates, moreover, that the UK's actions were part of a broader scheme coordinated with the Trump administration to tighten pressure on Iran's economy by reducing Iran's ability to export goods. ..."
"... On July 19, Reuters London correspondent Guy Falconbridge reported , "[S]everal diplomatic sources said the United States asked the UK to seize the vessel." ..."
"... Detailed evidence of Bolton deep involvement in the British plan to seize the Iranian tanker has surfaced in reporting on the withdrawal of Panamanian flag status for the Grace 1. ..."
"... The role of Panama's National Security Council signaled Bolton's hand, since he would have been the point of contact with that body. The result of his maneuvering was to leave the Grace 1 without the protection of flag status necessary to sail or visit a port in the middle of its journey. This in conjunction with the British seizure of the ship was yet another episode in the extraordinary American effort to deprive Iran of the most basic sovereign right to participate in the global economy. ..."
"... Back in 2013 2013 there was a rumour afoot that Edward Snowden, who at the time was stuck in the Moscow airport, trapped there by the sudden cancellation mid-flight of his US passport, was going spirited away by the President of Bolivia Evo Morales aboard his private jet. So what the US apparently was lean on it European allies to stop him. This they duly and dutifully did. Spain, France, and others denied overflight rights to the Bolivian jet, forcing it to turn back and land in Austria. There was even a report that once on the ground, the Spanish ambassador to Austria showed up and asked the Bolivian president if he might come out to the plain for a coffee--and presumably to have a poke around to see he could catch Snowden in the act of vanishing into the cargo hold. ..."
"... The rumor turned out to be completely false, but it was the Europeans who wound up with the egg on their face. Not to mention the ones who broke international law. ..."
"... Bolton persuaded the British to play along with the stupid US "maximum pressure" strategy, regardless of its illegality. (Maybe the British government thought that it would placate Trump after Ambassadorgate.) And then of course Pompeo threw them under the bus. It's getting hard to be a US ally (except for Saudi Arabia and Israel.) ..."
"... Spain lodged a formal complaint about the action, because it considers the sea around Gibraltar to be part of its international waters, "We are studying the circumstances and looking at how this affects our sovereignty," Josep Borell, Spain's acting foreign minister, said. So Gibraltar or Spanish waters? Gibraltar – Territorial Waters (1 pg): ..."
"... Worse than the bad behavior of Bolton, and the poodle behavior of Britain, is the utter failure of our press to provide us a skeptical eye and honest look at events. They've been mere stenographers and megaphones for power doing wrong. ..."
"... And this just in. A UK government official has just stated, related to the Iranian tanker stopped near Gibraltar, the UK will not be part of Trump's 'maximum pressure' gambit on Iran. We shall see if Boris Johnson is for or against that policy. ..."
"... John Bolton, war criminal. ..."
"... John Bolton has been desperate for a war with Iran for decades. This is just another escalation in his desperate attempt to get one. He's the classic neocon chicken hawk who is bravely ready to risk and sacrifice other people's lives at the drop of a hat. ..."
"... Since UK is abusing its control of Gibraltar by behaving like a thug, maybe it is better for the international community to support an independent state of Gibraltar, or at least let Spain has it. It will be better for world peace. ..."
"... While I agree with the gist of the article, remember that Bolton has no authority except that which is given to him. So stop blaming Bolton. Blame Trump. ..."
"... The provocations will go on and on until Iran shoots back and then Wash. will get the war it's been trying to start for some time now to pay back all those campaign donors who will profit from another war. ..."
"... The MIC needs constant wars to use up munitions so new ones can be manufactured. It's really just about business and politicians working together for mutual benefit to keep those contributions coming in. With all the other issues facing America, a war with Iran will just add to the end of the USA which is coming faster than you think. ..."
Did John Bolton Light the Fuse of the UK-Iranian Tanker Crisis? Evidence suggests he pressured the Brits to seize an
Iranian ship. Why? More war. By Gareth
Porter •
July 23, 2019
While Iran's seizure of a British tanker near the Strait of Hormuz on Friday was a clear response to the British capture of an
Iranian tanker in the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4, both the UK and U.S. governments are insisting that Iran's operation was illegal
while the British acted legally.
The facts surrounding the British detention of the Iranian ship, however, suggest that, like the Iranian detention of the British
ship, it was an illegal interference with freedom of navigation through an international strait. And even more importantly, evidence
indicates that the British move was part of a bigger scheme coordinated by National Security Advisor John Bolton.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called the Iran seizure of the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero "unacceptable" and insisted
that it is "essential that freedom of navigation is maintained and that all ships can move safely and freely in the region."
But the British denied Iran that same freedom of navigation through the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4.
The rationale for detaining the Iranian vessel and its crew was that it was delivering oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions.
This was never questioned by Western news media. But a closer look reveals that the UK had no legal right to enforce those sanctions
against that ship, and that it was a blatant violation of the clearly defined global rules that govern the passage of merchant ships
through international straits.
The evidence also reveals that Bolton was actively involved in targeting the Grace 1 from the time it began its journey in May
as part of the broader Trump administration campaign of "maximum pressure" on Iran.
Contrary to the official rationale, the detention of the Iranian tanker was not consistent with the 2012 EU regulation on
sanctions against the Assad government in Syria. The
EU Council regulation in question
specifies in Article 35 that the sanctions were to apply only within the territory of EU member states, to a national or business
entity or onboard an aircraft or vessel "under the jurisdiction of a member state."
The UK government planned to claim that the Iranian ship was under British "jurisdiction" when it was passing through the Strait
of Gibraltar to justify its seizure as legally consistent with the EU regulation. A
maritime news outlet has reported that on July 3, the day before the seizure of the ship, the Gibraltar government, which has
no control over its internal security or foreign affairs, issued
a regulation to provide what it would claim
as a legal pretext for the operation. The regulation gave the "chief minister" of the British the power to detain any ship if there
were "reasonable grounds" to "suspect" that it had been or even that it was even "likely" to be in breach of EU regulations.
The notice required the Gibraltar government to detain any such ship for at least 72 hours if it entered "British Gibraltar
Territorial Waters." Significantly, however, the video statement
by Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo on July 4 explaining the seizure of the Grace 1 made no such claim and avoided any
mention of the precise location of the ship when it was seized.
There is a good reason why the chief minister chose not to draw attention to the issue of the ship's location: it is virtually
impossible that the ship was in British Gibraltar territorial waters at any time before being boarded. The UK claims
territorial waters of three nautical miles from its coast, whereas
the Strait of Gibraltar is 7.5 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point. That would make the limit of UK territory just north of
the middle of the Strait.
But international straits must have clearly defined and separated shipping lanes going in different directions. The Grace
1 was in the shipping lane heading east
toward the Mediterranean, which is south of the lane for ships heading west toward the Atlantic and thus clearly closer to the
coast of Morocco than to the coast of Gibraltar, as can be seen from this
live view of typical ship traffic
through the strait . So it is quite implausible that the Grace 1 strayed out of its shipping lane into British territorial waters
at any time before it was boarded.
But even if the ship had done so, that would not have given the UK "jurisdiction" over the Grace 1 and allowed it to legally
seize the ship. Such a move clearly violates the global treaty governing the issue -- the
United Nations Convention
on the Law of the Sea . Articles 37 through 44 of that agreement, ratified by 167 states, including the UK and the European Union,
establish a "regime of transit passage" for international straits like the Strait of Gibraltar that guarantees freedom of navigation
for merchant ships. The rules of that regime explicitly forbid states bordering the strait from interfering with the transit passage
of a merchant ship, with very narrowly defined exceptions.
These articles allow coastal states to adopt regulations relating to safety of navigation, pollution control, prevention of fishing,
and "loading or unloading any commodity in contravention of customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations" of bordering
states -- but for no other reason. The British seizure and detention of the Grace 1 was clearly not related to any of these concerns
and thus a violation of the treaty.
The evidence indicates, moreover, that the UK's actions were part of a broader scheme coordinated with the Trump administration
to tighten pressure on Iran's economy by reducing Iran's ability to export goods.
The statement by Gibraltar's chief minister said the
decision to seize the ship was taken after the receipt of "information" that provided "reasonable grounds" for suspicion that it
was carrying oil destined for Syria's Banyas refinery. That suggested the intelligence had come from a government that neither he
nor the British wished to reveal.
BBC defense correspondent Jonathan Beale reported: "[I]t appears
the intelligence came from the United States." Acting Spanish Foreign Minister Joseph Borrell commented on July 4 that the British
seizure had followed "a demand from the United States to the UK." On July 19, Reuters London correspondent Guy Falconbridge
reported , "[S]everal diplomatic sources said the United States asked the UK to seize the vessel."
Detailed evidence of Bolton deep involvement in the British plan to seize the Iranian tanker has surfaced in reporting on
the withdrawal of Panamanian flag status for the Grace 1.
Panama was the flag state for many of the Iranian-owned vessels carrying various items exported by Iran. But when the Trump administration
reinstated economic sanctions against Iran in October 2018, it included prohibitions on industry services such as insurance and reinsurance.
This decision was accompanied by
political pressure on Panama to withdraw Panamanian flag status from 59 Iranian vessels, many of which were owned by Iranian
state-affiliated companies. Without such flag status, the Iranian-owned vessels could not get insurance for shipments by freighter.
That move was aimed at discouraging ports, canal operators, and private firms from allowing Iranian tankers to use their facilities.
The State Department's Brian Hook, who is in charge of the sanctions,
warned those
entities last November that the Trump administration believed they would be responsible for the costs of an accident involving a
self-insured Iranian tanker.
But the Grace 1 was special case, because it still had Panamanian flag status when it began its long journey around the Southern
tip of Africa on the way to the Mediterranean. That trip began in late May, according to Automatic Identification System
data cited by Riviera Maritime Media . It was no coincidence that the Panamanian Maritime Authority
delisted the Grace 1 on May 29 -- just as the ship was beginning its journey. That decision came immediately after Panama's National
Security Council issued an alert
claiming that the Iranian-owned tanker "may be participating in terrorism financing in supporting the destabilization activities
of some regimes led by terrorist groups."
The Panamanian body did not cite any evidence that the Grace 1 had ever been linked to terrorism.
The role of Panama's National Security Council signaled Bolton's hand, since he would have been the point of contact with
that body. The result of his maneuvering was to leave the Grace 1 without the protection of flag status necessary to sail or visit
a port in the middle of its journey. This in conjunction with the British seizure of the ship was yet another episode in the extraordinary
American effort to deprive Iran of the most basic sovereign right to participate in the global economy.
Now that Iran has detained a British ship in order to force the UK to release the Grace 1, the British Foreign Ministry will claim
that its seizure of the Iranian ship was entirely legitimate. The actual facts, however, put that charge under serious suspicion.
Gareth Porter is an investigative reporter and regular contributor to The American Conservative . He is also the author
of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.
Honestly the Brits are such idiots, we lied them into a war once. They knew we were lying and went for it anyway. Now the are
falling for it again. Maybe it is May's parting gift to Boris?
Same EU legislation only forbids Syria exporting oil and not EU entities selling to Syria (albeit with some additional paperwork).
However, it doesn't forbid other non-EU states to sell oil to Syria. They are not behaving like the US. And this is also not UN
sanctioned. In fact, UK is also acting against the spirit of JPCOA towards Iran. Speak about Perfidious Albion (others would say
US lapdog).
Back in 2013 2013 there was a rumour afoot that Edward Snowden, who at the time was stuck in the Moscow airport, trapped
there by the sudden cancellation mid-flight of his US passport, was going spirited away by the President of Bolivia Evo Morales
aboard his private jet. So what the US apparently was lean on it European allies to stop him. This they duly and dutifully did.
Spain, France, and others denied overflight rights to the Bolivian jet, forcing it to turn back and land in Austria. There was
even a report that once on the ground, the Spanish ambassador to Austria showed up and asked the Bolivian president if he might
come out to the plain for a coffee--and presumably to have a poke around to see he could catch Snowden in the act of vanishing
into the cargo hold.
The rumor turned out to be completely false, but it was the Europeans who wound up with the egg on their face. Not to mention
the ones who broke international law.
Now we find that once again a European country had (apparently) gone out on a limb for the US--and wound up with egg on its
face for trying to show its loyalty to the US in an all-too-slavish fashion by doing America's dirty work.
Bolton persuaded the British to play along with the stupid US "maximum pressure" strategy, regardless of its illegality. (Maybe
the British government thought that it would placate Trump after Ambassadorgate.) And then of course Pompeo threw them under the
bus. It's getting hard to be a US ally (except for Saudi Arabia and Israel.)
The very fact that the UK tried to present its hijack of Iran Oil as an implementation of EU sanctions dovetail well with Bolton's
objective of creating another of those "international coalitions" without a UN mandate engaging in 'Crimes of Aggression".
The total lack of support from the EU for this UK hijack signals another defeat to both the UK and the neocons of America.
Too bad there isn't an international version of the ACLU to argue Iran's legal case before the EU body. What typically happens
is that Iran will refuse to send representation because that would in effect, acknowledge their authority. The EU will have a
Kangaroo court and enter a vacant decision. This has happened numerous times in the U.S.
Would anyone in the U.S. or EU recognize an Iranian court making similar claims? Speaking of which, the entire point of UN
treaties and international law is to prevent individual countries from passing special purpose legislation targeting specific
countries. Why couldn't Iran pass a law sanctioning EU vessels that tried to use their territorial waters, what is so special
about the EU, because it is an acronym?
Spain lodged a formal complaint about the action, because it considers the sea around Gibraltar to be part of its international
waters, "We are studying the circumstances and looking at how this affects our sovereignty," Josep Borell, Spain's acting foreign
minister, said. So Gibraltar or Spanish waters? Gibraltar – Territorial Waters (1 pg):
https://www.academia.edu/30...
Worse than the bad behavior of Bolton, and the poodle behavior of Britain, is the utter failure of our press to provide us
a skeptical eye and honest look at events. They've been mere stenographers and megaphones for power doing wrong.
Thanks for the investigative reporting. Trump has lied almost 11,000 times, so I think nobody expects the truth from The Trump
Administration anytime soon. Especially if it goes against the narrative.
And this just in. A UK government official has just stated, related to the Iranian tanker stopped near Gibraltar, the UK will
not be part of Trump's 'maximum pressure' gambit on Iran. We shall see if Boris Johnson is for or against that policy.
OK, so why did the Brits go along with it? Are they so stupid as to not figure out that Iran might respond in kind, or did the
Brits not also want war?
John Bolton has been desperate for a war with Iran for decades. This is just another escalation in his desperate attempt to
get one. He's the classic neocon chicken hawk who is bravely ready to risk and sacrifice other people's lives at the drop of a
hat.
Since UK is abusing its control of Gibraltar by behaving like a thug, maybe it is better for the international community to
support an independent state of Gibraltar, or at least let Spain has it. It will be better for world peace.
While I agree with the gist of the article, remember that Bolton has no authority except that which is given to him.
So stop blaming Bolton. Blame Trump.
The provocations will go on and on until Iran shoots back and then Wash. will get the war it's been trying to start for some time
now to pay back all those campaign donors who will profit from another war.
The MIC needs constant wars to use up munitions so
new ones can be manufactured. It's really just about business and politicians working together for mutual benefit to keep those
contributions coming in. With all the other issues facing America, a war with Iran will just add to the end of the USA which is
coming faster than you think.
Ukrainian nation is a separate nation with a distinct and rich culture. You can call them Southern Russians but still they are
distinct. That does not mean that Russian language should be suppressed and eliminated from schools, the policy
advocated and implemented by Western Ukrainian nationalists. a better policy would to introduce English language from the first
grade. Attempt to eliminate Russian is viewed by Eastern Ukrainians as the attempt of colonization (which it is) and in a
long run can have the opposite effect like any colonization project.
Two languages can coexist. Ireland and Canada does not stop being distinct countries because they use English language. And
very few people in Canada would support switching to French. Many prominent Russian writers have Ukrainian origin (Nikolai
Gogol, Mikhail Bulgakov). Elimination of Russian destroy
common cultural space (which enriches all participating nations not only Russia) establishing during the USSR years and
shrink this common the cultural space.which for Ukraine mean complete domination in Ukrainian cultural space of US culture and
Hollywood with all its excesses and warts.
The break of economic cooperation with Russia after EuroMaydan was Washington policy with willing implementers in the
face of comprador column (Yatsenyuk, Poroshenko) and Western Ukrainian nationalists, which run the
government after EuroMaydan. Among other thing this implies the attempt of colonization of Eastern Ukraine (via forceful Ukrainization) which
backfired with the election of Zelensky.
Notable quotes:
"... Zelensky is of Jewish heritage and from the east Ukraine. He speaks Russian, not Ukrainian. ..."
"... I doubt that Trump cares about Ukraine so the main supporter of the coup is not interested ..."
"... But Zelensky is a new guy without any tail moving into a poisonous and dangerous area without allies (other than the voters of course, but how many guns do they have?) ..."
"... Zelensky didn't 'accidentally' become president. He is a front for Kolomoisky who, amongst other things, wants revenge on Poroshenko. Kolomoisky had vaste swathes of property confiscated under Poroshenko. These were all returned a short while back. Kolomoisky probably wants to dump all post-Maidan stuff on Poroshenko, especially MH17 (which Kolomoisky stated to be 'a trifle' and 'the wrong plane was hit'). Lawsuits against Poroshenko have been started. What happens depends on how much loyalty Poroshenko can buy versus that bought by Kolomoisky. ..."
"... Helmer on Kolomoisky and the vast money stolen with collaboration of Lagarde and Clintons, and the resulting suit, which appears to be aimed at keeping Zelensky on the reservation... ..."
"... "A new Delaware state court filing a month ago, triggering new US media reports, appears to signal a shift in US Government policy towards Kolomoisky. Or else, as some Ukrainian policy experts believe, it is a move by US officials to put pressure on the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Kolomoisky supported in his successful election campaign to replace Poroshenko." ..."
"... It is interesting to read commenters not understanding the concept of colonial outposts like HK, SK, Japan and the attempts to make the Ukraine such. To empire they represent outposts to challenge the adjoining countries that are not part of empire. look at Puerto Rico. Empire favored it and even paid for citizens to go to college free.....until it didn't work to help make Cuba look bad....and so now it is being discarded like a dirty rag. ..."
"... The Gordian knot in Ukraine is that, after Maidan, the Ukrainian Armed Forces essentially dissolved. The neonazi militias then became the only enforcing power for whatever was left of the Ukrainian government -- that's why Poroshenko, albeit elected, could do nothing to stop those militias from doing whatever they pleased (even though he not being a neonazi himself). ..."
"... Ukraine's economy is in absolute tatters. The Ukrainian government just didn't completely dissolve after Maidan because the USA is using the IMF to artificially keep it afloat (which goes completely against the IMF chart, as was the case with Macri's Argentina, where even the legal borrowing limits were extrapolated by a more than 100% margin). ..."
"... Irrespective of evidence, this is Ukraine, and Kolomoisky's influence on Zelensky can safely be assumed. ..."
"... The issue with the association agreement offered by the EU was not just that it offered little. As I recall it meant access for all EU products to the post-Soviet trading block. There would be nothing to prevent EU exporting anything through Ukraine into Russia. ..."
"... Needless to say, Yanukovych's real options have never been discussed much, and Russia has been blamed for the EU's Economic trap. ..."
"... what does Ukraine have to offer Russia? Aside from putting some space between Russia and NATO, what is left of Ukraine after all of this that they can offer? ..."
"... The Soviet Union built up a large amount of high tech and high value industry in Ukraine, but most of that has rusted away since 1991. Russia has found or developed new sources for most of what they previously bought from Ukraine, and those sources are domestic so Russia is unlikely to trade them in for products made from neglected and mostly defunct Ukrainian industries. ..."
"... That Ukraine has to be considered as both a bridge and a no alliance's land between the West and Russia has always been a no-brainer to me ..."
"... As for Zelensky, he has the backing of the people, such a backing that a 3rd colour revolution would be immediately opposed by a bigger counter-manifestation. Besides, he should seek the backing of the rank and file of the Ukrainian army, just in case things go very badly with the fascists; considering his vast support among the people, the upper echelons of the military might not like or follow him, but if he gives orders, the core troopers would. ..."
"... "Revealing Ukraine" documentary aka "В борьбе за Украину" (which includes the interview in Kremlin released 19 July, minus the Skirpal comments) was released in Ukrainian and Russian, 17, 19 July. The version in those languages is eg here, https://my.mail.ru/mail/stelskov/video/235/5800.html ..."
"... "One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He will need their loyalty sooner than he might think." ..."
"... For newcomers, here is the TC-18-01, the American manual for Unconventional Warfare (published in 2010; leaked in 2012): Training">https://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf">Training Circular No. 18-01: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, For the color revolution manual, see Gene Sharp's famous book (From Dictatorship to Democracy, 1994). ..."
"... The Holodomor was real, but then again, so were Stalin's purges in that same era (a little later) and Stalin's ethnic forced migrations from 1930 to 1949. ..."
"... While this doesn't excuse these acts, people should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was under tremendous external and internal pressure at the time. Acts of economic warfare tend to be poorly documented in history - for example, China's famines in the 1960s were exacerbated by a US embargo on wheat imports to China. ..."
"... Ultimately, however, the main reason the Western Ukrainians don't like Russia is because they've always believed Ukraine should be a nation in its own right. The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS , no less. ..."
"... Pre 2014 the Chinese were attracted by the opportunity of a deep water port in Crimea, the sea is too shallow into Ukraine proper. ..."
"... Is it a feature of the "rules based international order" that unelected NGOs can establish "red-lines" on policy and expect adherence? ..."
"... What Ukraine has to offer, William Gruff, if the Biden clan has not stolen it, is some of the best agricultural land in the temperate world. ..."
"... there is the matter of saving those lands from the scourges of American agriculture-GMOs, Roundup et al. ..."
"... This is certainly true: the survivors of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division and their dependents, hangers on and sundry war criminals on the lam certainly came to Canada where they sold their votes en bloc to the Federal Liberal Party. In Alberta they came to control inter alia the University of Alberta. ..."
"... But long before these people came over immigration from Ukraine, including Mennonites, brought their traditional skills and agricultural knowledge to, most notably the Prairies. They knew about growing wheat in the climatic conditions here. They also brought traditions of collective organisation -- they tended to be very left wing, co-operators and were among the founders of the Communist Party and the CCF. ..."
"... "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?" They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to change. ..."
"... The main reason, but never disclosed by our corporate press in the West, was the total unacceptable ( hence fullty understandable) of an either/or demand choosing between EU and Russia cooperation btw the lines, as well as an article about military cooperation. Which of course would also exclude Russian partnership. ... that set the stage the humble and charming Mrs "Fuck EU" Nudelman and her cookies at Maidan square. ..."
"... The very fundamental principles of peace, understanding and cooperation of EU was betrayed by their President Baroso. When you add that to the financial rape of Greece by Goldman Sachs & co on his watch, one should think he deserved being executed for high treason! Civil war in Ukraine & and looting of the people of Greece... But guess what... He went directly from EU to .. GOLDMAN SACHS! ..."
"... I appreciate that good concise timeline and explanation of what has happened in Ukraine. I remember finding online a live 24/7 camera feed from Kiev during the Maidan coup, and the fascination but horror of watching the western backed Right Sector thugs wearing neo-nazi Wolfsangel insignias carry out atrocities in real time. ..."
"... Watching what happened live and then following western media disinformation and outright lies was the final slap in the face for me that the corporate media had finally given up any pretenses of journalistic standards. Winter 2013/2014 it finally gasped its last breath and the last nails were hammered into the coffin. From then on we've had non-stop blatantly false narratives presented, with the nutty bogus Russiagate fiction now consuming three years(!) of coverage. ..."
"... Zelensky himself had to brush up on his Ukrainian to be able to run a campaign, which he managed to do with his talents and scripts. ..."
"... Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. No. Ukraine is being run by it's West-leaning leadership and US/NATO is partnered with that leadership. I'm suggesting that Jews are among the most reliably pro-Western people in Ukraine. After all, the "Empire" that you refer to is known as the "Anglo-Zionist Empire". ..."
"... I recall watching the 2014 crisis and civil war in real time. Felt WW-III was upon us. Couldn't believe the outright lies of all Western media and was the straw that broke the back of any remaining faith I had in NYT, The Guardian, BBC, ABC (Australian) etc. The Odessa Massacre was biggest turning point for me. http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened/ ..."
"... In 2014, if I presented evidence against the official Western Ministry of Truth (yeah see the typo but seems worth leaving) on Ukraine I'd get a righteous backlash and called a Putin apologist etc. These days there's blank inward stare of cognitive dissonance, subtle agreement and desire to change topic. Such is the nature of Stockholm Syndrome. ..."
"... My understanding is that of Paora and bevin; there were famines in the Soviet Union, including in Ukraine. The Holodomor myth, if not started there, was massively promoted in the 30s by ... drumroll ... the Hearst empire. ..."
"... Note to snake: not 32 million, but around 5-7 million, probably laughable in itself. (A reference I found for the Ukraine SSR in the 1930s indicates that the population grew during the 1930-33 period, but that should probably be read with great care. It would probably require a study in itself.) ..."
"... On another, but not entirely irrelevant matter, I've always found this wikipedia entry to be vastly entertaining. It gives me a good chuckle to think of Ukrainization -- the promotion of Ukrainian language and culture -- as a communist plot. (It's not a perfect analogy, but it's close enough for a laugh, considering the present.) (And yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but their prejudices lean generally in the other direction.) ..."
"... The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak ..."
"... Russian is still spoken in large parts of Ukraine, including Odessa. The main tourist attraction in Odessa, a beach community known as Arcadia, still uses the Russian word at its entrance. Street signs are still in Russian. People speak Russian. ..."
"... The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language. Everyone must learn it. It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya. It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language whereby everyone in the country may communicate. There is nothing whatsoever radical or even unusual about this. ..."
"... As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption. Even Russians. I lived in Ukraine at that time - mostly in Sevastopol, which was then 90+% Russian (and of course now is part of Russia). Everybody hated him and thought he was utterly corrupt and stole from the people. His thugs would literally walk into a private business with guns and tell the owner "I am buying half your business for $50, here are the papers, sign them now". That is how he operated. Of course they did not want the L'viv folks staging a coup, but the hatred for the corrupt Yanukovych was truly national. ..."
"... All those who say that Zelenski is a puppet or front for Kolomoiski should remember that a certain VV Putin came to power as a puppet or front for Boris Berezovski. And we all know how that (BB) ended. So let's hope for the best - can't get much worse anyway. And Zelenski seems to have acted very smartly so far. Good luck to him - he'll need it! ..."
"... It's my understanding that those Ukrainians who most fervently believe in the Holodomor (that the Soviet govt under Joseph Stalin deliberately targeted ethnic Ukrainians with famine and starvation) live in that part of the modern Ukraine that was under fascist Polish rule in the 1930s. ..."
"... From my own reading, the famines of the early 1930s affected large parts of eastern Ukraine across southen European Russia into Kazakhstan. ..."
"... There's plenty of sources documenting the Ukrainian laws passed since 2014 prohibiting or restricting Russian language in various sectors, including official use, public education, even in films. b was correct in his assessment, and I have no idea where the "hate" accusation came from. I would normally not link to the awful Telegraph of UK, but I assume this story from just three months ago isn't fake news. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/25/ukraine-passes-law-against-russian-language-official-settings/ ..."
"... Most probably, Mariupol 2014-05-09. People wanted to celebrate V-Day, but "democratic" Oleg Lyashko and his "men in black" drove in at attacked demonstration. Local police tried to protect citizens and was ambushed in their own HQ (that very burning house), making last stand. ..."
"... Famines were common in the pre-industrial world. They occured often in the ancient world -- where cities and villages literally disappeared in a matter of decades because of one bad crop and/or one plague (plagues are a side-effect of sedentarism) ..."
"... Wheatcroft uses the 1920s demographic tendency in order to infer "excess deaths" in the USSR in 1932, but he misses the bigger picture: you have to take into account Russian demographic movements in the long term, taking into consideration the cyclic famines. Just to crop a short period from 1926-1932 is scientifically dishonest. ..."
"... It is very unlikely the 1932 famine was an extraordinary famine. The 1937 census registered a population growth in relation to 1926. This alone discards genocide, because, even though excess deaths ocurred (as is the rule in famines), that meant women still had time and resources to biologically reproduce above the population replacement levels. ..."
"... To understand the most important fact of what happened to Ukraine and why, you need to know about the yank neocon PNAC, which trumps (excuse the pun) all: The Project for the New American Century, and the original neocon (jew) wolfowitz doctrine, as revealed in the NYT in 1992: www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html ..."
"... Russia at the moment is correctly perceived as the main opponent to the usa, china too as upcoming, in line with the above, & PNAC is part of trying to keep Russia in its place: 'part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests."' And 'to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy'. And 'a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."' Note 'regional' insofar as it concerns Russia wrt ukraine. ..."
"... Also this is why the USG used Maidan (with at least $5 bn - said nuland/jewland, married to the co-founder of PNAC kagan, another jew) against Russia, to cause it problems and to be a thorn in the flesh. ..."
"... Recall the posters in previous threads defending the empire's color revolution attempts in Hong Kong and match the names up with posters here. Are they trying to offer defense of the empire's color revolutions in Ukraine, or do you think they are off-duty now and posting with the sincere intention of initiating open discussion? Do you honestly think you can change their minds by engaging with them and pointing out the flaws in their facts and their logic when it is their job to defend the actions of the empire? ..."
"... Too complex? Let's try the Maidan snipers: We are expected to believe that the killers were police or Berkut snipers. What was their motive? Presumably to stop the protests. If that was their motive, then why did the snipers stop sniping before dispersing the protests? If the snipers were trying to end the protests, then why did they shoot just enough to inflame further protests, but not enough to discourage the protests? ..."
"... The answer is simple: The police and/or Berkut were not the Maidan snipers in Kiev. The snipers were provocateurs who intended to amplify the protests. ..."
Ukraine Election - Voters Defeat Second Color RevolutionVanWoland , Jul 22
2019 18:55 utc |
1
The Ukraine, translated as 'the borderlands, lies between core Russia and the Europe's
western states. It is a split country. Half the population speaks Russian as its first
language. The industrialized center, east and south are culturally orthodox Russians. Some of
its rural western parts were attached to the Ukraine only after World War II. They have
historically a different culture.
The U.S., supported by the EU, used this split - twice - to instigate 'revolutions' that
were supposed to bring the Ukraine onto a 'western' course. Both attempts were defeated when
the Ukrainians had the chance of a free vote.
The 2004 run-off election for the president of the Ukraine was won by Viktor Yanukovych.
The U.S. disliked the result. Its proxies in Ukraine alleged alleged fraud and instigated a
color revolution. As a result of the 'Orange Revolution' the vote was re-run and the other
candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, was declared the winner. But five years later another vote
defeated the U.S. camp. Yanukovych was declared the winner and became president.
In 2014 the European Union made an attempt to bind the Ukraine to its side through an
association agreement. But what the EU offered to Ukraine was paltry and Russia countered it.
Unlike the Ukraine, which continues to get robbed by its oligarchs ever since its 1991
independence, Russia was economically back and in a much better position. It offered billions
in investments and long term loans. Much of Ukraine's industry depends on Russia and Russian
gas was offered to the Ukraine for less than the international market price. Yanukovych, who
originally wanted to sign the EU association, had no choice but to refuse it, and to take the
much better deal Russia offered.
The U.S. and the EU intervened. They again launched a color revolution, but this time it
was one that would use force. Militarily trained youth from Galicia in the west Ukraine was
bused into Kiev to occupy the central Maidan place and to violently fight the police. Snipers
from Georgia were brought in to fire on both sides. It was then
falsely
alleged that government forces were killing the 'peaceful protesters'.
Yanukovych lost his nerves and fled to Russia. After some
illegal political maneuvers new elections were called up and the oligarch Petro
Poroshenko, bought off by the 'west', was declared the winner. The unreconstructed fascists
from Galicia took over. The population in the industrial heartland in east Ukraine, next to
Russia's border, revolted against the new rulers. A civil war,
not a 'Russian
invasion' , ensued which the Ukrainian government largely lost. Lugansk and Donbas became
rebel controlled statelets which depend of Russia. Russia took back Crimea, which in 1954 had
been illegally gifted to Ukraine by then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, himself a
Ukrainian.
To end the war in the east Ukraine, the French, German and Russian leaders pressed
Poroshenko to sign a peace agreement with the eastern leaders. But the Minsk agreement was
seen as a political defeat and Poroshenko never implemented it. The war in the east simmered
on ever since. The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan
coup, prohibited the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak.
All opposition was harshly suppressed.
The oligarchs continue their plunder. Everything of value gets sold off to EU countries.
The U.S. is allowed to build bases. Corruption, already endemic, further increased. The
people came to despise Poroshenko.
In an attempt to regain support, Poroshenko
launched a military provocation in the Kerch Strait which is under Russian control. The
stunt
was too obvious . Russia nabbed the sailors Poroshenko had send and confiscated their
boats. No one came to Poroshenko's help.
One can watch the full story of the above in UKRAINE ON FIRE - The Real Story (vid), a
just released 90 minutes long Oliver Stone documentary. An updated version of the documentary
was supposed to run on the Ukraine TV station of pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. The
TV stations was
forced to cancel it after right-wing groups mortared its its building in Kiev.
On March 31 new elections were held. Volodymyr Zelensky, a TV comedian who played a
teacher who accidentally became president, won the first round. Zelensky is of Jewish
heritage and from the east Ukraine. He speaks Russian, not Ukrainian.
An admirable summary.
What's next? There are three causes for cautious optimism
1. The elections were actually allowed to happen without Washington's interference; see 2
2. I doubt that Trump cares about Ukraine so the main supporter of the coup is not
interested
3. EU has its own problems.
But Zelensky is a new guy without any tail moving into a poisonous and dangerous area
without allies (other than the voters of course, but how many guns do they have?)
But you're absolutely correct to see this as the voters gain rejecting a "colour
revolution"imposed from outside
Fine work here, Bernhard. Analysis as clear and cool as a mountain stream.
And now for the march of the Fascists led by the Iron Maidan of Galicia, Chrystia Freeland
employing all Canada's power and credibility to restore the Galician Nazis from whose loins
she came.
Excellent review b, thanks! With the political sea change, Ukraine has an opportunity to
progress, but somehow those pushing and believing their false narrative will need to be
neutralized. It appears the best way forward is to implement the Minsk2 agreements and go
forward from there.
Zelensky didn't 'accidentally' become president. He is a front for Kolomoisky who, amongst
other things, wants revenge on Poroshenko. Kolomoisky had vaste swathes of property
confiscated under Poroshenko. These were all returned a short while back. Kolomoisky probably
wants to dump all post-Maidan stuff on Poroshenko, especially MH17 (which Kolomoisky stated
to be 'a trifle' and 'the wrong plane was hit'). Lawsuits against Poroshenko have been
started. What happens depends on how much loyalty Poroshenko can buy versus that bought by
Kolomoisky.
Kolomoisky will be looking for alternative sources of loot (eg reconstruction funds) which
will only happen if the Donbass situation is wound down. Zelensky has unexpectedly announced
that there will be a political solution to the issue of Russian sailors captured before the
Kerch incident (and one factor in Russia's response to it) in exchange for those held in
Russia. For all this to happen, the neo-Nazis will have to be defused, which may not be as
difficult as it would appear as they are funded and orchestrated by the Ukraine
oligarchs.
Helmer on Kolomoisky and the vast money stolen with collaboration of Lagarde and Clintons,
and the resulting suit, which appears to be aimed at keeping Zelensky on the reservation...
"A new Delaware state court filing a month ago, triggering new US media reports, appears
to signal a shift in US Government policy towards Kolomoisky. Or else, as some Ukrainian
policy experts believe, it is a move by US officials to put pressure on the new Ukrainian
President, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom Kolomoisky supported in his successful election campaign
to replace Poroshenko."
It is interesting to read commenters not understanding the concept of colonial outposts
like HK, SK, Japan and the attempts to make the Ukraine such. To empire they represent outposts to challenge the adjoining
countries that are not part of empire.
look at Puerto Rico. Empire favored it and even paid for citizens to go to college
free.....until it didn't work to help make Cuba look bad....and so now it is being discarded
like a dirty rag.
Ukraine needed to get out of the rut it has been in and look forward somehow, even if there
are no great changes that happen in the country, much of the previous political heaviness
seem gone, for now at least. It should be a good difference. Thanks for the report.
The Gordian knot in Ukraine is that, after Maidan, the Ukrainian Armed Forces essentially
dissolved. The neonazi militias then became the only enforcing power for whatever was left of
the Ukrainian government -- that's why Poroshenko, albeit elected, could do nothing to stop
those militias from doing whatever they pleased (even though he not being a neonazi himself).
Zelensky will have the same problem: he can pass how much bills he wants -- only those who
the neonazi militias want to be implemented will be enforced. He needs to assemble a brand
new Armed Forces -- with amateur volunteers if necessary -- if he wants to survive: his
Jewish origin alone is already a death certificate for him in the eyes of the neonazis.
The other ace Zelensky has in his hand is the Donbass (Lughansk + Donestk). Those happen
to be the most pro-Russian provinces and also, by far, the two most rich and industrialized
ones. To make things even better, they also happen to be the two provinces that border with
Russia. This peculiar geopolitic configuration is a gift of destiny that, for example,
Brazil, didn't have.
Ukraine's economy is in absolute tatters. The Ukrainian government just didn't completely
dissolve after Maidan because the USA is using the IMF to artificially keep it afloat (which
goes completely against the IMF chart, as was the case with Macri's Argentina, where even the legal borrowing limits were
extrapolated by a more than 100% margin). Russia just needs to wait.
Note: as for the toppled Lenin statues. Please, continue: in one of his birthdays, the
Soviet population made a mass homage to him, gathering in the Red Square and writing him
poems. He was very embarrassed and hated it -- his rationalization was that the Revolution's
main actor was the poeple, not him, and that personality cult was the wrong way to perceive
reality of the times.
2 quibbles. Irrespective of evidence, this is Ukraine, and Kolomoisky's influence on Zelensky
can safely be assumed.
The issue with the association agreement offered by the EU was not just that it offered
little. As I recall it meant access for all EU products to the post-Soviet trading block.
There would be nothing to prevent EU exporting anything through Ukraine into Russia. This is
why the Russians expected to be part of a negotiating group, and why eventually Yanukovych
belatedly realised that EU association would lead direct to dissociation with ex-Soviet
trading partners and an economic catastrophe for Ukraine. Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev
as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to realise the blatantly obvious.
Needless to say, Yanukovych's real options have never been discussed much, and Russia has
been blamed for the EU's Economic trap.
Thing is, in Ukraine as much as in the US, EU, India, or wherever: For a Politician to make a
campaign for a high political position, let alone the highest, one NEEDS Money.
And where is a someone financing a politician, they make themselves vurnable. Thats the
nature of it: No one will give you even a penny, let alone dozens of millions of dollars, if
not for something in return.
So someone HAS to put the money into him, and Kolomoisky is reported not only by NATO, but by
Russian sources too.
Why do i say this? Because i want to have my point that everyone is corrupt, and the world
is dystopia. No, not today:
It is because those "civil organisations" already hinted, that they use Kolomoisky's
financing as the attack vector, should the Ukraine dare to stray off from NATO course.
They said something of the likes of: "We heard of the allegations that Kolomoisky is
having him in his pocket, and we always want to ensure that politics are not corrupted, so we
will watch it". They said that AFAIK some days before the recent threath, so maybe there has
been some signs he does not want to play ball with NATO.
But we will see.. With the US you never know, even more with Donald and his best buddy
neocons.
b says: "The Ukraine can not economically survive without good relations with Russia."
That is true, but what does Ukraine have to offer Russia? Aside from putting some space
between Russia and NATO, what is left of Ukraine after all of this that they can offer?
The
Soviet Union built up a large amount of high tech and high value industry in Ukraine, but
most of that has rusted away since 1991. Russia has found or developed new sources for most
of what they previously bought from Ukraine, and those sources are domestic so Russia is
unlikely to trade them in for products made from neglected and mostly defunct Ukrainian
industries.
Ukraine can go crawling back home to Russia (home being the place where they take you back
in even after you've been a total jerk), but there will be no massive bailout and magical
recovery. Eastern Ukraine will benefit from a peace dividend, but western Ukraine will have
to be satisfied with European sex tourism, with Lvov remaining the gay prostitute capital of
the continent.
@B: One Correction if i see it right: I think linked Documentary "Ukraine on fire" is NOT the
new one, he already made a doc about Ukraine some time ago, and this is it.
The new one is Not released yet, i mean the one with the Interview you posted few days ago.
The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released.
Search your torrent search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on
youtube yet AFAIK.
Sorry, last post: Please barflies, for those you want to support those documentarys, vote for
them on IMDB and write reviews if you saw them. They are being attacked from NATO bots and
voted down to C-Movie level. If you dont want BS like Fast & Furious have better ranking
as those anti-mainstream docs, please take your time and support them!
They are pretty much the only documentarys in mainstream US media that tell the other side!
That Ukraine has to be considered as both a bridge and a no alliance's land between the West
and Russia has always been a no-brainer to me. One that should be imposed from outside if
necessary, if some Ukrainians are foolish enough to pick a side - and, considering its
geographical position, specially if some Ukrainians people want to move "West" full speed
ahead, because the border with Russia will always be there.
As for Zelensky, he has the backing of the people, such a backing that a 3rd colour
revolution would be immediately opposed by a bigger counter-manifestation. Besides, he should
seek the backing of the rank and file of the Ukrainian army, just in case things go very
badly with the fascists; considering his vast support among the people, the upper echelons of
the military might not like or follow him, but if he gives orders, the core troopers would.
For example, I believe that Russians and Ukrainians are actually one people.
Putin adds that it's inevitable that Ukraine will eventually return to good relations with
Russia.
Look, when these lands that are now the core of Ukraine, joined Russia, there were just
three regions – Kiev, the Kiev region, northern and southern regions – nobody
thought themselves to be anything but Russians, because it was all based on religious
affiliation. They were all Orthodox and they considered themselves Russians. They did not
want to be part of the Catholic world, where Poland was dragging them.
Putin is correct, as usual. He is playing the Long Game, just as China has done with Hong
Kong and continues to do with Taiwan. The empire always uses divide and rule. But in the end, empires always bite the dust.
In Ukrainian politics my preferences are with the present Russian viewpoint and not at all
with the Ukrainian Nazis.
Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of
1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.
"Revealing Ukraine" documentary aka "В борьбе
за Украину" (which includes the
interview in Kremlin released 19 July, minus the Skirpal comments) was released in Ukrainian
and Russian, 17, 19 July. The version in those languages is eg here,
https://my.mail.ru/mail/stelskov/video/235/5800.html
b said; "One hopes that Zelensky is smart enough to foresee a "third Maidan". He should kick
out all of them from the police and other forces. He should also raise the police pay. He
will need their loyalty sooner than he might think."
We'll all hope for the Zelensky people to salvage some sanity from another round of the
empire's attacks. They'll never relent.
One would hope the Stone documentary would be seen here, in the U$A, but that's a distant
dream. Should at least be on PBS, but, I doubt it.
As always b, thanks for the therapy, and historical background...
For newcomers, here is the TC-18-01, the American manual for Unconventional Warfare
(published in 2010; leaked in 2012):
Training">https://nsnbc.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/special-forces-uw-tc-18-01.pdf">Training
Circular No. 18-01: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare, For the color revolution manual, see Gene Sharp's famous book (From Dictatorship to
Democracy, 1994).
When used at the same time in the same place, they form what Korybko calls Hybrid Warfare
(see his book).
The Holodomor was real, but then again, so were Stalin's purges in that same era (a little
later) and Stalin's ethnic forced migrations from 1930 to 1949.
While this doesn't excuse these acts, people should keep in mind that the Soviet Union was
under tremendous external and internal pressure at the time. Acts of economic warfare tend to
be poorly documented in history - for example, China's famines in the 1960s were exacerbated
by a US embargo on wheat imports to China.
Ultimately, however, the main reason the Western Ukrainians don't like Russia is because
they've always believed Ukraine should be a nation in its own right. The large contingent of
Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign minister, were fighting
for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under
the SS , no less.
Some allege that Zelensky is under influence of the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky. But so far
there is little evidence to provide that.... Zelensky will likely try to move the country
back to a balanced positions between the 'west' and Russia.
There's reason to be skeptical.
Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish).
President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish). Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country? I'll
bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.
"Yats is the guy" ... until he isn't but will the new guy bring real change or just
pretend to?
Not just a bridge between Russia and the EU, the natural partnership that the US really
fears, but, look at the geography, it is the natural entry point into Europe for the new Silk
Road from China. Pre 2014 the Chinese were attracted by the opportunity of a deep water port
in Crimea, the sea is too shallow into Ukraine proper.
"Nevertheless, in these discussions there is never a mention of the Ukrainian Holodomor of
1932-1933 that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians..."
The 'Holodomor' was not real. No such event occurred. There was no intention of starving
Ukrainians, on the part of the CPSU. In fact most of the Soviet Union suffered from famines
in these years, some regions much more than Ukraine. The causes of the famine were largely
economic sanctions.
It is quite true that the Collectivisation campaigns were, in many ways disastrous, and
carried out with great violence. But the Holodomor myth, invented by Nazi collaborators after
1945 and based on Goebbels's propaganda is Cold War anti-communist hate propaganda of the
worst kind.
Wikipedia is extremely unreliable on matters such as this.
2.As to comedians running governments Hoarsewhisperer, don't forget Italy.
3. What Ukraine has to offer, William Gruff, if the Biden clan has not stolen it, is some
of the best agricultural land in the temperate world. At a time in which the USA's ability to
dump grain on the world market is being employed to conduct terrorist economic warfare
against disobedient countries, the surpluses Ukraine could make available are of cardinal
importance. Then there is the matter of saving those lands from the scourges of American
agriculture-GMOs, Roundup et al.
" The large contingent of Ukrainians in Canada, for example and including its present foreign
minister, were fighting for the Germans against Russia in World War 2 under the SS, no
less."
c1ue@26
This is certainly true: the survivors of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division and their
dependents, hangers on and sundry war criminals on the lam certainly came to Canada where
they sold their votes en bloc to the Federal Liberal Party. In Alberta they came to control
inter alia the University of Alberta.
But long before these people came over immigration from Ukraine, including Mennonites,
brought their traditional skills and agricultural knowledge to, most notably the Prairies.
They knew about growing wheat in the climatic conditions here.
They also brought traditions of collective organisation -- they tended to be very left wing,
co-operators and were among the founders of the Communist Party and the CCF. It was with
great relish that the Liberal Party used the former (and lifelong) Nazis to saplit the
community post 1945.
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"
They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks behind
you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now going to
change.
re "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the
country?"
(a) Is it true that the population of Ukraine is .2% Jewish?
(b) Is it true that the .2% segment runs the country?
(c) Is it considered racist to ask why you find the two subject sentences indications of
racism?
However, for sake of good order, the EU association agreement proposal to Ukraine of Mr
Baroso, was presented and rejected by Janukovitch beginning of November 2013. ( not 2014).
The main reason, but never disclosed by our corporate press in the West, was the total
unacceptable ( hence fullty understandable) of an either/or demand choosing between EU and
Russia cooperation btw the lines, as well as an article about military cooperation. Which
of course would also exclude Russian partnership. ... that set the stage the humble and
charming Mrs "Fuck EU" Nudelman and her cookies at Maidan square.
The very fundamental principles of peace, understanding and cooperation of EU was betrayed by
their President Baroso. When you add that to the financial rape of Greece by Goldman Sachs
& co on his watch, one should think he deserved being executed for high treason! Civil
war in Ukraine & and looting of the people of Greece... But guess what... He went
directly from EU to .. GOLDMAN SACHS!
I appreciate that good concise timeline and explanation of what has happened in Ukraine. I
remember finding online a live 24/7 camera feed from Kiev during the Maidan coup, and the
fascination but horror of watching the western backed Right Sector thugs wearing neo-nazi
Wolfsangel insignias carry out atrocities in real time. I searched in vain a couple years
later to find the archives of these films. Does anyone know if they still exist? I suspect if
the filming was done by a coup-friendly Kiev TV station they will be kept under wraps unless
some viewer recorded them, as there is a lot of incriminating evidence which could be
exposed.
Watching what happened live and then following western media disinformation and outright
lies was the final slap in the face for me that the corporate media had finally given up any
pretenses of journalistic standards. Winter 2013/2014 it finally gasped its last breath and
the last nails were hammered into the coffin. From then on we've had non-stop blatantly false
narratives presented, with the nutty bogus Russiagate fiction now consuming three years(!) of
coverage.
Here's hoping the pendulum has swung and we'll reclaim some sanity. Current trends don't
favor this, however, and the US may go for the Samson option before conceding to a more
multi-polar world. A smart lady (my wife) says we need 10% of people to accept a new idea or
narrative before a critical mass can occur and it become the dominant narrative. The more
people who understand the issues MOA and others educate about gives us a chance of countering
the Empire's narrative control. Thanks to all for spreading the message and keep sharing with
your friends.
"Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?"
They aren't, Jackrabbit. Grow up, for Christ's sake, and put these cheap racist cracks
behind you. Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. God willing that is now
going to change.
No, he does not just say "Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they
running the country?". He says:
Nuland (Jewish) picks Yats (rumored to be Jewish). Yats is succeeded by Groysman (Jewish).
President Poroschenko (Jewish) is succeeded by Zelinski (Jewish).
Jewish population of Ukraine is 0.2% of the whole! Why are they running the country?
I'll bet it's because Jewish support for integration with the West is very strong.
You can't ignore this "interesting" "fact" if it's the fact.
@21 and @26 - regarding the Holodomor, It is true. Millions of people did die, but from what
I can tell, it was a lot more complicated than how it is presented. Here's an article I found
on Counterpunch Holodomor
I am no specialist or anything, but I think the collectivization was a disaster and the war
on the kulaks didn't help anything, and that lead to the Holodomor which is more
genocide-porn used for the same purposes as a few other large scale killings I have heard
about - to make sure we never forget, and more importantly, we never really find out what
really happened, because it is S A C R E D.
I just finished an excellent book on the Ukraine crisis. Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New
Cold War by Kees Van Der Pijl. In the book he says that the Holodomor was used by the Reagan
administration in the second phase of the Cold War as a tool to demonize the Soviet Union.
Sound Familiar? The author says the second phase of the Cold War was launched when detente
was broken with the Soviet Union, any concessions made to domestic labor in the west was to
be dismantled and the goal was regime change in Moscow which happened in 1991. The author
really lays it out and explained the new, third phase of the Cold War which really kicked
into gear in Kiev in the winter or 2014. I found that to be very interesting. I had never
heard it put that way before.
I can't recommend the book enough.
I just started Frontline Ukraine by Sakwa.
Thank you, B and everyone in the MoA community. Please forgive any mistakes I may have made
in describing my interpretation of van Der Pijl's book.
Ukraine is such a unique disaster of a nation precisely because it is not really a nation at
all, just a cobbled together mishmash of people with no history. There is no such thing as a
Ukrainian ethnicity. Ukrainians are ethnic Russians, remnants of the poor souls conquered by
the Poles after the Mongol invasion and treated like dirt for centuries. All through that
horrid time they preserved their identity as Russian, but when the Polish state was removed
from the map, bitter Polish academics pushed the tale that these people were somehow separate
from Russians, i.e. Russia had no right to it's retaken territory. This new foreign composed
identity was forced on them by both carrot and stick in the Austrian Empire, that occupied
Galicia...leading to concentration camps for those who resisted it in WWI. And the saddest
part of the tragedy was when the Soviets founded a Ukrainian republic, lending undeserved
credence to this farce. There is no wonder the country is such a schizophrenic failure. They
have no clear identity and their recent history is nothing but sniveling shame. What is
really the difference between groveling before Nazi invaders or groveling before Nato
invaders? Not much, and the end is the same.
I think over 20% of Ukraine's population is "not Ukrainian".
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 22 2019 21:59 utc | 28
It is quite complicated. For example, Zelensky himself had to brush up on his Ukrainian to
be able to run a campaign, which he managed to do with his talents and scripts. His first
language is Russian, and ancestry... Khazarian? If I recall, he shares first language,
hometown and ancestry with Kolomoysky who was also his employer. What I am trying to say is
that national identification is fluid in this region. You may have Russian nationalists who
speak Ukrainian dialect at home, Ukrainian nationalists with rather incomplete knowledge of
"their language" and many other combinations. That said, Ukrainian is a separate language
that may be hard to understand by someone who knows only Polish or only Russian (but rather
intelligible if you know both).
Occasionally I follow news on RusNext.ru, a news site that seems to be run by Donbass
supporters who fluently translate from Ukrainian and, I guess, use Ukrainian words here and
there.
BTW, the history of Ukraine is quite complicated, including "Polish Conquest" that in
actuality happened as very complex cleaving and coalescing of fragmented states with key
dynasties leaving no descendants BOTH in Poland and the Kingdom of Halich thus leaving both
to the rule of a Hungarian king, to be later partitioned between his two daughters, while the
less populated part of Ukraine was taken over by Lithuanians who had hard time defending
their holdings from Tatars etc. After that, the polity of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
adopted Polish as the common language of nobility, so most of the "cruel Polish lords" that
Ukrainians fought with in 17th century were of Ruthenian (Russian?) origin, some claiming
descent from Rurik (i.e. from the common dynasty of Rus lands). Compare with Irish and
Scottish nobility adopting a Saxon-French mix as their vernacular (now known as English).
I was just discovering the importance of internet world news information when the Maidan
crisis unfolded, and many Ukrainians were putting photos and videos on various blogs about
the horrible events leading up to and following the coup. Russia has made huge strides since
- but we cannot forget that ordinary people who had the ability to send out information as it
happened were to be highly praised for doing so. It wasn't sophisticated, I remember in one
city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the street, showing bodies
on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through the streets - vivid
shots of buildings on fire, a protest by a woman with a toddler at a speechgiving occasion.
Unforgettable.
Ukraine should be proud of being the historic heart of Russia itself, the place where the
State began. That's what Putin is talking about, and even more than Crimea Kiev is the
historical homeland capital city for all Russians; it's part of their heritage. It's as if
separatists in the US got themselves embedded in New York City and declared their
independence of the rest of the country, being more aligned with Canada. (Oh, and everyone in
that northern area now had to speak French.)
Wikipedia
tells us that Jews are 0.2% of the population in Ukraine.
'Jewish' is not a race. It's a religion. Do you think that Israel is a country for
semetic people ? LOL. No, it's a theocracy.
Ukraine is being run by the US and NATO, the Empire. No. Ukraine is being run by it's West-leaning leadership and US/NATO is partnered with
that leadership. I'm suggesting that Jews are among the most reliably pro-Western people in
Ukraine. After all, the "Empire" that you refer to is known as the "Anglo-Zionist
Empire".
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Leads me to wonder if the State Department's recent global antisemitism efforts are mostly
aimed at Ukraine.
If Ukraine itself made such efforts/expenditures it might would draw a backlash from the
Ukrainian people. So the US does it and slyly declares it to be global so no one
notices that it's directed at certain countries (mostly Ukraine?) that have Jewish leadership
that's backed by US/NATO.
As part of the effort to take over Ukraine, US/NATO forged an anti-Russian alliance that
included the anti-Jewish extreme-right in Ukraine as described by
Ukraine and the "Politics of Anti-Semitism" (2014) :
The US and the EU are supporting the formation of a coalition government integrated by
Neo-Nazis which are directly involved in the repression of the Ukrainian Jewish
community.
. . .
Within the Western media, news coverage of the Neo-Nazi threat to the Jewish community in
Ukraine is a taboo. There is a complete media blackout: confirmed by Google News search ...
What is not mentioned is that these "radical elements" supported and financed by the West
are Neo-Nazis who are waging a hate campaign against Ukraine's Jewish community.
. . .
According to the JP [Jerusalem Post] , the issue is one of "transition", which will
be resolved once a new government is installed .
"Despite his [Likhashov's] optimism fear pervades the local Jewish community, as it
does the entire Ukraine, during the transition period."
No doubt Jews would not feel safe with rightists leading the government so arrangements
were made (Democracy Works! LOL). We can surmise that the US State Dept has now
formalized this with funding for a propaganda campaign that seeks to change their views
and/or political slush fund to ensure election of Jewish candidates to high office?
Acar@39 The Globalists/Zionists Good 'Ole Pale of (re)Settlement included Crimea, home of the
Karaites, hence manipulation of the Rusyns, and Neo-fascist Galicians & Podolians. A
strange ethnic Divide et Impera nexus for sure..
"The pneumatics ("spiritual", from Greek πνεῦμα, "spirit")
were, in Gnosticism, the highest order of humans, the other two orders being psychics and
hylics ("matter"). A pneumatic saw itself as escaping the doom of the material world via the
transcendent knowledge of Sophia's Divine Spark within the soul."
No one is disputing that famines occurred in Soviet Ukraine. These famines also occurred
in Belarus and Russia. The extent to which the harsh form of collectivisation institutioned
under Stalin contributed as opposed to climatic and other factors (Western sanctions, crop
destroying pests etc) is a matter for debate. Grover Furr argues the latter forcefully in
'Blood Lies' (2014). The term "Holodomor" refers to an intentional policy of genocide against
the "Ukrainian Nation" by evil Russians/Commies/Jews via intentional starvation. As bevin @32
points out, this concept originated in Nazi ideology. So yes, famine(s) occurred, but the
"Holodomor" did not.
As for the author of the Counterpunch piece, Louis Proyect, he is an imperial apologist of
the worst sort who delights in trolling any forum where anti-imperialists gather. If this
appears to be an Ad Hominum attack, I think you have to be human to be a victim of one of
those.
I also can't recommend the Van der Pijl book enough. Usually if I see a book recommended
by someone who also links to a Louis Proyect article I would avoid it like the plague, but
barflies please don't be discouraged! Van der Pijl is one of the premier exponents of
(non-sectarian) Marxist International Relations, if you've been put off reading Marxist
authors thanks to the likes of Proyect he is the perfect antidote. His "Global Rivalries -
From The Cold War to Iraq" (2007) is also excellent, I would recommend you track that down if
Sakwa has nothing much to add.
Global Research has an extract from "Flight MH17, Ukraine and the New Cold War" here:
Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Prime minister
. . .
He has played down his Jewish-Ukrainian origins , possibly because of the prevalence
of antisemitism in his party's western Ukraine heartland.
Yatsenyuk resigned in disgrace in April 2016 amid a massive corruption scandal that
first broke in February, when economy minister Aivaras Abromavicius stepped down,
complaining that the Yatsenyuk government was not genuinely committed to fighting
corruption .
One of the many corrupt projects was Yats' border wall, which critics have said
"wouldn't even stop a rabbit." LOL.
The new one will be named Revealing Ukraine, and is just released. Search your torrent
search engine or tracker of choice for it for a HD release. Not on youtube yet AFAIK.
I just downloaded but got the Russian version without subtitles. I am unable to find the
English version. For those that understand Russian, the magnet link for the download is:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:cbfd33adbd1d2bf3d48aade83a60507fe9f74241
If anyone can find the English version, please post the magnet link or infohash value, but I
guess it has not yet been released.
by: bevin @ 32 < i am particularly interested to know the source of that 1932-1933
Holodomor propaganda.. .. claiming, not merely alleging, the genocidal deaths of 32 million
Ukrainians.. Seems to me these fake claims that appear everywhere, have generally the same
general sources, but are leaked at different places, in different formats, by different
faces.. .. ?
I would like to see if it is possible to prove the source to be a coordinated
amalgam of persons, and more particularly I am looking for the individual names that produce
fake propaganda for a living, where did they study, who trained them, who hired them and so
on.. Seems to me preparing, engineering or delivering fake anything that causes, or leads to
war and death and destruction is a crime against humanity (CAH) with universal application
because CAHs infringe inalienable human rights. There is a great need to make functional, on
a world wide basis, the ICC.. Additionally the ICC cases have the potential to deliver the
truth to History.
Iran, Russian, North Korea and China are positioned to impose ICC court jurisdiction,
Nuclear Non Weapon Proliferation, and 3 vetos required to overrule the findings and mandates
of a majority determination of the UN Security Council on all leaders and all nations and
ruling bodies in the world. War, and in fact the decimation and destruction of the universe,
is possible because these holes in the enforceable rule by law system exist. Fixing these
three holes could have a massive long term effect on the peace and income distribution
throughout the entire globe.
A forth such thing would be to internationalize all resources in the world, and to
allocate ownership to them based on population and finally, the most important change of all,
would be to internationalize education.. to grant one degree for all undergraduate education
based on international subject matter examinations ( does not matter where or how the
knowledge to pass is obtained, so universities and tutors can still play a massive part in
instructing the masses), and one professional degree in law, one in medicine and one in
engineering.. everyone would have to pass examinations and prove fluency in at least three
culturally different, geographically different languages, and prove competency in mathematics
at the differential and integral calculus level to be eligible to sit for an undergraduate
degree and lawyers, doctors, scientist and engineers would be eligible to practice anywhere
in the world, subject only to credential free, local regulation imposed because of local
experience. Local regulation <= not supported by local experience would be overturned.
None of this requires, demands, or needs a king or a president, it just needs to be a part of
the human experience in the earth environment.
Great summary b.
Needed somebody to just spell it out.
I recall watching the 2014 crisis and civil war in real time. Felt WW-III was upon us.
Couldn't believe the outright lies of all Western media and was the straw that broke the back
of any remaining faith I had in NYT, The Guardian, BBC, ABC (Australian) etc.
The Odessa Massacre was biggest turning point for me.http://stormcloudsgathering.com/the-odessa-massacre-what-really-happened/
There's far more evidence Ukraine shot down MH17 than the Donbas rebels did. Go to
www.consortiumnews.com and search 'MH17'
Talking with friends something has shifted for the average Joe and Jane. In 2014, if I
presented evidence against the official Western Ministry of Truth (yeah see the typo but
seems worth leaving) on Ukraine I'd get a righteous backlash and called a Putin apologist
etc. These days there's blank inward stare of cognitive dissonance, subtle agreement and
desire to change topic. Such is the nature of Stockholm Syndrome.
@21 David Park, @26 c1ue, @32 bevin, @34 Ghost Ship, @41 roza shanina, @54 Paora, @58 snake
My understanding is that of Paora and bevin; there were famines in the Soviet Union,
including in Ukraine. The Holodomor myth, if not started there, was massively
promoted in the 30s by ... drumroll ... the Hearst empire.That alone should
tell you something of its reliability. Proyect's piece is interesting, but it doesn't touch
on the Western creation of the "Holodomor," the myth itself of the Soviet
genocide aimed at Ukrainians.
Unfortunately, I'm unable right now to put my hands/keyboard on a good reference for this.
If I'm able to locate one, I'll put it in a comment in an open thread.
Note to snake: not 32 million, but around 5-7 million, probably laughable in itself. (A
reference I found for the Ukraine SSR in the 1930s indicates that the population
grew during the 1930-33 period, but that should probably be read with great
care. It would probably require a study in itself.)
* * * *
On another, but not entirely irrelevant matter, I've always found this wikipedia entry to
be vastly entertaining. It gives me a good chuckle to think of Ukrainization -- the promotion
of Ukrainian language and culture -- as a communist plot. (It's not a perfect analogy, but
it's close enough for a laugh, considering the present.) (And yes, I know it's Wikipedia, but
their prejudices lean generally in the other direction.)
The extreme right-wing politicians, who gained notoriety after the Maidan coup, prohibited
the use of the Russian language which more than 50% of the Ukrainians speak.
That's a bald-faced lie. Russian is still spoken in large parts of Ukraine,
including Odessa. The main tourist attraction in Odessa, a beach community known as Arcadia,
still uses the Russian word at its entrance. Street signs are still in Russian. People speak
Russian.
The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language. Everyone must learn it. It is
the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya. It is in the nature of a
country to have a universal language whereby everyone in the country may communicate. There
is nothing whatsoever radical or even unusual about this.
Stop spreading hate and lies. This is utter nonsense.
As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption. Even Russians.
I lived in Ukraine at that time - mostly in Sevastopol, which was then 90+% Russian (and of
course now is part of Russia). Everybody hated him and thought he was utterly corrupt and
stole from the people. His thugs would literally walk into a private business with guns and
tell the owner "I am buying half your business for $50, here are the papers, sign them now".
That is how he operated. Of course they did not want the L'viv folks staging a coup, but the
hatred for the corrupt Yanukovych was truly national.
You don't do anyone any favors by publishing lies.
All those who say that Zelenski is a puppet or front for Kolomoiski should remember that a
certain VV Putin came to power as a puppet or front for Boris Berezovski. And we all know how
that (BB) ended. So let's hope for the best - can't get much worse anyway. And Zelenski seems
to have acted very smartly so far. Good luck to him - he'll need it!
It's my understanding that those Ukrainians who most fervently believe in the Holodomor (that
the Soviet govt under Joseph Stalin deliberately targeted ethnic Ukrainians with famine and
starvation) live in that part of the modern Ukraine that was under fascist Polish rule in the
1930s.
From my own reading, the famines of the early 1930s affected large parts of eastern
Ukraine across southen European Russia into Kazakhstan.
The issue though is not so much the details of what actually occurred then as in the
creation of a lie that deliberately equates Nazis with Soviets and thus Nazism with
Communism, and ultimately socialism. If Nazism led to the Holocaust, then Communism and
socialism must be demonstrated to have resulted in equally great horrors such as mass
famines, starvation or incarcerating people in concentration camps on the basis of their
religion. The current demonization of the Chinese govt over its supposed treatment of Falun
Gong followers or Uyghurs follows this pattern.
Accusing b of "spreading hate and lies"? There's plenty of sources documenting the
Ukrainian laws passed since 2014 prohibiting or restricting Russian language in various
sectors, including official use, public education, even in films. b was correct in his
assessment, and I have no idea where the "hate" accusation came from. I would normally not
link to the awful Telegraph of UK, but I assume this story from just three months ago isn't
fake news.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/25/ukraine-passes-law-against-russian-language-official-settings/
> The only thing is they made Ukrainian the official language.
...and the ONLY one.
...and the language undeveloped, that lacked words for many modern realities, from helicopter
to condom, so they all had to be invented rashly.
> It is the same in Russia - everyone must learn Russian, even in Chechnya.
In Russia, Crimean Turks can teach their children, in beginner's school, in k'yrymchi
language. It is one of three official languages of Crimean region. In Ukraine it was impossible then and it is impossible still.
> It is in the nature of a country to have a universal language
...that is only native to less than 20% of the population? Well, it is indeed a nature - of OCCUPIED countries. Like, Norman invasion into England, when elites had one language and serfs - another. And
serf's language was slowly suffocated and replaced by foreign language of occupying
elites. "If to live in comfort you have to rename every major city and tear down every ,ajor
monument - you cam to live on someone's else land".
> whereby everyone in the country may communicate.
If that was the intention - then the language native to population's 83% would become
official, like it is in Ireland. But not in Ukraine.
> As to Yanukovych, he was widely hated by everyone for his total corruption.
He was. So you say this makes illegal coup less illegal and bandit Poroshenko less bandit. How
exactly? Or you just throw in irrelevant emotional hitpiece to accuse of "spreading lies" by which
you mean "not spreading your favorite grievances" ?
> Yanukovych.... had no choice but to refuse [Deep and Comprehensive EuroAssociation]
But he did not.
He asked to amend it, to re-negotiate it.
He asked to add there compensation clause from EU to Ukrainian industries. Russia also asked for it to be re-negotiated, but Russia wanted re-negotiation from
scratch into a trilateral treaty. Yanukovich only wanted money to support Ukrainian economic
until his re-election.
Bad for him, but money he asked for "coincidently" were the same, as money Europe promised
to Ukraine for removing of Nuclear weapon and Chernobyl nuclear power. When Ukraine delivered
and asked for money - the 2nd maidan (2004) happened and both Kuchma and his heir Yanukovich
flew down the drain. When Yanukovich was allowed to the throne in 2009 he conveniently forgot
about that story. But the moment he asked EU for money, albeit under pretext of Association
and markets, the 3rd maidan unleashed and Yanukovich went down the drain again. Guess, he had
to learn his lesson without repeats?..
> Not so much Russia dissuading Kiev as Kiev taking an inordinate length of time to
realise the blatantly obvious.
Posted by: Michael Droy | Jul 22 2019 20:03 utc | 12
Well, it took Russia to really START implementing trade inhibition, there were few rather
vibrant "scandals" in spring and summer 2014 with Russia banning this or that food/alcohol
form Ukraine, quoting safety hazards, to make Yanukovich understand this time it is for
real.
Most probably Yanukovich was like Saakashvili in 2008, totally programmed that "Russia
would not date" because "Russia is secretly ruled by Jews/NeoLibs/Washington/whatever".
Russia dared. And then Yanukovich understood he was not selected to be a hero bringing
Ukraine to Europe, but a scapegoat to absorb the fallout.
is biased also ? It isn't my argument at all, but I do understand that language is very
important in terms of identity. There is quite a lot of history in that article to take into
account, or argue over I suppose. As it is probably the "go to" reference for people outside
of the region wanting to understand the question of languages in Ukraine, its content is
relevant.
> I remember in one city in Donbass it was simply someone filming as he walked along the
street, showing bodies on the street corner, the official Ukraine military speeding through
the streets - vivid shots of buildings on fire
Posted by: juliania | Jul 23 2019 1:44 utc | 47
Most probably, Mariupol 2014-05-09. People wanted to celebrate V-Day, but "democratic" Oleg Lyashko and his "men in black"
drove in at attacked demonstration. Local police tried to protect citizens and was ambushed
in their own HQ (that very burning house), making last stand.
"In the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election he led his party to win 22 seats."
"In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Lyashko lost his parliamentary seat"
One may also look for Olena Bilozerka, 2013 German "best international blogger."
She is open and vocal part of Right Sector, though allegations were she is inflating
political issues to hide marauding issues.
She blogged back in 2014-02-16 about "next day" meeting of Right Sector representatives with
Merkel "to report about implementation of our part of agreement and to be informed by Merkel
about implementing her part" and regardless of "checking the watches" about armed assault
upon government on 18.02, which indeed happened and was success.
Being open and vocal Nazi she then published many photo and video that were "omitted" by free
world's free media.
This "how many people did Communism killed" question is tiresome.
As I've already commented here in previous posts, there are essentially three methods an
historian can determine if a genocide happened:
1) mass graves (this requires archaeology);
2) written contemporary accounts, and
3) census
In the "Holodomor" case, we only have "2", the most popular one in the West being that
Welsh journalist who travelled to the USSR that time and, based on anecdotal evidence,
"covered" the famine.
Wikipedia's article about the "Holodomor" only mentions one source mentioning concrete
numbers: Wheatcroft, a rather obscure Australian academic who, to his merit, at least made up
the effort to talk with people who had access to the Soviet archives.
The quoted list of his article clearly indicates Wheatcroft bases his numbers on indirect
data. He uses the 1937 census in relation to 1926; in another article, he uses the quantity
of grain stock in 1932. I could go on, but the important thing here is that this guy doesn't
use any extraordinary sources. He certainly didn't go to the Ukraine to do archaeology. The
Ukrainians themselves probably didn't do it either, because, so far, we have no accounts of
mass graves in the region.
Famines were common in the pre-industrial world. They occured often in the ancient world
-- where cities and villages literally disappeared in a matter of decades because of one bad
crop and/or one plague (plagues are a side-effect of sedentarism). The often occured in the
feudal world. They specially happened in tsarist Russia, which has a very peculiar and
hostile climate and land composition for agriculture (only 15% of the USSR's territory was
viable for agriculture even in the industrial era). They certainly are not a communist
invention. We must avoid the "Belle Époque syndrome", that is, adopt the illusion late
tsarist Russia was a paradise that was destroyed by evil Bolsheviks. Tsarist Russia was a
very brutal world, were peasants died like flies every day: Gogol (who lived in Ukrainian
territory) wrote a very funny and politically charged novel about it ("Dead Souls").
Wheatcroft uses the 1920s demographic tendency in order to infer "excess deaths" in the
USSR in 1932, but he misses the bigger picture: you have to take into account Russian
demographic movements in the long term, taking into consideration the cyclic famines. Just to
crop a short period from 1926-1932 is scientifically dishonest.
Yes, forced collectivization probably caused excess deaths in 1932 -- but it's impossible
to calculate how much more it caused in relation to a "normal" famine. Just because a famine
happened during the Soviet era doesn't mean it was caused 100% because of socialism. Constant
excess food production is a very recent phenomenon in human History, to state famines are the
exception and not the rule is contemporary bias.
It is very unlikely the 1932 famine was an extraordinary famine. The 1937 census
registered a population growth in relation to 1926. This alone discards genocide, because,
even though excess deaths ocurred (as is the rule in famines), that meant women still had
time and resources to biologically reproduce above the population replacement levels. Worst
case scenario, this growth happened because birth rates were excessive in the urban areas at
the expense of the rural areas -- an unlikely scenario, since in this case, we would register
mass migration from the rural area to the urban area (because the hypothesis is that the
famine was artificial, so the grains would be in the cities): they would either mass migrate
or die trying, in which case we would have mass graves.
Mass graves are the decisive evidence for a genocide, indeed any mass extermination,
because that would mean death was sudden. When the death process is slow and not
synchronized, people have the time to bury/cremate their dead. That is the case even with
some plagues (e.g. Antonine Plague). Mass graves are an indication people were killed more or
less at the same time, in an artificial way, and in large quantities (since proper burials
are expensive). In a deprived economy like the USSR, it is very unlikely all those bodies
would be properly buried, let alone cremated, was a mass extermination taken place.
The holy grail of evidence for a genocide/mass extermination for any historian is when a
witness points the place of the event and then archaeology finds out a mass grave. This
evidently didn't happen in the case of "Holodomor".
Note: Gorbachev is a Russian who was born and raised in a village that borders modern
Ukraine. His grandparents and parents were victims of the 1932 famine (they all survived).
They continued committed with the Revolution and, according to Gorbachev's own accounts, he's
was not raised believing the 1932 famine was exceptional.
About the "Stalin is a genocidal psychopath" question: it's funny, because forced
collectivization was one of the few points where he and Trotsky agreed.
Whatever happened in macroeconomic reforms after Stalin consolidated power was a
collective work, not the designs of only one man. And, although we can argue against the
means, the fact was that they were successful: the USSR rose from the ruins of a second tier
imperial power (late tsarist Russia) to a global superpower.
To understand the most important fact of what happened to Ukraine and why, you need to know
about the yank neocon PNAC, which trumps (excuse the pun) all: The Project for the New
American Century, and the original neocon (jew) wolfowitz doctrine, as revealed in the NYT in
1992:
www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/us-strategy-plan-calls-for-insuring-no-rivals-develop.html
Russia at the moment is correctly perceived as the main opponent to the usa, china too as
upcoming, in line with the above, & PNAC is part of trying to keep Russia in its place:
'part of the American mission will be "convincing potential competitors that they need not
aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate
interests."' And 'to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy'.
And 'a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders "must maintain the
mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or
global role."' Note 'regional' insofar as it concerns Russia wrt ukraine.
Also this is why the USG used Maidan (with at least $5 bn - said nuland/jewland, married
to the co-founder of PNAC kagan, another jew) against Russia, to cause it problems and to be
a thorn in the flesh.
Another important fact is the roman catholic church attack on Russia through ukraine &
the split of the church in ukraine from the Russian Orthodox Church.
> there are essentially three methods an historian can determine if a genocide happened
Four.
There can be comparison of available data in adjacent regions.
In this specific case - in Poland-occupied Western Ukraine. Just "across the line".
Anecdotal evidence states it also had famine, so the famine was not anchored in USSR
specific way of governing.
Some rare online archives of then Poland newspapers photos report some UK delegations raising
concerns, etc.
However, in USSR the famine was a state-acknowledge emergency. USSR prohibited moving
foods out of Ukrainian SSR (and wheat was not the only food! everyone talks about grains,
forgetting potato, fish, mushrooms, etc), broken many Western contracts to repay debts in
grains (West was denying being paid in other assets and was decrying USSR savageness of
refusing to export all the contracted grain with the same zeal it today decry USSR savageness
of exporting at least some of grain), started importing grain from Persia (now Iran). This
emergency let a lot of paper trail, which now is used to "prove" how evil Soviet government
was (and, specifically, not Ukrainian SSR government but central government in Kremlin; and
somehow this is stretched even further to "prove" murderous hatred being part of "Russian
character").
In Poland, well, a dull matter of fact. Bad lack to be peasant, yet worst to be Ukrainian
peasant. S-t happens.
No paper trail - no "historic event" - no accusations. Don't try to fix famines - and you will not be accused of being part of it.
Election apparatus is so easy to corrupt, yet people still vote! Crazy! And, so many
elections have been rigged this way: People are so dumb! Why does nobody insist on
independent, improved equipment? Conditioning makes people ignore the cheat under their
noses.
Recall the posters in previous threads defending the empire's color revolution attempts in
Hong Kong and match the names up with posters here. Are they trying to offer defense of the
empire's color revolutions in Ukraine, or do you think they are off-duty now and posting with
the sincere intention of initiating open discussion? Do you honestly think you can change
their minds by engaging with them and pointing out the flaws in their facts and their logic
when it is their job to defend the actions of the empire?
By the way, do expect and don't be surprised when the same posters referred to above
defend the empire's lawfare coup in Brazil, the attempted lawfare coup in South Africa, and
the attempts to regime change Venezuela when b posts any articles on these issues.
As for holodomor, or the Maidan snipers, or the famine in China, one doesn't need details
to identify fictions. One simply needs to use logic and reason. We need only question simple
points if we suspect that the famine in Ukraine was a deliberate attempt to exterminate
Ukrainians: Was it successfully completed, and if not then why not?
There are obviously still Ukrainians, so it wasn't successful. If we assume the famine was
a deliberate attempt at extermination, then we must ask why was it stopped before it
finished? Did some external factor force Stalin to call off the extermination before it was
completed?
No, the famine was stopped by dramatically improved agricultural practices instituted by
the Soviet Union. This cannot be reconciled with the claim that the famine was a deliberate
attempt by the Soviet Union at extermination, so no matter how much we may cherish the myth
of holodomor, to remain rational individuals we must let that myth go.
Too complex? Let's try the Maidan snipers: We are expected to believe that the killers
were police or Berkut snipers. What was their motive? Presumably to stop the protests. If
that was their motive, then why did the snipers stop sniping before dispersing the protests?
If the snipers were trying to end the protests, then why did they shoot just enough to
inflame further protests, but not enough to discourage the protests?
The answer is simple: The police and/or Berkut were not the Maidan snipers in Kiev.
The snipers were provocateurs who intended to amplify the protests.
It is good to dig deeper into the details of all of these false narratives that we in the
West have been fed, but those details are not absolutely necessary to know that the
narratives are false.
1. If forced collectivization would lead to famine, there would had be no famines in 1920-s
and in 1890-s, before the said collectivization but there were.
2. Before forced collectivization there were many years of attempts at unforced one. They
failed for at least two reasons.
a) many of poor peasants "saw themselves temporarily embarrassed millionaires". While
being target of debt sharks (kulaks, public-devourers
(мироеды)) they still only imagined the life as
being sole owner of their however tiny patch of soil.
b) government attempts they saw as unwarranted advantages from aliens, city-dwellers,
trade partners of hated kulaks, that to be took advantage of using any loopholes. Government
tried to foster grassroots kolkhoz movements by offering bound credits - seeds, fertilizers,
agriculture tools. Peasants started organizing "ten men" kolkhozes in springs, taking those
credits, and then dissolving kolkhozes before gathering crops. "Faked bankruptcy" in modern
parley. If you can have good sides without having bad sides - why opt for bad sides too?
Specifically in Ukraine it could also be boosted by the "national character" formed as
dwellers of centuries-long battle ground between Poland, Russia and Turkey. No positive
long-term planning, everything for instant profits disregarding any consequences. Any
government are occupants and bandits, co-operating with them is futile and silly. We can see
it today marching over once most rich and developed Soviet Republic. Why couldn't the same
happen in 1930-s ?
3. However forced collectivization did achieved a lot. Remember the UK, where "sheep ate
people", for example. Remember latifundists in Latin America. It is largely the same!
a) hugely increased labor efficiency in "village to city" trade metrics.
"товарное
зерно"
b) hugely increased labor efficiency in "men / area" ratio. Use of mechanic tractors and
harvesters, etc. Unemployment among "just my hands" peasantry.
c) increased "capital concentration" provided for use of fertilizer, poisons, etc. Which
contributed to the prior point.
d) now unemployed peasants moved to cities, populating newly built factories. This process
was already going in 1900-s but much slower then. Emergent industrialization in the wake of
WW2 - and a very successful one.
e) end of rural famines. One of the reason 1931 famine is so hyped - it was the last in the
row. Would there be a comparable famine for example in 1970-s - and for political purposes it
would had been much more useful against USSR. But there were none. "Golodomor" was the last
famine, so it became the focal point.
e) end of city famines. Where atomized peasant families could not sustain even a horse or a
cow, one of famines reasons, joint companies (kolkhozes) just like huge private
agri-companies in UK or Argentina, relied upon chemistry and mechanizations, thus needed to
trade with cities, thus were supplying cities with food. All the champions of Golodomor
somehow overlook city famines that were cruel in early USSR in winters.
And one more quirk is almost total lack of photo-evidence behind "Golodomor".
When articles/books are illustrated, it is with photos from 1920-s famine in USSR or in USA,
misattributed.
Allegedly, it is because in Soviet cruel diktatura even NKVD death squads could not make
those photos even for secret important reports.
Reportedly it is because victims of "Goldomor" were dying "fatties", making less convincing
images. The theories were made explaining why it was so, however there seems to be no any
other famine known where those theories worked and people dying of hunger were abnormally
thick.
To Arioch @84, I apologize. You are absolutely correct. Leaving trolls' posts unchallenged
gives the casual reader the impression that those posts are unassailable; nevertheless, I
have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them out.
Posters such as yourself, vk, karlof1, etc who provide detailed and historically accurate
corrections to the false narratives are necessary for the edification of lurkers and casual
readers. I just hope that you don't measure the effectiveness of your posts by whether or not
you change the trolls' minds.
> I have been attempting to limit my engagement with the trolls to simply pointing them
out
This can really work well with people sincerely lost by massive propaganda, people who
succumbed to illusion they know, why they do not.
Wikipedia: The Socratic method, also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or
Socratic debate, is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based
on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and
underlying presuppositions. It is a dialectical method, involving a discussion in which the
defense of one point of view is questioned; one participant may lead another to contradict
themselves in some way, thus weakening the defender's point. This method is named after the
Classical Greek philosopher Socrates and is introduced by him in Plato's Theaetetus as
midwifery (maieutics) because it is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the
interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding.
Sincere person, being guided by questions, would start researching and analyzing. And would
not feel coerced.
But you know, trolls just ignore the questions and keeps hammering talking points by
infinitely going back and repeating them "from starting point".
Avoiding positive argumentation, avoiding claiming something and limiting ourselves to
questioning their weak points, we help them to create another impression: they have a bad
theory when we have no theory at all. They are content with it.
So, putting out competing interpretation is no less important than showing their own
unhonesty.
t
people were able to look past the mistake and not overlook the van der pijl book. Thank you
for letting me know of Mr. Proyect's reputation.
Missing from the comments regarding Ukrainian/Russian dynamics is recognition of the numerous
attempts (dating back to the 17th century) of the Russification of the Ukraine, first by the
Russian Empire and then by the Soviets.
In 1863, minister of internal affairs Pyotr Valuyev issued the so-called Valuev
Circular, in which he stated that the Ukrainian language never existed, doesn't exist, and
cannot exist.
Under Stalin, "korenization" took second stage to the idea of a united Soviet Union,
where competing national cultures were no longer tolerated, and the Russian language
increasingly became the only official language of Soviet socialism
Russification of Soviet-occupied Ukraine intensified in 1938 under Nikita Khrushchev,
then secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, but was briefly halted during World War II,
when Axis forces occupied large areas of the country.
In the 1960s, the Ukrainian language began to be used more widely and frequently in spite
of these policies. In response, Soviet authorities increased their focus on early education
in Russian. After 1980, Russian language classes were instituted from the first grade
onward.
( a reason for so many Russian-speaking Ukrainians??)
In the regions of southern Russian SFSR (North Caucasus and eastern part of Sloboda
Ukraine included into RSFSR) Ukrainization was effectively outlawed in 1932.[18]
Specifically, the December 14, 1932 decree "On Grain Collection in Ukraine, North Caucasus
and the Western Oblasts" by the VKP(b) Central Committee and USSR Sovnarkom stated that
Ukrainization in certain areas was carried out formally, in a "non-Bolshevik" way, which
provided the "bourgeois-nationalist elements" with a legal cover for organizing their
anti-Soviet resistance. In order to stop this, the decree ordered in these areas, among other
things, to switch to Russian all newspapers and magazines, and all Soviet and cooperative
paperwork. By the autumn of 1932 (beginning of a school year), all schools were ordered to
switch to Russian. In addition the decree ordered a massive population swap: all "disloyal"
population from a major Cossack settlement, stanitsa Poltavskaya was banished to Northern
Russia, with their property given to loyal kolkhozniks moved from poorer areas of Russia.[19]
in the 1937 Soviet Census compared to the 1926 First All-Union Census of the Soviet
Union.[18]
This perhaps explains the predominance of Russian in eastern Ukraine.
"... That said, Germany's military readiness directly relates to the invasion threat from Russia Europe actually faces. I.e., ZERO. Washington should take note but of course it won't because there is no money in it for the American Merchants of Death. And the Generals inside the Pentagon just have too much fun fear-mongering about illusory existential enemies. ..."
"... As Politico recently reported, "an investigative committee of the German parliament -- the toughest instrument that lawmakers can use to probe government misdeeds -- is digging into how lucrative contracts from her ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight ..."
"... Yet another U.S. mirror image. Because that is exactly how inside baseball works in the Pentagon acquisition system. von der Leyen as a European Hack is no worse than the Washington / Pentagon Hacks on the other side of the Atlantic. Note, MIC lifer and Raytheon parasite Mark Esper currently sitting in the Big Seat in the Pentagon. You can be sure that DoD reform is way down on his bucket list. ..."
Like all those soon to occupy positions of power in the EU, von der Leyen did not run in the
recent European elections for the position she is about to hold. She did not participate in the
debates in front of various national electorates. But she was chosen -- after the elections --
by the political class in Brussels, ostensibly for her faith in and loyalty to the European
superstate, and personally to the German chancellor Angela Merkel.
Another
report by the Rand Corporation , a think tank, revealed that it would take Germany a month
to mobilize in the case of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States. Von der Leyen is
very unpopular in the German army , but very popular with the Eurocrats.
She's a fervent supporter of a European army and a "United States of Europe" -- the
ultimate qualification for being president of the European Commission.
But there is more to the von der Leyen story. As Politico
recently reported , "an investigative committee of the German parliament -- the toughest
instrument that lawmakers can use to probe government misdeeds -- is digging into how lucrative
contracts from her ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight, and
whether a network of informal personal connections facilitated those deals."
The scent of corruption is a common element among those who are to hold key positions in the
European Union over the next few years. Josep Borrell, minister of foreign affairs for the
socialist government of Spain,
was fined 30,000 euros for insider trading. He is expected to hold the foreign policy post
in the European Commission.
Christine Lagarde, most recently chief of the IMF, was involved in the case of an
arbitration panel that awarded a massive payout to a French tycoon while she was the finance minister of
France. A special court for ministerial misconduct found her guilty of "negligence" but "waived
any punishment or criminal record, citing her 'international reputation' and role in dealing
with 'the international financial crisis.'" A marvelously L'état, C'est
Moi form of legal reasoning. Lagarde is expected to be the next president of the
European Central Bank.
The common threads of corruption, incompetence, and lack of accountability are what unites a
political class that has divorced itself from the concerns of the average European. In the last
days before her confirmation, von der Leyen pursued a charm offensive that included a commitment
to a "Green New Deal," a continuation of
an open borders policy , and a further deepening and enlargement of the European
superstate. This included the story of her having
offered hospitality to a Syrian immigrant who "now speaks German fluently."
Obviously von der Leyen would never have won the May elections running on an agenda like
that. But of course, she never had to run a campaign to win the votes of the peoples of Europe.
The campaign that she did run was premised on her having built "an extensive international
network in politics and business," as another Politico
story put it .
Von der Leyen thrived in the networking atmosphere of World Economic Forum meetings, where
she "serves on the organization's board of trustees," Politico noted, adding, "She's
also forged close ties to powerful figures outside the world of politics, most notably
Bertelsmann, Europe's largest media company, which owns RTL, the Continent's largest commercial
broadcaster, book publisher Random House and a stable of magazines."
A senior Green quoted for the article said her fluency in French has helped her establish a
rapport with the French political class that is unrivaled in Berlin.
It's clear that von der Leyen's domestic record appears to have had little effect on her
election -- what matters is that she is universally liked by the who's who. "What matters most
in these circles is the personal connection," said an adviser to the leader of one of the EU's
smaller member states.
Those who count and those who are to be ruled are not the same group of people. That seems
to be the essence of modern European politics: a political class and ideological cult that
masquerades as a competent technocratic elite, despite its long and disastrous history. Von der
Leyen's terrible record as defense minister meant nothing. Neither did Lagarde's record as head
of the IMF, where, for instance, the Greek debt crisis was transformed into a social
catastrophe. The deciding factor was their dedication to something that "those who count" are
committed to. Elections are merely a necessary, archaic ritual of legitimization.
Napoleon Linarthatos is a writer based in New York.
On Monday 22 July 1940, a major meeting was held at the Reich Economic Ministry in Berlin,
under the chairmanship of Minister Walther Funk, to discuss a directive issued by Hermann
Göring on 22 June, concerning the organization of a Greater European Economic Area under
German leadership. The Germans were well advanced with their plans for a post-war settlement.
One of the difficulties of planning lay in the fact that the Führer's aims and decisions
were not yet known and the military measures against Britain were not yet concluded.
What? A techno-managerial clique ruling the rest of us Great Unwashed (see "Deplorables")? It
couldn't happen here, could it? It's OK if they went to the right schools, isn't it?
Too much use if the word disastrous. Disastrous is what Wilhelm II did to the German empire.
This is not disastrous, but it is concerning like a rudderless ship.
Don't be asinine. Russia is not going to invade anything and has no claim on any part of
western Europe. The only thing the German military is good for is for sucking up additional
budgetary funds.
Another report by the Rand Corporation, a think tank, revealed that it would take Germany
a month to mobilize in the case of a Russian invasion of the Baltic States.
For the sake of completeness, the Rand Corporation is actually a marketing arm of the
Pentagon fully funded by the U.S. government.
That said, Germany's military readiness directly relates to the invasion threat from
Russia Europe actually faces. I.e., ZERO. Washington should take note but of course it won't
because there is no money in it for the American Merchants of Death. And the Generals inside
the Pentagon just have too much fun fear-mongering about illusory existential
enemies.
Of course that does not dismiss the charges of cronyism and corruption associated with
Ursula von der Leyen. But re:
But there is more to the von der Leyen story. As Politico recently reported, "an
investigative committee of the German parliament -- the toughest instrument that lawmakers
can use to probe government misdeeds -- is digging into how lucrative contracts from her
ministry were awarded to outside consultants without proper oversight , and whether a
network of informal personal connections facilitated those deals."
Yet another U.S. mirror image. Because that is exactly how inside baseball works in
the Pentagon acquisition system. von der Leyen as a European Hack is no worse than the
Washington / Pentagon Hacks on the other side of the Atlantic. Note, MIC lifer and Raytheon
parasite Mark Esper currently sitting in the Big Seat in the Pentagon. You can be sure that
DoD reform is way down on his bucket list.
The real story is that taxpayers on both NATO poles are played for chumps by the Power
Elites.
The Russia, Syria, Israel, Iran framework is hard to figure, I haven't managed to. I
expect there are private understandings aimed at keeping escalation tamed, i.e. known
compromises, but when Iran is understood to exceed them by choice, Russia does not defend
from Israel .
Russia cannot openly allow/defend Iran installing itself more fully in Syria because there
would be retaliation/escalation by Israel , and it cannot say Iran should leave because it is
a choice of Assad and Syrian government. So this plays out in the shadows.
I hope Iran reject any call for more pull-out, we know what happend last summer when
Russia on behalf of Israel managed to get some iranians out = more attacks by Israel.
After the cold war ended in the 1990s the US quickly became the worlds leading police
state with mass incarceration, more of its own people in jail and prison then any nation in
the history of mankind. Who are we now to preach about freedom to the world ?
The primary weaknesses of liberal democracy and the capitalist order come from the
decisions made by voters and captains of industry. When political and economic freedom create
impoverishment, income disparity, racial strife, and nationalist xenophobia, the fruits of a
free society die on the vine. I see the Yahoo News elderly guys and the Russian trolls are
mystified by this obvious state of world affairs.
The problem is that for many decades american "words" contradict american "deeds", and the
whole world can easily see american double standards. That's why american "alternative" is
negative, not positive. As an example (one of 100s) we can remember that famous 1939 phrase
"Somoza may be a son of a b.., but he's our son of a b..."
Institutionalized group-think is the Great Enemy of any Empire. It leads to complacency
and a refusal to see the world as it really it, and to view oneself as uniquely gifted and
therefore exceptional and eternal.
Eventually this will become the prevailing wisdom in post-hegemony US just as it became so
in post-Empire Britain or post-Soviet Russia.
Lets see, mistakes:
Iraq war, Kosovo war, NATO enlargement, let Russia economy crushed at 90's. Let Libya
completely, Syria partially destroyed. Become arrogent see non-western nations low. Etc.
etc.
We can tell post cold-war is about "end of freedom commercial" and get real "wild
capitalism." China was mis-calculation. They decided to use it as cheap workforce and a
not-formal colony which ended surprisingly otherwise.
All above talk is a naive try to turn back "freedom commercial" days. Best thing USA can
teach now, how to kill people in every imaginable way.
The post Cold War worst mistake of US was the EU enlargement, Russia could have become
less paranoid and nationalist and perhaps a more solid democratic culture would have been
established
"Democracy" is simply the rule of a small elite minority of organised people over a much
greater majority of disorganised people. Russian "democracy" delivers what its people want to
the same degree as US "democracy". In fact, judging by Putins much higher domestic approval
numbers that the Trumpster, I'd say it delivers more...
Democracy" is simply the rule of a small elite minority of organised people over a much
greater majority of disorganised people. This is "oligarchy", not "democracy", the regime
that is running in Russia,China,NK and similar heavens of dictators.
"The result was an economic boom, a wave of democratization, and victory in an existential
struggle against Communism without yet another great-power global war. "
Victory? I assume you guys are aware that the Chinese are Communists?
Surely you didn't think that global completion over ideology and nationhood was resolved
in the Cold War? That was just a single geopolitical skirmish, one game in a whole season. It
ain't over till it over.... and its ain't done by a long shot.
"...are Communists?" Labels don't mean anything. They're huge, getting richer, have an
historically motivated chip on their shoulder and want to assume the place in the world,
particularly Asia, they feel is their due. They are sensitive to their public's opinion That
we have a buffoon in charge is certainly an impediment; we're still involved in 'unforced
error' wars the last appointed, incurious executive began as
China is hard to classify in the traditional sense. Its government is what we would call
"Communist", but its ruling ethos is essentially Confucianist , its social ideology is
Socialist, but it uses market economics, mercantilism and Capitalism to generate wealth and
pay for it all.
The Chinese are not fools. They have taken the best aspects of many ideologies and wielded
them into a system that seems to work well for them. What Americans might feel about it is
utterly superfluous.
Whether realizing or not, the author, quoting the National Security Strategy report of
2018, ironically described the US to a T when they wrote "For today, the dictator (the US)
may be your friend, but tomorrow he will need you as an enemy (China)". & "... (the US)
seek lifetime tenure (hegemony), expanding territories (bases) total authority (MAGA) &
obedient subjects"!
.
The philanthropic & much admired champion has grown into an ugly dictator, bending the
world to its will through soft & strong power. The global revulsion towards the misuse of
hegemonic muscle is what caused the US to lose its place in the Global Order! Simple as
that!
To this panglossian peaen to the American imperial system and its promotion of democracy,
human freedom and all other nice things against the dark forces represented by those other
guys like Russia and China, let us consider a reality of American foreign policy that belies
this tripe: US support of Saudi Arabia from 1945 to the present moment. I suggest that if any
of what this writer proposes we believe is true about the motives underlying US foreign
policy, then the theocratic and medieval regime Saudi Arabia would no longer exist. Yet it
continues to exist and is a valued partner of America.
The Donald Trump Administration is looking more and more like George W. Bush's
Administration: a dumb clueless idiot surrounded by neocons.
Remember Donald Rumsfeld , Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, John Bolton , George Tenet, Henry
Paulson, Paul Wolfowitz , and **** Cheney from the George W Bush Administration?
Tell me Trumptards, what's so "different this time" about Donald Trump hiring Bolton,
Pompeo, Mattis/Shanahan/Esper, Haley, Haspel and Mnuchin?
The key problem for Trump is reaction of China and Russia... If Russia supports Iran the USA attack onIran might well be the
second Vietnam and KSA will probably seize to exit.
Notable quotes:
"... The bottom-line is this -- if Trump launches military strikes against Iranian military targets it is very likely he will ignite a series of events that will escalate beyond his control, expose him as a paper tiger full of empty bellicose threats and risk a war with other countries, including Russia and China. ..."
"... The "War" class in Washington and the media are exhorting tough action and doing all within their power to portray Iran as an imminent threat to the West. The mantra, "the must be stopped," is being repeated ad nauseam in all of the media echo changers. President Trump, regrettably, is ignorant of military history and devoid of strategic intelligence when it comes to employing military force. He reminds me of Lyndon Johnson during the early stages of the Vietnam War -- i.e., being exhorted to take action, increase forces and not back down rather than lose face on the international front. ..."
"... it is more likely the Brits intended this as a provocation, in coordination with some members of Trump's team, that would bait the Iranians to respond in similar fashion. Iran has taken the bait and given the Brits what Iran sees as a dose of its own medicine. ..."
"... There is a dangerous delusion within the Trump National Security team. They believe we are so dominant that Iran will not dare fight us. I prefer to rely on the sage counsel of Colonel Patrick Lang -- the Iranians are not afraid to fight us and, if backed into a corner, will do so. ..."
"... The tanker is too big to use the Suez canal and too big to discharge oil in a Syrian port. It was possibly going to a Mediterranean port, but Iran will not back-down to the UK. ..."
"... As the Saudi's appear to be losing their war with Yemen, the UAE has announced that they are not desirous of being in the middle of any US-Iran conflict. Qatar is doing a huge nat gas deal with Iran. ..."
"... A 50% reduction in oil & LNG output for greater than 3 months would crush already weakening Asian economies who are the manufactured products supply chain for most of the world and in particular the US. Will voters in Ohio, Wisconsin & Michigan cheer Trump's military strikes on Teheran when prices at Walmart double? ..."
"... I have no faith in Donald Trump when it comes to Israeli's interests. Embassy moved to Jerusalem check, Golan Heights check. Deal of the Century by his Anti-Christ Son-In-Law check. Not sure if that is a joke or not. ..."
"... "Trump's advisers have a demented obsession with Iran. They've been spoiling for a fight with Iran for decades. They have no idea how destructive it would be. It would make Iraq look like a tea party." ..."
"... Yes. A demented obsession that is not in US interests. Is it really in Saudi and Israeli interests when they may be hurt too? ..."
"... The same idiots running the show seem to believe that American oil and gas fracking makes it impervious to the loss of Middle Eastern oil (in fact, a secret motivation might be to save American frackers economically), but they forget that oil is a fungible commodity and always flows to the highest bidder. They could try of ban oil exports, but the Europe and Japan's economies would be utterly toast as there would be virtually no oil available to them, especially if Russia backed Iran and cut them off. ..."
"... Rather than blaming this on the media, neocons or the Pentagon, put the blame where it lies - with President Trump. Trump campaigned on tearing up the Iran nuclear agreement which he did once he was elected. The Trump administration re-imposed sanctions on Iran which are meant to inflict serious hardship on the Iranian people. Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo - both hawks from previous administrations. Trump is attempting to enforce the sanctions. Is there anyone else to blame but Trump? ..."
"... The use of the golden rule suggests problems with your logic. Would we sit still, for example, if Russia and/or China started fostering guerrilla movements in South America? Of course not. We would actively intervene in support of what we see as our local security imperatives. That appears to me to be all Iran is doing in its region. ..."
"... If the Gulf oilfields in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are heavily rocketed and put out of commission along with tanker loading docks and pipeline infrastructure, there won't be any oil to ship out of the Gulf anyway. ..."
"... The primary damage from a war with Iran will be economic. Oil flowing through the Staits will come to a halt and that will hit China, Japan and the rest of Asia very hard and their buying power will decrease significantly hurting our exports. Even though the U.S is self-sufficient in oil if oil prices hit $100+ on the world market look for the U.S. oil companies to increase their prices to approach the world price driving gas prices into the $5.00+/gallon range. Trump will undoubtably prohibit U.S oil exports but the damage to the economies world wide will still negatively impact the U.S. ..."
"... Post Scriptum: Signs of a dying paradigm as the western elite have gone into total sclerotic mode. Dangerous as a rabid dog. ..."
Donald Trump appears to be on the verge of doing what the "Never Trumpers" could not--destroy his Presidency and make re-election
impossible. It all boils down to whether or not he decides to launch military strikes on Iran. The bottom-line is this -- if
Trump launches military strikes against Iranian military targets it is very likely he will ignite a series of events that will escalate
beyond his control, expose him as a paper tiger full of empty bellicose threats and risk a war with other countries, including Russia
and China.
The "War" class in Washington and the media are exhorting tough action and doing all within their power to
portray Iran as an imminent threat to the West. The mantra, "the must be stopped," is being repeated ad nauseam in all of the media
echo changers. President Trump, regrettably, is ignorant of military history and devoid of strategic intelligence when it comes to
employing military force. He reminds me of Lyndon Johnson during the early stages of the Vietnam War -- i.e., being exhorted to take
action, increase forces and not back down rather than lose face on the international front.
The media is busy pushing the lie that Iran launched an unprovoked "attack" on a British flagged ship. They ignore the British
action two weeks ago, when the British Navy seized an Iranian flagged tanker heading to Syria. Britain justifies its action as just
keeping the sanction regime in place. But it is more likely the Brits intended this as a provocation, in coordination with some
members of Trump's team, that would bait the Iranians to respond in similar fashion. Iran has taken the bait and given the Brits
what Iran sees as a dose of its own medicine.
There is a dangerous delusion within the Trump National Security team. They believe we are so dominant that Iran will not
dare fight us. I prefer to rely on the sage counsel of Colonel Patrick Lang -- the Iranians are not afraid to fight us and, if backed
into a corner, will do so.
I see at least four possible scenarios for this current situation. If you can think of others please add in the comments section.
"two weeks ago, when the British Navy seized an Iranian flagged tanker"
Via Associated Press:
Royal Marines took part in the seizure of the Iranian oil tanker by Gibraltar, a British overseas territory off the southern
coast of Spain. Officials there initially said the July 4 seizure happened on orders from the U.S." .......
It gets even better than on orders from the U.S.
"Britain has said it would release the vessel, which was carrying more than 2 million barrels of Iranian crude, if Iran could
prove it was not breaching EU sanctions"
We are supposed to believe that Syria is importing oil on ships which sail through the Straights of Gibraltar rather than getting
oil from, say, Russia! or going from Iran (it is Iranian oil, so they say) through the Suez Canal? What did they
do, sail around the continent of Africa to stage this?
So the brilliant minds at GCHQ that brought us Christopher Steele and the dossier have decided that they really, really, need
to get rid of the Orange Man and they don't care how many Iranian or American lives it takes. I wonder just how many people the
man not in the news, Jeffrey Epstein, had the dirty goods on and just which government was behind his operation.
The tanker is too big to use the Suez canal and too big to discharge oil in a Syrian port. It was possibly going to a Mediterranean
port, but Iran will not back-down to the UK.
Thanks for the comment. I did a bit more research. It seems strange to me that Iran would use a ship to large for the canal
to make such a shipment to Syria, if indeed that was where it was heading.
Larry, your intel about the JCS not advising caution is most disheartening. I wouldn't be surprised if the warmongers surrounding
Trump are also telling him that his rally attending base is all for taking it to the raghead terrorists. That may not be far off.
Sure those who support Trump for his professed aversion to adventurism will be appalled at war with Iran, but his more rabid base
may follow him anywhere. Trump has no ideological need for war, but he does have a psychological need for adoration. That's not
a good situation.
"...his rally attending base is all for taking it to the raghead terrorists.."
TTG
I have seen private surveys commissioned by a deep pocketed hedge fund of working class folks in the mid-west & the south.
When the consequences of a military confrontation with Iran are described the overwhelming majority oppose it.
Larry is spot on. Trump will lose his re-election bid if he kowtows to Bibi & MbS. The short-term financial & economic effects
would crush his base and the half-life of jingoism after Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, & Syria will be rather short. Trump will be
blamed by the "right" for cocking up teaching Iran a lesson and demonized by the "left "for getting us into another ME quagmire.
How does one wake POTUS Trump to the reality that his NEOCONS and Israel Firsters in his Cabinet will destroy his Presidency if
he doesn't jettison them out the door.
There is an effort underway to undermine Israeli influence in the US, and I think the calculus might be to use the exact thing
Israelis want most (war with Iran) to do that. I think the resurrection of the Epstein case is also part of that effort. Thus,
war with Iran is inevitable.
"There is an effort underway to undermine Israeli influence in the US"
Is it an organized effort? Where do I sign up?
Rick Wiles heads TruNews, a Christian evangelical network. He's been outspoken in his criticism of zionism, calls out Christian
zionists, and deplores that "the US has been taken over by zionists." To be sure, ADL has labeled Wiles an "antisemite." If TruNews
survives, it may be part of game-changing.
"From what I am hearing from knowledgeable sources [is that] no one on the Joint Chiefs of Staff at DOD are advising caution."
We should probably ignore the notion that the Joint Chiefs are bullish about a war with Iran -- the situation in the area is
terrible for us and the Joint Chiefs know it.
For example, Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan have military understandings with Iran and the former is now installing advanced S-400
Russian missiles to defend itself from us. Furthermore, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Azerbajian and Armenia will not allow
transit of war materiel or aircraft en-route to Iran. So how does the US project anything into that country?
Then again, US Central Command is located in Iran friendly Quatar, which merely hosts us and could require us to leave. How
come? Wouldn't you know it, Quatar is developing a massive gas reserve with Iran in the Gulf, is now very, very friendly with
big-brother Turkey and presently negotiating with Russia for S-400 missiles -- clearly against us.
Well, what about our Navy?
Alas, recent improvements in missiles have rendered our deep water Navy a liability -- not that the narrow Persian Gulf / Sea
of Oman is deep in any case. (President Trump learned about our Navy's vulnerability to missile attack last year as the Pentagon
quickly pulled our three carrier group force from Korea and parked those impressive ships on the south coast of Australia! )
Then there is Iran's near east client / ally Hezbollah, which has made clear that any bombing of Iran, a huge country, would
trigger heavy missile attack on postage-stamp Israel.
The Neocons may have managed to silence public Pentagon doubts, but President Trump is clearly attempting to avoid military
adventures. "No, the Iran downed drone was old and not that expensive." "The UK captured an Iranian tanker and the Iranians have
reciprocated. The two should sit down and work the situation out."
I believe that Iran is going to want to avoid war if they can. Their program of adding precision guidance to Hezbollah missiles
in Lebanon means that the longer they postpone war, the better for them. If they get to a point where they have 10,000 precision
guided missiles in Lebanon then the next Israel-Lebanon war will force Israel into a humiliating defeat.
Eighty percent of Israel's water comes from water desalination plants - and then there are electricity generation plants, sewage
treatment plants, and numerous other infrastructure targets that can be hit. Israeli civilians are soft and will cry uncle as
soon as their air conditioning cuts out.
Why not, then, have the Americans initiate the deed now... destroy Iran and Lebanon, and then, with France, the UK, Germany,
Canada et al. spend billions to rebuild Israel, with the Palestinians being sent to Jordan (if not worse).
Israel has gambled on a broader war several times in the past, and they believe (despite the fiasco in Lebanon) that each was
a win.
When did this group, leading the charge overseas in D.C. for the past 20 years, once get it right, as far as assumptions and expectations
of military necessities or outcomes? I am beginning to think this creating a greater danger out of a lesser mess is a feature,
not a defect. If so, why? To what end? Or is the policy process that broken?
Saddam ain't around any more, neither is Muammar Gaddafi. The neocons take those as great victories since the sacred state
of Israel is safe from those two.
imo a war with iran is theatre and will not take place.
should iran be attacked imo you can kiss the UAE goodbye as well as most if not all of the Saudi oil infrastructre along the
gulf. i would also expect a massive direct bombardment of israeli cities and other important targets from hezbollah starting with
the massive ammonia storage system in haifa whose destruction would annihilate that entire region. all of useful israel is in
the middle to upper third of the country closest to lebanon and easy reach for all of hezbollahs missiles.
the persian gulf upon the start of the war becomes the hotel california for any warship within. none would likely escape. and
the coup de gra for iran is whether they have the ballistic missile reach and or can gain access to russian long range bombers
fitted with kalibr or better cruise missiles able to smash diego garcia absolutely critical american relaestate in the indian
ocean.
trump imo is not crazy and can read a map as well as anyone with help from his REAL pentagon military professionals.
we have not even gotten to what happens to all those oil and interest rate derivatives far out of the money right now in somewhat
normal times. if war starts they go from notional to real fast and the western financial system implodes even with a force majeure
declaration
An Iran war would indeed most probably kill off Trump's chance of re-election. The almost inevitable spike in the price of oil
which it would bring about would have two implications:
1/ ROTW xUS manufacturing is already in recession, with services close to joining it in many countries. The US is clearly slowing
down and appears headed on the same course. The global economy is in no shape to withstand even a relatively short-lived surge
in oil prices.
2/ There is no knowing what lurks out there in the oil derivatives market, but the banking system - particularly the European
banking system - is far too fragile to sustain another bout of counterparty risk aversion along the lines of 2007/08. (And amongst
the trillions of gross derivatives exposure, one has to wonder just how many US and other banks are sitting across from Deutsche
Bank oil positions and happily netting off the counterparty risk.)
Regretably, from my side of the Atlantic the US looks like a traditional imperial power, addicted to war and conquest and with
a significant proportion of the population fetishizing (probably not a real verb) all things military. Whether Trump can be truly
damaged by extending the 'forever war' to Iran depends very much on how it goes - and I doubt he has the knowledge required to
think through all the plausible scenarios. We can be a lot more confident that carrying the blame for an unnecessary recession
into the election campaign has a solid chance of sinking him.
Just what good has the past two decades of "war and conquest" done for America, whether flyover country, Jussie Smollett's
"Maga Country" section of Chicago or the homeless encampments of Seattle, LA or Portland?
As the Saudi's appear to be losing their war with Yemen, the UAE has announced that they are not desirous of being in the
middle of any US-Iran conflict. Qatar is doing a huge nat gas deal with Iran.
Bolton is heading to Japan to "mediate" the
current economic disagreements between Japan and S. Korea.
Pompeo is declaring that the Iranian Ballistic Missile program is suddenly on the table. It would appear that the whole Iranian
atomic bomb thing was smoke and mirrors and hasbara.
There is a deal available, preparation for making the deal will involve political kabuki, grand posturing, the beating of drums
without rhythm and the flooding of the Old American Infotainment outlets with much wailing and whining about "the only democracy
in the MENA."
A deal will eventuate that allows both the USA and Iran to move on, about a week before the 2020 presidential election. Or
maybe not.
I have a question for those of you well versed with Iranian military capability. What are the capabilities of Iranian ballistic
missiles in terms of range, precision and payload lethality?
As Col. Lang has noted in the transition to war, before the US
Navy gets its ducks in a row, that is the window of opportunity that Iran has to strike back. What damage could they inflict on
oil & gas infrastructure including LNG, port & pipelines across UAE, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia?
A 50% reduction in oil & LNG output for greater than 3 months would crush already weakening Asian economies who are the
manufactured products supply chain for most of the world and in particular the US. Will voters in Ohio, Wisconsin & Michigan cheer
Trump's military strikes on Teheran when prices at Walmart double?
As Larry notes "..President Trump, regrettably, is ignorant of military history and devoid of strategic intelligence when
it comes to employing military force.." , but I believe he has good political instincts and as his Reality TV/Twitter presidency
shows he has an excellent sense of how it plays both in the MSM and social media. He must know that while the "shock & awe" and
"boom-boom" videos may give him an instant boost the stock market that he has rested his presidency on may not soar but in fact
plummet. And he can't blame Jay Powell for that.
He must also instinctually know that November 2020 is a year away and a lot can go wrong as it is economically and in financial
markets since he's been harping at the Fed to lower rates in supposedly the best economy evah. Uncertainty spikes volatility and
the credit markets are already stressed particularly in offshore eurodollar funding which is an order of magnitude larger than
mortgage credit markets were in 2007.
Maybe Rand Paul is his counter to the ziocon fifth column? I don't think he's that foolish to pull the trigger on Iran and
sink his presidency when the Deep State & NeverTrumpers are out for his blood. He must know he'll lose immunity from legal jeopardy
when he's no longer POTUS.
As Col. Lang has repeatedly observed, the decisions to go to war do not necessarily follow economic, nor domestic political logic.
It is therefore better to speculate on the players state of mind rather than looking at the aforesaid rational drivers like economics
and votes.
I have no faith in Donald Trump when it comes to Israeli's interests. Embassy moved to Jerusalem check, Golan Heights check.
Deal of the Century by his Anti-Christ Son-In-Law check. Not sure if that is a joke or not.
Israeli wants Iran destroyed and their ability to pressure US Presidents to do their bidding all the way back to President
Truman is 100% success. Trump so cravenly promotes the Zionist interest that I see no reason he will not pursue regime change
in Iran to its logical conclusion.
The plan is ultimately Greater Israeli and the leaders of Iran are well aware of this.
Many comments say that Israeli will be badly damaged by any regional war. Why do you believe Israeli is just going to take
the blows? Analysis is not advocacy as Col. Lang says.
My fear is the ultimate weapons of mass destruction are introduced into the Middle East.
"Trump's advisers have a demented obsession with Iran. They've been spoiling for a fight with Iran for decades. They have no idea
how destructive it would be. It would make Iraq look like a tea party."
Option 1 - Diplomatic solution: The UK will do what it must do, ie what the US allows it to do. The GB Imperial project is no
more and the UK is riding along somewhere in the wake of the Imperial City. Whatever influence it exerts on power there is by
flattery or deception (Steele dossier.) Trump slapped the UK Ambassador out of Washington as if he were a fly. Moreover, the UK
alone carries no stick to wield against Iran. Iran is no Falklands.
Options 2 thru 4 - some degree of military attack on Iran:
as you point out, the return on investment for any kind of attack on Iran is highly unpredictable. It depends entirely on how
Iran chooses to respond and whether it decides to roll the dice, go all in, and endure the onslaught, and inflict what damage
it can where it can, which it very well may. Does anyone in Washington have an intel based fix on Iran's intentions when attacked?
I doubt it.
Not a single intervention in the last 18 years, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya resulted in the anticipated outcome. Do they
have rear view mirrors in Washington?
My weakly held expectation, especially now with the passing of a few days, is that Washington will decide to temporize and
tell the UK to accept the humiliation, in effect kicking the can down the road. Everyone will know it is only doing what it has
been told to do.
Of course they will announce more face saving sanctions. The Donald will hope that he will be able to gut it out to 2020 without
having to make a decision that could blow him up, and likely would - but who knows? Iran will hope to gut it out to 2020 and in
the interim pray to God that some Democrat floats back down to earth with some issues, like the Donald once espoused, that will
be used to beat the Donald and send him and his family back to the upper East Side.
With the escalation game fully in play, it's going to be a close call.
I find it a bit hard to believe that leaders like Dunford, Selva, Milley, Richardson, and the others on the Joint Chiefs are
not advising caution. Milley, the next Chairman, for sure has advised caution at his recent Senate hearing. Dunford has only pushed
for an international coalition Task Force to guard ships transiting the Strait. Selva and Richardson appear to be more worried
about China.
Let us all hope that your knowledgeable sources are wrong.
The real danger is if Fred Fleitz gets to be DNI. If that happens be prepared for another scam like the Office of Special Plans
a la Wolfowicz and Feith. Probably Bolton and/or PomPom already have one hiding in the basement ready to go.
Iran's FM Zarif made a peaceful impression during Fareed Zakaria's interview. But all the headlines focus on his one statement:
"Start a war with Iran and we will end it" . Although those were NOT his words, what he said was "We will never start
a war,...But we will defend ourselves, and anybody who starts a war with Iran will not be the one who ends it."
The question is whether he speaks for the hardliners.
You forgot to mention what will happen to the world economy if the Strait of Hormuz is closed to all shipping by Iranian missiles
an mines. Stock marks would collapse and a deep recession if not depression would ensue quickly.
The same idiots running the show seem to believe that American oil and gas fracking makes it impervious to the loss of
Middle Eastern oil (in fact, a secret motivation might be to save American frackers economically), but they forget that oil is
a fungible commodity and always flows to the highest bidder. They could try of ban oil exports, but the Europe and Japan's economies
would be utterly toast as there would be virtually no oil available to them, especially if Russia backed Iran and cut them off.
Rather than blaming this on the media, neocons or the Pentagon, put the blame where it lies - with President Trump. Trump
campaigned on tearing up the Iran nuclear agreement which he did once he was elected. The Trump administration re-imposed sanctions
on Iran which are meant to inflict serious hardship on the Iranian people. Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo - both hawks from previous
administrations. Trump is attempting to enforce the sanctions. Is there anyone else to blame but Trump?
Iran is also not entirely innocent in the affairs of the Middle East. Israel believes with some evidence that Iran is building
forward bases in Syria - an unacceptable condition for Israel considering the thousands of missiles owned by Hezbollah and the
ballistic missile testing by Iran. Iran is also supplying weapons directly to Hezbollah (as they always have). In addition, Iran
is supplying weapons and (likely) ballistic missile technology to the Houthis. The Houthis have used ballistic missiles to attack
the Saudis. Yemen is on the border of Saudi Arabia - and a (Shia) Houthi government is unacceptable to the Saudis. The Trump administration
tore up the nuclear agreement because of the destabilizing political agenda of Iran (to US interests).
Trump campaigned on a more isolationist foreign policy so option 1 is still the most likely possibility for the moment (IMO).
The use of the golden rule suggests problems with your logic. Would we sit still, for example, if Russia and/or China started
fostering guerrilla movements in South America? Of course not. We would actively intervene in support of what we see as our local
security imperatives. That appears to me to be all Iran is doing in its region.
Your third paragraph is a stretch. Iran's actions that you describe are realistic (in the strategic sense of the word) responses
to Israel's overt hostility, overwhelming superiority in air power and its possession of scores of nuclear weapons.
I'm wondering if in case of war, Iran would need to "close the Gulf" at all.
If the Gulf oilfields in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are heavily rocketed and put out of commission along with tanker loading
docks and pipeline infrastructure, there won't be any oil to ship out of the Gulf anyway.
The primary damage from a war with Iran will be economic. Oil flowing through the Staits will come to a halt and that will
hit China, Japan and the rest of Asia very hard and their buying power will decrease significantly hurting our exports. Even though
the U.S is self-sufficient in oil if oil prices hit $100+ on the world market look for the U.S. oil companies to increase their
prices to approach the world price driving gas prices into the $5.00+/gallon range. Trump will undoubtably prohibit U.S oil exports
but the damage to the economies world wide will still negatively impact the U.S.
Insurance on oil vessels will become almost impossible to get. The U.S will have to indemnify ship owners and I suspect
many will not trust the U.S. to come through with the money for claims. Trump has a history of this and thus many ships will stay
in port.
A war with Iran will not be won or lost militarily, but economically. Iran is 4 times the size of Iraq and has 3 times the
population and I simply do not think we can successfully occupy the country. That being the case, I don't think the U.S can permanently
prevent sabatoge in the Staits - meaning an oil induced recession will linger world wide for many years.
UNO: increased false flag incident instigated by the anglo-zionist
DUE:Increased takfiri movements in Idlib and provocatiev
attacks InnAleppo ,Hama Dara and Dier Ezurr as the Syrian Arab Army is consolidating around Northern Hama and Around Idlib .
TRE: More tanker siezures by the Nato cohorts and portraying Iran as breachoing the JCPCOA treaty. Nevr mentioning the breach
of contract from the western alliance from Pax-Americana and its Western European vassals
Quattro Russia and China will be either utilised as middle men or further labelled as agressors and Iranian?Syrian?Yemeni apologist.
Post Scriptum: Signs of a dying paradigm as the western elite have gone into total sclerotic mode. Dangerous as a rabid
dog.
Last week it was all fire and brimstone. The US was threatening more sanctions on Iran, the
Brits were seizing oil tankers and Iran was violating the JCPOA.
I thought National Security Advisor John Bolton said the US would apply pressure until "the
pips squeak."
Where the pips are squeaking is on the Arabian Peninsula, not across the Persian Gulf in
Bandar Abbas. Specifically, I'm talking about the United Arab Emirates. The UAE sent a
delegation to Tehran recently that coincided with its partial withdrawal of troops from
Yemen.
"The UAE would like to avoid seeing their country transformed into a battlefield between
the US and Iran in case of war, particularly if Trump is re-elected. The Emirates officials
noted that the US did not respond to Iran's retaliation in the Gulf and in particularly when
the US drone was downed. This indicates that Iran is prepared for confrontation and will
implement its explicit menace, to hit any country from which the US carries out their attacks
on Iran. We want to be out of all this ", an Emirates official told his Iranian counterpart
in Tehran.
Iran promised to talk to the Yemeni officials to avoid hitting targets in Dubai and Abu
Dhabi as long as the UAE pulls out its forces from the Yemen and stops this useless war.
Saudi Crown Prime Mohammad Bin Salman is finding himself without his main Emirates ally,
caught in a war that is unwinnable for the Saudi regime. The Yemeni Houthis have taken the
initiative, hitting several Saudi strategic targets. Saudi Arabia has no realistic objectives
and seems to have lost the appetite to continue the war in Yemen.
So, with the Houthis successfully striking major targets inside Saudi Arabia and the UAE
abruptly pulling forces out, the war in Yemen has reached a critical juncture. Remember, the
Republican-controlled Senate approved a bill withdrawing support for the war back in March,
which the White House had to veto in support of its fading hopes for its Israeli/Palestinian
deal pushed by Jared Kushner.
But things have changed significantly since then as that deal has been indefinitely
postponed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing a second election this fall
after he failed to secure a stable coalition.
After that there was the failed economic conference in
Bahrain in June where Kushner revealed the economic part of the plan to a half-empty room
where only the backers of the plan showed any real support.
And that's the important part of this story, because it was Kushner's plan which was the
impetus for all of this insane anti-Iran belligerence in the first place. Uniting the Gulf
states around a security pact leveraging the U.S/Israeli/Saudi alliance was part of what was
supposed to pressure the Palestinians to the bargaining table.
By placing maximum economic sanctions on both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran while continuing
to foment chaos in Syria was supposed to force Israel's enemies to fold under the pressure
which would, in turn, see the Palestinians surrender to the will of Kushner and Bibi.
The problem is, it didn't work. And now Trump is left holding the bag on this idiotic policy
which culminated in an obvious provocation when Iran shot down a $220 million Global Hawk
surveillance drone, nearly sparking a wider war.
But what it did was expose the US and not Iran as the cause of the current problems.
Since then Trump finally had to stand up and be the grown-up in the room, such as he is, and
put an end to this madness.
The UAE understood the potential for Iran's asymmetric response to US belligerence. The
Saudis cannot win the war in Yemen that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began. The fallout
from this war has been to push Qatar out of the orbit of the rest of the Gulf Cooperation
Council, cutting deals with Iran over developing the massive North Pars gas field and pipelines
to Europe.
And now the UAE has realized it is facing an existential threat to its future in any
confrontation between Iran and the US
What's telling is that Trump is making Yemen the issue to negotiate down rather than Iran's
nuclear ambitions. Because it was never about the nuclear program. It was always about Iran's
ballistic missile program.
And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would have us believe that for the first time Iran's
missile program is on the negotiating table. I have no idea if that's actually true, but it's a
dead giveaway that it's what the US is after.
The main reason why Trump and Netanyahu are so angry about the JCPOA is the mutual
outsourcing of the nuclear ballistic missile program by Iran and North Korea. North Korea was
working on the warhead while Iran worked on the ballistic missile.
Trump tweeted about this nearly two years ago, confirming this link. I wrote about it when
he did this. Nearly everything I said about North Korea in the blog post is now applicable
to Iran. This was why he hated the JCPOA, it didn't actually stop the development of Iran and
North Korea into nuclear states.
But tearing up the deal was the wrong approach to solving the problem. Stop pouring hundreds
of billions of dollars in weapons to the region, as Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif pointed out
recently, is the problem . By doing this he took both Russian President Vladimir Putin and
Chinese Premier Xi Jinping off his side of the table.
Now he stands isolated with only the provocateurs – Israel, the U.K., Saudi Arabia
– trying to goad him forward into doing something he doesn't want to do. And all of those
provocations that have occurred in the past month have failed to move either Trump or the
Iranians. They've learned patience, possibly from Putin. Call it geopolitical rope-a-dope, if
you will.
I said last month that the key to solving Iran's nuclear ambitions was solving the
relationship with North Korea. Trump, smartly, went there, doing what only he could
do , talk with DPRK Chairman Kim Jong-Un and reiterate his sincere desire to end
proliferation of nuclear weapons.
He can get Iran to the table but he's going to have to give up something. So, now framing
the negotiations with Iran around their demands we stop arming the Saudis is politically
feasible.
Trump can't, at this point, back down directly with Iran. Yemen is deeply unpopular here and
ending our support of it would be a boon to Trump politically. Trading that for some sanctions
relief would be a good first step to solving the mess he's in and build some trust.
Firing John Bolton, which looks more likely every day, would be another.
He's already turning a blind eye to Iranian exports to China, and presumably, other places.
I think the Brits are acting independently trying to create havoc and burnish Foreign Secretary
Jeremy Hunt's resume as Prime Minister against Boris Johnson. That's why they hijacked the oil
tanker.
But all the little distractions are nothing but poison pills to keep from discussing the
real issues. Trump just cut through all that. So did Iran. Let's hope they stay focused.
The Donald Trump Administration is looking more and more like George W. Bush's
Administration: a dumb clueless idiot surrounded by neocons.
Remember Donald Rumsfeld , Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, John Bolton , George Tenet, Henry
Paulson, Paul Wolfowitz , and **** Cheney from the George W Bush Administration?
Tell me Trumptards, what's so "different this time" about Donald Trump hiring Bolton,
Pompeo, Mattis/Shanahan/Esper, Haley, Haspel and Mnuchin?
Jeffrey D. Sachs Trump is often called
an isolationist, but he is as interventionist as his predecessors. His strategy is simply to rely more heavily on US economic power
than military might to coerce adversaries, which creates its own kind of cruelty and destabilization – and embodies its own brand
of illegality.
NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump has based his foreign policy on a series of harsh economic blockades, each designed to frighten,
coerce, and even starve the target country into submitting to American demands. While the practice is less violent than a military
attack, and the blockade is through financial means rather than the navy, the consequences are often dire for civilian populations.
As such, economic blockades by the United States should be scrutinized by the United Nations Security Council under international
law and the UN Charter.
When Trump campaigned for office in 2016, he rejected the frequent US resort to war in the Middle East. During the years 1990-2016,
the US launched two major wars with Iraq (1990 and 2003), as well as wars in Afghanistan (2001), Libya (2011), and Syria (2012).
It also participated in many smaller military interventions (Mali, Somalia, and Yemen, among others). While the Syrian War is often
described as a civil war, it was in a fact a war of regime change led by the US and Saudi Arabia under a US presidential directive
called Timber
Sycamore .
None of these US-led wars (and others in recent history) achieved their political objectives, and the major conflicts have been
followed by chronic violence and instability. The attempt to force Syria's Bashar al-Assad from power led to a proxy war – eventually
involving the US, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates – that displaced over ten
million Syrians and caused around a half-million violent deaths.
While Trump has so far eschewed a new war, he has continued US regime-change efforts by other means. Trump is often called an
isolationist, but he is as interventionist as his predecessors. His strategy, at least so far, has been to rely more heavily on US
economic power than military might to coerce adversaries, which creates its own kind of cruelty and destabilization. And it constantly
risks flaring into outright war, as occurred with Iran this month.
The Trump administration currently is engaged in three attempts at comprehensive economic blockades, against North Korea, Venezuela,
and Iran, as well as several lesser blockades against countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua, and an intensifying effort to cut off
China's access to technology. The blockade against North Korea is sanctioned, at least in part, by the UN Security Council. The blockade
against Iran is in direct opposition to the Security Council. And the blockade against Venezuela is so far without Security Council
engagement for or against. The US is attempting to isolate the three countries from almost all international trade, causing shortages
of food, medicines, energy, and spare parts for basic infrastructure, including the water supply and power grid.
The North Korean blockade operates mainly through UN-mandated sanctions, and includes a
comprehensive list of
exports to North Korea, imports from North Korea, and financial relations with North Korean entities. The UN Food and Agriculture
Organization reports that ten million North Koreans are
at risk of hunger, partly owing to sanctions. "[T]he unintended negative impact sanctions can have on agricultural production, through
both direct and indirect impacts, cannot be ignored," the FAO warns. "The most obvious are restrictions on the importation of certain
items that are necessary for agricultural production, in particular fuel, machinery and spare parts for equipment."
The draconian US sanctions on Venezuela have come in two phases. The first, beginning in August 2017, was mainly directed at the
state oil company PDVSA, the country's main earner of foreign exchange; the second round of sanctions, imposed in January 2019, was
more comprehensive, targeting the Venezuelan government. A recent
detailed analysis
of the first round of sanctions shows their devastating impact. The US sanctions gravely exacerbated previous economic mismanagement,
contributing to a catastrophic fall in oil production, hyperinflation, economic collapse (output is down by half since 2016), hunger,
and rising mortality.
US sanctions against Iran have been in place more or less continuously since 1979. The most recent and by far most draconian measures,
introduced in August 2018 and intensified in the first half of this year, aim to cut Iran off from foreign trade. The US sanctions
are in direct contravention of UN Security Council Resolution
2231 , which endorsed the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. The effects have been devastating. The International Monetary Fund
forecasts that Iran's economy will shrink by 10% between 2017 and 2019, with inflation reaching 30% this year. Medicines are in
short supply .
One might expect that other countries would easily circumvent US sanctions. But the US has threatened to punish foreign companies
that violate the sanctions and has used the dollar's global clout as a bludgeon, threatening to sanction foreign banks that finance
trade with Iran. European companies have fallen into line, despite the European Union's express desire to engage economically with
Iran. Over the longer term, it is likely that more ways will be found to circumvent the sanctions, using renminbi, ruble, or euro
financing, yet the erosion of US sanctions will only be gradual.
Despite the intense economic pain – indeed calamity – inflicted on North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran, none of them has succumbed
to US demands. In this sense, sanctions have proved to be no more successful than military intervention. North Korea has maintained,
and most likely is expanding, its nuclear arsenal. The Iranian regime rejects US demands concerning its missile program and foreign
policies. And Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro remains in power.
The US blockades have been carried out by presidential decree, with almost no public debate and no systematic oversight by Congress.
This has been a one-man show, even more so than in the case of president-led wars, which trigger vastly more public scrutiny. Trump
realizes that he can impose crippling sanctions abroad with almost no direct costs to the US public or budget, and with virtually
no political accountability.
Military blockades are acts of war, and therefore subject to international law, including UN Security Council oversight. America's
economic blockades are similar in function and outcome to military blockades, with devastating consequences for civilian populations,
and risk provoking war. It is time for the Security Council to take up the US sanctions regimes and weigh them against the requirements
of international law and peacekeeping. Jeffrey D. Sachs , Professor of Sustainable
Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia's Center for Sustainable
Development and of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. His books include
The
End of Poverty ,
Common
Wealth , The Age of
Sustainable Development ,
Building the New American
Economy , and most recently, A New
Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism .
As long as a country neither conducts a genocide, nor attacks other countries, nobody should interfere in its internal affairs.
If a country like Venezuela or Cuba goes broke due to its incompetent leadership, it should get help from the IMF etc. in exchange
for reforms as happens with any other country. Other than that it is their business whether they want to be socialist, capitalist
or whatever. That whole ideological crusade against leftist countries has to stop, it has cost millions of lives already.
And there is a simple way to stop Iran's activities in the Middle East: let's finally solve the conflict there after decades
during which the West simply looked the other way when land, water and oil were stolen from the Palestinians and others.
In my view the US has long turned into a rogue state. The rest of the world has to prune that country by working together and
isolating it. For instance, let's create a new global currency for commodities, the Com, in order to drive the dollar out.
Let's move the UN out of the US to a neutral, peaceful country, Switzerland for instance.
Sanctions are legal and based on national sovereignty and not a proper subject of scrutiny by an international body. Blockades
are subject to international law. By calling something which is legal by another term which may involve illegality one is guilty
of shedding false light.
Sachs thinks that if sanctions have the same effect as a blockade then sanctions are blockades. This is foolish. It is like
saying 'since a woman can get pregnant either through consensual sex or through rape, it follows that all fathers are rapists'.
Trump is carrying on policies previously applied. He has made no great innovation. It appears likely that no 'regime change'
will occur. That is why there is no real 'geopolitical' risk here. The effect of sanctions is to create a widening chasm between
regime 'insiders' and the great mass of the people. This has a demoralizing effect and reduces the ability of the regime to use
its brain-washed subjects for an aggressive purpose. In other words, sanctions reduce, not increase, the threat potential of a
bitter adversary.
Current sanctions attempt to effectively have jurisdiction over third parties, i.e. not the US, who would trade with Iran. ( that,
in full compliance with international law and a binding prior agreement to which the US is a party.) I am curious how you square
that with "national sovereignty", unless that is something over which the US has a higher priority than third parties.
As in all other times that are precursors to War, the laws of disparate nations mean nothing. We all have our own laws, to rule
our own geopolitical nations, which disserve the interests of other geopolitical nations.
Most recently, the WTO admits it is insufficient to resolve trade disputes among nations, and must change its hypotheses. This
is only another precursor admission that binding international laws are becoming irrelevant, and that we must "Start all over
again", i.e. the rule of the strongest, which means one state must conquer another before we can reestablish "Common Rule."
Economic sanctions are not tantamount to acts of war and should not be treated that way at the UN Security Council or anywhere
else. To do that would just leave acts of war as the only alternative in the case of serious disputes. But neither should nations
necessarily cooperate with sanctions they see as poorly motivated or poorly designed. In those cases, the best response is usually
technical -- new institutional arrangements that raise the costs or limit the effects of poorly justified unilateral sanctions.
it is the beginning of the end for the special role of the US$ in the world economy. Dethroning the US$ has now become a matter
of national security for 95% of the planet. Not that this would not have happened anyway, nothing lasts forever, but present events
accelerate the process.
This can be good for the US in the long run, if painful at first. One sometimes quips about the curse of natural resources.
US suffers from the similar curse of the Dollar, which is a natural resource of sorts, as it can be printed out of thin air, seemingly
without consequences. The dethroning of the US$ will cause a pretty significant, perhaps shocking, drop in living standards given
US social inequalities, but it may be beneficial in the long run by imposing some sobriety and discipline upon the political system.
Then, it could also break up the country for good. May you live in interesting times, as the saying goes.
Fortunately, the ability of the U.S. to do this is fading fast, as it loses its economic domination to China. So far, China has
shown rather less tendency to meddle in the affairs of other countries, with the notable exceptions of certain territories which
it regards as part of its territory. The world is slowly becoming fairer.
"... Daniel R. DePetris is a foreign policy analyst, a columnist at ..."
"... , and a frequent contributor to ..."
"... That TAC columnists continue to hold out hope that Trump will revert to his 2016 form astounds me. ..."
"... It's like watching Obama cultists convince themselves that The Real Obama®, the hopey changey guy from 2008, will finally put in an appearance, even as he betrays them over and over again. ..."
If there is any direct communication between American and Iranian officials, it is hidden
from public view. All of this has made Senator Rand Paul's initiative to open dialogue with
Tehran urgent, necessary, and prudent.
According to a July 17 story
in Politico , Paul recently pitched himself to President Trump as a possible
presidential emissary to the Iranians -- someone who could sit down with Foreign Minister
Mohammed Javad Zarif and begin a conversation on the issues that have nearly resulted in
military conflict. Trump apparently accepted Paul's pitch while the two were on the golf course
last weekend. His decision, while not yet confirmed by the White House, suggests that Trump is
slowly beginning to recognize the deficiencies of the maximum pressure policy that National
Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and outside counsels like the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Mark Dubowitz have peddled for years. Far from forcing
Tehran's surrender, economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation have yielded more Iranian
aggression. Iran is now a wounded animal backed into a corner, ready to fight rather than
submit. The chances of a clash have increased substantially.
In a town filled with tough talkers who see foreign policy as an extension of domestic
politics, Rand Paul is one of those strange creatures who is willing to throw himself in front
of a bus for the sake of preventing a war. His foes (of which there are many, from Bill Kristol
and Lindsey Graham to Marco Rubio and Liz Cheney) use the lazy isolationist epitaph to paint
him as a gadfly on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But at his core, Paul is neither a
gadfly nor an isolationist. The junior senator from Kentucky is a non-interventionist who has
the audacity to search for diplomatic solutions before doing what most of his colleagues on
Capitol Hill would have long preferred -- involuntarily reaching for more punitive options.
This isn't the first time Paul has tried to create space for dialogue with a U.S. adversary.
Last year, when so much as talking to a Russian was universally frowned upon by the political
class, Paul flew to Moscow and delivered
a letter on behalf of President Trump to Russian parliamentarians. A month later, he
introduced an
amendment that would have lifted travel restrictions on Russian lawmakers if Moscow did the
same for their American counterparts. The amendment was a small and reasonable gesture that
removed largely symbolic sanctions in order to encourage Americans and Russians to familiarize
themselves with each other. It was lambasted in committee and
killed .
Paul's latest initiative with Iran could run into the same brick wall. The fact that the
arrangement was leaked to the media is an indication that somebody in the Trump administration
is totally opposed to the idea and wants to bury any potential conversations with the Iranians
before they begin. One can almost picture John Bolton, holed up in the White House basement,
hearing the news and frantically ordering his minions on the National Security Council to
expose it in the press.
There are also practical questions that need to be answered. With Zarif only in New York for
another few days, does Paul have the time for a one-on-one meeting? Would the Iranians be
interested in meeting with the senator, even if he does have the president's ear? Or is
Khamenei, still seething over the administration's withdrawal from the nuclear deal and
watching his government's oil exports disappear, dead set on banning any contact with the
Americans for as long as Trump remains in the Oval Office?
Organizing a backchannel with the Iranians could be difficult, in large measure because it
will be fought tooth-and-nail by the usual suspects. But Rand Paul's potential role as an envoy
should be pursued. After all, it isn't like the hawks have such a great track record.
Daniel R. DePetris is a foreign policy analyst, a columnist at Reuters , and a
frequent contributor to The American Conservative.
That TAC columnists continue to hold out hope that Trump will revert to his 2016 form
astounds me.
It's like watching Obama cultists convince themselves that The Real Obama®, the
hopey changey guy from 2008, will finally put in an appearance, even as he betrays them
over and over again.
That TAC columnists continue to hold out hope that Trump will revert to his 2016 form
astounds me.
It's like watching Obama cultists convince themselves that The Real Obama®, the
hopey changey guy from 2008, will finally put in an appearance, even as he betrays them
over and over again.
Your pessimism is certainly warranted and frequently seconded by Larison and others at TAC.
Agreed. But, what choice do we have but to encourage proposals like this one and recognize
that Trump, as infuriatingly inconsistent as he has been, needs to be encouraged when he
does something sensible.
Rand at least seems to have his ear, no small feat.
I am not saying that such moves, if they come to pass, should not be encouraged.
But let's see if anything comes of it, or if the Boltons, Pompeos and Haspels of this
world make sure that Rand fails and then chant "But we have to go to war because we tried
so hard we tried everything ZOMG war war war!"
The best reason I can think of to choose to send someone other than Rand Paul to negotiate
with Iran is that Paul was NOT one of the seven WPP senators who didn't sign Tom Cotton's
odious open letter to Iran trying to put the kibosh on the Obama nuke deal with Iran.
Maybe try Corker, or Alexander or Murkowski...someone whom the Iranians might have some
reason to trust.
I seriously doubt that Rand Paul has a whit more credibility in Tehran than Trump does,
and why would he?. I can't think of a single reason why Iran should trust him.
Good and very to the point made in this article about the hawks, these neo-cons, these war
lovers, not having a good track record.
They have a record of death and destruction and they could care less about people
suffering.
Just why do they want America to continue attacking and threaten and make war on numerous
nations?
Why...
But lest anyone be tempted to think Steele's 2016 dossier is about to be mysteriously
revived as credible, consider this: Over months of work, FBI agents painstakingly researched
every claim Steele made about Trump's possible collusion with Russia, and assembled their
findings into a spreadsheet-like document.
The over-under isn't flattering to Steele.
Multiple sources familiar with the FBI spreadsheet tell me the vast majority of Steele's
claims were deemed to be wrong, or could not be corroborated even with the most awesome tools
available to the U.S. intelligence community. One source estimated the spreadsheet found upward
of 90 percent of the dossier's claims to be either wrong, nonverifiable or open-source
intelligence found with a Google search.
In other words, it was mostly useless.
"The spreadsheet was a sea of blanks, meaning most claims couldn't be corroborated, and
those things that were found in classified intelligence suggested Steele's intelligence was
partly or totally inaccurate on several claims," one source told me.
The FBI declined comment when asked about the spreadsheet.
The FBI's final assessment was driven by many findings contained in classified footnotes at
the bottom of the spreadsheet. But it was also informed by an agent's interview, in early 2017,
with a Russian that Steele claimed was one of his main providers of intelligence, according to
my sources.
The FBI came to suspect that the Russian misled Steele, either intentionally or through
exaggeration, the sources said.
The spreadsheet and a subsequent report by special prosecutor Robert Mueller show just how far off the
seminal claims in the Steele dossier turned out to be.
For example, U.S. intelligence found no evidence that Carter Page, during a trip to Moscow
in July 2016, secretly met with two associates of Vladimir Putin Igor Sechin and senior
government official Igor Divyekin -- as part of the effort to collude with the Trump campaign,
as Steele reported.
Page did meet with a lower-level Rosneft official, and shook hands with a Russian deputy
prime minister, the FBI found, but it was a far cry from the tale that Steele's dossier
spun.
Likewise, Steele
claimed that Sechin had offered Page a hefty finder's fee if he could get Trump to help
lift sanctions on Moscow: "a 19 percent (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return."
That offer, worth billions of dollars, was never substantiated and was deemed by some in
U.S. intelligence to be preposterous.
The inaccuracy of Steele's intelligence on Page is at the heart of the inspector general
investigation specifically because the
FBI represented to the FISA court that the intelligence on Page was verified and strong
enough to support the FISA warrant. It was, in the end, not verified.
Another knockdown of the dossier occurred when U.S. intelligence determined former Trump
lawyer Michael Cohen was not in Prague
in the summer of 2016 when Steele claimed he was meeting with Russians to coordinate a
hijacking of the election, the sources said.
Steele's theory about who in the Trump campaign might be conspiring with Russia kept
evolving from Page to Cohen to former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. None of those theories
checked out in the end, as the Mueller report showed.
Again, Steele's intelligence was wrong or unverifiable.
The salacious, headline-grabbing claim that Russians had incriminating
sex tapes showing Trump engaged in depraved acts with prostitutes also met a factual dead
end when the FBI interviewed the Georgian-American businessman who claimed to know about them.
Giorgi Rtskhiladze told investigators "he was told the tapes were fake," according to a
footnote in the Mueller report. Rtskhiladze's lawyer subsequently
issued a letter taking issue with some of Mueller's characterizations.
Steele had some general things right, of course, including that the Russians were behind
the
hacking of the Democratic National Committee's emails. Of course, there were public reports
saying so when Steele reported this.
But even then, his dossier's theory of how the hackers worked, who paid them and how they
communicated with Trump was determined in the FBI spreadsheet and subsequent Mueller
investigation to be far from accurate.
Even State officials, who
listened to Steele's theories in October 2016 -- less than two weeks before his dossier was
used to support the FISA request -- instantly determined he was grossly wrong on some
points.
Any effort to use Steele's belated cooperation with the inspector general's investigation to
prop up the credibility of his 2016 anti-Trump dossier or the FBI's reliance on it for the FISA
warrant is deeply misguided.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a key defender of Trump, said he talked with DOJ officials after
the most recent stories surfaced about Steele and was told the reporting is wrong. "Based on my
conversations with DOJ officials, recent reports which suggest Christopher Steele's dossier and
allegations are somehow deemed credible by DOJ, are simply false and not based on any
confirmation from sources with direct knowledge of ongoing investigations," Meadows told
me.
The FBI's own spreadsheet was so conclusive that it prompted then-FBI Director James Comey (no fan of Trump, mind
you) to dismiss the document as " salacious and unverified " and
for lead FBI agent Peter Strzok to text, "
There's no big there there ." FBI lawyer Lisa Page
testified that nine months into reviewing Steele's dossier they had not found evidence of
the collusion that Steele alleged.
Two years later, Mueller came to the same conclusion: Steele's intelligence alleging a
conspiracy was never verified.
The next time you hear a pundit suggesting Steele's dossier is credible or that the FBI's
reliance on it as FISA evidence was justified, just picture all those blanks in that FBI
spreadsheet.
They speak volumes as to what went wrong in the Russia investigation.
John Solomon is an
award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI
intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster
children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He
serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow
him on Twitter @jsolomonReports .
Ursula von der Leyen arrives clouded in scandal and ready to implement radical economic
policies that will stifle growth.
like Jean-Claude Juncker, she arrives in Brussels with a record of negligence in her country
of origin. Whereas Juncker was accused of failing in his duty to inform the Luxembourg
Parliament of illegal wiretapping by the intelligence service, von der Leyen was denounced for
mismanagement. In October 2018, when she was still Germany's minister of defense,
she admitted that her department had made mistakes in awarding contracts to external
consultants, amounting to several hundred million euros.
In 2012, Josep Borrell, former president of the European Parliament and former minister in
various Spanish socialist governments, was forced to resign from his position as president of
the European University Institute (UIE) following allegations of conflicts of interest. At that
time, he was receiving €300,000 as a member of the board of directors of the Spanish
sustainable energy company Abengoa, while at the same time promoting biofuels through the
institute.
Nevertheless, alongside von der Leyen, Borrell is about to be confirmed as the new head of
EU diplomacy. Another perfect candidate.
The scandal in Berlin is not the only reason the vote for Von der Leyen was narrow. It was
also that socialists and environmentalists weren't given sufficient trade-offs (in their eyes).
The European Union is all about distributing the large number of positions and policy
priorities between the involved parties, and in this case, the left felt shafted.
A source from the PiS party (the ruling party in Poland) told journalist Oskar
Górzyński of the media company Wirtualna Polska that it was a call from Chancellor
Angela Merkel that tipped some Polish MEPs over. What did Mrs. Merkel promise them? More
agricultural subsidies? The abandonment of the Article 7 sanction procedure against judicial
reforms in Poland? Only Merkel knows that and she won't tell.
Bill Wirtz comments on European politics and policy in English, French, and German.
His work has appeared in Newsweek, the Washington Examiner, CityAM, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and
Die Welt.
The clichés poured forth from Milley's lips with all the practiced smarminess of a
car salesman promoting a new line of pickup trucks. But what does this mean in practice,
Senator James Inhofe, Senate Armed Services Committee chair, wanted to know? What is General
Milley's top priority?
"The very number one for me," Milley replied, "is the modernization, recapitalization of the
nation's nuclear triad."
Now pause here for a moment. The triad -- the claim that the safety and security of the
United States requires a nuclear strike force consisting of long-range bombers and
long-range land-based missiles and missile-firing submarines -- represented fresh
thinking some 60 years ago. That was when ICBMs and Polaris submarines were entering service to
complement Strategic Air Command's fleet of B47s and B52s. If indeed "the fundamental character
of war is changing rapidly," how can it be that Milley's conception of originality is to field
glitzier versions of weapons dating back to when he was born? To make such a claim is on a par
with arguing that what the U.S. Army needed in 1940 was more horses and the U.S. Navy more
battleships.
It is small wonder that so few observers pay serious attention to what senior military
officers have to say. What they say is mostly drivel.
Andrew Bacevich is TAC 's writer-at-large and a co-founder of the Quincy Institute
for Responsible Statecraft.
Wow! Finally! No retreat to the comfort of broad generalization like "the eilites" but rather
a well considered, on target consideration of one of the individuals in a position of power
and responsibility sufficient to make the absolutely necessary changes our remarkable
nation's health demands. Thank you!
And, if the general can't make use of well a intended and considered constructive critique he
is not the experienced, compassionate adult the task requires.
It is small wonder that so few observers pay serious attention to what senior military
officers have to say. What they say is mostly drivel.
Professor Bacevich has this one exactly backwards. Notice that when the sanctified Pentagon
Generals make their fear-monger saturated pronouncements there is zero pushback from either
the Politicos or the lapdog MSM. It is not that they are not listening. It's that they fully
concur because they are intimidated by anyone wearing Stars on their shoulders.
They accept the "drivel" of the Pentagon Brass by default. BTW, which also includes the
includes the updated National Defense Strategy which has the U.S. playing belligerent Global
Cop in perpetuity and wasting taxpayer dollars out the wazoo.
If anything, the Congress and MSM should be paying more serious attention to the obsolete
and unaffordable pronouncements of the Generals and start questioning their own instinctive
deference to Pentagon authority which permits the warped, fully militarized and largely
failed U.S. foreign policy to continue as is.
I am not the first person to note that the US is displaying more and more symptoms of a dying
empire. To name a few; a broken political system, crony capitalism, a bloated military, use
of mercenaries, and unpayable debt.
The other day, while watching some general being interviewed, I noticed another symptom.
He, and other contemporary generals, have so many ribbons and metals on their chest that they
could be melted down for ore. I found a
site that lets me compare our beribboned commanders with those of yesteryear.
Civil War generals had few or no ribbons. World War I's General of the Armies Pershing
displays two rows of narrow ribbons. By World War II General Eisenhower showed three ribbon
rows. In 1950 General Bradley showed 6 rows ( you can see a detailed picture
here ).
The pictures of today's generals and officers are bedazzling. Just one example, The page
describing William J. Gainey, USA, Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman, JCS ( not even a
general ), shows a picture with at least 8 rows of ribbons, with a list 24 lines long
describing 56 awards after accounting for multiple awards.
As our military officers watch the country fall apart, at least they can fondle their
decorations.
Andrew J Bacevich does more for the long-term military strength and international standing of
the USA than much of the military and political leadership of this country. A true patriot.
That was amazing. "War is changing rapidly" coupled with "Most important: updating a 60 year
old weapon system"
Not a single world about figuring out why every war since Gulf 1 has been an abject
failure? Or the threat of our defense manufacturing infrastructure being sold by Wall Street
to China? Not a word?
The man can really talk out of both sides of his mouth, can't he? Should do great on
Capitol Hill...
Not sure how we got to this pathetic stage but my guess is that some of the pomposity is
directly related to the armies of press following the generals around in Iraq, e.g. petraeus,
et al
As a snarky comment, what in the world is with all of these "impressive" ribbons to the top
of these generals' shoulders-from what I understand, about 70-80% of them are meaningless,
only a few are for combat, valor, some are for merit, but are more or less automatic. Talk
about grade creep, how about ribbon creep.
Ike had about one or two rows, all meaningful awards. Marshall had maybe one row, meaningful
awards to a very competent general.
Those generals that came out of Iraq and Afghan were mostly mouth pieces for the press and
the politicians, i.e. drivel. None of them could win a meaningful engagement without bombing
the heck out of civilians and associated cities. In a word, pathetic.
Unless politicians feel pressure to act on military matters in a way that honors their or
their constituents' lived experiences, how are they to be incentivized to ask the right
questions? Some flavor of draft to increase stakeholders among the citizenry, or a service
requirement for government office, might realize the serious attention for which Mr. Bacevich
protests here, and drive the selection of better leaders.
To me for, both the nation and the military, we need to have an update of the high tech
weapon systems that the General talks about but we also need to have a reassessment of how we
fight wars. The wars the US won are (in my mind) the Revolution and WWII. I think the Civil
war was "lost" because although the US defeated the Confederacy it did not reunite the
nation. WWI was said to be the war to end all wars - - that didn't happen. No question that
both Korea and Vietnam were not won, despite the heroism of those fighting there - - those
wars were handled by Washington politics. MacAuthor could have won Korea but was fired. The
whole Vietnam was was managed by politics. Now to the middle east. Afghanistan is another
example of political warfare as is Iraq and potentially Iran. I believe that a war can be
partly won by high tech missiles, bombs, etc. but cannot be actually won except by occupying
the ground. We did this in Europe with the troops giving out cigarettes and candy as they
patrolled. That made them human to the previous "enemy". Our professional volunteer army
doesn't have the manpower to do this. I believe we need to have a secondary low-tech army of
drafted men and women who can be trained quickly to be able to follow commands, to use a
rifle with accuracy, and to be able to reduce civilian conflict without violent response. The
high tech folk require extended training, the low tech force is able to move in and actually
win the war. How would this help the nation? It would force people to live and work with a
diverse population and realize that we can be a single nation of people of different
backgrounds and ethnicity. The "fly over land" people really aren't a bunch of idiot racist
red-necks. The coastals are not (all) anxious to destroy America.
The US didn't just win in WWII because we occupied the ground. We won because we showed the
German people that we were happy to fire bomb entire ancient cities and indiscriminately kill
their women and children without a second thought.
And we were the good ones to surrender to. The Russians were happy to kill them all, with
the exception of a few pretty blonds who would henceforth bear strong Russian boys.
You can't win a war without utterly defeating an entire population. Which is why we can't
win our wars. None of these people have done anything to really harm us. And the American
people still have enough dignity to not just slaughter these people for no reason. We're not
entirely evil, yet.
I have always wondered what such people mean when they say that the character of warfare is
changing and the US has to adopt to such changes.
War is about 2 things; killing and destruction. That in a nutshell is the character of
war. Anything else may describe the complexities of tactics and strategies or the causes of
such conflicts but the actual features of any conflict are always the same.
The only thing that does change is the types of weapon systems used. The stupidity that
has led militaries to use them hasn't changed since the dawn of time...
"... One pressure on Putin comes from the Atlanticist Integrationists who have a material stake in their connections to the West and who want Russia to be integrated into the Western world. ..."
"... We agree with President Putin that the sanctions are in fact a benefit to Russia as they have moved Russia in self-sufficient directions and toward developing relationships with China and Asia. ..."
"... It is a self-serving Western myth that Russia needs foreign loans. This myth is enshrined in neoliberal economics, which is a device for Western exploitation and control of other countries. Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists. ..."
"... Neoliberals argue that Russia needs privatization in order to cover its budget deficit. Russia's government debt is only 17 percent of Russian GDP. According to official measures, US federal debt is 104 percent of GDP, 6.1 times higher than in Russia. If US federal debt is measured in real corrected terms, US federal debt is 185 percent of US GDP. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/08/deteriorating-economic-outlook/ ..."
"... Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists. ..."
"... Most of Russia's economic block has to be literally purged from their sinecures, some, indeed, have to be "re-educated" near Magadan or Tyumen, or Saransk. Too bad, two of these places are actually not too bad. Others deserved to be executed. Too bad this jackass Gaidar (actually no blood relation to Arkady whatsoever) died before he could be tried for crimes against humanity and genocide. Albeit, some say he died because of his consciousness couldn't take the burden. Looking at his swine face I, somehow, doubt it. ..."
"... This is not a US vs Russia issue. The real conflict is ... Globalism vs Russian nationalism and American nationalism. But since Jews control the media, they've spread the impression that it's about US vs Russia. ..."
"... Trump is an ultra-zionist for Sheldon Adelson and prolongs & creates wars for the Goldman banking crimesyndicat. ..."
"... Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." ..."
"... You write about Russia but have not done your homework. Russia is very dependent on Western technology and its entire high-tech industry depends on the import of Western machinery. Without such machinery many Russian factories, including military ones, would stall. Very important oil industry is particularly vulnerable. ..."
An article by Robert Berke in oilprice.com, which describes itself as "The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News," illustrates how interest
groups control outcomes by how they shape policy choices.
Berke's article reveals how the US intends to maintain and extend its hegemony by breaking up the alliance between Russia, Iran,
and China, and by oil privatizations that result in countries losing control over their sovereignty to private oil companies that
work closely with the US government. As Trump has neutered his presidency by gratuitously accepting Gen. Flynn's resignation as National
Security Advisor, this scheme is likely to be Trump's approach to "better relations" with Russia.
Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President
Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China. Should Putin fall for such a scheme, it would be a fatal strategic blunder
from which Russia could not recover. Yet, Putin will be pressured to make this blunder.
One pressure on Putin comes from the Atlanticist Integrationists who have a material stake in their connections to the West
and who want Russia to be integrated into the Western world. Another pressure comes from the affront that sanctions represent
to Russians. Removing this insult has become important to Russians even though the sanctions do Russia no material harm.
We agree with President Putin that the sanctions are in fact a benefit to Russia as they have moved Russia in self-sufficient
directions and toward developing relationships with China and Asia. Moreover, the West with its hegemonic impulses uses economic
relationships for control purposes. Trade with China and Asia does not pose the same threat to Russian independence.
Berke says that part of the deal being offered to Putin is "increased access to the huge European energy market, restored western
financial credit, access to Western technology, and a seat at the global decision-making table, all of which Russia badly needs and
wants." Sweetening the honey trap is official recognization of "Crimea as part of Russia."
Russia might want all of this, but it is nonsense that Russia needs any of it.
Crimea is part of Russia, as it has been for 300 years, and no one can do anything about it. What would it mean if Mexico did
not recognize that Texas and California were part of the US? Nothing.
Europe has scant alternatives to Russian energy. Russia does not need Western technology. Indeed, its military technology
is superior to that in the West. And Russia most certainly does not need Western loans. Indeed, it would be an act of insanity
to accept them.
It is a self-serving Western myth that Russia needs foreign loans. This myth is enshrined in neoliberal economics, which is
a device for Western exploitation and control of other countries. Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists.
The Russian central bank has convinced the Russian government that it would be inflationary to finance Russian development
projects with the issuance of central bank credit. Foreign loans are essential, claims the central bank.
Someone needs to teach the Russian central bank basic economics before Russia is turned into another Western vassal. Here is the
lesson: When central bank credit is used to finance development projects, the supply of rubles increases but so does output from
the projects. Thus, goods and services rise with the supply of rubles. When Russia borrows foreign currencies from abroad, the money
supply also increases, but so does the foreign debt. Russia does not spend the foreign currencies on the project but puts them into
its foreign exchange reserves. The central bank issues the same amount of rubles to pay the project's bills as it would in the absence
of the foreign loan. All the foreign loan does is to present Russia with an interest payment to a foreign creditor.
Foreign capital is not important to countries such as Russia and China. Both countries are perfectly capable of financing their
own development. Indeed, China is the world's largest creditor nation. Foreign loans are only important to countries that lack the
internal resources for development and have to purchase the business know-how, techlology, and resources abroad with foreign currencies
that their exports are insufficient to bring in.
This is not the case with Russia, which has large endowments of resources and a trade surplus. China's development was given a
boost by US corporations that moved their production for the US market offshore in order to pocket the difference in labor and regulatory
costs.
Neoliberals argue that Russia needs privatization in order to cover its budget deficit. Russia's government debt is only 17 percent
of Russian GDP. According to official measures, US federal debt is 104 percent of GDP, 6.1 times higher than in Russia. If US federal
debt is measured in real corrected terms, US federal debt is 185 percent of US GDP.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/08/deteriorating-economic-outlook/
Clearly, if the massive debt of the US government is not a problem, the tiny debt of Russia is not a problem.
Berke's article is part of the effort to scam Russia by convincing the Russian government that its prosperity depends on unfavorable
deals with the West. As Russia's neoliberal economists believe this, the scam has a chance of success.
Another delusion affecting the Russian government is the belief that privatization brings in capital. This delusion caused the
Russian government to turn over 20 percent of its oil company to foreign ownership. The only thing Russia achieved by this strategic
blunder was to deliver 20 percent of its oil profits into foreign hands. For a one-time payment, Russia gave away 20 percent of its
oil profits in perpetuity.
To repeat outselves, the greatest threat that Russia faces is not sanctions but the incompetence of its neoliberal economists
who have been throughly brainwashed to serve US interests.
When Russia borrows foreign currencies from abroad, the money supply also increases, but so does the foreign debt. Russia
does not spend the foreign currencies on the project but puts them into its foreign exchange reserves. The central bank issues
the same amount of rubles to pay the project's bills as it would in the absence of the foreign loan. All the foreign loan does
is to present Russia with an interest payment to a foreign creditor.
Yes, correct. But this is an IMF rule, and Russia is an IMF member. To control its monetary policy it would have to get out.
Another pressure comes from the affront that sanctions represent to Russians. Removing this insult has become important
to Russians even though the sanctions do Russia no material harm.
Oh dear, neolibs at their "finest"!
This "theory" is simply not true. If anything, Russians don't want the sanctions to be lifted, because this will also force
us to scrap our counter-sanctions against the EU. The agro-business in Russia had been expanding by leaps and bounds for the last
two years. This persistent myth that "the Russians" (who exactly, I wonder – 2-3% of the pro-Western urbanites in Moscow and St.
Pete?) are desperate to have the sanctons lifted is a self-deception of the West, who IS desparate of the fact that the sanctions
didn't work.
Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists.
Yes! Ulyukayev is, probably, feeling lonely in his prison. I say – why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him
up?
Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President
Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead.
Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President
Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead.
Another pressure comes from the affront that sanctions represent to Russians. Removing this insult has become important to
Russians even though the sanctions do Russia no material harm.
Oh dear, neolibs at their "finest"! This "theory" is simply not true. If anything, Russians don't want the sanctions to
be lifted, because this will also force us to scrap our counter-sanctions against the EU. The agro-business in Russia had been
expanding by leaps and bounds for the last two years. This persistent myth that "the Russians" (who exactly, I wonder - 2-3% of
the pro-Western urbanites in Moscow and St. Pete?) are desperate to have the sanctons lifted is a self-deception of the West,
who IS desparate of the fact that the sanctions didn't work.
Russia's most dangerous threat is the country's neoliberal economists.
Yes! Ulyukayev is, probably, feeling lonely in his prison. I say - why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him
up? ;)
I say – why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him up?
Most of Russia's economic block has to be literally purged from their sinecures, some, indeed, have to be "re-educated"
near Magadan or Tyumen, or Saransk. Too bad, two of these places are actually not too bad. Others deserved to be executed. Too
bad this jackass Gaidar (actually no blood relation to Arkady whatsoever) died before he could be tried for crimes against humanity
and genocide. Albeit, some say he died because of his consciousness couldn't take the burden. Looking at his swine face I, somehow,
doubt it.
If the US continues to antagonize Russia, Russia will have to grow even more independent, nationalist, and sovereign. At any
rate, this issue cannot be addressed until we face that the fact that globalism is essentially Jewish Supremacism that fears gentile
nationalism as a barrier to its penetration and domination.
This is not a US vs Russia issue. The real conflict is ... Globalism vs Russian nationalism and American nationalism. But
since Jews control the media, they've spread the impression that it's about US vs Russia.
Same thing with this crap about 'white privilege'. It is a misleading concept to fool Americans into thinking that the main
conflict is between 'privileged whites' and 'people of color'. It is really to hide the fact that Jewish power and privilege really
rules the US. It is a means to hoodwink people from noticing that the real divide is between Jews and Gentiles, not between 'privileged
whites' and 'non-white victims'. After all, too many whites lack privilege, and too many non-whites do very well in America.
I say – why not send Chubais, Siluanov and Nabiulina to cheer him up?
Most of Russia's economic block has to be literally purged from their sinecures, some, indeed, have to be "re-educated"
near Magadan or Tyumen, or Saransk. Too bad, two of these places are actually not too bad. Others deserved to be executed.
Too bad this jackass Gaidar (actually no blood relation to Arkady whatsoever) died before he could be tried for crimes against
humanity and genocide. Albeit, some say he died because of his consciousness couldn't take the burden. Looking at his swine
face I, somehow, doubt it.
I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy for.
It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot fathom
why he hasn't done this already.
Does PCR really think that Putin is stupid enough to fall for Kissinger's hair-brained scheme? I mean, give Putin a little
bit of credit. He has so far completely outmaneuvered Washington on virtually ever subject. I'm sure he's clever enough to see
through such a crude divide-and-rule strategy.
The Russians can't be flummoxed, they aren't children. Russia and China border each other so they have a natural mutual interest
in having their east-west areas be stable and safe, particularly when the US threatens both of them. This geography isn't going
to change. Abandoning clients such as Syria and Iran would irreversibly damage the Russian brand as being unreliable therefore
they'd find it impossible to attract any others in the future. They know this so it's unlikely they would be so rash as to snap
at any bait dangled in front of them. And, as pointed out, the bait really isn't all that irresistible. It's always best to negotiate
from a position of strength and they realize that. American policy deep thinkers are often fantasists who bank upon their chess
opponents making hoped-for predictable moves. That doesn't happen in real life.
I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy for.
It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot fathom
why he hasn't done this already.
I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this already.
Partially, because Putin himself is an economic liberal and, to a degree, monetarist, albeit less rigid than his economic block.
The good choices he made often were opposite to his views. As he himself admitted that Russia's geopolitical vector changed with
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia–a strengthening of Russia has become an imperative. This comeback was impossible within the
largely "Western" monetarist economic model. Russia's comeback happened not thanks but despite Putin's economic views, Putin adjusted
his views in the process, his economic block didn't. But many of them still remain his friends, despite the fact that many of
them are de facto fifth column and work against Russia, intentionally and other wise. Eventually Putin will be forced to get down
from his fence and take the position of industrialists and siloviki. Putin's present for Medvedev's birthday was a good hint on
where he is standing economically today and I am beginning to like that but still–I personally am not convinced yet. We'll see.
In many respects Putin was lucky and specifically because of the namely Soviet military and industry captains still being around–people
who, unlike Putin, knew exactly what constituted Russia's strength. Enough to mention late Evgeny Primakov. Let's not forget that
despite Putin's meteoric rise through the top levels of Russia's state bureaucracy, including his tenure as a Director of FSB,
Putin's background is not really military-industrial. He is a lawyer, even if uniformed (KGB) part of his career. I know for a
fact that initially (early 2000s) he was overwhelmed with the complexity of Russia's military and industry. Enough to mention
his creature Serdyukov who almost destroyed Command and Control structure of Russia's Armed Forces and main ideologue behind Russia's
military "reform", late Vitaly Shlykov who might have been a great GRU spy (and economist by trade) but who never served a day
in combat units. Thankfully, the "reforms" have been stopped and Russian Armed Forces are still dealing with the consequences.
This whole clusterfvck was of Putin's own creation–hardly a good record on his resume. Hopefully, he learned.
I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy
for. It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot
fathom why he hasn't done this already.
He has not done it already because he just cannot let go of his dream to have it as he did in 2003, when Russia Germany and
France together blocked legality of US war in Iraq. Putin still hopes for a good working relationship with major West European
powers. Italy France and even Germany.
He still hopes to draw them away from the US. However the obvious gains from Import substitution campaign make it apparent
that Russia does benefit from sanctions, that Russia can get anything it wants in technology from the East rather than the West.
So the break with Western orientation is in the making. Hopefully.
You forgot to mention the "moderate" jihadis, including the operatives from NATO, Israel, and US. (It seems that the Ukrainian
"patriots" that have been bombing the civilians in East Ukraine, also include special "patriots" from the same unholy trinity:
https://www.roguemoney.net/stories/2016/12/6/there-are-troops-jack-us-army-donbass
). There has been also a certain asymmetry in means: look at the map for the number and location of the US/NATO military bases.
At least we can see that RF has been trying to avoid the hot phase of WWIII.
http://russia-insider.com/sites/insider/files/NATO-vs-Russia640.jpg
If the US continues to antagonize Russia, Russia will have to grow even more independent, nationalist, and sovereign.
At any rate, this issue cannot be addressed until we face that the fact that globalism is essentially Jewish Supremacism that
fears gentile nationalism as a barrier to its penetration and domination.
This is not a US vs Russia issue. The real conflict is Jewish Globalism vs Russian nationalism and American nationalism. But
since Jews control the media, they've spread the impression that it's about US vs Russia.
Same thing with this crap about 'white privilege'. It is a misleading concept to fool Americans into thinking that the main
conflict is between 'privileged whites' and 'people of color'. It is really to hide the fact that Jewish power and privilege really
rules the US. It is a means to hoodwink people from noticing that the real divide is between Jews and Gentiles, not between 'privileged
whites' and 'non-white victims'. After all, too many whites lack privilege, and too many non-whites do very well in America.
On the power and privilege that really rule the US:
"Sanctions – economic sanctions, as most of them are, can only stand and 'succeed', as long as countries, who oppose Washington's
dictate remain bound into the western, dollar-based, fraudulent monetary scheme. The system is entirely privatized by a small
Zionist-led elite. FED, Wall Street, Bank for International Settlement (BIS), are all private institutions, largely controlled
by the Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan et al clans. They are also supported by the Breton Woods Organizations, IMF and World Bank,
conveniently created under the Charter of the UN.
Few progressive economists understand how this debt-based pyramid scam is manipulating the entire western economic system. When
in a just world, it should be just the contrary, the economy that shapes, designs and decides the functioning of the monetary
system and policy.
Even Russia, with Atlantists still largely commanding the central bank and much of the financial system, isn't fully detached
from the dollar dominion – yet."
"I cannot fathom why he hasn't done this (nationalize the "central bank) already".
I read about a rumor a few years ago that Putin has been warned that nationalizing the now private Russian central bank will
bring absolutely dire consequences to both him and Russia. It is simply a step he cannot take.
How dire are the potential consequences? Consider that the refusal of the American government to reauthorize the private central
bank in the US brought about the War of 1812. The Americans learned their lesson and quickly reauthorized the private bank after
the war had ended.
Numerous attempts were made to assassinate President Andrew Jacksons specifically because of his refusal to reauthorize the
private central bank.
Here it is in audio form so you can just relax and just listen at your leisure.
*ALL WARS ARE BANKERS' WARS* By Michael Rivero https://youtu.be/WN0Y3HRiuxo
I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than to
force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired
in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.
Here is proof that there is no real Leftist power anymore.
Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."
If the Left really rules America, how come it is fair game to criticize, condemn, mock, and vilify Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin,
Bakunin, Emma Goldman & anarchists, Castro, Che(even though he is revered by many, one's career isn't damaged by attacking him),
Tito, Ceucescu, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Gramsci, Eurgene Debs, Pete Seeger, Abbie Hoffman, Bill Ayers, and etc.
You can say whatever you want about such people. Some will agree, some will disagree, but you will not be fired, blacklisted,
or destroyed.
If the Left really rules, why would this be?
Now, what would happen if you name the Jewish Capitalists as the real holders of power?
What would happen if you name the Jewish oligarchic corporatists who control most of media?
What would happen if you said Jews are prominent in the vice industry of gambling?
What would happen if you named the Jewish capitalists in music industry that made so much money by spreading garbage?
What would happen if you said Jewish warhawks were largely responsible for the disasters in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine?
And what would happen if you were question the MLK mythology and cult?
What would happen if you were to make fun of homos and trannies?
Now, keep in mind that blacks and homos are favored by Jews as their main allies.
(Some say the US is not a pro-minority nation, but it's still permissible to criticize, impugn, and vilify Chinese, Iranians,
Muslims, Mexicans, Hindus, and etc. Trump was hard on China, Iran, Muslims, and Mexicans, and he got some flak over it but not
enough to destroy him. Now, imagine what would have happened if he'd said such things about blacks, Africa, homos, Jews, and Israel?
American politics isn't necessarily pro-minority. If it is, it should favor Palestinian-Americans just as much as Jewish-Americans.
Actually, since there are fewer Palestinian-Americans than Jewish-Americans, the US, being pro-minority, should favor Palestinians
over Jews in America. In reality, it is AIPAC that draws all the politicians. America is about Pro-Power, and since Jews have
the Power and since Jews are a minority, it creates the false impression that the US is a minority-supremacist nation. But WHICH
minority? Jews would like for us think that all minorities are represented equally in the US, but do Eskimos, Hawaiians, Guatemalans,
Vietnamese, and etc. have the kind of power & protection that the Jewish minority has? Do we see politicians and powerbrokers
flock to such minorities for funds and favors?)
So, what does it about the real power in America? So many 'conservatives' say the Left controls America. But in fact, an American
can badmouth all true bonafide leftist leaders and thinkers(everyone from Lenin to Sartre). However, if an American were to badmouth
Sheldon Adelson as a sick demented Zionist capitalist oligarch who wants to nuke Iran, he would be blacklisted by the most of
the media. (If one must criticize Adelson, it has to be in generic terms of him a top donor to the likes of Romney. One mustn't
discuss his zealous and maniacal views rooted in Zionist-supremacism. You can criticize his money but not the mentality that determines
the use of that money.) Isn't it rather amusing how the so-called Liberals denounce the GOP for being 'extreme' but overlook the
main reason for such extremism? It's because the GOP relies on Zionist lunatics like Adelson who thinks Iran should be nuked to
be taught a lesson. Even Liberal Media overlook this fact. Also, it's interesting that the Liberal Media are more outraged by
Trump's peace offer to Russia than Trump's hawkish rhetoric toward Iran. I thought Liberals were the Doves.
We know why politics and media work like this. It's not about 'left' vs 'right' or 'liberal' vs 'conservative'. It is really
about Jewish Globalist Dominance. Jews, neocon 'right' or globo-'left', hate Russia because its brand of white gentile nationalism
is an obstacle to Jewish supremacist domination. Now, Current Russia is nice to Jews, and Jews can make all the money they want.
But that isn't enough for Jews. Jews want total control of media, government, narrative, everything. If Jews say Russia must have
homo parades and 'gay marriage', Russia better bend over because its saying NO means that it is defiant to the Jewish supremacist
agenda of using homomania as proxy to undermine and destroy all gentile nationalism rooted in identity and moral righteousness.
Russia doesn't allow that, and that is what pisses off Jews. For Jews, the New Antisemitism is defined as denying them the supremacist
'right' to control other nations. Classic antisemitism used to mean denying Jews equal rights under the law. The New Antisemitism
means Jews are denied the right to gain dominance over others and dictate terms.
So, that is why Jews hate any idea of good relations with Russia. But Jews don't mind Trump's irresponsible anti-Iran rhetoric
since it serves Zionist interest. So, if Trump were to say, "We shouldn't go to war with Russia; we should be friends" and "We
should get ready to bomb, destroy, and even nuke Iran", the 'liberal' media would be more alarmed by the Peace-with-Russia statement.
Which groups controls the media? 'Liberals', really? Do Muslim 'liberals' agree with Jewish 'liberals'?
Anyway, we need to do away with the fiction that Left rules anything. They don't. We have Jewish Supremacist rule hiding behind
the label of the 'Left'. But the US is a nation where it's totally permissible to attack real leftist ideas and leaders but suicidal
if anyone dares to discuss the power of super-capitalist Jewish oligarchs. Some 'leftism'!
300 Words @Quartermaster
Trump has not been neutered. Buchanan has the right on this and Flynn's actions.
Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine. Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves. Putin is almost
down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.
If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.
Roberts is the next best thing to insane.
This is rich from a Ukrainian nationalist ruled by Groysman/Kagans.
First, figure out who is your saint, a collaborationist Bandera (Babiy Yar and such) or a triple-sitizenship Kolomojski (auto-da-fe
of civilians in Odessa). If you still want to bring Holodomor to a discussion, then you need to be reminded that 80% of Ukrainian
Cheka at that time were Jewish. If you still think that Russians are the root of all evil, then try to ask the US for more money
for pensions, education, and healthcare – instead of weaponry. Here are the glorious results of the US-approved governance from
Kiev: http://gnnliberia.com/2017/02/17/liberia-ahead-ukraine-index-economic-freedom-2017/
"Liberia, Chad, Afghanistan, Sudan and Angola are ahead of Ukraine. All these countries are in the group of repressed economies
(49.9-40 scores). Ukraine's economy has contracted deeply and remains very fragile."
Here are your relationships with your neighbors on the other side – Poland and Romania:
"The right-winged conservative orientation of Warsaw makes it remember old Polish-Ukrainian arguments and scores, and claim its
rights on the historically Polish lands of Western Ukraine"
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/01/17/poland-will-begin-dividing-ukraine/
" the "Assembly of Bukovina Romanians" has recently applied to Petro Poroshenko demanding a territorial autonomy to the Chernivtsi
region densely populated by Romanians. The "Assembly" motivated its demand with the Ukrainian president's abovementioned statement
urging territorial autonomy for the Crimean Tatars."
https://eadaily.com/en/news/2016/06/30/what-is-behind-romanias-activity-in-ukraine
And please read some history books about Crimea. Or at least Wikipedia:
"In 1783, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire. In 1954, the Crimean Oblast was transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist
Republic by Nikita Khrushchev (a Soviet dictator). In 2014, a 96.77 percent of Crimeans voted for integration of the region into
the Russian Federation with an 83.1 percent voter turnout." You see, the Crimeans do not like Nuland-Kagan and Pravyj Sector.
Do you know why?
100 Words @Seamus
Padraig Does PCR really think that Putin is stupid enough to fall for Kissinger's hair-brained scheme? I mean, give Putin
a little bit of credit. He has so far completely outmaneuvered Washington on virtually ever subject. I'm sure he's clever enough
to see through such a crude divide-and-rule strategy.
well it depends. if putin is just out for himself, I can see him getting in bed with kissinger and co. if he is about russia,
he would not. that is how I see it. it isn't about if putin is smart or stupid. just a choice and where his royalty lies.
100 Words @Quartermaster
Trump has not been neutered. Buchanan has the right on this and Flynn's actions.
Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine. Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves. Putin is almost
down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.
If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.
Roberts is the next best thing to insane.
Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine.
How so? #Krymnash
Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves.
If by "decline" you mean "expects this year a modest growth as opposed to previous years" then you might be right.
I've been reading about Russia's imminent collapse and the annihilation of the economy since forever. Some no-names like you
(or some Big Names with agenda) had been predicting it every year. Still didn't happen.
Putin is almost down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid
now.
Can I see a source for that?
If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.
False equivalence.
P.S. Hey, Quart – how is Bezviz? Also – are you not cold here? Or are you one of the most racally pure Ukrs, currently residing
in Ontario province (Canada), from whence you teach your less lucky raguls in Nizalezhnaya how to be more racially pure? Well,
SUGS to be you!
@Quartermaster
Trump has not been neutered. Buchanan has the right on this and Flynn's actions.
Sorry, but Crimea is Ukraine. Russia is in serious economic decline and is rapidly burning through its reserves. Putin is almost
down to the welfare fund from which pensions are paid, and only about a third of pensions are being paid now.
If Sanctions are of benefit to Russia, then the sanctions against Imperial Japan were just ducky and no war was fought.
Roberts is the next best thing to insane.
Do you have any links to verify this that Russia is down to bedrock,from everything I read and have read Russia's do pretty
damn good, or is this just some more of your endless antiRussian propaganda,,
A scandal of a EU member Poland:
http://thesaker.is/zmiana-piskorski-and-the-case-for-polish-liberation/
Two days after he [Piskorski] publicly warned that US-NATO troops now have a mandate to suppress Polish dissent on the grounds
of combatting "Russian hybrid war," he was snatched up by armed agents of Poland's Internal Security Agency while taking his children
to school on May 18th, 2016. He was promptly imprisoned in Warsaw, where he remains with no formal charges to this day."
With the Poland's entry into EU, "Poland did not "regain" sovereignty, much less justice, but forfeited such to the Atlanticist
project Poland has been de-industrialized, and thus deprived of the capacity to pursue independent and effective social and economic
policies Now, with the deployment of thousands of US-NATO troops, tanks, and missile systems on its soil and the Polish government's
relinquishment of jurisdiction over foreign armed forces on its territory, Poland is de facto under occupation. This occupation
is not a mere taxation on Poland's national budget – it is an undeniable liquidation of sovereignty and inevitably turns the country
into a direct target and battlefield in the US' provocative war on Russia."
" it's not the Russians who are going to occupy us now – they left here voluntarily 24 years ago. It's not the Russians that
have ravaged Polish industry since 1989. It's not the Russians that have stifled Poles with usurious debt. Finally, it's not the
Russians that are responsible for the fact that we have become the easternmost aircraft carrier of the United States anchored
in Europe. We ourselves, who failed by allowing such traitors into power, are to blame for this."
More from a comment section: "Donald Tusk, who is now President of the European Council, whose grandfather, Josef Tusk, served
in Hitler's Wehrmacht, has consistently demanded that the Kiev regime imposed by the US and EU deal with the Donbass people brutally,
"as with terrorists". While the Polish special services were training the future participants of the Maidan operations and the
ethnic cleansing of the Donbass, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs made this official statement (02-02-2014): "We support
the hard line taken by the Right Sector The radical actions of the Right Sector and other militant groups of demonstrators and
the use of force by protesters are justified The Right Sector has taken full responsibility for all the acts of violence during
the recent protests. This is an honest position, and we respect it. The politicians have failed at their peacekeeping function.
This means that the only acceptable option is the radical actions of the Right Sector. There is no other alternative".
In short, the US has been the most active enabler of the neo-Nazi movement in Europe. Mrs. Clinton seemingly did not get a
memo about who is "new Hitler."
Do you happen to know anything about western financial giants' influence upon Russia's "Atlanticist Integrationists"?
It's low hanging fruit for me to take a pick, but I am thinking The Goldman Sachs Group is well ensconced among Russian "Atlanticist
Integrationists."
You guys are top seeded pros at uncovering Deep State-banker secrets. In contrast, I drive school bus and I struggle to even
balance the family Wells Fargo debit card!
However, since our US Congress has anointed a seasoned G.S.G. veteran, Steve Mnuchin, as the administration's Treasury Secretary,
he has become my favorite "Person of Interest" who I suspect spouts a Ural Mountain-level say as to how "Atlanticist Integrationists"
operate.
Speaking very respectfully, I hope my question does not get "flummoxed" into resource rich Siberia.
Berke reports that Henry Kissinger has sold President Trump on a scheme to use the removal of Russian sanctions to pry President
Putin away from the Russian alliance with Iran and China.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead.
Kissinger, like Dick Cheney or George Soros, will probably never be completely dead
.
Most likely the Spirit of Anti-Christ keeping them alive to do his bidding.
@Priss Factor
Here is proof that there is no real Leftist power anymore.
Voltaire once said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize."
If the Left really rules America, how come it is fair game to criticize, condemn, mock, and vilify Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin,
Bakunin, Emma Goldman & anarchists, Castro, Che(even though he is revered by many, one's career isn't damaged by attacking him),
Tito, Ceucescu, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Gramsci, Eurgene Debs, Pete Seeger, Abbie Hoffman, Bill Ayers, and etc.
You can say whatever you want about such people. Some will agree, some will disagree, but you will not be fired, blacklisted,
or destroyed.
If the Left really rules, why would this be?
Now, what would happen if you name the Jewish Capitalists as the real holders of power?
What would happen if you name the Jewish oligarchic corporatists who control most of media?
What would happen if you said Jews are prominent in the vice industry of gambling?
What would happen if you named the Jewish capitalists in music industry that made so much money by spreading garbage?
What would happen if you said Jewish warhawks were largely responsible for the disasters in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine?
And what would happen if you were question the MLK mythology and cult?
What would happen if you were to make fun of homos and trannies?
Now, keep in mind that blacks and homos are favored by Jews as their main allies.
(Some say the US is not a pro-minority nation, but it's still permissible to criticize, impugn, and vilify Chinese, Iranians,
Muslims, Mexicans, Hindus, and etc. Trump was hard on China, Iran, Muslims, and Mexicans, and he got some flak over it but not
enough to destroy him. Now, imagine what would have happened if he'd said such things about blacks, Africa, homos, Jews, and Israel?
American politics isn't necessarily pro-minority. If it is, it should favor Palestinian-Americans just as much as Jewish-Americans.
Actually, since there are fewer Palestinian-Americans than Jewish-Americans, the US, being pro-minority, should favor Palestinians
over Jews in America. In reality, it is AIPAC that draws all the politicians. America is about Pro-Power, and since Jews have
the Power and since Jews are a minority, it creates the false impression that the US is a minority-supremacist nation. But WHICH
minority? Jews would like for us think that all minorities are represented equally in the US, but do Eskimos, Hawaiians, Guatemalans,
Vietnamese, and etc. have the kind of power & protection that the Jewish minority has? Do we see politicians and powerbrokers
flock to such minorities for funds and favors?)
So, what does it about the real power in America? So many 'conservatives' say the Left controls America. But in fact, an American
can badmouth all true bonafide leftist leaders and thinkers(everyone from Lenin to Sartre). However, if an American were to badmouth
Sheldon Adelson as a sick demented Zionist capitalist oligarch who wants to nuke Iran, he would be blacklisted by the most of
the media. (If one must criticize Adelson, it has to be in generic terms of him a top donor to the likes of Romney. One mustn't
discuss his zealous and maniacal views rooted in Zionist-supremacism. You can criticize his money but not the mentality that determines
the use of that money.) Isn't it rather amusing how the so-called Liberals denounce the GOP for being 'extreme' but overlook the
main reason for such extremism? It's because the GOP relies on Zionist lunatics like Adelson who thinks Iran should be nuked to
be taught a lesson. Even Liberal Media overlook this fact. Also, it's interesting that the Liberal Media are more outraged by
Trump's peace offer to Russia than Trump's hawkish rhetoric toward Iran. I thought Liberals were the Doves.
We know why politics and media work like this. It's not about 'left' vs 'right' or 'liberal' vs 'conservative'. It is really
about Jewish Globalist Dominance. Jews, neocon 'right' or globo-'left', hate Russia because its brand of white gentile nationalism
is an obstacle to Jewish supremacist domination. Now, Current Russia is nice to Jews, and Jews can make all the money they want.
But that isn't enough for Jews. Jews want total control of media, government, narrative, everything. If Jews say Russia must have
homo parades and 'gay marriage', Russia better bend over because its saying NO means that it is defiant to the Jewish supremacist
agenda of using homomania as proxy to undermine and destroy all gentile nationalism rooted in identity and moral righteousness.
Russia doesn't allow that, and that is what pisses off Jews. For Jews, the New Antisemitism is defined as denying them the supremacist
'right' to control other nations. Classic antisemitism used to mean denying Jews equal rights under the law. The New Antisemitism
means Jews are denied the right to gain dominance over others and dictate terms.
So, that is why Jews hate any idea of good relations with Russia. But Jews don't mind Trump's irresponsible anti-Iran rhetoric
since it serves Zionist interest. So, if Trump were to say, "We shouldn't go to war with Russia; we should be friends" and "We
should get ready to bomb, destroy, and even nuke Iran", the 'liberal' media would be more alarmed by the Peace-with-Russia statement.
Which groups controls the media? 'Liberals', really? Do Muslim 'liberals' agree with Jewish 'liberals'?
Anyway, we need to do away with the fiction that Left rules anything. They don't. We have Jewish Supremacist rule hiding behind
the label of the 'Left'. But the US is a nation where it's totally permissible to attack real leftist ideas and leaders but suicidal
if anyone dares to discuss the power of super-capitalist Jewish oligarchs. Some 'leftism'!
What an amazing whoring performance for the war-manufacturers! And here is an interesting morsel of information about the belligerent
Frau der Leyen:
http://www.dw.com/en/stanford-accuses-von-der-leyen-of-misrepresentation/a-18775432
"Stanford university has said Ursula von der Leyen is misrepresenting her affiliation with the school. The German defense minister's
academic career is already under scrutiny after accusations of plagiarism." No kidding. Some "Ursula von der Leyen' values" indeed.
I doubt we'll see little change from the Trump administration toward Russia.
From SOTT:
Predictable news coming out of Yemen: Saudi-backed "Southern Resistance" forces and Hadi loyalists, alongside al-Qaeda of
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), launched a new offensive against the Houthis in western Yemen on Wednesday.
This is not the first time Saudi-backed (and by extension, Washington-backed) forces have teamed up with al-Qaeda in Yemen
.
Yemen is quickly becoming the "spark that lights the powder keg". The conflict has already killed, maimed and displaced
countless thousands (thanks to the stellar lack of reporting from trustworthy western news sources, we can only estimate the
scale of Saudi/U.S. crimes in Yemen), but now it seems that elements of the Trump administration are keen on escalation, likely
in hopes of giving Washington an excuse to carpet bomb Tehran.
Apparently, we feel satisfied fighting with our old allies, al-Qaeda and Saudis.
I think that the authors may be underestimating Putin in his determination to keep Russia and the Russian economy independent.
For example, I find this rumoured offer of "increased access to the huge European energy market" very funny, for at least two
reasons:
1) US wants to sell hydrocarbons (LPG) to the European market at significantly higher prices than the Russian prices, and
2) the current dependence of EU countries on the Russian energy would have never happened if there were better alternatives.
In other words, any detente offer that the West would make to Russia would last, as usual, not even until the signature ink
dries on the new cooperation agreements. Putin does not look to me like someone who suffers much from wishful thinking.
The Russian relationship with China is not a bed of roses, but it is not China which is increasing military activity all
around Russia, it is the West. Also, so far China has shown no interest in regime-changing Russia and dividing it into pieces.
Would you rather believe in the reform capability of an addict in violence or someone who does not need to reform? Would the West
self-reform and sincerely renounce violence just by signing a new agreement with Russia?
The new faux detente will never happen, as long as Putin is alive.
Trump is an ultra-zionist for Sheldon Adelson and prolongs & creates wars for the Goldman banking crimesyndicat.
The only one stopping Trump is Putin or Russia's missile defenses.
Indeed, Putin's main inside enemy is Russia's central bank, or the Jewish oligarchs in Russia (Atlanticists). Also Russia needs
to foster and encourage small&medium enterprises, that need cheap credit, to create competitive markets, where no prices are fixed
and market shares change. These are most efficient resource users.
In the US, Wallstreet controls government = fascism = the IG Farben- Auschwitz concentration camps to maximize profits. This
is the direction for the US economy.
Meanwhile in the EU, the former Auschwitz owners IG Farben (Bayer(Monsanto), Hoechst, BASF) the EU chemical giants, who have
patented all natures molecules, are in controll again over EU. Deutsche bank et allies is eating Greece, Italy, Spain's working
classes, using AUSTERITY as their creed.
So what is new? Nothing, the supercorporate-fascist elites are the same families, who 's morality is unchanged in a 100 years.
I'm generally a big fan and admirer of Putin, but this is definitely one criticism of him that I have a lot of sympathy
for. It is long past time for Putin to purge the neoliberals from the Kremlin and nationalize the Russian Central Bank. I cannot
fathom why he hasn't done this already.
I would really love to like Putin and I am trying but him protecting all those criminals and not reversing the history greatest
heist of 90′s makes it impossible. While I am behind all his moves to restore Russian military and foreign policy, I am still
waiting for more on home front. Note, not only the Bank must be nationalized. Everything, all industries, factories and other
assets privatized by now must be returned to rightful owner. Public which over 70 years through great sacrifice built all of it.
Partially, because Putin himself is an economic liberal and, to a degree, monetarist, albeit less rigid than his economic block.
The good choices he made often were opposite to his views. As he himself admitted that Russia's geopolitical vector changed with
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia--a strengthening of Russia has become an imperative. This comeback was impossible within
the largely "Western" monetarist economic model. Russia's comeback happened not thanks but despite Putin's economic views, Putin
adjusted his views in the process, his economic block didn't. But many of them still remain his friends, despite the fact that
many of them are de facto fifth column and work against Russia, intentionally and other wise. Eventually Putin will be forced
to get down from his fence and take the position of industrialists and siloviki. Putin's present for Medvedev's birthday was a
good hint on where he is standing economically today and I am beginning to like that but still--I personally am not convinced
yet. We'll see. In many respects Putin was lucky and specifically because of the namely Soviet military and industry captains
still being around--people who, unlike Putin, knew exactly what constituted Russia's strength. Enough to mention late Evgeny Primakov.
Let's not forget that despite Putin's meteoric rise through the top levels of Russia's state bureaucracy, including his tenure
as a Director of FSB, Putin's background is not really military-industrial. He is a lawyer, even if uniformed (KGB) part of his
career. I know for a fact that initially (early 2000s) he was overwhelmed with the complexity of Russia's military and industry.
Enough to mention his creature Serdyukov who almost destroyed Command and Control structure of Russia's Armed Forces and main
ideologue behind Russia's military "reform", late Vitaly Shlykov who might have been a great GRU spy (and economist by trade)
but who never served a day in combat units. Thankfully, the "reforms" have been stopped and Russian Armed Forces are still dealing
with the consequences. This whole clusterfvck was of Putin's own creation--hardly a good record on his resume. Hopefully, he learned.
Smoothie, you seem to have natural aversion towards lawyers
Albeit, the first Vladimir, I mean Lenin also was a lawyers by education still he was a rather quick study. Remember that military
communism and Lenin after one year after Bolsheviks took power telling that state capitalism would be great step forward for Russia
whcih obviously was backward and ruined by wars at the time and he proceeded with New Economic Policy and Lenin despite not being
industry captain realized pretty well what constituted state power hence GOELRO plans and electrification of all Russia plans
and so forth which was later turned by Stalin and his team into reality.
Now, Lenin was ideologically motivated and so is Putin. But he clearly has been trying to achieve different results by keeping
same people around him and doing same things. Hopefully it is changing now, but it is so much wasted time when old Vladimir was
always repeating that time is of essence and delay is like death knell. Putin imho is away too relax and even vain in some way,
hence those shirtless pictures and those on the bike. And the way he walks a la "Я Московский озорной гуляка". As you said it
looks like he is protecting those criminals who must be prosecuted and yes, many executed for what they caused.
I suspect in cases when it comes to economical development he is not picking right people for those jobs and it is his major
responsibility to assign right people and delegate power properly, not to be forgotten to reverse what constitutes the history
greatest heist and crime so called "privatization". Basically returning to more communal society minus Politburo.
There is a huge elephant in the room too. Russia demographic situation which I doubt can be addressed under current liberal
order. all states which are in liberal state of affairs fail to basically procreate hence these waves of immigrants brought into
all Western Nations. Russia cannot do it. It would be suicide which is what all Western countries are doing right now.
Russia does not need Western technology. Indeed, its military technology is superior to that in the West.
You write about Russia but have not done your homework. Russia is very dependent on Western technology and its entire high-tech
industry depends on the import of Western machinery. Without such machinery many Russian factories, including military ones, would
stall. Very important oil industry is particularly vulnerable.
Some home reading (sorry, they are in Russian, but one ought to know the language if one writes about the country).
I see the parallels, but not that one. I think the neocons hope to force the Iranians into
making that "all-in" call though. Perhaps as the neocons see it, such a strike would
magically rally the American populous to the war they so desire. Imperial conquest performed
as a defensive reflex. So they needle nearly everyone in the hopes of triggering a replay of
the WW2 saga which has taken on a mythical good vs evil aura in the US. Ironically, I would
say it is the neocons who think they need to start a war with the Iranians so that they can
be the men they think they are. The only thing still holding them back is the
passive-aggressive need to make it look like someone, anyone, else started it so they can
play the victim card once the body bags start coming home.
USN CDR A. H. McCollum was the man who conceived the so-called "Eight Action Plan" which he
outlined in his Oct 7, 1940 memo. This was his proposal for the U.S. and Britain to initiate
actions which would essentially force Japan into making a decision to wage war against the
United States.
The key elements of the plan, as outlined in McCollum's memo, include the following:
A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific,
particularly Singapore
B. Make an arrangement with the Netherlands for the use of base facilities and acquisition of
supplies in the Dutch East Indies
C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang-Kai-Shek
D. Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore
E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient
F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific[,] in the vicinity of the
Hawaiian Islands
G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions,
particularly oil
H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo
imposed by the British Empire
Not too terribly different from the squeeze currently being placed on Iran by the team of
Pompeo/Boton.
The journalist Robert Stinnett in his now 20 year old book 'Day of Deceit: The Truth About
FDR and Pearl Harbor' made the case that FDR was aware of McCollum's memorandum. I have not
read Stinnett's book, but historians apparently doubted the veracity of Stinnett's thesis
regarding FDR's knowledge of the McCollum memo.
You are correct that initial embargoes of essential defense materials went to effect under
the Export Control Act during the summer of 1940. Additional items were added to the list of
embargoed materials subsequent to October 1940, following the drafting of the McCollum
memo.
So no FOR did not approve of that plan, but some guy wrote a book 20 years ago, one you
didn't read. That's quite helpful in evaluating current war mongering over Iran today.
I read Day of Deceit a month ago and found Stinnett's analysis and sourcing quite
convincing. He demolishes the standard narrative that the attack was a total tactical
surprise and to a large extent a strategic one as well. Admiral Yamamoto's orders to maintain
radio silence were honored very much in the breach, one of the worst offenders being the
at-sea mission commander himself, Admiral Nagumo. Many individual ship captains continued
reporting their positions at specified times of the day, as was their peacetime practice.
This enabled the US, British and Dutch signals monitoring stations, which were sharing
information in spite of the fact that the US was not yet a combatant, to triangulate and
track the Japanese mission fleet from its assembly point near the Kurile Islands eastward to
their launch position several hundred miles north of Oahu. Stinnett assembles a strong
circumstantial case asserting this information was available to the intelligence circles in
Washington DC and in the US radio detection/cryptanalysis stations at Corregidor, the
Aleutian Islands, and Station H on Oahu itself, practically within sight of Admiral Kimmel's
office, but it never made it to the admiral himself or to General Short. He got much of the
supporting information through the FOIA process, but some of the most damning documents he
cited he found by walking into various historical archive sites outside of the DC area and
simply asking to see what they had. He makes the point that many of the documents he cites
never saw the light of day during any of the three formal investigations of the affair: in
the months immediately after the attack; shortly after the end of the war; and half a century
later in the early 1990s. What he is unable to cite are documents that concretely connect the
president, Admiral Stark the CNO, or General Marshall the Army Chief of Staff with knowledge
of the available intelligence. Those known to have existed which might have been smoking guns
that he sought via the FOIA were either still highly classified or were "unable to be found."
However the circumstantial case that they must have known and been on board, in some cases
reluctantly, is strong. For example, it is known that the McCollum memo gained the attention
of FDR himself soon after it was published, and the White House chief usher's log documents
that the commander had several meetings with the president. McCollum, a USNA graduate, had
spent much of his childhood in Japan as the child of Christian missionaries and was almost
natively fluent in the language as well as deeply steeped in the culture.
I don't know if it came from the McCollum memo or not, but at the ABC-1 meetings in early
1941, the British delegation proposed that the US take over the defense of Singapore from the
Royal Navy, a proposal that was rejected by the American delegation.
The minutes of the ABC-1 meetings were published by the British National Archives some
years ago and I have it somewhere on my hard drive but I couldn't give you a link. As I
recall, it was interesting to see the American side rejecting the Singapore and other schemes
to get the US to defend British colonial territories.
It would seem that the best strategic option for Iran is to lay low and absorb the
economic squeeze. The Chinese are unlikely to support the oil sanctions, so they'll be able
to continue to sell them until the US navy starts to interdict their tankers. But oil is
fungible.....
It would also seem that their best military strategy is a defensive one. Obtaining the
best air defense systems and significant medium-range missiles with high payload capacity and
accuracy. At the very least they'll be able to give a black-eye while going down.
Of course the question is how the Ayatollah controls his fire breathing, martyrdom loving
hawks who bristle at their treatment by the US, Israel & the Saudis. My sense is Bibi
will get more itchy than the Ayatollah to take advantage of his perception of complete
control of Trump.
I've wondered if the Chinese will use their own tankers to pick up Iranian oil or re-flag
Iranian ones with Chinese colors as the US did for Kuwait during the Iran-Iraq war in the
1980's.
I can see the neocons wanting open conflict with Iran, but I don't know if they would risk
war with China.
I'm not sure how much control Iran has of its proxies (the Houthi rebels, Hezbollah, the Shia
Militias in Iraq, etc.). That strikes me as a reason fo both the US/Britain AND Iran to go
carefully and slowly.
Nice map, I assume it can't be considered a chart. Maps make me think. Anyway, when I
heard about the four tankers at Fujairah damaged by "sabotage" I took a look up at Qeshm
island in front of Bandar Abbas (it looks to me like a shark) and wondered how far it was
down to Fujairah. I get about 140 nautical miles.
I know that there are hardened sub-pens on the land side of Queshm Island probably out to
the western end. Recently I have read comments speculating what the Iranian class of mini- or
midget subs would be useful for. One learns that one use would be to deliver a sea-mine;
another to launch the one torpedo it can carry; and another would be as a transport for naval
commandos, or swimmers trained in demolition and mine warfare.
Then I remembered something. I took a look at the last place down on the right side of the
map on the Iranian mangrove shore, Trask, once an old fishing port. Trask is also where the
pipeline down from the CIS countries will end, and a large refinery, manufacturing, and
shipping complex is planned. Since 2008, Trask has been developed for a number of military
uses. First as a naval base which berths fast motor patrol boats of the kind that can launch
missiles like the Qader, a sea-skimmer carrying a warhead of 200 kilos which can reach out to
186 miles; also as a drone base, complete with a rail launcher which could indicate
proficiency in big stay-aloft reconnaisance drones, soon enough to be weaponized, if not
already. Significantly, it is also a base for littoral-class submarines, which would include
mini-subs design based on the North Korean Yono class, submarines that would be similar to
the one that is thought to have sunk the ROKS Cheonan in 2011 with a torpedo. Travelling at
nine or ten knots, the Iranian model of the Yono, the Ghadir, could make the crossing to
Fujairah in about twelve hours. That's a distance of 127 miles or so.
It looks to me as if the stern location of the tanker the news videos show would not have
been hit unless the ship backed into a mine. And it doesn't look like the kind of damage a
naval mine would do. A naval mine would have made an enormous ten or twenty foot cavernous
dent in that stern, at the least. What it looks like to me was that a swimmer or swimmers
placed a sticky explosive or satchel charge. (?) I think it is meant as a warning. 'We can
get you any time..."
There's another message. Fujairah and also the ports of Salalah, Sohar, and Duqm, in Oman,
have been billing themselves as "the Gateway to the Arabian Gulf." (For that historical and
scholarly insult alone they should pay.) Fujairah is the only one of the UAE that is on the
eastern side of the Musandam Peninsula. It has been advertised as the emirate that would not
be involved in a Gulf war. Out of range. Think again me buckaroos.
The United States has just signed an agreement in late March with Oman which allows US
naval and air forces to use the new state- of-the art port facilities and airport at Duqm,
down in the middle of the Oman coast, and also Salalah. Sultan Qaboos, a very impressive
leader, one of the best, who happens to be gay (but the father of his country), balances
carefully between the various powers he must deal with. Iran is already there in Oman and has
the right to establish companies and to store materiel there, and to ship cargoes. Just as
Iran does in Qatar, where two hundred trucks come across from Bushire every day and have
since June 2017 since Trump the Brain gave the OK to Mohammed Bin Salman to lay siege to
Qatar. Consider this: "Sohar Freezone has options for leasing pre-built warehouses and
commercial offices, as well as 100% foreign ownership...and a One-Stop-Shop for all relevant
permits and clearances." (From Overview--SOHAR Port and Freezone.) As to how you get this
cargo to points south, that is an interesting question...
Russia will come in if push comes to shove. Russia will not countenance the idea of an
America naval and drone base on the Caspian, which is what will happen if Iran is bombed
flat. Russia will second pilots to the Iranians and will send bombers like the Tu-95 Bear or
the Backfire capable of carrying the KH-101 which will carry Iranian markings etc. These
bombers, with enormous range, could wreck havoc on Diego Garcia, and could destroy a carrier
group.
The Iranians show us now that they were the ones who invented the game of chess. Trump can
look at China, and then he can look at Fujairah, and he can see the American economy going
down... The Iranian move is worthy of a grand master...
Great comment!
I think transferring a Tu-95 bomber will be a bit too much since the Iranians don't have much
of an air force. But missiles will do the job anyways, so why bother with planes. You don't
need to hit Diego Garcia, Israel is close enough. So is Al Udeid. Plus there will be attacks
on all US bases spread across Iraq and I suspect Syria. There is no shortage of targets for
sure for the Iranians, it this leads to war.
By the way, Chess was invented in India not ancient Persia. So was the numeral system which
is now called Arabic numerals (the Arabs have been trying to give their names to stuff which
is not theirs for a long time now) including the decimal system and negative numbers.
Thank you for your comment. You remind me that I have a group of expensive, unread books
about that part of the world. I may never read them, the way things are going.
I want to stress that Russia and Iran have already worked out the diplomatic agreements
which allow Russia to have based bombers at Hamadan, from which attacks were made on Isis in
Syria. In other words, Russia knows the way. The question is, is Russia going to stand by and
do nothing while the United States bombs Iran back to the stone ages, as it did in North
Korea during the Korean conflict? I find that hard to believe. I assume that at some point
Russia will, as Russia has previously done in other conflicts, or places, such as in Yemen,
in the 1970s and early 80's, assign pilots, and transfer planes ostensibly to the control of
the Iranian military.
Diego Garcia is an atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is a critical anchorage for
prepositioning supply ships for any land operations, such as the invasion of Iraq; it is also
a support facility, where submarines and other ships can get repairs. It is also an airbase,
where B-2 bombers might be assembling as I write, though given everything else that is NOT
happening, I assume that is doubtful. Speaking in a general way, the distance from the
Persian Gulf, Muscat, or Bahrain, say, to Diego Garcia, is about 2600 or 2700 miles.
If Russia seconded a squadron of bombers such as the TU-22M3 (NATO reporting name Backfire
C) under the aegis of Iran, and based them out of Bandar Abbas, Iran will have gotten a lot
of reach out into the Indian Ocean, since the Backfire has a combat radius of about 1300-1500
miles.
The missile it will be carrying would be the standard Russian cruise missile--it is not
hypersonic-- but it is a sea-skimmer, with a range of about 1550 miles. This is the
KH-101/102 (nuclear). It seems certain to me that the Backfire can get the KH-101 (Raduga)
missile out there; as can the Blackjack and the Bear. The mission of four or five bombers
delivering each about eight missiles could be to sink some of those prepositioning ships; and
to wreck the drone base/the airfield, and certain warehouse facilities. There is another
thing such an attack could do. Diego Garcia has more than ample rainfall. As things stand
today, it has never had a better fresh water supply system. Pipes and water storage, all has
been greatly improved. Fresh water for two to three thousand support personnel and base
activities is not a problem. I don't think Diego Garcia even needs to have a desalination
system. There is one thing, though. Diego Garcia is built on a series of coral reefs, the one
stacked on the other in geologic history as ocean levels rose 300 feet from 13,000 years ago.
The coral beneath the island is permeated with salt water. The fresh water aquifers of the
atoll sit on top of the salt water in what are called "lenses". These lenses hold an enormous
amount of water kept stable and tappable by isostatic pressure, I am guessing. If an attack
were made by JDAM missiles in areas determined from studies of the island to have these lense
aqufiers, and if the missiles went deep into them before exploding, then I think the entire
fresh water structure of the island could be ruined. The lenses would be penetrated and
ruined. Salt water would permeate, mix and spread through the aquifer. It would become like
Basra Governate, which now has an evil polluted salt brine aquifer where once it had fresh
water. (And which means that there is already considerable migration from southern Iraq into
Kurdish areas around Irbil, to the north.)
Iran should arrange with Italy for a meeting in Rome with Putin, Xi Jinping, and Trump. The
Donald could take the role of Churchill in that meeting, who got an inkling that he was the
odd-man out.
Six months later, Mark Clark went to Rome alone rather than execute the British - American
pincer plan.
Historian Andrew Buchanan argues that Clark was ordered to take that action by FDR himself
in a meeting with Clark at Bernard Baruch's plantation in North Carolina https://www.c-span.org/video/?322137-1/discussion-us-engagement-italy-world-war-ii
US forces in control of Rome shut out all diplomats, including Churchill's representatives,
from the diplomacy that then took place that determined Italy's future; USA became,
effectively, in charge of Mediterranean and trade routes to Levant and North Africa.
Israel and its US lobbies, Jewish & Christian, have GOT to be reined in, or the
American empire is on its way to the dustbin of history.
That historian Andrew Buchanan does not know that Bernard Baruch's plantation was off of
Winyah Bay on Waccamaw Neck across from Georgetown, SOUTH Carolina, is, in my view, a red
flag about his scholarship. The plantation, Hobcaw Barony, was for FDR, in 1944, a month-long
retreat which made it, in effect, the southern White House. Buchanan obviously doesn't know
anything at all about southerners in FDR's administration and the New Deal. I cannot help but
wonder if Buchanan has ever looked at the papers of James Francis Byrnes, which are held at
the University of South Carolina. My guess is that Byrnes might have made some comment about
significant matters which happened at Hobcaw, including the visit of General Clark. Shrewd,
devious Byrnes is a fascinating figure. (His handiwork is the Santee-Cooper hydroelectric
project which you get a glimpse of on I-95 as you drive over lake Marion there, created by
damming the Santee. It provided electricity for the whole depression hit state of South
Carolina.) Byrnes knew them all, including Stalin. Also, it ought to be noted that Buchanan
himself says that there is not a shred of evidence that at Hobcaw FDR personally ordered Mark
Clark to disobey the clear orders of Field Marshall Alexander and break away from what could
have been a decisive victory and instead go into Rome. It ought to be noted as well that
Buchanan's argument that by putting into power the more left-wing politician Ivanoe Bonomi
instead of the British backed General Pietro Badoglio, it meant that the communist partisans
in northern Italy therefore accepted the new government and willingly laid down their arms,
whereas under Badoglio and the King they might not have. I don't think they had a choice; and
I wonder if they actually didn't maintain a clandestine arsenal thereafter. They were by no
means ready to quit. A quick look at Wikipedia tells us that it was Churchill's government
that persuaded Bonomi, who came in in June and was ready to quit by November, to stay on. He
did so. The communists were a powerful force in Italy all the way up almost into the
1980s--it was the Red Brigade which kidnapped and murdered Aldo Moro, for example. Further,
as a reaction , to the communist threat, there is the whole question of "strategic tension"
which gave Italy the "years of lead"-- years of terror bombings by the right, such as the
Bologna train station bombing, the bombing of the passenger plane which fell off of Ustica,
and the whole mysterious thing that was Gladio. Michael Scammel in 'Koestler', his biography
of the writer Arthur Koestler, gives an account of the near hysteria in western Europe in
1948 after the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia. "The coup fulfilled Koestler's direst
predictions and worst fears: there was no room for a third force in Europe anymore--not, at
least, in countries where the Communists were strong. In France, rife with rumors of a coup
of its own and convulsed by increasingly violent strikes, he found a populace growing more
jittery by the day. Malraux talked darkly of a plot to foment civil war and publicly
threatened "a reorganization of the Resistance" to oppose communism. Charles "Chip" Bohlen,
the new American ambassador, talked wildly about dropping an atom bomb on Baku, and
newspapers were full of the threat of a new world conflict." (Page 311.) Koestler, when he
left Europe for the United States, actually believed that Europe was going to go communist.
That Europe was a lost cause.
This is not to say that I am disagreement with what you are saying overall. I find Andrew
Buchanan someone new and interesting. Very provocative. Perhaps he overreaches. Don't know
enough, really, to make the call. Thank you for the introduction to him. Hobcaw Barony is now
a large natural preserve for environmental, oceanographic and coastal studies. Remarkable
story about how the foundation was created, mostly by Baruch's daughter, who must have worked
a lifetime on it. Sixteen thousand acres on a neck of land that has the Atlantic ocean on one
side and marshes and Winyah Bay on the other. It's worth a visit.
if the true goal of the neocons is war, provoked upon iran then any naval battle group which
includes a usa carrier sent into the persian gulf is the match the neocons are looking for
once they decide to ''remember the maine'' to it sending it to the bottom, then use that
false flag as their pretext.
if its obvious to me wouldn't you suppose its obvious to the pentagon?
An apt comparison, no doubt, to "The Day of Deceit."
Then there is the high probability that, even if Iran shows restraint and plays the long
game, a provocation in the manner of "Assad gasses his own people" will be arranged for
them.
Even so, time is not on the side of the US Entity. How much longer can the Fed's
fraudulent T-bill scheme keep running? My sense is that they wouldn't be weaponizing the
dollar if they had other actual weapons to hand.
Saudi Arabia said two of its oil tankers were sabotaged off the coast of the United Arab
Emirates and described it as an attempt to undermine the security of crude supplies amid
tensions between the United States and Iran.
The reports come as the US warned ships that "Iran or its proxies" could be targeting
maritime traffic in the region, and as the US is deploying an aircraft carrier and B-52
bombers to the Gulf to counter what it called "threats from Tehran".
Exceptionally good argument. I would also posit that the element of religious belief makes
the argument even more potent.
I can't help but think back to more recent instances where the neocons were basically daring
the other party to do something - anything. Ukraine in 2014 and Syria later on, come to mind.
They had been waiting for the Russians to send in their troops to Ukraine after which they
could have totally choked the economy. They also waited for mistakes from Assad, which he
wisely avoided.
Similarly, Iran will be wise to avoid reacting in any way to these provocations. Since these
provocations are meant to provoke a reaction, if the Iranians bite their lips and hold their
hands, they would do more to hurt the neocons than by reacting blindly as the situation and
their nature perhaps goads them towards.
I humbly suggest you watch this series. Unfortunately, I don't know Persian so I can't help
with translation. I watched these series with my sister in law who is a Persian Jew with an
excellent command of Farsi; the videos are pretty informative.
Pat,
I share your concern, but for the neocons I fear that they see that backing Iran into a
position where it has nothing to lose with a war is a feature, not a bug.
~Jon
In my opinion, the critical element is the forthcoming deployment of advanced Russian and
Chinese systems such as the Sarmat heavy ICBM, scheduled I think for 2021, new submarines,
etc., etc. and I am not even talking about joint Russo/sino developments.
As Col. Lang/Gingrich explained, we are talking economics here. But unlike Japan, the
Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese and associated economies under the stimulus of OBOR are
only going to get stronger if left to themselves. The American economy, in my opinion, is no
longer capable of replacing ageing infrastructure, matching Russo Chinese military technical
capabilities, fielding a million man Army and supporting allies like Korea, Taiwan,
Australia, Japan, Poland, etc. without beggaring its population.
To put that another way, the American economic marvel of military production came off a
low base with millions of underemployed work hungry people available as a result of the
depression. I don't think those conditions obtain today.
Hence the Washington logic of picking off the weakest of the Axis - Iran, right
now.
You mean a million H1B visa holders and 20 million illegal immigrants aren't our strength?
Who knew! Maybe we should outsource more manufacturing to China, that'll teach the bastards
to mess with us!
The "American Political class," rather than the US economy - solutions are available and
affordable, but not within the current US political and economic and legal and hence power
structures.
FIRE take up too much of the US economy and the best and brightest and has bought the
political class hook, line and Epstein.
"The American economy, in my opinion, is no longer capable of replacing ageing
infrastructure, matching Russo Chinese military technical capabilities"
I was in Russia for the first time last summer. I loved it, but I was surprised by how
poor they are. Our debt load aside, they have do have more limited resources.
I think the key difference is that Japan was isolated on its continent when it made the
decision to go to war. (only being allied with Nazi Germany and Italy, which were so far away
that the alliance made little difference to Japan's economic situation in 1941)
Going to war must appear more attractive when you have your back against the wall than
when you have regional allies who are still willing to support you politically and
economically in a meaningful way.
I have to admit Colonel that this post reminded me of an April 29th profile in the New Yorker
of John Bolton. Several days ago after reading the lengthy New Yorker piece I realized how
slowly but surely, the Trump admin has been consistently heading toward outright madness with
the gradual departure of people like Tillerson, J. Kelly, and Mattis from the office. It was
mentioned in the piece how Gen. Mattis thwarted multiple outright crazy attempts by McMaster
(who is now at FDD shilling for the "Long War" strategy; once a neocon, always a neocon),
Bolton and Mira Ricardel aimed at declaring war against Iran. Now that there are a few key
vacant positions in the administration such as the UN Ambs, Homeland Sec, a few at the State
Dep, and most importantly at the Pentagon, shouldn't these vacancies act as major restraining
factor against war or the Trump admin "is" stupid enough to go full war mode regardless? IMO
some things still just do not add up. just wondering...
Just curious about something. I hear news stories that we are sending the Lincoln inside the
Persian Gulf. That seems like it would negate a lot of our advantage if we actually did fight
Iran. It would be in range of every anti-ship missile they have as well as most of their navy
which is designed specifically for the Gulf and not much of a blue water navy. Why wouldn't
we keep it just outside the Gulf in the open water where our carrier and escorts would
seemingly have a bigger advantage?
I don't want a fight and I'm not pretending that I understand naval tactics, but this just
seems a bit odd to me.
The damage was above the water line and a slash as if perhaps a missile but did not
penetrate the oil bunkers. It does not look like a limpet mine. There are no reports of
airplanes or ships but is described as sabotage. It is unlikely to be a false flag. Media
reporting has been muted. Simply that it is being investigated. But as pointed out here
before there is no stockpiling of supplies needed for an invasion of Iran by a million-man
army. Inside the Persian Gulf is the last place the Commander of the Carrier Group wants to
be if war breaks out. My guess is that the sabotage to four tankers was a signal of what the
Revolutionary Guards could do if they really wanted to and as a counter to ultra-mad man U.S.
diplomacy and sanctions. Lloyd's of London must raise their insurance rates. This will raise
oil prices at the same time as prices rise due to Mid-West flooding, China's African Swine
Fever outbreak, and the imposing of a 25% tariff on Chinese imports. All sorts of bad things
are happening at once. Rather than 2003's misleading Shock and Awe propaganda, the 2019
Iranian war drums indicate total incompetence.
The Imperial Japanese believed that Americans were soft and that US troops would crumble when
faced with the mighty spirit of Bushido. They were ultimately banking on that mistaken
conclusion. I don't think the Iranians have any such delusions.
I don't see how Iran can do anything more than make some trouble that is minor in the big
scheme of things - and which will dig their hole deeper - and then lose.
I don't approve of what is being done, but I think the current Iranian regime could be
destroyed if the neocons have their way; albeit with US casualties and great material and
financial expense. I don't like how US troops and sailors may be used as bait by the
neocons.
I should add that to my mind the real question is what would follow in the wake of war. Would
the Iranians be happy to be free of the Islamic Revolutionary govt? Or would they go on for
generations with wounded pride that demands revenge, like the Palestinians? I think the
latter. In which case war/regime change solves nothing. I'm willing to bet the neocons, as
usual, have their own delusions about flowers, candy, purple thumbs, smiling faces and
freedom.
They had a front row seat for OIF and what came after. I suspect they have a good feeling for
our capability and weaknesses . . . whether they can exploit that or not, might be the issue.
Eric Newhill - IMO you are underestimating how much damage Iran could do to the fleet in a
transition to war situation before the US Navy got its ducks in line and crushed them. As for
the illusion about US willingness to fight, all our opponents have believed the same thing
before the house fell on them.
Sir,
Oh, I understand what Iran could do. As you know, it has been war gamed and the US Navy gets
hit pretty hard.
But Iran still loses. Each hit the US Navy takes, strengthens the resolve to crush Iran
that much harder.
Again, I am in no way approving of what I think may happen. I have been told by someone I
know well in the DIA that we are doing to war with Iran sooner or later. The first time I was
told this was when Obama was still in office. Then I was told that the election of Trump has
changed nothing. Make what you will of that.
"in a transition to war situation before the US Navy got its ducks in line and crushed
them" what damage could Iranian ballistic missiles do to UAE, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia?
Could they devastate oil & gas, LNG, port and pipeline infrastructure sufficiently that
it would take a year to re-build back to full capacity?
It seems it would be a lose-lose proposition for everyone including Trump's re-election
prospects. I have seen private surveys of working class people in the mid-west and the south
who by an overwhelming majority oppose a war with Iran when informed about some of the
potential consequences.
Well, Sir, unfortunately I think you called this one spot on.
IMO, if there's going to be war, then the Europeans and Brits should fight it. Their the
ones most impacted (though I recognize that everyone in the global markets will feel the pain
resulting from a closure of the straight).
Of course none of them will step up on their own and the US will have to do this. Still
holding out hope that some kind of negotiation is possible, but becoming skeptical. The
Iranians want to prove they are the men they thought they were. Still, maybe a good deal will
satisfy that need.
The Bolton/neoconservative plan of starting a war with Iran is working perfectly. In a tit
for tat action, Iran has captured one or more U.K. tankers. My hopes for avoiding a
completely unnecessary war with Iran, one we have a fair chance of losing, are becoming
slimmer and slimmer.
Eric, I'm in Europe right now and I don't think any Europeans are prepared in the slightest
to support a war with Iran. For starters, if Iran did not surrender instantaneously, an oil
shortage will collapse the European and Chinese economies and that is only one of the minor,
first order effects.
The question of "not being the men they thought they were" cuts both ways. Does the
European union want to see war with Iran? No. Do the Europeans want to see Britain, egged on
by the Neocons, take "a hard line" with Iran? No. Do the Europeans want to aid and abet the
U. S. in fighting a war with Iran through NATO? No. Do they want to be "saved from Iran " by
the U.S. galloping all over hemisphere as in 1944? No.
So do you really want to see NATO and American relationships with Europe, Russia and
China, India and the rest of the world put under severe stress in a @#@# waving contest
between Trump and the Mullahs? At the behest of Israel? Because that is what you are going to
get.
Then there is the prospect of the Chinese and Russians retaliating, and I don't even want
to go there.
The Mullahs have ruined the weekend for the leaders of each and every major nation. What
will be happening this weekend in every capital is a series of committee meetings asking the
same questions; What should our response to Iran be? What should our response to possible
American action be? What is the likely effect of war with Iran on our energy supplies? What
is the likely effect of war with Iran on our own security? What is the likely effect of war
with Iran on our economy? Public servants will be working late into the night to answer these
questions. The only thing for sure is that the price of gold is going to skyrocket when
markets open and that a lot of troops are going to get warning orders about notice to move
monday morning.
This is the same type of situation that started WW1. ....... So we decide to give those
pesky Iranian Mullahs a good whupping because they had it coming. Should be easy, after all
they are just more sand niggers, right? All of a sudden Russia drops an air defence regiment
into Tehran, We lose aircraft. China let's North Korea off the leash and at the same time
issues an ultimatum to Taiwan. Suddenly we are taking losses, have three war theatres going
at the same time. What happens then?
I suppose you think nothing is going to affect the continental U.S., so who cares?
There I must disagree:
Nethanyaou is again in election campaign same goes for President Trump; IMHO no war for the
newt 6 months and probably never.
A deal is possible ? maybe
but it should encompass the Syrian issue from where all this Iranian crisis is actually
born-again.
For example Iran could agree to withdraw its troops from Syria if USA and partners did the
same as Trump was considering.
This move would surely have some effect on the YPG position, thus on Turkey's activism along
its frontier with Syria (Afrin being not included).
Entering in negociations for a JCPOA bis will not be acceptable for Iran if sanctions (some
at least) are not lifted. My educated guess is that is precisely what's going on.
I was hoping yesterdays Zarif/Rand Paul discussion would lead to a ratcheting down of
tensions. But the hardliners on both sides would hate to have that happen and will attempt to
wreck any détente.
Did Zarif offer the idea of allowing more intrusive inspections of its nuclear program
before or after his meeting with Paul? In any case some unnamed US officials said it was a
non-starter. Probably the unnamed ones were the Mousetache-of-Idiocy and his minions?
Never should have cancelled JCPOA. Why should we have to do Israel/KSA/UAE's dirty
work?
Sir;
Isn't the "wild card" here the Israelis?
I can imagine an Iranian government, or perhaps the IRGC in a 'bitter ender' phase targeting
Israel proper before they collapse. As the fate of Gerald Ball indicates, the Israelis are
understandably paranoid about their regional competitors.
We are now engaging in cartoon villainy in terms of trying to squeeze Iran into a tiny
box. Iran cannot transact in dollars so they are reduced to bartering with Brazil for corn.
Oops, even their urea export is sanctioned but that doesn't matter because we won't let
Brazil sell them fuel oil to ship corn back to their home port. This is flat out evil.
I wondering if the former Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejah ...2005 to 2013 and His
"Apocalyptic Shiites" were put in the background...with disinformation about His falling out
of Favor....So Iran could play strategic games with the P5+1 agreement IN 2015 especially
with President Obama..
"But Iran still loses. Each hit the US Navy takes, strengthens the resolve to crush
Iran that much harder."
Cm'on man... wake up and open your eyes...
The US hasn't won any war since... Eternity...
Do I have to remind you what happens in Afghanistan, in Irak or more recently in Syria ?
Well Iran is FIVE times bigger than Syria and is not a divided
multicultural/multi-religious country. Do you think that anything you do could change the
fact that those 80 something millions people will survive and will ALL be behind their
leaders whoever he might be ?
If I was Iranian and even if the leader of the country was Adolf Hitler or some fanatic
religious Abu Satanist al Muslim, I would still be behind him if my country was attacked by
some foreign bully. My guess is that 99% of the Iranians think the same way....
Forget about allies like Hamas, Hezbollah or Houtis or even China and Russia.
Iran exists since 7000 BC and you really think that the new kid in the block with a couple
hundred years of existence would be able to take it out ?
Given your history of military victories ???!!! Don't make me laugh...
Even if you naively believe that, do you think about the consequences of such a war ? Not
on Iran, OK, you might level part of the country, but then what ?
Israel would most probably cease to exist. But so as the middle eastern Arab monarchies
and most the world's oil industry, which we all depend on...
Which means that the whole planet will suffer for years to come...
If I can't feed my kids because my country can't get enough oil thanks to some nutcase in
WDC guess how I'll feel about the US ?
Most of the world already hate you for a reason. If you want to be not just hated but
treated like enemies where ever you go, go ahead, bomb Iran, start a war, have the whole
world crumble...
And for what ???
Just "because you can" is not a valid answer...
"IMO, if there's going to be war, then the Europeans and Brits should fight it... Of
course none of them will step up on their own and the US will have to do this."
Will HAVE TO do this ???!!!
Who the hell is forcing you not to mind your own business ?
Has Iran attacked the US ? Or Britain ? Or Europe ?
Or anyone else in the past several hundreds of years ?
No...
But.... Does the US oil industry would like the oil prices to go up ? YES !!!
Do the crazies in DC want to make more money by selling more weapons ? YES !!!
Do the crazies in Wahabistan hate the Shias and want to get rid of them ? YES !!!
Do the crazies in Israel want to get rid of a powerful neighbor ? YES !!!
Do even some crazies in the US want Israel to go in flames so that Jesus comes back ?
Charles Michael
You are not correct. The Israelis have a deep psychopatholgy about Iranian ballistic missiles
and a possible nuclear weapon that might - might exist someday. That has nothing to do with
Syria.
I think the comment by 'Elliot' back in May reflects assumptions which are very
deep-seated in the West, are questionable, and if wrong, could prove extraordinarily
dangerous. So an extended response seems appropriate.
Of course the Russians have far more limited resources than the United States. What is
important is to understand the implications of that fact for their strategic thinking.
On this I would strongly recommend two pieces at the top of the 'Russia' page on the
'World Hot Spots' section of the 'Army Military Press' site.
The first is a translation of a 2017 article from the journal of the 'Academy of Military
Science', entitled 'Color Revolutions in Russia', by A.S. Brychkov and G.A. Nikonorov.
Among other things, this illustrates very well the rather central fact that Russian
military strategists are very well aware that one of the things that wrecked the Soviet Union
was the attempt to maintain permanent preparedness for a prolonged global war with a power
possessing an enormously greater military-industrial potential.
As to the implications for contingency planning for war, these are spelt out in a piece,
also published in 207, by the invaluable Major Charles K. Bartles of the Foreign Military
Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, entitled 'Recommendations for Intelligence Staffs
Concerning Russian New Generation Warfare.'
At the risk of glossing his meaning overmuch, what is involved is a kind of 'higher
synthesis' of the ideas of two figures who were on opposing sides of the arguments of the
'Twenties of the last century, Georgiy Isserson, the pioneering theorist of 'deep
operations', and Aleksandr Svechin, who cautioned against an exclusive focus of the
'Napoleonic' strand in Clausewitz.
Both are quoted by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian
Federation, General Valery Gerasimov, in his crucial and much misunderstood address to the
Academy of Military Science in February 2013, reproduced on the same page as the articles to
which I have referred.
What Svechin was saying, in essence, was that an attentive reader of Clausewitz would
realise that 'toujours la'audace' should be replaced as a motto by 'l'audace at the right
place and time'.
It was crucial to be able to judge when an offensive approach was absolutely the right
choice, and caution suicidal, and when the promise of a decisive victory was a snare and a
delusion, and defensive and attritional responses appropriate.
(This argument crops up in many contexts: the 'Tabouleh Line' strategy adopted by
Hizbullah, which Colonel Lang discussed in posts during and following the 2006 Lebanon War,
and also that advocated by James Longstreet at Gettysburg, are classic examples of what
Svechin would have seen as circumstances where a sound 'defensive' strategy was the key to
victory.)
As regards contemporary Russian thinking, an implication is that one of things they have
been trying to create is the ability, in appropriate situations, to use characteristics of
'deep operations' – surprise, speed, shock – in support of clearly limited
objectives.
The kind of possibility involved was alluded to in the conversation between the 'Security
Adviser' and the 'American Soldier' – seemingly involved on the ground in the
'deconfliction' process – which accompanied Seymour Hersh's June 2017 article in 'Die
Welt' on the Khan Sheikhoun sarin incident the previous April, and the U.S. air strikes that
resulted.
'SA: There has been a hidden agenda all along. This is about trying to ultimately go after
Iran. What the people around Trump do not understand is that the Russians are not a paper
tiger and that they have more robust military capability than we do.
'AS: I don't know what the Russians are going to do. They might hang back and let the
Syrians defend their own borders, or they might provide some sort of tepid support, or they
might blow us the fuck out of the airspace and back into Iraq. I honestly don't know what to
expect right now. I feel like anything is possible. The russian air defense system is capable
of taking out our TLAMs. this is a big fucking deal...we are still all systems go...'
And that brings one to another critical strand in the approach of contemporary Russian
strategic thinkers.
Not simply for war-fighting, but, critically, for 'deterring' the United States from
escalating if the Russians do successfully achieve limited objectives, they have been
concentrating on 'asymetric' involving focused investment in specific technologies.
So, Bartles explains that the Russian Ground Forces are 'significantly ahead' of the U.S.
Army in electronic warfare, key objectives being to disrupt the demonstrated American
capability for precision strikes, and also exploit the latent vulnerabilities involved in the
dependence of so much equipment on GPS. (As an Army man, he does not discuss the interesting
question of naval and air applications.)
And crucially, there has been a focus on developing a very wide range of missiles which
'missile defence' technologies are not going to be able to counter effectively in any
forseeable future, and which have steadily increasing range, accuracy and lethality. One
central purpose of this, which Gerasimov has spelt out in later addresses to the Academy of
Military Science, also available on the page to which I have linked, is to provide
non-nuclear 'deterrence' options.
It is, of course, always difficult to be clear as to what is, or is not, hype in claims
made for new weapons systems. That said, it is I think at least worth reading some
contributions by the Brussels-based American analyst Gilbert Doctorow.
In February, he produced a piece entitled 'The INF Treaty is dead: will the arms race be
won this time by the most agile or by the biggest wallet?', and another, headlined 'The
Kremlin's Military Posture Re-considered: strategic military parity with the U.S. or absolute
military superiority over the U.S.'
Certainly, a good many assertions Doctorow made merit being taken with a pinch of salt, if
not a great deal more. However, before one empties the full salt-cellar over them, a few
observations are worth making.
How much salt should be applied to Shoigu's assertion that the cost of the systems being
developed is hundreds of times less than that of the systems being developed by the United
States against Russia I cannot say.
Some questions are however worth putting. It would be interesting to be clearer than I am
as to how relevant, or irrelevant, is the fact that for a long time now Russian universities
have, frankly, wiped the floor with their Western counterparts in international programming
competitions is one.
Another relevant range of issues relates to how expensive the 'software' component of the
relevant weaponry actually produced, once it is developed. A third relates to that of how far
the new missiles, with their greater range, can be effectively deployed, either by updating
old platforms – like Soviet-era bombers – or by creating relatively low
cost-ones.
And then of course one comes to the question of how the technical military issues interact
with the 'geopolitics' involved. In recent years, a range of different Russian analysts have
been claiming, in essence, that the 'Petrine' era of Russian history is over. Three examples,
from Dmitri Trenin, Sergei Karaganov, and Vladislav Surkov, can be found at
If, as Trenin argued back in 2016, Russia has moved from aspiring to become part of a
'Greater Europe' to seeing itself as a central part of a 'Greater Eurasia', then this has
implications for how it should react to the asymetry which was central to Soviet views of INF
in the 'Eighties.'
Put simply, INF in Europe can pose a 'decapitation' threat to Russia, while Russian INF do
not do so to the United States.
At that time, the deployment of cruise and Pershing II helped to encourage a burgeoning
awareness among important sections of the 'security intelligentsia' in Moscow of the extent
to which their own security policies – of which the SS-20 deployment was just one of
many examples – had created suspicion, fear and antagonism.
The conclusion – classically expressed in Georgiy Arbatov's joke about the terrible
thing that Gorbachev was going to do to the United States, deprive it of an enemy –
turned out hopelessly naive. The liquidation of the existing Soviet security posture did not
lead to any lesssening of Western antagonism.
In his second piece, Doctorow has an interesting discussion of views expressed by Yakov
Kedmi, the sometime 'refusenik' who became a pivotal figure in organising Russian Jewish
emigration to Israel, and is now a regular guest on Russian television. And he writes:
'Perhaps Kedmi's most interesting and relevant observation is on the novelty of the
Russian response to the whole challenge of American encirclement. He noted that for the past
200 or more years the United States considered itself secure from enemies given the
protection of the oceans. However, in the new Russian military threat, the oceans will now
become the most vulnerable point in American defenses, from which the decapitating strike can
come.'
Putting the point another way. Potentially at least, the 'Greater Eurasia' as Trenin
describes it includes the Western European countries – indeed, it appears to include
Ireland. It is, obviously, enormously in the interest of the Russians to include these, in
that doing so both makes it possible to isolate the 'Anglo-Saxons', and also to provide a
counterweight to Chinese preponderance.
To do so however – and at this point I am moving towards my own speculations, rather
than simply relying upon better-informed observers – requires a complicated balancing
act.
On the one hand, the West Europeans – above all the Germans – have to be
persuaded that if they persist in following with the 'Russia delenda est' agendas of
traditional 'Anglo' Russophobes, and 'revanchists' from the 'borderlands', they should not
think this is going to be cost-free.
But on the other, the promise has to be implied that, if they 'see sense' and realise that
their future is with a 'Greater Eurasia', without their needing to 'remilitarise' in any
serious way, then they will not be threatened militarily.
This balancing act, ironically, makes it absolutely imperative for the Russians not to
threaten the Baltics – particularly given their historical links to Germany.
By the same token, it provides a particularly cogent reason for threatening to respond to
new American IMF deployments in Europe with ones that target the United States.
https://acdn.adnxs.com/ib/static/usersync/v3/async_usersync.html <img
src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=16807273&cv=2.0&cj=1" /> Iran has
also said that it will not only follow graded response to the sanctions, including possible
exiting from the JCPOA, but also reconsider its participation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, a thinly veiled threat to follow in North Korea's footsteps. It is clear that Iran will
fight the status quo arising out of Trump's maximum pressure policies in various ways, and not
allow itself to be economically strangulated.
The UK's position has now become very dubious. Why did it seize Iran's supertanker Grace
1 in the Gibraltarwaters? Four of Grace 1 's officers, including the ship's captain,
all Indians, have been charged in a Gibraltar court and are now out on bail.
In a new twist on this issue, we now know that Gibraltar changed its law
underpinning the seizure just one day before it occurred . This adds weight to reports in
Spain quoting government sources that the UK carried out the seizing of the tanker under
U.S.instructions.
The argument that Grace 1 was carrying crude oil to Syria's Baniyas refinery, and so
was violating European sanctions on Syria, sounds weak on various counts.The
Gibraltar court's order mentions EU Regulation 36/2012 on sanctions on Syria as the basis
for action against Grace 1 . Oil exports from Syria to the EU have been
banned, but not oil imports to Syria under EU regulations. Also, imports to the Baniyas
refinery are banned for machinery and equipment , not oil.
More important: In international trade, do countries through which transit takes
place have the right to impose their laws on the merchandise in transit? For example, can
pharmaceutical products from India, which arein consonance with Indian and the receiving
country's laws, be seized in transit in Europe if they violate the EU's patent laws? Such
seizures have happened , creating a trade dispute between India and the EU. The EU finally
agreed not to seize such goods in transit. So can the EU extend its sanctions to goods
in transit through its waters? Assuming the crude was indeed for Syria -- which Iran has denied
-- do EU sanctions apply when transiting through Gibraltar waters? In short, was the UK
imposing EU sanctions on Syria -- or U.S.sanctions on Iran?
There has also been another
incident involving Iran and the UK in the developing Tanker War 2. This makes the UK's role
even more suspect. Iran has denied the UK's story of its empty tanker Heritage being
blocked by Iranian boats in the Persian Gulf. The U.S., which first broke the story, claimed it
was five Iranian boats that tried to seize a British tanker. The UK authorities
claimed that it was three Iranian boats that were impeding the tanker's journey,
which were driven off by a British warship. The Iranians deny that any such incident took
place. No video or satellite image of the incident has been made public, though a U.S.aircraft
reportedly took video
footage of the incident. In his Twitter feed, BBC's Defense Correspondent Jonathan Beale
condemned the failure of the British government to release images of the incident: "UK MOD say
they will NOT be releasing any imagery from incident in Gulf when @HMS_MONTROSE confronted #Iran IRGC boats. Shame as far as I'm
concerned."
What remains unexplained is why the empty UK tanker switched off
its transponder before the alleged incident for about 24 hours, particularly in the period
when it was passing through the Strait of Hormuz -- or why an empty tanker was accompanied by a
British warship. Was the UK baiting Iran by manufacturing a maritime incident in the Gulf?
UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said on Twitter that after a phone call with Javad
Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, he
offered to release the tanker Grace 1 on the condition that it will not send the oil
to Syria. This still begs the question of the UK's locus in deciding the destination of Iranian
oil -- or why Iran should accept EU sanctions.
"... A couple of weeks ago, The Times of London published an article about senior civil servants fearing U.K. opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was "too frail" to be prime minister. Reportedly they also thought he "lacks both a firm grasp of foreign affairs and the domestic agenda. ..."
"... This is the same civil service that is supposed to maintain complete neutrality and according to its code "must not act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests." ..."
"... Corbyn fought back, arguing that it was unacceptable that civil servants were briefing newspapers on an elected politician. He demanded an independent inquiry into who was spreading such fabrications in the press and "compromising the integrity of the civil service." ..."
"... Miller, who runs the Bristol-based Organisation for Propaganda Studies, said the scheme was found to be spreading its own disinformation and openly criticizing opposition leader Corbyn and his party. ..."
"... Miller said this was clear from the very beginning of the Integrity Initiative when it was regularly engaged in tweeting or retweeting attacks on Corbyn and his closest advisors. ..."
"... Miller calls the use of taxpayers' money to interfere in domestic politics an affront to democracy. ..."
"... Chris Williamson, a Labour MP and Corbyn supporter who was trying to investigate the Integrity Initiative, found himself suspended from the party after he was targeted with allegations of anti-Semitism. ..."
"... Corbyn's call for an independent investigation into the civil service leak to the press has also, as expected, been rejected by the government. ..."
"... If you enjoyed this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Jews in Europe and the US have gone from being heavily discriminated against to having much more influence on government than their numbers warrant. I'm going to tell the Netanyahu joke to make my point. Don't know who to credit. Kudos anyway. "It is not anti-Semitic to disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu as he is as white as the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan." ..."
"... If the Integrity Initiative really is shut down, the little Simon Bracey-Lane will be free to cross the pond and campaign for Bernie just like he did in 2015 / 2016. Nah, just kiddin', his cover is blown. But seriously, campaign managers for Tulsi Gabbard best be on guard against inflation from these snakes. ..."
"... This is a joke right. You say communist and you reference China, but in the last century it was ok to ship nearly the entire industrial base of Western Democracies to China so that a bunch of fat cat tycoons, investment bankers, hedge funders et al could become so rich they finally had enough money to purchase the U.S. Government, and it looks like the government of Britain too. ..."
"... This incessant accusation of antisemitism against anyone who supports justice for Palestinians does seem to be effective. A decade ago when I first noticed this smear tactic I assumed it would be self defeating on the part of the Zionists and their backers. It sort of seemed obvious that such a tactic would be self limiting with the broader world beginning to reject such slander. However, it seems the smear is more effective today than it was ten years ago. So depressing. Watching Corbyn's supporters ripping apart his own base in the Labour Party in an effort to appease the Israelis is appalling -- it seems the more that is conceded the more aggressive the Zionist become. Ten years ago it was proper to describe the West Bank as "occupied territory", soon it will be considered antisemitic to even go that far. ..."
"... in 2015, an unnamed, serving British general was quoted saying that if a Corbyn government implemented his well-established anti-imperial and anti-nuke agenda, "there would be mass resignations at all levels [of the military] and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-army-could-stage-mutiny-under-corbyn-says-senior-serving-general-10509742.html ..."
"... As Mayhew noted, 'the turning point' was the speech of George Marshall the US Secretary of State in June 1947. From 'the middle of 1947 onwards, decisions were taken towards uniting the free world, at the expense of widening the gap with the Communist world our immediate objective changed, from "one world" to "one free world"'. ..."
"... . That is what all of this is about: this is all a campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to keep expandable, pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt slavery. ..."
The 'Unconstitutional Animus' Against UK Labour Leader July 16, 2019 •
39 Comments
Johanna Ross spoke with David Miller, a propaganda researcher, after the recent publicity of
U.K. civil service murmurings about Jeremy Corbyn's "fitness."
By Johanna
Ross
in Edinburgh, Scotland Special to Consortium News
A couple of weeks ago, The Times of London published an
article about senior civil servants fearing U.K. opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was "too
frail" to be prime minister. Reportedly they also thought he "lacks both a firm grasp of
foreign affairs and the domestic agenda."
This is the same civil service that is supposed to maintain complete neutrality and
according to its code "must not act in a way that
unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests."
Corbyn fought back, arguing that it was unacceptable that civil servants were briefing
newspapers on an elected politician. He demanded an independent inquiry into who was spreading
such fabrications in the press and "compromising the integrity of the civil service."
Controversial BBC graphic seeking to link Corbyn to Russia.
For David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, who
investigates concentrations
of power and ways to hold them accountable, the idea that the British civil service may not be
impartial in its operations is hardly surprising.
Far from ever being objective, he told Consortium News that the civil service now
clearly has "an unconstitutional animus against a potential Corbyn government and has been
briefing against it one way or another through various agencies for some time now."
Catalog of Smears
Indeed, the anti-Corbyn bias within the establishment has been obvious in the catalog of
smears on Corbyn and his team since he came to the Labour leadership; from allegations of being
a "Soviet sleeper" to being "anti-Semitic" and now to questions about his overall fitness.
David Miller: Faction fight against Corbyn. (University of Bristol)
Miller said most of the allegations were created by a number of organisations and
individuals who are "involved in a faction fight with the Corbyn leadership."
Noam Chomsky, a leading U.S. social critic, is among those who have spoken out against what
he termed a "witch hunt" against the Labour leader and his supporters.
Whether or not anti-Semitism exists in the party, Miller said the accusations are out of
hand. "Almost everyone who says anything which is either critical of Israel or critical of the
party's response to the anti-Semitism crisis is denounced as an anti-Semite," Miller said. "The
question is how long will it be before everyone sees that the people who are involved in this
have overreached themselves."
Attempts to undermine potential socialist governments are of course, not new.
Miller gives the example of the Zinoviev case – when a fake letter was published in
the Daily Mail in 1924 just prior to the general election, suggesting Communists in
Britain were taking orders from Moscow. The goal was clearly to undermine the British Labour
movement.
Miller also points to the case of former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. "Despite what may now
be said by some elements of the security state," Miller said that British agencies were engaged
in an active plot to
undermine Wilson's elected government.
As another example, Miller offered the "Information Research Department," first proposed in
1947 and sold to the cabinet as a bipartisan, anti-Communist and anti-American propaganda
operation. In fact, Miller described it as a "secret, covert, anti-Communist propaganda
operation which in the 70s was engaged in undermining the Wilson government."
Today, Miller said, similar agencies in the U.K. government are doing the same thing.
Harold Wilson in 1986. (Allan Warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Integrity Initiative
As an example, Miller cites the Integrity Initiative; organized by the government's
Institute for Statecraft, which has a stated mission of countering "Russian disinformation and
malign influence by harnessing existing expertise and establishing a network of experts,
opinion formers and policy makers to educate national audiences in the threat and to help build
national capacities to counter it." Its website is incidentally now empty pending an
investigation into the "theft of its data" – after a hack exposed detail of the extent to
which the government-funded program was itself engaged in disinformation.
Miller, who runs the Bristol-based Organisation for Propaganda Studies, said the scheme was
found to be spreading its own disinformation and openly criticizing opposition leader Corbyn
and his party.
"Corbyn has recently said in relation to the most recent criticism from the civil service
that there are people in the establishment that are trying to undermine Corbyn, his office, his
advisors and supporters of him," Miller said. "And that's what the Integrity Initiative was
doing."
Cartoon published by Punch after the Zinoviev letter was released, depicting a Bolshevik
campaigning for Ramsay MacDonald, head of the short-lived Labour government of 1924. (Wikimedia
Commons)
Miller said this was clear from the very beginning of the Integrity Initiative when it was
regularly engaged in tweeting or retweeting attacks on Corbyn and his closest advisors.
Miller calls the use of taxpayers' money to interfere in domestic politics an affront to
democracy.
"A government-funded project was engaged in attacking the leader of the opposition," Miller
said, "which is unconstitutional and something the U.K. civil service should not be involved in
they crossed the line when they started attacking Corbyn. And when we look back on this period,
the Integrity Initiative, its funding by the Foreign Office and its base in British military
intelligence will be one of the strands of the activities which will be seen to have been a
secret state campaign against the elected leader of the Labour party."
Miller would like to see an investigation into the attacks on Corbyn and whether they had
been effectively funded by the Foreign Office, but doesn't hold out much hope of that
happening.
Six months ago, Shadow Home Secretary Emily Thornberry demanded answers to how this could
have happened, with no result.
And Chris Williamson, a Labour MP and Corbyn supporter who was trying to investigate the Integrity
Initiative, found himself suspended from the party after he was targeted with allegations of
anti-Semitism.
Corbyn's call for an independent investigation into the civil service leak to the press has
also, as expected, been rejected by the government.
Johanna Ross is a freelance journalist based in the United Kingdom.
If you enjoyed this original article, please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
Michael McNulty , July 18, 2019 at 05:52
After he won the second round to remain Labour Party leader Corbyn should have left the
party to form a new socialist party, taking his large following and their subscriptions with
him. He would have had three years behind him with a new movement, one which would not have
had the back-stabbers and poisoners he's having to deal with daily. It would have been quite
established now and a real political force. I think the Labour Party is so polluted that the
left must break away; it's the only way we can overturn the excesses and failures of
neo-liberalism which for most people is a truly dreadful system.
Maz Palmer , July 17, 2019 at 15:02
They are all much worse than bozos (or Bezos); they are all plutocrats, oligarchs,
neo-liberal neo-fascist capitalists. That is what all of this is about: this is all a
campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to keep expandable,
pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt
slavery.
Hopelb , July 17, 2019 at 21:52
Upvote!
Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 14:55
"lacks both a firm grasp of foreign affairs and the domestic agenda."
It makes me wonder how Teresa May and her Cabinet, including the next PM, fares in such
assessment. Nincompoops, loud mouths, poodles, and worshipers of woodoo economics.
I get it. Corbyn is Pro-Palestinian, anti-war and Pro-Worker so they are trying to get rid
of him.
All I see are articles attacking him. Are there people/forces behind him supporting him?
Is his support significant among other Labour MP's and the Public at large?
Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 16:11
The problem is that UK public opinion is quite chaotic at this point and "everything is
possible". At some point, four parties had roughly the same poll numbers: Tories, Brexit,
Labour and LibDems. However, in the last two weeks Labour and Tories gained with Labour
ahead. In a system with single seat districts, "anything can happen", and a recent
by-election suggested that Labour may have an advantage in "foot soldiers", volunteers who
walk around a district chatting up voters. The internal fights in Labour attracted many new
members, and from the point of view of "sensible folks in the Establishment", this is the
worst type of rubble. No respect for monarchy, the Trident, necessity of low taxes on
business and the rich and so on. And anti-Semitic to boot.
So the meaning of "Corbyn is frail" is that while he himself seems mild mannered, his
victory will unleashed the unwashed hordes wrecking everything which is good and he hold
dear, like the monarchy, the Trident and so on.
Piotr Berman , July 17, 2019 at 16:45
The problem is that UK public opinion is quite chaotic lately and "everything is
possible". At some point, four parties had roughly the same poll numbers: Tories, Brexit,
Labour and LibDems. However, in the last two weeks Labour and Tories gained with Labour
ahead. In a system with single seat districts, "anything can happen", and a recent
by-election suggested that Labour may have an advantage in "foot soldiers", volunteers who
walk around a district chatting up voters. The internal fights in Labour attracted many new
members, and from the point of view of "sensible folks in the Establishment", this is the
worst type of rabble. No respect for the monarchy, the Trident, the necessity of low taxes on
business and the rich and so on. And anti-Semitic to boot.
So the meaning of "Corbyn is frail" is that while he himself seems mild mannered, his
victory would unleashed unwashed hordes wrecking everything which is good and that we hold
dear, like the monarchy, the Trident and so on.
Jeff Ewener , July 17, 2019 at 13:26
Gob-smacking. To call a man with the intelligence, experience, sensitivity & integrity
of Jeremy Corbyn "unfit" to be the British Prime Minister, while a monstrosity like Boris
Johnson is standing on the doorstep of Number 10 – just takes the breath away.
rosemerry , July 17, 2019 at 15:45
Not to mention the former "New Labour" leaders whose policies fell far away from the
traditional policies Corbyn has held to and which caused so many Britons to support him as
leader.
Hayman Fan , July 18, 2019 at 11:49
Integrity? Are you joking? Corbyn has been anti-EU for 40 years. In fact, he is the only
main party leader who voted leave in the last people's vote (aka the referendum). But he has
tried to hid that fact. He has been sitting on the fence and playing politics with the issue.
Many fools in Britain believe Corbyn is a remainer. A man of integrity would have explained
to the British people his long held position on the EU and Brexit. But he didn't do that
because he isn't a man of integrity. He wants to con his way into power and if he gets there
(looking unlikely right now), he and his Stalinist henchpeople will wield that power
ruthlessly.
Fascinating article. May we repost it on jvl.org.uk?
Eddie , July 17, 2019 at 12:36
Comment that I posted on the Malware article do not post.
Zenobia van Dongen , July 17, 2019 at 11:39
In English-speaking countries anti-Semitic is just a code word for pro-Islamic. Miller
himself is deeply involved in efforts to make extremist Islam respectable and justifying
terrorist indoctrination.
Okay, I'll take your comment as made in good faith but you will need to back it up with
good evidence. Where is it?
Qui? , July 18, 2019 at 03:22
Palestinians are semites, as the rest of the Arabs. So who is the real antisemite now?
Truth first , July 17, 2019 at 11:37
A "communist" who is against war, nukes and massive inequality is OK by me.
Hayman Fan , July 18, 2019 at 07:28
Is it indeed. Then your are a fool. Pol Pot was a communist who was against war and nukes
and massive inequality. But implementing totalitarism by force didn't turn out well for the
Cambodian people. And it wouldn't turn out well for the British people either. Except for
Corbyn and his henchpeople of course.
dean 1000 , July 17, 2019 at 10:42
Jews in Europe and the US have gone from being heavily discriminated against to having
much more influence on government than their numbers warrant. I'm going to tell the Netanyahu joke to make my point. Don't know who to credit. Kudos
anyway. "It is not anti-Semitic to disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu as he is as white as the Grand
Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan."
Given the influence of US and European Jews it is well past time for them to stop
screaming anti-semitism when someone has a divergent opinion. They should stop using Semitic
people as human shields.
The left also likes to hurl anti-Semitism at political opponents when they don't have a
relevant answer.
Unfounded criticism of Jews is anti-Jewish rather than anti-Semitic. Call it what it
is.
As Albert Einstein says Capitalism is an Evil supported by those who are terrified of
Jeremy Corbyn because like Jesus he is a true Socialist
Que Nelle , July 17, 2019 at 05:52
To be accused of antisemitism by zionists that champion the racist entity israel, is a
badge of honor.
Vivian O'Blivion , July 17, 2019 at 03:30
If the Integrity Initiative really is shut down, the little Simon Bracey-Lane will be free
to cross the pond and campaign for Bernie just like he did in 2015 / 2016. Nah, just kiddin',
his cover is blown. But seriously, campaign managers for Tulsi Gabbard best be on guard
against inflation from these snakes.
Hayman Fan , July 17, 2019 at 02:51
Guys be careful with this. Corbyn is a communist. He is surrounded by Stalinists. Their
modus operandi is entryism + free stuff + perpetual attacks on cultural norms. They used to
laud the USSR. Then Venezuala. Now China. If they ever manage to grab power, they will stamp
on individual liberty. Just like China does. The Muslim vote is very important to them and
whilst they despise conventional religions, they will happily 'buy' Muslim votes with anti
Israeli and anti Semitic rhetoric. The loudest voices speaking up against Corbyn and his
henchpeople are on the left. Be a little bit circumspect.
Truth first , July 17, 2019 at 11:36
A "communist" who is against war, nukes and massive inequality is OK by me.
Errr what ? Israel does enough on its own to show how anti-Arab and undemocratic it is
without the need for Jeremy Corbyn to add anything. I'm a socialist. I support what Mr Corbyn
is doing to promote socialism in the UK. There's not the slightest evidence he's an
anti-Semite, and the tiny amount of anti-Semitism in the Labour party is dwarfed by what's
emanating from the right against Jews and Muslims.
Just say no , July 17, 2019 at 13:58
This is a joke right. You say communist and you reference China, but in the last century
it was ok to ship nearly the entire industrial base of Western Democracies to China so that a
bunch of fat cat tycoons, investment bankers, hedge funders et al could become so rich they
finally had enough money to purchase the U.S. Government, and it looks like the government of
Britain too. That's where we are today.
There may be "communists" lurking somewhere mostly in
the imagination who are trotted out whenever a left person obtains a plurality. What has
happened to Jeremy Corbyn is horrifying and we have our own issues in the U.S. with the
endless smears and lies regarding the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. We live in a world of
fabrication, sanctions enough to go around for everyone. Even the little state of RI is
sanctioned by Moody's for having the effrontery to pass a bill which "gives too much away to
labor" but Moody's and the other ratings agencies gave triple AAA ratings to junk during the
"great recession" plain and simple, and no one cared. We need a Nuremburg trial for
Capitalism and all its practioners.
You are wrong is several ways. First, "There may be "communists" lurking somewhere mostly
in the imagination who are trotted out whenever a left person obtains a plurality." Corbyn
was observed to be a threat the moment he was elected Labour leader, something that stumped
large segments of "informed public". Due to the surprise element, the anti-Semitic angle was
not exploited properly, with possible exception of some Zionist whack jobs who harranged him.
Instead, two points were raised that really jolted my attention.
First, Corbyn was sooo
extreme that he advocated discontinuation of Trident program and even, horror!, the entirety
of British nuclear arms program. You could as well raise huge signs ?????? ?y???? ???????! on
English shores.
Second, his bicycling habits were compared to China during the orthodox
Communist year, when riding on non-descript bikes was heavily supported by pre-Capitalist
leadership.
Mind you, a person of note may ride a bike without shame, but not the cheap and
aged specimen favored by Corbyn. Finally, compromising photos were found showing Corbyn
relaxing and revealing his red socks.
Sounds like you just couldn't stand not posting a troll comment on an article about your
own activities, yes?
ToivoS , July 16, 2019 at 22:54
This incessant accusation of antisemitism against anyone who supports justice for
Palestinians does seem to be effective. A decade ago when I first noticed this smear tactic I
assumed it would be self defeating on the part of the Zionists and their backers. It sort of
seemed obvious that such a tactic would be self limiting with the broader world beginning to
reject such slander. However, it seems the smear is more effective today than it was ten
years ago. So depressing. Watching Corbyn's supporters ripping apart his own base in the
Labour Party in an effort to appease the Israelis is appalling -- it seems the more that is
conceded the more aggressive the Zionist become. Ten years ago it was proper to describe the
West Bank as "occupied territory", soon it will be considered antisemitic to even go that
far.
" the 'Information Research Department,' first proposed in 1947 and sold to the cabinet as
a bipartisan, anti-Communist and anti-American propaganda operation."
"Anti-American" is a slip, right? I assume it was pro-American (or pro-USAian).
My apologies, I was paraphrasing the work of Lyn Smith in her article on IRD in Millennium
in 1980. It should really be 'anti capitalist'. According Smith the founder of IRD (Christopher
Mayhew) put forward a plan to set up a cold war propaganda agency:
'Mayhew put forward his ideas: the campaign should be as positive as possible laying
stress on the merits of Social Democracy but, he pointed out "we shouldn't appear as
defenders of the status quo but should attack Capitalism and Imperialism along with Russian
Communism" In fact at this early stage, the idea was more of a "third force" propaganda
attacking Capitalism as well as communism (this, however, was not to last for, as later
documents reveal, anti Communism soon cam to the fore).'(Covert British Propaganda: The
Information Research Department: 1947-77, Millennium, 9(1), p68-9)
In fact the idea that it would be anti capitalist was a ruse used by Mayhew to deceive the
left members of the British cabinet. As my colleague and I Will Dinan summarised in our book
A Century of Spin (Pluto Press, 2008, p130-1):
IRD was not created with the knowing support of the Labour Cabinet. The author of the
paper which went to the cabinet –
Christoper Mayhew – was a Labour right winger and cold warrior. He dissembled to the
cabinet about the purpose and function of the IRD by claiming that it was to be a 'Third
Force' campaign, understood as policy intended by the left to be independent of both the US
and the USSR. According to Mayhew himself:
I thought it was necessary to present the whole campaign in a positive way, in a way which
Dick Crossman and Michael Foot would fi nd it hard to oppose. And they were calling for a
Third Force so I recommended in the original paper I put to Bevin that we call it a Third
Force propaganda campaign.
As Mayhew noted, 'the turning point' was the speech of George Marshall the US Secretary of
State in June 1947. From 'the middle of
1947 onwards, decisions were taken towards uniting the free world, at the expense of widening
the gap with the Communist world our immediate objective changed, from "one world" to "one
free world"'.
It is interesting, in this light, to reflect what might/will happen once a Corbyn
government is elected with – how should we put this – a minority of leftists in
the cabinet.
David G , July 17, 2019 at 15:27
Very interesting! I guess the propagandists back then had a little more finesse than the
idiotic bludgeoning the US/UK establishment is laying on us these days. Thanks for the clarification, David Miller!
Jeff Harrison , July 16, 2019 at 21:05
The British Political Class has the same problem as the American Political Class –
No integrity, No Honesty, No ethics. Just the sort of bozos we need running countries.
Maz Palmer , July 17, 2019 at 14:59
They are all much worse than bozos (or Bezos); they are all plutocrats, oligarchs, neo-liberal neo-fascist capitalists.
That is what all of this is about: this is all a campaign by capitalists, plutocrats, oligarchs, monarchs, aristocrats, to
keep expandable, pitiful average plebs from ever voting for something better than corporate serfdom and debt slavery.
Trailer Trash is exactly right about brittle supply chains. To "maximize Shareholder value"
(the Prime Directive from Wall Street), corporations are maximizing (not optimizing)
efficiency, at the expense of long-term priorities.
Summer Diaz is sorta right about what I might describe as US cultural/political obesity,
but I don't look forward to living here after the shit hits the fan. There are lotsa crazy
bastards with guns. We'll see real race war, starvation, all 4 Horsemen.
Re questions about Israel's fate in Marandi's scenario: I think it's smart that he/they
don't talk about retaliation against Israel. Everybody knows that Iran has the ability to
really hurt Israel (sans Nukes, they probably can't obliterate it); but this threat is much
better left unsaid, just hanging in the air. Threatening Israel would be bad PR, decreasing
chances that EU, Russia, & China can talk the US back from the brink of WWIII. And making
sure Israel knows they're in danger - without bragging about it - gets (non-crazy) Zionists
in USA to help prevent all-out war!
It's OK for Iran to talk about the threat to KSA, UAE, etc, because everybody hates them
anyway, and cutting off the world's energy supply is their Doomsday Bomb. They need to remind
the world that if the US attacks Iran, everybody loses.
Three main antagonists have aimed at post-revolution Iran: The Outlaw US Empire, Occupied
Palestine, and Saudi Arabia, the latter being the most recent and vulnerable, while the first
two have already waged varying degrees of war with the Empire's Economic War having existed
for 40+ years. The Levant's former Colonial powers--Turkey, France, UK--are feeble, and in
Turkey's case is allied with Iran while being spurned by NATO and EU. Lurking in the
background are Russia and China's designs for Eurasian Integration which only the Outlaw US
Empire seeks to prevent as such integration benefits Saudi Arabia, Occupied Palestine, France
and UK. Thus the only entity that might benefit from non-hybrid war with Iran is the Outlaw
US Empire--Occupied Palestine's interests actually lie with becoming part of an Integrated
Eurasia not in trying to impede it. And the same goes for the other nations occupying the
Arabian Peninsula--but they all need to come to their senses by deeply examining their actual
long term interests as Qatar seems to have done in its rapprochement with Iran.
But, just how would a non-hybrid conflict with Iran benefit the Outlaw US Empire if it
consumes its regional allies? Would it bring more riches or create greater debt atop the
human cost? Most analysts have pointed to the Empire's vulnerability upon the trashing of the
current global economic structure. Indeed, the only visible benefit might accrue from slowing
Eurasian Integration. Then there's the highly negative result to the Empire's global
credibility which is already scrapping rock bottom and the likely end of Dollar Hegemony and
the Free Lunch it's lived on for the past 70+ years. But what about the fulfillment of the
Christian Rapture Myth? Sorry, but there should be no need to answer that fantastical,
magical, thinking. Not a very good balance sheet is it as liabilities seem to vastly outweigh
assets. Unfortunately, such logic is ignored by ideologues drunk on magical thinking. And
these results don't take into consideration an escalation into global nuclear conflict that's
in nobody's interest.
But as noted, Trump's up a tree and keeps climbing higher onto ever thinner, more
precarious branches. Iran offered him a chance to climb down if he removes illegal sanctions
and returns to JCPOA, which Pompeo promptly replied to with a lie that Iran would negotiate
on its ballistic missiles, thus giving the overall goal away.
So, Trump can't/won't climb down and non-hybrid conflict would do great damage to Outlaw
US Empire interests, which is where we were at July's beginning.
Iran will respond to a limited military strike with a massive and disproportionate
counterstrike targeting both the aggressor and its enablers.
Which will be the green light for an even more violent & disproportionate counterstrike
on Iran. Make no mistake - there are plenty of gung-ho Washington & Tel Aviv power
brokers who want to trash Iran. And they will do it, given the chance. The above scenario is
precisely what the war gods are hoping for.
I don't know about that. The US and Israel would really be opening up a can of worms. Any
over reaction by the USA and Israel gives Russia, India, and China a precedent to follow.
China might it easy to settle their difficulties with Taiwan. Kiev might go up in a mushroom
cloud. The USA isn't the only country in the world with problems. If they don't play by the
rules it just leads to more rule breakers.
An Alternate Scenario
There is a saying in Persian language called "Namad Maali" translates as "feltman massag", it
means slow killing.
This proverb is very often used in contemporary Persian language but most of the people do
not know the actual origin of the proverb.
There is an interesting legend behind it. Holagu Khan, a Mongol ruler, the grandson of
Chengiz Khan conquered Baghdad on year 1258, and captured the Caliph Al-Mo'tasam, the last
Caliph of Abbasid dynasty. Holagu decided to execute the Caliph and finish the 500 years
Muslim caliphate.
Many statesmen begged him to hold on. They told him that the caliph is legitimate successor
of prophet Mohammad. Caliphate is the pillar of the world, if you remove this pillar there
will be sun eclipse, thunder storm and total darkness. Holagu, with his shamanistic believes
fearing sky revenge was yielding, but he consulted his prime minister a Persian mullah, Nasir
al-Din Tusi. Nasir told him do not worry, these are total nonsense, all of our great Shai
twelve imams were direct descendants of prophet Mohammad, they were inherently innocent,
while Abbasid are not direct descendants of prophet. See that our imams, eleven out of
twelve, were martyred, there was no sun eclipse, no thunder storm, no darkness of the
world.
Holagu was bold enough to carry out the execution. Other statesmen brought forward a group of
astrologists who searched through their horoscopes and studied signs of stars and concluded
that all the signs are catastrophic, if a drop of caliph's blood drops on earth, there will
be a devastating thunder storm, rain of bloods pours down from sky and end of world ...
Holagu consulted Nasi again. Nasir being a great humorist, told him not worry, we can devise
a pretty easy solution for your peace of mind, send the caliph to hot bath of feltman
workshop, order to be wrapped in felt, they will give him a hot water bath with soap, they
will roll him slowly over and over, as they are crafting a felt, his life will be ended
peacefully in massage, without a drop of blood, meanwhile I will assign one of my intelligent
apprentice who is familiar with sky ways ( Nasir was a great mathematician and Astronomer, he
founded a famous observatory, he was inventor of trigonometry), to sit on the roof top of the
feltman workshop, he will monitor any changes on sky if there is a minor change, he will
signal to the feltman to release the caliph.
President Vladimir Khan has been giving warnings to Ayatollah do not burn JCPOA, do not close
Strait of Hurmoz. Ayatollah is telling him do not worry we are giving a feltman massage. Just
tell Xi khan do not lean his back against the wall street pillar, clean up your hands from
future fund casino, the pillars are collapsing slowly.
the US and its allies are bluffing. don't get caught up in wars and rumors of it. the only
way it was going to happen was if syria and iraq fell and both of them didn't.
when it didn't. they resort back to the usual MO, look busy.
@C I eh? #14
I don't see China as the same situation as Russia.
The Russians who have largely supported Putin despite economic ill-effects from sanctions
are, at best, 1 generation removed from 1991-1996 post-Soviet collapse privation. They
remember the bad times and how to get through them.
The mainland Chinese today are 2 generation removed from the famines in the 50s and 60s, and
furthermore there is a largely generational break due to the Cultural Revolution.
I don't see China collapsing, but I also don't see the mainstream population taking a
oil-starvation induced economic collapse well at all, because the deal is social repression
if the economy and standards of living continue to improve.
The difference is French cheese and EU fruits and vegetables - luxury goods vs. oil = energy
= everything.
There seems to be misconception about Kuwait, in particular.
Kuwaitis are fed up with the Saudis and are more Iranophile than anything. They see who is
a true regional power.
Recently, I happen to be invited to a diplomatic function, welcoming a new Kuwaiti
ambassador (Not in US). There were several businessmen associates of the new ambassador at
that function. In an impromptu conversation, they professed their love for anything Iranian
or Persian, from culture and history to food and the people, and their disdain for the Saudis
and their ruling family.
In fact, one of them, much to my shock, uttered the circulating rumor that the ruling
family in SA are actually Jews. He said everyone in the region knows about this open secret
but afraid to talk about. That was a revelation for me coming from a Kuwaiti since I never
did pay attention to those rumors.
I think in the event of a regional conflict, Kuwait will be spared by Iran. What would
happen to the ruling family will be another story.
thanks Seyed Mohammad Marandi.. i agree with your headline...
the usa is not agreement friendly.. everything is on their terms only... they rip up
contracts when a new president doesn't like it, and make endless demands of others under
threat, just like bullies do. they sanction countries and don't mind killing, starving and
subjecting people in faraway lands to their ongoing and desperate means of domination..
nothing about the usa is friendly... they spend all their money on the military not just
because it works so well for wall st and the corporations but because they think they can
continue to bully everyone and anyone indefinitely.. they get support from the obvious
suspects and all the other colonies of the usa - europe, canada and etc - turn a type of
blind eye to it all, fearful they might be next if they step out of line.. thus, all these
chattel countries fail in line with the usa regime sanctions...
basically, the prognosis isn't good.. none of the colonies are capable of speaking up to
the usa regime, largely because they lack strong leadership and independence of thought in
all this... we continue to slip towards ww3 and at present all the observing countries sit on
their hands waiting for the next shoe to drop.. that is where we are at present with regard
the ramp up to war on iran...
The Gulf states know they would be in the front lines in any conflict, Saudi and UAE
infrastructure destruction would mean Kings, Princes and Emir's scurrying from their
destroyed countries because of their inability to sell oil and feed their people, as one
Iranian General said.. the US bases in the region are not threats, "they are targets". Its
true Iran has an army of 500,000, they also have millions of military aged men who would form
militias and have the reputation of taking their shrouds with them into battle.
I think a major miscalculation by Trump, initiating this kind of scenario is unlikely, those
other whack jobs Pence, Pompeo and Bolton are a cause for concern, just hear this nutcase
Lindsey Graham threatening the Europeans....
"The United States should sanction "to the ground" European countries that continue to trade
with Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal and refuse to join America's pressure campaign against
the Islamic Republic, says top Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
"I will tell the Europeans, 'If you want to side with the Iranians, be my guest, but you
won't use an American bank or do business with the American economy,'" Graham said".
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/16/601067/US-Graham-Trump-Iran-JCPOA-EU-sanction-to-ground
Punitive sanctions against nations with a powerful military establishment have an incredibly
poor track record. Germany after WWI. Japan prior to Pearl Harbor. And one might add Russia
today. The more "effective" the sanctions, the closer to war.
But, of course, military planners in the U.S. and Israel have already picked out the
targets for nuclear strikes during the very first wave of attacks on Iran. It will be nuclear
first, ask questions later. Heil Trump has already said he will use nuclear weapons:
"obliterate". But will even that work? I doubt it. Iran must expect nuclear attacks in the
first wave. Yes, their urban populations will be destroyed, but their military? I doubt
it.
The folks who now are called Iranian once fought the most militaristic society ever - the
Spartans. There is likely a memory of that conflict still, and the lessons learned. They face
a military that no longer remembers Vietnam or its lessons. Sanctions are an act of war, not
military war but war against another who have been made into enemies nonetheless. Be mightily
careful who you make your enemy, one sage reminds that you become like them. Look at those
the U.S. has made enemy: Hitler and National Socialism; Mussolini and Fascism; Stalin and
State Authoritarianism; Franco and Military Repression; and the list continues substantially,
and then look at the U.S. in a distortion free mirror and what does one see?
Taking into consideration the novel Rand Paul intervention, the likely way forward is this,
and I'm sure it is what Putin (the master negotiator) has in mind: Trump blundered badly by
throwing out the JCPOA, but he needs a way out that allows him to save face and even turn it
into a partial "win". On the world stage (ie. for the public) it needs to look like Trump
accedes to reinstate the JCPOA IN EXCHANGE for Iran withdrawing from Syria! This will not
only save the nuclear deal, thereby reducing tensions, but it will force Israel to back down
and shut up. Israel can't complain and Trump can sell it as an achievement of his, "without
having to go to war". The US, of course will have to give Iran, Syria and Russia something in
exchange: Iran and Russia ultimately bolstered their forces in Syria in order to save Assad.
All things considered, Assad has won the war, so the reason for the bolstered Iranian and
Russian presence no longer applies. What the US must agree to is to suspend its efforts to
overthrow Assad (which Trump has been trying to do via the withdrawal of US troops in
northern Syria), thereby returning the country to the status quo ante. The wild card in all
of this, however, is Turkey's presence in Syria. Perhaps China can lend a helping hand on
that issue?
@35 "when it didn't. they resort back to the usual MO, look busy."
I agree with that comment, though I will add that for this Administration "looking busy"
has a Keystone Cops look about it.
I mean, let's be real here: Norman Schwarzkopf did not make a single move against Iraq
until he had well over 500,000 GI's at his command, and Tommy Franks was not willing to
restart the Crash Boom Bang until he had built up his army to just shy of 500,000
soldiers.
And Iraq then was nowhere near as formidable as Iran is now.
Where are the troop buildups? Where is the CENTCOM army?
Nowhere. And no sign of it happening.
There is a real possibility that Bolton might get his way and start his dinky little war,
only to find that the USA loses a great big war before he even manages to get out of bed.
CENTCOM is not ready for war, nowhere close to it, and for that reason alone Iran is
correct to tell the USA that if Trump launches a "limited strike" then their response will be
"it's on, baby".
@ William Herschel 61. If the U.S. or anyone else uses any type of Nuclear weapons against
Iran, a declared ally of Russia, it will result in an immediate and full scale Nuclear
retaliation. This is a recent statement made by Vladimir Putin. Pompeo, Bolton et all are
well aware of this. The U.S. might talk of using tactical nukes but despite their Hubris,
even the most pro war in the Pentagon know what the results of that type of planned
anihilation will have on the U.S. mainland. People like Lindsey Graham are merely empty
vessels making a lot of noise.
Why would Iran allow any Western nation to save face through negotiations or
otherwise?
Khamenei yesterday tweeted several statements that were later posted to his website:
"At this meeting, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran stressed that Western
governments' arrogant behavior is the main obstacle in establishing ties and maintained:
Western governments' major vice is their arrogance. If they face a weak government, their
arrogance will be effective. But if that country knows the truth about them and resists, the
Western governments will be defeated.
"Referring to problems rising between Iran and the European partners of the JCPOA,
Ayatollah Khamenei said: Now, in the matters between us and the Europeans, the problems
persist, because of their arrogance.
"The Leader of the Islamic Revolution highlighted Iran's commitment to the JCPOA -- also
known as the Iran Deal -- and criticized European dignitaries of the deal for breaching it,
saying: As stated by our Foreign Minister, who works hard, Europe has had eleven commitments,
none of which it has met. The Foreign Minister, despite his diplomatic considerations, is
clearly stating that. But what did we do? We acted based on our commitments, and even beyond
that.
"Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated that Iran continued to stay within the JCPOA despite the
fact that the EU partners of the JCPOA as well as the British government violated the
international plan of action and yet demanded Iran to stay with its promises: Now that we
have started to reduce our commitments, they step forward. They are very insolent, and they
have not abided by their eleven commitments. We have just started to reduce some of our
commitments, and this process will surely continue."
The hypothetical suggestion Zarif made in his interview with NBC News was just
that--hypothetical--as it had to spell out again for the
apparently illiterate, deaf or both SoS Pompeo and BigLie Media presstitutes.
In his arrogance, Trump climbed up the tree he's now stuck within; and as I've pointed out
again and again, Iran isn't going to help him in his climb down--they'll be no face saving
for the arrogant Western nations. I mean, how clear can the Iranians make that?! They quite
well understand the very real interests at stake I put forth in my comment @32. And the Turks
on their own have upped the stakes with Erdogan
assuring :
"that his country is prepared to leave NATO during a meeting with Russian Deputy Vladimir
Zhirinovsky.
"'I met twice with Turkish President Recep Erdogan and he told me personally that Turkey
was willing to withdraw from NATO,' Zhirinovsky wrote."
Trump seems desperate for a way to climb down from his tree. Controversial Kentucky
Senator Rand Paul apparently volunteered his services as an emissary
to Iran , which Trump okayed but Paul's office is being mum about. As noted, Iran isn't
going to talk unless tangible, visible concessions are made prior to any talks
occurring--concessions Zarif and Rouhani have already stated as the minimum required: Ending
all illegal sanctions and return to JCPOA.
Iran just announced that they would be open to talk about ballistic missiles when US stops
selling arms in the Middle East.
You have to hand it to the Iranians. In the one-up-manship game, they are a formidable
opponent. Obviously, there is less than zero chance that would ever happen, but they are
super smart in driving the message of US arrogance home. I am happy to see they don't take
any shit from the Empire.
Washington's aggression is part
of a decades-long quest to control the spigot in the Persian Gulf.
Notable quotes:
"... As it happens, the world economy -- of which the United States is the leading beneficiary (despite President Trump's self-destructive trade wars) -- relies on an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to keep energy prices low. By continuing to serve as the principal overseer of that flow, Washington enjoys striking geopolitical advantages that its foreign policy elites would no more abandon than they would their country's nuclear supremacy. ..."
"... True, Washington fought wars in the Middle East when the American economy was still deeply vulnerable to any disruption in the flow of imported oil. In 1990, this was the key reason President George H.W. Bush gave for his decision to evict Iraqi troops from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein's invasion of that land. "Our country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence," he told a nationwide TV audience. ..."
"... All told, 33.6 percent of world energy consumption last year was made up of oil, 27.2 percent of coal (itself a global disgrace), 23.9 percent of natural gas, 6.8 percent of hydro-electricity, 4.4 percent of nuclear power, and a mere 4 percent of renewables. ..."
"... Concluding that the increased demand for oil in Asia, in particular, will outweigh reduced demand elsewhere, the IEA calculated in its 2017 World Energy Outlook that oil will remain the world's dominant source of energy in 2040, accounting for an estimated 27.5 percent of total global energy consumption. That will indeed be a smaller share than in 2018, but because global energy consumption as a whole is expected to grow substantially during those decades, net oil production could still rise -- from an estimated 100 million barrels a day in 2018 to about 105 million barrels in 2040. ..."
"... More dramatic yet is the growing centrality of the Asia-Pacific region to the global flow of petroleum. In 2000, that region accounted for only 28 percent of world consumption; in 2040, its share is expected to stand at 44 percent, thanks to the growth of China, India, and other Asian countries, whose newly affluent consumers are already buying cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other oil-powered products. ..."
"... To lend muscle to what would soon be dubbed the "Carter Doctrine," the president created a new US military organization, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), and obtained basing facilities for it in the Gulf region. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter as president in 1981, made the RDJTF into a full-scale "geographic combatant command," dubbed Central Command, or CENTCOM, which continues to be tasked with ensuring American access to the Gulf today (as well as overseeing the country's never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East). ..."
"... When ordering US forces into combat in the Gulf, American presidents have always insisted that they were acting in the interests of the entire West. In advocating for the "reflagging" mission of 1987, for instance, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger argued (as he would later recall in his memoir Fighting for Peace ), "The main thing was for us to protect the right of innocent, nonbelligerent and extremely important commerce to move freely in international open waters -- and, by our offering protection, to avoid conceding the mission to the Soviets." Though rarely so openly acknowledged, the same principle has undergirded Washington's strategy in the region ever since: The United States alone must be the ultimate guarantor of unimpeded oil commerce in the Persian Gulf. ..."
"... Look closely and you can find this principle lurking in every fundamental statement of US policy related to that region and among the Washington elite more generally. My own personal favorite, when it comes to pithiness, is a sentence in a report on the geopolitics of energy issued in 2000 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington-based think tank well-populated with former government officials (several of whom contributed to the report): "As the world's only superpower, [the United States] must accept its special responsibilities for preserving access to [the] worldwide energy supply." You can't get much more explicit than that. ..."
"... As things stand today, any Iranian move in the Strait of Hormuz that can be portrayed as a threat to the "free flow of commerce" (that is, the oil trade) represents the most likely trigger for direct US military action. Yes, Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support for radical Shiite movements throughout the Middle East will be cited as evidence of its leadership's malevolence, but its true threat will be to American dominance of the oil lanes, a danger Washington will treat as the offense of all offenses to be overcome at any cost. ..."
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared
at TomDispatch.com .
It's always the oil. While President Trump was hobnobbing
with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 summit in Japan, brushing off a
recent UN report about the prince's role in the murder of Washington Post columnist
Jamal Khashoggi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Asia and the Middle East,
pleading with foreign leaders to support "Sentinel." The aim of that administration plan: to
protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.
Both Trump and Pompeo insisted
that their efforts were driven by concern over Iranian misbehavior in the region and the need to
ensure the safety of maritime commerce. Neither, however, mentioned one inconvenient three-letter
word -- O-I-L -- that lay behind their Iranian maneuvering (as it has impelled every other
American incursion in the Middle East since World War II).
Now, it's true that the United States
no longer relies on imported petroleum for a large share of its energy needs. Thanks to the
fracking
revolution , the country now gets the bulk of its oil --
approximately 75 percent -- from domestic sources. (In 2008, that share had been closer to 35
percent.) Key allies in NATO and rivals like China, however, continue to depend on Middle Eastern
oil for a significant proportion of their energy needs.
As it happens, the world economy -- of
which the United States is the leading beneficiary (despite President Trump's self-destructive
trade wars) -- relies on an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to keep energy prices
low. By continuing to serve as the principal overseer of that flow, Washington enjoys striking
geopolitical advantages that its foreign policy elites would no more abandon than they would
their country's nuclear supremacy.
This logic was spelled out clearly by President Barack Obama
in a September 2013 address to the UN General Assembly in which he
declared that "the United States of America is prepared to use all elements of our power,
including military force, to secure our core interests" in the Middle East. He then pointed out
that, while the United States was steadily reducing its reliance on imported oil, "the world
still depends on the region's energy supply and a severe disruption could destabilize the entire
global economy."
Accordingly, he concluded, "We will ensure the free flow of energy from the
region to the world." To some Americans, that dictum -- and its continued embrace by President
Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo -- may seem anachronistic. True, Washington fought wars in
the Middle East when the American economy was still deeply vulnerable to any disruption in the
flow of imported oil. In 1990, this was the key reason President George H.W. Bush gave for his
decision to evict Iraqi troops from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein's invasion of that land. "Our
country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic
independence," he told a nationwide
TV audience.
But talk of oil soon disappeared from his comments about what became Washington's
first (but hardly last) Gulf War after his statement provoked
widespread public outrage .
("No Blood for Oil" became a widely used protest sign then.) His son, the second President Bush,
never even mentioned that three-letter word when announcing his 2003 invasion of Iraq. Yet, as
Obama's UN speech made clear, oil remained, and still remains, at the center of US foreign
policy. A quick review of global energy trends helps explain why this has continued to be
so.
THE WORLD'S UNDIMINISHED RELIANCE ON PETROLEUM
Despite all that's been said about climate change and oil's role in causing it -- and about
the enormous progress being made in bringing solar and wind power online -- we remain trapped
in a remarkably oil-dependent world. To grasp this reality, all you have to do is read the
most recent edition of oil giant BP's "Statistical Review of World Energy," published this
June. In 2018, according to that report, oil still accounted for by far the largest share of
world energy consumption, as it has every year for decades. All told, 33.6 percent of world
energy consumption last year was made up of oil, 27.2 percent of coal (itself a global
disgrace), 23.9 percent of natural gas, 6.8 percent of hydro-electricity, 4.4 percent of
nuclear power, and a mere 4 percent of renewables.
Most energy analysts believe that the global reliance on petroleum as a share of world
energy use will decline in the coming decades, as more governments impose restrictions on
carbon emissions and as consumers, especially in the developed world, switch from oil-powered
to electric vehicles. But such declines are unlikely to prevail in every region of the globe
and total oil consumption may not even decline. According to projections from the International
Energy Agency (IEA) in its " New Policies Scenario " (which assumes significant
but not drastic government efforts to curb carbon emissions globally), Asia, Africa, and the
Middle East are likely to experience a substantially increased demand for petroleum in the
years to come, which, grimly enough, means global oil consumption will continue to rise.
Concluding that the increased demand for oil in Asia, in particular, will outweigh reduced
demand elsewhere, the IEA calculated in its 2017 World Energy Outlook that oil will remain the world's
dominant source of energy in 2040, accounting for an estimated 27.5 percent of total global
energy consumption. That will indeed be a smaller share than in 2018, but because global energy
consumption as a whole is expected to grow substantially during those decades, net oil
production could still rise -- from an estimated 100 million barrels a day in 2018 to about 105
million barrels in 2040.
Of course, no one, including the IEA's experts, can be sure how future extreme
manifestations of global warming like the severe heat waves recently tormenting
Europe and
South
Asia could change such projections. It's possible that
growing public outrage
could lead to far tougher restrictions on carbon emissions between now and 2040. Unexpected
developments in the field of alternative energy production could also play a role in changing
those projections. In other words, oil's continuing dominance could still be curbed in ways
that are now unpredictable.
In the meantime, from a geopolitical perspective, a profound shift is taking place in the
worldwide demand for petroleum. In 2000, according to the IEA, older industrialized nations --
most of them members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) --
accounted for about two-thirds of global oil consumption; only about a third went to countries
in the developing world. By 2040, the IEA's experts believe that ratio will be reversed, with
the OECD consuming about one-third of the world's oil and non-OECD nations the rest.
More
dramatic yet is the growing centrality of the Asia-Pacific region to the global flow of
petroleum. In 2000, that region accounted for only 28 percent of world consumption; in 2040,
its share is expected to stand at 44 percent, thanks to the growth of China, India, and other
Asian countries, whose newly affluent consumers are already
buying cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other oil-powered products.
Where will Asia get its oil? Among energy experts, there is little doubt on this matter.
Lacking significant reserves of their own, the major Asian consumers will turn to the one place
with sufficient capacity to satisfy their rising needs: the Persian Gulf. According to BP, in
2018, Japan already obtained 87 percent of its oil imports from the Middle East, India 64
percent, and China 44 percent. Most analysts assume these percentages will only grow in the
years to come, as production in other areas declines.
This will, in turn, lend even greater strategic importance to the Persian Gulf region, which
now possesses more than 60 percent of the world's untapped petroleum reserves, and to the
Strait of Hormuz, the
narrow
passageway through which approximately one-third of the world's seaborne oil passes daily.
Bordered by Iran, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, the Strait is perhaps the most
significant -- and contested -- geostrategic location on the planet today.
CONTROLLING THE SPIGOT
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the same year that militant Shiite
fundamentalists overthrew the US-backed Shah of Iran, US policy-makers concluded that America's
access to Gulf oil supplies was at risk and a US military presence was needed to guarantee such
access. As President Jimmy Carter
would say in his
State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980,
The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic
importance: It contains more than two thirds of the world's exportable oil. The Soviet effort
to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian
Ocean and close to the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil
must flow. Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain
control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of
the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary,
including military force.
To lend muscle to what would soon be dubbed the "Carter Doctrine," the president created a
new US military organization, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), and obtained
basing facilities for it in the Gulf region. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter as president
in 1981, made the RDJTF
into a full-scale "geographic combatant command," dubbed Central Command, or CENTCOM, which
continues to be tasked with ensuring American access to the Gulf today (as well as overseeing
the country's never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East).
Reagan was the first president to
activate the Carter Doctrine in 1987 when he ordered Navy warships to escort Kuwaiti tankers, "
reflagged " with the stars and stripes, as they traveled through the Strait of Hormuz. From
time to time, such vessels had been coming under fire from Iranian gunboats, part of an ongoing
" Tanker War ," itself part
of the Iran-Iraq War of those years. The Iranian attacks on those tankers were meant to punish
Sunni Arab countries for backing Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein in that conflict. The American
response, dubbed Operation Earnest Will , offered an
early model of what Secretary of State Pompeo is seeking to establish today with his Sentinel
program.
Operation Earnest Will was followed two years later by a massive implementation of the
Carter Doctrine, President Bush's 1990 decision to push Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Although he
spoke of the need to protect US access to Persian Gulf oil fields, it was evident that ensuring
a safe flow of oil imports wasn't the only motive for such military involvement. Equally
important then (and far more so now): the geopolitical advantage controlling the world's major
oil spigot gave Washington.
When ordering US forces into combat in the Gulf, American presidents have always insisted
that they were acting in the interests of the entire West. In advocating for the "reflagging"
mission of 1987, for instance, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger argued (as he would later
recall in his memoir Fighting for
Peace ), "The main thing was for us to protect the right of innocent, nonbelligerent
and extremely important commerce to move freely in international open waters -- and, by our
offering protection, to avoid conceding the mission to the Soviets." Though rarely so openly
acknowledged, the same principle has undergirded Washington's strategy in the region ever
since: The United States alone must be the ultimate guarantor of unimpeded oil commerce in the
Persian Gulf.
Look closely and you can find this principle lurking in every fundamental statement of US
policy related to that region and among the Washington elite more generally. My own personal
favorite, when it comes to pithiness, is a sentence in a
report on the
geopolitics of energy issued in 2000 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington-based
think tank well-populated with former government officials (several of whom contributed to the
report): "As the world's only superpower, [the United States] must accept its special
responsibilities for preserving access to [the] worldwide energy supply." You can't get much
more explicit than that.
Of course, along with this "special responsibility" comes a geopolitical advantage: By
providing this service, the United States cements its status as the world's sole superpower and
places every other oil-importing nation -- and the world at large -- in a condition of
dependence on its continued performance of this vital function.
Originally, the key dependents in this strategic equation were Europe and Japan, which, in
return for assured access to Middle Eastern oil, were expected to subordinate themselves to
Washington. Remember, for example, how they
helped pay for
Bush the elder's Iraq War (dubbed Operation Desert Storm). Today, however, many of those
countries, deeply concerned with the effects of climate change, are seeking to lessen oil's
role in their national fuel mixes. As a result, in 2019, the countries potentially most at the
mercy of Washington when it comes to access to Gulf oil are economically fast-expanding China
and India, whose oil needs are only likely to grow. That, in turn, will further enhance the
geopolitical advantage Washington enjoyed as long as it remains the principal guardian of the
flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. How it may seek to exploit this advantage remains to be
seen, but there is no doubt that all parties involved, including the Chinese, are well aware of
this asymmetric equation, which could give the phrase "trade war" a far deeper and more ominous
meaning.
THE IRANIAN CHALLENGE AND THE SPECTER OF WAR
From Washington's perspective, the principal challenger to America's privileged status in
the Gulf is Iran. By reason of geography, that country possesses a potentially
commanding position along the
northern Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, as the Reagan administration learned in 1987–88
when it threatened American oil dominance there. About this reality President Reagan couldn't
have been clearer. "Mark this point well: The use of the sea lanes of the Persian Gulf will not
be dictated by the Iranians," he
declared
in 1987 -- and Washington's approach to the situation has never changed.
In more recent times, in response to US and Israeli threats to bomb their nuclear facilities
or, as the Trump administration has done, impose economic sanctions on their country, the
Iranians have threatened on numerous occasions to block the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic,
squeeze global energy supplies, and precipitate an international crisis. In 2011, for example,
Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi
warned that should the West impose sanctions on Iranian oil, "not even one drop of oil can
flow through the Strait of Hormuz." In response, US officials have vowed ever since to let no
such thing happen, just as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta did in response to Rahimi at that
time. "We have made very clear," he
said , "that the
United States will not tolerate blocking of the Strait of Hormuz." That, he added, was a "red
line for us."
It remains so today. Hence, the present ongoing crisis in the Gulf, with fierce US sanctions
on Iranian oil sales and threatening Iranian gestures toward the regional oil flow in response.
"We will make the enemy understand that either everyone can use the Strait of Hormuz or no
one,"
said Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, in July 2018. And
attacks
on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz on June 13
could conceivably have been an expression of just that policy, if -- as
claimed by the United States -- they were indeed carried out by members of the
Revolutionary Guards. Any future attacks are only likely to spur US military action against
Iran in accordance with the Carter Doctrine. As Pentagon spokesperson Bill Urban
put it in response to Jafari's statement, "We stand ready to ensure the freedom of
navigation and the free flow of commerce wherever international law allows."
As things stand today, any Iranian move in the Strait of Hormuz that can be portrayed as a
threat to the "free flow of commerce" (that is, the oil trade) represents the most likely
trigger for direct US military action. Yes, Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support
for radical Shiite movements throughout the Middle East will be cited as evidence of its
leadership's malevolence, but its true threat will be to American dominance of the oil lanes, a
danger Washington will treat as the offense of all offenses to be overcome at any cost.
If the United States goes to war with Iran, you are unlikely to hear the word "oil" uttered
by top Trump administration officials, but make no mistake: That three-letter word lies at the
root of the present crisis, not to speak of the world's long-term fate.
Michael T.
Klare The Nation 's defense correspondent, is professor emeritus of peace and world-security
studies at Hampshire College and senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in
Washington, DC. His newest book, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on
Climate Change , will be published this fall.
Trump is a zionist puppet and pretends to be doing something about illegal immigration but he
has all the authority under the Constitution to close the border and stop the illegal
immigration and since the zionists want open borders , Trump is not doing jackshit about
stopping illegal immigration!
The zionists in control of the zio/US want open borders so that they can merge the zio/US
with Mexico and zio/Canada into the North American Union similar to the European Union with a
new currency the Amero similar to the Euro, and so the borders are going to remain a sieve
!
Trump and Helliary and all the politicians , be they demonrats or republicons are all
under zionist AIPAC control and the borders will remain a pathway to the destruction of
America!
@follyofwar In case you did not hear it, Philip Giraldi is informing us:
25 Senators in Secret Meeting With Jewish Leaders to Plot Strategy Against Growing Anger
Over Influence of Jewish Elites
"On June 5, 16 heads of Jewish organizations joined 25 Democratic senators in a private
meeting, which, according to the Times of Israel, is an annual event.
As with last year, the meeting was chaired by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and included Sens.
Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Bob Menendez
(D-NJ), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Ed Markey (D-MA), Michael Bennet (D-CO),
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Tom Carper (D-DE), Bob Casey (PA),
Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Mazie Hirono (D-HI),
Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patty Murray (D-CT), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Tom
Udall (D-NM), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Ron Wyden (D-OR)".
Money, Money, Money,... Old Money, Factories, Russian Mercheant, German Industrialist,
American Slave owner... Nord Deutscheland, Bremen, was heavily Communist... Family would
understand the power of Communist Equality and Serfdom.
An old Soviet General said the EU is like the old Soviets , the leaders were not
elected, they were appointed by others mostly their friends and the EU process is the same,
fat cats appoint other fat cats instead of direct elections.
Washington's aggression is part
of a decades-long quest to control the spigot in the Persian Gulf.
Notable quotes:
"... As it happens, the world economy -- of which the United States is the leading beneficiary (despite President Trump's self-destructive trade wars) -- relies on an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to keep energy prices low. By continuing to serve as the principal overseer of that flow, Washington enjoys striking geopolitical advantages that its foreign policy elites would no more abandon than they would their country's nuclear supremacy. ..."
"... True, Washington fought wars in the Middle East when the American economy was still deeply vulnerable to any disruption in the flow of imported oil. In 1990, this was the key reason President George H.W. Bush gave for his decision to evict Iraqi troops from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein's invasion of that land. "Our country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic independence," he told a nationwide TV audience. ..."
"... All told, 33.6 percent of world energy consumption last year was made up of oil, 27.2 percent of coal (itself a global disgrace), 23.9 percent of natural gas, 6.8 percent of hydro-electricity, 4.4 percent of nuclear power, and a mere 4 percent of renewables. ..."
"... Concluding that the increased demand for oil in Asia, in particular, will outweigh reduced demand elsewhere, the IEA calculated in its 2017 World Energy Outlook that oil will remain the world's dominant source of energy in 2040, accounting for an estimated 27.5 percent of total global energy consumption. That will indeed be a smaller share than in 2018, but because global energy consumption as a whole is expected to grow substantially during those decades, net oil production could still rise -- from an estimated 100 million barrels a day in 2018 to about 105 million barrels in 2040. ..."
"... More dramatic yet is the growing centrality of the Asia-Pacific region to the global flow of petroleum. In 2000, that region accounted for only 28 percent of world consumption; in 2040, its share is expected to stand at 44 percent, thanks to the growth of China, India, and other Asian countries, whose newly affluent consumers are already buying cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other oil-powered products. ..."
"... To lend muscle to what would soon be dubbed the "Carter Doctrine," the president created a new US military organization, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), and obtained basing facilities for it in the Gulf region. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter as president in 1981, made the RDJTF into a full-scale "geographic combatant command," dubbed Central Command, or CENTCOM, which continues to be tasked with ensuring American access to the Gulf today (as well as overseeing the country's never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East). ..."
"... When ordering US forces into combat in the Gulf, American presidents have always insisted that they were acting in the interests of the entire West. In advocating for the "reflagging" mission of 1987, for instance, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger argued (as he would later recall in his memoir Fighting for Peace ), "The main thing was for us to protect the right of innocent, nonbelligerent and extremely important commerce to move freely in international open waters -- and, by our offering protection, to avoid conceding the mission to the Soviets." Though rarely so openly acknowledged, the same principle has undergirded Washington's strategy in the region ever since: The United States alone must be the ultimate guarantor of unimpeded oil commerce in the Persian Gulf. ..."
"... Look closely and you can find this principle lurking in every fundamental statement of US policy related to that region and among the Washington elite more generally. My own personal favorite, when it comes to pithiness, is a sentence in a report on the geopolitics of energy issued in 2000 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington-based think tank well-populated with former government officials (several of whom contributed to the report): "As the world's only superpower, [the United States] must accept its special responsibilities for preserving access to [the] worldwide energy supply." You can't get much more explicit than that. ..."
"... As things stand today, any Iranian move in the Strait of Hormuz that can be portrayed as a threat to the "free flow of commerce" (that is, the oil trade) represents the most likely trigger for direct US military action. Yes, Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support for radical Shiite movements throughout the Middle East will be cited as evidence of its leadership's malevolence, but its true threat will be to American dominance of the oil lanes, a danger Washington will treat as the offense of all offenses to be overcome at any cost. ..."
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared
at TomDispatch.com .
It's always the oil. While President Trump was hobnobbing
with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 summit in Japan, brushing off a
recent UN report about the prince's role in the murder of Washington Post columnist
Jamal Khashoggi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Asia and the Middle East,
pleading with foreign leaders to support "Sentinel." The aim of that administration plan: to
protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.
Both Trump and Pompeo insisted
that their efforts were driven by concern over Iranian misbehavior in the region and the need to
ensure the safety of maritime commerce. Neither, however, mentioned one inconvenient three-letter
word -- O-I-L -- that lay behind their Iranian maneuvering (as it has impelled every other
American incursion in the Middle East since World War II).
Now, it's true that the United States
no longer relies on imported petroleum for a large share of its energy needs. Thanks to the
fracking
revolution , the country now gets the bulk of its oil --
approximately 75 percent -- from domestic sources. (In 2008, that share had been closer to 35
percent.) Key allies in NATO and rivals like China, however, continue to depend on Middle Eastern
oil for a significant proportion of their energy needs.
As it happens, the world economy -- of
which the United States is the leading beneficiary (despite President Trump's self-destructive
trade wars) -- relies on an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to keep energy prices
low. By continuing to serve as the principal overseer of that flow, Washington enjoys striking
geopolitical advantages that its foreign policy elites would no more abandon than they would
their country's nuclear supremacy.
This logic was spelled out clearly by President Barack Obama
in a September 2013 address to the UN General Assembly in which he
declared that "the United States of America is prepared to use all elements of our power,
including military force, to secure our core interests" in the Middle East. He then pointed out
that, while the United States was steadily reducing its reliance on imported oil, "the world
still depends on the region's energy supply and a severe disruption could destabilize the entire
global economy."
Accordingly, he concluded, "We will ensure the free flow of energy from the
region to the world." To some Americans, that dictum -- and its continued embrace by President
Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo -- may seem anachronistic. True, Washington fought wars in
the Middle East when the American economy was still deeply vulnerable to any disruption in the
flow of imported oil. In 1990, this was the key reason President George H.W. Bush gave for his
decision to evict Iraqi troops from Kuwait after Saddam Hussein's invasion of that land. "Our
country now imports nearly half the oil it consumes and could face a major threat to its economic
independence," he told a nationwide
TV audience.
But talk of oil soon disappeared from his comments about what became Washington's
first (but hardly last) Gulf War after his statement provoked
widespread public outrage .
("No Blood for Oil" became a widely used protest sign then.) His son, the second President Bush,
never even mentioned that three-letter word when announcing his 2003 invasion of Iraq. Yet, as
Obama's UN speech made clear, oil remained, and still remains, at the center of US foreign
policy. A quick review of global energy trends helps explain why this has continued to be
so.
THE WORLD'S UNDIMINISHED RELIANCE ON PETROLEUM
Despite all that's been said about climate change and oil's role in causing it -- and about
the enormous progress being made in bringing solar and wind power online -- we remain trapped
in a remarkably oil-dependent world. To grasp this reality, all you have to do is read the
most recent edition of oil giant BP's "Statistical Review of World Energy," published this
June. In 2018, according to that report, oil still accounted for by far the largest share of
world energy consumption, as it has every year for decades. All told, 33.6 percent of world
energy consumption last year was made up of oil, 27.2 percent of coal (itself a global
disgrace), 23.9 percent of natural gas, 6.8 percent of hydro-electricity, 4.4 percent of
nuclear power, and a mere 4 percent of renewables.
Most energy analysts believe that the global reliance on petroleum as a share of world
energy use will decline in the coming decades, as more governments impose restrictions on
carbon emissions and as consumers, especially in the developed world, switch from oil-powered
to electric vehicles. But such declines are unlikely to prevail in every region of the globe
and total oil consumption may not even decline. According to projections from the International
Energy Agency (IEA) in its " New Policies Scenario " (which assumes significant
but not drastic government efforts to curb carbon emissions globally), Asia, Africa, and the
Middle East are likely to experience a substantially increased demand for petroleum in the
years to come, which, grimly enough, means global oil consumption will continue to rise.
Concluding that the increased demand for oil in Asia, in particular, will outweigh reduced
demand elsewhere, the IEA calculated in its 2017 World Energy Outlook that oil will remain the world's
dominant source of energy in 2040, accounting for an estimated 27.5 percent of total global
energy consumption. That will indeed be a smaller share than in 2018, but because global energy
consumption as a whole is expected to grow substantially during those decades, net oil
production could still rise -- from an estimated 100 million barrels a day in 2018 to about 105
million barrels in 2040.
Of course, no one, including the IEA's experts, can be sure how future extreme
manifestations of global warming like the severe heat waves recently tormenting
Europe and
South
Asia could change such projections. It's possible that
growing public outrage
could lead to far tougher restrictions on carbon emissions between now and 2040. Unexpected
developments in the field of alternative energy production could also play a role in changing
those projections. In other words, oil's continuing dominance could still be curbed in ways
that are now unpredictable.
In the meantime, from a geopolitical perspective, a profound shift is taking place in the
worldwide demand for petroleum. In 2000, according to the IEA, older industrialized nations --
most of them members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) --
accounted for about two-thirds of global oil consumption; only about a third went to countries
in the developing world. By 2040, the IEA's experts believe that ratio will be reversed, with
the OECD consuming about one-third of the world's oil and non-OECD nations the rest.
More
dramatic yet is the growing centrality of the Asia-Pacific region to the global flow of
petroleum. In 2000, that region accounted for only 28 percent of world consumption; in 2040,
its share is expected to stand at 44 percent, thanks to the growth of China, India, and other
Asian countries, whose newly affluent consumers are already
buying cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other oil-powered products.
Where will Asia get its oil? Among energy experts, there is little doubt on this matter.
Lacking significant reserves of their own, the major Asian consumers will turn to the one place
with sufficient capacity to satisfy their rising needs: the Persian Gulf. According to BP, in
2018, Japan already obtained 87 percent of its oil imports from the Middle East, India 64
percent, and China 44 percent. Most analysts assume these percentages will only grow in the
years to come, as production in other areas declines.
This will, in turn, lend even greater strategic importance to the Persian Gulf region, which
now possesses more than 60 percent of the world's untapped petroleum reserves, and to the
Strait of Hormuz, the
narrow
passageway through which approximately one-third of the world's seaborne oil passes daily.
Bordered by Iran, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, the Strait is perhaps the most
significant -- and contested -- geostrategic location on the planet today.
CONTROLLING THE SPIGOT
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the same year that militant Shiite
fundamentalists overthrew the US-backed Shah of Iran, US policy-makers concluded that America's
access to Gulf oil supplies was at risk and a US military presence was needed to guarantee such
access. As President Jimmy Carter
would say in his
State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980,
The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic
importance: It contains more than two thirds of the world's exportable oil. The Soviet effort
to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian
Ocean and close to the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil
must flow. Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain
control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of
the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary,
including military force.
To lend muscle to what would soon be dubbed the "Carter Doctrine," the president created a
new US military organization, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), and obtained
basing facilities for it in the Gulf region. Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter as president
in 1981, made the RDJTF
into a full-scale "geographic combatant command," dubbed Central Command, or CENTCOM, which
continues to be tasked with ensuring American access to the Gulf today (as well as overseeing
the country's never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East).
Reagan was the first president to
activate the Carter Doctrine in 1987 when he ordered Navy warships to escort Kuwaiti tankers, "
reflagged " with the stars and stripes, as they traveled through the Strait of Hormuz. From
time to time, such vessels had been coming under fire from Iranian gunboats, part of an ongoing
" Tanker War ," itself part
of the Iran-Iraq War of those years. The Iranian attacks on those tankers were meant to punish
Sunni Arab countries for backing Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein in that conflict. The American
response, dubbed Operation Earnest Will , offered an
early model of what Secretary of State Pompeo is seeking to establish today with his Sentinel
program.
Operation Earnest Will was followed two years later by a massive implementation of the
Carter Doctrine, President Bush's 1990 decision to push Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Although he
spoke of the need to protect US access to Persian Gulf oil fields, it was evident that ensuring
a safe flow of oil imports wasn't the only motive for such military involvement. Equally
important then (and far more so now): the geopolitical advantage controlling the world's major
oil spigot gave Washington.
When ordering US forces into combat in the Gulf, American presidents have always insisted
that they were acting in the interests of the entire West. In advocating for the "reflagging"
mission of 1987, for instance, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger argued (as he would later
recall in his memoir Fighting for
Peace ), "The main thing was for us to protect the right of innocent, nonbelligerent
and extremely important commerce to move freely in international open waters -- and, by our
offering protection, to avoid conceding the mission to the Soviets." Though rarely so openly
acknowledged, the same principle has undergirded Washington's strategy in the region ever
since: The United States alone must be the ultimate guarantor of unimpeded oil commerce in the
Persian Gulf.
Look closely and you can find this principle lurking in every fundamental statement of US
policy related to that region and among the Washington elite more generally. My own personal
favorite, when it comes to pithiness, is a sentence in a
report on the
geopolitics of energy issued in 2000 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a Washington-based
think tank well-populated with former government officials (several of whom contributed to the
report): "As the world's only superpower, [the United States] must accept its special
responsibilities for preserving access to [the] worldwide energy supply." You can't get much
more explicit than that.
Of course, along with this "special responsibility" comes a geopolitical advantage: By
providing this service, the United States cements its status as the world's sole superpower and
places every other oil-importing nation -- and the world at large -- in a condition of
dependence on its continued performance of this vital function.
Originally, the key dependents in this strategic equation were Europe and Japan, which, in
return for assured access to Middle Eastern oil, were expected to subordinate themselves to
Washington. Remember, for example, how they
helped pay for
Bush the elder's Iraq War (dubbed Operation Desert Storm). Today, however, many of those
countries, deeply concerned with the effects of climate change, are seeking to lessen oil's
role in their national fuel mixes. As a result, in 2019, the countries potentially most at the
mercy of Washington when it comes to access to Gulf oil are economically fast-expanding China
and India, whose oil needs are only likely to grow. That, in turn, will further enhance the
geopolitical advantage Washington enjoyed as long as it remains the principal guardian of the
flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. How it may seek to exploit this advantage remains to be
seen, but there is no doubt that all parties involved, including the Chinese, are well aware of
this asymmetric equation, which could give the phrase "trade war" a far deeper and more ominous
meaning.
THE IRANIAN CHALLENGE AND THE SPECTER OF WAR
From Washington's perspective, the principal challenger to America's privileged status in
the Gulf is Iran. By reason of geography, that country possesses a potentially
commanding position along the
northern Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, as the Reagan administration learned in 1987–88
when it threatened American oil dominance there. About this reality President Reagan couldn't
have been clearer. "Mark this point well: The use of the sea lanes of the Persian Gulf will not
be dictated by the Iranians," he
declared
in 1987 -- and Washington's approach to the situation has never changed.
In more recent times, in response to US and Israeli threats to bomb their nuclear facilities
or, as the Trump administration has done, impose economic sanctions on their country, the
Iranians have threatened on numerous occasions to block the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic,
squeeze global energy supplies, and precipitate an international crisis. In 2011, for example,
Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi
warned that should the West impose sanctions on Iranian oil, "not even one drop of oil can
flow through the Strait of Hormuz." In response, US officials have vowed ever since to let no
such thing happen, just as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta did in response to Rahimi at that
time. "We have made very clear," he
said , "that the
United States will not tolerate blocking of the Strait of Hormuz." That, he added, was a "red
line for us."
It remains so today. Hence, the present ongoing crisis in the Gulf, with fierce US sanctions
on Iranian oil sales and threatening Iranian gestures toward the regional oil flow in response.
"We will make the enemy understand that either everyone can use the Strait of Hormuz or no
one,"
said Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, in July 2018. And
attacks
on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz on June 13
could conceivably have been an expression of just that policy, if -- as
claimed by the United States -- they were indeed carried out by members of the
Revolutionary Guards. Any future attacks are only likely to spur US military action against
Iran in accordance with the Carter Doctrine. As Pentagon spokesperson Bill Urban
put it in response to Jafari's statement, "We stand ready to ensure the freedom of
navigation and the free flow of commerce wherever international law allows."
As things stand today, any Iranian move in the Strait of Hormuz that can be portrayed as a
threat to the "free flow of commerce" (that is, the oil trade) represents the most likely
trigger for direct US military action. Yes, Tehran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its support
for radical Shiite movements throughout the Middle East will be cited as evidence of its
leadership's malevolence, but its true threat will be to American dominance of the oil lanes, a
danger Washington will treat as the offense of all offenses to be overcome at any cost.
If the United States goes to war with Iran, you are unlikely to hear the word "oil" uttered
by top Trump administration officials, but make no mistake: That three-letter word lies at the
root of the present crisis, not to speak of the world's long-term fate.
Michael T.
Klare The Nation 's defense correspondent, is professor emeritus of peace and world-security
studies at Hampshire College and senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in
Washington, DC. His newest book, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on
Climate Change , will be published this fall.
"... What is true is that Turkey is a developing country with a low education level and as a result very gullible. The Erdogan-like ugly politicians use and abuse it. So yes, it might look like the people are vindictive and ready to go to war with anyone. But that's only in the 90% Erdogan owned media. ..."
"... Don't forget that 1/3 of the country is 100% behind Atatürk which moto was "yurtta sulh, cihanda sulh" (Peace in the country, peace in the world) so at least 30% of the Turks are totally against war. ..."
One needs to know a bit of the history of Turkey to understand what is going on now. In
the briefest, Turkey is a rare medium power which was allowed to exist without being cut down
by the big powers of Europe and now including US. There are several reasons why it was
allowed this disliked status, the main one is its amazing geostrategic position of a bridge
and a cross-road. The second one is its military proves second to none.
I would never say that Russia won a Turkey, it is not Russia's own achievement at all. But
Russia and China are offering an alternative path to Turkey away from the West. The Europeans
did not accept Turkey into EU and the US hubris thought that it could manipulate Turkey just
as even bigger former European powers. The US simply does not understand Turkey at all,
because history is generally an unimportant word in US and because US does not care to
understand. Turkey is a corrupt country, but the corruption there does not work the same way
as in Europe, mostly because of a tradition of strong nationalistic and imperialistic leaders
that Turkey tends to have. This is why the US model of manipulation did not work there.
Russia needs Turkey and Turkey needs Russia right now. But the Turks are never to be
trusted and the Russians should know this very well. The relationship between the two
countries will always be a tug of war, and the Turks are good at any war. The moment the
Turks do not need Russia any more, they will start expanding to the North and to the West
(back to the Balkans). For Turks, what they conquered once, must be returned. It is not only
Erdogan who is the wannabe neo-Ottoman sultan, all Turks are, all.
When the CIA organised the shooting down of the Russian bomber by a Turkish planes over
Syria, this had nothing to do with Erdogan and everything to do with CIA assets in the
Turkish Airforce. Yet, Putin blabbered at that time one of the stupidest statements ever -
that "Erdogan/Turks knifed him in the back". Even if the Russians did not know that US
controlled a good number of the Turkish Airforce generals, ONE NEVER OFFERS HIS BACK TO THE
TURKS. Anyone who forgets this maxim whilst listening to the Turkish declarations of
friendship, fully deserves the reward of the knife in the back. As a nation, the Turks are
extremely militaristic and untrustworthy. This is how they managed to survive as a medium
shark among the big sharks.
"For Turks, what they conquered once, must be returned. It is not only Erdogan who is
the wannabe neo-Ottoman sultan, all Turks are, all."
That is total bullshit...
What is true is that Turkey is a developing country with a low education level and as a
result very gullible. The Erdogan-like ugly politicians use and abuse it. So yes, it might
look like the people are vindictive and ready to go to war with anyone. But that's only in
the 90% Erdogan owned media.
Don't forget that 1/3 of the country is 100% behind Atatürk which moto was "yurtta
sulh, cihanda sulh" (Peace in the country, peace in the world) so at least 30% of the Turks
are totally against war. Given proper explanations and looking at a few body bags, my guess
is that at least another 30% would be very reluctant to send their kids to die.
So maybe 1/3 of the dumbest Turks, the hard core Erdogan voters, could be as you
describe... That's very far from your "all the Turks" and their number is going down every
day...
Look at the last election results... The 3 largest cities and 80% of the economic tissue
of Turkey slipped out of the hands of Erdogan. And as the economy continues to crumble, more
and more of his followers will flee the ship...
Are all the "Kiza" close minded as miss-informed as you are ? :)
Reading what you typed I had an impression that I was reading about US. Not everybody in
US is for conquest and subjugation. Also, my "all Turks" really means the dominant majority
of Turks and those who run the show. Should I change my view because of a cluster of secular
Turks who blame Erdo and his provincial rednecks for everything?
However, one needs to look only at the Cyprus situation and Turkish drilling for oil in
Cyprus to understand that it was you who typed total bullshit . But I would not expect
anything different from a Turk (although I have met a few wonderful Turks, just as a few
wonderful US people).
The bottom line is that as a nation Turkey is militaristic, hyper-nationalistic and
aggressively expansionist , in short a neighbor that you would never wish. In this big
picture, you few seculars mean absolutely nothing. As long as Turkey is under the current
economic and financial pressure by US and Europe, it will behave. But as soon as it returns
to economic prosperity, it will be back to its usual behavior. The Russians helping return
economic prosperity to Turkey via oil, gas, trade are digging their own graves, but when did
oligarchs care ?
Turkey is not the only such nation in this World. But it is because of such alpha-nations,
the bullies, the takers, the imperialists (US, UK, France, Turkey, Germany, Japan ...) that
the whole of humanity needs to keep spending resources on military defense instead of on
betterment.
@DontBelieveEitherPr 20
Yours is a wonderful summary of the Turkish situation: "The ultra nationalistic sentiment in
the whole country, through (sic) virtually all classes and affiliations , makes sure
of that."
We do not know why Epstein resurfaced, there was no need to re-open the case unless 'they'
wanted it to be reopened. Thus, there is definitely a deeper political purpose behind this.
As I know the higher ups in both Democrat and Republican Party are in one way or another
involved in this (both Clinton and Trump visited his island and I am sure many more prominent
high ranking US career politicians), this could indeed be equally dangerous for either
political party.
However, I don't think Trump needs convincing with regard to Iran he has been all in on
that from day 1 of his presidency and never hesitated a moment to tear up the JCPOA. Bibi was
right when he said there was never a US president as friendly towards Israel than Donald
Trump. His actions have spoken louder than words. So for this case, we will just have to wait
and see what pieces of information they allow the MSM to publish and we will know who they
are after or what bigger political goal is at play.
Something does not smell right about this.
It's not like Epstein was some obscure issue or that Trump was uninformed about the case.
Who would allow a person with such baggage on the team?
And the issue was raised so no possibility it was over-looked.
Congress (including the now concerned repubs) had their shot at him, where was the
indignation?
Looks like people were told to disregard the issue, until now.
Now like good soldiers they are all barking alert.
Looks like this guy was a plant, an insurance policy maybe.
Now that policy has been triggered - has Trump failed in playing his role?
Trumps ex-pal Epstein linked to intelligence. Makes sense given he has Robert Maxwell's
daughter doing the procuring. His was likely a black mail operation run by the intelligence
agency
Trumps other ex-pal (partner) was also linked to intelligence. Bayrocks Felix Sater. I
imagine some of their business practices could have landed Trump in jail unless like Felix he
cooperated
Could Trump himself be a an intelligent asset? Perhaps under duress through his activities
with Jeffrey and Felix.
If so, indeed the question is if its Israels or the US agency, or is there any difference
now.
I don't pretend to know the answers.
Whats the end game?. Comeys daughter is one of the NY prosecutors.Dershowitz is an Israeli
puppet and was behind getting the sealed files opened. Is Clinton and the Dems the target or
is it meant to pressure Trump to go hard on Iran or risk something coming out? Something
else?
I cant help but wonder why nobody choses to remind us about the case filed against Trump
in 2016, where a woman claimed rape at age 13 at Epstein's apartment. Is wasn't covered much
at the time either. Apparently silently withdrawn. Curious no? Not even the so called Deep
State Media that everyone believes was against Trump. Theydon't seem to want to touch it now
either. Maybe its just BS.
Of course, maybe just more distraction as they continue fleecing the bottom 90%
Billionaire, $6 B, Les Wexner, L Brands, Victoria's Secret.
from Wiki
Wexner had a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who managed Wexner's financial
assets. Wexner and Epstein parted when Epstein went to prison.[25] Wexner was believed to be
the primary source of Epstein's wealth. [26]
I am trying to link Wexner with the Bronfman's (Seagrams Liquor Family) via a source other
than the Mega Group (which may not be credible, IDK).Clare Bronfman and NEXIVM.
Looks like Epstein was running a high powered honey trap to ensnare Politicians, Lawyers,
Government employees for the express purpose of promoting the "Greater Israel Project".
@fastfreddy - While I hesitate to engage in the ubiquitous Israel is at the root of all
debacles conjecture, I think you might be onto something there. Sure would be interesting
(now or when whatever shakes out of this) to compare the record on votes of importance to
Israeli interests of any politician who gets implicated or indicted with who doesn't.
Protecting Epstein and his clients is secondary. The main goal is to protect his
billionaire, Jewish, sponsors and whatever state sponsored him. The pleabs cannot know that
their gov is corrupt but the bigger secret that must be kept is who is pulling the strings
and how they are doing it.
Regarding questions on Acosta by Jared at #27, here's a 2017 article showing that the
facts were out about Acosta when the Senate confirmed him: "Did Trump Labor Pick Protect
Trump, Rich Rapists, Tax Cheats, Crooked Bankers? Do We Find Out Wednesday?" March 14, 2017.
http://ow.ly/hk8b309Uerm
Regarding MSM reluctance to mention rape of 12 and 13 year olds by Trump, as several
commentators noted, here's a January 2017 wrap up of those matters with leading to other
links: "Welcome To Waterbury: The city that holds secrets that could bring down Trump," Jan.
9, 2018.
http://www.justice-integrity.org/1445-welcome-to-waterbury-the-city-that-holds-secrets-that-could-bring-down-trump.
My colleague Wayne Madsen and I filed a FOIA action today at the U.S. Justice Department
seeking further records.
Our view is that this is an intelligence / foreign policy operation and it's likely that
Epstein's time has run out, an occupational hazard in that field. Further, Madsen and I have
written separate books years ago documenting that all U.S. presidents after Carter -- but not
yet Trump as proven -- have been covert assets of the CIA or FBI before -- stress that --
they entered politics. That's the way it is, and helps explain a lot of the complaints in
comments above. Trump is in his own category of a corrupt stooge -- that's not necessarily
better.
Can recommend excellent 2008 book "Flat Earth News" by longtime UK journalist Nick Davies
that describes the deeply flawed nature of MSM from his perspective as a Guardian and other
UK journalist, who aptly describes why lies and quarter-truths get printed. That's a longer
story but the gist is what many here are suggesting.
After years of study and many many books I believe the Mossad and CIA are one and the
same. The Mossad is very useful when leaving sovereign footprints is verboten--and vice
versa.
"...'Belongs to intelligence' makes a lot of sense. The question is to which one. A lot
of people will says "Mossad" but I don't believe that to be the (full) truth ..."
At the level that Jeffrey Epstein is operating, he is loyal primarily to himself but
happily takes his reward from whichever intel agency at any time offers him the most or whose
interests might prove the most lucrative for him.
And the interests of American, British, Israeli and other nations' intelligence agencies
are surely so entwined that picking them apart is impossible. One thing for sure though: none
of them serve the interests of the nations they supposedly work for.
The function of the CIA/Mossad is to make sure the agenda and the narrative of the Deep
State gets served. In that case one could truly blame Epstein's actions on individuals, or
groups of individuals who dictate orders to the Mossad/CIA.
Epstein reminds me of the Bill Browder affair. And the statement: To know who are the
rulers not which are the ones you are not permitted to criticize. Or somethinh like that.
If indeed they are after Trump as he failed them on 'Iran', then it makes absolute sense that
Dershowitz and Cernovich had the records unsealed as both are strong, strong Zionists and
supporters of Israel. Getting a judge do the thing they need is just a formality. I agree
with some writer above who asked, why the publicity if pressure can be applied in secret
without the media being involved? But this may be the stated goal to bring Trump either
completely in line now or publicly topple his presidency.
I get why @94 Really? and others would be sceptical at this stage but I know strong
powers in the Zionist/Neo-con deep state want a direct confrontation with Iran for myriad
number of reasons (stop the BRI, deal a blow to Syria and Hizbollah, take out Israel's No 1
enemy etc, shore up the Petrodollar), and Trump was still the most likely candidate to follow
through with this, given his proximity to Zionism. So far he also has dully followed through
with everything imaginable, except for actually attacking Iran.
Interesting development indeed. B. Clinton could be collateral damage, at this stage their
power is overestimated in my opinion.
Okay, An "intelligence op," but which one? The Epstein/Mueller link was made several
months ago. I don't see any irregularities in the court judgement to order the unsealing as
it's been ongoing for almost 2.5 years and involves odd bedfellows. Was Mueller even aware of
the attempt to unseal Epstein's case? So many questions!
Arnon Milchan? He was Israeli. Should he be punished, absolutely. But you know who should
be hung? Robert DeNiro. He knew Arnon Milchan was a spy and kept his mouth shut for decades.
He is a POS of epic proportions.
Insofar as Epstein is concerned. It is all about timing. Mueller is set to testify and
probably has skeletons in his closet with regards to Epstein's case. He is likely being told
implicitly via the Epstein arrest to be on his best behavior by Barr, and Barr at this age
probably can care less that Epstein is being sacrificed so he can make his point,
particularly since Barr is probably the 2nd most powerful person in the USA right now.
Epstein was extremely likely an Israeli asset. The Israelis have through political power
and force convinced many in the US IC that their ship is sailing in the same direction, and
that they should be allowed to serve as the US's dog on a leash, and once in a while be
unleashed to do what the US won't. So while he was an Israeli asset, his resources (that is
compromising material) was often made available to the CIA, and thus Acosta was told that he
is an intelligence asset.
The fireworks will start to fly if and when Epstein realizes he is being hung out to dry
and won't be saved. But like almost every other case involving such rich and powerful people,
don't hold your breath for justice to be served in the US.
What does protecting adolescent teenagers from predatory adults have to do with
puritanism? Am I understanding this correctly that you advocate sex with minors as long as
they have reached biological puberty? Never mind their mental maturity? So sexual relations
involving young women is ok what about sexual relations with young men? This has nothing to
do with a false pretentious morality but with the fact that teenagers have not yet reached
the level of mental maturity that protects them from sexual exploitation that will haunt them
for the rest of their lives, never mind their biological functions and ability to conceive or
sire children. It is really puzzling that I even need to make these elaborations in here!
In many ways this thread is as sickening as the subject it discusses. All sorts of types left
and right competing to show that they have the most insight into the forces behind the anal
rape of a 12 year old girl See Andrew Kreig's excellent piece which does consider the horror
of the acts, rather than just whether or not it plays into the particular vision of 'power
politics' each poster invokes). In no instance does anyone express disgust at the actions of
these low life scum other than for the corruption of the pols such as Acosta.
The glee which so many have displayed jumping into this horror story because it can be
twisted and forced into their own particular theory about "how the world really works" while
totally ignoring that these humans who were abducted at age eleven or twelve & then sold
like cattle, now inhabit the netherworld of 'the great society' living in the fringes of
prosperous cities in a ramshackle 'double wide', reveals a psychic corruption not a million
miles away from that of the rapists.
This story is those young boys & girls, anyone who claims to want to use it to force
the greedy rapists and warmongering grubs to face justice, will not succeed as long as they
waste time speculating who works for who and who is really in control.
Prince Andrew still bludges off taxpayers despite being photographed with his arm around
one of his victims, if you're english & really care about stopping this scum, instead of
speculating on which shadowy 'palace spokesman suggested that the
Daily Mail include the line "There is no suggestion that the duke had any sexual contact
at the house, or knew what was allegedly going on there" you will find out how the at the
time 17 y.o. Virginia Roberts feels about her public destruction now (A child the Mail
described as an erotic masseuse - presumably to reduce the horror a normal human reacts to
that pic whilst ensuring the victim is so humiliated she causes no further problem for "the
royal family's" number one arms salesman). This victim first hung out with the andrew sleaze
when she was 17 at the pimp's Florida hell hole where the age of consent is 18.
Concentrating on the effect on victims while protecting them from further harm will bring
the creeps undone - nothing else will. It was only once people began to see past the priests
claims that "the victims led me on" and considered the huge power imbalance that the catholic
church came unstuck.
Most of all without humanity, there is no difference between any of us and the scum we
criticise.
Now, to be on topic, why the insistence that Epstein finally getting outed for real is
some mysterious intel op? The CIA has been screwing up left, right and center for years, so
is it any surprise that one of their major kompromat operations is getting exposed? Their
foolproof plan to install their tool Clinton in the White House in 2016 failed spectacularly
and blew up in their faces, so tell me again how great they are at running covert ops? The
CIA's own version of James Bond gets snuffed by the CIA's own death squads in Benghazi, but
people still think the CIA has a clue what they're doing? The CIA's operatives in multiple
embassies are being incapacitated by freakin' crickets and people think these clowns
still somehow maintain some vestigial link to reality?
No, this is simply another massive screw-up by the establishment. This blind-sided the
Deep State and so much took them by surprise that they were too late to get it clamped down
in the mass media. If Epstein dies before the real dirt starts getting exposed then it proves
me right and proves wrong all those who worship at the alter of the omnipotent Deep
State.
"... it appears that Strzok is operating under some other authority. ..."
"... Downer walked his 'tip' over to Elizabeth Dibble, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy. Probably the day after the meeting at the Kensington wine room. Dibble passed the 'tip' on to her boss, Victoria Nuland, European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR) Assistant Secretary of state. ..."
"... Downer/Dibble/Nuland are the evaluating agency behind the evidence that the FISA document is based on. ..."
"... Downer has to lie, eventually, about his actions in re the report. ..."
"... This is why Halper was sent back into the fray, and the weird September meeting a month or so later in a private room at the Travelers Club took place with Papadopoulos ..."
Bill refers to Bill Priestrap, the head of FBI's counter intelligence operations. Important
to remember that Strzok worked for Priestrap at this point. Yet, it appears that Strzok is
operating under some other authority.
Lisa Page then writes:
"Also, Andy spoke to ?????. He was out, he has a POC for you over then when you need
it."
Strzok was on his way to London. My informed guess is that the ????? was CIA. POC means
Point of Contact. Andy had a name of a CIA officer. The Chief of Station in London was Gina
Haspel. I do not have a name for her Deputy. The nature of this case means that at least Haspel
would have been witting.
The texts start again around noon Washington time, which means 4pm London time. At 13:36:19
(i.e., 1:36 pm EDT), Lisa writes:
"I worry OGC is making happy to glad changes which are nice to have but not legally
necessary and which will derail this thing."
OGC refers to Office of General Counsel. What did Page fear would get "derailed?"
Strzok then writes:
Interesting fact. Guy we're about to interview was (BLANKED OUT)
... ... ...
Lisa then wrote:
Just checked yellow and there are two POCs for you from BOTH OGAs waiting there for you.
Both may have already reached out.
Both OGAs? Other Government Agencies. Since there are two in question this is shorthand for
CIA and NSA.
We know from a May 2019 piece by National Review, based on the Congressional interview with
FBI DAD Jonathan Moffa, who was the section chief over counterintelligence analysis, that the
FBI actions involved Confidential Human Sources, which were central to
this so-called investigation:
The deputy assistant director at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Jonathan Moffa, was
involved with the Russia–Trump investigation from the start. He was asked, in a
closed-door Capitol Hill interview on August 24, 2018, to describe his role: "I was the section
chief over counterintelligence analysis during the period of the election," Moffa told
lawmakers and staff. "And as a result, I had analysts who reported to me who supported the full
range of the FBI's counterintelligence investigations and counterespionage investigations
during that period. So in a sense, if there's a Russian-election-related investigation underway
in the division at that point, personnel reporting to me are a part of it."
If the CIA and NSA had solid, reliable sources on the Russian angle, we would know that by
now. Instead, when you look at the weak January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, you see
a dearth of sources. It is all analytical speculation.
My interpretation of the exchange between Strzok and Page is that the Deputy National
Security Advisor Ben Rhodes has seen a problem with the Downer "tip" or report. What Downer
has done is to break the Five Eyes intelligence agencies' procedural rules. Probably by law,
certainly by bureaucratic regulations, he was required to send his "tip" about Papadopoulos
back to Melbourne to the Australian national intelligence agency for processing. The Five
Eyes agreement established the basic rule that the agency of the country that gathers the
intelligence must be the agency that processes it. Reasons for this are security, quality
control, and independent and unbiased evaluation of the product. This didn't happen.
Downer walked his 'tip' over to Elizabeth Dibble, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US
Embassy. Probably the day after the meeting at the Kensington wine room. Dibble passed the
'tip' on to her boss, Victoria Nuland, European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR) Assistant
Secretary of state.
Downer's report was touted as an intelligence product. It's not. It doesn't have anything
at all to do with intelligence. It is a state department product. Ben Rhodes must have
noticed this problem. He is concerned. I think what has been decided is that it is now
necessary that Halper make another attempt to compromise and incriminate Papadopoulos. The
Downer report is flimsy and can be unravelled by judicial inquiry. There's an obvious chain
of state department actors promulgating the Downer information. But it is being played as an
intelligence product. That's why Lisa Page wants to know if Dibble is at the meeting. It
would be better if state department just stays further away. Downer/Dibble/Nuland are the
evaluating agency behind the evidence that the FISA document is based on. That's also
why Page is relieved that Office of General Counsel (OGC) has just made it far more difficult
to identify the people behind the Downer report. She sees the vulnerability.
Downer has to lie, eventually, about his actions in re the report. He tells 'The
Australian', a newspaper, that "he officially reported" the Papadopoulos meeting back to
Australia "the following day or a day or two after." Then after another interval, Joe Hockey,
the Australian Ambassador, passed the information on to Washington. (My source on this is Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal and 'Undercover Huber' on Twitter.) This is a lie. He
never reported what amounts to one man's denunciation of Papadopoulos to any intelligence
agency. Downer went straight to Elizabeth Dribble at the US Embassy.
This is why Halper was sent back into the fray, and the weird September meeting a month or
so later in a private room at the Travelers Club took place with Papadopoulos. It's besides
the point, but I agree with everything Halper told the crazy Greek kid about British and
American policy in the Mediterranean. Papadopoulos was, and is, no doubt, if he had a chance,
ready to force the British out of Cyprus and move Incirlik to the island of Karpathos. He
does not seem to understand that Mt. Troodos is the jewel in the crown. He wants to squeeze
Turkey away from the natural gas fields which will soon enough be found on the Turkish
continental shelf between Turkish North Cyprus and the Turkish mainland. The kid if a Greek
at heart. Not entirely an American. He's got the ethnic thing. He hates Turks, like all
Greeks. Downer and Halper were right! Funny. It's also funny that Downer went out of the way
to have a photo made of himself and the Turkish ambassador in the time frame when he was
dropping a shit bomb on the kid and on America.
"... It is the Iranian (upper/middle class) exiles who hate and detest the revolutionary regime, because the regime has deprived them of the right to rule, that they thought was their hereditary ..."
"... But the Gulf States don't give a fig about that. They are concerned about the simple renaissance of Iranian power, which might deprive the Sunni potentates of their own position. ..."
"... Yes, it is precisely Iran's success that threatens the Gulf Autocrats, Israel, and Uncle Sugar, each for slightly different reasons, or perhaps the same reasons in different amounts. ..."
Crooke points out, correctly I believe, that the real issue is not nuclear, or the
oft-repeated foolish "largest state sponsor of terrorism," it is the revolutionary basis of
Iran's success in the Middle East, besting the Gulf dictators.
That bit about the revolution, I don't agree with. It's more the Iranian
renaissance that the Gulf States fear.
Two separate aspects need to be distinguished:
1) It is the Iranian (upper/middle class) exiles who hate and detest the revolutionary regime, because the regime has
deprived them of the right to rule, that they thought was their hereditary right. Even within Iran, upper/middle class people I met had the same
attitude - a kind of hurt that they weren't running the country. The regime is of course
populist.
2) But the Gulf States don't give a fig about that. They are concerned about the simple
renaissance of Iranian power, which might deprive the Sunni potentates of their own position.
The classic case is of course Bahrain, where the "king" is Sunni, and the vast mass of the
population Shi'a, and they're kept down by force, supported by the guns of the US 5th fleet.
But the case of Saudi is much more serious, because it's so much bigger, and every single oil
well is sitting under the feet of the Shi'a, and there are none anywhere else, certainly not
in the Saudi homeland of Najd, which is real camel-herder territory (to which we can expect
the Saudi princes to return, if ever the poor suffering Shi'a ever manage a successful
revolt).
Yes, it is precisely Iran's success that threatens the Gulf Autocrats, Israel, and Uncle
Sugar, each for slightly different reasons, or perhaps the same reasons in different
amounts.
Those being: it's Shiia, it's populist, and it was indeed a political revolution. And for
all of them it represents a viable alternative to the way they wanted things to be. Now, I
think, it's too late. Many will take note of what they have done and how, it will be
studied.
As b mentioned, stay tuned for a major op. against the British East India
Company.
from the Tehran Times:
TEHRAN – Iran's Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi has demanded an immediate release of
an Iranian oil tanker seized by the British government, Fars reported.
"It seems that the British and Europeans are well aware of the Islamic Republic's reach
and potential , and accordingly, it is to their own benefit that they immediately release
this oil tanker, otherwise they should await the ramifications of their action," Raisi said
on Monday.
"... There is at present no other powerful leadership group that is so adamantly unwilling to compromise with the U.S. The potential loss of U.S. control over Middle East oil being at the root of it. ..."
"... The Saudis et al have it, and Israel is a forward operating base for protecting it. The Saudi royal family rightly fear an Iran-inspired popular uprising against them and Israel fears the loss of lands granted to them by their invisible friend as related in a popular fairy tale. ..."
"... Iran is a relatively large country with a semi independent foreign policy and banking,/ financial system, and they want to control their own resources independent of western dictates about opening up their system to the neo liberal system. ..."
"... Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then. ..."
"... Iran was after WW2 a client state of both the US and the UK, the latter installing the Shah as a ruler. Iran was important for the US and the UK through its oil resources and its border with the USSR. ..."
"... Iran is still a major player when it comes to oil, but contrary to the Shah years quite hostile to the aspirations of Israel to become the “western” power in the middle east. ..."
"... The enmity clearest showed up when Israel and the USA supplied Saddam Hussein with intelligence and Germany and France with the capability to produce chemical weapons during the Iraq/Iran war. ..."
"... America essentially followed the old British approach towards Iran: keep it semi-alive so that it can put up enough resistance to the USSR until America’s more important and intrinsic interests, such as those in the Persian Gulf, were safeguarded. But Washington never wanted to turn Iran into a strong ally that one day might be capable of challenging America. ..."
"... By changing the international balance of power and removing the risk of Soviet penetration, the USSR’s fall eliminated Iran’s value to the United States even as a buffer state. In fact, the fundamental shift to a US approach based on the principle of no compromise, can be traced to 1987, when Gorbachev’s reforms began. ..."
"... Since then, the United States has refused to accept any solution to the Iran problem that has not involved the country’s absolute capitulation. ..."
"... For instance, in 2003, Iran offered to put all the outstanding issues between the two countries on the table for negotiations, but the US refused. ..."
"... Because Iran refuses to be a second-class citizen in its own neighborhood. Theirs is an ancient culture whose legacy to the world is enormous, their history is the stuff of legend, and they are the geopolitical power player in the region, not to mention the most powerful Shia Muslim nation. ..."
>>US President Donald Trump’s ruthless use of the centrality of his country’s financial system and the dollar to force economic
partners to abide by his unilateral sanctions on Iran has forced the world to recognise the political price of asymmetric economic
interdependence.
Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?
Just spit-balling here: The Iranian leadership, with good cause, wants to diminish or eliminate the U.S. grip on the region
and this subversive, potentially destabilizing sentiment resonates among the citizenry of various Middle Eastern countries.
There is at present no other powerful leadership group that is so adamantly unwilling to compromise with the U.S. The potential
loss of U.S. control over Middle East oil being at the root of it.
The Saudis et al have it, and Israel is a forward operating base for protecting it. The Saudi royal family rightly fear
an Iran-inspired popular uprising against them and Israel fears the loss of lands granted to them by their invisible friend as
related in a popular fairy tale.
This is hardly definitive and I’m sure others could elaborate.
Iran is a relatively large country with a semi independent foreign policy and banking,/ financial system, and they want to
control their own resources independent of western dictates about opening up their system to the neo liberal system.
I’m sure this is obvious to most people at this kind of web site and is overly simplistic but i sense sometimes some people
are shocked about the conflict with Iran and don’t get that basic dynamic of this conflict.
Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?
Iran was after WW2 a client state of both the US and the UK, the latter installing the Shah as a ruler. Iran was important
for the US and the UK through its oil resources and its border with the USSR.
Mossadegh, by nationalising the oil supply until, played against the status and he was overthrown in a MI/CIA sponsored coup
in 1953, leaving the Shah as the sole ruler in Iran till the revolution of 1979 when Iran came under theocratic rule and basically
diminished the power the US had throughout the years of the Shah’s rule.
The US was also shown to be quite powerless -- short of an invasion -- to deal with the hostage crisis in the US embassy, which
was finally after more than a year resolved with the help of Canada.
Iran is still a major player when it comes to oil, but contrary to the Shah years quite hostile to the aspirations of Israel
to become the “western” power in the middle east.
The enmity clearest showed up when Israel and the USA supplied Saddam Hussein with intelligence and Germany and France with
the capability to produce chemical weapons during the Iraq/Iran war.
This U.S. approach towards Iran has been the result of its lack of an intrinsic interest in the country. The same was true
of Britain. The late Sir Denis Right, the UK’s ambassador to Iran in the 1960s, put it best by writing that Britain never considered
Iran of sufficient value to colonize it. But it found Iran useful as a buffer against the competing great power, the Russian
Empire. Thus, British policy towards Iran was to keep it moribund but not dead, at least not as long as the Russian threat
persisted.
America essentially followed the old British approach towards Iran: keep it semi-alive so that it can put up enough resistance
to the USSR until America’s more important and intrinsic interests, such as those in the Persian Gulf, were safeguarded. But
Washington never wanted to turn Iran into a strong ally that one day might be capable of challenging America.
By changing the international balance of power and removing the risk of Soviet penetration, the USSR’s fall eliminated
Iran’s value to the United States even as a buffer state. In fact, the fundamental shift to a US approach based on the principle
of no compromise, can be traced to 1987, when Gorbachev’s reforms began.
Since then, the United States has refused to accept any solution to the Iran problem that has not involved the country’s
absolute capitulation.
For instance, in 2003, Iran offered to put all the outstanding issues between the two countries on the table for negotiations,
but the US refused.
Because Iran refuses to be a second-class citizen in its own neighborhood. Theirs is an ancient culture whose legacy to the
world is enormous, their history is the stuff of legend, and they are the geopolitical power player in the region, not to mention
the most powerful Shia Muslim nation.
"... Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. ..."
"... In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. ..."
"... They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution). ..."
"... So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. ..."
To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular
religion." Before Douthat could ask what the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the
subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear: everything Maher doesn't
like is religion.
Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive --
that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. Sure, they didn't use God or angels or
miracles in their rhetoric, but that's just surface trappings.
In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They
had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth)
which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for
everything they did in the name of the Revolution.
They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to
join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his
death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged,
brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the
Revolution).
So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. No, they
didn't include personified invisible spirits in their ideology. But if it looks like a duck,
walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ....
"... There is at present no other powerful leadership group that is so adamantly unwilling to compromise with the U.S. The potential loss of U.S. control over Middle East oil being at the root of it. ..."
"... The Saudis et al have it, and Israel is a forward operating base for protecting it. The Saudi royal family rightly fear an Iran-inspired popular uprising against them and Israel fears the loss of lands granted to them by their invisible friend as related in a popular fairy tale. ..."
"... Iran is a relatively large country with a semi independent foreign policy and banking,/ financial system, and they want to control their own resources independent of western dictates about opening up their system to the neo liberal system. ..."
"... Because Iran successfully booted out the CIA and CIA-imposed regime out of their country and successfully remained independent since then. ..."
"... Iran was after WW2 a client state of both the US and the UK, the latter installing the Shah as a ruler. Iran was important for the US and the UK through its oil resources and its border with the USSR. ..."
"... Iran is still a major player when it comes to oil, but contrary to the Shah years quite hostile to the aspirations of Israel to become the “western” power in the middle east. ..."
"... The enmity clearest showed up when Israel and the USA supplied Saddam Hussein with intelligence and Germany and France with the capability to produce chemical weapons during the Iraq/Iran war. ..."
"... America essentially followed the old British approach towards Iran: keep it semi-alive so that it can put up enough resistance to the USSR until America’s more important and intrinsic interests, such as those in the Persian Gulf, were safeguarded. But Washington never wanted to turn Iran into a strong ally that one day might be capable of challenging America. ..."
"... By changing the international balance of power and removing the risk of Soviet penetration, the USSR’s fall eliminated Iran’s value to the United States even as a buffer state. In fact, the fundamental shift to a US approach based on the principle of no compromise, can be traced to 1987, when Gorbachev’s reforms began. ..."
"... Since then, the United States has refused to accept any solution to the Iran problem that has not involved the country’s absolute capitulation. ..."
"... For instance, in 2003, Iran offered to put all the outstanding issues between the two countries on the table for negotiations, but the US refused. ..."
"... Because Iran refuses to be a second-class citizen in its own neighborhood. Theirs is an ancient culture whose legacy to the world is enormous, their history is the stuff of legend, and they are the geopolitical power player in the region, not to mention the most powerful Shia Muslim nation. ..."
>>US President Donald Trump’s ruthless use of the centrality of his country’s financial system and the dollar to force economic
partners to abide by his unilateral sanctions on Iran has forced the world to recognise the political price of asymmetric economic
interdependence.
Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?
Just spit-balling here: The Iranian leadership, with good cause, wants to diminish or eliminate the U.S. grip on the region
and this subversive, potentially destabilizing sentiment resonates among the citizenry of various Middle Eastern countries.
There is at present no other powerful leadership group that is so adamantly unwilling to compromise with the U.S. The potential
loss of U.S. control over Middle East oil being at the root of it.
The Saudis et al have it, and Israel is a forward operating base for protecting it. The Saudi royal family rightly fear
an Iran-inspired popular uprising against them and Israel fears the loss of lands granted to them by their invisible friend as
related in a popular fairy tale.
This is hardly definitive and I’m sure others could elaborate.
Iran is a relatively large country with a semi independent foreign policy and banking,/ financial system, and they want to
control their own resources independent of western dictates about opening up their system to the neo liberal system.
I’m sure this is obvious to most people at this kind of web site and is overly simplistic but i sense sometimes some people
are shocked about the conflict with Iran and don’t get that basic dynamic of this conflict.
Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?
Iran was after WW2 a client state of both the US and the UK, the latter installing the Shah as a ruler. Iran was important
for the US and the UK through its oil resources and its border with the USSR.
Mossadegh, by nationalising the oil supply until, played against the status and he was overthrown in a MI/CIA sponsored coup
in 1953, leaving the Shah as the sole ruler in Iran till the revolution of 1979 when Iran came under theocratic rule and basically
diminished the power the US had throughout the years of the Shah’s rule.
The US was also shown to be quite powerless -- short of an invasion -- to deal with the hostage crisis in the US embassy, which
was finally after more than a year resolved with the help of Canada.
Iran is still a major player when it comes to oil, but contrary to the Shah years quite hostile to the aspirations of Israel
to become the “western” power in the middle east.
The enmity clearest showed up when Israel and the USA supplied Saddam Hussein with intelligence and Germany and France with
the capability to produce chemical weapons during the Iraq/Iran war.
This U.S. approach towards Iran has been the result of its lack of an intrinsic interest in the country. The same was true
of Britain. The late Sir Denis Right, the UK’s ambassador to Iran in the 1960s, put it best by writing that Britain never considered
Iran of sufficient value to colonize it. But it found Iran useful as a buffer against the competing great power, the Russian
Empire. Thus, British policy towards Iran was to keep it moribund but not dead, at least not as long as the Russian threat
persisted.
America essentially followed the old British approach towards Iran: keep it semi-alive so that it can put up enough resistance
to the USSR until America’s more important and intrinsic interests, such as those in the Persian Gulf, were safeguarded. But
Washington never wanted to turn Iran into a strong ally that one day might be capable of challenging America.
By changing the international balance of power and removing the risk of Soviet penetration, the USSR’s fall eliminated
Iran’s value to the United States even as a buffer state. In fact, the fundamental shift to a US approach based on the principle
of no compromise, can be traced to 1987, when Gorbachev’s reforms began.
Since then, the United States has refused to accept any solution to the Iran problem that has not involved the country’s
absolute capitulation.
For instance, in 2003, Iran offered to put all the outstanding issues between the two countries on the table for negotiations,
but the US refused.
Because Iran refuses to be a second-class citizen in its own neighborhood. Theirs is an ancient culture whose legacy to the
world is enormous, their history is the stuff of legend, and they are the geopolitical power player in the region, not to mention
the most powerful Shia Muslim nation.
"... Just like Dubya. Just like Obomber. Just like the Orange Baboon. Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus. ..."
Same old, same old, same old, same old. Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired
old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be different.
There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel. Honest.
Just like Dubya. Just like Obomber. Just like the Orange Baboon. Whilst simultaneously
begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.
"... Buying S400 and losing F35 is a win win. ..."
"... Trump administration currently sees Turkey is essentially as a lever in relation to Iran. He suspects Erdo & Trump have a deal since the G20 whereby S-400 sanctions may be held in abeyance, in return for Turkey's acquiescence to, or even assistance with the maximum pressure campaign. ..."
"... Erdogan is still in the regime-changers' sights, under siege in all areas and consequently in a very weak position. I think those forecasting a full-scale defection into Russia's orbit misunderstand the realities of the maximum pressure campaign on Turkey itself and much further it can be pushed if need be. IMO it is more likely NATO will eventually welcome the reluctant black sheep back into the fold. ..."
"... Turkey is going to get their $4.3 billion dollars back at about the same time that Iran gets all of its money back, and Venezuela gets its gold back from the Bank of England - that is to say, never. As soon as Turkey asks for its money back, the US govt will impose sanctions on Turkey and that will be that. ..."
"... Any energy corridor that goes from the Persian Gulf to Europe has to pass through Turkey and also has to pass through either Syria or Iraq. The fact that Syria and Iraq are now effectively in Russia's sphere of influence makes a Turkish-Russian alliance make all the more sense. ..."
"... Reports from several months ago indicate the S-400 was cheaper than the Patriot, more mobile, and Russia was willing to share the technology and the US wasn't. Could be the S-400 being a better deal value factored in there somewhere. Putin? He's a businessman too. ..."
What is most interesting to me, is that the Russian air force is actually pounding
Turkey's militant allies on the ground in Idlib, but both men (Erdogan and Putin) are still
strengthening their ties thru Turkstream, Russian tourism and building of a nuclear power
plant. Diplomacy seems to have surpassed conditions on the ground in Syria.
Also, Iran's leaders feel slightly betrayed by Putin's deference to Erdogan. They must
believe (as I do) that Putin has agreed to allow Turkey to occupy parts of Syria following
the war.
Turkey has been very consistent on this issue from the very beginning...and it has plans
to resettle parts of N Syria with the nearly 3 million refugees it is housing in S
Turkey.
Many critics will blame Putin for betraying Assad, but I think he is merely showing that
he is a master negotiator who recognizes the importance of 'good' relations with Turkey, and
knows he will not get everything he wants in Syria. Compromise with Turkey opens up a path to
ending the war and for pressuring US-Turkey relations which continue to worsen as Washington
continues to support a de facto Kurdistan in E Syria.
M K Bhadrakumar is a great source for following the frenetic pace of developments in
Eurasian geopolitics and he covered this very topic yesterday (see link).
His view of where the Trump administration currently sees Turkey is essentially as a
lever in relation to Iran. He suspects Erdo & Trump have a deal since the G20 whereby
S-400 sanctions may be held in abeyance, in return for Turkey's acquiescence to, or even
assistance with the maximum pressure campaign.
Whilst S-400 delivery is contrary to US/NATO wishes/policy, it makes sense to me that it
gets treated as a second order issue in this context. Turkey also wants Iran out of Syria,
but if pushed even further into a corner Turkey could make life difficult for the US on Iran
and therefore even potentially endanger Trump's re-election chances.
Erdogan is still in the regime-changers' sights, under siege in all areas and
consequently in a very weak position. I think those forecasting a full-scale defection into
Russia's orbit misunderstand the realities of the maximum pressure campaign on Turkey itself
and much further it can be pushed if need be. IMO it is more likely NATO will eventually
welcome the reluctant black sheep back into the fold.
The slippery Sultan has pushed it to the limit, but the anti-Iran coalition now needs him
- at least in the short term. My guess is he gets to keep his shiny new AD system.
Where
Turkey chooses to put it is a very interesting question; facing its ancient enemy in the
West, or perhaps sited to cover the Cyprus EEZ and its oil?
Does anyone understand the F35 deal between the participating partner nations.
Wikipedia say Turkey is a level 3 partner which cost it $4.3 billion and that sales are
handled via the Pentagon.
Who decides if a partner in the project can be denied the right to
buy their product? What I did not see is what F35 components were produced in Turkey and if
they stopped exports what redundancy their was in the system.
Can Turkey say fine I will take my $4.3 billion back as the Russians and Chinese have both
made me very attractive offers?
Turkey is going to get their $4.3 billion dollars back at about the same time that Iran
gets all of its money back, and Venezuela gets its gold back from the Bank of England - that
is to say, never. As soon as Turkey asks for its money back, the US govt will impose
sanctions on Turkey and that will be that.
Regarding #1 and #2: S-400 is already in Algeria. And it will be in India by next year.
Reuters claims that Trump's good buddy King Salman signed a deal with Russia to buy S-400s.
Reuters also reported that Qatar was considering an S-400 purchase. So why is Pom-Pom only
jumping on Turkey's back and not castigating the Saudis, Qataris, Algeriens, and Indians
about the S-400? Keeping F-35 stealth capability from snooping by S-400s is the stated reason
we don't want Turkey to have the S-400.
But when carrier based F35s are flying in the eastern Med, that stealth capability could
be snooped on by the Algerien systems (or by Russian "field service reps" in Algeria with
those systems). Ditto for the F35s in Italy. Could Israeli F35 stealth already be jeopardized
by Russian system at Khmeimim AB in Syria?
#3 Idiots. But they are being used by Trump. He puts them up to it, so that he can pull
back at the last minute and be Mr World Peace.
#4: State owned Rossiya TV lampooned Trump's Fourth of July celebration. Called it
фигня (pronounced as 'fignya' and translates as bullshit). They
mocked the tanks on display, said "the paint on these vehicles is peeling off. They have
no cannons, and the optics were pasted on with adhesive tape" . Host Yevgeny Popov called
the President "our Donald Trump" . Co-host Olga Skabeeva calls the parade "Putin's
America" .
#5: See #3
#6 & 7: I was hoping #6 would stall #7, but I have serious doubts.
Is the S-400 in Algeria already? I have found reports that it was scheduled to be
delivered in 2015 - but I can't find any reports on it actually being delivered. I don't
think the Russians would have sold it to anyone other than Belarus and China until they had
the S-500 ready to go.
Wiki says yes but their references to it are speculative.
Besides those there is a Business Insider article, German Edition, which claims Algeria
has the S-400. It was dated last November.
Plus there is a report on Sputnik re S-400 in Algeria. But that is based on a
MENAdefense.net article, which has photos (irrefutable they claim??) of several S-400
launchers in Algeria. Plus BAZ-64022 truck-tractors which are used with the S-400 and NOT the
S-300. So maybe they do and are trying to hide the fact in order to avoid sanctions? Or maybe
they have upgraded their S-300 PMU-2s to the PMU-3, which is a close match to the S-400. Or
perhaps it is all propaganda?
Regarding the F35 and the S400, the obvious thing to do is to let them have both and swap
information. We get S400 info and Russia gets F35 data.......except erdo will try and screw
both of us.
I believe Putin's goal is to transform Turkey from a NATO state into an integral part of
Russia's near abroad to eventually secure a guaranteed access to the Mediterranean and beyond
and have a reliable buffer between Russia and Middle East. It's ensuring peace of mind, not
rebuilding an empire.
I think Putin's goal is more about forming a partnership with Turkey to build an energy
corridor through Turkey to Europe. Control of this corridor, or at least membership in the
alliance that controls this corridor, is a big deal from a geopolitical standpoint.
Thus Russia and Turkey can form something along the lines of an "OPEC on steroids" -
Turkey can control who gets to pipe hydrocarbons to Europe and Russia can provide protection
to those who wish to join their alliance (as they have already done for Syria).
Any energy corridor that goes from the Persian Gulf to Europe has to pass through
Turkey and also has to pass through either Syria or Iraq. The fact that Syria and Iraq are
now effectively in Russia's sphere of influence makes a Turkish-Russian alliance make all the
more sense.
What Turkey has to gain from such an arrangement is not only transit fees for the
hydrocarbons, but also a chance to develop their economy - if Turkey is at the head of the
line for receipt of hydrocarbons to Europe, they are at the head of the line for building
industry and businesses which use those hydrocarbons as inputs (eg refineries, plastics,
aluminum, chemical production).
Access to the Med is already guaranteed by treaty just as is access to the Black Sea.
Access beyond the Med is controlled at the Suez and the pillars of Hercules.
Guaranteed during peacetime. During any hostilities you can throw that treaty out the
window.
Which is why TTG is correct that Putin's goal is to get Turkey out of NATO. And he may
doublecross Assad by blessing Turkey's permanent occupation (or annexation) of those four
districts of northern Aleppo Province (i.e. Afrin, Azaz, al-Bab, & Jarabulus). As payment
for getting out of NATO.
Until you fix the problem with, according to a poll, 56% of American parents not wanting
Arabic numerals taught to their children. I suspect that an equal number would not be able to
find any of the mentioned places on a map.
Where those with crystal balls find certainty, I find something much less. We do know that
containment polices can work very well, but any involvement in the world's longest contested
area is not worth the cost, nor the risk. The US has already spent a fortune, with very
little to show for it.
Reports from several months ago indicate the S-400 was cheaper than the Patriot, more
mobile, and Russia was willing to share the technology and the US wasn't. Could be the S-400
being a better deal value factored in there somewhere. Putin? He's a businessman
too.
Yosemite Sam Bolton is probably being told to go out there and do his thing, and suffering
from whip-lash when Trump yanks the carpet out from under them without apology. The poor dear
must be like...
Went on Kunstler's website with the tasteless name and read comment about Hannity
screaming to bomb Iran. And if Mr. Kunstler's facts are correct I imagine the Republicans
will be saving Mueller's answers for the next election. Whatever Mr. Kunstler has to say, he
says it well. What a mess. The way the bad guys have dug in and rigged the election process
and the "News" business, it is difficult to imagine anything can change.
The controls of our society have become so efficient it is tempting to say what the hell
and see if there is a good old film or an meaningful sporting event and let it go at
that.
In saying that, it brings to mind the other CN article about anti-war sentiment and
organizing against war and the war machine that has gone missing makes the point very well. I
do think the protest against the Iraq war was a watershed moment, when the protests were
simply ignored, and the in your face response by the powers that be.
Eddie S , July 4, 2019 at 10:01
"I do think the protest against the Iraq war was a watershed moment, when the protests
were simply ignored, and the in your face response by the powers that be."
Yes, I know that the whole Iraq War-crime episode was an extremely disheartening episode
to myself and millions of others who had marched in protest. It was horrible enough when the
neo-cons were able to blatantly orchestrate an illegal invasion (with the obeisance of the
long-cowed Democrats), but the RE-election of 'W' -- a year after the non-existence of the
WMDs was proven by our OWN invading military -- was in a political sense worse because it
showed that the majority of the US public was indifferent to illegal US invasions of other
countries, so there would be little resistance in the future to these 'wars'.
It was only when the media was portraying the deaths & bad injuries to US soldiers
occupying Iraq that a modest amount of public sentiment turned against the whole sordid
episode.
So the tacit message was pretty clear to powers that be -- - as long as US troops aren't
hurt, go-ahead and bomb-away those foreign men, women, and even children getting killed by
them don't matter, especially if our military leaders offer-up oh-so-sincere apologies and
state that 'these were unavoidable collateral civilian casualties because we only perform
surgical strikes on terrorists' (and said in a most serious, gravitas-laden tone, so you KNOW
they're telling the truth).
Windup , July 4, 2019 at 16:09
George wasn't 'elected' in the first place, let alone 're-elected'. I don't know if that
makes you feel better. Maybe it does- at least about the American public (at that point in
time anyway).
But it was certainly a forerunner to how we 'elect' our officials, which at this point is
more blatantly fraudulent. At least to those of us not reading/watching msm.
"... Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. ..."
"... In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. ..."
"... They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution). ..."
"... So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. ..."
To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular
religion." Before Douthat could ask what the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the
subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear: everything Maher doesn't
like is religion.
Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive --
that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. Sure, they didn't use God or angels or
miracles in their rhetoric, but that's just surface trappings.
In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They
had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth)
which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for
everything they did in the name of the Revolution.
They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to
join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his
death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged,
brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the
Revolution).
So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. No, they
didn't include personified invisible spirits in their ideology. But if it looks like a duck,
walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ....
"... "Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization." ..."
"... Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army fell thousands of troops short of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017 Department of Defense poll that found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z. ..."
"... These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right alliance between two influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months, they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. ..."
"... In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill ultimately passed the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be vetoed by President Trump. That such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy." ..."
"... And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come. ..."
"... In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this." ..."
"... It is little recognized how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC while also taking heavy casualties. ..."
"... We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South. ..."
"... Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. ..."
"... President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions. ..."
Peace activism is rising, but that isn't translating into huge street demonstrations, writes Allegra Harpootlian.
W hen Donald Trump entered the Oval Office in January 2017, Americans took to the streets all across the country to protest their
instantly endangered rights. Conspicuously absent from the newfound civic engagement, despite more than a decade and a half of this
country's fruitless, destructive wars across the Greater Middle East and northern Africa, was antiwar sentiment, much less an actual
movement.
Those like me working against America's seemingly
endless
wars wondered why the subject merited so little discussion, attention, or protest. Was it because the still-spreading war on
terror remained shrouded in government secrecy? Was the lack of media coverage about what America was doing overseas to blame? Or
was it simply that most Americans didn't care about what was happening past the water's edge? If you had asked me two years ago,
I would have chosen "all of the above." Now, I'm not so sure.
After the enormous demonstrations
against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the antiwar movement disappeared almost as suddenly as it began, with some even openly
declaring it dead. Critics
noted the long-term absence of significant protests against those wars, a lack of political will in Congress to deal with them,
and ultimately,
apathy on matters of war and peace when compared to issues like health care, gun control, or recently even
climate
change .
The pessimists have been right to point out that none of the plethora of marches on Washington since Donald Trump was elected
have had even a secondary focus on America's fruitless wars. They're certainly right to question why Congress, with the constitutional
duty to declare war, has until recently allowed both presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump to wage war as they wished without
even consulting them. They're right to feel nervous when a national
poll shows that more Americans think we're fighting a war in Iran (we're not) than a war in Somalia (
we are ).
But here's what I've been wondering recently: What if there's an antiwar movement growing right under our noses and we just haven't
noticed? What if we don't see it, in part, because it doesn't look like any antiwar movement we've even imagined?
If a movement is only a movement when people fill the streets, then maybe the critics are right. It might also be fair to say,
however, that protest marches do not always a movement make. Movements are
defined by their ability to challenge the status
quo and, right now, that's what might be beginning to happen when it comes to America's wars.
What if it's Parkland students
condemning American imperialism or groups fighting the
Muslim Ban that are
also fighting the war on terror? It's veterans not only trying to take on the wars they fought in, but putting themselves on
the front lines of the
gun control
,
climate change , and police brutality debates. It's
Congress
passing the first War Powers Resolution in almost 50 years. It's Democratic presidential candidates
signing a pledge to end America's endless wars.
For the last decade and a half, Americans -- and their elected representatives -- looked at our endless wars and essentially
shrugged. In 2019, however, an antiwar movement seems to be brewing. It just doesn't look like the ones that some remember from
the Vietnam era and others from the pre-invasion-of-Iraq moment. Instead, it's a movement that's being woven into just about every
other issue that Americans are fighting for right now -- which is exactly why it might actually work.
An estimated 100,000 people protested the war in Iraq in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15, 2007 (Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia
Commons)
A Veteran's Antiwar Movement in the Making?
During the Vietnam War of the 1960s
and early 1970s, protests began with religious groups and peace organizations morally opposed to war. As that conflict intensified,
however, students began to join the movement, then civil rights leaders such as
Martin Luther King, Jr. got involved,
then war veterans who had witnessed the horror firsthand stepped in -- until, with a seemingly constant storm of protest in the
streets, Washington eventually withdrew from Indochina.
You might look at the lack of public outrage now, or perhaps the
exhaustion of having been outraged
and nothing changing, and think an antiwar movement doesn't exist. Certainly, there's nothing like the active one that fought against
America's involvement in Vietnam for so long and so persistently. Yet it's important to notice that, among some of the very same
groups (like veterans, students, and even politicians) that fought against that war, a healthy
skepticism about America's 21st century wars, the Pentagon, the military industrial complex, and even the very idea of American
exceptionalism is finally on the rise -- or so the
polls tell us.
"Arlington West of Santa Monica," a project of Veterans for Peace, puts reminders of the costs of war on the beach in Santa Monica,
California. (Lorie Shaull via Flickr)
Right after the midterms last year, an organization named Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness
reported mournfully that younger Americans were "turning on the country and forgetting its ideals," with nearly half believing
that this country isn't "great" and many eyeing the U.S. flag as "a sign of intolerance and hatred." With millennials and Generation
Z rapidly becoming the
largest voting bloc in America for the next 20 years, their priorities are taking center stage. When it comes to foreign policy
and war, as it happens, they're quite different from the generations that preceded them. According to the
Chicago Council of Global Affairs ,
"Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a
goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and
to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across
the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more
likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization."
Although marches are the most public way to protest, another striking but understated way is simply not to engage with the systems
one doesn't agree with. For instance, the vast majority of today's teenagers aren't at all interested in joining the all-volunteer
military. Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army
fell thousands of troops short
of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017
Department of Defense poll that
found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has
the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on
creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z.
In addition, we're finally seeing what happens when soldiers from America's post-9/11 wars come home infused with a sense of
hopelessness in relation to those conflicts. These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning
disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress
against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right
alliance between two
influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically
at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together
to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a
pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months,
they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
and Ilhan Omar.
And this may just be the tip of a growing antiwar iceberg. A misconception about movement-building is that everyone is there
for the same reason, however broadly defined. That's often not the case and sometimes it's possible that you're in a movement and
don't even know it. If, for instance, I asked a room full of climate-change activists whether they also considered themselves part
of an antiwar movement, I can imagine the denials I'd get. And yet, whether they know it or not, sooner or later fighting climate
change will mean taking on the Pentagon's global footprint, too.
Think about it: not only is the U.S. military the world's
largest
institutional consumer of fossil fuels but, according to a
new report from Brown University's Costs of War Project, between 2001 and 2017, it released more than 1.2 billion metric tons
of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (400 million of which were related to the war on terror). That's equivalent to the emissions
of 257 million passenger cars, more than double the number currently on the road in the U.S.
A Growing Antiwar Movement in Congress
One way to sense the growth of antiwar sentiment in this country is to look not at the empty streets or even at veterans organizations
or recruitment polls, but at Congress. After all, one
indicator of a successful movement, however
incipient, is its power to influence and change those making the decisions in Washington. Since Donald Trump was elected, the most
visible evidence of growing antiwar sentiment is the way America's congressional policymakers have increasingly become engaged with
issues of war and peace. Politicians, after all, tend to follow the voters and, right now, growing numbers of them seem to be following
rising antiwar sentiment back home into an expanding set of debates about war and peace in the age of Trump.
In campaign season 2016, in an op-ed in The Washington Post , political scientist Elizabeth Saunders wondered whether foreign policy would play a significant role
in the presidential election. "Not likely," she concluded. "Voters do not pay much attention to foreign policy." And at the time,
she was on to something. For instance, Sen. Bernie Sanders, then competing for the Democratic presidential nomination against Hillary
Clinton, didn't
even prepare stock answers to basic national security questions, choosing instead, if asked at all, to quickly pivot back to
more familiar topics. In a debate with Clinton, for instance, he was asked whether he would keep troops in Afghanistan to deal with
the growing success of the Taliban. In his answer, he skipped Afghanistan entirely, while warning only vaguely against a "quagmire"
in Iraq and Syria.
Heading for 2020, Sanders is once again competing for the nomination, but instead of shying away from foreign policy, starting
in 2017, he became the face of what could be a
new American
way of thinking when it comes to how we see our role in the world.
In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk
introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the
brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill
ultimately passed
the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be
vetoed by President Trump. That
such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable
in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at
Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy."
Nor, strikingly enough, is Sanders the only Democratic presidential candidate now running on what is essentially an antiwar platform.
One of the main aspects of Elizabeth
Warren's foreign policy plan, for instance, is to "seriously review the country's military commitments overseas, and that includes
bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq." Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel have
joined Sanders and Warren in signing a pledge to end America's forever wars if elected.
Beto O'Rourke has called for the repeal
of Congress's 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force that presidents have cited ever since whenever they've sent American forces
into battle. Marianne Williamson , one of the
many (unlikely) Democratic candidates seeking the nomination, has even proposed a plan to transform America's "wartime economy into
a peace-time economy, repurposing the tremendous talents and infrastructure of [America's] military industrial complex to the work
of promoting life instead of death."
And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives,
and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their
skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound
to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come.
Get on Board or Get Out of the Way
When trying to create a movement, there are three likely
outcomes : you will
be accepted by the establishment, or rejected for your efforts, or the establishment will be replaced, in part or in whole, by those
who agree with you. That last point is exactly what we've been seeing, at least among Democrats, in the Trump years. While 2020
Democratic candidates for president, some of whom have been in the political arena for decades, are gradually hopping on the end-the-endless-wars
bandwagon, the real antiwar momentum in Washington has begun to come from new members of Congress like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
(AOC) and Ilhan Omar who are unwilling to accept business as usual when it comes to either the Pentagon or the country's forever
wars. In doing so, moreover, they are responding to what their constituents actually want.
As far back as 2014, when a
University of Texas-Austin Energy Poll asked people where the U.S. government should spend their tax dollars, only 7 percent
of respondents under 35 said it should go toward military and defense spending. Instead, in a "pretty significant political shift"
at the time, they overwhelmingly opted for their tax dollars to go toward job creation and education. Such a trend has only become
more apparent as those
calling
for free public college, Medicare-for-all, or a Green New Deal have come to
realize that they could pay for such ideas if America would stop pouring
trillions of dollars into wars that never should have been launched.
The new members of the House of Representatives, in particular, part of the youngest, most diverse crew
to date , have begun to replace the old guard and are increasingly signalling their readiness to throw out policies that don't
work for the American people, especially those reinforcing the American war machine. They understand that by ending the wars and
beginning to scale back the military-industrial complex, this country could once again have the resources it needs to fix so many
other problems.
In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We
have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we
continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something
equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this."
A few days before that, at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing, Ocasio-Cortez
confronted executives from military contractor TransDigm about the way they were price-gouging the American taxpayer by selling
a $32 "non-vehicular clutch disc" to the Department of Defense for $1,443 per disc. "A pair of jeans can cost $32; imagine paying
over $1,000 for that," she said. "Are you aware of how many doses of insulin we could get for that margin? I could've gotten over
1,500 people insulin for the cost of the margin of your price gouging for these vehicular discs alone."
And while such ridiculous waste
isn't news to those of us who follow Pentagon spending closely, this was undoubtedly something many of her millions of supporters
hadn't thought about before. After the hearing,
Teen Vogue
created a list of the "5 most ridiculous things the United States military has spent money on," comedian
Sarah Silverman tweeted out the AOC
hearing clip to her 12.6 million followers, Will and Grace actress
Debra Messing publicly expressed her gratitude
to AOC, and according to Crowdtangle, a social media analytics tool, the
NowThis clip of her in that congressional
hearing garnered more than 20 million impressions.
Ocasio-Cortez calling out costs charged by military contractor TransDigm. (YouTube)
Not only are members of Congress beginning to call attention to such undercovered issues, but perhaps they're even starting to
accomplish something. Just two weeks after that contentious hearing, TransDigm
agreed to return $16.1 million
in excess profits to the Department of Defense. "We saved more money today for the American people than our committee's entire budget
for the year," said House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings.
Of course, antiwar demonstrators have yet to pour into the streets, even though the wars we're already involved in continue to
drag on and a possible new one with Iran looms on the horizon. Still, there seems to be a notable trend in antiwar opinion and activism.
Somewhere just under the surface of American life lurks a genuine, diverse antiwar movement that appears to be coalescing around
a common goal: getting Washington politicians to believe that antiwar policies are supportable, even potentially popular. Call me
an eternal optimist, but someday I can imagine such a movement helping end those disastrous wars.
Allegra Harpootlian is a media associate at
ReThink Media , where she works with leading experts
and organizations at the intersection of national security, politics, and the media. She principally focuses on U.S. drone policies
and related use-of-force issues. She is also a political partner with the
Truman National Security Project . Find her on Twitter
@ally_harp .
"How Obama demobilized the antiwar movement"
By Brad Plumer
August 29, 2013
Washington Post
"Reihan Salam points to a 2011 paper by sociologists Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, who find that antiwar protests shrunk
very quickly after Obama took office in 2008 -- mainly because Democrats were less likely to show up:
Drawing upon 5,398 surveys of demonstrators at antiwar protests, interviews with movement leaders, and ethnographic observation,
this article argues that the antiwar movement demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican
sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, if not policy success in ending
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Heaney and Rojas begin by puzzling over a paradox. Obama ran as an antiwar candidate, but his first few years in office were
rather different: "As president, Obama maintained the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan. The antiwar movement
should have been furious at Obama's 'betrayal' and reinvigorated its protest activity. Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies
declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement dissipated.""
Rob , July 4, 2019 at 14:20
The author may be too young to realize that the overwhelming driving force in the anti-Vietnam War movement was hundreds
of thousands of young men who were at risk of being drafted and sent to fight, die and kill in that godforsaken war. As the
movement grew, it gathered in millions of others as well. Absent the military draft today, most of America's youth don't seem
to give half a damn about the current crimes of the U.S. military. As the saying goes: They have no skin in the game.
bardamu , July 3, 2019 at 20:21
There has again been some shift in Sanders' public positions, while Tulsi Gabbard occupies a position that was not represented
in '16, and HR Clinton was more openly bent on war than anyone currently at the table, though perhaps because that much of her
position had become so difficult to deny over the years.
That said, Clinton lost to Obama in '08 because she could not as effectively deny her militarism. There was at the time within
the Democratic Party more and clearer movement against the wars than there is now. One might remember the run for candidacy
of Dennis Kucinich, for example. The 8 years of the Obama regime were a consistent frustration and disappointment to any antiwar
or anticorporate voice within the Democratic Party, but complaints were muted because many would not speak against a Blue or
a Black president. More than at any prior time, corporate media spokespersons could endorse radically pro-corporate positions
and imply or accuse their opposition of racism.
That leaves it unclear, however, what any antiwar voices have to do with the Democratic Party itself, particularly if we
take "the party" to mean the political organization itself as opposed to the people whom it claims to represent. The Party and
the DNC were major engines in the rigging of the 2016 Democratic nomination–and also, lest we forget, contributors to the Donald
Trump nomination campaign.
It should not escape us, as we search for souls and soulfulness among these remnants of Democratic Parties Past, that any
turn of the party against war is surely due to Hillary Clinton's loss to presumed patsy candidate Donald Trump in 2016–the least
and second-least popular major presidential contenders in history, clearly, in whichever order one wishes to put them.
There is some value in realism, then. So as much as one hates to criticize a Bernie Sanders in anything like the present
field that he runs in, his is not a consistently antiwar position: he has gone back and forth. Tulsi Gabbard is the closest
thing to an antiwar candidate within the Party. And under even under the most favorable circumstances, 2020 is at best not her
year.
Most big money says war. scorched earth, steep hierarchy, and small constitution. Any who don't like it had best speak up
and act up.
I am for Tulsi, a Senator from Hawaii not a rep as this article says. Folk Music was in when the peace movement was strong
and building, the same for Folk Rock who songs also had words you could get without Google.
So my way of "hoping" for an Anti-War/Peace Movement is to have a Folk Revival in my mind.
Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 14:11
The answer to the question why anti war movement is dead is so simple and obvious but apparently invisible to most Dems/libs/progressives
(excuse my inability to discern the distinctions between labels). The answer points to our onetime "peace" president Obama.
As far as foreign interventions go (and domestic spying, among other things) Obama had continued Baby Bush's policy. Even worse,
Obama had given a bipartisan seal of approval (and legality) to most of Baby Bush's crimes. In other words, for 8 years, meaning
during the "peace" president's reign, the loyal "lefty" sheeple have held their mouth when it came to war and peace.
Obama and the Dems have very effectively killed the ant war movement
The establishment will always be pro-war because there's so much money in it. Street demonstrations will never change that,
as we recently learned with Iraq. The only strategy that has a chance of working is anti-enlistment. If they don't have the
troops they can't invade anywhere, and recruitment is already a problem. It needs to be a bigger problem.
Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 11:51
Sorry, ALL of these Democrat wannabes save one is ignorant of foreign affairs, foreign policy and its destruction of what
they blather on about – domestic vote-getting sky pies. Oh yes, free everything: schools, health care, social justices and services.
It's as though the MIC has not stolen the money from the public's pockets to get rich by sending cheap fodder out there to get
killed and wounded, amputated physically and mentally.
Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't stand
the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men, because she drew a bad
one. Huma was better company. Since she didn't know anything beyond the superficial, she did whatever the "experts" whispered
in her ears: War! Obama was in the same boat. The target, via gaining total control of oil from Libya to Syria and Iran was
her Putin hate. So her experts set up the Ukraine. The "experts" are the MIC/CIA and our fearless, brainless, corrupt military.
They have whispered the same psychotic message since the Gulf of Tonkin. We've lost to everyone with whom we've crossed swords
and left them devastated and America diminished save for the few.
So I was a Sanders supporter until he backed the warrior woman and I, like millions of others backed off of her party. It's
still her party. Everyone just loves every victim of every kind. They all spout minor variations on the same themes while Trump
and his neocons quietly install their right wing empire. Except for one who I spotted when she had the independence to go look
for herself in Syria.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate to be the candidate who has a balance of well thought through, realistic foreign policy
as well as the domestic non-extremist one. She has the hurdle of being a too-pretty woman, of being from the remotest state,
and not being a screamer. Even this article, written about peace by a woman fails to talk about her.
Tulsi has the registered voter count and a respectable budget, but the New York Times which is policy-controlled by a few
of Hillary's billionaire friends has consistently shut her out, because Tulsi left the corrupt Hillary-owned DNC to back Sanders
and Hillary never forgave her.
If you want to know who is against Trump and war, take 5 minutes and listen to what she really said during the 1st debate
where the CBS folks gave her little room to talk. It will change your outlook on what really is possible.
Hi Anonymot; I also exited my Sanders support after over 100 cash donations and over a years painful effort. I will never
call him Bernie again; now it is Sanders, since Bernie makes him sound cute and cute was not the word that came into my mind
as Mr. Sanders missed his world moment at the democratic election and backed Hillary Clinton (I can not vote for EVIL). Sanders
then proceeded to give part of my money to the DNC & to EVIL Hillary Clinton.
So then what now? Easy as Pie; NO MORE DEMOCRATS EVER. The DNC & DCCC used Election Fraud & Election Crimes blatantly to
beat Bernie Sanders. Right out in the open. The DNC & DCCC are War Mongering more then the Republicans which is saying allot.
The mass media and major Internet Plateforms like Goggle & Facebook are all owned by Evil Oligarchs that profit from WAR and
blatantly are today suppressing all dissenting opinions (anti Free Speech).
I stopped making cash donation to Tulsi Gabbard upon the realization that the Democrats were not at all a force for Life
or Good and instead were a criminal organization. The voting for the lessor of two EVILs is 100% STUPID.
I told Tim Canova I could not support any Democrat ever again as I told Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi is still running as a criminal
democrat. If she would run independent of the DNC then I would start to donate cash to her again. End of my story about Tulsi.
I do like her antiwar dialog, but there is no; so called changing, the DNC from the inside. The Oligarchs own the DNC and are
not supportive of "We The People" or the Constitution, or the American Republic.
The end of Tim Canova's effort was he was overtly CHEATED AGAIN by the DNC's Election Fraud & Election Crimes in his 2018
run for congress against Hillary Clinton's 100% corrupt campaign manager; who congress seated even over Tim's asking them not
to seat her until his law suites on her election crimes against him were assessed. Election crimes and rigged voting machines
in Florida are a way of life now and have been for decades and decades.
All elections must be publicly funded. All votes must be on paper ballots and accessible for recounts and that is just the
very minimums needed to start changing the 100% corrupted election system we Americans have been railroaded into.
The supreme Court has recently ruled that gerrymandering is OK. The supreme court has proven to be a political organization
with their Bush Gore decision and now are just political hacks and as such need to be ELECTED not appointed. Their rulings that
Money is Free Speech & that Corporations are People has disenfranchised "We the People". That makes the Supreme Court a tool
to be used by the world money elite to overturn the constitution of the United States of America.
No More War. No More War. No More War.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 16:40
Absolutely spot-on, superb comment, P .Brooks.
DW
Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 18:08
I saw the light (with what the Dems are really about) after Kucinich's candidacy. That made me one of the very few lefties
in my circle not to have voted for Obama even the first time around. I hear a lot of talk about trying to reform the party from
inside. Utter bu** sh**. "You cannot reform Mafia".
Ever since Kucinich, I have been voting Green. No, this is not a waste of my vote. Besides, I cannot be complicit to war
crimes – that's what it makes anyone who votes for either of the two parties.
Steven , July 3, 2019 at 13:56
Wow you said a mouthful. It's worse than that its a cottage industry that includes gun running, drug running and human trafficking
netting Trillions to the MIC, CIA and other alphabet agencies you can't fight the mark of the beast.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:01
I fully back/endorse Gabbard, but
The battering of Bernie is not fair. He is NOT a Democrat, therefore him being able to get "inside" that party to run AS
a Dem put him in a tenuous situation. He really had no option other than to support HRC lest his movement, everyone's movement,
would get extra hammering by the neocons and status quo powers. He wouldn't be running, again, had he not done this. Yeah, it's
a bad taste, I get it, but had he disavowed HRC would the outcome -Trump- been any different? The BLAME goes fully on the DNC
and the Clintons. Full stop.
I do not see AOC as a full progressive. She is only doing enough to make it appear so. The Green New Deal is stolen from
the Green Party and is watered down. Think of this as "Obama Care" for the planet. As you should know, Gabbard's Off Fossil
Fuels Act (OFF) actually has real teeth in it: and is closer to the Green Party's positions.
I support movements and positions. PRIMARY is peace. Gabbard, though not a pacifist, has the right path on all of this: I've
been around long enough to understand exactly how she's approaching all of this. She is, however, taking on EVERYONE. As powerful
a person as she is (she has more fortitude than the entire lot of combined POTUS candidates put together) going to require MASSIVE
support; sadly, -to this point- this article doesn't help by implying that people aren't interested in foreign policy (it perpetuates
the blockout of it- people have to be reeducated on its importance- not something that the MIC wants), people aren't yet able
to see the connections. The education will occur will it happen in a timely way such that people would elect Gabbard? (things
can turn on a dime, history has shown this; she has the makeup that suggests that she's going to have a big role in making history).
I did not support Bernie (and so far have not- he's got ample support; if it comes down to it he WILL get my vote- and I've
held off voting for many years because there's been no real "peace" candidate on the plate). Gabbard, however, has my support
now, and likely till the day I die: I've been around long enough to know what constitutes a great leader, and not since the
late 60s have we had anyone like her. If Bernie gets the nomination it is my prediction that he will have Gabbard high on his
staff, if not as VP: a sure fire way to win is to have Gabbard as VP.
I'm going to leave this for folks to contemplate as to whether Gabbard is real or not:
In a context in which Rio de Janeiro's evangelical churches have been accused of laundering money for the drug trafficking
gangs, all elements of Afro-Brazilian culture including caipoeira, Jango drumming, and participation in Carnaval parades, have
been banned by the traffickers in many favelas.
[end excerpt]
"caipoeria," is something that Gabbard has practiced:
"I trained in different martial arts since I was a kid including Capoeira -- an amazing art created by slaves in Brazil who
were training to fight and resist against their slave masters, disguising their training with music, acrobatics, and dance.
Yesterday I joined my friends Mestre Kinha and others at Capoeira Besouro Hawai'i for their batizado ceremony and some fun!
" – Tulsi Gabbard December 9, 2018
The GOAL is to get her into the upper halls of governing power. If the people cannot see fit to it then I'll support Sanders
(in the end) so that he can do it.
Harpootlian claims to see what's going on, but, unfortunately, she's not able to look close enough.
Anonymot, thank you for leading out here with Gabbard and her message.
michael , July 4, 2019 at 08:10
If Gabbard had the MSM coverage Buttigieg has received she probably be leading in the polls. It is surprising(?) that this
supposedly anti-war author mentions corporatist Mayor Pete but not Gabbard.
David , July 4, 2019 at 19:55
She DOES (briefly)mention Gabbard, but she missed the fact that Gabbard is the most strongly anti-war candidate. She gets
it entirely wrong about Buttigieg, who is strikingly pro-war, and supports getting in to a war with Iran.
And sadly, Ms. Gabbard is mired at the 1% mark in the polls, even after having performed so well in the debate.
This seems to me an indication of the public's lack of caring about our foreign wars.
antonio Costa , July 3, 2019 at 19:06
The reason she's "mired" is because a number of polls don't include her!! However they include, Marianne Williamson.
How's that for inverse totalitarianism par excellence .
Skip Scott , July 4, 2019 at 07:05
I did see one poll that had her at 2%. And given the reputation of many polling outfits, I take any professed results with
a grain of salt. Tulsi's press coverage (what little she gets) has been mostly defamatory to the point of being libelous. If
her strong performance continues in the primary debates despite all efforts to sabotage her, I think she could make a strong
showing. That said, at some point she will have to renounce the DNC controlled democratic party and run as an Independent if
she wants to make the General Election debates for 2020.
"Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't
stand the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men "
If I were to psychologize, I would conjecture more un-gendered stereotype, namely that of a good student. He/she diligently
learns in all classes from the prescribed textbooks and reading materials, and, alas, American education on foreign affairs
is dominated by retirees from CIA and other armchair warriors. Of course, nothing wrong about good students in general, but
I mean the type that is obedient, devoid of originality and independent thinking. When admonished, he/she remembers the pain
for life and strives hard not to repeat it. E.g. as First Lady, Hillary kissed Arafat's wife to emulate Middle East custom,
and NY tabloids had a feast for months.
Concerning Tulsi, no Hillary-related conspiracy is needed to explain the behavior of the mass media. Tulsi is a heretic to
the establishment, and their idea is to be arbiters of what and who belongs to the "mainstream", and what is radical, marginal
etc. Tulsi richly deserves her treatment. Confronted with taunts like "so you would prefer X to stay in power" (Assad, Maduro
etc.) she replies that it should not be up to USA to decide who stays in power, especially if no better scenario is in sight.
The gall, the cheek!
Strangely enough, Tulsi gets this treatment in places like The Nation and Counterpunch. As the hitherto "radical left" got
a whiff of being admitted to the hallowed mainstream from time to time, they try to be "responsible".
Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:39
Yes! Thank You I was gritting my teeth reading this article #Tulsi2020
Eddie , July 3, 2019 at 11:42
The end of the anti-war movement expired when the snake-oil pitchman with the toothy smile and dark skin brought his chains
we could beleive in to the White House. The so-called progressives simply went to sleep while they never criticized Barack Obama
for escalating W. Bush's wars and tax cuts for the rich.
The fake left wing in the US remained silent when Obama dumped trillions of dollars into the vaults of his bankster pals
as he stole the very homes from the people who voted him into office. Then along came the next hope and change miracle worker
Bernie Sanders. Only instead of working miracles for the working class, Sanders showed his true colors when he fcuked his constituents
to support the hated Hillary Clinton.
Let's start facing reality. The two-party dictatorship does not care about you unless you can pony up the big bucks like
their masters in the oligarchy and the soulless corporations do. Unless and until workers end to the criminal stranglehold that
the big-business parties and the money class have on the government, things will continue to slide into the abyss.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:33
An informed awareness of imperialism must also include an analysis of how "technology" is used and abused, from the use of
"superior" weaponry against people who do not have such weapons, from blunderbuss and sailing ships, to B-52s and napalm, up
to and including technology that may be "weaponized" against civilian populations WiTHIN a society, be it 24/7 surveillance
or robotics and AI that could permit elites to dispense with any "need", on the part of the elites, to tolerate the very existence
of a laborung class, or ANY who earn their wealth through actual work, from maids to surgeons, from machine operators to professors.
Any assumption, that any who "work", even lawyers or military officers, can consider their occupation or profession as "safe",
is to assume that the scapegoating will stop with those the highly paid regard as "losers", such comfortable assumption may
very well prove as illusory and ephemeral as an early morning mist before the hot and merciless Sun rises.
The very notions of unfettered greed and limitless power, resulting in total control, must be recognized as the prime drivers
of endless war and shock-doctrine capitalism which, combined, ARE imperialism, unhinged and insane.
michael , July 3, 2019 at 11:06
This article is weak. Anyone who could equate Mayor Pete or the eleven Democrat "ex"-military and CIA analysts who gained
seats in Congress in 2018 as anti-war is clueless. Tulsi Gabbard is anti-regime change war, but is in favor of fighting "terrorists"
(created mostly by our CIA and Israel with Saudi funding). Mike Gravel is the only true totally anti-war 'candidate' and he
supports Gabbard as the only anti-War of the Democrats.
In WWI, 90% of Americans who served were drafted, in WWII over 60% of Americans who served were drafted. The Vietnam War "peace
demonstrations" were more about the Draft, and skin-in-the-game, than about War. Nixon and Kissinger abolished the Draft (which
stopped most anti-war protests), but continued carpet bombing Vietnam and neighboring countries (Operations Menu, Freedom Deal,
Patio, etc), and Vietnamized the War which was already lost, although the killing continued through 1973. The abolition of the
Draft largely gutted the anti-war movement. Sporadic protests against Bush/ Cheney over Afghanistan and Iraq essentially disappeared
under Obama/ Hillary in Afghanistan and Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Since their National Emergency proclamations
no longer ever end, we are in a position to attack Venezuela (Obama), Ukraine (Obama), South Sudan (Obama), Iran (Carter, Clinton),
Libya (Obama), Somalia (Obama), Yemen (Obama), Nicaragua (Trump) and even Burundi (Obama) and the Central African Republic (Obama).
The continuing support of death squads in Honduras and other Latin American countries ("stability is more important than democracy")
has contributed to the immigration crises over the last five years.
As Pelosi noted about Democratic progressives "there are like five of them". Obama not only failed to reverse any of the police
state and warmongering of Bush/Cheney, he expanded both police state (arresting and prosecuting Chelsea Manning for exposing
war crimes, as well as more whistleblowers than anyone in history), and wars in seven Arab Muslim countries. Black Americans,
who had always been an anti-War bloc prior to Obama, converted to the new America. The Congressional Democrats joined with Republicans
to give more to the military budget than requested by Trump. (Clinton squandered the Peace Dividend when the Soviet Union fell,
and Lee Camp has exposed the $21 TRILLION "lost" by the Pentagon.)
The young author see anti-war improvements that are not there. The US is more pro-war in its foreign policies than at any time
in its history. When there was a Draft, the public would not tolerate decades of war (lest their young men died). Sanctions
are now the first attack (usually by National Emergencies!); the 500,000 Iraqi children killed by Clinton's sanctions (Madeline
Albright: "we think it was worth it!") is just sadism and psychopathy at the top, which is necessary for War.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:38
Superb comment, michael, very much agreed with and appreciated.
DW
Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 12:06
You are absolutely right. Obama and Hillary were the brilliant ideas of the MIC/CIA when they realized that NO ONE the Republicans
put up after Bush baby's 2nd round. They chose 2 "victims" black & woman) who would do what they were told to do in order to
promote their causes (blacks & get-filthy rich.) The first loser would get the next round. And that's exactly what happened
until Hillary proved to be so unacceptable that she was rejected. We traded no new war for an administration leading us into
a neo-nazi dictatorship.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:04
Thank you for this comment!
Mickey , July 3, 2019 at 10:47
Tulsi Gabbard is the only peace candidate in the Democratic Party
Many current crises have the potential to escalate into a major confrontation between the nuclear powers, similar to the
Cuban missile crisis, though there is no comparable sense of alarm. Then, tensions were at boiling point, when a small military
exchange could have led to nuclear annihilation. Today there are many more such flashpoint – Syria, the South China Sea, Iran,
Ukraine to name a few. Since the end of the Cold War there has been a gradual movement towards third world war. Condemnation
of an attack on Iran must include, foremost, the warning that it could lead the US into a confrontation with a Sino-Russian
alliance. The warning from history is states go to war over interests, but ultimately – and blindly – end up getting the very
war they need to avoid: even nuclear war, where the current trend is going. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:36
Many truly superb, well-informed, and very enlightening comments on this thread.
My very great appreciation to this site, to its authors, and to its exceptionally thoughtful and articulate commenters.
DW
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:20
I appreciate this author's perspective, research, and optimism.
Clearly, the young ARE far more open to embracing a future less warlike and hegemonic, while far too many of my generation
are wedded to childish myth and fantasy around U$ driven mayhem.
However, I would suggest that vision be broadened beyond opposition to war, which opposition, while important, must be expanded
to opposition to the larger issue of imperialism, itself.
Imperialism is not merely war, it includes economic warfare, both sanctions, internationally, and predatory debt loads, domestically,
in very many nations of the world, as well as privatization of the commons (which must be understood to include all resources
necessary to human existence).
Perpetual war, which profits only the few, is driven by precisely the same aims as pitting workers against each other, worldwide,
in a "game" of "race to the bottom", creating "credit" rather than raising wages, thus creating life-long indebtedness of the
many, which only benefits monopolized corporate interests, as does corporate ownership of such necessities as water, food production,
and most channels of communication, which permits corporations to easily shape public perception toward whatever ends suit corporate
purposes while also ensuring that deeper awareness of what is actually occurring is effectively stifled, deplatformed, or smeared
as dangerous foreign fake news or as hidden, or even as blatant, racial or religious hatred.
Above all, it is critically important that all these interrelated aspects of deliberate domination, control, and diminishment,
ARE talked about, openly, that we all may have better grasp of who really aligns with creating serious systemic change, especially
as traditionally assumed "tendencies" are shifting, quickly and even profoundly.
For example, as many here point out, the Democrats are now as much a war party as the Republicans, "traditionally" have been,
even as there is clear evidence that the Republican "base" is becoming less willing to go to war than are the Democratic "base",
as CNN and MSNBC media outlets strive to incite a new Cold War and champion and applaud aggression in Syria, Iran, and North
Korea.
It is the elite Democratic "leadership" and most Democratic Presidential hopefuls who now preach or excuse war and aggression,
with few actual exceptions, and none of them, including Tulsi Gabbard, have come anywhere near openly discussing or embracing,
the end of U$ imperialism.
Both neoliberal and neocon philosophies are absolutely dedicated to imperialism in all its destructive, even terminal, manifestations.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:16
Exactly!
Gabbard has spoken out against sanctions. She understands that they're just another form of war.
The younger generations won't be able to financially support imperialist activities. And, they won't be, as the statements
to their enlistment numbers suggest, able to "man the guns." I'm thinking that TPTB are aware of this (which is why a lot of
drone and other automation of war machinery has been stepped up).
The recent alliance of Soros and Charles Koch, the Quincy Institute, is, I believe, a KEY turning point. Pretty much everything
Gabbard is saying/calling for is this institute's mission statement: and people ought to note that Gabbard has been in Charles
Koch's circle- might very well be that Gabbard has already influenced things in a positive way.
I also believe that all the great independent journalists, publishers (Assange taking the title here) and whistleblowers
(Manning taking the title here) have made a HUGE impact. Bless them all.
The US government consistently uses psychological operations on its own citizens to manufacture consent to kill anyone and
everyone. Meaningless propaganda phrases such as "Support Our Troops" and "National Security" and "War on Terror" are thrown
around to justify genocides and sieges and distract us from murder. There is no left wing or in American politics and there
has not been one since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. All we have is neoconservatives and neoliberals representing the business
party for four decades. Killing is our business and business is good. Men are as monkeys with guns when it comes to politics
and religion.
One might be hard-pressed to find more outright perversions of reality in a mere two pages of text. Congratulations Congress,
you have indeed surpassed yourself.
So it's those dastardly Russians and Iranians who are responsible for the destabilization of the Middle East, "complicating
Israel's ability to defend itself from hostile action emanating from Syria." And apparently, it's the "ungoverned space" in
Syria that has "allowed" for the rise of terrorist factions in Syria, that (we must be reminded) are ever poised to attack "Western
targets, our allies and partners, and the U.S. homeland."
Good grief.
Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 08:29
Thank you Joe Lauria and Consortiumnews.
There is much wisdom and a good deal of personal experience being expressed on these pages. I especially want to thank IvyMike
and Dao Gen. Ivy Mike you're so right about our troops in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, draftees and volunteers, they fought what
was clearly an internal civil war fought valiantly, beyond that point, Vietnam was a political mess for all involved. And Dao
Gen all of your points are accurate.
As for our legislators, please read the linked Foreign Affairs press release signed by over 400 leglislators On May 20th.,
2019 that address "threats to Syria" including the Russia threat. Clearly it will take action by the People and Peace candidates
to end this travesty of a foreign policy.
Vietnam a war triggered by the prevention of a mandated election by the USA which Ho Chi Minh was likely to win, who had
already recently been Premier of a unified Vietnam.
Sorry, being courageous in a vicious cause is not honorable.
Speaking a true history and responsibility is honorable.
Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 11:07
No need to be sorry James Clooney. I did not mention honor in my comment, I mentioned valiant (courage and determination).
American troupes ultimately fight honorably for each other not necessarily for country. This was the message and evaluation
of Captain Hal Moore To General Westmorland And Robert McNamera after the initial engagement of US troops and NVA and can be
viewed as a special feature of the largely inaccurate DVD "We Were Soldiers And Young).
The veterans group About Face is doing remarkable work against the imperial militarization that threatens to consume our
country and possibly the world. This threat includes militarization of US police, a growing nuclear arms race, and so-called
humanitarian wars. About Face is also working to train ordinary people as medics to take these skills into their communities
whose members are on the front lines of police brutality.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate with a strong, enlightened understanding of the costs of our many imperial wars Costs to
ourselves in the US and costs to the people we invade in order to "save" them. I voted for McGovern in 1972. I would vote for
Tuldi's Gabbard in 2020 if given the chance.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:35
Vote for her now by supporting her*! One cannot wait until the DNC (or other party) picks the candidate FOR us. Anyone serious
about peace ought to support her, and do it now and far into the future. I have always supported candidates who are champions
for peace, no matter their "party" or whatever: I did not, though I wish that I had, support Walter Jones -of Freedom Fries
fame- after he did a 180 (Gabbard knew Jones, and respected him); it took a lot of guts for him to do this, but his honest (like
Ron Paul proved) was proven and his voters accepted him (and likely shifted their views along with him).
* Yeah, one has to register giving money, but for a lousy $1 She has yet to qualify for the third debate (need 130k unique
donations): and yet Yang has! (nothing against him, but come on, he is not "Commander in Chief" material [and at this time it
is, as Gabbard repeats, the single most important part of being president]).
Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:43
Strongly agree Only Tulsi
triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:14
Not surprising there was little or no antiwar sentiment in the newfound civic engagement after Trump's election, since the
majority of those participating were supporters of the war criminals Obama, Clinton, and their corporate, war mongering DEM
party. Those same people today, support Obama-chaperone Biden, or one of the other vetted corporate DEMs, including socialist-in-name-only
Sanders, who signed the DEM loyalty oath promising to continue austerity for the poor, socialism for rich, deregulation, militarism,
and global war hegemony. The only party with an antiwar blank was the Green Party, which captured >2% of the ~130 million votes
in the rigged election- even though Stein is as competent as Clinton, certainly more competent than Trump, and the Green platform,
unlike Sanders', explained how to pay for social and environmental programs by ending illegal wars in at least 7 countries,
closing 1000 military command posts located all over earth, removing air craft carrier task forces from every ocean, cutting
defense spending.
I believe the CIA operation "CARWASH" was under Obama, which gave us Ultra fascism in one of the largest economies in the
world, Brazil.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:02
Superb comment, trieke, and I especially appreciate your mention of Jill Stein and the Green Party.
It is unfortunate that the the Green New Deal, championed by AOC is such a pale and intentionally pusillanimous copy of the
Green New Deal articulated by Stein, which pointedly made clear that blind and blythe economic expansion must cease, that realistic
natural constraints and carrying capacity be accepted and profligate energy squandering come to an end.
That a sane, humane, and sustainable economic system, wholly compatible with ecological responsibility can provide neaningful
endeavor, justly compensated, for all, as was coherently addressed and explained to any who cared to examine the substance of
that, actual, and realistic, original, GND.
Such a vision must be part of successfully challenging, and ending, U$ imperialism.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:53
And Trump likely signed a GOP pledge. It's all superficial crap, nothing that is really written in stone.
I LOVE Stein. But for the sake of the planet we have little time to wait on getting the Green Party up to speed (to the clasp
the levers of power). Unless Gabbard comes out on top (well, the ultimate, and my favorite, long-shot would be Gravel, but reality
is something that I have to accept) it can only really be Sanders. I see a Sanders nomination as being the next best thing (and,
really, the last hope as it all falls WAY off the cliff after that). He would most certainly have Gabbard along (if not as VP,
which is the best strategy for winning, then as some other high-ranking, and meaningful cabinet member). Also, there are a lot
of folks that would be coming in on his coattails. It is THESE people that will make the most difference: although he's got
his flaws, Ro Kana would be a good top official. And, there are all the supporters who would help push. Sanders is WAY better
than HRC (Obama and, of course, Trump). He isn't my favorite, but he has enough lean in him to allow others to help him push
the door open: I'll accept him if that's what it take to get Gabbard into all of this.
Sometimes you DO have to infiltrate. Sanders is an infiltrator (not a Dem), though he treads lightly. Gabbard has already
proven her intentions: directly confronted the DNC and the HRC machine (and her direct attack on the MIC is made very clear);
and, she is indirectly endorsed by some of the best people out there who have run for POTUS: Jill Stein; Ron Paul; Mike Gravel.
We cannot wait for the Dems (and the MIC) to disarm. We need to get inside "the building" and disarm. IF Sanders or Gabbard
(and no Gravel) don't get the nomination THEN it is time to open up direct "warfare" and attack from the "outside" (at this
time there should be enough big defectors to start swinging the tide).
Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:34
Yes trieke, I voted for Stein in 2016, and I plan on voting Green Party again in 2020. I see too many fellow progressives/liberals/leftists
(whatever the hell we want to call ourselves) agonizing about which compromised Democrat to vote-for, trying to weigh their
different liabilities, etc. I've come to believe that my duty as a voter is to vote for the POTUS candidate/party whose stances/platform
are closest to my views, and that's unequivocally the Green Party. My duty as a voter does NOT entail 'voting for a winner',
that's just part of the two-party-con that the Dems & Reps run.
jmg , July 3, 2019 at 07:06
The big difference is that, during the Vietnam years, people could *see* the war. People talked a lot about "photographs
that ended the Vietnam war", such as the napalm girl, etc.
The government noticed this. There were enormous pressures on the press, even a ban on returning coffin photos. Now, since
the two Iraq wars, people *don't see* the reality of war. The TV and press don't show Afghanistan, don't show Yemen, didn't
show the real Iraq excepting for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, who are in prison because of this.
And the wars go on:
"The US government and military are preventing the public from seeing photographs that depict the true horror of the Iraq
war."
For example, we all know that mainstream media is war propaganda now, itself at war on truth and, apart from some convenient
false flags to justify attacks, they very rarely let the very people suffering wars be heard to wake viewers up, and don't often
even show this uncensored reality of war anymore, not like the true images of this old, powerful video:
Happy Xmas (War Is Over! If You Want It)
So this is Xmas
And what have you done
-- John Lennon
mbob -- thank you -- has already put this very well, but it is above all the Dems, especially Obama and the Clintons, who
killed the antiwar movement. Obama was a fake, and his foreign policy became even more hawkish after Hillary resigned as SoS.
His reduction of Libya, the richest state in Africa, to a feudal chaotic zone in which slavery is once more prominent and his
attempt to demonize Syria, which has more semi-democracy and women's rights than any of the Islamic kingdoms the US supports
as its allies, and turn Syria into a jihadi terrorist hell, as well as Obama's bombing of other nations and his sanctions on
still other nations such as Venezuela, injured and killed at least as many people as did GW Bush's invasion of Iraq. Yet where
was the antiwar movement? In the 21st century the US antiwar movement has gained most of its strength from anti-Repub hatred.
The current uptick of antiwar feeling is probably due mostly to hatred of Trump. Yet Trump is the first president since Carter
not to invade or make a major attack on a foreign country. As a businessman, his policy is to use economic warfare instead of
military warfare.
I am not a Trump supporter, and strong sanctions are a war crime, and Trump is also slow to reduce some of Obama's overseas
bombing and other campaigns, yet ironically he is surely closer to being a "peace president" than Obama. Moreover, a major reason
Trump won in 2016 was that Hillary was regarded as the war and foreign intervention candidate, and in fact if Hillary had won,
she probably would have invaded Syria to set up her infamous "no-fly zone" there, and she might have bombed Iran by now. We
might even be in a war with Russia now. At the same time, under Trump the Dem leadership and the Dem-leaning MSM have pursued
an unabashedly neocon policy of attacking from the right Trumps attempts at detente with Russia and scorning his attempts to
negotiate a treaty with N Korea and to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan. The main reason why Trump chose dangerous neocons
like Bolton and Pompeo as advisors was probably to shield himself a little from the incessant and sometimes xenophobic attacks
from the Dem leadership and the MSM. The Dem leadership seems motivated not only by hatred of Trump but also, and probably more
importantly, by a desire to get donations from the military-industrial complex and a desire to ingratiate itself with the Intel
Community and the surveillance state in order to get various favors. Look, for example, at Adam Schiff, cheerleader-in-chief
for the IC. The system of massive collusion between the Dem party elite and the US deep state was not as advanced during the
Vietnam War era as it is now. 2003 changed a lot of things.
The only Dem presidential candidates who are philosophically and securely antiwar are Gabbard and Gravel. Even Bernie (and
even more so, Warren) can't be trusted to stand up to the deep state if elected, and anyway, Bernie's support for the Russiagate
hoax by itself disqualifies him as an antiwar politician, while the Yemen bill he sponsored had a fatal loophole in it, as Bernie
well knew. I love Bernie, but he is neither antiwar nor anti-empire. As for Seth Moulton, mentioned in the article, he is my
Rep, and he makes some mild criticisms of the military, but he is a rabid hawk on Syria and Iran, and he recently voted for
a Repub amendment that would have punished Americans who donate to BDS organizations. And as for the younger generation of Dems,
they are not as antiwar as the article suggests. For every AOC among the newly elected Dems in 2018, there were almost two new
Dems who are military vets or who formerly worked for intel agencies. This does not bode well. As long at the deep state, the
Dem elite, and the MSM are tightly intertwined, there will be no major peace movement in the near future, even if a Dem becomes
president. In fact, a Dem president might hinder the formation of a true antiwar movement. Perhaps when China becomes more powerful
in ten or twenty years, the unipolar US empire and permanent war state will no longer look like a very good idea to a large
number of Americans, and the idea of a peace movement will once again become realistic. The media have a major role to play
in spreading truthful news about how the current US empire is hurting domestic living standards. Rather than hopey-hope wish
lists, no-holds-barred reporting will surely play a big role.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:05
Absolutely superb comment, Dao Gen.
DW
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:07
Another fine example of why I think there is hope! (some very sharp commentators!)
A strong leader can make all the difference. The example gets set from the top: not that this is my preference, just that
it's the reality we have today. MLK Jr. was such a leader, though it was MANY great people that were in his movement/orbit that
were the primary architects. I suppose you could say it's a "rally around the flag" kind of deal. Just as Trump stunned the
System, I believe that it can be stunned from the "left" (the ultimate stunning would be from a Gravel win, but I'm thinking
that Gabbard would be the one that has what it takes to slip past).
I really wish that people would start asking candidates who they think have been good cabinet members for various positions.
This could help give an idea of the most important facet of an administration: who the POTUS selects as key cabinet members
tells pretty much everything you need to know. Sadly, Trump had a shot at selecting Gabbard and passed on her: as much as I
detest Trump, I gave him room in which to work away from the noecon/neolib death squads (to his credit he's mostly just stalemated
them- for a rookie politician you could say that this has been an impressive feat; he's tried to instigate new wars but has,
so far, "failed" [by design?]).
geeyp , July 3, 2019 at 01:19
"We saved more money today for the American people ." – Elijah Cummings. Yea? Well then, give it to us!! You owe us a return
of our money that you have wasted for years.
mark , July 3, 2019 at 00:17
Same old, same old, same old, same old.
Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be
different.
There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel.
Honest.
Just like Dubya.
Just like Obomber.
Just like the Orange Baboon.
Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.
And this is the "new anti war movement."
Yeah.
Tom Kath , July 3, 2019 at 00:04
Every extreme elicits an extreme response. Our current western pacifist obsession is no exception. By prohibiting argument,
disagreement, verbal conflict, and the occasional playground "dust up" on a personal level, you seem to make the seemingly less
personal war inevitable.
Life on earth is simply not possible without "a bit of biff".
An aware person may not react extremely to a extreme. USA slaughtered 5 to 10 million Vietnamese for no apparent reason other
than projection of power yet the Vietnamese trade with the USA today.
Who prohibits argument? Certainly not those with little power; it's the militarily and politically powerful that crush dissent,
(Tinamen Square , Occupy Wall Street). How much dissent does the military allow? Why is Assange being persecuted?
I believe even the most militant pacifist would welcome a lively debate on murder, death and genocide, as a channel for education
and edification.
Antonio Costa , July 2, 2019 at 20:53
Weak essay. AOC hops from cause to cause. She rarely/ever says anything about US regime change wars, and the bombing of children.
She's demonstrated no anti-war bona fides.
Only Tulsi Gabbard has forthright called for an end to regime change wars, the warmongers and reduction in our military.
The power is with the powerful. We'll not see an end to war, nor Medicare for All or much of anything regarding student debt.
These are deep systemic problems calling for systemic solutions beginning with how we live on the planet(GND is a red herring),
the GDP must become null and void if we are to behave as if plundering the planet is part of "progress". It needs to be replaced
to some that focuses on quality of life as the key to prosperity. The geopolitics of the world have to simply STOP IT. It's
not about coalitions between Russia and China and India to off-set the US imperialists. That's an old game for an empty planet.
The planet is full and exceeding it capacity and is on fire. Our geopolitics must end!
Not one of these candidates come close to focusing on the systemic problem(s) except Gabbard's focus on war because it attacks
the heart of the American Imperial Empire.
Maxime , July 3, 2019 at 09:24
I agree with you that you americans will probably not see the end of your system and the end of your problems any time soon.
BUT I disagree on that you seems to think it's inevitable. I'm not american, I'm french, and reading you saying you think
medicare for all, no student debt and end to endless wars are systemic problems linked to GDP and the current economic system
is well, amusing. We have medicare for all, in fact even better than your medicare, we have no student cost for our educating
system, and still in both cases often better results than yours, even if we are behind some of our northern neighbors, but they
don't pay for these either. And we don't wage endless wars, even if we have ourselves our own big war problems, after all we
were in Lybia, we are in Syria, we are in Mali and other parts of Africa.
We also have a big militaro-industrial complex, in fact very alike the american one. But we made clear since much longer
than we would not accept as much wars, in part because the lesson we got from WW2 and Cold War was to learn to live together
with our hated neighbor. You know, the one the other side of the Rhine. Today France is a diplomatic superpower, often the head
of the european spear onthe subject, we got feared elite military, and we are proud of that, but we would not even accept more
money (in proportion) given to our military complex.
And you know the best news (for the americans)? we have an history of warmongering going back millenias. We learn to love
Caesar and the "Guerre des Gaules", his invasion of Gauls. We learn how Franks invaded their neighbors and built the first post-roman
Empire. We learn how crusaders were called Franks, how we built our nation and his pride on ashes of european continental english
hopes and german holy empire aspirations. We learn how Napolean nearly achieved to built a new continental Empire, how we never
let them passed at Verdun, and how we rose in the face of a tyran in 1944.
All of this is still in our history books, and we're still proud of it. But today, if most of us were to be asked what we
were proud about recent wars France got into, it would be how our president vetoed USA when they tried to got UN into Irak and
forced them to invade illegally, and without us.
I think my country's revelation was Algeria's independance war. One bloody and largely filled with war crimes and crimes against
humanity. We're ashamed of it, and I think we, as a nation, learned from it that stopping wars on our soil wasn't enough. I
still don't understand how americans can still wage wars after Vietnam, but I am not american. Still, even the most warmongering
nation can learn. Let's hope you will be quicker than us, because we got millennias of bloody history before even the birth
of USA.
Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:15
Thanks Maxime for a foreign perspective! I'm often curious what people in foreign countries think of our current politics
in the US,especially when I read analysis/commentaries by US writers (even ones I respect) who say "Oh most of our allies think
this or that" -- - maybe they're right or maybe they're wrong or somewhere in-between, but it's interesting getting a DIRECT
opinion from a fellow left-of-center citizen from a foreign state.
I agree with your points that European countries like France almost all have their own bloody history including an imperial
period, but the two big World Wars that killed SO many people and destroyed so many cities in Europe were so tragic and wasteful
that I suspect they DO continue to act as a significant deterrent to the saber-rattling that the US war mongers are able to
engage-in. For too many US citizens 'war' is just something that's mentioned & sometimes displayed on a screen, just like a
movie/TV program/video-game, and there's a non-reality to it because it's so far away and seldom directly affects them. Geography
has famously isolated us from the major death & destruction of war and enables too many armchair warriors to talk boldly and
vote for politicians who pander to those conceits. In a not-so-subtle way, the US IS the younger offspring of Europe, where
Europe has grown-up due to some hard lessons, while the US is going through its own destructive stage of 'lesson-learning'.
Hopefully this learning stage will be over soon and won't involve a world war.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:48
Tulsi Gabbard is, indeed,pointing at part of a major organ of imperialism, Antonio Costa, yet habeas corpus, having the whole
body of imperialism produced is necessary for the considered judgement of a people long terrorized by fictitious "monsters"
and "demons", if they are to understand that shooting warfate is but one part of the heart, while the other is economic warfare.
Both brutally destructive, even if the second is hidden from public awareness or dismissed as "a price worth paying". Imperialism
pays no price (except "blow-back", which is merely "religious extremism" as explained by a fully complicit MSM).
And the "brain" behind it all?
That is corporate/military/political/deep state/media greed – and their desperate need/ambition for total, and absolute,
control.
Only seeing the whole body may reveal the true size of the threat and the vicious nature of the real danger.
Some may argue that it is "too soon", "too early", or "too costly", politically, for Gabbard, even if she, herself, might
see imperialism as the real monster and demon, to dare describe the whole beast.
Frankly, this time, Tulsi's candidacy, her "run" for President, is not likely to see her become the Dem nominee, most likely
that will be Kamala Harris (who will happily do the bidding of brute power), rather, it is to lay the firm and solid foundation
of actual difference, of rational perspective, and thoughtful, diplomatic international behavior.
To expose the whole, especially the role of the MSM, in furthering all the rest of the lumbering body of Zombie imperialism,
would be far more effective in creating an substantial "opening" for alternative possibilities, even a new political party,
next time.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:31
I'm figuring that Warren and Harris will take one another out. Climbing to the top requires this. But, Gabbard doesn't stop
fighting, and if there's a fighter out there it is her: mentally and physically she is the total package.
Sanders' 2016 campaign was ignored, he wasn't supposed to go anywhere, but if not for the DNC's meddling he would be POTUS
right now (I have zero doubt over that). So too was Obama's climb from nowhere: of course, Obama was pushed up by the System,
the System that is NOT behind Gabbard. And then there's the clown at the helm (Trump). I refuse to ignore this history.
Gababard is by no means out. Let's not speak of such things, especially when her campaign, and message, is just starting
to burst out: the MSM is the last to admit the state of things unfavorable to the wealthy, but out on the Internet Gabbard is
very much alive. She is the best candidate (with the best platform of visibility) for peace. She has all the pieces. One comment
I read out on the internet (someone, I believe, not in the US) was that Gabbard was a gift to the Americans. Yes, I believe
this to be the case: if you really look closely you'll see exactly how this is correct. I believe that we cannot afford to treat
this gift with other than the utmost appreciation. Her sincerity when she says that she was/is willing to die for her fellow
soldiers (in reference to LBGT folks, though ALL apply) is total. She is totally committed to this battle: as a warrior in politics
she's proven herself with her support, the loyalty, for Sanders (at risk to her political career- and now look, she's running
for POTUS, she continues to come out on top!).
IvyMike , July 2, 2019 at 20:14
I burned my draft card, grew my hair out, and smoked pot and was anti war as heck. But the peace demonstrations (and riots)
in the 60's and 70's did not have much effect on how the U.S. Government prosecuted the Vietnam War. It is little recognized
how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC
while also taking heavy casualties.
We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive
with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South.
Then the politicians and Generals knew, given the super power politics surrounding the war, that we had lost. We had failed
to recognize that we had not intervened in a Civil War, in truth Vietnam as a whole was fighting for freedom from Imperialism
and we had no friends in the South, just a corrupt puppet government. Instead of getting out, Nixon made the unforgivable choice
to slowly wind the war down until he could get out without losing, Peace With Honor the ultimate triumph of ego over humanity.
Americans had a chance to choose a peace candidate in 1972, instead Nixon won with a big majority.
The military has never been able to admit they were defeated on the battlefield by North Vietnam, blaming it instead on the
Liberal Media and the Anti War movement. Believing that lie they continue to fight unwinnable wars in which we have no national
interest at stake. The media and the people no longer fight against war, but it never really made a difference when we did.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 05:17
I too hoped for a miracle and voted for George. But then I always voted for the loser in whatever state I happened to be
living in at the particular time. I think Carter was a rare winning pick by me but only once. I got disgusted with voting and
sat out the Clinton campaigns, only returning to vote against the Bush juggernaut. In retrospect, Perot should have won to make
a real difference. I sided with the winner in Obama, but the loser turned out to be America getting saddled with that two-faced
hypocrite. Nobel Peace Prize winner indeed! (What did he spend the money on?) When you listen to their campaign promises be
aware they are telegraphing how they plan to betray you.
triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:45
American people in mass need to hit reset button. A yellow vest-like movement made up of tens of millions of woke people,
who understand the democrats and republicans are the left and right wing of the oligarch party,
US elections have been and continue to be rigged, and the US constitution was written to protect the property (such
as slaves) of oligarchs from the people, the founding oligarchs feared real democracy, evident by all the safeguards they built
into our government to protect against it, that remain in tact today.
We need a new 21st century constitution. Global capitalism needs to be greatly curtailed, or ended out right, replaced by
ecosocialism, conservation, restoration of earth focussed society
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:38
And just think that back then there was also Mike Gravel. The CIA did their work in the 60s to kill the anti-war movement:
killing all the great social leaders.
Why wars are "lost" is because hardly is there a time when there's an actual "mission statement" on what the end of a given
war will look like. Tulsi Gabbard has made it clear that she would NOT engage in any wars unless there was a clear objective,
a clear outcome lined out, and, of course, it was authorized by THE PEOPLE (Congress).
All wars are about resources. We cannot, however, admit this: the ruling capitalists won't allow that to be known/understood
lest they lose their power.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 04:59
Ya got all that right, especially the part about the analysts essentially declaring the war lost after Tet. I remember that
offered a lot of hope on the campuses that the war would soon end (even though we lost), especially to those of us near graduation
and facing loss of that precious 2S deferment. Yet the big fool marched on, getting my generation needlessly slaughtered for
four or five more years.
And, yes, the 2 or 3 million dead Vietnamese did matter, to those with a conscience. Such a price to keep Vietnam out of
Russia's and China's orbit. Meanwhile they set an independent course after kicking us out of their land and even fought a war
with China. We should still be paying reparations for the levels of death and destruction we brought to a country half a world
away with absolutely no means or desire to threaten the United States. All our wars of choice, starting with Korea, have been
similar crimes against humanity. Turkey shoots against third world societies with no way to do us any harm. But every one of
them fought ferociously to the death to defend their land and their people. Inevitably, every occupier is sent packing as their
empire crumbles. Obviously, Americans have been too thick to learn this from mere history books. We will only learn from our
tragic mistakes. I see a lot of lessons on the upcoming schedule.
USA did not "intervene" in a civil war. USA paid France to continue it's imperial war and then took over when France fled
defeated. USA prevented a mandated election Ho Chi Minh would win and then continued western imperial warfare against the Vietnamese
( even though Vietnamese was/is bulwark against China's territorial expansion).
mauisurfer , July 2, 2019 at 20:12
The Watson study says: "Indeed, the DOD is the world's largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly,
the single largest producer of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world.4"
This is a gross UNDERcount of emissions. It includes ONLY petroleum burned.
It does NOT count explosions from bombs, missiles, rockets, rifles, etc.
Perhaps someone could provide an estimate of this contribution to greenhouse gases???
Don't worry, Elizabeth Warren has a plan to operate the military on renewables! (she can continue to make sure her constituency,
which is Raytheon, is well served)
Raytheon, one of the biggest employers in Warren's state, where it's headquartered, "has a positive relationship with Sen.
Warren, and we interact with her and her staff regularly," Michael Doble, a spokesman for the company, said.
jo6pac , July 2, 2019 at 20:12
This awful news for the merchants of death and I'm sure they're working overtime to stop silliness;-). I do hope this isn't
killed by those that love the endless wars.
Thanks AH
mbob , July 2, 2019 at 20:10
Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. Rather than support President
Trump's efforts to end the Korean War, to reduce our involvement in the Middle East and to pursue a more peaceful path with
Russia, the Democratic party (with very, very few exceptions) is opposed to all these things.
The Democratic party places its hatred for Trump above its professed love of peace.
President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the
US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton
destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions.
From a peace perspective, Trump looks comparatively great (provided he doesn't attack Iraq or invade Venezuela). But, since
it's impossible to recognize Trump for anything positive, or to support him in any way, it's now impossible for Democrats to
promote peace. Doing so might help Trump. It would, of necessity, require acknowledging Trump's uniqueness among recent US Presidents
in not starting new wars.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 03:28
I agree. mbob makes perfect sense in his analysis.
The Democrats must be brought back to reality with a sound repudiation by the voters, otherwise they are of no use to America
and will have no long-term future.
Obama escalated Afghanistan when he had a popular mandate to withdraw. He facilitated the the Syrian rebellion in conjunction
with ISIS funding Saudi Arabia and Qatar. He instigated the Zalaya (primarily Hillary) and the Ukraine rebellion.
Trump supports the Yemeni genocide.
But yes citizens have been directed to hate Trump the man/symptom rather than the enduring Imperial predatory capitalistic
system.
Opps sorry; so many interventions and invasions, under Obama, special forces trained Malian general overthrew the democratically
elected president of Mali, result, more war,death and destruction.
Robert , July 3, 2019 at 10:48
You are correct in your analysis. Allegra Harpootlian is searching for the peace lobby among Democrat supporters, where it
no longer resides.
As a result of corporate-controlled mainstream media and their support for Democrat elites, Democrat supporters have largely
been brainwashed into hatred for Donald Trump and everything he stands for. This hatred blinds them to the far more important
issue of peace.
Strangely, there is huge US support to remove troops from the ME, but this support resides with the overwhelming majority
of Donald Trump voters. Unfortunately, these are not individuals who typically go to peace demonstrations, but they are sincere
in bringing all US troops home from the ME. Donald Trump himself lobbied on this, and with the exceptions of his anti-Iranian
/ pro-Israel / pro-Saudi Arabia stance and withdrawal from JCPOA, he has not only backed down from military adventurism, but
is the first President since Eisenhower to raise the issue of the influence of the military-industrial complex.
In the face of strong opposition, he is the first President ever to enter North Korea and meet with Kim Jong Un to discuss
nuclear weapons. Mainstream media continues its war-mongering rhetoric, attacking Trump for his "weakness" in not retaliating
against Iran, or in meeting "secretly" with Putin.
Opposition to Trump's peace efforts are not limited to MSM, however, but are entrenched in Democrat and Republican elites,
who attack any orders he gives to withdraw from the ME. It was not Trump, but Democrat and Republican elites who invited NATO's
Stoltenberg to speak to Congress in an attempt to spite Trump.
In essence, you have President Trump and most of his supporters trying to withdraw from military engagements, with
active opposition from Democrats like Adam Schiff, and Republican elites, actively promoting war and military spending.
DJT is like a less-likeable Inspector Clouseau. Sometimes ineptitude is a blessing. You also have a few Republicans, like
journalist Tucker Carlson of Fox News, and Democrats, like Tulsi Gabbard, actively pushing the message of peace.
Erelis , July 3, 2019 at 20:45
I think you got it. The author is right in the sense that there is an anti-war movement, but that movement is in many ways
hidden. As bizarre as it may seen counter to CW wisdom, and in some way ironically crazy, one of the biggest segments of anti-war
sentiment are Trump supporters. After Trump's decision not to attack Iran, I went to various right wing commentators who attacked
Trump, and the reaction against these major right wing war mongers was to support Trump. And with right wing commentators who
supported Trump, absolute agreement. These is of course based on my objective reading reading and totally subjective. But I
believe I am right.
This made me realize there is an untapped anti-war sentiment on the right which is being totally missed. And a lack of imagination
and Trump derangment syndrome which blocks many on the anti-war Left to see it and use it for an anti-war movement. There was
an article in The Intercept that looked research on the correlation between military deaths and voting preference. Here is the
article:
And the thing is that Trump was in many ways the anti-war candidate. And those areas that had high military death rates voted
for Trump. I understand the tribal nature of political affiliation, but it seems what I have read and this article, there may
be indeed an untapped anti-war stance with Trump supporters.
And it really just challenges my own beliefs that the major obstacle to the war mongers are Trump supporters.
mbob – I couldn't have said it better myself. Except to add that in addition to destroying Libya, the Nobel Peace Prize winner
Obama, ably assisted by Hillary Clinton, also destroyed Honduras and the Ukraine.
Anarcissie , July 3, 2019 at 11:55
Historically, the Democratic Party has been pro-war and pro-imperialism at least since Wilson. The hatred for Trump on their
part seems to be based entirely on cultural issues -- he is not subservient enough to their gods.
But as for antiwar demonstrations, it's been proved in the streets that they don't accomplish anything. There were huge demonstrations
against the war in Vietnam, but it ground on until conservatives got tired of it. At least half a million people demonstrated
against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and no one important cared. Evidently more fundamental issues than the war of the moment
are involved and I think that is where a lot of people are turning now. The ruling class will find this a lot harder to deal
with because it's decentralized and widely distributed. Hence the panic about Trump and the seething hatred of Sanders.
mbob , July 3, 2019 at 18:15
I attempted to make three points in my post. First, Democrats are now pro-war. Second, solely regarding peace, Trump looks
better than all other recent Presidents because he hasn't started any new wars. Third, the inability of Democrats (or the public
as a whole) to give Trump the benefit of a doubt, or to support him in any way, is contrary to the cause of peace.
Democrats should, without reservation, support Trump's effort to end the Korean War. They should support Trump's desire to
improve relations with Russia. They don't do either of those things. Why? Because it might hurt them politically.
Your comment does not challenge the first two points and reinforces the third.
As for Yemen, yes, Trump is wrong. Democrats rightly oppose him on Yemen -- but remarkably tepidly. Trump is wrong about
a lot of things. I don't like him. I didn't vote for him. But I will vote for him if Democrats nominate someone worse than him,
which they seem inclined to do. (Gabbard is better than Trump. Sanders probably. Maybe Warren. Of the three, only Warren receives
positive press. That makes me skeptical of her.)
Trump stood up to his advisors, Bolton and Pompeo, regarding both Iran and Venezuela. Obama, on the other hand, did not.
He followed the advice of his advisors, with disastrous consequences.
>>In addition to Tuesday's sanctions, the Treasury Department issued an advisory to maritime shipping companies, warning
them off transporting oil to Syria or risking their property and money seized if kept with financial institutions that follow
U.S. sanctions law.
"The United States will aggressively seek to impose sanctions against any party involved in shipping oil to Syria, or seeking
to evade our sanctions on Iranian oil," said Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence,
in a release. "Shipping companies, insurers, vessel owners, managers, and operators should all be aware of the grave consequences
of engaging in sanctionable conduct involving Iranian oil shipments."<<
Today British marines seized a tanker near Gibraltar for the crime of transporting oil to Syria. And Trumpian peaceful military
seized Syrian oil fields. Traditional war is increasingly augmented by piracy, which is less bloody, but trades outright carnage
for deprivation of civilians. Giving "measured praise" for that makes me barf.
"... Yes. It's piracy. USA a Pirate Nation. UK a useful part of the gang. ..."
"... I mean, empires have always been expansionist, violently expansionist. I mean, this is bad, but the empire is the empire. What bothers me is the lying. The filthy unbelievable lies emanating from the likes of Hillaria Terroristica and Pompeus Maximus and even from Obama the Salesman emperor, Emperor Tex Bush the second, and our current Carnival Barker Emperor Trumpius the Rube Caller. Let alone the generals lying thru their teeth. ..."
"... There should have a new slogan for this international cabal -- "Strength through Chaos". To be precise, OUR strength through THEIR chaos. ..."
"... You could safely leave out anywhere in the Americas, I think, after reading Confessions of an Economic Hitman . Less bombs, same benevolent results. The US/Mexican Border comes to mind, filled with refugees from Guatemala and Honduras. ..."
"... I very much agree with Illargi on this. Nothing good can come from the "heroic" seizure of the tanker. Mission accomplished: we are more idiotic every passing day. ..."
"... The purpose, and effect, of empire is theft. ..."
By Raúl Ilargi Meijer, editor of Automatic Earth. Originally published at
Automatic Earth
How do you define terror? Perhaps, because of the way the term has evolved in the English
language, one wouldn't call the west 'terrorists' per se, but 'we' are certainly spreading
terror and terrorizing very large groups of people. Yeah, bring on the tanks and parade them
around town. Add a marching band that plays some war tunes.
The 'official' storyline : at the request of the US, Gibraltar police and UK marines have
seized an oil tanker in Gibraltar. The super-tanker, 1000 feet (330 meters) long, carrying 2
million barrels, had stopped there after sailing all around the Cape of Good Hope instead of
taking the Suez canal on its way, ostensibly, from Iran to Syria.
And, according to the storyline as presented to and in the western press, because the EU
still has sanctions on Iran, the British seized the ship. Another little detail I really
appreciate is that Spain's acting foreign minister, Josep Borrell, said Madrid was looking into
the seizure and how it may affect Spanish sovereignty since Spain does not recognize the waters
around Gibraltar as British.
That Borrell guy is the newly picked EU foreign policy czar, and according to some sources
he's supportive of Iran and critical of Israel. Them's the webs we weave. He's certainly in
favor of Palestinian statehood. But we're wandering
Why did the tanker take that giant detour along the African coastline? Because potential
problems were anticipated in the Suez canal. But also: why dock in Gibraltar? Because no
problems were anticipated there. However, the US had been following the ship all along, and set
this up.
A trap, a set-up, give it a name. I would think this is about Iran, not about sanctions on
Syria; that's just a convenient excuse. Moreover, as people have been pointing out, there have
been countless arms deliveries to Syrian rebels in the past years (yes, that's illegal) which
were not seized.
The sanctions on Syria were always aimed at one goal: getting rid of Assad. That purpose
failed either miserably or spectacularly, depending on your point of view. It did achieve one
thing though, and if I were you I wouldn't be too sure this was not the goal all along.
That is, out of a pre-war population of 22 million, the United Nations in 2016 identified
13.5 million Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance; over 6 million are internally displaced
within Syria, and around 5 million are refugees outside of Syria. About half a million are
estimated to have died, the same number as in Iraq.
And Assad is still there and probably stronger than ever. But it doesn't even matter whether
the US/UK/EU regime change efforts are successful or not, and I have no doubt they've always
known this. Their aim is to create chaos as a war tactic, and kill as many people as they can.
How do you define terror, terrorism? However you define it, 'we' are spreading it.
That grossly failed attempt to depose Assad has left Europe with a refugee problem it may
never be able to control. And the only reason there is such a problem is that Europe, in
particular Britain and France, along with the US, tried to bomb these people's homelands out of
existence. Because their leaders didn't want to conform to "our standards", i.e. have our oil
companies seize and control their supplies.
But while you weren't looking some things changed, irreversibly so. The US and Europe are no
longer the undisputed and overwhelming global military power they once were. Russia has become
a target they cannot even consider attacking anymore, because their armies, assembled in NATO,
wouldn't stand a chance.
China is not yet at the 'might' level of Russia, but US and NATO are in no position to
attack a country of 1.4 billion people either. Their military prominence ended around the turn
of the century/millennium, and they're not going to get it back. Better make peace fast.
So what we've seen for a few decades now is proxy wars. In which Russia in particular has
been reluctant to engage but decisive when it does. Moscow didn't want to let Assad go, and so
they made sure he stayed. Syria is Russia's one single stronghold in the Middle East, and
deemed indispensable.
Meanwhile, as over half of Syrians, some 11 million people, have been forced to flee their
homes, with millions of them traumatized by war, 'we' elect to seize a tanker allegedly headed
for a refinery in the country, so we can make sure all those people have no oil or less oil for
a while longer.
So the refugees that do have the courage and will to return will find it that much harder to
rebuild their homes and towns, and will tell those still abroad not to join them. At the same
time Assad is doing fine, he may be the target of the sanctions but he doesn't suffer from
them, his people do.
Yes, let's parade some tanks around town. And let's praise the heroic UK marines who seized
an utterly defenseless oil tanker manned by a bunch of dirt-poor Philippinos. Yay! There is
probably some profound irony that explains why Trump and Bolton and Pompeo want a military
parade at the very moment the US military must concede defeat in all theaters but the
propaganda one.
Still there it is. The only people the US, the west, can still credibly threaten, are
defenseless civilians, women, children. The leaders of nations are out of reach. Maduro, Assad,
let alone Putin or Xi.
Happy 4th of July. Not sure how independent you yourself are, but I can see a few people who
did achieve independence from western terror. Just not the poor, the ones that count. But don't
look at the tanks, look at the wind instead. The winds are shifting.
The EU has been a sticking plaster and a shot of Novocain at the open wound that is
Gibraltar. Without that stabilising influence, that plaster is about to be ripped off and a
slash of neat peroxide is about to be poured onto it.
Watch for more -- unpleasant -- developments coming soon on this one.
I wondered about that myself. There could be an unspoken message now out that the UK gets
to say who gets to use the Straits of Gibraltar. I am sure that the Spanish would see no
problem with that. One thing is sure. That is a few more countries that the UK has completely
antagonized now which will come back to bite it post-Brexit.
Thank you and well said, Gentlemen, Clive, the Reverend and the author, and to Yves for
sharing.
The winds are indeed shifting, but as long as defeat is not obvious in the propaganda
theatre, that's all that matters.
The NC community, especially Anonymous 2, David and Harry, have often written about the
calibre of civil servants in the Treasury with regard to Brexit, it's the same with the
Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.
Middle East experts, often termed "Arabists", have left, often forced out for ideological
reasons. They would have cautioned against such adventures. The newer and younger breed of
Foreign Office officials, e.g. the co-author of the dodgy / sexed up (WMD) dossier Matthew
Rycroft, and some veterans like John Scarlet, now retired and consulting with former Tory MP
James Arbuthnott (whose wife "presided" over Assange's recent hearing), are far more
ideological (neo con) and willing to blur the boundaries between impartial advice and
enabling what politicians want. There are few, if any regional, specialists at the Foreign
Office any more.
Sadly, it's the same with the officer corps, more ideological, enablers and less, if at
all, cognizant of the strategic implications of such actions.
As the above happens, HMG becomes more and more dependent on advice from the likes of US
neo con think tanks, especially the Henry Jackson Society. Unlike at the Treasury and Bank of
England, so far, no such neo cons and neo liberals have been imported from the former
colonies by the Foreign Office.
As both Clive and the Reverend conclude, watch out for more unpleasant developments things
that come back to bite the UK.
Maybe there is something else behind it, but it does seem to be a very clumsy operation
– its annoyed a lot of important people (not least in Spain) at just the time when this
isn't needed for the UK. I wonder if the neocon element in Whitehall is using the interregnum
in power to seek to bind the UK even more firmly to the US post Brexit.
"Russia has become a target they cannot even consider attacking anymore, because their
armies, assembled in NATO, wouldn't stand a chance."
I am not sure the current crop of politicians and bureaucrats in the UK (or the US) know
this.
As the Colonel observes, people with specialist knowledge are being replaced with
ideologically-motivated enablers. And the Pentagon and its NATO assets stress their ability
to wage a "limited" nuclear war
"China is not yet at the 'might' level of Russia, but US and NATO are in no position to
attack a country of 1.4 billion people either."
Indeed. And I would suggest China's "might level" is very close to not only Russia's but the
US's. Just as a for instance: the PLAN (Peoples' Liberation Army Navy) has instituted
probably the largest ship building program in history. All its newer vessels are equal to or
(significantly?) better than comparable US types.
All this war talk about just how fabulously strong, or not, this and that polity is
annoyingly ignorant; let's look at the reality that China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and
the Philippines, would all be facing strong food shortages without any harvest failures. With
even moderate shortfalls, add in the rest of the world as countries start scrambling for food
to stockpile even those who are completely self sufficient. The United States has destroyed
it industrial base so much that it cannot provide all the parts, tools, white goods,
clothing, etc that it needs just to function daily. I have not checked Russia's economy, but
I suspect that like the UK, or any European country it needs other countries to survive.
One of the reasons that the British almost lost World War One, that Germany did, and the
nations that used to be the Austro-Hungarian Empire did so poorly after that war was the
breaking up of all those trade connections. Everyone was gung-ho on war or independence, but
no-one has made any plans whatsoever on to run their economy(ies) after the first few years
of war or peace. And no, sticking it all on the Germans did not work either.
I'm starting to get that last election feeling where previous sorts went a bit curious
when confronted with the choices and the past went poof . strangest thing[s]
Peace though procurement malpractice. The current batch of military hardware is so much
garbage that when the President wants to use the "superb" pieces of crap (F35 and the new
boats are prime examples) a general will have to become the sacrificial lamb and give the
president the news that this stuff is for show only.
The Israelis claim to like the F-35 and to have used it in Syria to attack Syrian Air
Defense installations after the Syrian Air Defense installations fired at their other manned
aircraft.
That's something of an endorsement of it's capabilities. How much I don't know.
I think the issue of Israeli use of US aircraft is complex – the US seems to have
pressurised Israel to drop its own aircraft, the Lavi , and it may well have been that giving
Israel priority with the F-35 was part of the quid quo pro over that. For many
countries, choosing the F-35 seems to owe more to politics than defence considerations.
I have, for some time, been of the opinion that one of the (relatively minor) reasons that
Turkey went with the S-400's is that it gets them out of the F-35 contract without legal
financial penalties. I bet the reports of the Turkish crews training in the US have been
scathing.
I have wondered if the Saab JAS 39 Gripen or the Su-57 might be good contenders.
I think it was RT that reported the other day that Russia is planning on starting full
production of the Su-57 in 2020. Given that it was speculated that production of the Su-57
was too expensive with the Russian Federation as the only customer, I wonder who might be
interested. China? Renewed Indian interest? Turkey ?
Personally, I think we in Canada should ask Sukho to submit a bid for our fighter
replacement program.
> But this time I thought how awful it would be to hear those monsters and know they
were loaded with missiles and there was no safe place to hide.
Around here there is a boat race where the military flies jets for show and quite a few
years ago, on a Saturday,while I was tinkering in the garage, this one pilot, and he or she
must have been having a grand old time, really put on a show. For half an hour to an hour the
neighborhood was subjected to the most thunderous roar, it made my skin crawl and hair stand
up, and I started thinking about and getting a tiny taste of the terror people that are
actual targets of this machine get.
On Sunday, there was no "air" show. So many people bitched and complained about Saturday
the military or show organizers called it off. Phone calls to stop the jets does not work in
the middle east, however.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for the sanction-busting war profiteers losing their illicit
cargo? Or am I supposed to feel sorry for Assad not being able to top off the gas tank on his
human rights violating war wagon?
Nobody's cool with the jingoism coming from the White House. But if the tanks come out for
only just this one very special episode of the Apprentice, the people of earth have dodged a
very obnoxious golden BB.
You're supposed to feel sorry for millions America killed in Syria and many other nations,
and the tens of millions she displaced from their homes.
According to the U.N., Nobel Peace prize winning Obama caused the greatest refugee crisis
since WW2 with all the browned skinned nations he bombed until America ran out of bombs and
then he made more and bombed again – Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq,
Pakistan, Ukraine who have I missed there so many .
Said another way, The War on Terror IS terrorism.
About 10 years I started to realize the U.S. is an Evil Empire, a force for evil in the
world.
Happy 4th.
And may the bombing continue until there is peace. There are so many countries this great
nation has not yet bombed. Maybe we're just getting warmed up.
Google "UN says greatest refugee crisis since world war" and you'll annual reports
starting about 2014 till about 2017 – the Apex of the Obama wars – each year
replacing the previous year as all time records as humanitarian disasters.
Interesting word "illicit" meaning "outside the law." So exactly what law gives the
Americans and their faithful poodles the authority to do this?
Gibraltar was once the playground of the Barbary Pirates so it is an appropriate venue for
the hegemon to engage in a little piracy of its own. But Ilargi may be right that the winds
are shifting and bullies will get their comeuppance.
Yes. It's piracy. USA a Pirate Nation. UK a useful part of the gang.
I mean, empires have always been expansionist, violently expansionist. I mean, this is
bad, but the empire is the empire. What bothers me is the lying. The filthy unbelievable lies
emanating from the likes of Hillaria Terroristica and Pompeus Maximus and even from Obama the
Salesman emperor, Emperor Tex Bush the second, and our current Carnival Barker Emperor
Trumpius the Rube Caller. Let alone the generals lying thru their teeth.
It makes the whole enterprise ridiculous – no one but the stupidest and most
brainwashed believes the filthy liars. Terrible that our ruling class are traitors to the
country – because why lie unless you have no respect for those ruled? Lie to the stupid
cattle – let them repeat the lies and laugh at their stupidity.
The Iranians are calling it piracy and now claim the right to seize any British oil tanker
in their waters. Perhaps they have passed "sanctions" against the Brits or the EU.
I'm thinking of passing some sanctions myself under my sovereign powers and seizing some
stuff. Hey why not? EU says it's ok.
Sanctions are for OUR profiteers, not their. We impose them so that our corporations and
profiteers can benefit from higher blackmark prices. When others cut into the profit it will
not be tolerated.
I think the glass jaw is appropriate, long time PR machinations are finding it harder to
peddle, considering the outcomes, hence the need for rather vulgar public displays of
military Sergeant Major marching up and down the field too imbue greatness on the unwashed by
proxy whilst swirling down the gurgler.
This is made even more surreal by grandiose gestures of minuscule proportions magnified
way beyond their scope in the big scheme of things sans a modern news cycle.
For some ridiculous reason I keep envisioning all the new data on shipwrecks during the
east indies company era and the findings .. silly me
I still don't understand why so many "commentators" have to try discussing
important topics without considering basic facts.
There are classes of ships called, for instance, Panamax or now specifically Suezmax.
These are the largest vessels that can transit said canals. The Panama Canal has locks
of a specific size and therefore there is a hard limit. Suezmax is a bit harder to define
because, without locks, it can vary some.
But there is a maximum and at just a first glance this vessel is at least near it.
"Why did the tanker take that giant detour along the African coastline? Because
potential problems were anticipated in the Suez canal." Well, yes. But which problems.
There seem to be many, starting with the fact that the Grace 1 is under the Iranian
flag. But besides that, it is not at all unusual for a vessel of that size to sail around
the
Cape. There are many reasons. I, myself, have made a longer passage in a smaller
vessel – 13100 nautical miles from Kharg Island in Iran to New Brunswick
(Irving refinery). Around the Cape. Nobody was particularly surprised.
Reminiscent of all those US "journalists" piling on to an Aeroflot flight to Havana in
search of Edward Snowden. They, and the world, were certain he was aboard, until
the craft flew over downtown Miami.
Yes, that would be unusual but according to the articles of engagement
it could happen.
More relevant though is that there are lots of reasons for
a loaded tanker to take an indirect route not necessarily having
much to do with the ownership of the cargo. The "tanker trackers"
don't seem to be unduly surprised by the itinerary. Happens every
day.
Incidentally, I was once on a tanker sailing from Providence, RI
with orders to "steam due south until you hear from us". That could
have led to some interesting results. In the event, however, we
ended up in India after a change in engagements. The return leg
of that voyage was the 13100 mile passage I mentioned earlier.
Another time I thought I was going somewhere in the Caribbean and
ended up on a circumnavigation. Hey, it's normal. Let's not get too
excited about somebody who wants to go around the Cape instead
of risking Suez.
By the way, my experiences all occurred under the US flag so why
try to find some strange dirt on the Iranians when they are only
doing what everybody else does.
I don't think that you get it. The US seized a North Korean ship a few weeks back and now
the US had the UK seize an Iranian ship on 'suspicions'. Do you really want to see an
international situation for trade where ships can be seized as political pawns and sold? Or
maybe airplanes as well? The big insurance companies certainly want to know. The Iranians are
saying that they now have the right to seize a British ship in retaliation. Will the Brits
sell that captured ship? Will they sell the oil aboard or take it back to the UK for their
own use? Do we really want to see a widespread return to Prize Laws again?
Can we give you some sort of award for admitting you made a mistake with your first post,
and then admonishing us to "engage brain before operating mouth" ?
"Game of Thrones" LOL!! The more time changes the more it stays the same!
It's "piracy" if "they" do it to us (or our co-conspirators); it's "legal sanctions" if we do
"it" to "them".
What a farcical, lying, two-faced world we live in!
There should have a new slogan for this international cabal -- "Strength through Chaos".
To be precise, OUR strength through THEIR chaos.
Has this been the "plan" for this period
since the end of World War Two? Even if it is not a "conspiracy", but rather a "concatenation
of interests", what difference does this terminology make to those suffering the boot
heel?
You could safely leave out anywhere in the Americas, I think, after reading Confessions
of an Economic Hitman . Less bombs, same benevolent results. The US/Mexican Border comes
to mind, filled with refugees from Guatemala and Honduras.
Neither the Reagan Years (and those years before) nor the Obama Years have been a picnic
for many that live anywhere in CA (other than possibly CR and Panama). Not that most of those
running those countries are in any way innocent, particularly those that we funneled arms and
money to.
I very much agree with Illargi on this. Nothing good can come from the "heroic" seizure of
the tanker. Mission accomplished: we are more idiotic every passing day.
re: Why did the tanker take that giant detour along the African coastline?
in case anyone else has not yet noted it, super tankers, VLCCs that can carry as much as 2
million barrels, cannot get through the Suez canal, which is limited to oil tankers in the
aptly named "Suezmax" class, less than half that size
Yeah this is not a well educated writer. Contradicts his own story at one point, and no
the US can't afford to get into a major war,but that does mean they lose either, the other
side would still lose more.
The winds change are blowing, indeed. Is that the fog of war on the horizon, or the
smokestacks of progress? Neither is good for the environment but as they say, fight one
battle at a time.
America's War On Terror has long since become the War OF Terrorism and it's good to see
the rest of the world has not only caught on but is doing something about it. Great Britain
went quietly and prospered. Will America do the same or will it struggle against the
inevitable? I suspect a bit of both. We do love to kill poor innocent brown people, after
all. It's what we're best at.
Time to find another line of work. Surely we can find something more productive to do?
The war on terror is a war on non-combatants. Its western terrorists, spooks and soldiers,
against Asian terrorists, Muslims.The other form of terrorism against non-combatants is
nuclear war – that's when the military attacks civilian targets like we did in WWII in
Hamburg and Dresden and Tokyo but using more destructive ordinance.
Can we say, in light of the regular failures of our initiatives overseas, that we the
people are expecting something that is not intended. We imagine war is fought to achieve
unconditional surrender and bring the humiliated enemy to our feet begging for life but
perhaps these attacks in the Middle East and North Africa are not for a military victory at
all but to take away the natural resources of those countries, using the fog of war to
conceal our purpose?
China calls Trump's bluff; Trump blinks on sanctions threat
span ed by gjohnsit on Fri, 07/05/2019 - 4:37pm
Trump made it perfectly clear: No one will buy Iranian oil and still do business with
America. That includes
China .
Two Trump administration officials said on Friday that neither a wind-down period nor a
short-term waiver on China's oil purchases from Iran are being contemplated after Washington
surprised Iran's customers on Monday by demanding they halt the purchases by May 1 or face
sanctions.
The administration has been clear to China, Iran's top oil consumer, about no additional
waivers to the sanctions after the ones granted last November, one of the senior officials
said.
No additional waivers. No wind-down period.
It's clear and final.
China is buying Iranian oil in defiance of US sanctions and providing what Tehran hopes will
be a financial lifeline for the country's buckling economy.
Although Beijing customs data show crude purchases from Iran are down month-on-month,
China is still importing Tehran's oil despite US measures designed to cut exports to
"zero".
Last week the Chinese received their first delivery of an Iranian oil cargo since the
Trump administration in May scrapped exemptions on Iranian sanctions.
So Trump is a big, tough, strongman. So what do you think he's going to do when he's
challenged?
He's going to fold .
But according to three U.S. officials, the department's Iran czar, Brian Hook, and his team
of negotiators have discussed granting China a waiver to a 2012 law intended to kneecap the
Iranian oil industry. The alternative is allowing China, which recently welcomed a shipment
of approximately a million barrels of Iranian oil, openly to defy U.S. sanctions.
...
The 2012 Iran Freedom and Counterproliferation Act targeted the Iranian shipping,
shipbuilding and energy sectors, requiring states or companies that wish to import Iranian
oil and conduct business with the U.S. to obtain waivers from the U.S. government. A separate
law targeted purchases, rather than imports of that oil.
Officials say the State Department is discussing an arrangement that would allow China to
import Iranian oil as payment in kind for sizable investments of the Chinese oil company
Sinopec in an Iranian oil field -- and administration officials have offered to issue a
waiver for the payback oil in official correspondence between the State Department and
Sinopec, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The waiver is merely a face-saving measure. China is going to continue to defy the sanctions
one way or another.
And if China gets a waiver then
India will too.
As it stands, India has halted buying Iranian oil, but that has just pushed them into buying
more
Russian oil .
Over the last two years, a different, in some ways unrecognizable Larry Summers has been appearing in newspaper editorial pages.
More circumspect in tone, this humbler Summers has been arguing that economic opportunities in the developing world are slowing,
and that the already rich economies are finding it hard to get out of the crisis. Barring some kind of breakthrough, Summers says,
an era of slow growth is here to stay.
In Summers's recent writings, this sombre conclusion has often been paired with a surprising political goal: advocating for a
"responsible nationalism". Now he argues that politicians must recognise that "the basic responsibility of government is to maximise
the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good".
One curious thing about the pro-globalisation consensus of the 1990s and 2000s, and its collapse in recent years, is how closely
the cycle resembles a previous era. Pursuing free trade has always produced displacement and inequality – and political chaos, populism
and retrenchment to go with it. Every time the social consequences of free trade are overlooked, political backlash follows. But
free trade is only one of many forms that economic integration can take. History seems to suggest, however, that it might be the
most destabilising one.
... ... ...
The international systems that chastened figures such as Keynes helped produce in the next few years – especially the Bretton
Woods agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) – set the terms under which the new wave of globalisation
would take place.
The key to the system's viability, in Rodrik's view, was its flexibility – something absent from contemporary globalisation,
with its one-size-fits-all model of capitalism. Bretton Woods stabilised exchange rates by pegging the dollar loosely to gold, and
other currencies to the dollar. Gatt consisted of rules governing free trade – negotiated by participating countries in a series
of multinational "rounds" – that left many areas of the world economy, such as agriculture, untouched or unaddressed. "Gatt's purpose
was never to maximise free trade," Rodrik writes. "It was to achieve the maximum amount of trade compatible with different nations
doing their own thing. In that respect, the institution proved spectacularly successful."
Partly because Gatt was not always dogmatic about free trade, it allowed most countries to figure out their own economic objectives,
within a somewhat international ambit. When nations contravened the agreement's terms on specific areas of national interest, they
found that it "contained loopholes wide enough for an elephant to pass", in Rodrik's words. If a nation wanted to protect its steel
industry, for example, it could claim "injury" under the rules of Gatt and raise tariffs to discourage steel imports: "an abomination
from the standpoint of free trade". These were useful for countries that were recovering from the war and needed to build up their
own industries via tariffs – duties imposed on particular imports. Meanwhile, from 1948 to 1990, world trade grew at an annual average
of nearly 7% – faster than the post-communist years, which we think of as the high point of globalisation. "If there was a golden
era of globalisation," Rodrik has written, "this was it."
Gatt, however, failed to cover many of the countries in the developing world. These countries eventually created their own system,
the United Nations conference on trade and development (UNCTAD). Under this rubric, many countries – especially in Latin America,
the Middle East, Africa and Asia – adopted a policy of protecting homegrown industries by replacing imports with domestically produced
goods. It worked poorly in some places – India and Argentina, for example, where the trade barriers were too high, resulting in
factories that cost more to set up than the value of the goods they produced – but remarkably well in others, such as east Asia,
much of Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where homegrown industries did spring up. Though many later economists and
commentators would dismiss the achievements of this model, it theoretically fit Larry Summers's recent rubric on globalisation:
"the basic responsibility of government is to maximise the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global
good."
The critical turning point – away from this system of trade balanced against national protections – came in the 1980s. Flagging
growth and high inflation in the west, along with growing competition from Japan, opened the way for a political transformation.
The elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were seminal, putting free-market radicals in charge of two of the world's
five biggest economies and ushering in an era of "hyperglobalisation". In the new political climate, economies with large public
sectors and strong governments within the global capitalist system were no longer seen as aids to the system's functioning, but
impediments to it.
Not only did these ideologies take hold in the US and the UK; they seized international institutions as well. Gatt renamed itself
as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the new rules the body negotiated began to cut more deeply into national policies. Its
international trade rules sometimes undermined national legislation. The WTO's appellate court intervened relentlessly in member
nations' tax, environmental and regulatory policies, including those of the United States: the US's fuel emissions standards were
judged to discriminate against imported gasoline, and its
ban on imported shrimp caught without turtle-excluding
devices was overturned. If national health and safety regulations were stricter than WTO rules necessitated, they could only
remain in place if they were shown to have "scientific justification".
The purest version of hyperglobalisation was tried out in Latin America in the 1980s. Known as the "Washington consensus", this
model usually involved loans from the IMF that were contingent on those countries lowering trade barriers and privatising many of
their nationally held industries. Well into the 1990s, economists were proclaiming the indisputable benefits of openness. In an
influential 1995 paper, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner wrote: "We find no cases to support the frequent worry that a country might
open and yet fail to grow."
But the Washington consensus was bad for business: most countries did worse than before. Growth faltered, and citizens across
Latin America revolted against attempted privatisations of water and gas. In Argentina, which followed the Washington consensus
to the letter, a grave crisis resulted in
2002 , precipitating an economic collapse and massive street protests that forced out the government that had pursued privatising
reforms. Argentina's revolt presaged a left-populist upsurge across the continent: from 1999 to 2007, leftwing leaders and parties
took power in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, all of them campaigning against the Washington consensus on globalisation.
These revolts were a preview of the backlash of today.
Rodrik – perhaps the contemporary economist whose views have been most amply vindicated by recent events – was himself a beneficiary
of protectionism in Turkey. His father's ballpoint pen company was sheltered under tariffs, and achieved enough success to allow
Rodrik to attend Harvard in the 1970s as an undergraduate. This personal understanding of the mixed nature of economic success may
be one of the reasons why his work runs against the broad consensus of mainstream economics writing on globalisation.
"I never felt that my ideas were out of the mainstream," Rodrik told me recently. Instead, it was that the mainstream had lost
touch with the diversity of opinions and methods that already existed within economics. "The economics profession is strange in
that the more you move away from the seminar room to the public domain, the more the nuances get lost, especially on issues of trade."
He lamented the fact that while, in the classroom, the models of trade discuss losers and winners, and, as a result, the necessity
of policies of redistribution, in practice, an "arrogance and hubris" had led many economists to ignore these implications. "Rather
than speaking truth to power, so to speak, many economists became cheerleaders for globalisation."
In his 2011 book The Globalization Paradox
, Rodrik concluded that "we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national determination, and economic globalisation." The
results of the 2016 elections and referendums provide ample testimony of the justness of the thesis, with millions voting to push
back, for better or for worse, against the campaigns and institutions that promised more globalisation. "I'm not at all surprised
by the backlash," Rodrik told me. "Really, nobody should have been surprised."
But what, in any case, would "more globalisation" look like? For the same economists and writers who have started to rethink
their commitments to greater integration, it doesn't mean quite what it did in the early 2000s. It's not only the discourse that's
changed: globalisation itself has changed, developing into a more chaotic and unequal system than many economists predicted. The
benefits of globalisation have been largely concentrated in a handful of Asian countries. And even in those countries, the good
times may be running out.
Statistics from Global Inequality
, a 2016 book by the development economist Branko Milanović, indicate that in relative terms the greatest benefits of globalisation
have accrued to a rising "emerging middle class", based preponderantly in China. But the cons are there, too: in absolute terms,
the largest gains have gone to what is commonly called "the 1%" – half of whom are based in the US. Economist Richard Baldwin has
shown in his recent book, The Great Convergence, that nearly all of the gains from globalisation have been concentrated in six countries.
Barring some political catastrophe, in which rightwing populism continued to gain, and in which globalisation would be the least
of our problems – Wolf admitted that he was "not at all sure" that this could be ruled out – globalisation was always going to slow;
in fact, it already has. One reason, says Wolf, was that "a very, very large proportion of the gains from globalisation – by no
means all – have been exploited. We have a more open world economy to trade than we've ever had before." Citing The Great Convergence,
Wolf noted that supply chains have already expanded, and that future developments, such as automation and the use of robots, looked
to undermine the promise of a growing industrial workforce. Today, the political priorities were less about trade and more about
the challenge of retraining workers , as technology renders old jobs obsolete and transforms the world of work.
Rodrik, too, believes that globalisation, whether reduced or increased, is unlikely to produce the kind of economic effects it
once did. For him, this slowdown has something to do with what he calls "premature deindustrialisation". In the past, the simplest
model of globalisation suggested that rich countries would gradually become "service economies", while emerging economies picked
up the industrial burden. Yet recent statistics show the world as a whole is deindustrialising. Countries that one would have expected
to have more industrial potential are going through the stages of automation more quickly than previously developed countries did,
and thereby failing to develop the broad industrial workforce seen as a key to shared prosperity.
For both Rodrik and Wolf, the political reaction to globalisation bore possibilities of deep uncertainty. "I really have found
it very difficult to decide whether what we're living through is a blip, or a fundamental and profound transformation of the world
– at least as significant as the one that brought about the first world war and the Russian revolution," Wolf told me. He cited
his agreement with economists such as Summers that shifting away from the earlier emphasis on globalisation had now become a political
priority; that to pursue still greater liberalisation was like showing "a red rag to a bull" in terms of what it might do to the
already compromised political stability of the western world.
Rodrik pointed to a belated emphasis, both among political figures and economists, on the necessity of compensating those displaced
by globalisation with retraining and more robust welfare states. But pro-free-traders had a history of cutting compensation: Bill
Clinton passed Nafta, but failed to expand safety nets. "The issue is that the people are rightly not trusting the centrists who
are now promising compensation," Rodrik said. "One reason that Hillary Clinton didn't get any traction with those people is that
she didn't have any credibility."
Rodrik felt that economics commentary failed to register the gravity of the situation: that there were increasingly few avenues
for global growth, and that much of the damage done by globalisation – economic and political – is irreversible. "There is a sense
that we're at a turning point," he said. "There's a lot more thinking about what can be done. There's a renewed emphasis on compensation
– which, you know, I think has come rather late."
"... The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers ..."
"... It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent on the United States ..."
"... American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got to lose." ..."
"... The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president ..."
"... Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market, and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat in Latin America. ..."
"... The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments problems ..."
"... The IMF enables its wealthy constituency to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss ..."
"... Wall Street speculators have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style. ..."
"... When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. ..."
"... Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products. ..."
"... Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries. ..."
"... This control by the U.S. financial system and its diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism. ..."
"... The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires holding their money in Switzerland ..."
"... The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF so vicious an institution. ..."
"... America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other. ..."
"... You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap in Korea and other Asian countries. ..."
"... This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight. ..."
"... Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors. ..."
"... But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's called "grandfathering". ..."
"The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose
tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute,
or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries
play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing
and loss of life by soldiers."
I'm Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter: Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show: The IMF and World Bank: Partners In Backwardness
. Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend,
a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
His most recent books include " and Forgive them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance
to the Jubilee Year "; Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy , and J Is for
Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception . He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
, among many other books.
We return today to a discussion of Dr. Hudson's seminal 1972 book, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire
, a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank, with a special emphasis on
food imperialism.
... ... ...
Bonnie Faulkner : In your seminal work form 1972, Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire ,
you write: "The development lending of the World Bank has been dysfunctional from the outset." When was the World Bank set up and
by whom?
Michael Hudson : It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent
on the United States. To make sure that no other country or group of countries – even all the rest of the world – could not
dictate U.S. policy. American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this
veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got
to lose."
The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant
Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president. He later became Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank (1953-60).
McNamara was Secretary of Defense (1961-68), Paul Wolfowitz was Deputy and Under Secretary of Defense (1989-2005), and Robert Zoellick
was Deputy Secretary of State. So I think you can look at the World Bank as the soft shoe of American diplomacy.
Bonnie Faulkner : What is the difference between the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the IMF? Is
there a difference?
Michael Hudson : Yes, there is. The World Bank was supposed to make loans for what they call international development.
"Development" was their euphemism for dependency on U.S. exports and finance. This dependency entailed agricultural backwardness
– opposing land reform, family farming to produce domestic food crops, and also monetary backwardness in basing their monetary system
on the dollar.
The World Bank was supposed to provide infrastructure loans that other countries would go into debt to pay American engineering
firms, to build up their export sectors and their plantation sectors by public investment roads and port development for imports
and exports. Essentially, the Bank financed long- investments in the foreign trade sector, in a way that was a natural continuation
of European colonialism.
In 1941, for example, C. L. R. James wrote an article on "Imperialism in Africa" pointing out the fiasco of European railroad
investment in Africa: "Railways must serve flourishing industrial areas, or densely populated agricult5ural regions, or they must
open up new land along which a thriving population develops and provides the railways with traffic. Except in the mining regions
of South Africa, all these conditions are absent. Yet railways were needed, for the benefit of European investors and heavy industry."
That is why, James explained "only governments can afford to operate them," while being burdened with heavy interest obligations.
[1] What was "developed" was Africa's
mining and plantation export sector, not its domestic economies. The World Bank followed this pattern of "development" lending without
apology.
The IMF was in charge of short-term foreign currency loans. Its aim was to prevent countries from imposing capital controls to
protect their balance of payments. Many countries had a dual exchange rate: one for trade in goods and services, the other rate
for capital movements. The function of the IMF and World Bank was essentially to make other countries borrow in dollars, not in
their own currencies, and to make sure that if they could not pay their dollar-denominated debts, they had to impose austerity on
the domestic economy – while subsidizing their import and export sectors and protecting foreign investors, creditors and client
oligarchies from loss.
The IMF developed a junk-economics model pretending that any country can pay any amount of debt to the creditors if it just impoverishes
its labor enough. So when countries were unable to pay their debt service, the IMF tells them to raise their interest rates to bring
on a depression – austerity – and break up the labor unions. That is euphemized as "rationalizing labor markets." The rationalizing
is essentially to disable labor unions and the public sector. The aim – and effect – is to prevent countries from essentially following
the line of development that had made the United States rich – by public subsidy and protection of domestic agriculture, public
subsidy and protection of industry and an active government sector promoting a New Deal democracy. The IMF was essentially promoting
and forcing other countries to balance their trade deficits by letting American and other investors buy control of their commanding
heights, mainly their infrastructure monopolies, and to subsidize their capital flight.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Now, Michael, when you began speaking about the IMF and monetary controls, you mentioned that there
were two exchange rates of currency in countries. What were you referring to?
MICHAEL HUDSON : When I went to work on Wall Street in the '60s, I was balance-of-payments economist for Chase Manhattan,
and we used the IMF's monthly International Financial Statistics every month. At the top of each country's statistics would
be the exchange-rate figures. Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market,
and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital
flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat
in Latin America.
The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital
outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments
problems.
The World Bank and American diplomacy have steered them into a chronic currency crisis. The IMF enables its wealthy constituency
to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss. It makes loans to support capital flight out
of domestic currencies into the dollar or other hard currencies. The IMF calls this a "stabilization" program. It is never effective
in helping the debtor economy pay foreign debts out of growth. Instead, the IMF uses currency depreciation and sell-offs of public
infrastructure and other assets to foreign investors after the flight capital has left and currency collapses. Wall Street speculators
have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style.
When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have
to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. We're talking about enormous penalty rates in domestic
currency for these countries to pay foreign-currency debts – basically taking on to finance a non-development policy and to subsidize
capital flight when that policy "fails" to achieve its pretended objective of growth.
All hyperinflations of Latin America – Chile early on, like Germany after World War I – come from trying to pay foreign debts
beyond the ability to be paid. Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange
rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products.
A really functional and progressive international monetary fund that would try to help countries develop would say: "Okay, banks
and we (the IMF) have made bad loans that the country can't pay. And the World Bank has given it bad advice, distorting its domestic
development to serve foreign customers rather than its own growth. So we're going to write down the loans to the ability to be paid."
That's what happened in 1931, when the world finally stopped German reparations payments and Inter-Ally debts to the United States
stemming from World War I.
Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within
the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries.
So if they do something that U.S. diplomats don't approve of, it can pull the plug financially, encouraging a run on their currency
if they act independently of the United States instead of falling in line. This control by the U.S. financial system and its
diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression
of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism.
BONNIE FAULKNER : How do exchange rates contribute to capital flight?
MICHAEL HUDSON : It's not the exchange rate that contributes. Suppose that you're a millionaire, and you see that your
country is unable to balance its trade under existing production patterns. The money that the government has under control is pesos,
escudos, cruzeiros or some other currency, not dollars or euros. You see that your currency is going to go down relative to the
dollar, so you want to get our money out of the country to preserve your purchasing power.
This has long been institutionalized. By 1990, for instance, Latin American countries had defaulted so much in the wake of the
Mexico defaults in 1982 that I was hired by Scudder Stevens, to help start a Third World Bond Fund (called a "sovereign high-yield
fund"). At the time, Argentina and Brazil were running such serious balance-of-payments deficits that they were having to pay 45
percent per year interest, in dollars, on their dollar debt. Mexico, was paying 22.5 percent on its tesobonos .
Scudders' salesmen went around to the United States and tried to sell shares in the proposed fund, but no Americans would buy
it, despite the enormous yields. They sent their salesmen to Europe and got a similar reaction. They had lost their shirts on Third
World bonds and couldn't see how these countries could pay.
Merrill Lynch was the fund's underwriter. Its office in Brazil and in Argentina proved much more successful in selling investments
in Scudder's these offshore fund established in the Dutch West Indies. It was an offshore fund, so Americans were not able to buy
it. But Brazilian and Argentinian rich families close to the central bank and the president became the major buyers. We realized
that they were buying these funds because they knew that their government was indeed going to pay their stipulated interest charges.
In effect, the bonds were owed ultimately to themselves. So these Yankee dollar bonds were being bought by Brazilians and other
Latin Americans as a vehicle to move their money out of their soft local currency (which was going down), to buy bonds denominated
in hard dollars.
BONNIE FAULKNER : If wealthy families from these countries bought these bonds denominated in dollars, knowing that they
were going to be paid off, who was going to pay them off? The country that was going broke?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Well, countries don't pay; the taxpayers pay, and in the end, labor pays. The IMF certainly doesn't want
to make its wealthy client oligarchies pay. It wants to squeeze ore economic surplus out of the labor force. So countries are told
that the way they can afford to pay their enormously growing dollar-denominated debt is to lower wages even more.
Currency depreciation is an effective way to do this, because what is devalued is basically labor's wages. Other elements of
exports have a common world price: energy, raw materials, capital goods, and credit under the dollar-centered international monetary
system that the IMF seeks to maintain as a financial strait jacket.
According to the IMF's ideological models, there's no limit to how far you can lower wages by enough to make labor competitive
in producing exports. The IMF and World Bank thus use junk economics to pretend that the way to pay debts owed to the wealthiest
creditors and investors is to lower wages and impose regressive excise taxes, to impose special taxes on necessities that labor
needs, from food to energy and basic services supplied by public infrastructure.
BONNIE FAULKNER: So you're saying that labor ultimately has to pay off these junk bonds?
MICHAEL HUDSON: That is the basic aim of IMF. I discuss its fallacies in my Trade Development and Foreign Debt
, which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism . These two books show that the World Bank and IMF were viciously
anti-labor from the very outset, working with domestic elites whose fortunes are tied to and loyal to the United States.
BONNIE FAULKNER : With regard to these junk bonds, who was it or what entity
MICHAEL HUDSON : They weren't junk bonds. They were called that because they were high-interest bonds, but they weren't
really junk because they actually were paid. Everybody thought they were junk because no American would have paid 45 percent interest.
Any country that really was self-reliant and was promoting its own economic interest would have said, "You banks and the IMF have
made bad loans, and you've made them under false pretenses – a trade theory that imposes austerity instead of leading to prosperity.
We're not going to pay." They would have seized the capital flight of their comprador elites and said that these dollar bonds were
a rip-off by the corrupt ruling class.
The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires
holding their money in Switzerland. The details were published in the "Legarde List." But the IMF said, in effect that its
loyalty was to the Greek millionaires who ha their money in Switzerland. The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the
bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and
wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF
so vicious an institution.
BONNIE FAULKNER : So these loans to foreign countries that were regarded as junk bonds really weren't junk, because
they were going to be paid. What group was it that jacked up these interest rates to 45 percent?
MICHAEL HUDSON : The market did. American banks, stock brokers and other investors looked at the balance of payments of
these countries and could not see any reasonable way that they could pay their debts, so they were not going to buy their bonds.
No country subject to democratic politics would have paid debts under these conditions. But the IMF, U.S. and Eurozone diplomacy
overrode democratic choice.
Investors didn't believe that the IMF and the World Bank had such a strangle hold over Latin American, Asian, and African countries
that they could make the countries act in the interest of the United States and the cosmopolitan finance capital, instead of in
their own national interest. They didn't believe that countries would commit financial suicide just to pay their wealthy One Percent.
They were wrong, of course. Countries were quite willing to commit economic suicide if their governments were dictatorships propped
up by the United States. That's why the CIA has assassination teams and actively supports these countries to prevent any party coming
to power that would act in their national interest instead of in the interest of a world division of labor and production along
the lines that the U.S. planners want for the world. Under the banner of what they call a free market, you have the World Bank and
the IMF engage in central planning of a distinctly anti-labor policy. Instead of calling them Third World bonds or junk bonds, you
should call them anti-labor bonds, because they have become a lever to impose austerity throughout the world.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Well, that makes a lot of sense, Michael, and answers a lot of the questions I've put together to ask
you. What about Puerto Rico writing down debt? I thought such debts couldn't be written down.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's what they all said, but the bonds were trading at about 45 cents on the dollar, the risk of their
not being paid. The Wall Street Journal on June 17, reported that unsecured suppliers and creditors of Puerto Rico, would
only get nine cents on the dollar. The secured bond holders would get maybe 65 cents on the dollar.
The terms are being written down because it's obvious that Puerto Rico can't pay, and that trying to do so is driving the population
to move out of Puerto Rico to the United States. If you don't want Puerto Ricans to act the same way Greeks did and leave Greece
when their industry and economy was shut down, then you're going to have to provide stability or else you're going to have half
of Puerto Rico living in Florida.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Who wrote down the Puerto Rican debt?
MICHAEL HUDSON : A committee was appointed, and it calculated how much Puerto Rico can afford to pay out of its taxes.
Puerto Rico is a U.S. dependency, that is, an economic colony of the United States. It does not have domestic self-reliance. It's
the antithesis of democracy, so it's never been in charge of its own economic policy and essentially has to do whatever the United
States tells it to do. There was a reaction after the hurricane and insufficient U.S. support to protect the island and the enormous
waste and corruption involved in the U.S. aid. The U.S. response was simply: "We won you fair and square in the Spanish-American
war and you're an occupied country, and we're going to keep you that way." Obviously this is causing a political resentment.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You've already touched on this, but why has the World Bank traditionally been headed by a U.S. secretary
of defense?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Its job is to do in the financial sphere what, in the past, was done by military force. The purpose of
a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the
World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry,
agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic
game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers.
In this case the loss of life occurs in the debtor countries. Population growth shrinks, suicides go up. The World Bank engages
in economic warfare that is just as destructive as military warfare. At the end of the Yeltsin period Russia's President Putin said
that American neoliberalism destroyed more of Russia's population than did World War II. Such neoliberalism, which basically is
the doctrine of American supremacy and foreign dependency, is the policy of the World Bank and IMF.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why has World Bank policy since its inception been to provide loans for countries to devote their land
to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves? And if this is the case, why do countries want these loans?
MICHAEL HUDSON : One constant of American foreign policy is to make other countries dependent on American grain exports
and food exports. The aim is to buttress America's agricultural trade surplus. So the first thing that the World Bank has done is
not to make any domestic currency loans to help food producers. Its lending has steered client countries to produce tropical export
crops, mainly plantation crops that cannot be grown in the United States. Focusing on export crops leads client countries to become
dependent on American farmers – and political sanctions.
In the 1950s, right after the Chinese revolution, the United States tried to prevent China from succeeding by imposing grain
export controls to starve China into submission by putting sanctions on exports. Canada was the country that broke these export
controls and helped feed China.
The idea is that if you can make other countries export plantation crops, the oversupply will drive down prices for cocoa and
other tropical products, and they won't feed themselves. So instead of backing family farms like the American agricultural policy
does, the World Bank backed plantation agriculture. In Chile, which has the highest natural supply of fertilizer in the world from
its guano deposits, exports guano instead of using it domestically. It also has the most unequal land distribution, blocking it
from growing its own grain or food crops. It's completely dependent on the United States for this, and it pays by exporting copper,
guano and other natural resources.
The idea is to create interdependency – one-sided dependency on the U.S. economy. The United States has always aimed at being
self-sufficient in its own essentials, so that no other country can pull the plug on our economy and say, "We're going to starve
you by not feeding you." Americans can feed themselves. Other countries can't say, "We're going to let you freeze in the dark by
not sending you oil," because America's independent in energy. But America can use the oil control to make other countries freeze
in the dark, and it can starve other countries by food-export sanctions.
So the idea is to give the United States control of the key interconnections of other economies, without letting any country
control something that is vital to the working of the American economy.
There's a double standard here. The United States tells other countries: "Don't do as we do. Do as we say." The only way it can
enforce this is by interfering in the politics of these countries, as it has interfered in Latin America, always pushing the right
wing. For instance, when Hillary's State Department overthrew the Honduras reformer who wanted to undertake land reform and feed
the Hondurans, she said: "This person has to go." That's why there are so many Hondurans trying to get into the United States now,
because they can't live in their own country.
The effect of American coups is the same in Syria and Iraq. They force an exodus of people who no longer can make a living under
the brutal dictatorships supported by the United States to enforce this international dependency system.
BONNIE FAULKNER : So when I asked you why countries would want these loans, I guess you're saying that they wouldn't,
and that's why the U.S. finds it necessary to control them politically.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a concise way of putting it Bonnie.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why are World Bank loans only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency of the country to which
it is lending?
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a good point. A basic principle should be to avoid borrowing in a foreign currency. A country
can always pay the loans in its own currency, but there's no way that it can print dollars or euros to pay loans denominated in
these foreign currencies.
Making the dollar central forces other countries to interface with the U.S. banking system. So if a country decides to go its
own way, as Iran did in 1953 when it wanted to take over its oil from British Petroleum (or Anglo Iranian Oil, as it was called
back then), the United States can interfere and overthrow it. The idea is to be able to use the banking system's interconnections
to stop payments from being made.
After America installed the Shah's dictatorship, they were overthrown by Khomeini, and Iran had run up a U.S. dollar debt under
the Shah. It had plenty of dollars. I think Chase Manhattan was its paying agent. So when its quarterly or annual debt payment came
due, Iran told Chase to draw on its accounts and pay the bondholders. But Chase took orders from the State Department or the Defense
Department, I don't know which, and refused to pay. When the payment was not made, America and its allies claimed that Iran was
in default. They demanded the entire debt to be paid, as per the agreement that the Shah's puppet government had signed. America
simply grabbed the deposits that Iran had in the United States. This is the money that was finally returned to Iran without interest
under the agreement of 2016.
America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do
the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system
to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other.
This prompted Russia to create its own bank-transfer system, and is leading China, Russia, India and Pakistan to draft plans
to de-dollarize.
BONNIE FAULKNER : I was going to ask you, why would loans in a country's domestic currency be preferable to the country
taking out a loan in a foreign currency? I guess you've explained that if they took out a loan in a domestic currency, they would
be able to repay it.
MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Whereas a loan in a foreign currency would cripple them.
MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes. You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if
U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis
in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap
in Korea and other Asian countries.
This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital
controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight.
But for Latin America and other countries, much of their foreign debt is held by their own ruling class. Even though it's denominated
in dollars, Americans don't own most of this debt. It's their own ruling class. The IMF and World Bank dictate tax policy to Latin
America – to un-tax wealth and shift the burden onto labor. Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad
to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting
it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You say that: "While U.S. agricultural protectionism has been built into the postwar global system at
its inception, foreign protectionism is to be nipped in the bud." How has U.S. agricultural protectionism been built into the postwar
global system?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Under Franklin Roosevelt the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 called for price supports for crops
so that farmers could earn enough to invest in equipment and seeds. The Agriculture Department was a wonderful department in spurring
new seed varieties, agricultural extension services, marketing and banking services. It provided public support so that productivity
in American agriculture from the 1930s to '50s was higher over a prolonged period than that of any other sector in history.
But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade
and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's
called "grandfathering". The Americans said: "We already have this program on the books, so we can keep it. But no other country
can succeed in agriculture in the way that we have done. You must keep your agriculture backward, except for the plantation crops
and growing crops that we can't grow in the United States." That's what's so evil about the World Bank's development plan.
BONNIE FAULKNER : According to your book: "Domestic currency is needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension
services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive." Why can't infrastructure costs be subsidized to keep down the economy's
overall cost structure if IMF loans are made in foreign currency?
MICHAEL HUDSON : If you're a farmer in Brazil, Argentina or Chile, you're doing business in domestic currency. It doesn't
help if somebody gives you dollars, because your expenses are in domestic currency. So if the World Bank and the IMF can prevent
countries from providing domestic currency support, that means they're not able to give price supports or provide government marketing
services for their agriculture.
America is a mixed economy. Our government has always subsidized capital formation in agriculture and industry, but it insists
that other countries are socialist or communist if they do what the United States is doing and use their government to support the
economy. So it's a double standard. Nobody calls America a socialist country for supporting its farmers, but other countries are
called socialist and are overthrown if they attempt land reform or attempt to feed themselves.
This is what the Catholic Church's Liberation Theology was all about. They backed land reform and agricultural self-sufficiency
in food, realizing that if you're going to support population growth, you have to support the means to feed it. That's why the United
States focused its assassination teams on priests and nuns in Guatemala and Central America for trying to promote domestic self-sufficiency.
BONNIE FAULKNER : If a country takes out an IMF loan, they're obviously going to take it out in dollars. Why can't they
take the dollars and convert them into domestic currency to support local infrastructure costs?
MICHAEL HUDSON : You don't need a dollar loan to do that. Now were getting in to MMT. Any country can create its own currency.
There's no reason to borrow in dollars to create your own currency. You can print it yourself or create it on your computers.
BONNIE FAULKNER: Well, exactly. So why don't these countries simply print up their own domestic currency?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Their leaders don't want to be assassinated. More immediately, if you look at the people in charge of
foreign central banks, almost all have been educated in the United States and essentially brainwashed. It's the mentality of foreign
central bankers. The people who are promoted are those who feel personally loyal to the United States, because they that that's
how to get ahead. Essentially, they're opportunists working against the interests of their own country. You won't have socialist
central bankers as long as central banks are dominated by the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements.
BONNIE FAULKNER : So we're back to the main point: The control is by political means, and they control the politics and
the power structure in these countries so that they don't rebel.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. When you have a dysfunctional economic theory that is destructive instead of productive,
this is never an accident. It is always a result of junk economics and dependency economics being sponsored. I've talked to people
at the U.S. Treasury and asked why they all end up following the United States. Treasury officials have told me: "We simply buy
them off. They do it for the money." So you don't need to kill them. All you need to do is find people corrupt enough and opportunist
enough to see where the money is, and you buy them off.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that "by following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail." What
is food blackmail?
MICHAEL HUDSON : If you pursue a foreign policy that we don't like -- for instance, if you trade with Iran, which we're
trying to smash up to grab its oil -- we'll impose financial sanctions against you. We won't sell you food, and you can starve.
And because you've followed World Bank advice and not grown your own food, you will starve, because you're dependent on us, the
United States and our Free World Ó allies. Canada will no longer follow its own policy independently of the United States,
as it did with China in the 1950s when it sold it grain. Europe also is falling in line with U.S. policy.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that: "World Bank administrators demand that loan recipients pursue a policy of economic dependency
above all on the United States as food supplier." Was this done to support U.S. agriculture? Obviously it is, but were there other
reasons as well?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Certainly the agricultural lobby was critical in all of this, and I'm not sure at what point this became
thoroughly conscious. I knew some of the World Bank planners, and they had no anticipation that this dependency would be the result.
They believed the free-trade junk economics that's taught in the schools' economics departments and for which Nobel prizes are awarded.
When we're dealing with economic planners, we're dealing with tunnel-visioned people. They stayed in the discipline despite its
unreality because they sort of think that abstractly it makes sense. There's something autistic about most economists, which is
why the French had their non-autistic economic site for many years. The mentality at work is that every country should produce what
it's best at – not realizing that nations also need to be self-sufficient in essentials, because we're in a real world of economic
and military warfare.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why does the World Bank prefer to perpetrate world poverty instead of adequate overseas capacity to
feed the peoples of developing countries?
MICHAEL HUDSON : World poverty is viewed as solution , not a problem. The World Bank thinks of poverty as low-priced
labor, creating a competitive advantage for countries that produce labor-intensive goods. So poverty and austerity for the World
Bank and IMF is an economic solution that's built into their models. I discuss these in my Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
book. Poverty is to them the solution, because it means low-priced labor, and that means higher profits for the companies bought
out by U.S., British, and European investors. So poverty is part of the class war: profits versus poverty.
BONNIE FAULKNER : In general, what is U.S. food imperialism? How would you characterize it?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Its aim is to make America the producer of essential foods and other countries producing inessential
plantation crops, while remaining dependent on the United States for grain, soy beans and basic food crops.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Does World Bank lending encourage land reform in former colonies?
MICHAEL HUDSON : No. If there is land reform, the CIA sends its assassination teams in and you have mass murder, as you
had in Guatemala, Ecuador, Central America and Columbia. The World Bank is absolutely committed against land reform. When the Forgash
Plan for a World Bank for Economic Acceleration was proposed in the 1950s to emphasize land reform and local-currency loans, a Chase
Manhattan economist to whom the plan was submitted warned that every country that had land reform turned out to be anti-American.
That killed any alternative to the World Bank.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Does the World Bank insist on client governments privatizing their public domain? If so, why, and what
is the effect?
MICHAEL HUDSON : It does indeed insist on privatization, pretending that this is efficient. But what it privatizes are
natural monopolies – the electrical system, the water system and other basic needs. Foreigners take over, essentially finance them
with foreign debt, build the foreign debt that they build into the cost structure, and raise the cost of living and doing business
in these countries, thereby crippling them economically. The effect is to prevent them from competing with the United States and
its European allies.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Would you say then that it is mainly America that has been aided, not foreign economies that borrow
from the World Bank?
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's why the United States is the only country with veto power in the IMF and World Bank – to make
sure that what you just described is exactly what happens.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why do World Bank programs accelerate the exploitation of mineral deposits for use by other nations?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Most World Bank loans are for transportation, roads, harbor development and other infrastructure needed
to export minerals and plantation crops. The World Bank doesn't make loans for projects that help the country develop in its own
currency. By making only foreign currency loans, in dollars or maybe euros now, the World Bank says that its clients have to repay
by generating foreign currency. The only way they can repay the dollars spent on American engineering firms that have built their
infrastructure is to export – to earn enough dollars to pay back for the money that the World Bank or IMF have lent.
This is what John Perkins' book about being an economic hit man for the World Bank is all about. He realized that his job was
to get countries to borrow dollars to build huge projects that could only be paid for by the country exporting more – which required
breaking its labor unions and lowering wages so that it could be competitive in the race to the bottom that the World Bank and IMF
encourage.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You also point out in Super Imperialism that mineral resources represent diminishing assets,
so these countries that are exporting mineral resources are being depleted while the importing countries aren't.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. They'll end up like Canada. The end result is going to be a big hole in the ground. You've
dug up all your minerals, and in the end you have a hole in the ground and a lot of the refuse and pollution – the mining slag and
what Marx called the excrements of production.
This is not a sustainable development. The World Bank only promotes the U.S. pursuit of sustainable development. So naturally,
they call their "Development," but their focus is on the United States, not the World Bank's client countries.
BONNIE FAULKNER : When Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire was originally published in
1972, how was it received?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Very positively. It enabled my career to take off. I received a phone call a month later by someone from
the Bank of Montreal saying they had just made $240 million on the last paragraph of my book. They asked what it would cost to have
me come up and give a lecture. I began lecturing once a month at $3,500 a day, moving up to $6,500 a day, and became the highest-paid
per diem economist on Wall Street for a few years.
I was immediately hired by the Hudson Institute to explain Super Imperialism to the Defense Department. Herman Kahn said
I showed how U.S. imperialism ran rings around European imperialism. They gave the Institute an $85,000 grant to have me go to the
White House in Washington to explain how American imperialism worked. The Americans used it as a how-to-do-it book.
The socialists, whom I expected to have a response, decided to talk about other than economic topics. So, much to my surprise,
it became a how-to-do-it book for imperialists. It was translated by, I think, the nephew of the Emperor of Japan into Japanese.
He then wrote me that the United States opposed the book being translated into Japanese. It later was translated. It was
received very positively in China, where I think it has sold more copies than in any other country. It was translated into Spanish,
and most recently it was translated into German, and German officials have asked me to come and discuss it with them. So the book
has been accepted all over the world as an explanation of how the system works.
BONNIE FAULKNER : In closing, do you really think that the U.S. government officials and others didn't understand how
their own system worked?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Many might not have understood in 1944 that this would be the consequence. But by the time 50 years went
by, you had an organization called "Fifty Years Is Enough." And by that time everybody should have understood. By the time Joe Stiglitz
became the World Bank's chief economist, there was no excuse for not understanding how the system worked. He was amazed to find
that indeed it didn't work as advertised, and resigned. But he should have known at the very beginning what it was all about. If
he didn't understand how it was until he actually went to work there, you can understand how hard it is for most academics to get
through the vocabulary of junk economics, the patter-talk of free trade and free markets to understand how exploitative and destructive
the system is.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Michael Hudson, thank you very much.
MICHAEL HUDSON : It's always good to be here, Bonnie. I'm glad you ask questions like these.
I've been speaking with Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show has been: The IMF and World Bank: Partners in Backwardness. Dr.
Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall
Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His 1972
book, Super Imperialism : The Economic Strategy of American Empire , a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies
through the IMF and World Bank, the subject of today's broadcast, is posted in PDF format on his website at michael-hudson.com.
He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt , which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism. Dr. Hudson
acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide on finance and tax law. Visit his website at michael-hudson.com.
Guns and Butter is produced by Bonnie Faulkner, Yarrow Mahko and Tony Rango. Visit us at
gunsandbutter.org to listen to past programs, comment on shows, or join
our email list to receive our newsletter that includes recent shows and updates. Email us at
[email protected]. Follow us
on Twitter at #gandbradio.
Tom Wright
makes some good observations about Trump's foreign policy here, but I think he
underestimates Bolton's determination to cling to power:
It's hard to see how Bolton can stay. Trump has long known that Bolton wanted war more
than he does. He sidelined him on North Korea and overruled him on Iran. For his part, Bolton
has privately attacked Pompeo, long a Trump favorite, as falling captive to the State
Department bureaucracy and has predicted that the North Korea policy will fail.
Bolton has given an unusually large number of interviews to reporters and has been
rewarded with positive profiles lauding his influence and bureaucratic prowess. Those of us
who predicted that he would cling to the post of national security adviser, as it would be
the last job he'd ever get, may have been wrong. In fact, Bolton looks and sounds as if he is
preparing to exit on his own terms. Better that than being sent on a never-ending tour of the
world's most obscure places. For Bolton, leaving because he's too tough for Trump is the
perfect way to save face. Otherwise, he may be remembered as the man who presided over one of
the weakest national security teams in modern American history and someone whose myopic
obsessions -- like international treaties or communism in Venezuela -- meant the United
States lost precious time in preparing for the national security challenges of the
future.
Bolton has been allowed to drive Iran policy to the brink of war, and I can't believe that
he would voluntarily leave the position he has when he still has a chance of getting the war
with Iran that he has been seeking for years. It is true that Bolton was sent to Mongolia to
keep him out of sight during the president's visit with Kim at the DMZ, but where is the proof
that Trump has abandoned the maximalist demands that Bolton has long insisted on? On Iran,
Trump is still reciting hawkish talking points, sanctioning anything that moves, and
occasionally making more deranged threats against the entire country. Unless Trump decides to
get rid of Bolton, I don't see why Bolton would want to leave. He gets to set policy on the
issue he has obsessed over for decades, and he gets to pursue a policy of regime change in all
but name. Bolton will probably be happy to let Pompeo have all the "credit" for North Korea
policy, since there is none to be had, and he'll keep stoking the Iran obsession that has
already done so much harm to the Iranian people and brought the U.S. dangerously close to a war
it has no reason to fight.
Banishing Bolton to Mongolia was briefly entertaining for those of us that can't stand the
National Security Advisor, but it doesn't mean very much if administration policies aren't
changing. Since Bolton is the one running the policy "process," it seems unlikely that there
will be any real change as long as he is there. For whatever reason, Trump doesn't seem willing
to fire him. Maybe that's because he doesn't want to offend Sheldon Adelson, a known Bolton
supporter and big Trump donor, or maybe it's because he enjoys having Bolton as a lightning rod
to take some of the criticism, or maybe it's because their militaristic worldviews aren't as
dissimilar as many people assume. It doesn't really matter why Trump won't rid himself of
Bolton. What matters is that Bolton is supposedly "humiliated" again and again by Trump actions
or statements, and then Bolton gets back to promoting his own agenda no matter what the
president does.
For that matter, Bolton's absence from the DMZ meeting may have been exactly what he wanted.
Graeme Wood suggested
as much just the other day:
Carlson has inserted himself into the frame of this bizarre and impromptu diplomatic trip,
and that is exactly where the Boltonites want him: forever associated with a handshake that
will be recorded as a new low in the annals of presidential gullibility.
Many observers have assumed that Bolton won't be able to stay in the administration at
different points over the last several months. When Trump claimed that he didn't want regime
change in Iran, that was supposed to be a break with Bolton. The only hitch is that Bolton
maintains this same fiction that they aren't trying to bring down the Iranian government when
they obviously are. The second summit with North Korea and the possibility of some initial
agreement caused similar speculation that Bolton's influence was waning, and then he managed to
wreck the Hanoi summit by getting Trump to make demands that he and everyone else must have
known were unacceptable to the North Koreans. Every time it seems that Bolton's maximalism is
giving way to something else, Bolton gets the last laugh.
Demolishing the architecture of arms control has been one of Bolton's main ambitions
throughout his career. He has already done quite a bit of damage, but I assume he will want to
make sure that New START dies. Bolton likely will "be remembered as the man who presided over
one of the weakest national security teams in modern American history and someone whose myopic
obsessions -- like international treaties or communism in Venezuela -- meant the United States
lost precious time in preparing for the national security challenges of the future," but as
long as he has the chance to pursue those obsessions and advance his agenda I don't think he's
going to give it up. He is an abysmal National Security Advisor, a fanatic, and a menace to
this country, and I would love it if he did resign, but I just don't see it. I doubt that
Bolton cares about "saving face" as much as he does inflicting as much damage as he can while
he has the opportunity. The only thing that Bolton believes in quitting is a successful
diplomatic agreement that advances U.S. interests. That is why it is necessary for the
president to replace him, because I don't see any other way that he is going to leave.
Bolton quitting? Heck! He's just getting started. Britain, on orders from Bolton, detained
an Panamanian flagged supertanker heading to Syria with Iranian oil. Spanish officials said
the Grace 1, was seized by British patrol ships off Gibraltar, and boarded by Royal Marines
and detained on Wash.'s orders.
Bolton's power is becoming unlimited because Trump and the rest of the gov. is doing
nothing to stop his agenda, which most of Wash., must share, of starting a war with Iran, N.
Korea, or anywhere else he can stir up trouble.
It's so obvious Wash. wants Iran to fire the first shot in order to go to war and make
political donors like Sheldon Adelson happy, as well as Netanyahu who has more to say about
US foreign policy than the American people who just want to stop the wars and concentrate on
the issues and problems here at home.
After all, it's OUR MONEY going to finance all the atrocities abroad that the war industry
and other countries benefit from. Unbelievable stuff going on in Wash. and seems everyday it
gets worse and more absurd.
Despite the lack of concrete results from the Trump-Putin meeting, Moscow does not appear
discouraged. Much of the Russian commentary after the meeting emphasized that meetings such as
the one in Osaka will sooner or later yield tangible results.
Leonid Kalashnikov, chairman of the Russian State Duma's Committee for the Commonwealth of
Independent States,
stated during a discussion on Russian state television, "As a result of some summit, we'll
somehow accomplish something one way or another. There's no escaping it."
He added, "[The Americans] roared and yelled after the 1917 revolution, but by 1930 almost
all diplomatic ties were restored. They will probably deal with Crimea the same way."
Professor Dmitry Suslov from the Higher School of Economics expressed a similar perspective
to the National Interest prior to the Trump-Putin meeting. He told me that Moscow is
confident that if it stays on course, then Washington will at some point come around.
"I don't think Russia will considerably harden its position; it most certainly will not make
any concessions," he said. "Russia will just wait until the United States will begin to change
its policy [towards Russia] by its own initiative for domestic- and foreign-policy
reasons."
Earlier this year, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, described Moscow's policy to Washington as
"strategic patience" in an interview with Russian foreign-policy monthly International
Affairs .
He stated that it was the Americans themselves, "who at one time used the term 'strategic
patience,' which seems appropriate to describe the line that, it seems, should be pursued in
relations with Washington for the foreseeable future," by Russia.
The term "strategic patience" was commonly used to describe the Obama administration's
approach towards North Korea. Under the policy, Washington would avoid escalating against
Pyongyang, but also refrain from making any concessions unless North Korea made the first
move.
According to Suslov, Russia's "strategic patience" approach is based on two assumptions.
First, political polarization inside the United States will eventually subside. Once a new
domestic consensus emerges in the United States, it will be easier for whoever is in the Oval
Office to pursue a normalization of ties with Russia.
Second, the United States will realize over the next five to ten years that it cannot
simultaneously confront both China and Russia. Beijing's growing economic and military power
will incentivize the United States to make a play for better relations with Russia.
What does Russia plan on doing until such a shift in Washington's attitude towards Moscow
occurs, assuming it happens at all? Suslov explained that Russia's primary objective for now is
damage control.
"It is essential that we work with the United States to control the conflict and prevent a
direct military confrontation," he said. "To do that, it is critical to meet to discuss
questions of strategic stability and regional conflicts."
In the case of Europe, there are some signs that Moscow's "strategic patience" game plan is
yielding some dividends. Last week, Parliamentary Association of the Council of Europe (PACE)
voted to reinstate Russia's membership without any concessions on the Kremlin's part.
Russia had been suspended from the European human-rights organization after its 2014 annexation
of Crimea.
Should allies of newly inaugurated Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky triumph in the
country's parliamentary elections on July 21, the former comedian who ran on the platform of
restarting dialogue with Russia may feel emboldened
to move in that direction.
As the 2020 election season heats up, Washington is quite unlikely to pursue any significant
outreach towards Russia. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress view the Kremlin with
suspicion, and the
attitude of the general public is not much more favorable. Nevertheless, Moscow is betting
that somewhere down the line, Washington will change its mind about Russia. All it has to do is
keep the door open and wait.
Dimitri Alexander Simes is a contributor to the National Interest .
"... But to me, she looks like – among other things – a clever manipulator in her, relatively short radius. Yet, although the US is no.1. as world power, she is no match for any real world politician, anywhere. Not just now; anytime in the future. ..."
"... Her "visibility" is a confluence of a few fleeting influences. Basically, fate has favored her for the time being (I'm not talking about morals etc.). But, to think that she's capable of much more is to entertain the idea that Trump is, all the time, playing 6-dimensional chess. ..."
"... Ivanka took her conversion to Judaism to an almost insane level. This comes from the Rabbi's involved in her conversion. She is an even more hard core Zionist than "daddy dearest", if that is even humanly possible ..."
"... Two days ago I commented on Breitbart that good or bad G20, Trump looked foolish toting Ivanka along. Response: Oh yeah, he should have brought AOC, that would have been much better, you idiot. Me: So Trump's only choice was Ivanka or AOC? None of the hundreds of attorneys or diplomats who have devoted careers to international trade negotiations? ..."
Because however loud the calls for Ivanka's ouster have gotten . Ivanka just digs those stilettoes in. She won't be budged.
She refuses to take a hint.
Amazing how deaf fathers can be when it comes to their daughters. Surprising he didn't dispose of Jared by making him Secy of
Education or some shizzle like that.
Ilana seems to think, referencing Wolff (and arguing with his position), that IKT is a sort of Machiavellian (although inexperienced)
woman greedy for power who, well, should not be underestimated.
Of course no one should be underestimated.
But to me, she looks like – among other things – a clever manipulator in her, relatively short radius. Yet, although the
US is no.1. as world power, she is no match for any real world politician, anywhere. Not just now; anytime in the future.
She seems to be one of those people who are lucky for a period of time, but soon disappear from the scene. Her "visibility"
is a confluence of a few fleeting influences. Basically, fate has favored her for the time being (I'm not talking about morals
etc.). But, to think that she's capable of much more is to entertain the idea that Trump is, all the time, playing 6-dimensional
chess.
Trump's(Ivanka)Hebrew name is "Yael." In the Book of Judges, a woman named Yael came upon the enemy king Sisera, who had
fled from battle with the Isralites. She fed and sheltered him until he fell asleep. Then she killed him by using a mallet to
drive a tent peg into his skull.
Ivanka took her conversion to Judaism to an almost insane level. This comes from the Rabbi's involved in her conversion.
She is an even more hard core Zionist than "daddy dearest", if that is even humanly possible. Ivanka believes she is now a
chosenite of the highest order and is therefore destined to rule over all us insignificant little Goys. Yael's greatest
concern is rising antisemitism here in the US of Israel.
Many of our MAGApedes still think Ivanka's great because Trump is God Emperor.
Two days ago I commented on Breitbart that good or bad G20, Trump looked foolish toting Ivanka along. Response: Oh yeah, he should have brought AOC, that would have been much better, you idiot. Me: So Trump's only choice was Ivanka or AOC? None of the hundreds of attorneys or diplomats who have devoted careers to
international trade negotiations?
Response: I would take Ivanka over any single "professional" negotiator of the past 30 years – hands down.
I think the sage commenters at Unz underestimate just how entrenched God Emperor's fanatic support remains. And apparently
this support extends to Jarvanka.
Let us not forget the words of General George Cornwallis in 1781.
"Your churches will be used to teach the Jew's religion and in less than two hundred years, the whole nation will be working
for divine world government. That government that they believe to be divine will be the British Empire. All religions will be
permeated with Judaism without even being noticed by the masses, and they will all be under the invisible all-seeing eye of
the Grand Architect of Freemasonry."
In the words of a speaker at a secret B'nai Brith meeting in Paris in 1936:
"Yet it remains our secret that those Gentiles who betray their own and most precious interests, by joining us in our
plot should never know that these associations are of our creation and that they serve our purpose
"One of the many triumphs of our Freemasonry is that those Gentiles who become members of our Lodges, should never suspect
that we are using them to build their own jails, upon whose terraces we shall erect the throne of our Universal King of
Israel; and should never know that we are commanding them to forge the chains of their own servility to our future King
of the World."
Cornwallis, apparently not wanting to face Washington, claimed to be ill on the day of the surrender, and sent Brigadier
General Charles O'Hara in his place to surrender his sword formally.
Washington had his second-in-command, Benjamin Lincoln,
accept Cornwallis' sword
Over the last two years, a different, in some ways unrecognizable Larry Summers has been appearing in newspaper editorial pages.
More circumspect in tone, this humbler Summers has been arguing that economic opportunities in the developing world are slowing,
and that the already rich economies are finding it hard to get out of the crisis. Barring some kind of breakthrough, Summers says,
an era of slow growth is here to stay.
In Summers's recent writings, this sombre conclusion has often been paired with a surprising political goal: advocating for a
"responsible nationalism". Now he argues that politicians must recognise that "the basic responsibility of government is to maximise
the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good".
One curious thing about the pro-globalisation consensus of the 1990s and 2000s, and its collapse in recent years, is how closely
the cycle resembles a previous era. Pursuing free trade has always produced displacement and inequality – and political chaos, populism
and retrenchment to go with it. Every time the social consequences of free trade are overlooked, political backlash follows. But
free trade is only one of many forms that economic integration can take. History seems to suggest, however, that it might be the
most destabilising one.
... ... ...
The international systems that chastened figures such as Keynes helped produce in the next few years – especially the Bretton
Woods agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) – set the terms under which the new wave of globalisation
would take place.
The key to the system's viability, in Rodrik's view, was its flexibility – something absent from contemporary globalisation,
with its one-size-fits-all model of capitalism. Bretton Woods stabilised exchange rates by pegging the dollar loosely to gold, and
other currencies to the dollar. Gatt consisted of rules governing free trade – negotiated by participating countries in a series
of multinational "rounds" – that left many areas of the world economy, such as agriculture, untouched or unaddressed. "Gatt's purpose
was never to maximise free trade," Rodrik writes. "It was to achieve the maximum amount of trade compatible with different nations
doing their own thing. In that respect, the institution proved spectacularly successful."
Partly because Gatt was not always dogmatic about free trade, it allowed most countries to figure out their own economic objectives,
within a somewhat international ambit. When nations contravened the agreement's terms on specific areas of national interest, they
found that it "contained loopholes wide enough for an elephant to pass", in Rodrik's words. If a nation wanted to protect its steel
industry, for example, it could claim "injury" under the rules of Gatt and raise tariffs to discourage steel imports: "an abomination
from the standpoint of free trade". These were useful for countries that were recovering from the war and needed to build up their
own industries via tariffs – duties imposed on particular imports. Meanwhile, from 1948 to 1990, world trade grew at an annual average
of nearly 7% – faster than the post-communist years, which we think of as the high point of globalisation. "If there was a golden
era of globalisation," Rodrik has written, "this was it."
Gatt, however, failed to cover many of the countries in the developing world. These countries eventually created their own system,
the United Nations conference on trade and development (UNCTAD). Under this rubric, many countries – especially in Latin America,
the Middle East, Africa and Asia – adopted a policy of protecting homegrown industries by replacing imports with domestically produced
goods. It worked poorly in some places – India and Argentina, for example, where the trade barriers were too high, resulting in
factories that cost more to set up than the value of the goods they produced – but remarkably well in others, such as east Asia,
much of Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where homegrown industries did spring up. Though many later economists and
commentators would dismiss the achievements of this model, it theoretically fit Larry Summers's recent rubric on globalisation:
"the basic responsibility of government is to maximise the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global
good."
The critical turning point – away from this system of trade balanced against national protections – came in the 1980s. Flagging
growth and high inflation in the west, along with growing competition from Japan, opened the way for a political transformation.
The elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were seminal, putting free-market radicals in charge of two of the world's
five biggest economies and ushering in an era of "hyperglobalisation". In the new political climate, economies with large public
sectors and strong governments within the global capitalist system were no longer seen as aids to the system's functioning, but
impediments to it.
Not only did these ideologies take hold in the US and the UK; they seized international institutions as well. Gatt renamed itself
as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the new rules the body negotiated began to cut more deeply into national policies. Its
international trade rules sometimes undermined national legislation. The WTO's appellate court intervened relentlessly in member
nations' tax, environmental and regulatory policies, including those of the United States: the US's fuel emissions standards were
judged to discriminate against imported gasoline, and its
ban on imported shrimp caught without turtle-excluding
devices was overturned. If national health and safety regulations were stricter than WTO rules necessitated, they could only
remain in place if they were shown to have "scientific justification".
The purest version of hyperglobalisation was tried out in Latin America in the 1980s. Known as the "Washington consensus", this
model usually involved loans from the IMF that were contingent on those countries lowering trade barriers and privatising many of
their nationally held industries. Well into the 1990s, economists were proclaiming the indisputable benefits of openness. In an
influential 1995 paper, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner wrote: "We find no cases to support the frequent worry that a country might
open and yet fail to grow."
But the Washington consensus was bad for business: most countries did worse than before. Growth faltered, and citizens across
Latin America revolted against attempted privatisations of water and gas. In Argentina, which followed the Washington consensus
to the letter, a grave crisis resulted in
2002 , precipitating an economic collapse and massive street protests that forced out the government that had pursued privatising
reforms. Argentina's revolt presaged a left-populist upsurge across the continent: from 1999 to 2007, leftwing leaders and parties
took power in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, all of them campaigning against the Washington consensus on globalisation.
These revolts were a preview of the backlash of today.
Rodrik – perhaps the contemporary economist whose views have been most amply vindicated by recent events – was himself a beneficiary
of protectionism in Turkey. His father's ballpoint pen company was sheltered under tariffs, and achieved enough success to allow
Rodrik to attend Harvard in the 1970s as an undergraduate. This personal understanding of the mixed nature of economic success may
be one of the reasons why his work runs against the broad consensus of mainstream economics writing on globalisation.
"I never felt that my ideas were out of the mainstream," Rodrik told me recently. Instead, it was that the mainstream had lost
touch with the diversity of opinions and methods that already existed within economics. "The economics profession is strange in
that the more you move away from the seminar room to the public domain, the more the nuances get lost, especially on issues of trade."
He lamented the fact that while, in the classroom, the models of trade discuss losers and winners, and, as a result, the necessity
of policies of redistribution, in practice, an "arrogance and hubris" had led many economists to ignore these implications. "Rather
than speaking truth to power, so to speak, many economists became cheerleaders for globalisation."
In his 2011 book The Globalization Paradox
, Rodrik concluded that "we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national determination, and economic globalisation." The
results of the 2016 elections and referendums provide ample testimony of the justness of the thesis, with millions voting to push
back, for better or for worse, against the campaigns and institutions that promised more globalisation. "I'm not at all surprised
by the backlash," Rodrik told me. "Really, nobody should have been surprised."
But what, in any case, would "more globalisation" look like? For the same economists and writers who have started to rethink
their commitments to greater integration, it doesn't mean quite what it did in the early 2000s. It's not only the discourse that's
changed: globalisation itself has changed, developing into a more chaotic and unequal system than many economists predicted. The
benefits of globalisation have been largely concentrated in a handful of Asian countries. And even in those countries, the good
times may be running out.
Statistics from Global Inequality
, a 2016 book by the development economist Branko Milanović, indicate that in relative terms the greatest benefits of globalisation
have accrued to a rising "emerging middle class", based preponderantly in China. But the cons are there, too: in absolute terms,
the largest gains have gone to what is commonly called "the 1%" – half of whom are based in the US. Economist Richard Baldwin has
shown in his recent book, The Great Convergence, that nearly all of the gains from globalisation have been concentrated in six countries.
Barring some political catastrophe, in which rightwing populism continued to gain, and in which globalisation would be the least
of our problems – Wolf admitted that he was "not at all sure" that this could be ruled out – globalisation was always going to slow;
in fact, it already has. One reason, says Wolf, was that "a very, very large proportion of the gains from globalisation – by no
means all – have been exploited. We have a more open world economy to trade than we've ever had before." Citing The Great Convergence,
Wolf noted that supply chains have already expanded, and that future developments, such as automation and the use of robots, looked
to undermine the promise of a growing industrial workforce. Today, the political priorities were less about trade and more about
the challenge of retraining workers , as technology renders old jobs obsolete and transforms the world of work.
Rodrik, too, believes that globalisation, whether reduced or increased, is unlikely to produce the kind of economic effects it
once did. For him, this slowdown has something to do with what he calls "premature deindustrialisation". In the past, the simplest
model of globalisation suggested that rich countries would gradually become "service economies", while emerging economies picked
up the industrial burden. Yet recent statistics show the world as a whole is deindustrialising. Countries that one would have expected
to have more industrial potential are going through the stages of automation more quickly than previously developed countries did,
and thereby failing to develop the broad industrial workforce seen as a key to shared prosperity.
For both Rodrik and Wolf, the political reaction to globalisation bore possibilities of deep uncertainty. "I really have found
it very difficult to decide whether what we're living through is a blip, or a fundamental and profound transformation of the world
– at least as significant as the one that brought about the first world war and the Russian revolution," Wolf told me. He cited
his agreement with economists such as Summers that shifting away from the earlier emphasis on globalisation had now become a political
priority; that to pursue still greater liberalisation was like showing "a red rag to a bull" in terms of what it might do to the
already compromised political stability of the western world.
Rodrik pointed to a belated emphasis, both among political figures and economists, on the necessity of compensating those displaced
by globalisation with retraining and more robust welfare states. But pro-free-traders had a history of cutting compensation: Bill
Clinton passed Nafta, but failed to expand safety nets. "The issue is that the people are rightly not trusting the centrists who
are now promising compensation," Rodrik said. "One reason that Hillary Clinton didn't get any traction with those people is that
she didn't have any credibility."
Rodrik felt that economics commentary failed to register the gravity of the situation: that there were increasingly few avenues
for global growth, and that much of the damage done by globalisation – economic and political – is irreversible. "There is a sense
that we're at a turning point," he said. "There's a lot more thinking about what can be done. There's a renewed emphasis on compensation
– which, you know, I think has come rather late."
"... Kolomoisky is the man who controls the recently elected Jewish president Zelensky -- a comedian. ..."
"... Let's not forget that Theresa May is the one who has worked assiduously on trying to overcome the results of the British referendum. She does not believe in democracy. ..."
"... This man most certainly made a substantial offshore payment to Largarde or her companies or her lawyers. That is how it works everywhere. ..."
She robbed the French taxpayer of some 404 billion Euros. The fact that she is not in
prison while protesters are being injured weekly by the French police tells you a lot about
why these people are protesting.
Since then, she has continued with her corrupt behaviour by greatly enriching the
Ukrainian/Israeli oligarch Kolomoisky -- who robbed his own bank.
How Christine Lagarde, Clinton and Nuland Funded a Massive Ukrainian Ponzi
Scheme
Kolomoisky is the man who controls the recently elected Jewish president Zelensky -- a
comedian.
I think the writer pays too much to the attire of May and Lagarde -- The pearls, the tweed
and gingham suits -- when their corruption is totally 21st century. Let's not forget that
Theresa May is the one who has worked assiduously on trying to overcome the results of the
British referendum. She does not believe in democracy. Replies: @Logan
, @George F.
Held
One of the functions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is imposing austerity
measures on the people of poor countries seeking bailouts, so perhaps choosing a corporate
lawyer to run it is fitting.
@Logan
ness tampering. After a high-profile case against public prosecutor Éric de
Montgolfier, he was sentenced in 1995 by the Court of Appeals of Douai to 2 years in prison,
including 8 months non-suspended and 3 years of deprivation of his civic rights.
"... Almost exactly one year before his death in 2011, Christopher Hitchens reaffirmed his support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and predicted that a "confrontation" with "theocratic Iran" was all but inevitable. ..."
"... The Rage Against God ..."
"... When Hitchens called the Iranian government a "messianic regime" that was motivated purely by religious fanaticism and was "enslaving and ruining a formerly great civilization," he lent his voice to the multitude of neoconservatives who insist that the Tehran regime cannot be reasoned with. If Iran's leaders are nothing more than jabbering jihadists who have imposed themselves on the Iranian people against their will, then any war against Iran would be a war of liberation. ..."
"... Peter Hitchens describes his brother's hawkish neoconservative foreign policy as a natural outgrowth of Christopher's youthful Bolshevism, saying that he "continued to be utopian long after he should've stopped, and that's what got him into the mess over the Iraq war." In The Rage Against God ..."
"... If humanity's woes are entirely the result of a particular ideology (whether that ideology is capitalism or religion), then those who sustain that ideology must be exterminated. Hitchens' foreign policy will reach its endpoint only when, to quote the 18th-century French radical Denis Diderot, "the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest," with Hitchens himself deciding who falls into each of those categories. ..."
"... The neocon foreign policy can thus be read as an inheritance from atheistic leftism and, as Peter Hitchens reminds us, is in direct conflict with both Christianity and conservatism. ..."
"... Grayson Quay is a freelance writer and M.A. at Georgetown University. ..."
"... The intellectual founder of neo-conservatism, Leo Strauss, was also an atheist. Strauss, being Jewish, fled Europe with the rise of the Nazi's, but he also admired that form of governence. Strauss believed that a population had to be united in order for a society to flourish. And the best way to do that was through religion and patriotism. So the national leadership should always extol God and military power, and there must always be an enemy with which to go to war. ..."
"... eternal; war for eternal conquest ..."
"... Blood Meridian ..."
"... Who set the terms you demand that I use? Trotsky certainly saw himself in a very different light than did decant, average Russians, and Trotsky also demand that people use his terms exactly as he wanted them used to discuss anything that might be about him. ..."
"... American Neocons are no different. ..."
"... Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional theocracy. ..."
"... In practice, the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution). ..."
"... Well, as an atheist myself I do agree that utopian atheists are amongst the most dangerous people on earth. ..."
"... That's why I prefer Trump over Hillary. Anything is better than an utopian atheist (or progressive warmonger if you like). ..."
"... Do you really believe rapists, pedos, abusers of women and children and so forth only exists in religious communities? Come on. Are you living in Israel? Because then I can understand where that is coming from. You feel threatened as a secular Jew by the Orthodox Jews is my guess. ..."
"... I'm a leftist and atheist but calling Hitchens, or Dawkins, or Sam Harris, or Maher as typical "leftist atheists" is like calling Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden a leftist. They're not, they're jerks and would be jerks no matter what they believed in or lacked belief in. ..."
"... "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." ..."
"... Religion was used as both a justification for slavery and as a justification for the Civil rights movement. It's obvious it justified neither and people just used the parts of their religion that applied to their goals as a means to rally fellow believers to their cause. ..."
"... Finally, if you're going to use Hitchens' atheism as an explanation for his militaristic views then how do you explain the overt religiosity of the Bush Administration which waged those idiotic wars? Was it their faith that is responsible for that? ..."
"... As theologian Jeffery Burton Russell put it: "Perhaps even the devil has persuaded himself that he is doing the right thing." ..."
Almost exactly one year before his death in 2011, Christopher Hitchens
reaffirmed his support for the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq and predicted that a "confrontation" with "theocratic Iran" was all but inevitable.
Now, nine years later, his prediction is perilously close to coming true. But if we recognize the biases that underlie the famous
atheist's assessment of the geopolitical situation, it quickly becomes clear that his hawkish worldview could never lead to peace
and is in fact a recipe for perpetual, and perpetually escalating, war.
When I recently watched Hitchens' 2009 debate with Christian apologist William Lane Craig over the existence of God, I noted
that although Hitchens' logos failed to measure up to Craig's philosophical expertise, on the level of pathos
, Hitchens's
stark recounting of the horrors of religious violence and oppression could not be easily discounted, even by a lifelong Christian
like myself.
Eventually, though, Hitchens began to overplay his hand, blaming Russian ultranationalism and the continuing cult of Stalin on
the Orthodox Church and the Holocaust on Christian anti-Semitism without so much as gesturing toward either the Soviet Union's religious
persecutions or the eugenics movement that was vehemently, and almost exclusively, opposed by such religious intellectual giants
as G.K. Chesterton. Hitchens even compared North Korea's totalitarian regime to the Christian conception of heaven, failing to acknowledge
either the explicit atheism of jucheideology or the Christian insistence that no political leader is worthy of the reverence
we owe to God.
The whole thing began to remind me of an exchange between the Catholic columnist Ross Douthat and the atheist Bill Maher on an
episode of Real Time . In response to Maher's assertion that most atrocities are motivated by religion, Douthat countered,
"Not in the 20th century. Not in the Soviet Union. Lot of dead bodies there. Not a lot of Christians, except among the dead bodies."
To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular religion." Before Douthat could ask what
the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear: everything Maher
doesn't like is religion.
Hitchens' own atheism seems to have followed a similar trajectory. In a 2005 column on the Iraq war titled "A War to Be Proud
Of," Hitchens insisted that Francis Fukuyama's utopian "end of history" was "over before it began" and castigates Western democracies
for failing throughout the 1990s to crack down on human rights abuses in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Somalia. His clear message was that
if Fukuyama's predictions of perpetual peace in a secular, liberal, democratic world were to be realized, we must be willing to
shed blood. This language of millenarian warfare is particularly ironic coming from a man who criticized Israel for encroaching
on Palestinian land in an attempt (at least in Hitchens' view) to inaugurate their own messianic age.
Christopher's younger brother, the Anglican conservative Peter Hitchens, offered an important corrective to this atheistic utopian
aggression when he wrote in his 2010 book The Rage Against God , "The only general lesson that can be drawn from these differing
wars," some overtly religious and some not, "is that man is inclined to make war on man when he thinks it will gain him power or
wealth or land." If religion is the cause of all war, then the sooner it is stamped out the better. But if violence and oppression
stem from human nature rather than from superstition or clerical brainwashing, then the elder Hitchens' commitment to attributing
all the world's ills to religious fanaticism (as defined by none other than Christopher Hitchens himself) can lead only to endless
warfare against an ever-expanding list of enemies.
Eulogizing Christopher Hitchens in a
2011 New Yorker piece , author George Packer noted that his late subject's "molten anti-clericalism burned so hot that
he turned it without a second thought at a secular, totalitarian Iraqi dictator." Hitchens himself scoffed at the idea of describing
Saddam Hussein as "secular," but perhaps he would have regretted that assertion had he lived to see the supposedly fanatical Baath
regime replaced by the truly theocratic ISIS. Or maybe not. Maybe he would have insisted that America bring the boot of secular
civilization down once again, harder this time. It matters not that, as the Cato Institute's Doug Bandow has observed, this sort
of regime change "rarely yield[s] liberal, pro-Western regimes." The floggings will continue until civilization improves.
Echoes of Hitchens' foreign policy are still audible in the current debate surrounding Iran. When Hitchens called the Iranian
government a "messianic regime" that was motivated purely by religious fanaticism and was "enslaving and ruining a formerly great
civilization," he lent his voice to the multitude of neoconservatives who insist that the Tehran regime cannot be reasoned with.
If Iran's leaders are nothing more than jabbering jihadists who have imposed themselves on the Iranian people against their will,
then any war against Iran would be a war of liberation.
Peter Hitchens describes his brother's hawkish neoconservative foreign policy as a natural outgrowth of Christopher's youthful
Bolshevism, saying that he "continued to be utopian long after he should've stopped, and that's what got him into the mess over
the Iraq war." In The Rage Against God , Peter even goes so far as to claim that "utopian atheism" is "common among neoconservatives."
In light of this statement, professing Christians who agree with the elder Hitchens' views on foreign policy would do well to
question whether they also agree with his godless, leftist premises.
If humanity's woes are entirely the result of a particular ideology (whether that ideology is capitalism or religion), then
those who sustain that ideology must be exterminated. Hitchens' foreign policy will reach its endpoint only when, to quote the 18th-century
French radical Denis Diderot, "the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest," with Hitchens himself deciding
who falls into each of those categories.
But if human suffering is, at least in part, the result of our own inherent defects (or sins, if you like), then those who set
foreign policy would do well to purge themselves of all utopian inclinations before launching any sort of military intervention.
The neocon foreign policy can thus be read as an inheritance from atheistic leftism and, as Peter Hitchens reminds us, is in
direct conflict with both Christianity and conservatism.
Grayson Quay is a freelance writer and M.A. at Georgetown University.
The intellectual founder of neo-conservatism, Leo Strauss, was also an atheist. Strauss, being Jewish, fled Europe with the
rise of the Nazi's, but he also admired that form of governence. Strauss believed that a population had to be united in order
for a society to flourish. And the best way to do that was through religion and patriotism. So the national leadership should
always extol God and military power, and there must always be an enemy with which to go to war.
Of course, the actual national leaders should be atheists. I'm always surprised that even Christian intellectuals chose to
"fuse" with Jewish, atheistic philosophies like neo-conservatism (Strauss) and libertarianism (Hayek, Rand) to form the modern
Republican Party.
At least conservative Christians haven't been told to believe there is something special about Israel. That would start sounding
like a conspiracy.
Not so long ago, during the heady days of our Great Quest to Topple the New and Possibly Worse Hitler Saddam Hussein (who
orchestrated 9/11, according to all kinds of people), I was far from alone in being shut out of commenting on 'conservative'
sites for making points along the lines of this article.
Neoconservatism is not 'conservatism; in any sense that has value. Neoconservatism is partially Leon Trotsky- Marxism refashioned
into eternal; war for eternal conquest Capitalism. And it is partially, probably more than the Trotsky part, nothing
more than an updating of the British Empire's drive to war across the globe every year in order to control at least partially
every corner of the globe, in order the male the elites that control the Empire ever richer.
The 'God of War' philosophy that drives Cormac McCarthy's Judge Holden in Blood Meridian (it cannot be overstressed
that the Judge is a rather obvious Satan figure) is the philosophy that drives Neoconservatism.
Who set the terms you demand that I use? Trotsky certainly saw himself in a very different light than did decant, average
Russians, and Trotsky also demand that people use his terms exactly as he wanted them used to discuss anything that might be
about him.
American Neocons are no different.
You tell us what would be the meaning of Neoconservative that is "consistent with the use of the term in American political
discourse since the 1970s..." Then you tell us who controlled that discourse to the advantage of whom, toward what ends.
To this day, Maher's response still leaves me dumbfounded: "I would say that's a secular religion." Before Douthat could
ask what the hell a secular religion is, Maher changed the subject. The meaning of Maher's nonsensical statement was clear:
everything Maher doesn't like is religion.
Maher was right. I've been saying for decades -- since Brezhnev was still alive -- that the Soviet Union was a functional
theocracy. Sure, they didn't use God or angels or miracles in their rhetoric, but that's just surface trappings.
In practice,
the USSR behaved exactly like a brutal totalitarian theocracy would. They had an impersonal god (the theory of history that
would lead inevitably to heaven on Earth) which the government treated as the source of their authority and their justification
for everything they did in the name of the Revolution. They had a state church (the Communist Party -- no rivals allowed) that
you needed to join to get anywhere in society. They had prophets (look what they did with Lenin after his death), saints (heroes
of the Revolution), idols, sacred texts that could not be challenged, brutal suppression of other religions, witch hunts for
heretics (anyone who opposed the Revolution).
So yes: the USSR turned "communism" into their de facto state religion. No, they didn't include personified invisible
spirits in their ideology. But if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ....
This is simply stupid, the excuse-makings of all atheists who want to insist the religious cause violence. You're mistaking
religion with atheists REPLACING God with THEIR political "religion".
Which allows them to kill with abandon seeing as how there
is no good and evil in their world. Only differing results for differing 5 year plans and their assessments of the results.
Well, as an atheist myself I do agree that utopian atheists are amongst the most dangerous people on earth. I would prefer
religious people (even Orthodox Christians, brrr) over them any time of the day. That's why I prefer Trump over Hillary. Anything
is better than an utopian atheist (or progressive warmonger if you like).
Like the saying goes: nothing has brought more evil in the world then good intentions delivered by the sword. Or, as the
Devil said to Faust: I am part of a force that always wants to do good but always brings evil. Right now in history, it's atheistic
progressivism that fit that bill.
Proper education with atheism is fine. When education isnt as relevant you have more rapists, pedos, crimes, abuse against
women and children, and this only exists in religious communities, I'm more fearful living with them.. When you dumb down education,
it allows overbreeding, more religious voters, which vote in more of these religious politicians trying to push their religious
agenda even with church and state suppose to be separated.; some of these politicians when I see them brag about "rape" being
ok by gods plan... when they are religious, now tell me again..whos sane...
There are good higher educated cities and countries with higher atheist ratio and LOWEST rates of above, crime, pedos, abuse,
rape, etc...better quality of life compared to religious...
Do you really believe rapists, pedos, abusers of women and children and so forth only exists in religious communities? Come
on. Are you living in Israel? Because then I can understand where that is coming from. You feel threatened as a secular Jew
by the Orthodox Jews is my guess.
You have a good point however. There are certainly cities and countries like you describe. But I was talking not about atheists
in general (which I am myself) but about utopian atheists. Those who believe they must eradicate God and religion all together
in this world in the name of social justice and the progressive sexual-gender-racial revolution. Those who believe so-called
universal rights should be delivered by force and might worldwide. Those who believe they know better what's good for Christians
than Christians themselves.
It is a crucial distinction to me. Those atheists are not my atheists, spoken as an atheist.
I'm a leftist and atheist but calling Hitchens, or Dawkins, or Sam Harris, or Maher as typical "leftist atheists" is like
calling Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden a leftist. They're not, they're jerks and would be jerks no matter what they believed in
or lacked belief in.
And William Lane Craig is constantly underestimated even if I disagree entirely with his position. He wins against the prepared,
and utterly destroys the unprepared and makes them look ridiculous as they flounder. Always good to watch.
Wars are fought because leaders lust for power, glory, wealth. Religion is just one of many tools used to manipulate the
people of a nation into supporting war.
Patriotism is another. Here is a quote by Hermann Goering:
"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when
the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war;
neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it
is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether
it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is
tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same way in any country."
It seems a bit of a stretch to claim one's atheism accounts for their justification of militarism just as it is a stretch
to claim one's faith accounts for the same. Maybe it's just that people like to find things to justify their terrible ideas?
Religion was used as both a justification for slavery and as a justification for the Civil rights movement. It's obvious
it justified neither and people just used the parts of their religion that applied to their goals as a means to rally fellow
believers to their cause.
I'm an atheist. I enjoyed Hitchens when he spoke about free speech and I've read many of his books but he never got me on
his side regarding war and fount his "angry atheist" approach very annoying. If anything, hearing his arguments for war made
me a more critical thinker because it was coming from someone I respected and agreed with on other issues - it made me question
my reasons for being against the wars and better understand my own rationale since I couldn't just use group think as a crutch.
Finally, if you're going to use Hitchens' atheism as an explanation for his militaristic views then how do you explain
the overt religiosity of the Bush Administration which waged those idiotic wars? Was it their faith that is responsible for
that?
This would be a much more informative article if it tried less to place blame on atheism and focused more on how we all use
our ideologies to justify our actions - whether good or bad.
As theologian Jeffery Burton Russell put it: "Perhaps even the devil has persuaded himself that he is doing the right
thing."
"... The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers ..."
"... It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent on the United States ..."
"... American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got to lose." ..."
"... The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president ..."
"... Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market, and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat in Latin America. ..."
"... The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments problems ..."
"... The IMF enables its wealthy constituency to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss ..."
"... Wall Street speculators have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style. ..."
"... When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. ..."
"... Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products. ..."
"... Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries. ..."
"... This control by the U.S. financial system and its diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism. ..."
"... The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires holding their money in Switzerland ..."
"... The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF so vicious an institution. ..."
"... America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other. ..."
"... You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap in Korea and other Asian countries. ..."
"... This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight. ..."
"... Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors. ..."
"... But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's called "grandfathering". ..."
"The purpose of a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose
tribute. The genius of the World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute,
or to take over its industry, agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries
play an artificial economic game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing
and loss of life by soldiers."
I'm Bonnie Faulkner. Today on Guns and Butter: Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show: The IMF and World Bank: Partners In Backwardness
. Dr. Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend,
a Wall Street Financial Analyst, and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
His most recent books include " and Forgive them Their Debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance
to the Jubilee Year "; Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy , and J Is for
Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception . He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
, among many other books.
We return today to a discussion of Dr. Hudson's seminal 1972 book, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire
, a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank, with a special emphasis on
food imperialism.
... ... ...
Bonnie Faulkner : In your seminal work form 1972, Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire ,
you write: "The development lending of the World Bank has been dysfunctional from the outset." When was the World Bank set up and
by whom?
Michael Hudson : It was set up basically by the United States in 1944, along with its sister institution, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). Their purpose was to create an international order like a funnel to make other countries economically dependent
on the United States. To make sure that no other country or group of countries – even all the rest of the world – could not
dictate U.S. policy. American diplomats insisted on the ability to veto any action by the World Bank or IMF. The aim of this
veto power was to make sure that any policy was, in Donald Trump's words, to put America first. "We've got to win and they've got
to lose."
The World Bank was set up from the outset as a branch of the military, of the Defense Department. John J. McCloy (Assistant
Secretary of War, 1941-45), was the first full-time president. He later became Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank (1953-60).
McNamara was Secretary of Defense (1961-68), Paul Wolfowitz was Deputy and Under Secretary of Defense (1989-2005), and Robert Zoellick
was Deputy Secretary of State. So I think you can look at the World Bank as the soft shoe of American diplomacy.
Bonnie Faulkner : What is the difference between the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the IMF? Is
there a difference?
Michael Hudson : Yes, there is. The World Bank was supposed to make loans for what they call international development.
"Development" was their euphemism for dependency on U.S. exports and finance. This dependency entailed agricultural backwardness
– opposing land reform, family farming to produce domestic food crops, and also monetary backwardness in basing their monetary system
on the dollar.
The World Bank was supposed to provide infrastructure loans that other countries would go into debt to pay American engineering
firms, to build up their export sectors and their plantation sectors by public investment roads and port development for imports
and exports. Essentially, the Bank financed long- investments in the foreign trade sector, in a way that was a natural continuation
of European colonialism.
In 1941, for example, C. L. R. James wrote an article on "Imperialism in Africa" pointing out the fiasco of European railroad
investment in Africa: "Railways must serve flourishing industrial areas, or densely populated agricult5ural regions, or they must
open up new land along which a thriving population develops and provides the railways with traffic. Except in the mining regions
of South Africa, all these conditions are absent. Yet railways were needed, for the benefit of European investors and heavy industry."
That is why, James explained "only governments can afford to operate them," while being burdened with heavy interest obligations.
[1] What was "developed" was Africa's
mining and plantation export sector, not its domestic economies. The World Bank followed this pattern of "development" lending without
apology.
The IMF was in charge of short-term foreign currency loans. Its aim was to prevent countries from imposing capital controls to
protect their balance of payments. Many countries had a dual exchange rate: one for trade in goods and services, the other rate
for capital movements. The function of the IMF and World Bank was essentially to make other countries borrow in dollars, not in
their own currencies, and to make sure that if they could not pay their dollar-denominated debts, they had to impose austerity on
the domestic economy – while subsidizing their import and export sectors and protecting foreign investors, creditors and client
oligarchies from loss.
The IMF developed a junk-economics model pretending that any country can pay any amount of debt to the creditors if it just impoverishes
its labor enough. So when countries were unable to pay their debt service, the IMF tells them to raise their interest rates to bring
on a depression – austerity – and break up the labor unions. That is euphemized as "rationalizing labor markets." The rationalizing
is essentially to disable labor unions and the public sector. The aim – and effect – is to prevent countries from essentially following
the line of development that had made the United States rich – by public subsidy and protection of domestic agriculture, public
subsidy and protection of industry and an active government sector promoting a New Deal democracy. The IMF was essentially promoting
and forcing other countries to balance their trade deficits by letting American and other investors buy control of their commanding
heights, mainly their infrastructure monopolies, and to subsidize their capital flight.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Now, Michael, when you began speaking about the IMF and monetary controls, you mentioned that there
were two exchange rates of currency in countries. What were you referring to?
MICHAEL HUDSON : When I went to work on Wall Street in the '60s, I was balance-of-payments economist for Chase Manhattan,
and we used the IMF's monthly International Financial Statistics every month. At the top of each country's statistics would
be the exchange-rate figures. Many countries had two rates: one for goods and services, which was set normally by the market,
and then a different exchange rate that was managed for capital movements. That was because countries were trying to prevent capital
flight. They didn't want their wealthy classes or foreign investors to make a run on their own currency – an ever-present threat
in Latin America.
The IMF and the World Bank backed the cosmopolitan classes, the wealthy. Instead of letting countries control their capital
outflows and prevent capital flight, the IMF's job is to protect the richest One Percent and foreign investors from balance-of-payments
problems.
The World Bank and American diplomacy have steered them into a chronic currency crisis. The IMF enables its wealthy constituency
to move their money out of the country without taking a foreign-exchange loss. It makes loans to support capital flight out
of domestic currencies into the dollar or other hard currencies. The IMF calls this a "stabilization" program. It is never effective
in helping the debtor economy pay foreign debts out of growth. Instead, the IMF uses currency depreciation and sell-offs of public
infrastructure and other assets to foreign investors after the flight capital has left and currency collapses. Wall Street speculators
have sold the local currency short to make a killing, George-Soros style.
When the debtor-country currency collapses, the debts that these Latin American countries owe are in dollars, and now have
to pay much more in their own currency to carry and pay off these debts. We're talking about enormous penalty rates in domestic
currency for these countries to pay foreign-currency debts – basically taking on to finance a non-development policy and to subsidize
capital flight when that policy "fails" to achieve its pretended objective of growth.
All hyperinflations of Latin America – Chile early on, like Germany after World War I – come from trying to pay foreign debts
beyond the ability to be paid. Local currency is thrown onto the foreign-exchange market for dollars, lowering the exchange
rate. That increases import prices, raising a price umbrella for domestic products.
A really functional and progressive international monetary fund that would try to help countries develop would say: "Okay, banks
and we (the IMF) have made bad loans that the country can't pay. And the World Bank has given it bad advice, distorting its domestic
development to serve foreign customers rather than its own growth. So we're going to write down the loans to the ability to be paid."
That's what happened in 1931, when the world finally stopped German reparations payments and Inter-Ally debts to the United States
stemming from World War I.
Instead, the IMF says just the opposite: It acts to prevent any move by other countries to bring the debt volume within
the ability to be paid. It uses debt leverage as a way to control the monetary lifeline of financially defeated debtor countries.
So if they do something that U.S. diplomats don't approve of, it can pull the plug financially, encouraging a run on their currency
if they act independently of the United States instead of falling in line. This control by the U.S. financial system and its
diplomacy has been built into the world system by the IMF and the World Bank claiming to be international instead of an expression
of specifically U.S. New Cold War nationalism.
BONNIE FAULKNER : How do exchange rates contribute to capital flight?
MICHAEL HUDSON : It's not the exchange rate that contributes. Suppose that you're a millionaire, and you see that your
country is unable to balance its trade under existing production patterns. The money that the government has under control is pesos,
escudos, cruzeiros or some other currency, not dollars or euros. You see that your currency is going to go down relative to the
dollar, so you want to get our money out of the country to preserve your purchasing power.
This has long been institutionalized. By 1990, for instance, Latin American countries had defaulted so much in the wake of the
Mexico defaults in 1982 that I was hired by Scudder Stevens, to help start a Third World Bond Fund (called a "sovereign high-yield
fund"). At the time, Argentina and Brazil were running such serious balance-of-payments deficits that they were having to pay 45
percent per year interest, in dollars, on their dollar debt. Mexico, was paying 22.5 percent on its tesobonos .
Scudders' salesmen went around to the United States and tried to sell shares in the proposed fund, but no Americans would buy
it, despite the enormous yields. They sent their salesmen to Europe and got a similar reaction. They had lost their shirts on Third
World bonds and couldn't see how these countries could pay.
Merrill Lynch was the fund's underwriter. Its office in Brazil and in Argentina proved much more successful in selling investments
in Scudder's these offshore fund established in the Dutch West Indies. It was an offshore fund, so Americans were not able to buy
it. But Brazilian and Argentinian rich families close to the central bank and the president became the major buyers. We realized
that they were buying these funds because they knew that their government was indeed going to pay their stipulated interest charges.
In effect, the bonds were owed ultimately to themselves. So these Yankee dollar bonds were being bought by Brazilians and other
Latin Americans as a vehicle to move their money out of their soft local currency (which was going down), to buy bonds denominated
in hard dollars.
BONNIE FAULKNER : If wealthy families from these countries bought these bonds denominated in dollars, knowing that they
were going to be paid off, who was going to pay them off? The country that was going broke?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Well, countries don't pay; the taxpayers pay, and in the end, labor pays. The IMF certainly doesn't want
to make its wealthy client oligarchies pay. It wants to squeeze ore economic surplus out of the labor force. So countries are told
that the way they can afford to pay their enormously growing dollar-denominated debt is to lower wages even more.
Currency depreciation is an effective way to do this, because what is devalued is basically labor's wages. Other elements of
exports have a common world price: energy, raw materials, capital goods, and credit under the dollar-centered international monetary
system that the IMF seeks to maintain as a financial strait jacket.
According to the IMF's ideological models, there's no limit to how far you can lower wages by enough to make labor competitive
in producing exports. The IMF and World Bank thus use junk economics to pretend that the way to pay debts owed to the wealthiest
creditors and investors is to lower wages and impose regressive excise taxes, to impose special taxes on necessities that labor
needs, from food to energy and basic services supplied by public infrastructure.
BONNIE FAULKNER: So you're saying that labor ultimately has to pay off these junk bonds?
MICHAEL HUDSON: That is the basic aim of IMF. I discuss its fallacies in my Trade Development and Foreign Debt
, which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism . These two books show that the World Bank and IMF were viciously
anti-labor from the very outset, working with domestic elites whose fortunes are tied to and loyal to the United States.
BONNIE FAULKNER : With regard to these junk bonds, who was it or what entity
MICHAEL HUDSON : They weren't junk bonds. They were called that because they were high-interest bonds, but they weren't
really junk because they actually were paid. Everybody thought they were junk because no American would have paid 45 percent interest.
Any country that really was self-reliant and was promoting its own economic interest would have said, "You banks and the IMF have
made bad loans, and you've made them under false pretenses – a trade theory that imposes austerity instead of leading to prosperity.
We're not going to pay." They would have seized the capital flight of their comprador elites and said that these dollar bonds were
a rip-off by the corrupt ruling class.
The same thing happened in Greece a few years ago, when almost all of Greece's foreign debt was owed to Greek millionaires
holding their money in Switzerland. The details were published in the "Legarde List." But the IMF said, in effect that its
loyalty was to the Greek millionaires who ha their money in Switzerland. The IMF could have seized this money to pay off the
bondholders. Instead, it made the Greek economy pay. It found that it was worth wrecking the Greek economy, forcing emigration and
wiping out Greek industry so that French and German bondholding banks would not have to take a loss. That is what makes the IMF
so vicious an institution.
BONNIE FAULKNER : So these loans to foreign countries that were regarded as junk bonds really weren't junk, because
they were going to be paid. What group was it that jacked up these interest rates to 45 percent?
MICHAEL HUDSON : The market did. American banks, stock brokers and other investors looked at the balance of payments of
these countries and could not see any reasonable way that they could pay their debts, so they were not going to buy their bonds.
No country subject to democratic politics would have paid debts under these conditions. But the IMF, U.S. and Eurozone diplomacy
overrode democratic choice.
Investors didn't believe that the IMF and the World Bank had such a strangle hold over Latin American, Asian, and African countries
that they could make the countries act in the interest of the United States and the cosmopolitan finance capital, instead of in
their own national interest. They didn't believe that countries would commit financial suicide just to pay their wealthy One Percent.
They were wrong, of course. Countries were quite willing to commit economic suicide if their governments were dictatorships propped
up by the United States. That's why the CIA has assassination teams and actively supports these countries to prevent any party coming
to power that would act in their national interest instead of in the interest of a world division of labor and production along
the lines that the U.S. planners want for the world. Under the banner of what they call a free market, you have the World Bank and
the IMF engage in central planning of a distinctly anti-labor policy. Instead of calling them Third World bonds or junk bonds, you
should call them anti-labor bonds, because they have become a lever to impose austerity throughout the world.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Well, that makes a lot of sense, Michael, and answers a lot of the questions I've put together to ask
you. What about Puerto Rico writing down debt? I thought such debts couldn't be written down.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's what they all said, but the bonds were trading at about 45 cents on the dollar, the risk of their
not being paid. The Wall Street Journal on June 17, reported that unsecured suppliers and creditors of Puerto Rico, would
only get nine cents on the dollar. The secured bond holders would get maybe 65 cents on the dollar.
The terms are being written down because it's obvious that Puerto Rico can't pay, and that trying to do so is driving the population
to move out of Puerto Rico to the United States. If you don't want Puerto Ricans to act the same way Greeks did and leave Greece
when their industry and economy was shut down, then you're going to have to provide stability or else you're going to have half
of Puerto Rico living in Florida.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Who wrote down the Puerto Rican debt?
MICHAEL HUDSON : A committee was appointed, and it calculated how much Puerto Rico can afford to pay out of its taxes.
Puerto Rico is a U.S. dependency, that is, an economic colony of the United States. It does not have domestic self-reliance. It's
the antithesis of democracy, so it's never been in charge of its own economic policy and essentially has to do whatever the United
States tells it to do. There was a reaction after the hurricane and insufficient U.S. support to protect the island and the enormous
waste and corruption involved in the U.S. aid. The U.S. response was simply: "We won you fair and square in the Spanish-American
war and you're an occupied country, and we're going to keep you that way." Obviously this is causing a political resentment.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You've already touched on this, but why has the World Bank traditionally been headed by a U.S. secretary
of defense?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Its job is to do in the financial sphere what, in the past, was done by military force. The purpose of
a military conquest is to take control of foreign economies, to take control of their land and impose tribute. The genius of the
World Bank was to recognize that it's not necessary to occupy a country in order to impose tribute, or to take over its industry,
agriculture and land. Instead of bullets, it uses financial maneuvering. As long as other countries play an artificial economic
game that U.S. diplomacy can control, finance is able to achieve today what used to require bombing and loss of life by soldiers.
In this case the loss of life occurs in the debtor countries. Population growth shrinks, suicides go up. The World Bank engages
in economic warfare that is just as destructive as military warfare. At the end of the Yeltsin period Russia's President Putin said
that American neoliberalism destroyed more of Russia's population than did World War II. Such neoliberalism, which basically is
the doctrine of American supremacy and foreign dependency, is the policy of the World Bank and IMF.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why has World Bank policy since its inception been to provide loans for countries to devote their land
to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves? And if this is the case, why do countries want these loans?
MICHAEL HUDSON : One constant of American foreign policy is to make other countries dependent on American grain exports
and food exports. The aim is to buttress America's agricultural trade surplus. So the first thing that the World Bank has done is
not to make any domestic currency loans to help food producers. Its lending has steered client countries to produce tropical export
crops, mainly plantation crops that cannot be grown in the United States. Focusing on export crops leads client countries to become
dependent on American farmers – and political sanctions.
In the 1950s, right after the Chinese revolution, the United States tried to prevent China from succeeding by imposing grain
export controls to starve China into submission by putting sanctions on exports. Canada was the country that broke these export
controls and helped feed China.
The idea is that if you can make other countries export plantation crops, the oversupply will drive down prices for cocoa and
other tropical products, and they won't feed themselves. So instead of backing family farms like the American agricultural policy
does, the World Bank backed plantation agriculture. In Chile, which has the highest natural supply of fertilizer in the world from
its guano deposits, exports guano instead of using it domestically. It also has the most unequal land distribution, blocking it
from growing its own grain or food crops. It's completely dependent on the United States for this, and it pays by exporting copper,
guano and other natural resources.
The idea is to create interdependency – one-sided dependency on the U.S. economy. The United States has always aimed at being
self-sufficient in its own essentials, so that no other country can pull the plug on our economy and say, "We're going to starve
you by not feeding you." Americans can feed themselves. Other countries can't say, "We're going to let you freeze in the dark by
not sending you oil," because America's independent in energy. But America can use the oil control to make other countries freeze
in the dark, and it can starve other countries by food-export sanctions.
So the idea is to give the United States control of the key interconnections of other economies, without letting any country
control something that is vital to the working of the American economy.
There's a double standard here. The United States tells other countries: "Don't do as we do. Do as we say." The only way it can
enforce this is by interfering in the politics of these countries, as it has interfered in Latin America, always pushing the right
wing. For instance, when Hillary's State Department overthrew the Honduras reformer who wanted to undertake land reform and feed
the Hondurans, she said: "This person has to go." That's why there are so many Hondurans trying to get into the United States now,
because they can't live in their own country.
The effect of American coups is the same in Syria and Iraq. They force an exodus of people who no longer can make a living under
the brutal dictatorships supported by the United States to enforce this international dependency system.
BONNIE FAULKNER : So when I asked you why countries would want these loans, I guess you're saying that they wouldn't,
and that's why the U.S. finds it necessary to control them politically.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a concise way of putting it Bonnie.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why are World Bank loans only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency of the country to which
it is lending?
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's a good point. A basic principle should be to avoid borrowing in a foreign currency. A country
can always pay the loans in its own currency, but there's no way that it can print dollars or euros to pay loans denominated in
these foreign currencies.
Making the dollar central forces other countries to interface with the U.S. banking system. So if a country decides to go its
own way, as Iran did in 1953 when it wanted to take over its oil from British Petroleum (or Anglo Iranian Oil, as it was called
back then), the United States can interfere and overthrow it. The idea is to be able to use the banking system's interconnections
to stop payments from being made.
After America installed the Shah's dictatorship, they were overthrown by Khomeini, and Iran had run up a U.S. dollar debt under
the Shah. It had plenty of dollars. I think Chase Manhattan was its paying agent. So when its quarterly or annual debt payment came
due, Iran told Chase to draw on its accounts and pay the bondholders. But Chase took orders from the State Department or the Defense
Department, I don't know which, and refused to pay. When the payment was not made, America and its allies claimed that Iran was
in default. They demanded the entire debt to be paid, as per the agreement that the Shah's puppet government had signed. America
simply grabbed the deposits that Iran had in the United States. This is the money that was finally returned to Iran without interest
under the agreement of 2016.
America was able to grab all of Iran's foreign exchange just by the banks interfering. The CIA has bragged that it can do
the same thing with Russia. If Russia does something that U.S. diplomats don't like, the U.S. can use the SWIFT bank payment system
to exclude Russia from it, so the Russian banks and the Russian people and industry won't be able to make payments to each other.
This prompted Russia to create its own bank-transfer system, and is leading China, Russia, India and Pakistan to draft plans
to de-dollarize.
BONNIE FAULKNER : I was going to ask you, why would loans in a country's domestic currency be preferable to the country
taking out a loan in a foreign currency? I guess you've explained that if they took out a loan in a domestic currency, they would
be able to repay it.
MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Whereas a loan in a foreign currency would cripple them.
MICHAEL HUDSON : Yes. You can't create the money, especially if you're running a balance of payments deficit and if
U.S. foreign policy forces you into deficit by having someone like George Soros make a run on your currency. Look at the Asia crisis
in 1997. Wall Street funds bet against foreign currencies, driving them way down, and then used the money to pick up industry cheap
in Korea and other Asian countries.
This was also done to Russia's ruble. The only country that avoided this was Malaysia, under Mohamed Mahathir, by using capital
controls. Malaysia is an object lesson in how to prevent a currency flight.
But for Latin America and other countries, much of their foreign debt is held by their own ruling class. Even though it's denominated
in dollars, Americans don't own most of this debt. It's their own ruling class. The IMF and World Bank dictate tax policy to Latin
America – to un-tax wealth and shift the burden onto labor. Client kleptocracies take their money and run, moving it abroad
to hard currency areas such as the United States, or at least keeping it in dollars in offshore banking centers instead of reinvesting
it to help the country catch up by becoming independent agriculturally, in energy, finance and other sectors.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You say that: "While U.S. agricultural protectionism has been built into the postwar global system at
its inception, foreign protectionism is to be nipped in the bud." How has U.S. agricultural protectionism been built into the postwar
global system?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Under Franklin Roosevelt the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 called for price supports for crops
so that farmers could earn enough to invest in equipment and seeds. The Agriculture Department was a wonderful department in spurring
new seed varieties, agricultural extension services, marketing and banking services. It provided public support so that productivity
in American agriculture from the 1930s to '50s was higher over a prolonged period than that of any other sector in history.
But in shaping the World Trade Organization's rules, the United States said that all countries had to promote free trade
and could not have government support, except for countries that already had it. We're the only country that had it. That's what's
called "grandfathering". The Americans said: "We already have this program on the books, so we can keep it. But no other country
can succeed in agriculture in the way that we have done. You must keep your agriculture backward, except for the plantation crops
and growing crops that we can't grow in the United States." That's what's so evil about the World Bank's development plan.
BONNIE FAULKNER : According to your book: "Domestic currency is needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension
services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive." Why can't infrastructure costs be subsidized to keep down the economy's
overall cost structure if IMF loans are made in foreign currency?
MICHAEL HUDSON : If you're a farmer in Brazil, Argentina or Chile, you're doing business in domestic currency. It doesn't
help if somebody gives you dollars, because your expenses are in domestic currency. So if the World Bank and the IMF can prevent
countries from providing domestic currency support, that means they're not able to give price supports or provide government marketing
services for their agriculture.
America is a mixed economy. Our government has always subsidized capital formation in agriculture and industry, but it insists
that other countries are socialist or communist if they do what the United States is doing and use their government to support the
economy. So it's a double standard. Nobody calls America a socialist country for supporting its farmers, but other countries are
called socialist and are overthrown if they attempt land reform or attempt to feed themselves.
This is what the Catholic Church's Liberation Theology was all about. They backed land reform and agricultural self-sufficiency
in food, realizing that if you're going to support population growth, you have to support the means to feed it. That's why the United
States focused its assassination teams on priests and nuns in Guatemala and Central America for trying to promote domestic self-sufficiency.
BONNIE FAULKNER : If a country takes out an IMF loan, they're obviously going to take it out in dollars. Why can't they
take the dollars and convert them into domestic currency to support local infrastructure costs?
MICHAEL HUDSON : You don't need a dollar loan to do that. Now were getting in to MMT. Any country can create its own currency.
There's no reason to borrow in dollars to create your own currency. You can print it yourself or create it on your computers.
BONNIE FAULKNER: Well, exactly. So why don't these countries simply print up their own domestic currency?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Their leaders don't want to be assassinated. More immediately, if you look at the people in charge of
foreign central banks, almost all have been educated in the United States and essentially brainwashed. It's the mentality of foreign
central bankers. The people who are promoted are those who feel personally loyal to the United States, because they that that's
how to get ahead. Essentially, they're opportunists working against the interests of their own country. You won't have socialist
central bankers as long as central banks are dominated by the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements.
BONNIE FAULKNER : So we're back to the main point: The control is by political means, and they control the politics and
the power structure in these countries so that they don't rebel.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. When you have a dysfunctional economic theory that is destructive instead of productive,
this is never an accident. It is always a result of junk economics and dependency economics being sponsored. I've talked to people
at the U.S. Treasury and asked why they all end up following the United States. Treasury officials have told me: "We simply buy
them off. They do it for the money." So you don't need to kill them. All you need to do is find people corrupt enough and opportunist
enough to see where the money is, and you buy them off.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that "by following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail." What
is food blackmail?
MICHAEL HUDSON : If you pursue a foreign policy that we don't like -- for instance, if you trade with Iran, which we're
trying to smash up to grab its oil -- we'll impose financial sanctions against you. We won't sell you food, and you can starve.
And because you've followed World Bank advice and not grown your own food, you will starve, because you're dependent on us, the
United States and our Free World Ó allies. Canada will no longer follow its own policy independently of the United States,
as it did with China in the 1950s when it sold it grain. Europe also is falling in line with U.S. policy.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You write that: "World Bank administrators demand that loan recipients pursue a policy of economic dependency
above all on the United States as food supplier." Was this done to support U.S. agriculture? Obviously it is, but were there other
reasons as well?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Certainly the agricultural lobby was critical in all of this, and I'm not sure at what point this became
thoroughly conscious. I knew some of the World Bank planners, and they had no anticipation that this dependency would be the result.
They believed the free-trade junk economics that's taught in the schools' economics departments and for which Nobel prizes are awarded.
When we're dealing with economic planners, we're dealing with tunnel-visioned people. They stayed in the discipline despite its
unreality because they sort of think that abstractly it makes sense. There's something autistic about most economists, which is
why the French had their non-autistic economic site for many years. The mentality at work is that every country should produce what
it's best at – not realizing that nations also need to be self-sufficient in essentials, because we're in a real world of economic
and military warfare.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why does the World Bank prefer to perpetrate world poverty instead of adequate overseas capacity to
feed the peoples of developing countries?
MICHAEL HUDSON : World poverty is viewed as solution , not a problem. The World Bank thinks of poverty as low-priced
labor, creating a competitive advantage for countries that produce labor-intensive goods. So poverty and austerity for the World
Bank and IMF is an economic solution that's built into their models. I discuss these in my Trade, Development and Foreign Debt
book. Poverty is to them the solution, because it means low-priced labor, and that means higher profits for the companies bought
out by U.S., British, and European investors. So poverty is part of the class war: profits versus poverty.
BONNIE FAULKNER : In general, what is U.S. food imperialism? How would you characterize it?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Its aim is to make America the producer of essential foods and other countries producing inessential
plantation crops, while remaining dependent on the United States for grain, soy beans and basic food crops.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Does World Bank lending encourage land reform in former colonies?
MICHAEL HUDSON : No. If there is land reform, the CIA sends its assassination teams in and you have mass murder, as you
had in Guatemala, Ecuador, Central America and Columbia. The World Bank is absolutely committed against land reform. When the Forgash
Plan for a World Bank for Economic Acceleration was proposed in the 1950s to emphasize land reform and local-currency loans, a Chase
Manhattan economist to whom the plan was submitted warned that every country that had land reform turned out to be anti-American.
That killed any alternative to the World Bank.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Does the World Bank insist on client governments privatizing their public domain? If so, why, and what
is the effect?
MICHAEL HUDSON : It does indeed insist on privatization, pretending that this is efficient. But what it privatizes are
natural monopolies – the electrical system, the water system and other basic needs. Foreigners take over, essentially finance them
with foreign debt, build the foreign debt that they build into the cost structure, and raise the cost of living and doing business
in these countries, thereby crippling them economically. The effect is to prevent them from competing with the United States and
its European allies.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Would you say then that it is mainly America that has been aided, not foreign economies that borrow
from the World Bank?
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's why the United States is the only country with veto power in the IMF and World Bank – to make
sure that what you just described is exactly what happens.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Why do World Bank programs accelerate the exploitation of mineral deposits for use by other nations?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Most World Bank loans are for transportation, roads, harbor development and other infrastructure needed
to export minerals and plantation crops. The World Bank doesn't make loans for projects that help the country develop in its own
currency. By making only foreign currency loans, in dollars or maybe euros now, the World Bank says that its clients have to repay
by generating foreign currency. The only way they can repay the dollars spent on American engineering firms that have built their
infrastructure is to export – to earn enough dollars to pay back for the money that the World Bank or IMF have lent.
This is what John Perkins' book about being an economic hit man for the World Bank is all about. He realized that his job was
to get countries to borrow dollars to build huge projects that could only be paid for by the country exporting more – which required
breaking its labor unions and lowering wages so that it could be competitive in the race to the bottom that the World Bank and IMF
encourage.
BONNIE FAULKNER : You also point out in Super Imperialism that mineral resources represent diminishing assets,
so these countries that are exporting mineral resources are being depleted while the importing countries aren't.
MICHAEL HUDSON : That's right. They'll end up like Canada. The end result is going to be a big hole in the ground. You've
dug up all your minerals, and in the end you have a hole in the ground and a lot of the refuse and pollution – the mining slag and
what Marx called the excrements of production.
This is not a sustainable development. The World Bank only promotes the U.S. pursuit of sustainable development. So naturally,
they call their "Development," but their focus is on the United States, not the World Bank's client countries.
BONNIE FAULKNER : When Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire was originally published in
1972, how was it received?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Very positively. It enabled my career to take off. I received a phone call a month later by someone from
the Bank of Montreal saying they had just made $240 million on the last paragraph of my book. They asked what it would cost to have
me come up and give a lecture. I began lecturing once a month at $3,500 a day, moving up to $6,500 a day, and became the highest-paid
per diem economist on Wall Street for a few years.
I was immediately hired by the Hudson Institute to explain Super Imperialism to the Defense Department. Herman Kahn said
I showed how U.S. imperialism ran rings around European imperialism. They gave the Institute an $85,000 grant to have me go to the
White House in Washington to explain how American imperialism worked. The Americans used it as a how-to-do-it book.
The socialists, whom I expected to have a response, decided to talk about other than economic topics. So, much to my surprise,
it became a how-to-do-it book for imperialists. It was translated by, I think, the nephew of the Emperor of Japan into Japanese.
He then wrote me that the United States opposed the book being translated into Japanese. It later was translated. It was
received very positively in China, where I think it has sold more copies than in any other country. It was translated into Spanish,
and most recently it was translated into German, and German officials have asked me to come and discuss it with them. So the book
has been accepted all over the world as an explanation of how the system works.
BONNIE FAULKNER : In closing, do you really think that the U.S. government officials and others didn't understand how
their own system worked?
MICHAEL HUDSON : Many might not have understood in 1944 that this would be the consequence. But by the time 50 years went
by, you had an organization called "Fifty Years Is Enough." And by that time everybody should have understood. By the time Joe Stiglitz
became the World Bank's chief economist, there was no excuse for not understanding how the system worked. He was amazed to find
that indeed it didn't work as advertised, and resigned. But he should have known at the very beginning what it was all about. If
he didn't understand how it was until he actually went to work there, you can understand how hard it is for most academics to get
through the vocabulary of junk economics, the patter-talk of free trade and free markets to understand how exploitative and destructive
the system is.
BONNIE FAULKNER : Michael Hudson, thank you very much.
MICHAEL HUDSON : It's always good to be here, Bonnie. I'm glad you ask questions like these.
I've been speaking with Dr. Michael Hudson. Today's show has been: The IMF and World Bank: Partners in Backwardness. Dr.
Hudson is a financial economist and historian. He is president of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall
Street financial analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His 1972
book, Super Imperialism : The Economic Strategy of American Empire , a critique of how the United States exploited foreign economies
through the IMF and World Bank, the subject of today's broadcast, is posted in PDF format on his website at michael-hudson.com.
He is also author of Trade, Development and Foreign Debt , which is the academic sister volume to Super Imperialism. Dr. Hudson
acts as an economic advisor to governments worldwide on finance and tax law. Visit his website at michael-hudson.com.
Guns and Butter is produced by Bonnie Faulkner, Yarrow Mahko and Tony Rango. Visit us at
gunsandbutter.org to listen to past programs, comment on shows, or join
our email list to receive our newsletter that includes recent shows and updates. Email us at
[email protected]. Follow us
on Twitter at #gandbradio.
Despite the lack of concrete results from the Trump-Putin meeting, Moscow does not appear
discouraged. Much of the Russian commentary after the meeting emphasized that meetings such as
the one in Osaka will sooner or later yield tangible results.
Leonid Kalashnikov, chairman of the Russian State Duma's Committee for the Commonwealth of
Independent States,
stated during a discussion on Russian state television, "As a result of some summit, we'll
somehow accomplish something one way or another. There's no escaping it."
He added, "[The Americans] roared and yelled after the 1917 revolution, but by 1930 almost
all diplomatic ties were restored. They will probably deal with Crimea the same way."
Professor Dmitry Suslov from the Higher School of Economics expressed a similar perspective
to the National Interest prior to the Trump-Putin meeting. He told me that Moscow is
confident that if it stays on course, then Washington will at some point come around.
"I don't think Russia will considerably harden its position; it most certainly will not make
any concessions," he said. "Russia will just wait until the United States will begin to change
its policy [towards Russia] by its own initiative for domestic- and foreign-policy
reasons."
Earlier this year, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, described Moscow's policy to Washington as
"strategic patience" in an interview with Russian foreign-policy monthly International
Affairs .
He stated that it was the Americans themselves, "who at one time used the term 'strategic
patience,' which seems appropriate to describe the line that, it seems, should be pursued in
relations with Washington for the foreseeable future," by Russia.
The term "strategic patience" was commonly used to describe the Obama administration's
approach towards North Korea. Under the policy, Washington would avoid escalating against
Pyongyang, but also refrain from making any concessions unless North Korea made the first
move.
According to Suslov, Russia's "strategic patience" approach is based on two assumptions.
First, political polarization inside the United States will eventually subside. Once a new
domestic consensus emerges in the United States, it will be easier for whoever is in the Oval
Office to pursue a normalization of ties with Russia.
Second, the United States will realize over the next five to ten years that it cannot
simultaneously confront both China and Russia. Beijing's growing economic and military power
will incentivize the United States to make a play for better relations with Russia.
What does Russia plan on doing until such a shift in Washington's attitude towards Moscow
occurs, assuming it happens at all? Suslov explained that Russia's primary objective for now is
damage control.
"It is essential that we work with the United States to control the conflict and prevent a
direct military confrontation," he said. "To do that, it is critical to meet to discuss
questions of strategic stability and regional conflicts."
In the case of Europe, there are some signs that Moscow's "strategic patience" game plan is
yielding some dividends. Last week, Parliamentary Association of the Council of Europe (PACE)
voted to reinstate Russia's membership without any concessions on the Kremlin's part.
Russia had been suspended from the European human-rights organization after its 2014 annexation
of Crimea.
Should allies of newly inaugurated Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky triumph in the
country's parliamentary elections on July 21, the former comedian who ran on the platform of
restarting dialogue with Russia may feel emboldened
to move in that direction.
As the 2020 election season heats up, Washington is quite unlikely to pursue any significant
outreach towards Russia. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress view the Kremlin with
suspicion, and the
attitude of the general public is not much more favorable. Nevertheless, Moscow is betting
that somewhere down the line, Washington will change its mind about Russia. All it has to do is
keep the door open and wait.
Dimitri Alexander Simes is a contributor to the National Interest .
There is an article on here by Michael Hudson, an economist who wrote about U.S. control of
the World Bank and IMF since 1948. He claims that the U.S. wages war because it gets other
countries to unwittingly finance them and the trade deficit. After WWII the U.S. forced
European countries to pay their war debt, by selling corporate assets, reducing barriers and
reduce their social programs. They had 3/4 of the world gold reserves because of those loans
during the war. Korea and Vietnam reduced their gold reserves to 10 billion by the late 60's
and were forced to get out off the Gold Standard. The French Banks that had a big presense in
Indochina sending their dollars to the French Central Bank and they were trading dollars for
gold. Nixon stopped it.
The dollar gave U.S. the means to have other countries finance their trade deficit, all
their wars and the military buildup. By ending the Gold backed dollar they forced the countries
that had U.S. debt dollars to purchase U.S. Treasury Bonds. As the U.S. debt grew so did the
dollars being held by those countries and the purchase of Treasury Bonds. The U.S. does not
allow countries holding those dollars to buy US property or buy Corporations and risk being
acused of commiting an act of war. So they are forced to buy U.S. debt while the US uses its
dollars to buy other countries resources with those worthless dollars.
The U.S. forces countries that default on their loans to pay penalties and huge interest
payments while the U.S. debt goes un checked and growing without the threat of being in
default...
Presidential elections are a joke. It's best to vote for 3rd candidate to express your
opposition to the Status quo: I won't be voting Trump again and fall for that sting. Will
vote Tulsi whether she's on ballot or not.
She will never make it as she is too honest about foreign policy and the USA lies.
"... All of this is "theater," distractions and moot points. No country is going to invade America or "take away our freedoms." America already is the "safest" nation on the earth due to geography and our massive nuclear deterrence. This would be even more true if America did not stir up every hornet nest is the world. Ironically, the one thing that can make our country less safe is continuing with all the "meddling" we now specialize in. ..."
"... If we stopped pursuing our "national interests," the "interests" of 99.9 percent of Americans would be enhanced. ..."
Andrew Bacevich
takes aim at the bogus hawkish "credibility" argument:
But does making threats and then dropping bombs enhance credibility? If so,
notwithstanding Obama's and Trump's own occasional qualms, the United States would have
amassed vast stores of the stuff over the past 30 years or so. Presidents since Ronald
Reagan, including Obama and Trump, have followed up threats with bombs on myriad occasions.
Targeted nations have included Libya, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia,
Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen, with the punitive action episodic in some
cases and sustained in others. No nation in recent memory has dropped more pieces of ordnance
on more countries than has the United States. Indeed, no other nation comes close.
Over those same 30 years, however, America's standing as a global leader has declined. It
turns out in practice that credibility is less a function of using force than of
demonstrating prudence. Yet somewhere between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the terrorist
attacks of 9/11, those charged with formulating U.S. policy decided that the dictates of
prudence need not apply to the actions of the world's one and only indispensable nation. In
recent decades, the abiding feature of American statecraft has been grandiosity, with
military activism camouflaging a loss of strategic realism.
Resorting to force frequently over the last several decades has not made the U.S. more
respected, trusted, or reliable in its commitments. When hawks warn that a "failure" to strike
this or that country could undermine our "credibility," they want us to believe that hostile
states will think they can get away with attacking our allies and that our allies will fear
that our government won't come to their assistance. They continually confuse decisions about
whether to initiate hostilities against other states with decisions about whether to respond to
aggression in defense of allies, but this just calls attention to the fact that the military
intervention they want has nothing to do with our security or the security of our allies.
"Failing" to bomb Syria in 2013 did not put any of our allies in greater danger, and I
suspect more than a few of our allies were glad that our government refrained from committing
more illegal acts of war. Backing off from an illegal attack on Iran has not encouraged rivals
to be more aggressive, but the possibility of starting a war over a drone alarmed our allies
that our government was once again prepared to plunge into an unnecessary war because of a
crisis of Trump's own making. Other states do not believe our government to be unwilling to
back up threats, especially when it concerns something that genuinely affects the U.S. and our
allies, but many of them do worry that our government is overeager to pick fights and look for
reasons to use force when alternatives are available. Like a trigger-happy vigilante, our
government uses force all the time for any reason and frequently for no good reason at all.
"Credibility" is just the most convenient excuse.
It is significant that the "credibility"-worshipers that complain when the U.S. doesn't
attack another country have little or nothing to say about the effect on our reputation when
the president reneges on international agreements negotiated in good faith. "Credibility" fans
don't particularly care if other states don't trust our promises when it relates to anything
else, but they are livid when a president doesn't seize every opportunity to rain down death
and destruction on other countries. I submit that no one making "credibility" arguments really
believes them, but they use these arguments to stoke fear that "inaction" (i.e., not killing
people) might be more dangerous than "action" (i.e., killing those people). "Failing" to bomb
another country doesn't have negative consequences for the U.S. (how could it?), but reneging
on diplomatic commitments is likely to make other governments less likely to trust our promises
and less likely to enter into agreements with our government in the future. Hawks don't have
much of a problem with the latter because they aren't interested in making diplomatic
agreements, but they are very worried that the U.S. "misses" the chance to launch an attack
because they want to get the U.S. embroiled in new conflicts. "Credibility" is the ready-made
excuse to launch attacks when no U.S. interests are at stake, and it can be reused over and
over to sell gullible people on wars we don't need. The price of those wars is then paid by the
people in the affected countries and our military. It's time to stop buying into the incredible
"credibility" argument.
All of this is "theater," distractions and moot points. No country is going to invade
America or "take away our freedoms." America already is the "safest" nation on the earth
due to geography and our massive nuclear deterrence. This would be even more true if
America did not stir up every hornet nest is the world. Ironically, the one thing that
can make our country less safe is continuing with all the "meddling" we now
specialize in.
If we stopped pursuing our "national interests," the "interests" of 99.9 percent of
Americans would be enhanced.
With all due respect Mr. Smith things have really gone down hill after Bush Sr. I'm talking
about direct attacks on the rights of American citizens. Bush Sr. (R) with his CIA drug dealing
with the help of Noriega. He purchased weapons with the proceeds to arm terrorist guerrilla
groups in Nicaragua. Bill Clinton (D) helped Bush Sr. as governor of Arkansas by covering up
any investigation targeting the operation and laundering their money through a state owned
bank. Bush Jr. (R) secured lands in Afghanistan in order to restart athe heroine trade by
growing poppy fields to process and ship back to the US. Obama (R) made sure the Mexican drug
cartels were well armed in order to launch a drug war that supported the Merida Initiative,
which allowed armed DEA, CIA and Mercenaries into Mexican territory. Trump (R) will be the
clean up hitter that will usher in the dollar collapse.
Mr. Smith do you really believe it is a coincidence that Rep 8 yrs, Dem 8yrs, Rep 8yrs, Dem
8yrs, Rep 3 yrs are voted in? Please sir, don't fool yourself because in the next election I
will bet money the orange fool will be president for another 4 years unless the owners don't
want him there. But we can safely say that history tells us he will. All I'm saying that people
like you, waiting for someone to throw you a rope because you've fallen into deep water are
waiting on a rescue boat that doesn't care if you drown.
Your best bet for change was thrown away when Dr. Ron Paul failed to be nominated. Us dumb
asses in Mexico didn't need another election fraud this time around! The people started YouTube
channels that reported the "real" news (Chapucero – Quesadillas de Verdades –
Charro Politico – Sin Censura, etc.). Those channels made a big difference, countering
the negative reporting by Mexican and US MSM that the Presidential Candidate for MORENA as
"Leftist", "Communist", "Socialist", "Like Hugo Chavez", "Dangerous", etc.
With all of the US propaganda, Mexican propaganda, the negative MSM and Elite financing,
Mexicans knew they had to get out and vote in record numbers and they did! Otherwise a close
election was seen as another loss and the end of Mexico as a country. People were ready to
fight and die if necessary. They had seen the Energy Reforms forced down our throat by the
corrupt PRI/PAN parties (Mex version o DEM/REP), with the help of Hillary Clinton and the US
State Department. They drafting the changes needed to the Mexican Constitution to allow a vote.
Totally against the Law in Mexico and I'm sure the laws of the US.
There is a saying that goes something like, "If you're not ready to die for Freedom, take it
out of your Vocabulary"!
If Ron Unz is reading I might suggest he could do a little something to cover the passing of
probably one of the best Antiwar writers(Justin Raimondo) of this generation. Nobody has gotten
things more right, even before the wars developed – he predicted a war with Iraq even
before Sept 11, 2001, and it's aftermath into sectarian violence. His archives are second to
none in naming the names of who steered the war machine into the Middle East and across the
globe. I could gone on, but the link does a better job. RIP Justin.
Amazing how for these Americans, even this Tulsi, the lives of US soldiers are more
important than countless civilians they murder during the course of their wars. But even that
is a lie. They don't even care about their own soldiers once they're of no use to them any
more, if you consider the rate of alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, homelessness,
mental health issues, and suicide among the veterans.
And also, when it serves their purpose,
then suddenly the life of some innocent somewhere half way round the world getting abused by a
government they dislike becomes important, and the human rights card is played so they can go
and kill more than they save. I thought that to these leftist American politicians everyone is
equal so why don't they express concern about how many Afghans they have killed over there?
Oh
yes, but if they left them alone there wouldn't be those columns of young Afghans making their
way to the West for these liberals to practice their empathy and hospitality on. And who would
be guarding those poppy fields and ensuring maximum production for pharmaceutical companies and
the black market? And when an Afghan immigrant like Omar Mateen sets off on a murder spree on
US soil who is to blame?
Do they even question their wars, or their immigration policy, or
Islamic culture of intolerance, or anything at all? Some may then question gun laws, but even
that is another lie, because guns are as as available as ever. No they just shrug their
shoulders as its just part and parcel, and it's only good for the media to keep people in fear
and sell their sensational news.
And if you question any of this then you're most likely to be
called a racist or supremacist or whatever vile word they can conjure up with which to browbeat
you.
Wars are necessary for the maintaining and expanding the US controlled neoliberal empire. Wars is the health of military
industrial complex.
The Deep State will bury any candidate who will try to change the USA forign policy. Looks
what happened to Trump. He got Russiagate just for vey modest proposal of detente with Russia
(of course not only for that, but still...)
Notable quotes:
"... The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they lied us into. ..."
Those are interesting proposals but wishful thinking: wars are necessary for Electing Tulsi Gabbard as our next Commander in Chief will not solve our biggest problems
alone.
Her candidacy, I believe , must be augmented by two new laws which should be demanded by the
taxpayer and enforced by her administration on "day one".
The first is "The War Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ Retroactive to 2002, it states
that any and all individuals who conspired to defraud the United States into illegal war of
aggression should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any and all
assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit . to pay down the cost of the wars they
lied us into.
If they lied us into war .they pay for it NOT the US taxpayer.
The second is " The Terror Fraud Accountability Act of 2020″ also retroactive to 2001,
it states that any and all individuals found to have engaged in plotting, planning, or staging
"false terror events" will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Moreover, any
and all of the assets owned by these individuals shall be made forfeit to pay down the cost of
our War on Terror.
Americans should not have to sacrifice one cent of their tax dollars to pay for their own
defrauding by "staged" or "phony" terror events.
I believe that were Tulsi to be elected, she should set up two new task forces designed
especially for these reasons, Try to think of them as the " Office of Special Plans" IN
REVERSO.!.
Moreover she should hold weekly press briefings to notify the taxpayer of her progress, and
also how much of our 23 trillion in losses , FROM THEIR LIES, she has been able to recoup.
Getting these two initiatives up and running is the most potent force the taxpayers have in
cleaning out the fraud and larceny in DC, .ending our illegal wars overseas .. and
(finally)holding our "establishment elite " accountable for "LYING US INTO THEM"
It is way overdue for the American Taxpayer to take back control of our government from
those who ALMOST BANKRUPTED OUR ENTIRE NATION BY LYING US INTO ILLEGAL WARS.
It is not enough any more just to complain or "kvetch" about our problems .put on your
thinking caps .and start coming up with solutions and initiatives .start fighting for your
freedom, your finances and your future.
Elect the leaders YOU WANT and tell them exactly what you want them to do!
Tulsi has promised us all "SERVICE OVER SELF"
There you go !
I say that means not only ENDING our ILLEGAL, CRIMINAL WARS .but GETTING AS MUCH OF OUR
MONEY BACK from those who lied us into them !
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WAR FRAUD it is $23,000,000,000,000.00. in "heinous debt" .overdue!
"While #ISIS was stealing the Syrian oil & selling it to #Turkey, the so-called #US
led coalition (#UK included) against Daesh wasn't interested in stopping the theft of
#Syria's oil.
"But today the UK stopped an oil tanker delivering energy to the Syrian people."
Quite witty, IMO. Note the EU-3 all supported the terrorist invasion of Syria, the
destruction of Libya, and NATO's accusing Iran of sponsoring terrorism.
Spain's caretaker Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said the British targeted the tanker on a
request from the US. He added that Spain, which considers the waters off Gibraltar as its
own, was assessing the implications of the operation.
Iran has reportedly acknowledged ownership of the cargo. Its foreign ministry summoned the
British ambassador in Tehran to protest the "unlawful seizure of the Iranian tanker,"
according to the IRNA news agency.
According to Reuters, the MT Grace 1 has been used by Iran in the past to ship crude to
Singapore and China in defiance of unilateral sanctions imposed against Iran by the US. The
current trip allegedly started in Iran's port of Bandar Assalyeh, thought the papers state
that the crude was loaded in the Iraqi port of Basra.
In seizing the tanker under the pretext of sanctions on Syria, the EU seems to be at least
partially siding with Washington, which is trying to cripple the Iranian economy through
harsh economic sanctions. The pressure campaign was escalated after the US broke its
commitment under the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
"Maybe the EU was trying to show that it was siding with the Americans, playing its part
in anti-Iranian policy? We know that the Trump administration has been critical of the
European countries," Ali Rizk, a Middle East-based journalist and writer, told RT.
"And it's likely a demonstration against Syria. It all helps an ongoing plan of parting
Syria with its allies."
@1 Allegedly(?), this oil tanker sailed from Basra in Iraq (not Iran) and remarkably went
around Africa rather than sail through the Suez, and further it allegedly also turned it's
transponder off(?)... as usual, we'll have to wait for real facts to emerge. It's still quite
unusual to intercept an oil tanker so blatantly when much more nefarious shipments are going
on.
Seems to me certain western governments do whatever they want, and no longer care about
international legalities.
She is now Panama flagged (presumably) Russian owned
IMO number 9116412
Name of the ship GRACE 1
Type of ship CRUDE OIL TANKER
MMSI 355271000
Gross tonnage 156880 tons
DWT 273769 tons
Year of build 1997
Builder HYUNDAI HEAVY INDUSTRIES - ULSAN, SOUTH KOREA
Flag PANAMA
Class society LLOYD'S SHIPPING REGISTER
Manager & owner RUSSIAN TITAN SHIPPING LINES - DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Former names MERIDIAN LION until 2013 Mar
OVERSEAS MERIDIAN until 2011 Jun
MERIDIAN LION until 2006 Feb
The reason for holding the ship is given as breaking EU sanctions on Syria. Not JCPOA
related (in principle).
Here is a short but incomplete primer on Gibraltar territorial waters. The even more
extreme Spanish view is that only the port is Gibraltarian, or simply that Gibraltar is
Spanish.
Just to note Grace1 is anchored off the south east of Gibraltar, within the 3 mile
Gibraltar limit now, I don't know if she was stopped inside that zone, or why she would
venture into that 3 mile zone. In short it will be important to know what position she was
when boarded, the only info I have is that she veered hard to port into the Gibraltar 3 mile
limit, but am not sure if before or after being boarded. The Spanish government has said it
tolerates Gibraltar "acting in its waters" in this case because the action was based on EU
sanctions.
"... "Question: Mr President, you have given an extensive overview of different topics. A short time after you last met with Donald Trump, the Americans introduced new sanctions against Russia. Could you tell if you received some reassurances from Donald Trump that no new sanctions will follow this time, or do you think sanctions may be imposed again? Or are you confident that there will no more sanctions? ..."
"... "Vladimir Putin: I have no idea. This is not our business; it is up to the United States to think about how they should build relations with Russia. I think we have mutual understanding that we should somehow get out of the situation that has emerged so far. But this is the same as with our colleagues and partners from the UK. It is an abnormal situation, it must be simply rectified; we must somehow find the strength to turn the page, to move on and to look to the future. It is the same in relations with the United States. ..."
"... "Let me reiterate, I meet with US businesspeople, including at the St Petersburg Economic Forum. 550 people went there. They want to work. That means jobs, that means goals the President of the United State is trying to achieve. I actually said in that interview that after the globalisation processes led to such big growth of the world economy, even the middle class in the United States felt they were left behind. While large corporation made huge profits, their management got a lot of advantages as did their partners, the middle class did not, not very much. Wages remained the same, and the standard of living began to grow a little. Jobs are needed and conditions to raise real incomes of US citizens. To achieve that they need to expand cooperation and work with everyone, including Russia. ..."
"... "They restricted the operation of their companies in the Russian market. We made calculations across some European countries, and it really amounts to lost profits. Cutting exports (our imports are their exports) amounts to tens of billions of euros. That means jobs, either job cuts or jobs that were not created. The same applies to the United States. I hope that sanity will prevail in the end." ..."
"... That is a polite way of saying that sanity is not prevailing at the moment. Putin pointing out that there is nothing Russia can do about the current relationship between the US and Russia leaves no illusions as to who the insane party is. It is not within Russia's power to make America sane. There are no magic words they can utter to fix what ails the US. ..."
"... Globalization is simply a neoliberal economic substitute for colonialism. ..."
"... Neoliberals contrary to popular opinion do not believe in self-regulating markets as autonomous entities. They do not see democracy as necessary for capitalism. ..."
"... The neoliberal globalist world is not a borderless market without nations but a doubled world (economic -global and social- national) . The global economic world is kept safe from democratic national demands for social justice and equality, and in return each nation enjoys cultural freedom. ..."
"... Neoliberals see democracy as a real problem. Democracy means the unwashed masses can threaten the so called market economy (in fact manipulated and protected markets) with worker demands for living wages and equality and consumer demands for competitive pricing and safe products. Controlling both parties with money prevents that. ..."
"... In fact, neoliberal thinking is comparable to that of John Maynard Keynes in one respect : "the market does not and cannot take care of itself". ..."
"... Neoliberals insulate the markets by providing safe harbor for capital, free from fear of infringement by policies of progressive taxation or redistribution. They do this by redesigning government, laws, and other institutions to protect the market. ..."
"... For example the stock market is propped up by the Feds purchases of futures, replacing the plunge protection teams intervention at an even more extreme level. Manipulation of economic statistics by the BLS also serve a similar purpose. ..."
"... What you described is precisely a symptom of falling profitability. Financialisation, for example, only increases when the "real economy" is not profiting enough anymore. ..."
"... "If you try to understand how so many jobs have disappeared, the answer that you come up with over and over again in the data is that it's not trade that caused that -- it's primarily technology," Eighty percent of lost jobs were not replaced by workers in China, but by machines and automation. That is the first problem if you slap on tariffs. What you discover is that American companies are likely to replace its more expensive workers with machines." ..."
"... More evidence for Marx's Law: the USA was a victim of its own success, not of its own failures, nor because of alien enemies. ..."
In case there are others aside from myself interested in the G-20 outcomes, here are a few
links to what IMO's important. Go here to get the links to the
three main documents G-20 produced: "G20 Osaka Leaders Declaration," "Osaka declaration on
digital economy," and "G20 Osaka leaders' statement on preventing exploitation of the
internet for terrorism and violent extremism conductive to terrorism (VECT)." Pepe
Escobar's recap . Transcript of Putin's post G20 news
conference.
I hoped when I added the presser link to the Putin interview thread and hinted there
were connections between them that another line of analysis would develop, but it seems
participants were way to immersed/invested in the liberalism debate to bother.
From the press conference, I'd like to point-out one of the Q&As related to the
illegal sanctions regime, economic development and how they interact with Trump's 2016
Campaign Pledges as we begin the 2020 election cycle:
"Question: Mr President, you have given an extensive overview of different topics.
A short time after you last met with Donald Trump, the Americans introduced new sanctions
against Russia. Could you tell if you received some reassurances from Donald Trump that
no new sanctions will follow this time, or do you think sanctions may be imposed again?
Or are you confident that there will no more sanctions?
"Vladimir Putin: I have no idea. This is not our business; it is up to the United
States to think about how they should build relations with Russia. I think we have mutual
understanding that we should somehow get out of the situation that has emerged so far.
But this is the same as with our colleagues and partners from the UK. It is an abnormal
situation, it must be simply rectified; we must somehow find the strength to turn the
page, to move on and to look to the future. It is the same in relations with the United
States.
"I told you that we reasserted our wish to support the business community's proposal
regarding tools for the support of business initiatives. But it shows that the incumbent
Administration has intentions to somehow continue with this abnormal situation. I spoke
about our trade with the United States and with some other partners. Obviously, $25
billion in trade does not meet our interests and does not reflect our potential.
"That is why I have no idea if they will do anything or not. At any rate, one thing is
sure – we are not going to ask for anything. No means no. And if there is interest,
we will respond in kind and will do everything we can to turn the situation around.
"Let me reiterate, I meet with US businesspeople, including at the St Petersburg
Economic Forum. 550 people went there. They want to work. That means jobs, that means
goals the President of the United State is trying to achieve. I actually said in that
interview that after the globalisation processes led to such big growth of the world
economy, even the middle class in the United States felt they were left behind. While
large corporation made huge profits, their management got a lot of advantages as did
their partners, the middle class did not, not very much. Wages remained the same, and the
standard of living began to grow a little. Jobs are needed and conditions to raise real
incomes of US citizens. To achieve that they need to expand cooperation and work with
everyone, including Russia.
"They restricted the operation of their companies in the Russian market. We made
calculations across some European countries, and it really amounts to lost profits.
Cutting exports (our imports are their exports) amounts to tens of billions of euros.
That means jobs, either job cuts or jobs that were not created. The same applies to the
United States. I hope that sanity will prevail in the end."
It appears that Trump needs to end his Trade and Sanctions Wars (although all the
illegal sanctions aren't his doing) in order to bolster his reelection chances. The
questions are, Will the sanction hawks like Mnuchin try to impede such a policy change
since it seems to be required for domestic politics and How will D-Party candidates treat
the issue, particularly as several are hooked on Russiagate Koolaid?
And do please note the question about the interview at the end, Putin's answer and how
he put in within the context of the G20!
Great quote of Putin by karlof1 @39. That final sentence says much, though:
"I hope that sanity will prevail in the end"
That is a polite way of saying that sanity is not prevailing at the moment. Putin
pointing out that there is nothing Russia can do about the current relationship between the
US and Russia leaves no illusions as to who the insane party is. It is not within Russia's
power to make America sane. There are no magic words they can utter to fix what ails the
US.
A minor correction to dh-mtl @59 where it was claimed "[The globalists] lost power from
the mid-1930s to 1980."
The globalists were never actually out of power in the US. Instead they were confronted
with a massive upsurge in radical organized labor that threatened to remove them from
power. The globalists had to make very significant concessions to buy time for that labor
uprising to subside. That happened to take almost half a century, but throughout that
period the globalists retained power, though in a somewhat weakened form. They are back at
full strength now
'But to say any one nation "produced" the current global market economic system is a bit
like saying Yahweh created all the heavens and the earth in 6 days.'
I never suggested that 'one nation' produced this global system.
What I was suggesting is that perhaps the financial elites who benefit from, as you
describe it, a 'financial system created by and for the wealthiest elites wherever they may
call home', and who controlled Reagan and Clinton and W and Obama, Blair and Cameron and
Macron and Merkel and Aznar in Spain, etc., etc., and hundreds of MEPs in the European
parliament, and who created the U.S. Deep State, control virtually all of western
main-stream media, and who place their people in control of institutions such as the World
Bank, and IMF, and UN and WTO and BIS, and who decide the fate of the world every year at
Davos and the Bilderberg conference, might have had something the do with creating the laws
and treaties that created that system.
This sounds like a pretty effective political system to me, though definitely not
democratic.
Carter agreed to appoint Volker in order to save the bondholders by destroying the
domestic economy with interest rates over 20% which is what actually cost him the 1980
election. In 1978, McNamara was sent off to the World Bank to work in tandem with IMF to
begin the imposition of the euphemized Structural Adjustment Programs--the globalized
version of Neoliberalism.
'the Trump-nationalists and Brexiteers do not offer an effective solution to problem of
wealth inequality which is your complaint'.
Wealth inequality is not my complaint. My point is that 'dictatorship', whether it be in
the hands of 'wealthy global elites', military or other, cannot achieve acceptable outcomes
for a large, complex, modern society, and that excessive wealth inequality is a sure
indicator of dictatorship.
The Trump-nationalists and Brexiteers may not have an effective solution. But they are
convinced that what has been going on in their societies over the past 30 plus years has
definitely not worked for them either. My analysis is that they are trying to return to the
conditions in which the outcomes were much better for them.
My own conviction is that acceptable outcomes for a society can only be achieved when
the political leaders are working on behalf of the society as a whole, rather than for a
narrow privileged group, and especially a group that has little or no allegiance to the
nation-state, whose boundaries define the society.
When the political leaders are truly working on behalf of the population as a whole,
there is a wide variety of policy options that can work. Trial and error over time will
ensure that the policy options that are most appropriate for a particular society and its
circumstances will eventually emerge.
Globalization is simply a neoliberal economic substitute for colonialism.
Neoliberals contrary to popular opinion do not believe in self-regulating markets as
autonomous entities. They do not see democracy as necessary for capitalism.
The neoliberal globalist world is not a borderless market without nations but a doubled
world (economic -global and social- national) . The global economic world is kept safe from
democratic national demands for social justice and equality, and in return each nation
enjoys cultural freedom.
Neoliberals see democracy as a real problem. Democracy means the unwashed masses can
threaten the so called market economy (in fact manipulated and protected markets) with
worker demands for living wages and equality and consumer demands for competitive pricing
and safe products. Controlling both parties with money prevents that.
In fact, neoliberal thinking is comparable to that of John Maynard Keynes in one respect
: "the market does not and cannot take care of itself".
The neoliberal project did not liberate markets so much as protect them by protecting
capitalism against the threat of democracy and to reorder the world where borders provide a
captive market
Neoliberals insulate the markets by providing safe harbor for capital, free from fear of
infringement by policies of progressive taxation or redistribution. They do this by
redesigning government, laws, and other institutions to protect the market.
For example the stock market is propped up by the Feds purchases of futures, replacing
the plunge protection teams intervention at an even more extreme level. Manipulation of
economic statistics by the BLS also serve a similar purpose.
Another example is getting government to accept monopoly capitalism over competitive
capitalism and have appointed judges who believe illegal collusion is nothing more than
understandable and legal "conscious parallelism"
What you described is precisely a symptom of falling profitability. Financialisation,
for example, only increases when the "real economy" is not profiting enough anymore.
It's important to highlight that the tendency of the profit rate to fall doesn't
necessarily means a company is losing money, but just that the profit rate is secularly
decreasing. Since it's a tendency, it also doesn't mean this fall happens linearly: capital
still operates in cycles. However, over the long term, profit rates will fall, no matter
what.
The biggest reason Trump can't bring back home these manufacturing jobs is because they
have been lost in large part to the success of 'efficiency' in the US Over the past
three-and-a-half decades, manufacturers have shed more than seven million jobs while
producing more stuff than ever. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reported in The
Manufacturing Footprint and the Importance of U.S. Manufacturing Jobs that
"If you try
to understand how so many jobs have disappeared, the answer that you come up with over
and over again in the data is that it's not trade that caused that -- it's primarily
technology," Eighty percent of lost jobs were not replaced by workers in China, but by
machines and automation. That is the first problem if you slap on tariffs. What you
discover is that American companies are likely to replace its more expensive workers with
machines."
More evidence for Marx's Law: the USA was a victim of its own success, not of its own
failures, nor because of alien enemies.
When we speak of unadulterated capitalism and capital, we start with the most basic
capital we have, our hands. If I go and LABOUR by planting a tree and caring for it, the
fruit I consider mine. I might give those away at choice, or exchange them for something
else of value. That something eventually became known as money, a commonly recognised unit,
it's strength being that it could not be replicated, and its worth accepted in a wider
market by others. The fruit of a persons labour was transmitted to descendants and family
in tradition, in a society that respected that tradition. The whole process is very very
personal, including where extended business starts appearing.
Now, you want me to both accept taxation, where to not compete is a losing proposition,
and to accept that finance is able to conjure up replica money using that taxation as
basis, with which I have to compete with own earnings that are steadily purposefully
diluted - I take it very very very personally. What are you going to offer me, subsidy from
the pooled value now under your control ? Because it is a social and "fair" management of
reality ? Communism and socialism do not work, they remove the most natural good incentives
a person can have to actually go out and achieve anything, they dull what are otherwise
lively common understandings, they diminish societies that otherwise have open appreciation
for the effort of others. They try to own those, and they end up as dictatorships to try to
impose an own ideological dream. The same can be said of crony capitalism, which approaches
fascism.
That is why I subscribe to minarchic classical liberal notions of organisation, with
hard money and transparency of finance, as compromise. You know Iran and Saudi are gold
backed, don't you. You can figure out from that part of what is going on, maybe.
Someone pinch me and tell me I'm not dreaming! If this is true (my knee-jerk reaction is to
dismiss it), then it is
HUGE! EARTH SHATTERING !
In one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history, Soros
and Charles Koch, the more active of the two brothers, are joining to finance a new
foreign-policy think tank in Washington. It will promote an approach to the world based on
diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing. (...) It will be
called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who
in a seminal speech on Independence Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not
abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and
independence of all. (...) Among (Trita) Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics
of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent decades promoting
negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran, and North Korea; the historian and
essayist Stephen Wertheim; and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew
Bacevich. "The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist
conservatives to consider a new, less militarized approach to policy," Bacevich said, when
asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore the
pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
i thought it was april fools for a second, until i then thought it is probably a pile of
steaming b.s. but hey - if it can be used as fertilizer to grow a few brains in an otherwise
constant 24/7 war party mindset, i am up for it... call me when something actually happens as
a result of any soros-koch stink tank agenda..
Ultimately, Trump will find himself in a corner in which he never wished to
find himself: It may already be too late. He is there.
Professor Russell-Mead tells us "that the key
to the president's Iran policy is that his nose for power [and Trump is a keen judge of power,
R-M insists] is telling him Iran is weaker, and the US stronger than the foreign-policy
establishment believes What Mr. Trump wants is a deal with Iran that matches his sense of the
relative power of the two countries " (emphasis added).
"At the level of public diplomacy, [Trump] is engaging in his standard mix of dazzle and
spin[turning American politics into the Donald Trump Show, with the country and the world
fixated on his every move, speculating feverishly about what will come next, R-M suggests] And
at the level of power politics he is steadily and consistently tightening the screws on Iran:
arming its neighbors and assuring them of his support, tightening sanctions, and raising the
psychological pressure on the regime.
"Mr. Trump well understands the constraints under which his Iran policy is working.
Launching a new Middle East war could wreck his presidency. But if Iran starts the war, that's
another matter. A clear Iranian attack on American or even Israeli targets could unite Mr.
Trump's Jacksonian base like the attack on Pearl Harbor united America's Jacksonians to fight
Imperial Japan."
Russell-Mead's analysis probably has it right. But there is more to it than that: Trump's
approach is based on some further underlying key assumptions: Firstly, that, with the Iranian
economy tanking, and inflation soaring (Trump repeats this unfounded assertion frequently), the
Iranian revolutionary system will either implode, or approach Washington, on its knees, asking
for a new nuclear deal.
Two: Trump can afford to wait out this impending implosion, and just lever up the economic
pressures in the meanwhile. Three: Trump claims that a war with Iran would be short: "I'm not
talking boots on the ground,"
he said . "I'm just saying if something would happen, it wouldn't last very long". And
four: Trump said, (and appears to believe), that he wouldn't
need an "exit strategy" in the event of a war with Iran, which suggests that he may really
think that the war would be limited to a brief air campaign, and then it would be over.
What to say? Well, only that all of these assumptions are almost certainly wrong –
and, as Daniel Larison in The American Conservative notes ,
"if the US president thinks that a war with Iran "wouldn't last very long," he is probably
going to be more willing to start it. Iran hawks are already predictably emphasizing that
attacking Iran wouldn't be like Iraq or Afghanistan, and they are saying that in part to
overcome Trump's apparent reservations about getting bogged down in a protracted conflict".
Iran indeed would not be like Afghanistan or Iraq, but in an entirely different way to that
claimed by the hawks.
Well, Iran will not be imploding economically: On Friday, Russia signalled its commitment
to secure Iran's oil and banking sectors, should the EU's INSTEX clearing mechanism not be
working effectively by 7 July (when Iran's window to Europe on this issue closes). Russian
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday that Moscow is ready to help Iran export
its crude and ease restrictions on its banking system should Europe
fail to make INSTEX a viable mechanism. China too, has stated that "normal energy dealings"
with Tehran are in accordance with law, and should be respected. The Governor of the Central
Bank of Iran said this week that Iran has "climbed past the peak of sanctions. Our oil exports
are on the rise", Hemmati said .
If the 'implosion hypothesis' is flawed, so too is the claim that Iran will come begging for
a new nuclear deal from Mr Trump. Here, by way of illustration, is the (Iranian) account of what the
Supreme Leader said to Prime Minister Abe:
"During the meeting with Abe Shinzo (on 13 June), the latter told Ayatollah Khamenei that "I
would like to give you a message from the President of the United States".
"Ayatollah Khamenei responded by pointing to the US ingenuity and untrustworthiness, and
argued, "We do not doubt your [Abe's] sincerity and goodwill. However, regarding what you
mentioned about the President of the US, I do not consider Trump as a person worth exchanging
any message with and I have no answer for him, nor will I respond to him in the future
."
"[But] what I am going to say, is said to you as the Japanese Prime Minister, and because we
consider Japan a friend of ours
"Ayatollah Khamenei noting Shinzo's assertion that the US intends to prevent Iran's
production of nuclear weapons said, "We are opposed to the nuclear weapons and my religious
Fatwa bans production of nuclear weapons; but you should know that if we intended to produce
nuclear weapons, the US could do nothing; and its non-permission [would] not be any
obstacle."
"The Supreme leader, in response to the message that "the United States is not after
regime change in Iran", insisted that "Our problem with the United States is not about regime
change. Because even if they intend to pursue that, they won't be able to achieve it When Trump
says that he is not after regime change, it is a lie. For, if he could do so, he would.
However, he is not capable of it."
"Ayatollah Khamenei similarly referred to the Japanese prime minister's remarks regarding
the United States' request to negotiate with Iran about the nuclear issue, and said, "The
Islamic Republic of Iran negotiated for 5 to 6 years with the United States and the Europeans
-- the P 5+1 -- which led to an agreement. But the United States disregarded and breached this
definite agreement. So, does common sense permit negotiations with a state that has thrown away
everything that was agreed upon?"
"He pointed to the forty years of hostility that the US has showed to the Iranian nation and
its continued hostility, and said, "We believe that our problems will not be solved by
negotiating with the US, and no free nation would ever accept negotiations under pressure."
And 'pressures' are precisely what the US is adding: i.e. increasing pressures, rather than
easing them – which stands probably as the sine qua non to resuming negotiations with
Iran. But then Trump holds to the view that America is entitled – by virtue of its
greater power – to negotiate with others only when the counterparties are under 'maximum
pressure'. Plainly, he has not been briefed well on the Iranian history of stoically enduring
far worse and violent cataclysms. Nor, that Iranians can draw on a stratum of spiritual
resilience from the narrative of Imam Hussein at times of crisis.
How so? The notion of an 'Iran on the cusp of collapse' is a meme being peddled by
various disgruntled Iranian exiles, and by the MEK, as well as by prominent hawks in the US.
But equally – and importantly, given Trump's own family predilections – this
narrative of 'just one push' and the Iranian Revolution 'is over' is being constantly urged by
Netanyahu. (Other Israelis are not so happy at their PM's open and avid support for Trump's
policy on Iran – recalling how Israel (and Netanyahu) were accused of having pushed for
the 2003 Iraq war).
So. If the assumption that Iran will either collapse, or capitulate under economic
pressure, is false; and that the presumption that 'no exit strategy' is required, because Iran
is weak and the US is militarily strong (implying that a short, quick air strike would settle
matters) – is similarly flawed, where then are we headed?
If these underlying assumptions continue to pass without serious challenge, then, as time
passes, Iran will neither have imploded, nor capitulated, as presaged; but rather, it will have
continued to send calibrated,
incrementally ascending 'messages' to demonstrating the potential costs of pursuing such a
policy – with the pain being experienced principally by those US allies who continually
advocate for harsh US 'measures' against Iran.
Ultimately, Trump will find himself in a corner in which he never wished to find himself:
It may already be too late. He is there. Either having to react militarily to Iranian
'messages', with all the potential for asymmetric Iranian counterstrikes and ratchetting
escalation: A prospect from which instinctively he recoils, because he fears this route of
indecisive military tit-for-tat may not play out well for him in terms of the 2020 elections.
And even could risk his Presidency.
Or, a humiliating, concessionary journey of return into a process closely mirroring the
(despised) JCPOA – whatever be its new name: And hope to call the defeat as
'victory'.
Quite possibly, President Putin may have it in mind to lay out some of this prospective
landscape when he met with Trump at Osaka. We probably won't be told. We'll never know.
"... This Turkish process of acquiring northern Syria is greatly assisted by the continuing Bolton/Pompeo/neocon policy of regime change in Syria ..."
"... I don't see why Turkey would outright annex northern Syria instead of creating puppet regimes there. They didn't annex northern Cyprus either, and the population there are ethnic Turks. ..."
"... Annexation of northern Syria would bring even more Arabs and Kurds into the Turkish polity, which must be a nightmare for any Turkish nationalist ..."
"... It's not clear to me that "Islamic solidarity" will be stronger than Turkish nationalism. ..."
5. Turkey - The Neo-Ottomans are in the process of devouring large parts of northern Syria.
This process is something like an anaconda slowing engulfing a large animal. We are now in the
phase of this devouring in which there is a lot of nonsense about de-militarized zones,
supposed cease fires, entrenched Turkish "observation posts" placed so as to keep the SAA and
friends from getting at HTS and the other jihadis in Idlib Province.
If successful this will be
followed by plebiscites and petitions by local puppet government for annexation.
This Turkish
process of acquiring northern Syria is greatly assisted by the continuing Bolton/Pompeo/neocon
policy of regime change in Syria. Under the sway of this policy we continue to do our best to
impede the reconstruction of Syria and refugee return with all sorts of baloney in the MSM
about Syrian government atrocities against returning Syrians. We also are doing everything
possible to discourage a Syria Kurd-Syrian government rapprochement. IMO Trump has delegated
attention on this to the neocons in his house and should take this function away from them in
this area.
... ... ...
TI ,
"This Turkish process of acquiring northern Syria"
I don't see why Turkey would outright annex northern Syria instead of creating puppet
regimes there. They didn't annex northern Cyprus either, and the population there are ethnic
Turks.
A significant part of the Turkish public already seems to be very unhappy about the
presence of large numbers of Syrian refugees in Turkey and doesn't like the idea at all that
they will eventually acquire Turkish citizenship.
Annexation of northern Syria would bring
even more Arabs and Kurds into the Turkish polity, which must be a nightmare for any Turkish
nationalist (the higher birth rates of Turkey's Kurdish minority as compared to ethnic Turks
are already somewhat of a demographic time bomb).
It's not clear to me that "Islamic
solidarity" will be stronger than Turkish nationalism.
This is WSWS with their outdated dreams of "working class dictatorship" but some points and observation are very apt and
to the point.
Notable quotes:
"... The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy ..."
"... Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate, her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. ..."
"... She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class, whose views are promoted by the New York Times ..."
"... The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump and Obama. ..."
"... If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia. ..."
"... On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders. ..."
Four hours of nationally televised debates Wednesday and Thursday among 20 Democratic
presidential candidates demonstrated the gigantic disconnect between the claims of this
pro-war, pro-corporate party to be driven by concerns for the well-being of working people
and the reality of poverty and oppression in America, for which the Democratic Party is no
less responsible than the Republicans.
The stage-managed spectacle mounted by NBC marked the formal beginning of an electoral
process dominated by big money and thoroughly manipulated by the corporate-controlled
media.
The attempt to contain the growing left-wing opposition in the working class and channel
it behind the second oldest capitalist party in the world necessarily assumed the form of
lies and demagogy. For the most part, the vying politicians, all of them in the top 10
percent on the income ladder, made promises to provide healthcare, jobs, decent schools,
tuition-free college and a clean environment for all, knowing full well they had no intention
of carrying them out.
No one -- neither the millionaire media talking heads asking the questions nor the
candidates -- dared to mention the fact that that Democratic Party has just voted to give
Trump an additional $4.9 billion to round up, detain and torture hundreds of thousands of
immigrants, including children, in the growing network of concentration camps being set up
within the US. Facts, as they say, are stubborn things, and this one demonstrates the
complicity of the Democratic Party in the fascistic policies of the Trump administration.
The second night of the debate featured the front-runners, former Vice President Joe Biden
and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Biden has a long record of reactionary politics,
including in the Obama administration. Sanders is continuing in this election his role in
2016 of channeling growing support for socialism into the framework of a right-wing
party.
The fraud of a "progressive" Democratic Party and presidential candidate was summed up in
the near-universal declaration of the media that Senator Kamala Harris had emerged as the
clear winner, part of a coordinated effort to promote her candidacy. The African-American
senator was lauded for attacking Biden for statements boasting of his ability in the past to
collaborate with segregationist senators and his past opposition to busing for school
integration.
It was Harris who adopted the most transparently bogus posture of left-radicalism in
Thursday night's debate, repeatedly declaring her agreement with Bernie Sanders and raising
her hand, along with Sanders, to support the abolition of private health insurance in favor
of a single-payer system. By Friday morning, however, she had reversed that stand, claiming
she had "misheard" the question and declaring her support for the continuation of private
insurance.
Harris climbed to the Senate by serving for years in the Bay Area of California as a
law-and-order district attorney and state attorney general, defending police killers and
bankers engaged in foreclosure fraud, including Trump's current treasury secretary, Steven
Mnuchin. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been among the most rabid of
Democrats in attacking Trump as a stooge of Russian President Putin. In Thursday's debate,
her main foray into foreign policy was to denounce Trump for being soft on Putin and North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
She is being promoted most enthusiastically by those sections of the ruling class,
whose views are promoted by the New York Times , who want the Democratic campaign to
be dominated by racial and gender politics so as to mobilize the party's wealthy upper-middle
class base and divert and divide the mass working class anger over social
inequality.
Many of the candidates fondly recalled the Obama administration. But those eight years saw
the greatest transfer of wealth from working people to the super-rich in American history.
The pace was set by the initial $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, which was expanded to
uncounted trillions in the course of 2009, combined with the bailout of the auto companies at
the expense of the autoworkers, who suffered massive cuts in benefits and a 50 percent cut in
pay for new hires, rubber-stamped by the United Auto Workers.
The Obama administration also deported more immigrants than any other, a fact that was
raised in a question to Vice President Biden, who confined himself to empty declarations of
sympathy for the victims of Trump's persecution, while denying any comparison between Trump
and Obama.
Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado attacked Biden for claiming credit for a bipartisan
budget deal in 2011 with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Far from a genuine
compromise, he said, the deal "was a complete victory for the Tea Party. It extended the Bush
tax cuts permanently," as well as putting in place major cuts in social spending which
continue to this day. Bennet neglected to mention that he had voted for the deal himself when
it passed the Senate by a huge majority.
It was remarkable, under conditions where President Trump himself declared that the United
States was only 10 minutes away from launching a major assault on Iran earlier this month,
that the 20 Democratic candidates spent almost no time discussing foreign policy.
In the course of four hours, there were only a few minutes devoted to the world outside
the United States. The silence on the rest of the world cannot be dismissed as mere
parochialism.
Many of the Democratic presidential candidates are deeply implicated in either the
policy-making or combat operations of US imperialism. The 20 candidates include two who were
deployed as military officers to Iraq and Afghanistan, Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard; Biden,
vice president for eight years and the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee; and five senators who are members of high-profile national security committees:
Harris and Bennet on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten
Gillibrand on the Armed Services Committee, and Cory Booker on the Foreign Relations
Committee.
If these ladies and gentlemen decide not to engage on foreign policy, the reason is
clear: the Democrats know that the American people are adamantly opposed to new military
interventions. They therefore seek to conceal the preparations of American imperialism for
major wars, whether regional conflicts with Iran, North Korea or Venezuela, or conflicts with
nuclear-armed global rivals like China and Russia.
In the handful of comments that were made on foreign policy, the Democratic candidates
struck a belligerent note. On Wednesday, four of the ten candidates declared the main global
threat to the United States to be China, while New York Mayor Bill de Blasio opted for
Russia. Many candidates referred to the need to combat Russian interference in the US
election -- recycling the phony claims that Russian "meddling" helped Trump into the White
House in 2016.
On the first night, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, asked to name the greatest
global security threat, replied, "The greatest threat that we face is the fact we are at a
greater risk of nuclear war today than ever before in history." This remarkable declaration
was passed over in silence by the moderators and the other candidates, and the subject was
not raised on the second night at all, including by Bernie Sanders.
You have probably seen the bumper sticker that says: "Shit Happens." Some people are just
lucky, I suppose, and odd coincidences mark their lives.
When he was just out of Columbia College and working for a reputed CIA front company,
Business International Corporation, Barack Obama had a chance encounter with a young woman,
Genevieve Cook, with whom he had a 1-2 year relationship.
Like Obama and at about the same
time, Cook just happened to have lived in Indonesia with her father, Michael Cook, who just
happened to become Australia's top spook, the director-general of the Office of National
Assessments, and also the Ambassador to Washington.
Of course, Obama's mother, as is well-known, just happened to be living in Indonesia with
Barack and Obama's step-father, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian military officer, who had been
called back to Indonesia by the CIA supported General Suharto three months before the CIA coup
against President Sukarno. Suharto subsequently slaughtered over a million Indonesian
Communists and Indonesian-Chinese.
As is also well-known, it just so happened that Obama's
mother, Ann Dunham, trained in the Russian language, after teaching English in the US Embassy
in Jakarta that housed one of the largest CIA stations in Asia, did her "anthropological" work
in Indonesia and Southeast Asia financed by the well-known CIA conduits, USAID and the Ford
Foundation.
Then there is Cook's stepfather, Philip C. Jessup, who just happened to be in
Indonesia at the same time, doing nickel-mining deals with the genocidal Suharto
government.
Anyway, "shit happens." You never know whom you might meet along the way of life.
The hostess at the seaside restaurant had an eastern European accent, so he asked her where
she was from. She said, "Belgrade, Serbia." He told her he was sorry for what the U.S.
government led by Bill Clinton had done to her country and that he considered Clinton a war
criminal. She said the bombing in 1999 was terrifying, and even though she was young at the
time, she vividly remembered it.
It traumatized her, her parents, and her family. Then she smiled and said that in the month
she had been in the U.S. for her summer job, all the Americans she had met had been so
friendly. He welcomed her to the U.S., and as he was walking away, he remembered that Clinton's
savage bombing of Serbia that had killed so many Serbian children and other innocents had been
code-named "Operation Noble Anvil."
He wondered what kind of "noble" people would think of innocent children as anvils: "heavy
usually steel-faced iron blocks on which metal is shaped," and did the friendly Americans
accept Clinton's sick lies when he ended his March 24, 1999 war address to the American people
with these words: "Our thoughts and prayers tonight must be with the men and women of our armed
forces, who are undertaking this mission for the sake of our values and our children's future.
May God bless them, and may God bless America."
"... The secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and international skepticism attests. ..."
"... Pompeo's official assessment was false even in its staging. For most of his four-minute appearance, Pompeo stood framed by two pictures behind him, each showing a tanker with a fire amidships. This was a deliberate visual lie. The two pictures showed the same tanker, the Norwegian-owned Front Altair , from different angles. The other tanker, Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous , did not catch fire and was not shown. ..."
"... Pompeo did not identify the unnamed intelligence entities, if any, within the government who made this assessment. He offered no evidence to support the assessment. He did offer something of an argument that began: ..."
"... He didn't say what intelligence. He didn't say whose intelligence. American intelligence assets and technology are all over the region generating reams of intelligence day in, day out. Then there are the intelligence agencies of the Arab police states bordering the Persian Gulf. They, too, are busy collecting intelligence 24/7, although they are sometimes loath to share. Pompeo didn't mention it, but according to CNN an unnamed US official admitted that the US had a Reaper Drone in the air near the two tankers before they were attacked. He also claimed that Iran had fired a missile at the drone, but missed. As CNN inanely spins it, "it is the first claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack." As if the US doesn't have information on Iranian movements all the time . More accurately, this is the first admission that the US had operational weaponry in the area prior to the attack. ..."
"... Pompeo did not name a single weapon used. Early reporting claimed the attackers used torpedoes or mines, a claim that became inoperative as it became clear that all the damage to the tankers was well above the waterline. There is little reason to believe Pompeo had any actual knowledge of what weapons were used, unless one was a Reaper Drone. ..."
"... There are NO confirmed "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," and even if there were, they would prove nothing. Pompeo's embarrassingly irrelevant list that follows includes six examples, only one of which involved a shipping attack ..."
"... Instead of "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," Pompeo offers Iran's decades-old threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (which it's never done), together with three attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, an unattributed rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an unattributed car bomb in Afghanistan. Seriously, if that's all he's got, he's got nothing. But he's not done with the disinformation exercise: ..."
"... The US is stumbling down a path toward war with no justification ..."
It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is
responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today. This assessment is based
on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation,
recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the
area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.
This is only the latest in a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran
and its surrogates against American and allied interests, and they should be understood in
the context of 40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.
The secretary of state delivered this appallingly Orwellian official assessment of the US
government within hours of the five explosions on two tankers, well before any credible
investigation establishing more than minimal facts could be carried out. As is his habit, Mike
Pompeo flatly lied about whatever might be real in the Gulf of Oman, and most American media
ran with the lies as if they were or might be true. There is almost no chance that Mike Pompeo
and the US government are telling the truth about this event, as widespread domestic and
international skepticism attests.
Pompeo's official assessment was false even in its staging. For most of his four-minute
appearance, Pompeo stood framed by two pictures behind him, each showing a tanker with a fire
amidships. This was a deliberate visual lie. The two pictures showed the same tanker, the
Norwegian-owned Front Altair , from different angles. The other tanker, Japanese-owned
Kokuka Courageous , did not catch fire and was not shown.
First, what actually happened, as best we can tell five days later? In the early morning of
June 13, two unrelated tankers were heading south out of the Strait of Hormuz, sailing in open
water in the Gulf of Oman, roughly 20 miles off the south coast of Iran. The tankers were most
likely outside Iran's territorial waters, but within Iran's contiguous zone as defined by the
UN Convention on
the Law of the Sea . At different times, some 30 miles apart, the two tankers were attacked
by weapons unknown, launched by parties unknown, for reasons unknown. The first reported
distress call was 6:12 a.m. local time. No one has yet claimed responsibility for either
attack. The crew of each tanker abandoned ship soon after the explosions and were rescued by
ships in the area, including Iranian naval vessels, who took the Front Altair crew to an
Iranian port.
Even this much was not certain in the early afternoon of June 13 when Mike Pompeo came to
the lectern at the State Department to deliver his verdict:
It is the assessment of the United States Government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is
responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today.
Pompeo did not identify the unnamed intelligence entities, if any, within the government who
made this assessment. He offered no evidence to support the assessment. He did offer something
of an argument that began:
This assessment is based on intelligence .
He didn't say what intelligence. He didn't say whose intelligence. American intelligence
assets and technology are all over the region generating reams of intelligence day in, day out.
Then there are the intelligence agencies of the Arab police states bordering the Persian Gulf.
They, too, are busy collecting intelligence 24/7, although they are sometimes loath to share.
Pompeo didn't mention it, but according to CNN an unnamed US official admitted that the US had
a Reaper Drone in the air near the two tankers before they were attacked. He also claimed that
Iran had fired a missile at the drone, but missed. As CNN inanely spins it, "it is the first
claim that the US has information of Iranian movements prior to the attack." As if the US
doesn't have information on Iranian movements all the time . More accurately, this is the first admission that the US had
operational weaponry in the area prior to the attack. After intelligence, Pompeo continued:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used .
Pompeo did not name a single weapon used. Early reporting claimed the attackers used
torpedoes or mines, a claim that became inoperative as it became clear that all the damage to
the tankers was well above the waterline. There is little reason to believe Pompeo had any
actual knowledge of what weapons were used, unless one was a Reaper Drone. He went on:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed
to execute the operation
The "level of expertise needed" to carry out these attacks on a pair of sitting duck tankers
does not appear to be that great. Yes, the Iranian military probably has the expertise, as do
the militaries of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Israel, or others with a stake
in provoking a crisis in the region. And those who lack the expertise still have the money with
which to hire expert surrogates. The number of credible suspects, known and unknown, with an
interest in doing harm to Iran is easily in double figures. Leading any serious list should be
the US. That's perfectly logical, so Pompeo tried to divert attention from the obvious:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed
to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping .
There are NO confirmed "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," and even if there were,
they would prove nothing. Pompeo's embarrassingly irrelevant list that follows includes six
examples, only one of which involved a shipping attack. The one example was the May 12, 2019,
attack on four ships at anchor in the deep water port of Fujairah. Even the multinational
investigation organized by the UAE could not determine who did it. The UAE reported to the UN
Security Council that the perpetrator was likely some unnamed "state actor." The logical
suspects and their surrogates are the same as those for the most recent attack.
Instead of "recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping," Pompeo offers Iran's decades-old
threat to close the Strait of Hormuz (which it's never done), together with three attacks by
the Houthis on Saudi Arabia, an unattributed rocket attack on the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an
unattributed car bomb in Afghanistan. Seriously, if that's all he's got, he's got nothing. But
he's not done with the disinformation exercise:
This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed
to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no
proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high
degree of sophistication.
The whole proxy group thing is redundant, covered by "the level of expertise needed"
mentioned earlier. Pompeo doesn't name any proxy group here, he doesn't explain how he could
know there's no proxy group that could carry out such an attack, and he just throws word
garbage at the wall and hopes something sticks that will make you believe – no evidence
necessary – that Iran is evil beyond redemption:
Taken as a whole, these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace
and security, a blatant assault on the freedom of navigation, and an unacceptable campaign of
escalating tension by Iran.
The attacks in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan have all been provoked by the US and its
allies. The US has long been a clear threat to international peace and security, except when
the US was actually trashing peace and security, as it did in Iraq, as it seems to want to do
in Iran. There is, indeed, "an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension," but it's a
campaign by the US. The current phase began when the Trump administration pulled out of the
multinational nuclear deal with Iran. The US wages economic warfare on Iran even though Iran
continues to abide by the Trump-trashed treaty. All the other signatories and inspectors
confirm that Iran has abided by the agreement. But Iran is approaching a point of violation,
which it has been warning about for some time. The other signatories allow the US to bully them
into enforcing US sanctions at their own cost against a country in compliance with its
promises. China, Russia, France, GB, Germany, and the EU are all craven in the face of US
threats. That's what the US wants from Iran.
Lately, Trump and Pompeo and their ilk have been whining about not wanting war and claiming
they want to negotiate, while doing nothing to make negotiation more possible. Iran has
observed US actions and has rejected negotiating with an imperial power with a decades-long
record of bad faith. Lacking any serious act of good faith by the US, does Iran have any other
rational choice? Pompeo makes absolutely clear just how irrational, how dishonest, how
implacable and untrustworthy the US is when he accuses Iran of:
40 years of unprovoked aggression against freedom-loving nations.
This is Big Lie country. Forty years ago, the Iranians committed their original sin –
they overthrew one of the world's most brutal dictatorships, imposed on them by the US. Then
they took Americans hostage, and the US has been playing the victim ever since, out of all
proportion to reality or justice. But the Pompeos of this world still milk it for all it's
worth. What about "unprovoked aggression," who does that? The US list is long and criminal,
including its support of Saddam Hussein's war of aggression against Iran. Iran's list of
"unprovoked aggressions" is pretty much zero, unless you go back to the Persian Empire. No
wonder Pompeo took no question on his statement. The Big Lie is supposed to be enough.
The US is stumbling down a path toward war with no justification. Democrats should have
objected forcefully and continuously long since. Democrats in the House should have put peace
with Iran on the table as soon as they came into the majority. They should do it now.
Democratic presidential candidates should join Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren in
forthrightly opposing war with Iran. Leading a huge public outcry may not keep the president
from lying us into war with Iran any more than it kept the president from lying us into war
with Iraq. But an absence of outcry will just make it easier for this rogue nation to commit a
whole new set of war crimes.
Intellectually, the case for normal relations with Iran is easy. There is literally no good
reason to maintain hostility, not even the possibility, remote as it is, of an Iranian nuclear
weapon (especially now that Trump is helping the Saudis go nuclear). But politically, the case
for normal relations with Iran is hard, especially because forty years of propaganda demonizing
Iran has deep roots. To make a sane case on Iran takes real courage: one has to speak truth to
a nation that believes its lies to itself.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism,
and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from
Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an
Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. This article was first
published in Reader Supported
News . Read
other articles by William .
The New York Times is outraged, just outraged! -- that US anti-tank missiles have been found
in "unknown" Libyan rebel hands .
Of course, when tons of American military hardware was covertly sent to al-Qaeda linked
"rebels" fighting to topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and when those same weapons were later
transferred to the anti-Assad insurgency in Syria , many of them no doubt used by ISIS and
al-Nusra Front, the mainstream media didn't find much to complain about. But now the "scandal"
is being uncovered in 2019?
Currently, it's the UN-backed government in Tripoli which finds itself on the receiving end
of deadly accurate high-tech US-made weapons systems, according to
the Times :
Libyan government fighters discovered a cache of powerful American missiles , usually sold
only to close American allies, at a captured rebel base in the mountains south of Tripoli
this week.
The four Javelin anti-tank missiles, which cost more than $170,000 each, had ended up
bolstering the arsenal of Gen. Khalifa Hifter , whose forces are waging a military campaign
to take over Libya and overthrow a government the United States supports.
Markings on the missiles' shipping containers indicate that they were originally sold to
the United Arab Emirates, an important American partner, in 2008.
... ... ...
The Times report noted further, "If the Emirates transferred the weapons to
General Hifter, it would likely violate the sales agreement with the United States as well as a
United Nations arms embargo ."
Gen. Haftar -- who
solidified control of Eastern Libya over the past two years and swept through the south
early this year, has sought to capture Tripoli and seize military control of the entire
country, with the support of countries like the UAE and France, but is strongly opposed by
Turkey and most European countries.
Haftar has long been described by many analysts as "the CIA's man in Libya" -- given he
spent a couple decades living in exile a mere few minutes from CIA headquarters in Langley,
Virginia during Gaddafi's rule.
He was inserted back onto the Libyan battlefield before Gaddafi's eventual capture and field
execution at the hands of NATO supported Islamist fighters in 2011. The NYT offered further
details of the US weapons recovered this week
as follows :
Markings on the missile crates identify their joint manufacturer, the arms giants Raytheon
and Lockheed Martin , and a contract number that corresponds with a $115 million order for
Javelin missiles that was placed by the United Arab Emirates and Oman in 2008.
Again, isn't it a little late for the mainstream media to somehow only now discover and care
about the "scandal" of major US weapons systems in "unknown rebel hands" ?
For a trip down memory lane, and to review just what Obama and Hillary's original Libya war
has wrought, see Dan Sanchez's 2015 essay,
"Where Does ISIS Get Those Wonderful Toys?"
The CIA knows where these weapons are. All POTUS' know where these weapons are. The
Israelis know where these weapons are. The Saudis and UK know where these weapons are. What
is the problem?
" "We take all allegations of misuse of U.S. origin defense articles very seriously," a
State Department official
said in a statement following the Javelin anti-tank missile recovery.
"We are aware of these reports and are seeking additional information. We expect all
recipients of U.S. origin defense equipment to abide by their end-use obligations," the
statement continued. "
Hilarious. Do they expect the "unknown" rebels to just return them? If they're unknown,
how do tehy know they're rebels?
But i guess they're not worried under Obama thousands of these missiles were supplied to
Islamic Terrorists in Syria. And now Trump gave the green light to supply more missiles to
Turkish Islamic Terrorists in Syria. That are slaughtering Thousands of Syrian soldiers with
these missiles.
"... Mao only understood power. He sensed Khrushchev as 'weak' and acted as if he wanted to be the new Stalin. He also made international statements that made the US-USSR relations much worse. He berated Khrushchev for seeking co-existence with the West and pressed on for more World Revolution. ..."
"... It was all so stupid. China and Russia could have gotten along well if not for Mao's impetuosity. Of course, Khrushchev could be reckless, contradictory, and erratic, and his mixed signals to the West also heightened tensions. Also, he was caught between a rock and a hard place where the Eastern Bloc was concerned. He wanted to de-Stalinize, but this could lead to events like the Hungarian Uprising. ..."
Abrams is giving the West too much credit for the Sino-Soviet rift of the late 5os and 60s.
That was NOT the doing of the CIA or Western Europe. It was 90% the fault of Mao who tried
to shove Khrushchev aside as the head of world communism. Because Stalin had treated Mao
badly, Khrushchev wanted to make amends and treated Mao with respect. But Mao turned out to
be a total a-hole. There are two kinds of people: Those who appreciate friendly gestures and
those who seek kindness as 'weakness'.
It's like Hitler saw Chamberlain's offer as weakness and pushed ahead. Being kind is nice,
but one should never be kind to psychopaths, and Khrushchev was nice to the wrong person.
Mao only understood power. He sensed Khrushchev as 'weak' and acted as if he wanted to be
the new Stalin. He also made international statements that made the US-USSR relations much
worse. He berated Khrushchev for seeking co-existence with the West and pressed on for more
World Revolution.
He also ignored Soviet advice not to attempt radical economic policies (that were soon to
bring China to economic ruin -- at least Stalin's collectivization led to rise of industry;
in contrast, Mao managed to destroy both agriculture and heavy industry).
When Stalin was alive, he didn't treat Mao with any respect, and Mao disliked Stalin but
still respected him because Mao understood Power. With Stalin gone, Khrushchev showed Mao
some respect, but Mao felt no respect for Khrushchev who was regarded as a weakling and
sucker.
It was all so stupid. China and Russia could have gotten along well if not for Mao's
impetuosity. Of course, Khrushchev could be reckless, contradictory, and erratic, and his
mixed signals to the West also heightened tensions. Also, he was caught between a rock and a
hard place where the Eastern Bloc was concerned. He wanted to de-Stalinize, but this could
lead to events like the Hungarian Uprising.
Anyway, Putin and Xi, perhaps having grown up in less turbulent times, are more stable and
mature in character and temperament than Mao and Khrushchev. They don't see the Russo-China
relations as a zero sum game of ego but a way for which both sides can come to the table
halfway, which is all one can hope for.
See better discussion at
platts.com "But US LNG could face problems of its own – the current low prices are forcing ever growing numbers of US producers
into bankruptcy. According to a recent report by Haynes and Boone, 90 gas and oil producers in the US and Canada have filed for bankruptcy
between January 2015 and the start of August 2016." So $2 price at Henry Hub should rise to at least $4 for companies to stay in business.
Notable quotes:
"... Less than half of the gas necessary for Europe is produced domestically, the rest being imported from Russia (39%), Norway (30%) and Algeria (13%). In 2017, gas imports from outside of the EU reached 14%. Spain led with imports of 31%, followed by France with 20% and Italy with 15%. ..."
"... The South Stream project, led by Eni, Gazprom, EDF and Wintershall, should have increased the capacity of the Russian Federation to supply Europe with 63 billion cubic meters annually, positively impacting the economy with cheap supplies of gas to Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia. Due to the restrictions imposed by the European Union on Russian companies like Gazprom, and the continuing pressure from Washington to abandon the project and embrace imports from the US, the construction of the pipeline have slowed down and generated tensions between Europe and the US. Washington is piling on pressure on Germany to derail Nord Stream 2 and stop the construction of this important energy linkage. ..."
"... Further tension has been added since ENI, an Italian company that is a leader in the LNG sector, recently discovered off-shore in Egypt one of the largest gas fields in the world, with an estimated total capacity of 850 billion cubic meters. To put this in perspective, all EU countries demand is about 470 billion cubic meters of gas in 2017. ..."
"... s mentioned, LNG imported to Europe from the US costs about 20% more than gas traditionally received through pipelines. This is without including all the investment necessary to build regasification plants in countries destined to receive this ship-borne gas. Europe currently does not have the necessary facilities on its Atlantic coast to receive LNG from the US, introduce it into its energy networks, and simultaneously decrease demand from traditional sources. ..."
"... This situation could change in the future, with LNG from the US seeing a sharp increase recently. In 2010, American LNG exports to Europe were at 10%; the following year they rose to 11%; and in the first few months of 2019, they jumped to 35%. A significant decrease in LNG exports to Asian countries, which are less profitable, offers an explanation for this corresponding increase in Europe. ..."
"... Washington, with its LNG ships, has no capacity to compete in Asia against Qatar and Australia, who have the lion's share of the market, with Moscow's pipelines taking up the rest. The only large remaining market lies in Europe, so it is therefore not surprising that Donald Trump has decided to weaponize LNG, a bit as he has the US dollar . This has only driven EU countries to seek energy diversification in the interests of security. ..."
"... The European countries do not appear to be dragging their feet at the prospect of swapping to US LNG, even though there is no economic advantage to doing so. As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?" ..."
"... The generalized hysteria against the Russian Federation, together with the cutting off of Iranian oil imports at Washington's behest, limit the room for maneuver of European countries, in addition to costing European taxpayers a lot. ..."
One of the most important energy battles
of the future will be fought in the field of liquid natural gas (LNG). Suggested as one of the main solutions to
pollution , LNG offers the possibility
of still managing to meet a country's industrial needs while ameliorating environmental concerns caused by other energy sources.
At the same time, a little like the US dollar, LNG is becoming a tool Washington intends to use against Moscow at the expense of
Washington's European allies.
To understand the rise of LNG in global strategies, it is wise to look at a
graph (page 7)
produced by the International Gas Union (IGU) where the following four key indicators are highlighted: global regasification capacities;
total volumes of LNG exchanged; exporting countries; and importing countries.
From 1990 to today,
the world has grown from 220 million tons per annum (MTPA) to around 850 MTPA of regasification capacity. The volume of trade
increased from 20-30 MTPA to around 300 MTPA. Likewise, the number of LNG-importing countries has increased from just over a dozen
to almost 40 over the course of 15 years, while the number of producers has remained almost unchanged, except for a few exceptions
like the US entering the LNG market in 2016.
There are two methods used to transport gas.
The first is through pipelines, which reduce costs and facilitate interconnection between countries, an important example of
this being seen in Europe's importation of gas. The four main pipelines for Europe come from four distinct geographical regions:
the Middle East, Africa, Northern Europe and Russia.
The second method of transporting gas is by sea in the form of LNG, which in the short term is more expensive, complex and
difficult to implement on a large scale. Gas transported by sea is processed to be cooled so as to reduce its volume, and then
liquified again to allow storage and transport by ship. This process adds 20% to costs when compared to gas transported through
pipelines.
Less than half of the gas necessary for Europe is
produced domestically, the
rest being imported from Russia (39%), Norway (30%) and Algeria (13%). In 2017, gas imports from outside of the EU reached 14%. Spain
led with imports of 31%, followed by France with 20% and Italy with 15%.
The construction of infrastructure to accommodate LNG ships is ongoing in Europe, and some European countries already have a limited
capacity to accommodate LNG and direct it to the national and European network or act as an energy hub to ship LNG to other ports
using smaller ships.
"All of Europe's LNG terminals are import facilities, with the exception of (non-EU) Norway and Russia which export LNG. There
are currently 28 large-scale LNG import terminals in Europe (including non-EU Turkey). There are also 8 small-scale LNG facilities
in Europe (in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Gibraltar). Of the 28 large-scale LNG import terminals, 24 are in EU countries
(and therefore subject to EU regulation) and 4 are in Turkey, 23 are land-based import terminals, and 4 are floating storage and
regasification units (FSRUs), and the one import facility in Malta comprises a Floating Storage Unit (FSU) and onshore regasification
facilities."
The countries currently most involved in the export of LNG are Qatar (24.9%), Australia (21.7%), Malaysia (7.7%), the US (6.7%),
Nigeria (6.5%) and Russia (6%).
Europe is one of the main markets for gas, given its strong demand for clean energy for domestic and industrial needs. For this
reason, Germany has for years been engaged in the Nord Stream 2 project, which aims to double the transport capacity of gas from
Russia to Germany. Currently the flow of the Nord Stream is 55 billion cubic meters of gas. With the new Nord Stream 2, the capacity
will double to 110 billion cubic meters per year.
The South Stream project, led by Eni, Gazprom, EDF and Wintershall, should have increased the capacity of the Russian Federation
to supply Europe with 63 billion cubic meters annually, positively impacting the economy with cheap supplies of gas to Bulgaria,
Greece, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia. Due to the restrictions imposed by the European Union on Russian companies
like Gazprom, and the continuing pressure from Washington to abandon the project and embrace imports from the US, the construction
of the pipeline have slowed down and generated tensions between Europe and the US. Washington is piling on pressure on Germany to
derail Nord Stream 2 and stop the construction of this important energy linkage.
Further tension has been added since ENI, an Italian company that is a leader in the LNG sector, recently discovered off-shore
in Egypt one of the largest gas fields in the world, with an estimated total capacity of 850 billion cubic meters. To put this in
perspective, all EU countries demand is about 470 billion cubic meters of gas in 2017.
ENI's discovery has generated important planning for the future of LNG in Europe and in Italy.
Problems have arisen ever since Donald Trump sought to oblige Europeans to
purchase LNG from the US in
order to reduce the trade deficit and benefit US companies at the expense of other gas-exporting countries like Algeria, Russia and
Norway. As mentioned, LNG imported to Europe from the US costs about 20% more than gas traditionally received through pipelines.
This is without including all the investment necessary to build regasification plants in countries destined to receive this ship-borne
gas. Europe currently does not have the necessary facilities on its Atlantic coast to receive LNG from the US, introduce it into
its energy networks, and simultaneously decrease demand from traditional sources.
This situation could change in the future, with LNG from the US seeing a sharp increase recently. In 2010, American LNG exports
to Europe were at 10%; the following year they rose to 11%; and in the first few months of 2019, they jumped to 35%. A significant
decrease in LNG exports to Asian countries, which are less profitable, offers an explanation for this corresponding increase in Europe.
But Europe finds itself in a decidedly uncomfortable situation that cannot be easily resolved. The anti-Russia hysteria drummed
up by the Euro-Atlantic globalist establishment aides Donald Trump's efforts to economically squeeze as much as possible out of European
allies, hurting European citizens in the process who will have to pay more for American LNG, which costs about a fifth more than
gas from Russian, Norwegian or Algerian sources.
Projects to build offshore regasifiers in Europe appear to have begun and seem unlikely to be affected by future political vagaries,
given the investment committed and planning times involved:
"There are currently in the region of 22 large-scale LNG import terminals considered as planned in Europe, except for the planned
terminals in Ukraine (Odessa FSRU LNG), Russia (Kaliningrad LNG), Albania (Eagle LNG) – Albania being a candidate for EU membership
– and Turkey (FSRU Iskenderun and FSRU Gulf of Saros).
Many ofthese planned terminals, including Greece (where one additional import terminal is planned – Alexandroupolis), Italy
(which is considering or planning two additional terminals – Porto Empedocle in Sicily and Gioia Tauro LNG in Calabria) , Poland
(FSRU Polish Baltic Sea Coast), Turkey (two FSRUs) and the UK (which is planning the Port Meridian FSRU LNG project and UK Trafigura
Teesside LNG). LNG import terminal for Albania (Eagle LNG), Croatia (Krk Island), Cyprus (Vassiliko FSRU), Estonia (Muuga (Tallinn)
LNG and Padalski LNG), Germany ( Brunsbüttel LNG), Ireland (Shannon LNG and Cork LNG), Latvia (Riga LNG), Romania (Constanta LNG),
Russia (Kaliningrad LNG) and Ukraine (Odessa).
Nine of the planned terminals are FSRUs: Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the UK. "In
addition, there are numerous plans for expansion of existing terminals, including in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands,
Poland, Spain, Turkey and the UK."
Washington, with its LNG ships, has no capacity to compete in Asia against Qatar and Australia, who have the lion's share
of the market, with Moscow's pipelines taking up the rest. The only large remaining market lies in Europe, so it is therefore not
surprising that Donald Trump has decided to weaponize LNG,
a bit as he has the US dollar . This has only driven EU countries to seek energy diversification in the interests of security.
The European countries do not appear to be
dragging their feet at the prospect of swapping to US LNG, even though there is no economic advantage to doing so. As has been
evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?" This, however, is not the case with
all allies. Germany is not economically able to interrupt Nord Stream 2. And even though the project has many high-level sponsors,
including former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the project constantly seems to be on the verge of being stopped – at least in Washington's
delusions.
Even Eni's discovery of the gas field in Egypt has annoyed the US, which wants less competition (even when illegal, as in the
case of Huawei) and wants to be able to force its exports onto Europeans while maintaining the price of the LNG in dollars, thereby
further supporting the US dollar as the world's reserve currency in the same manner as the
petrodollar .
The generalized hysteria against the Russian Federation, together with the cutting off of Iranian oil imports at Washington's
behest, limit the room for maneuver of European countries, in addition to costing European taxpayers a lot. The Europeans appear
prepared to set whatever course the US has charted them, one away from cheaper gas sources to the more expensive LNG supplied from
across the Atlantic. Given the investments already committed to receive this LNG, it seems unlikely that the course set for the Europeans
will be changed.
I live in Europe. I can honestly say that the people I know here prefer Russian gas. People are very ticked off about how the
US meddled in their gas supply and the structuring of the pipelines. Most feel that even if US LNG WAS competitive with Russian
gas price for now, that the US would in some way either increase prices or use it in some other way to control or manipulate the
EU. And sentiment towards USA tends toward resentment and distrust. That's not to say they are necessarily pro-Russia, but definitely
a wave of anti US is present.
US LNG pricing is based on Henry Hub which today is under $2.30/mmbtu.
Even adding in liquefaction and shipping costs, the price to the end user is extremely low.
Henry hub is projected to be sub $3 for DECADES!
Combine the low price with spot deliveries (pipe usually demands long term contracting commitments), and US LNG actually has
strong rationale for being accepted.
The statement above that US LNG cannot compete against Australia in Asia is preposterously false due to the VERY high buildout
costs of the Aussie LNG infrastructure.
Next year, Oz's first LNG IMPORT terminal at Port Kembla may well be supplied with US LNG.
The US has shown itself to be unreliable as a supplier of anything. Political posturing will always take precedence over any
international transaction.
Oh, for pity's sake, Laugher. Everything...absolutely everything you attribute to Russia in your post can be said of the U.S.
I'm not much of a Wiki fan, but for expediency, here's their view on military bases.
The establishment of military bases abroad enables a country to
project power , e.g. to conduct
expeditionary warfare , and thereby influence
events abroad. Depending on their size and infrastructure, they can be used as
staging areas or for logistical, communications and
intelligence support. Many conflicts throughout modern history have resulted in overseas military bases being established in
large numbers by world powers and the existence of
bases abroad has served countries having them in achieving political and military goals.
And this link will provide you with countries worldwide and their bases.
Note that Russia, in this particular list, has eight bases all contiguous to Russia. The U.S. has 36 listed here with none
of them contiguous to the U.S.' borders.
Whilst the left wants to go full throttle towards Wind and Solar, no one knows that the natural gas lobby is behind these sources
because both sources need a backup. While everyone talks "carbon footprint" they never discusses plant efficiency ( or
in the terms of engines brake specific fuel consumption and turbine specific fuel consumption ) in terms of thermal efficiency.
You know the boring stuff that plant operators stress over to make sure when your wife wakes up @ 3 in the morning to feed the
baby, the lights do go on, and they are creating that wattage in an cost affective manner. With that said, the king of thermal
efficiency i.e. burning a fuel to create electricity, is the Combined Cycle Natural Gas Power Plant. These plants combines a stationary
gas turbine buring natural gas to spin a generator and a boiler on the back side capture the waste heat to create steam to spin
a turbine to again add an input to the generator for a current state of the art of 61% efficiency . That means only 39%
going up the stack or for steam cooling to get your "Delta T" for the steam cycle to work. This 61% is vs maybe in the mid 40's
for a coal, oil plant or in the case of Nuclear just waste heat with nothing going out a stack. The greater wattage per fuel burned,
and the modularization of these Combined Cycle Plants aka have a series of 100mw turbines and bring them on line as needed, make
this a win-win IMHO for a massive refurbishing of our Utility base, with a host of benefits, before Gen 3 & Gen 4 Nuclear truly
take off again. These plants could be a great stop gap before Gen 3 & 4 are a reality. All the macinations towards wind and solar
and their disavantages aka being bird vegamatics, vistas being spoiled and huge swaths of land being used for panels make no sense
vs energy density of efficient plants. We are the Natural Gas King, lets not flare it anymore, and really, really leverage it
here, help allies, and use it for bringing bad behaving children of the world to the table ifyou will, if you want the candy,
behave....
Why do we have to treat other countries like we're the parent? We aren't. They are equal and fully functioning countries quite
capable of determining their own political and economic future...which may involve not trading or interacting with the U.S. Particularly
if we demand of them conditions we ourselves would never accede.
The Lithuanian FSRU "Independence" which was delivered from Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2014 to the port of Klaipeda drove
energy costs for heating through the roof and perhaps is one of the reasons the Prime Minister at the time only came in third
in the latest presidential elections. You can stay reasonably warm, eat or have money for medicine and other necessities. Pick
2 ONLY. Thank you USSA
Brainsick as Pompeo the US Pork without character.
As Long as Russia dlivery theier gas constantly and for a much better price then Us-Shale idiots, the ziocons only can lose.
We Europeans are not very impressed.
The biggest Capitalist economy on the planet needs to use mob tactics to push its over priced wares- seems 'long term' is not
part of their hit-and-run operation.
Now as for the article; apart from a few Eastern European Countries (The Ukraine, Poland etc.), I have seen no proof whatsoever,
that Europe is shifting to US LNG.
As for "As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?""; I am sorry,
but I think those days are over..... this can be seen in our Iranian stance, the 2 Russian pipelines - 1 being Nordstream II and
the other Turk-stream, increased trade with Russia, joining the the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and so on and
so on......
Slowly but surely the anti-Russia propaganda is dying. You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some people
all of the time (libtards), but you can't fool all the people all of the time. Europeans (the citizens) will question why they
should pay 20-30% more for their natural gas just to please America. Politicians better have an answer or change of policy if
they want to be reelected.
You gotta love the SCI. This shallowly-disguised Russian propaganda arm writes in the most
charming awkward idiomatic English, bouncing from a "false neutral" tone to a jingoistic
Amercia-phobic argot to produce its hit pieces.
Russian propaganda acts like Claude Raines in "Casablanca" : "i am shocked, shocked to
discover (geopolitics) going on here!" Geeeee, Europe and the US are in a struggle to
avoid Europe relying on Russia for strategic necessities like fuel, even if it imposes costs
on European consumers. If you have a dangerous disease, and your pharmacist is known for
cutting off their customers' vital drugs to extort them, you might consider using another
provider who not only doesn't cut off supplies, but also provides the police department that
protects you from your pharmacist's thugs who are known to invade customers' homes using the
profits from their own business.
The US provides the protective umbrella that limits Putin's adventurism. Russia cuts of
Ukraine's gas supplies in winter to force them into submission. Gasprom is effectively an arm
of the Russian military, weaponizing Russia's only product as a geopolitical taser. Sure, it
costs more to transport LNG across the Atlantic and convert it back to gas, but the profits
from that business are routinely funneled back to Europe in the form of US trade,
contributions to NATO, and the provision of the nuclear umbrella that protects Europeans from
the man who has publicly lamented the fall of the Soviet Union, called for the return of the
former SSRs, and violated the IRM treaty to place nuclear capable intermediate-range missiles
and cruise missiles within range of Europe and boasted about his new hypersonic weapons'
theoretic capability to decapitate NATO and American decision-making within a few minutes of
launch.
Oh, for pity's sake, Laugher. Everything...absolutely everything you attribute to Russia
in your post can be said of the U.S. I'm not much of a Wiki fan, but for expediency, here's
their view on military bases.
The establishment of military bases abroad enables a country to project power , e.g. to conduct
expeditionary
warfare , and thereby influence events abroad. Depending on their size and
infrastructure, they can be used as staging areas or for logistical,
communications and intelligence support. Many conflicts throughout modern history have
resulted in overseas military bases being established in large numbers by world powers and the
existence of bases abroad has served countries having them in achieving political and
military goals.
And this link will provide you with countries worldwide and their bases.
Note that Russia, in this particular list, has eight bases all contiguous to Russia. The
U.S. has 36 listed here with none of them contiguous to the U.S.' borders.
"... More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good. ..."
"... Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option. ..."
"... A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled " Non-Interventionism is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense. ..."
"... "Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing nations." ..."
"... "A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic consequences." ..."
"... Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia". ..."
"... Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq. ..."
"... All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." – Henry Kissinger ..."
"... Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents? ..."
"... instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. ..."
"... funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America. ..."
"... if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important ..."
"... As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong: I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's also the fact that she's a CFR member ..."
"... Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out. ..."
"... All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden. ..."
After getting curb stomped on the debate
stage by Tulsi Gabbard, the campaign for Tim "Who the fuck is Tim Ryan?" Ryan
posted a statement decrying the Hawaii congresswoman's
desire to end a pointless 18-year military occupation as "isolationism".
"While making a point as to why America can't cede its international leadership and retreat from around the world, Tim was
interrupted by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard," the statement reads.
"When he tried to answer her, she contorted a factual point Tim was making -- about the Taliban being complicit in the 9/11
attacks by providing training, bases and refuge for Al Qaeda and its leaders. The characterization that Tim Ryan doesn't know
who is responsible for the attacks on 9/11 is simply unfair reporting. Further, we continue to reject Gabbard's isolationism and
her misguided beliefs on foreign policy . We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators
like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad who used chemical weapons on his own people."
Ryan's campaign is lying. During an exchange that was explicitly about the Taliban in Afghanistan, Ryan plainly said "When we
weren't in there, they started flying planes into our buildings." At best, Ryan can argue that when he said "they" he had suddenly
shifted from talking about the Taliban to talking about Al Qaeda without bothering to say so, in which case he obviously can't legitimately
claim that Gabbard "contorted" anything he had said. At worst, he was simply unaware at the time of the very clear distinction between
the Afghan military and political body called the Taliban and the multinational extremist organization called Al Qaeda.
More importantly, Ryan's campaign using the word "isolationism" to describe the simple common sense impulse to withdraw from a
costly, deadly military occupation which isn't accomplishing anything highlights an increasingly common tactic of tarring anything
other than endless military expansionism as strange and aberrant instead of normal and good.
Under our current Orwellian doublespeak
paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism. This removal of a desirable
opposite of war from the establishment-authorised lexicon causes war to always be the desirable option.
This is entirely by design. This bit of word magic has been employed for a long time to tar any idea which deviates from the neoconservative
agenda of total global unipolarity via violent imperialism as something freakish and dangerous. In
his farewell address to the nation , war criminal George W Bush said the following:
"In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism
and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity
at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."
A few months after Bush's address, Antiwar 's Rich Rubino wrote an article titled "
Non-Interventionism
is Not Isolationism ", explaining the difference between a nation which withdraws entirely from the world and a nation which
simply resists the temptation to use military aggression except in self defense.
"Isolationism dictates that a country should have no relations with the rest of the world," Rubino explained. "In its purest
form this would mean that ambassadors would not be shared with other nations, communications with foreign governments would be
mainly perfunctory, and commercial relations would be non-existent."
"A non-interventionist supports commercial relations," Rubino contrasted. "In fact, in terms of trade, many non-interventionists
share libertarian proclivities and would unilaterally obliterate all tariffs and custom duties, and would be open to trade with
all willing nations. In addition, non-interventionists welcome cultural exchanges and the exchange of ambassadors with all willing
nations."
"A non-interventionist believes that the U.S. should not intercede in conflicts between other nations or conflicts within
nations," wrote Rubino. "In recent history, non-interventionists have proved prophetic in warning of the dangers of the U.S. entangling
itself in alliances. The U.S. has suffered deleterious effects and effectuated enmity among other governments, citizenries, and
non-state actors as a result of its overseas interventions. The U.S. interventions in both Iran and Iraq have led to cataclysmic
consequences."
Calling an aversion to endless military violence "isolationism" is the same as calling an aversion to mugging people "agoraphobia".
Yet you'll see this ridiculous label applied to both Gabbard and Trump, neither of whom are isolationists by any stretch of the imagination,
or even proper non-interventionists. Gabbard supports most US military alliances and continues to voice full support for the bogus
"war on terror" implemented by the Bush administration which serves no purpose other than to facilitate endless military expansionism;
Trump is openly pushing regime change interventionism in both Venezuela and Iran while declining to make good on his promises to
withdraw the US military from Syria and Afghanistan.
Another dishonest label you'll get thrown at you when debating the forever war is "pacifism". "Some wars are bad, but I'm
not a pacifist; sometimes war is necessary," supporters of a given interventionist military action will tell you. They'll say this
while defending Trump's potentially catastrophic Iran warmongering or promoting a moronic regime change invasion of Syria, or defending
disastrous US military interventions in the past like Iraq.
This is bullshit for a couple of reasons. Firstly, virtually no one is a pure pacifist who opposes war under any and all possible
circumstances; anyone who claims that they can't imagine any possible scenario in which they'd support using some kind of coordinated
violence either hasn't imagined very hard or is fooling themselves. If your loved ones were going to be raped, tortured and killed
by hostile forces unless an opposing group took up arms to defend them, for example, you would support that. Hell, you would probably
join in. Secondly, equating opposition to US-led regime change interventionism, which is literally always disastrous and literally
never helpful, is not even a tiny bit remotely like opposing all war under any possible circumstance.
Another common distortion you'll see is the specious argument that a given opponent of US interventionism "isn't anti-war" because
they don't oppose all war under any and all circumstances.
This tweet by The Intercept 's Mehdi Hasan
is a perfect example, claiming that Gabbard is not anti-war because she supports Syria's sovereign right to defend itself with the
help of its allies from the violent extremist factions which overran the country with western backing. Again, virtually no one is
opposed to all war under any and all circumstances; if a coalition of foreign governments had helped flood Hasan's own country of
Britain with extremist militias who'd been murdering their way across the UK with the ultimate goal of toppling London, both Tulsi
Gabbard and Hasan would support fighting back against those militias.
The label "anti-war" can for these reasons be a little misleading. The term anti-interventionist or non-interventionist comes
closest to describing the value system of most people who oppose the warmongering of the western empire, because they understand
that calls for military interventionism which go mainstream in today's environment are almost universally based on imperialist agendas
grabbing at power, profit, and global hegemony. The label "isolationist" comes nowhere close.
It all comes down to sovereignty. An anti-interventionist believes that a country has the right to defend itself, but it doesn't
have the right to conquer, capture, infiltrate or overthrow other nations whether covertly or overtly. At the "end" of colonialism
we all agreed we were done with that, except that the nationless manipulators have found far trickier ways to seize a country's will
and resources without actually planting a flag there. We need to get clearer on these distinctions and get louder about defending
them as the only sane, coherent way to run foreign policy.
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"If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led."
Fascinating belief, has he been to Libya lately, perhaps attended an open air slave Market in a country that was very developed
before the US decided to 'free' it.
When we weren't there, they flew planes into our buildings?
Excuse me mutant, but I believe we paid Israel our jewtax that year like all the others and they still flew planes into our
buildings. And then danced in the streets about it. Sick people.
All Wars Are Evil. Period. "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." –
Henry Kissinger
Picture if you will Jesus. Seriously? Can you imagine Jesus firing a machine gun at a group of people? Can
you picture Jesus in an F-16 lobbing missiles at innocents?
Do you see Jesus piloting a drone and killing Muslims, other non-believers, or anyone for that matter? Can you picture Jesus
as a sniper?
Soooo,,, If my favorite evening activity, is to sit on the front porch steps, while the dog and the cats run around, with my
shotgun leaning up next to me,,, Is that Isolationist, or Protectionist,,,
instead of getting us out of Syria, Trump got us further in. Trump is driving us to ww3. we can't do **** if we're
glazed over in a nuclear holocaust. maybe Tulsi is lying through her teeth, but i am so pissed Trump went full neocon
funny how people, fresh from the broken promises "build that wall" etc, quickly forget all that and begin IMMEDIATELY
projecting trustworthiness on yet ANOTHER candidate. I'Il vote for Tulsi when she says no more Israeli wars for America.
If you read her positions on various issues, a quick survey shows that she supports the New Green Deal, more gun control (ban
on assault rifles, etc.), Medicare for all. Stopped reading at that point.
We refuse to be lectured by someone who thinks it's ok to dine with murderous dictators like Syria's Bashar Al-Assad
who used chemical weapons on his own people.
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only
for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus
becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the
lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. ~ Joseph Goebbels
The better educated among us know exactly as to who Goebblels was referring to. Even a dullard should be able to figure out
who benefits from all of our Middle East adventures.
"Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer
peace, but isolationism. "
Under military might WAS the old world order... Under the new world order the strength is in cyber warfare .
If under technology the profiteers can control the masses through crowd control ( which they can-" Department of Defense has
developed a non-lethal crowd control device called the
Active Denial System (ADS) . The ADS works by firing a high-powered beam of 95 GHz waves at a target that is, millimeter wavelengths.
Anyone caught in the beam will feel like their skin is burning.) your spending power ( they can through e- commetce and digital
banking) and isolation cells called homes ( they can through directed microwaves from GWEN stations).... We already are isolated
and exposed at the same time.
That war is an exceptable means of engagement as a solution to world power is a confirmation of the psychological warfare imposed
on us since the creation of our Nation.
Either we reel it in and back now or we destroy ourselves from within.
"
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
if there's even a small chance Tulsi can get us out of the forever wars i will be compelled to vote for her, as Trump clearly
has no intention on doing so. yes, it is that important
Idiot, Tulsi is a sovereign nationalist on the left. You have just never seen one before. If you were truly anti-globalist
you'd would realize left and right are invented to divide us. The politics are global and national, so wake the **** up
""War Is the U.S. Racket!"" They are not good at it, there "great at it". My entire life 63yrs,they been fighting someone or
something. When times where rough in the 1800s,Hell! they fought themselves(Civil War. As I said b4 No one seems to ask, Where
does the gold go of the vanquished foe? Truly Is A Well Practiced Racket.
Good article with several salient points, thought I would ask "what's wrong with a little isolationism?" Peace through internal
strength is desirable, but good fences make good neighbors and charity begins at home!
The gradual twisting of language really is one of most insidious tactics employed by the NWO Luciferians. I think we'd all
like to see the traitorous Neocons gone for good. Better yet, strip them of their American citizenship and ill-gotten wealth and
banish them to Israel. Let them earn their citizenship serving in a front-line IDF rifle company.
As for this next election? Is Ron Paul running as an independent? No? Well then, 'fool me once...' Don't get me wrong:
I hope Gabbard is genuine and she's absolutely right to push non-interventionism...but the rest of her platform sucks. There's
also the fact that she's a CFR member and avowed gun-grabber, to boot. Two HUGE red flags!
She almost strikes me as a half-assed 'Manchurian Candidate.' So, if she's elected (a big 'if' at this point) I ask
myself 'what happens after the next (probably nuclear) false flag?' How quickly will she disavow her present stance on non-interventionism?
How quickly and viciously will the 2nd Amendment be raped? Besides, I'm not foolish enough to believe that one person can turn
the SS Deep State away from it's final disastrous course.
These word games were already in use looong ago. Tulsi Gabbard is using Obama's line about fighting the wrong war. She
would have taken out Al Qaeda, captured Bin Laden, and put a dog leash on him. So that she could make a green economy, a
new century of virtue signalling tyranny. No thanks.
Just as they did with Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Pat Buchanan, the MSM and the swamp have already effectively buried
Gabbard. It's unlikely that she'll make the next debate cut as the DNC and MSM will toss her out.
All the MSM is talking about post-debates, even on Faux Noise, is Harris's race-baiting of old senile Biden.
I went to some of the so-called liberal websites and blogs and the only mention of Gabbard is in the context of her being a
Putin stooge. This combined with the fact that virtually all establishment Republicans are eager to fight any war for Israel clearly
shows that it will take something other than the ballot box to end Uncle Scam's endless wars.
...Chabad is interesting. They are a network of independent open chassidist communities,
charities and schools with strong bases in Brooklyn, Chabad Israel and Moscow, and lots of
political and secret service connections. The do not finance themselves via membership fees
but via donations. The founding Rabbi has died, so there is no one in control of this network
except the - diverse - people who donate. There is no legal restriction on who may or may not
call themselves Chabad and there is no controlling within the network. They seem to have a
policy of restricting political interventions on "Jewish issues" and not to interfere in the
politics of the host countries otherwise. So they don't mind
being seen with Viktor Orban .
Abramovich - see non existant Russian oligarchs - funded a lot on the Russian side. On the US
side they encourage
real estate donations" and are connected to Jared Kushner.
In Israel they are close to the government and Netanyahu.
A network like this can be influenced/used by all sides that donate to it. So you can see
Chabad as a CIA tool to get their foot into Eastern Europe/Russia in the 1990's, as a Russian
influence campaign or an Israeli tool.
Should Russia stop its military backing of Iran, and should the US attack Iran against
their interests, I am prepared to believe Israel succeeded. I very much doubt this will be
the case.
You gotta love the SCI. This shallowly-disguised Russian propaganda arm writes in the most
charming awkward idiomatic English, bouncing from a "false neutral" tone to a jingoistic
Amercia-phobic argot to produce its hit pieces.
Russian propaganda acts like Claude Raines in "Casablanca" : "i am shocked, shocked to
discover (geopolitics) going on here!" Geeeee, Europe and the US are in a struggle to
avoid Europe relying on Russia for strategic necessities like fuel, even if it imposes costs
on European consumers. If you have a dangerous disease, and your pharmacist is known for
cutting off their customers' vital drugs to extort them, you might consider using another
provider who not only doesn't cut off supplies, but also provides the police department that
protects you from your pharmacist's thugs who are known to invade customers' homes using the
profits from their own business.
The US provides the protective umbrella that limits Putin's adventurism. Russia cuts of
Ukraine's gas supplies in winter to force them into submission. Gasprom is effectively an arm
of the Russian military, weaponizing Russia's only product as a geopolitical taser. Sure, it
costs more to transport LNG across the Atlantic and convert it back to gas, but the profits
from that business are routinely funneled back to Europe in the form of US trade,
contributions to NATO, and the provision of the nuclear umbrella that protects Europeans from
the man who has publicly lamented the fall of the Soviet Union, called for the return of the
former SSRs, and violated the IRM treaty to place nuclear capable intermediate-range missiles
and cruise missiles within range of Europe and boasted about his new hypersonic weapons'
theoretic capability to decapitate NATO and American decision-making within a few minutes of
launch.
Oh, for pity's sake, Laugher. Everything...absolutely everything you attribute to Russia
in your post can be said of the U.S. I'm not much of a Wiki fan, but for expediency, here's
their view on military bases.
The establishment of military bases abroad enables a country to project power , e.g. to conduct
expeditionary
warfare , and thereby influence events abroad. Depending on their size and
infrastructure, they can be used as staging areas or for logistical,
communications and intelligence support. Many conflicts throughout modern history have
resulted in overseas military bases being established in large numbers by world powers and the
existence of bases abroad has served countries having them in achieving political and
military goals.
And this link will provide you with countries worldwide and their bases.
Note that Russia, in this particular list, has eight bases all contiguous to Russia. The
U.S. has 36 listed here with none of them contiguous to the U.S.' borders.
"... For Raimondo, being called names while in the service of trying to end U.S. wars of choice was like rocket fuel. Particularly when neoconservative David Frum launched his "unpatriotic" broadside at National Review on March 24, 2003, five days after the U.S. launched what would be the most disastrous invasion of another country since Vietnam. Being accused of "appeasing the enemy" could only mean they were getting under the warmongers' skin at a time when the rest of Washington was mobilized like lemmings for battle. ..."
"... His penultimate column on May 3 was classic Raimondo, blasting John Bolton for saber rattling for U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and entitled "Will the Real Moron Stand Up?" ..."
"... For writers who were skeptical of U.S. national security policy after 9/11 -- especially those on the Right end of the spectrum, whether they be libertarians or conservatives -- there were few outlets, at least with a substantial audience, to publish. Antiwar.com , which had been around since 1995, became a hub for Left and Right critics. Justin, though, provided the juice. His willingness to mix it up, to say what needed to be said, in unvarnished, funny, often un-politically correct language (in any given column he would be calling officials and media "shrieking monkeys," "whores," "harpies") was for many both a motivator and a balm at a time when it seemed like every column one wrote against the status quo was one step closer to career-ending purgatory. ..."
"... Surrounded by brave iconoclasts and B.S.-beaters like Phil Giraldi, Jeff Huber and Raimondo charged my courage and batteries as a writer. Justin was especially supportive, and though there were things he would say that I would never have the guts to (I tried to flex more on the reporting side, and less on the polemics), he seemed to appreciate having me as a junior member of the suicide squad. ..."
"... Why? You can read in detail here , but much of it was because of Antiwar.com 's mission to criticize U.S. war policies, its linking to government watch lists at the time, and Justin's writing, particularly on five Israelis who were detained by the FBI in New Jersey after they were spotted by witnesses on a rooftop celebrating and taking pictures in sight of the burning NYC towers on 9/11 and later deported. ..."
"... Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is ..."
"... Executive Editor at ..."
"... and former columnist at Antiwar.com. Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC ..."
"... He challenged conventional wisdom because he thought conventional wisdom is often wrong, which it is. As his work created more journalists and citizens who are willing to do this, his life's work was important ..."
"... And he managed to write and publish one of the best most comprehensive biographies on Murray Rothbard ever written as well, only one of the most important American thinkers of the 20th century. He will be greatly missed, at Antiwar, and everywhere else. RIP. ..."
The Antiwar.com co-founder, who died
Thursday, was one of the toughest fighters for the cause. We all benefitted.
Justin
Raimondo gives Presentation at the National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special
Relationship" on March 7, 2014 at the National Press Club. (You Tube) WASHINGTON -- Justin
Raimondo -- author, activist and consummate critic of the U.S. war machine–passed away at
the age of 67 on Thursday. While many of you might know him as the co-founder and prolific
columnist at Antiwar.com , he was once
branded a "unpatriotic conservative" at the start of the Iraq War, and a potential "threat to
national security" a year later.
For Raimondo, being called names while in the service of trying to end U.S. wars of choice
was like rocket fuel. Particularly when neoconservative David Frum launched his "unpatriotic"
broadside at
National Review on March 24, 2003, five days after the U.S. launched what would be the
most disastrous invasion of another country since Vietnam. Being accused of "appeasing the
enemy" could only mean they were getting under the warmongers' skin at a time when the rest of
Washington was mobilized like lemmings for battle.
"He loved it," said Eric Garris, who co-founded Antiwar.com with Raimondo. Garris was his close friend and
co-conspirator in dozens of political and anti-war campaigns from 1976 until his death
yesterday. "Justin loved to be attacked -- he viewed it usually as a badge of honor."
Word of Raimondo's death didn't quite come as a surprise to people who had been following
him online -- they knew he had been battling cancer for two years, and his volatile presence on
Twitter had dropped off to an occasional flash, then nothing, for the last few months. His
penultimate column on May 3 was classic Raimondo, blasting John Bolton for saber rattling for
U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and entitled
"Will the Real Moron Stand Up?"
For writers who were skeptical of U.S. national security policy after 9/11 -- especially
those on the Right end of the spectrum, whether they be libertarians or conservatives -- there
were few outlets, at least with a substantial audience, to publish. Antiwar.com , which had been around since 1995, became a hub for Left
and Right critics. Justin, though, provided the juice. His willingness to mix it up, to say
what needed to be said, in unvarnished, funny, often un-politically correct language (in any
given column he would be calling officials and media "shrieking monkeys," "whores," "harpies")
was for many both a motivator and a balm at a time when it seemed like every column one wrote
against the status quo was one step closer to career-ending purgatory.
"We were really very much in the wilderness," Garris recalled to me this morning. But
Raimondo surged -- doing stints on Fox News, MSNBC, even CNN at the time. He wrote quite a
bit forTACtoo, from its inception through
2016. "He had the ability to reach people and/or piss them off so much. He was such a
powerful force."
This is where I come in. Having begun writing for TAC in 2007 I was happy when Garris
reached out in
2009 to see if I wanted to do some regular columns for Antiwar.com . As one of those "misfits among misfits," I can say that
my decision to do so was both therapeutic (what better venue to rage against the machine?) and
a most fulfilling stage in my career as a journalist. Some of us might recall the atmosphere in
Washington during those times: stiflingly conformist and relentlessly punitive towards those
who did not toe the line. Surrounded by brave iconoclasts and B.S.-beaters like Phil Giraldi,
Jeff Huber and
Raimondo charged my courage and batteries as a writer. Justin was especially supportive, and
though there were things he would say that I would never have the guts to (I tried to flex more
on the reporting side, and less on the polemics), he seemed to appreciate having me as a junior
member of the suicide squad.
There was a moment I was put to the test. I was in the middle of my daughter's Girls Scout
meeting in 2013 when I got a call from Garris. I stepped out in the hall. Would I please write
a piece on Antiwar.com suing the FBI for
secretly investigating Antiwar.com in the
early days of the war, in part because of some of the things Justin had written and said? My
mind reeled. Would bringing attention to this bring further heat on the website? Would it bring
heat on me?
I read the FBI memo at the center of their planned lawsuit and agreed to write it. Frankly,
I knew in my heart I wouldn't be worth my salt as a journalist if I went wobbly on this. The
government had opened secret files on Garris and Raimondo, and at one point the FBI agent
writing the April 30, 2004 memo on Antiwar.com recommended further monitoring of the website in the form
of a "preliminary investigation to determine if [redaction] are engaging in, or have engaged
in, activities which constitute a threat to national security."
Why? You can read in detail
here , but much of it was because of Antiwar.com 's mission to criticize U.S. war policies, its linking to
government watch lists at the time, and Justin's writing, particularly on five Israelis who
were detained by the FBI in New
Jersey after they were spotted by witnesses on a rooftop celebrating and taking pictures in
sight of the burning NYC towers on 9/11 and later deported.
The ACLU had taken up their case, rightly, as an example of the government's hostile
attitude against the 1st Amendment. The government had taken advantage of its new 9/11
authorities and the country's war-time footing to spy and harass dissidents just like the old
days. Garris and Raimondo won, but their efforts to have all of the government records expunged
is still tied up in appeals . Garris said Justin was at least able to see the latest
June
12 hearing i n the Ninth Circuit.
"He saw the hearing and he got to see that what he was doing was worth something," Garris
said, audibly choking back tears. When they met, Raimondo was a libertarian gay rights
activist. Later on they would help convince Buchanan to run for president in 1992 and Raimondo
led his campaign office in San Francisco (Garris said Buchanan had sent a touching note about
Justin's death this morning). When gay protesters had surrounded and "assaulted" the San
Francisco headquarters at the time, Garris recalled, Raimondo ran out loaded for bear. "He gave
them the what-for," he said, laughing.
That was the image many of us are conjuring today. Raimondo the fighter. Raimondo the brave.
Of course not everyone agreed with him. His enemies over the years have tarred him as a racist
and anti-semite. On the other hand, he easily came to blows with his friends over a point of
view or a passage in a column–a tweet even. His bridge-burning with colleagues and fellow
travelers was notorious. "He was very vocal and contentious person who people either hated or
loved or both," Garris told me. "I've gotten a lot of emails and comments today about him that
said, you know I hated him but he was a hero."
But in the end, after 68 years of being a rebel and contrarian, he was forced to sheath the
sword. He was just too sick. "He just fought and fought, to keep going to get the words out,"
Garris said. He last saw him on Saturday. They knew it would be the last time
.
"I am going to miss him so much. My life would have been completely different if I hadn't
met him."
I know I feel that way, and millions of readers and fans (and foes) do too. RIP.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos isExecutive Editor at TAC and former columnist
at Antiwar.com.
Follow her on Twitter @Vlahos_at_TAC
I was hoping he could stay around. But let those of us who miss him redouble our efforts to
the mission we shared so that it grows stronger in the wake of our loss.
He challenged conventional wisdom because he thought conventional wisdom is often wrong,
which it is. As his work created more journalists and citizens who are willing to do this,
his life's work was important.
Reading Reclaiming the American Right well over 10 years ago (but years after first being
published), I was shocked at how intellectually challenging, substantiated with historical
fact, and fascinating it was.
Clearly, I had let the Rush Limbaugh School of Total
Immersion™, 3 hours a day, inform my views of what, exactly, the American Right,
post-WWII really was and is and continues to be to this day a little too much, no offense
to Rush and the golden EIB. I still like listening to him.
The scholarship in that book is
FAR beyond any silly Jonah Goldberg tome, no matter how snazzy the title, from "Liberal
Fascism" to his latest, with the copied James Burnham title, "Suicide of the West".
Raimondo was a incredibly well read, superbly talented writer who was self-taught on
America's history in general and the post-WWII conservative history in particular.
And he managed to write and publish one of the best most comprehensive biographies on Murray Rothbard ever written as
well, only one of the most important American thinkers of the 20th century. He will be greatly missed, at Antiwar, and
everywhere else. RIP.
on are zombies and stupid.
Have a good one, know what I mean...
"... To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program, and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach. ..."
"... What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike." ..."
"... D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them. ..."
"... D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here. These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular. ..."
"... It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ..."
"... These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran. ..."
In 2017, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) created a special unit -- the Iran Mission Center -- to focus attention on
the U.S. plans against Iran . The initiative for this unit came from CIA director John Brennan, who left his post as the Trump administration
came into office. Brennan believed that the CIA needed to focus attention on what the United States sees as problem areas -- North
Korea and Iran, for instance. This predated the Trump administration.
Brennan's successor -- Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director for just over a year (until he was appointed U.S. Secretary of State)
-- continued this policy. The CIA's Iran-related activity had been conducted in the Iran Operations Division (Persia House). This
was a section with Iran specialists who built up knowledge about political and economic developments inside Iran and in the Iranian
diaspora.
It bothered the hawks in Washington -- as one official told me -- that Persia House was filled with Iran specialists who had no
special focus on regime change in Iran. Some of them, due to their long concentration on Iran, had developed sensitivity to the country.
Trump's people wanted a much more focused and belligerent group that would provide the kind of intelligence that tickled the fancy
of his National Security Adviser John Bolton .
To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program,
and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach.
It was D'Andrea who expanded the CIA's drone strike program, in particular the signature strike. The signature strike is a particularly
controversial instrument. The CIA was given the allowance to kill anyone who fit a certain profile -- a man of a certain age, for
instance, with a phone that had been used to call someone on a list. The dark arts of the CIA are precisely those of D'Andrea.
What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told
me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed
attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike."
D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the
worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking
a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them.
D'Andrea and the hawks edged out several Iran experts from the Iran Mission Center, people like Margaret Stromecki -- who had
been head of analysis. Others who want to offer an alternative to the Pompeo-Bolton view of things either have also moved on or remain
silent. There is no space in the Trump administration, a former official told me, for dissent on the Iran policy.
Saudi Arabia's War
D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime
change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here.
These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular.
Kaplan blamed Iran for the creation of ISIS, for it was Iran -- Kaplan said -- that "used a terrible Sunni movement" to expand
its reach from "Persia to the Mediterranean." Such absurdity followed from a fundamental misreading of Shia concepts such as taqiya,
which means prudence and not -- as Kaplan and others argue -- deceit. Kaplan, bizarrely, shares more with ISIS than Iran does with
that group -- since both Kaplan and ISIS are driven by their hatred of those who follow the Shia traditions of Islam.
It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the
chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability
in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager
for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Roule has offered his support to the efforts of the Arabia Foundation, run by Ali Shihabi -- a man with close links to the Saudi
monarchy. The Arabia Foundation was set up to do more effective public relations work for the Saudis than the Saudi diplomats are
capable of doing. Shihabi is the son of one of Saudi Arabia's most well-regarded diplomats, Samir al-Shihabi, who played an important
role as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Pakistan during the war that created al-Qaeda.
These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the
dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their
water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran.
Evidence, reason. None of this is important to them. They will not stop until the U.S. bombers deposit their deadly payload on
Tehran and Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz. They will do anything to make that our terrible reality.
This article was produced by Globetrotter ,
a project of the Independent Media Institute.
"... India pays Iran for oil in gold. Europe would be smart to convert to the Yuan/gold convertible bond as a trading currency to use with Iran, and hold reserves in that. It's redeemable for gold at many settlement banks around the world. It was designed as a trading currency to use outside the SWIFT system. All the groundwork was painstakingly laid just for this purpose. ..."
"... Food for oil. What an insult. Europe wants it both ways. They should grow up and start leading the world instead of hiding behind Uncle Sams petticoat. ..."
"... Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ... ..."
"... Trump is a bull in a china shop. Someone will have to pick up the pieces and it won't be the one percent. YOU and I are expendable. ..."
"... Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ... ..."
"... Senior officials from Iran and the deal's remaining parties will meet in Vienna on Friday with the aim of saving the agreement. But with European powers limited in their ability to shield Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions it is unclear what they can do to provide the large economic windfall Tehran wants. ..."
leveymg on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 4:41pm In a surprise move, the EU special purpose vehicle for trade with Iran (INSTEX)
exercised its first trade today. The body was set up to facilitate exports of Iranian oil without U.S. dollars, avoiding a sanctions
regime imposed unilaterally by the U.S.
Instex is now operational despite U.S. threats to European banks and officials of reprisal sanctions if they violated Iran sanctions.
Bloomberg had reported on May 7 the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Sigal Mandelker,
issued a warning letter that Instex and anyone associated with it could be barred from the U.S. financial system if it goes into
effect.
In defiance of U.S. pressure, Instex was set up by EU diplomats in January as a means to prevent total collapse of the Iranian
nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The first official trades occurred today, in the
shadow of the Group of 20 Summit meeting.
https://www.thenational.ae/world/europe/eu-claims-iran-deal-held-togethe...
A senior EU diplomat has said the first transactions were being made by a special purpose vehicle for trade with Iran at a
meeting of the remaining members of the 2015 nuclear deal in Vienna.
Friday's meeting in Vienna featured "constructive discussions," Helga Schmid, the head of the EU diplomatic service said, confirming
the entity, named Instex, was making its first transactions.
"INSTEX now operational, first transactions being processed and more EU Members States to join. Good progress on Arak and Fordow
[fuel enrichment] projects," she posted.
The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (Instex) is designed to facilitate trade of essential goods, such as food and
medicine, mainly from the EU to Iran. A Chinese official said Beijing was open to using the facility.
The platform has been set up in France, with a German managing director in a coordinated European effort to counterbalance
the US economic power displayed by its sanctions policy.
President Donald Trump last year pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA), which curbed Iran's nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions.
According to today's report:
As the talks kicked off on Friday, seven EU nations expressed support for Instex and the JCPOA, asking Iran "to abide by and
fully respect the terms and provisions of the nuclear agreement".
"We are working with France, Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as with the European External Action Service and the European
Commission, to establish channels to facilitate legitimate trade and financial operations with Iran, one of the foremost of these
initiatives being the establishment of Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges," read the statement from Austria, Belgium, Finland,
the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
Whether the declaration of support and first tranche of transactions will be enough to keep Iran committed to the 2015 nuclear
deal is still in question.
Crucial for INSTEX's success will be whether participating states also develop mechanisms for European companies and their
employees that protect them from the expected American sanctions and compensate for any damages incurred. The legislative instrument
for this exists: The EU's blocking statute. It just needs to be updated to meet the new requirements.
Read more: US welcomes German firms' compliance on Iran sanctions
International transactions independent of the dollar
The knowledge and experience gained in the process could later be transferred to other areas, such as European initiatives
in international monetary transactions. This expertise could then come in handy for establishing payment channels independent
of the American financial system and the dollar, which the US also uses as a lever in its sanctions policy.
Two pieces of good news in two days, Tulsi Gabbard winning acknowledgement and respect in the debate, and this encouraging
sign from Europe. A person could almost get used to thinking common sense is gaining ground. Thank you, leveymg, for posting
this.
this news. earlier today (yesterday?) i'd grabbed this
link at RT.com that includes this baffling
part toward the end, with zero citation, i'll add:
"However, the EU's efforts to set up the long-promised payment channel have not satisfied Tehran. Earlier this week, Iranian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi called INSTEX a " faux thing of no practical use ," according to Iranian media.
He later said that if this turns out to be the case, the Islamic Republic will not accept it and may change its commitments
under the nuclear deal that Brussels is trying to hold on to."
i do remember tehran had complained earlier (as the EU dithered) that it wasn't operational, and when it was so, it would mainly
be for medicines and...food (?)
Right now, it's unclear which way this is going to go. If Europe bows to American power, again, it will turn out very badly
for everyone. Iraq times ten.
this news. earlier today (yesterday?) i'd grabbed this
link at RT.com that includes this
baffling part toward the end, with zero citation, i'll add:
"However, the EU's efforts to set up the long-promised payment channel have not satisfied Tehran. Earlier this week,
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi called INSTEX a " faux thing of no practical use ," according to
Iranian media.
He later said that if this turns out to be the case, the Islamic Republic will not accept it and may change its commitments
under the nuclear deal that Brussels is trying to hold on to."
i do remember tehran had complained earlier (as the EU dithered) that it wasn't operational, and when it was so, it would
mainly be for medicines and...food (?)
...just fine. India pays Iran for oil in gold. Europe would be smart to convert to the Yuan/gold convertible bond as a trading
currency to use with Iran, and hold reserves in that. It's redeemable for gold at many settlement banks around the world. It was
designed as a trading currency to use outside the SWIFT system. All the groundwork was painstakingly laid just for this purpose.
Food for oil. What an insult. Europe wants it both ways. They should grow up and start leading the world instead of hiding
behind Uncle Sams petticoat.
[edited to correct]
this news. earlier today (yesterday?) i'd grabbed this
link at RT.com that includes this
baffling part toward the end, with zero citation, i'll add:
"However, the EU's efforts to set up the long-promised payment channel have not satisfied Tehran. Earlier this week,
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi called INSTEX a " faux thing of no practical use ," according to
Iranian media.
He later said that if this turns out to be the case, the Islamic Republic will not accept it and may change its commitments
under the nuclear deal that Brussels is trying to hold on to."
i do remember tehran had complained earlier (as the EU dithered) that it wasn't operational, and when it was so, it would
mainly be for medicines and...food (?)
Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it did
before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ...
Senior officials from Iran and the deal's remaining parties will meet in Vienna on Friday with the aim of saving the agreement.
But with European powers limited in their ability to shield Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions it is unclear what they can
do to provide the large economic windfall Tehran wants.
"What is our demand? Our demand is to be able to sell our oil and get the money back. And this is in fact the minimum of
our benefit from the deal," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "We are not asking Europeans to invest in
Iran... We only want to sell our oil."
Iran's main demand in talks aimed at saving its nuclear deal is to be able to sell its oil at the same levels that it
did before Washington withdrew from the accord a year ago, an Iranian official said on Thursday. ...
Senior officials from Iran and the deal's remaining parties will meet in Vienna on Friday with the aim of saving the
agreement. But with European powers limited in their ability to shield Iran's economy from U.S. sanctions it is unclear
what they can do to provide the large economic windfall Tehran wants.
"What is our demand? Our demand is to be able to sell our oil and get the money back. And this is in fact the minimum
of our benefit from the deal," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. "We are not asking Europeans to invest
in Iran... We only want to sell our oil."
See better discussion at
platts.com "But US LNG could face problems of its own – the current low prices are forcing ever growing numbers of US producers
into bankruptcy. According to a recent report by Haynes and Boone, 90 gas and oil producers in the US and Canada have filed for bankruptcy
between January 2015 and the start of August 2016." So $2 price at Henry Hub should rise to at least $4 for companies to stay in business.
Notable quotes:
"... Less than half of the gas necessary for Europe is produced domestically, the rest being imported from Russia (39%), Norway (30%) and Algeria (13%). In 2017, gas imports from outside of the EU reached 14%. Spain led with imports of 31%, followed by France with 20% and Italy with 15%. ..."
"... The South Stream project, led by Eni, Gazprom, EDF and Wintershall, should have increased the capacity of the Russian Federation to supply Europe with 63 billion cubic meters annually, positively impacting the economy with cheap supplies of gas to Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia. Due to the restrictions imposed by the European Union on Russian companies like Gazprom, and the continuing pressure from Washington to abandon the project and embrace imports from the US, the construction of the pipeline have slowed down and generated tensions between Europe and the US. Washington is piling on pressure on Germany to derail Nord Stream 2 and stop the construction of this important energy linkage. ..."
"... Further tension has been added since ENI, an Italian company that is a leader in the LNG sector, recently discovered off-shore in Egypt one of the largest gas fields in the world, with an estimated total capacity of 850 billion cubic meters. To put this in perspective, all EU countries demand is about 470 billion cubic meters of gas in 2017. ..."
"... s mentioned, LNG imported to Europe from the US costs about 20% more than gas traditionally received through pipelines. This is without including all the investment necessary to build regasification plants in countries destined to receive this ship-borne gas. Europe currently does not have the necessary facilities on its Atlantic coast to receive LNG from the US, introduce it into its energy networks, and simultaneously decrease demand from traditional sources. ..."
"... This situation could change in the future, with LNG from the US seeing a sharp increase recently. In 2010, American LNG exports to Europe were at 10%; the following year they rose to 11%; and in the first few months of 2019, they jumped to 35%. A significant decrease in LNG exports to Asian countries, which are less profitable, offers an explanation for this corresponding increase in Europe. ..."
"... Washington, with its LNG ships, has no capacity to compete in Asia against Qatar and Australia, who have the lion's share of the market, with Moscow's pipelines taking up the rest. The only large remaining market lies in Europe, so it is therefore not surprising that Donald Trump has decided to weaponize LNG, a bit as he has the US dollar . This has only driven EU countries to seek energy diversification in the interests of security. ..."
"... The European countries do not appear to be dragging their feet at the prospect of swapping to US LNG, even though there is no economic advantage to doing so. As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?" ..."
"... The generalized hysteria against the Russian Federation, together with the cutting off of Iranian oil imports at Washington's behest, limit the room for maneuver of European countries, in addition to costing European taxpayers a lot. ..."
One of the most important energy battles
of the future will be fought in the field of liquid natural gas (LNG). Suggested as one of the main solutions to
pollution , LNG offers the possibility
of still managing to meet a country's industrial needs while ameliorating environmental concerns caused by other energy sources.
At the same time, a little like the US dollar, LNG is becoming a tool Washington intends to use against Moscow at the expense of
Washington's European allies.
To understand the rise of LNG in global strategies, it is wise to look at a
graph (page 7)
produced by the International Gas Union (IGU) where the following four key indicators are highlighted: global regasification capacities;
total volumes of LNG exchanged; exporting countries; and importing countries.
From 1990 to today,
the world has grown from 220 million tons per annum (MTPA) to around 850 MTPA of regasification capacity. The volume of trade
increased from 20-30 MTPA to around 300 MTPA. Likewise, the number of LNG-importing countries has increased from just over a dozen
to almost 40 over the course of 15 years, while the number of producers has remained almost unchanged, except for a few exceptions
like the US entering the LNG market in 2016.
There are two methods used to transport gas.
The first is through pipelines, which reduce costs and facilitate interconnection between countries, an important example of
this being seen in Europe's importation of gas. The four main pipelines for Europe come from four distinct geographical regions:
the Middle East, Africa, Northern Europe and Russia.
The second method of transporting gas is by sea in the form of LNG, which in the short term is more expensive, complex and
difficult to implement on a large scale. Gas transported by sea is processed to be cooled so as to reduce its volume, and then
liquified again to allow storage and transport by ship. This process adds 20% to costs when compared to gas transported through
pipelines.
Less than half of the gas necessary for Europe is
produced domestically, the
rest being imported from Russia (39%), Norway (30%) and Algeria (13%). In 2017, gas imports from outside of the EU reached 14%. Spain
led with imports of 31%, followed by France with 20% and Italy with 15%.
The construction of infrastructure to accommodate LNG ships is ongoing in Europe, and some European countries already have a limited
capacity to accommodate LNG and direct it to the national and European network or act as an energy hub to ship LNG to other ports
using smaller ships.
"All of Europe's LNG terminals are import facilities, with the exception of (non-EU) Norway and Russia which export LNG. There
are currently 28 large-scale LNG import terminals in Europe (including non-EU Turkey). There are also 8 small-scale LNG facilities
in Europe (in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Gibraltar). Of the 28 large-scale LNG import terminals, 24 are in EU countries
(and therefore subject to EU regulation) and 4 are in Turkey, 23 are land-based import terminals, and 4 are floating storage and
regasification units (FSRUs), and the one import facility in Malta comprises a Floating Storage Unit (FSU) and onshore regasification
facilities."
The countries currently most involved in the export of LNG are Qatar (24.9%), Australia (21.7%), Malaysia (7.7%), the US (6.7%),
Nigeria (6.5%) and Russia (6%).
Europe is one of the main markets for gas, given its strong demand for clean energy for domestic and industrial needs. For this
reason, Germany has for years been engaged in the Nord Stream 2 project, which aims to double the transport capacity of gas from
Russia to Germany. Currently the flow of the Nord Stream is 55 billion cubic meters of gas. With the new Nord Stream 2, the capacity
will double to 110 billion cubic meters per year.
The South Stream project, led by Eni, Gazprom, EDF and Wintershall, should have increased the capacity of the Russian Federation
to supply Europe with 63 billion cubic meters annually, positively impacting the economy with cheap supplies of gas to Bulgaria,
Greece, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia. Due to the restrictions imposed by the European Union on Russian companies
like Gazprom, and the continuing pressure from Washington to abandon the project and embrace imports from the US, the construction
of the pipeline have slowed down and generated tensions between Europe and the US. Washington is piling on pressure on Germany to
derail Nord Stream 2 and stop the construction of this important energy linkage.
Further tension has been added since ENI, an Italian company that is a leader in the LNG sector, recently discovered off-shore
in Egypt one of the largest gas fields in the world, with an estimated total capacity of 850 billion cubic meters. To put this in
perspective, all EU countries demand is about 470 billion cubic meters of gas in 2017.
ENI's discovery has generated important planning for the future of LNG in Europe and in Italy.
Problems have arisen ever since Donald Trump sought to oblige Europeans to
purchase LNG from the US in
order to reduce the trade deficit and benefit US companies at the expense of other gas-exporting countries like Algeria, Russia and
Norway. As mentioned, LNG imported to Europe from the US costs about 20% more than gas traditionally received through pipelines.
This is without including all the investment necessary to build regasification plants in countries destined to receive this ship-borne
gas. Europe currently does not have the necessary facilities on its Atlantic coast to receive LNG from the US, introduce it into
its energy networks, and simultaneously decrease demand from traditional sources.
This situation could change in the future, with LNG from the US seeing a sharp increase recently. In 2010, American LNG exports
to Europe were at 10%; the following year they rose to 11%; and in the first few months of 2019, they jumped to 35%. A significant
decrease in LNG exports to Asian countries, which are less profitable, offers an explanation for this corresponding increase in Europe.
But Europe finds itself in a decidedly uncomfortable situation that cannot be easily resolved. The anti-Russia hysteria drummed
up by the Euro-Atlantic globalist establishment aides Donald Trump's efforts to economically squeeze as much as possible out of European
allies, hurting European citizens in the process who will have to pay more for American LNG, which costs about a fifth more than
gas from Russian, Norwegian or Algerian sources.
Projects to build offshore regasifiers in Europe appear to have begun and seem unlikely to be affected by future political vagaries,
given the investment committed and planning times involved:
"There are currently in the region of 22 large-scale LNG import terminals considered as planned in Europe, except for the planned
terminals in Ukraine (Odessa FSRU LNG), Russia (Kaliningrad LNG), Albania (Eagle LNG) – Albania being a candidate for EU membership
– and Turkey (FSRU Iskenderun and FSRU Gulf of Saros).
Many ofthese planned terminals, including Greece (where one additional import terminal is planned – Alexandroupolis), Italy
(which is considering or planning two additional terminals – Porto Empedocle in Sicily and Gioia Tauro LNG in Calabria) , Poland
(FSRU Polish Baltic Sea Coast), Turkey (two FSRUs) and the UK (which is planning the Port Meridian FSRU LNG project and UK Trafigura
Teesside LNG). LNG import terminal for Albania (Eagle LNG), Croatia (Krk Island), Cyprus (Vassiliko FSRU), Estonia (Muuga (Tallinn)
LNG and Padalski LNG), Germany ( Brunsbüttel LNG), Ireland (Shannon LNG and Cork LNG), Latvia (Riga LNG), Romania (Constanta LNG),
Russia (Kaliningrad LNG) and Ukraine (Odessa).
Nine of the planned terminals are FSRUs: Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the UK. "In
addition, there are numerous plans for expansion of existing terminals, including in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands,
Poland, Spain, Turkey and the UK."
Washington, with its LNG ships, has no capacity to compete in Asia against Qatar and Australia, who have the lion's share
of the market, with Moscow's pipelines taking up the rest. The only large remaining market lies in Europe, so it is therefore not
surprising that Donald Trump has decided to weaponize LNG,
a bit as he has the US dollar . This has only driven EU countries to seek energy diversification in the interests of security.
The European countries do not appear to be
dragging their feet at the prospect of swapping to US LNG, even though there is no economic advantage to doing so. As has been
evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?" This, however, is not the case with
all allies. Germany is not economically able to interrupt Nord Stream 2. And even though the project has many high-level sponsors,
including former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, the project constantly seems to be on the verge of being stopped – at least in Washington's
delusions.
Even Eni's discovery of the gas field in Egypt has annoyed the US, which wants less competition (even when illegal, as in the
case of Huawei) and wants to be able to force its exports onto Europeans while maintaining the price of the LNG in dollars, thereby
further supporting the US dollar as the world's reserve currency in the same manner as the
petrodollar .
The generalized hysteria against the Russian Federation, together with the cutting off of Iranian oil imports at Washington's
behest, limit the room for maneuver of European countries, in addition to costing European taxpayers a lot. The Europeans appear
prepared to set whatever course the US has charted them, one away from cheaper gas sources to the more expensive LNG supplied from
across the Atlantic. Given the investments already committed to receive this LNG, it seems unlikely that the course set for the Europeans
will be changed.
I live in Europe. I can honestly say that the people I know here prefer Russian gas. People are very ticked off about how the
US meddled in their gas supply and the structuring of the pipelines. Most feel that even if US LNG WAS competitive with Russian
gas price for now, that the US would in some way either increase prices or use it in some other way to control or manipulate the
EU. And sentiment towards USA tends toward resentment and distrust. That's not to say they are necessarily pro-Russia, but definitely
a wave of anti US is present.
US LNG pricing is based on Henry Hub which today is under $2.30/mmbtu.
Even adding in liquefaction and shipping costs, the price to the end user is extremely low.
Henry hub is projected to be sub $3 for DECADES!
Combine the low price with spot deliveries (pipe usually demands long term contracting commitments), and US LNG actually has
strong rationale for being accepted.
The statement above that US LNG cannot compete against Australia in Asia is preposterously false due to the VERY high buildout
costs of the Aussie LNG infrastructure.
Next year, Oz's first LNG IMPORT terminal at Port Kembla may well be supplied with US LNG.
The US has shown itself to be unreliable as a supplier of anything. Political posturing will always take precedence over any
international transaction.
Oh, for pity's sake, Laugher. Everything...absolutely everything you attribute to Russia in your post can be said of the U.S.
I'm not much of a Wiki fan, but for expediency, here's their view on military bases.
The establishment of military bases abroad enables a country to
project power , e.g. to conduct
expeditionary warfare , and thereby influence
events abroad. Depending on their size and infrastructure, they can be used as
staging areas or for logistical, communications and
intelligence support. Many conflicts throughout modern history have resulted in overseas military bases being established in
large numbers by world powers and the existence of
bases abroad has served countries having them in achieving political and military goals.
And this link will provide you with countries worldwide and their bases.
Note that Russia, in this particular list, has eight bases all contiguous to Russia. The U.S. has 36 listed here with none
of them contiguous to the U.S.' borders.
Whilst the left wants to go full throttle towards Wind and Solar, no one knows that the natural gas lobby is behind these sources
because both sources need a backup. While everyone talks "carbon footprint" they never discusses plant efficiency ( or
in the terms of engines brake specific fuel consumption and turbine specific fuel consumption ) in terms of thermal efficiency.
You know the boring stuff that plant operators stress over to make sure when your wife wakes up @ 3 in the morning to feed the
baby, the lights do go on, and they are creating that wattage in an cost affective manner. With that said, the king of thermal
efficiency i.e. burning a fuel to create electricity, is the Combined Cycle Natural Gas Power Plant. These plants combines a stationary
gas turbine buring natural gas to spin a generator and a boiler on the back side capture the waste heat to create steam to spin
a turbine to again add an input to the generator for a current state of the art of 61% efficiency . That means only 39%
going up the stack or for steam cooling to get your "Delta T" for the steam cycle to work. This 61% is vs maybe in the mid 40's
for a coal, oil plant or in the case of Nuclear just waste heat with nothing going out a stack. The greater wattage per fuel burned,
and the modularization of these Combined Cycle Plants aka have a series of 100mw turbines and bring them on line as needed, make
this a win-win IMHO for a massive refurbishing of our Utility base, with a host of benefits, before Gen 3 & Gen 4 Nuclear truly
take off again. These plants could be a great stop gap before Gen 3 & 4 are a reality. All the macinations towards wind and solar
and their disavantages aka being bird vegamatics, vistas being spoiled and huge swaths of land being used for panels make no sense
vs energy density of efficient plants. We are the Natural Gas King, lets not flare it anymore, and really, really leverage it
here, help allies, and use it for bringing bad behaving children of the world to the table ifyou will, if you want the candy,
behave....
Why do we have to treat other countries like we're the parent? We aren't. They are equal and fully functioning countries quite
capable of determining their own political and economic future...which may involve not trading or interacting with the U.S. Particularly
if we demand of them conditions we ourselves would never accede.
The Lithuanian FSRU "Independence" which was delivered from Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2014 to the port of Klaipeda drove
energy costs for heating through the roof and perhaps is one of the reasons the Prime Minister at the time only came in third
in the latest presidential elections. You can stay reasonably warm, eat or have money for medicine and other necessities. Pick
2 ONLY. Thank you USSA
Brainsick as Pompeo the US Pork without character.
As Long as Russia dlivery theier gas constantly and for a much better price then Us-Shale idiots, the ziocons only can lose.
We Europeans are not very impressed.
The biggest Capitalist economy on the planet needs to use mob tactics to push its over priced wares- seems 'long term' is not
part of their hit-and-run operation.
Now as for the article; apart from a few Eastern European Countries (The Ukraine, Poland etc.), I have seen no proof whatsoever,
that Europe is shifting to US LNG.
As for "As has been evident of late, whenever Washington says, "Jump!", European allies respond, "How high?""; I am sorry,
but I think those days are over..... this can be seen in our Iranian stance, the 2 Russian pipelines - 1 being Nordstream II and
the other Turk-stream, increased trade with Russia, joining the the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and so on and
so on......
Slowly but surely the anti-Russia propaganda is dying. You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some people
all of the time (libtards), but you can't fool all the people all of the time. Europeans (the citizens) will question why they
should pay 20-30% more for their natural gas just to please America. Politicians better have an answer or change of policy if
they want to be reelected.
Miss Gabbard just served two tours in the ME, one as enlisted in the HI National Guard.
Brave Mr. Bolton kept the dirty communists from endangering the US supply of Chesapeake
crab while serving in the Maryland Guard. Rumor also has it that he helped Tompall Glaser
write the song Streets of Baltimore. Some say they saw Mr. Bolton single handily defending
Memorial Stadium from a combined VC/NVA attack during an Orioles game. The Cubans would have
conquered the Pimlico Race Course if not for the combat skill of PFC Bolton.
"... This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington. ..."
"... That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same. ..."
"... To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the Iranian regime. ..."
"... the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel). ..."
"... Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon (Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism. ..."
"... The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense, but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and similar weapons. ..."
"... For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan, India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports. ..."
"... In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not territorial self-defense ..."
"... When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war levels. ..."
"... Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US security and oil interests. ..."
"... Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against biological and chemical weapons. ..."
"... Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces – some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for nukes. ..."
"... However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs. ..."
"... Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too. ..."
This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to
the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign
minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they
didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington.
That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland
and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same.
To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is
essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the
Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit
of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the
Iranian regime.
But as we have demonstrated previously, the best cure for high oil prices is the global
market, not the Fifth Fleet. And the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies
and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made
Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel).
Stated differently, the American people have no dog in the political hunts of Washington's
so-called allies in the region; and will be no worse for the wear economically if Washington
were to dispense with its idiotic economic warfare against Iran's 4 million barrel per day oil
industry and allow all exporters in the region to produce and sell every single barrel they can
economically extract.
Viewed in the proper context, Iran's response to the new sanctions and intensified efforts
to destroy their economy was readily warranted:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the new sanctions "outrageous and stupid." Mr.
Khamenei, while the political leader of Iran, also is one of the world's leading authorities
for Shia Muslims.
"Would any administration with a bit of wisdom [sanction] the highest authority of a
country? And not only a political authority, a religious, social, spiritual one, and not the
leader of Iran only, the leader of the Islamic revolution all over the world?" Mr. Rouhani said
in a speech broadcast on state television.
He said it was "obvious" that the US was lying about wanting to negotiate with Iran: "You
want us to negotiate with you again?" Mr. Rouhani said, "and at the same time you seek to
sanction the foreign minister too?"
Iran also said these sanctions closed the door on diplomacy and threatened global
stability, as American officials renewed efforts to build a global alliance against
Tehran.
Unfortunately, it didn't take the Donald long to upchuck what amounted to a dangerous
tantrum:
.Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not
understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and
overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry
& Obama!
Those words are utterly reckless and outrageous. The Donald is carrying water for the
neocons, Bibi and the Saudis without really understanding what he is doing and in the process
is betraying America First and inching closer to an utterly unnecessary conflagration in the
Persian Gulf that will virtually upend the global economy.
Worst of all, as he escalates the confrontation with the Iranian regime, he espouses a pack
of lies and distortions that do no remotely comport with the facts. For instance, the following
tweet is absolutely neocon baloney:
.The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership
spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The US has not forgotten Iran's
use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many
more
The truth of the matter is that the Donald is referring to attacks on US forces by the
Shiite militias in Iraq during Washington's misbegotten invasion and occupation of that
woebegone nation during the last decades. The Shiite live there, constitute the majority of its
electorate, didn't want America there in the first place, and now actually run the government
that Washington placed in power and are totally opposed to Trump's confrontation with their
Shiite compatriots in Iran.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Better still, it is crucial to understand that this entire dangerous escalation is owing to
the fact that the Donald got into his thick head that utter nonsense that the Iran nuke deal
was some kind of disaster, and from there walked-away from the deal and restarted a brutal
economic war against Iran in the guise of sanctions.
But nothing could be further from the truth. The Donald's action to terminate the Iranian
nuclear deal was a complete triumph for the War Party.
It gutted the very idea of America First because Washington's renewed round of
sanctions constitute economic aggression against a country that is no threat to the US homeland
whatsoever.
In fact, Iran did not violate any term of the nuke deal, and as we demonstrate below,
scrupulously adhered to the letter of it. So the real reasons for Trump's abandonment of the
nuke deal have everything to do with the kind of Imperial interventionism that is the
antithesis of America First.
Trump's action, in fact, is predicated on the decades long neocon-inspired Big Lie that Iran
is an aggressive expansionist and terrorism-supporting rogue state which threatens the security
of not just the region, but America too.
But that's flat out poppycock. As we documented last week, the claim that Iran is the
expansionist leader of the Shiite Crescent is based on nothing more than the fact that Tehran
has an independent foreign policy based on its own interests and confessional affiliations
– legitimate relationships that are demonized by virtue of not being approved by
Washington.
Likewise, the official charge that Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism is not
remotely warranted by the facts: The listing is essentially a State Department favor to the
Netanyahu branch of the War Party.
The fact is, the Iranian regime with its piddling $14 billion military budget has no means
to attack America militarily and has never threatened to do so. Nor has it invaded any other
country in the region where it was not invited by a sovereign government host.
As Ron Paul cogently observed:
Is Iran really the aggressive one? When you unilaterally pull out of an agreement that
was reducing tensions and boosting trade; when you begin applying sanctions designed to
completely destroy another country's economy; when you position military assets right offshore
of that country; when you threaten to destroy that country on a regular basis, calling it a
campaign of "maximum pressure," to me it seems a stretch to play the victim when that country
retaliates by shooting a spy plane that is likely looking for the best way to attack.
Even if the US spy plane was not in Iranian airspace – but it increasingly looks
like it was – it was just another part of an already-existing US war on Iran. Yes,
sanctions are a form of war, not a substitute for war.
The point is Washington's case is almost entirely bogus. To wit:
Mr. Trump also reiterated his demands Monday at the White House: "We will continue to
increase pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its
aspirations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium,
development of ballistic missiles, engagement in and support for terrorism, fueling of foreign
conflicts, and belligerent acts directed against the United States and its allies."
Let's see about those "dangerous activities and aspirations".
In fact, Iran has no blue water navy that could effectively operate outside of the Persian
Gulf; its longest range warplanes can barely get to Rome without refueling; and its array of
mainly defensive medium and intermediate range missiles cannot strike most of NATO, to say
nothing of the North American continent.
Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington
proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon
(Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of
Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of
unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously
labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism.
The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and
intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense,
but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of
practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and
similar weapons.
For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO
supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan,
India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a
hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports.
In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not
territorial self-defense. It is a testament to the manner in which the historic notion of
national defense has morphed into Washington's arrogant claim that it constitutes the
"Indispensable Nation" which purportedly stands as mankind's bulwark against global disorder
and chaos among nations.
Likewise, the Shiite theocracy ensconced in Tehran was an unfortunate albatross on the
Persian people, but it was no threat to America's safety and security. The very idea that
Tehran is an expansionist power bent on exporting terrorism to the rest of the world is a giant
fiction and tissue of lies invented by the Washington War Party and its Bibi Netanyahu branch
in order to win political support for their confrontationist policies.
Indeed, the three decade long demonization of Iran has served one overarching purpose.
Namely, it enabled both branches of the War Party to conjure up a fearsome enemy, thereby
justifying aggressive policies that call for a constant state of war and military
mobilization.
When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind
of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the
suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian
doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war
levels.
And the narrative they developed to this end is one of the more egregious Big Lies ever to
come out of the beltway. It puts you in mind of the young boy who killed his parents, and then
threw himself on the mercy of the courts on the grounds that he was an orphan!
To wit, during the 1980s the neocons in the Reagan Administration issued their own fatwa
again the Islamic Republic of Iran based on its rhetorical hostility to America. Yet that
enmity was grounded in Washington's 25-year support for the tyrannical and illegitimate regime
of the Shah, and constituted a founding narrative of the Islamic Republic that was not much
different than America's revolutionary castigation of King George.
That the Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA
overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and
megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US
security and oil interests.
During the subsequent decades the Shah not only massively and baldly plundered the wealth of
the Persian nation. With the help of the CIA and US military, he also created a brutal secret
police force known as the Savak, which made the East German Stasi look civilized by
comparison.
All elements of Iranian society including universities, labor unions, businesses, civic
organizations, peasant farmers and many more were subjected to intense surveillance by the
Savak agents and paid informants. As one critic described it:
Over the years, Savak became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest, detain,
brutally interrogate and torture suspected people indefinitely. Savak operated its own prisons
in Tehran, such as Qezel-Qalaeh and Evin facilities and many suspected places throughout the
country as well.
Ironically, among his many grandiose follies, the Shah embarked on a massive civilian
nuclear power campaign in the 1970s, which envisioned literally paving the Iranian landscape
with dozens of nuclear power plants.
He would use Iran's surging oil revenues after 1973 to buy all the equipment required from
Western companies – and also fuel cycle support services such as uranium enrichment
– in order to provide his kingdom with cheap power for centuries.
At the time of the Revolution, the first of these plants at Bushehr was nearly complete, but
the whole grandiose project was put on hold amidst the turmoil of the new regime and the onset
of Saddam Hussein's war against Iran in September 1980. As a consequence, a $2 billion deposit
languished at the French nuclear agency that had originally obtained it from the Shah to fund a
ramp-up of its enrichment capacity to supply his planned battery of reactors.
Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was
not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst
of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa
against biological and chemical weapons.
Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces
– some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking
satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture
was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for
nukes.
However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not
consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own
forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs.
Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some
additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French
enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German
suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion
deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too.
To make a long story short, the entire subsequent history of off again/on again efforts by
the Iranians to purchase dual use equipment and components on the international market, often
from black market sources like Pakistan, was in response to Washington's relentless efforts to
block its legitimate rights as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to
complete some parts of the Shah's civilian nuclear project.
Needless to say, it did not take much effort by the neocon "regime change" fanatics which
inhabited the national security machinery, especially after the 2000 election, to spin every
attempt by Iran to purchase even a lowly pump or pipe fitting as evidence of a secret campaign
to get the bomb.
The exaggerations, lies, distortions and fear-mongering which came out of this neocon
campaign are downright despicable. Yet they incepted way back in the early 1990s when George
H.W. Bush actually did reach out to the newly elected government of Hashemi Rafsanjani to bury
the hatchet after it had cooperated in obtaining the release of American prisoners being held
in Lebanon in 1989.
Rafsanjani was self-evidently a pragmatist who did not want conflict with the United States
and the West; and after the devastation of the eight year war with Iraq was wholly focused on
economic reconstruction and even free market reforms of Iran's faltering economy.
It is one of the great tragedies of history that the neocons managed to squelch even George
Bush's better instincts with respect to rapprochement with Tehran.
The Neocon Big Lie About Iranian Nukes And Terrorism
So the prisoner release opening was short-lived – especially after the top post at the
CIA was assumed in 1991 by Robert Gates. As one of the very worst of the unreconstructed cold
war apparatchiks, it can be well and truly said that Gates looked peace in the eye and then
elected to pervert John Quincy Adams' wise maxim by searching the globe for monsters to
fabricate.
In this case the motivation was especially loathsome. Gates had been Bill Casey's right hand
man during the latter's rogue tenure at the CIA in the Reagan administration. Among the many
untoward projects that Gates shepherded was the Iran-Contra affair that nearly destroyed his
career when it blew-up, and for which he blamed the Iranians for its public disclosure.
From his post as deputy national security director in 1989 and then as CIA head Gates pulled
out all the stops to get even. Almost single-handedly he killed-off the White House goodwill
from the prisoner release, and launched the blatant myth that Iran was both sponsoring
terrorism and seeking to obtain nuclear weapons.
Indeed, it was Gates who was the architect of the demonization of Iran that became a staple
of War Party propaganda after the 1991. In time that morphed into the utterly false claim that
Iran is an aggressive wanna be hegemon that is a fount of terrorism and is dedicated to the
destruction of the state of Israel, among other treacherous purposes.
That giant lie was almost single-handedly fashioned by the neocons and Bibi Netanyahu's
coterie of power-hungry henchman after the mid-1990s. Indeed, the false claim that Iran posses
an "existential threat" to Israel is a product of the pure red meat domestic Israeli politics
that have kept Bibi in power for much of the last two decades.
But the truth is Iran has only a tiny fraction of Israel's conventional military capability.
And compared to the latter's 100 odd nukes, Iran has never had a nuclear weaponization program
after a small scale research program was ended in 2003.
That is not merely our opinion. It's been the sober assessment of the nation's top 17
intelligence agencies in the official National Intelligence Estimates ever since 2007. And now
in conjunction with a further study undertaken pursuant to the 2015 nuke deal, the IAEA has
also concluded the Iran had no secret program after 2003.
On the political and foreign policy front, Iran is no better or worse than any of the other
major powers in the Middle East. In many ways it is far less of a threat to regional peace and
stability than the military butchers who now run Egypt on $1.5 billion per year of US aid.
And it is surely no worse than the royal family tyrants who squander the massive oil
resources of Saudi Arabia in pursuit of unspeakable opulence and decadence to the detriment of
the 30 million citizens which are not part of the regime, and who one day may well reach the
point of revolt.
When it comes to the support of terrorism, the Saudis have funded more jihadists and
terrorists throughout the region than Iran ever even imagined.
In fact, Iran is a nearly bankrupt country that has no capability whatsoever to
threaten the security and safety of the citizens of Spokane WA, Peoria IL or anywhere else in
the USA.
Its $460 billion GDP is the size of Indiana's and its 68,000 man military is only slightly
larger than the national guard of Texas.
It is a land of severe mountains and daunting swamps that are not all that conducive to
rapid economic progress and advanced industrialization. It has no blue water navy, no missiles
with more than a few hundred miles of range, and, we must repeat again, has had no nuclear
weapons program for more than a decade.
Moreover, Donald's incessant charge that the Obama Administration gave away the store during
the nuke deal negotiations that led to the JCPA is just blatant nonsense. In fact, the Iranians
made huge concessions on nearly every issue that made a difference.
That included deep concessions on the number of permitted centrifuges at Natanz; the
dismantlement of the Fordow and Arak nuclear operations; the virtually complete liquidation of
its enriched uranium stockpiles; the intrusiveness and scope of the inspections regime; and the
provisions with respect to Iran's so-called "breakout" capacity.
For instance, while every signatory of the non-proliferation treaty has the right to
civilian enrichment, Iran agreed to reduce the number of centrifuges by 70% from 20,000 to
6,000.
And its effective spinning capacity was reduced by significantly more. That's because the
permitted Natanz centrifuges now consist exclusively of its most rudimentary, outdated
equipment – first-generation IR-1 knockoffs of 1970s European models.
Not only was Iran not be allowed to build or develop newer models, but even those remaining
were permitted to enrich uranium to a limit of only 3.75% purity. That is to say, to the
generation of fissile material that is not remotely capable of reaching bomb grade
concentrations of 90%.
Equally importantly, pursuant to the agreement Iran has eliminated enrichment activity
entirely at its Fordow plant – a facility that had been Iran's one truly advanced,
hardened site that could withstand an onslaught of Israeli or US bunker busters.
Instead, Fordow has become a small time underground science lab devoted to medical isotope
research and crawling with international inspectors. In effectively decommissioning Fordow and
thereby eliminating any capacity to cheat from a secure facility – what Iran got in
return was at best a fig leave of salve for its national pride.
The disposition of the reactor at Arak has been even more dispositive. For years, the War
Party has falsely waved the bloody shirt of "plutonium" because the civilian nuclear reactor
being built there was of Canadian "heavy water" design rather than GE or Westinghouse "light
water" design; and, accordingly, when finished it would have generated plutonium as a waste
product rather than conventional spent nuclear fuel rods.
In truth, the Iranians couldn't have bombed a beehive with the Arak plutonium because you
need a reprocessing plant to convert it into bomb grade material. Needless to say, Iran never
had such a plant – nor any plans to build one, and no prospect for getting the requisite
technology and equipment.
But now even that bogeyman no longer exists. Iran removed and destroyed the reactor core of
its existing Arak plant in 2016 and filled it with cement, as attested to by international
inspectors under the JCPA.
As to its already existing enriched stock piles, including some 20% medical-grade material,
97% has been eliminated as per the agreement. That is, Iran now holds only 300 kilograms of its
10,000 kilogram stockpile in useable or recoverable form. Senator Kirk could store what is left
in his wine cellar.
But where the framework agreement decisively shut down the War Party was with respect to its
provision for a robust, comprehensive and even prophylactic inspections regime. All of the
major provision itemized above are being enforced by continuous IAEA access to existing
facilities including its main centrifuge complex at Natanz – along with Fordow, Arak and
a half dozen other sites.
Indeed, the real breakthrough in the JCPA lies in Iran's agreement to what amounts to a
cradle-to-grave inspection regime. It encompasses the entire nuclear fuel chain.
That means international inspectors can visit Iran's uranium mines and milling and fuel
preparation operations. This encompasses even its enrichment equipment manufacturing and
fabrication plants, including centrifuge rotor and bellows production and storage
facilities.
Beyond that, Iran has also been subject to a robust program of IAEA inspections to prevent
smuggling of materials into the country to illicit sites outside of the named facilities under
the agreement. This encompasses imports of nuclear fuel cycle equipment and materials,
including so-called "dual use" items which are essentially civilian imports that can be
repurposed to nuclear uses, even peaceful domestic power generation.
In short, not even a Houdini could secretly breakout of the control box established by the
JCPA and confront the world with some kind of fait accompli threat to use the bomb.
That's because what it would take to do so is absurdly implausible. That is, Iran would need
to secretly divert thousands of tons of domestically produced or imported uranium and then
illicitly mill and upgrade such material at secret fuel preparation plants.
It would also need to secretly construct new, hidden enrichment operations of such massive
scale that they could house more than 10,000 new centrifuges. Moreover, they would need to
build these massive spinning arrays from millions of component parts smuggled into the country
and transported to remote enrichment operations – all undetected by the massive complex
of spy satellites overhead and covert US ands Israeli intelligence agency operatives on the
ground in Iran.
Finally, it would require the activation from scratch of a weaponization program which has
been dormant according to the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) for more than a decade.
And then, that the Iranian regime – after cobbling together one or two bombs without
testing them or their launch vehicles – would nevertheless be willing to threaten to use
them sight unseen.
So just stop it!
You need to be a raging, certifiable paranoid boob to believe that the Iranians can break
out of this framework box based on a secret new capacity to enrich the requisite fissile
material and make a bomb.
In the alternative scenario, you have to be a willful know-nothing to think that if it
publicly repudiates the agreement, Iran could get a bomb overnight before the international
community could take action.
To get enough nuclear material to make a bomb from the output of the 5,000 "old and slow"
centrifuges remaining at Natanz would take years, not months. And if subject to an embargo on
imported components, as it would be after a unilateral Iranian repudiation of the JCPA, it
could not rebuild its now dismantled enrichment capacity rapidly, either.
At the end of the day, in fact, what you really have to believe is that Iran is run by
absolutely irrational, suicidal madmen. After all, even if they managed to defy the immensely
prohibitive constraints described above and get one or a even a few nuclear bombs, what in the
world would they do with them?
Drop them on Tel Aviv? That would absolutely insure Israel's navy and air force would
unleash its 100-plus nukes and thereby incinerate the entire industrial base and major
population centers of Iran.
Indeed, the very idea that deterrence would fail even if a future Iranian regime were to
defy all the odds, and also defy the fatwa against nuclear weapons issued by their Supreme
Leader, amounts to one of the most preposterous Big Lies ever concocted.
There is no plausible or rational basis for believing it outside of the axis-of-evil
narrative. So what's really behind Trump's withdrawal from the JCPA is nothing more than the
immense tissue of lies and unwarranted demonization of Iran that the War Party has fabricated
over the last three decades.
Iran Never Wanted the Bomb
At bottom, all the hysteria about the mullahs getting the bomb was based on the wholly
theoretically supposition that they wanted civilian enrichment only as a stepping stone to the
bomb. Yet the entirety of the US intelligence complex as well as the attestation of George W.
Bush himself say it isn't so.
As we have previously indicated, the blinding truth of that proposition first came in the
National Intelligence Estimates of 2007. These NIEs represent a consensus of all 17 US
intelligence agencies on salient issues each year, and on the matter of Iran's nuclear weapons
program they could not have been more unequivocal:
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear
weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We assess with moderate confidence Tehran
had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it
currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.
"Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to
international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach
rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military
costs."
Moreover, as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern noted recently, the NIE's have not changed
since then.
An equally important fact ignored by the mainstream media is that the key judgments of
that NIE have been revalidated by the intelligence community every year since.
More crucially, there is the matter of "Dubya's" memoirs. Near the end of his term in office
he was under immense pressure to authorize a bombing campaign against Iran's civilian nuclear
facilities.
But once the 2007 NIEs came out, even the "mission accomplished" President in the bomber
jacket was caught up short. As McGovern further notes,
Bush lets it all hang out in his memoir, Decision Points. Most revealingly, he complains
bitterly that the NIE "tied my hands on the military side" and called its findings
"eye-popping."
A disgruntled Bush writes, "The backlash was immediate ."I don't know why the NIE was
written the way it was. Whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact – and not a
good one."
Spelling out how the Estimate had tied his hands "on the military side," Bush included
this (apparently unedited) kicker: "But after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using
the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had
no active nuclear weapons program?"
So there you have it. How is it possible to believe that the Iranian's were hell-bent on a
nuclear holocaust when they didn't even have a nuclear weapons program?
And why in the world is the Donald taking America and the world to the edge of a utterly
unnecessary war in order to force a better deal when the one he shit-canned was more than
serviceable?
The answer to that momentous questions lies with the Bombzie Twins (Pompeo and Bolton) and
the malign influence of the Donald's son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu toady, Jared Kushner.
Rarely have a small group of fanatics more dangerously and wantonly jeopardized the
security, blood and treasure of the American people.
"... This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington. ..."
"... That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same. ..."
"... To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the Iranian regime. ..."
"... the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel). ..."
"... Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon (Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism. ..."
"... The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense, but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and similar weapons. ..."
"... For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan, India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports. ..."
"... In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not territorial self-defense ..."
"... When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war levels. ..."
"... Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US security and oil interests. ..."
"... Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against biological and chemical weapons. ..."
"... Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces – some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for nukes. ..."
"... However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs. ..."
"... Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too. ..."
This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to
the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign
minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they
didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington.
That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland
and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same.
To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is
essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the
Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit
of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the
Iranian regime.
But as we have demonstrated previously, the best cure for high oil prices is the global
market, not the Fifth Fleet. And the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies
and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made
Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel).
Stated differently, the American people have no dog in the political hunts of Washington's
so-called allies in the region; and will be no worse for the wear economically if Washington
were to dispense with its idiotic economic warfare against Iran's 4 million barrel per day oil
industry and allow all exporters in the region to produce and sell every single barrel they can
economically extract.
Viewed in the proper context, Iran's response to the new sanctions and intensified efforts
to destroy their economy was readily warranted:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the new sanctions "outrageous and stupid." Mr.
Khamenei, while the political leader of Iran, also is one of the world's leading authorities
for Shia Muslims.
"Would any administration with a bit of wisdom [sanction] the highest authority of a
country? And not only a political authority, a religious, social, spiritual one, and not the
leader of Iran only, the leader of the Islamic revolution all over the world?" Mr. Rouhani said
in a speech broadcast on state television.
He said it was "obvious" that the US was lying about wanting to negotiate with Iran: "You
want us to negotiate with you again?" Mr. Rouhani said, "and at the same time you seek to
sanction the foreign minister too?"
Iran also said these sanctions closed the door on diplomacy and threatened global
stability, as American officials renewed efforts to build a global alliance against
Tehran.
Unfortunately, it didn't take the Donald long to upchuck what amounted to a dangerous
tantrum:
.Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not
understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and
overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry
& Obama!
Those words are utterly reckless and outrageous. The Donald is carrying water for the
neocons, Bibi and the Saudis without really understanding what he is doing and in the process
is betraying America First and inching closer to an utterly unnecessary conflagration in the
Persian Gulf that will virtually upend the global economy.
Worst of all, as he escalates the confrontation with the Iranian regime, he espouses a pack
of lies and distortions that do no remotely comport with the facts. For instance, the following
tweet is absolutely neocon baloney:
.The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership
spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The US has not forgotten Iran's
use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many
more
The truth of the matter is that the Donald is referring to attacks on US forces by the
Shiite militias in Iraq during Washington's misbegotten invasion and occupation of that
woebegone nation during the last decades. The Shiite live there, constitute the majority of its
electorate, didn't want America there in the first place, and now actually run the government
that Washington placed in power and are totally opposed to Trump's confrontation with their
Shiite compatriots in Iran.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Better still, it is crucial to understand that this entire dangerous escalation is owing to
the fact that the Donald got into his thick head that utter nonsense that the Iran nuke deal
was some kind of disaster, and from there walked-away from the deal and restarted a brutal
economic war against Iran in the guise of sanctions.
But nothing could be further from the truth. The Donald's action to terminate the Iranian
nuclear deal was a complete triumph for the War Party.
It gutted the very idea of America First because Washington's renewed round of
sanctions constitute economic aggression against a country that is no threat to the US homeland
whatsoever.
In fact, Iran did not violate any term of the nuke deal, and as we demonstrate below,
scrupulously adhered to the letter of it. So the real reasons for Trump's abandonment of the
nuke deal have everything to do with the kind of Imperial interventionism that is the
antithesis of America First.
Trump's action, in fact, is predicated on the decades long neocon-inspired Big Lie that Iran
is an aggressive expansionist and terrorism-supporting rogue state which threatens the security
of not just the region, but America too.
But that's flat out poppycock. As we documented last week, the claim that Iran is the
expansionist leader of the Shiite Crescent is based on nothing more than the fact that Tehran
has an independent foreign policy based on its own interests and confessional affiliations
– legitimate relationships that are demonized by virtue of not being approved by
Washington.
Likewise, the official charge that Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism is not
remotely warranted by the facts: The listing is essentially a State Department favor to the
Netanyahu branch of the War Party.
The fact is, the Iranian regime with its piddling $14 billion military budget has no means
to attack America militarily and has never threatened to do so. Nor has it invaded any other
country in the region where it was not invited by a sovereign government host.
As Ron Paul cogently observed:
Is Iran really the aggressive one? When you unilaterally pull out of an agreement that
was reducing tensions and boosting trade; when you begin applying sanctions designed to
completely destroy another country's economy; when you position military assets right offshore
of that country; when you threaten to destroy that country on a regular basis, calling it a
campaign of "maximum pressure," to me it seems a stretch to play the victim when that country
retaliates by shooting a spy plane that is likely looking for the best way to attack.
Even if the US spy plane was not in Iranian airspace – but it increasingly looks
like it was – it was just another part of an already-existing US war on Iran. Yes,
sanctions are a form of war, not a substitute for war.
The point is Washington's case is almost entirely bogus. To wit:
Mr. Trump also reiterated his demands Monday at the White House: "We will continue to
increase pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its
aspirations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium,
development of ballistic missiles, engagement in and support for terrorism, fueling of foreign
conflicts, and belligerent acts directed against the United States and its allies."
Let's see about those "dangerous activities and aspirations".
In fact, Iran has no blue water navy that could effectively operate outside of the Persian
Gulf; its longest range warplanes can barely get to Rome without refueling; and its array of
mainly defensive medium and intermediate range missiles cannot strike most of NATO, to say
nothing of the North American continent.
Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington
proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon
(Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of
Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of
unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously
labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism.
The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and
intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense,
but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of
practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and
similar weapons.
For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO
supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan,
India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a
hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports.
In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not
territorial self-defense. It is a testament to the manner in which the historic notion of
national defense has morphed into Washington's arrogant claim that it constitutes the
"Indispensable Nation" which purportedly stands as mankind's bulwark against global disorder
and chaos among nations.
Likewise, the Shiite theocracy ensconced in Tehran was an unfortunate albatross on the
Persian people, but it was no threat to America's safety and security. The very idea that
Tehran is an expansionist power bent on exporting terrorism to the rest of the world is a giant
fiction and tissue of lies invented by the Washington War Party and its Bibi Netanyahu branch
in order to win political support for their confrontationist policies.
Indeed, the three decade long demonization of Iran has served one overarching purpose.
Namely, it enabled both branches of the War Party to conjure up a fearsome enemy, thereby
justifying aggressive policies that call for a constant state of war and military
mobilization.
When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind
of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the
suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian
doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war
levels.
And the narrative they developed to this end is one of the more egregious Big Lies ever to
come out of the beltway. It puts you in mind of the young boy who killed his parents, and then
threw himself on the mercy of the courts on the grounds that he was an orphan!
To wit, during the 1980s the neocons in the Reagan Administration issued their own fatwa
again the Islamic Republic of Iran based on its rhetorical hostility to America. Yet that
enmity was grounded in Washington's 25-year support for the tyrannical and illegitimate regime
of the Shah, and constituted a founding narrative of the Islamic Republic that was not much
different than America's revolutionary castigation of King George.
That the Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA
overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and
megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US
security and oil interests.
During the subsequent decades the Shah not only massively and baldly plundered the wealth of
the Persian nation. With the help of the CIA and US military, he also created a brutal secret
police force known as the Savak, which made the East German Stasi look civilized by
comparison.
All elements of Iranian society including universities, labor unions, businesses, civic
organizations, peasant farmers and many more were subjected to intense surveillance by the
Savak agents and paid informants. As one critic described it:
Over the years, Savak became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest, detain,
brutally interrogate and torture suspected people indefinitely. Savak operated its own prisons
in Tehran, such as Qezel-Qalaeh and Evin facilities and many suspected places throughout the
country as well.
Ironically, among his many grandiose follies, the Shah embarked on a massive civilian
nuclear power campaign in the 1970s, which envisioned literally paving the Iranian landscape
with dozens of nuclear power plants.
He would use Iran's surging oil revenues after 1973 to buy all the equipment required from
Western companies – and also fuel cycle support services such as uranium enrichment
– in order to provide his kingdom with cheap power for centuries.
At the time of the Revolution, the first of these plants at Bushehr was nearly complete, but
the whole grandiose project was put on hold amidst the turmoil of the new regime and the onset
of Saddam Hussein's war against Iran in September 1980. As a consequence, a $2 billion deposit
languished at the French nuclear agency that had originally obtained it from the Shah to fund a
ramp-up of its enrichment capacity to supply his planned battery of reactors.
Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was
not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst
of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa
against biological and chemical weapons.
Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces
– some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking
satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture
was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for
nukes.
However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not
consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own
forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs.
Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some
additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French
enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German
suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion
deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too.
To make a long story short, the entire subsequent history of off again/on again efforts by
the Iranians to purchase dual use equipment and components on the international market, often
from black market sources like Pakistan, was in response to Washington's relentless efforts to
block its legitimate rights as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to
complete some parts of the Shah's civilian nuclear project.
Needless to say, it did not take much effort by the neocon "regime change" fanatics which
inhabited the national security machinery, especially after the 2000 election, to spin every
attempt by Iran to purchase even a lowly pump or pipe fitting as evidence of a secret campaign
to get the bomb.
The exaggerations, lies, distortions and fear-mongering which came out of this neocon
campaign are downright despicable. Yet they incepted way back in the early 1990s when George
H.W. Bush actually did reach out to the newly elected government of Hashemi Rafsanjani to bury
the hatchet after it had cooperated in obtaining the release of American prisoners being held
in Lebanon in 1989.
Rafsanjani was self-evidently a pragmatist who did not want conflict with the United States
and the West; and after the devastation of the eight year war with Iraq was wholly focused on
economic reconstruction and even free market reforms of Iran's faltering economy.
It is one of the great tragedies of history that the neocons managed to squelch even George
Bush's better instincts with respect to rapprochement with Tehran.
The Neocon Big Lie About Iranian Nukes And Terrorism
So the prisoner release opening was short-lived – especially after the top post at the
CIA was assumed in 1991 by Robert Gates. As one of the very worst of the unreconstructed cold
war apparatchiks, it can be well and truly said that Gates looked peace in the eye and then
elected to pervert John Quincy Adams' wise maxim by searching the globe for monsters to
fabricate.
In this case the motivation was especially loathsome. Gates had been Bill Casey's right hand
man during the latter's rogue tenure at the CIA in the Reagan administration. Among the many
untoward projects that Gates shepherded was the Iran-Contra affair that nearly destroyed his
career when it blew-up, and for which he blamed the Iranians for its public disclosure.
From his post as deputy national security director in 1989 and then as CIA head Gates pulled
out all the stops to get even. Almost single-handedly he killed-off the White House goodwill
from the prisoner release, and launched the blatant myth that Iran was both sponsoring
terrorism and seeking to obtain nuclear weapons.
Indeed, it was Gates who was the architect of the demonization of Iran that became a staple
of War Party propaganda after the 1991. In time that morphed into the utterly false claim that
Iran is an aggressive wanna be hegemon that is a fount of terrorism and is dedicated to the
destruction of the state of Israel, among other treacherous purposes.
That giant lie was almost single-handedly fashioned by the neocons and Bibi Netanyahu's
coterie of power-hungry henchman after the mid-1990s. Indeed, the false claim that Iran posses
an "existential threat" to Israel is a product of the pure red meat domestic Israeli politics
that have kept Bibi in power for much of the last two decades.
But the truth is Iran has only a tiny fraction of Israel's conventional military capability.
And compared to the latter's 100 odd nukes, Iran has never had a nuclear weaponization program
after a small scale research program was ended in 2003.
That is not merely our opinion. It's been the sober assessment of the nation's top 17
intelligence agencies in the official National Intelligence Estimates ever since 2007. And now
in conjunction with a further study undertaken pursuant to the 2015 nuke deal, the IAEA has
also concluded the Iran had no secret program after 2003.
On the political and foreign policy front, Iran is no better or worse than any of the other
major powers in the Middle East. In many ways it is far less of a threat to regional peace and
stability than the military butchers who now run Egypt on $1.5 billion per year of US aid.
And it is surely no worse than the royal family tyrants who squander the massive oil
resources of Saudi Arabia in pursuit of unspeakable opulence and decadence to the detriment of
the 30 million citizens which are not part of the regime, and who one day may well reach the
point of revolt.
When it comes to the support of terrorism, the Saudis have funded more jihadists and
terrorists throughout the region than Iran ever even imagined.
In fact, Iran is a nearly bankrupt country that has no capability whatsoever to
threaten the security and safety of the citizens of Spokane WA, Peoria IL or anywhere else in
the USA.
Its $460 billion GDP is the size of Indiana's and its 68,000 man military is only slightly
larger than the national guard of Texas.
It is a land of severe mountains and daunting swamps that are not all that conducive to
rapid economic progress and advanced industrialization. It has no blue water navy, no missiles
with more than a few hundred miles of range, and, we must repeat again, has had no nuclear
weapons program for more than a decade.
Moreover, Donald's incessant charge that the Obama Administration gave away the store during
the nuke deal negotiations that led to the JCPA is just blatant nonsense. In fact, the Iranians
made huge concessions on nearly every issue that made a difference.
That included deep concessions on the number of permitted centrifuges at Natanz; the
dismantlement of the Fordow and Arak nuclear operations; the virtually complete liquidation of
its enriched uranium stockpiles; the intrusiveness and scope of the inspections regime; and the
provisions with respect to Iran's so-called "breakout" capacity.
For instance, while every signatory of the non-proliferation treaty has the right to
civilian enrichment, Iran agreed to reduce the number of centrifuges by 70% from 20,000 to
6,000.
And its effective spinning capacity was reduced by significantly more. That's because the
permitted Natanz centrifuges now consist exclusively of its most rudimentary, outdated
equipment – first-generation IR-1 knockoffs of 1970s European models.
Not only was Iran not be allowed to build or develop newer models, but even those remaining
were permitted to enrich uranium to a limit of only 3.75% purity. That is to say, to the
generation of fissile material that is not remotely capable of reaching bomb grade
concentrations of 90%.
Equally importantly, pursuant to the agreement Iran has eliminated enrichment activity
entirely at its Fordow plant – a facility that had been Iran's one truly advanced,
hardened site that could withstand an onslaught of Israeli or US bunker busters.
Instead, Fordow has become a small time underground science lab devoted to medical isotope
research and crawling with international inspectors. In effectively decommissioning Fordow and
thereby eliminating any capacity to cheat from a secure facility – what Iran got in
return was at best a fig leave of salve for its national pride.
The disposition of the reactor at Arak has been even more dispositive. For years, the War
Party has falsely waved the bloody shirt of "plutonium" because the civilian nuclear reactor
being built there was of Canadian "heavy water" design rather than GE or Westinghouse "light
water" design; and, accordingly, when finished it would have generated plutonium as a waste
product rather than conventional spent nuclear fuel rods.
In truth, the Iranians couldn't have bombed a beehive with the Arak plutonium because you
need a reprocessing plant to convert it into bomb grade material. Needless to say, Iran never
had such a plant – nor any plans to build one, and no prospect for getting the requisite
technology and equipment.
But now even that bogeyman no longer exists. Iran removed and destroyed the reactor core of
its existing Arak plant in 2016 and filled it with cement, as attested to by international
inspectors under the JCPA.
As to its already existing enriched stock piles, including some 20% medical-grade material,
97% has been eliminated as per the agreement. That is, Iran now holds only 300 kilograms of its
10,000 kilogram stockpile in useable or recoverable form. Senator Kirk could store what is left
in his wine cellar.
But where the framework agreement decisively shut down the War Party was with respect to its
provision for a robust, comprehensive and even prophylactic inspections regime. All of the
major provision itemized above are being enforced by continuous IAEA access to existing
facilities including its main centrifuge complex at Natanz – along with Fordow, Arak and
a half dozen other sites.
Indeed, the real breakthrough in the JCPA lies in Iran's agreement to what amounts to a
cradle-to-grave inspection regime. It encompasses the entire nuclear fuel chain.
That means international inspectors can visit Iran's uranium mines and milling and fuel
preparation operations. This encompasses even its enrichment equipment manufacturing and
fabrication plants, including centrifuge rotor and bellows production and storage
facilities.
Beyond that, Iran has also been subject to a robust program of IAEA inspections to prevent
smuggling of materials into the country to illicit sites outside of the named facilities under
the agreement. This encompasses imports of nuclear fuel cycle equipment and materials,
including so-called "dual use" items which are essentially civilian imports that can be
repurposed to nuclear uses, even peaceful domestic power generation.
In short, not even a Houdini could secretly breakout of the control box established by the
JCPA and confront the world with some kind of fait accompli threat to use the bomb.
That's because what it would take to do so is absurdly implausible. That is, Iran would need
to secretly divert thousands of tons of domestically produced or imported uranium and then
illicitly mill and upgrade such material at secret fuel preparation plants.
It would also need to secretly construct new, hidden enrichment operations of such massive
scale that they could house more than 10,000 new centrifuges. Moreover, they would need to
build these massive spinning arrays from millions of component parts smuggled into the country
and transported to remote enrichment operations – all undetected by the massive complex
of spy satellites overhead and covert US ands Israeli intelligence agency operatives on the
ground in Iran.
Finally, it would require the activation from scratch of a weaponization program which has
been dormant according to the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) for more than a decade.
And then, that the Iranian regime – after cobbling together one or two bombs without
testing them or their launch vehicles – would nevertheless be willing to threaten to use
them sight unseen.
So just stop it!
You need to be a raging, certifiable paranoid boob to believe that the Iranians can break
out of this framework box based on a secret new capacity to enrich the requisite fissile
material and make a bomb.
In the alternative scenario, you have to be a willful know-nothing to think that if it
publicly repudiates the agreement, Iran could get a bomb overnight before the international
community could take action.
To get enough nuclear material to make a bomb from the output of the 5,000 "old and slow"
centrifuges remaining at Natanz would take years, not months. And if subject to an embargo on
imported components, as it would be after a unilateral Iranian repudiation of the JCPA, it
could not rebuild its now dismantled enrichment capacity rapidly, either.
At the end of the day, in fact, what you really have to believe is that Iran is run by
absolutely irrational, suicidal madmen. After all, even if they managed to defy the immensely
prohibitive constraints described above and get one or a even a few nuclear bombs, what in the
world would they do with them?
Drop them on Tel Aviv? That would absolutely insure Israel's navy and air force would
unleash its 100-plus nukes and thereby incinerate the entire industrial base and major
population centers of Iran.
Indeed, the very idea that deterrence would fail even if a future Iranian regime were to
defy all the odds, and also defy the fatwa against nuclear weapons issued by their Supreme
Leader, amounts to one of the most preposterous Big Lies ever concocted.
There is no plausible or rational basis for believing it outside of the axis-of-evil
narrative. So what's really behind Trump's withdrawal from the JCPA is nothing more than the
immense tissue of lies and unwarranted demonization of Iran that the War Party has fabricated
over the last three decades.
Iran Never Wanted the Bomb
At bottom, all the hysteria about the mullahs getting the bomb was based on the wholly
theoretically supposition that they wanted civilian enrichment only as a stepping stone to the
bomb. Yet the entirety of the US intelligence complex as well as the attestation of George W.
Bush himself say it isn't so.
As we have previously indicated, the blinding truth of that proposition first came in the
National Intelligence Estimates of 2007. These NIEs represent a consensus of all 17 US
intelligence agencies on salient issues each year, and on the matter of Iran's nuclear weapons
program they could not have been more unequivocal:
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear
weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We assess with moderate confidence Tehran
had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it
currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.
"Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to
international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach
rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military
costs."
Moreover, as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern noted recently, the NIE's have not changed
since then.
An equally important fact ignored by the mainstream media is that the key judgments of
that NIE have been revalidated by the intelligence community every year since.
More crucially, there is the matter of "Dubya's" memoirs. Near the end of his term in office
he was under immense pressure to authorize a bombing campaign against Iran's civilian nuclear
facilities.
But once the 2007 NIEs came out, even the "mission accomplished" President in the bomber
jacket was caught up short. As McGovern further notes,
Bush lets it all hang out in his memoir, Decision Points. Most revealingly, he complains
bitterly that the NIE "tied my hands on the military side" and called its findings
"eye-popping."
A disgruntled Bush writes, "The backlash was immediate ."I don't know why the NIE was
written the way it was. Whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact – and not a
good one."
Spelling out how the Estimate had tied his hands "on the military side," Bush included
this (apparently unedited) kicker: "But after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using
the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had
no active nuclear weapons program?"
So there you have it. How is it possible to believe that the Iranian's were hell-bent on a
nuclear holocaust when they didn't even have a nuclear weapons program?
And why in the world is the Donald taking America and the world to the edge of a utterly
unnecessary war in order to force a better deal when the one he shit-canned was more than
serviceable?
The answer to that momentous questions lies with the Bombzie Twins (Pompeo and Bolton) and
the malign influence of the Donald's son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu toady, Jared Kushner.
Rarely have a small group of fanatics more dangerously and wantonly jeopardized the
security, blood and treasure of the American people.
At the same time, the administration has signaled in recent days that it plans to let the
New Start treaty, negotiated by Barack Obama, expire in February 2021 rather than renew it
for another five years. John R. Bolton, the president's national security adviser, who met
with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, in Jerusalem this week, said before leaving
Washington that "there's no decision, but I think it's unlikely" the treaty would be
renewed.
Mr. Bolton, a longtime skeptic of arms control agreements, said that New Start was flawed
because it did not cover short-range tactical nuclear weapons or new Russian delivery
systems. "So to extend for five years and not take these new delivery system threats into
account would be malpractice," he told The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet.
Like all of his complaints about arms control agreements, Bolton's criticisms of New START
are made in bad faith. Opponents of New START have long pretended that they oppose the treaty
because it did not cover everything imaginable, including tactical nuclear weapons, but this
has always been an excuse for them to reject a treaty that they have never wanted ratified in
the first place. If the concern about negotiating a treaty that covered tactical nuclear
weapons were genuine, the smart thing to do would be to extend New START and then begin
negotiations for a more comprehensive arms control agreement. Faulting New START for failing to
include things that are by definition not going to be included in a strategic arms reduction
treaty gives the game away. This is what die-hard opponents of the treaty have been doing for
almost ten years, and they do it because they want to dismantle the last vestiges of arms
control. The proposal to include China as part of a new treaty is another tell that the Trump
administration just wants the treaty to die.
The article concludes:
Some experts suspect talk of a three-way accord is merely a feint to get rid of the New
Start treaty. "If a trilateral deal is meant as a substitute or prerequisite for extending
New Start, it is a poison pill, no ifs, ands or buts," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive
director of the Arms Control Association. "If the president is seeking a trilateral deal as a
follow-on to New Start, that's a different thing."
Knowing Bolton, it has to be a poison pill. Just as Bolton is ideologically opposed to
making any deal with Iran, he is ideologically opposed to any arms control agreement that
places limits on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The "flaws" he identifies aren't really flaws that
he wants to fix (and they may not be flaws at all), but excuses for trashing the agreement. He
will make noises about how the current deal or treaty doesn't go far enough, but the truth is
that he doesn't want any agreements to exist. In Bolton's worldview, nonproliferation and arms
control agreements either give the other government too much or hamper the U.S. too much, and
so he wants to destroy them all. He has had a lot of success at killing agreements and treaties
that have been in the U.S. interest. Bolton has had a hand in blowing up the Agreed Framework
with North Korea, abandoning the ABM Treaty, killing the INF Treaty, and reneging on the JCPOA.
Unless the president can be persuaded to ignore or fire Bolton, New START will be his next
victim.
If New START dies, it will be a loss for both the U.S. and Russia, it will make the world
less secure, and it will make U.S.-Russian relations even worse. The stability that these
treaties have provided has been important for U.S. security for almost fifty years. New START
is the last of the treaties that constrain the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and when it
is gone there will be nothing to replace it for a long time. The collapse of arms control
almost certainly means that the top two nuclear weapons states will expand their arsenals and
put us back on the path of an insane and unwinnable arms race. Killing New START is irrational
and purely destructive, and it needs to be opposed.
bolton is opposed to any treaty, to any agreement, whereby the other side can expect to
obtain equally favorable terms-he wants the other side on their knees permanently without
any expectation of compromise by the empire.
It is interesting that Trump destiny now depends on geopolitical events he can't control namely actions of Iran and China.
Trump foreign policy appears to be driven by a combination of resentment and arrogance -- not a good combination for survival of
Trump and/or mankind
Was with Iran might result in high oil prices would kill the already anemic global growth and cause a recession (I guess
the volatility in oil prices will go through the roof at that point), Iran can destabilize the global economy by destroying most
of the oil production infrastructure around the gulf.
While Lyndon Johnson had chosen not running for reelection in 1968 because anti-war sentiment was high, G W Bush who was
reelected and the USA have now contractor army and casualties without draft does not matter much.
Notable quotes:
"... More likely they attack Saudi Arabia directly. Same impact, more justifiable if not outright popular. No one likes Prince Bone Saw. ..."
"... Iran could take those 10 million barrels a day away in 15 minutes. ..."
China will play a large roll in whether trump get re-elected.
If they decide they prefer his dysfunctional governance to his opponent, then they will engage
in a trade deal that will allow to trump to declare victory. It will likely be a very
superficial victory.
If they decide they would prefer to engage with a different administration, they will likely
refrain from a trade deal until after the election.
Have you asked yourself why Putin preferred trump? The answer is not pretty (for trump, or the
USA).
This is probably an absurd point of view. But in my opinion, it might be in Iran's interest
to drag the U.S into war, probably as indirectly as possible. That way they might
significantly reduce the chance of Trump being re-elected. (Obviously lives will be
sacrificed in this scenario)
The question is if it would work and would a Democrat president stop the war and go into the
same JCPOA deal again. Who knows. Very unpredictable.
Well, Mike, as absurd IMO is that Iran would risk self-destruction to get rid of Trump. He's
certainly a PITA for them, but closing the Strait of Hormuz to crash the global economy and
to blame it on Trump wouldn't work: Trump could blame it all on Iran while keeping on cooking
a controlled conflict with them, showing the world that the US doesn't depend on oil from any
other continent.
This would be a very difficult situation for a Democrat to step in and to
promise a better solution. The US would be relatively well off compared to Asia and Europe
and even could emerge out of such a constellation relatively more powerful.
But it could also
end up in a terrible mess. As you wrote: Who knows. Very unpredictable.
On Thursday, June 27, Justin Raimondo passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. He
was 67. Justin was a lifelong fighter for peace and liberty. In 1995, he co-founded Antiwar.com
with Eric Garris.
He served as Antiwar.com's editorial director and top columnist, writing over 3,000 articles for the website.
He can never be replaced and will be missed by countless numbers of fans and followers
At the same time, the administration has signaled in recent days that it plans to let the
New Start treaty, negotiated by Barack Obama, expire in February 2021 rather than renew it
for another five years. John R. Bolton, the president's national security adviser, who met
with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, in Jerusalem this week, said before leaving
Washington that "there's no decision, but I think it's unlikely" the treaty would be
renewed.
Mr. Bolton, a longtime skeptic of arms control agreements, said that New Start was flawed
because it did not cover short-range tactical nuclear weapons or new Russian delivery
systems. "So to extend for five years and not take these new delivery system threats into
account would be malpractice," he told The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet.
Like all of his complaints about arms control agreements, Bolton's criticisms of New START
are made in bad faith. Opponents of New START have long pretended that they oppose the treaty
because it did not cover everything imaginable, including tactical nuclear weapons, but this
has always been an excuse for them to reject a treaty that they have never wanted ratified in
the first place. If the concern about negotiating a treaty that covered tactical nuclear
weapons were genuine, the smart thing to do would be to extend New START and then begin
negotiations for a more comprehensive arms control agreement. Faulting New START for failing to
include things that are by definition not going to be included in a strategic arms reduction
treaty gives the game away. This is what die-hard opponents of the treaty have been doing for
almost ten years, and they do it because they want to dismantle the last vestiges of arms
control. The proposal to include China as part of a new treaty is another tell that the Trump
administration just wants the treaty to die.
The article concludes:
Some experts suspect talk of a three-way accord is merely a feint to get rid of the New
Start treaty. "If a trilateral deal is meant as a substitute or prerequisite for extending
New Start, it is a poison pill, no ifs, ands or buts," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive
director of the Arms Control Association. "If the president is seeking a trilateral deal as a
follow-on to New Start, that's a different thing."
Knowing Bolton, it has to be a poison pill. Just as Bolton is ideologically opposed to
making any deal with Iran, he is ideologically opposed to any arms control agreement that
places limits on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The "flaws" he identifies aren't really flaws that
he wants to fix (and they may not be flaws at all), but excuses for trashing the agreement. He
will make noises about how the current deal or treaty doesn't go far enough, but the truth is
that he doesn't want any agreements to exist. In Bolton's worldview, nonproliferation and arms
control agreements either give the other government too much or hamper the U.S. too much, and
so he wants to destroy them all. He has had a lot of success at killing agreements and treaties
that have been in the U.S. interest. Bolton has had a hand in blowing up the Agreed Framework
with North Korea, abandoning the ABM Treaty, killing the INF Treaty, and reneging on the JCPOA.
Unless the president can be persuaded to ignore or fire Bolton, New START will be his next
victim.
If New START dies, it will be a loss for both the U.S. and Russia, it will make the world
less secure, and it will make U.S.-Russian relations even worse. The stability that these
treaties have provided has been important for U.S. security for almost fifty years. New START
is the last of the treaties that constrain the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and when it
is gone there will be nothing to replace it for a long time. The collapse of arms control
almost certainly means that the top two nuclear weapons states will expand their arsenals and
put us back on the path of an insane and unwinnable arms race. Killing New START is irrational
and purely destructive, and it needs to be opposed.
bolton is opposed to any treaty, to any agreement, whereby the other side can expect to
obtain equally favorable terms-he wants the other side on their knees permanently without
any expectation of compromise by the empire.
I'm about halfway through Putin's financial Times interview and suggest it be read by
all. There is much to be gleaned from it with a view to the 2020 Election Cycle and
candidate's positions. Just consider the following very small excerpt and its implications
for policy formulation by candidates:
"What we should be talking about is not how to make North Korea disarm, but how to ensure
the unconditional security of North Korea and how to make any country, including North Korea
feel safe and protected by international law that is strictly honoured by all members of
the international community . This is what we should be thinking about." [My
Emphasis]
Putin's insights into Trump's 2016 election strategy, IMO, is very enlightening and
essential reading as the conditions that contributed to Trump's victory have worsened under
his tenure and can be used against him if wisely pursued.
Sixty-six years later, I am witnessing how another "Ugly American" is walking in the
footsteps of Roosevelt. His name is John Bolton, a chief advocate of the disastrous US invasion
of Iraq, a nefarious Islamophobe, and former chairman of the far-right anti-Muslim Gatestone
Institute. This infamous institution is known for spreading
lies about Muslims - claiming there is a looming "jihadist takeover" that can lead to a
"Great White Death" - to incite hatred against them and intimidate, silence, and alienate
them.
In his diabolical plans to wage war on Iran, Bolton is taking a page from Roosevelt's
playbook. Just as the CIA operative used venal Iranian politicians and fake news to incite
against the democratically elected Iranian government, today his successor, the US national
security adviser, is seeking to spread misinformation on a massive scale and set up a false
flag operation with the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant terrorist organisation. Meanwhile,
he has also pressed forward with debilitating sanctions that are further worsening the economic
crisis in the country and making the lives of ordinary Iranians unbearable.
... ... ...
Bolton is the dreadful residue of the pure violence and wanton cruelty that drive Zionist
Christian zealots in their crusades against Muslims. He is the embodiment of the basest and
most racist roots of American imperialism.
The regime he serves is the most naked and vulgar face of brutish power, lacking any
semblance of legitimacy - a bullying coward flexing its military muscles. At its helm is an
arrogant mercantile president, who - faced with the possibility of an impeachment - has no
qualms about using the war machine at his disposal to regain political relevance and line his
pockets.
But the world must know Americans are not all ugly, they are not all rabid imperialists -
Boltons and Roosevelts. What about those countless noble Americans - the sons and daughters of
the original nations that graced this land, of the African slaves who were brought to this land
in chains, of the millions after millions of immigrants who came to these shores in desperation
or hope from the four corners of the earth? Do they not have a claim on this land too - to
redefine it and bring it back to the bosom of humanity?
"... If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region, not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and Iran. ..."
"... Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S. government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution. ..."
"... OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running. ..."
If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism,
starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it
wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout
the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy
blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region,
not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and
Iran.
Take a good look at
this Smithsonian map of where the U.S.A. is "combating terrorism." Note how the U.S.
military (i.e., global capitalism's unofficial "enforcer") has catastrophically blundered its
way into more or less every nation depicted. Or ask our "allies" in Saudi Arabia, Israel,
Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and so on. OK, you might have to reach
them in New York or London, or in the South of France this time of year, but, go ahead, ask
them about the horrors they've been suffering on account of our "catastrophic blunders."
See, according to this crackpot conspiracy theory that I would put forth if I were a
geopolitical analyst instead of just a political satirist, there have been no "catastrophic
policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is
proceeding exactly according to plan. The regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those
who wouldn't have been regime-changed, or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime
change.
Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years
of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have been
a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people or the
"sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful. Global
capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for
business or not.
Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after
winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of
America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the
contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation
projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S.
government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review
the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have
benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many
of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without
assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution.
OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global
capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American
face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it
comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments
control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running.
This is what Iran and Syria are up against. This is what Russia is up against. Global
capitalism doesn't want to nuke them, or occupy them. It wants to privatize them, like it is
privatizing the rest of the world, like it has already privatized America according to my
crackpot theory, of course.
if I were a geopolitical analyst, I might be able to discern a pattern there, and
possibly even some sort of strategy.
Sounds good.
Some other people did it before, wrote it down etc. but it's always good to see that
stuff.
it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the
collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately
started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East.
.there have been no "catastrophic policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The
Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is proceeding exactly according to plan. The
regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those who wouldn't have been regime-changed,
or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime change.
Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years
of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have
been a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people
or the "sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful.
Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open
for business or not.
Spot on.
Now .there IS a bit of oversight in the article re competing groups of people on top of
that "Global capitalist" bunch.
It's a bit more complicated than "Global capitalism".
Jewish heavily influenced, perhaps even controlled, Anglo-Saxon "setup" .. or Russian
"setup" or Chinese "setup".
Only one of them can be on the top, and they don't like each other much.
And they all have nuclear weapons.
"Global capitalism" idea is optimistic. The global overwhelming force against little
players. No chance of MAD there so not that bad.NOPE IMHO.
There is a chance of MAD.
That is the problem . Well, at least for some people.
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies.
These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have
everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off
the proles.
I was a union man in my youth. We liked Capitalism. We just wanted our fair share of the
loot. The working class today knows nothing about organizing. They don't even know they are
working class. They think they are black or white. Woke or Deplorable.
ALL OF US non billionaires are coming up on serious hard times. Serious enough that we
might have to put aside our differences. The government is corrupt. It will not save us.
Instead it will continue to work to divide us.
Another great article by C J Hopkins.
Hopkins (correctly) posits that behind US actions, wars etc lies the global capitalist
class.
"Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open
for business or not"
This is correct -- but requires an important caveat.
Intrinsic to capitalism is imperialism. They are the head & tail of the same coin.
Global capitalists may unite in their rapacious attacks on average citizens the world over.
However, they will disunite when it comes to beating a competitor to a market.
The "West" has no (real) ideological differences with China, Russia & Iran. This is a
fight between an existing hegemon & it's allies & a rising hegemon (China) & it's
allies.
In many ways it's similar to the WW I situation: an established imperial country, the UK,
& it's allies against a country with imperial pretensions -- Germany (& it's
allies)
To put it in a nice little homily: the Capitalist wolves prefer to eat sheep (us) -- but,
will happily eat each other should they perceive a sufficient interest in doing so.
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of
monopolies.
In most key sectors, competition ends up producing monopolies or their near-equivalent,
oligopolies. The many are weeded out (or swallowed up) by the few . The
situation is roughly the same with democracy, which historically has always resulted in
oligarchy, as occurred in ancient Rome and Athens.
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies.
These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have
everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off
the proles.
You are right in expecting that in Capitalism there would be competition – the
traditional view that prices would remain low because of competition, the less competitive
removed from the field, and so on. But that was primitive laisser-faire Capitalism on a fair
playing field that hardly existed but in theory. Occasionally there were some "good"
capitalists – say the mill-owner in a Lancashire town who gave employment to the
locals, built houses, donated to charity and went to the Sunday church service with his
workers. But even that "good" capitalist was in it for the profit, which comes from taking
possession for himself of the value added by his workers to a commodity.
But modern Capitalism does not function that way. There are no mill-owners, just absentee
investor playing in, usually rigged, stock market casinos. Industrial capitalism has been
changed into financial Capitalism without borders and loyalty to worker or country. In fact,
it has gone global to play country against country for more profit.
Anyway, the USA has evolved into a Fascist state (an advanced state of capitalism, a.k.a.
corporatocracy) as Chomsky stated many years ago. Seen from abroad here's a view from the
horse's mouth ( The Guardian is official organ of Globalist Fascism).
"... Just as Obama turned out to be a slightly more articulate version of Dubya, Trump has turned out to be a meaner, more dysfunctional, more reckless version of Dubya. ..."
"... Bolton is a neo-con, neo-cons are Trotskyites. They believe in an eternal revolution. Bolton believes in eternal war. ..."
"... Sid, the natural conclusion is that the 'deep state' is real, and for the most part runs the country. Whoever is President is less important than the goals of the American elite, most importantly the 'War Party' (the MIC and the IC) and Wall Street, but including Health Care. A side party of equal importance is the Israel Lobby. What happens in America is pretty much what the leaders of those groups want. ..."
"... Trump is too weak to push back on Bolton. He likes bluster. If starting a war will make Trump look macho, he very well might start one. Bolton wants war, Trump may let us stumble into one. ..."
"... "What will it take to get Bolton fired?" One phone call from Israel. Then again, one phone call from Israel would also stop Trump from firing him, and there's no reason to suspect that Bibi is anything other than ecstatic over Bolton's performance. ..."
"... Find out who "told" Donald Trump he HAD to hire Bolton (and Pompeo and others as well) and you'll probably learn the identity of the real puppet master pulling the strings in the "Deep State." It's simply impossible to believe Trump – who ran for president on a platform of "non-interventionism" – appointed this guy on his own volition. ..."
"... The headline asks, "What Will It Take to Get Bolton Fired?" This is a great question. If he CAN'T be fired, this tells us who is really running our country. Another question along the same lines: What will it take to get America to cease its support of Saudi Arabia? ..."
"... The petodollar makes these wars possible; it also defends or preserves the Status Quo, which makes so many of our elite ultra wealthy and powerful. Our carte blanche support of Saudi Arabia is telling us something important just like Trump's appointment of Bolton told us something important. ..."
For
someone "not playing along," Trump has obediently given Bolton and the Iran hawks practically
everything they have wanted so far. He has gone much further in laying the groundwork for war
with Iran than any of his predecessors, and the only reason that many people seem confident
that he won't order an attack is their mistaken belief that he is a non-interventionist when
all of the evidence tells us that he is no such thing. Trump presumably doesn't want to start a
multi-year, extremely expensive war that could also throw the economy into a recession, but
then every president that launches an illegal war of choice assumes that the war would be much
easier and take less time than it does. No one ever knowingly opts for a bloody debacle. The
absurdly optimistic hawkish expectations of a quick and easy triumph are always dashed on the
rocks of reality, but for some reason political leaders believe these expectations every time
because "this time it's different." There will come a point where Bolton will tell Trump that
attacking Iran (or Venezuela) is the only way to "win," and Trump will probably listen to him
just as he has listened to him on all of these issues up until now.
There is no question that Bolton should lose his job. Even if you aren't an opponent
of Trump, you should be unhappy with the way Bolton has been operating for the last year. He
has made a point of sabotaging administration policies he doesn't like, resisting decisions he
doesn't agree with, and effectively reversing policy changes while pretending to be carrying
out the president's wishes. His mismanagement of the policy process is a bad joke, and the
reason he runs the National Security Council this way is so that he can stop views and
information that don't suit his agenda from reaching the president. But Trump pays little or no
attention to any of this, and as long as Bolton remains loyal in public and a yes-man in person
he is likely safe in his job. If Bolton gets his wish and the U.S. starts a war with Iran, he
may not be in that job for much longer, but the damage will have already been done. Instead of
counting on Trump to toss Bolton overboard, Congress and the public need to make absolutely
clear that war with Iran and Venezuela is unacceptable and Trump will be destroying his
presidency if he goes down that path in either country.
Obama entered office in 2008 promising to close Guantanamo and end
the stupid wars.
Not only did Obama fail to end a single war, he gave us new and stupider wars in Syria,
Yemen and Ukraine, to name but three. Guantanamo is still open.
Just as Obama turned out to be a slightly more articulate version of Dubya, Trump has turned
out to be a meaner, more dysfunctional, more reckless version of Dubya.
" some reason political leaders believe these expectations every
time because "this time it's different."
Like communists, political leaders think 'this time we'll get it right. Bolton is a neo-con, neo-cons are Trotskyites. They believe in an eternal revolution. Bolton
believes in eternal war.
As much of a disaster for American institutions Trump has been, I
believe he does not want to go to war. The times are a'changin'. Average Americans have figured
out that these wars are self-defeating nonsense. Trump knows that, and doesn't want to alienate
the middle American types who support him and would go to war.
But he does want to sound and look tough, hence Bolton. The problem is that while Trump may
believe he's just blustering, reneging on the nuclear deal, cranking back brutal sanctions and
sending US flotillas to the Strait of Hormuz looks and feels like war to the Iranians.
We could stumble into a very big and ugly war like America stumbled into the ugly era of
Trump. And Trump is the absolute last person I would want to serve as a commander in chief
during war time.
Sid, the natural conclusion is that the 'deep state' is real, and
for the most part runs the country. Whoever is President is less important than the goals of
the American elite, most importantly the 'War Party' (the MIC and the IC) and Wall Street, but
including Health Care. A side party of equal importance is the Israel Lobby. What happens in
America is pretty much what the leaders of those groups want.
Trump is too weak to push back on Bolton. He likes bluster. If
starting a war will make Trump look macho, he very well might start one. Bolton wants war,
Trump may let us stumble into one.
Of course the "Deep State", the "permanent government" the "Borg" or
whatever you want to call it is real.
Every winning candidate since arguably Bush 1.0 ("kinder gentler nation") ran for office as
a non-interventionist. Even Dubya promised a humbler foreign policy in 2000.
Once inaugurated, each candidate morphed into a foaming-at-the-mouth hawk.
I don't pretend to know how the process works, or even if it is the same for every
president, but the results speak for themselves. I suspect without evidence that it is
something like what we saw in "Yes, Minister".
The neo-cons are busy studying the Israeli playbook of declaring
themselves surrounded and launching a preemptive strike. Pompeo's view is that the occupation
of Iraq is/was so difficult because the US isn't as ruthlessly efficient as the IDF in the West
Bank and allowed Iraq some self-governance.He won't allow that in the conquered Iran.
Step 1: send a doctored telegram to Kaiser Trump and leak it to the press. Step 2: Get the GOP Senate to pass the "Gulf of Hormuz" declaration. Step 3: sink a ship, perhaps one called USS Maine or USS Liberty.
The first question is "What did it take to get Bolton hired?"
The answer to the author's question is that making Trump look bad (in a way that Trump
recognizes) is what will get Bolton fired. But like Dick Cheney, Bolton has a very good sense
of what a Richelieu needs to do to seem loyal and obedient to an idiot king. Rummy appended
Bible verses to schemes that he wanted Bush to approve. Bolton does something similar, no
doubt.
"What will it take to get Bolton fired?" One phone call from Israel. Then again, one phone call from Israel would also stop Trump
from firing him, and there's no reason to suspect that Bibi is anything other than ecstatic
over Bolton's performance.
The mammoth "donations" from Adelson et al to Trump and the corrupt Republicans have paid
off royally for Israel. With Trump and Bolton in the White House, Israel barely even needs a
foreign ministry, a treasury, or a military anymore. Uncle Sam does it all for free.
Find out who "told" Donald Trump he HAD to hire Bolton (and Pompeo
and others as well) and you'll probably learn the identity of the real puppet master pulling
the strings in the "Deep State." It's simply impossible to believe Trump – who ran for president on a platform of
"non-interventionism" – appointed this guy on his own volition.
Also, if it was so important to appoint Bolton, why would this be the case?
I think it's because – in the minds of those pulling the strings – it's crucial
to them that America does the things Bolton wants to do.
That is, Bolton wasn't named National Security Advisor to do nothing.
The headline asks, "What Will It Take to Get Bolton Fired?" This is a great question. If he CAN'T be fired, this tells us who is really running our
country. Another question along the same lines: What will it take to get America to cease its support
of Saudi Arabia?
We know the answer to this one. NOTHING. Consider that
We will support a nation whose leader orders the gruesome murder of a journalist.
We will support a nation that is committing war crimes and attrocities against a poor
nation like Yemen, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent children.
We will support a nation that beheads 37 citizens in one day – some whose alleged
crimes occurred when the victims were teenagers, or whose alleged offenses include practicing
homosexuality or simply criticizing the government.
The answer (Saudi Arabia can do whatever it wants with no risk of incurring the wrath of
America) begs the question: Why is "letting Saudi Arabia do whatever it wants" so important to
America?
This answer, I believe, has everything to do with the vital role the petrodollar plays in
maintaining the Status Quo.
If the Deep State is calling the shots, what is most important to the Deep State?
Answer: Protecting the U.S. dollar (fiat) printing press. Absent this printing press and the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, none of
our current wars and future wars would even be possible.
And the fact we are willing to wage these wars sends a vital message to the nations of the
world: We WILL use our military against anyone who threatens the Status Quo.
The petodollar makes these wars possible; it also defends or preserves the Status Quo, which
makes so many of our elite ultra wealthy and powerful. Our carte blanche support of Saudi Arabia is telling us something important just like
Trump's appointment of Bolton told us something important.
The only way people like Bolton get fired is the same way Bannon
got dumped. It is when Trump sees on Fox News that they are getting more press coverage than
him.
The post of national security advisor needs to be subject to Senate
confirmation.
Henry Kissinger in the Nixon administration and Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Carter
administration were both more powerful/influential than the respective secretaries of state,
William Rogers and Cyrus Vance.
The Senate needs to assert itself and ensure that national security advisors are appointed
in the same way as secretaries of state. This would help to a certain extent.
And probably, if we just impeach the Walrus of Death nothing will change . Its a freight
train to war. It moves slowly at first but its hell to try and stop.
This awesome demonstration of American resolve was meant to be punishment for the vicious
slaughter of an expensive U.S. military drone, which was peacefully invading Iranian airspace,
and not at all attempting to provoke the Iranians into blowing it out of the sky with a missile
so the U.S. military could "retaliate."
The military-industrial complex would never dream of doing anything like that, not even to
further the destabilization and restructuring of the Greater Middle East that they've been
systematically carrying out the since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which more on
that in just a moment.
"... For some odd reason, Donald Trump wants to be reelected president in 2020 in spite of the fact that he appears to be uncomfortable in office. A quick, successful war would enhance his chances for a second term, which is probably what Pompeo promised, but any military action that is not immediately decisive would hurt his prospects, quite possibly inflicting fatal damage. ..."
"... Trump apparently had an intercession by Fox news analyst Tucker Carlson, who may have explained that reality to him shortly before he decided to cancel the attack. Tucker is, for what it's worth, a highly respected critic coming from the political right who is skeptical of wars of choice, democracy building and the global liberal order. ..."
"... It is an interesting process to observe how Jewish oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson contribute tens of millions of dollars to the politicians who then in turn give the Jewish state taxpayer generated tens of billions of dollars in return. Bribing corrupt politicians is one of the best investments that one can make in today's America. ..."
The current foreign policy debate centers around what Washington's next moves in the Middle
East might be. The decision-making will inevitably involve the US and its "close allies" Israel
and Saudi Arabia, which should not surprise anyone. While it is clear that President Donald
Trump ordered an attack on Iran before canceling the action at the last minute, exactly how
that played out continues to be unclear. One theory, promoted by the president himself, is that
the attack would have been disproportionate, killing possibly hundreds of Iranian military
personnel in exchange for one admittedly very expensive surveillance drone. Killing the
Iranians would have guaranteed an immediate escalation by Iran, which has both the will and the
capability to hit high value targets in and around the Persian Gulf region, a factor that may
also have figured into the presidential calculus.
Trump's cancelation of the attack immediately produced cries of rage from the usual
neoconservative chickenhawk crowd in Washington as well as a more subdued reiteration of the
Israeli and Saudi demands that Iran be punished, though both are also concerned that a massive
Iranian retaliation would hit them hard. They are both hoping that Washington's immensely
powerful strategic armaments will succeed in knocking Iran out quickly and decisively, but they
have also both learned not to completely trust the White House.
To assuage the beast, the president has initiated a package of "major" new sanctions on
Iran which will no doubt hurt the Iranian people while not changing government decision making
one iota. There has also been a leak of a story relating to US cyber-attacks on Iranian
military and infrastructure targets, yet another attempt to act aggressive to mitigate the
sounds being emitted by the neocon chorus.
To understand the stop-and-go behavior by Trump requires application of the Occam's Razor
principle, i.e. that the simplest explanation is most likely correct. For some odd reason,
Donald Trump wants to be reelected president in 2020 in spite of the fact that he appears to be
uncomfortable in office. A quick, successful war would enhance his chances for a second term,
which is probably what Pompeo promised, but any military action that is not immediately
decisive would hurt his prospects, quite possibly inflicting fatal damage.
Trump apparently had an intercession by Fox news analyst Tucker Carlson, who may have
explained that reality to him shortly before he decided to cancel the attack. Tucker is, for
what it's worth, a highly respected critic coming from the political right who is skeptical of
wars of choice, democracy building and the global liberal order.
The truth is that all of American foreign policy during the upcoming year will be designed
to pander to certain constituencies that will be crucial to the 2020 presidential election. One
can bank on even more concessions being granted to Israel and its murderous thug prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to bring in Jewish votes and, more importantly, money. John Bolton was
already in Israel getting his marching orders from Netanyahu on the weekend and Pence was
effusive in his praise of Israel when he spoke at the meeting in Orlando earlier in the week
launching the Trump 2020 campaign, so the game is already afoot.
It is an interesting process to observe how Jewish oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson
contribute tens of millions of dollars to the politicians who then in turn give the Jewish
state taxpayer generated tens of billions of dollars in return. Bribing corrupt politicians is
one of the best investments that one can make in today's America.
Trump will also go easy on Saudi Arabia because he wants to sell them billions of dollars'
worth of weapons which will make the key constituency of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC)
happy. And he will continue to exert "maximum pressure" on Iran and Venezuela to show how tough
he can be for his Make America Great audience, though avoiding war if he possibly can just in
case any of the hapless victims tries to fight back and embarrass him.
So, there it is folks. War with Iran is for the moment on hold, but tune in again next week
as the collective White House memory span runs to only three or four days. By next week we
Americans might be at war with Mongolia.
"...as Stratfor, put it, "Trump, fearing a much bigger escalation, got cold feet."
One is reminded of the scene from Oliver Stone's JFK (1991), a General in the Joint
Chiefs comments disparagingly about Kennedy for keeping his finger "on the chicken switch"
with regard to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
Lyndon Johnson in the White House with Henry Cabot Lodge in 1963 declares: "Gentlemen, I
want you to know I'm not going to let Vietnam go the way China did. I'm personally committed.
I'm not going to take one soldier out of there 'til they know we mean business in Asia (he
pauses) You just get me elected, and I'll give you your damned war ."
Another question exists: should the US resist the allure of military action against Iran,
what can Iran do?
US sanctions against Iran amount to an act of war. Iran can bust sanctions up to some point
-- but for how long? Will Iran suffer half a million dead children & elderly people as
Iraq did in the 90's ? SHOULD Iran have to suffer such a criminally imposed loss of life?
Where is the way out of this insanity?
Iran won't negotiate with the US for the very good reason that the US clearly wants to
sterilize Iranian sovereignty (ie the US won't accept ANY Iranian missiles -- that is, Iran
has no right to self defense).
Sad to say, Trump does not need to launch military action against Iran, merely continue to
economically terrorise Iran until it has NO choice but to initiate military action against
its tormentors.
The war on Iran will continue till kingdom come, until it falls. Its clear as day that both
Russia and China back their Iranian allies against US provocations. China hasn't flinched
under US threats to embargo Iranian crude, and continues to purchase it, and Russia has an
oil swap agreement with Iran, where it buys Iranian oil and sells it as Russian on the
international market. This must be a severe irritation to the imperialists in Washington and
London as it renders their Iran sanctions regime practically toothless.
The imperialists are not backing down in their quest for subduing Iran. Seems like the idea
here is to put as many large ships in harms way as possible....and provoke Iran to attack one
of these......This will ensure the probability of miscalculation and/ or accidents becomes
almost unavoidable. There must be regime change in Tehran, on the road to Beijing and Moscow:
Iran has every right to defend itself from US imperialisms constant violence, as is the case
with China and Russia. It is also pleasing to see the almighty war machine get a bloody nose.
But we should never lose sight of the fact that it is always the working class that
suffers the most in terms of death, injuries and destitution.
End all wars!
End production for profit and the Nation state upon which it is built!
America's history demonstrates that loss of (foreign) life is of little concern to those in
power.
The Manhattan Project was established, and mightily financed because of reasonably well
established fears that Nazi Germany was on track to build its own A-bombs.
With the defeat of Germany that fear was gone. Nevertheless, knowing full well that Imperial
Japan had no such program, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vapourised. A clear demonstration that
they, atomic weapons, WMD, worked and a warning to the Soviet Union that it too could be
annihilated.
Robert Oppenheimer and others refused to take part in building an H-bomb for class and humane
reasons. This fell on Truman's deaf ears.
American Imperialism is indifferent to death and destruction of billions.
As WSWS has stated, Trumps announcement that the loss of 150 Iranian lives is the the reason
he pulled backs so much bilge.
Trump is in a catch 22. When push has come to shove , he simply cannot sell another war to
the US working class, and he knows it , and he's been well and truly spooked by the Iranian
response.
All the US garbage of itself as ''victim'', all the 'good cop bad cop' routines are
wearing thin. Nobody is buying it anymore , especially from a gangster.
Perhaps a predicted massive spike in global temperatures will clear out the collective
cobwebs further.
Good point about the possibility of Iran sinking a carrier. The Chinese have developed
advanced anti-ship weapons that, if the results of a RAND corporation war game can be
believed, will be able to neutralize carriers. This highlights the fact that, whatever the
salesmen of advanced weaponry might say, it will not win wars alone. All of the smart weapons
in the world have not ended the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan in the favour of American
imperialism.
We can see an historical precedent in the British development of the dreadnought, the
modern battleship, in the arms race that preceded WWI. Dreadnoughts were supposed to be the
decisive super weapons of the day, but the British and German battle fleets remained in their
moorings for most of the war for fear that these expensive ships would fall prey to torpedos.
The sinking of the HMS Formidable in 1915 is a case in point. The only major engagement
between dreadnoughts was at Jutland and it was inconclusive.
For all of the contemporary bluster about super weapons and the fetishism of smart bombs
and cyber weapons, they will not decisively win a war alone. As in the world wars of the last
century, the bourgeoisie will be forced to mobilize society for a war. This will mean
bringing the working class - against its will - into the maelstrom.
Yet again the WSWS demonstrates the incredible foresight and clarity of Marxist analysis. I
would like to extend my thanks to Comrade Andre and the editors of the WSWS for their
indefatigable efforts to impart Marxist consciousness to the masses. For all of the naysayers
who have attacked the WSWS as "sectarian" or as not involved in "practical work," need we
point to anything other than the WSWSs explanation of the connection between eruption of
American imperialism and the decline of the productive forces of that nation state? That
analysis has placed the WSWS in the position of being better prepared politically for the
consequences of war than the imperialists, as the latest farce in the Middle East
demonstrates.
A quote from Trotsky will further emphasize my point:
"We will not concede this banner to the masters of falsehood! If our generation happens to
be too weak to establish Socialism over the earth, we will hand the spotless banner down to
our children. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of
individuals, factions and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind."
The official story, as usual, is a bunch of hooey. Trump wouldn't bat an eye over the death
of 150 Iranians. In addition to the worries about losing an aircraft carrier: the military
high command probably let him know that the much vaunted, and outlandishly expensive, force
of F-35s, will quickly lose its effectiveness if exposed to probing by the high tech radars
the Russians have developed, and that are used in conjunction with at least the S-400
antiaircraft and antimissile defense system. So the question is, if the stealth advantage of
the F-35 is only good for a limited time, is this particular geostrategic confrontation worth
using up that particular asset??
Then there is the whole question of whether the Iranians would close the Straits of Hormuz
in response to a major air raid on their nuclear facilities; this leads to some much more
important issues. Despite the blathering about "international waters" and "freedom of
navigation" the facts are that the Straits of Hormuz are only 21 miles wide. So all the water
in them is either in Iranian territory to the north or Omani to the south. They would be
entirely within their rights, as elucidated in the International Law of the Sea, to close the
straits after some sort of military strike against them (for what that is worth, which is
something at least as far as public opinion outside of the U.S. is concerned). The Iranians
have stated that if and when they close the straits they will announce it publicly, no
subterfuge or secret operations will be involved.
Since nearly 30% of the World's oil moves through those straits cutting them off will
cause an immediate spike in oil prices. Prices of $100 - $300 a barrel would be reached
within a few days. If the Straits of Hormuz were closed for a longer period we could easily
see prices rise to $1,000 a barrel according to Goldman Sachs projections (see Escobar
article cited below). Anything over $150 a barrel would trigger an economic, industrial, and
financial crisis of immense proportions around the world. The financial and speculative house
of cards, that the ruling classes of the U.S.-led Finance Capital Bloc depends on for their
dominance of world capital and markets, would likely come tumbling down. The amount of
derivatives that are swirling about the planet and that are traded and created constantly is
estimated to be from $1.2 - $2.5 Quadrillion. That's right from $1,200 - $2,500 Trillion or
$1,200,000 - $2,500,000 Billion {remember Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, who once said "a
billion here and a billion there and first thing you know, You're talking BIG MONEY!!} (See
"World Derivatives Market Estimated As Big As $1.2 Quadrillion Notional, as Banks Fight
Efforts to Rein It In", March 26, 2013, Yves Smith, "Naked Capitalism", at <
https://www.nakedcapitalism... >, and "Iran Goes for 'Maximum Counter-pressure' ",
June 21, 2019, Pepe Escobar, "Strategic Culture Foundation", at <
https://www.strategic-cultu... >, and "Global Derivatives: $1.5 Quadrillion Time
Bomb", Aug 24, 2015, Stephen Lendman, Global Research, at
<
https://www.globalresearch.... >). Just like during the 2007 - 2008 crisis the various
elements of shadow banking, and speculation would collapse. Remember that total world
production of and trade in actual products is only about about $70 - $80 Trillion, or perhaps
less than 1/31st the size of the Global Derivatives markets.
All the world's elite capitalists, be they Western or Asian or from elsewhere, maintain
homes in numerous places. One reason for this is so they have somewhere to go, if they need
to flee from environmental and/or socioeconomic disaster and the resultant chaos in their
primary place of residence. As we move ever deeper into this extremely severe and ongoing
Crisis of Capitalism, these issues will continue to become more acute.
So we can rest assured that; in addition to the crazed war-mongers Bolton and Pompeo (and
their supporters and backers) whispering in Trump's ear to "go ahead and attack the
Iranians"; and in addition to the somewhat more sober counsel of General Dunford and other
members of the top military command; that titans of finance capital were undoubtedly on the
phone warning "Bone-Spur Don" that his digs in Manhattan and Florida might not be entirely
safe if the worst were to happen in response to a military strike. The absurd story of Don
worrying about 150 Iranians is so ludicrous that it did not even pass the smell test with the
corporate controlled media for very long.
"Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American
ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic
global consequences, including for the United States itself."
The military/security surveillance state is a trillion dollar enterprise that instigates
conflicts to expand its profits. Militarism works hand-in-hand with the neoliberal
corporatists who deploy the military to secure natural resources, wage slaves, and
geostrategic hegemony. It should be noted, that the US imperialist agenda left unhindered
after the dissolution of the Soviet Union only intensified.
However, in order for the US ruling class to achieve the "ultimate goal" of unilateral
hegemony in the Middle East the military must confront Iran a powerful sizable country with
economic and political ties to China and Russia. This is the dilemma confronting the
warmongering psychopaths
who are influenced by Israel and Saudi Arabia.
A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian
Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major
war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war.
What should traumatize the US population and awaken them from their hypnotic warmongering
stupur created by propaganda proliferated on FOX, MSNBC, and CNN is that the United States
came within minutes of launching a war whose military consequences it had NOT seriously
examined.
In light of these dangerous events it is obvious that a faction of the American ruling class
circles including Trump were not prepared to face the consequences of a strike against Iran.
That is precisely why Trump aborted the mission last Friday. Just yesterday Trump himself
admitted for the first time that if it was up to John Bolton then we would be fighting the
whole world. Today Pompeo has been sent to Middle East to broaden his alliance with Gulf
Monarchical regimes most notably Saudi Arabia and UAE. It is aimed to prepare the ground for
possible confrontation with Iran.
Trump's comment re Bolton that the US "would fight the whole world" sums up what the US is
really about. Take it from me, The US hates virtually every country save one: Israel. Illegal
US Sanctions regimes now extend to almost 50% of the world's population. The US does not even
like the advanced countries such as Europe and Japan. They tolerate them because of
diplomatic support and large investment and trade ties. Outside that they have no affinity or
connection. Until we all realise the true nature of The US and its exclusive cultural mindset
[NFL, NBA, MLB etc etc], populations will merely continue to enable the US to attack and
sanction everybody and anyone of their demented choosing. The tragedy is that if the other
countries became united and were committed to ending this US terror by eg dumping the US
Dollar as international reserve currency and sanctioning all US corporations, the US would
face severe turmoil and its reign of endless terror brought to a sudden end.
"The strikes were called off at the last moment, amid deep divisions at the highest levels of
the White House and the Pentagon over the consequences -- military, diplomatic and political
-- of what would likely be the single most dangerous and reckless action of the entire Trump
presidency."
I believe things simple didn't go as planned as an airplane was threatened to be taken
down. Bolton was in Israel after that to most likely assure Netanyahu that a new attack would
be conducted, Bolton Warned Iran Not to 'Mistake U.S. Prudence and Discretion for
Weakness'...
There needs to be a correction in the article on the older Raad system not having been used
but instead the newer, 'Third of Khordad' system which brought down the MQ-4C Triton.
Pictures/ Info on the Third of Khordad reveals that it is in effect an Iranian version of the
Soviet Buk-M2 of the MH-17 downing fame which the western backed Kiev junta used from its
hand me down Soviet weapons arsenal, to shoot down the ill fated Malaysian Airliner over the
Ukraine. The system also is stark evidence of the close defense relationship between the
Russians and the Iranians, confirming the suspicions in the west that whatever weaponry Putin
transfers to Syria or Iraq is by default also available to Iran.
Not to be outdone by his failure to bring Iran to its knees, Trump ordered a massive cyber
attack on Iran's missile batteries and its command and control centers after rescinding the
military order to physically attack Iran for downing the drone. The Iranians today announced
the failure of this desperate US cyber attack:
This is in addition to the CIA placing an agent within the Iranian oil ministry for
conducting sabotage. She has been arrested and faces the death penalty for espionage:
The deep State in the US will not stop trying to subdue Iran until it capitulates. Iran
must fall to Washington in order for the US to effectively counter and sabotage both Putin's
Eurasian Integration and president Xi's BRI projects.
Trump's alterration at this moment can be due to Iran's internal coherence against American
imperialism. With santions being reinforced, one can anticipate more and more impovershment
and quality of life geting lower unabated to the point that the basis for internal coherence
gets eroded substantially. We saw working class uprisings in Iran recently and leadership
accused imperialist as rabble-rousers to find a way out.That is why we need building
SEP/IYSSE in Iran to hatch revolutionary force in Iran for Iran to join the peer in the rest
of the world. Morsi in Egypt was overthrown by Sisi with the backing of US imperialism headed
by Obama at that time. So is the imperialism and it will continue to work to weaken Iran as a
force successfully confronting imperialism in the middle east currently. Let us therefore
empower international working class to empower it to overthrow imperialism on one hand and
Stalinism on the other hand. Russia too depend largely on its arms sale to maintain its
economy. But human needs, not wepons, but basic needs including clean environment. Long live
the socialist revolution in Iran and internationally. Death to imperialism. Thank you comrade
Andre Damon.
"The strikes were called off at the last moment, amid deep divisions at the highest levels of
the White House and the Pentagon over the consequences -- military, diplomatic and political
-- of what would likely be the single most dangerous and reckless action of the entire Trump
presidency."
Economically it would be Armageddon. Although some think America does not rely on Mideast
oil, the world economy does and America is a part of that despite what nationalists dream.
Bolton is making threats from Israel and clearly some believe they stand to gain from war but
militarily too it would be Armageddon. The Pentagon would answer the sinking of a carrier by
nuking Iran to preserve American "credibility" i.e. fear. China and Russia would have to
react, China at least to keep its oil supplied. India pushed against China could add more
mushroom clouds not to mention Pakistan. Israel itself with Tel Aviv bombarded from Lebanon
and maybe invaded unable to stop this might nuke Lebanon and maybe Tehran if any of it
remains and Damascus besides. Just as ww1 started because military train timetables had to be
followed there are nukewar plans in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing that won't take long. So
world workers need to start our plan before others begin. Preemptive general strikes, antiwar
and socialist revolutionary agitation and propaganda within imperialist rank and files and
human blockades of war material networks should happen at an early date like now. Now also
WikiLeaks should put out whatever it hasn't while people exist to read it. The rich are
determined to kill Assange anyway and full wartime censorship is not far off.
Some people have speculated that if the U.S. does attack Iran then Iran will launch missiles
at Saudi Arabia's oil fields which will then send oil prices skyrocketing to $130 dollars a
barrel. The article also notes that:
"While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford,
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a
strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote."
Apparently the good general cannot get too worked up at the sight of thousands and
thousands of Iranian children, women, and old men who would be slaughtered and grievously
wounded by U.S. bombs and the water supply which would be contaminated when those bombs would
land at a nuclear power plant. But these horrific actions by the United States are of no
consequence because, as Madeline Albright observed on a television a few decades ago, the
deaths of a half million Iraqi children by the U.S. was worth it. It would appear that the
lives of foreigners are of little consequence to those who are in power. Threatening to start
a war against another country for the most specious of reasons is simply another reason why a
malignant narcissist like Trump needs to be removed from office as quickly as possible. Or
perhaps Trump believes that the best way to improve his low poll numbers is to start dropping
500 lb. bombs on a country which does not in any remote way pose a threat to the United
States.
"Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear. Heads of governments and their
officials know that a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit rights it would
otherwise defend, is less likely to demand a better life, and will agree to millions and
millions being spent on 'Defense'."-John Boynton Priestly [1894-1984], English writer
"Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill
everyone, and you are a god."-Jean Rostand [1894-1977], French philosopher and biologist
After Hezballah had booted Zionist colonizers out of Lebanon, Zionist apartheid had lost its
image of "invincibility".
Now even ghetto Gaza is fighting back.
The CIA payrolled press whores like CNN's Christiane Amanpour for example a prime warmonger
and there are countless others embedded in every western media source.
Ironically, Amanpour is Iranian background, an avowed revolution hater and a devoted Iranian
Pahlavi monarchist. She's on the record for saying that she wants to see the Shah's exiled
son back on the throne in Iran, serving US imperialism for the 'benefit of the Iranian
nation'.
The sinking of an aircraft carrier, especially one as well known as the USS Lincoln, would
have been one of the biggest PR disasters for both Trump and the military. It probably would
have sparked demands from the people to know how, despite pouring trillions of dollars into
the mouths of greedy defense contractors for decades, a supposedly inferior military could so
easily take down one of our ships.
Khrushchev once said of the Sverdlov class cruisers built in the early 1950's that their only
practical purpose was as targets for anti ship missile training because of how outdated they
where considering they where armed with guns.
Maybe the anti-ship missile now stands at the point where it can make carriers obsolete
similar to how the battleship was made obsolete by the carrier.
There are some who argue that surface navies became obsolete in the 1950's with the advent of
long range missiles. For many years now, China has been helping to build up Iranian area
defences...
Cold war weapons are unsuitable for countering Iran's asymmetric warfare doctrine. A dozen or
two highly advanced US warships are no match for a thousand missile boats and thousands of
Iranian anti-ship missiles in the narrow confines of the shallow gulf.
Minutes or hours, or Trump never signed on to them, as the accounts from different US media
outlets and Trump have differed at several points. Fog of war indeed.
That's good line of attack on Trump. People do not want yet another war and they are against
overinflated military expenditures. and Trump essentially behaves like a rabid subservant to
Israel neocon in those area. So he might share the Hillary destiny in 2020
The Dem debaters want the failed JCPOA back, except one wants a more punitive one. So it's
Obama/Trump redux with all of them, worthless people. We're less safe with Iranians . .
.under the bed!
McClatchy
Klobuchar said that Trump's strategy on Iran had "made us less safe," after debate
moderators took note of increased military tensions in the Strait of Hormuz last week.
Washington has accused Iran of targeting shipping vessels, and Tehran acknowledged it shot
down an unmanned U.S. drone on Thursday, nearly prompting Trump to order a retaliatory
military strike. The 2015 nuclear deal "was imperfect, but it was a good deal for that
moment," Klobuchar stated, characterizing the agreement's "sunset periods" – caps on
Iran's enrichment and stockpiling of fissile material set to expire five to 10 years from
the next inauguration– as a potential point of renegotiation.
The Democratic field has roundly criticized Trump for his approach to Iran. Many of the
leading candidates said last week's military confrontation spawned from a crisis of the
president's own making, precipitated by his withdrawal from that landmark accord.
But up until now, the Democratic candidates have not specified how they would salvage a
deal that continues to fray – and that may collapse completely under the weight of
steadily broadening U.S. sanctions by the time a new president could be sworn in.
Few Democrats had thus far hedged over adopting the agreement entirely should they win
the presidency even if the deal survives that long. Leading candidates have characterized
the nuclear agreement as "imperfect" and in need of "strengthening," suggesting subtle
distinctions within the field over the potential conditions of U.S. re-entry into a pact. .
. here
I've got a deal for them to salvage, get off your GD pedestals and say hello to the real
world! . . .There, I feel better now.
Iran's foreign minister has dismissed US President Donald Trump 's claim that a
war between their countries would be short-lived, as Washington sought NATO's help to build an
anti-Tehran coalition.
"'Short war' with Iran is an illusion," Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter on Thursday, a
day after Trump said he did not want a war with Iran but warned that if fighting did
break out, it "wouldn't last very long".
Tehran has accused the United States of "economic
terrorism" and "psychological warfare" over the Trump administration's application of punishing
sanctions after the US president last year unilaterally withdrew Washington from an historic
nuclear deal with world powers. Under the 2015 agreement, Iran agreed to scale back its nuclear
programme in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
In his Twitter post, Zarif said the reimposed and tightened US sanctions "aren't an
alternative to war - they are war".
"... Iran hawks want to force Iran out of the deal to give them a pretext for conflict. These waivers are their latest target because without them other governments may be leery of cooperating on the nuclear projects that give Iran an incentive to remain in the deal. Iran has very few reasons to remain in the deal at this point, and canceling the waivers would likely be the last straw. This is what Bolton and his allies have been working towards all along. When the waivers came up for renewal this spring, the administration extended them, but now there is a real danger that they won't do that again. The last time this came up, Jarrett Blanc explained why extending the waivers is the obviously correct thing to do: ..."
"... Canceling the waivers would be another escalation by the Trump administration, and it would almost certainly prompt Iranian countermoves to further reduce or end their compliance with the deal. The Iran hawks in the administration may think they want a bigger crisis with Iran, but they may not like it when they get one. ..."
Politico reports that the most rabid Iran hawks
in the Senate and inside the administration are pushing to cancel the remaining waivers that
enable international cooperation on civilian nuclear projects in Iran. Their explicit goal is
to destroy the last pieces of the deal that the U.S. hasn't directly attacked yet.
The
report has some
interesting details, but the framing of the debate is awful:
Proponents of the nuclear deal have argued that the international nuclear projects
facilitated by the waivers help give the U.S. greater visibility and intelligence into
Iranian activities; critics say they give an international stamp of approval to Iran's
illicit activities.
This is a great example of how ostensibly "neutral" reporting favors the side acting and
arguing in bad faith. What "illicit activities" are supported by these waivers? There aren't
any. The report makes it sound as if there are two equally valid, competing positions, but one
of them is completely false. The hawks' objections to them have nothing to do with opposition
to "illicit activities" and everything to do with their hatred for the deal. The activities
that the waivers facilitate are endorsed by the JCPOA and a U.N. Security Council resolution.
They cannot be illicit because they are entirely consistent with Iran's obligations and
international law. The U.S. has been providing these waivers up until now because of the
obvious nonproliferation benefits that everyone derives from the deal, and the people that want
to end the waivers are doing so because they don't care about nonproliferation.
Iran hawks want to force Iran out of the deal to give them a pretext for conflict. These
waivers are their latest target because without them other governments may be leery of
cooperating on the nuclear projects that give Iran an incentive to remain in the deal. Iran has
very few reasons to remain in the deal at this point, and canceling the waivers would likely be
the last straw. This is what Bolton and his allies have been working towards all along. When
the waivers came up for renewal this spring, the administration extended them, but now there is
a real danger that they won't do that again. The last time this came up, Jarrett Blanc
explained why extending the waivers is the obviously correct thing to do:
Failing to renew the waivers would be indefensible. The fact that there is even an
internal debate is illuminating: At least some Trump advisors want a crisis with Iran, and
the sooner the better.
Withdrawing waivers for civil nuclear cooperation may sound less aggressive than steps
like the overhyped Guard Corps designation, but it is one of the most dangerous steps the
administration has left, threatening the international nuclear cooperation that is Iran's
only remaining practical benefit from the deal.
Canceling the waivers would be another escalation by the Trump administration, and it
would almost certainly prompt Iranian countermoves to further reduce or end their compliance
with the deal. The Iran hawks in the administration may think they want a bigger crisis with
Iran, but they may not like it when they get one.
Very few Americans have any realisation at all (certainly non that I have spoken to below
the rank of Army Colonel or Navy Captain anyway) that a war with Iran will leave 100s of
thousands if not millions of Americans dead, many capital ships at the bottom of the Gulf and
the Med (think hard about how that will happen in the Med), and the US a broken 3rd world
nation, if the states even stay together to maintain a 'US'.
You need to realise that the middle east (to include Cyprus and Turkey) will be cut off to
you. No resupply, no support, no evac. There will be no troops left in the middle east to
bring home after a few days of fighting exhaust all ammp and supplies and all positions are
then overun or destroyed.
Every last troop in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan will be wiped out, and there will be no
way at all of deploying any more troops (think why).
The shock to the weak American Psyche will be amplified by assymetrical spec ops /
gorrilla warefare in every US city.
To begin with there will be gas station fires and power line cuts in every US town and
city, followed by bridge collpases, interstate highway failures, railroad failures and then
destruction, food and medical warehouse fires, forest fires, container port sabotage, cell
phone and radio tower destruction, water mains destruction, sewage mains destruction, and of
course contamination of water reservoirs - all of which are very simple and easy assymetrical
attacks that can be rolled out nationwide by only by a few hundred well trained individuals
(already well embedded).
Add these simple WW2 partisan style acts to other acts of sabotage against fire,
ambulance, and police infrastruture (again, all very simple and easy assymetrical attacks)
and the worst elements of your own society will continue and further amplify the
conflageration.
The cities will implode and feed upon themselves, and when the carnage reaches a platau,
or simply a stage that invites escalation, then the next phase begins - think MANPADS at
every airport to bring down all relief flights and national guard units, ATGMs and HMG
against military and police units, snipers against any opertunistic target - anywhere at any
time.
There are further steps which I wont describe lest it give certain people ideas, but in
the space of just 2 weeks the entire US could brought to its knees and made to realise that
every nation on the earth, except the us, hates war and tries to avoid it.
If the US people think they can nuke Iran, kill millions more muslims, and then go back to
watching the ball game they should think again.
The Iranians (and Russians and Chinese too) have been planning for a war with the US for
decades.
The Iranians know full well that their cities will be nuked, but the Iranians believe the
US is the embodyment of Satan (and they have lots of evidence to suggest this is indeed true)
so they will fight without regard to life, to pain and to massive losses.
They, and there allies will utterly wipe out ever last US military unit in the middle east
and bring the Continental US to its knees in ways few can yet imagine.
Yes, Iran will be glass, but the US will be ashes, or at least no longer a us - as much a
victim of its own complexity and ignorance as any missiles or explosives used by Iranian spec
ops.
A war with Iran will be the last war the US ever fights. It may 'win' but at what
cost.
@ Capt. Abdul Hassan 76
Thank you for that, very insighful, perhaps a little over the top, but right on.
Sunny Runny Burger , Jun 27, 2019 10:59:29 AM |
139
Don Bacon I think you're right and in addition the amendment won't matter because the
exceptions are so encompassing nearly anything goes.
I'm going to crosspost the scenario (all I posted was the scenario, not the stuff
afterwards):
1. US false flags in Iranian vicinity.
2. US military deaths due to provoked Iranian action.
3. US limited strikes.
4. US false flag Iranian dirty bomb in US city using surplus enriched material bought from
Iran.
5. US submits evidence of Iranian nuclear attack in UNSC.
6. US attacks Iran using nuclear weapons.
A few (?) didn't buy 1 but the US got stuck on 2 so far and might get stuck on 3 as
well.
How can one make 4 fail except to talk about it so people have a chance to think of it as
a possibility when it happens?
5 is for "perception" and narrative, it doesn't matter if the UNSC doesn't agree with what
the US says or the entire world ridicules the US or if the entire world starts marching like
they "magically" and "spontaneously" did before the Iraq war (what was that about? Controlled
opposition galore?).
Russia and China are repeatedly telling the US (and everybody else) what 6 will
mean.
The Trumpian hyperbole marketing brand had generated unrealistic expectations for the "Deal
of the Century." For over a year and a half, Jared Kushner promised but missed at least three
dates to unveil the "secret" plan.
Assisted by two bono fide Zionists, Special Envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt
and US Ambassador David Friedman, Kushner's lone political experience with Palestine/Israel is
his family's tax deductible contributions to building "Jewish only colonies."
Kushner's predisposed conviction and his parochial bias were palpable in the June 2nd
interview with Axios on HBO. In the interview, he opined that Palestinians were not "capable of
governing" themselves or become free from Israeli occupation.
After more than a year of hyped promotion, Kushner's Zionist team revealed a scaled down
version of Trump's "concrete plan." Evident in the leaked conference agenda, the goal of
Kushner's gathering is not to offer economic support to Palestinians, but rather to provide a
cover-up for opening the doors of Arab capitals to Israeli officials.
Israel gets the reward of the illusionary peace upfront while US tantalizes to Arabs a peace
process that may never materialize. Deferring and circumventing political process is
archetypical Israeli trademark strategy that seeks to harvest fruits before the tree blossoms.
Hence, the fruits of the US proposed miniature workshop in Bahrain.
In the Oslo Accord in 1993, the PLO agreed to recognize Israel, in advance, over 78% of
historical Palestine. There was no reciprocal Israeli obligation toward the PLO on the
remaining 22% (West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza).
A quarter of a century later, peace did not blossom and the only implemented sections of the
Oslo Accords were the PLO recognition of Israel. In addition, it relieved Israel of
administering the life of five million Palestinians, security coordination and
outsourcing―free of cost―the security services to the Palestinian Authority.
Meanwhile, Israel continued to violate and effectively buried the Oslo Accords under new
expansive "Jewish only colonies" changing the demographics of the population in areas allotted
for the future Palestinian state.
Ten years following the Accord, George W Bush proposed a Road Map for peace. To placate
Israeli reservations, Bush rewarded Israel, in advance, with an official American letter
agreeing to annex "Jewish only colonies" in the West Bank as part of any future peace
agreement.
Israel crushed Bush's Road Map under the bulldozers of yet more "Jewish only colonies." The
American letter remains the sole outcome of the Road Map. Greenblatt and Friedman are using
Bush's letter to advocate Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Kushner's economic peace is an age old Israeli contrived gas bubble intends to skirt
compliance with international law and UN resolutions. Shimon Peres floated the idea to
equivocate Israel's commitments under the Oslo Accords. Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu revived it in 2009 to sidestep the American (Bush and Obama) administration's support
for two-state solution.
Yet, for quarter of a century since the establishment of the Palestinian authority, Israel
had systematically strangled the very economy it (and now Kushner) claims to champion.
Since 1993, the European Union invested billions of dollars in economic infrastructure,
including an airport and seaport in Gaza. In 2002 after the failure of Camp David, Israel
obliterated both facilities denying Palestinians access to trade and fishing.
To further stifle the economy, Israel erected walls separating farmers from their olive
groves and farms, spiked the West Bank with intrusive military checkpoints encumbering the
movement of goods, divided towns and cities and misappropriated tax money held on Palestinian
imports.
Kushner and Israel's invented economic peace is a political shenanigan to sedate the bird
cage (walled) economy, or leverage it in the form of collective punishment to suppress
resistance and subjugate Palestinians.
Like Oslo Accords, the Road Map, and now ahead of rolling the political plan for the "Deal
of Century", Trump conferred on Israel another advanced installment by recognizing Jerusalem as
its capital, cut financial aid to Palestinians including UN organizations, and the annexation
of the Syrian Golan Heights without any Israeli concession.
In addition to normalizing contacts between Arabs attending the Manama workshop and Israel
(another advanced installment), Kushner's plan would relegate the cost of the caged Palestinian
economy to Arab countries, gifting Israel yet more freebies without negotiation.
Kushner economic peace workshop is a false allure to salve Palestinian (and Arab)
capitulation before rolling out the eon of all political disasters. Jamal Kanj was born in a Palestinian
refugee camp in northern Lebanon ten years after the creation of the state of Israel. He moved
to the United States in late 1977, and has been active in various local and national political
organizations. Like so many other Palestinians, the life of Jamal Kanj has been an odyssey of
conflict, displacement and resettlement and Jamal Kanj is expressing a lifetime experience with
the Palestinian diaspora and struggle against and with the occupation through his writings.
Jamal Kanj is columnist at several newspapers and websites.
"... Telling was the 40-page proposal put out earlier this month by the White House, which used the terms "investment" and "financing" dozens of times, yet never once mentioned "occupation." Dan Kurtzer, who previously served as Washington's ambassador to Israel and Egypt and is now a professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University, tweeted : "I would give this so-called plan a 'C' from an undergraduate student. The authors of the plan clearly understand nothing." ..."
"... Can anyone explain the complete inappropriateness & Cronyism of Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, in negotiating this sham of a Deal? This is the "Con of the Century" not the Deal of the Century? Jared Kushner never got out of Bibi's Bed & his flawed Plan is a $50 Billion dollar loan bribe, a LOAN not a Hand out & where this money is coming from, as it's not coming from America but supposedly from non-existent Arabian Financial sources is a mystery? ..."
"... An investor would have to be an utter idiot to put funds into Palestinian infrastructure because the Israelis would promptly destroy it in their next military incursion. Investment without rock solid perpetual peace is just money down the drain. ..."
The U.S.-backed two-day "Peace to Prosperity" summit in Bahrain on Tuesday and Wednesday
was designed to advance the Trump administration's vision for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict. But without any significant Palestinian representation at the summit, as well as the
absence of any Israeli government officials, the gathering was ultimately little more than a
face-saving effort on the White House's part following two years of the administration's
"futile" peacemaking efforts.
The conference is understood to have laid the foundation for the "Deal of the Century." The
details have yet to be released, although the White House claims it will unveil the plan
following Israel's elections in September. Yet some details have leaked, leading the
Palestinian Authority to declare it dead on arrival. Virtually all Palestinian factions are
united in opposition to it.
Telling was the 40-page proposal put out earlier this month by the
White House, which used the terms "investment" and "financing" dozens of times, yet never once
mentioned "occupation." Dan Kurtzer, who previously served as Washington's ambassador to Israel
and Egypt and is now a professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University,
tweeted
: "I would give this so-called plan a 'C' from an undergraduate student. The authors of the
plan clearly understand nothing."
The "workshop" in Bahrain began with President Donald Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared
Kushner delivering a speech in which he
unveiled a $50 billion economic package intended to "unleash" the Palestinians' potential
as well as help develop neighboring Lebanon and Jordan. Kushner referred to a "bustling tourist
center in Gaza" without acknowledging Israel's siege of the coastal strip and the dire
humanitarian crises in the blockaded enclave. IMF Director Christine Lagarde spoke about applying
lessons from Mozambique to Palestine. Steve Schwarzman, an American billionaire whose personal
wealth exceeds Palestine's annual
GDP, advised the Palestinians to
follow the model of Singapore. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman,
hailed the "workshop" as an "attempt to jumpstart the Palestinian economy" and "improve the
quality of life of Palestinians."
Unrealistic and Disingenuous
Undeniably, the White House's plans for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are as
unrealistic as they are disingenuous. With an ongoing conflict and no clearly defined borders,
it is at best naïve to imagine the Occupied Palestinian Territories fostering a climate
that is ripe for foreign investment. Building a tourism sector and stimulating vibrant economic
growth under occupation are also unrealistic. Whereas Kushner sought to first discuss the
economic dimensions of the Palestinians' problems while saving meetings over the political ones
for later, he fails to understand how Palestine's economic crises are linked to politics. Put
simply, the Palestinians will not be able to achieve economic development through some
foreign-driven technocratic plan without finding a solution to the political issues at the
heart of the conflict.
The Palestinian view is that the White House is simply trying to liquidate their cause by
buying them off with foreign money. Moreover, no experts believe that the Trump administration
has the political or diplomatic capital to serve as a credible mediator between the
Palestinians and Israel. The White House has absolutely no goodwill among Palestinians,
particularly in the aftermath of the administration formally recognizing
Jerusalem as Israel's capital and
slashing funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
As the first U.S. administration to officially reject the two-state solution as the basis
for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the current White House represents an
opportunity for Israel to cement its colonization of territory in land annexed during 1967. As
such, the "Deal of the Century" is about the consolidation of Israel's occupation of
Palestinian land and a way toward establishing a "second homeland" for Palestinians in Jordan
and/or Egypt. The Israeli UN ambassador's opinion
piece in The New York Times , which called for a Palestinian "surrender" and was
published just before the Bahrain summit kicked off, essentially summed up both the Israeli
government and the Trump administration's views on the Palestinian question.
GCC-Israel Ties
Nonetheless, although the summit did not raise important questions about Palestinian-Israeli
relations, it raised some about Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member-states and Israel's
gradual normalization of ties. That this summit was held in Bahrain was not a major surprise
considering that the archipelago kingdom has led the GCC in terms of moving toward
normalization of relations with Israel.
Indeed, Bahrain's openness to closer relations with the Jewish state was on display in
September 2017 when Prince Nasser bin Hamad al-Khalifa attended a multinational event in Los
Angeles where two American rabbis stated that the king of Bahrain had voiced his opposition to
the Arab League's economic boycott of Israel. As the "Peace to Prosperity" workshop began, the
Bahraini Crown Prince welcomed delegates with a
message that called the Bahraini capital, Manama, the Gulf's most religiously diverse city and
referenced its tiny Jewish community. Notably, Bahrain's former Jewish ambassador to
Washington, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo,
attended the summit.
Much like the dynamics which have brought other GCC member-states closer to Israel, a mutual
perception of Iran as a threat is at the heart of Bahrain's interest in establishing warmer
ties with Tel Aviv. Yet for Bahrain and other Arabian Peninsula monarchies -- until the
Palestinian issue is resolved -- prospects for moving toward a full normalization of relations
will remain complicated.
Whereas Kuwait stands out as the only country in the GCC that principally rejects this trend
of Gulf states moving in the direction of normalizing ties with Israel, it is the GCC's only
semi-democracy, thus this firm "pro-Palestinian" stance partially reflects pressures from
Kuwaiti public opinion.
... ... ...
Rong Cao , June 27, 2019 at 13:53
Isn't GCC on the brink of the collapse a while ago when the US congress threatened to sue
GCC for manipulate the oil prices? Guess now that the US has become a world major oil
exporter, GCC has stood on its way. So the patriarchy inside GCC, namely Saudi Arabia, has
been colluding with the US and Israel to pay $50 billion to Palestinians authority for the
purchase of Israeli's occupied lands once for all. Indeed a deal of the century for President
Trump.
KiwiAntz , June 27, 2019 at 04:28
Can anyone explain the complete inappropriateness & Cronyism of Trump's son in law,
Jared Kushner, in negotiating this sham of a Deal? This is the "Con of the Century" not the
Deal of the Century? Jared Kushner never got out of Bibi's Bed & his flawed Plan is a $50
Billion dollar loan bribe, a LOAN not a Hand out & where this money is coming from, as
it's not coming from America but supposedly from non-existent Arabian Financial sources is a
mystery?
And in order to receive this blood money, Palestinian's only have to surrender
what's left of their Country & the illegal settlements, any chance of a 2 State solution
& other humiliating concessions to Apartheid Israel, such as any Sovereignty claims to
their own Lands? And I state it's Palestinian's Land," THEIR COUNTRY" not the illegal,
immoral Land Usurper called the Nation of Israel?
This Land of Palestine, illegally occupied
since 1948 by repatriated Jews from a devastated, War ravaged Europe, as a bloodguilt reward
from the Allies, for their failure in preventing the Holocaust & genocide of the Jews
during WW2?The idiotic English came up with the disastrous plan to repatriate these European
Jewish people to a already occupied Land called Palestine? And for the record, the Historical
Jews lost their claims to these Lands, as was prophesied in the Bible following their
rejection & complicity in the Death of the Messiah?
JC stated their "House (or Nation)
would be abandoned to them" as a result of their rejection of him, being the Son of God! This
was confirmed in the year 70 B.C.E when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, destroying all their
records, the Temple & killing one million people with the survivors taken into captivity!
The confirmation of the loss of Divine favour & Gods utter rejection of the Jewish Nation
& people was that God allowed the Roman destruction to occur without any direct
intervention on his part! That was the end of the Nation State of Ancient Israel! When this
happened, it became inhabited by Arab Tribes & gradually became Palestine?
This Modern
Day interpretation of a Nation State of Israel is a monstrosity, a human construct not a
Theocratic Nation created by God!
This Plan is a utter waste of Time & other peoples
money as Palestinian's want a Political solution as mandated by the UN, not a blood money,
loan bribe by Trumps crony Capitalist, son in law, in league with Uncle Bibi Netanyahu!
Moi , June 27, 2019 at 02:40
An investor would have to be an utter idiot to put funds into Palestinian infrastructure
because the Israelis would promptly destroy it in their next military incursion. Investment
without rock solid perpetual peace is just money down the drain.
Sixty-six years later, I am witnessing how another "Ugly American" is walking in the
footsteps of Roosevelt. His name is John Bolton, a chief advocate of the disastrous US invasion
of Iraq, a nefarious Islamophobe, and former chairman of the far-right anti-Muslim Gatestone
Institute. This infamous institution is known for spreading
lies about Muslims - claiming there is a looming "jihadist takeover" that can lead to a
"Great White Death" - to incite hatred against them and intimidate, silence, and alienate
them.
In his diabolical plans to wage war on Iran, Bolton is taking a page from Roosevelt's
playbook. Just as the CIA operative used venal Iranian politicians and fake news to incite
against the democratically elected Iranian government, today his successor, the US national
security adviser, is seeking to spread misinformation on a massive scale and set up a false
flag operation with the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant terrorist organisation. Meanwhile,
he has also pressed forward with debilitating sanctions that are further worsening the economic
crisis in the country and making the lives of ordinary Iranians unbearable.
... ... ...
Bolton is the dreadful residue of the pure violence and wanton cruelty that drive Zionist
Christian zealots in their crusades against Muslims. He is the embodiment of the basest and
most racist roots of American imperialism.
The regime he serves is the most naked and vulgar face of brutish power, lacking any
semblance of legitimacy - a bullying coward flexing its military muscles. At its helm is an
arrogant mercantile president, who - faced with the possibility of an impeachment - has no
qualms about using the war machine at his disposal to regain political relevance and line his
pockets.
But the world must know Americans are not all ugly, they are not all rabid imperialists -
Boltons and Roosevelts. What about those countless noble Americans - the sons and daughters of
the original nations that graced this land, of the African slaves who were brought to this land
in chains, of the millions after millions of immigrants who came to these shores in desperation
or hope from the four corners of the earth? Do they not have a claim on this land too - to
redefine it and bring it back to the bosom of humanity?
"... A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war. ..."
"... "While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote." ..."
"Thirty years of endless war have created a veritable cult of militarism within the American
ruling elite, whose guiding assumption seems to be that wars can be waged without drastic
global consequences, including for the United States itself."
The military/security surveillance state is a trillion dollar enterprise that instigates
conflicts to expand its profits. Militarism works hand-in-hand with the neoliberal
corporatists who deploy the military to secure natural resources, wage slaves, and
geostrategic hegemony. It should be noted, that the US imperialist agenda left unhindered
after the dissolution of the Soviet Union only intensified.
However, in order for the US ruling class to achieve the "ultimate goal" of unilateral
hegemony in the Middle East the military must confront Iran a powerful sizable country with
economic and political ties to China and Russia. This is the dilemma confronting the
warmongering psychopaths
who are influenced by Israel and Saudi Arabia.
A significant military attack against Iran will NOT go unanswered and if the Iranian
Military destroys a US warship and kills hundreds of sailors it would unleash another major
war in the Middle East igniting the entire region and possibly leading to a world war.
What should traumatize the US population and awaken them from their hypnotic warmongering
stupur created by propaganda proliferated on FOX, MSNBC, and CNN is that the United States
came within minutes of launching a war whose military consequences it had NOT seriously
examined.
Some people have speculated that if the U.S. does attack Iran then Iran will launch missiles
at Saudi Arabia's oil fields which will then send oil prices skyrocketing to $130 dollars a
barrel. The article also notes that:
"While Trump's foreign policy team -- headed by National Security Advisor John Bolton and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- 'unanimously' supported the attack, General Joseph Dunford,
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 'cautioned about the possible repercussions of a
strike, warning that it could endanger American forces,' the Times wrote."
Apparently the good general cannot get too worked up at the sight of thousands and
thousands of Iranian children, women, and old men who would be slaughtered and grievously
wounded by U.S. bombs and the water supply which would be contaminated when those bombs would
land at a nuclear power plant. But these horrific actions by the United States are of no
consequence because, as Madeline Albright observed on a television a few decades ago, the
deaths of a half million Iraqi children by the U.S. was worth it. It would appear that the
lives of foreigners are of little consequence to those who are in power. Threatening to start
a war against another country for the most specious of reasons is simply another reason why a
malignant narcissist like Trump needs to be removed from office as quickly as possible. Or
perhaps Trump believes that the best way to improve his low poll numbers is to start dropping
500 lb. bombs on a country which does not in any remote way pose a threat to the United
States.
"Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear. Heads of governments and their
officials know that a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit rights it would
otherwise defend, is less likely to demand a better life, and will agree to millions and
millions being spent on 'Defense'."-John Boynton Priestly [1894-1984], English writer
"Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill
everyone, and you are a god."-Jean Rostand [1894-1977], French philosopher and biologist
From the little I know about Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen, Yemen is still subject to a land
/ sea / air blockade. Saudi warships are patrolling Yemeni maritime territory. So that would
probably nix any possibility of Iran sending any kind of support, humanitarian as well as
military.
The war has lasted over four years and the blockade has lasted almost as long. The Saudis
are relying on mercenaries from as far away as
South America ,
Nepal and parts of Africa. Yet not only are the Houthis still holding out but as you say,
there are signs of
Saudi collapse in Yemen.
My hunch is that huge numbers of soldiers are defecting from the Saudi forces and bringing
with them equipment, vehicles, ammunition, advice and logistics support to the Houthis. Among
other things, this would account for large losses of Saudi military equipment and the
enormous wastage. Perhaps some mercenaries have also switched sides. But as I have said here
in past MoA comments forums, I can't prove that defections are occurring. Maybe I'm not using
the "right" keywords on Google Chrome, DuckDuckGo or other search engines to find the
information, or perhaps this particular narrative is a no-go zone.
@ Jen 74
Thanks for your concern for Yemen, and reports from the area.
Please be aware that the outcome of military conflicts are more dependant upon the people
affected than anything. It took the US three years to "pacify" Baghdad, because Iraqis didn't
want Americans there, and they still don't as a matter of fact.
Yemenis don't want Saudi control of their land and that has more meaning than the Saudi
mercenaries can bring to the conflict.
In the US Army, the infantry is "the Queen of battle." That's a fancy way of saying that the
men engaged in the endeavor, on the ground, are the most important variable. That's why the
Houthis in their flip-flops can destroy so many Saudi units. They care. The human element.
"... If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region, not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and Iran. ..."
"... Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S. government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution. ..."
"... OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running. ..."
If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism,
starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it
wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout
the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy
blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region,
not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and
Iran.
Take a good look at
this Smithsonian map of where the U.S.A. is "combating terrorism." Note how the U.S.
military (i.e., global capitalism's unofficial "enforcer") has catastrophically blundered its
way into more or less every nation depicted. Or ask our "allies" in Saudi Arabia, Israel,
Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and so on. OK, you might have to reach
them in New York or London, or in the South of France this time of year, but, go ahead, ask
them about the horrors they've been suffering on account of our "catastrophic blunders."
See, according to this crackpot conspiracy theory that I would put forth if I were a
geopolitical analyst instead of just a political satirist, there have been no "catastrophic
policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is
proceeding exactly according to plan. The regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those
who wouldn't have been regime-changed, or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime
change.
Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years
of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have been
a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people or the
"sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful. Global
capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for
business or not.
Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after
winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of
America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the
contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation
projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S.
government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review
the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have
benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many
of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without
assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution.
OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global
capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American
face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it
comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments
control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running.
This is what Iran and Syria are up against. This is what Russia is up against. Global
capitalism doesn't want to nuke them, or occupy them. It wants to privatize them, like it is
privatizing the rest of the world, like it has already privatized America according to my
crackpot theory, of course.
if I were a geopolitical analyst, I might be able to discern a pattern there, and
possibly even some sort of strategy.
Sounds good.
Some other people did it before, wrote it down etc. but it's always good to see that
stuff.
it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the
collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately
started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East.
.there have been no "catastrophic policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The
Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is proceeding exactly according to plan. The
regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those who wouldn't have been regime-changed,
or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime change.
Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years
of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have
been a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people
or the "sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful.
Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open
for business or not.
Spot on.
Now .there IS a bit of oversight in the article re competing groups of people on top of
that "Global capitalist" bunch.
It's a bit more complicated than "Global capitalism".
Jewish heavily influenced, perhaps even controlled, Anglo-Saxon "setup" .. or Russian
"setup" or Chinese "setup".
Only one of them can be on the top, and they don't like each other much.
And they all have nuclear weapons.
"Global capitalism" idea is optimistic. The global overwhelming force against little
players. No chance of MAD there so not that bad.NOPE IMHO.
There is a chance of MAD.
That is the problem . Well, at least for some people.
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies.
These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have
everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off
the proles.
I was a union man in my youth. We liked Capitalism. We just wanted our fair share of the
loot. The working class today knows nothing about organizing. They don't even know they are
working class. They think they are black or white. Woke or Deplorable.
ALL OF US non billionaires are coming up on serious hard times. Serious enough that we
might have to put aside our differences. The government is corrupt. It will not save us.
Instead it will continue to work to divide us.
Another great article by C J Hopkins.
Hopkins (correctly) posits that behind US actions, wars etc lies the global capitalist
class.
"Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open
for business or not"
This is correct -- but requires an important caveat.
Intrinsic to capitalism is imperialism. They are the head & tail of the same coin.
Global capitalists may unite in their rapacious attacks on average citizens the world over.
However, they will disunite when it comes to beating a competitor to a market.
The "West" has no (real) ideological differences with China, Russia & Iran. This is a
fight between an existing hegemon & it's allies & a rising hegemon (China) & it's
allies.
In many ways it's similar to the WW I situation: an established imperial country, the UK,
& it's allies against a country with imperial pretensions -- Germany (& it's
allies)
To put it in a nice little homily: the Capitalist wolves prefer to eat sheep (us) -- but,
will happily eat each other should they perceive a sufficient interest in doing so.
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of
monopolies.
In most key sectors, competition ends up producing monopolies or their near-equivalent,
oligopolies. The many are weeded out (or swallowed up) by the few . The
situation is roughly the same with democracy, which historically has always resulted in
oligarchy, as occurred in ancient Rome and Athens.
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies.
These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have
everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off
the proles.
You are right in expecting that in Capitalism there would be competition – the
traditional view that prices would remain low because of competition, the less competitive
removed from the field, and so on. But that was primitive laisser-faire Capitalism on a fair
playing field that hardly existed but in theory. Occasionally there were some "good"
capitalists – say the mill-owner in a Lancashire town who gave employment to the
locals, built houses, donated to charity and went to the Sunday church service with his
workers. But even that "good" capitalist was in it for the profit, which comes from taking
possession for himself of the value added by his workers to a commodity.
But modern Capitalism does not function that way. There are no mill-owners, just absentee
investor playing in, usually rigged, stock market casinos. Industrial capitalism has been
changed into financial Capitalism without borders and loyalty to worker or country. In fact,
it has gone global to play country against country for more profit.
Anyway, the USA has evolved into a Fascist state (an advanced state of capitalism, a.k.a.
corporatocracy) as Chomsky stated many years ago. Seen from abroad here's a view from the
horse's mouth ( The Guardian is official organ of Globalist Fascism).
This is just think tank swamp vapor. No real analysis, no real recommendation on adaption of the USA to the collapse of global neoliberal
system (aka the USA empire)
At the heart of the alignment between China and Russia is their shared interest in undermining U.S. influence globally. The two
countries are united in their mutual displeasure with the United States and the U.S.-dominated international order that they feel
disadvantages them. But while Russia and China may have initially banded together in discontent, their repeated engagement on areas
of mutual interest is fostering a deeper and enduring partnership.
It is clear that China will pose the greatest challenge to U.S. interests for the foreseeable future, but Beijing's increasing
collaboration with Moscow will amplify that challenge.
... ... ...
Washington must come to terms with this China-Russia alignment and work to address and manage it. To contain the depth of alignment,
Washington must look for opportunities to strain the seams in the Russia-China relationship. Russia and China may be drawing closer,
but their interests -- and especially their approaches -- are not identical. Russia and China compete in the Middle East, for example,
for military sales and nuclear energy deals. And their very different approaches to Europe could be a source of strain. In communicating
with Beijing, Washington should underscore how Russian interference in these countries could generate instability that threatens
China's growing economic interests.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is focused on combating China's unfair economic practices, a worthy undertaking. But any trade
war "victory" will be incomplete if Washington does not address Beijing's challenge, in collaboration with Moscow, to the very fabric
of the rules-based order that underpins continued U.S. global leadership and prosperity. Washington will be ineffective if it seeks
to go it alone. Pushing back against the illiberal influence of an aligned Russia and China will require the collective heft of Allies
and partners. The time is ripe to tackle this issue with America's European Allies. Europe has grown more attuned to -- and concerned
about -- the threat that China poses and shares the U.S. imperative to compete with Russia and China.
Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a senior fellow and director of the Center for New American Security's Transatlantic Security Center.
Contents of the article correlate extremely poorly with the title... I don't see even a semblance of a "containment plan" other
than a vague outline that US should ask EU countries something as of yet unspecified...
"... The possibility that the United States might be committing an act of war under false pretenses apparently did little to discourage the president's principal foreign policy advisers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, from pushing a military response. Tehran's action was presented as raw aggression, an act of war that deserved retaliation. ..."
"... The president apparently complained to a close associate, "These people want to push us into a war, and it's so disgusting." According to The Wall Street Journal , he further opined, "We don't need any more wars." He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views? ..."
"... Iran is preparing to breach the limits established by the agreement because Washington repudiated it . It is evident that the president doesn't understand the JCPOA or the nuclear issue more generally. ..."
"... Moreover, though he is focused on nuclear issues, his appointees have been demanding far more of Tehran, forestalling negotiations. For instance, last year, Pompeo ordered Iran to abandon its independent foreign policy and dismantle its missile deterrent, while accepting Saudi and American domination of the region. ..."
"... Pompeo's demands look a bit like the ultimatum to Serbia in June 1914 after a nationalist backed by Serbian military intelligence assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The Austrians set only 10, rather than 12, requirements, but they also were intended to be rejected. Vienna explained to its ally Germany that "the possibility of its acceptance is practically excluded." ..."
"... They were living out what Hermann Goering, on trial at Nuremberg, described in a private conversation to an American officer: "voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Tragically, he's probably right. ..."
Iran predictably claimed that the drone was within its airspace. American officials asserted
that it was in international airspace. Reported by The New York Times :
"a
senior Trump administration official said there was concern inside the United States government
about whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, or even the P-8A manned
aircraft flown by a military aircrew, actually did violate Iranian airspace at some point. The
official said the doubt was one of the reasons Mr. Trump called off the strike."
The point is worth repeating. The military was prepared to blast away when it wasn't even
certain whether America was in the right. The episode brings to mind the 1988 shootdown of an
Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf by the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes .
Initially the U.S. Navy justified its action, making a series of false claims about Iran Air
Flight 655, which carried 290 passengers and crew members. Eventually Washington did admit that
it had made a horrific mistake, though the Vincennes captain was later decorated.
The possibility that the United States might be committing an act of war under false
pretenses apparently did little to discourage the president's principal foreign policy
advisers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, from
pushing a military response. Tehran's action was presented as raw aggression, an act of war
that deserved retaliation.
The president apparently complained to a close associate, "These people want to push us into
a war, and it's so disgusting." According to The Wall Street Journal , he
further opined, "We don't need any more wars." He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to
surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views?
Presumably the president believes that he can control his war-happy subordinates, using them
as he sees fit. However, his overweening hubris ignores their power to set the agenda and
influence his choices. Consider the basic question of objectives regarding Iran. Trump now says
all he wants to do is keep nukes out of Tehran's hands: "Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon,"
he intoned after halting the proposed reprisal, adding that "restraint" has its limits. But the
nuclear accord was drafted to forestall an Iranian nuclear weapon. Iran is preparing to breach
the limits established by the agreement because Washington repudiated it . It is
evident that the president doesn't understand the JCPOA or the nuclear issue more
generally.
Moreover, though he is focused on nuclear issues, his appointees have been demanding far
more of Tehran, forestalling negotiations. For instance, last year, Pompeo ordered Iran to
abandon its independent foreign policy and dismantle its missile deterrent, while accepting
Saudi and American domination of the region.
These mandates were an obvious non-starter -- what
sovereign nation voluntarily accepts puppet status? In fact, Pompeo admitted that he didn't
expect Iran to surrender, but instead hoped for a popular revolution. In recently stating that
the administration would negotiate without preconditions, he added that Washington expected
Iran to act like "a normal nation," meaning behaving just as he'd demanded last year. (Notably,
there was no offer for America to act like a normal country.)
Pompeo's demands look a bit like the ultimatum to Serbia in June 1914 after a nationalist
backed by Serbian military intelligence assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.
The Austrians set only 10, rather than 12, requirements, but they also were intended to be
rejected. Vienna explained to its ally Germany that "the possibility of its acceptance is
practically excluded."
Once it became evident that no one would willingly back down and conflict was likely,
Germany's Kaiser and Russia's Tsar tried to halt the rush to war. However, they found
themselves hemmed in by the war plans created by their nominal subordinates. With
Austria-Hungary mobilizing against Serbia, Russia had to act to protect the latter. Germany
then faced a two-front war. Thus, to aid its ally in Vienna, the Germans had to mobilize
quickly in an attempt to defeat France before Russia could put its massive army into the field.
No one had sufficient time for diplomacy.
However, cousins Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas did engage in a last minute "Willy-Nicky"
exchange of telegrams. Wilhelm warned Nicholas that general Russian mobilization would require
Germany to act, with war the result. In response, the tsar switched from general to partial
mobilization. But he was soon besieged by his top officials who insisted that the entire army
had to be called up.
Understanding that general mobilization meant war, the tsar observed: "Think of the
responsibility you are asking me to take! Think of the thousands and thousands of men who will
be sent to their deaths." But he gave in, approving mobilization on the evening of July 30.
Nicholas's concern was warranted. More than 1.7 million Russian soldiers, along with hundreds
of thousands of civilians, died in the conflict. The ensuing Russian Civil War was even more
deadly, indeed far more so for noncombatants, among them the tsar and his family.
Kaiser Wilhelm was equally at the mercy of the "France-first" Schlieffen Plan. To wait would
be to invite destruction between the French and Russians, so he approved German mobilization on
August 1. He predicted the war would lead to "endless misery," and so it did. In 1918, he was
forced to abdicate and he lived out his life in exile.
Pompeo, Bolton, and like-minded officials tried and failed to force another war last week.
Next time they may succeed in leaving the president with no practical choice but the one they
favor. In which case he will find himself starting the very conflict that he had declared
against.
Ongoing administration machinations -- exacerbated by the opportunity to manipulate a
president -- offer an important reminder as to the Founders' wisdom. Delegates to the
Constitutional Convention made clear their intention to break with monarchical practice,
minimizing the president's authority. Congress was assigned the powers to raise armies, decide
on the rules of war, issue letters of marque and reprisal, and ratify treaties. Most
importantly, the legislative branch alone could declare war.
As commander-in-chief, the president could defend against attack, but he could not even
order a retaliatory strike without congressional authority. Wrote James Madison to Thomas
Jefferson: "The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that
the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has
accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature." Delegate James
Wilson insisted that the Constitution was intended to "guard against" being hurried into war:
"It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such
distress, for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large."
Most important, placing the war power with Congress ensured that the people would be heard.
Of course, even that is not enough today. Presidents have adeptly concocted "evidence" and
misled the public, such as during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.
They were living out what Hermann Goering, on trial at Nuremberg, described in a private
conversation to an American officer: "voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to
the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being
attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same way in any country." Tragically, he's probably right.
However, the Iraq debacle has resulted in greater skepticism of presidential claims. The
Trump administration's unsupported judgment that Iran was behind attacks on oil tankers was
greeted at home and abroad with a demand for more evidence. People were conscious of having
been repeatedly played by Washington and did not want a repeat. Many found the U.S. government
no more trustworthy than Iranian authorities, a humbling equivalence. And given the doubts
apparently voiced by Pentagon officials out of public view, such skepticism was
well-founded.
Last week, Donald Trump declared, "I want to get out of these endless wars." Unlike his
predecessors, the president apparently recognizes the temptation to sacrifice lives for
political gain. However, alone he will find it nearly impossible to face down the bipartisan
War Party. The best way to get out of endless wars is to not get in them in the first place.
And that requires changing personnel and respecting the constitutional limits established by
the nation's Founders.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global
Empire
Unfortunately, the President is attempting to walk a tight-rope between peace and the most
prominent funders of the GOP. Sheldon Adelson and his ilk are bent on the destruction of any
nation that stands in the way of Israeli expansion. And of course military contractors need
constant growth in tax-payer funding to support their margins and shareholder value. Hence
the blustering to appease the aforementioned and keep the bribes flowing, while backing down
to appease the base.
It would of course be in the interests of the base to oppose the bribe-taking to begin
with, but I assume that must be beyond their intellectual capacity. Or perhaps they're simply
in favor of it for ideological reasons.
We might as well be honest about it. All politicians over simplify, shade the truth, and
occasionally lie. But Trump's falsehoods are so continuous and extensive that there is no
reason to believe anything he says - everything needs to be validated against external
authorities - which is why he is so intent on tearing down all authorities that could
contradict him.
This is another in the long line of stories we are reading here (and in other places) that
Trump really doesn't want to get involved in a war but is being manipulated by Bolton, Pompeo
and the national security apparatus. Sorry, but I don't buy it.
Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo. Even somebody as apparently dimwitted as Trump could not
possibly have failed to notice that they were warmongers. Indeed, Bolton is probably the most
extreme warmonger around: he has an extensive public record of advocating war with Iran for
about two decades now. I cannot believe that even Trump was unaware of this. And even if he
was, why hasn't he fired them? He doesn't need anybody's permission to do that. Let's get
real: Trump is every bit the warmonger as the people he hires. His statements to the contrary
are just more additions to his endless string of lies.
What's more, he has another way to avoid being cornered into starting a war. All he has to
do in that circumstance is acknowledge that the constitution doesn't grant him that authority
and toss the decision making to Congerss, where it legally belongs. But he has done nothing
that suggests he acknowledges that constitutional delegation of authority--even though it
could provide him a way out if he felt he needed one.
So, no. I don't believe for a minute that Trump wants to avoid war. Actions speak louder
than words, especially Trump's words.
You're falling for the "official" report that he called off the attack merely because 150
lives were at stake? Since when did he all of a sudden grow a conscious after the inexcusable
defense he gave for our irresponsible military and intelligence ventures? He even bypasses
Congress itself by his illegal presidential will to give weapons to the SAUDIS. The
tyrannical, radical, scourge of humanity tribal savages turned psychopathic oligarchs that is
the House of Saud.
Let's be perfectly honest with ourselves, Tucker Carson (a f*cking tv show host of all
people) convinced a US president to not commit to another illegal war. Not because lives were
at stake, heavens no. It's because going into a disastrous war with Iran would gauruntee his
chances of not getting re-elected.
The American government is a living parody with no hope of redemption.
The President's almost daily outpouring of gibberish gives one little confidence that the
notion of 'the truth' holds any importance for him or his crew. Who needs historical
precedents to establish a feeling of mistrust when even the simplest statements from the
White House are so often needlessly loaded with misapprehensions, distortions and out right
BS?
" He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so
at variance with his views?"
I get this, position. You present an incredibly tough front as you press an entirely
different goal. The problem is that the president has presented a very tough front himself.
So when it appears to to actually be tough, he comes across as "not so much". It even
provides opportunity to grand him fearful. In the scenario that I think is being played out
or made to appear to play out --- the good cop, the reasonable cop has to sound reasonable
all the time. He has to claim to be holding back the forces of evil that threaten to consume
the target. But the president has been leading the way as "bad cop" so in the mind the
targets, there are no good cops.
But in my view, all of this hoollla baaaloooey about Iran is a distraction to the real
threat
the border. And the only common ground to be had is to enforce the law. That is why I
think the president is weak. For all of the tough talk --- he folded -- again on immigration.
Pretending to get concessions that is by agreement already expected from Mexico is the such
naked weakness that launching hypersonic missiles obliterating Tehran would just give him
sandals.
Uhhhh, no. I don't regret my vote. And and I still want the wall built and the laws
enforced and the sovereignty of the US respected by guests and citizens alike,.
"... His problem has always been a lack of focus, vision and discipline. He may be generally against stupid wars, but like Obama he doesn't have the experience in dealing with the establishment or the strategic knowledge to push back against what can seem like very strong, common sense arguments in favor of intervention. ..."
Rand Paul: Trump's Antiwar Counterweight The president called off airstrikes against Iran, and we have the Kentucky senator
and Tucker Carlson to thank.•
The United States almost
started a war with Iran only for President Donald Trump to change his mind at the last minute. Reports
indicate that the usual suspect, National Security Adviser John Bolton, was the main advocate for airstrikes, with the backing
of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA head Gina Haspel, as well as encouragement from Senate war hawks Lindsey Graham and
Tom Cotton . Earlier on Thursday,
responding to news that Iran had reportedly downed an unmanned American drone, Trump
said , "Look, I said I want to get
out of these endless wars, I campaigned on that, I want to get out." Trump's cautiousness seemed as much a response to the Washington
chorus crying for military action as the event itself. More importantly, if the swamp wants war -- who has the president's back in
pushing peace?
This might be the most important question in American politics right now. Advertisement TAC 's Barbara Boland
reported in early June that the purpose of wedging the
now-outgoing
Patrick Shanahan into his acting defense secretary position was to put Bolton at the top of the foreign policy food chain (the incoming
Mark Esper could
fill a similar role). "He's likely to default to whatever Pompeo or Bolton wants," retired U.S. Army colonel and defense analyst
Douglas Macgregor said of Shanahan. "Pompeo and Bolton have agendas. They're not Trump's, but in the absence of strong leadership,
Shanahan is unlikely to put up much resistance." In mid-June, Pompeo blamed
alleged attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf
of Oman on Iran.
TAC
noted that Pompeo "did not cite specific evidence as to why the U.S. believes Iran, or its proxies, are responsible for the attacks."
One oil tanker owner said the
U.S. account
was wrong . Some
wondered whether
this could be another Gulf of Tonkin incident. Despite
claiming to not want
a military confrontation since joining the Trump administration, it's no secret that
Pompeo and
Bolton
have
wanted
war with Iran
for
some time .
Luckily -- as the world was reminded Thursday night -- one person who says he doesn't want war happens to be their boss. "I'm not
somebody that wants to go in to war, because war hurts economies, war kills people most importantly -- by far most importantly,"
Trump told
Fox News in mid-May when asked about Iran. The
likely death toll was reportedly
also a major factor in why the president called off airstrikes Thursday night.
Trump appears to understand the hawkish nature of the Washington foreign policy establishment that surrounds him. "Don't kid yourself,
you do have a military industrial complex. They do like war," Trump told Fox News. "I say, 'I want to bring our troops back home,'
the place went crazy . You have people here in Washington they never want to leave, they always want to fight." "No, I don't want
to fight," Trump added.
Trump's impulses, if not always his policy actions, are generally anti-war. Unfortunately, most in his immediate orbit do not
share those inclinations, with unrepentant Iraq war cheerleader Bolton topping the list. But as Bolton's influence reportedly
grows , who is
the only person the president talks to who shares his more restrained "America First" foreign policy vision?
"While Trump tolerates his hawkish advisers, the [Trump] aide added, he shares a real bond with Paul," Politico reported in August. "He
actually at gut level has the same instincts as Rand Paul," the White House aide reportedly said. (I
covered Politico
's revelations at the time for TAC. )
Politico noted, "Trump has stopped short of calling for regime change [in Iran] even though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Bolton support it, aligning with Paul instead, according to a GOP foreign policy expert in
frequent contact with the White House." "'Rand Paul has persuaded the president that we are not for regime change in Iran,' this
person said, because adopting that position would instigate another war in the Middle East," Politico reported.
That was 10 months ago. Today, in addition to almost bombing Iran on Thursday, the saber rattling and accusations are ratcheting
up along with the troop
deployments
, no doubt making Pompeo and Bolton happy and likely reflecting their handiwork. But despite these moves, Trump's gut still seems
to be closer to Paul's realism than what Republican hawks seek. Politico reported on May 20, "The
president has fashioned himself far more in the mold of Paul than the hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was shocked by Trump's
plans to pull out of Syria and only was able to convince Trump to leave a small force in the country."
Politico further noted: "Trump's hiring of John Bolton as national security adviser may have changed the approach inside
the White House, but Trump's dovish core hasn't changed, senators said. Perhaps that can't prevent conflict with Iran if it strikes
first, but they said they were confident that Trump's aggressive posture is far more about a Trumpian brand of diplomacy than it
is about marching to war." Let's hope. Amid the constant tug-of-war for Trump's favor between his hawkish advisers and his realist
champion s , the president still hasn't launched a war against Iran or anyone else. But Trump will continue to need sound minds and
advice.
The Daily Beast
reports
that in addition to Paul's counsel, the president might also be getting the right encouragement from Tucker Carlson. "A source
familiar with the conversations told The Daily Beast that, in recent weeks, the Fox News host has privately advised Trump against
taking military action against Iran," The Daily Beast notes. "And a senior administration official said that during the president's
recent conversations with the Fox primetime host, Carlson has bashed the more 'hawkish members' of his administration." The president
obviously needs all the backup he can get. Because unless I'm missing something and sane foreign policy thinkers like Andrew Bacevich
or Jim Webb have had some secret correspondence with the president, there is almost no one else talking to Trump who wants to avoid
war.
Rand Paul's continuing role as unofficial adviser to the president might be his most important. Some might ask what
one man could possibly accomplish. Just ask
John Bolton
.
Do remind me, who appointed Bolton, Pompeo, Bloody Gina, Abrams and the rest of the unindicted war criminals?
Who could fire all of the above with a single stroke of the pen, for any reason or no reason at all?
Who continues to sputter and rant about Iran, a country that scrupulously complied with the JCPOA until the United States unilaterally
abrogated it?
Who continues to gleefully assist the Saudi and Emirati tyrants to commit genocide in Yemen?
Who blocked the sale of landmine removal equipment to Syria?
Trump, that's who. And that is only a partial list of his crimes. And now this [expletive deleted] wants a medal for not starting
another stupid war?
Even taking his words at face value, what he did was the equivalent of waving a loaded gun in front of someone's house and
threatening to shoot the occupants, then expecting to be praised because he was persuaded to not actually open fire.
The problem is that the alternatives (95% of the establishment hawks in either party) would wave the gun, threaten to shoot, then
actually pull the trigger.
Yeah, it's not great that Trump had to be persuaded out of military action, but praise the Lord that America has a president
who *can* be persuaded out of militarism (and routinely has).
There's a lot of perfect being the enemy of good going around on this issue.
The troika of evil (Bolton, Pompeo, Bloody Gina) are set on ever more hemming in Trump's options. Trump simply has to get rid
of these sociopaths or he will be forced into a war which will probably cost him both his reelection and legacy.
I cannot comprehend how people can be saying that Trump's instincts are against going to war. Yes, it's nice that Rand Paul gets
to talk to the President, and Tucker Carlson, too. But the people that trump hired as his policy advisors are Bolton and
Pompeo. Not only are they well known warmongers who have been on record for a long time as advocating regime change in Tehran,
Bolton is probably the most extreme of them all. He practically makes Lindsay Graham look like a pacifist. How can you say that
somebody who hired Bolton and Pompeo has anti-war instincts? It makes no sense. Even Trump's most ardent critics don't think Trump
is that stupid . You have to assume that he basically endorses their approach, even if at a tactical level he might occasionally
disagree.
A part of the answer is that these were the only candidates available who were twisted enough to support Trump withdrawing from
the Iran nuclear accord. Even within Israel, while Netanyahu was lying to Trump, Congress and Americans about Iran cheating on
the deal, Israeli intelligence agencies and the IDF supported the nuclear accord and had enough assets in Iran to confirm that
Iran was not cheating. According to the then head of the IDF, Gadi Eisenkot, the nuclear agreement simplified the defence of Israel
and prevented Iran from getting nukes for another 10-15 years. Trump, unfortunately, had campaigned on withdrawing from the deal,
and, in order to satisfy pressure from Netanyahu (and to the detriment of Israel's security), withdrew from it. My take is that
Trump fundamentally disagrees with Bolton and Pompeo. He demonstrated this by calling off the attack on Iran and he demonstrated
this by discounting the "threat" to the US by N Korea testing short-range missiles. My worry is that Bolton has positioned the
US armada in place to deliberately create a hot zone just waiting for a spark, and he has assets in place to create false-flag
attacks, some of which we have already seen (flying US drones over Iranian territory, placing bombs on oil tankers, or worse).
Maybe he had them there to create a deterrent effect and aid his strong arm negotiation tactics. Could also be it was just on
the basis of recommendations by others in the establishment.
His problem has always been a lack of focus, vision and discipline. He may be generally against stupid wars, but like Obama
he doesn't have the experience in dealing with the establishment or the strategic knowledge to push back against what can seem
like very strong, common sense arguments in favor of intervention.
"... Despite the blathering about "international waters" and "freedom of navigation" the facts are that the Straits of Hormuz are only 21 miles wide. So all the water in them is either in Iranian territory to the north or Omani to the south. They would be entirely within their rights, as elucidated in the International Law of the Sea, to close the straits after some sort of military strike against them (for what that is worth, which is something at least as far as public opinion outside of the U.S. is concerned). The Iranians have stated that if and when they close the straits they will announce it publicly, no subterfuge or secret operations will be involved. ..."
"... Anything over $150 a barrel would trigger an economic, industrial, and financial crisis of immense proportions around the world ..."
"... The amount of derivatives that are swirling about the planet and that are traded and created constantly is estimated to be from $1.2 - $2.5 Quadrillion. That's right from $1,200 - $2,500 Trillion or $1,200,000 - $2,500,000 Billion {remember Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen, who once said "a billion here and a billion there and first thing you know, You're talking BIG MONEY!!} ..."
"... Just like during the 2007 - 2008 crisis the various elements of shadow banking, and speculation would collapse. Remember that total world production of and trade in actual products is only about about $70 - $80 Trillion, or perhaps less than 1/31st the size of the Global Derivatives markets. ..."
The official story, as usual, is a bunch of hooey. Trump wouldn't bat an eye over the death
of 150 Iranians. In addition to the worries about losing an aircraft carrier: the military
high command probably let him know that the much vaunted, and outlandishly expensive, force
of F-35s, will quickly lose its effectiveness if exposed to probing by the high tech radars
the Russians have developed, and that are used in conjunction with at least the S-400
antiaircraft and antimissile defense system.
So the question is, if the stealth advantage of the F-35 is only good for a limited time,
is this particular geostrategic confrontation worth using up that particular asset??
Then there is the whole question of whether the Iranians would close the Straits of Hormuz
in response to a major air raid on their nuclear facilities; this leads to some much more
important issues.
Despite the blathering about "international waters" and "freedom of navigation" the
facts are that the Straits of Hormuz are only 21 miles wide. So all the water in them is
either in Iranian territory to the north or Omani to the south. They would be entirely within
their rights, as elucidated in the International Law of the Sea, to close the straits after
some sort of military strike against them (for what that is worth, which is something at
least as far as public opinion outside of the U.S. is concerned). The Iranians have stated
that if and when they close the straits they will announce it publicly, no subterfuge or
secret operations will be involved.
Since nearly 30% of the World's oil moves through those straits cutting them off will
cause an immediate spike in oil prices. Prices of $100 - $300 a barrel would be reached
within a few days. If the Straits of Hormuz were closed for a longer period we could easily
see prices rise to $1,000 a barrel according to Goldman Sachs projections (see Escobar
article cited below).
Anything over $150 a barrel would trigger an economic, industrial, and financial
crisis of immense proportions around the world . The financial and speculative house of
cards, that the ruling classes of the U.S.-led Finance Capital Bloc depends on for their
dominance of world capital and markets, would likely come tumbling down.
The amount of derivatives that are swirling about the planet and that are traded and
created constantly is estimated to be from $1.2 - $2.5 Quadrillion. That's right from $1,200
- $2,500 Trillion or $1,200,000 - $2,500,000 Billion {remember Illinois Senator Everett
Dirksen, who once said "a billion here and a billion there and first thing you know, You're
talking BIG MONEY!!} (See "World Derivatives Market Estimated As Big As $1.2 Quadrillion
Notional, as Banks Fight Efforts to Rein It In", March 26, 2013, Yves Smith, "Naked
Capitalism", at <
https://www.nakedcapitalism... >, and "Iran Goes for 'Maximum Counter-pressure' ",
June 21, 2019, Pepe Escobar, "Strategic Culture Foundation", at <
https://www.strategic-cultu... >, and "Global Derivatives: $1.5 Quadrillion Time
Bomb", Aug 24, 2015, Stephen Lendman, Global Research, at <
https://www.globalresearch.... >).
Just like during the 2007 - 2008 crisis the various elements of shadow banking, and
speculation would collapse. Remember that total world production of and trade in actual
products is only about about $70 - $80 Trillion, or perhaps less than 1/31st the size of the
Global Derivatives markets.
All the world's elite capitalists, be they Western or Asian or from elsewhere, maintain
homes in numerous places. One reason for this is so they have somewhere to go, if they need
to flee from environmental and/or socioeconomic disaster and the resultant chaos in their
primary place of residence. As we move ever deeper into this extremely severe and ongoing
Crisis of Capitalism, these issues will continue to become more acute.
So we can rest assured that; in addition to the crazed war-mongers Bolton and Pompeo (and
their supporters and backers) whispering in Trump's ear to "go ahead and attack the
Iranians"; and in addition to the somewhat more sober counsel of General Dunford and other
members of the top military command; that titans of finance capital were undoubtedly on the
phone warning "Bone-Spur Don" that his digs in Manhattan and Florida might not be entirely
safe if the worst were to happen in response to a military strike. The absurd story of Don
worrying about 150 Iranians is so ludicrous that it did not even pass the smell test with the
corporate controlled media for very long.
"... Any US attack on Iran in these circumstances could be a violation of the United Nations Charter, which only allows the use of military force in self-defense after an armed attack or with Security Council approval. ..."
"... UN Security Council resolution 487 of 1981 called on Israel "urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards". Israel has been allowed to ignore it for nearly 40 years. In 2009, the IAEA called on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, open its nuclear facilities to inspection and place them under comprehensive IAEA safeguards. Israel still refuses to join or allow inspections. ..."
"... When the CIA-engineered coup toppled Dr. Mossadeq, reinstated the Shah and his secret police, and let the American oil companies in, it was the final straw for the Iranians. The British-American conspiracy backfired spectacularly 25 years later with the Islamic Revolution of 1978-9, the humiliating 444-day hostage crisis in the American embassy and a tragically botched rescue mission. What should have been a sharp lesson for Western meddlers became a festering sore. ..."
Any US attack on Iran in these circumstances could be a violation of the United Nations
Charter, which only allows the use of military force in self-defense after an armed attack or
with Security Council approval.
Let's remind ourselves of earlier US aggression and dishonesty during the Iran-Iraq war,
as recorded in Wikipedia:
In the course of escorts by the US Navy, the cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air
Flight 655 on 3 July 1988, killing all 290 passengers and crew on board. The American
government claimed that Vincennes was in international waters at the time (which was later
proven to be untrue), that the Airbus A300 had been mistaken for an Iranian F-14 Tomcat,
and that Vincennes feared that she was under attack. The Iranians maintain that Vincennes
was in their own waters, and that the passenger jet was turning away and increasing
altitude after take-off. US Admiral William J. Crowe later admitted on Nightline that
Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters when it launched the missiles. At the time of
the attack, Admiral Crowe claimed that the Iranian plane did not identify itself and sent
no response to warning signals he had sent. In 1996, the United States expressed their
regret for the event and the civilian deaths it caused.
Trump now wants to impose further crippling sanctions on Iran and her people while the
UK's Foreign Office minister Andrew Murrison has just been to Tehran calling for "urgent
de-escalation" and cheekily criticising Iran's "regional conduct" and its threat to stop
complying with the nuclear deal, which the US recklessly abandoned but the UK remains
committed to.
Good news about Murrison, though. A medical man, he voted against the Iraq war but as a
Navy reservist was called up to do a 6 month tour of duty there. Perhaps Murrison should go
see Trump and ask:
Why is he not more concerned about Israel's nuclear arsenal and the mental state of the
Israeli regime, which are the real threat to the region and beyond?
Why isn't he slapping sanctions on Israel for its refusal to sign up to the NPT or
engage constructively on the issue of its nuclear and other WMD programmes, not to mention
its repeated defiance of international and humanitarian laws in the Holy Land?
Trump meanwhile has signed an executive order targeting Iran's leadership with
hard-hitting new sanctions supposedly needed to deny their development of nuclear weapons.
"Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon," Trump has decreed. He added: "We will continue to
increased pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its
asperations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium,
development of ballistic missiles, engagement and support for terrorism, fuelling of foreign
conflicts and belligerent acts...." Achingly funny. Who else could all that apply to, I
wonder? Exactly. The Bully-Boy-in-chief himself and his best buddies in Tel Aviv.
Sowing the seeds of hatred
We have conveniently short memories when it comes to our abominable conduct towards the
Iranians in 1951-53 when a previous Conservative government, in cahoots with the USA, snuffed
out Iran's fledgling democracy and reinstated a cruel dictator, the Shah. This eventually
brought about the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and created the deep distrust between Iran and
the West. Is it not shameful that the present Conservative government is spoiling for another
fight? Shouldn't the Foreign Office now focus on exerting influence through trade and
co-operation?
The Iranian regime, like many others, may not be entirely to our liking but nor was Dr
Mossadeq's democracy 65 years ago. Besides, what threat is Iran to Britain? And why are we
allowing ourselves to be driven by America's mindless hatred?
When new recruits join British Petroleum (BP) they are fed romantic tales about how the
company came into being. William Knox D'Arcy, a Devon man, studied law and made a fortune
from the Mount Morgan gold-mining operations in 1880s Australia. Returning to England he
agreed to fund a search for oil and minerals in Persia and began negotiations with the
Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar in 1901. A sixty year concession gave D'Arcy the oil rights to the
entire country except for five provinces in the north. The Persian government would receive
16% of the oil company's annual profits.
Mozzafar ad-Din was naive in business matters and unprepared for kingship when the time
came. He borrowed heavily from the Russians and in order to pay off the debt he signed away
control of many Persian industries and markets to foreigners. The deal D'Arcy cut was too
sharp by far and would eventually lead to trouble.
He sent an exploration team headed by geologist George B Reynolds. In 1903 a company was
formed and D'Arcy had to spend much of his fortune to cover the costs. Further financial
support came from Glasgow-based Burmah Oil in return for a large share of the stock.
Drilling in southern Persia at Shardin continued until 1907 when the search was switched
to Masjid-i-Souleiman. By 1908 D'Arcy was almost bankrupt. Reynolds received a last-chance
instruction: "Drill to 1,600 feet and give up". On 26 May at 1,180 feet he struck oil.
It was indeed a triumph of guts and determination. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was soon
up and running and in 1911 completed a pipeline from the oilfield to its new refinery at
Abadan. But the company was in trouble again by 1914. The golden age of motoring hadn't yet
arrived and the industrial oil markets were sewn up by American and European interests. The
sulphurous stench of the Persian oil, even after refining, ruled it out for domestic use, so
D'Arcy had a marketing problem.
Luckily Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was an enthusiast for oil and
wanted to convert the British fleet from coal especially now that a reliable oil source was
secured. He famously told Parliament: "Look out upon the wide expanse of the oil regions of
the world!" Only the British-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company, he said, could protect British
interests. His resolution passed and the British Government took a major shareholding in the
company just in time, for World War One began a few weeks later.
During the war the British government seized the assets of a German company calling itself
British Petroleum for the purpose of marketing its products in Britain. Anglo-Persian
acquired the assets from the Public Trustee complete with a ready-made distribution network
and an abundance of depots, railway tank wagons, road vehicles, barges and so forth. This
enabled Anglo-Persian to rapidly expand sales in petroleum-hungry Britain and Europe after
the war.
In the inter-war years Anglo-Persian profited handsomely from paying the Iranians a
miserly 16%, and an increasingly angry Persia tried to renegotiate terms. Getting nowhere,
they cancelled the D'Arcy agreement and the matter ended up at the Court of International
Justice at The Hague. A new agreement in 1933 provided Anglo-Persian with a fresh 60-year
concession but on a smaller area. The terms were an improvement for the Persians but still
didn't amount to a square deal.
In 1935 Iran formally replaced Persia as the country's official name internationally and
Anglo-Persian changed to Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. By 1950 Abadan was the biggest oil
refinery in the world and Britain, with its 51% holding, had affectively colonised part of
southern Iran.
Iran's small share of the profits became a big issue and so did the treatment of its oil
workers. 6,000 withdrew their labour in 1946 and the strike was violently put down with 200
dead or injured. In 1951 Anglo-Iranian declared £40 million profit after tax but handed
Iran only £7 million. Meanwhile Arabian American Oil was sharing profits with the
Saudis on a 50/50 basis. Calls for nationalisation were mounting.
As a result of the Persian Constitutional Revolution the first Majlis (parliament) was
established in 1906 and the country became a constitutional monarchy with high hopes. By
mid-century Iran not unreasonably wanted economic and political independence and an end to
poverty. In March 1951 its Majlis and Senate voted to nationalise Anglo-Iranian, which had
controlled Iran's oil industry since 1913 under terms disadvantageous to Iran. Respected
social reformer Dr Mohammad Mossadeq was named prime minister the following month by a 79 to
12 majority. On 1 May Mossadeq carried out his government's wishes, cancelling
Anglo-Iranian's oil concession due to expire in 1993 and expropriating its assets.
His explanation, given in a speech in June 1951 (M. Fateh, Panjah Sal-e Naft-e Iran
, p. 525), ran as follows...
"Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries have yielded no results this far.
With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and
backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of
the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means
of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has
ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence.
"The Iranian state prefers to take over the production of petroleum itself. The company
should do nothing else but return its property to the rightful owners. The nationalization
law provides that 25% of the net profits on oil be set aside to meet all the legitimate
claims of the company for compensation It has been asserted abroad that Iran intends to expel
the foreign oil experts from the country and then shut down oil installations. Not only is
this allegation absurd; it is utter invention "
For this he would eventually be removed in a coup by MI5 and the CIA, imprisoned for 3
years then put under house arrest until his death.
Britain, with regime change in mind, orchestrated a world-wide boycott of Iranian oil,
froze Iran's sterling assets and threatened legal action against anyone purchasing oil
produced in the formerly British-controlled refineries. It even considered invading. The
Iranian economy was soon in ruins.... sounds familiar, doesn't it? Attempts by the Shah to
replace Mossadeq failed and he returned with more power, but his coalition was slowly
crumbling under the hardships imposed by the British blockade.
At first America was reluctant to join Britain's destructive game but Churchill let it be
known that Mossadeq was turning communist and pushing Iran into Russia's arms at a time when
Cold War anxiety was high. It was enough to bring America's new president, Eisenhower, on
board and plotting with Britain to bring Mossadeq down.
Chief of the CIA's Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt Jr, arrived to play the
leading role in an ugly game of provocation, mayhem and deception. An elaborate campaign of
disinformation began, and the Shah signed two decrees, one dismissing Mossadeq and the other
nominating the CIA's choice, General Fazlollah Zahedi, as prime minister. These decrees were
written as dictated by Donald Wilbur the CIA architect of the plan
The Shah fled to Rome. When it was judged safe to do so he returned on 22 August 1953.
Mossadeq was arrested, tried, and convicted of treason by the Shah's military court.
He remarked
"My greatest sin is that I nationalised Iran's oil industry and discarded the system of
political and economic exploitation by the world's greatest empire With God's blessing and
the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage
and colonialism.
"I am well aware that my fate must serve as an example in the future throughout the Middle
East in breaking the chains of slavery and servitude to colonial interests ."
His supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed. Zahedi's new government
soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a consortium to restore the flow
of Iranian oil, awarding the US and Great Britain the lion's share - 40% going to
Anglo-Iranian. The consortium agreed to split profits on a 50-50 basis with Iran but, tricky
as ever, refused to open its books to Iranian auditors or allow Iranians to sit on the
board.
A grateful US massively funded the Shah's government, including his army and secret police
force, SAVAK. Anglo-Iranian changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954. Mossadeq died on 5
March 1967.
Apologise? Hell no Let's demonise Iran!
But the West's fun came to an abrupt halt with the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and a great
British enterprise that started heroically and turned nasty ended in tears.
The US is still hated today for reimposing the Shah and his thugs and demolishing the
Iranians' democratic system of government, which the Revolution unfortunately didn't restore.
The US is widely known by Iranians as Big Satan and its regional handmaiden Israel
rejoices in the name Little Satan . Britain, as the instigator and junior partner in
the sordid affair, is similarly despised.
Moreover, Iran harbours great resentment at the way the West, especially the US, helped
Iraq develop its armed forces and chemical weapons arsenal, and how the international
community failed to punish Iraq for its use of those weapons against Iran in the Iran-Iraq
war. The US, and eventually Britain, leaned strongly towards Saddam in that conflict and the
alliance enabled Saddam to more easily acquire or develop forbidden chemical and biological
weapons. At least 100,000 Iranians fell victim to them.
"The United States used methods both legal and illegal to help build Saddam's army into
the most powerful army in the Mideast outside of Israel. The US supplied chemical and
biological agents and technology to Iraq when it knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against
the Iranians. The US supplied the materials and technology for these weapons of mass
destruction to Iraq at a time when it was know that Saddam was using this technology to kill
his Kurdish citizens. The United States supplied intelligence and battle planning information
to Iraq when those battle plans included the use of cyanide, mustard gas and nerve agents.
The United States blocked UN censure of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The United States did
not act alone in this effort. The Soviet Union was the largest weapons supplier, but England,
France and Germany were also involved in the shipment of arms and technology."
While Iranian casualties were at their highest as a result of US chemical and biological
war crimes Trump was busy acquiring the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Trump
Castle , his Taj-Mahal casino, the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan and was
refitting his super-yacht Trump Princess . What does he know, understand or care about
Iran?
On the British side Foreign Secretary Jaremy Hunt was messing about at Oxford University;
and the front-runner to fill our Prime Minister vacancy, Boris Johnson, former Foreign
Secretary, was similarly at Oxford carousing with fellow Old Etonians at the Bullingdon Club.
What do they know or care?
Which brings us to today Why are we hearing nonstop sabre-rattling against Iran when we
should be extending the hand of reconciliation and friendship? And why are these clueless
leaders demonising Iran instead of righting the wrongs? Because the political establishment
is still smarting. And they are the new-generation imperialists, the political spawn of those
Dr Mossadeq and many others struggled against. They haven't learned from the past, and they
won't lift their eyes to a better future.
It's so depressing.
Economic sanctions: are they moral, or even legal?
The US and UK have led the charge on oil sanctions and other measures to make life hell
for Iranians. But are they on safe legal ground?
The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) in a statement on 26 November
2011, said they were deeply concerned about the threats against Iran by Israel, the United
States, and the United Kingdom. Referring to a report by the International Atomic Energy
Agency, IADL stated that those threats were unacceptable and dangerous not only for all the
region but for the whole of humanity, and that Article 2.4 of the UN Charter forbids not only
use of force but also the threat of force in international relations. The right of defence
does not include pre-emptive strikes.
The IADL also pointed out that while Israel was quick to denounce the possible possession
of nuclear weapons by others, it had illegally possessed nuclear weapons for many years. The
danger to world peace was so great as to require the global eradication of all nuclear
weapons, and to immediately declare the Middle East a nuclear free zone and a zone free of
all weapons of mass destruction, as required by UN Security Council resolution 687.
Furthermore, Article 33 states that "the parties to any dispute, the continuance of which
is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of
all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial
settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means..." Economic
'terror' tactics such as the vicious sanctions deployed by the US, UK and their allies
– and the similar measures used by Britain and America in the 1950s to bring down the
government of Dr Mossadeq and reinstate the Shah – are simply not part of the approved
toolkit.
Remember the context
UN Security Council resolution 487 of 1981 called on Israel "urgently to place its nuclear
facilities under IAEA safeguards". Israel has been allowed to ignore it for nearly 40 years.
In 2009, the IAEA called on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, open its nuclear
facilities to inspection and place them under comprehensive IAEA safeguards. Israel still
refuses to join or allow inspections.
The Zionist regime is reckoned by some to have up to 400 nuclear warheads at its disposal.
It is the only state in the region that is not a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (Iran
is). It has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. As regards
biological and chemical weapons, Israel has not signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention. It has signed but not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention.
In early 2012 the US intelligence community was saying that Iran hadn't got an active
nuclear weapons programme, and Israeli intelligence agreed. The Director of the National
Intelligence Agency, James Clapper, reported: "We assess Iran is keeping open the option to
develop nuclear weapons We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build
nuclear weapons..."
So the continual focus on Iran has been a deliberate distraction. We repaid Iranian
co-operation in D'Arcy's oil venture with corporate greed and diplomatic double-cross.
America and Britain are still smarting from the time when Iran democratically elected Dr.
Mossadeq, who sensibly nationalized her vast oil resources. Up till then the grasping British
were raking in far more profit from Iranian oil than the Iranians themselves.
Back in the 1920s the US State Department had described the oil deposits in the Middle
East as "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in
world history". Ever since, its designs on Iraq and Iran have been plain to see and it is
still ready to pounce on every opportunity.
When the CIA-engineered coup toppled Dr. Mossadeq, reinstated the Shah and his secret
police, and let the American oil companies in, it was the final straw for the Iranians. The
British-American conspiracy backfired spectacularly 25 years later with the Islamic
Revolution of 1978-9, the humiliating 444-day hostage crisis in the American embassy and a
tragically botched rescue mission. What should have been a sharp lesson for Western meddlers
became a festering sore.
The quest for the energy prize is not over. But it is no longer just about oil. Zionist
stooges in controlling positions in the West's corridors of power are pledged to ensure
Israel remains the only nuclear power in the Middle East and continues to dominate the region
militarily. And they are willing to spill Christian blood and spend Christian treasure in
that cause.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton, recipient of the Defender of Israel Award last
year and the Guardian of Zion Award the year before, is one such super-stooge. His stupefying
remark: "No-one has granted Iran a hunting licence in the Middle East" typifies the arrogance
of his ilk.
Stuart
Littlewood worked on jet fighters in the RAF. Various sales and marketing management
positions in manufacturing, oil and electronics. Senior associate with several industrial
marketing consultancies. Graduate Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (MInstM). BA
Hons Psychology, University of Exeter.
"... UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the nation. ..."
"... As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation, which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015. ..."
"... CIA malware and hacking tools are built by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The New York Times claims you were not informed.) ..."
"... The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he "really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently caught your eye. ..."
"... For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: ..."
UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt
regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the
nation.
DATE: June 21, 2019
MEMORANDUM FOR : The President.
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Is Pompeo's Iran Agenda the Same As Yours?
A fter the close call yesterday when you called off the planned military strike on Iran, we
remain concerned that you are about to be mousetrapped into war with Iran. You have said you do
not want such a war (no sane person would), and our comments below are based on that premise.
There are troubling signs that Secretary Pompeo is not likely to jettison his more warlike
approach, More importantly, we know from personal experience with Pompeo's dismissive attitude
to instructions from you that his agenda can deviate from yours on issues of major
consequence.
Pompeo's behavior betrays a strong desire to resort to military action -- perhaps even
without your approval -- to Iranian provocations (real or imagined), with no discernible
strategic goal other than to advance the interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He is a
neophyte compared to his anti-Iran partner John Bolton, whose dilettante approach to
interpreting intelligence, strong advocacy of the misbegotten war on Iraq (and continued pride
in his role in promoting it), and fierce pursuit of his own aggressive agenda are a matter of a
decades-long record. You may not be fully aware of our experience with Pompeo, who has now
taken the lead on Iran.
That experience leaves us with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of
consequence to you and the country, including the contentious issue of alleged Russian hacking
into the DNC. The sketchy "evidence" behind that story has now crumbled, thanks to some unusual
candor from the Department of Justice. We refer to the
extraordinary revelation in a recent Department of Justice court filing that former FBI
Director James Comey never required a final forensic report from the DNC-hired cybersecurity
company, CrowdStrike.
Comey, of course, has admitted to the fact that, amid accusations from the late Sen. John
McCain and others that the Russians had committed "an act of war," the FBI did not follow best
practices and insist on direct access to the DNC computers, preferring to rely on CrowdStrike
reporting. What was not known until the DOJ revelation is that CrowdStrike never gave Comey a
final report on its forensic findings regarding alleged "Russian hacking." Mainstream media
have suppressed this story so far; we
reported it several days ago.
The point here is that Pompeo could have exposed the lies about Russian hacking of the DNC,
had he done what you asked him to do almost two years ago when he was director of the CIA.
In our Memorandum
to you of July 24, 2017 entitled "Was the 'Russian Hack' an Inside Job?," we suggested:
"You may wish to ask CIA Director Mike Pompeo what he knows about this.["This" being the
evidence-deprived allegation that "a shadowy entity with the moniker 'Guccifer 2.0' hacked
the DNC on behalf of Russian intelligence and gave DNC emails to WikiLeaks ."] Our
own lengthy intelligence community experience suggests that it is possible that neither
former CIA Director John Brennan, nor the cyber-warriors who worked for him, have been
completely candid with their new director regarding how this all went down."
Three months later, Director Pompeo invited William Binney, one of VIPS' two former NSA
technical directors (and a co-author of our July 24, 2017 Memorandum), to CIA headquarters to
discuss our findings. Pompeo began an hour-long meeting with Binney on October 24, 2017 by
explaining the genesis of the unusual invitation: "You are here because the President told me
that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk to you."
But Did Pompeo 'Really Want to Know'?
Apparently not. Binney, a widely respected, plain-spoken scientist with more than three
decades of experience at NSA , began by telling Pompeo that his (CIA) people were lying to him
about Russian hacking and that he (Binney) could prove it. As we explained in our most recent
Memorandum to you, Pompeo reacted with disbelief and -- now get this -- tried to put the
burden on Binney to pursue the matter with the FBI and NSA.
As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark
observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around
intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of
intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation,
which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015.
CIA malware and hacking tools are built
by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe
guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in
the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The
New York Times claims you were not informed.)
If Pompeo failed to report back to you on the conversation you instructed him to have with
Binney, you might ask him about it now (even though the flimsy evidence of Russia hacking the
DNC has now evaporated, with Binney vindicated). There were two note-takers present at the
October 24, 2017 meeting at CIA headquarters. There is also a good chance the session was also
recorded. You might ask Pompeo about that.
Whose Agenda?
The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the
impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he
"really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the
conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently
caught your eye.
Had he pursued the matter seriously with Binney, we might not have had to wait until the
Justice Department itself put nails in the coffin of Russiagate, CrowdStrike, and Comey. In
sum, Pompeo could have prevented two additional years of "everyone knows that the Russians
hacked into the DNC." Why did he not?
Pompeo is said to be a bright fellow -- Bolton, too–with impeccable academic
credentials. The history of the past six decades , though, shows that an Ivy League pedigree
can spell disaster in affairs of state. Think, for example, of President Lyndon Johnson's
national security adviser, former Harvard Dean McGeorge Bundy, for example, who sold the Tonkin
Gulf Resolution to Congress to authorize the Vietnam war based on what he knew was a lie.
Millions dead.
Bundy was to LBJ as John Bolton is to you, and it is a bit tiresome watching Bolton brandish
his Yale senior ring at every podium. Think, too, of Princeton's own Donald Rumsfeld concocting
and pushing the fraud about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to "justify" war on Iraq,
assuring us all the while that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Millions
dead.
Rumsfeld's dictum is anathema to William Binney, who has shown uncommon patience answering a
thousand evidence-free "What if's" over the past three years. Binney's shtick? The principles
of physics, applied mathematics, and the scientific method. He is widely recognized for his
uncanny ability to use these to excellent advantage in separating the chaff from wheat. No Ivy
pedigree wanted or needed.
Binney describes himself as a "country boy" from western Pennsylvania. He studied at Penn
State and became a world renowned mathematician/cryptologist as well as a technical director at
NSA. Binney's accomplishments are featured in a documentary on YouTube, "A Good American."
You may wish to talk to him person-to-person.
Cooked Intelligence
Some of us served as long ago as the Vietnam War. We are painfully aware of how Gen. William
Westmoreland and other top military officers lied about the "progress" the Army was making, and
succeeded in forcing their superiors in Washington to suppress our conclusions as all-source
analysts that the war was a fool's errand and one we would inevitably lose. Millions dead.
Four decades later, on February 5, 2003, six weeks before the attack on Iraq, we warned
President Bush that there was no reliable intelligence to justify war on Iraq.
Five years later, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, releasing the
bipartisan conclusions of the committee's investigation, said
this :
" In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact
when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the
American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually
existed."
Intelligence on the Middle East has still been spotty -- and sometimes "fixed" for political
purposes. Four years ago, a U.S. congressional report said Central Command painted
too rosy a picture of the fight against Islamic State in 2014 and 2015 compared with the
reality on the ground and grimmer assessments by other analysts.
Intelligence analysts at CENTCOM claimed their commanders imposed a "false narrative" on
analysts, intentionally rewrote and suppressed intelligence products, and engaged in "delay
tactics" to undermine intelligence provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency. In July 2015,
fifty CENTCOM analysts signed a complaint to the Pentagon's Inspector General that their
intelligence reports were being manipulated by their superiors. The CENTCOM analysts were
joined by intelligence analysts working for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
We offer this as a caution. As difficult as this is for us to say, the intelligence you get
from CENTCOM should not be accepted reflexively as gospel truth, especially in periods of high
tension. The experience of the Tonkin Gulf alone should give us caution. Unclear and
misinterpreted intelligence can be as much a problem as politicization in key conflict
areas.
Frequent problems with intelligence and Cheney-style hyperbole help explain why CENTCOM
commander Admiral William Fallon in early 2007 blurted out that "an attack on Iran " will not
happen on my watch," as Bush kept sending additional carrier groups into the Persian Gulf.
Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and
Persian Gulf Affairs, warned at the time that some Bush advisers secretly wanted an excuse to
attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something
[America] would be forced to retaliate for," she told Newsweek. Deja vu. A National
Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 concluded unanimously that Iran had stopped
working on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and had not resumed such work.
We believe your final decision yesterday was the right one -- given the so-called "fog of
war" and against the background of a long list of intelligence mistakes, not to mention
"cooking" shenanigans. We seldom quote media commentators, but we think Tucker Carlson had it
right yesterday evening: "The very people -- in some cases, literally the same people who lured
us into the Iraq quagmire 16 years ago -- are demanding a new war -- this one with Iran.
Carlson described you as "skeptical." We believe ample skepticism is warranted.
We are at your disposal, should you wish to discuss any of this with us.
For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:
William Binney , former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military
Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp , Foreign Service Officer & former Division Director in the
State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)
Bogdan Dzakovic , former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA
Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence
Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
James George Jatras , former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate
leadership (Associate VIPS)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic
Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of
Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Clement J. Laniewski, LTC, U.S. Army (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA presidential
briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East &
CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Sarah Wilton , Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve (ret.) and Defense Intelligence Agency
(ret.)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat who resigned in
2003 in opposition to the Iraq War
Pretty harsh evaluationof Pompeo by usually very polite Chinese newspaper. And what is true that in no
way Pompeo is a diplomat. He is a lobbyist for MIC, no more no less. Kind of Madeline Albright of different sex.
As Chinese journalist observed "Diplomacy is governed by international conventions, which require all countries to
observe basic norms. Pompeo behaves like a gangster. He is abandoning the traditional US major-power diplomacy and defying the
gentle style of diplomats. "
Notable quotes:
"... Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk. ..."
"... Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace. ..."
"... Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. ..."
"... Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value. ..."
Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting
such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to be a politically troublesome figure in the
global arena. Washington stands at a critical juncture as it redesigns the national strategy
blueprint within a Cold War framework. The highest-ranking US diplomat has single-handedly
activated an outdated mindset, smashing it to the point of climax.
Known as an extreme
hardliner at the White House, Pompeo has redefined the traditional understanding of the chief
diplomat's role among the world's major powers with his signature reckless behaviour.
Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to
antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique
differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace.
During his visits to other nations, Pompeo has bad-mouthed and tried to suppress China,
Russia, and Iran. His offensive remarks on China have destroyed the past
China-US diplomatic language that was enjoyed for decades, preferring to use negligent
words from his personal arsenal.
Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully
who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's
policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
His outspoken opinions on the recent events in Hong Kong was more of a Rubicon River
crossing than someone was just merely speaking their mind. Rather than adhere to a big power
game like his predecessors, Pompeo has transformed himself into anti-China flag on two
legs.
The US relationship
between China , Russia, and Iran will determine the future course of international
relations. The condition of each relationship serves as a wind vane indicating stability or
turbulence worldwide.
Pompeo is not only disrupting China, Russia, and Iran but also damaging the interests of
other countries. His words and actions have jinxed the very notion of 21st-century peace.
It is understandable how the US could feel threatened, due to the pattern shift among world
powers. However, Pompeo's goal has nothing to do with enhancing trust or easing concerns
expressed by other countries. Instead, he wants to turn US insecurity into a form of visible
hatred and increase hostility worldwide. He has consistently influenced stable international
conditions to the point of deterioration.
"Make America Great Again" is not a one-man show. The notion, which is nothing more than an
illiterate slogan, will never materialize and connect with the harmony enjoyed elsewhere
throughout the world.
In the past decades, the US has engaged in too many wars and conflicts, while also issuing
sanctions against foreign countries which were later drained of their national strength.
Pompeo has continued to push the US toward the flames of confrontation when dealing with
major foreign powers. He has not helped Trump achieve earlier campaign promises, and on the
contrary, he is making it difficult for the US president to keep them.
Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US
House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be
his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when
confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive
behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value.
Judging from the US and its Cold War reboot strategy, Pompeo has roamed too far outside of
the perimeter and has officially lost his way. The US government has labelled China as its
"strategic competitor." Meanwhile, Pompeo
has ignited hostility from China.
Pompeo's words are by no means an accurate consensus of the US public who also want to enjoy
a harmonious existence. By making volatile claims against China look reasonable, Pompeo has
turned himself into a cheerleader of hatred, who uses slander and vitriol for pompoms.
Having a secretary of state of this calibre is a tragedy of US politics and the sorrow of
international politics. The world needs to be exposed to the damage Pompeo has brought to
humankind's peaceful existence. His destructive power should not be tolerated because of his
title. He has repeatedly crushed diplomacy's constructive role while ignoring opportunities to
ease international conflicts. He is a stain upon the professional honour of diplomacy. The
global diplomatic community should detest his actions and join together in a crusade against
him.
This article originally appeared on the Global Times website.
Arms Dealers and Lobbyists Get Rich as Yemen Burns See the Top 4 U.S. contractors' profits explode, all while their
weapons have been used against civilian targets for years. •
June
25, 2019
And make no mistake: U.S. defense contractors and their lobbyists and supporters in government are getting rich in the process.
"Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it," John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International,
said
to CNBC in February. But his statement vastly understates the role that defense contractors and lobbyists play in Washington's
halls of power, where their influence on policy directly impacts their bottom lines. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates have waged war against Yemen, killing and injuring thousands of Yemeni civilians. An estimated
90,000 people have been killed, according
to one international tracker.
Nearly 90
coalition airstrikes have hit
homes , schools, markets,
hospitals, and mosques since 2015, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2018, the coalition bombed a wedding, killing 22 people, including
eight children. Another strike hit a
bus , killing at
least 26 children.
American-origin munitions produced by companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon were identified at
the site of over two dozen attacks throughout Yemen. Indeed, the United States is the single largest arms supplier to the Middle
East and has been for decades, according to a report by
the Congressional Research Service. From 2014 to 2018, the United States supplied 68 percent of Saudi Arabia's arms imports, 64 percent
of the UAE's imports, and 65 percent of Qatar's imports. Some of this weaponry was subsequently stolen or sold to
al-Qaeda linked groups in the Arabian Peninsula
, where they could be used against the U.S. military, according to
reports . The Saudi use of
U.S.-made jets, bombs, and missiles
against Yemeni civilian centers constitutes a war crime. It was an American laser-guided
MK-82 bomb that killed the children
on the bus; Raytheon's technology killed the 22 people attending the wedding in 2018 as well as a family traveling in their car;
and another American-made MK-82 bomb
ended the lives of at least 80 men, women, and children in a Yemeni marketplace in March 2016. Yet American defense contractors
continue to spend millions of dollars to lobby Washington to maintain the flow of arms to these countries.
"Companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and other defense contractors see countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE as huge
potential markets," Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War , told
TAC . "They see them as massive opportunities to make a lot of money; that's why they're investing billions and billions of dollars.
This is a huge revenue stream to these companies." Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics have all highlighted business with Saudi
Arabia in their shareholder reports.
"Operations and maintenance have become a very profitable niche market for U.S. corporations,"
said Richard Aboulafia, a vice president at Teal Group. He added that defense contractors can make as much as 150 percent more profit
off of operations and maintenance than from the original arms sale. U.S. weapons supply
57 percent of the military aircraft used by the Royal
Saudi Air Force, and mechanics and technicians hired by American companies repair and maintain their fighter jets and helicopters.
In 2018 alone, the United States made $4.5 billion worth of arms deals to
Saudi Arabia and $1.2
billion to the United Arab
Emirates , a report by William Hartung and Christina Arabia found.
From the report
: "Lockheed Martin was involved in deals worth $25 billion; Boeing, $7.1 billion in deals; Raytheon, $5.5 billion in deals; Northrop
Grumman had one deal worth $2.5 billion; and BAE systems had a $1.3 billion deal." "Because of the nature of U.S. arms control law,
most of these sales have to get government approval, and we've absolutely seen lobbyists weighing in heavily on this," Miles said.
"The last time I saw the numbers, the arms industry had nearly 1,000 registered lobbyists.
They're not on the Hill lobbying Congress about how many schools we should open next year. They're lobbying for defense contractors.
The past 18 years of endless wars have been incredibly lucrative for the arms industry, and they have a vested industry in seeing
these wars continue, and not curtailing the cash cow that has been for them." The defense industry
spent $125 million on lobbying
in 2018. Of that, Boeing spent
$15 million on lobbyists, Lockheed Martin spent
$13.2 million , General Dynamics
$11.9 million , and Raytheon
$4.4 million ,
according to the Lobbying
Disclosure Act website.
Writes Ben Freeman:
According to a new report firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act have reported receiving more than $40 million
from Saudi Arabia in 2017 and 2018. Saudi lobbyists and public relations professionals have contacted Congress, the executive
branch, media outlets and think tanks more than 4,000 times. Much of this work has been focused on ensuring that sales of U.S.
arms to Saudi Arabia continue unabated and blocking congressional actions that would end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition
in Yemen. Lobbyists, lawyers and public relations firms working for the Saudis have also reported doling out more than $4.5 million
in campaign contributions in the past two years, including at least $6,000 to Trump. In many cases, these contributions have gone
to members of Congress they've contacted regarding the Yemen war. In fact, some contributions have gone to members of Congress
on the exact same day they were contacted by Saudi lobbyists, and some were made to key members just before, and even on the day
of, important Yemen votes.
Over a dozen lobbying firms employed by defense contractors have also been working on behalf of the Saudi or Emiratis, efficiently
lobbying for both the arms buyers and sellers in one fell swoop .
One of these lobbying firms, the McKeon Group, led by former Republican congressman and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee
Howard McKeon, represents both Saudi Arabia and the American defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK,
MBDA, and L3 Technologies. Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman are the biggest suppliers of arms to Saudi Arabia. In 2018, the McKeon
Group took $1,697,000 from 10 defense
contractors " to, among
other objectives, continue the flow of arms to Saudi Arabia," reports National Memo. Freeman
details multiple examples where lobbyists working on behalf of the Saudis met with a senator's staff and then made a substantial
contribution to that senator's campaign within days of a key vote to keep the United States in the Yemen war.
American Defense International (ADI) represents the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia's coalition partner in the war against
Yemen, as well as several American
defense contractors, including General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, L3 Technologies, and General Atomics.
Not to be outdone by the McKeon Group, ADI's lobbyists have also aggressively pursued possible swing votes in the U.S. Senate
for the hefty sum of $45,000 a month, paid for by the
UAE . ADI lobbyists discussed
the "situation in Yemen" and the "Paveway sale to the UAE," the same bomb used in the deadly wedding strike, with the office of Senator
Martin Heinrich, a member of the Armed Services Committee, according to FARA
reports .
ADI's lobbyists also met
with Congressman Steve Scalise's legislative director to advise his office to vote against the congressional resolution on Yemen.
For their lobbying, Raytheon paid ADI
$120,000 in 2018. In addition to the
overt influence exercised by lobbyists for the defense industry, many former arms industry executives are embedded in influential
posts throughout the Trump administration: from former Airbus, Huntington Ingalls, and Raytheon lobbyist Charles Faulkner at the
State Department, who pushed Mike Pompeo
to support arms sales in the Yemen war ; to former Boeing executive and erstwhile head of the Department of Defense Patrick Shanahan;
to his interim replacement Mark Esper, secretary of the Army and another former lobbyist for Raytheon.
The war in Yemen has been good for American defense contractors' bottom lines. Since the conflict began, General Dynamics' stock
price has risen from about $135 to $169 per share, Raytheon's from about $108 to more than $180, and Boeing's from about $150 to
$360, according to In
These Times. Their analysis found that those four companies have had at least $30.1 billion in Saudi military contracts approved
by the State Department over the last 10 years. In April, President Donald Trump vetoed a resolution that would have ended American
support for the Saudi-UAE coalition war against Yemen. Such efforts have failed to meet the 60-vote veto-proof threshold needed in
the Senate. There are a few senators who didn't vote for the War Powers resolution "that will probably vote for the Raytheon sales,"
Brittany Benowitz, a lawyer and former adviser to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told TAC. "I think you'll
continue to see horrific bombings and as the famine rages on, people will start to ask, 'Why are we a part of this war?' Unfortunately,
I don't think that will start to happen anytime soon." Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security reporter.
Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC
Yes indeed, we are the #1 arms exporter and very proud about it. Meanwhile, Rubio, Pompeo, et. al. are also proud about how they
are finally clamping down on the nefarious arrangement that Venezuela and Cuba have to prop up their regimes.
Venezuela gives Cuba low cost oil and Cuba sends them about 25,000 doctors for free medical care to help prop up Maduro. Hmm
... sounds like one is exporting medical services in return for energy, pure, unabridged evil. Our second best export is misinformation
and lies.
I know, someone will give the State Dept line that the doctors are underpaid and the oil is below market price. The point is
that both countries export what they have more of in order to get what they need. This is the basics of any trade relationship.
Both countries are better off after the transaction and now both countries are suffering because of our benighted intervention.
I keep wondering when God is going to punish us for our appalling arrogance, pride, and our unwavering faith in our own righteousness.
God is certainly punishing me. I wish I was one of the blissfully ignorant.
The biggest business of America is war. The symptom of how all pervasive this has become is there is a new definition of defeat:
the only war that is lost, is one that ends. The new victory is now war without end.
If the Saudis have not yet routed the Houthis, I am doubt they ever will. Without invading the country and holding ground, I am
unclear of the point of constantly bombing.
The Houthis won their civil conflict, best allow them to constitute a government and deal with it.
The Saudis have invaded Yemen, but they and their mercenaries keep getting ambushed and ganked. The Yemeni tribes have a very
long and successful history of guerrilla warfare.
Admittedly, it's mostly the mercenaries, as the Saudis don't like a centralized military in particular and don't like fighting
opponents who can shoot back in general.
"Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it," John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International,
said to CNBC in February.
Yeah and Wells Fargo were just practicing "innovation" that the financial companies have told us they need to do.
The Republic is a total failure. It cares nothing for the Constitution the representatives are sworn to uphold and abide by. It's
all about the symbiosis of power in gov. and money in business. Those two factions exchange what they other needs to gain more
power and money at the expense of the taxpayers and countries abroad being destroyed. It's pretty simple if you ask 'cui bono'
and then follow the money. This time following the money may take the USA/world to thermo-nuclear war which psychos like Bolton,
Pompeo, Pence, Netanyahu, the MIC and all the other neo-cons want. Currently the war policy against Iran seems to be tied up in
Christian-Zionist eschatology to bring about the second coming of Jesus Christ. Does it get any more loony than this? Metaphysics
driving political and foreign policy is really a recipe for a disaster and may actually bring about loosing the Four Horseman
of the Apocalypse on the world, but that's OK I guess because Wash. sees the 'big picture.'
"... UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the nation. ..."
"... As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation, which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015. ..."
"... CIA malware and hacking tools are built by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The New York Times claims you were not informed.) ..."
"... The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he "really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently caught your eye. ..."
"... For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: ..."
UPDATED: VIPS says its direct experience with Mike Pompeo leaves them with strong doubt
regarding his trustworthiness on issues of consequence to the President and the
nation.
DATE: June 21, 2019
MEMORANDUM FOR : The President.
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Is Pompeo's Iran Agenda the Same As Yours?
A fter the close call yesterday when you called off the planned military strike on Iran, we
remain concerned that you are about to be mousetrapped into war with Iran. You have said you do
not want such a war (no sane person would), and our comments below are based on that premise.
There are troubling signs that Secretary Pompeo is not likely to jettison his more warlike
approach, More importantly, we know from personal experience with Pompeo's dismissive attitude
to instructions from you that his agenda can deviate from yours on issues of major
consequence.
Pompeo's behavior betrays a strong desire to resort to military action -- perhaps even
without your approval -- to Iranian provocations (real or imagined), with no discernible
strategic goal other than to advance the interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He is a
neophyte compared to his anti-Iran partner John Bolton, whose dilettante approach to
interpreting intelligence, strong advocacy of the misbegotten war on Iraq (and continued pride
in his role in promoting it), and fierce pursuit of his own aggressive agenda are a matter of a
decades-long record. You may not be fully aware of our experience with Pompeo, who has now
taken the lead on Iran.
That experience leaves us with strong doubt regarding his trustworthiness on issues of
consequence to you and the country, including the contentious issue of alleged Russian hacking
into the DNC. The sketchy "evidence" behind that story has now crumbled, thanks to some unusual
candor from the Department of Justice. We refer to the
extraordinary revelation in a recent Department of Justice court filing that former FBI
Director James Comey never required a final forensic report from the DNC-hired cybersecurity
company, CrowdStrike.
Comey, of course, has admitted to the fact that, amid accusations from the late Sen. John
McCain and others that the Russians had committed "an act of war," the FBI did not follow best
practices and insist on direct access to the DNC computers, preferring to rely on CrowdStrike
reporting. What was not known until the DOJ revelation is that CrowdStrike never gave Comey a
final report on its forensic findings regarding alleged "Russian hacking." Mainstream media
have suppressed this story so far; we
reported it several days ago.
The point here is that Pompeo could have exposed the lies about Russian hacking of the DNC,
had he done what you asked him to do almost two years ago when he was director of the CIA.
In our Memorandum
to you of July 24, 2017 entitled "Was the 'Russian Hack' an Inside Job?," we suggested:
"You may wish to ask CIA Director Mike Pompeo what he knows about this.["This" being the
evidence-deprived allegation that "a shadowy entity with the moniker 'Guccifer 2.0' hacked
the DNC on behalf of Russian intelligence and gave DNC emails to WikiLeaks ."] Our
own lengthy intelligence community experience suggests that it is possible that neither
former CIA Director John Brennan, nor the cyber-warriors who worked for him, have been
completely candid with their new director regarding how this all went down."
Three months later, Director Pompeo invited William Binney, one of VIPS' two former NSA
technical directors (and a co-author of our July 24, 2017 Memorandum), to CIA headquarters to
discuss our findings. Pompeo began an hour-long meeting with Binney on October 24, 2017 by
explaining the genesis of the unusual invitation: "You are here because the President told me
that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk to you."
But Did Pompeo 'Really Want to Know'?
Apparently not. Binney, a widely respected, plain-spoken scientist with more than three
decades of experience at NSA , began by telling Pompeo that his (CIA) people were lying to him
about Russian hacking and that he (Binney) could prove it. As we explained in our most recent
Memorandum to you, Pompeo reacted with disbelief and -- now get this -- tried to put the
burden on Binney to pursue the matter with the FBI and NSA.
As for Pompeo himself, there is no sign he followed up by pursuing Binney's stark
observation with anyone, including his own CIA cyber sleuths. Pompeo had been around
intelligence long enough to realize the risks entailed in asking intrusive questions of
intelligence officers -- in this case, subordinates in the Directorate of Digital Innovation,
which was created by CIA Director John Brennan in 2015.
CIA malware and hacking tools are built
by the Engineering Development Group, part of that relatively new Directorate. (It is a safe
guess that offensive cybertool specialists from that Directorate were among those involved in
the reported placing of "implants" or software code into the Russian grid, about which The
New York Times claims you were not informed.)
If Pompeo failed to report back to you on the conversation you instructed him to have with
Binney, you might ask him about it now (even though the flimsy evidence of Russia hacking the
DNC has now evaporated, with Binney vindicated). There were two note-takers present at the
October 24, 2017 meeting at CIA headquarters. There is also a good chance the session was also
recorded. You might ask Pompeo about that.
Whose Agenda?
The question is whose agenda Pompeo was pursuing -- yours or his own. Binney had the
impression Pompeo was simply going through the motions -- and disingenuously, at that. If he
"really wanted to know about Russian hacking," he would have acquainted himself with the
conclusions that VIPS, with Binney in the lead, had reached in mid-2017, and which apparently
caught your eye.
Had he pursued the matter seriously with Binney, we might not have had to wait until the
Justice Department itself put nails in the coffin of Russiagate, CrowdStrike, and Comey. In
sum, Pompeo could have prevented two additional years of "everyone knows that the Russians
hacked into the DNC." Why did he not?
Pompeo is said to be a bright fellow -- Bolton, too–with impeccable academic
credentials. The history of the past six decades , though, shows that an Ivy League pedigree
can spell disaster in affairs of state. Think, for example, of President Lyndon Johnson's
national security adviser, former Harvard Dean McGeorge Bundy, for example, who sold the Tonkin
Gulf Resolution to Congress to authorize the Vietnam war based on what he knew was a lie.
Millions dead.
Bundy was to LBJ as John Bolton is to you, and it is a bit tiresome watching Bolton brandish
his Yale senior ring at every podium. Think, too, of Princeton's own Donald Rumsfeld concocting
and pushing the fraud about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to "justify" war on Iraq,
assuring us all the while that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Millions
dead.
Rumsfeld's dictum is anathema to William Binney, who has shown uncommon patience answering a
thousand evidence-free "What if's" over the past three years. Binney's shtick? The principles
of physics, applied mathematics, and the scientific method. He is widely recognized for his
uncanny ability to use these to excellent advantage in separating the chaff from wheat. No Ivy
pedigree wanted or needed.
Binney describes himself as a "country boy" from western Pennsylvania. He studied at Penn
State and became a world renowned mathematician/cryptologist as well as a technical director at
NSA. Binney's accomplishments are featured in a documentary on YouTube, "A Good American."
You may wish to talk to him person-to-person.
Cooked Intelligence
Some of us served as long ago as the Vietnam War. We are painfully aware of how Gen. William
Westmoreland and other top military officers lied about the "progress" the Army was making, and
succeeded in forcing their superiors in Washington to suppress our conclusions as all-source
analysts that the war was a fool's errand and one we would inevitably lose. Millions dead.
Four decades later, on February 5, 2003, six weeks before the attack on Iraq, we warned
President Bush that there was no reliable intelligence to justify war on Iraq.
Five years later, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, releasing the
bipartisan conclusions of the committee's investigation, said
this :
" In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact
when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the
American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually
existed."
Intelligence on the Middle East has still been spotty -- and sometimes "fixed" for political
purposes. Four years ago, a U.S. congressional report said Central Command painted
too rosy a picture of the fight against Islamic State in 2014 and 2015 compared with the
reality on the ground and grimmer assessments by other analysts.
Intelligence analysts at CENTCOM claimed their commanders imposed a "false narrative" on
analysts, intentionally rewrote and suppressed intelligence products, and engaged in "delay
tactics" to undermine intelligence provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency. In July 2015,
fifty CENTCOM analysts signed a complaint to the Pentagon's Inspector General that their
intelligence reports were being manipulated by their superiors. The CENTCOM analysts were
joined by intelligence analysts working for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
We offer this as a caution. As difficult as this is for us to say, the intelligence you get
from CENTCOM should not be accepted reflexively as gospel truth, especially in periods of high
tension. The experience of the Tonkin Gulf alone should give us caution. Unclear and
misinterpreted intelligence can be as much a problem as politicization in key conflict
areas.
Frequent problems with intelligence and Cheney-style hyperbole help explain why CENTCOM
commander Admiral William Fallon in early 2007 blurted out that "an attack on Iran " will not
happen on my watch," as Bush kept sending additional carrier groups into the Persian Gulf.
Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and
Persian Gulf Affairs, warned at the time that some Bush advisers secretly wanted an excuse to
attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something
[America] would be forced to retaliate for," she told Newsweek. Deja vu. A National
Intelligence Estimate issued in November 2007 concluded unanimously that Iran had stopped
working on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and had not resumed such work.
We believe your final decision yesterday was the right one -- given the so-called "fog of
war" and against the background of a long list of intelligence mistakes, not to mention
"cooking" shenanigans. We seldom quote media commentators, but we think Tucker Carlson had it
right yesterday evening: "The very people -- in some cases, literally the same people who lured
us into the Iraq quagmire 16 years ago -- are demanding a new war -- this one with Iran.
Carlson described you as "skeptical." We believe ample skepticism is warranted.
We are at your disposal, should you wish to discuss any of this with us.
For the Steering Groups of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:
William Binney , former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military
Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp , Foreign Service Officer & former Division Director in the
State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)
Bogdan Dzakovic , former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA
Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence
Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
James George Jatras , former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate
leadership (Associate VIPS)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic
Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of
Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Clement J. Laniewski, LTC, U.S. Army (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA presidential
briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East &
CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Sarah Wilton , Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve (ret.) and Defense Intelligence Agency
(ret.)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat who resigned in
2003 in opposition to the Iraq War
Pretty harsh evaluationof Pompeo by usually very polite Chinese newspaper. And what is true that in no
way Pompeo is a diplomat. He is a lobbyist for MIC, no more no less. Kind of Madeline Albright of different sex.
As Chinese journalist observed "Diplomacy is governed by international conventions, which require all countries to
observe basic norms. Pompeo behaves like a gangster. He is abandoning the traditional US major-power diplomacy and defying the
gentle style of diplomats. "
Notable quotes:
"... Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk. ..."
"... Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace. ..."
"... Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. ..."
"... Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value. ..."
Chinese people will remember Pompeo as a representative who breaks the bottom line of US diplomatic ethics. Letting
such a person dominate US diplomacy will unsettle the world and put global peace at risk.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to be a politically troublesome figure in the
global arena. Washington stands at a critical juncture as it redesigns the national strategy
blueprint within a Cold War framework. The highest-ranking US diplomat has single-handedly
activated an outdated mindset, smashing it to the point of climax.
Known as an extreme
hardliner at the White House, Pompeo has redefined the traditional understanding of the chief
diplomat's role among the world's major powers with his signature reckless behaviour.
Pompeo also has turned the US State Department into a strategic headquarters used to
antagonize the international community. By provoking conflict between countries who have unique
differences, Pompeo has done nothing but threaten for world peace.
During his visits to other nations, Pompeo has bad-mouthed and tried to suppress China,
Russia, and Iran. His offensive remarks on China have destroyed the past
China-US diplomatic language that was enjoyed for decades, preferring to use negligent
words from his personal arsenal.
Additionally, Pompeo is arguably the most active lobbyist and by all standards, a bully
who coerces US allies to block Huawei. He has also spared no effort in criticizing China's
policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
His outspoken opinions on the recent events in Hong Kong was more of a Rubicon River
crossing than someone was just merely speaking their mind. Rather than adhere to a big power
game like his predecessors, Pompeo has transformed himself into anti-China flag on two
legs.
The US relationship
between China , Russia, and Iran will determine the future course of international
relations. The condition of each relationship serves as a wind vane indicating stability or
turbulence worldwide.
Pompeo is not only disrupting China, Russia, and Iran but also damaging the interests of
other countries. His words and actions have jinxed the very notion of 21st-century peace.
It is understandable how the US could feel threatened, due to the pattern shift among world
powers. However, Pompeo's goal has nothing to do with enhancing trust or easing concerns
expressed by other countries. Instead, he wants to turn US insecurity into a form of visible
hatred and increase hostility worldwide. He has consistently influenced stable international
conditions to the point of deterioration.
"Make America Great Again" is not a one-man show. The notion, which is nothing more than an
illiterate slogan, will never materialize and connect with the harmony enjoyed elsewhere
throughout the world.
In the past decades, the US has engaged in too many wars and conflicts, while also issuing
sanctions against foreign countries which were later drained of their national strength.
Pompeo has continued to push the US toward the flames of confrontation when dealing with
major foreign powers. He has not helped Trump achieve earlier campaign promises, and on the
contrary, he is making it difficult for the US president to keep them.
Pompeo's background reveals military and intelligence capabilities. While serving in the US
House of Representatives, he initiated multiple foreign conflicts. Confrontation seems to be
his preferred weapon of choice and the only option when engaging with anyone. Only when
confronted with China, Russia, and Iran, can he see his true self. He feels such aggressive
behaviour is necessary to prove his personal value.
Judging from the US and its Cold War reboot strategy, Pompeo has roamed too far outside of
the perimeter and has officially lost his way. The US government has labelled China as its
"strategic competitor." Meanwhile, Pompeo
has ignited hostility from China.
Pompeo's words are by no means an accurate consensus of the US public who also want to enjoy
a harmonious existence. By making volatile claims against China look reasonable, Pompeo has
turned himself into a cheerleader of hatred, who uses slander and vitriol for pompoms.
Having a secretary of state of this calibre is a tragedy of US politics and the sorrow of
international politics. The world needs to be exposed to the damage Pompeo has brought to
humankind's peaceful existence. His destructive power should not be tolerated because of his
title. He has repeatedly crushed diplomacy's constructive role while ignoring opportunities to
ease international conflicts. He is a stain upon the professional honour of diplomacy. The
global diplomatic community should detest his actions and join together in a crusade against
him.
This article originally appeared on the Global Times website.
[Neocon] Ideologues are often willfully stupid, on both the right and the left. It serves
them. Their selective blindness allows them to avoid thinking seriously about the world, and
especially the state of their own souls.
Most of their lives are spent in the expedient serving and comfort of themselves. The good
they do, the good things they may think, the public service that they may provide for others is
generally inner directed. It is designed to make themselves feel good about themselves, and
superior and apart from the masses, whom in their condescension they secretly despise.
Even their negative and disapproving emotions about others are self-serving, designed to
elevate their views of themselves and their imagined aloofness and superiority. They are
incapable of genuine repentance, because they blind themselves to their sins, and wash them
away in their disgust with others whom they imagine are so much worse."
If we consider economics to be an objective science, its rules should also have universal
significance and use, despite differences in societal order. However, socialists of the materialist
camp are committed to the idea that common ownership of the means of production would change the
way economic laws unfold under socialism.
Basically, they reject the notion of the
universality and objectivity of economic rules by suggesting that the laws would change along with
a change to the social formation.
Thus,
communists adhered to the Marxian idea that socialism would rectify a "surplus
value" law, end the "exploitation" of workers, and efficiently regulate the production,
distribution, and consumption aspects of the economy.
They sought to eliminate the market
regulatory mechanism and replace it with directives of the central planning authority. Bolsheviks
enthusiastically got down to business: they eradicated private property, collectivized everything
and everyone, and implemented an official planned economy.
Did it effectively turn off market relations as they thought it would?
No. In contrast to the common perception, socialism has been unable to kill the market economy.
The market went underground and turned into a black market. Black markets existed in capitalist
countries as well, but they worked underground because they dealt in illegal commodities and
services. The black market under socialism served the same purpose, but the list of commodities and
services included mostly items of everyday and innocent consumption that people under capitalism
could easily purchase in stores. Virtually all groups of personal consumption products found their
way to the black market at some time and in some places. Everything from jar lids to toilet paper
was subject to black-market relations.
Despite the proclaimed planned economy, people were engaged in market relations on all levels
and trusted more the price of the goods and services that were established by the market and not
dictated by the government. The official exchange rate of the ruble to the dollar was 0.66 to 1 in
1980. But nobody except party nomenclature was able to enjoy such a favorable exchange rate. At the
same time, the black market offered 4 rubles for 1 American dollar.
There was no production of jeans in the Soviet Union, but like all their peers abroad,
Soviet youth wore jeans.
The price was 180–250 rubles for a pair depending on the brand,
which was almost twice as much as the monthly wage of an entry-level engineer. A visiting nurse
charged 1 ruble for one injection if a patient lived below the fifth floor. The price reached 1.5
rubles for patients who lived on the fifth floor and up. A plumber happily repaired a faucet for
just a bottle of vodka.
Two Prices for Everything
Therefore, in the Soviet Union, any significant goods had two price tags: one real and
another virtual.
The state set the first price through some obscure methods; the usual
mechanism of supply and demand established the second price on the market. If you were lucky, after
several hours of standing in a queue, you could purchase goods at the state price. However, due to
the chronic lack of everything for everyone, the same product could be bought on the black market
at a much higher price. The virtual price became real on the black market and reflected the actual
value of the goods for the buyer. The presence of two price tags is a confirmation of the thesis of
Ludwig von Mises regarding the impossibility of economic calculations under socialism. At the same
time, this is proof of the immortality and immutability of the economic laws of the free market,
even under a totalitarian regime.
Therefore, two economic systems and two sets of prices
co-exist under socialism.
People were forced to use the services of the black market,
even under the penalty of
severe punishment, including up to the death penalty.
Almost the entire society was
engaged in various corruption schemes to support a certain standard of living. There was a
paradoxical situation when the shelves of the supermarkets were empty, but refrigerators at home
were more or less full. The black market was filled with smuggled goods from abroad, as well as
commodities produced in underground workshops. But more often, everyday products were specifically
kept from retail to create a shortage and sell them on the black market at a speculative price.
Socialism had undermined the normal flows of production, distribution, and consumption by ignoring
the objective laws of economics. Nevertheless, an underground market and the intrinsic
entrepreneurial spirit of the people helped them survive the socialist madness.
Regardless of the proclaimed successes of the Soviet economy reported by Communist party
leaders, the socialist economy was unable to compete with its capitalist counterparts.
Communists decided to create a system that somehow mimicked the work that a free market had
successfully and automatically performed for centuries. Thus, they introduced socialist competition
that was supposed to replace free market competition. Surely enough, it was an inadequate and
unfortunate replacement.
The rewards for winners in the capitalist competition were far
higher than for the winners under socialism.
For example, the capitalist winner enjoyed a
significant increase in well-being.
Moreover, the principal winner of the free market competition was society as a whole. This is a
natural feature of a free market economy and the main reason why the evolution of human societies
selected this mode of production. A competition during socialism gave to the winners some
publicity, a certificate of honor, maybe a trip to a "sanatorium" (that is, a health spa), and
other bagatelles that people usually did not appreciate. But most importantly, society as a whole
did not enjoy a significant improvement in well-being.
People were not sufficiently stimulated and were underpaid, which explained the lower labor
productivity compared to capitalist countries. Moreover, this is despite the notion that the means
of production, at last, belong to the workers themselves. People had a famous saying that can be
considered the quintessence of Soviet-style socialism:
"They [the government] pretend
to pay, and we pretend to work."
Socialism is a set of systems that try to
artificially inhibit the free flow of
objective economic laws by creating subjective barriers in the form of specific legislation and
punitive policies
. Socialists mistakenly think that if they assault private property and
market relations, the economic laws will also change. They have taken up the task which, in
principle, has no rational solution. Nothing good comes from the idea of ignoring or violating the
fundamental laws of economics. These laws still exist, regardless of opinions and neglect to
recognize their real character and the impossibility of changing them.
Socialism disrupts the evolutionary process and leads society to a dead end.
The desperate economic situation of ordinary folks in
Venezuela
,
Cuba
,
and North Korea -- the remnants of socialist undertakings -- is a direct result of building a society
in defiance of the natural action of the fundamental law of economics. As a rule, socialist regimes
were buying time by employing slave labor, plunder, coercion, and everything else that an
aggressive totalitarian regime could offer. However, in the end, the means of socialistic life
support was exhausted, and than returning to the natural and healthy market relations, where the
laws of economics work for the benefit of the human race.
The same laws of market economics have worked in different human societies: from pre-historic to
post-industrial, but
still socialists continue to entertain the idea of tampering with
these forces of nature.
"... Should such a war really happen, the stakes would be very high, so there is every reason to assume that Iran's missiles would not only be equipped with conventional high explosive fragmentation warheads, but would also carry toxic agents and dirty bombs. ..."
"... even a handful of Tehran's missiles reaching critical infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region would be enough to cause devastation. ..."
"... On top of that, there are more questions than answers regarding the reliability of the antimissile and air defense systems that the Persian Gulf monarchies deployed to defend their hydrocarbon terminals and other oil and gas infrastructure. ..."
"... To solve the problem of Iran once and for all, the US would need to mount a large-scale ground operation, with the US Army invading the country. America would have to wipe out both regular Iranian forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, unseat the current leadership of Iran, and have a military presence in every major city for the next 10 to 15 years, keeping tight control over the entire country at the same time. ..."
Iran's downing of a US military surveillance drone last week predictably led to another
flare-up in tense relations between Tehran and Washington. What could be the implications of a
potential conflict between the two nations? Right after the Global Hawk UAV was shot down, the
New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran,
but then changed his mind.
Let's start by saying that the decision to launch a military operation against Iran (which
is what this is really about), including the specific time and place, would have to be taken by
a very small group of top US political and military officials. At such meetings, no leaks could
possibly occur by definition.
Now, let's take a look at some of the details. The difference between a 'strike' and an
'operation' is quite significant, at the very least in terms of duration, and forces and
equipment involved. It would be nice to know if the NYT actually meant a single airstrike or an
entire air operation.
Amusingly enough, the publication reported that the strikes were scheduled for early morning
to minimize the potential death toll among the Iranian military and civilians. It's worth
pointing out that the US has never cared about the number of victims either among the military
personnel or the civilian population of its adversaries.
Moreover, the purpose of any military conflict is to do as much damage to your enemy as
possible in terms of personnel, military hardware and other equipment. This is how the goals of
any armed conflict are achieved. Of course, it would be best if civilian losses are kept to a
minimum, but for the US it's more of a secondary rather than a primary objective.
The US Navy and Air Force traditionally strike before dawn with one purpose alone – to
avoid the antiaircraft artillery (both small and medium-caliber), as well as a number of air
defense systems with optical tracking, firing at them. Besides, a strike in the dark hours of
the day affects the morale of the enemy personnel.
Here we need to understand that Iran would instantly retaliate, and Tehran has no small
capabilities for that. In other words, it would be a full-scale war. For the US, it wouldn't
end with one surgical airstrike without consequences, like in Syria. And the US seems to have a
very vague idea on what a military victory over Iran would look like.
There is no doubt that a prolonged air campaign by the US will greatly undermine Iran's
military and economic potential and reduce the country to the likes of Afghanistan, completely
destroying its hydrocarbon production and exports industries.
To say how long such a campaign could last would be too much of a wild guess, but we have
the examples of Operation Desert Storm in 1991 when airstrikes lasted for 38 days, and
Yugoslavia in 1991 when the bombing continued for 78 days. So, theoretically, the US could bomb
Iran for, say, 100 days, wrecking the country's economy and infrastructure step by step.
However, the price the US would have to pay for starting such a military conflict may turn
out to be too high.
For instance, Iran can respond to US aggression by launching intermediate and shorter-range
ballistic missiles to target oil and gas fields and terminals in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait,
and the UAE.
Should such a war really happen, the stakes would be very high, so there is every reason to
assume that Iran's missiles would not only be equipped with conventional high explosive
fragmentation warheads, but would also carry toxic agents and dirty bombs.
Firstly, it should be pointed out that even though the capabilities of US intelligence
agencies are almost limitless, quite a few Iranian missile launching sites remain undiscovered.
Secondly, US air defense systems in the Persian Gulf, no matter how effective, would not shoot
down every last Iranian missile. And even a handful of Tehran's missiles reaching critical
infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region would be enough to cause devastation.
On top of that, there are more questions than answers regarding the reliability of the
antimissile and air defense systems that the Persian Gulf monarchies deployed to defend their
hydrocarbon terminals and other oil and gas infrastructure.
If such a scenario came true, that would bring inconceivable chaos to the global economy and
would immediately drive up oil prices to $200-250 per barrel – and that's the lowest
estimate. It is these implications that are most likely keeping the US from attacking Iran.
To solve the problem of Iran once and for all, the US would need to mount a large-scale
ground operation, with the US Army invading the country. America would have to wipe out both
regular Iranian forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, unseat the current leadership
of Iran, and have a military presence in every major city for the next 10 to 15 years, keeping
tight control over the entire country at the same time.
For the record, the US failed to do that even in Afghanistan, which is several times smaller
than Iran in terms of both territory and population. And almost 18 years of fighting later, the
US has achieved next to nothing.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
GREG WILPERT It's not clear what impact these new sanctions will have on Iran, but the sanctions
that have already been imposed since the US withdrew from the JCPOA last year have had a
serious effect on Iran's economy. According to oil industry analysts, Iranian oil exports have
dropped from 2.5 million barrels per day in April 2013, to about 300,000 barrels per day
currently. The latest sanctions come on the heels of heightened tensions. Last week, Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of attacking two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Then
later that week, Iran downed an expensive US drone over the same strait saying that it had
entered Iranian airspace. President Trump later revealed that the US was about to retaliate
over the weekend with an airstrike against Iran, but Trump changed his mind in the last minute
and launched a cyber-attack against Iranian military facilities instead. Joining me now to
discuss the latest in the confrontation between the US and Iran is Colonel Larry Wilkerson. He
is former Chief of staff to the Secretary of State Colin Powell, and now a Distinguished
Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. Thanks
for joining us again, Larry.
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Good to be with you.
GREG WILPERT So let's start with the sanctions. As I said, it's far from clear whether these
latest sanctions mean anything, but the earlier sanctions are certainly having an effect on
Iran, shrinking its economy and causing shortages. Now Trump argued that he called off the
airstrike on Iran because he had been told that up to 150 people could have been killed, and
that this would have been a disproportionate response to shooting down their drone, but there
are reports that Iranians are having trouble accessing lifesaving medicines, such as for cancer
treatment. Now, what do you make of this rationale for calling off the airstrike but then at
the same time intensifying sanctions?
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON There is no question that the sanctions we have on Iran -- and for
that matter on North Korea, and on Venezuela, perhaps even still do on Venezuela -- constitute
economic warfare. That's the reality that the world doesn't seem to want to address because the
United States is so powerful and that their economies and financial networks are so wrapped up
with us. That said, it's not like -- And the crassness of the United States with regard to
these sanctions was about saved by none other than Madeleine Albright best when she was
confronted with a number of Iraqi children who were dying as a result of the sanctions we had
on Saddam Hussein. And she simply said, well I thought it was worth it. Worth it -- to kill all
those children? The sanctions regimes we execute though, are a little bit more sophisticated, a
little bit more well-aimed, more precisely aimed these days.
I was very much associated with the ones on North Korea, ones on Iraq, the way we tried to
smarten them up and so forth. The ones on Iran I think are having a very meaningful impact in
terms of cutting down on Iran's ability to do everything that it does, including as you pointed
out to sell oil. But that said, if Saddam Hussein could evade the sanctions that were on him to
the extent that we now know he did, and we know from past experience how well the Kims evaded
sanctions in North Korea and invented ways to get around them -- criminal activity like
counterfeiting American hundred-dollar bills, for example. And other things that I know about
sanctions, I would say the Iranians would be able to survive these no matter how tight we think
we've made them. By and large, the Iranian government -- the Majlis, the judiciary, the
Ayatollahs, the Guardian Council, the IRGC, the Quds Force -- they don't care about the Iranian
people. That's one thing we ought to say more often and more frequently because it's true.
Corruption is so rife in Iran and all sanctions do is increase the money in the hands of
those who are corrupt, like the IRGC and the Quds Force. So despite all these statistics and
everything -- Look at oil, for example. ISIS, we now know, survived quite richly off its oil
sales and we know that Turkey was behind most of the facilitation of those oil sales. The same
thing is going to happen with Iran, so official statistics are really meaningless. That said,
the sanctions are biting, but I don't think they're ever going to bite to the extent that
someone's going to come forward like our Mr. Zarif and say, okay John. Okay Mike. Okay Donald.
We're ready to talk. It is just not gonna happen.
Even a so-called "surgical strike" on targets within Iran risks the Iranians closing the
straight of Hormuz and blocking all oil shipments– somewhere between 20%- 30% or
world's oil exports. World oil prices would skyrocket and the entire world's economy would be
in chaos. Trillion$ in derivatives would instantly be at risk. There is no way the US
military, or the Saudis can prevent this. I believe this is the real reason Trump supposedly
cancelled the planned retaliatory strike for Iran's shoot-down of our drone.
Iran knows that sanctions on Iraq during the 90's killed over 500,000 Iraqi children. Even
though Col. Wilkerson says Iran's leadership doesn't care about its people, they certainly
care more than the US does and won't be willing to sit on their hands and watch this happen.
They will resist with force if necessary and make the US and its subservient allies pay the
price.
Looks like Bolton is dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. He believes the United States can do what wants without regard to
international law, treaties or the роlitical commitments of previous administrations.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean ..."
...Zionists know what they want, are willing to work together towards their goals, and put their money where their mouth
is. In contrast, for a few pennies the goyim will renounce any principle they pretend to cherish, and go on happily proclaiming
the opposite even if a short while down the road it'll get their own children killed.
The real sad part about this notion of the goy as a mere beast in human form is maybe not that it got codified for eternity
in the Talmud, but rather that there may be some truth to it? Another way of saying this is raising the question whether the goyim
deserve better, given what we see around us.
Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean and prevent a Turko Egyptian and possibly Persian
invasion of Greece & the West
@ jayc 57 US Hook says Iran knew what getting into when struck deal
Yes they did, and now they regret it.
In 2013 Ali Khamenei said: "Certainly, we are pessimistic about the Americans. We do not
trust them. We consider the government of the United States of America as an unreliable,
arrogant, illogical, and trespassing government,"
The JCPOA was not a unilateral deal between USA and Iran, it was a multilateral
deal
That's correct de jure, but not de facto. The US all by itself is leading the current
attack on Iran, despite what the other members might think. Iran has not gotten any
significant support from other JCPOA participants.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24, 2019 5:10:10 PM |
66
The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook...
______________________________________
Brian Hook is a "special" envoy in the sense that the "Special Olympics" are
special.
Thursday night was the night Donald Trump became president. You can imagine the hyperbolic
hosannahs that would have been sung if Trump had gone ahead with his planned strikes against
Iran, adding to the list of undeclared presidential wars. Instead he pulled back.
Hugh Hewitt called it the "big blink," inviting Liz Cheney -- who is very much her father's
daughter on foreign policy -- on his show to warn, "Weakness is provocative." Hewitt compared
it to Barack Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" in Syria. "Much worse"
argued Kori Schake in The Atlantic . Other reporting
focused on a "total breakdown in process."
It was not a picture perfect approach to national security, to be sure. But it did sharply
illustrate the Beltway's strange priorities. When Trump twice bombed Syria, few of those who
fret about his erosion of constitutional norms or authoritarian tendencies protested his
failure to seek congressional authorization as required by the Constitution. There was a much
larger process-related panic when Trump said late last year he wanted to bring American troops
home from Syria.
... ... ...
"How many more deaths? How many more lost limbs? How much longer are we going to be there?"
Woodward quotes Trump as asking. One Post write-up folded these lines into a broader
story about the White House's "nervous breakdown" and the national security team's impatience
with the president. But these are morally serious questions, not exaggerated inaugural crowd
size estimates.
"... It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war. ..."
"... This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it. ..."
"... The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection. ..."
"... Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock and load" the American military in the future. For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt. By the way, who are his "dove" advisors? ..."
"... If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his 10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker. ..."
"... Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine - first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he hears on Fox News to start it all over again. ..."
"... "It does not require Nostradamus-like skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster." ..."
"... the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the Constitution. ..."
"... And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con. ..."
No matter how laudable averting war is, the fact is that we would have never been in this
situation if Trump had not unilaterally abandoned the Iran deal. This is a crisis of his
own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it.
The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is
quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will
change his mind after about the same amount of reflection.
I don't know. Maybe a wise president would not have appointed Bolton and Pompeo in the first
place. Nor would a wise president have had a $130 million drone flying over Iranian air space
(or right on its border).
Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets
enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock
and load" the American military in the future. For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk"
advisors are getting closer and closer to hitting pay dirt. By the way, who are his "dove"
advisors?
Please, he didn't even know about projected casualties until ten minutes before the attack
was to be launched, no doubt because he's too lazy smart to attend planning
meetings/briefings.
If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his
10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching Tucker.
Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine
- first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he
hears on Fox News to start it all over again.
But just because on this pass he happened to randomly bounce off of a "good" bumper, we're
supposed to congratulate him for finally "becoming President". The only thing bizarre here is
the contortions his supporters put themselves through to try to deny what is obvious to
everyone else.
If I go to my neighbors front yard with a gun, point it at their house, then don't shoot, I
am not practicing restraint. I should be arrested for brandishing a firearm. This article is
crop.
Lighten up, folks. Obviously, Antle's headline, "The Night Donald Trump Became President," is
a play on the same words that a lot of talking heads (not just unreconstructed
neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, but "mainstream" centrists like Fareed Zakaria) used when
Trump bombed Syria for the first time.
He's being facetious, not serious. He isn't praising Trump or his "B-Team" for their
restraint (on the contrary, they have created a crisis for no good reason and have brought us
to the brink of war as a result) so much as he's criticizing the media for its
warmongering.
The media is actually trying to bait the President into a unilateral act of war against
another country that hasn't attacked us and couldn't threaten us even if it did.
"It does not require Nostradamus-like skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop
routine Trump appears to be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster."
At this point, I am almost afraid to check the latest news-with tapeworm Bolton, it is a
matter of time before the situation blows up.
Re: "If Trump continues to break with this pattern, however, it will be less celebrated
in Washington than it would deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper
place would be a truly presidential act."
However, note that Trump refuses to concede any Imperial authority to wage war that
illegally violates the Constitution. He just chose not to start a war with Iran - this time.
(And also note that the Pentagon is always happy to oblige the Imperial President and kill
and destroy without question.)
So the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial
President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and
Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the
illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the
Constitution.
And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in
to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con.
"... This is a crisis of his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it. ..."
"... The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will change his mind after about the same amount of reflection. ..."
"... "If Trump continues to break with this pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would be a truly presidential act." ..."
...This Administration's handling of Iran, as compared to the last, is anything but stupid.
Unless, of course, you're of the opinion we should be going to war, and you're pissed that
this President made the right decision at the right time. Nice try, because thinking the
way you are is stupid.
No matter how laudable averting war is, the fact is that we would have never been in this
situation if Trump had not unilaterally abandoned the Iran deal. This is a crisis of
his own making and he should get kudos for not making it any worse, but that's it.
The author seems to think this was some kind of well-considered decision, while Trump
is quoted as saying he "thought about it for a second". He could, and almost certainly will
change his mind after about the same amount of reflection.
I don't know. Maybe a wise president would not have appointed Bolton and Pompeo in the
first place. Nor would a wise president have had a $130 million drone flying over Iranian
air space (or right on its border).
Yes, Iran dodged a bullet in this instance. So did our country. Maybe if Trump gets
enough positive reinforcement from his last-second audible, he'll be less inclined to "cock
and load" the American military in the future.
For my part, I'm starting to think his "hawk" advisors are getting closer and closer to
hitting pay dirt.
Well, this article vanquished my very recent admiration for Michael Brendan Dougherty,
acquired by way of Mr. Dreher.
"articulates a classical Augustinian just war argument ..."
That's like claiming Mrs O'Leary's cow that kicked over the lantern and burned Chicago
to the ground was articulating the finer points of preventing forest fires originated by
Smokey the Bear.
Do the writers here do a little physical stretching before contorting yourselves into
pretzel shapes trying to justify every lantern Trump kicks over into poles of dry hay as he
goes along?
Of course conservative Christians hate pulling back from imminent, and possibly nuclear
war. When haven't they in American history?
Please, he didn't even know about projected casualties until ten minutes before the attack
was to be launched, no doubt because he's too lazy smart to attend planning
meetings/briefings.
If anyone believes the reason Trump gave for calling off the strike, I refer them to his
10,000+ lies since he's been in office. My guess is he changed his mind watching
Tucker.
Trump staggers through his presidency like a pinball bouncing its way through the machine -
first this side, then that side, then being flipped back up to the top by a comment he
hears on Fox News to start it all over again. But just because on this pass he happened to
randomly bounce off of a "good" bumper, we're supposed to congratulate him for finally
"becoming President". The only thing bizarre here is the contortions his supporters put
themselves through to try to deny what is obvious to everyone else.
If I go to my neighbors front yard with a gun, point it at their house, then don't shoot, I
am not practicing restraint. I should be arrested for brandishing a firearm. This article
is crop.
Lighten up, folks. Obviously, Antle's headline, "The Night Donald Trump Became President,"
is a play on the same words that a lot of talking heads (not just unreconstructed
neoconservatives like Bill Kristol, but "mainstream" centrists like Fareed Zakaria) used
when Trump bombed Syria for the first time. He's being facetious, not serious. He isn't
praising Trump or his "B-Team" for their restraint (on the contrary, they have created a
crisis for no good reason and have brought us to the brink of war as a result) so much as
he's criticizing the media for its warmongering. The media is actually trying to bait the
President into a unilateral act of war against another country that hasn't attacked us and
couldn't threaten us even if it did.
"It does not require Nostradamus-like
skills to anticipate how the good cop, bad cop routine Trump appears to
be trying with Bolton in particular could end in disaster."
At this point, I am almost afraid to check the latest news-with tapeworm bolton, it is a
matter of time before the situation blows up.
Re: "If Trump continues to break with this
pattern, however, it will be less celebrated in Washington than it would
deserve to be. Putting the unelected hawks in their proper place would
be a truly presidential act."
However, note that Trump refuses to concede any Imperial authority to wage war that
illegally violates the Constitution. He just chose not to start a war with Iran - this
time. (And also note that the Pentagon is always happy to oblige the Imperial President and
kill and destroy without question.)
So the entire U.S. foreign policy architecture remains hyper-busted. I.e., An Imperial
President, a feckless Congress that has abrogated its constitutional responsibilities, and
Pentagon Brass who think that they swore an oath to be mindless automatons obeying the
illegal orders of the Imperial President rather than being defenders of the
Constitution.
And Tucker Carlson aside, the MSM, sycophantic lapdog of the Pentagon, is still all in
to the illegal and unconstitutional Warfare State con.
This type of article is the reason I read The American Conservative. Thank you for
addressing this important issue from a cautious and realistic perspective.
Although Donald Trump and I are on opposite sides of the fence on nearly every issue, I
do prefer his restrained foreign policy instincts to the hawkish ones of Hillary
Clinton.
Goodness you people and your Nobel prize obsession. The last guy got one he didn't deserve
so I should get one too. Whether the decision was presidential or not is hinged on motive
in my view.
If it was an assessment that if our drone did in fly over US airspace, then it
represented a legitimate target for Iran - then certainly critical thinking as expressed
has some merit to sound management.
If the matter was decided on the messiness of conflict and calculating one's political
carreer, the level of sound management is simply not a factor.
THIS is what white supremacy looks like: Punish Iran because one day in the far off future
they may develop an atomic bomb but gift Israel $3 billion a year while it harbors hundreds
of nukes. Meanwhile, pat head choppers like Saudi Arabia on the head -- As long as they
buys billions in US weapons and force nations to use US dollars to buy oil.
Do you realize that Iran is an Aryan nation, which would make them white? Israel is a
Jewish nation, which most white supremacists hate. And Saudi Arabia is an Arab country,
which would not make it a white country.
So how in the world is this what white supremacy looks like?
"... Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him. Those funds came from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus, donors who have made no secret of their desire for the United States to destroy the Islamic Republic. Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid. ..."
"... Trump has diverted American resources to granting Sheldon Adelson's every wish for a FOREIGN nation. Trump has NOT fulfilled his DUTY and Promises to the American People as he has focused on Israel. Trump is attempting to embroil this Nation in a foreign war through blatant LIES. FIRST Trump claims scuba divers planted 90lb. Limpet mines 12 feet up the side of a ship while bobbing in the water! ..."
"... SECOND Iran shoots down US drone. I am surprised more are not shot down. Usually the US uses them against defenseless enemies, but that is apparently not the case with Iran. What if Russia starts flying drones over OUR coastline? ..."
"... CURE: Trump, Adelson, Kushner, Pompeo, Bolton, need to go on trial for treason. ..."
It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR.
Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by
contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him. Those funds came from Sheldon and Miriam
Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus, donors who have made no secret of their desire for
the United States to destroy the Islamic Republic. Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are
the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past
two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid.
Sheldon Adelson BRIBED Trump and the Republicans .... This does not include the "favorable
and unusual" so-called loans granted Kushner and ?Trump? who is notorious for being in
financial difficulty and is desperately hiding his taxes.Trump has lots of energy for
defending his tax returns but very little for defending Our borders. Trump's lawyers will
appeal and fight this tooth and nail for his Taxes.
But when some P.O.S. "judge" treasonously
rules against defending this Nation's borders from Invaders Trump just shruggs and submits.
Makes empty threats about where to put the Invaders, and goes back to putting ISRAEL
FIRST.
63,000 American Citizens have been murdered by ILLEGALS since 9/11.... and tRUMP is worried
about Iran because Israel TOLD HIM TO. tRUMP is pissing all over Americans ..... so, yes,
there IS TRUTH to that dossier.
Trump has diverted American resources to granting Sheldon Adelson's every wish for a
FOREIGN nation. Trump has NOT fulfilled his DUTY and Promises to the American People as he
has focused on Israel. Trump is attempting to embroil this Nation in a foreign war through
blatant LIES. FIRST Trump claims scuba divers planted 90lb. Limpet mines 12 feet up the side
of a ship while bobbing in the water!
SECOND Iran shoots down US drone. I am surprised more are not shot down. Usually the
US uses them against defenseless enemies, but that is apparently not the case with Iran. What
if Russia starts flying drones over OUR coastline?
America -- "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you .... MOMMY!
Iran HIT ME!".
Why would we be SPYING on open water??? The debris was in Iranian territory ..... it did
not WALK there.
CURE: Trump, Adelson, Kushner, Pompeo, Bolton, need to go on trial for
treason.
"... But if a ground war is ruled out, then Iran is engaged in the sort of limited conflict in which it has long experience. A senior Iraqi official once said to me that the Iranians "have a PhD" in this type of part political, part military warfare. They are tactics that have worked well for Tehran in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria over the past 40 years. The Iranians have many pressure points against the US, and above all against its Saudi and Emirati allies in the Gulf. ..."
"... Saddam Hussein sought to throttle Iran's oil exports and Iran tried to do the same to Iraq. The US and its allies weighed in openly on Saddam Hussein's side – an episode swiftly forgotten by them after the Iraqi leader invaded Kuwait in 1990. From 1987 on, re-registered Kuwaiti tankers were being escorted through the Gulf by US warships. There were US airstrikes against Iranian ships and shore facilities, culminating in the accidental but very avoidable shooting down of an Iranian civil airliner with 290 passengers on board by the USS Vincennes in 1988. Iran was forced to sue for peace in its war with Iraq. ..."
But the dilemma for Trump is at a deeper level. His sanctions against Iran, reimposed after
he withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, are devastating the Iranian economy. The
US Treasury is a more lethal international power than the Pentagon. The EU and other countries
have stuck with the deal, but they have in practice come to tolerate the economic blockade of
Iran.
Iran was left with no choice but to escalate the conflict. It wants to make sure that the
US, the European and Asian powers, and US regional allies Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates,
feel some pain. Tehran never expected much from the EU states, which are still signed up to the
2015 nuclear deal, and has found its low expectations are being fulfilled.
A fundamental misunderstanding of the US-Iran confrontation is shared by many commentators.
It may seem self-evident that the US has an interest in using its vast military superiority
over Iran to get what it wants. But after the failure of the US ground forces to win in Iraq
and Afghanistan, not to mention Somalia, no US leader can start a land war in the Middle East
without endangering their political survival at home.
Trump took this lesson to heart long before he became president. He is a genuine
isolationist in the American tradition. The Democrats and much of the US media have portrayed
Trump as a warmonger, though he has yet to start a war. His national security adviser John
Bolton and secretary of state Mike Pompeo issue bloodcurdling threats against Iran, but Trump
evidently views such bellicose rhetoric as simply one more way of ramping up the pressure on
Iran.
But if a ground war is ruled out, then Iran is engaged in the sort of limited conflict in
which it has long experience. A senior Iraqi official once said to me that the Iranians "have a
PhD" in this type of part political, part military warfare. They are tactics that have worked
well for Tehran in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria over the past 40 years. The Iranians have many
pressure points against the US, and above all against its Saudi and Emirati allies in the
Gulf.
The Iranians could overplay their hand: Trump is an isolationist, but he is also a populist
national leader who claims in his first campaign rallies for the next presidential election to
"have made America great again". Such boasts make it difficult to not retaliate against Iran, a
country he has demonised as the source of all the troubles in the Middle East.
One US military option looks superficially attractive but conceals many pitfalls. This is to
try to carry out operations along the lines of the limited military conflict between the US and
Iran called the "tanker war". This was part of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and the US came
out the winner.
Saddam Hussein sought to throttle Iran's oil exports and Iran tried to do the same to Iraq.
The US and its allies weighed in openly on Saddam Hussein's side – an episode swiftly
forgotten by them after the Iraqi leader invaded Kuwait in 1990. From 1987 on, re-registered
Kuwaiti tankers were being escorted through the Gulf by US warships. There were US airstrikes
against Iranian ships and shore facilities, culminating in the accidental but very avoidable
shooting down of an Iranian civil airliner with 290 passengers on board by the USS Vincennes in
1988. Iran was forced to sue for peace in its war with Iraq.
Some retired American generals speak about staging a repeat of the tanker war today but
circumstances have changed. Iran's main opponent in 1988 was Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Iran was
well on its way to losing the war, in which there was only one front
"Trump took this lesson to heart long before he became president. He is a genuine
isolationist in the American tradition."
Mr. Cockburn does not understand the meaning of isolationist. Trump has been pro-empire
since the day he took office.
I have better stuff in my blog:
June 22, 2019 – Iran
People familiar with US military history know what just happened off Iran. American
aircraft and drones have violated Iranian airspace every week for years, either by accident
or because American officers like to screw with them, especially when lots of high-level
American officials want war with Iran. Complaints were filed and ignored, so the Iranians
shot one down. Note there is no international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz. Half belongs
to Iran and the other to UAE and Oman. It is an international waterway, so all ships have the
right to transit, but aircraft require permission from one of these nations.
The American people are clueless about this stuff since most only know what our
warmongering media tells them, as Jimmy Dore explains in this video. I was shocked and
pleased that President Trump saw through this ruse and bravely did nothing. If we bomb Iran
they will hit back, maybe openly with a missile barrage, or covertly using Shia militias in
Iraq, Bahrain, and Afghanistan. The USA has tens of thousands of soldiers and contractors all
over the Arab world. I'm sure local teams have spent years scouting targets and preparing to
attack after a green light from Tehran. Trump wisely cancelled this chaos, at least until
after his reelection.
"He is a genuine isolationist" Oh please; Mr. Cockburn, you're old enough to have heard of
projection. There is nothing genuine about Trump's public persona, except for his
greed and egotism. He's a world-class grifter and charlatan–i.e., still not to be
underestimated. His calculation will probably be "Can I get re-elected without jumping into
the breach? Then that's fine too. If the polls look awful, I'll roll the dice and be a
War-Time President like Dubya."
At least, Mr. Cockburn understands that the "crippling sanctions" (the way Americans are
always proud of those show that they're just knee-capping mafiosi) are leaving Iran no choice
but to fight back. So the decision may not be in Donald's hands; he may be smarter than his
media caricature, and yet not as smart as he thought.
Once American servicemen start dying for this rather nebulous cause, it will be the
reaction of American voters that will ultimately determine the extent and duration of yet
another Middle East military, nation re-engineering "adventure".
"Note there is no international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz. Half belongs to Iran and
the other to UAE and Oman. It is an international waterway, so all ships have the right to
transit, but aircraft require permission from one of these nations."
You might want to examine the UNCLOS agreement. It's created some sticky issues in the
South China Seas and in the straight in question, Iran and Oman are leaning very heavily on
that the policy. In their view it is for use exclusively for noncombatant enterprise as part
of their claim as territorial waters, they have a say in its use.
Pakistan is nuclear, pal.
Israel is nuclear, pal.
India is nuclear, pal.
North Korea is nuclear, pal.
Nobody attacks their territory these days, pal.
But Iran chose a long time ago not to go nuclear, pal.
The American Mullahs want their oil money back and so have issued yet another fatwah through
their Supreme Leader.
KiwiAntz , June 24, 2019 at 04:08
Old Geezer are you familiar with the term"Mutual Assured Destruction"? Any Nuclear attack
will be met with a Nuclear response by the Country attacked! This isn't 1945 where America
could nuke Japan & get away with it? It's 2019 & alot of Nations have the Nukes to
deter US Nuclear attacks? That's MAD in a nutshell!
Zhu , June 24, 2019 at 06:03
Who says Iran is going nuclear, Gezzer? If he usual liars.
AnneR , June 24, 2019 at 09:31
So *what* if the Iranians developed nuclear weapons? (Not that they are going to –
as they have stated over and over again. But then they are not as bloodthirsty as
Anglo-Americans always seem to be.)
Frankly, if they had done so, the US-IS-UK would be a lot less eager to bomb their country
into smithereens – all for the benefit of their more westerly neighbor (the middle
country above). NK understands this. Unfortunately, Qaddafi didn't.
And again – I repeat: which nation state is it that *has* used such weapons: twice?
Only one. (Not to mention that same country's eager use of depleted uranium – far from
its shores, of course – in bullets and shells.) Charming.
heathroi , June 24, 2019 at 09:45
is that you, John?
Steve in DC , June 24, 2019 at 09:47
Iran should go nuclear. The US doesn't f#%* with countries that have the bomb. The sooner
Iran can thwart Washington the better off the world will be. Washington will have to get
another hobbyhorse.
Tick Tock , June 24, 2019 at 11:45
How many generations has your family been inbreeding? Was it part of the US Guvment plan
to create the race of morons? Without a doubt it has been a success in making you, make
Forrest Gump look like an Einstein. Keep posting at least it might keep you off the
streets.
Ol' Hippy , June 24, 2019 at 11:58
They won't need to. All they have to do is barricade the Strait of Hormuz and collapse the
world economy that relies on oil from the Gulf States. Never mentioned in the corporate(MSM)
media circles that want war. The ensuing depression would be like no other, ever.
My friend, you've been getting too much of your news from Israel-influenced mainstream
media. Iran has not had a nuclear weapons program since 2003 (if it had one even then, which
is doubtful). That is the consensus position of all U.S. intelligence agencies, Mossad, and
several european intelligence agencies. See the reference links in my article at
https://relativelyfreepress.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-question-about-ron-wydens-intelligence.html
Moreover, as Don Bacon summarizes, Iran doesn't need nukes to hold the U.S. at bay.
Finally, Iran's unquestionable ability to close all shipping of oil through the Hormuz
Strait (30 percent of the world's supply) means that Iran has the ability to bring the
western economic system to its knees. Who needs nukes?
DH Fabian , June 24, 2019 at 13:08
Are China and Russia nuclear-armed countries, in a world that has largely come to see the
US as an unpredictable and dictatorial threat? Possibly too great of a threat to allow it to
continue?
Linda Furr , June 24, 2019 at 13:12
Who's the 'they'? US officials have already talked of nuclear attacks on areas of Iran.
The great 'democracy' of USA just ain't so. Its criminal psychopathy comes straight from
Israel – against most Americans' desires. Washington DC is sick.
Not to in any way absolve Trump, but as long as Bolton and Pompeo are on the scene there will
be blood. Bolton in particular should be in jail for crimes against humanity. He is a madman.
Scary times.
This recent 19 May piece from Ha'aretz documents precisely the manipulation of
American policy by Israeli charlatans and their agents of influence in the US. The title
says it all just by itself: "Netanyahu's Iran Dilemma: Getting Trump to Act Without
Putting Israel on the Front Line." It goes on to assess that:
"In this conflict, Israel is hoping to have its cake and eat it too. Ever since Trump
was elected president two and a half years ago, Netanyahu has been urging him to take a
more aggressive line toward Iran, in order to force it to make additional concessions on
its nuclear program and disrupt its support for militant organizations.
"Trump acceded to this urging a year ago when he withdrew America from the nuclear
agreement with Iran. That was followed by tighter sanctions on Iran, as well as
publication of a plan by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo detailing 12 steps Tehran
must take to satisfy Washington.
"But Israel isn't interested in being part of the front. That is why Jerusalem has
issued so few official statements on the Iranian issue, and why Netanyahu has urged
ministers to be cautious in what they say."
I'd say that passage captures the situation perfectly, and it just goes to show that
when you want to know about what chicanery Israel and its lobby are up to in the US, you
have to go and look at what Israelis are saying when they aren't particularly careful about
who's observing. That sort of truth is sanitized from any MSM accounts in the US.
@ OP 2
Israel is an important part of Middle East US policy decisions but not the only part, and not
the most important one. Going back to the Carter Doctrine, and before, the US has intended to
be the top dog in the Middle East but instead, through its mistakes, has become second fiddle
to Iran. The US and its allies have tens of thousands of troops with tons of military gear in
the area and are still losing influence, replaced by Iran and its Shia Crescent. That must be
reversed!
In Danielle Ryan’s article in RT's Op-ed “US will not ‘stumble into’
war with Iran by mistake. If it happens, it will be by design” she notes the prevalence
of “strange terminology” used by mainstream media to describe how the US gets
into wars. I have added to her list and checked that all have been used in the current
US-Iran scenario. The US is in danger of being: “dragged into, sucked into, sliding
into, stumbling into, slouching towards, lured into, bumbling into, blundering into and
sleepwalking into” war with Iran.
Who are they trying to kid when they have already declared economic war on Iran,
asphyxiating the Iranian economy, knowing full well that Iran has to respond.
John Bolton “sleepwalking” into war with Iran? He’ll be wide awake and
so excited he’ll probably have to relieve himself.
NemesisCalling , Jun 23, 2019 11:23:57 AM |
12Oscar Peterson , Jun 23, 2019 11:25:56 AM |
13
@Don Bacon #4
"Israel is an important part of Middle East US policy decisions but not the only part,
and not the most important one. Going back to the Carter Doctrine, and before, the US has
intended to be the top dog in the Middle East but instead, through its mistakes, has become
second fiddle to Iran. The US and its allies have tens of thousands of troops with tons of
military gear in the area and are still losing influence, replaced by Iran and its Shia
Crescent. That must be reversed!"
Have to disagree with a good deal of this.
Israel's strategic preferences have indeed become the most important single influence on
US Middle East policy. Up to a certain point in the past, that was not true, but it is now.
The Carter Doctrine has, in effect, been undermined by the distortions that the ever-growing
power of pro-Israel political Jewry in the US in both its neoconservative and Likudnik
expressions are able to impose on our policy.
Neither big oil, nor Saudi Arabia, nor anything that could objectively be called US
strategic considerations wields anything like the heft of political Jewry. And even
metastasizing Christian Zionism is only an ideological adjunct to Zionism proper, primarily a
function of the cultural damage stemming from Jewry's march through the institutions since WW
II.
That said, I must also disagree that Iran has become "the top dog" in the Middle East.
They are nowhere close, though, with their cultural and technological attainments, backed by
oil and gas deposits, their long-term strategic position has a lot of promise. A "top dog"
would not be in Iran's current underdog position vis-a-vis Israel and its US golem and having
to fight back with the stratagems we are currently seeing.
The Shia crescent is essentially a myth, and Iran's ability to exercise dominating
influence on Shia Arabs is largely a function of the hostility of Sunni Arabs to the Shia
Arab empowerment of recent years. Yes, the US is losing influence, but that is mostly a
function of our own policy dysfunction induced by dual-loyalist political Jewry and the
Israel-Über-Alles strategic preferences it imposes.
@Don Bacon
That clarifies.
I do agree that Israel is one of the 2 important factors in US calculation in south-west
Asia, the other being strategic leverage over big-league competitors. And, it is true that US
military presence in the Persian Gulf has been the Carter doctrine's making - although one
might argue the doctrine itself was created to fill the vacuum created with the departure of
the British and the subsequent independence given to the southern Sheikhdoms. The issue with
the current US strategy in the region is that it defies the reality with such an obstinance
that it completely undermines its own goals. The origin of this obstinance is well known to
everyone.
NJDuke , Jun 23, 2019 11:45:09 AM |
18Don Bacon , Jun 23, 2019 11:52:24 AM |
19
Israel or no, failure is not an option for the US in the Middle East, especially Syria which
was Hillary's Job-One during her SecState tenure.
AP, Dec 14, 2011-- US: Assad's Syria a 'dead man walking'
The State Department official, Frederic Hof, told Congress on Wednesday that Assad's
repression may allow him to hang on to power but only for a short time. And, he urged the
Syrian opposition to prepare for the day when it takes control of the state in order to
prevent chaos and sectarian conflict.
"Our view is that this regime is the equivalent of dead man walking," said Hof, the State
Department's pointman on Syria, which he said was turning into "Pyongyang in the Levant," a
reference to the North Korean capital. He said it was difficult to determine how much time
Assad has left in power but stressed "I do not see this regime surviving.". . .
here
And Syria is only the most important US target country in the ME, the Iraq challenge still
exists, Lebanon is important (receives some US military aid) and of course the old bugaboo
Iran has become more vital than ever. Iran has a heavy political influence in Iraq and Syria,
and that highway from Tehran to Beirut is a problem especially considering Iran ally (and
"terrorist") Hezbollah. So. . .that's why 50,000+ US troops, an air force, and the Navy's
Fifth fleet are there.
The main point is that the US world hegemon has to be strong everywhere, especially in
Asia, and if it's forced out of anywhere it would set a bad example, going back to 'losing
China.'
"The issue with the current US strategy in the region is that it defies the reality with
such an obstinance that it completely undermines its own goals. The origin of this
obstinance is well known to everyone."
Yes, I think that's the issue exactly, and Israel is at the heart of it all. We are
undermining our own goals (and scoring own goals.) Your point here captures the current
bottom line of US "strategy" in the region.
"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what
it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is
conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses." . ."I wouldn't go to
war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two
things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of
Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.". . .General Smedley Butler, USMC, two
Congressional Medals of Honor, veteran of wars in Central America, Europe and China
Is Israel responsible for the US enmity toward North Korea? the bombing of Libya and Somalia?
Eighteen years in Afghanistan?
No. In the US, to quote Randolph Bourne (1918), war is the health of the state.
. . .With the shock of war, however, the State comes into its own again. The Government,
with no mandate from the people, without consultation of the people, conducts all the
negotiations, the backing and filling, the menaces and explanations, which slowly bring it
into collision with some other Government, and gently and irresistibly slides the country
into war. For the benefit of proud and haughty citizens, it is fortified with a list of the
intolerable insults which have been hurled toward us by the other nations; for the benefit
of the liberal and beneficent, it has a convincing set of moral purposes which our going to
war will achieve; for the ambitious and aggressive classes, it can gently whisper of a
bigger role in the destiny of the world. The result is that, even in those countries where
the business of declaring war is theoretically in the hands of representatives of the
people, no legislature has ever been known to decline the request of an Executive, which
has conducted all foreign affairs in utter privacy and irresponsibility, that it order the
nation into battle. Good democrats are wont to feel the crucial difference between a State
in which the popular Parliament or Congress declares war, and the State in which an
absolute monarch or ruling class declares war. But, put to the stern pragmatic test, the
difference is not striking. In the freest of republics as well as in the most tyrannical of
empires, all foreign policy, the diplomatic negotiations which produce or forestall war,
are equally the private property of the Executive part of the Government, and are equally
exposed to no check whatever from popular bodies, or the people voting as a mass
themselves.
"Is Israel responsible for the US enmity toward North Korea? the bombing of Libya and
Somalia? Eighteen years in Afghanistan?"
First, I did not claim that every move the US makes is Israel-induced. I said that Israel
is at the heart of our overall strategic dysfunction in the Middle East. Libya and Somalia
are peripheral, and Afghanistan is not truly in the region at all.
But let's be clear that the rise of both al Quaeda and, as a follow-on, the Islamic State
have been greatly facilitated by the resentment generated by the imposition of Jewish state
on the region at the expense of the local Arabs. Both bin Laden and Zawahiri have mentioned
the Zionist conquest and its wars as formative experiences.
And the rise of IS was a direct result of the US invasion of Iraq, itself induced by the
overlapping strains of Jewish neoconservatism and Likudnik hyper-Zionism. The overthrow of
Saddam created the political and strategic space for IS to emerge and thrive, and the
concerted attempt to overthrow Assad--another Israeli strategic preference--weakened the
Syrian state so much that it permitted the establishment of a "caliphate" which then invaded
Iraq. This expanding dynamic played a role in Libya as well.
With regard to Saudi Arabia, we have to ask why the US put its weight behind the
replacement of Muhammed bin Naif (MbN) with Muhammed bin Salman (MbS) when almost all the USG
wanted to tell Salman that we preferred staying with the known and trusted MbN. Almost
certainly, Trump's ignorant support of MbS originated with the pro-Israel Jews who dominate
his thinking. MbS has been a bonanza for Israel but a disaster for us (and the region.)
And with regard to Afghanistan, the denuding of that theater to resource the
Iraq-Iran-Syria invasion/regime change scheme demanded by Israel and its operatives in the US
had a definitively negative outcome on US policy in Afghanistan from which, it is now clear,
it will never recover.
In East Asia, the negative impact of US Israel-centric Middle East policy can be seen as
well. The neocon/Likudnik-induced morass of Iraq into which we marched distracted us from the
Asia-Pacific and particularly China's move into the South China Sea, which might have been
deterred, if we weren't expending the overwhelming majority of our energy, attention and
resources in the Middle East.
And since you bring up North Korea, the Israeli influence on US policy there is certainly
secondary but definitely not zero. Israel and its lobby seek an ultra-hard line on any US
negotiations with North Korea because they see it as an extension of Iran policy, so in their
view, any concession to North Korea is a bad example for Iran. This contributes to impeding
any possible negotiated solution to the complex of issues on the Korean Peninsula.
It is truly amazing how far the insidious reach of Israel, its nefarious lobby and the
"Is-it-good-for-the-Jews?" obsessions of political Jewry extends into US foreign policy. Our
current strategy is, as ATH noted, self-undermining. There really is no historical precedent
for it.
After all, this is what our elected, alleged representatives posit when they state
collectively, in unison, loudly, repeatedly, on their knees, that "the USA maintains an
irrevocable bond with Israel".
That statement should bring the condescension and the wrath of the USA public.
For what reason would the USA maintain an "irrevocable bond" with ANY other nation?
Regardless of the fact that ISrael is an apartheid state by its own definition as "The
Jewish State of ISrael".
You both have valid points, but I've always believed it's the dog that wags its tail.
Sure, if it was simply Palestine, one could expect different nuances of US policy. But any
qualitative difference? I don't see it.
The US would still back undemocractic strong men who would treat American interests as
paramount in return for US backing of their regime and turning a blind eye to their
enrichment at the expense of the general population. The US would be hellbent against any
pan-Arab nationalism or anything resembling socialism or sovereignty.
The proof? Well take a look at how the US treats the rest of the world.
The US and Israel have overlapping interests as it relates to the Middle East with the added
accelerator of the many dual nationals in seats of power.
lysias , Jun 23, 2019 2:21:16 PM |
57bevin , Jun 23, 2019 2:22:35 PM |
58
"Israel's strategic preferences have indeed become the most important single influence on US
Middle East policy. Up to a certain point in the past, that was not true, but it is now. The
Carter Doctrine has, in effect, been undermined by the distortions that the ever-growing
power of pro-Israel political Jewry in the US in both its neoconservative and Likudnik
expressions are able to impose on our policy."
Oscar Peterson is correct not because Israel's interests are of such importance-they
really are not- but because US Foreign policy has become totally incoherent.
This is because it is entirely aimed at fund raisers and influencers of the electorate. It is
founded on the theory that the United States can do whatever it pleases, and need never care
about consolidating its power or defending its positions because it is far more powerful than
all its potential rivals added together. This being the case its Foreign Policy becomes a
saleable commodity, just as its armed forces-which can never be defeated- are at the disposal
of the highest bidders.
Note to Psychohistorian: the open democracy website has an article on Costa Rica's public
banking today.
with regard to iran, the usa is tied at the hip to israel.. that is a fact... now, maybe it
can change, but i think phil at mondoweiss lays it out pretty clearly for anyone interested..
as i see it, this is just temporary... israel is gunning hard for war on iran.. anyone who
can't see that is in fact very blind..
meanwhile - Trump: “I have some hawks. John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was
up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time.“
bolton is in this position due the fact trump owed sheldon adelson one... at least trump
can see it, but i don't know that he can avoid where this is going... that would be putting
too much faith in a con artist - grifter..
I suggest you download Douglas Reed's comprehensive review of Zionism's activities in "The
Controversy of Zion" over the period you describe from a singular perspective and read it
thoroughly. IN fact I commend that book to everyone on this site. Reed was a correspondent
through WW2 and before and his work is detailed and readable, with extensive references.
"CBS News Analyst And Iran "War Mongering Maniac" Also Raytheon Board Member: Dore"
"How do you know the MSM is nothing more than the media wing of the
military-industrial-complex? A Raytheon board member masquerading as an objective analyst is
a good start."
"On Friday, CBS News analyst and retired Navy Admiral James Winnefeld Jr. slammed
President Trump for calling off retaliatory strikes on Iran over a downed US drone, while
insisting we must strike Iran or else the United States will "lose a lot of credibility."
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said financial restrictions would be imposed on
Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif later this week. ............... Zarif, viewed as
Iran's most skilled diplomat, was lead negotiator in the multi-party nuclear accord reached
in 2015 under the Obama administration that Trump has since rejected.
If this was about a real estate deal in New York, Trump's bully-boy tactics might seem
reasonable. Deliberately pissing off the real leader of Iran, and sanctioning their head
diplomat means he doesn't want "negotiations". Only total surrender is permissible in light
of his foolishness.
I've got a bad feeling about all of this. Time is running out for the apartheid Jewish
state, and they're going to be mighty tempted to arrange for a bunch of US military men or
women to be brought home in body bags. That's because they can't be absolutely positive one
of the neocon Democrats will be in the White House soon.
"Trump is in danger of being crushed between a Fed that sees the US dollar's role as the
world's reserve currency collapse, and the need for the Fed to blame someone not linked to
the real causes of the collapse, that is to say, the monetary policies adopted through QE to
prolong the post-crisis economic agony of 2008....
"As foolish as it may seem, a war on Iran could be the perfect option that satisfies all
power groups in the United States. The hawks would finally have their war against Tehran, the
world economy would sink, and the blame would fall entirely on Trump. The Donald, as a
result, would lose any chance of being re-elected so it makes sense for him to call off
possible strikes as he did after the US drone was shot out of the sky."
The author echoes my words from yesterday:
"I wonder if Europeans will understand all this before the impending disaster. I doubt
it."
Regarding what I wrote about Sanders in my reply to Stever, here we have the Chancellery
of the People's Republic of China spokesman, Hua Chun Ying:
"The American leaders say that 'the era of the commercial surrender of their country has
come to an end', but what is over is their economic intimidation of the world and their
hegemony.
"The United States must again respect international law, not arrogate to itself
extraterritorial rights and mandates, must learn to respect its peers in safeguarding
transparent and non-discriminatory diplomatic and commercial relations. China and the United
States have negotiated other disputes in the past with good results and the doors of dialogue
are open as long as they are based on mutual respect and benefits."
No, I didn't cite everything in the article. There's much more of importance there to
read!
After a somewhat quiet weekend the Trump administration today engaged in another push against
Iran.
Today the Treasury Department sanctioned the leaders of
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). It also sanctioned Iran's Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei and his office! There will be no more Disney Land visits for them.
Mnuchin: "The president has instructed me that we will be designating [Iran's foreign
minister Javad] Zarif later this week." cc: @JZarif
The Treasury Secretary will designate Javad Zarif as what? A terrorist? Zarif is quite
effective in communicating the Iranian standpoint on Twitter and other social media. Those
accounts will now be shut down.
The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, said today that Iran should
respond to U.S. diplomacy with diplomacy. Sanctioning Iran's chief diplomat is probably not
the way to get there.
All those who get sanctioned by the U.S. will gain in popularity in Iran. These U.S.
measures will only unite the people of Iran and strengthen their resolve.
Iran will respond to this new onslaught by asymmetric means of which it has plenty.
On Saturday Trump said that all he wants is that Iran never gets nuclear weapons. But the
State Department wants much more. Hook today said that the U.S. would only
lift sanctions if a comprehensive deal is made that includes ballistic missile and human
rights issues. Iran can not agree to that. But this is not the first time that Pompeo
demanded more than Trump himself. Is it Pompeo, not Trump, who is pressing this expanded
version to make any deal impossible?
Brian Hook is by the way a loon who does not even understand the meaning of what he
himself says:
US Hook says Iran knew what getting into when struck deal with president who had 1 1/2
yr left in office. "They knew what they were getting into...They knew that there was a
great possibility that the next president could come in & leave the deal." Note: US
elections 17 months away
Those are two good arguments for Iran to never again agree to any deal with the
'non-agreement-capable' United States.
It seems obvious from the above that the Trump administration has
no real interest in reasonable negotiations with Iran:
"The administration is not really interested in negotiations now," said Robert Einhorn, a
former senior State Department official who was involved in negotiations with Iranian
officials during the Obama administration. "It wants to give sanctions more time to make
the Iranians truly desperate, at which point it hopes the negotiations will be about the
terms of surrender."
That is part of the strategy. But the real issue is deeper:
Pro tip: Sanctions against #Iran aren't to retaliate for the downed drone or to punish
tanker attacks or to improve the nuclear deal or to help the Iranian people but to foment
revolution against the regime. The strategy is regime change with velvet gloves.
... ... ...
Pompeo was hastily sent to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Brian Hook is now in Oman and Bolton
is in Israel. The U.S. will also pressure Europe and NATO to join a new 'coalition of the
willing'. The UK will likely follow any U.S. call as it needs a trade deal to survive after
Brexit.
Other countries are best advised to stay out.
Posted by b at
02:05 PM |
Comments (183) Our leaders have gone out of their tiny minds, first Trump confirms our
suspicions that the deal he wants must include those legal ballistic missiles, then that
nutcase Hunt pledged to stand by the US in the event of conflict with Iran, you could not
make it up.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is running against Boris Johnson for the Conservatives'
leadership, has pledged to stand by the US even if its confrontation with Iran leads to a
military conflict, according to The Daily Mail.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201906241076032533-uk-foreign-secretary-hunt-admits-britain-could-follow-us-into-war-with-iran/
Trump is such a con man... He said he told Shinzō Abe, before the Japanese prime
minister visited Tehran on 12 June: "Send the following message: you can't have nuclear
weapons. And other than that, we can sit down and make a deal. But you cannot have nuclear
weapons."
This whole saga is not about nuclear weapons, it is about those conventional ballistic
missiles which Iran is manufacturing perfectly legally and changing the equation in the
region. These are precision missiles and could turn Tel Aviv and Saudi oil infrastructure
into rubble, US/Israel want to make Iran defenseless. It is not going to happen.
The US faced empire is the largest state sponsor of terror
The big lie technique works when all levels of communication are controlled. Otherwise it
makes you the laughing stock, which Trump will be at the G20 before he leaves
In dealing with Iran Pompeo & Bolton are following the infantile pattern that Israel uses
with Palestinians and Hezbollah: Make them suffer so they turn against their leaders and
provoke a regime change
It never worked because the middle easterners do not think like the Jews or Westerners. They
are resilient and have little to loose. The more hardship they get from foreign and hostile
powers the more they unite and resist. Despite the overwhelming persecution of the
Palestinians by Israel and its western allies for 50 years they are still resisting. Iran is
not different.
They are under siege for 30 years and still defiant.
Many US presidents and Boltons have passed and disappeared in oblivion after attempting and
failing regime changes in the middle east. Trump is not different.
Well, the end is most certainly nigh. Figure the US or Israel will resort to using nuclear
weapons which will result in Russia and China unleashing theirs. At least we can expect Wash
DC to be obliterated. May solve one of our problems.
Expect all nuclear facilities, military bases, and major airports to be targeted. Hopefully,
major population centers would be spared but doubt the US will reciprocate so expect all
major metropolitan areas to also be targeted.
Here is the double down on stupid which should have been expected.
Double sanctions, double demands, double threats, double censorship and the assemblage of
a fake posse - aka the coalition of the lapdogs.
Who will join the coalition of dumbfuckery? Here are the coalition members from Dubya's
Iraqi invasion in 2003:
Of the 48 countries on the list, three contributed troops to the invasion force (the
United Kingdom, Australia and Poland). An additional 37 countries provided some number of
troops to support military operations after the invasion was complete.
The list of coalition members provided by the White House included several nations that
did not intend to participate in actual military operations. Some of them, such as Marshall
Islands, Micronesia, Palau and Solomon Islands, did not have standing armies. However,
through the Compact of Free Association, citizens of the Marshall Islands, Palau and the
Federated States of Micronesia are guaranteed US national status and therefore are allowed to
serve in the US military. The members of these island nations have deployed in a combined
Pacific force consisting of Guamanian, Hawaiian and Samoan reserve units. They have been
deployed twice to Iraq. The government of one country, the Solomon Islands, listed by the
White House as a member of the coalition, was apparently unaware of any such membership and
promptly denied it.[5] According to a 2010 study, the Federal States of Micronesia, the
Marshall Islands and Palau (and Tonga and the Solomon Islands to a lesser extent) were all
economically dependent on economic aid from the United States, and thus had an economic
incentive to join the Coalition of the Willing.[6]
In December 2008, University of Illinois Professor Scott Althaus reported that he had
learned that the White House was editing and back-dating revisions to the list of countries
in the coalition.[7][8] Althaus found that some versions of the list had been entirely
removed from the record, and that others contradicted one another, as opposed to the
procedure of archiving original documents and supplementing them with later revisions and
updates.[3]
By August 2009, all non-U.S./UK coalition members had withdrawn from Iraq.[9] As a result,
the Multinational Force – Iraq was renamed and reorganized to United States Forces
– Iraq as of January 1, 2010. Thus the Coalition of the Willing came to an official
end.
Thanks to fastfreddy with the Iraq related Coalition of the Willing history
Over on another thread it was noted that today Trump is trying to build another Coalition
of the Willing to "protect" the shipping lanes.
My response was
@ Don Bacon and SRB with the comments about the crybaby defense over "protecting" shipping
lanes
I think China will tell empire like I tell the guy in front of the Post Office wanting to
protect my bicycle while I go in....."Why should I give you money to protect me from you?
100% Gangsterism. The Outlaw US Empire learned it cannot defeat Iran militarily, so it
invites other nations to become outlaws too. The G-20's in 4 days. I'll wager Trump leaves
before it's over having accomplished nothing other than absorbing abuse from most attendees.
And just what will Trump do when this move fails as it will? IMO, he just dealt Sanders a
great set of cards. The crowd expecting a repeat of Shock & Awe will grow smaller as they
slowly realize the truth of my second sentence. Instead of climbing down the tree, Trump
climbs higher onto thinner branches. What's more, Trump opens himself up to being challenged
within the Republican Party for POTUS nominee as the Current Oligarchy cannot like this
choice.
"realDonaldTrump is 100% right that the US military has no business in the Persian Gulf.
Removal of its forces is fully in line with interests of US and the world. But it's now clear
that the #B_Team is not concerned with US interests -- they despise diplomacy, and thirst for
war."
It appears Zarif concedes policy isn't made by Trump. The ignorance displayed in the
thread's comments is astounding.
The only times I can think of when a country switched sides, ie: overthrew their leaders, was
when they were caught in a squeeze between two other powers and decided to go with the
winner. Example: Italy in 1943. External pressures causing people to overthrow their leaders?
Essentially Nada.
So, what happens to derivatives if a shooting war ends up with the Straits closed? Escobar's
recent piece on the derivatives implosion that would result from a shooting war suggests that
the US/Saudi/Bibi axis is like a boys playing with matches around a can of gasoline or that
they believe they have a work-around for the derivatives problem. I would like to know
whether the BIS-types are on board with this fiasco or are trying to apply the brakes.
Bernie Sanders suggested that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was "the worst foreign policy
blunder in the history of the country." Bernie you ain't seen nothing yet, if those slavering
imbeciles have anything to do with it. The costs [including long term costs] of the
Iraq/Afghan wars [still ongoing] are estimated at 6 Trillion dollars. Here is what just one
Trillion dollars looks like http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html
"Yet the nation's longest and most expensive war is the one that is still going on. In
addition to nearly 7,000 troops killed, the 16-year conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan will
cost an estimated US$6 trillion due to its prolonged length, rapidly increasing veterans
health care and disability costs and interest on war borrowing. On this Memorial Day, we
should begin to confront the staggering cost and the challenge of paying for this war".
http://theconversation.com/iraq-and-afghanistan-the-us-6-trillion-bill-for-americas-longest-war-is-unpaid-78241
I've replied to numerous people lacking knowledge that they must listen to Nasrallah when it
comes to what will occur if the Outlaw US Empire or any other entity attacks Iran. This short clip
is one of several I'm referring to. I'd say it's very likely Trump needs to be included on
the list of those needing to hear Nasrallah.
Looks like Bolton is dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. He believes the United States can do what wants without regard to
international law, treaties or the роlitical commitments of previous administrations.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean ..."
...Zionists know what they want, are willing to work together towards their goals, and put their money where their mouth
is. In contrast, for a few pennies the goyim will renounce any principle they pretend to cherish, and go on happily proclaiming
the opposite even if a short while down the road it'll get their own children killed.
The real sad part about this notion of the goy as a mere beast in human form is maybe not that it got codified for eternity
in the Talmud, but rather that there may be some truth to it? Another way of saying this is raising the question whether the goyim
deserve better, given what we see around us.
Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean and prevent a Turko Egyptian and possibly Persian
invasion of Greece & the West
Thursday night was the night Donald Trump became president. You can imagine the hyperbolic
hosannahs that would have been sung if Trump had gone ahead with his planned strikes against
Iran, adding to the list of undeclared presidential wars. Instead he pulled back.
Hugh Hewitt called it the "big blink," inviting Liz Cheney -- who is very much her father's
daughter on foreign policy -- on his show to warn, "Weakness is provocative." Hewitt compared
it to Barack Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" in Syria. "Much worse"
argued Kori Schake in The Atlantic . Other reporting
focused on a "total breakdown in process."
It was not a picture perfect approach to national security, to be sure. But it did sharply
illustrate the Beltway's strange priorities. When Trump twice bombed Syria, few of those who
fret about his erosion of constitutional norms or authoritarian tendencies protested his
failure to seek congressional authorization as required by the Constitution. There was a much
larger process-related panic when Trump said late last year he wanted to bring American troops
home from Syria.
... ... ...
"How many more deaths? How many more lost limbs? How much longer are we going to be there?"
Woodward quotes Trump as asking. One Post write-up folded these lines into a broader
story about the White House's "nervous breakdown" and the national security team's impatience
with the president. But these are morally serious questions, not exaggerated inaugural crowd
size estimates.
@ jayc 57 US Hook says Iran knew what getting into when struck deal
Yes they did, and now they regret it.
In 2013 Ali Khamenei said: "Certainly, we are pessimistic about the Americans. We do not
trust them. We consider the government of the United States of America as an unreliable,
arrogant, illogical, and trespassing government,"
The JCPOA was not a unilateral deal between USA and Iran, it was a multilateral
deal
That's correct de jure, but not de facto. The US all by itself is leading the current
attack on Iran, despite what the other members might think. Iran has not gotten any
significant support from other JCPOA participants.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24, 2019 5:10:10 PM |
66
The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook...
______________________________________
Brian Hook is a "special" envoy in the sense that the "Special Olympics" are
special.
It is interesting to listen to this speech again in view of Iran crisis, attempt to launch a
regime change in Venezuela and trade war with Chins lunched by Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... McCain and some other Western officials could barely contain themselves in there. They never forgive Putin for that speech. This was the decisive moment relations between the US. and Russia started to deteriorate. ..."
"... The Wikileaks cables showed how aggressively NATO was working to bring in Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance despite what was being said in public during that time. ..."
"... Look at the dirty bitch Victoria Nuland smirking at 11:43 . She knew what the US was about to do in Ukraine. ..."
"... this was the best anti NWO speech ever. The moment I saw it back then I knew Russia will have many problems coming for the NWO scum. You know what happened right? ..."
On February 10, 2007, Vladimir Putin delivered his keynote speech at the Munich Security
Conference, challenging the post-Cold War establishment. RT looks back a decade to see how
accurate his ideas were.
McCain and some other Western officials could barely contain themselves in there. They
never forgive Putin for that speech. This was the decisive moment relations between the US.
and Russia started to deteriorate.
The Wikileaks cables showed how aggressively NATO was working to bring in Georgia and
Ukraine into the alliance despite what was being said in public during that time.
'The Putin Interviews', where Putin is interviewed by Oliver Stone from 2015 - 2017,
brought me here. This iconic speech was referred to by Oliver Stone in the interviews. The
speech was certainly worth watching and I highly recommend watching 'The Putin Interviews'.
You won't regret it.
I'm not Russian but he is my hero, my President and my dad!!! ^_^ And proud of him. This
memorable speech was one of my favorites! He stood for what he believes in and he stayed true
to it.
Hahahahahahahahaha! You can see the Western leaders here were in a state of profound SHOCK
as they listened to this speech. They thought he was going to kow-tow to the West - and he
did the EXACT OPPOSITE! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
ment-renderer-text-content expanded"> wow awesome speech. words from a outstanding
leader. Acting and standing for true Peace and prosperity. Unlike the UN and NWO whos only
goal is to continue to create terrorism. create fear and drain any communities from being
independent and free from there False saftey taxes and sanctions. not using the world
currency exchange means there unable to falsely influence the world markets
American people should be highly alarmed
at NATO actions , they are inching closer to Russia's borders trying to encircle Russia with
military bases and missiles , this is done in preparation of an attack of the country being
encircled, nato is lying and misleading its citizens and they dont worry about consequence
of such a scenario which surely would trigger the third world war, American people and all nato member citizens should strongly push back against this , we need to consider the outcome
of a nuclear power attacking and invading another nuclear power
Russia would surely use
nuclear weapons to defend its country if overwhelmed, millions could perish in a day, we
have to condemn and protest Nato plans for another world war before its too late, it will be
our families suffering and dying not the elite that is pushing this conflict
Great speech from a great man, a man who truly loves fairness and democracy not the sugar
coated type offered by the west. Did anyone notice that by 9:50 into his speech, a good
number of them wanted out? McCain at some point couldn't even bring himself to look at Putin,
What a pitiful fellow McCain is!!!!!
This speech needs to be re-posted . and disseminated .. it is very very current , more than
ever... there is a section of world who simply do not know .
10 years passed and what Putin said back then is exactly what's happened and is
still happening. I have great respect for Russia and I have no respect for US and their
allies. Whole NATO sucks, is obsolete and is acting exactly like world's terrorists!
I have no respect for the majority of the American people as they are as responsible for the wars their corrupt capitalism
controlled US government has done. American people went along with it for all these decades and they fought these wars for
them anyway, they did not care if they bully other nations, kill innocent people...
this was the best anti NWO speech ever. The moment I saw it back then I knew Russia will
have many problems coming for the NWO scum. You know what happened right?
news report
Bloomberg, Jun 24, 2019
Pompeo is starting a commission on human rights to rethink what they are and how they should
fit into U.S. foreign policy. . .
here
Office of the high Commissioner
United Nations Human Rights
May 6, 2019 US sanctions violate human rights and international code of conduct, UN expert
says
. . .On 17 April the United States banned the Central Bank of Venezuela from conducting
transactions in US dollars after 17 May, and will cut off access to US personal remittances
and credit cards by March 2020.
"It is hard to figure out how measures which have the effect of destroying Venezuela's
economy, and preventing Venezuelans from sending home money, can be aimed at 'helping the
Venezuelan people', as claimed by the US Treasury," the expert said.
His statements follow claims in a recent report published by the Washington-based Centre
for Economic and Policy Research that 40,000 people may have died in Venezuela since
2017 because of US sanctions .
Jazairy also said he was concerned the US would not renew waivers for international
buyers of Iranian oil, despite protests from NATO ally Turkey, among others. Washington has
demanded that all remaining States which benefited from waivers stop purchases on May 1, or
face sanctions.
"The extraterritorial application of unilateral sanctions is clearly contrary to
international law," the expert said. " I am deeply concerned that one State can use its
dominant position in international finance to harm not only the Iranian people, who have
followed their obligations under the UN-approved nuclear deal to this day, but also
everyone in the world who trades with them.
"The international community must come together to challenge what amounts to blockades
ignoring a country's sovereignty, the human rights of its people, and the rights of third
countries trading with sanctioned States, all while constituting a threat to world peace
and security.
"I call on the international community to engage in constructive dialogue with
Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and the United States to find a peaceful resolution in compliance
with the spirit and letter of the Charter of the United Nations before the arbitrary use of
economic starvation becomes the new 'normal'." . . here
Favorite lie Trump willing to meet w/no pre-conditions
100 Pinocchio's. He even says that he wants to negotiate about Iran's so-called nuclear
weapons program. If the premise of the talks is that Iran has to abandon the JCPOA then how
is this not a precondition?
Nothing left to sanction, what's next?
You will know that war is certain when the U.S. forbids Iranian tankers from leaving port
(a blockade) so that they cannot even sell oil to China. Iran will rightly call this an act
of war and declare that stopping a single tanker will result in them firing on a U.S. naval
ship. The morons in the U.S. MSM will bleat and call this Iranian aggression even though it
is the U.S. that is blocking the sacred right of 'international shipping'. The number one
excuse we use to send our navy to the shores of China and Iran.
Don Bacon #65
"The US all by itself is leading the current attack on Iran, despite what the other members
might think. Iran has not gotten any significant support from other JCPOA participants."
The American's bluff was called way back in Obama's first term when Turkey and Brazil
proposed a plan which would settle concerns over Iran's nuclear centrifuges. Sec State
Clinton shut that down quickly, confirming the nuclear concerns were merely a pretext for a
regime-change policy. That established, the overriding interest, internationally, became
preventing a shooting war involving US and Iran -to which the negotiating of the JCPOA played
a strong role. The Russians and Chinese were criticized for supporting this process,
including the UNSC directed sanctions. But the process strengthened multilateral cooperation
and highlighted the obvious downsides of a self-avowed hegemonic power. By rejecting the
JCPOA, the Americans rejected the UN and international law/agreements for the second time in
15 short years. The overriding concern remains to expose the negative consequences of a
hegemonic entity while avoiding, to the extent possible, an actual shooting war.
"... What usually stops the US are elections. The Vietnam War deeply threatened the US establishment and they "think" they learnt the lessons. ..."
"... The Russian military source says there is now active coordination between Russian and Iranian military staffs. "About coordination, of course there is participation of Russia in intelligence-sharing because of Bushehr and ISIS. We have a long and successful partnership with Iran, especially in terms of fighting against international terrorism." Two days after the drone incident, Russian specialist media published Iranian video footage of the movement of S-300's on trailer trucks. This report claims that although the S-300's are wheeled and motorized for rapid position changes, the use of highway transporters was intended to minimize road fatigue on the weapons. ..."
"... Iranian military sources have told western reporters they have established "a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East." ..."
"... The incident happened Thursday before U.S. markets opened. There was the usual confusion about exactly what happened most of the day and we had that odd statement by Trump just before Thursday market close to the effect that maybe a rouge Iranian general made a mistake in shooting down the (in this case: manned P-8A) in 'international waters'. ..."
Iran forces will attack the US in peripheral areas including especially Iraq. ..news
reports...
U.S. officials are concerned that Iran has given the green light to Iranian-backed
militias in Iraq to attack the more than 5,200 U.S. forces helping Iraqi Security Forces. And
reflecting the unique situation in Iraq, some of those security forces are Iranian-backed
militias that fall under the control of the Iraqi government.
For three days in a row this week, rockets have been fired at areas where U.S. forces or
U.S. interests are located in Iraq. On Monday, rockets targeted Camp Taji, where the U.S.-led
coalition against ISIS is training Iraqi security forces. On Tuesday, more rockets were fired
at a compound in Mosul where U.S. troops are based. Then, another attack on Wednesday struck
an oil facility near where ExxonMobil has employees.
Rocket attacks Wednesday on American and Turkish oil facilities in southern Iraq, which
may have been carried out by Iranian-backed militias, are the latest example of how Iraq
finds itself squarely in the middle of increasing tensions between its two closest partners,
the United States and Iran.
Security measures were increased at one of Iraq's largest air bases that houses American
trainers following an attack last week, a top Iraqi air force commander said Saturday. The
U.S. military said operations at the base were going on as usual and there were currently no
plans to evacuate personnel. The stepped-up Iraqi security measures at Balad air base, just
north of the capital, Baghdad.
In Iran's immediate vicinity the US Navy is especially vulnerable. Iran has thousands of
rockets and missiles, and knows how to use them, plus 34 submarines wirh 533mm torpedoes.
There's the potential of over sixty torpedoes in the water in one salvo.
from USNI:
On Sunday, the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group with embarked 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit
entered the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility, joining the Abraham Lincoln Carrier
Strike Group already on station in 5th Fleet.
As a result, the Navy now has 28,000 personnel deployed to the region. In comparison, the
Navy currently has 24,000 personnel deployed to the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans,
according to Navy data reviewed by USNI News.
"All of our training and our transit to 5th Fleet have made us prepared to respond to any
crises across the range of military operations," Capt. Brad Arthur, commander of Amphibious
Squadron 5 and the Boxer ARG/11th MEU team, said in a statement. . .
here
Don Bacon , Jun 25, 2019 9:35:55 AM |
179somebody , Jun 25, 2019 9:39:52 AM |
180
@Yeah, Right | Jun 25, 2019 9:06:21 AM | 175
What usually stops the US are elections. The Vietnam War deeply threatened the US establishment and they "think" they learnt the
lessons.
- no conscripts
- as few dead soldiers as possibele - see Iraq or
Afghanistan never mind the death of foreign civilians
So either others have to do the fighting (Syria) or the US bomb the country extensively to
make it safe for their soldiers. They miscalculated on this in Iraq.
This here is John Helmer's take - who I assume, gets his information
from the Russian military
The range of the new surveillance extends well beyond the S-300 strike distance of 200
kilometres, and covers US drone and aircraft bases on the Arabian peninsula, as well as US
warships in (and under) the Persian Gulf and off the Gulf of Oman. Early warning of US air
and naval-launched attacks has now been cut below the old 4 to 6-minute Iranian threshold.
Counter-firing by the Iranian armed forces has been automated from attack warning and
target location.
This means that if the US is detected launching a swarm of missiles aimed at Iran's
air-defense sites, uranium mines, reactors, and military operations bunkers, Iran will
launch its own swarm of missiles at the US firing platforms, as well as at Saudi and other
oil production sites, refineries, and pipelines, as well tankers in ports and under way in
the Gulf.
"The armed forces of Iran," said a Russian military source requesting anonymity, "have
air defence systems capable of hitting air targets at those heights at which drones of the
Global Hawk series can fly; this is about 19,000 to 20,000 metres. Iran's means of air
defence are both foreign-purchased systems and systems of Iran's own design; among them, in
particular, the old Soviet system S-75 and the new Russian S-300.
Recently, Iran
transported some S-300's to the south, but that happened after the drone was shot down
[June 20]. Russian specialists are working at Bushehr now and this means that the S-300's
are also for protection of Bushehr."
... ... ...
The Russian military source says there is now active coordination between Russian and
Iranian military staffs. "About coordination, of course there is participation of Russia in
intelligence-sharing because of Bushehr and ISIS. We have a long and successful partnership
with Iran, especially in terms of fighting against international terrorism." Two days after
the drone incident, Russian specialist media published Iranian video footage of the
movement of S-300's on trailer trucks. This report claims that although the S-300's are
wheeled and motorized for rapid position changes, the use of highway transporters was
intended to minimize road fatigue on the weapons.
Iranian military sources have told western reporters they have established "a joint
operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of
every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle
East."
... ... ...
In briefings for sympathetic western reporters, Iranian commanders are emphasizing the
Armageddon option; that is, however weak or strong their defenses may prove to be under
prolonged US attack, the Iranian strategy is not to wait. Their plan, they say, is to
counter-attack against Arab as well as American targets as soon as a US missile attack
commences; that's to say, at launch, not in-flight nor at impact.
The US cannot sustain any prolonged war with Iran (see elections, dead soldiers), nor can
they risk an escalation of small attacks. Nor can they isolate Iran diplomatically.
The Russian military source says there is now active coordination between Russian and
Iranian military staffs.
from Mehr News today
Heading a high delegation of Iran's Defense Ministry and the Army, Iranian Deputy Defense
Minister Brigadier General Ghasem Taghizadeh traveled to Moscow at the invitation of
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu on Tuesday morning.
He will hold talks with Russian Defense Minister and officials, as well as visit
International Military-Technical Forum (ARMY-2019). . . here
@imo@142 - Your remark about MMT and my reply have magically gelled (in my simian brain) for a
grand unified conspiracy theory that explains a lot of oddities everyone has pointed out
previously.
The plan for last Thurs/Fri:
The incident happened Thursday before U.S. markets opened. There was the usual confusion
about exactly what happened most of the day and we had that odd statement by Trump just
before Thursday market close to the effect that maybe a rouge Iranian general made a mistake
in shooting down the (in this case: manned P-8A) in 'international waters'.
Worry, but not
panic in the markets on Friday. Oil prices would still have jumped, but derivatives don't
implode. War doesn't seem imminent. The public would have been admonished by Trump and the
MSM to 'wait for the facts' before rushing to judgement (also calming the markets). Iran
would have said nothing on Friday fearing the worse. It really couldn't have been planned
better - plenty of time to start the buzz before the weekend but avert derivative Armageddon
on Quad witching day.
Saturday is hate Iran a lot day:
The U.S. would hold off on any kind of confirmation until the weekend. CNN would
immediately roll out videos of weeping children and widows of 'our brave heros' and document
the impromptu memorials: pictures of the sailors, flowers, Teddy bears in camo, candles.
Outraged politicians would call for Iranian blood. And, of course, oil prices would have
skyrocketed.
The U.S. either conduct an attack on Iran this week or announce an impending one after
sufficient grief was milked from the 38 deaths. Trump would be shown solemly saluting the
flag-draped coffins in the C-5s arriving at Dover. If it *had* occurred in 'international
waters', the U.S. Nave would have recovered everything and kept the Iran Navy away from the
area. Casus belli - only a monster or traitor would dare question 'the facts'. Bibi would be
shrieking nonstop about how he told us so and encourage us to hurry up and destroy Iran for
them.
No sailors would have been hurt in this ruse:
I'm not making light of the thought of 38 dead U.S. sailors - none would have really died
in this scenario. The P-8A would certianly have been stripped of it's radars and advanced
electronics 'just in case'. Now there's plenty of extra room for those 38 frozen corpses
dressed in the appropriate Navy flight uniforms. Load 'em up! A USN P-8A pilot somewhere
safely ashore would be flying it via satellite just like regular drone pilots. Thanks, secret
Honeywell mystery box in the electronics bay!
Iran would have been screwed:
Video of USN ships recovering those broken (and now unthawed) bodies from the Straits
would have been required for the propaganda value. What could Iran say then? "We were
targeting the drone in our airspace, not the P-8. Honest!" Too late of course. WAR:ON.
Nobody would believe evil Iran.
Why even use a drone?
The drone would have to have been used for bait because Iran wouldn't intentionally shoot
at a P-8A (stuffed with frozen bodies or not) flying the same non-threating routes in the
middle of the Strait that they usually fly. The drone would also have been stripped but all
it's remaining cameras to capture the horrible, intentinal massacre by Iran. The plan would
have put that in Iranian airspace without explaining anything to Iran. It was suppose to draw
SAM fire.
What could have gone wrong?
The U.S. must have had enough EW on both aircraft to ensure the MQ-4A became invisible to
an approaching missile, which would eventually only seen the P-8A on it's terminal guidance
radar, not the drone. Except the Iraqis fired a SAM that used IR for terminal guidance, not
radar, ignoring whatever trick the U.S. used. The Iranian SAM may have also used a proximity
fuse, detonating it near the drone anyway. "Damn you, sneaky Iranians and your primative
IR-seeking SAMs with secret proximity fuses! Do you realize how much time and effort we put
in with our F-35s to figuring out the required radar tricks for this elaborate
scheme?"
Opening salvo:
This could also explain the bizzare 150 dead Iranian people figure Trump claimed.
There would have been a pre-planned retalitory strike on the Iranian SAM sites, but only
after market closed on Friday or on Saturday. An opening salvo only - total war would surely
follow. The U.S. would offer some fake deal. Iran would be spared destruction if they got on
their knees to their U.S. and Israeli masters. That just wouldn't ever happen, so WAR:ON. If
the U.S. went ahead with the retaliory strike based only on the drone alone, then we would
have looked like the bad guys.
How much might Iran have known?
Odd that the P-8A track wasn't also published by Iran. I wonder how they knew about the 35
frozen bodies or if they really thought there were 35 live crew? Guess we'll never know, and
nobody would believe such a nutty claim by Iran now. Frozen bodies? Remote controlled P-8As?
'Bait drone'? Hah - sounds like somethig that crackhead Paveway would dream up! Things may
have been differnt than this, but I think most people (here, anyway) were surprised by the
initial bewilderment of the Trump administration and DoD.
"What? They actually shot the drone down, not the P-8? *%^&! Why did they do
that? Get rid of the plane and dump those damn frozen bodies somewhere really deep. If you
suspect anybody on our team might be the whistleblowoing type, report them our CIA cleaner
pals to be disappeared. Hell, what do I care? My broker just called. I'm rich! F*ck the
navy - I'm retireing. See ya!"
And where the hell do you get frozen bodies today that can pass for U.S. military? Does
the Pentagon have a freezer of them somewhere for emergency use?
Some folks probably made some money [sigh...]
All I can say now is glad nothing happened as planned. I would give anything to know how
many commanding elite in the U.S. military and in-the-know congress things were buying oil
call options through proxies last week. Netanyahu and MbS were sure to have loaded up - they
LOVE money.
Thanks to somebody above with the Russia is behind Iran facts that show that attacks on
Iran are not possible but for show.
Thanks to PavewayIV with the curious scenario and confirmation that for some it is all
about MONEY
I think the EU leaders are a bit conflicted in anticipation of the G20, eh? Are they going
to join the Coalition of he Willing like their money boys tell them or do something else?
What a way to fight a war.......lets hope the fighting does not go stupider.
Existence of financial derivatives on oil (aka "paper oil") and the size of trade involving
them in world markets changes the whole situation. The USA can shoot themselves in a foot even if
the US armed forces would be able to completely destroy the Iraq army air defenses and bomb
strategic targets.
There seems to be a common theme in many articles that 'shock and awe' military strikes
will force Iran's leaders into unconditional surrender. While the US has the capability to
do this on its own, for political reasons the US is actively seeking coalition partners.
The reality is it doesn't matter how many partners the US can convince to attack Iran. No
matter how sophisticated Iran's cyber, missile or air defenses are, based on simple
logistics Iran will eventually lose a shooting war against the US and any coalition
partners. Iran knows this.
The real question when the bombing starts, is not the number of casualties that Iran can
inflict on her enemies but how long before Iran realizes it will lose and calls on all of
its asymmetric regional forces to attack in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, UAE, Saudi Arabia
and the Straits of Hormuz.
Iran doesn't have to win a shooting war, it only has to buy enough time that its forces
can disrupt oil shipments to China, India, Japan, South Korean and Europe to break the
supply chains to the US. Currently the US imports/exports over 5T dollars per year, even
impacting this by only 20% should cause the trillions in derivatives to crush the world
economy. Given that war should always be the option of last resort is there still the
possibility for negotiations?
Iran has too many examples of the promises of US and West not matching our actions. The
current sanctions are crippling the economy and backing Iran into a corner. No matter what
Iran does what guarantees can be provided that sanctions won't be reapplied. Absolutely
none. The criteria constantly change. There is an old saying in martial arts, in a fight an
opponent with no way out is far more formable than an opponent who can walk away.
Even a wide scale nuclear attack that wipes out a third of Iran's citizens in the ten
major cities and a majority of the armed forces probably won't succeed. Once nuclear
weapons are used, Iran's leaders are no longer constrained to any regional targets. If
Russia and China jump in to the fray then it could get real, as in WWIII awfully quickly.
Even without Russia and China getting involved, Iran's leaders just might consider 30M or
more deaths acceptable if her enemies are crushed. There is precedent for this. Estimates
put Russia's losses due to all causes in WWII at 25-30M people, and Russia called it a
win.
So all the babble that Iran will fold in the face of 'shock and awe' is naïve. Iran
can't win a shooting war but if can lose with style. To think that Iran can be defeated
like Iraq is folly. Iran is not Iraq. Iraq is a local power, Iran is a regional one. Iran
is too large to be attacked by ground forces. That leaves airpower. Once the bombs start to
drop, all Iranian combat units have a minimum of 72 hours of war supplies. If the US and
the coalition partners don't achieve, 'unconditional surrender' in the initial strikes then
all bets are off for keeping the conflict local.
Many articles claim the tanker and pipeline attacks of the past two weeks are 'false
flags'. Hopefully they were, because if they were not, then Iran has just proven it's ready
and has the capability to strike anywhere in the region. Iran is quickly running out of
options and has no choice but to continue escalating regional tensions until something
gives. We are indeed living in interesting times.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24, 2019 4:58:26 PM | 59
Just to add on my recent visit to Iran. They are nearly western, much more so than
neighbouring Arab countries. But there are curiosities which keep them apart, like the hijri
solar calendar, which puts them in 1398, and the 1st of the year on 21st March. Impossible to
calculate the western date without mechanical aid.
Most that I met were anti-regime. but then they were middle class. It's not the middle
class which is voting for the regime. Rather it is a populist regime, like Trump's.
As a follower of Christ, and seasoned "fruit inspector"* I can confidently state the there
is more godly wisdom & compassion for humanity displayed by Iran, Russia, Iraq, Syria
& Palestine than ALL of the West & especially not by the likes of Pompeo, Pence,
Robertson, etc
* "By their fruits you shall know them" NOT by words alone
This may be totally naive, but how about this... Iran gets a couple nukes from somewhere,
ie. NK, Russia, Pakistan, India, Walmart... and announce it & put an end to this drawn
out dance... and force Israel, US, etc to come to terms with it. This is a war after all, and
Iran has been bullied long enough (as have we all)
I admit I have never been to Iran though I've met people who have visited the country as
tourists. I have done some reading on the country's history.
Being an Islamic theocracy, the fact that Iran uses the hijri calendar is no surprise. The
calendar is actually a lunar calendar of 12 months that is at least a week or a fortnight
shorter than the Gregorian calendar we normally use. (This explains why every year Ramadan
starts earlier than it did the previous year.) 21st March on the other hand is Nowruz
(Persian New Year) which among other things celebrates the spring equinox and is an
inheritance from pre-Islamic Persia.
I have read some information about the bonyads (charitable foundations) owned / managed by
the IRGC and other government organisations. These trusts (non-profit so they are exempt from
taxation) invest huge amounts in Iran's industries. Just the other day I was commenting at
another blog about a senior military guy in the Iranian armed forces, General Hossein Salami,
who works with a huge
IRGC-associated engineering firm that controls over 800 firms and employs over 25,000 mostly
technical and engineering staff . The income that bonyads obtain from a firm like
Salami's firm and others, which in Western countries would be considered "profit", is
distributed among IRGC members (or members of the other government agencies that run them) in
the form of subsidies for education up to and including college / university level,
healthcare and other social services.
My understanding is that most people who are members of the IRGC come from working class
families and especially families who lost breadwinners or other men of draft age during the
Iraq-Iran war (1980 - 1988).
Middle class and upper middle class layers would be the hardest hit by US sanctions on
Iran (they are the ones importing and buying overseas goods, and have the most contacts with
the Iranian diaspora) and won't have the protection of subsidies provided by bonyads or other
government organisations.
I have to say I find this talk of "the mullahs" disturbing.
I never see any collateral to demonstrate that the religious layer of Iran is actually
harmful to the people in any way. And on the contrary, everything I read about how the
religious layer is part of the governing system and the culture and welfare of the nation
seems pretty reasonable to me.
I keep coming back to the thought that this is after all the religion of the people of
this country. It is the particular way in which they approach the sacredness of the universe.
I'm not persuaded that it's more intelligent to regard the universe as being not-sacred.
To accept the benignity of religious people in positions of power and influence within a
state, you have to accept the positive aspects of religion, as well as the negative aspects.
This is where a lot of potential acceptance fails, of course.
~~
We keep hearing that it is the middle and upper classes that are disaffected with the
government (although typically the term "regime" is used). But in this cold-hearted,
neoliberal economic wasteland, surely the fact that the poor and the unprivileged are in
support of their government is not a study in "populism" but rather a study in successful
socialist principles at work?
And the link provided in the previous thread regarding Iran's leadership in the war on
drugs stated that over 8,000 Iranian police have died fighting the flow of opium from
Afghanistan. The position of the US in this trade is clear to everyone, and the reason to
sanction Iran - precisely to shackle the Iranian interdiction of the drug flow - is also
clear.
Iran strikes me very much as being like Cuba, in that its good works that yield no profit
are greater than any that come from the western nations. Ir almost seems that only a
socialist, revolutionary nation has freed itself from the shackles of greed enough to pursue
actions purely from moral concern.
I like Khamenei. I envy a country that has a moral anchor such as he, a force that acts
not as its captain but as its pilot.
~~
No particular point to make. Just some words in support of devotion to the sacred, and the
moral strength to live a life, and direct a country, along moral lines, rather than
criminal.
The Shah came to power with USA + UK coup on 1953, he lacked legitimacy, that was his main
problem, he was not an indepdendt legimtimate ruler.
Understanding Iran revolution and the long historical march is too complicated. On the
surface and apperance it seems on political, ideoligical/ theoligical levels, but the
movement is deeply in cultural and social level. Otherwise it would not be able to survive,
resist and grow for 40 years. It may take another 40-50 years the movement bear fruits.
The Shah was a tragic figure in many ways. You are correct about being the servant of his
masters until he outgrew that and started having Persian Empire ambitions. Perhaps too soon
for the politics of the era. The west of the 1970's preferred a King Hussein of Jordan.
Quiet, unpretentious and cooperative.
The Shah was a super intelligent, extremely well informed and well-read, and a great
debater. No journalist was a match for him, not even the crass and arrogant Mike Wallace. But
inherently, he was a weak man with a character that did not match his ambitions. That
weakness did not allow him to follow through with his plans and he had great plans for his
country.
Having said that, IMHO, the Seven Sisters' decision to remove him, and him capitulating so
easy, was one the biggest mistakes in modern geopolitics. Look what has happened since then.
Furthermore, Dynasties and kings are in Persian DNA. I often laugh at the talk of democracy
in Iran, as you cannot have 4-5 Iranians sit together and agree to disagree. One idea always
has to come on top and the rest be damned.
Obviously, there are so many other factors and it would a lengthy discussion best to have
over a nice Cuban cigar and a single Malt.
@ C I eh? who wrote
"
Iran can pursue the strategy of Russia, patience and double dealing, indefinitely or till the
cows come home.
"
Totally agree.
In the case of bullies the best offense is a good defense and Iran showed it has good
defense to shoot down the spy plane and not the one with cannon fodder nearby
How many more bully nations other than Israel and the US are currently "active"?
None.
This is why the G20 will be interesting to see how much the global finance power struggle
shows itself.....the cows are coming home perhaps....
As alluded to by several and directly pointed to by me, Iran's defensive capabilities have
placed the Outlaw US Empire's King in check and have forced it to move into hiding on the
board behind what amounts to nothing of substance. I think it an amazing admission that the
self-proclaimed most powerful military EVER on Earth must ask for assistance to overthrow
what is a popular Iranian government--a government and people in a strategic location within
Eurasia on the cusp of initiating an geoeconomic/geopolitical system capable of upending the
Empire's #1 policy goal of attaining Full Spectrum Dominance. What nation other than the
usual co-outlaws will join in an action that is totally against its interests--what nation
wants, desires, to be dominated by another?
As I see it, the next move on the global chess board will occur at the G-20, and the King
will be placed in check again. However, the move required to get away from the check
situation won't be as simple as was just done today. It will require complex finesse of a
sort TrumpCo has yet to exhibit. It seems likely Trump will try to
redirect attention away from his Iranian failure, but that won't alter the fact that he
must move his King.
There has been much recent speculation about the restoration of monarchy in Iran in Western
news media which would suggest this is something currently occupying the minds of the, uh,
"best" and "brightest" brains over at Langley, Foggy Bottom and the bizarre ziggurat building at Vauxhall
Cross in London.
One little problem that our Western news media and their feeders may have overlooked is
that traditionally only men inherit the throne in Iran.
The current Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has only three daughters. His younger brother Ali
Reza (committed suicide in January 2011) left behind one daughter.
Iran strikes me very much as being like Cuba, in that its good works that yield no profit are
greater than any that come from the western nations. Ir almost seems that only a socialist,
revolutionary nation has freed itself from the shackles of greed enough to pursue actions
purely from moral concern.
Posted by: Grieved | Jun 24, 2019 7:59:24 PM | 98
How does Iran strike you in this way? You have traveled in Iran? You have lived in
Iran?
Do actually you give a fuck about Iran and Iranians? (Be honest. I mean care they way you
care about your FAMILY.)
Iran has been kept artificaly retarded and its development plans halted. A million
Iranians perished in a needless war. Iranians are forced to accept outrageous intrusions on
Iran's sovereignty. Our best minds continue to leave. And now we're being threatened with
nuclear bombardment.
"Winning"?
Why don't you wish that on your own people. Hah?
One imagines it must have been very alarming to the Global Mafia when the Shah of Iran
announced the plans for the Port of Chabahar. Can you imagine a developed Iran, in good
international standing, with a thriving modern port right on the Ohormozd [Hormoz] Strait? Do
recent events jingle a bell somewhere there, Grieved?
"Socialist"
A welfare state is not the same thing as a "socialist" system.
IRI runs a welfare state to keep the lower classes on their side. They are hugely
corrupted, even Ahmadinejad was screaming about it. It is not even remotely a secret.
The greed of the Mullahs is legendary. You clearly have never dealt with a member of that
species. I suggest you acquaint yourself with Iranian's assessment of our clerical
snakes.
[Obviously mature readers recognize that in any gross characterization we omit stating the
obvious fact that "in most every grouping of people there are exceptional and principled
members." We state this here for those who are not.]
I highly doubt that Khamenei has even $0.01 worth of assets in the US, however the real
purpose of sanctioning Khamenei and other Iranian government officials (supposedly including
the Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif) is not to seize their assets but to make
international diplomacy more difficult. For example, if Khamenei were to travel to Iraq to
face to face discussions with the Iraqi Prime Minister the US would now have the legal
framework to sanction any company involved in the travel arrangements, accommodations,
insurance, etc... Sanctioning Javad Zarif is an especially dick move as he is one of the
leading Iranian moderates and was in favor of the original JCPOA agreement. I suspect that
when Javad Zarif tries to attend the next UN summit in New York the US will attempt to
sabotage his travel based on these sanctions.
This is also more proof that the US wants a war with Iran as they are trying to crush the
moderates within Iran in the hopes that 1) the hardliners will become ascendant within Iran
and that they will pursue policies that will make it easier for the US to justify their
eventual attack on Iran and 2) making it more difficult for senior government officials to
travel aboard will make Iran's international diplomacy less effective in developing a
international coalition in opposition to the war. China and Russia acting as proxies and
advocates for Iran will be vital for future discussions
(1) "Iran has been kept artifically retarded and its development plans halted. A million
Iranians perished in a needless war."
Do you realize that Iran was attacked by Saddam who was supported by the US and that the US
provided Saddam with vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
(2) "One imagines it must have been very alarming to the Global Mafia when the Shah of
Iran announced the plans for the Port of Chabahar."
Did you know that the Shah was installed on 19 August 1953 following the overthrow of
democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in Operation Ajax by the US and the
United Kingdom? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
(3) "IRI runs a welfare state to keep the lower classes on their side."
Sounds like the US system where the two wings of the bird of prey are the Democrats and
the Republicans (Upton Sinclair, 1904). Please read up on US Neofeudal Oligarchy before
throwing stones at regimes that do not meet your ideological viewpoint. https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjune19/lessons-rome6-19.html
Yes I understand why the US would want to rape Iran and Venezuela for their energy
resources. Without these pools of liquid energy the US Empire will collapse on itself. I
suggest you read 1Pathfinding Our Destiny for a reality check on the US system. https://www.oftwominds.com/Pathfinding-Our-Destiny-sample2.pdf
I suggest that you worry about the US Zionist "christian" endtimers seeking the rapture
than the Iranian Mullahs.
/div> Realist, what are you asking for? Are you wishing for Ukraine's fate?
Or Brazil's? Or El Salvador's? The political situation in Iran should be, by rights, an Iranian
issue. I live in a country that spends trillions making life miserable for others, killing and
maiming them but cannot afford to look after it's own people. This is by rights my problem, and
I and my fellow citizens should be working to correct this imbalance. What advice do you have?
What advice should I give you? We are caught in a terrible, foolish dance but have not the
power, as individuals, to escape. This is life. Enjoy some tahdig. Railing against people here
is not particularly enlightning for anyone.
Posted by: the pessimist , Jun 24, 2019 11:39:51 PM |
132
Realist, what are you asking for? Are you wishing for Ukraine's fate? Or Brazil's? Or El
Salvador's? The political situation in Iran should be, by rights, an Iranian issue. I live in
a country that spends trillions making life miserable for others, killing and maiming them
but cannot afford to look after it's own people. This is by rights my problem, and I and my
fellow citizens should be working to correct this imbalance. What advice do you have? What
advice should I give you? We are caught in a terrible, foolish dance but have not the power,
as individuals, to escape. This is life. Enjoy some tahdig. Railing against people here is
not particularly enlightning for anyone.
Posted by: the pessimist | Jun 24, 2019 11:39:51 PM |
132
IRI runs a welfare state to keep the lower classes on their side. They are hugely
corrupted, even Ahmadinejad was screaming about it. It is not even remotely a secret.
The greed of the Mullahs is legendary. You clearly have never dealt with a member of
that species. I suggest you acquaint yourself with Iranian's assessment of our clerical
snakes.
I have had quite a few Iranians describe that situation to me. It is amazing how the
Christian religious leadership gets bashed, mostly rightly so, and the Mullahs get a pass. I
am sure they do get the job done shaking down the flock. Probably not as mullaevangelists on
TV but there are other ways. I bet one could amass quite a flock of daughters to your
harem.
A quick question: if there really were 35/38 American servicemen jammed into a P-8 and
dangled before the Iranians like a juicy bait on a hook then how, exactly, are they going to
view that display of casual recklessness w.r.t. their lives?
Wouldn't they be more than a little pissed off with the revelation that the Iranian
military cared more about their mortal souls than did their own superiors in the US chain of
command?
I was listening to a recent interview of Liberty survivors. One survivor just joined the
group after retiring from the intelligence establishment. He was on the fantail after the
ship got hit and described the whole thing including the Israeli torpedo boats flying their
flags firing at the Liberty. Later at port he had to retrieve the dead. He was threatened by
the naval brass to be silent and went on to work for them for the rest of his life.
DC is full of these guys "afraid for their careers and pension". Do not expect to much out
of them.
Grieved
I agree with you summation of the Governance of Iran. The supreme Leader has a fatwa on the
creating/ion of Nuclear weapons which he says is immoral. Well their you have it, a gaggle of
US presidents who only live to breathe the threaten use of nuclear weapons upon 'their
enemies', against a leader who wishers not the power of such a immoral weapon..
@Oscar Peterson 48
Re China siding with the US if gulf oil is cut.
If China have read Trumps global energy dominance strategy, they will know it is aimed at
them.
Trumps attacks on Venezuela and Iran are twofold.
One reason is Israel - both Iran and Venezuela are anti Israel, and the second it energy
dominance -both countries have large reserves of no US controlled oil reserves.
Energy - oil and gas are China's Achilles heel. They must be imported from somewhere and
China being the would No1 importer of oil, it is something that cannot be substituted by
Russia overnight and possibly not even in the longer term..
That does not change the fact that Trump foreign policy is a continuation of Obama fogirn policy. It is neocon forign policy directed
on "full spectrum dominance". Trump just added to this bulling to the mix.
Notable quotes:
"... When pressed on the dangers of having such an uber-hawk neo-conservative who remains an unapologetic cheerleader of the 2003 Iraq War, and who laid the ground work for it as a member of Bush's National Security Council, Trump followed with, "That doesn't matter because I want both sides." ..."
"... I was against going into Iraq... I was against going into the Middle East . Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East right now. ..."
"... Bolton has never kept his career-long goal of seeing regime change in Tehran a secret - repeating his position publicly every chance he got, especially in the years prior to tenure at the Trump White House. ..."
"... Bolton! So much winning! And there's also Perry: Rick Perry, Trump's energy secretary, was flagged for describing Trumpism as a "toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition." ..."
"... Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was one of the architects of the Iraq War under George W. Bush, and now he's itching to start a war with Iran -- an even bigger country with almost three times the population. ..."
In a stunningly frank moment during a Sunday
Meet the Press interview focused on President Trump's decision-making on Iran, especially last week's "brink of war" moment which
saw Trump draw down readied military forces in what he said was a "common sense" move, the commander in chief threw his own national
security advisor under the bus in spectacular fashion .
Though it's not Trump's first tongue-in-cheek denigration of Bolton's notorious hawkishness, it's certainly the most brutal and
blunt take down yet, and frankly just plain enjoyable to watch. When host Chuck Todd asked the president if he was "being pushed
into military action against Iran" by his advisers in what was clearly a question focused on Bolton first and foremost, Trump responded:
"John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time, okay?"
Trump began by explaining, "I have two groups of people. I have doves and I have hawks," before leading into this sure to be classic
line that is one for the history books: "If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time, okay?"
During this section of comments focused on US policy in the Middle East, the president reiterated his preference that he hear
from "both sides" on an issue, but that he was ultimately the one making the decisions.
When pressed on the dangers of having such an uber-hawk neo-conservative who remains an unapologetic cheerleader of the 2003 Iraq
War, and who laid the ground work for it as a member of Bush's National Security Council, Trump followed with, "That doesn't matter
because I want both sides."
And in another clear indicator that Trump wants to stay true to his non-interventionist instincts voiced on the 2016 campaign
trail, he explained to Todd that:
I was against going into Iraq... I was against going into the Middle East . Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle
East right now.
It was the second time this weekend that Trump was forced to defend his choice of Bolton as the nation's most influential foreign
policy thinker and adviser. When peppered with questions at the White House Saturday following Thursday night's dramatic "almost
war" with Iran, Trump said that he "disagrees" with Bolton "very much" but that ultimately he's "doing a very good job".
Bolton has never kept his career-long goal of seeing regime change in Tehran a secret - repeating his position publicly every
chance he got, especially in the years prior to tenure at the Trump White House.
But Bolton hasn't had a good past week: not only had Trump on Thursday night shut the door on Bolton's dream of overseeing a major
US military strike on Iran, but he's been pummeled in the media.
Even a Fox prime time show (who else but Tucker of course) colorfully described him as a "bureaucratic tapeworm" which periodically
reemerges to cause pain and suffering.
It's great that the biggest war mongers are the ones that not only never served but in the case of Bolton, purposely avoided
serving. They should send that ****** to Iran so we can see just how supportive he is when he's actually in danger.
This guy is a worthless piece of **** and Trump's an idiot for hiring him.
Being a cheerleader for the Iraq war is as ridiculous as that ******* mustache. He's just letting neocons have a front row
seat to power. That's how he's keeping them from jumping ship to become democrats. They have no principles. They're just power
worshippers.
Do ya all remember when Trump took office? Losers use military strategy that is overwhelming bombardment b4 land attack. I
thought that Donnie can not survive this pressure. Looks like now he is riding horse with banner in hands. Thumb up, MJT
I was against going into the Middle East...$7 Trillion? So why is Jared trying to give away $50 Billion more? People thought
they voted for MAGA, but they got Jared...MMEGA.
How about MJANYA?...Make Jared a New Yorker Again. Send Jared and Ivanka back to New York before it's $10 Trillion.
Bolton! So much winning! And there's also Perry: Rick Perry, Trump's energy secretary, was flagged for describing Trumpism
as a "toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition."
Trump "unleashes"? For those who think, he also said Bolton is doing a good job. Crap headline. I think Solomon said, "In a
multitude of counselors there is victory".
What kind of unprofessional dingus talks openly about employee issues? That's not how you run a organization. That's how you
run a reality television show.
Sides? I could hire Hobo Joe, the bum that huffs paint and drinks scotch out of plastic bottle while yelling at traffic by
the intersection, as my advisor. He'd probably tell me to do some whacky stuff. But why would I do that?
There is no side to hear. Bomb everyone. That is John Bolton's side. It isn't worth hearing. The man shouldn't be drawing a
paycheck. He shouldn't be drawing breath. He should be pushing up daisies. He the same as ISIS.
Reading is fundamental....and certainly not needed to spout opinions. In fact, reading, combined with critical thinking, logic
and reason, just gets in the way of forming opinions. Or should I say "repeating" other's opinions.
"Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East right now."....Yes, just like your *** bosses wanted and needed and
you dumb ******* sheep still think voting matters.
Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was one of the architects of the Iraq War under George W. Bush, and now he's
itching to start a war with Iran -- an even bigger country with almost three times the population.
Democrats in Congress have the power to pull us back from the brink , but they need to act now. Once bombs start falling and
troops are on the ground, there will be massive political pressure to rally around the flag.
"... Pompeo is a rapture supremacist warmonger that is not good for anything. ..."
"... Not a fan of Pompeo, nor of any Secy of State that champions the cause of military adventurism instead of negotiations. We've had far too many Secys of State who have beat the drums of war instead of doing what the job entails.....being the nation's chief diplomatic negotiator. Pompeo is a bigger (chicken) hawk than the Secy of Defense for crying out loud. ..."
Furthermore, Hu had some particularly harsh words for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, labeling the Secretary of State a "troublesome"
figure in US-China relations and insisting that Pompeo "can no longer play the role of a top US diplomat between the two countries."
... ... ...
Beijing's attacks on the secretary of state come as Pompeo wrapped up a string of meetings in the Middle East with King Salman
of Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince.
Not a fan of Pompeo, nor of any Secy of State that champions the cause of military adventurism instead of negotiations. We've
had far too many Secys of State who have beat the drums of war instead of doing what the job entails.....being the nation's chief
diplomatic negotiator. Pompeo is a bigger (chicken) hawk than the Secy of Defense for crying out loud.
"... Trump treats int'l matters like acrid biz negotiations (see art of the deal) - you pressure your carpet installer for your mega hotels with nasty e-mails, bellowing threats on the phone, rustling up the competition, getting a bunch of staff on your side to shore up da ego, etc. When the carpet-seller makes some bigly concessions on price (all understand the game that is played) you relent and make nicey, and the wives get together for tennis and a ruccola crab lunch and later some mega bash with smiling faces is pictured. ..."
Trump strove for some foreign policy triumphs. The art of the deal!
He tried his hand with N. Korea. What happened? (Besides perhaps improved NK-SK
relations ) Nothing.
Syria .. (though there is still plenty going on there) what gave Trump / the USA some
kind of 'victory'? Zilch, disounting missile attacks on a runway in an airport and on an
empty research and teaching facility.
Symbolic moves, as proposed to Iran (a deal, heh) to save face (see b's posts.)
Next, ho ho, regime change in Venezuela, that might be great, get some extra voters in
Florida. Result? The status quo ante, perhaps stronger than before, with the
Dauphin, Random Guaido, shown up to be a cynical petty fraudster, and not even
challenging enough to jail!
Iran? Note the pressure has been building up since last year when The Donald withdrew
the US from the JCPOA.
Real men go to Teheran!
Except Trump and US forces aren't going anywhere at all and most certainly not to Iran. A
real war in that theatre cannot be fought and won by the US. Nor can it be instigated and
subsequently 'let drop' or 'become unimportant, trivial, with some claims of victory' for ex.
Afghanistan. (very costly btw)
Iran has made it clear that economic sanctions are part of hybrid war, rightly so (but
not, as I still claim, by making some minor attacks on tankers round about, to provoke a
reaction, NO) -- at some point, one engages, if not: backing down is the only option.
Trump treats int'l matters like acrid biz negotiations (see art of the deal) - you
pressure your carpet installer for your mega hotels with nasty e-mails, bellowing threats on
the phone, rustling up the competition, getting a bunch of staff on your side to shore up da
ego, etc. When the carpet-seller makes some bigly concessions on price (all understand the
game that is played) you relent and make nicey, and the wives get together for tennis and a
ruccola crab lunch and later some mega bash with smiling faces is pictured.
I think he got on super well with Kim (NK) who understood all this.
Leaves begging what-who-why is the projected aim, potential hoped result of the hybrid
attack on Iran, and which parties (USA MIC, Fin. Trade Cos., Banking, FF industry, many other
industries; Israel, KSA) support it (again, for what precise aim?) Or are against
sanctions...
"... That could mean that it was there specifically for observation (of the P8, as much as Iranian defenses); and of course could mean that much of the equipment, particularly the active equipment, was no longer aboard ..."
"... Wouldn't be needed, after all, if the job was just to record what was hoped to be an Iranian reaction, and would want to minimize the amount of equipment potentially falling into enemy hands if things went bad. ..."
"... Secondly, the 35 souls on board the P8 comment by Iran was brilliant. For one thing, it put the US on the defensive and once again called world attention to the fact that the Iranians have striven to avoid loss of life (so much so that Trump even used it to partly save face on the whole thing). ..."
"... But either way, it is unquestionable that Iranian intelligence has penetrated the base, or operations, to a degree that must be causing all sorts of trepidation amongst the US hawks. ..."
Re the Boeing and the drone. With both planes apparently close together for the flight, they
were not there for maritime surveillance. Iranians most likely only picked up floating debris
initially and electronic hardware may be rovered later, but there is a possibility the drone
was stripped of hardware for its job as decoy. 35 to 38 people on the Boeing are too many for
a simple photoshoot.
The decoy entering Iranian airspace the beginnings of a US strike... it draws fire from
multiple SAM sites, the Boeing P-8 videoing the shootdown to justify the strike while
locating launch positions and directing immediate strikes onto these positions. Comes unstuck
when Iran launches a single missile. Trump cancels the strike.
Re the Boeing - if the strike was planned in advance, as the pentagon does with its
contingency plans the aircraft would have been equipped for detecting SAM sites.
To add to my post @80, the US captured the missile strike on video. One of the pics put out
by the Pentagon was of the drone exploding. This means they were videoing the drone at the
moment the missile struck. The only reason for having a video camera filming the drone that I
can see, is that the US expected it to be hit.
Why have 35 (or, according to Trump 38) people on a spy plane that is normally crewed by
9?
Because you need double-digit numbers of American casualties to get Americans'
attention.
As PavewayIV pointed out in a previous thread, the P-8 spy plane was to the east of
the drone. That means it was between the missile launcher and the drone. The P-8 has a
hundred times or more the radar cross section of the drone, despite them both being about the
same size, so electronic countermeasures or not it stands out like a sore thumb relative to
the drone to Iran's radar. It is impossible that these issues were overlooked by the people
who put this mission together.
The Navy has a bunch of P-8s. They only had one RQ-4.
The conclusion is obvious:
The drone was there to collect evidence of the destruction of the P-8.
I had noticed the directions in the in the video pics but had forgotten about that.
Makes it more complex as the crewed aircraft was to the east of the drone (closest to Iran),
yet videoing the drone expecting it to be hit...
The video also had coordinates of the aircraft taking the video and the target aircraft (in
this case the drone) I have not cross checked this with the Iranian coordinates and bringing
them up on google maps did not show the positions in relation to Iranian airspace. That the
US includes the coordinates in the pics makes me wonder if the information in the video shots
has been changed - possibly by resetting the video recorder prior to the op.
J Swift | Jun 23, 2019 7:42:55 PM | 152
A couple of random thoughts on the drone/P8. Firstly, there was earlier a fair amount of debate on the stealthiness of the
drone. I would just mention that the Iranians did not say it was a stealth drone they were tracking...they said it was in
"stealth mode." I originally thought that was just an offhand reference to the craft turning off its transponder, making it
somewhat less obvious although hardly a true stealth craft. But perhaps they meant that it was noted to be in fully passive
mode with respect to its surveillance equipment.
That could mean that it was there specifically for observation (of the P8, as much as Iranian defenses); and of course
could mean that much of the equipment, particularly the active equipment, was no longer aboard
Wouldn't be needed, after all, if the job was just to record what was hoped to be an Iranian reaction, and would want
to minimize the amount of equipment potentially falling into enemy hands if things went bad.
Secondly, the 35 souls on board the P8 comment by Iran was brilliant. For one thing, it put the US on the defensive
and once again called world attention to the fact that the Iranians have striven to avoid loss of life (so much so that Trump
even used it to partly save face on the whole thing).
As Paveway IV commented, it could have technically been an empty, remotely controlled plane, in which case the Iranian
reference to a highly unusual number of crewmen may have been a tongue-in-cheek jab at the Yanks--or there may have been an
unusually high number of crewlambs, which might also have alerted the Iranian intelligence that a set-up was unfolding.
But either way, it is unquestionable that Iranian intelligence has penetrated the base, or operations, to a degree
that must be causing all sorts of trepidation amongst the US hawks.
karlof1 | Jun 23, 2019 7:52:23 PM | 154
Jen @143--
As myself and others noted, the usual crew for P-8 is 7: two on the flight deck and 5 distributed at the 5 work stations.
The plane's equipped with a bomb/torpedo/sonobouy bay as it's primary mission's ASW. Jamming in an additional 28-30 people
would be rather difficult at best. IMO, the only way would be to remove all ordinance to make room for what could only be 3
Special Forces squads and their gear--they would paradive into Iran to do their thing, presumably. Otherwise, the plane
wasn't a P-8. I don't recall the Iranians providing the plane type, although it's clear they could have since they readily
identified the drone. That leaves us with the following:
Iran's incorrect about the # of people they "saw" on other plane.
USA's playing along with Iranian mistake, but added 3 more.
Iran's correct. USA's lying about plane type.
Iran's correct. USA correct, but altered mission and added troops.
Iran's correct. USA correct; but if shadowing drone, why so many people--trial run?
Iran's correct. Both US planes deliberately entered Iranian airspace to provoke a response that wasn't obtained
earlier in the week as Zarif just informed. If so, why so many on non-drone?
There're probably more that could be obtained, but the above seem to be the most logical. It's also possible that Iran
toppled the planes into its airspace using EW; although that possibility surprised PavewayIV, I'm not in the least.
Regardless if there were 7, 35 or 38 people on the second plane, they all probably needed new trousers upon landing. I also
wonder if the Iranian system actuates the radar-lock warning alarm giving the pilot a chance to evade? If I'm correct in my
evaluation of Iran's system, it won't and the air crew won't have time to say a final prayer.
"... This whole saga is not about nuclear weapons, it is about those conventional ballistic missiles which Iran is manufacturing perfectly legally and changing the equation in the region. These are precision missiles and could turn Tel Aviv and Saudi oil infrastructure into rubble, US/Israel want to make Iran defenseless. It is not going to happen. ..."
Trump is such a con man... He said he told Shinzō Abe, before the Japanese prime
minister visited Tehran on 12 June: "Send the following message: you can't have nuclear
weapons. And other than that, we can sit down and make a deal. But you cannot have nuclear
weapons."
On further questioning he added the demand that Tehran should not have a ballistic missile
programme, and suggested he wanted a tougher inspection regime.
This whole saga is not about nuclear weapons, it is about those conventional ballistic
missiles which Iran is manufacturing perfectly legally and changing the equation in the
region. These are precision missiles and could turn Tel Aviv and Saudi oil infrastructure
into rubble, US/Israel want to make Iran defenseless. It is not going to happen.
"... Trump and the Trump administration have no credibility; lying is simply the nature of this administration. ..."
"... Nobody is going to believe anything put out by the US government for a long time. And yes, it's really sad when Iran or North Korea are deemed more credible than my own government. ..."
"... This whole affair is about nothing except smashing yet another nation because the apartheid Jewish state wants that to happen. ..."
Laying aside political and nationalistic biases, both the United States and Iran have credibility issues. While Iran is not
known for its honesty, Trump and the Trump administration have no credibility; lying is simply the nature of this administration.
As such, the matter cannot be settled by an appeal to credibility -- although, sadly, Iran seems to be less inclined to
relentless lying than Trump.
Nobody is going to believe anything put out by the US government for a long time. And yes, it's really sad when Iran or
North Korea are deemed more credible than my own government.
The author does miss the point here:
If the United States removes the existing ruling class, it is not clear that we would be able to build a functional government
in the new Iran -- even if we airdropped billions upon billions of dollars onto the country.
This whole affair is about nothing except smashing yet another nation because the apartheid Jewish state wants that to
happen.
"... "Lying sometimes, not always lying, sometimes it's manipulations, but yeah," Merry replied. "America's warmaking history indicates that there's been significant instances of that kind of maneuvering, manipulations, and in some instances lying–Vietnam is a great example–to get us into wars that the American people weren't clamoring for." ..."
Carlson's first guest, The American Conservative 's Robert Merry, plainly stated
the likely reason for Bolton's deceitful manipulations, saying that Americans are typically
reluctant to go to war and citing a few of the historical instances in which they were
tricked into consenting to it by those who desire mass military violence.
"So, you're saying that there is a long, almost unbroken history of lying our way into
war?" Carlson asked his guest rhetorically.
"Lying sometimes, not always lying, sometimes it's manipulations, but yeah," Merry
replied. "America's warmaking history indicates that there's been significant instances of
that kind of maneuvering, manipulations, and in some instances lying–Vietnam is a great
example–to get us into wars that the American people weren't clamoring for."
Both men are correct. The US empire does indeed have an extensive and well-documented history of using
lies, manipulations and distortions to manufacture consent for war from a populace that would
otherwise choose peace, and a Reuters poll released last month found that only 12 percent of Americans favor
attacking Iranian military interests without having been attacked first.
<...>
What we are watching with Iran is a war propaganda narrative failing to get airborne. It
was all set up and ready to go, they had the whole marketing team working on it, and then it
faceplanted right on the linoleum. This is what a failed narrative management campaign looks
like. It is possible for us to see this more and more.
Today I have a lot more hope. It's becoming clear that the manipulations of the US war
machine are becoming more and more obvious to more and more people and that everyday, regular
Americans are reacting with a healthy amount of horror and revulsion. There was always the
risk that the US population would already be sufficiently paced ahead of these revelations
and there would be little to no reaction, but that didn't happen. Americans are seeing what
they're doing, and they don't like it, and they don't want it.
And that makes me so happy. Come on Captain America. Save the day. The world is counting
on you.
Our leaders seem interested in toppling Iran's theocracy. But do they want a new U.S. military draft? Because make no mistake,
that's what it will take.
<...>
Any serious effort to end the Iranian theocracy will not only require American troops, but will also almost certainly break
our vaunted All-Volunteer Force If you like the idea of regime change in Iran, you had better love the idea of a new American
draft.
We have seen for decades that American air power alone is insufficient to topple a government, [...]. Our Sunni Arab allies
are stalemated in Yemen and distinctly averse to sending troops to Syria. The idea that they would invade or occupy Iran is risible.
The Washington regime change crowd's preferred Iranian proxy is a hated cult called Mujahideen-e Khalq.
But if the mullahs are to be overthrown, it will be by American soldiers and Marines. Even if the Islamic Republic were to
somehow collapse on its own, concerns about radiological material, the security of the Strait of Hormuz or another massive wave
of refugees would probably drive the U.S.to intervene with ground troops.
U.S. politicians and generals sometimes like to point out that the volunteer military has successfully endured a decade and
a half of sustained combat and a ceaseless cycle of deployments. This is not the whole story.
Despite the enormous amount of money expended there, Iraq was by historical measures a low-intensity war. Total combat deaths
for American forces over eight years were about the size of a brigade, and losses in Afghanistan roughly half that. Yet a modest
increase in force structure required the military to greatly lower its standards, doubling felony waivers for Army recruits from
2003 to 2006, for instance.
A massive increase in the use of civilian contractors (more than 50 times the ratio in Vietnam) also hid the volunteer system's
cracks. The All-Volunteer Force was barely able to sustain two large, but low-casualty, campaigns -- neither of which has resulted
in anything resembling a U.S. strategic victory.
Occupying Iran would be a challenge of an entirely different magnitude than Iraq or Afghanistan.
<...>
The force with which we would occupy Iran is also not as resilient as most Americans probably think. Even now, in a time when
most troops are not seeing direct combat, the the volunteer force is struggling just to maintain numbers and standards. The Air
Force, Marine Corps, and Navy are each short of a full quarter of their required fighter pilots. The Army recently announced that
it is already 12,000 recruits behind on its recruiting goal for 2018 and will not make mission.
The Pentagon stated last year that 71% of Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are ineligible to serve in the U.S. military,
most for reasons of health, physical fitness, education, or criminality. The propensity of this age group to serve is even lower.
The likely demands and casualties of a war in Iran would spell the end of the All-Volunteer Force, requiring the conscription
of Americans for the first time since 1973.
There is ample evidence that American foreign policy elites haven't learned much from Iraq or Afghanistan; one need only look
at the latest headlines from Libya or Syria. But perhaps even our modern Bourbons in Washington can grasp one simple lesson from
the post-9/11 campaigns: Wars have an uncanny tendency to take on a life of their own.
Regime change in Iran would bring a host of consequences, many of them unknowable, but almost all of them negative for America
and the region. There is one outcome we can be sure of, however: Occupying Iran would be the death of America's all-volunteer
military and necessitate a return to a draft.
This recent 19 May piece from Ha'aretz documents precisely the manipulation of
American policy by Israeli charlatans and their agents of influence in the US. The title says
it all just by itself: "Netanyahu's Iran Dilemma: Getting Trump to Act Without Putting
Israel on the Front Line." It goes on to assess that:
"In this conflict, Israel is hoping to have its cake and eat it too. Ever since Trump
was elected president two and a half years ago, Netanyahu has been urging him to take a
more aggressive line toward Iran, in order to force it to make additional concessions on
its nuclear program and disrupt its support for militant organizations.
"Trump acceded to this urging a year ago when he withdrew America from the nuclear
agreement with Iran. That was followed by tighter sanctions on Iran, as well as publication
of a plan by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo detailing 12 steps Tehran must take to
satisfy Washington.
"But Israel isn't interested in being part of the front. That is why Jerusalem has
issued so few official statements on the Iranian issue, and why Netanyahu has urged
ministers to be cautious in what they say."
I'd say that passage captures the situation perfectly, and it just goes to show that when
you want to know about what chicanery Israel and its lobby are up to in the US, you have to
go and look at what Israelis are saying when they aren't particularly careful about who's
observing. That sort of truth is sanitized from any MSM accounts in the US.
"... The Supreme Court Treason related to the 2000 election penned by the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President, and his The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, provoke similar ire. ..."
"The UNSC veto doesn't make the UN Charter null and void. Actions that violate it are
still illegal/unconstitutional and able to be challenged in domestic courts". I agree it does
not make the charter null and void, the question is how can aggressors be brought to book,
Tony Blair was accused of the crime of aggression but the Judges said he could not be
prosecuted see below. Thanks for the link to the Uniting for Peace resolution, I will read it
tomorrow.
"Tony Blair should not face prosecution for his role in the 2003 Iraq war, the high court has
ruled.
The lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and another senior judge, Mr Justice
Ouseley, said on Monday that there was no crime of aggression in English law under which the
former prime minister could be charged.
Thanks for your reply! I recall what an absolutely incensed Craig Murray wrote about that decision about Tony Blair--well
beyond a travesty as it's a Capital Crime and not subject to statutes of limitation. The Supreme Court Treason related to
the 2000 election penned by the late Vincent T. Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the
Constitution and Chose Our President, and his The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, provoke similar ire.
Going on 3 decades now, one of my primary questions is How to contain the Outlaw US Empire and make it into a law-abiding
nation without blowing up the world. I've always recognized that it would take a global coalition to arrive at a genuine
confrontation.
IMO, we're very close to that point; the G-20 will indicate just how close.
But even more importantly than the global coalition is the requirement for a political force within the Empire asking and
acting on my question. The Maximum Pressure must come from internal and external sources for any positive outcome to be
achieved. Since 2012, I've seen 2020 as THE inflection point. It seems I'm not alone.
Tensions in the Persian Gulf are reaching a
point
of no return
.
In recent weeks,
six
oil tankers
have been subjected to
Israeli
sabotage
disguised to look like Iranian attacks to induce the United States to take
military action against the Islamic Republic. Some days ago Iran rightfully shot out of the sky a
US Drone. In Yemen, the Houthis have finally started
responding
with
cruise and ballistic missiles to the Saudis' indiscriminate attacks, causing damage to the Saudi
international airport of Abha, as well as blocking, through
explosive
drones
, Saudi oil transportation from east to west through one of the largest
pipelines in the world.
As if the political and military situation at this time were not
tense
and complex
enough, the two most important power groups in the United States, the Fed and the
military-industrial complex, both face problems that threaten to
diminish
Washington's status as a world superpower
.
The Fed could find itself defending the role of the US dollar as the world reserve currency
during
any conflict
in the
Persian Gulf that would see the cost of oil rise to
$300
a barrel
, threatening
trillions
of dollars in derivatives
and toppling the global economy.
The military-industrial complex would in turn be involved in a war that it would struggle to
contain and even win, destroying the United States' image of invincibility and inflicting a mortal
blow on its ability to project power to the four corners of the world.
Just look at how surprised
US
officials
were about Iran's capabilities to shot down an advanced US Drone:
"Iran's ability to target and destroy the high-altitude American drone, which was
developed to evade the very surface-to-air missiles used to bring it down, surprised some
Defense Department officials, who interpreted it as a show of how difficult Tehran can make
things for the United States as it deploys more troops and steps up surveillance in the region."
The Fed and the defense of the dollar
The US dollar-based economy has a
huge debt problem
caused
by post-2008 economic policies. All central banks have lowered interest rates to zero or even
negative, thus continuing to feed otherwise dying economies.
The central bank of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements, an entity hardly
known to most people, has
stated
in writing
that "the outstanding notional amount of derivative contracts is 542 trillion dollars." The total
combined GDP of all the countries of the world is around 75 trillion dollars.
With the dimensions of the problem thus understood, it is important to look at how Deutsche Bank
(DB), one of the largest financial institutions in the world, is dealing with this. The German bank
alone has assets worth about 40 trillion dollars in derivatives, or more than half of annual global
GDP.
Their solution, not at all innovative or effective, has been to create yet another bad bank into
which to pour at least 50 billion dollars of long-term assets, which are clearly toxic.
"The bad bank would house or sell assets valued at up to 50 billion euros ($56 billion) –
after adjusting for risk – and comprising mainly long-dated derivatives.
The measures are part of a significant restructuring of the investment bank, a major
source of revenue for Germany's largest lender, which has struggled to generate sustainable
profits since the 2008 financial crisis."
Thus, not only has Deutsche Bank accumulated tens of billions of dollars in unsuccessful options
and securities, it seeks to obtain a profit that has been elusive since 2008, the year of the
financial crisis. Deutsche Bank is full of toxic bonds and inflated debts kept alive through the
flow of quantitative easing (QE) money from the European Central Bank, the Fed and the Japanese
Central Bank. Without QE, the entire Western world economy would have fallen into recession with a
chain of bubbles bursting, such as in public and private debt.
If the economy was recovering, as we are told by soi-disant financial experts, the central-bank
rates would rise. Instead, rates have plummeted for about a decade, to the extent of becoming
negative loans.
If the Western financial trend is undoubtedly heading towards an economic abyss as a result of
the monetary policies employed after 2008 to keep a dying economy alive,
what is the rescue
plan for the US dollar, its status as a global-reserve currency, and by extension of US hegemony?
Simply put, there is no rescue plan.
There could not be one because the next financial crisis will undoubtedly wipe out the US dollar
as a global reserve currency, ending US hegemony financed by unlimited spending power.
All
countries possessing a modicum of foresight are in the process of de-dollarizing their economies
and are converting strategic reserves
from US or US-dollar government bonds to primary
commodities like gold.
The military-industrial complex and the harsh reality in Iran
In this economic situation that offers no escape, the immediate geopolitical effect is a surge
of war threats in strategic locations like the Persian Gulf. The risk of a war of aggression
against Iran by the Saudi-Israeli-US axis would have little chance of success, but it would
probably succeed in permanently devastating the global economy as a result of a surge in oil
prices.
The risk of war on Iran by this triad seems to be the typical ploy of the bad loser who,
rather than admit defeat, would rather pull the rug out from under everyone's feet in order to
bring everybody down with him.
Tankers being hit and then blamed on Iran with no evidence
are a prime example of how to create the
plausible
justification
for bombing Tehran.
Upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that the actions of Bolton and Pompeo seem to be
aligned in prolonging the United States' unipolar moment, continuing to issue diktats to other
countries and failing to recognize the multipolar reality we live in. Their policies and actions
are accelerating the dispersal of power away from the US and towards other great powers like Russia
and China, both of which also have enormous influence in the Persian Gulf.
The threat of causing a conflict in the Persian Gulf, and thereby making the price of oil soar
to $300 a barrel, will not save US hegemony but will rather end up accelerating the inevitable end
of the US dollar as a global reserve currency.
Trump is in danger of being crushed between a Fed that sees the US dollar's role as the world's
reserve currency collapse, and the need for the Fed to blame someone not linked to the real causes
of the collapse, that is to say, the monetary policies adopted through QE to prolong the
post-crisis economic agony of 2008.
At the same time, with Trump as president, the neocon-Israeli-Saudi supporters see a
unique opportunity to strike Iran, a desire that has remained unchanged for 40 years.
As foolish as it may seem, a war on Iran could be the perfect option that satisfies all power
groups in the United States. The hawks would finally have their war against Tehran, the world
economy would sink, and the blame would fall entirely on Trump. The Donald, as a result, would lose
any chance of being re-elected so it makes sense for him to call off possible strikes as he did
after the US drone was shot out of the sky.
While unable to live up to his electoral promises, Trump seems to be aware that the path laid
out for him in the event of an attack on Iran would lead to his political destruction and probably
to a conflict that is militarily unsustainable for the US and especially its Saudi and Israeli
allies. It would also be the catalyst for the collapse of the world economy.
In trying to pressure Iran into new negotiations, Trump runs the risk of putting too much
pressure on Tehran and giving too much of a free hand to the provocations of Pompeo and Bolton that
could end up triggering a war in the Strait of Hormuz.
Putin and Xi Jinping prepare for the worst
Our current geopolitical environment requires the careful and considered attention of relevant
heads of state. The repeated meetings between Putin and Xi Jinping indicate that Russia and China
are actively preparing for any eventuality. The closer we get to economic collapse, the more
tensions and chaos increase around the world thanks to the actions of Washington and her close
allies.
Xi Jinping and Putin, who have inherited this chaotic situation, have met at least a
dozen times over the last six months
, more recently meeting at least three times over two
months.
The pressing need is to coordinate and prepare for what will inevitably happen,
once again trying to limit and contain the damage by a United States that is completely out of
control and becoming a danger to all, allies and enemies alike.
As Putin just recently said:
"The degeneration of the universalistic model of globalization and its transformation
into a parody, caricature of itself, where the common international rules are replaced by
administrative and judicial laws of a country or group of countries.
The fragmentation of global economic space with a policy of unbridled economic
selfishness and an imposed collapse. But this is the road to infinite conflict, trade wars and
perhaps not just commercial ones. Figuratively, this is the road to the final struggle of all
against all.
It is necessary to draft a more stable and fair development model. These agreements
should not only be written clearly, but should be observed by all participants.
However, I am convinced that talking about a world economic order such as this will
remain a pious desire unless we return to the center of the discussion, that is to say, notions
like sovereignty, the unconditional right of each country to its own path to development and,
let me add, responsibility in the universal sustainable development, not just its own."
The spokesman of the Chancellery of the People's Republic of China, Hua Chun Ying, echoed this
sentiment:
"The American leaders say that 'the era of the commercial surrender of their country has
come to an end', but what is over is their economic intimidation of the world and their
hegemony.
The United States must again respect international law, not arrogate to itself
extraterritorial rights and mandates, must learn to respect its peers in safeguarding
transparent and non-discriminatory diplomatic and commercial relations. China and the United
States have negotiated other disputes in the past with good results and the doors of dialogue
are open as long as they are based on mutual respect and benefits.
But as long as these new trade disputes persist, China informs the government of the
United States of America and the whole world that it will immediately impose duties on each
other, unilaterally on 128 products from the United States of America.
Also, we think we will stop buying US public debt. It's all, good night!"
I wonder if Europeans will understand all this before the impending disaster. I doubt
it.
U.S. Navy photo by
Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class John Philip Wagner, Jr./Released◄►◄►▲▼ Remove from
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Sooner or later the US "maximum pressure" on Iran would inevitably be met by "maximum
counter-pressure". Sparks are ominously bound to fly.
For the past few days, intelligence circles across Eurasia had been prodding Tehran to
consider a quite straightforward scenario. There would be no need to shut down the Strait of
Hormuz if Quds Force commander, General Qasem Soleimani, the ultimate Pentagon bête
noire, explained in detail, on global media, that Washington simply does not have the military
capacity to keep the Strait open.
would destroy the American economy by detonating the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market;
and that would collapse the world banking system, crushing the world's $80 trillion GDP and
causing an unprecedented depression.
Soleimani should also state bluntly that Iran may in fact shut down the Strait of Hormuz if
the nation is prevented from exporting essential two million barrels of oil a day, mostly to
Asia. Exports, which before illegal US sanctions and de facto blockade would normally reach 2.5
million barrels a day, now may be down to only 400,000.
Soleimani's intervention would align with consistent signs already coming from the IRGC. The
Persian Gulf is being described as an imminent "shooting gallery." Brigadier General Hossein
Salami stressed that Iran's
ballistic missiles are capable of hitting "carriers in the sea" with pinpoint precision.
The whole northern border of the Persian Gulf, on Iranian territory, is lined up with anti-ship
missiles – as I confirmed
with IRGC-related sources.
We'll let you know when it's closed
Then, it happened.
Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Baqeri,
went straight
to the point ; "If the Islamic Republic of Iran were determined to prevent export of oil
from the Persian Gulf, that determination would be realized in full and announced in public, in
view of the power of the country and its Armed Forces."
The facts are stark. Tehran simply won't accept all-out economic war lying down –
prevented to export the oil that protects its economic survival. The Strait of Hormuz question
has been officially addressed. Now it's time for the derivatives.
Presenting detailed derivatives analysis plus military analysis to global media would force
the media pack, mostly Western, to go to Warren Buffett to see if it is true. And it is true.
Soleimani, according to this scenario, should say as much and recommend that the media go talk
to Warren Buffett.
The extent of a possible derivatives crisis is an uber-taboo theme for the Washington
consensus institutions. According to one of my American banking sources, the most accurate
figure – $1.2 quadrillion – comes from a Swiss banker, off the record. He should
know; the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) – the central bank of central banks
– is in Basle.
The key point is it doesn't matter how the Strait of Hormuz is blocked.
It could be a false flag. Or it could be because the Iranian government feels it's going to
be attacked and then sinks a cargo ship or two. What matters is the final result; any blocking
of the energy flow will lead the price of oil to reach $200 a barrel, $500 or even, according
to some Goldman Sachs projections, $1,000.
Another US banking source explains; "The key in the analysis is what is called notional.
They are so far out of the money that they are said to mean nothing. But in a crisis the
notional can become real. For example, if I buy a call for a million barrels of oil at $300 a
barrel, my cost will not be very great as it is thought to be inconceivable that the price will
go that high. That is notional. But if the Strait is closed, that can become a stupendous
figure."
BIS will only commit, officially, to indicate the total notional amount outstanding for
contracts in derivatives markers is an estimated $542.4 trillion. But this is just an
estimate.
The banking source adds, "Even here it is the notional that has meaning. Huge amounts are
interest rate derivatives. Most are notional but if oil goes to a thousand dollars a barrel,
then this will affect interest rates if 45% of the world's GDP is oil. This is what is called
in business a contingent liability."
Goldman Sachs has projected a feasible, possible $1,000 a barrel a few weeks after the
Strait of Hormuz being shut down. This figure, times 100 million barrels of oil produced per
day, leads us to 45% of the $80 trillion global GDP. It's self-evident the world economy would
collapse based on just that alone.
War dogs barking mad
As much as 30% of the world's oil supply transits the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
Wily Persian Gulf traders – who know better – are virtually unanimous; if Tehran
was really responsible for the Gulf of Oman tanker incident, oil prices would be going through
the roof by now. They aren't.
Iran's territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz amount to 12 nautical miles (22 km). Since
1959, Iran recognizes only non-military naval transit.
Since 1972, Oman's territorial waters in the Strait of Hormuz also amount to 12 nautical
miles. At its narrowest, the width of the Strait is 21 nautical miles (39 km). That means,
crucially, that half of the Strait of Hormuz is in Iranian territorial waters, and the other
half in Oman's. There are no "international waters".
And that adds to Tehran now openly saying that Iran may decide to close the Strait of Hormuz
publicly – and not by stealth.
Iran's indirect, asymmetric warfare response to any US adventure will be very painful. Prof.
Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran once again reconfirmed, "even a limited strike
will be met by a major and disproportionate response." And that means gloves off, big time;
anything from really blowing up tankers to, in Marandi's words, "Saudi and UAE oil facilities
in flames".
Hezbollah will launch tens of thousands of missiles against Israel. As
Hezbollah's secretary-general Hasan Nasrallah has been stressing in his speeches, "war on
Iran will not remain within that country's borders, rather it will mean that the entire [Middle
East] region will be set ablaze. All of the American forces and interests in the region will be
wiped out, and with them the conspirators, first among them Israel and the Saudi ruling
family."
It's quite enlightening to pay close attention to what this Israel intel op is saying .
The dogs of war though are barking mad .
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo jetted to CENTCOM in Tampa to discuss
"regional security concerns and ongoing operations" with – skeptical – generals, a
euphemism for "maxim pressure" eventually leading to war on Iran.
Iranian diplomacy, discreetly, has already informed the EU – and the Swiss –
about their ability to crash the entire world economy. But still that was not enough to remove
US sanctions.
War zone in effect
As it stands in Trumpland, former CIA Mike "We lied, We cheated, We stole" Pompeo
– America's "top diplomat" – is virtually running the Pentagon. "Acting" secretary
Shanahan performed self-immolation. Pompeo continues to actively sell the notion the
"intelligence community is convinced" Iran is responsible for the Gulf of Oman tanker incident.
Washington is ablaze with rumors of an ominous double bill in the near future; Pompeo as head
of the Pentagon and Psycho John Bolton as Secretary of State. That would spell out War.
Yet even before sparks start to fly, Iran could declare that the Persian Gulf is in a state
of war; declare that the Strait of Hormuz is a war zone; and then ban all "hostile" military
and civilian traffic in its half of the Strait. Without firing a single shot, no shipping
company on the planet would have oil tankers transiting the Persian Gulf.
American government arrogance under the control of sickos has not shied away from the belief
that destroying countries that do not cave in to Washington's demand of "surrender or perish"
-- an ultimatum made in Israel. Indeed it regards that despicable policy as an entitlement
– to protect the "international community". Iran may well be the nation that will do
away with the nations of turbaned lapdogs and absolute monarchs who have been kept in power
by the dozens of US military bases in the area. Maybe a serious jolt of the global economy is
long overdue, to bring the Washington dogs of perpetual war to come to their senses.
Was Iran succumbing to the JCPOA provisions and abiding by them not sufficient
capitulation for the insane leaders in Washington?
I hope we don't go into another stupid war. Bring all our troops home from all around
the world. Just protect this Republic. We're not the policemen of the world.
@joeshittheragman
It astonishes me that people are still using the phrase "policemen of the world" to define US
behavior.
The last time I recall The US even remotely acting as the "worlds's policeman" was in
1991, when we pushed Saddam out of Kuwait.
The Iraq 2003 "debacle", the Libya"shit show" and the Syria" fiasco" have all proven, over
time, to be acts of wanton carnage and illegal aggression, . not "police work".
The United States, under Neocon tutelage , is no "policeman" .not by any stretch
It is more like a humongous version of "Bernie Madoff meets Son of Sam."
We have become a grotesque, misshapen empire .of lies fraud .,illegal war, .mass murder
..and heinous f#cking debt.
You have to hand it to the Iranians for basically announcing their intentions to destroy the
US economy via the derivatives market that the US financial industry largely produced. Kill
them with their own weapon.
A show down between the US and some entity is inevitable. Be it Iran, China or Russia, the
US will be over extended and their very expensive weaponry will, I believe, come up wanting
on all counts. The MIC has been scamming the country for decades. The military brass is just
bluster. When it comes down to an actual confrontation, the US military will come up short as
BS won't cut it.
Yes, they will destroy lots of stuff and kill lots of people but then their toys will run
out and then what? Missiles will take out the aircraft carriers and the world will see that
the emperor is naked.
In June of 2014, as the forces of the Islamic State swept toward Baghdad, President
Barack Obama began to recommit American military forces to Iraq. He also observed that
"Iran can play a constructive role, if it sends the same message to the Iraqi government
that we're sending, which is that Iraq only holds together if it is inclusive." In an
instantly famous article by Atlantic magazine correspondent and White House amanuensis
Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama indicated that Saudi Arabia and other Arab states had to learn to
"share" the Middle East with Iran.
In imagining a kind of strategic partnership with Tehran, Obama is recycling a deeply
held belief of late-Cold War "realists" like former National Security Adviser Brent
Scowcroft. "For U.S. strategy, Iran should be viewed as a potential natural partner in
the region, as it was until 1979," when Shah Reza Pahlavi was toppled in the Khomeini
revolution." "Envisioning 2030: U.S. Strategy for a Post-Western World," foresaw that "a
post-Mullah dominated government shedding Shia political ideology could easily return to
being a net contributor to stability by 2030
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/143606/Mearsheimer-S-Arabia-a-threat-not-Iran
"The truth is that it is the United States that is a direct threat to Iran, not the other
way around. The Trump administration, with much prompting from Israel and Saudi Arabia, has
its gunsights on Iran. The aim is regime change.
America does not seem to think the Iranian regieme can do anything except bluster as they
are slowly smothered.
Famous last words -- review what Bernanke said just before subprime exploded: 2007 --
Bernanke: Subprime Mortgage Woes
Won't Seriously Hurt Economy -- that said, I have no idea what will happen if Iran
decides to interfere with shipping in the straits -- or how likely that is.
The biggest long-term threat to the US is the end of the petrodollar scheme -- due to its
unmatched worldwide political and military hegemony, and 'safe haven' status, the dollar has
largely been insulated from the consequences of what are in reality staggering, almost
structural (at this point) US deficits -- but that can't and won't go on forever.
In reality, the US is today far less dependent on imported oil than most people probably
imagine, and therefore far less vulnerable to any import supply issue.
Israel and the zio/US has interfered in Iran since the 1953 CIA/Mossad coup and at intervals
ever since then and have brought this problem on by the zio/US and Israeli meddling in the
affairs of Iran and an all out war via illegal sanctions which in fact are a form of war.
Iran has not started a war in over 300 years and is not the problem , the problem is the
warmongers in the zio/US and Israel and will not end as long as the warmongers remain in
power.
A good start to ending these problems would be to abolish the CIA!
@MLK
Yes, the sanctions on Iran are having an effect, and the recent Iranian actions acknowledge
this; but that does not mean Iran is weak. Iran is telling the U.S. that it is NOT Venezuela
or North Korea. Kim is all bark, but no bite; Trump was quite right to call him "little
rocket man." Even he, with his singular lack of style and grace, is not doing this to the
Iranian leadership.
The economic sanctions against Iran already constitute acts of war. The Iranians have just
demonstrated that they can disrupt oil flow from the Middle East in retaliation, and not just
in the Street of Hormuz. In addition, they have now shown that they can take down American
aircraft, stealth or not, with precision. This means Iran is able and willing to strike back
and escalate as it sees fit, both economically and militarily. If the U.S. don't relent, Iran
WILL send the oil prices through the roof, and it will humiliate the U.S. on the world stage
if they are stupid enough to go to war over it.
The Iranian messages are simple, clear, and consistent. Compare this to the confused
cacophony that emerges from the clown troupe in Washington, and you can easily tell which
side has been caught unawares by recent events.
This is a watershed moment for Trump – he will either assert himself, return to
reason, and keep the peace; or he will stay aboard the sinking ship. No good options for him
personally, of course; his choices are impeachment, assassination, or staying in office while
presiding over the final act of the U.S. empire.
The US is committed to conflict not only most obviously against Iran, but also with
Russia.
US, or rather a bunch of lunatics infesting Trump's Admin, might be committed, but it
absolutely doesn't mean that the US has resources for that. In fact, US doesn't have
resources to fight Iran, let alone Russia. By now most of it is nothing more than
chest-thumping and posturing. Today Bolton's statement is a further proof of that.
Instead, Bush saw that situation, within the unique moment of US no longer constrained
by a rival superpower, as an opportunity to exert US global dominance.
The much derided Chomsky
There were once two gangsters in town, the USA and USSR, there's relative peace cuz each
was constrained by the rival's threat.
NOW that the USSR is gone, the remaining gangster
is running amok with total impunity.
Now I dunno if the USSR was a 'gangster' ,
as for uncle scam, .. needs no introduction I presume ?
"Iran's ability to target and destroy the high-altitude American drone, which was
developed to evade the very surface-to-air missiles used to bring it down, surprised some
Defense Department officials, who interpreted it as a show of how difficult Tehran can make
things for the United States as it deploys more troops and steps up surveillance in the
region.– "
@Wally
It's all cashflow and OPM, on the hope of hitting the big-time when prices spike. A giant
house of cards waiting to implode, and that is before one takes into account all the hugely
negative externalities associated with fracking that give it any hope of profitability, which
would vapourise if the costs of the externalities were charged to the operators.
According to preliminary data for 2018, oil demand surpassed 20 mmb/d for the first time
since 2007 and will be just shy of the 2005 peak (20,524 mb/d versus 20,802 mb/d in
2005).
It's really tragic to see two brotherly ideologies Capitalism and Islam (both want to rule
the world) go at each other throats in this manner. After all, they have fought shoulder to
shoulder a holly jihad against socialism in such far flung places as Afghanistan, Iraq and
now Syria.
I think that based on this latest conflict, people can see what a principled country US
is. People used to think that US hates only socialist revolutions. Until Iran's Islamic
revolution came along – and US was against it too. So, it's safe to say that US are
against ANY revolutions – be they Socialist or Islamic. I guess we can call them
contra-revolutionaries.
At least 95% of the American people do not want war with Iran. For that matter the same
percentage did not want war with Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam or Korea. But the powers that be
do not ask the American people if they want to go to war, they just do it based on the
authority they assume is theirs. Meanwhile, our elected representatives who do have the
authority to start or prevent wars turn a deaf ear to their constituents because the voices
they hear in protest are weak or muted. Let's face it, the wars since WWII have affected only
a relatively minor segment of our population. A hell of a lot more people die in traffic
accidents than on the battlefield so what's to get excited about. Keeping a large standing
army, navy and air force is good for the economy, the troops have to be provided the latest
best of everything and as for the troops themselves for many it's not a bad way to make a
living with a retirement and health care system better than many jobs in the civilian sector.
So my message to the American people is if you really do not want war with Iran you had
better speak up louder than you are now.
CAN IRAN ENTER ITO NEGOTIATION WITH IRAN? IT CANT. BECAUSE ISRAEL WITH NO FOOT IN THE DOOR OF
THE HELL IS WAGING THE WAR AND GETTING US PUNISHED .
UC Berkeley journalism professor Sandy Tolan, Los Angeles Times, December 1, 2002–
[Richard] Perle, in the same 1998 article, told Forward that a coalition of pro-Israeli
groups was 'at the forefront with the legislation with regard to Iran. One can only speculate
what it might accomplish if it decided to focus its attention on Saddam Hussein.' Now,
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has joined the call against Tehran, arguing in a November
interview with the Times of London that the U.S. should shift its focus to Iran 'the day
after' the Iraq war ends
[Hide MORE]
-- -- -
They want to foment revolution in Iran and use that to isolate and possibly attack Syria in
[Lebanon's] Bekaa Valley, and force Syria out," says former Assistant Secretary of State for
Near East Affairs Edward S. Walker, now president of the Middle East Institute. http://prospect.org/article/just-beginning
03/14/03
--
in 2003 Morris Amitay and fellow neocon Michael Ledeen founded the Coalition for Democracy
in Iran, an advocacy group pushing for regime change in Iran . According to the website, it
will be un-American,immoral and unproductive to engage with any segment of the regime .
During a may 2003 conference at the AEI on the future of Iran,Amitay sharply criticized the
U.S State Department's efforts to engage the Islamic Republic ,claimed the criticism of Newt
Gingrich did not go far enough . Amiaty was introduced by M Ledeen as the "Godfather" of
AIPAC Amitay admitted that direct action against Iran would be difficult before 2004
election.
Nostalgia for the last shah's son, Reza Pahlavi ? has again risen," says Reuel Marc
Gerecht, a former CIA officer who, like Ledeen and Perle, is ensconced at the AEI. "We must
be prepared, however, to take the battle more directly to the mullahs," says Gerecht, adding
that the United States must consider strikes at both Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and
allies in Lebanon. "In fact, we have only two meaningful options: Confront clerical Iran and
its proxies militarily or ring it with an oil embargo." http://prospect.org/article/just-beginning
March 14,2003
"Neoconservatives in the Bush Administration have long targeted Iran. Richard Perle,
former Defense Policy Board member, and David Frum, of the neo-com Weekly Standard,
co-authored "An End to Evil," which calls for the overthrow of the "terrorist mullahs of
Iran." Michael Ladeen of the influential American Enterprise Institute argues that "Tehran is
a city just waiting for us." http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/05/26/the-oil-connection/
According to the 2016 documentary Zero Days by director Alex Gibney, Israel's incessant
public threats to attack Iran coupled with intense secret demands for cyber warfare targeting
Iran were the catalyst for massive new US black budget spending
NSA Director (1999-2005) and CIA Director (2006-2009) Michael Hayden claimed in Zero Days
that the goal of any Israeli air attack against Iran's nuclear facilities would be to drag
the United States into war.
"Our belief was that if they [Israel] went on their own, knowing the limitations No, they're
a very good air force, alright? But it's small and the distances are great, and the targets
dispersed and hardened, alright? If they would have attempted a raid on a military plane, we
would have been assuming that they were assuming we would finish that which they started. In
other words, there would be many of us in government thinking that the purpose of the raid
wasn't to destroy the Iranian nuclear system, but the purpose of the raid was to put us [the
United States] at war with Iran."
https://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2018/11/06/israel-and-the-trillion-dollar-2005-2018-us-intelligence-budget
Emergence of ISIS is linked to US efforts to weaken Iran
-In "The Redirection", written in 2008(!) – years before the 2011 uprising, Seymour
Hersh wrote of plans to use extremists in Syria.
Excerpts:
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in
effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has
coöperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations
that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The
U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A
by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse
a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
Nasr compared the current situation to the period in which Al Qaeda first emerged. In the
nineteen-eighties and the early nineties, the Saudi government offered to subsidize the
covert American C.I.A. proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Hundreds of young
Saudis were sent into the border areas of Pakistan, where they set up religious schools,
training bases, and recruiting facilities. Then, as now, many of the operatives who were paid
with Saudi money were Salafis. Among them, of course, were Osama bin Laden and his
associates, who founded Al Qaeda, in 1988.
This time, "
@Simply
Simon In the old days, the orders for the US government were coming down from the
Tri-Lateral Commission and the 6-7 major companies. Rockefeller took the TLC underground
ground with himself. The oil companies continue asking the US government for protecting the
ME/NA resources. Then Neocons replaced the TLC which their focus was twofold.
1. Destabilize the regions for protecting Israel
2. Control the resources militarily
3. Keep the Chinese out and cut their access to the resources
Guess what, Chinese have penetrated the regions constructively and quietly. America with its
unjustified fucking wars is being hated even more than 1953.
@KA
Very true! Unfortunately the presidents were misinformed or uninformed about the proxies
created by the CIA. The first created to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan manned and financed
by the Saudis, recruited by Mossad and intelligence was provided by the CIA. Sound really
really good to the Americans since it was free of charge with no loss of life! Then during
the Iraq war its neighbor Syria was getting destabilized so the CIA replicated Al-Qaeda and
formed a new gang which called themselves ISIS. The function of ISIS was to overthrow
Al-Bashar of Syria. The secondary mission for both groups was to bug Iran from its western
and eastern front.
Manning both of these groups with Sunnis was the biggest mistake that KSA, Mossad and the CIA
made. See the Sunnis are not fighters without sophisticated weapons from the West. On the
other Shiites can fight with a sword and empty handed if they have to. They remind me of VC's
in Vietnam. The Shiites decimated the ISIS and most of AlQaeda now the US is trying to get
credit for that but they know better now. So my recommendation to the US is please don't
aggravate the Shiites otherwise they will embarrass us just the VC's
@Monty
Ahwazi{ All insurance companies will drop their coverage of the oil tankers
immediately.}
During the Iran-Iraq war, US re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers and ran them under US flag and
protection through the straight.
Same thing can be done again.
And if insurance companies drop coverage, US Treasury will provide the coverage: some US
insurance company will be "convinced" by US Gov to provide the coverage and US Treasury will
guarantee _any_ losses incurred by the insurance company or companies.
US can always add to the national debt ( .i.e. print more dollars).
So, no: declaration won't do.
Only destroying stuff works.
{You guys sitting here and making up these nonsensical policies}
Nobody is making policy here: we are not a government.
We are exchanging opinions.
btw: where are you sitting?
Are your personal opinions considered 'policy', because you are ..what?
@anon
That was buried deep in the article. (Thanks for posting link.) Next lines, the NYT is
skeptical of US claims. Too bad this isn't first pararaphs!)
Lt. Gen. Joseph Guastella, the Air Force commander for the Central Command region in the
Middle East, said the attack could have endangered "innocent civilians," even though
officials at Central Command continued to assert that the drone was over international
waters. He said that the closest that the drone got to the Iranian coast was 21 miles.
Late Thursday, the Defense Department released additional imagery in an email to support
its case that the drone never entered Iranian airspace. But the department incorrectly
called the flight path of the drone the location of the shooting down and offered little
context for an image that appeared to be the drone exploding in midair.
It was the latest attempt by the Pentagon to try to prove that Iran has been the
aggressor in a series of international incidents.
@Zumbuddi
Thank you. If the US were a real [HONEST] policeman, they would have stopped Kuwait from
stealing Iraqi oil. But no, Bush was a dirty cop, on the take.
@dearieme
Read "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James W. Douglass. JFK was getting us out of Vietnam. In
his time, there was not massive amounts of US troops in Vietnam, only advisors. JFK planned
to get all the troops out after he was re-elected.
It was during Johnson's presidency that the Vietnam war became a huge war for the US.
Johnson set up the Gulf of Tonkin false flag on August 2 1964. This started the huge draft of
young men for Vietnam war that dragged on till the early 1970s.
Johnson also allowed Israel to do a false flag on the US on June 8 1967. Israel attacked
the USS Liberty. 34 servicemen killed and 174 injured. Israel wanted to kill them all and
blame it on Egypt, so US would nuke Egypt. Lovely nation is little Israel. The song " Love is
all you need" by the Beatles was released on June 7 1967. Summer of Love, Hippies in San
Francisco, all planned to get Americans into drugs and forget about what Israel is doing in
the Middle East. It worked, nobody noticed what Israel did since we have a "free" 500 Zion BC
press in the US in 1967 and we still do these days.
Iran is pretty self sufficient with minimal foreign debt. Their Central Bank is under their
control and works for the people. They should just hunker down and hope Trumps crew is out of
a job after the elections next year
If the US strikes they can block the straits. However, the US would probably knock out the
refineries so that will hurt
They shot down the drone because it was collecting intelligence on targets the US plans to
strike. Thats defensive not provocative
If the US wants to go at Iran they will manufacture something. People are so dumbed down
they can made to believe anything, as events 18 years ago and since have proven
Hopefully this is just distraction to cover up some nefarious plan to loot the working
class some more. Or maybe getting the straits closed is part of the plan. Who knows?
THE TICK TOCKS WHY TRUMP DIDN'T BOMB IRAN NYT'S PETER BAKER, MAGGIE HABERMAN and THOMAS
GIBBONS-NEFF:
"Urged to Launch an Attack, Trump Listened to the Skeptics Who Said It Would Be a Costly
Mistake": "He heard from his generals and his diplomats. Lawmakers weighed in and so did his
advisers. But among the voices that rang powerfully for President Trump was that of one of
his favorite Fox News hosts: Tucker Carlson.
"While national security advisers were urging a military strike against Iran, Mr. Carlson
in recent days had told Mr. Trump that responding to Tehran's provocations with force was
crazy. The hawks did not have the president's best interests at heart, he said. And if Mr.
Trump got into a war with Iran, he could kiss his chances of re-election goodbye.
"The 150-dead casualty estimate came not from a general but from a lawyer, according to the
official. The estimate was developed by Pentagon lawyers drafting worst-case scenarios that,
the official said, did not account for whether the strike was carried out during daytime,
when more people might be present at the targets, or in the dark hours before sunrise, as the
military planned.
"That estimate was passed to the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, without being cleared
with [Patrick] Shanahan or General [Joseph] Dunford. It was then conveyed to the president by
the White House lawyers, at which point Mr. Trump changed his mind and called off the
strike." NYT NYT A1
"That estimate was passed to the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, without being cleared
with [Patrick] Shanahan or General [Joseph] Dunford. It was then conveyed to the president by
the White House lawyers, at which point Mr. Trump changed his mind and called off the
strike." NYT NYT A1
Saddam was given plenty of time, and plenty of resolutions to pack up his troops and go
home
.
Saddam was given the assurance by US ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie, that the USA
supported his retaliatory action against Kuwait. Same usual trap and deliberate provocation;
all the rest is obfuscation.
@AnonFromTN
The loss of two American aircraft carriers appears to be the assumption you are making to
guarantee an Iranian victory.
Such a loss is by no means assured.
The idea that American willpower will collapse in the event of the loss of two capital
ships is your second assumption, and it's both a fanciful and dangerous assumption.
I'm not myself terribly impressed by American military power, but comparing naval combat
to counterinsurgency operations is absurd.
Your economic assumptions appear to come from the permabear school. Actual economies and
governments don't work that way. A major reduction in global supplies will result in
compulsory conservation, rationing, price controls, etc. This was done in recent memory in
the 1970s in both North America and Western Europe, when you were still behind the Iron
Curtain and perhaps not aware.
@alexander
Saddam was given plenty of time, and plenty of resolutions to pack up his troops and go
home."
Efforts by Egypt to arrive an Arab initiated solution was ignored and dismissed by USA
Initial Saudi effort to find a face saving exit by Saddam was met with resistance and then
a manufactured satellite image of Saddam massing his soldiers for invasion of Saudi was
widely disseminated by US.
Saddam crimes was no less or more egregious than what Israel was enjoying with US dollars
and with US support and with impunity ( It was still occupying Pastien and Parts of Syria and
Lebanon )
It was Levy the Israeli FM who threatened that his country would attack Iraq if US did
not.
War against Saddam was orchestrated by Jewish members of Thatcher and by Democrats of USA
) Solarz – NY Senator was one of the guys and the AIPAC whose president Mr. Dine
confessed the crimes )
@alexander
UN has been abused by USA taking the advantage of the collapse of Soviet . (This is what
Wolf0owitz told Wesley Clarke in 1992 in Feb : This was the time we can and we should take
care of these countries Iran Iraq Syria Libya and Yemen while Russia is still weakened and
unable to help its erstwhile vassals states) .
USA had no right to ask Saddam to leave . Subsequent behaviors of USA has proved it.
Israel also in addition has no right to exist .
If correction had to come from Iran Hezbollah and Syria- then so be it. That news would be
best thing that would happen to humanity within last 200 yrs .
@Iris
but -- but -- but (sputters Alexander the otherwise sage commenter), The UN -- that's the
U-nited Nations!! fer pete's ache, Agreed!! ( Agreed is Diplomatese for: "Please stop
twisting my arm; Please stop bankrupting my country; Please stop threatening to tell my wife
-- ).
in other words, the UN is a toy and a ploy for someone like G H W Bush salivating at the
once in a lifetime opportunity to exert world dominance -- 'scuse me: "Create a New World
Order" -- in the context of a power vacuum / dissolution of the Soviet Empire, previously the
only counterbalance to US superpower status.
No doubt the UN was got on board. It acted like the paid-for- judge and show-trial in a
case the prosecutor had already rigged.
imho, what is more significant, and what it takes years to unearth, is the decision making
and back-room dealing that came BEFORE the UN was induced to stamp its imprimatur.
Tony Blair endorsed Bush the Lesser's war on Iraq. Does that grant it legitimacy, or in
any way explain why US waged that war?
I don't care about numbers.
50 (proper) sea mines backed up by 20 air/land-sea missiles do the job. Block the Hormuz.
I am sure the regime in Tehran has that number.
Does anyone?
Don't think so.
Mines in particular.
While missiles could be tricky to produce even smart sea mines are not.
A lot of explosive-check.
A couple of sensors (acoustic/magnetic)-check.
A couple of hardened micro controller boards-check.
That's it.
In this very game there are, really, only two elements that interest me:
Tactical nukes.
Selective draft.
What hehe really interests me is the escalation from "tactical" to "strategic".
@Thorfinnsson
Let me make this clear: there won't be Iranian victory. Iran will pay a hefty price. There
will be the defeat of the Empire, though, a major climb down. The worst (for the Empire) part
would be that the whole world would see that the king has no clothes. Then the backlash
against the Empire (hated by 6/7th of the Earth population) starts, and that would be
extremely painful for everyone in the US, guilty and innocent alike (myself included).
Compulsory rationing and price controls were possible when the governments actually
governed. When the whole governments and legislatures are full of corporations' marionettes,
as is the case now in the US and EU, these measures are impossible. Profiteers will have
their day. They will crush Western economies and therefore themselves, but never
underestimate the blinding force of greed. The same greedy bastards are supplying the US
military with airplanes that have trouble flying and with ships costing untold billions that
break down in the Panama canal, of all places. The same greedy scum destroyed the US industry
and moved all production to China, in effect spelling the doom of the only country that could
have protected their loot from other thieves. That's the problem with greed: it makes people
incredibly shortsighted.
So what? That nice lessons are being imparted slowly to the Israeli slave USA.
USA does what other countries are accused of before invading . USA throws out any qualms
any morality any legality . It uses UN . Right now it is illegally supplying arms to Saudi to
Israel and to the rebels in Syria. These are the reasons US have gone to wars against other
countries for. Now some countries are standing up and saying – those days are gone ,
you can't attack any country anymore just because someone has been raped or someone has been
distributing Viagra.
As a matter of fact, the whole world began to ask, you are willing to launch your military
to eject Saddam from Kuwait Bravo! ..Now what are willing to do about Israels illegal seizure
of Palestinian territory in the West bank .It is more or less the exact same crime, Isn't
it?
George Bush Senior was the last US President in American History to withhold all loans to
Israel, until it ceased and desisted from illegal settlement activity in the Palestinian
Territories.
Many believe it was his willingness to hold Israel to the same standard as everyone else,
which cost him his second term.
@Thorfinnsson
Iran shot down a US Navy RQ-4A intel drone that cost $250: A model that is marketed as being
hard to shoot down since it has an 11 mile high altitude ceiling and a long operational
range. That a coastal AA missile battery knocked it down with one shot answers several
questions.
So easy to say when you so blithely ignore the historical injustices, the inequality of
opportunity and the theft - the first person to claim a parcel of land as their own exclusive
property was committing an act of theft.
It's not entrepreneurial; it's base rent-seeking and
it was a violent act of forced approbriation by denying natural rights to others.
The
subsequent claims to title are enforced by the threat of violence through the emergence of a
pervasive state.
A modern example is the oligarchs who carved up the commons in a collapsing and
disintegrating Soviet Union. Their's was an act of theft committed against society and the
common good. Your definition of freedom is predicated on theft and is a denial of natural
freedoms,
Tens of thousands of Venezuelans
have reportedly already died as a result of this administration's relentless assault on
their economy; those human beings are no less dead than they would have been if the US had
killed them by dropping cluster bombs on Caracas. Yet these deaths have received virtually no
mainstream media coverage, and Americans, while they
strongly oppose attacking Iran militarily , have had very little to say about Trump's
attacks on the nation's economy. The economy which people use to feed their children, to care
for their elderly and their sick.
I'm titling this essay "Starvation Sanctions Are Worse Than Overt Warfare", and I mean it. I
am not saying that starvation sanctions are more destructive or deadly than overt military
force in and of themselves; what I am saying is that the overall effect is worse, because
there's no public accountability for them and because they deliberately target civilians.
If the US were to launch a barrage of Tomahawk missiles into an Iranian suburb with the goal
of killing civilians, there'd be international outrage and the cohesion of the US-centralized
power alliance would take a major hit. Virtually everyone would recognize this as an
unforgivable war crime. Yet America will be able to kill the same number of civilians with the
same deliberate intention of inflicting deadly force, and it would suffer essentially no
consequences at all. There's no public or international pressure holding that form of violence
at bay, because it's invisible and poorly understood.
It reminds me of the way financial abuse gets overlooked and under-appreciated in our
society. Financial abuse can be more painful and imprisoning than physical or psychological
abuse (and I speak from experience), especially if you have children, yet you don't generally
see movies and TV shows getting made about it. In a society where people have been made to
depend on money for survival, limiting or cutting off their access to it is the same as any
other violent attack upon their personal sovereignty, and can easily be just as destructive.
But as a society we haven't yet learned to see and understand this violence, so it doesn't
attract interest and attention. That lack of interest and attention enables the empire to
launch deadly campaigns targeting civilian populations unnoticed, without any public
accountability. It's great that more people are starting to understand the cost of war, to the
extent that we're even seeing US presidential candidates make opposing it central to their
platforms, but this is happening at a time when overt warfare is becoming more obsolete and
replaced with something subtler and more sinister. We must as a society evolve our
understanding of what starvation sanctions are and what they do, and stop seeing them as in any
way superior or preferable to overt warfare.
The fact that people generally oppose senseless military violence but are unable to see and
comprehend a slow, boa constrictor-like act of slaughter via economic strangulation is why
these siege warfare tactics have become the weapon of choice for the US-centralized empire. It
is a more gradual way of murdering people than overt warfare, but when you control all the
resources and have an underlying power structure which maintains itself amid the comings and
goings of your officially elected government, you're in no hurry. The absence of any public
accountability makes the need for patience a very worthwhile trade-off.
So you see this siege warfare strategy employed everywhere by the US-centralized empire:
You see it with Iran and Venezuela.
You see it in Yemen, where in addition to deadly blockades the Saudis have been
deliberate targeting farms, fishing boats, marketplaces, food storage sites and
cholera treatment centers with US-assisted airstrikes.
You
saw it with Julian Assange , where Ecuador collaborated with the US to slowly make life
in the embassy more and more hellish in the hope that he'd step outside to be arrested by
British police.
You're
seeing it now with Chelsea Manning , who is currently racking up $500 a day fines for her
principled stand against a corrupt grand jury proceeding against Assange, fines which will
double next month to $1,000 a day.
The US-centralized power alliance is so powerful in its ability to hurt nations with
financial influence that in 1990 when Yemen voted against a UN Security Council Resolution
authorizing the attack against Iran, a senior US diplomat was caught on a hot mic telling the
Yemeni ambassador, "That will be the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast." According to
German author Thomas Pogge , "The US stopped $70 million in aid to Yemen; other Western
countries, the IMF, and World Bank followed suit. Saudi Arabia expelled some 800,000 Yemeni
workers, many of whom had lived there for years and were sending urgently needed money to their
families."
That's real power. Not the ability to destroy a nation with bombs and missiles, but the
ability to destroy it without firing a shot.
It's no wonder, then, that the drivers of this empire work so hard to continue growing and
expanding it. The oligarchs and their allies in opaque government agencies no doubt envision a
world where all noncompliant nations like Iran, Russia and China have been absorbed into the
blob of empire and war becomes obsolete, not because anyone has become any less violent, but
because their economic control will be so complete that they can obliterate entire populations
just by cutting them off from the world economy whenever any of them become disobedient.
This is the only reason Iran is being targeted right now. That's why you'll never hear a
factually and logically sound argument defending Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal;
there is none. There was no problem with the JCPOA other than the fact that it barred America
from inflicting economic warfare upon Iran, which it needed for the purpose of toppling the
nation's government so that it can be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized empire.
And all the innocent human beings who die of starvation and disease? They don't matter.
Imperial violence only matters if there are consequences for it. The price of shoring up the
total hegemony of the empire will have been worth it .
"... Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets. ..."
"... "It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people." ..."
"... The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow the pain. ..."
"... But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress. Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent ..."
"... Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing. ..."
"... Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered by social programs. ..."
"... In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember. ..."
"... "We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'" ..."
"... "When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us. Poor people feel abandoned." ..."
On the ragged streets of the shantytown across the road, where stinking outhouses sit alongside shacks fashioned from rusted sheets
of tin, families have surrendered hopes that sewage lines will ever reach them.
They do not struggle to fashion an explanation for their declining fortunes: Since taking office more than three years ago, President
Mauricio Macri has broken with the budget-busting populism that has dominated Argentina for much of the past century, embracing the
grim arithmetic of economic orthodoxy.
Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting
Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the
power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets.
"It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people."
The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away
from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble
is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow
the pain.
Mr. Macri's supporters heralded his 2015 election as a miraculous outbreak of normalcy in a country with a well-earned reputation
for histrionics. He would cease the reckless spending that had brought Argentina infamy for defaulting on its debts eight times.
Sober-minded austerity would win the trust of international financiers, bringing investment that would yield jobs and fresh opportunities.
But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress.
Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the
same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and
joblessness is stuck above 9 percent.
Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing.
Far beyond this country of 44 million people, Mr. Macri's tenure is testing ideas that will shape economic policy in an age of
recrimination over widening inequality. His presidency was supposed to offer an escape from the wreckage of profligate spending while
laying down an alternative path for countries grappling with the worldwide rise of populism. Now, his presidency threatens to become
a gateway back to populism. The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck
above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
Image
The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts
a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
As the October election approaches, Mr. Macri is contending with the growing prospect of a challenge from the president he succeeded,
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who faces a
series of criminal indictments for corruption . Her unbridled spending helped deliver the crisis that Mr. Macri inherited. Her
return would resonate as a rebuke of his market-oriented reforms while potentially yanking Argentina back to its accustomed preserve:
left-wing populism, in uncomfortable proximity to insolvency.
The Argentine peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year, prompting the central bank to lift interest rates to a
commerce-suffocating level above 60 percent. Argentina was forced to secure a $57 billion
rescue from the International
Monetary Fund , a profound indignity given that the fund is widely despised here for the austerity it imposed in the late 1990s,
turning an economic downturn into a depression.
For Mr. Macri, time does not appear to be in abundant supply. The spending cuts he delivered hit the populace immediately. The
promised benefits of his reforms -- a stable currency, tamer inflation, fresh investment and jobs -- could take years to materialize,
leaving Argentines angry and yearning for the past.
In much of South America, left-wing governments have taken power in recent decades as an angry corrective to dogmatic prescriptions
from Washington, where the Treasury and the I.M.F. have focused on the confidence of global investors as the key to development.
Left-wing populism has aimed to redistribute the gains from the wealthy to everyone else. It has aided the poor, while generating
its own woes --
corruption and depression in
Brazil , runaway inflation and financial ruin in Argentina. In Venezuela, uninhibited spending has turned the country with the
world's largest proven oil reserves into a land where
children starve .
Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered
by social programs.
In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country
has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember.
"We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We
never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'"
Cultivating wealth
... ... ...
In the beginning, there was Juan Domingo Perón, the charismatic Army general who was president from 1946 to 1955, and then again
from 1973 to 1974. He employed an authoritarian hand and muscular state power to champion the poor. He and his wife, Eva Duarte --
widely known by her nickname, Evita -- would dominate political life long after they died, inspiring politicians across the ideological
spectrum to claim their mantle.
Among the most ardent Peronists were Néstor Kirchner, the president from 2003 to 2007, and his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,
who took office in 2007, remaining until Mr. Macri was elected in 2015.
Their version of Peronism -- what became known as Kirchnerism -- was decidedly left-wing, disdaining global trade as a malevolent
force. They expanded cash grants to the poor and imposed taxes on farm exports in a bid to keep Argentine food prices low.
As the country's farmers tell it, Kirchnerism is just a fancy term for the confiscation of their wealth and the scattering of
the spoils to the unproductive masses. They point to Ms. Kirchner's 35 percent tax on soybean exports.
"We had a saying," Mr. Tropini says. "'For every three trucks that went to the port, one was for Cristina Kirchner.'"
reduction in export taxes.
"You could breathe finally," Mr. Tropini, the farmer, says.
He was free of the Kirchners, yet stuck with nature. Floods in 2016 wiped out more than half of his crops. A drought last year
wreaked even more havoc.
"This harvest, this year," he says, "is a gift from God."
But if the heavens are now cooperating, and if the people running Buenos Aires represent change, Mr. Tropini is critical of Mr.
Macri's failure to overcome the economic crisis.
A weaker currency makes Argentine soybeans more competitive, but it also increases the cost of the diesel fuel Mr. Tropini needs
to run his machinery. High interest rates make it impossible for him to buy another combine, which would allow him to expand his
farm.
In the first years of Mr. Macri's administration, the government lifted controls on the value of the peso while relaxing export
taxes. The masters of international finance delivered a surge of investment. The economy expanded by nearly 3 percent in 2017, and
then accelerated in the first months of last year.
But as investors grew wary of Argentina's deficits, they fled, sending the peso plunging and inflation soaring. As the rout continued
last year, the central bank mounted a futile effort to support the currency, selling its stash of dollars to try to halt the peso's
descent. As the reserves dwindled, investors absorbed the spectacle of a government failing to restore order. The exodus of money
intensified, and another potential default loomed, leading a chastened Mr. Macri to accept a rescue from the dreaded IMF.
Administration officials described the unraveling as akin to a natural disaster: unforeseeable and unavoidable. The drought hurt
agriculture.
Money was flowing out of developing countries as the Federal Reserve continued to lift interest rates in the United States, making
the American dollar a more attractive investment.
But the impact of the Fed's tightening had been widely anticipated. Economists fault the government for mishaps and complacency
that left the country especially vulnerable.
.... ... ...
Among the most consequential errors was the government's decision to include Argentina's central bank in a December 2017 announcement
that it was raising its inflation target. The markets took that as a signal that the government was surrendering its war on inflation
while opting for a traditional gambit: printing money rather than cutting spending.
... ... ...
The government insists that better days are ahead. The spending cuts have dropped the budget deficit to a manageable 3 percent
of annual economic output. Argentina is again integrated into the global economy.
"We haven't improved, but the foundations of the economy and society are much healthier," said Miguel Braun, secretary of economic
policy at the Treasury Ministry. "Argentina is in a better place to generate a couple of decades of growth."
... ... ...
Their television flashes dire warnings, like "Danger of Hyper Inflation." Throughout the neighborhood, people decry the sense
that they have been forsaken by the government.
Trucks used to come to castrate male dogs to control the packs of feral animals running loose. Not anymore. Health programs for
children are less accessible than they were before, they said.
Daisy Quiroz, 71, a retired maid, lives in a house that regularly floods in the rainy season.
"When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us.
Poor people feel abandoned."
... ... ...
Daniel Politi contributed reporting from Buenos Aires. Peter S. Goodman is a London-based European economics correspondent.
He was previously a national economic correspondent in New York. He has also worked at The Washington Post as a China correspondent,
and was global editor in chief of the International Business Times. @
petersgoodman
Iran's envoy to the United Nations has called on the international community to end "unlawful destabilizing measures" by the US,
declaring that while Iran does not seek war, it "reserves the right to counter any hostile act."
Iranian envoy to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi has condemned continuing US provocations that culminated Thursday morning in the
downing of an American surveillance drone by the Iranian air force over Hormozgan province.
The drone "had turned off its identification equipment and [was] engaged in a clear spying operation," Ravanchi confirmed in a
letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, adding that the aircraft had ignored "repeated radio warnings" in order to enter
Iranian airspace near the Strait of Hormuz.
"... "Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible. ..."
"... "The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with. ..."
Demanding that the Middle Eastern nation retaliate immediately in self-defense against the
existential threat posed by America's military operations, National Security Adviser John
Bolton called for a forceful Iranian response Friday to continuing United States aggression.
"Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory,
threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that
America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and
alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of
force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible.
"The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends
a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a
diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals
that cannot be reasoned with.
They've been given every opportunity to back down, but their goal is total domination of the
region, and Iran won't stand for that."
At press time, Bolton said that the only option left on the table was for Iran to launch a
full-fledged military strike against the Great Satan.
The current conflict is about the US hegemony in the region, not anything else.
The analysis is really good. I especially like "The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to
foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender"
That means that Doug Bandow
proposals while good are completely unrealistic.
Notable quotes:
"... Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle East. ..."
"... Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are? ..."
"... Washington did much to encourage a violent, extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn. ..."
"... The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace. ..."
"... Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well. Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran. ..."
"... Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism. ..."
"... Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington, ascendant in Tehran. ..."
"... Europeans also point to Bush administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War. Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response. ..."
"... Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the mother of all Mideast conflagrations. ..."
"... In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions, requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. ..."
"... Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires a freer society. ..."
Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war
against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the
invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet
state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle
East.
Thousands of dead Americans, tens of thousands of wounded and maimed U.S. personnel, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, and
millions of Iraqis displaced. There was the sectarian conflict, destruction of the historic Christian community, the creation of
Al Qaeda in Iraq—which morphed into the far deadlier Islamic State—and the enhanced influence of Iran. The prime question was how
could so many supposedly smart people be so stupid?
Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the
nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war
even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are?
The Iranian regime is malign. Nevertheless, despite being under almost constant siege it has survived longer than the U.S.-crafted
dictatorship which preceded the Islamic Republic. And the latter did not arise in a vacuum. Washington did much to encourage a violent,
extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined
to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn.
In 1953 the United States backed a coup against democratically selected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Washington then aided
the Shah in consolidating power, including the creation of the secret police, known as SAVAK. He forcibly modernized Iran’s still
conservative Islamic society, while his corrupt and repressive rule united secular and religious Iranians against him.
The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran,
triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue
subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons
employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace.
Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership
with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush
administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well.
Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran.
As Henry Kissinger reportedly once said, even a paranoid can have enemies. Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that
average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently
triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism.
The hostile relationship with Iran also has allowed Saudi Arabia, which routinely undercuts American interests and values, to
gain a dangerous stranglehold over U.S. policy. To his credit President Barack Obama attempted to rebalance Washington’s Mideast
policy. The result was the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It provided for an intrusive inspection regime designed
to discourage any future Iranian nuclear weapons program—which U.S. intelligence indicated had been inactive since 2003.
However, candidate Donald Trump had an intense and perverse desire to overturn every Obama policy. His tight embrace of Israeli
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ignored the advice of his security chiefs in denouncing the accord, and the Saudi royals,
who Robert Gates once warned would fight Iran to the last American, also likely played an important role.
Last year the president withdrew from the accord and followed with a declaration of economic war. He then declared the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military organization, to be a terrorist group. (Washington routinely uses the “terrorist” designation
for purely political purposes.) Finally, there are reports, officially denied by Washington, that U.S. forces, allied with Islamist
radicals—the kind of extremists responsible for most terrorist attacks on Americans—have been waging a covert war against Iranian
smuggling operations.
The president claimed that he wanted to negotiate: “We aren’t looking for regime change,” he said. “We are looking for no nuclear
weapons.” But that is what the JCPOA addressed. His policy is actually pushing Tehran to expand its nuclear program. Moreover, last
year Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech that the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian, who spent more than a year in
Iranian prison, called “silly” and “completely divorced from reality.”
In a talk to an obsequious Heritage Foundation audience, Pompeo set forth the terms of Tehran’s surrender: Iran would be expected
to abandon any pretense of maintaining an independent foreign policy and yield its deterrent missile capabilities, leaving it subservient
to Saudi Arabia, with the latter’s U.S.-supplied and -trained military. Tehran could not even cooperate with other governments, such
as Syria, at their request. The only thing missing from Pompeo’s remarks was insistence that Iran accept an American governor-general
in residence.
The proposal was a nonstarter and looked like the infamous 1914 Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, which was intended to be
rejected and thereby justify war. After all, National Security Advisor John Bolton expressed his policy preference in a 2015 New
York Times op-ed titled: “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” Whatever the president’s true intentions, Tehran can be forgiven for
seeing Washington’s position as one of regime change, by war if necessary.
The administration apparently assumed that new, back-breaking sanctions would either force the regime to surrender at the conference
table or collapse amid political and social conflict. Indeed, when asked if he really believed sanctions would change Tehran’s behavior,
Pompeo answered that “what can change is, the people can change the government.” Both Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations have recently argued that the Islamic Republic is an exhausted
regime, one that is perhaps on its way to extinction.
However, Rezaian says “there is nothing new” about Tehran’s difficult Iranian economic problems. “Assuming that this time around
the Iranian people can compel their government to bend to America’s will seems—at least to anyone who has spent significant time
in Iran in recent decades—fantastical,” he said. Gerecht enthusiasm for U.S. warmaking has led to mistakes in the past. He got Iraq
wrong seventeen years ago when he wrote that “a war with Iraq might not shake up the Middle East much at all.
Today the administration is using a similar strategy against Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. The citizens of these countries
have not risen against their oppressors to establish a new, democratic, pro-American regime. Numerous observers wrongly predicted
that the Castro regime would die after the end of Soviet subsidies and North Korea’s inevitable fall in the midst of a devastating
famine. Moreover, regime collapse isn’t likely to yield a liberal, democratic republic when the most radical, authoritarian elites
remain best-armed.
... ... ...
More important, Washington does not want to go to war with Iran, which is larger than Iraq, has three times the population, and
is a real country. The regime, while unpopular with many Iranians, is much better rooted than Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Tehran
possesses unconventional weapons, missiles, and allies which could spread chaos throughout the region. American forces in Syria and
Iraq would be vulnerable, while Baghdad’s stability could be put at risk. If Americans liked the Iraq debacle, then they would love
the chaos likely to result from attempting to violently destroy the Iranian state. David Frum, one of the most avid neoconservative
advocates of the Iraq invasion, warned that war with Iran would repeat Iraqi blunders on “a much bigger sale, without allies, without
justification, and without any plan at all for what comes next.”
Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure
on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for
war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington,
ascendant in Tehran.
Carefully calibrated military action, such as tanker attacks, might be intended to show “resolve” to gain credibility. Washington
policymakers constantly justify military action as necessary to demonstrate that they are willing to take military action. Doing
so is even more important for a weaker power. Moreover, observed the Eurasia Group, Iranian security agencies “have a decades-long
history of conducting attacks and other operations aimed precisely at undermining the diplomatic objectives of a country’s elected
representatives.” If Iran is responsible, observed Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, then administration policy perversely
“is rendering Iran more aggressive, not less,” thereby making the Mideast more, not less dangerous
Of course, Tehran has denied any role in the attacks and there is good reason to question unsupported Trump administration claims
of Iranian guilt. The president’s indifferent relationship to the truth alone raises serious questions. Europeans also point to Bush
administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War.
Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war
against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that
the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response.
Other malicious actors also could be responsible for tanker attacks. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, ISIS, and Al
Qaeda all likely believe they would benefit from an American war on Tehran and might decide to speed the process along by fomenting
an incident. Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al
Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the
mother of all Mideast conflagrations.
Rather than continue a military spiral upward, Washington should defuse Gulf tensions. The administration brought the Middle East
to a boil. It can calm the waters. Washington should stand down its military, offering to host multilateral discussions with oil
consuming nations, energy companies, and tanker operators over establishing shared naval security in sensitive waterways, including
in the Middle East. Given America’s growing domestic energy production, the issue no longer should be considered Washington’s responsibility.
Other wealthy industrialized states should do what is necessary for their economic security.
The administration also should make a serious proposal for talks. It won’t be easy. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
declared “negotiation has no benefit and carries harm.” He further argued that “negotiations are a tactic of this pressure,” which
is the ultimate “strategic aim.” Even President Hassan Rouhani rejected contact without a change in U.S. policy. “Whenever they lift
the unjust sanctions and fulfill their commitments and return to the negotiations table, which they left themselves, the door is
not closed,” he said. In back channel discussions Iranians supposedly suggested that the U.S. reverse the latest sanctions, at least
on oil sales, ending attempts to wreck Iran’s economy.
If the president seriously desires talks with Tehran, then he should demonstrate that he does not expect preemptive surrender.
The administration should suspend its “maximum pressure” campaign and propose multilateral talks on tightening the nuclear agreement
in return for additional American and allied concessions, such as further sanctions relief.
In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions,
requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational
behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis
and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. Tehran has far greater interest in
neighborhood security than the United States, which Washington must respect if the latter seeks to effectively disarm Iran. The administration
should invite the Europeans to join such an initiative, since they have an even greater reason to worry about Iranian missiles and
more.
Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the
best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires
a freer society. That requires greater engagement, not isolation. Washington’s ultimate objective should be the liberal transformation
of Iran, freeing an ancient civilization to regain its leading role in today’s world, which would have a huge impact on the region.
The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo
is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender. This approach has failed in every case. Washington has caused enormous
economic hardship, but no target regime has capitulated. In Iran, like North Korea, U.S. policy sharply raised tensions and the chances
of conflict.
War would be a disaster. Instead, the administration must, explained James Fallows, “through bluff and patience, change the actions
of a government whose motives he does not understand well, and over which his influence is limited.” Which requires the administration
to adopt a new, more serious strategy toward Tehran, and quickly.
Bolton is just Albright of different sex. The same aggressive stupidity.
Notable quotes:
"... Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob... ..."
"... How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem appropriate. ..."
"... Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity. ..."
"... Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela. ..."
"... "If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." ..."
"... Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe. ..."
"... Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states. ..."
"... Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. ..."
"... The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government. This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious hypocrisy and bias, and more. ..."
"... At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia. ..."
"... Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established by Washington's far-sighted leaders. ..."
"... When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." ..."
"... For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal of Albright and her peers in The Blob. ..."
Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob...
How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem
appropriate.
Since 9/11, Washington has been extraordinarily active militarily -- invading two nations, bombing and droning several others,
deploying special operations forces in yet more countries, and applying sanctions against many. Tragically, the threat of Islamist
violence and terrorism only have metastasized. Although Al Qaeda lost its effectiveness in directly plotting attacks, it continues
to inspire national offshoots. Moreover, while losing its physical "caliphate" the Islamic State added further terrorism to its portfolio.
Three successive administrations have ever more deeply ensnared the United States in the Middle East. War with Iran appears to
be frighteningly possible. Ever-wealthier allies are ever-more dependent on America. Russia is actively hostile to the United States
and Europe. Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears
convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity.
Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For
instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military
and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and
even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela.
U.S. foreign policy suffers from systematic flaws in the thinking of the informal policy collective which former Obama aide Ben
Rhodes dismissed as "The Blob." Perhaps no official better articulated The Blob's defective precepts than Madeleine Albright, United
Nations ambassador and Secretary of State.
First is overweening hubris. In 1998 Secretary of State Albright declared that
"If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than
other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."
Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson
administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's
Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against
Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with
Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe.
U.S. officials rarely were prepared for events that occurred in the next week or month, let alone years later. Americans did no
better than the French in Vietnam. Americans managed events in Africa no better than the British, French, and Portuguese colonial
overlords. Washington made more than its share of bad, even awful decisions in dealing with other nations around the globe.
Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never
passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if
outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those
most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon
of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states.
The U.S. record since September 11 has been uniquely counterproductive. Rather than minimize hostility toward America, Washington
adopted a policy -- highlighted by launching new wars, killing more civilians, and ravaging additional societies -- guaranteed to
create enemies, exacerbate radicalism, and spread terrorism. Blowback is everywhere. Among the worst examples: Iraqi insurgents mutated
into ISIS, which wreaked military havoc throughout the Middle East and turned to terrorism.
Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to
make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. When queried 1996 about her justification for sanctions against Iraq which had
killed a half million babies -- notably, she did not dispute the accuracy of that estimate -- she responded that "I think this is
a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." Exactly who "we" were she did not say. Most likely she meant
those Americans admitted to the foreign policy priesthood, empowered to make foreign policy and take the practical steps necessary
to enforce it. (She later stated of her reply: "I never should have made it. It was stupid." It was, but it reflected her mindset.)
In any normal country, such a claim would be shocking -- a few people sitting in another capital deciding who lived and died.
Foreign elites, a world away from the hardship that they imposed, deciding the value of those dying versus the purported interests
being promoted. Those paying the price had no voice in the decision, no way to hold their persecutors accountable.
The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government.
This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the
full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone
campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious
hypocrisy and bias, and more.
This mindset is reinforced by contempt toward even those being aided by Washington. Although American diplomats had termed the
Kosovo Liberation Army as "terrorist," the Clinton Administration decided to use the growing insurgency as an opportunity to expand
Washington's influence. At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state
could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington
expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against
the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia.
However, initially the KLA, determined on independence, refused to sign Albright's agreement. She exploded. One of her officials
anonymously complained: "Here is the greatest nation on earth pleading with some nothingballs to do something entirely in their own
interest -- which is to say yes to an interim agreement -- and they stiff us." Someone described as "a close associate" observed:
"She is so stung by what happened. She's angry at everyone -- the Serbs, the Albanians and NATO." For Albright, the determination
of others to achieve their own goals, even at risk to their lives, was an insult to America and her.
Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National
Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more
than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established
by Washington's far-sighted leaders.
As Albright famously asked Colin Powell in 1992:
"What's the use of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" To her, American military personnel
apparently were but gambit pawns in a global chess game, to be sacrificed for the interest and convenience of those playing. No
wonder then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell's reaction stated in his autobiography was: "I thought I would
have an aneurysm."
When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking
that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." Although sixty-five years had passed, she
admitted that "my mindset is Munich," a unique circumstance and threat without even plausible parallel today.
Such a philosophy explains a 1997 comment by a cabinet member, likely Albright, to General Hugh Shelton, then Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff: "Hugh, I know I shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out
Saddam is a precipitous event -- something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s
fly low enough -- and slow enough -- so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?" He responded sure, as soon as she qualified
to fly the plane.
For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash
murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal
of Albright and her peers in The Blob.
Anyone of these comments could be dismissed as a careless aside. Taken together, however, they reflect an attitude dangerous for
Americans and foreigners alike. Unfortunately, the vagaries of U.S. foreign policy suggest that this mindset is not limited to any
one person. Any president serious about taking a new foreign-policy direction must do more than drain the swamp. He or she must sideline
The Blob.
"... Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext for war. ..."
"... U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members. The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia. ..."
"... It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations were saying in private. ..."
"... "Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'" Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii] ..."
"... As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern. ..."
"... Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section of the text states: ..."
"... Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region. ..."
"... Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months, Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii] ..."
"... The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air. ..."
"... The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii] ..."
"... Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise. ..."
"... Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich ..."
Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for
war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government
and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind
the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext
for war.
The talks opened on February 6, 1999, in Rambouillet, France. Officially, the negotiations were led by a Contact Group comprised
of U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Christopher Hill , European Union envoy Wolfgang Petritsch , and Russian diplomat Boris Mayorsky
. All decisions were supposed to be jointly agreed upon by all three members of the Contact Group. In actual practice, the U.S. ran
the show all the way and routinely bypassed Petritsch and Mayorsky on essential matters.
Ibrahim Rugova , an ethnic Albanian activist who advocated nonviolence, was expected to play a major role in the Albanian secessionist
delegation. Joining him at Rambouillet was Fehmi Agani , a fellow member of Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright regularly sidelined Rugova, however, preferring to rely on delegation members from
the hardline Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which had routinely murdered Serbs, Roma, and Albanians in Kosovo who worked for the government
or opposed separatism. Only a few months before the conference, KLA spokesman Bardhyl Mahmuti spelled out his organization's vision
of a future Kosovo as separate and ethnically pure:
"The independence of Kosovo is the only solution We cannot live together. That is excluded." [i]
Rugova had at one time engaged in fairly productive talks with Yugoslav officials, and his willingness to negotiate was no doubt
precisely the reason Albright relegated him to a background role. Yugoslav Minister of Information Milan Komnenić accompanied the
Yugoslav delegation to Rambouillet. He recalls,
"With Rugova and Fehmi Agani it was possible to talk; they were flexible. In Rambouillet, [KLA leader Hashim] Thaçi appears
instead of Rugova. A beast." [ii]
There was no love between Thaçi and Rugova, whose party members were the targets of threats and assassination attempts at the
hands of the KLA. Rugova himself would survive an assassination attempt six years later.
The composition of the Yugoslav delegation reflected its position that many ethnic groups resided in Kosovo, and any agreement
arrived at should take into account the interests of all parties. All of Kosovo's major ethnic groups were represented in the delegation.
Faik Jashari , one of the Albanian members in the Yugoslav delegation, was president of the Kosovo Democratic Initiative and an official
in the Provisional Executive Council, which was Yugoslavia's government in Kosovo. Jashari observed that Albright was startled when
she saw the composition of the Yugoslav delegation, apparently because it went against the U.S. propaganda narrative. [iii] Throughout
the talks, Albright displayed a dismissive attitude towards the delegation's Albanian, Roma, Egyptian, Goran, Turkish, and Slavic
Muslim members.
U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members.
The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding
the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others
wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia.
After arriving at Rambouillet, the secessionist Albanian delegation informed U.S. diplomats that it did not want to meet with
the Yugoslav side. Aside from a brief ceremonial meeting, there was no direct contact between the two groups. The Yugoslav and Albanian
delegations were placed on two different floors to eliminate nearly all contact. U.S. mediators Richard Holbrooke and Christopher
Hill ran from one delegation to the other, conveying notes and verbal messages between the two sides but mostly trying to coerce
the Yugoslav delegation. [iv]
Luan Koka, a Roma member of the Yugoslav delegation, noted that the U.S. was operating an electronic jamming device.
"We knew exactly when Madeleine Albright was coming. Connections on our mobile phones were breaking up and going crazy." [v]
It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations
were saying in private.
Albright, Jashari said, would not listen to anyone.
"She had her task, and she saw only that task. You couldn't say anything to her. She didn't want to talk with us and didn't
want to listen to our arguments." [vi]
One day it was Koka's birthday, and the Yugoslav delegation wanted to encourage a more relaxed atmosphere with U.S. mediators,
inviting them to a cocktail party to mark the occasion.
"It was a slightly more pleasant atmosphere, and I was singing," Koka recalled. "I remember Madeleine Albright saying: 'I really
like partisan songs. But if you don't accept this, the bombs will fall.'" [vii]
According to delegation member Nikola Šainović ,
"Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'"
Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii]
From the beginning of the conference, U.S. mediator Christopher Hill "decided that what we really needed was an Albanian approval
of a document, and a Serb refusal. If both refused, there could be no further action by NATO or any other organization for that matter."
[ix] It was not peace that the U.S. team was seeking, but war.
As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted
all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other
hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern.
On the second day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the Yugoslav delegation with the framework text of a provisional
agreement for peace and self-rule in Kosovo, but it was missing some of the annexes. The Yugoslavs requested a copy of the complete
document. As delegation head Ratko Marković pointed out,
"Any objections to the text of the agreement could be made only after an insight into the text as a whole had been obtained."
Nearly one week passed before the group received one of the missing annexes. That came on the day the conference had originally
been set to end. The deadline was extended, and two days later a second missing annex was provided to the Yugoslav delegation.[x]
When the Yugoslavs next met with the Contact Group, they were assured that all elements of the text had now been given to them.
Several more days passed and at 7:00 PM on February 22, the penultimate day of the conference, the Contact Group presented three
new annexes, which the Yugoslavs had never seen before. According to Marković, "Russian Ambassador Boris Mayorsky informed our delegation
that Annexes 2 and 7 had not been discussed or approved by the Contact Group and that they were not the texts drafted by the Contact
Group but by certain Contact Group members, while Annex 5 was discussed, but no decision was made on it at the Contact Group meeting."
The Yugoslav delegation refused to accept the new annexes, as their introduction had violated the process whereby all proposals had
to be agreed upon by the three Contact Group members. [xi]
At 9:30 AM on February 23, the final day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the full text of the proposal, containing
yet more provisions that were being communicated for the first time. The accompanying note identified the package as the definitive
text while adding that Russia did not support two of the articles. The letter demanded the Yugoslav delegation's decision by 1:00
PM that same day.[xii] There was barely time enough to carefully read the text, let alone negotiate. In essence, it was an ultimatum.
Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected
to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware
of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section
of the text states:
"The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles."
Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services,
and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace
negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region.
The document called for a Western-led Joint Commission including local representatives to monitor and coordinate the implementation
of the plan. However, if commission members failed to reach consensus on a matter, the Western-appointed Chair would have the power
to impose his decision unilaterally. [xiv] Local representatives would serve as little more than window-dressing for Western dictate,
as they could adopt no measure that went against the Chair's wishes.
The Chair of the Implementation Mission was authorized to "recommend" the "removal and appointment of officials and the curtailment
of operations of existing institutions in Kosovo." If the Chair's command was not obeyed "in the time requested, the Joint Commission
may decide to take the recommended action," and since the Chair had the authority to impose his will on the Joint Commission, there
was no check on his power. He could remove elected and appointed officials at will and replace them with handpicked lackeys. The
Chair was also authorized to order the "curtailment of operations of existing institutions." [xv]Any organization that failed to
bend to U.S. demands could be shut down.
Chapter 7 of the plan called for the parties to "invite NATO to constitute and lead a military force" in Kosovo. [xvi]The choice
of words was interesting. In language reminiscent of gangsters, Yugoslavia was told to "invite" NATO to take over the province of
Kosovo or suffer the consequences.
Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months,
Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii]
The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated
NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple
request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could
take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air.
The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free
and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted
the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii]
The agreement guaranteed that NATO would have "complete and unimpeded freedom of movement by ground, air, and water into and throughout
Kosovo." Furthermore, NATO personnel could not be held "liable for any damages to public or private property." [xxiii] NATO as a
whole would also be "immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or criminal," regardless of its actions anywhere
on the territory of Yugoslavia. [xxiv]Nor could NATO personnel be arrested, detained, or investigated. [xxv]
Acceptance of the plan would have brought NATO troops swarming throughout Yugoslavia and interfering in every institution.
There were several other objectionable elements in the plan, but one that stood out was the call for an "international" (meaning,
Western-led) meeting to be held after three years "to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo."[xxvi] It was no mystery
to the Yugoslav delegation what conclusion Western officials would arrive at in that meeting. The intent was clearly to redraw Yugoslavia's
borders to further break apart the nation.
U.S. officials knew the Yugoslav delegation could not possibly accept such a plan.
"We deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept," Madeleine Albright confided to a group of journalists, "because
they needed a little bombing." [xxvii]
At a meeting in Belgrade on March 5, the Yugoslav delegation issued a statement which declared:
"A great deceit was looming, orchestrated by the United States. They demanded that the agreement be signed, even though much
of this agreement, that is, over 56 pages, had never been discussed, either within the Contact Group or during the negotiations."
[xxviii]
Serbian President Milan Milutinović announced at a press conference that in Rambouillet the Yugoslav delegation had "proposed
solutions meeting the demands of the Contact Group for broad autonomy within Serbia, advocating full equality of all national communities."
But "agreement was not what they were after." Instead, Western officials engaged in "open aggression," and this was a game "about
troops and troops alone." [xxix]
While U.S. officials were working assiduously to avoid a peaceful resolution, they needed the Albanians to agree to the plan so
that they could accuse the Yugoslav delegation of being the stumbling block to peace. U.S. mainstream media could be counted on to
unquestioningly repeat the government's line and overlook who the real architects of failure were. U.S. officials knew the media
would act in their customary role as cheerleaders for war, which indeed, they did.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook revealed the nature of the message Western officials were conveying to the Albanian delegation
when he said,
"We are certainly saying to the Kosovo Albanians that if you don't sign up to these texts, it's extremely difficult to see
how NATO could then take action against Belgrade." [xxx]
Western officials were practically begging the secessionists to sign the plan. According to inside sources, the Americans assured
the Albanian delegation that disarmament of the KLA would be merely symbolic and that it could keep the bulk of its weaponry so long
as it was concealed. [xxxi]
Albright spent hours trying to convince Thaçi to change his mind, telling him:
"If you say yes and the Serbs say no, NATO will strike and go on striking until the Serb forces are out and NATO can go in.
You will have security. And you will be able to govern yourselves." [xxxii]
That was a clear enough signal that the intent was to rip the province away from Yugoslavia and create an artificial state. Despite
such assurances, Thaçi feared the wrath of fellow KLA members if he were to sign a document that did not explicitly call for separation.
When U.S. negotiators asked Thaçi why he would not sign, he responded:
"If I agree to this, I will go home and they will kill me." [xxxiii]
This was not hyperbole. The KLA had threatened and murdered a great many Albanians who in its eyes fell short of full-throated
support for its policy of violent secession and ethnic exclusion.
Even NATO Commander Wesley Clark , who flew in from Belgium, was unable to change Thaçi's mind. [xxxiv] U.S. officials were exasperated
with the Albanian delegation, and its recalcitrance threatened to capsize plans for war.
"Rambouillet was supposed to be about putting the screws to Belgrade," a senior U.S. official said. "But it went off the rails
because of the miscalculation we made about the Albanians." [xxxv]
On the last day at Rambouillet, it was agreed that the Albanian delegation would return to Kosovo for discussions with fellow
KLA leaders on the need to sign the document. In the days that followed, Western officials paid repeated visits to Kosovo to encourage
the Albanians to sign.
So-called "negotiations" reconvened in Paris on March 15. Upon its arrival, the Yugoslav delegation objected that it was "incomprehensible"
that "no direct talks between the two delegations had been facilitated." In response to the Yugoslavs' proposal for modifications
to the plan, the Contact Group informed them that no changes would be accepted. The document must be accepted as a whole. [xxxvi]
The Yugoslav position, delegation head Ratko Marković maintained, was that "first one needs to determine what is to be implemented,
and only then to determine the methods of implementation." [xxxvii]The delegation asked the Americans what there was to talk about
regarding implementation "when there was no agreement because the Albanians did not accept anything." U.S. officials responded that
the Yugoslav delegation "cannot negotiate," adding that it would only be allowed to make grammatical changes to the text. [xxxviii]
From the U.S. perspective, the presence of the Yugoslav delegation in Paris was irrelevant other than to maintain the pretense
that negotiations were taking place. Not permitted to negotiate, there was little the Yugoslavs could do but await the inevitable
result, which soon came. The moment U.S. officials obtained the Albanian delegation's signatures to the plan on March 18, they aborted
the Paris Conference. There was no reason to continue engaging with the Yugoslav delegation, as the U.S. had what it needed: a pretext
for war.
On the day after the U.S. pulled the plug on the Paris talks, Milan Milutinović held a press conference in the Yugoslav embassy,
condemning the Paris meeting as "a kind of show," which was meant "to deceive public opinion in the whole world." [xxxix]
While the United States and its NATO allies prepared for war, Yugoslavia was making last-ditch efforts to stave off attack, including
reaching out to intermediaries. Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos contacted Madeleine Albright and told her that Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milošević had offered to engage in further negotiations. But Albright told him that the decision to bomb had already
been made. "In fact," Pangalos reported, "she told me to 'desist, you're just being a nuisance.'" [xl] In a final act of desperation
to save the people from bombing, Milutinović contacted Christopher Hill and made an extraordinary offer: Yugoslavia would join NATO
if the United States would allow Yugoslavia to remain whole, including the province of Kosovo. Hill responded that this was not a
topic for discussion and he would not talk about it. [xli]
Madeleine Albright got her war, which brought death, destruction, and misery to Yugoslavia. But NATO had a new role, and the United
States further extended its hegemony over the Balkans.
In the years following the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, NATO was intent on redefining its mission. The absence
of the socialist bloc presented NATO not only with the need to construct a new rationale for existence but also with the opportunity
to expand Western domination over other nations.
Bosnia offered the first opportunity for NATO to begin its transformation, as it took part in a war that presented no threat to
member nations.
Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial
interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations
in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise.
*
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Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is
a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for
Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of
Killing Democracy: CIA
and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force
to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is
https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich
Andrew Bacevich
recalls Madeleine
Albright's infamous statement about American indispensability, and notes how poorly it has held up over the last twenty-one years:
Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class
hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."
In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping.
Albright's statement is even more damning for her and her fellow interventionists when we consider that the context of her remarks
was a discussion of the supposed threat from Iraq. The full sentence went like this: "We stand tall and we see further than other
countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." Albright was making a general claim about our supposed superiority
to other nations when it came to looking into the future, but she was also specifically warning against a "danger" from Iraq that
she claimed threatened "all of us." She answered
one of Matt Lauer's questions with this assertion:
I think that we know what we have to do, and that is help enforce the UN Security Council resolutions, which demand that Saddam
Hussein abide by those resolutions, and get rid of his weapons of mass destruction, and allow the inspectors to have unfettered
and unconditional access.
Albright's rhetoric from 1998 is a grim reminder that policymakers from both parties accepted the existence of Iraq's "weapons
of mass destruction" as a given and never seriously questioned a policy aimed at eliminating something that did not exist. American
hawks couldn't see further in the future. They weren't even perceiving the present correctly, and tens of thousands of Americans
and millions of Iraqis would suffer because they insisted that they saw something that wasn't there.
A little more than five years after she uttered these words, the same wild threat inflation that Albright was engaged in led
to the invasion of Iraq, the greatest blunder and one of the worst crimes in the history of modern U.S. foreign policy . Not
only did Albright and other later war supporters not see what was coming, but their deluded belief in being able to anticipate future
threats caused them to buy into and promote a bogus case for a war that was completely unnecessary and should never have been fought.
President Donald Trump likes to think of himself as a statesman, an author, an A-level negotiator, but at heart, he's one thing:
an insult comic.
Every day in D.C. is a roast, the insults and belittling nicknames wielded like tiny comedy bullets. And if you haven't seen enough
of the fusillade on Twitter, all you need to do is turn on late night TV. Television comedy has a strange, symbiotic relationship
with the real political world, something between a feedback loop and a funhouse mirror....
"... "Try as you might, you can't expel him. He seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause pain and suffering -- but somehow never suffering himself." ..."
Someone whose confidence Bolton does not enjoy is Carlson, a rival for Trump's ear. Carlson,
a true
believer, took to the airwaves to savage the ambassador Friday night. "John Bolton is a
kind of bureaucratic tapeworm," Carlson said.
"Try as you might, you can't expel him. He
seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause
pain and suffering -- but somehow never suffering himself."
U.S. -- A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction
with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a
foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.
People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East
or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the
military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the
foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.
"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are
really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone
strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't
matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea,
China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get
them there on the frontlines?"
"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts
who are just there for the paycheck," he added.
Strangely, as soon as the policy was implemented, 99% of saber-rattling suddenly
ceased.
Note: The Babylon Bee is the world's best satire site, totally inerrant in all its
truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.
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"... "Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible. ..."
"... "The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with. ..."
Demanding that the Middle Eastern nation retaliate immediately in self-defense against the
existential threat posed by America's military operations, National Security Adviser John
Bolton called for a forceful Iranian response Friday to continuing United States aggression.
"Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory,
threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that
America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and
alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of
force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible.
"The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends
a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a
diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals
that cannot be reasoned with.
They've been given every opportunity to back down, but their goal is total domination of the
region, and Iran won't stand for that."
At press time, Bolton said that the only option left on the table was for Iran to launch a
full-fledged military strike against the Great Satan.
"... Russia, China and the Europeans all want Iran to remain in JCPOA and Putin is worried about Iran acting irrationally. ..."
"... Asians all worried about the security of oil flows to Asia. Japan especially dependent on Middle East oil flows, even if they've moved out of Iranian purchases. ..."
"... The IRGC knuckle dragger in charge at Hormuz will get a medal or two, and a promotion. The U.S. is waging a total economic war on Iran. It cuts off all its exports and imports. Iran is fighting back by all means. It has no other choice. Iran now implements a "strategy of tension" that is designed to put "maximum pressure" on Trump. The tanker attacks, the mortars on U.S. troops in Iraq, the Houthi strikes an Saudi desalination plants and the shoot down of that drone are all part of that Iranian strategy. ..."
"... High Iranian officials, including its president, have multiple times announced: "If we can sell no sell oil than none of our neighbors in the gulf will be able to sell their oil." They mean that and they have the plans and means to achieve that. ..."
"... These strikes will continue, and will become stronger. I most cases Iran will have plausible deniability. That is easy to create when CentCom and the White House are know to lie left and right as they do. ..."
"... It is Trump, not Iran, who killed JCPOA. It is Trump, not Iran, who will be blamed for that war. ..."
"... Exactly! There's one striking characteristic of the "resistance" leaders, including Khamenei, Syrian President Assad, and Hezbollah's Nasrallah, and that is that they are reliable: they do what they say they are going to do. They have integrity, that quality so clearly absent from all US and Western European leaders, all beholden to their Ziodonors to assure reelection. ..."
"... Additionally, any standoff missile attack or "March of the B52s" will be met with immediate regional attacks on US (Saudi and Israeli) assets, military personnel and civilians that will destabilize the entire region and destroy the global economy. Not the best scenario for a reelection bid, is it? I'm with b. There is no knuckle dragger at Hormuz, only competent officers carrying out their orders. ..."
"... How blame is apportioned will matter little to Iran if it miscalculates one iota. Yes it cannot sit idle until it is strangled by economic sanctions. But neither can it escalate beyond the destruction of civil and military hardware alone. One dead American is all the neocons need. A counter strike would then be inevitable and the uncontrollable escalation they are counting on the likely result. ..."
"... Col. Lang has described here the catastrophic consequences for America's enemies when they have doubted its resolve. And the sure route to galvanizing that resolve is for Iran to escalate into targeting US forces. ..."
"... The only way this ends without a war which would be catastrophic for both sides is if Trump realizes the reality of the situation he is in and ditches the neocons right now. Iran has got its message across and must now desist to allow Trump breathing room to de-escalate. Let us pray that Suleimani and the Iranian leadership are men enough to understand that holding the moral high ground confers no advantage in warfare. ..."
"... Privately, phone calls to China and Russia begging for assurances of support ..."
"... This is delusional thinking. The Iranians realized a long time ago not to rely on other countries for assistance. Every Iranian knows not to trust Russians from history. China might be the only hope, not for support, but to convince that this war is as much about them. ..."
"... The Chinese should close Adelson's Macau casinos for health and safety violations. Zionist donors for Trump's election campaign are driving this. Adelson's boy Bolton needs removing before anything positive can happen, Tucker Carlson needs some help with his campaign to oust him. ..."
"... Could you explain how the concept that economic sanctions are a belligerent act of war is anti-American? This is a historical concept that you, as a teacher and student of military history, are well aware of. The Iranians are using the means that they have available to respond to these acts of war. ..."
"... They are not equipped to confront the US military directly, so they are using tactics to place pressure on the US in other areas, primarily by threatening the global economy by plausibly deniable acts against shipping in the Persian Gulf. This is a masterstroke right out of the pages of Sun Tze's Art of War. ..."
"... Trump has painted himself into a corner. He can offer sanctions relief if he wants to negotiate, or he can attack, and we can hope that the US military learned some of the lessons taught by Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper in the Millennium Challenge 2002. ..."
"... The neocons are playing out provocations until Congress is forced to vote on War just before election. The provocations will continue -- Israel's Rational Institute & expert game theorists have done this so many times they're just going through the motions. Iranians have watched that game play out before and, perhaps, know how to handle provocations in a disruptive manner. ..."
"... Hook repeated, emphasized & repeated again that "finance is the basis of war," and US / Trump strategy is to "not to bankrupt Iran," but to "deny Iran access to financial ability to fund Hezbollah, Hamas, and other of the #1 state sponsor of terror's proxies." ..."
"... The congressmen questioning Hook nodded sagely. None of them so much as hinted at the fact that the USA is so deep in debt it can never pay its way out. ..."
"... --One of the expectations of the JCPOA was that with sanctions lifted, Iran would enter into the mainstream economy, trading with states throughout the world. This normalization of commerce would constrain Iran from taking actions that would jeopardize its trade relationships. Why does Trump & the zioncons not wish Iran's commercial normalization to take place? Is it because Israel cannot stand the competition? ..."
"... -- by what right USA violates UN Charter demands that internal affairs of a member state must not be interfered with. Congressmen crowned themselves with laurel as they proclaimed that "the people of Iran are not our enemy; it is the government; we act on behalf of the Iranian people, especially Iranian women." ..."
"... Trump thinks that he can f*** Iran and sit it out? Not gonna happen. ..."
"... He gets that he cannot be an LBJ or a Harry Truman with the Albatross of an unwinnable war hung around his neck. ..."
"... But, I am afraid the chosen true believers on his staff do not believe nor care that Iran has prepared a massive disproportionate non-nuclear response that will destroy the global economy. ..."
"... John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have other agendas than the President's re-election and what is in the USA's national interests. We are not out of the woods. ..."
"... The IRGC knuckle dragger at Hormuz wisely and prudently targeted the unmanned drone and not the manned P8 aircraft. ..."
"... No, this action was appropriate in the face of our policy of maximum pressure to starve out the Iranian people and force a regime change. ..."
"... I applaud Trump's decision not to engage in a shooting war. The way he got to that decision was messy, but the final decision was right. Those calling him weak for not engaging in a war of choice are craven fools. Chief among those is Bolton. ..."
"... Trump should throw his ass and his mustache out of the WH before the sun goes down. Trump brought this situation upon himself with his pulling out of the JCPOA and initiating his "war" of maximum pressure. It is he who can deflate this crisis, not Kamenei. ..."
"... This is all one big PsyOp imo. The US has no popular support for an attack on Iran, internally or externally. We are going to attack, but want to make it seem like they showed restraint and have been left with no choice. ..."
"... And this nonsense about Iran allowing the US to make some window dressing attack on innocuous targets to save face/ All I can say is Iranians are not Arabs. ..."
"... PS -- C Span ramped up an orgy of war hysteria over Trump's threat, then stand-down over Iran's shoot-down of an un-manned drone. The public was, as usual, confined to a narrow frame of reference and range of responses: "Trump was a coward," vs. "Trump was wise." Congressmen who were interviewed emphasized that "no American was killed." ..."
"... No one mentioned that Lyndon Johnson called back flights sent to rescue crewmen on the USS Liberty when Israel attacked the ship, strafed the wounded and those in life boats. ..."
"... Everyone remembers the shootdown of Iranian Air flight 655 on July 3, 1988 by the guided missile cruiser Vincennes, under the command of the late Captain Will Rogers, in which 290 people were killed. President Reagan said America will never apologize. President Clinton ultimately paid the Iranians $130 million. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson seems like the only realist in the MSM. https://youtu.be/Rf2cS4g0pes ..."
"... It is no secret that the Neocons and the Israeli zionists (I am repeating myself here) do want a war between Iran and the United States. First, there were a few tanker attacks which were brushed off by Trump. Then this, which was more difficult to brush off. Is it possible that the drone actually went to Iranian airspace but GPS coordinates were spoofed (by insiders on the American side) so that Trump (and the administration) believed that it stayed in international airspace? ..."
"... Sorry. Here's the ink to Tucker on the Iran war brink. https://youtu.be/3PQW2tMMn2A ..."
"... Why did Donald Trump hire neocons Bolton & Pompeo as well as torturer Gina Haspel? Couldn't he find people who shared his views (at least what he said during the last campaign) that our ME regime change wars were a disaster that we shouldn't repeat? ..."
"... As Tucker noted in his segment yesterday Bolton & the neocons have been plotting a war with Iran for some time. They don't care if it sinks Trump's presidency. They have no loyalty to him only condescension. ..."
"... Yet as Tucker notes in his segment yesterday the neocons are "bureaucratic tapeworms" that some how manage to survive failure after failure with the same regime change prescriptions. Trump better wise up like right now or he can kiss his re-election goodbye. ..."
I am not now nor have I ever been a fan of Trump. However, if he does not start a war, he
will end (in my mind, at least) as a vast improvement over his immediate predecessors.
Wait a minute. Obama blew it with Libya. However,
-he reached a good deal with Iran
-he didn't bomb Syria when the crossed his "red line" and managed to make it look like the R
controlled Senate made the decision .
-He didn't kiss Bibi's ring.
look at a decent map of this area. the us naval base in Bahrain and air base Qatar are an
Iranian missiles equivalent of firing from lower Manhattan to hit something in Hoboken.
The USA military assets within the Persian gulf have if war breaks out checked into the hotel
California.
It is a logistical nightmare for the Pentagon to protect and resupply in the event of
serious hostilities. Trump surely has been told by real us military professionals the giant
hairball he takes on if he gets into a war with Iran and what it means for us servicemen
station there and throughout the larger middle east.
it is unfortunate that the usa media uses fools like bolton and pompeo as clickbait to
generate revenue fore their business at the expense of whats best for the nation but there it
is... the msm has an agenda which is not at all in the service of the nation.
Yes, a grown up has the right to change a decision. Now, ball is in Khomeini court. Abe asked
him to release some Iranian-American prisoners. If Khomeini wants to lower threshold of
conflict, he can do this gesture without losing any face. Humanitarian action.
Russia, China
and the Europeans all want Iran to remain in JCPOA and Putin is worried about Iran acting
irrationally.
See what kind of other pressure comes down on Iranians. Asians all worried
about the security of oil flows to Asia. Japan especially dependent on Middle East oil flows,
even if they've moved out of Iranian purchases. US more able to go it alone with extensive
domestic and other sources.
Khamenei should call Trump and setup a media spectacle of a summit in Switzerland. They
can agree on the same deal as before but as long as the headline says "Iran agrees to not
build nukes", Trump will be happy and Khamenei will be his new best pal.
The same playbook as KJU where nothing tangible is likely to happen except that KJU has stopped nuke & missile
tests that create media hysteria among the Never Trumpers.
IMO, the ball hasn't left Trump's court. How long is he going to tolerate the neocons in
his inner circle who are likely to keep coming up with another casus belli? Can he find some
distance from being Bibi's lapdog? How long is he going to allow his conflicted son-in-law to
meddle in the Middle East?
Trump must calculate the potential of where escalation leads and what a full on war with
Iran and its allies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon means for his re-election campaign. Bernie is
banging the table hard against any military action in Iran. The probability that 50,000 votes
in Michigan, Pennsylvania & Wisconsin changes sides the next election would be rather
high in the event of an unpredictable full-scale war.
I hope Khamenei takes any offer Trump makes for direct talks. Trump is heavily influenced by
the last person he meets.
I get that Khamenei doesn't want to meet on the premise that the JCPOA is flawed and must
be changed but if he can get an audience on the basis of airing mutual grievances in an
unfiltered environment, it would be an opportunity. Currently, the only people Trump talks to
are Neocon loons. They are innumerable but the FDD seems to be the center of gravity.
I was shocked-- but not surprised-- to see visibly-pained CBS Pentagon flack David Martin on
the boob tube this morning quoting an unnamed source that speculated that the reason Trump
cancelled the bombing of Iran was that he got "cold-feet." Thank you, Vasili Arkhipov, for
getting cold-feet, too! Madness, our nation is afflicted with madness.
The IRGC knuckle dragger in charge at Hormuz will get a medal or two, and a promotion. The U.S. is waging a total economic war on Iran. It cuts off all its exports and imports.
Iran is fighting back by all means. It has no other choice. Iran now implements a "strategy of tension" that is designed to put "maximum pressure" on
Trump. The tanker attacks, the mortars on U.S. troops in Iraq, the Houthi strikes an Saudi
desalination plants and the shoot down of that drone are all part of that Iranian
strategy.
High Iranian officials, including its president, have multiple times announced: "If we can
sell no sell oil than none of our neighbors in the gulf will be able to sell their oil." They
mean that and they have the plans and means to achieve that.
These strikes will continue, and will become stronger. I most cases Iran will have
plausible deniability. That is easy to create when CentCom and the White House are know to
lie left and right as they do.
Trump has two choices.
He can pull back on the sanctions and other U.S. violations of JCPOA, or he can start a
full war against Iran that will drown his presidency, put the world economy into a depression
($300/bl oil) and kill many U.S. soldiers.
It is Trump, not Iran, who killed JCPOA. It is Trump, not Iran, who will be blamed for
that war.
Exactly! There's one striking characteristic of the "resistance" leaders, including Khamenei,
Syrian President Assad, and Hezbollah's Nasrallah, and that is that they are reliable: they
do what they say they are going to do. They have integrity, that quality so clearly absent
from all US and Western European leaders, all beholden to their Ziodonors to assure
reelection.
The Iranians will NOT contact Trump to arrange a meeting. The Iranians will NOT
meet with Trump because the JCPOA is flawed. The Iranians will NOT meet with Trump after a
brief suspension in sanctions to ask for permanent sanctions relief. The Iranians WILL meet
with Trump when he lifts most or all of the sanctions in good faith and rejoins the JCPOA. Is
it just a coincidence that the two ships attacked last week were carrying petrochemicals,
just days after Trump and the US placed sanctions on the largest Iranian petrochemical
producer? What is it about "If we cannot ship oil/petrochemicals, nobody can." that people
don't understand?
Additionally, any standoff missile attack or "March of the B52s" will be met with
immediate regional attacks on US (Saudi and Israeli) assets, military personnel and civilians
that will destabilize the entire region and destroy the global economy. Not the best scenario
for a reelection bid, is it? I'm with b. There is no knuckle dragger at Hormuz, only
competent officers carrying out their orders.
How blame is apportioned will matter little to Iran if it miscalculates one iota. Yes it
cannot sit idle until it is strangled by economic sanctions. But neither can it escalate
beyond the destruction of civil and military hardware alone. One dead American is all the
neocons need. A counter strike would then be inevitable and the uncontrollable escalation
they are counting on the likely result.
Col. Lang has described here the catastrophic consequences for America's enemies when they
have doubted its resolve. And the sure route to galvanizing that resolve is for Iran to
escalate into targeting US forces.
The only way this ends without a war which would be catastrophic for both sides is
if Trump realizes the reality of the situation he is in and ditches the neocons right now.
Iran has got its message across and must now desist to allow Trump breathing room to
de-escalate. Let us pray that Suleimani and the Iranian leadership are men enough to
understand that holding the moral high ground confers no advantage in warfare.
Publicly, much chest thumping over how Iran has the cowardly Great Satan on the run like a
beaten dog.
Privately, phone calls to China and Russia begging for assurances of support and attempted offers of negotiations
with Trump complete with wildly unrealistic demands.
This is delusional thinking. The Iranians realized a long time ago not to rely on other
countries for assistance. Every Iranian knows not to trust Russians from history. China might
be the only hope, not for support, but to convince that this war is as much about them.
The Chinese should close Adelson's Macau casinos for health and safety violations. Zionist
donors for Trump's election campaign are driving this. Adelson's boy Bolton needs removing
before anything positive can happen, Tucker Carlson needs some help with his campaign to oust
him.
Could you explain how the concept that economic sanctions are a belligerent act of war is
anti-American? This is a historical concept that you, as a teacher and student of military
history, are well aware of. The Iranians are using the means that they have available to
respond to these acts of war.
They are not equipped to confront the US military directly, so
they are using tactics to place pressure on the US in other areas, primarily by threatening
the global economy by plausibly deniable acts against shipping in the Persian Gulf. This is a
masterstroke right out of the pages of Sun Tze's Art of War.
Trump has painted himself into a corner. He can offer sanctions relief if he wants to
negotiate, or he can attack, and we can hope that the US military learned some of the lessons
taught by Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper in the Millennium Challenge 2002.
The neocons are playing out provocations until Congress is forced to vote on War just
before election.
The provocations will continue -- Israel's Rational Institute & expert game theorists
have done this so many times they're just going through the motions.
Iranians have watched that game play out before and, perhaps, know how to handle provocations
in a disruptive manner.
Hook repeated, emphasized & repeated again that "finance is the basis of war," and US /
Trump strategy is to "not to bankrupt Iran," but to "deny Iran access to financial ability to
fund Hezbollah, Hamas, and other of the #1 state sponsor of terror's proxies."
The congressmen questioning Hook nodded sagely. None of them so much as hinted at the fact that the USA is so deep in debt it can never
pay its way out. Nor was any congressman sage enough, or moral enough, or consistent enough, to
question:
-- International policy pundits & think tankers opine that the greatest guarantee of
peace is economic stability. US is deliberately seeking to destabilize Iran economically. To
what end?
--One of the expectations of the JCPOA was that with sanctions lifted, Iran would enter into
the mainstream economy, trading with states throughout the world. This normalization of
commerce would constrain Iran from taking actions that would jeopardize its trade
relationships. Why does Trump & the zioncons not wish Iran's commercial normalization to
take place? Is it because Israel cannot stand the competition?
-- by what right USA violates UN Charter demands that internal affairs of a member state must
not be interfered with. Congressmen crowned themselves with laurel as they proclaimed that
"the people of Iran are not our enemy; it is the government; we act on behalf of the Iranian
people, especially Iranian women."
When I visited Iran in 2008, "Iranian women" spoke with us and asked if we could please
provide several days' warning before bombing Iran so that they could shelter their children.
Iranian women are some of the toughest you'll meet.
-- what casus belli legitimizes aggression against Iran? Does the USA no longer
subscribe to Just War theory? Several years ago I heard Notre Dame's Mary Ellen O'Connell
discuss Just War theory with respect to Iran -- https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/jlia/vol2/iss2/6/.
US claims to uphold "universal values" ring hollow if such basic steps in framing policy are
ignored.
I deal in facts, not in 'deeply bigoted anti-Americanism'. Interesting that you do not want to recognize those facts. They are right before your
eyes. Just I give it a day or two until the next 'incident' happens.
Trump thinks that he can
f*** Iran and sit it out? Not gonna happen.
The question has been raised of my denigration of b. He has a long history on SST He is an
excellent military analyst but the long and so far as I can remember unbroken record of
interpreting EVERY situation as demonstrating the demonic nature of the US causes me to
discount anything he writes on other than military subjects narrowly defined. IMO b's
hostility to the US is a permanent burden that he carries.
The NYT report that Donald Trump ordered the attack and then pulled back is in Jimmy
Carter's "been there done that" territory. Although a New Yorker and he never had to sit in a
gasoline line, Donald Trump, personally and legally, cannot be a one term President. He is a
political savant.
He gets that he cannot be an LBJ or a Harry Truman with the Albatross of an
unwinnable war hung around his neck.
My assumption is that someone in the chain of command
after the surveillance drone was shot down triggered a preplanned strike package that was
stopped once it got to the President for approval. Once again global media moguls strike back
at the nationalist President with Fake News.
But, I am afraid the chosen true believers on
his staff do not believe nor care that Iran has prepared a massive disproportionate
non-nuclear response that will destroy the global economy.
John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have
other agendas than the President's re-election and what is in the USA's national interests.
We are not out of the woods.
Do we know for sure Trump is the one who initially ordered the strike? Or did someone down
the line interpret the rules of engagement (do I presume correctly that some such would be in
place at the present time?) to allow him or her to order it?
In a situation of this degree of geo-political gravity, nobody in the chain of command
below the CinC would have had the authority or temerity to attempt to order this strike
package.
Neither Pompeo nor Bolton is in the chain of command and attempts by them to order
such attacks would have been rejected by the military. BTW if Trump aborted the strikes only
10 minutes out from the targets he was cutting it too close. Communications can always
fail.
The IRGC knuckle dragger at Hormuz wisely and prudently targeted the unmanned drone and not
the manned P8 aircraft. Since it was the Iranians who recovered the wreckage, it will be hard
for the US to maintain the drone was well outside Iranian airspace.
No, this action was
appropriate in the face of our policy of maximum pressure to starve out the Iranian people
and force a regime change.
I applaud Trump's decision not to engage in a shooting war. The way he got to that
decision was messy, but the final decision was right. Those calling him weak for not engaging
in a war of choice are craven fools. Chief among those is Bolton.
Trump should throw his ass
and his mustache out of the WH before the sun goes down. Trump brought this situation upon
himself with his pulling out of the JCPOA and initiating his "war" of maximum pressure. It is
he who can deflate this crisis, not Kamenei.
This is all one big PsyOp imo. The US has no popular support for an attack on Iran,
internally or externally. We are going to attack, but want to make it seem like they showed
restraint and have been left with no choice.
I don't foresee the Iranians talking to Trump unless and until the US walks back its
sanctions, or Trump himself goes and sits down with the Ayatollah.
And this nonsense about Iran allowing the US to make some window dressing attack on
innocuous targets to save face/ All I can say is Iranians are not Arabs.
PS -- C Span ramped up an orgy of war hysteria over Trump's threat, then stand-down over
Iran's shoot-down of an un-manned drone.
The public was, as usual, confined to a narrow frame of reference and range of responses:
"Trump was a coward," vs. "Trump was wise."
Congressmen who were interviewed emphasized that "no American was killed."
No one mentioned that Lyndon Johnson called back flights sent to rescue crewmen on the USS
Liberty when Israel attacked the ship, strafed the wounded and those in life boats.
This seems like Professional Wrestling theater where you have the wrestlers hamming it up for
the drama and you wonder what the script is. We only get to see what the camera frames.
I am thankful that our military acknowledges that our President is the Commander-in-Chief. He
commanded, they obeyed. As for all the pundits on all sides, their lack of perspective or
even understanding of history leaves me terrified. There seems to be no understanding of how
Iran is capable of retaliation. An example:
Everyone remembers the shootdown of Iranian Air flight 655 on July 3, 1988 by the guided
missile cruiser Vincennes, under the command of the late Captain Will Rogers, in which 290
people were killed. President Reagan said America will never apologize. President Clinton
ultimately paid the Iranians $130 million.
Few remember what happened next -- some 8 months later, in March, 1989, Capt. Roger's
spouse Sharon, was in her van stopped at a traffic light in San Diego. A pipe bomb went off
under the back of the van. It was small -- she was unhurt, fortunately, but definitely shaken
up, and the van did catch fire. Despite an intensive investigation, the FBI has never solved
this case.
Never let us become so blind and arrogant in our strength that we are unable to conceive
retaliation by those weaker.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the drone was sent there to be shot down by the
Iranians?
It is no secret that the Neocons and the Israeli zionists (I am repeating myself here) do
want a war between Iran and the United States. First, there were a few tanker attacks which
were brushed off by Trump. Then this, which was more difficult to brush off. Is it possible
that the drone actually went to Iranian airspace but GPS coordinates were spoofed (by
insiders on the American side) so that Trump (and the administration) believed that it stayed
in international airspace?
The Americans do seem to really believe that the drone was in
international airspace and no one can make a point that it is to Iran's benefit to target an
American asset in international airspace, especially now when tensions are so high. Iran has
the most to lose in the event of a war with the Americans (no points for guessing which
country has the most to win - Israel). And it is a coincidence that the guy heading the Iran
mission Centre, Michael D'Andrea, was previously the head of drone operations. Or is it a
coincidence?
What would I do if I were a neocon who wants war between the US and Iran, a war that Trump
doesn't. For the start of hostilities, it is essential that both sides, US and Iran, feel
that they are in the right - which of course this situation is. I would create a context, an
excuse/rationale for the start of actual hostilities to the US administration (and of course
for the consumption of the American public). Then I will make the case to Trump that we
should have a 'limited' retaliation. I know that the Iranians will strike back after the
'small scale' bombing. And the Americans have to retaliate to that also. What chances are
there that any retaliation by the Americans will not end up in total war with Iran??
Trump doesn't want war and probably saw through the machinations to get him to agree to a
'small' bombing campaign as retaliation that would surely lead to a larger conflagration and
total war with Iran that the neocons want so much. This particular provocation was
unsuccessful in its aim. However, I think that provocations by the neocons will continue and
at an ever increasing pitch - enabled by the neocons within the administration and the
Israelis. Trump doesn't want war but his administration filled with neocons does and they
will find a way maneuver Trump into it. Israel will fight Iran till the last standing
American in the Middle East.
Why did Donald Trump hire neocons Bolton & Pompeo as well as torturer Gina Haspel?
Couldn't he find people who shared his views (at least what he said during the last campaign)
that our ME regime change wars were a disaster that we shouldn't repeat?
As Tucker noted in his segment yesterday Bolton & the neocons have been plotting a war
with Iran for some time. They don't care if it sinks Trump's presidency. They have no loyalty
to him only condescension.
Hopefully Trump learns from this near miss of a catastrophe for his presidency. But he has
seemed weak and indecisive on these matters all along. He never fought back for example with
all the tools at his disposal against the attempted coup by law enforcement & the
intelligence agencies.
All he did was constantly tweet witch hunt. He's once again delegated
it to Barr after Sessions sat on it.
He allowed Pompeo & Bolton to bring on fellow neocon
Elliott Abrams who previously screwed up in Nicaragua to attempt another regime change in
Venezuela, which has been another botched example of how everything that the neocons touch
turns to shit.
Yet as Tucker notes in his segment yesterday the neocons are "bureaucratic
tapeworms" that some how manage to survive failure after failure with the same regime change
prescriptions. Trump better wise up like right now or he can kiss his re-election
goodbye.
"... "Let's go back to economic issues. Many people link these difficulties with the Western sanctions. By the way, the European Union again extended them today. Sometimes, there are appeals to make peace with everyone. If Russia complied with the West's demands and agreed to everything, would this benefit our economy in any way?" ..."
"... "Second, what would this give us and what would it not give us, and what would we lose? Look, according to expert analyses, Russia fell short by about $50 billion as a result of these restrictions during these years, starting in 2014. The European Union lost $240 billion, the US $17 billion (we have a small volume of trade with them) and Japan $27 billion. All this affects employment in these countries, including the EU: they are losing our market... ..."
"... "Now, the attack on Huawei: where does it come from and what is its objective? The objective is to hold back the development of China, the country that has become a global rival of another power, the United States. The same is happening with Russia, and will continue to happen , so if we want to occupy a worthy place under the sun, we must become stronger, including, and above all, in the economy." [My Emphasis] ..."
"... Dealing with Putin's bolded remark is a question not just for Russia, China and Iran; it's a question for the entire world and harkens back to the words of George Kennan I cited a few days ago about the USA needing a policy to continue its economic dominance of the planet he uttered in 1947, the policy that became The Anti-Communist Crusade covering for its actual Super Imperialism policy to retain that dominance. ..."
"... What's happening is a titanic struggle to make the Outlaw US Empire cease pursuing that policy. ..."
I'd like barflies to ponder the following thought/probability: Radar Saturated
Environment--radiation not from just individual, discreet, identifiable points, but from such
a vast multitude that no single point can be discerned.
To further my brainstorming de-escalation, I'd like to point out what Putin said in his
Direct Line
yesterday about the economic war being waged against Russia in accordance with the Ukraine
Coup in 2014. Pavel Zarubin asks:
"Let's go back to economic issues. Many people link these difficulties with the Western
sanctions. By the way, the European Union again extended them today. Sometimes, there are
appeals to make peace with everyone. If Russia complied with the West's demands and agreed to
everything, would this benefit our economy in any way?"
I thought this a capital question very similar to Iran's dilemma. Putin's response is
quite long, so I won't cite it all. Rather, I'll limit it to his initial reply and conclusion
as they both deal with the Big Picture:
"First, what does it mean 'to make peace'? We have not fought with anyone and have no
desire to fight with anyone.
"Second, what would this give us and what would it not give us, and what would we lose?
Look, according to expert analyses, Russia fell short by about $50 billion as a result of
these restrictions during these years, starting in 2014. The European Union lost $240
billion, the US $17 billion (we have a small volume of trade with them) and Japan $27
billion. All this affects employment in these countries, including the EU: they are losing
our market....
"Now to the question of whether some things would be different if we give in and abandon
our fundamental national interests. We are not talking about reconciliation here. Perhaps
there will be some external signals, but no drastic change. Look, the People's Republic of
China has nothing to do with Crimea and Donbass, does it? We are accused of occupying
Donbass, which is nonsense and a lie.
But China has nothing to do with it, and yet the tariffs for Chinese goods are rising,
which is almost the same as sanctions.
"Now, the attack on Huawei: where does it come from and what is its objective? The
objective is to hold back the development of China, the country that has become a global
rival of another power, the United States. The same is happening with Russia, and will
continue to happen , so if we want to occupy a worthy place under the sun, we must become
stronger, including, and above all, in the economy." [My Emphasis]
This year's Direct Line was as usual filled with domestic issues some that lead to foreign
policy issues. The overall scope and distinctness of the minutia are as vast as Russia. I've
followed these over the years and note they reveal Russia's strengths and fragilities. I'm
tempted to cite more but will leave it to the reader to pursue, but after 90 minutes you
still won't be finished because the transcript isn't yet complete, which while frustrating is
also amazing.
Dealing with Putin's bolded remark is a question not just for Russia, China and Iran; it's
a question for the entire world and harkens back to the words of George Kennan I cited a few
days ago about the USA needing a policy to continue its economic dominance of the planet he
uttered in 1947, the policy that became The Anti-Communist Crusade covering for its actual
Super Imperialism policy to retain that dominance.
What's happening is a titanic struggle to
make the Outlaw US Empire cease pursuing that policy.
"... That admission along with the stark mostly unreported economic realities of any armed conflict in the Gulf region is what restrains the war mongers. The Money Power and the Current Oligarchy won't allow war is what I see. And that makes this Friday morning pleasant despite the fog. ..."
"... The risks are just too great (for what the US public is prepared to accept). And we've just seen it happen again. They might be able to screw themselves up to go through with it, and accept the losses and stalemate that will come, but it will do no good at all for Trump's re-election chances. ..."
"... Netanyahu has reiterated his desire for war with Iran -- a war that the US will fight–and is meeting with his Arab allies to help bring it about. As Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump to go to war without putting Israel on the front line. ..."
"... Listen to this horse manure coming from Brain Hook, "special" representative for Iran: "According to him, Washington was doing everything possible to defuse tensions with Iran and return the containment system in the region. ..."
"... The Zionists are smack dab in the middle of the front line with a massive crosshairs imprinted on their entirety. Occupied Palestine sits at Ground Zero, and it seems that the Zionists are finally waking up to the ultimate betrayal they'll experience at the hands of The Christian Rapturists -- they are to be Genocided in the pursuit of attempting to make a myth come to life. ..."
"... Watch the brilliant George Galloway on the consequences of war with Iran. Bottom line: only hardline Likudniks and FDD Likud USA types would approve such a disastrous move. ..."
"... If America attacks and destroys Iran after doing the same to Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, the Islamic religion should semi-officially adopt anti-Americanism until the Empire falls, and it would be totally deserved. If we all go in, let us get a good thrashing. ..."
"... It is true that Trump needs to fire acting President Bolton. Bolton who was appointed to the NSA by Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli/American oligarch, will not allow Trump to fire Bolton; otherwise, he loses millions of $$$$. The pressure is also from Adelson and his neocon ilk. ..."
"... Iran is a big country, and won't be defeated unless the people are ready to abandon the regime. They aren't as far as I can detect. The exiles, and the middle class in Iran, hate the regime. I've just had a lot of that poured into my ears, during my visit to Iran a month ago. The popular feeling though doesn't seem to have abandoned the regime. I think we can expect a nationalist resistance, if indeed Trump does attack Iran. ..."
"... China has been complying with US sanctions on Iran, for example this article notes that China stopped buying oil from Iran . US direct trade with Iran isn't so much as issue as the US stopping Europe and China from trading with Iran. ..."
The most important Item I've read so far this morning is
this report on the Ufa, Russia Security Conference that was attended by both Iranian and Outlaw US Empire officials. The entire
article requires reading, but this is the most relevant excerpt that has some links in the original I won't duplicate:
"Given current global events, the most significant attendees in Ufa are a senior US National Security Council member and the
Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Ali Shamkhani.
As of now, the only official news comes from Ali Shamkhani's words concerning the possibility of mediation with the US and
the possibility of Iran acquiring weapons systems to fend off US threats. Shamkhani stated:
"'We currently face demonstrative threats. Nevertheless, when it comes to air defense of our country, we consider using
the foreign potential in addition to our domestic capacities Mediation is out of question in the current situation. The United
States has unilaterally withdrawn from the JCPOA, it has flouted its obligations and it has introduced illegal sanctions against
Iran. The United States should return to the starting point and correct its own mistakes. This process needs no mediation.'
"'This [gradually boosting of uranium enrichment and heavy water production beyond the levels outlined in the JCPOA] is a serious
decision of the Islamic Republic [of Iran] and we will continue doing it step by step until JCPOA violators move toward agreement
and return to fulfilling their obligations. [If JCPOA participants do not comply with the deal, Iran will be reducing its commitments]
step by step within legal mechanisms that the JCPOA envisions.'"
It was noted by b that the Outlaw US Empire faces a growing international coalition against its actions, which results from
sentiments made at the rather many recent international conferences that have already occurred in June that will be topped by
G-20 in 8 days.
That admission along with the stark mostly unreported economic realities of any armed conflict in the Gulf region is what
restrains the war mongers. The Money Power and the Current Oligarchy won't allow war is what I see. And that makes this Friday
morning pleasant despite the fog.
Posted by: Anon | Jun 21, 2019 8:04:55 AM | 29 (boring that it's yet another Anon, who can't be bothered to distinguish himself
all from the other thousands of Anons)
the stage is now maximum restraint and effort at co-operation, which Iran will be expected to respect. That means one more
act against US (or false flag by US) and strikes will occur. Not comparable to hostage crisis, here US is projecting being
reasonable, even if you read that as being weak.
It's not me who reading the US as weak. It will be the attitude of the Iranians, who haven't forgotten the US failure in 1980
(April 24, 1980), as opposed to the US public for whom it is so many crises ago that they've forgotten. And the Iranians are right.
Trump hesitated, as every previous attempt to launch a strike on Iran has finished finally in a stand-down.
The risks are just too great (for what the US public is prepared to accept). And we've just seen it happen again. They
might be able to screw themselves up to go through with it, and accept the losses and stalemate that will come, but it will do
no good at all for Trump's re-election chances.
Mikael Kallavuo , Jun 21, 2019 12:19:06 PM |
91jsb , Jun 21, 2019 12:20:15 PM |
92
Well it looks like Elijah Magnier has finally written the piece he was hinting at releasing yesterday.
Here it is:
Iran is pushing US President Donald Trump to the edge of the abyss, raising the level of tensions to new heights in the Middle
East. After the sabotage of four tankers at al-Fujairah and the attack on the Aramco pipeline a month ago, and last week's
attack on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC – now categorized by the USA as a terrorist
body) yesterday shot down a US Navy drone, sending two clear messages. The first message is that Iran is ready for an all-out
war, no matter what the consequences. The second message is that Iran is aware that the US President has cornered himself;
the embarrassing attack came a week after Trump launched his electoral campaign.
According to well-informed sources, Iran rejected a proposal by US intelligence – made via a third party – that Trump be
allowed to bomb one, two or three clear objectives, to be chosen by Iran, so that both countries could appear to come out as
winners and Trump could save face. Iran categorically rejected the offer and sent its reply: even an attack against an empty
sandy beach in Iran would trigger a missile launch against US objectives in the Gulf.
...
Moreover, Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan
of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East. Iran's allies have increased
their level of readiness and alert to the highest level; they will participate in the war from the moment it begins if necessary.
According to sources, Iran's allies will not hesitate to open fire against an already agreed on bank of objectives in a perfectly
organised, orchestrated, synchronised and graduated response, anticipating a war that may last many months.
Sources confirmed that, in case of war, Iran aims to stop the flow of oil from the Middle East completely, not by targeting
tankers but by hitting the sources of oil in every single Middle Eastern country, whether these countries are considered allies
or enemies. The objective will be to cease all oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world.
...
Iran's economy is under attack by Trump's embargo on Iranian oil exports. Trump refuses to lift the embargo and wants to
negotiate first. Trump, unlike Israel and the hawks in his administration, is trying to avoid a shooting war. Netanyahu
has reiterated his desire for war with Iran -- a war that the US will fight–and is meeting with his Arab allies to help bring
it about. As Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump to go to war without putting
Israel on the front line.
EXCLUSIVE: In an exclusive interview with Chuck Todd, President Donald Trump says he hadn't given final approval to Iran
strikes, no planes were in the air.
The first message is that Iran is ready for an all-out war, no matter what the consequences. The second message is that Iran
is aware that the US President has cornered himself; the embarrassing attack came a week after Trump launched his electoral
campaign. According to well-informed sources, Iran rejected a proposal by US intelligence – made via a third party – that Trump
be allowed to bomb one or two clear objectives, to be chosen by Iran, so that both countries could appear to come out as winners
and Trump could save face. Iran categorically rejected the offer and sent its reply: even an attack against an empty sandy
beach in Iran would trigger a missile launch against US objectives in the Gulf.
...
Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every
step it is adopting in confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East. Iran's allies have increased their level
of readiness and alert to the highest level; they will participate in the war from the moment it begins if necessary. According
to sources, Iran's allies will not hesitate to open fire against an already agreed on bank of objectives in a perfectly organised,
orchestrated, synchronised and graduated response, anticipating a war that may last many months.
...
Sources confirmed that, in case of war, Iran aims to stop the flow of oil from the Middle East completely, not by targeting
tankers but by hitting the sources of oil in every single Middle Eastern country, whether these countries are considered allies
or enemies. The objective will be to cease all oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world.
Still, there remained doubt inside the United States government over whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft,
this one flown by a military aircrew, did violate Iranian airspace at some point, according to a senior administration official.
..
The delay by United States Central Command in publicly releasing GPS coordinates of the drone when it was shot down -- hours
after Iran did -- and errors in the labeling of the drone's flight path when the imagery was released, contributed to that
doubt, officials said.
A lack of provable "hard evidence" about the location of the drone when it was hit, a defense official said, put the administration
in an isolated position at what could easily end up being the start of yet another war with a Middle East adversary -- this
one with a proven ability to strike back.
Listen to this horse manure coming from Brain Hook, "special" representative for Iran: "According to him, Washington was doing
everything possible to defuse tensions with Iran and return the containment system in the region.
However, Hook blamed Tehran for rising tension in the region because of the refusal of any diplomatic initiatives.
"Our diplomacy does not give Iran the right to respond with military force. Iran needs to meet diplomacy with diplomacy, not
military force," the envoy added."
Diplomacy needs to be met with diplomacy......Really???
Iran should impose sanctions on all of SA, UAE and US oil exports. How's that for diplomacy Mr. Hook? In case you missed it
that is exactly what they are doing. Meeting your brand of diplomacy head on.
We are living in the realm of absurd. How is it that we have left the welfare of our kids, families and the future of our country
in the hands of these incompetent morons?
And why is the rest of the world sitting with their popcorn watching this horror show?
After reading the wiki item on P-8s having a normal crew of 7, I got to thinking about the 35 number either being a botched
translation or how many bodies were noted via thermal imaging radar, something I doubt Iran was thought to possess. As I wrote,
Iran can see everything to its West, which is a very BigDeal.
I digested Magnier's latest. The following is an extremely important point:
"Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump to go to war without putting Israel on
the front line ."
Except that is an impossibility. The Zionists are smack dab in the middle of the front line with a massive crosshairs imprinted
on their entirety. Occupied Palestine sits at Ground Zero, and it seems that the Zionists are finally waking up to the ultimate
betrayal they'll experience at the hands of The Christian Rapturists -- they are to be Genocided in the pursuit of attempting
to make a myth come to life.
Every writer, Magnier, b, Escobar, and most all barflies, etc, are saying the decision lies with Trump. As I've written before
and again above, I disagree. The decision to go to war with Iran rests with the Current Oligarchy running the Outlaw US Empire.
And it's my belief that such a war will not bring them A Few Dollars More and instead make their Fistful of Dollars evaporate
rapidly. thanks to their great outstanding, naked, risks. For perhaps the very first time, the Current Oligarchy is exposed
to the risks involved in a war it initially though it could win. Last night, it seemed to awaken to the potential consequences
and blinked. The Philadelphia refinery blast may be shear coincidence or not, but it also has likely helped since its right down
the street from the Current Oligarchies penthouses.
Now, it's just about the time of day when the Houthis launch their attacks.
Blooming Barricade , Jun 21, 2019 4:14:14 PM |
155
Watch the brilliant George Galloway on the consequences of war with Iran. Bottom line: only hardline Likudniks and FDD Likud
USA types would approve such a disastrous move.
If America attacks and destroys Iran after doing the same to Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, the
Islamic religion should semi-officially adopt anti-Americanism until the Empire falls, and it would be totally deserved. If we
all go in, let us get a good thrashing.
_____
George Galloway has warned the US and its allies in the Gulf that if they were to start "World War III" with an attack on Iran
they will live to regret it because, unlike Iraq in 2003, they are capable of fighting back.
The Scottish firebrand, who famously took US lawmakers to task over the Iraq war when he testified in front of the senate in
2005, has given his take on the recent ratcheting-up of tension in the Gulf region after Iran shot down a US drone, which, it
says, had entered its airspace.
Washington maintains its UAV was shot down while patrolling over international waters in an "unprovoked attack." On Friday
President Donald Trump took to Twitter to claim the US were 10 minutes away from bombing three Iranian sites, before calling off
the strikes.
Galloway believes that many Iranians would see it as a great "pleasure to fight the United States and its allies in the region."
In a stark warning to US allies such as Qatar, the UAE and Saudia Arabia, Galloway insisted that any country that allows "its
land to be used for the launching for an American attack on Iran will itself be immediately in flames."
The former Labour MP concludes his passionate message to the world by declaring: "No more war. No more war in the Gulf. No
war on Iran."
It is true that Trump needs to fire acting President Bolton. Bolton who was appointed to the NSA by Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli/American
oligarch, will not allow Trump to fire Bolton; otherwise, he loses millions of $$$$. The pressure is also from Adelson and his
neocon ilk.
I don't think my opinion has changed. There've been several cases where they've been about to attack Iran, but then have drawn
back. Spring 2018 (Israel), 2012, even the event of 1980, where they tried but failed. Trump's aborted attack is just another
case.
Iran is a big country, and won't be defeated unless the people are ready to abandon the regime. They aren't as far as I
can detect. The exiles, and the middle class in Iran, hate the regime. I've just had a lot of that poured into my ears, during
my visit to Iran a month ago. The popular feeling though doesn't seem to have abandoned the regime. I think we can expect a nationalist
resistance, if indeed Trump does attack Iran.
China has been complying with US sanctions on Iran, for example this article notes that
China stopped buying
oil from Iran . US direct trade with Iran isn't so much as issue as the US stopping Europe and China from trading with Iran.
Obama did what Clinton wing of Dems wanted him to do. Dem party is the party of Wall Street oligarchy now.
Notable quotes:
"... "...Obama has been trying hard: On 20 July 2011, Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com headlined " Bipartisan Plan Summary Charts Confirm Key Deficit 'Cuts ' Come From Imminent Social Security Pillage," and this conservative website expressed shock at how amazingly Republican this plan was , which Obama was trying to ram through. The "bipartisan" Obama had reached farther into Republican territory than Republican politicians had even dared. .." ..."
"... Obama's 'Mandate' To Slash Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security," ..."
"... So he had a mandate to cut social security, but not one to pass single payer? Remember when we heard that he wouldn't allow single payer advocates in the room with the insurance and pharmaceutical companies that we later learned that he had already made a deal with before the democrats worked on the hideously flawed ACA? And remember how pissed off people were when they learned what we were getting? But when Bernie was saying that we deserved universal health care people asked him how he was going to pay for it. And people cheered when Herheinous said that " universal health care will never ever happen." ..."
"... Obama also killed the anti war movement when he lied about Gaddafi's troops raping women and invaded Libya and then Syria. During his tenure states lost close to 1,000 seats. Finally after Obomber waltzed out of the WH people were so pissed off at him that they voted for Trump or against Hillary. ..."
"... In the end, the Clintons ushered in anti-New Deal Neoliberalism -- economics based on the Right Wing principles of 'greed is good' and 'monopolies are good for America' because they are good for Empire's global hegemony. At the end of his term, President Clinton signed a bill that revoked the last of the New Deal regulations that once protected the People from predatory capitalism. No sooner did Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette leave the White House for good, than the capitalists swooped into the "free market" and began asset-stripping and wage-stripping the American people -- beginning with the working poor and Black homeowners. Personal debt took off on a parabolic climb and it continues today, clouding everyone's future. ..."
"... I knew Obama wanted to cut social security, but not as early as he did. ..."
"... "I made you guys rich" he said not too long ago to the bank CEOs. And now he's getting rewarded for doing that. ..."
@jbob@jbob@jbob@jbob
wishes when they formed no opposition at all on matters like making sure GWB's tax cuts
weren't allowed to sunset, in fact what Obama did was even worse, Bush's tax cuts had that
sunset clause, not so with Obama he made them permanent .
This includes "Obama's Long Battle to Cut Social Security Benefits"
"Back in 2009, he came into office wanting to address the long-term financial issue of
Social Security not by removing the annual earnings-cap of around $100,000 that pertained
(and above which income was/is untaxed for Social Security, so that this change alone could
solve the problem), but instead by reducing retirement benefits to seniors: cutting the
benefits they receive.
This man, Obama, who went along with George W. Bush's taxpayer-bailouts for Wall
Street rather than institute bailouts of Main Street (the public) and who thereby
produced continuation of the economic crash for everyone other than the nation's wealthiest
1% or 5%, was also aiming to serve the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else
when it comes to long-term changes of Social Security."
".....On 16 January 2009, four days before Obama became President, Michael D. Shear headlined
in the Washington Post, "Obama Pledges Entitlement Reform, " and he reported about " a
wide-ranging 70 minute interview with Washington Post reporters and editors," in which Obama
endorsed efforts by congressional Republicans , and "the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally
conservative Democrats," to cut Social Security and Medicare. Progressives were already
disturbed at what their friends in Congress were leaking to them about Obama's strong
commitment to doing this, and so a few blog posts were issued to ring alarm bells publicly
about it. Paul Rosenberg at openleft.com headlined on January 17th (three days before Obama's
Inauguration), regarding "Obama's 'Mandate' To Slash Medicare, Medicaid & Social
Security,"
Remember the "Cat food Commission"?
"...Obama has been trying hard: On 20 July 2011, Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com headlined "
Bipartisan Plan Summary Charts Confirm Key Deficit 'Cuts ' Come From Imminent Social Security
Pillage," and this conservative website expressed shock at how amazingly Republican this plan
was , which Obama was trying to ram through. The "bipartisan" Obama had reached farther
into Republican territory than Republican politicians had even dared. .."
The following day, July 21st, Paul Kane bannered in the Washington Post, "Debt Talks Bring
Tensions Between Democrats, Obama to Surface," and he reported that even top Democrats in the
Senate – Reid, Kerry, Cantwell, Mikulsky, Lautenberg, and Feinstein – were
shocked that the Democratic President was leaving them entirely out of the loop in his budget
negotiations, and was negotiating only with leading Republicans . "
Obama froze the federal wage for two years. Why did he think that was a good idea? For the
same reason he lowballed the money for us little folks and refused to help the 9 million
people who were losing their homes while the banks continued to commit fraud which he still
didn't stop or prosecute.
From the article..
Obama's 'Mandate' To Slash Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security,"
So he had a mandate to cut social security, but not one to pass single payer? Remember
when we heard that he wouldn't allow single payer advocates in the room with the insurance
and pharmaceutical companies that we later learned that he had already made a deal with
before the democrats worked on the hideously flawed ACA? And remember how pissed off people
were when they learned what we were getting? But when Bernie was saying that we deserved
universal health care people asked him how he was going to pay for it. And people cheered
when Herheinous said that " universal health care will never ever happen."
Obama also killed the anti war movement when he lied about Gaddafi's troops raping women
and invaded Libya and then Syria. During his tenure states lost close to 1,000 seats. Finally
after Obomber waltzed out of the WH people were so pissed off at him that they voted for
Trump or against Hillary.
...Bernie's dilemma is an easily-exploited structural distortion that occurs because the
Left is forced to share a Political Party with the Centrists and Center-Right in order for
their voice to be heard. That's not going to change until the Left changes it.
Democratic operatives and the Democratic party elite can easily push this attitude from
the inside, in subtle ways. When Bernie brings up marching with MLK (because the Democratic
Party is not about to tout his bio and lend credence to Bernie's story), the Dems simply roll
their eyes and mumble, "Here we go again." Or, "That story never gets old... to Bernie."
The Democrats have a long history of bamboozling Blacks. Contemplate the breathtaking
betrayal of Blacks by the Clinton administration. Black lives and families were destroyed by
heinous, unjust laws and by Democratic policies that weaponized the criminal justice against
them. This has shattered and traumatized Black families for generations.
In the end, the Clintons ushered in anti-New Deal Neoliberalism -- economics based on the
Right Wing principles of 'greed is good' and 'monopolies are good for America' because they
are good for Empire's global hegemony. At the end of his term, President Clinton signed a
bill that revoked the last of the New Deal regulations that once protected the People from
predatory capitalism. No sooner did Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette leave the White House for
good, than the capitalists swooped into the "free market" and began asset-stripping and
wage-stripping the American people -- beginning with the working poor and Black homeowners.
Personal debt took off on a parabolic climb and it continues today, clouding everyone's
future.
But returning to Democratic operatives for a moment, do you know why Black leaders
completely defaulted to the Clinton Administration, and why they went on to plant the seed of
Democratic Party bamboozlement in their followers? It was in this cauldron that the current
DC shitshow was made:
In the early years, following Martin Luther King's death, progressive social programs were
slowly put into place to convey onto Blacks some of the same Liberties that white population
enjoyed in the US. Public institutions were rendered color blind, by law. Blacks who wanted a
good education found it easier to gain admittance and to find government grants to help pay
for it. For Blacks who wanted to start their own businesses, there were advisors who offered
them support and small business loans. Buying a home suddenly became a real option in Black
communities. New mortgage banks opened that helped millions of Black residents take
ownership. Labor unions continued to lift many out of poverty, and lifted more into the
Middle Class for the first time.
Behind the scenes, however, there was obstruction. The Reagan and Bush I administrations
did not make it easy for Black leaders to access the funding that had been earmarked for
these programs. The bureaucracy put up walls and slow-walked the processes, deadlines were
frequently missed, documents were misplaced, and there was a general indifference to their
requests. But the arrival of the Clinton administration changed all that. A group of
Democrats opened a special 'window' where Black Leaders could finally get the money to run
the programs -- with none the hassle. This was enormously helpful and strong bonds developed
between the Democratic Party and Black community activists.
The Democratic Party assumed that they had corralled the Black Vote -- as if Blacks were
vending machines. Put in the right platitudes and out would come the expected votes. But I
wonder about that.... The rising generation Black journalists I've been reading since the
2016 election, paint a different picture of this political relationship. They are skeptical
of the words that politicians use. To them, 'MLK' is just another public holiday. Invoking
the name Martin Luther King does not put food on the table, or pay for college, or protect
them from daily government abuses. I think they know exactly who Joe Biden is and they are
aware that the Democratic Party feels entitled to their votes -- even when the Party isn't
fighting for economic justice and basic human rights, like universal healthcare. Perhaps it
is it's their turn to triangulate for awhile -- and see if the Neoliberal Party leadership is
going to respect their needs.
Thanks. Especially after reading aliasalias' comment. I knew Obama wanted to cut social
security, but not as early as he did.
"I made you guys rich" he said not too long ago to the bank CEOs. And now he's getting
rewarded for doing that.
Biden too has made speeches about cutting it and they are making the rounds on Twitter,
but too many people aren't hearing about it and think that he's just a lovable ole Joe who
sometimes talks funny and sticks his foot in his mouth. He is not. He was a ruthless during
his tenure in congress and not enough of those videos are getting out.
As too his not having a racist bone in his body just listen to his speech on busing. Sure
sounded racist to me. Of all the people he could have talked about back when congress was
sane why did he choose one of the biggest racists to bring up? Because even though he was
racist he could work with him? Nah..
to me that Lewis the civil rights leader was now sated and fat and had been replaced
by Lewis the toadying politician who would screw anyone including his own if it suited
him. Whoopi the same. When people get fat and comfortable for too long, they forget who
they are and don't care who they've become. As long as it involves more for them,
whatever it is, is fine with them.
When Lewis was called out for endorsing Clinton over Bernie, Whoopi for criticizing
AOC as not respectful of her betters, of course their critics were called racists. A
lament that never seems to get too old to the folks using it. While the old folks, white
racists, and black militants wallow in and continue to argue over the past, the kids are
moving way beyond them. Interracial relationships and biracial people are leaving it all
behind. Soon no one will know what race or ethnicity anyone is.
I really don't know how Bernie stands it. I couldn't do it, certainly not at age 77.
How many years now has he dragged his old and sorry ass around the country trying to
improve peoples lives? In return all he gets some dumb ass in the audience chastising him
for having fought for her equality. Fuck her. Fuck them. Fuck them all. From the Clintons
and the media to the whiny people with their shorts in a knot over this or that ONE thing
he failed to make better that they can't cope with or overcome - ever.
Divide and conquer is exactly what it is all about. Those that have theirs vs those
that don't and making sure it stays that way. I am so tired of them, their game, and the
victims. At what point does a victim wise up and quit being a victim or willingly become
a willing participant in the game?
U.S. -- A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction
with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a
foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.
People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East
or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the
military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the
foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.
"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are
really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone
strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't
matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea,
China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get
them there on the frontlines?"
"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts
who are just there for the paycheck," he added.
Strangely, as soon as the policy was implemented, 99% of saber-rattling suddenly
ceased.
Note: The Babylon Bee is the world's best satire site, totally inerrant in all its
truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.
The Babylon Bee was created ex nihilo on the eighth day of the creation week, exactly
6,000 years ago. We have been the premier news source through every major world event, from
the Tower of Babel and the Exodus to the Reformation and the War of 1812. We focus on just
the facts, leaving spin and bias to other news sites like CNN and Fox News.
If you would like to complain about something on our site, take it up with God.
Unlike other satire sites, everything we post is 100% verified by Snopes.com.
"... "Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory, threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible. ..."
"... "The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals that cannot be reasoned with. ..."
Demanding that the Middle Eastern nation retaliate immediately in self-defense against the
existential threat posed by America's military operations, National Security Adviser John
Bolton called for a forceful Iranian response Friday to continuing United States aggression.
"Iran cannot sit idly by as the American imperialist machine encroaches on their territory,
threatens their sovereignty, and endangers their very way of life," said Bolton, warning that
America's fanatical leadership, steadfast devotion to flexing their muscles in the region, and
alleged access to nuclear weapons necessitated that Iran strike back with a vigorous show of
force as soon -- and as hard -- as possible.
"The only thing these Westerners understand is violence, so it's imperative that Iran sends
a clear message that they won't be walked over. Let's not forget, the U.S. defied a
diplomatically negotiated treaty for seemingly no reason at all -- these are dangerous radicals
that cannot be reasoned with.
They've been given every opportunity to back down, but their goal is total domination of the
region, and Iran won't stand for that."
At press time, Bolton said that the only option left on the table was for Iran to launch a
full-fledged military strike against the Great Satan.
"... "Try as you might, you can't expel him. He seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause pain and suffering -- but somehow never suffering himself." ..."
Someone whose confidence Bolton does not enjoy is Carlson, a rival for Trump's ear. Carlson,
a true
believer, took to the airwaves to savage the ambassador Friday night. "John Bolton is a
kind of bureaucratic tapeworm," Carlson said.
"Try as you might, you can't expel him. He
seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause
pain and suffering -- but somehow never suffering himself."
"... Europe is being clobbered by the USA on multiple fronts - at little cost to the USA: 1- Russian sanctions; 2- Oil - sanctioning Iran raises oil price and risks a blowout of prices; 3- Gas - sanctioning companies working on Russian gas and pipelines ..."
"... It's about the financial derivatives Iran, the derivatives.. The Europeans, even if they desired honesty, are shackled by their financial shenanigans.. One bad move on their part, and the Potemkin contraption collapses, wiping out the western 1%. They're trapped, and unlike before, war is a lose for them and why? ..."
...Russia on Friday announced it was ready to help Iran export its crude and ease
restrictions on its banking system if Europe fails to launch its dollar-evading SPV, Instex
(Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) with Tehran, according to Interfax and PressTV .
The
three European signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), unveiled late in January the direct non-dollar payment
mechanism meant to safeguard their trade ties with Tehran following the US withdrawal from the
nuclear deal and in the face of the "toughest ever" sanctions imposed by the United States
against the Islamic Republic. In its initial stage, INSTEX would facilitate trade of
humanitarian goods such as medicine, food and medical devices, but it will later be expanded to
cover other areas of trade, including Iran's oil sales.
However, it has not resulted in any trade deals so far. In late May, the US threatened
Europe with "
loss of access to the US financial system " if it rolled out the SWIFT-evading SPV, which
appears to have crushed Europe's enthusiasm to pursue alternative financial transactions with
Tehran, forcing it to conceded to Washington (again).
Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Moussavi said European
governments have failed to meet their expectations in implementing INSTEX to protect the JCPOA,
criticizing their "lack of will" to deal with America's pressure against Tehran.
What this means is, China will have access to a lot cheaper oil than western market prices, including to the
hilt subsidized, with colossal hidden losses, US shale oil. Well done Trump. The Tariffs, Americuhns are the ones paying for those as well. Imbeciles.
We are seeing a return to "Gun Boat Diplomacy"... Even THAT will not work.. ultimately. Brinkmanship, of this order reveals a Disturbed mind.. the US criminal elite psyche.. Or as Jidu KrishnaMurti said so aptly..The constant assertion of belief is an indication
of fear.
The USA continues to publicize its belief.. that it is the viral of democracy.. And leader
of the Free World. Hollow words.. which it will be forced to eat.. before too long. That time of
confrontation.. is Not Far OFF !! This desperation is that of a deranged mind.. that is going down the tube.. breaking
down.. A society in free fall..
This is exactly how it will always work out when psychopaths are in charge because normal
society doesnt manage them.They come from all backgrounds but some genetic varieties of people seem to have YUGE
problems with it. I also believe inbreeding has a role.
Europe is being clobbered by the USA on multiple fronts - at little cost to the USA: 1- Russian sanctions; 2- Oil - sanctioning Iran raises oil price and risks a blowout of prices; 3- Gas - sanctioning companies working on Russian gas and pipelines
It's not the actual physical oil Russia is helping Iran with, numbnuts -- it is brokering
and facilitating the sale of oil without having the Jewish shysters in London and NY involved
- the same reason the Chinese set up their own oil bourse.
Costa. People don't understand the system. The Brits bad mouthed Russia over the Novichok
false flag incident last winter and jumped on the sanction crap. But they gladly accepted a
load of LNG from a Rotterdam energy broker to keep their asses from freezing. It was Yamal
LNG from RUSSIA. Brokers take the energy (including world-wide trades) and sell it off taking
a small bit from each "barrel"as their profit.
I'm sure the Iranians already know this. The EU is just an extension of US power. They
were never serious about allowing the free flow of trade with the Iranians. One must get rid
of the EU if a real Peace plan with Iran is to take place. But this will never happen under
Trump.
European politicians are cucks bribed to the teeth by the evil empire to toe the Zionist
line. Europe is all but an emasculated world power. Pathetic. Kick US forces out and take a
******* stand against all this ******** America is stirring on Europe's doorstep. Refugees,
terrorism, bad relations with Russia....all thanks to the Anglo Zionists. Europeans keep
taking it. The Marshall Plan guilt-trip is working well.
True but the Zionist banker noghtmare spread to the US from the British empire, so Europe
has been perpetually screwed, thus all the world wars that took place there, etc.
Europe is not a power, it is an artificial construction with no real leadership.No military to back its decisions and a bunch of feminists and homos that make up its
culturally diverse parliaments. European women act like men and the men act like women. There is no fight left in Europe..
China and Russia need to preserve Iran for the BRI which is the lifeline for everyone who
has had a belllyfull of JewSA ********. China and Russia will facilitate Iranian trade and
Iranian nuclear ICBM peacemakers will soon follow.
Trump is loosing, he scares Europeans and Turks but don't let be fooled, Americans are
not allowed near Iranian border of Turkey, why do you think is that restriction?
It's about the financial derivatives Iran, the derivatives.. The Europeans, even if they desired honesty, are shackled by their financial
shenanigans.. One bad move on their part, and the Potemkin contraption collapses, wiping out the western
1%. They're trapped, and unlike before, war is a lose for them and why?
Because the kinetic advantage is no longer with them, it's now in the East. Nevertheless, their innocent youth can still be salvaged, provided they desire salvage. No
more impunity without retribution, cheers...
So India stop importing Iranian oil in order to buy the same oil from Russia for much more
since thy where buying that same oil from Iran at great discount. India looks to Russian crude as Iranian imports crash
"... Trump is right that he can afford to be patient and now re-frame this as him being the magnanimous God-Emperor but what he's really doing is talking capital markets off a cliff. ..."
"... Because that's where the U.S. is the most vulnerable and where Iran's greatest leverage lies. This incident should have sent oil prices far higher than they did if the threat of war was real. ..."
"... Why? Because the markets discounted the U.S.'s stories immediately. There have been so many incidents like this that should have started a war in the past three years which turn out to be bogus that the market reaction was muted, at best. ..."
"... As Pepe Escobar lays out convincingly in his latest article, Iran's threats against global oil shipping aren't aimed at disrupting the global economy per se. There's plenty of oil stored in Strategic Reserves around the world to keep things operating during any U.S. military operation to destroy Iran's navy (which wouldn't take very long) and open the strait to oil traffic. ..."
"... It is that a disruption in the price of oil will force the unwinding of trillions in interest rate swap derivatives already at risk because of the tenuous hold on reality Deutsche Bank has, since DB clears a super-majority of all such derivative contracts for the whole of Europe. ..."
"... Last week I asked whether Trump's "B-Team" overplayed their hand in the Gulf of Oman , staging a potential false flag over some oil tankers to stop peace breaking out and arrest the slide in oil prices. Today everyone wants to think Iran overplayed its hand by attacking this drone. But given the amount mendacity and the motivations of the people involved, I'd say that it was yet another attempt by the enemies of peace to push us to the brink of a world war in which nothing good comes of it. ..."
Iran has had enough.
I think it's fair to say that after
60+ years of U.S. aggression towards Iran that the decision to shoot down a U.S. drone represents
an inflection point in world politics.
In the first few hours after the incident the fog of war was thick. But a day later much of it
has cleared thanks to Iran's purposeful poke at U.S. leadership by coming clean with their
intentions.
Iran chose to shoot
down this drone
versus hitting the manned P-8 aircraft and then chose not to lie about it in
public, but rather come forward removing any deniability they could have had.
They did this after President Trump's comments yesterday during a news conference with Canadian
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau where Trump described the attack as "a big mistake" and "not
intentional."
But it was intentional.
And the reason for this was that despite Trump's assurances yesterday there is considerable
debate as to where the drone actually was.
According
to a report from the NY Times
(and buried deep in a very long article):
Still, there remained doubt inside the United States government over whether the drone, or
another American surveillance aircraft, this one flown by a military aircrew, did violate
Iranian airspace at some point, according to a senior administration official. The official said
the doubt was one of the reasons Mr. Trump called off the strike -- which could under
international norms be viewed as an act of war.
The delay by United States Central Command in publicly releasing GPS coordinates of the drone
when it was shot down -- hours after Iran did -- and errors in the labeling of the drone's flight
path when the imagery was released, contributed to that doubt, officials said.
A lack of provable "hard evidence" about the location of the drone when it was hit, a defense
official said, put the administration in an isolated position at what could easily end up being
the start of yet another war with a Middle East adversary -- this one with a proven ability to
strike back.
This means a couple of things. First,
it is likely that Trump was not properly briefed
on the issue by his National Security Council, who were pushing him to strike back hard and who are
itching to get the U.S. into an armed conflict with Iran.
Framing the attack as a mistake Trump was handing Iran the opportunity to de-escalate things. To
me, this signaled that Trump was told through back channels this was an operation designed by us to
put Iran in a no-win situation -- either allow encroachment of their airspace or shoot down a drone
that would land in international waters.
Moreover,
doubts as to the drone's position, remember, with a plane carrying actual
ordnance on its wing, put Trump in a real bind.
And he knew it at the presser. That's the way Trump tried to frame this the way he did. Because
the implications here are that he is being boxed in on all sides by his administration and his
allies -- the Saudis, Israelis and the UAE -- and frogmarched to a war he doesn't want.
He wants Iran to heel but he doesn't know how to go about it.
That Iran then chose the next day to openly declare that they were not confused or misled and
knew exactly what they were doing puts Trump in an even worse position.
Because an unmanned drone, as he said in his futile tweetstorm, is not worth going to war over,
especially one whose position in in dispute.
And everyone knows it. Europe wouldn't condemn Iran here. No one did. Only the U.S. And that
silence is deafening as Pompeo, Bolton and Haspel again over-extend themselves.
Trump is right that he can afford to be patient and now re-frame this as him being the
magnanimous God-Emperor but what he's really doing is talking capital markets off a cliff.
Because that's where the U.S. is the most vulnerable and where Iran's greatest leverage lies.
This incident should have sent oil prices far higher than they did if the threat of war was real.
Why? Because the markets discounted the U.S.'s stories immediately.
There have
been so many incidents like this that should have started a war in the past three years which turn
out to be bogus that the market reaction was muted, at best.
It also tells you just how quickly the global economy is slowing down if a major military
incident between Iran and the U.S. near the Strait of Hormuz only pushed the price of Brent Crude
up to fill the gap on the weekly chart and confirm the recent low.
... ... ...
As Pepe Escobar lays out convincingly in his latest article,
Iran's threats against
global oil shipping aren't aimed at disrupting the global economy per se.
There's plenty
of oil stored in Strategic Reserves around the world to keep things operating during any U.S.
military operation to destroy Iran's navy (which wouldn't take very long) and open the strait to
oil traffic.
It is that a disruption in the price of oil will force the unwinding of
trillions in interest rate swap derivatives already at risk because of the tenuous hold on reality
Deutsche Bank has, since DB clears a super-majority of all such derivative contracts for the whole
of Europe.
No one wants to see $300 per barrel oil. That Goldman Sachs is posting potential targets of
$1000 per barrel tells you where they are positioning themselves, as if they know something?
Goldman? Have insider knowledge?
Please! It is to laugh.
What we are looking at here is the ultimate game of brinkmanship.
Trump
is saying his maximum pressure campaign will break Iran in the end and if they go one step further
(which they won't directly) he will eliminate them.
Iran, on the other hand, is stating categorically that if Trump doesn't allow Iran to trade than
no one will. And that threat is a real one, given their regional influence. Incalculable financial
and political damage can be done by Iran and its proxies around the region through attacks on oil
and gas infrastructure.
Governments will fall, markets will collapse. And no one gets out without scars.
It's the kind of stand-off that needs to end with everyone walking away and regrouping but is
unlikely to do so because of entrenched interests on both sides and the historical grudges of the
men involved.
What's important is to know that the rules of the game have changed. Iran has taken all the
punches to the nose it will take from Trump without retaliating. When you corner someone and give
them no way out you invite the worst kind of counter-attack.
Last week I asked whether
Trump's
"B-Team" overplayed their hand in the Gulf of Oman
, staging a potential false flag over some
oil tankers to stop peace breaking out and arrest the slide in oil prices. Today everyone wants to
think Iran overplayed its hand by attacking this drone. But given the amount mendacity and the
motivations of the people involved, I'd say that it was yet another attempt by the enemies of peace
to push us to the brink of a world war in which nothing good comes of it.
I give Trump a lot of credit here for not falling into the trap set for him.
He now has to begin removing those responsible for this quagmire and I'm sure that will be on
the docket when he meets with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping next week at the G-20.
It starts with John Bolton and it ends with Mike Pompeo.
And if he doesn't replace them in the next six to eight weeks then we know Trump
isn't serious about keeping us out of war.
He's just interested in doing so until
he gets re-elected
[Jun 22, 2019] this report on the Ufa, Russia Security Conference by both Iranian and Outlaw US Empire officials. The entire article requires reading, but this is the most relevant excerpt that has some links in the original I won't duplicate:
"Given current global events, the most significant attendees in Ufa are a senior US National
Security Council member and the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC),
Ali Shamkhani. As of now, the only official news comes from Ali Shamkhani's words concerning
the possibility of mediation with the US and the possibility of Iran acquiring weapons systems
to fend off US threats. Shamkhani stated:
"'We currently face demonstrative threats. Nevertheless, when it comes to air defense of our
country, we consider using the foreign potential in addition to our domestic capacities
Mediation is out of question in the current situation. The United States has unilaterally
withdrawn from the JCPOA, it has flouted its obligations and it has introduced illegal
sanctions against Iran. The United States should return to the starting point and correct its
own mistakes. This process needs no mediation.'
"'This [gradually boosting of uranium enrichment and heavy water production beyond the
levels outlined in the JCPOA] is a serious decision of the Islamic Republic [of Iran] and we
will continue doing it step by step until JCPOA violators move toward agreement and return to
fulfilling their obligations. [If JCPOA participants do not comply with the deal, Iran will be
reducing its commitments] step by step within legal mechanisms that the JCPOA envisions.'"
It was noted by b that the Outlaw US Empire faces a growing international coalition against
its actions, which results from sentiments made at the rather many recent international
conferences that have already occurred in June that will be topped by G-20 in 8 days. That
admission along with the stark mostly unreported economic realities of any armed conflict in
the Gulf region is what restrains the war mongers. The Money Power and the Current Oligarchy
won't allow war is what I see. And that makes this Friday morning pleasant despite the
fog.
Posted by: Anon | Jun 21, 2019 8:04:55 AM | 29 (boring that it's yet another Anon, who
can't be bothered to distinguish himself all from the other thousands of Anons)
the stage is now maximum restraint and effort at co-operation, which Iran will be
expected to respect. That means one more act against US (or false flag by US) and
strikes will occur. Not comparable to hostage crisis, here US is projecting being
reasonable, even if you read that as being weak.
It's not me who reading the US as weak. It will be the attitude of the
Iranians, who haven't forgotten the US failure in 1980 (April 24, 1980), as opposed to
the US public for whom it is so many crises ago that they've forgotten. And the Iranians
are right. Trump hesitated, as every previous attempt to launch a strike on Iran has
finished finally in a stand-down. The risks are just too great (for what the US public is
prepared to accept). And we've just seen it happen again. They might be able to screw
themselves up to go through with it, and accept the losses and stalemate that will come,
but it will do no good at all for Trump's re-election chances.
Posted by: Mikael Kallavuo | Jun 21, 2019 12:19:06 PM |
91 Well it looks like Elijah Magnier has finally written the piece he was hinting at
releasing yesterday. Here it
is:
Iran is pushing US President Donald Trump to the edge of the abyss, raising the level
of tensions to new heights in the Middle East. After the sabotage of four tankers at
al-Fujairah and the attack on the Aramco pipeline a month ago, and last week's attack
on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC –
now categorized by the USA as a terrorist body) yesterday shot down a US Navy drone,
sending two clear messages. The first message is that Iran is ready for an all-out war,
no matter what the consequences. The second message is that Iran is aware that the US
President has cornered himself; the embarrassing attack came a week after Trump
launched his electoral campaign.
According to well-informed sources, Iran rejected a proposal by US intelligence
– made via a third party – that Trump be allowed to bomb one, two or three
clear objectives, to be chosen by Iran, so that both countries could appear to come out
as winners and Trump could save face. Iran categorically rejected the offer and sent
its reply: even an attack against an empty sandy beach in Iran would trigger a missile
launch against US objectives in the Gulf.
...
Moreover, Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies
in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in
confronting the US in case of all-out war in the Middle East. Iran's allies have
increased their level of readiness and alert to the highest level; they will
participate in the war from the moment it begins if necessary. According to sources,
Iran's allies will not hesitate to open fire against an already agreed on bank of
objectives in a perfectly organised, orchestrated, synchronised and graduated response,
anticipating a war that may last many months.
Sources confirmed that, in case of war, Iran aims to stop the flow of oil from the
Middle East completely, not by targeting tankers but by hitting the sources of oil in
every single Middle Eastern country, whether these countries are considered allies or
enemies. The objective will be to cease all oil exports from the Middle East to the
rest of the world.
...
Iran's economy is under attack by Trump's embargo on Iranian oil exports. Trump
refuses to lift the embargo and wants to negotiate first. Trump, unlike Israel and the
hawks in his administration, is trying to avoid a shooting war. Netanyahu has
reiteratedhis desire for war with Iran -- a war that the US will fight–and is
meeting with his Arab allies to help bring it about. As Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's
Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump to go to war without putting Israel
on the front line.
EXCLUSIVE: In an exclusive interview with Chuck Todd, President Donald Trump says he
hadn't given final approval to Iran strikes, no planes were in the air.
The first message is that Iran is ready for an all-out war, no matter what the
consequences. The second message is that Iran is aware that the US President has
cornered himself; the embarrassing attack came a week after Trump launched his
electoral campaign. According to well-informed sources, Iran rejected a proposal by US
intelligence – made via a third party – that Trump be allowed to bomb one
or two clear objectives, to be chosen by Iran, so that both countries could appear to
come out as winners and Trump could save face. Iran categorically rejected the offer
and sent its reply: even an attack against an empty sandy beach in Iran would trigger a
missile launch against US objectives in the Gulf.
...
Iran has established a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon,
Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US
in case of all-out war in the Middle East. Iran's allies have increased their level of
readiness and alert to the highest level; they will participate in the war from the
moment it begins if necessary. According to sources, Iran's allies will not hesitate to
open fire against an already agreed on bank of objectives in a perfectly organised,
orchestrated, synchronised and graduated response, anticipating a war that may last
many months.
...
Sources confirmed that, in case of war, Iran aims to stop the flow of oil from the
Middle East completely, not by targeting tankers but by hitting the sources of oil in
every single Middle Eastern country, whether these countries are considered allies or
enemies. The objective will be to cease all oil exports from the Middle East to the
rest of the world.
Still, there remained doubt inside the United States government over whether the drone,
or another American surveillance aircraft, this one flown by a military aircrew, did
violate Iranian airspace at some point, according to a senior administration
official.
..
The delay by United States Central Command in publicly releasing GPS coordinates of the
drone when it was shot down -- hours after Iran did -- and errors in the labeling of
the drone's flight path when the imagery was released, contributed to that doubt,
officials said.
A lack of provable "hard evidence" about the location of the drone when it was hit,
a defense official said, put the administration in an isolated position at what could
easily end up being the start of yet another war with a Middle East adversary -- this
one with a proven ability to strike back.
Posted by: b | Jun 21,
2019 1:23:18 PM |
107 b, how can you believe any of Trump's versions? I can't see that one is more
trustworthy than another
Listen to this horse manure coming from Brain Hook, "special" representative for Iran:
"According to him, Washington was doing everything possible to defuse tensions with
Iran and return the containment system in the region.
However, Hook blamed Tehran for rising tension in the region because of the refusal of
any diplomatic initiatives.
"Our diplomacy does not give Iran the right to respond with military force. Iran needs
to meet diplomacy with diplomacy, not military force," the envoy added."
Diplomacy needs to be met with diplomacy......Really???
Iran should impose sanctions on all of SA, UAE and US oil exports. How's that for
diplomacy Mr. Hook? In case you missed it that is exactly what they are doing. Meeting
your brand of diplomacy head on.
We are living in the realm of absurd. How is it that we have left the welfare of our
kids, families and the future of our country in the hands of these incompetent
morons?
And why is the rest of the world sitting with their popcorn watching this horror
show?
Posted by: Uncle Jon | Jun 21, 2019 2:53:41 PM |
131 h @124--
After reading the wiki item on P-8s having a normal crew of 7, I got to thinking about
the 35 number either being a botched translation or how many bodies were noted via
thermal imaging radar, something I doubt Iran was thought to possess. As I wrote, Iran
can see everything to its West, which is a very BigDeal.
I digested Magnier's latest. The following is an extremely important point:
"Ha'aretz described Netanyahu's Iran dilemma last month, the goal is to get Trump
to go to war without putting Israel on the front line ."
Except that is an impossibility. The Zionists are smack dab in the middle of the front
line with a massive crosshairs imprinted on their entirety. Occupied Palestine sits at
Ground Zero, and it seems that the Zionists are finally waking up to the ultimate
betrayal they'll experience at the hands of The Christian Rapturists--they are to be
Genocided in the pursuit of attempting to make a myth come to life.
Every writer, Magnier, b, Escobar, and most all barflies, etc, are saying the decision
lies with Trump. As I've written before and again above, I disagree. The decision to go
to war with Iran rests with the Current Oligarchy running the Outlaw US Empire. And it's
my belief that such a war will not bring them A Few Dollars More and instead make their
Fistful of Dollars evaporate rapidly. thanks to their great outstanding, naked, risks.
For perhaps the very first time, the Current Oligarchy is exposed to the risks
involved in a war it initially though it could win. Last night, it seemed to awaken
to the potential consequences and blinked. The Philadelphia refinery blast may be shear
coincidence or not, but it also has likely helped since its right down the street from
the Current Oligarchies penthouses.
Now, it's just about the time of day when the Houthis launch their attacks.
Watch the brilliant George Galloway on the consequences of war with Iran. Bottom line:
only hardline Likudniks and FDD Likud USA types would approve such a disastrous move.
If America attacks and destroys Iran after doing the same to Iraq, Palestine, Libya,
Syria, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, the Islamic religion should semi-officially adopt
anti-Americanism until the Empire falls, and it would be totally deserved. If we all go
in, let us get a good thrashing.
_____
George Galloway has warned the US and its allies in the Gulf that if they were to
start "World War III" with an attack on Iran they will live to regret it because, unlike
Iraq in 2003, they are capable of fighting back.
The Scottish firebrand, who famously took US lawmakers to task over the Iraq war when
he testified in front of the senate in 2005, has given his take on the recent
ratcheting-up of tension in the Gulf region after Iran shot down a US drone, which, it
says, had entered its airspace.
Washington maintains its UAV was shot down while patrolling over international waters
in an "unprovoked attack." On Friday President Donald Trump took to Twitter to claim the
US were 10 minutes away from bombing three Iranian sites, before calling off the
strikes.
Galloway believes that many Iranians would see it as a great "pleasure to fight the
United States and its allies in the region."
In a stark warning to US allies such as Qatar, the UAE and Saudia Arabia, Galloway
insisted that any country that allows "its land to be used for the launching for an
American attack on Iran will itself be immediately in flames."
The former Labour MP concludes his passionate message to the world by declaring: "No
more war. No more war in the Gulf. No war on Iran."
It is true that Trump needs to fire acting President Bolton. Bolton who was appointed to
the NSA by Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli/American oligarch, will not allow Trump to fire
Bolton; otherwise, he loses millions of $$$$. The pressure is also from Adelson and his
neocon ilk.
I don't think my opinion has changed. There've been several cases where they've been
about to attack Iran, but then have drawn back. Spring 2018 (Israel), 2012, even the
event of 1980, where they tried but failed. Trump's aborted attack is just another case.
Iran is a big country, and won't be defeated unless the people are ready to abandon
the regime. They aren't as far as I can detect. The exiles, and the middle class in Iran,
hate the regime. I've just had a lot of that poured into my ears, during my visit to Iran
a month ago. The popular feeling though doesn't seem to have abandoned the regime. I
think we can expect a nationalist resistance, if indeed Trump does attack Iran.
@Oscar Peterson #151
China has been complying with US sanctions on Iran, for example this article notes that
China
stopped buying oil from Iran .
US direct trade with Iran isn't so much as issue as the US stopping Europe and China from
trading with Iran.
The current conflict is about the US hegemony in the region, not anything else.
The analysis is really good. I especially like "The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to
foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender"
That means that Doug Bandow
proposals while good are completely unrealistic.
Notable quotes:
"... Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle East. ..."
"... Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are? ..."
"... Washington did much to encourage a violent, extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn. ..."
"... The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace. ..."
"... Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well. Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran. ..."
"... Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism. ..."
"... Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington, ascendant in Tehran. ..."
"... Europeans also point to Bush administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War. Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response. ..."
"... Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the mother of all Mideast conflagrations. ..."
"... In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions, requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. ..."
"... Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires a freer society. ..."
Sixteen years ago, the George W. Bush administration manipulated intelligence to scare the public into backing an aggressive war
against Iraq. The smoking gun mushroom clouds that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice warned against didn’t exist, but the
invasion long desired by neoconservatives and other hawks proceeded. Liberated Iraqis rejected U.S. plans to create an American puppet
state on the Euphrates and the aftermath turned into a humanitarian and geopolitical catastrophe which continues to roil the Middle
East.
Thousands of dead Americans, tens of thousands of wounded and maimed U.S. personnel, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, and
millions of Iraqis displaced. There was the sectarian conflict, destruction of the historic Christian community, the creation of
Al Qaeda in Iraq—which morphed into the far deadlier Islamic State—and the enhanced influence of Iran. The prime question was how
could so many supposedly smart people be so stupid?
Now the Trump administration appears to be following the same well-worn path. The president has fixated on Iran, tearing up the
nuclear accord with Tehran and declaring economic war on it—as well as anyone dealing with Iran. He is pushing America toward war
even as he insists that he wants peace. How stupid does he believe we are?
The Iranian regime is malign. Nevertheless, despite being under almost constant siege it has survived longer than the U.S.-crafted
dictatorship which preceded the Islamic Republic. And the latter did not arise in a vacuum. Washington did much to encourage a violent,
extremist revolution in Tehran. The average Iranian could be forgiven for viewing America as a virulently hostile power determined
to do his or her nation ill at almost every turn.
In 1953 the United States backed a coup against democratically selected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Washington then aided
the Shah in consolidating power, including the creation of the secret police, known as SAVAK. He forcibly modernized Iran’s still
conservative Islamic society, while his corrupt and repressive rule united secular and religious Iranians against him.
The Shah was ousted in 1979. Following his departure the Reagan administration backed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran,
triggering an eight-year war which killed at least half a million people. Washington reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect revenue
subsequently lent to Baghdad, provided Iraq with intelligence for military operations, and supplied components for chemical weapons
employed against Iranian forces. In 1988 the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in international airspace.
Economic sanctions were first imposed on Iran in 1979 and regularly expanded thereafter. Washington forged a close military partnership
with Iran’s even more repressive rival, Saudi Arabia. In the immediate aftermath of its 2003 victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush
administration rejected Iran’s offer to negotiate; neoconservatives casually suggested that “real men” would conquer Tehran as well.
Even the Obama administration threatened to take military action against Iran.
As Henry Kissinger reportedly once said, even a paranoid can have enemies. Contrary to the common assumption in Washington that
average Iranians would love the United States for attempting to destroy their nation’s economy, the latest round of sanctions apparently
triggered a notable rise in anti-American sentiment. Nationalism trumped anti-clericalism.
The hostile relationship with Iran also has allowed Saudi Arabia, which routinely undercuts American interests and values, to
gain a dangerous stranglehold over U.S. policy. To his credit President Barack Obama attempted to rebalance Washington’s Mideast
policy. The result was the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It provided for an intrusive inspection regime designed
to discourage any future Iranian nuclear weapons program—which U.S. intelligence indicated had been inactive since 2003.
However, candidate Donald Trump had an intense and perverse desire to overturn every Obama policy. His tight embrace of Israeli
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ignored the advice of his security chiefs in denouncing the accord, and the Saudi royals,
who Robert Gates once warned would fight Iran to the last American, also likely played an important role.
Last year the president withdrew from the accord and followed with a declaration of economic war. He then declared the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military organization, to be a terrorist group. (Washington routinely uses the “terrorist” designation
for purely political purposes.) Finally, there are reports, officially denied by Washington, that U.S. forces, allied with Islamist
radicals—the kind of extremists responsible for most terrorist attacks on Americans—have been waging a covert war against Iranian
smuggling operations.
The president claimed that he wanted to negotiate: “We aren’t looking for regime change,” he said. “We are looking for no nuclear
weapons.” But that is what the JCPOA addressed. His policy is actually pushing Tehran to expand its nuclear program. Moreover, last
year Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a speech that the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian, who spent more than a year in
Iranian prison, called “silly” and “completely divorced from reality.”
In a talk to an obsequious Heritage Foundation audience, Pompeo set forth the terms of Tehran’s surrender: Iran would be expected
to abandon any pretense of maintaining an independent foreign policy and yield its deterrent missile capabilities, leaving it subservient
to Saudi Arabia, with the latter’s U.S.-supplied and -trained military. Tehran could not even cooperate with other governments, such
as Syria, at their request. The only thing missing from Pompeo’s remarks was insistence that Iran accept an American governor-general
in residence.
The proposal was a nonstarter and looked like the infamous 1914 Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, which was intended to be
rejected and thereby justify war. After all, National Security Advisor John Bolton expressed his policy preference in a 2015 New
York Times op-ed titled: “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” Whatever the president’s true intentions, Tehran can be forgiven for
seeing Washington’s position as one of regime change, by war if necessary.
The administration apparently assumed that new, back-breaking sanctions would either force the regime to surrender at the conference
table or collapse amid political and social conflict. Indeed, when asked if he really believed sanctions would change Tehran’s behavior,
Pompeo answered that “what can change is, the people can change the government.” Both Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations have recently argued that the Islamic Republic is an exhausted
regime, one that is perhaps on its way to extinction.
However, Rezaian says “there is nothing new” about Tehran’s difficult Iranian economic problems. “Assuming that this time around
the Iranian people can compel their government to bend to America’s will seems—at least to anyone who has spent significant time
in Iran in recent decades—fantastical,” he said. Gerecht enthusiasm for U.S. warmaking has led to mistakes in the past. He got Iraq
wrong seventeen years ago when he wrote that “a war with Iraq might not shake up the Middle East much at all.
Today the administration is using a similar strategy against Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. The citizens of these countries
have not risen against their oppressors to establish a new, democratic, pro-American regime. Numerous observers wrongly predicted
that the Castro regime would die after the end of Soviet subsidies and North Korea’s inevitable fall in the midst of a devastating
famine. Moreover, regime collapse isn’t likely to yield a liberal, democratic republic when the most radical, authoritarian elites
remain best-armed.
... ... ...
More important, Washington does not want to go to war with Iran, which is larger than Iraq, has three times the population, and
is a real country. The regime, while unpopular with many Iranians, is much better rooted than Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Tehran
possesses unconventional weapons, missiles, and allies which could spread chaos throughout the region. American forces in Syria and
Iraq would be vulnerable, while Baghdad’s stability could be put at risk. If Americans liked the Iraq debacle, then they would love
the chaos likely to result from attempting to violently destroy the Iranian state. David Frum, one of the most avid neoconservative
advocates of the Iraq invasion, warned that war with Iran would repeat Iraqi blunders on “a much bigger sale, without allies, without
justification, and without any plan at all for what comes next.”
Iran also has no desire for war, which it would lose. However, Washington’s aggressive economic and military policies create pressure
on Tehran to respond. Especially since administration policy—sanctions designed to crash the economy, military moves preparing for
war — almost certainly have left hardliners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who opposed negotiations with Washington,
ascendant in Tehran.
Carefully calibrated military action, such as tanker attacks, might be intended to show “resolve” to gain credibility. Washington
policymakers constantly justify military action as necessary to demonstrate that they are willing to take military action. Doing
so is even more important for a weaker power. Moreover, observed the Eurasia Group, Iranian security agencies “have a decades-long
history of conducting attacks and other operations aimed precisely at undermining the diplomatic objectives of a country’s elected
representatives.” If Iran is responsible, observed Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, then administration policy perversely
“is rendering Iran more aggressive, not less,” thereby making the Mideast more, not less dangerous
Of course, Tehran has denied any role in the attacks and there is good reason to question unsupported Trump administration claims
of Iranian guilt. The president’s indifferent relationship to the truth alone raises serious questions. Europeans also point to Bush
administration lies about Iraq and the fabricated 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident used to justify America’s entry into the Vietnam War.
Even more important, the administration ostentatiously fomented the current crisis by trashing the JCPOA, launching economic war
against Iran, threatening Tehran’s economic partners, and insisting on Iran’s submission. A cynic might reasonably conclude that
the president and his aides hoped to trigger a violent Iranian response.
Other malicious actors also could be responsible for tanker attacks. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, ISIS, and Al
Qaeda all likely believe they would benefit from an American war on Tehran and might decide to speed the process along by fomenting
an incident. Indeed, a newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family recently called for U.S. strikes on Iran. One or the reasons Al
Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks was to trigger an American military response against a Muslim nation. A U.S.-Iran war would be the
mother of all Mideast conflagrations.
Rather than continue a military spiral upward, Washington should defuse Gulf tensions. The administration brought the Middle East
to a boil. It can calm the waters. Washington should stand down its military, offering to host multilateral discussions with oil
consuming nations, energy companies, and tanker operators over establishing shared naval security in sensitive waterways, including
in the Middle East. Given America’s growing domestic energy production, the issue no longer should be considered Washington’s responsibility.
Other wealthy industrialized states should do what is necessary for their economic security.
The administration also should make a serious proposal for talks. It won’t be easy. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
declared “negotiation has no benefit and carries harm.” He further argued that “negotiations are a tactic of this pressure,” which
is the ultimate “strategic aim.” Even President Hassan Rouhani rejected contact without a change in U.S. policy. “Whenever they lift
the unjust sanctions and fulfill their commitments and return to the negotiations table, which they left themselves, the door is
not closed,” he said. In back channel discussions Iranians supposedly suggested that the U.S. reverse the latest sanctions, at least
on oil sales, ending attempts to wreck Iran’s economy.
If the president seriously desires talks with Tehran, then he should demonstrate that he does not expect preemptive surrender.
The administration should suspend its “maximum pressure” campaign and propose multilateral talks on tightening the nuclear agreement
in return for additional American and allied concessions, such as further sanctions relief.
In parallel, Washington should propose negotiations to lower tensions in other issues. But there truly should be no preconditions,
requiring the president to consign the Pompeo list to a White House fireplace. In return for Iranian willingness to drop confrontational
behavior in the region, the U.S. should offer to reciprocate—for instance, indicate a willingness to cut arms sales to the Saudis
and Emiratis, end support for the Yemen war, and withdraw American forces from Syria and Iraq. Tehran has far greater interest in
neighborhood security than the United States, which Washington must respect if the latter seeks to effectively disarm Iran. The administration
should invite the Europeans to join such an initiative, since they have an even greater reason to worry about Iranian missiles and
more.
Most important, American policymakers should play the long-game. Rather than try to crash the Islamic Republic and hope for the
best, Washington should encourage Iran to open up, creating more opportunity and influence for a younger generation that desires
a freer society. That requires greater engagement, not isolation. Washington’s ultimate objective should be the liberal transformation
of Iran, freeing an ancient civilization to regain its leading role in today’s world, which would have a huge impact on the region.
The Trump administration is essentially a one-trick pony when it comes to foreign policy toward hostile states. The standard quo
is to apply massive economic pressure and demand surrender. This approach has failed in every case. Washington has caused enormous
economic hardship, but no target regime has capitulated. In Iran, like North Korea, U.S. policy sharply raised tensions and the chances
of conflict.
War would be a disaster. Instead, the administration must, explained James Fallows, “through bluff and patience, change the actions
of a government whose motives he does not understand well, and over which his influence is limited.” Which requires the administration
to adopt a new, more serious strategy toward Tehran, and quickly.
Bolton is just Albright of different sex. The same aggressive stupidity.
Notable quotes:
"... Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob... ..."
"... How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem appropriate. ..."
"... Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity. ..."
"... Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela. ..."
"... "If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." ..."
"... Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe. ..."
"... Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states. ..."
"... Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. ..."
"... The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government. This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious hypocrisy and bias, and more. ..."
"... At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia. ..."
"... Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established by Washington's far-sighted leaders. ..."
"... When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." ..."
"... For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal of Albright and her peers in The Blob. ..."
Albright typifies the arrogance and hawkishness of Washington blob...
How to describe US foreign policy over the last couple of decades? Disastrous comes to mind. Arrogant and murderous also seem
appropriate.
Since 9/11, Washington has been extraordinarily active militarily -- invading two nations, bombing and droning several others,
deploying special operations forces in yet more countries, and applying sanctions against many. Tragically, the threat of Islamist
violence and terrorism only have metastasized. Although Al Qaeda lost its effectiveness in directly plotting attacks, it continues
to inspire national offshoots. Moreover, while losing its physical "caliphate" the Islamic State added further terrorism to its portfolio.
Three successive administrations have ever more deeply ensnared the United States in the Middle East. War with Iran appears to
be frighteningly possible. Ever-wealthier allies are ever-more dependent on America. Russia is actively hostile to the United States
and Europe. Washington and Beijing appear to be a collision course on far more than trade. Yet the current administration appears
convinced that doing more of the same will achieve different results, the best definition of insanity.
Despite his sometimes abusive and incendiary rhetoric, the president has departed little from his predecessors' policies. For
instance, American forces remain deployed in Afghanistan and Syria. Moreover, the Trump administration has increased its military
and materiel deployments to Europe. Also, Washington has intensified economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and
even penalized additional countries, namely Venezuela.
U.S. foreign policy suffers from systematic flaws in the thinking of the informal policy collective which former Obama aide Ben
Rhodes dismissed as "The Blob." Perhaps no official better articulated The Blob's defective precepts than Madeleine Albright, United
Nations ambassador and Secretary of State.
First is overweening hubris. In 1998 Secretary of State Albright declared that
"If we have to use force, it is because we are America: we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than
other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."
Even then her claim was implausible. America blundered into the Korean War and barely achieved a passable outcome. The Johnson
administration infused Vietnam with dramatically outsize importance. For decades, Washington foolishly refused to engage the People's
Republic of China. Washington-backed dictators in Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere fell ingloriously. An economic embargo against
Cuba that continues today helped turn Fidel Castro into a global folk hero. Washington veered dangerously close to nuclear war with
Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and again two decades later during military exercises in Europe.
U.S. officials rarely were prepared for events that occurred in the next week or month, let alone years later. Americans did no
better than the French in Vietnam. Americans managed events in Africa no better than the British, French, and Portuguese colonial
overlords. Washington made more than its share of bad, even awful decisions in dealing with other nations around the globe.
Perhaps the worst failing of U.S. foreign policy was ignoring the inevitable impact of foreign intervention. Americans would never
passively accept another nation bombing, invading, and occupying their nation, or interfering in their political system. Even if
outgunned, they would resist. Yet Washington has undertaken all of these practices, with little consideration of the impact on those
most affected -- hence the rise of terrorism against the United States. Terrorism, horrid and awful though it is, became the weapon
of choice of weaker peoples against intervention by the world's industrialized national states.
The U.S. record since September 11 has been uniquely counterproductive. Rather than minimize hostility toward America, Washington
adopted a policy -- highlighted by launching new wars, killing more civilians, and ravaging additional societies -- guaranteed to
create enemies, exacerbate radicalism, and spread terrorism. Blowback is everywhere. Among the worst examples: Iraqi insurgents mutated
into ISIS, which wreaked military havoc throughout the Middle East and turned to terrorism.
Albright's assumption that members of The Blob were far-seeing was matched by her belief that the same people were entitled to
make life-and-death decisions for the entire planet. When queried 1996 about her justification for sanctions against Iraq which had
killed a half million babies -- notably, she did not dispute the accuracy of that estimate -- she responded that "I think this is
a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." Exactly who "we" were she did not say. Most likely she meant
those Americans admitted to the foreign policy priesthood, empowered to make foreign policy and take the practical steps necessary
to enforce it. (She later stated of her reply: "I never should have made it. It was stupid." It was, but it reflected her mindset.)
In any normal country, such a claim would be shocking -- a few people sitting in another capital deciding who lived and died.
Foreign elites, a world away from the hardship that they imposed, deciding the value of those dying versus the purported interests
being promoted. Those paying the price had no voice in the decision, no way to hold their persecutors accountable.
The willingness to so callously sacrifice so many helps explain why "they" often hate us, usually meaning the U.S. government.
This is also because "they" believe average Americans hate them. Understandably, it too often turns out, given the impact of the
full range of American interventions -- imposing economic sanctions, bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, unleashing drone
campaigns, underwriting tyrannical regimes, supporting governments which occupy and oppress other peoples, displaying ostentatious
hypocrisy and bias, and more.
This mindset is reinforced by contempt toward even those being aided by Washington. Although American diplomats had termed the
Kosovo Liberation Army as "terrorist," the Clinton Administration decided to use the growing insurgency as an opportunity to expand
Washington's influence. At the 1999 Rambouillet conference Albright made demands of Yugoslavia that no independent, sovereign state
could accept: that, for instance, it act like defeated and occupied territory by allowing the free transit of NATO forces. Washington
expected the inevitable refusal, which was calculated to provide justification for launching an unprovoked, aggressive war against
the Serb-dominated remnant of Yugoslavia.
However, initially the KLA, determined on independence, refused to sign Albright's agreement. She exploded. One of her officials
anonymously complained: "Here is the greatest nation on earth pleading with some nothingballs to do something entirely in their own
interest -- which is to say yes to an interim agreement -- and they stiff us." Someone described as "a close associate" observed:
"She is so stung by what happened. She's angry at everyone -- the Serbs, the Albanians and NATO." For Albright, the determination
of others to achieve their own goals, even at risk to their lives, was an insult to America and her.
Alas, members of the Blob view Americans with little more respect. The ignorant masses should do what they are told. (Former National
Security Adviser H.R. McMaster recently complained of public war-weariness from fighting in Afghanistan for no good reason for more
than seventeen years.) Even more so, believed Albright, members of the military should cheerfully patrol the quasi-empire being established
by Washington's far-sighted leaders.
As Albright famously asked Colin Powell in 1992:
"What's the use of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" To her, American military personnel
apparently were but gambit pawns in a global chess game, to be sacrificed for the interest and convenience of those playing. No
wonder then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell's reaction stated in his autobiography was: "I thought I would
have an aneurysm."
When asked in 2003 about the incident, she said "what I thought was that we had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking
that we were never going to be able to use our military effectively again." Although sixty-five years had passed, she
admitted that "my mindset is Munich," a unique circumstance and threat without even plausible parallel today.
Such a philosophy explains a 1997 comment by a cabinet member, likely Albright, to General Hugh Shelton, then Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff: "Hugh, I know I shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out
Saddam is a precipitous event -- something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s
fly low enough -- and slow enough -- so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?" He responded sure, as soon as she qualified
to fly the plane.
For Albright, war is just another foreign policy tool. One could send a diplomatic note, impose economic sanctions, or unleash
murder and mayhem. No reason to treat the latter as anything special. Joining the U.S. military means putting your life at the disposal
of Albright and her peers in The Blob.
Anyone of these comments could be dismissed as a careless aside. Taken together, however, they reflect an attitude dangerous for
Americans and foreigners alike. Unfortunately, the vagaries of U.S. foreign policy suggest that this mindset is not limited to any
one person. Any president serious about taking a new foreign-policy direction must do more than drain the swamp. He or she must sideline
The Blob.
"... Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext for war. ..."
"... U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members. The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia. ..."
"... It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations were saying in private. ..."
"... "Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'" Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii] ..."
"... As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern. ..."
"... Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section of the text states: ..."
"... Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region. ..."
"... Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months, Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii] ..."
"... The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air. ..."
"... The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii] ..."
"... Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise. ..."
"... Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich ..."
Twenty years have passed since the U.S.-orchestrated NATO attack on Yugoslavia. As the United States readied its forces for
war in 1999, it organized a peace conference that was ostensibly intended to resolve differences between the Yugoslav government
and secessionist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo on the future status of the province. A different scenario was being played out behind
the scenes, however. U.S. officials wanted war and deliberately set up the process to fail, which they planned to use as a pretext
for war.
The talks opened on February 6, 1999, in Rambouillet, France. Officially, the negotiations were led by a Contact Group comprised
of U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia Christopher Hill , European Union envoy Wolfgang Petritsch , and Russian diplomat Boris Mayorsky
. All decisions were supposed to be jointly agreed upon by all three members of the Contact Group. In actual practice, the U.S. ran
the show all the way and routinely bypassed Petritsch and Mayorsky on essential matters.
Ibrahim Rugova , an ethnic Albanian activist who advocated nonviolence, was expected to play a major role in the Albanian secessionist
delegation. Joining him at Rambouillet was Fehmi Agani , a fellow member of Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright regularly sidelined Rugova, however, preferring to rely on delegation members from
the hardline Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which had routinely murdered Serbs, Roma, and Albanians in Kosovo who worked for the government
or opposed separatism. Only a few months before the conference, KLA spokesman Bardhyl Mahmuti spelled out his organization's vision
of a future Kosovo as separate and ethnically pure:
"The independence of Kosovo is the only solution We cannot live together. That is excluded." [i]
Rugova had at one time engaged in fairly productive talks with Yugoslav officials, and his willingness to negotiate was no doubt
precisely the reason Albright relegated him to a background role. Yugoslav Minister of Information Milan Komnenić accompanied the
Yugoslav delegation to Rambouillet. He recalls,
"With Rugova and Fehmi Agani it was possible to talk; they were flexible. In Rambouillet, [KLA leader Hashim] Thaçi appears
instead of Rugova. A beast." [ii]
There was no love between Thaçi and Rugova, whose party members were the targets of threats and assassination attempts at the
hands of the KLA. Rugova himself would survive an assassination attempt six years later.
The composition of the Yugoslav delegation reflected its position that many ethnic groups resided in Kosovo, and any agreement
arrived at should take into account the interests of all parties. All of Kosovo's major ethnic groups were represented in the delegation.
Faik Jashari , one of the Albanian members in the Yugoslav delegation, was president of the Kosovo Democratic Initiative and an official
in the Provisional Executive Council, which was Yugoslavia's government in Kosovo. Jashari observed that Albright was startled when
she saw the composition of the Yugoslav delegation, apparently because it went against the U.S. propaganda narrative. [iii] Throughout
the talks, Albright displayed a dismissive attitude towards the delegation's Albanian, Roma, Egyptian, Goran, Turkish, and Slavic
Muslim members.
U.S. mediators habitually referred to the Yugoslav delegation as "the Serbs," even though they constituted a minority of the members.
The Americans persisted in trying to cast events in Kosovo as a simplistic binary relationship of Serb versus Albanian, disregarding
the presence of other ethnic groups in the province, and ignoring the fact that while some ethnic Albanians favored separation, others
wished to remain in multiethnic Yugoslavia.
After arriving at Rambouillet, the secessionist Albanian delegation informed U.S. diplomats that it did not want to meet with
the Yugoslav side. Aside from a brief ceremonial meeting, there was no direct contact between the two groups. The Yugoslav and Albanian
delegations were placed on two different floors to eliminate nearly all contact. U.S. mediators Richard Holbrooke and Christopher
Hill ran from one delegation to the other, conveying notes and verbal messages between the two sides but mostly trying to coerce
the Yugoslav delegation. [iv]
Luan Koka, a Roma member of the Yugoslav delegation, noted that the U.S. was operating an electronic jamming device.
"We knew exactly when Madeleine Albright was coming. Connections on our mobile phones were breaking up and going crazy." [v]
It is probable that the U.S. was also operating electronic listening equipment and that U.S. mediators knew everything the delegations
were saying in private.
Albright, Jashari said, would not listen to anyone.
"She had her task, and she saw only that task. You couldn't say anything to her. She didn't want to talk with us and didn't
want to listen to our arguments." [vi]
One day it was Koka's birthday, and the Yugoslav delegation wanted to encourage a more relaxed atmosphere with U.S. mediators,
inviting them to a cocktail party to mark the occasion.
"It was a slightly more pleasant atmosphere, and I was singing," Koka recalled. "I remember Madeleine Albright saying: 'I really
like partisan songs. But if you don't accept this, the bombs will fall.'" [vii]
According to delegation member Nikola Šainović ,
"Madeleine Albright told us all the time: 'If the Yugoslav delegation does not accept what we offer, you will be bombed.'"
Šainović added, "We agreed in Rambouillet to any form of autonomy for Kosovo," but sovereignty remained the red line. [viii]
From the beginning of the conference, U.S. mediator Christopher Hill "decided that what we really needed was an Albanian approval
of a document, and a Serb refusal. If both refused, there could be no further action by NATO or any other organization for that matter."
[ix] It was not peace that the U.S. team was seeking, but war.
As the conference progressed, U.S. negotiators were faced with an alarming problem, in that the Yugoslav delegation had accepted
all of the Contact Group's fundamental political principles for an agreement, balking only at a NATO presence in Kosovo. On the other
hand, the secessionist delegation rejected the Contact Group's political principles. Something had to be done to reverse this pattern.
On the second day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the Yugoslav delegation with the framework text of a provisional
agreement for peace and self-rule in Kosovo, but it was missing some of the annexes. The Yugoslavs requested a copy of the complete
document. As delegation head Ratko Marković pointed out,
"Any objections to the text of the agreement could be made only after an insight into the text as a whole had been obtained."
Nearly one week passed before the group received one of the missing annexes. That came on the day the conference had originally
been set to end. The deadline was extended, and two days later a second missing annex was provided to the Yugoslav delegation.[x]
When the Yugoslavs next met with the Contact Group, they were assured that all elements of the text had now been given to them.
Several more days passed and at 7:00 PM on February 22, the penultimate day of the conference, the Contact Group presented three
new annexes, which the Yugoslavs had never seen before. According to Marković, "Russian Ambassador Boris Mayorsky informed our delegation
that Annexes 2 and 7 had not been discussed or approved by the Contact Group and that they were not the texts drafted by the Contact
Group but by certain Contact Group members, while Annex 5 was discussed, but no decision was made on it at the Contact Group meeting."
The Yugoslav delegation refused to accept the new annexes, as their introduction had violated the process whereby all proposals had
to be agreed upon by the three Contact Group members. [xi]
At 9:30 AM on February 23, the final day of the conference, U.S. officials presented the full text of the proposal, containing
yet more provisions that were being communicated for the first time. The accompanying note identified the package as the definitive
text while adding that Russia did not support two of the articles. The letter demanded the Yugoslav delegation's decision by 1:00
PM that same day.[xii] There was barely time enough to carefully read the text, let alone negotiate. In essence, it was an ultimatum.
Quite intentionally, U.S. mediators included provisions in the final version of the text that no sovereign nation could be expected
to accept. Neoliberal economic interests are always front and center when U.S. officials are involved, and they surely were not unaware
of Kosovo's abundant reserves of mineral resources, ripe for exploitation. The first point in Article 1 of the Economic Issues section
of the text states:
"The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free market principles."
Western investors were favored with a provision stating that authorities shall "ensure the free movement of persons, goods, services,
and capital to Kosovo, including from international sources." [xiii] One may wonder what these stipulations had to do with peace
negotiations, but then the talks had far more to do with U.S. interests than anything to do with the needs of the people in the region.
The document called for a Western-led Joint Commission including local representatives to monitor and coordinate the implementation
of the plan. However, if commission members failed to reach consensus on a matter, the Western-appointed Chair would have the power
to impose his decision unilaterally. [xiv] Local representatives would serve as little more than window-dressing for Western dictate,
as they could adopt no measure that went against the Chair's wishes.
The Chair of the Implementation Mission was authorized to "recommend" the "removal and appointment of officials and the curtailment
of operations of existing institutions in Kosovo." If the Chair's command was not obeyed "in the time requested, the Joint Commission
may decide to take the recommended action," and since the Chair had the authority to impose his will on the Joint Commission, there
was no check on his power. He could remove elected and appointed officials at will and replace them with handpicked lackeys. The
Chair was also authorized to order the "curtailment of operations of existing institutions." [xv]Any organization that failed to
bend to U.S. demands could be shut down.
Chapter 7 of the plan called for the parties to "invite NATO to constitute and lead a military force" in Kosovo. [xvi]The choice
of words was interesting. In language reminiscent of gangsters, Yugoslavia was told to "invite" NATO to take over the province of
Kosovo or suffer the consequences.
Yugoslavia was required "to provide, at no cost, the use of all facilities and services required" by NATO. [xvii]Within six months,
Yugoslavia would have to withdraw all of its military forces from Kosovo, other than a small number of border guards. [xviii]
The plan granted NATO "unrestricted use of the entire electromagnetic spectrum" to "communicate." Although the document indicated
NATO would make "reasonable efforts to coordinate," there were no constraints on its power. [xix] Yugoslav officials, "upon simple
request," would be required to grant NATO "all telecommunication services, including broadcast services free of cost." [xx]NATO could
take over any radio and television facilities and transmission wavelengths it chose, knocking local stations off the air.
The plan did not restrict NATO's presence to Kosovo. It granted NATO, with its "vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free
and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]." [xxi] NATO would be "granted
the use of airports, roads, rails, and ports without payment of fees, duties, dues, tools, or charges." [xxii]
The agreement guaranteed that NATO would have "complete and unimpeded freedom of movement by ground, air, and water into and throughout
Kosovo." Furthermore, NATO personnel could not be held "liable for any damages to public or private property." [xxiii] NATO as a
whole would also be "immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or criminal," regardless of its actions anywhere
on the territory of Yugoslavia. [xxiv]Nor could NATO personnel be arrested, detained, or investigated. [xxv]
Acceptance of the plan would have brought NATO troops swarming throughout Yugoslavia and interfering in every institution.
There were several other objectionable elements in the plan, but one that stood out was the call for an "international" (meaning,
Western-led) meeting to be held after three years "to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo."[xxvi] It was no mystery
to the Yugoslav delegation what conclusion Western officials would arrive at in that meeting. The intent was clearly to redraw Yugoslavia's
borders to further break apart the nation.
U.S. officials knew the Yugoslav delegation could not possibly accept such a plan.
"We deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs could accept," Madeleine Albright confided to a group of journalists, "because
they needed a little bombing." [xxvii]
At a meeting in Belgrade on March 5, the Yugoslav delegation issued a statement which declared:
"A great deceit was looming, orchestrated by the United States. They demanded that the agreement be signed, even though much
of this agreement, that is, over 56 pages, had never been discussed, either within the Contact Group or during the negotiations."
[xxviii]
Serbian President Milan Milutinović announced at a press conference that in Rambouillet the Yugoslav delegation had "proposed
solutions meeting the demands of the Contact Group for broad autonomy within Serbia, advocating full equality of all national communities."
But "agreement was not what they were after." Instead, Western officials engaged in "open aggression," and this was a game "about
troops and troops alone." [xxix]
While U.S. officials were working assiduously to avoid a peaceful resolution, they needed the Albanians to agree to the plan so
that they could accuse the Yugoslav delegation of being the stumbling block to peace. U.S. mainstream media could be counted on to
unquestioningly repeat the government's line and overlook who the real architects of failure were. U.S. officials knew the media
would act in their customary role as cheerleaders for war, which indeed, they did.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook revealed the nature of the message Western officials were conveying to the Albanian delegation
when he said,
"We are certainly saying to the Kosovo Albanians that if you don't sign up to these texts, it's extremely difficult to see
how NATO could then take action against Belgrade." [xxx]
Western officials were practically begging the secessionists to sign the plan. According to inside sources, the Americans assured
the Albanian delegation that disarmament of the KLA would be merely symbolic and that it could keep the bulk of its weaponry so long
as it was concealed. [xxxi]
Albright spent hours trying to convince Thaçi to change his mind, telling him:
"If you say yes and the Serbs say no, NATO will strike and go on striking until the Serb forces are out and NATO can go in.
You will have security. And you will be able to govern yourselves." [xxxii]
That was a clear enough signal that the intent was to rip the province away from Yugoslavia and create an artificial state. Despite
such assurances, Thaçi feared the wrath of fellow KLA members if he were to sign a document that did not explicitly call for separation.
When U.S. negotiators asked Thaçi why he would not sign, he responded:
"If I agree to this, I will go home and they will kill me." [xxxiii]
This was not hyperbole. The KLA had threatened and murdered a great many Albanians who in its eyes fell short of full-throated
support for its policy of violent secession and ethnic exclusion.
Even NATO Commander Wesley Clark , who flew in from Belgium, was unable to change Thaçi's mind. [xxxiv] U.S. officials were exasperated
with the Albanian delegation, and its recalcitrance threatened to capsize plans for war.
"Rambouillet was supposed to be about putting the screws to Belgrade," a senior U.S. official said. "But it went off the rails
because of the miscalculation we made about the Albanians." [xxxv]
On the last day at Rambouillet, it was agreed that the Albanian delegation would return to Kosovo for discussions with fellow
KLA leaders on the need to sign the document. In the days that followed, Western officials paid repeated visits to Kosovo to encourage
the Albanians to sign.
So-called "negotiations" reconvened in Paris on March 15. Upon its arrival, the Yugoslav delegation objected that it was "incomprehensible"
that "no direct talks between the two delegations had been facilitated." In response to the Yugoslavs' proposal for modifications
to the plan, the Contact Group informed them that no changes would be accepted. The document must be accepted as a whole. [xxxvi]
The Yugoslav position, delegation head Ratko Marković maintained, was that "first one needs to determine what is to be implemented,
and only then to determine the methods of implementation." [xxxvii]The delegation asked the Americans what there was to talk about
regarding implementation "when there was no agreement because the Albanians did not accept anything." U.S. officials responded that
the Yugoslav delegation "cannot negotiate," adding that it would only be allowed to make grammatical changes to the text. [xxxviii]
From the U.S. perspective, the presence of the Yugoslav delegation in Paris was irrelevant other than to maintain the pretense
that negotiations were taking place. Not permitted to negotiate, there was little the Yugoslavs could do but await the inevitable
result, which soon came. The moment U.S. officials obtained the Albanian delegation's signatures to the plan on March 18, they aborted
the Paris Conference. There was no reason to continue engaging with the Yugoslav delegation, as the U.S. had what it needed: a pretext
for war.
On the day after the U.S. pulled the plug on the Paris talks, Milan Milutinović held a press conference in the Yugoslav embassy,
condemning the Paris meeting as "a kind of show," which was meant "to deceive public opinion in the whole world." [xxxix]
While the United States and its NATO allies prepared for war, Yugoslavia was making last-ditch efforts to stave off attack, including
reaching out to intermediaries. Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos contacted Madeleine Albright and told her that Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milošević had offered to engage in further negotiations. But Albright told him that the decision to bomb had already
been made. "In fact," Pangalos reported, "she told me to 'desist, you're just being a nuisance.'" [xl] In a final act of desperation
to save the people from bombing, Milutinović contacted Christopher Hill and made an extraordinary offer: Yugoslavia would join NATO
if the United States would allow Yugoslavia to remain whole, including the province of Kosovo. Hill responded that this was not a
topic for discussion and he would not talk about it. [xli]
Madeleine Albright got her war, which brought death, destruction, and misery to Yugoslavia. But NATO had a new role, and the United
States further extended its hegemony over the Balkans.
In the years following the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, NATO was intent on redefining its mission. The absence
of the socialist bloc presented NATO not only with the need to construct a new rationale for existence but also with the opportunity
to expand Western domination over other nations.
Bosnia offered the first opportunity for NATO to begin its transformation, as it took part in a war that presented no threat to
member nations.
Bombing Yugoslavia was meant to solidify the new role for NATO as an offensive military force, acting on behalf of U.S. imperial
interests. Since that time, NATO has attacked Libya, and engaged in military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of nations
in Africa. Despite NATO's claim that it is "committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes," the record shows otherwise.
*
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Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is
a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for
Voice of the People , and one of the co-authors of
Killing Democracy: CIA
and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period , published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force
to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is
https://gregoryelich.org . Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich
Andrew Bacevich
recalls Madeleine
Albright's infamous statement about American indispensability, and notes how poorly it has held up over the last twenty-one years:
Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class
hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."
In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping.
Albright's statement is even more damning for her and her fellow interventionists when we consider that the context of her remarks
was a discussion of the supposed threat from Iraq. The full sentence went like this: "We stand tall and we see further than other
countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." Albright was making a general claim about our supposed superiority
to other nations when it came to looking into the future, but she was also specifically warning against a "danger" from Iraq that
she claimed threatened "all of us." She answered
one of Matt Lauer's questions with this assertion:
I think that we know what we have to do, and that is help enforce the UN Security Council resolutions, which demand that Saddam
Hussein abide by those resolutions, and get rid of his weapons of mass destruction, and allow the inspectors to have unfettered
and unconditional access.
Albright's rhetoric from 1998 is a grim reminder that policymakers from both parties accepted the existence of Iraq's "weapons
of mass destruction" as a given and never seriously questioned a policy aimed at eliminating something that did not exist. American
hawks couldn't see further in the future. They weren't even perceiving the present correctly, and tens of thousands of Americans
and millions of Iraqis would suffer because they insisted that they saw something that wasn't there.
A little more than five years after she uttered these words, the same wild threat inflation that Albright was engaged in led
to the invasion of Iraq, the greatest blunder and one of the worst crimes in the history of modern U.S. foreign policy . Not
only did Albright and other later war supporters not see what was coming, but their deluded belief in being able to anticipate future
threats caused them to buy into and promote a bogus case for a war that was completely unnecessary and should never have been fought.
The first thing to say here is that we have no means to know what really happened. At the
very least, there are two possible hypotheses which could explain what took place:
1) a US provocation: it is quite possible that somebody in the US chain of command decided
that Iran should be put under pressure and that having US UAV fly right next to, or even just
inside, the international border of Iran would be a great way to show Iran that the US is ready
to attack. If that is the case, this was a semi-success (the Iranians had to switch on their
radars and attack the UAV which is very good for US intelligence gathering) and a semi-failure
(since the Iranians were clearly unimpressed by the US show of resolve).
2) an Iranian provocation: yup, that is a theoretical possibility which cannot reject
prima facie : in this scenario it was indeed the Iranians who blew up the two tankers
last week and they also deliberately shot down the US UAV over international waters. The goal?
Simple: to show that the Iranians are willing and ready to escalate and that they are confident
that they will prevail.
Now, in the real world, there are many more options, including even mixes of various
options. What matters is now not this, as much as Trump's reaction:
Now, whether this was a US provocation or an Iranian one – Trump's reaction was the
only correct one. Why? Because the risks involved in any US "more than symbolic strike" would
be so great as to void any rationale for such a strike in the first place. Think of it: we can
be very confident that the Iranian military installations along the Persian Gulf and the
southern border of Iran are highly redundant and that no matter how successful any limited US
missile strike would have been, the actual military capabilities of Iran would not have been
affected. The only way for the US to effectively degrade Iranian capabilities would be to have
a sustained, multi-day, attack on the entire southern periphery of Iran. In other words, a real
war. Anything short of that would simply be meaningless. The consequences of such an attack,
however, would be, in Putin's words "catastrophic" for the entire region.
If this was an Iranian provocation, then it was one designed to impress upon the Empire that
Iran is also very much "locked, cocked and ready to rock". But if that is the case, there is
zero change that any limited strike would achieve anything. In fact, any symbolic US attack
would only signal to the Iranians that the US has cold feet and that all the US sabre-rattling
is totally useless.
I have not said such a thing in many months, but in this case I can only admit that Trump
did the right thing. No limited attack also makes sense even if we assume that the Empire has
made the decision to attack Iran and is just waiting for the perfect time. Why? Because the
longer the Iranian feel that an attack is possible, the more time, energy and money they need
to spend remaining on very high alert.
The basic theory of attack and defense clearly states that the attacking side can gain as a
major advantage if it can leave the other side in the dark about its plans and if the costs of
being ready for a surprise attack are lower than the costs of being on high alert (those
interested in the role and importance of surprise attack in the theory of deterrence can read
Richard Betts' excellent book "
the longer the Iranian feel that an attack is possible, the more time, energy and money
they need to spend remaining on very high alert.
Yep. Men and material getting tired. Tired men and material make mistakes.
Smart.
As I've said plenty of times before, the "beauty" of the setup is that TPTBs simply create a
climate for a mistake resulting in loss of life of American personnel. BANG.
Or, you put two combat forces next to each other and ramp up the tension. Just a matter of time.
I am currently very slightly optimistic (48-52%) that the US will not attack Iran in the
short term. In the long term, however, I consider that an AngloZionist attack is a quasi certainty.
Yep. Short term being 3 months (related to the first paragraph).
Sean Hannity lives in the largest Mansion in Lloyd Neck I have driven past his Mansion to get
a look as to just how big it is IT'S HUGE ..Lloyd Neck has the most expensive zip code in the
US ..Hannity the Chicken-Hawk thinks he is even tougher Chicken-Hawk War Hawk now that he
studies MMA Serra Brazilian Ji-jitsu on Jericho Turnpike ..Yesterday Sean Hannity"My
philosophy is you hit me .I hit you back ten times harder" .of course, Sean will be hiding in
his mega-Mansion in Lloyd Neck .as the US Cargo Planes land in Virginia with a 100 stainless
steel coffins containing the bodies headless bodies of Native Born White American Working
Class Young Men Donald and Melania step inside the cargo bay to view the stainless steel
coffins ..
Military action needs to support the underlying political goals. And, the political goal is
to stop the Iranian regime from threatening and destabilizing the region.
Would killing 150+ Iranians help dislodge the violent regime? No. Thus, the proposed
strike did not align with the political goal. Trump was right to cancel it.
Think of it as the Putin Playbook. Did Putin go for mass casualties when Turkey shot down
one of its fighters in 2015? No. Both Putin and Trump show similar strength. Restraint
against precipitous, ill conceived, and overly bloody actions.
_____
Trump realizes that the Iranian people are the victims of sociopath Kahmeni. There will be
a response with minimal bloodshed. Instead it will focus on the regime. Deepening the divide
between the Iranian people and their despotic leaders prepares the path for internal
forces to replace those leaders.
Oil storage is a likely choice. The tanks are large and spilled oil is highly visible. It
would demonstrate the inability of the regime to stop the U.S. Storage facilities are visible
to the public, so the government would have trouble denying or misrepresenting the event.
Port facilities would also be a good choice, although that would be harder to time for few to
no casualties.
That's going overboard on precision though. And what's with the oil refinery in Pennsylvania going up into balls of flame. I hope this
won't get dragooned into an "Iranian sleeper cell attack".
The provocations have to be such that domestic acquiescence in elite war profit taking will
not be disturbed. That requires a series of propaganda events ramping up for domestic
consumption.
10 minutes from striking is worryingly close, and Trump's disclosures on the matter are
troubling. Apparently it was only at this late hour that Trump came around to asking for
specifics on how many Iranians his order would kill. The generals told him approximately
150.
This was the game-changer, and Trump was nominally ordering this attack over the shoot
down of a single US surveillance drone, and he rightly noticed that killing 150 people was
not very proportionate to that, fortunately, he called the attack off before the first
missiles were fired.
Trump went on to issue a flurry of Tweets saying Iran would never be allowed to have
nuclear weapons, which of course this entire almost-attack had not a thing to do with. He
also bragged about how much damage the US sanctions have done to Iran and how weakened Iran
already is.
Troublingly though, administration hawks were still able to get Trump to sign off on the
attack earlier on Thursday, and his assurances on Twitter suggest that the loss of the
single drone really didn't enter into it as a big issue for him. This raises ongoing
concerns that having called off the Thursday attack, Trump might be sold on a lesser attack
at any time, or at least something nominally different that gets carried out before he gets
around to asking about the casualties.
Why would you end your mis-analysis where you justify war with the word PEACE? Spelling it out in all CAPS? You are seriously proposing that the US has the right to judge the government of another
country and to deliberately destabilize that country in order to oerturn its governemtn?
Do you realize that economic sanctions are considered to be acts of war? In other words, you support acts of war and think that is PEACE? Are you insane?
Military action needs to support the underlying political goals. And, the political goal
is to stop the Iranian regime from threatening and destabilizing the region.
Yeah. Makes total sense from an Israeli/Saudi perspective. When bullshit is all there is,
Hollywood logic can be used to explain the world!
Trump realizes that the Iranian people are the victims of sociopath Kahmeni.
I hope you have been given a sheet with talking points, otherwise I pity you.
The Deep State never rests.
Dual treason sandwich via Reuters for Mr. Trump. It's really like living in a Nazi regime, with Heydrich walking the corridors,
blackmailing and manipulating and "disposing of" problem factors.
Iran's top national security official has denied a Reuters report claiming that Tehran
had received a low-key message via Oman from the US warning of an imminent attack on the
Islamic Republic.
"The US didn't send any message," Keyvan Khosravi, spokesman for the National Security
Council, told Iranian television.
The comment dismissed a previous report by Reuters, which cited unnamed Iranian
officials as saying that Donald Trump had warned Tehran of a military strike and also gave
a time to respond. The message was reportedly delivered via Oman and followed the downing
of a US spy UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) earlier in the week.
Hmm, so they shot down a drone; would they be able to shoot down every American plane that
entered their airspace? A good reason to call off the strike; if the Iranians had a missile
lock on every American plane. Having all their planes shot down would be an even worse defeat
for the United States than just calling off an attack.
Putin checks Trump.
The Iranians might be deciding to stand firm against US sanctions and other provocations as
de facto acts of war before the sanctions do materially impact the Iranian
economy and its military capability.
Recall the chicanery through which the United States surreptitiously provoked Japan into
attacking the United States at Pearl Harbor so that FDR, a committed Anglophile, could enter
the European war through the back door to save his British friends.
1. Via economic sanctions, the United States and its European colonial allies
systematically denied Japan the resources it needed to sustain its population and its
industrial economy.
2. Japan decided that it would have to act to obtain those resources or, accept its
eventual demise as a nation state.
3. FDR hinted to the Dutch that the newly-positioned naval resources at Pearl Harbor would
attack and cut the Japanese lines-of-communication per chance Japan struck south to obtain
oil, rubber, and other resources in Southeast Asia. This was intentionally leaked to the
Japanese.
4. The United States monitored the locations and progress of the Japanese fleet en route
to Pearl Harbor to protect its exposed flank per the above. Japanese naval resources were
under a communications blackout. However, the Japanese merchant marine supporting those
forces were not. The US monitored their locations as a proxy for the location of the Japanese
fleet. The rest is history
The Iranians are in a similar position: either fight now at the peak of their military
power or, fight for survival later at a significant economic and military disadvantage. Like
the Japanese, the Iranians would be wise to do the former. This strategy optimizes their
chances for national survival.
The first thing in is missiles that target air defense batteries. I doubt
the US is worried about Iran shooting down every plane. The drone probably was flying a
steady even course and took no evasive maneuvers unlike an attacking aircraft. The success
rate of surface to air missiles is not very high.
@TheJester1. Via economic sanctions, the United States and its European colonial
allies systematically denied Japan the resources it needed to sustain its population and its
industrial economy.
BS. The embargo was because Japan continued to occupy part of China. All they had to do
was go back home. Did FDR do it to get us into the war? Maybe, but Hitler was under no
obligation to declare war on the US since Japan did not declare war on the USSR when Hitler
attacked the USSR.
No limited attack also makes sense even if we assume that the Empire has made the
decision to attack Iran and is just waiting for the perfect time. Why? Because the longer
the Iranian feel that an attack is possible, the more time, energy and money they need to
spend remaining on very high alert.
Then
this might also be a strategic PSYOP destined to lull the Iranians into a false sense of
security. If that is the plan, it will fail: the Iranians have lived with a AngloZionist
bullseye painted on their heads ever since 1979 and they are used to live under constant
threat of war.
Trump Claims He Canceled an Airstrike Against Iran at the Very Last Minute
I one hundred percent support letting The Orange One continue on with his awesome cowboy
delusions as long as it keeps a war from starting.
My reaction:
"Wow, sir! You have such self-control! Those Iranians don't know how close they were to you
just kicking them back to the Stone Age! It's great that the better (wiser and more patient)
side of you won out in the end – you are awesome!"
WASHINGTON -- Maintaining that the unmanned aerial vehicle was simply going about its day
without posing a threat to anyone, U.S. Department of State officials claimed Thursday that
one of their drones was minding its own business on its way to church when Iran attacked it
out of nowhere. "This was an outrageous, unprovoked attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran on
an innocent drone who merely wanted to attend mass in peace," said acting Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo, emphasizing the drone's upstanding moral character by pointing out its history
of donating to charity, volunteering at soup kitchens, and making homemade cookies for school
bake sales. "We're talking about a drone that sings in the church choir and coaches little
league baseball games on the weekends -- an absolute pillar of the community. This is an
upstanding family drone who did nothing to deserve any sort of attack. What kind of world do
we live in where an innocent drone can't fly through Iranian air space on its way to church?"
At press time, Department of Defense officials confirmed that their request for Iran to
return the drone's body back to the U.S. for a proper burial had gone unanswered.
@MarkinLA Read Frazier Hunt, The Untold Story of Douglas MacArthur.
TheJester is right.
Yes, China was under Japanese occupation. The Chinese Communists were fighting the Japs.
The USA was supporting the side that was not fighting the Japs but the Communists, being, the
USA, fanatically anti-communist.
My guess is that the USA forced Japan into war because of the economic potential of China,
i.e. they wanted to take Japan's place.
And the USA didn't side with Hitler but with the other side because they didn't know
Indian independence would come immediately after the War. So they sided with the Brits
because of the apparent economic potential of the British Empire. If India had gained
independence just before the war the USA would have sided with Hitler, because then, without
India, German Europe would have had a greater economic potential than the British Empire.
The Iranians claim that a manned spy plane was next to the drone (i.e. that it also was in
their territory) but that they chose not to shoot it down since 35 soldiers were on board.
"Along with the American drone was an American P8 aircraft with 35 on board, and it was
also violating our airspace and we could have downed it too," he said, adding, "But we did
not do [shoot down] it, because our aim was to warn the terrorist forces of the US."
To me, a total cynic, it looks like the Americans attempted a repeat of the incident when
they deliberately misled their sailors so that they sailed into Iranian territorial waters. I
guess they messed up the GPS for them.
"Iran releases video of captured American sailor crying "
I too would cry if I realised that my superiors had set me up as a sacrificial lamb.
Let's not forget the attempt to sink the USS Liberty. That was a joint operation between
the US Deep State and Israel to try and get the US to attack Egypt.
"'But Sir, It's an American Ship.' 'Never Mind, Hit Her!' When Israel Attacked USS
Liberty"
@TheJester But why were sanctions imposed on Japan? Because Japan was acting in violation
of international law? Well yes due to Japanese imperial aggression against China. In 1935-40
Japan was no angelic virgin. It committed unprovoked aggression against China, committed
massive war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yes FDR likely wanted to have USA enter the
Pacific war to enable war against Hitler but the crippling sanctions against Japan had a
legitimate basis. To punish Japan for aggression in China
It looks like the Americans are having a false flag feast.
The positions in Iraq – whether directly or indirectly connected to the US
interests in Iraq – for example Baghdad, Basra and al-Taji base to Northwest of Baghdad
and Nineveh operations command headquarters in Northern Iraq have come under Katyusha missile
attacks in recent day, the Al-Akhbar newspaper reported.
The paper reiterated that the missile attacks have taken place as a result of recent
regional tensions, and said that the US officials are trying to portray the attacks as
messages by Iran after al-Fujaira and the Sea of Oman mishaps.
It noted that no group has claimed responsibility for the recent missile attacks on Iraqi
cities.
Sources close to Hashd al-Sha'abi Commander Abu Mohandes al-Mahdi, meantime, categorically
dismissed any accusations against the Iraqi popular and resistance forces, and said that the
Americans themselves are most probably behind some of these attacks because some of the
missiles are made in the US.
@HEREDOT Mr. Saker left out the inconvenient fact that while that drone was indeed flying
over Iranian air space, a much larger target, the Poseidon P8 was flying nearby. The P8 is a
converted Boeing 737, making for a much larger radar profile for that missile. The P8 has
many ASW capabilities, and also can control drones.
It's usual crew numbers nine, but this one had 35 sacrificial lambs packed onboard, to be
murdered by the (((Deep State))) to push Trump into the corner, with the (((MSM))) screaming
that it was Iran's fault, no proof needed or lies fabricated–just like the illegal
invasion of Iraq–to give Israel what it's demanding that its American colony do: Bomb,
bomb, bomb Iran.
My guess is that the American thugs behind this latest FF attempt were hoping the
Iranian surface-to-air missile would of shifted its initial target–the drone– and
went for the much larger P8.
That Butcher Boy Bolton and his fellow homicidal maniacs failed means that more Americans
are being lined up in their cross-hairs, ready to be sacrificed for the glory of Apartheid
Israel.
If that is the plan, it will fail: the Iranians have lived with a AngloZionist bullseye
painted on their heads ever since 1979 and they are used to live under constant threat of
war.
Wrong, Saker, the Iranians have been getting attacked by America and the Brits since we
overthrew their democratically elected prez in 1953, because he had the audacity to think and
say that the majority of Iran's oil revenues should be going to Iranians, not Wall Street
.
@BengaliCanadianDude Agreed. If Israel want to attack Iran, go ahead, but they won't,
because they know they'd get their asses kicked unless Uncle Sucker was leading the way.
Or maybe Israel could send in its fearsome DIAPER BRIGADES to wreak havoc in
Tehran?
The diaper reference is not a joke, it's fact that the IDF has issued combat nappies to
their troops, who let loose their bladder anytime they engage REAL men with guns who shoot
back. But let's give credit where its due, when it comes to shooting Palestinian kids with
slingshots or medics, Israel is #1.
@peterAUS Iran has been living with the same threat since 1979. The result is a hugely
popular military and IRGC which is one of the best career choices in the country. It's a way
of life for the nation to be under siege by now and for Shia Muslims the idea of being ready
to fight to the death always hovers due to the history of Islam with respect to the
Sunni/Shia divide. This disagreement is extreme, to be a Muslim and understand it is to feel
horror! ; and despair at the idea any reconciliation is even possible between the two sects
and a shared history does not make for a shared point of view. Shias have always been
outnumbered and it was us who were targeted for extreme violence in the end (or the
begginning) when a dispute over leadership turned bitter. Successive Islamic powers have
attempted to exterminate Shias and the latest incarnation of the Salafis begginning with
Wahhabism (nurtured by the Rothschild controlled British SS at the end of the Ottoman Empire)
and lately morphed into Takfirism which is Daesh and their ilk, have always sought out Shias
first and foremost for attack.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is firstly an Islamic Republic in full revolutionary mode,
(as opposed to 'fundamentalist') it is also in a close second the "Capital" of Shia Islam and
what I have described is the history of Iran and the times the Persian state was not an
Islamic one are no less a part of the historical memory of the nation. Even those times
(which invariably ended in defeat for Persia) reinforce the idea that it is as an Islamic
state Iran stands best chance of survival and the confidence that if they remain true to
these principles they will prevail is backed by an unbroken history of successful defense as
a righteous Islamic state. This may be beyond many of the younger generation and ignored by
the wealthy older generation Iranians but it must be ingrained in the political and social
cosnciousness of the political and religious and intellectual elite.
Iran is ready. They have always been ready in one sense. Saddan Hussein who attacked them
when they were at their weakest and still lived to regret it could attest to that if he was
still around to talk. That war in which the USA gave full and unconditional support to their
protege Saddam who only became their enemy when he became a better man and leader later on in
time, was a wake up call to Iranian leadership and the nation as one. They knew that they
needed missiles and a very strong defensive posture and that is what they have. F^ck with
them at your peril I say.
I doubt myself the USA will attack Iran, at least as long as they have ships and troops
within 1000 miles of Iran. That includes towing their static aircraft carrier "Israel" out of
range as well.
@2stateshmustate agree, the comment that "the USA is taking the events to the UN is
loaded with false something or other..
Iran initiated the UN hearing AFAIK and IRAN says it will present evidence that it was the
USA's intention.. to do the deeds ..<=personally, my feeling is neither Russia nor China
will veto .. anything about these deeds.. the only veto will come from Article II of the COUS
, present leader [one Mr. Trumpy]. who is elected not by popular vote of the govern people
in America but instead by the hidden behind the scene, state to state vote of the
electoral college.. .. <== you mean all that to-do every four years to elect a president:
democrats vs republicans beating each other up, newspapers collecting billions in
contribution dollars to publish fake I hate you slogans, and he saids, you saids: dey all
be fake news, propaganda erotic ? yep.. sure enough is. dem guys dat rites dem
Konstitutions ain't no dummies deys knows vat ve good fore dem. Read Article II, sections 2
and 3.. you see..
Popular vote elects the Article I folks ( 525 in all: 425 members of the house of
congressional districts (Art. 1, Section 2), and 100 Senators (amendment 17, proposed 1912,
approved 1913federal reserve(act of congress), income tax (amendment 16) both also 1913
),
=>but Article I (section 2 and amendment 17 ) folks have no power to act.. as powerless
buffoons ..they are authorized only to approve a few things, try cases of Treason, and make
the laws, fund the actions, wants and needs demanded by Article II persons. It takes 2/3 of
each a divided Senate and 2/3 of a divided House [Art. I, sec 7[2,3] to over-power the Art II
privilege of veto.. and
==get this=> Article II persons are charged to enforce the law( Art II, section
2 [3] he[the President} shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Where is
Hillary? I see no words making such duty to enforce the law optional (so does the AG have an
option that the President does not, .) ?
I am in full agreement with the author about who was most likely behind the attacks on the
ships and how the two separate attacks were done. Even down to accepting the possibility Iran
was behind some or all of this as provocation for the reasons given. If so it would mean they
are hurting badly and need to bring things to a head fast. This does not fit with my
observations of Iranian leadership which has always demonstrated a very long term and
patient, typically oriental approach to logjams in diplomacy and nothing has happened to
suggest they are suddenly feeling extremely more pain than previously. In short it is
possible but I doubt it.
To my mind the things which speak against the Iranians having attacked the tankers the
second time at least are substantial: Both ships were Japanese owned. This attack as such was
against Japanese interests WHILST the Japanese PM (Japanese death cult and mafia associations
and all) was making a historical visit to Tehran! What sort of dung for brains clowns would
invite someone for dinner and then send the kids out to set fire to their car whilst they
dined? Of course Washington would do something like this (shooting missiles at Syria whilst
enjoying a lovely piece of cake with their Chinese ally ffs ) but Iran? Give me a break.
Secondly if Iran was guilty, how come the USA is lying like a cheap rug from the get go?
The video the US Navy quickly produced is PROOF they are lying. The black and white imagery
does NOT hide the distinctly different paint jobs on the ship depicted and the actual one
involved. Whatever that video is, it is NOT a video of either of the ships involved in the
second incident. So if Iran was guilty why is the USA using fabricated evidence to assert
it?
The claim that the Iranians tried unsuccesfully to shoot down a Reaper drone which was
according to the USA monitoring the ship BEFORE IT WAS ATTACKED was what stuck in my craw
from the start. What the hell was a REAPER Drone doing monitoring that particular ship at
that particular time? Is this a common practice? Reaper drones are NOT recon drones they
carry hellfire missiles and kill things! When you consider the reports by the crew, as
relayed by the Japanese company owner about a flying object just before the explosion and the
pictures of the damage which clearly show fairly small holes about half way between the
gunwale and waterline the conclusion these were small missiles is hard to avoid. Indeed
HELLFIRE missiles would fit the bill nicely.
As for attacking Iran I do not believe that the USA will dare start anything, especially
now, so long as they have troops and ships within range of Iranian missiles. Iranian missiles
power is immense and an unknown because they do not know where it all is, and they do know
much of it is very, very well hardened against attack. IF they do start a war with Iran
whilst they have assets in the region, invluding "Israel" then they have completely lost
their minds and I'd say the war will end very fast and hard for them. Not even going nuclear
will do it. They are deluded if they think so. Nukes are not magic, they are just big bombs
and even the radiation component is not a big deal these days. (few realise it but modern
nukes are quite 'clean') Iran is a vast country and well dug in over millenia. However
unleashing a full nuclear war against a non nuclear state will end the USA forever as a world
citizen in every way. There is no solution for the USA except to make peace or back off. They
can plan and scheme all they like but Allah is the best of planners.
@Fran Macadam Well if that line of turkeys pecking at the crumbs of provocations
unfolding which purport to involve Iran keep on gobbling on cue they are going to realise too
late they just walked into the slaughter house. Iran will send home many thousands of their
boys and girls in body bags and sink their ships but the real hurt will be the end of the US
economy. They'll be missing even allegorical crumbs when they only have dirt to eat.
@MarkinLA Japan continued to occupy part of China (and viciously so, clearly stamping on
the foot of white-colonial interests with their homegrown late-comer colonialism) but i
mainly started to challenge US power in the Pacific, and with strong determination.
Israel does not have the ability to deceive the US, and why would it need to with Trump in
power? American fracking technology has greatly limited Iranian ability to cause trouble. If
it was the Iranians that did the limpet mine attack on international shipping then what would
their objective have been? Clearly they don't want more any real war or even more sanctions.
What they do want is create demand for their oil and sell it at a good price. The price of
oil is already up from the mere tension over the limpet mine and shootdown and had there been
US military action oil prices would have gone much higher. I see this whole affair as a sign
that the Iranian regieme is getting desperate, because America's slow smothering strategy is
working. Iran wants to breack out of its current situation and Trump is walking them into
that.
Israel will do nothing, the partisan supporters of Israel in the US can be kept quiet on
the immigration Issue by throwing them a bone (as Trump has been doing). Iran want to rase
oil prices and create demand for its oil, that is all. Hitting Iran, but quite lightly, is
the best option for Trump if he wants to win reelection. And so he will hit Iran at a time of
his choosing, which will probabally be closer to the election. The armed forces of America or
any other country are not for enforcing international law or notions of fair play, but rather
for defending that country's interests. Iran and Trump's agendas converge on a clash well
short of all out war in the very near future.
Occam's Razor suggests Trump got news that the drone was indeed inside Iranian airspace and
decided for once to call BS.
Besides, in the great scheme of things, one lost drone doesn't make up for the USS
Vincennes killing 290 people on Iran Air 655 by shooting it down in Iranian Airspace. When
the Empire warned that civil aircraft were not safe in the airspace, it wasn't the Iranian
forces they were warning about.
@Miggle Sorry, "My guess" covers all that follows. It's only my guess that the USA would
have sided with Hitler if they'd known India would not be part of the British Empire.
@TheJester But it wasn't wise for the Japanese as they were completely defeated.
The key difference between Japan and Iran is that the Japanese Empire was an aggressor,
endlessly invading its neighbours. Iran has not fought an offensive war in 40 years.
Also have to question you on the time element. Time is on the side of the Asian countries.
It's countries, like Israel, who see this as peak time for military action. Iran has survived
40 years of sanctions and can certainly survive this time, especially with the support of
Russia and China. Yet they still must react to military planes threatening their air space.
Plus they have no control over oil tankers being targeted by third parties.
The more I see of this, the more convinced I am that the US as a society is clinically
insane.
Its borders are under attack by what can only be described as an invasion is taking place
with millions off illegal immigrants pour across the border to commit crime, steal jobs or
mooch of the welfare programs.
Its cities are decaying with armies of homeless, shit and drugs flooding the streets in
ever greater numbers while the working class people flee in great waves.
Masked and armed criminals roam the streets of major US cities, attack anyone they deem to
be a wrong thinker when not busy rioting, stealing and chanting for the deaths of others.
Its economy is in a bi-polar mood. On one hand the GDP is as high as ever with tons of new
jobs getting created, on the other hand the physical economy is shrinking as stores closes
and houses go unsold due to half the nation being unable to buy anything but food and
clothes.
In the face of all of these problems, the US Government has decided to put its full
attention on overthrowing the government of Venezuela and starting a war with Iran because
somehow, those two nations who posed no danger to the US have been declared high priority
targets that requires the full spectrum attention and political intervention by the US.
@A123 "There will be a response with minimal bloodshed." Yes, we are noted for the
delicate, nearly bloodless nature of our military reactions, merely focusing on regimes with
the full-throated applause of the grateful populaces. It would be a cake-walk, to quote our
valiant SecDef Rumsfeld prior to our 2003 Iraqi minimally bloody response.
And speaking of armchair generalship, I wonder where Trump's multi-starred consultant got
the figure "150" in answer to the question of civilian casualties. This is the kind of
clear-sighted strategic vision that has a U. S. victory in Afghanistan just around the
corner, to quote our junior Clausewitz's.
But it is also plausible (if by no means certain) that at least two groups could have
opposed such a strike:
1) The planners at CENTCOM and/or the Pentagon.
Yes, it's reported that the Pentagon advised Trump not to retaliate militarily for the
drone shoot down.
Given advanced missile technologies, surface warships of any stripe are sitting ducks. I'm
guessing that Iran has a plethora of missile batteries up and down its coast. If Iran
launched a barrage of missiles simultaneously (10? 20? 30?) at a single surface warship in
the Persian Gulf, what would be the probability that the ship's self-defense systems could
neutralize them all?
If a single multi-billion dollar warship were sunk, the credibility of U.S. naval "power
projection" would evaporate. In that context, the Pentagon's reluctance may be because they'd
rather not establish that their hyper-expensive blue-water surface Navy is an
anachronism.
There is a very simple solution to all this, and the sooner it happens the better.
Everyone who conspired to defraud the US taxpayer into illegal wars (dating back to 2002),
should be forced to pay for the cost of the wars they lied us into.
All the assets of these "deceivers" should be "seized" .to pay down the 22 trillion war
debt their lies created.
If there is anything left over , it should be placed in an " Iran War Escrow Account
".
This would ensure that the burden of the war costs falls directly on "their" shoulders and
NOT the US taxpayers.
This seems like a just and fair solution for everybody ., doesn't it ?
An authentic act of war before even before firing the first bullet. First, make the
economy scream in the tradition of yet another thug masquerading as head of state (Nixon).
Second, starve them into submission. Does the first Iraq war resulting in the death of an
estimated half a million children denied essential medicines ring a bell? Venezuela is
similarly being starved into surrender. Meanwhile Guaido is embezzling the humanitarian aid
intended for his needy countrymen.
All said, the history of our country's lies and deception going back a long ways, more
than speaks for itself.
@Justsaying Of course, starvation is a favorite tactic of OUR international Communist
overlords. They've used it for decades and killed hundreds of millions of people using it.
It's cheap and easy.
On direct orders from Donald Trump ..the US Military is illegally occupying the sovereign
Nation of Syria .and Trump took a direct order from JEW ONLY ISRAEL to do this think about it
A case can be made that the US strategy is not to go to war with Iran .but rather, use the
boogey man of Iran to justify a 100 year illegal US Military occupation of Syria on behalf of
JEW ONLY ISRAEL .
The late Fat Cockroach Christopher Hitchens justified murdering thousands of Iraqis
because it would be good for the Kurds Well, here is what I say:THE CRYPTO JEW KURDS WERE
NEVER WORTH IT .Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq always meant an IDF presence in Northern
Iraq
The best analysis of the 225 million dollar MQ-4C drone(more expensive than the F-35) shoot
down in my opinion is that of Jim Stone:
"The drone shot down was an MQ-4C, which is basically a more advanced clone of the Global
Hawk. A better score for Iran than a Global Hawk. ADDITIONALLY IMPORTANT: Iran was the one
that recovered the debris, the U.S. navy did not, which means Iran was telling the truth
about where it was flying to begin with. If they got it, it fell on their turf. It is really
blown to smithereens, a direct hit. That's good for Iran because it proves their missile
systems can do it, but it is bad because they don't have any big pieces. Additionally, there
was an American P-8 spy plane accompanying the drone, Iran was able to differentiate between
the two, and hit the drone. The P-8 was a much easier target. Iran obviously opted not to hit
it because killing it's crew would have meant war."
What everyone needs to be aware of here is "stealth" technology is a total farce, and can
be defeated with long wave radar, basically the same system used by England during WWII. The
drone shot down was considered a Max Stealth aircraft, same as the F-35. The F-35 and F-22
are basically "hanger queens"(many hours of maintenance required for every hour of flying
time), and with their stealth capabilities being defeatable, they are pretty much worthless.
Trump did not pull the trigger on this because he figured out the whole thing could go real
bad real quick.
Everyone who conspired to defraud the US taxpayer into illegal wars (dating back to
2002), should be forced to pay for the cost of the wars they lied us into.
Everyone who conspired to defraud the US taxpayer into illegal wars, their heirs and all
who profited from (dating back to 1812), should be forced to pay for the cost of the wars
they lied us into.
@Justsaying You are correct. This is economic and siege warfare. Flying bullets, etc.,
add to the drama and consequences, but the war on Iran began many years ago. The vicious
clowns are up to the same old tricks, but bullshitting only the willing gulls.
No, it's not. Clearly the Nazis were on the defensive . Lying Abe Lincoln was, in
fact, much worse than the Nazis ever thought of being; in a totally different category
even.
Iran has not started a war in over 300 years and is not a terrorist nation and does not
export terrorism, that title belongs the the unholy trinity of the zio/US and Israel and
Britain, the creators and funders and suppliers of AL CIADA aka ISIS and all the various off
shoots thereof.
This war on Iran is a zionist project of the zionists who control the governments of the
zio/US and zio/Britain as has been the case in every war in Iraq and Libya and Syria and
Yemen and Lebanon , Israel has been the agent provocateur in every one of these wars!
The zionists have a goal of a satanic zionist NWO and are hell bent to get there if they
have to kill off all the goyim and muslims to accomplish it and they are well on their
way!
Read the book Blood In The Water by Joan Mellen on the zio/US and Israeli attack on the
USS Liberty for a look at how these two terrorist nations operate!
A handful of psychopaths determine our destiny. What makes us different from
animals?
I don't think other animals have psychopaths of the same species ruling over them nor do
they have hasbara clowns spouting sewage and doing worse 24/7, such as the alphanumeric zero,
above.
Mr. Saker left out the inconvenient fact that while that drone was indeed flying over
Iranian air space, a much larger target, the Poseidon P8 was flying nearby. The P8 is a
converted Boeing 737, making for a much larger radar profile for that missile. The P8 has
many ASW capabilities, and also can control drones.
If this is true the stupid bastards in control of this country better take note. If the
missile, that Iran says they developed, is cabable of distinguishing between a P8 and a drone
the US may have a big problem.
More likely, Trump and his Neocons knew that Iran had proof that the spy drone was shot down
over Iran's territory, that the truth would come out after the U.S. strike, earning the
world's condemnation and making Trump et al look like warmongering fools. That's what they
are, of course, but it gave Trump the chance to pose as a big humanitarian, stopping the
strike because, since it was only a plane, with no Americans on board, he didn't want to
"disproportionately" kill anybody. Yeah. Just wait until the Israeli puppets send another
plane with Americans on board, it'll give Israel and our traitorous Neocons the war they've
been lusting after for a decade or more.
In fact it's my understanding that the Japanese were bending over backwards in an attempt
to avoid war with the US but the Wall Street Commie catamite FDR and his henchmen foiled and
insulted them at every turn. The story of how they were repeatedly humiliated would raise the
hackles of the least sensitive among us.
The big picture is that the Wall Street and London Commies were aiming for world hegemony
even at their own populations' expense, of course, and Japan and Germany had to be castrated
even if populated and run by angels and innocent choir boys to ensure that they could be
turned into industrial slave states. It's apparent that the scum of the Earth won't rest
until they've accomplished their goals as we can clearly see here.
Sean Hannity lives in the largest Mansion in Lloyd Neck I have driven past his Mansion
to get a look as to just how big it is IT'S HUGE ..Lloyd Neck has the most expensive zip
code in the US
A simple Google search reveals Hannity sold his Lloyd Neck home in 2014, and has lived in
Oyster Bay for several years. Also, Lloyd Neck isn't even in Forbes' Top 50 Most Expensive
Zip Codes; the list is headed by four communities in California and one in Florida.
I'm not saying Sean isn't a pussy and a faggot, but your facts are suspect.
Bolton was notoriously a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, like his current boss, not due
to any scruples regarding what was occurring, but out of concern for his own sorry ass.
"... iran and oman share the straits as they enter the indian ocean. these waters are THEIR territorial waters and have been agreed upon for decades by the world. 12 miles give or take for each side. there are NO international waters here. ..."
"... It would appear the Iranians tracked our drone essentially from time time of departure until its demise. The folks on the web would have us believe the Iranians used a $2,500 homemade missile to bring down a $120,000,000 drone. Let that soak in. Am I the only one wondering what else we are unaware? ..."
"... Iran's Air Defense Force has some really quirky own designed and manufactured, mostly Chinese and Russian knock-offs) air defense complexes with serious sensors. ..."
"... Rumor has it--Iran has a number of Yakhonts. Those are very bad news for anything on the surface in Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. ..."
iran and oman share the straits as they enter the indian ocean. these waters are THEIR
territorial waters and have been agreed upon for decades by the world. 12 miles give or take
for each side. there are NO international waters here.
if oil ships stop transiting for any reason the western economic and banking system
implodes as the notional value of all those trillions in derivatives (oil at least) become
real once the price rises. not a shot need be fired to collapse the western world living
standards and there is nothing the pentagon can do about even IF it could which it CAN'T.
peace is the only sane option IF the west wants to remain upright and obstensibly
solvent.
The Trump administration has to come up with an explanation for this. Otherwise everyone will
believe that that the red phone rang. "Mr. Putin on the line, sir." Another ripe conspiracy
theory waiting in the wings is that Iran turned on some unexpected radar and showed just what
the planes were flying into. Some logical, plausible, and not too embarassing alternative
story is needed. Fast.
Let us hope Trump's alleged caution holds. For the moment, anyway. However, let us also hope
wiser heads prevail in Iran. It seems clear to me (which I do not mistake for assuming I am
automatically correct) that there has been a PATTERN of increased, violent actions coming
from Iran. i.e. increased shelling of US positions, or, near them, anyway, in Iraq. Along
with the tanker attacks and drone attacks, two, I might add. These seem calculated, at the
moment, at avoiding US loss of life. So, they are playing around with us, testing us. This
reflects, to me, ONE kind of thinking in Iran. However, there are other sides there, I
believe.
And in the meantime Trump is, essentially, bereft of support within DC. Unless it be in
the military. One side of the elite community hates Trump, but for the moment, goes along
with him. Trying to push and prod him forward to their ends. The NeoCons and Never Trumpers.
The other side basically loathes Trump and opposes whatever position he is taking.
Reflectively. Thoughtlessly. This leaves him essentially alone. IN DC. He should get out of
the Capital more often. To his Base. Away from the talking heads. In the meantime Iran should
give pause for thought. They may think the world will be on their side, if only to oppose
Trump. But they won't get much support other than soft and meaningless words, if they keep
poking the Bear. And they just might get eaten...hard as a meal as that would be to
digest.
My poorly informed speculation drawing upon my career as a chemist (i.e., no military
training or experience, the navy rejected me when I tried to join the NROTC in 1963) I am
inclined to disbelieve our claims that our drone was in international air space. One
commentator on MoA claimed there is no international air space over the Gulf of Hormuz. The
relevant treaties address only marine access.
It would appear the Iranians tracked our drone essentially from time time of departure
until its demise. The folks on the web would have us believe the Iranians used a $2,500
homemade missile to bring down a $120,000,000 drone. Let that soak in. Am I the only one
wondering what else we are unaware?
Regarding the aborted attack, my suspicion is that someone informed Trump of the
possibility of an unsuspected Iranian asset bringing down an F-22, or horrors, an F-35. Not
likely to help our export programs.
Combined with the possibility that Iran can present convincing evidence that the drone
penetrated their air space, Trump would be in a poor position to defend himself against war
crime charges should he order an attack. Might not play well in the upcoming election
cycle.
As a businessman, he could have decided the rewards of an attack did not justify these
risks.
Regarding the aborted attack, my suspicion is that someone informed Trump of the
possibility of an unsuspected Iranian asset bringing down an F-22, or horrors, an F-35. Not
likely to help our export programs.
Certainly one of major considerations. Unlike Iraq's "integrated" (a propaganda
cliche--antiquated should have been the term), Iran's Air Defense Force has some really
quirky own designed and manufactured, mostly Chinese and Russian knock-offs) air defense
complexes with serious sensors.
It also has Russian S-300PMU2. In general, Iran is nothing
like Iraq, Libya or Syria before Russia intervened.
I would put Iran's medium range (up to
100 kilometers range and up to 20 kilometers altitude) AD capabilities as robustly good.
And
then, of course, tactical-operational ballistic missiles with an easy reach anywhere in ME
(Qatar rings the bell, among many other) and, finally, who knows how many (very-very many)
and what capability anti-shipping missiles.
Rumor has it--Iran has a number of Yakhonts.
Those are very bad news for anything on the surface in Persian Gulf and the Strait of
Hormuz.
Probably a face saving gesture - can seem tough and reasonable simultaneously. It's shaping
up as de-escalation on both sides for now, which I deduce from recent press releases on
behalf of Iranian authorities saying that they refrained from shooting down a US P-8 plane
carrying 35 people, which was accompanying the unmanned drone which they acknowledge shooting
down. So they're mirroring each other IMO - it's not going to escalate.
Eric Newhill,
IMO,it is the izzies who are pushing for the destruction of Iran, with their BS about Amalek,
their god-given title to Palestine, and their attempts to re-mold the ME in their image. The
presence of Nasrallah&Co. and their rocket forces-mostly supplied by Iran-is the primary
issue. Most of the current ills of the ME can be traced to the izzies. Think Syria.
While there is no doubt that US can pound Iran into the stone age without really working a
sweat, she probably would not have gotten off w/o a few bruises for her pains. In addition,
more importantly in my view, the izzies might have also gotten a few surprises.
My friends were glad to end last night with no emergencies on their watch. We were all very,
very worried.
Ishmael Zechariah
Flying a plane into their territory, getting shot down, and then not attacking and calling it
an opportunity to deescalate. That's rich. The only thing these whole farcical attempt at
diplomacy has proven from the day the deal was denounced as being a bad deal is that those at
the top know little of Iran and Iranians. Nor do we want to know, since virtually every time
I watch TV and they bring on an "expert" to talk about Iran, they are not only not Iranian
but half the time Jewish.
Trump has come out through the usual direct communication channel, saying the reason he
called off a strike was that casualties were certain to occur and thus would not be
proportionate to an unmanned drone--
"On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked
& loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die.
150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,
not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is
rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more
added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against
the WORLD!" Pres Trump tweet
Yes. Trump is more cool headed than a lot of people give him credit for being.
His actions have nothing to do with him being cool headed. He is very confused man as of
today. But in this particular case we all may be thankful for none other than Tucker Carlson
who, if to believe number of American sources, does advise Trump and that, in itself, is a
really good news for everyone on the planet. In fact, if Trump wants second term, among many
things he ought to do is to remove Bolton and appoint Tucker his NSA. Carlson surely is way
more qualified for this job than Bolton. Come to think about it, Tucker could make a decent
Secretary of the State too.
I've always felt that President Trump is impulsive and that impulsiveness is one of the
things that makes him unfit to be President. My question is not 'did he order airstrikes'. My
question is 'did an adult in the room step in' or 'did he actually change his mind'. I
suspect the answer to that question will break down along the typical partisan lines.
It does make clear that he has no overall plan or strategy in place. These actions
demonstrate that our President is unpredictable. While unpredictability has its own value
(perhaps especially in the political arena) I don't want to see miscalculations creep in when
we are talking about getting involved in a new war in the ME.
I thank Generals Dunford and Selva at the JCS for putting the brakes on Moron Bolton and
SecState Pompous. Particularly General Selva who says protecting oil shipments thru the
Strait is not our job; and who also pushed back hard against escalation in Venezuela in late
April.
The ships and aircraft of all nations, including warships, auxiliaries, and military
aircraft, enjoy the right of unimpeded transit passage in the Strait and its approaches.
That is true elsewhere also. The international legal regime of transit passage exists not
only at the Strait of Hormuz but also in the Strait of Gibraltar, the Dover Strait, the
Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Strait of Malacca.
Looks like impeachment for Russian collusion is off the table, Joe 'foot in mouth' Biden
gets some cover and even Democrats in congress are talking about how the AUMF is outdated.
Fixing the later, well that would take Pelosi allowing some legislation to come up for a
vote.
Prudent move by the President. It is encouraging that he put in play the concept of
proportionality. Although the scale of challenge represented by Hungary in 1956,
Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the Pueblo in 68 exceeded this event, Trump's reasoning in this
situation demonstrated a level of akin sobriety that has all too frequently been lacking in
the course of the last three presidencies. The lunatic fringes will no doubt find some way to
undercut him, the left for their usual obscene political reasons and the neo-cons because
they are neo-cons in service to their 'higher calling' but Trump by now has become accustomed
to the craven antics of former; and hopefully this unfolding will so contrast his reasoning
with the reasoning of his card carrying neo-con advisors that he will realize he needs to
clean house for the next time.
What "challenge" in Hungry? Ike made it clear, in 1944, never mind 1956, where our sphere of
interest was. There was never any doubt in Ike's mind, anyway. And who had enough gravitas
and knowledge to try and talk him out of his views? Czechoslovakia in 1968? Come on...we were
a bit, cough, cough, distracted in 1968. That was never in question either. Pueblo? Come on..
Jack posted an interesting tweet on another thread. It seems there may also be an alternate
explanation on why Trump called off the attacks.
Apparently Iran was informed of the imminent attacks. They responded through Oman &
Switzerland that they wouldn't play ball and any attack would escalate.
It is high time for Trump to eject the neocons from his administration.
There was a palpable lack of enthusiasm for a new war on FOX's programs last night.
IMO unless Trump comes to believe his re-election chances would be enhanced by a new war
or the IRG conducts ops too violent to be ignored he is likely to keep it holstered.
The question about the causes of the collapse and destruction of the Soviet Union – is not idle. It does not lose its relevance
today, 22 years after occurred the death of the Soviet Union . Why? because some on the basis of this event concluded that, say,
the capitalist model of the economy more competitive, more efficient and has no alternatives. American political scientist
Francis Fukuyama after the collapse of the Soviet Union even hastened to declare that it was the "End of history": humanity has reached the
highest and last stage of its development in the form of a universal, global capitalism. The relevance of studying the shadow economy,
ssco opinion of this kind of political scientists, sociologists and economists, discussing the socialist economic model does not
deserve attention.
Better to focus on improving the capitalist model of the economy, i. E. A model that targets all members of society to the enrichment,
and a means of enrichment (profit) is the exploitation of one person by another. However, there are such "Natural" attributes of
the capitalist model of social and income inequality, competition, cyclical crises, bankruptcies, unemployment and the like. All
proposed improvements are aimed only at mitigating the inhuman consequences of capitalism that is reminiscent of utopian attempts
to limit the appetite of a wolf devouring a sheep. We proceed from the fact that the key socio-economic characteristics of the socialist
model are welfare for all members of society (goal), public ownership of the means of production (the main means), income generation
solely for labor, planned nature of the economy, centralization of management, command positions of the state in the economy, the
social consumption funds, the limited nature of commodity-money relations and so on. While this refers to the well-being not only
in the form of products and services that are vital (biological) needs of the person.
This would also include public safety and defense, education, culture, conditions of work and rest. Of course, socialism – not
only the economy and social relations. It also implies a certain type of political power, ideology, a high level of spiritually-moral
development of society and another. High moral and spiritual requests should assume that there are higher goals in relation to socio-economic
objectives.
But let's focus now is on the socio-economic aspect of the socialist model. So the erosion of the socialist model began long before
the tragic events of december 1991, when it signed the infamous agreement on the division of the ussr in the bialowieza forest. It
was already the final act of the political order. It is not only the date of death of the ussr, and date of full legalization of
a new socio-economic model, which is called "Capitalism". However, implicitly capitalism germinated in the depths of soviet society
for nearly three decades.
The soviet economy de facto has acquired the traits of a mixed. It combined socialist and capitalist structures. However, some
foreign researchers and politicians said that de facto in the Soviet Union there was a complete restoration of capitalism in the
1960-ies – 1970-ies. The restoration of capitalism was linked to the emergence and development in the bowels of the ussr the so-called
shadow or "Second" economy.
In particular, in the early 1960-ies member of the german communist party willy dickhut began publishing their articles, which
stated that since coming to power in our country n. With. Khrushchev happened (not started, but it happened!) the restoration of
capitalism in the ussr. The shadow economy functioned on the principles different from the socialist. Anyway, she was tied to corruption,
embezzlement of state property, receipt of unearned income, in violation of the laws (or use of "Holes" in the legislation). Not
to be confused with the shadow economy "Informal" economy, which is not contrary to the laws and principles of the socialist system,
but complemented the economy "Official".
First of all, this self-employment – for example, the work of the farmer on the plot or the citizen in his summer cottage. And
in the best of times (under stalin) widely developed the so-called fishing cooperation, which was occupied by production of consumer
goods and services. In the Soviet Union state and party authorities chose to ignore the phenomenon of the shadow economy. No, of
course, the police had uncovered and suppressed various operations in the sphere of the shadow economy. But the leaders of the ussr,
commenting on this kind of history, fobbed off with phrases such as "Exception", "Some shortcomings", "Defects", "Bugs" and the like.
For example, in the early 1960-ies of the then first deputy of the ussr council of ministers anastas mikoyan has identified black
market in the Soviet Union as "A handful of some dirty foam appearing on the surface of our society. "The shadow economy of the ussr:
acincinnati some serious research shadow ("Second") economy in the ussr was conducted until the late 1980-ies. Abroad, such studies
came first. First of all we should mention the work of american sociologist gregory grossman (university of california), which was
called "Destructive independence. The historical role of genuine trends in soviet society".
She became widely known after was published in 1988 in the book "The light at the end of the tunnel" (university of berkeley,
edited by stephen f. Cohen). However, the first article of grossman on this topic appeared in 1977 and was called "The second economy
in the ussr (journal problems of communism, september-october 1977). You can also mention the book emigrated to the United States
, the soviet lawyer konstantin simis "Corruption in the Soviet Union – the secret underground world of soviet capitalism", published
in 1982. The author in the 1970-ies is closely in contact with some shady businessman, a lawyer which he performed at the trials.
However, quantitative assessments of shadow ("Second") economy k. Simes does not. Later appeared the work of american sociologists
and economists of Russian origin Vladimir tremlia and michael alexeev. Since 1985, gregory grossman and Vladimir treml produce periodic
collections of the "Second economy" of the ussr. Releases continued until 1993, only 51 were published a study involving 26 authors.
Many studies represented surveys of families of immigrants from the Soviet Union (a total of 1061 family). To studies have also
used surveys of emigrants from other socialist countries, the official statistics of the ussr, publications in mass media and scientific
journals of the Soviet Union . Despite the differences in some quantitative estimates of the individual authors, these differences
were not fundamental. The differences arose due to the fact that some authors considered "Informal economy", the other – the shadow
economy; however, their definitions of both economies could not match. Here are some results of these studies. 1.
In 1979 the illicit manufacture of wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages, as well as speculative resale of alcoholic beverages
produced in the "First economy", provided the income, equal to 2. 2% of gnp (gross national product). 2. In the late 1970-ies in
the ussr was flourishing black market gasoline. From 33 to 65% of purchases of gasoline in urban areas of the country, individual
owners of cars had petrol sold by drivers of public enterprises and organizations (gasoline were sold at a price below the state).
3. In the soviet hairdresser 'left' incomes exceeded the amounts that customers have paid through cash.
This is just one example of what some state-owned enterprises de facto belonged to the "Second" economy. 4. In 1974 the share
of employment in private and home gardens accounted for almost a third of the total working time in agriculture. And this was almost
10% of the total working time in the soviet economy. 5. In the 1970-ies, about a quarter of agricultural products produced on private
plots, much of it was directed at kolkhoz markets. 6.
In the late 1970's, around 30% of all income of the urban population was obtained through various types of private activity –
both legal and illegal. 7. By the end of 1970-ies the proportion of people employed in the "Second economy", reached 10-12% of the
total workforce in the ussr. At the end of 1980-ies there appeared a number of works on the shadow and "Second" economy in the ussr.
First and foremost is the publication of the soviet economist tatyana results and director of the research institute of the state
planning commission valery rutgajzer. Here is the data from the t.
The results of the "Shadow economy of the ussr". The annual value of illegally produced goods and services in the early 1960-ies
amounted to about 5 billion rubles, and in the end of 1980-ies was already reached 90 billion rubles. At current prices, the gnp
of the ussr was (in billions of rubles): in 1960 – 195; in 1990, 701. Thus, the economy of the ussr for thirty years has increased
3. 6 times, and the shadow economy – 14 times.
If in 1960 the shadow economy relative to official gdp was 3. 4%, while by 1988 this figure rose to 20%. However, in 1990 it was
equal to 12. 5%. This decline was due to changes in soviet legislation, which transferred to discharge a legal a range of economic
activities, which were previously considered illegal. The number of employed in the shadow economy, estimated to be the results,
in the beginning of 1960-ies was 6 million people, and in 1974 their number increased to 17-20 million people (6-7% of the population).
In 1989, the such shadow was already 30 million people, or 12% of the population of the ussr. The threats and consequences of the
development of the shadow economy in sssri american and soviet researchers pay attention to some features of the shadow economy and
its impact on the overall situation in the Soviet Union .
Iran has been abiding by the nuclear agreement. So why does it feel like the Trump
administration is edging the United States towards a war? #iran#iransanctions#trump
Ironic, politicians don't do any of the fighting but their soldiers do. The soliders don't
know why are fighting and get killed, politicians do know why they are fighting but don't get
killed. "War: A massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who
know each other but don't massacre each other" Paul Valery
I feel bad for the brainwashed American citizens From school to military to sleeping ships
that are entertained with consumption Very dumbed down society
"> This whole situation, is Americas last stand along with Saudi and their local
cousins in Israel to maintain the Petro dollar system which , if Iran could trade its
resources equitably would be finished...This is the system that pays for the thousands of US
military bases surrounding China, Russia ,Iran etc...
that provides billions of dollars to maintain Israeli nuclear and military superiority in
Palestine and Western Asia
..and maintains the Saudi monopoly and high crude prices, and so the Saudi dictator
monarchist establishment...
Nobody is claiming Iran is perfect, yet lets see this for what it is..as with Trumps
attacks , tariffs and sanctions leveled across global trade and industry...The desperate
actions of a dying empire...
There is a reason is the Obama administration went back to negotiating. To keep them Iran
busy while it was launching the Stuxnet Virus on the industrial control systems in Iran.
Watch the documentary Zero Days. It is extremely eye opening.
ole="article"> The World should stand together to stop this kind of bullying....! The
Trump administration had already planned ... that it needs to invade IRAN to choke China,
Korea, Japan & now India who gets their Oil from Iran. The unilateral tearing up of an
International Agreement is evidenced that US will rather this World go to Hell and to give-up
its No. 1 place in Commerce and Defence. This kind of arrogance & "superiorority"
attitude is dangerous for one who claims the title "Sherif - of-the - World"..! USA via the
Trump Administration is HELL BENT on invading IRAN. The tearing-up and dishonouring the
wishes of the International Community in order to provoke IRAN to retaliate by also NOT
complying with the provisions of the said Agreement is evidence that the USA had already
decided to invade IRAN. They nearly did invade last year but probably decided that they can
conspire to create more incidents to justify their attack. AN INVASION ON IRAN IS PRICELESS
TO USA.... WHY..? 1) They get to plunder USD Tens/Hundreds of Trillions to enrich THEIR
coffers/ economy. 2) IRAN has the 2nd largest oil reserves. Rebrand the Oil as "American
Oil".. 3) Take control of the most important shipment ports in the world with regards to Oil
Commodity.. 4) Get rid of Out-dsted Military wears and bill them to Saudi at a premium. 5)
Introduce their latest Military Wears to the World and again Bill them to Saudi at a double
premium ;and. - to get new orders from other countries. - to send a message to China of USA's
military capabilities.. 6) To Warn China that it has a penchant to settle issues through the
Military if negotiations do not work in favour of the USA.. 7) Choke East Asian countries who
are a threat to USA's No. 1 position. 8 ) Take another step towards acknowledging ISREALS
legitimate presence of the Middle East. 9) To help Isreal fulfill their prophesy to take
control of the Middle East. Saudi will not know, what hits them when the time comes. 10)
There is another 3 more serious points but I will leave it to you guys to challenge yourself
to decipher it. 11) To put onto action his perspectives, opinion & views while he can,
should he not be elected next Term. And if Trump is able to control the War, he will be
popular enough to be elected next term. Or if the War gets out of hand, then the US
Presidential Elections may be postpone. Therefore this invasion may be his best chance to
continue on as President. THEREFORE, UNLESS THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY STEPS IN AND STRONGLY
OBJECT TO THIS BULLYING... ;;; AMERICA WILL INVADE IRAN.....! USA PROVE ME & THE WORLD
WRONG....
Israel is just another 'settlers" country. It might be successful or it might fail like South
Africa and Rhodesia. The survival of Israel as the settler country hinges on the USA
unconditional support as yet another (stealth) USA state, and the continuation of the role of the
USA as the world hegemon and the center of the global neoliberal empire. . The USA position as
for Israel might eventually change with the collapse of neoliberalism.
One problem that creates negative attitude to Israel around the world (according to
BBC data
only the USA and a couple of African countries having the majority of population that views
Israel positively) is, as one commenter observed, the situation in which "The Children of the
Holocaust survivors, born into Israel, have now become the "Holocaust-ers of Palestine"
When Israeli prime ministers are in trouble, facing difficult elections or a corruption
scandal, the temptation has typically been for them to unleash a military operation to bolster
their standing. In recent years, Gaza has served as a favourite punching bag.
Benjamin Netanyahu is confronting both difficulties at once: a second round of elections in
September that he may struggle to win; and an attorney general who is widely expected to indict
him on corruption charges shortly afterwards.
Netanyahu is in an unusually tight spot, even by the standards of an often chaotic and
fractious Israeli political system. After a decade in power, his electoral magic may be
deserting him. There are already rumblings of discontent among his allies on the far right.
Given his desperate straits, some observers fear that he may need to pull a new kind of
rabbit out of the hat.
In the past two elections, Netanyahu rode to success after issuing dramatic last-minute
statements. In 2015, he agitated against the fifth of Israel's citizens who are Palestinian
asserting their democratic rights, warning that they were "coming out in droves to vote".
Back in April, he declared his intention to annex large chunks of the occupied West Bank, in
violation of international law, during the next parliament.
Amos Harel, a veteran military analyst with Haaretz newspaper, observed last week that
Netanyahu may decide words are no longer enough to win. Action is needed, possibly in the form
of an announcement on the eve of September's ballot that as much as two-thirds of the West Bank
is to be annexed.
Washington does not look like it will stand in his way.
Shortly before April's election, the Trump administration offered Netanyahu a campaign
fillip by recognising Israel's illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, territory Israel seized
from Syria in 1967.
This month David Friedman, US ambassador to Israel and one of the chief architects of Donald
Trump's long-delayed "deal of the century" peace plan, appeared to offer a similar, early
election boost.
In interviews, he claimed Israel was "on the side of God" – unlike, or so it was
implied, the Palestinians. He further argued that Israel had the "right to retain" much of the
West Bank.
Both statements suggest that the Trump administration will not object to any Israeli moves
towards annexation, especially if it ensures their favoured candidate returns to power.
Whatever Friedman suggests, it is not God who has intervened on Israel's behalf. The hands
that have carefully cleared a path over many decades to the West Bank's annexation are all too
human.
Israeli officials have been preparing for this moment for more than half a century, since
the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza were seized back in 1967.
That point is underscored by an innovative interactive map of the occupied territories. This
valuable new resource is a joint project of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem and
Forensic Architecture, a London-based team that uses new technology to visualise and map
political violence and environmental destruction.
Titled Conquer
and Divide , it reveals in detail how Israel has "torn apart Palestinian space, divided the
Palestinian population into dozens of disconnected enclaves and unravelled its social, cultural
and economic fabric".
The map proves beyond doubt that Israel's colonisation of the West Bank was never
accidental, defensive or reluctant. It was coldly calculated and intricately planned, with one
goal in mind – and the moment to realise that goal is fast approaching.
Annexation is not a right-wing project that has hijacked the benign intentions of Israel's
founding generation. Annexation was on the cards from the occupation's very beginnings in 1967,
when the so-called centre-left – now presented as a peace-loving alternative to Netanyahu
– ran the government.
The map shows how Israeli military planners created a complex web of pretexts to seize
Palestinian land: closed military zones today cover a third of the West Bank; firing ranges
impact 38 Palestinian communities; nature reserves are located on 6 per cent of the territory;
nearly a quarter has been declared Israeli "state" land; some 250 settlements have been
established; dozens of permanent checkpoints severely limit movement; and hundreds of
kilometres of walls and fences have been completed.
These interlocking land seizures seamlessly carved up the territory, establishing the walls
of dozens of tightly contained prisons for Palestinians in their own homeland.
Two Nasa satellite images of the region separated by 30 years – from 1987 and 2017
– reveal how Israel's settlements and transport infrastructure have gradually scarred the
West Bank's landscape, clearing away natural vegetation and replacing it with concrete.
The land grabs were not simply about acquisition of territory. They were a weapon, along
with increasingly draconian movement restrictions, to force the native Palestinian population
to submit, to recognise its defeat, to give up hope.
In the immediate wake of the West Bank's occupation, defence minister Moshe Dayan, Israel's
hero of the hour and one of the architects of the settlement project, observed that
Palestinians should be made "to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave – and we
shall see where this process leads".
Although Israel has concentrated Palestinians in 165 disconnected areas across the West
Bank, its actions effectively won the international community's seal of approval in 1995. The
Oslo accords cemented Israel's absolute control over 62 per cent of the West Bank, containing
the Palestinians' key agricultural land and water sources, which was classified as Area C.
Occupations are intended to be temporary – and the Oslo accords promised the same.
Gradually, the Palestinians would be allowed to take back more of their territory to build a
state. But Israel made sure both the occupation and the land thefts sanctioned by Oslo
continued.
The new map reveals more than just the methods Israel used to commandeer the West Bank.
Decades of land seizures highlight a trajectory, plotting a course that indicates the project
is still not complete.
ORDER IT NOW
If Netanyahu partially annexes the West Bank – Area C – it will be simply
another stage in Israel's tireless efforts to immiserate the Palestinian population and bully
them into leaving. This is a war of attrition – what Israelis have long understood as
"creeping annexation", carried out by stealth to avoid a backlash from the international
community.
Ultimately, Israel wants the Palestinians gone entirely, squeezed out into neighbouring Arab
states, such as Egypt and Jordan. That next chapter is likely to begin in earnest if Trump ever
gets the chance to unveil his "deal of the century".
A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.
This study shows us that the pro-Israel narrative has become so firmly entrenched in the
American mainstream media that it is almost impossible for news consumers to discern the
truth about the situation in Israel and Palestine. This has greatly benefitted Washington
which has made it abundantly clear that it sides with Israel in this fifty year-old
conflict.
If Netanyahu partially annexes the West Bank – Area C – it will be simply
another stage in Israel's tireless efforts to immiserate the Palestinian population and
bully them into leaving. This is a war of attrition – what Israelis have long
understood as "creeping annexation", carried out by stealth to avoid a backlash from the
international community.
Ultimately, Israel wants the Palestinians gone entirely, squeezed out into neighbouring
Arab states, such as Egypt and Jordan. That next chapter is likely to begin in earnest if
Trump ever gets the chance to unveil his "deal of the century".
This is probably true-and? I don't see Palestinians as a real people; they're just a bunch
of Arabs & it is absolutely irrelevant whether they are in Syria, Egypt or Arabia. They
themselves say they're not a "real" people:
On the other hand, real peoples like Uyghurs & Tibetans are swamped by the
Chinese, which is a real tragedy & only, huh, Richard Gere complains.
So, what the big deal with "Palestinians"? Why would they have a "right to exist"on some
shitty piece o land Jews seem to be obsessively addicted to in past 2 millennia?
And then, what with Amazonian Indians, Eskimos, Ostyaks, Okinawans, ..? What about
expulsion of 13 million Germans in what are now parts of Poland, Czechia, Russia .?
Israelis should have expelled all of them in 1967. & there would be peace.
There is one point in the article that is not completely accurate. J. Cook writes: "Israeli
officials have been preparing for this moment for more than half a century, since the West
Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza were seized back in 1967."
In fact, Ilan Pappe shows in his book "The biggest Prison on Earth" (2017) that plans to
occupy the whole land were much older. The plans weren't made because Israel took Palestinian
lands in 1967. Israel took lands in 1967 because of the plans to colonize it. Those plans
were older.
So, Pappe says in a more general way in his book that " . since 1948 and even more since
1956, Israel's military and political elites was looking for the right historical moment to
occupy the West Bank." (p. XIV). He also says more specifically: "The strategy was presented
by the CoGS to the army on 1 May 1963 and was meant to prepare the army for controlling the
West Bank as an occupied military area" (p. XIII).
All talk about "peace", about "coexistence", about a "two state solution" are (and were)
made in bad faith. About Pappe's book: I don't want to reccomend it for a casual reading. It
may be valuable historically because it deals with historical material from archives. But
it's basically a book about the Israeli burocracy, about laws, rules which would make sure
that Israel controls the conquested territory which it never thought of giving back. It's a
dry book. He has other books that which are much more agreeable to read like his short book
"Ten Myths About Israel".
From the standpoint of Information Warfare, it is very critical when a new event happens to
put forward one's version of the "truth" first before any other possible competing theories can
arise. This could be why Pompeo or someone like him would chose to immediately come out with
accusations thrown around as facts with no evidence to support them and no respect for the
great Western concepts of "innocence until proven guilty" or the "right to a fair trial".
Pompeo's objective here is not the truth but to take that virgin intellectual territory
regarding the interpretation of this issue before anyone else can, because once a concept has
become normalized in the minds of the masses it is very difficult to change it and many people
in Washington cannot risk blowing the chance to waste thousands of American lives invading Iran
based on an ultimately false but widely accepted/believed narrative.
Not surprisingly foreign and especially Russian media has quickly attempted to counter the
"Iran obviously did it" narrative before it becomes an accepted fact. Shockingly Slavic
infowarriors actually decided
to speak to the captain of a tanker that was hit to get his opinion rather than simply
assert that Iran didn't do it because they are a long time buddy of Moscow. The captain's
testimony of what happened strongly contradicts the version of reality that Washington is
pushing. And over all Russia as usual takes the reasonable position of "let's gather the
evidence and then see who did it", which is good PR for itself as a nation beyond this single
issue.
In terms of finding the actual guilty party the media on both sides has thus far ignored the
simple fact that if Iran wanted to sink a tanker it would be sunk. No civilian vessel is going
to withstand an attack from a 21st century navy by having a particularly thick hull and the
idea that the Iranians need to physically attach bombs to boats is mental. Physically planting
bombs is for goofball inept terrorists, not a professional military. After all, even the West
acknowledges that
the Iranians use the best Russian goodies that they can afford and Russian 21 st
century arms will sink civilian ship guaranteed. The Iranians have everything they need to
smoke any civilian vessel on the planet guaranteed from much farther away than 3 feet.
If Iran's goal was to scare or intimidate the tanker they could have just shot at it with
rifles or done something else to spook the crew and get a media response. When looked at from
the standpoint of military logic, these "attacks" seem baffling as Iran could have just
destroyed the boats or directly tried to terrorize them to make a statement.
Bolton was notoriously a draft dodger during the Vietnam War, like his current boss, not due
to any scruples regarding what was occurring, but out of concern for his own sorry ass.
In a pointed critique of President Trump's foreign policy leadership, Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a
president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."
"What the American people need is a president who can make a much more convincing case for
going to war with Iran," said Schumer (D-NY), adding that the Trump administration's corruption
and dishonesty have "proven time and time again" that it lacks the conviction necessary to act
as an effective cheerleader for the conflict.
"Donald Trump is completely unfit to assume the mantle of telling the American people what
they need to hear in order to convince them a war with Iran is a good idea.
One of the key duties of the president is to gain the trust of the people so that they feel
comfortable going along with whatever he says. President Trump's failure to serve as a credible
advocate for this war is yet another instance in which he has disappointed not only his
colleagues in Washington, but also the entire nation."
Schumer later concluded his statement with a vow that he and his fellow Democrats will
continue working toward a more palatable case in favor of bombing Iran.
A very good analysis. Trump essentially morphed into Hillary or worse. Essentially the same type of warmonger and
compulsive liar.
Notable quotes:
"... The American people appear largely uninterested in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into another pointless, disastrous war. ..."
"... At time of writing, the Washington Post has counted 10,796 false or misleading claims from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics. ..."
"... Pompeo insists " there is no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the exact same words that Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies reacted skeptically to Trump's claims.) ..."
"... What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that -- or worse . ..."
"... Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. ..."
"... At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further. ..."
"... On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks. Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S. military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels specifically designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes next. ..."
"... Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda covers an attack on Iran . This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts -- but may explain Pompeo's equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan. ..."
"... Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems somewhat hesitant , sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped. ..."
The Trump regime is attempting to gin up a war with Iran. First Trump reneged on Obama's nuclear deal with the country for no
reason, then he slapped them with more economic sanctions for no reason, and then, pushed by National Security Adviser John Bolton
and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he moved massive military forces onto Iran's doorstep to heighten tensions further. Now, after
a series of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman -- none of which were American -- that the administration blames on Iran,
Pompeo says the U.S. is "considering a full range of options," including war. (Iran has categorically denied any involvement.)
The American people appear
largely uninterested
in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into
another pointless, disastrous war.
The New York Times ' Bret Stephens, for all his #NeverTrump pretensions, provides a good window into the
absolute witlessness of the pro-war
argument . He takes largely at face value the Trump administration's accusations against Iran -- "Trump might be a liar, but
the U.S. military isn't," he writes -- and blithely suggests Trump should announce an ultimatum demanding further attacks cease,
then sink Iran's navy if they don't comply.
Let me take these in turn. For one thing, any statement of any kind coming out of a Republican's mouth should be viewed with extreme
suspicion. Two years ago, the party passed a gigantic tax cut for the rich which they swore up and down would "
pay
for itself " with increased growth. To precisely no one's surprise,
this did not happen
. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was just
one
flagrant example of many who got elected in 2016 while
lying through their teeth about their party's efforts to destroy ObamaCare and its protections for preexisting conditions.
At
time of writing, the Washington Post has counted
10,796 false or misleading claims
from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics.
Republican accusations of foreign aggression should be subjected to an even higher burden of proof. The Trump regime has provided
no evidence of Iranian culpability aside from
a video of a ship the Pentagon says is Iranians removing something they say is a mine from an oil tanker -- but a Japanese
ship owner reported at least one attack came from a "
flying object ," not a mine. Pompeo insists "
there is
no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the
exact same words that Vice President
Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United
States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies
reacted skeptically
to Trump's claims.)
What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly
in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that --
or worse .
Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. False flag attacks on its own oil tankers sound outlandish,
but we're talking about a ruthless dictatorship run by a guy who had a Washington Post columnist
murdered and chopped into pieces because he didn't like
his takes. And the Saudis have already been conducting a years-long war in Yemen with catastrophic humanitarian outcomes in order
to stop an Iran-allied group from coming to power. It's by no means certain, but hardly outside the realm of possibility.
At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any
rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further.
But let's grant for the sake of argument that some Iranian forces actually did carry out some or all of these attacks. That raises
the immediate question of why. One very plausible reason is that all of Trump's provocations have strengthened the hand of Iran's
conservative hard-liners, who are basically the mirror image of Pompeo and Bolton. "It is sort of a toxic interaction between hard-liners
on both sides because for domestic political reasons they each want greater tension," as Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on
Foreign Relations told
the New York Times . This faction might have concluded that the U.S. is run by deranged fanatics, and the best way to
protect Iran is to demonstrate they could choke off oil shipping from the Persian Gulf if the U.S. attacks.
This in turn raises the question of the appropriate response if Iran is actually at fault here. It would be one thing if these
attacks came out of a clear blue sky. But America is very obviously the aggressor here. Iran was following its side of the
nuclear deal to the letter before Trump reneged, and
continued to do so as of February . So far the
European Union (which is still party to the deal) has been unwilling to sidestep U.S. sanctions, prompting Iran to
threaten to restart
uranium enrichment . So Iran is a medium-sized country with a faltering economy, hemmed in on all sides by U.S. aggression. Backing
off the threats and chest-thumping might easily strengthen the hand of Iranian moderates, and cause them to respond in kind.
On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks.
Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S.
military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very
real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels
specifically
designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill
thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq
War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes
next.
Taken together, these factors strongly militate towards de-escalation and diplomacy even if Iran did carry out these attacks,
which again, is not at all proven. The current standoff is almost entirely our fault, and Iranian forces are far from defenseless.
America has a lot better things to do than indulge the deluded jingoist fantasies of a handful of armchair generals who want lots
of other people to die in battle.
Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate
U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification
is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda
covers an attack on Iran .
This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts --
but may explain Pompeo's
equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan.
Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems
somewhat hesitant ,
sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for
everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped.
In a pointed critique of President Trump's foreign policy leadership, Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a
president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."
"What the American people need is a president who can make a much more convincing case for
going to war with Iran," said Schumer (D-NY), adding that the Trump administration's corruption
and dishonesty have "proven time and time again" that it lacks the conviction necessary to act
as an effective cheerleader for the conflict.
"Donald Trump is completely unfit to assume the mantle of telling the American people what
they need to hear in order to convince them a war with Iran is a good idea.
One of the key duties of the president is to gain the trust of the people so that they feel
comfortable going along with whatever he says. President Trump's failure to serve as a credible
advocate for this war is yet another instance in which he has disappointed not only his
colleagues in Washington, but also the entire nation."
Schumer later concluded his statement with a vow that he and his fellow Democrats will
continue working toward a more palatable case in favor of bombing Iran.
In a pointed critique of President Trump's foreign policy leadership, Senate Minority Leader
Chuck Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a
president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."
"What the American people need is a president who can make a much more convincing case for
going to war with Iran," said Schumer (D-NY), adding that the Trump administration's corruption
and dishonesty have "proven time and time again" that it lacks the conviction necessary to act
as an effective cheerleader for the conflict.
"Donald Trump is completely unfit to assume the mantle of telling the American people what
they need to hear in order to convince them a war with Iran is a good idea.
One of the key duties of the president is to gain the trust of the people so that they feel
comfortable going along with whatever he says. President Trump's failure to serve as a credible
advocate for this war is yet another instance in which he has disappointed not only his
colleagues in Washington, but also the entire nation."
Schumer later concluded his statement with a vow that he and his fellow Democrats will
continue working toward a more palatable case in favor of bombing Iran.
"... If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden. ..."
We now know that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. We now know that the crushing of Libya
had nothing to do with "stopping a bad man."
If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't
care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or
to harmonize their rock garden.
"... If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden. ..."
We now know that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. We now know that the crushing of Libya
had nothing to do with "stopping a bad man."
If one does even a cursory check of what dictators around the world are up to recently, you'll find that the U.S. doesn't
care in the slightest whether they are bad or good, whether they're using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or
to harmonize their rock garden.
"... ...What else did you expect other than the MIC/Intelligence Agencies/Pentagon/embedded war mongers handling this stuff? ..."
"... Gen. Buck Turgidson is most certainly going rogue. ..."
"... That's really the bigger story here. It has become a mainstream idea that it is a GOOD thing that an elected President is a figurehead with no real power. ..."
...That's really the bigger story here. It has become a mainstream idea that it is a GOOD thing that an elected President is
a figurehead with no real power.
Of course it's been true for a long time, but it's a fairly recent phenomenon that a large number
of Americans like it. Russiagate is another example.
Huge portions of America were cheering for the unseating of an elected President
by unelected police state apparatus because they don't like him.
Russian president Vladimir Putin blamed the U.S. establishment for preventing an improvement in relations
between Moscow and Washington.
During his annual televised question-and-answer session with members of the
public, Putin was asked about the prospects for better ties if he met with President Donald Trump.
The Russian energy Ministry's department head Evgeny Grabchak, who faces U.S. sanctions, asked Putin on
air if he would "want to meet with Trump."
Putin replied that dialogue with the U.S. was "always good" adding that Russia was "ready for this
dialogue as long as our partners were too."
Putin went on: "But even if Trump wants to change anything, there are restrictions imposed by other
organs of power. There is a part of the American establishment that continues to invent fake news. We have
things to discuss with Trump in all areas, including the economy,"
Novaya Gazyeta
reported.
However, when virtually no one in the upper circles of power in Caracas ended up backing
Guaidó, Trump thought that his national security adviser John Bolton and his director
for Latin American policy, Mauricio Claver-Carone, "got played" by the opposition and key
Maduro officials, The Post reported.
Two senior White House officials told
The Post that the president "chewed out the staff" after the failure on April 30 to
shift Maduro from power and that now Trump's administration has no fixed strategy to remove
him.
Trump had "always thought of" Venezuela "as low-hanging fruit" on which he "could get a win
and tout it as a major foreign policy victory," the former official said. "Five or six months
later . . . it's not coming together," the unnamed official added.
However, this was rejected by National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis who
described the official's claims as, "patently false."
A very good analysis. Trump essentially morphed into Hillary or worse. Essentially the same type of warmonger and
compulsive liar.
Notable quotes:
"... The American people appear largely uninterested in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into another pointless, disastrous war. ..."
"... At time of writing, the Washington Post has counted 10,796 false or misleading claims from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics. ..."
"... Pompeo insists " there is no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the exact same words that Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies reacted skeptically to Trump's claims.) ..."
"... What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that -- or worse . ..."
"... Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. ..."
"... At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further. ..."
"... On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks. Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S. military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels specifically designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes next. ..."
"... Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda covers an attack on Iran . This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts -- but may explain Pompeo's equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan. ..."
"... Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems somewhat hesitant , sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped. ..."
The Trump regime is attempting to gin up a war with Iran. First Trump reneged on Obama's nuclear deal with the country for no
reason, then he slapped them with more economic sanctions for no reason, and then, pushed by National Security Adviser John Bolton
and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he moved massive military forces onto Iran's doorstep to heighten tensions further. Now, after
a series of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman -- none of which were American -- that the administration blames on Iran,
Pompeo says the U.S. is "considering a full range of options," including war. (Iran has categorically denied any involvement.)
The American people appear
largely uninterested
in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into
another pointless, disastrous war.
The New York Times ' Bret Stephens, for all his #NeverTrump pretensions, provides a good window into the
absolute witlessness of the pro-war
argument . He takes largely at face value the Trump administration's accusations against Iran -- "Trump might be a liar, but
the U.S. military isn't," he writes -- and blithely suggests Trump should announce an ultimatum demanding further attacks cease,
then sink Iran's navy if they don't comply.
Let me take these in turn. For one thing, any statement of any kind coming out of a Republican's mouth should be viewed with extreme
suspicion. Two years ago, the party passed a gigantic tax cut for the rich which they swore up and down would "
pay
for itself " with increased growth. To precisely no one's surprise,
this did not happen
. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was just
one
flagrant example of many who got elected in 2016 while
lying through their teeth about their party's efforts to destroy ObamaCare and its protections for preexisting conditions.
At
time of writing, the Washington Post has counted
10,796 false or misleading claims
from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics.
Republican accusations of foreign aggression should be subjected to an even higher burden of proof. The Trump regime has provided
no evidence of Iranian culpability aside from
a video of a ship the Pentagon says is Iranians removing something they say is a mine from an oil tanker -- but a Japanese
ship owner reported at least one attack came from a "
flying object ," not a mine. Pompeo insists "
there is
no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the
exact same words that Vice President
Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United
States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies
reacted skeptically
to Trump's claims.)
What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly
in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that --
or worse .
Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. False flag attacks on its own oil tankers sound outlandish,
but we're talking about a ruthless dictatorship run by a guy who had a Washington Post columnist
murdered and chopped into pieces because he didn't like
his takes. And the Saudis have already been conducting a years-long war in Yemen with catastrophic humanitarian outcomes in order
to stop an Iran-allied group from coming to power. It's by no means certain, but hardly outside the realm of possibility.
At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any
rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further.
But let's grant for the sake of argument that some Iranian forces actually did carry out some or all of these attacks. That raises
the immediate question of why. One very plausible reason is that all of Trump's provocations have strengthened the hand of Iran's
conservative hard-liners, who are basically the mirror image of Pompeo and Bolton. "It is sort of a toxic interaction between hard-liners
on both sides because for domestic political reasons they each want greater tension," as Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on
Foreign Relations told
the New York Times . This faction might have concluded that the U.S. is run by deranged fanatics, and the best way to
protect Iran is to demonstrate they could choke off oil shipping from the Persian Gulf if the U.S. attacks.
This in turn raises the question of the appropriate response if Iran is actually at fault here. It would be one thing if these
attacks came out of a clear blue sky. But America is very obviously the aggressor here. Iran was following its side of the
nuclear deal to the letter before Trump reneged, and
continued to do so as of February . So far the
European Union (which is still party to the deal) has been unwilling to sidestep U.S. sanctions, prompting Iran to
threaten to restart
uranium enrichment . So Iran is a medium-sized country with a faltering economy, hemmed in on all sides by U.S. aggression. Backing
off the threats and chest-thumping might easily strengthen the hand of Iranian moderates, and cause them to respond in kind.
On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks.
Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S.
military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very
real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels
specifically
designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill
thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq
War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes
next.
Taken together, these factors strongly militate towards de-escalation and diplomacy even if Iran did carry out these attacks,
which again, is not at all proven. The current standoff is almost entirely our fault, and Iranian forces are far from defenseless.
America has a lot better things to do than indulge the deluded jingoist fantasies of a handful of armchair generals who want lots
of other people to die in battle.
Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate
U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification
is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda
covers an attack on Iran .
This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts --
but may explain Pompeo's
equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan.
Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems
somewhat hesitant ,
sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for
everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped.
Bias, Lies & Videotape: Doubts Dog 'Confirmed' Syria Chemical Attacks Disturbing new evidence suggests 2018 incident
might've been staged, putting everything else, including U.S. retaliation, into question. By
Scott Ritter •
June 20, 2019
It also calls into question all the other conclusions and reports by the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW) , which was assigned in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly
chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."
As you recall, the Trump administration initiated a coordinated bombing of Syrian government facilities with the UK and France
within days of the
Douma incident and
before
a full investigation of the scene could be completed, charging Assad with the "barbaric act" of using "banned chemical weapons"
to kill dozens of people on the scene. Bomb first, ask questions later.
The OPCW began their investigation days
after the strikes . The group drew on witness testimonies, environmental and biomedical sample analysis results, and additional
digital information from witnesses (i.e. video and still photography), as well as toxicological and ballistic analyses. In July 2018,
the OPCW released an
interim report
on Douma that said "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental
samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties," but that chlorine, which is not a banned chemical weapon, was detected
there.
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The report cited ballistic tests that indicated that the canisters found at two locations on the scene were dropped from the air
(witnesses blamed Assad's forces), but investigations were ongoing.
The final report in March
reiterated the ballistics data, and the conclusions were just as underwhelming, saying that all of the evidence gathered there provides
"reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place," due in part to traces of chlorine and explosives at
the impact sites.
Now, the leaked
internal report apparently suppressed by the OPCW says there is a "high probability" that a pair of chlorine gas cylinders that
had been claimed as the source of the toxic chemical had been planted there by hand and not dropped by aircraft. This was based on
extensive engineering assessments and computer modeling as well as all of the evidence previously afforded to the OPCW.
What does this mean? To my mind, the canisters were planted by the opposition in an effort to frame the Syrian government.
The OPCW has confirmed with the validity of this shocking document and has offered statements to reporters, including Peter Hitchens,
who published
the organization's response to him on May 16.
The ramifications of this turn of events extend far beyond simply disproving the allegations concerning the events in April 2018.
The credibility of the OPCW itself and every report and conclusion
it has released concerning allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government are now suspect. The extent to which
the OPCW has, almost exclusively, relied upon
the same Syrian opposition sources who are now suspected of fabricating the Douma events raises serious questions about both
the methodology and motivation of an organization that had been
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for
"its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons."
In a
response to Agence France-Presse (AFP) , OPCW director general Fernando Arias acknowledged there is an internal probe into the
memo leak but that he continues to "stand by the impartial and professional conclusions" of the group's original report. He played
down the role of the memo's author, Ian Henderson, and said his alternative hypotheses were not included in the final OPCW report
because they "pointed at possible attribution" and were therefore outside the scope of the OPCW's fact finding mission in Syria.
Self-produced videos and witness statements provided by the pro-opposition Violations Documentation Center, Syrian Civil Defense
(also known as the White Helmets), and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS)
, a non-profit organization that operates hospitals in opposition-controlled Syria, represented the heart and soul of the case
against the Syrian government regarding the events in Douma. To my mind, the internal memo now suggests that these actors were engaging
in a systemic effort to disseminate disinformation that would facilitate Western military intervention with the goal of removing
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.
This theory has been advanced by pro-Assad forces and their Russian partners for some time. But independent reporting on the ground
since the Douma incident has sussed out many of the same concerns. From James Harkin, director of the Center for Investigative Journalism
and a fellow at Harvard University's Shorenstein Center, who traveled to the site of the attacks and
reported for The Intercept
in February of this year:
The imperative to grab the fleeting attention of an international audience certainly seems to have influenced the presentation
of the evidence. In the videos and photos that appeared that evening, most analysts and observers agree that there were some signs
that the bodies and gas canisters had been moved or tampered with after the event for maximum impact. The Syrian media activists
who'd arrived at the apartment block with the dead people weren't the first to arrive on the scene; they'd heard about the deaths
from White Helmet workers and doctors at the hospital.
The relationship between the OPCW and the Syrian opposition can be traced back to 2013. That was when the OPCW was given the responsibility
of eliminating Syria's declared arsenal of chemical weapons; this task was largely completed by 2014. However, the Syrian opposition
began making persistent allegations of chemical weapon attacks by the Syrian government in which chlorine, a substance not covered
by Syria's obligation to be disarmed of chemical weapons, was used. In response, the OPCW established the
Fact Finding Mission (FFM) in 2014 "to establish facts surrounding
allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic."
The priority of effort for the FFM early on was to investigate allegations of the use of chlorine as a weapon. Since, according
to its May 2014
summary, "all reported incidents took place at locations that the Syrian Government considers to be outside its effective control,"
the FFM determined that the success of its mission was contingent upon "identification of key actors, such as local authorities and/or
representatives of armed opposition groups in charge of the territories in which these locations are situated; the establishment
of contacts with these groups in an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence that allows the mandate and objectives of the FFM to
be communicated."
So from its very inception, the FFM had to rely on the anti-Assad opposition and its supporters for nearly everything. The document
that governed the
conduct of the FFM's work in Syria was premised on the fact that the mission would be dependent in part upon "opposition representatives"
to coordinate, along with the United Nations, the "security, logistical and operational aspects of the OPCW FFM," including liaising
"for the purposes of making available persons for interviews."
One could sense the bias resulting from such an arrangement when, acting on information provided to it by the opposition regarding
an "alleged attack with chlorine" on the towns of Kafr Zeyta and Al-Lataminah, the FFM changed its original plans to investigate
an alleged chlorine attack on the town of Harasta. This decision, the FFM reported, "was welcomed by the opposition." When the FFM
attempted to inspect Kafr Zeyta, however, it was attacked by opposition forces, with one of its vehicles destroyed by a roadside
bomb, one inspector wounded, and several inspectors detained by opposition fighters.
The inability to go to Kafr Zeyta precluded the group from "presenting definitive conclusions," according to the report. But that
did not stop the FFM from saying that the information given to them from these opposition sources, "including treating physicians
with whom the FFM was able to establish contact," and public domain material, "lends credence to the view that toxic chemicals, most
likely pulmonary irritating agents such as chlorine, have been used in a systematic manner in a number of attacks" against Kafr Zeyta.
So the conclusion/non-conclusion was based not on any onsite investigation, but rather videos produced by the opposition and subsequently
released via social media and
interviews
also likely set up by opposition groups (White Helmets, SAMS, etc.), which we know, according to their own documents, served
as the key liaisons for the FFM on the ground.
All of this is worrisome. It is unclear at this point how many Syrian chemical attacks have been truly confirmed since the start
of the war. In February of this year, the Global Policy Institute
released a report
saying there were 336 such reports, but they were broken down into "confirmed," "credibly substantiated," and "comprehensively confirmed."
Out of the total, 111 were given the rigorous "comprehensively confirmed" tag, which, according to the group, meant the incidents
were "were investigated and confirmed by competent international bodies or backed up by at least three highly reliable independent
sources of evidence."
They do not go into further detail about those bodies and sources, but are sure to thank the White Helmets and their "implementing
partner" Mayday Rescue and Violations Documentation
Center, among other groups, as "friends and partners" in the study. So it becomes clear, looking at the Kafr Zeytan inspection and
beyond, that the same opposition sources that are informing the now-dubious OPCW reports are also delivering data and "assistance"
to outside groups reaching international audiences, too.
The role of the OPCW in sustaining the claims made by the obviously biased Syrian opposition sources cannot be understated --
by confirming the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma, the OPCW lent credibility to claims that otherwise should not --
and indeed would not -- have been granted, and in doing so violated the very operating procedures that had been put in place by the
OPCW to protect the credibility of the organization and its findings.
There is an old prosecutorial rule -- one lie, all lies -- that comes into play in this case. With the leaked internal report
out there, suggesting that the sources in the Douma investigation were agenda-driven and dishonest, all information ever provided
to the OPCW by the White Helmets, SAMS, and other Syrian opposition groups must now, in my mind, be viewed as tainted and therefore
unusable.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control
treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
The OPCW reaction clearly considering the investigation into the leak instead of apologizing for not publishing this report is
revealing its bias.
There has been a push from 'the West' to have the OPCW also attributing responsibility. Given the bias already on display this
will further politicize the OPCW.
As soon as such organizations become propaganda tools their credibility goes into the wind.
Given what we know of the Skripal hoax and the Tories attitude to the truth with their government funded 'Integrity Initiative'
through the Institute of Statecraft' that exactly what the British Intelligence intended.
One may note the specific personal links through Orbis/Steele/Miller between the 'Integrity Initiative' and the fake 'Trump
Dossier' and one ought to be alarmed by 'services' of a British intelligence out of control, but given the FBI/CIA involvement
and exploitation of that fake 'Trump Dossier' it looks that the US has a quite similar problem.
People, however, are supposed to have brains and are expected to be cognizant of what's
happening around them and able to assess its implications on their wellbeing. Unfortunately,
this rarely is the case, which may add credence to the theory that by settling into early
agrarian communities, humans became more caring and supportive of each other, thus undermining
the successful natural selection process by retaining idiot genes!
It is not as though the concept of danger is a new phenomenon. Ever since humans got over
the fear of carnivorous beasts and learnt how to kill them, they have concentrated on killing
each other. Hegemonic tendencies have existed for thousands of years; as early as the Sumerians
and Assyrians and continued through to the colonization monsters of the past few hundred
years.
STATUS OF HEGEMONY
Hegemonies come in different sizes; small, medium and big; an amusing "pecking order" whose
interaction can be observed on the daily news broadcasts. It also comes in different styles;
softly spoken but treacherous, generous with economic assistance but containing hidden strings
to hang you, belligerent with a viscous warmongering streak and lastly, schizophrenic;
oscillating between all the previous styles. There are also the would-be-hegemons if given half
a chance.
More recently, the hegemony arena has, though knock-out matches, been narrowed down to one
grand hegemon and a couple of runners-up, and the heat is now rising as the final tournament
approaches – Let us hope it will not be too bloody and Armageddon-ish.
Despite that, many nations continue to dream of becoming hegemons. But at the same time,
they continue to concentrate on their 'white dots' and disregard the likelihood that they are
already in the crosshairs of a bigger hegemon.
They seem oblivious to the hegemonic ploys that undermine their political and economic
structures through unending sanctions, onerous trade or military treaties, contemptuous
disregard for local and international laws, negative and false news reporting, regime change
tactics, false flag incidences, scaremongering, and outright threats that are occasionally
translated into destructive military action. Like the proverbial deer, they are frozen in the
headlights of the oncoming speeding car and wait until it is too late to save themselves.
What happened in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Somalia, Grenada,
Venezuela, Argentine, Brazil, Cuba, Greece, Iran, North Korea and many other places are only
the tip of the iceberg. What is likely to happen elsewhere is still being baked in the oven and
will come out once done and ready. What is surprising is that, not only were the signs written
on all the walls but, again, the victims failed to comprehend the messages and continued to
stare at their 'white dots'!
Southeast Asia, South China Sea, Ex-Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South & Central
America and Africa are all candidates for destabilization and possible splintering into smaller
pieces – especially those that exhibit economic weakness or cracks in their demographic,
ethnic, religious makeup and are rife with internal disharmony.
Even the European EU is now beginning to feel the brunt of the hegemon pressure of tariff
and sanctions threats. Japan, Mexico, India and Canada too, have just got a taste of an ear
pinching to remind them to dance to the grand hegemon's tune. Who is left? Not even
Timbuktu!
What about the runner-up hegemons? What about the smaller hegemons? Well, all hegemons have
the same strain of nasty genes. However, they are dormant and only begin to grow as their
host's power increases. This, most likely, is a genetic relic from the early human
hunters-gatherers' need for viciousness to survive. Maybe natural selection and/or wisdom will
eventually weed out those nasty genes, but don't bet your farm or country on it.
IS ALL
LOST?
Not necessarily, because all hegemons (big and small) also suffer from the same weaknesses
and dis-harmonies that beset their victims, although they cunningly keep them secret. Powerful
mass media and propaganda are used extensively to camouflage all the ills that would otherwise
stumble their seemingly confident and steady footsteps. This means that they are as also
vulnerable to the same ploys that they have repeatedly used on others.
Also, history confirms that all empires eventually collapse and disappear, regardless of how
long they last. Some lasted over a thousand years, which may sound too long, but in the modern
world of technology, digital communications, social media and financialized economies, the
average lifespan of hegemons has been drastically cut short.
Empires and hegemons generally start with a strategic vision of expansion and moderate
usurpation of other nations' resources; then, gluttony takes over at a rapidly increased
pace.
But as the world and its resources are limited, they sooner or later bump into and clash
with other hegemons; and are forced to change their tactics. As matters heat up, their tactics
not only become shorter and shorter-term, but become ad hoc not fully thought through and, even
haphazard – until they begin to shoot themselves in the foot.
This usually is an early sign of their demise (compare this to the Roman/Byzantine, Safavid
Iran and Ottoman empires and their confusion with multi-front wars – in addition to their
poor governance systems and economic mismanagement).
WHAT TO DO
In all events, we cannot wait out the hegemons to die out as the dinosaurs did; it would
take far too long.
More realistically, we can address the modern hegemonic world threat via a two-pronged
approach. The first is individual effort and the second is collective action.
Individual effort means to treat the sources of weakness and internal disharmony that make
individual countries susceptible to hegemonic ploys. This requires the recreation of the
governance systems to tackle all the maladies that drag nations down, including poor economic
policies, corruption, inequality, ineffective representative systems, etc.
In short, seal the cracks that invite enemies to destabilize a country. It is not easy but
is certainly better than being sucked dry off your freedom, resources and future.
As for collective action, this means getting together with other small and medium nations to
form groups/alliances that can stand up to hegemons and resist, at least, their economic
sanctions and threats. The Non-Aligned Movement was, and still is a good idea, but needs more
teeth. Alternatively, new and more practical types of groupings could be envisaged and created
– always conditional that no one nation, big or small, is allowed to become the group's
hegemon.
Dominoes may be flimsy and unstable, but if laid in parallel rows and columns and closely
bonded (zero-spaced), they become much more difficult to topple. So, don't be a lone domino
dumbly staring at your 'white dots'!
I don't see the cracks being filled. I certainly don't see them being filled by
government. On the local level, our county has grown form a modest system that typically ran
out of money before the year was out to a behemoth. Now the support staff outnumbers the
teachers in our schools. The sheriff's office is massive. The child services center is huge.
The salaries get better and better. The pensions get better. And, the taxes go up. The county
is feeding off the retirees that have flooded in from the North. The fun starts when the
Northern pension plans fail and the boomer die off kills the golden calf.
The the push will be to raise taxes to sustain a bloated bureacracy.
As Hegemonies expand, the costs to maintain the expansion eventually outweigh the
financial rewards (look how much has been blown on Afghanistan). This is funded by neglecting
the infrastructure and systems that made the Hegemonic entity powerful in the first
place.
Hegemonies, as they reach peak expansion find that the costs of further expansion, let
alone retaining their current Vassal entities exceeds their return on investment inflicting
deficits. They rot from within as infrastructure decays and its citizens see no benefit. When
a Hegemony needs to use as much tyranny to ensure that its vassal states and its own citizens
are compliant...... its days are numbered.
Until mankind relearns what made civilization possible (cooperation), then there's no
hope. That's why Russia is advancing the Rule of Law (harmonious cooperation), and China,
advancing OBOR (Economic liberation), in order to avoid the usual causes of conflict,
economic deprivation.
They've both been there (empires), done it (hegemony), and got bruised badly too..
It'd be very difficult to practice hegemony now, in a densely interconnected world, but
that doesn't mean nations won't possess some influence over others, influence being the key
word, like a man's girlfriend possesses influence over him, or vice versa, but raw hegemony?
Not likely..
Anyhow, what really ails humanity, is alienation from Divinity. Rich, famous, and powerful
people have been known to terminally end their mortality despite having it all..
Our mission, is to restore that connection, so we can finally wake up, and ascend to
explore, and multiply amongst the stars. But first things first, charity begins right here,
on planet home, cheers...
The coming 'paradigm shift', means the West and all its debt will metamorphize into
Oceania, continue to fake its hegemony, and fool its population into thinking that they still
are, what they once were.
Excellent article! Beautifully crafted and simple to understand. A refreshing view that,
to my knowledge, has not been used before. Most importantly, an easy method for awakening the
zombie classes.
Now we have the tool, let's begin using it. Black dots, dead ahead!
Trouble is that the alpha hegemon and the larger of the betas, all have a trove of nuclear
weapons. I don't think the Sumerians and Assyrians had anything quite like that.
When today's promoters of hope and denial finally meet up with the invincible force of
reality, sad very sad
The teaser for a recent
Bret Stephens column in The New York Times accurately summarizes its contents: "If
Iran won't change its behavior we should sink its navy."
We've done it before and, by golly, we can do it again. Stephens offers his readers this
sanitized version of history to make his case: "On April 14, 1988, the U.S.S. Samuel B.
Roberts, a frigate, hit an Iranian naval mine while sailing in the Persian Gulf. The explosion
injured 10 of her crew and nearly sank the ship. Four days later, the U.S. Navy destroyed half
the Iranian fleet in a matter of hours. Iran did not molest the Navy or international shipping
for many years thereafter."
Stripped bare of context, that paragraph is factually correct. But stripping it of context,
as Stephens does, transforms it into a form of untruth, not a blatant lie perhaps, but an
exercise in sleight of hand. Indeed, the very purpose of his column is not to enlighten, but to
deceive and manipulate.
Americans are susceptible to this sort of argument. We like to think that the Pearl Harbor
attack came out of the blue, ignoring the years of escalating antagonism between the United
States and Japan that preceded it. Our version of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis portrays it as
an unprovoked act of aggression, conveniently forgetting U.S. efforts over the previous two
years to overthrow or assassinate Fidel Castro. And we prefer to divorce decades of muddled
U.S. policies in the Middle East from the heinous crime of 9/11, pretending that the former
played no role in inspiring the latter.
Yet bad history leads to bad policy. Stephens implicitly suggests that the incident
involving the Samuel B. Roberts was itself an unprovoked attack. In fact, the story is a bit
more complicated and those complications deserve reflection today.
Here is just some of the context that Stephens chooses to leave out.
Item: In 1988, Iran was in the eighth year of a war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq; Saddam had
initiated that conflict by invading Iran, an unprovoked and illegal act of aggression.
Item: Beginning in December 1983, the United States had thrown its support behind the Iraqi
dictator, providing him with battlefield intelligence and various types of material support;
starting in 1985, in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair, the Reagan administration
also began secretly providing arms to Iran.
Item: In 1984, Iraq had begun attacking ships involved in exporting Iranian oil; Iran
responded in kind, attacking tankers belonging to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, countries that were
bankrolling Saddam's war effort.
Item: On May 17, 1987, with the double-dealing of Iran-Contra having become public, an Iraqi
fighter-bomber attacked the USS Stark, nearly sinking it and killing 37 American sailors;
Secretary of State George Shultz blamed Iran for the incident, attributing it to a "basic
Iranian threat to the free flow of oil and to the principle of freedom of navigation"; in fact,
both Iran and Iraq were engaged in impeding the free flow of oil.
Item: That July, the U.S. Navy began escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers transiting the Persian
Gulf; the Pentagon also began preparing for offensive operations, concentrating additional
combat assets in the region.
Item: On September 21, 1987, U.S. forces initiated a campaign of escalating attacks directed
at Iranian mine-laying vessels and oil platforms; the United States had now effectively become
a full-fledged ally of Saddam Hussein.
Item: Months later, the Samuel Roberts inadvertently wandered into a field of floating
mines; the resulting U.S. fatalities were 37 fewer than those killed on the USS Stark but the
incident provided the needed pretext for the United States to respond four days later on April
18, 1988 with Operation Praying Mantis, which decimated Iran's minuscule navy.
Item, a notable footnote that goes unmentioned in Stephens' column: Not long thereafter, on
July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes, a cruiser intruding into Iranian territorial waters, shot down
Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 civilians aboard; senior U.S. officials, including the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then lied about the circumstances leading to this
incident; a U.S. Navy investigation charged Iran with "principal responsibility" for what it
termed a "tragedy"; no apologies were forthcoming; Vice President George H.W. Bush said it
best: "I will never apologize for the United States -- I don't care what the facts are."
Within weeks, the Iran-Iraq War ended in a UN-brokered ceasefire. The United States had
enabled Saddam to survive. Two years later, America's erstwhile ally invaded and annexed
Kuwait.
So, yes, in Operation Preying Mantis, U.S. forces did defeat the Iranian navy. Yet
prevailing in this insignificant skirmish accomplished little apart from paving the way for
further aggression by Saddam Hussein.
"Nobody wants a war with Iran," writes Stephens. Actually some people do want war, almost
surely including President Trump's secretary of state and national security adviser. So, too,
does Stephens himself. The deceptive history that he chooses to propagate can have no purpose
except to promote armed conflict and to impede any understanding into America's role in
planting the seeds of forever war.
Andrew is actually giving this story much more analysis than it deserves. Bret Stephens is a
Zionist. What he writes is pure propaganda and has been for a long time. It's not worth
'analyzing', it's just more lies to convince Americans to destroy Israel's enemies.
..Trump HAS drained the swamp,,, right into his administration.
Look at what we in the US have to look forward to,,, tyrants on the left,,, tyrants on the
right. I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure.
..Trump HAS drained the swamp,,, right into his administration.
Look at what we in the US have to look forward to,,, tyrants on the left,,, tyrants on the
right. I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure.
"... What is the significance of this story, apart from what it tells us about the graver dangers of the new US-Russian Cold War, which now includes, we are informed, a uniquely fraught "digital Cold War"? Not so long ago, mainstream liberal Democrats, and the Times itself, would have been outraged by revelations that defense and intelligence officials were making such existential policy behind the back of a president. No longer, it seems. There have been no liberal, Democratic, or for the most part any other, mainstream protests, but instead a lawyerly apologia justifying the intelligence-defense operation without the president's knowledge. ..."
"... As I have often emphasized, the long historical struggle for American-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) détente, or broad cooperation, has featured many acts of attempted sabotage on both sides, though most often by US intelligence and defense agencies. ..."
"... Now the sabotaging of détente appears be happening again. As the Times article makes clear, Washington's war party, or perhaps zealous Cold War party, referred to euphemistically by Sanger and Perlroth as "advocates of the more aggressive strategy," is on the move. ..."
"... Détente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy pursuit, but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world. No American president can achieve it without substantial bipartisan support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks. What kind of catastrophe will it take -- in Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on Russia's electric grid -- to shock US Democrats and others out of what has been called, not unreasonably, their Trump Derangement Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight. ..."
Occasionally, a revelatory, and profoundly alarming,
article passes almost unnoticed, even when published on the front page of The New York
Times . Such was the case with
reporting by David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth , bearing the Strangelovian title "U.S.
Buries Digital Land Mines to Menace Russia's Power Grid," which appeared in the print edition
on June 16. The article contained two revelations.
First, according to Sanger and Perlroth, with my ellipses duly noted, "The United States is
stepping up digital incursions into Russia's electric power grid. Advocates of the more
aggressive strategy said it was long overdue " The operation "carries significant risk of
escalating the daily digital Cold War between Washington and Moscow." Though under way at least
since 2012, "now the American strategy has shifted more toward offense with the placement of
potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness
that had never been tried before." At this point, the Times reporters add an Orwellian
touch. The head of the U.S. Cyber Command characterizes the assault on Russia's grid, which
affects everything from the country's water supply, medical services, and transportation to
control over its nuclear weapons, as "the need to 'defend forward,'" because "they don't fear
us."
Nowhere do Sanger and Perlroth seem alarmed by the implicit risks of this "defend forward"
attack on the infrastructure of the other nuclear superpower. Indeed, they wonder "whether it
would be possible to plunge Russia into darkness." And toward the end, they quote an American
lawyer and former Obama official, whose expertise on the matter is unclear, to assure readers
sanguinely, "We might have to risk taking some broken bones of our own from a counter response.
Sometimes you have to take a bloody nose to not take a bullet in the head down the road." The
"broken bones," "bloody nose," and "bullet" are, of course, metaphorical references to the
potential consequences of nuclear war.
The second revelation comes midway in the Times story: "[President] Trump had not
been briefed in any detail about the steps to place 'implants' inside the Russian grid" because
"he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials." (Indeed, Trump issued an
angry tweet when he saw the Times report, though leaving unclear which part of it
most aroused his anger.)
What is the significance of this story, apart from what it tells us about the graver dangers
of the new US-Russian Cold War, which now includes, we are informed, a uniquely fraught
"digital Cold War"? Not so long ago, mainstream liberal Democrats, and the Times itself,
would have been outraged by revelations that defense and intelligence officials were making
such existential policy behind the back of a president. No longer, it seems. There have been no
liberal, Democratic, or for the most part any other, mainstream protests, but instead a
lawyerly apologia justifying the intelligence-defense operation without the president's
knowledge.
The political significance, however, seems clear enough. The leak to the Times and
the paper's publication of the article come in the run-up to a scheduled meeting between
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 meeting in Japan on June
28–29. Both leaders had recently expressed hope for improved US-Russian relations. On May
4, Trump again
tweeted his longstanding aspiration for a "good/great relationship with Russia"; and this
month Putin lamented that relations "
are getting worse and worse " but hoped that he and Trump could move their countries beyond
"the games played by intelligence services."
As I have often emphasized, the long historical struggle for American-Russian (Soviet and
post-Soviet) détente, or broad cooperation, has featured many acts of attempted sabotage
on both sides, though most often by US intelligence and defense agencies. Readers may recall
the Eisenhower-Khrushchev summit meeting that was to take place in Paris in 1960, but which was
aborted by the Soviet shoot-down of a US spy plane over the Soviet Union, an intrusive flight
apparently not authorized by President Eisenhower. And more recently,
the 2016 plan by then-President Obama and Putin for US-Russian cooperation in Syria, which
was aborted by a Department of Defense attack on Russian-backed Syrian troops.
Now the sabotaging of détente appears be happening again. As the Times article
makes clear, Washington's war party, or perhaps zealous Cold War party, referred to
euphemistically by Sanger and Perlroth as "advocates of the more aggressive strategy," is on
the move. Certainly, Trump has been repeatedly thwarted in his previous détente
attempts, primarily by discredited Russiagate allegations that continue to be promoted by the
war party even though they still lack any evidential basis. (It may also be recalled that his
previous summit meeting with Putin was widely and shamefully assailed as "treason" by
influential segments of the US political-media establishment.)
Détente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy pursuit,
but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world. No American president
can achieve it without substantial bipartisan support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks.
What kind of catastrophe will it take -- in Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on
Russia's electric grid -- to shock US Democrats and others out of what has been called, not
unreasonably, their Trump Derangement Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national
security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes
before midnight.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host of The John Batchelor Show
. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com . Ad Policy Stephen F. Cohen is a
professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton
University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin
& Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook
edition.
"... One of the first major confrontations with the US by Russia and the PRC was to be over the greater Middle East. The main reason was the advance negotiations with all key oil producers -- including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran -- on substituting the petrodollar with a basket of currencies where the yuan , the euro and the ruble dominate. Using the currency basket would enable the sellers and buyers to go around the US-imposed sanctions and quotas. Indeed, Beijing and Moscow were now enticing the oil producers with huge, long-term export deals which were both financially lucrative and politically tempting by offering guarantees for the well-being of the participating governments. ..."
"... The 26th of March 2018 will go in history as the most momentous day for the United States’ economy, China’s economy and the petrodollar and also for China’s status as an economic superpower. In that day China launched its yuan-denominated crude oil futures in Shanghai thus challenging the petrodollar for dominance in the global oil market. ..."
"... And with tensions escalating between Iran and the United States, Iran figures prominently in the Russia-China strategic partnership. It is an important link in the BRI. Moreover, Iran has recently become more confident in its ability to confront the United States by the joint guarantees of support it received from Russia and China in the event the US moved to strangle it and attempt a regime change. Iran’s understanding is that were the US to take military action against it, Russia and China would prevent an Iranian defeat even if there were major setbacks. ..."
One of the first major confrontations with the US by
Russia and the PRC was to be over the greater Middle East. The main reason was the advance
negotiations with all key oil producers -- including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran -- on
substituting the petrodollar with a basket of currencies where the yuan , the
euro and the ruble dominate. Using the currency basket would enable the sellers
and buyers to go around the US-imposed sanctions and quotas. Indeed, Beijing and Moscow were
now enticing the oil producers with huge, long-term export deals which were both financially
lucrative and politically tempting by offering guarantees for the well-being of the
participating governments.
The crux of the proposal is regional and includes flagrant disregard of the US sanctions on
Iran.
However, the key to the extent of the commitment of both Beijing and Moscow lies in the
growing importance and centrality of the New Silk Road via Central Asia.
Persia had a crucial rôle in the ancient Silk Road, and both the PRC and Russia now
expect Iran to have a comparable key rôle in the New Silk Road.
The growing dominance of heritage-based dynamics throughout the developing world, including
the greater Central Asia and the greater Middle East, makes it imperative for the PRC to rely
on historic Persia/Iran as a western pole of the New Silk Road. It is this realization which
led both Beijing and Moscow to give Tehran, in mid-May 2019, the original guarantees that
Washington would be prevented from conducting a "regime change".
Therefore, even though both Russia and the PRC were not satisfied with the Iranian and
Iran-proxy activities and policies in the Iraq-Syria-Lebanon area, it was far more important
for them to support Iran, and also Turkey, in their confrontations with the US in order to
expedite the consolidation of the New Silk Road.
Tehran and its key allies in "the Middle Eastern Entente" -- Turkey and Qatar -- are
cognizant of the core positions of Russia and the PRC. Since mid-May, Tehran and, to a lesser
extent, Ankara and Doha, were appraised by Moscow and Beijing of their overall direction of
political decisions. Hence, since early June 2019, Tehran has felt confident to
start building momentum of Iranian assertiveness and audacity.
Tehran has been raising its profile in the region.
Tehran insists that it is now impossible to make decisions, or do anything else, in the
greater Middle East without Iran's approval. On June 2, 2019, the Chief of Staff of the Iranian
Armed Forces, Maj.-Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, touted the new strategic posture of Iran. "The
Islamic movement has affected the entire world and on top of that, it has succeeded in
intimidating the American hegemony and Zionism," he said. Bagheri attributed the new influence
of Iran to the acquisition of regional strategic depth; that is, reaching the shores of the
Mediterranean
Mamdouh Salamehon June 18 2019
Some quarters in the West belittle the strategic partnership between China and Russia describing it as a “marriage of
convenience”. They even had the temerity to urge President Putin to make a choice between China and the West.
President Putin will never sacrifice his strategic partnership with China for the West. Both Russia and China rank their ties
as the “peak” in mutual history. This can be judged by two analytical frameworks: their converging visions of the future
world order and their harmonized national interests.
The Chinese view on the world order at this historical juncture is shared and dovetailed by Putin’s Russia. Both sides hold
the view that Washington’s alienation from both Beijing and Moscow is reflected by the deeply rooted fear of the US losing
hegemonic status as the “only indispensable superpower”. The indications of the US fear are plenty. From Beijing’s point of
view, they manifest themselves by the U.S. decision to restart a Cold War containment strategy of China and by the trade war
it is waging against it. From Moscow’s perspective, US fears manifest themselves by the US attempts to undermine Russia’s
dominance in global energy and also by the Western alliance pushing the Western sphere of influence towards the Russian
border.
In sharp contrast to mutual suspicion and deteriorating relationship between Washington and Beijing, the Chinese-Russian tie
has proved to be a stable strategic partnership built on mutual understanding, respect and national interests.
The Russia-China strategic alliance is destined to shape the global economy and the geopolitics of the world in the 21st
century converting it from a unipolar to a multipolar world.
Relations between China, the world’s largest economy based on purchasing power parity (PPP) and Russia, the world’s energy
superpower, are deepening at a time of profound change in the global geopolitical landscape.
Their tools are the petro-yuan and the Silk Road better known as the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).
The 26th of March 2018 will go in history as the most momentous day for the United States’ economy, China’s economy and
the petrodollar and also for China’s status as an economic superpower. In that day China launched its yuan-denominated crude
oil futures in Shanghai thus challenging the petrodollar for dominance in the global oil market.
Right now, China is the number one exporter on the globe, the largest crude oil importer in the world and also the world’s
biggest economy. The Chinese would like to see global currency usage reflect this shift in global economic power. The
petrodollar system provides at least three immediate benefits to the United States. It increases global demand for US
dollars. It also increases global demand for US debt securities and it gives the United States the ability to buy oil with a
currency it can print at will. In geopolitical terms, the petrodollar lends vast economic and political power to the United
States. China hopes to replicate this dynamic.
The launching of the crude oil benchmark on the Shanghai exchange could mark the beginning of the end of the petrodollar.
It is probable that the Chinese yuan will emerge as the world’s top reserve currency within the next fifteen years with the
petro-yuan emerging as the top oil currency.
Another tool of the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership is BRI. The BRI is a massive undertaking involving investments
programmes worth trillions of dollars, which will go toward connecting Asia and Europe by sea, rail, and road to promote more
trade between the continents.
And with tensions escalating between Iran and the United States, Iran figures prominently in the Russia-China
strategic partnership. It is an important link in the BRI. Moreover, Iran has recently become more confident in its ability
to confront the United States by the joint guarantees of support it received from Russia and China in the event the US moved
to strangle it and attempt a regime change. Iran’s understanding is that were the US to take military action against it,
Russia and China would prevent an Iranian defeat even if there were major setbacks.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London
As President Donald Trump was in Florida kicking off his bid for a second term, his national
security team was in Washington hatching plans that make that prospect much less likely.
The architects of the failed George W. Bush foreign policy rightly derided by Trump as a
"big, fat mistake" on the campaign trail today exercise undue influence inside this White
House. The end result could be a war with Iran.
Just as their last turn at the wheel wrecked the Bush presidency and eventually left Barack
Obama in power alongside three-fifths Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, the
Republican Party's wildest hawks could now ensure that Trump is a one-term president. The
president once understood this, telling Jeb Bush, "Your brother and his administration gave us
Barack Obama . Abraham Lincoln couldn't have won."
Trump defeated Jeb, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio, running on a foreign policy of "America
First" and repudiating a decade and a half of unwinnable wars. He then won in an upset over
Hillary Clinton, who voted to invade Iraq, pushed "kinetic military action" in Libya, and
otherwise hasn't seen a war she hasn't liked since Vietnam.
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Now Trump is on the precipice of ceding the war issue to his political opponents, as the
border crisis metastasizes and the suburbs turn blue. Joe Biden would be the third Democratic
presidential nominee to have voted for the Iraq war -- the exception, Obama, twice won the
White House -- just as Chuck Schumer is the third straight Senate Democratic leader to have
done so.
If Trump follows Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Bush retread national security
advisor John Bolton into a preventive war with Iran, he will make Biden and Schumer look like
Tulsi Gabbard -- and perhaps pave the way for a different Democratic nominee against whom the
anti-Hillary playbook of 2016 will prove less useful.
The president began the year promising to end the war in Syria, which Congress never
authorized in the first place, and wind down the war in Afghanistan. Alongside low
unemployment, the job growth that followed deregulation and tax cuts, and remaking the Supreme
Court in Antonin Scalia's image, keeping ISIS at bay without launching a new war in the Middle
East -- though he has surely escalated some ongoing conflicts -- stands among his top
accomplishments.
Perhaps that is the soft bigotry of low expectations, to use a Bush-era phrase, but in an
era of forever war, it counts for something. That is, it will count for something until the
Trump team invokes the congressional authorization of force used for the Afghan war to start a
new one in Iran, a move too brazenly unconstitutional for even the Bush-Cheney contingent of
old.
The cakewalk crowd has reemerged to assure us that pinprick strikes against Iranian nuclear
facilities are possible and that the regime in Tehran will prove a paper tiger. But everywhere
their promises have turned to ash. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or
cheering throngs greeting America's finest as liberators. Groups ideologically similar to the
Islamists who attacked us on 9/11 emerged from Iraq and Libya as more powerful, not less.
Iran has long been the unprincipled exception to Trump's opposition to Middle Eastern
quagmires. His desire to undo the Obama presidency predisposed him to unraveling the nuclear
deal and led him to folly in Yemen. Now it might prompt him to redo the foreign policy mistakes
that toppled the Bush dynasty, paving the way for a socialist to become the next
commander-in-chief.
Still, there remains a powerful voice inside the White House who could halt this march to
war. "The president, who campaigned against getting the U.S. bogged down in unnecessary foreign
wars, is considered the primary internal obstacle to a counterattack," Politicoreports .
Not even Trump's opinion should matter most. The Constitution vests the power to declare war
in Congress. To justify a new war based on an outdated resolution passed nearly 20 years ago to
authorize retaliation against the 9/11 attackers would be an unconscionable power grab by the
executive branch that lawmakers should not countenance. Yet time and again, Congress has
shirked its constitutional duties.
The Democrats in the House have an opportunity to put their money where
their mouths are . But maybe they won't. An Iraq-like war in Iran would go a long way
toward accomplishing their main goal: making Donald Trump a one-term president.
"... There are two possibilities. Trump wants a war with Iran and what we see is a good cop, bad cop strategy in which Trump plays the good guy for his voters until some 'grave incident' happens that lets him says that he has no choice but to 'hit back' at Iran. The other scenario is that Trump is a fool and that the war hawks use him as their tool to implement their preferred policies. ..."
"... Former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke says that the second scenario is the real one : ..."
"... Crooke describes how Bolton, and Netanyahoo behind him, outmaneuver the U.S. intelligence services over Iran. They stovepipe "intelligence" to the president and the media just like the crew of then Vice President Dick Cheney did in the run up to the war on Iraq: ..."
"... Bolton chairs at the NSC, the regular and frequent strategic dialogue meetings with Israel – intended to develop a joint action plan, versus Iran. What this means is that the Israeli intelligence assessments are being stovepiped directly to Bolton (and therefore to Trump), without passing by the US intelligence services for assessment or comment on the credibility of the intelligence presented (shades of Cheney confronting the analysts down at Langley). ..."
"... Bolton and Pompeo are representative of Trump's rabid evangelical base and Israel. The kabuki friction towards the shared goals is just that. To the degree that we are hearing shrillness from these folk reflects the increasing failure of their tactics to maintain control of the global narrative. ..."
"... I'm definitely of the good cop/bad cop belief. It fits with the entirety of his campaign and presidency: say one thing, do another, and blame somebody else. Trump wanted Bolton for NSA since the campaign. Both Bolton and Trump have had a position of confrontation with Iran for a long time ..."
"... Sheldon Adelson is Trumps biggest doner "Adelson's promotion of Bolton dates back at least to the days immediately after Trump's November 2016 election. According to The New York Times, Adelson strongly supported Bolton for the position of deputy secretary of state as Trump was putting together his cabinet" https://lobelog.com/trumps-choice-of-bolton-satisfies-his-biggest-donor/ So Trump could find it difficult to sack Bolton. ..."
"... It just seems like Iraq deja vu: GWB was the ignorant, dumb public face masking Lukidniks controlling US policy then, DJT the face masking the same now. ..."
"... US bombs falling on Iran seems awfully close to Moscow in my view. I cannot help wondering if one of Putin's cards is his own red line: not allowing Likudniks to subjugate US military power for their "interests" wrt Iran. ..."
"... It's about 1500 miles from Tehran to Moscow. That's about equal to the distance between Kansas City and San Francisco. ..."
"... As B (and many other media ) pointed out: the crew of the Japanese tanker all said the ship was hit by an air borne projectile. This was not a mine. Seems obvious if US was interested in the truth, they would recover and identify the projectile. ..."
"... IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's "on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners (capitalists) ..."
"... Sadly, I find that I disagree with both of b's latest theories: the "Iranian stealth attack" theory and the "President Bolton" theory. IMO these are propaganda narratives. ..."
"... "As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron". ..."
"... Now look at the U.S., the tanker was sitting their in broad daylight for about 10hrs and we couldn't even get ONE decent picture of an unexploded bomb sitting on the side of hull. And when the IRGC finally did show up, even our high resolution pictures were a joke and we are the SIGINT champions with hi-tech drones. Also, this means that the IRGC was able to slip into a port on the other side of the Persian Gulf and attack mines to 4 tankers undetected. ..."
"... By minimizing the Oman Gulf incidents, maybe it is way for the White House under Bolton's control to show that it is not impressed nor feeling threatened. it is also encouraging the perpetrators of the attacks to do more provocations and ideally to kill an American... ..."
"... That Iranian seaman who is alleged to have pulled off a possibly unstable, unexploded mine wearing nothing but a rubber life jacket thus endangering his life and all his crew mates and survivors in the small boat is the action of a lunatic. Or maybe it never happened. ..."
"... There's been a shift in the dialogue, to some degree, to a discussion of the overall US role in the Gulf area. ..."
"... A broadening of the security mission in the Gulf area would be a positive step. Imagine the navies of China, India and Japan taking a role! The price would be a removal of Iran sanctions, because these countries want Iran oil! . . .I can dream. ..."
Jeff Bezos' blog, the Washington Post ,
has some bits on the discussion and infighting in the Trump administration about the march
towards war on Iran. The piece opens with news of a new redline the Trump administration set
out:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has privately delivered warnings intended for Iranian leaders
that any attack by Tehran or its proxies resulting in the death of even one American service
member will generate a military counterattack, U.S. officials said.
...
While such attacks were common during the Iraq War, Pompeo told Iraqi leaders in a message he
knew would be relayed to Tehran that a single American fatality would prompt the United
States to hit back.
That warning was sent in May when Pompeo visited Baghdad. The issue may soon become
critical. Throughout the last days there were rocket attacks in Iraq against targets where U.S.
personnel is present. The AFP correspondent in Baghdad lists six of them:
Maya Gebeily - @GebeilyM - 10:20 UTC - 19 Jun 2019
Timeline of attacks on US interests in #Iraq
Fri: Mortars hit Balad base, where US troops based
Sun: Projectiles hit #Baghdad mil airport
Mon: Rockets on Taji, where coalition forces based
Tues: Mortars on #Mosul ops HQ
Wed: Rockets on housing/ops center used by IOCs near #Basra
#IRAQ: @AFP learns there were at least *two* attacks near US oil interests in #Basra in
last 24 hours - ExxonMobil + Baker Hughes, a GE Company Their senior staff are being
evacuated.
At least some of these attacks came from areas where Islamic State underground groups are
still active. The weapons used were improvised and
imprecise.
That shows how stupid the red line is that Pompeo set out. He would attack Iran if an errant
ISIS rocket by chance kills some U.S. soldier? That is nuts.
Back to the WaPo piece:
Speaking during a visit to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa on Tuesday, Pompeo said
Trump "does not want war" but stressed the United States would act if assaulted. "We are
there to deter aggression," he said.
The U.S. violated the nuclear agreement and is waging an economic war on Iran. That was the
aggression that started the conflict. Anything that follows from that was caused by the Trump
administration.
Colonel Pat Lang
thinks that Pompeo was in Tampa to bring the military in line with his aggressive
policies:
Ole First in his Class is down in Tampaland today jawboning the leaders of CENTCOM (Mideast),
and SOCOM (badass commandos worldwide). Why is he there? The Secretary of State has no
constitutional or legal role in dealing with the armed forces. That being the case one can
only think that there is push-back from senior commanders over the prospect of war with Iran
and that Trump has been persuaded to let him do this unprecedented visit to wheedle or
threaten his way into their acquiescence.
WaPo again:
The sudden departure Tuesday of Patrick Shanahan, who has served as acting defense secretary
since January, could further sideline the Pentagon, which has campaigned to reduce the
potential for hostilities. Shanahan's withdrawal followed revelations of a complicated
domestic dispute.
The
'complicated domestic dispute ' is not so complicate at all and the case is undisputed. In
a several years long process Shanahan's ex-wife went crazy and physically attacked him and
their kids. Finally one of the kids hit back at her with a baseball bat. In court Shanahan
argued for a mild punishment for the kid. All the kids, mostly grown up now, are with him and
do not want to see their mother. All that was documented by the police and by courts. Shanahan
is not guilty of anything in that case. It was not a reason to resign.
Pat Lang
believes that the real reason was Pompeo's trip to Tampa:
Shanahan withdrew his name from confirmation process today. IMO he did it because DJT let
Pomp circumvent his authority.
The Pentagon was the last hold out against the aggressive anti-Iran policy says WaPo
:
Concerns about an escalation are particularly pointed at the Pentagon, where the absence of a
confirmed secretary has fueled worries that hawks in the White House and State Department
could push the military beyond its specific mission of destroying the remnants of the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria, raising the potential for conflict with Iran.
It has been reported several times and by different outlets that Trump is somewhat isolated
from anti-war opinions in his administration. All he sees and hears is Fox News , Bibi
Netanyahoo and John Bolton. The WaPo piece again confirms that:
Administration officials interviewed by The Washington Post said that national security
adviser John Bolton has dominated Iran policy, keeping a tight rein on information that gets
to the president and sharply reducing meetings in which top officials gather in the White
House's Situation Room to discuss the policy.
...
The intensification of [the "maximum pressure"] campaign has triggered internal debates over
how best to execute the president's orders. At the State Department this spring, an argument
among officials over how hard to squeeze Iran with sanctions ended with those favoring the
toughest possible approach prevailing. In particular, hard-liners at the White House
squelched waivers that would have allowed Iran to keep selling oil after a May 1 deadline.
White House aides also ended waivers that allowed Iran to swap its enriched uranium for
natural uranium, an integral part of the nuclear deal.
...
While State Department officials sought to achieve a "sweet spot" that would weaken Iran
through sanctions but not push so hard that Iran would withdraw from the nuclear deal, others
have argued that Trump's goal is to destroy the accord at any cost and pursue a more
expansive policy that seeks to cripple Iran's proxy forces throughout the region.
Pentagon and State Department officials have complained, however, about the difficulty of
getting an adequate hearing for these debates under Bolton. As a result, arguments about
policy frequently are not aired and do not reach the president. The process is "very
exclusionary, and Bolton has very sharp elbows," the senior administration official said.
...
At the Pentagon, officials have quietly voiced concerns for months that the current
trajectory might make military conflict a self-fulfilling prophecy.
...
One person familiar with the recent discussions said that Pentagon officials, including
Shanahan, have been "the ones putting the brakes" on the State Department and the White
House. "DOD is not beating the drums of war," the person said.
One can quibble with that. It is the regional military commander who always asks for more
troops. More ships and more troops increase the chance for "accidents" and make a war more
likely. That is why John Bolton uses each and every small incident to send more troops to the
Middle East:
"Does the president want to send more troops? No. Will he be convinced to do it? Yes," the
senior administration official said.
Trump, in contrast to some of his advisers, has seemed to downplay the significance of
Iran's actions. In an interview published Tuesday by Time magazine, he said the recent oil
tanker attacks were "very minor."
Trump is the president. He hired those people and is responsible for what they do. But does
he know what they do?
There are two possibilities. Trump wants a war with Iran and what we see is a good cop, bad cop strategy in which Trump
plays the good guy for his voters until some 'grave incident' happens that lets him says that
he has no choice but to 'hit back' at Iran. The other scenario is that Trump is a fool and that
the war hawks use him as their tool to implement their preferred policies.
Former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke says that the second scenario is
the real one :
The consensus on 'no conflict' unfortunately, may turn out to have been overly sanguine. This
is not because Trump consciously desires war, but because the hawks surrounding him,
particularly Bolton, are painting him into a corner – from which he must either back
down, or double down, if Iran does not first capitulate.
And here is the point: the main Trump misconception may be that he does believe that Iran
wants, and ultimately, 'will seek a deal'.
Crooke describes how Bolton, and Netanyahoo behind him, outmaneuver the U.S. intelligence
services over Iran. They stovepipe "intelligence" to the president and the media just like the
crew of then Vice President Dick Cheney did in the run up to the war on Iraq:
Bolton chairs at the NSC, the regular and frequent strategic dialogue meetings with Israel
– intended to develop a joint action plan, versus Iran. What this means is that the
Israeli intelligence assessments are being stovepiped directly to Bolton (and therefore to
Trump), without passing by the US intelligence services for assessment or comment on the
credibility of the intelligence presented (shades of Cheney confronting the analysts down at
Langley). And Bolton too, will represent Trump at the 'security summit' to be held later this
month in Jerusalem with Russia and Israel. Yes, Bolton truly has all the reins in his hands:
He is 'Mr Iran'.
'Mr Anti-Iran' is a more precise moniker. Or one may just call him President Bolton.
Posted by b on June 19, 2019 at 02:20 PM | Permalink
The US is now saying that they will only protect ships in the gulf if the usual NATO suspects
come along for the ride. If they do, then when the US attacks Iran they are committed for the
regional war that follows. Bolton has done a great job of putting the band back together
again.
Its all on Trump. No excuses. When the bodybags start to flow and the gas prices go to 8 or 9
dollars a gallon he will be toast. He'll never be able to show his face in public again
without a small army around him. What a legacy.
The similarities, to me, are a poor pantomime of Nixon and Kissinger. Milhaus was always the
"madman" with his finger on the nuclear trigger which made the Nazi employment campaigner,
Kissinger, seem like one to reason with if you didn't want nuclear annihilation.
There is an interesting book, "The Fire And The Fury", that has some insight into the
administration. Trump never thought he would win and didn't intend to. He wanted to be
"Crooked Hillary's" victim. Also, the book makes a great case for Israeli collusion, not
Russia.
That said, the book makes a large showing of DJT's ignorance and indifference. Like many
ignorant presidential hopefuls, I think DJT thought he could make a difference but we all
know he's just a shill.
My favorite part of the book stated that DJT ate at Mickey D's because he's afraid of
being poisoned, not because of a great love of fast food.
The present goobermint can run Donald up and down the flag pole and blame everything in
the world on him and no one will know the difference.
The war on Iran will be different to other US/Western wars.
Previously, it has only become apparent after the war has been going for some time (they
never really end) that the war was a crime.
This time the whole of the US and the West knows full well that a war crime is being
perpetrated. This will mean a definite end of the illusions that the West has held about it's
self since WWII (or WWI). Can Empires and Civilisations continue if they no longer believe
the stories they tell themselves?
Trump has not been fooled or misled, neither have the American people, neither the
UK/European governments or peoples. We are destroying ourselves with this act.
Bolton has more brain cells than the entirety of the European peoples.
I bet soon we'll learn Shanahan was pushed out by the usual Bolton tactic of threats and
extortion -- both on the personal and familial level.
Shanahan should blow the whistle -- soon!
Thanks b. Trump is likely both a fool and a barking mad President with a narcissistic
personality. A dangerous mix open to malicious behaviour and vulnerable to manipulation. I
have no doubt that he revels in the gravitas of it all, the Napoleonic pomp and ceremony etc.
That the planet has to suffer this and Netanyahu and Pence Pentecostal ignorance is
appalling.
There wont be any summit meeting between Iran and Trump, the insult would be intolerable
and the outcome of no value to Iran. They know very well what the game is.
Bolton is just the killer for the job right where he is but will Trump find an equally
malign player for his army? I am sure there is no shortage of 'suitable' candidates.
One bright side for the planet could well be a calamitous rise in oil price and a chaotic
spin of global economic circumstances resulting in a drop in greenhouse gas emissions. On the
dark side small pockets of survival.
@uncle tungsten (8) One bright side for the planet could well be a calamitous rise in oil price and a chaotic
spin of global economic circumstances resulting in a drop in greenhouse gas emissions. On the
dark side small pockets of survival.
I am one of the supporters of the good cop/bad cop scenario.
While the existential question that has been on the table for some time is who owns the
world of finance, here we are again following the spinning of the Iran plate by late
empire.
Bolton and Pompeo are representative of Trump's rabid evangelical base and Israel. The
kabuki friction towards the shared goals is just that. To the degree that we are hearing
shrillness from these folk reflects the increasing failure of their tactics to maintain
control of the global narrative.
Something stupid is coming and it will be sad.....very sad if is our extinction instead of
difficult evolution.
thanks b... pompeo has the same agenda as israel with regard to attacks on the golan heights
or americans - same messed up logic.. nothing like having your (usa-ksa-israel-uae) proxy
army involved too.."these attacks came from areas where Islamic State underground groups are
still active." the 500 lb gorilla is ''there to deter aggression''.. right!
as for trump.. the guy is a self serving twit and fool... perfect person to represent the
usa at this point which is why so many hate him and like him, depending on where one lives..
whatever bolton does - it is on trump and the falling usa empire as i see it.. it can't fall
soon enough..
I'm definitely of the good cop/bad cop belief. It fits with the entirety of his campaign and
presidency: say one thing, do another, and blame somebody else. Trump wanted Bolton for NSA
since the campaign. Both Bolton and Trump have had a position of confrontation with Iran for
a long time. The fact that people still buy into the lies of *any* politician is a sad state
of affairs. It sure does make the job of lying far easier.
Trump's tactical nukes mounted on Trident missiles will be ready in October - end of
September according to the earlier news articles. I guess team Trump will be desperately
trying to provoke a reaction from Iran so Trump can reluctantly use his nukes. (NPR
specifically names Iran as a country that these may be used against).
Good cop bad cop is Trump's game at the moment. He needs to be judged by the people he
appoints and keeps on.
DG @1
Don't feel too sorry for the American fatality. It will probably be a US soldier who
volunteered to go overseas and kill for oil.
Might be a female soldier. That would make for better press.
Remember Nedā Āghā-Soltān? She was a beautiful Iranian woman, only 26
years old, shot in the head by a sniper in the 2009 Color (Green) Revolution attempt in Iran,
a few blocks from the actual protests.
For some odd reason, a photographer was there to take pictures, and within a couple of hours,
it was spread all over the world's media. We now call that "going viral". It takes a Mighty
Wurlitzer to make a viral spread, I've noticed.
Tucker Carlson has interviewed Tulsi Gabbard several times and has generally been anti-war
on many of his programs, and was certainly very anti-Russiagate. So, watching Fox News
isn't as horrible as say CNN, NBC, MSNBC to name the three worst.
Yes, as I wrote on the last thread, Trump's boxed into several corners, Iran not being the
only one. Really can't wait for the moment Pompeo clutches at his chest and crumples to the
ground a la Morsi. Pompeo's clearly forgotten what Putin told him. Speaking of Putin,
tomorrow he'll conduct the 17th edition of his Direct Line conversation with Russia's people
and press. Information in Russian here :
"The programme will be broadcast live by Channel One, Rossiya 1, Rossiya 24, NTV, Public
Television of Russia (OTR) and Mir TV, and by radio stations Mayak, Vesti FM and Radio
Rossii."
Unfortunately, the start time isn't provided. Questions in Russian can be submitted at the
above link.
Would never have guessed there existed a Foundation for European Progressive Studies, but
it does and its hosting a forum this
Friday:
"On Friday #21June, #IAIEvent with @FEPS_Europe in #Brussels to mark the completion of our
joint one-year research on #Europe-#Iran relations after the US withdrawal from the
#JCPOA.
"With the participation of Seyed Sajjadpour, Deputy FM of Iran."
As far as the damage done to the two tankers, if an actual limpet mine of the sort Iran
employs were used, the damage would be far more extensive than what was sustained. IMO,
continuing attacks by the sort of kamikaze drones employed would be impossible to stop; and
since the remains of the drone sink into the sea, virtually impossible to collect any
evidence that might link Iran to the attack.
The Outlaw US Empire has no cards to play other than bluff and bluster.
"That shows how stupid the red line is that Pompeo set out." Even b, one of the commenters I
respect most, falls for the canard "Yanks R stoopid LOL". If you feverishly want an
Iran war against the wishes of the majority of the planet, this is how it's done. Israel also
drops some dud mortar shells into an empty patch on the Golan (itself or by proxy) any time
it wants a mini casus belli in the Syria dossier.
I feel the Iranians have been pretty complicit propping up this image of Americans and
Israelis as untouchable demigods, who only kill and can never be killed even once. The US
should have gotten a steady stream of heroes coming home in boxes and wheelchairs the moment
they crossed the Syrian border. Then the war fevers would've cooled considerably by now;
that's how the Taliban made the orcs feel ... unwelcome in their slice of heaven. B opined at
the time "This occupation is unsustainable", but nobody has properly contested it apart from
a handful of ISIS holdouts. Eyes have been taken off balls it seems.
And again, no. That reminds of the old 'if the Führer knew'. No, Tronald is not - at
least not in this sense - a fool. He has promoted these people now said to trick him into
their respective position. Tronald is - and was - well informed about Boltons and Pompeo's
views.
No, it's the first possibility that applies. Any moment now Act 3 is staged, an 'Iranian
attack' on u.s. interests - and then Tronald will open Pandora's box - and suffer we will.
There were stories recently that Trump was about to sack Bolton. Whatever the truth of that,
there's a fundamental problem that Trump doesn't want to spend his nights in the war room. He
spends his time watching Fox News, tweeting, and his weekends at Mar-a Lago. A serious war is
beyond him, and I think he'll say no, beyond a one night big bang.
May be the intention was never to sink the tanker - but just to draw attention with some
heavy smoke. The limpet mines may exists in various size, so they may have intentionally used
a small one for this. What were doing the IRGC along the tanker if not removing something
from the hull. How do they even know there was something there of interest.
The US has no leadership,,, just a bunch of mafioso hoods vying to be at the head of the
Globalists table. The Europeons / West are little better going along to get a piece of the
action... picture a Viking feast a few thousand years ago. Difference is we are the food
they're devouring.
I am so happy 'b' explained the domestic violence attributed to Mr.Shanahan. I bit just
like MSM wanted thinking he somehow abused his family. I imagine it was because it would have
looked bad for the kind little woman.
Trump HAS drained the swamp,,, right into his administration. Look at what we in the US
have to look forward to,,, tyrants on the left,,, tyrants on the right. I suppose we deserve
this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure.
Jeremy Hunt said that no other state or non state actor could possibly be responsible for the
tanker explosions. That is the most ignorant statement any potential Prime Minister could
make. There are so many potential culprits, any one of whom would find it more than tempting
to take Pompeo at his word and lob a bomb at a US base. The same scenario applied to Syria,
the US positively encouraged a gas attack by the head choppers by declaring such an attack
would mean US intervention. Sheldon Adelson is Trumps biggest doner "Adelson's promotion of
Bolton dates back at least to the days immediately after Trump's November 2016 election.
According to The New York Times, Adelson strongly supported Bolton for the position of deputy
secretary of state as Trump was putting together his cabinet" https://lobelog.com/trumps-choice-of-bolton-satisfies-his-biggest-donor/
So Trump could find it difficult to sack Bolton.
If this is mostly correct then the US is heading into a huge strategic catastrophe with epic
blow back. That many millions in the MENA will suffer is as usual of no consequence to
Americans but this time America will suffer a rapid irreversible decline and will deserve it.
b: Thanks for posting Lang's take on Shanahan being "outed" by Pompeo. Kind'a makes sense,
given bigger picture you paint of Israeli "interests" being "stovepiped" through Bolton to
DJT. Nothing I heard/read last night or this morning touched on this, it was all different
takes on poor/no Shanahan vetting.
The irony of Shanahan being "dumped" for what the record seems to support: he did nothing
wrong, maybe even showed noteworthy restraint vs. trump f***ing porn stars, stiffing
sub-contractors for years (etc. etc.) is mind numbing.
...
Madison James @ Jun 19, 2019 2:47:33 PM
Also, the book makes a great case for Israeli collusion, not Russia.
More like CEDING Iran policy authority to hard line Likud hawks, as B describes in this
post:
Bolton chairs at the NSC, the regular and frequent strategic dialogue meetings with Israel
– intended to develop a joint action plan, versus Iran. What this means is that the
Israeli intelligence assessments are being stovepiped directly to Bolton (and therefore to
Trump), without passing by the US intelligence services for assessment or comment on the
credibility of the intelligence presented ( shades of Cheney confronting the analysts
down at Langley ).
(my emphasis)
It just seems like Iraq deja vu: GWB was the ignorant, dumb public face masking Lukidniks
controlling US policy then, DJT the face masking the same now.
WRT war fears w/Iran: one little factoid rarely mentioned early on in Iraq
"liberation"(did B write about this?): the PNAC crowd was openly advocating for a
simultaneous military action towards Iran. Putin moved several battleships and destroyers
right off the Iranian coast in a clear signal he would defend Iran. And that was the end of
that.
Putin always holds his cards very close to his vest, but when he acts he does so
decisively and with precision (aka his Syria military maneuvers). US bombs falling on Iran
seems awfully close to Moscow in my view. I cannot help wondering if one of Putin's cards is
his own red line: not allowing Likudniks to subjugate US military power for their "interests"
wrt Iran.
psycho @ 10 opined;"I am one of the supporters of the good cop/bad cop scenario."
Add me, to the believers column.
ADKC @ 5 said;"Trump has not been fooled or misled, neither have the American people,
neither the UK/European governments or peoples. We are destroying ourselves with this
act."
james @ 11 said;" it is on trump and the falling usa empire as i see it.. it can't fall
soon enough.."
Yes, absolutely, to both above statements..
And I'll add another major player, to the joke, the U$A has become, the corporate MSM for
it's failure to honestly inform the public of reality..
...the IRGC along the tanker...
Could s/o kindly point-out a confirmation from Iran that [1] subject boat was operated/manned
by the IRGC? I'll check back for your input; thanks in advance.
"This is a very balanced approach to the #US-#Iran crisis in the Gulf from an #EU point of
view."
It links to a short CNN produced video. The few comments show the intensely high level of
ignorance of my fellow Americans that are educational all by themselves.
It's about 1500 miles from Tehran to Moscow. That's about equal to the distance between
Kansas City and San Francisco.
It is not in Russia's interest to have Iran attacked. Iran is a piece that offers a twofer
to the Anglo Zio empire. It follows the edicts of the Yinon Plan and it antagonizes
Russia.
If a war with Iran is orchestrated I will be very disappointed if Tel-Aviv is not destroyed.
At some point in time Israel must pay for its' crimes.
I read today that an Egyptian news agency blamed Israel for the recent attacks on the 2
tankers. I find this heartening. However, I fear Israel is not beyond sinking an US naval
vessel. re: USS LIBERTY. and albeit with Bolton's foreknowledge.
Shanahan was forced out. His family troubles pre-date today.
May be the intention was never to sink the tanker - but just to draw attention with some
heavy smoke. The limpet mines may exists in various size, so they may have intentionaly
used a small one for this.
As B (and many other
media ) pointed out: the crew of the Japanese tanker all said the ship was hit by an
air borne projectile. This was not a mine. Seems obvious if US was interested in the
truth, they would recover and identify the projectile.
Just for shits and giggles, a brief reminder of some of US "evidence" and false flags (all
lies) in service of these "endeavors" previously:
- reading the several excellent books and released CIA docs of the CIA engineered
Mosaddegh coup, among other things was CIA bombs set off in Mosques (this was before the
Ayatollahs were political), then flooding media with "accesssments" Mosaddegh was
responsable. Kermit Roosevelt literally boasted about this.
- Collin Powell's "clear and convincing" evidence of Sadam's mobile missile lauchers (aka
mobile weather balloons). And the GWB admin's attempts to literally destroy Hans Blix'
reputation, and as it turned out Blix was right about everything.
- Fake Satellite photos of Sadam's troops on Saudi border.
- "Incubator baby" lies to US Senate, swaying Desert Storm I approval by 1 vote (many
senators said that fabrication was the difference in their vote). And this after Sadam's
incursion into Kuwait was after 18 months of US vetoing Iraq UN resolutions seeking to
condemn Kuwait's angle drilling into Iraq's largest southern oil fields.
That's just a few from memory. At what point do US lawmakers finally put all this together
(especially given Bolton's association with those who drove GWB's Iraq invasion) and refuse
to even consider the non persuasive evidence (not to mention contradictory... aka crew says
air borne attack), remind their colleagues and America of the cost of these lies just in last
20 years, and DEMAND proof that can be verified with THEIR OWN EYES.
Judging from the headline and the quoting approvingly from "Former MI6 agent Alastair
Crooke", I'd say b believe in the "President Bolton" theory.
Like other commenters, I believe in the bad cop/good cop theory. In fact I wrote of this
only yesterday (
here and
here , and
here ):
The media promote Doublethink ...
... the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct,
often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy
and neutrality... Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance -- thus
the person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction.
... such that Trump is both peace-loving nationalist and empire-loving
antagonist. Except that the latter is expressed as a positive: "staunch ally", "tough
negotiator", "protector", etc instead of a negative. Some people fall for it (Kool-Aid
drinkers) and MSM ignores those that talk about the meta issues of MSM complicity.
And it's not just Trump. Whenever a President does things that might cause cognitive
dissonance, apologists and the feckless press explain it away as a positive or blame
subordinates for "sabotaging" the hero President .
= = = =
IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's
"on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls
the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners
(capitalists)
= = = =
I sense that there's now an effort to essentially 'shout down' or otherwise sideline
those that argue that the attacks are more likely to be a false flag by an anti-Iranian
organization (probably connected to Mossad or CIA) and question the efficacy of a
Iranian strategy stealth attacks.
karlof1 and Peter AU 1 described the likely subterfuge of the US claim that Iran
attached a "limpet mine". But I haven't seen much desire to discuss or spread their theory.
Reporting by Israeli media (picked up worldwide) about USA plans to bomb Iran (really
just rumors) have worked their magic and turned the page on the question of who attacked
the ships. How convenient!
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Sadly, I find that I disagree with both of b's latest theories: the "Iranian stealth
attack" theory and the "President Bolton" theory. IMO these are propaganda narratives.
there is some confusion amongst commenters here; as to what the Iranian boat was doing next
to the tanker? The first thing one should ask is; what is the source of the video? and when
was it taken? Next, the Iranians have been credited with rescuing the crew from at least 1
tanker, if not both. Which explains the large # of persons on a boat that usually operates
with a crew of 5.
Except the 2007 "Iranian proxy" attacks on US forces illegally occupying Iraq were never
proven.
Meaning the fable of Iranians being behind attacks in Iraq is hardly new. The infamous Michael Gordon--the lead "reporter" on the "Judith Miller" fall 2002 Iraqi
WMDs "reporting" in the NY Times--claimed that such "attacks" were proven in the pages of the
NYT in March 2007. (He wasn't fired–only leaving the NYT after 30 years in 2017.)
Except his "reporting" made bogus claims like the Iraqis weren't able to follow armor
penetrating shell designs that had been worked out in the 1920s.
In early 2007, there was a push by Cheney to strike Iran, the rumor is that W said
"no". So Pompeo can't even lie as well as Cheney, in that the NY Times' main Pentagon reporter
reported the 2007 events as fact at the time. (A secondary reporter, James Glanz also in Iraq in 2007, did manage to point out that the
"Iranian" shells were marked in English and the US commanders provided nothing more than
unsupported assertions regards the shells' origins. Glanz only writes for the NY Times about
once every 6 months now.)
Houthis attack Jizan--on Red Sea just North of Yemen -- power plant with cruise missile causing
large fire to erupt. Yemeni Armed Forces
Spokesman :
"There are big surprises coming soon, God willing, with higher sensitive impact on the
Saudi regime, if its aggression continues."
Expect renewed attacks on oil infrastructure.
Not so long ago, it appeared the Saudi/UAE/Merc coalition had the initiative and was
winning. That no longer appears to be the case with the invasion of Saudi territory by ground
forces accompanied by missile and drone assaults that have reached as far as Riyadh. Earlier
today,
Southfront posted videos of two successful Houthi assaults that destroyed 11 armored
vehicles and additional technicals--attacks Saudi appears incapable of stopping.
"IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's
"on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls
the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners
(capitalists)"
IMO, the perfect analogy. Maybe the U$A posters will "get it."
Bolton is Trump's Colonel House. House was influential in plucking Woodrow Wilson out of
academia and getting him elected President in 1912 and then he moved into the White House
with Wilson. He became in Wilson's words his "alter ego." House was right next to Wilson when
he signed the Federal Reserve Act, something Wilson later said he bitterly regretted doing.
House was a most shadowy figure – he wasn't even a real colonel -, having performed
similar roles with various governors of Texas as if in preparation for his moment on the big
stage – and a long moment it was with an allegedly decisive role in Versailles in 1919.
I saw warning signals back on the campaign trail when Trump was asked who he admired in
politics and he replied after a pause John Bolton. Then I thought of Obama and Rahm Emanuel,
his chief of staff. It struck me that maybe all of us are susceptible to somebody who can get
a hold on us, who can grasp our insecurities and ingratiate themselves into our thinking
processes. The elites work on this. Jack Kennedy had his brother as his sort of alter-ego so
there was no opportunity there – which is maybe why he got shot.
Trump's father became so frustrated with Donald's bullying and reckless behavior that he
packed him off to military academy to learn some manners and self-control. Legend has it that
Trump thrived in that environment and graduated in 1964. He also studied economics and has a
Law degree. One imagines that a military academy graduate must have learned something about
governance, leadership, pecking orders, power plays and the US Constitution.
Anyone who assumes DJT is stupid or naive probably needs to do some homework...
Hoarsewhisperer "Anyone who assumes DJT is stupid or naiive probably needs to do some
homework". I think prospective Private Donald 'bone spurs' Trump would have made a good
General, [too late now, he is too old] maybe one of the greatest Generals in history. If only
he had signed up. /S
Seems Rex Tillerson was right about Trump and agrees with this HL Mencken quote.
"As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the
inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will
reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright
moron".
The Middle East a smoking ruin. Floods of Arab refugees pouring into Europe. Russia and China
sitting back and waiting to pick up the pieces. Do those people actually think beyond the
next step? I wouldn't want to be a European Jew for the next few decades. You can be burnt
from the bottom up, as easily as from the top down. Lets just go kick the hornets nest, cause
we are tough guys. Where. Are. The. Brain. Cells?
Promotion of War Crimes: Wheat as a Weapon :
"A fellow at a think tank bankrolled by the US gov, NATO, and arms industry insists that
'wheat is a weapon' that can 'be used to apply pressure on the Assad regime.' "The impact this would have on civilians was not mentioned, of course."
Now we know what nation's responsible for the recent firing of wheat and other
agricultural fields in Syria--The Outlaw US Empire of course: Never met a War Crime it didn't
want to employ itself as current and historic evidence proves. Such people ought to be
lobotomized.
Iran did it, they are competent, we can't find our rear end
CENTCOM gave a scenario that finally made sense, they said that an IRGC boat approached
the two tankers at night and attacked the 'mines'. This would explain why it was above the
waterline and it would take great skill to do this with no injury and without being
detected.
Now look at the U.S., the tanker was sitting their in broad daylight for about 10hrs and
we couldn't even get ONE decent picture of an unexploded bomb sitting on the side of hull.
And when the IRGC finally did show up, even our high resolution pictures were a joke and we
are the SIGINT champions with hi-tech drones. Also, this means that the IRGC was able to slip
into a port on the other side of the Persian Gulf and attack mines to 4 tankers
undetected.
Prediction: if we do get into a fight with the Iranians we are in for a very rude
awakening. All of this talk about their rusted out military is total BS. If ONLY that fool
Tom Cotton would be the one to pay the price instead of some 20 yr old kid.
Perhaps the admin senses that the end is approaching and are trying to wreak maximum havoc
and damage while they are able. Like Bolton will serve in next admin.
By minimizing the Oman Gulf incidents, maybe it is way for the White House under Bolton's
control to show that it is not impressed nor feeling threatened.
it is also encouraging the perpetrators of the attacks to do more provocations and ideally to
kill an American...
It is an open invitations to whoever wants to harm Iran to come out more brutally.
". . . [Trump] studied economics and has a Law degree."
He has a BA in economics and was given an honorary law degree from Liberty so-called
"University," a diploma mill dedicated to churning out brain-dead, right-wing religious
fanatics.
Yes, it does matter. Millions of American are ready to send their loved ones to die for
"freedom and democracy" that propaganda claims USA champions. Trump as "useful idiot" just
means that they elected the wrong guy. Trump as complicit in the dog and pony show means
there is no democracy.
Smart people have already described how the system is rigged so that we have a "managed
democracy" that mostly works for the "those that matter". Research from Princeton economists
have described America as a plutocracy with an "inverted totalitarian" form of government. I
have written many times at MoA of a adjunct to that theory: the faux populist
leadership model. Obama and Trump are the poster boys for this, though it was mostly
developed in the Clinton years.
That Iranian seaman who is alleged to have pulled off a possibly unstable, unexploded mine
wearing nothing but a rubber life jacket thus endangering his life and all his crew mates and
survivors in the small boat is the action of a lunatic. Or maybe it never happened.
What is the particular childish naïveté of Americans who believe that learning
a system inevitably leads to a willingness to support and uphold it instead of exploiting it
for personal gain?
>> Posted by: blues | Jun 19, 2019 6:52:22 PM | 53
Do tell!
With trillion dollar deficits pre-recession, the fiscal situation looks dire. Once
recession hits, tax revenue will plummet. Then, either they QE even more trillions or they
cut the MIC (measured in terms of purchasing power, if not nominally). Or both. But, the rest
of the world will suffer nominally as well. So, the dollar might remain a "cleaner dirty
shirt".
It's a difficult environment to invest in. Everything seems pricey. But, with currency
depreciation via QE, everything might become even pricier.
Life jackets aren't rubber! Try and get the story straight! Plus, you missed that the
limpet mine comes with a cloaking device that once placed onto the deck of any Iranian boat
it's rendered invisible! Honestly, we spend a lot of time dreaming up these narratives, so
the very least you can do is copy/paste properly!
On a serious note, I scanned a great many pictures of small boats and didn't come up with
one example of the one shown in the video. Finding one ought to be easy since it has numerous
unique features, most of which I commented upon. Has USN released a complete undoctored video
of the limpet removal yet? I thought not. As with the incident with the Russian ship where
USN didn't release the entire video taken from the stand-off helo because it proved USN at
fault, there won't be any release of this other video for the same reason--it proves zip,
nada, nothing.
Otherwise, I'd like to get myself one of those Iranian boats, minus the machine gun, as it
looks like an excellent fishing platform, although it lacks a cuddy and below deck stowage
room.
There's been a shift in the dialogue, to some degree, to a discussion of the overall US role
in the Gulf area.
Speaking to TIME, Trump argued that the Gulf of Oman[sic] is less strategically important
for the United States now than it used to be, citing China and Japan as nations that still
rely on the region for significant proportions of their oil. "Other places get such vast
amounts of oil there," Trump said. "We get very little. We have made tremendous progress in
the last two and a half years in energy. And when the pipelines get built, we're now an
exporter of energy. So we're not in the position that we used to be in in the Middle East
where some people would say we were there for the oil." . . here
Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters
at a roundtable that countries that benefit most from the movement of oil through the Gulf
need to take an active role in its security. . . ."The circumstances are very different now
than they were in the 1980s," Selva said. "If you think back to the reflagging operation, the
'Tanker War,' as it was nicknamed, where we reflagged and escorted tankers so that they could
flow in and out of the Strait of Hormuz, we got a substantial amount of our oil from the
Persian Gulf.. . ."We are now in a position where the bulk of that oil goes to countries in
Asia, and none of those countries have shown any predilection to pressing Iran to stop what
they are doing. What was true in the 1980s, is not true today. We are not wholly dependent on
the movement of Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari and Emirati oil in and out of the Gulf to sustain our
economy.". .
here
A broadening of the security mission in the Gulf area would be a positive step. Imagine
the navies of China, India and Japan taking a role! The price would be a removal of Iran
sanctions, because these countries want Iran oil! . . .I can dream.
In the current circs (esp after announcement of the latest Red Line) why write only about the
possibility of an ISIS missile landing on a US position being that it wd be "errant"?
After reading WL's comments, I had a vision of the photographer contacting the sniper by
mobile phone and berating the fellow for killing Neda Agha Soltan in the head and telling him
to find another beautiful young Iranian woman protester and to shoot her in the chest.
"... Theresa May's immediate conclusion that the Russian government bears certain and sole responsibility for the nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals is logically, scientifically, and forensically impossible. ..."
"... Teresa May is lying, everyone who seconds her assertion of false certainty is lying, they all know they are lying, and the Russians know that they know they are lying. ..."
"... "War" is what they seem to want it to be. For the past 18 to 24 months, we've also been inundated with Morgan Freeman and Rob Reiner's ominous "We have been attacked. We are at war," video, as well as the bipartisan ( Hillary Clinton , John McCain ) insistence that alleged Russian election meddling should be considered an "act of war" equivalent to Pearl Harbor . Indeed, Trump's new National Security advisor, the warmongering lunatic John Bolton, calls it , explicitly "a casus belli , a true act of war." ..."
"... Even the military is getting in on the act. The nerve-agent accusation has been followed up by General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, accusing Russia of arming the Taliban! It's noteworthy that this senior American military general casually refers to Russia as "the enemy": "We've had stories written by the Taliban that have appeared in the media about financial support provided by the enemy." ..."
"... The economic war against Russian is being waged through a series of sanctions that seem impossible to reverse, because their expressed goal is to extract confession, repentance, and restitution for crimes ascribed to Russia that Russia has not committed, or has not been proven to have committed, or are entirely fictional and have not been committed by anyone at all. We will only stop taking your bank accounts and consulates and let you play games with us if you confess and repent every crime we accuse you of. No questions permitted. ..."
It's a relentless economic, diplomatic, and ideological war, spiced with (so far) just a
dash of military war, and the strong scent of more to come.
I mean war with Russia, of course, although Russia is the point target for a constellation
of emerging adversaries the US is desperate to entame before any one or combination of them
becomes too strong to defeat. These include countries like Iran and China, which are developing
forces capable of resisting American military aggression against their own territory and on a
regional level, and have shown quite too much uppitiness about staying in their
previously-assigned geopolitical cages.
But Russia is the only country that has put its military forces in the way of a U.S. program
of regime change -- indirectly in Ukraine, where Russia would not get out of the way, and
directly in Syria, where Russia actively got in the way. So Russia is the focus of
attack, the prime target for an exemplary comeuppance.
Is it, then, a new Cold War, even more dangerous than the old one, as Stephen F. Cohen
says ?
That terminology was apt even a few months ago, but the speed, ferocity, and
coordination of the West/NATO's reaction to the alleged nerve-agent poisoning of the
Skripals, as well as the formation of a War Cabinet in Washington, indicates to me that we've
moved to another level of aggression.
It's beyond Cold. Call it the Warm War. And the temperature's rising.
The Nerve of Them
There are two underlying presumptions that, combined, make present situation more dangerous
than a Cold War.
One is the presumption of guilt -- or, more precisely, the presumption that the presumption
of Russian guilt can always be made, and made to stick in the Western mind.
The confected furor over the alleged nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals demonstrates this
dramatically.
Theresa May's immediate conclusion that the Russian government bears certain and sole
responsibility for the nerve-agent poisoning of the Skripals is logically, scientifically, and
forensically impossible.
False certainty is the ultimate fake news. It is just not true that, as she says: "There is
no alternative conclusion other than the Russian state is culpable." This falsity of this
statement has been demonstrated by a slew of sources -- including the
developers of the alleged "Novichok" agent themselves, a thorough
analysis by a former UN inspector in Iraq who worked on the destruction of chemical
weapons, establishment Western scientific outlets like New Scientist ("
Other countries could have made 'Russian' nerve agent "), and the British government's own
mealy-mouthed, effective-but-unacknowledged disavowal
of that conclusion. In its own words, The British government found: "a nerve agent or
related compound," " of a type developed by Russia." So, it's absolutely,
positively, certainly, without a doubt, Russian-government-produced "Novichok" .or something
else.
Teresa May is lying, everyone who seconds her assertion of false certainty is lying, they
all know they are lying, and the Russians know that they know they are lying. It's a
It boggles the -- or at least, my -- mind how, in the face of all this, anyone could take
seriously her ultimatum, ignoring the procedures of the
Chemical Weapons Convention , gave Russia 24 hours to "explain" -- i.e., confess and beg
forgiveness for -- this alleged crime.
Indeed, it's noteworthy that France initially, and rather sharply, refused to assume Russian
guilt, with a government spokesman saying, "We don't do fantasy politics. Once the elements are
proven, then the time will come for decisions to be made." But the whip was cracked -- and
surely not by the weak hand of Whitehall -- demanding EU/NATO unity in the condemnation of
Russia. So, in an extraordinary show of discipline that could only be ordered and orchestrated
by the imperial center, France joined the United States and 20 other countries in the largest
mass expulsion of Russian diplomats ever.
Western governments and their compliant media have mandated that Russian government guilt
for the "
first offensive use of a nerve agent " in Europe since World War II is to be taken as flat
fact. Anyone -- like Jeremy Corbyn or Craig Murray -- who
dares to interrupt the "Sentence first! Verdict afterwards!" chorus to ask for, uh, evidence,
is treated to a storm of obloquy
.
At this point, Western accusers don't seem to care how blatantly unfounded, if not
ludicrous, an accusation is. The presumption of Russian guilt, along with the shaming of anyone
who questions it, has become an unquestionable standard of Western/American political and media
discourse.
Old Cold War McCarthyism has become new Warm War fantasy politics.
Helled in Contempt
This declaration of diplomatic war over the Skripal incident is the culmination of an
ongoing drumbeat of ideological warfare, demonizing Russia and Putin personally in the most
predictable and inflammatory terms.
For the past couple of years, we've been
told by Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Marco Rubio, and
Boris Johnson that Putin is the new Hitler. That's a particularly galling analogy for the
Russians. Soviet Russia, after all, was Hitler's main enemy, that defeated the Nazi army at the
cost of 20+ million of its people -- while the British Royal Family was not
un-smitten with the charms of
Hitlerian fascism , and British footballers had a poignant moment in 1938 Berlin
saluting the Fuhre.:
"War" is what they seem to want it to be. For the past 18 to 24 months, we've also been
inundated with Morgan Freeman and Rob Reiner's ominous "We have been attacked. We are at war,"
video, as well as the bipartisan (
Hillary Clinton ,
John McCain ) insistence that alleged Russian election meddling should be considered an
"act of war"
equivalent to Pearl Harbor . Indeed, Trump's new National Security advisor, the
warmongering lunatic John Bolton,
calls it , explicitly "a casus belli , a true act of war."
Even the military is getting in on the act. The nerve-agent accusation has been followed up
by General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, accusing Russia of arming the Taliban! It's
noteworthy that this senior American military general casually refers to Russia as "the enemy":
"We've had stories written by the Taliban that have appeared in the media about financial
support provided by the enemy."
Which is strange, because, since the Taliban emerged from the American-jihadi war against
Soviet forces in Afghanistan, and the Taliban and Russia have "enduring enmity" towards each
other, as Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network puts it . Furthermore, the sixteen-year-long
American war against the Taliban has depended on Russia allowing the U.S. to move
supplies through its territory, and being "the principal source of
fuel for the alliance's needs in Afghanistan."
So the general has to admit that this alleged Russian "destabilising activity" is a new
thing: "This activity really picked up in the last 18 to 24 months When you look at the timing
it roughly correlates to when things started to heat up in Syria. So it's interesting to note
the timing of the whole thing."
Yes, it is.
The economic war against Russian is being waged through a series of sanctions that seem
impossible to reverse, because their expressed goal is to extract confession, repentance, and
restitution for crimes ascribed to Russia that Russia has not committed, or has not been proven
to have committed, or are entirely fictional and have not been committed by anyone at all.
We will only stop taking your bank accounts and consulates and let you play games with us if
you confess and repent every crime we accuse you of. No questions permitted.
This is not a serious framework for respectful international relations between two sovereign
nations. It's downright childish. It paints everyone, including the party trying to impose it,
into an impossible corner. Is Russia ever going to abandon Crimea, confess that it shot down
the Malaysian jet, tricked us into electing Donald Trump, murdered the Skripals, is secretly
arming the Taliban, et. al .? Is the U.S. ever going to say: "Never mind"? What's the
next step? It's the predicament of the bully.
This is not, either, an approach that really seeks to address any of the "crimes" charged.
As Victoria Nuland (a Clintonite John Bolton) put it on NPR, it's about, "sending a message" to
Russia. Well, as Russia's ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov
said , with this latest mass expulsion of diplomats, the United States is, "Destroying what
little remained of US-Russian ties." He got the message.
All of this looks like a coordinated campaign that began in response to Russia's
interruption of American regime-change projects in Ukraine and especially Syria, that was
harmonized -- over the last 18 to 24 months -- with various elite and popular motifs of
discontent over the 2016 election, and that has reached a crescendo in the last few weeks with
ubiquitous and unconstrained " enemization " [1] of Russia.
It's hard to describe it as anything other than war propaganda -- manufacturing the
citizenry's consent for a military confrontation.
Destroying the possibility of normal, non-conflictual, state-to-state relations and
constituting Russia as "the enemy" is exactly what this campaign is about. That is its
"message" and its effect -- for the American people as much as for the Russia
government. The heightened danger, I think, is that Russia, which has for a long time been
reluctant to accept that America wasn't interested in "partnership", has now heard and
understood this message, while the American people have only heard but do not understand
it.
It's hard to see where this can go that doesn't involve military conflict. This is
especially the case with the appointments of Mike Pompeo, Gina Haspel, and John Bolton -- a
veritable murderers' row that many see as the core of a Trump War Cabinet. Bolton, who does not
need Senate confirmation, is a particularly dangerous fanatic, who tried to
get the Israelis to attack Iran before even they wanted to, and has
promised regime change in Iran by 2019. As mentioned, he considers that Russia has already
given him a " casus belli. " Even the staid New York Timeswarns
that, with these appointments, "the odds of taking military action will rise dramatically."
The second presumption in the American mindset today makes military confrontation more
likely than it was during the Cold War: Not only is there a presumption of guilt, there is a
presumption of weakness . The presumption of guilt is something the American imperial
managers are confident they can induce and maintain in the Western world; the presumption of
weakness is one they -- or, I fear, too many of them -- have all-too blithely
internalized.
This is an aspect of the American self-image among policymakers whose careers matured in a
post-Soviet world. During the Cold War, Americans held themselves in check by the assumption,
that, militarily, the Soviet Union was a peer adversary, a country that could and would defend
certain territories and interests against direct American military aggression -- "spheres of
interest" that should not be attacked. The fundamental antagonism was managed with grudging
mutual respect.
There was, after all, a shared recent history of alliance against fascism. And there was an
awareness that the Soviet Union, in however distorted a way, both represented the possibility
of a post-capitalist future and supported post-colonial national liberation movements, which
gave it considerable stature in the world.
American leadership might have hated the Soviet Union, but it was not contemptuous of it. No
American leader would have called the Soviet Union, as John McCain called Russia, just "a gas
station masquerading as a country." And no senior American or British leader would have told
the Soviet Union what British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson told Russia last week: to "go
away and shut up."
This is a discourse that assumes its own righteousness, authority, and superior power, even
as it betrays its own weakness. It's the discourse of a frustrated child. Or bully. Russia
isn't shutting up and going away, and the British are not -- and know they're not -- going to
make it. But they may think the Big Daddy backing them up can and will. And daddy may think so
himself.
Like all bullies, the people enmeshed in this arrogant discourse don't seem to understand
that it is not frightening Russia. It's only insulting the country, and leading it to conclude
that there is indeed nothing remaining of productive, non-conflictual, US-Russian "partnership"
ties. The post-Skripal worldwide diplomatic expulsions, which seem deliberately and desperately
excessive, may have finally convinced Russia that there is no longer any use trying. Those who
should be frightened of this are the American people.
The enemy of my enemy is me.
The United States is only succeeding in turning itself into an enemy for Russians. Americans
would do well to understand how thoroughly their hypocritical and contemptuous stance has
alienated the Russian people and strengthened Vladimir Putin's leadership -- as many of Putin's
critics warned
them it would. The fantasy of stoking a "liberal" movement in Russia that will install some
nouveau-Yeltsin-ish figure is dissipated in the cold light of a 77% election day. Putin is
widely and firmly supported in Russia because he represents the resistance to any such
scheme.
Americans who want to understand that dynamic, and what America itself has wrought in
Russia, should heed the passion, anger, and disappointment in this statement about
Putin's election from a self-described "liberal" (using the word, I think, in the intellectual
tradition, not the American political, sense), Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT TV
(errors in translation by another person):
Essentially, the West should be horrified not because 76% of Russians voted for Putin, but
because this elections have demonstrated that 95% of Russia's population supports
conservative-patriotic, communist and nationalist ideas. That means that liberal ideas are
barely surviving among measly 5% of population.
And that's your fault, my Western friends. It was you who pushed us into "Russians never
surrender" mode
[W]ith all your injustice and cruelty, inquisitorial hypocrisy and lies you forced us to
stop respecting you. You and your so called "values."
We don't want to live like you live, anymore. For fifty years, secretly and openly, we
wanted to live like you, but not any longer.
We have no more respect for you, and for those amongst us that you support, and for all
those people who support you.
For that you only have yourself to blame.
In meantime, you've pushed us to rally around your enemy. Immediately, after you declared
him an enemy, we united around him .
It was you who imposed an opposition between patriotism and liberalism. Although, they
shouldn't be mutually exclusive notions. This false dilemma, created by you, made us to chose
patriotism.
Even though, many of us are really liberals, myself included.
Get cleaned up, now. You don't have much time left.
In fact, the whole "uprising"/color revolution strategy throughout the world is over. It's
been fatally discredited by its own purported successes. Everybody in the Middle East has seen
how that worked out for Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and the Russians have seen how it worked out
for Ukraine and for Russia
itself . In neither Russia nor Iran (nor anywhere else of importance) are the Americans,
with their sanctions and their NGOs and their
cookies ,going to stoke a popular uprising that turns a country into a fractured client of
the Washington Consensus. More fantasy politics.
The old new world Washington wants won't be born without a military midwife. The U.S. wants
a compliant Russia ( and "international community") back, and it thinks it can force it
into being.
Fear Knot
Consider this quote from
The Saker , a defense analyst who was born in Switzerland to a Russian military family,
"studied Russian and Soviet military affairs all [his] life," and lived for 20 years in the
United States. He's been one of the sharpest analysts of Russia and Syria over the last few
years. This was his take a year ago, after Trump's cruise missile attack on Syria's Al Shayrat
airfield -- another instant punishment for an absolutely, positively, proven-in-a day, chemical
crime:
For one thing, there is no US policy on anything.
The Russians expressed their total disgust and outrage at this attack and openly began
saying that the Americans were
"недоговороспособны".
What that word means is literally "not-agreement-capable" or unable to make and then abide by
an agreement. While polite, this expression is also extremely strong as it implies not so
much a deliberate deception as the lack of the very ability to make a deal and abide by it.
But to say that a nuclear world superpower is "not-agreement-capable" is a terrible and
extreme diagnostic.
This means that the Russians have basically given up on the notion of having an adult,
sober and mentally sane partner to have a dialog with.
In all my years of training and work as a military analyst I have always had to assume
that everybody involved was what we called a "rational actor". The Soviets sure where. As
were the Americans.
Not only do I find the Trump administration "not agreement-capable", I find it completely
detached from reality. Delusional in other words.
Alas, just like Obama before him, Trump seems to think that he can win a game of nuclear
chicken against Russia. But he can't. Let me be clear here: if pushed into a corner the
Russian will fight, even if that means nuclear war.
There is a reason for this American delusion. The present generation of American leadership
was spoiled and addled by the blissful post-Soviet decades of American impunity.
The problem is not exactly that the U.S. wants full-on war with Russia, it's that
America does not fear it. [2]
Why should it? It hasn't had to for twenty years during which the US assumed it could bully
Russia to stay out of its imperial way anywhere it wanted to intervene.
After the Soviet Union broke up (and only because the Soviet Union disappeared) the
United States was free to use its military power with impunity. For some time, the U.S. had its
drunken stooge, Yeltsin, running Russia and keeping it out of America's military way. There was
nary a peep when Bill Clinton effectively conferred on NATO (meaning the U.S. itself) the
authority to decide what military interventions were necessary and legitimate. For about twenty
years -- from the Yugoslavia through the Libya intervention -- no nation had the military power
or politico-diplomatic will to resist this.
But that situation has changed. Even the Pentagon
recognizes that the American Empire is in a "post-primacy" phase -- certainly "fraying,"
and maybe even "collapsing." The world has seen America's social and economic strength
dissipate, and its pretense of legitimacy disappear entirely. The world has seen American
military overreach everywhere while winning nothing of stable value anywhere. Sixteen years,
and the mighty U.S. Army cannot defeat the Taliban. Now, that's Russia's fault!
Meanwhile, a number of countries in key areas have gained the military confidence and
political will to refuse the presumptions of American arrogance -- China in the Pacific, Iran
in the Middle East, and Russia in Europe and, surprisingly, the Middle East as well. In a
familiar pattern, America's resultant anxiety about waning power increases its
compensatory aggression. And, as mentioned, since it was Russia that most effectively
demonstrated that new military confidence, it's Russia that has to be dealt with first.
The incessant wave of sanctions and expulsions is the bully in the schoolyard clenching his
fist to scare the new kid away. OK, everyone's got the message now. Unclench or punch?
Let's be clear about who is the world's bully. As is evident to any half-conscious person,
Russia is not going to attack the United States or Europe. Russia doesn't have scores of
military bases, combat ships and aircraft up on America's borders. It doesn't have almost a
thousand military bases around the world. Russia does not have the military forces to rampage
around the world as America does, and it doesn't want or need to. That's not because of
Russia's or Vladimir Putin's pacifism, but because Russia, as presently situated in the
political economy of the world, has nothing to gain from it.
Nor does Russia need some huge troll-farm offensive to "destabilize" and sow division in
Western Europe and the United States. Inequality, austerity, waves of immigrants from
regime-change wars, and trigger-happy cops are doing a fine job of that. Russia isn't
responsible for American problems with Black Lives Matter or with the Taliban.
All of this is fantasy politics.
It's the United States, with its fraying empire, that has a problem requiring military
aggression. What other tools does the U.S. have left to put the upstarts, Russia first, back in
their places?
It must be hard for folks who have had their way with country after country for twenty years
not to think they can push Russia out of the way with some really, really scary threats, or
maybe one or two "bloody nose" punches. Some finite number of discrete little escalations.
There's already been some shoving -- that cruise missile attack, Turkey's downing of a Russian
jet, American attacks on Russian personnel (ostensibly private mercenaries) in Syria -- and,
look, Ma, no big war. But sometimes you learn the hard way the truth of the reverse Mike Tyson
rule: "Everyone has a game plan until they smack the other guy in the face."
Consider one concrete risk of escalation that every informed observer is, and every American
should be, aware of.
The place where the United States and Russia are literally, geographically, closest to
confrontation is Syria. As mentioned, the U.S. and its NATO ally, Turkey, have already attacked
and killed Russians in Syria, and the U.S. and its NATO allies have a far larger military force
than Russia in Syria and the surrounding area. On the other hand, Russia has made very
effective use of its forces, including what Reuters
calls "advanced cruise missiles" launched from planes,
ships , and
submarines that hit ISIS targets with high precision from 1000 kilometers.
Russia is also operating in accordance with international law, while the U.S. is not. Russia
is fighting with Syria for the defeat of jihadi forces and the unification of the Syrian state.
The United States is fighting with its jihadi clients for the overthrow of the Syrian
government and the division of the country. Russia intervened in Syria after Obama announced
that the U.S. would attack Syrian army troops, effectively declaring war. If neither side
accepts defeat and goes home, it is quite possible there will be some direct confrontation
over this. In fact, it's hard to imagine that there won't.
A couple of weeks ago Syria and Russia
said the U.S. was planning a major offensive against the Syrian government, including
bombing the government quarter in Damascus. Valery Gerasimov, head of Russia's General Staff,
warned: "In the event of a threat to the lives of our servicemen, Russia's armed forces will
take retaliatory measures against the missiles and launchers used." In this context,
"launchers" means American ships in the Mediterranean.
Also a couple of weeks ago, Russia announced a number of new, highly-advanced weapons
systems. There's discussion about whether some of the yet-to-be-deployed weapons announced
may or
may not
be a bluff, but one that has already been deployed, called Dagger ( Kinzhal, not the
missiles mentioned above), is an air-launched hypersonic cruise missile that files at 5-7,000
miles per hour, with a range of 1200 miles. Analyst Andrei Martyanov claims that: "no
modern or perspective air-defense system deployed today by any NATO fleet can intercept even a
single missile with such characteristics. A salvo of 5-6 such missiles guarantees the
destruction of any Carrier Battle Group or any other surface group, for that matter."
Air-launched. From anywhere.
The U.S. attack has not (yet) happened, for whatever reason (Sputnik reporter Suliman
Mulhem, citing "a military monitor," claims
that's because of the Russian warnings). Great. But given the current state of America's
anxiously aggressive "post-primacy" policy -- including the Russiamania, the Zionist-driven
need to destroy Syria and Iran, and the War Cabinet -- how unlikely is that the U.S. will, in
the near future, make some such attack on some such target that Russia considers crucial to
defend?
And Syria is just one theater where, unless one side accepts defeat and goes home, military
conflict with Russia is highly likely. Is Russia going to abandon the Russian-speaking people
of the Donbass if they're attacked by fascist Kiev forces backed by the U.S.? Is it going to
sit back and watch passively if American and Israeli forces attack Iran? Which one is going to
give up and accept a loss: John Bolton or Vladimir Putin?
Which brings us to the pointed question: What will the U.S. do if Russia sinks an American
ship? How many steps before that goes full-scale, even nuclear? Or maybe American planners (and
you, dear reader) are absolutely, positively sure that will never happen, because the U.S. has
cool weapons, too, and a lot more of them, and the Russians will probably lose all their ships
in the Mediterranean immediately, if not something worse, and they'll put up with anything
rather than go one more step. The Russians, like everybody, must know the Americans always
win.
Happy with that, are we? Snug in our homeland rug? 'Cause Russians won't fight, but the
Taliban will.
This is exactly what is meant by Americans not fearing war with Russia (or war in general
for that matter). Nothing but contempt.
The Skripal opera, directed by the United States, with the whole of Europe and the entire
Western media apparatus singing in harmony, makes it clear that the American producers have no
speaking role for Russia in their staging of the world. And that contempt makes war much more
likely. Here's The Saker again, on how
dangerous the isolation the U.S. and its European clients are so carelessly imposing on Russia
and themselves is for everybody:
Right now they are expelling Russian diplomats en mass e and they are feeling very
strong and manly.
The truth is that this is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg. In reality, crucial
expert-level consultations, which are so vitally important between nuclear superpowers, have
all but stopped a long time ago. We are down to top level telephone calls. That kind of stuff
happens when two sides are about to go to war. For many months now Russia and NATO have made
preparations for war in Europe. Very rapidly the real action will be left to the USA and
Russia. Thus any conflict will go nuclear very fast. And, for the first time in history, the
USA will be hit very, very hard, not only in Europe, the Middle-East or Asia, but also on the
continental US.
Mass diplomatic expulsions, economic warfare, lockstep propaganda, no interest whatsoever in
respectfully addressing or hearing from the other side. What we've been seeing over the past
few months is the "kind of stuff that happens when two sides are about to go to war."
The less Americans fear war, the less they respect the possibility of it, the more likely
they are to get it.
Ready or Not
The Saker makes a diptych of a point that gets to the heart of the matter. We'd do well to
read and think on it carefully:
1/ The Russians are afraid of war. The Americans are not.
2/ The Russians are ready for war. The Americans are not.
Russia is afraid of war. More than twenty million Soviet citizens were
killed in WWII, about half of them civilians. That was more than twenty times the number of
Americans and British casualties combined. The entire country was devastated. Millions died in
the 872-day siege of Leningrad alone, including Vladimir Putin's brother. The city's population
was decimated by disease and starvation, with some reduced to cannibalism. Wikileaks calls it "one of the
longest and most destructive sieges in history [and] possibly the
costliest
in casualties." Another million-plus died in the nine-month siege of Stalingrad.
Every Russian knows this history. Millions of Russian families have suffered from it. Of
course, there was mythification of the struggle and its heroes, but the Russians, viscerally,
know war and know it can happen to them . They do not want to go through it
again. They will do almost anything to avoid it. Russians are not flippant about war. They fear
it. They respect it.
The Americans are not (afraid of war). Americans have never experienced anything
remotely as devastating as this. About 620,000 Americans died in the Civil War, 150 years ago.
(And we're still entangled in that!) The American mainland has not been attacked by a
significant military force since the War of 1812. Since then, the worst attacks on American
territory are two one-off incidents (Pearl Harbor and 9/11), separated by seventy years,
totaling about six-thousand casualties. These are the iconic moments of America Under
Siege.
For the American populace, wars are "over there," fought by a small group of Americans who
go away and either come back or don't. The death, destruction, and aroma of warfare -- which
the United States visits on people around the world incessantly -- is unseen and unexperienced
at home. Americans do not, cannot, believe, in any but the most abstract intellectual sense,
that war can happen here , to them. For the general populace, talk of war is just more
political background noise, Morgan Freeman competing for attention with Stormy Daniels and the
Kardashians.
Americans are supremely insouciant about war: They threaten countries with it incessantly,
the government routinely sells it with lies, and the political parties promote it
opportunistically to defeat their opponents -- and nobody cares. For Americans, war is part of
a game. They do not fear it. They do not respect it.
The Russians are ready for war. The Nazi onslaught was defeated -- in Soviet Russia,
by Soviet Citizens and the Red Army -- because the mass of people stood and fought together for
a victory they understood was important. They could not have withstood horrific sieges and
defeated the Nazis any other way. Russians understand, in other words, that war is a crisis of
death and destruction visited on the whole of society, which can only be won by a massive and
difficult effort grounded in social solidarity. If the Russians feel they have to fight, if
they feel besieged, they know they will have to stand together, take the hits that come, and
fight to the finish. They will not again permit war to be brought to their cities while their
attacker stays snug. There will be a world of hurt. They will develop and use any weapon they
can. And their toughest weapon is not a hypersonic missile; it's that solidarity, implied by
that 77%. (Did you read that Simonyan statement?) They may not be seeking it, but, insofar as
anybody can be, they are ready to fight.
Americans are not (ready for war): Americans experience the horror of wars as a
series of discrete tragedies visited upon families of fallen soldiers, reported in
human-interest vignettes at the end of the nightly news. Individual tragedies, not a social
disaster.
It's hard to imagine the social devastation of war in any case, but American culture wants
no part of thinking about that concretely. The social imagination of war is deflected into
fantastic scenarios of a super-hero universe or a zombie apocalypse. The alien death-ray may
blow up the Empire State Building, but the hero and his family (now including his or her
gender-ambivalent teenager, and, of course, the dog) will survive and triumph. Cartoon
villains, cartoon heroes, and a cartoon society.
One reason for this, we have to recognize, is the victory of the
Thatcherite/libertarian-capitalist "no such thing as society" ideology. Congratulations, Ayn
Rand, there is no such thing as American society now. It's every incipient entrepreneur
for him or herself. This does not a comradely, fighting band of brothers and sisters make.
Furthermore, though America is constantly at war, nobody understands the purpose of it.
That's because the real purpose can never be explained, and must be hidden behind some facile
abstraction -- "democracy," "our freedoms," etc. This kind of discourse can get some of the
people motivated for some of the time, but it loses its charm the minute someone gets smacked
in the face.
Once they take a moment, everybody can see that there is nobody with an army threatening to
attack and destroy the United States, and if they take a few moments, everybody can see how
phony the "democracy and freedom" stuff is and remember how often they've been lied to before.
There's just too much information out there. (Which is why the Imperial High Command wants to
control the internet.) Why the hell am I fighting? What in hell are we fighting
for? These are questions everybody will ask after, and too many people are now asking
before, they get smacked in the face.
This lack of social understanding and lack of political support translates into the
impossibility of fighting a major, sustained war that requires taking heavy casualties -- even
"over there," but certainly in the snug. American culture might be all gung-ho about Seal Team
Six kicking ass, but the minute American homes start blowing up and American bodies start
falling, Hoo-hah becomes Uh-oh , and it's going to be Outta here .
Americans are ready for Hoo-hah and the Shark Tank and the Zombie Apocalypse. They
are not ready for war.
You Get What You Play For
"Russiagate," which started quite banally in the presidential campaign as a Democratic arrow
to take down Trump, is now Russiamania -- a battery of weapons wielded by various sectors of
the state, aimed at an array of targets deemed even potentially resistant to imperial
militarism. Trump himself -- still, and for as long as he's deemed unreliable -- is targeted by
a legal prosecution of infinite reach (whose likeliest threat is to take him down for something
that has nothing to do with Russia). Russia itself is now targeted in full force by economic,
diplomatic, ideological -- and, tentatively, military -- weapons of the state. Perhaps most
importantly, American and European people, especially dissidents, are targeted by a unified
media barrage that attacks any expression of radical critique, anything that "sows division" --
from Black Lives Matter, to the Sanders campaign, to "But other countries could have made it"
-- as Russian treachery.
The stunning success of that last offensive is crucial to making a war more likely, and must
be fought. To increase the risk of war with a nuclear power in order to score points against
Donald Trump or Jill Stein -- well, only those who neither respect, fear, nor are ready for war
would do such a stupid and dangerous thing.
It's impossible to predict with certainty whether, when, or with whom a major hot war will
be started. The same chaotic disarray and impulsiveness of the Trump administration that
increases the danger of war might also work to prevent it. John Bolton may be fired before he
trims his moustache. But it's a pressure-cooker, and the temperature has spiked
drastically.
In a previous
essay , I said that Venezuela was a likely first target for military attack, precisely
because it would make for an easy victory that didn't risk military confrontation with Russia.
That's still a good possibility. As we saw with Iraq Wars 1 (which helped to end the "Vietnam
Syndrome") and 2 (which somewhat resurrected it), the imperial high command needs to inure the
American public with a virtually American-casualty-free victory and in order to lure them into
taking on a war that's going to hurt.
But the new War Cabinet may be pumped for the main event -- an attack on Iran. Trump,
Pompeo, and Bolton are all rabid proponents of regime-change in Iran. We can be certain
that the Iran nuclear deal will be scrapped, and everyone will work hard to implement the
secret agreementthe Trump administration already has with Israel to "to deal
with Iran's nuclear drive, its missile programs and its other threatening activities" -- or, as
Trump himself expresses it: "cripple the [Iranian] regime and bring it to collapse." (That
agreement, by the way, was negotiated and signed by the previous, supposedly not-so-belligerent
National Security Advisor, H. R. McMaster.)
Still, as I also said in the previous essay, an attack on Iran means the Americans must
either make sure Russia doesn't get in the way or make clear that they don't care if it
does. So, threatening moves -- not excluding probing military moves -- against Russia will
increase, whether Russia is the preferred direct target or not.
The siege is on.
Americans who want to continue playing with this fire would do well to pay some respectful
attention to the target whose face they want to smack. Russia did not boast or brag or threaten
or Hoo-Hah about sending military forces to Syria. When it was deemed necessary -- when
the United States declared its intention to attack the Syrian Army -- it just did it. And
American10-dimensional-chess players have been squirming around trying to deal with the
implications of that ever since. They're working hard on finding the right mix of threats,
bluffs, sanctions, expulsions, "Shut up and go away!" insults, military forces on the border,
and "bloody nose" attacks to force a capitulation. They should be listening to their target,
who has not tired of asking for a "partnership," who has clearly stated what his country would
do in reaction to previous moves (e.g., the abrogation of the ABM Treaty and stationing of ABM
bases in Eastern Europe), whose country and family have suffered from wartime devastation
Americans cannot imagine, who therefore respects, fears, and is ready for war in ways Americans
are not, and who is not playing their game:
[2]
Though it's ridiculous that it needs to be said: I'm not talking here about the phony fear
engendered by the media presentation of the "strongman," "brutal dictator" Vladimir Putin. This
is part and parcel of comic-book politics -- conjuring a super-villain, who, we all know, is
destined to be defeated. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Jim Kavanagh
There is so much disinformation that it is difficult to judge the Israeli news report below
that the US is planning a military attack on Iran. Israel wants the US to attack Iran and the
report could be an attempt to push events in that direction.
There is no valid reason for Washington to serve Israeli interests.
It would be extremely irresponsible for Washington to risk starting another war.
As Russian and Chinese interests could be threatened by a US war with Iran, the situation
could become uncontrollable.
If there is a real prospect of a US attack on Iran, it would be a responsible action for
Russia and China to block it in advance by taking a firm position.
U.N. officials: U.S. planning a 'tactical assault' in Iran
By SHLOMO SHAMIR/MAARIV ONLINE
06/17/2019
The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian
facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.
Is the US going to attack Iran soon?
Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York revealed to Maariv that they are
assessing the United States' plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran in response to the
tanker attack in the Persian Gulf on Thursday.
According to the officials, since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant
discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to
President Donald Trump.
The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian
facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.
"The bombing will be massive but will be limited to a specific target," said a Western
diplomat.
Neocon donors ask Trump for favors and he can't refuse... Trump foreign policy is a direct continuation of Bush II and Obama
foreign policy and is dominated by neocons, who rule the State Department. Pomeo is a rabid neocon, to the right of
Condoleezza Rice, Hillary and John Kerry. Actually anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli bias was clearly visible even during 2016
campaign, but few voters paid any attention. Now they should.
It is clear that Trump is the most pro-Israel President after Johnson.
Notable quotes:
"... In contrast, in the Middle East the president has been extraordinarily bellicose. In April, the Administration revoked waivers that allowed certain countries to buy oil from Iran without violating U.S. sanctions [ U.S. Won't Renew Sanction Exemptions For Countries Buying Iran's Oil , by Bill Chappell, NPR, April 22, 2019]. In early May, the president imposed new sanctions on Iranian metals, a direct threat to the regime's economic viability. ..."
"... The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War , by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Policy, June 14, 2019]. ..."
"... Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation. ..."
"... But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War . There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the "intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories After Tanker Attacks , RedState, June 14, 2019] ..."
The most optimistic explanation: Trump intends to use immigration as an election issue in
2020. Yet his fecklessness in office will be as unappealing to many voters as the Democrats'
extremism. [ Trump Is
Vulnerable to Biden on Immigration, by Michael Brendan Dougherty, National
Review, June 11, 2019] After all, Trump
began his campaign vowing to solve the immigration problem almost exactly four years ago --
but essentially nothing has been done.
Later that month, the president said a fight would mean "the official end of Iran" [
Trump threatens Iran With 'Official End' by Kenneth Walsh, US News and World
Report, May 20, 2019].
The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either
accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum
pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War, by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign
Policy, June 14, 2019].
Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation.
But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and
its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War
. There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly
question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the
"intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international
investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories
After Tanker Attacks, RedState, June 14, 2019]
This is not the same country that re-elected George W. Bush in 2004. The trust in
institutions is gone; America is war-weary.
There is also a deeper fundamental question. Our country is crumbling. The border is
non-existent; entire communities are being overrun. There's something perverse about even
entertaining a dangerous and costly military intervention halfway around the world. It's akin
to a Roman emperor declaring he will conquer India while barbarians are crossing the Rhine.
Pompeo plays 'I've Got A Secret" during an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS Face The
Nation, responding to a request for evidence that Iran was behind a Taliban attack on a US
convoy in Afghanistan. Pompeo had painted the Taliban-claimed attack as one of "a series of
attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and
allied interests."
QUESTION: One of the things when you were at the podium at the State Department earlier
this week you presented as a fact was an attack that was carried out in Kabul in May. The
Taliban said they carried it out, but you blamed Iran for it. What evidence do you have
that Iran was behind that attack?
SECRETARY POMPEO: We have confidence that Iran instigated this attack. I can't share any
more of the intelligence, but I wouldn't have said it if the Intelligence Community hadn't
become convinced that this was the case.
QUESTION: So there's more that you can't share with us to back that up?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, ma'am. That's correct. . .
here
Juan Cole, an American academic and commentator on the modern Middle East and South Asia,
takes a look at that charge. Once Again Pompeo Displays Hopeless Ignorance of Sunni & Shiite, Iran and
Taliban
. . .Pompeo painted the incident as one of "a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic
Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests."
Pompeo's statement is so embarrassing as to be cringe-worthy. It is either a lie in the
service of war propaganda or a display of such bottomless ignorance on the part of
America's chief diplomat as to be grounds for impeachment (or perhaps just consignment to
an asylum). . . here
"There is no doubt," Pompeo told "Fox News Sunday,"
This, from Sec. Mike Pompous, to the Apparatchik arm of the Administration. As if the
American public, or the world, would/could believe anything out of the mouths of these
pathetic, bombastic, buffoons.
mcsmcs
...We are supposed to believe the intelligence community about this, but not anything else
apparently.
BassHunter
The trifecta of ignorant bellicosity (ie Trump/Bolton/Pompeo) have no credibility because
they constantly and consistently lie about everything all the time. It is a situation of
their own making. The true surprise here is that THEY are surprised that others refuse to
believe them...
13 hours ago Would someone please explain to me why anyone would attempt to remove an
unexploded mine from the side of a ship, and take it on board their own vessel? Seriously. Is
this a case of waste not, want not?
It doesn't matter much, though, even if it's true. Nobody believes a word coming out of this
administration. We are a global laughing stock run by pathological liars. Like thumb_up
5 Reply reply Link link Report flag
mcsmcs 12 hours
ago They would take it because it could be traced back to the country that made it and/or put
it there.
But it they could have taken it off and let it fall to the bottom of the ocean. Like
thumb_up 1 Reply reply Link link Report flag
longretired 10 hours ago The other question is why was the min attached above the waterline?
Mrine mines are designed to explode underwater.
Like thumb_up 1 Reply reply Link link Report
flag Patti C 14 hours ago
Trump and Pompeo are abhorrent. They have destroyed our foreign policy. No one in their right
mind should be voting for Trump for a second term. This administration has no credibility
nationally and internationally. Americans who support Trump are ruining our country and are
voting against their interests over and over again. Wake up! Republicans and Mitch McConnell
should be punished for the amoral Trump Administration. Democrats need to dominate in the 2020
elections! Democrats need to work with all communities across the country to save our
democratic republic. Vote Democrats across the nation in 2020. 10 hours ago About what? He
actually said the Government has determined. And we all know how unreliable this government
is.
The intelligence community always has lots of dat . Like the lies about the Iraq war start,
it did not support their assertions. 15 hours ago Odd the only countries siding with the US
version of this incident are the ones who stand to gain from continuing to isolate Iran.
Saudi Arabia especially is not a fair player, as exemplified by their behavior in Sudan as
well. 15 hours ago Simple. Reread The Boy Who Cried Wolf. When you have a narcissistic
president who cannot speak the truth and goes around naked in The Emperor's New Clothes, his
sycophantic appointees say, "Oh yes, you are wearing the most Beautiful new robe." Like
thumb_up 4 Reply reply Link link Report flag
Portia1992 15 hours ago The U.S. has zero credibility and should never be trusted. We are
warmongers controlled by U.A.E., Saudi Arabia & Israel.
22 hours ago (Edited) This is how stupid we've become: My fear is the real reason we pulled out
of a deal that was very effective at both keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons and
incentivizing them to behave (for greater economic opportunities) is that Trump hates the
fact that Obama developed the deal.
He's forever spoke of developing "a better deal" with regard to everything Obama did. He
wanted a "better" healthcare plan to replace Obamacare too. But the very folks that voted for
Trump (especially in places like Kentucky) benefited too greatly from "Obamacare" and loudly
demanded that Trump not touch it.
Here we go again with Trump trying to screw things up (even if it means risking
American military lives in a conflict that was COMPLETELY unnecessary when Trump took
office).
It was never truly about what Iran was doing. They were behaving so well that all of our
European allies cheered the former peace deal (IT WAS WORKING VERY WELL). Some of this is about
Trump's weird love for Saudi Arabia (a bitter enemy of Iran).
But most of this is in Trump's bigoted head. Put simply, we are on the brink of war with a
very nasty adversary mainly because Trump hates Obama and everything he did. Even our closest
allies (that loved Obama) are not treated as well as Putin (who hated Obama, too). Like
thumb_up 9 Reply reply Link link Report flag
BassHunter 12 hours ago Bingo! Like thumb_up 1 Reply reply
Link link Report flag NormaLee10 22 hours ago
(Edited) Report from my last trip to Iran. I just love the Chinese sneakers I bought in Ahwaz
(sorry Nike) Love the Russian fur hat I bought in Tabriz((sorry Gap) The high speed train,
built by the Chinese, was a wonderful ride. . Thank you to the Russian Crew inviting us to tour
their ship in the port near the Caspian. I get compliments on my Turkish scarves , my Indian
cotton dresses. The new boutique hotel, refurbished by a German chain was great.
Just think, if the Dump would have stayed and expanded on the Nuclear agreement,he could have
sent Ivanka over to pick up where she left off, designing a hotel in Kazakhstan , or stolen
some designs off Persian carpets.
23 hours ago The U.S. lost all credibility under W, who claimed that Iraq had Weapons of Mass
Destruction.
Not a single person in a gubbmint office has learned a damned thing since. Like
thumb_up 6 Reply reply Link link Report flag
decaff 23 hours ago So we watched W. Bush get into a huge mess in Iraq (actually it was
Cheney). Just imagine the mess that the Orange Clown may get us into with Iran. (which benefits
his relationships with Saudi Arabia).
Like thumb_up 5 Reply reply Link link Report
flag Ralph Carlson 23 hours
ago Trump is and always has been nothing more than a bully
Like thumb_up 4 Reply reply Link link Report
flag RGR 23 hours ago This guy
came in on a wild horse ride, Mexicans are rapists, etc...Pull out of the Iran deal (even
though it appeared to be working)....and how he is helping the military (while taking money out
of their budget for 'the wall').
TURNS OUT...he is the wild horse, and this one is not one that should be allowed out of the
barn...
He is a fool...how long does it take to figure this out...his district in NY only voted 10%
for him...they knew! Like thumb_up 5 Reply reply Link
link Report flag Citizen of the Planet 1
day ago You are now witnessing the manifestation of 2 years of Trump's chest pounding and
bullying. No one trusts us. No one. Nobody. Like thumb_up 6 Reply reply Link link Report flag Al Terego Oz 1 day ago
Interesting how quickly it's gone from being possibly a mine to definitely a mine. Like
thumb_up 3 Reply reply Link link Report flag
Bimberg 22 hours ago Very soon Trump will announce that "It's mine, mine, mine!"
Like thumb_up 1 Reply reply Link link Report
flag Pinky_the_Cat 1 day ago
The reason Trump can't make a case for this is that there is no evidence.
There is so little evidence that Trump had to buy propaganda from Heritage.org . That is how thin this
"... Acting totally mad and indicating you don't care is a good way to defeat those who is your equal. Isn't this is exactly how the US government has been acting lately? ..."
"... Interesting this WaPost op/ed totally trashing Trump/Pompeo foreign policy and their utter inability didn't generate any further comment on the previous thread. Sure, it came from BezosPost, but it surely represents some powerful faction that's totally at odds with the directionlessness of Trump and Pompeo. ..."
"... Its June and you know who loves blood to be spilled in June, and right before July 4 you know. Look for a limited aerial strike per PCR, and then they hope Iran retaliates and gives an excuse for them to escalate. ..."
"... Americans are so brainwashed into buying into US militarism and exceptionalism that Trumps approval ratings will go up. Anyone criticizing the military or war is labelled anti-American and censored by Social Media. ..."
"... Seems that Shanahan balked at being the scapegoat for the next war so they found another. Shanahan is said to be pretty smart (Masters and MBA from MIT). ..."
"... Has Trump been misled by his advisors, when he twitted about the infamous video shot in the dark by modern means that would surprise the Iranians?I Mean ,because now it turns out to be made in clear daylight with the newly published images. Is Trump angry about being cheated or did he play with the game and was his twitted remark kind of an inside joke? ..."
"... Previously we had G.Haspel showing non-pertinent to the matter camera shots of duck and children to convince him into expelling a max number of Russian diplomats. ..."
"... I am sure there are many Americans interested to know who is in charge at the USA.. ..."
"... ... the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality... Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance -- thus the person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction. ..."
"... Such that Trump is both peace-loving nationalist and empire-loving antagonist. Except that the latter is expressed as a positive: "staunch ally", "tough negotiator", "protector", etc instead of a negative. Some people fall for it (Kool-Aid drinkers) and MSM ignores those that talk about the meta issues of MSM complicity. ..."
"... IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's "on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners (capitalists). ..."
"... In light of what the WaPost published I linked to above regrading the utter lack in confidence in both Trump and Pompeo to conduct a rational foreign policy, I seriously doubt the change at SecDef will provide optimism for improvement. Some apparently think such dissent is just shadowplay; IMO, they are mistaken. And I will again note the dissent isn't just about Iran; rather, it's about the conduct of overall foreign policy, especially Trade Policy, which is eating into corporate profitability. ..."
"... That would be a terrible miscalculation from US leadership. The one reason why Pearl Harbour wasn't a lasting disaster for the US is that the carriers survived. What if Iran actually manages to sink a carrier air group? I mean, nukes and nearly untouchable power projection through aircraft carriers are the two main reasons why the US is still the supreme superpower around. Show people that the carriers can be taken out and actually begin to take them out, and plenty of people and countries will begin to consider leaving that mad army parading as a country to itself - not to mention some will soon openly rebel. ..."
"... The US has 50,000 troops and a carrier strike group "protecting American interests" in the Persian Gulf area of the Middle East. Somebody in government ought to tell us what those "interests" are, which require such an investment. That would be nice. ..."
"... The Guardian-- The Iran crisis was created in Washington. The US must be talked down ..."
Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, who has done a wonderful job, has decided
not to go forward with his confirmation process so that he can devote more time to his
family....
....I thank Pat for his outstanding service and will be naming Secretary of the Army, Mark
Esper, to be the new Acting Secretary of Defense. I know Mark, and have no doubt he will do a
fantastic job
On May 9 the White House announced
that it would nominate Shanahan for the Secretary of Defense position. But it never sent the
nomination request to Congress to have Shanahan confirmed. During the usual FBI background
check before a confirmation, a 2010 domestic violence incident Shanahan was involved in
came up . It seems that it now
ended his short career at the Pentagon.
Shanahan had zero experience in the military. He is a former Boeing manager. A recent
Politicoportrait of
Shanahan described him as weak leader who allowed the war hawks in National Security
Council to directly talk with regional commanders without even informing him. He was no
counterweight for Bolton and Pompeo who are eager to wage war on Iran.
Yesterday ABC News
reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would meet with talk with the Central Command
and Special Operations Command leaders without Shanahan being there. It was extremely
unusual:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Florida on Monday to meet with leaders from
U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command on Tuesday. The U.S. is considering "all
options," including military force, to respond to Iran's reported attack on two oil vessels,
Pompeo said on Sunday, raising concerns of a U.S. strike.
...
Pompeo will meet with CENTCOM and Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in
Florida on Tuesday to "discuss regional security concerns and ongoing operations," according
to Ortagus, after calling several world leaders over the weekend to discuss America's
evidence that Iran was behind last week's attacks.
There is no information what plans those talks were about.
At @CENTCOM at @MacDill_AFB, @SecPompeo says he conferred with military commanders to
coordinate State and Defense Dept policy on Iran.
Says US is serious about deterring Iran regime from further aggression in the region.
Says Pres Trump does not want war against Iran.
[Another very unusual sign is that the old war criminal Henry Kissinger visited the Pentagon
yesterday and today .]
Trump already had difficulties to find a new Secretary of Defense. Shanahan was not his
first choice. To now find a new candidate will be difficult.
It is unlikely that the U.S. would launch a war without a Secretary of Defense in place. Bolton and Pompeo obviously want a war on Iran and they try their best to instigate it. They
need a new SecDef in place as soon as possible. Pompeo served five years as an officer in the U.S. army. He has extensive political
experience. Would he want to become Secretary of Defense?
That would leave the Secretary of State position open for John Bolton to move in. The
confirmation would be a bit difficult but the Senate is in Republican hands and might go with
it. One of Bolton's cronies could then take over the National Security Advisor position. From the war-hawks' point of view it would be the ideal configuration to launch a big
one.
Posted by b on June 18, 2019 at 02:03 PM |
Permalink
Possibly true. I was only looking at this from Sputnick:
"The numerous US media stated that Secretary of the Army Mark Esper had been discussed as a
possible alternative choice as defense secretary to Shanahan if Trump decided not to nominate
him."
I have hard time believing that Bolton and Pompeo under consideration. Pompeo isn't gonna
wanna leave his current job and as for Bolton John Kiriakou wrote last week that Trump is
quietly working behind the scenes to find a replacement for him. If anything it might suggest
that Trump is working to covertly reign in Bolton and Pompeo with another SecDef who can
better control them.
Besides Mr. Esper, who was confirmed as secretary of the Army in November 2017, officials
said that Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and Richard V. Spencer, the secretary of the
Navy, are on the short list for defense secretary.
... and I thought I was to far out speculative with the above.
"From the war-hawks' point of view it would be the ideal configuration to launch a big one." Gosh, and I thought that Hillary was the big warmonger...guess it would've only been worse
under her.
Obama didn't have a problem getting re-elected with all of his own secret foreign wars and
dronings going on. If indeed Pimpeo and Bolt-On get their way, Trump will execute the same
type of campaign against Iran except there will be no boots on the ground, even "advisors"
given the relationship status of the countries surrounding Iran. The U.S. has exhausted its
credibility and goodwill. So we'll be funding terrorists, perpetrating false flags, using
drones to attack Iranian seagoing military vessels and launching the occasional "precision"
cruise missile strike against alleged nuclear weapons and maybe even chemical weapons
processing facilities.
If there is a land war, Israel will fight to the last American troop.
Trump's list of Most Unsuitable Candidates for Higher Office is getting perilously short.
Assuming our most famous U.S. billionaire capitalists are not interested, what are Cheney and
Condoleezza doing these days? Erik Prince? Some aging Grand Wizard of the KKK? A random death
row inmate? The mind boggles.
i said this on the last thread, but i would be curious for others feedback on it..
"think about it... is there going to be more money made and generated starting a war on
iran, or not?? the choice is obvious for those into money... create mayhem and raise a lot of
money off of it.. and what countries seem to excel at that??"
as for innocent people dying, that has never been a concern for those into money...
Just to see how far we've come, or how bad the situation is, I'd consider Kissinger going on
his own to check things out with the top military brass to actually be a good sign. He's no
fool and knows that war with Iran will only confirm to Russia and China that they have to
stand together, strong, against the USA, and that they'd probably better back Iran up on this
one. I wouldn't be surprised if Kissinger is back to his old ways, and that's it's a similar
move to when he warned the generals to call him right away if Nixon ever gave the order to
use nukes. The guy is slimy and ruthless, but knows the limits and doesn't plan to suicide
half the planet.
Colonel Pat Lang assumes that Shanahan just resigns in disgust because Pompeo and Bolton
are running the show without consulting with the military. Not sure which is right.
One can hope that the neo-con buddies overplayed their hands and that they just put Trump in
such a shitty situation that he's going to tell them to go to Hell soon - hopefully before
anyone does something *really* stupid. But right now, that's just that, hope.
NYT saying Pompeo is considered for SecDef might just be Pompeo and his neo-con buddies
saying dumb shit and leaking false information to appear important, and trying to force
Trump's hands. I really hope that's what happened - because then it would piss Trump off and
he might be looking for a way of getting rid of him. If the leak is genuine, on the other
hand, that's a terrible sign.
Yes, I believe the US would use nukes if they think they could get away with it... that's
how crazy works. Would the other nuclear powers step in,,, highly doubtful. If that happens
then the US might even threaten them with annihilation. They would believe the US is sooo
insane that it would really risk planet destruction and could decide to cave to the US
wishes.
Acting totally mad and indicating you don't care is a good way to defeat those who is your
equal. Isn't this is exactly how the US government has been acting lately?
"I believe the US would use nukes if they think they could get away with it...that's how
crazy evil works."
and Sean Hannity would say ... "never has a country had so much power and abused it so
little, the Iranians [10 minute Litany of robotic talking point lies] left us no choice." Pompeo, Pence and Haley all declaring it the most righteous and justifiable act ever. Trump would close the border to any Iranian refugees and embargo any Iranians who survived
just like he is doing to the Syrians and Venezuelans now.
Isn't the Secretary of State the most senior member of the cabinet and regarded as more
powerful that POTUS? The position where real power resides? How could a buffoon like Bolton
even be considered for Secretary if State? Just another one of Trump's ricaldoodlelus
appointments? What a lark!
Bolton graduated from Yale in 1970. I wonder if he is a member of the Skull & Bones?
Or closely associated? If so, that makes him much, much more than a mere buffoon but, rather,
the very embodiment of the Deep State's and neo-Con's war strategy; that would make Bolton a
very, very dangerous person in a very, very powerful position.
Trump would appear to be nothing more than a facilitator.
Both George H.W & George W. Bush were bonesman. Cheney only went to Yale but didn't
graduate. Far from Cheney being the controlling influence over George W. (as presented in
media and movies) maybe Cheney was just following orders.
Marie Colville (did she ever really exist?) also appears to have been an alumni of Yale
(was a fake background constructed?).
Supposedly, the Skull & Bones control Yale; what a very strange place. Anyone,
associated with Yale (like Bolton) should be kept well away from power!
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Just when you think the US of A's Generalissimo Bone Spur and
President Chief Kaiser of Ignorance Arrogance, Stupidity and Hypocrisy (aka: Donald Trump)
could not sink to any lower level of idiocy than he already has, he does so. What a country!
Only in America!
Shouldn't be difficult for Iran, if bmobed at all by US/NATO, to hit Israel - in a big way -
from a number of geographic locations and a variety of methods. It would be major and
catastrophic.
It poses too great a danger to good friends, with whom the USA maintains an "irrevocable
bond", according to the US Congress, the Apartheid State of Israel.
I guess Shanahan resigned so he could spend more time abusing his family.
I find it interesting that one of the ships attacked, the Front Altair, had a crew of
Russians and Filipinos.
This was the crew saved by the Iranians. The US story is that they were picked up by a Dutch
tanker and then kidnapped by the Iranians. Clearly, the Iranians still saved them, no matter
who actually picked them up first.
If the Dutch had turned the crew over to the US, who believes that they would already be
released? (The Iranians already released them).
I know that B thinks that this attack was from the Iranians, but the fact that one ship was
Japanese, while Abe was in Tehran, and the other had a crew of Russians and Filipinos, both
countries under attack from the US, makes me believe that those men were destined to be held
for leverage.
For a preview of what things would look like with Pompeo and Bolton in those positions, I
recommend a viewing of the movie Vice. (Vice, as in Cheney, working with Rumsfeld and
narcissistic poodles such as Powell to start the current ME quagmire.)
Trump went too far with Iran under the devilish advice and initiatives of Heckle and
Jeckle...
If he wants to stop the escalation with Iran, before it gets out of control, the only way is
to move Pompeo to Sec of Defense where he will have to face the powerful and war-reluctant
military. Trump would also simultaneously fire Bolton.
Depending on the reactions of the neocons and Jewish lobby, he will then choose a new sec of
state, 'brilliant' Jared Kushner?
I think the US has become very skilled at fighting wars without taking casualties. I think
the air attacks in Syria - on Iranian forces - have made it pretty clear that Iran has no
meaningful defense capabilities vs air attack. What Trump is probably counting on is a turkey
shoot and I think that is exactly what it will be.
What is Trump's motivation to be provocative with Iran?' Pelosi asks – and the answer is Adelson.
Adelson called on the last president, Barack Obama, to nuke Iran in 2013
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/06/motivation-provocative-adelson/
its a war for israel
We should take heart from readers comments in the New York Times in response to an article by
the NYT Editorial Board.
There were 473 of them before the Times closed the discussion, and we could not find a single
one that is supportive of war or of U.S. efforts to continue pressure on Iran. So Bret
Stephens gets to spur on a war in his Times column, but the paper's readers are universally
against the idea. Moreover, they hold the Times responsible and see through the equivocations
in the editorial. Several point out that the press was the handmaiden of the Iraq disaster.
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/06/readers-newspaper-abetting/#comments
The US position is an attempt to keep hegemony over the region because both Israel and Saudi
Arabia feel the US is losing it, and they are correct.
Trump walked away from the JCPOA at the
behest of Israel with the accusation that it was a bad deal, the deal did in fact rule out
enrichment of uranium above 3.5%, approx 90% enrichment is required to build a nuclear
device.
The Ayatollah issued a decree to the effect that nuclear weapons were un-Islamic,
therefore Iran should not have them.
The real reason Trump walked away was because Iran was
in rapid production of highly accurate conventional ballistic missiles some of which would
find their way to Hezbollah, the UN Resolution banned the building of missiles capable of
carrying a nuclear payload, but not conventional warheads, to ban the latter would have
rendered Iran defenseless, which was the whole idea of the Israeli and Saudi Arabian
intervention.
Being incapable of defending itself is not something any state could
countenance, that's why it will never happen, hence the stand off.
In my opinion there will be no war with Iran, too many losers, Saudi Arabia/UAE, Israel, the
US fleet [in Bahrain] the US bases all over the Middle East, of course Iran and its friends
could be destroyed [but at what cost?] The Strait of Hormus is bristling with Iranian anti
ship missiles, the first sign of war would see the US fleet depart from Bahrain, the
lumbering giant and vulnerable B52's based in Qatar would not get off the ground and US
airbases in the region well within range if Iranian missiles would be reduced to rubble. As
for any US carriers in the area and why US carriers are obsolete, especially in the Iranian
situation here is an article by Gary Brecher from 10 years ago and very witty.. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/
Interesting
this WaPost op/ed totally trashing Trump/Pompeo foreign policy and their utter inability
didn't generate any further comment on the previous thread. Sure, it came from BezosPost, but
it surely represents some powerful faction that's totally at odds with the directionlessness
of Trump and Pompeo.
After so many fiascos, there seems to be very little appetite for armed conflict amongst
the Vassals except for UK. There's lots of domestic uproar over Trump policies the tanker
attacks have muted so far but won't go away anytime soon -- particularly the Concentration Camp
charges, which are 100% correct, extremely damning and damaging.
Look at the situation from
overseas. Escalating belligerency across the board aimed at enemies and allies alike is
combined with visibly repressive, likely unconstitutional and, in the world's eyes, morally
reprehensible actions toward vulnerable innocents from which horror stories occur on a daily
basis. Oh, and don't forget Assange and the War against Truth. And your government is being
asked to support TrumpCo's policies?! I bet plenty of leaders are biting their tongues. The
G-20's in ten days.
At least Gates resisted the Obama/Hillary mission to destroy Libya (worked with JCS to
contact Gaddhafi's sons). Hillary put a stop to that. One wonders if Pompeo and Bolton are
playing a multi-view game of picking a SecDef that they (and Kushner/Netanyau) approve of.
Oops. It wasn't so much Gates as Kucinich leading that effort with the JCS. But Gates was
hesitant in a TIME article about a meeting with Obama and KerryHillary to discuss possible
military action against Iran. At the time, I figured it was posturing for Israel. I focused
on the description of Kerry and Hillary as "interventionists."
This is rather ominous. Sounds a bit like cleaning house and removing potential witnesses who
aren't will the program or may soon have a grudge to bear.
Its June and you know who loves blood to be spilled in June, and right before July 4 you
know. Look for a limited aerial strike per PCR, and then they hope Iran retaliates and gives an
excuse for them to escalate.
Americans are so brainwashed into buying into US militarism and exceptionalism that Trumps
approval ratings will go up. Anyone criticizing the military or war is labelled anti-American and censored by Social Media.
Declining IQ's and chronic illnesses due to vaccines and other environmental toxins will limit any protests. Besides, the
military is the one way to get a free college education while getting paid to go to school. The young will continue lining up
to serve and fight these threats to the American way of life. Shouting America First. MAGA. Waving their Made in China flag.
God blesses US. Might makes right, etc
Puppet regimes in occupied Europe will go along. Fellow Fake wrestlers in China and Russia
will make squeaky noises. So predictable
It dawned on me that those outside the Outlaw US Empire don't know about TrumpCo's
Concentration Camps and the surrounding, escalating controversy. As I've written,
conflation of Concentration with Death Camps and decades of propaganda are fueling the issue:
"'The Holocaust did not begin with the murder of six million Jews,' writer Bess Kalb
tweeted in response to Cheney. 'It began with the same dehumanization, deportation, and
internment we see today. You, sickeningly, invoke the Holocaust to minimize their suffering.
Shame.'
As you might imagine given the level of Jewish/Zionist support, Cheney and the Republicans
have made an enormous mistake.
"Come to think of it, unless Dick Cheney is busy with other priorities, he ought to be
available for a reboot of Shock & Awe."
There are some who believe he is the unofficial President running things from his
underground city built as part of the Continuity of Government that kicks in during National
Emergencies such as the one declared 18 years ago and still in effect
Not 100% sure this is true but I suspect his voice is being heard
President Trump made the announcement with a pair of midday tweets that Shanahan was
withdrawing and that Army Secretary Mark Esper would take his place as acting Defense
secretary
On Esper, in April Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan announced that the
president nominated Army Gen. Mark Milley to serve as the next JCS chairman which would be
effective in about September when General Joseph Dunford leaves after four years on the job.
His predecessor was an Army general, so it was considered odd to select another Army general
to be top dog.
Now, Esper is Army too and if he were nominated for SecDef that would shake some people.
What about Air Force and Navy? What are they, chopped liver?
. . .more on Esper from The Hill:
Esper graduated from West Point in 1986 and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before
retiring. His Army career includes a combat tour in Iraq during the Gulf War. Several
Republican senators have already said they'd support Esper should he be nominated.
. . .(but) Esper was a lobbyist at defense contractor Raytheon for seven years prior to
becoming Army secretary. Esper's lobbyist past could bring up some of the issues that
dogged Shanahan on potential conflicts of interest.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Executive Director Noah Bookbinder
said in a statement that Esper "risk[s] being tainted by his previous work for a major
defense contractor. The group's allegations against Shanahan in part prompted the inspector
general investigation.
"While Esper may not have had sway over these types of deals as secretary of the Army,
as acting secretary of Defense he will have potential influence over such deals, as well as
over the controversial proposed merger of Raytheon and UTC to become the second largest
defense company in the U.S.," Bookbinder said. "His ethics agreement -- and his ability to
follow it -- will be something we will be watching closely." . . .
here
Seems that Shanahan balked at being the scapegoat for the next war so they found
another. Shanahan is said to be pretty smart (Masters and MBA from MIT).
Is it that he's not a strong manager or did he just play along to get his ticket
stamped? I wouldn't be surprised if he's made the new CEO of Boeing (It's now clear that
Boeing will have to do more to recover from their 737Max debacle) . Or perhaps he'll join
a Defense-focused Private Equity firm, or simply sit on the Boards of several defense-related
enterprises. Any of these will be better than accepting the Trump Administration's Poison
Chalice.
Seems that Shanahan balked at being the scapegoat for the next war so they found another.
Shanahan is said to be pretty smart (Masters and MBA from MIT).
Is it that he's not a strong manager or did he just play along to get his ticket stamped?
I wouldn't be surprised if he's made the new CEO of Boeing (It's now clear that Boeing
will have to do more to recover from their 737Max debacle) . Or perhaps he'll join a
Defense-focused Private Equity firm, or simply sit on the Boards of several defense-related
enterprises. Any of these will be better than accepting the Trump Administration's Poison
Chalice.
Has Trump been misled by his advisors, when he twitted about the infamous video shot in the
dark by modern means that would surprise the Iranians?I Mean ,because now it turns out to be
made in clear daylight with the newly published images. Is Trump angry about being cheated or
did he play with the game and was his twitted remark kind of an inside joke?
Previously we had G.Haspel showing non-pertinent to the matter camera shots of duck and
children to convince him into expelling a max number of Russian diplomats.
And much earlier it
was pictures shown to Melania and him of dead or agonizing Syrian children that made him
order missile attack on Syria. Is that the way he is being handled by his surroundings in his
decision process? Is there a doctor around at the White House?
Reading Harry Law's post @41, it looks like the US needs another Pearl Harbour to carry its
people to war.
Plenty of Pearl Harbour type assets around the Persian Gulf. Problem for the US is getting
Iran to react and hit some of these.
... the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct,
often in distinct social contexts. Doublethink is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy
and neutrality... Doublethink is notable due to a lack of cognitive dissonance -- thus the
person is completely unaware of any conflict or contradiction.
Such that Trump is both peace-loving nationalist and empire-loving antagonist. Except that
the latter is expressed as a positive: "staunch ally", "tough negotiator", "protector", etc
instead of a negative. Some people fall for it (Kool-Aid drinkers) and MSM ignores those that
talk about the meta issues of MSM complicity.
And it's not just Trump. Whenever a President does things that might cause cognitive
dissonance, apologists and the feckless press explain it away as a positive or blame
subordinates for "sabotaging" the hero President.
snake @53: I am sure there are many Americans interested to know who is in charge at the
USA..
IMO President's are just members of the Deep State team. Presidents lead the team that's
"on the field" - like a quarterback in American football. But the Deep State 'coach' calls
the plays. And the 'coach' is, in turn, ultimately responsible to the owners
(capitalists).
They appointed a VP of Raetheon as Secretary of Defense which is appropriate because that is
who is selling the US the missiles to demolish Iran.
US intelligence learns from a highly credible source that Iran's Revolutionary Guards
have completed preparations for a large-scale assault on an important Saudi oil facility
within days.
You know this stuff is being fed to the military industrial congressional complex. It
looks like they will start some limited bombing of Iran prior to the 2020 elections to get
everyone waving their flags and shouting Hurahh.
I hope there isn't a war, but there is one nation you didn't mention which doesn't figure
it'll be hurt much by an outbreak of violence. A large number of goyim ending up dead doesn't
bother them the least bit. I'd imagine the smashing of Iran would be worth receiving a few
bombs on their stolen land. But not a lot, for if that happened they'd start waving around
the nuke option and cause Trump to keep on till the job was done to their satisfaction.
Thanks for the old War Nerd link. If the situation with aircraft carriers was bad then, a
2019 update would show them to be even worse in the death-trap category. But we're still
building them.
In light of what the WaPost published I linked to above regrading the utter lack in
confidence in both Trump and Pompeo to conduct a rational foreign policy, I seriously doubt
the change at SecDef will provide optimism for improvement. Some apparently think such
dissent is just shadowplay; IMO, they are mistaken. And I will again note the dissent isn't
just about Iran; rather, it's about the conduct of overall foreign policy, especially Trade
Policy, which is eating into corporate profitability.
Which side will take the next move is the question now. Perhaps another Houthi attack on
Saudi oil infrastructure, which present very soft, vulnerable targets. Perhaps a Houthi
ballistic missile attack on UAE port facilities. The Idlib offensive will begin again after
the non-ceasefire that saw continual al-Qaeda attacks and mounting Terrorist losses; perhaps,
the long awaited push West from Aleppo will occur. But Syria is tangential to the Iranian
confrontation. Maybe the EU will announce something significant that shows independent
thinking? Time marches inexorably onward to the next event.
That would be a terrible miscalculation from US leadership. The one reason why Pearl Harbour
wasn't a lasting disaster for the US is that the carriers survived. What if Iran actually
manages to sink a carrier air group? I mean, nukes and nearly untouchable power projection
through aircraft carriers are the two main reasons why the US is still the supreme superpower
around. Show people that the carriers can be taken out and actually begin to take them out,
and plenty of people and countries will begin to consider leaving that mad army parading as a
country to itself - not to mention some will soon openly rebel.
The US has 50,000 troops and a carrier strike group "protecting American interests" in the
Persian Gulf area of the Middle East. Somebody in government ought to tell us what those
"interests" are, which require such an investment. That would be nice.
I think that article is about Iran having a reason to do it, but I didn't read in it that
"b" believed that Iran had done it. I took him as more musing about the possibility without
believing it himself?
Unnecessarily aggressive, ill-considered – and deceptively presented – US
policies have once again brought the Middle East to the brink of an accidental war very few
want. America's European friends, including Britain, have an urgent responsibility to talk
it down – and drag it back from the abyss.
Global Opinions
What the Iran crisis tells us about Trump's lack of credibility
Why the Persian Gulf is a flashpoint for U.S.-Iran tensions
Here's what you need to know about the two suspected attacks on five ships in the Persian Gulf in the last month
and the region where they occurred.
(Joyce
Lee, Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)
By
Jason
Rezaian
Global Opinions writer
June 17
Nearly a week after
two
oil tankers
were attacked with explosives in the Gulf of Oman, what actually happened is still in dispute. What is
clear to everyone watching, though, is the Trump administration's complete lack of credibility as it continues its
bumbling attempts to express a coherent Iran policy.
Soon after the attack, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo showed a grainy video of several men on a small boat pulling an
object from the side of a much larger vessel. He claimed the video showed an Iranian patrol boat removing an unexploded
mine from the ship. This, he said, was irrefutable evidence that Iran had launched an attack on a Japanese-owned ship.
Pompeo made these statements on the same day that Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe,
visited
Tehran
-- at the behest of President Trump -- to urge Iran to begin new negotiations with the White House.
The skepticism was immediate. Allies who are predisposed to agree with the United States on all issues (such as Britain
or and Israel), or specifically on anti-Iran measures (such as
Saudi
Arabia
or the United Arab Emirates) were on board.
"The video is not enough. We can understand what is being shown, sure, but to make a final assessment, this is not
enough for me," Germany's foreign minister, Heiko Maas,
told
reporters
on Friday. Japan has also requested
stronger
evidence
.
Iran could very well have been behind the tanker attacks, as the Trump administration claims. But the lingering doubts
about the White House's account, expressed by friends and adversaries alike, are the real story here.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department on June 13. (Alex Brandon/AP)
"There is no doubt," Pompeo
told
"Fox
News Sunday," adding, "The intelligence community has lots of data, lots of evidence. The world will come to see much of
it, but the American people should rest assured we have high confidence with respect to who conducted these attacks as
well as half a dozen other attacks throughout the world over the past 40 days."
But there appears to be great doubt, and the fault lies with the administration's flimsy and unconvincing case to
counter what it claims is an increasing threat from Tehran.
As though on cue, Iran's Atomic Energy Organization announced on Monday that it would
increase
its stockpile
of enriched uranium to beyond the limits it had agreed to as part of the 2015 nuclear
deal
with
world powers, including the United States.
From the start, the entire premise of Trump's decision to pull out of the nuclear agreement with Iran was disingenuous.
Like the Obama-era deal or not, it seemed to be doing what it was intended to do: limiting Iran's nuclear activities so
that it couldn't weaponize its program. By withdrawing from the deal, the Trump administration gave up key leverage that
it could use against the regime.
Iran's move to begin pulling back from its commitments under the nuclear deal underscores that fact, and marks yet
another escalation in tensions between Tehran and Washington.
The State Department's narrative that Iran's malign behavior over recent months is a result of a regime emboldened by a
weak nuclear deal, and then angered by Washington pulling out of that same deal, is a farce.
The Iranian regime has been engaged in terrible acts since its inception 40 years ago. Its antagonism toward the United
States and its allies has ebbed and flowed, depending on perceived threats and opportunities -- and the U.S. withdrawal
from the deal took away the major incentive Iran had to behave.
By its own rhetoric, the Trump administration is currently exerting what it calls "maximum pressure" on Tehran. Under
this policy, reactions from Iran -- such as the tanker attacks or increased uranium enrichment -- are not only expected,
but are, in essence, a self-fulfilling prophecy.
By being pushed into a corner economically and militarily, the regime in Tehran may perceive there to be few other
options.
Given recent events, the administration has reason to call for increased pressure on Iran. But other world leaders are
signaling to the White House that they don't trust Washington to lead the way.
The big question, then, is why is the administration failing so miserably in making its case to the world? The reactions
to Pompeo's
remarks
reflect
how much credibility the administration has lost -- both on Iran, and on its foreign policy objectives as a whole.
Pointing a finger at Iran for any crime was once as close to a slam dunk as there was in international politics. Not
anymore.
That is because we are reminded at every turn that the notions of U.S. supremacy and security have little to do with the
promotion of foreign democracy. The Trump team's inability to take a principled stand on the
thuggish
behavior
of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the tepid response to the
crisis
in Venezuela
are prime examples.
And if Iran did attack the tankers, it was likely banking on exactly what has happened: one more crack in the United
States' shield of credibility.
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Jason Rezaian
Jason
Rezaian is a writer for Global Opinions. He served as The Post's correspondent in Tehran from 2012 to 2016.
He spent 544 days unjustly imprisoned by Iranian authorities until his release in January 2016.
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Opinions
Pompeo plays 'I've Got A Secret" during an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS Face The
Nation, responding to a request for evidence that Iran was behind a Taliban attack on a US
convoy in Afghanistan. Pompeo had painted the Taliban-claimed attack as one of "a series of
attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and
allied interests."
QUESTION: One of the things when you were at the podium at the State Department earlier
this week you presented as a fact was an attack that was carried out in Kabul in May. The
Taliban said they carried it out, but you blamed Iran for it. What evidence do you have
that Iran was behind that attack?
SECRETARY POMPEO: We have confidence that Iran instigated this attack. I can't share any
more of the intelligence, but I wouldn't have said it if the Intelligence Community hadn't
become convinced that this was the case.
QUESTION: So there's more that you can't share with us to back that up?
SECRETARY POMPEO: Yes, ma'am. That's correct. . .
here
Juan Cole, an American academic and commentator on the modern Middle East and South Asia,
takes a look at that charge. Once Again Pompeo Displays Hopeless Ignorance of Sunni & Shiite, Iran and
Taliban
. . .Pompeo painted the incident as one of "a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic
Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests."
Pompeo's statement is so embarrassing as to be cringe-worthy. It is either a lie in the
service of war propaganda or a display of such bottomless ignorance on the part of
America's chief diplomat as to be grounds for impeachment (or perhaps just consignment to
an asylum). . . here
"... Its political benefit: minimizing the number of U.S. "boots on the ground" and so American casualties in the never-ending war on terror, as well as any public outcry about Washington's many conflicts. ..."
"... Its economic benefit: plenty of high-profit business for weapons makers for whom the president can now declare a national security emergency whenever he likes and so sell their warplanes and munitions to preferred dictatorships in the Middle East (no congressional approval required). ..."
"... Think of all this as a cult of bombing on a global scale. America's wars are increasingly waged from the air, not on the ground, a reality that makes the prospect of ending them ever more daunting. The question is: What's driving this process? ..."
"... In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress . Using data supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped at least 26,172 bombs in seven countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS's "capital," the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to literal rubble . Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to Amnesty International . ..."
"... U.S. air campaigns today, deadly as they are, pale in comparison to past ones like the Tokyo firebombing of 1945, which killed more than 100,000 civilians; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later that year (roughly 250,000); the death toll against German civilians in World War II (at least 600,000); or civilians in the Vietnam War. (Estimates vary, but when napalm and the long-term effects of cluster munitions and defoliants like Agent Orange are added to conventional high-explosive bombs, the death toll in Southeast Asia may well have exceeded one million.) ..."
"... the U.S. may control the air, but that dominance simply hasn't led to ultimate success. In the case of Afghanistan, weapons like the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB (the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal), have been celebrated as game changers even when they change nothing. (Indeed, the Taliban only continues to grow stronger , as does the branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.) As is often the case when it comes to U.S. air power, such destruction leads neither to victory, nor closure of any sort; only to yet more destruction. ..."
"... Just because U.S. warplanes and drones can strike almost anywhere on the globe with relative impunity doesn't mean that they should. Given the history of air power since World War II, ease of access should never be mistaken for efficacious results. ..."
"... Bombing alone will never be the key to victory. If that were true, the U.S. would have easily won in Korea and Vietnam, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. ..."
"... Despite total air supremacy, the recent Iraq War was a disaster even as the Afghan War staggers on into its 18th catastrophic year. ..."
"... No matter how much it's advertised as "precise," "discriminate," and "measured," bombing (or using missiles like the Tomahawk ) rarely is. The deaths of innocents are guaranteed. Air power and those deaths are joined at the hip, while such killings only generate anger and blowback, thereby prolonging the wars they are meant to end. ..."
"... A paradox emerges from almost 18 years of the war on terror: the imprecision of air power only leads to repetitious cycles of violence and, even when air strikes prove precise, there always turn out to be fresh targets, fresh terrorists, fresh insurgents to strike. ..."
"... Using air power to send political messages about resolve or seriousness rarely works. If it did, the U.S. would have swept to victory in Vietnam. In Lyndon Johnson's presidency, for instance, Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968), a graduated campaign of bombing, was meant to, but didn't, convince the North Vietnamese to give up their goal of expelling the foreign invaders -- us -- from South Vietnam. ..."
"... Air power is enormously expensive. Spending on aircraft, helicopters, and their munitions accounted for roughly half the cost of the Vietnam War. ..."
"... Aerial surveillance (as with drones), while useful, can also be misleading. Command of the high ground is not synonymous with god-like "total situational awareness ." ..."
"... Air power is inherently offensive. That means it's more consistent with imperial power projection than with national defense ..."
"... Despite the fantasies of those sending out the planes, air power often lengthens wars rather than shortening them. ..."
"... Air power, even of the shock-and-awe variety, loses its impact over time. The enemy, lacking it, nonetheless learns to adapt by developing countermeasures -- both active (like missiles) and passive (like camouflage and dispersion), even as those being bombed become more resilient and resolute. ..."
"... Pounding peasants from two miles up is not exactly an ideal way to occupy the moral high ground in war. ..."
"... all the happy talk about the techno-wonders of modern air power obscures its darker facets, especially its ability to lock America into what are effectively one-way wars with dead-end results. ..."
"... War's inherent nature -- its unpredictability, horrors, and tendency to outlast its original causes and goals -- isn't changed when the bombs and missiles are guided by GPS. Washington's enemies in its war on terror, moreover, have learned to adapt to air power in a grimly Darwinian fashion and have the advantage of fighting on their own turf. ..."
From Syria to Yemen in the Middle East, Libya to Somalia in Africa, Afghanistan to Pakistan
in South Asia, an American aerial curtain has descended across a huge swath of the planet. Its
stated purpose: combatting terrorism. Its primary method: constant surveillance and bombing --
and yet more bombing.
Its political benefit: minimizing the number of U.S. "boots on the ground" and so
American casualties in the never-ending war on terror, as well as any public outcry about Washington's many
conflicts.
Its economic benefit: plenty of high-profit business for weapons makers for whom the president can now
declare a national security emergency whenever he likes and so sell their warplanes and
munitions to preferred dictatorships in the Middle East (no congressional approval
required).
Its reality for various foreign peoples: a steady diet of "
Made in USA " bombs and missiles bursting here, there, and everywhere.
Think of all this as a cult of bombing on a global scale. America's wars
are increasingly waged from the air, not on the ground, a reality that makes the prospect of
ending them ever more daunting. The question is: What's driving this process?
For many of America's decision-makers, air power has clearly become something of an
abstraction. After all, except for the 9/11 attacks by those four hijacked commercial
airliners, Americans haven't
been the target of such strikes since World War II. On Washington's battlefields across the
Greater Middle East and northern Africa, air power is always almost literally a one-way affair.
There are no enemy air forces or significant air defenses. The skies are the exclusive property
of the U.S. Air Force (and allied air forces), which means that we're no longer talking about
"war" in the normal sense. No wonder Washington policymakers and military officials see it as
our strong suit, our asymmetrical
advantage , our way of settling scores with evildoers, real and imagined.
Bombs away!
In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and
missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress . Using data
supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped
at least 26,172 bombs in seven
countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS's "capital,"
the U.S. and its allies dropped more than
20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to
literal rubble . Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600
civilians, according to
Amnesty International .
Meanwhile, since Donald Trump has become president, after claiming that he would get us out
of our various never-ending wars, U.S. bombing has surged, not only against the Islamic State
in Syria and Iraq but in
Afghanistan as well. It has driven up the
civilian death toll there even as "friendly" Afghan forces are sometimes mistaken for the
enemy
and killed , too. Air strikes from Somalia
to
Yemen have also been on the rise under Trump, while civilian casualties due to U.S. bombing
continue to be
underreported in the American media and
downplayed by the Trump administration.
U.S. air campaigns today, deadly as they are, pale in comparison to past ones like the Tokyo firebombing of 1945,
which killed more than 100,000 civilians; the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki later
that year (roughly 250,000); the death toll against German civilians in World War II (at least
600,000); or civilians in the Vietnam War. (Estimates vary, but when napalm and the long-term
effects of cluster
munitions and defoliants like Agent Orange are added to
conventional high-explosive bombs, the death toll in Southeast Asia may
well have exceeded one million.) Today's air strikes are more limited than in those past
campaigns and may be more accurate, but never confuse a 500-pound bomb with a surgeon's
scalpel, even rhetorically. When " surgical " is applied to bombing in today's
age of lasers, GPS, and other precision-guidance technologies, it only obscures the very real
human carnage being produced by all these American-made bombs and missiles.
This country's propensity for believing that its ability to rain hellfire from the sky provides a
winning methodology for its wars has proven to be a fantasy of our age. Whether in Korea in the
early 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s, or more recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, the
U.S. may control the air, but that dominance simply hasn't led to ultimate success. In the case
of Afghanistan, weapons like the Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB (the most powerful
non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. military's arsenal), have been celebrated as game changers even
when they change nothing. (Indeed, the Taliban only continues to grow stronger
, as does the branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.) As is often the case when it comes
to U.S. air power, such destruction leads neither to victory, nor closure of any sort; only to
yet more destruction.
Such results are contrary to the rationale for air power that I absorbed in a career spent
in the U.S. Air Force. (I retired in 2005.) The fundamental tenets of air power
that I learned, which are still taught today, speak of decisiveness. They promise that air
power, defined as "flexible and versatile," will have "synergistic effects" with other military
operations. When bombing is "concentrated," "persistent," and "executed" properly (meaning not
micro-managed by know-nothing politicians), air power should be fundamental to ultimate
victory. As we used to insist, putting bombs on target is really what it's all about. End of
story -- and of thought.
Given the banality and vacuity of those official Air Force tenets, given the
twenty-first-century history of air power gone to hell and back, and based on my own experience
teaching such history and strategy in and outside the military, I'd like to offer some air
power tenets of my own. These are the ones the Air Force didn't teach me, but that our leaders
might consider before launching their next "decisive" air campaign.
Ten Cautionary Tenets
About Air Power
1. Just because U.S. warplanes and drones can strike almost anywhere on the globe with
relative impunity doesn't mean that they should. Given the history of air power since World
War II, ease of access should never be mistaken for efficacious results.
2. Bombing alone will never be the key to victory. If that were true, the U.S. would
have easily won in Korea and Vietnam, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. American air
power pulverized both North Korea and Vietnam (not to speak of neighboring
Laos and Cambodia ), yet the Korean War ended in a stalemate and the Vietnam War in
defeat. (It tells you the world about such thinking that air power enthusiasts, reconsidering
the Vietnam debacle, tend to argue the U.S. should have bombed even more -- lots
more .) Despite total air supremacy, the recent Iraq War was a disaster even as the
Afghan War staggers on into its 18th catastrophic year.
3. No matter how much it's advertised as "precise," "discriminate," and "measured,"
bombing (or using missiles like the Tomahawk ) rarely is. The deaths of
innocents are guaranteed. Air power and those deaths are joined at the hip, while such
killings only generate anger and blowback, thereby prolonging the wars they are meant to
end.
Consider, for instance, the "decapitation" strikes launched against Iraqi autocrat Saddam
Hussein and his top officials in the opening moments of the Bush administration's invasion of
2003. Despite the hype about that being the beginning of the most precise air campaign in all
of history, 50 of those attacks, supposedly based on the best intelligence around, failed to
take out Saddam or a single one of his targeted officials. They did, however, cause "dozens"
of civilian deaths. Think of it as a monstrous repeat of the precision air attacks launched
on Belgrade in 1999 against Slobodan Milosevic and his
regime that hit the Chinese
embassy instead, killing three journalists.
Here, then, is the question of the day: Why is it that, despite all the "precision" talk
about it, air power so regularly proves at best a blunt instrument of destruction? As a
start, intelligence is often faulty. Then bombs and missiles, even "smart" ones, do go
astray. And even when U.S. forces actually kill high-value targets (HVTs), there are
always more HVTs out there. A paradox emerges from almost 18 years of the war on terror:
the imprecision of air power only leads to repetitious cycles of violence and, even when air
strikes prove precise, there always turn out to be fresh targets, fresh terrorists, fresh
insurgents to strike.
4. Using air power to send political messages about resolve or seriousness rarely
works. If it did, the U.S. would have swept to victory in Vietnam. In Lyndon Johnson's
presidency, for instance, Operation Rolling Thunder (1965-1968), a
graduated campaign of bombing, was meant to, but didn't, convince the North Vietnamese to
give up their goal of expelling the foreign invaders -- us -- from South Vietnam.
Fast-forward to our era and consider recent signals sent to North
Korea and
Iran by the Trump administration via B-52 bomber deployments, among other military
"messages." There's no evidence that either country modified its behavior significantly in
the face of the menace of those
baby-boomer-era airplanes.
5. Air power is enormously expensive. Spending on aircraft, helicopters, and their
munitions accounted for roughly half the cost of the Vietnam War. Similarly, in the
present moment, making operational and then maintaining Lockheed Martin's boondoggle
of a jet fighter, the F-35, is expected to cost at least
$1.45 trillion over its lifetime. The new B-21 stealth bomber will cost more than $100 billion
simply to buy. Naval air wings on aircraft carriers cost billions each year to maintain and
operate. These days, when the sky's the limit for
the Pentagon budget, such costs may be (barely) tolerable. When the money finally begins to
run out, however, the military will likely suffer a serious hangover from its wildly
extravagant spending on air power.
6. Aerial surveillance (as with drones), while useful, can also be misleading. Command
of the high ground is not synonymous with god-like "total situational
awareness ." It can instead prove to be a kind of delusion, while war practiced in
its spirit often becomes little more than an exercise in destruction. You simply can't
negotiate a truce or take prisoners or foster other options when you're high above a
potential battlefield and your main recourse is blowing up people and things.
7. Air power is inherently offensive. That means it's more consistent with imperial
power projection than with national defense . As such, it fuels imperial ventures, while
fostering the kind of "
global reach, global power " thinking that has in these years had Air Force generals in
its grip.
8. Despite the fantasies of those sending out the planes, air power often lengthens
wars rather than shortening them. Consider Vietnam again. In the early 1960s, the Air
Force argued that it alone could resolve that conflict at the lowest cost (mainly in American
bodies). With enough bombs, napalm, and defoliants, victory was a sure thing and U.S. ground
troops a kind of afterthought. (Initially, they were sent in mainly to protect the airfields
from which those planes took off.) But bombing solved nothing and then the Army and the
Marines decided that, if the Air Force couldn't win, they sure as hell could. The result was
escalation and disaster that left in the dust the original vision of a war won quickly and on
the cheap due to American air supremacy.
9. Air power, even of the shock-and-awe variety, loses its impact
over time. The enemy, lacking it, nonetheless learns to adapt by developing countermeasures
-- both active (like missiles) and passive (like camouflage and dispersion), even as those
being bombed become more resilient and resolute.
10. Pounding peasants from two miles up is not exactly an ideal way to occupy the
moral high ground in war.
The Road to Perdition
If I had to reduce these tenets to a single maxim, it would be this: all the happy talk
about the techno-wonders of modern air power obscures its darker facets, especially its ability
to lock America into what are effectively one-way wars with dead-end results.
For this reason, precision warfare is truly an oxymoron. War isn't precise. It's nasty,
bloody, and murderous. War's inherent nature -- its unpredictability, horrors, and tendency
to outlast its original causes and goals -- isn't changed when the bombs and missiles are
guided by GPS. Washington's enemies in its war on terror, moreover, have learned to adapt to
air power in a grimly Darwinian fashion and have the advantage of fighting on their own
turf.
Who doesn't know the old riddle: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear
it, does it make a sound? Here's a twenty-first-century air power variant on it: If foreign
children die from American bombs but no U.S. media outlets report their deaths, will anyone
grieve? Far too often, the answer here in the U.S. is no and so our wars go on into an endless
future of global destruction.
In reality, this country might do better to simply ground its many fighter planes, bombers, and
drones. Paradoxically, instead of gaining the high ground, they are keeping us on a low road to
perdition.
In December of 2017, Daniel Ellsberg published a book,
"The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" . Among many other things,
he revealed the actual Strangelovian nature of our military establishment. Most enlightening
is his revelation that many in the high command of our nuclear triggers do not trust, or even
have contempt for, civilian oversight and control of the military. They covertly regard the
presidential leadership as naïve and inept, though it would be professional suicide to
admit such an attitude openly.
Comes now 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕹𝖊𝖜
𝖄𝖔𝖗𝖐 𝕿𝖎𝖒𝖊𝖘 with the
revelation that the Pentagon's Cyber Command has attacked Russia's power grid with software
"implants" designed to destroy that grid the instant a mouse click is given, thereby possibly
initiating global war. Most alarmingly, the details of this secret action were kept from the
President, lest he countermand the operation or leak it to the Russians.
So now we have a general staff that is conducting critical international military
operations on its own, with no civilian input, permission or hindrances of any kind. A
formula for national suicide, executed by a tiny junta of unelected officers who decide to
play nuclear Russian roulette.
We seem to be ineluctably and irreversibly trapped in a state of national dementia.
Just remember this: The U.S. had the technological advantage in Viet Nam, and blasted that
country, along with Cambodia, and Laos, with 7.5 million tons of bombs, (more than the entire
WWII campaign of 2.25 million tons), and the Vietnamese were still able to kick our *** out
of the country by 1975.
There is a 11th tenet: air force operations need airports or aircraft carriers, and these
are very vulnerable to modern, high precision missiles. If the enemy has plenty of missiles,
your fighters and bombers can be impeded to take off and land, or even be destroyed. Modern
aircrafts need very sophisticated and working infrastructures to be operational.
In the case of a full war with Iran, I see all hostile bases and airports destroyed or
damaged by Iranian, Hezbollah and Syrian missiles. They have tens of thousand of them - it is
30 years they have been accumulating missiles in prevision of a possible forthcoming war.
You are right. Also, there are many nations with subs and probably more countries have
acquired nukes than are willing to admit. I strongly suspect Iran already has nukes. If North
Korea has them, I see no reason that Iran wouldn't be even further ahead. They have been
under threat of US attacks for my entire lifetime. Anyway, I would not put it past some other
countries to hit US coastal cities and then deny any knowledge about who did it. There are
many capable and many people have been made enemies by our foreign policy. Surely these
people have treaties to help each other should be attack. And why would they make these
treaties public and antagonize the US military further. I'm sure there are many well kept
secrets out there. We must evolve, or the US and Israel could find it is us against the
world.
War is hell. It has always been so. The failure here is that since World War II all US
wars have been fatuously political. Actions have not been taken to win but to posture about
moral greatness and the ability to force the enemy to deal without destroying his capacity to
resist.
How can you say the US lost in Vietnam when the entire country could have been removed
from the face of the Earth? Yes the price of such removal would have been very high but it
could have been done. Do such considerations mean that if one withdraws one has lost?
The US won the war in the Pacific but it is now considered an excessive use of force that
the US used nuclear weapons to conclude the war. Perhaps the US did not use enough force then
to successfully conclude the Vietnam war? Perhaps, it failed to field the right kind of
force?
The definition of lost is an interesting one. The practical answer is that the US did lose
in many places because it was unwilling to pay the price of victory as publicly expressed.
Yet it could have won if it paid the price.
So an interesting question for military types is to ask how to lower the price. What kind
of weapons would have been needed to quickly sweep the enemy into oblivion in Vietnam let us
say, given the limits of the war? Could the war have been won without ground troops and
choppers but with half a million computer controlled drones armed with machine guns and
grenades flying in swarms close to the ground?
The factories to produce those weapons could have been located in Thailand or Taiwan or
Japan and the product shipped to Vietnam. Since only machines would be destroyed and the
drones are obviously meant to substitute for ground troops then how about a million or two
million of the drones in place of the half a million ground troops? Could the US, with
anachronistic technology to be sure, have won the war for a price that would have been
acceptable to the US?
The idea here is that one constructs an army, robot or otherwise, than can destroy the
enemy it is going to fight at a price which is acceptable. This is actually a form of
asymmetric warfare which requires a thorough understanding of the enemy and his capabilities.
The US did not enter Vietnam with such an army but with one not meant to serve in Vietnam and
whose losses would be deeply resented at home. The price of victory was too high.
But this does not mean that the US cannot win. It only means that the commitment to win in
a poorly thought out war must be great enough to pay the price of victory. This may be a
stupid thing to do but it does not mean that it cannot be done. One cannot assume that the US
will never again show sufficient commitment to win.
Victory means you get to write your own ******** version of history.The most devastating
civilian bombing campaign in human history is not even mentioned in this article. The US fire
bombing of 30 major cities in Korea with the death toll estimated at between 1.2 million and
1.6 million. I bet most US citizens aren't even aware of this atrocity or that the military
requested Truman to authorize the use of nuclear warheads which he, thankfully, declined to
do.
What does the word "victory" mean? It means whatever the rulers want it to mean. In this
case, "victory" is synonymous with prolongation and expansion of warmaking around the world.
Victory does not mean an end to combat. In fact, victory, in the classic sense, means defeat,
at least from the standpoint of those who profit from war. If someone were to come up with a
cure for cancer, it would mean a huge defeat for the cancer industry. Millions would lose
their jobs. CEO's would lose their fat pay packages. Therefore, we need to be clearheaded
about this, and recognize that victory is not what you think it is.
Talked with a guy recently. He is a pilot. He flies planes over Afghanistan. He is a
private contractor.
The program began under the Air Force. It then was taken over by the Army. It is now a
private contractor.
There are approx 400 pilots in country at a time with 3 rotations. He told me what he gets
paid. $200,000 and up.
They go up with a NSA agent running the equipment in back. He state that the dumbass
really does not know what the plane is capable of. They collect all video, audio, infrared,
and more? (You have to sense when to stop asking questions)
I just wanted to know the logistics of the info gathered.
So, the info is gathered. The NSA officer then gets with the CIA and the State Dept to see
what they can release to the end user. The end user is the SOCOM. After it has been through
review then the info is released to SOCOM.
So with all of this info on "goatherders" we still cannot pinpoint and defeat the "enemy"?
No. Too many avenues of profit and deceit and infighting. It will always be. May justice here
and abroad win in the end.
Concentrate on the true enemies. It is not your black, or Jewish, or brown, or Muslim
neighbor. It is the owners of the Fed, Dow chemical, the Rockefellers, McDonnel Douglas and
on and on and on and on and on and on..............
The ROAD to perdition passes through APARTHEID Israhell.
"It does not take a genius to figure out that the United States... has no vital
interests at stake in places like Syria, Libya, Iran and Iraq. Who is driving the process
and benefiting? Israel is clearly the intended beneficiary... " – Philip Giraldi,
Former CIA officer.
Gina Haspel is
facing a Congressional grilling as her confirmation hearings for the CIA director's position
get underway.
Should she overcome it, she'll be the first woman to hold the director's job. It's a high
profile position, but Haspel has been a pretty low profile person up until this point. So who
is Trump's nominee to run the government's spy agency?
Haspel, who would replace new secretary of state Mike Pompeo , has been
with the agency since 1985, spending much of her career undercover. She has received several
awards, including the George H. W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism and the
Presidential Rank Award, the highest award in the federal civil service. She also has overseen
the
torture of some terror suspects , which is what critics and former ambassadors are worried
about.
A 2017 New York Times report says Haspel, in 2002, oversaw the torture of two
suspects at a secret prison in Thailand and later was involved in the destruction of videotapes
documenting that torture.
One of those prisoners was waterboarded 83 times in a
single month, had his head repeatedly slammed into
walls , and endured other harsh methods before interrogators decided he had no useful
information to provide, says the Times .
As a result of such torture, she was shifted out of her role as head of the CIA's
clandestine service.
Haspel was picked to run the CIA's clandestine operations unit in 2013, but Senator
Dianne Feinstein , who was the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the
time, blocked the promotion because of Haspel's history of torture.
Within the agency, though, Haspel is reportedly widely respected – and has support
from members of both the Bush and Obama administrations. Where she stands personally on issues
such as extreme interrogation techniques is an unknown, as she has not offered any public
comments on policy, as you would expect for an undercover officer.
And that's what Senators are hoping to learn more about as their questioning gets
underway.
It is not a secret that the USA have a very powerful MIC lobby that by-and-large defines the USA foreign policy. Israel can be considered
as a yet another MIC lobbyist. This lobby in interesting in launching the war (especially pro-Israel faction of the MIC lobby)
The USA can definitely crush Iran military, but the cost might be higher that in case of Iraq. Also without occupation of the country
that will not be anything like a decisive victory. In Iraq, the USA was helped by the fact that military quickly crumbed and was undermined
by betrayals of several high ranking generals. Whether the same will be the case in Iran is difficult to predict.
Theocratic regimes tend to became more fragile with time, so at that stage is Iran now is difficult to predict without being in
the country. So counting on the fragility of the regime might be a valid consideration. But the war typically unites nations so to exploit
those weaknesses with war is more difficult task, then just waiting for the regime collapse.
That USA has at least two firm allied in such a war: Israel and Saudis.
Notable quotes:
"... It would widen the "forever war," which Trump said he would end, to a nation of 80 million people, three times as large as
Iraq. It would become the defining issue of his presidency, as the Iraq War became the defining issue of George W. Bush's presidency.
..."
"... Trump's repudiation of the treaty was followed by his reimposition of sanctions and a policy of maximum pressure. This was
followed by the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization. ..."
"... U.S. policy has been to squeeze Iran's economy until the regime buckles to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 12 demands, including
an end to Tehran's support of its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. ..."
"... Sunday, Pompeo said Iran was behind the attacks on the tankers in the Gulf of Oman and that Tehran instigated an attack that
injured four U.S. soldiers in Kabul though the Taliban claimed responsibility. ..."
"... Tehran has denied any role in the tanker attacks, helped put out the fire on one tanker, and accused its enemies of "false
flag" attacks to instigate a war. ..."
"... Writing in The Wall Street Journal Monday were Ray Takeyh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies, a neocon nest funded by Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson. In a piece titled, "America Can Face Down a Fragile
Iran," the pair make the case that Trump should squeeze the Iranian regime relentlessly and not fear a military clash, and a war with
Iran would be a cakewalk. ..."
"... "Iran's fragile theocracy can't absorb a massive external shock. That's why Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has, for the most part,
adhered to the JCPOA (the nuclear pact) and why he is likely angling for negotiation over confrontation with the Great Satan." ..."
"... This depiction of Iran's political crisis and economic decline invites a question: If the Tehran regime is so fragile and the
Iranian people are so alienated, why not avoid a war and wait for the regime's collapse? ..."
"... Who wants a U.S. war with Iran? Primarily the same people who goaded us into wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and who
oppose every effort of Trump's to extricate us from those wars. ..."
"... Should they succeed in Iran, it is hard to see how we will ever be able to extricate our country from this blood-soaked region
that holds no vital strategic interest save oil, and America, thanks to fracking, has become independent of that. ..."
Such a war, no matter how long, would be fought in and around the Persian Gulf, through which a third of the world's seaborne
oil travels. It could trigger a worldwide recession and imperil Trump's reelection.
It would widen the "forever war," which Trump said he would end, to a nation of 80 million people, three times as large
as Iraq. It would become the defining issue of his presidency, as the Iraq War became the defining issue of George W. Bush's presidency.
And if war comes now, it would be known as "Trump's War."
For it was Trump who pulled us out of the Iran nuclear deal, though, according to U.N. inspectors and the other signatories
– Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China – Tehran was complying with its terms.
Trump's repudiation of the treaty was followed by his reimposition of sanctions and a policy of maximum pressure. This
was followed by the designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization.
Then came the threats of U.S. secondary sanctions on nations, some of them friends and allies, that continued to buy oil from
Iran.
U.S. policy has been to squeeze Iran's economy until the regime buckles to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 12 demands,
including an end to Tehran's support of its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Sunday, Pompeo said Iran was behind the attacks on the tankers in the Gulf of Oman and that Tehran instigated an attack
that injured four U.S. soldiers in Kabul though the Taliban claimed responsibility.
The war hawks are back.
"This unprovoked attack on commercial shipping warrants retaliatory military strikes," said Senator Tom Cotton on Sunday.
But as Trump does not want war with Iran, Iran does not want war with us. Tehran has denied any role in the tanker attacks,
helped put out the fire on one tanker, and accused its enemies of "false flag" attacks to instigate a war.
If the Revolutionary Guard, which answers to the ayatollah, did attach explosives to the hull of the tankers, it was most likely
to send a direct message: If our exports are halted by U.S. sanctions, the oil exports of the Saudis and Gulf Arabs can be made
to experience similar problems.
Yet if the president and the ayatollah do not want war, who does?
Not the Germans or Japanese, both of whom are asking for more proof that Iran instigated the tanker attacks. Japan's prime
minster was meeting with the ayatollah when the attacks occurred, and one of the tankers was a Japanese vessel.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal Monday were Ray Takeyh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for
the Defense of Democracies, a neocon nest funded by Paul Singer and Sheldon Adelson. In a piece titled, "America Can Face Down
a Fragile Iran," the pair make the case that Trump should squeeze the Iranian regime relentlessly and not fear a military clash,
and a war with Iran would be a cakewalk.
"Iran is in no shape for a prolonged confrontation with the U.S. The regime is in a politically precarious position. The sullen
Iranian middle class has given up on the possibility of reform or prosperity. The lower classes, once tethered to the regime by
the expansive welfare state, have also grown disloyal. The intelligentsia no longer believes that faith and freedom can be harmonized.
And the youth have become the regime's most unrelenting critics.
"Iran's fragile theocracy can't absorb a massive external shock. That's why Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has, for the most
part, adhered to the JCPOA (the nuclear pact) and why he is likely angling for negotiation over confrontation with the Great Satan."
This depiction of Iran's political crisis and economic decline invites a question: If the Tehran regime is so fragile and
the Iranian people are so alienated, why not avoid a war and wait for the regime's collapse?
Trump seems to have several options:
Negotiate with the Tehran regime for some tolerable detente.
Refuse to negotiate and await the regime's collapse, in which case the president must be prepared for Iranian actions that
raise the cost of choking that nation to death.
Strike militarily, as Cotton urges, and accept the war that follows, if Iran chooses to fight rather than be humiliated
and capitulate to Pompeo's demands.
One recalls: Saddam Hussein accepted war with the United States in 1991 rather than yield to Bush I's demand he get his army
out of Kuwait.
Who wants a U.S. war with Iran? Primarily the same people who goaded us into wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen, and
who oppose every effort of Trump's to extricate us from those wars.
Should they succeed in Iran, it is hard to see how we will ever be able to extricate our country from this blood-soaked
region that holds no vital strategic interest save oil, and America, thanks to fracking, has become independent of that.
There is a
report that the Trump administration may be preparing an attack on Iran:
Diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York revealed to Maariv that they are
assessing the United States' plans to carry out a tactical assault on Iran in response to the
tanker attack in the Persian Gulf on Thursday.
According to the officials, since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant
discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to
President Donald Trump.
The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian
facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.
If this report is true, that would mean that the worst of the Iran hawks in the
administration are prevailing once again. The report goes on to say that "Trump himself was not
enthusiastic about a military move against Iran, but lost his patience on the matter and would
grant Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is pushing for action, what he wants." If that is
true, that is an absurdly casual way to blunder into an unnecessary war. Trump should
understand that if he takes the U.S. into a war against Iran, especially without Congressional
authorization, it will consume the rest of his presidency and it should cost him his
re-election. Starting an unnecessary war with Iran would go down as one of the dumbest, most
reckless, illegal acts in the history of U.S. foreign policy.
Congress must make absolutely clear that the president does not have the authority to
initiate hostilities against Iran. Both houses should pass a resolution this week saying as
much, and they should block any funds that could be used to support such an action. There is no
legal justification for attacking Iran, and if Trump approves an attack he would be violating
the Constitution and should be impeached for it.
The risk of war with Iran is greater than it was six months ago, and it is much greater than
it was two and a half years ago when Trump took office. The U.S. and Iran are in this dangerous
position solely because of the determined efforts of Iran hawks in and around this
administration to drive our country on a collision course with theirs. Those efforts
accelerated significantly thirteen months ago with the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA and the
reimposition of sanctions, and things have been getting steadily worse with each passing month.
It is not too late to avert the collision, but it requires the U.S. to make a dramatic change
in policy very soon. Since we know we can't count on the president to make the right decision,
Congress and the public need to make him understand what the political price will be if he
makes the wrong one.
And now we wait the all-time bad joke, the so-called 'Deal of the Century,' which Trump and
his boys hope will get rich Arabs to buy off poor Palestinians in exchange for giving up lots
more land to Israel.
It's hard to think of a bigger or more shameful betrayal by Arabs of
fellow Arabs, or a more stupid policy by the US. But, of course, it's not a made-in-the-USA
policy at all.
Leda Cosmides at the University of California, Santa Barbara, points to her work with her colleague
John Tooby on the use of outrage to mobilize people: "The campaign was more about outrage than
about policies," she says. And when a politician can create a sense of moral outrage, truth
ceases to matter. People will go along with the emotion, support the cause and retrench into
their own core group identities. The actual substance stops being of any relevance.
Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University who studies false beliefs,
has found that
when false information is specifically political in nature, part of our political identity, it
becomes almost impossible to correct lies.
... ... ...
As the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain
put it, “The great master fallacy of the
human mind is believing too much.” False beliefs, once established, are incredibly tricky to correct. A leader who lies
constantly creates a new landscape, and a citizenry whose sense of reality may end up swaying far more than they think possible.
In a TV interview on June 2, on the news docuseries
"Axios" on the HBO channel, Jared Kushner opened up regarding many issues, in which his 'Deal
of the Century' was a prime focus.
The major revelation made by Kushner, President Donald Trump's adviser and son-in-law, was
least surprising. Kushner believes that Palestinians are not capable of governing
themselves.
Not surprising, because Kushner thinks he is capable of arranging the future of the
Palestinian people without the inclusion of the Palestinian leadership. He has been pushing his
so-called 'Deal of the Century' relentlessly, while including in his various meets and
conferences countries such as Poland, Brazil and Croatia, but not Palestine.
Indeed, this is what transpired at the
Warsaw conference on 'peace and security' in the Middle East. The same charade, also led by
Kushner, is expected to be rebooted in
Bahrain on June 25.
Much has been said about the subtle racism in Kushner's words, reeking with the stench of
old colonial discourses where the natives were seen as lesser, incapable of rational thinking
beings who needed the civilized 'whites' of the western hemisphere to help them cope with their
backwardness and inherent incompetence.
Kushner, whose credentials are merely based on his familial connections to Trump and family
friendship with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is now poised to be the colonial
administrator of old, making and enforcing the law while the hapless natives have no other
option but to either accommodate or receive their due punishment.
This is not an exaggeration. In fact, according to leaked information concerning Kushner's
'Deal of the Century,' and published in the Israeli daily newspaper, Israel Hayom , if
Palestinian groups refuse to accept the US-Israeli diktats, "the US will cancel all financial
support to the Palestinians and ensure that no country transfers funds to them."
In the HBO interview, Kushner offered the Palestinians a lifeline. They could be considered
capable of governing themselves should they manage to achieve the following: "a fair judicial
system freedom of the press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions."
The fact that Palestine is an occupied country, subject in every possible way to Israel's
military law, and that Israel has never been held accountable for its 52-year occupation seems
to be of no relevance whatsoever, as far as Kushner is concerned.
On the contrary, the subtext in all of what Kushner has said in the interview is that Israel
is the antithesis to the unquestionable Palestinian failure. Unlike Palestine, Israel needs to
do little to demonstrate its ability to be a worthy peace partner.
While the term 'US bias towards Israel' is as old as the state of Israel itself, what is
hardly discussed are the specifics of that bias, the decidedly condescending, patronizing and,
often, racist view that US political classes have of Palestinians – and all Arabs and
Muslims, for that matter; and the utter infatuation with Israel, which is often cited as a
model for democracy, judicial transparency and successful 'anti-terror' tactics.
According to Kushner a 'fair judicial system' is a conditio sine qua non to determine
a country's ability to govern itself. But is the Israeli judicial system "fair" and
"democratic"?
Israel does not have a single judicial system, but two. This duality has, in fact, defined Israeli courts from the
very inception of Israel in 1948. This de facto apartheid system openly differentiates between
Jews and Arabs, a fact that is true in both civil and criminal law.
"Criminal law is applied separately and unequally in the West Bank, based on nationality
alone (Israeli versus Palestinian), inventively weaving its way around the contours of
international law in order to preserve and develop its '(illegal Jewish) settlement
enterprise'," Israeli scholar, Emily Omer-Man, explained in her essay 'Separate and
Unequal'.
In practice, Palestinians and Israelis who commit the exact same crime will be judged
according to two different systems, with two different procedures: "The settler will be
processed according to the Israeli Penal Code (while) the Palestinian will be processed
according to military order."
This unfairness is constituent of a massively unjust judicial apparatus that has defined the
Israeli legal system from the onset. Take the measure of administrative detention as an example.
Palestinians can be held without trial and without any stated legal justification. Tens of
thousands of Palestinians have been subjected to this undemocratic 'law' and hundreds of them
are currently held in Israeli jails.
It is ironic that Kushner raised the issue of freedom of the press, in particular, as Israel
is being derided for its dismal record in that regard. Israel has reportedly committed
811 violations against Palestinian journalists since the start of the 'March of Return' in
Gaza in March 2018. Two journalists – Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein –
were killed and 155 were wounded
by Israeli snipers.
Like the imbalanced Israeli judicial system, targeting the press is also a part of a
protracted pattern. According to a press release issued by the Palestinian Journalists Union
last May, Israel
has killed 102 Palestinian journalists since 1972.
The fact that Palestinian intellectuals, poets and activists have been imprisoned for
Facebook and other social media posts should tell us volumes about the limits of Israel's
freedom of press and expression.
It is also worth mentioning that in June 2018, the Israeli Knesset
voted for a bill that prohibits the filming of Israeli soldiers as a way to mask their
crimes and shelter them from any future legal accountability.
As for freedom of religion, despite its many shortcomings, the Palestinian Authority hardly
discriminates against religious minorities. The same cannot be said about Israel.
Although discrimination against non-Jews in Israel has been the raison d'être
of the very idea of Israel, the Nation-State Law of July 2018 further cemented the
superiority of the Jews and inferior status of everyone else.
According to the new Basic Law, Israel is "the national home of the Jewish people" only and
"the right to exercise national self-determination is unique to the Jewish people."
Palestinians do not need to be lectured on how to meet Israeli and American expectations,
nor should they ever aspire to imitate the undemocratic Israeli model. What they urgently need,
instead, is international solidarity to help them win the fight against Israeli occupation,
racism and apartheid.
Ali Vaez rebuts Mike Pompeo's terse, evidence-free
statement
accusing Iran of responsibility for the two tanker attacks in the Gulf of Oman:
Pompeo delivered his remarks without providing any evidence to support his accusations, and then walked off the stage
without taking any questions. The Secretary of State's credibility has already been shot to pieces by his frequent lies and
misleading statements on a range of issues touching on everything from North Korea to Yemen to Iran, so he needed to clear
an even higher bar than usual to back up his accusations. He didn't come close. Aside from misleading the public and
Congress about important issues, Pompeo's serial fabrications have a real cost in that no one believes a word he says about
anything. It might be the case that Pompeo is telling the truth for once, but if so it would be extremely unusual for him.
I made that point earlier today:
I have previously discussed Pompeo's
complete lack of credibility
,
and it is worth revisiting part of that post now:
Pompeo is the chief representative of the United States abroad besides the president, so his habit of making things
up out of thin air and telling easily refuted lies can only harm our reputation, undermine trust, and cause even our
allies to doubt our government's claims.
Pompeo is the bully who cried "Iran!" so many times that we have no reason to trust his anti-Iranian claims now. The
fact that he and the National Security Advisor are so clearly slavering at the possibility of increased tensions with Iran
gives us another reason to be skeptical. We assume that they are trying to turn even the smallest incident into an excuse
for escalation, and so we naturally look at their claims of Iranian responsibility with great suspicion. Vaez's thread goes
through Pompeo's statement very carefully and points out the serious flaws and falsehoods, of which there are quite a few.
Once again, we see Pompeo's tendency to pin the blame for anything and everything that happens in the region on Iran,
and many of these are no more than unfounded assertions or deliberate distortions. For example, the Houthi attacks on Saudi
pipelines and airports are a result of the ongoing war on Yemen and the Saudi coalition bombing of Yemeni cities and towns.
All indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure are wrong and should be condemned, but we also need to
remember that these attacks are the direct consequence of belligerent and destructive policies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE
backed by the United States. If the Saudis and Emiratis stopped bombing Yemen tomorrow, the missile attacks on Saudi
targets would almost certainly cease thereafter. Just as Pompeo won't acknowledge the administration's role in goading and
provoking Iran, he refuses to acknowledge the role of the Saudi coalition's war in provoking Yemeni retaliation. He
desperately tries to make Iran the culprit of every crime, but instead of proving Iran's guilt it only calls into question
Pompeo's judgment and honesty.
Probably the most galling part of Pompeo's statement was his declaration that "Iran should answer diplomacy with
diplomacy." What diplomacy would Iran be responding to? Does Pompeo think his list of preposterous demands delivered as a
diktat last year counts as diplomacy? Does he think that waging relentless economic war on a country of eighty million
people qualifies as diplomatic? The Trump administration has chosen the path of provocation and confrontation for at least
the last thirteen months, and then they have the gall to fault Iran for its lack of diplomacy. If the administration had
not trashed the most important diplomatic agreement that our government had with Iran and proceeded to penalize them for
keeping up their end of the bargain, our two countries would not be as dangerously close to war as they are now. The
administration bears responsibility for creating the heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran, and it is their
obnoxious and destructive policy of collective punishment that has brought us to this point.
Pompeo proudly stated "We lie, we cheat " and even thought funny too. Guess that's one of the rare moments his
statement contained some truth at least.
You do have to admit, the blurred 30 second video of a boat next to the hull of a ship was absolutely DAMNING! It
proved conclusively that the Iranians launched unprovoked attacks on helpless civilian oil tankers.
Innocent
sailors would have left the limpet mines in place, so they could blow up and damage the tanker some more.
It could have been Iran, I don't know. This would be an understandable response for a country under blockade. I
would feel differently if people died.
People in Iran have died because of our illegal sanctions hindering flood
relief and medical care while Pompeo and others laughs at them. This does not include the suffering imposed on the
civilian population. I do not expect Iran to curl up into a ball and accept their punishment.
If this was an Iranian operation it demonstrates their competency as opposed to use wasting Jet fuel having
F35's circling around.
Iran means virtually nothing to the United States. They have nothing to do with our national interest. As far as
the tankers being mined; I have to say my first thought is that we (i.e. the United States) did it so we could
start a war. Very similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the Viet Nam war.
Interesting that this Israeli-First traitor Clawson mentions Lincoln and Ft. Sumter. He finally admits what genuine historians
of the Civil War long knew: Lincoln was a warmonger and tyrant, not an emancipator. The Civil war was fought to eliminate true
freedom and equality in this country and it has been downhill ever since. The working class and soldier-class in America today
are slaves in every sense of the word. Slaves to Zion. No wonder the certified warmonger and racist Lincoln is worshiped equally
by Left and Right today, whilst genuine American patriots like Robert E. Lee have their legacy torn down. Lincoln was the proto-Neocon.
Tom Dilorenzo summed up the real Lincoln when he wrote in Lincoln Unmasked:
"Imagine that California seceded from the union and an American president responded with the carpet bombing of Los Angeles,
San Diego, and San Francisco that destroyed 90 percent of those cities. Such was the case with General Sherman's bombardment of
Atlanta; a naval blockade; a blocking off of virtually all trade; the eviction of thousands of residents from their homes (as
occurred in Atlanta in 1864); the destruction of most industries and farms; massive looting of private property by a marauding
army; and the killing of one out of four males of military age while maiming for life more than double that number. Would such
an American president be considered a 'great statesman' or a war criminal? The answer is obvious.
A statesman would have recognized the state's right to secede, as enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, among other places, and
then worked diligently to persuade the seceded state that a reunion was in its best interest. Agreat statesman, or even a modest
one, would not have impulsively plunged the entire nation into a bloody war.
Lincoln's warmongering belligerence and his invasion of all the Southern states in response to Fort Sumter (where no one was
harmed or killed) caused the upper South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas -- to secede after originally voting
to remain in the Union. He refused to meet with Confederate commissioners to discuss peace and even declined a meeting with Napoleon
III of France, who offered to broker a peace agreement. No genuine statesman would have behaved in such a way.
After Fort Sumter, Lincoln thanked naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in manipulating the South Carolinians into
firing at Fort Sumter. A great statesman does not manipulate his own people into starting one of the bloodiest wars in human history."
mathias alexand
Here's a man who holds a press conference to announce a secret plan. Only in America.
False flags here, false flags there, false flags everywhere. All too further the aims of the 'masters of the universe'. We know
who was responsible for the tanker attacks. Who are the 3 countries absolutely desperate to take Iran down and install a completely
pliant puppet regime answerable to Washington, Tel Aviv and to a lesser extent Riyadh. And creatures like Clawson, and all the
other vermin can only see $$$$. Thats all they care about. Opening up more markets to further enrich themselves. I echo the other
commenters also. The evil men stoop to for greed, power and control. Psychopaths.
harry law
The Foreign Office issued a statement saying: "It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military – the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps – attacked the two tankers on 13 June. No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible."
Unbelievable, The UK vassal will use this to as one more reason to evade their responsibilities in implementing the JCPOA.
Well they would say that, wouldn't they. The UK vassal state will spout any peice of crap in their assigned role as vassal state.
Australia is just as gushingly sycophantic and cravenly jellified.
Er . just a rough guess Bill going on the belligerent foaming at the mouth by people in those places along with the likes of Bolton
and Pompeo. In fact, you can probably go all the way back to about 1980 or so.
mark
I think the real giveaway was when all three rogue states openly stated their intention of doing this 1,000 times over the past
10 years. That was the crucial clue Sherlock Holmes was looking for.
Wilmers31
And who funds the Washington Institute? Last time I looked the International Crisis Group existed thanks to Soros and is usually
treated like a serious organisation.
Many Europeans are not in love with the idea of war with Iran, just to achieve obedience to the US. 90 million people is bigger
than Germany.
wardropper
These are the shysters, the spivs and the con men of bygone times. They are the ones who lurked at street corners, waiting for
someone to come along who was gullible enough to buy the Moon from them.
But, for some reason, they are all in politics today.
Now how could that be?
Only because there are people whom it currently suits to use shysters, spivs and con men in order to create enough chaos for
us to want to give up and just let those people have their way.
I agree with Rhys below. There is no more disgusting example of sub-humanity to be found on earth than these warmongers.
To deal with them, however, we will have to realize that their "philosophy", if you can call it that, runs very deep. It didn't
just enter their heads last week.
They are reared and trained in it.
It will be a tough battle.
wardropper
I should add that, in bygone times, the police and the law were usually able to deal with the shysters, spivs and con men, since
their lack of conscience often gave them away.
The modern version, however, which has moved into politics, was shrewd enough to use a few decades of bribery and threats in order
to build around itself a nice little shell, through which the law simply cannot penetrate, except on special occasions, mainly
for show.
Rhys Jaggar
There is a big cabal of warmongers who stoke the fuel but never see action. I find those people more disgusting than anyone on
earth.
Draft dodgers, academics, 'historians' etc etc.
Ball-less pricks is what I call them .
mark
All fully paid up members of the Bill Clinton Light Infantry.
William HBonney
Yeah, well I'm not a great fan of those who would appease Assad, Putin, Hussein, Gaddafi
You must be so proud.
andyoldlabour
The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical
weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians.
The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets.
The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen.
William HBonney
The easiest, and perhaps best metric by which to judge a country, is 'do people aspire to live there? '.
I see you admire the Soviet Union, but at its dissolution, people were queuing to leave. And yet the US, and the UK, according
to you, iniquitous places of tyranny, are oversubscribed. Could it be, that for all your implied erudition, you are merely a bellend?
axisofoil
You must be a big fan of CNN and the NYT. Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?
BigB
Well, even as a pacifist: if that is his sentiment – I hope he has sons or daughters in the military stationed in CENTCOM in Qatar.
I bet he hasn't, though.
Rhisiart Gwilym
He should be right there on the frontline himself. That would straighten the disgusting creep's ideas out about the 'usefulness'
of deliberately provoking war
"... A few years ago, Sheldon Adelson wanted the US to drop a nuke on Iran. Video below. What Sheldon wants, Trump the errand-boy delivers. The fact that the US public is overwhelmingly against a war with Iran is completely irrelevant. ..."
"... Probably a 50/50 chance it was an American-Saudi-Israel false flag. ..."
"... Just like how the Reichstag Fire took place and by pure happenstance, the Nazis had the Enabling Act all ready to go. ..."
"... If I was a betting man I'd put my money on the "actual" culprits being Mossad, CIA, MI6 or any combination of the three. The Neocons and Zionists in Washington are traitors to our Constitutional Republic! Don't let them drag us into another foreign war for Israel! ..."
"... Remember the USS Liberty! Never Forget! ..."
"... This updated post from "Moon of Alabama" is definitely worth reading: "Today's Attacks On Ships In The Gulf Of Oman Are Not In Iran's Interest – Or Are They? (Updated)": https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/todays-attacks-on-ships-in-the-gulf-of-oman-are-not-in-irans-interest.html#more ..."
"... Maybe Colin Powell can come out of retirement and deliver the US/neocon presentation at the UN Security Council: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rp6WuTSTyS8 ..."
"... The only person whom I can recall endlessly deceiving on this is Benjamin Netanyahu, whom I recall making speech after speech claiming that Iran was just about to have nuclear weapons. He's been doing that for over a decade now. ..."
"... As for incentives/disincentives, Mossad doesn't have much disincentive. If they are caught, they and their friends in the USA will scream 'Fake News!'. ..."
"... Who wants war? Saudis to prop up oil prices and get Iran in trouble? Pompeo because he wants to bring on the Rapture and the return of JC? Donald Trump so he can be a "wartime president" stir up his base and please the military contractor donors? Netanyahu to distract from his corruption charges and weaken Iranian Islamists? Some really stupid underground hardliners in Iran? ..."
"... I forgot one more who wants war: Bolton because he is an immoral idiot who wants to strut. ..."
Back in the 1960's as the Cuban missile crisis was brewing, JFK conferred with then French
president Charles DeGaulle and offered to show him the reconnaissance pictures showing the
Russian missiles in Cuba. DeGaulle is said to have replied "No, I do not need to see
pictures. The word of the President of the United States is enough."
It's impossible to imagine anyone saying that today, unless they still believe in the
tooth fairy.
It very well could an act by a state that according to an elite Army warfare college, is
"known to disregard international law to accomplish mission" and also a
"wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a
Palestinian/Arab act."
What state? See "U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study," Washington Times, September 10,
2001.
A few years ago, Sheldon Adelson wanted the US to drop a nuke on Iran. Video below. What
Sheldon wants, Trump the errand-boy delivers. The fact that the US public is overwhelmingly
against a war with Iran is completely irrelevant.
Yes, Iran is to be blamed! Absolutely true, US President himself said so!
Let's look at some facts and then deductions. So, the US drone was following the Iranian
boat. Iranians saw the drone, fired at it and missed. Regardless, they continued their
"journey" to the tanker, all the while their supreme leader was trying to persuade Abe to
help Iran.
Tump: It was Iran the terrorist nation, not leaders but the nation. Not long ago Trump lauded
Iranians as very nice people. If the drone was there, why don't we see the beginning of the
boat's journey and then where that boat with the mine went? According to Mr Pompeo and Mr
Bolton, the nation of terrorists is not only evil but stupid too. Yet no other actor in the
region has the sophistication to perform such an act (that is stupid act) – according
to Mr.Pompeo.
Hm who else, I wonder would be interested in bringing down Iran? I can't think even of one
such actor.
Lest we forget. Gen. Wesley Clark's revelation. This was first revealed to General Wesley
Clark in 1991 by neo-con Paul Wolfowitz. The seven countries which were to be invaded and
blessed with regime change were Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, and the big
prize, Iran with its wealth of resources and potential market of over 70 million persons.This
same plan was revealed again to General Clark during a visit to the Pentagon ten days after
9-11, the event that presented the neo-cons, and no doubt others behind the scenes, with
their Pearl Harbor, their justification to proceed with the plan, somewhat conveniently. You
can see Clark say it in person on YouTube if you don't believe it.
The only thing missing is a bunch of Iranian passports "just accidentally found" near the
ships with a big floating arrow pointing towards them, just in case we're clueless. If we get dragged into a bunfight with Iran because of this we deserve all the opprobrium
anyone hurls at us–if only for our outright stupidity.
""This assessment is based on intelligence [I think we already know what the Saudis and
Israelis want us to think], the weapons used [which were what again?], the level of expertise
needed to execute the operation [more than what was needed to prove the existence of fake
WMDs], recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping ['Iranian attacks' according to who,
exactly?], and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and
proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication [so sophisticated there's no
evidence they did it]," the Secretary said, without taking questions [or citing proof]"
He doesn't even bother with a Colin Powell style PowerPoint to convince us he believes any
of the horsesh!t he's peddling. Real contempt for the American public.
Let's quote that fellow with the little moustache, shortly before he ordered the invasion of
Poland: "I will provide a propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn't matter. The
victor will not be asked whether he told the truth."
To think that the only obstacle between peace and war is a president too stupid to
understand that he brought this on himself.
It's very sad that I trust the word of the Ayatollah Khameni more than the President of the
United States or any of his spokesman. The proxy which had the weapons, level of expertise needed to execute the operation,
resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication is called the
Central Intelligence Agency.
How utterly convenient!
Abe is meeting with the Iranian leadership, what better time to attack Japanese tankers
(what better time for Saudi Arabia, Israel and the neocons, that is)? Not 24 hours go by after the supposed attack and Pompeo already knows who did it and has a
response ready. Why, it's almost like his mind were already made up! (But when it comes to,
say, that Saudi prince who chops up journalists, it seems that we can never ever ever really
know what happened!)
Just like how the Reichstag Fire took place and by pure happenstance, the Nazis had the
Enabling Act all ready to go.
Sarcasm aside, everyone knows that Pompeo is lying, looking for an excuse to escalate
tensions. The question is whether anyone will do anything about it.
If I was a betting man I'd put my money on the "actual" culprits being Mossad, CIA, MI6 or
any combination of the three. The Neocons and Zionists in Washington are traitors to our
Constitutional Republic! Don't let them drag us into another foreign war for Israel!
Jason Ditz, the News Editor at Antiwar.com reports: "Pompeo's declaration of Iran's guilt was
based chiefly on similar incidents happening in mid-May. John Bolton and Pompeo blamed Iran
then, and since this was the same sort of thing, they blame Iran now. The problem is, they
have offered no evidence Iran was responsible for the first incidents, let alone today's, and
are just tying them all together. Pompeo rattled off a list of things to blame Iran for,
including multiple incidents that were done by Yemen's Houthis, a rocket fired in Iraq that
was never convincingly blamed on anyone, and an Afghanistan bombing that clearly was nothing
to do with Iran at all."
Jason Ditz goes on to report: "The big questions are, as always, motive. Iran has no
conceivable reason to attack such ships. In this case, one of the ships is even
Japanese-owned. Japan is a very important trading partner of Iran, and Japan's prime minister
Abe Shinzo is visiting Iran right now, trying to reduce tensions. Abe has also declared Iran
to have no intention to make nuclear arms. This would be a preposterous move for Iran to even
consider. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif declared that 'suspicious doesn't begin to
describe' what happened, noting that the attacks were timed to when Japanese PM Abe Shinzo
was meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader. Abe's meeting was also a subject of Pompeo's
comments, as Pompeo falsely accused Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of having refused the meeting with
Abe. In reality, the meeting took place, and Khamenei simply rejected a proposal to trade
messages with President Trump. Pompeo went on to declare the attack on a Japanese ship during
Abe's Iran visit as an Iranian 'insult to Japan.' This all rests on the US assumption of
Iran's guilt, and as Zarif points out, makes the attack look suspiciously like it might have
been carried out for the benefit of the anti-Iran narrative. "
I read somewhere that the Iranians used weapons of mass destruction given to them by Saddam
to attack the USS Maine in the Gulf of Tonkin, taking American lives on American soil.
I had forgotten that basically all wars are "protected by a bodyguard of lies," according
to the video. Most poignant to me was the Iraqi woman pleading to Congress about Sadam
Hussein's destruction of incubators, which George HW Bush later referenced as the "babies
strewn about the floor like firewood." Except it was all fabricated by a PR firm!
Is anyone really that delusional to believe that Iran is going to attack a Japanese tanker
while the Japanese PM is meeting with the Ayatollah? The ONLY explanation that makes sense is
that it was planned in the White House by Pompeo and Bolton. Whether it was with or without
Trump's knowledge and approval is irrelevant. P & B have been openly salivating for any
excuse to start a war with Iran, and Trump has given them free rein. It is a war crime, and
all three are guilty.
The USS Liberty is spot on. That was our Versailles Treaty and Johnson ceded much of our
foreign policy and intelligence to Israel – we capitulated and have continued to
capitulate to Israel. Things are looking grim and look like a repeat of Iraq. What can stop
this momentum to war?
Well, it seems that just about 100% of those who comment here have this figured out. Once
these things were a bit more sophisticated, but now the Empire doesn't seem to care if its
schemes are blatantly transparent.
Abe has been closely consulting with Trump and the Iranians as a go-between to create the
conditions which can allow Trump to save face now that Bolton's and Pompeo's campaign against
Iran is a big fat failure.
It is clear who hopes to gain by this little stunt, which will not go anywhere. Abe is
certainly not going to be fooled by any of this. Don't expect the WaPo or the NYT to expose
this obvious false flag.
Iran is a rather divided country, and some groups regard USA with as much hatred and
suspicion as the neocons hold towards them. The responsible party might have been IRGC,
intending to raise tensions enough to make their government's current fence-straddling act
unviable and force them to scrap the JCPA.
I'd try to avoid the logic that it must have been
Saudis/Israel/USA, because if it was Iran, the likes of Bolton would somehow be in the right.
They're not. So far, Iran hasn't been the one responsible for the vast majority of
provocations, and even if it elements on their side were did this, the chickenhawks running
USA's national security won't bother to secure proof before escalating. It's not a secret
that they want war and aren't particularly picky about how they get it.
Saudi Arabia.
The other agencies speculated here are off the mark: Israel would fear getting caught, CIA
leaks like a sieve, MI6 has no incentive. But the Saudis? They have the combination of economic incentives, religious hatred,
technical knowledge, advanced (American) weaponry, and who-gives-a-crap-if-we-get-caught
attitude.
Given Iran's history of endless deception in their nuclear weapons development program, might
all these suggestions of these attacks being an American fabrication be a bit premature? How
about even a tiny bit of objectivity? Or did Larsen write all these comments? (:
I have a question about the video footage supposedly showing Iranians removing a mine from a
tanker. The quality of the picture is no better than that we saw back in the 1965 Tonkin Gulf
incident, when N Vietnamese boats allegedly attacked a US Navy ship. But that was 54 years
ago. In video technology today 1080p is a standard resolution, 4k is pretty common. Why is
the US Navy still showing something that looks like it came from my Dad's 8mm home movie
set-up?
"Given Iran's history of endless deception in their nuclear weapons development program,
might all these suggestions of these attacks being an American fabrication be a bit
premature? How about even a tiny bit of objectivity? Or did Larsen write all these comments?
(:"
What "history of endless deception"? Every third party has confirmed that Iran has
complied strictly with the JCPOA.
The United States, on the other hand, has a long track record of blatant lies to get the
wars it seeks ..
Exactly what I am hoping for IF the US attacks Iran. All depends on the Iranian
capabilities to cripple the flow of oil from the ME. So I say: Go Iran, make us pay! And
don't forget to throw some missiles on the royal Saudi palace and Riyad. Make that a few
dozen. Or hundred.
"Given Iran's history of endless deception in their nuclear weapons development program,
might all these suggestions of these attacks being an American fabrication be a bit
premature? How about even a tiny bit of objectivity? Or did Larsen write all these comments?
(:"
The only person whom I can recall endlessly deceiving on this is Benjamin Netanyahu, whom
I recall making speech after speech claiming that Iran was just about to have nuclear
weapons. He's been doing that for over a decade now.
As for incentives/disincentives, Mossad doesn't have much disincentive. If they are
caught, they and their friends in the USA will scream 'Fake News!'.
Mr. Bone Saw has got to be extremely cocky now.
And both of them could reasonably expect that if they succeed in triggering a US-Iran war,
that even later exposure wouldn't matter.
Yesterday (June 13th) Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a Democratic candidate for President in
2020, was interviewed by the Washington Post's Robert Costa. Here (at 23:58-28:06) is a brief
excerpt of Rep. Gabbard's excellent views on US Iran policy:
Who wants war?
Saudis to prop up oil prices and get Iran in trouble?
Pompeo because he wants to bring on the Rapture and the return of JC?
Donald Trump so he can be a "wartime president" stir up his base and please the military
contractor donors?
Netanyahu to distract from his corruption charges and weaken Iranian Islamists?
Some really stupid underground hardliners in Iran?
There are some plausible choices but none of them is the Iranian government.
I frankly just don't believe anything coming form the US government anymore, especially
warmongering neo-cons in charge of foreign policy, the Pentagon, and Deep State actors.
What on earth would Iran have to gain from attacking a Japanese oil tanker while their
leader is meeting with the Japanese PM? More likely a false-flag CIA operation.
"I have a question about the video footage supposedly showing Iranians removing a mine
from a tanker. The quality of the picture is no better than that we saw back in the 1965
Tonkin Gulf incident, when N Vietnamese boats allegedly attacked a US Navy ship. But that was
54 years ago. In video technology today 1080p is a standard resolution, 4k is pretty common.
Why is the US Navy still showing something that looks like it came from my Dad's 8mm home
movie set-up?"
100%. When I heard on the news this morning that there was video showing Iranians, I
thought "They have them". Then I saw the video. Now I call BS.
Are these the same guys that provided the irrefutable "evidence" of weapons of mass
destruction in Iran?
I am sure that since the Mossad provides us with intelligence in that area of the world, they
are completely objective, and have the best interest of the American military at heart.
@Snark: I tend to agree that the video raises more questions: -what would be the purpose of a
mine above the water line?
-why does it take a group of 10-20 people milling about on the bow to remove a mine?
-does 10-20 people really indicate a clandestine effort to remove a mine, more like a
clusterf____?
As OffGuardian remarked, does the deep state (cia,mi6,mossad) really think we are that
stupid?
Why would Iranians attack their own interests? Because they are "evil". Let's see: Front
Altair is owned by John Frederiksen, the owner of the Frontline Tanker company, who moved
Iranian oil for nearly 40 years including during the "tanker war" with Iraq siding with Iran.
Mr Federiksen was called Khomeini's blood life.
What about the Japanese tanker? While the Supreme Leader of Iran was working on Abe to help
Iran?
Who's evil, who's stupid?
"Outrage on Capitol Hill over 'completely unacceptable' US-funded scheme to shape Iran
debate," The Independent, Wednesday, June 12, 2019:
"United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign that
has targeted American citizens critical of the administration's hardline Iran policy and
accused critics of being loyal to the Tehran regime. State Department officials admitted to
Congressional staff in a closed-door meeting on Monday that a project they had funded to
counter Iranian propaganda had gone off the rails. Critics in Washington have gone further,
saying that the programme resembled the type of troll farms used by autocratic regimes
abroad. 'It's completely unacceptable that American taxpayer dollars supported a project that
attacked Americans and others who are critical of the Trump administration's policy of
escalation and conflict with Iran,' a senior Congressional aide told The Independent, on
condition of anonymity. 'This is something that happens in authoritarian regimes, not
democracies'."
The Independent article by Negar Mortazavi and Borzou Baragahi continues: "One woman
behind the harassment campaign, a longtime Iranian-American activist, has received hundreds
of thousands of dollars from the State Department over the years to promote 'freedom of
expression and free access to information.' The campaign relentlessly attacked critics of the
Iran policy on social media, including Twitter and Telegram messaging app, accusing them
without evidence of being paid operatives of the regime in Tehran. A spokeswoman for the
State Department told reporters on Monday that funding for the 'Iran Disinformation Project'
had been suspended and is under review after it was reported that it went beyond the scope of
its mandate by veering from countering propaganda from Iran to smearing domestic critics of
White House policy. State Department officials disclosed to lawmakers they had granted $1.5
million for Iran Disinfo, which repeatedly targeted, harassed and smeared critics of Trump's
tough stance against Iran on social media.
The Independent article noted: "Among those targeted were American activists, scholars,
and journalists who challenged the Trump administration's 'maximum pressure campaign' against
Iran. The revelation that US taxpayer money was being used to attack administration critics
has now sparked a flurry of queries. 'There are still so many unanswered questions here,'
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar wrote on Twitter. 'What rules are in place to prevent state-funded
organisation from smearing American citizens? If there wasn't public outcry, would the
Administration have suspended funding for Iran Disinfo?' Cold War-era US rules barring the
use of government-funded propaganda against American citizens have been flouted for decades
State Department officials speaking at the closed-door meeting admitted the project was out
of bounds, according to Congressional staffers speaking to The Independent on condition of
anonymity. Both Democratic and Republican Congressional staffers were highly critical of the
project and questioned whether US officials should continue to work with the contractor,
E-Collaborative for Civic Education. The State Department spokeswoman declined to outline
steps to prevent such an operation in the future E-Collaborative for Civic Education,
co-founded by Iranian American activist Mariam Memarsadeghi, is a long-time State Department
contractor "
Foundation for Defence of Democracies and MEK involved in creating fake articles. The
Independent continues:
"Congressional officials also confirmed to The Independent that one individual working for
the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, an influential Washington organisation with
hawkish views on Iran, is part of the E-Collaborative for Civic Education's Iran
Disinformation Project Over the weekend, The Intercept revealed that a purported Iranian
activist, who had published dozens of articles on Iran in prominent outlets such as Forbes
and The Hill, does not exist and is a fake persona run by a team of operatives connected to a
bizarre Iranian political cult. The "Heshmat Alavi" persona had a strong presence on Twitter
and harassed Iranian journalists, academics, and activists who are critical of the
Mujahedin-e-Khalq organisation, a one-time armed guerilla group now holed up in Albania.
There is no known link between the Iran Disinfo programme and the fake persona. At least one
was cited by the Trump administration as proof against the effectiveness of the Obama-era
nuclear deal. Some of the MEK articles were also picked up by US government funded Voice of
America's Persian-language service "
Let's not forget the lies our great-grandparents were told to inveigle us into WWI: "German
troops are raping Belgian nuns" and "German troops are using Belgian babies for bayonet
practice."
100 years from now a future historian, (probably Russian or Chinese), writing about the
collapse of the US, will chronicle how the Americans gullibly believed the war propagandists
asserting that Iran fired on oil tankers, which belonged to it trading partner, with the same
sense of disbelief we now feel upon reading of the crazy assertions made about German
troops.
The Japanese ship's captain came out today and said that there was no way the ship was hit by
a mine as US claimed, it was hit above sea level and sailors saw something hitting the
vessel, like a torpedo.
Why on earth would Iran want to bomb a Japanese ship in the middle of a visit by the
Japanese PM?
This whole thing stinks to high heaven.
The US under the rule of the neocons in the Trump admin, the Pence-Pompeo-Bolton trifecta,
is a menace and a danger to the whole world. From Iran to Venezuela, Ukraine to North Korea,
China to Russia, there isn't a country these neocon stooges don't want to pick a quarrel
with. America has become the greatest threat to world peace.
Sam – When was the last time Iran invaded another country? Why is Israel pushing so
hard for us to fight yet another war on their behalf. As Ron Paul said – if they want
to fight Iran – let them, but we must stand aside as they duke it out. Israel has
created enough Gold Star mothers in the US. Time to do their own fighting. Larsen and Giraldi
make a lot of sense.
"... The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians. The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets. The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen. ..."
WATCH: US economist urges covert violence to provoke war with Iran "I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically
go down – someday one of them might not come up." Admin
Many believe war with the Islamic Republic of Iran has been the dream of some hardcore neocons in Washington since at least 2001.
Back in 2012 former employee of the IMF and current economist for the World Bank,
Patrick Clawson , provided fuel for this belief when
he was videoed obliquely advocating using covert violence so that the US president "can get to war with Iran."
In a startlingly frank speech, Clawson makes it clear he believes (and apparently approves) that the US has a history of seeking
war for profit, and of using provocations to goad its perceived enemies into starting such wars. Clawson highlights in particular
the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in 1861
, which, he says, was deliberately engineered by president Lincoln in pursuit of an excuse to launch a war on the Southern secessionist
states.
In light of the recent alleged attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, timed to coincide with the visit of the Japanese prime
minister to Iran, and in light of Secretary of State Capone Pompeo's precipitate and predictable claim the attacks were
likely perpetrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, this is an apposite time to recall this telling little incident.
Below see the transcript of Mr Clawson's remarks
Transcript
"I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough and it's very hard for me to see how the United States president can get
us to war with Iran which leads me to conclude that if in fact compromise is not coming that the traditional way of America gets
to war is what would be best for US interests
Some people might think that mr. Roosevelt wanted to get us in to the World War two as David mentioned. You may recall we had
to wait for Pearl Harbor.
Some people might think mr. Wilson wanted to get us into World War One. You may recall he had to wait for the Lusitania episode
Some people might think that mr. Johnson wanted to send troops to Vietnam. You may recall they had to wait for the Gulf of Tonkin
episode.
We didn't go to war with Spain until the USS Maine exploded, and may I point out that mr. Lincoln did not feel he could call off
the federal army until Fort Sumter was attacked which is why he ordered the commander at Fort Sumter to do exactly that thing which
the South Carolinians had said would cause an attack.
So if in fact the Iranians aren't going to compromise it would be best if somebody else started the war
But I would just like to suggest that one can combine other means of pressure with sanctions. I mentioned that explosion on August
17th. We could step up the pressure. I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down – someday one of them
might not come up.
Who would know why?
We can do a variety of things if we wish to increase the pressure. I'm not advocating that but I'm just suggesting that a it's
this is not a either-or proposition of, you know, it's just sanctions has to be has to succeed or other things.
DunGroanin
Always follow the money they made lots instantly from the firework display, it aint rocket science!
What do you expect from a Zionist Front like WINEP? They've been inciting wars for Israel for decades. "Getting the stupid goys
to fight Israel's wars for decades."
Jen
If Patrick Clawson is typical of the kind of economist employed at the IMF and then promoted to a leading position at the World
Bank, I dread to think of the calibre of people who also applied for his job in the past and were rejected. His speech is so garbled
and full of unconscious slip-ups.
andyoldlabour
The US has convinced itself of its own so called "exceptionalism", where they can say anything out in the open, reveal their greatest
desires, their unholy plans. There must be some "good" Americans who can stop this madness, or have they all become inflicted/infected
with some hate virus?
Milton
Interesting that this Israeli-First traitor Clawson mentions Lincoln and Ft. Sumter. He finally admits what genuine historians
of the Civil War long knew: Lincoln was a warmonger and tyrant, not an emancipator. The Civil war was fought to eliminate true
freedom and equality in this country and it has been downhill ever since. The working class and soldier-class in America today
are slaves in every sense of the word. Slaves to Zion. No wonder the certified warmonger and racist Lincoln is worshiped equally
by Left and Right today, whilst genuine American patriots like Robert E. Lee have their legacy torn down. Lincoln was the proto-Neocon.
Tom Dilorenzo summed up the real Lincoln when he wrote in Lincoln Unmasked:
"Imagine that California seceded from the union and an American president responded with the carpet bombing of Los Angeles,
San Diego, and San Francisco that destroyed 90 percent of those cities. Such was the case with General Sherman's bombardment of
Atlanta; a naval blockade; a blocking off of virtually all trade; the eviction of thousands of residents from their homes (as
occurred in Atlanta in 1864); the destruction of most industries and farms; massive looting of private property by a marauding
army; and the killing of one out of four males of military age while maiming for life more than double that number. Would such
an American president be considered a 'great statesman' or a war criminal? The answer is obvious.
A statesman would have recognized the state's right to secede, as enshrined in the Tenth Amendment, among other places, and
then worked diligently to persuade the seceded state that a reunion was in its best interest. Agreat statesman, or even a modest
one, would not have impulsively plunged the entire nation into a bloody war.
Lincoln's warmongering belligerence and his invasion of all the Southern states in response to Fort Sumter (where no one was
harmed or killed) caused the upper South -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas -- to secede after originally voting
to remain in the Union. He refused to meet with Confederate commissioners to discuss peace and even declined a meeting with Napoleon
III of France, who offered to broker a peace agreement. No genuine statesman would have behaved in such a way.
After Fort Sumter, Lincoln thanked naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in manipulating the South Carolinians into
firing at Fort Sumter. A great statesman does not manipulate his own people into starting one of the bloodiest wars in human history."
mathias alexand
Here's a man who holds a press conference to announce a secret plan. Only in America.
False flags here, false flags there, false flags everywhere. All too further the aims of the 'masters of the universe'. We know
who was responsible for the tanker attacks. Who are the 3 countries absolutely desperate to take Iran down and install a completely
pliant puppet regime answerable to Washington, Tel Aviv and to a lesser extent Riyadh. And creatures like Clawson, and all the
other vermin can only see $$$$. Thats all they care about. Opening up more markets to further enrich themselves. I echo the other
commenters also. The evil men stoop to for greed, power and control. Psychopaths.
harry law
The Foreign Office issued a statement saying: "It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military – the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps – attacked the two tankers on 13 June. No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible."
Unbelievable, The UK vassal will use this to as one more reason to evade their responsibilities in implementing the JCPOA.
Er . just a rough guess Bill going on the belligerent foaming at the mouth by people in those places along with the likes of Bolton
and Pompeo. In fact, you can probably go all the way back to about 1980 or so.
mark
I think the real giveaway was when all three rogue states openly stated their intention of doing this 1,000 times over the past
10 years. That was the crucial clue Sherlock Holmes was looking for.
Wilmers31
And who funds the Washington Institute? Last time I looked the International Crisis Group existed thanks to Soros and is usually
treated like a serious organisation.
Many Europeans are not in love with the idea of war with Iran, just to achieve obedience to the US. 90 million people is bigger
than Germany.
wardropper
These are the shysters, the spivs and the con men of bygone times. They are the ones who lurked at street corners, waiting for
someone to come along who was gullible enough to buy the Moon from them.
But, for some reason, they are all in politics today.
Now how could that be?
Only because there are people whom it currently suits to use shysters, spivs and con men in order to create enough chaos for
us to want to give up and just let those people have their way.
I agree with Rhys below. There is no more disgusting example of sub-humanity to be found on earth than these warmongers.
To deal with them, however, we will have to realize that their "philosophy", if you can call it that, runs very deep. It didn't
just enter their heads last week.
They are reared and trained in it.
It will be a tough battle.
wardropper
I should add that, in bygone times, the police and the law were usually able to deal with the shysters, spivs and con men, since
their lack of conscience often gave them away.
The modern version, however, which has moved into politics, was shrewd enough to use a few decades of bribery and threats in order
to build around itself a nice little shell, through which the law simply cannot penetrate, except on special occasions, mainly
for show.
Rhys Jaggar
There is a big cabal of warmongers who stoke the fuel but never see action. I find those people more disgusting than anyone on
earth.
Draft dodgers, academics, 'historians' etc etc.
Ball-less pricks is what I call them .
mark
All fully paid up members of the Bill Clinton Light Infantry.
andyoldlabour
The appeasers would include the US who fully supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, who provided him with chemical
weapons and logistical help in using those weapons, which killed around 50,000 Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians.
The same appeasers armed and funded the Taliban (Mujahideen) against the Soviets.
The US are the single largest force for terrorism the World has ever seen.
William HBonney
The easiest, and perhaps best metric by which to judge a country, is 'do people aspire to live there? '.
I see you admire the Soviet Union, but at its dissolution, people were queuing to leave. And yet the US, and the UK, according
to you, iniquitous places of tyranny, are oversubscribed. Could it be, that for all your implied erudition, you are merely a bellend?
BigB
Well, even as a pacifist: if that is his sentiment – I hope he has sons or daughters in the military stationed in CENTCOM in Qatar.
I bet he hasn't, though.
Rhisiart Gwilym
He should be right there on the frontline himself. That would straighten the disgusting creep's ideas out about the 'usefulness'
of deliberately provoking war
Standing at the forefront of game-changing innovations in undersea warfare, Navy Cmdr.
Scott Smith has only one small request. Don't call the Navy's fleet of unmanned undersea
vehicles "drones." "It has a negative connotation," Smith said. "We think of drone strikes
as taking out Taliban, and we're nowhere near that." Not yet, anyway. But the Pentagon is
trying quickly to get there.
Last fall, the Navy named Smith as the first-ever commander of the new Unmanned Undersea
Vehicle Squadron 1, or UUVRON-1. It's spearheading the service's development and deployment
of unmanned underwater vehicles. Called UUVs, they're are already being used for
surveillance and to clear mines and map the ocean floor, according to Bryan Clark, a
retired submariner who is now a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments.
So don't get it twisted, this ascendent FUKUS drone army is doubleplusgood; it's designed
for mapping and minesweeping! Sort of like a bunch of little Indian Joneses! Of course the
article does go on to brag:
There are even ongoing efforts to launch UUVs from Virginia-class submarines to conduct
surveillance or deliver payloads. He said that over the next decade sailors should expect
to use the underwater robots to bring sonar arrays and mines to the seabed, launch
torpedoes or become torpedoes themselves to destroy enemy warships . Smith wants to see
UUVs in all kinds of sizes to fill gaps in future missions. "Those missions that are too
dangerous to put men on," Smith said.
It is absolutely side-splitting though that they think they can achieve Total Spectrum
Dominance with these toys. Sorry, I'm looking for any old silver lining these days.
Posted by: sejomoje | Jun 13, 2019 1:59:56 PM |
10 5 No matter the culprit in this latest incident, I lay this current world unrest at
the feet of our current empire.
The economic terrorism, imposed on other nations through U$ sanctions, is the real
problem..
"US officials, however, were quick to point the finger at Iran. "It's clear that Iran is
behind the Fujairah attack. Who else would you think would be doing it? Someone from Nepal?"
said US National Security Adviser John Bolton.
In turn, US Secretary of State Pompeo alleged that Iran had attacked the tankers to raise
the global price of oil.
Tehran has denied any involvement and called for an investigation."
"On the previous day, a fire broke out on an Iranian oil platform of the South Pars gas
field in the Persian Gulf and was subsequently contained and no fatalities were
reported."
Recall the plot of the movie A Fistful of Dollars and another can of worms becomes
possible.
Whenever the US has their conclusion this quickly, before even the appearance of an
investigation (as with MH17, and Syria "chemical" attacks), I feel it is almost certain that
they are making $&!% up, and the reality is likely the opposite of what they have
said.
Both Israel and the Saudis are far too incompetent to carry out a sophisticated attack like
this - see, ships didn't sink but a message was delivered nonetheless. Probable some military
contractor idling in Syria was reassigned to do this.
An obvious question is why the US is not providing evidence to support its claims.
On possible explanation is that there is no evidence.
Another would be that there is evidence but that if the US produced the evidence, then it
would be constrained to "do something." In the scenario in which Iran is conducting these
quasi-attacks to warn of impending greater escalation if the US continues to starve it, both
sides want the other to initiate any violence, and the US doesn't really want the global
economic chaos that hostilities would inevitably bring--especially in conjunction with the
trade/tech war with China. Therefore, it is pulling its punches and withholding the evidence
it has.
Iran may sense that given the US-China and US-Russia issues and the 2020 election, they
had better escalate now or be slowly bled to death. But they would like the US to provide a
pretext for Iran to take real action to block traffic into and out of the Persian Gulf. But
the US wants to be able to portray Iran as the aggressor.
Hence the cat-and-mouse game ongoing. I have to admit, it does make a certain
comprehensive sense.
The Japanese Prime Minister was visiting Tehran at the time of the attack upon a Japanese
tanker.
What a perfect time to attack a Japanese tanker.
Such a plan reeks of incompetence.
Incompetence is a finger print of the Saudis.
Reminder that they butchered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in their own embassy. They mailed
bombs (hidden in printers) to the US and Britain
and kept the tracking slips of the packages - nice plan ! All bombers must remember to save
their tracking slips.
They tried to embarrass Iran by attacking a Japanese tanker while the Japanese Prime
Minister was having a positive visit to Tehran.
the usa has produced 'phony' hard evidence in the past... it typically goes with false
flags.. i am not saying this will come out of this, or that iran is not involved, but i lean
strongly to the ramp up in a focus on the strait of hormuz as all part of a longer strategy
of creating stress on iran and potentially dragging them into war.. either way as OP mentions
in his last line @128...
Evidence versus claims. I give you the recent near collision between Russian and USN
warships where USN claimed Russian fault whereas the evidence decisively proved otherwise.
USN shut-up rather quickly and the incident went to the dust bin. In an earlier comment, I
speculated that an IED-type device was used and that it was installed while the ships laded.
Torpedoes were certainly not used, and the limpet mine assertion remains that until a
forensic examination is done, and that won't happen until the ships return to a port where
repairs can be made. Also, we have the much less reported attacks on Iranian ships and
extraction infrastructure--the tit for tat where we'll only be treated to the tits as I
commented in a trivial comment that disappeared. The upshot is, the Outlaw US Empire has
scant credibility when it comes to making claims about anything sans extraordinary evidence.
Iran, of course, knows that. But given the overall context, I doubt Iran's responsible and
stand by my earlier prediction of a CIA/MI-6 proxy doing the deed.
I agree that US credibility on many things is weak--especially in connection with
Iran--but the point is that there is a plausible scenario in which Iran is ready to
escalate--or threaten to escalate--to break out of the US stranglehold but needs to execute
the escalation very carefully.
I also agree that the false flag scenario is still very much in play.
Here're links to a couple of things bouncing around the Twitterverse. The first is a
video clip of
Bolton Caitlin does an excellent job of
unpacking again . It's actually a good thing this video was saved as it needs to be
distributed once again.
The second is a pic of Bolton framed at
the header by "Iran is going to attack us" and at the footer with "Even if we have to do it
ourselves."
Both IMO are worthy of viral retweeting provided you have an account.
DW interviewed a guy today who said it could be Iran but that it could also be a false flag
by one of the Emirates. His interview didn't last long before they went to someone with more
of the US voice. The whole time I was thinking they said it was a torpedo and we know Israel
has at least one submarine. I wonder where it is right now. Meanwhile the official US
statement sounds similar to early declarations about Russians hacking HRC's email: "We assess
..."
librul 141
I thought the same thing. It's like the chemical weapons attack in Syria that happened on the
same day the inspectors arrived. It's like the White Helmets being wherever HTS is. The alt
media is the only arena where people say this sounds fishy.
You shouldn't be misled. Iran does not want war, because the leadership knows that it will
definitely lead to gigantic damage in its own country. In Tronald's administration and
elsewhere, on the other hand, there are people who absolutely want a war, the four B's in the
first place. Tronald himself doesn't really want one, but is caught between a rock and a hard
place. He absolutely wants to make the economy look positive until the next elections, but
this is difficult because there are signs of recession everywhere in the world. An important
factor is the price of oil. Despite the sanctions against Iran, it has not yet risen, the
fracking industry, which produces what it can do due to its debts service necessities,
continues to lose money at these prices. It will be difficult to avoid collapses. So Tronald
may be willing to do more to push up the price of oil. For example, a nice little false flag
action. The Relotius media are almost convinced, no wonder if even someone like B is
wobbling.
But, people; the empire is the empire, we know how it works, that doesn't change. That's
Tonkin 2.0.
United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign
that has targeted American citizens critical of the administration's hardline Iran policy and
accused critics of being loyal to the Tehran regime.
State Department officials admitted to Congressional staff in a closed-door meeting on
Monday that a project they had funded to counter Iranian propaganda had gone off the rails.
Critics in Washington have gone further, saying that the programme resembled the type of
troll farms used by autocratic regimes abroad.
Alright then, how is WWIII going for everyone? Everyone got their pith helmet at the ready?
I agree with the sentiments that think this is a warning to empire instead of false flag
because no body bags
I feel sorry for those MoA barflies that continue to have some faith that Trump has a
scintilla of humanism in him and continue to ask for some proof other than BS Q spewment.
Show me ANY example of Trump showing compassion, empathy for other than his fellow war
criminals he is rumored to pardon. Trump is a very hurt human being who is being used as such
by those that control empire for their purposes. To the extent that he agrees to do their
bidding, he is just another in a string of president war criminals of the US, since Jimmy
Carter.
The world outside the West is playing the long game and the West is now very punch drunk
and coming to the end of its run of empires. I read a posting from Reuters in the last 48
hours or so where some pundit was quoting folks "telling" China that they should not include
private finance in this trade war thing......GRIN
The West is holding a very weak hand except for the extinction card. Will they play it
because they are sore losers? Given what they have done to our planet, it would not surprise
me for them to have the ultimate hubris to call the game over......sigh The Cosmos may be
better for it but we have potential if we try.....
pat lang makes a
good distinction on what is a us gov't assessment, verses an intel assessment..
@160 karlof1 / 161 john.. thanks for those links.. my position - all that is no
surprise... i find it surprising some are surprised.. the usa is thick into propaganda at
this point and said they would spend good money on war propaganda.. videos of bolton saying
lying is okay aren't helpful to their cause though..
"'We have no interest in engaging in a new conflict in the Middle East. We will defend
our interests, but a war with Iran is not in our strategic interest, nor in the best interest
of the international community.' --@CENTCOM spokesman Lt. Col. Earl Brown."
Seems the Pentagon has flipped the bird to Pompeo and Bolton, which happened before
during BushCo.
--------------------------
Maybe such a war with Iran is not in the interests of the United States, but certainly in
the interests of Israel.
Trump ratchets up the sanctions before and Abe visits Iran which does reflect his
negotiating style. Iran allegedly hits a tanker while Abe is taking to Iran. Now Abe has to
go back towing the US line, as usual, saying it was Iran's fault and he loses face being
insulted by Iran. What a perfect way to step up the tensions and garner more UN support.
These events will continue and slowly get worse until the coup de gra, which would be
something like the sinking of a large US naval vessel in the Persian gulf. The US peoples
minds are not right yet and it will take time for their minds to be framed back into war.
During the Iran Iraq war the US re flagged Kuwait tankers during the Tanker War. We could easily
see a new Tanker War but on a much lower lever driven by the third party actors who stand to
profit.
War with Iran will be a disaster for everyone involved except one small nation that knows
how to cover their tracks.
Iran will be demolished eventually. Those who gain from destroying Iran are behind
presstv. published a video showing 44 people saved from two on fire sinking ships. I know how
difficult it is to identify these people from their faces, especially a 44 crew member crowd
but I think even stinkcom could manage to do that. The media BS about this incident suggest,
who ever done it, is dealing with something that went very wrong.. Iran saves 44 sailors and
shows them on TV.. the west claims, with no proof whatsoever, that the Iranians did not save
these sailors even though the sailors are safe in Iran? Hmmm!
I suggest the reporters and journalist that reported this, be tasked to investigate the
suspicious looking dark hole named "false flag". Its a possible threat to Israel and Saudia
Arabia. Its approximate location is about 200 trillion light years due East from here.. The
media are saying Iran and Russia teamed up to dig a hole in space, and once the Iran-Russian
team managed to get the hole dug, they climbed deep inside of the hole and turned its lights
off. The west is saying they flipped the switch in the WH to keep the Iranian-Russian team
from claiming its "light out" success. When the reporters and journalist get back, I am sure
we will be all ears to hear the how the Russian and Iranian team managed to make a hole in
space, dark.
@karlof1 - I read the Luongo piece and I find it the most pivotal of all current
commentary - largely because it's about the oil situation globally. Neither Iran nor Russia
need the price of oil to go up in order to prosper - the US and Saudi Arabia do need the
price to go up.
Having said that, I don't know that insurance rates rising are actually adding to the
producer's revenue at the wellhead/refinery.
I do know that oil is self-regulating, in that whenever it gets around $100 a barrel and
over, the global economy stalls and the demand for oil goes down, resulting in glut for a
time and lower prices - not to mention global recession. As Luongo illustrates, right now the
world is in a large glut. There's nothing to push the price up (which Trump desperately
needs) except tightening production, which Saudi wants, but which Russia doesn't want to
do.
~~
So imagine a world filled to the brim with bluster, and yet once again what actually moves
on the ground (or below the waves) is actually very little. Enough bluster to scare everyone
and increase leverage of the security apparatus, and just enough damage to inch the oil price
up without crashing the global economy. Expect more such ratcheting.
Iran didn't do this latest episode. The US and Israel are the likely actors, with Saudi
and UAE providing lunch money for the excursion. Also, the false flag works fine without dead
bodies if the intent is not for a war with Iran - which the US military absolutely knows
cannot be won - but to trigger oil prices up. At times, commercial interests take over, and
ride the wave of military activity, and I suspect this one is about the money.
And these neocons, by the way, seem able to live on pure fantasy. I don't think they'll
achieve a real war. They visibly make their points - increase their stature - in their peer
group purely from grandstanding.
It's worth linking the Tom Luongo piece again for a nice understanding of oil fundamentals in
the region and the world currently. It's important to understand how illusory and temporary
the US fracking phenomenon is:
Trump Thinks US Oil Is His Strength When It's His Achilles' Heel
As a commenter here (David on May 13) said recently, the US fracking industry's appalling
indebtedness comes due in 2023. This is far enough through Trump's potential second term that
he can blame everyone else and move on. I've made a personal note to expect a US economic
plunge in that year.
To see Trump's acts as merely keeping the ponzi scheme going for as long as possible, and
for as much short-term reward through the second term, is the best understanding of White
House policy I think.
Grieved @184 thanks for that link. Just saw an update on Fox stating Iran has formally denied
any part of this incident but can't find a solid Iranian news source to confirm.
@ Pnyx 181 . . . for the usa it is not the same. Their homeland is far away, while Iran would suffer
extreme devastation in the event of a war - whatever the final result. So I think it is
absolutely unthinkable that Iran would do anything to increase the risk of war.
You don't understand -- every US death in war is now a news item. When 5 or 6 dies it's
huge news. This is not Vietnam with 200 dying every week. Its different now. So if a thousand
soldiers die in the beginning of a conflict with Iran it's HUGE. No American cares how many
Iranians would die, but they DO care if Americans die, homeland or not. THAT's why the
generals are against it too. . .PS: If the Iranians sink that carrier, it's 5,000+ American
dead. Unacceptable.
So that's why Iran is free to dispute the aggression against them with some violent
events. More power to them.
I would think that if the Iranian's held the crew and took off an unexploded bomb that they
can ask the crew how they might have gotten there......
Were the ships in Iran controlled waters such that the empire side could not retrieve the
unexploded bomb? If that is the case then I suspect the unexploded bomb may show up in
pictures we see that show where it might have come from.....
from the grasping at straws mines department.
news report
Iran removed a mine from a ship, so that proves that Iran put it there!
The U.S. military has released a video it says implicates Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) in the attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, the latest violent
incident the United States and its allies blame on Tehran.
The U.S. Central Command on June 13 said the video shows crews from IRGC boats removing
what looks like an unexploded mine from the side of one of the two attacked oil tankers. .
.
here
the US has met its match, asking for a seizure at the UNSC --
Earlier in the day at the UN, U.S. acting Ambassador Jonathan Cohen called on the Security
Council to confront the "clear threat" posed by Tehran in the region.
The attacks "demonstrate the clear threat that Iran poses to international peace and
security," Cohen told reporters following the closed-door Security Council meeting.
Cohen said that "no proxy group in the area has the resources or the skill to act with this
level of sophistication."
"Iran, however, has the weapons, the expertise, and the requisite intelligence information
to pull this off," he said.
"I've asked the Security Council to remain seized of the matter and I expect that we will
have further conversations about it, and how to respond in the days ahead," he added.
Loud chuckling was heard in Tehran.
Don Bacon , Jun 13, 2019 11:06:34 PM |
195Anon , Jun 13, 2019 11:20:05 PM |
196
So this is what comes to mind...
Houthi or al. are responsible for first event. They target Saudi/Nor. ships.
Saudi et. al. target ships friendly to Iran.
Understand though that in these events there is a total asymmetry at play. That is to say
that actions will not follow any logic we know of. The above is the closest I get to making
sense BUT as far as I know each side might have been responsible for the actions that seemed
most counterproductive to itself. Planners know the mindset of society, a false false flag is
an option.
We are left with qui bono, and I think the reply to that is as reliant on the global
geopolical and economic environment, as well as who will de facto gain the upper hand. It
seems to me to be a form of psychological warfare where expansion of power is questioned by
the appearance or reality of being goaded. This is not a good circumstance at all.
A fluid situation for sure. I wish I had had the time to follow things more closely. Thanks
karlof, Oscar for all the links and info.
Can't add anything substantial apart from a general maxim: when the Empire had proof the
'other' is to blame, they readily display said proof. When they are to blame... Skripols,
Mari Marmara, MH17, etc.
@ Anon who wrote
"
It seems to me to be a form of psychological warfare where expansion of power is questioned
by the appearance or reality of being goaded. This is not a good circumstance at all.
"
The first part is confusing to me
I think you meant
Psychological warfare is going on
I assume you mean the West that is questioning "by the appearance or reality of being
goaded".
Your "expansion of power" leaves me wanting the meat
Yes, China/Russia and aligned are collaborating in ways that reduces the power of empire
but not necessarily in ways that translates into the same sort of power......That said,
global private finance versus "socialism is the eye of the storm and everything else is
proxy. We are not seeing the beginning of socialism but we are seeing the end of global
private finance which I think your "expansion of power" misrepresents because one supports a
few and the other supports all......maybe it would be clearer to say the elimination of power
by a few and the assumption of the power by the many.
I think it is a good circumstance and way past due for our species to survive.
@193 dh... i thought you could... what happened? are you one of those long lost draft
dodgers?
hey - maybe he can hide under his mustache if the bombs start falling? it is almost big
enough... either that, or bugs bunny can grab it when he ain't watching.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ-BOqQw_TQ
@194 Is it my imagination or is that video showing a "limped mine" that is on THE OTHER SIDE
of the ship than the one that is aflame?
If that is true - and it looks like it - then we have to assume that the Dastardly
Iranians(tm) stuck limpet mines to both sides of that ship.
Why do that?
It maximizes your chances of being detected, and maximises the time it takes to attach the
limpets, and with no discernible benefit.
Why do that, when speed and stealth are at a premium?
Don Wiscacho , Jun 14, 2019 12:12:46 AM |
205David Gibson , Jun
14, 2019 12:57:54 AM |
206
MOA 14/06/19
If the strategic aim of the Imperialist powers is to still claim all of the Middle East oil
and resources and to crush any movement towards independence then the stumbling block is Iran
and Russia who have stood in their way vis-a-vie Syria.
NATO has succeeded in Iraq and Libya and almost succeeded in Syria but are still trying
using the flip/flop position of Turkey and Idlib as a Castle in the game to defeat any
independence movement out of US hegemony.
At this time no oil or chemicals have spilled into the Gulf waters. This is by design.
Whilst the comments pertaining to the main article are informative and useful most are
getting bogged down and arguing about details and missing the overall global plans of the
Imperialist plans.
The Imperialist plan remains the same whilst their tactics can and do change. Their bag of
dirty tricks is quite bottomless and yes they think they can fight against any move for
National Independence anywhere in the world.
Latin America most notably Venezuela, Africa with AFRICOM already using drones.
Australia, fully under MI6/CIA control. No defence of Assange an Australian Citizen, plus
the coup against Gough Whitlam.
The UK, with either Boris, or Hunt being in bed with Donald, both lap dogs to the USA and
like with Harold Wilson they won't allow Corbyn to become PM.
France with Macron the poodle trying to show he is as tough as Trump by being more stupid.
We all know the situation of an Empire in decline. It isn't all about oil!
David Gibson ,
Jun 14, 2019 12:57:54 AM |
206Jen , Jun 14, 2019 1:07:57 AM |
207
Psychohistorian @ 189:
The crews of both tankers were rescued by an Iranian rescue ship so I would say both
tankers were in Iranian waters in the Gulf of Oman.
Don Wiscacho
I take it that Abe on this exercise was no more than a US asset. Iran has stuck to the Nuke
agreement and US has reneged so nothing to negotiate or mediate on Iran's side. Abe going to
Iran as mediator means he was asking for concessions from Iran - that Iran make some moves to
appease the US.
US is the type that if you give an inch, they take a mile. If Iran made one concession then
US would take it as a sign of weakness and expect them to make more.
I might have missed mention of it in all the hullabaloo, but I have seen nothing of the US
Navy response which would involve tracking down the perpetrators, and ensuring no further
acts were committed.
It is that absence of obvious response which causes me to think that our host might be
incorrect in his assessment, and that the perpetrator is a party the US Navy would sooner not
apprehend.
Iran would be crazy to take on the US so why provoke them. They stand to lose their oil then
anyway. War is an economy and Everyone knows that Bolton is a war monger and that Iran is a
thorn in Israels side and he needs an excuse to go to war. Also he can't use the WMD card
again to start a war and JumpStart the US economy.
I have not followed this closely. There is real proof of "attack" and not accidental or set
fire? There is video of a crew "abandoning ship? But then again, in 2019 there is no such
thing as video or image proof, at least without expert verification.
guys its BIG OIL... TRUMP approved Ethanol 15 for YEAR ROUND USE a few days ago... that means
GAS PRICES would be cheaper for Americans as more corn instead of oil would be used in
Automobiles. That drove OIL prices down! This attack on the two ships immediately drove CRUDE
OIL up 2.87%!
It seems that TRUMP pissed off some very powerful big oil men & oil-rich Arab nations
when he approved the E15!
Why blame Iran? No idea.
Why attack the ships owned by Japan while Shinzo Abe is there negotiating peace? No Idea.
Who carried out the attack? No Idea.
Interesting and sane interview on 'today program' news radio 4 bbc U.K. 7.50am ish.
Admiral Lord west - - - could be any US - proxy group in Middle East looking to gain by
escalating US -Iran conflict !
He said it could well be ''a pro US group in Iran'' similar to the US backed opposition in
Venezuela !
My view is this makes the most sense!
Probably given the nod by Bolton/Trump ect
Definitely funded and armed by US !
Just as in Venezuela.
Plus- bare in mind the main motive will be western public voter deception, same as anti
Russia/ Skripal, Anti Syria / chloride. Venezuela/opposition.
Criminal psychopath profile tells us -> USA Trump.
Meanwhile Twitter censorship thousands of iranian accounts. Pro-american accounts for war is
of course never removed.
Twitter has announced that it is removing 4,779 accounts associated or backed by
Tehran, the latest strike in the ongoing anti-Iran campaign perfectly timed to coincide with
the attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/461825-iran-trolls-gulf-tonkin-twitter/
Don Bacon
Iran removed a mine from a ship, so that proves that Iran put it there!
Indeed, that is the illogical proapganda MSM use now, very disturbing. Its Tonkin once
again.
Not to mention, is it iranians? Is it a mine to begin with? Is that really how you handle
a mine? Just pull it off with your bare hands around 10 plus people on a small boat?
Interesting also that US just happend to be there spying.
IRO that 'high-res' video footage from the usual suspects.
By coincidence they've had a surveillance drone or a chopper on location? Maybe, I don't
know.
The Iranians do have the means to spot drones and choppers, we do know this ever since they
hijacked and/or crashed RQ-170 and MQ-9 vehicles a couple of years back.
Are we to believe them - the Iranians - being that stupid to launching such an operation
while knowing full well they are being watched by their main adversary?
Regarding technicalities:
Iran has got the know-how to build limpet mines? So it must have been done by Iranian forces?
You don't say. Building a limpet mine is trivial. Get your hands on a bunch of Nd-magnets, a
3rd grade chemist cooking up a couple of kilos of a HEI composition, a mechanical engineer
for the hardware and a physicist assisting in creating the fusing system and you're all
set.
I, for one, am being positive Lichtenstein did it - most likely on direct orders of the
ruling prince - after all there's chemists, physicists and mechanical engineers inhabiting
that tiny speck of land.
Would be intreresting if iranians actually picked up a mine though and it was an american
made, israeli made mine. Iran has a big chance now to frame the incident.
Good points zanon
To add - If the US start all-out War with Iran, how many refugees would that create ?
millions !
And if so, would we blame them/ the victems and drive them back from safety to the conflict
area, or do we blame the US and demand they compensate their victems.
If we are to return to a sane world, the perpetrators MUST pay the price and receive full
punishment .
American politicians always say ' we will do what is in America's interest' and right there
is the problem - - - not able to anticipate the outcome of there own actions !
Example - all recent conflict.
One definition of insanity is making the same mistake over and over again !!
@224 Bizarre. The photo shows the limped mine on the starboard side of the ship. The video
from the Bainbridge shows the Iranians removing that limped mine on the port side of the
ship.
The photo doesn't appear reversed - the name is clearly seen - so why would the US reverse
the video?
Okay, not a torpedo. Now it's a mine. But wait a minute, the Japanese say something was
flying above the water. The US shows a video of the Iranians removing a limpet mine. The
Japanese contest the "assessment" of the US and the US video shows the Iranians removing a
mine NOT placing one.
The story gets stranger as the neoclowns push for war.
If infact the Iranians did recover from either ship an explosive machine, a mine, flying
machine, rocket, unexploded torpedo,etc, or indeed any forensic material, that and the
debriefings of the crews will make for great political theater...that stuff is fairly
festooned with serial numbers... "film at 11", as they used to say...
"What? Only three booms? But we gave those idiots we hired four mines to attach
to that ship! Oh, cr@p, the place is swarming with drones by now. What do we do about the
fourth mine now? Can we pretend the Cubans stole it from us with their killer crickets and
gave it to Iran?
Moon of Alabama lost all credibility with this article. Israel has a huge online troll party
going on blaming Iran for this. Attack 2 tankers tied to Japanese interests,while the
Japanese Leader is conferring with Iran's leader, outside the mouth of the Persian Gulf is
too much codswallop to swallow.
Two comments: "Blamed Iran but did not present any evidence" says it all. These incidents
remind one of the Vietnam Gulf of Tonkin "incident" in which the US government claimed their
forces were attacked by North Vietnam. Subsequently it was proven by the NSA and others that
there was no attack. It was simply propaganda to give the Americans an excuse to escalate the
war. It would surprise no one, if it turned out that the US or Saudi's hired black operatives
to stage these attacks so that they could escalate tensions with Iran.
and.
It was previously reported that the limpet mine was still attached to the ship. So why
didn't the US, in need of solid evidence, go to the ship and remove the mine thereby
obtaining hard evidence that could be evaluated? Instead, the US did nothing, Iran undertook
its removal not wanting it to explode which makes sense. Then the US used it's removal by
others to suggest complicity. The US is either incompetent or just making plots up (lying as
usual). Iran's removal of the mine means nothing.
@134 Yonatan - A little frightener to Japan - this makes great sense and should have been
obvious. Thanks for pointing it out.
@198 psychohistorian - it was a mouthful, but actually makes sense. Anon is saying that
under the guise of seeming to be provoked and acting purely in reaction (to the bad actions
of Iran, etc), the US is actually exerting and expanding its power in the region, all the
while making the narrative say that it's the other unruly elements causing the ruckus.
I agree with Anon that it's more a case that a psy-ops theater has intensified, which
tells several departments of the empire that the game can get a little harsher, and they can
get away with it. It doesn't hurt that increased violence and aggravation on the region will
raise the price of oil, which fits US thinking. In fact, with Bolton accusing Iran of trying
to raise the price of oil, we now know with virtual certainty that these words reflect a US
intention somewhere in the mix.
[Sidebar: Funny how they never dropped that old propaganda thing of accusing the target of
your own actions before the target can accuse you of this act. I suspect this is an ancient
ploy of evildoers - when you can't seize the moral high ground because you have no place
there, then you must steal the moral high ground. Plunder and occupation by another
name.]
The warning to Japan to hold steady to its western mission is very plausible. And anything
that happens can be blamed on Iran anyway - the perfect patsy for all kinds of mayhem. And
still Israel would like to provoke the US military into a suicidal attack on Iran.
So, several incentives for several players, several actions, and more to come, all under
the virtual fog of virtual war.
The US has claimed that the tanker attacks showed "a level of sophistication implicating a
nation, not a random terrorist". Again this is pure bullshit and propaganda from the Trump
bunch. I recall the attack on the guided missile carrier, USS Cole in which the ship was
damaged and a number of sailors were killed. The USS Cole was attacked successfully by a
small fiberglass boat loaded with C4. Successful yet hardly "sophisticated". The US has been
selling limpet mines and other armaments to every whack job group and country for decades.
That a few of these made it onto a small boat and were delivered to the tankers is hardly
surprising and does not require any sophistication at all. So once again, we have deception,
lies, and war mongering coming out of the Blight House and its Trumpian orifices.
I am guessing those Iranian mine removers accidentally left passport behind?
Or was flag on boat and Iranian Guard uniforms were give-away.
Thank goodness for the I/C - you can never have enough intelligence (or war).
This is my first time commenting in this blog. With all due respect to the writer and the
quality of his journalism, sometimes it is easy to miss the distinction between causality
versus correlation between events.
We tend to find patterns where they might not exist. From Iranian perspective, it was the
first time they were being sanctioned for petrochemical materials versus raw oil. Not a fan
of any government, but I believe true journalism should stay away from any judgment or
speculation.
Thanks for all the great articles and analyses.
"flying objects" = drones?
...from JapanToday Operator of tanker says sailors saw 'flying objects' just before attack
The Japanese operator ship operator of one of two oil tankers attacked near the Strait of
Hormuz on Thursday said that sailors on board its vessel, the Kokuka Courageous, saw
"flying objects" just before the attack, suggesting the tanker wasn't damaged by mines.
That account contradicts what the U.S. military has said as it released a video it says
shows Iranian forces removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the two ships in the
suspected attack.
Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo, Yutaka Katada, president of Kokuka Sangyo Co, said
he believes the flying objects seen by the sailors could be bullets, and denied possibility
of mines or torpedoes because the damages were above the ship's waterline. He called
reports of mine attack "false." . .
here
The two tanker vessels attacked Thursday are adrift in the Gulf of Oman today as the U.S.
military is directing everyone's attention to a newly released, low-resolution video that
allegedly shows a group of people in a watercraft removing an unexploded mine from the
damaged hull of the M/T Kokuka Courageous in broad daylight and in clear view of the U.S.
Navy's guided-missile destroyer, USS Bainbridge.
U.S. Central Command claims the small watercraft in the video belongs to Iran's
Revolutionary Guard Corps: "an IRGC Gashti Class patrol boat," according to one of two
evening statements by CENTCOM officials.
Worth noting: The boat's clear and distinct connection to Iran or the IRGC, however, is not
evident in the video itself. Nor is it clear from the video (1) where the boat came from,
(2) who the occupants were, (3) whether what was allegedly removed was in fact a limpet
mine (as the OSINT folks at Bellingcat pointed out this morning), or (4) where the boat
went to after its occupants concluded their activity from the side of the Courageous. . .
here
comment from craig murray poster spencer eagle- "There's one glaring thing wrong about
that US video of Iranians allegedly removing a limpet mine from that tanker, too many
spectators. Even if they did plant the mine, no crew in their right minds would gather round
as their colleague made safe a live mine from a bobbing boat."
from LongWarJournal Yemen's Houthis target Saudi airports
Over the span of 24 hours, Yemen's Houthi insurgent movement has twice targeted the Abha
international airport with missiles and suicide drones.
At least 26 people were wounded on Wednesday after the Houthis launched a cruise missile at
the Abha airport. Video of the bombing released by Saudi Arabia shows the moment the
missile struck the airport. The use of a cruise missile on a civilian infrastructure
represents a major shift in the war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi insurgents.
Speaking to the Houthi-ran Al Masirah News, an official spokesman said that the strike came
in response to Saudi aggression in Yemen and civilians should avoid "vital and military
areas as they have become legitimate targets to us." . . here
I've just seen the Navy video. I've got some problems with the shadows. They seem too long.
The incident has supposedly happened at 4 pm local time. The location is almost exactly
situated on the Tropic of Cancer, i.e now, Mid June, the sun creates almost vertically
shadows at midday. At 4 pm, the angle should still be 60 degree or so. Correspondingly the
shadows should still be very short. The shadows in the video to me appear to be created by a
30 degree sun angle at most. This is of course only a preliminary estimation.
Bottom line: The video doesn't match the supposed time and location of the incidence.
Also lacking any resolution is what can the US do next, since its options are severely
limited.
IMO Iran has the US by the short hairs. In fact Iran may provide an encore,just to rub it
in.
After hundred of sanctions on Iran, Trump is now faced with a tough decision.
1- Order military attacks on Iran and start a tit for tat escalation that would to a disaster
in the region and hampers Trump re-election
2 Attack Iran's so called proxies: Hezbollah, Houthis, Syria then regional allies of the USA,
ie the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel will get more of these 'mini attacks' that will disrupt
oil supplies and Israel security. These attacks will show the world that Trump's big talk and
economical sanctions are totally ineffective
I think that while Iran may not be responsible for the attacks in the Oman Gulf, I am sure
that they condone them without hesitation. Who ever is doing it intentionaly or not is giving
to Iran a posture that Trump will have to match.
That is why Trump's only choice other than war is to fire Bolton and scapegoat him at the
risk of losing the Israeli lobby and the neocons support for his re election.
Yet if he wants to keep the Israeli lobbies support, Trump will need to have Netanyahu
re-elected..
That is his only choice
Already foreign medias are demonizing Bolton as a prelude to his firing
Is John Bolton the most dangerous man in the world?
Intersting that the boarding crew on one of the boat were russians, also a puzzle?
Don Bacon
US could of course do anything they want, as they have in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,
Pakistan - you name it.
Next thing could be an explosion on a military US frigate or something similar. We all know
who would be blamed and call for US attacks would be real simple.
from CDR Salamander
Let's break that in to little bits.
1. No USA ships are involved.
2. No USA citizens are involved.
3. No USA territory or waters are involved.
4. All cargo was headed to Asia.
. . .This. Is. Not. Our. Problem.
What is Norway doing? Japan? They are both our allies, but they have the lead on this - not
us.
Who really benefits from this? It isn't Iran. It certainly is not the USA.
Everyone needs to take a powder and take a step back.
This talk of military action this soon is insanity. This is irresponsible. . . here
If drone-delivered: the mines would be heavy so a long-range drone would be needed. However,
if the drone took off from a near-by ship then then a less complex drone could be used. But a
small ship lacks space for a runway. It would need some sort of launcher/catapult. Oh, here's one .
What is needed now is information what really happend - I dont see any info on what was
actually happend but people that call for war.
Was it a mine? Missile? Torped? Grenade? Lets say it was a type of missile that was produced
by nation X, who fired it?
Who/what was put there?
Was it an exercise that these ships accidently moved in to? - Was it an accident?
Relates to security of transport through the straight.
If Iran were in fact responsible, would make me question their sanity.
Barring that they are insane, I cannot see how it could be Iran, could be anybody except
Iran.
To state the obvious: Look at motive and opportunity.
If Trump were not insane/idiot, he might suggest that there are many with possible motive and
that it should be carefully investigated before action or even comment is made - more babies
from incubators and dead ducks. How stupid is Trump really.
"Our crew said that the ship was attacked by a flying object," Mr. Katada said of the
incident on Thursday.
What kind of flying object? Apparently it is as of yet unidentified.
In other words, the NYT is reporting that the operator of the ship is claiming that the
ship was hit by a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object.) Whoo, Whoo!
Iran tightens the screws....
from TehranTimes B-Team launching 'sabotage diplomacy' against Iran, Zarif warns
TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday accused Washington
of jumping "to make allegations against Iran without a shred of factual or circumstantial
evidence" as two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday. . . here
The propaganda war has already been won by the US, it is Iran Iran Iran and the MSM and even
some people here talk about Iran having or might have some culpability. Meanwhile NO ONE
could show any evidence or reason for the argument.
Think about that, how easily desinformation works and how illogical it really is.
Murray makes good points--as usual. The bit out the Norwegian tanker's owners having a
history of cooperation with the Iranian government is interesting.
@mk 254
The timeline in the CENTCOM release is interesting, claiming that the alleged IRGC craft
arrived at the Japanese ship around 0800 but didn't take the "limpet mine" or whatever it was
until 1600. If the boat were IRGC and was trying to remove evidence--a command-detonated
explosive that failed to explode?--you'd think they would do it immediately. Also, I can't
tell what kind of video the released clip is--EO or IR? It doesn't look like EO taken in
daylight.
The american admiral in charge is fanatically anti-iranian:
It is important to realize that Chief of Naval O[erations Admiral John Richardson, a
creature of former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, is taking the lead in this
warmongering against Iran.
He and Carter were opposed to the nuclear agreement that the Obama administration worked
out with Tehran, and are now working to deneuclarize the Iranian regime.
Richardson had the Navy look allegedly for those two sunk subs found soon after they
disappeared, the USS Scorpion and Thresther, when they were actually looking for the USS
Batfish and Puffer which were sunk in 1982 in the Anglo-American War against Sweden soon
after Ricgardson joined the submarine corps.
He is a full blown warmonger against America's alleged enemies.
I am surprised to see some posters and Bevin proposing that maybe it was Iran, at this
point.
Seems premature. Though it is possible, barring substantial evidence, it would be my starting
point that that is the least likely scenario.
And the jump to conclusion (as by Trump et al) suggests bias or motive.
Distance to target would be reduced by heavy mines but using multiple drones would help
with that problem.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
It's not just the drone tech that's important. If you're going to do a 'op' like this
where you want guaranteed non-attribution, then you've got to have the tech well tested and
very reliable. A drone failure or mission foul-up could be devastating.
So, its not an off-the shelf drone and it's a hand-picked crew that has been trained on
such a mission over months and it's "off the books" and it's carried out by an organization
that can ensure secrecy (implying intelligence organization). Thus, a "state actor".
I think that concluding now that Iran didn't do it is a mistake.
> We don't know who did it.
> Tehran clearly indicated it had enough of the US aggressive baseless sanctions, and
would do something.
> Tehran is controlling the discourse ("lack of evidence," etc).
> US (AKA world-power) choices are extremely limited; Iran's aren't.
Virgil suggests above that Trump's only choices to deal with this incident is to start a
war or fire Bolton. He goes onto suggest if Trump fired Bolton he'd lose the neocon vote and
Israel's support.
WRONG. Please go to conservative sites. Any of them. During the primaries and campaign.
Read and learn for yourself what the conservative voter was demanding of the nominee in
comment sections. Please. Folks make these declarations that are not true. Trump voters do
not want war. Trump voters do not want regime changes. And Trump voters are as suspicious if
not more so of Bolton than many here are.
Neocons aka Never Trumpers after the campaign took their toys and left the right side of
the aisle. They embraced their kissing cousins the neo libs who own the Dem Party.
Conservatives loathe the neocons. The neocons loathe conservatives.
Only warmongers and its profiteers want war - NeoCons and NeoLibs. The rest of us
Americans - right, left, middle, indy, green whatever DO NOT WANT WAR WITH ANY DAMNED
BODY.
@ Zanon 269 The american admiral in charge is fanatically anti-iranian:
The CNO has no authority over naval operations, that takes place in the combat commands,
CENTCOM (Tampa) in this case.
Johstone linked @ 276
". . .the US has been provoking Iran with extremely aggressive and steadily tightening
sanctions, which means that even if Tehran is behind the attacks, it would not be the
aggressor and the attacks would most certainly not have been "unprovoked". Economic sanctions
are an act of war; if China were to do to America's economy what America is doing to Iran's,
the US would be in a hot war with China immediately. It could technically be possible that
Iran is pushing back on US aggressions and provocations, albeit in a strange and
neoconservatively convenient fashion."
Excellent comment.
But neocons and zionists are taking over the Trump agenda.
Trump supporters are becoming confused about what they support - they support Trump so they
are increasingly defending this ziocon crap.
But your point is I think very excellent, the public (and Trumps original supporters in
particular) does not want war (with the exception of some religious kooks, perhaps).
Neocons aren't solely responsible for anything, but depended upon support form "liberals" AKA
neo-libs for the various mistaken wars. That includes people like: Gore, Biden, Obama, and
the Clintons.
Trump is anti-establishment for the most part so that is a good thing, in regard to Russia
for one specific thing, but nothing in life is perfect.
I would remind everyone that the greatest pressure against US+allies strategy of economic
strangulation of Iran and Syria is the current operation to retake Idlib.
Yesterday's attacks against shipping will almost certainly be used as an excuse to
increase US troop levels and/or act belligerently in defense of their "interests" such as
retaining Idlib.
From SST (see link provided by james @245):
As for what the US might do about it, the New York Times reports that yesterday morning,
after the news of the attack began to break, there was a previously scheduled meeting in
"the Tank" at the Pentagon, involving Shanahan, Dunford and other top officials to discuss
threats in the Middle East and US troop levels. The Times reports that weeks prior
Centcom chief Gen. McKenzie had actually asked for 20,000 troops but that Dunford expressed
the fear that if that many were ordered to the Gulf, it would be provocative "and perhaps a
sign that, despite denials, the Trump administration's real goal was regime
change."[Note: 1,500 troops were reported to have been approved]Prior
to yesterday's meeting Shanahan and Dunford were ready to make the case that Mr. Trump had
told the Pentagon to reduce American forces and United States involvement in the current
wars in the Middle East, and avoid direct confrontation with Iran ...
Now Tehran has the option to say to the US: Drop those thirteen demands and we'll talk.
It has other options also, now that the air has been cleared a bit.
Khamenei will have to approve whatever it is, and he's a realist
https://www.bs-shipmanagement.com/en/media/emergency-response
14 June 2019
Media Statement
"Update - Kokuka Courageous incident – Gulf of Oman
The Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM) managed product carrier Kokuka Courageous is now
safely undertow in the Gulf of Oman heading towards Kalba Anchorage, UAE....
...The vessel was about 70 nautical miles from Fujairah and about 16 nautical miles from
the coast of Iran
BSM is actively monitoring the situation in the Gulf of Oman and will issue another statement
when we have further details."
....
A search of the internet brings up no photos whatsoever of this ship under tow or at any
time after it was attacked... apart from the microsoft paint job. I guess the damage does not
match the US narrative.
Seriously, a drone attaching a limpet mine?! Please use your brains before proposing
something that ludicrous!
Why not look at what occurred in the Brent Oil Market for drones instead. This chart
shows trading volume and price before and after event. What you see is a massive shorting
followed by covering, followed by another short play, then further covering. Some entity(ies)
made a lot of money with their prior knowledge of the event. The tankers didn't need to be
sunk to drive that play; just a little Flare to provide visibility. How do I know what's
depicted by the chart is shorting followed by covering? I've seen such behavior a great
number of times before, particularly in the run-up to the massive financial takedown in
2007-8 when many mortgage writing firms were shorted massively so they could be bought-up for
next to nothing. Such behavior has CIA/Mossad stamped all over it, which is what I thought to
begin with.
Well, Iran did do it. You know they did it, because you saw the boat, I guess one of the
mines didn't explode and it's probably got, essentially, Iran written all over it," he
said. "And you saw the boat at night trying to take the mine off , and successfully
took the mine off the boat and that was exposed. And that was their boat, that was them.
And they didn't want the evidence left behind.
Trump:
While Trump added that Iran must not have known the U.S. has nighttime surveillance
capabilities , a timeline from U.S. Central Command accompanying the video's release
indicates the apparent mine removal happened in broad daylight , which would make
the operation even more brazen."
Hmmmm........
These attacks could have only been the work of a sophisticated nation state actor.
Specifically a sophisticated nation state actor that does not know that the US has "nighttime
surveillance capabilities".
@ Zanon 284 Trump has been as bad on Russia as the "establishment"
Not by choice, I believe, and the US president is not a total dictator. Often he must do what
he's told, especially when the establishment (especially the "intelligence" community) is out
to get him, and they don't take prisoners.
@ karlof 288 Seriously, a drone attaching a limpet mine?! Please use your brains ..
Where did you read that?
A reference would be helpful.
Or are you kidding. Must be. So say so?
The US has not only lost the narrative, it has royally screwed the pooch, getting in deeper
and deeper with its falsehoods. Can a laughing-stock rule the world?
I agree. Trump can only do this election wise if it is a quick campaign that lets him
claim victory fast and does not involve dying US soldiers.
As is, there is a huge problem already for the US to leave Afghanistan.
Saudi might have been crazy enough to do it as they need serious help with the
Houthis.
I doubt Israel is interested in a war that might get them into Hezbollah's crosshairs.
I don't think, by the way, that economic problems from the sanctions are forcing Iran, as
there is this
Chinese - Pakistan - Iran sea route. There is also a
connection to Russia via the Caspian . And I don't doubt they have good relations to the
-stans.
They simply own one of the most strategic places the world has to offer. With mountains .
"... Surprisingly, Crowdstrike's CEO – George Kurtz – does not have a background in the national intelligence services, or none that is immediately apparent. He seems to have worked mostly in private security, having gotten into it fairly early on, and is an accountant by trade; he seems to be the public face of the firm, and to be mostly involved in marketing. ..."
"... However, their president of services, Shawn Henry, is a former executive assistant director of the FBI, and I imagine its employees include quite a few former government spooks and ideologues. ..."
"... The other co-founder, though, is Dmitry Alperovitch. ..."
"... He's a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, a direct adviser to the US Department of Defense, connected to Hillary Clinton and runs a new corporation whose startup cash came from Google. There's something even bigger than Google – corporations now seem more and more to be merging into what are essentially mini-states within the state itself – and it is called Alphabet Capital, Google's parent company. The Chairman of Alphabet Capital is Eric Schmidt, and he was actively working for Hillary Clinton during the last election when she spectacularly failed to make the cut. ..."
"... Google, allegedly, is becoming more and more an arm of the Democratic Party in the USA. ..."
"... Wheels within wheels, and connections seen and unseen. Several security professionals and software developers have alluded to Crowdstrike's reports on international hacking as being full of shit – but the American enforcement and intelligence services seem content to outsource their cyber work more or less exclusively to Crowdstrike. And the results of its IPO suggest high confidence on the part of investors that it is going to become ever-more-closely allied to the US government, font of government grants and funding which can be hard to trace. ..."
"... For what it's worth, the Crowdstrike story that Russian cyber-meddling had knocked out 80% of Ukrainian artillery systems was deemed bogus by several other sources, including the Ukrainian Army. At its most basic, artillery systems are large ballistic rifles that drop artillery shells on a predetermined position by looking the reference up on a gridded map and inputting corrections for elevation and azimuth; there is nothing computer-connected about them. Somewhere near the nearest elevated position in relation to the target there is a spotter, who notes the fall of shot and calls the corrections; "left two, up fifty", or "in line, on for range; fire for effect". The latter would be followed by a barrage on what the spotter had identified as a direct hit by the spotting rounds. ..."
Well, well; look at that. Our old acquaintance Crowdstrike has gone public, and in its IPO
debut, the stock surged to a market cap of over $12 Billion – worth nearly as much as
Symantec, which has been around for nearly 40 years. Up 83% in a single day. Gee; I wonder
who's buying in? I guess we can look forward to more whispering about Russian cybercrime and
internet invasion in the days to come. Stealing elections, even, maybe, hmmm?
Surprisingly, Crowdstrike's CEO – George Kurtz – does not have a background in
the national intelligence services, or none that is immediately apparent. He seems to have
worked mostly in private security, having gotten into it fairly early on, and is an
accountant by trade; he seems to be the public face of the firm, and to be mostly involved in
marketing.
However, their president of services, Shawn Henry, is a former executive assistant
director of the FBI, and I imagine its employees include quite a few former government spooks
and ideologues.
He's a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, a direct adviser to the US
Department of Defense, connected to Hillary Clinton and runs a new corporation whose startup
cash came from Google. There's something even bigger than Google – corporations now
seem more and more to be merging into what are essentially mini-states within the state
itself – and it is called Alphabet Capital, Google's parent company. The Chairman of
Alphabet Capital is Eric Schmidt, and he was actively working for Hillary Clinton during the
last election when she spectacularly failed to make the cut.
Google, allegedly, is becoming more and more an arm of the Democratic Party in the
USA.
There is also another gap in play: The shrinking distance between Google and the
Democratic Party. Former Google executive Stephanie Hannon is the Clinton campaign's chief
technology officer, and a host of ex-Googlers are currently employed as high-ranking
technical staff at the Obama White House. Schmidt, for his part, is one of the most powerful
donors in the Democratic Party -- and his influence does not stem only from his wealth,
estimated by Forbes at more than $10 billion.
Wheels within wheels, and connections seen and unseen. Several security professionals and
software developers have alluded to Crowdstrike's reports on international hacking as being
full of shit – but the American enforcement and intelligence services seem content to
outsource their cyber work more or less exclusively to Crowdstrike. And the results of its
IPO suggest high confidence on the part of investors that it is going to become
ever-more-closely allied to the US government, font of government grants and funding which
can be hard to trace.
For what it's worth, the Crowdstrike story that Russian cyber-meddling had knocked out 80%
of Ukrainian artillery systems was deemed bogus by several other sources, including the
Ukrainian Army. At its most basic, artillery systems are large ballistic rifles that drop
artillery shells on a predetermined position by looking the reference up on a gridded map and
inputting corrections for elevation and azimuth; there is nothing computer-connected about
them. Somewhere near the nearest elevated position in relation to the target there is a
spotter, who notes the fall of shot and calls the corrections; "left two, up fifty", or "in
line, on for range; fire for effect". The latter would be followed by a barrage on what the
spotter had identified as a direct hit by the spotting rounds.
and mention of Kaspersky reminded me the US government had used 'advice' from its security
experts to determine Kaspersky products constituted a threat to US national security just
like Huawei, a connection I have not seen made yet elsewhere.
Mmmm .I wonder if Crowdstrike
is not being set up specifically to provide the US government with substantiation for banning
technical products which have the potential to achieve dominant market share, but cannot be
manipulated by Washington because they are owned by non-aligned countries?
"... Except for Afghanistan, the "Arc of Crisis" hasn't been all that successful as far as creating instability to Russia's south, and it hasn't been all that successful in promoting Anglo-American hegemony either. However, it has been wildly successful in perpetuating the "arc of instability" that justifies US military spending, so the MIC is quite well satisfied with the policies whether the broader interests and security of the British and American people are served well by the policy or not. ..."
"... Interesting to note that Daesh only ever appear to be attacking the traditional enemies of the Zionist. ..."
"... Daesh are like another Gladio, but on steroids. ..."
Yes. Originally, creation of the "Arc of Crisis" was proposed by Bernard Lewis as a means to divide and rule, which has always
been the British Empire's mody operandi , and Zbigniew Brzezinski wanted to create an "Arc of Crisis" all along the southern
border of the USSR and later, Russia.
Except for Afghanistan, the "Arc of Crisis" hasn't been all that successful as far as creating instability to Russia's south,
and it hasn't been all that successful in promoting Anglo-American hegemony either. However, it has been wildly successful in
perpetuating the "arc of instability" that justifies US military spending, so the MIC is quite well satisfied with the policies
whether the broader interests and security of the British and American people are served well by the policy or not.
There are many different aspects to this, like from the moment that large numbers of prisoners on death row in S.A. were given
the ultimatum for joining the FSA or decline and face certain execution.
Too often regions are deliberately being exploited by greedy individuals and mixed into politics.
Interesting to note that Daesh only ever appear to be attacking the traditional enemies of the Zionist.
The Tax Justice Network, organized in 2003 to fight offshore tax evasion and corruption,
has censored a podcast its founding director recorded when I spoke at the Offshore Alert
Conference in November in London. I didn't write about this before now, because I though the
TJN leaders might change their minds. But it turns out they are either cowardly or
corrupt.
####
Browder's tentacles run far, but only as far as his backers allow him, which leads me to
ask 'what would it take for them to drop him'? Browder has a shelf-life and at some point he
will be surplus to requirement .
That's a very sad story. You can really only take on someone like Browder when you have
nothing to lose – it seems that as soon as you attract interest at an organizational
level, it turns out that organization is afraid of losing its funding, and bows to the power
which threatens to take it away. Note that he was not able to intimidate Nekrasov into not
making his film, but he was able to browbeat theatres into not showing it.
Sooner or later it will all come crashing down for Browder. But The USA will protect him
until they have something to replace the Magnitsky Act so they can continue to legally
discriminate against Russia. If Browder goes down, the act he worked so hard to get on the
books will be revealed as partisan bullshit, and nobody in the west wants that.
Despite
the deep schism that separates America's deranged political duopoly, they do share a common
foreign policy pet project, and that is to prevent Russia from ever shining again on the global
stage in all fields of endeavor.
One of Donald Trump's main pledges on the 2016 campaign trail was to rekindle the dying
embers of US-Russia relations, which had been undergoing a mini Ice Age under Barack Obama, his
ballyhooed 'reset' notwithstanding. But before Trump was ever put to the test of romancing
Russia, he was sidelined by one of the most malicious political stunts of the modern age.
It is only necessary to recall the 2016 Winter of Our Discontent when the Democratic leader
sent
35 Russian diplomats and their families packing just before New Year's Eve in retaliation for
Russia's alleged involvement in hacking the Democratic National Committee's computers. Before
Trump ascended the throne, those unfounded claims lit the fuse on 'Russiagate,' the debacle
which continues to undermine not just US-Russia relations, but the entire US political
system.
Yet would things have turned out any differently between Washington and Moscow had the
Democrats graciously accepted defeat in 2016 without feeling the need to blame remote Russia? I
am not sure.
Today, observers reason that
the US Republicans have no choice but to 'get tough' on Russia in an effort to dispel
Democrat-generated rumors of excessive coziness with the Kremlin. Last year, for example, Trump
bested Obama on the Russia front when he expelled 60 Russian diplomats in response to an
alleged assassination attempt on former British spy, Sergey Skripal; an astonishing move on the
part of the US conservative, but with so much riding on the line was it really a surprise?
And what was it exactly that was 'riding on the line'? Aside from good relations between the
world's two premier nuclear powers, not to mention thwarting nuclear Armageddon as Prime
Minister Theresa May very unwisely
issued an ultimatum to Russia over the matter, there is the question of hundreds of
billions of dollars of business contracts – from gas supplies to military hardware.
Tycoon Trump would sooner win over European gas supplies than the plains of Central Asia, for
example, the geopolitical lynchpin so dear to the hearts of US policymakers, like the late
Zbigniew Brzezinski. This is where so many people misread Donald Trump: His heart and mind is
devoted to the business deals, not the military steals. But that doesn't necessarily make his
moves are any less dangerous.
From President Trump's perspective, Russia is a 500-pound cigar-chomping guy at the
negotiating table with an ego and stature equal to his own that must be vanquished lest The
Deal be lost and he – Donald J. Trump, CEO and Founder of The Trump Organization –
look like a second-rate negotiator and fraud. Similar to the methods a belligerent globalist,
Trump the inveterate businessman will do anything to achieve leverage in the pursuit of
profit.
This is where Trump was only too happy to oblige the British with their extremely suspect
Skripal story because vilifying the Russians, once again, would give the US an upper hand in
stealing business away from Moscow, most notably in the realm of European gas supplies.
Presently, the Trump administration is trying hard to halt progress on Nord Stream 2, an
ambitious 11 billion euro ($12.4 billion) project to construct a gas pipeline under the Baltic
Sea from Russia to Germany.
Speaking from Kiev this week, US Energy Secretary Rick Perry
said Washington, once again endorsing the spirit of free competition and enterprise, was
preparing to introduce sanctions on foreign companies involved in the project.
But that's just the beginning.
To show how low the Americans would stoop to get a piece of this lucrative European market,
which the Russian's have been dutifully supplying for many decades, they've gone for some
dramatic
rebranding , calling LNG supplies "freedom gas." You know, the byproduct of 'freedom
fries.'
"Increasing export capacity from the Freeport LNG project is critical to spreading freedom
gas throughout the world by giving America's allies a diverse and affordable source of clean
energy," said US Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes.
Dmitry Peskov, official spokesman of the Russian president, scoffed at such cynical attempts
by Washington to strong-arm nations into accepting its preferred version of the 'free
market.'
"Instead of fair competition they prefer to act like in Wild West times," Peskov told RT's
Sophie Shevardnadze ahead of the St.
Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). "They just show the gun and say that no,
you guys here in Europe, you are going to buy our natural gas and we don't care that it is at
least 30% more expensive than the gas coming from the Russians. This is the case."
Perhaps nowhere else is this effort to 'control the market' more evident than in the realm
of military spending, and particularly among NATO states. Currently, European countries spend
some $240 billion annually on military weapons and forces, while Russia spends just $66 billion
each year. Yet for businessmen like Trump, that is not good enough. Employing the vacuous claim
of an 'aggressive Russia,' Trump is passing around the proverbial hat, demanding
that NATO members contribute an ever-higher amount of their GDP to military spending. At the
same, the eastern border with Russia has become militarized like never before.
Here there is striking convergence on the part of the Democrats and Republicans when it
comes to Russia. The Democrats under Barack Obama, accepting the baton passed to them by the
Bush administration, dropped a US-made missile
defense system in Romania, a stone's throw from the Russian border. Obama's assurances that the
Russians would be allowed to participate in the project were casually forgotten. But the
Russians, who know a thing or two about military strategy, did not forget. Last year, Vladimir
Putin unveiled a number of
daunting military breakthroughs, including hypersonic weapons, which the Russian leader
explained were developed with the sole purpose of striking a strategic balance between the two
nuclear superpowers. And if the world needs more of anything these days, it is certainly
balance.
With such ploys in mind, it is easy to see why Moscow has little cause for celebration with
either a Democrat or Republican in the White House. Both political parties have long viewed
Russia not as a potential partner that could lend tremendous assistance in resolving some of
the planet's most intractable problems, but rather as some Cold War foe that needs vilified and
vanquished. Of course there is good reason for this decades-long duplicity. The double-pronged
attack by the Democrats and Republicans allows Washington to continue to make strategic inroads
against Russia, as well as China, while filling the corporate coffers at the same time. It is
an age-old strategy – albeit a foolhardy one in an age of nuclear weapons – which
is doomed to ultimate failure, if not disaster, if left unchecked. The views of individual
contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation. Tags:
NATOPerryRussiaTrumpUS
He made a fortune in the chaotic world of 1990s Russian capitalism, then took a place at
the heart of the British establishment
Striding the halls of an English stately home, dressed in full costume as Victorian
prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, Len Blavatnik was celebrating his 60th birthday.
Grammy-winner Bruno Mars sang. Guests -- some in frock coats, others dressed as Leo Tolstoy,
Rasputin or Chinese emissaries -- mixed with rock stars, celebrities and business
tycoons.
Themed as an imaginary conference chaired by Disraeli, the June 2017 party was
emblematic of Blavatnik's extraordinary rise from his birth in Soviet Ukraine to one of the
UK's richest people
####
A lot more at the link.
So why did Abramovic get the bum rush? He's kept his head down, not made waves, behaved
himself and spent a lot of money in the UK (Chelsea FC) which the above FT article sniffs at
as unworthy (snobs), but the Brit government still stiffed his visa and he hasn't been back
to the UK even though he now also has I-sraeli citizenship that affords him visa-free entry
to the UK. Is it because the UK and others need some oligarchs on the side just in case their
dream comes true and they need to parachute in some reliable Russians? That wouldn't
surprise me. Government in waiting. Maybe Abramovic said "No." Wrong answer.
Леонид
Валентинович
Блаватник (Сэр
Леонард
Блаватник;
англ. Sir Leonard Blavatnik или Len Blavatnik;
род. 14 июня 1957,
Одесса --
американский и
британский
предприниматель
и промышленник
еврейского
происхождения.
В 2015 году
возглавил
список
богатейших
людей
Великобритании
Russian Wiki
Leonid Valentinovich Blavatnik (Sir Leonard Blavatnik or Len Blavatnik); born 14 June
1957, Odessa – American and British entrepreneur and industrialist of Jewish ancestry.
In 2015, headed a list of the richest people in Great Britain
The security service is accused of breaking the law and documents state the "the task [of
complying with it] was too large".
"The documents show extraordinary and persistent illegality in MI5's operations,
apparently for many years," said civil liberties organisation Liberty, which is bringing the
case.
"The existence of what MI5 itself calls 'ungoverned spaces' in which it holds and uses
large volumes of private data is a serious failure of governance and oversight, especially
when mass collection of data of innocent citizens is concerned."
####
Incompetent? No. Don't give a shit? Yes.
It won't make a blind bit of difference as the security service have broad brush
surveillance powers and the 'National Security' exception behind them. At least they are not
handing over that data to their terrorist sponsoring Gulf brothers Oh, hang on, can't rule
anything out!
By this stage I wonder if all the neighbours aren't all "ex" spooks from hither and yon.
Who else would tolerate the nonsense they've been subjected to without reaching out to their
learned friends? Good luck with putting a house on the market with that circus going on.
Such stringent measures would surely not be taken by HM govt and British security if they had
no evidence that those evil Russians had attempted to kill the Skripals with Novichok.
The whole premise just becomes more and more ridiculous – the house is now completely
shrouded in tarpaulins, the roof has been removed, it has undergone extensive
'decontamination' – all, all of it obviously for show, for the yokels, because for
weeks afterward police personnel guarded the residence while standing just feet away from the
door handle which was supposedly the locus of infection. No chemical-warfare protection
whatsoever was apparent; they didn't even wear gloves unless it was cold.
They might at least have made up some story that the Deadly Door Handle had been replaced,
or even the entire door. Because everyone who went in or out of that house, and there must
have been many, touched that door handle, at least some of them with their bare hand. And
what ever became of the intrepid detective, Nick what's-his-name? Wasn't the state going to
buy his home as well, even though he had scarcely been in it and had gone more or less
straight to the hospital after being 'infected'? Only to make a miraculous and complete
recovery in days, and then drop off the public radar?
Stupidity abounds. Yet the press just can't let it go, and let it mercifully drop out of
sight. It would just be too embarrassing to tacitly admit the British government made it up
from start to finish, the entire operation. If the Skripals actually were poisoned with
something, and not just acting a role for the British government, then that part must have
been HM-government-supplied as well, because nobody who has any experience with police
procedure is going to believe they had a culprit and a complete history of the crime in only
a couple of hours after its discovery, and a foreign state was responsible.
I don't want to be an alarmist but if I had to guess I would say our good friend Officer Nick
is probably partying it up with Sergei, Yulia, and their pets in Hades.
You never know. He sort of dropped out of the public eye, and of all of them he seemed to be
the one whose story would be picked apart first, although all of them were improbable. And
I'm sure many, many were interested in interviewing him and questioning him further.
He was released from hospital with no apparent ill effects more than a year ago, on March
23rd, 2018. According to the Telegraph , here,
he returned to active duty the beginning of 2019, but the story has his Chief confirming
this, it is not Bailey himself. That same story remembers that Dawn Sturgess "fell ill in
Amesbury months after the incident and died in hospital in July after coming into contact
with a perfume bottle believed to have been used in the attack on the Skripals and then
discarded." But the perfume bottle described as having been 'used in the attack on the
Skripals' was brand-new and still in its store packaging, not to any appearance unusual
except for that weird plastic aerator fastened to the bottle. Which, now that I think of it,
was supposed to have been not attached to the bottle at all; Charlie Rowley's tale was that
he broke the bottle trying to get the applicator on it, which is how he was exposed. But he
still gave it to his paramour as a gift, and she was still apparently able to use it to spray
herself.
Anyway, so far as I can make out, DS Nick Bailey returned to duty with his former police
department last winter, and since then not a peep has been heard from him. The Skripals are
still incognito, and Sergei has never been seen again since going into hospital.
Bailey's parents apparently threw a wobbler when the Beeb decided to run a two-part
television drama on the attacks, which would doubtless reinforce and reconfirm the government
line although it is meant to showcase the quiet courage and resourcefulness of 'ordinary
heroes'.
The Mueller Report, recently released, tried its best to imply that there was
collusion even as it stated baldly that the investigation had yielded no evidence of collusion.
But what struck me with the most force was the manner in which the Democrats – and the
entire crowd which has so much invested in having had an illegitimate president foisted upon
them by the Godless Russians – simply shook its head, took a deep breath and went right
on blathering the same lunatic narrative. The Russians interfered with our democracy. Nothing
is safe. Russia is the enemy of democracy, and will not suffer a democracy to live. Get the
kids and pack up enough food for traveling, Mabel; we're headed for the mountains – it's
"Red Dawn", babycakes.
Amazing as it will sound, America has learned nothing.
Part of it, of course, is America's belief in its own omnipotence; if something came out
differently from the way it was planned to come out, then America was tricked. Hoodwinked, by
unscrupulous actors. It cannot be that America is subject to the same vagaries and pressures
and caprices as the rest of the world; America decides, and so it shall be. Part of it is the
diligent pick-and-shovel work that America's political forces do to preserve that illusion;
that America is an unstoppable force, so much more than just a big rich country.
So, the premise endures. Russian trolls, acting on the personal orders of Vladimir Putin,
generated a storm of hateful social-media messages on race relations in America, in a
coordinated strike which included Russian release of Hillary Clinton's personal emails, and
America faltered. It scratched its head in doubt, and Donald Trump slipped past the worthy
– and oh, so wronged – Mrs. Clinton to seize the presidency with his soiled
hands.
Matt Taibbi did
some excellent work on the subject , which I admit grudgingly, as I hoped to get something
out on America's inability to learn from its mistakes before the heavyweights. Taibbi's writing
will make you wonder whether you should laugh or cry, as you wonder how an influential country
could survive the embarrassment of the past couple of years, encapsulated by a journalistic
mantra which holds that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Russia is guilty as
sin, and you can take that to the bank, so the very fact that Mueller will not leak any proof
to us must mean that his findings are so devastating, so jaw-dropping, so "shut up !!"
that they would break the media. The one possibility which was not considered a possibility at
all was that there was nothing, and that the accusations had been fabrication and desperate
damage control from the first.
But the frustrated narrative of Russian collusion is the only component which has been
discredited to the point that Democrats and Russophobes of all political persuasions must admit
there is no happy ending to the promise that Donald Trump was going to be fired so high he
would need to go on oxygen. Mueller – probably deliberately – continued to hint
that Russia had 'meddled' in the 2016 election, and that the effect had been important enough
that democracy is under attack. No longer listening to anyone outside the party-faithful echo
chamber, the Democrats now insist that US
Attorney-General William Barr resign , for 'misleading the American people about collusion
between the Trump campaign and Russia".
"Barr's news conference ultimately did nothing to help Trump, because the public has
eyes. Americans could read the damning evidence of obstruction of justice and communications
with Russians for themselves and make their own judgements."
Democrats continue to try to make up in volume and intensity for the fact that there is no
evidence at all of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, nor of obstruction of
justice by Trump. The Republicans shout that the Democrats are on a senseless witch hunt, that
the report makes clear there was no collusion between Trump and the Russians but are perfectly
happy to agree that Russia meddled in the election. For his part, Mueller is happy to drop
hints that both obstruction and collusion probably took place – he just couldn't find any
proof.
All are loony. Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election at all, at least no further
than Europe did. A
lengthy list of European political leaders and former leaders publicly expressed their
support for Mrs. Clinton's election to the office of President of the United States. In 2008,
just one is recorded as having done so ; Mona Sahlin, leader of Sweden's Social Democrats.
Interestingly, in the same list of endorsements of Mrs. Clinton in 2008 – right after
"Adult Entertainment Artists" – is this one: under "Well-Known Individuals",
"Businessman and television personality, Future Presidential Candidate & Rival for the
United States presidential election 2016, future President of the United States Donald
Trump" .
There's gratitude for you.
The Presidents of Taiwan, Chile, France and Ukraine, the former Presidents of Mexico,
France, Kosovo and Ecuador, the Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic, France, Italy, New
Zealand and Sweden and former Prime Ministers of Sweden, the UK, Canada, Australia and France
all openly expressed their hope that Mrs. Clinton would be elected President of the United
States. None of this was considered meddling. I don't recall any official endorsement from
Russia, although the international English-speaking media helpfully informed us that Putin
hoped Trump would win, because he felt Trump would be more approachable for concessions and
because he disliked Mrs. Clinton. When Trump did win, despite wrong guesses by just
about every political analyst on the planet, it was considered 'additional evidence' that
meddling had taken place, instigated by you-know-who.
Perhaps, in highlighting just how stupid America is making itself look with this painfully
stubborn insistence that Russia rolled it in 2016, it would be useful to take another look at
what American partisans claimed to already know, and could prove as easily as
demonstrating that if you put your hand on a hot stove, you will burn it.
One of my favourite American partisans is the Duchess of Displacement, the Baroness of Bulk,
Molly McKew . We
took a look at her work a long time ago , on the old blog – just before Trump
commenced his term, in fact – or perhaps I should say his first term, since the
barking madness of the political landscape in today's America makes it entirely possible he
will serve a second, unbelievable as that may sound. In that article, we closed out like this;
"Look, we're getting close to the end of this, and it's time for plain speaking. Americans
are confused and don't know fact from fiction because their own government feeds them bullshit
with a side of spin day in, day out, and you're part of it. There was no Russian interference
in the American elections, and you know it." My take on what happened has not changed a
bit.
McKew is still regarded – highly, I should imagine, by her feeble-minded peers –
as an 'information-warfare expert'. Hardly amazing that she sees information-warfare attacks
everywhere. Here's
what she claimed to know about Russian election interference and general friggin' in the
riggin', a little over a year ago. She bases her conclusions on Mueller's Grand Jury
indictment, which was issued more than a year in advance of his report – an indictment in
which Mueller claimed the Defendants (a variety of Russian advertising and research agencies
operating both in Russia and the United States) " knowingly and intentionally conspired with
each other (and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States
by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud
and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes,
including the presidential election of 2016."
You know the old quote about how easy it is to get a Grand Jury to indict someone or
something.
Something McKew claims is now – meaning as of early 2018 – "undeniable" is that
Russia had, and has "a broad, sophisticated system that can influence American opinion, which
cost tens of millions of dollars spent over several years to build." She must be talking about RT ,
although I suggest her cost estimate is a little low. RT, which the west considers a
'propaganda network', cost $30 million to set up, in 2005. Its operating costs now are in the
hundreds of millions annually, although 80% of the costs are incurred outside Russia, paying
for partner networks who distribute its channels.
We kind of have to give her that one, because it is true that RT's coverage is often at odds
with the bullshit du jour that CNN and NBC and FOX are spreading. Bullshit, for example,
like CNN's non-stop
yammering about the collusion that Mueller could find no evidence ever occurred, and said
so. Bullshit like NBC News anchor Brian Williams' recollections about his helicopter being shot
down in Iraq – echoes of Hillary 'sniper fire' Clinton
– ,
which never happened . Williams is not a nobody; he was the nation's longest-serving and
top-rated news anchor.
I submit, however, that the American people are not subjected to RT's 'propaganda and
disinformation' about American propaganda and disinformation against their will; there is a
button on the remote called "On/Off" that will free the American enslaved from malign Kremlin
influence. Alternatively, they can switch to another channel. I would just point out, though,
that if they switch to a popular US news channel, they are very likely to be listening to a
broadcast which has been curated by its corporate owners, and who " are unlikely to report
news that is broadly hostile to corporate capitalism and the American elite ." That's
according to a report entitled
"Corporate Control of the Media" (in the USA), printed in 2009.
Warming to her subject, McKew goes on to claim "The Russian efforts described in the
indictment focused on establishing deep, authenticated, long-term identities for individuals
and groups within specific communities. This was underlaid by the establishment of servers and
VPNs based in the US to mask the location of the individuals involved. US-based email accounts
linked to fake or stolen US identity documents (driver licenses, social security numbers, and
more) were used to back the online identities. These identities were also used to launder
payments through PayPal and cryptocurrency accounts. All of this deception was designed to make
it appear that these activities were being carried out by Americans."
This might be a good point at which to suggest there is every reason to believe 'these
activities' were carried out by Americans. Americans working for national intelligence
agencies.
In March 2017, The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima had an article published which
was entitled "WikiLeaks' latest release of CIA cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency
hacking operations." It detailed, among other things, a cyber tool
called "Marble Framework" . This could be used, it was claimed, to re-assign attribution of
material posted on the internet so that it appeared, for forensic purposes, to have originated
from a different source. Test samples, it was reported, were included in Chinese, Russian,
Korean, Arabic and Farsi.
The report which encouraged President Trump to ask his CIA Director – Mike Pompeo, at
the time, who is currently the National Security Advisor – what he knew about this was
co-authored by Skip Folden, who for 25 years was the IT Program Manager for IBM. I think it is
safe to say he has some credibility in the field of cyber-forensics. The authors of the report
contended that the 'hack' of the DNC's server was not actually a hack at all, but the at-source
copying of data directly from the server using a storage device, probably a thumb drive. The
data transfer rate, the authors claimed, was far too rapid to have occurred over the
internet.
Since then I have seen a couple of 'rebuttals' which claimed that under certain conditions
– like if nobody else was using the internet during that time – such copying from a
remote source was possible. I never saw anything like proof. Like someone demonstrating how it
could be done. Much like the old 'clean pee swap' the completely-discredited McLaren Report
claimed the Russians performed on athletes' urine samples; he claimed to know how it was done,
but never demonstrated it, and appeared to be unable to do so, as it would have strongly
supported his allegations.
Having taken us such an eye-blurring distance on the blarney rollercoaster, Molly at last
falls apart. "So anyone trying to tell you there was little impact on political views from
the tools the Russians used doesn't know. Because none of us knows. No one has looked . Social
media companies don't want us to know, and they obfuscate and drag their feet rather than
disclosing information. The analytical tools to quantify the impact don't readily exist. But we
know what we see, and what we heard -- and the narratives pushed by the Russian information
operation made it to all of our ears and eyes" , she tells us.
So if you saw advertising by Black Lives Matter, or perhaps some other civil-rights
organization, pushing a false narrative that blacks are second-class citizens in their own
country, then you were exposed to Kremlin propaganda. And it affected how you voted, if you're
an American. How much? Nobody knows. What everybody does know, or should, is that Hillary
Clinton won the popular vote, although not the determinate vote in the electoral college
– quite a trick for the Russians to manage.
Let's summarize. Americans were supposedly pushed into voting for Donald Trump by the misuse
of stolen data which was all true. The DNC did conspire to rig the primary so that Clinton was
the Democratic candidate rather than Bernie Sanders; the Chair of the DNC
resigned in disgrace because of the revelations which came to light. Her replacement, Donna
Brazile, admitted to having
fed the primary debate questions to Clinton in advance , giving her an advantage over
Sanders, who was unaware of them as he should have been. At its very core, the Democratic party
is as corrupt as the Nigerian prince who keeps e-mailing me to help him hide his ill-gotten
fortune. American intelligence and technical professionals with no discernible benefit in
making their country look bad insist that no hacking of the DNC's server took place, and that
the stolen information which kicked the Democrats' feet out from under them on the eve of the
election was not hacked, but stolen by direct physical transfer from the server using a
portable storage device. Wikileaks insisted the information it released did not come from the
Russians. The serving American intelligence services at the time of the 2016 election had a
secret program which was capable of mimicking the origin of posted information on social media
so that forensic investigation would find traces of Russian authorship, or other non-American
authorship. The CIA has vigorously denied any involvement whatsoever in various international
events at the time they occurred, only to admit much later – when it would be pointless
to punish it – that they did in fact play an influential role. Data from 2014 established
that at that time, 27% of black Americans lived below the poverty line , compared
with 11% of all Americans; 38% of black children lived in poverty compared with 22% of all
American children. I have seen no compelling evidence that this situation has improved.
According to the perfidious Kremlin mouthpiece RT, citing American sources, American blacks are
incarcerated at a rate six times as high as the
national average .
Molly McKew, the information-warfare goddess, tells us that it is 'undeniable' that Russia
interfered in the 2016 election, by making Americans doubt the integrity of their political
candidates. In the case of the Democrats – which is by no means intended to spare the
Republicans – they were demonstrated by their own repeatedly-verified and admitted
shenanigans to understand 'integrity' about as well as the average crab fisherman understands
how to calculate the mass of the sun. Everything they were accused of doing, they did.
Candidate Hillary Clinton unambiguously lied – as she has done on other occasions –
about the security classification of her 'private' emails and completely fabricated consent of
the State Department for her to maintain a private email server for the sending and receiving
of official message traffic. America does have an uneven scale of justice, law enforcement and
standard of living based on race. There is no proof at all which has so far been made public
that any of those situations were reported, compelled, exacerbated or invented by Russia, or by
anyone from Russia. According to persistent revelations from Kiev, the American Democratic
party energetically sought dirt on candidate Trump from
Ukrainian sources , not Russian. McKew closes her soliloquy on election interference by
maintaining that while it is undeniable that Russian interference occurred, nobody knows the
extent to which it influenced the vote, which resulted in a popular win for the candidate who
lost the election.
Let me posit another reality. Russia played no part at all in the outcome of the 2016
election, although it certainly was a surprise to most. There is no proof even offered that
there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials of any description,
and no proof which could not have been fabricated that any coherent social-media campaign
originating with Russian operatives took place, or that any such imaginary social-media
campaign had anything to do with Trump's victory. The Democrats, by sticking to their
ridiculous and incredible narrative of Russian masterminds warping American democracy, are
setting themselves up for having their headlights sucked out again by the passing Trump
juggernaut in the next election, when they will be totally out of excuses if they do not wake
up and do some serious retrenching.
But we are probably going to have to wait for history to teach that lesson to Americans.
For those who still look in occasionally on what is happening with Nord Stream II, the
Americans are still blustering about killing it with new sanctions targeted against
pipelaying vessels and those who finance them, insure them, and so on. Its typical
dog-in-the-manger pressure is applied with a view to supplying Europe itself, with 'freedom
gas'. That, of course, is not using energy as a weapon – just so we're clear. It's
trying to force Europe to buy higher-priced American gas by using economics as a weapon.
Anyway, Germany is getting pretty fed up with it. Mutti Merkel has let the Americans know
that they are not going to be able to stop the project. She has let it be known that the
project already has European approval 'in principle', and that she is aware this is all about
Ukraine and forcing Russia to continue gas transit through it and supplement its budget with
transit fees. Germany's Ambassador to the United States, Emily Haber, has allegedly been even
more pointed than that.
"In particular, according to Bild, the German Ambassador to the United States, Emily
Haber, has sent a letter to the US Congress urging them to stop threatening Russian companies
PJSC NOVATEK and PJSC Gazprom, operating in Germany, with new sanctions. In her words, such
actions jeopardize the energy security of Germany and of the entire European Union.
In her letter, Emily Haber points out that since countries of the European Union have
adopted amendments to the Gas Directive, the issue of blocking the construction of the Nord
Stream-2 gas pipeline is closed for Europe: "All countries that criticized the Nord Stream-2
approved this document " . Given the situation, the German diplomat described any further
steps that Washington might take in order to hinder the development of the project as
counterproductive and potentially threatening the energy security of the EU."
Gosh; that reminds me – Chinese tariffs on American LNG more than doubled a couple
of weeks ago. As of June 1st, the tariff went from 10% to 25%. Not having much of an effect,
though – Chinese imports of American LNG have only dropped from 1.4 million tons during
the first 4 months of last year to .3 million tons over the same period this year. The
unclaimed LNG must be sold on the open market, and that drives the price down. Price has a
direct effect on American production, and if it goes too low production must be reined
in.
You're doing a great job, Mr. Trump – keep it up! Make America great again!
Astoundingly arrogant, not to mention immature. If Russia produced a study on how to destroy
America, there would be screams of rage at the unmitigated evil which must motivate a
national effort to wreck the economy of another, and cause misery and social collapse for
millions of people who were completely innocent. But only the Exceptional Nation can discuss
it impassively, as if the study were nothing more than a coffee-table book. Because, you
know, it is destined to rule and to triumph over all. So many parallels to Rome, yes, yes.
Americans were blessed with a wonderful, rich and bountiful country. Instead of being
content with it, the repellent US government has set its sights on world domination so as to
draw upon global wealth to increase American personal wealth and influence. It really sees
itself as sitting at the pinnacle of a global empire in which all other countries are either
vassals or resources. And the American people, while you could not really call them
complicit, are mostly sold on the notion that this is their birthright as Americans, and that
anyone who tries to forestall its unfolding in this fashion is trying to upset the natural
order of things. Americans cannot be content with simply having America – they have to
own and control it all. Oddly enough, the very ambition which was attributed to the
Communists.
Appears that wsws anticipated the concerns of you and others:
"The D-Day invasion came out of a protracted struggle between the US and Britain over the
course of the war and the opening of a "second front," which the Soviet Union had called for
over at least the previous two years.
One of the most striking features of the D-Day anniversary commemorations, in both the UK
and France, was the deliberate exclusion of Russia from the events. Whatever the undoubtable
role played by the Normandy invasion in the defeat of the Third Reich in World War II, the
overwhelming sacrifices and impact of the Red Army, which was responsible for 80 percent of
the casualties inflicted upon German forces is undeniable. While the combat deaths of nearly
300,000 US military personnel was staggering, their numbers pale in comparison to the
unfathomable toll of 26 million Soviet dead, military and civilian.
It was the victories of the Red Army -- and behind it the antifascist resistance of the
Soviet masses -- fighting along a front that extended over 1,000 miles, that pushed the US
and Britain to carry out the D-Day invasion and finally open up the second front demanded by
Moscow."
The largest offensive launched during WWII and which ended in a Soviet victory was Operation
Bagration, 23 June to 19 August 1944., in which the Soviet Union deployed 1,670,300 combat
and support personnel, approximately 32,718 artillery pieces and mortars, 5,818 tanks and
assault guns and 7,799 aircraft against the Nazis and, by doing so, inflicted the biggest
defeat in German military history in that the Red Army destroyed 28 out of 34 divisions of
Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German front line, thereby liberating
Belorussia and Polish territory from the invader.
Compare and contrast:
D Day landings, 6 june, 1944
5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers participated in
the landings. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on D-Day,with 875,000 men
disembarking by the end of June.
By July 21, Caen, a major objective for the allies, had still not fallen.
If Bagration had not taken place or had not ended in a decisive victory, the Germans would
have wiped the floor with the allies in Normandy.
The German army never recovered from the crushing defeat that resulted from Bagration. The
materiel and manpower losses sustained during Bagration amounted to almost 25% of German
Eastern Front manpower, exceeding even the percentage of loss at Stalingrad.
These Nazi losses included many experienced soldiers, NCOs and commissioned officers,
which at this stage of the war the Wehrmacht could not replace. An indication of the
completeness of the Soviet victory is that 31 of the 47 German divisional or corps commanders
involved were killed or captured.
In short: a Soviet defeat in the east would have meant either no allied invasion from the
west or, if such an invasion had taken place without the Red Army being victorious in the
east, the Nazis would have made short work of any western allied landings.
With this comment by Rosenberg, the BBC man in Moscow:
Why does Russia see D-Day differently to the West?
Analysis by Steve Rosenberg, BBC News, Moscow
When countries argue about the present, they often disagree about the past, too. Take
D-Day – British Prime Minister Theresa May called it the day that "determined the fate
of generations to come". But Russia's Foreign Ministry sees things rather
differently.
"The Normandy landings did not have a decisive impact on the outcome of World War Two,"
said its spokesperson Maria Zakharova this week. "It was inevitable after the Red Army
victories at Stalingrad and Kursk."
Zakharova is not correct in saying that the allies were defeated in the Ardennes, though
they suffered a temporary reverse there. There was no way, however, that the Ardennes
offensive, the last in the West undertaken by the Nazis, would have resulted in victory for
the Hitlerites.
The allies were defeated at Arnhem though.
A total cock up resulting through poor intelligence work.
"Zakharova is not correct in saying that the allies were defeated in the Ardennes, "
Ahhhh ME..ya' beat me to it. I was just now upon reading her comment going to point
that out!!
General Weather-Blue Skies-enabled the Allies to get their Fighter bombers up and able to
wreak havoc on the SS panzer formations and supply vehicles some of which were stalled on the
roads having run out of petrol.
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/clear-skies-over-bastogne-pattons-prayers-answered/
That implication that Russia might see things differently if it had not been insulted by
Putin's not being invited was unworthy even of such a cheap-shot vehicle as the
state-sponsored BBC. Western re-jigging of historical events to its own benefit and to
assuming unto itself the role of modest hero relies on its readership being unable or
unwilling to comprehend cause and effect. Naturally every citizen everywhere wants to believe
his or her country was brave and resolute, and soldiers of the Allied nations indeed did
fight bravely against the Nazis; it's brave just to show up and keep pressing forward when
you know it is entirely possible and even likely that you will be killed. But there are
plenty of western historical stipulations to the fact that the Soviet Union took the brunt of
the Nazi attack, and was still taking it when the Normandy landings took place; during all
that time, whilst the Allies were dithering and some were making their own pacts with Hitler,
the Russians were getting pounded. Instead, the west and most offensively the British portray
the German campaign against the Soviet Union as a falling-out among thieves, and squeak about
the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact until you can't hear anything else. Wartime leaders among the
allies acknowledged the indispensable nature of the Soviet defense and counterattacks to the
eventual victory. But we have seen a slow airbrushing-out of the entire Soviet role in the
conflict. Which is cheap and unworthy. Once again, and mark my words, if it goers on it will
result in a smug certainty among western leaders that the inheritors of the Soviet mantle are
not really fighters, more sulkers, and would be a pushover in war. A cakewalk, you might say;
everyone will be home in time for supper, done and dusted. And the world will learn to its
grief, if it even survives such a cataclysm, where listening to bullshit led it.
I just had another brief look at the Conclusions in David Glantz's "August Storm" in
which General Winter again played a decisive role in Manchuria. Who can withstand the
General's icy grasp?
Quite a bit of research has confirmed British resistance to opening a second front for the
purpose of keeping Nazi pressure on the Soviet Union if not its outright defeat. Eisenhower
was, in particular, disgusted by the British describing their effort as a betrayal to the
allied war effort. The examples of British treachery are endless.
Top US military leadership to me seemed generally competent in WW II. Their abhorrence
of the nuclear attack on Japan reflected well on their morality and character.
The War Diaries of Allanbrooke (CIGS) are a good read.
The assessment of Stalin by Allanbrooke is worth wading through a load of nonsense
about Mme Chiang Kai Shek &c. And his recollection of Wavell making a poem about "No
Second Front in '43" aboard the flight back from Moscow.
"Their abhorrence of the nuclear attack on Japan reflected well on their morality and
character."
Now THAT.. I didn't know but appears as if you are spot on corrrect:
"Truman was advised not to use the atomic bombs by such figures as Adm. William D.
Leahy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. We know from
Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson's diaries and other documents that the rush to use atomic
bombs quickly, rather than follow other available courses, was intimately connected with the
desire to end the conflict before the Soviet Union entered it on Aug. 15, 1945, and with the
hope that the bomb would help in disputed European negotiations.
.But the central point was probably best put in General Eisenhower's blunt formulation: "It
wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." GAR ALPEROVITZ Washington, Oct. 4, 1988
The writer is author of "Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam."
There have been theories and rumours over the decades that the US exploded the atomic
bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a warning to the Soviet Union, and had little or nothing
to do with Japanese refusal to surrender (itself a lie – the Japanese had been offering
surrender to the US over previous months before August 1945, if they could keep Emperor
Hirohito, and the US flat-out rejected these surrender offers because it would only accept
surrender on the condition that Japan accept a total US makeover of its government including
the abolition of the monarchy which would effectively turn Japan into a US colony) or the
talk about a US invasion of Japan which might result in the deaths of several million US
servicemen.
At the time the Soviets had just declared war on Japan and were busy driving the
Japanese out of Manchuria. The Japanese Army collapsed before the Soviet forces (the Soviets
had better tank technology and Japan mainly relied on its navy rather than its army as its
major attacking and defence force) and it was this that led Japan to formally
surrender.
Updated – My take on the nuclear attack in the order of importance:
– Message to the Soviet Union
– Induce Japan to surrender to the US rather than to the Soviet Union
– Opportunity for a "medical" experiment
– Revenge/racism
That isn't even half of it. These military leaders expected that the nuclear attacks would
be considers as among the most barbaric war crimes of WW II. The NYT, however, was one of the
bigger cheerleaders on the attack. I wonder if the NYT will apologize for its 60 years of
support of a horrific war crime. Wait, what was I thinking? Of course not.
Interestingly, Freeman Dyson claims that it was not the use of the bomb that forced the
surrender of Japan. Instead, he claims that it was the Soviets' declaration of war on Japan
that decided the matter. He discusses this about 10 minutes into this lecture.
There appears to be no sense in further discussion of a possible softening of relations
between Russia and Ukraine; it is evident from recent developments that Zelenskiy is only
Poroshenko Lite, and while he might not have such a penchant for thieving and running
businesses on the side – and might even make an honest effort to tackle domestic issues
like corruption – when it comes to international affairs he is in lockstep with the US
State Department.
Kuh-yiv is once again trying to drag international arbitrators into the situation, and to
get a ruling that Russia is encroaching upon Ukrainian mineral resources and fishing rights
in the Black Sea and 'other waters'. It is a pretty obvious attempt to get an international
ruling on the legality of Russia's claim to territorial waters off Crimea and in the Kerch
Strait. Ukraine and its western backers know very well Russia would not recognize any such
ruling if it were made, but then the United States would get its rule-of-law feathers all
a-ruffle, and we would take another step closer to war.
Zelenskiy has also appointed former Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius to the
supervisory board of the state defence conglomerate Ukroboronprom. So that's the Lithuanians
back in government in Ukraine – can we look forward to Madame Jaresko making a
reprise?
I don't know that Zelenskiy is pursuing a 'Jewish agenda", and I saw no sign of it when he was
just a performer; he did do that skit in leather pants and high heels, but it was pretty funny
and I wouldn't say his public experiences with gender themes constituted a position on gay
rights. Trudeau is obsessed with gay rights and human rights in general, to the extent that he
outsources foreign policy to Chrystia Freeland, and I think we will notice pretty quickly if
Zelenskiy starts acting too much like Trudeau.
I would agree, though, that Zelenskiy shows increasing comfort with being western-advised
and directed. Consequently, I don't expect there will be any change in the enmity between
Ukraine and Russia, although the nationalists seem to be quieter than they were under
Poroshenko. Russia is certainly not going to give back Crimea and step aside while the eastern
republics are forcibly re-integrated, and Zelenskiy claims he will accept nothing less.
The curious part is, Putin already stipulated that Moscow would not object to Ukraine
joining the European Union. Oh, it was a different world then, and Ukraine was not a violent
enemy embroiled in a civil war, of course. This was before the west's full-bore propaganda
onslaught against Russia, when the possibility still existed that the EU and Eurasian Union
could co-exist, trade and do business with one another, to mutual benefit and profit. That
Portuguese prick Barosso shot that possibility dead, and now he has gone on to his earthly
reward as non-executive Chairman of Goldman-Sachs International – another way of saying
he has a job where he can do the crossword puzzle all day and still take home a paycheck that
makes him wonder if he is dreaming. Who says crime doesn't pay? People who are afraid to try
crime; that's who.
Anyway, Putin was cautious, but his words were not ambiguous – if the people of
Ukraine genuinely want to join the EU, Russia, I think, would welcome this. And look where we
are now: thousands of people dead, millions displaced, the Ukrainian economy in the toilet and
new sanctions flying around every day, disrupting global supply chains and shutting off markets
forever. Europe keeps signing on to another extension of sanctions, and Russia could not care
less. Anything it has not already started up a domestic producer for, it has sourced elsewhere,
and those markets are gone – European farmers are hopeful that sanctions will be lifted,
but it will not make any real difference now if they are. European fruit growers and produce
farmers are going to have to get used to the idea that the USA has pissed in their well, and
those markets are not coming back.
I disagree. The Anglo rulers employ the Zionist tribe as needed. Both are equally evil but not
equally influential.
The new kid on the block is Asia; largely untainted by the Anglo world outside of Japan. The
Anglos are a wily bunch and are plotting how to spread their cancer to Asia now that they have
largely destroyed their current hosts. However, as I said before, China may have figured out
how to tame money so the Anglos will have a tough time ahead. Moreover, Russia is finding new
strength in its old values.
"The origins of the conflict must be sought most immediately in the 2011 NATO war in Libya,
which, with the support of right-wing fundamentalist Islamist proxy forces, destroyed the
government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The outcome of this war was the complete destruction of
Libyan society. The country is now run by rival militia groups tied to the imperialist powers,
who have kept the country in a state of civil war for nearly a decade since the NATO
intervention.
Following the destruction of the Gaddafi regime, thousands of fighters poured out of Libya
and across the Sahara, traveling to the Sahel region, including Mali. Various rival militias
declared an independent or Islamic state in northern Mali.
Paris reacted in 2013 by launching a new war to occupy its former colony, one of the poorest
countries in the world, to save the Bamako regime and destroy the northern Mali militias. For
six years now, Paris has sunk deeper into a quagmire in Mali. President Emmanuel Macron has
continued the war, codenamed Operation Barkhane, initiated by Socialist Party (PS) President
François Hollande, involving an occupation force of 4,500 French troops and troops from
five former French colonies in the Sahel: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
As it rapidly moves to re-militarize its foreign policy, Berlin also approved military
operations in support of the French only two months after the initial French invasion. Last
month, the German parliament voted overwhelmingly to extend the military occupation of the
country with 1,100 soldiers until 2020, at a yearly cost of 400 million euros.
These operations have nothing to do with protecting the local population from Islamist
militias, which were armed and funded by US and European intelligence agencies in Libya. They
are aimed at propping up the puppet government in Bamako, suppressing the resistance of the
impoverished rural population and workers to the government, and maintaining their control over
the resource-rich region.
The imperialist intervention in Mali led directly to the growth of ethnic tensions between
the predominantly Muslim Fulani community and the Dogons. There are widespread suspicions of
state involvement in the ethnic conflicts that are now erupting. The Malian government has
utilized the Dogon militia in the French-led war against Islamist militias, which have
recruited disproportionately among the Fulani."
Sounds as if what's needed is a galvanizing 21st Century 'Mahdi' around whom black Africans
could unify to bring about a replay of Dien Bien Phu for the French in Africa. The victory celebration festivities could conclude with a 'Gordon in Khartoum' reenactment
using one of the (volunteer) captured French command officers as the General.
"... The department should also review its relationship with the contractor responsible for the smear campaign, because paying someone to do little more than harass political opponents because they are insufficiently hard-line is a waste of the public's money and serves no legitimate public interest: ..."
"... could it be the smear campaign is a feature and not a bug? And if so could it be a reflection of Pompeo's character and disposition. ..."
"... Take a look at previous secretaries of state - leading American foreign policy - Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton where the U.S. was lead into awful, nation destroying policies and mass deaths. The only recent person at that post that sincerely tried to actually do something for the sake of peace and the actual use of diplomacy was John Kerry, with the deal among the European nations and America and Iran. ..."
"... Terrible human beings they are and foe them it was all fun and games. Obama was too much of a weakling to take firm stands, except of course with the work of Kerry on the Iran deal. Ask yourself: do any of the three, Rice, Hillary or Albright give a damn about human life, including American troops dying? Ah no ..."
"... "Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform the American public and smear American citizens. " ..."
"... It's worse than that. Our "America First" president's State Department hired foreigners to do this, foreigners who belong to a "former" terror gang that used to kill Americans. Hiring foreigners to lie to and smear Americans? There must be laws against it. Laws with serious consequences. ..."
Negar Mortazavi and Borzou Daragahi
report on the response in Congress to the scandal
over State Department funding for the so-called Iran Disinformation Project:
United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign that
has targeted American citizens critical of the administration's hardline Iran policy and
accused critics of being loyal to the Tehran regime.
State Department officials admitted to Congressional staff in a closed-door meeting on
Monday that a project they had funded to counter Iranian propaganda had gone off the rails.
Critics in Washington have gone further, saying that the programme resembled the type of
troll farms used by autocratic regimes abroad.
"It's completely unacceptable that American taxpayer dollars supported a project that
attacked Americans and others who are critical of the Trump administration's policy of
escalation and conflict with Iran," a senior Congressional aide told The Independent, on
condition of anonymity.
The State Department's
Global Engagement Center erred from the beginning by entrusting the effort to counter
Iranian regime propaganda to an outside contractor with such hard-line views. There was clearly
a failure to supervise what the contractor was doing with the funding provided by the
department, and the result was outsourcing the department's work to self-serving ideologues.
Had it not been for the public outcry and investigations by several of the people being
targeted by this department-funded operation, the department might not have realized what was
being done with its own resources until much later and it might not have acknowledged the error
at all.
The department should also review its relationship with the contractor responsible for the
smear campaign, because paying someone to do little more than harass political opponents
because they are insufficiently hard-line is a waste of the public's money and serves no
legitimate public interest:
E-Collaborative for Civic Education, co-founded by Iranian American activist Mariam
Memarsadeghi, is a long-time State Department contractor.
It purports to promote democratic political life and empower civil society inside Iran,
but it appears to have no presence inside the country and instead confines itself to engaging
with Iranians in the Diaspora.
In this case, the engagement with Iranians in the diaspora amounted to shouting abuse at
many of them and harassing those that didn't toe a certain ideological line. As the scandal
proves, hard-line regime changers have a very warped idea of what qualifies as pro-regime
rhetoric and who can be considered a regime supporter, and so it should come as no surprise
that this operation turned its ire on the many Iranian-American professionals that didn't get
with the hawkish program. This calls into question whether the department is capable of
countering disinformation from foreign governments without indulging the worst and most hawkish
people that want to use such efforts to settle scores against their fellow Americans. It is
good that Congress is looking into how this particular scandal happened, but there have to be
changes made to how the department runs the Global Engagement Center so that something like
this can't happen again.
One of the absurdities of this smear campaign is that it has targeted the very journalists
and analysts that have been far more effective in countering the Iranian government's false
claims through their reporting and analysis. The Iran Disinformation Project went after these
journalists and analysts because they refused to recite arguments in favor of regime change and
war. They were targeted because they were independent and credible observers and critics of
Iran and U.S. Iran policy, and that meant that they used their expertise and understanding of
the country to question the wisdom and efficacy of sanctions and spoke out against the folly of
military intervention. Iran hawks desperately need to discredit and smear people like this
because they pose a major threat to the promotion of the hawks' agenda. Fortunately, their
smear tactics aren't working very well these days.
How long before these Congressman are denounced as traitors by the likes of Tom Cotton. 'No
one can challenge me, I was in Iraq, how dare they shoot at me, it's my country not theirs.'
I think American citizens should engage their own State Department with lawsuits and criminal
indictments. The legal discovery process should air the place out quite nicely.
It's kind of odd that this is something that's being highlighted and looked into, considering
the total lack of interest in charging Bolton, Dean, Giuliani, Ridge, and others for their
material support to terrorists when they were promoting MEK when it was still on the FTO
list.
" .the department might not have realized what was being done with its own resources until
much later and it might not have acknowledged the error at all."
Oh well. We all make mistakes. Or could it be the smear campaign is a feature and not a
bug? And if so could it be a reflection of Pompeo's character and disposition.
Take a look at previous secretaries of state -
leading American foreign policy -
Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton where the U.S. was lead into awful, nation
destroying policies and mass deaths.
The only recent person at that post that sincerely tried to actually do something for the
sake of peace and the actual use of diplomacy was John Kerry, with the deal among the
European nations and America and Iran.
The above three were truly terrible people to have representing the U.S. They bullied and
gloated about the deaths in other nations:
see Albright defending the deaths of children in Iraq due to sanctions and Hillary laughing
at the deaths and mayhem in Libya.
Terrible human beings they are and foe them it was all fun and games.
Obama was too much of a weakling to take firm stands, except of course with the work of Kerry
on the Iran deal.
Ask yourself: do any of the three, Rice, Hillary or Albright give a damn about human life,
including American troops dying?
Ah no
To your point, what I enjoyed about John Kerry was his full throated effort to bring back the
ideal of what the State Department is supposed to be doing that is, using the mechanisms of
diplomacy to make peace and increase communication.
All the other Sec States felt like they wished they were part of the military.
Don't give me this "Global Engagement Center" crap. Pompeo? "Global Engagement"?
It's simple. Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform
the American public and smear American citizens. The next step is obvious. Find who did it
and throw them in prison.
"Pompeo's State Department used government money, taxpayer money, to disinform
the American public and smear American citizens. "
It's worse than that. Our "America First" president's State Department hired
foreigners to do this, foreigners who belong to a "former" terror gang that used to
kill Americans. Hiring foreigners to lie to and smear Americans? There must be laws against it. Laws with
serious consequences.
This is a typical Trump. He understands that "protection of Germany" is a profitable "protection racket" for the USA, but still lies.
Notable quotes:
"... U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said during a visit to Ukraine in May that he expected Congress to prepare legislation to sanction companies involved in the pipeline's construction. ..."
U.S. president reiterates threats over Nord Stream 2 project
Russia says efforts to block pipeline amount to 'blackmail'
'Germany Is Making a Tremendous Mistake by Relying on Pipeline,' says Trump 'Germany Is Making a Tremendous Mistake by Relying on
Pipeline,' says Trump Close Share
Donald Trump upped his criticism of Germany on
Wednesday as he threatened sanctions over Angela Merkel's continued support for a gas pipeline from Russia and warned that he could
shift troops away from the NATO ally over its defense spending.
Echoing previous threats about German support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Trump said he's looking at sanctions to block the
project he's warned would leave Berlin "captive" to Moscow. The U.S. also hopes to export its own liquefied natural gas to Germany.
"We're protecting Germany from Russia, and Russia is getting billions and billions of dollars in money from Germany" for its gas,
Trump told reporters at the White House during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
The comments were the latest sign of how U.S.-German ties have eroded in recent years. The U.S. president has repeatedly rebuked
Merkel's government over the pipeline project, trade policies and defense spending. Germany, in turn, has criticized Trump's moves
to abandon international agreements, including on climate change and Iran.
Though he didn't say which companies or governments could potentially face sanctions, Trump's comments about the pipeline generated
a swift response from Moscow, which said the American president was engaging in "nothing other than blackmail and a form of unfair
competition," according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Merkel and Trump met most recently last week during anniversary celebrations of the 1944 D-Day invasion. That gathering came days
after the EU's longest-serving leader took Trump to task at a commencement address at Harvard University, urging students to "tear
down walls" and not to treat "lies as truth." Without naming the U.S. leader, Merkel left little doubt as to whom she might mean
to a crowd who cheered her on.
U.S. opposition to the gas pipeline is bipartisan, out of concern that Russia could use its supplies of natural gas to exert pressure
on Western European nations dependent on the fuel. U.S. lawmakers also fear that with an added northern pipeline for its gas, Russia
could more easily cut off fuel to Ukraine, which is now a key transit country to Europe.
"Germany is making a tremendous mistake" by relying on the pipeline from Russia, Trump said during a joint news conference with
Duda.
Regardless of the political controversy, the Nord Stream 2 project has
faced delays and may not be ready to transport gas until the second half of 2020, according to a report made public by Denmark's
Energy Agency.
Nord Stream 2 organizers argue a new pipeline is needed to guarantee supplies will continue to flow in the coming decades as EU
domestic reserves shrink and import needs rise. Opponents of the project say it hurts the bloc's cohesion and weakens its Energy
Union strategy aimed at integrating the region's gas and power markets, diversifying energy supplies and improving security.
Uniper SE, Engie SA, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, OMV AG and BASF SE's Wintershall are European partners of Russia's Gazprom PJSC in
financing the project to expand Nord Stream by 55 billion cubic meters a year. Russia supplies a third of Europe's gas and has no
plans to give up its share to the expanding list of competitors from Norway to the U.S.
Trump, speaking during the news conference Wednesday, said that Poland signed a contract to purchase an additional $8 billion
of liquefied natural gas from U.S. companies, on top of $25 billion already under contract.
Trump said he'll meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Japan at the end of the month, though
its not clear the pipeline project will be on their agenda.
2016 data. Source: Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said during a visit to Ukraine in May that he expected Congress to prepare legislation to sanction
companies involved in the pipeline's construction.
Senators Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, have drafted a bill that would target U.S.
sanctions at vessels laying the pipeline and deny U.S. visas to executives from companies linked to the ships. The legislation would
also block transactions in U.S.-based property or interests belonging to those individuals and would penalize entities that provide
insurance to the project.
In the latest sign of Trump's frustration over German defense spending, the president said he's discussed sending as many as 2,000
more U.S. troops to Poland -- and might take them from Germany since he believes Berlin isn't spending enough on defense as a partner
in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. There are more than 30,000 U.S. troops in Germany.
Under an agreement reached during the Obama administration, NATO members committed to spending 2% of GDP on defense by the mid-2020s,
a level only seven
nations were estimated to have reached in 2018.
"Germany's at 1%, they should be at 2%," Trump said. According to NATO documents, spent about 1.2 percent of GDP on defense in
2018.
The U.S. already has a few thousand troops in Poland as part of its role in NATO. Trump's move, if carried out, would add to that,
but it wasn't clear if the forces would be permanently based there or just rotated through.
-- With assistance by Daryna Krasnolutska, Nick Wadhams, Daniel Flatley, Stepan Kravchenko, Ewa Krukowska, and Vanessa Dezem
"... Article 2 (subsection 4)- "All members shall refrain .from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state ." ..."
"... During WWII, our notion of "settler colonialism" (from earlier era's) mutated into "Nazi Lebensraum" and subsequently became outlawed by the entire known world as a supreme evil. ..."
"... Yet to this day, NOT ONE academic, activist (left or right), or political thinker throughout the entire political spectrum refers to "territorial expansion through conquest" as odious and criminal . "Nazi Lebensraum". ..."
"... Today, when people refer to Israels "eastward" expansion (through conquest) of the Palestinian territories, .the term "Lebensraum" simply vanishes from the English vernacular. ..."
Is it " SETTLER COLONIALISM" or is it "LEBENSRAUM" ?
I am sure Mr. Shenker is a bright man , and I wonder how he would distinguish the
difference between these two ideas, don't you ?
Here is my understanding.
LEBENSRAUM (or literally "living space") was both the central and dominant principle
driving Nazi Germany throughout WWII. Hitler believed that Eastern Europe had to be
"conquered" in order to create a "Greater German Empire"otherwise known as " The Third
Reich".
[a note to specialists on WWII .. This is most generally the accepted narrative by most of
the world]
After WWII, both "war of aggression" and "territorial expansion through conquest" became
the "supreme crimes"of the civilized world . and were ratified as such, in Article two of the
UN charter.
Article 2 (subsection 4)- "All members shall refrain .from the threat or use of force
against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state ."
SETTLER COLONIALISM is best understood as the westward expansion of European Nations
throughout North (and South) America from the 15th century to the 19th century.
So what is the "essential" difference between the two ideas ?
The answer is simple "Dates"
When Europeans expanded "westward" into the "new world" three centuries ago , it wasn't
considered a "CRIME" to do so by anybody.
During WWII, our notion of "settler colonialism" (from earlier era's) mutated into "Nazi
Lebensraum" and subsequently became outlawed by the entire known world as a supreme evil.
Yet to this day, NOT ONE academic, activist (left or right), or political thinker
throughout the entire political spectrum refers to "territorial expansion through conquest"
as odious and criminal . "Nazi Lebensraum".
Why not ? Strange, ..isn't it ?
They, mysteriously, harken back (and utilize) the term "settler colonialism" as if to
soften and muddy the criminality of the act .. by referencing an earlier era when such
behavior wasn't considered a "crime".
Today, when people refer to Israels "eastward" expansion (through conquest) of the
Palestinian territories, .the term "Lebensraum" simply vanishes from the English
vernacular.
It just DISAPPEARS .
It is as though both its meaning , and the catastrophic horrors of WWII, never existed at
all.
Yet to this day, NOT ONE academic, activist (left or right), or political thinker
throughout the entire political spectrum refers to "territorial expansion through conquest"
as odious and criminal . "Nazi Lebensraum".
Very astute comment. "Chosen" semantics is part of the aggression war strategy.
Leaked documents reveal Russian effort to exert influence in Africa Exclusive: Kremlin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin leading push to turn continent into strategic
hub, documents show
by Luke Harding and Jason Burke
The only thing you really need to know about the exposé:
The leaked documents were obtained by the Dossier Center, an investigative unit based in
London. The centre is funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian businessman and exiled
Kremlin critic.
The Guardian obviously has no shame for publishing such an article but then it has never
explained the claims of Manafort meeting with Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy. As for the
article, my reaction was "so fucking what?".
The British French and Americans have fucked up
large parts of Africa while the Soviet Union/Russia was indirectly responsible for
eradicating that cancerous growth, the apartheid state of South Africa, a single act that was
better than all the good things that the United Kingdom, France and the United States have
ever done in Africa
"... One of the major gripes from Democrats and many Republicans in Washington is that Trump doesn't care much for alliances. He treats friends like foes and foes like friends. This is a slogan tailor-made for a bumper sticker, but it's also what a significant swath of the establishment believes. ..."
"... Trump may deliver a speech in London and mouth nice words about the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom, but deep down he looks at everything as a transaction. He isn't the first commander-in-chief to fulminate in private about the stingy Europeans who don't provide their citizens with national defense capabilities befitting a Western power. But he is the first to openly, strongly, and repeatedly condemn them for it. ..."
"... The 45th president views trade predominantly as a balance sheet. South Korea, Mexico, Japan, the European Union -- it doesn't matter how long a country has been a friend to the United States. If the U.S. is running a trade deficit, then it must get tougher and demand fairer terms. ..."
"... Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake Internationalists Robert Kagan's Jungle Book of Forever War ..."
"... The Washington establishment can't stand this approach. The president's critics and even some of his supporters regard it as overly simplistic, deliberately antagonistic, and plain rude. Romney is one of those people, and he said it outright on the Senate floor on June 4. ..."
"... Therein lies the Republican foreign policy dichotomy today. On one side are the Romneys, Marco Rubios, and Bret Stephenses of the world who continue to peddle stereotypical phrases like "U.S.-led liberal international order," and label any finger-wagging at U.S. allies as disrespectful, childish, and ultimately counterproductive. And then you have Trump, a far more nationalist figure who thinks the U.S. is being exploited by countries that should be thanking us for our help. ..."
"... Both sides, though, are also right in part. Mitt Romney correctly underscores that America's alliance system is one of our nation's greatest strengths. But Donald Trump is right that maintaining alliances for their own sake -- and without expecting anything tangible in return -- shouldn't be the objective, and may in fact perpetuate an unsustainable status quo. ..."
Maria Dryfhout /
Shutterstock.com When Mitt Romney lost
to Barack Obama in a presidential election that most Republicans believed was winnable, the
former Massachusetts governor was quickly dismissed as an also-ran -- the GOP version of
Michael Dukakis. He was no longer the handsome, older, savvy businessman who would turn the
economy around, but a bumbling, privileged stiff who couldn't dislodge a vulnerable
incumbent.
The stink of the 2012 defeat stuck to Romney during the 2016 GOP presidential primary, when
then-candidate Donald Trump excoriated him for choking like a dog.
The tables have now turned slightly. Many Republicans now look at Romney not as a defeated
nominee, but as a statesman of sorts. No doubt Never Trumpers like Bill Kristol and Rick Wilson
are praying that Romney challenges the president in 2020 and brings the Republican Party back
to the time when Trump was just another reality television star.
Romney, of course, already decided that a third presidential run wasn't worth it. Being a
U.S. senator, however, was another story. So he ran for a seat in Utah and won overwhelmingly
in 2018. Six months later, there he was on the Senate floor, giving his maiden address, subtly
poking Trump in the ribs without saying his name.
He talked about everything you would expect him to talk about: morality, civility, decency,
freedom, unity, free trade and alliances.
One of the major gripes from Democrats and many Republicans in Washington is that Trump
doesn't care much for alliances. He treats friends like foes and foes like friends. This is a
slogan tailor-made for a bumper sticker, but it's also what a significant swath of the
establishment believes.
Trump may deliver a speech in London and mouth nice words about the "special
relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom, but deep down he looks at
everything as a transaction. He isn't the first commander-in-chief to fulminate in private
about the stingy Europeans who don't provide their citizens with national defense capabilities
befitting a Western power. But he is the first to openly, strongly, and repeatedly condemn them
for it.
The 45th president views trade predominantly as a balance sheet. South Korea, Mexico,
Japan, the European Union -- it doesn't matter how long a country has been a friend to the
United States. If the U.S. is running a trade deficit, then it must get tougher and demand
fairer terms.
The Washington establishment can't stand this approach. The president's critics and even
some of his supporters regard it as overly simplistic, deliberately antagonistic, and plain
rude. Romney is one of those people, and he said it outright on the Senate floor on June
4.
"It is in the United States' most vital interest to see a strong NATO, a strong Europe,
stronger ties with the free nations of Asia and the subcontinent, and with every free country,"
the junior senator from Utah
remarked . "We need to hold our friends closer, not neglect them or drive them away."
Therein lies the Republican foreign policy dichotomy today. On one side are the Romneys,
Marco Rubios, and Bret Stephenses of the world who continue to peddle stereotypical phrases
like "U.S.-led liberal international order," and label any finger-wagging at U.S. allies as
disrespectful, childish, and ultimately counterproductive. And then you have Trump, a far more
nationalist figure who thinks the U.S. is being exploited by countries that should be thanking
us for our help.
Both sides have their faults. Trump's worldview is steeped in his decades-long career in
real estate, marketing, and show business -- industries that prize the bottom lines of profit
and ratings. This is reflected in his admiration for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a
walking, talking diplomatic disaster if there ever was one. But outwardly, Salman exudes power
and decisiveness -- and is more than happy to purchase tens of billions of dollars in U.S.
military weapon systems with which to bomb his enemies.
Both sides, though, are also right in part. Mitt Romney correctly underscores that
America's alliance system is one of our nation's greatest strengths. But Donald Trump is right
that maintaining alliances for their own sake -- and without expecting anything tangible in
return -- shouldn't be the objective, and may in fact perpetuate an unsustainable status
quo.
There are few Republicans who have truly sought a happy medium between the Romney and Trump
approaches on foreign policy. Most foreign policy on Capitol Hill is reflexive, hewing to
shopworn internationalist talking points or hawkish posturing. In terms of what the American
people want, however, Trump's preference for a greater degree of restraint and putting
democracy promotion and regime change in the rear-view mirror appears to be winning out.
In the words of a February 2019 Eurasia Group Foundation report authored by New York
University's Mark Hannah, the "desire for a more focused foreign policy is at odds with the
more expansive role generally favored by foreign policy experts." The liberal hegemony Mitt
Romney continues to preach like gospel on the Senate floor is fast becoming unpopular among the
broader electorate.
It is clear now that there has never been a period in the modern era when the establishment
Mitt Romney represents has lost so much of its appeal. It will be interesting to see whether
Republican lawmakers, elected to represent their constituencies at home, begin to fall in line
with the rest of America.
Daniel R. DePetris is a foreign policy analyst, a columnist
at Reuters , and a frequent contributor to .
"It will be interesting to see whether Republican lawmakers, elected to represent their
constituencies at home, begin to fall in line with the rest of America."
As someone deeply involved in Republican politics at the local level, I can tell you that
this is far more difficult than the average person imagines. Running for Congress is vastly
different than running for President. Here's how it works.
Suppose I'm Congressman Smith. A loyal vote for interventionist foreign policy, tax cuts,
and globalism. I've been in Congress for 20 years and can summon unlimited amounts of
campaign contributions from Lockheed, Raytheon, Goldman-Sachs and every private equity and
hedge fund in the country. I also have a great relationship with the owners of my local
newspaper and television stations, and key religious leaders in the region. They've all made
a lot of money from me.
You want to run against me to help represent President Trump's views in Congress, which
you strongly feel reflects the views of the community you desire to serve.
I am going to run unlimited advertising lying about my own views. I'm going to talk about
how I strongly support Trump's views and highlight the few times I actually voted with him.
You won't have the money to counter that. I'm also going to lie about your positions in every
mass media outlet I can find, and you're not going to have the money to counter that either.
Finally, I'm going to find a friend who is younger and better looking than you to run on YOUR
platform. His sole purpose will be to split the vote for your platform, leaving me with a
healthy plurality for a win.
In the one chance in a million you do win, all those powerful interests are going to make
it far and away in your best interests to vote just like I did. Your unemployed brother is
going to get a loan to take a big stake in a subcontractor to the F-35, where he will be
given a vice-presidency for a million dollars a year. Your wife, the life-long homemaker,
will suddenly become a very desirable and expensive asset to K-Street lobbyists. You'll be
given a loan for that mansion on the beach, with the mortgage payments mysteriously being
taken care of.
This is how our electoral system actually works. It's why you always seem stuck voting for
the lesser evil. It's why nothing ever seems to change regardless of who you vote for. And
the beauty of American style democracy is that you will play along with it every time.
"But Donald Trump is right that maintaining alliances for their own sake -- and without
expecting anything tangible in return -- shouldn't be the objective, and may in fact perpetuate
an unsustainable status quo."
So, when is President Trump going to start acting as though he actually believes that? His
foreign policy is almost as big a disaster as his immigration policy -- all talk and no
action.
America's alliance system is not one of our greatest strengths. It is entirely a post-WWII
contrivance. Prior to WWII, we had had only one formal treaty alliance, with France in the War
for Independence. We don't need a happy medium between Romney and Trump. We need full throated
nonintervention.
alt media-verse is currently on fire with the news that the US State Dept's answer to Al Capone, Mike Pompeo, has been caught
promising "Jewish leaders" to send the boys round to Jeremy Corbyn if he should get elected and subsequently prove to be uppity and
out of line. According to the
WaPo , who broke the story:
The remarks, which are contained in audio of a private meeting leaked to The Washington Post, make Pompeo the second senior U.S.
official to comment on Britain's turbulent leadership succession in the past week.
During his meeting with Jewish leaders in New York, Pompeo was asked if Corbyn "is elected, would you be willing to work with
us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the U.K.?"
In response, Pompeo said, "It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gantlet and get elected. It's possible. You should
know, we won't wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best," he said to fervent applause
from attendees.
"It's too risky and too important and too hard once it's already happened," he said.
Of course the idea the "Jewish leaders" harbor any real fear that Jeremy Corbyn (Jeremy Corbyn!) is going to make life "difficult"
for British Jews if elected is simply risible. They know, just as every moderately informed person knows, that that's absurd. They
know Corbyn has no wish to make life difficult for anybody – except possibly the uber wealthy and the profiteer class.
They know the "antisemitism" fear is just a cover for the very very real fear that a Corbyn government will break the unwritten
rules of modern western governance and reject the agenda of austerity, exploitation and perpetual war that has been creating huge
profits and ideological thrills for the blessed few over the last twenty years.
They know that what Pompeo is promising is action to prevent this possibility coming about.
People are up in arms about this, and some seem quite shocked. Apparently the idea the neoliberal elites would try regime change
or regime-control on a relatively prosperous western country was something they didn't previously think possible.
Unfortunately it's more than possible. The state apparatus of the different western nations are a tight bond of mutual regard
and interest, just as likely to foment regime change on their own or their allies' elected representatives as on those of impoverished
or "developing" countries, if they believe those representatives threaten the perceived interests of the state. Of course it
isn't too often necessary, since the same western state apparatus also works to ensure that only governments that don't threaten
perceived state interests manage to get elected. But, when the unthinkable happens, MI5 and the CIA are quite happy to step up
to the plate and throw their own or their allies' democratic governments out the window. It's happened – or nearly happened –
at least twice in the last fifty years.
In the 1960s the UK security agencies, senior military and members of the royal family were apparently
contemplating
a fullblown coup against Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.
In 1975 it was
Australia's turn , when democratically elected reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam was overthrown in a bloodless constitutional
coup organised jointly by the US and UK .
The old empire and the new have form in this regard, and this means no one should take Pompeo's words (spoken in private let's
not forget) lightly.
It's also interesting to look at how the WaPo frames the revelation. There's no sense of outrage or surprise there. In fact it's
an almost matter-of-fact piece, written with no awareness of its potential impact. Even those in the comments who object in some
form are mostly doing it within the permissible current language of dissent – blaming Trump , because in these identity politics-saturated
times, your morality resides in who or what you are NOT in what you do.
To the WaPo – and many of its readers – there's nothing intrinsically either wrong or surprising in the idea a US secretary of
state should be overtly promising to interfere in the democratic governance of another country.
"... Across-the-board rivalry with China is becoming an organising principle of US economic, foreign and security policies. ..."
"... An effort to halt China's economic and technological rise is almost certain to fail. Worse, it will foment deep hostility in the Chinese people. In the long run, the demands of an increasingly prosperous and well-educated people for control over their lives might still win out. But that is far less likely if China's natural rise is threatened. ..."
"... The tragedy in what is now happening is that the administration is simultaneously launching a conflict between the two powers, attacking its allies and destroying the institutions of the postwar US-led order. ..."
The disappearance of the Soviet Union left a big hole. The "war on terror" was an inadequate replacement. But China ticks all boxes.
For the US, it can be the ideological, military and economic enemy many need. Here at last is a worthwhile opponent. That was the
main conclusion I drew from this year's Bilderberg meetings.
Across-the-board
rivalry with China is becoming
an organising principle of US economic, foreign and security policies.
Whether it is Donald Trump's organizing principle is less important. The US president has the gut instincts of a nationalist and
protectionist. Others provide both framework and details. The aim is US domination. The means is control over China, or separation
from China.
Anybody who believes a rules-based multilateral order, our globalised economy, or even harmonious international relations, are
likely to survive this conflict is deluded. The astonishing
white paper on the
trade conflict
, published on Sunday by China, is proof. The -- to me, depressing -- fact is that on many points Chinese positions are right.
The US focus on
bilateral imbalances is economically illiterate. The view that theft of intellectual property has caused huge damage to the US
is
questionable . The proposition that China has grossly violated its commitments under its 2001 accession agreement to the World
Trade Organization is hugely exaggerated.
Accusing China of cheating is hypocritical when almost all trade policy actions taken by the Trump administration are in breach
of WTO rules, a fact implicitly conceded by its determination
to destroy the
dispute settlement system .
A dispute over the terms of market opening or protection of intellectual property might be settled with careful negotiation. Such
a settlement might even help China, since it would lighten the heavy hand of the state and promote market-oriented reform.
But the issues are now too vexed for such a resolution. This is partly because of the bitter breakdown in negotiation. It is still
more because the US debate is increasingly over whether integration with China's state-led economy is desirable. The fear over Huawei
focuses on national security and technological autonomy.
[Neo]liberal commerce is increasingly seen as "trading with the enemy".
A framing of relations with China as one of zero-sum conflict is emerging. Recent remarks by Kiron Skinner, the US state department's
policy planning director (a job once held by cold war strategist George Kennan) are revealing. Rivalry with Beijing,
she suggested at a
forum organised
by New America , is "a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology, and the United States hasn't had
that before".
She added that this would be "the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian". The war with Japan
is forgotten.
But the big point is her framing of this as a civilizational and racial war and so as an insoluble conflict. This cannot be accidental.
She is also still in her job. Others present the conflict as one over ideology and power.
Those emphasising the former point to President Xi Jinping's Marxist rhetoric and the reinforced role of the
Communist party . Those emphasising the latter point to China's rising economic might. Both perspectives suggest perpetual conflict.
This is the most important geopolitical development of our era. Not least, it will increasingly force everybody else to take sides
or fight hard for neutrality. But it is not only important. It is dangerous. It risks turning a manageable, albeit vexed, relationship
into all-embracing conflict, for no good reason. China's ideology is not a threat to liberal democracy in the way the Soviet Union's
was. Rightwing demagogues are far more dangerous.
An effort to halt China's economic and technological rise is almost certain to fail. Worse, it will foment deep hostility in the
Chinese people. In the long run, the demands of an increasingly prosperous and well-educated people for control over their lives
might still win out. But that is far less likely if China's natural rise is threatened.
Moreover, the rise of China is not an important cause of western malaise. That reflects far more the indifference and incompetence
of domestic elites. What is seen as theft of intellectual property reflects, in large part, the inevitable attempt of a rising economy
to master the technologies of the day. Above all, an attempt to preserve the domination of 4 per cent of humanity over the rest is
illegitimate.
This certainly does not mean accepting everything China does or says. On the contrary, the best way for the west to deal with
China is to insist on the abiding values of freedom, democracy, rules-based multilateralism and global co-operation. These ideas
made many around the globe supporters of the US in the past.
They still captivate many Chinese people today. It is quite possible to uphold these ideas, indeed insist upon them far more strongly,
while co-operating with a rising China where that is essential, as over protecting the natural environment, commerce and peace.
A blend of competition with co-operation is the right way forward. Such an approach to managing China's rise must include co-operating
closely with like-minded allies and treating China with respect.
The tragedy in what is now happening is that the administration is simultaneously launching a conflict between the two powers,
attacking its allies and destroying the institutions of the postwar US-led order.
Today's attack on China is the wrong war, fought in the wrong way, on the wrong terrain. Alas, this is where we now are.
Trump was eager to boast about Moscow's withdrawal of its troops from Venezuela, but it
turned out that he or someone else in the administration just made it up:
The Kremlin said on Tuesday it didn't know where U.S. President Donald Trump had got the
idea Moscow had removed most of its military specialists from Venezuela, who it said
continued to work there.
Trump tweeted on Monday that Russia had told the United States it had removed "most of
their people" from Venezuela, where Moscow has maintained close military and economic ties
with socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
Trump's Venezuela policy is a shambles, and Russia previously brushed off his ultimatum to
remove their forces from the country. It isn't surprising that he would try to spin any
development in his favor, but in this case it seems that he just invented something out of thin
air so that his Venezuela policy wouldn't look quite so feckless. He has no genuine successes
that he can talk about, so he has to have pretend victories instead. The original tweet is
still up:
Claiming that "Russia informed" him of this thing that didn't happen makes it even sillier,
because it immediately prompted the Russian government to announce that they couldn't have
informed Trump about something that hadn't occurred. Now that Russia has corrected the record,
the president looks even more ridiculous than usual.
This episode isn't that important by itself, but it shows how easily Trump can be convinced
of the reality of things that haven't happened and how readily he will accept any story, no
matter how unfounded it may be, if it flatters him and bolsters his agenda. That makes him
unusually easy to manipulate and provoke, and it makes him an exceptionally easy mark for
misinformation. That puts the president's decision-making completely at the mercy of the
advisers that control what he sees and hears.
that his Venezuela policy wouldn't look quite so feckless.
Not a Trump fan, but is Trump's Venezuela policy feckless? Or just Trump somehow
understands that it is not our problem and/or military intervention is just a bad investment.
For the life of me, I don't understand why Russia desires to part of the Venezuelan mess, but
most of their interference is minimal in nature and really has little impact on the
situation. I get the Bay Of Bolton was half assed coup that probably did more damage to
Guaido chances for new elections. (Guaido is being painted as the Trump Imperialism candidate
which is not popular.)
The big question is why this is not China's problem? At this point, Venezuela is
completely with them.
Re: "Trump's Venezuela policy is a shambles, and Russia previously brushed off his
ultimatum to remove their forces from the country."
Agree. But the larger subtext is that the U.S. now has zero credibility with
anything . The assumption by every country on the planet has to be that the U.S. word
is not worth squat.
Fat Pompeo with his big mouth, "We lie, cheat and steal" mind-dump says it all. The
Russians are anything but saints, but they knew that the U.S. planned on having Russia
ejected from its Crimean Naval Base in Sevastopol after the coup that Nitwit Nuland and her
barrel of CIA monkeys engineered.
Similarly, the Russians know that if/when the U.S. puts sock puppet Guaido in power, they
will ensure he stiffs the Russians out of all of their claims and assets in Venezuela.
The Russians don't want to wrestle with the Gorilla, but they have no other choice.
Given the way the dealings with North Korea have gone, I expect that Trump will soon be
announcing that Kim Jong-Un has destroyed all his nuclear weapons and pledged not to build
any more. Needless to say, it will not have happened.
But, as they say, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice shame on me. The question
really becomes why so many of Trump's followers continue to believe everything he says when
he lies so blatantly so often.
"The question really becomes why so many of Trump's followers continue to believe
everything he says when he lies so blatantly so often."
I don't know that they do. I tend to think that they just hate what has happened to the
country since Reagan and Clinton so much that they just want Trump to keep bashing Congress
over the head, even with stupidity.
Not to mention that humans have an innate exploitable weakness: the desire to transfer
someone else's perceived greatness on to themselves. Hence the inclination of sports fans and
adoration of the military.
So "Team America" is great, therefore I am great, and Trump represents us, therefore Trump
is great.
One should not wish ill on any other human being, even though i have contemplated several
slapstick scenarios involving certain politicians, however
Donald Trump is in the process of discovering that one cannot ignore Reality, since it
Bites, that live is not a reality TV show (the most unreal thing on television), and that
chickens do indeed come home to roost.
Unfortunately, it's been a difficult learning curve, and pathetic boasts to the contrary,
he has managed to turn both the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party into a pile of
smoking rubble.
It conservatism can be rebuilt in a score of years, it would be a miracle. More like, a
generation.
Trump's Venezuelan policy is a series of hallucination's. This article just describes the
most recent. It begins with the hallucination that Maduro is a dictator, when in reality he
won an election in May 2018 with 67% of the vote in an election that more than 150
international election observers unanimously agreed met all international standards for
democratic elections. It follows with the hallucination that the Venezuelan military would
join the US in rising up against their elected president rather than support the
constitutional government. It continues with the hallucination that the people of Venezuela
would join a US-inspired coup against the president they had just re-elected rather than join
a 2 million person plus civilian militia to defend against a US attack. And, it continues
with the hallucination that Juan Guaido is the interim president when his self-appointment
violated the Venezuelan Constitution and the United Nations and Venezuelan law recognize
Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate president of Venezuela.
The antidote of these ongoing hallucinatory experiences is for Trump to no longer trust
his advisors and end the US coup attempt, which has already failed multiple times in
Venezuela. John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Elliot Abrams have made Trump see hallucinations
that are complete falsehoods. They have led the president into an embarrassing trap that he
now needs to get out of. They have made Trump look like a fool.
It is time for Trump to take steps to normalize relations with Venezuela. That begins with
a mutual Protecting Power Agreement between the US and Venezuela for Switzerland to be a
Protecting Power of the US Embassy in Caracas and Turkey to be a Protecting of the Venezuelan
Embassy in Washington, DC. Following from that the US and Venezuela should negotiate the sale
of Venezuelan resources, primarily oil, in return for the end of the illegal unilateral
coercive measures (inaccurately called sanctions) against Venezuela. Negotiating with
Venezuela will be less expensive than a war that will become a quagmire that will end in
failure after costing more than $1 trillion and causing chaos in the region. Then, Trump and
Maduro should meet to chart a course that begins with mutual respect for the independence and
sovereignty of each nation and then determines where the two nations interests are consistent
with each other. It is time to leave the hallucinations behind and come back to reality.
The ease with which Trump is manipulated and provoked can be added to the explanation of why
Bibi is now in possession of Jerusalem and war against Iran is a high probability. That
should terrify Americans.
"... Romney has learned that Trump came and Trump will go, but the neocons will still be there, firmly in control of Team R and Team D. Omnibelligerence they want, and omnibelligerence they shall have. ..."
"... Unfortunately, anti-Russian hysteria is now an article of faith among most Democrats as well. ..."
It is strange that Romney chose foreign policy as the focus of his first floor speech as a
senator. As a presidential candidate, Romney repeatedly humiliated himself by making ridiculous
and brain-dead foreign policy arguments. His criticism of New START was
breathtaking in how ill-informed
it was, and his foreign policy was fairly
described as "omni-directional belligerence" for a reason. He has not significantly
improved since then.
All of the
reports on Romney's speech describe
him as "subtly" attacking Trump, which suggests that his attacks were not all that subtle if
they were obvious to everyone. Then again, no one should expect subtlety from the man who
wanted to attack Obama for the former president's supposed "apology tour" and titled his
campaign book No Apology .
Romney asserted during the presidential campaign that Russia was our "number one
geopolitical foe." This wasn't true when he said it in the 2012 campaign, and it still isn't
today. Romney chose that line of attack because he saw Obama's policy of engagement with Russia
as a vulnerability to exploit. If it was a vulnerability, Romney completely failed to take
advantage of it, because he had absolutely nothing better to offer. The senator still can't
bring himself to acknowledge that he was wrong about Russia, but now he wants to
warn us that China may take their place:
Romney, who argued that China is poised to become America's "No. 1 geopolitical
adversary," urged American leaders to fortify the U.S. against future Chinese expansion and
to take steps to slow China's rising power.
The senator's eagerness to attack Obama for being soft on Russia led him into serious error.
I don't see how trying to do the same thing on China will produce better results. Even if one
agrees that China is America's foremost adversary, it doesn't follow that the best course is to
pursue an openly confrontational policy towards them. Romney is still stuck reciting hawkish
platitudes and congratulating himself for his wisdom. The junior senator from Utah has learned
nothing after all these years, and there is no reason to expect that he ever will.
Most of Romney's new remarks are little more than boilerplate. What the senator doesn't and
maybe can't acknowledge in his speech is how similar Trump's foreign policy is to his own. Both
wrongly faulted Obama for neglecting "allies" (read Middle Eastern clients), both embraced the
deranged idea of maintaining "no daylight" with those same clients, and since becoming a
senator Romney has been a reliable vote for the worst of Trump's policies abroad. When the time
came earlier this year to vote on S.J.Res. 7 to demand an end to U.S. involvement in the war on
Yemen, Romney voted in lockstep with most of the other Senate Republicans. Even though his
fellow Utah Republican was one of the co-sponsors, Romney predictably sided with the morally
bankrupt hawks. One of the biggest attacks on our allies has come in the form of Trump's Iran
policy with the decision to renege on the JCPOA, but of course Romney has no problem with that
policy or the damage that it is doing to our relations with Germany, Britain, and France. His
past statements about the nuclear deal are cringe-inducing in their ignorance. Here is one from
May 2018:
Brief as it is, Romney's statement is riddled with errors. Iran had no "nuclear weapon
program" last year or at any point for the last 16 years, so there was and is nothing to
eliminate. Just as he did with New START, Romney dismissed the JCPOA as a "bad deal" not
because of the content of the agreement but only because it was an agreement negotiated and
completed under Obama. Romney is smarter, more polished, and more urbane than Trump, but his
foreign policy judgment is just as appalling as the president's. When we cut through the
senator's unimaginative endorsements of alliances and trade, we will remember why most American
voters chose someone else when Romney was the Republican nominee for president
Romney has learned that Trump came and Trump will go, but the neocons will still be there,
firmly in control of Team R and Team D. Omnibelligerence they want, and omnibelligerence they
shall have.
To be fair, Romney probably knew this before 2012 as well.
By "elimination of Iran's nuclear weapon program", a reasonable reading (given that Iran has
no actual nuclear weapon program) is the elimination of Iran's nuclear industry .
IIRC this would be a complete violation of the NNPT. Quoting from Wikipedia on the
"bargain" in the NNPT
the NPT non-nuclear-weapon states agree never to acquire nuclear weapons and the NPT
nuclear-weapon states in exchange agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear
technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament aimed at the ultimate elimination of their
nuclear arsenals
[emphasis added]
Of course it's quite reasonable to argue that the US is in violation of the NNPT (apart
from the Iran issue) because of that last part.
The crux of the matter is not what romney believes or learned (or has not learned). It is
what his neo con handlers want and will pursue. Romney is just a puppet, mouthpiece.
His 2012 campaign was controlled by the neo cons, as inept as it was. He played a large
role in rapidly staffing trump admin with neo cons (see John Hay Initiative, founded by Brian
Hook, pompeo's #2 currently).
Now, he is simply mouthing the neo con globalist line as directed.
There's really hardly anything left of the old GOP. It's now the party of Wall Street,
Israel, permanent war, whopping deficits, outsourcing, cheap foreign labor, and executive
branch bootlickers masquerading as congressmen. That's Romney to a t, the perfect profile for
leading the GOP to final collapse, adding to the number of establishment conservative party
wipeouts around the world.
"... Across-the-board rivalry with China is becoming an organising principle of US economic, foreign and security policies. ..."
"... An effort to halt China's economic and technological rise is almost certain to fail. Worse, it will foment deep hostility in the Chinese people. In the long run, the demands of an increasingly prosperous and well-educated people for control over their lives might still win out. But that is far less likely if China's natural rise is threatened. ..."
"... The tragedy in what is now happening is that the administration is simultaneously launching a conflict between the two powers, attacking its allies and destroying the institutions of the postwar US-led order. ..."
The disappearance of the Soviet Union left a big hole. The "war on terror" was an inadequate replacement. But China ticks all boxes.
For the US, it can be the ideological, military and economic enemy many need. Here at last is a worthwhile opponent. That was the
main conclusion I drew from this year's Bilderberg meetings.
Across-the-board
rivalry with China is becoming
an organising principle of US economic, foreign and security policies.
Whether it is Donald Trump's organizing principle is less important. The US president has the gut instincts of a nationalist and
protectionist. Others provide both framework and details. The aim is US domination. The means is control over China, or separation
from China.
Anybody who believes a rules-based multilateral order, our globalised economy, or even harmonious international relations, are
likely to survive this conflict is deluded. The astonishing
white paper on the
trade conflict
, published on Sunday by China, is proof. The -- to me, depressing -- fact is that on many points Chinese positions are right.
The US focus on
bilateral imbalances is economically illiterate. The view that theft of intellectual property has caused huge damage to the US
is
questionable . The proposition that China has grossly violated its commitments under its 2001 accession agreement to the World
Trade Organization is hugely exaggerated.
Accusing China of cheating is hypocritical when almost all trade policy actions taken by the Trump administration are in breach
of WTO rules, a fact implicitly conceded by its determination
to destroy the
dispute settlement system .
A dispute over the terms of market opening or protection of intellectual property might be settled with careful negotiation. Such
a settlement might even help China, since it would lighten the heavy hand of the state and promote market-oriented reform.
But the issues are now too vexed for such a resolution. This is partly because of the bitter breakdown in negotiation. It is still
more because the US debate is increasingly over whether integration with China's state-led economy is desirable. The fear over Huawei
focuses on national security and technological autonomy.
[Neo]liberal commerce is increasingly seen as "trading with the enemy".
A framing of relations with China as one of zero-sum conflict is emerging. Recent remarks by Kiron Skinner, the US state department's
policy planning director (a job once held by cold war strategist George Kennan) are revealing. Rivalry with Beijing,
she suggested at a
forum organised
by New America , is "a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology, and the United States hasn't had
that before".
She added that this would be "the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian". The war with Japan
is forgotten.
But the big point is her framing of this as a civilizational and racial war and so as an insoluble conflict. This cannot be accidental.
She is also still in her job. Others present the conflict as one over ideology and power.
Those emphasising the former point to President Xi Jinping's Marxist rhetoric and the reinforced role of the
Communist party . Those emphasising the latter point to China's rising economic might. Both perspectives suggest perpetual conflict.
This is the most important geopolitical development of our era. Not least, it will increasingly force everybody else to take sides
or fight hard for neutrality. But it is not only important. It is dangerous. It risks turning a manageable, albeit vexed, relationship
into all-embracing conflict, for no good reason. China's ideology is not a threat to liberal democracy in the way the Soviet Union's
was. Rightwing demagogues are far more dangerous.
An effort to halt China's economic and technological rise is almost certain to fail. Worse, it will foment deep hostility in the
Chinese people. In the long run, the demands of an increasingly prosperous and well-educated people for control over their lives
might still win out. But that is far less likely if China's natural rise is threatened.
Moreover, the rise of China is not an important cause of western malaise. That reflects far more the indifference and incompetence
of domestic elites. What is seen as theft of intellectual property reflects, in large part, the inevitable attempt of a rising economy
to master the technologies of the day. Above all, an attempt to preserve the domination of 4 per cent of humanity over the rest is
illegitimate.
This certainly does not mean accepting everything China does or says. On the contrary, the best way for the west to deal with
China is to insist on the abiding values of freedom, democracy, rules-based multilateralism and global co-operation. These ideas
made many around the globe supporters of the US in the past.
They still captivate many Chinese people today. It is quite possible to uphold these ideas, indeed insist upon them far more strongly,
while co-operating with a rising China where that is essential, as over protecting the natural environment, commerce and peace.
A blend of competition with co-operation is the right way forward. Such an approach to managing China's rise must include co-operating
closely with like-minded allies and treating China with respect.
The tragedy in what is now happening is that the administration is simultaneously launching a conflict between the two powers,
attacking its allies and destroying the institutions of the postwar US-led order.
Today's attack on China is the wrong war, fought in the wrong way, on the wrong terrain. Alas, this is where we now are.
Mark Meadows confirmed what many have suspected about the Trump-Russia for a long time; the FBI knew early on that the foundation
of its counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign was built on 'a foundation of sand,' reports the Daily Caller 's Chuck
Ross.
North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows (R) told Hannity Friday night that the FBI knew "within 60 days of them opening the investigation,
prior to [Robert] Mueller coming on, the FBI and the [Department of Justice] knew that Christopher Steele was not credible, the dossier
was not true, George Papadopoulos was innocent."
Meadows did not elaborate on why he believes the FBI knew their investigation was built on a mountain of lies, however according
to The Hill 's John Solomon last month, memos which were retroactively classified by the DOJ reveal that a high-ranking government
official who met with Christopher Steele in October 2016 determined that
information in the Trump-Russia dossier was inaccurate , and likely leaked to the media.
Meadows also suggested that the FBI had exculpatory information on Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who was fed the
rumor that Russia had negative information on Hillary Clinton, and later bilked for said information by a Clinton-linked Australian
diplomat. Papadopoulos would later be subject to a spying operation in which the FBI sent in two operatives to trick the Trump adviser
in a failed business / honeypot operation.
The bureau opened its investigation of the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016, after receiving a tip about Papadopoulos from the
Australian government. Within those two months, the FBI team leading the investigation received information from Steele's dossier.
The FBI also dispatched a longtime FBI informant,
Stefan Halper , to meet with
Papadopoulos.
The pair met in London in mid-September 2016 after Halper offered Papadopoulos $3,000 to write a policy paper. Halper, a former
Cambridge professor, was accompanied by a woman he claimed was his assistant,
Azra Turk . She is reportedly
a government investigator.
Meadows in the past has suggested the FBI had exculpatory information on Papadopoulos that showed the Trump aide was not working
with Russia. - Daily Caller
The FBI relied on the Steele dossier to obtain surveillance warrants on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, ostensibly
allowing the Obama administration to surveil those Page was in contact with.
Obummer put it all together......Little mr community organizer.....He had nothing to lose as he wasn't going to be able
to run again.
PS....did you hear about the half a BILLION dollars in travel and security perks obummer ok's for himself into "retirement"
on the taxpayers' dime? obummer is a puke. Fortunately, Trump undid that little executive order.
I wish I was George Papadopoulos -- he is going to be a multi millionaire from legal judgements against Comey, Brennen, US
Govt, McCabe and hopefully, the Clintons and Obama. Every week in jail is an extra million....no wonder he didnt get a pardon.
All those *** holes pensions should be made payable to all the injured parties--Stone, Papadopoulos, Flynn, Manafort, and all
the Trumps that had to use so much of their time fighting false accusations.
They will never pay him any restitution, though he is the one who deserves it the most. They thought they were just dealing
with stupid twerp who would grab the bait - using a boobalicious woman as the lure. Turns out he was sharper than the pros - says
alot. The FBI thinks it is the sharpest ax in the shed, which has been proven otherwise...
Now, if Barr only does not cover for Mueller because they are best buds, like he seemed to do when Mueller made that very queer
statement a few weeks back, in what seemed to be an herculean effort to confuse the restless public even more.
Confirmatiom bias. You have to say stuff like that in advance while also considering other situations that could cause the same outcome. Its not easy, but becomes easier with practice.
YOU MEAN......It took $40 Million Investigation, to tell us what we already knew : "FOUNDATION OF SAND".....Created by them, their boss, OBAMA, & his MOB Syndicate.....???
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is
less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his
sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor;
he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies
deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars
of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
The Former Bureau of Investigation knew from the start since it was in on the whole thing. It's not dissimilar from all the
entrapment scenarios they used to be involved in when the agency existed desperately trying to pad the stats on how wonderful
a job it was doing stopping terrorists.
Every activity for quite some time now, as with 100% of all now global former so called law enforcement, are felonies under
color of law/authority. And now that the global judiciary were permanently relieved of duty and all courts dissolved nobody can
pretend to either pull together a fake prosecution or ignore the sedition, treason and real crimes and pretend those don't deserve
prosecution.
When did alleged so called prosecutors first delusionally pretend that only these jobs could move something along legally?
No problems it will be disclosed publicly at your trials. ALL types of immunity were permanently eliminated longer ago than any
have been working so don't hold a false sense of security.
The FBI knew their investigation was based on a mountain of lies because they were the ones who lied to get the fake investigation
going. Does not take any monumental logic to state. I watched last night - it was Bongino sitting in for Sean. By the time you
get done listening, you almost get a bit confused because they need to use so many words/mental snares to describe the actions
that took place, when it is really that simple.
Democratic
presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took a swipe at neoconservative Bill Kristol for his
"foolish advocacy of the Iraq war," and questioned whether he had apologized to the country for
it yet. Sanders was responding to a tweet Kristol sent that said, "#Never Sanders," and
linked to a New York Times article about the longtime Vermont senator's opposition to war.
"Have you apologized to the nation for your foolish advocacy of the Iraq war?"
Sanders tweeted , adding he makes
"no apologies for opposing it."
Sanders' record of opposing wars like Vietnam and Iraq, and US meddling in Nicaragua, has
recently been highlighted by the media as the 2020 presidential primaries approach.
-- Meghan McCain's Tears™
(@Smedley_Butler) May 25,
2019
NBC's Meet the Press came under fire last week for tweeting , "Sanders
said he won't apologize for supporting anti-Vietnam War efforts and voting against the war in
Iraq," which sparked ridicule among social media users and inspired Sanders to release a
video in which he stood by his anti-war stance and promised to do everything to prevent a war
with Iran.
I was right about Vietnam.
I was right about Iraq.
I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran.
Kristol tweeted his 'never Sanders' diss after the former Burlington mayor introduced a
petition to prevent "military action against Iran without congressional approval,"
something that likely upset Kristol, who has been calling for regime change in Iran for over 13
years.
Kristol refused to apologize over his comments, instead calling on Sanders to engage in a
"real debate on US foreign policy."
Nope. I dislike quasi-Stalinist demands for apologies. I've defended and will defend my
views on Iraq, and Syria, and Milosevic, and the Soviet Union, and more, as you defend
yours. How about a real debate on U.S. foreign policy--I'll ask for no apologies!--on a
campus this fall? https://t.co/AdC0CelINz
A co-founder of the neoconservative think tank the Project for the New American Century
(PNAC), Kristol called for regime change in Iraq in 1998 in a series of articles and a letter
to then-President Bill Clinton. Following 9/11, PNAC encouraged the George W. Bush
administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Kristol ardently supported the war in Iraq, which
he claimed would be a "two-month war" and repeatedly argued for sending more troops
there to rectify the failing invasion.
During the 2006 Lebanon war, Kristol suggested the US take the opportunity to strike Iran's
nuclear facilities, asking, "Why wait?"
US navy plays dangerous games. Sooner or later Russia or China or Iran maybe, or any hot spot
in the world - encounters the situation wherein the US both must and can be slapped.
Notable quotes:
"... Apparently the US had an ASW capable chopper in the air which was a treat to the UUV so the Russians gently reminded the US that they should back off. ..."
"... This happens with all sides regularly without too much of a fuss. The Russians have decades of history of warning off the US and UK in this way, and it never involves anyone getting hurt or even weapons getting pointed. It is just a firm but non-violent way of getting the other side to back off. ..."
"... Rarely is a fuss kicked up and the crews on both sides often use these encounters as a photo op, so why the Americans have decided to make an issue out this one is anyones guess. ..."
"... I call bullshit on the "recovering an helicopter" excuse. The vision shown is from a helicopter positioned well ahead of the intersection of the two tracks. Helicopters are recovered at the rear deck, not the front. Clearly the helo was not trying to land at the time of the incident ..."
"... If the yankees were on a recovery maneuver exercise they should have detected a hazard approaching and in range of being serious and simply deferred the exercise until it could be conducted free of distraction. They had ample time to display appropriate flags. The yankees have a serious blind spot as evidenced by two previous collisions referenced in posts above. ..."
"... "The ship should display the signals required by Rules 27(b)(i) and (ii) of the IMO International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). Alternatively, International Code Flag 'D' may be flown." ..."
"... In my experience US Navy Public Affairs Officers are ignorant of what they are commenting on by design. They can't give up too much if they know nothing beyond the party line and enough jargon to dazzle the journalists. ..."
"... There's a checklist for going to flight ops. Part of the checklist is to tell the signalmen to fly the "H" flag and to raise the restricted in ability to maneuver day shapes (ball-diamond-ball). ..."
Judging by the comment thread, these boys are hard at work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_communication_specialist
"Mass Communication Specialist (abbreviated as MC) is a United States Navy occupational
rating. MCs practice human-centered design to develop creative communication solutions and
align communication strategies and tactics to leadership's intent; conduct research and
develop audience profiles; prepare, process, and print publications and media products;
create sketches, storyboards, and graphics; design publications; produce still imagery, and
written, audio, video, and multimedia information products; collect, analyze, and report
media project and communication plan feedback and performance information; create media
project plans; conduct community outreach, news media operations, leadership communication
operations, and organizational communication operations; plan and direct communication
campaigns and events and serve as communication advisors to commanders; and develop content
strategies, create data stories, and ensure communication products and experiences are
designed to enhance understanding and discoverability. MCs serve aboard ships, in
expeditionary units and at shore commands in the United States and overseas.[1]"
My guess is the Russian anti submarine ship was on a parallel course to keep track of the US
attack submarines with the carrier group. US ship was sent out to push it away. As you say,
the helicopter may have been sent out to capture some video or stills that could be used to
back up the 'US is innocent' propaganda already planned.
One thought on this - If the Russian ship did not change course, with the US ship slowing
under reverse thrust, the Russian ship most likely would have hit it somewhere near the
center. A great video of a Russian ship aggressively ramming a 'peaceful and innocent' US
ship.
A 1:49 video filmed from the US vessel. The cameraman was taking leisurely close in shots of
the Russian vessel's comms systems. The two vessels were sailing close to parallel for all
this time and there is a view of the infamous Russian sunbathers on the helicopter landing
platform.
There was something on Press TV about the US ship getting too close to a Russian UUV
undergoing trials / on a covert op which caused the Russian escort ship to intercept the US
ship.
Apparently the US had an ASW capable chopper in the air which was a treat to the UUV so the
Russians gently reminded the US that they should back off.
This happens with all sides regularly without too much of a fuss. The Russians have decades
of history of warning off the US and UK in this way, and it never involves anyone getting
hurt or even weapons getting pointed. It is just a firm but non-violent way of getting the
other side to back off.
Rarely is a fuss kicked up and the crews on both sides often use these encounters as a photo
op, so why the Americans have decided to make an issue out this one is anyones guess.
Apparently you didn't read "b" post and know nothing about Russian vs US ship
construction:
"The crew of the Chancellorsville should call itself lucky. Russian ships are build with a
strong bow to travel in icy waters. Had the Admiral Vinogradov not made the emergency turn to
its right, its bow would have cut their ship in half."
I call bullshit on the "recovering an helicopter" excuse. The vision shown is from a
helicopter positioned well ahead of the intersection of the two tracks. Helicopters are
recovered at the rear deck, not the front. Clearly the helo was not trying to land at the
time of the incident
82 sums it up nicely. The Yanks f..ked up, yet again.
My sympathies are with the crew too. The reckless heroics of the bridge gang are
deplorable. These encounters do not happen at high speed. Minutes go by. Both vessels should
have been aware of their potential for close encounter.
If the yankees were on a recovery maneuver exercise they should have detected a hazard
approaching and in range of being serious and simply deferred the exercise until it could be
conducted free of distraction. They had ample time to display appropriate flags. The yankees
have a serious blind spot as evidenced by two previous collisions referenced in posts
above.
The Russians could easily have adjusted course to pass behind the yankee vessel. All these
ships have more than adequate electronics and personnel to calculate converging course and
time of encounter. That they chose to come so close could indicate a FU attitude or perhaps
they were on a 'collision stations' maneuver in real time. It is also probable they were
monitoring US communications systems that are limited in range and only detected up close.
Understanding those systems enables one to build a jamming device. The crew on that vessel
would have been mighty anxious too.
Hyped egos, poor training and warships are a very stupid mix. See the Forrestal debacle
where the ships fire crew were wiped out in the first response and untrained sailors sprayed
the deck with water rather than foam thus washing fuel below decks and setting the stern
ablaze.
Here we have
manual : Helicopter-Ship-Operations . From page 37, Section 5.4.1:
"The ship should display the signals required by Rules 27(b)(i) and (ii) of the IMO
International
Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). Alternatively, International Code
Flag 'D' may be flown."
"D" translates as "Keep clear of me." From COLREGS, "Day shapes" mentioned above would be
"1 ball+1 diamond+1 ball" organized vertically, which translates as "Restricted in ability to
maneuver" (
here ).
But none of what the Regs require is visible--none! Russia wins its case, and it was all
too easy!
In my experience US Navy Public Affairs Officers are ignorant of what they are commenting on
by design. They can't give up too much if they know nothing beyond the party line and enough
jargon to dazzle the journalists.
The failure to mention USS Chancellorsville (CG-62) had the appropriate day shapes flying
is simply too in the weeds for the PAOs and admiral's staff who wrote the press
release/story.
There's a checklist for going to flight ops. Part of the checklist is to tell the
signalmen to fly the "H" flag and to raise the restricted in ability to maneuver day shapes
(ball-diamond-ball).
Even if the officer of the deck & the helicopter control officer did fail to tell the
signalman to do those things, the vast majority of signalmen would have reminded the OOD.
Signalmen have relatively few things to pay attention to, so they are pretty self
directed.
I had concerns about her ties to India and therefore Israel. But I doubt she would let Jews
or Israelis run the US like Trump does.
Trump has gathered the US Jewish vultures to handle his "deal of the century' ..and that
deal will be raping Palestine and as much of the ME as they can. Given the opportunity I
don't know whose throat I'd cut first probably the little girlie fop Kushner.
White House invites key Trump business allies to Bahrain forum in search for a Middle
East 'deal of the century' .. CNBC
[MORE]
The White House has invited some of President Trump's key business allies to an event in
Bahrain intended to kick-start the administration's long-awaited Middle East peace plan. The
Bahrain meeting will focus on the economic part of the "deal of the century," which has been
led by Jared Kushner. Tom Barrack, CEO of real estate investment firm Colony Capital, will be
heading to the event. Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman, BlackRock's Larry Fink and Goldman
Sachs' Dina Powell were also invited.
Tom Barrack, a loyal supporter of the president and the CEO of real estate investment firm
Colony Capital, will be heading to the event slated to start on June 25 at the Four Seasons
in Bahrain's capital, Manama.
"Tom is pleased to be a participant in a well organized forum for the purpose of advancing
the peace process in the Middle East," said his spokesman, Owen Blicksilver. "He has been a
lifelong advocate of economic prosperity being a foundation stone of hope for the entire
region especially its exploding young and largely unemployed population."
Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Goldman Sachs' Dina Powell
are among the heavy hitters who have been invited to the gathering dubbed "Peace to
Prosperity," according to people familiar with the planning.
Schwarzman is likely to attend, one of the people said, while Fink will not be going due to
previous commitments, a separate source added. It's unclear whether Powell, a former deputy
national security advisor under Trump, will join the group.
Schwarzman is a top donor to Trump's reelection campaign. In 2017, he contributed $344,400
Trump's joint fundraising committee.
Blackstone, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs all have extensive ties to the Middle East, including
offices in Dubai, Riyadh and Tel-Aviv.
A senior administration official did not deny that Schwarzman, Fink and Powell were invited
to the forum.
The Trump White House and its associates have close ties to Bahrain. Reuters previously
reported that the administration was pursuing a nearly $5 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets
to island nation in the Gulf. The president's outside lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, landed a
security consulting contract with the country's Ministry of Interior, The Daily Beast
reported.
A team of White House officials led by Kushner has been attempting to bring Israeli and
Palestinian leaders to the negotiating table since the administration's earliest days. Last
month, the White House announced the Bahrain summit, which was described at the time as a
chance for attendees to "galvanize support for potential economic investments and initiatives
that could be made possible by a peace agreement," with a particular focus on
Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Palestinian business executives are turning down invitations to the event,
which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has ripped.
"Trump's 'deal of the century' will go to hell, as will the economic workshop in Bahrain
that the Americans intend to hold and present illusions," Abbas said last week.
Kushner, in a recent interview with Axios, fired back at the Palestinian government, and
blamed the leadership for the loss of U.S. aid that was cut from the West Bank and Gaza.
"The actions we've taken were because America's aid is not entitlement. Right, if we make
certain decisions which we're allowed to as a sovereign nation to respect the rights of
another sovereign nation and we get criticized by that government, the response of this
president is not to say, 'Oh, let me give you more aid,'" Kushner said.
Representatives from wealthy Gulf states the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will be
attending. Officials from Qatar are set to take part as well.
Barrack, who was the chairman of Trump's inaugural committee and is a grandson of Lebanese
immigrants, has a long history of attempting to make inroads in the Middle East, particularly
through advocating for business investments.
While Barrack is not running point on the Trump administration's efforts, he is still
deeply involved in the process. He authored a white paper for the administration titled "The
Trump Middle East Marshall Plan," which specifically mentions expanding U.S. and
international business opportunities there as a way to unite the region.
"... Even more depressing, McMaster is author of the excellent book, "Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam". Now he's retailing lies of his own in pursuit of another war. ..."
"... The "Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" subsists on donations intended to advance the foreign policy agendas of countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those are the kind of "democracies" they want America to "defend" ..."
McMaster then proceeds to mount a hypothetical -- nuclear blackmail. "This regime could say [if U.S. forces] don't go
off the Korean Peninsula, we're going to threaten the use of nuclear weapons," the retired general explained. And yet
this, too, is riddled with nonsense, the biggest objection being that making such an ultimatum would court the very
military confrontation with the United States he wants to avoid.
When McMaster was in the Trump administration, he
floated
many of the same arguments about why
attacking
North Korea should be an option. Those
arguments
didn't make any
sense
when he made them as National Security Advisor, and they haven't improved now that he has migrated to the
inaccurately named Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). McMaster's latest statements confirm that his preventive
war talk wasn't just empty rhetoric on his part when he worked for Trump. He was apparently
deadly serious
about entertaining a U.S. attack on North Korea, and he continues to talk about it as though it were a reasonable and
legitimate policy option. The reporting that he and others in the administration had a
"messianic fervor"
about this seems to have been right.
It can't be stressed enough that launching an attack on North Korea would an outrageous act of aggression. It would
put the U.S. in clear violation of the U.N. Charter and make our government an illegal aggressor just like North Korea
was in 1950. McMaster was and still is promoting the idea that the U.S. should be willing to commit a massive crime
against another country. Unfortunately, talk of preventive war against certain states is not just tolerated in
Washington, but it is actively encouraged and embraced by many other hard-liners, including the current National
Security Advisor, who is also in favor of launching an attack on North Korea. These hard-liners dismiss the possibility
of deterring these states so that they can have an excuse to attack, but invariably the behavior they cite as evidence
that a state can't be deterred is proof that they desire self-preservation and regime security above all else.
Hard-liners also like to warn about "nuclear blackmail" from other states, but they can't ever produce an example of
a nuclear weapons state that has successfully engaged in such blackmail to extract concessions from others. It makes
even less sense when we consider what would happen to the blackmailing state if it followed through on the threat.
Threatening to launch a nuclear first strike to gain concessions from other governments wouldn't get that government
what it wants, and carrying out the threat would result in the state's certain annihilation. There is no upside to
engaging in "nuclear blackmail" and a huge downside. If "nuclear blackmail" worked, there would likely have been a lot
more blackmail attempts by nuclear weapons state over the last seventy-four years, and more states would want to acquire
nuclear weapons for this purpose. In reality, just about the only use that nuclear weapons have is to deter attacks from
others, and that is pretty clearly why North Korea built their nuclear arsenal. Threatening them with attack just
confirms them in their view that they have to retain them, and actually attacking them would be the only thing that is
likely to prompt them to use them.
There's a scene in the movie Dr. Strangelove where all the powerful men were sitting in the war room discussing
the possible state of the world after the nuclear attack. They start by lamenting the deaths of tens of
millions of Americans, and that they might be the only leaders left to rebuild America. They then worked their
way to moving to a bunker to make sure they were safe, then bringing in women who could help repopulate the
country, and then making sure the women were beautiful and that there would be enough to get started on having
lots of children right away. So in less than 2 minutes, they go from the end of civilization to having a harem
for each of them. When powerful people can see a disaster as a chance to gain even more power, they will take
it regardless of the consequences to anyone else. That's who they are.
I must have missed when our own official policy renounced nuclear first strike. As far as I know, it's still
"one of the options on the table." And now with the latest "low yield nuke" deployments in the pipeline, it
gives the illusion that nuclear war can be a winning option to defend the heartland or expand the empire's
overseas power.
Even more depressing, McMaster is author of the excellent book, "Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam". Now he's retailing lies of his own in pursuit of
another war.
"the inaccurately named Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)"
That name is a sick joke. The
"Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" subsists on donations intended to advance the foreign policy
agendas of countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia. Those are the kind of "democracies" they want America to
"defend".
McMaster has literally gone off the edge since he was named as the head of a group over at the FDD group of
warmongers -- they literally on a daily basis call for more war, attacks on Iran, and NK -- more tragically, they have
access and influence with Bolton and Pompeo.
Sick beyond belief but that is where their money comes into play.
Trump betrayed anti-war votes. So he will not get the same voting blocks that he got in 2016.
Notable quotes:
"... Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War. ..."
"... In a recent interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson, Gabbard doubled down on her anti-war credentials, telling the host that war with Iran would be "devastating, " adding that "I know where this path leads us and I'm concerned because the American people don't seem to be prepared for how devastating and costly such a war would be So, what we are facing is, essentially, a war that has no frontlines, total chaos, engulfs the whole region, is not contained within Iran or Iraq but would extend to Syria and Lebanon and Israel across the region, setting us up in a situation where, in Iraq, we lost over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform. A war with Iran would take far more American lives, it would cost more civilian lives across the region Not to speak of the fact that this would cost trillions of taxpayer dollars coming out of our pockets to go and pay for this endless war that begs the question as a soldier, what are we fighting for? What does victory look like? What is the mission?" ..."
"... Gabbard, and also Carlson, did not hesitate to name names among those pushing for war, one of which begins with B-O-L-T-O-N. She then asked "How does a war with Iran serve the best interest of the American people of the United States? And the fact is it does not," Gabbard said. "It better serves the interest of people like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia who are trying to push us into this war with Iran." ..."
"... In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and in 2016 she backed Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy. More recently, she has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, a very bold step indeed given the power of the Israel Lobby. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years, and that is why the war party is out to get her. Two weeks ago, the Daily Beast displayed a headline : "Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists." The article also had a sub-headline: "The Hawaii congresswoman is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood." ..."
"... Tulsi responded "Stephanopoulos shamelessly implied that because I oppose going to war with Russia, I'm not a loyal American, but a Putin puppet. It just shows what absurd lengths warmongers in the media will go, to try to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares oppose their warmongering." ..."
"... ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is loaded with a full complement of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation. ..."
"... for the moment, she seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform. It might just resonate with the majority of Americans who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States ..."
Voters looking ahead to 2020 are being bombarded with soundbites from the twenty plus Democratic would-be candidates. That Joe
Biden is apparently leading the pack according to opinion polls should come as no surprise as he stands for nothing apart from being
the Establishment favorite who will tirelessly work to support the status quo.
The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where
she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer
with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.
Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In
the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus
on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening
terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay
over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.
In a recent interview with Fox News's Tucker Carlson, Gabbard doubled down on her anti-war credentials, telling the host that
war with Iran
would
be "devastating, " adding that "I know where this path leads us and I'm concerned because the American people don't seem to be
prepared for how devastating and costly such a war would be So, what we are facing is, essentially, a war that has no frontlines,
total chaos, engulfs the whole region, is not contained within Iran or Iraq but would extend to Syria and Lebanon and Israel across
the region, setting us up in a situation where, in Iraq, we lost over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniform. A war with Iran
would take far more American lives, it would cost more civilian lives across the region Not to speak of the fact that this would
cost trillions of taxpayer dollars coming out of our pockets to go and pay for this endless war that begs the question as a soldier,
what are we fighting for? What does victory look like? What is the mission?"
Gabbard, and also Carlson, did not hesitate to name names among those pushing for war, one of which begins with B-O-L-T-O-N.
She then asked "How does a war with Iran serve the best interest of the American people of the United States? And the fact is it
does not," Gabbard said. "It better serves the interest of people like [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Bibi Netanyahu and Saudi
Arabia who are trying to push us into this war with Iran."
Clearly not afraid to challenge the full gamut establishment politics,
Tulsi Gabbard had previously called for an end to the "illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government," also observing that "the
war to overthrow Assad is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing
the Syrian government of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate
the refugee crisis, and pose a greater threat to the world." She then backed up her words with action by secretly arranging for a
personal trip to Damascus in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, saying it was important to meet adversaries "if you are
serious about pursuing peace." She made her own assessment of the situation in Syria and now favors pulling US troops out of the
country as well as ending American interventions for "regime change" in the region.
In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and in 2016 she backed Bernie Sanders' antiwar
candidacy. More recently, she has criticized President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Last May, she criticized
Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, a very bold step indeed given the power of the Israel Lobby.
Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years, and
that is why the war party is out to get her. Two weeks ago, the Daily Beast
displayed a headline
: "Tulsi Gabbard's Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists." The article also had a sub-headline: "The Hawaii congresswoman
is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood."
The obvious smear job was picked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, television's best known Hillary Clinton clone, who
brought it up in an interview with Gabbard shortly thereafter. He asked whether Gabbard was "softer" on Putin than were some
of the other candidates. Gabbard answered: "It's unfortunate that you're citing that article, George, because it's a whole lot of
fake news." Politico the reported the exchange and wrote: "'Fake news' is a favorite phrase of President Donald Trump ," putting
the ball back in Tulsi's court rather than criticizing Stephanopoulos's pointless question. Soon thereafter CNN produced
its own version of Tulsi
the Russophile , observing that Gabbard was using a Trump expression to "attack the credibility of negative coverage."
Tulsi
responded "Stephanopoulos shamelessly implied that because I oppose going to war with Russia, I'm not a loyal American, but a
Putin puppet. It just shows what absurd lengths warmongers in the media will go, to try to destroy the reputation of anyone who dares
oppose their warmongering."
Tulsi Gabbard had attracted other enemies prior to the Stephanopoulos attack. Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept
described how NBC news published a
widely distributed story on February 1 st , claiming that "experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia
have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard."
But the expert cited by NBC turned out to be a firm New Knowledge,
which was exposed by no less
than The New York Times for falsifying Russian troll accounts for the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to suggest
that the Kremlin was interfering in that election. According to Greenwald, the group ultimately behind
this attack on Gabbard is The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), which sponsors a tool called
Hamilton 68 , a news "intelligence net checker" that
claims to track Russian efforts to disseminate disinformation. The ASD
website advises that "Securing Democracy is a Global Necessity."
ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund.
It is loaded with a full complement
of Zionists and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol.
It claims, innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts
by Russia to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation.
No doubt stories headlined "Tulsi Gabbard Communist Stooge" are in the works somewhere in the mainstream media. The Establishment
politicians and their media component have difficulty in understanding just how much they are despised for their mendacity and unwillingness
to support policies that would truly benefit the American people but they are well able to dominate press coverage.
Given the flood of contrived negativity towards her campaign, it is not clear if Tulsi Gabbard will ever be able to get her message
across.
But, for the moment, she seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform.
It might just resonate with the majority of Americans who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related
frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States
The Project for a New Middle East[1] is a Project for a New Holocaust. It is happening
now. The policy of "Creative Chaos"[2] underpins the "Middle East Holocaust". Empire willfully
destroys the sovereignty and territorial integrity of prey nations such as Libya, Iraq, Syria,
Yemen, Ukraine, and beyond. Genocidal ethnic cleansing, mass murder and destruction are
described benignly as "chaos" and as "creative".
Empire deploys meticulously planned strategies to fabricate sectarian and ethnic divides,
and to balkanize prey nations. The notion, as expressed by Condoleeza Rice , that the Middle
East should be divided into a "Sunni Belt" and a "Shia Belt"[3] objectifies peoples, diminishes
their humanity, turns them into fictional "stock characters" defined exclusively by perceived
religious affiliations, and deliberately fabricates ethnic and religious tensions, all of which
serve as preconditions for imperialists to create chaos and the disintegration of strong
nation-states into fractious vassal states, devoid of self-determination and sovereignty.
Empire sees non-compliant, self-governing, secular, pluralist, multi-confessional,
democratic states as enemies. Syria is all of the above, and therefore an "enemy". Empire
further destroys the "host" when it "opens the veins" of prey countries for resource plundering
and criminal occupation. The oil-rich, strategically-located area East of the Euphrates is one
such example.
When Empire supports the SDF against ISIS, it is polishing its fake image by creating the
perception that it opposes ISIS, even as it re-introduces "rebadged" ISIS into the same battle
grounds. Alternatively, as in the case of Raqqa, Empire "rescues" and redeploys ISIS elsewhere.
Both terrorists and civilians are expendable in these demonic operations.
Empire rounds civilians up in terrorist-controlled concentration camps[4]. It "weaponizes"
them by deliberately creating conditions of desperation which lend themselves to recruiting
opportunities for new terrorist proxies. Daesh will never disappear as long as Empire is in
control or seeking control globally.
As long as Western war propaganda remains ascendant, and Western populations remain
oblivious, Westerners will continue to believe that these wars are humanitarian or in their
national interests. In fact, the wars are anti-humanitarian, and they only represent narrow
"special interests."
NATO's strongest weapon is its apparatus of "Perception Management". Without it, NATO and
the imperialists would be exposed as the Supreme International War Criminals that they
are.
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
and the author of Voices from Syria , Global Research Publishers, 2017.
"... Last February, the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Gaza's protests concluded that "it has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel." ..."
"... Article 12 of the Rome Statute allows for ICC's jurisdiction in two cases; first, if the State in which the alleged crime has occurred is itself a party of the Statute and, second, if the State where the crime has occurred agrees to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the court. ..."
The
Chief Military Advocate General of the Israeli army, Sharon Afek, and the US Department of
Defense General Counsel, Paul Ney,
shared a platform at the 'International Conference on the Law of Armed Conflict', which
took place in Herzliya, Israel between May 28-30.
Their panel witnessed some of the most misconstrued interpretations of international law
ever recorded. It was as if Afek and Ney were literally making up their own law on warfare and
armed conflict, with no regard to what international law actually stipulates.
Unsurprisingly, both Afek and Ney agreed on many things, including that Israel and the US
are blameless in all of their military conflicts, and that they will always be united against
any attempt to hold them accountable for war crimes by the International Court of Justice
(ICC).
Their tirade against the ICC mirrors that of their own leaders. While Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's
anti-ICC position is familiar, last April, US President Donald Trump virulently expressed
his contempt for the global organization and everything it represents.
"Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met
with a swift and vigorous response," Trump
said in a writing on April 12.
While Trump's (and Netanyahu's) divisive language is nothing new, Afek and Ney were
entrusted with the difficult task of using legal language to explain their countries' aversion
for international law.
Prior to the Herzliya Conference, Afek addressed the Israel Bar Association convention in
Eilat on May 26. Here, too, he made some ludicrous claims as he absolved, in advance, Israeli
soldiers who kill Palestinians.
"A soldier who is in a life-threatening situation and acts to defend himself (or) others
(he) is responsible for, is receiving and will continue receiving full back-up from the Israeli
army," he
said .
The above assertion appears far more sinister once we remember Afek's views on what
constitutes a "life-threatening situation", as he had articulated in Herzliya a few days
later.
"Thousands of Gaza's residents (try) to breach the border fence," he said, with reference to
the non-violent March of Return at the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel.
The Gaza protesters "are led by a terrorist organization that deliberately uses civilians to
carry out attacks," Afek said.
Afek sees unarmed protests in Gaza as a form of terrorism, thus concurring with an
earlier statement made by then-Israeli Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, on April 8,
2018, when he declared that "there are no innocents in Gaza."
Israel's shoot-to-kill policy, however, is not confined to the Gaza Strip but is also
implemented with the same degree of violent enthusiasm in the West Bank.
'No attacker, male or female, should make it out of any attack alive,'
Lieberman said in 2015. His orders were followed implicitly, as hundreds of Palestinians
were
killed in the West Bank and Jerusalem for allegedly trying to attack Israeli occupation
soldiers or armed illegal Jewish settlers.
Unlike democratic political systems everywhere, in Israel the occupation soldier becomes the
interpreter and
enforcer of the law.
Putting this policy into practice in Gaza is even more horrendous as unarmed protesters are
often being killed by Israeli snipers from long distances. Even
journalists and
medics have not been spared the same tragic fate as the hundreds of civilians who were
killed since the start of the protests in March 2018.
Last February, the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Gaza's protests
concluded
that "it has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli
soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those
violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately
investigated by Israel."
In his attack on the ICC at the Herzliya Conference, Afek contended that "Israel is a
law-abiding country, with an independent and strong judicial system, and there is no reason for
its actions to be scrutinized by the ICC."
The Israeli General goes on to reprimand the ICC by urging it to focus on "dealing with the
main issues for which it was founded."
Has Afek even read the Rome Statute? The first Article states that the ICC has the "power to
exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern, as
referred to in this Statute."
Article 5 elaborates the nature of these serious crimes, which include: "(a) The crime of
genocide; (b) Crimes against humanity; (c) War crimes; (d) The crime of aggression."
Israel has been accused of at least two of these crimes – war crimes and crimes
against humanity – repeatedly, including in the February
report by the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry.
Afek may argue that none of this is relevant to Israel, for the latter is not "a party to
the Rome Statute," therefore, does not fall within ICC's legal jurisdiction.
Wrong again.
Article 12 of the Rome Statute allows for ICC's jurisdiction in two cases; first, if the
State in which the alleged crime has occurred is itself a party of the Statute and, second, if
the State where the crime has occurred agrees to submit itself to the jurisdiction of the
court.
While it is true that Israel is not a signatory of the Rome Statute, Palestine has, since
2015, agreed to submit itself to the ICC's jurisdiction.
Moreover, in April 2015, the State of Palestine formally became a member of the ICC, thus
giving the court jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed in the Occupied Territories since
June 13, 2014. These crimes include human rights violations carried out during the Israeli war
on Gaza in July-August of the same year.
Afek's skewed understanding of international law went unchallenged at the Herzliya
Conference, as he was flanked by equally misguided interpreters of international law.
However, nothing proclaimed by Israel's top military prosecutor or his government will alter
the facts. Israeli war crimes must not go unpunished; Israel's judicial system is untrustworthy
and the ICC has the legal right and moral duty to carry out the will of the international
community and hold to account those responsible for war crimes anywhere, including Israel.
"... Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. ..."
"... The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies. ..."
"... It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did. ..."
"... Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war. ..."
"... In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown. ..."
"... You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient. ..."
"... Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them. ..."
"... People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place. ..."
"... How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy? ..."
"... These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation. ..."
"... Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI. ..."
"... It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers. ..."
"... It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control. ..."
"... It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case. ..."
"... And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism ..."
"... The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance. ..."
"... Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA. ..."
"... Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants. ..."
"... John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves. ..."
"... A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror. ..."
"... Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses. ..."
"... Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments. ..."
"... While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it. ..."
Conspiratorially-minded writers envisaged the Shadow World Government as a board of evil sages surrounded by the financiers and
cinema moguls. That would be bad enough; in infinitely worse reality, our world is run by the Junior Ganymede that went berserk.
It is not a government, but a network, like freemasonry of old, and it consists chiefly of treacherous spies and pens-for-hire, two
kinds of service personnel, that collected a lot of data and tools of influence, and instead of serving their masters loyally, had
decided to lead the world in the direction they prefer.
German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the last head of the Abwehr, Hitler's Military Intelligence, had been such a spy with political
ambitions. He supported Hitler as the mighty enemy of Communism; on a certain stage he came to conclusion that the US will do the
job better and switched to the Anglo-American side. He was uncovered and executed for treason. His colleague General Reinhard Gehlen
also betrayed his Führer and had switched to the American side. After the war, he continued his war against Soviet Russia, this time
for CIA instead of Abwehr.
The spies are treacherous by their nature. They contact people who betrayed their countries; they work under cover, pretending
to be somebody else; for them the switch of loyalty is as usual and normal as the gender change operation for a Moroccan doctor who
is doing that 8 to 5 every day. They mix with foreign spies, they kill people with impunity; they break every law, human or divine.
They are extremely dangerous if they do it for their own country. They are infinitely more dangerous if they work for themselves
and still keep their institutional capabilities and international network.
Recently we had a painful reminding of their treacherous nature. Venezuela's top spy, the former director of the Bolivarian National
Intelligence Service (Sebin), Manuel Cristopher Figuera , had switched sides during the last coup attempt and escaped abroad
as the coup failed. He discovered that his membership on the Junior Ganymede of the spooks is more important for him than his duty
to his country and its constitution.
Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though
they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike
Whitney and Philip Giraldi described
the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. In
the conspiracy, foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, played an important role. As by law, these spies aren't
allowed to operate on their home ground, they go into you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back routine. The CIA spies in England
and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to
unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies.
It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal
to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is
good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the
Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians
and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did.
Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of
JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq
war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war.
Russian spooks are in a special relations mode with the global network – for many years. In Russia, persistent rumours claim the
perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982)
Yuri Andropov . He and his appointees
dismantled the socialist state and prepared the takeover of 1991 in the interests of the One World project.
Andropov (who had stepped into Brezhnev's shoes in 1982 and died in 1984) had advanced Gorbachev and his architect of glasnost,
Alexander Yakovlev . Andropov
also promoted the arch-traitor KGB General Oleg Kalugin
to head its counter-intelligence. Later, Kalugin betrayed his country, escaped to the US and delivered all Russian spies he knew
of to the FBI hands.
In late 1980s-early 1990s, the KGB, originally the guarding dog of the Russian working class, had betrayed its Communist masters
and switched to work for the Network. But for their betrayal, Gorbachev would not be able to destroy his country so fast: the KGB
neutralised or misinformed the Communist leadership.
They allowed Chernobyl to explode; they permitted a German pilot to land on the Red Square – this was used by Gorbachev as an
excuse to sack the whole lot of patriotic generals. The KGB people were active in subverting other socialist states, too. They executed
the Romanian leader Ceausescu and his wife; they brought down the GDR, the socialist Germany; they plotted with Yeltsin against Gorbachev
and with Gorbachev against Romanov. As the result of their plotting, the USSR fell apart.
The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened
calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play
the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards. Years later, Vladimir
Putin came to power in Russia with the blessing of the world spooks and bankers, but being too independent a man to submit, he took
his country into its present nationalist course, trying to regain some lost ground. The dissatisfied spooks supported him.
Only recently Putin began to trim the wild growth of his own intelligence service, the FSB. It is possible the cautious president
had been alerted by the surprising insistence of the Western media that the alleged attempt on Skripal and other visible cases had
been attributed to the GRU, the relatively small Russian Military Intelligence, while the much bigger FSB had been forgotten. The
head of
FSB cybercrime department had been arrested and sentenced for lengthy term of imprisonment, and two FSB colonels had been arrested
as the search of their premises revealed immense
amounts of cash , both Russian and foreign currency. Such piles of roubles and dollars could be assembled only for an attempt
to change the regime, as it was demanded by the Network.
In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych.
They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad.
The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support
of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown.
In the US, the spooks allowed Donald Trump to become the leading Republican candidate, for they thought he would certainly lose
to Mme Clinton. Surprisingly, he had won, and since then, this man who was advanced as an easy prey, as a buffoon, had been hunted
by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry.
You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were
and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the
plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient.
Their knowledge of official leaders' faults gives them their feeling of power, but this knowledge can be translated into actual
control only for weak-minded men. Strong leaders do not submit easily. Putin has had his quota of imprudent or outright criminal
acts in his past, but he never allowed the blackmailers to dictate him their agenda. Netanyahu, another strong man of modern politics,
also had managed to survive blackmail. Meanwhile, Trump defeated all attempts to unseat him, though his enemies had used his alleged
lack of delicacy in relation to women, blacks and Jews to its utmost. He waded through the deep pond of Russiagate like Gulliver.
But he has to purge the alphabet agencies to reach safety.
In Russia, the problem is acute. Many Russian spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other
countries than to their fellow citizens. There is a freemasonic quality in their camaraderie. Such a quality could be commendable
in soldiers after the war is over, but here the war is going on. Russian spooks are particularly besotted with their declared enemies;
apparently it is the Christian quality of the Russian soul, but a very annoying one.
When Snowden reached Moscow after his daring escape from Hong Kong, the Russian TV screened a discussion that I participated in,
among journalists, members of parliament and ex-spies. The Russian spooks said that Snowden is a traitor; a person who betrayed his
agency can't be trusted and should be sent to the US in shackles. They felt they belong to the Spy World, with its inner bond, while
their loyalty to Russia was a distant second.
During recent visit of Mike Pompeo to Sochi, the head of SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Mr Sergey Naryshkin
proposed the State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the ex-CIA director,
to expand contacts between Russian and US special services at a higher level. He clarified that he actively interacted with Pompeo
during the period when he was the head of the CIA. Why would he need contacts with his adversary? It would be much better to avoid
contacts altogether.
Even president Putin, who is first of all a Russian nationalist (or a patriot, as they say), who has granted Snowden asylum in
Moscow at a high price of seriously worsening relations with Obama's administration, even Putin has told Stone that Snowden shouldn't
have leaked the documents the way he did. "If he didn't like anything at his work he should have simply resigned, but he went further",
a response proving he didn't completely freed himself from the spooks' freemasonry.
While the spooks plot, the scribes justify their plots. Media is also a weapon, and a mighty one. In Richard Wagner's opera
Lohengrin , the protagonist is defeated by the smear campaign in the media. Despite his miraculous arrival, despite his glorious
victory, the evil witch succeeds to poison minds of the hero's wife and of the court. The pen can counter the sword. When the two
are integrated, as in the union of spooks and scribes, it is too dangerous tool to leave intact.
In many countries of Europe, editorial international policies had been outsourced to the spooky Atlantic Council, the Washington-based
think tank. The Atlantic Council is strongly connected with NATO alliance and with Brussels bureaucracy, the tools of control over
Europe. Another tool is
The
Integrity Initiative , where the difference between spies and journalists is
blurred
. And so is the difference between the left and the right. The left and the right-wing media use different arguments, surprisingly
leading to the same bottom line, because both are tools of warfare for the same Network.
In 1930s, they were divided. The German and the British agents pulled and pushed in the opposite directions. The Russian military
became so friendly with the Germans, that at a certain time, Hitler believed the Russian generals would side with him against their
own leader. The Russian spooks were befriended by the Brits, and had tried to push Russia to confront Hitler. The cautious Marshal
Stalin had purged the Red Army's pro-German Generals, and the NKVD's pro-British spooks, and delayed the outbreak of hostilities
as much as he could. Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult
to deal with them.
If they are so powerful, integrated and united, shouldn't we throw a towel in the ring and surrender? Hell, no! Their success
is their undoing. They plot, but Allah is the best plotter, – our Muslim friends say. Indeed, when they succeed to suborn a party,
the people vote with their feet. The Brexit is the case to consider. The Network wanted to undermine the Brexit; so they neutralised
Corbyn by the antisemitism pursuit while May had made all she could to sabotage the Brexit while calling for it in public. Awfully
clever of them – but the British voter responded with dropping both established parties. So their clever plot misfired.
People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected
legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and
media men should know their place.
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage
to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
Spymasters are usually renowned for their inscrutability and for playing their cards close to their vests.
These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created
the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of
a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation.
Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution
to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI.
Forthcoming books will no doubt get into all the remarkable and bizarre details.
Donald Trump has demonstrated the ability to troll and goad many of his opponents into a state of imbecility. It's a negotiating
tactic -- knock them off balance, provoke them to lose control. No matter how smart they are, some people take the bait.
I am sitting here pointing to my nose. Spies run the world – contemporary history in a nutshell. A few provisos:
– It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes.
If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal
biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers.
– It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control.
The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control;
it's firmly IN control.
– There is a crucial difference between US and Russian spies. Russians can go over the head of their government to the world.
That's the only effective check on state criminal enterprise like CIA. Article 17 of the Russian Constitution says "in the Russian
Federation rights and freedoms of person and citizen are recognized and guaranteed pursuant to the generally recognized principles
and norms of international law and in accordance with this Constitution." Article 18 states that rights and freedoms of the person
and citizen are directly applicable, which prevents the kind of bad-faith tricks the USA pulls, like declaring "non-self executing"
treaties, or making legally void reservations, declarations, understandings, and provisos to screw you out of your rights. Article
46(3) guarantees citizens a constitutional right to appeal to inter-State bodies for the protection of human rights and freedoms
if internal legal redress has been exhausted. Ratified international treaties including the ICCPR supersede any domestic legislation
stipulating otherwise.
Isn't it just collusion that holds certain elite groups together, including in some businesses where a lot of chicanery goes on.
The most important thing is to be in on it as one of them, not as a person who can be trusted not to say anything, but as one
of the gang. It's exactly how absenteeism-friendly offices full of crony parents with crony-parent managers work.
The only problem for the guy at the tippy top is what would happen if such a tight group turned on him / her? Maybe, some leaders
see the value in protecting a few brave individuals, like Snowden, letting any coup-stirring spooks know that some people are
watching the Establishment's rights violators, too. Those with technical knowledge have more capacity than most to do it or, at
least, to understand how it works.
In a country founded on individual liberties, including Fourth Amendment privacy rights that were protected by less greedy
generations, the US should have elected leaders that put the US Constitution first, but that is too much to ask in an era when
the top dogs in business & government are all colluding for money.
In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the
KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov.
FWIW, I have heard the exact same thing from Russian commenters myself. Some have insisted that, if Andropov had lived long
enough, he would have carried glasnost and perestroika himself.
Spies are loathsome bunch, with questionable loyalties and personal integrity. But I believe that overall they play a positive
role. They play a positive role because they help adversaries gain insight into their adversary's activities.
If it wasn't for the spies, paranoia about what the other side is doing can get out of hand and cause wrong actions to take
place. The problem with the spies is also that no one knows how much they can be trusted and on whose side they are really on.
It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected
to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism
– depending on the case.
And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money,
because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism.
The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial
espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage
them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR
close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance.
Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization
of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA.
An aspect of the rule of spies that Mr. Shamir does not touch on is the legitimization of this rule through popular culture.
This started with the James Bond novels and movies and by now has become ubiquitous. Spies and assassins are the heroes of the
masses. While secrecy is still needed for tactical reasons in the case of specific operations, overall secrecy is not needed nor
even desirable. So you have thugs like Pompeo actually boasting of their villainy before audiences of college students at Texas
A&M and you have the Mossad supporting the publication of the book Rise and Kill First which is an extensive account of their
world-wide assassination policy. They have the power; now they want the perks that go with it, including being treated like rock
stars.
dear mr Shamir, the criminals are not only stupid but also utterly wicked. they will be stricken down in the twinkling of the
eye and will cry out why God? all the righteous will shout for joy and give thanks to the Almighty for judging Babylon. woe unto
them! they will have no place to hide or run to.
Ezekiel 9 (NKJV)
The Wicked Are Slain
9 Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a
deadly weapon in his hand." 2 And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his
battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood
beside the bronze altar.
3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He
called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; 4 and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst
of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations
that are done within it."
5 To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity.
6 Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and
begin at My sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were before the temple. 7 Then He said to them, "Defile the temple,
and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!" And they went out and killed in the city.
8 So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, "Ah, Lord
God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?"
9 Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed,
and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!' 10 And as for Me also,
My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head."
11 Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, "I have done as You commanded
me."
E Michael Jones was just warning President Trump about the possibility of this in the Straits of Hormuz.
https://youtu.be/iIm3WuJAVEE?t=272
Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors,
but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor
is a spook and he does what he wants.
John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves.
@Antares that's because the Mossad
isn't like "our" spy agencies. it's closer to the old paradigm of the hashishim or true assassins. Mossad "agents" don't gad around
wearing dark glasses and tapping phones; they run proper deep cover operations. "sleepers" is a term used in the USA. they have
jobs. they look "normal". They integrate
Do spies run the world? No not really, bankers run the world.
Bankers constitute most of the deep state in the US/UK in particular and most of Europe. It is the bankers/deep state which
control the intelligence agencies. The ethnicity of a hefty proportion of said bankers is plain to see for anyone with functioning
critical faculties. How else can a tiny country in the middle east have such influence in the US? How else do we explain why 2/3
of the UK parliament are "friends of Israel" How come financial institutions can commit felonies and no one does jail time? why
is Israel allowed to commit war crimes and break international law with total impunity? who got bailed out of their gambling debts
at the expense of inflicting "austerity" on most of the western world?
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage
to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks
who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country,
its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion
and terror.
Since winning, Trump has been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry. <fallacy is that Trump could have gained the assistence
of every American, had Trump just used his powers to declassify all secret information and make it available to the public, instead
he chases Assange, and continues to conduct the affairs of his office in secret.
Propaganda preys on belief.. it is more powerful than an atomic weapon.. when the facts are hidden or when the facts are changed,
distorted or destroyed.
Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their
fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule
making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence
of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses.
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/josh-gottheimer-democrats-yemen/
<i wrote IRT to the article, that contents appearing in private media supported monopoly powered corporations and distributed
to the public, direct the use of military and the willingness of soldiers of 22 different countries.
Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended
to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately
owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments.
I am bothered by you article because it looks to be Trumped weighted and failes to make clear it is these secret apolitical,
human rights abusers, that direct the contents of the media distributed articles that appear in the privately owmed, media distributed
to the public. Also not explained is how the cost of advertising is shared by the monopoly powered corporations, and it is that
advertising that is the source of support that keeps the fake news in business, the nation state propaganda in line, and the support
of robin -hood terror.
Monopoly powered global corporation advertising funds the fake and misleading private media, that is why the open internet
has been shut in tight. In order for the evil, global acting, high technology nomads to continue their extortion and terror activities
they need the media, its their only real weapon. I have never meet a member of any of the twenty two agencies that was not a trained,
certified mental case terrorist.
I think the interplay between the spooks and scribes warrants a deeper explanation. Covert action refers to anything in which
the author can disclaim his responsibility, ie it looks like someone else or something else. The handler in a political operation
cannot abuse his agent because the agent is the actor. The handler in an intelligence gathering operation can abuse his agent
because the agent merely enables action.
The political operations in this case are propaganda. The Congress of Cultural Freedom is the most clearly described one to
date. Propaganda is necessary in any mass society to ensure that voters care about the right issues, the right way, at the right
time. Propaganda can be true, false, or a mix of the two. Black propaganda deals in falsehoods, ie the Steele Dossier. Black propaganda
works best when it enables a pre-planned operation, but it pollutes the intelligence gathering process with disinformation.
Intelligence gathering is colloquially called investigative reporting. If anyone knows about Gary Webb, Alan Frankovich, or
Michael Hastings they know you can't really do that job well for very long. So how do the old timers last so long? It's a back
and forth. The reporter brings all of his information on a subject to his intelligence source (handler). The source then says,
"print this, print that, sit on that, and since you've been a good boy here's a little something you didn't know." The true role
of the investigative reporter is to conduct counterintelligence and package it as a limited hangout.
While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control.
They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care
as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it.
@Sean McBride And now Trump should
have then all rounded up and hung from the trees in the front of the Whitehouse. Anything less should be seen as encouragement.
The worst among us rule over the rest of us. As Plato said, this needs to change. How to do that? We don't know, but we desperately
need to find out ..
Obama was a very effective promoter of what might be called the "globalist" agenda. He of course didn't invent it but did appoint
those three.
Wayne Madsen gave a convincing account in his speculation that both Obama's parent's were CIA operatives. So it's "all
the family" and in the details one might conclude with the author that indeed "spies run the world."
"... Trump's eunuchs are still guarding and serving their master I see. And their master is a psychopath who is getting ready to pardon the tough guy kind of psychopath he admires. Of course the Orange psychopath doesn't consider the fact that this kind of thing , just like the Iraqi prison tortures , incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our opponents and allies, and in doing so puts US service members at greater risk. ..."
Trump's eunuchs are still guarding and serving their master I see. And
their master is a psychopath who is getting ready to pardon the tough guy kind of psychopath
he admires. Of course the Orange psychopath doesn't consider the fact that this kind of thing
, just like the Iraqi prison tortures , incentivizes the commission of war crimes by our
opponents and allies, and in doing so puts US service members at greater risk.
Here's Trump's hero ..
"One day, from his sniper nest, Chief Gallagher shot a girl in a flower-print hijab who
was walking w/ other girls on the riverbank. She dropped, clutching her stomach, & the
other girls dragged her away."
A mass murderer according to Senior Seals: "Would order needless risks, to fire rockets at
houses for no apparent reason. He routinely parked an armored truck on a Tigris River bridge
& emptied the truck's heavy machine gun into neighborhoods on twith no discernible
targets."
"Platoon members said he spent much of his time in a hidden perch with a sniper rifle,
firing three or four times as often as other platoon snipers. They said he boasted about the
number of people he had killed, including women."
Two other snipers said, the chief shot an unarmed man in a white robe with a wispy white
beard. They said the man fell, a red blotch spreading on his back."
Gallagher ordered a hatchet & a hunting knife" before 2017 deployment. He texted the
man who made them (a Navy Seal veteran) shortly after arriving in Iraq: "I'll try and dig
that knife or hatchet on someone's skull!"
May 2017, a SEAL medic was treating a wounded 15 y/o Islamic State fighter. "He's mine,"
Gallagher said. "Gallagher walked up without a word and stabbed the wounded teenager several
times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him."
He didn't even try to hide the murder of the 15 y/o. He brought other seals around minutes
later & took a photo over the body. Later, he texted the photo to a fellow SEAL in
California: "Good story behind this, got him with my hunting knife." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html
Now Trumpies bear in mind that Gallagher's own fellow Seals testified against him
that's how depraved this guy Trump is pardoning is.
Here's Gallagher if you live in a stand your ground state and run into him shoot the
bastard, he'll have his hunting knife on him so you can claim self defense.
"... Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. ..."
"... The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies. ..."
"... It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did. ..."
"... Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war. ..."
"... In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown. ..."
"... You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient. ..."
"... Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them. ..."
"... People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place. ..."
"... How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy? ..."
"... These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation. ..."
"... Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI. ..."
"... It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers. ..."
"... It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control. ..."
"... It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case. ..."
"... And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism ..."
"... The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance. ..."
"... Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA. ..."
"... Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants. ..."
"... John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves. ..."
"... A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror. ..."
"... Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses. ..."
"... Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments. ..."
"... While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it. ..."
Conspiratorially-minded writers envisaged the Shadow World Government as a board of evil sages surrounded by the financiers and
cinema moguls. That would be bad enough; in infinitely worse reality, our world is run by the Junior Ganymede that went berserk.
It is not a government, but a network, like freemasonry of old, and it consists chiefly of treacherous spies and pens-for-hire, two
kinds of service personnel, that collected a lot of data and tools of influence, and instead of serving their masters loyally, had
decided to lead the world in the direction they prefer.
German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the last head of the Abwehr, Hitler's Military Intelligence, had been such a spy with political
ambitions. He supported Hitler as the mighty enemy of Communism; on a certain stage he came to conclusion that the US will do the
job better and switched to the Anglo-American side. He was uncovered and executed for treason. His colleague General Reinhard Gehlen
also betrayed his Führer and had switched to the American side. After the war, he continued his war against Soviet Russia, this time
for CIA instead of Abwehr.
The spies are treacherous by their nature. They contact people who betrayed their countries; they work under cover, pretending
to be somebody else; for them the switch of loyalty is as usual and normal as the gender change operation for a Moroccan doctor who
is doing that 8 to 5 every day. They mix with foreign spies, they kill people with impunity; they break every law, human or divine.
They are extremely dangerous if they do it for their own country. They are infinitely more dangerous if they work for themselves
and still keep their institutional capabilities and international network.
Recently we had a painful reminding of their treacherous nature. Venezuela's top spy, the former director of the Bolivarian National
Intelligence Service (Sebin), Manuel Cristopher Figuera , had switched sides during the last coup attempt and escaped abroad
as the coup failed. He discovered that his membership on the Junior Ganymede of the spooks is more important for him than his duty
to his country and its constitution.
Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though
they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike
Whitney and Philip Giraldi described
the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. In
the conspiracy, foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, played an important role. As by law, these spies aren't
allowed to operate on their home ground, they go into you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back routine. The CIA spies in England
and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to
unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies.
It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal
to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is
good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the
Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians
and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did.
Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of
JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq
war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war.
Russian spooks are in a special relations mode with the global network – for many years. In Russia, persistent rumours claim the
perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982)
Yuri Andropov . He and his appointees
dismantled the socialist state and prepared the takeover of 1991 in the interests of the One World project.
Andropov (who had stepped into Brezhnev's shoes in 1982 and died in 1984) had advanced Gorbachev and his architect of glasnost,
Alexander Yakovlev . Andropov
also promoted the arch-traitor KGB General Oleg Kalugin
to head its counter-intelligence. Later, Kalugin betrayed his country, escaped to the US and delivered all Russian spies he knew
of to the FBI hands.
In late 1980s-early 1990s, the KGB, originally the guarding dog of the Russian working class, had betrayed its Communist masters
and switched to work for the Network. But for their betrayal, Gorbachev would not be able to destroy his country so fast: the KGB
neutralised or misinformed the Communist leadership.
They allowed Chernobyl to explode; they permitted a German pilot to land on the Red Square – this was used by Gorbachev as an
excuse to sack the whole lot of patriotic generals. The KGB people were active in subverting other socialist states, too. They executed
the Romanian leader Ceausescu and his wife; they brought down the GDR, the socialist Germany; they plotted with Yeltsin against Gorbachev
and with Gorbachev against Romanov. As the result of their plotting, the USSR fell apart.
The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened
calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play
the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards. Years later, Vladimir
Putin came to power in Russia with the blessing of the world spooks and bankers, but being too independent a man to submit, he took
his country into its present nationalist course, trying to regain some lost ground. The dissatisfied spooks supported him.
Only recently Putin began to trim the wild growth of his own intelligence service, the FSB. It is possible the cautious president
had been alerted by the surprising insistence of the Western media that the alleged attempt on Skripal and other visible cases had
been attributed to the GRU, the relatively small Russian Military Intelligence, while the much bigger FSB had been forgotten. The
head of
FSB cybercrime department had been arrested and sentenced for lengthy term of imprisonment, and two FSB colonels had been arrested
as the search of their premises revealed immense
amounts of cash , both Russian and foreign currency. Such piles of roubles and dollars could be assembled only for an attempt
to change the regime, as it was demanded by the Network.
In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych.
They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad.
The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support
of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown.
In the US, the spooks allowed Donald Trump to become the leading Republican candidate, for they thought he would certainly lose
to Mme Clinton. Surprisingly, he had won, and since then, this man who was advanced as an easy prey, as a buffoon, had been hunted
by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry.
You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were
and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the
plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient.
Their knowledge of official leaders' faults gives them their feeling of power, but this knowledge can be translated into actual
control only for weak-minded men. Strong leaders do not submit easily. Putin has had his quota of imprudent or outright criminal
acts in his past, but he never allowed the blackmailers to dictate him their agenda. Netanyahu, another strong man of modern politics,
also had managed to survive blackmail. Meanwhile, Trump defeated all attempts to unseat him, though his enemies had used his alleged
lack of delicacy in relation to women, blacks and Jews to its utmost. He waded through the deep pond of Russiagate like Gulliver.
But he has to purge the alphabet agencies to reach safety.
In Russia, the problem is acute. Many Russian spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other
countries than to their fellow citizens. There is a freemasonic quality in their camaraderie. Such a quality could be commendable
in soldiers after the war is over, but here the war is going on. Russian spooks are particularly besotted with their declared enemies;
apparently it is the Christian quality of the Russian soul, but a very annoying one.
When Snowden reached Moscow after his daring escape from Hong Kong, the Russian TV screened a discussion that I participated in,
among journalists, members of parliament and ex-spies. The Russian spooks said that Snowden is a traitor; a person who betrayed his
agency can't be trusted and should be sent to the US in shackles. They felt they belong to the Spy World, with its inner bond, while
their loyalty to Russia was a distant second.
During recent visit of Mike Pompeo to Sochi, the head of SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Mr Sergey Naryshkin
proposed the State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the ex-CIA director,
to expand contacts between Russian and US special services at a higher level. He clarified that he actively interacted with Pompeo
during the period when he was the head of the CIA. Why would he need contacts with his adversary? It would be much better to avoid
contacts altogether.
Even president Putin, who is first of all a Russian nationalist (or a patriot, as they say), who has granted Snowden asylum in
Moscow at a high price of seriously worsening relations with Obama's administration, even Putin has told Stone that Snowden shouldn't
have leaked the documents the way he did. "If he didn't like anything at his work he should have simply resigned, but he went further",
a response proving he didn't completely freed himself from the spooks' freemasonry.
While the spooks plot, the scribes justify their plots. Media is also a weapon, and a mighty one. In Richard Wagner's opera
Lohengrin , the protagonist is defeated by the smear campaign in the media. Despite his miraculous arrival, despite his glorious
victory, the evil witch succeeds to poison minds of the hero's wife and of the court. The pen can counter the sword. When the two
are integrated, as in the union of spooks and scribes, it is too dangerous tool to leave intact.
In many countries of Europe, editorial international policies had been outsourced to the spooky Atlantic Council, the Washington-based
think tank. The Atlantic Council is strongly connected with NATO alliance and with Brussels bureaucracy, the tools of control over
Europe. Another tool is
The
Integrity Initiative , where the difference between spies and journalists is
blurred
. And so is the difference between the left and the right. The left and the right-wing media use different arguments, surprisingly
leading to the same bottom line, because both are tools of warfare for the same Network.
In 1930s, they were divided. The German and the British agents pulled and pushed in the opposite directions. The Russian military
became so friendly with the Germans, that at a certain time, Hitler believed the Russian generals would side with him against their
own leader. The Russian spooks were befriended by the Brits, and had tried to push Russia to confront Hitler. The cautious Marshal
Stalin had purged the Red Army's pro-German Generals, and the NKVD's pro-British spooks, and delayed the outbreak of hostilities
as much as he could. Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult
to deal with them.
If they are so powerful, integrated and united, shouldn't we throw a towel in the ring and surrender? Hell, no! Their success
is their undoing. They plot, but Allah is the best plotter, – our Muslim friends say. Indeed, when they succeed to suborn a party,
the people vote with their feet. The Brexit is the case to consider. The Network wanted to undermine the Brexit; so they neutralised
Corbyn by the antisemitism pursuit while May had made all she could to sabotage the Brexit while calling for it in public. Awfully
clever of them – but the British voter responded with dropping both established parties. So their clever plot misfired.
People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected
legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and
media men should know their place.
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage
to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
Spymasters are usually renowned for their inscrutability and for playing their cards close to their vests.
These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created
the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of
a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation.
Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution
to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI.
Forthcoming books will no doubt get into all the remarkable and bizarre details.
Donald Trump has demonstrated the ability to troll and goad many of his opponents into a state of imbecility. It's a negotiating
tactic -- knock them off balance, provoke them to lose control. No matter how smart they are, some people take the bait.
I am sitting here pointing to my nose. Spies run the world – contemporary history in a nutshell. A few provisos:
– It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes.
If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal
biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers.
– It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control.
The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control;
it's firmly IN control.
– There is a crucial difference between US and Russian spies. Russians can go over the head of their government to the world.
That's the only effective check on state criminal enterprise like CIA. Article 17 of the Russian Constitution says "in the Russian
Federation rights and freedoms of person and citizen are recognized and guaranteed pursuant to the generally recognized principles
and norms of international law and in accordance with this Constitution." Article 18 states that rights and freedoms of the person
and citizen are directly applicable, which prevents the kind of bad-faith tricks the USA pulls, like declaring "non-self executing"
treaties, or making legally void reservations, declarations, understandings, and provisos to screw you out of your rights. Article
46(3) guarantees citizens a constitutional right to appeal to inter-State bodies for the protection of human rights and freedoms
if internal legal redress has been exhausted. Ratified international treaties including the ICCPR supersede any domestic legislation
stipulating otherwise.
Isn't it just collusion that holds certain elite groups together, including in some businesses where a lot of chicanery goes on.
The most important thing is to be in on it as one of them, not as a person who can be trusted not to say anything, but as one
of the gang. It's exactly how absenteeism-friendly offices full of crony parents with crony-parent managers work.
The only problem for the guy at the tippy top is what would happen if such a tight group turned on him / her? Maybe, some leaders
see the value in protecting a few brave individuals, like Snowden, letting any coup-stirring spooks know that some people are
watching the Establishment's rights violators, too. Those with technical knowledge have more capacity than most to do it or, at
least, to understand how it works.
In a country founded on individual liberties, including Fourth Amendment privacy rights that were protected by less greedy
generations, the US should have elected leaders that put the US Constitution first, but that is too much to ask in an era when
the top dogs in business & government are all colluding for money.
In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the
KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov.
FWIW, I have heard the exact same thing from Russian commenters myself. Some have insisted that, if Andropov had lived long
enough, he would have carried glasnost and perestroika himself.
Spies are loathsome bunch, with questionable loyalties and personal integrity. But I believe that overall they play a positive
role. They play a positive role because they help adversaries gain insight into their adversary's activities.
If it wasn't for the spies, paranoia about what the other side is doing can get out of hand and cause wrong actions to take
place. The problem with the spies is also that no one knows how much they can be trusted and on whose side they are really on.
It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected
to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism
– depending on the case.
And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money,
because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism.
The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial
espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage
them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR
close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance.
Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization
of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA.
An aspect of the rule of spies that Mr. Shamir does not touch on is the legitimization of this rule through popular culture.
This started with the James Bond novels and movies and by now has become ubiquitous. Spies and assassins are the heroes of the
masses. While secrecy is still needed for tactical reasons in the case of specific operations, overall secrecy is not needed nor
even desirable. So you have thugs like Pompeo actually boasting of their villainy before audiences of college students at Texas
A&M and you have the Mossad supporting the publication of the book Rise and Kill First which is an extensive account of their
world-wide assassination policy. They have the power; now they want the perks that go with it, including being treated like rock
stars.
dear mr Shamir, the criminals are not only stupid but also utterly wicked. they will be stricken down in the twinkling of the
eye and will cry out why God? all the righteous will shout for joy and give thanks to the Almighty for judging Babylon. woe unto
them! they will have no place to hide or run to.
Ezekiel 9 (NKJV)
The Wicked Are Slain
9 Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a
deadly weapon in his hand." 2 And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his
battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood
beside the bronze altar.
3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He
called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; 4 and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst
of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations
that are done within it."
5 To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity.
6 Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and
begin at My sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were before the temple. 7 Then He said to them, "Defile the temple,
and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!" And they went out and killed in the city.
8 So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, "Ah, Lord
God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?"
9 Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed,
and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!' 10 And as for Me also,
My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head."
11 Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, "I have done as You commanded
me."
E Michael Jones was just warning President Trump about the possibility of this in the Straits of Hormuz.
https://youtu.be/iIm3WuJAVEE?t=272
Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors,
but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor
is a spook and he does what he wants.
John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves.
@Antares that's because the Mossad
isn't like "our" spy agencies. it's closer to the old paradigm of the hashishim or true assassins. Mossad "agents" don't gad around
wearing dark glasses and tapping phones; they run proper deep cover operations. "sleepers" is a term used in the USA. they have
jobs. they look "normal". They integrate
Do spies run the world? No not really, bankers run the world.
Bankers constitute most of the deep state in the US/UK in particular and most of Europe. It is the bankers/deep state which
control the intelligence agencies. The ethnicity of a hefty proportion of said bankers is plain to see for anyone with functioning
critical faculties. How else can a tiny country in the middle east have such influence in the US? How else do we explain why 2/3
of the UK parliament are "friends of Israel" How come financial institutions can commit felonies and no one does jail time? why
is Israel allowed to commit war crimes and break international law with total impunity? who got bailed out of their gambling debts
at the expense of inflicting "austerity" on most of the western world?
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage
to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks
who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country,
its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion
and terror.
Since winning, Trump has been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry. <fallacy is that Trump could have gained the assistence
of every American, had Trump just used his powers to declassify all secret information and make it available to the public, instead
he chases Assange, and continues to conduct the affairs of his office in secret.
Propaganda preys on belief.. it is more powerful than an atomic weapon.. when the facts are hidden or when the facts are changed,
distorted or destroyed.
Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their
fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule
making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence
of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses.
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/josh-gottheimer-democrats-yemen/
<i wrote IRT to the article, that contents appearing in private media supported monopoly powered corporations and distributed
to the public, direct the use of military and the willingness of soldiers of 22 different countries.
Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended
to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately
owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments.
I am bothered by you article because it looks to be Trumped weighted and failes to make clear it is these secret apolitical,
human rights abusers, that direct the contents of the media distributed articles that appear in the privately owmed, media distributed
to the public. Also not explained is how the cost of advertising is shared by the monopoly powered corporations, and it is that
advertising that is the source of support that keeps the fake news in business, the nation state propaganda in line, and the support
of robin -hood terror.
Monopoly powered global corporation advertising funds the fake and misleading private media, that is why the open internet
has been shut in tight. In order for the evil, global acting, high technology nomads to continue their extortion and terror activities
they need the media, its their only real weapon. I have never meet a member of any of the twenty two agencies that was not a trained,
certified mental case terrorist.
I think the interplay between the spooks and scribes warrants a deeper explanation. Covert action refers to anything in which
the author can disclaim his responsibility, ie it looks like someone else or something else. The handler in a political operation
cannot abuse his agent because the agent is the actor. The handler in an intelligence gathering operation can abuse his agent
because the agent merely enables action.
The political operations in this case are propaganda. The Congress of Cultural Freedom is the most clearly described one to
date. Propaganda is necessary in any mass society to ensure that voters care about the right issues, the right way, at the right
time. Propaganda can be true, false, or a mix of the two. Black propaganda deals in falsehoods, ie the Steele Dossier. Black propaganda
works best when it enables a pre-planned operation, but it pollutes the intelligence gathering process with disinformation.
Intelligence gathering is colloquially called investigative reporting. If anyone knows about Gary Webb, Alan Frankovich, or
Michael Hastings they know you can't really do that job well for very long. So how do the old timers last so long? It's a back
and forth. The reporter brings all of his information on a subject to his intelligence source (handler). The source then says,
"print this, print that, sit on that, and since you've been a good boy here's a little something you didn't know." The true role
of the investigative reporter is to conduct counterintelligence and package it as a limited hangout.
While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control.
They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care
as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it.
@Sean McBride And now Trump should
have then all rounded up and hung from the trees in the front of the Whitehouse. Anything less should be seen as encouragement.
The worst among us rule over the rest of us. As Plato said, this needs to change. How to do that? We don't know, but we desperately
need to find out ..
Obama was a very effective promoter of what might be called the "globalist" agenda. He of course didn't invent it but did appoint
those three.
Wayne Madsen gave a convincing account in his speculation that both Obama's parent's were CIA operatives. So it's "all
the family" and in the details one might conclude with the author that indeed "spies run the world."
A full-fledged war with Tehran will tank the US economy because the fighting will
immediately make the price of oil skyrocket, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader warned. US
leaders will not go to war against Tehran if they care for the economic wellbeing of their
country, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, aide and adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei,
told Fars News Agency.
The first bullet fired in the Persian Gulf will push the oil prices well above $100. It
will be unbearable for the US and Europe, as well as American allies like Japan and South
Korea.
Safavi, who has led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the past, stated that
Washington prefers to wage "economic and psychological war" against the nation. The US
knows there will be "significant costs" should a full-fledged conflict erupt, he
said.
The Pentagon had earlier announced plans to deploy marines and Patriot air defense missile
systems to join an aircraft carrier strike group operating near the Persian Gulf. Officials in
Tehran have been downplaying the military buildup by the US near its borders but vowed to
strike back if attacked.
Last month, Iran partially suspended its commitments under the 2015 deal on its nuclear
programs, known as the JCPOA. The step followed several rounds of sanctions reimposed on Iran
by the US which withdrew from the agreement a year ago.
Posted on
May 30, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I don't know
enough about the structure of the Iranian economy to assess whether oil export revenue is as
critical as this article suggests. Iran clearly needs foreign currency (exports) to buy imports
like pharmaceuticals and any critical materials and products they don't produce domestically
like chips.
I was under the impression that Iran had become pretty autarchical due to having been under
sanctions for so long. But it may still have enough import dependence to prevent it from simply
net spending. If the sanctions have indeed meaningfully reduced domestic productive capacity,
"printing" would produce inflation pronto. The Western press says yes. However an academic who
visited the country in the last year (but before the latest round) said they didn't see any
signs of distress during several weeks there when he went about freely (and this individual
spends most of his time in developing economies).
It's hard to predict what will happen in the oil market as the U.S. sanctions on Iran
tighten. For now, it looks like India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey will hold off from buying
Iranian oil. These countries -- with China -- had been the main sources of Iran's foreign
exchange. It is unlikely -- at the present time -- that India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey
will break the U.S. siege on Iran. They have made it clear that they do not want to rattle the
U.S. cage. Request for new waivers from the U.S. came to naught. India's government had said
that it would reassess the purchases of cheap Iranian oil after the elections. It is likely
that India will restart some buys, but certainly not enough to prevent economic collapse in
Iran.
As the May deadline for the U.S. sanctions loomed, these countries bought vast amounts of
oil from Iran to create their own buffer stocks. Revenues from the export of oil reached $50
billion for the Iranian financial year of 2018-19 (ending March 20). The oil sector contributed
to 70 percent of Iran's exports. This income is essential for running Iran's government and
paying its 4.6 million employees. The cost of the government is roughly $24 billion. With the
collapse of sales to India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey, Iran will have a very difficult time
raising revenues to maintain its economy. The National Development Fund and the hard currency
reserves have already begun to be depleted, with dollar holdings now in the tens of
billions.
New Silk Road
Tehran has long been hoped that China would continue to buy Iranian oil and prevent the
meltdown of Iran's economy and its government. There are two reasons why China would want to
ignore U.S. sanctions and continue to buy Iranian oil. The first has to do with the fact that
Iran's oil is cheap and of a quality that Chinese refiners prefer. The second has to do with
Iran's crucial location along the line of China's Belt and Road as well as its String of Pearls
initiatives. Chaos in Iran or a government in Tehran that is pliant to the United States would
be unacceptable to Beijing. Roads, trains and pipelines -- the infrastructure of the Belt and
Road Initiative -- are to run from the Chinese territory through Central Asia into Iran and
then outward toward West Asia and -- via Turkey -- into Europe. Iran's centrality to this
project should not be underestimated.
In the first few months of 2019, China bought about half of Iran's crude oil exports. It has
become a crucial pillar for Iran, whose diplomats say quite openly that if China no longer buys
Iran's oil or invests in Iran, the problems for the country will be grave. Massive oil buys
from China in the weeks leading to the end of the U.S. waivers are, however, no indication of
the continuation of this relationship. Chinese oil companies put in large orders to stockpile
oil in anticipation of the cuts. Oil analysts suggest that the two major Chinese oil importers
-- China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)
have not put in any buys since the U.S. waivers expired.
Why China Is Not Buying Iranian Oil
China -- the world's fastest-growing consumer of oil -- continues to buy oil from the United
States -- the world's fastest-growing producer of oil. These two countries are locked in a
trade war, with tariffs rising on a raft of products from steel to soybeans. China has not
placed any tariffs on U.S. crude oil imports, but it has reduced its purchases of U.S. oil by
80 percent. Despite China's withdrawal from the U.S. oil market, it has not closed the door on
future purchases. Meanwhile, China has increased its oil purchases from Saudi Arabia by 43
percent in April. There is every indication that China will continue to increase its buys from
the kingdom during the course of this year -- to substitute for Iranian oil and, perhaps, for
U.S. oil. China has also been slowly increasing its natural gas imports from Australia, a
tendency that is expected to rise.
New surveillance technology of tankers, low oil prices and more constraints on settling
bills have made it difficult to smuggle oil out of Iran. Last year, smuggled oil out of Iran
totaled a minuscule 0.3 million barrels per day. This is not enough to compensate for the oil
purchases stopped by East and South Asian countries. U.S. sanctions, in this climate, have made
tanker owners and insurers skittish about carrying Iranian oil.
Chinese firms are susceptible to this pressure. Nonetheless, the Liberian-flagged tanker
Pacific Bravo is said to have loaded Iranian oil after the expiry of the waiver and is
making its way to China. As of this writing, the tanker is off the coast of Sri Lanka. When it
arrives in China and offloads its cargo, how will the U.S. respond?
Iran-Iraq-Syria
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was in Baghdad on May 26. He met with Iraq's
Foreign Minister Mohamed al-Hakim, who said that Iraq's government does not believe that the
"economic blockade" -- namely the U.S. sanctions -- was good for the region. "We stand with
Iran in its position," Hakim said.
Earlier in May, Iraq's Oil Minister Thamer Gadhba said that his country would continue to
buy Iran's natural gas -- essential for Iraq's electricity grid. This was despite U.S. pressure
to cut natural gas purchases from Iran and to substitute this through a $14 billion deal with
U.S. energy firms (including General Electric). Indications show that Iraq will not bend to
U.S. pressure at this time. Nor will Iraq block Iranian oil from going to Syria by truck -- an
energy source that is essential to Syria.
China's Shield
U.S. troops continue to arrive in the Gulf region, threatening Iran. Zarif and al-Hakim
jointly said that this is a dangerous development. Pressure on Iran increases daily.
China has made it clear that it could buy Iranian oil if it can pay in yuan or euros, but it
does not want to make Iran part of its dispute with the United States. The appetite to bring
Iran onto the bargaining table with the United States does not exist in Beijing. Nor is Beijing
willing to provide Iran with a protective shield.
But there are pressures on China not to ignore its own interests in the region. China built
a large port in Gwadar, Pakistan, which was intended to circumvent the long transit of goods
(and oil) from the Gulf through the Straits of Malacca to the South China Sea. But there are
tensions here, as Baloch Liberation Army attacks mount on Chinese targets. One hundred and
fifty kilometers west of Gwadar is the Iranian port of Chabahar, developed with Indian
assistance. The United States -- at a request from the Afghan government -- has turned the
other way to continued Indian involvement in that port, which includes transportation lines to
the Afghan border through Iran. Iran has signaled that it would be interested in giving China a
role in this port if India begins to drift away.
China has increased its engagement in West Asia, but not to the point of getting sucked into
a conflict that it sees as unfortunate. What this means is that Iran cannot rely fully on
China. And yet, China is the only antidote to the U.S. suffocation of Iran.
Global oil production is high, as are oil inventories. Oil prices, consequently, are low and
will likely be lowered by reduced global demand. Projected low oil prices should raise more
alarms in Tehran, since Iranian external revenues will decline and so too will its importance
to Chinese importers. The only reason for China to throw a shield around Iran is to protect the
Belt and Road Initiative. Not for the oil.
I've no insights into the internal economy of Iran, but i would have assumed that the
victory in Syria will take a lot of pressure off – its support for Assad cost Iran many
billions in foreign currency which it can now hopefully wind down, especially as it looks
like the Chinese and Qatari's will step up in providing recovery aid for Syria.
Another potential major source of revenue is Qatar, which is of course still in conflict
with its Gulf neighbours. Qatar shares its vast off-shore gas reserves with Iran with a
variety of secret protocols. It would hardly be a surprise if it turned out much of the gas
they sell is in fact Iranian. The Saudis are dependent on Qatari gas for their electricity
supply, so they could well be inadvertently providing funding for Iran.
But the biggest problem for Iran is surely consistent low oil prices and the fact that
their main customers have built up very large stockpiles. Also, low prices for Irans other
exports, such as plastics, fertilisers, copper and aluminium can't be helping. I believe
climate change might also be impacting on their long term prospects for exporting
agricultural produce, especially nuts and fruit. Iran future may be as dependent on avoiding
drought as it is on rising oil prices.
Yes, sorry, my mistake, out of date information – KSA used to get natural gas from
the South Pars field in Qatar prior to the LNG boom, but is seemingly now self sufficient for
electricity generation. I was getting my pipelines mixed up.
I wonder whether the aggressive stance against Iran has more to do with blocking the Silk
Road Initiative rather than just Iran herself and Iran's oil. Probably Xi Jinping feels this
and will support Iran, in agreement with Prashad's statement in this sense. I also believe
that some EU leaders share this view. Given the importance of Iran this migth result in an
acceleration of the development of swift independent payment systems. We will see.
Xi knows the Silk Road importance, and Obama's forgotten Pivot to Asia wasn't a feel good
initiative.
I think US foreign policy types are hold deeply racist convictions. Iran is still the
target because Iran dumped our man In Tehran. How dare those little people reject a US
approved choice? Combined with an expat crowd of SAVAK every bit as deluded as the Cubans who
came after the fall of Batista who have it on "good authority" they are about to be returned
to power I mean democracy is about to flourish, the usual thugs in Washington have what they
need to rant and rave.
As a counter narrative, the problem is Iran is another country I wouldn't normally worry
about. I don't have a monthly premium I send to Iran or went to Iran's for school when I was
a kid. Naturally only the SAVAK narrative gets pushed. Like anything, my guess is this is a
bit of a last hurrah. 1979 was so long ago.
I think part of the justification for a hardline on Iran is indeed to block the Silk Road
initiative, but its a clumsy and stupid one if that's the case. You could argue that a more
open Iran, trading freely with Europe and the US on its own terms would be much more cautious
about being used as a transit hub for China. But Iran really has very little choice now but
to make itself indispensable to China.
From what I understand from the business media, it seems the US really is taking a hard
line on the EU's attempt to bypass the Swift system and most European companies are
reluctantly falling in line with the sanctions. The EU may be given no choice but to accept
the sanctions or overtly challenge them at every level – the latter being unlikely as
it would need a unanimity and toughness the EU rarely shows, especially when it comes to the
US.
Interesting how this fits in or contrasts with the recent (and remarkably well written)
article on What does it Mean to Live in a Multi Polar World? We May Be About to Find
Out. It's clear from China's behavior as described in this present article that the
United States still has considerable and, given how much it's been abused, remarkable clout.
One can justifiably be boggled that the United States' indiscriminate weaponization of
economic sanctions hasn't already exerted a devastating price internationally for US
credibility that Trump – setting the world ablaze merely to distract his base and keep
the virtually insane thugs in his administration happy – could care less about.
Regardless that Trump is merrily squandering (more blatantly but hardly having a monopoly
over recent US Presidents) any residual US credibility in unilateral power being a beneficial
force, the suggestion that "Even the historic tendency to focus on state power should be
questioned in this moment," from the Multi Polar article, is well couched as a
question rather than an assertion.
It seems inconceivable that Trump is aware of it, but his self serving conflagrational
antics if they don't set off a major military conflict that could easily spread out of
control, may be beneficial in the long run, but we're not there yet.
Mention of Russia and it's reaction is unfortunately missing from the article (or I missed
it).
Yes, Trump looks not aware of much which doesn't fall within his narrow set of
interests.Regarding Russia, what I've heard is that it has an ambivalent position. In one
side Russia fears the US but in the other side migth somehow fear the increasing power of
China. Regarding oil they won't protest high prices if this is a consequence of US politics,
but Russia economically depends on Europe so they should be interested on diversification.
And Russia's leadership hate climate change initiatives of course. Just to make things
clearer hahahahahahah
Actually, the points you raise are exactly what would have been interesting to at least
touch on in this article.
Re Russia, I suppose this article is more about oil consuming nations than oil producing
ones, but since US hegemony and the apparent lack of push back is so intrinsic to the
discussion, it would have been helpful to include some mention of Russia.
Also, as I look at it, my point that the US as a nation state still has clout can be
turned on it's head and align more with the question mark raised in the Muilti Polar article
if one argues that the US instigated conflict with Iran stems more from perceived interests
of the oil and fossil fuel industries and that Washington or more specifically puppet Trump,
fickle as he is, is simply going along to get along and trying at the same time to use it for
his own ends as much as possible.
I've been reading up on the natgas angle (Iran uses its big natgas supply mostly
domestically, but this is related)
Pakistan seems willing to block the Iran connection for now – the unfinished Peace
pipeline (natgas) is an indicator.
Also in natgas, Asian spot prices collapsed in the past year to the $4 range due to both
LNG and pipeline supply racing ahead of demand (import terminals, power plants), and also
Japan in the process of reactivating its nuke electric. Asian NG was around $10 when the gold
rush started, post Fukushima. This is also part of the story.
At the same time, much seaborne LNG import capacity is being built in SE asia (Japan a big
player in development apparently), due in mid 2020s. Together with Chinese and other NG
plants being built to displace oil, this is supposed to drive prices to recover and probably
overshoot in 4 years or so.
For now, the economic pressure on gas importers is unusually low, and pressure on gas
exporters is higher. The US is still basically neutral in net import/export, which is the
best way to be. It is not good for Iran, since their natgas export will not be developed
until this market phase passes. It does make it harder for US energy exports to work as
leverage over importers in general (China, India, Pak.).
I think this author is too influenced by the power of money and neglects the power of
nationalism and justice. Hardship brings people together in a delightful way, a shared burden
and a real sense of "we are all in this together" – the sense that Cameron tried and
failed to activate in UK because society had been destroyed by Thatcher. The Iranian people
are strengthened by sanctions. I expect Chinese energy purchases will increase when the
railway connection is perfected and shipments are no longer exposed to maritime attack by
pirates or governments.
I was glad to see this author characterise the sanctions as a blockade. We need to be
straightforward in our terminology and Ron Paul was right to give them their proper name
– blockade is an act of war, placing warships off another country's commercial ports to
prevent trade in and out. Lat's be frank about that.
Why is the Baluchi Liberation Army focused on attacking China? How does that enhance the
prospects of independence for Baluchistan? There has been nothing on this in the western
press to my knowledge. It sounds like cover for a gang of crooks. Can anyone help?
The U.S.-led coalition that launched airstrikes against Iraq and Syria against ISIS admitted
Friday that those attacks killed civilians, but the number they reported -- 1,302 deaths in a
nearly five-year period -- was immediately dismissed as too low by the human rights
organization Amnesty International.
"While all admissions of responsibility by the U.S.-led coalition for civilian casualties
are welcome, the coalition remains deeply in denial about the devastating scale of the civilian
casualties caused by their operations in both Iraq and Syria," the group's senior crisis
response advisor, Donatella Rovera,
said in a statement.
The coalition, in a statement announcing the findings of its internal review, said
that of the "34,502 strikes between August 2014 and the end of April 2019" it found that "at
least 1,302 civilians have been unintentionally killed by coalition strikes."
That number, while 1,302 people too many, is still far below projections from other
organizations over the past.
"Even in cases where the coalition has admitted responsibility this has only happened after
civilian deaths were investigated and brought to its attention by organizations such as Amnesty
International and Airwars," said Rovera.
In April, a study by Amnesty and Airwars
projected that 1,600 civilians died in coalition airstrikes in the Syrian city of Raqqa
alone from June to October 2017, a number that, in four months, is higher than the coalition's
total findings for over four years across two countries.
"We hope to finally see an honest assessment of the devastating impact that U.S. lethal
strikes have had on the civilians in Raqqa," Daphne Eviatar, director of Amnesty's Security
with Human Rights program, said at the time. "The public deserves to know how many civilian
casualties our government is responsible for, and the survivors deserve acknowledgement,
reparations, where appropriate, and meaningful assistance to rebuild their lives."
Friday's report indicates that despite calls for more detailed analysis and investigation,
an honest assessment may not be a priority for the coalition.
"... From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran. ..."
"... This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA. ..."
"... Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies. ..."
"... It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy. ..."
John Bolton
repeats one of the Trump administration's biggest and most important lies:
Donald Trump's national security adviser said Wednesday there was "no reason" for Iran to back out of its nuclear deal with
world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year after the U.S. president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.
Bolton and other administration officials have promoted the lie that Iran seeks nuclear weapons for months. Unfortunately, members
of Congress and the press have largely failed to call out these lies for what they are. There is no evidence to support the administration's
claims, and there is overwhelming evidence that they are wrong, but if they can get away with saying these things without being
challenged they may not need evidence to get the crisis that Bolton and others like him want.
In this case, the AP story just relays Bolton's false and misleading statements as if they should be taken seriously, and their
headline trumpets Bolton's dishonest insinuations as if they were credible. This is an unfortunate case of choosing the sensationalist,
eye-catching headline that misinforms the public on a very important issue. Bolton's latest remarks are especially pernicious because
they use Iran's modest reactions to Trump administration sanctions as evidence of Iran's imaginary intent to acquire weapons. The
U.S. has been trying to push Iran to abandon the deal for more than a year, and at the first sign that Iran begins to reduce its
compliance in order to push back against the administration's outrageous economic warfare Bolton tries to misrepresent it as proof
that they seek nuclear weapons. Don't fall for it, and don't trust anything Bolton says. Not only does he have a record of distorting
and manipulating intelligence to suit his purposes, but his longstanding desire for regime change and his ties to the Mujahideen-e
Khalq (MEK) make him an exceptionally unreliable person when it comes to any and all claims about the Iranian government.
The story provides some context, but still fails to challenge Bolton's assertions:
Bolton said that without more nuclear power plants, it made no sense for Iran to stockpile more low-enriched uranium as it
now plans to do. But the U.S. also earlier cut off Iran's ability to sell its uranium to Russia in exchange for unprocessed
yellow-cake uranium [bold mine-DK].
Iran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to offer better terms to the unraveling nuclear deal, otherwise it will resume
enrichment closer to weapons level. Bolton declined to say what the U.S. would do in response to that.
"There's no reason for them to do (higher enrichment) unless it is to reduce the breakout time to nuclear weapons," Bolton
said.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration ended the sanctions waivers that enabled Iran to ship its excess low-enriched uranium
out of the country. They made it practically impossible for Iran to do what they have been reliably doing for years, and now Bolton
blames Iran for the consequences of administration actions. The administration has deliberately put Iran in a bind so that they
either give up the enrichment that they are entitled to do under the JCPOA or exceed the restrictions on their stockpile so that
the U.S. can then accuse them of a violation. Left out in all of this is that the U.S. is no longer a party to the deal and violated
all of its commitments more than a year ago. Iran has patiently remained in compliance while the only party to breach the agreement
desperately hunts for a pretext to accuse them of some minor infraction.
Iran's record of full compliance with the JCPOA for more than three years hasn't mattered to Bolton and his allies in the slightest,
and they have had no problem reneging on U.S. commitments, but now the same ideologues that have wanted to destroy the deal from
the start insist on treating the deal's restrictions as sacrosanct. These same people have worked to engineer a situation in which
Iran may end up stockpiling more low-enriched uranium than they are supposed to have, and then seize on the situation they created
to spread lies about Iran's desire for nukes. It's all so obviously being done in bad faith, but then that is what we have come
to expect from Iran hawks and opponents of the nuclear deal. Don't let them get away with it.
The reason that Iran is threatening to enrich its uranium to a higher level is that the U.S. has been relentlessly sanctioning
them despite their total compliance with the terms of the JCPOA. The Trump administration has done all it could to deny Iran the
benefits of the deal, and then Bolton has the gall to say that they have no other reason to reduce their compliance. Of course Iran
does have another reason, and that is to put pressure on the other remaining parties to the deal to find a way to get Iran the benefits
it was promised. It is a small step taken in response to the administration's own destructive policy, and it is not evidence of
anything else. Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, and it is grossly irresponsible to treat unfounded administration claims about
this as anything other than propaganda and lies.
From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured
in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the
US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran.
This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target
on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA.
Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us,
and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies.
It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never
acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy.
I think NK has it right to assert that Bolton is a defective human product.
Neocon hawks are destroying US economics very effectively by supersizing military expenses and the costs of foreign wars.
Essentially Trump administration is acting in Israeli and Saudi interests in this case
Notable quotes:
"... Like many other phony administration offers to negotiate, Pompeo's proposal doesn't really include anything new or different. The administration is still insisting on the preposterous demands that the Secretary of State delivered last year. That is what Pompeo's "normal nation" reference means. In other words, the administration still expects Iranian capitulation, and they are willing to meet with Iranian officials to accept their surrender. ..."
"... Of course, this would not be a "conversation," which implies give-and-take between equals who speak to each other with respect. This would amount to something much more like a demarche where the U.S. tells Iran what it must do and then expects Iran's representatives to nod in agreement. ..."
"... Pompeo is an Iran hawk, but he is also a yes-man who seeks to curry favor with the president at all times. If he thinks that the president wants him to make diplomatic-sounding noises, he will make those noises, but it doesn't mean very much in terms of the administration's goals and means. ..."
"... Iran hawks are used to feigning interest in diplomacy while doing everything they can to undermine and poison it. As always, judge the administration by what it does and not what it happens to be saying at the moment. As long as the U.S. keeps its illegitimate sanctions in place and continues to make unrealistic and excessive demands, offers to talk are meaningless because the administration has already rendered negotiations useless. ..."
"... Pompeo is an unskilled purveyor of "smoke & mirrors" diplomacy: he thinks the world is unaware that preconditions with Iran have been in place since May 2018 when Trump unilaterally tore up the JCPOA followed by a slew of unprecedented sanctions against the Iranian people. ..."
"... Of course this statement is not for Iran, it is for the U.S. public to make the case for 'we tried' when in actuality, 'we lied'. ..."
Pompeo
made a statement about talks with Iran that is much less meaningful than it seems:
The United States is prepared to engage with Iran without pre-conditions about its nuclear program but needs to see the country
behaving like "a normal nation", U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.
Iran dismissed the offer as "word-play".
Like many other phony administration offers to negotiate, Pompeo's proposal doesn't really include anything new or different.
The administration is still insisting on the preposterous demands that the Secretary of State delivered last year. That is what
Pompeo's "normal nation" reference means. In other words, the administration still expects Iranian capitulation, and they are willing
to meet with Iranian officials to accept their surrender. The report continues:
"We are certainly prepared to have that conversation when the Iranians can prove that they want to behave like a normal nation,"
he told a joint news conference with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis.
Of course, this would not be a "conversation," which implies give-and-take between equals who speak to each other with respect.
This would amount to something much more like a demarche where the U.S. tells Iran what it must do and then expects Iran's representatives
to nod in agreement.
The Iranian government's dismissive response is to be expected. For one thing, the distrust between Washington and Tehran is
immense, so Iran's government is bound to view any offer with suspicion. The Iranian government has already explained what the U.S.
has to do if they want to talk about anything, and the administration has no intention of doing any of those things. As far as Iran
is concerned, their nuclear program isn't up for discussion, so what would be the point of meeting with U.S. officials when the
administration remains committed to its outrageous policy of economic warfare and collective punishment?
Pompeo is an Iran hawk, but he is also a yes-man who seeks to curry favor with the president at all times. If he thinks that
the president wants him to make diplomatic-sounding noises, he will make those noises, but it doesn't mean very much in terms of
the administration's goals and means.
Iran hawks are used to feigning interest in diplomacy while doing everything they can to undermine
and poison it. As always, judge the administration by what it does and not what it happens to be saying at the moment. As long as
the U.S. keeps its illegitimate sanctions in place and continues to make unrealistic and excessive demands, offers to talk are meaningless
because the administration has already rendered negotiations useless.
There is an understandable temptation to seize on comments from administration officials as proof that they are giving up on
a destructive and fruitless policy, but until the administration translates its rhetorical gestures into actions we should assume
that the policy remains unchanged.
Pompeo is an unskilled purveyor of "smoke & mirrors" diplomacy: he thinks the world is unaware that preconditions with Iran
have been in place since May 2018 when Trump unilaterally tore up the JCPOA followed by a slew of unprecedented sanctions against
the Iranian people.
The exodus of qualified State Department careerists can't be plugged by promoting the likes of
Brian Hook.
Trump is trying to create a coalition of China Russia, India Iran and Turkey. That's an
interesting foreign policy strategy,
Are we really trading Britain, Canada, Germany, and Japan for … Israel and Saudi
Arabia ?
Notable quotes:
"... Ever since he embraced the Saudis and Emiratis early in his first year in office, he has been increasingly bound to them and has been eager to cater to their preferences as much as he can. His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense. ..."
"... He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it. ..."
"... I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign. ..."
Trump speaks at Washington rally against the Iran deal
back in September 2015. Credit: Olivier Douliery/Sipa USA/Newscom
Andrew Bacevich comments
on the recent escalation of tensions with Iran and what it tells us about Trump's
presidency:
Again, the precise numbers are almost beside the point. In effect, Trump has drawn his own
line in the sand, one that says: "We ain't leaving, no sir." His decision -- was it really
his? -- is in effect a capitulation. Trump has deferred to the institutions, interests, and
individuals intent on perpetuating the forever wars. Devious and diabolical and brilliant,
the war party, abetted by its foreign auxiliaries, has prevailed. Trump will now surely
bequeath those wars to his successor -- that's the significance of the Iran war scare.
I agree with all of this. I would just add that this was a predictable outcome for a
president who chose to make antipathy to Iran the centerpiece of his foreign policy. Trump
could not extricate the U.S. from the region while simultaneously pursuing a more aggressive
anti-Iranian policy than his predecessor. The pursuit of that anti-Iranian policy has had a
great deal to do with the failure to bring U.S. involvement in multiple unnecessary wars to an
end. This was not something foisted on him by others, but has been his own doing from the
beginning. When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and
McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive
people to take their place. He has signed off on every aggressive anti-Iranian and pro-Saudi
move he could. When faced with unprecedented Congressional opposition over the war on Yemen, he
chose to use his veto for only the second time in his presidency to reject Congress' demand
that he withdraw the U.S. from that war.
Ever since he embraced the Saudis and Emiratis early in his first year in office, he has
been increasingly bound to them and has been eager to cater to their preferences as much as he
can. His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that
U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become
a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense. It isn't
possible to disentangle the U.S. from ceaseless war in the Middle East when the president
abases himself to such an extent before despotic clients and takes their enemies as ours. The
Iran obsession has defined and wrecked Trump's foreign policy, and it has led him to make most
of the worst foreign policy decisions of his presidency.
Trump knows very little and had no foreign policy experience to speak of, and that made it
extremely easy for hawkish advisers to fill his head with their own terrible ideas. Those
advisers are undoubtedly responsible for egging Trump on to take destructive and aggressive
actions, but ultimately it is Trump's responsibility for surrounding himself with people that
everyone knew would give him such awful advice. No one made Trump choose Pompeo and Bolton. It
was his own vanity and his preference for flattering yes-men that led him to choose such
unworthy and dangerous people for important positions at the highest levels of the government.
Trump doesn't have the wit, knowledge, or conviction to take U.S. foreign policy in a
different, better direction, and to the extent that he occasionally has impulses that point in
that direction they are just as easily canceled out and overwhelmed by even stronger,
contradictory impulses that drive him toward confrontation and escalation. The war party
prevailed because the president sided with them from the beginning, filled his administration
with hard-liners, and fought against every effort in Congress to rein in and end our
government's illegal and unauthorized involvement in the war on Yemen.
Trump is not a Conservative, a Republican, a neo-con, nor even a RINO; he is a grifter,
and belligerence toward Iran is where his greatest profit can be made.
"When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and
McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and
aggressive people to take their place."
He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi
Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you
don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson
and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it.
@midway: I suspect without any hard evidence that Bolton and Pompeo got and keep their
jobs not because of dollars and sense, but something even more pathetic.
Namely, they flatter Trump and tell him he is "tough" in private, and do nothing to
upstage Trump in public.
midway: The really big campaign bucks were made possible by the Citizens United Supreme
Court decision back in 2010. The conservatives on the court then probably never realized they
were giving a handful of billionaires the power to have more influence on federal politics
than they had ever had before. If the US stumbles into a war with Iran in the next couple of
years, the little people wearing the MAGA caps will be worse off than ever.
"His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed
that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead
become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense."
Promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense it couldn't be put more clearly
than that. An even greater shame: this isn't part of some "great game"; we're led by a man
who wants to be seen as tough by men he sees as tough.
I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for
Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by
this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign.
Have brought up Gabbard's sticking with the lies and false narratives regarding Russia and Ukraine, clearly one of her blind
spots in her "antiwar" political campaign, that along with the massive and unrelenting war OF terror. That letter is a rather disgusting
display of imperialist obfuscation by the duopoly political parties, fully supporting the lies about Maduro and what's happening
in VS and in effect providing cover for future actions. You can't claim to be against military action while also lying about the
reasons. Of course they can, that's how they prep the public for imperial advances. up 4 users have voted.
i totally endorse zuesse's theory, but oh my, he'd brought in a lot of moving parts at the time. paranoid conspiracy theory
or 'coincidence theory', as some brilliant mofo used to ask. (i'l think of his name later.) the russian defense ministry's contentions
are in conflict with zuesse's (buk missiles v. another jet with missiles), but i sure as hell know that the dutch report
decision in advance was bullshit. i'd think that one would have to be willfully blind to accept it at face value, esp.
if any of them like gabbard were on the defense and intel committees at the time. same with madurro's venezuela, to pretend
that it's not mainly the egregious sanctions and blockades that are responsible for the estimated 40,000 citizens who've died
for lack of medicines and food. and now their CLAP food delivery system is under attack...again.
i get that the intel they're fed is rubbish, but they all have the duty to look further than what lies they're spoon fed.
CEPR has been incredibly valuable a resource for one, and it's pretty mainstream.
but he's right about one thing: yanukovitch was overthrown due to his refusal to sign the EU association memo, and when Imperialists
speak of how 'russia stole crimea', or refuse to see why the separatists in the donbass formed their own independent nation-states,
it's utter hypocrisy.
thanks for reading and commenting, big al.
oh, and do you know if tulsi's FP is still at her house.gov site? i looked at all her press releases that were dated after
that offensive letter, but i'd found nothing new.
@wendy davis I mean, there's the establishment/government narrative and there's the truth, that's about all I need to
know. It's like that saying "trust, but verify". I say fuck that, "don't trust, and verify that".
I don't know about Gabbard's FP, she's done some housecleaning and avoided certain things since becoming the CFR's choice for
2024. Again, I've already done enough research, what, for over 3 years now?, to see what she's all about, something I failed
to do in 2007/8 regarding Obama. Lo and behold, all the clues were there just waiting to be uncovered, but I wasn't in the same
place as now.
...by the Russians, who were not allowed to participate in the Dutch investigation. The information and data was presented
to the Dutch and to the Western media in September 2018. Everything one could hope to see in physical evidence is here. There
is additional evidence not in this article that adds to the details and forensics presented here.
This information was not published in the West or in the Vassal State of Netherlands. The US possesses satellite photos of
the incident. But it has classified those photos and refuses to release them.
As for means, motive and opportunity:
• MH17 was shot down over Ukraine, not over Russia.
• It was shot down with a missile owned by Ukraine, not by Russia.
• It had propaganda value for Ukraine and its CIA masters, none for
• The missile was fired from territory controlled by the neo nazi Kiev regime.
But the best evidence of what took place, as far as I'm concerned, is right here:
Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, falling in the rebel-held part of
the country. The crash claimed the lives of 283 passengers and 15 crew members, most of them Dutch nationals. Russia
was blamed by Western media in the first days after the tragedy, even before any evidence had been collected on the ground.
and thank you. your memory is prodigious, and having the 2018 RT news is srsly helpful, as is your M,M, & O formula. blame
first, then fail to allow russia (and malaysia) to be able to run investigations. good to know as well that the malaysian minister
knew of the serial numbers and that ukraine owned the missiles.
eric zuesse had said that even dutch journalists were raising havoc with the JIT back in the day. but just think what this
false blame resulting in mega-sanctions began, then onto the skripals, russia-gate in many guises, and tra la la.
mr. wd laughed this mornin' and said he wishes he had a choice to vote for sergei lavrov for prez; i second that!
dunno if the EU still wants a compact with ukraine, but NATO sure wants the neo-nazi nation as a member. ping: if i have
the energy and time, i'll try to find in zuesse's tome admissions by snipers in 2014, as well.
Must admit I didn't hunt down her Ukraine position, but my personal take is Obummer and the CIA set out to foment problems
and managed to get a fascists regime elected in order to oppose Russia. The new Ukrainian president may take things in a more
pro-Russia direction?
site, at her election site. well, check out Russia , for now. and i do thank you; i was lookin' in all the wrong places.
; )i'll check out more soon as i have time, but zounds: russia: crimea, the nation's interference in our election, wooof. of
course jill stein raised boatloads of bucks for recounts in three states on the basis of russian interference, later 'foreign
interference' against the wishes of the green party board and her own running mate, so...there's that, but it was just a dodge
against trump winning, not hillary. sorry, tulsi.
for being in such a hurry i hadn't even registered your speculation about zelenskiy, but nah, he wants crimea and the donbass
self-declared republics that Putin stole from him...back. he's being lauded and applauded for 'standing up to KGB Putin'. ;
)
and the IMF's bailin' em out again so they have enough to pay their NATO dues and join the EU. (just saw that tryin' to remember
how to sorta spell the comic's name.)
maybe it was passengers', was returned to Malaysia ... but in a sealed coffin, that even family members were refused to open.
At the time an OSCE member was the first to arrive at the crash site. Some 20 minutes after the downing. The photos taken
by him, or so it was attributed, showed round holes (not shrapnel) shot in the pilot area. Sorry I don't have any links handy
on either of these, but I'm pretty sure this is correct.
as i understand it, the hole size was not in contention. but weather it had been the pilot or a passenger: '...but in a sealed
coffin, that even family members were refused to open.'
is that perhaps a malaysian custom? is the truth out there somewhere?
eric zuesse remind us, the holes in the cockpit were likely from machine guns on the ukrainian fighter jet sent to make sure
the ukie buk missiles had (omg) killed the plane, which if i'm getting it right (a big IF) was changing direction as it went
down. my apologies for not getting all the moving parts and claims right on this thread.
but the 21st century wire shows charts and evidence that the flight crew was ordered to change course by the air traffic
control tower (as per the later censored bbc plus recordings).
...was involved in the downing of MH17, which was the opinion of many aviation experts and others, who found bullet holes
in the cockpit, wings, and fuselage. This in addition to Buk damage.
Recordings were captured by multiple sources of a frightened and stressed Ukrainian pilot, who radioed, "I shot the wrong
plane!" He sounded as if he was commanded to shoot down a military target plane and was misled into shooting a passenger jet.
That pilot, named Voloshyn, later committed suicide.
The typical recollection of the incident is:
A fighter was also sent up to 'make sure' the target plane was shot down. If I remember rightly, the plane was hit, but
was still flying and it began to turn back. If the plane story (which I tend to believe) is true, it's at that point that
the fighter jet opened fire on the cockpit and wings.
That would also account for Buk damage to the Boeing, as well as fighter machine gun damage to the cockpit.
You can find many references to this incident along with transcripts of the conversation between the fighter pilot and the
ground base.
video confessions from the snipers at maidan (i assume ukrainians firing on protestors in front of the trades union building
that was eventually...burned to the ground.
but this?
"For instance, Moscow said a theory was never tested that the airliner could have been downed by a fighter jet spotted
by Russian radar stations near flight MH17. The theory was later proven false by the discovery of debris from the Buk rocket.
Though Russia doesn't possess those black boxes ( which, by chance, were handed by the pro-Russian separatists to the
Malaysian Government's representative, and yet that Government handed them to Netherland's Government instead of to Russia's
-- apparently trusting Netherlands more than trusting Russia or even themselves), Russia does possess, and publicly reveals,
evidence that's conclusive on its own; and it is 100% consistent with Haisenko's reconstruction of the event, regardless
whether a Buk was involved or not."
one of his links went to ' MH17 Verdict: Real Evidence Points to US-Kiev Cover-up of Failed False Flag '
July 25, 2014 , 21stcenturywire.com
"As MH17 moved into Ukrainian air space, it was moved by ATC Kiev approximately 200 miles north – putting it on a new
course, heading directly into a war zone, a well-known dangerous area by now – one that's hosted a number of downed military
craft over the previous 3 weeks. Robert Mark, a commercial pilot and editor of Aviation International News Safety magazine,
confirmed that most Malaysia Airlines flights from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur would normally travel along a route significantly
further south than the route MH17 was diverted onto.
Data on all airline flight records can be found here. The BBC reported on July 17th: " Ukraine's SBU security service
has confiscated recordings of conversations between Ukrainian air traffic control officers and the crew of the doomed airliner,
a source in Kiev has told Interfax news agency."
a great (and lengthy) collaborative investigation by 21st century wire. thanks, obomba, thanks, tulsi, thanks Pierre and
vickie nuland. and even the new guy can't control his neo-nazis. but then again, at least yulia tymoshenko didn't win.
but NATO will add them to the roster soon, which is one of the reasons that the atlantic council had recommended him: to
root out poroshenko's oligarchs' corruption.
but i almost wish i hadn't it's sooooo long and full of twists and turns, news reports, videos, but in general the theme
is that mikhail saakashvilli hired them, then stiffed them.
' The "Snipers' Massacre" in Kiev -- Another False Flag? ',
January
13, 2015 , granvillepost.com, eric zuesse
you may remember him best john Mccains buddy: 'today we are all georgians'? like ahmed chalabi, he's the proverbial bad penny
who keeps returning in whatever guise needed (after expulsions), and the
big news this week is that zelenskiy's reinstated his ukrainian
citizenship after promising to give up his former ambitions and work with the new prez.
"... From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran. ..."
"... This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA. ..."
"... Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies. ..."
"... It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy. ..."
John Bolton
repeats one of the Trump administration's biggest and most important lies:
Donald Trump's national security adviser said Wednesday there was "no reason" for Iran to back out of its nuclear deal with
world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year after the U.S. president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.
Bolton and other administration officials have promoted the lie that Iran seeks nuclear weapons for months. Unfortunately, members
of Congress and the press have largely failed to call out these lies for what they are. There is no evidence to support the administration's
claims, and there is overwhelming evidence that they are wrong, but if they can get away with saying these things without being
challenged they may not need evidence to get the crisis that Bolton and others like him want.
In this case, the AP story just relays Bolton's false and misleading statements as if they should be taken seriously, and their
headline trumpets Bolton's dishonest insinuations as if they were credible. This is an unfortunate case of choosing the sensationalist,
eye-catching headline that misinforms the public on a very important issue. Bolton's latest remarks are especially pernicious because
they use Iran's modest reactions to Trump administration sanctions as evidence of Iran's imaginary intent to acquire weapons. The
U.S. has been trying to push Iran to abandon the deal for more than a year, and at the first sign that Iran begins to reduce its
compliance in order to push back against the administration's outrageous economic warfare Bolton tries to misrepresent it as proof
that they seek nuclear weapons. Don't fall for it, and don't trust anything Bolton says. Not only does he have a record of distorting
and manipulating intelligence to suit his purposes, but his longstanding desire for regime change and his ties to the Mujahideen-e
Khalq (MEK) make him an exceptionally unreliable person when it comes to any and all claims about the Iranian government.
The story provides some context, but still fails to challenge Bolton's assertions:
Bolton said that without more nuclear power plants, it made no sense for Iran to stockpile more low-enriched uranium as it
now plans to do. But the U.S. also earlier cut off Iran's ability to sell its uranium to Russia in exchange for unprocessed
yellow-cake uranium [bold mine-DK].
Iran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to offer better terms to the unraveling nuclear deal, otherwise it will resume
enrichment closer to weapons level. Bolton declined to say what the U.S. would do in response to that.
"There's no reason for them to do (higher enrichment) unless it is to reduce the breakout time to nuclear weapons," Bolton
said.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration ended the sanctions waivers that enabled Iran to ship its excess low-enriched uranium
out of the country. They made it practically impossible for Iran to do what they have been reliably doing for years, and now Bolton
blames Iran for the consequences of administration actions. The administration has deliberately put Iran in a bind so that they
either give up the enrichment that they are entitled to do under the JCPOA or exceed the restrictions on their stockpile so that
the U.S. can then accuse them of a violation. Left out in all of this is that the U.S. is no longer a party to the deal and violated
all of its commitments more than a year ago. Iran has patiently remained in compliance while the only party to breach the agreement
desperately hunts for a pretext to accuse them of some minor infraction.
Iran's record of full compliance with the JCPOA for more than three years hasn't mattered to Bolton and his allies in the slightest,
and they have had no problem reneging on U.S. commitments, but now the same ideologues that have wanted to destroy the deal from
the start insist on treating the deal's restrictions as sacrosanct. These same people have worked to engineer a situation in which
Iran may end up stockpiling more low-enriched uranium than they are supposed to have, and then seize on the situation they created
to spread lies about Iran's desire for nukes. It's all so obviously being done in bad faith, but then that is what we have come
to expect from Iran hawks and opponents of the nuclear deal. Don't let them get away with it.
The reason that Iran is threatening to enrich its uranium to a higher level is that the U.S. has been relentlessly sanctioning
them despite their total compliance with the terms of the JCPOA. The Trump administration has done all it could to deny Iran the
benefits of the deal, and then Bolton has the gall to say that they have no other reason to reduce their compliance. Of course Iran
does have another reason, and that is to put pressure on the other remaining parties to the deal to find a way to get Iran the benefits
it was promised. It is a small step taken in response to the administration's own destructive policy, and it is not evidence of
anything else. Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, and it is grossly irresponsible to treat unfounded administration claims about
this as anything other than propaganda and lies.
From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured
in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the
US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran.
This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target
on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA.
Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us,
and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies.
It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never
acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy.
I think NK has it right to assert that Bolton is a defective human product.
"... Pompeo has shown some unexpected political savvy by distancing himself from the doomed "peace plan," which appears to be little more than a scheme to buy Palestinian capitulation through a combination of promises of Arab money and political strong-arming from the Gulf States and Israel. ..."
On May 28, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in New York City for a closed-door meeting with
the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. In remarks that were
covertly recorded and passed along to the Washington Post, Pompeo effectively declared that the
Middle East peace plan conjured by First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner was a non-starter and would
be rejected by most parties.
Instead of the "deal of the century" touted by President Donald
Trump, Pompeo conceded that the peace scheme was a losing proposition. "I get why people think
this is a deal that only Israel could love. I understand the perception of that. I just hope
everyone will give the space to listen and settle in a bit." Pompeo continued his blunt
remarks: "I don't want to call it failing. Call it whatever. I fail a lot, so it's not about
using a word like that."
Pompeo admitted that the State Department is giving a good deal of
attention to what to do next if the Kushner Plan flops.
Until Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu failed to put together a majority cabinet this
week and had to call snap elections for September, it had been expected that the long-awaited
Kushner Plan would be rolled out this month. Now the launch date is delayed until late
September or early October after a new Israeli government is formed and sworn in.
Pompeo has shown some unexpected political savvy by distancing himself from the doomed
"peace plan," which appears to be little more than a scheme to buy Palestinian capitulation
through a combination of promises of Arab money and political strong-arming from the Gulf
States and Israel.
"... Trump is Gambino family, Hillary (and Comey, et al) are Genoveses. All of them are sleaze, criminal, deep state. Samo-samo. Just one pile of dirt fighting another pile of dirt. ..."
Trump has always had divided loyalties and has always talked out of two sides of his
mouth. From day one the actual decision has been to be top *** rather than American. Israel
and Goldman Sachs. Israel counts for far more with him than America. If he has to choose
which Jews he has a problem. Then he goes for Zionists over banksters. It's when he can serve
both with the same stroke that he's in his element. Like recognizing Golan as Israel, for
both Bibi and Rothschilds, as land as as oil.
Trump is a *** in everything except the accident of his Scot Presbyterian mother. His
father a Zionist ***. His first two wives and possibly his third, Jews. Possibly all his
children, definitely all but one, Jews. His daughter Ivanka born a *** and then a fake
convert to Judaism. To fake the Deplorables.
Trump is revelling in playing top ***, fighting wars for the Jews, while suckers write
articles like this about his antiwar heart.
Oh please stfu. Poor anti-war Trump being helplessly entangled in wars by the neocons he
doesn't want to. He's the one that picked them lol. He's the one that openly admits he's
beholden to Israel and the Saudis. He's the one that openly vowed during election he'd
increase war machine spending. No one's making him do anything. He acts like he's antiwar
with his words only to make chumps think he's anti-war.
"Has anyone noticed the neat escape-responsibility manoeuvre Trump uses? Past presidents
have always consulted with their advisors and cabinet and presented a united front. Trump now
deflects responsibility by investing his appointees with, evidently, independent powers which
only he curtails. His cabinet apparently works independently from him. In some case, when
necessary, they are directly responsible to him. In other cases, where unnecessary, they go
"off the plantation" and make their own decisions...which, for some reason, he can't
overrule. Pretty nifty."
Classic case of playing good cop/bad cop. Trump is the "good cop" so he can keep pacifying
his idiot cult following, like the author of this article, and get reelected.
So there are two things I agree trump on and this is one of them. But even here his
thought process doesn't make sense. If you're going to fight a war mongering bureaucracy why
in the hell do you appoint war mongers as Sec of state and national security advisor? He's
better off appointing a couple of ***** dems than these assholes. He ensures those agencies
will fight him to the bitter end. He has yet to appoint one person who shares his philosophy
and I'm sure they're out there.
"Who knows?" -- when asked if, as president, he would start a war with China ,
New York Times interview, March 25, 2016
"When Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they
make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of
the water." -- threatening to go to war with Iran over rude hand gestures, Pensacola,
Florida, Sept. 9, 2016
"This is the Trump theory on war. But I'm good at war. I've had a lot of wars of my own.
I'm really good at war. I love war in a certain way. But only when we win." Fort Dodge, Iowa,
Nov. 12, 2015
He appointed these three amigos under orders from the only person who supports him. And
now he lets them have enough rope to hang themselves, really make it obvious that they are
incompetent, and then he can fire them and start fresh in 2020. Without alienating his
support/money source.
All the so-called competent people turned up their noses at Trump, declining appointment
to his administration. **** them! They obviously aren't as competent nor as patriotic as they
thought they were. They have disqualified themselves, and good riddance!
The first truly competent, if reluctant appointee is Bill Barr. He does a good job, and
some other, equally competent and country-loving personalities will come out of the
crowd.
The only reason Betsy DeVos, the most incompetent Cabinet official in decades, hasn't been
pink-slipped is her mercenary brother and her husband's Amway fortune. She needs to be
encouraged out of office in 2020, if not before.
Never forget that the Biggest Patriot is the Biggest Idiot . A bit of a malleable fool and
thus a Useful Tool.
It takes more than physical bravery and allegiance to be a "Patriot".
It also takes a certain amount of (1)willful blindness , (2) moral hypocrisy
and (3) need to submit to a well-organised hierarchy . Do you think that this country
is lacking in such people?
Why people keep making excuses for Trump is beyond me.
Evaluate Trump not on hot air, but on action. Based on hot air Trump is completely
inconsistent. Based on actual behavior Trump is a very consistent Israel-First neocon
warmonger, and an extremely crude and corrupt one at that.
You nailed it. BTW, his cult makes excuses for him because it validates their original
vote and all the justifications they've had over time.
As I've always said, had you asked any American 10 years ago if they thought Trump would
be a good president, the answer would have been a unanimous "Are you ******* kidding? He'll
no!"
As a mostly full-fledged member of his "cult", let me explain. Trump has the entirety of
the Democrat party, half the Republican, and 2/3 of the judiciary against him. I'm amazed
he's done as well as he has. He's canned a large number of sleazebags in the FBI, and many
other functionaries in government suddenly decided they want to retire.
Just like an allstar
offensive player lined up against an allstar defensive player will win some and lose some, so
it is with Trump. You're full of ****.
The executive is only to act as Commander in Chief, raising armies and fighting wars, if
the Legislature declares war. As it stands, the executive is a military despot, maintaining a
standing armed force spread across the world and waging war without declaration or
justification.
It's a self insulated circle, where those volunteering swear an oath to uphold
the Constitution and defend it, but in reality they "just follow orders" regardless of how
blatantly unconstitutional the whole process and D.C. regime is.
Most immature comment of the week. Thats the theory in a beautiful ideal world. But the
reality is that very powerful entrenched interests are at play.
He's canned a large number of sleazebags in the FBI
The only deep state sleazebags fired that I can see were FBI execs involved in the coup
against Trump. Trump's motive was not justice, it was vengeance and self-defense. You call
that a house-cleaning?
Trump is Gambino family, Hillary (and Comey, et al) are Genoveses. All of them are sleaze,
criminal, deep state. Samo-samo. Just one pile of dirt fighting another pile of dirt.
Evaluate Trump not on hot air, but on action. Based on hot air Trump is completely
inconsistent. Based on actual behavior Trump is a very consistent Israel-First neocon
warmonger, and an extremely crude and corrupt one at that.
One of the early tells was that he's a philanderer, an adulterer, a cheapskate who doesn't
pay his contractors, but fosters this image of philanthropy, and who found out that you can't
*** Jewish bankers and get away with it. Unless you up the ante and tell them that you'll
further their political agenda if they put him in the WH.
It's not difficult to analyze Trump, if you keep your own emotional needs out of it, and
just look at the facts and behaviors. If you can't, then it says more about you than about
Trump. Maybe people with a specific type of defect in their moral compass identify
with the same defect in Trump's? It would explain a lot.
He pretends that he has a military background, but doesn't . Being shipped off to a Mil
academy doesn't count, even if it's beneficial to a wild child.
He pretended to pay his bills, but doesn't . The list of Gypped/Jewed/Screwed contractors
is a mile long, as is the list of bankers whom he forced into wild refinance, by using
Bankruptcy laws as a weapon.
He pretended to be a faithful husband, but wasn't . Two of his 3 marriages ended because
of adultery. He loves hot sluts who stroke his ego even better than his ****.
He pretended to look after the interests of Main St, but hasn't . Looking after Bibi
& The Likudniks doesn't count, nor should Wall St sharks.
He pretended to seek true Justice, but hasn't . Why is Hillary & The Gang still
free? Why did he disavow Assange?
He pretended to ramp down imperialism , but hasn't. He's ramped it UP.
He pretended to "Build the Wall", but hasn't . The Wall is the Fake Rabbit at the
Greyhound races: Useful to get the stupid dogs to perform on command.
He pretended to mend fences with Russia, but hasn't . "Russiagate" has become a very
useful ploy and cover to satisfy the MIC and Big Oil.
With all this overwhelming evidence, of people can't see him as he truly is, then the ONLY
explanation left is that they are mentally deficient, psychologically defective, and/or in on
(benefit from) his network of scams.
Why we did NOT have ww3 is beyond me in Syria.. Only once the GLOVES came off It happen
the last time I wrote this it was taken OFF immediately.. A peace deal was sign Derazor The
US Air Force came and Slaughter about 100 Syrian Army soldiers Apparentley There were 11
Russians soldiers Kill too.
This is a TRUE story The communication lines WERE OPEN The
Russians were SCREAMING on the HOT phone to STOP. They never responded just kept bombing.
This gets INTERESTING now.. Where are the ORDERS coming from to the US air force to BOMB It
was coming from Allepo. PUTIN order BOMB the HEAD QUARTERS of the COMMAND CENTRE giving these
orders. 3 BUNKER BUSTER BOMBS came a FLYING in.
Under ground head quarters was DESTROY. There
were roughly 30 military officers in that BUNKER EVAPORATED 5 mossad agents 5 US CIA agents
10 Saudi a few from Britan what ever. It was in ALL the NEWS PAPERS in Russia right across
the Middle east Al Jezerra on the NEWS.
Not a word mention in ISRAHELL and JUSA. So if there
was going to be WW3 that would of been the time. Thank God better heads prevail. Look like
PUTIN threw down the gauntlet.
I forgot after the US stop bombing Derazor ******* IMMEDIATELY ISIS attack *******
IMMEDIATELY No that wasn't plan. Just a coinincidence yeah that's it
Trump did not come across as a warmonger during the presidential campaign. When America
put Trump in office many of us were seeking a world where the leadership in Washington would
focus on bringing both jobs and money home rather than squandering it on foreign wars.
What has been happening in Washington is proof that the power of the swamp is very
resilient and may not be able to be drained. A strong case can be made that President Trump
has become a hostage of those occupying the very swamp he promised to drain. More on this in
the article below.
"Who knows?" -- when asked if, as president, he would start a war with China ,
New York Times interview, March 25, 2016
"When Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they
make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of
the water." -- threatening to go to war with Iran over rude hand gestures, Pensacola,
Florida, Sept. 9, 2016
"This is the Trump theory on war. But I'm good at war. I've had a lot of wars of my own.
I'm really good at war. I love war in a certain way. But only when we win." Fort Dodge, Iowa,
Nov. 12, 2015
The bureaucrats run the government , not the elected politicians who come and go and spend
more time collecting money to be reelected than ruling. All the democrat bureaucrats are
against him what is he left with? The warmongers republicans of the Bush Reagan era.
The systemwide US Russophobia that reached its nadir with Russiagate has created a "catastrophe" for both domestic politics and
foreign relations that threatens the future of the American system, professor Stephen Cohen
tells RT.
War with Russia could easily break out if the US insists on pursuing the policy of " demonization " that birthed Russiagate instead
of returning to detente and cooperation, New York University professor emeritus of Russian history Stephen Cohen argues on Chris
Hedges' On Contact. While NATO deliberately antagonized post-Soviet Russia by expanding up to its borders, the US deployed missile
defense systems along those borders after scrapping an arms treaty, leaving President Vladimir Putin devoid of " illusions " about
the goodwill of the West – but armed with " nuclear missiles that can evade and elude any missile defense system ."
" Now is the time for a serious, new arms control agreement. What do we get? Russiagate instead ."
Cohen believes the conspiracy theory – which remains front-page news in US media despite being thoroughly discredited, both by
independent investigators and last month by special counsel Robert Mueller's report – is the work of the CIA and its former director,
John Brennan, who are dead set against any kind of cooperation with Russia. Attorney General William Barr, who is investigating
the FBI over how the 2016 counterintelligence probe began, should take a look at Brennan and his agency, Cohen says.
" If our intelligence services are off the reservation to the point that they can first try to destroy a presidential candidate
and then a president we need to know it ," Cohen says.
" This is the worst scandal in American history. It's the worst, at least, since the Civil War ."
And the damage wrought by this " catastrophe " hasn't stopped at the US border.
The idea that Trump is a Russian agent has been devastating to " our own institutions, to the presidency, to our electoral system,
to Congress, to the American mainstream media, not to mention the damage it's done to American-Russian relations, the damage it
has done to the way Russians, both elite Russians and young Russians, look at America today , " Cohen declares.
"Russiagate is one of the greatest new threats to national security. I have five listed in the book. Russia and China aren't
on there. Russiagate is number one."
And the potential damage it could still cause is enormous.
Amazing, 30 million dollars spent for an investigation that produced nothing and some believe that Russiagate is still reality.
This paranoia is unbelievable except for a psychotic public - pathetic.
If the neo-con/Nazi assholes embedded in the M.I.C. and the US government continue down this road of demonizing and antagonizing
Russia it is not going to end well for the people of the US. Putin and the rest of the Russian leadership have made it crystal
clear that they are only going to be pushed so far. The problem is when Russia snaps they are going to do their damdest to try
to cut the head of the snake off in one shot. There's a good chance they could actually pull that off.
This is similar to renaming "French fries" to "freedom fries" after 9/11. You can't overestimate stupidity of government
bureaucrats. They now exceeded the USSR level.
This is similar to renaming "French fries" to "freedom fries" after 9/11. You can't overestimate stupidity of government
bureaucrats. They now exceeded the USSR level.
Western corporate mass media is cherry-picking what China has said: "Restrictions
imposed by the UN Security Council on Iran have been fully implemented in the HKSAR under the
United Nations Sanctions [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – Iran] Regulation
[Chapter 537BV of the Laws of Hong Kong]."
"Woohoo! China's on our side! They are backing US sanctions!" -gullible American
mass media consumer
Fake western "journalists" leave out the very next three sentences: "However, the UN
Security Council has not imposed any restrictions on the export of petroleum from Iran.
Certain countries may impose unilateral sanctions against certain places on the basis of
their own considerations. Those sanctions are outside the scope of the UN Security Council
sanctions implemented by the HKSAR."
In other words, "Go f#$k yourselves, you exceptional fools!" , though of
course the Chinese are too polite to say that outright.
"... Devious and diabolical and brilliant, the war party, abetted by its foreign auxiliaries, has prevailed. Trump will now surely bequeath those wars to his successor -- that's the significance of the Iran war scare. ..."
"... "When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place." ..."
"... He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it. ..."
"... "His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense." ..."
"... I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign. ..."
Andrew Bacevich
comments
on
the recent escalation of tensions with Iran and what it tells us about Trump's presidency:
Again, the precise numbers are almost beside the point. In effect, Trump has drawn his own line in the sand, one that says:
"We ain't leaving, no sir." His decision -- was it really his? -- is in effect a capitulation. Trump has deferred to the
institutions, interests, and individuals intent on perpetuating the forever wars. Devious and diabolical and brilliant, the
war party, abetted by its foreign auxiliaries, has prevailed. Trump will now surely bequeath those wars to his
successor -- that's the significance of the Iran war scare.
I agree with all of this. I would just add that this was a predictable outcome for a president who chose to make antipathy to
Iran the centerpiece of his foreign policy. Trump could not extricate the U.S. from the region while simultaneously pursuing a
more aggressive anti-Iranian policy than his predecessor. The pursuit of that anti-Iranian policy has had a great deal to do
with the failure to bring U.S. involvement in multiple unnecessary wars to an end. This was not something foisted on him by
others, but has been his own doing from the beginning. When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as
Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take
their place. He has signed off on every aggressive anti-Iranian and pro-Saudi move he could. When faced with unprecedented
Congressional opposition over the war on Yemen, he chose to use his veto for only the second time in his presidency to reject
Congress' demand that he withdraw the U.S. from that war.
Ever since he embraced the Saudis and Emiratis early in his first year in office, he has been increasingly bound to them and has
been eager to cater to their preferences as much as he can. His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average
president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a
vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense. It isn't possible to disentangle the U.S. from ceaseless
war in the Middle East when the president abases himself to such an extent before despotic clients and takes their enemies as
ours. The Iran obsession has defined and wrecked Trump's foreign policy, and it has led him to make most of the worst foreign
policy decisions of his presidency.
Trump knows very little and had no foreign policy experience to speak of, and that made it extremely easy for hawkish advisers
to fill his head with their own terrible ideas. Those advisers are undoubtedly responsible for egging Trump on to take
destructive and aggressive actions, but ultimately it is Trump's responsibility for surrounding himself with people that
everyone knew would give him such awful advice. No one made Trump choose Pompeo and Bolton. It was his own vanity and his
preference for flattering yes-men that led him to choose such unworthy and dangerous people for important positions at the
highest levels of the government. Trump doesn't have the wit, knowledge, or conviction to take U.S. foreign policy in a
different, better direction, and to the extent that he occasionally has impulses that point in that direction they are just as
easily canceled out and overwhelmed by even stronger, contradictory impulses that drive him toward confrontation and escalation.
The war party prevailed because the president sided with them from the beginning, filled his administration with hard-liners,
and fought against every effort in Congress to rein in and end our government's illegal and unauthorized involvement in the war
on Yemen.
Trump is not a Conservative, a Republican, a neo-con, nor even a RINO; he is a grifter, and belligerence toward Iran
is where his greatest profit can be made.
"When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them
sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place."
He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have
been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional
Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely
on it.
@midway: I suspect without any hard evidence that Bolton and Pompeo got and keep their jobs not because of dollars
and sense, but something even more pathetic.
Namely, they flatter Trump and tell him he is "tough" in private, and do nothing to upstage Trump in public.
midway: The really big campaign bucks were made possible by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision back in 2010.
The conservatives on the court then probably never realized they were giving a handful of billionaires the power to
have more influence on federal politics than they had ever had before. If the US stumbles into a war with Iran in
the next couple of years, the little people wearing the MAGA caps will be worse off than ever.
"His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has
had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of
regional clients at our expense."
Promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense it couldn't be put more clearly than that. An even
greater shame: this isn't part of some "great game"; we're led by a man who wants to be seen as tough by men he sees
as tough.
I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward
Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign.
"... For one, the Arabs know that Ivanka is calling the shots -- and that the president's fashion-focused daughter is behind the branding of the sexually androgynous, intellectually inchoate production that is Jared Kushner. If you think that's something Arabs respect, you don't know Shiite from Shinola . ..."
"... Then there's Bibi Netanyahu's ingenious, Israel First tactics. You have to be a special kind of dumb -- Jared and Ivanka dumb -- to imagine you can present Bibi with a plan to fix his part of the world. The Israeli prime minister will make the right noises and will have Jared for breakfast. ..."
"... As the Economist noted derisively -- its writers, too, are radicals in the mold of Jared and Ivanka -- Netanyahu is no radical. He is a reactionary nationalist. Temperamentally conservative," and "wary of change," as all true conservatives ought to be, Netanyahu "governs as if Israel needs no change." The Israeli prime minister has even passed nation-state legislation consecrating Israel as the home of the Jewish people. ..."
"... In case you're unfamiliar with Bibi's base -- supporters of Likud since the party's inception -- they are, "Voters from conservative religious and working-class backgrounds, Russian-speaking immigrants and Mizrahi Jews (who are descended from immigrants from the Arab world)." The political equivalent of Trump's deplorables. ..."
"... "We will forever live by the sword." Bibi's words in 2015. ..."
Let us begin with our debutant's Middle East peace plan, the thing his father-in-law calls
"the deal of the century."
The notion of Jared solving the Israeli-Palestinian vexation is laughable, perhaps the
dumbest thing ever. You just know this is a vain Ivanka move to brand the region and add it to
her CV. (Ivanka, to those who don't know, is
intent on riding to the presidency herself on her father's coattails.)
The Arabs slated to partake in the Kushner summit, Bahraini, Saudi and Emirati participants,
are likely laughing the hardest.
For one, the Arabs know that Ivanka is calling the shots -- and that the president's
fashion-focused daughter is behind the branding of the sexually androgynous, intellectually
inchoate production that is Jared Kushner. If you think that's something Arabs respect, you
don't know Shiite
from Shinola .
Wily Arabs are hip to White House dynamics. They know who's running the West Wing and who to
flatter. Some in the region have even given Donald Trump a
dubious honorific , Abu Ivanka al-Amriki. Being known as "father of Ivanka the
American" is, of course, no honor in the muscular, manly Middle East.
The timing of the Kushner peace plan is especially asinine. For all the upheaval in the
region, the Palestinian Problem has nevertheless dropped off the geopolitical radar as an
urgent matter to resolve.
For better or for worse, the two sides are locked in a deadly, tightly choreographed dance.
The Palestinians rise in frustration and fury; the Israelis respond with overwhelming force.
The world then offers-up perfunctory sympathy for the Palestinians. Everybody moves on.
It's just the way it is. The world has become desensitized to the plight of the
Palestinians.
Take the Economist -- a liberal, pro-Palestinian, most excellent weekly. Its editors
cogitated but briefly over the Israeli army's last use of excessive force against the
M.O.P.E (Most Oppressed People Ever), concluding nonchalantly that, "Every state has a right to
defend its borders." "It is time for Palestinians to take up genuine non-violence."
Understandably, the Palestinians will have no truck with the Trump administration.
Then there's Bibi Netanyahu's ingenious, Israel First tactics. You have to be a special
kind of dumb -- Jared and Ivanka dumb -- to imagine you can present Bibi with a plan to fix his
part of the world. The Israeli prime minister will make the right noises and will have Jared
for breakfast.
Netanyahu has been busy befriending "
once hostile neighbors and has gained the respect of world leaders ." Like himself, his new
friends (the murderous Saudi regime is among them) don't seem to care much that Israel's
"supposedly temporary occupation [of 4.5 million Palestinians] has become permanent
conquest."
Don't blame me for dishing Middle Eastern realpolitik. These are just the facts and the
deductions therefrom.
By the
Economist's telling , Mr. Netanyahu's strategy toward the Palestinians is a finely honed
"anti-solutionism." Netanyahu "has sought to convince Israelis that the conflict can be
managed, if the right people are put in charge of managing it, and thus need not be
solved."
From experience, Netanyahu knows that an "anti-solutionism" puts his army and him in
control, to better deliver on the security needs of the Israelis. This makes Bibi even more of
a mystery to the self-aggrandizing Kushners. After all, they are not acting in America's
self-interest. A provincial leader who does just that is anathema to the mindset dominant in
America.
Like him or not, the conservative, patriotic Bibi will not allow Jared Kushner to steer
Israel in a radical direction. Instead, Bibi will likely let The American rattle on about
radical change (which he, Jared, will not have to live through), and will quietly ignore him in
favor of maintaining the safer status quo.
You see, the Israeli prime minister is a grizzled old warrior -- and a true populist, the
kind that builds walls to protect his people and passes
laws to safeguard their ancient patrimony.
Netanyahu and his new Sunni partners will make polite noises and then shrug off this
Middle-East plan with a hearty laugh and some good arak , behind Jared's slender, sylphlike
back.
As the Economist noted derisively -- its writers, too, are radicals in the mold of Jared
and Ivanka -- Netanyahu is no radical. He is a reactionary nationalist. Temperamentally
conservative," and "wary of change," as all true conservatives ought to be, Netanyahu "governs
as if Israel needs no change." The Israeli prime minister has even passed nation-state
legislation consecrating Israel as the home of the Jewish people.
But by golly, Bibi will give the first-couple-in-waiting good hospitality -- leading Ivanka
and her poodle to "think" they succeeded in plastering their brand on the region. Then he'll
send Ivanka's emissary packing, to be celebrated by his clueless American fans.
And the region will return to its old ways.
Bibi, moreover, reads his voters well. The appetite for the charade that are the
Israeli-Palestinians peace talks has diminished. "The percentage of Israelis favoring talks
with the Palestinians has dropped from over 70 percent to closer to 50 percent over the past
decade. Among Mr. Netanyahu's supporters it is 30 percent."
In case you're unfamiliar with Bibi's base -- supporters of Likud since the party's
inception -- they are, "Voters from conservative religious and working-class backgrounds,
Russian-speaking immigrants and Mizrahi Jews (who are descended from immigrants from the Arab
world)." The political equivalent of Trump's deplorables.
To sum, "should it ever to arrive," Mr. and Mrs. Kushner's peace plan "will be dead on
arrival."
Americans like Jared and Ivanka don't know the past and show little respect for it.
Netanyahu, however, understands history and what it portends for the future. "Because the
Palestinian issue cannot be solved," Bibi's statecraft entails
preparing his people for a reality they understand all too well:
"We will forever live by the sword." Bibi's words in 2015.
Let us wrap-up on a more mirthful note. Here's some stuff our oracular Mr. Jared has
said
about rainbows and unicorns in the Middle East: "Progress could 'look like a lot of different
things." "Success 'can look like an agreement, it can look like a discussion, it could lead to
closer cooperation, maybe resolve a couple of issues."
Solid assessment. Bibi’s ruthlessness in pursuit of his people’s interests is
something I wish my people’s leaders would emulate. Instead, they buy into the Israeli
gaslighting and flattery and beclown themselves with paens to
“Judeo-Christianity,” “America’s greatest ally,” and “the
ME’s only democracy.”
It’s debatable whether Bibi’s “forever war” is in fact in the best
interests of Israeli Jews, but no one can credibly claim he’s a tool of foreign
powers.
The Empire, on the other hand, is most definitely in thrall to a people whose American
diaspora makes up less than 3% of its population.
I take issue with Mercer’s characterization of The Economist as
“excellent.” It may have been at one time. I dropped my subscription decades ago
when I realized it was a globalist propaganda rag.
I wish Trump would just keep his moron SIL on Israel-Palestinian affairs only. Who cares
if he F’s it all up. It’d be no different from where it was 10, 20, 50 years ago.
But everything Jared touches turns to shite, including his POS prison reform plan and
atrocious immigration bill. Trump’s turned into a POS because he put his POS SIL in
charge of everything, incl. his signature campaign issue, immigration.
Javanka is the worst thing to happen to America. Without these two treasonous rats Trump
might have saved the country, now he’s just another swamp creature.
Netanyahu (and most Israelis) don’t want the problem be resoved, neither does
Mahmoud Abbas (and most Palestinians). Abbas has already explicitly stated that he will not
accept the plan whatever it is. Under such circumstances the only result of Jared’s and
Ivanka’s mission might be that Ivanka will get some lucrative contracts for selling her
designer shoes in the Middle East, like she did in China. God help us if ever this naive and
ignorant woman will run for president!
Shorter Ilana……’the dogs bark, the caravan moves on.’
Meanwhile Netanyahu is in deep doodoo. After winning the election he failed to form a
majority party. So there will be a do over election. This means the PIECE Plan is dead for
the time being.
Here’s the Kushner, Greenblatt, Friedman peace plan. Its not new. Its a transfer
plan.
The Jerusalem Summit
Assessment
1. The conventional-wisdom paradigm for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
has failed woefully, bringing nothing but misery and despair to both sides – but
particularly to the Palestinians as individual human beings.
[Hide MORE]
2. This conventional paradigm has attempted to solve the conflict by means of a Political
Approach involving the establishment of a self governing Palestinian entity on territories in
Judea Samaria and Gaza which have been under Israeli control since 1967 i.e. on the basis of
a “Land for Peace” approach.
3. Dispassionate assessment of the history of the conflict and its current development
will strongly suggest that persisting with attempts to attain a political solution on the
basis the conventional paradigm are at best futile – and at worse harmful. Accordingly,
alternative modes of resolution must be pursued.
B. Analysis
1. Analysis of Palestinian deeds and declarations over the years make it difficult to
avoid the conclusion that they are in effect both unwilling and incapable of achieving and
maintaining statehood.
(a) Palestinian Unwillingness: This is reflected in the fact that the Palestinians have
rejected every single viable proposal which would have afforded them a state – from the
1947 partition plan to the 2000 Barak proposals.
(b) Palestinian Incapability: The Palestinian national movement has enjoyed conditions far
more favorable than almost any other national independence movement since WW-II –
widespread international endorsement of their cause, unmitigated support of a superpower in
the decades of the Cold War, highly sympathetic coverage by the major media organizations,
and over a decade of Israeli administrations who have acknowledged (and at times even
identified with) the Palestinians declared national aspiration. In spite of this, the
achievements of Palestinian national movement have been more miserable than almost any other
national independence movement – bringing nothing but privation and penury to its
people.
2. It is thus far easier to understand Palestinian conduct if one assumes that it is driven
less by lack of Palestinian self determination and more by the very the existence of Jewish
self determination; less by the aspiration to establish a Palestinian state and more by the
aspiration to dismantle a Jewish state.
3. The latter, and seemingly more plausible, explanation of Palestinian behavior –
i.e. rejection of Jewish self determination and the dismantling of the Jewish nation state
– reflects an agenda totally unacceptable by any international standards and thus must
be branded as devoid of any legitimacy.
4. Accordingly if the accepted version of the Palestinian narrative – i.e. a desire
for Palestinian self determination and the aspiration for Palestinian statehood –
cannot be reconciled with the history of Palestinian behavior, this narrative also must be
branded as devoid of any legitimacy.
5. This issue of legitimacy of narrative is crucial. Indeed the very fuel of the Political
Paradigm involving the establishment of a Palestinian state is the perception – or
rather the misperception – of the presently prevailing Palestinian narrative as
legitimate.
C. Conclusion
1. The establishment of a Palestinian State must removed from the international
agenda.
2. However, removing the issue of a Palestinian state from the international agenda will
not eliminate the humanitarian predicament of Palestinians residing in Israeli-administered
areas.
3. This is clearly an issue that must be addressed and resolved. But it must be addressed
not in political terms but in humanitarian ones.
4. Thus, to successfully resolve the Palestinian problem, the Political Paradigm must be
replaced by a Humanitarian Paradigm. This, however can only be done if the current
Palestinian narrative, which fuels the Political Paradigm, is de-legitimized.
5. Thus, the de-legitimization of the Palestinian narrative becomes a vital prerequisite to
any comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian issue.
D. Proposal
1. A comprehensive Humanitarian Approach to the Palestinian issue would entail three major
elements:
(a) The dissolution of UNRWA – which will end the discriminatory treatment of the
Palestinians with regard to their status as refugees;
(b) The termination of ethnic discrimination against Palestinians , living in the Arab
world – which will end the discriminatory treatment of the Palestinians with regard to
their status as residents;
(c) Generous relocation grants to Palestinians living in Israeli administered territories
on an individual basis and not via any official Palestinian organization.
2. UNRWA is an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem. It is an
anomalous organization which exists solely to deal with Palestinian refugees, while all the
other refugees on the face of the globe are dealt with by the UN High Commission for Refugees
(UNHCR).
3. The organizations not only deal differently with the refugees under their auspices,
they each have different definitions for classifying an individual as a
“refugee”.
4. This difference in definition has far-ranging consequences. For in contrast to the
UNHCR definition, which results in a decline in the number of refugees over time, the UNRWA
definition leads to an inflation of the number.
5. In fact, if the UNHCR’s otherwise universal definition were applied to the
Palestinian case, the number of refugees would decline from 4-5 million to 200-300,000 i.e.
by over 90%!!
6. It thus appears that UNWRA is perpetuating the very problem it was designed to
eliminate.
7. Accordingly, the dissolution of UNRWA is an essential prerequisite for any comprehensive,
durable settlement of the Palestinian issue.
8. With the dissolution of UNWRA, the remaining, and drastically reduced, number of
Palestinian refugees, should be placed under the auspices of UNHCR – in accordance with
the accepted practice for all other refugee groups on the face of the globe.
9. Those Palestinians no longer classed as refugees under the new arrangements, must be
offered all the privileges afforded all other peoples resident in their current countries of
domicile in the Arab world — including the right to acquire citizenship.
10. In order to do this, a vigorous diplomatic and media campaign must be mounted to
induce Arab governments to end their harsh discriminatory behavior towards the millions of
Palestinians domiciled in their countries and absorb them into their societies as fully
fledged citizens. After all, even the Palestinians assert (in the opening paragraph of their
National Covenant) that they are “part of the Arab Nation”.
11. As for the Palestinians resident in Israeli administered territory, there is only one
reasonable and feasible alternative that will facilitate:
(a) extricating them from their dire humanitarian plight;
(b) free them from the yoke of generations of misrule by their leadership;
(c) ensure the survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews.
12. This is a generous relocation and resettlement package to allow them to build a new
life for themselves and their families in countries preferably, but not necessarily
exclusively, with similar religious and socio-cultural conditions.
13. In order to minimize the ability of organized Palestinian interest groups to impede
the success of such an effort, the offer of financial inducement to emigrate must be
“atomized” – i.e. made to individual Palestinian breadwinners on a one-to
one personal level and not on a communal level via some formal Palestinian entity.
14. A survey conducted among the Palestinians in Nov. 2004 indicates that only about 15% of
the Palestinian population resident in Israeli administered areas would reject such an offer
outright. By contrast, over 70% would accept some form of material compensation as an
inducement to emigrate permanently from the areas currently under Israeli administration (see
http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/news.php?news=102
)
15. The economic cost of such a policy of generously financed humanitarian relocation and
resettlement would be eminently affordable and would compare favorably with almost all other
settlement proposals on the table today. Indeed, its total cost would be around 50% of the
present total US outlay on the War in Iraq!!
16. Indeed, given Israel’s present level of GDP, it is an initiative that it could
well undertake on its own over the next decade to a decade and a half. It should be realized
that this is the period that has elapsed since the initiation of the Oslo process –
which has brought nothing but failure and tragedy at the cost of billions of dollars and
thousands of lives.
17. Of course, if the US, the EU and other developed nations were to contribute to this
effort, it could be implemented in a far shorter space of time and with almost no burden on
the world economy.
18. Quite the opposite, the Palestinians arriving in their new countries of domicile will
not be impoverished refugees but reasonably affluent émigrés. The funds that
they would be bringing with them would provide a considerable boost for the economies of
these nations – most of which would be developing countries with a pressing need for
such a substantial influx of funds.
E. Summary
The proposed initiative constitutes a “win-win” proposal which will:
Alleviate, and even eliminate, the humanitarian plight of individual Palestinians
Ensure the continued security and survival of Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish
people
Provide a Significant Boost to the Economies of the Developing World
Transform poverty stricken refugees into affluent émigrés
How can one write meaningfully about the Kushners without mentioning that they are
Chabadniks? To understand the significance, one must understand Jared’s family
background and the virulent malevolence of supremacist Chabad. http://judaism.is/kushner.html
The Palestinians rise in frustration and fury; the Israelis respond with overwhelming
force. The world then offers-up perfunctory sympathy for the Palestinians. Everybody moves
on
——————————————————————————————————-
Interesting that after getting their butts kicked every time, when the smoke clears,
there’s another Pal. kid is still throwing rocks at israeli soldiers. I don’t
know how it will happen but somehow the Pals are going to win this thing.
So much wrong with this, where to start. The Economist is not excellent, The Economist
only supports Israel to have the right to protect its borders, Kusher is a jewish supremacist
that has given absolute everything to Israel, the Arabs taking part in these ethnic cleansing
talks are all corrupt puppets and how no real support in their countries.
This is all makes sense if one knows that this woman is an anti white jew. Its time to
deport this anti white crusader back to South Africa, she was after all very eager to destroy
the country the whites built, why should she not suffer the consequences of her actions and
beliefs?
What I find curious about Israel is that they are backed by the world’s most
powerful military force, they get infinite money, almost any high-tech military hardware they
want, an international propaganda aparatus that exonerates them regardless of what they do,
and an entire population that is militarized, and yet with all these advantages going on 70
years, these jews CANNOT even colonize a tiny desert strip of the Levant. Unbelievable.
Really, how incompetent are jews? Forget Eretz Israel. That requires conquering people much
more dangerous and resilient than poor Palestinian peasants. It’s like jews are
incapable of building. Destruction is all they know.
Israel will fail.
Like their Soviet Union failed.
Everything a jew touches fails.
Javanka is the worst thing to happen to America. Without these two treasonous rats Trump
might have saved the country, now he’s just another swamp creature.
Trump is a denizen of the swamp….a Deep State sycophant. Javanka is allowed to be
‘treasonous’ by her daddy. You have the cart before the horse.
Can’t have the possibility that a Palestinian genocide bump the Holocaust from the
headlines. As it is now every Jewish holiday, they can celebrate historic bloodshed with
Palestinian bloodshed. Oh and not to forget, all those rock tossing kids have organs to be
harvested for Israel’s growing transplant industry.
Brilliant article, Ilana. I love the term Abu Ivanka al Amriki. If that isn’t
derisive, I don’t know what is. Trump has already turned off a part of his base in
regard that Jared and Ivanka still having too much to say in the administration. The sooner
he gets rid of them (don’t hold your breath), the better off the nation will be. The
only pressure I can see Trump bending to in regard to Bimbo & Boy Bimbo is that of the
military – one of the few institutions that he respects. Since Obama cleared the
military of a lot of its good men, leaving it with career-minded slimeballs, one wonders who
in the military would have to cojonees to put that kind of pressure on Trump? If Ivanka
thinks having her eye on the presidency is realistic, she better think twice. I’d
ALMOST contemplate voting for Ocasio-Cortez for a micro-second before I’d go that
route. Unfortunately, the Palestinians are disposable. They have nothing to offer anyone in
realpolitik. Muslims and Arabs will make all kinds of noise, but not seriously risk a thread
of their wives’ burkhas. Only human compassion motivates activism on behalf of the
Palestinians. Yes, Bibi will have Jared & Ivanka’s heads spinning and dazed by the
time their plane lands back in the US. Ah well, such is realpolitik.
Jews had made a mess of Europe until WWII because they were always treated as the
outsiders, not allowed to own land, etc., so they stuck together as a group for survival and
to thrive. But things are different now, esp. in the US, they are outsiders no more. Why do
Jews continue to stick together as a tribe, still refusing to assimilate, wanting the US to
go to more wars on behalf of Israel, and encouraging open borders and multiculturalism so
that they are not the only out group against a white majority. Why won’t they
assimilate?
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all because of Israel. Israel needs for
the diaspora to stay loyal to the tribe to ensure it’s survival. That’s why they
are going out of their way to build the holocaust museum, because Judaism is losing its
appeal as more Jews become secular, they need to keep them loyal to the tribe on a new
religion: Holocaustianity.
As long as there is an Israel, Jews will never assimilate, and the world will always be in
chaos. For the world to achieve peace, Israel Must DIE.
Girly man a.k.a. Lucifer in the flesh’s Mideast Peace Plan is dead on arrival
because China and Russia ain’t drinking his poisonous KoolAid, unlike his dumb FIL who
chugs it by the bucket:
"... There are numerous NGOs that act on behalf of Israel in the U.S., examples being CUFI, JINSA, AIPAC and the Chabad Lubbivitcher sect. ..."
"... For, if the real intention had been to "get" Trump post election -- and not make him a sympathetic character to the average American -- an investigation would have focused on the "Russian" mafia and their banks, Israeli intel, Trump's bankruptcies (and who got him out of them) and the Chabad Lubbavitcher sect. Does anyone really believe that a U.S. legislature that previously violated protocol and invited Bibi Netanyahu to the U.S. on its own -- and then gave him more than 15 standing ovations -- would impeach the man who gave Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel? This is sheer nonsense -- theater intended to sway the gullible public. ..."
"... In fact, Adelson even funds a major newspaper in Israel -- Israel Today -- that has helped keep Netanyahu in power. (The 85-year-old and his wife Miriam gave $82-million+ to Republicans and candidate Trump in 2016.) But, alas, this alone is not enough to account for the election upset (if that was what it was.) ..."
"... In order for Trump to win, it would be necessary to swing a small percentage of disaffected white Americans from both parties. That small percentage (8%-10%) is now referred to as the "Alt Right." ..."
"... It should be remembered that, during the 2016 campaign, Hillary had discussed creating a private non-monitored hotline to Netanyahu when she was elected [12] ) ..."
"... So, the unhinged and unprecedented frothing-at-the-mouth rage towards Trump displayed by the worst of the Neocons (Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, etc.) is all part of the ruse? ..."
"... entire deep state apparatus, with international assistance swung into action with the phony Mueller investigation was a sure sign that Trump's platform was never going to be allowed. ..."
"... "When a public is stressed and confused, a big lie told repeatedly and unchallenged can become accepted truth." ~George Orwell ..."
"... As for Flynn: he knew about many of the misdeeds of the previous administration. They took advantage of a neophyte administration fending off Sally Yates Russian Collusion initiative via a corrupt FBI Director to pressure them to let Flynn go – a terrible newbie mistake telegraphing weakness to all his enemies. ..."
"... So that being said, what's his point. That Trump is exceptionally corrupt despite no collusion with Russia because he's controlled by Izzies? ..."
The Mueller Report is done, and from the digest made public, its conclusion of no collusion to "fix" the last election by the
Russian or "other" foreign governments does not surprise me. I agree with this conclusion. These foreign governments would, presumably,
include Israel. However, in the case of Israel, I believe this may be a question of semantics.There is, I believe, considerable
evidence that non-governmental forces acting on behalf of Israel succeeded in placing an individual in charge of the U.S. who is
currently redirecting the power and financial resources of the nation to almost entirely serve the interests of a foreign power.
(And that entity is not Russia!)
There are numerous NGOs that act on behalf of Israel in the U.S., examples being CUFI, JINSA, AIPAC and the Chabad Lubbivitcher
sect. There are many super-wealthy patrons of Israel and the Netanyahu government, such as Sheldon Adelson, that were involved
in Trump's election. Finally there are shadowy private Israeli contractors, such as those referred to by Cambridge Analytica's Alexander
Nix, and the so-called "Russian" mafia, which is reputedly controlled by individuals loyal to Israel. Trump apparently has had business
proximity in the past to such entities and their bank.
[1]
First indication along these lines can be deduced from special prosecutor Robert Mueller's indictment of General Michael Flynn
[2]
. Flynn admits lying to FBI agents about his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, then-Russian Ambassador to the United States,
in December 2016, when Trump was president-elect. Apparently acting on orders from Jared Kushner, Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law,
Flynn contacted Kislyak to ask if Russia would delay or veto a UN Security Council vote criticizing Israeli settlements. It's certainly
a stretch to see how aiding and abetting actions illegal under international law would benefit the U.S. or Trump's MAGA agenda.
Empirical evidence of the preceding and a good example of the type of Israelocentric policy making that came in with the election
of Mr. Trump can be found in the book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House .
[2a] There author Michael
Wolff relates an alleged conversation between former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes, the former CEO of
Fox News. Bannon reportedly told Ailes that Trump, Bibi Netanyahu and Trump-Netanyahu backer Sheldon Adelson are in agreement with
moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. The national interests of the U.S. and possible international ramifications of this act apparently
were not considered.
Trump's reaction to Bannon's alleged statement: "When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind."
"Donald Trump is the Zionist water boy in the Oval Office. Trump's collusion was never with the Russian government; it was always
with the Bolshevik/Ashkenazi/Zionist mafia (the new Deep State) that has now ousted the old Clinton-Bush mafia (the old Deep State)
from power. And that coup was stunningly successful and swift. Accordingly, Donald Trump has faithfully filled his administration
with quintessential Zionist insiders -- including Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Nikki Haley, Elliot Abrams, Gary Cohn, Steve
Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, David Friedman, Jared Kushner, et al.," comments America's most courageous evangelist, Chuck Baldwin, "God
help us." [3]
MAGA -- Make America Great Again -- was widely believed to be a spontaneous outpouring of authentic nationalistic sentiment embodied
by President Donald Trump. Trump's election was initially welcomed by some countries as a government acting in the actual self-interest
of the U.S. because it would be far more predictable than one acting for hidden interests. And Trump's election, promising to reduce
the footprint of the U.S. abroad, offered the hope of rolling back the push toward a world war.
Alas, much as was the case with the so-called "Arab Spring", these hopes did not materialize and U.S. interventions overseas
have grown. Often, these are somehow related to the interests of the Israeli state and its Likud government:
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal and placed new sanctions on Iran, in accordance with the wishes of Netanyahu
and Sheldon Adelson. On April 22 nd , for instance, oil prices jumped 3% as the Trump administration promised to remove
sanction waivers on Iran oil
[4] -- which had allowed
countries such as India to continue buying Iranian oil -- prompting threats from Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz for this violation
of the nuclear disarmament treaty. American consumers could pay soaring prices on all their purchases for this act which demonstrably
is connected to pre-election planning by backers of Israel with the Trump campaign. (Apparently fearing that this would cause a
major rift with India, further alienate Turkey, and scuttle hopes of a trade agreement with China, Trump quietly reversed course
to give these countries another year to comply, further demonstrating the Israelocentric monomania of the Neocon-Zionists vs. the
actual interests of the U.S.) The ongoing negotiations with North Korea appear centered on its "giving up" Iranian nuclear and missile
secrets -- as well as destroying its own offensive missile capabilities -- in return for normalization. Trump recently vetoed a
bill to pull U.S. troops out of Yemen and their support of the Saudi aggression (apparently as part of a deal to have Saudi Arabia
guarantee Arab support for Trump and Jared Kushner's new Mid-East "peace plan".) Trump's promises of reducing involvement in Syria
appear stalled and the U.S. continues the de facto support of he partition of Syria (A future Kurdistan may well become a
part of Eretz Israel in the future -- the Barzani brothers were trained by Israel and articles have appeared linking the Kurds to
the genetics of the Israeli population) as well as the protection of the evacuation of key ISIS operatives. In South America, war
is on the horizon as Neocons move to topple Venezuela -- going so far as to name an alternative president. Venezuela's heavy crude
is key to diesel production and China has substantial claims on it (which might not be honored if they don't play ball with Trump.)
And the restructuring of South America may also play a role in the creation of a "New Israel" in Patagonia -- a potential evacuation
zone of Jews from Israel, the U.S., Canada and elsewhere in the event of war or national chaos -- where Israeli operatives are reported
to be extremely active.
[4a] Meanwhile, President Trump has destroyed the last vestiges of international law relating to conquest of territory by aggressive
warfare, as in the case of the 1967 Mideast War. He has ceded control of territory so seized (recognizing Israeli conquest of East
Jerusalem and Syria's Golan Heights) despite U.S. membership in the U.N., which was created to prevent such events in the future
so as to make war less attractive. Was this done for any specific U.S. benefit? I think not. But it may have something to do with
President Trump's "fabulous" new Mideast peace plan that is similar to Bill Clinton's fabulous new peace plan. Possibly to pressure
Europe to support the redrawing of the Mid East, the Trump administration is expected to launch a tariff war with the EU starting
this May. (This will apparently follow an expected superficial agreement with China during the same period.) And money for Israel
has not been stinted either. Military aid for Israel apparently avoided the budget ax in Trump's 2020 fiscal plan sent to Congress.
It includes the full $3.3-billion in assistance promised under a 10-year memorandum of understanding, despite spending cuts in other
sectors affecting American interests throughout the proposal.
[5]
While the interests of the Israeli ally have been thoroughly protected, in the economic sphere, Trump's MAGA has been something
of a train wreck for Trump's populist supporters on main street. Their indebtedness has soared
[6]
while the interest on savings (for the 40-something percent of those who have any) dropped to near zero. They got tax breaks
that were temporary (as opposed to the massive permanent tax cuts for corporations who are often heavily indebted to large banks)
and then, many learned they wouldn't be getting their usual annual tax refunds due to quirks in the tax law -- something that has
hit the retail economy hard. Wall St. and the big banks have certainly prospered. U.S. Corporations were allowed to repatriate huge
sums of money with no strings attached. And what did they do with this money? Did they invest in infrastructure, job training of
Americans and building/retooling of factories as President Trump should have insisted? No, they used it for stock buybacks and acquisitions
-- mostly paper shuffling -- that has kept the stock market propped up.
Trump's tariff war, meanwhile, has imposed new costs on average Americans -- not on the Chinese -- with industrial production
dropping or remaining flat and U.S. trade deficits soaring. The ham-handed imposition of tariffs without corresponding domestic
industrial capacity may also have destroyed some of America's backbone and staunch Trump supporters -- farmers on small- and mid-sized
farms. Large amounts of corn and soybeans were placed in silos awaiting the end of Trump's "trade war". These have mostly been destroyed
by record flooding and are NOT covered by crop insurance. Many of these farmers will go bankrupt and big agribusiness may ultimately
take over their land. (And the "farm bailouts" announced by Trump will mainly go to large farms and big agribusiness -- including
farms owned by Chinese interests!)
In a nutshell, Trump "jazzed" a brief economic recovery in the U.S. with massive tax cuts for big business and temporary cuts
for voters (more bark than bite variety) while increasing the national debt, which these same overtaxed voters will ultimately be
on the hook for. At the same time Trump "jawboned" the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy so interest rates wouldn't rise as
a result of the vast increase in national indebtedness. He has laid the groundwork for eventual hyperinflation (or hyper-stagflation)
that may well ruin more of his middle class voters after the 2020 election.
"Manufacturing production ( in March -- Ed. ) was flat after dropping in January and February. In the first three months
of the year, factory output fell at an annual rate of 1.1%. Production of cars, truck and auto parts dropped 2.5% in March and 4.5%
over the past year." [7]
The Cass Freight Index, a measure of truck shipments indicative of overall economic activity is down for the fourth consecutive
month year-over-year. [8]
Sales of Class 8 trucks (18-wheelers) hit the ditch in January, with orders down 58 percent from a year ago hitting a level
not seen since October 2016, near the end of the transportation recession, "when Class-8 truck orders had plunged to the lowest
levels since 2009, and truck and engine manufacturers responded with layoffs," writes Wolf Richter.
[9]
American businesses expanded in April at the slowest pace in 31 months, according to IHS Markit's survey of business executives.
IHS Markit's flash PMI for services slipped to 52.9 from 55.3, while the manufacturing index was flat at 52.4. Any number over 50
signifies expansion. "The U.S. economy started the second quarter with its weakest expansion since mid-2016 as businesses reported
a marked slowing in output, new orders and hiring," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit "
[10]
"Manufacturing production has pivoted to the downside in the first quarter of the year, showing the revival in factories and
output is sputtering for the first time since the Trump economics team took office," said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG
in New York. "The trade war and America First policies have not brought factories back home yet."
[11]
What about immigration? While President Trump "talks the talk" he has failed to close the border as previous presidents have
done and seems more interested in expanding the H1B program for large corporate interests instead of retraining Americans to fill
at least some of the gap of necessary skills . He allows American soldiers to be captured and disarmed by the Mexican military
inside U.S. borders (as happened recently without a proportionate response) and the rate of "catch and release" has soared
due to lack of internment facilities. America is filled with unemployed (U6 -- the real unemployment rate -- is 3 times higher than
the publicized rate and many of the real jobs are part time and multiple jobs can be held by a single person), homeless and homeless
camps, yet we need hordes of unskilled labor pouring into the country? Trump proposes to dump refugees in sanctuary cities, which
sounds nice until one realizes that these cities will simply give the refugees tickets to go elsewhere in America. (This already
happens in some places in the U.S. where indigents are given tickets to go elsewhere.)
The empirical evidence is therefore clear. Trump's announced program vs. what he has actually delivered to nationalist voters
who supported him is what a Hollywood Western town is to a real Western town: it is only a facade. (It should be remembered that
Steve Bannon, one of the chief architects of the Trump victory, went from being a Goldman Sachs investment banker to being a Hollywood
movie director!) The only plausible explanation? That the Neocon-Zionist power structure co-opted the authentic nationalist sentiments
of Americans for their own ends and disguised this control with "Pepe": a neo-Nazi green frog "front man" wearing a red "MAGA" ball
cap. It stands to reason that such potent and capable forces are the real source of President Trump's power.
Amazingly, Trump's approval rating remains surprisingly high despite the outcome. Part of this may be the unwillingness of average
people to believe their vote counted for nothing and they are heading for the same outcome as if Hillary Clinton had been elected.
Then there is something called the Galileo gambit (also called the "Galileo fallacy.") This informal logical fallacy is a way to
convince listeners (or viewers) that a questionable leader (or his policies) are good despite evidence to the contrary. I believe
this was accomplished using the Russian meddling meme and having the establishment media -- widely distrusted by Trump supporters
-- pile on Trump. For, if the real intention had been to "get" Trump post election -- and not make him a sympathetic character
to the average American -- an investigation would have focused on the "Russian" mafia and their banks, Israeli intel, Trump's bankruptcies
(and who got him out of them) and the Chabad Lubbavitcher sect. Does anyone really believe that a U.S. legislature that previously
violated protocol and invited Bibi Netanyahu to the U.S. on its own -- and then gave him more than 15 standing ovations -- would
impeach the man who gave Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel? This is sheer nonsense -- theater intended to sway the gullible
public.
To make a case for the election of Trump being a soft takeover of the U.S., it's necessary to examine how this might have been
accomplished. It is child's play to hack Diebold voting machines for which no paper trails exist. But due to the nature of such
rigging it would likely be impossible to prove, say, a hypothesis that Hillary had some machines in key states rigged and "someone's"
black ops unrigged them. We also know one of Trump's major backers, the Zionist Sheldon Adelson, is also the main backer of Netanyahu
in Israel. In fact, Adelson even funds a major newspaper in Israel -- Israel Today -- that has helped keep Netanyahu in power.
(The 85-year-old and his wife Miriam gave $82-million+ to Republicans and candidate Trump in 2016.) But, alas, this alone is not
enough to account for the election upset (if that was what it was.)
America is pretty well divided by party and elections are typically very close. There is a block of Israeli-indoctrinated Pentecostal
and "Christian Zionist" voters that could deliver 20% of votes. But many of these are already on the Republican rolls. In order
for Trump to win, it would be necessary to swing a small percentage of disaffected white Americans from both parties. That small
percentage (8%-10%) is now referred to as the "Alt Right."
And it is the Alt Right -- comprised of voters who might otherwise not have voted in the election -- that swung the election
coupled with the divisive campaign of Hillary Clinton, which many middle class Americans found odious. (It must be remembered how
quickly Trump backed off his "jail Hillary" meme at the conclusion of the election. Was this also play acting? It should be
remembered that, during the 2016 campaign, Hillary had discussed creating a private non-monitored hotline to Netanyahu when she
was elected [12] )
So, we may start with the genesis of this Alt Right movement. Which was in Israel. Breitbart News, the flagship of the Alt Right
movement and a mouthpiece for the Trump campaign (and the eventual nesting place of Steve Bannon) was actually started by a Jewish
lawyer and businessman, Larry Solov.
[13]
In a 2015 post announcing the opening of Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau, Solov wrote that Breitbart News itself was conceived of
in Israel, when Solov traveled to the Israeli state with Andrew Breitbart, the now-deceased founder of Breitbart and met with him
and Bibi Netanyahu in planning sessions. (There are pictures of this event.)
"One thing we specifically discussed that night was our desire to start a site that would be unapologetically pro-freedom and
pro-Israel. We were sick of the anti-Israel bias of the mainstream media and J-Street," he wrote.
[14]
Breitbart's infatuation with Israel is eerily reminiscent of a similar situation in the 1930s. National Socialist propagandist
Josef Goebbels ran a publication called the Algerminer in the 1930s prior to the Second World War. Goebbels was quite sympathetic
to Zionist interests, sponsored a fact-finding trip to Palestine and had a commemorative coin issued in honor of this collaboration
depicting a swastika on one side and a Jewish hexagram ("Mogen David") on the obverse.
[15]
Subsequently, the so-called Transfer Agreement saw German Jews brought to Palestine on German ships.
[16]
Andrew Breitbart subsequently died -- but not before Steve Bannon had him narrate one of his turgid Hollywood conservative documentaries
and got on his and Larry Solov's "good side." Solov then tapped Bannon as Breitbart's successor and brought him on to run the website
-- possibly also due to his links with the wealthy Mercer family. Bannon went on to transform Breitbart into the spearhead of Trump's
campaign to disaffected Americans vis a vis the Alt-Right. (Although Bannon was reputed in a divorce proceeding to have once made
a comment about "whiny Jews," he was given a kosheresque seal of approval by no less than the Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
[17]
)
Bannon's masterful use of Breitbart's ideas and website pale in comparison with the impact of his creation of Cambridge Analytica
in 2013 (with billionaire fund manager Robert Mercer)
[18]
as a spinoff from Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL.)
[19] SCL is a UK firm
whose niche "specialties" were once described as psychological warfare , public diplomacy and influence operations.
Cambridge's first big success with "behavorial microtargeting" was swinging the Brexit vote in the U.K., a cause also championed
by the Zionist politician Boris Johnson
[20] (The Israeli press,
not surprisingly, now raises the possibility of Israel becoming Britain's "window on the world" in the event of a hard Brexit! No
doubt, Israel may ultimately benefit from the trade wars launched by President Trump as well. It has free trade arrangements with
many nations.) Thanks to what's alleged to have been a massive data breach of some 50-million Facebook users, Cambridge was apparently
able to corral the (private) data on the social media accounts of millions of American voters in swing states
[21]
, allowing development of Trump's talking points and election materials directed at individual voters' "hot buttons" by a sophisticated
AI program allegedly developed by company whistleblower Christopher Wylie with help getting the data from a company, Global Science
Research (GSR), controlled by researcher Aleksandr Kogan of Cambridge University.
[22] Kogan reportedly
gave thousands of volunteers a personality test app (thisisyourdigitallife) and then used the Facebook platform (allegedly in violation
of the terms of use) to find their friends and their friends' friends and so on much like Carnivore to create a relational database
that grew into many tens of millions. In effect, this created the potential for psychological warfare to be used by Cambridge Analytica
on the American voting public in order to "game" the election.
For its part, Cambridge claimed that it believed GSR had abided by the UK Data Protection Act and, as soon as it found out this
was not the case, terminated the data and deleted the information. And that, after being paid $6.2-million by the Trump campaign,
none of the consent-less data was used to elect Trump. (Reuters relates that the N.Y. Times interviewed half a dozen former employees
and contractors and reviewed documents and records and claimed these indicate Cambridge retained the data and did use the data.
Facebook, after receiving information that 270,000 people had downloaded Kogan's app and that data obtained without consent had
not been deleted, then banned Cambridge Analytica and Wylie from using its platform.
[23] )
What is even more disturbing is that foreign players may also have been involved in the 2016 election. While Cambridge Analytica
and its parent SCL ceased operations on May 2nd, 2018 (possibly to stymie investigations as to the extent of its activities for
the Trump campaign and foreign governments)
[24]
that cessation came after its former CEO Alexander Nix had some interesting things to say when recorded by TV Channel
4 with a hidden camera while making a sales presentation.
[25] In addition to
the usual allusions to prostitutes, shady characters, blackmail and the like, Nix carelessly " boasted of his ability to employ
"Israeli companies" to gather intelligence on politicians Nix then went on to praise the ability of "Israeli" intelligence personnel
in what can only be described as a power sales pitch to a would-be client."
[26]
Like Bannon with his revelations to Wolff, Nix had gone too far and was quickly sacked pending an investigation. Had he committed
the unforgivable sin of speaking the truth in an insecure venue??? According to a statement put out by CA at the time:
"In the view of the Board, Mr. Nix's recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent
the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation. We have asked
Dr. Alexander Tayler to serve as acting CEO while an independent investigation is launched to review those comments and allegations."
[27]
Much like exploding armor on tanks, Trump seemingly uses associates and then fires them to deflect criticism when they become
compromised. In the case of the massive Cambridge data breach and its possible use to swing the election, Steve Bannon fared no
better than General Flynn.
After Bannon's departure from the White House, quoting McClatchy Washington Bureau: " Bannon sold his stake in Cambridge Analytica
-- the controversial data firm Donald Trump's campaign employed to reach voters with hyper-targeted online messaging -- in April,
as required by his ethics requirement. But Bannon only notified the government of the sale in November, three months after he had
left the White House and one month after McClatchy asked him if he still had an interest in the company. He was fined for the late
report about the sale Bannon was supposed to sell his $1 million to $5 million stake in Cambridge Analytica while he served in the
administration as part of his ethics agreement, but it was never clear until now if he had done so Under Federal law, late filers
such as Bannon are fined $200. However, while the fine is small only a tiny percentage of such government-required reports are filed
late. Obviously, most reports are timely filed because tardy filing could be an indication of some misfeasance or malfeasance.
[28]
[2] United States
of America vs. Michael T. Flynn, Violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001
In a plea agreement, Flynn admitted that he had lied to Justice Dept. investigators, with regard to a resolution submitted by
Egypt to the UNSC concerning sanctions on Israel for illegal settlement construction in Palestinian areas, he contacted the Russian
Ambassador to the U.S. on December 22 nd , 2016 at the behest of a "very senior member of Trump's transition team" (believed
to be Jared Kushner -- Ed.) and requested Russia vote against the resolution or at least delay it. He met again with the Russian
Ambassador on December 23 rd and was informed Russia would not comply if the resolution came to a vote.
https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download
[2a] Wolff, Michael,
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, ISBN 978-1-250-15806-2, Henry Holt and Co. (2018)
[3] Baldwin further
adds that (in addition to the Kushners -- Ed.) Trump's association with Jewish mafia billionaires is easily documented. I'm talking
about men such as Alexander Mashkevich, Tevfik Arif (not Jewish by birth but a strong Zionist), Felix Henry Sater and Lev Avnerovich
Leviev. Look them up for yourself. Jewish Zionist Wilbur Ross (Bilderberg), whom Trump appointed as Secretary of Commerce, was one
of the Jewish billionaire Rothschild bankers who bailed Trump out of one of his bankruptcies. "Donald Trump, John Hagee, Zionism
And The Chabad," by Chuck Baldwin, February 14, 2019
[6] Americans'
credit spending was greater than ever in 2018, as debt levels reached record totals. Overall consumer debt reached $13.3 trillion
in the last quarter of 2018, while the total amount of unpaid revolving debt hit $4.1 trillion.
[17] Ron Dermer,
Israel's ambassador to the United States, in 2016 praised President-elect Donald Trump as a "true friend of Israel" and said he
looks forward to working with incoming White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. "Israel has no doubt that President-elect Trump
is a true friend of Israel "
[18] According
to testimony given to British lawmakers by a company whistle blower, Christopher Wylie, Cambridge Analytica was founded by billionaire
Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon.
In other words, Bannon was likely a kingpin and not just a bit player in what transpired -- and probably the real reason he had
to leave the White House. "Trump and Brexit: Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Gives Bombshell Testimony to British Lawmakers,"
by Pam and Russ Martens, Wall Street on Parade, 27 March 2018
[24] Are
Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group attempting
to evade recent negative coverage, only to re-form and continue their work as part of a new entity? "The news Wednesday about the
closure of Cambridge Analytica does not mention Emerdata or its subsidiary Firecrest Technologies All of the other UK SCL-related
companies are still listed as active and have no pending filings .
The business purpose of Emerdata is not known, beyond the general description of "data processing, hosting and related activities".
However, in a channel 4 News report, the SCL Group founder, Nigel Oakes, said it was his understanding that Emerdata was set up
to acquire all of Cambridge Analytica and SCL.
"Cambridge Analytica is dead -- but its obscure network is alive and well," by Wendy Siegelman, The Guardian Weekly, 5 May 2018
[26] "The Cambridge
Analytica Scandal Could Provide Hard Evidence of "Israeli" Meddling in Trump Election," by Adam Garrie, Global Policy and Analysis
Think Tank, 20 March 2018
[28] "Bannon Sold
His Stake in Cambridge Analytica, and was Fined for Late Ethics Report," Hamodia-The Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry, 20 February
2018
menters to Ignore ...to Follow Endorsed Only Trim Comments?
So, the unhinged and unprecedented frothing-at-the-mouth rage towards Trump displayed by the worst of the Neocons (Bill
Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, etc.) is all part of the ruse?
"There is, I believe, considerable evidence that non-governmental forces acting on behalf of Israel succeeded in placing
an individual in charge of the U.S. who is currently redirecting the power and financial resources of the nation to almost
entirely serve the interests of a foreign power. (And that entity is not Russia!)"
Wow, I've been looking for an article with this level of truth since this latest cardboard cutout was ushered into office.
You shills who will be screaming for evidence I suggest you watch the video below and then tell me Israhell is not in charge
of American foreign policy.
Wait! We have had a president in the last 30 years who hasn't been a water boy for Israel? Even the "Muslim" Obama bent over
for that insignificant nation.
I think there are people on the alt-right who are both pro and anti Israel. Obviously the pro ones only love Israel because
Israel likes killing brown people.
14.05.2017 International Cyber Attack: Roots Traced to US National Security Agency
Over 45,000 ransomware attacks have been tracked in large-scale attacks across Europe and Asia - particularly Russia and
China - as well as attacks in the US and South America. There are reports of infections in 99 countries. A string of ransomware
attacks appears to have started in the United Kingdom, Spain and the rest of Europe, before striking Japan, Vietnam and the
Philippines on May 12. According to Kaspersky Laboratory, Russia, Ukraine, India and Taiwan were hit hardest.
and yet many Jews are after Trump. Why is that? Now that you know about Trump's wicked friends, learn about Trump's
wicked enemies Anti-Trump & Pro-Obama, the Pritzkers made Obama. "They're bigshots in Holocaustianity, pioneers of mortgage-backed
derivatives & publish the genocidal Zohar."
It looks to me like the anti-Trump 'cranks' are getting the upper hand here at Unz Review. Tom Mysiewicz is known for writing
articles of this type for Renegade Tribune, which presents the most highly conspiratorial view of world politics possible. Just
because he can create 28 footnotes doesn't mean that any of them are credible or actually provide evidence for what he is proposing.
In this article, most don't. For example, this paragraph:
Breitbart's infatuation with Israel is eerily reminiscent of a similar situation in the 1930s. National Socialist propagandist
Josef Goebbels ran a publication called the Algerminer in the 1930s prior to the Second World War. Goebbels was quite sympathetic
to Zionist interests, sponsored a fact-finding trip to Palestine and had a commemorative coin issued in honor of this collaboration
depicting a swastika on one side and a Jewish hexagram ("Mogen David") on the obverse.[15]
Subsequently, the so-called Transfer Agreement saw German Jews brought to Palestine on German ships.[16]
I can confidently say that this simplified description and 'conclusion' misrepresents the actual situation at the time and
also misrepresents Josef Goebbels intentions. It's the same with many of Mysiewicz's sources intended to back up his argument
that Trump is a bought and paid for Israeli asset, and Israel rules the world. What's really going on is that the Jewish population
in every country acts as Israeli assets, which gives them their power. And who is responsible for that? Let's look first at
the English aristocracy.
Donald Trump is who he is. He has a long history as a public figure and he's been saying the same things for many years.
The idea that he has set out to fool Americans in order to serve the interests of Israel and bring about total Jewish domination
over us is not supported by the overall reality. The reality is that every U.S. president has limited power and is beset by
opposition at all times (including the fierce Jewish Lobby). That is Democracy as we know it. Those who want to sell two-dimensional
comic-book villains to their conspiracy-obsessed readers are doing us all a disservice.
@Carolyn Yeager
Then he shit on his base and became the most insanely pro-Israel zealot we have ever seen. The southern border is wide open
with thousands of invaders pouring in, and they are given WORK PERMITS. Trump was a shill to begin with, or they threatened
him and his family so he caved. I kind of think he was a shill to begin with, that he was always a globalist piece of shit and
he lied to us to get elected.
In any case, Trump actually is a two dimensional comic book villain that hires every neocon he can find and turns his back
on people that believed in him.
" our June 8, 2019 Memorial Service will be held at the Navy Memorial, 701 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington DC 20004
at noon. I admit it would be more moving to have the service at Section 34, Arlington Cemetery, however, because of security,
logistics, and cost issues, the Navy Memorial is the better choice. In any case, prayer and remembrance can occur anywhere the
heart is."
entire deep state apparatus, with international assistance swung into action with the phony Mueller investigation
was a sure sign that Trump's platform was never going to be allowed.
Whether you like Bannon or not, his departure statement – the Trump presidency is dead – has been entirely accurate. The
unanswered question is whether that was the plan all along, or whether Trump received an offer that he couldn't refuse. Until
proof otherwise, my view is the latter. This was confirmed yesterday when I saw Mueller's bullshit political statement which
was essentially, the President can't prove when he stopped beating his wife.
Although the term "Alt Right" has gone out of style these days, the group to which it actually referred is NOT in any way
pro-Israel. Tommy Robinson and his like were never Alt Right. The Alt Right is characterized by many things, and some disagree
on these, but two things on which no one disagrees is regarding race realism and knowledge of the Jewish question, which means
the Alt Right is "anti-semitic" in the eyes of its true enemies. Semitism causes anti-Semitism, and any who refuse to address
the Jewish question, and especially those who shill for Israel are NOT Alt Right.
Again, some here are totally unable to face the truth. This is known as cognitive dissonance. If you suffer from this condition
please seek help. Here is a good place to start.
"When a public is stressed and confused, a big lie told repeatedly and unchallenged can become accepted truth." ~George
Orwell
Trump's tariff war, meanwhile, has imposed new costs on average Americans - not on the Chinese - with industrial production
dropping or remaining flat and U.S. trade deficits soaring.
Not on the Chinese? That is news to them and everyone else
China's economy grew at its slowest pace in 28 years in 2018, with gross domestic product expanding 6.6%, down 0.2 percentage
point from the previous year, according to data released Monday by the country's National Bureau of Statistics.
The last time economic growth was so tepid was 1990, when the economy slumped in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square
incident. Last year, the economy was hampered by a drive to cut regional government and corporate debt, as well as China's trade
war with the U.S.
In a nutshell, Trump "jazzed" a brief economic recovery in the U.S. with massive tax cuts for big business and temporary
cuts for voters (more bark than bite variety) while increasing the national debt, which these same overtaxed voters will ultimately
be on the hook for. At the same time Trump "jawboned" the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy so interest rates wouldn't
rise as a result of the vast increase in national indebtedness. He has laid the groundwork for eventual hyperinflation (or hyper-stagflation)
that may well ruin more of his middle class voters after the 2020 election.
There has never been hyperinflation in any Western nation other than the Weimar Republic. This has been going on since the
Bretton Woods agreement. Trump has been dealing with a coup since he took office, when exactly did he have time to reform or
replace our central bank with a new money standard and reform our banking laws? Was he supposed to start a recession the moment
he took office so we could start tightening our belts and paying all our debts?
said:
"Wow, I've been looking for an article with this level of truth since this latest cardboard cutout was ushered into office.
You shills who will be screaming for evidence I suggest you watch the video below and then tell me Israhell is not in charge
of American foreign policy."
Yawn. As if Trump is any different from all the other Presidents who have bowed to Jew / Israeli interests. The alternative
was Hillary.
Quit the strawman arguments. People here realize that Trump yields to Jew interests. The problem you and those like you have
is that none of you have differentiated Trump from other Jew ass kissing Presidents. And given the for-Israel wars of Bush &
Obama, it's fair to say that Trump is actually better in that regard.
You have also not explained why most Jews dislike Trump. Now please sit down.
Israel can be useful to the Alt-Right in two ways.
1. As a destination for Jewish diaspora relocation.
2. The existence of the Jewish ethnostate serves as a talking point for white nationalists.
First, apart from mentioning it's over in first paragraph, it has NOTHING to do with the Mueller report. It's a reasonable
diatribe about how the Izzies have their hands on the American Presidential throat. Name me one President for whom that has
not been the case since the 1950s. One: Obama (maybe). And what a totalitarian, police state disaster he was. Maybe in order
to do all that he had to do an end run around most of the Izzy agents in the USG, or maybe it was a highly principled stand.
But apart from him, nobody. Well, maybe Kennedy, actually, but look what they did to him?
As for Flynn: he knew about many of the misdeeds of the previous administration. They took advantage of a neophyte administration
fending off Sally Yates Russian Collusion initiative via a corrupt FBI Director to pressure them to let Flynn go – a terrible
newbie mistake telegraphing weakness to all his enemies.
So that being said, what's his point. That Trump is exceptionally corrupt despite no collusion with Russia because he's
controlled by Izzies?
Rather feeble if you ask me. I expect better in Unz.
Kusnher and Graham have drafted new immigration legislation for amnesty and higher levels of immigration. Trump SAYS what
we want to hear, then does NOTHING.
Nothing about sanctuary cities. Nothing about E-verify. Nothing about birthright citizenship. Nothing about the Visa lottery.
No wall to speak of, maybe a few miles. His fraud on immigration is handing the democrats permanent power and he has to know
this.
Yes ..the nose has fought him at every turn, you're right about that.
But Israel got 38 billion dollars, while we get more mexicans.
Maybe I'm just tired of seeing the national dept continue to skyrocket.
Maybe I'm just tired of the crumbling infrastructure of my country being ignored while billions upon billions are given to
other countries in the form of foreign aid.
Maybe I'm just tired of never ending wars that drain my country of blood and treasure.
Maybe I'm just tired of putting my faith in some politician promising the world and never delivering.
Maybe I'm just tired of the right/left, Republican/Democrat game.
Just like the vague conclusions of the commission which investigated the 9/11 and didn't reveal the real story, Robert Mueller
did the same by deceiving the people and didn't reveal the real story of his investigation into 2016 election. By announcing
in detail yesterday as how the Russians manipulated the election in 2016 Mueller completely failed to describe that some of
the Russians involved in meddling were Russian Zionists with ties to the Russian mobs! So far this is the 2nd event that they've
gotten away with it. It's so sad to see the extend of their involvement in the US government affairs!!!!
The State of Israel as a Light unto the Nations. In his writings and speeches, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973)
emphasized his vision of the state of Israel as a moral and social beacon to the whole world, and by that, in his view, it shall
implement the vision of the prophets.
@Robert Dolan
come together. If you think any president can just do away with all these things you mention, you are very naive, even childish.
I remember during Trump's campaign, he was speaking to a small rally in the West, maybe California, and one man stood up
and asked his position on Israel as a criminal, enemy nation (not his exact words). Trump seemed genuinely shocked, all he could
say was, 'We all love Israel don't we? Israel is great, Israel is our friend' like that, then went on to someone else's
question. Trump also praised Israel when he spoke to AIPAC and said then he would move the US embassy to Jerusalem. So you are
cherry-picking things he said that fit your "poor me" scenario of being lied to.
The individuals you name are fanatical supporters of the Zionist state. Looking at what Mr. Trump has done to date vis a
vis Israel, how can that not be the case, i.e., that their criticism was a ruse? Suggested reading is the Thomas Friedman book
"From Beirut to Jerusalem" where he recounts how covert Arab assets of the Israelis were deliberately attacked in the Israeli
press to increase their credibility on the Arab "street." If you read my article carefully–especially on the microtargeting
of the disaffected white minority–you will see that such attacks by Neocons were necessary and entirely predictable.
@Carolyn Yeager
sume to know the mind of Josef Goebbels I cannot make a conclusion on the actual, documented events..FACTS? It's documented
that leading members of the Stern Gang (such as Shamir and Begin) were on the Axis side until well into 1942. Admiral Canaris
provided the Jewish Lubbavitcher "Rebbe" Schneerson and his family safe passage in and out of the Warsaw Ghetto. What was he
thinking–have you any telepathic revelations on the subject.
I base my conclusions on facts and observations. You, in light of what you said on tariffs, have another methodology. And,
sadly, I am an "anti-Trump crank" who voted for Trump as the lesser of two evils and now regrets it. Mea culpa!
@Chris Mallory
r grasp of jurisprudence is remarkable. Do you allege Russia rigged voting machines or destroyed ballots? What, precisely
did Russia do to swing the election in favor of Trump? This is nonsense. Except for the U.S., no state player–even Israel–would
be so careless as to risk being implicated in such a scandal. Because that would swing public opinion against the interests
of the offending state.
Trump cannot be prosecuted for any crimes related to this while in office, as Mueller pointed out. So these avenues were
not pursued. Which is what I allude to in my article. A serious question: what is the definition of treason in the U.S. Constitution?
I'm not sure there is one.
I don't think any Unz readers need any more proof that Israel has ruled American foreign policy since Truman. There were
just a couple refusals by Eisenhower and Kennedy to comply with Israel orders. But since November 1963 every president has been
an Israel puppet.
In America, the treasonous act must be done in time of war to aid the enemy.
Since we're not at war with Israel or Russia whatever anyone does to help those countries is not treason. All the Israeli
and in the old days, Russian theft of military information and materials didn't fit the definition of treason since we weren't
at war with those countries.
The constitution is whatever one federal state or even municipal Judge says it is.
I have a book about Abu Nidal. He was a big anti Israel bogeyman for decades. The author claims the evil anti semitic Nidal
was an Israeli operative all along. The purpose was to supply a bogey man to scare gullible American Jews into giving more and
more money and lobby for the American tax payers to give even more to help Israel. He also allegedly gave Israel information
about Palestinian activists.
It's pretty well known that even 100 years ago the Zionists had plenty of spies and operatives in the Arab organizations.
Neither Mueller nor his 3 year investigation came up with one concrete, actual thing the Russians did to influence the election.
So some Russians may might have set up a website that some American voters may, might have looked at. BFD
@Corvinus ment
point of view. You kept writing about collusion. Exactly what did Trump or his associates DO that constitutes collusion? 3 years
of investigation and Mueller has found NOTHING that constitutes collusion.
For your simple minded incoherent self: for example the crime of theft. Something must be taken. Robbery, something must
be taken from the physical person who owns or legally possesses it. Burglary burglar must go inside a building.
So, what exactly was the ACT of collusion? Mueller found nothing. The only people who are interested any more are the same
old same old ultra liberals who hate Whites, Republicans , and Trump/
This investigation is way above your intellectual pay grade. I dumbed down the comment especially for your ilk to understand
what is going on. Just keep putting your hands over your face and say "Nothing to see here, move along".
@Johnny Walker Read
. Yes, even the sainted Tulsi Gabbard has taken her pull on the kosher sausage.
Yes – it is sad.
Israeli security – Israeli security – Israeli security - those two words are part of Washington's DNA. Deny those words and
lightening will strike you dead in DC. The fact is that Gabbard has served against mutual US/Israeli enemies – surly that has
influenced her.
I am for Peace, even for Jews – I also do not want a blood bath in Israel. I still believe that Gabbard is anti war with
Iran. A pure and total anti-Israel stance.
He received the offer on election night. The real-time poll agglomerate I was following simply couldn't update Georgia and
other states.. tv commentators were stuck in a loop.. then tv stations announced .. and the first words out of Trump's mouth
were "sorry to keep you waiting, complicated business".
He had agreed not to prosecute Hillary in exchange for an easy recognition of his triumph. And so the enemy was free to persecute
him..
In 3 years Mueller did not find one administrative, civil or criminal city county state or federal law violation. Some Russians
had a website on which was posted news about the election. BFD!!!!!!!
You're not an attorney are you? If you were,you'd know the difference between unproven allegations and some kind of law breaking,tort,
sharp practice whatever that could be prosecuted or the grounds for a civil suit.
@Monty Ahwazi
us you've never been involved in any kind of litigation. Never heard of cause of action or violation of a law code. You're
so naive you'll believe anything somebody named Mueller talks about on TV.
What exactly did Trump DO. What violation of an administrative civil or criminal code did Trump DO? Trump did nothing wrong
and Mueller and the liberals know they found nothing. so they are just starting from scratch allover again hoping to convince
idiots like you that there is something,anything.
So some Russians posted something on the internet. BFD
@Carolyn Yeager
– he is a total loser on immigration. Our country is going backwards.
Things just get worse – now he is penalizing our neighbor Mexico because he cannot lead America to an immigration solution.
We on our side of the issues, need to begin to see the whole picture of his administration – not just the opposition. He
bears some responsibility for much of the crazed opposition.
He is the president – he needs to lead us to solutions – not spend his time saving his ego.
How much of our country's disfunction – is his personal disfunction?
UKRAINE ELECTION. He was invited everywhere, pressed the flesh with everyone, has a whole
wall of ego pictures; in the end he was defeated by Anybody-At-All. I have no idea what
Zelensky will turn out to be and I doubt anyone else does either. But the conclusion is that
the entire "revolution of dignity" fiasco has been rejected: whatever Ukraine the voters want,
it's not the one Nuland & Co gave them.
This is similar to renaming "French fries" to "freedom fries" after 9/11. You can't overestimate stupidity of government
bureaucrats. They now exceeded the USSR level.
"... A gripping, deeply informative account of the plunder, hypocrisy, and mass violence of plutocracy and empire; insightful, historically grounded and highly relevant to the events of today. ..."
"... This documentary is about the foreign policy of the United States. It demonstrates the importance of the political economy, the Mafia principle, propaganda , ideology, violence and force. ..."
"Simply brilliant." - "This is probably the best film ever made about American foreign
policy." - Spartacus - ICH Comment
A gripping, deeply informative account of the plunder, hypocrisy, and mass violence of
plutocracy and empire; insightful, historically grounded and highly relevant to the events of
today.
This documentary is about the foreign policy of the United States. It demonstrates the
importance of the political economy, the Mafia principle, propaganda ,
ideology, violence and force.
It documents and explains how the policy is based on the interest of major corporations and a tiny
elite to increase profits and the United States governments own interests in maintaining and
expanding it's imperialistic influence.
Inside the United States this has been made possible with a propaganda of fear for the
horrible enemies like the Soviet Union, Communists and so on and a love
for "free markets", "democracy", "freedom" and so on.
Externally (and increasingly internally) this has caused massive poverty and suffering,
genocide, war, coups, crushed unions and popular movements and environmental destruction.
Ex-chief of Israel's national intelligence agency Meir Dagan had an interesting answer to
the question if Lubavitchers serve in the Mossad.
By COLlive reporter
Are there Lubavitcher chassidim serving in the Mossad?
This candid question was presented to Meir Dagan , the former director of the national
intelligence agency of Israel, during a private meeting in Jerusalem, on Tuesday.
Dagan, who served under 3 prime ministers and was an officer in the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF), was chatting with donors following the inauguration of a new career development center
for frum Jews.
During the conversation about the employment of haredi Jews in the country's many security
branches, Dagan was asked whether Lubavitchers serve in the Mossad.
His reply: "You will be surprised to know how many haredim serve in the Mossad."
Dagan added that aside from the employment of chassidim in a professional capacity, the
Chabad organization provides spiritual assistance at Mossad's central commend in Tel Aviv.
"Chabad gets a Yashar Koach (kudos) because thanks to them the synagogue at the Mossad
command was renovated and we now have a luxurious shul."
As reported in the past, Dagan had a friendly relationship with a Shluchim couple in Belarus
when he underwent a successful liver transplant in 2012.
"The Chabad House in Minsk, (a city which) its Jewish history is known to all, became my
home," said Dagan who was born on a train between the Soviet Union and Poland during the
Holocaust. "Rabbi Schneur Deitsch and his wife will remain forever engraved in my heart."
The Rebbe's unknown ties to the head of the Mossad and their assistance to Chabad's
educational and outreach activities in the Former Soviet Union were mapped out in the Hebrew
book "The Rebbe and the Mossad," published in 1998.
The inside story of the Rebbe's involvement in Israel's security, as told by its defense and
government leaders, is told in JEM's documentary film Faithful and Fortified – Volume
1.
"... Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world." ..."
"... In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power again. ..."
"... continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism. ..."
"... Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of cant phrases like "Make America Great Again." ..."
"... Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders. ..."
"... Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations." ..."
"... Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else. ..."
"... He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's warning against permanent alliances? ..."
"... There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America. ..."
"... Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas, there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions, and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness. ..."
Given contemporary events, one of the most interesting figures of the 18th-century French revolutionary period was Jacques-Pierre
Brissot, a leader of the Girondins, the neoconservatives of revolutionary France.
Brissot believed that the animating universal ideals of the Revolution had made France, as one of his allies put it, "the foremost
people of the universe," not just better than all earthlings, better even than Martians. Yet, despite France's position as the exceptional
nation, the Girondins worried that universal ideals were under siege by a complex array of conspiracies hatched by the absolutist
powers surrounding France.
The only way to confront these foreign conspiracies, he believed, was preemptive war. Robespierre, who hated Brissot, was skeptical.
Robespierre believed that war would strengthen the monarchy, which was wobbly but still intact in 1791, and that foreign adversaries
would be formidable military opponents. Robespierre famously quipped: "No one loves armed missionaries." In true neoconservative
fashion, Brissot countered that the people of many nations who were longing for liberty, especially the Dutch and Flemish, would
welcome France's revolutionary army with open arms. Sound familiar?
But, Brissot had a problem. When he rose to prominence in the Assembly in 1791, the monarchists and other traditionalists still
held significant sway, and Louis XVI was still on the throne. How to persuade these traditional French nationalists to launch crusading
wars to spread universal ideals when these retrogrades understood the only sound French foreign policy to be one that advanced France's
interests, its raison d'état?
Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives
when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct
repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George
W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world."
In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out
into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power
again.
But the clever neoconservatives, such as Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo, adopted the Brissot strategy. Continue the military
crusade for universal ideals, continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions
of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism.
Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the
masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of
cant phrases like "Make America Great Again."
In Pompeo's May 11
speech at the Claremont Institute, the bastion of the West Coast Straussians, the Brissot strategy was on full display and,
understandably, was met with raucous cheering by the neoconservatives in the audience who understood that Pompeo and John Bolton
had succeeded in hijacking Trump's foreign policy for neoconservatives, a significant accomplishment. While Trump's rhetoric is
still the husk of American foreign policy, when it comes to core principles and political practice, "America First" is out, the
" Freedom Agenda " is in.
"Getting
along" with other nations is out; regime change and belligerence is in.
Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution
were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders.
He argued that the "foreign policy of the early republic" could be characterized by three words: "realism, restraint, and respect."
This is fine as far as it goes, but he then proceeded to define these terms in ways that would have made them unrecognizable to
the Framers. Alexander Hamilton defined realism, Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations."
Quoting Thomas Jefferson, he defined "restraint" as the willingness to go to war, because "the temper and folly of our enemies may
not leave this in our choice." Finally, without a hint of irony as the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group was steaming
to the Persian Gulf in search of monsters to destroy, Pompeo quoted John Quincy Adams on the need for respect in international relations.
Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else.
He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge
was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's
warning against permanent alliances? What Washington really meant in his Farewell Address, Pompeo said, is to have many, many alliances
"based on 'policy, humanity and interest.'" If he were president today, Washington would welcome America's alliances with Israel,
Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea in order to make certain, for example, that "each Indo-Pacific nation can protect its sovereignty
from coercion." Washington was really a neoconservative, you see.
There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a
warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America.
Pompeo's rhetoric represents the transvaluation of the Framers' foreign policy restraint into those of neoconservatism. It
is hard to know if Trump is aware that his foreign policy principles have been hijacked, but given his apparent disdain of intellectual
pursuits, the answer is probably in the negative.
Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative
agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is
exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas,
there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions,
and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness.
George Washington's view of Pompeo's puffed up triumphalism would be that a nation that hubristically pounds its chest and claims
exceptional moral purity and righteousness may just be a nation that has lost its virtue. The American Framers were well aware that
the great republican experiments in ancient Greece and Rome ended with prideful imperial overreach.
In 1792, when Louis XVI read,
"in a flat, faltering
voice," the war proclamation against Austria he understood it to be a death sentence for the French monarchy. We should know
that if neoconservatives are able actually to carry out the wars that their ideology and will to power suggest, it would be a death
sentence for the American republic.
William S. Smith is Research Fellow and Managing Director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University
of America
Trump is
sign of degeneration of the US political elite. Much like Pompeo and Bolton.
But his hostility to Iran is just desire to please people who control him and finance his re-election bid .
Notable quotes:
"... ran sees no prospect of negotiations with the United States, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday ..."
"... Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that there won't be any talks with the U.S. until our government rejoins the JCPOA. ..."
"... I don't see how Iranians could view Trump as anything other than a menace when one of his first acts as president was to declare all of them to be potential security threats with the unnecessary and cruel travel ban. His hostility to and contempt for Iran and its people have been intense and consistent for more than two years. ..."
"... When the president veers between "genocidal tweets" and disingenuous offers to talk, this doesn't come across as the work of a master negotiator but rather the impulsive babbling of a leader who can be easily enraged by the smallest and most inconsequential things that he happens to see on television ..."
"... Trump is not talking to Iran but his lackies in the U.S. MSM. They are seeing Iran as being fanatic and unreasonable in refusing to talk. This will be one of the justifications for war and permanent hostilities. ..."
"... I think you're wrong here. Trump doesn't hate or have contempt for Iranians. He's supremely indifferent to them. The hostility and contempt he has shown Iran and Iranians is meant to keep his major Israel and Saudi Arabia donors happy. That's been true from the beginning. Scores of millions in campaign contributions are riding on it. ..."
"... Increasingly, Donaldius Iohannes Trumpius reminds me of some latter day Roman emperor like Caligula or Nero. Absolute power, depravity, insatiable appetites for everything from power to money and women, a pathological lack of empathy, fawning courtiers – it's all there. ..."
In case there was any doubt, the Iranian government
made clear that they were not interested in talking to Trump:
I ran sees no prospect of negotiations with the United States, a foreign ministry
spokesman said on Tuesday , a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said a deal with
Tehran on its nuclear program was possible.
Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that there won't be any talks with the U.S.
until our government rejoins the JCPOA. That definitely won't happen under the current
administration, so there has never been a realistic chance of starting up U.S.-Iranian
negotiations in the near term. Everyone understands that, and that makes the president's random
"offers" to talk all the more ridiculous. Iran has already been burned by Trump's decision to
renege on the nuclear deal and wage economic war on the entire country, so there would have to
be a major effort on the U.S. side to regain Iranian trust. The Trump administration would have
to reverse course and undo every anti-Iranian thing that it has done over the last two years,
and even then that would barely get the U.S. and Iran back to where they had been in 2017.
Trump wouldn't ever do that because it would require him to admit being completely wrong.
Najmeh Bozorgmehr reports on how Iranians
are adapting to life under U.S. economic warfare against them:
Iranian analysts tell me the US made one big mistake this time. It used almost all its
non-military leverage against Iran over the wrong issue, because the country was not
violating the 2015 nuclear accord. Iranians may despise their rulers but they are aware that
the US is not righteous, either. How can they see Mr Trump as a saviour when he calls Iran "a
nation of terror" and promises "the official end of Iran"?
I don't see how Iranians could view Trump as anything other than a menace when one of
his first acts as president was to declare all of them to be potential security threats with
the unnecessary and cruel travel ban. His hostility to and contempt for Iran and its people
have been intense and consistent for more than two years. The complete lack of respect
that Trump has shown to Iranian leaders and the Iranian people alike stands in sharp contrast
to his fawning praise for the North Korean leader, and they cannot help but take that as an
insult. It also isn't lost on the people being strangled by Trump's sanctions that they are
being punished for abiding by an international agreement backed by the world's major powers
while North Korea is celebrated after successfully defying the rest of the world by building up
their nuclear arsenal and long-range missiles. Iran is being penalized because they trusted the
U.S., and Trump has proven to them that this was a foolish thing for them to do. Why would they
reward Trump's aggression and make the same mistake twice?
When the president veers between "genocidal tweets" and disingenuous offers to talk,
this doesn't come across as the work of a master negotiator but rather the impulsive babbling
of a leader who can be easily enraged by the smallest and most inconsequential things that he
happens to see on television . As the North Koreans have also learned, no one can
successfully negotiate with a person as unreliable and moody as Trump. No one in Iran's
government is going to go out on a limb and take the political risk of engaging with the U.S.
again after the last effort blew up in their faces, and Trump's mercurial instability
guarantees that it would be a waste of everyone's time.
Trump is not talking to Iran but his lackies in the U.S. MSM. They are seeing Iran as
being fanatic and unreasonable in refusing to talk. This will be one of the justifications
for war and permanent hostilities.
Our own acts of aggression are completely ignored.
"His hostility to and contempt for Iran and its people have been intense and consistent
for more than two years. "
I think you're wrong here. Trump doesn't hate or have contempt for Iranians. He's
supremely indifferent to them. The hostility and contempt he has shown Iran and Iranians is
meant to keep his major Israel and Saudi Arabia donors happy. That's been true from the
beginning. Scores of millions in campaign contributions are riding on it.
Increasingly, Donaldius Iohannes Trumpius reminds me of some latter day Roman emperor like
Caligula or Nero. Absolute power, depravity, insatiable appetites for everything from power
to money and women, a pathological lack of empathy, fawning courtiers – it's all
there.
"... Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world." ..."
"... In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power again. ..."
"... continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism. ..."
"... Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of cant phrases like "Make America Great Again." ..."
"... Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders. ..."
"... Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations." ..."
"... Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else. ..."
"... He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's warning against permanent alliances? ..."
"... There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America. ..."
"... Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas, there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions, and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness. ..."
Given contemporary events, one of the most interesting figures of the 18th-century French revolutionary period was Jacques-Pierre
Brissot, a leader of the Girondins, the neoconservatives of revolutionary France.
Brissot believed that the animating universal ideals of the Revolution had made France, as one of his allies put it, "the foremost
people of the universe," not just better than all earthlings, better even than Martians. Yet, despite France's position as the exceptional
nation, the Girondins worried that universal ideals were under siege by a complex array of conspiracies hatched by the absolutist
powers surrounding France.
The only way to confront these foreign conspiracies, he believed, was preemptive war. Robespierre, who hated Brissot, was skeptical.
Robespierre believed that war would strengthen the monarchy, which was wobbly but still intact in 1791, and that foreign adversaries
would be formidable military opponents. Robespierre famously quipped: "No one loves armed missionaries." In true neoconservative
fashion, Brissot countered that the people of many nations who were longing for liberty, especially the Dutch and Flemish, would
welcome France's revolutionary army with open arms. Sound familiar?
But, Brissot had a problem. When he rose to prominence in the Assembly in 1791, the monarchists and other traditionalists still
held significant sway, and Louis XVI was still on the throne. How to persuade these traditional French nationalists to launch crusading
wars to spread universal ideals when these retrogrades understood the only sound French foreign policy to be one that advanced France's
interests, its raison d'état?
Brissot's dilemma when facing the French nationalists of his time was precisely the dilemma of contemporary neoconservatives
when Donald Trump was elected president. Trump's criticism of the Iraq war and his nationalistic America First rhetoric was a direct
repudiation of the central tenet of neoconservatism, the need to spread universal ideals with American military power. Or, as George
W. Bush speechified, to seek "the expansion of freedom in all the world."
In reaction to Trump's criticisms, some of the less-savvy neoconservatives, such as Max Boot and Bill Kristol, simply went out
into the public square and lit themselves on fire in protest. These self-immolating Never Trumpers will likely never wield power
again.
But the clever neoconservatives, such as Tom Cotton and Mike Pompeo, adopted the Brissot strategy. Continue the military
crusade for universal ideals, continue to treat all non-democratic regimes with belligerence, continue to disparage the traditions
of all other nations and cultures by asserting American moral superiority -- but adopt and co-opt the language of Trumpian nationalism.
Cotton and Pompeo are, after all, good Straussians, admirers of the late political theorist Leo Strauss. They understand that the
masses live in dark ignorance and that smart philosophers can manipulate them into supporting universal ideals through the use of
cant phrases like "Make America Great Again."
In Pompeo's May 11
speech at the Claremont Institute, the bastion of the West Coast Straussians, the Brissot strategy was on full display and,
understandably, was met with raucous cheering by the neoconservatives in the audience who understood that Pompeo and John Bolton
had succeeded in hijacking Trump's foreign policy for neoconservatives, a significant accomplishment. While Trump's rhetoric is
still the husk of American foreign policy, when it comes to core principles and political practice, "America First" is out, the
" Freedom Agenda " is in.
"Getting
along" with other nations is out; regime change and belligerence is in.
Like Brissot, Pompeo accomplished this bait and switch by rewriting history. He argued that the framers of the American Constitution
were not skeptical of entangling alliances, standing armies and global commitments; they were actually warlike neoconservative crusaders.
He argued that the "foreign policy of the early republic" could be characterized by three words: "realism, restraint, and respect."
This is fine as far as it goes, but he then proceeded to define these terms in ways that would have made them unrecognizable to
the Framers. Alexander Hamilton defined realism, Pompeo argued, as forever war: "Conflict is the normative experience for nations."
Quoting Thomas Jefferson, he defined "restraint" as the willingness to go to war, because "the temper and folly of our enemies may
not leave this in our choice." Finally, without a hint of irony as the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group was steaming
to the Persian Gulf in search of monsters to destroy, Pompeo quoted John Quincy Adams on the need for respect in international relations.
Adams's admonition was to respect other nations. Pompeo turned this upside down by warning other nations to respect us -- or else.
He then, like Brissot, laid out the threats and conspiracies that erode "America's power." The only solution to this challenge
was to "proudly" associate with "nations that share our principles and are willing to defend them." How about George Washington's
warning against permanent alliances? What Washington really meant in his Farewell Address, Pompeo said, is to have many, many alliances
"based on 'policy, humanity and interest.'" If he were president today, Washington would welcome America's alliances with Israel,
Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea in order to make certain, for example, that "each Indo-Pacific nation can protect its sovereignty
from coercion." Washington was really a neoconservative, you see.
There is here not even a faint resemblance to what Washington actually believed, but Pompeo's ideological hucksterism drew a
warm reception from the Claremont audience, composed in part by people considering themselves scholars of 18th-century America.
Pompeo's rhetoric represents the transvaluation of the Framers' foreign policy restraint into those of neoconservatism. It
is hard to know if Trump is aware that his foreign policy principles have been hijacked, but given his apparent disdain of intellectual
pursuits, the answer is probably in the negative.
Toward the end of the speech, Pompeo proceeded to redefine the meaning of "America First" to make it agree with a neoconservative
agenda. "Here is what this really means," he said. While Trump has expressed no desire to spread the American model, "America is
exceptional -- a place and history apart from normal human experience " (emphasis mine) and "among political ideas,
there is none better than the American idea." As compared with this metaphysical American Exceptionalism, the cultures, traditions,
and political histories of all other nations shrink into illegitimacy and nothingness.
George Washington's view of Pompeo's puffed up triumphalism would be that a nation that hubristically pounds its chest and claims
exceptional moral purity and righteousness may just be a nation that has lost its virtue. The American Framers were well aware that
the great republican experiments in ancient Greece and Rome ended with prideful imperial overreach.
In 1792, when Louis XVI read,
"in a flat, faltering
voice," the war proclamation against Austria he understood it to be a death sentence for the French monarchy. We should know
that if neoconservatives are able actually to carry out the wars that their ideology and will to power suggest, it would be a death
sentence for the American republic.
William S. Smith is Research Fellow and Managing Director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University
of America
"... Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN ..."
"... It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order to weaken it, perhaps even fatally. ..."
"... Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed with deep personal failings hidden from public view. ..."
"... It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all other nations and isn't afraid to say so. ..."
"... Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly threatened the children of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to invade Iraq. ..."
"... We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe. But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it." ..."
"... Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in Venezuela and of course Bolton organized the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election ..."
"... This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit of profits and power. ..."
"... Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology. ..."
"... Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions. ..."
"... Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. ..."
"... It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow them away with cruise missiles." ..."
"... The New York Times that day reported : "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it." ..."
"... Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks. ..."
"... But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the "military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views. ..."
"... Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi! ..."
"... To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS ..."
"... Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades. ..."
"... The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason. Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets! ..."
"... John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized. ..."
"... Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, ..."
"... But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign, with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like. ..."
"... Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS! Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh we have nothing to do with it." ..."
"... Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor. ..."
"... Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush! ..."
"... I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons ..."
"... The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security Advisers. What a joke of a nation! ..."
"... I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq, and Syria. ..."
"... "Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees." ..."
"... Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes. ..."
"... They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel." ..."
"... The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today. ..."
John Bolton has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his move. But this time he
may have gone too far, writes Joe Lauria.
I knew John Bolton and interacted with him on a nearly daily basis with my colleagues in the press corps at United Nations headquarters
in New York when Bolton was the United States ambassador there from August 2005 to December 2006.
Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had
actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN. But that turned out to be the point.
It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order
to weaken it, perhaps even fatally.
Bolton's most infamous quote about the UN followed him into the building. In 1994 he had
said : "The Secretariat building
in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
But a more telling comment in that same 1994 conference was when he said that no matter what the UN decides the U.S. will do
whatever it wants:
Bolton sees such frank admissions as signs of strength, not alarm.
He is a humorless man, who at the UN at least, seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room. He once gave a
lecture in 2006 at the U.S. mission to UN correspondents, replete with a chalk board, on how nuclear enrichment worked. His aim,
of course, was to convince us that Iran was close to a bomb, even though a 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate being prepared
at the time said Tehran had
abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
I thought I'd challenge him one day at the press stakeout outside the Security Council chamber, where Bolton often stopped to
lecture journalists on what they should write. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically elected government
in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?' I asked him.
"That's an interesting question," he told me, "but for another time and another place." It was a time and a place, of course,
that never came.
More Than an Ideology
Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed
with deep personal failings hidden from public view.
He seemed perpetually angry and it wasn't clear whether it was over some personal or diplomatic feud. He seems to take personally
nations standing up to America, binding his sense of personal power with that of the United States.
It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all
other nations and isn't afraid to say so. He'd have been better off perhaps in the McKinley administration, before the days
of PR-sugarcoating of imperial aggression. He's not your typical passive-aggressive government official. He's aggressive-aggressive.
And now Bolton is ordering 120,000 troops to get ready and an aircraft carrier to steam towards Iran.
Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly
threatened the children
of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to
invade Iraq.
After Bolton's failed 2005 confirmation hearings, Tony Blinken, the then staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
told The New Yorker
's Dexter Filkins:
"We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe.
But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the
intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it."
Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in
Venezuela and of course Bolton organized
the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election.
What is alarming about the above video is not so much that he justifies lying, but the example he gives: lying to cover up military
plans like the invasion of Normandy. This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for
overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is
a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit
of profits and power.
Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology.
Regime Change for Iran
The U.S. national security adviser has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his
move. But this time John Bolton may have flown too high.
He was chosen for his post by a president with limited understanding of international affairs -- if real estate is not involved
-- and one who loves to be sucked up to. Trump is Bolton's perfect cover.
But hubris may have finally bested Bolton. He had never before maneuvered himself into such a position of power, though he'd
left a trail of chaos at lower levels of government. Sitting opposite the Resolute desk on a daily basis has presented a chance to implement
his plans.
At the top of that agenda
has been Bolton's stated aim for years: to
bomb and
topple
the Iranian government.
Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York Times,
on May 14 , it was he who
"ordered" a Pentagon
plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf. These were to be deployed "if Iran attacked American forces or accelerated its
work on nuclear weapons."
Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation
deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions.
At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman, who had been undersecretary of state for arms control and
international security, as had Bolton,
predicted
to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment after the U.S. left the deal, it "would be the kind of excuse that a
person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation or direct attack on Iran."
In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said on May 5 (May 6 in Tehran) that it would indeed
restart partial nuclear enrichment. On the same day, Bolton
announced the carrier strike group was headed to the Gulf.
Bolton Faces Resistance
If this were a normally functioning White House, in which imperial moves are normally made, a president would order military
action, and not a national security adviser.
"I don't think Trump is smart enough to realize what Bolton and [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo are doing to him,"
former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel told RT's Afshin Rattansi
this week.
"They have manipulated him. When you get the national security adviser who claims that he ordered an aircraft carrier flotilla
to go into the Persian Gulf, we've never seen that. In the days of Henry Kissinger, who really brought sway, he never ordered
this, and if it was ordered it was done behind closed doors."
Bolton claimed he acted on intelligence that Iran was poised to attack U.S. interests close to Iran.
Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight
its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. An
editorial on May 16 in the Saudi English-language news
outlet, Arab News , called for a U.S. "surgical strike" on Iran. But The New York Times reported on the
same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack
Iran causing a full-scale war.
The
intelligence alleged Iran was fitting missiles on fishing boats in the Gulf. Imagine a government targeted by the most powerful
military force in history wanting to defend itself in its own waters.
Bolton also said Iran was threatening Western interests in Iraq, which led eventually to non-essential U.S. diplomatic staff
leaving Baghdad and Erbil.
It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense
you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow
them away with cruise missiles."
But this time the bully is being challenged. Federica Mogherini, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security
policy,
resisted the U.S. on Iran when she met Pompeo in Brussels on May 13.
"It's always better to talk, rather than not to, and especially when tensions arise Mike Pompeo heard that very clearly today
from us," said Mogherini. "We are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take – the most responsible
attitude to take – is and we believe should be, that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation on the military side."
The New York Times that day
reported
: "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series
of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it."
Ghika: No new threat from Iran. (YouTube)
British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika then said on May 14: "There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or
Syria." Ghika was
rebuked by U.S. Central Command, whose spokesman said, "Recent comments from OIR's Deputy Commander run counter to the identified
credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region."
A day later it was Trump himself, however, who was said to be resisting Bolton. On May 15 The Washington Post reported:
"President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military
confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S.
officials. Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran's leaders."
"President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according
to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against
the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict."
Then it was the Democrats who stood up to Bolton. On Tuesday Pompeo and Shanahan briefed senators and representatives behind
closed doors on Capitol Hill regarding the administration's case for confronting Iran.
"Are they (Iran) reacting to us, or are we doing these things in reaction to them? That is a major question I have, that I still
have," Sen. Angus King told reporters after the briefing. "What we view as defensive, they view as provocative. Or vice versa."
Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego told reporters after the briefing: "I believe there is a certain level of escalation
of both sides that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The feedback loop tells us they're escalating for war, but they could
just be escalating because we're escalating."
Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian
and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite
possible that Iran was behind" the attacks.
Bolton was conspicuously absent from the closed-door briefing.
It's Up to Trump
Trump has pinballed all over the place on Iran. He called the Times and Post stories about him resisting Bolton
"fake news."
"The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot, poorly
sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good thing!"
Trump tweeted on May 17.
The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot,
poorly sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good
thing!
Then he threatened what could be construed as genocide against Iran. "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of
Iran. Never threaten the United States again!" he tweeted on Sunday.
But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the
"military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from
Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views.
On Monday he implied that the crisis has been drummed up to get Iran to negotiate.
"The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up a negotiation
with Iran. This is a false report ."
The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up
a negotiation with Iran. This is a false report....
John Bolton must be stopped before he gets his war. It is beyond troubling that the man we have to count on to do it is Donald
Trump.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal,
Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected]and followed on Twitter @unjoe .
Or as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is US." As in the lies that created the Vietnam war and the waste of 58,000
American soldiers and thousand of Vietnamese. Or the lie that Iran is our enemy when we funded and encouraged Saddam to attack
them and destroyed their attempt to have a secular government.
Or the lie of the WMD's and the 9/11 attack which was funded by Saudi Arabia, and run by Saudis and NOT Iraq.
Or the lies of Afghanistan which was economically and culturally better off when it was controlled by the USSR...
John Hawk , May 26, 2019 at 16:56
Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi!
To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump
is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS.
It can't get any more delusional than this. Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump
et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier
on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades.
After all, deception is their game and they use it liberally, like feeding their agenda to Bolton as 'intelligence' info
of the highest order. The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason.
Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets!
Zhu , May 26, 2019 at 03:20
If Bolton were struck by lightning tomorrow morning, would anything change much? I doubt it. We Americans are as warlike
as the ancient Assyrian. We've been slaughtering Indians, Koreans, SE Asians, Central Americans, and multiple Middle Eastern
people for a looong time. It is flattering to blame this individual or th t country, but no. We, as a community, are all responsible
to some degree. Even me, on the far side of the world.
Alex , May 25, 2019 at 21:50
Bolton's choosing destroyed IRAN but staying friends with Saudi Arabia it's so contradicting, and so obvious that he is influenced
to behave this way is because Israelies influence. Saudy Kingdom using Bolton to get IRAN so Saudy will be only country promote
Extreme version of Wahhabi Islam which is didn't existed In Islam's history.
So Bolton's obsession with destruction of Iran is ignorance as its best. September 11th suspects were most of them Saudy
nationals, yet nobody wanted to talk about it, because there is irony that, George W Bush was and probably still doing business
with Saudy. So how can you explain that to American people? No you can not.
Perhaps collectively hypnotism !
OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 02:58
" So how can you explain that to American people?"
Given that useful fools are useful, why would you want to?
" No you can not."
An illustration of the benefits of dumbing down do not accrue solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, facilitating
the minimising of blowback during implementation of strategies based on "How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback",
given that many believe that critical mass is a function of linear notions of 50% +1 and above; a further conflation of quantity
with quality to which the opponents are prone.
William , May 25, 2019 at 19:06
John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized.
Put him in a strait jacket and keep him in a padded cell. He poses a threat to millions of people.
Eddie S , May 25, 2019 at 11:26
Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of
us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, IF it was assessed from a pro-peace perspective.
But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign,
with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency
that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing
meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which
is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like.
Good article about a reprehensible politician.
renfro , May 25, 2019 at 11:18
"But The New York Times reported on the same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian
threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack Iran causing a full-scale war. "
________________________________
Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS!
Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now
they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh
we have nothing to do with it."
Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump
appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor.
Seriously, how stupid do they think we are? If we attack Iran it will be for the Zionist and Saudis and we all know it.
Luther Bliss , May 25, 2019 at 10:57
Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush!
Remember it wasn't until Bush JR's second term that he asked his father, "What's A Neocon?" to which Pappy Bush replied,
"Israel."
I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot
free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons.
The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security
Advisers. What a joke of a nation!
Mark , May 25, 2019 at 02:30
I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq,
and Syria. Bolton stands out for his extremity among extremists, but he's a means rather than the end. The agenda is something
into which he bought, passionately by all indications, but which a paucity of other people created strictly to advance their
own, tiny, exclusive clan, not for the benefit of the United States.
Hank , May 25, 2019 at 09:43
To think that this administration campaigned on a promise to restrict future wasteful and needless interventions and then
hired this dinosaur of a warmonger makes my blood curl! Everyone with half a brain knows what Bolton's agenda is yet here he
is leading the USA into a war at the behest of a foreign nation led by a felon and terrorist! The American people who want peace
and their tax dollars invested into improving the USA have once again been stabbed in the back by a conniving administration.
Will this cycle of non-democracy ever end? Until it does, future administrations will continue on just like previous ones- kowtowing
to special interests, in particular the military/industrial mafia and the apartheid criminal state of Israel! All this massive
business of holding "elections" in the USA, all the talk about "Russian collusion" and the REAL collusion is right there in
front of us all- the US administration has once again COLLUDED to go back on a campaign promise and once again open the money
trough for the military/industrialist pigs!
Mark , May 26, 2019 at 05:31
I get the idea, but it's necessary to look 'behind' back-stabbing, conniving, colluding administrations, and Bolton, and
the military/industrial complex, and to bring Israel and some barely known U.S. history, at least back to World War I, explicitly
to the fore for public scrutiny. That's a monumental task, to say the least, owing to American attention spans and the contrary
interests of the powers that be.
Taras77 , May 24, 2019 at 20:24
Bolton has his own well funded PAC, from which he is free to "contribute" (bribe) sychophant congress individuals. What a
situation for the fix for war.
"Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as
have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees."
ricardo2000 , May 24, 2019 at 17:29
By far the most productive, and most verifiable, way to eliminate weapons is at a negotiating table. The easiest way to start
a war is with ignorant blather.
O Society , May 24, 2019 at 16:09
Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes.
They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel."
Trump initially declined on Bolton because "he doesn't like Bolton's moustache."
Kool Aid drinkers and idiots. We're being lead by a cult of morons who worship the bombs, money, and a white separatist state.
i doubt the iranians will test a nuke until after djt is out of office. after that you might wake up one morning and everything
you knew before becomes quite obsolete.
my guess is israel has stealth cruise missiles with h bombs. it would be very foolish of them to not have them. those descendants
of egyptian slaves are anything but foolish.
Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:33
@ CitizenOne: Thank you for your long comment. I agree with much of what you wrote, but would like to know why you claimed,
"Iran is surely guilty of vowing the destruction of Israel " . According to what I've read, Iran has not initiated hostilities
with any nation for over a century – a clear, peaceful contrast to the rogue states of Israel & the U.S. Are you referring to
the long-ago-debunked claim that Iran claimed to 'wipe Israel off the map'?
(See https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155
? "So there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors,
the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague
wish for the future.
"A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option – the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" –
with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel.
")
Or perhaps you're referring to Revolutionary Guard deputy leader Hossein Salami's warning that if Israel starts an aggressive
war against Iran, it 'will end with {Israel's} elimination from the global political map'? IMHO, warning an extremely aggressive,
self-obsessed, Apartheid-practicing rogue state against trying to attack your nation is wise ;-) .
I look forward to your response. Thanks very much.
Sam F , May 27, 2019 at 06:12
Sam: please use an identifier initial as I do, to prevent confusion.
I have asked you twice before; perhaps not the same person.
It is unfair to expect others to make the clarification, and easy to prevent.
How is it that crazies like Bolton can end up high in our government hierarchy? It is because the whole damned government
is crazy through and through
Joe , May 23, 2019 at 20:48
His Dad probably made a huge donation to Yale just like Bush's Dad. That's what happens when the system is gamed.
Art Thomas , May 25, 2019 at 09:22
Yes, in my opinion. The state stripped of patriotic rhetoric and other obfuscations that keep us devoted to it is nothing
more than a criminal gang that hides behind the law.
Some basic examples. 1. The law: taxation, the crime: theft. 2. The law: monetary credit expansion, i.e. debt financing,
the crime: counterfeiting, i.e. creating money out of thin air. 3. The invasion of countries not a threat to the invading state.
Etc. etc.
Tiu , May 23, 2019 at 18:30
If the US "political establishment" was working for America's benefit, things would look very different.
They are instead working on the "globalist" agenda, which will, if successful, destroy all nations as we know them today and
what remains will be ruled over by a bunch of sociopaths who are the same group that has inflicted John Bolton on the world.
Bolton's a tool, a bit like a hammer, to get their project done. The Democrats have equivalent tools e.g. H R Clinton.
Mark Thomason , May 23, 2019 at 18:04
The problem is if he hasn't gone too far. If he gets his war.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:53
John Bolton should get to ride the missile in the remake of Dr. Strangelove.
evelync , May 23, 2019 at 19:53
hah hah hah
I loved that movie :)
and yes Bolton is a perfect caricature of Slim Pickens AKA Dr Strangelove.
I also refer to him as Yosemite Sam
one difference for our current real life war monger is that the movie character was simply insane and didn't justify his
craziness with explanations.
Bolton, OTOH, blames "national Security" and "the national interests" of this country .say what????
if we look at the horrific human costs and the enormous financial costs of the wars that were fought for U.S. "national interests"
one would want to ask, once the rubble had cleared, what "interests" were actually served and whose "security" did they actually
improve?
The answers always take us back to Eisenhower's MIC and Ray McGovern's MICIMATT (maybe I got a couple of these letters wrong?).
Whoever profited from the mayhem don't represent either our "national interest' or our "national security" IMO and yet those
two phrases are used to shut down any discussion or criticism in the lead up .
whew
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:20
Strictly about the movie – Slim Pickens plays the ranking officer on the B-52 (I think?) which is actually dropping the bomb.
Dr Strangelove is a totally different character, one of a few played by Peter Sellers in that movie, and is a (mostly!) wheelchair-bound
German scientist.
And the wheelchair bound psychopathic scientist of Dr. Strangelove was inspired by Kubrick meeting Henry Kissinger at a cocktail
party and recognizing that Kissinger was the most evil person on this planet because he looked and sounded so responsible and
rational.
Now that Saddam, bin Laden, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler are dead, Kissinger holds the record of the person still alive who has
needlessly killed more people, both Americans and non-Americans, than any other person on this planet.
Hillary's idea of destabilizing Libya and creating a political vacuum there was from her training when working for Kissinger.
Abe , May 23, 2019 at 16:51
The Pathology:
John Bolton
Senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Chairman of Gatestone Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former board member of Project for the New American Century (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former Adviser to Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (pro-Israel Lobby organization) https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/john-bolton/
Mike Pompeo
Christian Zionist: "We will continue to fight these battles, it is a never ending struggle until the Rapture."
Associate of Center for Security Policy (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Sponsor of ACT! for America (pro-Israel Lobby organization) https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/mike-pompeo/
Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:38
@ Abe: Thanks for the info!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:42
John Bolton is obviously a very sick puppy.
This is patently obvious to any observer with the least desgree of psyhological sophistication and insight.
If he lived on your block and made such statements about his neighbors, or a woman living nearby, he would be looking at restraining
orders.
He is an out-of-control abusive pig who belongs in an institution where a course of shock therapy might actually help him. I
reckon any basic psychological test would find that he has a least borderline personality and at worst is actually insane and
incapable of taking responsibility for the consequences of his action.
Bolton has permanent termporary insanity.
Letting this tortured, psychopathic individual run the military is itself an enormous crime, one of murderous negligence, one
for which Trump truly should and could be impeached. Congress must take all possible steps to get this man out of the Executive
Branch.
Threaten Trump with impeachment if he doesn't fire Bolton.
His appointment of Bolton is reckless negligence and endangers this country.
James , May 23, 2019 at 19:09
I wonder how good American politicians of the past, if there were any, would react to the appointment of this psychopath
as what he is now. Whom should be blamed for it? Donald Trump? The pro-Israeli lobbies? Or the American nation? A glance at
the man's face is enough to realize that he is deeply sick. To me, he doesn't look like a human being at all! He looks like
a monkey out of a stuffy room. Why don't psychotherapists do anything about him? Shouldn't he be hospitalized for the safety/security
of the world population? By the way, I wonder where Netanyahu, the psychopath's provoker, is. He has been very quiet for about
a month or so. Maybe he is waiting for the war to ignite without getting himself directly involved in it. Let Americans and
Iranians kill one another while he waits to pick up the fruit in the end.
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:27
Where does the blame lie? Who hired him? Who's the chief of the executive branch? Who's a person who could actually fire
him (as he's so famous for doing on reality TV shows) instead of wringing his hands on friendly TV networks declaring he doesn't
want to actually go to war, but if he's 'forced' to, he'll erase Iran from the map?
Druid , May 26, 2019 at 03:16
He would have to get permission from Adelson and the Mercers first.
CitizenOne , May 24, 2019 at 20:52
Bolton and Pompeo are the only things keeping him from impeachment. As long as Trump satisfies the bloodthirsty war mongers
and the insatiable appetite of the MIC and the Pro Israel lobby and the Oil Lobby or Koch Industries he cannot lose. So far
Trump is bangin on all cylinders. I really think he knows what he needs to do to survive. All this impeachment talk is just
fantasy by the left dreaming about getting him out of office "somehow".
bjd , May 23, 2019 at 16:13
That the mono-maniacal psychopath Bolton is a walking exhibit of the Dunning–Kruger effect is no surprise to me. It is extra
frightening though.
Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:00
What was Bolton's day job before he started mucking around in politics and foreign policy? Master waterboarder or testicular
electrificator in extraordinary renditions for the CIA? He seems the sort to have spent much time at Abu Ghraib, and not just
to take notes. Honestly, his major goals seem to be the eradication of entire cultures and societies, which will somehow redound
to the magnificence of the United States of America. Clearly a sociopathic personality. A lot in common with Cheney.
Jimmy G , May 23, 2019 at 15:57
Again the panic is stirred by .. The NYT! (The source of such good info regarding Russia gate) .
The statement regarding Bolton " ordering" anything is just one more example of the media and the intel bureaucrats trying to
put the President in a jam politically . (Remember how a month ago we were invading Venezuela?)
Bolton is doing nothing more than getting enough rope to hang himself, and the military intelligence service, congressional
and media Trumpophobes are willing to stir this to the very edge, and we all know Congress could (if it could act in good Constitutional
faith, rather than pretending to be the judicial branch) unite for the good of this country and Trump would be amenable to whatever
they came up with. Trump is far less of a warmonger than any POTUS we've had in a very long time.
Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:18
If Congress is the only branch of government with the constitutional power to declare a war, surely it has the power to FORBID
the executive branch from fomenting such a war against their judgement.
In fact, wasn't the Boland Amendment such a legislative act passed with the intent of preventing the Reagan administration
from pursuing military action in Central America, most notably Nicaragua and El Salvador?
What's to prevent the Congress, if it were so inclined (which I doubt it is) to instruct the president (especially if he
seems trigger-happy) to refrain from initiating any unprovoked attacks upon Iran, Venezuela, North Korea or any other country,
for that matter?
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:56
Ollie North worked for Reagan, didn't he?
RnM , May 25, 2019 at 17:27
Trump is very aware that 'Stache Bolton and Mike "Mumbles" Pompeo are significant threats to his re-election. Would not be
surprised to see them removed before January.
CitizenOne , May 25, 2019 at 21:02
The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial
news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes
back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty
much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today.
I agree with your statement that Trump is far less vulnerable based on his history but I am sure that the war planners are
always concocting special information diets that are carefully prepared to appeal to the particular tastes of the leader of
the day. Whatever Trumps opinion is he will be surrounded by the hand picked lunatics of the day who will entice and enjoin
him to agree with plans for war based on their carefully prepared menu of propaganda specifically designed to be appealing to
the palate of whoever is in charge.
It is less certain that Trump's long history of opposing military action will have real staying power as he is served up
courses of a sumptuous meal prepared specially for his palate designed to engage him in support for military action all over
the World.
Trump is particularly susceptible to flattery and appeals to his greatness and his very stable genius. He wants to be the
great leader and for that he needs a plan to deal with the geopolitical situation in many countries.
Trump is a man who knows what to do too.
He advised Germany that it was a puppet of Russia until he didn't
He advised Teresa May how to do Brexit the right way until he didn't
He announced to the World he had forged deep connections with North Korea until he didn't
He had high hopes for an alliance with Russia until he didn't.
He specified the right type of fire fighting to be used to fight the Notre Dame Cathedral fire until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the fight in Syria until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the war in Syria again until he didn't
He wanted to cut the military budget until he didn't
Ordinarily if we were in the middle of a democratic presidency the press would be raising the "flip flopper" argument every
second of their available airtime.
Democrats are the flip floppers but never a republican even when he is. It all depends on the way the flips and the flops
land. If they land on conservative positions then a flop or a flip never occurred. With republicans, flip flopping is just a
corrective action to realign the president on the correct course. If it is a democrat then their hypocrisy and flip flopping
are broadcast 24/7 and are portrayed a fundamentally disqualifying events which demonstrate a fundamental lack of principles
and weakness of character deserving of condemnation. When errant republicans flip flop over to the "correct" vision they are
welcomed with open arms into the fold.
Trump wants to be accepted so badly that the democrats hounding him are in fact herding him into the fold of the conservatives
who will shelter him and support him at all costs and the media will never ever ever never call this flip flopping.
In short, if a political candidate shifts to the left his integrity will be destroyed as his character will be portrayed
as weak and built on shifting sands. He will be deemed not to be trusted like some loose cannon.
On the other hand, if a political candidate shifts to the right he will be greeted as a prodigal son returning to the fold
and will be welcomed with open arms.
So I am not as sure as you that Trump's background will be any indicator of his future ideas about how to succeed in the
environment he is in where both democrats by their antagonism and republicans by their defense of him both push him over to
the right.
He may once have been far less of a war hawk but politicians on both sides of the aisle are pushing him further to the right
every day.
Consortium News editor Joe Lauria may wish to contribute a follow up series of articles detailing the purity of pro-Israel
Lobby pathology exemplified by Bolton, Pompeo, and the beyond troubling Trump preferably before the next war.
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 19:33
"the wider extent of pro-Israel Lobby pathology in the US government. "
That's it in a nutshell.
KiwiAntz , May 24, 2019 at 18:46
Thanks Joe for the great article. Bolton (aka the moustache) truly is a humourless, warmongering, depraved psycho? This is
a cowardly man who dodged the Vietnam draft as he didn't want to die in some foreign patty field! But this lunatic has no qualms
to send other peoples sons & daughters into a Iranian war zone as cannon fodder to satisfy his deluded & perverted bloodlust
to destroy Iran? If "the moustache" wants a War with Iran he should be forced to fight on the frontlines with his troops along
with POTUS Bonespurs Trump, another cowardly draft dodger? Let the moustache & the Dotard make a stand, like Jon Snow in the
Battle of the bastards, sword in hand, facing down the so called Iranian, bogeyman enemy, but this would never happen as cowards
& bastards like Bolton & Trump don't personally fight in the battles they start, they hide in safety in a Washington situation
room, as far away from any War zone as possible! If Bolton gets his War with Iran, Trump will pay the price for this suicide
mission because he would be blamed for the fallout of any Military defeat! America's already sorry record of Military humiliation
& defeat in Regime change operations around the Globe would reach a crescendo if they ever dared to try to attack & overthrow
Iran as it would be the endgame of the US Empire!
mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:28
Trump is just Israel's bitch.
incontinent reader , May 24, 2019 at 01:08
Good comment, Abe. We've missed you. Keep posting more of the same.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:37
We Americans were bloodthirsty long before Israel existed.
anon , May 25, 2019 at 06:35
What an absurd zionist troll post. Try it with someone dumb, Zhu.
Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 15:17
First Joe, McKinley did not implement American submission to British Imperialism, though it began with the end of Grant's
administration as with the twice elected Groucher Cleveland, but it's confirmation as US policy began with Teddy Roosevelt.
The Roosevelt Corollary destroyed JQA's Community of Principle in the Americas which should be known as the true Monroe Doctrine,
contrary to popular opinion today which has incorrectly replaced the Monroe Doctrine with the Roosevelt Corollary (as Bolton
is especially want to do). TR signalled the end of the Lincoln Era of American industrial development and global cooperation,
which was best represented by Grant, the most overlooked of great Presidents (and perhaps we see similarities of Grant to Trump
today). Bolton indeed is Captain Kangaroo, presiding over his Court as the Queen of No Hearts would in Alice's confrontation
with British rule once she penetrates behind the facade of British Lockean empiricism. With insight only equalled to Lincoln's,
who said "We can't fight two wars at once, so first the Confederacy and then the British," Trump has identified the fascist
nexus within our government as that same British foe, a nexus led by Brennan, Rice, Clapper, Jarrett, et al, which works on
behalf of what Eisenhower (another overlooked great President and General) called the Military Industrial Complex. The MIC is
a British Intelligence deployment to fundamentally undermine our Constitution and put the US into a state of perpetual war and
police surveillance. It is now over 70 years in the making, and is enforcing a new Cold War and attempted coup of our elected
Government, and yet, it may have finally found its match, not just in Trump, but in Trump's intended cooperation with Putin
of Russia and Xi of China. These three nations, along with Modi of India (just reelected) are a true threat to this rotten British
system, from Fabian liberals to Bolton chickenhawks, the true enemy is this British System. If we move on that effectively,
we may just have a chance to win this revolutionary moment now unfolding throughout the trans-Atlantic world. Let us return
to JQA's community of principle for the entire world. Let us work with Trump to end this fascist British nexus. Let us celebrate
our true heritage as Americans!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:51
Your comments read with interesting and well taken.
BUT: The bottom line is that Trump hired Bolton (and Pompeo) and has wound him up and set him loose goosewalking across the
globe.
Why?
The buck for Bolton's suicidal buffonery stops with Trump.
So, I can't see him as a genuine foe of the Deep State-MIC as you describe.
Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 18:10
Bolton is loyal to Trump, even though he is a failed chickenhawk. Look at McMaster, at the leaking, and outright betrayal
of the President. Same with Tillerson, betrayal. Pompeo and Bolton have ridiculous views and bloated war rhetoric, but they're
personally loyal, perhaps opportunistically, and even temporarily, but nonetheless right now they are, and when they're not,
I bet they're gone. But Trump does control the policy. Look at North Korea, any war? Media said there would be, then worked
to undermine a deal. Venezuela, war? They're talking in Norway now, how'd that happen? Syria, troops out? MIC, Dems and Media
opposed, and Trump called them out for the first time since Eisenhower! Pompeo to Sochi to see Putin, progress. How'd that happen?
Trump is fighting the MIC and too many good Americans are spinning so fast from the propaganda machine they can't see straight.
anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 18:40
Interesting, but it is easy for a president to fight the MIC: simply fire and arrest anyone who acts against efforts to control
them. He could send any federal enforcement agency, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, reserves, national guard, or even the Coast
Guard, Secret Service, DC police, or private guards to arrest them and prosecute any resisters as traitors. It is not one man
against the MIC.
And they cannot assassinate him once he has announced that intention, without exposing their hand and unleashing a generation
of purges and strict controls. If he is surrounded by traitors, he has only to say that and fire the lot of them. He could leak
that anonymously to Wikileaks or tweet it and they would be terrified.
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:48
Bolton has been working DC bureaucracy like a pro for decades. He's using Trump like a marionette while he runs circles around
the amateur. He was helping orchestrate foreign wars of choice back when Trump was still playing a pretend boss on TV. Bolton
has no loyalty except as a facade for those he needs to suck up to.
Your examples of non-wars are terrific. Trump is amazing! – because he's running the government so badly that the State Dept
doesn't know what the Pentagon is doing doesn't know and vice versa. He chose to ignore the Iran nuclear deal, which had prevented
Iran from developing nuclear weapons. So now, the Iranians declare (out of self defense) that they're now going to pursue nuclear
weapons. Trump then says that he doesn't want to attack Iran, but they must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. This
is a circular argument exactly of the type the MIC uses to engage in war. Pompeo then indicates that laughable, ineffectual
attempts at sabotage are most likely Iranian. This grave threat to our nation can't even do enough damage to an oil tanker to
make it take on water.
Just because someone fails to do something doesn't mean that they were against it the whole time. Maybe they're just awful
at it. Sure, Trump says some things that are heartening to the anti-war and anti-interventionist crowd. But the next day he'll
say something heartening to rabid neocons. He needs to grow a spine, but it's far too late. He's a dandy, a spoiled rich kid
fop who's never had to answer for his mishaps, because why, when you have inherited money and a stout legal team?
anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 19:06
The idea that "the MIC is a British Intelligence deployment" is fantastical, as the US MIC is several times the size of UK's
entire MIC, and such a secret could never be kept. The US MIC has engaged UK secret agencies to subvert the US Constitution
by serving as agents to pass intercepted US communications back to the US to pretend that the MIC didn't do it, or that it was
foreign intel. But that is a long way from UK controlling the US MIC.
There are certainly confluences of interests between the US and UK oligarchies, but I see no basis for the contention that
"American submission to British Imperialism began with the end of Grant's administration" when the US prosecuted Britain for
building the Alabama etc. to break the Union blockade, and was outraged that Britain considered recognition of the Confederacy
until it lost at Gettysburg. The US under TR was not submitting to anyone when it sent the Great White Fleet on tour, or when
it seized Cuba and the Philippines. Nor under Wilson when it stayed out of WWI until very late in the war, despite the Lusitania
loss. Nor under FDR when it stayed out of WWII until attacked, despite the passionate pleas of Churchill.
Some detailed argument with credible references would be needed to support those assertions.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:44
Scapegoating is real popular with lefties & rughties alike. American Exceptionalism forbids we ever accept respobility for
what we've done.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:45
No, the rest of humanity is not any better.
anon4d2 , May 25, 2019 at 06:48
The commenter was searching for causes, and some UK conspiracy is simply too far from any available evidence. In fact it
much appears to be a wild attempt to distract from the obvious causes including zionism, which you pretend is "scapegoating."
No, zionism is a principle corrupting factor in US politics, especially foreign policy.
If you don't see that, you must start learning the evidence, rather than relying on the presumption that it is mere scapegoating.
Otherwise you are serving their wrongful and racist tribal purposes, and others will presume that you know that.
Oscar Shank , May 26, 2019 at 07:24
Zhu knows it.
Vera Gottlieb , May 23, 2019 at 14:56
How much more peaceful the life on our entire planet would be if the Americans weren't around.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:58
Extend that to all humans, and the head of PETA would support the project.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:16
I doubt that. Nature hates a void.
Bethany , May 24, 2019 at 17:50
Exactly. Very well put.
Abe , May 23, 2019 at 14:19
Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, the first director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),
only served about one year of his second term.
Bustani was forced out by the U.S. government in April 2002 because he wanted international chemical weapons monitors inside
Iraq and thus was seen as impeding the US push for war against Iraq. The US accused Bustani of "advocacy of inappropriate roles
for the OPCW".
Since 2011, the United Nations has stood by a US-Saudi-Israeli Axis financed and armed the mercenary terrorist forces attacked
Syria. In addition to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, major support for terrorist mercenaries has provided
via NATO-member state Turkey, as well as Jordan. Israel has launched repeated air attacks and provided direct support for terrorist
forces in Syria.
From July 2010 to 2018, the Director-General of the OPCW was Turkish career diplomat Ahmet Uzumcu. Uzumcu served ambassador
to Israel from 1999 to 2002, and as the Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO between 2002 and 2004.
Turkey has been the primary channel for mercenary terrorist forces assaulting the Syrian state. The remaining terrorist forces
in the Idlib Governorate continue to be supplied through Syria.
Since Uzumcu announced the creation of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria on 29 April 2014, not a single OPCW report
has acknowledged these basic facts concerning the conflict in Syria.
Following a consensus recommendation by the OPCW Executive Council in October 2017. Spanish career diplomat Fernando Arias
was appointed to replace Uzumcu as Director-General of the OPCW. Previously, Arias served as Ambassador of Spain to the Netherlands
and the Permanent Representative of Spain to the OPCW. He also has served as Permanent Representative of Spain to the United
Nations in New York.
Uzumcu, and now Bustani, obviously understand that the appropriate role of the OPCW is to provide propaganda support for
"regime change" operations, and to say nothing contrary to the "narrative" endorsed by the US-Saudi-Israeli Axis.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:52
The OPCW has certainly disgraced themselves in Syria. What a sham.
Randal Marlin , May 23, 2019 at 13:48
John Bolton's questioner in the second clip should have made the distinction between deception used to lead the country into
war, and deception used to pursue a war already constitutionally declared and already underway.
In the first case there is a violation of democratic principle. When the people are the ultimate sovereign, they need to be
properly informed. They can agree to deception, like where and when D-Day will occur, during war; but not in the case of leading
the people into war. Lying to Congress is always unacceptable, and those who do lie to Congress should be made to suffer serious
penalties.
zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 02:13
I read a report that the aircraft carrier strike force and preparation of 120,000 US troops, to Persian Gulf was ordered
sometime ago and that Bolton took advantage of that fact to make it look that 'Bolton ordered it'?
vinnieoh , May 24, 2019 at 10:54
What I'd read is that the carrier strike force and bomber detachment were previously scheduled: there had been a previous
drawdown and this deployment represents a return to a level similar to the end of the Iraq war, and that does sound like Bolton/Pompeo
opportunism. The 120,000 troops plan sounds like something Bolton prodded pentagon scribes to produce. How to interpret when
Bolton says that then Trump denies it, and then a new troop deployment (1% of the previous) is announced/suggested/leaked? I
see it as Trump taking his dogs out for a walk to snarl at the neighbors.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 13:07
"Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York
Times, on May 14, it was he who 'ordered' a Pentagon plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf."
That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton, may be giving
such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.
The National Security Advisor is, as the title states, merely an advisor – not confirmed by the Senate, and therefore not,
in constitutional terms, an "officer of the United States" with the authority to carry out the policy of the government. Other
than his assistant fetching him lunch, nobody in government should be following Bolton's orders at all while he holds this job.
But this is nothing new. I had the same concern, on an even larger scale, during the first Bush Jr. administration when Cheney
was running around reshaping the government in his own warped image. Despite the Vice President's elected status, he has no
executive power under the Constitution – no power at all, in fact, except when sitting as President of the Senate. There was
a time when everyone knew that.
With all the perennial crowing we see about the greatness of the Constitution, and the mewling about how Trump is degrading
it, it would be nice if Congress and the media could spare a moment to care about whether the people giving orders to the world's
largest military and covert/intelligence apparatus are legally empowered to do so.
Ash , May 23, 2019 at 17:17
> That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton,
> may be giving such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.
It does kind of have an Alexander Haig flavor to it, doesn't it?
David G , May 23, 2019 at 22:08
When Bolton gets up and says "I'm in control here", I'm definitely finding a rock to hide under.
Zenobia van Dongen , May 23, 2019 at 13:06
The question that Joe Lauria asked of John Bolton, i.e. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically
elected government in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?"
seems to imply that Iran seeks revenge against the US for the CIA's 1953 coup d'état against prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq.
However the current leaders of Iran are not entitled to consider themselves the heirs of Mossadeq, nor are they morally justified
in avenging him, since the CIA coup relied largely on support from the very same clerical establishment that now rules Iran.
As a matter of fact in the 1950s and 60s Shia clerics in Iran were routinely considered CIA agents. Consequently the Iranian
elite's pretense of carrying on Mossadeq's anti-imperialist struggle is profoundly hypocritical. I grant that the current reactionary
clique that governs Iran defends Iran's sovereignty against US imperialism as Mossadeq did. But the underlying concept of the
Iranian nation is profoundly different. The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty
that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist
revolution of 1909. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Constitutional_Revolution
Indeed, Iran has no hesitation in crushing underfoot the aspirations to independence of other nations. It ruthlessly conducts
ethnic cleansing in Syria, commits assassinations in South America, and in general behaves with imperialist ruthlessness that
is moreover unmitigated by any concern for human rights or international law.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 14:27
As to your last paragraph please provide proof for your allegations. As to your second paragraph you assume to know the meaning
behind the question Mr. Lauria asked. Could it be possible (this I believe is more likely) that what Mr. Lauria meant or realizes
that absent the '53 coup would there now be an Islamic theocracy ruling Iran?
Again making the disclaimer that I'm no expert on the region or Iran particularly I have followed many leads of reading and
investigation to understand the ramifications of that seminal event (the '53 coup.) What I believe I've understood is that Iran
prior to and until the '53 coup was on its own unique trajectory of reclaiming its sovereignty and rejecting its status as a
(UK) colonial vassal. There seemed to be a somewhat fluid acceptance of the rising democratic movement of Mosaddeq et. al.,
a fading nod to the former royal house, and an acceptance of Shiite religiosity of some considerable social legitimacy.
So, three centers of power and influence working its unique way to an unique Iranian future.
With the US/UK engineered coup the imperialists destroyed the legitimate democratic evolution happening there. With the re-installation
of the Shah Reza Pahlavi as the puppet ruler of the US, that traditional center of power and legitimacy was likewise forever
delegitimized in the eyes of most Iranians. That sentiment was cemented with the creation of SAVAK by the US, UK, and Israel
to be the iron fist of the Shah and his new imperial master.
That left only one center of power or authority which retained legitimacy in the eyes of Iranians – the Shiite theocrats,
and that is why when Iranians kicked the US out it was the Islamic theocracy doing the booting. You are correct that there was
at least one Shiite cleric (I've forgotten his name,) jealous and fearful of the rising influence of democratic governance,
who is a known and recorded collaborator with the US/UK machinations of the coup. Without the help of the US/UK his part in
the affair would probably have been inconsequential.
It is not Iran that is funding and establishing Islamic madrasses in Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Africa and elsewhere.
It is the Wahhabist Sunnis and they preach intolerance and violent jihad. Furthermore, of the total global population of adherents
of Islam, 75% are Sunni affiliated, and 25% are Shiite affiliated. Those percentages hold true in the immediate region of the
ME as well. The repeated claims of Iranian desires of empire are a shibboleth emanating from KSA and UAE.
The leaders of the Islamic Revolution used Mossadegh's image to help get people on board against the Shah, The National Front
was allowed to be a party again for a short time, and a Street in Tehran was renamed post-revolution for Mohammad Mossadegh.
This was a cynical ploy by the Mullahs to get people on board with their revolution and make people believe that they were indeed
the true heirs of Mossadegh and committed to democracy. It was all a sham. The National Front was made illegal again at some
point in the 80s, and the street named for Mossadegh was renamed around the same time. These people are the heirs of the Shah
whether they like it or not.
anon4d2 , May 23, 2019 at 16:59
Joe's question points out that, had the US not overthrown Mossadegh, there would have been a secular democratic government.
That is true throughout the Mideast, where in the 1950s-70s the US supported radical Islamic movements that suppressed secular
movements and overthrew secular governments, pretending that the USSR was moving in. There was no evidence of USSR interest
there, as it was preoccupied with such factions in its central Asian republics, and apparently only some arms from the USSR
in Egypt were ever found as "evidence."
Similar US actions have continued to date, almost 30 years after the collapse of the USSR, the US always supporting fanatics
against moderates like Assad and Ghaddafi, and pretending to support "democracy."
Compare the US support of Saudi Arabia, a fanatical fundamentalist monarchy engaged in terrorism throughout the region, including
against their only neighbor that defends minority rights, Syria. Again falsely claiming the need to protect oil supply, which
it can buy anywhere without bombing anyone, like any other oil buyer. Again falsely claiming to support democracy which it overthrows
everywhere at the pleasure of its own oligarchy, always to "protect Israel" or attack socialism, which is always to get political
bribes.
There is no evidence of any "ethnic cleansing" by Iran in Syria or elsewhere. Where do you get that idea? Iran is majority
Shiah, defending the majority Sunni population of Syria from Sunni fundamentalists. You certainly have no evidence that Iran
"commits assassinations in South America" or opposes "aspirations to independence of other nations" and made that up to deceive
others. Your comments on this site have been knowingly false.
zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 03:44
The above, re the current Iranian religious govt, very informative, thankyou.
Re Joe's article I cannot take seriously that Trump is against war and the Deep State.
If Trumps rhetoric during his electioneering, supporting the middle class (deeply deprived after the US corporations abandoned
them for low paid Chinese labour) was in any way honest he would not have chosen the cabinet he did (and keeps on choosing).
Trump has not chosen one cabinet member that would support that supposed sympathy for the middle class.
Reporting that assumes Trump is fighting for moderation (against his own cabinet) and to establish policies in the direction
of that sympathy, is without evidence, it seems to me, regardless of what he might suggest to Fox News.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 17:00
"The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist
struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist revolution of 1909."
And the American government has equal respect for the Constitution.
Bolton didn't order a carrier group to the Persian Gulf. He doesn't have the authority. The carrier group left because of
the deployment was already planned. Bolton does not have the power that has been ascribed to him. He is a grandiose clown who
knows how to play the press. I don't think he will have his job six months from now.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 12:16
"At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman predicted to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment
after the U.S. left the deal, it 'would be the kind of excuse that a person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation
or direct attack on Iran.' In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said that it would indeed restart partial nuclear
enrichment."
Two problems with this part of the article:
• The link in the main text here goes to an Intercept article about Bolton, but it has no mention of Tom Countryman, or even
of Iran.
• It isn't accurate to say that Iran may now, or is saying it will, "resume" or "restart" nuclear enrichment, since it never
ceased, nor did it ever commit to cease, such activity. The JCPOA merely imposed strict *limits* and monitoring on nuclear enrichment
and stockpiling, some of which Iran is saying it will now depart from.
I also disagree with the imputation elsewhere in the article that Donald Trump has a good understanding of real estate. His
disastrous, decades-long record in that business suggests otherwise. But I suppose some people will always believe what they
see on TV.
lou e , May 23, 2019 at 12:06
Creeping fascism works like fishing with a rod and reel. You hook the fish and it runs off 100 ft of line . You reel in 50
ft and the fish takes 30 feet back. Do the Math! Some times burning down the village IS the only way to get rid of the infestation.
Bit hard on the USSA, but as Ben Franklin put it you have a democratic republic IF ypu can Keep It.
Remember at an earlier time with Bolton, someone described him as a kiss up kick down kind of guy, i.e., a real jerk. I defended
Trump against Russiagate because it was a threat to the office of the president. Unless, he gets his head straight, his "political"
moves in the Middle East and Southwest Asia can spin out of control. He is not negotiating a new deal with some city to build
another hotel, and his rhetoric makes him sound like that is the way he thinks he should act with other countries.
One can defend him by saying maybe it will work, but then maybe not and it is not a matter of your target taking his papers
and leaving the room.
Great article, Mr. Lauria. Have you posted your resume on your site? Interested in your confrontation with Bolton.
Trump wants to be reelected more that being the President but in his defense we know what he will face if he decides to enter
into honest negotiations. He's going to have a heck of a time finding people to cover his back. He can count on one presidential
aspirant, Tulsi Gabbard but she's on the other side.
Jeff Harrison , May 23, 2019 at 11:42
If we have to rely on Thump for anything other than social controls, we're screwed.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 11:40
These personal reminiscences of Bolton at the U.N. by Joe Lauria unfortunately only confirm the man's very public record.
The fact that such a creature has been accepted for so long in the heart of U.S. foreign "policy" is yet more evidence that
the country's crisis of political culture started long before Trump came on the scene.
I don't quite accept the slight comfort implied in the formulations here that this time Bolton has "gone too far", or "flown
too high", since to me they imply that there is some moral or rational bedrock that he has struck beneath which the establishment
is not willing to go.
I don't think that's true, as a general proposition. For example, the U.S. continues less noisily but inexorably on its long-term
collision course with China, which will be even more catastrophic than war with Iran, not to mention the ultimate one with the
planet's environmental limits.
For me it's enough that, for a number of contingent reasons, Bolton's (and MBS's and Netanyahu's) lunge at Iran has fallen
flat with both U.S. and European policy and media elites – for now, and I hope forever.
I just called WH 202-456-1111 to tell President Trump that Bolton should be fired; had to wait 8 min to talk. Trump certainly
has lots of problems, but he'll have plenty more if he starts a war! Pox Americana!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:58
Great idea.
I'll do the same.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:04
Thank you Mr. Lauria. I'm tending to believe that not only has Bolton flown too high, but Trump's predictable method of trying
to get what he wants was completely miscalculated wrt Iran. There is no better treaty or deal to be had concerning keeping Iran
from developing a nuclear weapon. The failures of the JCPOA that Trump is probably griping about all have to do with matters
of Iran's necessary and legitimate right to security and self-defense. No sane nation would willingly give in to this bullying.
Thanks again.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:44
Also, wrt Trump's predictable patterns, note that little if anything has changed regarding the US and the DPRK, so if he
is a crafty and effective negotiator I'm having a hard time seeing it.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 18:22
Good example Vinnieoh. NK and SK are reaching out and (more importantly) shoving out the US. More winning.
I love Trump. He is useful. Fascism, NAFTA, generic racism you name it, he really shines a light on issues.
Here again. (Currently) SA, GAZA, Israel, Syria and of course Iran. Hell, the entire region. What a train wreck he is.
What about the dollar? The EU? Yikes.
By gosh this man could single handedly take down an empire! MAGA!
Well done, Joe Lauria. Of course our dilemma is Donald Trump says one thing and contradicts himself 5 minutes later. You
could say he "changes his mind" but I do not think his mind is stable to begin with. He's far too nuts to put any faith in for
"doing the right thing,"
Bolton and his neoconservative pox on the world serve the interests of the war machine and fossil fuel corporations. When
will be rid of them? When We the People grow a set of testicles and throw them all into prison. Trump isn't going to save us,
but he might let Bolton get us all killed.
Seems that Trump is so small minded that what we observe cannot be explained mechanistically, we need quantum mechanics.
Rather that a particular state of mind we have a stochastic distribution, wave patterns and spin.
Yes, Joe Lauria has presented the problem very well.
A major factor is certainly the persuasiveness of the NSC and other MIC entities which surround the president, and comprise
much of official DC. Try persuading anyone in the MIC that war is ever inappropriate: they are all full of extreme scorn and
false accusations, and have endless "evidence" of threats behind every tree, and rationales to attack this or at least that,
just to make "statements" and "warnings" to invisible foreign monsters. The MIC is a completely and permanently logic-proof
subculture of bullying, which bullies every member of its own tribe to line up behind tyrants like Bolton and a million other
puerile bullies devoid of humanity.
No doubt you know that this was all well understood by the founders of the US, who restricted federal military powers to
repelling invasions and knew that any standing military was a threat to democracy. The Federalist Papers should be required
reading in the US. All of those understandings were gradually lost after the War of 1812 and the 1820s, as the founders died
off. As the US became confident that it could repel any invasion, it lost the sense of the necessity of unity and cooperation
of regions, and Congress degenerated into a battle of intransigent factions leading to the completely unnecessary Civil War.
With the ebullient emergence of the middle class, no effort was made to correct the defects of the Constitution in failing to
protect the institutions of democracy from the rising power of economic concentrations. With WWI and WWII, the power of oligarchy
over mass media was consolidated, and by WWII the oligarchy and MIC effectively controlled elections, mass media, and the judiciary,
the tools of democracy. Democracy has been a facade ever since.
The US has zero security problems that the MIC has not created, and could at any time re-purpose 80% of the MIC to developing
infrastructure in the poorest nations with positive effects upon its security. Had it done so since WWII, we would have rescued
the poorest half of humanity from poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, and disease, and would have had a true American Century.
Instead we have killed over 20 million innocents and mortgaged the lives of our children to serve the infantile psychopaths
of the MIC.
The solution is not only to eliminate the 2000-member NSC, cut the military by at least 80 percent, prohibit acts of war
or surveillance by the executive branch, tax the rich so that no one has income above upper middle class, and demand amendments
to the Constitution restricting funding of the mass media and elections to limited and registered individual donations. We also
desperately need a fourth branch of federal government, which I am calling the College of Policy Debate, to conduct moderated
textual debates of policy issues in all regions, protecting and representing every viewpoint, in which all views are challenged
and must respond, and all parties must come to common terms. The CPD should produce commented debate summaries available to
the public with mini-quizzes and discussion groups. Without that rational analysis and access to the core debates, we do not
have a democracy at all, we are all no more than the fools and pawns of these oligarchy scammers, who must be actively excluded
from all government capacities.
Sorry for the lecture.
Linda Wood , May 24, 2019 at 01:59
Please don't apologize, Sam F. Your brilliant and humane words give me hope at a time in which I am in shock at the blatancy
of fascism in our government.
Doggrotter , May 23, 2019 at 10:33
Where is a drone strike when you need one?
OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 10:23
" seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room."
Useful fools are often most useful when they are believers that they are not fools.
Once upon a time there was a discussion of which of the opponents' should be proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize – the list
being relatively long.
After extensive analysis and discussion the short-list consisted of two opponents in alphabetical order Mr. John Bolton and
Mr. Karl Rove.
However in light of the notion "Do you think your opponents are as stupid as you are? " the proposal question was left in
abeyance, not only as a function of decorum but also through understanding that "Useful fools are often most useful when they
are believers that they are not fools." and that even small dogs can seem tall when you are lying on your stomach.
OlyaPola , May 24, 2019 at 17:33
Since omniscience can't exist perhaps Mr. Bolton was/is subject to misrepresentation and misunderstanding?
"Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian
and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's
quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks."
What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships? Smells of another false flag.
I would not be so sure. A delicate signal that Iran has more capabilities concerning stopping in-out-Gulf traffic than naive
people like Bolton realize has a sobering potential. By the way of contrast, what kind of black flag it is if it is instantly
put in doubt, "we do not know" etc. When there were "chemical incidents" in Syria, no one in Washington claimed the need for
more facts, uncertainty etc.
Instead, UAE initially denied that it happened at all, subsequently, together with KSA, they did not have any "certain knowledge".
Somehow no government appears to promote the incident. Even USA.
BTW, the allegation that Iran is placing missiles on fishing boats staggers the mind. First of all, "missile boats" of which
Iran has plenty are small ships, BUT NOT VERY small, ca. 500-800 tons, which are fast, 40 kt, but not as fast as their predecessors,
torpedo boats (200-300 tons, 50-60 kt). They are still faster than any of the larger naval vessels, can trail them, and attack
from small distance in the case of start of hostilities. That Iran places missiles on such boats can be learned from videos
proudly provided by PressTV.ir.
Using "fishing boats" for that purpose is dubious, and the largest question mark would be: WHY? The reason that missile boats
are larger and heavier than torpedo boats is that you need more stability to launch missiles than torpedoes. Then you need a
radar etc. Placing missiles on fishing boats would be a waste of missiles. Hardly an escalation.
OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 12:47
"Hardly an escalation."
Perhaps you are being deflected by framing?
One of the escalations is the escalation of belief in, requirement of, and resort to, the dumbed-downess of the "target audience".
One of the salient questions being deflected is why, and as ever investigation requires some knowledge of Mr. Heisenberg
and his principles.
mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:34
Perhaps the Iranians are putting missiles on fishing boats to stun the fish and catch them that way. Fishing boats aren't
exactly very fast.
Anyone who actually believes the oil tanker incidents were carried by Iran should seek an immediate consultation with their
doctor. These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools and Iranians are not fools.
Brian , May 23, 2019 at 17:22
Exactly. According navel personnel, Iran has been using fishing boats to transfer rockets from land to it's vessels for years,
supposedly because the gulf is too shallow. I don't have hydrographic maps of the area, anyone know if this is true?
Clearly, Persian Gulf has routes for the largest ships on Earth, but the supply bases for missiles may be away from ports,
and it would make sense to place them so they are not easily accessible to a big ship navy, and in general, to disperse them.
Tim , May 26, 2019 at 06:43
"Thomas"
> These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools
Since neither you nor I know who did it, and there are a whole slew of plausible suspects, we don't know why they did it,
either. So it is silly to claim they are fools.
Since the Saudis and UAE are in the midst of waging war on Yemen, the most obvious suspects are their enemies there, al-Ansara.
(And by the way, contrary to what another commentator claimed, it was not a "few dents", but a gaping hole in the hull just
below the waterline. And since the local authorities spoke of an impact by an unidentified object, these were presumably torpedo
strikes.)
OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 07:58
"What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships?"
Quite a few including but not limited to further data on the opponents' perception of what constitutes plausible belief for
the opponents' target audience, and the opponents' increasing resort to, amplitude, scope and velocity of "misrepresentations".
As is the case with the benefits of dumbing down not accruing solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, the benefits
of creation and implementation of "false flags" do not accrue solely to those engaged in "false flags", and are enhanced when
the creators and implementers of "false flags" are immersed in amalga of projection and notions of sole/prime agency, facilitating
potential benefits to many others not restricted to Iran.
"... Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN ..."
"... It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order to weaken it, perhaps even fatally. ..."
"... Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed with deep personal failings hidden from public view. ..."
"... It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all other nations and isn't afraid to say so. ..."
"... Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly threatened the children of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to invade Iraq. ..."
"... We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe. But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it." ..."
"... Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in Venezuela and of course Bolton organized the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election ..."
"... This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit of profits and power. ..."
"... Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology. ..."
"... Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions. ..."
"... Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. ..."
"... It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow them away with cruise missiles." ..."
"... The New York Times that day reported : "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it." ..."
"... Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks. ..."
"... But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the "military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views. ..."
"... Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi! ..."
"... To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS ..."
"... Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades. ..."
"... The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason. Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets! ..."
"... John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized. ..."
"... Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, ..."
"... But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign, with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like. ..."
"... Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS! Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh we have nothing to do with it." ..."
"... Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor. ..."
"... Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush! ..."
"... I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons ..."
"... The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security Advisers. What a joke of a nation! ..."
"... I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq, and Syria. ..."
"... "Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees." ..."
"... Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes. ..."
"... They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel." ..."
"... The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today. ..."
John Bolton has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his move. But this time he
may have gone too far, writes Joe Lauria.
I knew John Bolton and interacted with him on a nearly daily basis with my colleagues in the press corps at United Nations headquarters
in New York when Bolton was the United States ambassador there from August 2005 to December 2006.
Most diplomats, officials, and journalists were shocked that Bolton (evading confirmation with a recess appointment) had
actually become the U.S. representative, given his long, public disdain for the UN. But that turned out to be the point.
It's been the strategy of Republican administrations to appoint the fiercest critic to head an agency or institution in order
to weaken it, perhaps even fatally.
Bolton's most infamous quote about the UN followed him into the building. In 1994 he had
said : "The Secretariat building
in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
But a more telling comment in that same 1994 conference was when he said that no matter what the UN decides the U.S. will do
whatever it wants:
Bolton sees such frank admissions as signs of strength, not alarm.
He is a humorless man, who at the UN at least, seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room. He once gave a
lecture in 2006 at the U.S. mission to UN correspondents, replete with a chalk board, on how nuclear enrichment worked. His aim,
of course, was to convince us that Iran was close to a bomb, even though a 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate being prepared
at the time said Tehran had
abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
I thought I'd challenge him one day at the press stakeout outside the Security Council chamber, where Bolton often stopped to
lecture journalists on what they should write. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically elected government
in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?' I asked him.
"That's an interesting question," he told me, "but for another time and another place." It was a time and a place, of course,
that never came.
More Than an Ideology
Bolton possesses an abiding self-righteousness rooted in what seems a sincere belief in the myth of American greatness, mixed
with deep personal failings hidden from public view.
He seemed perpetually angry and it wasn't clear whether it was over some personal or diplomatic feud. He seems to take personally
nations standing up to America, binding his sense of personal power with that of the United States.
It is more than an ideology. It's fanaticism. Bolton believes America is exceptional and indispensible and superior to all
other nations and isn't afraid to say so. He'd have been better off perhaps in the McKinley administration, before the days
of PR-sugarcoating of imperial aggression. He's not your typical passive-aggressive government official. He's aggressive-aggressive.
And now Bolton is ordering 120,000 troops to get ready and an aircraft carrier to steam towards Iran.
Bolton's all too willing to make his bullying personal on behalf of the state. He implicitly
threatened the children
of José Bustani, who Vice President Dick Cheney wanted out of his job as head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons because Bustani had gotten Iraq to agree to join the chemical weapons protocol, thereby making it harder for the U.S. to
invade Iraq.
After Bolton's failed 2005 confirmation hearings, Tony Blinken, the then staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
told The New Yorker
's Dexter Filkins:
"We saw a pattern of Mr. Bolton trying to manipulate intelligence to justify his views. If it had happened once, maybe.
But it came up multiple times, and always it was the same underlying issue: he would stake out a position, and then, if the
intelligence didn't support it, he would try to exaggerate the intelligence and marginalize the officials who had produced it."
Bolton is no fan of democracy if things don't go his way. He is a vociferous instigator of the so-far failed U.S. coup in
Venezuela and of course Bolton organized
the "Brooks Brothers riot" that disrupted the recounting of votes in Florida in the disputed 2000 presidential election.
What is alarming about the above video is not so much that he justifies lying, but the example he gives: lying to cover up military
plans like the invasion of Normandy. This is a common ruling class tactic in the U.S. to portray disobedient leaders ripe for
overthrow as Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Milosevic was Hitler, Noriega was Hitler and Hillary Clinton called Putin Hitler. It is
a false revival of U.S. glory from World War II to paint foreign adventures as moral crusades, rather than naked aggression in pursuit
of profits and power.
Bolton is the distillation of the pathology of American power. He is unique only in the purity of this pathology.
Regime Change for Iran
The U.S. national security adviser has been saying for years he wants the Iranian government overthrown, and now he's made his
move. But this time John Bolton may have flown too high.
He was chosen for his post by a president with limited understanding of international affairs -- if real estate is not involved
-- and one who loves to be sucked up to. Trump is Bolton's perfect cover.
But hubris may have finally bested Bolton. He had never before maneuvered himself into such a position of power, though he'd
left a trail of chaos at lower levels of government. Sitting opposite the Resolute desk on a daily basis has presented a chance to implement
his plans.
At the top of that agenda
has been Bolton's stated aim for years: to
bomb and
topple
the Iranian government.
Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York Times,
on May 14 , it was he who
"ordered" a Pentagon
plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf. These were to be deployed "if Iran attacked American forces or accelerated its
work on nuclear weapons."
Two months after Bolton was appointed national security adviser, in June 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the six-nation
deal that has seen Tehran curtail its nuclear enrichment program in exchange for relaxation of U.S. and international sanctions.
At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman, who had been undersecretary of state for arms control and
international security, as had Bolton,
predicted
to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment after the U.S. left the deal, it "would be the kind of excuse that a
person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation or direct attack on Iran."
In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said on May 5 (May 6 in Tehran) that it would indeed
restart partial nuclear enrichment. On the same day, Bolton
announced the carrier strike group was headed to the Gulf.
Bolton Faces Resistance
If this were a normally functioning White House, in which imperial moves are normally made, a president would order military
action, and not a national security adviser.
"I don't think Trump is smart enough to realize what Bolton and [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo are doing to him,"
former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel told RT's Afshin Rattansi
this week.
"They have manipulated him. When you get the national security adviser who claims that he ordered an aircraft carrier flotilla
to go into the Persian Gulf, we've never seen that. In the days of Henry Kissinger, who really brought sway, he never ordered
this, and if it was ordered it was done behind closed doors."
Bolton claimed he acted on intelligence that Iran was poised to attack U.S. interests close to Iran.
Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, lacking the military firepower of the United States, have long tried to get the U.S. to fight
its wars, and one no more important than against its common enemy. An
editorial on May 16 in the Saudi English-language news
outlet, Arab News , called for a U.S. "surgical strike" on Iran. But The New York Times reported on the
same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack
Iran causing a full-scale war.
The
intelligence alleged Iran was fitting missiles on fishing boats in the Gulf. Imagine a government targeted by the most powerful
military force in history wanting to defend itself in its own waters.
Bolton also said Iran was threatening Western interests in Iraq, which led eventually to non-essential U.S. diplomatic staff
leaving Baghdad and Erbil.
It is the typical provocation of a bully: threaten someone with a cruise missile and the moment they pick up a knife in self-defense
you attack, conveniently leaving the initial threat out of the story. It then becomes: "Iran picked up a knife. We have to blow
them away with cruise missiles."
But this time the bully is being challenged. Federica Mogherini, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security
policy,
resisted the U.S. on Iran when she met Pompeo in Brussels on May 13.
"It's always better to talk, rather than not to, and especially when tensions arise Mike Pompeo heard that very clearly today
from us," said Mogherini. "We are living in a crucial, delicate moment where the most relevant attitude to take – the most responsible
attitude to take – is and we believe should be, that of maximum restraint and avoiding any escalation on the military side."
The New York Times that day
reported
: "Privately, several European officials described Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo as pushing an unsuspecting Mr. Trump through a series
of steps that could put the United States on a course to war before the president realizes it."
Ghika: No new threat from Iran. (YouTube)
British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika then said on May 14: "There has been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or
Syria." Ghika was
rebuked by U.S. Central Command, whose spokesman said, "Recent comments from OIR's Deputy Commander run counter to the identified
credible threats available to intelligence from U.S. and allies regarding Iranian-backed forces in the region."
A day later it was Trump himself, however, who was said to be resisting Bolton. On May 15 The Washington Post reported:
"President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military
confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S.
officials. Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran's leaders."
"President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according
to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against
the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict."
Then it was the Democrats who stood up to Bolton. On Tuesday Pompeo and Shanahan briefed senators and representatives behind
closed doors on Capitol Hill regarding the administration's case for confronting Iran.
"Are they (Iran) reacting to us, or are we doing these things in reaction to them? That is a major question I have, that I still
have," Sen. Angus King told reporters after the briefing. "What we view as defensive, they view as provocative. Or vice versa."
Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego told reporters after the briefing: "I believe there is a certain level of escalation
of both sides that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The feedback loop tells us they're escalating for war, but they could
just be escalating because we're escalating."
Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian
and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's quite
possible that Iran was behind" the attacks.
Bolton was conspicuously absent from the closed-door briefing.
It's Up to Trump
Trump has pinballed all over the place on Iran. He called the Times and Post stories about him resisting Bolton
"fake news."
"The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot, poorly
sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good thing!"
Trump tweeted on May 17.
The Fake News Media is hurting our Country with its fraudulent and highly inaccurate coverage of Iran. It is scattershot,
poorly sourced (made up), and DANGEROUS. At least Iran doesn't know what to think, which at this point may very well be a good
thing!
Then he threatened what could be construed as genocide against Iran. "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of
Iran. Never threaten the United States again!" he tweeted on Sunday.
But also last Sunday he told Fox News that the
"military-industrial complex" is real and "they do like war" and they "went nuts" when he said he wanted to withdraw troops from
Syria. Trump said he didn't want war with Iran, here possibly reflecting Israel's views.
On Monday he implied that the crisis has been drummed up to get Iran to negotiate.
"The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up a negotiation
with Iran. This is a false report ."
The Fake News put out a typically false statement, without any knowledge that the United States was trying to set up
a negotiation with Iran. This is a false report....
John Bolton must be stopped before he gets his war. It is beyond troubling that the man we have to count on to do it is Donald
Trump.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal,
Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected]and followed on Twitter @unjoe .
Or as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is US." As in the lies that created the Vietnam war and the waste of 58,000
American soldiers and thousand of Vietnamese. Or the lie that Iran is our enemy when we funded and encouraged Saddam to attack
them and destroyed their attempt to have a secular government.
Or the lie of the WMD's and the 9/11 attack which was funded by Saudi Arabia, and run by Saudis and NOT Iraq.
Or the lies of Afghanistan which was economically and culturally better off when it was controlled by the USSR...
John Hawk , May 26, 2019 at 16:56
Joe, nice piece of work covering the psycho-pathology of America's leading nazi!
To correct one of your statements: Trump DID NOT appoint him National Security Adviser, but Adelson and Mercer did. Trump
is a brain-dead, blackmailed puppet who fancies himself as POTUS.
It can't get any more delusional than this. Everybody I know who is following the Washington Beltway histrionics of Trump
et al know full-well that a certain intelligence agency of a small Middle East domiciled country have THE definitive dossier
on Trump and have been building it for the last five decades.
After all, deception is their game and they use it liberally, like feeding their agenda to Bolton as 'intelligence' info
of the highest order. The Bolton-Pompeo-Pence presidency is destined to go down in history as one of infamy and treason.
Trump? dead-man walking, more than likely by a stroke-heart attack when he's popping out one of his idiotic and manic tweets!
Zhu , May 26, 2019 at 03:20
If Bolton were struck by lightning tomorrow morning, would anything change much? I doubt it. We Americans are as warlike
as the ancient Assyrian. We've been slaughtering Indians, Koreans, SE Asians, Central Americans, and multiple Middle Eastern
people for a looong time. It is flattering to blame this individual or th t country, but no. We, as a community, are all responsible
to some degree. Even me, on the far side of the world.
Alex , May 25, 2019 at 21:50
Bolton's choosing destroyed IRAN but staying friends with Saudi Arabia it's so contradicting, and so obvious that he is influenced
to behave this way is because Israelies influence. Saudy Kingdom using Bolton to get IRAN so Saudy will be only country promote
Extreme version of Wahhabi Islam which is didn't existed In Islam's history.
So Bolton's obsession with destruction of Iran is ignorance as its best. September 11th suspects were most of them Saudy
nationals, yet nobody wanted to talk about it, because there is irony that, George W Bush was and probably still doing business
with Saudy. So how can you explain that to American people? No you can not.
Perhaps collectively hypnotism !
OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 02:58
" So how can you explain that to American people?"
Given that useful fools are useful, why would you want to?
" No you can not."
An illustration of the benefits of dumbing down do not accrue solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, facilitating
the minimising of blowback during implementation of strategies based on "How to drown a drowning man with the minimum of blowback",
given that many believe that critical mass is a function of linear notions of 50% +1 and above; a further conflation of quantity
with quality to which the opponents are prone.
William , May 25, 2019 at 19:06
John Bolton is a psychopath, He should be dismissed immediately, but I think that he should be institutionalized.
Put him in a strait jacket and keep him in a padded cell. He poses a threat to millions of people.
Eddie S , May 25, 2019 at 11:26
Yeah Joe, it wasn't just you and other reporters who were stunned by Bolton's recess appt to the UN by W -- - many of
us were staggered by the jaw-dropping inappropriateness of it, IF it was assessed from a pro-peace perspective.
But, as you accurately mentioned, the Republicans had long-ago (I recall first hearing about it during Nixon's reign,
with Earl Butz) used that gambit to effectively sabotage regulatory agencies & depts. Rather than try to dissolve an agency
that most people want, they can neutralize it by appointing some hack or lobbyist for the entity being regulated so that nothing
meaningful gets done, AND it has the 'beneficial' effect of discrediting the agency involved, and government in general, which
is what many libertarian-inclined Republicans like.
Good article about a reprehensible politician.
renfro , May 25, 2019 at 11:18
"But The New York Times reported on the same day that though Israel was behind Bolton's "intelligence" about an Iranian
threat, Israel does not want the U.S. to attack Iran causing a full-scale war. "
________________________________
Israel doesnt want the US to attack Iran Well that is BS!
Israel and its Fifth Column in the US have agitated for the US to attack Iran for years .we've all seen and heard it .and now
they want to try to wipe our memories of their war mongering with their typical hasbara in the NYT and Netanyahu claiming .'oh
we have nothing to do with it."
Bolton is a psychopath but he is Sheldon Adelson's errand boy .who Bolton met with in Las Vegas the week before Trump
appointed him and Adelson is the Orange carnival barker's 100 million dollar donor.
Seriously, how stupid do they think we are? If we attack Iran it will be for the Zionist and Saudis and we all know it.
Luther Bliss , May 25, 2019 at 10:57
Trump's incoherent mixture of neoconservative & isolationism almost make him a Bush!
Remember it wasn't until Bush JR's second term that he asked his father, "What's A Neocon?" to which Pappy Bush replied,
"Israel."
I assume Trump knows what a 'neocon' but is so indebted to Israel and intoxicated by Islamophobic rhetoric that he cannot
free himself from his addiction to surrounding himself with more neo-cons.
The progression from Flynn to McMaster to Bolton was just selecting between neocon flavors for his National Security
Advisers. What a joke of a nation!
Mark , May 25, 2019 at 02:30
I appreciate the article, but it doesn't mention Israel, which is the fountainhead of the agenda to take out Iran, Iraq,
and Syria. Bolton stands out for his extremity among extremists, but he's a means rather than the end. The agenda is something
into which he bought, passionately by all indications, but which a paucity of other people created strictly to advance their
own, tiny, exclusive clan, not for the benefit of the United States.
Hank , May 25, 2019 at 09:43
To think that this administration campaigned on a promise to restrict future wasteful and needless interventions and then
hired this dinosaur of a warmonger makes my blood curl! Everyone with half a brain knows what Bolton's agenda is yet here he
is leading the USA into a war at the behest of a foreign nation led by a felon and terrorist! The American people who want peace
and their tax dollars invested into improving the USA have once again been stabbed in the back by a conniving administration.
Will this cycle of non-democracy ever end? Until it does, future administrations will continue on just like previous ones- kowtowing
to special interests, in particular the military/industrial mafia and the apartheid criminal state of Israel! All this massive
business of holding "elections" in the USA, all the talk about "Russian collusion" and the REAL collusion is right there in
front of us all- the US administration has once again COLLUDED to go back on a campaign promise and once again open the money
trough for the military/industrialist pigs!
Mark , May 26, 2019 at 05:31
I get the idea, but it's necessary to look 'behind' back-stabbing, conniving, colluding administrations, and Bolton, and
the military/industrial complex, and to bring Israel and some barely known U.S. history, at least back to World War I, explicitly
to the fore for public scrutiny. That's a monumental task, to say the least, owing to American attention spans and the contrary
interests of the powers that be.
Taras77 , May 24, 2019 at 20:24
Bolton has his own well funded PAC, from which he is free to "contribute" (bribe) sychophant congress individuals. What a
situation for the fix for war.
"Overall, 28 sitting senators have received sizable contributions from John Bolton PAC during the election cycle, as
have nine representatives on the House defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security subcommittees."
ricardo2000 , May 24, 2019 at 17:29
By far the most productive, and most verifiable, way to eliminate weapons is at a negotiating table. The easiest way to start
a war is with ignorant blather.
O Society , May 24, 2019 at 16:09
Don't forget who told Donald Trump to hire John Bolton. It was Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes.
They like Bolton because he is "incapable of empathy and good on Israel."
Trump initially declined on Bolton because "he doesn't like Bolton's moustache."
Kool Aid drinkers and idiots. We're being lead by a cult of morons who worship the bombs, money, and a white separatist state.
i doubt the iranians will test a nuke until after djt is out of office. after that you might wake up one morning and everything
you knew before becomes quite obsolete.
my guess is israel has stealth cruise missiles with h bombs. it would be very foolish of them to not have them. those descendants
of egyptian slaves are anything but foolish.
Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:33
@ CitizenOne: Thank you for your long comment. I agree with much of what you wrote, but would like to know why you claimed,
"Iran is surely guilty of vowing the destruction of Israel " . According to what I've read, Iran has not initiated hostilities
with any nation for over a century – a clear, peaceful contrast to the rogue states of Israel & the U.S. Are you referring to
the long-ago-debunked claim that Iran claimed to 'wipe Israel off the map'?
(See https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155
? "So there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors,
the consensus is that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in my original piece, offering a vague
wish for the future.
"A very last point. The fact that he compared his desired option – the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" –
with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel.
")
Or perhaps you're referring to Revolutionary Guard deputy leader Hossein Salami's warning that if Israel starts an aggressive
war against Iran, it 'will end with {Israel's} elimination from the global political map'? IMHO, warning an extremely aggressive,
self-obsessed, Apartheid-practicing rogue state against trying to attack your nation is wise ;-) .
I look forward to your response. Thanks very much.
Sam F , May 27, 2019 at 06:12
Sam: please use an identifier initial as I do, to prevent confusion.
I have asked you twice before; perhaps not the same person.
It is unfair to expect others to make the clarification, and easy to prevent.
How is it that crazies like Bolton can end up high in our government hierarchy? It is because the whole damned government
is crazy through and through
Joe , May 23, 2019 at 20:48
His Dad probably made a huge donation to Yale just like Bush's Dad. That's what happens when the system is gamed.
Art Thomas , May 25, 2019 at 09:22
Yes, in my opinion. The state stripped of patriotic rhetoric and other obfuscations that keep us devoted to it is nothing
more than a criminal gang that hides behind the law.
Some basic examples. 1. The law: taxation, the crime: theft. 2. The law: monetary credit expansion, i.e. debt financing,
the crime: counterfeiting, i.e. creating money out of thin air. 3. The invasion of countries not a threat to the invading state.
Etc. etc.
Tiu , May 23, 2019 at 18:30
If the US "political establishment" was working for America's benefit, things would look very different.
They are instead working on the "globalist" agenda, which will, if successful, destroy all nations as we know them today and
what remains will be ruled over by a bunch of sociopaths who are the same group that has inflicted John Bolton on the world.
Bolton's a tool, a bit like a hammer, to get their project done. The Democrats have equivalent tools e.g. H R Clinton.
Mark Thomason , May 23, 2019 at 18:04
The problem is if he hasn't gone too far. If he gets his war.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:53
John Bolton should get to ride the missile in the remake of Dr. Strangelove.
evelync , May 23, 2019 at 19:53
hah hah hah
I loved that movie :)
and yes Bolton is a perfect caricature of Slim Pickens AKA Dr Strangelove.
I also refer to him as Yosemite Sam
one difference for our current real life war monger is that the movie character was simply insane and didn't justify his
craziness with explanations.
Bolton, OTOH, blames "national Security" and "the national interests" of this country .say what????
if we look at the horrific human costs and the enormous financial costs of the wars that were fought for U.S. "national interests"
one would want to ask, once the rubble had cleared, what "interests" were actually served and whose "security" did they actually
improve?
The answers always take us back to Eisenhower's MIC and Ray McGovern's MICIMATT (maybe I got a couple of these letters wrong?).
Whoever profited from the mayhem don't represent either our "national interest' or our "national security" IMO and yet those
two phrases are used to shut down any discussion or criticism in the lead up .
whew
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:20
Strictly about the movie – Slim Pickens plays the ranking officer on the B-52 (I think?) which is actually dropping the bomb.
Dr Strangelove is a totally different character, one of a few played by Peter Sellers in that movie, and is a (mostly!) wheelchair-bound
German scientist.
And the wheelchair bound psychopathic scientist of Dr. Strangelove was inspired by Kubrick meeting Henry Kissinger at a cocktail
party and recognizing that Kissinger was the most evil person on this planet because he looked and sounded so responsible and
rational.
Now that Saddam, bin Laden, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler are dead, Kissinger holds the record of the person still alive who has
needlessly killed more people, both Americans and non-Americans, than any other person on this planet.
Hillary's idea of destabilizing Libya and creating a political vacuum there was from her training when working for Kissinger.
Abe , May 23, 2019 at 16:51
The Pathology:
John Bolton
Senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Chairman of Gatestone Institute (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former board member of Project for the New American Century (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Former Adviser to Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (pro-Israel Lobby organization) https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/john-bolton/
Mike Pompeo
Christian Zionist: "We will continue to fight these battles, it is a never ending struggle until the Rapture."
Associate of Center for Security Policy (pro-Israel Lobby organization)
Sponsor of ACT! for America (pro-Israel Lobby organization) https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/mike-pompeo/
Sam , May 27, 2019 at 00:38
@ Abe: Thanks for the info!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:42
John Bolton is obviously a very sick puppy.
This is patently obvious to any observer with the least desgree of psyhological sophistication and insight.
If he lived on your block and made such statements about his neighbors, or a woman living nearby, he would be looking at restraining
orders.
He is an out-of-control abusive pig who belongs in an institution where a course of shock therapy might actually help him. I
reckon any basic psychological test would find that he has a least borderline personality and at worst is actually insane and
incapable of taking responsibility for the consequences of his action.
Bolton has permanent termporary insanity.
Letting this tortured, psychopathic individual run the military is itself an enormous crime, one of murderous negligence, one
for which Trump truly should and could be impeached. Congress must take all possible steps to get this man out of the Executive
Branch.
Threaten Trump with impeachment if he doesn't fire Bolton.
His appointment of Bolton is reckless negligence and endangers this country.
James , May 23, 2019 at 19:09
I wonder how good American politicians of the past, if there were any, would react to the appointment of this psychopath
as what he is now. Whom should be blamed for it? Donald Trump? The pro-Israeli lobbies? Or the American nation? A glance at
the man's face is enough to realize that he is deeply sick. To me, he doesn't look like a human being at all! He looks like
a monkey out of a stuffy room. Why don't psychotherapists do anything about him? Shouldn't he be hospitalized for the safety/security
of the world population? By the way, I wonder where Netanyahu, the psychopath's provoker, is. He has been very quiet for about
a month or so. Maybe he is waiting for the war to ignite without getting himself directly involved in it. Let Americans and
Iranians kill one another while he waits to pick up the fruit in the end.
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:27
Where does the blame lie? Who hired him? Who's the chief of the executive branch? Who's a person who could actually fire
him (as he's so famous for doing on reality TV shows) instead of wringing his hands on friendly TV networks declaring he doesn't
want to actually go to war, but if he's 'forced' to, he'll erase Iran from the map?
Druid , May 26, 2019 at 03:16
He would have to get permission from Adelson and the Mercers first.
CitizenOne , May 24, 2019 at 20:52
Bolton and Pompeo are the only things keeping him from impeachment. As long as Trump satisfies the bloodthirsty war mongers
and the insatiable appetite of the MIC and the Pro Israel lobby and the Oil Lobby or Koch Industries he cannot lose. So far
Trump is bangin on all cylinders. I really think he knows what he needs to do to survive. All this impeachment talk is just
fantasy by the left dreaming about getting him out of office "somehow".
bjd , May 23, 2019 at 16:13
That the mono-maniacal psychopath Bolton is a walking exhibit of the Dunning–Kruger effect is no surprise to me. It is extra
frightening though.
Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:00
What was Bolton's day job before he started mucking around in politics and foreign policy? Master waterboarder or testicular
electrificator in extraordinary renditions for the CIA? He seems the sort to have spent much time at Abu Ghraib, and not just
to take notes. Honestly, his major goals seem to be the eradication of entire cultures and societies, which will somehow redound
to the magnificence of the United States of America. Clearly a sociopathic personality. A lot in common with Cheney.
Jimmy G , May 23, 2019 at 15:57
Again the panic is stirred by .. The NYT! (The source of such good info regarding Russia gate) .
The statement regarding Bolton " ordering" anything is just one more example of the media and the intel bureaucrats trying to
put the President in a jam politically . (Remember how a month ago we were invading Venezuela?)
Bolton is doing nothing more than getting enough rope to hang himself, and the military intelligence service, congressional
and media Trumpophobes are willing to stir this to the very edge, and we all know Congress could (if it could act in good Constitutional
faith, rather than pretending to be the judicial branch) unite for the good of this country and Trump would be amenable to whatever
they came up with. Trump is far less of a warmonger than any POTUS we've had in a very long time.
Realist , May 23, 2019 at 16:18
If Congress is the only branch of government with the constitutional power to declare a war, surely it has the power to FORBID
the executive branch from fomenting such a war against their judgement.
In fact, wasn't the Boland Amendment such a legislative act passed with the intent of preventing the Reagan administration
from pursuing military action in Central America, most notably Nicaragua and El Salvador?
What's to prevent the Congress, if it were so inclined (which I doubt it is) to instruct the president (especially if he
seems trigger-happy) to refrain from initiating any unprovoked attacks upon Iran, Venezuela, North Korea or any other country,
for that matter?
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:56
Ollie North worked for Reagan, didn't he?
RnM , May 25, 2019 at 17:27
Trump is very aware that 'Stache Bolton and Mike "Mumbles" Pompeo are significant threats to his re-election. Would not be
surprised to see them removed before January.
CitizenOne , May 25, 2019 at 21:02
The NYT has indeed supported wars but it is not alone nor is this a recent trend. There is a very old trend of the commercial
news establishments becoming war hawks and regurtitators of official propaganda whenever the USA wants to pick a fight. It goes
back to the period after the establishment of the nation when expansionism set its roots down and what grew out of that is pretty
much the same kind of nationalistic propaganda we see today.
I agree with your statement that Trump is far less vulnerable based on his history but I am sure that the war planners are
always concocting special information diets that are carefully prepared to appeal to the particular tastes of the leader of
the day. Whatever Trumps opinion is he will be surrounded by the hand picked lunatics of the day who will entice and enjoin
him to agree with plans for war based on their carefully prepared menu of propaganda specifically designed to be appealing to
the palate of whoever is in charge.
It is less certain that Trump's long history of opposing military action will have real staying power as he is served up
courses of a sumptuous meal prepared specially for his palate designed to engage him in support for military action all over
the World.
Trump is particularly susceptible to flattery and appeals to his greatness and his very stable genius. He wants to be the
great leader and for that he needs a plan to deal with the geopolitical situation in many countries.
Trump is a man who knows what to do too.
He advised Germany that it was a puppet of Russia until he didn't
He advised Teresa May how to do Brexit the right way until he didn't
He announced to the World he had forged deep connections with North Korea until he didn't
He had high hopes for an alliance with Russia until he didn't.
He specified the right type of fire fighting to be used to fight the Notre Dame Cathedral fire until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the fight in Syria until he didn't
He wanted to walk away from the war in Syria again until he didn't
He wanted to cut the military budget until he didn't
Ordinarily if we were in the middle of a democratic presidency the press would be raising the "flip flopper" argument every
second of their available airtime.
Democrats are the flip floppers but never a republican even when he is. It all depends on the way the flips and the flops
land. If they land on conservative positions then a flop or a flip never occurred. With republicans, flip flopping is just a
corrective action to realign the president on the correct course. If it is a democrat then their hypocrisy and flip flopping
are broadcast 24/7 and are portrayed a fundamentally disqualifying events which demonstrate a fundamental lack of principles
and weakness of character deserving of condemnation. When errant republicans flip flop over to the "correct" vision they are
welcomed with open arms into the fold.
Trump wants to be accepted so badly that the democrats hounding him are in fact herding him into the fold of the conservatives
who will shelter him and support him at all costs and the media will never ever ever never call this flip flopping.
In short, if a political candidate shifts to the left his integrity will be destroyed as his character will be portrayed
as weak and built on shifting sands. He will be deemed not to be trusted like some loose cannon.
On the other hand, if a political candidate shifts to the right he will be greeted as a prodigal son returning to the fold
and will be welcomed with open arms.
So I am not as sure as you that Trump's background will be any indicator of his future ideas about how to succeed in the
environment he is in where both democrats by their antagonism and republicans by their defense of him both push him over to
the right.
He may once have been far less of a war hawk but politicians on both sides of the aisle are pushing him further to the right
every day.
Consortium News editor Joe Lauria may wish to contribute a follow up series of articles detailing the purity of pro-Israel
Lobby pathology exemplified by Bolton, Pompeo, and the beyond troubling Trump preferably before the next war.
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 19:33
"the wider extent of pro-Israel Lobby pathology in the US government. "
That's it in a nutshell.
KiwiAntz , May 24, 2019 at 18:46
Thanks Joe for the great article. Bolton (aka the moustache) truly is a humourless, warmongering, depraved psycho? This is
a cowardly man who dodged the Vietnam draft as he didn't want to die in some foreign patty field! But this lunatic has no qualms
to send other peoples sons & daughters into a Iranian war zone as cannon fodder to satisfy his deluded & perverted bloodlust
to destroy Iran? If "the moustache" wants a War with Iran he should be forced to fight on the frontlines with his troops along
with POTUS Bonespurs Trump, another cowardly draft dodger? Let the moustache & the Dotard make a stand, like Jon Snow in the
Battle of the bastards, sword in hand, facing down the so called Iranian, bogeyman enemy, but this would never happen as cowards
& bastards like Bolton & Trump don't personally fight in the battles they start, they hide in safety in a Washington situation
room, as far away from any War zone as possible! If Bolton gets his War with Iran, Trump will pay the price for this suicide
mission because he would be blamed for the fallout of any Military defeat! America's already sorry record of Military humiliation
& defeat in Regime change operations around the Globe would reach a crescendo if they ever dared to try to attack & overthrow
Iran as it would be the endgame of the US Empire!
mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:28
Trump is just Israel's bitch.
incontinent reader , May 24, 2019 at 01:08
Good comment, Abe. We've missed you. Keep posting more of the same.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:37
We Americans were bloodthirsty long before Israel existed.
anon , May 25, 2019 at 06:35
What an absurd zionist troll post. Try it with someone dumb, Zhu.
Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 15:17
First Joe, McKinley did not implement American submission to British Imperialism, though it began with the end of Grant's
administration as with the twice elected Groucher Cleveland, but it's confirmation as US policy began with Teddy Roosevelt.
The Roosevelt Corollary destroyed JQA's Community of Principle in the Americas which should be known as the true Monroe Doctrine,
contrary to popular opinion today which has incorrectly replaced the Monroe Doctrine with the Roosevelt Corollary (as Bolton
is especially want to do). TR signalled the end of the Lincoln Era of American industrial development and global cooperation,
which was best represented by Grant, the most overlooked of great Presidents (and perhaps we see similarities of Grant to Trump
today). Bolton indeed is Captain Kangaroo, presiding over his Court as the Queen of No Hearts would in Alice's confrontation
with British rule once she penetrates behind the facade of British Lockean empiricism. With insight only equalled to Lincoln's,
who said "We can't fight two wars at once, so first the Confederacy and then the British," Trump has identified the fascist
nexus within our government as that same British foe, a nexus led by Brennan, Rice, Clapper, Jarrett, et al, which works on
behalf of what Eisenhower (another overlooked great President and General) called the Military Industrial Complex. The MIC is
a British Intelligence deployment to fundamentally undermine our Constitution and put the US into a state of perpetual war and
police surveillance. It is now over 70 years in the making, and is enforcing a new Cold War and attempted coup of our elected
Government, and yet, it may have finally found its match, not just in Trump, but in Trump's intended cooperation with Putin
of Russia and Xi of China. These three nations, along with Modi of India (just reelected) are a true threat to this rotten British
system, from Fabian liberals to Bolton chickenhawks, the true enemy is this British System. If we move on that effectively,
we may just have a chance to win this revolutionary moment now unfolding throughout the trans-Atlantic world. Let us return
to JQA's community of principle for the entire world. Let us work with Trump to end this fascist British nexus. Let us celebrate
our true heritage as Americans!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:51
Your comments read with interesting and well taken.
BUT: The bottom line is that Trump hired Bolton (and Pompeo) and has wound him up and set him loose goosewalking across the
globe.
Why?
The buck for Bolton's suicidal buffonery stops with Trump.
So, I can't see him as a genuine foe of the Deep State-MIC as you describe.
Michael Steger , May 23, 2019 at 18:10
Bolton is loyal to Trump, even though he is a failed chickenhawk. Look at McMaster, at the leaking, and outright betrayal
of the President. Same with Tillerson, betrayal. Pompeo and Bolton have ridiculous views and bloated war rhetoric, but they're
personally loyal, perhaps opportunistically, and even temporarily, but nonetheless right now they are, and when they're not,
I bet they're gone. But Trump does control the policy. Look at North Korea, any war? Media said there would be, then worked
to undermine a deal. Venezuela, war? They're talking in Norway now, how'd that happen? Syria, troops out? MIC, Dems and Media
opposed, and Trump called them out for the first time since Eisenhower! Pompeo to Sochi to see Putin, progress. How'd that happen?
Trump is fighting the MIC and too many good Americans are spinning so fast from the propaganda machine they can't see straight.
anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 18:40
Interesting, but it is easy for a president to fight the MIC: simply fire and arrest anyone who acts against efforts to control
them. He could send any federal enforcement agency, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, reserves, national guard, or even the Coast
Guard, Secret Service, DC police, or private guards to arrest them and prosecute any resisters as traitors. It is not one man
against the MIC.
And they cannot assassinate him once he has announced that intention, without exposing their hand and unleashing a generation
of purges and strict controls. If he is surrounded by traitors, he has only to say that and fire the lot of them. He could leak
that anonymously to Wikileaks or tweet it and they would be terrified.
Mork D , May 25, 2019 at 01:48
Bolton has been working DC bureaucracy like a pro for decades. He's using Trump like a marionette while he runs circles around
the amateur. He was helping orchestrate foreign wars of choice back when Trump was still playing a pretend boss on TV. Bolton
has no loyalty except as a facade for those he needs to suck up to.
Your examples of non-wars are terrific. Trump is amazing! – because he's running the government so badly that the State Dept
doesn't know what the Pentagon is doing doesn't know and vice versa. He chose to ignore the Iran nuclear deal, which had prevented
Iran from developing nuclear weapons. So now, the Iranians declare (out of self defense) that they're now going to pursue nuclear
weapons. Trump then says that he doesn't want to attack Iran, but they must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. This
is a circular argument exactly of the type the MIC uses to engage in war. Pompeo then indicates that laughable, ineffectual
attempts at sabotage are most likely Iranian. This grave threat to our nation can't even do enough damage to an oil tanker to
make it take on water.
Just because someone fails to do something doesn't mean that they were against it the whole time. Maybe they're just awful
at it. Sure, Trump says some things that are heartening to the anti-war and anti-interventionist crowd. But the next day he'll
say something heartening to rabid neocons. He needs to grow a spine, but it's far too late. He's a dandy, a spoiled rich kid
fop who's never had to answer for his mishaps, because why, when you have inherited money and a stout legal team?
anon4d2 , May 24, 2019 at 19:06
The idea that "the MIC is a British Intelligence deployment" is fantastical, as the US MIC is several times the size of UK's
entire MIC, and such a secret could never be kept. The US MIC has engaged UK secret agencies to subvert the US Constitution
by serving as agents to pass intercepted US communications back to the US to pretend that the MIC didn't do it, or that it was
foreign intel. But that is a long way from UK controlling the US MIC.
There are certainly confluences of interests between the US and UK oligarchies, but I see no basis for the contention that
"American submission to British Imperialism began with the end of Grant's administration" when the US prosecuted Britain for
building the Alabama etc. to break the Union blockade, and was outraged that Britain considered recognition of the Confederacy
until it lost at Gettysburg. The US under TR was not submitting to anyone when it sent the Great White Fleet on tour, or when
it seized Cuba and the Philippines. Nor under Wilson when it stayed out of WWI until very late in the war, despite the Lusitania
loss. Nor under FDR when it stayed out of WWII until attacked, despite the passionate pleas of Churchill.
Some detailed argument with credible references would be needed to support those assertions.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:44
Scapegoating is real popular with lefties & rughties alike. American Exceptionalism forbids we ever accept respobility for
what we've done.
Zhu , May 25, 2019 at 01:45
No, the rest of humanity is not any better.
anon4d2 , May 25, 2019 at 06:48
The commenter was searching for causes, and some UK conspiracy is simply too far from any available evidence. In fact it
much appears to be a wild attempt to distract from the obvious causes including zionism, which you pretend is "scapegoating."
No, zionism is a principle corrupting factor in US politics, especially foreign policy.
If you don't see that, you must start learning the evidence, rather than relying on the presumption that it is mere scapegoating.
Otherwise you are serving their wrongful and racist tribal purposes, and others will presume that you know that.
Oscar Shank , May 26, 2019 at 07:24
Zhu knows it.
Vera Gottlieb , May 23, 2019 at 14:56
How much more peaceful the life on our entire planet would be if the Americans weren't around.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 16:58
Extend that to all humans, and the head of PETA would support the project.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:16
I doubt that. Nature hates a void.
Bethany , May 24, 2019 at 17:50
Exactly. Very well put.
Abe , May 23, 2019 at 14:19
Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani, the first director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),
only served about one year of his second term.
Bustani was forced out by the U.S. government in April 2002 because he wanted international chemical weapons monitors inside
Iraq and thus was seen as impeding the US push for war against Iraq. The US accused Bustani of "advocacy of inappropriate roles
for the OPCW".
Since 2011, the United Nations has stood by a US-Saudi-Israeli Axis financed and armed the mercenary terrorist forces attacked
Syria. In addition to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, major support for terrorist mercenaries has provided
via NATO-member state Turkey, as well as Jordan. Israel has launched repeated air attacks and provided direct support for terrorist
forces in Syria.
From July 2010 to 2018, the Director-General of the OPCW was Turkish career diplomat Ahmet Uzumcu. Uzumcu served ambassador
to Israel from 1999 to 2002, and as the Permanent Representative of Turkey to NATO between 2002 and 2004.
Turkey has been the primary channel for mercenary terrorist forces assaulting the Syrian state. The remaining terrorist forces
in the Idlib Governorate continue to be supplied through Syria.
Since Uzumcu announced the creation of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in Syria on 29 April 2014, not a single OPCW report
has acknowledged these basic facts concerning the conflict in Syria.
Following a consensus recommendation by the OPCW Executive Council in October 2017. Spanish career diplomat Fernando Arias
was appointed to replace Uzumcu as Director-General of the OPCW. Previously, Arias served as Ambassador of Spain to the Netherlands
and the Permanent Representative of Spain to the OPCW. He also has served as Permanent Representative of Spain to the United
Nations in New York.
Uzumcu, and now Bustani, obviously understand that the appropriate role of the OPCW is to provide propaganda support for
"regime change" operations, and to say nothing contrary to the "narrative" endorsed by the US-Saudi-Israeli Axis.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 17:52
The OPCW has certainly disgraced themselves in Syria. What a sham.
Randal Marlin , May 23, 2019 at 13:48
John Bolton's questioner in the second clip should have made the distinction between deception used to lead the country into
war, and deception used to pursue a war already constitutionally declared and already underway.
In the first case there is a violation of democratic principle. When the people are the ultimate sovereign, they need to be
properly informed. They can agree to deception, like where and when D-Day will occur, during war; but not in the case of leading
the people into war. Lying to Congress is always unacceptable, and those who do lie to Congress should be made to suffer serious
penalties.
zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 02:13
I read a report that the aircraft carrier strike force and preparation of 120,000 US troops, to Persian Gulf was ordered
sometime ago and that Bolton took advantage of that fact to make it look that 'Bolton ordered it'?
vinnieoh , May 24, 2019 at 10:54
What I'd read is that the carrier strike force and bomber detachment were previously scheduled: there had been a previous
drawdown and this deployment represents a return to a level similar to the end of the Iraq war, and that does sound like Bolton/Pompeo
opportunism. The 120,000 troops plan sounds like something Bolton prodded pentagon scribes to produce. How to interpret when
Bolton says that then Trump denies it, and then a new troop deployment (1% of the previous) is announced/suggested/leaked? I
see it as Trump taking his dogs out for a walk to snarl at the neighbors.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 13:07
"Thus Bolton was the driving force to get a carrier strike force sent to the Persian Gulf and, according to The New York
Times, on May 14, it was he who 'ordered' a Pentagon plan to prepare 120,000 U.S. troops for the Gulf."
That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton, may be giving
such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.
The National Security Advisor is, as the title states, merely an advisor – not confirmed by the Senate, and therefore not,
in constitutional terms, an "officer of the United States" with the authority to carry out the policy of the government. Other
than his assistant fetching him lunch, nobody in government should be following Bolton's orders at all while he holds this job.
But this is nothing new. I had the same concern, on an even larger scale, during the first Bush Jr. administration when Cheney
was running around reshaping the government in his own warped image. Despite the Vice President's elected status, he has no
executive power under the Constitution – no power at all, in fact, except when sitting as President of the Senate. There was
a time when everyone knew that.
With all the perennial crowing we see about the greatness of the Constitution, and the mewling about how Trump is degrading
it, it would be nice if Congress and the media could spare a moment to care about whether the people giving orders to the world's
largest military and covert/intelligence apparatus are legally empowered to do so.
Ash , May 23, 2019 at 17:17
> That the National Security Advisor, irrespective of whether the job is currently held by a lunatic like Bolton,
> may be giving such orders should in and of itself be a subject of serious inquiry by Congress and the media.
It does kind of have an Alexander Haig flavor to it, doesn't it?
David G , May 23, 2019 at 22:08
When Bolton gets up and says "I'm in control here", I'm definitely finding a rock to hide under.
Zenobia van Dongen , May 23, 2019 at 13:06
The question that Joe Lauria asked of John Bolton, i.e. "If the United States and Britain had not overthrown a democratically
elected government in Iran in 1953 would the United States be today faced with a revolutionary government enriching uranium?"
seems to imply that Iran seeks revenge against the US for the CIA's 1953 coup d'état against prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq.
However the current leaders of Iran are not entitled to consider themselves the heirs of Mossadeq, nor are they morally justified
in avenging him, since the CIA coup relied largely on support from the very same clerical establishment that now rules Iran.
As a matter of fact in the 1950s and 60s Shia clerics in Iran were routinely considered CIA agents. Consequently the Iranian
elite's pretense of carrying on Mossadeq's anti-imperialist struggle is profoundly hypocritical. I grant that the current reactionary
clique that governs Iran defends Iran's sovereignty against US imperialism as Mossadeq did. But the underlying concept of the
Iranian nation is profoundly different. The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty
that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist
revolution of 1909. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Constitutional_Revolution
Indeed, Iran has no hesitation in crushing underfoot the aspirations to independence of other nations. It ruthlessly conducts
ethnic cleansing in Syria, commits assassinations in South America, and in general behaves with imperialist ruthlessness that
is moreover unmitigated by any concern for human rights or international law.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 14:27
As to your last paragraph please provide proof for your allegations. As to your second paragraph you assume to know the meaning
behind the question Mr. Lauria asked. Could it be possible (this I believe is more likely) that what Mr. Lauria meant or realizes
that absent the '53 coup would there now be an Islamic theocracy ruling Iran?
Again making the disclaimer that I'm no expert on the region or Iran particularly I have followed many leads of reading and
investigation to understand the ramifications of that seminal event (the '53 coup.) What I believe I've understood is that Iran
prior to and until the '53 coup was on its own unique trajectory of reclaiming its sovereignty and rejecting its status as a
(UK) colonial vassal. There seemed to be a somewhat fluid acceptance of the rising democratic movement of Mosaddeq et. al.,
a fading nod to the former royal house, and an acceptance of Shiite religiosity of some considerable social legitimacy.
So, three centers of power and influence working its unique way to an unique Iranian future.
With the US/UK engineered coup the imperialists destroyed the legitimate democratic evolution happening there. With the re-installation
of the Shah Reza Pahlavi as the puppet ruler of the US, that traditional center of power and legitimacy was likewise forever
delegitimized in the eyes of most Iranians. That sentiment was cemented with the creation of SAVAK by the US, UK, and Israel
to be the iron fist of the Shah and his new imperial master.
That left only one center of power or authority which retained legitimacy in the eyes of Iranians – the Shiite theocrats,
and that is why when Iranians kicked the US out it was the Islamic theocracy doing the booting. You are correct that there was
at least one Shiite cleric (I've forgotten his name,) jealous and fearful of the rising influence of democratic governance,
who is a known and recorded collaborator with the US/UK machinations of the coup. Without the help of the US/UK his part in
the affair would probably have been inconsequential.
It is not Iran that is funding and establishing Islamic madrasses in Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Africa and elsewhere.
It is the Wahhabist Sunnis and they preach intolerance and violent jihad. Furthermore, of the total global population of adherents
of Islam, 75% are Sunni affiliated, and 25% are Shiite affiliated. Those percentages hold true in the immediate region of the
ME as well. The repeated claims of Iranian desires of empire are a shibboleth emanating from KSA and UAE.
The leaders of the Islamic Revolution used Mossadegh's image to help get people on board against the Shah, The National Front
was allowed to be a party again for a short time, and a Street in Tehran was renamed post-revolution for Mohammad Mossadegh.
This was a cynical ploy by the Mullahs to get people on board with their revolution and make people believe that they were indeed
the true heirs of Mossadegh and committed to democracy. It was all a sham. The National Front was made illegal again at some
point in the 80s, and the street named for Mossadegh was renamed around the same time. These people are the heirs of the Shah
whether they like it or not.
anon4d2 , May 23, 2019 at 16:59
Joe's question points out that, had the US not overthrown Mossadegh, there would have been a secular democratic government.
That is true throughout the Mideast, where in the 1950s-70s the US supported radical Islamic movements that suppressed secular
movements and overthrew secular governments, pretending that the USSR was moving in. There was no evidence of USSR interest
there, as it was preoccupied with such factions in its central Asian republics, and apparently only some arms from the USSR
in Egypt were ever found as "evidence."
Similar US actions have continued to date, almost 30 years after the collapse of the USSR, the US always supporting fanatics
against moderates like Assad and Ghaddafi, and pretending to support "democracy."
Compare the US support of Saudi Arabia, a fanatical fundamentalist monarchy engaged in terrorism throughout the region, including
against their only neighbor that defends minority rights, Syria. Again falsely claiming the need to protect oil supply, which
it can buy anywhere without bombing anyone, like any other oil buyer. Again falsely claiming to support democracy which it overthrows
everywhere at the pleasure of its own oligarchy, always to "protect Israel" or attack socialism, which is always to get political
bribes.
There is no evidence of any "ethnic cleansing" by Iran in Syria or elsewhere. Where do you get that idea? Iran is majority
Shiah, defending the majority Sunni population of Syria from Sunni fundamentalists. You certainly have no evidence that Iran
"commits assassinations in South America" or opposes "aspirations to independence of other nations" and made that up to deceive
others. Your comments on this site have been knowingly false.
zhenry , May 24, 2019 at 03:44
The above, re the current Iranian religious govt, very informative, thankyou.
Re Joe's article I cannot take seriously that Trump is against war and the Deep State.
If Trumps rhetoric during his electioneering, supporting the middle class (deeply deprived after the US corporations abandoned
them for low paid Chinese labour) was in any way honest he would not have chosen the cabinet he did (and keeps on choosing).
Trump has not chosen one cabinet member that would support that supposed sympathy for the middle class.
Reporting that assumes Trump is fighting for moderation (against his own cabinet) and to establish policies in the direction
of that sympathy, is without evidence, it seems to me, regardless of what he might suggest to Fox News.
Vonu , May 23, 2019 at 17:00
"The present régime has no respect for the principles of democracy and popular sovereignty that pervaded Iran's anti-imperialist
struggle in the 1950s and was derived from the democratic ideals of the Persian constitutionalist revolution of 1909."
And the American government has equal respect for the Constitution.
Bolton didn't order a carrier group to the Persian Gulf. He doesn't have the authority. The carrier group left because of
the deployment was already planned. Bolton does not have the power that has been ascribed to him. He is a grandiose clown who
knows how to play the press. I don't think he will have his job six months from now.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 12:16
"At the time of Bolton's appointment in April 2018, Tom Countryman predicted to The Intercept that if Iran resumed enrichment
after the U.S. left the deal, it 'would be the kind of excuse that a person like Bolton would look to to create a military provocation
or direct attack on Iran.' In response to ever tightening sanctions, Iran said that it would indeed restart partial nuclear
enrichment."
Two problems with this part of the article:
• The link in the main text here goes to an Intercept article about Bolton, but it has no mention of Tom Countryman, or even
of Iran.
• It isn't accurate to say that Iran may now, or is saying it will, "resume" or "restart" nuclear enrichment, since it never
ceased, nor did it ever commit to cease, such activity. The JCPOA merely imposed strict *limits* and monitoring on nuclear enrichment
and stockpiling, some of which Iran is saying it will now depart from.
I also disagree with the imputation elsewhere in the article that Donald Trump has a good understanding of real estate. His
disastrous, decades-long record in that business suggests otherwise. But I suppose some people will always believe what they
see on TV.
lou e , May 23, 2019 at 12:06
Creeping fascism works like fishing with a rod and reel. You hook the fish and it runs off 100 ft of line . You reel in 50
ft and the fish takes 30 feet back. Do the Math! Some times burning down the village IS the only way to get rid of the infestation.
Bit hard on the USSA, but as Ben Franklin put it you have a democratic republic IF ypu can Keep It.
Remember at an earlier time with Bolton, someone described him as a kiss up kick down kind of guy, i.e., a real jerk. I defended
Trump against Russiagate because it was a threat to the office of the president. Unless, he gets his head straight, his "political"
moves in the Middle East and Southwest Asia can spin out of control. He is not negotiating a new deal with some city to build
another hotel, and his rhetoric makes him sound like that is the way he thinks he should act with other countries.
One can defend him by saying maybe it will work, but then maybe not and it is not a matter of your target taking his papers
and leaving the room.
Great article, Mr. Lauria. Have you posted your resume on your site? Interested in your confrontation with Bolton.
Trump wants to be reelected more that being the President but in his defense we know what he will face if he decides to enter
into honest negotiations. He's going to have a heck of a time finding people to cover his back. He can count on one presidential
aspirant, Tulsi Gabbard but she's on the other side.
Jeff Harrison , May 23, 2019 at 11:42
If we have to rely on Thump for anything other than social controls, we're screwed.
David G , May 23, 2019 at 11:40
These personal reminiscences of Bolton at the U.N. by Joe Lauria unfortunately only confirm the man's very public record.
The fact that such a creature has been accepted for so long in the heart of U.S. foreign "policy" is yet more evidence that
the country's crisis of political culture started long before Trump came on the scene.
I don't quite accept the slight comfort implied in the formulations here that this time Bolton has "gone too far", or "flown
too high", since to me they imply that there is some moral or rational bedrock that he has struck beneath which the establishment
is not willing to go.
I don't think that's true, as a general proposition. For example, the U.S. continues less noisily but inexorably on its long-term
collision course with China, which will be even more catastrophic than war with Iran, not to mention the ultimate one with the
planet's environmental limits.
For me it's enough that, for a number of contingent reasons, Bolton's (and MBS's and Netanyahu's) lunge at Iran has fallen
flat with both U.S. and European policy and media elites – for now, and I hope forever.
I just called WH 202-456-1111 to tell President Trump that Bolton should be fired; had to wait 8 min to talk. Trump certainly
has lots of problems, but he'll have plenty more if he starts a war! Pox Americana!
Litchfield , May 23, 2019 at 16:58
Great idea.
I'll do the same.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:04
Thank you Mr. Lauria. I'm tending to believe that not only has Bolton flown too high, but Trump's predictable method of trying
to get what he wants was completely miscalculated wrt Iran. There is no better treaty or deal to be had concerning keeping Iran
from developing a nuclear weapon. The failures of the JCPOA that Trump is probably griping about all have to do with matters
of Iran's necessary and legitimate right to security and self-defense. No sane nation would willingly give in to this bullying.
Thanks again.
vinnieoh , May 23, 2019 at 11:44
Also, wrt Trump's predictable patterns, note that little if anything has changed regarding the US and the DPRK, so if he
is a crafty and effective negotiator I'm having a hard time seeing it.
David G. Horsman , May 23, 2019 at 18:22
Good example Vinnieoh. NK and SK are reaching out and (more importantly) shoving out the US. More winning.
I love Trump. He is useful. Fascism, NAFTA, generic racism you name it, he really shines a light on issues.
Here again. (Currently) SA, GAZA, Israel, Syria and of course Iran. Hell, the entire region. What a train wreck he is.
What about the dollar? The EU? Yikes.
By gosh this man could single handedly take down an empire! MAGA!
Well done, Joe Lauria. Of course our dilemma is Donald Trump says one thing and contradicts himself 5 minutes later. You
could say he "changes his mind" but I do not think his mind is stable to begin with. He's far too nuts to put any faith in for
"doing the right thing,"
Bolton and his neoconservative pox on the world serve the interests of the war machine and fossil fuel corporations. When
will be rid of them? When We the People grow a set of testicles and throw them all into prison. Trump isn't going to save us,
but he might let Bolton get us all killed.
Seems that Trump is so small minded that what we observe cannot be explained mechanistically, we need quantum mechanics.
Rather that a particular state of mind we have a stochastic distribution, wave patterns and spin.
Yes, Joe Lauria has presented the problem very well.
A major factor is certainly the persuasiveness of the NSC and other MIC entities which surround the president, and comprise
much of official DC. Try persuading anyone in the MIC that war is ever inappropriate: they are all full of extreme scorn and
false accusations, and have endless "evidence" of threats behind every tree, and rationales to attack this or at least that,
just to make "statements" and "warnings" to invisible foreign monsters. The MIC is a completely and permanently logic-proof
subculture of bullying, which bullies every member of its own tribe to line up behind tyrants like Bolton and a million other
puerile bullies devoid of humanity.
No doubt you know that this was all well understood by the founders of the US, who restricted federal military powers to
repelling invasions and knew that any standing military was a threat to democracy. The Federalist Papers should be required
reading in the US. All of those understandings were gradually lost after the War of 1812 and the 1820s, as the founders died
off. As the US became confident that it could repel any invasion, it lost the sense of the necessity of unity and cooperation
of regions, and Congress degenerated into a battle of intransigent factions leading to the completely unnecessary Civil War.
With the ebullient emergence of the middle class, no effort was made to correct the defects of the Constitution in failing to
protect the institutions of democracy from the rising power of economic concentrations. With WWI and WWII, the power of oligarchy
over mass media was consolidated, and by WWII the oligarchy and MIC effectively controlled elections, mass media, and the judiciary,
the tools of democracy. Democracy has been a facade ever since.
The US has zero security problems that the MIC has not created, and could at any time re-purpose 80% of the MIC to developing
infrastructure in the poorest nations with positive effects upon its security. Had it done so since WWII, we would have rescued
the poorest half of humanity from poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, and disease, and would have had a true American Century.
Instead we have killed over 20 million innocents and mortgaged the lives of our children to serve the infantile psychopaths
of the MIC.
The solution is not only to eliminate the 2000-member NSC, cut the military by at least 80 percent, prohibit acts of war
or surveillance by the executive branch, tax the rich so that no one has income above upper middle class, and demand amendments
to the Constitution restricting funding of the mass media and elections to limited and registered individual donations. We also
desperately need a fourth branch of federal government, which I am calling the College of Policy Debate, to conduct moderated
textual debates of policy issues in all regions, protecting and representing every viewpoint, in which all views are challenged
and must respond, and all parties must come to common terms. The CPD should produce commented debate summaries available to
the public with mini-quizzes and discussion groups. Without that rational analysis and access to the core debates, we do not
have a democracy at all, we are all no more than the fools and pawns of these oligarchy scammers, who must be actively excluded
from all government capacities.
Sorry for the lecture.
Linda Wood , May 24, 2019 at 01:59
Please don't apologize, Sam F. Your brilliant and humane words give me hope at a time in which I am in shock at the blatancy
of fascism in our government.
Doggrotter , May 23, 2019 at 10:33
Where is a drone strike when you need one?
OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 10:23
" seemed to always think he was the smartest person in the room."
Useful fools are often most useful when they are believers that they are not fools.
Once upon a time there was a discussion of which of the opponents' should be proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize – the list
being relatively long.
After extensive analysis and discussion the short-list consisted of two opponents in alphabetical order Mr. John Bolton and
Mr. Karl Rove.
However in light of the notion "Do you think your opponents are as stupid as you are? " the proposal question was left in
abeyance, not only as a function of decorum but also through understanding that "Useful fools are often most useful when they
are believers that they are not fools." and that even small dogs can seem tall when you are lying on your stomach.
OlyaPola , May 24, 2019 at 17:33
Since omniscience can't exist perhaps Mr. Bolton was/is subject to misrepresentation and misunderstanding?
"Pompeo told a radio interviewer after the briefing that the U.S. had still not determined who attacked two Saudi, a Norwegian
and an Emirati oil tanker in the Gulf last week, which bore the hallmarks of a provocation. Pompeo said "it seems like it's
quite possible that Iran was behind" the attacks."
What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships? Smells of another false flag.
I would not be so sure. A delicate signal that Iran has more capabilities concerning stopping in-out-Gulf traffic than naive
people like Bolton realize has a sobering potential. By the way of contrast, what kind of black flag it is if it is instantly
put in doubt, "we do not know" etc. When there were "chemical incidents" in Syria, no one in Washington claimed the need for
more facts, uncertainty etc.
Instead, UAE initially denied that it happened at all, subsequently, together with KSA, they did not have any "certain knowledge".
Somehow no government appears to promote the incident. Even USA.
BTW, the allegation that Iran is placing missiles on fishing boats staggers the mind. First of all, "missile boats" of which
Iran has plenty are small ships, BUT NOT VERY small, ca. 500-800 tons, which are fast, 40 kt, but not as fast as their predecessors,
torpedo boats (200-300 tons, 50-60 kt). They are still faster than any of the larger naval vessels, can trail them, and attack
from small distance in the case of start of hostilities. That Iran places missiles on such boats can be learned from videos
proudly provided by PressTV.ir.
Using "fishing boats" for that purpose is dubious, and the largest question mark would be: WHY? The reason that missile boats
are larger and heavier than torpedo boats is that you need more stability to launch missiles than torpedoes. Then you need a
radar etc. Placing missiles on fishing boats would be a waste of missiles. Hardly an escalation.
OlyaPola , May 23, 2019 at 12:47
"Hardly an escalation."
Perhaps you are being deflected by framing?
One of the escalations is the escalation of belief in, requirement of, and resort to, the dumbed-downess of the "target audience".
One of the salient questions being deflected is why, and as ever investigation requires some knowledge of Mr. Heisenberg
and his principles.
mark , May 23, 2019 at 22:34
Perhaps the Iranians are putting missiles on fishing boats to stun the fish and catch them that way. Fishing boats aren't
exactly very fast.
Anyone who actually believes the oil tanker incidents were carried by Iran should seek an immediate consultation with their
doctor. These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools and Iranians are not fools.
Brian , May 23, 2019 at 17:22
Exactly. According navel personnel, Iran has been using fishing boats to transfer rockets from land to it's vessels for years,
supposedly because the gulf is too shallow. I don't have hydrographic maps of the area, anyone know if this is true?
Clearly, Persian Gulf has routes for the largest ships on Earth, but the supply bases for missiles may be away from ports,
and it would make sense to place them so they are not easily accessible to a big ship navy, and in general, to disperse them.
Tim , May 26, 2019 at 06:43
"Thomas"
> These blatant false flags clearly are the work of fools
Since neither you nor I know who did it, and there are a whole slew of plausible suspects, we don't know why they did it,
either. So it is silly to claim they are fools.
Since the Saudis and UAE are in the midst of waging war on Yemen, the most obvious suspects are their enemies there, al-Ansara.
(And by the way, contrary to what another commentator claimed, it was not a "few dents", but a gaping hole in the hull just
below the waterline. And since the local authorities spoke of an impact by an unidentified object, these were presumably torpedo
strikes.)
OlyaPola , May 26, 2019 at 07:58
"What possible advantage could accrue to Iran from putting a few dents in the ships?"
Quite a few including but not limited to further data on the opponents' perception of what constitutes plausible belief for
the opponents' target audience, and the opponents' increasing resort to, amplitude, scope and velocity of "misrepresentations".
As is the case with the benefits of dumbing down not accruing solely to those actively engaged in dumbing down, the benefits
of creation and implementation of "false flags" do not accrue solely to those engaged in "false flags", and are enhanced when
the creators and implementers of "false flags" are immersed in amalga of projection and notions of sole/prime agency, facilitating
potential benefits to many others not restricted to Iran.
Note Firefox does not pickup the user name in Zero hedge anymore. So user names in comments were omitted... BTW comments from
Zerohedge reflect very well the level of frustration and confusion of common Americans with the neoliberal social system. Neoliberal
elites clearly lost most of the legitimacy in 2016.
While this is pretty poignant critique of American empire it does not ask and answer the key question: "What's next?" The crisis
of neoliberalism and the end of cheap oil probably will eventually crush the US led global empire and dollar as the reserve currency.
Although it probably will be much slower and longer process then many expect.
Are we talking about 20, 40 or 80 years here?
But what is the alternative to the neoliberal and the US dominated global neolinberal empire established after dissolution of the
USSR in 1991? That's the question.
Notable quotes:
"... Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct. ..."
"... There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and are often punished legally for their imposed poverty. ..."
"... Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism. But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's global capital investments. ..."
"... Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant [neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests" of the United States. ..."
"... To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent. ..."
"... The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ..."
"... But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering are contributing to that demise ..."
"... The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role. ..."
"... In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China. ..."
"... Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down to an art form. ..."
"... How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers wanted? ..."
"... Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner ..."
" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the
blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan,
after bombing it into the 'stone age' with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the US government is back in talks with the
very same Taliban. In the interim it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war
and sanctions, a whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities -- pounded into dust."
– Arundhati Roy
"As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the
deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the
very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater
force than the cunning of the authorities. "
― Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military
force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period,
I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was
a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism ."
― Smedley Butler, War is a Racket
"It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the
alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the
United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and
our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 31 March 1968
Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition
of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of
empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military
industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public
to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism
has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct.
Violence is the sole language of empire. It is this only currency it uses to enforce its precepts and edicts, both at home and
abroad. Eventually this language becomes internalized within the psyche of the subjects. Social and cultural conditioning maintained
through constant subtle messaging via mass media begins to mold the public will toward that of authoritarian conformity. The American
Empire is emblematic of this process. There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often
without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and
are often punished legally for their imposed poverty.
But the social conditioning of the American public has led toward a bizarre allegiance to its ruling class oppressors. Propaganda
still works here and most are still besotted with the notion of America being a bastion of "freedom and democracy." The growing gap
between the ultra-wealthy and the poor and the gutting of civil liberties are ignored. And blind devotion is especially so when it
comes to US foreign policy.
Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble
and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability
to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism.
But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's
global capital investments.
The persecution of Chelsea Manning, much like the case of Julian Assange, is demonstrative of this. It is a crusade against truth
tellers that has been applauded from both sides of the American establishment, liberal and conservative alike. It does not matter
that she helped to expose American war crimes. On the contrary, this is seen as heresy to the Empire itself. Manning's crime was
exposing the underbelly of the beast. A war machine which targeted and killed civilians and journalists by soldiers behind a glowing
screen thousands of miles away, as if they were playing a video game.
Indeed, those deadened souls pulling the virtual trigger probably thought they were playing a video game since this is how the
military seduced them to serve in their ranks in the first place. A kind of hypnotic, addictive, algorithmic tyranny of sorts. It
is a form of escapism that so many young Americans are enticed by given their sad prospects in a society that has denuded the commons
as well as their future. That it was a war based on lies against an impoverished nation already deeply weakened from decades of American
led sanctions is inconsequential....
... ... ...
Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant
[neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests"
of the United States. The imposed suffering on these nations has been twisted as proof that they are now in need of American
salvation in the form of even more crippling sanctions, coups, neoliberal austerity and military intervention. As the corporate vultures
lie in wait for the next carcass of a society to feed upon, the hawks are busy building the case for the continuation and expansion
of capitalist wars of conquest.
Bolton and Pompeo are now the equivalent of the generals who carved up Numidia for the wealthy families of ancient Rome, with
Trump, the half-witted, narcissistic and cruel emperor, presiding over the whole in extremis farce. Indeed, the bloated orange Emperor
issued the latest of his decrees in his usual banal fashion, via tweet:
"If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!"
One can query when Iran, or any other nation has ever "threatened" the United States, but that question will never be asked by
the corporate press who are also in service to Empire. They are, in fact, its mouthpiece and advocate. The US has at least 900 military
bases and colonial outposts scattered around the planet, yet this is never looked at as imperialistic in the least by the establishment,
including its media. Scores of nations lie in ruins or are besieged with chaos and misery thanks to American bellicosity , from Libya
to Iraq and beyond. But the US never looks back in regret at any of its multiple forays, not even a few years back.
To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its
greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its
hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent.
... ... ...
American Empire knows no other language sans brutality, deceit and belligerence...
... ... ...
The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ...
But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering
are contributing to that demise . After all, billions of dollars are spent to keep the bloated military industrial complex afloat
in service to the ruling class while social and economic safety nets are torn to shreds...
Nowadays the US has a massive military and little else. And "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to
look like a nail" - Wesley Clark, Former US General.
14 hours ago
Twaddle. Capitalism has lifted out of poverty more people around the globe than all other "successful" systems combined; and
in a fraction of the time. Education. Health. Wealth. Not to mention Arts and Sciences.
Go demand a refund for your liberal education. And stop spreading lies.
11 hours ago (Edited)
Poppycock! Capitalism has traded real sovereign wealth for fiat debt backed funny money at the barrel of a gun! You assholes
have been forcing otherwise healthy communities into poverty for decades so you could steal their resources and molest their children!
Why? Because children are the only people impressed by your tiny d!cks!
The organization described the average sex tourist as a middle-aged white male from either Europe or North
America who often goes online to find the " best deals. " One particular Web site promised "nights of sex with two
young Thai girls for the price of a tank of gas."
Sowmia Nair, a Department of Justice agent, said the Thai government often "turns a blind eye" to child sex tourism because
of the country's economic reliance on the tourist trade in general . He also said police officers are often corrupt.
" Police have been known to guard brothels and even procure children for prostitution," Nair said. "Some police
directly exploit the children themselves."
A report from the International Bureau for Children's Rights said the majority of child prostitutes come from poor families
in northern Thailand, referred to as the "hill tribes." With limited economic opportunities and bleak financial circumstances,
these families, out of desperation, give their children to "recruiters," who promise them jobs in the city and then force the
children into prostitution.
Sometimes families themselves even prostitute their children or sell them into the sex trade for a minuscule sum of money.
This is not by accident! This is by design!
14 hours ago
Capitalism has nothing to do with this. For the average American the empire is a losing proposition.
13 hours ago (Edited)
Empire good. Emperor bad. Kingdom good. King bad. Country good. President bad. Village good. Idiot bad.
13 hours ago (Edited)
Empire is cancer. Especially the present one that leaves a trail of failed states and antangonism in its wake.
16 hours ago
We are part of a scientific dictatorship - the 'Ultimate Revolution' Huxley spoke of in 1962 where the oppressed willingly
submit to their enslavement. Social conditioning - promoted by continuous propaganda stressing that the state is their protector,
reinforced by endless 'terrorist threats' to keep the masses fearful is but one part of the system.
The state no longer has to use threats and fear of punishment to keep the masses under control - the masses have been convinced
that they are better off as slaves and serfs than they were as free men.
The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes
and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is
losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role.
18 hours ago
Capitalism and corporatism are not the same. When corporate interests effectively wield gov power, you have corporatism, not
Capitalism.
14 hours ago
Corporatism=Fascism.
18 hours ago 'Muricanism is the gee-gaw of the chattering classes.
18 hours ago (Edited)
The US is its own worst enemy. They have no idea what they are doing. 2008 – "Oh dear, the global economy just blew up"
Its experts investigate and conclude it was a black swan.
It is a black swan if you don't consider debt. They use neoclassical economics that doesn't consider debt.
They can't work out why inflation isn't coming back and the real economy isn't recovering faster.
Look at the debt over-hang that's still left after 2008 in the graph above, that's the problem. The repayment on debt to banks
destroy money pushing the economy towards debt deflation.
QE can't enter the real economy as so many people are still loaded up with debt and there are too few borrowers.
QE can get into the markets inflating them and the US stock market is now at 1929 levels. They have created another asset price
bubble that is ready to collapse leading to another financial crisis.
We need a new scientific economics for globalisation, got any ideas?
What if we just stick some complex maths on top of 1920s neoclassical economics?
No one will notice.
They didn't either, but it's still got all its old problems.
The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the debt deflation of the Great
Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private
debt, neoclassical economics.
What's the problem?
The belief in the markets gets everyone thinking you are creating real wealth by inflating asset prices.
Bank credit pours into inflating asset prices rather than creating real wealth (as measured by GDP) as no one is looking
at the debt building up
1929 and 2008 look so similar because they are; it's the same economics and thinking.
The 1920s problem in the US is now everywhere, UK, US, Euro-zone, Japan and China.
20 hours ago (Edited)
Capitalism is based on darwinian economic competition driven by a desire to accumulate material wealth. When a capitalist becomes
sufficiently rich, he can (and does) buy politicians and armies to do his bidding. Ironically, although capitalism is based on
the assumption of competition, capitalists actually hate competition and harbor the urge to put competitors out of business. The
true goal of a capitalists is monopoly-- as long as it is them.
Imperialism is a logical (and historically predictable) expansion of capitalism.
18 hours ago
Capitalism may not be the path to peace, but just about every other ism, including socialism and communism delivered worse.
Attacking capitalism for common failings is off base.
15 hours ago
Socialism and ultimately communism appear when capitalism goes rampant, and it is normal for the socium to embrace socialism
when the inequality becomes too large.
In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian
state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China.
So don't mistake the people's desire for equal world with totalitarian capitalism masked as socialism.
14 hours ago
the real issue is NO GROUP OF HUMANS can be trusted will any form of power. ever. period.
so it goes that no "xyz"ism" will ever work out for the whole. yet humans are social animals and seek to be in groups governed
by the very people that strive to lead that exhibit sociopathic tendencies, which are the worst possible leaders. how fuked up
is that?
so how can that work? it does for a while. then we end up in the same spot every time, turmoil, the forth turning.
the luck of life is the period of time you live during, where and what stage of human turmoil the society is in...
21 hours ago (Edited)
" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees".
Capitalism did all that huh? It had nothing to do with corrupt politicians in bed with corporations and banks. Now they even
have the military singing the same stupidity. Governments make these messes, not capitalism. Someone who risked their life for
a corrupt government giving the pieces of **** that put him there a free pass by blaming it on capitalism. What a moron. When
politicians hear this stupidity, it's like music to their ears. They know they've successfully shifted the blame to a simple ISM.
Governments want to blame the very thing that will fix all of this, for the sake of self-preservation.
18 hours ago
Every system acts to centralise power, even anarchism. So you say it was wealth that enabled what was to follow but it was
really power.. something every -ism will centralise and enable.
22 hours ago
Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down
to an art form.
16 hours ago
Really! Did you miss the Smedley Butler quote?
22 hours ago
Could you please distinguish between capitalism and political, monetary, fiscal, press, and legal aberrations that can occur
in capitalist systems because of government sloth and malfeasance? Media monopoly, mass illegal immigration, and offshoring are
not the essence of capitalism. And socialist systems can see hideous abuses.
Please read something more than **** and Jane adventures.
23 hours ago
"... is still the owner of the world's biggest nuclear arsenal."
===
Here is the list of all nine countries
with nuclear weapons in descending order, starting with the country that has the most nuclear weapons at hand and ending with
the country that has the least amount of nuclear weapons
China is negotiating a militarybasein a strategic port of Djibouti, the president said, according to
the AFP news agency. The move raises the prospect of US and Chinesebases side-by-side in the ...
Oct 10, 2017 · China and the small African nation of Djibouti reached an agreement in July to let the People's Liberation Army
establish up its first overseas militarybase there. The base on Africa's east ...
China is building its first militarybaseinAfrica . America should be very nervous. ... In
Africa , China has found not just a market for money but for jobs and land -- crucial components of ...
23 hours ago (Edited)
Oh noes! 1 base in Africa.....meanwhile the empire has 800 outposts around the world and despite that, like a snowflake, is
bitching about China's one.
Isn't it fascinating how the Chinese do not find it necessary to resort to retarded regime change projects and stoopid kikery
to "win" influence? Easy peasy. Methinks the Anglo-Zionists can learn a trick or two from China.
23 hours ago
The empire of 800 outposts is puny compared to the 1960's and 1970's. I can provide the information if you'd like. Almost all
the 800 have company sized or smaller contingents. Still, I'd like to see much of it dismantled. No world Policeman.
23 hours ago
The entire world is in favor of a more peaceful planet Earth, except the military-industrial complex. Ron Paul
War puts money in their pockets. Lots of money. It's in the trillions of dollars.
23 hours ago (Edited)
How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering
and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the
time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed
off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers
wanted?
Now you know why wars happen. If "we the people" can't stop this beast, another nation's military will.
21 hours ago
@BH II
Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner. The only way out of the morass is
to find men of very high character to correctly lead the way out. America needs a Socrates.
Note Firefox does not pickup the user name in Zero hedge anymore. So user names in comments were omitted... BTW comments from
Zerohedge reflect very well the level of frustration and confusion of common Americans with the neoliberal social system. Neoliberal
elites clearly lost most of the legitimacy in 2016.
While this is pretty poignant critique of American empire it does not ask and answer the key question: "What's next?" The crisis
of neoliberalism and the end of cheap oil probably will eventually crush the US led global empire and dollar as the reserve currency.
Although it probably will be much slower and longer process then many expect.
Are we talking about 20, 40 or 80 years here?
But what is the alternative to the neoliberal and the US dominated global neolinberal empire established after dissolution of the
USSR in 1991? That's the question.
Notable quotes:
"... Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct. ..."
"... There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and are often punished legally for their imposed poverty. ..."
"... Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism. But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's global capital investments. ..."
"... Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant [neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests" of the United States. ..."
"... To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent. ..."
"... The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ..."
"... But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering are contributing to that demise ..."
"... The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role. ..."
"... In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China. ..."
"... Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down to an art form. ..."
"... How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers wanted? ..."
"... Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner ..."
" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the
blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan,
after bombing it into the 'stone age' with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the US government is back in talks with the
very same Taliban. In the interim it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war
and sanctions, a whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities -- pounded into dust."
– Arundhati Roy
"As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the
deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the
very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater
force than the cunning of the authorities. "
― Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military
force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period,
I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was
a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism ."
― Smedley Butler, War is a Racket
"It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence. And the
alternative to disarmament, the alternative to a greater suspension of nuclear tests, the alternative to strengthening the
United Nations and thereby disarming the whole world, may well be a civilization plunged into the abyss of annihilation, and
our earthly habitat would be transformed into an inferno that even the mind of Dante could not imagine."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, 31 March 1968
Empire understands nothing except ruthless expansion. It has no other raison d'etre. In the past this meant the violent acquisition
of lands and territories by a militarized system where [miliraty] caste was very apparent and visible. But today the dealings of
empire are far more duplicitous. The ruling order of this age expands empire via the acquisition of capital while using the military
industrial complex to police its exploits. But there is an insidious social conditioning at work which has led the general public
to where it is today, a state of "inverted totalitarianism" as political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explained. Indeed, capitalism
has morphed into the unassailable religion of the age even among the working class. Its tenets are still viewed as sacrosanct.
Violence is the sole language of empire. It is this only currency it uses to enforce its precepts and edicts, both at home and
abroad. Eventually this language becomes internalized within the psyche of the subjects. Social and cultural conditioning maintained
through constant subtle messaging via mass media begins to mold the public will toward that of authoritarian conformity. The American
Empire is emblematic of this process. There is mass compliance to the dictates of the ruling class and this occurs most often
without any prompting or debate whatsoever. In this dictatorship of money the poor are looked at with ridicule and contempt, and
are often punished legally for their imposed poverty.
But the social conditioning of the American public has led toward a bizarre allegiance to its ruling class oppressors. Propaganda
still works here and most are still besotted with the notion of America being a bastion of "freedom and democracy." The growing gap
between the ultra-wealthy and the poor and the gutting of civil liberties are ignored. And blind devotion is especially so when it
comes to US foreign policy.
Most Americans still believe they live in the greatest country on the planet. They believe the American military to be noble
and that they always reluctantly go into or are forced into war. Indeed, both the Democrats and Republicans possess an uncanny ability
to bridge their ideological distances when it comes to defending US militarism, the Pentagon and the war machine of imperialism.
But this is tied to the defense of capitalism, the ruling class, and the ultimate reason for war: the protection of that class's
global capital investments.
The persecution of Chelsea Manning, much like the case of Julian Assange, is demonstrative of this. It is a crusade against truth
tellers that has been applauded from both sides of the American establishment, liberal and conservative alike. It does not matter
that she helped to expose American war crimes. On the contrary, this is seen as heresy to the Empire itself. Manning's crime was
exposing the underbelly of the beast. A war machine which targeted and killed civilians and journalists by soldiers behind a glowing
screen thousands of miles away, as if they were playing a video game.
Indeed, those deadened souls pulling the virtual trigger probably thought they were playing a video game since this is how the
military seduced them to serve in their ranks in the first place. A kind of hypnotic, addictive, algorithmic tyranny of sorts. It
is a form of escapism that so many young Americans are enticed by given their sad prospects in a society that has denuded the commons
as well as their future. That it was a war based on lies against an impoverished nation already deeply weakened from decades of American
led sanctions is inconsequential....
... ... ...
Today Iran and Venezuela are once again in the crosshairs of the American Empire's belligerence. Their defiance to the dominant
[neoliberal] socioeconomic order will simply not be tolerated by the global ruling caste, represented as the unquestioned "interests"
of the United States. The imposed suffering on these nations has been twisted as proof that they are now in need of American
salvation in the form of even more crippling sanctions, coups, neoliberal austerity and military intervention. As the corporate vultures
lie in wait for the next carcass of a society to feed upon, the hawks are busy building the case for the continuation and expansion
of capitalist wars of conquest.
Bolton and Pompeo are now the equivalent of the generals who carved up Numidia for the wealthy families of ancient Rome, with
Trump, the half-witted, narcissistic and cruel emperor, presiding over the whole in extremis farce. Indeed, the bloated orange Emperor
issued the latest of his decrees in his usual banal fashion, via tweet:
"If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!"
One can query when Iran, or any other nation has ever "threatened" the United States, but that question will never be asked by
the corporate press who are also in service to Empire. They are, in fact, its mouthpiece and advocate. The US has at least 900 military
bases and colonial outposts scattered around the planet, yet this is never looked at as imperialistic in the least by the establishment,
including its media. Scores of nations lie in ruins or are besieged with chaos and misery thanks to American bellicosity , from Libya
to Iraq and beyond. But the US never looks back in regret at any of its multiple forays, not even a few years back.
To be sure the American Empire, which has seldom seen a year without pillage of another nation or region, is now facing its
greatest nemesis. Unheeded lessons of the past have made it thoroughly inoculated to its own demise. In short, it is drunk on its
hubris and unable to grapple with its inevitable descent.
... ... ...
American Empire knows no other language sans brutality, deceit and belligerence...
... ... ...
The American Empire, one of the shortest lived in human history, has become the biggest threat to humanity ...
But like all empires it will eventually fall. Its endless and costly wars on behalf of capital investments and profiteering
are contributing to that demise . After all, billions of dollars are spent to keep the bloated military industrial complex afloat
in service to the ruling class while social and economic safety nets are torn to shreds...
Nowadays the US has a massive military and little else. And "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to
look like a nail" - Wesley Clark, Former US General.
14 hours ago
Twaddle. Capitalism has lifted out of poverty more people around the globe than all other "successful" systems combined; and
in a fraction of the time. Education. Health. Wealth. Not to mention Arts and Sciences.
Go demand a refund for your liberal education. And stop spreading lies.
11 hours ago (Edited)
Poppycock! Capitalism has traded real sovereign wealth for fiat debt backed funny money at the barrel of a gun! You assholes
have been forcing otherwise healthy communities into poverty for decades so you could steal their resources and molest their children!
Why? Because children are the only people impressed by your tiny d!cks!
The organization described the average sex tourist as a middle-aged white male from either Europe or North
America who often goes online to find the " best deals. " One particular Web site promised "nights of sex with two
young Thai girls for the price of a tank of gas."
Sowmia Nair, a Department of Justice agent, said the Thai government often "turns a blind eye" to child sex tourism because
of the country's economic reliance on the tourist trade in general . He also said police officers are often corrupt.
" Police have been known to guard brothels and even procure children for prostitution," Nair said. "Some police
directly exploit the children themselves."
A report from the International Bureau for Children's Rights said the majority of child prostitutes come from poor families
in northern Thailand, referred to as the "hill tribes." With limited economic opportunities and bleak financial circumstances,
these families, out of desperation, give their children to "recruiters," who promise them jobs in the city and then force the
children into prostitution.
Sometimes families themselves even prostitute their children or sell them into the sex trade for a minuscule sum of money.
This is not by accident! This is by design!
14 hours ago
Capitalism has nothing to do with this. For the average American the empire is a losing proposition.
13 hours ago (Edited)
Empire good. Emperor bad. Kingdom good. King bad. Country good. President bad. Village good. Idiot bad.
13 hours ago (Edited)
Empire is cancer. Especially the present one that leaves a trail of failed states and antangonism in its wake.
16 hours ago
We are part of a scientific dictatorship - the 'Ultimate Revolution' Huxley spoke of in 1962 where the oppressed willingly
submit to their enslavement. Social conditioning - promoted by continuous propaganda stressing that the state is their protector,
reinforced by endless 'terrorist threats' to keep the masses fearful is but one part of the system.
The state no longer has to use threats and fear of punishment to keep the masses under control - the masses have been convinced
that they are better off as slaves and serfs than they were as free men.
The US Republic has come and gone - the Empire is failing rapidly despite massive spending to support it. Cecil Rhodes
and his heirs dreamed of restoring Anglo American domination of the world yet despite all of the technology employed the US is
losing grip. By sheer numbers (and a far more efficient dictatorship) China is moving to a dominant role.
18 hours ago
Capitalism and corporatism are not the same. When corporate interests effectively wield gov power, you have corporatism, not
Capitalism.
14 hours ago
Corporatism=Fascism.
18 hours ago 'Muricanism is the gee-gaw of the chattering classes.
18 hours ago (Edited)
The US is its own worst enemy. They have no idea what they are doing. 2008 – "Oh dear, the global economy just blew up"
Its experts investigate and conclude it was a black swan.
It is a black swan if you don't consider debt. They use neoclassical economics that doesn't consider debt.
They can't work out why inflation isn't coming back and the real economy isn't recovering faster.
Look at the debt over-hang that's still left after 2008 in the graph above, that's the problem. The repayment on debt to banks
destroy money pushing the economy towards debt deflation.
QE can't enter the real economy as so many people are still loaded up with debt and there are too few borrowers.
QE can get into the markets inflating them and the US stock market is now at 1929 levels. They have created another asset price
bubble that is ready to collapse leading to another financial crisis.
We need a new scientific economics for globalisation, got any ideas?
What if we just stick some complex maths on top of 1920s neoclassical economics?
No one will notice.
They didn't either, but it's still got all its old problems.
The 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the debt deflation of the Great
Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as they used an economics that doesn't look at private
debt, neoclassical economics.
What's the problem?
The belief in the markets gets everyone thinking you are creating real wealth by inflating asset prices.
Bank credit pours into inflating asset prices rather than creating real wealth (as measured by GDP) as no one is looking
at the debt building up
1929 and 2008 look so similar because they are; it's the same economics and thinking.
The 1920s problem in the US is now everywhere, UK, US, Euro-zone, Japan and China.
20 hours ago (Edited)
Capitalism is based on darwinian economic competition driven by a desire to accumulate material wealth. When a capitalist becomes
sufficiently rich, he can (and does) buy politicians and armies to do his bidding. Ironically, although capitalism is based on
the assumption of competition, capitalists actually hate competition and harbor the urge to put competitors out of business. The
true goal of a capitalists is monopoly-- as long as it is them.
Imperialism is a logical (and historically predictable) expansion of capitalism.
18 hours ago
Capitalism may not be the path to peace, but just about every other ism, including socialism and communism delivered worse.
Attacking capitalism for common failings is off base.
15 hours ago
Socialism and ultimately communism appear when capitalism goes rampant, and it is normal for the socium to embrace socialism
when the inequality becomes too large.
In the end, the elite has no problem to rebrand themselves any color it needs to take to rule again, and become totalitarian
state. As it becomes in the Soviet Union and China.
So don't mistake the people's desire for equal world with totalitarian capitalism masked as socialism.
14 hours ago
the real issue is NO GROUP OF HUMANS can be trusted will any form of power. ever. period.
so it goes that no "xyz"ism" will ever work out for the whole. yet humans are social animals and seek to be in groups governed
by the very people that strive to lead that exhibit sociopathic tendencies, which are the worst possible leaders. how fuked up
is that?
so how can that work? it does for a while. then we end up in the same spot every time, turmoil, the forth turning.
the luck of life is the period of time you live during, where and what stage of human turmoil the society is in...
21 hours ago (Edited)
" Capitalism's gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees".
Capitalism did all that huh? It had nothing to do with corrupt politicians in bed with corporations and banks. Now they even
have the military singing the same stupidity. Governments make these messes, not capitalism. Someone who risked their life for
a corrupt government giving the pieces of **** that put him there a free pass by blaming it on capitalism. What a moron. When
politicians hear this stupidity, it's like music to their ears. They know they've successfully shifted the blame to a simple ISM.
Governments want to blame the very thing that will fix all of this, for the sake of self-preservation.
18 hours ago
Every system acts to centralise power, even anarchism. So you say it was wealth that enabled what was to follow but it was
really power.. something every -ism will centralise and enable.
22 hours ago
Another blame America article that fails to mention the International Banksters. They have the finger-pointing thingy down
to an art form.
16 hours ago
Really! Did you miss the Smedley Butler quote?
22 hours ago
Could you please distinguish between capitalism and political, monetary, fiscal, press, and legal aberrations that can occur
in capitalist systems because of government sloth and malfeasance? Media monopoly, mass illegal immigration, and offshoring are
not the essence of capitalism. And socialist systems can see hideous abuses.
Please read something more than **** and Jane adventures.
23 hours ago
"... is still the owner of the world's biggest nuclear arsenal."
===
Here is the list of all nine countries
with nuclear weapons in descending order, starting with the country that has the most nuclear weapons at hand and ending with
the country that has the least amount of nuclear weapons
China is negotiating a militarybasein a strategic port of Djibouti, the president said, according to
the AFP news agency. The move raises the prospect of US and Chinesebases side-by-side in the ...
Oct 10, 2017 · China and the small African nation of Djibouti reached an agreement in July to let the People's Liberation Army
establish up its first overseas militarybase there. The base on Africa's east ...
China is building its first militarybaseinAfrica . America should be very nervous. ... In
Africa , China has found not just a market for money but for jobs and land -- crucial components of ...
23 hours ago (Edited)
Oh noes! 1 base in Africa.....meanwhile the empire has 800 outposts around the world and despite that, like a snowflake, is
bitching about China's one.
Isn't it fascinating how the Chinese do not find it necessary to resort to retarded regime change projects and stoopid kikery
to "win" influence? Easy peasy. Methinks the Anglo-Zionists can learn a trick or two from China.
23 hours ago
The empire of 800 outposts is puny compared to the 1960's and 1970's. I can provide the information if you'd like. Almost all
the 800 have company sized or smaller contingents. Still, I'd like to see much of it dismantled. No world Policeman.
23 hours ago
The entire world is in favor of a more peaceful planet Earth, except the military-industrial complex. Ron Paul
War puts money in their pockets. Lots of money. It's in the trillions of dollars.
23 hours ago (Edited)
How do you begin to change that? Most Americans have been brainwashed and zombified by Hollywood and MSM into revering
and lionizing the military without question. The sheer amount of waste in the MIC is not only negligent, but criminal. By the
time the sheep awaken, the empire will have run out of their money to pillage. The beast of empire requires new victims to feed
off in order to sustain - it devours entire nations, pilfers resources and murders people. Is this really what the founding fathers
wanted?
Now you know why wars happen. If "we the people" can't stop this beast, another nation's military will.
21 hours ago
@BH II
Precisely right. It's as if we've painted ourselves into the proverbial corner. The only way out of the morass is
to find men of very high character to correctly lead the way out. America needs a Socrates.
"... No other country in the Middle East is as important in countering America's rush to provide Israel with another war than Iraq. Fortunately for Iran, the winds of change in Iraq and the many other local countries under similar threat, thus, make up an unbroken chain of border to border support. This support is only in part due to sympathy for Iran and its plight against the latest bluster by the Zio-American bully. ..."
"... For the Russo/Sino pact nations, or those leaning in their direction, the definition of national foreign interest is no longer military, it is economic. Those with resources and therefore bright futures within the expanding philosophy and economic offerings of the Russo/Sino pact have little use any longer for the "Sorrows of Empire." These nation's leaders, if nothing more than to line their own pockets, have had a very natural epiphany: War is not, for them, profitable. ..."
"... Lebanon and Syria also take away the chance of a ground-based attack, leaving the US Marines and Army to stare longingly across the Persian Gulf open waters from Saudi Arabia or one of its too few and militarily insignificant allies in the southern Gulf region. ..."
"... As shown in a previous article, "The Return of the Madness of M.A.D," Iran like Russia and China, after forty years of US/Israeli threats, has developed new weapons and military capabilities, that combined with tactics will make any direct aggression towards it by American forces a fair fight. ..."
"... When Trump's limited political intelligence wakes up to the facts that his Zio masters want a war with Iran more than they want him as president, and that these forces can easily replace him with a Biden, Harris, Bernie or Warren political prostitute instead, even America's marmalade Messiah, will lose the flavor of his master's blood lust for war. ..."
"... I do particularly agree that elimination of Sadam was the greatest mistake US committed in Middle East. Devastating mistake for US policy. In the final evaluation it did create the most powerful Shi_ite crescent that now rules the Levant. Organizing failing uprising in Turkey against Erdogan was probably mistake of the same magnitude. Everything is lost for US now in the ME. ..."
"... The article evaluating the situation in ME is outstanding and perfect. Every move of US is a vanity. There is no more any opportunity to achieve any benefit for US. Who is responsible for all those screw ups ? US or Israel? ..."
"... However, the other side of the military coin is economic -- specifically sanctions on Iran (& China). Here ( I suspect) the US has prospects. Iran has said it has a "PhD" in sanctions busting. I hope that optimism is not misplaced. That US sanctions amount to a declaration of war on Iran is widely agreed. Sadly, it seems the EU in its usual spineless way will offer Iran more or less empty promises. ..."
"... I don't know if Russia and China have been showing restraint or still don't feel up to taking Uncle on very publicly or even covertly. The author assumes they might be willing to step up now for Iran, but the action in places like Syria suggests they might not. ..."
"... "War is a Racket" by Gen Smedley Butler (USMC – recipient of two Medals of Honor – no rear echelon pogue) is a must read. As true today as it was back when he wrote it. ..."
"... "The Axis of Sanity" – I like it, I like it! Probably quite closely related to the "reality-based community". ..."
"... "Karim al-Mohammadawi told the Arabic-language al-Ma'aloumeh news website that the US wants to turn Ain al-Assad airbase which is a regional base for operations and command into a central airbase for its fighter jets. ..."
"... He added that a large number of forces and military equipment have been sent to Ain al-Assad without any permission from the Iraqi government, noting that the number of American forces in Iraq has surpassed 50,000. ..."
"... Sea assault? Amphibious troop deployment? Are you serious? This is not WWII Normandy, Dorothy. That would be an unmitigated massacre. Weapons have improved a bit in the last 70 years if you have not noticed. ..."
"... first is a conspiracy of Israeli owned, Wall Street financed, war profiteering privatizing-pirate corporations These corporations enter, invade or control the war defeated place and privatize all of its infrastructure construction contracts from the defeated place or state (reason for massive destruction by bombing) and garner control over all the citizen services: retail oil and gas distribution, food supplies, electric power, communications, garbage and waste collection and disposal, street cleaning, water provisioning. traffic control systems, security, and so on.. Most of these corporations are privately owned public stock companies, controlled by the same wealthy Oligarchs that control "who gets elected and what the elected must do while in sitting in one of the seats of power at the 527 person USA. ..."
"... This article by Mr. Titley is the most hopeful article I've yet read demonstrating the coming death of US hegemony, with most of the rest of the civilized world apparently having turned against the world's worst Outlaw Nation. ..."
"... Netanyahu and the Ziocons better think twice about their longed for dream of the destruction of Iran. The Jews always push things too far. Karma can be a bitch. ..."
No other country in the Middle East is as important in countering America's rush to provide Israel with another war than Iraq.
Fortunately for Iran, the winds of change in Iraq and the many other local countries under similar threat, thus, make up an unbroken
chain of border to border support. This support is only in part due to sympathy for Iran and its plight against the latest bluster
by the Zio-American bully.
In the politics of the Middle East, however, money is at the heart of all matters. As such, this ring of defensive nations is
collectively and quickly shifting towards the new Russo/Sino sphere of economic influence. These countries now form a geo-political
defensive perimeter that, with Iraq entering the fold, make a US ground war virtually impossible and an air war very restricted in
opportunity.
If Iraq holds, there will be no war in Iran.
In the last two months, Iraq parliamentarians have been exceptionally vocal in their calls for all foreign military forces- particularly
US forces- to leave immediately. Politicians from both blocs of Iraq's divided parliament
called
for a vote to expel US troops and promised to schedule an extraordinary session to debate the matter ."Parliament must clearly
and urgently express its view about the ongoing American violations of Iraqi sovereignty," said Salam al-Shimiri, a lawmaker
loyal to the populist cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr
.
Iraq's ambassador to Moscow, Haidar Mansour Hadi, went further saying that Iraq "does not
want a new devastating war in the region." He t old a press conference in Moscow this past week, "Iraq is a sovereign
nation. We will not let [the US] use our territory," he said. Other comments by Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi agreed.
Other MPs called for
a timetable for complete US troop withdrawal.
Then a motion was introduced
demanding
war reparations from the US and Israel for using internationally banned weapons while destroying Iraq for seventeen years and
somehow failing to find those "weapons of mass destruction."
As Iraq/Iran economic ties continue to strengthen, with Iraq recently signing on for billions of cubic meters of Iranian natural
gas, the shift towards Russian influence- an influence that prefers peace- was certified as Iraq sent a delegation to Moscow to negotiate
the purchase of the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system.
To this massive show of pending democracy and rapidly rising Iraqi nationalism, US Army spokesman, Colonel Ryan Dillon, provided
the kind of delusion only the Zio-American military is known for, saying,
"Our continued presence in Iraq will be conditions-based, proportional to need, in coordination with and by the approval of
the Iraqi government."
Good luck with that.
US influence in Iraq came to a possible conclusion this past Saturday, May 18, 2019, when it was reported that the Iraqi parliament
would vote
on a bill compelling the invaders to leave . Speaking about the vote on the draft bill, Karim Alivi, a member of the Iraqi parliament's
national security and defense committee, said on Thursday that the country's two biggest parliamentary factions -- the Sairoon bloc,
led by Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Fatah alliance, headed by secretary general of the Badr Organization, Hadi al-Ameri --
supported the bill. Strangely, Saturday's result has not made it to the media as yet, and American meddling would be a safe guess
as to the delay, but the fact that this bill would certainly have passed strongly shows that Iraq well understands the weakness of
the American bully: Iraq's own US militarily imposed democracy.
Iraq shares a common border with Iran that the US must have for any ground war. Both countries also share a similar religious
demographic where Shia is predominant and the plurality of cultures substantially similar and previously living in harmony. Both
also share a very deep seeded and deserved hatred of Zio- America. Muqtada al-Sadr, who, after coming out first in the 2018 Iraqi
elections, is similar to Hizbullah's Hassan Nasrallah in his religious and military influence within the well trained and various
Shia militias. He is firmly aligned with Iran as is Fattah Alliance. Both detest Zio- America.
A ground invasion needs a common and safe border. Without Iraq, this strategic problem for US forces becomes complete. The other
countries also with borders with Iran are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan. All have several good
reasons that they will not, or cannot, be used for ground forces.
With former Armenian President Robert Kocharian under arrest in the aftermath of the massive anti-government 2018 protests, Bolton
can check that one off the list first. Azerbaijan is mere months behind the example next door in Armenia,
with protests increasing and indicating
a change towards eastern winds. Regardless, Azerbaijan, like Turkmenistan, is an oil producing nation and as such is firmly aligned
economically with Russia. Political allegiance seems obvious since US influence is limited in all three countries to blindly ignoring
the massive additional corruption and human rights violations by Presidents Ilham Aliyev and
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow .
However, Russian economic influence pays in cash. Oil under Russian control is the lifeblood of both of these countries.
Recent developments and new international contracts with Russia clearly show whom these leaders are actually listening to.
Turkey would appear to be firmly shifting into Russian influence. A NATO member in name only. Ever since he
shot down his first-
and last – Russian fighter jet, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thumbed his nose at the Americans. Recently
he refused to succumb to pressure and will receive Iranian oil and, in July, the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft/missile system. This
is important since there is zero chance Putin will relinquish command and control or see them missiles used against Russian armaments.
Now, Erdogan is considering replacing his purchase of thirty US F-35s with the
far superior Russian SU- 57 and a few S-500s for good measure.
Economically, America did all it could to stop the Turk Stream gas pipeline installed by Russia's Gazprom, that runs through Turkey
to eastern Europe and will provide $billions to Erdogan and Turkey
. It
will commence operation this year. Erdogan continues to purchase Iranian oil and to call for Arab nations to come together against
US invasion in Iran. This week, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar renewed Turkey's resolve, saying his country
is preparing for potential American
sanctions as a deadline reportedly set by the US for Ankara to cancel the S-400 arms deal with Russia or face penalties draws
near.
So, Turkey is out for both a ground war and an air war since the effectiveness of all those S-400's might be put to good use if
America was to launch from naval positions in the Mediterranean. Attacking from the Black Sea is out since it is ringed by countries
under Russo/Sino influence and any attack on Iran will have to illegally cross national airspace aligned with countries preferring
the Russo/Sino alliance that favours peace. An unprovoked attack would leave the US fleet surrounded with the only safe harbours
in Romania and Ukraine. Ships move much slower than missiles.
Afghanistan is out, as the Taliban are winning. Considering recent peace talks from which they walked out and next
slaughtered a police station near the western border with
Iran, they have already won. Add the difficult terrain near the Iranian border and a ground invasion is very unlikely
Although new Pakistani President Amir Khan has all the power and authority of a primary school crossing guard, the real power
within the Pakistani military, the ISI, is more than tired of American influence
. ISI has propagated the Taliban for years and often gave
refuge to Afghan anti-US forces allowing them to use their common border for cover. Although in the past ISI has been utterly mercenary
in its very duplicitous- at least- foreign allegiances, after a decade of US drone strikes on innocent Pakistanis, the chance of
ground-based forces being allowed is very doubtful. Like Afghanistan terrain also increases this unlikelihood.
Considerations as to terrain and location for a ground war and the resulting failure of not doing so was shown to Israel previously
when, in 2006 Hizbullah virtually obliterated its ground attack, heavy armour and battle tanks in the hills of southern Lebanon.
In further cautionary detail, this failure cost PM Ehud Olmert his job.
For the Russo/Sino pact nations, or those leaning in their direction, the definition of national foreign interest is no longer
military, it is economic. Those with resources and therefore bright futures within the expanding philosophy and economic offerings
of the Russo/Sino pact have little use any longer for the "Sorrows of Empire." These nation's leaders, if nothing more than to line
their own pockets, have had a very natural epiphany: War is not, for them, profitable.
For Iran, the geographic, economic and therefore geo-political ring of defensive nations is made complete by Syria, Lebanon and
Iraq. Syria, like Iraq, has every reason to despise the Americans and similar reasons to embrace Iran, Russia, China and border neighbour
Lebanon. Syria now has its own Russian S-300 system which is already bringing down Israeli missiles. It is surprising that Lebanon
has not requested a few S-300s of their own. No one knows what Hizbullah has up its sleeve, but it has been enough to keep the Israelis
at bay. Combined with a currently more prepared Lebanese army, Lebanon under the direction of Nasrallah is a formidable nation for
its size. Ask Israel.
Lebanon and Syria also take away the chance of a ground-based attack, leaving the US Marines and Army to stare longingly across
the Persian Gulf open waters from Saudi Arabia or one of its too few and militarily insignificant allies in the southern Gulf region.
Friendly airspace will also be vastly limited, so also gone will be the tactical element of surprise of any incoming attack. The
reality of this defensive ring of nations means that US military options will be severely limited. The lack of a ground invasion
threat and the element of surprise will allow Iranian defences to prioritize and therefore be dramatically more effective. As shown
in a previous article, "The Return
of the Madness of M.A.D," Iran like Russia and China, after forty years of US/Israeli threats, has developed new weapons
and military capabilities, that combined with tactics will make any direct aggression towards it by American forces a fair fight.
If the US launches a war it will go it alone except for the few remaining US lapdogs like the UK, France, Germany and Australia,
but with anti-US emotions running as wild across the EU as in the southern Caspian nations, the support of these Zionist influenced
EU leaders is not necessarily guaranteed.
Regardless, a lengthy public ramp-up to stage military assets for an attack by the US will be seen by the vast majority of the
world- and Iran- as an unprovoked act of war. Certainly at absolute minimum Iran will close the Straits of Hormuz, throwing the price
of oil skyrocketing and world economies into very shaky waters. World capitalist leaders will not be happy. Without a friendly landing
point for ground troops, the US will either have to abandon this strategy in favour of an air war or see piles of body bags of US
servicemen sacrificed to Israeli inspired hegemony come home by the thousands just months before the '20 primary season. If this
is not military and economic suicide, it is certainly political.
Air war will likely see a similar disaster. With avenues of attack severely restricted, obvious targets such as Iran's non-military
nuclear program and major infrastructure will be thus more easily defended and the likelihood of the deaths of US airmen similarly
increased.
In terms of Naval power, Bolton would have only the Mediterranean as a launch pad, since using the Black Sea to initiate war will
see the US fleet virtually surrounded by nations aligned with the Russo/Sino pact. Naval forces, it should be recalled, are, due
to modern anti-ship technologies and weapons, now the sitting ducks of blusterous diplomacy. A hot naval war in the Persian Gulf,
like a ground war, will leave a US death toll far worse than the American public has witnessed in their lifetimes and the US navy
in tatters.
Trump is already
reportedly
seething that his machismo has been tarnished by Bolton and Pompeo's false assurances of an easy overthrow of Maduro in Venezuela.
With too many top generals getting jumpy about him initiating a hot war with Iraq, Bolton's stock in trade-war is waning. Trump basks
in being the American bully personified, but he and his ego will not stand for being exposed as weak. Remaining as president is necessary
to stoke his shallow character. When Trump's limited political intelligence wakes up to the facts that his Zio masters want a war
with Iran more than they want him as president, and that these forces can easily replace him with a Biden, Harris, Bernie or Warren
political prostitute instead, even America's marmalade Messiah, will lose the flavor of his master's blood lust for war.
In two
excellent articles in Asia times by Pepe Escobar, he details the plethora of projects, agreements, and cooperation that are
taking place from Asia
to the Mid-East to the Baltics . Lead by Russia and China this very quickly developing Russo/Sino pact of economic opportunity
and its intentions of "soft power" collectively spell doom for Zio-America's only remaining tactics of influence: military intervention.
States, Escobar:
"We should know by now that the heart of the 21 st Century Great Game is the myriad layers of the battle between
the United States and the partnership of Russia and China. The long game indicates Russia and China will break down language and
cultural barriers to lead Eurasian integration against American economic hegemony backed by military might."
The remaining civilized world, that which understands the expanding world threat of Zio-America, can rest easy. Under the direction
of this new Russo/Sino influence, without Iraq, the US will not launch a war on Iran.
This growing Axis of Sanity surrounds Iran geographically and empathetically, but more importantly, economically. This economy,
as clearly stated by both Putin and Xi, does not benefit from any further wars of American aggression. In this new allegiance to
future riches, it is Russian and China that will call the shots and a shooting war involving their new client nations will not be
sanctioned from the top.
However, to Putin, Xi and this Axis of Sanity: If American wishes to continue to bankrupt itself by ineffective military adventures
of Israel's making, rather than fix its own nation that is in societal decline and desiccated after decades of increasing Zionist
control, well
That just good for business!
About the Author:Brett Redmayne-Titley has published over 170 in-depth articles over the past eight years for news
agencies worldwide. Many have been translated and republished. On-scene reporting from important current events has been an emphasis
that has led to his many multi-part exposes on such topics as the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, NATO summit, Keystone XL
Pipeline, Porter Ranch Methane blow-out, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Erdogan's Turkey and many more. He can be reached at: live-on-scene
((at)) gmx.com. Prior articles can be viewed at his archive: www.watchingromeburn.uk
When Trump's limited political intelligence wakes up to the facts that his Zio masters want a war with Iran more than they
want him as president, and that these forces can easily replace him with a Biden, Harris, Bernie or Warren political prostitute
instead, even America's marmalade Messiah, will lose the flavor of his master's blood lust for war.
I believe you are far
too generous in your estimation of his ability to distinguish between flavors of any type. Otherwise, your analysis is insightful
and thorough.
The U.S. is in the same position today that we were aboard Nimitz back in 1980. Too far from Tehran to start a war or even to
find our people. We are perhaps in even a far worse position in that today, Iran holds no hostages. There's nothing so 'noble'
as 44 hostages to inspire war today. This here is merely at the behest of Israel and the deep state profit centers for mere fun
and games and cash and prizes. Iran, overall, is nothing. Obama put Iran away for what, a billion-five? And Jared, Bolton and
Pompeo dredged it all back up again? Care to guess the first-night expense of a shock and awe on Tehran? It's unthinkable.
I used to like Israel. The Haifa-Tel Av-iv-Jerusalem-Galili loop was pretty cool. The PLO hadn't quite started their game,
we could move freely about the country. It's where the whole thing started. And, unlike Italy and Spain, they treated us Americans
ok. They were somewhat war torn. But now? They're a destructive monolith, they're good at hiding it and further, they make disastrous
miscalculations. Eliminating Saddam was huge. Turns out, Saddam was the only sane one. The last vestiges of Saddam's nuclear program
went up in the attacks on the Osirak reactor that Israel bombed in 1981. Why did they push for the elimination of Saddam afterwards?
Why the lies? Miscalculation.
This here with Iran won't travel further than threats and horseshit. I hope. Lots of bleating and farting. Someone agrees.
Oil dropped three or four bucks today.
"the resulting failure of not doing so was shown to Israel previously when, in 2016 Hezbollah virtually obliterated its ground
attack, heavy amour and battle tanks in the hills of southern Lebanon."
I do particularly agree that elimination of Sadam was the greatest mistake US committed in Middle East. Devastating mistake
for US policy. In the final evaluation it did create the most powerful Shi_ite crescent that now rules the Levant. Organizing
failing uprising in Turkey against Erdogan was probably mistake of the same magnitude. Everything is lost for US now in the ME.
Threatening Iran is now simply grotesque.
Concerning the article. The article evaluating the situation in ME is outstanding and perfect. Every move of US is a vanity.
There is no more any opportunity to achieve any benefit for US. Who is responsible for all those screw ups ? US or Israel?
However, the other side of the military coin is economic -- specifically sanctions
on Iran (& China). Here ( I suspect) the US has prospects. Iran has said it has a "PhD" in sanctions busting. I hope that optimism
is not misplaced. That US sanctions amount to a declaration of war on Iran is widely agreed. Sadly, it seems the EU in its usual
spineless way will offer Iran more or less empty promises.
Is the author unaware of the nation of Saudi Arabia and the fact that they are new BFFs with Israel. They have come out quite
openly they'd like to see Iran attacked. That whole Sunni Wahabism vs. Shia thing is a heck of alot older than this current skirmish.
Being that SA has a border w/ the Persian Gulf and that Kuwait who is even CLOSER may be agreeable to be a staging area, why
the hand wringing about this nation & that nation, etc. The US would be welcome to stage an air and sea assault using Saudi bases
followed up by amphibious troop deployment if need be. But given the proximity they could probably strong arm Kuwait to act as
a land bridge, in a pinch.
So will we expect the follow up article discussing this glaring omission, or am I missing some great development re: S.Arabia's
disposition and temperament regarding all this.
The transformed relationship between Russia and Turkey illustrates perfectly the shifting sands of strategic alliances as we cross
the desert towards destiny. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
I don't know if Russia and China have been showing restraint or still don't feel up to taking Uncle on very publicly or even
covertly. The author assumes they might be willing to step up now for Iran, but the action in places like Syria suggests they
might not.
As for the costs of taking on Iran, while one cannot underestimate the cocksuredness of Uncle to take on Iran with a 2003 "Iraq
will be a cakewalk" attitude, the resulting air war will likely not be as costly to Uncle as the author believes, but the thought
of flag-draped coffins in the thousands will certainly deter a land invasion. If there is any action at all, it will be air interdiction
and missile attack.
It is curious that Uncle has not already resorted to his favorite tactic of declaring a No-Fly zone already but instead merely
hinted that airliner safety cannot be guaranteed; this is likely just another form of sanction since Iran receives money for each
airliner that transits its airspace, and a couple of Uncle's putative allies supply Iran with ATC equipment and services.
Uncle's Navy has already demonstrated a willingness to shoot down an airliner in Iranian airspace, so it is no idle threat,
kind of like the mobster looking at a picture of your family and saying, "Nice family you have there; it would be a shame if anything
happened to them."
"War is a Racket" by Gen Smedley Butler (USMC – recipient of two Medals of Honor – no rear echelon pogue) is a must read.
As true today as it was back when he wrote it.
If the US launches a war it will go it alone except for the few remaining US lapdogs like the UK, France, Germany and Australia,
but with anti-US emotions running as wild across the EU as in the southern Caspian nations, the support of these Zionist influenced
EU leaders is not necessarily guaranteed.
Stasi " Merkel muss weg " (Merkel must go) is too weak to even think about taking Germanstan into such a foolish adventure.
Maybe the Kosher Kingdom of simpletons, especially under American-born Turkish "Englishman" (((Boris Kemal Bey))), another
psycho like (((Baron Levy's))) Scottish warmonger Blair.
Iraqi MP: US after Turning Ain Al-Assad into Central Airbase in Iraq
FARSNEWS
"Karim al-Mohammadawi told the Arabic-language al-Ma'aloumeh news website that the US wants to turn Ain al-Assad airbase
which is a regional base for operations and command into a central airbase for its fighter jets.
He added that a large number of forces and military equipment have been sent to Ain al-Assad without any permission from
the Iraqi government, noting that the number of American forces in Iraq has surpassed 50,000.
Al-Mohammadawi said that Washington does not care about Iraq's opposition to using the country's soil to target the neighboring
states.
In a relevant development on Saturday, media reports said that Washington has plans to set up military bases and increasing
its troops in Iraq, adding the US is currently engaged in expanding its Ain al-Assad military base in al-Anbar province."
The US would be welcome to stage an air and sea assault using Saudi bases followed up by amphibious troop deployment if
need be. But given the proximity they could probably strong arm Kuwait to act as a land bridge, in a pinch.
Sea assault? Amphibious troop deployment? Are you serious? This is not WWII Normandy, Dorothy. That would be an unmitigated
massacre. Weapons have improved a bit in the last 70 years if you have not noticed.
Also minor point, LOL, but Kuwait is a "landbridge" between Saudi Arabia and Iraq Unless you are proposing the US attacks
Iraq (again!) which it would have to do to achieve a "landbridge" to Iran. Another good reason Iraq is acquiring the S-400.
More minor points: 1. South Iraq is ALL shiite. 2. Kuwait is SMALL i.e. a BIG target for thousands of missiles
@Ilyana_Rozumova
your question of responsibility is very intuitive.. two general answers.. both need deep analysis..
first is a conspiracy of Israeli owned, Wall Street financed, war profiteering privatizing-pirate corporations These corporations
enter, invade or control the war defeated place and privatize all of its infrastructure construction contracts from the defeated
place or state (reason for massive destruction by bombing) and garner control over all the citizen services: retail oil and gas
distribution, food supplies, electric power, communications, garbage and waste collection and disposal, street cleaning, water
provisioning. traffic control systems, security, and so on.. Most of these corporations are privately owned public stock companies,
controlled by the same wealthy Oligarchs that control "who gets elected and what the elected must do while in sitting in one of
the seats of power at the 527 person USA.
2nd is the impact of the laws that deny competition in a nation sworn to a method of economics (capitalism) that depends on
competition for its success. Another group of massive in size mostly global corporations again owned from Jerusalem, NYC, City
of London, etc. financed at wall street, use rule of law to impose on Americans and many of the people of the world, a blanket
of economic and anti competitive laws and monopoly powers. These monopolist companies benefit from the copyright and patent laws,
which create monopolies from hot thin air. These laws of monopolies coupled to the USA everything is a secret government have
devastated competitive capitalism in America and rendered American Universities high school level teaching but not learning bureaucracies.
Monopolies and state secrets between insider contractors were suppose to deny most of the world from competing; but without
competition ingenuity is lost. Monopoly lordships and state secrets were supposed to make it easy for the monopoly powered corporations
to overpower and deny any and all would be competition; hence they would be the only ones getting rich.. But China's Huawei will
be Linux based and Tin not Aluminium in design, far superior technology to anything these monopoly powered retards have yet developed
especially in the high energy communications technologies (like 5G, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics). In other words copyrights,
patents and the US military were suppose to keep the world, and the great ingenuity that once existed in the person of every American,
from competing, but the only people actually forced out of the technology competition were the ingenious, for they were denied
by copyright and patents to compete. Now those in power at the USA will make Americans pay again as the corporations that run
things try to figure out how to catch up to the Chinese and Russian led Eastern world. Modi's election in India is quite interesting
as both China and Russia supported it, yet, Modi says he is going to switch to the USA for copyrighted and patented stuff?
on the issue of continued USA presence in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, ..
"Our continued presence in Iraq will be conditions-based, proportional to need, in coordination with and by the approval of
the Iraqi government." <that's a joke, first off, I never desired to be in Iraq, and I do not desire USA military or American
presence in Iraq, do You? <blatant disregard for the needs of America.. IMO. Bring the troops home. If the USA would only leave
Iraq to the Iraqis and get to work making America competitive again they would once again enjoy a great place in the world. But
one thing i can tell you big giant wall street funded corporations, and reliance on degree credentials instead of job performance,
will never be the reason America is great.
This article by Mr. Titley is the most hopeful article I've yet read demonstrating the coming death of US hegemony, with most
of the rest of the civilized world apparently having turned against the world's worst Outlaw Nation.
Trump has allowed madmen
Bolton and Pompeo to get this country into an awful mess – all for the sake of Israel and the Zionists.
He needs to find a face-saving
way to get out before Washington gets its long needed comeuppance. But how can Trump accomplish this as long as Bolton, in particular,
continues to be the man who most has his ear? If Titley is correct, then Trump had better start listening to his military leaders
instead.
Netanyahu and the Ziocons better think twice about their longed for dream of the destruction of Iran. The Jews always push
things too far. Karma can be a bitch.
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and
other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
Because they serve those who dispense such power. That is their job.
And those whom they serve make sure that checky/balancey oversight–say in the form
of chief executive of the United States of America, or an honest Congressman or
journalist–is destroyed if it threatens not to align with those masters or even
questions/reveals these individuals or these structures.
Look at how they've reacted to Donald Trump's trolling both before and while in
office.
They make sure that "the intelligence bureaucracy" reifies that exclusionary principle in
every hire, every action, every policy. Like many bureaucracies and institutions it becomes a
factory for its own viral replication rather than anything that is traditionally considered
"intelligence."
Look at their prime creation of the new millennium: Barack Obama.
War between the United States and Iran looms, even though the latter poses no threat to the
former. President Donald Trump says he doesn't want war but for the Iranians to call him.
Perhaps his entire campaign is an elaborate effort to scare Tehran to the negotiating table. Or
perhaps he hopes to win political support by fomenting a foreign crisis. How ironic that would
be: in 2011, Trump warned via tweet that "Barack Obama will attack Iran in the not too distant
future because it will help him win the election."
However, the president already ran against the Islamic Republic, in 2016. Moreover, his
words have been incendiary, threatening "the official end of Iran." Although U.S. intelligence
officials admit that Tehran's confrontational rhetoric is largely a response to Washington's
aggression, the administration's military moves are sharply increasing tensions as well as the
possibility of a costly mistake or misjudgment.
The War Party is active again in the Imperial City. Before joining the administration,
National Security Advisor John Bolton forthrightly called for an attack on the Islamic
Republic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also demanded regime change in Iran. More recently, he
admitted that sanctions were intended to induce the Iranian people to "change the government."
While claiming not to seek war, he threatened retaliation for any attack by Iranian "proxy
forces" and on "American interests."
Tehran has long been a favorite target of influential neoconservatives and ultra-hawks. The
invasion of Iraq almost immediately led to calls for a turn to Tehran. Several years ago,
Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy suggested staging a false flag
operation: if "the Iranians aren't going to compromise," he said, "it would be best if somebody
else started the war." Today, Senator Tom Cotton predicts an easy American
victory.
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The Saudis also openly favor an American war against Iran. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates
once quipped that Riyadh would fight Iran "to the last American.") A newspaper owned by the
royal family last week called on Washington to "hit hard." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has worked tirelessly to inflate the Iranian "threat" and told a TV interviewer that
he'd convinced Trump to abandon the nuclear deal.
Yet conflict with Iran would be a disaster, far worse than with Iraq. Even the Council on
Foreign Relations' Max Boot, a vocal neoconservative and uber-hawk, has warned against this.
And Americans would not be the only casualties. Jason Rezaian, TheWashington
Post reporter who spent more than a year in an Iranian prison, observed: "those who will
suffer most have little say in the matter. It's the Iranian people who have borne the brunt of
40 years of enmity between the United States and the Islamic republic, and in the current
standoff, they stand to lose the most yet again."
The possibility that the chief executive might rush or be pushed into such a disastrous war
is exactly why the Founders obliged presidents to go to Congress for approval. The Constitution
places the power to declare war in the hands of the legislature.
Yet modern presidents routinely claim monarchical powers, using the military without proper
authority. Legislators often avoid taking responsibility for wars that might turn unpopular.
But neither unconstitutional nor irresponsible behavior justifies chief executives doing the
same.
Trump has proven no more faithful to the Constitution than his predecessors. For instance,
Pompeo refused to commit the administration to going to Congress for the authority to attack
Iran. (The secretary did the same when earlier questioned about the administration's military
threats against Venezuela.) Pompeo suggested that the president might rely on the post-9/11
authorization for use of military force, an even more ludicrous reach than the Obama
administration's appeal to the same measure for its fight against the Islamic State and strikes
on Syria.
The refusal to obey the Constitution is evidence of weakness. In contrast, many of America's
strongest chief executives recognized Congress's authority. George Washington declared: "The
Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition
of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and
authorized such a measure."
Abraham Lincoln praised the Founders for recognizing war "to be the most oppressive of all
Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold
the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Dwight Eisenhower was equally insistent on the
need for legislative approval for war.
Delegates to the constitutional convention insisted they were not recreating the king of
England or replicating his powers, especially to start wars. After all, war is the hallmark of
unlimited government. Warned James Madison: "Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is,
perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War
is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes
are the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few."
The Founders knew this problem well, since a succession of European kings and queens had
launched a succession of unnecessary and even frivolous conflicts. The price was paid in blood
and treasure by the common folk. John Jay observed that kings were often led "to engage in wars
not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people." Pierce Butler insisted
that the president not be invested with the authority to start wars, like a monarch who enjoyed
the "opportunity of involving his country in a war whenever he wished to promote her
destruction."
Madison explained the principle incorporated in the Constitution: "Those who are to conduct
a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be
commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great
principle in free governments, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or
the power of executing from the power of enacting laws."
Thus, the Constitution gives to Congress most military powers: raising an army, funding the
military, issuing letters of marquee, approving rules of war, ratifying treaties, and, of
course, taking America into war. Article 1, Section 8 (11) states: "Congress shall have the
power to declare war." Observed Madison: the "fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that the
power to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature."
Despite this history, some modern analysts bizarrely contend that Congress only ever gets to
"declare" that the president had started a war. In fact, the Founders changed the operative
word from "make" to "declare" merely to ensure that the commander-in-chief could respond to a
surprise attack. They did not even believe the president could launch a reprisal without legal
authority. They certainly didn't intend to enable the president to wander the globe smiting
nations hither and yon at his sole discretion.
Despite their many disagreements, the Founders agreed on this point. The president commanded
the military but could only prosecute wars authorized by Congress . Said George Mason,
the chief executive "is not safely to be entrusted with" the power to start wars, which
required "clogging rather than facilitating war." Thomas Jefferson cited the Constitution's
"effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose." Explained
James Wilson: "It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve
us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is in the legislature at
large."
Even Alexander Hamilton, who leaned toward monarchy, emphasized that the commander-in-chief
was just the "first general and admiral." The president's authority was "in substance much
inferior to" that of Britain's monarch, and "would amount to nothing more than the supreme
command and direction of the land and naval forces while that of the British king extends to
the declaring of war."
Trump is bound by the Constitution when confronting Iran. Indeed, the not insubstantial
possibility of him and his officials lying America into another irresponsible war of choice is
why the Founders placed the decision with Congress. Americans have learned at a high cost that
presidents cannot be trusted to act like kings.
With a presidential election approaching, Americans should seriously ponder whether they
want to entrust the presidency to someone who believes he's empowered to make war without
constraint. It's time to choose a chief executive who's prepared to follow the
Constitution.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
(Xulon Press). He is a graduate of Stanford Law School and a member of the California and
Washington, D.C. bars.
"... The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war." ..."
"... From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we -- not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or near Washington, D.C. ..."
"... Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever). ..."
"... Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers, including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent counted for nothing. ..."
"... Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall," provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether irrelevant. His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help ..."
"... There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.) ..."
"... In this sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR existed. ..."
"... I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA) ..."
The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning If America wants to maintain any influence in Asia, it needs to wake
up. By Robert W. Merry •
May 22,
2019
President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday,
November 9, 2017, in Beijing, People's Republic of China. (
Official White House Photo
by Shealah Craighead) From across the pond come two geopolitical analyses in two top-quality British publications that lay out
in stark terms the looming struggle between the United States and China. It isn't just a trade war, says The Economist in
a major cover package. "Trade is not the half of it," declares the magazine. "The United States and China are contesting every domain,
from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration." The days when the two superpowers sought a win-win
world are gone.
For its own cover, The Financial Times ' Philip Stephens produced a piece entitled, "Trade is just an opening shot in a
wider US-China conflict." The subhead: "The current standoff is part of a struggle for global pre-eminence." Writes Stephens: "The
trade narrative is now being subsumed into a much more alarming one. Economics has merged with geopolitics. China, you can hear on
almost every corner in sight of the White House and Congress, is not just a dangerous economic competitor but a looming existential
threat."
Stephens quotes from the so-called National Defense Strategy, entitled "Sharpening the American Military's Competitive Edge,"
released last year by President Donald Trump's Pentagon. In the South China Sea, for example, says the strategic paper, "China has
mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there."
The broader Chinese goal, warns the Pentagon, is "Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United
States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future."
The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more
intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war."
... ... ..
Russia: Of all the developments percolating in the world today, none is more ominous than the growing prospect of an anti-American
alliance involving Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran. Yet such an alliance is in the works, largely as a result of America's inability
to forge a foreign policy that recognizes the legitimate geopolitical interests of other nations. If the United States is to maintain
its position in Asia, this trend must be reversed.
The key is Russia, largely by dint of its geopolitical position in the Eurasian heartland. If China's global rise is to be thwarted,
it must be prevented from gaining dominance over Eurasia. Only Russia can do that. But Russia has no incentive to act because it
feels threatened by the West. NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been
part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries.
Given the trends that are plainly discernible in the Far East, the West must normalize relations with Russia. That means providing
assurances that NATO expansion is over for good. It means the West recognizing that Georgia, Belarus, and, yes, Ukraine are within
Russia's natural zone of influence. They will never be invited into NATO, and any solution to the Ukraine conundrum will have to
accommodate Russian interests. Further, the West must get over Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It is a fait accompli
-- and one that any other nation, including America, would have executed in similar circumstances.
Would Russian President Vladimir Putin spurn these overtures and maintain a posture of bellicosity toward the West? We can't be
sure, but that certainly wouldn't be in his interest. And how will we ever know when it's never been tried? We now understand that
allegations of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia were meritless, so it's time to determine the true nature and extent of Putin's
strategic aims. That's impossible so long as America maintains its sanctions and general bellicosity.
NATO: Trump was right during the 2016 presidential campaign when he said that NATO was obsolete. He later dialed back on
that, but any neutral observer can see that the circumstances that spawned NATO as an imperative of Western survival no longer exist.
The Soviet Union is gone, and the 1.3 million Russian and client state troops it placed on Western Europe's doorstep are gone as
well.
So what kind of threat could Russia pose to Europe and the West? The European Union's GDP is more than 12 times that of Russia's,
while Russia's per capita GDP is only a fourth of Europe's. The Russian population is 144.5 million to Europe's 512 million. Does
anyone seriously think that Russia poses a serious threat to Europe or that Europe needs the American big brother for survival, as
in the immediate postwar years? Of course not. This is just a ruse for the maintenance of the status quo -- Europe as subservient
to America, the Russian bear as menacing grizzly, America as protective slayer in the event of an attack.
This is all ridiculous. NATO shouldn't be abolished. It should be reconfigured for the realities of today. It should be European-led,
not American-led. It should pay for its own defense entirely, whatever that might be (and Europe's calculation of that will inform
us as to its true assessment of the Russian threat). America should be its primary ally, but not committed to intervene whenever
a tiny European nation feels threatened. NATO's Article 5, committing all alliance nations to the defense of any other when attacked,
should be scrapped in favor of language that calls for U.S. intervention only in the event of a true threat to Western Civilization
itself.
And while a European-led NATO would find it difficult to pull back from its forward eastern positions after adding so many nations
in the post-Cold War era, it should extend assurances to Russia that it has no intention of acting provocatively -- absent, of course,
any Russian provocations.
Pragmatic isolationalism is a better deal then the current neocon foreign policy. Which Trump is pursuing with the zeal similar
to Obama (who continued all Bush II wars and started two new in Libya and Syria.) Probably this partially can be explained by
his dependence of Adelson and pro-Israeli lobby.
But the problem is deeper then Trump: it is the power of MIC and American exeptionalism ( which can be viewed as a form of
far right nationalism ) about which Andrew Bacevich have written a lot:
From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we --
not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant
to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living
in or near Washington, D.C.
If doubts remained on that score, the end of the Cold War removed them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse
of communism, politicians, journalists, and policy intellectuals threw themselves headlong into a competition over who could
explain best just how unprecedented, how complete, and how wondrous was the global preeminence of the United States.
Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification
for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore
required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever).
"If we have to use force," Secretary of State Albright announced on morning television in February 1998, "it is because
we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."
Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class
hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."
In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping. The 9/11 terrorist
attacks and the several unsuccessful wars of choice that followed offer prime examples. But so too did Washington's belated
and inadequate recognition of the developments that actually endanger the wellbeing of 21st-century Americans, namely climate
change, cyber threats, and the ongoing reallocation of global power prompted by the rise of China. Rather than seeing far into
the future, American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week. More often than not, they get even that
wrong.
Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global
leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers,
including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent
counted for nothing.
Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful
run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely
approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall,"
provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether
irrelevant. His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help.
There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense
the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider
neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.)
In this sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia
and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when
the USSR existed.
I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat
suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in
China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA)
"... The Iranian goal is to break the resolve of the US, given American military retreats from the Middle East in the past – Lebanon (1984), Iraq (2011), and Syria (presently) – and to increase the cost of Iranian oil sanctions on the global economy through additional disruptions to supply. ..."
"... This is obviously a dangerous game that could lead to real war, not just proxy war. As a result, it is important to explore the potential impact of both on the world oil market, despite the latter being significantly more likely than the former. ..."
"... On the deterrence front, the US has moved numerous military assets to the Persian Gulf region since the Trump administration's "no waiver" oil sanctions came into effect. These include: hastening the arrival of a carrier strike group; deployment of a bomber task-force; additional Patriot missiles; and as reported by The New York Times, drawing up plans to send up to 120,000 US troops to the Middle East, if Iran attacks US forces or rushes to develop nuclear weapons. ..."
As tensions between Iran and the US continue to escalate, analysts have begun to consider the likelihood and consequences of an
Iran war. There has been much talk of an Iran War in recent weeks, but the likelihood of a war, whether intentional or accidental,
is relatively small for the simple reason that the leaders of Iran and the US don't want one. President Donald Trump, who has been
remarkably faithful to his campaign promises, to the chagrin of many, doesn't want another Iraq-like war – with a quick victory
followed by a long defeat. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, doesn't want his revolution and country crushed by the
massive military might of America.
This is not to say there aren't powerful individuals in the Trump administration – such as National Security Advisor John Bolton
and possibly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – and regional allies – Israel, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) – who want a
war to bring about regime change in Iran, and who are willing to stir the pot in an attempt to make it happen.
Trump's personal preference for Iran may also be regime change, with a negotiated neutering of the Islamic Republic his next best
outcome. But he probably would settle for long-term containment of Iran through his
"maximum pressure"
campaign, accepting that the Iranian regime would likely be able to sustain itself though skirting sanctions.
Iran has made huge geopolitical gains in the Middle East since the US inadvertently pushed Shiite-majority Iraq into the Iranian
sphere of influence by imposing democracy on the country following the 2003 war. Tehran now directly or indirectly controls an arc
of territory north of Saudi Arabia – Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – while supporting Houthi rebels to the south of the kingdom in Yemen.
Although US sanctions on Iran's oil and metal exports are unlikely to bring about regime change, they will make it significantly
more difficult for the Islamic Republic to consolidate its territorial gains and sustain its regional proxy network, as the
government will have to prioritize domestic spending to maintain social stability. Simply put, the sanctions make it more difficult
for Iran to directly challenge its regional enemies, Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE and score additional foreign policy victories.
Despite an aversion to war with the US, it appears Khamenei has given Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran's powerful Quds Force and
national hero, permission to encourage foreign militias aligned with Tehran to cause mischief for US and allied forces in the Middle
East, and if possible, disrupt the flow of oil from the region through non-attributed actions.
The Iranian goal is to break the resolve of the US, given American military retreats from the Middle East in the past –
Lebanon (1984), Iraq (2011), and Syria (presently) – and to increase the cost of Iranian oil sanctions on the global economy through
additional disruptions to supply.
This is obviously a dangerous game that could lead to real war, not just proxy war. As a result, it is important to explore
the potential impact of both on the world oil market, despite the latter being significantly more likely than the former.
US Perspective
Pompeo laid out the Trump administration's rationale and strategy for dealing with the Islamic Republic in
"Confronting Iran,"
an article in the November-December 2018 issue of
Foreign Affairs
. He argued the deal the Obama administration and international community struck with Iran in 2015 – the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA) – was fundamentally flawed as it failed to end the country's nuclear weapons ambition. Instead, the deal
simply postponed Iran's nuclear ambitions while the regime continued its ballistic missile program to allow it to deliver a nuclear
payload.
At the same time, the deal gave
"Tehran piles of money, which the supreme leader has used to sponsor all types of terrorism throughout the Middle East (with few
consequences in response) and which have boosted the economic fortunes of a regime that remains bent on exporting its revolution
abroad and imposing it at home."
The core of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign are economic sanctions designed to
"choke off revenues"
to Iran to force its government to negotiate a
"new deal"
covering its nuclear activities, ballistic missile program and
"malign behaviour"
across the Middle East, while providing sufficient military deterrence to keep Tehran from lashing out at US forces and allies
in the region.
Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, and has since ratcheted up economic sanctions on the Islamic
Republic in August and November of last year, while going the full monty on Iranian crude and condensate exports at the beginning of
May.
On the deterrence front, the US has moved numerous military assets to the Persian Gulf region since the Trump
administration's
"no waiver"
oil sanctions came into effect. These include: hastening the arrival of a carrier strike group; deployment of a bomber
task-force; additional Patriot missiles; and as reported by The New York Times, drawing up plans to send up to 120,000 US troops to
the Middle East, if Iran attacks US forces or rushes to develop nuclear weapons.
It should be noted that a military buildup of this size would take months, and the 120,000 number is widely viewed as
insufficient for a full-scale invasion of Iran. The Islamic Republic has been planning and building up asymmetric military
capabilities to thwart a US attack since the 1990s, while the country is larger in size and population than Iraq. The US military
plan reported by the New York Times did not call for a land invasion of Iran.
On May 14, Trump denied the New York Times report, but in characteristic fashion appeared to up the ante.
"Now, would I do that? Absolutely,"
Trump said.
"But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, we would send a hell of a
lot more troops than that."
But in the Foreign Affairs
article Pompeo wrote that Trump does not want the US to go to war with Iran:
"President Trump does not want another long-term US military engagement in the Middle East -- or in any other region, for that
matter. He has spoken openly about the dreadful consequences of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2011 intervention in Libya."
Iranian Perspective
On May 14, Khamenei explicitly said that Iran does not want to go to war with the US, and suggested the same of America, as a war
would be in neither country's interest.
"There won't be any war,"
he said.
"Neither we nor they seek war. They know it will not be in their interest."
In terms of Iran's current situation, David Petraeus, ex-CIA director and America's former top general in the Middle East,
possibly put it best.
"Certainly, if Iran were to precipitate that [a war], it would be a suicide gesture,"
Petraeus said on May 9.
"It would be very, very foolhardy. And they know that."
The Islamic Republic has done an excellent job of marshaling relatively limited financial and military resources to expand its
influence and control through the Middle East since 2003, but its defense budget of about US$16 billion – or a mere 3.7 percent of
GDP – falls considerably short compared to regional rivals Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE on an individual basis, let alone a
collective one. The military capabilities of the US dwarf those of Iran on every conceivable measure, which should come as no
surprise since America's most recent defense budget is a massive US$686 billion.
Khamenei also said his country has no desire to negotiate with the US, given the Trump administration's extreme demands and
unilateral breaking of the nuclear pact, and suggested the current crisis will likely be a long one, a view supported by Hassan
Rouhani, the democratically elected president of Iran.
"The Iranian nation has chosen the path of resistance,"
Khamenei said.
Rouhani was even more explicit. Speaking to activists from a wide range of political factions on May 12, he said Iran is facing
"unprecedented"
pressure from US sanctions and suggested economic conditions may become worse than during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.
"The pressures by enemies is a war unprecedented in the history of our Islamic revolution,"
Rouhani said, according to the state news agency IRNA.
"But I do not despair and have great hope for the future and believe that we can move past these difficult conditions provided
that we are united
."
Jake
says: Next New Comment May 22, 2019 at 3:27 pm
GMT 100 Words This is good writing: "The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that
post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened calf
being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards
discovered that their country was to play the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they
were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards.
War between the United States and Iran looms, even though the latter poses no threat to the
former. President Donald Trump says he doesn't want war but for the Iranians to call him.
Perhaps his entire campaign is an elaborate effort to scare Tehran to the negotiating table. Or
perhaps he hopes to win political support by fomenting a foreign crisis. How ironic that would
be: in 2011, Trump warned via tweet that "Barack Obama will attack Iran in the not too distant
future because it will help him win the election."
However, the president already ran against the Islamic Republic, in 2016. Moreover, his
words have been incendiary, threatening "the official end of Iran." Although U.S. intelligence
officials admit that Tehran's confrontational rhetoric is largely a response to Washington's
aggression, the administration's military moves are sharply increasing tensions as well as the
possibility of a costly mistake or misjudgment.
The War Party is active again in the Imperial City. Before joining the administration,
National Security Advisor John Bolton forthrightly called for an attack on the Islamic
Republic. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also demanded regime change in Iran. More recently, he
admitted that sanctions were intended to induce the Iranian people to "change the government."
While claiming not to seek war, he threatened retaliation for any attack by Iranian "proxy
forces" and on "American interests."
Tehran has long been a favorite target of influential neoconservatives and ultra-hawks. The
invasion of Iraq almost immediately led to calls for a turn to Tehran. Several years ago,
Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute of Near East Policy suggested staging a false flag
operation: if "the Iranians aren't going to compromise," he said, "it would be best if somebody
else started the war." Today, Senator Tom Cotton predicts an easy American
victory.
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The Saudis also openly favor an American war against Iran. (Defense Secretary Robert Gates
once quipped that Riyadh would fight Iran "to the last American.") A newspaper owned by the
royal family last week called on Washington to "hit hard." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has worked tirelessly to inflate the Iranian "threat" and told a TV interviewer that
he'd convinced Trump to abandon the nuclear deal.
Yet conflict with Iran would be a disaster, far worse than with Iraq. Even the Council on
Foreign Relations' Max Boot, a vocal neoconservative and uber-hawk, has warned against this.
And Americans would not be the only casualties. Jason Rezaian, TheWashington
Post reporter who spent more than a year in an Iranian prison, observed: "those who will
suffer most have little say in the matter. It's the Iranian people who have borne the brunt of
40 years of enmity between the United States and the Islamic republic, and in the current
standoff, they stand to lose the most yet again."
The possibility that the chief executive might rush or be pushed into such a disastrous war
is exactly why the Founders obliged presidents to go to Congress for approval. The Constitution
places the power to declare war in the hands of the legislature.
Yet modern presidents routinely claim monarchical powers, using the military without proper
authority. Legislators often avoid taking responsibility for wars that might turn unpopular.
But neither unconstitutional nor irresponsible behavior justifies chief executives doing the
same.
Trump has proven no more faithful to the Constitution than his predecessors. For instance,
Pompeo refused to commit the administration to going to Congress for the authority to attack
Iran. (The secretary did the same when earlier questioned about the administration's military
threats against Venezuela.) Pompeo suggested that the president might rely on the post-9/11
authorization for use of military force, an even more ludicrous reach than the Obama
administration's appeal to the same measure for its fight against the Islamic State and strikes
on Syria.
The refusal to obey the Constitution is evidence of weakness. In contrast, many of America's
strongest chief executives recognized Congress's authority. George Washington declared: "The
Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition
of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and
authorized such a measure."
Abraham Lincoln praised the Founders for recognizing war "to be the most oppressive of all
Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold
the power of bringing this oppression upon us." Dwight Eisenhower was equally insistent on the
need for legislative approval for war.
Delegates to the constitutional convention insisted they were not recreating the king of
England or replicating his powers, especially to start wars. After all, war is the hallmark of
unlimited government. Warned James Madison: "Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is,
perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War
is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes
are the known instrument for bringing the many under the domination of the few."
The Founders knew this problem well, since a succession of European kings and queens had
launched a succession of unnecessary and even frivolous conflicts. The price was paid in blood
and treasure by the common folk. John Jay observed that kings were often led "to engage in wars
not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people." Pierce Butler insisted
that the president not be invested with the authority to start wars, like a monarch who enjoyed
the "opportunity of involving his country in a war whenever he wished to promote her
destruction."
Madison explained the principle incorporated in the Constitution: "Those who are to conduct
a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be
commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great
principle in free governments, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or
the power of executing from the power of enacting laws."
Thus, the Constitution gives to Congress most military powers: raising an army, funding the
military, issuing letters of marquee, approving rules of war, ratifying treaties, and, of
course, taking America into war. Article 1, Section 8 (11) states: "Congress shall have the
power to declare war." Observed Madison: the "fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that the
power to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature."
Despite this history, some modern analysts bizarrely contend that Congress only ever gets to
"declare" that the president had started a war. In fact, the Founders changed the operative
word from "make" to "declare" merely to ensure that the commander-in-chief could respond to a
surprise attack. They did not even believe the president could launch a reprisal without legal
authority. They certainly didn't intend to enable the president to wander the globe smiting
nations hither and yon at his sole discretion.
Despite their many disagreements, the Founders agreed on this point. The president commanded
the military but could only prosecute wars authorized by Congress . Said George Mason,
the chief executive "is not safely to be entrusted with" the power to start wars, which
required "clogging rather than facilitating war." Thomas Jefferson cited the Constitution's
"effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose." Explained
James Wilson: "It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve
us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is in the legislature at
large."
Even Alexander Hamilton, who leaned toward monarchy, emphasized that the commander-in-chief
was just the "first general and admiral." The president's authority was "in substance much
inferior to" that of Britain's monarch, and "would amount to nothing more than the supreme
command and direction of the land and naval forces while that of the British king extends to
the declaring of war."
Trump is bound by the Constitution when confronting Iran. Indeed, the not insubstantial
possibility of him and his officials lying America into another irresponsible war of choice is
why the Founders placed the decision with Congress. Americans have learned at a high cost that
presidents cannot be trusted to act like kings.
With a presidential election approaching, Americans should seriously ponder whether they
want to entrust the presidency to someone who believes he's empowered to make war without
constraint. It's time to choose a chief executive who's prepared to follow the
Constitution.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
(Xulon Press). He is a graduate of Stanford Law School and a member of the California and
Washington, D.C. bars.
"... The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war." ..."
"... From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we -- not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or near Washington, D.C. ..."
"... Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever). ..."
"... Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers, including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent counted for nothing. ..."
"... Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall," provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether irrelevant. His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help ..."
"... There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.) ..."
"... In this sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR existed. ..."
"... I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA) ..."
The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning If America wants to maintain any influence in Asia, it needs to wake
up. By Robert W. Merry •
May 22,
2019
President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday,
November 9, 2017, in Beijing, People's Republic of China. (
Official White House Photo
by Shealah Craighead) From across the pond come two geopolitical analyses in two top-quality British publications that lay out
in stark terms the looming struggle between the United States and China. It isn't just a trade war, says The Economist in
a major cover package. "Trade is not the half of it," declares the magazine. "The United States and China are contesting every domain,
from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration." The days when the two superpowers sought a win-win
world are gone.
For its own cover, The Financial Times ' Philip Stephens produced a piece entitled, "Trade is just an opening shot in a
wider US-China conflict." The subhead: "The current standoff is part of a struggle for global pre-eminence." Writes Stephens: "The
trade narrative is now being subsumed into a much more alarming one. Economics has merged with geopolitics. China, you can hear on
almost every corner in sight of the White House and Congress, is not just a dangerous economic competitor but a looming existential
threat."
Stephens quotes from the so-called National Defense Strategy, entitled "Sharpening the American Military's Competitive Edge,"
released last year by President Donald Trump's Pentagon. In the South China Sea, for example, says the strategic paper, "China has
mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there."
The broader Chinese goal, warns the Pentagon, is "Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United
States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future."
The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more
intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war."
... ... ..
Russia: Of all the developments percolating in the world today, none is more ominous than the growing prospect of an anti-American
alliance involving Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran. Yet such an alliance is in the works, largely as a result of America's inability
to forge a foreign policy that recognizes the legitimate geopolitical interests of other nations. If the United States is to maintain
its position in Asia, this trend must be reversed.
The key is Russia, largely by dint of its geopolitical position in the Eurasian heartland. If China's global rise is to be thwarted,
it must be prevented from gaining dominance over Eurasia. Only Russia can do that. But Russia has no incentive to act because it
feels threatened by the West. NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been
part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries.
Given the trends that are plainly discernible in the Far East, the West must normalize relations with Russia. That means providing
assurances that NATO expansion is over for good. It means the West recognizing that Georgia, Belarus, and, yes, Ukraine are within
Russia's natural zone of influence. They will never be invited into NATO, and any solution to the Ukraine conundrum will have to
accommodate Russian interests. Further, the West must get over Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It is a fait accompli
-- and one that any other nation, including America, would have executed in similar circumstances.
Would Russian President Vladimir Putin spurn these overtures and maintain a posture of bellicosity toward the West? We can't be
sure, but that certainly wouldn't be in his interest. And how will we ever know when it's never been tried? We now understand that
allegations of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia were meritless, so it's time to determine the true nature and extent of Putin's
strategic aims. That's impossible so long as America maintains its sanctions and general bellicosity.
NATO: Trump was right during the 2016 presidential campaign when he said that NATO was obsolete. He later dialed back on
that, but any neutral observer can see that the circumstances that spawned NATO as an imperative of Western survival no longer exist.
The Soviet Union is gone, and the 1.3 million Russian and client state troops it placed on Western Europe's doorstep are gone as
well.
So what kind of threat could Russia pose to Europe and the West? The European Union's GDP is more than 12 times that of Russia's,
while Russia's per capita GDP is only a fourth of Europe's. The Russian population is 144.5 million to Europe's 512 million. Does
anyone seriously think that Russia poses a serious threat to Europe or that Europe needs the American big brother for survival, as
in the immediate postwar years? Of course not. This is just a ruse for the maintenance of the status quo -- Europe as subservient
to America, the Russian bear as menacing grizzly, America as protective slayer in the event of an attack.
This is all ridiculous. NATO shouldn't be abolished. It should be reconfigured for the realities of today. It should be European-led,
not American-led. It should pay for its own defense entirely, whatever that might be (and Europe's calculation of that will inform
us as to its true assessment of the Russian threat). America should be its primary ally, but not committed to intervene whenever
a tiny European nation feels threatened. NATO's Article 5, committing all alliance nations to the defense of any other when attacked,
should be scrapped in favor of language that calls for U.S. intervention only in the event of a true threat to Western Civilization
itself.
And while a European-led NATO would find it difficult to pull back from its forward eastern positions after adding so many nations
in the post-Cold War era, it should extend assurances to Russia that it has no intention of acting provocatively -- absent, of course,
any Russian provocations.
Pragmatic isolationalism is a better deal then the current neocon foreign policy. Which Trump is pursuing with the zeal similar
to Obama (who continued all Bush II wars and started two new in Libya and Syria.) Probably this partially can be explained by
his dependence of Adelson and pro-Israeli lobby.
But the problem is deeper then Trump: it is the power of MIC and American exeptionalism ( which can be viewed as a form of
far right nationalism ) about which Andrew Bacevich have written a lot:
From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we --
not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant
to be. That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living
in or near Washington, D.C.
If doubts remained on that score, the end of the Cold War removed them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse
of communism, politicians, journalists, and policy intellectuals threw themselves headlong into a competition over who could
explain best just how unprecedented, how complete, and how wondrous was the global preeminence of the United States.
Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification
for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore
required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever).
"If we have to use force," Secretary of State Albright announced on morning television in February 1998, "it is because
we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."
Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class
hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."
In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping. The 9/11 terrorist
attacks and the several unsuccessful wars of choice that followed offer prime examples. But so too did Washington's belated
and inadequate recognition of the developments that actually endanger the wellbeing of 21st-century Americans, namely climate
change, cyber threats, and the ongoing reallocation of global power prompted by the rise of China. Rather than seeing far into
the future, American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week. More often than not, they get even that
wrong.
Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global
leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers,
including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent
counted for nothing.
Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful
run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely
approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall,"
provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether
irrelevant. His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help.
There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense
the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider
neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.)
In this sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia
and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when
the USSR existed.
I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat
suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in
China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA)
"... As the Pentagon's strategic paper posits, China's overriding foreign policy goal is to squeeze America out of East Asia and force it back to the Hawaiian islands as its forward position in the Pacific. Thus would Hawaii cease to be America's strategic platform for projecting power into Asia and become merely a defensive position. If this strategic retreat were to happen, it would be one of the most significant developments in international relations since the end of World War II. ..."
"... None of your suggestions is likely to happen, absent defeat. America's trump card is the fiat dollar as world currency, defended by the full faith and power of an imperial global military, with its own economic inertia to the domestic economy as well. ..."
"... The most obvious step is to forge a genuine alliance with India. America can't take on China alone (although China's ineluctable demographic decline may make the US' relative decline in fortunes short-lived), and the world's largest democracy, and soon to be most populous nation, is an obvious counterweight to China, despite its still inefficient economy. ..."
"... The US has been trying to reverse this, but our patronizing attitude towards a proud country seeking great-power status has led to modest progress at best, and their defense relationship with Russia is stronger than with us. ..."
"... There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.) ..."
"... Overlooked might be Germany's copycat foreign policy posturing too often hidden behind 'humanitarian' language. https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/projects/new-power-new-responsibility/the-paper/ ..."
"... Guess the parallel with the US 'New American Century' is not misplaced. Do you realize that Germany aims to leverage the EU for establishing its position as a 'World Player'. Do realize too that it tends to categorize other countries along the same zero sum power line of reasoning as the US "either with us or against us". ..."
"... This German foreign policy gave birth to the European Neighborhood Policy which exploited the US instigated coup to indenture Ukraine into a dependent NON-member state associated exclusively with the EU excluding normal economic relations with Russia. ..."
"... One of the most malign effects of Israeli and Saudi control of American politicians is the grotesque overemphasis on the Middle East in US foreign policy. Trump's trade fights to one side, it often seems as if we dismiss or ignore much of the rest of the world. This disproportion has been obvious and growing since the end of the last century, but at this point it's pathological. ..."
"... Well, it all depends on goals doesn't it. US foreign policy goals are to increase chaos and create international tension. Why? Because US foreign policy exists to feed military and intel contractors on the one hand and asserting power for the sake of asserting power with no overall strategy other the Great Game. ..."
The Great Power Game is On and China is Winning If America wants to maintain any influence in Asia, it needs to wake
up. By Robert W. Merry •
May 22,
2019
President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Thursday,
November 9, 2017, in Beijing, People's Republic of China. (
Official White House Photo
by Shealah Craighead) From across the pond come two geopolitical analyses in two top-quality British publications that lay out
in stark terms the looming struggle between the United States and China. It isn't just a trade war, says The Economist in
a major cover package. "Trade is not the half of it," declares the magazine. "The United States and China are contesting every domain,
from semiconductors to submarines and from blockbuster films to lunar exploration." The days when the two superpowers sought a win-win
world are gone.
For its own cover, The Financial Times ' Philip Stephens produced a piece entitled, "Trade is just an opening shot in a
wider US-China conflict." The subhead: "The current standoff is part of a struggle for global pre-eminence." Writes Stephens: "The
trade narrative is now being subsumed into a much more alarming one. Economics has merged with geopolitics. China, you can hear on
almost every corner in sight of the White House and Congress, is not just a dangerous economic competitor but a looming existential
threat."
Stephens quotes from the so-called National Defense Strategy, entitled "Sharpening the American Military's Competitive Edge,"
released last year by President Donald Trump's Pentagon. In the South China Sea, for example, says the strategic paper, "China has
mounted a rapid military modernization campaign designed to limit U.S. access to the region and provide China a freer hand there."
The broader Chinese goal, warns the Pentagon, is "Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United
States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future."
The Economist and Stephens are correct. The trade dispute is merely a small part of a much larger and even more
intense geopolitical rivalry that could ignite what Stephens describes as "an altogether hotter war."
As the Pentagon's strategic paper posits, China's overriding foreign policy goal is to squeeze America out of East Asia and
force it back to the Hawaiian islands as its forward position in the Pacific. Thus would Hawaii cease to be America's strategic platform
for projecting power into Asia and become merely a defensive position. If this strategic retreat were to happen, it would be one
of the most significant developments in international relations since the end of World War II.
America has been projecting significant power into Asia since the 1890s, when President William McKinley acquired Hawaii through
annexation, then seized Guam and the Philippines in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. For good measure, he cleared the way
for the construction of the Panama Canal and continued his predecessors' robust buildup of the U.S. Navy. President Theodore Roosevelt
then pushed the Canal project to actual construction, accelerated the naval buildup, and sent his Great White Fleet around the world
as a signal that America had arrived on the global scene -- as if anyone could have missed that obvious reality.
With the total victory over Japan in World War II, America emerged as the hegemon of Asia, with colonies, naval bases, carrier
groups, and strategic alliances that made it foolhardy for any nation to even think of challenging our regional dominance. Not even
the Vietnam defeat, as psychologically debilitating as that was, could undercut America's Asian preeminence.
Now China is seeking to position itself to push America back into its own hemisphere. And judging from the language of the National
Defense Strategy, America doesn't intend to be pushed back. This is a clash of wills, with all the makings of an actual military
conflict.
But if China represents the greatest potential threat to America's global position, making an eventual war likely (though not
inevitable), why is Washington not acting like it knows this? Why is it engaging in so many silly military capers that undermine
its ability to focus attention and resources on the China challenge? While the National Defense Strategy paper suggests that U.S.
officials understand the threat, America's actions reveal an incapacity to grapple with this reality in any concentrated fashion.
Here's a general idea of what a U.S. foreign policy under Trump might look like if it was based on a clear recognition of the
China threat:
Iran: Since the end of the Cold War, the sheer folly of Trump's Iran policy has been exceeded only by George W. Bush's
Iraq invasion. Barack Obama bequeathed to his successor a rare gift in the Iran nuclear deal, which provided an opportunity to direct
attention away from Tehran and toward America's position in East Asia. In no way did it serve America's national interest to stir
up tensions with Iran while the far more ominous China threat loomed. A policy based on realism would have seized that opportunity
and used the channels of communication forged through the nuclear deal to establish some kind of accommodation, however wary or tenuous.
Instead, America under Trump has created a crisis where none need exist.
Personnel: While the Iran policy might be difficult to reverse, a reversal is imperative. And that means Trump must fire
National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. While their bully boy actions on the global stage seem
to mesh with Trump's own temperament, the president also appears increasingly uncomfortable with the results, particularly with regard
to their maximum pressure on Iran, which has brought America closer than ever to actual hostilities. Whether Trump has the subtlety
of mind to understand just how destructive these men have been to his broad foreign policy goals is an open question. And Trump certainly
deserves plenty of blame for pushing America into a zone of open hostility with Iran. But he can't extricate himself from his own
folly so long as he has Bolton and Pompeo pushing him toward ever more bellicosity in ever more areas of the world. He needs men
around him who appreciate just how wrongheaded American foreign policy has been in the post-Cold War era -- men such as retired Army
Colonel Douglas MacGregor and former Virginia senator Jim Webb. Bolton and Pompeo -- out!
Russia: Of all the developments percolating in the world today, none is more ominous than the growing prospect of an anti-American
alliance involving Russia, China, Turkey, and Iran. Yet such an alliance is in the works, largely as a result of America's inability
to forge a foreign policy that recognizes the legitimate geopolitical interests of other nations. If the United States is to maintain
its position in Asia, this trend must be reversed.
The key is Russia, largely by dint of its geopolitical position in the Eurasian heartland. If China's global rise is to be thwarted,
it must be prevented from gaining dominance over Eurasia. Only Russia can do that. But Russia has no incentive to act because it
feels threatened by the West. NATO has pushed eastward right up to its borders and threatened to incorporate regions that have been
part of Russia's sphere of influence -- and its defense perimeter -- for centuries.
Given the trends that are plainly discernible in the Far East, the West must normalize relations with Russia. That means providing
assurances that NATO expansion is over for good. It means the West recognizing that Georgia, Belarus, and, yes, Ukraine are within
Russia's natural zone of influence. They will never be invited into NATO, and any solution to the Ukraine conundrum will have to
accommodate Russian interests. Further, the West must get over Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It is a fait accompli
-- and one that any other nation, including America, would have executed in similar circumstances.
Would Russian President Vladimir Putin spurn these overtures and maintain a posture of bellicosity toward the West? We can't be
sure, but that certainly wouldn't be in his interest. And how will we ever know when it's never been tried? We now understand that
allegations of Trump's campaign colluding with Russia were meritless, so it's time to determine the true nature and extent of Putin's
strategic aims. That's impossible so long as America maintains its sanctions and general bellicosity.
NATO: Trump was right during the 2016 presidential campaign when he said that NATO was obsolete. He later dialed back on
that, but any neutral observer can see that the circumstances that spawned NATO as an imperative of Western survival no longer exist.
The Soviet Union is gone, and the 1.3 million Russian and client state troops it placed on Western Europe's doorstep are gone as
well.
So what kind of threat could Russia pose to Europe and the West? The European Union's GDP is more than 12 times that of Russia's,
while Russia's per capita GDP is only a fourth of Europe's. The Russian population is 144.5 million to Europe's 512 million. Does
anyone seriously think that Russia poses a serious threat to Europe or that Europe needs the American big brother for survival, as
in the immediate postwar years? Of course not. This is just a ruse for the maintenance of the status quo -- Europe as subservient
to America, the Russian bear as menacing grizzly, America as protective slayer in the event of an attack.
This is all ridiculous. NATO shouldn't be abolished. It should be reconfigured for the realities of today. It should be European-led,
not American-led. It should pay for its own defense entirely, whatever that might be (and Europe's calculation of that will inform
us as to its true assessment of the Russian threat). America should be its primary ally, but not committed to intervene whenever
a tiny European nation feels threatened. NATO's Article 5, committing all alliance nations to the defense of any other when attacked,
should be scrapped in favor of language that calls for U.S. intervention only in the event of a true threat to Western Civilization
itself.
And while a European-led NATO would find it difficult to pull back from its forward eastern positions after adding so many nations
in the post-Cold War era, it should extend assurances to Russia that it has no intention of acting provocatively -- absent, of course,
any Russian provocations.
The Middle East: The United States should reduce its footprint in the region on a major scale. It should get out of Afghanistan,
with assurances to the Taliban that it will allow that country to go its own way, irrespective of the outcome, so long as it doesn't
pose a threat to the United States or its vital interests. U.S. troops should be removed from Syria, and America should stop supporting
Saudi Arabia's nasty war in Yemen. We should make clear to Israel and the world that the Jewish state is a major U.S. ally and will
be protected whenever it is truly threatened. But we should also emphasize that we won't seek through military means to alter the
regional balance of power based on mere perceptions of potential future threats to countries in the region, even allies. The United
States won't get drawn into regional wars unrelated to its own vital interests.
Far East: Once the other regional decks are cleared, America must turn its attention to Asia. The first question: do we
wish to maintain our current position there, or can we accept China's rise even if it means a U.S. retreat or partial retreat from
the region? If a retreat is deemed acceptable, then America should secure the best terms possible over a long period of tough and
guileful negotiations. But if we decide to maintain regional dominance, then China will have to be isolated and deterred. That will
mean a long period of economic tension and even economic warfare, confrontations over China's extravagant claims of sovereignty in
the South China Sea and elsewhere, strong U.S. alliances with other Asian nations nurtured through deft and measured diplomacy, soaring
technological superiority, and a continual upper hand in any arms race.
In this scenario, can war be averted? History suggests that may not be likely. But either way, America won't remain an Asian power
if it allows itself to be pinned down in multiple nonstrategic spats and adventures around the world. Asia is today's Great Game
and China is winning. That won't be reversed unless America starts playing.
None of your suggestions is likely to happen, absent defeat. America's trump card is the fiat dollar as world currency, defended
by the full faith and power of an imperial global military, with its own economic inertia to the domestic economy as well.
That allows U.S. legal decisions to have extra territorial scope as the real international power, not now irrelevant toothless
international institutions like the UN.
Nice summary, Mr Merry. Even the most die-hard Trumpet can find something to disagree upon with their Dear Leader while supporting
everything else he does, but this clear and succinct outline leaves no where for the Deplorables to hide. Coupled with the China
trade war fiasco, thias is pretty grim.
Of course, come 2020, all will be forgiven by the GOP, and even one criticism with be blasted with a twitter assault.
The most obvious step is to forge a genuine alliance with India. America can't take on China alone (although China's ineluctable
demographic decline may make the US' relative decline in fortunes short-lived), and the world's largest democracy, and soon to
be most populous nation, is an obvious counterweight to China, despite its still inefficient economy.
Unfortunately our support for the treacherous Pakistanis has poisoned our relationship with India. In 1971, Nixon actually
sent a carrier group in the Bay of Bengal to intimidate the Indians into stopping support for the Bangladeshis fighting a war
of independence against the genocidal (West) Pakistan, and the Indians had to call on the Soviets to send nuclear submarines to
deter that threat. Like all ancient nations, Indians have long memories. Ironically, that reckless action was in cahoots with
China.
The US has been trying to reverse this, but our patronizing attitude towards a proud country seeking great-power status
has led to modest progress at best, and their defense relationship with Russia is stronger than with us.
Pragmatic isolationism is a better deal then the current neocon foreign policy. Which Trump is pursuing with the zeal similar
to Obama (who continued all Bush II wars and started two new in Libya and Syria.) Probably this partially can be explained by
his dependence of Adelson and pro-Israeli lobby. But the problem is deeper then Trump: it is the power of MIC and American exceptionalism
( which can be viewed as a form of far right nationalism ) about which Andrew Bacevich have written a lot:
From the mid-1940s onward, the primacy of the United States was assumed as a given. History had rendered a verdict: we --
not the Brits and certainly not the Germans, French, or Russians -- were number one, and, more importantly, were meant to be.
That history's verdict might be subject to revision was literally unimaginable, especially to anyone making a living in or
near Washington, D.C.
If doubts remained on that score, the end of the Cold War removed them. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse
of communism, politicians, journalists, and policy intellectuals threw themselves headlong into a competition over who could
explain best just how unprecedented, how complete, and how wondrous was the global preeminence of the United States.
Choose your own favorite post-Cold War paean to American power and privilege. Mine remains Madeleine Albright's justification
for some now-forgotten episode of armed intervention, uttered 20 years ago when American wars were merely occasional (and therefore
required some nominal justification) rather then perpetual (and therefore requiring no justification whatsoever).
"If we have to use force," Secretary of State Albright announced on morning television in February 1998, "it is because
we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."
Back then, it was Albright's claim to American indispensability that stuck in my craw. Yet as a testimony to ruling class
hubris, the assertion of indispensability pales in comparison to Albright's insistence that "we see further into the future."
In fact, from February 1998 down to the present, events have time and again caught Albright's "we" napping. The 9/11 terrorist
attacks and the several unsuccessful wars of choice that followed offer prime examples. But so too did Washington's belated
and inadequate recognition of the developments that actually endanger the wellbeing of 21st-century Americans, namely climate
change, cyber threats, and the ongoing reallocation of global power prompted by the rise of China.
Rather than seeing far into the future, American elites have struggled to discern what might happen next week. More often
than not, they get even that wrong.
Like some idiot savant, Donald Trump understood this. He grasped that the establishment's formula for militarized global
leadership applied to actually existing post-Cold War circumstances was spurring American decline. Certainly other observers,
including contributors to this publication, had for years been making the same argument, but in the halls of power their dissent
counted for nothing.
Yet in 2016, Trump's critique of U.S. policy resonated with many ordinary Americans and formed the basis of his successful
run for the presidency. Unfortunately, once Trump assumed office, that critique did not translate into anything even remotely
approximating a coherent strategy. President Trump's half-baked formula for Making America Great Again -- building "the wall,"
provoking trade wars, and elevating Iran to the status of existential threat -- is, to put it mildly, flawed, if not altogether
irrelevant.
His own manifest incompetence and limited attention span don't help.
There is no countervailing force within the USA that is able to tame MIC appetites, which are constantly growing. In a
sense the nation is taken hostage with no root for escape via internal political mechanisms (for all practical purposes I would
consider neocons that dominate the USA foreign policy to be highly paid lobbyists of MIC.)
In this limited sense the alliance of China, Iran, Russia and Turkey might serve as an external countervailing force which
allows some level of return to sanity, like was the case when the USSR used to exist.
I agree with Bacevich that the dissolution of the USSR corrupted the US elite to the extent that it became reckless and somewhat
suicidal in seeking "Full Spectrum Dominance" (which is an illusive goal in any case taking into account existing arsenals in
China and Russia and the growing distance between EU and the USA.)
Your current foreign policy simply seems to reflect the astonishing degree of violence that permeates your society, when observing
you Americans from a place like Hong Kong or China it's really frightening, I would be more scared to visit the US than Liberia
or Sierra Leone, with those innumerable ( armed ) nutcases roaming your streets, you are by now used to it, and it saddens me,
thinking of how grateful we should be for all you have done in the distant past for so many countries in the world
The blockheads advising know nothing Trump about history and geo-politics don't care a whit about the American people or what
is ten years down the road. These people, Bolton, Pompeo and the joke-Kushner- are ego/power lovers and are doing the opposite
of a sane policy to every part of the globe.
How the hell do you goad and threaten Russia, for example, for no good reason and how do you threaten Russia, which, like the
U.S., with the push of several buttons can turn any city in the world to ashes, in minutes.
The American people are not only dumb as a wall, they don't care about foreign policy and they don't wanna know. The're looking
at celebrities and looking at their smart phones for fun and weirdness. The phones are smarter than them and they pay the price
when clown Trump does things like trade wars and so on.
Yeah, the average American, what prizes they are, as in they look and say,
Is that the actress there on the 'news' oh, what's she wearing is that the 'genius' athlete, what does that smelly guy say
today hey, let's order food delivered so we can watch and tomorrow to the sports bar and
This article forgets to mention why it would be in the American people's interest to be the hegemon of East Asia. I can't think
of any reason myself. Anyone?
Guess the parallel with the US 'New American Century' is not misplaced. Do you realize that Germany aims to leverage the
EU for establishing its position as a 'World Player'. Do realize too that it tends to categorize other countries along the
same zero sum power line of reasoning as the US "either with us or against us".
This German foreign policy gave birth to the European Neighborhood Policy which exploited the US instigated coup to indenture
Ukraine into a dependent NON-member state associated exclusively with the EU excluding normal economic relations with Russia.
I agree with the article, but not the title. The article acknowledges two important points, but leaves out another.
First, it correctly acknowledges that our obsession with Iran is vastly disproportionate to the threat it poses. In fact, we
would do well to scale back our adventurism in the Middle East. If China is winning in the Far East, it is largely because we
have chosen to devote resources elsewhere.
Second, it correctly acknowledges that continued antagonizing of Russia by the West is needless. It is time to normalize relations
with Russia, recognize its legitimate interest in having some buffer against the West, and repatriate Russian nationals who have
recently immigrated to the West.
Third, the article fails to acknowledge that China, like Russia, is also entitled to some sphere of influence. And there is
historic precedence for certain such claims. Those claims are tenuous when it comes to Japan and the Korean peninsula. But there
is little reason why American Navy ships should be sailing right up to the borders of China, just as there is little reason why
Chinese Navy ships should be sailing off the coast of Oregon. We also need to understand that provoking a trade war that slows
the Chinese economy merely enhances the power of President Xi. Trump has given President Xi a massive political gift, and for
no good reason. The trade imbalance is evidence of the strength of our economy, not a sign that we're losing out to China.
One of the most malign effects of Israeli and Saudi control of American politicians is the grotesque overemphasis on the Middle
East in US foreign policy. Trump's trade fights to one side, it often seems as if we dismiss or ignore much of the rest of the
world. This disproportion has been obvious and growing since the end of the last century, but at this point it's pathological.
If we are to compete effectively with China and other global players, if we are to have a balanced and effective foreign policy
in general, we need to remove the Middle East blinders, get Israel and Saudi Arabia off our back, and start seeing the world as
it is, rather than as Israel and Saudi Arabia pay our politicians to see it.
Simple questions: Why should we care? And how does all this soft power benefit the average citizens? And for all the China fears,
they appear to react very rationally and avoid military conflicts.
Ok, it is true Chinese oil buying is probably keeping Iran in a better economic situation but again this seems more of a problem
of Iran hawks not the average citizen. Honestly, I wish the US had more of treasury focused foreign policy and stop worrying about
US power.
Well, it all depends on goals doesn't it. US foreign policy goals are to increase chaos and create international tension.
Why? Because US foreign policy exists to feed military and intel contractors on the one hand and asserting power for the sake
of asserting power with no overall strategy other the Great Game.
Any rational analysis of the past couple of decades forces us to come to that conclusion. The reason why this whole scheme
is unlikely to fail in the short and medium term is US military involvement in 150 countries has brought much of the world under
Washington's control–or at least their ruling elites. The best China can do is provide an alternative to the Empire and live in
some sort of harmony with it because China has not shown any intention of competing militarily with the US. Iran is a key part
of the Silk Road project and that is the strategic reason for the attempt to crush or destroy Iran that is central to the strategy.
The US wants to keep China and Russia out of Europe–that, if you look at policy, seems to be the main contest.
The conflict with Iran has assumed heightened importance because,at 70 years old, John Bolton has to face the possibility that
he might die without having started a war somewhere.
The author misses two other two other components of of a proper China "containment" policy: Immigration and trade policy. The
US should be actively trying to attract immigration of skilled young workers and entrepreneurs (including from China) and encouraging
university graduates from abroad to remain. The US ought to join the TPP in order to increase our leverage in negotiating reductions
in Chinese restrictions on trade and investment.
Why would Russia want to make a deal with the United States, which cannot be trusted to keep its word, or even to act rationally
in pursuit of its own interests?
Generally a good article, but it misses an important point. While China and Russia do have natural spheres of influence, the countries
within those natural spheres hate being there.
Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam are naturally within China's influence, but they don't trust the Chinese at all, and surely don't
want China to dominate their countries. And given they way the Chinese empire treats Tibetan and Uigurs, they have good reason
for that.
Similarly in Eastern Europe, where Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic States might be in Russian sphere, but they sure don't want
to be. The fact is that NATO did not aggressively seek them out for membership, those small countries begged to join NATO out
of their historical fear of Russia.
While recognizing such spheres of influence, do we want to abandon friendly, democratic countries to a hostile, autocratic
power? The Cold War model of Finland give some hope for a compromise, but it won't be easy to implement outside of Finland.
This article is another vivid illustration of how disoriented and narrow-minded when a typical intelligent and well-meaning American
is talking about China. For examples:
1. The author has no problem acknowledging specific geopolitical interests to accommodate Russia or even Iran, but when he
comes to China, he fails completely to mention any of the legitimate interests China has in East Asia.
2. The author repeats the nonsensical China haters' allegation about China's threat to America, and China's intention to push
American out of East Asia.
3. The author resorts back to a typical zero-sum or even cold-war style mentality when talking about overall China strategy,
without even considering the possibilities that China and America can co-exist in a friendly manner, where all the peaceful competition
between the two countries ultimately translating into net positive results that benefit the people of both countries and the world.
Unfortunately, our so-called "experts" in China are consistently failing Americans badly, because they lack the knowledge and
perspective to think from the other side of the coin.
I scrolled for quite a bit before finding Thaomas' comment about TPP. Leaving it will prove to be one of the Trump's admin's greatest
blunders (which is saying something) and any column about China strategy that omits it is incomplete.
So why exactly should Russia be accommodated and be allowed its sphere of influence and a 'defense perimeter' and not China? I
don't get it. And why should the USA be allowed the fruits of its aggression in the form of an annexed and brutally conquered
Hawaii? why can't Uncle Sam be satisfied with San Diego as a naval base?
The USA has the Monroe Doctrine giving it dominion over the Western Hemisphere, and China holds the Mandate of Heaven granting
it hegemony over everything else. Can't the Dragon and the Eagle get along on that basis??
In terms of geography, China vitally needs Russia in order to close off a corridor through which Muslims will flow to China. Without
that cooperation from Russia, China will be seriously hobbled by unassimilable and hostile migrants in its south. At least symbolically,
this will cripple its superpower claims.
The U.S. would be stupid not to seek an alliance with Russia, given Russia's geographical strengths, which also includes its
proximity to the Arctic and therefore a legal claim to the oil and gas buried there.
Geography is Russia's long-term strength, and not incidentally is a reason why trying militarily to force Putin to surrender
Crimea could easily lead to nuclear war, which might begin with tactical (battlefield) Russian nukes aimed at NATO garrisons in
eastern Europe.
China isn't fated to win its contest with the U.S. if it must depend on Russia in order to become an unquestioned superpower.
We need Russia for strategic security as much as Russia needs us for economic growth.
Nice summary. In my view the US (not Trump) make a big mistake to throw Russia in the arms of China. It's not only its geopolitical
situation that is the problem but the fact the it gives China unlimited access to natural resources. In a generation, if things
goes the way they do now, the only saving grace for the US will be a failure of this partnership. Because if it works, by the
sheer force of gravity it will swallow Europe. But betting on the adversary's failure is not a good strategy.
eh, keeping pressure on Iran keeps Saudi Arabia happy which means they stay in our sphere; as opposed to China's.
Until Venezuala wants to become part of the Oil-for-dollars system or we all drive electric cars and only oil for remote work
and emergency military expeditions then we need the Saudis on our side.
This kind of mentality is the reason why I think the demise of America is necessary to achieve world peace.
Why on God's green earth should America dominate East Asia? Last time I checked, America is NOT part of Asia. We are not even
in the same hemisphere for crying out loud. Why can't we just leave Asia to the Asians?
When was the last time China invaded a country? Never. These are the same people who discovered Africa and America long before
the Europeans, but only wanted to "do business" and trade. They already have 1.3 Billion mouths to feed, the last thing the Chinese
government needs is more mouths to feed.
Meanwhile, when Washington thinks of invasion, all they think of is guns, tanks, battleships. The Chinese are already quietly
invading and conquering the west -- through immigration. All along the East and West coasts, Chinese dominant cities and schools
are popping up everywhere. America really is the stupidest country on earth sometimes. All brawn and no brain. We want to start
wars with everybody in the name of protecting "American interests", while the rest of the world are already conquering us from
within through immigration. Wake up America.
Though Mr. Merry sees things clearly, I can't really see why people like playing these games in the age of nukes.
It's one thing trying to play Kaiser Wilhelm II and dream of containment and conquest when you actually had to send armies
to defeat your enemies, It's another to do so when people can kill a few millions by pressing a button.
Though Mr. Merry sees things clearly, I can't really see why people like playing these games in the age of nukes.
It's one thing trying to play Kaiser Wilhelm II and dream of containment and conquest when you actually had to send armies
to defeat your enemies, It's another to do so when people can kill a few millions by pressing a button.
I would assume that the US is "in" East Asia, to a significant extent, because Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have sought US security
and defense guarantees. The US has not forced itself into the region. Korea has reasons to be concerned about China, due to its
experiences during the Korean War, and Taiwan, which wishes to remain independent of Chinese control, is directly threatened by
China.
As for other allies in the region, Philippine president Duterte's overtures, upon taking office, to China, and his especially
disparaging remarks about the US while making an official visit to China, seem quite puzzling, given China's illegitimate seizing
of Philippine territory in the West Philippine Sea. US relations with the Philippines needs to be reexamined in light of this
development. While Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are first-level allies in the region, the Philippines is not.
"... Before and during the nuclear negotiations that led to the JCPOA, American opponents of the talks kept insisting that Iran couldn't be trusted to keep their word and they would cheat on any agreement they made. ..."
"... It is fitting that they have been the ones to urge the U.S. to break its word and betray our negotiating partners, and in so doing guarantee that the U.S. is seen as the unreliable deal-breakers that Iran's government was supposed to be. In the future, other governments may want to have some "snap-back" mechanisms of their own to ensure that the U.S. will be penalized if it breaches its obligations. ..."
"... Iran isn't interested in photo-op summits ..."
"... A real negotiation would involve making a compromise and offering concessions to Iran. Iran would have to believe that it has something to gain from the exchange, and right now it has no reason to believe anything of the kind. Trump has no desire to make concessions, only to receive them, and he won't compromise because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement. Because he sees everything as a zero-sum contest, Trump perceives anything less than the other side's capitulation as a "loss" for the U.S. In the absence of a real "win," Trump is willing to settle for the made-up kind that he claims after every unsuccessful summit. ..."
"... The next administration will have their work cut out for them. A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. Over the longer term, the U.S. will face the growing problem that our commitments will be called into question every time there is a change in party control. The seesaw between increasingly hard-line unilateralists that want to tear up one agreement after another regardless of the merits and the rest of us will make it so that no one will be able to trust the U.S. to commit to anything for more than four or eight years. That will give presidents strong incentives not to burn political capital on securing agreements that they know their successors will just throw away, and it will eventually mean that U.S. diplomacy continues to atrophy from lack of use. ..."
Zarif told CNN this week Iran had "acted in good faith" in negotiating the deal that Washington abandoned. "We are
not willing to talk to people who have broken their promises.".
Before and during the nuclear negotiations that led to the JCPOA, American opponents of the talks kept insisting that
Iran couldn't be trusted to keep their word and they would cheat on any agreement they made.
It is fitting that they have
been the ones to urge the U.S. to break its word and betray our negotiating partners, and in so doing guarantee that the
U.S. is seen as the unreliable deal-breakers that Iran's government was supposed to be. In the future, other governments
may want to have some "snap-back" mechanisms of their own to ensure that the U.S. will be penalized if it breaches its
obligations.
Iran hawks are always complaining about the "fatally flawed" nuclear deal, but they are the ones that
exploited what was perhaps its only true flaw, namely the built-in assumption that our government would observe the terms
of the agreement in good faith as long as Iran did what it promised to do. Other major powers and Iran now know they
shouldn't expect the U.S. to be a reliable partner in future talks, and they will reasonably conclude that offers to "talk"
from the administration that seeks to destroy the JCPOA are just so much hot air.
As I was
saying
yesterday,
Iran isn't interested in photo-op summits:
Trump has said Washington is not trying to set up talks but expects Tehran to call when it is ready. A U.S. official
said last week Americans "were sitting by the phone", but had received no call from Iran yet
Foad Izadi, a political science professor at Tehran University, told Reuters that phone call is not coming.
"Iranian officials have come to this conclusion that Trump does not seek negotiations. He would like a phone call
with Rouhani, even a meeting and a photo session, but that's not a real negotiation," Izadi said.
A real negotiation would involve making a compromise and offering concessions to Iran. Iran would have to believe that
it has something to gain from the exchange, and right now it has no reason to believe anything of the kind. Trump has no
desire to make concessions, only to receive them, and he won't compromise because he can't conceive of a mutually
beneficial agreement. Because he sees everything as a zero-sum contest, Trump perceives anything less than the other side's
capitulation as a "loss" for the U.S. In the absence of a real "win," Trump is willing to settle for the made-up kind that
he claims after every unsuccessful summit.
The next administration will have their work cut out for them. A future president won't only have to repair the damage
to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that
have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. Over the longer term, the U.S. will face the growing problem that
our commitments will be called into question every time there is a change in party control. The seesaw between increasingly
hard-line unilateralists that want to tear up one agreement after another regardless of the merits and the rest of us will
make it so that no one will be able to trust the U.S. to commit to anything for more than four or eight years. That will
give presidents strong incentives not to burn political capital on securing agreements that they know their successors will
just throw away, and it will eventually mean that U.S. diplomacy continues to atrophy from lack of use.
Related to "America the Untrustworthy" is the economic total war that the U.S. has declared on the rest of the
planet. Very complex business relationships and supply chains are being destroyed. The Trump administration's
objectives are to economically strangle China and Russia and do economic beat-downs on any country that gets in
the way. No company or country wants to do business with that kind of political volatility. And what can't go on
forever – won't.
What the idiots in Washington don't realize is that the Chinese and the Russians have suffered
100x mores deprivation than Americans. They will suck it up now and then do whatever it takes to decouple
themselves economically from the United States. (See what happens in the U.S. when the Chinese tell Apple to pound
sand.)
And to think that the Chinese don't have the organic capability to technically compete with the U.S. now is
nuts. China has the resources and intellectual horsepower to compete with the U.S. regardless of what the arrogant
"City on a Hill" exceptionalists in Washington think. And given that China has 5X the number of STEM grads, it's
easy to do the math.
America the Untrustworthy on the economic front is telling the rest of the planet to find other partners
because doing business with an erratic Gorilla is more trouble than its worth.
At some point, Americans are going to be outraged when they realize that most of the world doesn't view us as
someone to admire but rather a rogue nation.
I wonder if it ever occurred to Trump–or any of his advisers–that pulling out of a deal for no other reason than
"we didn't like the terms that everyone agreed to" (rather than noncompliance by Iran) only makes it impossible
for anyone to trust a new deal he wants to make later. But I guess this is why it's unwise to govern based on what
Fox and Friends tells you each morning.
"A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild
tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless
economic warfare. "
I don't think that any future president will be able to do this. Dubya was a shock to the
rest of the world, in that they realized that there was indeed 'no there there'. Congress isn't helping.
Obama was a relief, but then along came Trump. At this point, all other countries know that (a) any competent
Democratic President will be followed by a destructive and reckless GOP president, and (b) that the GOP Congress
will aid and abet this.
A reputation for reliability has to be maintained.
U.S. ships are involved in provocative "freedom of navigation" exercises in the South China
Sea and other ships gather ominously in the Mediterranean Sea while National Security Advisor
John Bolton and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo along with convicted war criminal Elliot
Abrams conspire to save the people of Venezuela with another illegal "regime change"
intervention. But people are drawn to the latest adventures of Love and Hip-Hop, the Mueller
report, and Game of Thrones. In fact, while millions can recall with impressive detail the
proposals and strategies of the various players in HBO's latest saga, they can't recall two
details about the pending military budget that will likely pass in Congress with little debate,
even though Trump's budget proposal represents another obscene increase of public money to the
tune of $750 billion.
This bipartisan rip-off could not occur without the willing collusion of the corporate
media, which slants coverage to support the interests of the ruling elite or decides to just
ignore an issue like the ever-expanding military budget.
The effectiveness of this collusion is reflected in the fact that not only has this massive
theft of public money not gotten much coverage in the mainstream corporate media, but also it
only received sporadic coverage in the alternative media. The liberal-left media is distracted
enough by the theatrics of the Trump show to do the ideological dirty work of the elites.
Spending on war will consume almost 70% of the budget and be accompanied by cuts in public
spending for education, housing, the environment, public transportation, jobs trainings, food
support programs like food stamps and Meals on Wheels, as well as Medicare, Medicaid, and
Social Security. Most of the neoliberal candidates running in the Democratic Party's electoral
process, however, haven't spoken a word in opposition to Trump's budget.
The public knows that the Democratic Party's candidates are opposed to Trump's wall on the
southern border, and they expect to hear them raise questions about the $8.6 billion of funding
the wall. But while some of the Democrats may oppose the wall, very few have challenged the
details of the budget that the
U.S. Peace Council indicates . For example:
"$576 billion baseline budget for the Department of Defense; an additional $174 billion
for the Pentagon's Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), i.e., the war budget; $93.1 billion
for the Department of Veterans Affairs; $51.7 billion for Homeland Security; $42.8 billion
for State Department; an additional $26.1 billion for State Department's Overseas Contingency
Operations (regime change slush fund); $16.5 billion for the Department of Energy's National
Nuclear Security Administration (nuclear weapons budget); $21 billion for NASA (militarizing
outer space?); plus $267.4 billion for all other government agencies, including funding for
FBI and Cybersecurity in the Department of Justice."
The Peace Council also highlights the following two issues: First, the total US military and
war budget has jumped from $736.4 billion to $989.0 billion since 2015. That is a $252.6
billion (about 35%) increase in five years. Second, thesimultaneous cuts in the government's
non-military spending are reflected in the proposed budget.
Here are some of biggest proposed budget cuts:
+ $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years, implementing work requirements as well
as eliminating the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The budget instead adds
$1.2 trillion for a "Market Based Health Care Grant" -- that is, a block grant to states,
instead of paying by need. It's not clear whether that would be part of Medicaid.
+ An $845 billion cut to Medicare over 10 years. That is about a 10 percent cut .
+ $25 billion in cuts to Social Security over 10 years, including cuts to disability
insurance.
+ A $220 billion cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP) over 10 years ,
which is commonly referred to as food stamps, and includes mandatory work requirements. The
program currently serves around 45 million people.
+ A $21 billion cut to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families , an already severely
underfunded cash-assistance program for the nation's poorest.
+ $207 billion in cuts to the student loan program, eliminating the Public Service Loan
Forgiveness program and cutting subsidized student loans.
+ Overall, there is a 9 percent cut to non-defense programs , which would hit Section 8
housing vouchers, public housing programs, Head Start, the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
nutrition program, and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program , among others.
The working classes and oppressed peoples of the U.S. and around the world can no longer
afford the unchallenged ideological positions of the Pentagon budget and the associated
expenditures for so-called defense that are considered sacrosanct in the U.S. They cannot
afford that much of the U.S. public is not concerned with issues of so-called foreign policy
that the military budget is seen as part.
The racist appeals of U.S. national chauvinism in the form of "Make America Great" and the
Democrats' version of "U.S. Exceptionalism" must be confronted and exposed as the cross-class,
white identity politics that they are. The fact that supposedly progressive or even "radical"
politics does not address the issue of U.S. expenditures on war and imperialism is reflective
of a politics that is morally and political bankrupt. But it also does something else. It
places those practitioners firmly in the camp of the enemies of humanity.
The objective fact that large numbers of the public accept that the U.S. can determine the
leadership of another sovereign nation while simultaneously being outraged by the idea of a
foreign power interfering in U.S. elections demonstrates the mindboggling subjective
contradictions that exist in the U.S. For example – that an Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez can
assert that she will defer to the leadership of her caucus on the issue of Venezuela or that
Barbara Lee can vote to bring Trump's budget proposal out of committee or that Biden can
proudly support Trump's immoral backing of a neo-fascist opposition in Venezuela and
they will all get away with those positions – reveals the incredible challenge that we
face in building an alternative radical movement for peace, social justice and
people(s)-centered human rights.
So, we must join with
U.S. Peace Council and the other members of the Anti-war, pro-peace, and anti-imperialist
communities in the U.S. to "resist and oppose this military attack on our communities, our
livelihoods and our lives." This is an urgent and militant first step in reversing the cultural
support for violence and the normalization of war that currently exists in the U.S. Now is the
moment to demand that Congress reject and reverse the Trump Administration's military budget
and the U.S. Government's militaristic foreign policy. But now is also the moment to commit to
building a powerful countermovement to take back the power over life and death from the
denizens of violence represented by the rapacious 1%. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Ajamu Baraka
Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016
candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing
columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch
magazine.
"... There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth. ..."
"... There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase. ..."
"... Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus. ..."
"... When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed. ..."
"... I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. ..."
"... If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. ..."
"... These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president. ..."
"... The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke. ..."
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the
right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a
minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"" – Bill Hicks
Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fake-news
mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the "Us versus Them" narrative. It's
almost as if "they" are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill
Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire
continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda
techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their
assigned puppets.
Most people can't discern they are being manipulated and duped by the Deep State
controllers. The most terrifying outcome for these Deep State controllers would be for the
masses to realize it is us versus them. But they don't believe there is a chance in hell of
this happening. Their arrogance is palatable.
Their hubris has reached astronomical levels as they blew up the world economy in 2008 and
successfully managed to have the innocent victims bail them out to the tune of $700 billion,
pillaged the wealth of the nation through their capture of the Federal Reserve (QE, ZIRP),
rigged the financial markets in their favor through collusion, used the hundreds of billions in
corporate tax cuts to buy back their stock and further pump the stock market, all while their
corporate media mouthpieces mislead and misinform the proles.
There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social
issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The
real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it
appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the
Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare.
Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort
whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The
proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as
the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of
Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out
"legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions.
The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote
against a defense spending increase.
Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing
from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too
Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy
in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as
people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus.
When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are
bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed
billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge
tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in
every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no
legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed.
I've never been big on joining a group. I tend to believe Groucho Marx and his cynical line,
"I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". The "Us vs. Them" narrative
doesn't connect with my view of the world. As a realistic libertarian I know libertarian ideals
will never proliferate in a society of government dependency, willful ignorance of the masses,
thousands of laws, and a weak-kneed populace afraid of freedom and liberty. The only true
libertarian politician, Ron Paul, was only able to connect with about 5% of the voting public.
There is no chance a candidate with a libertarian platform will ever win a national election.
This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Bill Hicks somewhat foreshadowed the last
election by referencing another famous cynic.
"I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one
who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking
and screaming into the White House." ― Bill Hicks
Hillary Clinton wanted to be president so badly, she colluded with Barack Obama, Jim Comey,
John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch and numerous other Deep State sycophants to ensure
her victory, by attempting to entrap Donald Trump in a concocted Russian collusion plot and
subsequent post-election coup to cover for their traitorous plot. I wouldn't say Donald Trump
was dragged kicking and screaming into the White House, but when he ascended on the escalator
at Trump Tower in June of 2015, I'm not convinced he believed he could win the presidency.
As the greatest self-promoter of our time, I think he believed a presidential run would be
good for his brand, more revenue for his properties and more interest in his reality TV
ventures. He was despised by the establishment within the Republican and Democrat parties. The
vested interests controlling the media and levers of power in society scorned and ridiculed
this brash uncouth outsider. In an upset for the ages, Trump tapped into a vein of rage and
disgruntlement in flyover country and pockets within swing states, to win the presidency over
Crooked Hillary and her Deep State backers.
I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. I hadn't voted for a Republican since
2000, casting protest votes for Libertarian and Constitutional Party candidates along the way.
I despise the establishment, so their hatred of Trump made me vote for him. His campaign
stances against foreign wars and Federal Reserve reckless bubble blowing appealed to me. I
don't worship at the altar of the cult of personality. I judge men by their actions and not
their words.
Trump's first two years have been endlessly entertaining as he waged war against fake news
CNN, establishment Republicans, the Deep State coup attempt, and Obama loving globalists. The
Twitter in Chief has bypassed the fake news media and tweets relentlessly to his followers. He
provokes outrage in his enemies and enthralls his worshipers. With millions in each camp it is
difficult to find an unbiased assessment of narrative versus real accomplishments.
I'm happy he has been able to stop the relentless leftward progression of our Federal
judiciary. Cutting regulations and rolling back environmental mandates has been a positive.
Exiting the Paris Climate Agreement and TPP, forcing NATO members to pay their fair share, and
renegotiating NAFTA were all needed. Ending the war on coal and approving pipelines will keep
energy costs lower. His attempts to vet Muslims entering the country have been the right thing
to do. Building a wall on our southern border is the right thing to do, but he should have
gotten it done when he controlled both houses.
The use of tariffs to force China to renegotiate one sided trade deals as a negotiating
tactic is a high-risk, high reward gamble. If his game of chicken is successful and he gets
better terms from the Chicoms, while reversing the tariffs, it would be a huge win. If the
Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global
recession is a certainty. Who has the upper hand? Xi is essentially a dictator for life
and doesn't have to worry about elections or popularity polls. Dissent is crushed. A global
recession and stock market crash would make Trump's re-election in 2020 problematic.
I'm a big supporter of lower taxes. The Trump tax cuts were sold as beneficial to the middle
class. That is a false narrative. The vast majority of the tax cut benefits went to
mega-corporations and rich people. Middle class home owning families with children received
little or no tax relief, as exemptions were eliminated and tax deductions capped. In many
cases, taxes rose for working class Americans.
With corporate profits at all time highs, massive tax cuts put billions more into their
coffers. They didn't repatriate their overseas profits to a great extent. They didn't go on a
massive hiring spree. They didn't invest in new facilities. They did buy back their own stock
to help drive the stock market to stratospheric heights. So corporate executives gave
themselves billions in bonuses, which were taxed at a much lower rate. This is considered
winning in present day America.
The "Us vs. Them" issue rears its ugly head whenever Trump is held accountable for promises
unkept, blatant failures, and his own version of fake news. Holding Trump to the same standards
as Obama is considered traitorous by those who only root for their home team. Their standard
response is that you are a Hillary sycophant or a turncoat to the home team. If you agree with
a particular viewpoint or position of a liberal then you are a bad person and accused of being
a lefty by Trump fanboys. Facts don't matter to cheerleaders. Competing narratives rule the
day. Truthfulness not required.
The refusal to distinguish between positive actions and negative actions when assessing the
performance of what passes for our political leadership by the masses is why cynicism has
become my standard response to everything I see, hear or he read. The incessant level of lies
permeating our society and its acceptance as the norm has led to moral decay and rampant
criminality from the White House, to the halls of Congress, to corporate boardrooms, to
corporate newsrooms, to government run classrooms, to the Vatican, and to households across the
land. It's interesting that one of our founding fathers reflected upon this detestable human
trait over two hundred years ago.
"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental
lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity
of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has
prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." – Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine's description of how moral mischief can ruin a society was written when less
than 3 million people inhabited America. Consider his accurate assessment of humanity when over
300 million occupy these lands. The staggering number of corrupt prostituted sociopaths
occupying positions of power within the government, corporations, media, military, churches,
and academia has created a morally bankrupt empire of debt.
These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans.
They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't
care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others.
They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their
unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of
controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every
politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head,
MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the
president.
The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households
around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them. The answer to that question
will strongly impact the direction and intensity of the climactic years of this Fourth Turning.
What I've noticed is the shunning of those who don't take an all or nothing position regarding
Trump. If you disagree with a decision, policy, or hiring decision by the man, you are accused
by the pro-Trump team of being one of them (aka liberals, lefties, Hillary lovers).
If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers. I
don't want to be Us or Them. I just want to be me. I will judge everyone by their actions and
their results. I can agree with Trump on many issues, while also agreeing with Tulsi Gabbard,
Rand Paul, Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi on other issues. I don't prescribe to the cult of
personality school of thought. I didn't believe the false narratives during the Bush or Obama
years, and I won't worship at the altar of the Trump narrative now.
In Part II of this article I'll assess Trump's progress thus far and try to determine
whether he can defeat the Deep State.
"The scientific and industrial revolution of modern times represents the next giant
step in the mastery over nature; and here, too, an enormous increase in man's power over
nature is followed by an apocalyptic drive to subjugate man and reduce human nature to the
status of nature. Even where enslavement is employed in a mighty effort to tame nature, one
has the feeling that the effort is but a tactic to legitimize total subjugation. Thus,
despite its spectacular achievements in science and technology, the twentieth century will
probably be seen in retrospect as a century mainly preoccupied with the mastery and
manipulation of men. Nationalism, socialism, communism, fascism, and militarism,
cartelization and unionization, propaganda and advertising are all aspects of a general
relentless drive to manipulate men and neutralize the unpredictability of human nature. Here,
too, the atmosphere is heavy-laden with coercion and magic." --Eric Hoffer
If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the
Trumpeteers
That's not true. When Trump kisses Israeli ***, most "Trumpeteers" are outraged. That does
not mean they're going to vote for Joe "I'm a Zionist" Biden, or Honest Hillary because of
it, but they're still pissed.
These predators (((them))) need to fear the Victims, us! That is what the 2ND Amendment is
for. It's coming, slowly for now, but eventually it speeds up.
Any piece like this better be littered with footnotes and cited sources before I'm
swallowing it.
I'll say it again: this is the internet, people. There's no "shortage of column space" to
include links back to primary sources for your assertions. Otherwise, how am I supposed to
distinguish you from another "psy op" or "paid opposition hit piece"?
"The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households
around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them."
If you still ponder this question, then you are pretty frickin' thick. It is obvious at
this point, that he betrayed everything he campaigned on. You don't do that and call yourself
one of "us".......damn sure aren't one of "me".
If I couldn't keep my word and wouldn't do what it takes to do what is right.....then I
would resign. But I would not go on playing politics in a world that needs some real
leadership and not another political hack.
The real battle is between Truth and Lie. No matter the name of your "team" or the "side"
you support. Truth is truth and lies are lies. We don't stand for political parties, we stand
for truth. We don't stand for national pride, we take pride in a nation that is truthful and
trustworthy. The minute a "side" or "team" starts lying.....and justifying it.....that is the
minute they become them and not one of us.
Any thinking person in this country today knows we are being lied to by the entire
complex. Until someone starts telling the truth.....we are on our own. But I be damned before
I am going to support any of these lying sons of bitches......and that includes Trump.
Dark comedy. All the elections have been **** choices until the last one. Take a look at
Arkancide.com and start counting the
bodies.
Anyone remember the news telling us how North Korea promised to turn the US into a sea of
fire?? Trump absolutely went to bat for every single American to de-escalate that
situation.
Don't tell me about Arkancide or the Clintons. I grew up in Arkansas with that sack of
**** as my governor for 12 years.
NK was never a real threat to anyone. Trump didn't do ****. NK is back to building and
shooting off missiles and will be teaming up with the Russians and Chinese. You are a duped
bafoon.
I don't think anybody thought NK was an existential threat to the US. It has still been
nice making progress on bringing them back into the world and making them less of a threat to
Japan and S. Korea. Trump did that.
Dennis Rodman did that, or that is to say, Trump an extension thereof ..
Great theater..
Look, i thought it was great that Trump went Kim Unning. I mean after all, i had talked
with a few elderly folks that get their news directly from the mainstream of mainstream,
vanilla news reportage. Propaganda central casting. I remember them being extremely
concerned, outright petrified about that evil menace, kim gonna launch nukes any minute now.
If the news would have been announced a major troop mobilization, bombing campaigns, to begin
immediately they would have been completely onboard, waving the flag.
Frankly, it is only a matter of time, and folks can speculate on the country of interest,
but it is coming soon to a theater near you. So many being in the crosshairs. Iran i suspect
.. that's the big prize, that makes these sociopaths cream in their panties.
Probably. In the second term .. and so far, if ones honestly evaluates the "brain trust" /
current crop of dimwit opposition, and in light of their past 2 plus years of moronic
posturing with their hair on fire, trump will get his second term ..
Until the last one? You are retarded, the last election was a masterpiece of Rothschilds
Productions. The Illuminati was watching you at their private cinema when you were voting for
Trump and they were laughing their asses off.
The author does not realize that everyone in America, except Native American Indians, were
immigrants drawn towards the false promise of hope that is the American Dream, turned
nightmare..
Owning your own home, car, & raising a family in this country is so damn expensive
& risky, that you'd have be on drugs or an idiot to even fall for the lies.
I don't see an us vs them, I see the #FakeMoney printers monetized every facet of life,
own everything, & it truly is RENT-A-LIFE USSA, complete with bills galore, taxes galore,
laws galore, jails & prisons galore, & the worst fkn country anyone would want to
live in poverty & homelessness in.
At least in many 3rd world nations there is land to live off of & joblessness does not
= a financial death sentence.
Sure. Lets all go back to living in huts.....off the land....no cars.....no
electricity.....no running water......no roads....
There is a price to pay for things and it is not always in the form of money. We have
given up some of our freedom for the ease and conveniences we want.
The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare
because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want
to puke.
There is a balance. Don't take the other extreme or we never find balance.
This article is moronic. One can easily prove that Trump is not like all the others in the
poster. Has this author been living under a rock for the last 2.5 yrs? The past 5 presidents
represent a group that has been literally trying to assassinate Trump, ruin his family, his
reputation, his buisness and his future, for the audacity to be an ousider to the power
network and steal (win) the presidency from under their noses. He's kept us OUT of war. He's
dissolved the treachery that was keeping us in the middle east through gaslighitng and a
proxy fake war that is ISIS, the globalists' / nato / fiveys / uk's fake mercenary army
The greatest threat to the USA is its own dumbed down drugged up citizens who cannot
compete with anyone. America is a big military powerhouse but that doens't make successful
countries
Notice how modern narrative is getting manipulated. What is being reported and referenced
is completely different from how things are. And knowing that we can assume that the entire
history is a fabricated lie, written by the ruling class to support its status in the minds
of obedient citizens.
This article is garbage propaganda that proves that they think we aren't keeping score or
paying attention. The gaslighting won't work when it relies on so much counterthink, willful
ignorance, counterfacts and weaponized omissions
The reality is the de-escalation of wars, the stability of our currency and our economy,
and the moral re-grounding of our culture does not occur until we do what over 100 countries
have done over the centuries, beginning in Carthage in 250AD.
The congress are statusquotarians. If they solved the problems they say they would,they'd
be out of a job. and that job is sitting there acting like a naddler or toxic post turtle
leprechaun with a charisma and skill level of zero. Their staff do all the work, half of them
barely read, though they probably can
I still think 1st and 2nd ammedment is predicated on which party rules the house. If a Dem
gets into the WH, we're fucked. Kiss those Iast two dying amendments goodbye for good.
If we rely on any party to preserve the 1st or 2nd Amendments, we are already fucked. What
should preserve the 1st and 2nd Amendments is the absolute fear of anyone in government even
mentioning suppressing or removing them. When the very thought of doing anything to lessen
the rights advocated in these two amendments, causes a politician to piss in their pants,
liberty will be preserved. As it is now citizens fear the government, and as a result tyranny
continues to grow and fester as a cancer.
You may very well be right. I still hold out hope, but upon seeing what our society is
quickly morphing into, that hope seems to fade more each and every day.
If you think the 1st and 2nd amendments are reliant on who is in office, then you are
already done. Why don't you try growing a pair and being an American for once in your
life.
I will always have a 1st and 2nd "amendment" for as long as I live. Life is meaningless
without them.....as far as I am concerned. Good thing the founders didn't wait for king
George to give them what they "felt" was theirs.....by the laws of Nature and Nature's
God.
I hope the democrats get the power......and I hope they come for the guns......maybe then
pussies like you will finally have to **** or get off the pot......for once in your life.
There are worse things than dying.
This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Unless we get rid of *** influencing
from abroad and domestically. Getting rid of English King few hundred years ago was a joke!
this would be a challenge because dual-citizens masquerading as locals.
Last revolution (1776) we targeted the WRONG ENEMY.
We targeted King George III instead of the private bankers who owned of the Bank of
England and the issued of the British-pound currency.
George III was himself up to his ears in debt to them by 1776, when the bankers installed
George Washington to replace George III as their middleman in the American colonies, by way
of the phony revolution.
Phony because ownership of the central bank and currency (Federal-Reserve Banks,
Federal-Reserve notes) we use, remains in the same banking families' hands to this day. The
same parasite remains within our government.
It is this strangely incomplete calculus that creates the shifting Loser world of
rifts and alliances. By operating with a more complete calculus, Sociopaths are able to
manipulate this world through the divide-and-conquer mechanisms. The result is that the
Losers end up blaming each other for their losses, seek collective emotional resolution,
and fail to adequately address the balance sheet of material rewards and losses.
To succeed, this strategy requires that Losers not look too closely at the non-emotional
books. This is why, as we saw last time, divide-and-conquer is the most effective means for
dealing with them, since it naturally creates emotional drama that keeps them busy while
they are being manipulated.
The fiasco of the latest obviously unsuccessful US attempt to topple twice
democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro made a laughing stock of the US government
throughout the world and is now exposing new splits in the Trump administration in Washington.
It is also exposing a dangerous but also ridiculous myth that Washington has credulously
swallowed for generations – the idea that National Security Adviser John Bolton is
actually competent.
No one among the carefully trained castrated geldings of the US mainstream news media and
their pseudo-liberal and libertarian outliers has ever dared to ask how able Bolton actually
is. He is held in awe and even fear for his supposed brilliant intellect and for his undoubted
energy and relentless determination to push the policies he supports with tunnel vision and
fanatical relentlessness as hard as he can.
Yet given such undeniable "qualities" what is truly astonishing is how useless Bolton has
been in pursuing his own primary foreign policy goals for more than 40 years. He failed to
prevent the first president to take him seriously, Ronald Reagan to conduct sweeping nuclear
arms reductions with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and to push ahead with Gorbachev to
dismantle the Cold War. These policies were anathema to Bolton who prophesied – falsely
– that war and catastrophe would flow from them. But Reagan ignored him and pushed them
through anyway.
Now Bolton has destroyed Reagan's legacy of peace by convincing current President Donald
Trump to scrap one of Reagan's greatest achievement, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty.
He succeeded in helping provoke the US invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq under
President George W. Bush in 2003 but failed to persuade even Bush, Junior and his top foreign
policy adviser, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pull out
of any arms control treaties whatsoever.
Then, the Iraq misadventure was so appallingly bungled that Bolton failed to get any
traction whatsoever for his priority project of toppling the government of Iran, even if it
took a full scale war to do it.
In Washington, even Bolton's greatest critics among libertarians and paleo-conservatives
have spoken for decades with awe of his supposed brilliant intellect, command of all details,
endless energy and ability to read and keep track of everything. But now, the latest failed
coup in Venezuela instead reveals an ignorant, simplistic rash adventurer and gambler who
charges head on into dangerous situations and who relies on bullying and bluster alone to get
his way.
Bolton showed none of the ruthless, devious subtlety of a Dwight D. Eisenhower in
masterminding a coup and fragrant breach of international law without appearing to have
anything to do with it (a skill which Ronald Reagan, though far less masterful than the revered
Eisenhower also attempted in Iran-Contra).
Bolton's fingerprints were all over the hard-charging policy of propping up ridiculous Juan
Guiado as America's cardboard cutout puppet to run Venezuela, even though he had no credibility
whatsoever.
Bolton is in fact is an awesomely bad judge of choosing his own allies in other countries.
His combination of recklessness and vanity means he is always a sucker for whatever
smooth-talking sociopath can worm his way into his presence.
This explains how the late, unlamented Ahmed Chalabi was able to convince Bolton and his
neocon friends that he (Chalabi)) would be welcomed by tens of millions of Iraqis as soon the
US armed forces invaded ("liberated" was the politically approved term) his country and how
Zalmay Khalizad, a catastrophic clown, was acclaimed as an infallible guru on Afghanistan.
Bolton is widely known to have no small talk, private interests, charm or social skills
whatsoever. Far from confirming his "genius", as his many worshipful courtiers claim, this only
confirms his haplessness.
If Bolton played poker he would be skinned alive. He cannot read people and being an
obsessive courtier and flatterer himself, he always falls flat on his face for the flattery of
others. The arch-manipulator is in reality the easiest of figures to manipulate.
Once the strange miasma of worshipful myth is stripped from Bolton, all the confusions and
bungles of the April 30 Coup That Never Was in Venezuela become clear.
Or maybe it is just one front: I.e. making globalisation difficult for the Chinese :
by pushing non Chinese Asians countries to de-integrate their supply chains with China
and
by cutting its supply of oil though shortages induced by tensions in the Gulf.
The US knows that it can't be the sole superpower anymore any longer, so the strategy is to
reverse globalisation so that no other global superpower (a Russian-Chinese with a dominating
Persia in the Middle East) can emerge.
Far too early to say if the strategy will be successful or not.
As far as I am concerned, the silver linings would be that a long period of oil shortage
could finally be the trigger to switch industrial infrastructure worldwide away from liquid
and gaseous fossils, and that less globalised supply chain would be more robust to shocks,
but if these silver linings were the ultimate goals, I could think of less adversarial ways
to achieve that globally, with less money wasted on the military
The benefits of joint pricing mechanisms are also enormous. Currently, Iran has no choice
because of the sanctions but to sell its oil – including from the shared fields –
at massively reduced pricing that is comprised of its official selling price (OSP) minus the
sanctions discount minus the incremental risk discount. This has resulted in Iran offering
'cost, insurance, and freight' cargoes for 'free on board' pricing, with the difference
between the two covered by Iran. "Under this new agreement, Iranian oil from these shared
fields will be sold based on Iraq's much higher three month moving average OSP pricing for
cargoes, with no discounts at all, and the three month moving average for the effective spot
market that Iraq has created and now controls," said the oil source.
Thanks for the in-depth info. Lots to digest and research.
the US has acted in such bad faith so often in the early stages of conflicts that it's
sensible to wonder how much of this account is accurate. It is very frustrating to be
dealing with an informational hall of mirrors.
It's depressing to say but I when I read anything from domestic official sources or the
media I can't help but think it's mostly lies. Not under the illusion that foreign actors are
all righteous and benevolent, but as you said, our nation's track record with the truth in
these scenarios is pretty tainted at this point. Just as we found out with Saddam and
Qaddafi, these leaders have little reason to poke the dragon, and a lot of reason to build up
defenses.
Interesting observations if true, and they certainly do make sense of a lot of the things
that have been happening.
I see it hasn't dissuaded Trump though, this morning he is reported as doubling down on
his threats to Iran. A big fear now is that Iran does not seem to be in the mood to give
Trump the sort of symbolic 'win' he can use to climb down gracefully (and sack Bolton). The
Saudi's can probably be scared into stepping back, but the Israeli's and the neocons want a
hot war.
Its easy to see this gradually ratchet up step by step into an uncontrolled region wide
conflict.
Not sure what to make of this article but the Anglo-American press is not providing much
context for the recent ratcheting up of confrontation with Iran.
The MSM is mostly stenographers and right leaning pundits. If no one tells them, they
wouldn't know.
Also, the DC elites were pretty irked by Obama's Iran deal. They deferred to Obama and the
Europeans who demanded the deal, but I think they live in a world where DC's enemies are the
enemies of the American people who overwhelmingly supported the Iran deal. DC hasn't come to
grips with this.
but I think they live in a world where DC's enemies are the enemies of the American
people who overwhelmingly supported the Iran deal. DC hasn't come to grips with this.
Yes, because all pain, real blood and death, misery and horror that they cause in fighting
what they assume putatively are "the American people's enemies" are never suffered by them,
but only everyone else including the American people; all the financial benefits do go to
them so it is all gain and no cost.
Will Lavrov and Wang Yi's guarantees prevent an Israeli nuclear attack on Iranian
facilities, followed by US pledges to fully support Israel's right to self defence?
There are two kinds of weapons in the world offensive and defensive. The latter are
cheaper, a fighter plane compared to a bomber. If a country does not (or cannot afford to)
have offensive intent, it makes sense to focus on defense. It is what Iran has done.
Moreover, its missile centered defense has a modern deadly twist -- the missiles are
precision-guided. As an Iranian general remarked when questioned about the carrier task
force: some years ago it would've been a threat he opined; now it's a target. Iran also has a
large standing army of 350,000 plus a 120,000 strong Revolutionary Guard and Soviet style air
defenses. In 2016 Russia started installation of the S-300 system. It has all kinds of
variants, the most advanced, the S-300 PMU-3 has a range similar to the S-400 if equipped
with 40N6E missiles, which are used also in the S-400. Their range is 400 km, so the Iranian
batteries are virtually S-400s. The wily Putin has kept trump satisfied with the S-300
moniker without short-changing his and China's strategic ally. The latter continuing to buy
Iranian oil.
Iran has friends in Europe also. Angela Merkel in particular has pointed out that Iran has
complied fully with the nuclear provisions of the UN Security Council backed Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action i.e. the Iran nuclear deal. She is mustering the major European
powers. Already alienated with Trump treating them as adversaries rather than friends, they
find Trump's bullying tiresome. President Macron, his poll ratings hitting the lowest, is
hardly likely to engage in Trump's venture. In Britain, Theresa May is barely able to hold on
to her job. In the latest thrust by senior members of her party, she has been asked to name
the day she steps down.
So there we have it. Nobody wants war with Iran. Even Israel, so far without a
post-election government does not want to be rained upon by missiles leaky as its Iron Dome
was against homemade Palestinian rockets. Topping all of this neither Trump nor Secretary of
State Pompeo want war. Trump is as usual trying to bully -- now called maximum pressure --
Iran into submission. It won't. The wild card is National Security Adviser John Bolton. He
wants war. A Gulf of Tonkin type false flag incident, or an Iranian misstep, or some accident
can still set it off. In Iran itself, moderates like current President Hassan Rouhani are
being weakened by Trump's shenanigans. The hard liners might well want to bleed America as
happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I don't trust those air defenses too much, where have they ever performed well? The scary
part is where Iran assumes that USA can through repeated air strikes wipe out their missiles.
They will from the start find themselves in a "use them or lose them" scenario and may launch
everything as response to even a limited US strike, since they can't know if it is limited or
the beginning of a full scale attack, and I doubt Iran is willing to go down without doing
everything it can to hurt their enemies. (Possibly excluding Israel which is crazy enough to
go nuclear in response).
Yves here. Glenn F sent along this story about recent events in the US-Iran conflict, many of
which don't appear to have been reported in the English language press. Interestingly, the
article takes the position that it is the Saudis that have been doing their best and largely
succeeding in suppressing these reports.
Going into the weekend, it looked as if the US was trying to turn down the Iran threat meter
a notch. Both Iran and the Saudis said they didn't want war but were prepared for one. Then a
mystery rocket landed in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Oopsie.
From the Wall Street Journal:
No major destruction was inflicted by the rocket, which landed near a museum displaying
old planes and caused some damage to a building used by security guards, according to an
official in the interior ministry.
The interior ministry official, who declined to be identified, said the rocket had landed
around a kilometer from the U.S. Embassy inside Baghdad's Green Zone, where many other
diplomatic missions and Iraqi government offices are located.
No group claimed responsibility. But security officials said security forces had found and
seized a mobile rocket launcher in an area of Baghdad where Shiite militias, including some
with close links to Iran, have a presence.
But also note this:
The Trump administration last week ordered a partial evacuation of its diplomatic missions
in Baghdad and Erbil citing increased threats posed by Iran and its allies in Iraq. The Iraqi
government has varying degrees of control over an array of armed groups, some of which are
closely affiliated with Iran.
On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to Democratic Presidential candidate Mike
Gravel who discusses why he is joining the race to pull the debate to the left, the nature of
his contenders such as Joe Biden, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders, US regime change attempts
in Venezuela and escalating tension with Iran, Julian Assange's imprisonment in the UK and the
US' extradition request. Next we speak to Chris Williamson MP, in his first international
interview since being suspended by the Labour Party.
He discusses NHS privatisation by stealth with the new GP contracts due to be signed next
week, Israeli oppression of Palestinians, Trump's escalation against Iran and Julian Assange's
on-going imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison.
Love Mike gravel, honest, good, genuine person with pure heart and soul! Donate dollar to
get him on the debates! Love Chris Williamson also a great men we need more people like
these! This channel should have way more subs and views, great show!
The proven oil reserves in Venezuela are recognized as the largest in the world, totaling
297 billion barrels . They are going to be INVADED by the real world terrorists, the
USA,BRITAIN, and their puppet allies !!!! Need I say more?
The take away quote
"
Wang also reiterated the principled stand against the "long-arm jurisdiction" imposed by
the United States.
"
Empire is having its hand slapped back in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, ???
Where are they going to get their war on?
I see empire as a war junkie and they are starting to twitch in withdrawals which is
dangerous but a necessary stage. Trumps latest tweets show that level of energy.
The
spinning plates of empire are not wowing the crowds like before.....what is plan Z?
Those are pretty strong words from the official agency...
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world. ..."
"... As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their long-existing trade agreements. ..."
"... When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This is protectionism, pure and simple." ..."
"... Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Universal Postal Union. ..."
"... In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to abuse its superpower status. ..."
"... Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community. It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests. ..."
Source: Xinhua | 2019-05-20 17:11:21 | Editor: Xiang Bo
BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Modern international trade relations are based on credibility
and the spirit of the contract. However,in the year-long China-U.S. trade negotiations,
Washington repeatedly reneged on its promises and played "face changing" tricks, leaving stark
stains on its credibility.
During Chinese Vice Premier Liu He's visit to Washington last May, Beijing and Washington
agreed not to engage in a trade war. Only days later, the Trump administration said it will
impose a 25-percent tariff on 50 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Chinese imports which contain
industrially significant technology.
Soon after the recent setbacks in China-U.S. trade consultations, the Trump administration,
in the name of "national security," rolled out measures to hit Chinese tech firms. The White
House's executive order will kill many business contracts between Chinese and U.S. firms.
The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in
failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world.
As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade
bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced
many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their
long-existing trade agreements.
These bullying behaviors have sent a clear signal: one can arbitrarily tamper with the
original contracts regardless of cooperation partners' interests and concerns, as long as it
has the power to do so. That is "the logic of gangsters" and "the law of jungle." Such bullying
tactic has stirred global opposition, including from Washington's allies in Europe.
When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last
year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these
unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This
is protectionism, pure and simple."
Also, America's bullying actions have gone far beyond multilateral economic and trade
realms.
Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major
international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the
Universal Postal Union.
These self-serving moves have disgraced Washington's credibility as a responsible major
country, and seriously eroded the foundation for international cooperation.
In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global
trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system
that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to
abuse its superpower status.
Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community.
It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility
goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests.
"... There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the truth. ..."
"... There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare. Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out "legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions. The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote against a defense spending increase. ..."
"... Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus. ..."
"... When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed. ..."
"... I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. ..."
"... If the Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global recession is a certainty. ..."
"... These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans. They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others. They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head, MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the president. ..."
"... The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want to puke. ..."
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the
right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a
minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!"" – Bill Hicks
Anyone who frequents Twitter, Facebook, political blogs, economic blogs, or fake-news
mainstream media channels knows our world is driven by the "Us versus Them" narrative. It's
almost as if "they" are forcing us to choose sides and believe the other side is evil. Bill
Hicks died in 1994, but his above quote is truer today then it was then. As the American Empire
continues its long-term decline, the proles are manipulated through Bernaysian propaganda
techniques, honed over the course of decades by the ruling oligarchs, to root for their
assigned puppets.
Most people can't discern they are being manipulated and duped by the Deep State
controllers. The most terrifying outcome for these Deep State controllers would be for the
masses to realize it is us versus them. But they don't believe there is a chance in hell of
this happening. Their arrogance is palatable.
Their hubris has reached astronomical levels as they blew up the world economy in 2008 and
successfully managed to have the innocent victims bail them out to the tune of $700 billion,
pillaged the wealth of the nation through their capture of the Federal Reserve (QE, ZIRP),
rigged the financial markets in their favor through collusion, used the hundreds of billions in
corporate tax cuts to buy back their stock and further pump the stock market, all while their
corporate media mouthpieces mislead and misinform the proles.
There are differences between the parties, but they are mainly centered around social
issues and disputes with little or no consequence to the long-term path of the country. The
real ruling oligarchs essentially allow controlled opposition within each party to make it
appear you have a legitimate choice at the ballot box. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
There has been an unwritten agreement between the parties for decades where the
Democrats pretend to be against war and the Republicans pretend to be against welfare.
Meanwhile, spending on war and welfare relentlessly grows into the trillions, with no effort
whatsoever from either party to even slow the rate of growth, let alone cut spending. The
proliferation of the military industrial complex like a poisonous weed has been inexorable, as
the corporate arms dealers place their facilities of death in the congressional districts of
Democrats and Republicans. In addition, these corporate manufacturers of murder dole out
"legal" payoffs to corrupt politicians of both parties in the form of political contributions.
The Deep State knows bribes and well-paying jobs ensure no spineless congressman will ever vote
against a defense spending increase.
Of course, the warfare/welfare state couldn't grow to its immense size without financing
from the Wall Street cabal and their feckless academic puppets at the Federal Reserve. The Too
Big to Trust Wall Street banks, whose willful control fraud nearly wrecked the global economy
in 2008, were rewarded by their Deep State patrons by getting bigger and more powerful as
people on Main Street and senior citizen savers were thrown under the bus.
When these criminal bankers have their reckless bets blow up in their faces they are
bailed out by the American taxpayers, but when the Fed rigs the system so they are guaranteed
billions in risk free profits, they reward themselves with massive bonuses and lobby for a huge
tax cut used to buy back their stock. With bank branches in every congressional district in
every state, and bankers spreading protection money to greedy politicians across the land, no
legislation damaging to the banking cartel is ever passed.
I've never been big on joining a group. I tend to believe Groucho Marx and his cynical line,
"I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". The "Us vs. Them" narrative
doesn't connect with my view of the world. As a realistic libertarian I know libertarian ideals
will never proliferate in a society of government dependency, willful ignorance of the masses,
thousands of laws, and a weak-kneed populace afraid of freedom and liberty. The only true
libertarian politician, Ron Paul, was only able to connect with about 5% of the voting public.
There is no chance a candidate with a libertarian platform will ever win a national election.
This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Bill Hicks somewhat foreshadowed the last
election by referencing another famous cynic.
"I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one
who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking
and screaming into the White House." ― Bill Hicks
Hillary Clinton wanted to be president so badly, she colluded with Barack Obama, Jim Comey,
John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch and numerous other Deep State sycophants to ensure
her victory, by attempting to entrap Donald Trump in a concocted Russian collusion plot and
subsequent post-election coup to cover for their traitorous plot. I wouldn't say Donald Trump
was dragged kicking and screaming into the White House, but when he ascended on the escalator
at Trump Tower in June of 2015, I'm not convinced he believed he could win the presidency.
As the greatest self-promoter of our time, I think he believed a presidential run would be
good for his brand, more revenue for his properties and more interest in his reality TV
ventures. He was despised by the establishment within the Republican and Democrat parties. The
vested interests controlling the media and levers of power in society scorned and ridiculed
this brash uncouth outsider. In an upset for the ages, Trump tapped into a vein of rage and
disgruntlement in flyover country and pockets within swing states, to win the presidency over
Crooked Hillary and her Deep State backers.
I voted for Trump because he wasn't Hillary. I hadn't voted for a Republican since
2000, casting protest votes for Libertarian and Constitutional Party candidates along the way.
I despise the establishment, so their hatred of Trump made me vote for him. His campaign
stances against foreign wars and Federal Reserve reckless bubble blowing appealed to me. I
don't worship at the altar of the cult of personality. I judge men by their actions and not
their words.
Trump's first two years have been endlessly entertaining as he waged war against fake news
CNN, establishment Republicans, the Deep State coup attempt, and Obama loving globalists. The
Twitter in Chief has bypassed the fake news media and tweets relentlessly to his followers. He
provokes outrage in his enemies and enthralls his worshipers. With millions in each camp it is
difficult to find an unbiased assessment of narrative versus real accomplishments.
I'm happy he has been able to stop the relentless leftward progression of our Federal
judiciary. Cutting regulations and rolling back environmental mandates has been a positive.
Exiting the Paris Climate Agreement and TPP, forcing NATO members to pay their fair share, and
renegotiating NAFTA were all needed. Ending the war on coal and approving pipelines will keep
energy costs lower. His attempts to vet Muslims entering the country have been the right thing
to do. Building a wall on our southern border is the right thing to do, but he should have
gotten it done when he controlled both houses.
The use of tariffs to force China to renegotiate one sided trade deals as a negotiating
tactic is a high-risk, high reward gamble. If his game of chicken is successful and he gets
better terms from the Chicoms, while reversing the tariffs, it would be a huge win. If the
Chinese refuse to yield for fear of losing face, and the tariff war accelerates, a global
recession is a certainty. Who has the upper hand? Xi is essentially a dictator for life
and doesn't have to worry about elections or popularity polls. Dissent is crushed. A global
recession and stock market crash would make Trump's re-election in 2020 problematic.
I'm a big supporter of lower taxes. The Trump tax cuts were sold as beneficial to the middle
class. That is a false narrative. The vast majority of the tax cut benefits went to
mega-corporations and rich people. Middle class home owning families with children received
little or no tax relief, as exemptions were eliminated and tax deductions capped. In many
cases, taxes rose for working class Americans.
With corporate profits at all time highs, massive tax cuts put billions more into their
coffers. They didn't repatriate their overseas profits to a great extent. They didn't go on a
massive hiring spree. They didn't invest in new facilities. They did buy back their own stock
to help drive the stock market to stratospheric heights. So corporate executives gave
themselves billions in bonuses, which were taxed at a much lower rate. This is considered
winning in present day America.
The "Us vs. Them" issue rears its ugly head whenever Trump is held accountable for promises
unkept, blatant failures, and his own version of fake news. Holding Trump to the same standards
as Obama is considered traitorous by those who only root for their home team. Their standard
response is that you are a Hillary sycophant or a turncoat to the home team. If you agree with
a particular viewpoint or position of a liberal then you are a bad person and accused of being
a lefty by Trump fanboys. Facts don't matter to cheerleaders. Competing narratives rule the
day. Truthfulness not required.
The refusal to distinguish between positive actions and negative actions when assessing the
performance of what passes for our political leadership by the masses is why cynicism has
become my standard response to everything I see, hear or he read. The incessant level of lies
permeating our society and its acceptance as the norm has led to moral decay and rampant
criminality from the White House, to the halls of Congress, to corporate boardrooms, to
corporate newsrooms, to government run classrooms, to the Vatican, and to households across the
land. It's interesting that one of our founding fathers reflected upon this detestable human
trait over two hundred years ago.
"It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental
lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity
of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has
prepared himself for the commission of every other crime." – Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine's description of how moral mischief can ruin a society was written when less
than 3 million people inhabited America. Consider his accurate assessment of humanity when over
300 million occupy these lands. The staggering number of corrupt prostituted sociopaths
occupying positions of power within the government, corporations, media, military, churches,
and academia has created a morally bankrupt empire of debt.
These sociopaths are not liberal or conservative. They are not Democrats or Republicans.
They are not beholden to a country or community. They care not for their fellow man. They don't
care about future generations. They care about their own power, wealth and control over others.
They have no conscience. They have no empathy. Right and wrong are meaningless in their
unquenchable thirst for more. They will lie, steal and kill to achieve their goal of
controlling everything and everyone in this world. This precisely describes virtually every
politician in Washington DC, Wall Street banker, mega-corporation CEO, government agency head,
MSM talking head, church leader, billionaire activist, and blood sucking advisor to the
president.
The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households
around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them. The answer to that question
will strongly impact the direction and intensity of the climactic years of this Fourth Turning.
What I've noticed is the shunning of those who don't take an all or nothing position regarding
Trump. If you disagree with a decision, policy, or hiring decision by the man, you are accused
by the pro-Trump team of being one of them (aka liberals, lefties, Hillary lovers).
If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the Trumpeteers. I
don't want to be Us or Them. I just want to be me. I will judge everyone by their actions and
their results. I can agree with Trump on many issues, while also agreeing with Tulsi Gabbard,
Rand Paul, Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi on other issues. I don't prescribe to the cult of
personality school of thought. I didn't believe the false narratives during the Bush or Obama
years, and I won't worship at the altar of the Trump narrative now.
In Part II of this article I'll assess Trump's progress thus far and try to determine
whether he can defeat the Deep State.
"The scientific and industrial revolution of modern times represents the next giant
step in the mastery over nature; and here, too, an enormous increase in man's power over
nature is followed by an apocalyptic drive to subjugate man and reduce human nature to the
status of nature. Even where enslavement is employed in a mighty effort to tame nature, one
has the feeling that the effort is but a tactic to legitimize total subjugation. Thus,
despite its spectacular achievements in science and technology, the twentieth century will
probably be seen in retrospect as a century mainly preoccupied with the mastery and
manipulation of men. Nationalism, socialism, communism, fascism, and militarism,
cartelization and unionization, propaganda and advertising are all aspects of a general
relentless drive to manipulate men and neutralize the unpredictability of human nature. Here,
too, the atmosphere is heavy-laden with coercion and magic." --Eric Hoffer
If you don't agree with everything Trump does or says, you are dead to the
Trumpeteers
That's not true. When Trump kisses Israeli ***, most "Trumpeteers" are outraged. That does
not mean they're going to vote for Joe "I'm a Zionist" Biden, or Honest Hillary because of
it, but they're still pissed.
These predators (((them))) need to fear the Victims, us! That is what the 2ND Amendment is
for. It's coming, slowly for now, but eventually it speeds up.
Any piece like this better be littered with footnotes and cited sources before I'm
swallowing it.
I'll say it again: this is the internet, people. There's no "shortage of column space" to
include links back to primary sources for your assertions. Otherwise, how am I supposed to
distinguish you from another "psy op" or "paid opposition hit piece"?
"The question pondered every day on blogs, social media, news channels, and in households
around the country is whether Trump is one of Us or one of Them."
If you still ponder this question, then you are pretty frickin' thick. It is obvious at
this point, that he betrayed everything he campaigned on. You don't do that and call yourself
one of "us".......damn sure aren't one of "me".
If I couldn't keep my word and wouldn't do what it takes to do what is right.....then I
would resign. But I would not go on playing politics in a world that needs some real
leadership and not another political hack.
The real battle is between Truth and Lie. No matter the name of your "team" or the "side"
you support. Truth is truth and lies are lies. We don't stand for political parties, we stand
for truth. We don't stand for national pride, we take pride in a nation that is truthful and
trustworthy. The minute a "side" or "team" starts lying.....and justifying it.....that is the
minute they become them and not one of us.
Any thinking person in this country today knows we are being lied to by the entire
complex. Until someone starts telling the truth.....we are on our own. But I be damned before
I am going to support any of these lying sons of bitches......and that includes Trump.
Dark comedy. All the elections have been **** choices until the last one. Take a look at
Arkancide.com and start counting the
bodies.
Anyone remember the news telling us how North Korea promised to turn the US into a sea of
fire?? Trump absolutely went to bat for every single American to de-escalate that
situation.
Don't tell me about Arkancide or the Clintons. I grew up in Arkansas with that sack of
**** as my governor for 12 years.
NK was never a real threat to anyone. Trump didn't do ****. NK is back to building and
shooting off missiles and will be teaming up with the Russians and Chinese. You are a duped
bafoon.
I don't think anybody thought NK was an existential threat to the US. It has still been
nice making progress on bringing them back into the world and making them less of a threat to
Japan and S. Korea. Trump did that.
Dennis Rodman did that, or that is to say, Trump an extension thereof ..
Great theater..
Look, i thought it was great that Trump went Kim Unning. I mean after all, i had talked
with a few elderly folks that get their news directly from the mainstream of mainstream,
vanilla news reportage. Propaganda central casting. I remember them being extremely
concerned, outright petrified about that evil menace, kim gonna launch nukes any minute now.
If the news would have been announced a major troop mobilization, bombing campaigns, to begin
immediately they would have been completely onboard, waving the flag.
Frankly, it is only a matter of time, and folks can speculate on the country of interest,
but it is coming soon to a theater near you. So many being in the crosshairs. Iran i suspect
.. that's the big prize, that makes these sociopaths cream in their panties.
Probably. In the second term .. and so far, if ones honestly evaluates the "brain trust" /
current crop of dimwit opposition, and in light of their past 2 plus years of moronic
posturing with their hair on fire, trump will get his second term ..
Until the last one? You are retarded, the last election was a masterpiece of Rothschilds
Productions. The Illuminati was watching you at their private cinema when you were voting for
Trump and they were laughing their asses off.
The author does not realize that everyone in America, except Native American Indians, were
immigrants drawn towards the false promise of hope that is the American Dream, turned
nightmare..
Owning your own home, car, & raising a family in this country is so damn expensive
& risky, that you'd have be on drugs or an idiot to even fall for the lies.
I don't see an us vs them, I see the #FakeMoney printers monetized every facet of life,
own everything, & it truly is RENT-A-LIFE USSA, complete with bills galore, taxes galore,
laws galore, jails & prisons galore, & the worst fkn country anyone would want to
live in poverty & homelessness in.
At least in many 3rd world nations there is land to live off of & joblessness does not
= a financial death sentence.
Sure. Lets all go back to living in huts.....off the land....no cars.....no
electricity.....no running water......no roads....
There is a price to pay for things and it is not always in the form of money. We have
given up some of our freedom for the ease and conveniences we want.
The problem is we have gone too far. The "American Dream" has become a grotesque nightmare
because people by the millions sit around and dream about being a Kardashian. Makes me want
to puke.
There is a balance. Don't take the other extreme or we never find balance.
This article is moronic. One can easily prove that Trump is not like all the others in the
poster. Has this author been living under a rock for the last 2.5 yrs? The past 5 presidents
represent a group that has been literally trying to assassinate Trump, ruin his family, his
reputation, his buisness and his future, for the audacity to be an ousider to the power
network and steal (win) the presidency from under their noses. He's kept us OUT of war. He's
dissolved the treachery that was keeping us in the middle east through gaslighitng and a
proxy fake war that is ISIS, the globalists' / nato / fiveys / uk's fake mercenary army
The greatest threat to the USA is its own dumbed down drugged up citizens who cannot
compete with anyone. America is a big military powerhouse but that doens't make successful
countries
Notice how modern narrative is getting manipulated. What is being reported and referenced
is completely different from how things are. And knowing that we can assume that the entire
history is a fabricated lie, written by the ruling class to support its status in the minds
of obedient citizens.
This article is garbage propaganda that proves that they think we aren't keeping score or
paying attention. The gaslighting won't work when it relies on so much counterthink, willful
ignorance, counterfacts and weaponized omissions
The reality is the de-escalation of wars, the stability of our currency and our economy,
and the moral re-grounding of our culture does not occur until we do what over 100 countries
have done over the centuries, beginning in Carthage in 250AD.
The congress are statusquotarians. If they solved the problems they say they would,they'd
be out of a job. and that job is sitting there acting like a naddler or toxic post turtle
leprechaun with a charisma and skill level of zero. Their staff do all the work, half of them
barely read, though they probably can
I still think 1st and 2nd ammedment is predicated on which party rules the house. If a Dem
gets into the WH, we're fucked. Kiss those Iast two dying amendments goodbye for good.
If we rely on any party to preserve the 1st or 2nd Amendments, we are already fucked. What
should preserve the 1st and 2nd Amendments is the absolute fear of anyone in government even
mentioning suppressing or removing them. When the very thought of doing anything to lessen
the rights advocated in these two amendments, causes a politician to piss in their pants,
liberty will be preserved. As it is now citizens fear the government, and as a result tyranny
continues to grow and fester as a cancer.
You may very well be right. I still hold out hope, but upon seeing what our society is
quickly morphing into, that hope seems to fade more each and every day.
If you think the 1st and 2nd amendments are reliant on who is in office, then you are
already done. Why don't you try growing a pair and being an American for once in your
life.
I will always have a 1st and 2nd "amendment" for as long as I live. Life is meaningless
without them.....as far as I am concerned. Good thing the founders didn't wait for king
George to give them what they "felt" was theirs.....by the laws of Nature and Nature's
God.
I hope the democrats get the power......and I hope they come for the guns......maybe then
pussies like you will finally have to **** or get off the pot......for once in your life.
There are worse things than dying.
This country cannot be fixed through the ballot box. Unless we get rid of *** influencing
from abroad and domestically. Getting rid of English King few hundred years ago was a joke!
this would be a challenge because dual-citizens masquerading as locals.
Last revolution (1776) we targeted the WRONG ENEMY.
We targeted King George III instead of the private bankers who owned of the Bank of
England and the issued of the British-pound currency.
George III was himself up to his ears in debt to them by 1776, when the bankers installed
George Washington to replace George III as their middleman in the American colonies, by way
of the phony revolution.
Phony because ownership of the central bank and currency (Federal-Reserve Banks,
Federal-Reserve notes) we use, remains in the same banking families' hands to this day. The
same parasite remains within our government.
It is this strangely incomplete calculus that creates the shifting Loser world of
rifts and alliances. By operating with a more complete calculus, Sociopaths are able to
manipulate this world through the divide-and-conquer mechanisms. The result is that the
Losers end up blaming each other for their losses, seek collective emotional resolution,
and fail to adequately address the balance sheet of material rewards and losses.
To succeed, this strategy requires that Losers not look too closely at the non-emotional
books. This is why, as we saw last time, divide-and-conquer is the most effective means for
dealing with them, since it naturally creates emotional drama that keeps them busy while
they are being manipulated.
The fiasco of the latest obviously unsuccessful US attempt to topple twice
democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro made a laughing stock of the US government
throughout the world and is now exposing new splits in the Trump administration in Washington.
It is also exposing a dangerous but also ridiculous myth that Washington has credulously
swallowed for generations – the idea that National Security Adviser John Bolton is
actually competent.
No one among the carefully trained castrated geldings of the US mainstream news media and
their pseudo-liberal and libertarian outliers has ever dared to ask how able Bolton actually
is. He is held in awe and even fear for his supposed brilliant intellect and for his undoubted
energy and relentless determination to push the policies he supports with tunnel vision and
fanatical relentlessness as hard as he can.
Yet given such undeniable "qualities" what is truly astonishing is how useless Bolton has
been in pursuing his own primary foreign policy goals for more than 40 years. He failed to
prevent the first president to take him seriously, Ronald Reagan to conduct sweeping nuclear
arms reductions with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and to push ahead with Gorbachev to
dismantle the Cold War. These policies were anathema to Bolton who prophesied – falsely
– that war and catastrophe would flow from them. But Reagan ignored him and pushed them
through anyway.
Now Bolton has destroyed Reagan's legacy of peace by convincing current President Donald
Trump to scrap one of Reagan's greatest achievement, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty.
He succeeded in helping provoke the US invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq under
President George W. Bush in 2003 but failed to persuade even Bush, Junior and his top foreign
policy adviser, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pull out
of any arms control treaties whatsoever.
Then, the Iraq misadventure was so appallingly bungled that Bolton failed to get any
traction whatsoever for his priority project of toppling the government of Iran, even if it
took a full scale war to do it.
In Washington, even Bolton's greatest critics among libertarians and paleo-conservatives
have spoken for decades with awe of his supposed brilliant intellect, command of all details,
endless energy and ability to read and keep track of everything. But now, the latest failed
coup in Venezuela instead reveals an ignorant, simplistic rash adventurer and gambler who
charges head on into dangerous situations and who relies on bullying and bluster alone to get
his way.
Bolton showed none of the ruthless, devious subtlety of a Dwight D. Eisenhower in
masterminding a coup and fragrant breach of international law without appearing to have
anything to do with it (a skill which Ronald Reagan, though far less masterful than the revered
Eisenhower also attempted in Iran-Contra).
Bolton's fingerprints were all over the hard-charging policy of propping up ridiculous Juan
Guiado as America's cardboard cutout puppet to run Venezuela, even though he had no credibility
whatsoever.
Bolton is in fact is an awesomely bad judge of choosing his own allies in other countries.
His combination of recklessness and vanity means he is always a sucker for whatever
smooth-talking sociopath can worm his way into his presence.
This explains how the late, unlamented Ahmed Chalabi was able to convince Bolton and his
neocon friends that he (Chalabi)) would be welcomed by tens of millions of Iraqis as soon the
US armed forces invaded ("liberated" was the politically approved term) his country and how
Zalmay Khalizad, a catastrophic clown, was acclaimed as an infallible guru on Afghanistan.
Bolton is widely known to have no small talk, private interests, charm or social skills
whatsoever. Far from confirming his "genius", as his many worshipful courtiers claim, this only
confirms his haplessness.
If Bolton played poker he would be skinned alive. He cannot read people and being an
obsessive courtier and flatterer himself, he always falls flat on his face for the flattery of
others. The arch-manipulator is in reality the easiest of figures to manipulate.
Once the strange miasma of worshipful myth is stripped from Bolton, all the confusions and
bungles of the April 30 Coup That Never Was in Venezuela become clear.
"... More broadly, Wilkerson pegs the ramping up of confrontation with China as "all about keeping the [military-industrial] complex alive" that Wilkerson explains "the military was scared to death would disappear as we began to pay the American people back" a peace dividend at the end of the cold war. US government efforts against terrorism, explains Wilkerson, have also been used to ensure the money keeps flowing. ..."
Former Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration,
warns in a new The Real News interview with host Sharmini Peries that the United States government is driving down a "highway to
war" with China -- a war for which Wilkerson sees no sound justification.
The drive toward war is not undertaken in response to a real threat posed by China to the people of America. Instead, argues Wilkerson,
the US government is moving toward war for reasons related to money for both the military and the broader military-industrial complex,
as well to advance President Donald Trump's domestic political goals.
Wilkerson, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity's Academic Board, elaborates on the US military's
money-seeking motivation to advance the new China scare, stating:
All of this right now, first and foremost, is a budget ploy. They want more money.
And that's largely because their personnel costs are just eating their lunch. And, second, it's an attempt to develop - and
this has something to do with money too of course - another threat, another cold war, another feeding system .
The military just hooks up like it is hooking up to an intravenous, you know, an IV system and the money just pours out-slush
fund money, appropriated money, everything else.
More broadly, Wilkerson pegs the ramping up of confrontation with China as "all about keeping the [military-industrial] complex
alive" that Wilkerson explains "the military was scared to death would disappear as we began to pay the American people back" a peace
dividend at the end of the cold war. US government efforts against terrorism, explains Wilkerson, have also been used to ensure the
money keeps flowing.
"... In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts. ..."
"... Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones. ..."
"... The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy. ..."
"... Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was thought to be now. ..."
"... The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami. It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions. ..."
"... The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through austerity to make up for the loss of money. ..."
During the last days a right wing politician in Austria was taken down by using an elaborate sting. Until Friday Heinz-Christian
Strache was leader of the far right (but not fascist) Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) and the Vice Chancellor of the country. On
Friday morning two German papers, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegelpublished
(German)
reports (English) about an old video that was made to take Strache down.
The FPOe has good connections with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin, and to other right-wing parties in
east Europe. It's pro-Russian position has led to verbal attacks on and defamation of the party from NATO supporting and neoliberal
circles.
In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to
a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire
plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire,
who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation
but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts.
Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones.
A scene from the video. Source: Der Falter (vid,
German)
During the six hour long party several schemes get proposed by the "Russian" and are discussed. Strache rejects most of them.
He insists several times that everything they plan or do must be legal and conform to the law. He says that a large donation could
probably be funneled through an endowment that would then support his party. It is a gray area under Austrian party financing laws.
They also discuss if the "Russian" could buy the Kronen Zeitung , Austria's powerful tabloid, and use it to prop up his party.
The evening goes on with several bottles of vodka on the table. Starche gets a bit drunk and boosts in front of the "oligarch
daughter" about all his connections to rich and powerful people. He does not actually have these.
Strache says that, in exchange for help for his party, the "Russian" could get public contracts for highway building and repair.
Currently most of such contracts in Austria go to the large Austrian company, STRABAG, that is owned by a neoliberal billionaire
who opposes the FPOe. At that time Strache was not yet in the government and had no way to decide about such contracts.
At one point Strache seems to understand that the whole thing is a setup. But his right hand man calms him down and vouches
for the "Russian". The sting ends with Strache and his companion leaving the place. The never again see the "Russian" and her co-plotter.
Nothing they talked about will ever come to fruition.
Three month later Strache and his party win more than 20% in the Austrian election and form a coalition government with the
conservative party OeVP led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Even while the FPOe controls several ministries, it does not achieve much
politically. It lacks a real program and the government's policies are mostly run by the conservatives.
Nearly two years after the evening on Ibiza, ten days before the European parliament election in which Strache's party is predicted
to achieve good results, a video of the evening on Ibiza is handed to two German papers which are known to be have strong transatlanticist
leanings and have previously been used for other shady 'leaks'. The papers do not hesitate to take part in the plot and publish extensive
reports about the video.
After the reports appeared Strache immediately
stepped down and the conservatives
ended the coalition with his party. Austria will now have new elections.
On Bloomberg Leonid Bershidsky
opines
on the case:
Strache's discussion with the Russian oligarch's fake niece shows a propensity for dirty dealing that has nothing to do with idealistic
nationalism. Nationalist populists often agitate against entrenched, corrupt elites and pledge to drain various swamps. In the
videos, however, Strache and Gudenus behave like true swamp creatures, savoring rumors of drug and sex scandals in Austrian politics
and discussing how to create an authoritarian media machine like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's.
I do not believe that the people who voted for the FPOe (and similar parties in other countries) will subscribe to that view.
The politics of the main stream parties in Austria have for decades been notoriously corrupt. Compared to them Strache and his party
are astonishingly clean. In the video he insists several times that everything must stay within the legal realm. Whenever the "Russian"
puts forward a likely illegal scheme, Starche emphatically rejects it.
Bershidsky continues:
Strache, as one of the few nationalist populists in government in the European Union's wealthier member states, was an important
member of the movement Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been trying to cobble together ahead of the European Parliament
election that will take place next week. On Saturday, he was supposed to attend a Salvini-led rally in Milan with other like-minded
politicians from across Europe. Instead, he was in Vienna apologizing to his wife and to Kurz and protesting pitifully that he'd
been the victim of a "political assassination" -- a poisonous rain on the Italian right-winger's parade.
...
This leaves the European far right in disarray and plays into the hands of centrist and leftist forces ahead of next week's election.
Salvini's unifying effort has been thoroughly undermined, ...
This is also a misreading of the case. The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy.
Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was
likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support
for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while
drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video
was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was
thought to be now.
But that Strache stepped down after the sudden media assault only makes him more convincing. The right-wing all over Europe will
see him as a martyr who was politically assassinated because he worked for their cause. The issue will increase the right-wingers
hate against the 'liberal' establishment. It will further motivate them: "They attack us because we are right and winning." The new
far-right block Natteo Salvini
will setup in the European Parliament will likely receive a record share of votes.
Establishment writers notoriously misinterpret the new right wing parties and their followers. This stand-offish sentence in the
Spiegel story about Strache's party demonstrates the problem:
In the last election, the party drew significant support from the working class, in part because of his ability to simplify even
the most complicated of issues and play the common man, even in his role as vice chancellor.
The implicit thesis, that the working class is too dumb to understand the "most complicated of issues", is not only incredibly
snobbish but utterly false. The working class understands very well what the establishment parties have done to it and continue to
do. The increasing vote share of the far-right is a direct consequence of the behavior of the neoliberal center and of the lack of
real left alternatives.
Last week, before the Strache video appeared, Craig Murray
put his finger on the wound:
The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting
almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami.
It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through
multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately
funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions.
...
The rejection of the political class manifests itself in different ways and has been diverted down a number of entirely blind
alleys giving unfulfilled promise of a fresh start – Brexit, Trump, Macron. As the vote share of the established political parties
– and public engagement with established political institutions – falls everywhere, the chattering classes deride the political
symptoms of status quo rejection by the people as "populism". It is not populism to make sophisticated arguments that undermine
the received political wisdom and take on the entire weight of established media opinion.
If one wants to take down the far right one has to do so with arguments and good politics for the working class. Most people,
especially working class people, have a strong sense for justice. The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What
was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded
with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through
austerity to make up for the loss of money.
While I consider myself to be a strong leftist who opposes the right wherever possible, I believe to understand why people vote
for Strache's FBOe and similar parties. When one talks to these people issues of injustice and inequality always come up. The new
'populist' parties at least claim to fight against the injustice done to the common men. Unlike most of the establishment parties
they seem to be still mostly clean and not yet corrupted.
In the early 1990s Strache actually flirted with violent fascists but he rejected their way. While he has far-right opinions,
he and his like are no danger to our societies. If we can not accept that Strache and his followers have some legitimate causes,
we will soon find us confronted with way more extreme people. The neoliberal establishment seems to do its best to achieve that.
Posted by b on May 19, 2019 at 01:10 PM |
Permalink
"... The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression in the Middle East. ..."
"... Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt no longer made any sense. ..."
"... A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time. ..."
"... The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about possible escalation. ..."
"... The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know. ..."
"... The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect. ..."
"... Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later). ..."
"... The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all. ..."
"... She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day. ..."
"... If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible superpower stand-off in the Middle East. ..."
"... So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility? ..."
"... This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first. ..."
"... If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded" to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence to prove some of the most egregious parts of this. ..."
"... But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval. ..."
"... The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing much in the end. ..."
"... Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make her position as unstable as ever. ..."
"... In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea, and even war with Iran. ..."
"... The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate media. ..."
In view of the latest revelations from the leaked report, which seem to prove that at least some elements of the Douma "chemical
attack" were entirely staged, we want to take look back at the chaotic events of Spring 2018.
What was the agenda behind the Douma false flag?
Why was the US response seemingly token and ineffective?
Why was the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson fired?
What agenda tied the Skripal case to the Douma attack?
The following is an extract from an article by Catte originally published April 14th last year, which takes on a greater weight
in light of certain evidence – not only that the Douma attack was faked, but that the OPCW is compromised.
The neocon faction in the US is usually (and reasonably) regarded as the motivator behind much of the western aggression
in the Middle East.
Since at least 2001 and the launch of the "War on Terror" the US has led the way in finding or creating facile excuses to fight
oil wars and hegemonic wars and proxy wars in the region. But this time the dynamics look a little different.
This time it really looks as if the UK has been setting the pace of the "response".
The fact (as stated above) that Mattis was apparently telegraphing his own private doubts a)about the verifiability of the
attacks, and b)about the dangers of a military response suggests he was a far from enthusiastic partaker in this adventure.
Trump's attitude is harder to gauge. His tweets veered wildly between unhinged threats and apparent efforts at conciliation.
But he must have known he would lose (and seemingly has lost) a great part of his natural voter base (who elected him on a no-more-war
mandate) by an act of open aggression that threatened confrontation with Russia on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Granted the US has been looking for excuses to intervene ever more overtly in Syria since 2013, and in that sense this
Douma "initiative" is a continuation of their longterm policy. It's also true Russia was warning just such a false flag would
be attempted in early March. But in the intervening month the situation on the ground has changed so radically that such an attempt
no longer made any sense.
A false flag in early March, while pockets of the US proxy army were still holding ground in Ghouta would have enabled
a possible offensive in their support which would prevent Ghouta falling entirely into government hands and thereby also maintain
the pressure on Damascus. A false flag in early April is all but useless because the US proxy army in the region was completely
vanquished and nothing would be gained by an offensive in that place at that time.
You can see why Mattis and others in the administration might be reluctant to take part in the false flag/punitive air strike
narrative if they saw nothing currently to be gained to repay the risk. They may have preferred to wait for developments and plan
for a more productive way of playing the R2P card in the future.
The US media has been similarly, and uncharacteristically divided and apparently unsure. Tucker Carlson railed against
the stupidity of attacking Syria. Commentators on MSNBC were also expressing intense scepticism of the US intent and fear about
possible escalation.
The UK govt and media on the other hand has been much more homogeneous in advocating for action. No doubts of the type expressed
by Mattis have been heard from the lips of an UK government minister. Even May, a cowardly PM, has been (under how much pressure?)
voicing sterling certitude in public that action HAD to be taken.
Couple this with the – as yet unverified – claims by Russia of direct UK involvement in arranging the Douma "attack", and the
claims by Syria that the perps are in their custody, and a tentative storyline emerges. It's possible this time there were other
considerations in the mix beside the usual need to "be seen to do something" and Trump's perpetual requirement to appease the
liberal Russiagaters and lunatic warmongers at home. Maybe this time it was also about helping the UK out of a sticky problem.
THE SKRIPAL CONSIDERATION
Probably the only thing we can all broadly agree on about the Skripal narrative is that it manifestly did not go according
to plan. However it was intended to play out, it wasn't this way. Since some time in mid to late March it's been clear the entire
thing has become little more than an exercise in damage-limitation, leak-plugging and general containment.
The official story is a hot mess of proven falsehoods, contradictions, implausible conspiracy theories, more falsehoods
and inexplicable silences were cricket chirps tell us all we need to know.
The UK government has lied and evaded on every key aspect.
It lied again and again about the information Porton Down had given it
Its lawyers all but lied to Mr Justice Robinson about whether or not the Skripals had relatives in Russia in an unscrupulous
attempt to maintain total control of them, or at least of the narrative.
It is not publishing the OPCW report on the chemical analyses, and the summary of that report reads like an exercise in
allusion and weasel-wording. Even the name of the "toxic substance" found in the Skripals' blood is omitted, and the only thing
tying it to the UK government's public claims of "novichok" is association by inference and proximity.
Indeed if current claims by Russian FM Lavrov turn out to be true, a "novichok" (whatever that precisely means in this
case) may not have been the only substance found in those samples, and a compound called "BZ", a non-lethal agent developed in
Europe and America, has been discovered and suppressed in the OPCW report (more about that later).
None of the alleged victims of this alleged attack has been seen in public even in passing since the event. There is no film
or photographs of DS Bailey leaving the hospital, no film or photographs of his wife or family members doing the same. No interviews
with Bailey, no interviews with his wife, family, distant relatives, work colleagues.
The Skripals themselves were announced to be alive and out of danger mere days after claims they were all but certain to
die. Yulia, soon thereafter, apparently called her cousin Viktoria only to subsequently announce, indirectly through the helpful
agency of the Metropolitan Police, that she didn't want to talk to her cousin – or anyone else – at all.
She is now allegedly discharged from hospital and has "specially trained officers helping to take care of" her in an undisclosed
location. A form or words so creepily sinister it's hard to imagine how they were ever permitted the light of day.
Very little of this bizarre, self-defeating, embarrassing, hysterical story makes any sense other than as a random narrative,
snaking wildly in response to events the narrative-makers can't completely control.
Why? What went wrong? Why has the UK government got itself into this mess? And how much did the Douma "gas attack" and subsequent
drive for a concerted western "response" have to do with trying to fix that?
IS THIS WHAT HAPPENED?
If a false flag chemical attack had taken place in Syria at the time Russia predicted, just a week or two after the Skripal
poisoning, a lot of the attention that's been paid to the Skripals over the last month would likely have been diverted. Many of
the questions being asked by Russia and in the alt media may never have been asked as the focus of the world turned to a possible
superpower stand-off in the Middle East.
So, could it be the Skripal event was never intended to last so long in the public eye? Could it be that it was indeed
a false flag, or a fake event, as many have alleged, planned as a sketchy prelude to, or warm up act for a bigger chemical attack
in Syria, scheduled for a week or so later in mid-March – just around the time Russia was warning of such a possibility?
Could it be this planned event was unexpectedly canceled by the leading players in the drama (the US) when the Russians called
them out and the rapid and unexpected fall of Ghouta meant any such intervention became pointless at least for the moment?
Did this cancelation leave the UK swinging in the wind, with a fantastical story that was never intended to withstand close
scrutiny, and no second act for distraction?
So, did they push on with the now virtually useless "chemical attack", botch it (again), leaving a clear evidence trail leading
back to them? Did they then further insist on an allied "response" to their botched false flag in order to provide yet more distraction
and hopefully destroy some of that evidence?
This would explain why the UK may have been pushing for the false flag to happen (as claimed by Russia) even after it could
no longer serve much useful purpose on the ground, and why the Douma "attack" seems to have been so sketchily done by a gang on
the run. The UK needed the second part to happen in order to distract from the first.
It would explain why the US has been less than enthused by the idea of reprisals. Because while killing Syrians to further
geo-strategic interests is not a problem, killing Syrians (and risking escalation with Russia) in order to rescue an embarrassed
UK government is less appealing.
And it would explain why the "reprisals" when they came were so half-hearted.
If this is true, Theresa May and her cabinet are currently way out on a limb even by cynical UK standards. Not only have
they lied about the Skripal event, but in order to cover up that lie they have promoted a false flag in Syria, and "responded"
to it by a flagrant breach of international and domestic law. Worst of all, if the Russians aren't bluffing, they have some evidence
to prove some of the most egregious parts of this.
This is very bad.
But even if some or all of our speculation proves false, and even if the Russian claims of UK collusion with terrorists
in Syria prove unfounded, May is still guilty of multiple lies and has still waged war without parliamentary approval.
This is a major issue. She and her government should resign. But it's unlikely that will happen.
So what next? There is a sense this is a watershed for many of the parties involved and for the citizens of the countries drawn
into this.
Will the usual suspects try to avoid paying for their crimes and misadventures by more rhetoric, more false flags, more "reprisals"?
Or will this signal some other change in direction?
We'll all know soon enough.
* * *
Back to today...
...and while things have moved on, we're still puzzling over all the same issues.
What was the purpose of the Skripal attack?
What was the original plan of the Douma attack?
Is there, as it appears, an internal power struggle in the Trump administration?
Has that resolved? Who is running the United States?
Seeing as the OPCW has been shown to cover-up evidence in Douma, can we trust them on Skripal? Or anything else?
Speaking of which, where on Earth IS Sergei Skripal?
All these questions stand, and are important, but more important than all of that is the lesson: They tried it before, and just
because it didn't work doesn't mean they won't try it again.
Last spring, the Western powers showed they will deploy a false flag if they need too, for domestic or international motives.
And they have the motives right now.
The UK were the most vocal about Syria, and desperately tried to drum up support over Skripal, but it all came to nothing
much in the end.
Theresa May's political career still hangs by a thread, and her "Falklands moment", at best, staved off the inevitable for
a few months. A washout in the EU elections, a very real threat from Farage's Brexit party, and rumblings inside her own party, make
her position as unstable as ever.
Britain had the most to gain, of all NATO countries, and that is still true. We don't know what they might do.
This time they might even receive greater support from France this time around – since Macron is facing a revolution at home and
would kill (possibly literally) for a nice international distraction.
In the US, generally speaking, it seems that the Trump admin – or at least whichever interested parties currently have control
of the wheels of government – have called time on war in Syria. Instead, they've moved on to projects in Venezuela and North Korea,
and even war with Iran.
That's not to say Syria is safe, far from it. They are always just one carefully place false-flag away from all-out war. Last
year, Mattis (or whoever) decided war with Syria was not an option – that it was too risky or complicated. That might not happen
next time.
Clearly, the US hasn't totally seen sense in terms of stoking conflict with Russia – as seen by the decision to pull out of the
INF Treaty late last year. And further demonstrated by their attempts to overthrow Russia's ally Nicolas Maduro. Another ripe candidate
for a false flag.
The failure of the Douma false flag to cause the war it was meant to cause, and the vast collection of evidence that suggests
it was a false flag, should be spread far and wide. Not just because it's a truth which vindicates the smeared minority in the alternate
media.
But because recognising what they were trying to do last time , is the best defense when they try it again next time .
During the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Mitt Romney claimed that he would not
make any significant policy decisions about Israel without consulting Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Romney blatantly pandered to the pro-Israel Lobby, including both Jewish Zionists and
evangelical Christian Zionists.
In a telling exchange during a debate in December 2011, Romney criticized Newt Gingrich
for making a disparaging remark about Palestinians, declaring: "Before I made a statement of
that nature, I'd get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: 'Would it help if I
say this? What would you like me to do?' "
Netanyahu met with Romney in 2011. The two men had worked together in the 1970s.
Martin S. Indyk, a leading figure in the pro-Israel Lobby who served as United States
ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, said that whether intentional or not,
Romney's statement implied that he would "subcontract Middle East policy to Israel."
"That, of course, would be inappropriate," added Indyk, a former director for the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who also served eight years as the founding
Executive Director of the notorious pro-Israel warhawk "think tank" Washington Institute for
Near East Policy (WINEP).
For years, Netanyahu has mobilized pro-Israel Lobby groups and Congressional Republicans
to pressure successive US administrations into taking a more confrontational approach against
Iran.
"To the extent that their personal relationship would give Netanyahu entree to the Romney
White House in a way that he doesn't now have to the Obama White House," Indyk said, "the
prime minister would certainly consider that to be a significant advantage."
In March 2012, Romney spoke via satellite to a meeting of the AIPAC. Like other
politicians backed by the pro-Israel Lobby, Romney vehemently criticized the Obama
administration over its policies toward Israel.
Romney worked at at Boston Consulting Group from 1975 to 1977; Mr. Netanyahu was involved
from 1976 to 1978. But a month after Netanyahu arrived, he returned to Israel to start an
antiterrorism foundation in memory of his brother, an officer killed while leading the
hostage rescue force at Entebbe, Uganda. An aide said he sporadically returned to the company
over the rest of that two-year period.
Romney later decamped to Bain & Company, a rival of Boston Consulting. They did,
however, maintain a significant link: at Bain, Mr. Romney worked closely with Fleur Cates,
Netanyahu's second wife. (Cates and Netanyahu divorced in the mid-1980s, but she remained in
touch with Romney.)
Netanyahu paid him a visit to Romney when the latter became the governor of Massachusetts.
Netanyahu, who had recently stepped down as Israel's finance minister, regaled Romney with
stories of how he had challenged unionized workers over control of their pensions and
privatized formerly government-run industries. He encouraged Romney to look for ways to do
the same.
"Government," Romney recalled Netanyahu saying, "is the guy on your shoulders."
As governor, Mr. Romney said, he frequently repeated the story to the heads of various
agencies.
A few years later, Romney had dinner with Mr. Netanyahu at a private home in central
Jerusalem. Before he left Israel, Romney set up several meetings with government officials in
the United States for his old colleague. "I immediately saw the wisdom of his thinking,"
Romney claimed. Back in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney sent out letters to legislators requesting
that the public pension funds they controlled sell off investments from corporations doing
business with Iran.
Netanyahu maintained contact with Romney during the presidential campaign. When Newt
Gingrich leaped to the top of the polls, an article in January 2012 explored why billionaire
oligarch Sheldon Adelson was devoting millions of dollars to back Gingrich. It described
Netanyahu and Adelson as close friends. Netanyahu's office quickly relayed a message to a
senior Romney adviser, Dan Senor claiming that the Israeli prime minister had played no role
in Adelson's decision to bankroll a Romney rival.
Fast forward to the 2016 US presidential election.
Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam
engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning.
Trump received the "Liberty Award" for his contributions to US-Israel relations at a 3
February 2015 gala hosted by The Algemeiner Journal, a New York-based newspaper, covering
American and international Jewish and Israel-related news.
After the event, Trump did not renew his television contract for The Apprentice, which
raised speculation about a Trump bid for the presidency. Trump announced his candidacy in
June 2015.
Trump's questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in
Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided
capital, were all stage-managed for the campaign.
Stage management of both the Trump administration and its Republican and Democratic
"opposition" continues apace.
The Israeli government, via the machinations of the pro-Israel Lobby, is an ever more
aggressively warmongering "guy on your shoulders".
"Russia-gate" really is about an immense conspiracy to "do things".
The primary "thing", the key pretext that Lazare and other CN contributors steadfastly
ignore:
The "Russia-gate" fiction was specifically designed to divert attention from the reality
of "Israel-gate".
The US is closer to war with Iran
than it has been since the Bush years, or perhaps ever. And Bolton is largely to blame
But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited.' Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters Donald
Trump's national security adviser John Bolton wants the United States to go to war with
Iran .
And everything that the Trump administration has done over its Iran policy, particularly since Bolton became Trump's top foreign
policy adviser in April of 2018, must be viewed through this lens, including the alarming US military posturing in the Middle East
of the past two weeks.
Just after one month on the job, Bolton
gave Trump
the final push he needed to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, which at the time was (and still is, for now) successfully
boxing in Iran's nuclear program and blocking all pathways for Iran to build a bomb. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
– as the Iran deal is formally known – was the biggest obstacle to Bolton's drive for a regime change war, because it eliminated
a helpful pretext that served so useful to sell the war in Iraq 17 years ago.
Since walking away from the deal, the Trump administration has claimed that with a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, it
can achieve a "better deal" that magically turns Iran into a Jeffersonian democracy bowing to every and any American wish. But this
has always been a fantastically bad-faith argument meant to obscure the actual goal (regime change) and provide cover for the incremental
steps – the crushing sanctions, bellicose rhetoric, and antagonizing military maneuvers – that have now put the United States closer
to war with Iran than it has been since at least the latter half of the Bush administration, or perhaps ever.
In his White House statement 10 days ago announcing (an already pre-planned) carrier and bomber deployment to the Middle East,
Bolton cited "a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran to justify the bolstered US military presence.
But multiple sources who have seen the same intelligence have since
said
that Bolton and the Trump administration blew it "out of proportion, characterizing the threat as more significant than it actually
was". Even a British general operating in the region pushed back this week,
saying he has seen no evidence of an increased Iranian threat.
What's even more worrying is that Bolton knows what he's doing. He's "a
seasoned bureaucratic infighter
who has the skills to press forcefully for his views" – and he has a long history of using those skills to undermine American
diplomacy and work toward killing arms control agreements.
As a senior official in the George W Bush administration,
he played key role
in the collapse of the Agreed Framework, the Clinton-era deal that froze North Korea's plutonium nuclear program (the North Koreans
tested their first bomb four years later).
He said
he "felt like a kid on Christmas day" after he orchestrated the US withdrawal from the international criminal court in 2002.
And now as a senior official in the Trump administration, he
pushed
for the US to withdrawal from a crucial nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
While it's unclear how much of a role he played in scuttling Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi last year, he publicly
called for the so-called
"Libya model" with the North Koreans (in other words, regime change by force). Just months before joining the administration, he
tried to make the
legal case for a preventive war against Pyongyang. And if you think he cares about the aftermath of war with North Korea, he
doesn't. Bolton was reportedly
"unmoved" by a presentation during his time in the Bush administration of the catastrophic consequences of such a war. "I don't
do war. I do policy," he said then.
So far, Bolton has been successful in moving the United States toward his desired outcome with Iran – if getting the Pentagon
to draw up plans to send
120,000 US troops to the region to confront Iran is any indication. There are hopeful signs that we can avoid war, as US officials
and our European allies, seemingly alarmed by what Bolton is up to, are
sounding the alarm about
the Trump administration skewing intelligence on Iran.
But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited. The question, ultimately, is whether
the president can stick to his instincts of avoiding more military conflict, or acquiesce to a man hellbent on boxing him into a
corner with no way out other than war with Iran.
Ben Armbruster is the communications director for Win Without War and previously served as National Security Editor at ThinkProgress
So, what is the representative of Allmighty Nation doing un Russia? Why bothering to hint
on better relations? Noted in the press conference was the absence of Pompeo's moralizing,
limiting itself on US position on issues. What is the point in this flying back and
forth?
Yes, Iran -- and arms control. Venezuela -- and arms control. North Korea -- and arms
control. I think they are paranoid about Russian weapons. And if Iranians by any chance have
some of the new weaponry, providing perfect testing ground, would Russia own to that? What
was obvious, no concessions on any issue from Moscow. Not even softened language.
This time,
it is different. The economic and military power has shifted east, Europeans forever without
a spine this time are spineless in all directions, and it will come as a shock to the
establishment that the presumed animosity towards Iran in Gulf, will nowhere to be found. Wil
Saudis host US troops against Iran, Doubt that deeply.
"If President Trump had ever read Mackinder -- and there's no evidence he did -- one might
assume that he's aiming at a new anti-Eurasia integration pivot centered on the Persian Gulf.
And energy would be at the heart of the pivot.
If Washington were able to control everything, including "Big Prize" Iran, it would be
able to dominate all Asian economies, especially China. Trump even said were that to happen,
"decisions on the GNP of China will be made in Washington."...
...Arguably the key (invisible) takeaway of the meetings this week between Foreign
Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi, and then between Lavrov and Pompeo, is that Moscow made
it quite clear that Iran will be protected by Russia in the event of an American showdown.
Pompeo's body language showed how rattled he was.
What rattled Pomp: "Any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, be it
small-scale, medium-scale or any other scale, will be treated as a nuclear attack on our
country. The response will be instant and with all the relevant consequences,"
Trump may not have read Mackinder but Kissinger sure would have.
What we need is a true and functional global community of nations and people, where
governments truly work together to balance out the stronger world powers.
The US national security state which enjoys a huge military budget and 800 overseas bases
necessarily sees the world in a masculine competitive sense, not in a feminine cooperative
sense. So winning the competition takes precedence over working together, and diplomacy is
reduced to making and enforcing US demands.
from the recent US National Defense Strategy. . .
We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing
rules-based international order -- creating a security environment more complex and
volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition,
not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security. China is a strategic
competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing
features in the South China Sea. . .
here
During the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Mitt Romney claimed that he would not
make any significant policy decisions about Israel without consulting Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Romney blatantly pandered to the pro-Israel Lobby, including both Jewish Zionists and
evangelical Christian Zionists.
In a telling exchange during a debate in December 2011, Romney criticized Newt Gingrich
for making a disparaging remark about Palestinians, declaring: "Before I made a statement of
that nature, I'd get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: 'Would it help if I
say this? What would you like me to do?' "
Netanyahu met with Romney in 2011. The two men had worked together in the 1970s.
Martin S. Indyk, a leading figure in the pro-Israel Lobby who served as United States
ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, said that whether intentional or not,
Romney's statement implied that he would "subcontract Middle East policy to Israel."
"That, of course, would be inappropriate," added Indyk, a former director for the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who also served eight years as the founding
Executive Director of the notorious pro-Israel warhawk "think tank" Washington Institute for
Near East Policy (WINEP).
For years, Netanyahu has mobilized pro-Israel Lobby groups and Congressional Republicans
to pressure successive US administrations into taking a more confrontational approach against
Iran.
"To the extent that their personal relationship would give Netanyahu entree to the Romney
White House in a way that he doesn't now have to the Obama White House," Indyk said, "the
prime minister would certainly consider that to be a significant advantage."
In March 2012, Romney spoke via satellite to a meeting of the AIPAC. Like other
politicians backed by the pro-Israel Lobby, Romney vehemently criticized the Obama
administration over its policies toward Israel.
Romney worked at at Boston Consulting Group from 1975 to 1977; Mr. Netanyahu was involved
from 1976 to 1978. But a month after Netanyahu arrived, he returned to Israel to start an
antiterrorism foundation in memory of his brother, an officer killed while leading the
hostage rescue force at Entebbe, Uganda. An aide said he sporadically returned to the company
over the rest of that two-year period.
Romney later decamped to Bain & Company, a rival of Boston Consulting. They did,
however, maintain a significant link: at Bain, Mr. Romney worked closely with Fleur Cates,
Netanyahu's second wife. (Cates and Netanyahu divorced in the mid-1980s, but she remained in
touch with Romney.)
Netanyahu paid him a visit to Romney when the latter became the governor of Massachusetts.
Netanyahu, who had recently stepped down as Israel's finance minister, regaled Romney with
stories of how he had challenged unionized workers over control of their pensions and
privatized formerly government-run industries. He encouraged Romney to look for ways to do
the same.
"Government," Romney recalled Netanyahu saying, "is the guy on your shoulders."
As governor, Mr. Romney said, he frequently repeated the story to the heads of various
agencies.
A few years later, Romney had dinner with Mr. Netanyahu at a private home in central
Jerusalem. Before he left Israel, Romney set up several meetings with government officials in
the United States for his old colleague. "I immediately saw the wisdom of his thinking,"
Romney claimed. Back in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney sent out letters to legislators requesting
that the public pension funds they controlled sell off investments from corporations doing
business with Iran.
Netanyahu maintained contact with Romney during the presidential campaign. When Newt
Gingrich leaped to the top of the polls, an article in January 2012 explored why billionaire
oligarch Sheldon Adelson was devoting millions of dollars to back Gingrich. It described
Netanyahu and Adelson as close friends. Netanyahu's office quickly relayed a message to a
senior Romney adviser, Dan Senor claiming that the Israeli prime minister had played no role
in Adelson's decision to bankroll a Romney rival.
Fast forward to the 2016 US presidential election.
Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam
engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning.
Trump received the "Liberty Award" for his contributions to US-Israel relations at a 3
February 2015 gala hosted by The Algemeiner Journal, a New York-based newspaper, covering
American and international Jewish and Israel-related news.
After the event, Trump did not renew his television contract for The Apprentice, which
raised speculation about a Trump bid for the presidency. Trump announced his candidacy in
June 2015.
Trump's questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in
Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided
capital, were all stage-managed for the campaign.
Stage management of both the Trump administration and its Republican and Democratic
"opposition" continues apace.
The Israeli government, via the machinations of the pro-Israel Lobby, is an ever more
aggressively warmongering "guy on your shoulders".
"Russia-gate" really is about an immense conspiracy to "do things".
The primary "thing", the key pretext that Lazare and other CN contributors steadfastly
ignore:
The "Russia-gate" fiction was specifically designed to divert attention from the reality
of "Israel-gate".
Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference
Claims
Lavrov responded first to the question. He said that there is no evidence that shows any
Russian interference in the U.S. elections. He continued:
Speaking about the most recent US presidential campaign in particular, we have had in
place an information exchange channel about potential unintended risks arising in cyberspace
since 2013. From October 2016 (when the US Democratic Administration first raised this issue)
until January 2017 (before Donald Trump's inauguration), this channel was used to handle
requests and responses. Not so long ago, when the attacks on Russia in connection with the
alleged interference in the elections reached their high point, we proposed publishing this
exchange of messages between these two entities, which engage in staving off cyberspace
incidents. I reminded Mr Pompeo about this today. The administration, now led by President
Trump, refused to do so. I'm not sure who was behind this decision, but the idea to publish
this data was blocked by the United States. However, we believe that publishing it would
remove many currently circulating fabrications. Of course, we will not unilaterally make
these exchanges public, but I would still like to make this fact known.
The communication channel about cyber issues did indeed exist. In June 2013 the Presidents
of the United States and Russia issued a Joint Statement about "Information and
Communications Technologies (ICTs)". The parties agreed to establishing communication
channels between each other computer emergency response teams, to use the direct
communication link of the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers for cyber issue exchanges, and to
have direct communication links between high-level officials in the White House and Kremlin
for such matter. A Fact Sheet published by the Obama White House detailed the implementation
of these three channels.
One inference from Lavrov's statement is that the "fundamental understanding on this
matter" between the two presidents that has "not been fully implemented" is the release of
the communications about cyberspace incidents. The Russians clearly think that a release of
the communications with the Obama administration would exculpate them. That would also
exculpate Trump from any further collusion allegations. Why then does the Trump
administration reject the release? Who is blocking it?
Cont. reading: Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian
Interference Claims
The US is closer to war with Iran
than it has been since the Bush years, or perhaps ever. And Bolton is largely to blame
But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited.' Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters Donald
Trump's national security adviser John Bolton wants the United States to go to war with
Iran .
And everything that the Trump administration has done over its Iran policy, particularly since Bolton became Trump's top foreign
policy adviser in April of 2018, must be viewed through this lens, including the alarming US military posturing in the Middle East
of the past two weeks.
Just after one month on the job, Bolton
gave Trump
the final push he needed to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement, which at the time was (and still is, for now) successfully
boxing in Iran's nuclear program and blocking all pathways for Iran to build a bomb. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
– as the Iran deal is formally known – was the biggest obstacle to Bolton's drive for a regime change war, because it eliminated
a helpful pretext that served so useful to sell the war in Iraq 17 years ago.
Since walking away from the deal, the Trump administration has claimed that with a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran, it
can achieve a "better deal" that magically turns Iran into a Jeffersonian democracy bowing to every and any American wish. But this
has always been a fantastically bad-faith argument meant to obscure the actual goal (regime change) and provide cover for the incremental
steps – the crushing sanctions, bellicose rhetoric, and antagonizing military maneuvers – that have now put the United States closer
to war with Iran than it has been since at least the latter half of the Bush administration, or perhaps ever.
In his White House statement 10 days ago announcing (an already pre-planned) carrier and bomber deployment to the Middle East,
Bolton cited "a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings" from Iran to justify the bolstered US military presence.
But multiple sources who have seen the same intelligence have since
said
that Bolton and the Trump administration blew it "out of proportion, characterizing the threat as more significant than it actually
was". Even a British general operating in the region pushed back this week,
saying he has seen no evidence of an increased Iranian threat.
What's even more worrying is that Bolton knows what he's doing. He's "a
seasoned bureaucratic infighter
who has the skills to press forcefully for his views" – and he has a long history of using those skills to undermine American
diplomacy and work toward killing arms control agreements.
As a senior official in the George W Bush administration,
he played key role
in the collapse of the Agreed Framework, the Clinton-era deal that froze North Korea's plutonium nuclear program (the North Koreans
tested their first bomb four years later).
He said
he "felt like a kid on Christmas day" after he orchestrated the US withdrawal from the international criminal court in 2002.
And now as a senior official in the Trump administration, he
pushed
for the US to withdrawal from a crucial nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
While it's unclear how much of a role he played in scuttling Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi last year, he publicly
called for the so-called
"Libya model" with the North Koreans (in other words, regime change by force). Just months before joining the administration, he
tried to make the
legal case for a preventive war against Pyongyang. And if you think he cares about the aftermath of war with North Korea, he
doesn't. Bolton was reportedly
"unmoved" by a presentation during his time in the Bush administration of the catastrophic consequences of such a war. "I don't
do war. I do policy," he said then.
So far, Bolton has been successful in moving the United States toward his desired outcome with Iran – if getting the Pentagon
to draw up plans to send
120,000 US troops to the region to confront Iran is any indication. There are hopeful signs that we can avoid war, as US officials
and our European allies, seemingly alarmed by what Bolton is up to, are
sounding the alarm about
the Trump administration skewing intelligence on Iran.
But Bolton is on a fast track, seemingly aware that Trump's time in office may be limited. The question, ultimately, is whether
the president can stick to his instincts of avoiding more military conflict, or acquiesce to a man hellbent on boxing him into a
corner with no way out other than war with Iran.
Ben Armbruster is the communications director for Win Without War and previously served as National Security Editor at ThinkProgress
So, what is the representative of Allmighty Nation doing un Russia? Why bothering to hint
on better relations? Noted in the press conference was the absence of Pompeo's moralizing,
limiting itself on US position on issues. What is the point in this flying back and
forth?
Yes, Iran -- and arms control. Venezuela -- and arms control. North Korea -- and arms
control. I think they are paranoid about Russian weapons. And if Iranians by any chance have
some of the new weaponry, providing perfect testing ground, would Russia own to that? What
was obvious, no concessions on any issue from Moscow. Not even softened language.
This time,
it is different. The economic and military power has shifted east, Europeans forever without
a spine this time are spineless in all directions, and it will come as a shock to the
establishment that the presumed animosity towards Iran in Gulf, will nowhere to be found. Wil
Saudis host US troops against Iran, Doubt that deeply.
Important article that shed some light on the methods of disinformation in foreign events used by neoliberal MSM
Notable quotes:
"... However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions themselves. ..."
"... Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters. ..."
"... Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media. ..."
"... How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East" : ..."
"... The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists. ..."
"... Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media: ..."
"... What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts: ..."
"... "In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power." (Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298) ..."
"How does the newspaper know what it knows?" The answer to this question is likely to
surprise some newspaper readers: "The main source of information is stories from news agencies.
The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what
are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one
is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions."
(Höhne 1977, p. 11)
A Swiss media researcher points out:
"The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily
media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the
world; above all, we get to know what they have selected." (Blum 1995, p. 9)
In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies
are hardly known to the public:
"A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all In fact, they play an
enormously important role in the media market. But despite this great importance, little
attention has been paid to them in the past." (Schulten-Jaspers 2013, p. 13)
Even the head of a news agency noted:
"There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known to the public.
Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the spotlight, yet they can always be
found at the source of the story." (Segbers 2007, p. 9)
"The Invisible Nerve Center of the Media System"
So what are the names of these agencies that are "always at the source of the story"? There
are now only three global agencies left:
The American Associated Press ( AP ) with over 4000 employees worldwide.
The AP belongs to US media companies and has its main editorial office in New York. AP news
is used by around 12,000 international media outlets, reaching more than half of the world's
population every day.
The quasi-governmental French Agence France-Presse ( AFP ) based in Paris and with around
4000 employees. The AFP sends over 3000 stories and photos every day to media all over the
world.
The British agency Reuters in London, which is privately owned and employs just over 3000
people. Reuters was acquired in 2008 by Canadian media entrepreneur Thomson – one of
the 25 richest people in the world – and merged into Thomson Reuters , headquartered in New York.
In addition, many countries run their own news agencies. However, when it comes to
international news, these usually rely on the three global agencies and simply copy and
translate their reports.
The three global news agencies Reuters, AFP and AP, and the three national agencies of the
German-speaking countries of Austria (APA), Germany (DPA) and Switzerland (SDA).
Wolfgang Vyslozil, former managing director of the Austrian APA, described the key role of
news agencies with these words:
"News agencies are rarely in the public eye. Yet they are one of the most influential and
at the same time one of the least known media types. They are key institutions of substantial
importance to any media system. They are the invisible nerve center that connects all parts
of this system." (Segbers 2007, p.10)
Small abbreviation, great effect
However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are
virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and
television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in
magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly
keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions
themselves.
The following figure shows some examples of source tagging in popular German-language
newspapers. Next to the agency abbreviations we find the initials of editors who have edited
the respective agency report.
News agencies as sources in newspaper articles
Occasionally, newspapers use agency material but do not label it at all. A study in 2011
from the Swiss Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society at the University of
Zurich came to the following conclusions (FOEG 2011):
"Agency contributions are exploited integrally without labeling them, or they are
partially rewritten to make them appear as an editorial contribution. In addition, there is a
practice of 'spicing up' agency reports with little effort; for example, visualization
techniques are used: unpublished agency reports are enriched with images and graphics and
presented as comprehensive reports."
The agencies play a prominent role not only in the press, but also in private and public
broadcasting. This is confirmed by Volker Braeutigam, who worked
for the German state broadcaster ARD for ten years and views the dominance of these agencies
critically:
"One fundamental problem is that the newsroom at ARD sources its information mainly from
three sources: the news agencies DPA/AP, Reuters and AFP: one German/American, one British
and one French. () The editor working on a news topic only needs to select a few text
passages on the screen that he considers essential, rearrange them and glue them together
with a few flourishes."
Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), too, largely bases itself on reports from these agencies.
Asked by viewers why a peace march in Ukraine was not reported, the editors
said : "To date, we have not received a single report of this march from the independent
agencies Reuters, AP and AFP."
In fact, not only the text, but also the images, sound and video recordings that we
encounter in our media every day, are mostly from the very same agencies. What the uninitiated
audience might think of as contributions from their local newspaper or TV station, are actually
copied reports from New York, London and Paris.
Some media have even gone a step further and have, for lack of resources, outsourced their
entire foreign editorial office to an agency. Moreover, it is well known that many news portals
on the internet mostly publish agency reports (see e.g., Paterson 2007, Johnston 2011,
MacGregor 2013).
In the end, this dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in
international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics,
using many of the same phrases – a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated
with "controlled media" in authoritarian states.
The following graphic shows some examples from German and international publications. As you
can see, despite the claimed objectivity, a slight (geo-)political bias sometimes creeps
in.
"Putin threatens", "Iran provokes", "NATO concerned", "Assad stronghold": Similarities in
content and wording due to reports by global news agencies.
The role of correspondents
Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to
rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers
and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries,
for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public
broadcasters.
First of all, the size ratios should be kept in mind: while the global agencies have several
thousand employees worldwide, even the Swiss newspaper NZZ, known for its international
reporting, maintains only 35 foreign correspondents (including their business correspondents).
In huge countries such as China or India, only one correspondent is stationed; all of South
America is covered by only two journalists, while in even larger Africa no-one is on the ground
permanently.
Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example,
many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In
addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media.
How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of
the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East
correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they
depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us:
Misrepresenting the Middle East" :
"I'd imagined correspondents to be historians-of-the-moment. When something important
happened, they'd go after it, find out what was going on, and report on it. But I didn't go
off to find out what was going on; that had been done long before. I went along to present an
on-the-spot report. ()
The editors in the Netherlands called when something happened, they faxed or emailed the
press releases, and I'd retell them in my own words on the radio, or rework them into an
article for the newspaper. This was the reason my editors found it more important that I
could be reached in the place itself than that I knew what was going on. The news agencies
provided enough information for you to be able to write or talk you way through any crisis or
summit meeting.
That's why you often come across the same images and stories if you leaf through a few
different newspapers or click the news channels.
Our men and women in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington bureaus – all thought that
wrong topics were dominating the news and that we were following the standards of the news
agencies too slavishly. ()
The common idea about correspondents is that they 'have the story', () but the reality is
that the news is a conveyor belt in a bread factory. The correspondents stand at the end of
the conveyor belt, pretending we've baked that white loaf ourselves, while in fact all we've
done is put it in its wrapping. ()
Afterwards, a friend asked me how I'd managed to answer all the questions during those
cross-talks, every hour and without hesitation. When I told him that, like on the TV-news,
you knew all the questions in advance, his e-mailed response came packed with expletives. My
friend had relalized that, for decades, what he'd been watching and listening to on the news
was pure theatre." (Luyendjik 2009, p. 20-22, 76, 189)
In other words, the typical correspondent is in general not able to do independent research,
but rather deals with and reinforces those topics that are already prescribed by the news
agencies – the notorious "mainstream effect".
In addition, for cost-saving reasons many media outlets nowadays have to share their few
foreign correspondents, and within individual media groups, foreign reports are often used by
several publications – none of which contributes to diversity in reporting.
"What the agency does not report, does not take place"
The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media
use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured
prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in
fact difficult to reach, even for journalists.
Rather, the "Observatory" delivered its stories to global agencies, which then forwarded
them to thousands of media outlets, which in turn "informed" hundreds of millions of readers
and viewers worldwide. The reason why the agencies, of all places, referred to this strange
"Observatory" in their reporting – and who really financed it – is a question that
was rarely asked.
The former chief editor of the German news agency DPA, Manfred Steffens, therefore states in
his book "The Business of News":
"A news story does not become more correct simply because one is able to provide a source
for it. It is indeed rather questionable to trust a news story more just because a source is
cited. () Behind the protective shield such a 'source' means for a news story, some people
are quite inclined to spread rather adventurous things, even if they themselves have
legitimate doubts about their correctness; the responsibility, at least morally, can always
be attributed to the cited source." (Steffens 1969, p. 106)
Dependence on global agencies is also a major reason why media coverage of geopolitical
conflicts is often superficial and erratic, while historic relationships and background are
fragmented or altogether absent. As put by Steffens:
"News agencies receive their impulses almost exclusively from current events and are
therefore by their very nature ahistoric. They are reluctant to add any more context than is
strictly required." (Steffens 1969, p. 32)
Finally, the dominance of global agencies explains why certain geopolitical issues and
events – which often do not fit very well into the US/NATO narrative or are too
"unimportant" – are not mentioned in our media at all: if the agencies do not report on
something, then most Western media will not be aware of it. As pointed out on the occasion of
the 50th anniversary of the German DPA: "What the agency does not report, does not take place."
(Wilke 2000, p. 1)
While some topics do not appear at all in our media, other topics are very prominent –
even though they shouldn't actually be: "Often the mass media do not report on reality, but on
a constructed or staged reality. () Several studies have shown that the mass media are
predominantly determined by PR activities and that passive, receptive attitudes outweigh
active-researching ones." (Blum 1995, p. 16)
In fact, due to the rather low journalistic performance of our media and their high
dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and
disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience. DPA editor Steffens
warned of this danger:
"The critical sense gets more lulled the more respected the news agency or newspaper is.
Someone who wants to introduce a questionable story into the world press only needs to try to
put his story in a reasonably reputable agency, to be sure that it then appears a little
later in the others. Sometimes it happens that a hoax passes from agency to agency and
becomes ever more credible." (Steffens 1969, p. 234)
Among the most active actors in "injecting" questionable geopolitical news are the military
and defense ministries. For example, in 2009, the head of the American news agency AP, Tom
Curley,
made public that the Pentagon employs more than 27,000 PR specialists who, with a budget of
nearly $ 5 billion a year, are working the media and circulating targeted manipulations. In
addition, high-ranking US generals had threatened that they would "ruin" the AP and him if the
journalists reported too critically on the US military.
Despite – or because of? – such threats our media regularly publish dubious
stories sourced to some unnamed "informants" from "US defense circles".
Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned
in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played
by the media:
"With the help of the media, the military determine the public perception and use it for
their plans. They manage to stir expectations and spread scenarios and deceptions. In this
new kind of war, the PR strategists of the US administration fulfill a similar function as
the bomber pilots. The special departments for public relations in the Pentagon and in the
secret services have become combatants in the information war. () The US military
specifically uses the lack of transparency in media coverage for their deception maneuvers.
The way they spread information, which is then picked up and distributed by newspapers and
broadcasters, makes it impossible for readers, listeners or viewers to trace the original
source. Thus, the audience will fail to recognize the actual intention of the military."
(Tilgner 2003, p. 132)
What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a
remarkable report
by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the
systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical
conflicts:
Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell said of his work in the
Angolan war,
"The basic theme was to make it look like an [enemy] aggression in Angola. So any kind of
story that you could write and get into the media anywhere in the world, that pushed that
line, we did. One third of my staff in this task force were covert action, were
propagandists, whose professional career job was to make up stories and finding ways of
getting them into the press. () The editors in most Western newspapers are not too skeptical
of messages that conform to general views and prejudices. () So we came up with another
story, and it was kept going for weeks. () [But] it was all fiction."
Fred Bridgland
looked back on his work as a war correspondent for the Reuters agency: "We based our reports on
official communications. It was not until years later that I learned a little CIA
disinformation expert had sat in the US embassy, in Lusaka and composed that communiqué,
and it bore no relation at all to truth. () Basically, and to put it very crudely, you can
publish any old crap and it will get newspaper room."
And former CIA analyst David MacMichael described his work in the
Contra War in Nicaragua with these words:
"They said our intelligence of Nicaragua was so good that we could even register when
someone flushed a toilet. But I had the feeling that the stories we were giving to the press
came straight out of the toilet." (Hird 1985)
Of course, the intelligence services also have a large number of direct contacts in our media,
which can be "leaked" information to if necessary. But without the central role of the global
news agencies, the worldwide synchronization of propaganda and disinformation would never be so
efficient.
Through this "propaganda multiplier", dubious stories from PR experts working for
governments, military and intelligence services reach the general public more or less unchecked
and unfiltered. The journalists refer to the news agencies and the news agencies refer to their
sources. Although they often attempt to point out uncertainties with terms such as "apparent",
"alleged" and the like – by then the rumor has long been spread to the world and its
effect taken place.
The Propaganda Multiplier: Governments, military and intelligence services using global
news agencies to disseminate their messages to a worldwide audience.
As the New York Times reported
In addition to global news agencies, there is another source that is often used by media
outlets around the world to report on geopolitical conflicts, namely the major publications in
Great Britain and the US.
For example, news outlets like the New York Times or BBC have up to 100 foreign
correspondents and other external employees. However, Middle East correspondent Luyendijk
points out:
"Dutch news teams, me included, fed on the selection of news made by quality media like
CNN, the BBC, and the New York Times . We did that on the assumption
that their correspondents understood the Arab world and commanded a view of it – but
many of them turned out not to speak Arabic, or at least not enough to be able to have a
conversation in it or to follow the local media. Many of the top dogs at CNN, the BBC, the
Independent, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and the NYT were more often than not dependent on
assistants and translators." (Luyendijk p. 47)
In addition, the sources of these media outlets are often not easy to verify ("military
circles", "anonymous government officials", "intelligence officials" and the like) and can
therefore also be used for the dissemination of propaganda. In any case, the widespread
orientation towards the Anglo-Saxon publications leads to a further convergence in the
geopolitical coverage in our media.
The following figure shows some examples of such citation based on the Syria coverage of the
largest daily newspaper in Switzerland, Tages-Anzeiger. The articles are all from the first
days of October 2015, when Russia for the first time intervened directly in the Syrian war
(US/UK sources are highlighted):
Frequent citation of British and US media, exemplified by the Syria war coverage of Swiss
daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in October 2015.
The desired narrative
But why do journalists in our media not simply try to research and report independently of
the global agencies and the Anglo-Saxon media? Middle East correspondent Luyendijk describes
his experiences:
"You might suggest that I should have looked for sources I could trust. I did try, but
whenever I wanted to write a story without using news agencies, the main Anglo-Saxon media,
or talking heads, it fell apart. () Obviously I, as a correspondent, could tell very
different stories about one and the same situation. But the media could only present one of
them, and often enough, that was exactly the story that confirmed the prevailing image."
(Luyendijk p.54ff)
Media researcher Noam Chomsky has described this effect in his essay "What makes the mainstream media mainstream" as
follows: "If you leave the official line, if you produce dissenting reports, then you will soon
feel this. () There are many ways to get you back in line quickly. If you don't follow the
guidelines, you will not keep your job long. This system works pretty well, and it reflects
established power structures." (Chomsky 1997)
Nevertheless, some of the leading journalists continue to believe that nobody can tell them
what to write. How does this add up? Media researcher Chomsky clarifies the apparent contradiction:
"[T]he point is that they wouldn't be there unless they had already demonstrated that
nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had
started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they
never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. () They
have been through the socialization system." (Chomsky 1997)
Ultimately, this "socialization process" leads to a journalism that generally no longer
independently researches and critically reports on geopolitical conflicts (and some other
topics), but seeks to consolidate the desired narrative through appropriate editorials,
commentary, and interviewees.
Conclusion: The "First Law of Journalism"
Former AP journalist Herbert Altschull called it the First Law of Journalism:
"In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and
economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act
independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power."
(Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298)
In that sense, it is logical that our traditional media – which are predominantly
financed by advertising or the state – represent the geopolitical interests of the
transatlantic alliance, given that both the advertising corporations as well as the states
themselves are dependent on the US dominated transatlantic economic and security
architecture.
In addition, our leading media and their key people are – in the spirit of Chomsky's
"socialization" – often themselves part of the networks of the transatlantic elite. Some
of the most important institutions in this regard include the US Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR), the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission (see in-depth study of these networks
).
Indeed, most well-known publications basically may be seen as "establishment media". This is
because, in the past, the freedom of the press was rather theoretical, given significant entry
barriers such as broadcasting licenses, frequency slots, requirements for financing and
technical infrastructure, limited sales channels, dependence on advertising, and other
restrictions.
It was only due to the Internet that Altschull's First Law has been broken to some extent.
Thus, in recent years a high-quality, reader-funded journalism has emerged, often outperforming
traditional media in terms of critical reporting. Some of these "alternative" publications
already reach a very large audience, showing that the „mass" does not have to be a
problem for the quality of a media outlet.
Nevertheless, up to now the traditional media has been able to attract a solid majority of
online visitors, too. This, in turn, is closely linked to the hidden role of news agencies,
whose up-to-the-minute reports form the backbone of most news portals.
Will "political and economic power", according to Altschull's Law, retain control over the
news, or will "uncontrolled" news change the political and economic power structure? The coming
years will show.
Case study: Syria war coverage
As part of a case study, the Syria war coverage of nine leading daily newspapers from
Germany, Austria and Switzerland were examined for plurality of viewpoints and reliance on news
agencies. The following newspapers were selected:
For Germany: Die Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(FAZ)
For Switzerland: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Tagesanzeiger (TA), and Basler Zeitung
(BaZ)
For Austria: Standard, Kurier, and Die Presse
The investigation period was defined as October 1 to 15, 2015, i.e. the first two weeks
after Russia's direct intervention in the Syrian conflict. The entire print and online coverage
of these newspapers was taken into account. Any Sunday editions were not taken into account, as
not all of the newspapers examined have such. In total, 381 newspaper articles met the stated
criteria.
In a first step, the articles were classified according to their properties into the
following groups:
Agencies : Reports from news agencies (with agency code)
Mixed : Simple reports (with author names) that are based in whole or in part on agency
reports
Reports : Editorial background reports and analyzes
Opinions/Comments : Opinions and guest comments
Interviews : interviews with experts, politicians etc.
Investigative : Investigative research that reveals new information or context
The following Figure 1 shows the composition of the articles for the nine newspapers
analyzed in total. As can be seen, 55% of articles were news agency reports; 23% editorial
reports based on agency material; 9% background reports; 10% opinions and guest comments; 2%
interviews; and 0% based on investigative research.
Figure 1: Types of articles (total; n=381)
The pure agency texts – from short notices to the detailed reports – were mostly
on the Internet pages of the daily newspapers: on the one hand, the pressure for breaking news
is higher than in the printed edition, on the other hand, there are no space restrictions. Most
other types of articles were found in both the online and printed editions; some exclusive
interviews and background reports were found only in the printed editions. All items were
collected only once for the investigation.
The following Figure 2 shows the same classification on a per newspaper basis. During the
observation period (two weeks), most newspapers published between 40 and 50 articles on the
Syrian conflict (print and online). In the German newspaper Die Welt there were more
(58), in the Basler Zeitung and the Austrian Kurier , however, significantly less
(29 or 33).
Depending on which newspaper, the share of agency reports is almost 50% (Welt,
Süddeutsche, NZZ, Basler Zeitung), just under 60% (FAZ, Tagesanzeiger), and 60 to 70%
(Presse, Standard, Kurier). Together with the agency-based reports, the proportion in most
newspapers is between approx. 70% and 80%. These proportions are consistent with previous media
studies (e.g., Blum 1995, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013, Paterson 2007).
In the background reports, the Swiss newspapers were leading (five to six pieces), followed
by Welt , Süddeutsche and Standard (four each) and the other
newspapers (one to three). The background reports and analyzes were in particular devoted to
the situation and development in the Middle East, as well as to the motives and interests of
individual actors (for example Russia, Turkey, the Islamic State).
However, most of the commentaries were to be found in the German newspapers (seven comments
each), followed by Standard (five), NZZ and Tagesanzeiger (four each).
Basler Zeitung did not publish any commentaries during the observation period, but two
interviews. Other interviews were conducted by Standard (three) and Kurier and
Presse (one each). Investigative research, however, could not be found in any of the
newspapers.
In particular, in the case of the three German newspapers, a journalistically problematic
blending of opinion pieces and reports was noted. Reports contained strong expressions of
opinion even though they were not marked as commentary. The present study was in any case based
on the article labeling by the newspaper.
Figure 2: Types of articles per newspaper
The following Figure 3 shows the breakdown of agency stories (by agency abbreviation) for
each news agency, in total and per country. The 211 agency reports carried a total of 277
agency codes (a story may consist of material from more than one agency). In total, 24% of
agency reports came from the AFP; about 20% each by the DPA, APA and Reuters; 9% of the SDA; 6%
of the AP; and 11% were unknown (no labeling or blanket term "agencies").
In Germany, the DPA, AFP and Reuters each have a share of about one third of the news
stories. In Switzerland, the SDA and the AFP are in the lead, and in Austria, the APA and
Reuters.
In fact, the shares of the global agencies AFP, AP and Reuters are likely to be even higher,
as the Swiss SDA and the Austrian APA obtain their international reports mainly from the global
agencies and the German DPA cooperates closely with the American AP.
It should also be noted that, for historical reasons, the global agencies are represented
differently in different regions of the world. For events in Asia, Ukraine or Africa, the share
of each agency will therefore be different than from events in the Middle East.
Figure 3: Share of news agencies, total (n=277) and per country
In the next step, central statements were used to rate the orientation of editorial opinions
(28), guest comments (10) and interview partners (7) (a total of 45 articles). As Figure 4
shows, 82% of the contributions were generally US/NATO friendly, 16% neutral or balanced, and
2% predominantly US/NATO critical.
The only predominantly US/NATO-critical contribution was an op-ed in the Austrian
Standard on October 2, 2015, titled: "The strategy of regime change has failed. A
distinction between ‚good' and ‚bad' terrorist groups in Syria makes the Western
policy untrustworthy."
Figure 4: Orientation of editorial opinions, guest comments, and interviewees (total;
n=45).
The following Figure 5 shows the orientation of the contributions, guest comments and
interviewees, in turn broken down by individual newspapers. As can be seen, Welt,
Süddeutsche Zeitung, NZZ, Zürcher Tagesanzeiger and the Austrian newspaper
Kurier presented exclusively US/NATO-friendly opinion and guest contributions; this goes
for FAZ too, with the exception of one neutral/balanced contribution. The
Standard brought four US/NATO friendly, three balanced/neutral, as well as the already
mentioned US/NATO critical opinion contributions.
Presse was the only one of the examined newspapers to predominantly publish
neutral/balanced opinions and guest contributions. The Basler Zeitung published one
US/NATO-friendly and one balanced contribution. Shortly after the observation period (October
16, 2015), Basler Zeitung also published an interview with the President of the Russian
Parliament. This would of course have been counted as a contribution critical of the
US/NATO.
Figure 5: Basic orientation of opinion pieces and interviewees per newspaper
In a further analysis, a full-text keyword search for "propaganda" (and word combinations
thereof) was used to investigate in which cases the newspapers themselves identified propaganda
in one of the two geopolitical conflict sides, USA/NATO or Russia (the participant "IS/ISIS"
was not considered). In total, twenty such cases were identified. Figure 6 shows the result: in
85% of the cases, propaganda was identified on the Russian side of the conflict, in 15% the
identification was neutral or unstated, and in 0% of the cases propaganda was identified on the
USA/NATO side of the conflict.
It should be noted that about half of the cases (nine) were in the Swiss NZZ , which
spoke of Russian propaganda quite frequently ("Kremlin propaganda", "Moscow propaganda
machine", "propaganda stories", "Russian propaganda apparatus" etc.), followed by German
FAZ (three), Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung (two each) and the Austrian
newspaper Kurier (one). The other newspapers did not mention propaganda, or only in a
neutral context (or in the context of IS).
Figure 6: Attribution of propaganda to conflict parties (total; n=20).
Conclusion
In this case study, the geopolitical coverage in nine leading daily newspapers from Germany,
Austria and Switzerland was examined for diversity and journalistic performance using the
example of the Syrian war.
The results confirm the high dependence on the global news agencies (63 to 90%, excluding
commentaries and interviews) and the lack of own investigative research, as well as the rather
biased commenting on events in favor of the US/NATO side (82% positive; 2% negative), whose
stories were not checked by the newspapers for any propaganda.
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"... While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena. ..."
"... Jewish writer David Cole recently questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism. He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters ..."
"... In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations. ..."
Despite the Jewish domination of the American Left in the post-War period, Mendes notes that "most Americans do not appear to
have adhered to the same anti-Semitic assumptions about Jewish links with communism that dominated public opinion in parts of Europe."
[80] Ibid .,
229.
(Philip Mendes, Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance (Melbourne, Victoria; Palgrave MacMillian, 2014),
250.) As evidence of this, Mendes cites the decidedly muted public response to the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Despite the recognizably Jewish identity of the couple (given their name)
and of all of their co-conspirators (David Greenglass, Ruth Greenglass, and Morton Sobell), and the fact the Rosenberg spy network
consisted almost exclusively of Jews from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the case "provoked remarkably little overt anti-Semitism."
[81] Ibid .,
230. Nor, he observes, did the "significant number of Jews -- including teachers and Hollywood actors -- who were victims of anti-communist
purges" and the prominence of Jews amongst those subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, lead to a significant
reaction. All public opinion polls conducted during this period showed a consistent decline in "anti-Semitism," and only a small
minority of those surveyed (about 5 percent) identified Jews with communism.
[82] Ibid .
The lack of any real backlash to Jewish prominence in the New Left is ascribed to various factors: that many members of the public
were not aware of the Jewish background of many of the radical leaders; that these Jewish radicals were ostensibly "not campaigning
about any specifically Jewish issues that would have focused attention on Jews per se;" and to the "general decline in anti-Semitism
since World War Two."
[83] Ibid .,
257. This latter shift in public opinion (unsurprisingly) coincided with the Jewish seizure of the commanding heights of American
(and Western) culture in the 1960s, and the growing emergence of the culture of "the Holocaust." The combined effect was to banish
overt critical discussion of Jewish power to the margins of public discourse. While Americans rejected communist activities during
the Cold War, unlike in Europe, they did not widely equate communism with Jews (at least publicly), or view Jewish participation
in leftist politics with particular concern.
Neoconservatism
Neoconservative leaders were among those who feared that the Jewish prominence in the New Left of the late 1960s and early 1970s
would fuel a conservative backlash against Jewish radicalism. For example, Norman Podhoretz, the editor of
Commentary magazine, attacked leading Jewish
leftists as alleged self-hating Jews and completely unrepresentative of the Jewish community.
[84] Ibid .,
22.
Mendes ascribes the defection of many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism in the 1970s to a growing misalignment between
modern Leftist politics and Jewish ethnic interests: the key factor being "the creation of the State of Israel which transformed
Jewish dependence from international to national forces."
[85] Ibid .,
viii. With the advent of the state of Israel, Jewish interests were no longer exclusively represented by the universalistic agendas
of the Left. According to Mendes: "Most Jews have lost their faith in universalistic causes because they do not perceive the Left
as supportive of Jewish interests, and have turned instead to nationalist solutions."
[86] Ibid .,
235.
The creation of a Jewish national entity featuring (thanks to US taxpayers) a strong and powerful army meant that Jews all over
the world could look to the Zionist state to safeguard their interests, rather than depending on internationalist movements and ideologies
(i.e. communism and the Soviet Union) which had often proven to be unreliable allies. Even many left-wing Jews, who might have been
anti-Zionist prior to World War Two, shifted their position after the birth of Israel. For example, the long-time Austrian Jewish
leftist Jean Amery commented in 1976:
There is a very deep tie and existential bond between every Jew and the State of Israel Jews feel bound to the fortunes and
misfortunes of Israel, whether they are religious Jews or not, whether they adhere to Zionism or reject it, whether they are newly
arrived in their host countries or deeply rooted there The Jewish State has taught all the Jews of the world to walk with their
head high once more Israel is the virtual shelter for all of the insulted and injured Jews of the earth.
[87] Ibid
., 236-37
The perceived anti-Zionism of the New Left from the 1967 onwards served to alienate many Jews and confirm their commitment to nationalist,
rather than internationalist solutions. An additional factor was the 1967 Six Day War in the Middle East, which provoked fears of
"another Holocaust," and galvanized even non-Zionist Jews in support of Israel. There were rallies in support of Israel throughout
the Western world accompanied by large donations. American Jews held massive fundraising campaigns and reportedly raised 180 million
dollars. Numerous volunteers travelled to Israel to support the Jewish State. In Australia, more than 20 per cent of a total Jewish
population of 34,000 in Melbourne -- attended a public rally to express their support for Israel, and 2500 attended a youth rally.
750 young Jews volunteered to go to Israel. According to Taft,
there was a widespread, almost universal, absorption in the Middle East Crisis of June among the Jews of Melbourne. This absorption
took the form of extreme concern about the safety of Israel, emotional upsets, obsessive seeking of news, constant discussion
of events and taking spontaneous actions to support Israel's cause.
[88] Ibid
., 238.
The rise of left-wing anti-Zionism after the Six Day War furthered alienated sections of Western Jewry from the social democratic
Left. Another factor that pushed American Jews in a neoconservative direction, identified by Mendes, was the decline in Black–Jewish
relations. The emergence of the Black Power movement in the mid-1960s led to the removal of Jews from the leadership of organizations
like the NAACP. Black hostility was viewed by some Jews as evidence of the failure of the strategy of courting non-White groups to
advance Jewish interests. This ostensible failure prompted many Jews to concentrate on a narrower ethnic self-interest in the future.
[89] Ibid .,
243.
This, in turn, contributed to the creation of "pragmatic alliances" with conservative political parties such as the Republicans
and evangelical groups such as Christians United for Israel which "have been consistent supporters of Israel in the USA." An associated
factor was that pro-Israel perspectives within Western countries increasingly emanated from mainstream conservatives, rather than
from the moderate or radical Left. This occurred despite "many in these groups hold socially conservative views on issues such as
abortion, homosexuality, the environment, multiculturalism, state support for the poor and disadvantaged, and refugees, which are
anathema to many Jews."
[90] Ibid .,
287.
Mendes makes the point that "These alliances were based solely on the latter's position of support for Israel, irrespective of
their conservative views on social issues such as abortion, homosexuality and the welfare state, which were often sharply at odds
with the more liberal opinions of most Jews."
[91] Ibid .,
239.
Despite the defection on many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism, the great majority of American Jews still see their
ethnic interests as basically aligning with the Democratic Party. Their willingness to prioritize their ethnic interests over their
personal economic interests is reflected in the fact that "high numbers of affluent Jews compared to others of the same socioeconomic
status still vote for moderate left parties that do not seem to favor their economic interests." Today, the structural factors which
historically drew many Jews to the Left no longer exist. Most Jews sit comfortably in middle- or even higher-income categories. This
"middle-classing" of Jews throughout the West has meant that the "Jewish proletariat that motivated Jewish identification with left-wing
beliefs no longer exists."
[92] Ibid .,
239. Consequently, "the specific link between Jewish experience of class oppression and adherence to left-wing ideology has ended."
[93] Ibid .,
241.
Most Western Jews still support parties on the Left
Despite the widespread break with the radical Left over support for Israel, Jews nevertheless remain
a “massively significant presence” in the Left in terms of their numbers and fundraising, their organizational capacity, and their
impact on popular culture.[94]Ibid.,
287. It was estimated that about a quarter of the world’s leading Marxist and radical intellectuals in the 1980s
were still Jews, including Ernest Mandel, Nathan Weinstock, Maxime Rodinson, Noam Chomsky, Marcel Liebman, Ralph Miliband, and the
founder of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida. Despite continuing to comprise much of the intellectual and financial backbone of
the Left, today’s Jews, “an influential and sometimes powerful group, with substantial access to politics, academia and the media,”
no longer must “rely on the Left to defend their interests and wellbeing.”[95]Ibid.,
286.
The primary reason most Western Jews still vote overwhelmingly
for parties on the left is the perceived threat posed by the “social conservatism” of parties further to the right of the political
spectrum in nations whose majorities are European-derived and nominally at least Christian:
With the possible exception of ultra-orthodox groups, Jews
seem to prefer social liberal positions on issues such as religious pluralism, abortion, feminism, illicit drugs, same-sex marriage,
the science of climate change and euthanasia. Another significant factor is the long history of Christian anti-Semitism has led
Jews to remain suspicious of any attempts by Christian religious groups to undermine the separation of church and state. This
fear of organized religion [and of the White people who practice it] seems to explain the continued strong support of American
Jews for the Democratic Party in presidential elections. A further complicating factor is the growing universalization of Jewish
teachings and values, including the lessons of the Holocaust, in support of social liberal perspectives. … For example, Berman
(2006) presents evidence that the younger Jewish generation in Australia have been influenced by the experience of the Holocaust
into taking a strong stand against any forms of racial or religious discrimination. Many are active in campaigns for indigenous
rights, and to support refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, and Middle Eastern countries seeking asylum in Australia.[96]Ibid.,
288-89.
This advocacy is, of course, entirely hypocritical and cynical.
While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews
have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the
great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations
of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within
their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising
Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena.
The ideological preoccupations of organized Jewry today are
reflected in comments by
Boston Globe writer, S.I. Rosenbaum, who insisted the main lesson of “the Holocaust” is “that white supremacy could
turn on us at any moment,” and the strategy of appealing to the White majority “has never worked for us. It didn’t protect us in
Spain, or England, or France, or Germany. There’s no reason to think it will work now.” The central question of Jewish political
engagement in Western societies, she insists, is “how we survive as a minority population,” where the one great advantage American
Jewry enjoys is that “unlike other places where ethno-nationalism has flourished, the U.S. is fast approaching a plurality of minorities.”
Presiding over a coalition of non-Whites groups to actively oppose White interests is the Jewish ethno-political imperative: “If
Jews are going to survive in the future, we will have to stand with people of color for our mutual benefit.”
Jewish writer David Cole recently
questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism.
He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters:
For decades, leftist Jews have been flooding the West with
Third World immigrants, “Hey here’s a plan—lets dump a hundred thousand Somalis in the whitest parts of the U.S.
That’ll
save us from Fargo Hitler!” Inundating the West with non-White immigrants is seen by Jews as an insurance policy against “white
supremacy.” The idea is that these immigrants will act as a wedge, diluting “white power” while remaining small enough to be manageable.
Jews have done this everywhere—playing two groups against
each other as a way of assuring Jewish security. Let’s play Hamas against the Palestinian authority. Let’s play ISIS against Assad.
… But today we live in a world in which even the lowliest bark-eater in the Kalahari can have internet access. It’s not as easy
to fool entire groups anymore (individuals, sure, but not an entire race, ethnicity or faction). …
And now we Jews, so worried that Minnesota might become the
Frozen Fourth Reich if left in the hands of evil whites, have created for ourselves a good old-fashioned golem in Ilhan Omar (and
a bunch of the other Third World freshman congressthingies). Yeah, Omar hates whites. Yeah, she thinks white supremacy lurks behind
every glass of milk and “OK” finger sign. But she hates Jews a hell of a lot more…
In a perfect world, the Rabbinical Rain Men would finally
get the fuck over the Holocaust and end their war of hostility against the West. They’d see that whites are no longer the enemy,
but indeed the opposite. They’d see that importing foreign mud to mold golem in traditionally white regions of the U.S is bad
strategy.
In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism
is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish
activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations.
Conclusion
While Jews and the Left offers a useful catalogue
of Jewish involvement in radical political movements throughout the world over the last two centuries, it recycles many of the same
apologetic tropes that permeate the work of other Jewish historians and intellectuals. Mendes mischaracterizes the Jewish identity
and affiliations of important Jewish communist leaders (like Lazar Kaganovich), and offers no examination of their often-murderous
actions. He provides feeble apologies for the Jewish practices that engendered hostility among the native peasantry in the Pale of
Settlement. The inherent weakness of his position necessitates specious argumentation and desperate resort to that evergreen of Jewish
apologetic historiography: the innate irrationality and malevolence of the European mind and character. This is the invariable fallback
position in any quest to exculpate Jews from responsibility for the crimes of communism in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern
Europe. Though less inclined than Brossat and Klingberg in Revolutionary Yiddishland to glorify Jewish communist militants,
Mendes is equally keen to evade, whitewash and excuse disproportionate Jewish involvement in some of the worst crimes of the twentieth
century.
Trump provided to be another Obama -- master of "bait and switch". His promise to disengage from foreign wars remains an
unfulfilled promise. Due to thefact that he is owned by pro-Israel lobby he broung into his administrations such rabid neocons as
chickenhawk Bolton and smug ruthless careerist masquerading as
far-right zealot as Pompeo (and before them Haley). His promises to raise the standard of living of middles
class (which is impossible without cutting the military budget) remains fake. He is a fake. The second fake after obama --
Republican Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April 2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come. ..."
"... According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid. ..."
"... In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$ 45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to 4 percent in five years. ..."
While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April
2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit
pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget
was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent
of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come.
According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn
to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and
Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents
for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe
drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through
diplomacy and humanitarian aid.
The Trump budget finds vast billions for militarization, while it cuts "smaller" poverty
alleviation projects and other programs, claiming the goal is to save money.
Rutherford Institute's founder and director John W. WhiteHead writes in his institute's
website that the American nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is
propped up by war profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments. He remarks:
"Don't be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for
national security and urgent military needs".
He writes "you know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the
government's fiscal year? Government agencies – including the Department of Defense
– go on a 'use it or lose it' spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the
next fiscal year".
"We are talking about $97 billion worth of wasteful spending"
He maintains that the nation's educational system is pathetic, the infrastructure is
antiquated and growing more outdated by the day and the health system is overpriced and
inaccessible to those who need it most.
The tax cuts on super-rich, outflow of huge sums in interest payment for debt and more
spending are plunging the US economy into a new crisis, according to many authors. The US
economy faces a deficit which means the spending especially on military and defence is far
exceeding the tax revenues.
In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK
stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$
45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO
member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to
4 percent in five years.
According to a study regarding world powers' overseas military bases
China retains twelve military bases;
France runs nine military bases including in Germany, Lebanon and UAE;
Germany has two military bases in France and United States;
India has seven bases including in Tajikistan and Maldives;
Israel possesses one military base in Syria's Golan Heights;
Pakistan has a military center with 1,180 personnel in Saudi Arabia;
Russia runs eight military facilities including in Armenia, Georgia, Syria and some
Central Asian countries;
UK controls ten military bases including in Bahrain, Canada, Germany, Singapore and
Qatar;
t he US is leading nearly 800 military bases across the world that run in full swing with
the highest budget.
In other words, the US possesses up to 95 per cent of the world's military bases . The
Department of Defense says that its locations include 164 countries. Put another way, it has a
military presence of some sort in approximately 84 percent of the nations on this
planet.
The annual cost of deploying US military personnel overseas, as well as maintaining and
running those foreign bases, tops out at an estimated US$ 150 billion annually. The US bases
abroad cost upwards of US$ 50 billion only for building and maintenance, which is enough to
address pressing needs at home in education, health care, housing and infrastructure.
In 2017 and 2018, the world's largest military spenders were the United States, China, Saudi
Arabia, Russia and India. The UK took over France as sixth largest spender in 2018 while Japan
and Germany stood at eighth and ninth positions.
In early 2018, Pentagon released a report saying that Afghan war costs US$ 45 billion to
taxpayers in the preceding year. Of this amount, US$ 5 billion has been spent on Afghan forces,
US$ 13 billion towards US forces in Afghanistan and the rest on economic aid.
But these costs are far lower than the time when the US military was highly engaged in
Afghanistan. With nearly 100,000 soldiers in the country from 2010 to 2012, the price for
American taxpayers surpassed US$ 100 billion each year. For now, there are around 16,000 US
troops in Afghanistan. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into Afghanistan, the
US admits it failed in war against militants in Afghanistan.
In November 2018, another study published by CNBC reported that America has spent US$ 5.9
trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001 including in Afghanistan, Iraq and
Syria. The study also reveals that more than 500,000 people have been killed in the wars and
nearly 10 million people have been displaced due to violence.
The US has reportedly spent US$ 1.07 trillion in Afghanistan since 2001 which include
Overseas Contingency Operations funds dedicated to Afghanistan, costs on the base budget of the
Department of Defense and increase to the budget of the Department of Veteran Affairs.
In Afghanistan, the US costs of war in 2001 commenced with US$ 37.3 billion that soared to
US$ 57.3 billion in 2007 and US$ 100 billion in 2009. The year with record spending was 2010
with US$ 112.7 billion that slightly plummeted to US$ 110.4 billion in 2011 but took downwards
trend in the later years.
Due to skyrocketing military costs on the US government, Trump Administration recently
decided to pack up some of its military bases in Afghanistan and Middle East to diminish
expenditures, though it doesn't mean the wars would end at all.
According to Afghanistan Analysts Network, the US Congress has appropriated more than US$
126 billion in aid for Afghanistan since financial year 2002, with almost 63 percent for
security and 28 percent for development and the remainder for civilian operations, mostly
budgetary assistance and humanitarian aid. Alongside the US aid, many world countries have
pumped millions of dollars in development aids, but what is evident for insiders and outsiders
is that a trickle of those funds has actually gone into Afghanistan's reconstruction.
With eighteen years into Afghan war, the security is deteriorating; Afghan air force is
ill-equipped; poppy cultivation is on the rise; roads and highways are dilapidated or
unconstructed; no mediocre hospital and health care has been established; weekly conflict
causalities hit 150-250; electricity is still imported from Central Asian countries; economy
remains dependent upon imports; unemployment rate is at its peak; more than three quarters of
population live under poverty line and many, many more miseries persist or aggravate.
The US boasts of being the largest multi-billion dollar donor for Afghanistan, but if one
takes a deeper look at the living standards of majority and the overall conditions, it can be
immediately grasped that less than half of that exaggerated fund has been consumed. The US-made
government of Afghanistan has deliberately been left behind to rank as the first corrupt
country in the world. Thanks to the same unaddressed pervasive corruption, a hefty amount of
that fund has been either directed back to the US hands or embezzled by senior Afghan
officials.
Afghanistan's new Living Conditions Survey shows that poverty is more widespread today than
it was immediately after the fall of Taliban regime, or in other words, in the early days of US
invasion.
Next month, Kabul will host a Consultative Loya Jirga attended by around 2,000
representatives from Afghanistan which will cost the Afghan Ministry of Finance AF 369 million
(equivalent to five million US$). Even as the past has proved that these events are only
symbolic and further complicating the achievement of peace, a country with great majority under
poverty line doesn't deserve to organize such costly gatherings.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
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Masud Wadan is a geopolitical analyst based in Kabul. He is a frequent contributor to
Global Research.
Important article that shed some light on the methods of disinformation in foreign events used by neoliberal MSM
Notable quotes:
"... However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions themselves. ..."
"... Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters. ..."
"... Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media. ..."
"... How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East" : ..."
"... The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists. ..."
"... Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media: ..."
"... What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts: ..."
"... "In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power." (Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298) ..."
"How does the newspaper know what it knows?" The answer to this question is likely to
surprise some newspaper readers: "The main source of information is stories from news agencies.
The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what
are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one
is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions."
(Höhne 1977, p. 11)
A Swiss media researcher points out:
"The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily
media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the
world; above all, we get to know what they have selected." (Blum 1995, p. 9)
In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies
are hardly known to the public:
"A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all In fact, they play an
enormously important role in the media market. But despite this great importance, little
attention has been paid to them in the past." (Schulten-Jaspers 2013, p. 13)
Even the head of a news agency noted:
"There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known to the public.
Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the spotlight, yet they can always be
found at the source of the story." (Segbers 2007, p. 9)
"The Invisible Nerve Center of the Media System"
So what are the names of these agencies that are "always at the source of the story"? There
are now only three global agencies left:
The American Associated Press ( AP ) with over 4000 employees worldwide.
The AP belongs to US media companies and has its main editorial office in New York. AP news
is used by around 12,000 international media outlets, reaching more than half of the world's
population every day.
The quasi-governmental French Agence France-Presse ( AFP ) based in Paris and with around
4000 employees. The AFP sends over 3000 stories and photos every day to media all over the
world.
The British agency Reuters in London, which is privately owned and employs just over 3000
people. Reuters was acquired in 2008 by Canadian media entrepreneur Thomson – one of
the 25 richest people in the world – and merged into Thomson Reuters , headquartered in New York.
In addition, many countries run their own news agencies. However, when it comes to
international news, these usually rely on the three global agencies and simply copy and
translate their reports.
The three global news agencies Reuters, AFP and AP, and the three national agencies of the
German-speaking countries of Austria (APA), Germany (DPA) and Switzerland (SDA).
Wolfgang Vyslozil, former managing director of the Austrian APA, described the key role of
news agencies with these words:
"News agencies are rarely in the public eye. Yet they are one of the most influential and
at the same time one of the least known media types. They are key institutions of substantial
importance to any media system. They are the invisible nerve center that connects all parts
of this system." (Segbers 2007, p.10)
Small abbreviation, great effect
However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are
virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and
television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in
magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly
keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions
themselves.
The following figure shows some examples of source tagging in popular German-language
newspapers. Next to the agency abbreviations we find the initials of editors who have edited
the respective agency report.
News agencies as sources in newspaper articles
Occasionally, newspapers use agency material but do not label it at all. A study in 2011
from the Swiss Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society at the University of
Zurich came to the following conclusions (FOEG 2011):
"Agency contributions are exploited integrally without labeling them, or they are
partially rewritten to make them appear as an editorial contribution. In addition, there is a
practice of 'spicing up' agency reports with little effort; for example, visualization
techniques are used: unpublished agency reports are enriched with images and graphics and
presented as comprehensive reports."
The agencies play a prominent role not only in the press, but also in private and public
broadcasting. This is confirmed by Volker Braeutigam, who worked
for the German state broadcaster ARD for ten years and views the dominance of these agencies
critically:
"One fundamental problem is that the newsroom at ARD sources its information mainly from
three sources: the news agencies DPA/AP, Reuters and AFP: one German/American, one British
and one French. () The editor working on a news topic only needs to select a few text
passages on the screen that he considers essential, rearrange them and glue them together
with a few flourishes."
Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), too, largely bases itself on reports from these agencies.
Asked by viewers why a peace march in Ukraine was not reported, the editors
said : "To date, we have not received a single report of this march from the independent
agencies Reuters, AP and AFP."
In fact, not only the text, but also the images, sound and video recordings that we
encounter in our media every day, are mostly from the very same agencies. What the uninitiated
audience might think of as contributions from their local newspaper or TV station, are actually
copied reports from New York, London and Paris.
Some media have even gone a step further and have, for lack of resources, outsourced their
entire foreign editorial office to an agency. Moreover, it is well known that many news portals
on the internet mostly publish agency reports (see e.g., Paterson 2007, Johnston 2011,
MacGregor 2013).
In the end, this dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in
international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics,
using many of the same phrases – a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated
with "controlled media" in authoritarian states.
The following graphic shows some examples from German and international publications. As you
can see, despite the claimed objectivity, a slight (geo-)political bias sometimes creeps
in.
"Putin threatens", "Iran provokes", "NATO concerned", "Assad stronghold": Similarities in
content and wording due to reports by global news agencies.
The role of correspondents
Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to
rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers
and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries,
for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public
broadcasters.
First of all, the size ratios should be kept in mind: while the global agencies have several
thousand employees worldwide, even the Swiss newspaper NZZ, known for its international
reporting, maintains only 35 foreign correspondents (including their business correspondents).
In huge countries such as China or India, only one correspondent is stationed; all of South
America is covered by only two journalists, while in even larger Africa no-one is on the ground
permanently.
Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example,
many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In
addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media.
How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of
the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East
correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they
depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us:
Misrepresenting the Middle East" :
"I'd imagined correspondents to be historians-of-the-moment. When something important
happened, they'd go after it, find out what was going on, and report on it. But I didn't go
off to find out what was going on; that had been done long before. I went along to present an
on-the-spot report. ()
The editors in the Netherlands called when something happened, they faxed or emailed the
press releases, and I'd retell them in my own words on the radio, or rework them into an
article for the newspaper. This was the reason my editors found it more important that I
could be reached in the place itself than that I knew what was going on. The news agencies
provided enough information for you to be able to write or talk you way through any crisis or
summit meeting.
That's why you often come across the same images and stories if you leaf through a few
different newspapers or click the news channels.
Our men and women in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington bureaus – all thought that
wrong topics were dominating the news and that we were following the standards of the news
agencies too slavishly. ()
The common idea about correspondents is that they 'have the story', () but the reality is
that the news is a conveyor belt in a bread factory. The correspondents stand at the end of
the conveyor belt, pretending we've baked that white loaf ourselves, while in fact all we've
done is put it in its wrapping. ()
Afterwards, a friend asked me how I'd managed to answer all the questions during those
cross-talks, every hour and without hesitation. When I told him that, like on the TV-news,
you knew all the questions in advance, his e-mailed response came packed with expletives. My
friend had relalized that, for decades, what he'd been watching and listening to on the news
was pure theatre." (Luyendjik 2009, p. 20-22, 76, 189)
In other words, the typical correspondent is in general not able to do independent research,
but rather deals with and reinforces those topics that are already prescribed by the news
agencies – the notorious "mainstream effect".
In addition, for cost-saving reasons many media outlets nowadays have to share their few
foreign correspondents, and within individual media groups, foreign reports are often used by
several publications – none of which contributes to diversity in reporting.
"What the agency does not report, does not take place"
The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media
use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured
prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in
fact difficult to reach, even for journalists.
Rather, the "Observatory" delivered its stories to global agencies, which then forwarded
them to thousands of media outlets, which in turn "informed" hundreds of millions of readers
and viewers worldwide. The reason why the agencies, of all places, referred to this strange
"Observatory" in their reporting – and who really financed it – is a question that
was rarely asked.
The former chief editor of the German news agency DPA, Manfred Steffens, therefore states in
his book "The Business of News":
"A news story does not become more correct simply because one is able to provide a source
for it. It is indeed rather questionable to trust a news story more just because a source is
cited. () Behind the protective shield such a 'source' means for a news story, some people
are quite inclined to spread rather adventurous things, even if they themselves have
legitimate doubts about their correctness; the responsibility, at least morally, can always
be attributed to the cited source." (Steffens 1969, p. 106)
Dependence on global agencies is also a major reason why media coverage of geopolitical
conflicts is often superficial and erratic, while historic relationships and background are
fragmented or altogether absent. As put by Steffens:
"News agencies receive their impulses almost exclusively from current events and are
therefore by their very nature ahistoric. They are reluctant to add any more context than is
strictly required." (Steffens 1969, p. 32)
Finally, the dominance of global agencies explains why certain geopolitical issues and
events – which often do not fit very well into the US/NATO narrative or are too
"unimportant" – are not mentioned in our media at all: if the agencies do not report on
something, then most Western media will not be aware of it. As pointed out on the occasion of
the 50th anniversary of the German DPA: "What the agency does not report, does not take place."
(Wilke 2000, p. 1)
While some topics do not appear at all in our media, other topics are very prominent –
even though they shouldn't actually be: "Often the mass media do not report on reality, but on
a constructed or staged reality. () Several studies have shown that the mass media are
predominantly determined by PR activities and that passive, receptive attitudes outweigh
active-researching ones." (Blum 1995, p. 16)
In fact, due to the rather low journalistic performance of our media and their high
dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and
disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience. DPA editor Steffens
warned of this danger:
"The critical sense gets more lulled the more respected the news agency or newspaper is.
Someone who wants to introduce a questionable story into the world press only needs to try to
put his story in a reasonably reputable agency, to be sure that it then appears a little
later in the others. Sometimes it happens that a hoax passes from agency to agency and
becomes ever more credible." (Steffens 1969, p. 234)
Among the most active actors in "injecting" questionable geopolitical news are the military
and defense ministries. For example, in 2009, the head of the American news agency AP, Tom
Curley,
made public that the Pentagon employs more than 27,000 PR specialists who, with a budget of
nearly $ 5 billion a year, are working the media and circulating targeted manipulations. In
addition, high-ranking US generals had threatened that they would "ruin" the AP and him if the
journalists reported too critically on the US military.
Despite – or because of? – such threats our media regularly publish dubious
stories sourced to some unnamed "informants" from "US defense circles".
Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned
in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played
by the media:
"With the help of the media, the military determine the public perception and use it for
their plans. They manage to stir expectations and spread scenarios and deceptions. In this
new kind of war, the PR strategists of the US administration fulfill a similar function as
the bomber pilots. The special departments for public relations in the Pentagon and in the
secret services have become combatants in the information war. () The US military
specifically uses the lack of transparency in media coverage for their deception maneuvers.
The way they spread information, which is then picked up and distributed by newspapers and
broadcasters, makes it impossible for readers, listeners or viewers to trace the original
source. Thus, the audience will fail to recognize the actual intention of the military."
(Tilgner 2003, p. 132)
What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a
remarkable report
by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the
systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical
conflicts:
Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell said of his work in the
Angolan war,
"The basic theme was to make it look like an [enemy] aggression in Angola. So any kind of
story that you could write and get into the media anywhere in the world, that pushed that
line, we did. One third of my staff in this task force were covert action, were
propagandists, whose professional career job was to make up stories and finding ways of
getting them into the press. () The editors in most Western newspapers are not too skeptical
of messages that conform to general views and prejudices. () So we came up with another
story, and it was kept going for weeks. () [But] it was all fiction."
Fred Bridgland
looked back on his work as a war correspondent for the Reuters agency: "We based our reports on
official communications. It was not until years later that I learned a little CIA
disinformation expert had sat in the US embassy, in Lusaka and composed that communiqué,
and it bore no relation at all to truth. () Basically, and to put it very crudely, you can
publish any old crap and it will get newspaper room."
And former CIA analyst David MacMichael described his work in the
Contra War in Nicaragua with these words:
"They said our intelligence of Nicaragua was so good that we could even register when
someone flushed a toilet. But I had the feeling that the stories we were giving to the press
came straight out of the toilet." (Hird 1985)
Of course, the intelligence services also have a large number of direct contacts in our media,
which can be "leaked" information to if necessary. But without the central role of the global
news agencies, the worldwide synchronization of propaganda and disinformation would never be so
efficient.
Through this "propaganda multiplier", dubious stories from PR experts working for
governments, military and intelligence services reach the general public more or less unchecked
and unfiltered. The journalists refer to the news agencies and the news agencies refer to their
sources. Although they often attempt to point out uncertainties with terms such as "apparent",
"alleged" and the like – by then the rumor has long been spread to the world and its
effect taken place.
The Propaganda Multiplier: Governments, military and intelligence services using global
news agencies to disseminate their messages to a worldwide audience.
As the New York Times reported
In addition to global news agencies, there is another source that is often used by media
outlets around the world to report on geopolitical conflicts, namely the major publications in
Great Britain and the US.
For example, news outlets like the New York Times or BBC have up to 100 foreign
correspondents and other external employees. However, Middle East correspondent Luyendijk
points out:
"Dutch news teams, me included, fed on the selection of news made by quality media like
CNN, the BBC, and the New York Times . We did that on the assumption
that their correspondents understood the Arab world and commanded a view of it – but
many of them turned out not to speak Arabic, or at least not enough to be able to have a
conversation in it or to follow the local media. Many of the top dogs at CNN, the BBC, the
Independent, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and the NYT were more often than not dependent on
assistants and translators." (Luyendijk p. 47)
In addition, the sources of these media outlets are often not easy to verify ("military
circles", "anonymous government officials", "intelligence officials" and the like) and can
therefore also be used for the dissemination of propaganda. In any case, the widespread
orientation towards the Anglo-Saxon publications leads to a further convergence in the
geopolitical coverage in our media.
The following figure shows some examples of such citation based on the Syria coverage of the
largest daily newspaper in Switzerland, Tages-Anzeiger. The articles are all from the first
days of October 2015, when Russia for the first time intervened directly in the Syrian war
(US/UK sources are highlighted):
Frequent citation of British and US media, exemplified by the Syria war coverage of Swiss
daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in October 2015.
The desired narrative
But why do journalists in our media not simply try to research and report independently of
the global agencies and the Anglo-Saxon media? Middle East correspondent Luyendijk describes
his experiences:
"You might suggest that I should have looked for sources I could trust. I did try, but
whenever I wanted to write a story without using news agencies, the main Anglo-Saxon media,
or talking heads, it fell apart. () Obviously I, as a correspondent, could tell very
different stories about one and the same situation. But the media could only present one of
them, and often enough, that was exactly the story that confirmed the prevailing image."
(Luyendijk p.54ff)
Media researcher Noam Chomsky has described this effect in his essay "What makes the mainstream media mainstream" as
follows: "If you leave the official line, if you produce dissenting reports, then you will soon
feel this. () There are many ways to get you back in line quickly. If you don't follow the
guidelines, you will not keep your job long. This system works pretty well, and it reflects
established power structures." (Chomsky 1997)
Nevertheless, some of the leading journalists continue to believe that nobody can tell them
what to write. How does this add up? Media researcher Chomsky clarifies the apparent contradiction:
"[T]he point is that they wouldn't be there unless they had already demonstrated that
nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had
started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they
never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. () They
have been through the socialization system." (Chomsky 1997)
Ultimately, this "socialization process" leads to a journalism that generally no longer
independently researches and critically reports on geopolitical conflicts (and some other
topics), but seeks to consolidate the desired narrative through appropriate editorials,
commentary, and interviewees.
Conclusion: The "First Law of Journalism"
Former AP journalist Herbert Altschull called it the First Law of Journalism:
"In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and
economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act
independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power."
(Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298)
In that sense, it is logical that our traditional media – which are predominantly
financed by advertising or the state – represent the geopolitical interests of the
transatlantic alliance, given that both the advertising corporations as well as the states
themselves are dependent on the US dominated transatlantic economic and security
architecture.
In addition, our leading media and their key people are – in the spirit of Chomsky's
"socialization" – often themselves part of the networks of the transatlantic elite. Some
of the most important institutions in this regard include the US Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR), the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission (see in-depth study of these networks
).
Indeed, most well-known publications basically may be seen as "establishment media". This is
because, in the past, the freedom of the press was rather theoretical, given significant entry
barriers such as broadcasting licenses, frequency slots, requirements for financing and
technical infrastructure, limited sales channels, dependence on advertising, and other
restrictions.
It was only due to the Internet that Altschull's First Law has been broken to some extent.
Thus, in recent years a high-quality, reader-funded journalism has emerged, often outperforming
traditional media in terms of critical reporting. Some of these "alternative" publications
already reach a very large audience, showing that the „mass" does not have to be a
problem for the quality of a media outlet.
Nevertheless, up to now the traditional media has been able to attract a solid majority of
online visitors, too. This, in turn, is closely linked to the hidden role of news agencies,
whose up-to-the-minute reports form the backbone of most news portals.
Will "political and economic power", according to Altschull's Law, retain control over the
news, or will "uncontrolled" news change the political and economic power structure? The coming
years will show.
Case study: Syria war coverage
As part of a case study, the Syria war coverage of nine leading daily newspapers from
Germany, Austria and Switzerland were examined for plurality of viewpoints and reliance on news
agencies. The following newspapers were selected:
For Germany: Die Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(FAZ)
For Switzerland: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Tagesanzeiger (TA), and Basler Zeitung
(BaZ)
For Austria: Standard, Kurier, and Die Presse
The investigation period was defined as October 1 to 15, 2015, i.e. the first two weeks
after Russia's direct intervention in the Syrian conflict. The entire print and online coverage
of these newspapers was taken into account. Any Sunday editions were not taken into account, as
not all of the newspapers examined have such. In total, 381 newspaper articles met the stated
criteria.
In a first step, the articles were classified according to their properties into the
following groups:
Agencies : Reports from news agencies (with agency code)
Mixed : Simple reports (with author names) that are based in whole or in part on agency
reports
Reports : Editorial background reports and analyzes
Opinions/Comments : Opinions and guest comments
Interviews : interviews with experts, politicians etc.
Investigative : Investigative research that reveals new information or context
The following Figure 1 shows the composition of the articles for the nine newspapers
analyzed in total. As can be seen, 55% of articles were news agency reports; 23% editorial
reports based on agency material; 9% background reports; 10% opinions and guest comments; 2%
interviews; and 0% based on investigative research.
Figure 1: Types of articles (total; n=381)
The pure agency texts – from short notices to the detailed reports – were mostly
on the Internet pages of the daily newspapers: on the one hand, the pressure for breaking news
is higher than in the printed edition, on the other hand, there are no space restrictions. Most
other types of articles were found in both the online and printed editions; some exclusive
interviews and background reports were found only in the printed editions. All items were
collected only once for the investigation.
The following Figure 2 shows the same classification on a per newspaper basis. During the
observation period (two weeks), most newspapers published between 40 and 50 articles on the
Syrian conflict (print and online). In the German newspaper Die Welt there were more
(58), in the Basler Zeitung and the Austrian Kurier , however, significantly less
(29 or 33).
Depending on which newspaper, the share of agency reports is almost 50% (Welt,
Süddeutsche, NZZ, Basler Zeitung), just under 60% (FAZ, Tagesanzeiger), and 60 to 70%
(Presse, Standard, Kurier). Together with the agency-based reports, the proportion in most
newspapers is between approx. 70% and 80%. These proportions are consistent with previous media
studies (e.g., Blum 1995, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013, Paterson 2007).
In the background reports, the Swiss newspapers were leading (five to six pieces), followed
by Welt , Süddeutsche and Standard (four each) and the other
newspapers (one to three). The background reports and analyzes were in particular devoted to
the situation and development in the Middle East, as well as to the motives and interests of
individual actors (for example Russia, Turkey, the Islamic State).
However, most of the commentaries were to be found in the German newspapers (seven comments
each), followed by Standard (five), NZZ and Tagesanzeiger (four each).
Basler Zeitung did not publish any commentaries during the observation period, but two
interviews. Other interviews were conducted by Standard (three) and Kurier and
Presse (one each). Investigative research, however, could not be found in any of the
newspapers.
In particular, in the case of the three German newspapers, a journalistically problematic
blending of opinion pieces and reports was noted. Reports contained strong expressions of
opinion even though they were not marked as commentary. The present study was in any case based
on the article labeling by the newspaper.
Figure 2: Types of articles per newspaper
The following Figure 3 shows the breakdown of agency stories (by agency abbreviation) for
each news agency, in total and per country. The 211 agency reports carried a total of 277
agency codes (a story may consist of material from more than one agency). In total, 24% of
agency reports came from the AFP; about 20% each by the DPA, APA and Reuters; 9% of the SDA; 6%
of the AP; and 11% were unknown (no labeling or blanket term "agencies").
In Germany, the DPA, AFP and Reuters each have a share of about one third of the news
stories. In Switzerland, the SDA and the AFP are in the lead, and in Austria, the APA and
Reuters.
In fact, the shares of the global agencies AFP, AP and Reuters are likely to be even higher,
as the Swiss SDA and the Austrian APA obtain their international reports mainly from the global
agencies and the German DPA cooperates closely with the American AP.
It should also be noted that, for historical reasons, the global agencies are represented
differently in different regions of the world. For events in Asia, Ukraine or Africa, the share
of each agency will therefore be different than from events in the Middle East.
Figure 3: Share of news agencies, total (n=277) and per country
In the next step, central statements were used to rate the orientation of editorial opinions
(28), guest comments (10) and interview partners (7) (a total of 45 articles). As Figure 4
shows, 82% of the contributions were generally US/NATO friendly, 16% neutral or balanced, and
2% predominantly US/NATO critical.
The only predominantly US/NATO-critical contribution was an op-ed in the Austrian
Standard on October 2, 2015, titled: "The strategy of regime change has failed. A
distinction between ‚good' and ‚bad' terrorist groups in Syria makes the Western
policy untrustworthy."
Figure 4: Orientation of editorial opinions, guest comments, and interviewees (total;
n=45).
The following Figure 5 shows the orientation of the contributions, guest comments and
interviewees, in turn broken down by individual newspapers. As can be seen, Welt,
Süddeutsche Zeitung, NZZ, Zürcher Tagesanzeiger and the Austrian newspaper
Kurier presented exclusively US/NATO-friendly opinion and guest contributions; this goes
for FAZ too, with the exception of one neutral/balanced contribution. The
Standard brought four US/NATO friendly, three balanced/neutral, as well as the already
mentioned US/NATO critical opinion contributions.
Presse was the only one of the examined newspapers to predominantly publish
neutral/balanced opinions and guest contributions. The Basler Zeitung published one
US/NATO-friendly and one balanced contribution. Shortly after the observation period (October
16, 2015), Basler Zeitung also published an interview with the President of the Russian
Parliament. This would of course have been counted as a contribution critical of the
US/NATO.
Figure 5: Basic orientation of opinion pieces and interviewees per newspaper
In a further analysis, a full-text keyword search for "propaganda" (and word combinations
thereof) was used to investigate in which cases the newspapers themselves identified propaganda
in one of the two geopolitical conflict sides, USA/NATO or Russia (the participant "IS/ISIS"
was not considered). In total, twenty such cases were identified. Figure 6 shows the result: in
85% of the cases, propaganda was identified on the Russian side of the conflict, in 15% the
identification was neutral or unstated, and in 0% of the cases propaganda was identified on the
USA/NATO side of the conflict.
It should be noted that about half of the cases (nine) were in the Swiss NZZ , which
spoke of Russian propaganda quite frequently ("Kremlin propaganda", "Moscow propaganda
machine", "propaganda stories", "Russian propaganda apparatus" etc.), followed by German
FAZ (three), Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung (two each) and the Austrian
newspaper Kurier (one). The other newspapers did not mention propaganda, or only in a
neutral context (or in the context of IS).
Figure 6: Attribution of propaganda to conflict parties (total; n=20).
Conclusion
In this case study, the geopolitical coverage in nine leading daily newspapers from Germany,
Austria and Switzerland was examined for diversity and journalistic performance using the
example of the Syrian war.
The results confirm the high dependence on the global news agencies (63 to 90%, excluding
commentaries and interviews) and the lack of own investigative research, as well as the rather
biased commenting on events in favor of the US/NATO side (82% positive; 2% negative), whose
stories were not checked by the newspapers for any propaganda.
*
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What is funny is that MARGARET BRENNAN is to the right of Pompeo. That's a real
achievement. Pompeo probably was surprised that he was put on the defensive from his right-wing position by this warmongering
female neocon.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You've got the whole world as your portfolio so let's
move on to Venezuela and Russia. There was this phone call between Vladimir Putin and President
Trump that just happened. The president described it to us in an Oval Office spray. Why didn't
he bring up election interference on this phone call when he said he did discuss the findings
of the Mueller Report which found sweeping and systematic Russian interference in 2016?
SEC. POMPEO: Well you'll have to ask the White House that question. The president's been
very clear. The administration has taken great action. I wish the previous one had stopped the
election interference that took place in 2016. They failed to do so. Between 2017 when
President Trump came into office and 2018, we had a successful election year, a set of midterm
elections. We're working diligently to ensure that the elections in 2020 aren't interfered with
by Russia, by Iran, by North Korea or anyone else. We have enormous resource deployed against
that challenge. And the American people should be sure that their government is working hard to
keep our election safe and secure.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You said, this week, that Moscow has hundreds of people in Venezuela and
you were very clear that you think it was Russia that convinced Nicolas Maduro not to get on a
plane and to flee the country. Here's what the president said during his- after his phone call
with Vladimir Putin.
*Take SOT*
MARGARET BRENNAN: There seems to be a difference in how the president described the
situation and how you and Ambassador Bolton have described it.
SEC. POMPEO: No, no difference, no difference. The- the president has said, I think he in
fact tweeted, that the Russians must leave Venezuela. We've asked every nation that is in-
interfering with Venezuelan democracy- you've seen this. I- I was down on the border. We saw
mothers who couldn't feed their children, fleeing the country. We saw families that had sick
kids but couldn't get medicines, all sitting, was sitting within 50 miles of where we were
located. And Maduro won't allow it to come in. The president's been very clear, we want the
Cubans out. There are Iranians on the ground there. We want the Russians- we want everyone out
so that the Venezuelan people can get the democracy they deserve. That includes Mr. Maduro
leaving.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So when he says, the president says, "Putin is not looking to get involved
at all in Venezuela," that is not the president accepting him at face value?
SEC. POMPEO: You'll- you'll have to leave- you'll have to look at--
MARGARET BRENNAN: He knows that that's not the case?
SEC. POMPEO: The- the president has tweeted that he wants the Russians out of Venezuela.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So he was just putting a positive spin on things in that moment?
SEC. POMPEO: We- we are working very diligently to ensure that Maduro leaves and we get free
and fair elections in Venezuela. That will require the 2,300 Cuban security personnel, the-
frankly, the people closest to Maduro who are protecting the in- tight security for Maduro,
they've got to leave. We're working on that as well. We're working with the Cubans to try and
get an outcome that will let the Venezuelans have this opportunity.
MARGARET BRENNAN: On this, I know you'll be meeting with the Russian foreign minister in the
coming days. Is there a deal to be struck with Russia on this front? I mean, Russia benefits,
right, by having Venezuelan oil off the market, by having a level of influence in America's
backyard. Is the U.S. going to negotiate a deal with Russia on Venezuela?
SEC. POMPEO: I'll certainly bring up Venezuela, be one of many topics that Foreign Minister
Lav- Lavrov and I speak about- speak about. Whether there's a particular deal that can be
reached? Only time will tell.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who I know you
know well tweeted this week, "Cuba, Russia sent troops to prop up Maduro in Venezuela while we
talk and have sanctions. Where's our aircraft carrier?" He seems to be calling a bluff here on
your mention and mention from others that military options aren't off the table. What is
actually being considered here because you can't refer to the use of military force lightly. Is
there an actual option that you are considering deploying in the coming days?
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed a broad number of security
related issues in Sochi on Tuesday ranging from nuclear arms control to ratcheting US tensions with Iran to Venezuela to Ukraine.
Importantly, the two top diplomats traded warnings against election meddling and interference in their respective countries -- though
we might add that Lavrov's message was packed with more sarcasm following the Mueller report clearing Trump of "collusion".
In response to Pompeo's reportedly warning Russia to never interfere in what he described as America's "sacred" elections, specifically
warning against any 2020 presidential election interference, Lavrov shot back with: "We can discuss this topic forever, but until
we have cold hard facts on the table, we cannot have a grown-up discussion about it," according to Russia's
RT .
Speaking to reporters afterward, Lavrov said proudly that he had handed Pompeo a "memorandum" on US interference in Russia but
didn't reveal its precise contents, only saying, "we're prepared to talk on this topic."
Though both expressed hope for improved ties between Washington and Moscow, Reuters characterized it as a testy and impatient
exchange :
Visiting Russia for the first time as secretary of state, Pompeo publicly clashed with Lavrov on issues from Ukraine to Venezuela.
After their meeting, both men said they had been far apart on many issues .
"I made clear to Foreign Minister Lavrov... that interference in American elections is unacceptable. If the Russians were engaged
in that in 2020 it would put our relationship in an even worse place than it has been ," he said.
"I'd encourage them not to do that. We would not tolerate that."
However, soon after the summit, Russian President Putin in public statements indicated his belief that "Trump is in the mood to
restore ties with Russia."
He also indicated it's his own desire to "fully restore" Russia-US ties, according to the AP, and interestingly also praised the
"quite objective" Mueller report in statements to reporters
.
"As you know, just a few days ago, I had the pleasure of talking with the US president on the phone," Putin told Pompeo during
the Tuesday summit in Sochi. "I got the impression that the [US] president was inclined to re-establish Russian-American relations
and contacts to resolve together the issues that are of mutual interest to us."
Pompeo, for his part, appeared to say as much following the meeting, saying, "The United States stands ready to find common ground
with Russia as long as the two of us can engage seriously on those issues."
President Trump has made clear that his expectation is that we will have an improved relationship between our two countries.
This will benefit each of our peoples. And I think that our talks here today were a good step in that direction.
However, Pompeo still went through a litany of disagreements he had with Russia, especially centering on multiple hot spots around
the globe where the Trump administration has exercised a big stick approach.
At Lavrov-Pompeo presser, around 28:30, Lavrov says something significant: Russia recently offered to publish info from a US-Russia
channel on cyberspace that he claims would address the allegations of Russian election meddling. He says the US declined:
https://t.co/o4MbqQlwCy
Below is a brief run-down of key points to the two briefed reporters on afterwards.
Nuclear treaty
At the top of the agenda, Lavrov signaled Russia could be open to a new arms control treaty after the recent US withdrawal from
the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, countered by Russia suspending its obligations under the Reagan-era pact which
crucially served to keep missile build-up out of Europe.
Pompeo stressed China had to be part of any future sweeping deal, also considering rapid advances in defense technology. Lavrov
expressed hope that any future agreements will be "positively received by both nations."
The New START nuclear arms reduction treaty will expire in February of 2021, giving greater impetus for both sides to work through
the current impasse.
No common ground on Venezuela
Predictably the Venezuela hawk Pompeo slammed Russia's "interfering" in the Latin American country's internal affairs, adding
also to that list China, Cuba and Iran.
"Maduro has brought nothing but misery to the Venezuelan people," Pompeo stated. "We hope that Russian support for Maduro will
end." Lavrov defended the right of Venezuelans to choose their own president and refused to recognize US-declared "Interim President"
Juan Guaido.
"Democracy cannot be done by force," Lavrov told reporters. "The threats that we hear against the Maduro government, threats that
come from the mouths of US officials this has nothing in common with democracy."
* * *
No desire for war with Iran
"We fundamentally do not see a war with Iran," Secretary of State Pompeo said, but added: "We've made it clear to the Iranians
that if American interests are attacked, we will certainly respond in an appropriate fashion."
On Tuesday President Trump denied a prior
New York
Times report which alleged the White House was planning to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East should conflict erupt
between Iran and the United States. The president called the report "fake news" but still added that should war actually break out
he would send "a hell of a lot more," according to Reuters.
Lavrov stated that Russia hopes "reason will gain the upper hand," and added that Moscow opposed the US pullout of the 2015 Iran
nuclear deal (JCPOA), and further that Europe is right in attempting to stick to the deal.
Ukraine standoff
Pompeo informed Lavrov that the US hadn't budged in its position regarding Moscow's "illegal" annexation of the Crimea in 2014,
saying economic sanctions would remain in place until Russia reverses course.
Following the Ukrainian election of comedian turned unlikely politician Volodymyr Zelensky, Pompeo said Russia should now "work
with Ukraine's new president-elect to bring peace to eastern Ukraine," according to a paraphrase of Pompeo's words by Reuters, and
further that Russian authorities should release Ukrainian sailors captured in last year's dangerous
Kerch Strait incident .
"... While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena. ..."
"... Jewish writer David Cole recently questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism. He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters ..."
"... In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations. ..."
Despite the Jewish domination of the American Left in the post-War period, Mendes notes that "most Americans do not appear to
have adhered to the same anti-Semitic assumptions about Jewish links with communism that dominated public opinion in parts of Europe."
[80] Ibid .,
229.
(Philip Mendes, Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance (Melbourne, Victoria; Palgrave MacMillian, 2014),
250.) As evidence of this, Mendes cites the decidedly muted public response to the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Despite the recognizably Jewish identity of the couple (given their name)
and of all of their co-conspirators (David Greenglass, Ruth Greenglass, and Morton Sobell), and the fact the Rosenberg spy network
consisted almost exclusively of Jews from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the case "provoked remarkably little overt anti-Semitism."
[81] Ibid .,
230. Nor, he observes, did the "significant number of Jews -- including teachers and Hollywood actors -- who were victims of anti-communist
purges" and the prominence of Jews amongst those subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, lead to a significant
reaction. All public opinion polls conducted during this period showed a consistent decline in "anti-Semitism," and only a small
minority of those surveyed (about 5 percent) identified Jews with communism.
[82] Ibid .
The lack of any real backlash to Jewish prominence in the New Left is ascribed to various factors: that many members of the public
were not aware of the Jewish background of many of the radical leaders; that these Jewish radicals were ostensibly "not campaigning
about any specifically Jewish issues that would have focused attention on Jews per se;" and to the "general decline in anti-Semitism
since World War Two."
[83] Ibid .,
257. This latter shift in public opinion (unsurprisingly) coincided with the Jewish seizure of the commanding heights of American
(and Western) culture in the 1960s, and the growing emergence of the culture of "the Holocaust." The combined effect was to banish
overt critical discussion of Jewish power to the margins of public discourse. While Americans rejected communist activities during
the Cold War, unlike in Europe, they did not widely equate communism with Jews (at least publicly), or view Jewish participation
in leftist politics with particular concern.
Neoconservatism
Neoconservative leaders were among those who feared that the Jewish prominence in the New Left of the late 1960s and early 1970s
would fuel a conservative backlash against Jewish radicalism. For example, Norman Podhoretz, the editor of
Commentary magazine, attacked leading Jewish
leftists as alleged self-hating Jews and completely unrepresentative of the Jewish community.
[84] Ibid .,
22.
Mendes ascribes the defection of many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism in the 1970s to a growing misalignment between
modern Leftist politics and Jewish ethnic interests: the key factor being "the creation of the State of Israel which transformed
Jewish dependence from international to national forces."
[85] Ibid .,
viii. With the advent of the state of Israel, Jewish interests were no longer exclusively represented by the universalistic agendas
of the Left. According to Mendes: "Most Jews have lost their faith in universalistic causes because they do not perceive the Left
as supportive of Jewish interests, and have turned instead to nationalist solutions."
[86] Ibid .,
235.
The creation of a Jewish national entity featuring (thanks to US taxpayers) a strong and powerful army meant that Jews all over
the world could look to the Zionist state to safeguard their interests, rather than depending on internationalist movements and ideologies
(i.e. communism and the Soviet Union) which had often proven to be unreliable allies. Even many left-wing Jews, who might have been
anti-Zionist prior to World War Two, shifted their position after the birth of Israel. For example, the long-time Austrian Jewish
leftist Jean Amery commented in 1976:
There is a very deep tie and existential bond between every Jew and the State of Israel Jews feel bound to the fortunes and
misfortunes of Israel, whether they are religious Jews or not, whether they adhere to Zionism or reject it, whether they are newly
arrived in their host countries or deeply rooted there The Jewish State has taught all the Jews of the world to walk with their
head high once more Israel is the virtual shelter for all of the insulted and injured Jews of the earth.
[87] Ibid
., 236-37
The perceived anti-Zionism of the New Left from the 1967 onwards served to alienate many Jews and confirm their commitment to nationalist,
rather than internationalist solutions. An additional factor was the 1967 Six Day War in the Middle East, which provoked fears of
"another Holocaust," and galvanized even non-Zionist Jews in support of Israel. There were rallies in support of Israel throughout
the Western world accompanied by large donations. American Jews held massive fundraising campaigns and reportedly raised 180 million
dollars. Numerous volunteers travelled to Israel to support the Jewish State. In Australia, more than 20 per cent of a total Jewish
population of 34,000 in Melbourne -- attended a public rally to express their support for Israel, and 2500 attended a youth rally.
750 young Jews volunteered to go to Israel. According to Taft,
there was a widespread, almost universal, absorption in the Middle East Crisis of June among the Jews of Melbourne. This absorption
took the form of extreme concern about the safety of Israel, emotional upsets, obsessive seeking of news, constant discussion
of events and taking spontaneous actions to support Israel's cause.
[88] Ibid
., 238.
The rise of left-wing anti-Zionism after the Six Day War furthered alienated sections of Western Jewry from the social democratic
Left. Another factor that pushed American Jews in a neoconservative direction, identified by Mendes, was the decline in Black–Jewish
relations. The emergence of the Black Power movement in the mid-1960s led to the removal of Jews from the leadership of organizations
like the NAACP. Black hostility was viewed by some Jews as evidence of the failure of the strategy of courting non-White groups to
advance Jewish interests. This ostensible failure prompted many Jews to concentrate on a narrower ethnic self-interest in the future.
[89] Ibid .,
243.
This, in turn, contributed to the creation of "pragmatic alliances" with conservative political parties such as the Republicans
and evangelical groups such as Christians United for Israel which "have been consistent supporters of Israel in the USA." An associated
factor was that pro-Israel perspectives within Western countries increasingly emanated from mainstream conservatives, rather than
from the moderate or radical Left. This occurred despite "many in these groups hold socially conservative views on issues such as
abortion, homosexuality, the environment, multiculturalism, state support for the poor and disadvantaged, and refugees, which are
anathema to many Jews."
[90] Ibid .,
287.
Mendes makes the point that "These alliances were based solely on the latter's position of support for Israel, irrespective of
their conservative views on social issues such as abortion, homosexuality and the welfare state, which were often sharply at odds
with the more liberal opinions of most Jews."
[91] Ibid .,
239.
Despite the defection on many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism, the great majority of American Jews still see their
ethnic interests as basically aligning with the Democratic Party. Their willingness to prioritize their ethnic interests over their
personal economic interests is reflected in the fact that "high numbers of affluent Jews compared to others of the same socioeconomic
status still vote for moderate left parties that do not seem to favor their economic interests." Today, the structural factors which
historically drew many Jews to the Left no longer exist. Most Jews sit comfortably in middle- or even higher-income categories. This
"middle-classing" of Jews throughout the West has meant that the "Jewish proletariat that motivated Jewish identification with left-wing
beliefs no longer exists."
[92] Ibid .,
239. Consequently, "the specific link between Jewish experience of class oppression and adherence to left-wing ideology has ended."
[93] Ibid .,
241.
Most Western Jews still support parties on the Left
Despite the widespread break with the radical Left over support for Israel, Jews nevertheless remain
a “massively significant presence” in the Left in terms of their numbers and fundraising, their organizational capacity, and their
impact on popular culture.[94]Ibid.,
287. It was estimated that about a quarter of the world’s leading Marxist and radical intellectuals in the 1980s
were still Jews, including Ernest Mandel, Nathan Weinstock, Maxime Rodinson, Noam Chomsky, Marcel Liebman, Ralph Miliband, and the
founder of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida. Despite continuing to comprise much of the intellectual and financial backbone of
the Left, today’s Jews, “an influential and sometimes powerful group, with substantial access to politics, academia and the media,”
no longer must “rely on the Left to defend their interests and wellbeing.”[95]Ibid.,
286.
The primary reason most Western Jews still vote overwhelmingly
for parties on the left is the perceived threat posed by the “social conservatism” of parties further to the right of the political
spectrum in nations whose majorities are European-derived and nominally at least Christian:
With the possible exception of ultra-orthodox groups, Jews
seem to prefer social liberal positions on issues such as religious pluralism, abortion, feminism, illicit drugs, same-sex marriage,
the science of climate change and euthanasia. Another significant factor is the long history of Christian anti-Semitism has led
Jews to remain suspicious of any attempts by Christian religious groups to undermine the separation of church and state. This
fear of organized religion [and of the White people who practice it] seems to explain the continued strong support of American
Jews for the Democratic Party in presidential elections. A further complicating factor is the growing universalization of Jewish
teachings and values, including the lessons of the Holocaust, in support of social liberal perspectives. … For example, Berman
(2006) presents evidence that the younger Jewish generation in Australia have been influenced by the experience of the Holocaust
into taking a strong stand against any forms of racial or religious discrimination. Many are active in campaigns for indigenous
rights, and to support refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, and Middle Eastern countries seeking asylum in Australia.[96]Ibid.,
288-89.
This advocacy is, of course, entirely hypocritical and cynical.
While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews
have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the
great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations
of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within
their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising
Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena.
The ideological preoccupations of organized Jewry today are
reflected in comments by
Boston Globe writer, S.I. Rosenbaum, who insisted the main lesson of “the Holocaust” is “that white supremacy could
turn on us at any moment,” and the strategy of appealing to the White majority “has never worked for us. It didn’t protect us in
Spain, or England, or France, or Germany. There’s no reason to think it will work now.” The central question of Jewish political
engagement in Western societies, she insists, is “how we survive as a minority population,” where the one great advantage American
Jewry enjoys is that “unlike other places where ethno-nationalism has flourished, the U.S. is fast approaching a plurality of minorities.”
Presiding over a coalition of non-Whites groups to actively oppose White interests is the Jewish ethno-political imperative: “If
Jews are going to survive in the future, we will have to stand with people of color for our mutual benefit.”
Jewish writer David Cole recently
questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism.
He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters:
For decades, leftist Jews have been flooding the West with
Third World immigrants, “Hey here’s a plan—lets dump a hundred thousand Somalis in the whitest parts of the U.S.
That’ll
save us from Fargo Hitler!” Inundating the West with non-White immigrants is seen by Jews as an insurance policy against “white
supremacy.” The idea is that these immigrants will act as a wedge, diluting “white power” while remaining small enough to be manageable.
Jews have done this everywhere—playing two groups against
each other as a way of assuring Jewish security. Let’s play Hamas against the Palestinian authority. Let’s play ISIS against Assad.
… But today we live in a world in which even the lowliest bark-eater in the Kalahari can have internet access. It’s not as easy
to fool entire groups anymore (individuals, sure, but not an entire race, ethnicity or faction). …
And now we Jews, so worried that Minnesota might become the
Frozen Fourth Reich if left in the hands of evil whites, have created for ourselves a good old-fashioned golem in Ilhan Omar (and
a bunch of the other Third World freshman congressthingies). Yeah, Omar hates whites. Yeah, she thinks white supremacy lurks behind
every glass of milk and “OK” finger sign. But she hates Jews a hell of a lot more…
In a perfect world, the Rabbinical Rain Men would finally
get the fuck over the Holocaust and end their war of hostility against the West. They’d see that whites are no longer the enemy,
but indeed the opposite. They’d see that importing foreign mud to mold golem in traditionally white regions of the U.S is bad
strategy.
In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism
is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish
activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations.
Conclusion
While Jews and the Left offers a useful catalogue
of Jewish involvement in radical political movements throughout the world over the last two centuries, it recycles many of the same
apologetic tropes that permeate the work of other Jewish historians and intellectuals. Mendes mischaracterizes the Jewish identity
and affiliations of important Jewish communist leaders (like Lazar Kaganovich), and offers no examination of their often-murderous
actions. He provides feeble apologies for the Jewish practices that engendered hostility among the native peasantry in the Pale of
Settlement. The inherent weakness of his position necessitates specious argumentation and desperate resort to that evergreen of Jewish
apologetic historiography: the innate irrationality and malevolence of the European mind and character. This is the invariable fallback
position in any quest to exculpate Jews from responsibility for the crimes of communism in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern
Europe. Though less inclined than Brossat and Klingberg in Revolutionary Yiddishland to glorify Jewish communist militants,
Mendes is equally keen to evade, whitewash and excuse disproportionate Jewish involvement in some of the worst crimes of the twentieth
century.
"... The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S. military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting, then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead. They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today. ..."
"... "Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all "respectable" U.S. politicians -- including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?" ..."
"... Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning leaked it in the first place. As she said at her court-martial : "The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as 'dead bastards,' and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers." ..."
Yves
here. Even though this post covers known territory, it seems worthwhile to encourage those of
you who haven't watched the "Collateral Murder" footage to view the full version. It's
important not only to keep the public (and that includes people in your personal circle)
focused on what Assange's true hanging crime is in the eyes of the officialdom .and it ain't
RussiaGate. That serves as a convenient diversion from his real offense. That effort has a
secondary benefit of having more people watch the video.
Before
and after images of the van that came to pick up the bodies of eleven men shot to death by
circling American helicopters in Iraq in 2007. Both children in the van were wounded. "Well,
it's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle," said one of the pilots. "That's right,"
replies another. From the videoCollateral Murder.
Below is a full video version of Collateral Murder , the 2007 war footage that was
leaked in 2010 to Wikileaks by Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning. This version was posted to the Wikileaks YouTube
channel with subtitles. It will only take about 15 minutes of your life to view it.
It's brutal to watch, but I challenge you to do it anyway. It shows not just murder, but a
special kind of murder -- murder from the safety of the air, murder by men with heavy machine
guns slowly circling their targets in helicopters like hunters with shotguns who walk the edges
of a trout pond, shooting at will, waiting, walking, then shooting again, till all the fish are
dead.
The film also shows war crimes that implicate the entire structure of the U.S.
military, as everyone involved was acting under orders, seeking permission to fire, waiting,
then getting it before once more blasting away. The publication of this video, plus all the
Wikileaks publications that followed, comprise the whole reason everyone in the U.S. who
matters, everyone with power, wants Julian Assange dead. They also want him hated. Generating that hate is the process we're watching today.
"Everyone" in this case includes every major newspaper that published and received awards
for publishing Wikileaks material; all major U.S. televised media outlets; and all
"respectable" U.S. politicians -- including, of course, Hillary Clinton, who was rumored (though
unverifiably) to have said, "Can't we just drone this guy?"
Yes, Julian Assange the person can be a giant douche even to his supporters, as this exchange
reported by Intercept writer Micah Lee attests. Nevertheless, it's not for being a
douche that the Establishment state wants him dead; that state
breeds, harbors and honors douches everywhere in the world . They want him dead for
publishing videos like these.
Please watch it. The footage shows not only murder, but bloodlust and conscienceless
brutality, so much of it in fact that this became one of the main reasons Chelsea Manning
leaked it in the first place. As she
said at her court-martial : "The most alarming aspect of the video for me, was the
seemingly delight of bloodlust they [the pilots] appeared to have. They dehumanized the
individuals they were engaging with, and seemed to not value human life in referring to them as
'dead bastards,' and congratulating each other on the ability to kill in large numbers."
The Wikileaks page for the video is here . A transcript is here .
This was done in our name, to "keep us safe." This continues to be done every day that we
and our allies are at "war" in the Middle East.
Bodies pile on bodies as this continues. The least we can do, literally the least, is to
witness and acknowledge their deaths.
Trump provided to be another Obama -- master of "bait and switch". His promise to disengage from foreign wars remains an
unfulfilled promise. Due to thefact that he is owned by pro-Israel lobby he broung into his administrations such rabid neocons as
chickenhawk Bolton and smug ruthless careerist masquerading as
far-right zealot as Pompeo (and before them Haley). His promises to raise the standard of living of middles
class (which is impossible without cutting the military budget) remains fake. He is a fake. The second fake after obama --
Republican Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April 2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come. ..."
"... According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through diplomacy and humanitarian aid. ..."
"... In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$ 45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to 4 percent in five years. ..."
While the national debt of the United States was recorded at 22.03 trillion as of April
2019, Washington's going ahead with its hawkish policies worldwide with recent NATO summit
pushing for further unity against China, Russia and Iran. NATO's annual overall military budget
was US$ 957 billion in 2017 where the US's share was US$ 686 billion, accounting for 72 percent
of the total. This number is pressed by the US to rise in the years to come.
According to The Guardian, Trump takes more than $1tn in taxpayer money and allocates $750bn
to the military. In other words, out of every taxpayer dollar, 62 cents go to the military and
Department of Homeland Security and seven cents to Veterans affairs. It leaves just 31 cents
for all the rest: education, job training, community economic development, housing, safe
drinking water and clear air, health and science research and the prevention of war through
diplomacy and humanitarian aid.
The Trump budget finds vast billions for militarization, while it cuts "smaller" poverty
alleviation projects and other programs, claiming the goal is to save money.
Rutherford Institute's founder and director John W. WhiteHead writes in his institute's
website that the American nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is
propped up by war profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments. He remarks:
"Don't be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for
national security and urgent military needs".
He writes "you know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the
government's fiscal year? Government agencies – including the Department of Defense
– go on a 'use it or lose it' spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the
next fiscal year".
"We are talking about $97 billion worth of wasteful spending"
He maintains that the nation's educational system is pathetic, the infrastructure is
antiquated and growing more outdated by the day and the health system is overpriced and
inaccessible to those who need it most.
The tax cuts on super-rich, outflow of huge sums in interest payment for debt and more
spending are plunging the US economy into a new crisis, according to many authors. The US
economy faces a deficit which means the spending especially on military and defence is far
exceeding the tax revenues.
In 2017, US spent US$ 685,957 billion with 3.6 of its GDP on military spending while the UK
stood second at US$ 55,237 billion with 2.1 per cent of GDP. France and Germany allocated US$
45,927 billion and 45,472 billion respectively with 1.8 and 1.2 percent of their GDPs. The NATO
member states are pressured for raising their defense spending to 2 percent and gradually up to
4 percent in five years.
According to a study regarding world powers' overseas military bases
China retains twelve military bases;
France runs nine military bases including in Germany, Lebanon and UAE;
Germany has two military bases in France and United States;
India has seven bases including in Tajikistan and Maldives;
Israel possesses one military base in Syria's Golan Heights;
Pakistan has a military center with 1,180 personnel in Saudi Arabia;
Russia runs eight military facilities including in Armenia, Georgia, Syria and some
Central Asian countries;
UK controls ten military bases including in Bahrain, Canada, Germany, Singapore and
Qatar;
t he US is leading nearly 800 military bases across the world that run in full swing with
the highest budget.
In other words, the US possesses up to 95 per cent of the world's military bases . The
Department of Defense says that its locations include 164 countries. Put another way, it has a
military presence of some sort in approximately 84 percent of the nations on this
planet.
The annual cost of deploying US military personnel overseas, as well as maintaining and
running those foreign bases, tops out at an estimated US$ 150 billion annually. The US bases
abroad cost upwards of US$ 50 billion only for building and maintenance, which is enough to
address pressing needs at home in education, health care, housing and infrastructure.
In 2017 and 2018, the world's largest military spenders were the United States, China, Saudi
Arabia, Russia and India. The UK took over France as sixth largest spender in 2018 while Japan
and Germany stood at eighth and ninth positions.
In early 2018, Pentagon released a report saying that Afghan war costs US$ 45 billion to
taxpayers in the preceding year. Of this amount, US$ 5 billion has been spent on Afghan forces,
US$ 13 billion towards US forces in Afghanistan and the rest on economic aid.
But these costs are far lower than the time when the US military was highly engaged in
Afghanistan. With nearly 100,000 soldiers in the country from 2010 to 2012, the price for
American taxpayers surpassed US$ 100 billion each year. For now, there are around 16,000 US
troops in Afghanistan. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into Afghanistan, the
US admits it failed in war against militants in Afghanistan.
In November 2018, another study published by CNBC reported that America has spent US$ 5.9
trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001 including in Afghanistan, Iraq and
Syria. The study also reveals that more than 500,000 people have been killed in the wars and
nearly 10 million people have been displaced due to violence.
The US has reportedly spent US$ 1.07 trillion in Afghanistan since 2001 which include
Overseas Contingency Operations funds dedicated to Afghanistan, costs on the base budget of the
Department of Defense and increase to the budget of the Department of Veteran Affairs.
In Afghanistan, the US costs of war in 2001 commenced with US$ 37.3 billion that soared to
US$ 57.3 billion in 2007 and US$ 100 billion in 2009. The year with record spending was 2010
with US$ 112.7 billion that slightly plummeted to US$ 110.4 billion in 2011 but took downwards
trend in the later years.
Due to skyrocketing military costs on the US government, Trump Administration recently
decided to pack up some of its military bases in Afghanistan and Middle East to diminish
expenditures, though it doesn't mean the wars would end at all.
According to Afghanistan Analysts Network, the US Congress has appropriated more than US$
126 billion in aid for Afghanistan since financial year 2002, with almost 63 percent for
security and 28 percent for development and the remainder for civilian operations, mostly
budgetary assistance and humanitarian aid. Alongside the US aid, many world countries have
pumped millions of dollars in development aids, but what is evident for insiders and outsiders
is that a trickle of those funds has actually gone into Afghanistan's reconstruction.
With eighteen years into Afghan war, the security is deteriorating; Afghan air force is
ill-equipped; poppy cultivation is on the rise; roads and highways are dilapidated or
unconstructed; no mediocre hospital and health care has been established; weekly conflict
causalities hit 150-250; electricity is still imported from Central Asian countries; economy
remains dependent upon imports; unemployment rate is at its peak; more than three quarters of
population live under poverty line and many, many more miseries persist or aggravate.
The US boasts of being the largest multi-billion dollar donor for Afghanistan, but if one
takes a deeper look at the living standards of majority and the overall conditions, it can be
immediately grasped that less than half of that exaggerated fund has been consumed. The US-made
government of Afghanistan has deliberately been left behind to rank as the first corrupt
country in the world. Thanks to the same unaddressed pervasive corruption, a hefty amount of
that fund has been either directed back to the US hands or embezzled by senior Afghan
officials.
Afghanistan's new Living Conditions Survey shows that poverty is more widespread today than
it was immediately after the fall of Taliban regime, or in other words, in the early days of US
invasion.
Next month, Kabul will host a Consultative Loya Jirga attended by around 2,000
representatives from Afghanistan which will cost the Afghan Ministry of Finance AF 369 million
(equivalent to five million US$). Even as the past has proved that these events are only
symbolic and further complicating the achievement of peace, a country with great majority under
poverty line doesn't deserve to organize such costly gatherings.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
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Masud Wadan is a geopolitical analyst based in Kabul. He is a frequent contributor to
Global Research.
Below is the second half and conclusion of "Afghanistan,
the Forgotten Proxy War". While the previous sections examined the economic roots of
imperialism, as well as the historical context of the Cold War within which to situate the
Mujahideen, the following explores the anatomy of proxy warfare and media disinformation
campaigns which were at the heart of destabilizing Afghanistan. These were also a large part of
why there was little to no opposition to the Mujahideen from the Western 'left', whose
continued dysfunctionality cannot be talked about without discussing Zbigniew Brzezinski. We
also take a look at what led to the Soviet Union's demise and how that significantly affected
the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and many other parts of the world. The United
States has been at war in Afghanistan for four decades now, and it will reach its 40th year on
July 3, 2019. The original "moderate rebel"
One of the key players in the anti-Soviet, U.S.-led regime change project against
Afghanistan was Osama
bin Laden , a Saudi-born millionaire who came from a wealthy, powerful family that owns a
Saudi construction company and has had close ties to the Saudi royal family. Before becoming
known as America's "boogeyman", Osama bin Laden was put in charge of
fundraising for the Mujahideen insurgents, creating numerous charities and foundations in
the process and working in coordination with Saudi intelligence (who acted as liaisons between
the fighters and the CIA). Journalist Robert Fisk even gave bin Laden a glowing review, calling
him a "
peace warrior " and a philanthropist in a 1993 report for the Independent . Bin
Laden also provided recruitment for the Mujahideen and is believed to have also received
security training from the CIA. And in 1989, the same year that Soviet troops withdrew, he
founded the terrorist organization Al Qaeda with a number of fighters he
had recruited to the Mujahideen. Although the PDPA had already been overthrown, and the Soviet
Union was dissolved, he still maintained his relationship with the CIA and NATO, working with
them from the
mid-to-late 1990s to provide support for the secessionist Bosnian paramilitaries and the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the destruction and dismantling of Yugoslavia.
The United States would eventually turn Bin Laden into a scapegoat after the 2001 terrorist
attacks, while still maintaining ties to his family and providing arms, training, and funding
to Al Qaeda and its affiliates (rebranded as "moderate rebels" by the Western media) in its
more recent regime change project against Syria, which started in 2011. The Mujahideen not only
gave birth to Al Qaeda, but it would set a precedent for the United States' regime-change
operations in later years against the anti-imperialist governments of Libya and Syria.
Reagan entertains Mujahideen fighters in the White House.
With the end to the cycle of
World Wars (for the time being, at least), it has become increasingly common for the United
States to use local paramilitaries, terrorist groups, and/or the armed forces of comprador
regimes to fight against nations targeted by U.S. capital interests. Why the use of proxy
forces? They are, as Whitney Webb
describes , "a politically safe tool for projecting the U.S.' geopolitical will abroad."
Using proxy warfare as a kind of power projection tool is, first and foremost, cost-effective,
since paid local mercenaries or terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda will bear the burden of
combat and casualties rather than American troops in places like Libya and Syria. For example,
it costs much less
to pay local paramilitaries, gangs, crime syndicates, terrorist groups, and other reactionary
forces to perform the same military operations as U.S. troops. Additionally, with the advent of
nuclear weapons it became much more perilous for global superpowers to come into direct combat
with one another -- if the Soviet Union and the United States had done so, there existed the
threat of "mutually assured destruction", the strong possibility of instantaneous and
catastrophic damage to the populations and the economic and living standards of both sides,
something neither side was willing to risk, even if it was U.S. imperialism's ultimate goal to
destroy the Soviet Union. And so, the U.S. was willing to use any other means necessary to
weaken the Soviet Union and safeguard its profits, which included eliminating the Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan even if it had neither the intent nor the means of launching a military
offensive on American soil. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had the means of producing a
considerably large supply of modern weapons, including nuclear deterrents, to counter the
credible threat posed by the United States. To strike the Soviet Union with nuclear missiles
would have been a great challenge for the United States, since it would have resulted in
overwhelming retaliation by the Soviet Union. To maneuver this problem, to assure the
destruction of the Soviet Union while protecting the U.S. from similar destruction, the CIA
relied on more unconventional methods not previously thought of as being part of traditional
warfare, such as funding proxy forces while wielding economic and cultural influence over the
American domestic sphere and the international scene. Furthermore, proxy warfare enables
control of public opinion, thus allowing the U.S. government to escape public scrutiny and
questions about legal authorization for war. With opposition from the general public
essentially under control, consent for U.S.-led wars does not need to be obtained, especially
when the U.S. military is running them from " behind the scenes " and
its involvement looks less obvious. Indeed, the protests against the war on Vietnam in the
United States and other Western countries saw mass turnouts.
And while the U.S.-led aggression in Vietnam did involve proxy warfare to a lesser degree,
it was still mostly fought with American "boots-on-the-ground", much like the 2001 renewed
U.S.-led aggression against Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In contrast, the U.S.
assault on Afghanistan that began in 1979 saw little to no protest. The Mujahideen even
garnered support from large portions of the Western left who joined the chorus of voices in the
Western mainstream media in demonizing the PDPA -- a relentless imperialist propaganda campaign
that would be repeated in later years during the U.S. wars on Libya and Syria, with the
difference being that social media had not yet gained prominence at the time of the initial
assault on Afghanistan. This leads to the next question: why recruit some of the most
reactionary social forces abroad, many of whom represent complete backwardness?
In Afghanistan, such forces proved useful in the mission to topple the modernizing
government of the PDPA, especially when their anti-modernity aspirations intersected with U.S.
foreign policy; these ultra-conservative forces continue to be deployed by the United States
today. In fact, the long war on Afghanistan shares many striking similarities with the long war
on Syria, with the common theme of U.S. imperialism collaborating with violent Sunni extremists
to topple the secular, nationalist and anti-imperialist governments of these two former 'Soviet
bloc' countries. And much like the PDPA, the current and long-time government of the Ba'ath
Arab Socialist Party in Syria has made many strides towards achieving national liberation and
economic development, which have included: taking land from aristocratic families (a majority
of whom were Sunni Muslims while Shia Muslims, but especially Alawites, traditionally belonged
to the lower classes and were treated as second class citizens in pre-Ba'athist Syria) and
redistributing and nationalizing it, making use of Syria's oil and gas reserves to modernize
the country and benefit its population, and upholding women's rights as an important part of
the Ba'athist pillars.
Some of these aristocratic landlords, just like their Afghan counterparts, would react
violently and join the Muslim Brotherhood who, with CIA-backing, carried out acts of terrorism
and other atrocities in Hama as they made a failed attempt to topple the government of Hafez al
Assad in 1982.
The connection between the two is further solidified by the fact that it was the Mujahideen
from which Al Qaeda emerged; both are inspired by Wahhabist ideology, and one of their chief
financiers is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (as well as Israel, a regional imperial power and a
key ally of the United States). In either case, these Wahhabi-inspired forces were vehemently
opposed to modernization and development, and would much rather keep large sections of the
population impoverished, as they sought to replace the PDPA and the Ba'athists with Sunni
fundamentalist, anti-Shia, theological autocracies -- Saudi-style regimes, in other words.
These reactionary forces are useful tools in the CIA's anti-communist projects and
destabilization campaigns against independent nationalist governments, considering that the
groups' anti-modernity stance is a motivating factor in their efforts to sabotage economic
development, which is conducive to ensuring a favourable climate for U.S. capital interests. It
also helps that these groups already saw the nationalist governments of the PDPA and the Syrian
Ba'ath party as their 'archenemy', and would thus fight them to the death and resort to acts of
terrorism against the respective civilian populations.
Zbigniew Brzezinski stated in a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in response
to the following question:
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given
arms and advice to future terrorists?
[Brzezinski]: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the
collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe
and the end of the cold war?
Once again, he makes it clear that the religious extremism of the Mujahideen fighters was
not an issue for Washington because the real political value lay in eliminating the PDPA and
putting an end to Soviet influence in the Greater Middle East, which would give the U.S. the
opportunity to easily access and steal the country's wealth. And in order to justify the U.S.
imperialist intervention in Afghanistan, as well as to obscure the true nature of the
Mujahideen fighters, the intervention needed to be accompanied by a rigorous mass media
campaign. The Reagan administration -- knowing full well that American mainstream media has
international influence -- continued the war that the Carter administration started and saw it
as an opportunity to "step up" its domestic propaganda war, considering that the American
general public was still largely critical of the Vietnam War at the time.
As part of the aggressive imperialist propaganda campaign, anyone who dared to publicly
criticize the Mujahideen was subjected to character assassination and was pejoratively labelled
a "Stalinist" or a "Soviet apologist", which are akin to labels such as "Russian agent" or
"Assadist" being used as insults today against those who speak out against the U.S.-backed
terrorism in Syria. There were also careful rebranding strategies made specifically for Osama
bin Laden and the Mujahideen mercenaries, who were hailed as "revolutionary freedom fighters"
and given a romantic, exoticized "holy warrior" makeover in Western media; hence the title of
this section. The Mujahideen mercenaries were even given a dedication title card at the end of
the Hollywood movie Rambo III which read, "This film is dedicated to the brave
Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan"; the film itself added to the constructed romantic image as
it portrayed the Mujahideen fighters as heroes, while the Soviet Union and the PDPA were
portrayed as the cartoonish villains. The Rambo film franchise is well known for its
depiction of the Vietnamese as "savages" and as the aggressors in the U.S. war on Vietnam,
which is a blatant reversal of the truth .
The Hollywood blockbuster franchise would be used to make the Mujahideen more palatable to
Western audiences, as this unabashed, blatantly anti-Soviet propaganda for U.S. imperialism
attracted millions of viewers with one of the largest movie marketing campaigns of the time. Although
formulaic, the films are easily consumable because they appeal to emotion and, as Michael
Parenti states in Dirty Truths , "The entertainment industry does not merely give the
people what they want: it is busy shaping those wants," (p. 111). Rambo III may
not have been critically
acclaimed , but it was still the second most commercially successful film in the
Rambo series, grossing a total of $189,015,611 at the box
office . Producing war propaganda films is nothing new and has been a long staple of the
Hollywood industry, which serves capitalist and imperialist interests. But, since the
blockbuster movie is one of the most widely available and distributed forms of media,
repackaging the Mujahideen into a popular film franchise was easily one of the best ways
(albeit cynical) to justify the war, maintaining the
American constructed narrative and reinforcing the demonization campaign against Soviet
Russia and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Now, outside of the cinema, CBS News went as
far as to air fake battle footage meant to help perpetuate the myth that the Mujahideen
mercenaries were "freedom fighters"; American journalists Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould,
although decidedly biased against the Soviet Union and its allies, documented this ruse
in which the news channel participated. In terms of proxy warfare, these were just some of the
ways used to distract from the fact that it was a U.S.-led war.
The dedication title card as it originally appeared at the end of the film Rambo III.
In Afghanistan, proxy forces provided a convenient cover because they drew attention away
from the fact that U.S. imperialism was the root cause of the conflict. The insurgents also
helped to demonize the targets of U.S. foreign policy, the PDPA and the Soviet Union, all the
while doing the majority of the physical combat in place of the American military. In general,
drawing attention away from the fact that it has been the United States "pulling the strings"
all along, using proxy forces helps Washington to maintain
plausible deniability in regard to its relationship with such groups. If any one of these
insurgents becomes a liability, as what had happened with the Taliban, they can just as easily
be disposed of and replaced by more competent patsies, while U.S. foreign policy goes
unquestioned. Criminal gangs and paramilitary
forces are thus ideal and convenient tools for U.S. foreign policy. With the rule of
warlords and the instability (namely damage to infrastructure, de-industrialization, and
societal collapse) that followed after the toppling of the PDPA, Afghanistan's standard of
living dropped rapidly, leading to forced mass migrations and making the country all the more
vulnerable to a more direct U.S. military intervention -- which eventually did happen in
2001.
Zbigniew Brzezinski: godfather of colour revolutions and proxy wars, architect of the
Mujahideen
The late Brzezinski was a key figure in U.S. foreign policy and a highly influential figure
in the Council on Foreign Relations. Although the Polish-American diplomat and political
scientist was no longer the National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan's presidency, he
still continued to play a prominent role in enforcing U.S. foreign policy goals in upholding
Washington's global monopoly. The liberal Cold War ideologue's signature strategy consisted of
using the CIA to destabilize and force regime-change onto countries whose governments actively
resisted against Washington. Such is the legacy of Brzezinski, whose strategy of funding the
most reactionary anti-government forces to foment chaos and instability while promoting them as
"freedom fighters" is now a longstanding staple of U.S. imperialism.
How were the aggressive propaganda campaigns which promoted the Mujahideen mercenaries as
"freedom fighters" able to garner support for the aggression against the former Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan from so many on the Western left who had previously opposed the war on
Vietnam? It was the through the CIA's use of 'soft-power' schemes, because leftist opinion also
needed to be controlled and manipulated in the process of carrying out U.S. foreign and public
policy. Brzezinski mastered the art of targeting intelligentsia and impressionable young people
in order to make them supportive of U.S. foreign policy, misleading a significant number of
people into supporting U.S.-led wars.
The CIA invested money into programs that used university campus, anti-Soviet "radical
leftist activists" and academics (as well as artists and writers) to help spread imperialist
propaganda dressed up in vaguely "leftist"-sounding language and given a more "hip",
"humanitarian", "social justice", "free thinker" appeal. Western, but especially American,
academia has since continued to teach the post-modernist "oppression theory" or "privilege
theory" to students, which is anti-Marxist and anti-scientific at its core. More importantly,
this post-modernist infiltration was meant to distract from class struggle, to help divert any
form of solidarity away from anti-imperialist struggles, and to foster virulent animosity
towards the Soviet Union among students and anyone with 'leftist' leanings. Hence the
phenomenon of identity politics that continues to plague the Western left today, whose strength
was effectively neutered by the 1970s. Not only that, but as Gowans mentions in his book,
Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea's Struggle for Freedom :
"U.S. universities recruit talented individuals from abroad, instill in them the U.S.
imperialist ideology and values, and equip them with academic credentials which conduce to
their landing important political positions at home. In this way, U.S. imperial goals
indirectly structure the political decision-making of other countries." (pp. 52-53)
And so we have agencies and think-tanks such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
which has scholarly appeal and actively interferes in elections abroad -- namely, in countries
that are targets of U.S. foreign policy. Founded in 1983 by Reagan and directed by the CIA, the
agency also assists in mobilizing coups and paid "dissidents" in U.S.-led regime change
projects, such as the 2002 failed attempt against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, as well as helping
to create aggressive media campaigns that demonize targeted nations. Another instance of this
"soft power" tactic of mobilizing U.S.-backed "dissidents" in targeted nations are the number
of Sunni Islamic fundamentalist
madrassas (schools) sponsored by the CIA and set up by Wahhabi missionaries from Saudi
Arabia in Afghanistan -- which started to appear in increasing numbers during the 1980s,
reaching over 39,000 during the decade. Afghanistan's public education institutions were
largely secular prior to the fall of Kabul in 1992; these madrassas were the direct,
ideological and intellectual antitheses to the existing institutions of education. The
madrassas acted as centres for cult-like brainwashing and were essentially CIA covert
psychological operations (psy-ops) intended to inspire divisiveness and demobilize younger
generations of Afghans in the face of imperial onslaught so that they would not unite with the
wider PDPA-led nationalist resistance to imperialism.
The NED's founding members were comprised of Cold War ideologues which included Brzezinski
himself, as well as Trotskyists who provided an endless supply of slurs against the Soviet
Union. It was chiefly under this agency, and with direction provided by Brzezinski, that
America produced artists, "activists", academics, and writers who presented themselves as
"radical leftists" and slandered the Soviet Union and countries that were aligned with it --
which was all part of the process of toppling them and subjugating them to U.S. free market
fundamentalism. With Brzezinski having mastered the art of encouraging postmodernism and
identity politics among the Western left in order to weaken it, the United States not only had
military and economic might on its side but also highly sophisticated ideological instruments
to help give it the upper hand in propaganda wars.
These "soft power" schemes are highly effective in masking the brutality of U.S.
imperialism, as well as concealing the exploitation of impoverished nations. Marketing the
Mujahideen mercenaries as "peace warriors" while demonizing the PDPA and referring to the
Soviet assistance as an "invasion" or "aggression" marked the beginning of the regular use of
"humanitarian" pretexts for imperialist interventions. The Cold War era onslaught against
Afghanistan can thus be seen as the template for the NATO-led regime change projects against
Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria, which not only involved the use of U.S.-backed proxy forces but
also "humanitarian" pretexts being presented in the aggressive propaganda campaigns against the
targeted countries. It was not until 2002, however, that then-American UN representative
Samantha Powers, as well as several U.S.-allied representatives, would push the United Nations
to officially adopt the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) doctrine into the Charter -- which
was in direct contradiction to the law that recognizes the violation of a nation's sovereignty
as a crime. The R2P doctrine was born out of the illegal 78-day NATO
air-bombing of Yugoslavia from March 24 to June 10, 1999. And although plans to dismantle
Yugoslavia go as far back as 1984, it was not until much of the 1990s that NATO would begin
openly intervening --
with more naked aggression -- starting with the funding and support for secessionist
paramilitary forces in Bosnia between 1994-1995. It then sealed the 1999 destruction of
Yugoslavia with with the balkanization of the Serbian province of Kosovo . In addition
to the use of terrorist and paramilitary groups as proxy forces which received CIA-training and
funding, another key feature of this "humanitarian" intervention was the ongoing demonization
campaigns against the Serbs, who were at the centre of a vicious Western media propaganda war.
Some of the most egregious parts of these demonization campaigns -- which were tantamount to
slander and libel -- were the claims that the Serbs were "
committing genocide " against ethnic Albanians. The NATO bombing campaign was illegal since
it was given no UN Security Council approval or support.
Once again, Brzezinski was not the National Security Advisor during the U.S.-led campaign
against Yugoslavia. However, he still continued to wield influence as a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations, a private organization and Wall Street think tank. The Council on Foreign
Relations is intertwined with highly influential NGOs who are essentially propaganda
mouthpieces for U.S. foreign policy, such as Human Rights Watch, which has fabricated stories
of atrocities allegedly committed by countries targeted by U.S. imperialism. Clearly,
unmitigated U.S. imperial aggression did not end with the destruction of the former Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan, nor with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The post-Cold War years
were a continuation of U.S. imperialism's scramble for more spheres of influence and global
domination; it was also a scramble for what was left of the former 'Soviet bloc' and Warsaw
Pact. The dismantling of Yugoslavia was, figuratively speaking, the 'final nail in the coffin'
of whatever 'Soviet influence' was left in Eastern Europe.
The demise of the Soviet Union and the "Afghan trap" question
Image on the right: Left to right: former Afghan President Babrak Karmal, and former Soviet
leader Leonid Brezhnev. Karmal took office at around the same time (December 1979) the PDPA
requested that Moscow intervene to assist the besieged Afghanistan.
The sabotage and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that only one global
hegemon remained, and that was the United States. Up until 1989, the Soviet Union had been the
barrier that was keeping the United States from launching a more robust military intervention
in Afghanistan, as well as in Central and West Asia. While pulling out did not immediately
cause the defeat of Kabul as the PDPA government forces continued to struggle for another three
years, Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to withdraw Soviet troops arguably had a
detrimental impact on Afghanistan for many years to come. Although there was no Soviet
military assistance in the last three years of Najibullah's presidency, Afghanistan continued
to receive aid from the USSR, and some Soviet military advisers (however limited in their
capacity) still remained; despite the extreme difficulties, and combined with the nation's
still-relatively high morale, this did at least help to keep the government from being
overthrown immediately. This defied U.S. expectations as the CIA and the George H.W. Bush
administration had believed that the government of Najibullah would fall as soon as Soviet
troops were withdrawn. But what really hurt the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan's army was
when the Soviet Union was dismantled in 1991; almost as soon as the dissolution happened and
Boris Yeltsin (with U.S. backing) took over as Russia's president, the aid stopped coming and
the government forces became unable to hold out for much longer. The U.S. aggression was left
unchecked, and to this day Afghanistan has not
seen geopolitical stability and has since been a largely impoverished 'failed state',
serving as a training ground for terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. It continues to be
an anarchic battleground between rival warlords which include the ousted Taliban and the U.S.
puppet government that replaced them.
But, as was already mentioned above, the "Afghan trap" did not, in and of itself, cause the
dismantling of the Soviet Union. In that same interview with Le Nouvel Observateur ,
Brzezinski had this to say in response to the question about setting the "trap":
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself
desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
[Brzezinski]: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we
knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Likewise with Cuba and Syria, the USSR had a well-established alliance with the
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, one of mutual aid and partnership. Answering Kabul's
explicit request for assistance was a deliberate and conscious choice made by Moscow, and it
just so happened that the majority of Afghans welcomed it. For any errors that Leonid Brezhnev,
the General Secretary at the time, may have made (which do deserve a fair amount of criticism,
but are not the focus of this article), the 1979 decision to intervene on behalf of Afghanistan
against U.S. imperialism was not one of them. It is true that both the Soviet and the U.S.
interventions were military interventions, but the key difference is that the U.S. was backing
reactionary forces for the purposes of establishing colonial domination and was in clear
violation of Afghan sovereignty. Consider, too, that Afghanistan had only deposed of its king
in 1973, just six years before the conflict began. The country may have moved quickly to
industrialize and modernize, but it wasn't much time to fully develop its military defenses by
1979.
Image below: Mikhail Gorbachev accepts the Nobel Peace Prize from George H.W. Bush on
October 15, 1990. Many Russians saw this gesture as a betrayal, while the West celebrated it,
because he was being awarded for his capitulation to U.S. imperialism in foreign and economic
policy.
Other than that, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Soviet Union imploded due
to an accumulating number of factors: namely, the gradual steps that U.S. foreign policy had
taken over the years to cripple the Soviet economy, especially after the deaths of Brezhnev and
Yuri Andropov. How Gorbachev responded during the U.S.-led onslaught against Afghanistan
certainly helped to exacerbate the conditions that led to the dissolution. After the deaths of
Brezhnev and Andropov, the Soviet Union's economy became disorganized and was being liberalized
during much of the 1980s. Not only that, but the Reagan administration escalated the arms race,
which intensified after they had scrapped the 'detente' that was previously made in the
mid-1970s. Even prior to Reagan's hardline, bombastic rhetoric and escalation against the USSR,
the Soviet Union was already beginning to show signs of strain from the arms race during the
late-1970s. However, in spite of the economic strains, during the height of the war the
organized joint operations between the Soviet army and the Afghan army saw a significant amount
of success in pushing back against the Mujahideen with many of the jihadist leaders either
being killed or fleeing to Pakistan. Therefore, it is erroneous to say that intervening in
Afghanistan on behalf of the Afghan people "did the Soviet Union in."
In a misguided and ultimately failed attempt to spur economic growth rates, Gorbachev moved
to end the Cold War by withdrawing military support from allies and pledging cooperation with
the United States who promised "peace". When he embraced Neoliberalism and allowed for the USSR
to be opened to the U.S.-dominated world capitalist economy, the Soviet economy imploded and
the effects were felt by its allies. It was a capitulation to U.S. imperialism, in other words;
and it led to disastrous results not only in Afghanistan, but in several other countries as
well. These include: the destruction of Yugoslavia, both wars on Iraq, and the 2011 NATO
invasion of Libya. Also, Warsaw Pact members in Eastern Europe were no longer able to
effectively fight back against U.S.-backed colour revolutions; some of them would eventually be
absorbed as NATO members, such as Czechoslovakia which was dissolved and divided into two
states: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Without Soviet Russia to keep it in check, the United
States was able to launch an unrestrained series of aggressions for nearly two decades. Because
of his decision to withdraw from the arms race altogether, in a vain attempt to transform the
Soviet Union into a social democracy akin to those of the Nordic countries, Gorbachev had
deprived the Russian army of combat effectiveness by making significant cuts to its defense
budget, which is partly why they were forced to evacuate. Not only that, but these diplomatic
and military concessions with the United States gave them no benefit in return, hence the
economic crisis in Russia during the Yeltsin years. Suffice to say, the Gorbachev-Yeltsin years
are not remembered fondly in Russia and many regard Gorbachev as a traitor and Western agent
who helped to bring the Soviet Union to its collapse. In more recent years,
efforts are being made to assess the actions taken by Gorbachev with regards to
Afghanistan; this includes going against and revising the resolution put forth by him which
suggested that the USSR intervention was "shameful".
In short, Afghanistan did not cause the Soviet Union's demise even if it required large
military spending. More accurately: it was Gorbachev's impulsive decision to quickly discard
the planned economy in favour of a market economy in order to appease the United States, who
made the false promise that NATO would not expand eastward. If there was a real "trap", it was
this and Gorbachev played right into the hands of U.S. imperialism; and so, the Soviet Union
received its devastating blow from the United States in the end -- not from a small, minor
nation such as Afghanistan which continues to suffer the most from the effects of these past
events. For many years, but especially since the end of WWII, the United States made ceaseless
efforts to undermine the USSR, adding stress upon stress onto its economy, in addition to the
psychological warfare waged through the anti-Soviet propaganda and military threats against it
and its allies. Despite any advances made in the past, the Soviet Union's economy was still not
as large as that of the United States. And so, in order to keep pace with NATO, the Soviet
Union did not have much of a choice but to spend a large percentage of its GDP on its military
and on helping to defend its allies, which included national liberation movements in the Third
World, because of the very real and significant threat that U.S. imperialism posed. If it had
not spent any money militarily, its demise would most likely have happened much sooner. But
eventually, these mounting efforts by U.S. imperialism created a circumstance where its
leadership under Gorbachev made a lapse in judgment, reacting impulsively and carelessly rather
than acting with resilience in spite of the onslaught.
It should also be taken into account that WWII had a profound impact on Soviet leadership --
from Joseph Stalin to Gorbachev -- because even though the Red Army was victorious in defeating
the Nazis, the widespread destruction had still placed the Soviet economy under an incredible
amount of stress and it needed time to recover. Meanwhile, the convenient geographical location
of the United States kept it from suffering the same casualties and infrastructural damage seen
across Europe and Asia as a result of the Second World War, which enabled its economy to
recover much faster and gave it enough time to eventually develop the U.S. Dollar as
the international currency and assert dominance over the world economy. Plus, the U.S. had
accumulated two-thirds of the world's gold reserves by 1944 to help back the Dollar; and even
if it lost a large amount of the gold, it would still be able to maintain Dollar supremacy by
developing the fiat system to back the currency. Because of the destruction seen during WWII,
it is understandable that the Soviet Union wanted to avoid another world war, which is why it
also made several attempts at achieving some kind of diplomacy
with the United States (before Gorbachev outright capitulated). At the same time, it also
understood that maintaining its military defenses was important because of the threat of a
nuclear war from the United States, which would be much more catastrophic than the Nazis'
military assaults against the Soviet Union since Hitler did not have a nuclear arsenal. This
was part of a feat that U.S. imperialism was able to accomplish that ultimately overshadowed
British, French, German, and Japanese imperialism, which Brzezinski reveals in his book, The
Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives : an unparalleled
military establishment that, by far, had the most effective global reach which allowed the U.S.
to "project forces over long distances", helping it to assert its global domination and impose
its "political will". And what makes the American Empire distinct from the Japanese Empire,
British Empire, and other European empires is that one of the bases for its ideology is the
socially constructed international hierarchy of nations, and not races as was the case with the
other aforementioned empires. This constructed international hierarchy of nations is more
effective because it means not only greater expansionism, but also the greater ability to
exercise global primacy and supremacy. More specific to Central Asia and the Middle East, the
Wahhabist and Salafist
groups propped up by the CIA were always
intended to nurture sectarianism and discord in order to counter a mass, broad-based united
front of nations against imperialism -- an example of divide-and-conquer, which is an age-old
tradition of empire, except this time with Neoliberal characteristics.
Therefore, the
Mujahideen against Afghanistan should not be thought of simply as "the Afghan trap", but rather
as the U.S. subjugation and plundering of West and Central Asia and an important milestone
(albeit a cynical one) in shaping its foreign policy with regards to the region for many years
to come. If one thing has remained a constant in U.S. foreign policy towards West and Central
Asia, it is its strategic partnership with the oil autocracy of Saudi Arabia, which acts as the
United States' steward in safeguarding the profits of American petroleum corporations and
actively assists Western powers in crushing secular Arab and Central Asian nationalist
resistance against imperialism. The Saudi monarchy would again be called on by the U.S.
government in 2011 in Syria to assist in the repeated formula of funding and arming so-called
"moderate rebels" in the efforts to destabilize the country. Once again, the ultimate goal in
this more recent imperial venture is to contain Russia.
Cold War 2.0? American Supremacy marches on
The present-day anti-Russia hysteria is reminiscent of the anti-Soviet propaganda of the
Cold War era; while anti-communism is not the central theme today, one thing remains the same:
the fact that the U.S. Empire is (once again) facing a formidable challenge to its position in
the world. After the Yeltsin years were over, and under Vladimir Putin, Russia's economy
eventually recovered and moved towards a more dirigiste economy; and on top of that, it moved
away from the NATO fold, which triggered the old antagonistic relationship with the United
States. Russia has also decided to follow the global trend of taking the step towards
reducing reliance on the
U.S. dollar , which is no doubt a source of annoyance to the U.S. capitalist class. It
seems that a third world war in the near future is becoming more likely as the U.S. inches
closer to a direct military confrontation against Russia and, more recently, China. History
does appear to be repeating itself. When the government of Bashar al Assad called on Moscow for
assistance in fighting against the NATO-backed terrorists, it certainly was reminiscent of when
the PDPA had done the same many years before. Thus far, the Syrian Arab Republic has continued
to withstand the destabilization efforts carried out by the Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist
groups and Kurdish militias at the behest of the United States, and has not collapsed as Libya,
Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan did.
But what often gets overlooked is the repeated Brzezinskist formula of funding highly
reactionary forces and promoting them as "revolutionaries" to Western audiences in order to
fight governments that defy the global dictatorship of the United States and refuse to allow
the West to exploit their natural resources and labour power. As Karl Marx once said , "Men
make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under
self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted
from the past." Such a phenomenon is no accident or a mere mistake. The geopolitical
instability that followed after the overthrow of the PDPA ensures that no sound, united, and
formidable opposition against U.S. imperialism will emerge for an indefinite number of years;
and it seems that Libya, where the Brzezinskist-style of regime change also saw success and
which is now a hotbed for the slave trade, is on the same path as Afghanistan. This is all a
part of what Lenin calls moribund capitalism
when he discussed the economic essence of imperialism; and by that, he meant that imperialism
carries the contradictions of capitalism to the extreme
limit . American global monopoly had grown out of U.S. foreign policy, and it should go
without saying that the American Empire cannot tolerate losing its Dollar Supremacy, especially
when the global rate of profit is falling. And if too many nations reject U.S. efforts to
infiltrate their markets and force foreign finance capital exports onto their economies in
order to gain a monopoly over the resources, as well as to exploit the labour of their working
people, it would surely spell a sharp decline in American Dollar hegemony. The fact that the
United States was willing to go as far as to back mercenaries to attack the former Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan and fight the Soviet Union, as well as to spend billions of dollars on
a highly elaborate but effective propaganda campaign, shows a sign of desperation of the
American Empire in maintaining its global hegemony.
Since the end of World War II the United States has been, and is by and large still, the
overwhelming world-dominating power. It is true that the American Empire is in decline, in
light of increasing trends towards "de-Dollarization," as well as the rise of China and Russia
which pose as challenges to U.S. interests. Naturally, Washington will desperately try to cling
on to its number one position in the world by accelerating the growth of its global monopolies
-- whether it is through placing wholly unnecessary tariffs against competitors such as China,
or threatening to completely cut
Venezuelan and Iranian oil out of the global market -- even if it means an increasing drive
towards World War III. The current global economic order which Washington elites have been
instrumental in shaping over the past several decades reflects the interests of the global
capitalist class to such an extent that the working class is threatened with yet another world
war despite the unimaginable carnage witnessed during the first two.
When we look back at these historical events to help make sense of the present, we see how
powerful mass media can be and how it is used as a tool of U.S. foreign policy to manipulate
and control public opinion. Foreign policy is about the economic relationships between
countries. Key to understanding how U.S. imperialism functions is in its foreign policy and how
it carries it out -- which adds up to plundering from relatively small or poorer nations more
than a share of wealth and resources that can be normally produced in common commercial
exchanges, forcing them to be indebted; and if any of them resist, then they will almost
certainly be subjected to military threats.
With the great wealth that allowed it to build a military that can "project forces over long
distances," the United States is in a unique position in history, to say the least. However, as
we have seen above, the now four decade-long war on Afghanistan was not only fought on a
military front considering the psy-ops and the propaganda involved. If anything, the Soviet
Union lost on the propaganda front in the end.
From Afghanistan we learn not only of the origins of Al Qaeda, to which the boom in the
opioid-addiction epidemic has ties, or why today we have the phenomenon of an anti-Russia
Western "left" that parrots imperialist propaganda and seems very eager to see that piece of
Cold War history repeat itself in Syria. We also learn that we cannot de-link the events of the
2001 direct U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and what followed from those of 1979;
Afghanistan's colonial-feudal past, its break from that with the 1978 Saur Revolution, and the
U.S.-led Mujahideen are all as much of a part of its history (and the Greater Middle East, by
extension) as the events of 2001. It cannot be stressed enough that it is those historical
conditions, particularly as they relate to U.S. foreign policy, that helped to shape the
ongoing conflict today.
Obviously, we cannot undo the past. It is not in the interests of the working class
anywhere, in the Global South or in the Global North, to see a third world war happen, as such
a war would have catastrophic consequences for everyone -- in fact, it could potentially
destroy all of humanity. Building a new and revitalized anti-war movement in the imperialist
nations is a given, but it also requires a more sophisticated understanding of U.S. foreign
policy. Without historical context, Western mass media will continue to go unchallenged,
weaning audiences on a steady diet of "moderate rebels" propaganda and effectively silencing
the victims of imperialism. It is necessary to unite workers across the whole world according
to their shared interests in order to effectively fight and defeat imperialism and to establish
a just, egalitarian, and sustainable world under socialism. Teaching the working class
everywhere the real history of such conflicts as the one in Afghanistan is an important part of
developing the revolutionary consciousness necessary to build a strong global revolutionary
movement against imperialism.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
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Originally published by LLCO.org on March 30, 2019. For the full-length article and
bibliography, click here .
What is funny is that MARGARET BRENNAN is to the right of Pompeo. That's a real
achievement. Pompeo probably was surprised that he was put on the defensive from his right-wing position by this warmongering
female neocon.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You've got the whole world as your portfolio so let's
move on to Venezuela and Russia. There was this phone call between Vladimir Putin and President
Trump that just happened. The president described it to us in an Oval Office spray. Why didn't
he bring up election interference on this phone call when he said he did discuss the findings
of the Mueller Report which found sweeping and systematic Russian interference in 2016?
SEC. POMPEO: Well you'll have to ask the White House that question. The president's been
very clear. The administration has taken great action. I wish the previous one had stopped the
election interference that took place in 2016. They failed to do so. Between 2017 when
President Trump came into office and 2018, we had a successful election year, a set of midterm
elections. We're working diligently to ensure that the elections in 2020 aren't interfered with
by Russia, by Iran, by North Korea or anyone else. We have enormous resource deployed against
that challenge. And the American people should be sure that their government is working hard to
keep our election safe and secure.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You said, this week, that Moscow has hundreds of people in Venezuela and
you were very clear that you think it was Russia that convinced Nicolas Maduro not to get on a
plane and to flee the country. Here's what the president said during his- after his phone call
with Vladimir Putin.
*Take SOT*
MARGARET BRENNAN: There seems to be a difference in how the president described the
situation and how you and Ambassador Bolton have described it.
SEC. POMPEO: No, no difference, no difference. The- the president has said, I think he in
fact tweeted, that the Russians must leave Venezuela. We've asked every nation that is in-
interfering with Venezuelan democracy- you've seen this. I- I was down on the border. We saw
mothers who couldn't feed their children, fleeing the country. We saw families that had sick
kids but couldn't get medicines, all sitting, was sitting within 50 miles of where we were
located. And Maduro won't allow it to come in. The president's been very clear, we want the
Cubans out. There are Iranians on the ground there. We want the Russians- we want everyone out
so that the Venezuelan people can get the democracy they deserve. That includes Mr. Maduro
leaving.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So when he says, the president says, "Putin is not looking to get involved
at all in Venezuela," that is not the president accepting him at face value?
SEC. POMPEO: You'll- you'll have to leave- you'll have to look at--
MARGARET BRENNAN: He knows that that's not the case?
SEC. POMPEO: The- the president has tweeted that he wants the Russians out of Venezuela.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So he was just putting a positive spin on things in that moment?
SEC. POMPEO: We- we are working very diligently to ensure that Maduro leaves and we get free
and fair elections in Venezuela. That will require the 2,300 Cuban security personnel, the-
frankly, the people closest to Maduro who are protecting the in- tight security for Maduro,
they've got to leave. We're working on that as well. We're working with the Cubans to try and
get an outcome that will let the Venezuelans have this opportunity.
MARGARET BRENNAN: On this, I know you'll be meeting with the Russian foreign minister in the
coming days. Is there a deal to be struck with Russia on this front? I mean, Russia benefits,
right, by having Venezuelan oil off the market, by having a level of influence in America's
backyard. Is the U.S. going to negotiate a deal with Russia on Venezuela?
SEC. POMPEO: I'll certainly bring up Venezuela, be one of many topics that Foreign Minister
Lav- Lavrov and I speak about- speak about. Whether there's a particular deal that can be
reached? Only time will tell.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who I know you
know well tweeted this week, "Cuba, Russia sent troops to prop up Maduro in Venezuela while we
talk and have sanctions. Where's our aircraft carrier?" He seems to be calling a bluff here on
your mention and mention from others that military options aren't off the table. What is
actually being considered here because you can't refer to the use of military force lightly. Is
there an actual option that you are considering deploying in the coming days?
Neoliberal corruption in full display. As we see forms of nepotism evolve with time...
Notable quotes:
"... Two years of investigations by journalist Peter Schweizer has revealed that Joe Biden may now have a serious China problem. And just like his Ukraine scandal , it involves actions which helped his son Hunter, who was making hand over fist in both countries. ..."
"... Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion, according to an article by Schweizer's in the New York Post . ..."
"... Hunter Biden and his partners created several LLCs involved in multibillion-dollar private equity deals with Chinese government-owned entities. ..."
"... Perhaps most damning in terms of timing and optics, just twelve days after Hunter and Joe Biden flew on Air Force Two to Beijing, Hunter's company signed a "historic deal with the Bank of China ," described by Schweizer as "the state-owned financial behemoth often used as a tool of the Chinese government." To accommodate the deal, the Bank of China created a unique type of investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). According to BHR, Rosemont Seneca Partners is a founding partner ..."
"... It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers . ..."
"... It doesn't stop there. While Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs. ..."
"... The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the company. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont. ..."
"... "We see great opportunities to continue acquiring high-quality real estate in the US market," said one company executive, who added: "The possibilities for this venture are tremendous." ..."
"... Then, in 2015, BHR partnered with a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) in order to purchase American precision-parts maker Henniges - a transaction which required approval from the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the same rubber-stamp committee that approved the Uranium One deal. ..."
"... The vice president was bringing with him highly welcomed terms of a United States Agency for International Development program to assist the Ukrainian natural-gas industry and promises of more US financial assistance and loans. Soon the United States and the International Monetary Fund would be pumping more than $1 billion into the Ukrainian economy. ..."
"... The next day, there was a public announcement that Archer had been asked to join the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas company. Three weeks after that, on May 13, it was announced that Hunter Biden would join, too. Neither Biden nor Archer had any background or experience in the energy sector. - New York Post ..."
"... Then Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro Poroshenko fired his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... Biden bragged about the threat last year, telling an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations: "I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko. ..."
"... As we head into the 2020 elections, it will be interesting to see how Joe Biden dances around his son's lucrative - and very potentially daddy-assisted deals around the world. ..."
Two years of investigations by journalist Peter Schweizer has revealed that Joe Biden may now have a serious China problem.
And just like his
Ukraine scandal
, it involves actions which helped his son Hunter, who was making hand over fist in both countries.
Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now
Secret Empires discovered
that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's
firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5
billion, according to an article by Schweizer's in the
New York Post .
" If it sounds shocking that a vice president would shape US-China policy as his son -- who has scant experience in private
equity -- clinched a coveted billion-dollar deal with an arm of the Chinese government, that's because it is " -
Peter Schweizer
Perhaps this is why Joe Biden - now on the 2020 campaign trail - said last week that China wasn't a threat.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took a shot at Biden's comment during a speech at the Claremont Institute's 40th anniversary gala,
saying "Look how both parties now are on guard against the threat that China presents to America -- maybe except Joe Biden."
Back to Hunter...
Schweizer connects the dots, writing that "without the aid of subpoena power, here's what we know :"
Hunter Biden and his partners created several LLCs involved in multibillion-dollar private equity deals with Chinese government-owned
entities.
The primary operation was Rosemont Seneca Partners - an investment firm founded in 2009 and controlled by Hunter Biden, John
Kerry's stepson Chris Heinz, and Heniz's longtime associate Devon Archer. The trio began making deals "through a series of overlapping
entities" under Rosemont.
In less than a year, Hunter Biden and Archer met with top Chinese officials in China , and partnered with the Thornton Group
- a Massachusetts-based consultancy headed by James Bulger - son of famed mob hitman James "Whitey" Bulger.
According to the Thornton Group's Chinese-language website, Chinese executives "extended their warm welcome" to the "Thornton
Group, with its US partner Rosemont Seneca chairman Hunter Biden (second son of the now Vice President Joe Biden."
Officially, the China meets were to "explore the possibility of commercial cooperation and opportunity," however details of
the meeting were not published to the English-language version of the website.
"The timing of this meeting was also notable. It occurred just hours before Hunter Biden's father, the vice president, met
with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington as part of the Nuclear Security Summit ," according to Schweizer.
Perhaps most damning in terms of timing and optics, just twelve days after Hunter and Joe Biden flew on Air Force Two
to Beijing, Hunter's company signed a "historic deal with the Bank of China ," described by Schweizer as "the state-owned financial
behemoth often used as a tool of the Chinese government." To accommodate the deal, the Bank of China created a unique type of
investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). According to BHR, Rosemont Seneca Partners is a founding partner .
It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the
son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers .
Chris Heinz claims neither he nor Rosemont Seneca Partners, the firm he had part ownership of, had any role in the deal with
Bohai Harvest. Nonetheless, Biden, Archer and the Rosemont name became increasingly involved with China.
Archer became the vice chairman of Bohai Harvest, helping oversee some of the fund's investments. -
New York Post
National Security implications
As Schweizer also notes, BHR became an "anchor investor" in the IPO of China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN) in December 2014.
The state-owned energy company is involved with the construction of nuclear reactors.
In April 2016, CGN was charged by the US Justice Department with stealing nuclear secrets from the United States , which prosecutors
warned could cause "significant damage to our national security." CNG was interested in sensitive, American-made nuclear components
that resembled those used on US nuclear submarines, according to experts.
More China dealings
It doesn't stop there. While Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government
for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such
as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.
Also in December 2014, a Chinese state-backed conglomerate called Gemini Investments Limited was negotiating and sealing deals
with Hunter Biden's Rosemont on several fronts. That month, it made a $34 million investment into a fund managed by Rosemont.
The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was
buying a 75 percent stake in the company. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager
to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont.
"Rosemont, with its comprehensive real-estate platform and superior performance history, was precisely the investment opportunity
Gemini Investments was looking for in order to invest in the US real estate market," said Li Ming, chairman of Sino-Ocean Land Holdings
Limited and Gemini Investments. "We look forward to a strong and successful partnership."
That partnership planned to use Chinese money to scoop up US properties.
"We see great opportunities to continue acquiring high-quality real estate in the US market," said one company executive,
who added: "The possibilities for this venture are tremendous."
Then, in 2015, BHR partnered with a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation
of China (AVIC) in order to purchase American precision-parts maker Henniges - a transaction which required approval from the Committee
of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the same rubber-stamp committee that approved the Uranium One deal.
Tying it back to Ukraine
While we have previously reported on the Bidens' adventures in Ukraine, Schweizer connects the dots rather well here ...
Consider the facts. On April 16, 2014, White House records show that Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner in the Rosemont
Seneca deals, made a private visit to the White House for a meeting with Vice President Biden. Five days later, on April 21, Joe
Biden landed in Kiev for a series of high-level meetings with Ukrainian officials . The vice president was bringing with him
highly welcomed terms of a United States Agency for International Development program to assist the Ukrainian natural-gas industry
and promises of more US financial assistance and loans. Soon the United States and the International Monetary Fund would be pumping
more than $1 billion into the Ukrainian economy.
The next day, there was a public announcement that Archer had been asked to join the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas
company. Three weeks after that, on May 13, it was announced that Hunter Biden would join, too. Neither Biden nor Archer had any
background or experience in the energy sector. -
New York Post
Hunter was paid as much as $50,000 per month while Burisma was under investigation by officials in both Ukraine and elsewhere.
Then Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro Poroshenko fired
his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm Burisma
Holdings.
Biden bragged about the threat last year, telling an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations: "I said, ' You're not getting
the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours.
If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko.
" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."
Joe Biden says that he had no idea Hunter was on the board of Burisma (for two years after he joined), and that the two never
spoke about the Burisma investigation. The former VP claims that Shokin's removal was required due to his mishandling of several
cases in Ukraine.
As we head into the 2020 elections, it will be interesting to see how Joe Biden dances around his son's lucrative - and very
potentially daddy-assisted deals around the world.
Biden is another scumbag Democrat Lawyer who's the original 'pay for play' politician...A 40+ year history in Political Office
with Zero accomplishments except enriching himself and his family...A complete fraud and hypocrite liar.....Lawyers should have
never been allowed to run for Office at any level.....Look at all the corruption that has been and is being exposed at the different
bureaucracies...Virtually all the corruption has been willfully committed by Lawyers....Pathetic....
Interesting.... I put: "The Steele Dossier has so many British agents involved it sounds like a British failed coup to overthrow
an elected President because he stands in " the way of "profiting goals of " international goals" of global monopoly run by unelected
councils and retired instigators as facilitators of discord.
But came out:The Steele Dossier has so many British agents involved it sounds like a British failed coup to overthrow an elected
President because he stands in the profiting goals of " international goals" of global monopoly run by unelected councils and
retired instigators as facilitators of discord.
To make it sound as if it is Trump profiting.... By no means is that true... Its the " long term" Washington officals that
have been profiting. Not a possible 8 year President.
My phone also wont let me thumbs up people i would like to but only a few and also replying is " verboten".
These algorhythms and blocks and censorship is an abuse of constitutional rights which is bad enough, but even worse is that
these rights got monopolized by various corporations who bought stock in facebook/ googles options that was stolen from Leader
technologies source code ( which Mark zukerberg couldnt write on a good day... He is a front guy and again we have British privy
council involed with Clegg head of facebook now voice for Mark... Because Mark is a cut out).
This whole social media internet thing has been hijacked and weaponized by Washingtons same people as Dossier scandel... James
Chandeler attorney and backstaber of Leader technology.
See leader technology vs facebook..... But i digress.
Michael T. McKibben's career spans two phases: international Christian music ministry, and technology innovation. In 2006,
he was awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,139,761 for what is now called "social networking."
Biden & Kerry aren't the only ones with a China problem. "Secret Empires" also listed Mitch McConnell having a huge China problem
through his wife's shipping company. I bet he doesn't run for re-election. Winning.
they all own one another - that's the essence of the problem in politics. and why they have tried so hard to get that outsider,
trump, out of the country club.
China funded Bill Clinton's election campaigns through James Riady, an Indonesian Chinese man involved in hard drug smuggling
and arms trafficking. The money was laundered through Little Rock banks and corporations. (See Victor Thorn's Hillary and Bill
, all three volumes.)
"Come on man! This is a joke! He's my son and he's a great buddy. I mean yeah he was drummed out of the Naval Reserve because
of his cocaine habit, but come on man, you know, everybody does it! Just ask my good friend Barack, he's a clean, good looking
darkie whose done his share of blow. And yeah Hunter fucked his dead brother's widow, but come on man! Have you seen her ****
and ***. I might have made a move on her myself, but hey man I'm married."
Joe Biden, From the endless Fear and Mongering Presidential campaign of 2020.
IRS/SEC/FBI are not investigatory agencies. They are barrier agencies. They protect the anointed, letting them do as they wish,
and stomp on anyone else who tries to get in on the gravy train.
Sociopaths are the reason all governments, regardless of the particular 'ism', eventually fail...
Looking at human history, fascism is the most common form of government for humans. At least it is the most honest - that the
sociopaths are ******* everyone else.... These days we try to hide it by lofty idealism that is incompatible with a predator/prey
real world.....
Representative democracy, socialism and communism all fail and all fail for the same reason - sociopaths...
We should be honest with ourselves that there is a small, but statistically significant percentage of the human population
that are sociopaths (and more are being born every generation). We can call them predators and we are the prey...any concentration
of power attracts sociopaths regardless of the fancy label we put on the political system. Within a short time the system is inundated
with sociopaths who invariably game the system to death for their own individual benefit....
Don't like the reality in which you find yourself? Stop voting for sociopaths, stop giving them power...
What political party or system even acknowledge the sociopath problem? That's right, none...so don't expect anything to change
after the reset...the pleubs will chose a new sociopath for their leader, who will **** them, and things will go on as they always
have...
Only way to combat this is to decentralize power as much as possible...this doesn't solve the sociopath problem, but it does
spread them out and keeps them from ganging up together to **** over the peasants...but I won't hold my breath....
Is this a good time to take a look at 1) Front Men 2) Front Companies 3) Shell Companies 4) Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV/SPE)
5) Offshore Accounts, Offshore Donations, Offshore Campaign or PAC or Party Contributions, Paradise Papers, Panama Papers 6) USA
as Tax Haven for foreign accounts 7) USA as an Empire 8) The Rise Of The Fourth Reich notes in book by Jim Marrs
"... Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington. ..."
"... Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts. ..."
"... This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration? ..."
"... Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member. ..."
"... At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions. ..."
Trump was after a good deal from Russia. A new partnership would have reversed deteriorating relations between the powers by encouraging
their alliance against ISIS and recognising the importance of Ukraine to Russia's security. Current US paranoia about everything
Kremlin-related has encouraged amnesia about what President Barack Obama said in 2016, after the annexation of the Crimea and Russia's
direct intervention in Syria. He too put the danger posed by President Vladimir Putin into perspective: the interventions in Ukraine
and the Middle East were, Obama said, improvised 'in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp' (
5 ).
Obama went on: 'The Russians can't change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country,
their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms.' What he feared most about Putin was
the sympathy he inspired in Trump and his supporters: '37% of Republican voters approve of Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald
Reagan would roll over in his grave' ( 6 ).
By January 2017, Reagan's eternal rest was no longer threatened. 'Presidents come and go but the policy never changes,' Putin
concluded ( 7 ). Historians will study
this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any
entente between Moscow and Washington.
Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump
and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe
an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails
fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' (
8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts.
The media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, eagerly sought a new Watergate scandal and knew their
middle-class, urban, educated readers loathe Trump for his vulgarity, affection for the far right, violence and lack of culture (
9 ). So they were searching for any information
or rumour that could cause his removal or force a resignation. As in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, everyone
had his particular motive for striking the same victim.
The intrigue developed quickly as these four areas have fairly porous boundaries. The understanding between Republican hawks such
as John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the military-industrial complex was a given. The architects
of recent US imperial adventures, especially Iraq, had not enjoyed the 2016 campaign or Trump's jibes about their expertise. During
the campaign, some 50 intellectuals and officials announced that, despite being Republicans, they would not support Trump because
he 'would put at risk our country's national security and wellbeing.' Some went so far as to vote for Clinton (
10 ).
Ambitions of a 'deep state'?
The press feared that Trump's incompetence would threaten the US-dominated international order. It had no problem with military
crusades, especially when emblazoned with grand humanitarian, internationalist or progressive principles. According to the press
criteria, Putin and his predilection for rightwing nationalists were obvious culprits. But so were Saudi Arabia or Israel, though
that did not prevent the Saudis being able to count on the ferociously anti-Russian Wall Street Journal, or Israel enjoying
the support of almost all US media, despite having a far-right element in its government.
Just over a week before Trump took office, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden story that revealed the mass
surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency, warned of the direction of travel. He observed that the US media had
become the intelligence services' 'most valuable instrument, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with
hidden intelligence officials.' This at a time when 'Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as
well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing
-- eager -- to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging
those behaviours might be' ( 11 ).
The anti-Russian coalition hadn't then achieved all its objectives, but Greenwald already discerned the ambitions of a 'deep state'.
'There really is, at this point,' he said 'obvious open warfare between this unelected but very powerful faction that resides in
Washington and sees presidents come and go, on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be the president
on the other.' One suspicion, fed by the intelligence services, galvanised all Trump's enemies: Moscow had compromising secrets about
Trump -- financial, electoral, sexual -- capable of paralysing him should a crisis between the two countries occur (
12 ).
Covert opposition to Trump
The suspicion of such a murky understanding, summed up by the pro-Clinton economist Paul Krugman as a 'Trump-Putin ticket', has
transformed the anti-Russian activity into a domestic political weapon against a president increasingly hated outside the ultraconservative
bloc. It is no longer unusual to hear leftwing activists turn FBI or CIA apologists, since these agencies became a home for a covert
opposition to Trump and the source of many leaks.
This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses
the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia.
Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no
one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but
by the Obama administration?
The silence was once broken when the Republican representative for North Carolina, Tom Tillis, questioned former CIA director
James Clapper in January: 'The United States has been involved in one way or another in 81 different elections since World War II.
That doesn't include coups or the regime changes, some tangible evidence where we have tried to affect an outcome to our purpose.
Russia has done it some 36 times.' This perspective rarely disturbs the New York Times 's fulminations against Moscow's trickery.
The Times also failed to inform younger readers that Russia's president Boris Yeltsin, who picked Putin as his successor
in 1999, had been re-elected in 1996, though seriously ill and often drunk, in a fraudulent election conducted with the assistance
of US advisers and the overt support of President Bill Clinton. The Times hailed the result as 'a victory for Russian democracy'
and declared that 'the forces of democracy and reform won a vital but not definitive victory in Russia yesterday For the first time
in history, a free Russia has freely chosen its leader.'
Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining
resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President
Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute
to Montenegro, NATO's newest member.
No longer getting his way
But the Times, far from worrying about these provocative gestures coinciding with heightened tensions between great powers
(trade sanctions against Russia, Moscow's expulsion of US diplomats), poured oil on the fire. On 2 August it praised the reaffirmation
of 'America's commitment to defend democratic nations against those countries that would undermine them' and regretted that Mike
Pence's views 'aren't as eagerly embraced and celebrated by the man he works for back in the White House.'
At this stage, it doesn't
matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own
conclusions.
Neoliberal corruption in full display. As we see forms of nepotism evolve with time...
Notable quotes:
"... Two years of investigations by journalist Peter Schweizer has revealed that Joe Biden may now have a serious China problem. And just like his Ukraine scandal , it involves actions which helped his son Hunter, who was making hand over fist in both countries. ..."
"... Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now Secret Empires discovered that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5 billion, according to an article by Schweizer's in the New York Post . ..."
"... Hunter Biden and his partners created several LLCs involved in multibillion-dollar private equity deals with Chinese government-owned entities. ..."
"... Perhaps most damning in terms of timing and optics, just twelve days after Hunter and Joe Biden flew on Air Force Two to Beijing, Hunter's company signed a "historic deal with the Bank of China ," described by Schweizer as "the state-owned financial behemoth often used as a tool of the Chinese government." To accommodate the deal, the Bank of China created a unique type of investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). According to BHR, Rosemont Seneca Partners is a founding partner ..."
"... It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers . ..."
"... It doesn't stop there. While Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs. ..."
"... The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75 percent stake in the company. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont. ..."
"... "We see great opportunities to continue acquiring high-quality real estate in the US market," said one company executive, who added: "The possibilities for this venture are tremendous." ..."
"... Then, in 2015, BHR partnered with a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) in order to purchase American precision-parts maker Henniges - a transaction which required approval from the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the same rubber-stamp committee that approved the Uranium One deal. ..."
"... The vice president was bringing with him highly welcomed terms of a United States Agency for International Development program to assist the Ukrainian natural-gas industry and promises of more US financial assistance and loans. Soon the United States and the International Monetary Fund would be pumping more than $1 billion into the Ukrainian economy. ..."
"... The next day, there was a public announcement that Archer had been asked to join the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas company. Three weeks after that, on May 13, it was announced that Hunter Biden would join, too. Neither Biden nor Archer had any background or experience in the energy sector. - New York Post ..."
"... Then Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro Poroshenko fired his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... Biden bragged about the threat last year, telling an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations: "I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko. ..."
"... As we head into the 2020 elections, it will be interesting to see how Joe Biden dances around his son's lucrative - and very potentially daddy-assisted deals around the world. ..."
Two years of investigations by journalist Peter Schweizer has revealed that Joe Biden may now have a serious China problem.
And just like his
Ukraine scandal
, it involves actions which helped his son Hunter, who was making hand over fist in both countries.
Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash and now
Secret Empires discovered
that in 2013, then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter flew together to China on Air Force Two - and two weeks later, Hunter's
firm inked a private equity deal for $1 billion with a subsidiary of the Chinese government's Bank of China , which expanded to $1.5
billion, according to an article by Schweizer's in the
New York Post .
" If it sounds shocking that a vice president would shape US-China policy as his son -- who has scant experience in private
equity -- clinched a coveted billion-dollar deal with an arm of the Chinese government, that's because it is " -
Peter Schweizer
Perhaps this is why Joe Biden - now on the 2020 campaign trail - said last week that China wasn't a threat.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took a shot at Biden's comment during a speech at the Claremont Institute's 40th anniversary gala,
saying "Look how both parties now are on guard against the threat that China presents to America -- maybe except Joe Biden."
Back to Hunter...
Schweizer connects the dots, writing that "without the aid of subpoena power, here's what we know :"
Hunter Biden and his partners created several LLCs involved in multibillion-dollar private equity deals with Chinese government-owned
entities.
The primary operation was Rosemont Seneca Partners - an investment firm founded in 2009 and controlled by Hunter Biden, John
Kerry's stepson Chris Heinz, and Heniz's longtime associate Devon Archer. The trio began making deals "through a series of overlapping
entities" under Rosemont.
In less than a year, Hunter Biden and Archer met with top Chinese officials in China , and partnered with the Thornton Group
- a Massachusetts-based consultancy headed by James Bulger - son of famed mob hitman James "Whitey" Bulger.
According to the Thornton Group's Chinese-language website, Chinese executives "extended their warm welcome" to the "Thornton
Group, with its US partner Rosemont Seneca chairman Hunter Biden (second son of the now Vice President Joe Biden."
Officially, the China meets were to "explore the possibility of commercial cooperation and opportunity," however details of
the meeting were not published to the English-language version of the website.
"The timing of this meeting was also notable. It occurred just hours before Hunter Biden's father, the vice president, met
with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington as part of the Nuclear Security Summit ," according to Schweizer.
Perhaps most damning in terms of timing and optics, just twelve days after Hunter and Joe Biden flew on Air Force Two
to Beijing, Hunter's company signed a "historic deal with the Bank of China ," described by Schweizer as "the state-owned financial
behemoth often used as a tool of the Chinese government." To accommodate the deal, the Bank of China created a unique type of
investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). According to BHR, Rosemont Seneca Partners is a founding partner .
It was an unprecedented arrangement: the government of one of America's fiercest competitors going into business with the
son of one of America's most powerful decisionmakers .
Chris Heinz claims neither he nor Rosemont Seneca Partners, the firm he had part ownership of, had any role in the deal with
Bohai Harvest. Nonetheless, Biden, Archer and the Rosemont name became increasingly involved with China.
Archer became the vice chairman of Bohai Harvest, helping oversee some of the fund's investments. -
New York Post
National Security implications
As Schweizer also notes, BHR became an "anchor investor" in the IPO of China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN) in December 2014.
The state-owned energy company is involved with the construction of nuclear reactors.
In April 2016, CGN was charged by the US Justice Department with stealing nuclear secrets from the United States , which prosecutors
warned could cause "significant damage to our national security." CNG was interested in sensitive, American-made nuclear components
that resembled those used on US nuclear submarines, according to experts.
More China dealings
It doesn't stop there. While Hunter Biden had "no experience in China, and little in private equity," the Chinese government
for some reason thought it would be a great idea to give his firm business opportunities instead of established global banks such
as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs.
Also in December 2014, a Chinese state-backed conglomerate called Gemini Investments Limited was negotiating and sealing deals
with Hunter Biden's Rosemont on several fronts. That month, it made a $34 million investment into a fund managed by Rosemont.
The following August, Rosemont Realty, another sister company of Rosemont Seneca, announced that Gemini Investments was
buying a 75 percent stake in the company. The terms of the deal included a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese, who were eager
to purchase new US properties. Shortly after the sale, Rosemont Realty was rechristened Gemini Rosemont.
"Rosemont, with its comprehensive real-estate platform and superior performance history, was precisely the investment opportunity
Gemini Investments was looking for in order to invest in the US real estate market," said Li Ming, chairman of Sino-Ocean Land Holdings
Limited and Gemini Investments. "We look forward to a strong and successful partnership."
That partnership planned to use Chinese money to scoop up US properties.
"We see great opportunities to continue acquiring high-quality real estate in the US market," said one company executive,
who added: "The possibilities for this venture are tremendous."
Then, in 2015, BHR partnered with a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation contractor Aviation Industry Corporation
of China (AVIC) in order to purchase American precision-parts maker Henniges - a transaction which required approval from the Committee
of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the same rubber-stamp committee that approved the Uranium One deal.
Tying it back to Ukraine
While we have previously reported on the Bidens' adventures in Ukraine, Schweizer connects the dots rather well here ...
Consider the facts. On April 16, 2014, White House records show that Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner in the Rosemont
Seneca deals, made a private visit to the White House for a meeting with Vice President Biden. Five days later, on April 21, Joe
Biden landed in Kiev for a series of high-level meetings with Ukrainian officials . The vice president was bringing with him
highly welcomed terms of a United States Agency for International Development program to assist the Ukrainian natural-gas industry
and promises of more US financial assistance and loans. Soon the United States and the International Monetary Fund would be pumping
more than $1 billion into the Ukrainian economy.
The next day, there was a public announcement that Archer had been asked to join the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas
company. Three weeks after that, on May 13, it was announced that Hunter Biden would join, too. Neither Biden nor Archer had any
background or experience in the energy sector. -
New York Post
Hunter was paid as much as $50,000 per month while Burisma was under investigation by officials in both Ukraine and elsewhere.
Then Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees to Ukraine unless President Petro Poroshenko fired
his head prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin, who was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into natural gas firm Burisma
Holdings.
Biden bragged about the threat last year, telling an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations: "I said, ' You're not getting
the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours.
If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko.
" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."
Joe Biden says that he had no idea Hunter was on the board of Burisma (for two years after he joined), and that the two never
spoke about the Burisma investigation. The former VP claims that Shokin's removal was required due to his mishandling of several
cases in Ukraine.
As we head into the 2020 elections, it will be interesting to see how Joe Biden dances around his son's lucrative - and very
potentially daddy-assisted deals around the world.
Biden is another scumbag Democrat Lawyer who's the original 'pay for play' politician...A 40+ year history in Political Office
with Zero accomplishments except enriching himself and his family...A complete fraud and hypocrite liar.....Lawyers should have
never been allowed to run for Office at any level.....Look at all the corruption that has been and is being exposed at the different
bureaucracies...Virtually all the corruption has been willfully committed by Lawyers....Pathetic....
Interesting.... I put: "The Steele Dossier has so many British agents involved it sounds like a British failed coup to overthrow
an elected President because he stands in " the way of "profiting goals of " international goals" of global monopoly run by unelected
councils and retired instigators as facilitators of discord.
But came out:The Steele Dossier has so many British agents involved it sounds like a British failed coup to overthrow an elected
President because he stands in the profiting goals of " international goals" of global monopoly run by unelected councils and
retired instigators as facilitators of discord.
To make it sound as if it is Trump profiting.... By no means is that true... Its the " long term" Washington officals that
have been profiting. Not a possible 8 year President.
My phone also wont let me thumbs up people i would like to but only a few and also replying is " verboten".
These algorhythms and blocks and censorship is an abuse of constitutional rights which is bad enough, but even worse is that
these rights got monopolized by various corporations who bought stock in facebook/ googles options that was stolen from Leader
technologies source code ( which Mark zukerberg couldnt write on a good day... He is a front guy and again we have British privy
council involed with Clegg head of facebook now voice for Mark... Because Mark is a cut out).
This whole social media internet thing has been hijacked and weaponized by Washingtons same people as Dossier scandel... James
Chandeler attorney and backstaber of Leader technology.
See leader technology vs facebook..... But i digress.
Michael T. McKibben's career spans two phases: international Christian music ministry, and technology innovation. In 2006,
he was awarded U.S. Patent No. 7,139,761 for what is now called "social networking."
Biden & Kerry aren't the only ones with a China problem. "Secret Empires" also listed Mitch McConnell having a huge China problem
through his wife's shipping company. I bet he doesn't run for re-election. Winning.
they all own one another - that's the essence of the problem in politics. and why they have tried so hard to get that outsider,
trump, out of the country club.
China funded Bill Clinton's election campaigns through James Riady, an Indonesian Chinese man involved in hard drug smuggling
and arms trafficking. The money was laundered through Little Rock banks and corporations. (See Victor Thorn's Hillary and Bill
, all three volumes.)
"Come on man! This is a joke! He's my son and he's a great buddy. I mean yeah he was drummed out of the Naval Reserve because
of his cocaine habit, but come on man, you know, everybody does it! Just ask my good friend Barack, he's a clean, good looking
darkie whose done his share of blow. And yeah Hunter fucked his dead brother's widow, but come on man! Have you seen her ****
and ***. I might have made a move on her myself, but hey man I'm married."
Joe Biden, From the endless Fear and Mongering Presidential campaign of 2020.
IRS/SEC/FBI are not investigatory agencies. They are barrier agencies. They protect the anointed, letting them do as they wish,
and stomp on anyone else who tries to get in on the gravy train.
Sociopaths are the reason all governments, regardless of the particular 'ism', eventually fail...
Looking at human history, fascism is the most common form of government for humans. At least it is the most honest - that the
sociopaths are ******* everyone else.... These days we try to hide it by lofty idealism that is incompatible with a predator/prey
real world.....
Representative democracy, socialism and communism all fail and all fail for the same reason - sociopaths...
We should be honest with ourselves that there is a small, but statistically significant percentage of the human population
that are sociopaths (and more are being born every generation). We can call them predators and we are the prey...any concentration
of power attracts sociopaths regardless of the fancy label we put on the political system. Within a short time the system is inundated
with sociopaths who invariably game the system to death for their own individual benefit....
Don't like the reality in which you find yourself? Stop voting for sociopaths, stop giving them power...
What political party or system even acknowledge the sociopath problem? That's right, none...so don't expect anything to change
after the reset...the pleubs will chose a new sociopath for their leader, who will **** them, and things will go on as they always
have...
Only way to combat this is to decentralize power as much as possible...this doesn't solve the sociopath problem, but it does
spread them out and keeps them from ganging up together to **** over the peasants...but I won't hold my breath....
Is this a good time to take a look at 1) Front Men 2) Front Companies 3) Shell Companies 4) Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV/SPE)
5) Offshore Accounts, Offshore Donations, Offshore Campaign or PAC or Party Contributions, Paradise Papers, Panama Papers 6) USA
as Tax Haven for foreign accounts 7) USA as an Empire 8) The Rise Of The Fourth Reich notes in book by Jim Marrs
@FB Yeah brother that
POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to
anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced
to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.
Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.
@SeekerofthePresence
Thank you your comment is very much appreciated. But I'm definitely not a spokesman for moral truth, just the truth. I just watch
in amazement from Mexico at what the US government has become. A den of the most vile people ever assembled in the world far worse
than the people that demanded the crucification of Jesus Christ. We just went through a serious political conversion, but the
people had to hit the streets for it to succeed. I just don't think the American people feel they are in a do or die situation,
and they couldn't more wrong.
U.S. Foreign Policy used to have only two instruments in
dealing with rest of the world, namely carrots and sticks. Since the fall of Soviet Union and
certainly after 9/11, only sticks remain. Now the World including the so-called allies are
getting tired of the threats and start ignoring the Empire, hence the diminishing
effectiveness, paving the way for polymorphic World. This transition is fraught with dangers as
pointed out by the Author.
Lovely post by Ret. Col. Douglas Macgregor on the end of empire:
"John Bolton is the problem"
"Trump's national security adviser is getting dangerous particularly to the president's
ideals"
Douglas Macgregor https://spectator.us/john-bolton-problem/
Could also be titled, "How to Exhaust an Empire."
Sun Tzu warned of the same demise in the "Art of War."
Didn't they used to teach that book at West Point?
@El Dato
And also the 90 minute Trump-Putin phone call, where Venezuela was the main subject
From the way I understand Trump's comments afterward, it seems the military option is off
the table the two presidents agreed that humanitarian aid is the priority
This is great news I have to give Trump credit here Justin Raimondo presciently opined a
week ago that Trump may have been giving the 'walrus' just enough rope on Venezuela to hang
himself
I have to wonder what Vlad whispered in carrot top's ear
When we take a close look at the American Government and it's elected officials, we can only
come to one conclusion. The US is a thriving criminal enterprise that uses force to get what
they want. The military's role is that of enforcers and the US President is no different than
a Mafia Don. In no other time in US history has Government and Organized Criminal Gangs been
so indistinguishable. George H.W. Bush with his New World Order announcements, his CIA drug
dealing operations and military invasion of Panama to steal the drug cartel's money deposited
in that county's banks, came close. Bill Clinton working with George H.W. Bush protecting
drug shipments smuggled into Mena, AK, the cover up of murdered witnesses and numerous sexual
assault allegations also came pretty close.
But when George W. Bush, Dick Chaney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld came into power,
that was a Mafia if there was ever one. That group of criminals stole more money and murdered
more people than any criminal organization in history. They even conned the American people
into believing some rag-heads in Afghanistan hiding in caves did it. It was the first time
since Pancho Villa that anyone attacked the US on its own soil. Not only did they steal all
the gold stored in bank vaults located in the Twin Towers, but they put money on the stock
market. In true gangster fashion the next move was to retaliate against the Muslim Mafia who
was fingered by Mayer Lanski (Benjamin Nuttenyahoo) and their own paid snitches (MSM). It was
time to hit mattresses and send their enforcers to get payback so the Purple Gang (Israel)
can take over their territory.
There is a big difference between the US Government and the Mafia when it comes to war,
the Mafia adheres to a strict code of ethics, they do not target their enemies families.
In 2016 the American people elected a true gangster from New York city. A known con man, a
swindler, a tax evader and known associate of the criminal underground. A man with numerous
court cases and 23 accusations of sexual assault. A man who was screwing a porn star while
his wife was given birth. A man who's mentor was Roy Cohen a mob attorney and practicing
homosexual who died of AIDS. A man that surrounded himself with the most perverted group of
people in New York such as: Roger Stone a well known swinger and gay pride participant. Paul
Manafort a convicted criminal and swinger who attended the same clubs as Stone along with
their wives. They liked to watch their wives get screwed by other men. Lets not forget John
Bolton who was exposed by Larry Flint for also being a swinger. His ex-wife accused him of
forcing her to perform sex acts with multiple men at the same clubs the other 2 cuckolds
attended. A Russian agent once commented that the best place to find government people to
blackmail was the New York swingers scene.
Jeffery Epstein tops the list of perverted friends of Donald Trump. Epstein is the worst
kind of perverted human being. The predator pedophile that uses his money to lure young girls
into his sick world. Epstein holds the key to uncovering the nation wide pedophile ring that
include some of the most famous people in the US. This is Trump's Mafia, a Mafia not like the
Gambinos or Luchesis. A Mafia full of Perverts, Criminals, Pedophiles and Cuckolds. These are
just a few of the people in Trump's circle of friends. If these are your leaders, what does
that say about the American people!
My dad used to tell me tell me who you hang around with, and I'll tell you who you are!
Every single person in DC government is compromised! And this incompetent Mafia of Perverts
want you to believe that Madurro is a corrupt leader and Iran is a threat to the US!
Bolton power over Trump is connected to Adelson power over Trump. To think about Bolton as pure advisor is to seriously
underestimate his role and influence.
Notable quotes:
"... But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety. ..."
"... A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U. ..."
"... "Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," ..."
"... Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble. ..."
"... The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo, especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas. ..."
"... Tulsi for Sec of State 2020... ..."
"... Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner for failing to "win". ..."
"... You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the last 50 years. ..."
"... I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people and far too many details. ..."
"... Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they could matter. ..."
"... Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central to many of our poor strategic decision making. ..."
"... I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he really does not want one. ..."
"... "Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats." ..."
"... So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks ..."
"... If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee? ..."
It's time for Trump to stop John Bolton and Mike Pompeo from
sabotaging his foreign policy | Mulshine
"I put that question to another military vet, former Vietnam Green Beret Pat Lang.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," said Lang of Trump.
But Lang, who later spent more than a decade in the Mideast, noted that Bolton has no direct
control over the military.
"Bolton has a problem," he said. "If he can just get the generals to obey him, he can start
all the wars he wants. But they don't obey him."
They obey the commander-in-chief. And Trump has a history of hiring war-crazed advisors who
end up losing their jobs when they get a bit too bellicose. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
comes to mind."
" In Lang's view, anyone who sees Trump as some sort of ideologue is missing the point.
"He's an entrepreneurial businessman who hires consultants for their advice and then gets
rid of them when he doesn't want that advice," he said.
So far that advice hasn't been very helpful, at least in the case of Bolton. His big mouth
seems to have deep-sixed Trump's chance of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And
that failed coup in Venezuela has brought up comparisons to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion
during the Kennedy administration." Mulshine
--------------
Well, pilgrims, I worked exclusively on the subject of the Islamic culture continent for the
USG from 1972 to 1994 and then in business from 1994 to 2006. I suppose I am still working on
the subject. pl
I don't get it I suppose. I'd always thought that maybe you wanted highly opinionated Type A
personalities in the role of privy council, etc. You know, people who could forcefully
advocate positions in closed session meetings and weren't afraid of taking contrary
positions. But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't
stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety.
But these days it's the loudmouths who get these jobs, to our detriment. When will senior
govt. leaders understand that just because a person is a success in running for Congress
doesn't mean he/she should be sent forth to mingle with the many different personalities and
cultures running the rest of the world?
A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned
the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U.
No. I would like to see highly opinionated Type B personalities like me hold those jobs. Type
B does not mean you are passive. It means you are not obsessively competitive.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed,"
Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat
primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of
non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the
corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble.
Interesting post, thank you sir. Prior to this recent post I had never heard of Paul
Mulshine. In fact I went through some of his earlier posts on Trump's foreign policy and I
found a fair amount of common sense in them. He strikes me as a paleocon, like Pat Buchanan,
Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Scheuer, Doug Bandow, Tucker Carlson and others in that mold.
The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo,
especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly
at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec
and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for
campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss
of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas.
My best hope is that
Trump teams up with libertarians and maybe even paleocons to run his foreign policy. So far
Trump has not succeeded in draining the Swamp. Bolton, Pompeo and their respective staff
"are" indeed the Swamp creatures and they run their own policies that run against Trump's
America First policy. Any thoughts?
Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full
of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a
successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from
Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was
owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat
there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he
turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the
room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that
was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner
for failing to "win".
You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they
can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump
out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in
pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the
last 50 years.
I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to
walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people
and far too many details. I see he and his trade team not buckling to the Chinese at least not yet despite the intense
pressure from Wall St and the big corporations.
Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative
consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to
his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they
could matter.
Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to
their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart
enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central
to many of our poor strategic decision making.
Just out of curiosity: Did the deal go through in the end, despite Trump's ire? Or was
Trump so furious with the negotiating result of his Japanese partner that he tore up the
draft once it was presented to him?
I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in
using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he
really does not want one.
Mulshine's article has some good points, but he does include some hilariously ignorant bits
which undermine his credibility.
"Jose Gomez Rivera is a Jersey guy who served in the State Department in Venezuela at the
time of the coup that brought the current socialist regime to power."
Wrong. Maduro was elected and international observers seem to agree the election was
fair.
"Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American
public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of
course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats."
So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual
portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at
times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks and
shudders in its death throes underneath them, and at others it seems like they really have no
idea what to do, other than engage in juvenile antics, snort some glue from a paper bag and
set fires in the dumpsters behind the Taco Bell before going out into a darkened field
somewhere to violate farm animals.
If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to
find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee?
There were some reports quoted in Alexander Mercouris has a much rosier
view of Trump's intentions
that the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran. The Pentagon has found
its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't defend themselves, and that's not Iran.
@Endgame Napoleon Americans
probably don't understand Russia. Americans don't even mostly understand their own history. "
and they inquire why they hate us .
Don Bacon | May 11, 2019 11:56:00 AM | 23
@ ToivoS 16
the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran.
Yes, for the reasons I noted in my 4 above. The Pentagon has found its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't
defend themselves, and that's not Iran. The recent US defeats in Iraq and Syria also sent a message. So the Pentagon is now content
with aerial bombing of Afghanistan and Somalia while spending big bucks to (supposedly) contend with Russia and China, which of
course is also out of the question when it comes to execution.
The Pentagon materiel acquisition system is riddled with corruption and poor management, the army is handicapped by low recruiting,
drugs and obesity, the navy suffers from performance and maintenance problems, and the air force has been decimated by personnel
problems and by an overly zealous procurement of useless F-35 prototypes. So bombers dropping bombs on villages in poor countries
is as far as the Pentagon can go.
On May 14/2019 Pompeo is to meet Lavrov in Sochi! ..."Pompeo is scheduled to meet with Putin and Lavrov, the Russian foreign
minister, in Sochi on May 14 to “discuss the full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges.” Before that, he will meet with
officials at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow."...
A messenger boy on the errant trip overseas from his handlers. Something to tell in person, mano a mano no less.
..."“On May 13, he will arrive in Russia to meet with his team at U.S. Embassy Moscow before meeting with U.S. business leaders
and U.S. exchange alumni. Secretary Pompeo will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” State Department spokeswoman
Morgan Ortagus said."... That's rich, a nobody faces an unknown.
This was true about Iraq war. This is true about Venezuela and Syria.
Notable quotes:
"... In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books , Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. ..."
"... Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. ..."
"... Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back to 1959 . ..."
"... Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.) ..."
Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small c rappy little country and
throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.
- Michael
Ledeen , holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute
Actually, the U.S. had been beating Iraq's head against the wall for a dozen years, with
sanctions and bombing. The
sanctions alone killed over a million Iraqis, far more than have been done in by weapons of
mass destruction throughout history. But Ledeen's indiscreet remark, delivered at an AEI
conference and reported by Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online , does capture some
of what the war on Iraq is about.
And what is this "business" Ledeen says we mean? Oil, of course, of which more in a bit.
Ditto construction contracts for Bechtel. But it's more than that - nothing less than the
desire, often expressed with little shame nor euphemism, to run the world. Is there anything
new about that?
The answer is, of course, yes and no. In a rather odd article in the London Review of Books ,
Perry Anderson argued that there wasn't, and wondered aloud why the U.S. war on Iraq had
excited such unprecedented worldwide opposition - even, in all places, within the U.S. - when
earlier episodes of imperial violence hadn't. Anderson, who's edited New Left Review for years, but who has almost no
connection to actual politics attributed this strange explosion not to a popular outburst of
anti-imperialism, but to a cultural antipathy to the Bush administration.
Presumably that antipathy belongs to the realm of the " merely cultural ," and is of no great
political significance to Anderson. But it should be. U.S. culture has long been afflicted with
a brutally reactionary and self-righteous version of Christian fundamentalism, but it's never
had such influence over the state. The president thinks himself on a mission from God, the
Attorney General opens the business day with a prayer meeting, and the Pentagon's idea of a
Good Friday service is to invite Franklin Graham , who's pronounced Islam a "wicked and
evil religion," to deliver the homily, in which he promised that Jesus was returning soon. For
the hard core, the Iraq war is a sign of the end times, and the hard core
are in power.
Lots of people, in the U.S. and abroad, recognize that and are alarmed. And lots also
recognize that the Bush regime represents an intensification of imperial ambition. Though the
administration has been discreet, many of its private sector intellectuals
have been using the words "imperialism" and " empire " openly and with
glee. Not everyone of the millions who marched against the war in the months before it started
was a conscious anti-imperialist, but they all sensed the intensification, and were further
alarmed.
While itself avoiding the difficult word "empire," the Bush administration has been rather
clear about its long-term aims. According to their official national security strategy and the
documents published by the Project
for a New American Century (which served as an administration-in-waiting during the Clinton
years) their goal is to assure U.S. dominance and prevent the emergence of any rival powers.
First step in that agenda is the remaking of the Middle East - and they're quite open
about this as well. We all know the countries that are on the list; the only remaining issues
are sequence and strategy. But that's not the whole of the agenda. They're essentially
promising a permanent state of war, some overt, some covert, but one that could take
decades.
Imperial returns?
Why? The answers aren't self-evident. Certainly the war on Iraq had little to do with its
public justifications. Iraq was clearly a threat to no one, and the weapons of mass destruction
have proved elusive. The war did nothing for the fight against terrorism. Only ideologues
believe that Baghdad had anything to do with al Qaeda - and if the Bush administration were
really worried about "homeland security," it'd be funding the defense of ports, nuclear
reactors, and chemical plants rather than starting imperial wars and alienating people by the
billions. Sure, Saddam's regime was monstrous - which is one of the reasons Washington
supported it up until the invasion of Kuwait. The Ba'ath Party loved to kill Communists - as
many as 150,000 according to some estimates - and the CIA's relationship with Saddam goes back
to 1959
.
Iraq has lots of oil , and there's little doubt that that's why
it was at the first pole of the axis of evil to get hit. (Iran does too, but it's a much
tougher nut to crack - four times as big, and not weakened by war and sanctions.)
It now looks
fairly certain that the U.S. will, in some form, claim some large piece of Iraq's oil. The
details need to be worked out; clarifying the legal situation could be very complicated, given
the rampantly illegal nature of the regime change. Rebuilding Iraq's oil industry will be very
expensive and could take years. There could be some nice profits down the line for big oil
companies - billions a year - but the broader economic benefits for the U.S. aren't so clear. A
U.S.-dominated Iraq could pump heavily and undermine OPEC, but too low an oil price would wreck
the domestic U.S. oil industry, something the Bush gang presumably cares
about. Mexico would be driven into penury, which could mean another debt crisis and lots of
human traffic heading north over the Rio Grande. Lower oil prices would be a boon to most
industrial economies, but they'd give the U.S. no special advantage over its principal economic
rivals.
It's
sometimes said that U.S. dominance of the Middle East gives Washington a chokehold over oil
supplies to Europe and Japan. But how might that work? Deep production cutbacks and price
spikes would hurt everyone. Targeted sales restrictions would be the equivalent of acts of war,
and if the U.S. is willing to take that route, a blockade would be a lot more efficient. The
world oil market is gigantic and complex, and it's not clear how a tap could be turned in
Kirkuk that would shut down the gas pumps in Kyoto or Milan.
Writers like David Harvey argue
that the U.S. is trying to compensate for its eroding economic power by asserting its military
dominance. Maybe. It's certainly fascinating that Bush's unilateralism has to be financed by
gobs of foreign money - and he gets his tax cuts, he'll have to order up even bigger gobs. But
it's hard to see what rival threatens the U.S. economically; neither the EU nor Japan is
thriving. Nor is there any evidence that the Bush administration is thinking seriously about
economic policy, domestic or international, or even thinking at all. The economic staff is
mostly dim and marginal. What really seems to excite this gang of supposed conservatives is the
exercise of raw state power.
Jealous rivals
And while the Bushies want to prevent the emergence of imperial rivals , they may only be encouraging that. Sure, the EU
is badly divided within itself; it has a hard enough time picking a top central banker , let alone deciding on a common
foreign policy. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is already semi-apologizing to Bush for
his intemperate language in criticizing the war - not that Bush has started taking his calls.
But over the longer term, some kind of political unification is Europe's only hope for acting
like a remotely credible world power. It's tempting to read French and German objections to the
Iraq war as emerging not from principle, but from the wounded narcissism of former imperial
powers rendered marginal by American might. Separately, they'll surely hang. But a politically
united Europe could, with time, come to challenge U.S. power, just as the euro is beginning to look like a credible rival to the dollar.
(Speaking of the euro, there's a theory circulating on the net that the U.S. went to war
because Iraq wanted to price its oil in euros, not dollars. That's grossly overheated
speculation. More on this and related issues when LBO begins an investigation of the
political economy of oil in the next issue.)
An even more interesting rivalry scenario would involve an alliance of the EU and Russia.
Russia is no longer the wreck it was for most of the 1990s. The economy has been growing and
the mildly authoritarian Putin has imposed political stability. Russia, which has substantial
oil interests in Iraq that are threatened by U.S. control, strongly opposed the war, and at
least factions within the Russian intelligence agency were reportedly feeding information
unfriendly to the U.S. to the website Iraqwar.ru . There's a lot recommending an EU-Russia
alliance; Europe could supply technology and finance, and Russia could supply energy, and
together they could constitute at least an embryonic counterweight to U.S. power.
So the U.S. may not get out of Iraq what the Bush administration is hoping for. It certainly
can't want democracy in Iraq or the rest of the region, since free votes could well lead to
nationalist and Islamist governments who don't view ExxonMobil as the divine agent that Bush seems to. A
New York Times piece celebrated the outbreak of democracy in Basra, while conceding that
the mayor is a former Iraqi admiral appointed by the British. The lead writers of the new
constitution are likely to be American law professors; Iraqis, of course, aren't up to the task
themselves.
Certainly the appointment of Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner (Ret.) - one of the
few superannuated brass not to have enjoyed a consulting contract with a major TV network - to
be the top civilian official guiding the postwar reconstruction of Iraq speaks volumes. A
retired general is barely a civilian, and Garner's most recent job was as president of
SY Technology , a military
contractor that worked with Israeli security in developing the Arrow antimissile system. He
loves antimissile systems; after the first Gulf War, he enthused about the Patriot's
performance with claims that turned out to be nonsense. He's on record as having praised
Israel's handling of the intifada. If that's his model of how to handle restive subject
populations, there's lots of trouble ahead.
lightness
In the early days of the war, when things weren't going so well for the "coalition,"
it was said that the force was too light. But after the sandstorm cleared and the snipers
were mowed down, that alleged lightness became a widely praised virtue. But that force
was light only by American standards: 300,000 troops; an endless rain of Tomahawks,
JDAMs, and MOABs; thousands of vehicles, from Humvees to Abrams tanks; hundreds of
aircraft, from Apaches to B-1s; several flotillas of naval support - and enormous
quantities of expensive petroleum products. It takes five gallons of fuel just to start
an Abrams tank, and after that it gets a mile per gallon. And filling one up is no
bargain. Though the military buys fuel at a wholesale price of 84¢ a gallon, after
all the expenses of getting it to the front lines are added in, the final cost is about
$150 a gallon. That's a steal compared to Afghanistan, where fuel is helicoptered in,
pushing the cost to $600/gallon. Rummy's "lightness" is of the sort that only a $10
trillion economy can afford.
The Bush gang doesn't even try to keep up appearances, handing out contracts for Iraq's
reconstruction to U.S. firms even before the shooting stopped, and guarding only the oil and
interior ministries against looters. If Washington gets its way, Iraq will be rebuilt according
to the fondest dreams of the Heritage Foundation staff, with the educational system reworked by
an American contractor, the TV programmed by the Pentagon, the ports run by a rabidly antiunion
firm, the police run by the Texas-based military contractor Dyncorp , and the oil taken out of
state hands and appropriately privatized.
That's the way they'd like it to be. But the sailing may not be so smooth. It looks like
Iraqis are viewing the Americans as occupiers, not liberators. It's going to be hard enough to
remake Iraq that taking on Syria or Iran may be a bit premature. But that doesn't mean they
won't try. It's a cliché of trade negotiations that liberalization is like riding a
bicycle - you have to keep riding forward or else you'll fall over. The same could be said of
an imperial agenda: if you want to remake the world, or a big chunk of it, there's little time
to pause and catch your breath, since doubt or opposition could gain the upper hand. Which
makes stoking that opposition more
urgent than ever.
Losing it all
There's a feeling around that Bush is now politically invulnerable . Certainly the atmosphere
is one of almost coercive patriotism. That mood was nicely illustrated by an incident in
Houston in mid-March. A teenager attending a rodeo failed to stand along with the rest of the
crowd during a playing of Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American," a dreadful country song
that has become a kind of private-sector national anthem for the yahoo demographic, thanks to
its truculent unthinking jingoism. A patriot standing behind the defiantly seated teen started
taunting him, tugging on his ear as an additional provocation. The two ended up in a fight, and
then under arrest.
There's a lot of that going around, for sure. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins get disinvited
from events, websites nominate
traitors for trial by military tribunal, and talk radio hosts organize CD-smashings. But things
aren't hopeless. A close analysis of Greenwood's text might suggest why. The song's core
argument is contained in its two most famous lines: "I'm proud to be an American/where at least
I know I'm free." But the oft-overlooked opening reads: "If tomorrow all the things were
gone/I'd worked for all my life," the singer would still be a grateful patriot. That's
precisely the condition lots of Americans find themselves in. More than two million jobs have
disappeared in the last two years. Millions of Americans have seen their retirement savings
wiped out by the bear market, and over a million filed for bankruptcy last year. Most states and
cities are experiencing their worst fiscal crises since the 1930s, with massive service cuts
and layoffs imminent. In the song, such loss doesn't matter, but reality is often less
accommodating than a song.
As the nearby graphs show, W's ratings are much lower than his father's at the end of Gulf
War I, and his disapproval ratings much higher. Their theocratic and repressive agenda is
deeply unpopular with large parts of the U.S. population. Spending scores of billions on
destroying and rebuilding Iraq while at home health clinics are closing and teachers working
without pay is potentially incendiary. Foreign adventures have never been popular with the
American public (much to the distress of the ruling elite). An peace movement that could draw
the links among warmongering, austerity, and repression has great political potential. Just a
month or two ago, hundreds of thousands were marching in American streets to protest the
imminent war. Though that movement now looks a bit dispirited and demobilized, it's unlikely
that that kind of energy will just disappear into the ether.
Bolton power over Trump is connected to Adelson power over Trump. To think about Bolton as pure advisor is to seriously
underestimate his role and influence.
Notable quotes:
"... But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety. ..."
"... A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U. ..."
"... "Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," ..."
"... Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble. ..."
"... The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo, especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas. ..."
"... Tulsi for Sec of State 2020... ..."
"... Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner for failing to "win". ..."
"... You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the last 50 years. ..."
"... I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people and far too many details. ..."
"... Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they could matter. ..."
"... Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central to many of our poor strategic decision making. ..."
"... I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he really does not want one. ..."
"... "Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats." ..."
"... So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks ..."
"... If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee? ..."
It's time for Trump to stop John Bolton and Mike Pompeo from
sabotaging his foreign policy | Mulshine
"I put that question to another military vet, former Vietnam Green Beret Pat Lang.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," said Lang of Trump.
But Lang, who later spent more than a decade in the Mideast, noted that Bolton has no direct
control over the military.
"Bolton has a problem," he said. "If he can just get the generals to obey him, he can start
all the wars he wants. But they don't obey him."
They obey the commander-in-chief. And Trump has a history of hiring war-crazed advisors who
end up losing their jobs when they get a bit too bellicose. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
comes to mind."
" In Lang's view, anyone who sees Trump as some sort of ideologue is missing the point.
"He's an entrepreneurial businessman who hires consultants for their advice and then gets
rid of them when he doesn't want that advice," he said.
So far that advice hasn't been very helpful, at least in the case of Bolton. His big mouth
seems to have deep-sixed Trump's chance of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And
that failed coup in Venezuela has brought up comparisons to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion
during the Kennedy administration." Mulshine
--------------
Well, pilgrims, I worked exclusively on the subject of the Islamic culture continent for the
USG from 1972 to 1994 and then in business from 1994 to 2006. I suppose I am still working on
the subject. pl
I don't get it I suppose. I'd always thought that maybe you wanted highly opinionated Type A
personalities in the role of privy council, etc. You know, people who could forcefully
advocate positions in closed session meetings and weren't afraid of taking contrary
positions. But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't
stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety.
But these days it's the loudmouths who get these jobs, to our detriment. When will senior
govt. leaders understand that just because a person is a success in running for Congress
doesn't mean he/she should be sent forth to mingle with the many different personalities and
cultures running the rest of the world?
A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned
the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U.
No. I would like to see highly opinionated Type B personalities like me hold those jobs. Type
B does not mean you are passive. It means you are not obsessively competitive.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed,"
Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat
primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of
non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the
corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble.
Interesting post, thank you sir. Prior to this recent post I had never heard of Paul
Mulshine. In fact I went through some of his earlier posts on Trump's foreign policy and I
found a fair amount of common sense in them. He strikes me as a paleocon, like Pat Buchanan,
Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Scheuer, Doug Bandow, Tucker Carlson and others in that mold.
The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo,
especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly
at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec
and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for
campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss
of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas.
My best hope is that
Trump teams up with libertarians and maybe even paleocons to run his foreign policy. So far
Trump has not succeeded in draining the Swamp. Bolton, Pompeo and their respective staff
"are" indeed the Swamp creatures and they run their own policies that run against Trump's
America First policy. Any thoughts?
Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full
of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a
successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from
Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was
owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat
there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he
turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the
room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that
was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner
for failing to "win".
You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they
can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump
out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in
pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the
last 50 years.
I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to
walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people
and far too many details. I see he and his trade team not buckling to the Chinese at least not yet despite the intense
pressure from Wall St and the big corporations.
Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative
consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to
his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they
could matter.
Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to
their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart
enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central
to many of our poor strategic decision making.
Just out of curiosity: Did the deal go through in the end, despite Trump's ire? Or was
Trump so furious with the negotiating result of his Japanese partner that he tore up the
draft once it was presented to him?
I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in
using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he
really does not want one.
Mulshine's article has some good points, but he does include some hilariously ignorant bits
which undermine his credibility.
"Jose Gomez Rivera is a Jersey guy who served in the State Department in Venezuela at the
time of the coup that brought the current socialist regime to power."
Wrong. Maduro was elected and international observers seem to agree the election was
fair.
"Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American
public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of
course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats."
So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual
portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at
times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks and
shudders in its death throes underneath them, and at others it seems like they really have no
idea what to do, other than engage in juvenile antics, snort some glue from a paper bag and
set fires in the dumpsters behind the Taco Bell before going out into a darkened field
somewhere to violate farm animals.
If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to
find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee?
"... Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington. ..."
"... Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts. ..."
"... This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration? ..."
"... Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member. ..."
"... At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions. ..."
Trump was after a good deal from Russia. A new partnership would have reversed deteriorating relations between the powers by encouraging
their alliance against ISIS and recognising the importance of Ukraine to Russia's security. Current US paranoia about everything
Kremlin-related has encouraged amnesia about what President Barack Obama said in 2016, after the annexation of the Crimea and Russia's
direct intervention in Syria. He too put the danger posed by President Vladimir Putin into perspective: the interventions in Ukraine
and the Middle East were, Obama said, improvised 'in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp' (
5 ).
Obama went on: 'The Russians can't change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country,
their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms.' What he feared most about Putin was
the sympathy he inspired in Trump and his supporters: '37% of Republican voters approve of Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald
Reagan would roll over in his grave' ( 6 ).
By January 2017, Reagan's eternal rest was no longer threatened. 'Presidents come and go but the policy never changes,' Putin
concluded ( 7 ). Historians will study
this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any
entente between Moscow and Washington.
Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump
and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe
an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails
fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' (
8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts.
The media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, eagerly sought a new Watergate scandal and knew their
middle-class, urban, educated readers loathe Trump for his vulgarity, affection for the far right, violence and lack of culture (
9 ). So they were searching for any information
or rumour that could cause his removal or force a resignation. As in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, everyone
had his particular motive for striking the same victim.
The intrigue developed quickly as these four areas have fairly porous boundaries. The understanding between Republican hawks such
as John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the military-industrial complex was a given. The architects
of recent US imperial adventures, especially Iraq, had not enjoyed the 2016 campaign or Trump's jibes about their expertise. During
the campaign, some 50 intellectuals and officials announced that, despite being Republicans, they would not support Trump because
he 'would put at risk our country's national security and wellbeing.' Some went so far as to vote for Clinton (
10 ).
Ambitions of a 'deep state'?
The press feared that Trump's incompetence would threaten the US-dominated international order. It had no problem with military
crusades, especially when emblazoned with grand humanitarian, internationalist or progressive principles. According to the press
criteria, Putin and his predilection for rightwing nationalists were obvious culprits. But so were Saudi Arabia or Israel, though
that did not prevent the Saudis being able to count on the ferociously anti-Russian Wall Street Journal, or Israel enjoying
the support of almost all US media, despite having a far-right element in its government.
Just over a week before Trump took office, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden story that revealed the mass
surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency, warned of the direction of travel. He observed that the US media had
become the intelligence services' 'most valuable instrument, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with
hidden intelligence officials.' This at a time when 'Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as
well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing
-- eager -- to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging
those behaviours might be' ( 11 ).
The anti-Russian coalition hadn't then achieved all its objectives, but Greenwald already discerned the ambitions of a 'deep state'.
'There really is, at this point,' he said 'obvious open warfare between this unelected but very powerful faction that resides in
Washington and sees presidents come and go, on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be the president
on the other.' One suspicion, fed by the intelligence services, galvanised all Trump's enemies: Moscow had compromising secrets about
Trump -- financial, electoral, sexual -- capable of paralysing him should a crisis between the two countries occur (
12 ).
Covert opposition to Trump
The suspicion of such a murky understanding, summed up by the pro-Clinton economist Paul Krugman as a 'Trump-Putin ticket', has
transformed the anti-Russian activity into a domestic political weapon against a president increasingly hated outside the ultraconservative
bloc. It is no longer unusual to hear leftwing activists turn FBI or CIA apologists, since these agencies became a home for a covert
opposition to Trump and the source of many leaks.
This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses
the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia.
Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no
one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but
by the Obama administration?
The silence was once broken when the Republican representative for North Carolina, Tom Tillis, questioned former CIA director
James Clapper in January: 'The United States has been involved in one way or another in 81 different elections since World War II.
That doesn't include coups or the regime changes, some tangible evidence where we have tried to affect an outcome to our purpose.
Russia has done it some 36 times.' This perspective rarely disturbs the New York Times 's fulminations against Moscow's trickery.
The Times also failed to inform younger readers that Russia's president Boris Yeltsin, who picked Putin as his successor
in 1999, had been re-elected in 1996, though seriously ill and often drunk, in a fraudulent election conducted with the assistance
of US advisers and the overt support of President Bill Clinton. The Times hailed the result as 'a victory for Russian democracy'
and declared that 'the forces of democracy and reform won a vital but not definitive victory in Russia yesterday For the first time
in history, a free Russia has freely chosen its leader.'
Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining
resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President
Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute
to Montenegro, NATO's newest member.
No longer getting his way
But the Times, far from worrying about these provocative gestures coinciding with heightened tensions between great powers
(trade sanctions against Russia, Moscow's expulsion of US diplomats), poured oil on the fire. On 2 August it praised the reaffirmation
of 'America's commitment to defend democratic nations against those countries that would undermine them' and regretted that Mike
Pence's views 'aren't as eagerly embraced and celebrated by the man he works for back in the White House.'
At this stage, it doesn't
matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own
conclusions.
U.S. Foreign Policy used to have only two instruments in
dealing with rest of the world, namely carrots and sticks. Since the fall of Soviet Union and
certainly after 9/11, only sticks remain. Now the World including the so-called allies are
getting tired of the threats and start ignoring the Empire, hence the diminishing
effectiveness, paving the way for polymorphic World. This transition is fraught with dangers as
pointed out by the Author.
Lovely post by Ret. Col. Douglas Macgregor on the end of empire:
"John Bolton is the problem"
"Trump's national security adviser is getting dangerous particularly to the president's
ideals"
Douglas Macgregor https://spectator.us/john-bolton-problem/
Could also be titled, "How to Exhaust an Empire."
Sun Tzu warned of the same demise in the "Art of War."
Didn't they used to teach that book at West Point?
@El Dato
And also the 90 minute Trump-Putin phone call, where Venezuela was the main subject
From the way I understand Trump's comments afterward, it seems the military option is off
the table the two presidents agreed that humanitarian aid is the priority
This is great news I have to give Trump credit here Justin Raimondo presciently opined a
week ago that Trump may have been giving the 'walrus' just enough rope on Venezuela to hang
himself
I have to wonder what Vlad whispered in carrot top's ear
When we take a close look at the American Government and it's elected officials, we can only
come to one conclusion. The US is a thriving criminal enterprise that uses force to get what
they want. The military's role is that of enforcers and the US President is no different than
a Mafia Don. In no other time in US history has Government and Organized Criminal Gangs been
so indistinguishable. George H.W. Bush with his New World Order announcements, his CIA drug
dealing operations and military invasion of Panama to steal the drug cartel's money deposited
in that county's banks, came close. Bill Clinton working with George H.W. Bush protecting
drug shipments smuggled into Mena, AK, the cover up of murdered witnesses and numerous sexual
assault allegations also came pretty close.
But when George W. Bush, Dick Chaney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld came into power,
that was a Mafia if there was ever one. That group of criminals stole more money and murdered
more people than any criminal organization in history. They even conned the American people
into believing some rag-heads in Afghanistan hiding in caves did it. It was the first time
since Pancho Villa that anyone attacked the US on its own soil. Not only did they steal all
the gold stored in bank vaults located in the Twin Towers, but they put money on the stock
market. In true gangster fashion the next move was to retaliate against the Muslim Mafia who
was fingered by Mayer Lanski (Benjamin Nuttenyahoo) and their own paid snitches (MSM). It was
time to hit mattresses and send their enforcers to get payback so the Purple Gang (Israel)
can take over their territory.
There is a big difference between the US Government and the Mafia when it comes to war,
the Mafia adheres to a strict code of ethics, they do not target their enemies families.
In 2016 the American people elected a true gangster from New York city. A known con man, a
swindler, a tax evader and known associate of the criminal underground. A man with numerous
court cases and 23 accusations of sexual assault. A man who was screwing a porn star while
his wife was given birth. A man who's mentor was Roy Cohen a mob attorney and practicing
homosexual who died of AIDS. A man that surrounded himself with the most perverted group of
people in New York such as: Roger Stone a well known swinger and gay pride participant. Paul
Manafort a convicted criminal and swinger who attended the same clubs as Stone along with
their wives. They liked to watch their wives get screwed by other men. Lets not forget John
Bolton who was exposed by Larry Flint for also being a swinger. His ex-wife accused him of
forcing her to perform sex acts with multiple men at the same clubs the other 2 cuckolds
attended. A Russian agent once commented that the best place to find government people to
blackmail was the New York swingers scene.
Jeffery Epstein tops the list of perverted friends of Donald Trump. Epstein is the worst
kind of perverted human being. The predator pedophile that uses his money to lure young girls
into his sick world. Epstein holds the key to uncovering the nation wide pedophile ring that
include some of the most famous people in the US. This is Trump's Mafia, a Mafia not like the
Gambinos or Luchesis. A Mafia full of Perverts, Criminals, Pedophiles and Cuckolds. These are
just a few of the people in Trump's circle of friends. If these are your leaders, what does
that say about the American people!
My dad used to tell me tell me who you hang around with, and I'll tell you who you are!
Every single person in DC government is compromised! And this incompetent Mafia of Perverts
want you to believe that Madurro is a corrupt leader and Iran is a threat to the US!
@FB Yeah brother that
POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to
anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced
to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.
Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.
@SeekerofthePresence
Thank you your comment is very much appreciated. But I'm definitely not a spokesman for moral truth, just the truth. I just watch
in amazement from Mexico at what the US government has become. A den of the most vile people ever assembled in the world far worse
than the people that demanded the crucification of Jesus Christ. We just went through a serious political conversion, but the
people had to hit the streets for it to succeed. I just don't think the American people feel they are in a do or die situation,
and they couldn't more wrong.
There were some reports quoted in Alexander Mercouris has a much rosier
view of Trump's intentions
that the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran. The Pentagon has found
its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't defend themselves, and that's not Iran.
@Endgame Napoleon Americans
probably don't understand Russia. Americans don't even mostly understand their own history. "
and they inquire why they hate us .
Don Bacon | May 11, 2019 11:56:00 AM | 23
@ ToivoS 16
the US military brass are vigorously apposed to the Bolton and Pompeo efforts to provoke war against Iran.
Yes, for the reasons I noted in my 4 above. The Pentagon has found its niche pounding upon third world countries which can't
defend themselves, and that's not Iran. The recent US defeats in Iraq and Syria also sent a message. So the Pentagon is now content
with aerial bombing of Afghanistan and Somalia while spending big bucks to (supposedly) contend with Russia and China, which of
course is also out of the question when it comes to execution.
The Pentagon materiel acquisition system is riddled with corruption and poor management, the army is handicapped by low recruiting,
drugs and obesity, the navy suffers from performance and maintenance problems, and the air force has been decimated by personnel
problems and by an overly zealous procurement of useless F-35 prototypes. So bombers dropping bombs on villages in poor countries
is as far as the Pentagon can go.
On May 14/2019 Pompeo is to meet Lavrov in Sochi! ..."Pompeo is scheduled to meet with Putin and Lavrov, the Russian foreign
minister, in Sochi on May 14 to “discuss the full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges.” Before that, he will meet with
officials at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow."...
A messenger boy on the errant trip overseas from his handlers. Something to tell in person, mano a mano no less.
..."“On May 13, he will arrive in Russia to meet with his team at U.S. Embassy Moscow before meeting with U.S. business leaders
and U.S. exchange alumni. Secretary Pompeo will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” State Department spokeswoman
Morgan Ortagus said."... That's rich, a nobody faces an unknown.
In this case he looks like Bill Clinton impersonalization ;-) That's probably how Adelson controls Bolton ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions. ..."
@FB Yeah brother,
that POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby Bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million
dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He
was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.
Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.
A really interesting discussion. the problem with discussion on new direction of the USA foreign policy is that forces that
control the current forign policy will not allow any changes. Russiagate was in part a paranoid reaction of the Deep State to the
possibility of detente with Russia and also questioning "neoliberal sacred truth" like who did 9/11 (to suggest that Bush is
guilty was a clear "Red Flag") and critical attribute to forrign wars which feed so many Imperial servants.
BTW Trump completely disappointed his supporters in the foreign policy is continuing to accelerate that direction
Here is how you chart a Progressive foreign policy stop treating the US intelligence
agencies of the CIA and FBI as orgs of integrity. Ban all foreign lobbying so no foreign
government can influence foreign policy.
Disband the Veto powers that the US holds over the UN
security council. Prosecute former Presidents and Government officials for the illegal regime
change wars.
Connect with other progressive politicians around the world such as Jeremy Corbyn,
Jean Luc Melenchon and Moon Jae In. End the arms race and begin a peaceful space race to
colonize the moon diverting funds from the military industrial complex into something
fulfilling.
What BULL while world under the fog of Berlin wall down, USA VP Bush attacks
Panama 8000 Marines kills 3500 panamanians , gives the banks to CIA, therefore Panama papers.
Another coup in Latin America. When V.P. Bush "we had to get over the Vietnam Syndrome". So
Killing 3500 people , to get over the loser spirit, suicidal influence from Vietnam. SHAME USA
more hate for Americans. And Now Venezuela, more Shame and Hate for Americans. Yankee go home,
Gringo stay home is chanted once more.
The audio is a little off especially for a couple speakers but this discussion is
great. Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform, but in his typical dishonest fashion, he
appointed people who are developing usable nukes like characters out of Dr. Strangelove.
Nuclear weapons and climate change are both existential threats that all the world needs to act
together to address.
17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6
trillion wars and the $750 billion annual Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving
Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the debate between Democratic
presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the
primary issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her
rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states.
Thanks for anything you can do.
Jim R2 months ago
President Eisenhower's farewell address warned us of the very thing that is happening today with the industrial military
complex and the power and influence that that entity weilds.
chickendinner2012, 2 months ago
End the wars, no more imperialism, instead have fair trade prioritizing countries that have a living wage and aren't
waging war etc. No more supporting massive human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE etc. and we need to get three
of the most aggressive countries the F UK US coalition that constantly invades and bombs everyone they want to steal from to
stop doing war, stop coups, stop covert sabotage, stop sanctions.
asbeautifulasasunset, 2 months ago
17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6 trillion wars and the $750 billion annual
Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the
debate between Democratic presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the primary
issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and
contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states. Thanks for anything you can do.
carol wagner sudol2 months ago
Israel today has become a nazi like state. period. That says it all. This is heart-breaking. Gaza is simply a
concentration camp.
Tom Hall, 2 months ago
All our post WWII foreign policy has been about securing maintaining and enhancing corporate commercial interests. What
would seem to progressives as catastrophic failures are in fact monumental achievements of wealth creation and concentration.
The billions spent on think tanks to develop policy are mostly about how to develop grand narratives that conceal the true
beneficiaries of US foreign policy and create fear, uncertainty and insecurity at home and abroad.
In this case he looks like Bill Clinton impersonalization ;-) That's probably how Adelson controls Bolton ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions. ..."
@FB Yeah brother,
that POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby Bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million
dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He
was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.
Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.
Trade, however, doesn't represent the only U.S.-China economic activity whose profile has
lowered recently. For example, since 2016, two-way foreign direct investment (purchases of
so-called hard assets, like factories and real estate, as opposed to financial assets, like
government bonds) has cratered by fully 70 percent. Most of the drop is due to an 80 percent
decrease in Chinese investment in the United States, and the bulk of that decline came in 2018.
But American direct investment in China peaked back in 2008, as the recession struck, hasn't
come close to recovering since, and is also down slightly since 2012.
U.S.-China economic flows are still so great that they won't dry up completely. Nor should
anyone expect the current unwinding to continue at its current pace. After all, China still
boasts advantages in many manufacturing industries (which dominate bilateral trade) sure to
sustain sales to American households and businesses. Chief among them are the scale of existing
production complexes in China and the efficiencies that result, along with the wide range of
cost-reducing subsidies these sectors receive from Beijing. Further, China can't expect to find
foreign markets capable of replacing its sales to the United States, and therefore supporting
its own ability to grow and maintain the employment levels vital for political stability. Nor
will American businesses be able to totally blow off the enormous Chinese market and its own
still-impressive growth.
.... ... ...
Nonetheless, the days are over when the United States -- or at least its
political and business leaders -- saw mushrooming commerce with China as an expressway to
greater national prosperity and higher profits, not to mention a powerful contributor to global
well-being, security, and stability, and a means of democratizing China itself. With all these
hopes dashed, Washington and the American business community will find ample reasons to keep
looking for exits.
Alan Tonelson is the founder of RealityChek, a public policy blog focusing on
economics and national security, and the author of The Race to the Bottom.
I do not necessarily support his course of action...but I feel that sometimes, doing
the unexpected and unconventional thing can lead to new doors and new possibilities.
China's internal debt situation is so precarious that it can ill-afford a trade war
with US. China has a trade surplus of $325 billion with the US. This kind of skewed
number is totally unacceptable. By reneging on the provisional agreements over IP and
other hurdles, China is playing with fire.
I am not a Trump supporter but I think his policy on China is right on the money. No
other US president had the courage to address this issue.
In this case he looks like Bill Clinton impersonalization ;-) That's probably how Adelson controls Bolton ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Larry Flint had offered a Million dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions. ..."
@FB Yeah brother,
that POS was called out during his confirmation hearings during baby Bush's presidency. Larry Flint had offered a Million
dollars to anyone who had proof of republican sexual exploits. He was quickly fingered by someone who attended those clubs. He
was forced to accept a temporary position and quietly resigned after a few months so as to avoid facing questions.
Someone said they saw him proposition a teenage girl outside one of the swinger clubs he frequented.
A really interesting discussion. the problem with discussion on new direction of the USA foreign policy is that forces that
control the current forign policy will not allow any changes. Russiagate was in part a paranoid reaction of the Deep State to the
possibility of detente with Russia and also questioning "neoliberal sacred truth" like who did 9/11 (to suggest that Bush is
guilty was a clear "Red Flag") and critical attribute to forrign wars which feed so many Imperial servants.
BTW Trump completely disappointed his supporters in the foreign policy is continuing to accelerate that direction
Here is how you chart a Progressive foreign policy stop treating the US intelligence
agencies of the CIA and FBI as orgs of integrity. Ban all foreign lobbying so no foreign
government can influence foreign policy.
Disband the Veto powers that the US holds over the UN
security council. Prosecute former Presidents and Government officials for the illegal regime
change wars.
Connect with other progressive politicians around the world such as Jeremy Corbyn,
Jean Luc Melenchon and Moon Jae In. End the arms race and begin a peaceful space race to
colonize the moon diverting funds from the military industrial complex into something
fulfilling.
What BULL while world under the fog of Berlin wall down, USA VP Bush attacks
Panama 8000 Marines kills 3500 panamanians , gives the banks to CIA, therefore Panama papers.
Another coup in Latin America. When V.P. Bush "we had to get over the Vietnam Syndrome". So
Killing 3500 people , to get over the loser spirit, suicidal influence from Vietnam. SHAME USA
more hate for Americans. And Now Venezuela, more Shame and Hate for Americans. Yankee go home,
Gringo stay home is chanted once more.
The audio is a little off especially for a couple speakers but this discussion is
great. Trump ran on a non-interventionist platform, but in his typical dishonest fashion, he
appointed people who are developing usable nukes like characters out of Dr. Strangelove.
Nuclear weapons and climate change are both existential threats that all the world needs to act
together to address.
17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6
trillion wars and the $750 billion annual Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving
Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the debate between Democratic
presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the
primary issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her
rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states.
Thanks for anything you can do.
Jim R2 months ago
President Eisenhower's farewell address warned us of the very thing that is happening today with the industrial military
complex and the power and influence that that entity weilds.
chickendinner2012, 2 months ago
End the wars, no more imperialism, instead have fair trade prioritizing countries that have a living wage and aren't
waging war etc. No more supporting massive human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE etc. and we need to get three
of the most aggressive countries the F UK US coalition that constantly invades and bombs everyone they want to steal from to
stop doing war, stop coups, stop covert sabotage, stop sanctions.
asbeautifulasasunset, 2 months ago
17 plus years later some people are finally starting to talk about the $6 trillion wars and the $750 billion annual
Defense Department Budget.... Please consider giving Tulsi Gabbard at least a $1 contribution so she can be part of the
debate between Democratic presidential candidates. She has made ending the wars on terrorism and regime change the primary
issue of her candidacy. She is an Iraq vet and currently in the National Guard. Her rank is Colonel. She needs $62,500 and
contributions from 200 people in each of 20 states. Thanks for anything you can do.
carol wagner sudol2 months ago
Israel today has become a nazi like state. period. That says it all. This is heart-breaking. Gaza is simply a
concentration camp.
Tom Hall, 2 months ago
All our post WWII foreign policy has been about securing maintaining and enhancing corporate commercial interests. What
would seem to progressives as catastrophic failures are in fact monumental achievements of wealth creation and concentration.
The billions spent on think tanks to develop policy are mostly about how to develop grand narratives that conceal the true
beneficiaries of US foreign policy and create fear, uncertainty and insecurity at home and abroad.
Speaking of getting led around by the nose, we come to one Gina Haspel's great deceptions.
This deception plays directly into the hands of Russiagaters. This woman, supposedly brought
into CIA leadership in order to demolish the agency, is proving quite adept in perpetuating its
reign of terror. Again, we have a neocon undermining Trump's prestige and authority.
(EIRNS) -- The New York Times ran a story yesterday titled, "Gina Haspel
Relies on Spy Skills To Connect with Trump. He Doesn't Always Listen." Based on interviews with
former and current CIA agents who worked with CIA Director Haspel (but not interviewing her),
the Times praises her skills and attempts to denigrate Trump, but they also retail a story
about her and Trump which could cost Haspel deeply.
Following the March 2018 breaking of the Skripal poisoning story in England, the Times
writes, Trump had initially "written off the poisoning as part of legitimate spy games,
distasteful but within the bounds of espionage." Haspel, on the other hand, was backing
London's demand for Trump to blame Russia immediately and expel dozens of Russian
diplomats.
Writes the Times:
"During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy CIA director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She
outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the
President that the 'strong option' was to expel 60 diplomats.
"To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the
only victims of Russia's attack.
"Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children
hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She
then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by
the sloppy work of the Russian operatives."
This appeal reportedly swayed Trump to go along with Haspel's advice.
If it sounds like the British "White Helmet" terrorists in Syria faking pictures of children
being hit with chemical weapons to convince Trump to bomb Syrian targets, it is indeed
precisely the same.
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, an outspoken critic of these British imperial lies
and atrocities, posted a response today to the Times garbage on his blog. He states first that
yet another truth behind the Skripal lies was revealed recently by police, acknowledging that
"the perfume bottle Charlie Rowley found was sealed and could not have been the container used
on the Skripals." He goes on: "It took nine months for us to learn that, by a truly wonderful
coincidence, the first person to find the Skripals ill on the bench was the Chief Nurse of the
British Army."
But on the Haspel story in the Times, Murray is furious. "The problem is," he writes,
"there were no hospitalized children. No children have been reported as becoming ill
following their duck feeding with the Skripals. We have heard from one of the parents that
they were shown by the police extremely clear [closed-circuit surveillance] CCTV footage of
the duck feeding, which has never been made public. Surely if the child had been
hospitalized, the parent would have mentioned it?"
He quotes Dr. Stephen Davies of Salisbury Hospital, who wrote to the New York Times on March
14 stating clearly that no children had been hospitalized, and that every person who came to
the hospital fearing they had been contaminated had no symptoms and tests turned out negative.
Murray states:
"We also know that the duck feeding was the time that Boshirov and Petrov [the alleged
Russian culprits] were physically closest to the Skripals. But this is the first time there
has ever been any mention of any harm to the ducks. Dead ducks would have been noticed by the
public."
It appears that the British Empire is the dead duck in this myth.
"... Particularly shameless was Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, who went on Tucker Carlson's show to peddle half-baked innuendo as brazen as anything claimed in the lead up to the Iraq War. If Maduro's government survived, he claimed, it would be "a green light, an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese and for others to increase their activity against our national security interest right here in our hemisphere." ..."
Russiagate hysteria is already being used to push Trump into an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. It's a disastrous result
of a pointless delusion.
One of the things Russiagate skeptics found unsettling about the frenzy over supposed "collusion" was that it made war more likely.
Not only did the now-debunked conspiracy theories and resulting political climate push officials into a more aggressive posture toward
Russia, but once the Kremlin was returned to its status as the foreign policy elite's Big Bad, it was easy to imagine a situation
where the threat of a Russian bogeyman could be used to justify any number of unrelated foreign adventures. This appears to be exactly
what's happening with
Venezuela
right now.
First there was Fareed Zakaria, who two months ago
tried to goad Trump into attacking Venezuela by pointing to Russia's support for Maduro. "Putin's efforts seem designed to taunt
the United States," he said (it might also have something to do with the
billions of dollars Russia
sank into the country), making reference to the Monroe Doctrine. He asked if Washington would "allow Moscow to make a mockery of
another American red line," warning that "if Washington does not back its words with deeds" the country could become another Syria.
Zakaria concluded: "will Venezuela finally be the moment when Trump finally ends his appeasement?"
More recently, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
charged that Russia had "invaded" Venezuela before claiming the Kremlin had dissuaded Maduro from fleeing the country at the
last moment, something Pompeo has provided no evidence for but much of the media has treated as fact since.
National Security Advisor
John Bolton has
said that "this is our hemisphere"
and "not where the Russians ought to be interfering." Democratic Sen. Doug Jones
echoed this sentiment on CNN, praising the Trump
administration for saying "all options are on the table" to deal with Venezuela, something he suggested may have to be acted on "if
there is some more intervention [by] Russia."
The national press, taking a break from warning about Trump being a dangerous authoritarian, has been
demanding to know why he hasn't been more aggressive toward the country over this.
Particularly shameless was Florida Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, who went on Tucker Carlson's show to
peddle half-baked
innuendo as brazen as anything claimed in the lead up to the Iraq War. If Maduro's government survived, he claimed, it would be "a
green light, an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese and for others to increase their activity against our national security
interest right here in our hemisphere."
He went on to claim that Russia had already placed nuclear missiles in the country, and that it could lead to a Cuban missile
crisis-like conflict. There is no evidence this is true, and Díaz-Balart didn't provide any.
Of course, no coverage of the Trump administration's relations with Russia would be complete without a trip into Rachel Maddow's
fractured psyche. After Trump repeated Putin's personal assurances that he wasn't interested in getting involved in Venezuela --
contradicting Pompeo and Bolton -- Maddow addressed the two
officials :
Hey John Bolton, hey Mike Pompeo, are you guys enjoying your jobs right now? You each thought your job this week was to name
and shame and threaten and counter Russian government involvement in Venezuela while saber-rattling about how everybody else better
get out of the way because the US is really mad about it. Guys, turns out your actual job is figuring out how and why you work
for a president who says whatever Vladimir Putin tells him.
Maddow went on to express her sympathy for one of the
most unhinged warmongers
in a city teeming with them ("I mean, John Bolton, God bless you"), and again seemed to suggest that Bolton's "job" of "push[ing]
Russia back because of what they're doing in Venezuela" was the correct course of action.
It's now clear there is nothing -- not Trump's years-long belligerence toward Russia's Venezuelan ally, not his
near-constant
bellicosity toward Russia since taking office, not
Robert Mueller's failure
to indict a single person for conspiring with Russia, not even his report's explicit and implicit denial that any such conspiracy
existed -- that will make these people give up the talking point that Trump is secretly in bed with Putin. If Mueller himself denied
it, they would claim he was a Russian in disguise. It's simply too convenient an attack line, and too professionally embarrassing
to admit otherwise.
There is also an Orwellian level of doublethink going on here. Russia, a Venezuelan ally, has sent personnel and equipment to
the country with the consent of its government at a time when it's being threatened by multiple hostile regional powers. Meanwhile
the US, one of those hostile powers, has for years been
laying siege to the country
and killing its people, trying to destabilize and oust its leadership, and even threatening to invade it.
Yet according to the media and political class, it's Russia's actions that are an unacceptable intrusion into another country's
affairs -- an "invasion," even. They are holding up four fingers to your face and telling you you're seeing five.
Meanwhile, these same quarters, after spending close to three years hyperventilating about Russia's meddling in domestic US affairs
-- an "act of war," in some minds -- have now seamlessly pivoted to cheering Trump as he attempts to
engineer a change
of Venezuela's government, even calling for him to possibly attack the country. This is glaringly hypocritical, but the
Russiagate
frenzy was never about principled outrage or any sort of moral consistency.
Lastly and most significantly, the rhetoric around Venezuela is now taking on an explicitly imperialistic character, in the most
literal sense of that word. Zakaria invoked the Monroe Doctrine to urge Trump to intervene in Venezuela; National Security Advisor
John Bolton "proudly proclaim[ed]" upon
launching
a fresh round of sanctions that "the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well," and one MSNBC guest
insisted the Trump administration was "right in being completely flabbergasted" at Russia's presence in the country because "this
is our hemisphere," echoing
Bolton
.
When these figures talk about "our hemisphere," they don't mean the hemisphere in which the US happens to be located; they mean
this is literally their hemisphere. The US is the imperial power with dominion over this part of the world, and only it has
the right to interfere in the countries that populate it.
Their objection is not that an outside power is involving itself in a Latin American country's business, but that this outside
power isn't the one in Washington. The fact that the US has been doing this very thing for years in Russia's part of the world --
expanding NATO right up to its
border, sending weapons to Ukraine -- goes conveniently unmentioned.
Russiagate skeptics were criticized for being hyperbolic in
comparing that scandal to the bogus
WMD tale that led to the Iraq War; the latter, after all, killed hundreds of thousands and destabilized an entire region. But the
full consequences of Russiagate will not be felt immediately; they will unfold over time. And while floating the specter of Russia
might not work this time, expect it to be used over and over in the coming years to justify all manner of
military aggression
.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not
understanding it."
― Upton Sinclair
As more evidence is being uncovered like the the Kathy Kavalec contemporaneous notes &
email to FBI on her meeting with Steele, it is getting more & more apparent that there
was a program to entrap and smear Trump as a Putin stooge by top officials in the Obama
administration, directly interfering in a presidential election.
Mueller was conflicted right from the very beginning. The fact that Strzok, Page &
Weisman were on his initial staff points to that conflict. Considering the inherent bias it
should be instructive that they could not find any evidence and had to conclude that the
Trump campaign did not collude with agents of the Russian government.
Brennan role in weaponizing dossier now became more clear.
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, Fusion GPS hiring of Nellie Ohr -- the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr -- also shows that Steele's role in producing the dossier may be exaggerated. Ohr is a Stanford Ph.D. whose expertise is Russia and she appears to be fluent in Russian. She may have conducted interviews or written parts of the dossier. ..."
"... The dossier, however, only has Steele's name on it -- helping to credential the research as an "intelligence product." ..."
"... A Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist named Alexandra Chalupa, told the Clinton campaign about Manafort's work for Yanukovich. "I flagged for the DNC the significance of his hire," Chalupa told CNN in July of this year. ..."
"... Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS in April, shortly after Trump hired Manafort. Manafort's role now allowed Simpson to highlight corruption that he already knew to exist, from his reporting. A line from the dossier states: ..."
"... Steele -- it notes -- had not lived or worked in Russia for nearly 25 years, but his name "at a minimum" would be useful in marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Plus, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI and could "spill secrets" to journalists. ..."
"... it is likely that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook cited Fusion GPS's work in a July 22 interview after embarrassing leaks of Democratic National Committee emails. He told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that "some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump." ..."
"... The FBI did launch an investigation into possible collusion, however, known by "only a dozen or so people at the FBI," including then-director James Comey and Peter Strzok, who was chosen to supervise the investigation. ..."
"... She said by August 2016, the CIA had "verified the key finding of the dossier" to the point that it was having "eyes only" top secret meetings with President Obama about it. ..."
"... CIA Director John Brennan had also briefed top lawmakers on Russian efforts to help Trump last summer and had said the CIA had limited legal ability to investigate Russian connections to Trump, prompting Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to write a public letter to the FBI -- which collects domestic intelligence -- about the threat of Russian interference. ..."
"... It appears that Brennan was briefing Reid on the Steele dossier. ..."
"... Brennan apparently sent the dossier to the White House, prompting the "eyes only" meetings. ..."
"... The Post also writes that the "material was so sensitive that CIA Director John O. Brennan kept it out of the president's daily brief, concerned that even that restricted report's distribution was too broad." ..."
"... But as Tablet asks, "if the material was so sensitive that it had to be kept out of the PDB and withheld from the Senate majority leader, why was someone telling The Washington Post about it?" ..."
Did the Obama administration launch an investigation into the Trump campaign based solely off of unverified political opposition
research? And was that "research" dressed up and given more credibility than it should have? It appears that way
based on an
investigation of open-source information by Tablet.
The outlet's investigation begins with a June 24, 2017, Facebook post by Mary Jacoby, the wife of Glenn Simpson, the former
Wall Street Journal reporter who started Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier.
Jacoby, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who once shared bylines with Simpson, bragged how her husband was not getting
the credit he deserved for the dossier.
"It's come to my attention that some people still don't realize what Glenn's role was in exposing Putin's control of Donald Trump,"
she wrote on Facebook. "Let's be clear. Glenn conducted the investigation. Glenn hired Chris Steele. Chris Steele worked for Glenn."
Until this day, the dossier is often referred to as the "Steele dossier," named after the former British spy Christopher Steele
who is believed to have authored the document.
Steele's background has been used by collusion-believers to argue that the document is credible. But Jacoby's post suggests that
Steele might not have played as big of a role in the dossier as he is given credit.
Indeed, Fusion GPS hiring of Nellie Ohr -- the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr -- also shows that Steele's
role in producing the dossier may be exaggerated. Ohr is a Stanford Ph.D. whose expertise is Russia and she appears to be fluent
in Russian. She may have conducted interviews or written parts of the dossier.
The dossier, however, only has Steele's name on it -- helping to credential the research as an "intelligence product."
Tablet also took a look at Simpson and Jacoby's work for the WSJ . In April 2007 -- in the lead-up to the 2008 election
-- they co-wrote a story about Republican links to Russians.
In that story, titled "How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington," they detail how prominent Republicans helped open doors
for "Kremlin-affiliated oligarchs and other friends of Vladimir Putin."
They reported on Viktor Yanukovich, who had paid political fixer Paul Manafort to introduce Yanukovich to powerful Washington,
DC, figures. They later reported on May 14, 2008, that Manafort's lobbying firm was escorting Yanukovich around Washington. Yanukovich
would later become president of Ukraine in 2010.
Tablet explains how their reporting may have been the origins of the Trump dossier:
So when the Trump campaign named Paul Manafort as its campaign convention manager on March 28, 2016, you can bet that Simpson
and Jacoby's eyes lit up. And as it happened, at the exact same time that Trump hired Manafort, Fusion GPS was in negotiations
with Perkins Coie, the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, to see if there was interest in the firm continuing
the opposition research on the Trump campaign they had started for the Washington Free Beacon. In addition to whatever sales pitch
Simpson might have offered about Manafort, the Clinton campaign had independent reason to believe that research into Manafort's
connections might pay some real political dividends: A Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist named Alexandra
Chalupa, told the Clinton campaign about Manafort's work for Yanukovich. "I flagged for the DNC the significance of his hire,"
Chalupa told CNN in July of this year.
Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS in April, shortly after Trump hired Manafort. Manafort's role now allowed Simpson to highlight
corruption that he already knew to exist, from his reporting. A line from the dossier states:
Ex-Ukrainian President YANUKOVYCH confides directly to PUTIN that he authorised (sic) kick-back payments to MANAFORT, as alleged
in western media Assures Russian President however there is no documentary evidence/trail.
Tablet notes that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would later find corruption by Manafort related to money laundering (before he
joined the Trump campaign). It also points out that Tony Podesta -- Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's brother -- worked
for Manafort at the time he represented Yanukovich. (The Podesta Group disbanded this year after those connections were made public,
and the special counsel is reportedly investigating Podesta too.)
Tablet notes that while Simpson had begun working on the dossier on Trump collusion with Russia, he was also working for a Russian
lawyer to undermine an American law called the Magnitsky Act and that Steele may have been hired to disguise that contradiction.
Steele -- it notes -- had not lived or worked in Russia for nearly 25 years, but his name "at a minimum" would be useful in
marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Plus, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI and could "spill secrets" to journalists.
Ohr -- Simpson's next hire -- also hadn't lived in Russia for decades and was "not a spy, or even a journalist." "In this world,
she was definitely an amateur," Tablet writes.
"Presumably, as a result of all the above, much of the reporting in the dossier is recognizably the kind of patter that locals
in closed or semi-closed societies engage in to impress expats -- the kind of thing you hear in a bar, or on the cab ride from the
airport to the hotel," it says.
Tablet then goes into the bad shape of U.S. intelligence on Russia -- likely making officials less skeptical of the dossier even
though, to date, they have not been able to confirm any of its allegations on collusion.
And Tablet notes that it is likely that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook cited Fusion GPS's work in a July 22 interview
after embarrassing leaks of Democratic National Committee emails. He told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that "some experts are
now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."
At that point, a tech firm had attributed the leaks to Russia but was not able to explain why. The FBI was looking at the leak
but had not yet publicly determined political motivation.
"But the DNC and Clinton campaign did have an oppo-research firm under contract that was in the middle of putting together a file
that would claim that the Russians were trying to get Trump elected," Tablet notes.
The FBI did launch an investigation into possible collusion, however, known by "only a dozen or so people at the FBI," including
then-director James Comey and Peter Strzok, who was chosen to supervise the investigation.
But by late October, they had not yet found any evidence that showed Russia was working to elect Trump. So, ten days before the
election, angry Clinton supporters and unnamed intelligence officials
spoke to
the New York Times in an October 31, 2016, story about what the investigation had found so far.
Jacoby would post that story in her June 24 Facebook post, slamming the FBI and accusing it of "ineptitude," while the CIA "hopped
to and immediately worked to verify" the dossier.
She said by August 2016, the CIA had "verified the key finding of the dossier" to the point that it was having "eyes only"
top secret meetings with President Obama about it.
Thus, while the document could not be verified and was not used in any intelligence assessment because of its inability to be
verified, it was now the topic of meetings with the president.
CIA Director John Brennan had also briefed top lawmakers on Russian efforts to help Trump last summer and had said the CIA
had limited legal ability to investigate Russian connections to Trump, prompting Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to write a public letter
to the FBI -- which collects domestic intelligence -- about the threat of Russian interference.
Reid then wrote another letter to Comey after he reopened the investigation into Clinton's emails -- accusing him of letting Trump
slide.
"It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his
top advisers, and the Russian government -- a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every
opportunity," he wrote.
"I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public and yet, you continue to resist calls
to inform the public of this critical information."
That "information" Reid was referring to was the dossier, according to Tablet:
According to David Corn's Oct. 31, 2016, article in Mother Jones , the Nevada lawmaker was referencing the findings
of "a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence."
Corn now explains that the "former Western intelligence officer -- who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters
and who now works with a U.S. firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients" is Christopher Steele. According
to Corn, Steele said that "in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources,
contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump."
It appears that Brennan was briefing Reid on the Steele dossier.
Brennan apparently sent the dossier to the White House, prompting the "eyes only" meetings.
"An envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried 'eyes
only' instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides," the
Washington
Post
reported on June 23, 2017.
"So was the Steele dossier in the envelope?" Tablet asks.
The Post writes that inside that envelope "was an intelligence bombshell" -- a report drawn from sourcing deep inside
the Russian government that detained Putin's direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the presidential race,
defeat or at least damage Hillary Clinton, and help elect Donald Trump.
The Post also writes that the "material was so sensitive that CIA Director John O. Brennan kept it out of the president's
daily brief, concerned that even that restricted report's distribution was too broad."
But as Tablet asks, "if the material was so sensitive that it had to be kept out of the PDB and withheld from the Senate majority
leader, why was someone telling The Washington Post about it?"
Tablet writes:
Sources and methods are the crown jewels of the American intelligence community. And yet someone has just told a major American
newspaper about a "report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that captured Putin's specific instructions."
If the CIA had a human intelligence source that close to Putin, publication of the Post article could have exposed that
source -- doing incalculable damage to American national security. He and many of his loved ones would then have presumably died
horrible deaths.
Or, as Mary Jacoby surmised, it was her husband's handiwork that landed on the president's desk.
Newly released evidence suggests Ukraine played key role in creating
Trump–Russia collusion narrative at behest of Obama officials
As Ukraine underwent dramatic changes
in 2014, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden played a critical role in the Obama
administration's involvement in the revolution that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych.
Following the revolution, Biden would use his influence to help force the creation of the
troubled National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Notably, during the 2016 election campaign,
information leaked from NABU about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort that helped to create
the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to win the election.
Biden also would use the threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to
pressure Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor general. At the time, the
prosecutor had been investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas giant that had appointed
Biden's son, Hunter, as a board member.
President Donald
Trump 's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently said, "Keep your eye on Ukraine." In his
comments to the
Washington Examiner , Giuliani highlighted the "plot to create an investigation of
President Trump, based on a false charge of conspiracy with the Russians to affect the 2016
elections."
Obama Administration's 2014 Involvement
On or shortly before Feb. 4, 2014, Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary for European and
Eurasian affairs in the Obama State Department, had a conversation with the U.S. ambassador to
Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, which was intercepted and leaked .
In the call, Nuland and Pyatt appeared to be discussing the ouster of Yanukovych and the
installation of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister.
Nuland favored opposition leader Yatsenyuk over his main rivals Vitali Klitschko and Oleh
Tyahnybok, telling Pyatt: "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the
governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitschko and Tyahnybok on the outside."
Toward the end of the conversation , then-Vice President Biden
was discussed as being willing to help cement the changeover in Ukraine:
Geoffrey Pyatt: "We want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come
out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to
Yanukovych, but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into
place."
Victoria Nuland: "So, on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [Biden's national security
adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need Biden, and I said
probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's
willing."
Nuland and Pyatt met with Ukrainian opposition leaders Klitschko and Yatsenyuk, along with
then-President Yanukovych, just days later on Feb. 7, 2014.
Events then moved swiftly. On Feb. 22, 2014, Yanukovych was
removed as president of Ukraine and fled to Russia. On Feb. 27, 2014, Yatsenyuk, the
candidate favored by Nuland, was installed as prime minister of Ukraine.
Klitschko was left out. Notably, Yatsenyuk would later resign
in April 2016 amid corruption accusations.
Biden's Involvement in Ukraine
In April, Biden would get personally involved, as would his son, Hunter. On April 18, 2014,
Hunter Biden was
appointed to the board of directors for Burisma–one of the largest natural gas
companies in Ukraine.
Four days later, on April 22, 2014, Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine ,
offering his political support and $50 million in aid for Yatsenyuk's shaky new government.
Poroshenko, a billionaire politician, was elected as president of Ukraine on May 25, 2014.
Biden became close to both men and helped Ukraine obtain a four-year, $17.5
billion IMF package in March 2015.
In October 2016, Foreign Policy wrote a lengthy article, "
What Will Ukraine Do Without Uncle Joe ," which described Biden's role in the removal of
Ukraine's general prosecutor, Victor Shokin. Shokin, the choice of Poroshenko, was portrayed as
fumbling a major corruption case and "hindering an investigation into two high-ranking state
prosecutors arrested on corruption charges."
The United States pushed for Shokin's removal, and Biden led the effort by personally
threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. In an interview
with The Atlantic, Biden recalled telling Poroshenko: "Petro, you're not getting your billion
dollars. It's OK, you can keep the [prosecutor] general. Just understand -- we're not paying if
you do." Shokin was removed by
Poroshenko shortly thereafter, in early 2016.
But according to reporting by The Hill, at the time of his firing, Shokin had been
investigating Burisma. Shokin's investigation into Burisma had previously been
disclosed in June 2017, by Front News International.
Burisma is
owned by Nikolai Zlochevsky (also known as Mykola Zlochevsky), the former minister of
ecology for Ukraine. According to
Front News , Zlochevsky issued
a "special permit for the extraction of a third of the gas produced in Ukraine" to his own
company, Burisma.
According to the Ukrainian nonprofit Anti Corruption Action Center, Zlochevsky owns 38
permits held by 14 different companies -- with Burisma
accounting for the majority with 33 of the permits. Zlochevsky left Ukraine after
Yanukovych fled to Russia during the Ukrainian Revolution known as
Euromaidan.
Investigation Into Burisma
In the spring of 2014, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation at
the behest of the UK prosecutors office, which was investigating money laundering allegations
against Zlochevsky and had
just frozen $23.5 million in assets allegedly belonging to him in early April 2014. Shokin,
who wasn't appointed as general prosecutor until February 2015, wasn't yet involved in the
case.
Ukrainian prosecutors
refused to provide the UK with needed documents, and in January 2015, a British court
ordered the assets unfrozen. This action was pointedly called out in a
speech by Pyatt, who stated, "In the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the
UK authorities had seized $23 million in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian
people."
Instead of receiving cooperation from Ukrainian prosecutors, they "sent letters to
Zlochevsky's attorneys attesting that there was no case against him. As a result, the money was
freed by the UK court, and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus."
On Feb. 10, 2015, Shokin was appointed prosecutor general of Ukraine, and he picked up the
investigation into Burisma, which reportedly continued until his formal resignation in February
2016.
Around the same time that Zlochevsky's assets were being frozen in the UK, Burisma appointed
Hunter Biden to its board on April 18, 2014. Hunter's compensation had never been disclosed by
Burisma, which is a private company, but Ryan Toohey, a Burisma spokesman,
told The New York Times that Biden's compensation was "not out of the ordinary" for similar
board positions.
However, according to The Hill's
reporting , Hunter Biden's firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was receiving regular
payments -- "usually more than $166,000 a month" -- from Burisma. The payments ran from the
spring of 2014 through the fall of 2015 and reportedly totaled more than $3 million.
The Hill article included a written answer from Shokin, who told Solomon that his
investigation into Burisma had included plans for "interrogations and other crime-investigation
procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden."
According to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, following Shokin's forced
dismissal, the Burisma investigation was transferred to Sytnyk's NABU, which then reportedly
closed the investigation sometime in 2016.
The Kyiv Post on March 27 published an
editorial written by three members of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv that
disputed Lutsenko's interview with The Hill. They claim that two cases relating to Burisma are
still being investigated by NABU:
"Two cases regarding the extraction of licenses by Zlochevsky's companies and embezzlement
of public funds at the ministry's procurements during Zlochevsky's Ministerial tenure remain
active and are investigated by NABU."
They also claim that "none of the criminal proceedings against Burisma were closed by NABU."
They acknowledged that the case concerning illegal issuance of licenses to extract natural
resources were transferred to NABU in December 2015, but claim that SAP missed procedural
deadlines for a lawsuit on canceling those licenses.
The politics within Ukraine are extremely complicated, and corruption is endemic, often
leading to conflicting accounts of events.
US Pressure to Investigate Manafort
In January 2016, top Ukrainian corruption prosecutors and officials from Obama's National
Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ) met in
Washington, according to an April 26
article by The Hill.
The meeting, which was reportedly billed as "training," apparently also touched on two other
matters -- the revival of a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine's
Russia-backed Party of Regions and the closure of an ongoing Ukrainian investigation into
Burisma.
According to The Hill's reporting, the Ukrainian Embassy confirmed that meetings were held,
but said it "had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the
meetings."
A Jan. 22, 2016, NABU press
release confirmed that NABU Director Artem Sytnyk was in Washington from Jan. 19 to 21.
At the same time as the NABU meeting with Obama officials, Vice President Biden
also met with senior Ukrainian officials. On Jan. 21, 2016, Biden
met with Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine. According to the
White House release , the two leaders agreed "to continue to move forward on Ukraine's
anti-corruption agenda."
Just six days earlier, on Jan 15, 2016, Biden had met with Ukrainian Prime Minister
Volodymyr Groysman, promising to commit $220 million in new assistance to Ukraine that
year.
Notably, several months later, Sytnyk and Ukrainian Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko
would
publicly disclose the contents of the Ukrainian "black ledger" to the media, which
implicated Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort. The revelation would force Manafort from
the campaign.
Leshchenko also served as a source for various individuals, including journalist Michael
Isikoff and Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative Alexandra Chalupa. In addition,
Leshchenko served as a direct source of information for Fusion GPS -- and its researcher,
former CIA contractor Nellie Ohr.
Another Ukrainian-related meeting also took place in January 2016 when Chalupa, a
Ukrainian-American, informed an
unknown senior DNC official that she believed there was a Russian connection with the Trump
campaign. Notably, this theme would be picked up by the Clinton campaign in the summer of 2016.
Chalupa also told the official to expect Manafort's involvement in the Trump campaign.
How Chalupa knew to expect Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign in January remains
unknown, but her forecast proved prescient, as Manafort
reached out to the Trump campaign shortly after, on Feb. 29, 2016, through a mutual
acquaintance, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. According to Manafort, he and Trump hadn't been in
communication
for years until the Trump campaign responded to Manafort's offer.
As The Epoch Times
previously reported , on May 30, 2016, Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr sent an email to
her husband, high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and three other DOJ officials to alert them
of the discovery of the "Reported Trove of Documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions' 'Black
Cashbox.'" It was this discovery that led to Manafort's resignation from the Trump campaign in
August 2016.
On Aug. 14, 2016, The New York Times published an article
alleging that payments to Manafort had been uncovered from the Party of Regents' "black box" --
the 400-page handwritten ledger released by Leshchenko. The article proved to be a fatal blow
for Manafort, who resigned from the Trump campaign just days later.
NABU Ties to FBI
Following the successful overthrow of Yanukovych, Joe Biden had a direct hand in the
formation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), as he personally "pushed for the
creation of an independent anti-corruption bureau to combat graft," according to an Oct. 30,
2016, article by
Foreign Policy .
NABU was formally established in October 2014 in response to pressure
from not only the U.S. State Department and Biden, but also by the International Monetary Fund
and the European Commission.
Despite the international push, the fledgling anti-corruption unit took more than a year to
actually become a functioning unit. During this time, NABU officials began establishing a
relationship with the FBI. In early 2016, NABU Director Sytnyk announced
that his bureau was very close to signing a memorandum of cooperation with the FBI and by
February
2016 , the FBI had had a permanent representative onsite at the NABU offices.
On June 5, 2016, Sytnyk met with U.S. Ambassador Pyatt to
discuss a more formalized relationship with the FBI and, on June 30, 2016, NABU and the FBI
entered into a
memorandum of understanding that allowed for an FBI office onsite at NABU offices to focus on
international money laundering cases. The relationship was renewed
for an additional two years in June 2017.
NABU has repeatedly refused to make the memorandum of understanding with the FBI public and
went
to court in 2018 to prevent its release. After receiving an unfavorable opinion from the
Kyiv District Administrative Court, NABU appealed the ruling, which was overturned in its favor
by the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal.
Sytnyk, along with parliamentarian Leshchenko, became the subject of an investigation in
Ukraine and in December 2018, a Kyiv court
ruled that both men "acted illegally when they revealed that Manafort's surname and
signature were found in the so-called black ledger of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's
Party of Regions," the Kyiv Post
reported on Dec. 12, 2018.
The court noted the material was part of a pre-trial investigation and its release "led to
interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests
of Ukraine as a state."
Leshchenko had publicly adopted a strong anti-Trump stance, telling the Financial
Times in August 2016 that "a Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American
foreign policy" and that it was "important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he
is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world." Leschenko
noted that the majority of Ukrainian politicians were "on Hillary Clinton's side."
In December 2017, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko
accused Sytnyk of allowing the FBI to conduct illegal operations in Ukraine, claiming that
the "U.S. law enforcers were allegedly invited without the permission required and in breach of
the necessary procedures." Lutsenko
continued by asking, "Who actually let the foreign special service act in Ukraine?"
Taras Chornovil, a Ukrainian political analyst, also questioned the FBI's activities,
writing that "some kind of undercover operations are being conducted in Ukraine with direct
participation (or even under control) of the FBI. This means the FBI operatives could have
access to classified data or confidential information."
Lutsenko called for an audit of NABU,
claiming to "possess information of interest to the auditors" and was pushing for Sytnyk's
resignation, along with that of Nazar Kholodnitskiy, the Specialized Anti-Corruption
Prosecutor's Office (SAP). According to
reporting by Euromaidan Press, Lutsenko's efforts failed "thanks to the reaction from
Ukraine's American partners."
Michael Carpenter, an adviser to Joe Biden, personally issued a public warning to Lutsenko
and others pushing for Sytnyk's removal, stating, "If the Rada votes to dismiss the head of the
Anticorruption Committee and the head of the NABU, I will recommend cutting all U.S. government
assistance to #Ukraine , including security
assistance."
Sytnyk remains in his position as NABU's director.
Pinchuk's Ties to Leshchenko,
Clintons
On April 11, 2019, Greg Craig, Obama's former White House counsel and a partner at law firm
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, was indicted
for lying about and concealing his work in Ukraine. Craig, who reportedly worked closely with
Manafort, was paid
more than $4 million to produce an "independent" report justifying Ukraine's trial and
conviction of the former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. Notably, Craig's name was not
included in the "Black Ledger" leak from Leshchenko and Sytnyk.
The indictment notes that "a wealthy private Ukrainian" was fully funding the report. In a
recent YouTube video
, Craig publicly stated that "it was Doug Schoen who brought this project to me, and he told me
he was acting on behalf of Victor Pinchuk, who was a pro-western, Ukrainian businessman who
helped to fund the project."
"The Firm understood that its work was to be largely funded by Victor Pinchuk," Skadden
wrote in recent FARA filings .
Pinchuk put out a statement on Jan. 21, denying any financial involvement:
"Mr. Pinchuk was not the source of any funds used to pay fees of Skadden in producing their
report into the trial and conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko. He was in no way responsible for
those costs. Neither Mr. Pinchuk nor companies affiliated with him have ever been a client of
Skadden. Mr. Pinchuk and his team had no role in the work done by Skadden, including in the
preparation or dissemination of the Skadden report."
Pinchuk is the founder of Interpipe, a steel pipe manufacturer. He owns Credit Dnipro Bank,
several ferroalloy plants and a media empire. He is married to Elena Pinchuk, the daughter of
former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.
Pinchuk has been accused of profiting immensely from the purchase of state-owned assets at
severely below-market prices through political favoritism.
Between April 4 and April 12,
2016, Ukrainian parliamentarian Olga Bielkova had
four meetings , with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz
Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Department), and David Kramer
(McCain Institute).
FARA documents
filed by Schoen showed that he was paid $40,000 a month by Pinchuk (page 5) -- in part to
arrange these meetings.
Schoen attempted to arrange another 72 meetings with congressmen and media (page 10). It's
unknown how many of these meetings, if any, took place.
Schoen also helped Pinchuk establish ties with the Clinton Foundation. The Wall Street
Journal reported on
March 19, 2015, how Schoen connected Pinchuk with senior Clinton State Department staffers in
order to pressure former Ukrainian President Yanukovych to release Tymoshenko–a political
rival of Yanukovych–from jail. And the relationship between Pinchuk and the Clintons
continued. According to the Kyiv
Post :
"Clinton and her husband Bill, the 42nd U.S. president, have been paid speakers at the
annual YES and other Pinchuk events. They describe themselves as friends of Pinchuk, who is
known internationally as a businessman and philanthropist."
Although exact numbers aren't clear,
reports filed by the Clinton Foundation indicate that as much as $25 million of Pinchuk's
donations went to the Clinton organization.
Pinchuk also has ties to Leshchenko, the Ukrainian MP who leaked the information on
Manafort. Leshchenko had been a frequent speaker at the Ukrainian Breakfast , a traditional private event
held at Davos, Switzerland, and hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and has also been
pictured with Pinchuk at multiple other events.
"... DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review. ..."
"... The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016. ..."
"... After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target. ..."
"... On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit. ..."
"... Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant. ..."
"... The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. ..."
"... While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director. ..."
Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for
uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page
unsealed FISA
court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:
"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.
"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.
"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."
The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:
"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar
disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."
The FISA Court
disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to
the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.
In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of
improper
contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he
directed the NSA's Office
of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."
On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors
working for the FBI.
DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed
2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was
part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016,
report by the Office
of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose
Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.
The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin
announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.
After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing
numerous "about query"
violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and
reported his findings
to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are
not "to" or "from" the target.
On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance
on Carter Page from the FISA Court.
At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.
On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally
informed
the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings
of his audit.
The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.
Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions
at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.
The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a
recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.
The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing
to present his findings to the FISA Court.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
The insurance policy was the false flag operation directed at establishing the Trump–Russia collusion
narrative. The key part was the appointment of Special Prosecutor in which McCabe played an important if not the decisive role.
Notable quotes:
"... The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign. ..."
"... The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation. ..."
Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance
policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.
Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to
monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump
campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the
text.
The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion
narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the
Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The
intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump
campaign.
The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe
would end up running the investigation.
The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the
Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.
The
intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the
dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.
This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers
having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the
narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.
Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the
narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout
2017.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be
followed on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe. ..."
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate."
He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the
Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text
message.
McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.
On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He
was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recluses
himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March
2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of
the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.
Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased
scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly
Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.
On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject
of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day.
McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for
the permanent position.
On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the
FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016,
Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin
Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of
Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."
At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the
darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.
In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions,
regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with
Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.
Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.
On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly
record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced
from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general
counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence.
Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.
The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the
Justice Department to open an investigation into the president."
An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the
conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying,
"What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"
Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met
with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job.
On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after
Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.
The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from
the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any
expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.
Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed
-- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation.
McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under
consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement
and the FBI would have retained control.
On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath
regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew
McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.
On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of
investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of
this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI
director.
Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks
investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak
investigations.
That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove
any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The
appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely
neutralized.
On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and
is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.
Newly released evidence suggests Ukraine played key role in creating
Trump–Russia collusion narrative at behest of Obama officials
As Ukraine underwent dramatic changes
in 2014, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden played a critical role in the Obama
administration's involvement in the revolution that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych.
Following the revolution, Biden would use his influence to help force the creation of the
troubled National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). Notably, during the 2016 election campaign,
information leaked from NABU about Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort that helped to create
the false narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to win the election.
Biden also would use the threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to
pressure Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor general. At the time, the
prosecutor had been investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas giant that had appointed
Biden's son, Hunter, as a board member.
President Donald
Trump 's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, recently said, "Keep your eye on Ukraine." In his
comments to the
Washington Examiner , Giuliani highlighted the "plot to create an investigation of
President Trump, based on a false charge of conspiracy with the Russians to affect the 2016
elections."
Obama Administration's 2014 Involvement
On or shortly before Feb. 4, 2014, Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary for European and
Eurasian affairs in the Obama State Department, had a conversation with the U.S. ambassador to
Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, which was intercepted and leaked .
In the call, Nuland and Pyatt appeared to be discussing the ouster of Yanukovych and the
installation of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister.
Nuland favored opposition leader Yatsenyuk over his main rivals Vitali Klitschko and Oleh
Tyahnybok, telling Pyatt: "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the
governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitschko and Tyahnybok on the outside."
Toward the end of the conversation , then-Vice President Biden
was discussed as being willing to help cement the changeover in Ukraine:
Geoffrey Pyatt: "We want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come
out here and help to midwife this thing. The other issue is some kind of outreach to
Yanukovych, but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into
place."
Victoria Nuland: "So, on that piece Geoff, when I wrote the note [Biden's national security
adviser Jake] Sullivan's come back to me VFR [direct to me], saying you need Biden, and I said
probably tomorrow for an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick. So Biden's
willing."
Nuland and Pyatt met with Ukrainian opposition leaders Klitschko and Yatsenyuk, along with
then-President Yanukovych, just days later on Feb. 7, 2014.
Events then moved swiftly. On Feb. 22, 2014, Yanukovych was
removed as president of Ukraine and fled to Russia. On Feb. 27, 2014, Yatsenyuk, the
candidate favored by Nuland, was installed as prime minister of Ukraine.
Klitschko was left out. Notably, Yatsenyuk would later resign
in April 2016 amid corruption accusations.
Biden's Involvement in Ukraine
In April, Biden would get personally involved, as would his son, Hunter. On April 18, 2014,
Hunter Biden was
appointed to the board of directors for Burisma–one of the largest natural gas
companies in Ukraine.
Four days later, on April 22, 2014, Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine ,
offering his political support and $50 million in aid for Yatsenyuk's shaky new government.
Poroshenko, a billionaire politician, was elected as president of Ukraine on May 25, 2014.
Biden became close to both men and helped Ukraine obtain a four-year, $17.5
billion IMF package in March 2015.
In October 2016, Foreign Policy wrote a lengthy article, "
What Will Ukraine Do Without Uncle Joe ," which described Biden's role in the removal of
Ukraine's general prosecutor, Victor Shokin. Shokin, the choice of Poroshenko, was portrayed as
fumbling a major corruption case and "hindering an investigation into two high-ranking state
prosecutors arrested on corruption charges."
The United States pushed for Shokin's removal, and Biden led the effort by personally
threatening to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. In an interview
with The Atlantic, Biden recalled telling Poroshenko: "Petro, you're not getting your billion
dollars. It's OK, you can keep the [prosecutor] general. Just understand -- we're not paying if
you do." Shokin was removed by
Poroshenko shortly thereafter, in early 2016.
But according to reporting by The Hill, at the time of his firing, Shokin had been
investigating Burisma. Shokin's investigation into Burisma had previously been
disclosed in June 2017, by Front News International.
Burisma is
owned by Nikolai Zlochevsky (also known as Mykola Zlochevsky), the former minister of
ecology for Ukraine. According to
Front News , Zlochevsky issued
a "special permit for the extraction of a third of the gas produced in Ukraine" to his own
company, Burisma.
According to the Ukrainian nonprofit Anti Corruption Action Center, Zlochevsky owns 38
permits held by 14 different companies -- with Burisma
accounting for the majority with 33 of the permits. Zlochevsky left Ukraine after
Yanukovych fled to Russia during the Ukrainian Revolution known as
Euromaidan.
Investigation Into Burisma
In the spring of 2014, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation at
the behest of the UK prosecutors office, which was investigating money laundering allegations
against Zlochevsky and had
just frozen $23.5 million in assets allegedly belonging to him in early April 2014. Shokin,
who wasn't appointed as general prosecutor until February 2015, wasn't yet involved in the
case.
Ukrainian prosecutors
refused to provide the UK with needed documents, and in January 2015, a British court
ordered the assets unfrozen. This action was pointedly called out in a
speech by Pyatt, who stated, "In the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the
UK authorities had seized $23 million in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian
people."
Instead of receiving cooperation from Ukrainian prosecutors, they "sent letters to
Zlochevsky's attorneys attesting that there was no case against him. As a result, the money was
freed by the UK court, and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus."
On Feb. 10, 2015, Shokin was appointed prosecutor general of Ukraine, and he picked up the
investigation into Burisma, which reportedly continued until his formal resignation in February
2016.
Around the same time that Zlochevsky's assets were being frozen in the UK, Burisma appointed
Hunter Biden to its board on April 18, 2014. Hunter's compensation had never been disclosed by
Burisma, which is a private company, but Ryan Toohey, a Burisma spokesman,
told The New York Times that Biden's compensation was "not out of the ordinary" for similar
board positions.
However, according to The Hill's
reporting , Hunter Biden's firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was receiving regular
payments -- "usually more than $166,000 a month" -- from Burisma. The payments ran from the
spring of 2014 through the fall of 2015 and reportedly totaled more than $3 million.
The Hill article included a written answer from Shokin, who told Solomon that his
investigation into Burisma had included plans for "interrogations and other crime-investigation
procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden."
According to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, following Shokin's forced
dismissal, the Burisma investigation was transferred to Sytnyk's NABU, which then reportedly
closed the investigation sometime in 2016.
The Kyiv Post on March 27 published an
editorial written by three members of the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv that
disputed Lutsenko's interview with The Hill. They claim that two cases relating to Burisma are
still being investigated by NABU:
"Two cases regarding the extraction of licenses by Zlochevsky's companies and embezzlement
of public funds at the ministry's procurements during Zlochevsky's Ministerial tenure remain
active and are investigated by NABU."
They also claim that "none of the criminal proceedings against Burisma were closed by NABU."
They acknowledged that the case concerning illegal issuance of licenses to extract natural
resources were transferred to NABU in December 2015, but claim that SAP missed procedural
deadlines for a lawsuit on canceling those licenses.
The politics within Ukraine are extremely complicated, and corruption is endemic, often
leading to conflicting accounts of events.
US Pressure to Investigate Manafort
In January 2016, top Ukrainian corruption prosecutors and officials from Obama's National
Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ) met in
Washington, according to an April 26
article by The Hill.
The meeting, which was reportedly billed as "training," apparently also touched on two other
matters -- the revival of a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine's
Russia-backed Party of Regions and the closure of an ongoing Ukrainian investigation into
Burisma.
According to The Hill's reporting, the Ukrainian Embassy confirmed that meetings were held,
but said it "had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the
meetings."
A Jan. 22, 2016, NABU press
release confirmed that NABU Director Artem Sytnyk was in Washington from Jan. 19 to 21.
At the same time as the NABU meeting with Obama officials, Vice President Biden
also met with senior Ukrainian officials. On Jan. 21, 2016, Biden
met with Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine. According to the
White House release , the two leaders agreed "to continue to move forward on Ukraine's
anti-corruption agenda."
Just six days earlier, on Jan 15, 2016, Biden had met with Ukrainian Prime Minister
Volodymyr Groysman, promising to commit $220 million in new assistance to Ukraine that
year.
Notably, several months later, Sytnyk and Ukrainian Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko
would
publicly disclose the contents of the Ukrainian "black ledger" to the media, which
implicated Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort. The revelation would force Manafort from
the campaign.
Leshchenko also served as a source for various individuals, including journalist Michael
Isikoff and Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative Alexandra Chalupa. In addition,
Leshchenko served as a direct source of information for Fusion GPS -- and its researcher,
former CIA contractor Nellie Ohr.
Another Ukrainian-related meeting also took place in January 2016 when Chalupa, a
Ukrainian-American, informed an
unknown senior DNC official that she believed there was a Russian connection with the Trump
campaign. Notably, this theme would be picked up by the Clinton campaign in the summer of 2016.
Chalupa also told the official to expect Manafort's involvement in the Trump campaign.
How Chalupa knew to expect Manafort's involvement with the Trump campaign in January remains
unknown, but her forecast proved prescient, as Manafort
reached out to the Trump campaign shortly after, on Feb. 29, 2016, through a mutual
acquaintance, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. According to Manafort, he and Trump hadn't been in
communication
for years until the Trump campaign responded to Manafort's offer.
As The Epoch Times
previously reported , on May 30, 2016, Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr sent an email to
her husband, high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and three other DOJ officials to alert them
of the discovery of the "Reported Trove of Documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions' 'Black
Cashbox.'" It was this discovery that led to Manafort's resignation from the Trump campaign in
August 2016.
On Aug. 14, 2016, The New York Times published an article
alleging that payments to Manafort had been uncovered from the Party of Regents' "black box" --
the 400-page handwritten ledger released by Leshchenko. The article proved to be a fatal blow
for Manafort, who resigned from the Trump campaign just days later.
NABU Ties to FBI
Following the successful overthrow of Yanukovych, Joe Biden had a direct hand in the
formation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), as he personally "pushed for the
creation of an independent anti-corruption bureau to combat graft," according to an Oct. 30,
2016, article by
Foreign Policy .
NABU was formally established in October 2014 in response to pressure
from not only the U.S. State Department and Biden, but also by the International Monetary Fund
and the European Commission.
Despite the international push, the fledgling anti-corruption unit took more than a year to
actually become a functioning unit. During this time, NABU officials began establishing a
relationship with the FBI. In early 2016, NABU Director Sytnyk announced
that his bureau was very close to signing a memorandum of cooperation with the FBI and by
February
2016 , the FBI had had a permanent representative onsite at the NABU offices.
On June 5, 2016, Sytnyk met with U.S. Ambassador Pyatt to
discuss a more formalized relationship with the FBI and, on June 30, 2016, NABU and the FBI
entered into a
memorandum of understanding that allowed for an FBI office onsite at NABU offices to focus on
international money laundering cases. The relationship was renewed
for an additional two years in June 2017.
NABU has repeatedly refused to make the memorandum of understanding with the FBI public and
went
to court in 2018 to prevent its release. After receiving an unfavorable opinion from the
Kyiv District Administrative Court, NABU appealed the ruling, which was overturned in its favor
by the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal.
Sytnyk, along with parliamentarian Leshchenko, became the subject of an investigation in
Ukraine and in December 2018, a Kyiv court
ruled that both men "acted illegally when they revealed that Manafort's surname and
signature were found in the so-called black ledger of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's
Party of Regions," the Kyiv Post
reported on Dec. 12, 2018.
The court noted the material was part of a pre-trial investigation and its release "led to
interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests
of Ukraine as a state."
Leshchenko had publicly adopted a strong anti-Trump stance, telling the Financial
Times in August 2016 that "a Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American
foreign policy" and that it was "important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he
is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world." Leschenko
noted that the majority of Ukrainian politicians were "on Hillary Clinton's side."
In December 2017, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko
accused Sytnyk of allowing the FBI to conduct illegal operations in Ukraine, claiming that
the "U.S. law enforcers were allegedly invited without the permission required and in breach of
the necessary procedures." Lutsenko
continued by asking, "Who actually let the foreign special service act in Ukraine?"
Taras Chornovil, a Ukrainian political analyst, also questioned the FBI's activities,
writing that "some kind of undercover operations are being conducted in Ukraine with direct
participation (or even under control) of the FBI. This means the FBI operatives could have
access to classified data or confidential information."
Lutsenko called for an audit of NABU,
claiming to "possess information of interest to the auditors" and was pushing for Sytnyk's
resignation, along with that of Nazar Kholodnitskiy, the Specialized Anti-Corruption
Prosecutor's Office (SAP). According to
reporting by Euromaidan Press, Lutsenko's efforts failed "thanks to the reaction from
Ukraine's American partners."
Michael Carpenter, an adviser to Joe Biden, personally issued a public warning to Lutsenko
and others pushing for Sytnyk's removal, stating, "If the Rada votes to dismiss the head of the
Anticorruption Committee and the head of the NABU, I will recommend cutting all U.S. government
assistance to #Ukraine , including security
assistance."
Sytnyk remains in his position as NABU's director.
Pinchuk's Ties to Leshchenko,
Clintons
On April 11, 2019, Greg Craig, Obama's former White House counsel and a partner at law firm
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, was indicted
for lying about and concealing his work in Ukraine. Craig, who reportedly worked closely with
Manafort, was paid
more than $4 million to produce an "independent" report justifying Ukraine's trial and
conviction of the former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko. Notably, Craig's name was not
included in the "Black Ledger" leak from Leshchenko and Sytnyk.
The indictment notes that "a wealthy private Ukrainian" was fully funding the report. In a
recent YouTube video
, Craig publicly stated that "it was Doug Schoen who brought this project to me, and he told me
he was acting on behalf of Victor Pinchuk, who was a pro-western, Ukrainian businessman who
helped to fund the project."
"The Firm understood that its work was to be largely funded by Victor Pinchuk," Skadden
wrote in recent FARA filings .
Pinchuk put out a statement on Jan. 21, denying any financial involvement:
"Mr. Pinchuk was not the source of any funds used to pay fees of Skadden in producing their
report into the trial and conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko. He was in no way responsible for
those costs. Neither Mr. Pinchuk nor companies affiliated with him have ever been a client of
Skadden. Mr. Pinchuk and his team had no role in the work done by Skadden, including in the
preparation or dissemination of the Skadden report."
Pinchuk is the founder of Interpipe, a steel pipe manufacturer. He owns Credit Dnipro Bank,
several ferroalloy plants and a media empire. He is married to Elena Pinchuk, the daughter of
former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.
Pinchuk has been accused of profiting immensely from the purchase of state-owned assets at
severely below-market prices through political favoritism.
Between April 4 and April 12,
2016, Ukrainian parliamentarian Olga Bielkova had
four meetings , with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz
Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Department), and David Kramer
(McCain Institute).
FARA documents
filed by Schoen showed that he was paid $40,000 a month by Pinchuk (page 5) -- in part to
arrange these meetings.
Schoen attempted to arrange another 72 meetings with congressmen and media (page 10). It's
unknown how many of these meetings, if any, took place.
Schoen also helped Pinchuk establish ties with the Clinton Foundation. The Wall Street
Journal reported on
March 19, 2015, how Schoen connected Pinchuk with senior Clinton State Department staffers in
order to pressure former Ukrainian President Yanukovych to release Tymoshenko–a political
rival of Yanukovych–from jail. And the relationship between Pinchuk and the Clintons
continued. According to the Kyiv
Post :
"Clinton and her husband Bill, the 42nd U.S. president, have been paid speakers at the
annual YES and other Pinchuk events. They describe themselves as friends of Pinchuk, who is
known internationally as a businessman and philanthropist."
Although exact numbers aren't clear,
reports filed by the Clinton Foundation indicate that as much as $25 million of Pinchuk's
donations went to the Clinton organization.
Pinchuk also has ties to Leshchenko, the Ukrainian MP who leaked the information on
Manafort. Leshchenko had been a frequent speaker at the Ukrainian Breakfast , a traditional private event
held at Davos, Switzerland, and hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and has also been
pictured with Pinchuk at multiple other events.
"... Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration. ..."
"... Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove. ..."
"... Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend. ..."
"... Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services. ..."
"... Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. ..."
"... Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations. ..."
"... Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia. ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated. ..."
UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.
Britain's GCHQ was involved in
collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert
Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to
meet personally
with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.
Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers.
In the following year, Hannigan
abruptly announced
his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.
As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted
after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant
Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly
so.
Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele
retains close ties with Dearlove.
Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to
work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at
the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter
Page to attend.
Dearlove knows Halper through their
mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is
an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence
and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and
retains close ties to UK intelligence services.
Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has
co-authored two books.
Downer, who
met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting
established through a chain
of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt
from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still
maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish
the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.
The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former
British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later
relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute,
to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017,
statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.
Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations
-- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can
we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.
In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that
the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.
Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified
documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest
idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?
Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release
appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.
Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele
Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion
was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against
Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he
and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele
maintains contact with British intelligence,
Sir Richard Dearlove
, and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.
Steele appears to have been
represented
by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from
texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:
"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important
concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort.
I will be with him next tuesday for a week."
Steele also appears to have
lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in
emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently
disclosed by the Washington Examiner:
"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool'
of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."
Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation
pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler,
who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower
meeting, at which she discussed the
Magnitsky Act .
Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson
met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.
A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government
agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside
contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.
Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.
Bruce and Nellie Ohr have
known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a
DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography
lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr
before and after the 2016 election.
Bruce Ohr had been in
contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later
actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions
between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s
-- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.
Spy Traps
In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps
were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos
and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has
ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.
Papadopoulos and Mifsud
both worked
at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around
November
2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly
joined
LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some
reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November
or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths
until March 14, 2016, in Italy.
Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and
Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and
Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days
in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.
Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but
was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.
Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed
as a
chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.
Papadopoulos was introduced
to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened
to
be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit
remains unknown.
The Papadopoulos–Downer
meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly
reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.
According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point
mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the
lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told
The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging
to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."
Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was
responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.
Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017,
BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted
to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended
target of these failed FISAs.
Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael
Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.
Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.
After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter
Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized
with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct.
21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.
Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a
Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016
Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known
each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.
Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with
Page. Current information suggests there was only
one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named
in the Buryakov case.
Page, who
cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted
by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov
pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was
sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was
deported to Russia.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes
said in August that exculpatory evidence
on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence
likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.
If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application
to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.
Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review. ..."
"... The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016. ..."
"... After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target. ..."
"... On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit. ..."
"... Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant. ..."
"... The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. ..."
"... While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director. ..."
Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for
uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page
unsealed FISA
court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:
"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.
"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.
"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."
The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:
"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar
disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."
The FISA Court
disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to
the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.
In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of
improper
contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he
directed the NSA's Office
of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."
On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors
working for the FBI.
DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed
2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was
part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016,
report by the Office
of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose
Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.
The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin
announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.
After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing
numerous "about query"
violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and
reported his findings
to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are
not "to" or "from" the target.
On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance
on Carter Page from the FISA Court.
At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.
On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally
informed
the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings
of his audit.
The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.
Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions
at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.
The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a
recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.
The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing
to present his findings to the FISA Court.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
The insurance policy was the false flag operation directed at establishing the Trump–Russia collusion
narrative. The key part was the appointment of Special Prosecutor in which McCabe played an important if not the decisive role.
Notable quotes:
"... The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign. ..."
"... The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation. ..."
Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance
policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.
Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to
monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump
campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the
text.
The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion
narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the
Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The
intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump
campaign.
The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe
would end up running the investigation.
The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the
Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.
The
intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the
dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.
This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers
having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the
narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.
Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the
narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout
2017.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be
followed on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe. ..."
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate."
He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the
Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text
message.
McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.
On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He
was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recluses
himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March
2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of
the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.
Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased
scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly
Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.
On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject
of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day.
McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for
the permanent position.
On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the
FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016,
Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin
Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of
Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."
At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the
darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.
In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions,
regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with
Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.
Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.
On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly
record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced
from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general
counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence.
Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.
The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the
Justice Department to open an investigation into the president."
An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the
conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying,
"What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"
Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met
with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job.
On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after
Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.
The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from
the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any
expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.
Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed
-- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation.
McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under
consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement
and the FBI would have retained control.
On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath
regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew
McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.
On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of
investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of
this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI
director.
Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks
investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak
investigations.
That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove
any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The
appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely
neutralized.
On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and
is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.
In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven
irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts
ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a
series of payments to several as-of-yet-
unnamed reporters .
The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In
September 2016 ,
he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according
to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.
In mid-October
2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother
Jones reporter David Corn.
Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted
version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence
community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern
that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.
On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article "
A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in
court documents
relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance
in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, "
FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA
warrant.
The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and
charged with one count of lying
to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment
alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.
Reporter
Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.
It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application.
According to the indictment
, Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages
with Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call.
The original Page FISA application is 83 pages long, including one final signatory page.
In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions
for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.
Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original
unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly
stated that evidence within the FISA application
shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.
Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence
having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit
their complicity.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided
by Section
2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's
data-sharing
order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance
simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.
Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't
sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.
The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between
agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.
An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017,
MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration
gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:
"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as
much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'
"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try
to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the
leaking."
Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating
impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the
attorney general's office. According to congressional
testimony by Horowitz:
"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply
a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going
to give us that information."
These new restrictions were
put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a
letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015,
with a 58-page
memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including
intercepted communications and national security letters.
The New York Times recently
disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.
At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The
Intelligence Community assessment was released
internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national
security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email
documenting
the meeting.
The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they
gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey,
Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.
Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later
explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview
why:
"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."
Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The
significance of the meeting was material, as Comey
noted in
a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:
"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write
that the FBI has the material."
The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey
briefed Trump that
CNN reported
on the dossier. It was later
revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.
The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of
intelligence unmaskings
, the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha
Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.
The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser,
Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division,
led that effort
.
Executive Order 13762
President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ.
The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold
the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her
position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.
Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership.
The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.
Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips,
after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced
to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming
under intense scrutiny.
The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian
ambassador.
Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.
Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.
On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings
appear to have been unexpected.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of
information. The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally
facilitated
by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland
gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have
passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.
Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal
investigation, he began to
provide reports
informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were
"shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant
Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of
the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea
and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian
reported.
In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit
Steele in London, the bureau
sought
permission
from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018,
appearance
on CBS's "Face the Nation":
"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four
pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our
purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole
might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."
Steele also
met with
Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and
former special envoy for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article
in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the following:
"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.'
Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National
Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his
associates and campaign."
In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a
separate dossier
, very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second
dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed
claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the
"second dossier." Steele went on to
share
this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.
Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department.
Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK,
reportedly
funneled his conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's
counterintelligence investigation -- directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.
"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served
as a principal deputy assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley
Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018,
article
.
If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to
the Papadopoulos information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed,
remains unknown.
Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the
first memo
written by Steele on June 20, 2016:
"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence
Services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and
intercepted phone calls. It has not yet been distributed abroad, including to Trump."
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website
TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. ..."
"... What we are witnessing now is the almost complete ignorance in the MSM and among people like Clapper about the extraordinary damage done to the Russian economy under Clinton in the 1990s, a story well told by Mr. Cohen in the book "Failed Crusade." The immense hypocrisy of accusing Russia of interference in 2016 leaves me breathless. The US has been interfering in the affairs of every major country on earth, beginning with War of 1812 ..."
"... I recall an interesting comment by Mao Zedong about the Cuban Missile Crisis in which Mao said that Nikita Khrushchev was stupid to put missiles in Cuba and he was a coward to take them out. ..."
"... Based on the recent conversations between Stephen Cohen and John Batchelor, I'll paraphrase Mao's comment to say that the intelligence agencies were stupid to originate Russiagate and the Democrats and their media allies are cowards not to stop it. ..."
"... Pompous comes out and says the US is back and we're a force for good. This in the face of widespread destruction all over the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of dead, the creation of numerous groups of crazy zealots that we created, cultivated, and supported to be our proxies in the overthrow of elected governments. All of that death and destruction, including that perpetrated by our proxies is 100% the fault and responsibility of the United States. But Pompous and the American people in general are so myopic that they don't see all that. Thank you, worthless press. If the press actually told the American people what was being done in their name, I think most of us would be disgusted but they don't. They cheer lead for the beltway and their imperial pretensions. ..."
"... If Clapper and Brennan actually created a sting operation against the Trump Campaign, would you denounce that act? If Obama had approved such an operation, would you believe he was ethically entitled to do such? ..."
N ow in its third year, Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent
political scandal in modern American history. It rests on two related core allegations: that
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "attack on American democracy" during the 2016
presidential campaign in order to put Donald Trump in the White House, and that Trump and his
associates willfully colluded, or conspired, in this Kremlin "attack." As I have argued from
the outset -- see my regular commentaries posted at
TheNation.com and my recent book War With
Russia? -- and as recently confirmed, explicitly and tacitly, by special prosecutor
Robert Mueller's report, there is no factual evidence for either allegation.
Nonetheless, these Russiagate allegations, not "Putin's Russia," continue to inflict grave
damage on fundamental institutions of American democracy. They impugn the integrity of the
presidency and now the office of the attorney general. They degrade the many Democratic
members of Congress who persist in clinging to the allegations and thus the Democratic Party
and Congress. And they have enticed mainstream media into one of the worst episodes
of journalistic malpractice in modern times .
But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by
depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic
flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. We were given a vivid example
in July 2018, when Trump held a summit with the current Kremlin occupant, as every president
had done since Dwight Eisenhower. For that conventional, even necessary, act of diplomacy,
Trump was widely accused of treasonous behavior, a charge that persists. Now we have another
alarming example of this reckless disregard for US national security on the part of
Russiagate zealots.
On May 3, Trump called Putin. They discussed various issues, including the Mueller report.
(As before, Putin had to know if Trump was free to implement any acts of security cooperation
they might agree on. Indeed, the Russian policy elite openly debates this question, many of
its members having decided that Trump cannot cooperate with Russia no matter his intentions.)
A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela,
where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump
administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood,
ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics
of Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington
against violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow
policy circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and
Russia (then Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war.
To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian
military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve
it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary
on the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting
confrontation in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no
applause, only condemnation. To take some random examples:
§ Democratic Representative David Cicilline asked CNN's Chris Cuomo rhetorically on
May 3, "Why does the president give the benefit of doubt to a person who attacked our
democracy?" while assailing Trump for not confronting Putin with the Mueller report.
§ The same evening, CNN's Don Lemon editorialized on the phone call: "The president
of the United States had just a normal old call with his pal Vladimir Putin. Didn't tell him
not to interfere in the election. Like he did in 2016, like he did in 2018, like we know he
is planning to do again in 2020 . You just don't seem to want us to know exactly what was
said . Nothing to see when the president talks for more than an hour with the leader of an
enemy nation. One that has repeatedly attacked our democracy and will do so again." (Lemon
did not say on what he based the expanded, serial charges against Putin and thus against
Trump or his allegation about the 2018 elections, which congressional Democrats mostly won,
or his foreknowledge about 2020 or generally and with major ramifications why he branded
Russia an "enemy nation.")
§ We might expect something more exalted from James Risen ,
once a critical-minded investigative reporter, who found it suspicious that "Trump and Putin
were both eager to put the Mueller report behind them," even for the sake of needed
diplomacy.
§ Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the
2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also
expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant
that Trump "acts on their behalf," that he "is putting the Russians' interests ahead of the
United States' interests." (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who
continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American statesmen.)
§ Not surprisingly,
a Washington Post opinion writer argued that the phone call meant "Trump is
counting on Russian help to get reelected."
None of these "opinion leaders" mentioned the danger of a US-Russian military
confrontation over Venezuela or elsewhere on the several fraught fronts of the new Cold War.
Indeed, retired admiral James Stavridis, once supreme allied commander of NATO forces and
formerly associated with Hillary Clinton's campaign, all but proposed war on
Russia in retaliation for its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented
measures" such as cyberattacks.
Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America's
politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan
investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost
certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that
Russiagate is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at
the creation, though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA
Director John Brennan and intelligence overlord James Clapper.
Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence
agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what
happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment
operation against members of the campaign.) Comey warned
Barr that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul."
It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless
Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host
of The John Batchelor Show. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at
TheNation.com .
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton
University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is
available in paperback and in an ebook edition.
Phillip Sawicki says: May 9, 2019 at 7:52 pm
What we are witnessing now is the almost complete ignorance in the MSM and among people
like Clapper about the extraordinary damage done to the Russian economy under Clinton in the
1990s, a story well told by Mr. Cohen in the book "Failed Crusade." The immense hypocrisy of
accusing Russia of interference in 2016 leaves me breathless. The US has been interfering in
the affairs of every major country on earth, beginning with War of 1812.
In case people have
forgotten, The US sought to annex Canada. The Canadians resisted, and so then the US set up a
false flag attack in 1845 to start the Mexican-American War. Hundreds of interventions in
other countries, but if someone is alleged to have done so to us, it's a capital crime. What
arrogance!
Victor Sciamarelli says: May 9, 2019 at 4:17 pm
I recall an interesting comment by Mao Zedong about the Cuban Missile Crisis in which Mao
said that Nikita Khrushchev was stupid to put missiles in Cuba and he was a coward to take
them out.
Based on the recent conversations between Stephen Cohen and John Batchelor, I'll paraphrase
Mao's comment to say that the intelligence agencies were stupid to originate Russiagate and
the Democrats and their media allies are cowards not to stop it.
Another point is that the downside of the policy elites' belief in "American exceptionalism"
is that it is also a trap. They claim our "indispensable nation" rests upon values and
principles such as the rule of law, respect for human rights, and freedom of speech, even
though reality often tells us something different.
Thus, if Putin is a thug, if not a murderer, who attacked the US, undermined our democracy,
and is an autocrat who cares nothing about our values and principles, then what place is
there for diplomacy because you can't negotiate or compromise our immutable principles and
values.
Another observation is we often hear the statement that, "All options are on the table." This
sounds tough to an American mind because it includes nuclear weapons. All options means all
options. Nonetheless, someone else might interpret this to mean you are not confident or
certain that your conventional forces are capable of doing the mission and you are more
likely or willing to resort to a nuclear weapon. This can make any confrontation whether in
Venezuela, Ukraine, Syria, or Iran more dangerous that it needs to be.
In addition, Trump has sent an aircraft carrier group to the Middle East. The Guardian on May
6, 2019, stated that according to one report, information passed on by Israeli intelligence
contributed to the US threat assessment.
If we are now approaching war based on Israeli intelligence then I think we are also
approaching our Dr. Strangelove moment.
Jeffrey Harrison says: May 9, 2019 at 11:55 am
Arrogance, myopia. Those two words define the US today.
Pompous comes out and says the US is back and we're a force for good. This in the face of
widespread destruction all over the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of dead, the creation
of numerous groups of crazy zealots that we created, cultivated, and supported to be our
proxies in the overthrow of elected governments. All of that death and destruction, including
that perpetrated by our proxies is 100% the fault and responsibility of the United States.
But Pompous and the American people in general are so myopic that they don't see all that.
Thank you, worthless press. If the press actually told the American people what was being
done in their name, I think most of us would be disgusted but they don't. They cheer lead for
the beltway and their imperial pretensions.
This Stavridis bozo is a prime example. "all but proposed war on Russia in retaliation for
its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented measures" such as cyber attacks." I
realize that we are in a post proof world where any claim, no matter how inane, is
automatically taken as proven. No actual proof required. The "attack on our democracy" is
based on this totally bogus claim (never proven) that Russia hacked into the DNC's e-mails
(on a server that no law enforcement agency ever inspected to prove the claim of hacking)
that undermined our democracy by revealing how corrupt and slimy the DNC actually is. All the
while we're so myopic that we don't see the Republican party destroying our democracy from
within with voter ID requirements for a non-existent problem, gerrymandering themselves into
a permanent majority of a minority, voter suppression schemes such as purging voter rolls,
closing polling places, and generally making it difficult for people to vote.
But this Stavridis bozo wasn't done yet. The Russians he claims perpetrated unprecedented
measures such as cyber attacks. Really? The only cyber attacks that I'm actually aware of in
the US were actually perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security who was playing
bureaucratic turf games. The admiral's ignorance is in full display when he forgets the
STUXTNET worm that absolutely was a cyber attack on Iran by the US and Israel, and that the
NSA hacked the personal cell phone of Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister of Germany, and the
trick revealed by Ed Snowden that the NSA would open computer boxes destined for certain
countries and install chips that would allow us to control the server, or that the only known
backdoor in a piece of Hauwei equipment was installed there by the NSA.
I'm suspecting that we need to clean up our act a lot more that most of the rest of the
world.
J McCormick says: May 8, 2019 at 11:57 pm
So much scorn heaped on members of the opposition party and the media and what I hear here
is a call for respect for and deference to the office of the presidency.
If there is cause for concern and worry , and I fervently believe that there is , I leave
it to others to offer up what they believe that cause might be.
History records that that the Congress relinquished powers that were properly theirs
(trade, war powers) and now they so far appear impotent in the face of executive overreach
when an effective check on the executive branch is critically needed.
Even if your opinion runs counter to mine I am reasonably certain we agree that
dysfunction and chaos rule the day in Washington and beyond.
Clark Shanahan says: May 9, 2019 at 6:26 pm
"So much scorn heaped on members of the opposition party and the media"
Tell me, J., do you believe Russia is our adversary?
If so, when did they become such?
If Clapper and Brennan actually created a sting operation against the Trump Campaign,
would you denounce that act?
If Obama had approved such an operation, would you believe he was ethically entitled to do
such?
"... Those who have been following the Trump administration drama since the beginning might remember that, after initially welcoming Kelly as a "steady hand" and "adult in the room" who would bring order to a chaotic West Wing, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump swiftly turned on the former general, and their months-long power struggle become fodder for endless anonymously sourced reports and reprisals. ..."
"... That feud apparently left a bad taste in Kelly's mouth that just won't go away. Which is probably why, five months after being 'liberated' from the West Wing, Kelly felt comfortable publicly expressing his distaste for the two - in his own reserved way, not mentioning the couple by name - Trump Administration senior advisors during an interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV . ..."
"... And in what sounded suspiciously like ingratitude toward his host, Kelly said he had removed a few "very disruptive" people from the administration after arriving in the West Wing, and was struck by the "intense personal ambition" of some of his staffers. ..."
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 05/08/2019 - 20:00 0 SHARES TwitterFacebookRedditEmailPrint John Kelly has had a few months to reflect on his
tumultuous tenure as White House Chief of Staff. And though he's apparently forgiven the
president for the angry tweets and public rebukes, which helped fuel persistent rumors about
his impending firing, the former general still holds a grudge against his former West Wing
antagonist: Javanka. Those who have been following the Trump administration drama since the
beginning might remember that, after initially welcoming Kelly as a "steady hand" and "adult in
the room" who would bring order to a chaotic West Wing, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump swiftly
turned on the former general, and their months-long power struggle become fodder for endless
anonymously sourced reports and reprisals.
That feud apparently left a bad taste in Kelly's mouth that just won't go away. Which is
probably why, five months after being 'liberated' from the West Wing, Kelly felt comfortable
publicly expressing his distaste for the two - in his own reserved way, not mentioning the
couple by name - Trump Administration senior advisors during an interview with
David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV .
Kelly told Rubenstein that members of the Trump family serving in the administration needed
to be "dealt with" - even if Kelly wasn't the one to do it.
"They were an influence that has to be dealt with," Kelly said Tuesday during an interview
on Bloomberg Television's "The David Rubenstein Show," when asked whether it was complicated
to have the president's family working at the White House. "By no means do I mean Mrs. Trump
- the first lady's a wonderful person."
The Marine general sat for the interview in Las Vegas, where he was attending Anthony
Scaramucci's SALT conference (ironic because one of the first things Kelly did after arriving
in the West Wing was fire Scaramucci over an unhinged rant published in the New Yorker where
Scaramucci accused Steve Bannon of trying to "suck his own c*ck").
And in what sounded
suspiciously like ingratitude toward his host, Kelly said he had removed a few "very
disruptive" people from the administration after arriving in the West Wing, and was struck by
the "intense personal ambition" of some of his staffers.
I would have more respect for Kelly, if he bayoneted both Bolton and Pompeo on his way out
the door. That would have been the "Marine" thing to do, and would have been a greater
service to the country and the world.
"... The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program. ..."
"... One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely. ..."
"... I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. ..."
"... Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant. ..."
"... That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking " ..."
"... I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported. ..."
"... Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive: ..."
"... I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government? ..."
"... Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution. ..."
"... Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front. ..."
"... So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal. ..."
Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We
know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS)
by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele's FBI handler (those
reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry
Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.
The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer
of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive
steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives,
the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie
Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified
the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This
information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting."
This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.
One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was
CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka
the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.
This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel
and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don't have to have access to intelligence information to understand this.
For example, you simply have to ask the question, "how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar." I am confident that a survey
of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially,
his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone
unless their name is in an intelligence report. We also know that Felix Sater, a longtime business associate of Donald Trump
and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann), initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Don't take my word for it, that's what Robert Mueller reported:
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately
September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert),
a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately
2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later
contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and
brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee
of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency
put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the
direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from
a registered FBI informant.
By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign
Manager John Podesta's email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:
" That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, " Budowski replies, later adding: "
Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ."
The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway. This was more the opposition research.
This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition
research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets--
Hakluyt: there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about
with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against
Donald Trump.
Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence
operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations
pay huge sums. . . .
Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's
Henry
Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6
[British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "
I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI
for launching the investigation into
George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that
led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's
associates conspired," The Times reported.
Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially,
he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network
reported in a January 2016 exclusive:
But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client
cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.
His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation
of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.
Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain--there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET
intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation
mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.
Having watched interviews of Papadopoulos on TeeVee I would say that this creature would be easy to manipulate. His ego is so
enormous that a minimal effort would be required.
I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what
I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that
he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect
that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government?
The guts of the matter was well expressed by Judge T.S. Ellis when he made the distinction between different results which
can be expected from exerting pressures on witnesses: they may 'sing' - which is, commonly, in the interests of justice - but,
there again, they may 'compose', which is not.
Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law
enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses
to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should
be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution.
Yes, indeed, many a composition have been elicited by prosecutors in criminal cases. The issue is there is no penalty for prosecutorial
misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives are aligned perfectly for the "institution"
to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. Only those wealthy enough to fight the unlimited funds of the government have a chance.
But of course in matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.
I don't know how the national security state we continue to build ever gets rolled back. A small victory would be for Trump
to declassify all documents and communications relating to the multifaceted spying on his campaign and as Larry so eloquently
writes to frame him as a Manchurian Candidate. At least the public will learn about what their grandchildren are paying for. But
it seems that Trump prefers tweeting to taking any kind of action. Not that it would matter much as half the country will still
believe that Trump deserves it until the tables are turned on their team. While most Americans will say to use Ben Hunt's phrasing
Yay! Constitution. Yay! Liberty. they sure don't care as the state oligarchy tighten their chokehold.
Yes, he seems young and ambitious enough to be easy (and willing) prey. Having been involved in some local political campaigns
though, I've observed that more and more than before, young people like him are hyper-concerned with networking. Papadopoulos'
ego aside, of course he and many people who sign on hope to make self-serving connections. Not only that, it's also been my observation
that casual sexual hook-ups go with the territory, and not only among young, single guys like him. I have to say I've been shocked
a few times by how risky and cavalier some liaisons have been that've come to my attention, considering "public figures" are involved.
No doubt that's why a "honeypot" was dispatched to try to help entrap Papadopoulos.
Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes
spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before
the country move forward on any front.
So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele
via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal.
Papadopolos was very young hence the nativity getting sucked in. The ego helped for sure. Probably exciting to be part of something
important probably for the first time since he started working for Trump campaign
One thing that's always concerned me about Larry's informative and insightful essays on these matters is how can we be assured
that the IC documentation mentioned has been filled out honestly and accurately -- or that the forms even still exist and haven't
been conveniently "lost" or surreptitiously destroyed?
"... War is likely to start in the Middle East as Iran, Lebanon and Syria are relatively soft targets with only limited capability to strike back. As neocon pundit Michael Ledeen put it , " Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ." ..."
With the appointment of leading neoconservative John Bolton as National Security Advisor,
the Zionist war-party takeover of
the White House is nearly complete. With Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, Nikki Haley at the U.N.
and now Bolton whispering in the President's ear, we have a fully endowed war cabinet that will
make sure the Mullahs, Russkies and Rocket Man begin to pay attention. As Haley laid down the
law in the United Nations recently, "Our patience is not unlimited."
Bolton, the point man for Israeli-American
casino billionaire and GOP kingmaker Sheldon Adelson , will be the spark plug that ignites
a new round of warfare on behalf of Israel. Bolton has long been planning to attack Iran. He
secretly and illegally met with Israel's Mossad intelligence service in 2003-4 when he was
in the State Department under George W. Bush to lay the groundwork for such a conflict. Today,
right-wing Israelis are certainly cheering his appointment. Naftali Bennett, a member of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet,
has already praised the move, calling Bolton "an extraordinary security expert, experienced
diplomat and a stalwart friend of Israel".
War is likely to start in the Middle East as Iran, Lebanon and Syria are relatively soft
targets with only limited capability to strike back. As neocon pundit Michael Ledeen put it , " Every ten years
or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against
the wall, just to show the world we mean business ." There have been numerous indications
that Israel is preparing for war. Its planning clearly includes deliberately involving the
United States in the conflict, turning American soldiers into de facto hostages, with U.S.
casualties guaranteeing Washington's direct and immediate involvement in the fighting.
Largely unknown to the American public, the United States
has just completed the largest ever joint military exercises with Israel even though it has
no defense agreement or treaty with Tel Aviv. That is, in part, because military alliances are
dependent on an attack on one partner mandating support from all parties to the agreement.
Israel has balked at such an arrangement because it cannot define its own borders, which are
constantly expanding.
The recent maneuvers featured scenarios in which U.S. troops fought Syrians, Lebanese and
Palestinians in a mock-up Arab village to defend Israel. Washington's particularly
vulnerability vis-à-vis Israel derives from the recent
opening of a U.S. permanent facility at Mashabim Air Base in the Negev Desert.
It is described as a base within a base, completely contained by an Israeli air force
installation and operating "under Israeli military directives," meaning that if the facility is
attacked Americans will likely die. It has no function in support of U.S. regional interests
but is instead a shell facility with a few dozen airmen that can be ramped up considerably if
Israel goes to war and calls for American assistance. Together with billions of dollars-worth
of U.S. military equipment that is pre-positioned in Israel and can be used by the Israelis as
needed, it is all about supporting Israeli war-making and has nothing to do with American
security or defense interests except as a tripwire to bring about U.S. involvement.
For that reason, all of the above is something more than just the latest "we have to support
Israel" gimmick. The American soldiers and airmen who are now based in Israel are the
sacrificial lambs that will guarantee U.S. entry into a war that Israel intends to start, make
no mistake about that.
When Israel attacks Syria and/or Lebanon, as it clearly intends to do, Hezbollah will
retaliate with its missiles, some of which will surely be directed towards the Mashabim Air
Base, which will be targeted to inhibit the base's ability to bomb Lebanon. And once Washington
is well and truly engaged in what is referred to as "force protection," Israel will undoubtedly
widen the conflict by drawing Iran in through attacks on that country's identified bases in
Syria that are supporting the al-Assad government. The bigger war will suddenly become
America's responsibility after Israel inevitably proves itself incapable of handling the
escalation.
"... The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program. ..."
"... One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely. ..."
"... I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. ..."
"... Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant. ..."
"... That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking " ..."
"... I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported. ..."
"... Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive: ..."
"... I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government? ..."
"... Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution. ..."
"... Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front. ..."
"... So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal. ..."
Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We
know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS)
by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele's FBI handler (those
reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry
Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.
The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer
of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive
steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives,
the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie
Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified
the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This
information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting."
This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.
One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was
CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka
the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.
This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel
and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don't have to have access to intelligence information to understand this.
For example, you simply have to ask the question, "how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar." I am confident that a survey
of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially,
his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone
unless their name is in an intelligence report. We also know that Felix Sater, a longtime business associate of Donald Trump
and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann), initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Don't take my word for it, that's what Robert Mueller reported:
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately
September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert),
a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately
2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later
contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and
brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee
of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency
put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the
direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from
a registered FBI informant.
By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign
Manager John Podesta's email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:
" That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, " Budowski replies, later adding: "
Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ."
The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway. This was more the opposition research.
This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition
research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets--
Hakluyt: there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about
with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against
Donald Trump.
Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence
operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations
pay huge sums. . . .
Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's
Henry
Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6
[British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "
I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI
for launching the investigation into
George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that
led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's
associates conspired," The Times reported.
Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially,
he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network
reported in a January 2016 exclusive:
But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client
cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.
His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation
of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.
Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain--there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET
intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation
mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.
Having watched interviews of Papadopoulos on TeeVee I would say that this creature would be easy to manipulate. His ego is so
enormous that a minimal effort would be required.
I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what
I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that
he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect
that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government?
The guts of the matter was well expressed by Judge T.S. Ellis when he made the distinction between different results which
can be expected from exerting pressures on witnesses: they may 'sing' - which is, commonly, in the interests of justice - but,
there again, they may 'compose', which is not.
Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law
enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses
to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should
be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution.
Yes, indeed, many a composition have been elicited by prosecutors in criminal cases. The issue is there is no penalty for prosecutorial
misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives are aligned perfectly for the "institution"
to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. Only those wealthy enough to fight the unlimited funds of the government have a chance.
But of course in matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.
I don't know how the national security state we continue to build ever gets rolled back. A small victory would be for Trump
to declassify all documents and communications relating to the multifaceted spying on his campaign and as Larry so eloquently
writes to frame him as a Manchurian Candidate. At least the public will learn about what their grandchildren are paying for. But
it seems that Trump prefers tweeting to taking any kind of action. Not that it would matter much as half the country will still
believe that Trump deserves it until the tables are turned on their team. While most Americans will say to use Ben Hunt's phrasing
Yay! Constitution. Yay! Liberty. they sure don't care as the state oligarchy tighten their chokehold.
Yes, he seems young and ambitious enough to be easy (and willing) prey. Having been involved in some local political campaigns
though, I've observed that more and more than before, young people like him are hyper-concerned with networking. Papadopoulos'
ego aside, of course he and many people who sign on hope to make self-serving connections. Not only that, it's also been my observation
that casual sexual hook-ups go with the territory, and not only among young, single guys like him. I have to say I've been shocked
a few times by how risky and cavalier some liaisons have been that've come to my attention, considering "public figures" are involved.
No doubt that's why a "honeypot" was dispatched to try to help entrap Papadopoulos.
Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes
spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before
the country move forward on any front.
So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele
via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal.
Papadopolos was very young hence the nativity getting sucked in. The ego helped for sure. Probably exciting to be part of something
important probably for the first time since he started working for Trump campaign
One thing that's always concerned me about Larry's informative and insightful essays on these matters is how can we be assured
that the IC documentation mentioned has been filled out honestly and accurately -- or that the forms even still exist and haven't
been conveniently "lost" or surreptitiously destroyed?
As usual. When
it suits, the rule book goes out the window. But equally when it suits they will quote rule after rule from the very
same book when it suits their agenda.
Chris Hedges, host of "On Contact," joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the role of the Democratic establishment in the "Russiagate"
media frenzy. He argues that it was an unsustainable narrative given the actions of the White House but that the Democratic elite
are unable to face their own role in the economic and social crises for which they are in large part to blame. They also discuss
NATO's expansionary tendencies and how profitable it is for US defense contractors.
Years ago I kept hearing from the newsmedia that Russia was the "enemy".
Frontline had a show about "Putin's Brain". Even Free
Speech TV shows like Bill Press and "The Nation" authors like Eric Alterman push the Hillary style warmongering and do nothing
to expose the outright lies out there.
These are supposed to be thought outside of the corporate mainstream newsmedia. The emphasis
only on Trump and Fox News is totally hypocritical.
The US and Great Britain are trying to economically cripple Syria via cutoff of oil
supplies as "The Syrian government is scrambling to deal with its worst fuel crisis since
the war began in 2011, aggravated by U.S. sanctions targeting oil shipments to
Damascus." https://www.apnews.com/a99a22ad2598474ca39a7d8cde560c31
"Under the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Great Britain, no Iranian oil tankers are
allowed to transit the Suez Canal if they are destined for a Syrian port, a Syrian military
source told Al-Masdar News this morning."
Thus the Egyptian government is apparently technically lying about their role in the
sanction when they state "Egypt's government denied Wednesday banning the passage of oil
tankers to Syria through the Suez Canal. Navigation in the canal is going according to
international conventions and treaties that guarantee the right of safe navigation to all
tankers without discrimination."
https://syrianobserver.com/EN/news/49720/cairo-denies-syrian-accusations-on-banning-iranian-oil-tanker-passage.html
Consequently, Iran is shipping Syria oil via tanker trucks.
"1200 Iranian tankers loaded with oil products reached Syria through Iraq in the past
week," Al- Iraqia reports, adding, "The number of Iranian oil tankers are expected to reach
1500 per week, and after providing current Syrian needs, they will be fixed at 500 tankers
per week."
Those that oppose US and Israeli world domination has to buy time and promote economic
collapse within the Empire. Eventually the Sparta like militarism will bankrupt both
countries. The wild card is Venezuela - if they can get their hands on this oil they, and
their allies, can continue to spread chaos for a couple more decades. As it now stands the US
proven oil reserves are between 36-39 billion barrels and the US is consuming that oil at a
rate of about 4.3 billion barrels/year.
The US is also putting pressure on Turkey in hopes of deposing the current government that
supports the GNA in Libya and opposes the gulf states and Saudi Arabia. Turkey needs the
Iranian heavy crude for its Tupras refinery. Substituting heavy crude from Russia is an issue
as Russia has already contracted with Italy and Greece to supply heavy crude to their
refineries. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/04/turkey-iran-usa-ankara-seeks-alternative-sources-iranian-oil.html
B wrote "The Syrian oilfields, which could produce enough to keep the country running, are under
control of the U.S. proxy forces. The U.S. prohibited to sell that oil to the Syrian
government."
It is about the money. It is another spinning plate trying to be war just like Iran,
Venezuela, etc. And when the money music stops (which is only when enough nations stop buying
US Treasuries) the elite are going to say that the poor should pay for those attempts at
war.
I like the comment by frances above about the drunk on the canal boat and China/Russia/et
al are trying to keep us alive, hoping the drunk passes out.....and we all get to watch and
learn how not to run a world where the drunk owns the punch bowl.
Trump does not touch their foreign policy: appointment of Bolton and Pompeo means complete
and humiliating capitulation to neocons and globalists.
Trump was instrumental in reelecting Netanyahu and give several gifts to Israel.
Despite Hillary fiasco Pelosi managed to cling to power. Thanks to Mueller shenanigans which
put deep suspicion on the results of 2016 election which were a crushing defeat of Clinton
democrats (DemoRats - or neoliberal wing of Democratic Party) this neoliberal who most probably
outlived her political usefulness was not replaced.
Why they are still attacking Trump. What is the logic behind this sustained effort to impeach
him not matter what are the costs and with full understanding that President Pence is much worse
?
This is a real mystery of the US political life.
Notable quotes:
"... "What we've seen is a meltdown, an absolute meltdown, an inability to accept the bottom-line conclusion on Russian interference from the special counsel's report," he said. ..."
Republican pollster Conor Maguire said in an interview that aired Tuesday on "What America's
Thinking" that the divide over special counsel Robert Mueller 's report into Russia's election
meddling is an example of American political tribalism.
"It is really tribalism," Maguire, a senior strategist at WPA Intelligence, told Hill.TV's
Jamal Simmons on Monday.
"You are either supporting or you're not based on your party," he continued. "Interesting to
see independents really split pretty much 50-50 as well."
Democrats have continued to dive deeper into Mueller's probe into Moscow's election
interference, demanding the full, unredacted report from Attorney General William Barr , and have called to hear from
Mueller himself.
The rift has led to a growing gulf between House Democrats and the Justice Department, with
House Judiciary Committee Democrats scheduling a vote to hold Barr in contempt.
"What we've seen is a meltdown, an absolute meltdown, an inability to accept the bottom-line
conclusion on Russian interference from the special counsel's report," he said.
Israel and its friends in Washington and New York never miss the opportunity to exploit the
news cycle to tighten the screws a bit more, rendering any criticism of the Jewish state
unacceptable or even illegal. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon has been
persistently
demanding that what he describes as anti-Semitic speech be criminalized. Danon declared
that "The time for talking and having a conversation is over. What Israel and the Jewish
community around the world demand is action – and now."
How exactly Danon would enforce his definition of acceptable speech is not clear, but the
demands to eliminate any negative commentary regarding the holocaust or on Israel and/or the
behavior of diaspora Jews have been promoted for some time, resulting in laws in Europe that
inflict harsh punish on those who dare to speak out. The latest incident in the campaign to
eliminate the First Amendment in America took place oddly enough on the pages of the New
York Times , which, in its international edition, ran a cartoon by a Portuguese cartoonist
showing a dog with the face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a leash leading a
caricature of Donald Trump wearing a yarmulke and a blind man's glasses. The Netanyahu-dog had
a tag on its collar featuring a Star of David.
There are several ways to interpret the cartoon. It is, of course, an insult to dogs to have
them depicted in such a fashion as to suggest that they might behave like the monstrous Israeli
Prime Minister. No dog would sink so low. One
observer , commenting from a dog's point of view, noted that "We canines share that saying
that 'the eyes are the window to the soul.' Look into our eyes and you'll see love and trust.
Look into Netanyahu's eyes you see cunning and deceit so why stick his head on our body?"
On the other hand, one might see in the cartoon a serious message, that Netanyahu has been
able to "wag the dog" with an ignorant and impulsive United States president who is so desirous
of pandering to Jews both in Israel and in the U.S. that he is blind to his obligation to do
what is best for the American people. Trump, who is the first president within memory not to
own a dog, would rather stroke the head of the disgusting casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson
than an intelligent and loyal Labrador retriever.
This is nothing new. In communist country Czechoslovakia 1948-1989 media every day wrote,
several times and they repeated it in TV about "with USSR all the time and never otherwise"
And any criticism od the state and the Party was crime.
The editorial cartoon was well within the usual and acceptable traditions of political
comment. It depicted with the usual license for caricature a political figure being led down
the garden path by another, and mocking him for it. What's the big deal?
Trump has not built a wall.
We have more immigrants coming in than at any time in American history.
We experienced a record number of opioid deaths in 2018 and the drugs still flow freely.
Trump is attempting to force the US into multiple wars that are of no benefit to us.
Trump bumped stocks.
Trump is allowing all of his supporters (many of them now former supporters) to be banned
from the internet.
Trump is allowing his supporters to be arrested and imprisoned for supporting him.
Trump is escalating tensions with Russia for no reason.
Trump has not pulled out of NATO.
Trump's replacement of NAFTA is the same thing as NAFTA.
Meanwhile, he has done more for Israel than any president ever in history.
Trump ended the Iran deal.
Trump attacked Assad over fake gassings.
Trump stopped aid to Palestine.
Trump hired John Bolton as his national security advisor.
Trump turned the US ambassador to the UN into a second Israeli ambassador to the UN.
Trump closed off all official communications and diplomatic relations with Palestine.
Trump sent $38 billion in US taxpayer money to Israel.
Trump made a $110 billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
Trump moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel.
Trump refuses to pull troops out of Syria.
Trump somehow transferred the Syrian Golan Heights to Israel.
Trump is now apparently planning a war with Iran.
Would those knee-jerk critics have considered the political cartoon less outrageous or
offensive if The Master was not blind and the head of the dog on the leash had the features
of Donald Trump instead?
Actually the cartoon is somewhat misleading, IMO. It's unjustifiably generous to the orange
clown, because what the orange clown does, he does knowingly and willingly, not because he's
ignorant and impressionable. IOW, orange clown is evil, not blind.
@JoaoAlfaiate Correct.
I just posted this over on Facebook: Game over. The U.S. will now base its foreign policy,
not on national interests, but on the interests of Israel and its cabal in the United States.
This was an inevitable progression when you equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and
then appoint a high government official to punish countries on that basis. And, one might
add, the First Amendment is also under attack by the same folks to make illegal even the
mildest criticism of Israel here at home. Will this ever end?
Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and
repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli
policies virtually everywhere in the world -- except the United States.
When a CIA-backed military coup is attempted by a long term CIA puppet, roared on by
John Bolton and backed with
the offer of Blackwater mercenaries, in the country with the world's largest oil reserves,
I have no difficulty whatsoever in knowing which side I am on.
Juan Guaido has been
groomed for 15 years as a long-term CIA project. His coup attempt yesterday, which so far
appears to have stalled, was the culmination of these efforts to return Venezuela's oil
reserves to US hegemony.
It is strange how the urgent installation of liberal democracy by force correlates so often
with oil reserves not aligned to the USA, as in Libya, Iraq or Venezuela, while countries with
massive oil reserves which permit US military domination and align with the West and Israel can
be as undemocratic as they wish, eg Saudi Arabia. Venezuela is an imperfect democracy but it is
far, far more of a democracy than Saudi Arabia and with a much better human rights record. The
hypocrisy of Western media and politicians is breathtaking.
Hypocrisy and irony are soulmates, and there are multiple levels of irony in seeing the
"liberal" commentators who were cheering on an undisguised military coup, then complaining
loudly that people are being injured or killed now their side is losing. Yesterday the MSM had
no difficulty in calling the attempted coup what anybody with eyes and ears could see it
plainly was, an attempted military coup. Today, miraculously, the MSM line is no coup attempt
happened at all, it was just a spontaneous unarmed protest, and it is the evil government of
Venezuela which attempts to portray it as a coup. BBC Breakfast this morning had the headline
"President Maduro has accused the opposition of mounting a coup attempt" Yet there is no doubt
at all that, as a matter of plain fact, that is what happened.
The MSM today is full of video of water cannons against "protestors" and a horrible video of
a military vehicle ramming a group. But it has all been very carefully edited to exclude hours
of footage of the same military vehicles being pelted and set alight with molotov cocktails,
and shot at. The presentation has been truly shocking.
In any civilised country, attempting to mount a military coup would lead to incarceration
for life, and that is what should now happen to Juan Guaido. The attempt by the West to protect
their puppet by pretending the failed military coup never happened, must be resisted, if only
in the cause of intellectual honesty.
The resort to violence forces binary choice. I have been and am a critic of Maduro in many
respects. I believe the constitutional changes to bypass Parliament were wrong, and the
indirectly elected Constituent Assembly is not a good form of democracy. Venezuela does have a
rampant corruption problem. US sanctions exacerbate but are not the root cause of economic
mismanagement. There are human rights failings. But Chavez made revolutionary changes in
educating and empowering the poor, and it is a far better governed country for the mass of its
population than it would ever be under a US installed CIA puppet regime. Maduro was
legitimately elected. The attempt at violence forces a binary choice.
I know which side I am on. It is not Guaido and the CIA.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the
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but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Chris Hedges, host of "On Contact," joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the role of the Democratic establishment in the "Russiagate"
media frenzy. He argues that it was an unsustainable narrative given the actions of the White House but that the Democratic elite
are unable to face their own role in the economic and social crises for which they are in large part to blame. They also discuss
NATO's expansionary tendencies and how profitable it is for US defense contractors.
Years ago I kept hearing from the newsmedia that Russia was the "enemy".
Frontline had a show about "Putin's Brain". Even Free
Speech TV shows like Bill Press and "The Nation" authors like Eric Alterman push the Hillary style warmongering and do nothing
to expose the outright lies out there.
These are supposed to be thought outside of the corporate mainstream newsmedia. The emphasis
only on Trump and Fox News is totally hypocritical.
"... Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative" megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven "philanthropists?" ..."
Are any of these 3 individuals "evangelical Christians?"
Or is there some other aspect of their identity/ heritage that they have in common?
Some might even go so far as to characterize the common leftist claim that fanatical GOP
Israeli-Firstism is driven by evangelical Christians as a "long-debunked semitic canard."
Note also the alternative. Hillary's top donor was that notorious "evangelical Christian,"
Haim Saban.
Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative"
megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are
they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven
"philanthropists?"
A lot of other "evangelical Christians" among Hillary's top donors, too.
"... Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative" megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven "philanthropists?" ..."
Are any of these 3 individuals "evangelical Christians?"
Or is there some other aspect of their identity/ heritage that they have in common?
Some might even go so far as to characterize the common leftist claim that fanatical GOP
Israeli-Firstism is driven by evangelical Christians as a "long-debunked semitic canard."
Note also the alternative. Hillary's top donor was that notorious "evangelical Christian,"
Haim Saban.
Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative"
megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are
they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven
"philanthropists?"
A lot of other "evangelical Christians" among Hillary's top donors, too.
"... ...The Saudi-led OPEC+ production cut strategy is still in place, but it is partly successful due to the negative repercussions of the sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. The high level of compliance with the agreement (128%) is based on the loss of these particular volumes. At the same time, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Russia, are sticking to their roles, cutting as needed. Optimism about Iraq is based on uncertain assumptions, while Libya's overall situation is highly volatile. ..."
The removal of U.S. waivers for leading oil importers of Iranian oil and gas is putting the
Tehran regime under severe pressure. While Trump's target of reducing Iranian production to
zero is unrealistic, the impact of the sanctions is undeniable.
...The Saudi-led OPEC+ production cut strategy is still in place, but it is partly
successful due to the negative repercussions of the sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. The high
level of compliance with the agreement (128%) is based on the loss of these particular volumes.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Russia, are sticking to their roles, cutting as needed.
Optimism about Iraq is based on uncertain assumptions, while Libya's overall situation is
highly volatile.
...In the coming weeks, as analysts focus on production figures, storage volumes and demand,
OPEC will be focusing on defusing pressure to increase production, while at the same time the
Saudi-led faction will likely confront the Tehran-Venezuela (and possibly Iraqi) axis. Iran has
openly threatened to undermine OPEC's stability if no support can be gathered before the June
meeting. In several statements to the press, Iran's oil Minister has warned that OPEC is in
danger of collapse. Tehran threatens at present to take all necessary measures to block oil and
gas flows from OPEC members that are supporting the U.S. sanctions regime. At the same time,
Tehran has warned to take measures against countries trying to fill in the supply gap left by
Iran. Zanganeh reiterated the latter during a meeting with OPEC secretary general Barkindo in
Tehran. Barkindo reacted by saying that OPEC will do its utmost to depoliticize oil and gas
policies of the organization. OPEC's SG statements however look very bleak in light of the
growing heat in the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Much of the shambolic belligerence and pointless aggression of Not-A-Neocon Trump can be
seen as cutting down world oil production in service of higher prices for SA's royals and, a
very distant second, US shale producers. Venezuela isn't an existential threat to the US, not
like Goldman Sachs, but embargoes on oil would keep the price up. Iran's not an existential
threat, but oil embargoes... Syria's not an existential threat but putting the oil on the
black market...
"... Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams are Trumps hires and only a moron could fail to recognise that they are neocons stuck in the regime change model of US foreign policy. Venezuela hasn't gone away and if history is any clue, they're going to double down on their initial stupidity. ..."
"... There is only one party, the Pentagon Party, and judging from their $750B budget, $20T 'accounting error', 60% of federal discretionary spend, zero audits and successful scare campaigns that are building up to another Cold War, I'd say they are doing just fine thank you very much. ..."
The key for him now is to undo a lot of the damage that's been done by his staff,
disloyal cabinet members and recalcitrant bureaucracy who are all wedded deeply to the old
way things are done.
Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams are Trumps hires and only a moron could fail to recognise that
they are neocons stuck in the regime change model of US foreign policy. Venezuela hasn't gone
away and if history is any clue, they're going to double down on their initial stupidity.
There is only one party, the Pentagon Party, and judging from their $750B budget, $20T
'accounting error', 60% of federal discretionary spend, zero audits and successful scare
campaigns that are building up to another Cold War, I'd say they are doing just fine thank
you very much.
As for Sheldon Adelson's pet chihuahua telling him to get stuffed? Well that would make
for a very cold day in hell.
"... "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me). ..."
"... "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?" ..."
"... The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say. ..."
Second hour: Journalist and TV host Ken Meyercord (also based in Washington, DC)
writes:
"I attended an event at the Brookings Institution yesterday on the Mueller Report. As is
sadly customary at DC think tanks, the panelists and the moderator were all of one mind.
Nevertheless, one panelist, a former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (a
court notorious for rubber-stamping any charge the government brings against those who
disrupt the smooth functioning of our foreign policy apparatus), made a curious analogy,
arguing that the contacts Trump and his associates had with Russians would be culpable even
if the contacts were with some other, less hostile country:
His remark got me to thinking, so in the Q & A I sought to ask him "What if you
substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look
right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me).
I don't know what his response would have been; but if he said it would still apply, I
would have followed up with "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller
investigation into possible collusion with Israel?"
"The more I think about it, the more intriguing I find Mr. Rosenberg's remark. He seemed
to think the sheer number of contacts by Trump folks with Russians proved culpability. It
might be interesting to compare Trump's contacts with the Russians during the campaign with
his contacts with Israelis. I suspect the latter were more numerous and of greater
significance. Certainly, Trump's acts as President would seem to indicate he's more
Netanyahu's puppet than Putin's: moving the embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off aid to the
Palestinians, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Imagine if Putin
proposed naming a village in Russia after Trump in appreciation, as Netanyahu has proposed
doing in the Golan Heights!
"P.S. Ueli Maurer is the President of the Swiss Confederation."
The entire Western media is the enemy of the people. The Demogangsters and the mediocrats,
Public Enemy #1, were angry that Trump won the election, so they fabricated a scam called
contacts with Russians.
They are saying that Trump and his people talked to the Russians as private citizens
before the election, so it is illegal.
What? Talking to Russians is illegal? Really? Says who?
They will not tell you the law that was allegedly broken, because the law that was
allegedly broken itself is illegal.
It is the Logan Act which “criminalizes negotiations by unauthorized persons with
foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.”
Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a
non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.
While I would not say this happens only in America, this sort of thing is actually
long-standing policy in the US. As long ago as 1944 in Wickard vs. Filburn, the Democrat
Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man for not merely raising food on his own land, but
for failing to offer the food for sale, on the rationale that the non-sale affected
Interstate Commerce as much as if he had offered it for sale. Since then it has been
‘constitutional’ to find federal jurisdiction over even private vegetable gardens
grown exclusively for domestic consumption. Under this theory, even breathing oxygen places
one under federal jurisdiction because it is followed by exhaling CO2.
One of the most surprising things I discovered when I began to practice law was the fact
that no one is ‘innocent’. I.e, there is always some law somewhere that is being
‘broken’ no matter what one does, which means that if the government wants
someone, they can always convict him because the government can always find some law he has
broken. I’m speaking ironically, of course. Many of these laws should be
unconstitutional. Just don’t bet that SCOTUS will ever rule that way because, as
Gorsuch recently pronounced, “that’s all been settled.”
The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s
impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller
pulled the plug, I can’t say.
Pentagon serves Wall Street and is controlled by CIA which is actually can be viewed as a
Wall Street arm as well.
Notable quotes:
"... This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. ..."
"... General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and underestimating Russian military capability . ..."
"... The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they get promoted past their respective levels of competence. ..."
"... If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers, they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to the Constitution, after all, not Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. ..."
"... Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian Gulf that President Barack Obama removed him from command of CENTCOM. ..."
"... Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
The two-star army general strode across the stage in his rumpled combat fatigues, almost
like George Patton -- all that was missing was the cigar and riding crop. It was 2017 and I was
in the audience, just another mid-level major attending yet another mandatory lecture in the
auditorium of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The general then commanded one of the Army's two true armored divisions and had plenty of
his tanks forward deployed in Eastern Europe, all along the Russian frontier. Frankly, most
CGSC students couldn't stand these talks. Substance always seemed lacking, as each general
reminded us to "take care of soldiers" and "put the mission first," before throwing us a few
nuggets of conventional wisdom on how to be good staff officers should we get assigned to his
vaunted command.
This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it
crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly
defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the
general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. Generals can be like that --
utterly "in-the-box," "can-do" thinkers. They take pride in how little they discuss policy and
politics, even when they command tens of thousands of troops and control entire districts,
provinces, or countries. There is some value in this -- we'd hardly want active
generals meddling in U.S. domestic affairs. But they nonetheless can take the whole "aw shucks"
act a bit too far.
General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because
his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even
be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold
War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and
underestimating Russian military
capability . Of course, it was all cloaked in the macho bravado so common among
generals who think that talking like sergeants will win them street cred with the troops.
(That's not their job anymore, mind you.) He said nothing, of course, about the role
of mid- and long-range nuclear weapons that could be the catastrophic consequence of an
unnecessary war with the Russian Bear.
I got to thinking about that talk recently as I reflected in wonder at how the latest
generation of mainstream "liberals" loves to fawn over generals, admirals -- any flag officers,
really -- as alternatives to President Donald Trump. The irony of that alliance should not be
lost on us. It's built on the standard Democratic fear of looking "soft" on terrorism,
communism, or whatever-ism, and their visceral, blinding hatred of Trump. Some of this is
understandable. Conservative Republicans masterfully paint liberals as "weak sisters" on
foreign policy, and Trump's administration is, well, a wild card in world affairs.
The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think
strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive
formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of
tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they
get promoted past their respective levels of competence.
If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers,
they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that
were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to
the Constitution, after all, not
Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the
disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. More of the same is all they know:
their careers were built on fighting "terror" anywhere it raised its evil head. Some, though no
longer most, still subscribe to the faux intellectualism of General Petraeus and his legion of
Coindinistas
, who never saw a problem that a little regime change, followed by expert counterinsurgency,
couldn't solve. Forget that they've been proven wrong time and again and can count
zero victories since 2002. Generals (remember this!) are never held accountable.
Flag officers also rarely seem to recognize that they owe civilian policymakers more than
just tactical "how" advice. They ought to be giving "if" advice -- if we invade Iraq,
it will take 500,000 troops to occupy the place, and even then we'll ultimately destabilize the
country and region, justify al-Qaeda's worldview, kick off a nationalist insurgency, and become
immersed in an unwinnable war. Some, like Army Chief General Eric Shinseki and CENTCOM head
John Abizaid, seemed to
know this deep down. Still, Shinseki quietly retired after standing up to Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Abizaid rode out his tour to retirement.
Generals also love to tell the American people that victory is
"just around the corner," or that there's a "light at the end of the tunnel." General
William Westmoreland used the very same language when predicting imminent victory in Vietnam.
Two months later, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong unleashed the largest uprising of the war,
the famed Tet Offensive.
Take Afghanistan as exhibit A: 17 or so generals have now commanded U.S. troops in this,
America's longest war. All have commanded within the system and framework of their
predecessors. Sure, they made marginal operational and tactical changes -- some preferred
surges, others advising, others counterterror -- but all failed to achieve anything close to
victory, instead laundering failure into false optimism. None refused to play the same-old game
or question the very possibility of victory in landlocked, historically xenophobic Afghanistan.
That would have taken real courage, which is in short supply among senior officers.
Exhibit B involves Trump's former cabinet generals -- National Security Advisor H.R.
McMaster, Chief of Staff John Kelley, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis -- whom adoring and
desperate liberals took as saviors and canonized as the supposed adults
in the room . They were no such thing. The generals' triumvirate consisted ultimately of
hawkish conventional thinkers married to the dogma of American exceptionalism and empire.
Period.
Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian
Gulf that President Barack Obama
removed him from command of CENTCOM.
Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior
monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether
reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria.
Helping Saudi Arabia terror bomb Yemen and starve 85,000 children to death? Mattis rebuked
Congress and
supported that. He never considered resigning in opposition to that war crime. No, he fell
on his "courageous" sword over downgrading a losing 17-year-old war in Afghanistan. Not to
mention he came to Trump's cabinet straight from the board of contracting giant General
Dynamics, where he collected hundreds of thousands of military-industrial complex dollars.
Then there was John Kelley, whom Press Secretary Sarah Sanders implied
was above media questioning because he was once a four-star marine general. And there's
McMaster, another lauded intellectual who once wrote an interesting book and taught history at
West Point. Yet he still drew all
the wrong conclusions in his famous book on Vietnam -- implying that more troops, more
bombing, and a mass invasion of North Vietnam could have won the war. Furthermore, his work
with Mattis on Trump's unhinged
, imperial National Defense Strategy proved that he was, after all, just another devotee of
American hyper-interventionism.
So why reflect on these and other Washington generals? It's simple: liberal veneration for
these, and seemingly all, military flag officers is a losing proposition and a formula for more
intervention, possible war with other great powers, and the creeping militarization of the
entire U.S. government. We know what the generals expect -- and potentially
want -- for America's foreign policy future.
Just look at the curriculum at the various war and staff colleges from Kansas to Rhode
Island. Ten years ago, they were all running war games focused on counterinsurgency in the
Middle East and Africa. Now those same schools are drilling for future "contingencies" in the
Baltic, Caucasus, and in the South China Sea. Older officers have always lamented the end of
the Cold War "good old days," when men were men and the battlefield was "simple." A return to a
state of near-war with Russia and China is the last thing real progressives should be
pushing for in 2020.
The bottom line is this: the faint hint that mainstream libs would relish a Six Days in May– style military coup is more than a little disturbing, no matter what you think
of Trump. Democrats must know the damage such a move would do to our ostensible republic. I
say: be a patriot. Insist on civilian control of foreign affairs. Even if that
means two more years of The Donald.
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major and regular contributor to Truthdig . His
work has also appeared in Harper's, the Los Angeles Times , The Nation , Tom Dispatch , and The
Hill . He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later taught history at his alma
mater, West Point. He is the author of Ghostriders of
Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet .
[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an
unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of
the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
Sure. Let's invade Venezuela. Another jolly little war. It's full of commies and has a sea
of oil. The only thing those Cuban-loving Venezuelans lack are weapons of mass destruction.
... ... ...
Venezuela is in a huge economic mess thanks to the crackpot economic policies of the Chavez
and Maduro governments – and US economic sabotage. But my first law of international
affairs is: 'Every nation has the absolute god-given right to mismanage its own affairs and
elect its own crooks or idiots.'
"... We absolutely have won most of those little wars it's just that majority of the population doesn't have the same definition of victory that our Neocon masters do. As long as we leave a county in ruins so it's development is set back for decades and there are multiple factions fighting for power, the Neocons cobble together a wonderful democratic election and call it a victory. ..."
"... Stay as long as it takes to make sure no major faction is strong enough to set nationwide policy, bomb everything that's required for a 20th Century society, then leave. If one faction plays nice by scraping and bowing to the US, fine, let them have a bit of electricity and running water. Otherwise, leave the factions to fight one another in the rubble and enjoying their new found freedom and democracy. ..."
"... Considering all the oil Venezuela has, they're just begging for some freedom and democracy. ..."
Sure. Let's invade Venezuela. Another jolly little war. It's full of commies and has a sea of oil. The only thing those Cuban-loving
Venezuelans lack are weapons of mass destruction.
This week, leading US neocons openly threatened that if the CIA's latest attempts to stage a coup to overthrow Venezuela's Maduro
government failed, Washington might send in the Marines.
Well, the coup was a big fiasco and the Venezuelan army didn't overthrow President Maduro. The CIA also failed to overthrow governments
in Moscow, Tehran and Damascus. Its only 'success' to date has been in overthrowing Ukraine's pro-Moscow government and putting a
bunch of corrupt clowns in its place at a cost near $10 billion.
The US has not waged a major successful war since World War II – unless you count invading Grenada, Panama and Haiti, or bombing
the hell out of Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Libya. That's a sobering thought given the Pentagon's recent announcement that it is cutting
back on little colonial wars (aka 'the war on terror') to get ready for real big wars against Russia and China, or even North Korea.
Venezuela is in a huge economic mess thanks to the crackpot economic policies of the Chavez and Maduro governments – and US economic
sabotage. But my first law of international affairs is: 'Every nation has the absolute god-given right to mismanage its own affairs
and elect its own crooks or idiots.'
Now, however, the administration's frenzied neocons want to start a war against Venezuela, a large, developed nation of 32.7 million,
at the same time we are threatening war against Iran, interfering all around Africa, and confronting Russia, China and perhaps North
Korea. Large parts of the Mideast and Afghanistan lie in ruins thanks to our 'liberation' campaigns.
Invading Venezuela would not be much of a problem for the US military: half the population hates the current government and might
welcome the Americans. Venezuela's military has only limited combat value. Right-wing regimes in neighboring Colombia and Brazil
might join the invasion.
But what then? Recall Iraq. The US punched through the feeble Iraqi Army whose strength had been wildly exaggerated by the media.
Once US and British forces settled in to occupation duties, guerilla forces made their life difficult and bloody. Iraqi resistance
continues today, sixteen years later. The same would likely happen in Venezuela.
There is deep anti-American sentiment in Latin America that existed long before Col. Chavez. Recall, for example, the large anti-American
riots that greeted Vice President Nixon's visit to Caracas in 1958.
'Yankees Go Home' is a rallying cry for much of Latin America. Blundering into Venezuela, another nation about which the Trump
administration knows or understands little, would stir up a hornet's next. Their ham-handed efforts to punish Cuba and whip up the
far right Cuban-American vote in Florida would galvanize anti-American anger across Latin America. Beware the ghost of Fidel.
ORDER IT NOW
Talks over Venezuela are underway between Washington and Moscow. Neither country has any major interest in Venezuela. Moscow is
stirring the pot there to retaliate for growing US involvement in Russia's backyard and Syria. Both the US and Russia should get
the hell out of Venezuela and mind their own business.
Instead, we hear crazy proposals to send 5,000 mercenaries to overthrow the Maduro regime. How well did the wide-scale use of
US-financed mercenaries work in Iraq and Afghanistan? A complete flop. The only thing they did competently was wash dishes at our
bases, murder civilians, and play junior Rambos.
For those who don't like the American Raj, a US invasion of Venezuela would mark a step forward in the crumbling of the empire.
More aimless imperial over-reach, more lack of strategy, more enemies generated.
The big winner would, of course, be the Pentagon and military industrial complex. More billions spent on a nation most Americans
could not find on a map if their lives depended on it, more orders for 'counter-insurgency' weapons, more military promotions, and
cheers from Fox News and wrestling fans.
Worst of all, the US could end up feeding and caring for wrecked Venezuela. How did we do with storm-ravaged Puerto Rico? It's
still in semi-ruin. Few want Venezuela's thick, heavy oil these days.
Venezuela could turn out to be a big, fat Tar Baby.
The "crackpot economic policies" of Chavez and Madero increased the health of the people through access to medical care, improved
housing, brought the literacy rate to one of the highest in Latin Americs, added years to average lifespan among other things
by emphasizing that the country's resources should improve the lives of Venezuela's citizens. This was accomplished by selling
resources in the capitalistic market -crackpot I grant you. The American sanctions and the seizure of Venezuelan assets are all
illegal under American law and Constitution given the treaties we have signed, but then if you want to know what those laws mean
all you have to do is ask any Native American tribe.
Who would pay Eric Prince's 5000 Blackwater hired assassins? Would the cash come from the pirate booty war chest or would the
citizens of America be stuck with the tab, once again?
@Walter Duranty Something
seems different. With Russian and Chinese intelligence help, the Guaido coup was a laughable joke. It made the US look like bozos.
I think Venezuela and allies tipped their hand there, and it is a strong one. I fear the US may be walking into a trap
It is interesting but several Pentagon/military officers are saying the Pentagon is not enthusiastic about invading Venezuela.
It is a rugged, jungle cloaked, country that is quite large and an American effort may end up being like the one in Vietnam.
I wonder how many are aware that Venezuela owns a majority of the oil company Citgo?
I wonder how many Americans know that for many years during Winter Citgo gave free heating oil to a large number of low income
households in the US northeast? while our own government was cutting back on low income heating oil subsidies.
We absolutely have won most of those little wars it's just that majority of the population doesn't have the same definition
of victory that our Neocon masters do. As long as we leave a county in ruins so it's development is set back for decades and there
are multiple factions fighting for power, the Neocons cobble together a wonderful democratic election and call it a victory.Stay as long as it takes to make sure no major faction is strong enough to set nationwide policy, bomb everything that's required
for a 20th Century society, then leave. If one faction plays nice by scraping and bowing to the US, fine, let them have a bit
of electricity and running water. Otherwise, leave the factions to fight one another in the rubble and enjoying their new found
freedom and democracy.Considering all the oil Venezuela has, they're just begging for some freedom and democracy.
It may be true that neither the US or Russia 'has any major interest in Venezuela', and that Putin may be 'stirring the pot'.
The real danger is, and globally the evidence points to this, an eventual clash between the major nuclear powers (world war).
It is ominous if Washington is getting for 'ready for real big wars against Russia and China, or even North Korea.' https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
"... First, the new turn in the administration's Iran policy appears to mark a decisive defeat for President Donald Trump in his long-running battle with his foreign policy minders. It is now very unlikely Trump will achieve any of his policy objectives, a number of which represent useful alternatives to the stunningly shambolic strategies advanced by Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and other zealots in the administration. ..."
"... Second, this administration's foreign policy has steadily assumed an irrational character that may be unprecedented in U.S. history. This is perilous. The administration's near-paranoiac hostility toward Pyongyang and Moscow are cases in point. So is its evident indifference to alienating longstanding allies across the Atlantic and in Asia. As of this week, however, Pompeo's "down to zero" policy makes Iran the most immediate danger. ..."
"... The question is why this administration's foreign policies are so amateurish and discombobulated. Corollary question: Why is the president surrounded by policy advisers so thoroughly at odds with those of his objectives that are worthwhile? ..."
"... Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much as its members have been imposed upon him. ..."
"... He was self-evidently behind the decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the announcement in March that Washington recognizes Israeli jurisdiction over the Golan Heights. ..."
"... It is unlikely anything is all done in connection with the embassy move and the Golan Heights decision. Both run diametrically counter to international law and both have significantly damaged U.S. credibility in the Middle East. Trump, in short, makes his own miscalculations, and they are as grave as any made by the Pompeo–Bolton axis. There are few wise heads in this administration. ..."
"... You guys fail to see that the notion that Trump and Co genuinely seek to "improve ties" with Russia is a key element of the larger "Russiagate" psyop, a truly laughable idea which is disproved not only by the longer term historical record, but also by the veritable mountain of evidence that has accrued since Trump came into office demonstrating that this administration has only EXACERBATED the empire's long running and profoundly anti-Russian foreign policy agenda. ..."
"... Irrational foreign policy? I wish the United States would just drop the charade and declare itself a global empire. What we see is the foreign policy of empire. Is this rational or isn't it? ..."
"... Current US foreign policy is aligned to impose maximum pressure on countries like Venezuela and Iran in order to pressure those governments and hopefully topple them with sanctions. The entire World is hungry for oil and the demand for oil is expanding at an exponential rate which in turn guides US foreign policy. ..."
Patrick Lawrence gauges the backfiring potential of Pompeo's withdrawal on Thursday of U.S.
sanction waivers from eight major importers.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's announcement last
week that no importer of Iranian oil will henceforth be exempt from U.S. sanctions is as risky
as it is misguided. The
withdrawal of waivers as of this Thursday effectively gives eight importers dependent on
Iranian crude -- India, Japan, South Korea, China, Turkey, Taiwan, Italy, and Greece -- 10
days' notice to adjust their petroleum purchases.
This is now a full-court press: The intent is
to cut off Iran's access to any oil market anywhere as part of the administration's "maximum
pressure" campaign against Tehran. "We are going to zero,"
Pompeo said as he disclosed the new policy.
Nobody is going to zero. The administration's move will further damage the Iranian economy,
certainly, but few outside the administration think it is possible to isolate Iran as
comprehensively as Pompeo seems to expect.
Turkey immediately rejected "unilateral sanctions and impositions on how to conduct
relations with neighbors," as Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoglu put it in a Twitter
message.
China could do the same, if less bluntly.
Other oil importers are likely to consider
barter deals, local-currency transactions, and similar "workarounds." In the immediate
neighborhood, Iraq is so far
ignoring U.S. demands that it cease purchasing natural gas and electricity from
Iran.
Insights on Overreach
There are a couple of insights to be gleaned from this unusually aggressive case of policy
overreach.
First, the new turn in the administration's Iran policy appears to mark a decisive defeat
for President Donald Trump in his long-running battle with his foreign policy minders. It is
now very unlikely Trump will achieve any of his policy objectives, a number of which represent
useful alternatives to the stunningly shambolic strategies advanced by Pompeo, National
Security Advisor John Bolton, and other zealots in the administration.
Weakened by relentless "Russia-gate" investigations, for instance, the president has little
chance now of improving ties with Moscow or negotiating with adversaries such as Iran and North
Korea, as he has long advocated.
In a Face the Nationinterview Sunday, Iranian
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tehran would be open to bilateral talks under the
right conditions. It was the second time in a week that Zarif made this point. But those around
Trump, not least Bolton and Pompeo, are sure to block any such prospect -- or sabotage talks if
they do take place, as they did
Trump's
second summit with Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader, in late February.
Second, this administration's foreign policy has steadily assumed an irrational character
that may be unprecedented in U.S. history. This is perilous. The administration's
near-paranoiac hostility toward Pyongyang and Moscow are cases in point. So is its evident
indifference to alienating longstanding allies across the Atlantic and in Asia. As of this
week, however, Pompeo's "down to zero" policy makes Iran the most immediate danger.
Persian Gulf Chokepoint
Iranian officials, including Zarif, now
threaten to close the
Strait of Hormuz, chokepoint of the Persian Gulf, if Iranian tankers are prevented from passing
through it. This is an indirect warning that the Iranian military could confront the U.S. Fifth
Fleet, which operates in the Gulf and adjacent waters.
A sharp spike in oil prices is another danger with which the administration now lands
itself. Taken together, U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and Iran are intended to take roughly
2 million barrels of oil a day out of the market.
Saudi Arabia has pledged to make up the lost supply, but
many analysts question its ability to sustain an increase in output given the advancing
depletion of its long-productive Ghawar field. Spare capacity among producers is already
wafer-thin. Do we need to risk another oil crisis, given the flagging global
economy?
Trump's foreign policy minders also risk alienating allies -- South Korea, Japan, India, the
Europeans -- whose cooperation the U.S. needs on numerous other policy questions. In the case
of China, the administration puts progress on a
nearly
complete trade deal and Beijing's leverage with North Korea in jeopardy.
There are other cases demonstrating the Trump administration's apparently thorough
indifference to collateral damage and the animosity of allies. Since the U.S. abandoned the
Paris climate
pact and the 2015 accord governing Iran's nuclear program, the Europeans have hardly
contained their anger; they are openly furious now about the tightened sanctions against Iran.
The South Koreans, frustrated with Washington's intransigent stance toward Pyongyang, now search
for ways to engage the North despite many layers of UN and U.S–imposed sanctions.
The question is why this administration's foreign policies are so amateurish and
discombobulated. Corollary question: Why is the president surrounded by policy advisers so
thoroughly at odds with those of his objectives that are worthwhile?
Trump arrived in Washington an outsider: This is where answers to these questions begin.
This limited the New York dealmaker to a shallow pool from which to build his administration.
His never-ending Russia-gate problem further handicaps him. This administration is among the
most opaque in recent history, so certainties as to its internal workings are hard to come by.
But Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much as its members have been imposed
upon him.
However his advisers arrived in the administration, they are a toxic combination of
neoconservatives, many
drawn from the Heritage Foundation , and
evangelical
Christians . Bolton is emblematic of the former, Pompeo of the latter. This is the current
complexion of American foreign policy.
Zealots and Crusaders
Both camps are populated with zealots and crusaders; both cultivate irrational world views
rooted in extremist ideology and sentiment. Bolton's obsession is the restoration of
unchallenged U.S. supremacy. Pompeo is said to view adversaries such as North Korea and Iran as
George
W. Bush did : The U.S. is in an "end times" war with Gog and Magog, biblical manifestations
of the evil abroad in the world.
To be clear, there is more wrong than right in the president's foreign policy thinking. He
was self-evidently behind the decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the
announcement in March that Washington recognizes Israeli jurisdiction over the Golan
Heights.
"This is very important strategically for victory, heights, because you're up high, very
important,"
Trump said over the weekend. "Fifty-two years ago this started [when Israel captured Golan
from Syria in the 1967 war] and I did it quickly. Done. It's all done."
It is unlikely anything is all done in connection with the embassy move and the Golan
Heights decision. Both run diametrically counter to international law and both have
significantly damaged U.S. credibility in the Middle East. Trump, in short, makes his own
miscalculations, and they are as grave as any made by the Pompeo–Bolton axis. There are
few wise heads in this administration.
At the same time, Trump's desire to negotiate with adversaries -- Russia, Iran, North Korea
-- is entirely defensible. But the "down to zero" Iran policy to take effect this week can be
read as a signal of the president's failure to counter the foreign policy Manicheans who
surround him.
There may be skirmishes to come, but the battle is over. We must now watch as extremist
ideologues accelerate America's already evident decline as a global power -- along with its
increasing isolation.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International
Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author, and lecturer. His most recent book is
"Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century" (Yale). Follow him @thefloutist. His web
site is www.patricklawrence.us. Support his work via www.patreon.com/thefloutist .
Brian James , May 2, 2019 at 12:23
Apr 30, 2019 A New Mega Cartel Is Emerging In Oil Markets
China and India -- two of the world's largest oil importers and the biggest demand growth centers globally -- are close
to setting up an oil buyers' club to have a say in the pricing and sourcing of crude oil amid OPEC's cuts and U.S. sanctions
on Iran and Venezuela, Indian outlet livemint reports, citing three officials with knowledge of the talks.
Thanks for that link, I'm sure I'll follow this. I feel the same apprehension the
narrator's inflection seemed to convey in closing "We'll have to see where this leads." That
apprehension is that this will push the war-mongers to accelerate the timetable for an attack
on Iran.
Stuart Davies , May 1, 2019 at 09:00
Sorry to see that Consortium News still maintains their commitment to the ludicrous
premise that Trump is "pro Russian" at heart:
" the new turn in the administration's Iran policy appears to mark a decisive defeat for
President Donald Trump in his long-running battle with his foreign policy minders .Weakened
by relentless "Russia-gate" investigations, for instance, the president has little chance now
of improving ties with Moscow or negotiating with adversaries such as Iran and North Korea,
as he has long advocated."
Utter nonsense. You guys fail to see that the notion that Trump and Co genuinely seek to
"improve ties" with Russia is a key element of the larger "Russiagate" psyop, a truly
laughable idea which is disproved not only by the longer term historical record, but also by
the veritable mountain of evidence that has accrued since Trump came into office
demonstrating that this administration has only EXACERBATED the empire's long running and
profoundly anti-Russian foreign policy agenda.
Irrational foreign policy? I wish the United States would just drop the charade and declare itself a global
empire. What we see is the foreign policy of empire. Is this rational or isn't it?
Asymmetric warfare with Iran has already begun. Internet based "worms" and economic
sanctions have, so far, been successfully coordinated in concert with our rather reluctant
Western Occident allies. These attacks have been more or less been kept at bay. The
alternative, direct military intervention would prove to be a new "holocaust" and would
target roughly seventy separate nuclear research sites and dozens of scattered air force
bases. The weapons of choice would be DU-38 munitions and huge bombs. DU has a proven record
against fortified concrete and armored structures. It has an infamous reputation for leaving
permanent, radioactive "ground shine" wherever used. Lest we all (never) forget the
absolutely horribly deformed children born in southern Iraq who suffered prenatal exposure to
radiation poisoning! In war, it's always the most vulnerable and innocent to suffer the most
for example; Yemeni civilians.
The militant factions of our Pentagon and Congress (found within both sides of the
political aisle) will continue to pursue the long range plan I outlined some time ago in a
CONSORTIUMNEWS commentary. To recap it, this tug-of-war is not so much about trading in the
USD as it is about a global oil glut. I believe it was Bandar bin Sultan who commented that,
and I'm paraphrasing him here; there's plenty of relatively easy oil everywhere, the idea to
grasp is, what countries will be permitted to extract and sell it? Thus, the global and
persistent NeoCon plan seems to be to cap or severely restrict, Libyan, Iranian and Iraqi oil
reserves, meanwhile making backroom deals that permit a few SCO, (reluctantly) Russian,
Saudi, African and US/Canadian reserves to flourish on the open market. Venezuelan oil will
act as the back up resource should, a regional nuclear war in the middle east result in
irreversible damage to "friendly" refineries and ready access to them. Again, ground shine
due to a deployment of neutron A-weaponry (N-Bombs)..most likely from Israel. Ah!, sweet
treachery in times of war eh? Need I remind our CONSORTIUMNEWS readership of Hitlers last
minute betrayal of Stalin? The Israelis want a "piece of the oil action" too!
So sorry to see the country ripped apart. Hatful , boasting reprobates behind the steering
wheel
vinnieoh , April 30, 2019 at 10:05
Thank you Mr. Lawrence for, if nothing else, hypothesizing or postulating why the Trump
administration foreign policy is as you say, so amateurish and discombobulated. But I do
agree with Drew Hunkins below that for whatever reasons(*), Trump himself has always vilified
and mocked Iran. He is nothing if not a scurrilous opportunist, and threatening Iran just
fits his personality as a bully. Very few if any of the other kids on the playground have the
guts or integrity to come to Iran's defense.
It lightened my spirit just a little bit when you said that the Trump administration "is
one of the most opaque in recent history." Why, just yesterday I heard our glorious leader
say that his administration is the most transparent ever in American history. I wish that I
should live long enough to see the use of such superlatives disappear from our discourse.
I somehow missed Mr. Zarif's several statements concerning a willingness to engage in
bilateral talks. That is almost flabbergasting. Which Iranians could possibly believe there
is an honest negotiator now anywhere close to the levers of power in DC? But Zarif continues
to hold to and operate in the terms of classic diplomacy: do not close any doors forever,
and; do not relinquish the high ground of sensibleness and integrity to your opponent. But,
surely there aren't ANY Iranians who believe that the US would make any concessions,
de-escalate any of our threats, or place a muzzle on our two rabid dog allies.
(*) It is my firm belief that the overwhelming motivation for much of what Trump does goes
back directly to the annual DC correspondents dinner where Obama publicly and rightfully
humiliated and mocked that fat-assed moron. And well he should have. It didn't miss my notice
that Trump once again skipped that event. He will never attend – it was the absolute
lowest point of his public life (so far), everybody laughing at him and that horrible skinny
n####r twisting the rhetorical knife relentlessly. I'm reminded of a short story of Harlan
Ellison's called "Stardust." I'll leave it to the curious to follow that lead. Narcissism as
a genetic "addiction."
vinnieoh , April 30, 2019 at 10:17
Right after the 2016 election I posted something to the effect that perhaps we should ask
native Americans if they think it is unusual that an unprincipled real estate speculator is
now the captain of the state.
Zhu , April 30, 2019 at 01:22
Thanks for confirming that Pompeo is a Dispensationalist, eager for the End of the
World.
Roberto , April 30, 2019 at 08:01
The neocons, Bolton and Pompeo, are not going to put an end to the world, because the
Greek Islands need nothing from the United States. They only need a little gasoline for their
cars and motor scooters. However, the neocons are going to put an end to the petrodollar,
because no one on earth can trust the "out of control government" of the United States, any
longer.
CitizenOne , April 30, 2019 at 01:06
During the Iraq war there were many calls from conservatives to not stop at the border
with Iran. They supported a plan to roll US tanks and other offensive forces until they
reached Tehran and obliterated it defeating the rogue nation and securing Iranian oil
fields.
The scenario proposed today to strangle resource rich nations by war hawks is similar to
the post war imaginings posed by Patton to keep on going until the US armed forces reached
Moscow. It is similar to the plans of MacArthur to lay down a nuclear radiation barrier along
North Korea's northern border with China to create a lethal ionizing radioactive zone or no
mans land to prevent China from sending Chinese troops across the border.
Each one of these proposed but never implemented war strategies in hind sight would have
probably netted the US great gains at minimal risk.
On one hand, the current administrations strategy and tactics to wage economic war against
US "enemies" which are all rich with oil reserves seems like the right aggressive maneuvers
to make easy wins for the USA. On the other hand the World has changed since those times.
Current US foreign policy is aligned to impose maximum pressure on countries like
Venezuela and Iran in order to pressure those governments and hopefully topple them with
sanctions. The entire World is hungry for oil and the demand for oil is expanding at an
exponential rate which in turn guides US foreign policy.
There is thousands of years of history of nations including the US to takeover the riches
of nations and profit from the resources.
Pentagon serves Wall Street and is controlled by CIA which is actually can be viewed as a
Wall Street arm as well.
Notable quotes:
"... This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. ..."
"... General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and underestimating Russian military capability . ..."
"... The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they get promoted past their respective levels of competence. ..."
"... If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers, they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to the Constitution, after all, not Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. ..."
"... Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian Gulf that President Barack Obama removed him from command of CENTCOM. ..."
"... Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
The two-star army general strode across the stage in his rumpled combat fatigues, almost
like George Patton -- all that was missing was the cigar and riding crop. It was 2017 and I was
in the audience, just another mid-level major attending yet another mandatory lecture in the
auditorium of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The general then commanded one of the Army's two true armored divisions and had plenty of
his tanks forward deployed in Eastern Europe, all along the Russian frontier. Frankly, most
CGSC students couldn't stand these talks. Substance always seemed lacking, as each general
reminded us to "take care of soldiers" and "put the mission first," before throwing us a few
nuggets of conventional wisdom on how to be good staff officers should we get assigned to his
vaunted command.
This time, though, the general got to talking about Russia. So I perked up. He made it
crystal clear that he saw Moscow as an adversary to be contained, checked, and possibly
defeated. There was no nuance, no self-reflection, not even a basic understanding of the
general complexity of geopolitics in the 21st century. Generals can be like that --
utterly "in-the-box," "can-do" thinkers. They take pride in how little they discuss policy and
politics, even when they command tens of thousands of troops and control entire districts,
provinces, or countries. There is some value in this -- we'd hardly want active
generals meddling in U.S. domestic affairs. But they nonetheless can take the whole "aw shucks"
act a bit too far.
General It-Doesn't-Matter-His-Name thundered that we need not worry, however, because
his tanks and troops could "mop the floor" with the Russians, in a battle that "wouldn't even
be close." It was oh-so-typical, another U.S. Army general -- who clearly longs for the Cold
War fumes that defined his early career -- overestimating the Russian menace and
underestimating Russian military
capability . Of course, it was all cloaked in the macho bravado so common among
generals who think that talking like sergeants will win them street cred with the troops.
(That's not their job anymore, mind you.) He said nothing, of course, about the role
of mid- and long-range nuclear weapons that could be the catastrophic consequence of an
unnecessary war with the Russian Bear.
I got to thinking about that talk recently as I reflected in wonder at how the latest
generation of mainstream "liberals" loves to fawn over generals, admirals -- any flag officers,
really -- as alternatives to President Donald Trump. The irony of that alliance should not be
lost on us. It's built on the standard Democratic fear of looking "soft" on terrorism,
communism, or whatever-ism, and their visceral, blinding hatred of Trump. Some of this is
understandable. Conservative Republicans masterfully paint liberals as "weak sisters" on
foreign policy, and Trump's administration is, well, a wild card in world affairs.
The problem with the vast majority of generals, however, is that they don't think
strategically. What they call strategy is really large-scale operations -- deploying massive
formations and winning campaigns replete with battles. Many remain mired in the world of
tactics, still operating like lieutenants or captains and proving the Peter Principle right, as they
get promoted past their respective levels of competence.
If America's generals, now and over the last 18 years, really were strategic thinkers,
they'd have spoken out about -- and if necessary resigned en masse over -- mission sets that
were unwinnable, illegal (in the case of Iraq), and counterproductive . Their oath is to
the Constitution, after all, not
Emperors Bush, Obama, and Trump. Yet few took that step. It's all symptomatic of the
disease of institutionalized intellectual mediocrity. More of the same is all they know:
their careers were built on fighting "terror" anywhere it raised its evil head. Some, though no
longer most, still subscribe to the faux intellectualism of General Petraeus and his legion of
Coindinistas
, who never saw a problem that a little regime change, followed by expert counterinsurgency,
couldn't solve. Forget that they've been proven wrong time and again and can count
zero victories since 2002. Generals (remember this!) are never held accountable.
Flag officers also rarely seem to recognize that they owe civilian policymakers more than
just tactical "how" advice. They ought to be giving "if" advice -- if we invade Iraq,
it will take 500,000 troops to occupy the place, and even then we'll ultimately destabilize the
country and region, justify al-Qaeda's worldview, kick off a nationalist insurgency, and become
immersed in an unwinnable war. Some, like Army Chief General Eric Shinseki and CENTCOM head
John Abizaid, seemed to
know this deep down. Still, Shinseki quietly retired after standing up to Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Abizaid rode out his tour to retirement.
Generals also love to tell the American people that victory is
"just around the corner," or that there's a "light at the end of the tunnel." General
William Westmoreland used the very same language when predicting imminent victory in Vietnam.
Two months later, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong unleashed the largest uprising of the war,
the famed Tet Offensive.
Take Afghanistan as exhibit A: 17 or so generals have now commanded U.S. troops in this,
America's longest war. All have commanded within the system and framework of their
predecessors. Sure, they made marginal operational and tactical changes -- some preferred
surges, others advising, others counterterror -- but all failed to achieve anything close to
victory, instead laundering failure into false optimism. None refused to play the same-old game
or question the very possibility of victory in landlocked, historically xenophobic Afghanistan.
That would have taken real courage, which is in short supply among senior officers.
Exhibit B involves Trump's former cabinet generals -- National Security Advisor H.R.
McMaster, Chief of Staff John Kelley, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis -- whom adoring and
desperate liberals took as saviors and canonized as the supposed adults
in the room . They were no such thing. The generals' triumvirate consisted ultimately of
hawkish conventional thinkers married to the dogma of American exceptionalism and empire.
Period.
Let's start with Mattis. "Mad Dog" Mattis was so anti-Iran and bellicose in the Persian
Gulf that President Barack Obama
removed him from command of CENTCOM.
Furthermore, the supposedly morally untainted, "intellectual" " warrior
monk " chose, when he finally resigned, to do so in response to Trump's altogether
reasonable call for a modest troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria.
Helping Saudi Arabia terror bomb Yemen and starve 85,000 children to death? Mattis rebuked
Congress and
supported that. He never considered resigning in opposition to that war crime. No, he fell
on his "courageous" sword over downgrading a losing 17-year-old war in Afghanistan. Not to
mention he came to Trump's cabinet straight from the board of contracting giant General
Dynamics, where he collected hundreds of thousands of military-industrial complex dollars.
Then there was John Kelley, whom Press Secretary Sarah Sanders implied
was above media questioning because he was once a four-star marine general. And there's
McMaster, another lauded intellectual who once wrote an interesting book and taught history at
West Point. Yet he still drew all
the wrong conclusions in his famous book on Vietnam -- implying that more troops, more
bombing, and a mass invasion of North Vietnam could have won the war. Furthermore, his work
with Mattis on Trump's unhinged
, imperial National Defense Strategy proved that he was, after all, just another devotee of
American hyper-interventionism.
So why reflect on these and other Washington generals? It's simple: liberal veneration for
these, and seemingly all, military flag officers is a losing proposition and a formula for more
intervention, possible war with other great powers, and the creeping militarization of the
entire U.S. government. We know what the generals expect -- and potentially
want -- for America's foreign policy future.
Just look at the curriculum at the various war and staff colleges from Kansas to Rhode
Island. Ten years ago, they were all running war games focused on counterinsurgency in the
Middle East and Africa. Now those same schools are drilling for future "contingencies" in the
Baltic, Caucasus, and in the South China Sea. Older officers have always lamented the end of
the Cold War "good old days," when men were men and the battlefield was "simple." A return to a
state of near-war with Russia and China is the last thing real progressives should be
pushing for in 2020.
The bottom line is this: the faint hint that mainstream libs would relish a Six Days in May– style military coup is more than a little disturbing, no matter what you think
of Trump. Democrats must know the damage such a move would do to our ostensible republic. I
say: be a patriot. Insist on civilian control of foreign affairs. Even if that
means two more years of The Donald.
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major and regular contributor to Truthdig . His
work has also appeared in Harper's, the Los Angeles Times , The Nation , Tom Dispatch , and The
Hill . He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later taught history at his alma
mater, West Point. He is the author of Ghostriders of
Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet .
[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an
unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of
the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
As soon as nations learn to avoid dollar transactions that will dramatically weaken the USA
neoliberal empire. Bulling using technology transfer prohibitions is not effective as Germany and
Japan are now fully recovered from WWII destruction and post immediate threat to the USA
technological hegemony.
We the people needn't worry about our vote for president in as much as we the people
should investigate the people who surround our president's. Trump has been overtaken from his
campaigns foreign policy rhetoric by the same cabal of those who have captured the other
previous presidents from they're living up to their promises, whether by choice or by
compromise. I wish that a presidential campaign requirement were that each presidential
candidate would divulge the cabinet choices they would make as secretary's of our national
agencies. I wish for a lot of things that never will happen but still it would be nice to
know such substantial appointments as opposed to knowing about their personality disorders
wish are always disclosed for further review and constant discussion.
I've said it before that the US is going to sanction itself into obscurity. These
sanctioned nations are many and still growing if you include our allies. It's all sticks and
no carrots. When it all collapses the collapse may be blamed on US arrogance and profit.
"... Patrick Lawrence avers that "Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much as its members have been imposed upon him". There is absolutely no evidence for this assertion. Both Trump and Hillary Clinton (and all their rivals from the 2016 presidential campaign) are Israel-Firsters deep in the pockets of the pro-Israel Lobby. Trump's current policies are not significantly at variance from Clinton's equally pro-Israel policy agenda. At a 2015 gala hosted by the Algemeiner Journal, Trump declared "We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent." His bid for the presidency was announced soon after. ..."
"... Trump's whole "insurgent" campaign, including his purported break with GOP orthodoxy, questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were an elaborate propaganda scam engineered by the Israel Lobby from the very beginning. ..."
"... Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East/Israel issues, gave his first on-the-record appearance at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution on 3 December 2017. Saban praised Kushner for attempting to derail a vote at the United Nations Security Council about Israeli settlements during the Obama administration. ..."
"... Make no mistake, Israel and the pro-Israel Lobby exploit Trump and the GOP, as well as Clinton and the Democrats. ..."
"... The Russia-gate conspiracy theory, eagerly promoted by both key right and left pro-Israel Lobby figures (including Jewish and Christian Zionists, as well as sheepdog Sanders), is partly an effort to distract attention from the pro-Israel Lobby meddling in American electoral politics and its pernicious influence on US foreign policy. ..."
Patrick Lawrence avers that "Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much
as its members have been imposed upon him". There is absolutely no evidence for this
assertion. Both Trump and Hillary Clinton (and all their rivals from the 2016 presidential
campaign) are Israel-Firsters deep in the pockets of the pro-Israel Lobby. Trump's current
policies are not significantly at variance from Clinton's equally pro-Israel policy agenda.
At a 2015 gala hosted by the Algemeiner Journal, Trump declared "We love Israel. We will
fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent." His bid for the presidency was announced soon
after.
Trump's whole "insurgent" campaign, including his purported break with GOP orthodoxy,
questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian
deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were an
elaborate propaganda scam engineered by the Israel Lobby from the very beginning.
Trump's "1000 percent" efforts on behalf of Israel began immediately after the election,
prior to his taking the oath of office.
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East/Israel
issues, gave his first on-the-record appearance at the Saban Forum at the Brookings
Institution on 3 December 2017. Saban praised Kushner for attempting to derail a vote at the
United Nations Security Council about Israeli settlements during the Obama
administration.
Kushner reportedly dispatched former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to make
secret contact with the Russian ambassador in December 2016 in an effort to undermine or
delay the resolution, which condemned Israel for settlement construction. Saban told Kushner
that "this crowd and myself want to thank you for making that effort, so thank you very
much." Kushner thanked the audience at Brookings, a leading pro-Israel Lobby think tank,
"It's really an honor to be able to talk about this topic with so many people who I respect
so much, who have given so much to this issue."
During the keynote conversation, Kushner and Saban framed Middle East peace as a "real
estate issue". Kushner acknowledged that "We've solicited a lot of ideas from a lot of
places." Trump's understanding of "regional dynamics" in the Middle East clearly manifests "a
lot of ideas" from pro-Israel war hawks from the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. Make no mistake, Israel and the pro-Israel Lobby exploit Trump and the GOP, as well as
Clinton and the Democrats.
The fracture between the Trump and Clinton contingents of the pro-Israel Lobby is rooted
in the personal predilections of their major American Jewish oligarch donors. Billionaires
Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are the Koch Brothers of the pro-Israel Lobby.
Both Adelson and Saban are staunch supporters of the Israeli military, vehemently opposed
to the global BDS movement against Israeli apartheid, and obsessed about starting war with
Iran.
When Adelson and Saban shared the stage at the Israeli American Council's inaugural
conference in Washington, D.C. in 2014, Saban quipped, "There's no right or left when it
comes to Israel". Despite their shared pro-Israel Lobby objectives, Adelson and Saban had a
fracas in 2015 over political tactics.
The Republican Party and Democratic Party campaign platforms in 2016 reflected right and
left pro-Israel Lobby orientations. Even the Sanders sheepdog campaign was a far-left
pro-Israel Lobby iteration.
The Russia-gate conspiracy theory, eagerly promoted by both key right and left
pro-Israel Lobby figures (including Jewish and Christian Zionists, as well as sheepdog
Sanders), is partly an effort to distract attention from the pro-Israel Lobby meddling in
American electoral politics and its pernicious influence on US foreign policy.
Trump's "foreign policy team", the Pompeo-Bolton axis and myriad minions, precisely
represent the pro-Israel Lobby signature "toxic combination of neoconservatives, many drawn
from the Heritage Foundation [and other decidedly pro-Israel policy think tanks], and
evangelical Christians".
Trump surrounded himself with pro-Israel Lobby "foreign policy Manicheans" devoted to an
aggressive, militaristic agenda aimed at "securing the realm" for Israel.
The results are entirely predictable.
The Trump administration's foreign policies are not so much "shambolic", "amateurish and
discombobulated" as monomaniacally pro-Israel, no matter how much damage is done to key US
interests.
michael , April 30, 2019 at 18:57
Blaming Trump for moving the Embassy to Jerusalem seems disingenuous since Congress passed
a law moving the Embassy to Jerusalem in 1995 (the Senate voted (93–5), and the House
voted (374–37 in favor of the move).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Embassy_Act
Clinton started a charade, justified by "National Security" and signed a waiver every six
months to stall the move; the game continued under Bush II and Obama and even Trump, his
first turn. But then "on June 5, 2017, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution
commemorating the 50th anniversary of reunification of Jerusalem by 90-0. The resolution
reaffirmed the Jerusalem Embassy Act and called upon the President and all United States
officials to abide by its provisions." Trump abided.
Absolutely JohnP is right, Kushner should be scrutinized for his pro-Israel positions. The
ball should be on AIPAC and Israel but instead is on Russia even now. Trump is just the
frontman for the activity of Adelson, Bibi, Bolton, Pompeo, Kushner: Bolton pushes for the
neocons post Bush II; Pompeo for evangelicals in US who know nothing, as well as for neocons;
Kushner for Israel Netanyahu politics. Trump is their foolish pawn. Iran is in crosshairs
because of Israel.
dean 1000 , April 30, 2019 at 07:56
Trump got elected by running against the empire. What he is doing in the mid-east won't
last. The demography and need for oil is against it. The birth pangs of a new mid-east
started when Russia came to the aid of Syria.
Does Bolton and Pompeo mean that Trump has been completely co-opted by the duopoly he ran
against?
His supporters say wait till 2020. Fat chance.
I agree with Joe Tedesky. Washington is going to sanction itself out of its empire. The end
of empire is hardly the end of the US. The Brits didn't get single payer healthcare until the
empire was gone. Will Washington make the same mistake? A country the size of the US will not become obscure.
"... US global power is built on several significant facts. These include: the US victory in World War II, its subsequent advanced economy and dominant military position throughout five continents. ..."
"... The US advanced its dominance through a series of alliances in Europe via NATO; Asia via its hegemonic relationship with Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Taiwan as well as Australia and New Zealand in Oceana; Latin America via traditional client regimes; Africa via neo-colonial rulers imposed following independence. ..."
"... The most significant advance of US global power took place with the demise and disintegration of the USSR, the client states in Eastern Europe, as well as the transformation of China and Indo-China to capitalism during the 1980's. ..."
US global power in the Trump period reflects the continuities and changes which are
unfolding rapidly and deeply throughout the world and which are affecting the position of
Washington.
Assessing the dynamics of US global power is a complex problem which requires examining
multiple dimensions.
We will proceed by:
Conceptualizing the principles which dictate empire building,
specifically the power bases and the dynamic changes in relations and structures which shape
the present and future position of the US. Identifying the spheres of influence and power and
their growth and decline. Examining the regions of conflict and contestation. The major and
secondary rivalries. The stable and shifting relations between existing and rising power
centers. The internal dynamics shaping the relative strength of competing centers of global
power. The instability of the regimes and states seeking to retain and expand global power.
Conceptualization of Global Power
US global power is built on several significant facts. These include: the US victory in
World War II, its subsequent advanced economy and dominant military position throughout five
continents.
The US advanced its dominance through a series of alliances in Europe via NATO; Asia via its
hegemonic relationship with Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Taiwan as well as Australia and
New Zealand in Oceana; Latin America via traditional client regimes; Africa via neo-colonial
rulers imposed following independence.
US global power was built around encircling the USSR and China, undermining their economies
and defeating their allies militarily via regional wars.
Post WWII global economic and military superiority created subordinated allies and
established US global power, but it created the bases for gradual shifts in relations of
dominance.
US global power was formidable but subject to economic and military changes over time and in
space.
US Spheres of Power: Then and Now
US global power exploited opportunities but also suffered military setbacks early on,
particularly in Korea, Indo-China and Cuba. The US spheres of power were clearly in place in
Western Europe and Latin America but was contested in Eastern Europe and Asia.
The most significant advance of US global power took place with the demise and
disintegration of the USSR, the client states in Eastern Europe, as well as the transformation
of China and Indo-China to capitalism during the 1980's.
US ideologues declared the coming of a unipolar empire free of restraints and challenges to
its global and regional power. The US turned to conquering peripheral adversaries. Washington
destroyed Yugoslavia and then Iraq – fragmenting them into mini-states. Wall Street
promoted a multitude of multi-national corporations to invade China and Indo-China who reaped
billions of profits exploiting cheap labor.
The believers of the enduring rule of US global power envisioned a century of US imperial
rule.
In reality this was a short-sighted vision of a brief interlude.
The End of Unipolarity: New Rivalries and Global and Regional Centers of Power: An
Overview
US global power led Washington into 'overreach', in several crucial areas: it launched a
series of costly prolonged wars, specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan, which had three negative
consequences: the destruction of the Iraq armed forces and economy led to the rise of the
Islamic State which overtook most of the country; the occupation in Afghanistan which led to
the emergence of the Taliban and an ongoing twenty year war which cost hundreds of billions of
dollars and several thousand wounded and dead US soldiers; as a result the majority of the US
public turned negative toward wars and empire building
The US pillage and dominance of Russia ended, when President Putin replaced Yeltsin's vassal
state. Russia rebuilt its industry, science, technology and military power. Russia's population
recovered its living standards.
With Russian independence and advanced military weaponry, the US lost its unipolar military
power. Nevertheless, Washington financed a coup which virtually annexed two thirds of the
Ukraine. The US incorporated the fragmented Yugoslavian 'statelets' into NATO. Russia countered
by annexing the Crimea and secured a mini-state adjacent Georgia.
China converted the economic invasion of US multi-national corporations into learning
experiences for building its national economy and export platforms which contributed which led
to its becoming an economic competitor and rival to the US.
US global empire building suffered important setbacks in Latin America resulting
from the the so-called Washington Consensus. The imposition of neo-liberal policies
privatized and plundered their economies, impoverished the working and middle class, and
provoked a series of popular uprising and the rise of radical social movements and center-left
governments.
The US empire lost spheres of influence in some regions (China, Russia, Latin America,
Middle East) though it retained influence among elites in contested regions and even launched
new imperial wars in contested terrain. Most notably the US attacked independent regimes in
Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Somalia and Sudan via armed proxies.
The change from a unipolar to a multi polar world and the gradual emergence of regional
rivals led US global strategists to rethink their strategy. The Trump regime's aggressive
policies set the stage for political division within the regime and among allies.
The Obama – Trump Convergence and Differences on Empire Building
By the second decade of the 21 st century several new global power alignments
emerged: China had become the main economic competitor for world power and Russia was the major
military challenger to US military supremacy at the regional level. The US replaced the former
European colonial empire in Africa. Washington's sphere of influence extended especially in
North and Sub Sahara Africa: Kenya, Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia. Trump gained leverage in the
Middle East namely in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Jordan.
Israel retained its peculiar role, converting the US as its sphere of influence.
But the US faced regional rivals for sphere of influence in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and
Algeria.
In South Asia US faced competition for spheres of influence from China, India, Afghanistan
and Pakistan.
In Latin America sharp and abrupt shifts in spheres of influence were the norm. US influence
declined between 2000 – 2015 and recovered from 2015 to the present.
Imperial Power Alignments Under President Trump
President Trump faced complex global, regional and local political and economic
challenges.
Trump followed and deepened many of the policies launched by the Obama- Hillary Clinton
policies with regard to other countries and regions . However Trump also radicalized and/or
reversed policies of his predecessors. He combined flattery and aggression at the same
time.
At no time did Trump recognize the limits of US global power. Like the previous three
presidents he persisted in the belief that the transitory period of a unipolar global empire
could be re-imposed.
Toward Russia, a global competitor, Trump adopted a policy of 'rollback'. Trump imposed
economic sanctions, with the strategic 'hope' that by impoverishing Russia, degrading its
financial and industrial sectors that he could force a regime change which would convert Moscow
into a vassal state.
At the beginning of his Presidential campaign Trump flirted with the notion of a business
accommodation with Putin. However, Trump's ultra-belligerent appointments and domestic
opposition soon turned him toward a highly militarized strategy, rejecting military –
including nuclear – agreements, in favor of military escalation.
Toward China, Trump faced a dynamic and advancing technological competitor. Trump resorted
to a 'trade war' that went far beyond 'trade' to encompass a war against Beijing's economic
structure and social relations. The Trump regime-imposed sanctions and threatened a total
boycott of Chinese exports.
ORDER IT NOW
Trump and his economic team demanded China privatize and denationalize its entire state
backed industry. They demanded the power to unilaterally decide when violations of US rules
occurred and to be able to re-introduce sanctions without consultations. Trump demanded all
Chinese technological agreements, economic sectors and innovations were subject and open to US
business interests. In other words, Trump demanded the end of Chinese sovereignty and the
reversal of the structural base for its global power. The US was not interested in mere 'trade'
– it wanted a return to imperial rule over a colonized China.
The Trump regime rejected negotiations and recognition of a shared power relation: it viewed
its global rivals as potential clients.
Inevitably the Trump regime's strategy would never reach any enduring agreements on any
substantial issues under negotiations. China has a successful strategy for global power built
on a 6 trillion-dollar world-wide Road and Belt (R and B) development policy, which links 60
countries and several regions. R and B is building seaports, rail and air systems linking
industries financed by development banks.
In contrast, the US banks exploits industry, speculates and operates within closed financial
circuits. The US spends trillions on wars, coups, sanctions and other parasitical activities
which have nothing to do with economic competitiveness.
The Trump regime's 'allies' in the Middle East namely Saudi Arabia and Israel, are parasitic
allies who buy protection and provoke costly wars.
Europe complains about China's increase in industrial exports and overlook imports of
consumer goods. Yet the EU plans to resist Trump's sanctions which lead to a blind alley of
stagnation!
Conclusion
The most recent period of the peak of US global power, the decade between 1989-99 contained
the seeds of its decline and the current resort to trade wars, sanctions and nuclear
threats.
The structure of US global power changed over the past seven decades. The US global empire
building began with the US command over the rebuilding of Western European economies and the
displacement of England, France, Portugal and Belgium from Asia and Africa.
The Empire spread and penetrated South America via US multi-national corporations. However,
US empire building was not a linear process as witness its unsuccessful confrontation with
national liberation movements in Korea, Indo China, Southern Africa (Angola, Congo, etc.) and
the Caribbean (Cuba). By the early 1960's the US had displaced its European rivals and
successfully incorporated them as subordinate allies.
Washington's main rivals for spheres of influence was Communist China and the USSR with
their allies among client state and overseas revolutionaries.
The US empire builders' successes led to the transformation of their Communist and
nationalist rivals into emergent capitalist competitors.
In a word US dominance led to the construction of capitalist rivals, especially China and
Russia.
Subsequently, following US military defeats and prolonged wars, regional powers proliferated
in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Regional blocs competed with US
clients for power.
The diversification of power centers led to new and costly wars. Washington lost exclusive
control of markets, resources and alliances. Competition reduced the spheres of US power.
In the face of these constraints on US global power the Trump regime envisioned a strategy
to recover US dominance – ignoring the limited capacity and structure of US political ,
economic and class relations.
China absorbed US technology and went on to create new advances without following each
previous stage.
Russia's recovered from its losses and sanctions and secured alternative trade relations to
counter the new challenges to the US global empire. Trump's regime launched a 'permanent trade
war' without stable allies. Moreover, he failed to undermine China's global infrastructure
network; Europe demanded and secured autonomy to enter into trade deals with China, Iran and
Russia.
Trump has pressured many regional powers who have ignored his threats.
The US still remains a global power. But unlike the past, the US lacks the industrial base
to 'make America strong'. Industry is subordinated to finance; technological innovations are
not linked to skilled labor to increase productivity.
Trump relies on sanctions and they have failed to undermine regional influentials. Sanctions
may temporarily reduce access to US markets' but we have observed that new trade partners take
their place.
Trump has gained client regimes in Latin America, but the gains are precarious and subject
to reversal.
Under the Trump regime, big business and bankers have increased prices in the stock market
and even the rate of growth of the GDP, but he confronts severe domestic political instability,
and high levels of turmoil among the branches of government. In pursuit of loyalty over
competence, Trump's appointments have led to the ascendancy of cabinet officials who seek to
wield unilateral power which the US no longer possesses.
Elliot Abrams can massacre a quarter-million Central Americans with impunity, but he has
failed to impose US power over Venezuela and Cuba. Pompeo can threaten North Kore, Iran and
China but these countries fortify alliances with US rivals and competitors. Bolton can advance
the interests of Israel but their conversations take place in a telephone booth – it
lacks resonance with any major powers.
Trump has won a presidential election, he has secured concessions from some countries but he
has alienated regional and diplomatic allies. Trump claims he is making America strong, but he
has undermined lucrative strategic multi-lateral trade agreements.
US 'Global Power' does not prosper with bully-tactics. Projections of power alone, have
failed – they require recognition of realistic economic limitations and the losses from
regional wars.
This is a fine synopsis but it leaves out the most fundamental of issues.
The American People don't want to be an Empire, .never asked to be an Empire and despise,
to the core, our ruling elites who defrauded us into becoming one.
We do live in an Empire now, to our chagrin, but it is (in truth) a malevolent empire .an
Empire of Fraud, Belligerence .. and Heinous
F#cking Debt .
Show me one American, anywhere, who is happy about it .
Our ruling elites have "lied" us into multiple wars of "never ending" criminal aggression
..wars which have all but exterminated the solvency of the nation and reaped untold carnage
and misery on tens of millions of people who never attacked us (and never intended to).
This "War Fraud", foisted upon us , has been a catastrophic disaster for our country and
the world.
A "mind -bending, catastrophic, . disaster".
Every single belligerent "oligarch" , "plutocrat" and "establishment elite", who conspired
to defraud us into these "illegal wars", should be rounded up and thrown in federal prison
Every single penny of their assets should be seized to pay down the cost of wars they lied us
into.
This is , hands down, the most meaningful step we could take, as a nation.
Not only would it change the direction of the world, almost overnight, but it would lay
the groundwork for the United States to rebuild itself.
Once we make "Accountability for War Fraud" our nations highest priority, we can repair
and rebuild.
If we don't, we won't and(tragically) might never be able to.
America's word has never been taken seriously. Ever heard of our treaties with the Native
Americans? Clinton abrogated the accords between Gorbachev and Reagan, that NATO would not
move one inch to the East. Clinton set up the drunken Yeltsin as his puppet, interfering with
Russia's elections and raping their economy.
Bush II desperately wanted to finish his father's Gulf War, ignoring the UN weapons
inspectors. He also unilaterally pulled the US out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
America promised Ghaddafi that if he did not pursue nuclear weapons and supporting
terrorists (like Saudi Arabia and Israel), he would be left alone. Soon he was dead from
bayonet rape with a gleeful chortling Hillary impressing American spooks with her "Libya
Model", touted by Bolton, Pence and Pompeo to Kim's face.
Obama's deal with Iran was hated even more by Hillary (and most members of Congress) than
by Trump, and was doomed when Obama left office (one of his few achievements, however
fleeting).
The Establishment clowns Bolton, Pence and Pompeo will keep Trump on track.
"... "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me). ..."
"... "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?" ..."
"... The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say. ..."
Second hour: Journalist and TV host Ken Meyercord (also based in Washington, DC)
writes:
"I attended an event at the Brookings Institution yesterday on the Mueller Report. As is
sadly customary at DC think tanks, the panelists and the moderator were all of one mind.
Nevertheless, one panelist, a former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (a
court notorious for rubber-stamping any charge the government brings against those who
disrupt the smooth functioning of our foreign policy apparatus), made a curious analogy,
arguing that the contacts Trump and his associates had with Russians would be culpable even
if the contacts were with some other, less hostile country:
His remark got me to thinking, so in the Q & A I sought to ask him "What if you
substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look
right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me).
I don't know what his response would have been; but if he said it would still apply, I
would have followed up with "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller
investigation into possible collusion with Israel?"
"The more I think about it, the more intriguing I find Mr. Rosenberg's remark. He seemed
to think the sheer number of contacts by Trump folks with Russians proved culpability. It
might be interesting to compare Trump's contacts with the Russians during the campaign with
his contacts with Israelis. I suspect the latter were more numerous and of greater
significance. Certainly, Trump's acts as President would seem to indicate he's more
Netanyahu's puppet than Putin's: moving the embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off aid to the
Palestinians, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Imagine if Putin
proposed naming a village in Russia after Trump in appreciation, as Netanyahu has proposed
doing in the Golan Heights!
"P.S. Ueli Maurer is the President of the Swiss Confederation."
The entire Western media is the enemy of the people. The Demogangsters and the mediocrats,
Public Enemy #1, were angry that Trump won the election, so they fabricated a scam called
contacts with Russians.
They are saying that Trump and his people talked to the Russians as private citizens
before the election, so it is illegal.
What? Talking to Russians is illegal? Really? Says who?
They will not tell you the law that was allegedly broken, because the law that was
allegedly broken itself is illegal.
It is the Logan Act which “criminalizes negotiations by unauthorized persons with
foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.”
Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a
non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.
While I would not say this happens only in America, this sort of thing is actually
long-standing policy in the US. As long ago as 1944 in Wickard vs. Filburn, the Democrat
Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man for not merely raising food on his own land, but
for failing to offer the food for sale, on the rationale that the non-sale affected
Interstate Commerce as much as if he had offered it for sale. Since then it has been
‘constitutional’ to find federal jurisdiction over even private vegetable gardens
grown exclusively for domestic consumption. Under this theory, even breathing oxygen places
one under federal jurisdiction because it is followed by exhaling CO2.
One of the most surprising things I discovered when I began to practice law was the fact
that no one is ‘innocent’. I.e, there is always some law somewhere that is being
‘broken’ no matter what one does, which means that if the government wants
someone, they can always convict him because the government can always find some law he has
broken. I’m speaking ironically, of course. Many of these laws should be
unconstitutional. Just don’t bet that SCOTUS will ever rule that way because, as
Gorsuch recently pronounced, “that’s all been settled.”
The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s
impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller
pulled the plug, I can’t say.
"... It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos. People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as John Hagee. ..."
"... My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are “just like us.” They are not. ..."
"... Christian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc. ..."
Pompeo: "My Faith in Jesus Christ Makes a Real Difference"
Pompeo says
God may have sent Trump to save Israel from Iran
"As a Christian, I certainly believe that's possible," said Mr Pompeo ."I am confident that
the Lord is at work here,"
Pence, a Catholic Evangelical who almost became a priest: "I made a commitment to
Christ."
Christians? These Christians support a war on Yemen in which huge numbers of people are
dying of mutilation, cholera, and starvation, a war they could stop with a telephone call. They
similarly support butchery of Afghans from the air, massive killing in Syria, bombing of
Somalis, and torture chambers around the world. Such is their Christianity. They lack even a
shred of human decency. But they are Christians.
OLD TESTAMENT, THE ROOT OF CHRISTIANITY = PURE EVIL.
Thanks for the article, Fred. You are so right. But when I see the Pope kissing the feet
of alien invaders and Pence groveling to Israel, I remember these:
The 18th-century Anglo-American philosopher Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason that
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and
torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible
[i.e. the Old Testament] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of
a demon, than the Word of God.” When he says Bible, Paine is referring to the OT.
“There is no text more barbaric than the Old Testament….–books like
Deuteronomy and Leviticus and Exodus*. The Quran pales in comparison.”–Jewish
author Dr. Samuel Benjamin Harris.
We have Pompeo, a malignant manatee looking to start wars in which he will not risk his
flabby amorphous ass also parading his Christianity
Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of captain. Now
he’s 55, so yes, he will not be risking his “flabby ass,” only his job.
Fred should really do more research, ‘cuz he just seems lazy.
Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his
class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada yada. I
do find it odd that someone of his ilk believes in the Rapture; my only guess is that
he’s playing to his (former) Kansas electoral base, and he can’t back out now. No
way he believes this stuff.
Protestantism is pseudo-Christianity. It started 1500 years after the Christian Church was
founded and now has over 40K different splinter groups (denominations) in the U.S. alone.
This Johnny-come-lately of heresies began because of greed and lust, and as usual, a Jewish
revolutionary spirit (read E. Michael Jones’ The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit ).
But on Trump’s über-neocon turn E. Michael Jones sums it up well in this
Sputnik News interview of March 22, 2019:
I am not in favor of christian zionism but the irrational has always played a prominent role
in human politics, that being said I am a great fan of Fred Reed.
The one nice thing is that Israelophilia amongst young Americans rapidly drops off along with
secularization and Europeanization of social attitudes, as well as of course greater
diversity (Latinos couldn’t care less about creating Greater Israel). There was a
recent survey which showed that even young Republicans are not much more pro-Israel than
young Democrats. This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.
There’s a good chance that the Trump administration is a last hurrah for the Israel
First agenda.
Christians didn’t invent hypocrisy, nor are they the only ones who apply it.
However, they are the one group that knows and professes to do better, so they are easy
target.
The closest to original Christianity is the Eastern Orthodox brand which is less corrupted
compared to Romanism with its heavy doses of ‘pagan’ influences.
Christian Zionism is a fraud like most American heresies including those snake-handling
‘churches’, Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Identity, Christian
Science, Jehovah Witnesses plus countless Jim Jones-like cults.
In fact Luther, the founder of Protestantism, was initially a ‘Zionist’ till
he saw the ‘light’, prompting him to pen On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den
Juden und ihren Lügen) . The modern apostate Lutheran church has since been
compromised.
Besides the ‘perks’ of being philo-Semitic are terrible. Take the Brits. After
they failed to fulfill the fraudulent Balfour Declaration, Zionists turned nasty –
terror groups like the Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang resorted to letter bombs, blowing up
hotels and hanging British troops with piano wire.
By contrast, Mr. Reed is one of these: https://www.marines.com/who-we-are/our-values.html
DUCTUS EXEMPLO
A Latin term that means “lead by example,”
it’s about behaving in a manner that inspires others.
Don’t know about you, but I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying,
cheating and stealing, just for starters.
He is also welcome to peddle his crazed religious beliefs somewhere else.
As an agnostic, I really do not give a rat’s ass what happens to the terrorist state of
Israel.
Israel’s battles are not my battles, and I resent anyone attempting to tell me they
are.
I also do have Iranian friends, but no Iranian enemies.
Notice to Mr. Pence: Iran is not my enemy. Israel’s enemies are not my enemies. I do NOT “stand with Israel.”
The United States of America is a separate country from the State of Israel, with
far different values.
I stand with the United States, the country of my birth, so long as it adheres to the
principles embodied in its founding documents, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the
U.S. Constitution. Lately, it does not appear to be doing much of that, no thanks to
shitheads like Mr. Pompeo, and his compadre in crime, Mr. Bolton.
This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.
I disagree.
In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing.
Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major
constituency. I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970.
None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense.
Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.
@turtle You’re
pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie. Every intelligence outfit across the
world lies. You think MI6 doesn’t lie, like every day of its life?
Since you’re so interested in Israel, you might want to know that Fred Reed is a
total Johnny come lately on critiquing Israel. He used to make fun of people e-mailing him
about Israel. In 2005, he wrote a hugely embarrassing positive review of a book claiming that
Israel was getting a raw deal in the press because Palestinians were orchestrating the
coverage. Imagine shilling for a book like that. Fred Reed did.
In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing.
Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major
constituency.
I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970.
None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense.
Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.
It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political
Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos.
People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as
John Hagee.
But the rapid demographic shift and the the decline of whites in large metro areas will
certainly reduce future support for Israel and the U.S. kowtowing to Israel.
70 percent of school district’s newest students are immigrants, legal status
unknown
Seven of 10 new students in a Baltimore-Washington area school district are immigrants,
their legal status unknown and their second language English, according to a series of new
media reports about the impact of surging immigration on local communities.
A recent Baltimore Sun report said that of the 5,000 new students jamming Baltimore
County schools in the past five years, 3,500 are “recent immigrants or children whose
family speak another language.”
That has helped to double the percentage of students who speak English as a second
language, part of a national trend.
You’re pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie.
I never said that, or believed it either.
What I said:
I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying, cheating and stealing
Nor is Pompeo the only Pointer known to lie.
There was a certain General Powell, for example.
Perhaps the USMA should change their motto – truth in advertising, etc.
FWIW, I had two close friends in HS who were both USMA, Class of 1970.
I know for a fact neither of them would stoop to Mr. Pompeo’s level.
Since you’re so interested in Israel
My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out
of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are
“just like us.” They are not.
@Anatoly KarlinChristian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this
country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc.
Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his
class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada
yada.
I would not consider a degree in engineering management a STEM degree
“This puts Evangelicals in the curious position of being pro-Israel but
anti-Semitic.”
Tuning around Freesat in Europe, particularly the UK, get you get a lot of religious
channels, mostly Muslim, but also more than a few Christian. One day I tuned past a Christian
guy standing in front of a phone bank and a flag of Israel, asking for money while expressing
his solidarity with Israel.
You make a good point Fred: They don’t care so much about the Jews, they just want
to get their hands on the Holy Lands, even if it takes every Jewish and Muslim life they can
throw at the problem.
“Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of
captain.”
The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain
(Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment
… it is fulfilling the service requirement in exchange for a free-ride on the
taxpayers teat. He conveniently ended his service just before he might have been dragooned
into Gulf War 1, and if he did reserve time, it was while at Harvard Law; while many other
reserve officers had their civvy careers interrupted by an increasing ops tempo of
deployments that followed GW1, Mike did just fine.
Having been given seed money for his business by the Kochs and Bain Capital, he was
plucked, like B. Hussein Obama, out of relative obscurity and fast-tracked to greatness. Kind
of like a poorer George H.W. Bush.
@Swede55 There was a
Byzantium, but it wasn’t as Chi-Chi as Rome at the time of Christ. Making Rome the
centre of the Gurch then would be like making it New York or DC now. I would be hard-pressed
to see Christ himself embracing Rome as the seat of Christendom then, but it would not be
much of a reach for his followers who wanted to be closer to the cosmopolitan action of the
day.
I guess you’d call me one of those detestable fundamentalists, Fred. You see, I take
very seriously what Jesus says in the New Testament. The authority of the Son of God makes
clear that His interpretations are the ones that those really transformed and following Him
would model.
Now people who’ve never directly experienced things for themselves can be misled by
others, who will use the disguise of faith. As for love of country, patriotism is also
misused to become the first refuge of scoundrels: instead of loving your neighbors, used by
them as Mark Twain pointed out to require hating others in countries further away.
But what happens when you find out you’ve been lied to? For me, having had some
involvement with the military in the computer industry during the Cold War, it was clear
after the Russians abandoned sovietism that the American corporations involved cared not a
whit for liberty – war meant profits. Then came the lies justifying the Iraq war and
all its cousins, along with the Abu Ghraib tortures approved to the highest levels –
which because of my own involvement I knew had to follow the chain of command. Both religious
leaders and political leaders approved of these tortures. But although I had believed these
folks, the revelations and the excuses made did not jibe with my Savior’s clear
speaking in scripture – quite the opposite. This was not the Jesus I know, nor the
witness of the Holy Spirit who leads me.
Now these manifestations of political cooperation and human organizations calling
themselves Christian, are self identifying. They claim the name Christian, but when they defy
Christ’s own example and teaching, they are in fact anti-Christian, either
self-deceived or knowingly deceiving others.
All along, there have been those who truly were following His path and taking up His
cross, even where weeds choked the Gospel as best they could, and wolves moved among the
sheep in disguise. Often those with the power to do so marginalized, persecuted and even
tortured and murdered these, while masquerading as Christians while defying His every
command.
I am evangelical, in that I would like to see others meet the real Jesus, not substitute
false idols like the War Jesus constructed by merely human hands. But I also know that
despite billions supposedly Christian, Jesus warned the path is narrow, the road to
destruction broad, and that those taking up His cross would ever only be a minority –
and that such a minority would be persecuted, even by religious authorities. Such folks
cannot be conflated with membership rolls on institutional records, but are known to God.
My orientation of faith is identical to that of the anabaptists who were the Christians
persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike, reformers who refused to take up arms against
either. They often rescued their own pursuers, yet were rewarded with burning, drowning,
throttling, dismemberment, along with wives and children by those who pretended they were
serving Christ by doing so.
So I appreciate your pointing out how wicked it is to do evil things in the name of
Christ, but I would like to remind you that just as the counterfeit can’t exist without
the genuine, that there are those who won’t participate in these things, because they
are determined to follow Christ, the Holy Spirit and the conscience this dictates, regardless
of both those who hate Christ and those who worship a false Christ whose actions bear more
resemblance to the methods of Satan himself.
@turtle The honor
code at West Point was always taken seriously. Like so much else it has deteriorated lately,
but it’s still observed.
Unfortunately, once the plebs graduate and become officers they enter the United States
Army, in which lying is required to advance your career. The entire officer corps as a result
is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the lying.
John T. Reed refused to sign false reports as a junior officer in Vietnam, the result of
which was that he was never promoted (highly irregular) and his commanding officer attempted
to get him killed.
Fred Reed was an enlisted Marine, but he has said similar things about officers and
especially brass.
@Thorfinnsson Thank
you for the link to Mr. John T. Reed’s site.
He evidently embodies the sort of integrity we should expect from leaders, but seldom
get.
they enter the United States Army, in which lying is required to advance your career.
The entire officer corps as a result is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the
lying.
That bears an awesome similarity with dating and romance. I wonder how come.
Excellent piece by Mr Reed…he really tore a righteous strip of bacon off that walking
side of pork Pompeo…
There are millions of evangelical Christians that fanatically support Israel for the
reason of this end times nonsense, as stated in the article…so that is a very large
base…and not all of them insist that Jews must convert…that is just one slice
of a very wide spectrum…
In fact not all evangelical Christians support Israel…there is a very wide spectrum
on the Israel issue…right up to those that see Iran and Russia [especially] in a
positive light…which is encouraging…
These American Christians sympathize with Russia’s Christianity and also with the
conservatism they see in Russian society, and the sobriety of Russian politics…I have
no idea how the numbers stack up for these various slices of the spectrum…but the
mainstream is probably along the lines of the Pences and Pompeos of the world…
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to
me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive
out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly,
‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
N
Christian fundamentalism is full of whack jobs and Dr. Strangeloves and Pompeo and Pence are
two shining examples. I just hope they don’t get us all blown to smithereens.
In Fred’s adopted nation a six year old was just caught in the crossfire of drug
cartel gunfire in Cancun and has died of his injuries. This is hard to believe as Fred tells
us that in addition to being a nation on the cutting edge of technology, it also has the most
bookstores per square mile of any nation. So the bookish Mexican people should be reading
books and not dealing drugs and shooting people, especially kids:
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/04/26/cartel-gunfire-in-cancun-kills-6-year-old-wounds-parents/
Mexico has 33K homicides annually but Fredrico gets peeved if American whites don’t
want these problems in America.
@Anonymous
“the schism of Eastern Orthodoxy” is an odd way to put it; the Roman Catholics
flounced out from the old church in the schism of 1054. Or to put it another way, the Pope
flounced out from the other Patriarchs.
“Ss. Peter and Paul went to Rome”: Paul yes; he had no choice, being under
arrest. Peter: of course he didn’t, that’s just another of those old religious
fabrications.
If the earliest Christians had a True Home it was either Jerusalem or Galilee, of
course.
@Brabantian
“the 3 Abrahamic religions … all founded by the same kind of desert tribals used
to life and death battles for control of a single watering hole.
Hardly. It would seem that the earliest Hebrews were probably settled villagers in the
hills of Palestine. The earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee.
It’s not at all clear who the earliest Moslems were, since the initial conquerors
were referred to as Saracens: the witness statements to their success make no reference to
their having a distinct religion or distinct holy book. They do seem to have had a general
called Mahomet, though, who had earlier been a merchant. Where they were from is also
unclear. There’s a fair chance that they were originally from around Petra, which is on
the edge of cultivation, not deep in the Arabian desert.
@turtle West Point
honor grad here. Also a conscientious objector. It took me a bit to overcome my childhood
indoctrination into the cult of imperialism, but before long, I realized that imperialism was
in no way defending the people who reside in the USA.
The sad reality of current US culture is that West Point is extremely proud of lying,
cheating, and stealing Pompeo, and considers me to be an embarrassment. The true mission of
West Point is not “Duty, Honor, Country” as far as I can tell, but to bait
idealistic young men and women into attending college there in an attempt to turn them into
soulless, self-serving, corporate bag men like they did to Mike Pompeo.
(FWIW, my money is on Pompeo having somewhat cheated his way through West Point. I have
seen it with my own eyes, and Pompeo does not seem that intelligent to me)
@KenH Christian
fundamentalism is also full of con-artists who take the gullible for a ride. Pence seems
quite dull. He might really believe that stuff. Pompeo is the wolf in sheep’s clothes.
I have enough faith to at least hope that short of complete repentance (as likely as him
getting knocked off a horse by God) – short of that, a special hell awaits him
@The scalpel Porker
Pompeo on a horse…?…being a horse lover that mental image sends shivers down my
spine…
OTOH…a well placed back hoof to the nether regions of the ‘malignant
manatee’ [classic coinage right there…thanks Mr Reed]…would be divinely
appreciated…let us hope and, dare I say it, pray…
The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain
(Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment
…
@Truth Captain after
5 years is the most common result. The rank of Major is used as an incentive to stay in after
one’s (typically 5 year) obligation. Looking at Plumpeo, I’d guess one of the
reasons he got out was because he couldn’t pass his fitness tests
@tex tickles If the
Torah isn’t for Christians, why is it quoted 695 times and referenced a total of 4,105
times in the New Testament?
How many times do the writers of the New Testament quote the Old Testament? An index in
the Jewish New Testament catalogs 695 separate quotations from the books of the Old
Testament in the New (Jewish New Testament Publications, Jerusalem, 1989). There are many
other passages where the Old Testament is referred to , as in cases where an Old Testament
figure is mentioned, but no specific scripture is quoted. Depending on which
scholar’s work you examine, the number of quotations and references in the New
Testament to the Old may be as high as 4,105.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1979, Vol. I, p. 617
The Inquisition: It’s prolly best to begin at the beginning, with Moses, the first, and
deadliest, inquisitor.
Moses, the 1st inquisitor ordered killed 23 thousand one day (Exodus 32)
Moses, the 1st Inquisitor, ordered killed 24 thousand one day (Numbers 25).
Forty Seven Thousand ordered killed by The First Inquisitor, Moses, in two days, including
women and children.
Non-Catholic historian Edward Peters:, in his work, “Inquisition” (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1989, p. 87),
The Spanish Inquisition, in spite of wildly inflated estimates of the numbers of its
victims, acted with considerable restraint in inflicting the death penalty, far more
restraint than was demonstrated in secular tribunals elsewhere in Europe that dealt with the
same kinds of offenses. The best estimate is that around 3000 death sentences were carried
out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than that
in comparable secular courts.
++++++++++++++
Mr. Reed is an odd individual whose understanding of Christianity suffers from a lack of
knowledge.
He seems to think that Christian Catholics have no right to defend themselves and he also
suffers from the error of Presentism.
Of course, secular governments were far worse during the era when torture was acceptable
and, of course, one must note that heretics were treated then as today’s traitors ought
be treated.
If Germany had an Inquisition, wed have never heard of Hitler, but men like Fred hated
that which men like Fred have never understood
@Anonymous
Christianity itself, in all forms, is pseudo-Jewdaism, from the very start of it, even for
you ever-kvetching Jew-worshiping Catholics.
• “ To the Jews ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the
giving of the law, the worship …’” Catechism of the Catholic
Church
• “ We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews
.” John 4:22
• “For it is we [Christians] who are the Circumcision.” Philippians 3:3
@Patrick
“Christian Zionism” has been woven into the fabric of the Jew-worshiping cult of
Christianity, from the very beginning, with Jewish storytellers writing these Zionist
principles the Jew Testament:
• Matthew 21:5 “Say to Daughter Zion , ‘See, your king comes to
you.”
• John 12:15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion ; see, your king is
coming.”
• Romans 9:33 “See, I lay in Zion a stone…”
• Romans 11:26 “The deliverer will come from Zion …”
• Hebrews 12:22 “Mount Zion , to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem.”
• 1 Peter 2:6 “See, I lay a stone in Zion .”
• Revelation 14:1 “Standing on Mount Zion , and with him
144,000.”
@Mick Jagger gathers no
Mosque The Inquisition started in 12th-century France . The Spanish
Inquisition wasn’t the only region of Inquisition. Stop trying to minimize the horrors.
@The scalpel
Christianity was started by con -artists who take the gullible for a ride. As Hebrews
11:1 says, “Now faith is con fidence in what we hope for and assurance about
what we do not see.” That sounds exactly like a sales pitch from con fidence
man Bernie Madoff, another one of the Hebrews.
@dearieme The
earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee? Bible says Syria; “Christians first
in Antioch.” (Acts 11:26) Not surprisingly, it seems Muslims got their start from
Syria too; as the Quran was substantially derived from Syriac Christian liturgy. ( Luxenberg, 2007 )
Let’s not forget Christians and Muslims from Syria both like to shout “Aloha
Snackbar!”
@Mick Jagger gathers no
Mosque Teachers refer to that as the “everybody’s doing it” excuse.
Stay after class, to explain how those inquisitions too weren’t so awfully bad.
@Mick Jagger gathers no
Mosque Sadly, none of the three Abrahamic religions were started by Whites, who need
their own native religion that better fits their evolutionary biology.
@anon Torture has
never been anything out of the ordinary throughout history, when the police of the day took
you in for questioning they wouldn’t offer treats in exchange for a confession, torture
has been standard operating procedure, it was the normal, expected course of any
investigation. Why don’t people blame the governments of today for what the countries
they rule now used to do in the past?
If you can trust the History channel, there is no proof of an Iron Maiden device ever
having been used, rather, it was used as a fear inducing object having a profound
psychological impact.
@The scalpel Major
after 5 years? When, during WW2? The War Between the States? Whether you agree with his
politics, or not, being promoted to captain after 5 years in peace time is perfectly normal.
The man was an athlete in high school, graduated first in his class at West Point, was an
infantry officer then was on the Harvard Law Review before being elected to Congress. And not
as a liberal pantywaist. Give him his due, the man’s led a remarkable life.
@Rich He found that
affirmative action was not as good as lying, cheating, and stealing. I will grant that he is
pretty smart, (though I am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in
his West Point class without cheating.)
Take a smart person who wisely uses lying, cheating, and stealing without any remorse as a
means to outcompete his friends and enemies alike, and you have someone who, with a little
luck and without being caught, can slither their way to the top of some competetive
hierarchies. These people are known as psychopaths, or more precisely, antisocial personality
disorders.
Do I respect psychopaths? No. They generally are purely takers, and make very few
contributions to humanity. Additionally, I would like to believe in things like truth, honor,
and justice, and no matter how “successful” these psychopaths are, they are
complete and utter failures on criteria I value. Then again, most government officials score
very low on those scales. Sadly, it almost seems that they must in order to obtain such
positions. We are governed by psychopaths.
@The scalpel What
evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath? Look, you don’t like the
guy’s politics, that’s okay, but why do you guys all of a sudden become Sigmund
Freud and start psychoanalyzing people you’ve never met? It’s almost impossible
to get through West Point cheating, lying or stealing. If anyone sees you doing anything even
slightly dishonorable, they’ll rat you out faster than a Kapo would run to a German
guard if he saw someone doing something wrong. The guy is obviously a very intelligent and
hard working man who’s looked out at the world and drawn different conclusions than
you. Doesn’t make him “evil” or a “psychopath”. Just makes him
a powerful guy you don’t agree with.
am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in his West Point class
without cheating.
Maybe not cheating, per se, but at least picking his (academic) battles.
In my experience, it is frequently the case (though not always) that those who major in
“management” are those who cannot hack it in a technical discipline, or choose
not to work quite that hard.
Evidently Harvard Law places great importance on undergraduate GPA.
Speculation:
An outstanding GPA in a soft major might carry more weight at Harvard than a lower GPA
in a more demanding field. I emphasize this is speculation, as I do not actually know.
I do know that I scored 786 out of 800 on LSAT in 1970 and was not admitted to
Harvard Law. My undergraduate grades at a small technical school farther down the Charles
were only average among my peers.
All of the world’s religions can be associated with killings. They are either deeds of
evil individuals, policy wrongs that do not involve direct murder, self defense or the
defense of an attacked nation. Political policy can be rendered unto Cesar, while murder is
accurately blamed on the individuals who do it. Mass murder is particularly evil, spawning
military action that can affect innocents in other nations when it gets as heinous as the
murdering of 3,000 innocent office workers on 9/11 by Muslims.
Sure, Christians have done some heinous & barbaric things over the centuries. After
making a big deal of religion, Henry the Eighth beheaded some of his wives.
But when we get past what happened 500 years ago, we see a succession of evil mass murders
committed in the recent past by non-Christian religious zealots, shouting Allah Akbar: the
concert and nightclub massacres in France, England and America; the mass shooting of office
workers on the American West Coast; the mass shootings & random mass stabbings in
American Midwestern malls and in England; the Christmas market massacre in Germany; the mass
murder of military personnel in office settings in the American South & the Midwest; the
mass murder in Belgium; the bombing of a New England sporting event; the truck-ramming mass
murders in France, Sweden and Canada; the mass murder of churchgoers in Sri Lanka, etc., etc,
etc.
World wars have been started over only one incident, with much less extensive losses of
life.
In some centuries, the beheading and stabbing by radical Islamic terrorists of two
innocent, Danish girls, hiking in Morocco, or the beheading of an 85-year-old priest in the
middle of mass might have provoked military action.
The murderers who did all of those evil deeds (and others) in the last few years knew that
they were taking the chance of a military response that might hurt innocent people in the
non-Christian countries that they purport to care about, and yet, they still did it, showing
that they regarded potential casualties in Muslim lands as collateral damage.
The cause was the only thing that counted to them, not the people, even when the people
were fellow Muslims.
@Rich No they use to
rat you out, but like all things that are subject to change they have to,now it wasen’t
so long ago that they had the very large cheating affair at west point,and to put it bluntly
the man is a lying,cheating,stealing(his words when he worked for the C.I.A.) whore that
would do anything to further his cause of hurrying along the rapture, that he and Pence and
Bolton dream about.!!!
@bluedog Do you guys
really think men who have risen to the heights Pompeo, Pence, and Bolton have, aren’t
realists? Don’t you think that if they wanted to be ministers, they’d have
followed a different path? I can’t read other people’s minds, but I sincerely
doubt any of the three you mentioned is trying to bring about the “rapture”.
That’s just silly. They simply see Israel as a close ally and some of the Islamic
nations as enemies as well as seeing various other states as friends or enemies. You have
your opinion on how the world should be run, I have mine and they have theirs, that’s
just the way it.
You haven’t figured out yet that the more you are immune to reality, the better your
chances in DC…?
Tell me one single thing that Pompeo or Pence has ever said or done that is even remotely
connected to reality…
Trump is capable of spurts of realism, I’m convinced of that…but those
impulses are quickly blocked and checked by the likes of Pompeo and Pence…
Look at the North Korea debacle…it was Porker Pompeo that torpedoed that last
summit…Trump was going to remove him from the DPRK file, but Porker announces to the
world that he ‘can’t’ be sidelined…directly contradicting the
POTUS…how fucking ‘realistic’ is that…?
So once again the latest Korea initiative is set to sink, despite a president who is a
realist…problem is he’s surrounded by complete fantasists like
Pompeo…
@Rich “What
evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath?”
Well, I have his behavior, which, owing to the fact that he is a public figure is, well,
public knowledge. For one, he brags about his ability to lie,cheat, and steal. For two, he
does those things without remorse.
@turtle You are
correct. I was at West Point the same time as Plumpeo. In those days, there were 2 academic
divisions MSE and BSL which stood for Math, Science, and Engineering and Behavioral Sciences
and Leadership aka Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it). For MSE
guys like me, when we had to take a BSL course like management, it was usually a breather and
a relatively easy “A” versus our MSE courses, so you might have a point there.
Do you know the man personally?
I do not know size of class at West Point.
Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it)
Sounds appropriate to me. In my opinion, Benjamin Nutandyahoo is another “piece of work” in the same
mold .
Born in 1949 SB (Course IV – Architecture) MIT 1975 SM (Course XV – Management) 1976 Both IV & XV would be considered “soft” majors compared to School of Science
or School of Engineering. Just smart enough to think he can BS the rest of the world.
Lives by making a career of deceit.
At least one known alias.
No surprise he and Pompous-e-o are best buds.
turtle Born 1949 SB MIT 1970 (School of Science)* Graduated in June, turned 21 in September Junior author of one published scientific paper for undergraduate work.
*I would state my Course #, but prefer to retain a degree of anonymity on this site.
There are only a few possibilities, all of which are tougher than Architecture or the Sloan
School.
Sloanies actually had “coat and tie practice,” in which they were required to
play “dress up” and carry a briefcase to class on certain days. Most of the rest
of us thought that was rather silly.
@The scalpel If
that’s what you’re going by, every single national leader throughout history is a
psychopath. And maybe that’s true, but who cares? The world is what it is and we have
to deal with its realities. You may be a pacifist, another may believe the Israelis are the
problem, Pompeo and his fellows disagree with you. I don’t think that makes them any
“crazier” than anyone else. And I have to give the man his due, he has done very
well for himself.
@G. Poulin
It’s long to overdue to expose this fraud-in-Jesus.
If Vatican excommunicates Tony Blair, the profiteer and mega-war criminal, and similar
“Christian” arch-enemies of humanity, then your irritation would be vindicated.
IF .
Color revolution is a military operation in which protesters are just a tip of the iceberg. the key
players are Embassy staff, three letter agencies, NGOs, bought and foreign owned neoliberal press,
some oligarchs (who might be pressed into submission with the threat of confiscating their
assets), compradors and bought players within the government.
The initial crash with police was organized by one of such players (supposedly Lyovochkin). One of the key instruments were huge cash
flows in diplomatic mail that feed the protest ("bombing country with dollars"). In a
sense in any neoliberal republic color revolution is designed to be a success, the fact which
EuroMaidan proved quite convincingly.
Ukraine actually was a very easy target. Yanukovich was
essentially neutralized and paralyzed by threats from Biden. Security services were
infiltrated and partially work for Americans. Several bought members of the government (Lyovochkon?)
did their dirty job in organizing the necessity clashes with policy to feed the protest.
Notable quotes:
"... The script writers of the Maidan, in his opinion, were Americans. ..."
Former Prime Minister Azarov explained his version of events on the Maidan. The script
writers of the Maidan, in his opinion, were Americans.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told the NTV about how coup d'état of February of
the last year was organized. According to him, the script of the coup d'état was written at the
U.S. Embassy.
"The main puppeteers were not on the Maidan," Azarov said. The protests started because of the
decision of Ukrainian authorities to suspend the signing of the Association agreement with the EU.
"There was, of course, the enormous pressure from the leaders of the European Union, from
several European countries. The meaning of this pressure was the fact that we must put aside
all doubts and to sign this agreement," said the former Prime Minister. "They just needed an
excuse, a reason to overthrow our government. Because we were frankly told: "If you do not you sign
this agreement, it will sign another government, another President,"
In this regard, according to Azarov, they needed a provocation to start protest and such a
provocation became the use of force on Independence square in Kiev, where supporters of European
integration were staying for several nights. "The action was slow. The organizers understood
that without the sacred victims they will be unable to ignite the crowd. Suddenly around 3 am
several TV crews arrive, set lights, camera. What to shoot? This ordinary situation, when people
spend the night at the square?" - said Azarov.
Ukrainian people were cynically played. According to Azarov at this moment
"prepared by gunmen in masks" arrived to the square. They started beating on duty policemen with
metal sticks. When police called reinforcements instigators quickly disappeared. And when riot
police began detention, "they detain generally innocent people who spend night at the square as a
part of peaceful protest."
Speaking about the negotiations Yanukovich with the opposition, Azarov noted that the current
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk "every day spend most of his time in the American Embassy and
following their instructions to the letter."
In the end, an agreement was signed between the President and opposition leaders on the peaceful
resolution of the conflict, the guarantor which were several European countries, but no one except
the Yanukovich, fulfilled their obligations. "I still do not understand, how foreign Ministers of
Poland, Germany, France, which signed an agreement on February 21 feel themselves. In the history
of diplomacy this agreement will be included as an example of the utmost degree of cynicism and
deceit," said Azarov.
"... It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos. People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as John Hagee. ..."
"... My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are “just like us.” They are not. ..."
"... Christian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc. ..."
Pompeo: "My Faith in Jesus Christ Makes a Real Difference"
Pompeo says
God may have sent Trump to save Israel from Iran
"As a Christian, I certainly believe that's possible," said Mr Pompeo ."I am confident that
the Lord is at work here,"
Pence, a Catholic Evangelical who almost became a priest: "I made a commitment to
Christ."
Christians? These Christians support a war on Yemen in which huge numbers of people are
dying of mutilation, cholera, and starvation, a war they could stop with a telephone call. They
similarly support butchery of Afghans from the air, massive killing in Syria, bombing of
Somalis, and torture chambers around the world. Such is their Christianity. They lack even a
shred of human decency. But they are Christians.
OLD TESTAMENT, THE ROOT OF CHRISTIANITY = PURE EVIL.
Thanks for the article, Fred. You are so right. But when I see the Pope kissing the feet
of alien invaders and Pence groveling to Israel, I remember these:
The 18th-century Anglo-American philosopher Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason that
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and
torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible
[i.e. the Old Testament] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of
a demon, than the Word of God.” When he says Bible, Paine is referring to the OT.
“There is no text more barbaric than the Old Testament….–books like
Deuteronomy and Leviticus and Exodus*. The Quran pales in comparison.”–Jewish
author Dr. Samuel Benjamin Harris.
We have Pompeo, a malignant manatee looking to start wars in which he will not risk his
flabby amorphous ass also parading his Christianity
Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of captain. Now
he’s 55, so yes, he will not be risking his “flabby ass,” only his job.
Fred should really do more research, ‘cuz he just seems lazy.
Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his
class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada yada. I
do find it odd that someone of his ilk believes in the Rapture; my only guess is that
he’s playing to his (former) Kansas electoral base, and he can’t back out now. No
way he believes this stuff.
Protestantism is pseudo-Christianity. It started 1500 years after the Christian Church was
founded and now has over 40K different splinter groups (denominations) in the U.S. alone.
This Johnny-come-lately of heresies began because of greed and lust, and as usual, a Jewish
revolutionary spirit (read E. Michael Jones’ The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit ).
But on Trump’s über-neocon turn E. Michael Jones sums it up well in this
Sputnik News interview of March 22, 2019:
I am not in favor of christian zionism but the irrational has always played a prominent role
in human politics, that being said I am a great fan of Fred Reed.
The one nice thing is that Israelophilia amongst young Americans rapidly drops off along with
secularization and Europeanization of social attitudes, as well as of course greater
diversity (Latinos couldn’t care less about creating Greater Israel). There was a
recent survey which showed that even young Republicans are not much more pro-Israel than
young Democrats. This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.
There’s a good chance that the Trump administration is a last hurrah for the Israel
First agenda.
Christians didn’t invent hypocrisy, nor are they the only ones who apply it.
However, they are the one group that knows and professes to do better, so they are easy
target.
The closest to original Christianity is the Eastern Orthodox brand which is less corrupted
compared to Romanism with its heavy doses of ‘pagan’ influences.
Christian Zionism is a fraud like most American heresies including those snake-handling
‘churches’, Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Identity, Christian
Science, Jehovah Witnesses plus countless Jim Jones-like cults.
In fact Luther, the founder of Protestantism, was initially a ‘Zionist’ till
he saw the ‘light’, prompting him to pen On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den
Juden und ihren Lügen) . The modern apostate Lutheran church has since been
compromised.
Besides the ‘perks’ of being philo-Semitic are terrible. Take the Brits. After
they failed to fulfill the fraudulent Balfour Declaration, Zionists turned nasty –
terror groups like the Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang resorted to letter bombs, blowing up
hotels and hanging British troops with piano wire.
By contrast, Mr. Reed is one of these: https://www.marines.com/who-we-are/our-values.html
DUCTUS EXEMPLO
A Latin term that means “lead by example,”
it’s about behaving in a manner that inspires others.
Don’t know about you, but I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying,
cheating and stealing, just for starters.
He is also welcome to peddle his crazed religious beliefs somewhere else.
As an agnostic, I really do not give a rat’s ass what happens to the terrorist state of
Israel.
Israel’s battles are not my battles, and I resent anyone attempting to tell me they
are.
I also do have Iranian friends, but no Iranian enemies.
Notice to Mr. Pence: Iran is not my enemy. Israel’s enemies are not my enemies. I do NOT “stand with Israel.”
The United States of America is a separate country from the State of Israel, with
far different values.
I stand with the United States, the country of my birth, so long as it adheres to the
principles embodied in its founding documents, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the
U.S. Constitution. Lately, it does not appear to be doing much of that, no thanks to
shitheads like Mr. Pompeo, and his compadre in crime, Mr. Bolton.
This Christian Zionism thing is very much a boomer thing.
I disagree.
In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing.
Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major
constituency. I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970.
None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense.
Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.
@turtle You’re
pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie. Every intelligence outfit across the
world lies. You think MI6 doesn’t lie, like every day of its life?
Since you’re so interested in Israel, you might want to know that Fred Reed is a
total Johnny come lately on critiquing Israel. He used to make fun of people e-mailing him
about Israel. In 2005, he wrote a hugely embarrassing positive review of a book claiming that
Israel was getting a raw deal in the press because Palestinians were orchestrating the
coverage. Imagine shilling for a book like that. Fred Reed did.
In my opinion, “Christian Zionism” is very much an ignorance thing.
Snake handlers and “young earth creationists” are probably its major
constituency.
I was born in 1949, turned 21 and graduated university in 1970.
None of my friends past or present, Christian or not, believe such absolute nonsense.
Unfortunately, it appears there are all too many who do.
It’s also a white thing or Republican thing (Nikki Haley). But frankly, political
Zionism is just as pro-Israel and is pervasive among nearly D.C. establishment politicos.
People like Hillary, Samantha Power, Susan Rice are every bit as warmongering for Israel as
John Hagee.
But the rapid demographic shift and the the decline of whites in large metro areas will
certainly reduce future support for Israel and the U.S. kowtowing to Israel.
70 percent of school district’s newest students are immigrants, legal status
unknown
Seven of 10 new students in a Baltimore-Washington area school district are immigrants,
their legal status unknown and their second language English, according to a series of new
media reports about the impact of surging immigration on local communities.
A recent Baltimore Sun report said that of the 5,000 new students jamming Baltimore
County schools in the past five years, 3,500 are “recent immigrants or children whose
family speak another language.”
That has helped to double the percentage of students who speak English as a second
language, part of a national trend.
You’re pretty naive if you think the CIA doesn’t lie.
I never said that, or believed it either.
What I said:
I am not inspired by a fat body who brags about lying, cheating and stealing
Nor is Pompeo the only Pointer known to lie.
There was a certain General Powell, for example.
Perhaps the USMA should change their motto – truth in advertising, etc.
FWIW, I had two close friends in HS who were both USMA, Class of 1970.
I know for a fact neither of them would stoop to Mr. Pompeo’s level.
Since you’re so interested in Israel
My only interest in the “State of Israel” is they should keep their hands out
of our federal treasury, i.e. our tax dollars, and quit spreading lies that they are
“just like us.” They are not.
@Anatoly KarlinChristian Zionism is a minor problem. The major one is the Zionist fifth column in this
country that infests and largely controls the government, the economy, the mass media, etc.
Whatever Pompeo’s shortcomings, the guy’s resume is top-notch: first in his
class at West Point, STEM degree, Harvard law, veteran, successful businessman, yada
yada.
I would not consider a degree in engineering management a STEM degree
“This puts Evangelicals in the curious position of being pro-Israel but
anti-Semitic.”
Tuning around Freesat in Europe, particularly the UK, get you get a lot of religious
channels, mostly Muslim, but also more than a few Christian. One day I tuned past a Christian
guy standing in front of a phone bank and a flag of Israel, asking for money while expressing
his solidarity with Israel.
You make a good point Fred: They don’t care so much about the Jews, they just want
to get their hands on the Holy Lands, even if it takes every Jewish and Muslim life they can
throw at the problem.
“Actually Pompeo served in the military for five years, reaching the rank of
captain.”
The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain
(Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment
… it is fulfilling the service requirement in exchange for a free-ride on the
taxpayers teat. He conveniently ended his service just before he might have been dragooned
into Gulf War 1, and if he did reserve time, it was while at Harvard Law; while many other
reserve officers had their civvy careers interrupted by an increasing ops tempo of
deployments that followed GW1, Mike did just fine.
Having been given seed money for his business by the Kochs and Bain Capital, he was
plucked, like B. Hussein Obama, out of relative obscurity and fast-tracked to greatness. Kind
of like a poorer George H.W. Bush.
@Swede55 There was a
Byzantium, but it wasn’t as Chi-Chi as Rome at the time of Christ. Making Rome the
centre of the Gurch then would be like making it New York or DC now. I would be hard-pressed
to see Christ himself embracing Rome as the seat of Christendom then, but it would not be
much of a reach for his followers who wanted to be closer to the cosmopolitan action of the
day.
I guess you’d call me one of those detestable fundamentalists, Fred. You see, I take
very seriously what Jesus says in the New Testament. The authority of the Son of God makes
clear that His interpretations are the ones that those really transformed and following Him
would model.
Now people who’ve never directly experienced things for themselves can be misled by
others, who will use the disguise of faith. As for love of country, patriotism is also
misused to become the first refuge of scoundrels: instead of loving your neighbors, used by
them as Mark Twain pointed out to require hating others in countries further away.
But what happens when you find out you’ve been lied to? For me, having had some
involvement with the military in the computer industry during the Cold War, it was clear
after the Russians abandoned sovietism that the American corporations involved cared not a
whit for liberty – war meant profits. Then came the lies justifying the Iraq war and
all its cousins, along with the Abu Ghraib tortures approved to the highest levels –
which because of my own involvement I knew had to follow the chain of command. Both religious
leaders and political leaders approved of these tortures. But although I had believed these
folks, the revelations and the excuses made did not jibe with my Savior’s clear
speaking in scripture – quite the opposite. This was not the Jesus I know, nor the
witness of the Holy Spirit who leads me.
Now these manifestations of political cooperation and human organizations calling
themselves Christian, are self identifying. They claim the name Christian, but when they defy
Christ’s own example and teaching, they are in fact anti-Christian, either
self-deceived or knowingly deceiving others.
All along, there have been those who truly were following His path and taking up His
cross, even where weeds choked the Gospel as best they could, and wolves moved among the
sheep in disguise. Often those with the power to do so marginalized, persecuted and even
tortured and murdered these, while masquerading as Christians while defying His every
command.
I am evangelical, in that I would like to see others meet the real Jesus, not substitute
false idols like the War Jesus constructed by merely human hands. But I also know that
despite billions supposedly Christian, Jesus warned the path is narrow, the road to
destruction broad, and that those taking up His cross would ever only be a minority –
and that such a minority would be persecuted, even by religious authorities. Such folks
cannot be conflated with membership rolls on institutional records, but are known to God.
My orientation of faith is identical to that of the anabaptists who were the Christians
persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike, reformers who refused to take up arms against
either. They often rescued their own pursuers, yet were rewarded with burning, drowning,
throttling, dismemberment, along with wives and children by those who pretended they were
serving Christ by doing so.
So I appreciate your pointing out how wicked it is to do evil things in the name of
Christ, but I would like to remind you that just as the counterfeit can’t exist without
the genuine, that there are those who won’t participate in these things, because they
are determined to follow Christ, the Holy Spirit and the conscience this dictates, regardless
of both those who hate Christ and those who worship a false Christ whose actions bear more
resemblance to the methods of Satan himself.
@turtle The honor
code at West Point was always taken seriously. Like so much else it has deteriorated lately,
but it’s still observed.
Unfortunately, once the plebs graduate and become officers they enter the United States
Army, in which lying is required to advance your career. The entire officer corps as a result
is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the lying.
John T. Reed refused to sign false reports as a junior officer in Vietnam, the result of
which was that he was never promoted (highly irregular) and his commanding officer attempted
to get him killed.
Fred Reed was an enlisted Marine, but he has said similar things about officers and
especially brass.
@Thorfinnsson Thank
you for the link to Mr. John T. Reed’s site.
He evidently embodies the sort of integrity we should expect from leaders, but seldom
get.
they enter the United States Army, in which lying is required to advance your career.
The entire officer corps as a result is dishonest, and the higher your rank the greater the
lying.
That bears an awesome similarity with dating and romance. I wonder how come.
Excellent piece by Mr Reed…he really tore a righteous strip of bacon off that walking
side of pork Pompeo…
There are millions of evangelical Christians that fanatically support Israel for the
reason of this end times nonsense, as stated in the article…so that is a very large
base…and not all of them insist that Jews must convert…that is just one slice
of a very wide spectrum…
In fact not all evangelical Christians support Israel…there is a very wide spectrum
on the Israel issue…right up to those that see Iran and Russia [especially] in a
positive light…which is encouraging…
These American Christians sympathize with Russia’s Christianity and also with the
conservatism they see in Russian society, and the sobriety of Russian politics…I have
no idea how the numbers stack up for these various slices of the spectrum…but the
mainstream is probably along the lines of the Pences and Pompeos of the world…
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to
me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive
out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly,
‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
N
Christian fundamentalism is full of whack jobs and Dr. Strangeloves and Pompeo and Pence are
two shining examples. I just hope they don’t get us all blown to smithereens.
In Fred’s adopted nation a six year old was just caught in the crossfire of drug
cartel gunfire in Cancun and has died of his injuries. This is hard to believe as Fred tells
us that in addition to being a nation on the cutting edge of technology, it also has the most
bookstores per square mile of any nation. So the bookish Mexican people should be reading
books and not dealing drugs and shooting people, especially kids:
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/04/26/cartel-gunfire-in-cancun-kills-6-year-old-wounds-parents/
Mexico has 33K homicides annually but Fredrico gets peeved if American whites don’t
want these problems in America.
@Anonymous
“the schism of Eastern Orthodoxy” is an odd way to put it; the Roman Catholics
flounced out from the old church in the schism of 1054. Or to put it another way, the Pope
flounced out from the other Patriarchs.
“Ss. Peter and Paul went to Rome”: Paul yes; he had no choice, being under
arrest. Peter: of course he didn’t, that’s just another of those old religious
fabrications.
If the earliest Christians had a True Home it was either Jerusalem or Galilee, of
course.
@Brabantian
“the 3 Abrahamic religions … all founded by the same kind of desert tribals used
to life and death battles for control of a single watering hole.
Hardly. It would seem that the earliest Hebrews were probably settled villagers in the
hills of Palestine. The earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee.
It’s not at all clear who the earliest Moslems were, since the initial conquerors
were referred to as Saracens: the witness statements to their success make no reference to
their having a distinct religion or distinct holy book. They do seem to have had a general
called Mahomet, though, who had earlier been a merchant. Where they were from is also
unclear. There’s a fair chance that they were originally from around Petra, which is on
the edge of cultivation, not deep in the Arabian desert.
@turtle West Point
honor grad here. Also a conscientious objector. It took me a bit to overcome my childhood
indoctrination into the cult of imperialism, but before long, I realized that imperialism was
in no way defending the people who reside in the USA.
The sad reality of current US culture is that West Point is extremely proud of lying,
cheating, and stealing Pompeo, and considers me to be an embarrassment. The true mission of
West Point is not “Duty, Honor, Country” as far as I can tell, but to bait
idealistic young men and women into attending college there in an attempt to turn them into
soulless, self-serving, corporate bag men like they did to Mike Pompeo.
(FWIW, my money is on Pompeo having somewhat cheated his way through West Point. I have
seen it with my own eyes, and Pompeo does not seem that intelligent to me)
@KenH Christian
fundamentalism is also full of con-artists who take the gullible for a ride. Pence seems
quite dull. He might really believe that stuff. Pompeo is the wolf in sheep’s clothes.
I have enough faith to at least hope that short of complete repentance (as likely as him
getting knocked off a horse by God) – short of that, a special hell awaits him
@The scalpel Porker
Pompeo on a horse…?…being a horse lover that mental image sends shivers down my
spine…
OTOH…a well placed back hoof to the nether regions of the ‘malignant
manatee’ [classic coinage right there…thanks Mr Reed]…would be divinely
appreciated…let us hope and, dare I say it, pray…
The top of a Service Academy class only “reaching” the rank of Captain
(Railroad Tracks, not Bird) after five years of active service is hardly an accomplishment
…
@Truth Captain after
5 years is the most common result. The rank of Major is used as an incentive to stay in after
one’s (typically 5 year) obligation. Looking at Plumpeo, I’d guess one of the
reasons he got out was because he couldn’t pass his fitness tests
@tex tickles If the
Torah isn’t for Christians, why is it quoted 695 times and referenced a total of 4,105
times in the New Testament?
How many times do the writers of the New Testament quote the Old Testament? An index in
the Jewish New Testament catalogs 695 separate quotations from the books of the Old
Testament in the New (Jewish New Testament Publications, Jerusalem, 1989). There are many
other passages where the Old Testament is referred to , as in cases where an Old Testament
figure is mentioned, but no specific scripture is quoted. Depending on which
scholar’s work you examine, the number of quotations and references in the New
Testament to the Old may be as high as 4,105.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1979, Vol. I, p. 617
The Inquisition: It’s prolly best to begin at the beginning, with Moses, the first, and
deadliest, inquisitor.
Moses, the 1st inquisitor ordered killed 23 thousand one day (Exodus 32)
Moses, the 1st Inquisitor, ordered killed 24 thousand one day (Numbers 25).
Forty Seven Thousand ordered killed by The First Inquisitor, Moses, in two days, including
women and children.
Non-Catholic historian Edward Peters:, in his work, “Inquisition” (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1989, p. 87),
The Spanish Inquisition, in spite of wildly inflated estimates of the numbers of its
victims, acted with considerable restraint in inflicting the death penalty, far more
restraint than was demonstrated in secular tribunals elsewhere in Europe that dealt with the
same kinds of offenses. The best estimate is that around 3000 death sentences were carried
out in Spain by Inquisitorial verdict between 1550 and 1800, a far smaller number than that
in comparable secular courts.
++++++++++++++
Mr. Reed is an odd individual whose understanding of Christianity suffers from a lack of
knowledge.
He seems to think that Christian Catholics have no right to defend themselves and he also
suffers from the error of Presentism.
Of course, secular governments were far worse during the era when torture was acceptable
and, of course, one must note that heretics were treated then as today’s traitors ought
be treated.
If Germany had an Inquisition, wed have never heard of Hitler, but men like Fred hated
that which men like Fred have never understood
@Anonymous
Christianity itself, in all forms, is pseudo-Jewdaism, from the very start of it, even for
you ever-kvetching Jew-worshiping Catholics.
• “ To the Jews ‘belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the
giving of the law, the worship …’” Catechism of the Catholic
Church
• “ We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews
.” John 4:22
• “For it is we [Christians] who are the Circumcision.” Philippians 3:3
@Patrick
“Christian Zionism” has been woven into the fabric of the Jew-worshiping cult of
Christianity, from the very beginning, with Jewish storytellers writing these Zionist
principles the Jew Testament:
• Matthew 21:5 “Say to Daughter Zion , ‘See, your king comes to
you.”
• John 12:15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion ; see, your king is
coming.”
• Romans 9:33 “See, I lay in Zion a stone…”
• Romans 11:26 “The deliverer will come from Zion …”
• Hebrews 12:22 “Mount Zion , to the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem.”
• 1 Peter 2:6 “See, I lay a stone in Zion .”
• Revelation 14:1 “Standing on Mount Zion , and with him
144,000.”
@Mick Jagger gathers no
Mosque The Inquisition started in 12th-century France . The Spanish
Inquisition wasn’t the only region of Inquisition. Stop trying to minimize the horrors.
@The scalpel
Christianity was started by con -artists who take the gullible for a ride. As Hebrews
11:1 says, “Now faith is con fidence in what we hope for and assurance about
what we do not see.” That sounds exactly like a sales pitch from con fidence
man Bernie Madoff, another one of the Hebrews.
@dearieme The
earliest Christians were villagers in Galilee? Bible says Syria; “Christians first
in Antioch.” (Acts 11:26) Not surprisingly, it seems Muslims got their start from
Syria too; as the Quran was substantially derived from Syriac Christian liturgy. ( Luxenberg, 2007 )
Let’s not forget Christians and Muslims from Syria both like to shout “Aloha
Snackbar!”
@Mick Jagger gathers no
Mosque Teachers refer to that as the “everybody’s doing it” excuse.
Stay after class, to explain how those inquisitions too weren’t so awfully bad.
@Mick Jagger gathers no
Mosque Sadly, none of the three Abrahamic religions were started by Whites, who need
their own native religion that better fits their evolutionary biology.
@anon Torture has
never been anything out of the ordinary throughout history, when the police of the day took
you in for questioning they wouldn’t offer treats in exchange for a confession, torture
has been standard operating procedure, it was the normal, expected course of any
investigation. Why don’t people blame the governments of today for what the countries
they rule now used to do in the past?
If you can trust the History channel, there is no proof of an Iron Maiden device ever
having been used, rather, it was used as a fear inducing object having a profound
psychological impact.
@The scalpel Major
after 5 years? When, during WW2? The War Between the States? Whether you agree with his
politics, or not, being promoted to captain after 5 years in peace time is perfectly normal.
The man was an athlete in high school, graduated first in his class at West Point, was an
infantry officer then was on the Harvard Law Review before being elected to Congress. And not
as a liberal pantywaist. Give him his due, the man’s led a remarkable life.
@Rich He found that
affirmative action was not as good as lying, cheating, and stealing. I will grant that he is
pretty smart, (though I am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in
his West Point class without cheating.)
Take a smart person who wisely uses lying, cheating, and stealing without any remorse as a
means to outcompete his friends and enemies alike, and you have someone who, with a little
luck and without being caught, can slither their way to the top of some competetive
hierarchies. These people are known as psychopaths, or more precisely, antisocial personality
disorders.
Do I respect psychopaths? No. They generally are purely takers, and make very few
contributions to humanity. Additionally, I would like to believe in things like truth, honor,
and justice, and no matter how “successful” these psychopaths are, they are
complete and utter failures on criteria I value. Then again, most government officials score
very low on those scales. Sadly, it almost seems that they must in order to obtain such
positions. We are governed by psychopaths.
@The scalpel What
evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath? Look, you don’t like the
guy’s politics, that’s okay, but why do you guys all of a sudden become Sigmund
Freud and start psychoanalyzing people you’ve never met? It’s almost impossible
to get through West Point cheating, lying or stealing. If anyone sees you doing anything even
slightly dishonorable, they’ll rat you out faster than a Kapo would run to a German
guard if he saw someone doing something wrong. The guy is obviously a very intelligent and
hard working man who’s looked out at the world and drawn different conclusions than
you. Doesn’t make him “evil” or a “psychopath”. Just makes him
a powerful guy you don’t agree with.
am suspicious that he is not smart enough to have graduated 1st in his West Point class
without cheating.
Maybe not cheating, per se, but at least picking his (academic) battles.
In my experience, it is frequently the case (though not always) that those who major in
“management” are those who cannot hack it in a technical discipline, or choose
not to work quite that hard.
Evidently Harvard Law places great importance on undergraduate GPA.
Speculation:
An outstanding GPA in a soft major might carry more weight at Harvard than a lower GPA
in a more demanding field. I emphasize this is speculation, as I do not actually know.
I do know that I scored 786 out of 800 on LSAT in 1970 and was not admitted to
Harvard Law. My undergraduate grades at a small technical school farther down the Charles
were only average among my peers.
All of the world’s religions can be associated with killings. They are either deeds of
evil individuals, policy wrongs that do not involve direct murder, self defense or the
defense of an attacked nation. Political policy can be rendered unto Cesar, while murder is
accurately blamed on the individuals who do it. Mass murder is particularly evil, spawning
military action that can affect innocents in other nations when it gets as heinous as the
murdering of 3,000 innocent office workers on 9/11 by Muslims.
Sure, Christians have done some heinous & barbaric things over the centuries. After
making a big deal of religion, Henry the Eighth beheaded some of his wives.
But when we get past what happened 500 years ago, we see a succession of evil mass murders
committed in the recent past by non-Christian religious zealots, shouting Allah Akbar: the
concert and nightclub massacres in France, England and America; the mass shooting of office
workers on the American West Coast; the mass shootings & random mass stabbings in
American Midwestern malls and in England; the Christmas market massacre in Germany; the mass
murder of military personnel in office settings in the American South & the Midwest; the
mass murder in Belgium; the bombing of a New England sporting event; the truck-ramming mass
murders in France, Sweden and Canada; the mass murder of churchgoers in Sri Lanka, etc., etc,
etc.
World wars have been started over only one incident, with much less extensive losses of
life.
In some centuries, the beheading and stabbing by radical Islamic terrorists of two
innocent, Danish girls, hiking in Morocco, or the beheading of an 85-year-old priest in the
middle of mass might have provoked military action.
The murderers who did all of those evil deeds (and others) in the last few years knew that
they were taking the chance of a military response that might hurt innocent people in the
non-Christian countries that they purport to care about, and yet, they still did it, showing
that they regarded potential casualties in Muslim lands as collateral damage.
The cause was the only thing that counted to them, not the people, even when the people
were fellow Muslims.
@Rich No they use to
rat you out, but like all things that are subject to change they have to,now it wasen’t
so long ago that they had the very large cheating affair at west point,and to put it bluntly
the man is a lying,cheating,stealing(his words when he worked for the C.I.A.) whore that
would do anything to further his cause of hurrying along the rapture, that he and Pence and
Bolton dream about.!!!
@bluedog Do you guys
really think men who have risen to the heights Pompeo, Pence, and Bolton have, aren’t
realists? Don’t you think that if they wanted to be ministers, they’d have
followed a different path? I can’t read other people’s minds, but I sincerely
doubt any of the three you mentioned is trying to bring about the “rapture”.
That’s just silly. They simply see Israel as a close ally and some of the Islamic
nations as enemies as well as seeing various other states as friends or enemies. You have
your opinion on how the world should be run, I have mine and they have theirs, that’s
just the way it.
You haven’t figured out yet that the more you are immune to reality, the better your
chances in DC…?
Tell me one single thing that Pompeo or Pence has ever said or done that is even remotely
connected to reality…
Trump is capable of spurts of realism, I’m convinced of that…but those
impulses are quickly blocked and checked by the likes of Pompeo and Pence…
Look at the North Korea debacle…it was Porker Pompeo that torpedoed that last
summit…Trump was going to remove him from the DPRK file, but Porker announces to the
world that he ‘can’t’ be sidelined…directly contradicting the
POTUS…how fucking ‘realistic’ is that…?
So once again the latest Korea initiative is set to sink, despite a president who is a
realist…problem is he’s surrounded by complete fantasists like
Pompeo…
@Rich “What
evidence do you have that Mr Pompeo is a psychopath?”
Well, I have his behavior, which, owing to the fact that he is a public figure is, well,
public knowledge. For one, he brags about his ability to lie,cheat, and steal. For two, he
does those things without remorse.
@turtle You are
correct. I was at West Point the same time as Plumpeo. In those days, there were 2 academic
divisions MSE and BSL which stood for Math, Science, and Engineering and Behavioral Sciences
and Leadership aka Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it). For MSE
guys like me, when we had to take a BSL course like management, it was usually a breather and
a relatively easy “A” versus our MSE courses, so you might have a point there.
Do you know the man personally?
I do not know size of class at West Point.
Bullshit and Lies. (Seriously that’s what we called it)
Sounds appropriate to me. In my opinion, Benjamin Nutandyahoo is another “piece of work” in the same
mold .
Born in 1949 SB (Course IV – Architecture) MIT 1975 SM (Course XV – Management) 1976 Both IV & XV would be considered “soft” majors compared to School of Science
or School of Engineering. Just smart enough to think he can BS the rest of the world.
Lives by making a career of deceit.
At least one known alias.
No surprise he and Pompous-e-o are best buds.
turtle Born 1949 SB MIT 1970 (School of Science)* Graduated in June, turned 21 in September Junior author of one published scientific paper for undergraduate work.
*I would state my Course #, but prefer to retain a degree of anonymity on this site.
There are only a few possibilities, all of which are tougher than Architecture or the Sloan
School.
Sloanies actually had “coat and tie practice,” in which they were required to
play “dress up” and carry a briefcase to class on certain days. Most of the rest
of us thought that was rather silly.
@The scalpel If
that’s what you’re going by, every single national leader throughout history is a
psychopath. And maybe that’s true, but who cares? The world is what it is and we have
to deal with its realities. You may be a pacifist, another may believe the Israelis are the
problem, Pompeo and his fellows disagree with you. I don’t think that makes them any
“crazier” than anyone else. And I have to give the man his due, he has done very
well for himself.
@G. Poulin
It’s long to overdue to expose this fraud-in-Jesus.
If Vatican excommunicates Tony Blair, the profiteer and mega-war criminal, and similar
“Christian” arch-enemies of humanity, then your irritation would be vindicated.
IF .
"... "What I am saying is that I am confident that the people of Venezuela know a thing or two about what happened in Chile." ..."
"... They also know what happened when the "militares" took over in Argentina (Videla), Paraguay (Stroessner), Brazil (1964-1985), Nicaragua (Somoza), Dominican Republic (Trujillo), Guatemala (1954), Honduras (2009) Panama 1983 (Noriega – see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man on plane crash of Omar Torrijos), and on and on. ..."
"... If there is a US military attack on Venezuela one thing's for sure; many, many young men and women will be making their way from all over Latin America to take on the Gringos. ..."
"... I'm sure the Venezuelan govt knows all about Operation Condor and how that lost the entire South American continent a generation of its best people and degraded its progress and development. ..."
"... Bolton and Abraham are senile. They are totally out of touch with the new realities of the new millenium. they stupidly think that their old tricks still work... in my view both and also Pompeo are near the door out of the White House for good... they won't survive the summer. ..."
"... Clearly, Venezuelans take their oaths of allegiance far more seriously. By comparison, the Outlaw US Empire's entire Neocon and Neoliberal cabal are traitors to their nation and their oaths of office. And it's that very major distinction that's known by the vast majority of Venezuelans that's the real difference maker whereas the US public's mostly illiterate. ..."
"... One curious aspect of the recent events in Venezuela is the lack of signs of wider support for Guaido compared with "energetic" demonstrations and riots few years ago. ..."
"... Initially, some thugs were mobilized to support "humanitarian relief", but it was a smallish crowd and their most spectacular achievement was torching a "relief truck". ..."
"... Then there were "electricity protests", I have no data about their scope. I would theorize that electricity issue decreased the support for Guaido ..."
"... Seems that Russia acted in a characteristically minimalist fashion. Security of power system was improved, gasoline supplies* were improved, and a subtle security operation was launched. Bear in mind that when dealing with domestic opposition Putin is highly flexible, no "one hammer fits all", similarly with "near abroad". Letting Guaido walk around and repetitively make idiot of himself has a resemblance of handling Navalny and similar folks in Russia. ..."
@ 36 William Gruff "What I am saying is that I am confident that the people of Venezuela know a thing or two
about what happened in Chile."
They also know what happened when the "militares" took over in Argentina (Videla),
Paraguay (Stroessner), Brazil (1964-1985), Nicaragua (Somoza), Dominican Republic (Trujillo),
Guatemala (1954), Honduras (2009) Panama 1983 (Noriega – see Confessions of an Economic
Hit Man on plane crash of Omar Torrijos), and on and on.
If there is a US military attack on Venezuela one thing's for sure; many, many young
men and women will be making their way from all over Latin America to take on the
Gringos.
I really do not know Maduro. I do not know how ideologically grounded he is. But I heard
stories about corruption and connections with drug syndicates. I hope that is not true.
Otherwise, his apparent weakness will be exploited to the hilt by his ideological
enemies.
I'm sure the Venezuelan govt knows all about Operation Condor and how that lost the
entire South American continent a generation of its best people and degraded its progress and
development.
Bolton and Abraham are senile. They are totally out of touch with the new realities of the
new millenium. they stupidly think that their old tricks still work...
in my view both and also Pompeo are near the door out of the White House for good... they
won't survive the summer.
Yes, most certainly wasn't lost on Chavez. The changes he made after 2002 to the military
and other security-related areas of government are now serving Maduro well. If there was the
sort of 5th Column anti-government feelings required of a coup, they would have manifested
themselves when the armed demonstrations first began to beset Maduro in 2014, a year after
Chavez's passing, which in essence is when the slow moving coup began. Condor and other
operations were certainly used in educating higher level officers about the importance of
loyalty to Constitutional methods and that one owes their allegiance to the Constitution not
the individual just as it's supposed to be within the USA
Clearly, Venezuelans take their oaths of allegiance far more seriously. By comparison,
the Outlaw US Empire's entire Neocon and Neoliberal cabal are traitors to their nation and
their oaths of office. And it's that very major distinction that's known by the vast majority
of Venezuelans that's the real difference maker whereas the US public's mostly
illiterate.
One curious aspect of the recent events in Venezuela is the lack of signs of wider support
for Guaido compared with "energetic" demonstrations and riots few years ago.
Initially, some thugs were mobilized to support "humanitarian relief", but it was a
smallish crowd and their most spectacular achievement was torching a "relief truck".
Then there were "electricity protests", I have no data about their scope. I would
theorize that electricity issue decreased the support for Guaido . First, the tales that
the troubles were due to mismanagement and neglect look not so probable if you look at the
timing of incidents: a wave of incidents at the time "convenient" for the "cause of Guaido"
preceeded and followed by rather normal situation. Government surely spend effort to explain
the incidents with transmission lines and transformer stations as vile sabotage, ruthlessly
inflicting severe hardships on the entire population (including the middle class that should
be the social base of Guaido).
Seems that Russia acted in a characteristically minimalist fashion. Security of power
system was improved, gasoline supplies* were improved, and a subtle security operation was
launched. Bear in mind that when dealing with domestic opposition Putin is highly flexible,
no "one hammer fits all", similarly with "near abroad". Letting Guaido walk around and
repetitively make idiot of himself has a resemblance of handling Navalny and similar folks in
Russia.
Who supported 12 hours of revolution? Videos showed a motorcycle gang, few hundred of
energetic young men who blocked a highway bridge and a smallish crowd of housewives and other
non-violent type -- I must stress that I wholly approve non-violent types, but in part
because this is not a coup material. Why so little? (a) Guaido was never popular, he was in a
most histrionic of several opposition parties, popular mobilization without support of the
rest of the opposition was a flop. (b) The first two episodes of his "revolution" did not
approve his support, to the contrary. (c) On the gangland front that could provide armed
muscle and provoke bloody incidents Maidan style, the government probably did some
preparatory homework.
"... I know the Venezuelan military; I've trained some of them .... The majority of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will take to the hills – very formidable hills, with jungle-like backdrops – and they will harass, kill, take prisoner from time to time, and generally hold out forever or until the "gringos" leave. We might remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban accomplished this; well, so will the Venezuelans. ..."
Venezuela is not an easy target. Colonel (ret.) Larry Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff
for Secretary of State Colin Powell, writes
:
I know the Venezuelan military; I've trained some of them ....
The majority of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will take to the hills
– very formidable hills, with jungle-like backdrops – and they will harass, kill,
take prisoner from time to time, and generally hold out forever or until the "gringos" leave.
We might remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban accomplished this; well, so will
the Venezuelans.
Many believe U.S. troops could ignite internal conflicts within the military, irregular
forces linked to Maduro and criminal cartels. Intervention would also undermine
Guaidó's claim to be a grass roots Venezuelan leader by seeming to confirm that he's
exactly what Maduro has claimed: A puppet of the United States.
A U.S. military intervention would "bring more problems than solutions, " said Carlos
Valero, a Guaidó supporter in the National Assembly.
...
Political analyst Felix Seijas, director of the Delphos polling agency in Caracas, says fewer
than a fifth of the Venezuelans he has surveyed this year support a military intervention.
The numbers have gone up only slightly since the beginning of the year.
There were more warnings from Russia during a Trump-Putin phone call today :
While exchanging views on the situation around Venezuela, the President of Russia underscored
that only the Venezuelans themselves have the right to determine the future of their country,
whereas outside interference in the country's internal affairs and attempts to change the
government in Caracas by force undermine prospects for a political settlement of the crisis.
The planning and decision making for the next phase of the U.S. attack on Venezuela will
take time.
Meanwhile we can continue to analyze why the U.S. coup plan failed so devastatingly.
"... Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan. ..."
"... The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI. ..."
"... McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within! ..."
"... When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own. ..."
"... Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours. ..."
"... The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards. ..."
"... Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. ..."
"... Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts. ..."
"... McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. ..."
"... So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? ..."
Kevin Brock, former FBI assistant director for intelligence, and Terry Turchie, former
deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, fire back at former FBI Director
Andrew McCabe.
Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the
Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan.
The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long?
The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing
Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the
FBI.
When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and
communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it
to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI
folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots
only work under orders they don't think on their own.
Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing
about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He
tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one
of yours.
The fix was in. The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of
admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the
FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail.
These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards.
Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a
crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions
of power. Mr Trump upset their world with his electoral victory. President Trump is hated by
the political class because he has come as the destroyer of their world.
McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected
president. He should be behind bars rather than selling his book on TV. Lock up McCabe,
Rosenstein and the rest of the Deep State coup gang and DRAIN-THE-SWAMP.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed his career, the FBI, and his firing from
the Bureau. He was interviewed by New York Times reporter Adam Goldman.
Sanctions are the foreign policy equivalent of obstruction of justice traps. Sanctions
are initiated in the hope the sanctioned country then commits some actionable trepidation, a
Casus belli. They say the first casualty of war is the truth but that casualty comes way
before war starts and continues long after war ends.
"... Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran. ..."
"... Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an act of war. ..."
"... Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually. ..."
"... Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to attack and hinder a foreign corporation. ..."
"... Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history. ..."
"... Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP. ..."
The U.S. missile strike on Shayrat Airbase on 7 April 2017 was the first time the U.S.
became a deliberate, direct combatant against the Syrian government and marked the start of
a series of deliberate direct military actions by U.S. forces against the Syrian government
and its allies in May -- June 2017 and February 2018.
Trump *escalated* the war from covert support to insurgents to direct intervention and
official *invasion* in Syria. This is the equivalent of going from financing and supporting a
faction in a so called proxy war in say Vietnam to leading the US to go full Iraq WMD and
become a warring and invading faction in the conflict. Again, this is an escalation.
The number of boots on the ground vs Obama's is data you just took out of your bottom.
Sources for your cheap PR shilling? You don't have any because this statement of yours is a
blatant lie.
Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling
towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said
direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for
USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly
suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the
Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran.
Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a
terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an
act of war.
Trump's administration ended the Iran deal without any objective reasons, ie Obama's
effort to deescalate the Israel firsters driven Iran-US conflict
Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in
the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare
a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in
itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually.
Trump administration declared Golan Heights part of Israel brought US embassy to
Jerusalem, increasing the tensions and animosity towards the US in the ME.
Trump administration will declare Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, increasing
the animosity from Arab countries in the ME to unbelievable levels. This includes non Arab
country Turkey also, a traditional ally until neocon Trump took power.
Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de
facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to
attack and hinder a foreign corporation.
Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history.
Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate
America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is
moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two
parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG
in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP.
Immigration restrictionism is a traditional pro working class, leftist policy.
Non intervention and "pacifist" policies the same. How many GOP supporters were against
the Vietnam and Iraq war? Not many yeah.
Trump has dropped more bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern countries in a comparable
period of time than any modern U.S. President. Presidents Bush, Obama and now [2017] Trump
have dropped nearly 200,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan,
Yemen and Somalia. Trump's rate of bombing eclipses both Bush and Obama; and Trump is on a
pace to drop over 100,000 [180,000 to be precise] bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern
countries during his first term of office -- which would equal the number of bombs and
missiles dropped by Obama during his entire eight-year presidency.
Here's more perspective:
The United States Government, under the Trump administration, reportedly drops a bomb
every 12 minutes, which means that 121 bombs are dropped in a day, and 44,096 bombs per year.
The Pentagon's data show that during George W. Bush's eight years he averaged 24 bombs
dropped per day, that is, 8,750 per year. Over the course of Obama's time in office, his
military dropped 34 bombs per day, 12,500 per year. This shows that even though American
presidents are all war criminals, Trump is the most vicious of them all.
Yes, Trump is dropping almost FOUR TIMES MORE BOMBS than Barack Obama and over FIVE TIMES
MORE BOMBS than G.W. Bush -- which included military invasions of two countries.
We also know that Trump expanded America's wars in Afghanistan and Syria (and, no, he is
NOT bringing U.S. troops home from Syria) and is ramping up America's war machine against
Venezuela, Iran, China and Russia. And this does not even take into account the way Trump has
given Benjamin Netanyahu's raunchy racist regime the green light to expand its wars against
the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria and Iran or the U.S./Israeli proxy war (with Saudi Arabia
taking the lead) in Yemen.
Then there is Somalia:
In the age of Donald Trump, wasn't that [the Battle of Mogadishu -- Black Hawk Down] a
million presidencies ago? Honestly, can you even tell me anymore what in the world it was all
about? I couldn't have, not without looking it up again. A warlord, starvation, U.S.
intervention, 18 dead American soldiers (and hundreds of dead Somalis, but that hardly
mattered) in a country that was shattering. President Clinton did, however, pull out those
troops and end the disastrous mission -- and that was that, right? I mean, lessons learned.
Somalia? Africa? What in the world did it all have to do with us? So Washington washed its
hands of the whole thing.
And now, on a planet of outrageous tweets and murderously angry white men, you probably
didn't even notice, but more than two years into the era of Donald Trump, a quarter-century
after that incident, American airstrikes in yep, Somalia, are precipitously on the rise.
Last year's 47 strikes, aimed at the leaders and fighters of al-Shabaab, an Islamist
terror outfit, more than tripled the ones carried out by the Obama administration in 2016
(themselves a modest increase from previous years). And in 2019, they're already on pace to
double again, while Somali civilians -- not that anyone (other than Somali civilians) notices
or cares -- are dying in significant and rising numbers.
And with 500 troops back on the ground there and Pentagon estimates that they will remain
for at least another seven years, the U.S. military is increasingly Somalia-bound, Congress
hasn't uttered a peep on the subject, and few in this country are paying the slightest
attention.
So consider this a simple fact of the never-ending Global War on Terror (as it was once
called): the U.S. military just can't get enough of Somalia. And if that isn't off the
charts, what is? Maybe it's even worth a future book (with a very small print run) called not
Black Hawk Down II but U.S. Down Forever and a Day.
And now that I've started on the subject (if you still happen to be reading), when it
comes to the U.S. military, it's not faintly just Somalia. It's all of Africa.
After all, this country's military uniquely has a continent-wide Africa Command (aka
AFRICOM), founded in 2007. As Nick Turse has often written for TomDispatch, that command now
has its troops, thousands of them, its planes, and other equipment spread across the
continent, north to south, east to west -- air bases, drone bases, garrisons, outposts,
staging areas, you name it. Meanwhile, AFRICOM's outgoing commanding general, Thomas
Waldhauser, only recently told Congress why it's bound to be a forever outfit -- because,
shades of the Cold War, the Ruskies are coming! ("Russia is also a growing challenge and has
taken a more militaristic approach in Africa.")
And honestly, 600-odd words in, this wasn't meant to be a piece about either Somalia or
Africa. It was meant to be about those U.S. wars being off the charts, about how the Pentagon
now feeds eternally at the terror trough, al-Shabaab being only a tiny part of the slop it
regularly digests.
And, while America's wars are way up, according to Gallup, church attendance in America is
way down:
As Christian and Jewish Americans prepare to celebrate Easter and Passover, respectively,
Gallup finds the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or
mosque at an all-time low, averaging 50% in 2018.
U.S. church membership was 70% or higher from 1937 through 1976, falling modestly to an
average of 68% in the 1970s through the 1990s. The past 20 years have seen an acceleration in
the drop-off, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999 and more than half of that change
occurring since the start of the current decade.
Most interesting is this Gallup observation:
Although the United States is one of the more religious countries, particularly among
Western nations, it is far less religious than it used to be. Barely three-quarters of
Americans now identify with a religion and only about half claim membership in a church,
synagogue or mosque.
The rate of U.S. church membership has declined sharply in the past two decades after
being relatively stable in the six decades before that. A sharp increase in the proportion of
the population with no religious affiliation, a decline in church membership among those who
do have a religious preference, and low levels of church membership among millennials are all
contributing to the accelerating trend.
Obviously, America's Jewish and Muslim populations pale compared to its Christian
population. The vast decline of attendance to religious services, therefore, primarily means
church attendance. Notice, also, that this steep decline commenced at the beginning of this
century (2000) -- when G.W. Bush became President of the United States.
I tried to warn readers -- and listeners to my nationwide radio talk show -- that due to
his insatiable war fever, G.W. Bush was going to forever warp the perception in people's
minds of Christianity. And, sadly, I was absolutely right. After eight years of the
warmongering G.W. Bush in the White House, millions of Americans came to associate
Christianity with wars of aggression. As a result, the exodus out of America's churches began
in earnest.
Enter Donald Trump.
As noted above, Trump has expanded Bush's war fever exponentially. But Trump has done more
than that: He has aggressively put the United States smack dab in the middle of Israel's
wars. It could even be argued that Donald Trump has turned the U.S. military into a proxy
army for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Don't get me wrong: I am very cognizant of the fact that G.W. Bush's "war on terror" was
nothing more than a proxy war for Israel. But the Israeli connection was covert and
completely covered up. Not anymore. Donald Trump is unabashedly and explicitly partnering the
mission of the U.S. military with that of the IDF. No wonder Benjamin Netanyahu promises to
name a community in the Israel-seized, Israel-occupied Golan Heights after Donald Trump.
(Trumplinka would fit Netanyahu's concentration-style occupation nicely.)
So, not only are millions of Americans now associating Christianity with G.W. Bush's wars
of aggression, they are associating Christianity with Donald Trump's wars of aggression for
the racist apartheid State of Israel. The result: the steepest decline in church attendance
and church affiliation in U.S. history.
The longer evangelical Christians continue to support Donald Trump's radical pro-Israel,
pro-war agenda, the deeper America will plunge into an anti-Christian country.
The good news is that all over America, people are waking up to the Israel deception.
Support for the erroneous doctrine of dispensational eschatology is in a giant free fall; the
myth of Zionist Israel being a resurrected Old Testament Israel is being repeatedly exposed;
the attempts by Israel's toadies to characterize people whose eyes are open to the truth of
Zionism as being "anti-Semitic" is losing more and more credibility by the day; and more and
more people are becoming aware of the utter wickedness of the Zionist government in Israel.
Plus, more and more people are beginning to understand the plight of the persecuted people
(including Christian people) in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine.
Ron, maybe your shipmates on the USS LIBERTY didn't die in vain after all.
From an historical perspective, overextended wars are the downfall of any empire; from a
financial perspective, warfarism is the precursor to an economically depressed middle class;
and from a Scriptural/spiritual perspective, God cannot and will not bless a warmongering
nation.
Let's be clear: God is not building a "Greater Israel." God is not building a third Jewish
temple. God is not speaking through phony prophets who are attributing some sort of divine
calling to Trump's pro-Israel warmongering. God is not blessing America because we are
blessing Zionist Israel. Just the opposite: The more America aligns itself with Israel's
belligerence, bullying and bombing of innocent people, the more God will deliver us over to
becoming an antichrist country. After all, one cannot idolize and partner with antichrists
without becoming one himself.
Burning down the house. Driving like a madman on the road to nowhere has put the nation on a
path to its own demise. Our foreign policy is a disaster that does nothing to promote
democracy anywhere in the world. Our military has provided nothing but instability in the
world since the end of world war 2. Ask yourself, why are we involved in so many useless wars
that don't make the world a better place?
Don't you feel like we are being used by war hawks who see every skirmish as a threat to our
national security? Why can't we cut out all the military BS and just trade with with nations
that want to trade, and ignore those who want to kill each other. Let them figure it out on
their own. Social Capitalism is the only policy we should be supporting.
"All statements of Trump do not count. All Trump statements are results from stress of
torture by Democrats, and deep state."
When this president stated during the campaign,
that christians don't have to forgive their enemies, I rolled my eyes stated he wrong, and
understood well he doesn't know what christianity means and supported him anyway
that he supported same sex marriage, I rolled my eyes, rebuffed the the silliness of his
comments and understood, he is not a conservative and beyond that he doesn't know what
christianity means
when it was uncovered that he had in fact had relations outside of marriage, I rolled my
eyes, and understood that alone could be a disqualifying factor in light of the competition
and supported him anyway
when some of the most respected departments of government leaders said he colluded with
Russians, based on the evidence, I said "poppycock" and supported him anyway
when media swirled with tales of Russian bath houses and carousings abounded, I thought
nonsense and supported hum anyway
when the rumors of underage girls and same sex parties and orgies seped into the main, I
rolled my eyes and supported him anyway . . .
when he spouted off about Charlottesville prematurely, I supported him anyway . . .
when became clear he actually advocated torture, I choked, spat and supported him anyway,
afterall he's not schooled in international relations and the consequences for our service
personnel, much less apparently the basics of tortures effectiveness, especially in large
scale strategies such as the US is engaged in
when it came to light he was completely ignorant of how our criminal justice system gets
it wrong as exampled by the Cen 5 case, I supported him anyway . . .
I supported him in spite of his comments about the poor and people like me who supported
him
There's a long list of tolerance is support of this president based on his advocacy
regarding turning the attention to the US welfare . . .
And when he actually agreed that the Russians had sabotaged the US elections and even
engaged in murder in the states of our European allies -- I knew, that in all liklihood the
turn inward was dead.
Here' a man who beat all the odds because of stalwart support of people like me, who
repeatedly bit the sides of our cheeks in the understanding that the returns would exceed the
price only to discover that the man who beat the odds doesn't seem to have a spine to stand
on ideologically which were the foundations of my advocacy: national security, less reckless
spending, holding business and financial organizations accountable for misbehavior, investing
in the US citizen, restructuring our trade deals to benefit the US, not merely shooting up
tarrifs that would in turn be priced to the citizens the supposed tarrifs were intended to
protect, tax cuts that actually gave middle americans less, no evidence of a draw down in our
careless ME behaviors, i even gave him some room to deal with israel as perhaps a new way
forward -- it's a new way alright – no pretense of acting as honest brokers –
that's new, Immigration is worse and by worse he might as well be serving tea and crumpets at
the border welcoming illegals . . .
If the man you elected to turn the corner actually becomes the vehicle for of what you
elected him to reject and change, eventually one has to acknowledge that fact. he beat the
deep state, he just either had not the courage, the integrity, or the ability, perhaps all
three to withstand the victory and do the work. Of course he had opposition and not much of
it very fair and nearly all of it damaging to the country. But he had support to stand
against it -- he chose an easier path.
And while I support him still, I have no intention of pretending that he is fulfilling the
mandate for which he was elected. I would be lying to myself and doing a disservice to
him.
I have not changed, I knew he was a situational leader, I knew what that meant, but I
voted for a particular agenda, he left the reservation on his own accord and the "deep
state", the establishment", the democrats, the liberals, the libertarians, can only be held
to blame for so much --
But several weeks ago, on top of a complete failure to ensure US order security, the armed
forces paid homage to Mexicans on US territory by relinquishing their weapons and
surrendering -- and given the tenure thus far -- - it devastatingly fitting that this
occurred under this admin.
And in the midst of all this, he is pandering to those engaged in same sex behavior --
– deep state my eye . . .
the path of least resistance. I cling to the belief that having voting for any of the
other candidates -- matters would have been far worse.
I make no apologies for being a conservative and Christian and holding a loyalty to the
US.
I reject your whine, it had legs and even some salience still, but at this stage, very
little.
Now he is bed with Sen. Rubio, Sen. Cruz and others on mucking around in SA -- I can only
consider your comments as an attempt at humor.
The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire is using the US military as muscle to fight
wars on behalf of Israel and to keep the dollar-based global financial system operating to
their benefit.
Republican Party politician whores are led by the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative foreign
policy faction and the Democrat Party is led by the Jew-controlled Humanitarian
Interventionist Harpy foreign policy faction.
Debt-based fiat currency systems must always expand or they implode.
Empires must expand or they implode.
The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire is stuck with a federal funds rate of
2.50 percent or so when the normal level is 6 percent.
Yellen was talking about 4 percent being the new normal level, but she was off by 1.5
percent.
Tucker Carlson is another charlatan who still refuse to hold the Jewish mafia servant, Trump,
responsible for the massacre in Venezuela. He is trying to please both sides to collect his
$$$.
He is complicit in Trumps' crimes against Venezuelan people. Trump is a terrorist and mass
murderer who tried to assassinate Maduro few months ago unsuccessfully. This does not dilute
the fact that TRUMP IS AN ASSASSIN. All these criminals must be arrested and put on trial to
be executed, if not possible then people must assassinate these scums who have no shame to
starve millions of people to death by violating international laws to grab their land and
resources. The world cannot wait. Their complicit, like Tucker Carlson, should be exposed all
over the world. We are fed up with these criminals who received $$$$$ for their lies,
continue to help the criminals at the Pentagon and WH.
Those criminals who spread the lies that Venezuela is Maduro's fault. Carlson and other
CHARLATANS refuse to see the role of the US criminals against Venezuelan people for over 20
years, attacking the population, country's infrastructure well being, economic system and
engaging in assassination , staging riot using their traitor pawns in the country to topple a
legitimate government in order to steal Venezuela's RESOURCES where pays for the liars like
Carlson's salary to spread his propaganda. The US criminals who have assassinated many
leaders to bring down the governments around the world should be assassinated themselves
along with their propagandists.
You criminals have been exposed all over the world and soon should go into your graves,
one by one. These criminals including trump and Carlson, hold Chavez responsible for the
chaos in the country and now Maduro, but ignore the US criminals acts even assassination of
the leaders.
Carlson should stop supporting the Jewish mafia illiterate and mass murderer Trump and
shut up on blaming Maduro, a victim of US brutality and its complicit media like Carlson.
FBN's Trish Regan and Trump 2020 Strategic Communications Director Marc Lotter discuss a new
report that the Obama administration sent spies to gather dirt on the Trump campaign in
2016.
FOX Business Network (FBN) is a financial news channel delivering real-time information
across all platforms that impact both Main Street and Wall Street. Headquartered in New York --
the business capital of the world -- FBN launched in October 2007 and is the leading business
network on television, topping CNBC in Business Day viewers for the second consecutive year.
The network is available in more than 80 million homes in all markets across the United States.
Owned by FOX, FBN has bureaus in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and London.
Barack Hussein O gave the order to Spy on the Trump Campaign and on President Trump. BHO
is up to his Ears with all this Spying, Russia Gate, and making dirty deals with Ukraine.
We already know Obama weaponized the IRS, the CIA and the DOJ... the Obamanation is
corrupt to the core, so why would it be a surprise that he also weaponized the FBI?
Pencil Neck Adam Schiff is cleaning up all the CRAP left over from Barack Hussein O. This
weasel is running interference and making all the noise he can against A.G. William Barr who
is a good and decent man. God Bless A.G. Barr and his Family.
Obama weaponized just about all departments during his term. He used the EPA against
farmers and land-owners. He used the IRS against conservative groups. He used the
Intelligence groups against the American people, and the FBI and DOJ against anyone else that
annoyed him. Obama and his people need to be investigated and if warranted, charged. But,
this is what the left does.
Good Lord!! Obama.. Hillary.. Biden.. The FBI.. Then we have Omar, and Tlaib, and AOC
getting all of the new praise. The media CONTINUES to cover it up. Amazing that the NYT ran
it.
Joe Friday 2 hours ago
"what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
DEM's think, 'Obama anti-Trump crimes in Ukraine STAY IN UKRAINE'.
"... As much as Trump has proven to be a disaster with his appointments of Bolton/Pompeo/E Abrams, things could still be worse. We could have wound up with Little Marco, the John McCain of his generation. All praise to Tucker for having the guts to go against the grain. ..."
"... The answer here is simple. When the President of of the US stated that he believed Russia under the instructions of Pres. Putin attempted to sabotage the democratic process, and from the mouths many of our leadership -- was successful he made a major power on the world stage a targeted enemy of the US. When that same president accused Pres. Putin of plotting the same in Europe and ordered the murders inside those sovereign states -- ..."
"... He essentially stated that our global strategic interests include challenging the Russian influence anywhere and everywhere on the planet as they are active enemies of the US and our European allies. What ever democratic global strategic ambitions previous to the least election were stifled until that moment. ..."
"... Sanctions and blockades are acts of war. Try doing it to Washington or one of its vassals, and watch the guns come out. ..."
"... Historically, sanctions are not an alternative to war; they are a prelude to it. Sanctions are how Uncle Scam generally softens up foreign countries in preparation for an invasion or some sort of 'régime-change' operation. ..."
"... All of this is smoke in mirrors. The real story is that Washington is headed for default on it's 22 trillion dollar debt and the Beltway Elites are losing it. They are desperate to start a conflict anywhere, but especially with an oil rich nation like Venezuela or Iran install their own puppets and keep this petro-dollar scam running a little while longer. ..."
"... Syria, Iraq and Libya were not destroyed for oil. Oil provided cover for the real reason. In fact, oil companies opposed war for oil. It doesn't benefit the US or those companies. Those three countries were and are Israel's primary enemies and neighbors and that is why they were destroyed. Only if you stick your head in the sand and ignore the enormous power of Israel and their Jewish supporters which is constantly on full display constantly can someone not see that. ..."
"... Venezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world. I'm pretty sure there are still lots of guns around. They're not using rocks to kill one another. The U.S. military richly deserves to get itself trapped in a Gaza type situation of house to house fighting in the favellas above Caracas. ..."
"... Trump is a Trojan horse under zionist control who had 5 draft deferments but now is the zionists war lord sending Americans to fight and die in the mideast for Israel just like obama and bush jr. , same bullshit different puppet! ..."
"... America is Oceania , war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and I would add to what Orwell said, war in the zio/US is perpetual for our zionist overlords. ..."
"... Imperialists always see themselves as spreading good things to people who will benefit from them. And imperialists necessarily always dilute their own culture. ..."
"... If the imperialist culture is already rootless cosmopolitan, it will see no downside to the above. If the Elites of a culture have become cosmopolitans divorced from any meaningful contact with their own people (i.e. those of their own blood and history), then they will lead their people into ever more cultural pollution and perversion. ..."
"... Remember. The choice was between Trump and Clinton. Not Trump and Jesus. ..."
"... The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed at articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime change wars. ..."
"... I'm not sure what "Alt-Right" or "2.0 movement" really means in the current shills-vs-people wars but all the best and the brightest in our ranks are clearly against the globalists. ..."
Venezuela illustrates why a 3.0 movement is necessary.
The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the
Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed at
articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and
international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime change
wars.
The Trump administration's interventions in Syria and Venezuela are victimizing mainly poor
brown people in Third World countries. And yet, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is extremely
animated and stirred up in a rage at the neocons who are currently running Blompf's foreign
policy. Similarly, it has cheered on the peace talks between North Korea and South Korea.
Isn't it the supreme irony that the "racists" in American politics are the real
humanitarians
while the so-called "humanitarians" like Sen. Marco Rubio and Bill Kristol are less adverse
to bloodshed and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die than the
"racists"?
It is ironic. There is also the issue of economic-based US interventionism, particularly in
the oil-gifted nations mentioned. It's their oil. Since the US economy is oil-dependent --
and since fracking is a short-lived "miracle" of unprofitable companies that have already
extracted the easy pickings -- it is the role of US leaders to make sure that we can buy oil
from nations like Venezuela, keeping relations as good as possible for those means. But US
leaders have no business telling them who should rule their country, much less stirring up
trouble that can end up in bloodshed.
There's a comment on here about US forces and the Kurds in Syria, helping themselves to
oil, while Syrians wait in long lines for gas in a country that is an oil fountain. I have no
idea whether or not it is true, and since the US press would rather gossip than report, we'll
probably never know. But since oil prices have gone up recently in the USA, it might be true,
especially since politicians always want to pacify the serfs facing other unaffordable
expenses, like rent. If true you can see how that would make the people in an oil-rich
country mad.
Isn't it the supreme irony that the "racists" in American politics are the real
humanitarians while the so-called "humanitarians" like Sen. Marco Rubio and Bill Kristol
are less adverse to bloodshed and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people
die than the "racists"?
There is nothing ironic about your simple statement of fact. The humanitarians you mention
are about as much interested in human rights as John Wayne Gacy. There is gold in them there
hills, and their "friends" no longer control that gold. So we must go to war.
Rubio is running neck and neck in my mind as one of the most disgusting political whores
of all time.
As much as Trump has proven to be a disaster with his appointments of Bolton/Pompeo/E Abrams,
things could still be worse. We could have wound up with Little Marco, the John McCain of his
generation. All praise to Tucker for having the guts to go against the grain.
How is that working out now?
Those are rocks those guys are throwing..right?
Why not let THEM do the fighting and keep the guys from Ohio and Alabama here?
The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the
Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela
What Trump administration military intervention? Number of Boots on the ground:
Syria -- Reduced vs. Obama, at most a few thousand
Iran -- ZERO
Venezuela -- Again ZERO
It is quite amazing that Trump Derangement Syndrome [TDS] can take ZERO troops and falsely
portray that as military intervention. In the real, non-deranged world -- Rational thought
shows ZERO troops as the absence of military intervention.
Trying to use non-military sanctions to convince nations to behave better is indeed the
exact opposite of military intervention. If the NeoConDem Hillary Clinton was President. Would the U.S. have boots on the ground in
Iran And Venezuela?
Why is the Trump Derangement Syndrome [TDS] crowd so willing to go to war for Hillary
while misrepresenting TRUMP's non-intervention?
Those who pathologicially hate Trump are simply not rational.
The answer here is simple.
When the President of of the US stated that he believed Russia under the instructions of
Pres. Putin attempted to sabotage the democratic process, and from the mouths many of our
leadership -- was successful he made a major power on the world stage a targeted enemy of the
US. When that same president accused Pres. Putin of plotting the same in Europe and ordered
the murders inside those sovereign states --
He essentially stated that our global strategic interests include challenging the Russian
influence anywhere and everywhere on the planet as they are active enemies of the US and our
European allies. What ever democratic global strategic ambitions previous to the least
election were stifled until that moment.
Until that moment foreign policy could have been shifted, but after that moment
Don't forget the genocide in Yemen. Wanting to exclude Yemenis from the USA means you're an
evil racist, but turning a blind eye to mass murder is A-OK.
Gold, Black Gold and Pirates : all about wealth and people getting in the way of the 21st
Century Privateers who will stop at nothing including overthrowing governments in Syria,
Libya, Iraq and elsewhere.
@A123Historically, sanctions are not an alternative to war; they are a prelude to it.
Sanctions are how Uncle Scam generally softens up foreign countries in preparation for an
invasion or some sort of 'régime-change' operation.
I appreciate the fact that Team Trump has not actually sent in the tanks yet, whereas
Hellary probably would have by now. Believe me, that is probably one of the very few good
arguments in favor of Trump at this point. But if we want to make sure that he never does
attack, then now is the time to make some noise– before the war starts.
All of this is smoke in mirrors. The real story is that Washington is headed for default on
it's 22 trillion dollar debt and the Beltway Elites are losing it. They are desperate to
start a conflict anywhere, but especially with an oil rich nation like Venezuela or Iran
install their own puppets and keep this petro-dollar scam running a little while longer.
If we weren't on the brink of economic collapse I could never see the Washington Elites
risking it all with a game of nuclear chicken with Russia and China over Ukraine and
Taiwan.
This commentator lost me when he decided Guaido was as socialist as Maduro. Nope. He would
not have US backing were that the case.
I checked out Telesur on Youtube on April 30 – its continued functioning was one sign
the coup attempt had failed. The comments section was full of Guaido supporters ranting about
how much they hated Chavistas and socialists and some were asking where Maduro was, probably
trying to sustain the myth that he had fled.
"When was the last time we successfully meddled in the political life of another country" The
answer to that, Tucker, depends on who you ask. While Syria, Iraq and Libya were "failures"
because we were told we would bring peace and prosperity to those countries, that was not the
goal of the architects of those wars, neither was it oil. The primary goal was to pacify
these countries and neuter them so they would not stand up to their neighbor and enemy
Israel. And if they had to be destroyed to accomplish that, that's fine. Minus Egypt, those
three countries were Israel's primary enemies in the three Arab-Israeli wars. Venezuela is
not "another" war for oil, but it might be the first.
Syria, Iraq and Libya were not destroyed for oil. Oil provided cover for the
real reason. In fact, oil companies opposed war for oil. It doesn't benefit the US or those
companies. Those three countries were and are Israel's primary enemies and neighbors and that
is why they were destroyed. Only if you stick your head in the sand and ignore the enormous
power of Israel and their Jewish supporters which is constantly on full display constantly
can someone not see that.
@EliteCommInc.
The russians are not the ennemies of the europeans , the russians are europeans , the yankees
are nor european .
If the yankees were the allies of the europeans , why they should need hundreds of
military occupation bases in Europe ? why they should impose on europeans self defeating
trade sanctions against Russia ? , strange " allies " .
@conatus
you are late conatus , the russians are building in Venezuela a factory of Kalasnikov rifles
, and Maduro is traing a militia of two million men , to help the army .
@conatusVenezuela has one of the highest murder rates in the world. I'm pretty sure there are still
lots of guns around. They're not using rocks to kill one another.
The U.S. military richly deserves to get itself trapped in a Gaza type situation of house
to house fighting in the favellas above Caracas.
@War
for Blair Mountain{If JFK were alive ..and POTUS in 2019 he would give the order to
overthrow the Maduro Goverment .}
JFK was alive way back then, when he gave the order to overthrow Castro and the result was
the Bay of Pigs disaster. And – for better or worse – Cubans are still running
their own country, not some foreign installed puppet.
'The order to overthrow Maduro' today would have the same disasterous end.
It should be obvious by now, that despite all the hardships, majority of Venezuelans don't
want a foreign installed puppet.
Carlson is right on Venezuela but was wrong on 911 truthers which he said back in September
2017, that 911 truthers were nuts! 911 which was done by Israel and the zionist controlled
deep state lead to the destruction of the mideast for Israel and the zionist NWO!
Trump is a Trojan horse under zionist control who had 5 draft deferments but now is the
zionists war lord sending Americans to fight and die in the mideast for Israel just like
obama and bush jr. , same bullshit different puppet!
America is Oceania , war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and I would
add to what Orwell said, war in the zio/US is perpetual for our zionist overlords.
One more thing, if Venezuela did not have oil the zio/US would not give a damn about
it!
Imperialists always see themselves as spreading good things to people who will benefit from
them. And imperialists necessarily always dilute their own culture.
If the imperialist culture is already rootless cosmopolitan, it will see no downside to
the above. If the Elites of a culture have become cosmopolitans divorced from any meaningful
contact with their own people (i.e. those of their own blood and history), then they will
lead their people into ever more cultural pollution and perversion.
Jews are a people who fit the opening sentence of the preceding paragraph. The WASP Elites
fit the second sentence.
If "no one is more opposed to destructive regime-change wars than the Alt-Right", it means
that the Alt-Right are traditional conservatives, paleo-(as opposed to neo)conservatives.
Real conservatives have always opposed getting into foreign wars that posed no threat to the
U.S. They opposed Wilson lying us into WW1, Roosevelt lying us into WW2. When the
neo-conservatives (American Jews loyal to Israel) got Washington under their thumb, we
started our decades of disastrous regime-change wars based on lies, starting with the
invasion of Iraq. Those neocon mf ers are still in charge.
An Alt Right 2.0 concept that is compassionate with the damage done by US war and economic
exploitation against the poorest people of the world who are mostly brown people is an
interesting concept.
But I think it will ultimately fail, since so many of the white people who make up the Alt
Right are angry with minorities and see them as a lower race. And these white people are more
interested in playing the victim card anyways.
@A123
You speak truth and cite facts, these loons go bananas.
Thank God they have no real power.
Hopefully they don't even own a hamster . probably would make the little fella read Mien
Kempf.
Because a hamster reading is just as cogent and linear as their arguments.
They are frustrated they cannot find a way to blame the Jews! for Maduro being a greedy
murdering sweathog who lets zoo animals starve while he looks like animated male
cellulite.
Funny- in their prostrations to dictators ( these retards actually defend and admire
Jong-Un) they conveniently have omitted Putin is cutting Russia from the WWW- the
Internet.
They will have a Russia intranet.
Pointing out to the obtuse daily commenters that under the tyrants that practically
fellate- they would be arrested and tortured for their Unz hissy fits and word diarrhea
Nationwide radio talk show? Wow! What's the station name, number and air time?
If you listen to people with actual media shows, they don't call people TROLL just because
they have a different opinion. They don't engage in female hysterical ranting because someone
has a different idea about the mechanics of the world.
Who are your sponsors? I can't imagine you would not want the free publicity .
I agree, there is irony in labels, in trying to tell who is more disposed towards 'bloodshed
and destructive wars in which hundreds of thousands of people die'. Why do we fight? It is
for power. Power (manifested as interest) has been present in every conflict of the past
– no exception. It is the underlying motivation for war. Other cultural factors might
change, but not power. Interest cuts across all apparently unifying principles: family, kin,
nation, religion, ideology, politics – everything. We unite with the enemies of our
principles, because that is what serves our interest. It is power, not any of the above
concepts, that is the cause of war. And that is what is leading the world to nuclear
Armageddon. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
@TKK
My sponsors are truth and America first. All Zionist hucksters are on my hit list. Again, I
suggest you and yours consider "making aliyah". https://www.nbn.org.il/
Number of Boots on the ground:
-- Syria -- Reduced vs. Obama, at most a few thousand
-- Iran -- ZERO
-- Venezuela -- Again ZERO
We will see in the future. Trump has to stir the pot. The foaming at the mouth media and his political opposition, in
both parties, need something to blather on about. Jus like rasslin'. Remember. The choice was between Trump and Clinton. Not Trump and Jesus.
@TKK
Oh, I see a point there, and it's an interesting one – openly Christian presidents
discredit their Christianity by engaging in non-righteous wars. After contemplating the
point, I don't think the foreign policy of W or Trump is anywhere close to being the primary
factor in the decline in church attendance. After all, the Catholic Church and other
denominations are mired in myriad sex scandals, the internet pulls people from God with
private depravity, science offers compelling hows if not whys, entertainment options abound,
and so on. Nonetheless, an orthodox and faithful Christian president committed to peace and
not fighting for oil or foreign interests would be a thing to behold. With caveats relating
to perceived sanity, that person would get my vote.
"The russians are not the ennemies of the europeans , the russians are europeans , the
yankees are nor european . "
These comments don't make any sense to me based on what I wrote. My comments have no
bearing on whether the Russians are an actual threat or not. I see them as competitors with
whom there are some places to come to some agreements. They doesn't mean I truth them.
Furthermore, my comments have no bearing on the territorial nature of Russian ethos.
That's not the point. Europeans have been at each other since there were Europeans. From the
Vikings and before to Serbia and Georgian conflicts. But none of that has anything to do with
my comments.
You might want to read them for what they do say as opposed to what you would like them to
say.
Jul 26, 2017 CIA director hints US is working to topple Venezuela's elected government
CIA Director Mike Pompeo indirectly admitted that the US is pushing for a new government
in Venezuela, in collaboration with Colombia and Mexico.
Feb 22, 2019 An Ocean of Lies on Venezuela: Abby Martin & UN Rapporteur Expose
Coup
On the eve of another US war for oil, Abby Martin debunks the most repeated myths about
Venezuela and uncovers how US sanctions are crimes against humanity with UN investigator and
human rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas.
"After all, the Catholic Church and other denominations are mired in myriad sex scandals . .
."
Not even to the tune of 4%, and I am being generous. The liberals have managed to make the
Church look a den of NAMBLA worshipers -- hardly. In the west the Churches are under pressure
from the same sex practitioners to reject scriptural teachings on the behavior, but elsewhere
around the world, Catholic institutions, such as in Africa -- reject the notion.
@TKK
Thanks. Ignoring mindless trolls is a necessary skill for the site.
____
Given the end of the Mueller exoneration, both Trump and Putin are looking to strengthen
ties. Thus it is:
-- Unlikely that Putin is heavily committed to helping Maduro. The numbers are too small
for that. Also, what would Putin do with Maduro? The last thing Putin needs is a spoiler to
the developing detente.
-- Much more likely the troops have a straightforward purpose. Brazilian
military/aerospace technology would jump ahead 20 years if they could grab an intact S-300
system. Russia doesn't want a competitor in that market, so they have a deep interest in
reclaiming or destroying S-300 equipment as Maduro goes down.
@EliteCommInc.
You are certainly right. I have no doubt that the vast majority of priests are good men
innocent of these charges, and that there are more public school sex scandals (by both raw
numbers and percentage) then similar Church scandals. The scandals do have public currency
and legs, though, and are one reason often cited as to why the pews are empty. I am at fault
for helping to keep this ruinous perception alive with my online rhetoric, and thank you for
pointing it out.
' It's the oil ' canard has always been the excuse cultivated for suckers, and boy
do suckers fall for it.
US oil companies have not received the big oil deals in countries where the US, at the
behest of "that shitty little country", have interfered militarily. However, Russia, China,
& to a limited degree, a few European companies have.
@PeterMX
Bibi's biggest enemy, his main prize, has always been Iran. He is afraid that, if Trump
refuses to do his bidding now, it may well be too late in an election year. One way or
another Bolton and Pompeo are going to convince their token boss to green light a massive
bombing campaign, especially if Iran attempts to shut down the Straits of Hormuz. It will
happen this year if Trump fails to come to his senses.
@Scalper
In the first place, your bizarre partisan rant is a little out of place. There aren't too
many QAnons here at Unz, and there are probably a fair number of regulars here who wouldn't
even identify as Republicans or 'conservatives' (whatever that term means today).
Secondly, some of your talking points aren't even accurate:
Trump administration will declare Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation,
increasing the animosity from Arab countries in the ME to unbelievable levels. This
includes non Arab country Turkey also, a traditional ally until neocon Trump took
power.
If Trump were truly to declare the Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization, a lot of
Arab rulers would actually thank him. You see, the Brotherhood is actually illegal in
most Arab countries today, precisely because it has a history of collaborating with foreign
intelligence services such as MI6, the CIA and Mossad. More recently, it was strongly
associated with failed régime-change projects in countries like Egypt and Syria; so
with a few exceptions (like Qatar), the Brotherhood is not well liked by Arab rulers.
Immigration restrictionism is a traditional pro working class, leftist policy.
Traditionally leftist? Sure up until the Hart-Celler Act of 1965! The sad fact is,
we don't an anti-immigration party in the US at all today. Neither the Republicans nor the
Democrats have any interest whatsoever in halting–or even just slowing
down–immigration.
@PeterMX
It's obvious that FOX is giving Tucker a lot of latitude. They continued to support him when
advertisers left, and when accusations of racism emerged from a radio interview he'd done
years ago with a shock jock. They dare not fire him as he has the largest and most fervent
base of supporters on cable news. But Tucker knows that there is one big issue, the Elephant
in the room, of which he dare not speak. It's that shitty little country calling the shots,
whose name begins with an I.
@Anonymous
I think there may be more alt-righters opposed to foreign wars and exploitative 'free' trade
treaties than you assume. Most of the alt-righters I know oppose the current régime's
"invade the world, invite the world" policies (to borrow a phrase from our own Steve Sailer).
But unlike the anti-imperialist left (with whom they often do ally), they usually argue
against such policies based on popular self-interest rather than abstract universal morality.
They usually choose to argue that being a mighty world empire has worked to the
detriment of the majority of people in America; that the whole thing is just a scam to
enrich and empower a small, corrupt élite.
what goes unremarked here and elsewhere is the ethnic composition of Venezuela. From a few
searches, Whites are only about one-third of V.
The Tipping Point for chaos is clear. Brazil is half White, Argentina is near 100 % White,
ditto Chile.
(Argentina ca. 1900 exterminated a large number its "Indigenous." )
The most stable of Latin America is Costa Rica, which is apparently about three quarters
White.
Meanwhile the jewyorktimes reports the narco-traffickers in the Maduro administration.
Hopeless. Any Brown or Black Country is doomed. Brazil works cuz Whites know how to
control the 45% mulattos and 5 % Blacks. For now anyway. Mexico is a narco-state with the
only 9% Whites able to control the half breeds and Indigenous thru co-option. Wait for Mexico
to blow up.
The funny thing is, the Alt-Right or the 2.0 movement is united to a man on opposing the
Trump administration's military interventions in Syria, Iran and Venezuela, but has failed
at articulating its own ardent opposition to imperialism and its commitment to humanity and
international peace. No one in American politics is more opposed to destructive regime
change wars.
That's an amazing point. I'm not sure what "Alt-Right" or "2.0 movement" really means in the current
shills-vs-people wars but all the best and the brightest in our ranks are clearly against the
globalists.
@Avery
The Deep state/CIA did the Bay of Pigs. JFK was not informed about it before it happened. JFK
was fighting the CIA and deep state throughout his presidency. He wanted to shatter the CIA
into a million pieces. Read "JFK and the Unspeakable" by James W. Douglass. His peace speech
on June 10, 1963 was too much for our deep state. That speech was the biggest triggers that
set the motion for his assassination.
Whatever anyone thinks about the Alt-Right it did expose a lot of things about our current
era, our history, our politics, and power paradigms that once seen can not be unseen.
And what are you going to do about it? What can anyone really do, honestly?
Not too much at least in America. Eastern Europe still has a good chance.
In America, the trajectory and machinations of power have been set for a long time and
revolutionary romanticism tends to work better for the Left than the Right. A quick look at
the data easily reveals this.
So what do you do when you realize how so much of everything that's presented as real and
true isn't real or true? And there are so many truly bad human beings with major power over
our culture, politics, and society?
Well, when has that not been the case in human history? At some point, acknowledging all
the black pills is sort of like accepting your human limits, your finitude, your genetics,
the unanswered mysteries of existence, the nothingness of Earth in the grand scheme, and just
basic gravity.
You could become a courageous online revolutionary and eventually trigger some unstable
person to get things shut down and deplatformed.
Or you could organize with socially and psychologically healthy and mature adults who try
to prioritize attainable and realistic goals and gain some moralizing victories that can
buffer against the demoralizing defeats.
Luckily, out of the winter of our discontent have emerged many healthy tendrils of new
growth.
"... Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan. ..."
"... The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI. ..."
"... McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within! ..."
"... When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own. ..."
"... Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours. ..."
"... The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards. ..."
"... Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. ..."
"... Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts. ..."
"... McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. ..."
"... So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? ..."
Kevin Brock, former FBI assistant director for intelligence, and Terry Turchie, former
deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, fire back at former FBI Director
Andrew McCabe.
Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the
Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan.
The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long?
The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing
Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the
FBI.
When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and
communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it
to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI
folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots
only work under orders they don't think on their own.
Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing
about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He
tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one
of yours.
The fix was in. The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of
admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the
FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail.
These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards.
Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a
crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions
of power. Mr Trump upset their world with his electoral victory. President Trump is hated by
the political class because he has come as the destroyer of their world.
McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected
president. He should be behind bars rather than selling his book on TV. Lock up McCabe,
Rosenstein and the rest of the Deep State coup gang and DRAIN-THE-SWAMP.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed his career, the FBI, and his firing from
the Bureau. He was interviewed by New York Times reporter Adam Goldman.
Obama launched and coordinated the color revolution against Trump. He appointed Hillary as the Secreaty of Sate. He is a
CIA-connected neocon scoundrel
Notable quotes:
"... Projection: Obama escalated the war on Russia with regime change in Ukraine in 2014. Is he ******* kidding here? ..."
"... Another projection. Clinton rigged the primary against Sanders. Obama tried to overthrow Trump. ..."
"... And they DID reject it soundly. Clinton is the same scummy NEOLIBERAL warmonger that Obama was. After 8 years of Citigroup, & other banksters that filled his cabinet as well as Obama's war crimes, accelerating wars in the Middle East, the American people finally realized what they do not want . ..."
"... I hope he lives with that REJECTION the rest of his miserable life! ..."
"... It is difficult to understand Obama's complaints about Hillary Clinton's "scripted, soulless" campaign strategy, when he seemed to allow himself to be manipulated by her all along, ever since he worked out the deal to have her as his Secretary of State in 2008. ..."
"... Obama really allowed Clinton a lot of free reign, when she was Secretary of State too, something most other presidents would not have done. Maybe he knew something about her penchant for rage and revenge and didn't want to end up in her body bag count? ..."
"... Hillary was certainly very ill-suited for the diplomatic job as U.S. Secretary of State, and that was so well demonstrated during her first year of office ..."
New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker has published an updated edition of his
book "Obama: The Call of History", and it includes several embarrassing details about President
Obama's reaction to Donald Trump's historic electoral triumph, as well as Obama's complaints
about Hillary Clinton's "scripted, soulless" campaign strategy.
According to the Daily Mail, which published some of the excerpts on Friday, Obama
interpreted Trump's victory as a "personal insult", and whined to his aides and family that the
loss "stings" and that the American people had "turned on him" while bashing Clinton for
"bringing her many troubles on herself."
As Baker wrote, as Obama saw it, the "real blame" for Clinton's loss "lay squarely with
Clinton" - despite her many well-documented attempts to make every conceivable excuse, from
blaming Bernie Sanders and his misogynistic "Bernie Bros" to misogynistic Trump supporters.
But as Obama vented, nobody forced Clinton to take money from Goldman Sachs, or set up an
illicit private email server at her house in Chappaqua.
In a stinging passage Baker writes: 'To Obama and his team, however, the real blame lay
squarely with Clinton.
'She was the one who could not translate his strong record and healthy economy into a
winning message.
'Never mind that Trump essentially ran the same playbook against Clinton that Obama did
eight years earlier, portraying her as a corrupt exemplar of the status quo.
'She brought many of her troubles on herself. No one forced her to underestimate the
danger in the Midwest states of Wisconsin and Michigan.
'No one forced her to set up a private email server that would come back to haunt her.
'No one forced her to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from Goldman Sachs and other
pillars of Wall Street for speeches.
'No one forced her to run a scripted, soulless campaign that tested eighty-five slogans
before coming up with 'Stronger Together'.
Feeling secure in Clinton's impending victory, Obama and his top aide Valerie Jarrett
retreated to the White House movie theater to watch the Marvel Movie Dr. Strange. Michelle
Obama went to bed early that night, but later in the evening, as results from Florida started
coming in, Obama checked the results, and was suddenly struck by a sinking feeling.
He watched in abject horror as Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania - formerly
Democratic strongholds.
In the weeks after Trump's victory, Obama vacillated from philosophical contemplation to
rage, and complained to his speech writer Ben Rhodes that he was about to hand the nuclear
codes over to a "cartoon character" and a "huckster straight out of Huckleberry Finn".
Obama tried to keep his cool in the weeks afterwards and texted his speechwriter Ben
Rhodes: 'There are more stars in the sky than sand on the earth'.
But soon he was unable to contain his rage which escalated after he met Trump in the Oval
Office.
Baker writes that despite being cordial in public he afterwards summoned Rhodes who told
him that Trump 'peddles in b*******'
Rhodes said: 'That character has always been part of the American story. You can see it
right back to some of the characters in Huckleberry Finn'.
Obama replied: 'Maybe that's the best we can hope for'.
As the weeks went by Obama went through 'multiple emotional stages', at times being
philosophical and other times he 'flashed anger'.
He also showed a rare self-doubt and wondered if 'maybe this is what people want', Baker
writes.
Obama told one aide: 'I've got the economy set up well for him. No facts. No consequences.
They can just have a cartoon'.
Of particular interest considering the Mueller report's findings, which have been endlessly
relitigated since the redacted report was released last month, Baker explains Obama's decision
not to come out harder against Russia during the campaign, after US intelligence warned about
the Kremlin's attempts to 'interfere' in the US election.
As Baker tells it, Obama's "don't-do-stupid-shit" instincts made him reluctant to bash
Russia over the meddling, as did his confidence that Clinton would surely prevail. As Obama saw
it, if he made a big deal about Russian interference, Trump would simply complain to his voters
that the whole election was rigged.
Baker's book also gives new insight into why Obama was so hesitant about criticizing
Russia for meddling in the 2016 election before vote took place.
Obama was led by his 'cautious don't-do-stupid-s**t instincts' and feared that a forceful
response would make Russia 'escalate' its operation.
Then there was the question of how Trump would react and Obama admitted that 'if I speak
out more, he'll just say it's rigged'.
Obama wrongly assumed that Clinton would win the election and Obama said in one meeting
that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'backed the wrong horse'.
When it came time to meet his successor and start planning the transition, Obama was
cordial. But he never could get past the unshakeable feeling that the American people had
rejected his legacy.
Hmmm, first the NYT reports the story about the CIA's Papadopoulos "honey pot" spy, which
they've been sitting on for two years while insisting the Trump campaign wasn't spied upon.
They had to get the story out now, ahead of Horowitz' report. And now they're essentially
giving permission to take out the knives against the Clintons to save the Obamas. The next
few weeks or even years are going to be fun.
Obama simply can't see himself clearly. He had no real talent for the job. He was the
first black president, and everybody cut him slack because of that. His speeches to 'folks',
delivered in a phony southern preacher accent were disingenuous at best. He compromimsed too
far, until his programs didn't even make sense. He lived at an intellectual level, not even
realizing now that the world does not run on theories or philosophies. It runs on
actions.
His biggest error was indulging his a soft spot for Islam. As a complete social order that
is religious, moral, financial, governmental and miltary, Islam has more in common with
Marxism than Christianity.
Obama failed to understand that America has been set by history squarely against the
Islamic social order. This is not about religion, it's about the correct way to run the
world. We have the better way, the more successful way and it's going to stay that way.
That is why the people actually want Trump. Trump is deliberately not an intellectual, and
focuses on direct uncompromsing action. And he tells you what he's doing a couple of times a
day.
"Baker's book also gives new insight into why Obama was so hesitant about criticizing
Russia for meddling in the 2016 election before vote took place.
BECAUSE HE KNEW IT NEVER HAPPENED.
Obama was led by his 'cautious don't-do-stupid-s**t instincts' and feared that a forceful
response would make Russia 'escalate' its operation.
Projection: Obama escalated the war on Russia with regime change in Ukraine in 2014. Is he
******* kidding here?
Then there was the question of how Trump would react and Obama admitted that 'if I speak
out more, he'll just say it's rigged'.
Another projection. Clinton rigged the primary against Sanders. Obama tried to overthrow
Trump.
Obama wrongly assumed that Clinton would win the election and Obama said in one meeting
that Russian President Vladimir Putin 'backed the wrong horse'.
No way he could believe that ****
"When it came time to meet his successor and start planning the transition, Obama was
cordial. But he never could get past the unshakeable feeling that the American people had
rejected his legacy."
And they DID reject it soundly. Clinton is the same scummy NEOLIBERAL warmonger that Obama
was. After 8 years of Citigroup, & other banksters that filled his cabinet as well as
Obama's war crimes, accelerating wars in the Middle East, the American people finally
realized what they do not want .
I hope he lives with that REJECTION the rest of his miserable life!
LibertarianRevolutionary
Another book of lies to feed the sheeple. Author thinks we're all just plain stupid, and the people at the head of the
demoncrat party are just 'good folks'.
He–Mene Mox Mox
It is difficult to understand Obama's complaints about Hillary Clinton's "scripted, soulless" campaign strategy, when
he seemed to allow himself to be manipulated by her all along, ever since he worked out the deal to have her as his Secretary
of State in 2008.
It was reported 11 years ago that Obama was pressured to give Hillary an important paying job in his administration,
because of her 2008 presidential campaign owed $8.7 million in unpaid debts. Didn't he have a strong enough character to know
otherwise and resist her, or was he politically owing to her in someway? Obama really allowed Clinton a lot of free
reign, when she was Secretary of State too, something most other presidents would not have done. Maybe he knew something
about her penchant for rage and revenge and didn't want to end up in her body bag count?
Hillary was certainly very ill-suited for the diplomatic job as U.S. Secretary of State, and that was so well
demonstrated during her first year of office in August 2009, when she opened up on an African-Congolese Boy's question
to her: See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJEMX_iuCXE ...
Obama should have fired Hillary right then and there for that outburst......but didn't have the strong character to do it.
"... That report is going to be a bombshell. It is going to open up the investigation on a very high note, and there are going to be criminal referrals in it. ..."
"... The FISA court abuse is the center of this entire abuse of governmental power, and the chief judge in that court has already ruled that the FBI broke the law and that the people at the head of the justice department, Sally Yates, John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security all knew about it and lied to the FISA court about it... ..."
"... He [Rogers] discovered the illegal spying. He went personally to the FISA court and briefed the Chief Judge and worked with her for months to uncover the people who did it. The FISA court has already told the Justice Department who lied to that court and that has been given to [Attorney General] Bill Barr already. ..."
It is about the rule of law and privacy. The Obama administration for more than four years
before the 2016 election allowed four contractors working for the FBI to illegally surveil
American citizens -- illegally. The FISA court has already found that. There is the Horowitz
report coming out in May or possibly early June. There's another report that everyone has
forgotten about involving James Comey alone. That will be out in two weeks. That report is
going to be a bombshell. It is going to open up the investigation on a very high note, and
there are going to be criminal referrals in it.
The FISA court abuse is the center of this entire abuse of governmental power, and the chief
judge in that court has already ruled that the FBI broke the law and that the people at the
head of the justice department, Sally Yates, John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for
national security all knew about it and lied to the FISA court about it...
There's a hero in this story and it is not a lawyer. There is a hero. His name is Admiral
Mike Rogers. He was the head of the National Security Agency.
He [Rogers] discovered the illegal spying. He went personally to the FISA court and briefed
the Chief Judge and worked with her for months to uncover the people who did it. The FISA court
has already told the Justice Department who lied to that court and that has been given to
[Attorney General] Bill Barr already.
"... Will the overthrow of disputed President Nicolas Maduro make Venezuela a more stable and prosperous country? More to the point, would it be good for the United States? Lots of people claim to know the answer to that, but they don't. They have no idea. If recent history is any guide, nothing will turn out as expected. Few things ever do. ..."
"... Are we prepared for the refugees a Venezuelan war would inevitably produce? A study by the Brookings Institution found that the collapse of the Venezuelan government could force eight million people to leave the country. Many of them would come here. Lawmakers in this country propose giving them temporary protected status that would let even illegal arrivals live and work here, in effect, permanently, as many have before, with no fear of deportation. Are we prepared for that? ..."
TUCKER CARLSON: There is much we don't know about the situation in Venezuela. What we do
know is that Venezuela's current government has done a poor job of providing for its own
people. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, yet it remains one of the most
impoverished and the most dangerous places on the planet. That is beyond dispute.
Everything else is up for debate. Will the overthrow of disputed President Nicolas Maduro
make Venezuela a more stable and prosperous country? More to the point, would it be good for
the United States? Lots of people claim to know the answer to that, but they don't. They have
no idea. If recent history is any guide, nothing will turn out as expected. Few things ever
do.
But that has not stopped the geniuses in Washington. It has not even slowed them down. On
Tuesday afternoon, on a bipartisan basis, they agreed that the United States ought to jump
immediately, face-first, into the Venezuelan mess. When asked whether U.S. presence in
Venezuela would make any difference, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida told Neil Cavuto the following:
"Absolutely. I was down at the Venezuelan border last Wednesday. This is just pure genocide.
Maduro is killing his own citizens."
When asked whether Venezuela was worth risking American troops' lives, Scott said, "Here is
what is going to happen. We are in the process, if we don't win today, we are going to have
Syria in this hemisphere. So, we can make sure something happens now, or we can deal with this
for decades to come. If we care about families, if we care about the human race, if we care
about fellow worldwide citizens, then we've got to step up and stop this genocide."
All right, I just want to make sure that it is clear. If you care about families and you
care about the human race -- if you want to stop genocide -- you will send your children to
Venezuela to fight right now, without even thinking about it, without even weighing the
consequences. You will just do it. Assuming you are a good person, of course.
If you don't care about families or the human race -- if for some reason you despise human
happiness and support genocide -- then you will want to join Satan's team and embrace
isolationism, the single most immoral of all worldviews. That is what they're telling you. That
is what they are demanding you believe.
Message received. We've heard it before. But before the bombers take off, let's just answer
a few quick questions, starting with the most obvious: When was the last time we successfully
meddled in the political life of another country? Has it ever worked? How are the democracies
we set up in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, and Afghanistan right now? How would Venezuela be
different? Please explain -- and take your time.
Are we prepared for the refugees a Venezuelan war would inevitably produce? A study by the
Brookings Institution found that the collapse of the Venezuelan government could force eight
million people to leave the country. Many of them would come here. Lawmakers in this country
propose giving them temporary protected status that would let even illegal arrivals live and
work here, in effect, permanently, as many have before, with no fear of deportation. Are we
prepared for that?
Are we prepared to absorb millions of new Venezuelan migrants? All of them great people, no
question, But many would have little education or skills or would not speak English.
Finally, how, exactly, is any of this good for the United States? Our sanctions on Venezuela
have already spiked our gas prices. That hurts our struggling middle class more than virtually
anything we could do. So what's is the point of doing that? So our lawmakers can feel like good
people?
And if they are, indeed, good people, why do they care more about Venezuela than they care
about this country, the one that they run? They are happy to send our military to South America
at the first sign of chaos. But send U.S. troops to our own border to stem the tide of a
hundred thousand uninvited arrivals a month? "No way," they tell us. "That is crazy talk!"
"... Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization. Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies. ..."
The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens
the future of humanity. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East,
Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations
as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
America's hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist
organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms on indebted
countries as well the manipulation of financial markets, the engineered collapse of national currencies, the privatization of State
property, the imposition of economic sanctions, the triggering of inflation and black markets.
The economic dimensions of this military agenda must be clearly understood. War and Globalization are intimately related. These
military and intelligence operations are implemented alongside a process of economic and political destabilization targeting specific
countries in all major regions of World.
Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization.
Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which
consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies.
In turn, the demise of national sovereignty was also facilitated by the instatement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995,
evolving towards the global trading agreements (TTIP and TPP) which (if adopted) would essentially transfer state policy entirely
into the hands of corporations. In recent years, neoliberalism has extend its grip from the so-called developing countries to the
developed countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. Bankruptcy programs have been set in motion. Island, Portugal, Greece, Ireland,
etc, have been the target of sweeping austerity measures coupled with the privatization of key sectors of the national economy.
The global economic crisis is intimately related to America's hegemonic agenda. In the US and the EU, a spiralling defense budget
backlashes on the civilian sectors of economic activity. "War is Good for Business": the powerful financial groups which routinely
manipulate stock markets, currency and commodity markets, are also promoting the continuation and escalation of the Middle East war.
A worldwide process of impoverishment is an integral part of the New World Order agenda.
Beyond the Globalization of Poverty
Historically, impoverishment of large sectors of the World population has been engineered through the imposition of IMF-style macro-economic
reforms. Yet, in the course of the last 15 years, a new destructive phase has been set in motion. The World has moved beyond the
"globalization of poverty": countries are transformed in open territories,
State institutions collapse, schools and hospitals are closed down, the legal system disintegrates, borders are redefined, broad
sectors of economic activity including agriculture and manufacturing are precipitated into bankruptcy, all of which ultimately leads
to a process of social collapse, exclusion and destruction of human life including the outbreak of famines, the displacement of entire
populations (refugee crisis).
This "second stage" goes beyond the process of impoverishment instigated in the early 1980s by creditors and international financial
institutions. In this regard, mass poverty resulting from macro-economic reform sets the stage of a process of outright destruction
of human life.
In turn, under conditions of widespread unemployment, the costs of labor in developing countries has plummeted. The driving force
of the global economy is luxury consumption and the weapons industry.
The New World Order
Broadly speaking, the main corporate actors of the New World Order are
Wall Street and the Western banking conglomerates including its offshore money laundering facilities, tax havens, hedge funds
and secret accounts,
the Military Industrial Complex regrouping major "defense contractors", security and mercenary companies, intelligence outfits,
on contract to the Pentagon;
the Anglo-American Oil and Energy Giants,
The Biotech Conglomerates, which increasingly control agriculture and the food chain;
Big Pharma,
The Communication Giants and Media conglomerates, which constitute the propaganda arm of the New World Order.
There is of course overlap, between Big Pharma and the Weapons industry, the oil conglomerates and Wall Street, etc.
These various corporate entities interact with government bodies, international financial institutions, US intelligence. The state
structure has evolved towards what Peter Dale Scott calls the "Deep State", integrated by covert intelligence bodies, think tanks,
secret councils and consultative bodies, where important New World Order decisions are ultimately reached on behalf of powerful corporate
interests.
In turn, intelligence operatives increasingly permeate the United Nations including its specialized agencies, nongovernmental
organizations, trade unions, political parties.
What this means is that the executive and legislature constitute a smokescreen, a mechanism for providing political legitimacy
to decisions taken by the corporate establishment behind closed doors.
Media Propaganda
The corporate media, which constitutes the propaganda arm of the New World Order, has a long history whereby intelligence ops
oversee the news chain. In turn, the corporate media serves the useful purpose of obfuscating war crimes, of presenting a humanitarian
narrative which upholds the legitimacy of politicians in high office.
Acts of war and economic destabilization are granted legitimacy. War is presented as a peace-keeping undertaking.
Both the global economy as well as the political fabric of Western capitalism have become criminalized. The judicial apparatus
at a national level as well the various international human rights tribunals and criminal courts serve the useful function of upholding
the legitimacy of US-NATO led wars and human rights violations.
Destabilizing Competing Poles of Capitalist Development
There are of course significant divisions and capitalist rivalry within the corporate establishment. In the post Cold War era,
the US hegemonic project consists in destabilizing competing poles of capitalist development including China, Russia and Iran as
well as countries such as India, Brazil and Argentina.
In recent developments, the US has also exerted pressure on the capitalist structures of the member states of the European Union.
Washington exerts influence in the election of heads of State including Germany and France, which are increasingly aligned with Washington.
The monetary dimensions are crucial. The international financial system established under Bretton Woods prevails. The global financial
apparatus is dollarized. The powers of money creation are used as a mechanism to appropriate real economy assets. Speculative financial
trade has become an instrument of enrichment at the expense of the real economy. Excess corporate profits and multibillion dollar
speculative earnings (deposited in tax free corporate charities) are also recycled towards the corporate control of politicians,
civil society organizations, not to mention scientists and intellectuals. It's called corruption, co-optation, fraud.
Latin America: The Transition towards a "Democratic Dictatorship"
In Latin America, the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s have in large part been replaced by US proxy regimes, i.e.
a democratic dictatorship has been installed which ensures continuity. At the same time the ruling elites in Latin America have remoulded.
They have become increasingly integrated into the logic of global capitalism, requiring an acceptance of the US hegemonic project.
Macro-economic reform has been conducive to the impoverishment of the entire Latin America region.
In the course of the last 40 years, impoverishment has been triggered by hyperinflation, starting with the 1973 military coup
in Chile and the devastating reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s.
The implementation of these deadly economic reforms including sweeping privatization, trade deregulation, etc. is coordinated
in liaison with US intelligence ops, including the "Dirty war" and Operation Condor, the Contra insurrection in Nicaragua, etc.
The development of a new and privileged elite integrated into the structures of Western investment and consumerism has emerged.
Regime change has been launched against a number of Latin American countries.
Any attempt to introduce reforms which departs from the neoliberal consensus is the object of "dirty tricks" including acts of
infiltration, smear campaigns, political assassinations, interference in national elections and covert operations to foment social
divisions. This process inevitably requires corruption and cooptation at the highest levels of government as well as within the corporate
and financial establishment. In some countries of the region it hinges on the criminalization of the state, the legitimacy of money
laundering and the protection of the drug trade.
The above text is an English summary of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky's Presentation, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua,
May 17, 2016. This presentation took place following the granting of a Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities to Professor Chossudovsky
by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN)
"... Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization. Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies. ..."
The world is at a dangerous crossroads. The United States and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens
the future of humanity. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East,
Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The US-NATO military agenda combines both major theater operations
as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
America's hegemonic project is to destabilize and destroy countries through acts of war, covert operations in support of terrorist
organizations, regime change and economic warfare. The latter includes the imposition of deadly macro-economic reforms on indebted
countries as well the manipulation of financial markets, the engineered collapse of national currencies, the privatization of State
property, the imposition of economic sanctions, the triggering of inflation and black markets.
The economic dimensions of this military agenda must be clearly understood. War and Globalization are intimately related. These
military and intelligence operations are implemented alongside a process of economic and political destabilization targeting specific
countries in all major regions of World.
Neoliberalism is an integral part of this foreign policy agenda. It constitutes an all encompassing mechanism of economic destabilization.
Since the 1997 Asian crisis, the IMF-World Bank structural adjustment program (SAP) has evolved towards a broader framework which
consists in ultimately undermining national governments' ability to formulate and implement national economic and social policies.
In turn, the demise of national sovereignty was also facilitated by the instatement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995,
evolving towards the global trading agreements (TTIP and TPP) which (if adopted) would essentially transfer state policy entirely
into the hands of corporations. In recent years, neoliberalism has extend its grip from the so-called developing countries to the
developed countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. Bankruptcy programs have been set in motion. Island, Portugal, Greece, Ireland,
etc, have been the target of sweeping austerity measures coupled with the privatization of key sectors of the national economy.
The global economic crisis is intimately related to America's hegemonic agenda. In the US and the EU, a spiralling defense budget
backlashes on the civilian sectors of economic activity. "War is Good for Business": the powerful financial groups which routinely
manipulate stock markets, currency and commodity markets, are also promoting the continuation and escalation of the Middle East war.
A worldwide process of impoverishment is an integral part of the New World Order agenda.
Beyond the Globalization of Poverty
Historically, impoverishment of large sectors of the World population has been engineered through the imposition of IMF-style macro-economic
reforms. Yet, in the course of the last 15 years, a new destructive phase has been set in motion. The World has moved beyond the
"globalization of poverty": countries are transformed in open territories,
State institutions collapse, schools and hospitals are closed down, the legal system disintegrates, borders are redefined, broad
sectors of economic activity including agriculture and manufacturing are precipitated into bankruptcy, all of which ultimately leads
to a process of social collapse, exclusion and destruction of human life including the outbreak of famines, the displacement of entire
populations (refugee crisis).
This "second stage" goes beyond the process of impoverishment instigated in the early 1980s by creditors and international financial
institutions. In this regard, mass poverty resulting from macro-economic reform sets the stage of a process of outright destruction
of human life.
In turn, under conditions of widespread unemployment, the costs of labor in developing countries has plummeted. The driving force
of the global economy is luxury consumption and the weapons industry.
The New World Order
Broadly speaking, the main corporate actors of the New World Order are
Wall Street and the Western banking conglomerates including its offshore money laundering facilities, tax havens, hedge funds
and secret accounts,
the Military Industrial Complex regrouping major "defense contractors", security and mercenary companies, intelligence outfits,
on contract to the Pentagon;
the Anglo-American Oil and Energy Giants,
The Biotech Conglomerates, which increasingly control agriculture and the food chain;
Big Pharma,
The Communication Giants and Media conglomerates, which constitute the propaganda arm of the New World Order.
There is of course overlap, between Big Pharma and the Weapons industry, the oil conglomerates and Wall Street, etc.
These various corporate entities interact with government bodies, international financial institutions, US intelligence. The state
structure has evolved towards what Peter Dale Scott calls the "Deep State", integrated by covert intelligence bodies, think tanks,
secret councils and consultative bodies, where important New World Order decisions are ultimately reached on behalf of powerful corporate
interests.
In turn, intelligence operatives increasingly permeate the United Nations including its specialized agencies, nongovernmental
organizations, trade unions, political parties.
What this means is that the executive and legislature constitute a smokescreen, a mechanism for providing political legitimacy
to decisions taken by the corporate establishment behind closed doors.
Media Propaganda
The corporate media, which constitutes the propaganda arm of the New World Order, has a long history whereby intelligence ops
oversee the news chain. In turn, the corporate media serves the useful purpose of obfuscating war crimes, of presenting a humanitarian
narrative which upholds the legitimacy of politicians in high office.
Acts of war and economic destabilization are granted legitimacy. War is presented as a peace-keeping undertaking.
Both the global economy as well as the political fabric of Western capitalism have become criminalized. The judicial apparatus
at a national level as well the various international human rights tribunals and criminal courts serve the useful function of upholding
the legitimacy of US-NATO led wars and human rights violations.
Destabilizing Competing Poles of Capitalist Development
There are of course significant divisions and capitalist rivalry within the corporate establishment. In the post Cold War era,
the US hegemonic project consists in destabilizing competing poles of capitalist development including China, Russia and Iran as
well as countries such as India, Brazil and Argentina.
In recent developments, the US has also exerted pressure on the capitalist structures of the member states of the European Union.
Washington exerts influence in the election of heads of State including Germany and France, which are increasingly aligned with Washington.
The monetary dimensions are crucial. The international financial system established under Bretton Woods prevails. The global financial
apparatus is dollarized. The powers of money creation are used as a mechanism to appropriate real economy assets. Speculative financial
trade has become an instrument of enrichment at the expense of the real economy. Excess corporate profits and multibillion dollar
speculative earnings (deposited in tax free corporate charities) are also recycled towards the corporate control of politicians,
civil society organizations, not to mention scientists and intellectuals. It's called corruption, co-optation, fraud.
Latin America: The Transition towards a "Democratic Dictatorship"
In Latin America, the military dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s have in large part been replaced by US proxy regimes, i.e.
a democratic dictatorship has been installed which ensures continuity. At the same time the ruling elites in Latin America have remoulded.
They have become increasingly integrated into the logic of global capitalism, requiring an acceptance of the US hegemonic project.
Macro-economic reform has been conducive to the impoverishment of the entire Latin America region.
In the course of the last 40 years, impoverishment has been triggered by hyperinflation, starting with the 1973 military coup
in Chile and the devastating reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s.
The implementation of these deadly economic reforms including sweeping privatization, trade deregulation, etc. is coordinated
in liaison with US intelligence ops, including the "Dirty war" and Operation Condor, the Contra insurrection in Nicaragua, etc.
The development of a new and privileged elite integrated into the structures of Western investment and consumerism has emerged.
Regime change has been launched against a number of Latin American countries.
Any attempt to introduce reforms which departs from the neoliberal consensus is the object of "dirty tricks" including acts of
infiltration, smear campaigns, political assassinations, interference in national elections and covert operations to foment social
divisions. This process inevitably requires corruption and cooptation at the highest levels of government as well as within the corporate
and financial establishment. In some countries of the region it hinges on the criminalization of the state, the legitimacy of money
laundering and the protection of the drug trade.
The above text is an English summary of Prof. Michel Chossudovsky's Presentation, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua,
May 17, 2016. This presentation took place following the granting of a Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities to Professor Chossudovsky
by the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN)
Make no mistake, Russia's move to start handing out passports to Donetsk and Luhansk inhabitants is intimately linked to events
in Venezuela. And the fate of Ukraine rests on whether the US undertakes direct action vs Caracas or not.
The moment Bolton justified
possible invasion by the duty to protect US citizens in Venezuela was also the moment Moscow made the final decision to create
similar pretext for the dismantling of the Ukraine.
Russians had already proven their ability to take quick advantage of American
moves against its allies by taking symmetrical action against vulnerable vassals of Washington. Kosovo was reciprocated by Abkhazia
and South Ossetia. Takeover of Kiev - by severing of Crimea and Donbass. Invasion of Venezuela will inevitably result in Ukraine
losing all of Black Sea coast and becoming completely unviable. And unlike US Special Forces, Russian troops will actually be
greeted with flowers and genuine popular support in Kherson and Odessa.
"... Like Victoria Nuland in Ukraine, she represents women politician who feel empowered by their weak and stupid leader to destroy countries. She should be tried for war crimes once she looses her diplomatic immunity. ..."
"... Walter, it's simple; might is right. You don't fuck with the Empire. But hubris... ..."
Guaido should be left free to make more failed coups to ridicule himself and loose the little credibility he has left.
Christya Freeland the Canadian Trump worshipper should shut up once for all. Like Victoria
Nuland in Ukraine, she represents women politician who feel empowered by their weak and
stupid leader to destroy countries. She should be tried for war crimes once she looses her
diplomatic immunity.
"... If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works. ..."
Hope everyone saw Blitzer's interview with Pompeo! Pompeo stated that Maduro was getting
ready to leave for Cuba; as in FLEE!, and his plane was on the tarmac and Pompeo claimed THE
RUSSIANS TALKED HIM OUT OF IT! When asked whether the U.S. could guarantee Maduro safe
passage to Cuba; Pompeo EQUIVOCATED! This is CRAZY.
Bolton also answered questions from the press earlier and lies were coming out of both
sides of his mouth. Both Pompeo and Bolton refused to answer questions on details relating to U.S. involvement
at this time but there were veiled threats all over the place.
If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide
significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works.
The only similarity of this chapuza coup with "Bay of Pigs" event, is in the quality
of organizers, orchestrators and perpetrators of this new intend on coup in Venezuela,
outright fascist pigs...
Some out there, of course, are excited, since they have felt nostalgias from their times
at "Assault Brigades" and "Hunters Battalions".... Even though they try sometimes to disguise themselves as democrats and constitutionalists, it
is in these times when they show all the way their real colors.
To talk about alleged repressions by socialist governments from the US, when they are
currently oppressing every nation and peoples in the world who do not pledge to their
interests, is not like calling the kettle black, but worst, and exercise of projection of
Olympic size.
Are we seeing the end of Pompeo and Bolton approaching after the humiliating failure of the latest coup d'état? How long can
Trump endure looking like à fool with these two incompetent advisors.
Pompeo and Bolton have blown up the North Korea dialog initiated by Trump? With the Venezuela circus, Trump will probably terminate
their services .
"What absolute joy it is to picture the faces of the Three Stooges when they realized they had been snookered."
Life imitates art: Similar to the two comedians who snookered Abrams and then Macron.
Ha ha ha. The vanity of these marks is so predictable that a pair of comedians can take them in easily and get them to divulge
state secrets (there won't be a military invatins of Ven) on the phone! Same dynamic with Bolton & cie is pretty easy to imagine.
The guy is so full of himself and clueless---that kind of fool is easily taken in.
B, I fully agree with you that Guaido, and Pompeo, Bolton, Trump, etc., got snookered.
This, however, makes the situation all the more dangerous. People like these don't take public humiliation very well. Added
to the frustration of not being able to act at will in their own hemisphere, they are likely to be beside themselves with fury.
Perhaps this is why Trump struck out at Cuba with threats of a total blockade.
They will not give up on Venezuela, and given their level of frustration and humiliation, their next actions could be both
irrational and dangerous.
Make no mistake, Russia's move to start handing out passports to Donetsk and Luhansk inhabitants is intimately linked to events
in Venezuela. And the fate of Ukraine rests on whether the US undertakes direct action vs Caracas or not. The moment Bolton justified
possible invasion by the duty to protect US citizens in Venezuela was also the moment Moscow made the final decision to create
similar pretext for the dismantling of the Ukraine. Russians had already proven their ability to take quick advantage of American
moves against its allies by taking symmetrical action against vulnerable vassals of Washington. Kosovo was reciprocated by Abkhazia
and South Ossetia. Takeover of Kiev - by severing of Crimea and Donbass. Invasion of Venezuela will inevitably result in Ukraine
losing all of Black Sea coast and becoming completely unviable. And unlike US Special Forces, Russian troops will actually be
greeted with flowers and genuine popular support in Kherson and Odessa.
@Thulean
Friend The NYT cartoon showing a blind, yarmulked Trump being led by Nuttinyahoo should
have put Kushner's face on the seeing-eye dog instead.
Villains of the day: Random Guy, Pompeo, and nefarious band of willie, barovsky etc.
Pompeo is perhaps green with envy, why Boris Johnson should keep the mantle of the most
clownish top diplomat of a major state? He can do better! But once the tall tale was said, it
was duly echoed in supine media. NYT made a paragraph, and actually noted how Pompeo
explained his alleged knowledge of Maduro preparing for departure: >>Pressed about the
source of this information, Mr. Pompeo said it was drawn from "open-source material," and
conversations with "scores and scores of people on the ground," including members of the
military and opposition leaders. "He was headed for Havana," he said of Mr. Maduro.<<
The Guardian made a separate article on the topic, with no notes of caution, damn the
torpedoes, copy with full speed!
So "people on the ground" could have reliable, ha ha, info on the conversations between
Maduro and "Russians". "Scores of people" were interviewed, hm., seems that the wily Maduro
eschew a usual step of information blockade, letting the little golpistas -- and him -- look
silly. I actually do not believe in those "scores of interviews", Most generously, there were
that many conversations from which his people could "draw" a rumor prepared ahead of time,
probably by his own Department.
Finally, the nefarious long linkers. Is it really THAT hard to learn how to make neat
links this
one ? Join lines and remove all spaces from the text below
"... The Empire is not weak, this is poor analysis. India and Europe stopped buying Iranian oil. 1 billion $ of Iranian oil stays blocked in China, no one wants to touch it. Even Khamenei admitted that Europe left the JCPOA in practice. ..."
"... Iran is in deep recession. Venezuela is in deep recession and is surrounded. ..."
"... Iraq? US troops are staying there. Syria? US troops are staying there long term. 1 third of the country containing the biggest oil fields is under US control. There is fuel shortage crisis due to sanctions. Europe is not stopping its sanctions either. ..."
"The Empire only appears to be strong. In reality it is weak, confused, clueless"
The Empire is not weak, this is poor analysis. India and Europe stopped buying Iranian oil. 1 billion $ of Iranian oil stays blocked in
China, no one wants to touch it. Even Khamenei admitted that Europe left the JCPOA in
practice.
Iran is in deep recession. Venezuela is in deep recession and is surrounded. Almost
all of Latin America now has pro-US governments. CIA linked Bolsonaro took over in Brazil.
Turkey is in deep recession and Erdogan lost the big cities.
India is moving closer to the US. Europe remains a vassal. Russian economic growth is
weak. The US won the trade war against China as Andrei Martyanov himself admitted.
Iraq? US troops are staying there. Syria? US troops are staying there long term. 1 third
of the country containing the biggest oil fields is under US control. There is fuel shortage
crisis due to sanctions. Europe is not stopping its sanctions either.
There is no doubt that they will be weaker in the future, but they will fight hard to stop
this and gain time.
"... In fact, Trump gave the Democrats his theme for peace by 2020 ..."
"... If Sanders emerged as the nominee, we would have an election with a Democrat running with the catchphrase “no more wars” that Trump had promoted in 2016. Thus, Trump would be defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... None of the main candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination — Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker– seems as aggressive as Trump has become. ..."
"... Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, and re-imposed severe sanctions against the Iranians. He declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran a terrorist organization, to which Tehran responded with the same action against the U.S. Central Command. ..."
"... Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the consulate that was in charge of Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to Palestinians, recognized the annexation by Israel of the Golan Heights snatched from Syria in 1967 and kept silent about Netanyahu’s threat to annex the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. ..."
"The president has said he doesn't want to see this country wrapped up in endless wars and I agree with that," Bernie Sanders
said to the Fox News audience last week at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Then, looking directly at the camera, he added: "Mr. President,
tonight you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia must not determine the military
or foreign policy of this country."
Sanders was talking about a resolution on the War Powers Act that would put an end to U.S. involvement in the 5-year civil war
in Yemen. This war has created one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world of our time, with thousands of children dead in
the middle of a cholera epidemic and famine.
Supported by a Democratic Party united in Congress, and an anti-interventionist faction of the Republican Party headed by Senators
Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed both houses of Congress.
But 24 hours after Sanders urged the President to sign it, Trump vetoed the resolution, describing it as a "dangerous attempt
to undermine my constitutional authority."
According to journalist Buchanan J. Buchanan, “with enough Republican votes in both chambers to resist Trump’s veto, this could
have been the end of the matter; but it wasn’t. In fact, Trump gave the Democrats his theme for peace by 2020.”
If Sanders emerged as the nominee, we would have an election with a Democrat running with the catchphrase “no more wars” that
Trump had promoted in 2016. Thus, Trump would be defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman of Saudi Arabia.
In 2008, John McCain, hawk leader in the Senate, was defeated by the progressive Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who had won his
nomination by defeating the bellicose Hillary Clinton who had voted for authorizing the war in Iraq. In 2012, the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, who was much more aggressive than Obama in his approach to Russia lost.
However, in 2016, Trump presented himself as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war, an anti-interventionist,
and promising to get along with Russian Vladimir Putin and getting out of the Middle East wars.
None of the main candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination — Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg,
Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker– seems as aggressive as Trump has become.
Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, and re-imposed
severe sanctions against the Iranians. He declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran a terrorist organization, to which
Tehran responded with the same action against the U.S. Central Command.
Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the consulate that was in charge
of Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to Palestinians, recognized the annexation by Israel of the Golan Heights snatched from Syria
in 1967 and kept silent about Netanyahu’s threat to annex the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Trump has spoken of getting all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. However, they are still there.
Although Sanders supports Israel, he says he is looking for a two-state solution, and criticizes Netanyahu’s regime.
Trump came to power promising to get along with Moscow, but he sent Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced the US
withdrawal of the 1987 Treaty of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) subscribed by Ronald Reagan, who banned all ground-based
nuclear intermediate range missiles.
When Putin sent a hundred Russian soldiers to Venezuela to repair the S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged
in the recent blackouts, Trump provocatively ordered the Russians to “get out” of the Bolivarian and Chavista country. According
to Buchanan, the gravity center of U.S. policy is shifting towards Trump’s position in 2016. And the anti-interventionist wing of
the Republican Party is growing.
The anti-interventionist wing of the Republican Party together with the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party in Congress are
capable — as they were War Powers Act resolution on Yemen– to produce a new bipartisan majority.
Buchanan predicts that in the 2020 primaries, foreign policy will be in the center and the Democratic Party would have captured
the ground with the catchphrase “no more wars” that candidate Donald Trump exploited in 2016.
"... The opposition's hoped-for split in the military didn't emerge, a plane that the United States claimed was standing by to ferry Maduro into exile never took off and by nightfall one of the government's bravest opponents, who defied house arrest to join the insurrection, had quietly sought refuge with his family in a foreign embassy. ..."
"... Those that didn't take explicit positions nonetheless wrote articles blaming all or most of Venezuela's woes on Maduro and Chávez. Economics wiz Paul Krugman (New York Times, 1/29/19) gave his spiel: ..."
"... Hugo Chávez got into power because of rage against the nation's elite, but used the power badly. He seized the oil sector, which you only do if you can run it honestly and efficiently; instead, he turned it over to corrupt cronies, who degraded its performance. Then, when oil prices fell, his successor tried to cover the income gap by printing money. Hence the crisis. ..."
"... Note that Krugman failed to mention the 57 percent reduction in extreme poverty that followed Chávez's replacement of management of the state-owned oil industry ..."
"... The total failure of the coup is obvious when one looks at what happened to Leopoldo López, the mentor of Juan Guaidó. He was under house arrest for leading the violent demonstrations and deadly riots in 2014 ..."
"... The generals in the Pentagon will not like the rhetorical build-up at all. They will look at their maps and find that Venezuela is twice the size of Iraq and 30% larger than Afghanistan. ..."
"... It is unlikely that Trump wants to launch a war on Venezuela. He likely knows that it would not be a cake walk, and that it would be a severe risk for his reelection. But who knows what Bolton or Pompeo might tell him to get their way. They just got snookered by the Maduro government. Why would they not snooker Trump? ..."
gjohnsit on Wed, 05/01/2019 - 12:50pm Juan Guaido's U.S.-backed coup
failed pitifully yesterday.
He called it the moment for Venezuelans to reclaim their democracy once and for all. But as
the hours dragged on, opposition leader Juan Guaidó stood alone on a highway overpass
with the same small cadre of soldiers with whom he launched a bold effort to spark a military
uprising and settle Venezuela's agonizing power struggle...
The opposition's hoped-for split in the military didn't emerge, a plane that the United
States claimed was standing by to ferry Maduro into exile never took off and by nightfall one
of the government's bravest opponents, who defied house arrest to join the insurrection, had
quietly sought refuge with his family in a foreign embassy.
Guaido's mentor Leopoldo Lopez sought refuge in Chile's embassy in Caracas, while at least
25 pro-Juan Guaido troops asked Brazil for refuge.
President Nicolas Maduro is actually in a stronger position now than a week ago.
So does the U.S. give up this imperialist project?
Nope.
We simply take it to the next level. Juan Guaido must die .
He has been a kind of a hapless figure so far. He calls for mass protests and no one shows
up. I don't think he realizes right now that he is actually now worth more dead than alive
not only to the CIA, but also to his own opposition people. A shot in the crowd or something
like that to take Guaido out. It might shock you, Dr. Paul, but the CIA is pretty good at
this kind of things.
Juan Guaido probably only has days or weeks to live.
I wonder if he realizes the danger he is in?
It's unlikely
that the Trump Administration will wait long before putting a bullet in their CIA
puppet.
"The President has been crystal clear and incredibly consistent. Military action is possible.
If that's what's required, that's what the United States will do," Pompeo said on Fox
Business Network. "We're trying to do everything we can to avoid violence. We've asked all
the parties involved not to engage in the kind of activity. We'd prefer a peaceful transition
of government there, where Maduro leaves and a new election is held.
But the President has
made clear, in the event that there comes a moment -- and we'll all have to make decisions
about when that moment is -- and the President will have to ultimately make that decision. He
is prepared to do that if that's what's required."
@dfarrah
Thinks arresting Guaido triggers a US military invasion. Eric Prince is trying to put
together a mercenary force if the US troops don't go in.
calling for the same results that Pompous, Bolton, tRump etc. advocate, the 'liberals'
just use nicer language. (highlights are mine)
"...Francisco Rodríguez and Jeffrey D. Sachs (New York Times, 2/2/19) envision
similar efforts for a "peaceful and negotiated transition of power," and (Ro) Khanna made
sure to characterize Maduro as "an authoritarian leader who has presided over
unfair elections, failed economic policies, extrajudicial killings by police, food shortages
and cronyism with military leaders."
In other words, Maduro the Dictator must be overthrown -- but don't worry, the US would be
diplomatic about it.
Those that didn't take explicit positions nonetheless wrote articles blaming all or most
of Venezuela's woes on Maduro and Chávez. Economics wiz Paul Krugman (New York Times,
1/29/19) gave his spiel:
Hugo Chávez got into power because of rage against the nation's elite, but used the
power badly. He seized the oil sector, which you only do if you can run it honestly and
efficiently; instead, he turned it over to corrupt cronies, who degraded its performance.
Then, when oil prices fell, his successor tried to cover the income gap by printing money.
Hence the crisis.
Note that Krugman failed to mention the 57 percent reduction in extreme poverty that
followed Chávez's replacement of management of the state-owned oil industry (.
I picked the examples above from the article above but it would be a mistake to not point
out that this is about all of the media but the NY Tool really stands out, of course Wapoop
is never far behind.
However to not make this post too long I'll put up just two of the opening paragraphs and it
gets a lot better...
"A FAIR survey of US opinion journalism on Venezuela found no voices in elite corporate media
that opposed regime change in that country. Over a three-month period
(1/15/19–4/15/19), zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took
an anti–regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position. Not a single commentator on the
big three Sunday morning talkshows or PBS NewsHour came out against President Nicolás
Maduro stepping down from the Venezuelan government.
Of the 76 total articles, opinion videos or TV commentator segments that centered on or
gave more than passing attention to Venezuela, 54 (72 percent) expressed explicit support for
the Maduro administration's ouster. Eleven (14 percent) were ambiguous, but were only
classified as such for lack of explicit language. Reading between the lines, most of these
were clearly also pro–regime change. Another 11 (14 percent) took no position, but many
similarly offered ideological ammo for those in support.
@aliasalias a choice between corrupt socialists and corrupt capitalists. Yay.
So now I'm watching tv, and oh noes, some guy says that Caracas is a war zone! But all I
see is a bunch of people and some sort of smoke bombs going off. But no one yet is shooting.
People are throwing rocks at some military vehicles.
@aliasalias I'm also willing to bet he was perfectly fine with the US ordering its
client states in the Middle East to ramp up oil production to manipulate prices.
What I find particularly laughable is the fact that so many idiots on and offline think
Venezuela is socialist despite the fact that their economy is 70 percent private, or mixed,
like ours used to be before the capitalist pigs sold off the commons to the highest bidders
piece by god damn piece.
Liberals and conservatives are just 2 sides of the same fascist coin at this point.
Even after an effective multi-year economic embargo that's caused hyperinflation in
Venezuela, and despite a plague of Stuxnet-like viruses that took down most of the country's
electrical and communications grid, all the CIA has managed to do is make itself look
ineffectual at what really matters. Same in Iran.
All we really still do well is wreck stuff, cause starvation, and cut down the supply of
oil going to the world market.
The Agency doesn't really confuse and intimidate anyone, anymore, except The New York
Times.
Or is the American public missing the obvious? All I see from the folks advocating for a
coup in Venezuela is that
1) people are starving,
2) Maduro is a "dictator" (supported by
what evidence I don't know) and
3) something must be done. They have no evidence for the
counter argument that
4) they are comprador elites who want nothing more than
5) to get their
hands on PdVSA's oil after 6) their American sponsors take the lion's share and that
7) it's
perfectly obvious that, apart from the end of the US-led embargo, nothing is going to get any
better for the vast majority of Venezuelans if the comprador elites are allowed to take over
the country. This is because their methods are
9) at least as dictatorial as those they
accuse Maduro of employing. And then we have the undemocratic idea that
10) the United States
government should somehow have a "say" in who rules Venezuela, a proposition that appears to
have the open assent of most of the world's governments.
Generals promised him that they were with him, but they were not.
US failed again. And the world knows it.
The total failure of the coup is obvious when one looks at what happened to Leopoldo
López, the mentor of Juan Guaidó. He was under house arrest for leading the
violent demonstrations and deadly riots in 2014. Yesterday morning the guards let him go.
While the circumstances are not clear, the police chief responsible for the guards has been
fired. López promised his followers that he would go to the Miraflores Presidential
Palace. But he wasn't even able to leave eastern Caracas.
Yesterday evening López,
with his wife and daughter, fled into the Chilean embassy. They seem to have disliked the
accommodations. Two hours later they moved into the Spanish embassy.
While the embassy food
may be good, it will be a quite different life than in their own comfortable mansion. A few
of the soldiers who supported Guaidó took refuge in the Brazilian embassy.
Guaidó is still free.
The generals in the Pentagon will not like the rhetorical build-up at all. They will
look at their maps and find that Venezuela is twice the size of Iraq and 30% larger than
Afghanistan. It has impenetrable jungles, mountains and slums that even Venezuelan troops
do not dare to enter. It has a functioning army and halfway decent air defenses which were
recently upgraded by Russian specialists.
It is unlikely that Trump wants to launch a war on Venezuela. He likely knows that it
would not be a cake walk, and that it would be a severe risk for his reelection. But who
knows what Bolton or Pompeo might tell him to get their way. They just got snookered by the
Maduro government. Why would they not snooker Trump?
There are absolutely no vital U.S. interests at stake in Venezuela, and the Venezuelan government poses no threat to the United
States. There is no way under these circumstances that military action could be "required," so when Pompeo suggests that it could
happen we are clearly talking about a war of choice divorced from any U.S. security interests. It would be a war fought solely for
the purpose of achieving regime change, and the only reason why the U.S. would do that is to vindicate the Trump administration's
reckless blunder of taking sides in an internal political dispute. No Americans should die for the sake of Trump's ego or for the
ambitions of hawkish senators.
Attacking the Venezuelan government would be a terrible error and a violation of international law. It would be a calamity for
the people of Venezuela, who would bear many of the costs of turning their internal crisis into an international war, and it would
likely cause more displacement and increase the number of people fleeing the country in the short term. I suspect it would also be
a more difficult and costly war than most of us expect, and it would be a massive waste of U.S. resources and American lives in an
unjustified and unnecessary war. If all that isn't enough, an unauthorized Venezuelan war would also be completely illegal under
U.S. law. The American people have no appetite for a new war for regime change anywhere in the world, and there is not much support
for it even in Congress. If Trump tries to take the U.S. to war in Venezuela, he will be in clear violation of the Constitution and
should be impeached for it.
The thing I really don't understand about Venezuela here is why is this not China's problem while the US and Russia doing old
cold war dance here? They are in debt to their eyeballs here with them.
At this point, Bolton and Pompeo are doing everything to suck President Trump into the battle for Venezuela and we must be
not support military action. (I fear the talking heads at Fox News here.) Because it appears the people, or majority, of Venezuela
are generally tiring of Maduro government but they do not want US military assistance. (Note any truth the CIA dropped weapons
to the Guiadro forces? They do have US guns but this stuff get trade fairly easily without US government doing.)
If America goes to war in Venezuela, Trump loses my vote in 2020. If we don't get out of at least one more unnecessary war like
Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, etc, he's on thin ice. Getting OUT of foreign wars was one of his major campaign promises.
It seems that wars of opportunity are the only kind we engage in over the past few decades. If we don't have a war with either
Venezuela or Iran, I will be shocked and very relieved.
However, I am not optimistic. Our foreign policy seems to be completely controlled by NeoCons, arms merchants, and Saudi / Israeli
interests, with no honest benefits to our own nation's security or strategic interests.
Apologies to b, but today's Xymphora post really tickled my fancy.>
Bay of piglets, Tuesday, April 30, 2019
"Venezuelan coup attempt 'directly planned in Washington' – FM". Guido's cute little
coup-let. If you stage a coup and nobody notices as it is so half-assed, is it really a coup?
"Venezuela: Military Uprising in Caracas (in Development)".
"Venezuela - Bay of Pigs Redux?" (Lang).
Obviously, the government can no longer tolerate Guido's shenanigans, which have become a
public safety matter.
I look forward to the embassy video showing them skateboarding in their quarters. I don't,
however, believe any self-respecting cat will befriend either one of these tools.
Correction to 114 above. The Venezuela Analysis tweet linking to the Chile Today story
claiming that both Guaidó and López had taken refuge in the Chilean embassy has
been removed, and the story only claims that López is there. Miscommunication in a
rapidly developing situation? In any case, surely Guaidó is seeking refuge SOMEplace.
multiple sources are reporting similar information to telesur's update:
UPDATE: 3:11
pm Chile's Foreign Affairs Minister Roberto Ampuero confirmed that Venezuelan opposition
politician Leopoldo Lopez and his family requested asylum at the Chilean embassy in
Caracas.
"Lilian Tintori and her daughter entered as guests of our diplomatic mission in
Caracas. A few minutes ago her spouse, Leopoldo Lopez, joined his family in that place. Chile
reaffirms commitment with Venezuelan democrats," Minister Ampuero tweeted.
that seems that this iteration of the coup has fizzled. stay tuned for what comes
next.
The difference with EuroMaydan is that there is no distinct region of the country which supports the opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... US media will milk this to increase sanctions and economic blockade on the country. ..."
"... The show will go on produced and directed by US intelligence. They are using psychological warfare not only on Venezuelans but on American and European citizens. ..."
So called "coup" attempt was just a show for American and European audience consumption.
You can easily tell by watching the Western coverage the last couple of days(CNN, fox,
European news) and compare it to actual reality on the ground seen through interviews with
Venezuelans and social media videos.
US media will milk this to increase sanctions and economic blockade on the country.
It seems Guaido and even López were used as pawns in this scheme by US intelligence
and/,or Venezuelan and Russian intelligence. You can tell by looking at their faces on photos
taken that early morning and by the fact that López immediately ran to the Chilean
embassy. They knew they'd been duped and used as pawns.
The show will go on produced and directed by US intelligence. They are using psychological
warfare not only on Venezuelans but on American and European citizens.
Be aware US
intelligence is running the show they don't spend 100 billion in Intelligence to let an idiot
like Guaido run the show. Guaido is their dancing monkey. Watch the monkey dance. Dance
monkey! Dance!
Is Maduro put in Yanukovich situation by Washington. If so he is doomed...
Notable quotes:
"... Cue the snipers on rooftops. Not wishing for this, but that's what history suggests. Naturally, Maduro would then be blamed. ..."
"... The carnage was blamed on Yanukovich and the Berkut, but the actual killers were from the rebels. ..."
"... All that's needed are a few snipers killing some actually innocent protestors, and blame for the carnage would be pinned on Maduro. Like others in this blog, I think that Maduro should immediately arrest Guaido et al., and not allow the situation to progress further. He should be wary of repeating Yanukovich' mistake. ..."
"... That said, I agree with previous commenters that Guaidó and his clique have gone beyond seditious "baiting" and advocating violent rebellion to engaging in armed insurrection-- however staged and phony. ..."
"... My guess - the CIA want Guaido out of the way to start a serious run at Madura. Sacrifice Guaido and blame Madura (he'll be dead in a week I guess) ..."
Beware of snipers on the roof alla the Takism massacre in Turkey 1977 May Day with the Ecevit (leftist) gov't in power.
Of course Bengazi and Kiev come to mind as well.
Jackrabbit | Apr 30, 2019 12:00:05 PM | 37
Cue the snipers on rooftops. Not wishing for this, but that's what history suggests.
Naturally, Maduro would then be blamed.
Absolutely correct, Prince's mercs could not actually win territory and hold it. Their
attack would just be a "bloody their nose" sort of thing that American psychos are so fond
of. Basically Prince's attack dogs create chaos as long as they can get away with and when
the Venezuelan military begins a methodical counterattack they retreat to Colombia. Beyond
destabilizing the government somewhat I don't see what it could accomplish, though.
I think the concern raised by others is much more likely; that is snipers killing dozens
or hundreds of people celebrating May Day in such a way that the mass media can spin it as
the government's doing. Most Americans do not know what May Day is and will assume that any
Venezuelan crowds their TVs show them will be Random Guaido's faithful flock protesting
against Maduro. Guaranteed that's how the New York Langley Times will spin
it tomorrow. If mystery snipers (CIA death squads) shoot up the festival-goers it will not be
difficult to fool Americans into thinking that the mystery snipers are pro-Maduro forces
trying to kill a few Guaidog supporters for some reason.
What further suggests this possibility is that the US State Department's astroturf Twitter
army has been trying to force the meme that Random Guaido is actually a socialist and is more
left than Maduro. This is to seed the idea among people who actually do know what May Day is
about that Maduro would oppose May Day celebrations and thus reinforce the forced meme that
Maduro loyalists are responsible for tomorrow's sniper attacks.
Still, selling it to the gullible American public is one thing. It is another entirely to
fool the Venezuelans since many of them will be seeing this happen firsthand. If the
Venezuelan people don't buy that the government is behind the sniper attacks then they will
close up ranks around Maduro rather than throw their lot in with Guaidog's coup attempt.
@jayc (68) Are the coup planners and advisors smart or dumb? In one sense, they are smart,
because they can reason from some basic assumption and reach a conclusion that seemingly
flows from the rules of logic. OTOH, they are dumb, because the basic assumption from which
their reasoning begins is a steaming pile of crap. So, I vote for DUMB.
This is a very dangerous situation. Recall the leaked conversation between Cathering Ashton
and Umas Paet, indicating that Maidan sniping was coming from the hotel occupied by the
protestors.
The carnage was blamed on Yanukovich and the Berkut, but the actual killers were from the
rebels.
All that's needed are a few snipers killing some actually innocent protestors, and blame
for the carnage would be pinned on Maduro. Like others in this blog, I think that Maduro
should immediately arrest Guaido et al., and not allow the situation to progress further. He
should be wary of repeating Yanukovich' mistake.
This is just to further confirm that this stunt is being hyped by US mass-media as if it is
"the big one", i.e. that Guaidó and his "revolutionary" forces are practically
storming the presidential palace.
I listen to the local all-news radio station at the top of the hour. It's a reliable
indicator of the tune du jour being played on the mass-media Mighty Wurlitzer.
This morning, as noted, it was the "top story"-- and presented as if the long-anticipated
nation-wide coup was raging. Despite the usual overwrought sensationalism, I suspected that
there was less than met the ear: this local station didn't throw over to their parent network
for a Special Report, as it typically would if the conflict had actually escalated into open
rebellion.
"Special Report" mode is announced with dramatic theme music, and Team Coverage featuring
the Usual Suspect celebrity network correspondents and a gaggle of house "experts".
So I correctly concluded that despite the breathless tone, this was much ado about
little. ____________________________________________________
That said, I agree with previous commenters that Guaidó and his clique have gone
beyond seditious "baiting" and advocating violent rebellion to engaging in armed
insurrection-- however staged and phony.
It seems to have intentionally crossed a line to
further test the Maduro government's patience and resolve.
I'm not one of those who finds fault with embattled statesmen for refusing to act
precipitously in response to obvious provocations. Maduro and loyal Venezuelans know
perfectly well that even a reasonable response to blatant illegal and illicit provocations
may be used by the golpistas (which includes the US/Western sponsors and enablers) as
a pretext for foreign intervention.
But the prudent policy of tolerance and forbearance cannot continue indefinitely in the
face of outright treasonous provocations, since this will eventually be perceived as the
government turning a blind eye, or winking at, the rule of law upon which it relies for
legitimacy.
It's a difficult dilemma.
William Gruff | Apr 30, 2019 3:25:23 PM | 93
psychohistorian @87 said
"...with very few shots being fired."
This is an important point. The Russians and Chinese seem to have the psycho empire psychoanalyzed and are offering good
guidance to Venezuela, assuming Venezuelans themselves are not also clued into how the psycho empire works.
In essence, America needs a pretext to attack. Americans need to maintain the delusion that they are the victims, and that
it was their victims who forced America to attack against America's bogus peace-loving will.
The pretext doesn't need to be very convincing, but it needs to exist. For this reason it could be wiser to just leave
Random Guaido alone, but arrest and court martial the military personnel who took part in this little stunt. Lopez should also
be re-arrested and tried for violating the terms of his detention.
This arresting should be done by regular police for Lopez and military police for the military personnel who violated the
chain of command. No shooting or even guns drawn. Just calmly take them into custody and let the legal process work on them.
NOBTS | Apr 30, 2019 3:34:39 PM | 96
Now that CIA poster boy Leopoldo is available to take charge Juan Doe is prime sniper fodder!
The Unconventional Warfare Manual sets out the techniques of subversion the US uses in targeting nation states
that don't toe the line.
Although the document is of recent date, the policy has clearly existed for a long time.
Based on Church Committee hearings, it has been estimated that the US has carried out tens of thousands of covert
operations since WW2.
Guaido is just an opportunity for Bolton to stir up trouble.
He has never been part of a CIA long term regime change plan. If he was then his wikipedia page would not have been
created just 2 weeks before Trump recognised him as President (or at least it would have been manipulated to appear a lot
older).
And he would have been mentioned in WaPo a hundred times in the last 2 years instead of only a week before Trump
recognition.
My guess - the CIA want Guaido out of the way to start a serious run at Madura. Sacrifice Guaido and blame Madura
(he'll be dead in a week I guess).
"... it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies? ..."
"... It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave markets? ..."
"... Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason? ..."
Please refrain in using the term "democracy" so easily. US is a republic with the surface of
elected representative system, and we know exactly how that works. See the election of Truman
as VP instead of Wallace in 1944 or so or very recently the election of Hillary Clinton as
democratic representative.
A true democracy is done via a sortition system that selects randomly from the roster of
eligible citizens to represent the will of the people.
Imagine that in the Second Amendment instead of "A well regulated Militia, being necessary
to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed" we would have: "A well educated Citizenry, being necessary to the security and
well-being of a free, moral, and ethically sound State, the right of the people to get a
sound Education in Philosophy, Ethics, Civics, Logic, Finance, and Health, shall not be
infringed".
it was Russia that attacked Iraq on the basis of lies?
It is China that is gleefully assisting the Saudi tyrants to commit genocide?
It must have been Russia that turned Libya into a failed state, complete with slave
markets?
Is China now that is frantically threatening war on Iran?
Russia must have been responsible for supporting jihadists to turn Syria into another failed
state, right?
For that matter, is it Russia and China that are threatening war on the elected and UN
recognized government of Venezuela?
Seriously, after America's long and bloody track record of failed and bloody
interventions, it baffles me that anyone could say something so ridiculous.
" fearmongering about the "Yankee" empire to the north."
What, this isn't justified?
Instead of spinning fantasies about Maduro going into exile or being overthrown by some
kind of joint (and illegal) Latin American task force, how's about we consider the very
reasonable idea of Guaidó being arrested and tried for treason?
Guaidó seems to have neither a base nor large scale military support nor access
to significant military equipment. If that does not change this coup attempt is likely to
fail within a few hours.
We may have jumped the shark in to the realm of the monthly
coup attempt. Mostly a media event to see if they can get a buy-in. Didn't work? Not to
worry we will try again next month!
Can you imagine a force of 5000 or so mercs staging a combat assault on a large and
reasonably well armed country?
If it didn't involve so much killing and dying it would be amusing to watch the "private
army" get pinned down and butchered.
Seriously without air cover it would turn into bloody squalor. Meanwhile Russia and
perhaps China are likely providing signal intel fo the Venezuelan military and keeping a
close eye on what the gringoes are up to. Much like the RAND document on destabilizing
other nations it will probably be a slow bleed by sabotage and scarcity.
I can't see either Guaido, the US, or any other of the coup fomentors ceasing their
attempts until they've achieved some kind of result. Guaido running around, and I can see
the rationale behind allowing him to do so, is an ongoing problem. Too much is at stake for
the powerful interests to let go of any of their global plans. People everywhere do not
really matter all that much.
Looks like the Neo-Cons just replied with their unavoidable escalation, this smacks of
desperation. I wouldn't be surprised if Abrams told Random Guy to announce a coup and even
if it fails the US will protect him or use it as an excuse to invade. Once this coup fails
Maduro should stick both of these traitors in a "real" prison and see if that loosens their
tongues a bit, neither of these fools have experienced real hardship so just taking away
their sliver spoons and private aircraft would convince them to rat out their fellow
traitors
While everyone is aware of the existence of fake news, we are less aware of how
editorial conflicts of interest can be used to sway public opinion, particularly in the
case of a highly influential and widely read newspaper like the New York Times.
Harvard Law School
Barack Obama, an alumni of Harvard Law School, was the United States President who ordered
the destruction of Africa's richest, most literate and developed country, Libya, and
reduced that country to rubble and a state of lawlessness. Thousands died.
The sovereign wealth fund of the oil rich country has disappeared without trace. Libya's
premier medical facilities that were the envy of it's continent and it's neighbours in the
Middle East have been destroyed, precisely at the time that it's citizens required them.
Many of the doctors, nurses and ancillary staff, as highly trained as their counterparts in
Europe, have also disappeared without trace, many presumed drowned in the waters of the
Mediterranean trying to flee to save their lives. Libya is now the poorest state in Africa.
The leader who had united it and raised the infrastructural standards to be on a par with
the first world, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, never had his day in a court of any description,
he was beaten, tortured and sodomised with a knife, before being murdered on the blood
soaked streets by a mob.
We have to wonder what it is that they are teaching at the Harvard Law School? In the
1980's the tiny countries of Central America, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua suffered
from their own brutal civil wars. Extreme, right wing governments and militias were either
trying to hold onto power or to seize it for themselves from the impoverished indigenous
citizenries who sought democracy and guarantees of their fundamental civil and human
rights. The United States sent in Elliot Abrams, now to be found lurking in the jungles of
Venezuela, to support the fascistic regimes in the brutal battle against their own
civilians. Mr Abrams was another product of the esteemed Harvard Law School. By the end of
his time there, hundreds of thousands of some of the world's poorest people and been
murdered, their bodies tossed into mass graves if they were lucky. There was no rule of
law, in spite of the fact that there were constitutions and courts, judges and the concept
of jurisprudence.
The current Secretary of State of the United States, Mr Mike Pompeo, recently addressed
an audience of American students and told them that his former department, the Central
Intelligence Agency, of which he was the Director from 2017 until 2018, routinely "lied,
cheated and stole" as and when it suited or the occasion demanded. Mike Pompeo is another
American official who studied at and graduated from the Harvard Law School.
This Massachusetts institution has had scores of it's students graduate and pass
through, onwards and upwards into positions of authority in the halls of power. It is
difficult to see what ethical foundations were laid down in those formative years of
studying the law in the seminars of that Cambridge campus. Three alumni of Harvard Law
School who have recently served and continue to serve in some of the highest offices of the
United States, have done irreparable damage to a number of countries and have done so by
breaking every international law that existed to protect them. They did this
unapologetically, in order, as Secretary of State Pompeo admitted in a rare moment of
candour, to "cheat and steal" from defenceless nation states and their helpless
populations.
Perhaps Harvard Law School is not the best place to send one's kids to learn about
ethics, democracy and the rule of law.
Couldn't help noticing that Guyaido looks like a frightened little bunny which just soiled
its underwear or is about to. Lopez seems to be in a similar state of near-panic. I don't
know why the govt doesn't just disappear them. They could be stuffed and embalmed and put
on display in the National Museum as a reminder that abject stupidity isn't a virtue in
Venezuela.
OK, both Random Guy and Lopez are openly committing armed insurrection and high treason.
Now is the time to arrest both, try in the courts (public and televised) for high treason.
Unlimited military force (as required) is fully justified in making the arrests. Not to do
so is appeasing the criminal actions of a foreign force attempting to use violence to usurp
the legitimate and democratically elected government of a sovereign state.
Until now there have been legitimate strategic grounds for holding off from arresting
Random Guy. No longer. They must be crushed with the full force of the law backed by
military power if necessary, and immediately prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Limit the prosecution in the first instance to Random Guy and Lopez, and to High Treason
and military insurrection. All other charges and defendents can be tried later in a
separate trial, but these two need a straightforward and legally watertight conviction as
quickly as possible, so that there is then no rotting carcase of ambiguity left.
Trump won't be gaining any "wave" from attacking Venezuela. In fact, it stands to alienate
a large part of his base and energize the meekly antiwar Democrats.
It might be moot since it looks like this putsch has failed to get more support, and if
so Guadó will spend the next months in a cage.
Maduro didn't arrest random guy to deny the US an excuse to invade. The US was bluffing I
think but simply ignoring random dudecwas wise at that point.
But things have changed now. Lopez and Guaidó must be arrested and tried now.
Failure to do so would encourage additional coups.
This does indeed smack of desperation as a previous poster observed.
Remember the (if I remember correctly) supposed 1800+ Venezuelan soldiers being kept in
hotels in Cucuta, Colombia across the border? This and the white house rejection of the
Prince scheme show that some combination of the US, the Colombians, and Guaidó's
people have had little faith in the route of using that as the core of a contra force. Now
they might have to.
As for our boy Juan, presidente encargado, unless something drastic happens very soon,
he'll be wishing for some black helicopters to show up and pluck him off that bridge.
Unless, of course, being arrested is the plan. This may be a case of believing your own
propaganda - the opposition claims it's 90% of Venezuela. Maybe Guaidó truly
believed all he needed to do was orchestrate something like Prince's "dynamic" event and
the army would rally to Altamira with the masses in tow.
About a month ago, when his motorcade went outside of his east Caracas haunts and got
pelted by rocks, you had all the internet trolls denouncing it as staged.
You see, there are mafialike Chavista bosses, Cubans all, forcing the barrios to act
like they hate their beloved interim president. Maybe instead of taking the hint and
changing strategy, Juan believed his own spin.
Or maybe he did take the hint, and figures the struggle against Cuban oppression is
better waged from the dock than the streets, where he can force action from his allies and
supporters by claiming abuse. Time will tell.
The US media is really talking up this latest coup attempt by random guy, but I still don't
see the meat on it. successful coups are fast moving and depend on quickly seizing key
targets like media centers, power generators and most importantly of all seizing high value
government officials. Currently, it looks like Random Guy just found some more random guys
to stand around him and pose while he declares a coup. so this looks doomed to failure
within a few more hours (6-8), what really matters is what does the US do once it fails,
realistically, there aren't anymore sanctions they can put on Venezuela and Colombia has
made it clear they won't send their own army in to fight the US's war.
That basically leaves just Erik Prince's planned mercenary army or a direct US invasion,
previously Prince's plan had faced a lot of opposition so it is interesting that this
failure of a coup is launched right now. If Trump was ever serious about not starting
anymore stupid wars (and thus won't invade Venezuela before the 2020 elections) I imagine
he'll now be more supportive of the idea of loaning money to Random Guy's backers so that
they can buy Erik Prince's mercenaries and use them. Even if they use Prince's troops I
doubt that they will succeed, Prince's mercenaries might be good at massacring civilians,
but Venezuela has a massive civilian militia made up of the poorest citizens they will know
right away what Random Guy's mercenaries will do to them and their families if their coup
succeeds. So they will fight very, very hard. This could setup another Bay of Pigs type
situation for the US and their mercenaries.
Trump will be lied to by CIA and NSC and State, so if he okays this or really wants
this, it does not matter. He was couped and the Deep State uses him. He's happy being
POTUS. That is all that matters to Trump.
The uprising will depend on hundreds of thousands in the streets, not several
thousand.
The goal is hundreds of dead protesters.
Maduro has to snatch Guaido and put him on trial.
Looks like they are massing the people successfully.
The question for the moment is will the US agents and officers on the ground turn this
into a Venezuelan Tiananmen 2. They certainly know how.
Imagine trying to overthrow your elected government at the behest of John Bolton?
If anyone in the United States pulled a stunt like this - and, remember, the US is
packed with armed extremist loons like militias and survivalists and Aryan churches - they
would be stormed with federal agents and soldiers and either dragged away to prison in
chains or shot.
I am not exaggerating in the least. He would be charged with treason, and I think we all
know, from our memories of how the United States has treated prisoners at Guantanamo what
kind of treatment he would receive in prison for treason.
But the same United States not only thinks this is just fine to do in another country,
they encourage it.
Simply the most lawless of all advanced nations, that's America. Utter contempt for rule
of law and blind belief that American laws should overrule everything else everywhere.
So, what is Canada's Foreign Minister, Ms Chrystia Freeland - someone who has shamed
Canada with her fervent support for Washington's illegal activities in Venezuela - doing
today to assist Bolton and his unelected, self-appointed "president?"
If I were a Russian or Chinese strategist, I would be salivating at the thought of the US
willfully creating another Vietnam right on its own doorstep and throwing the only
Continent connected to it by a landbridge into complete upheaval and stark class warfare.
Class-based Civil War could easily spread to Brazil, Colombia, and beyond, throwing the
lives of hundreds of millions of people into upheaval, all on Uncle Sam's dollar.
After the failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and the Ukraine, the several
million Latino refugees and the expenditure of another 6 trillion or so over the next
decade should be enough to throw the US itself into Civil War and Coup territory and finish
off its hegemony over EurAsia for good.
Don't give Maduro too much aid just yet. Sucker the US to commit its hand and go in,
then, as elsewhere, give just enough aid to keep the US in perpetual zugzwang as it slowly
bleeds itself to death.
Austerity and War for the Americas, OBOR and peaceful development for EurAsia.
"Maduro has to snatch Guaido and put him on trial."
This might be exactly what the U.S. wants Maduro to do. The arrest and/or imprisonment
of Guaido by the "repressive regime" could be the pretext for a sudden "popular uprising"
to which the "Venezuelan State" (ie. CIA operatives and hired assassins) responds
"violently." A small gathering in any city square suddenly disrupted by the gunfire death
of a dozen or so innocents--all miraculously captured "live" on cell-phone video and
streamed direct to social media--is all that it would take to give the US sufficient
domestic support for any further action. I suspect this action would not take the form of
direct US military action but rather the freeing of Erik Prince and his mercenaries upon
the dirty brown socialist peasants.
Maduro surely has anticipated that his arrest of Guaido is likely to play into US hands.
Guaido may be too stupid to know he is being used as live bait, or he may be simply being
coerced by his handlers to undertake increasingly reckless actions until Maduro bites.
I think the best thing Maduro might do would be to arrange for a public meetin and
reconciliation between him and Guaido away from his U.S. handlers. The US is not expecting
that and would then have to explain why they are opposed to the peaceable reconciliation of
the conflict. If Guaido feels he has become disposable to the US, he may not be
disagreeable to some kind of pardon and face-saving but largely superficial compromise.
The Rovian dictat We make our own reality (mutter it in growling mafia accent) is
shredded to confetti, or almost.
Look at Ukraine, a comedian who acts the part of a nobody guy propelled to a
presidential position in a TV show, is elected as president in RL!
Coluche was a French comedian who stood for president, 1980. Polls showed 16 to 25% of
the vote. (He was supported by Charlie Hebdo.. them again..)
His manager was murdered and Coluche withdrew.
He was then himself killed (1985) in mysterious, highly suspicious, circumstances. Won
awards for Best Actor and died because.. a truck..
Beppe Grillo is another comedian who created a Pol Party, the 5 Star, Cinque Stelle,
party in Italy (with another guy.) Grillo could not be elected, by law, because he has a
conviction on his blotter, for manslaughter.
Random Guy-do is within this landscape a feeble contender - a clown who pretends to be
serious! He has no acting credentials, nada. No self proclamation presence. A confused,
hapless, manipulated placeholder.
No way that is going to end well. For him. Maybe night - school acting classes? Ouch..
Idk. Operation Freedom, anyone who takes that on is pushed offstage..
Better to be a real clown! One can live on (Grillo) or die an honorable death
(Coluche)!
Venezuela's FM is wisely playing down the guilt of the thirty or so military personnel
involved in the coup. Such personnel were first described as likely deceived or misled by
Guaido and now the FM is explicitly claiming plan and execution of coup came from
Washington. The military personnel were not involved in its planning and so can be treated
mercifully. (Who knows if some of them weren't blackmailed to join in? We are dealing with
the CIA after all.)
MediaLens has this story today:
"A new report on April 25 by a respected think tank has estimated that US sanctions imposed
on Venezuela in August 2017 have caused around 40,000 deaths."
The question for Canadians is whether Freeland and Trudeau are ready to take ownership for,
say, 5,000 of those deaths..and counting. Toss them in with the thousands killed thanks to
Canadian assistance in Ukraine and a share of the daily carnage in Yemen and the bloody
nature of the Ottawa cabal begins to become clear.
According to reports, a group from Venezuela's Sebin intelligence service freed Leopoldo
Lopez from house arrest early Tuesday morning.
Lopez and Guaido could have been set up in a stunning black op. Get Lopez and Guaido to
come out openly and claim they're running a coup which is treason. If they stayed out of
jail previously will they stay out of jail now? Probably not.
BTW, it's interesting that today's events are being called a coup. The coupist, Guaid
and Lopez, have maintained the fiction that Guaido is president of Venezuela so in their
narrative, how can this be a coup implying they're the usurpers. Surely it should be a
counter-coup, which it obviously isn't so someone has fucked up big time. Perhaps John
Bolton and/or Elliott Abrams as they're both stupid and arrogant enough to do so.
Now, finally, after letting the clown run around creating a lot of noise, now that they
tried a hapless attempt at a military uprising will the government of Venezuela arrest,
imprison, and put on trial for treason the moron Guaido and the idiot Lopez?
Christian J Chuba , Apr 30, 2019 1:38:40 PM |
link
Where is the money we stole from Venezuela?
We keep hearing the Neocons saying that Maduro and his 'thugs' are thieves and robbing
the 'Venezuelan people'. The Administration has stolen many of their assets like Citgo and
given them to Guaido.
So where is that money, his bank account? I'd love to hear someone in the MSM ask Pompeo
that question.
Despite the sanctions, the Lima Group, the OAS, and the relentless public relations stunts,
all the self-declared "government" has to show for itself is thirty recruits standing on a
bridge. That's a poor result. Maybe all the smart think-tank people who dreamed up the
Guaido charade aren't actually so smart, or place too much faith in PR optics as opposed to
actual politics. The lack of smarts certainly characterizes the Venezuelan opposition - who
would want these people to be in charge of anything?
Credit to Mexico for retaining clearly articulated principles, as displayed at OAS
recently.
to steve keith # 7 and anitspin # 12 - School of International Atrocities is just right.
Remember Haaahvaaad gave us napalm which was field tested in North Korea, along with other
such treats as Larry "Garbagemen" Summers, and MacGeorge "Green Ford Foundation" Bundy. "
Fight fiercely Harvard, do...." ah yes, and Geo "Is Our Children Learning" Bushboy.
Wonderful.
"... Like Victoria Nuland in Ukraine, she represents women politician who feel empowered by their weak and stupid leader to destroy countries. She should be tried for war crimes once she looses her diplomatic immunity. ..."
"... Walter, it's simple; might is right. You don't fuck with the Empire. But hubris... ..."
Guaido should be left free to make more failed coups to ridicule himself and loose the little credibility he has left.
Christya Freeland the Canadian Trump worshipper should shut up once for all. Like Victoria
Nuland in Ukraine, she represents women politician who feel empowered by their weak and
stupid leader to destroy countries. She should be tried for war crimes once she looses her
diplomatic immunity.
@Thulean
Friend The NYT cartoon showing a blind, yarmulked Trump being led by Nuttinyahoo should
have put Kushner's face on the seeing-eye dog instead.
Are we seeing the end of Pompeo and Bolton approaching after the humiliating failure of the latest coup d'état? How long can
Trump endure looking like à fool with these two incompetent advisors.
Pompeo and Bolton have blown up the North Korea dialog initiated by Trump? With the Venezuela circus, Trump will probably terminate
their services .
"What absolute joy it is to picture the faces of the Three Stooges when they realized they had been snookered."
Life imitates art: Similar to the two comedians who snookered Abrams and then Macron.
Ha ha ha. The vanity of these marks is so predictable that a pair of comedians can take them in easily and get them to divulge
state secrets (there won't be a military invatins of Ven) on the phone! Same dynamic with Bolton & cie is pretty easy to imagine.
The guy is so full of himself and clueless---that kind of fool is easily taken in.
B, I fully agree with you that Guaido, and Pompeo, Bolton, Trump, etc., got snookered.
This, however, makes the situation all the more dangerous. People like these don't take public humiliation very well. Added
to the frustration of not being able to act at will in their own hemisphere, they are likely to be beside themselves with fury.
Perhaps this is why Trump struck out at Cuba with threats of a total blockade.
They will not give up on Venezuela, and given their level of frustration and humiliation, their next actions could be both
irrational and dangerous.
Make no mistake, Russia's move to start handing out passports to Donetsk and Luhansk inhabitants is intimately linked to events
in Venezuela. And the fate of Ukraine rests on whether the US undertakes direct action vs Caracas or not. The moment Bolton justified
possible invasion by the duty to protect US citizens in Venezuela was also the moment Moscow made the final decision to create
similar pretext for the dismantling of the Ukraine. Russians had already proven their ability to take quick advantage of American
moves against its allies by taking symmetrical action against vulnerable vassals of Washington. Kosovo was reciprocated by Abkhazia
and South Ossetia. Takeover of Kiev - by severing of Crimea and Donbass. Invasion of Venezuela will inevitably result in Ukraine
losing all of Black Sea coast and becoming completely unviable. And unlike US Special Forces, Russian troops will actually be
greeted with flowers and genuine popular support in Kherson and Odessa.
"... If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works. ..."
Hope everyone saw Blitzer's interview with Pompeo! Pompeo stated that Maduro was getting
ready to leave for Cuba; as in FLEE!, and his plane was on the tarmac and Pompeo claimed THE
RUSSIANS TALKED HIM OUT OF IT! When asked whether the U.S. could guarantee Maduro safe
passage to Cuba; Pompeo EQUIVOCATED! This is CRAZY.
Bolton also answered questions from the press earlier and lies were coming out of both
sides of his mouth. Both Pompeo and Bolton refused to answer questions on details relating to U.S. involvement
at this time but there were veiled threats all over the place.
If Maduro doesn't have iron-clad intelligence, then the Russians better provide
significant help in this regard, because I sense heavy black ops (CIA) in the works.
The only similarity of this chapuza coup with "Bay of Pigs" event, is in the quality
of organizers, orchestrators and perpetrators of this new intend on coup in Venezuela,
outright fascist pigs...
Some out there, of course, are excited, since they have felt nostalgias from their times
at "Assault Brigades" and "Hunters Battalions".... Even though they try sometimes to disguise themselves as democrats and constitutionalists, it
is in these times when they show all the way their real colors.
To talk about alleged repressions by socialist governments from the US, when they are
currently oppressing every nation and peoples in the world who do not pledge to their
interests, is not like calling the kettle black, but worst, and exercise of projection of
Olympic size.
Photograph Source: US State Department – Public Domain
If you're in the market for a troika of tyranny, Donald Trump, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo
certainly fit the bill. Or, if you'd rather focus on countries not individuals, you might
single out Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt as the three most likely
candidates. Perhaps, if you're in a confessional mood, how about Christian fundamentalism,
Jewish extremism, and Salafist Wahhabism?
A troika, for those who haven't read any 19th-century Russian novels recently, is a carriage
drawn by three horses. So, the ultimate troika of tyranny, from the point of view of the planet
as a whole, would feature the three horsemen of the ongoing apocalypse: climate change, nuclear
proliferation, and global pandemic.
But no, that's not what National Security Advisor John Bolton had in mind when he talked
last week of a "troika of tyranny." In a rehash of a speech he gave
in November in Miami , Bolton declared
last week that the "troika of tyranny -- Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua -- is beginning to
crumble." Further laying on the insults, Bolton called Cuba's Miguel Díaz-Canel,
Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega "the three stooges of
socialism."
Ever since George W. Bush included Iraq, Iran, and North Korea in an "axis of evil,"
speechmakers have been in search of the holy grail of geopolitical matchmaking (for instance,
Condoleezza Rice's "outposts of tyranny").
Bush's phrase, which proved so enduring, was an extraordinarily flawed piece of work. The
three countries he grouped together had little to no relationship at the time. Iraq and Iran
had fought a nearly decade-long war that left them bitter regional rivals. North Korea, which
has no ideological affinity to either country, was probably included in the list so that it
didn't appear anti-Islamic. This particular axis didn't have a leg to stand on.
Bolton's more alliterative phrase suffers from the same conceptual problems. Worse, it
revives an anti-Communist crusade that could easily expand to include North Korea, China, and
any left-leaning country (New Zealand?) that makes the mistake of looking at Bolton funny.
A New Monroe Doctrine?
Trump understands the world in terms of three types of leaders. There are the autocrats he
like. There are the autocrats he doesn't like. And then there are all the rest: the democrats
he doesn't respect.
Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel is one of those autocrats that Trump doesn't like.
It's not Díaz-Canel's ideology that rubs the American president the wrong way. After
all, Trump has no problem praising China's Xi Jinping or falling in love with North Korea's Kim
Jong Un. Rather, Cuba made the unpardonable error of negotiating a détente with Trump's
predecessor, Barack Obama. So, by the logic of the Trump administration, Cuba is guilty by
association.
Over the last two-plus years, Trump has rolled back the elements of the agreements that the
Obama administration negotiated with Cuba that culminated in diplomatic recognition in July
2015. The Trump administration has restricted travel to the country, the amount of money that
Cubans in America can remit to their families back home, and the deals that U.S. businesses can
negotiate with Cuban counterparts. Also, the administration will now allow U.S. entities to
file lawsuits against foreign companies operating on property appropriated by the state after
the 1959 revolution.
The Obama policy was all about nudging Cuba in a particular direction. More people-to-people
contact would increase the free flow of information. More business deals would encourage the
growth of market activities. Meanwhile, unrestricted remittances would help Cubans deal with
the myriad difficulties of everyday life.
The Trump administration isn't interested in nudging Cuba in a particular direction. Its
punitive measures are designed to encourage regime change, pure and simple. The decision to
allow lawsuits to go forward is aimed at scaring off European investors in particular who've
been operating in Cuba despite decades of U.S. sanctions and embargo. In response, Spain
wants the
EU to challenge the new U.S. policy at the World Trade Organization.
Bolton never liked Cuba. When he was undersecretary of state for arms control in the George
W. Bush administration, Bolton
accused the country of making biological weapons. This accusation came only two months
after Bush had inaugurated the "axis of evil," and Bolton was eager to shoehorn Cuba into the
new group. But his efforts to designate the Caribbean island a "terrorist threat" -- and
prepare the ground for yet another U.S. invasion -- foundered when a congressional
investigation
turned up no evidence of a biological weapons program in the country.
Now Bolton is excited to have a second chance to group Cuba with two other countries that
have fallen afoul of the United States: Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Like the original members of the "axis of evil," they don't have much in common with one
another. Cuba is avowedly Marxist in orientation, with a Third World agrarian spin. Venezuela,
on the other hand, is a corrupt petro-state led by a leader who calls himself socialist but is
really just a klutzy kleptocrat. Then there's Daniel Ortega, who was once a socialist
revolutionary but has transformed himself into a Catholic dictator along the lines of Francisco
Franco.
None of these countries poses even the remotest threat to the United States. They have
dismal human rights records, but that hasn't been a concern for the Trump administration
anywhere else in the world.
So, why is Bolton bothering to waste his rhetorical flourishes on the trio? The national
security advisor claims that Cuba is propping up Maduro. He hints that Ortega's days are
numbered. Is Bolton campaigning to revive what had once been the traditional U.S. approach to
Latin America: invasion, occupation, regime change?
After all, his most recent "troika of tyranny" speech was timed to coincide with the
anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba on April 17, 1961. And the audience for
his speech was similarly chosen with care: the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association.
When it comes to Bolton, war is always a possibility pretty much anywhere in the world. But
with the Trump administration focusing most of its wrath against Iran , the
"troika of tyranny" speech is probably not the opening salvo of a new, hyper-militarist Monroe
Doctrine.
Bolton likely has a longer game plan in mind.
Expanding the Troika
You can almost see the lips beneath the walrus moustache purse in displeasure when Donald
Trump shakes hands with Xi Jinping, murmurs sweet nothings to Kim Jong Un, and has quiet
confabs with Vladimir Putin.
John Bolton has never concealed his
profound antipathy to the current government in North Korea. He wants to
rewrite the one-China policy and is willing to use military force against Beijing as part
of that effort. As for Russia, Bolton
believes that Putin is a liar and Moscow represents a serious long-term strategic threat to
the United States.
This, then, is the shadow "troika of tyranny" that John Bolton would roll out in a speech if
only Donald Trump's personal predilections didn't get in the way.
But that isn't stopping the national security advisor from carefully preparing the ground to
do just that as soon as Trump gets frustrated with Kim, Xi, and/or Putin.
Toward that end, Bolton carefully chose "troika" for his phrase: a Russian word that can
later be repurposed to suggest that Moscow is in fact at the root of these problems. And Bolton
is hammering away at the "socialist-communist" nature of the three Latin American countries,
which will prove enormously useful later on when expanding the troika to include North Korea
and China.
In the end, Bolton is after nothing short of a new Cold War.
Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are small countries with no desire or means to attack the
United States. North Korea with its nuclear weapons, China with the world's second largest
military, and Russia with its geopolitical ambitions, on the other hand, are much worthier
adversaries.
Prolonged conflict with these three will keep militarists like Bolton in business for
decades. As importantly, Bolton can use these larger confrontations to unravel all
international institutions, all forms of international cooperation, in fact anything that
smacks of an international community.
With all eyes focused these days on Trump and his myriad crimes, John Bolton's speeches are
a reminder that even worse options are waiting in the wings. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: John Feffer
John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy
In Focus , where this article originally appeared.
If you continue making outrageous false equivalence arguments, mister, you'll have have to
spend time in a reeducation camp, I'm afraid.
It's been explained to you a million times already:
"Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the situation with recognizing
Crimea as part of Russia differed from acknowledging Israel's sovereignty over the Golan
Heights.
According to him, what US President Donald Trump did is to "recognize the reality on
the ground." Pompeo stressed that Washington seeks to work on Middle East stability, noting
that "America is a force for good in the region" and its intentions are noble."
The US ambassador to the UN has accused Russia of "barbarism" over the bombing of the
Syrian city of Aleppo. At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Samantha Power
said Russia had told the council outright lies about its conduct in Syria. She said Russia
and the Syrian regime were "laying waste to what is left of an iconic Middle Eastern
city".
Samatha Power's accusations against the Russians were hardly unique. They were in fact
pretty much the norm among American commentators throughout the battle for the Syrian city of
Aleppo. For instance, Max Fisher of the New York Times
wrote the following denunciation of Russian 'brutality':
The effects of Russia's bombing campaign in the Syrian city of Aleppo -- destroying
hospitals and schools, choking off basic supplies, and killing aid workers and hundreds of
civilians over just days -- raise a question: What could possibly motivate such
brutality?
Observers attribute Russia's bombing to recklessness, cruelty or Moscow's desperate
thrashing in what the White House has called a "quagmire."
But many analysts take a different view: Russia and its Syrian government allies, they
say, could be massacring Aleppo's civilians as part of a calculated strategy, aimed beyond
this one city.
Meanwhile, the 'brutal' and 'barbaric' methods of the Russians were contrasted with the
relatively benign tactics of the American military. As Zack Beauchamp commented in
Vox :
While the United States and its allies are waging a targeted air campaign against ISIS and
other extremists, Russia and the Syrian government are launching an all-out assault on a
single city, an assault heedless of the civilian casualties. Washington and its allies have
killed innocents but work to avoid it. Russia and Syria -- which are carpet-bombing densely
populated civilian areas with indiscriminate weapons like barrel bombs -- don't.
Americans weren't the only ones to take this line. Former British foreign minister Boris
Johnson, for instance, remarked that Russia was becoming a 'pariah nation' due to its attacks
on Aleppo, some of which, he
claimed , were 'unquestionably a war crime'. And Mark Galeotti
commented in Foreign Policy magazine, that:
Anyone trying to understand Russia's military strategy in Syria would be wise to examine
the heavy-handed methods Vladimir Putin used during his first war as Russia's commander in
chief, the bloody Second Chechn War. These are very different wars, fought in different ways
by different forces, but they nonetheless highlight one central aspect of Putin's approach to
fighting insurgents: the value of brutality.
Fair enough, you might say – a lot of innocent people died in Aleppo. According to
Wikipedia
:
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a pro-opposition non-governmental
organization, reported that the Russian bombardments killed at least 1,640 civilians in the
Aleppo area: 1,178 civilians died between 30 September 2015 and 1 August 2016, while
additional 462 civilians were killed from 19 September 2016 until 30 November 2016.
It's impossible for me to validate these figures, which could be criticised for the fact
that they come from a 'pro-opposition' organization. But for simplicity's sake, let's take them
as reasonably accurate. Now let's compare them with something else – the numbers killed
by air and artillery strikes carried out by American forces and their coalition allies in the
battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa. As I reported a year ago, when a team from the
UNHCR entered Raqqa after its liberation from the forces of the Islamic State, its members
recorded that they witnessed a 'level of destruction which exceeded anything they had ever seen
before.' Since then, analysts have been trying to calculate the human cost of this destruction,
and today we have the results. According to the BBC:
More than 1,600 civilians were killed in US-led coalition air and artillery strikes during
the offensive to oust the Islamic State group from the Syrian city of Raqqa in 2017,
activists say.
Amnesty International and monitoring group Airwars said they had carried out
investigations at 200 strike locations Researchers spent about two months on the ground in
the city, carrying out investigations at strike locations and interviewing more than 400
witnesses and survivors. They were able to directly verify the names of 641 victims, and
there were very strong multiple sources for the rest, Amnesty said.
So, there we have it. In a campaign marked by 'war crimes', 'brutality', and 'barbarism',
the Russians killed 1,600 civilians. Meanwhile, in the campaign for Raqqa, the Americans killed
1,600 civilians! Can you spot the difference? I can't.
If you continue making outrageous false equivalence arguments,
mister, you'll have have to spend time in a reeducation camp, I'm afraid.
It's been explained to you a million times already:
"Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the situation with recognizing Crimea
as part of Russia differed from acknowledging Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
According to him, what US President Donald Trump did is to "recognize the reality on the
ground." Pompeo stressed that Washington seeks to work on Middle East stability, noting
that "America is a force for good in the region" and its intentions are noble."
Ah, but the evil ISIS was using civilians as human shields in
Raqqa, so noble Americans had no choice but to bomb them! Meanwhile, the freedom fighters
in Aleppo totally didn't, so all civilians were maliciously slaughtered by evil Russians
and Assadists! There is your difference, professor.
Exactly. This why whataboutism is a term and
pointless.
Provided you are not about whataboutisms more generally, and we might have the same
thing in mind–I was close to responding too–historically the term might
prove interesting. Once one takes a closer look.
ok, before I am off again.
What is the precise relation between "human shields" and "collateral damage" of the
human kind.
and or why are "precision bombs" more humanitarian then "barrel bombs", or lets say
precision bombs with minor grades or uranium, beyond the PR, that is? And
admittedly I am not an expert in weaponary.
Concerning Russian action in Syria, John Brennan is referenced with a direct quote from
him in a PBS NewsHour segment. Of course, he wasn't challenged at all.
When Nikki Haley was appointed America's ambassador to the UN, I said that she couldn't
be any worse than Samantha Power. I take that back.
This information about Raqqa was available at the time –
social media as well as on non western channels.
The BBC were a part of the propaganda arm of the British govt smear campaign against
Russia and Syria.
It was all part of the information war. The words used to describe Russia and Syria are
to create images of uncivilised barbaric people. While the USA are in white hats (or white
helmets in this case!!! )
As for Aleppo – pictures of how it looks now compared to Raqqa are as different as
night and day almost.
Patrick Armstrong acidly noted how often 'the last hospital in
Aleppo' was bombed by the Russians and/or Syrians.
But if we think about this objectively, 1,600 casualties deaths given the explosive
power of the ordinance being dropped, the terrain being fought over, the positions the
enemy were in both in Raqqa and Aleppo, and also the stakes involved, it would seem fairly
clear that both cases meet the Law of Armed Conflict test of 'proportionality.'
However this does demonstrate why 'whataboutism' otherwise known as 'those who live in
glass houses' continues to be so effective. In exaggerating or even lying about what was
going on western politicians and commentators devalue concepts such as 'atrocity' or
'barbarism' and instead reaffirm the idea that these are not more or less objective
concepts and just things that are thrown as invective at people who policy elites have
decided, for one reason or another, they don't like. And in doing so policy elites
undermine themselves in the long term as they lose credibility with everybody but
themselves.
thanks for your work! i had noticed the amnesty international article
on this from about 5 days ago.. i am sure the msm will do their best to keep it buried, as
they wouldn't want those dear souls in the west to get an inkling of just how dishonest the
war merchants and west are in their zeal to do more of the same
When the Soviet Union dissolved the US learnt they did not have the power to rule the
world. It was a learning process a lot of people had to pay for.
When Putin stopped the Russian policy to go along with the United States after Libya that
was it. There was a "new cold war" without the borders agreed in Yalta.
The United states have bled money in these wars financed by China. At present China and
Russia are doing two things - isolate their economy from the World - Dollar - Economy by
Western sanctions and integrate/protect the supply of oil Chinese industry depends on.
China - Huawei - have achieved the technological leading edge - in a way that some people
in Germany think a planned market economy might be the model of the future. In any case close
to everybody (exept Britain) has reverted to protecting their industries.
The United States are still dependent on China financing their debt, whilst China has
found alternative routes to spend their money on the new Silk Road and Russia has developed
(and tested) the technology to protect this road (I guess from the sales that are
reported).
Whoever reenacted Baghdadi wants to goad the US into keeping up the small wars that do not
decide anything but keep weakening the countries involved.
The time this could threaten Russia or China has passed.
If this is a threat to Turkey all it will do is drive Turkey closer to Russian
protection.
My guess is the US are not behind this (they are NOT stupid and Trump wants to claim that
ISIS is finished). But any combination of the countries whose status in today's world depends
on US backing (or who dislike Turkey). Baghdadi has always been a secret service
creature.
"... It's the US ruling elite that are the true deplorables. ..."
"... The war on civilization is never a failure for as long as the invader wins. Winning in this case means toppling a government, destabilizing an economy and dividing a population then leaving a country in chaos. It's not a foreign policy failure for the U.S. That is the policy working exactly as intended. All the talk later, where they claim that they had "bad intel" or they "made mistakes" or "miscalculated" is complete bullshit. They know what they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep doing it over and over in the exact same way. ..."
"... {A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result of their personality or experience} ? ..."
"... They'd follow the money if they really wanted to end the terrorism. In that regard, bombing Raqqa to hell was sure convenient as USA destroyed all the evidence - or at least they can make that claim. ..."
"... So he gets trotted out just in time to revive the "ISIS threat", and take the blame for various recent funny-smelling terrist attacks, people going to odd places like New Zealand and Sri Lanka to vent their spleens at Muslims and Christians, respectively. I have half-a-suspicion somebody is trying to get a religious war of some sort going. ..."
"... we're talking 1 and a half million dead so far in Iraq and Afghanistan...and that's being conservative. ..."
"... Where? Where was it published? On what platform? Is it really that hard to trace the IPs? Turkey is really determined to get those S-400s. The Empire first threatened to withhold F-35s, then to impose sanctions, then to expel Turkey from NATO, then to move its bases to Greece. Still, Turkey wouldn't budge. Time to deploy some good old terrorism, so that the Empire will be obliged to come in and "help". ..."
"... I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Moss ad or the CIA. That's why he's had so many miracle escapes. That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is. And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince targets. ..."
"... Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years. ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud. ..."
"... Many years ago, even before this character posed as a "Syrian rebel" who was photographed meeting with John McCain, he was outed as a Mossad agent by the name of Simon Elliot. ..."
"... Al Jazeera "can't confirm the authenticity of the video." ..."
"... A history of Wahhabism which is a problem for the globe; https://ahtribune.com/religion/155-a-history-of-wahhabism.html The KSA, whose ass the empire kisses daily, is the main funder for these clowns. ..."
What's the Wonder my dear?
Duh!
He is in CIA safe house in Al-Anbar.
ISI is looking for this CIA's "Patsy" hide out. Watch this space, he has blood of 14
Pakistani soldiers on his hands via Iran hit. We will end this MOSSAD Agent.
The one hundred thousand people that died in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorist
activities would certainly agree that the trillions of dollars that have been spent on the
War on Terror has done very little to remove the spectre of terrorist activities from their
homes, cities and nations.
Sally Snyder: The war on terror is a war of terror and in that sense, though morally
reprehensible and costly, has been success. Regime change and the destabilization of the
Middle East has been the goal.
It's the US ruling elite that are the true deplorables.
War on terror was the war on an entire civilization. Association/Replacement of the word
terror was just for the public consumption. It's a simple strategy that makes the
aggressors appear like the good guys who are there to defend themselves or the values they
hold.
The war on civilization is never a failure for as long as the invader wins. Winning in
this case means toppling a government, destabilizing an economy and dividing a population
then leaving a country in chaos. It's not a foreign policy failure for the U.S. That is the
policy working exactly as intended. All the talk later, where they claim that they had "bad
intel" or they "made mistakes" or "miscalculated" is complete bullshit. They know what
they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep doing it over and over in the exact same
way.
War on the civilizations yields massive benefits. It's the shortcoming of the model of
the western civilization that it continuously requires massive input that can't be achieved
by the legal means of business and trade.
Auntie Gina the tit ular head of Al-CIA-duh/ Al Qaeda/ ISIS?
{A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership
who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of
titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result
of their personality or experience} ?
They'd follow the money if they really wanted to end the terrorism.
In that regard, bombing Raqqa to hell was sure convenient as USA destroyed all the
evidence - or at least they can make that claim.
So he gets trotted out just in time to revive the "ISIS threat", and take the blame for
various recent funny-smelling terrist attacks, people going to odd places like New Zealand
and Sri Lanka to vent their spleens at Muslims and Christians, respectively. I have
half-a-suspicion somebody is trying to get a religious war of some sort going.
They don't seem to be having that much success with getting that war going, so I expect
the attacks will go on.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self declared caliph of ISIS, appeared in new video
published today.
Where? Where was it published? On what platform? Is it really that hard to trace the
IPs? Turkey is really determined to get those S-400s. The Empire first threatened to withhold
F-35s, then to impose sanctions, then to expel Turkey from NATO, then to move its bases to
Greece. Still, Turkey wouldn't budge. Time to deploy some good old terrorism, so that the
Empire will be obliged to come in and "help".
I have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Moss ad
or the CIA. That's why he's had so many miracle escapes. That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is. And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince
targets.
Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria
or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years. ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud.
Many years ago, even before this character posed as a "Syrian rebel" who was photographed
meeting with John McCain, he was outed as a Mossad agent by the name of Simon Elliot.
The guy in recent picture looks like one of Rita Katz's actors.
It is a show to threaten Turkey with the same as Sri Lanka (where they refine lots of
Iranian crude...and more...look it up). Many ties to Iran/Sri Lanka....and to Turkey.
Typical nazi thugs....bribes, arson, dynamite...and patsies...in this case maybe mossad
actor? Why not> Cui Bono?
As to the locus of the actor? Paramount? Warner Bros? Probably not. Does it matter?
They're parading a ringer...don't fall for the gag. Erdo won't fall for it either.
Baghdadi has nice toys by his side and not just the AK-47 with the camo bit over the
barrel. It looks like a camo case on night vision gear (or vidcam?) just below that, too.
To quote the Joker: "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"
Ahh a new game of "where in the world is ..." except instead of bin Laden (or his
stand-in) the guest in Pakistan living near a military base we have Baghdadi. Maybe
Baghdadi lives in that area, too. (awaiting his execution for the media and masses). I
doubt it though. I'm thinking Turkey or even Saudi Arabia.
... This move by Baghdadi could backfire in a big way. Got my popcorn ready. Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 29, 2019 5:06:26 PM | 19
It does seem unnecessarily cheeky/ fishy.
If 'they' had fiendishly brilliant plan, why wouldn't they'd just do it and leave it to the
intel wonks to figure out what went wrong?
It's big news in the J-C International media.
Al Jazeera "can't confirm the authenticity of the video."
"Russiagate without Russia" actually means "Isrealgate". This individual points that he mentions below does not matter. Russiagate was a carefully planned and
brilliantly executed false flag operation run by intelligences
agencies (with GB agencies playing an important in some episodes decisive role) and headed probably by Obama himself via Brennan. There
were two goals: (1) to exclude any possibility of detente with Russia and (2) to block any Trump attempts to change the USA foreign
policy including running foreign war that enrich Pentagon contractors and justify supersized budget for intelligence agencies. As such
is was a great success.
The fact that no American was indicted and that Mueller attempt to prosecute Russian marketing agneces failed does not matter. The
atmosphere is now posoned for a generation. Americans are brainwashed and residue of Russiagate will stay for a long, long time. Neocons
Bolton and Pompeo now run Trump administration foreign policy with Trump performing most ceremonial role in foreign policy domain.
In this sense Skripals poisoning was another false flag operation, which was the logical continuation of Russiagate. And Magnitsky
killing (with Browder now a primary suspect) was a precursor to it. Both were run from Great Britain.
It is actually interesting how Mueller report swiped under the carpet the role of Great Britain in unleashing the Russiagate hysteria.
Two important foreign forces in the 2016 US Presidential elections was the Israel lobby and Great Britain. Trump proved to be a
marionette not of Russia but of Israeli lobby. so sad...
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later). ..."
For more than two years, leading US political and media voices promoted a narrative that Donald Trump conspired with or was compromised
by the Kremlin, and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it. In the process, they overlooked countervailing evidence and
diverted anti-Trump energies into fervent speculation and prolonged anticipation. So long as Mueller was on the case, it was possible
to believe that " The Walls Are Closing In " on the
traitor /
puppet / asset in the
White House
.
The long-awaited completion of Mueller's probe, and the release of his redacted report, reveals this narrative -- and the expectations
it fueled -- to be unfounded. No American was indicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mueller's report
does lay out extensive evidence that Trump sought to impede the investigation, but it declines to issue a verdict on obstruction.
It presents no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with an alleged effort by the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton,
and instead renders this conclusion: "Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign coordinated or conspired
with the Russian government in its election-interference activities." As a result, Mueller's report provides the opposite of what
Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister collusion plot with Russia, it presents what
amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself.
1. Russiagate Without Russia
The most fundamental element of a conspiracy is contact between the two parties doing the conspiring. Hence, on the eve of the
report's release, The New York
Times noted that among the "outstanding questions" that Mueller would answer were the nature of "contacts between Kremlin
intermediaries and the Trump campaign."
Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence
that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian
ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later).
It should be no surprise, then, to learn from Mueller that, when "Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen
began trying to make inroads into the new administration" after Trump's election victory, they did not know whom to call. These powerful
Russians, Mueller noted, "appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect."
If top Russians did not have "preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with" the people that they supposedly conspired with,
perhaps that is because they did not actually conspire.
To borrow a phrase from Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen, when it comes to the core question of contacts between
Trump and the Russian government, we are left with a "Russiagate without Russia." Instead we have a series of interactions where
Trump associates speak with Russian nationals, people with ties to Russian nationals, or people who claim to have ties to
the Russian government. But none of these "links," "ties," or associations ever entail a member of the Trump campaign interacting
with a Kremlin intermediary. Russiagate promoters have nonetheless fueled a dogged media effort to track
every
known instance in which someone in Trump's orbit
interacted with " the Russians ," or
someone who can be linked
to them . There is nothing illegal or inherently suspect about speaking to a Russian national -- but there is something xenophobic
about implying as much.
2. Russiagate's Predicate Led Nowhere
The most glaring absence of a Kremlin intermediary comes in the case that ostensibly prompted the entire Trump-Russia investigation.
During an April 2016 meeting in Rome, a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud reportedly informed Trump campaign aide George
Papadopoulos that "the Russians" had obtained "thousands of emails" containing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. That information made its
way to the FBI, which used it as a pretext to open the "Crossfire Hurricane" probe on July 31, 2016. Papadopoulos was later indicted
for lying to FBI agents about the timing of his contacts with Mifsud. The case stoked speculation that Papadopoulos acted as an
intermediary between
Trump and Russia
.
But Papadopoulos played no such role. And while the Mueller report says that Papadopoulos "understood Mifsud to have substantial
connections to high-level Russian government officials," it never asserts that Mifsud actuall y had those connections.
Since Mifsud's suspected Russian connections were the purported predicate for the FBI's initial Trump-Russia investigation, that
is a conspicuous non-call. Another is the revelation from Mueller that
Mifsud made false statements to FBI investigators
when they interviewed him in February 2017 -- but yet, unlike Papadopoulos, Mifsud was not indicted. Thus, even the interaction that
sparked the Russia-collusion probe did not reveal collusion.
3. Sergey Kislyak Had "Brief and Non-Substantive" Interactions With the Trump Camp
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's conversations with Trump campaign officials and associates during and after the 2016 election
were the focus of intense controversy and speculation, leading to the recusal of
Jeff Sessions, then attorney
general, and to the indictment of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
After an exhaustive review, Mueller concluded that Kislyak's interactions with Trump campaign officials at public events "were
brief, public, and non-substantive." As for Kislyak's
much –
ballyhooed meeting which Sessions in September 2016, Mueller saw no reason to dispute that it "included any more than a passing
mention of the presidential campaign." When Kislyak spoke with other Trump aides after the August 2016 Republican National Convention,
Mueller "did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government."
The same goes for Kislyak's post-election conversations with Flynn. Mueller indicted Flynn for making "false statements and omissions"
in an interview with the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak during the transition in December 2016. The prevailing supposition was
that Flynn lied in order to hide from the FBI an
election-related payoff or "
quid pro quo
" with the Kremlin. The report punctures that thesis by reaffirming the facts in Flynn's indictment: What Flynn hid from agents
was that he had "called Kislyak to request Russian restraint" in response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration,
and that Kislyak had agreed. Mueller ruled out the possibility that Flynn could have implicated Trump in anything criminal by noting
the absence of evidence that Flynn "possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive
to end the FBI's inquiry into Flynn's conduct."
4. Trump Tower Moscow Had No Help From Moscow
The November 2018 indictment of Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was widely seen as damning, possibly impeachment-worthy,
for Trump. Cohen admitted to giving false written answers to Congress in a bid to downplay Trump's personal knowledge of his company's
failed effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. To proponents of the collusion theory, Cohen's admitted lies were proof that "
Trump is compromised by
Russia ," " full stop ."
But the Mueller report does not show any such compromise, and, in fact, shows there to be no Trump-Kremlin relationship. Cohen,
the report notes, "requested [Kremlin] assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the project and with
financing." The request was evidently rejected. Elena Poliakova, the personal assistant to Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov,
spoke with Cohen by phone after he e-mailed her office for help. After their 20-minute call, the report says, "Cohen could not recall
any direct follow-up from Poliakova or from any other representative of the Russian government, nor did the [Special Counsel's] Office
identify any evidence of direct follow-up."
5. and Trump Didn't Ask Cohen to Lie About It
The Mueller report not only dispels the notion that Trump had secret dealings with the Kremlin over Trump Tower Moscow; it also
rejects a related impeachment-level "bombshell." In January, BuzzFeed News
reported that Mueller had evidence that Trump "directed" Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow project. But according to
Mueller, "the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony," and that
Cohen himself testified "that he and the President did not explicitly discuss whether Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow
project would be or was false." In a de-facto retraction, BuzzFeed updated its story with an
acknowledgment
of Mueller's conclusion .
6. The Trump Tower Meeting Really Was Just a "Waste of Time"
The June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower was
widely
dubbed
the
" Smoking
Gun ." An e-mail chain showed that Donald Trump Jr. welcomed an offer to accept compromising information about Clinton as "part
of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." But the pitch did not come from the meeting's Russian participants, but instead
from Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist acting on their behalf. Goldstone said that he invented "publicist puff" to secure
the meeting, because in reality,
as he told NPR , "I had no idea what I was talking about."
Mueller noted that Trump Jr.'s response "showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist
candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information [emphasis mine]."
The report further recounts that during the meeting Jared Kushner texted then-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort that it was a "waste
of time," and requested that his assistants "call him to give him an excuse to leave." Accordingly, when "Veselnitskaya made additional
efforts to follow up on the meeting," after the election, "the Trump Transition Team did not engage."
7. Manafort Did Not Share Polling Data to Meddle in the US Election
In January, Mueller accused Manafort of lying to investigators about several matters, including sharing Trump polling data and
discussing a Ukraine peace plan with a Ukrainian-Russian colleague, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 campaign. According to Mueller,
the FBI "assesses" that Kilimnik has unspecified "ties to Russian intelligence." To collusion proponents, the revelation was dubbed
" the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual
collusion " and even the "
Russian collusion smoking gun ."
Mueller, of course, reached a different conclusion: He "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling
data and Russia's interference in the election," and, moreover, "did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian
government on its election-interference efforts." Mueller noted that he "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing"
the polling data, but also acknowledged (and bolstered) the explanation of his star witness, Rick Gates, that Manafort was motivated
by proving his financial value to former and future clients.
Mueller also gave us new reasons to doubt the assertions that Kilimnik himself is a Russian intelligence asset or spy. First,
Mueller did not join
media pundits in asserting such about
Kilimnik. Second, to support his vague contention that Kilimnik has, according to the FBI, "ties to Russian intelligence," Mueller
offered up a list of " pieces of the Office's
Evidence" that contains no direct evidence. For his part, Kilimnik has repeatedly stated that he has no such ties, and recently
told The Washington Post that Mueller never attempted to interview him.
8. The Steele Dossier Was Fiction
The Steele dossier -- a collection of Democratic National Committee-funded opposition research alleging a high-level Trump-Russia
criminal relationship -- played a critical role in the Russiagate saga. The FBI relied on it for leads and evidentiary material in
its investigation of the Trump campaign ties to Russia, and prominent
politicians ,
pundits , and
media
outlets promoted it as
credible .
The Mueller report,
The New York Times
noted last week , has "underscored what had grown clearer for months some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared
to be false, and others were impossible to prove." Steele reported that low-level Trump aide Carter Page was offered a 19 percent
stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions. In October 2016 the FBI, citing
the Steele dossier, told the FISA court that it "believes that [Russia's] efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other
individuals associated with" the Trump campaign. The Mueller report, however, could "not establish that Page coordinated with the
Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election."
The Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen visited Prague to meet Russian agents in the summer of 2016. In April 2018, McClatchy
reported to much fanfare that Mueller's team "has evidence" that placed Cohen in Prague during the period in question. Cohen later
denied the claim under oath, and Mueller agreed, noting that Cohen "never traveled to Prague."
After reports emerged in August 2016 that the Trump campaign had rejected an amendment to the Republican National Committee platform
that called for arming Ukraine, Steele claimed that it was the result of a quid pro quo. The Mueller report "did not establish that"
the rejection of the Ukraine amendment was "undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia."
9. The Trump Campaign Had No Secret Channel to WikiLeaks
In January, veteran Republican operative and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone caused a stir when he was indicted for lying to Congress
about his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks. But Mueller's indictment actually showed that Stone
had no communications with WikiLeaks
before the election and no privileged information about its releases . Most significantly, it revealed that Trump officials were
trying to learn about the WikiLeaks releases through Stone -- a fact that underscored that the Trump campaign neither worked with
WikiLeaks nor had advance knowledge of its e-mail dumps.
Mueller's final report does nothing to alter that picture. Its sections on Stone are heavily redacted, owing to Stone's pending
trial. But they do make clear that Mueller conducted an extensive search to establish a tie between WikiLeaks, the Trump campaign,
and Stone -- and came up empty. New
reporting from The Washington Post underscores just how far their farcical efforts went. The Mueller team devoted
time and energy to determine whether far-right conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, best known for promoting the false claim that Barack
Obama was born outside the United States, served as a link between Stone and WikiLeaks. Mueller's prosecutors "spent weeks coaxing,
cajoling and admonishing the conspiracy theorist, as they pressed him to stick to facts and not reconstruct stories," the Post
reports. "At times, they had debated the nature of memory itself." It is unsurprising that this led Mueller's prosecutors to
ultimately declare, according to Corsi's attorney, "We can't use any of this."
10. There Was No Cover-Up
The Mueller report does not just dispel the conspiracy theories that have engulfed political and media circles for two years;
it puts to rest the most popular, recent one: that Attorney General William Barr engaged in a
cover-up . According to the dominant narrative, Barr was
somehow concealing Mueller's damning evidence
, while Mueller, even more improbably, stayed silent.
One could argue that Barr's summary downplays the obstruction findings, though it accurately relays that Mueller's report does
"not exonerate" Trump. It was Mueller's decision to leave the verdict on obstruction to Barr and make clear that if Congress disagrees,
it has the power to indict Trump on its own. Mueller's office assisted with Barr's redactions, which proved to be, as Barr had pledged,
extremely limited. Despite containing numerous embarrassing details about Trump, no executive privilege was invoked to censor the
report's contents.
In the end, Mueller's report shows that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative embraced and evangelized by the US political and
media establishments to be a work of
fiction . The American public
was presented with a far different picture from what was expected, because leading pundits, outlets, and politicians ignored the
countervailing facts and promoted maximalist interpretations of others. Anonymous officials also leaked explosive yet uncorroborated
claims, leaving behind many stories that were subsequently discredited, retracted, or remain unconfirmed to this day.
It is too early to assess the damage that influential Russiagate promoters have done to their own reputations; to public confidence
in our democratic system and media; and to the prospects of defeating Trump, who always stood to benefit if the all-consuming conspiracy
theory ultimately collapsed. The scale of the wreckage, confirmed by Mueller's report, may prove to be the ultimate Russiagate scandal.
"Russiagate without Russia" actually means "Isrealgate". This individual points that he mentions below does not matter. Russiagate was a carefully planned and
brilliantly executed false flag operation run by intelligences
agencies (with GB agencies playing an important in some episodes decisive role) and headed probably by Obama himself via Brennan. There
were two goals: (1) to exclude any possibility of detente with Russia and (2) to block any Trump attempts to change the USA foreign
policy including running foreign war that enrich Pentagon contractors and justify supersized budget for intelligence agencies. As such
is was a great success.
The fact that no American was indicted and that Mueller attempt to prosecute Russian marketing agneces failed does not matter. The
atmosphere is now posoned for a generation. Americans are brainwashed and residue of Russiagate will stay for a long, long time. Neocons
Bolton and Pompeo now run Trump administration foreign policy with Trump performing most ceremonial role in foreign policy domain.
In this sense Skripals poisoning was another false flag operation, which was the logical continuation of Russiagate. And Magnitsky
killing (with Browder now a primary suspect) was a precursor to it. Both were run from Great Britain.
It is actually interesting how Mueller report swiped under the carpet the role of Great Britain in unleashing the Russiagate hysteria.
Two important foreign forces in the 2016 US Presidential elections was the Israel lobby and Great Britain. Trump proved to be a
marionette not of Russia but of Israeli lobby. so sad...
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later). ..."
For more than two years, leading US political and media voices promoted a narrative that Donald Trump conspired with or was compromised
by the Kremlin, and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it. In the process, they overlooked countervailing evidence and
diverted anti-Trump energies into fervent speculation and prolonged anticipation. So long as Mueller was on the case, it was possible
to believe that " The Walls Are Closing In " on the
traitor /
puppet / asset in the
White House
.
The long-awaited completion of Mueller's probe, and the release of his redacted report, reveals this narrative -- and the expectations
it fueled -- to be unfounded. No American was indicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mueller's report
does lay out extensive evidence that Trump sought to impede the investigation, but it declines to issue a verdict on obstruction.
It presents no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with an alleged effort by the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton,
and instead renders this conclusion: "Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign coordinated or conspired
with the Russian government in its election-interference activities." As a result, Mueller's report provides the opposite of what
Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister collusion plot with Russia, it presents what
amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself.
1. Russiagate Without Russia
The most fundamental element of a conspiracy is contact between the two parties doing the conspiring. Hence, on the eve of the
report's release, The New York
Times noted that among the "outstanding questions" that Mueller would answer were the nature of "contacts between Kremlin
intermediaries and the Trump campaign."
Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence
that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian
ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later).
It should be no surprise, then, to learn from Mueller that, when "Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen
began trying to make inroads into the new administration" after Trump's election victory, they did not know whom to call. These powerful
Russians, Mueller noted, "appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect."
If top Russians did not have "preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with" the people that they supposedly conspired with,
perhaps that is because they did not actually conspire.
To borrow a phrase from Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen, when it comes to the core question of contacts between
Trump and the Russian government, we are left with a "Russiagate without Russia." Instead we have a series of interactions where
Trump associates speak with Russian nationals, people with ties to Russian nationals, or people who claim to have ties to
the Russian government. But none of these "links," "ties," or associations ever entail a member of the Trump campaign interacting
with a Kremlin intermediary. Russiagate promoters have nonetheless fueled a dogged media effort to track
every
known instance in which someone in Trump's orbit
interacted with " the Russians ," or
someone who can be linked
to them . There is nothing illegal or inherently suspect about speaking to a Russian national -- but there is something xenophobic
about implying as much.
2. Russiagate's Predicate Led Nowhere
The most glaring absence of a Kremlin intermediary comes in the case that ostensibly prompted the entire Trump-Russia investigation.
During an April 2016 meeting in Rome, a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud reportedly informed Trump campaign aide George
Papadopoulos that "the Russians" had obtained "thousands of emails" containing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. That information made its
way to the FBI, which used it as a pretext to open the "Crossfire Hurricane" probe on July 31, 2016. Papadopoulos was later indicted
for lying to FBI agents about the timing of his contacts with Mifsud. The case stoked speculation that Papadopoulos acted as an
intermediary between
Trump and Russia
.
But Papadopoulos played no such role. And while the Mueller report says that Papadopoulos "understood Mifsud to have substantial
connections to high-level Russian government officials," it never asserts that Mifsud actuall y had those connections.
Since Mifsud's suspected Russian connections were the purported predicate for the FBI's initial Trump-Russia investigation, that
is a conspicuous non-call. Another is the revelation from Mueller that
Mifsud made false statements to FBI investigators
when they interviewed him in February 2017 -- but yet, unlike Papadopoulos, Mifsud was not indicted. Thus, even the interaction that
sparked the Russia-collusion probe did not reveal collusion.
3. Sergey Kislyak Had "Brief and Non-Substantive" Interactions With the Trump Camp
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's conversations with Trump campaign officials and associates during and after the 2016 election
were the focus of intense controversy and speculation, leading to the recusal of
Jeff Sessions, then attorney
general, and to the indictment of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
After an exhaustive review, Mueller concluded that Kislyak's interactions with Trump campaign officials at public events "were
brief, public, and non-substantive." As for Kislyak's
much –
ballyhooed meeting which Sessions in September 2016, Mueller saw no reason to dispute that it "included any more than a passing
mention of the presidential campaign." When Kislyak spoke with other Trump aides after the August 2016 Republican National Convention,
Mueller "did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government."
The same goes for Kislyak's post-election conversations with Flynn. Mueller indicted Flynn for making "false statements and omissions"
in an interview with the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak during the transition in December 2016. The prevailing supposition was
that Flynn lied in order to hide from the FBI an
election-related payoff or "
quid pro quo
" with the Kremlin. The report punctures that thesis by reaffirming the facts in Flynn's indictment: What Flynn hid from agents
was that he had "called Kislyak to request Russian restraint" in response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration,
and that Kislyak had agreed. Mueller ruled out the possibility that Flynn could have implicated Trump in anything criminal by noting
the absence of evidence that Flynn "possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive
to end the FBI's inquiry into Flynn's conduct."
4. Trump Tower Moscow Had No Help From Moscow
The November 2018 indictment of Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was widely seen as damning, possibly impeachment-worthy,
for Trump. Cohen admitted to giving false written answers to Congress in a bid to downplay Trump's personal knowledge of his company's
failed effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. To proponents of the collusion theory, Cohen's admitted lies were proof that "
Trump is compromised by
Russia ," " full stop ."
But the Mueller report does not show any such compromise, and, in fact, shows there to be no Trump-Kremlin relationship. Cohen,
the report notes, "requested [Kremlin] assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the project and with
financing." The request was evidently rejected. Elena Poliakova, the personal assistant to Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov,
spoke with Cohen by phone after he e-mailed her office for help. After their 20-minute call, the report says, "Cohen could not recall
any direct follow-up from Poliakova or from any other representative of the Russian government, nor did the [Special Counsel's] Office
identify any evidence of direct follow-up."
5. and Trump Didn't Ask Cohen to Lie About It
The Mueller report not only dispels the notion that Trump had secret dealings with the Kremlin over Trump Tower Moscow; it also
rejects a related impeachment-level "bombshell." In January, BuzzFeed News
reported that Mueller had evidence that Trump "directed" Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow project. But according to
Mueller, "the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony," and that
Cohen himself testified "that he and the President did not explicitly discuss whether Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow
project would be or was false." In a de-facto retraction, BuzzFeed updated its story with an
acknowledgment
of Mueller's conclusion .
6. The Trump Tower Meeting Really Was Just a "Waste of Time"
The June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower was
widely
dubbed
the
" Smoking
Gun ." An e-mail chain showed that Donald Trump Jr. welcomed an offer to accept compromising information about Clinton as "part
of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." But the pitch did not come from the meeting's Russian participants, but instead
from Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist acting on their behalf. Goldstone said that he invented "publicist puff" to secure
the meeting, because in reality,
as he told NPR , "I had no idea what I was talking about."
Mueller noted that Trump Jr.'s response "showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist
candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information [emphasis mine]."
The report further recounts that during the meeting Jared Kushner texted then-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort that it was a "waste
of time," and requested that his assistants "call him to give him an excuse to leave." Accordingly, when "Veselnitskaya made additional
efforts to follow up on the meeting," after the election, "the Trump Transition Team did not engage."
7. Manafort Did Not Share Polling Data to Meddle in the US Election
In January, Mueller accused Manafort of lying to investigators about several matters, including sharing Trump polling data and
discussing a Ukraine peace plan with a Ukrainian-Russian colleague, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 campaign. According to Mueller,
the FBI "assesses" that Kilimnik has unspecified "ties to Russian intelligence." To collusion proponents, the revelation was dubbed
" the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual
collusion " and even the "
Russian collusion smoking gun ."
Mueller, of course, reached a different conclusion: He "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling
data and Russia's interference in the election," and, moreover, "did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian
government on its election-interference efforts." Mueller noted that he "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing"
the polling data, but also acknowledged (and bolstered) the explanation of his star witness, Rick Gates, that Manafort was motivated
by proving his financial value to former and future clients.
Mueller also gave us new reasons to doubt the assertions that Kilimnik himself is a Russian intelligence asset or spy. First,
Mueller did not join
media pundits in asserting such about
Kilimnik. Second, to support his vague contention that Kilimnik has, according to the FBI, "ties to Russian intelligence," Mueller
offered up a list of " pieces of the Office's
Evidence" that contains no direct evidence. For his part, Kilimnik has repeatedly stated that he has no such ties, and recently
told The Washington Post that Mueller never attempted to interview him.
8. The Steele Dossier Was Fiction
The Steele dossier -- a collection of Democratic National Committee-funded opposition research alleging a high-level Trump-Russia
criminal relationship -- played a critical role in the Russiagate saga. The FBI relied on it for leads and evidentiary material in
its investigation of the Trump campaign ties to Russia, and prominent
politicians ,
pundits , and
media
outlets promoted it as
credible .
The Mueller report,
The New York Times
noted last week , has "underscored what had grown clearer for months some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared
to be false, and others were impossible to prove." Steele reported that low-level Trump aide Carter Page was offered a 19 percent
stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions. In October 2016 the FBI, citing
the Steele dossier, told the FISA court that it "believes that [Russia's] efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other
individuals associated with" the Trump campaign. The Mueller report, however, could "not establish that Page coordinated with the
Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election."
The Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen visited Prague to meet Russian agents in the summer of 2016. In April 2018, McClatchy
reported to much fanfare that Mueller's team "has evidence" that placed Cohen in Prague during the period in question. Cohen later
denied the claim under oath, and Mueller agreed, noting that Cohen "never traveled to Prague."
After reports emerged in August 2016 that the Trump campaign had rejected an amendment to the Republican National Committee platform
that called for arming Ukraine, Steele claimed that it was the result of a quid pro quo. The Mueller report "did not establish that"
the rejection of the Ukraine amendment was "undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia."
9. The Trump Campaign Had No Secret Channel to WikiLeaks
In January, veteran Republican operative and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone caused a stir when he was indicted for lying to Congress
about his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks. But Mueller's indictment actually showed that Stone
had no communications with WikiLeaks
before the election and no privileged information about its releases . Most significantly, it revealed that Trump officials were
trying to learn about the WikiLeaks releases through Stone -- a fact that underscored that the Trump campaign neither worked with
WikiLeaks nor had advance knowledge of its e-mail dumps.
Mueller's final report does nothing to alter that picture. Its sections on Stone are heavily redacted, owing to Stone's pending
trial. But they do make clear that Mueller conducted an extensive search to establish a tie between WikiLeaks, the Trump campaign,
and Stone -- and came up empty. New
reporting from The Washington Post underscores just how far their farcical efforts went. The Mueller team devoted
time and energy to determine whether far-right conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, best known for promoting the false claim that Barack
Obama was born outside the United States, served as a link between Stone and WikiLeaks. Mueller's prosecutors "spent weeks coaxing,
cajoling and admonishing the conspiracy theorist, as they pressed him to stick to facts and not reconstruct stories," the Post
reports. "At times, they had debated the nature of memory itself." It is unsurprising that this led Mueller's prosecutors to
ultimately declare, according to Corsi's attorney, "We can't use any of this."
10. There Was No Cover-Up
The Mueller report does not just dispel the conspiracy theories that have engulfed political and media circles for two years;
it puts to rest the most popular, recent one: that Attorney General William Barr engaged in a
cover-up . According to the dominant narrative, Barr was
somehow concealing Mueller's damning evidence
, while Mueller, even more improbably, stayed silent.
One could argue that Barr's summary downplays the obstruction findings, though it accurately relays that Mueller's report does
"not exonerate" Trump. It was Mueller's decision to leave the verdict on obstruction to Barr and make clear that if Congress disagrees,
it has the power to indict Trump on its own. Mueller's office assisted with Barr's redactions, which proved to be, as Barr had pledged,
extremely limited. Despite containing numerous embarrassing details about Trump, no executive privilege was invoked to censor the
report's contents.
In the end, Mueller's report shows that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative embraced and evangelized by the US political and
media establishments to be a work of
fiction . The American public
was presented with a far different picture from what was expected, because leading pundits, outlets, and politicians ignored the
countervailing facts and promoted maximalist interpretations of others. Anonymous officials also leaked explosive yet uncorroborated
claims, leaving behind many stories that were subsequently discredited, retracted, or remain unconfirmed to this day.
It is too early to assess the damage that influential Russiagate promoters have done to their own reputations; to public confidence
in our democratic system and media; and to the prospects of defeating Trump, who always stood to benefit if the all-consuming conspiracy
theory ultimately collapsed. The scale of the wreckage, confirmed by Mueller's report, may prove to be the ultimate Russiagate scandal.
Worth reading, as are most things Jonathan Cook writes.
But I'm not sure I accept his notion of The Lobby's hold in the United States weakening
in any way. Yes, there finally are a few people in Congress who speak truth for the first
time ever. But look at the choke-hold Israel has on the county, despite those minor
influences. Many of Trump's most senior appointments are people serving Israeli interests to
a record degree -- Bolton, Pompeo, Abrahams, Kushner, and others.
And look at the things, not his to legally dispose of at all, that Trump has "given"
Israel. It's shocking, but there are almost no voices in the United States saying so.
And by all accounts, Trump's big "peace plan" could have been written by members of
Netanyahu's staff. There is no pretense of working with two sides to solve a problem
involving two sides.
We have matters like Trump's "Syria withdrawal" reduced to dust under Israeli influence,
for there is no other serious known interest keeping American military, illegally, in
northwestern Syria.
Israel just wants instability for Syria and to deprive that state of the use of its own
resources. It's just gangsterism, but America fully goes along.
And the steady drumbeat against law-abiding Iran is becoming deafening.
There is only one interest pushing this pointlessly destructive policy, Israel with its
intense desire to dominate its region and benefit from all the favor of the United States in
doing so.
America's own long-term interests all dictate that it should work to establish good
relations with Iran, a major and peaceful state with many things to offer in trade and
friendship, but America cannot do so under Israel's withering influence. America just keeps
flagellating itself to exhibit its reverence towards one small and extremely belligerent
state.
Israel is under absolutely no threat from Iran. It's just empty rhetoric, an excuse for
itself promoting threats and belligerence.
Imagine a non-nuclear state attacking a nuclear state such as Israel, one with a sizable
arsenal? One, moreover, doubly protected by America's nuclear arsenal. It's a darkly
laughable idea, but it is never laughed at by anyone in Washington, it is only
ritualistically honored and repeated.
Israel's destructive viewpoint prevails in almost all important matters. Even much of
America's intense Russophobia reflects stoking by Israeli interests. Israel simply views
Russia, without saying so publicly, as a big stumbling block to the kind of American
international dominance Israel would be very happy seeing.
There is not much to be hopeful about that I see. Perhaps, if Israel keeps so grotesquely
over-playing its hand, there will be a backlash in the United States. But that's only a
"perhaps." Americans, on the whole, just go right along with things, much resembling a herd
of cattle quietly grazing in a pasture while just over the distant hills, vicious armies
clash and threaten their future.
"... The waivers expire in May, meaning that those countries could potentially face US sanctions beyond that deadline. China and Turkey, on their part, have strongly condemned the American restrictions, arguing the US is not in a position to intervene in their trade ties with Iran. ..."
"... We don't have any information from our Saudi partners or other OPEC members that they are ready to pull out from the deal. ..."
"... He assured that Moscow is "fulfilling its commitments" to the production cuts agreed by OPEC and several non-OPEC producers in December. Saudi Arabia is also "unlikely" to withdraw, being the driving force behind the wider coalition. ..."
It's hard to foresee how US efforts to bring Iranian oil exports to zero will play out in
future, Vladimir Putin admitted, saying OPEC members should live up to their obligation to keep
output as low as possible if it comes true. Russia has an agreement with the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut their output by 1.2 million barrels per day,
which remains in effect until July of this year, Putin said. But the US waivers – which
gave a host of countries an exemption from the existing anti-Iran sanctions – expire much
earlier, he reminded.
I don't imagine how the global energy market will react to that.
In November, the US re-imposed sanctions on Iran's energy, shipbuilding and banking sectors
in a bid to deprive Tehran of its main sources of revenue. But it simultaneously issued waivers
to China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey – the main importers of Iranian crude
– so that they can find alternative vendors of oil.
The waivers expire in May, meaning that those countries could potentially face US sanctions
beyond that deadline. China and Turkey, on their part, have strongly condemned the American
restrictions, arguing the US is not in a position to intervene in their trade ties with
Iran.
Commenting on the issue, Putin said he hopes the market will eventually avoid the deficit of
Iranian oil and that Iran will still be able to sell it. The comment came on the heels of
conflicting reports that Donald Trump persuaded Riyadh to ramp up oil output this lowering fuel
costs; these reports were denounced by OPEC officials.
Nevertheless, there is "no evidence" that any country is going to withdraw from the
OPEC+ agreement to drop oil outputs, Putin said.
We don't have any information from our Saudi partners or other OPEC members that they
are ready to pull out from the deal.
He assured that Moscow is "fulfilling its commitments" to the production cuts agreed
by OPEC and several non-OPEC producers in December. Saudi Arabia is also "unlikely" to
withdraw, being the driving force behind the wider coalition.
"... The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks. ..."
"... Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done. ..."
"... President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. ..."
"... The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence, ..."
"... According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. ..."
"... This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. ..."
"... Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control. ..."
"... In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department. ..."
"... The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA. ..."
"... As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. ..."
"... Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia. ..."
"... The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected. ..."
"... This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest. ..."
"... Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know: ..."
"... War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff. ..."
"... The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages. ..."
"... That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers. ..."
The British Role in 'Russiagate' Is About to Be Fully Exposed April 8, 2019
20190408-russiagate-exposed-brits.pdf
The "fake news" media has now dropped its pretense of having ever had any intention of allowing the truth -- as documented in
U.S. Attorney General Barr's summary of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, exonerating President Donald Trump of having
"conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" -- to thoroughly refute the Russiagate "Big Lie." Soon, however, it is certain
that the deliberate, British Intelligence-originated, military-grade disinformation campaign carried out against the United States,
including to this day, will be exposed.
The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix
the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth,
along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all
that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental
stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks.
"It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat," says the Chinese proverb. Yet, although the Mueller
report was called a "nothing burger," it was not: it still presented the potentially lethal lie that twelve Russian gremlins, code-named
Guccifer 2.0, hacked the DNC. Sundry media meatheads thus continue to blog and broadcast about "what else is really there."
The false Russian hack story, still being repeated, marches on, undeterred, like the emperor without any clothes. One lame-brained
variation, promoted in order to cover up the British role, states that Hillary Clinton, rather than Trump, colluded with the Russians.
It is being repeated by Republicans and Democrats alike, some of them malicious, some of them confused, and all of them completely
wrong. The media, such as the failed New York Times and various electronic media, must be forced to either admit the truth,
or be even more thoroughly discredited than they already have been. They must stop their constant repetition of this Joseph Goebbels-like
Big Lie. There must be a vigorous dissemination of the truth by all those journalists, politicians, activists and citizens that love
truth more than their own assumptions, including about President Trump, or other dearly-held systems of false belief.
Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard
Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several
years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper
policy motivation: why it was done.
A New Cultural Paradigm
The world is actually on the verge of ending the military conflicts among the major world powers, such as Russia, China, the United
States, and India. These four powers, and not the City of London, are the key fulcrum around which a new era in humanity's future
will be decided. A new monetary and credit system brought into being through these four powers would foster the greatest physical
economic growth in the history of humanity. In addition, discussions involving Italy working with China on the industrialization
of the African continent (discussions which could soon also involve the United States) show that sections of Europe want to join
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and leave the dying trans-Atlantic financial empire behind.
The recent announcement of a United States commitment to return to the Moon by 2024 can, in particular, become the basis for a
proposal to other nations -- for example, China, Russia, and India, all of whom are space powers of demonstrated capability -- to
resolve their differences on Earth in a higher, joint mission. As Russia's Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin said in a recent interview:
"I am a fierce proponent of international cooperation, including with Americans, because their country is big and technologically
advanced, and they can make good partners Especially since personal and professional relations between Roscosmos and NASA at the
working level are great."
There is also the possibility of ending the danger of thermonuclear war. President Trump, speaking on April 4 of the prospects
for world peace, stated:
"Between Russia, China, and us, we're all making hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is
ridiculous. I think it's much better if we all got together and didn't make these weapons those three countries I think can come
together and stop the spending and spend on things that are more productive toward long-term peace."
This is a statement of real importance. Such an outlook is a rejection of the "perpetual crisis/perpetual war" outlook of the
Bush-Obama Administration, a four-term "war presidency" which was abruptly, unexpectedly ended in 2016. The British were not amused.
It is to stop this new cultural paradigm, pivoted on the Pacific and the potential Four Powers alliance, that British imperial
forces have deployed. The 2016 election of President Trump, and his personal friendship with President Xi Jinping and desire to work
with President Putin, are an intolerable strategic threat to the eighteenth-century geopolitics of the British empire. They have
repeatedly used Russiagate to disrupt the process of deliberation among Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin, thus increasing the danger
of war. Russiagate, in the interest of international security, must be ended by exposing it for the utter fraud that it is.
The Truth Set Free
President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office,
Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of
America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American
people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again
to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and
Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth,
and the truth would set them free.
The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican
forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street,
or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection
against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase
the American Declaration of Independence,
"The history of the present Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
undermining of the United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."
DOCUMENTATION
While Robert Mueller found that there was "no collusion" between Donald Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia, he also filed
two indictments regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The first alleges that 12 members of Russian Military
Intelligence hacked the DNC and John Podesta and delivered the purloined files to WikiLeaks for strategic publication before the
July 2016 Democratic National Convention and in October 2016, one month before the election. The second indictment charges the Internet
Research Agency, a Russian internet merchandising and marketing firm, with running social media campaigns in the U.S. in 2016 designed
to impact the election. When the fuller version of the Mueller report becomes public, it is certain to recharge the claims of Russian
interference based on the so-called background "evidence" supporting these indictments.
The good news, however, is that investigations in the United States and Britain, have unearthed significant contrary evidence
exposing British Intelligence, NATO, and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine, as the actual foreign actors in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election. We provide a short summary of the main aspects of that evidence to spark further investigations of the British intelligence
networks, entities, and methods at issue, internationally. More detailed accounts concerning specific aspects of what we recite here
can be found on our website.
The Russian Hack That Wasn't
The Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an association of former U.S. intelligence officials, have demonstrated that
the Russian hack of the DNC alleged by Robert Mueller, was more likely an internal leak,
rather than a hack conducted
over the internet. William Binney, who conducted the main investigations for the VIPS, spent 30 years at the National Security Agency,
becoming Technical Director. He designed the sorts of NSA programs that would detect a Russian hack if one occurred. Binney conducted
an actual forensic examination of the DNC files released by WikiLeaks, and the related files circulated by the persona Guccifer 2.0,
who Robert Mueller claims is a GRU creation. Binney has demonstrated that the calculated transfer speeds and metadata characteristics
of these files are consistent with downloading to a thumb drive or storage device rather than an internet-based hack. This supports
the account by WikiLeaks of how it obtained the files. According to WikiLeaks and former Ambassador Craig Murray, they were obtained
from a person who was not a Russian state actor of any kind, in Washington, D.C. WikiLeaks offered to tell the Justice Department
all about this, and actual negotiations to this effect were proceeding in early 2017, when Senator Mark Warner and FBI Director James
Comey acted to sabotage and end the negotiations.
Further, as opposed to the hyperbole in the media and in Robert Mueller's indictment, analysis of the Internet Research Agency's
alleged "weaponization" of Facebook in 2016 involved
a paltry total of $46,000 in Facebook
ads and $4,700 spent on Google platforms . In an election in which the major campaigns spend tens of thousands of dollars every
day on these platforms, whatever the IRA thought it was doing in its amateurish and juvenile memes and tropes was like throwing a
stone in the ocean. Most of these activities occurred after the election and never mentioned either candidate. The interpretation
that these ads were designed to draw clicks and website traffic, rather than influence the election, must be considered.
The "evidence" for Mueller's GRU hacking indictment was provided, in part, by CrowdStrike, the DNC vendor that originated the
claims that the Russians had hacked that entity. CrowdStrike is closely associated with the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Lab
(DRL), an operation jointly funded by NATO's Strategic Communications Center and the U.S. State Department, to counter Russian "hybrid
warfare." CrowdStrike has been caught more than once falsely attributing hacks to the Russians and the Atlantic Council's DRL is
a font of anti-Russian intelligence operations.
The British Target Trump
According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump
and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence
leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. The former head
of the Russia Desk for MI6 and protégé of Sir Richard Dearlove, Christopher Steele, fresh from working for British Intelligence,
the FBI, and U.S. State Department in the 2014 Ukraine coup, assembled in 2016 a phony dossier called Operation Charlemagne, claiming
widespread Russian interference in European elections, including in the Brexit vote. By the spring of 2016, Steele was contributing
to a British/U.S. intelligence task force on the Trump Campaign which had been convened at CIA headquarters under John Brennan's
direction.
This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British
soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. The personnel employed in these operations all had multiple
connections to the British firm Hakluyt, to Steele's firm Orbis, and to the British military's Integrity Initiative. Sometime in
the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then head of GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief John Brennan personally. Hannigan abruptly
resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage
control.
Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort were already on the radar and under investigation by the same British, Dearlove-centered intelligence
network and by Christopher Steele specifically. Flynn had been defamed by Dearlove and Stefan Halper, as a possible Russian agent
way back in 2014 because he spoke to Russian researcher Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner sponsored by Dearlove's Cambridge Security Forum.
Or, at least that was the pretext for the targeting of Flynn, who otherwise defied British intelligence by exposing Western support
for terrorist operations in Syria and sought a collaborative relationship with Russia to counter ISIS. Manafort was under FBI investigation
throughout 2014 and 2015, largely in retaliation for his role in steering the Party of the Regions to political power in Ukraine.
In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian
state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine.
Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department.
In or around June 2016, Christopher Steele began writing his dirty and bogus dossier about Trump and Russia. This is the dossier
which claimed that Trump was compromised by Putin and that Putin was coordinating with Trump in the 2016 election. The main "legend"
of this full-spectrum information warfare operation run from Britain, was that Donald Trump was receiving "dirt" on Hillary Clinton
from Russia. The operations targeting Page and Papadopoulos consisted of multiple attempts to plant fabricated evidence on them which
would reflect what Steele himself was fabricating in the dirty dossier. At the very same time, the infamous June 2016 meeting at
Trump Tower was being set up. That meeting involved the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, it was alleged in a series of
bizarre emails written by British publicist Ron Goldstone to set up the meeting, could deliver "dirt" on Hillary Clinton direct from
the Russian government. Veselnitskaya didn't deliver any such dirt. But the entire operation was being monitored by State Department
intelligence agent Kyle Parker, an expert on Russia. Parker's emails reveal deep ties to the highest levels of British intelligence
and much chatter between them about Trump and Russia.
A now-changed version of the website for Christopher Steele's firm, Orbis, trumpeted an expertise in information warfare operations,
and the networks in which Steele runs are deeply integrated into the British military's Integrity Initiative. The Integrity Initiative
is a rapid response propaganda operation using major journalists in the United States and Europe to carry out targeted defamation
campaigns. Its central charge, according to documents posted by the hacking group Anonymous, is selling the United States and Western
Europe on the immediate need for regime change in Russia, even if that involves war.
Much has been made by Republicans and other lunkheads in the U.S. Congress of Steele's contacts with Russians for his dossier.
They claim that such contacts resulted in a Russian disinformation operation being run through the duped Christopher Steele. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
MI6's Dirty Dossier on Donald Trump: Full-Spectrum Information Warfare
On its face, Steele's dossier would immediately be recognized as a complete fabrication by any competent intelligence analyst.
He cites some 32 sources inside the Russian government for his fabricated claims about Trump. What they allegedly told him is specific
enough in time and content to identify them. To believe that the dossier is true or that actual Russians contributed to it, you must
also believe that that the British government was willing to roll up this entire network, exposing them, since the intention was
for the dossier's wild claims to be published as widely as possible. By all accounts, Britain and the United States together do not
have 32 highly placed sources inside the Russian government, nor would they ever make them public in this way or with this very sloppy
tradecraft. Steele's fabrication also uses aspects of readily available public information, such as the sale of 19% of the energy
company Rosneft, (the alleged bribe offered to Carter Page for lifting sanctions) to concoct a fictional narrative of high crimes
and misdemeanors.
Other claims in the dossier were published, publicly, in various Ukrainian publications. The famous claim that Trump directed
prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept upon by Barack Obama seems to be plagiarized from similarly fake 2009 British propaganda
stories about Silvio Berlusconi spending the night with a prostitute in a hotel room in Rome, "defiling" Putin's bed. According to
various sources in the United States, this outrageous claim was made by Sergei Millian. George Papadopoulos has stated that he believes
Millian is an FBI informant, recounting in his book how a friend of Millian's blurted this out when Millian, Papadopoulos and the
friend were having coffee.
The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate
Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former
senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is
no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA.
Despite its obvious fake pedigree, Steele's dossier was laundered into the Justice Department repeatedly, by the CIA and State
Department and the Obama White House. It was used to obtain FISA surveillance warrants turning key members of the Trump Campaign
into walking microphones. It was circulated endlessly by the Clinton Campaign to a network of reporters in the U.S. known to serve
as scribes for the intelligence community. John Brennan used it to conduct a special emergency briefing of the leading members of
the U.S. Congress charged with intelligence responsibilities in August of 2016 and to brief Harry Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader
at the time. All of this activity meant that the salacious accusation that Trump was a Putin pawn and the FBI was investigating the
matter, leaked out and was used by the Clinton Campaign to defame Trump for its electoral advantage. When Trump won, Steele's nonsense
received the stamp of the U.S. intelligence community and official currency in the campaign to take out the President.
As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against
Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the
National Endowment for Democracy. The individuals involved might be named Veterans of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup, since all of
them also worked on this operation. It is no accident that Victoria Nuland, the case agent for the Ukraine coup, played a major role
in bolstering Steele's credentials for the purpose of selling his dirty dossier to the media and to the Justice Department. This
went so far as Steele giving a full scale briefing on his fabricated dossier at the State Department in October 2016.
Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there
to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda,
against Russia.
The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications
Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department.
Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly,
in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected.
This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the
attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That
is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with
ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest.
"in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe"
Perhaps add mainstream media to the list of such sincere believers, they will fire their own real journalists.
David Walters , April 24, 2019 at 13:14
"This doesn't mean that Russia would never use hackers to interfere in world political affairs or that Vladimir Putin is some
sort of virtuous girl scout, it just means that in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe the unsubstantiated
assertions of opaque and unaccountable government agencies about governments who are oppositional to those same agencies."
Absolutely correct.
Anyone who still believes what the IC says if a moron. As Pompeo recently said to the student body of Texas A&M University,
my alma matta, the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steel. He went on the explain that the CIA has courses to teach their agent
that dark "art".
Right, David Walters, and see Pompous Pompeo now. The only truths he's told was to a student body of Texas A&M University –
his own alma mater – the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steal.
Even though he's left his post as CIA Director and assumed his current post of Secretary of State. Pompous Pompeo continues his
CIA traits of lying, cheating, and stealing. It's in a way similar to a phrase, "A leopard never changes its spots". This is why
the DPRK govt issued a Persona Non Grata on Pompous Pompeo – that he isn't a bona fide diplomat, but a CIA official.
CWG , April 22, 2019 at 17:15
Here's my take on the 'Russian Collusion Deep State LIE.
There was NO Russian Collusion at all to get Trump in the White House. Most probably, Putin would have favored Clinton, since
she could be bought. Trump can't.
What did happen was illegal spying on the Trump campaign. That started late 2015, WITHOUT a FISA warrant. They only obtained
that in 2016, through lying to the FISA Court. The basis for that first warrant was the Fusion GPS Steele Dossier.
Ever since Trump won the election, they real conspirators knew they had a problem. That was apparent ever after Devin Nunes
did the right thing by informing Trump they were spying on him.
Since they obtained those FISA warrant through lying to the FISA Court (which is treason) they needed to cover that up as quickly
as possible.
So what did they do? Instead of admitting they lied to the FISA Court they kept on lying till this very day. The same lie through
which they obtained the FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was being pushed openly.
The lie is and was 'Trump colluded with the Russians in order to win the Presidential Election'.
They knew from day one Trump didn't do anything wrong. They did know they spied on Trump through lying to the FISA Court, which
again, is treason. According to the Constitution, lying to the FISA court= Treason.
In order to avoid being indicted and prosecuted, they somehow needed to 'take down' the Attorney General. At all costs, they
needed to try and hide what really happened.
So there they went. 'Trump colluded with the Russians. Not just Trump, but the entire Trump campaign!'.
'Sessions should recuse himself', the propaganda MSM said in unison. 'Recuse, recuse'.
Sessions, naively recused himself. Back then, even he probably didn't know the entire story. It was only later on that Sarah
Carter and Jon Solomon found out it had been Hillary who ordered and paid the Steele Dossier.
The real conspirators hoped that through the Special Counsel rat Mueller they might be able to achieve three main objectives.
1: Convince the American people Russia indeed was meddling in the Presidential Election.
2: Find any sort of dirt on Trump and/or people who helped him win the Election in order to 'take them down'.
Many people were indicted, some were prosecuted. Yet NONE of them were convicted for a crime that had ANYTHING to with with
the elections. NONE.
They stretched it out as long as possible. 'The longer you repeat a lie, the more people are willing to believe the lie'.
So that is what they did. They still do it. Mueller took TWO years to brainwash as many people as possible. 'Russian Collusion,
Russian Collusion. Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia. Rusiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh ..
Why did they want to make sure they could keep telling that lie as long as possible?
Because they FEAR people will learn the truth. There was NEVER any Russian Collusion with the Trump campaign.
There was spying on the Trump campaign by Obama in order to try and make Hillary win the Presidential Election.
That is the actual COLLUSION between the Clinton Campaign and a weaponized Obama regime!!
So what did 'Herr Mueller' do?
He took YEARS to come up with the conclusion that the Trump campaign did NOT collude with Russia.
The MSM tried to make us all believe it was about that. Yet it was NOT.
His conclusive report is all about the question 'did or didn't the Trump campaign collude with the Russians'.
Trump exonerated, and the MSM only talks about that. Trump, Trump, Trump.
They still want us all to believe that was what the Mueller 'investigation' was all about. Yet it was not.
The most important objective of the Mueller 'investigation' was not to 'investigate'.
It was to 'instigate' that HUGE lie.
The same lie which they used to obtain the FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.
"Russia'.
So what has 'Herr Mueller' done?
A: He finds ZERO evidence at all which proves the Trump campaign colluded with ANY Russians.
And now the huge lie, which after all was the main objective right from the get go. (A was only a distraction)
B: Russians hacked the DNC.
That is what they wants us all to believe. That Russia somehow did bad stuff.
Now it was not Russia who did bad stuff.
It was Obama working together with the Clinton campaign. Obama weaponized his entire regime in order to let Clinton win the
Presidency.
That is the REAL collusion. The real CRIME. Treason!
In order to create a 'cover up' Mueller NEEDED to instigate that Russia somehow did bad things.
That's what the Mueller Dossier is ALL about. They now have 'black on white' 'evidence' that Russia somehow did bad things.
Because if Russia didn't do anything like that, it would make us all ask the fair question 'why did Obama spy on the Trump
Campaign'.
Let's go a bit deeper still.
Here's a trap Mueller created. What if Trump would openly doubt the LIE they still push? The HUGE lie that Russia did bad things?
After all, they NEED that LIE in order to COVER UP their own crime.
If Trump would say 'I do not believe Russia did anything to influence the elections, I think Mueller wrote that to COVER UP
the real crime', what would happen?
They would say 'GOTCHA now, see Trump is colluding with Russia? He even refuses to accept Russia hacked the DNC, this ultimately
proofs Trump indeed is a Russian asset'.
They believe that trap will work. They needed that trap, since if Russia wasn't doing anything wrong, it would show us all
THEY were the criminals.
They NEED that lie, in order to COVER UP.
That is the 'Insurance Policy' Stzrok and Page texted about. Even Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon still don't seem to see all
that.
They should have attacked the HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC. That is simply not true. It's a Mueller created
LIE.
That LIE = the Insurance Policy.
What did they need an Insurance Policy for? They want us all to believe that was about preventing Trump from being elected.
Although true, that is only A.
They NEEDED an Insurance Policy in the unlikely case Trump would become President and would find out they were illegally spying
on him!
The REAL crime is Obama weaponized the American Government to spy on even a duly elected President.
What's the punishment for Treason?
About Assange and Seth Rich.
Days after Mueller finishes his 'mission' (Establish the LIE Russia did bad things) which seems to be succesfull, the Deep
State arrest the ONLY source who could undermine that lie.
Assange Since he knows who is (Seth Rich?) and who isn't (Russia) the source.
If Assange could testify under oath the emails did not come from Russia, the LIE would be exposed.
No coincidences here. I fear Assange will never testify under oath. I actually fear for his life.
Deniz , April 23, 2019 at 13:48
While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is
that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the
overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not
have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC.
Whether one is on the Right or Left, the house is still made of glass.
boxerwars , April 22, 2019 at 17:13
RE: "A Russian Agent Smear"
:::
Was Pat Tillman Murdered?
JUL 30, 2007
I don't know, but it seems increasingly conceivable. Just absorb these facts:
O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman
was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed,
O'Neal said
In the same testimony, medical examiners said the bullet holes in Tillman's head were so close together that it appeared the
Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The motive? I don't know. It's still likeliest it was an accident. But there's some mysterious testimony in the SI report about
nameless snipers. A reader suggests the following interpretation:
News this weekend said that there were "snipers" present and the witnesses didn't remember their names. I believe that's code
in the Army–these guys were Delta. In the Tillman incident, these snipers weren't part of the unit and they were never mentioned
publicly before. That's a key indicator that they weren't supposed to be acknowledged.
If you've ever read Blackhawk Down, Mark Bowden explains how he grew frustrated because interviewed Rangers kept referring
to "soldiers from another unit" while claiming they didn't know the unit ID or the soldiers' names. It took him months to crack
the unit ID and find people from Delta who were present at the fight.
Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Delta operators who earned Medals of Honor in Mogadishu, have always been identified as
snipers, too.
If my theory is correct, the Delta guys could have fired the shots – a three-round burst to the forehead from 50 yards is impossible
for normal soldiers and Rangers, but is probably an easy shot for those guys. But because Delta doesn't officially exist and Tillman
was a hero, nobody in the Army would want to have to explain exactly how the event went down. Easier just to claim hostile fire
until the family forced them to do otherwise.
This makes some sense to me, although we shouldn't dismiss the chance he was murdered. Tillman was a star and might have aroused
jealousy or resentment. He also opposed the Iraq war and was a proud atheist. In Bush's increasingly sectarian military, that
might have stirred hostility. I don't know. But I know enough to want a deeper investigation. My atheist readers will no doubt
admire the way Tillman left this world, according to the man who was with him:
As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman's side started praying. "I thought I was praying to myself,
but I guess he heard me," Sgt. Bryan O'Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. "He said something like,
'Hey, O'Neal, why are you praying? God can't help us now."'
(Maybe the Congress can )
////// The USA is aghast with "smears" and "internal investigations" and promised but never produced "White Papers" 'as the
world turns' and circles continents Dominated by American Military Power / Predominantly Barbarous / Uncivilized Use of Force
/ and Arrogantly Effective in it's use of Dominating Military Power.
\\\\ The Poorer Peoples of the World accept their lots-in-life with some acceptance of reality vis-a-vis the "lot-in-life"
they've been alleged/assigned.
/// But How Do We Accept The Fact that our Self-Sacrificiing Hero,Pat Tillman, was slaughtered in Afghanistan,
(WITH POSITIVE PROOF) – by his own Fellow American soldiers – ???
!!!! What i'm say'n is, if Tillman represents the Life Surrendering "American Hero"
WHY DID HIS FELLOW "AMERICAN SOLDIERS" ASSASSINATE & MURDER HIM ???????
AND WHY IS THIS STORY BURIED ALONG WITH MANY OTHER SMEAR Stories
that provide prophylactic protection for all the Trump pianist prophylaxis cover
Up for the Right Wing theft of American Democracy under FDR
In favor of Ayn Rand's prevalent OBJECTIVISM under Trump.
"Capitalism and Altruism
are incompatible
capitalism and altruism
cannot coexist in man,
or in the same society".
President Trump represents
Stark & Total Capitalism
Just as "Conservative Party"
Core is in The Confederacy
AKA; The RIGHT WING
The Right Wing of US Gov't
Is All About PRESERVING
Confederate States' Laws
Written by Thomas Jefferson
Prior to The Constitution, which
became the Received/Judicial
Constitutional Law of the Land in
The Republic of the "United States"
It's not enough that Trump is clearly a classic narcissist whose behavior will continue to deteriorate the more his actions
and statements are attacked and countered? You know what happens when narcissists are driven into a corner by people tearing them
down? They get weapons and start killing people.
There is already more than ample evidence to remove Donald Trump from office, not the least being he's clearly mentally unfit.
Yet the Democrats, some of whom ran for office on a promise to impeach, are suddenly reticent to act without "more investigation".
Nancy Pelosi stated on the record prior to release of the Mueller report impeachment wasn't on the agenda "for now". She's now
making noises in the opposite direction, but that's all they are: noise.
The bottom line is the Clintonite New Democrats currently running the party have only one issue to run on next year: getting
rid of Donald Trump. They still operate under the delusion they will be able to use him to draw off moderate Republican voters,
the same ones they were positive would come out for Hillary Clinton in '16. Their multitude of candidates pay lip service to progressive
policy then carefully walk back to the standard centrist positions once the donations start coming, but the common underlying
theme was and continues to be "Donald Trump is evil, and we need to elect a Democrat."
In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because
Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton
campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they
disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November.
Eddie S , April 24, 2019 at 21:14
Exactly right, EKB -- - you can't ballroom dance without a partner! Also reminds me of the couples you occasionally run into
where one partner repeatedly runs-down the other, and you get the feeling that the critical partner doesn't have much going on
in his/her life so they deflect that by focusing on the other partner
Johnny Ryan S , April 22, 2019 at 13:38
Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did
you know:
1)Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC
2) CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire
3) DNC stayed that the FBI never asked to investigate the servers – that is a lie.
4) CrowdStrike received $100 million in investments led by Google Capital (since re-branded as CapitalG) in 2015. CapitalG is
owned by Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt, Alphabet's chairman, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. More than just
supporting Clinton, leaked emails from Wikileaks in November 2016 showed that in 2014 he wanted to have an active role in the
campaign.
-daily caller and dan bongino have been bringing these points up since 2016.
Deniz , April 22, 2019 at 12:36
The Right is currently salivating over the tough law enforcement rhetoric coming out of Barr and Trump.
It reminds me of when Obama was running for office in 2008 when everyone, including myself, was in awe of him. What kept slipping
into his soaring anti-intervention speeches, was a commitment to the good war in Afghanistan, which seemed totally out of place
with the rest of his rhetoric. The fine print was far more reflective of his administration actions as the rest of it his communications
turned out to be just telling people what they wanted to hear.
War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff.
The argument about not inserting Rich and the download is a good one as a defense strategy but doesn't help with finding the
truth about the emails. We can only hope that pursuing the truth and producing it will have a cumulative effect and the illusory
truth effect will include this truth.
Red Douglas , April 22, 2019 at 16:00
>>> ". . . doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails."
The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that
they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages.
Why should we much care how they were acquired and provided to the publisher?
Lily , April 22, 2019 at 17:55
That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about
the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony
Blair are lyers and mass murderers.
All three of them are free, earning millions with their publicity whereas two brave persons who were telling the truth have
been tortured and are still in jail. Reality has become like the most horrible nightmare. Everything simply seems to have turned
upside down. No writer would invent such a primitive plot. And yet it is the unbelievable reality.
Dump Pelousy , April 23, 2019 at 13:21
I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out
JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John
Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be
a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create.
Democratic party candidate Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine (1). Given that Biden is the most beatable
name to come forward so far Trump and his administration will do nothing major to involve the U.S. with the internal affairs of
Ukraine.
Macron and Merkel may wish to do something, but given personal unpopularity in their countries it is unclear what they can
deliver.
For the next 12+ months nothing of any significance will happen. If the Dems are foolish enough to nominate Biden, it could
become an issue next year. Trump and Putin would have aligned interests in stopping the Biden family's exploitation of Ukrainian
resources.
"... The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks. ..."
"... Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done. ..."
"... President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. ..."
"... The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence, ..."
"... According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. ..."
"... This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. ..."
"... Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control. ..."
"... In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department. ..."
"... The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA. ..."
"... As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. ..."
"... Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia. ..."
"... The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected. ..."
"... This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest. ..."
"... Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know: ..."
"... War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff. ..."
"... The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages. ..."
"... That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers. ..."
The British Role in 'Russiagate' Is About to Be Fully Exposed April 8, 2019
20190408-russiagate-exposed-brits.pdf
The "fake news" media has now dropped its pretense of having ever had any intention of allowing the truth -- as documented in
U.S. Attorney General Barr's summary of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, exonerating President Donald Trump of having
"conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" -- to thoroughly refute the Russiagate "Big Lie." Soon, however, it is certain
that the deliberate, British Intelligence-originated, military-grade disinformation campaign carried out against the United States,
including to this day, will be exposed.
The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix
the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth,
along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all
that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental
stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks.
"It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat," says the Chinese proverb. Yet, although the Mueller
report was called a "nothing burger," it was not: it still presented the potentially lethal lie that twelve Russian gremlins, code-named
Guccifer 2.0, hacked the DNC. Sundry media meatheads thus continue to blog and broadcast about "what else is really there."
The false Russian hack story, still being repeated, marches on, undeterred, like the emperor without any clothes. One lame-brained
variation, promoted in order to cover up the British role, states that Hillary Clinton, rather than Trump, colluded with the Russians.
It is being repeated by Republicans and Democrats alike, some of them malicious, some of them confused, and all of them completely
wrong. The media, such as the failed New York Times and various electronic media, must be forced to either admit the truth,
or be even more thoroughly discredited than they already have been. They must stop their constant repetition of this Joseph Goebbels-like
Big Lie. There must be a vigorous dissemination of the truth by all those journalists, politicians, activists and citizens that love
truth more than their own assumptions, including about President Trump, or other dearly-held systems of false belief.
Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard
Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several
years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper
policy motivation: why it was done.
A New Cultural Paradigm
The world is actually on the verge of ending the military conflicts among the major world powers, such as Russia, China, the United
States, and India. These four powers, and not the City of London, are the key fulcrum around which a new era in humanity's future
will be decided. A new monetary and credit system brought into being through these four powers would foster the greatest physical
economic growth in the history of humanity. In addition, discussions involving Italy working with China on the industrialization
of the African continent (discussions which could soon also involve the United States) show that sections of Europe want to join
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and leave the dying trans-Atlantic financial empire behind.
The recent announcement of a United States commitment to return to the Moon by 2024 can, in particular, become the basis for a
proposal to other nations -- for example, China, Russia, and India, all of whom are space powers of demonstrated capability -- to
resolve their differences on Earth in a higher, joint mission. As Russia's Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin said in a recent interview:
"I am a fierce proponent of international cooperation, including with Americans, because their country is big and technologically
advanced, and they can make good partners Especially since personal and professional relations between Roscosmos and NASA at the
working level are great."
There is also the possibility of ending the danger of thermonuclear war. President Trump, speaking on April 4 of the prospects
for world peace, stated:
"Between Russia, China, and us, we're all making hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is
ridiculous. I think it's much better if we all got together and didn't make these weapons those three countries I think can come
together and stop the spending and spend on things that are more productive toward long-term peace."
This is a statement of real importance. Such an outlook is a rejection of the "perpetual crisis/perpetual war" outlook of the
Bush-Obama Administration, a four-term "war presidency" which was abruptly, unexpectedly ended in 2016. The British were not amused.
It is to stop this new cultural paradigm, pivoted on the Pacific and the potential Four Powers alliance, that British imperial
forces have deployed. The 2016 election of President Trump, and his personal friendship with President Xi Jinping and desire to work
with President Putin, are an intolerable strategic threat to the eighteenth-century geopolitics of the British empire. They have
repeatedly used Russiagate to disrupt the process of deliberation among Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin, thus increasing the danger
of war. Russiagate, in the interest of international security, must be ended by exposing it for the utter fraud that it is.
The Truth Set Free
President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office,
Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of
America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American
people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again
to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and
Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth,
and the truth would set them free.
The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican
forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street,
or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection
against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase
the American Declaration of Independence,
"The history of the present Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
undermining of the United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."
DOCUMENTATION
While Robert Mueller found that there was "no collusion" between Donald Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia, he also filed
two indictments regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The first alleges that 12 members of Russian Military
Intelligence hacked the DNC and John Podesta and delivered the purloined files to WikiLeaks for strategic publication before the
July 2016 Democratic National Convention and in October 2016, one month before the election. The second indictment charges the Internet
Research Agency, a Russian internet merchandising and marketing firm, with running social media campaigns in the U.S. in 2016 designed
to impact the election. When the fuller version of the Mueller report becomes public, it is certain to recharge the claims of Russian
interference based on the so-called background "evidence" supporting these indictments.
The good news, however, is that investigations in the United States and Britain, have unearthed significant contrary evidence
exposing British Intelligence, NATO, and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine, as the actual foreign actors in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election. We provide a short summary of the main aspects of that evidence to spark further investigations of the British intelligence
networks, entities, and methods at issue, internationally. More detailed accounts concerning specific aspects of what we recite here
can be found on our website.
The Russian Hack That Wasn't
The Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an association of former U.S. intelligence officials, have demonstrated that
the Russian hack of the DNC alleged by Robert Mueller, was more likely an internal leak,
rather than a hack conducted
over the internet. William Binney, who conducted the main investigations for the VIPS, spent 30 years at the National Security Agency,
becoming Technical Director. He designed the sorts of NSA programs that would detect a Russian hack if one occurred. Binney conducted
an actual forensic examination of the DNC files released by WikiLeaks, and the related files circulated by the persona Guccifer 2.0,
who Robert Mueller claims is a GRU creation. Binney has demonstrated that the calculated transfer speeds and metadata characteristics
of these files are consistent with downloading to a thumb drive or storage device rather than an internet-based hack. This supports
the account by WikiLeaks of how it obtained the files. According to WikiLeaks and former Ambassador Craig Murray, they were obtained
from a person who was not a Russian state actor of any kind, in Washington, D.C. WikiLeaks offered to tell the Justice Department
all about this, and actual negotiations to this effect were proceeding in early 2017, when Senator Mark Warner and FBI Director James
Comey acted to sabotage and end the negotiations.
Further, as opposed to the hyperbole in the media and in Robert Mueller's indictment, analysis of the Internet Research Agency's
alleged "weaponization" of Facebook in 2016 involved
a paltry total of $46,000 in Facebook
ads and $4,700 spent on Google platforms . In an election in which the major campaigns spend tens of thousands of dollars every
day on these platforms, whatever the IRA thought it was doing in its amateurish and juvenile memes and tropes was like throwing a
stone in the ocean. Most of these activities occurred after the election and never mentioned either candidate. The interpretation
that these ads were designed to draw clicks and website traffic, rather than influence the election, must be considered.
The "evidence" for Mueller's GRU hacking indictment was provided, in part, by CrowdStrike, the DNC vendor that originated the
claims that the Russians had hacked that entity. CrowdStrike is closely associated with the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Lab
(DRL), an operation jointly funded by NATO's Strategic Communications Center and the U.S. State Department, to counter Russian "hybrid
warfare." CrowdStrike has been caught more than once falsely attributing hacks to the Russians and the Atlantic Council's DRL is
a font of anti-Russian intelligence operations.
The British Target Trump
According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump
and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence
leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. The former head
of the Russia Desk for MI6 and protégé of Sir Richard Dearlove, Christopher Steele, fresh from working for British Intelligence,
the FBI, and U.S. State Department in the 2014 Ukraine coup, assembled in 2016 a phony dossier called Operation Charlemagne, claiming
widespread Russian interference in European elections, including in the Brexit vote. By the spring of 2016, Steele was contributing
to a British/U.S. intelligence task force on the Trump Campaign which had been convened at CIA headquarters under John Brennan's
direction.
This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British
soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. The personnel employed in these operations all had multiple
connections to the British firm Hakluyt, to Steele's firm Orbis, and to the British military's Integrity Initiative. Sometime in
the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then head of GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief John Brennan personally. Hannigan abruptly
resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage
control.
Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort were already on the radar and under investigation by the same British, Dearlove-centered intelligence
network and by Christopher Steele specifically. Flynn had been defamed by Dearlove and Stefan Halper, as a possible Russian agent
way back in 2014 because he spoke to Russian researcher Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner sponsored by Dearlove's Cambridge Security Forum.
Or, at least that was the pretext for the targeting of Flynn, who otherwise defied British intelligence by exposing Western support
for terrorist operations in Syria and sought a collaborative relationship with Russia to counter ISIS. Manafort was under FBI investigation
throughout 2014 and 2015, largely in retaliation for his role in steering the Party of the Regions to political power in Ukraine.
In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian
state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine.
Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department.
In or around June 2016, Christopher Steele began writing his dirty and bogus dossier about Trump and Russia. This is the dossier
which claimed that Trump was compromised by Putin and that Putin was coordinating with Trump in the 2016 election. The main "legend"
of this full-spectrum information warfare operation run from Britain, was that Donald Trump was receiving "dirt" on Hillary Clinton
from Russia. The operations targeting Page and Papadopoulos consisted of multiple attempts to plant fabricated evidence on them which
would reflect what Steele himself was fabricating in the dirty dossier. At the very same time, the infamous June 2016 meeting at
Trump Tower was being set up. That meeting involved the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, it was alleged in a series of
bizarre emails written by British publicist Ron Goldstone to set up the meeting, could deliver "dirt" on Hillary Clinton direct from
the Russian government. Veselnitskaya didn't deliver any such dirt. But the entire operation was being monitored by State Department
intelligence agent Kyle Parker, an expert on Russia. Parker's emails reveal deep ties to the highest levels of British intelligence
and much chatter between them about Trump and Russia.
A now-changed version of the website for Christopher Steele's firm, Orbis, trumpeted an expertise in information warfare operations,
and the networks in which Steele runs are deeply integrated into the British military's Integrity Initiative. The Integrity Initiative
is a rapid response propaganda operation using major journalists in the United States and Europe to carry out targeted defamation
campaigns. Its central charge, according to documents posted by the hacking group Anonymous, is selling the United States and Western
Europe on the immediate need for regime change in Russia, even if that involves war.
Much has been made by Republicans and other lunkheads in the U.S. Congress of Steele's contacts with Russians for his dossier.
They claim that such contacts resulted in a Russian disinformation operation being run through the duped Christopher Steele. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
MI6's Dirty Dossier on Donald Trump: Full-Spectrum Information Warfare
On its face, Steele's dossier would immediately be recognized as a complete fabrication by any competent intelligence analyst.
He cites some 32 sources inside the Russian government for his fabricated claims about Trump. What they allegedly told him is specific
enough in time and content to identify them. To believe that the dossier is true or that actual Russians contributed to it, you must
also believe that that the British government was willing to roll up this entire network, exposing them, since the intention was
for the dossier's wild claims to be published as widely as possible. By all accounts, Britain and the United States together do not
have 32 highly placed sources inside the Russian government, nor would they ever make them public in this way or with this very sloppy
tradecraft. Steele's fabrication also uses aspects of readily available public information, such as the sale of 19% of the energy
company Rosneft, (the alleged bribe offered to Carter Page for lifting sanctions) to concoct a fictional narrative of high crimes
and misdemeanors.
Other claims in the dossier were published, publicly, in various Ukrainian publications. The famous claim that Trump directed
prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept upon by Barack Obama seems to be plagiarized from similarly fake 2009 British propaganda
stories about Silvio Berlusconi spending the night with a prostitute in a hotel room in Rome, "defiling" Putin's bed. According to
various sources in the United States, this outrageous claim was made by Sergei Millian. George Papadopoulos has stated that he believes
Millian is an FBI informant, recounting in his book how a friend of Millian's blurted this out when Millian, Papadopoulos and the
friend were having coffee.
The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate
Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former
senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is
no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA.
Despite its obvious fake pedigree, Steele's dossier was laundered into the Justice Department repeatedly, by the CIA and State
Department and the Obama White House. It was used to obtain FISA surveillance warrants turning key members of the Trump Campaign
into walking microphones. It was circulated endlessly by the Clinton Campaign to a network of reporters in the U.S. known to serve
as scribes for the intelligence community. John Brennan used it to conduct a special emergency briefing of the leading members of
the U.S. Congress charged with intelligence responsibilities in August of 2016 and to brief Harry Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader
at the time. All of this activity meant that the salacious accusation that Trump was a Putin pawn and the FBI was investigating the
matter, leaked out and was used by the Clinton Campaign to defame Trump for its electoral advantage. When Trump won, Steele's nonsense
received the stamp of the U.S. intelligence community and official currency in the campaign to take out the President.
As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against
Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the
National Endowment for Democracy. The individuals involved might be named Veterans of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup, since all of
them also worked on this operation. It is no accident that Victoria Nuland, the case agent for the Ukraine coup, played a major role
in bolstering Steele's credentials for the purpose of selling his dirty dossier to the media and to the Justice Department. This
went so far as Steele giving a full scale briefing on his fabricated dossier at the State Department in October 2016.
Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there
to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda,
against Russia.
The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications
Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department.
Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly,
in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected.
This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the
attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That
is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with
ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest.
"in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe"
Perhaps add mainstream media to the list of such sincere believers, they will fire their own real journalists.
David Walters , April 24, 2019 at 13:14
"This doesn't mean that Russia would never use hackers to interfere in world political affairs or that Vladimir Putin is some
sort of virtuous girl scout, it just means that in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe the unsubstantiated
assertions of opaque and unaccountable government agencies about governments who are oppositional to those same agencies."
Absolutely correct.
Anyone who still believes what the IC says if a moron. As Pompeo recently said to the student body of Texas A&M University,
my alma matta, the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steel. He went on the explain that the CIA has courses to teach their agent
that dark "art".
Right, David Walters, and see Pompous Pompeo now. The only truths he's told was to a student body of Texas A&M University –
his own alma mater – the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steal.
Even though he's left his post as CIA Director and assumed his current post of Secretary of State. Pompous Pompeo continues his
CIA traits of lying, cheating, and stealing. It's in a way similar to a phrase, "A leopard never changes its spots". This is why
the DPRK govt issued a Persona Non Grata on Pompous Pompeo – that he isn't a bona fide diplomat, but a CIA official.
CWG , April 22, 2019 at 17:15
Here's my take on the 'Russian Collusion Deep State LIE.
There was NO Russian Collusion at all to get Trump in the White House. Most probably, Putin would have favored Clinton, since
she could be bought. Trump can't.
What did happen was illegal spying on the Trump campaign. That started late 2015, WITHOUT a FISA warrant. They only obtained
that in 2016, through lying to the FISA Court. The basis for that first warrant was the Fusion GPS Steele Dossier.
Ever since Trump won the election, they real conspirators knew they had a problem. That was apparent ever after Devin Nunes
did the right thing by informing Trump they were spying on him.
Since they obtained those FISA warrant through lying to the FISA Court (which is treason) they needed to cover that up as quickly
as possible.
So what did they do? Instead of admitting they lied to the FISA Court they kept on lying till this very day. The same lie through
which they obtained the FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was being pushed openly.
The lie is and was 'Trump colluded with the Russians in order to win the Presidential Election'.
They knew from day one Trump didn't do anything wrong. They did know they spied on Trump through lying to the FISA Court, which
again, is treason. According to the Constitution, lying to the FISA court= Treason.
In order to avoid being indicted and prosecuted, they somehow needed to 'take down' the Attorney General. At all costs, they
needed to try and hide what really happened.
So there they went. 'Trump colluded with the Russians. Not just Trump, but the entire Trump campaign!'.
'Sessions should recuse himself', the propaganda MSM said in unison. 'Recuse, recuse'.
Sessions, naively recused himself. Back then, even he probably didn't know the entire story. It was only later on that Sarah
Carter and Jon Solomon found out it had been Hillary who ordered and paid the Steele Dossier.
The real conspirators hoped that through the Special Counsel rat Mueller they might be able to achieve three main objectives.
1: Convince the American people Russia indeed was meddling in the Presidential Election.
2: Find any sort of dirt on Trump and/or people who helped him win the Election in order to 'take them down'.
Many people were indicted, some were prosecuted. Yet NONE of them were convicted for a crime that had ANYTHING to with with
the elections. NONE.
They stretched it out as long as possible. 'The longer you repeat a lie, the more people are willing to believe the lie'.
So that is what they did. They still do it. Mueller took TWO years to brainwash as many people as possible. 'Russian Collusion,
Russian Collusion. Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia. Rusiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh ..
Why did they want to make sure they could keep telling that lie as long as possible?
Because they FEAR people will learn the truth. There was NEVER any Russian Collusion with the Trump campaign.
There was spying on the Trump campaign by Obama in order to try and make Hillary win the Presidential Election.
That is the actual COLLUSION between the Clinton Campaign and a weaponized Obama regime!!
So what did 'Herr Mueller' do?
He took YEARS to come up with the conclusion that the Trump campaign did NOT collude with Russia.
The MSM tried to make us all believe it was about that. Yet it was NOT.
His conclusive report is all about the question 'did or didn't the Trump campaign collude with the Russians'.
Trump exonerated, and the MSM only talks about that. Trump, Trump, Trump.
They still want us all to believe that was what the Mueller 'investigation' was all about. Yet it was not.
The most important objective of the Mueller 'investigation' was not to 'investigate'.
It was to 'instigate' that HUGE lie.
The same lie which they used to obtain the FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.
"Russia'.
So what has 'Herr Mueller' done?
A: He finds ZERO evidence at all which proves the Trump campaign colluded with ANY Russians.
And now the huge lie, which after all was the main objective right from the get go. (A was only a distraction)
B: Russians hacked the DNC.
That is what they wants us all to believe. That Russia somehow did bad stuff.
Now it was not Russia who did bad stuff.
It was Obama working together with the Clinton campaign. Obama weaponized his entire regime in order to let Clinton win the
Presidency.
That is the REAL collusion. The real CRIME. Treason!
In order to create a 'cover up' Mueller NEEDED to instigate that Russia somehow did bad things.
That's what the Mueller Dossier is ALL about. They now have 'black on white' 'evidence' that Russia somehow did bad things.
Because if Russia didn't do anything like that, it would make us all ask the fair question 'why did Obama spy on the Trump
Campaign'.
Let's go a bit deeper still.
Here's a trap Mueller created. What if Trump would openly doubt the LIE they still push? The HUGE lie that Russia did bad things?
After all, they NEED that LIE in order to COVER UP their own crime.
If Trump would say 'I do not believe Russia did anything to influence the elections, I think Mueller wrote that to COVER UP
the real crime', what would happen?
They would say 'GOTCHA now, see Trump is colluding with Russia? He even refuses to accept Russia hacked the DNC, this ultimately
proofs Trump indeed is a Russian asset'.
They believe that trap will work. They needed that trap, since if Russia wasn't doing anything wrong, it would show us all
THEY were the criminals.
They NEED that lie, in order to COVER UP.
That is the 'Insurance Policy' Stzrok and Page texted about. Even Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon still don't seem to see all
that.
They should have attacked the HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC. That is simply not true. It's a Mueller created
LIE.
That LIE = the Insurance Policy.
What did they need an Insurance Policy for? They want us all to believe that was about preventing Trump from being elected.
Although true, that is only A.
They NEEDED an Insurance Policy in the unlikely case Trump would become President and would find out they were illegally spying
on him!
The REAL crime is Obama weaponized the American Government to spy on even a duly elected President.
What's the punishment for Treason?
About Assange and Seth Rich.
Days after Mueller finishes his 'mission' (Establish the LIE Russia did bad things) which seems to be succesfull, the Deep
State arrest the ONLY source who could undermine that lie.
Assange Since he knows who is (Seth Rich?) and who isn't (Russia) the source.
If Assange could testify under oath the emails did not come from Russia, the LIE would be exposed.
No coincidences here. I fear Assange will never testify under oath. I actually fear for his life.
Deniz , April 23, 2019 at 13:48
While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is
that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the
overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not
have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC.
Whether one is on the Right or Left, the house is still made of glass.
boxerwars , April 22, 2019 at 17:13
RE: "A Russian Agent Smear"
:::
Was Pat Tillman Murdered?
JUL 30, 2007
I don't know, but it seems increasingly conceivable. Just absorb these facts:
O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman
was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed,
O'Neal said
In the same testimony, medical examiners said the bullet holes in Tillman's head were so close together that it appeared the
Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The motive? I don't know. It's still likeliest it was an accident. But there's some mysterious testimony in the SI report about
nameless snipers. A reader suggests the following interpretation:
News this weekend said that there were "snipers" present and the witnesses didn't remember their names. I believe that's code
in the Army–these guys were Delta. In the Tillman incident, these snipers weren't part of the unit and they were never mentioned
publicly before. That's a key indicator that they weren't supposed to be acknowledged.
If you've ever read Blackhawk Down, Mark Bowden explains how he grew frustrated because interviewed Rangers kept referring
to "soldiers from another unit" while claiming they didn't know the unit ID or the soldiers' names. It took him months to crack
the unit ID and find people from Delta who were present at the fight.
Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Delta operators who earned Medals of Honor in Mogadishu, have always been identified as
snipers, too.
If my theory is correct, the Delta guys could have fired the shots – a three-round burst to the forehead from 50 yards is impossible
for normal soldiers and Rangers, but is probably an easy shot for those guys. But because Delta doesn't officially exist and Tillman
was a hero, nobody in the Army would want to have to explain exactly how the event went down. Easier just to claim hostile fire
until the family forced them to do otherwise.
This makes some sense to me, although we shouldn't dismiss the chance he was murdered. Tillman was a star and might have aroused
jealousy or resentment. He also opposed the Iraq war and was a proud atheist. In Bush's increasingly sectarian military, that
might have stirred hostility. I don't know. But I know enough to want a deeper investigation. My atheist readers will no doubt
admire the way Tillman left this world, according to the man who was with him:
As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman's side started praying. "I thought I was praying to myself,
but I guess he heard me," Sgt. Bryan O'Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. "He said something like,
'Hey, O'Neal, why are you praying? God can't help us now."'
(Maybe the Congress can )
////// The USA is aghast with "smears" and "internal investigations" and promised but never produced "White Papers" 'as the
world turns' and circles continents Dominated by American Military Power / Predominantly Barbarous / Uncivilized Use of Force
/ and Arrogantly Effective in it's use of Dominating Military Power.
\\\\ The Poorer Peoples of the World accept their lots-in-life with some acceptance of reality vis-a-vis the "lot-in-life"
they've been alleged/assigned.
/// But How Do We Accept The Fact that our Self-Sacrificiing Hero,Pat Tillman, was slaughtered in Afghanistan,
(WITH POSITIVE PROOF) – by his own Fellow American soldiers – ???
!!!! What i'm say'n is, if Tillman represents the Life Surrendering "American Hero"
WHY DID HIS FELLOW "AMERICAN SOLDIERS" ASSASSINATE & MURDER HIM ???????
AND WHY IS THIS STORY BURIED ALONG WITH MANY OTHER SMEAR Stories
that provide prophylactic protection for all the Trump pianist prophylaxis cover
Up for the Right Wing theft of American Democracy under FDR
In favor of Ayn Rand's prevalent OBJECTIVISM under Trump.
"Capitalism and Altruism
are incompatible
capitalism and altruism
cannot coexist in man,
or in the same society".
President Trump represents
Stark & Total Capitalism
Just as "Conservative Party"
Core is in The Confederacy
AKA; The RIGHT WING
The Right Wing of US Gov't
Is All About PRESERVING
Confederate States' Laws
Written by Thomas Jefferson
Prior to The Constitution, which
became the Received/Judicial
Constitutional Law of the Land in
The Republic of the "United States"
It's not enough that Trump is clearly a classic narcissist whose behavior will continue to deteriorate the more his actions
and statements are attacked and countered? You know what happens when narcissists are driven into a corner by people tearing them
down? They get weapons and start killing people.
There is already more than ample evidence to remove Donald Trump from office, not the least being he's clearly mentally unfit.
Yet the Democrats, some of whom ran for office on a promise to impeach, are suddenly reticent to act without "more investigation".
Nancy Pelosi stated on the record prior to release of the Mueller report impeachment wasn't on the agenda "for now". She's now
making noises in the opposite direction, but that's all they are: noise.
The bottom line is the Clintonite New Democrats currently running the party have only one issue to run on next year: getting
rid of Donald Trump. They still operate under the delusion they will be able to use him to draw off moderate Republican voters,
the same ones they were positive would come out for Hillary Clinton in '16. Their multitude of candidates pay lip service to progressive
policy then carefully walk back to the standard centrist positions once the donations start coming, but the common underlying
theme was and continues to be "Donald Trump is evil, and we need to elect a Democrat."
In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because
Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton
campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they
disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November.
Eddie S , April 24, 2019 at 21:14
Exactly right, EKB -- - you can't ballroom dance without a partner! Also reminds me of the couples you occasionally run into
where one partner repeatedly runs-down the other, and you get the feeling that the critical partner doesn't have much going on
in his/her life so they deflect that by focusing on the other partner
Johnny Ryan S , April 22, 2019 at 13:38
Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did
you know:
1)Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC
2) CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire
3) DNC stayed that the FBI never asked to investigate the servers – that is a lie.
4) CrowdStrike received $100 million in investments led by Google Capital (since re-branded as CapitalG) in 2015. CapitalG is
owned by Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt, Alphabet's chairman, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. More than just
supporting Clinton, leaked emails from Wikileaks in November 2016 showed that in 2014 he wanted to have an active role in the
campaign.
-daily caller and dan bongino have been bringing these points up since 2016.
Deniz , April 22, 2019 at 12:36
The Right is currently salivating over the tough law enforcement rhetoric coming out of Barr and Trump.
It reminds me of when Obama was running for office in 2008 when everyone, including myself, was in awe of him. What kept slipping
into his soaring anti-intervention speeches, was a commitment to the good war in Afghanistan, which seemed totally out of place
with the rest of his rhetoric. The fine print was far more reflective of his administration actions as the rest of it his communications
turned out to be just telling people what they wanted to hear.
War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff.
The argument about not inserting Rich and the download is a good one as a defense strategy but doesn't help with finding the
truth about the emails. We can only hope that pursuing the truth and producing it will have a cumulative effect and the illusory
truth effect will include this truth.
Red Douglas , April 22, 2019 at 16:00
>>> ". . . doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails."
The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that
they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages.
Why should we much care how they were acquired and provided to the publisher?
Lily , April 22, 2019 at 17:55
That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about
the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony
Blair are lyers and mass murderers.
All three of them are free, earning millions with their publicity whereas two brave persons who were telling the truth have
been tortured and are still in jail. Reality has become like the most horrible nightmare. Everything simply seems to have turned
upside down. No writer would invent such a primitive plot. And yet it is the unbelievable reality.
Dump Pelousy , April 23, 2019 at 13:21
I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out
JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John
Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be
a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create.
So oil prices with rise which threaten Trump bid in 2020. Interesting times.
Notable quotes:
"... As is now known, however, appearances can be very misleading, and in actuality the same country that was vowing to "defy" the US actually ended up quietly implementing its new patron's will. ..."
The announcement by India's Oil Minister that his country will replace US-sanctioned
Iranian oil imports with those from "major oil-producing countries" despite the dramatic Bollywood show that New Delhi has made up until this point out of "defying" US sanctions makes
one seriously wonder whether India's preparing to ditch Russia next if the US imposes CAATSA
sanctions against it over the S-400s.
Shattering The "Indian Illusion"
The "
Indian Illusion " has been shattered after India's Oil Minister tweeted that his country will
replace US-sanctioned Iranian oil imports with those from "major oil-producing countries" such
as the Islamic Republic's hated GCC foes of Saudi
Arabia and the UAE that America said will
step up their exports in order to stabilize global prices after Washington announced that
it won't renew its anti-Iranian oil sanction waivers. New Delhi made a dramatic Bollywood-like
show over the past year out of "defying" US sanctions, with External Affairs Minister Sushma
Swaraj announcing last May that India will
only obey UNSC sanctions and not those unilaterally imposed by the US in contravention of
international law.
The Oil Minister himself said back in October before the waivers were issued that India will
continue buying Iranian oil in spite of the US sanctions, later
crediting Prime Minister Modi a month later when the US eventually granted it the waiver.
Adding "credibility" to the illusion that India's perception managers were masterfully
creating, it was then reported that the country will
use rupees instead of dollars when trading with Iran, a bold move that even fooled an RT
columnist who headlined his op-ed on this development as a " response to US global
bullying ".
As is now known, however, appearances can be very misleading, and in actuality
the same country that was vowing to "defy" the US actually ended up quietly implementing its
new patron's will.
Some pretty strange ideas if we are taking about oil. What they are smiling at RAND?
Notable quotes:
"... That evaluation is quite strange. The U.S. government does not produce oil. Private companies do so but only if they can make a profit. Increasing production beyond the global demand will decrease the oil price for all producers. All recent new U.S. production comes from shale oil. Optimistic estimates put the break even point for good shale oil fields at around $50 per barrel. Few fields can produce at lower costs. Most shale oil fields have a higher break even point. There is also a danger in suppressing oil prices. Many oil producing countries have U.S. friendly regimes. They need high oil prices to survive. Ruining them will not come cheap for the U.S. in geopolitical terms. ..."
"... of the 8 most promising suggestions - 6 of them are military... it seems to me these think tanks are great pr tools for the military industrial complex... who cares if the usa continues to move into 3rd world status as a nation, so long as more money for weapons can be acquired?? that is what these think tanks - rand and etc seem to want to foist on the public... it is all so very sad.. ..."
"... No, I think most US weapons procurement gives weapons that don't work as advertised, and wouldn't win wars anyway. I think it's one reason why the US military is largely only capable of spoiler wars, not actually conquering any place. (The other is the general unreliability of mercenary forces, which the US army basically is, however much they try to cultivate a militant Christian ethos.) ..."
"... I also do not believe spoiler wars help the country as a whole (as opposed to some of the owners) I think pretty much all a burden, immoral to boot and should be massively reduced. ..."
"... Even if you’re sure those companies are entirely private, if you print the current global reserve currency, can you not give “free” money to frackers and thereby make them more competitive than global peers? Sure, that’s flooding the market with an illegal subsidy. But, who can conduct proper accounting in opaque markets? ..."
According to RAND the best option to overextend and unbalance is to produce more oil:
Expanding U.S. energy production would stress Russia's economy, potentially constraining its government budget and, by extension,
its defense spending. By adopting policies that expand world supply and depress global prices, the United States can limit Russian
revenue. Doing so entails little cost or risk, produces second-order benefits for the U.S. economy, and does not need multilateral
endorsement.
That evaluation is quite strange. The U.S. government does not produce oil. Private companies do so but only if they can make
a profit. Increasing production beyond the global demand will decrease the oil price for all producers. All recent new U.S. production
comes from shale oil. Optimistic estimates put the break even point for good shale oil fields
at around $50 per barrel. Few fields can produce at lower costs. Most shale oil fields have a higher break even point. There
is also a danger in suppressing oil prices. Many oil producing countries have U.S. friendly regimes. They need high oil prices to
survive. Ruining them will not come cheap for the U.S. in geopolitical terms.
The second best option says RAND is to increase sanctions of Russia. This also doesn't make much sense. Russia can produce everything
it needs and it has free access to the world's largest markets, China and India.
The best military options listed by RAND are all useless. All the new weapon systems Russia has revealed over the last two years
are way more capable than anything the U.S. is able to field. If the U.S., as RAND advocates, invest more in certain fields, it will
only be to catch up. That does not impose any new costs on Russia.
... ... ...
In all I find it a bit impertinent to publicly argue for "overextending and unbalancing Russia". Where is the need to do such?
The study demonstrates again that strategic analysis by U.S. think tanks is woefully shallow-minded. The "experts" writing these
have no deep understanding of Russia, or even of the economic-political complexity of the real world.
Four of the eight best options the RAND study found start with the words "Invest more in ...". It is a sign that the foremost
motive its writers had in mind is to grab more taxpayer money. Fine. Give it to them already. Overextending and unbalancing the U.S.
by more abstruse expenditure for weapon systems that do not work will neither hurt me nor Russia.
thanks b.. of the 8 most promising suggestions - 6 of them are military... it seems to me these think tanks are great pr tools
for the military industrial complex... who cares if the usa continues to move into 3rd world status as a nation, so long as more
money for weapons can be acquired?? that is what these think tanks - rand and etc seem to want to foist on the public... it is
all so very sad..
@1 steven.. well, as i read you, you are essentially supporting a continuation of the usa pouring endless
money into the military then, regardless the accuracy of the accounts on the new Russian weapons.. do i have that right?
No, I think most US weapons procurement gives weapons that don't work as advertised, and wouldn't win wars anyway. I think
it's one reason why the US military is largely only capable of spoiler wars, not actually conquering any place. (The other is
the general unreliability of mercenary forces, which the US army basically is, however much they try to cultivate a militant Christian
ethos.)
However, since I also do not believe spoiler wars help the country as a whole (as opposed to some of the owners) I think
pretty much all a burden, immoral to boot and should be massively reduced.
>> The U.S. government does not produce oil. Private companies do so but only if they can make a profit. Increasing production
beyond the global demand will decrease the oil price for all producers.
Even if you’re sure those companies are entirely private, if you print the current global reserve currency, can you not give
“free” money to frackers and thereby make them more competitive than global peers? Sure, that’s flooding the market with an illegal
subsidy. But, who can conduct proper accounting in opaque markets?
Of course, the money is not “free”. Depreciating the currency, an inflation tax, shows up in lower-quality goods (like frankenfood—
we cannot afford healthy food any more) and higher prices in everything. But, again, who’s counting? The BLS and the media? Yep.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson says unilateral sanctions against Iran are illegal, and show the
ascendancy of John Bolton; they intensify tension with China and threaten our international
position
The Trump administration is ramping up its campaign against Iran by announcing it will end
waivers allowing eight countries to continue importing Iranian oil -- part of an attempt to
drop Iranian oil exports to zero. This follows the Trump administration's categorization of
part of Iran's army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, as a terrorist organization, and
unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal.
"This administration, for all intents and purposes in my view, is working against the
interests of the United States," Colonel Larry Wilkerson told The Real News Network's Marc
Steiner. China and Turkey have already said they will not abide by the U.S. ending of the
waivers, but India will possibly follow along, all of which could lead to a more profound trade
war.
The decision also represents the influence of National Security Advisor John Bolton, who was
in favor of these sanctions, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wanted the waivers to
continue.
Steiner noted that the sanctions violate international law and asked whether this brings the
U.S. closer to war with Iran, or if the sanctions are "in lieu of war." Wilkerson explained
that John Bolton wants war even if Trump does not, and that regardless, these oil sanctions are
"economic warfare" -- an especially risky international gamble.
"We're getting away with it [only] because we are the most powerful country in the world,
economically, financially, and militarily," Wilkerson said. "That's not always going to be the
case."
Wilkerson suspects that countries such as China, Russia, or India will eventually respond to
U.S. sanctions with their own, or make an end-run around them.
"I think we're going to see other nations objecting in ways we can't really calculate right
now," Wilkerson said. "And by that I mean we're going to have everything from the Chinese
attempting to use other means of exchange than the dollar to the Chinese and the Russians
perhaps working together to build an entirely separate and functional financial network that
will eventually supplant that of the United States."
He told Steiner that it appears as though the U.S. is "suicidal," lacking any interest in
diplomacy, and continuing to distance itself from its allies.
"We just lost badly in Syria, and we lost to a triumvirate of Syria under Bashar al-Assad,
Russia, and Iran. Look at what happened, what has happened in Iraq. We lost a lot of men and
women there. We shed blood and treasure there for an utterly ill-conceived invasion, but
nonetheless we did. Now Iraq is more or less under the influence of Iran. The only ally we have
in the region that we can count on at any time is an authoritarian, brutal state under a boy
king who's losing one war on one flank and alienated Qatar on the other," Wilkerson said. "It's
all falling apart. We're losing everywhere I look in the world, losing badly to that man in
Moscow who picks up the pieces and you know, goes to Cuba when Marco Rubio decides he doesn't
like Cuba, goes to Venezuela when we decide we might have an option for Venezuela that will
include military force. Putin is the strategist in the world right now picking up on every
piece we drop -- and we're dropping too many." Story Transcript MARC STEINER Welcome to
The Real News Network. I'm Marc Steiner. Great to have you all with us. Trump is stepping up
his campaign against Iran once again, announcing that he will end waivers that allowed eight
countries to continue importing Iranian oil. He wants to drive Iranian oil exports to zero. All
this comes on the heels of officially labeling the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist
organization and of course, forcing the U.S. to unilaterally pull out of the Iran Nuclear Deal.
Well what course are we on? Are we inching toward a war with Iran? Are these intensified
sanctions just an alternative to all-out war? How could the U.S. just unilaterally impose
international sanctions? Doesn't that violate international law? Can he do it because the U.S.
has a vital role in the international system of finance? Both Turkey and China have already
announced they will not abide by Trump's unilateral declaration of sanctions. Does this
intensify our trade war with China? We'll see. Joining us here at The Real News once again is
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Chief-of-staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell, retired from U.S. Army, and is now Distinguished Adjunct Professor at the College of
William and Mary where he teaches U.S. National Security. I welcome and good to have you back
with us here on The Real News.
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Good to be back again.
MARC STEINER So before we start, let's run this short piece by Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and what he had to say about the intensifying of sanctions.
MIKE POMPEO Today I am announcing that we will no longer grant any exemptions. We're going
to zero, going to zero across the board. We will continue to enforce sanctions and monitor
compliance. Any nation or entity interacting with Iran should due it's diligence and err on the
side of caution. The risks are simply not going to be worth the benefits. We've made our
demands very clear to the Ayatollah and his cronies: end your pursuit of nuclear weapons, stop
testing and proliferating ballistic missiles, stop sponsoring and committing terrorism, halt
the arbitrary detention of U.S. citizens. Our pressure is aimed at fulfilling these demands and
others and I will continue to accelerate until Iran is willing to address them at the
negotiating table.
MARC STEINER So what's your instant analysis of what we've just seen here, what we're
seeing, Larry?
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON First, the dispute within the administration -- much ballyhooed
between Bolton and Pompeo and Brian Hook, Pompeo's main man on Iran -- is apparently over and
Bolton won. Pompeo and Brian Hook were not in favor of going all the way on oil sanctions. They
were in favor of continuing the waivers for countries like China and India, and so forth. So
that means Bolton's won. That's an ominous victory in my mind. More ominous was Bolton and
Pompeo and Pompeo in particular's testimony to the Congress about the "connections between
al-Qaeda and Iran." I've been there done that. I remember when George Tenet very forcefully and
powerfully in late January-early February of 2003, pointed out to Colin Powell who had just
said, toss that stuff out of my presentation to the United Nations. It stinks. That stuff
being, connections between al-Qaeda and Baghdad over 9/11. Pompeo essentially said to Rand Paul
in questioning him in the Senate and elsewhere, that there were connections between al-Qaeda
and Iran, and implied that those connections gave the president the right to go to war with
Iran without having to go to the Congress of the United States. In other words, the original
A.U.M.F. authorization for the use of military force issued after 9/11, pertained some
seventeen to eighteen years later to Iran.
MARC STEINER And that's where you skin yourself. Most people who know this arena, know that
area, the contradiction of saying Iran and al-Qaeda are one or are working with one another,
just on its face doesn't make any sense.
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Nonsense just as it was with Saddam Hussein. We all know now, but it
was a very powerful thing for Colin Powell to tell the U.N. Security Council and even more
powerful for him to tell the American people that. And that's what Trump and Bolton and Pompeo
now are trying to duplicate: another specious case for war.
MARC STEINER So do you think -- speaking of that -- are we inching our way towards war with
Iran, or do you think what we're seeing, these sanctions, are actually in lieu of war? What do
you think the dynamic is here?
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON I don't think Trump wants war, but I know John Bolton does. So I
have to imagine that there is going to be a come to Jesus meeting or some such resolution with
Donald Trump if Bolton persists in wanting to use military force and Donald Trump doesn't. On
the side of all of this, is Trump's new partner in crime, Bibi Netanyahu. We don't know what
Bibi promised Donald Trump when Donald Trump weighed in on Bibi's election. I'm told by people
who know these sorts of things in Israel, that had Trump not weighed in heavily for Bibi, that
he might not have won, that it might have been a lot closer that it was, and it was pretty
close anyway. So I don't know what Bibi promised Trump in return. It might be that he conducts
whatever military operation is conducted with respect to Iran. Anything's possible here with
these two characters.
MARC STEINER But the whole Bibi question is something we've spent a half-an-hour, hours just
talking about what that relationship is, and who's driving whose foreign policy when it comes
to Iran especially.
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Yes. Gideon Levy in Haaretz was right when he said U.S.-Middle East
policy is not made in Washington. It's made, he said Tel Aviv, but now he would say
Jerusalem.
MARC STEINER So let me ask you another question. How can the United States just unilaterally
impose international sanctions? I thought that's something the Security Council would have to
do and people are writing this as a violation of international law. So from your perch when you
were the Secretary of State and now, how does that play into all this?
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON I think it plays very dangerously. We are becoming -- through our
manipulation of the Swiss system and other means in the world for financial transactions -- a
pariah in the world. Very much despised and even hated in the world and increasingly, by our
own friends and allies like Germany, France, Britain, and so forth. This manipulation of this
system that we largely set up for tracking terrorist monies and so forth, has been turned into
a very sophisticated weapon. It's economic warfare in anybody's book and the only reason we're
getting away from it, you just hinted at. We're getting away with it because we are the most
powerful country in the world -- economically, financially, and militarily. That's not always
going to be the case and I suspect there are going to people like China, like Russia, like
India, like other countries in the world, finally getting tired of this and start reciprocating
and building other systems to go around ours.
MARC STEINER Stepping up the sanctions against Iran and saying nobody can buy any oil from
Iran at all, zeroing them out -- China and Turkey have already said we're not abiding by this.
You can't tell us how to run our economy and what we're doing. India is caught between a rock
and a hard place. They don't want to go with this. Ten percent of their crude oil comes from
Iran, but they're in a tough bind given who finances them as well. So how is this going to play
out? This can lead to greater trade wars between China and the U.S. How do you see this all
tumbling out, both in terms of Iran and our relationship with those other nations?
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON I think we're going to see other nations objecting in ways that we
can't really calculate right now. By that I mean, we're going to have everything from the
Chinese attempting to use other means of exchange than the dollar, to the Chinese and the
Russians perhaps working together to build an entirely separate and functional financial
network that will eventually supplant that of the United States. So this has enormous potential
for backfiring, just like all the enemies we are creating in the world right now and the allies
that we're distancing ourselves from. These are not positive moves by the United States. If I
were on Mars looking down at the United States right now, and I were some wise Martian
statesmen, and I was trying to figure out what the United States -- the current hegemon of the
world -- was trying to do, I would think we were trying to commit suicide. It's as if we do not
have any means of doing anything diplomatically or otherwise, that doesn't rebound to our
discredit. Look at what's happened. We just lost badly in Syria and we lost to a triumvirate of
Syria under Bashar al-Assad, Russia, and Iran. Look at what has happened in Iraq. We lost a lot
of men and women there. We shed blood and treasure there for an utterly ill-conceived invasion,
but nonetheless we did. Now Iraq is more or less under the influence of Iran. The only ally we
have in the region that we can count on at any time is an authoritarian, brutal state under a
boy-king who's losing one war on one flank, and alienated Qatar on the other. Our latest NATO
in the Middle East just lost its most formidable partner, Egypt. It's all falling apart. We're
losing everywhere I look in the world and losing badly to that man in Moscow who picks up the
pieces and goes to Cuba when Marco Rubio decides he doesn't like Cuba. He goes to Venezuela
when we decide we might have an option for Venezuela that would include military force. Putin
is the strategist in the world right now, picking up on every piece we drop, and we're dropping
too many.
MARC STEINER So very quickly here before we run out of time, one quick question. If you were
sitting in the halls of power at this moment, and your job is Chief-of-staff or the Secretary
of State, I'm curious what you would be saying to a president that said we have to do this.
What would you say is the alternative? What would you be saying at this moment?
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Which one do you want to pick? [laughter] Kim Jong-un is going to
fire a ballistic missile or he's going to do a nuclear test or both sometime around
Christmas.
MARC STEINER Right.
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON This administration for all intents and purposes, in my view, is
working against the interests of the United States. So the first thing I would do is sit down
and say, Mr. President, please before I walk out of here and go back to Foggy Bottom and retire
from my position because you are going to fire me, I want to know what you think the national
interests of the United States are. You said you were going to "make America great again." You
are destroying America. You said you were going to bring jobs back. You have only brought the
jobs back that the last three years of the Obama administration generated, because no president
ever generates them instantly. So you haven't done anything yet that looks like it's in the
interest of the United States and you've done a whole load of things that are clearly not in
our interest, not the least of which is to drive our allies away and make many enemies whom you
said all options are on the table confronting. Please, Mr. President. Tell me what you think
our interests are.
MARC STEINER And with that, I want to say thank you once again. Colonel Larry Wilkerson,
always a pleasure to have you here at The Real News. And thanks so much for your thoughts and
wisdom.
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON Thank you.
MARC STEINER And I'm Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network. Thank you all for joining
us. Take care.
That completely wrong. You can't prevent the "march of history" even if you understand that it is directed against you.
The collapse of the USSR put in motion forces for the revolution of the results of WWII. And EuroMaydan like previously Baltic
states "Maidans" were the direct result of this dissolution and changed balance of power in Europe with EU now being the
dominant force and the USA dominant geopolitical force.
Still it is true that Ukraine EuroMaydan was the major Putin's defeat and the major victory of the US neocons in general and
Obama as the President in particular. It might well be that this was inevitable as the
trajectory of post-soviet republic is reliable move toward anti-Russian stance as a side effect
of obtaining the independence, but still this was a defeat. It was actually Yanukovich who encouraged and helped to organized and
finance far right forces and the Party in Ukraine. such a pro-Russian President as fame news media in the USA and GB like to
describe him
Poroshenko was the USA SOB. The USA allowed Zelensky to run for office, and allowed him to win. Zelensky is most probably
another USA SOB, although only time will tell. Comedians are usually are people with very high IQ who see the absurdity of
the current life in Ukraine and Poroshenko regime more clearly then others. The question is whether he will be allowed to do
something about it by the USA and EU, who control Ukraine both politically and financially. Biden story of dismissal of the
General Prosecutor of Ukraine (who tried to procedure the firm Biden son got money from ) with ease tells us something about the
nature of the current governance of Ukraine: is is not even a vassal state -- it is a colony.
Nuland success in pushing Ukrainian nationalists to arm uprising against Yanukovich (pissing EU which signed a treaty with
Yanukovich about holding elections, which he would certanly lose, a day before) also can be explained that at this point the USA
controlled vital centers of Ukrainian political power including intelligence agencies, several oligarchs (Poroshenko is one;
Timoshenko is another) and, especially, media. In Ukraine Western NGO have the status of diplomatic missions (with
corresponding immunity), so in no way such a country can be independent in any meaningful sense of this word.
But craziness, aggressiveness and recklessness of the US neocons, who now practice old imperial "might makes right" mode
of operation, gives the world some hope. They most probably will burn the USA geological power it acquired after the
dissolution of the USSR sooner then many expect. Like look at Bolton and Pompeo recent actions.
Notable quotes:
"... "For better or for worse, Putin has put an end to oligarch rule in Russia. Members of Putin's inner circle may be immensely rich, but they know to whom they owe their wealth. By imprisoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin sent a clear message to the all-powerful oligarchs that controlled Russia during former president Boris Yeltsin's time: stay out of politics." ..."
The main feeling about the entire topic of the Ukraine is one of total disgust, a
gradual and painful realization of the fact that our so-called "brothers" are brothers only
in the sense of the biblical Cain and the acceptance that there is nobody to talk to in
Kiev.
Russia likes to fashion itself as a "great power". A real great power should have been
able to insert itself in Ukrainian politics, regardless of any brotherly feelings – you
know, like US did.
As a Russian, I feel disgust at our leaders who squandered all of Russia's historic
influence on the Ukraine and gave up – poor neo-Soviet dinosaurs got completely
outmaneuvered.
@Kiza
Read
Try to understand
Read it again
Try to understand
Read it again
Try to understand
"For better or for worse, Putin has put an end to oligarch rule in Russia. Members of
Putin's inner circle may be immensely rich, but they know to whom they owe their wealth. By
imprisoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin sent a clear message to the all-powerful oligarchs
that controlled Russia during former president Boris Yeltsin's time: stay out of
politics."
Vladimir Golstein, professor of Slavic studies at Brown University. He was born in Moscow
and emigrated to the United States in 1979.
Considering that this 'study' is an overblown version of the Real Men Go to Tehran
delusion (which is STILL in the pondering phase) it's hard to ignore the trepidation revealed
in an assessment divided into pseudo business-like categories of...
1. Likelihood of Success
2. Benefits
3. Costs & Risks
...when there are sufficient unresolved uncertainties to be fine-tuned to keep this plan
bogged down in the pondering phase for even longer than the unconsummated Real Men Go To Iran
nothing-burger.
Wake up, the Trump (Drumpf) family are crypto Jews, Drumpf women have been marrying Jews
for generations. Well worth your time to read Miles Mathis on the family history, I found the
photo of Fred Trump gifting New York real estate for a Torah study center particularly
interesting as good Lutherans do that with such regularity.
It may well be that Earnest read the New York Times.
Probably not. This character probably reads the Neocon York Times about as much as I do,
which is not at all. The connection between the awful surge of "antisemitism" and violence by
the rightwingnutters is already being made.
Dani Dayan, Consul General of Israel in New York, reached out to the Times to express his
outrage regarding the cartoon. An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that Dayan in
his conversations made it clear that the cartoon was unacceptable, and that the fact it
appeared on the paper is an escalation of the latest trend of displaying antisemitic
tropes in the American public sphere.
The horror of it all! It's time for Congress to get off its fat duff and pass those laws
outlawing BDS in all shapes and forms! Time to crack down on forums like this one where
criticism of Holy Israel is allowed to pollute the Internet Tubes. From our lard-ass
End-Times Secretary of State:
"Friends, let me go on record: Anti-Zionism IS anti-Semitism. The Trump
administration opposes it unequivocally and we will fight for it relentlessly," he made
clear.
Writing anything except glowing hugs-and-kisses about God's Favorite Thieves and Murderers
ought to be illegal. This site owner would quickly get his act together if he was given the
"Galileo Treatment" of being shown videos from the Cuban Concentration Camp with scenes of
the evildoers there being waterboarded.
One more thing to consider:
The New York Times retraction, however, was not an apology. It also left many questions
unanswered as to how such an obviously anti-Semitic cartoon, not even associated with the
story on the page it appeared on, could have passed the gauntlet of editors.
All those editors have cushy nice-paying jobs. When it's time to keep their mouths shut,
they keep them shut. My tight-fitting tinfoil hat causes me to suspect the publication of
this obviously factual cartoon was a cold-blooded business decision. Its mere existence will
give the Neocon York Times a long spell of 'deniability' that it is always in bed with the
the pissant Apartheid state in every way imaginable. I'd imagine this flea-bite of momentary
discomfort will be very useful in the next two or so years as it shills for Trump's Deal of
the Century as well as any other horrors advanced by the Wag-The-Dog state.
The real clown is not in Ukraine. He's in the Whitehouse. I voted for Trump and realized my
mistake once Nikki Haley was appointed. I guess, if a clown is to be in office, it might as
well be a real clown.
Hopefully this will be a step forward for Ukraine towards reclaiming the country from my
US Dept. of State, the Bidens, and etc.
Democratic party candidate Biden has huge, exploitable weakness in relation Ukraine (1). Given that Biden is the most beatable
name to come forward so far Trump and his administration will do nothing major to involve the U.S. with the internal affairs of
Ukraine.
Macron and Merkel may wish to do something, but given personal unpopularity in their countries it is unclear what they can
deliver.
For the next 12+ months nothing of any significance will happen. If the Dems are foolish enough to nominate Biden, it could
become an issue next year. Trump and Putin would have aligned interests in stopping the Biden family's exploitation of Ukrainian
resources.
The Trump administration once again has graphically demonstrated that "international law" and "national sovereignty" already belong to the Realm
of the Walking Dead.
Notable quotes:
"... The full – frontal attack on Iran reveals how the Trump administration bets on breaking Eurasia integration via what would be its weakeast node; the three key nodes are China, Russia and Iran. These three actors interconnect the whole spectrum; Belt and Road Initiative; the Eurasia Economic Union; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the International North-South Transportation Corridor; the expansion of BRICS Plus. ..."
"... A plausible scenario involves Moscow acting to defuse the extremely volatile U.S.-Iran confrontation, with the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense trying to persuade President Donald Trump and the Pentagon from any direct attack against the IRGC. The inevitable counterpart is the rise of covert ops, the possible staging of false flags and all manner of shady Hybrid War techniques deployed not only against the IRGC, directly and indirectly, but against Iranian interests everywhere. For all practical purposes, the U . S . and Iran are at war. ..."
As if a deluge of sanctions against a great deal of the planet was not enough, the latest
"offer you can't refuse" conveyed by a gangster posing as diplomat, Consul Minimus Mike Pompeo
, now essentially orders the whole planet to submit to the one and only arbiter of world trade:
Washington.
First the Trump administration unilaterally smashed a multinational, UN-endorsed agreement,
the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal. Now the waivers that magnanimously allowed eight nations to
import oil from Iran without incurring imperial wrath in the form of sanctions will expire on
May 2 and won't be renewed. The eight nations are a mix of Eurasian powers: China, India,
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece.
Apart from the trademark toxic cocktail of hubris, illegality, arrogance/ignorance and
geopolitical/geo – economic infantilism inbuilt in this foreign policy decision, the
notion that Washington can decide who's allowed to be an energy provider to emerging superpower
China does not even qualify as laughable. Much more alarming is the fact that imposing a total
embargo of Iranian oil exports is no less than an act of war.
Ultimate Neocon Wet Dream
Those subscribing to the ultimate U.S, neocon and Zionist wet dream – regime change in
Iran – may rejoice at this declaration of war. But as Professor
Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran has elegantly argued,
"If the Trump regime miscalculates, the house can easily come crashing down on its
head."
Reflecting the fact Tehran seems to have no illusions regarding the utter folly ahead, the
Iranian leadership -- if provoked to a point of no return, Marandi additionally told me -- can
get as far as "destroying everything on the other side of the Persian Gulf and chasing the U.S.
out of Iraq and Afghanistan. When the U.S. escalates, Iran escalates. Now it depends on the
U.S. how far things go."
This red alert from a sensible academic perfectly dovetails with what's happening with the
structure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- recently branded a "terrorist
organization" by the United States. In perfect symmetry, Iran's Supreme National Security
Council also branded the U.S. Central Command -- CENTCOM -- and "all the forces connected to
it" as a terrorist group .
The new IRGC commander-in-chief is Brigadier General Hossein Salami, 58. Since 2009 he was
the deputy of previous commander Mohamamd al-Jafari , a soft spoken but tough as nails
gentleman I met in Tehran two years ago. Salami, as well as Jafari, is a veteran of the
Iran-Iraq war; that is, he has actual combat experience. And Tehran sources assure me that he
can be even tougher than Jafari.
In tandem, IRGC Navy Commander Rear Admiral Alireza
Tangsiri has evoked the unthinkable in terms of what might develop out of the U.S. total
embargo on Iran oil exports; Tehran could block the Strait of Hormuz.
Western Oblivion
Vast swathes of the ruling classes across the West seem to be oblivious to the reality that
if Hormuz is shut down, the result will be an absolutely cataclysmic global economic
depression.
Warren Buffett, among other investors, has routinely qualified the 2.5 quadrillion
derivatives market as a weapon of financial mass destruction. As it stands, these derivatives
are used -- illegally -- to drain no less than a trillion U.S. dollars a year out of the market
in manipulated profits.
Considering historical precedents, Washington may eventually be able to set up a Persian
Gulf of Tonkin false flag. But what next?
If Tehran were totally cornered by Washington, with no way out, the de facto nuclear option
of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz would instantly cut off 25 percent of the global oil
supply. Oil prices could rise to over $500 a barrel, to even $1000 a barrel. The 2.5
quadrillion of derivatives would start a chain reaction of destruction.
Unlike the shortage of credit during the 2008 financial crisis, the shortage of oil could
not be made up by fiat instruments. Simply because the oil is not there . Not even Russia would
be able to re-stabilize the market.
It's an open secret in private conversations at the Harvard Club – or at Pentagon
war-games for that matter – that in case of a war on Iran, the U.S. Navy would not be
able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
Russian SS-NX-26
Yakhont missiles -- with a top speed of Mach 2.9 -- are lining up the Iranian northern
shore of the Strait of Hormuz. There's no way U . S . aircraft carriers can defend a barrage of
Yakhont missiles.
Then there are the
SS-N-22 Sunburn supersonic anti-ship missiles -- already exported to China and India --
flying ultra-low at 1,500 miles an hour with dodging capacity, and extremely mobile; they can
be fired from a flatbed truck, and were designed to defeat the U . S . Aegis radar defense
system.
What Will China Do?
The full – frontal attack on Iran reveals how the Trump administration bets on
breaking Eurasia integration via what would be its weakeast node; the three key nodes are
China, Russia and Iran. These three actors interconnect the whole spectrum; Belt and Road
Initiative; the Eurasia Economic Union; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the
International North-South Transportation Corridor; the expansion of BRICS Plus.
So there's no question the Russia-China strategic partnership will be watching Iran's back.
It's no accident that the trio is among the top existential "threats" to the U.S., according to
the Pentagon. Beijing knows how the U . S . Navy is able to cut it off from its energy sources.
And that's why Beijing is strategically increasing imports of oil and natural gas from Russia;
engineering the "escape from Malacca" also must take into account a hypothetical U . S .
takeover of the Strait of Hormuz.
A plausible scenario involves Moscow acting to defuse the extremely volatile U.S.-Iran
confrontation, with the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense trying to persuade President Donald
Trump and the Pentagon from any direct attack against the IRGC. The inevitable counterpart is
the rise of covert ops, the possible staging of false flags and all manner of shady Hybrid War
techniques deployed not only against the IRGC, directly and indirectly, but against Iranian
interests everywhere. For all practical purposes, the U . S . and Iran are at war.
Within the framework of the larger Eurasia break-up scenario, the Trump administration does
profit from Wahhabi and Zionist psychopathic hatred of Shi'ites. The "maximum pressure" on Iran
counts on Jared of Arabia Kushner's close WhatsApp pal Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) in Riyadh and
MbS's mentor in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed , to replace the shortfall of Iranian oil in the
market. Bu that's nonsense -- as quite a few wily Persian Gulf traders are adamant Riyadh won't
"absorb Iran's market share" because the extra oil is not there.
Much of what lies ahead in the oil embargo saga depends on the reaction of assorted vassals
and semi-vassals. Japan won't have the guts to go against Washington. Turkey will put up a
fight. Italy, via Salvini, will lobby for a waiver. India is very complicated; New Delhi is
investing in Iran's Chabahar port as the key hub of its own Silk Road, and closely cooperates
with Tehran within the INSTC framework. Would a shameful betrayal be in the cards?
China, it goes without saying, will simply ignore Washington.
Iran will find ways to get the oil flowing because the demand won't simply vanish with a
magic wave of an American hand. It's time for creative solutions. Why not, for instance, refuel
ships in international waters, accepting gold, all sorts of cash, debit cards, bank transfers
in rubles, yuan, rupees and rials -- and everything bookable on a website?
Now that's a way Iran can use its tanker fleet to make a killing. Some of the tankers could
be parked in -- you got it -- the Strait of Hormuz, with an eye on the price at Jebel Ali in
the UAE to make sure this is the real deal. Add to it a duty free for the ships crews. What's
not to like? Ship owners will save fortunes on fuel bills, and crews will get all sorts of
stuff at 90 percent discount in the duty free.
And let's see whether the EU has grown a spine -- and really turbo-charge their
Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) alternative payment network conceived after the Trump
administration ditched the JCPOA. Because more than breaking up Eurasia integration and
implementing neocon regime change, this is about the ultimate anathema; Iran is being
mercilessly punished because it has bypassed the U.S. dollar on energy trade.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
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Pepe Escobar , a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong
Kong-based Asia Times . His latest book is
"
2030 ." Follow him on Facebook .
Parachuting Harvard mafia on Russia was a more powerful weapon and led to more destruction of Russian economy then direct
bombardment would
Notable quotes:
"... Concerning the capability of wrecking finances of other states, USA is not a slouch, the most powerful weapon is economic advise. If I interpret news correctly, it were experts of Goldman Sachs that help Greek government to borrow about twice as much as they could handle in the long run. The wreckage in Russia was as impressive, but, alas, hard to repeat, so now it remains to carp about their "bad behavior". ..."
I think that at least some weapon systems that USA makes or develops can be indeed
superior. The most acute loss from the approach of "invest in over-extending and un-balancing
the opponent" is that USA, while powerful, cannot do everything in the same time.
My favorite comparison chart is timeliness of subway systems in major metropolitan areas.
Honestly, I cannot find it, because the search is swamped with the tales of woe of subway
commuters in NYC. As befits the greatest financial center, cultural metropolis etc. etc., NYC
has a transportation system that is comparable in its extend to other metropolitan areas like
Tokyo, Paris or London. However, the performance is uninspiring. On the chart in NYT that I
can't find out at the moment, only Mexico City had a lower percentage of train rides delayed
by less than 10 minutes. I checked Moscow that has a larger subway system (compared to NY)
and which was not on the chart. They pride themselves with frequency of delays that is 5
times smaller than in Paris (50 times smaller than in NYC?). Moscovites can actually plan
their daily lives assuming that their commutes will arrive on time.
This is the most glaring example of a lost opportunity to take care of domestic needs, but
the quality of education, healthcare etc. is mediocre compared with the rest of OECD,
although there is always the southern neighbor that saves USA from being dead last.
Incidentally, NYC subway is not exactly underfunded, instead, it may have the most
irrational management among major metropolitan areas which accurately reflects deficiencies
of American political system. Bloated costs are pervasive across many areas, surely in
military, healthcare and broadly meant policing, and their originate in lobbo-cracy, a
plethora of lobbies grabbing chunks of monies either directly spent or (mis)regulated by the
government. The activity of these lobbies is tightly regulated by elaborate rules, but the
end effect is as if USA were pathetically corrupted (say, half as corrupted as Nigeria).
Concerning the capability of wrecking finances of other states, USA is not a slouch, the
most powerful weapon is economic advise. If I interpret news correctly, it were experts of
Goldman Sachs that help Greek government to borrow about twice as much as they could handle
in the long run. The wreckage in Russia was as impressive, but, alas, hard to repeat, so now
it remains to carp about their "bad behavior".
Sanctions are also powerful when directed at small/medium size economies. Russia, although
disparaged as "a smaller economy than Italy", but in actuality, Italy has "GDP per capity
PPP" that is 40% larger than Russia, and Russia has 2.4 times larger population, so quite a
bit larger economy in terms of "purchasing parity", and the most glaring domestic production
deficiency are fruit and vegetables that, according to latest news, have a number of
potential suppliers that are most glad when they can sell their produce.
"... The United States and European Union (EU) maintain sanctions programs against Syria, and the United States will continue to maximize pressure on the Assad regime and impose additional financial costs on the regime and its network of financial and logistics facilitators. ..."
"The United States and its international partners continue to demonstrate resolve to
disrupt support for the Assad regime by preventing the normalization of economic and
diplomatic relations and the provision of reconstruction funding, as well as permanently
denying the regime the use of chemical weapons.
The United States is committed to isolating
the Assad regime and its supporters from the global financial and trade system in response to
the continued atrocities committed by the regime against the Syrian people.
The United States
and European Union (EU) maintain sanctions programs against Syria, and the United States will
continue to maximize pressure on the Assad regime and impose additional financial costs on
the regime and its network of financial and logistics facilitators."
I believe measures are now being taken to evade these sanctions. Nevertheless the effect
has apparently been great. The question is, why are these sanctions being imposed now and not
at the time the alleged atrocities were said to have occurred?
Lastly Syria: the presence of Russian military tech stopped the one-sided use of
airpower, and a literal handful of Russian attack jets turned the tide for the entire
conflict despite hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry poured into Syria by the UAE,
Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
It seems the lessons you are trying to teach are simply the wrong ones: Japanese
shipping/American submarines - the reality was that Japan didn't have the manpower or the
oil. Japan had 73 million people in 1940 vs. the US @132M (Germany had 90M).
Japan was significantly behind industrially, economically and technologically. Yes, the
US was participating in Europe - but Japan was also attacking China (population 825M).
For that matter, it is very clear that Japan had significant provocation prior to Pearl
Harbor in the form of an oil embargo imposed by the US US State Dept web site
documenting embargo on Japan (sound familiar? US sanctions aren't anything new)
couple minor points of quibble....the "one-sided use of air power" before Russia
intervened in Syria was...Syrian air power. The threat to Syria was on the ground not
through the air. The Syrian army relinquished vast amounts of territory in battle before
first Hezbollah than Russia rode to the rescue. Not too mention the US-backed Kurds in the
battle to beat back ISIS.
Japan occupied eastern Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula since the 19th century. They
were fending off internal Chinese resistance by 1945 as an occupying force not "attacking"
China.
Your points are well taken and mostly correct, although I might argue sanctions against
Japan were warranted, much moreso than latter day US sanctions against Russia and Iran.
As the US continues to attack the Maduro government, keep these special interests in mind.
Think about who gets rich off of the regime-change agenda. It's the same people that said we
had to invade Iraq in order to prevent nuclear apocalypse. It's the same people who said the
world would stop turning on its axis if we didn't carpet bomb Libya and Syria.
Now they're trying to get us to support war in Venezuela. You won't be any freer or more
prosperous after the Maduro government is toppled. It's just war propaganda.
Saddle the Venezuelan people with enormous debt to the IMF
The trojan horse for the return of neoliberalism in Venezuela, Juan Guaido, stated that he's
going to borrow money from the IMF to fund his government, which would make all Venezuelans
indebted to this predatory institution. Guaido spends the money and the poor and working people
work to pay taxes that pay off the principal and the interest.
The IMF was created in New Hampshire in 1945 to internationalize and standardize capitalism and
its rules in an increasingly globalized and US-dominated world.
Its primary function is acting as an international lender-of-last-resort to indebted countries.
IMF member states decide which countries will receive loans, but the member states with the
largest say are the ones with the largest share of the IMF's funds, which have always been the
United States and its allies.
This is why the IMF's standard "structural adjustment program" is based on the so-called
Washington Consensus. A set of 10 economic policies entirely concocted by US think tanks, the
IMF, the World Bank and the Treasury Department.
The Washington Consensus is as follows:
In exchange for a loan, often with a high-interest rate that many would call predatory, the IMF
overhauls the protective and redistributive policies of a country for neoliberal policies,
making the target country ripe for finance capital investment and profit-making.
Control the oil reserves
There's little doubt that the oil industry is pushing the US to overthrow the Maduro
government, especially when John Bolton openly states this on national television.
Bolton was himself once part of the oil industry, serving as the director of Diamond Offshore
Drilling, Inc. in 2007. So, he is no stranger to advocating for the interests of the
fossil-fuel industry.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world by far and Washington won't let that wealth
go unexploited, or worse, be shared among its enemies like the Maduro government, Russia,
China, or Iran.
And with so many politicians, Republican and Democratic, bought off by industry players --
companies like ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and Chevron -- it's impossible to imagine anyone in
Washington advocating for Venezuela maintaining ownership over its own sovereign natural
resources.
Establish military dominance and arm your puppet
One of the most bizarre things about America is that it created one of the world's largest
private industries around arms dealing. And like any industry, whether it be JDAM bombs or
beef, private businesses often resort to lobbying Congress to squeeze political favors out of
the government in the form of subsidies. Or, in the case of the military industrial complex, a
foreign policy of endless war, one based on elusive ideas like combating terrorism or defending
democracy.
You can see that wherever the US goes, expensive construction projects follow. Behind every
multi-billion dollar base construction, some private contractor is there reaping the
profits.
Once the US military presence is firmly established, the weapons sales begin. And we all know
no US ally, or puppet state, is complete without a full fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16s. Then
they'll be able to fend off all of those pesky leftist rebels with freedom missiles.
With Venezuela's neighbors, Colombia and Brazil, growing closer to NATO and accepting US
military presence in their countries, we can only assume Venezuela is Washington's next
target.
As the strategic approach of regime change evolves, new industries arise to meet these
needs.
After the massive anti-war protests following the invasion of Iraq, outright invasion and
occupation were no longer viable strategies due to negative public opinion. Washington sought
to disguise war propaganda using humanitarian rhetoric.
Create the humanitarian alibi
Privately owned NGOs dedicated to human rights and promoting "American style" democracy have
played a much larger role in regime-change operations in recent years. They serve as soft-power
institutions, which attempt to subtly sway a population against its own government through
propaganda laced with words like 'freedom', 'democracy', and 'human rights'.
These NGOs are given the full blessing of the US government and the two often work in
tandem.
The US Agency for International Development's regime-change arm, the National Endowment for
Democracy (NED), funded opposition groups in Nicaragua, Venezuela (during the 2002 coup),
Haiti, Ukraine, and most recently China and North Korea. And whenever US foreign policy sets
its sights on a certain target, private industries usually develop to help meet that goal as
well as make a quick buck along the way.
For example, Thor Halvorssen -- the first cousin of Leopoldo Lopez, the founder of Juan
Guaido's party, Popular Will -- calls himself a human-rights activist. He founded the notorious
Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and makes a living giving speeches and TV appearances, talking
about why the governments of Venezuela or North Korea are not legitimate and need to be
overthrown.
Unsurprisingly, the HRF is funded by the conservative Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is itself
funded by think tanks like the top neoconservative think tank, the American Enterprise
Institute, as well as the Heritage Foundation. HRF is also funded by the Donors Capital Fund
and the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, which are also funded by the American Enterprise
Institute. It's one big web of moving money that all leads back to the same cast of
characters.
The crisis in Venezuela has been a huge gift for people like Halvorssen, who use the US's war
on Venezuela to promote themselves and their organizations.
Buy the facts from the think tanks funded by the Military Industrial Complex
Like NGOs, think tanks also play an important role in giving regime change a sense of
legitimacy -- in their case, intellectual legitimacy. Think tanks rely on donations to operate
and many find willing donors among the capitalist class. These fat cats pay for fancy looking
reports meant to justify their desired goal: the delegitimization of socialist governments and
the legitimization of coup governments that uphold the Washington Consensus.
The Cato Institute has been deeply involved in the attempted overthrow of the Venezuelan
government. In 2008, Cato awarded Venezuelan opposition leader, Yon Goicoechea, the Milton
Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty and $500,000 for his role in disrupting a constitutional
referendum in Venezuela. That money was used to finance the political rise of Juan Guaido, and
his clique known as Generation 2007.
These seemingly independent research groups have intimate networks that they leverage to
amplify the message their donors have given them.
Whether it was the bank bailouts following the 2008 crisis, or the lack of action on climate
disaster, in America it seems the government always puts the interests of the rich ahead of the
poor and working class, and the situation in Venezuela is no different.
Indeed, this looks like a potentially much more dangerous situation. If these major nations
obey Trump (I suspect some will not), Iran might be tempted to take more aggressive action,
with blocking the Straits of Hormuz among the more serious. This would really spike the price
of oil, and quite possibly trigger a war. This may be what the Trump people want, with their
real policy apparently being "regime change." However, so far the only regime change seems to
be rising influence of hardliners, with a new hardline commander for the now sanctioned
Revolutionary Guards being appointed. He has been talking about missiles getting fired on
Israel from Lebanon by Hezbollah. Is this what Netanyahu really wants?
I think those who think the Iranian regime will easily be overthrown are more deluded than
those who advocated invading Iraq (and some of them are the same people, see John Bolton
especially). This has the potential of really seriously distracting people from the Mueller
Report, but not at all in a good way.
... ... ...
Another Addendum: In WaPo
this morning they report that the other three nations are Greece, Italy, and Taiwan, and that
they have already stopped buying Iranian oil under US pressure. Also, apparently Japan has been
stockpiling oil from there and has stopped further purchases already in anticipation of just
this move by the US. OTOH, both China and Turkey are talking about not obeying the US order. No
word out of either India or South Korea so far.
Bolton says that this is all designed to make Iran be a "normal country," as if Saudi Arabia
were such. As it is, indeed the hawkish new leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has
spoken publicly of possibly blocking the Straits of Hormuz, as I suggested they may well be
contemplating.
"... The real test for having an “unprecedentedly high level” relationship would be to coordinate diplomatic campaigns against U.S. policies. Working together they are more likely to split off American allies and friends from unpopular initiatives, such as unilateral sanction campaigns. ..."
"... Lets all mindlessly repeat the platitudes of Thinktankistan entities like CATO... Russian economy is smaller than new York... Russian relies on oil sales and doesn't make anything.... These sock puppets must think we are imbeciles. ..."
"... He's an Atlantacist fool. Senior fellow at the CATO institute, pretty much says it all. His style is to drop the odd truth-bomb (like criticizing the ill-advised NATO expansion and US geopolitical belligerence) but he still sticks to the main planks of Euro-Atlantic narratives. ..."
...Beijing and Moscow share one very big objective: resist U.S. dominance. Washington
expanded NATO up to Russia's borders; America's navy patrols the Asia-Pacific and treats those
waters as an American lake. Elsewhere there is no issue upon which Washington fails to
sanctimoniously pronounce its opinion and piously attempt to enforce its judgment.
Unfortunately, for quite some time Washington has seemed determined to give both China and
Russia good cause for discontent. Instead, in response, Washington should do its best to
eliminate behaviors which bring its two most important competitors together. Then the United
States wouldn't need to worry what Presidents Putin and Xi were saying to one another
.
Thus, Washington has done much to bring its two leading adversaries together. However,
hostility is a limited basis for agreement. There is no military alliance, despite Chinese
participation in a Russian military exercise last fall. Neither government is interested in
going to war with America and certainly not over the other’s grievances. A shared sense
of threat could change that, but extraordinarily sustained and maladroit U.S. policies would be
required to create that atmosphere.
When the two countries otherwise act for similar purposes, it usually is independently, even
competitively, rather than cooperatively. For instance, both are active in Cuba, contra
Washington’s long-failed policy of starving the regime into submission. Beijing and
Moscow also are both supporting Venezuela’s beleaguered Maduro government. However, China
and Russia appear to be focused on advancing their own government’s influence, even
against that of the other.
Both nations have a United Nations Security Council veto, though the PRC traditionally has
preferred to abstain, achieving little, rather than cast a veto. However, working together they
could more effectively reshape allied proposals for UN action. They could do much the same in
other multilateral organizations, though usually without having a veto.
The real test for having an “unprecedentedly high level” relationship would
be to coordinate diplomatic campaigns against U.S. policies. Working together they are more
likely to split off American allies and friends from unpopular initiatives, such as unilateral
sanction campaigns. Europe is more likely to cooperate if the PRC, valued for its economic
connections, joined Russia, still distrusted for its confrontation with Ukraine and
interference in domestic European politics. So far this former communist “axis” has
been mostly an inconvenience for the United States, rather than a significant hindrance,
Still, that could change if the Trump administration makes ever more extraordinary
assertions of unilateral power. Washington officials appear to sense the possibilities, having
periodically whined about cooperation between China and Russia, apparently ill-prepared for any
organized opposition to U.S. policies.
... ... ...
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
.
"China appears poised to absorb Russia’s sparsely populated east."
Good Lord, but when does this endless BS end? Seriously, no-one really believes this
yet these clowns and fools keep trotting out these absurd canards.
"In a sense, the Putin-Xi meeting was much ado about nothing. The relationship
revolves around what they are against, which mostly is the United States. They would have
little to talk about other than the latest grievance about America to express or American
activity to counter."
Yeah sure... no reason why Putin and Xi wouldn't want to talk about economic links
given that Russia-China trade is now over $100B per year equivalent.... a figure reached
more than 5 years earlier than Western "experts" had predicted, and which is growing very
strongly.
Lets all mindlessly repeat the platitudes of Thinktankistan entities like CATO...
Russian economy is smaller than new York... Russian relies on oil sales and doesn't make
anything.... These sock puppets must think we are imbeciles.
Orwell predicted "It is a warfare of limited aims between
combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause
for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference."
He's an Atlantacist fool. Senior fellow at the CATO institute, pretty much says it
all. His style is to drop the odd truth-bomb (like criticizing the ill-advised NATO
expansion and US geopolitical belligerence) but he still sticks to the main planks of
Euro-Atlantic narratives.
Colonel, I would appreciate your comments about John Huntsman and his remarks " each of the
carriers operating in the Mediterranean as this time represent 100,000 tons of
international diplomacy", "Diplomatic communication and dialogue, coupled with the strong
defenses these ships provide, demonstrate to Russia that if it truly seeks better relations
with the United states, it must cease its destabilizing activities around the world."
Strange words coming from a "diplomat". It might be informative to see the kind of a
reception he will get when he returns to Russia as "ambassador". Ishmael Zechariah
03/28/2016 With the increasing propaganda wars, we thought a reminder of just how naive many
Westerners are when it comes to their news-feed. As
Arjun Walia, of GlobalResearch.ca, notes, Dr. Ulfkotte went on public television stating
that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, also adding
that noncompliance with these orders would result in him losing his job.
He recently made an appearance on RT news to share these facts:
I've been a journalist for about 25 years, and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not
to tell the truth to the public.
But seeing right now within the last months how the German and American media tries to
bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia -- this is a point of no return and
I'm going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate
people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do and have
done in the past because they are bribed to betray the people, not only in Germany, all over
Europe.
"... FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing." ..."
"... Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned. ..."
"... Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government. ..."
"... Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it. ..."
The Mueller Special Counsel inquiry is far from over even though a
final report on its findings has been issued. Although the investigation had a mandate to
explore all aspects of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, from the start
the focus was on the possibility that some members of the Trump campaign had colluded with the
Kremlin to influence the outcome of the election to favor the GOP candidate. Even though that
could not be demonstrated, many prominent Trump critics, to include Laurence Tribe of the
Harvard Law School,
are demanding that the investigation continue until Congress has discovered "the full facts
of Russia's interference [to include] the ways in which that interference is continuing in
anticipation of 2020, and the full story of how the president and his team welcomed, benefited
from, repaid, and obstructed lawful investigation into that interference and the president's
cooperation with it."
Tribe should perhaps read the report more carefully. While it does indeed confirm some
Russian meddling, it does not demonstrate that anyone in the Trump circle benefited from it or
cooperated with it. The objective currently being promoted by dedicated Trump critics like
Tribe is to make a case to impeach the president based on the alleged enormity of the Russian
activity, which is not borne out by the facts: the Russian role was intermittent, small scale
and basically ineffective.
One interesting aspect of the Mueller inquiry and the ongoing Russophobia that it has
generated is the essential hypocrisy of the Washington Establishment. It is generally agreed
that whatever Russia actually did, it did not affect the outcome of the election. That the
Kremlin was using intelligence resources to act against Hillary Clinton should surprise no one
as she described Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler and also made clear that she would
be taking a very hard line against Moscow.
The anti-Russia frenzy in Washington generated by the vengeful Democrats and an
Establishment fearful of a loss of privilege and entitlement claimed a number of victims. Among
them was Russian citizen Maria Butina, who has a court date and will very likely be
sentenced tomorrow .
Regarding Butina, the United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe
that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association
(NRA) by having a Russian citizen take out a life membership in the organization with the
intention of corrupting it and turning it into an instrument for subverting American democracy.
Maria Butina has, by the way, a long and well documented history as an advocate for gun
ownership and was a co-founder in Russia of Right to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence
front organization of some kind. It is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active
membership and agenda. Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can
own guns but the licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to
Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.
Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in a federal prison, having been
charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She was
arrested on July 15, 2018. It is decidedly unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed
to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) , but she has not been granted bail because, as a
Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee the US and
return home.
FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to
registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts.
Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while
deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to
advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and
assessing."
Maria eventually pleaded guilty of not registering under FARA to mitigate any punishment,
hoping that she would be allowed to return to Russia after a few months in prison on top of the
nine months she has already served. She has reportedly fully cooperated the US authorities,
turning over documents, answering questions and undergoing hours of interrogation by federal
investigators before and after her guilty plea.
Maria Butina basically did nothing that damaged US security and it is difficult to see where
her behavior was even criminal, but the prosecution is asking for 18 months in prison for her
in addition to the time served. She would be, in fact, one of only a handful of individuals
ever to be imprisoned over FARA, and they all come from countries that Washington considers to
be unfriendly, to include Cuba, Saddam's Iraq and Russia. Normally the failure to comply with
FARA is handled with a fine and compulsory registration.
Butina was essentially convicted of the crime of being Russian at the wrong time and in the
wrong place and she is paying for it with prison. Selective enforcement of FARA was,
ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to
the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump
Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should
have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law
Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no
extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned.
Kushner reportedly aggressively
pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United
Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United
Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed
when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National
Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice
and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York
City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government.
Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser
George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately
determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that
Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli
government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to
do nothing about it.
As so often is the case, inquiries that begin by looking for foreign interference in
American politics start by focusing on Washington's adversaries but then comes up with Israel.
Noam Chomsky
described it best "First of all, if you're interested in foreign interference in our
elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as
compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Netanyahu
goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with
overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies -- what happened with Obama
and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress
trying to -- calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And
that's just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence."
Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered
security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior
advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access
to openly promote the interests of a foreign government. Mueller knows all about it but
recommended nothing, as if it didn't happen. The media is silent. Congress will do nothing. As
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it "We in Congress stand by
Israel. In Congress, we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel." Indeed.
"... Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine's chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me he attended some but not all of the January 2016 Washington meetings and couldn't remember the specific cases, if any, that were discussed. ..."
"... But he said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election . Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort -- a ledger showing payments from the Party of Regions -- was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the U.S.-friendly NABU, after Manafort was named Trump's campaign chairman: "Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious." ..."
"... "I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort." ..."
"... Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence that other Western figures , such as former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, also received money from Yanukovych's party. But the Americans weren't interested: "They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else." ..."
"... According to Telizhenko, U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over. The Ukrainians did not agree. But then Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire Ukraine's chief prosecutor in March 2016, as I previously reported. The Burisma case was transferred to NABU, then shut down. ..."
"... The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington on Thursday confirmed the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016, but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions. ..."
"... But Telizhenko's claim that the DOJ reopened its Manafort probe as the 2016 election ramped up is supported by the DOJ's own documents, including communications involving Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, his wife, Nellie, and ex-British spy Christopher Steele. ..."
"... DOJ emails show Nellie Ohr on May 30, 2016, directly alerted her husband and two DOJ prosecutors specializing in international crimes to the discovery of the "black ledger" documents that led to Manafort's prosecution. ..."
"... The efforts eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which the FBI asked Deripaska if he could help prove Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia. Deripaska laughed off the notion as preposterous. ..."
"... Now we have more concrete evidence that the larger Ukrainian government also was being pressed by the Obama administration to help build the Russia collusion narrative. And that onion is only beginning to be peeled. ..."
"... But what is already confirmed by Ukrainians looks a lot more like assertive collusion with a foreign power than anything detailed in the Mueller report . ..."
As Donald Trump began his meteoric rise to the presidency,
the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to coordinate ongoing anti-corruption efforts inside Russia's
most critical neighbor.
The January 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants and contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine's top corruption
prosecutors and investigators face to face with members of former President Obama's National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department
and Department of Justice (DOJ).
That makes the January 2016 meeting one of the earliest documented efforts to build the now-debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative
and one of the first to involve the Obama administration's intervention.
Spokespeople for the NSC, DOJ and FBI declined to comment. A representative for former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice
did not return emails seeking comment.
Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Ukraine's chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me he attended some but not all of the January 2016
Washington meetings and couldn't remember the specific cases, if any, that were discussed.
But he said he soon saw evidence in Ukraine of
political meddling in the U.S. election . Kholodnytskyy said the key evidence against Manafort -- a ledger showing payments from
the Party of Regions -- was known to Ukrainian authorities since 2014 but was suddenly released in May 2016 by the U.S.-friendly
NABU, after Manafort was named Trump's campaign chairman: "Somebody kept this black ledger secret for two years and then showed it
to the public and the U.S. media. It was extremely suspicious."
Kholodnytskyy said he explicitly instructed NABU investigators who were working with American authorities not to share
the ledger with the media. "Look, Manafort's case is one of the cases that hurt me a lot," he said.
"I ordered the detectives to give nothing to the mass media considering this case. Instead, they had broken my order and published
themselves these one or two pages of this black ledger regarding Paul Manafort."
"For me it was the first call that something was going wrong and that there is some external influence in this case. And there
is some other interests in this case not in the interest of the investigation and a fair trial," he added.
Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Ukraine prosecutor general's international affairs office, said that, shortly after Ukrainian
authorities returned from the Washington meeting, there was a clear message about helping the Americans with the Party of the Regions
case.
"Yes, there was a lot of talking about needing help and then the ledger just appeared in public," he recalled.
Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence
that other Western figures , such as former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, also received money from Yanukovych's party.
But the Americans weren't interested: "They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else."
Manafort joined Trump's campaign on March 29, 2016, and then was promoted to campaign chairman on May 19, 2016.
NABU leaked the existence of the ledgers on May 29, 2016. Later that summer, it told U.S. media the ledgers showed payments to
Manafort, a revelation that forced him to resign from the campaign in August 2016.
A Ukrainian court in December concluded NABU's release of the ledger was an illegal attempt to influence the U.S. election. And
a member of Ukraine's parliament has released a recording of a NABU official saying the agency released the ledger to help Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign.
The other case raised at the January 2016 meeting, Telizhenko said, involved
Burisma Holdings , a
Ukrainian energy company under investigation in Ukraine for improper foreign transfers of money. At the time, Burisma allegedly was
paying then-Vice President Joe Biden's son Hunter as both a board
member and a consultant. More than $3 million flowed from Ukraine to an American firm tied to Hunter Biden in 2014-15,
bank records show .
According to Telizhenko, U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kiev drop the Burisma probe and allow the
FBI to take it over. The Ukrainians did not agree. But then Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to
fire Ukraine's chief prosecutor in March 2016, as I previously reported. The Burisma case was transferred to NABU, then shut
down.
The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington on Thursday confirmed the Obama administration requested the meetings in January 2016,
but embassy representatives attended only some of the sessions.
"Unfortunately, the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, D.C., was not invited to join the DOJ and other law enforcement-sector meetings,"
it said. It said it had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the meetings it did attend.
Ukraine is riddled with corruption, Russian meddling and intense political conflicts, so one must carefully consider any Ukrainian
accounts.
But Telizhenko's claim that the DOJ reopened its Manafort probe as the 2016 election ramped up is supported by the DOJ's own
documents, including communications involving Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, his wife, Nellie, and ex-British spy Christopher
Steele.
Nellie Ohr and Steele worked in 2016 for the research firm, Fusion GPS, that was hired by Clinton's campaign and the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) to find Russia dirt on Trump. Steele wrote the famous dossier for Fusion that the FBI used to gain a warrant
to spy on the Trump campaign. Nellie Ohr admitted to Congress that she routed Russia dirt on Trump from Fusion to the DOJ
through her husband during the election.
DOJ emails show Nellie Ohr on May 30, 2016, directly alerted her husband and two DOJ prosecutors specializing in international
crimes to the discovery of the "black ledger" documents that led to Manafort's prosecution.
"Reported Trove of documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions' Black Cashbox," Nellie Ohr
wrote to her husband and federal prosecutors
Lisa Holtyn and Joseph Wheatley, attaching
a news article
on the announcement of NABU's release of the documents.
Bruce Ohr and Steele worked on their own effort to get dirt on Manafort from a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who had a soured
business relationship with him. Deripaska was "almost ready to talk" to U.S. government officials regarding the money that "Manafort
stole," Bruce Ohr wrote in notes from his conversations with Steele.
The efforts eventually led to a September 2016 meeting in which the
FBI asked Deripaska if he could help prove Manafort was helping Trump collude with Russia. Deripaska laughed off the notion as
preposterous.
Previously, Politico reported
that the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington assisted Clinton's campaign through a DNC contractor. The Ukrainian Embassy acknowledges
it got requests for assistance from the DNC staffer to find dirt on Manafort but denies it provided any improper assistance.
Now we have more concrete evidence that the larger Ukrainian government also was being pressed by the Obama administration
to help build the Russia collusion narrative. And that onion is only beginning to be peeled.
But what is already confirmed by Ukrainians looks a lot more like assertive collusion with a foreign power than anything detailed
in the Mueller report .
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence
failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous
cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow
him on Twitter @jsolomonReports
"... According to its filings to the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), BGR is a registered agent for none other than President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, whose ascension to Ukrainian presidency was brought about by the Maidan revolution of 2014, a coup cheered on most fervently by John McCain himself. ..."
"... It remains to be seen whether this relationship will change in June, when TV personality Volodymyr Zelensky takes office, having triumphed in a landslide runoff election this past weekend. Judging by Zelensky's official Facebook account of his February meeting with Volker – "a friend of Ukraine" with whom he "reached full understanding on all questions" – that seems unlikely, however. ..."
"... Turns out another McCain confidant, David Kramer , also works at Volker's institute, listed as "senior director for Human Rights and Democracy." Kramer was identified as the individual who during the 2016 campaign spread the "Steele Dossier" (accusing Trump of ties with Russia) to the press and a number of other people in Washington, including the "midwife of Maidan" herself, Victoria Nuland. ..."
US special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker is drawing a salary from John McCain's think tank,
which is funded by George Soros and a DC lobbying firm working for Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko, among others.
Volker was appointed Special Representative for Ukraine negotiations in July 2017, by
then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and has been "mediating" the Ukrainian crisis on behalf
of the US ever since in much the same way his colleague Elliott Abrams has
been doing with Venezuela.
The twist is that Volker is doing this " on
a voluntary basis without compensation" and "not taxing the taxpayers," drawing a salary
from his day job as executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership in
Arizona. Named after the late and hawkish US senator John McCain, the think tank is dedicated
to "advancing leadership in the United States and around the world." The two positions are very
much aligned, Volker has said, allowing him to get his "hands dirty and actually solve our
problems."
In practice, that means things like taking part in the "Occupied Crimea: 5 years of
resistance" conference in Odessa – the same city where US-backed nationalists burned
alive their political opponents in May 2014 – and parroting Bellingcat talking points on
the Kerch Strait incident, themselves cribbed from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
This is not surprising, however, since the list of donors of the McCain Institute includes
something called the "BGR Foundation." It shares the same Washington, DC address – and
name – with Barbour Griffith Rogers, a high-profile lobbying firm that lists Volker as "Senior
International Advisor" and former international managing director.
According to its filings to the US
Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), BGR is a registered
agent for none other than President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, whose ascension to Ukrainian
presidency was brought about by the Maidan revolution of 2014, a coup cheered on most fervently
by John McCain himself.
The "National Reforms Council of Ukraine," which officially retained BGR's services, is led
by none other than Dmytro Shymkiv, "Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine,"
as per the filing BGR sent to the
DOJ in January 2017.
It remains to be seen whether this relationship will change in June, when TV personality
Volodymyr Zelensky takes office, having triumphed in a landslide
runoff election this past weekend. Judging by Zelensky's official Facebook
account of his February meeting with Volker – "a friend of Ukraine" with whom he
"reached full understanding on all questions" – that seems unlikely, however.
Whose envoy?
Volker was very close to the late Senator McCain, who was himself intimately involved with
the 2014 "revolution" in Kiev, visiting the demonstrators and personally sharing the stage with
Socialist-Nationalist Party leader Oleg Tyahnibok, for example. McCain was even offered an
advisory job with Poroshenko, back in 2015, but declined because that was not allowed under
US law.
Turns out another McCain confidant, David Kramer , also works at
Volker's institute, listed as "senior director for Human Rights and Democracy." Kramer was
identified as
the individual who during the 2016 campaign spread the "Steele Dossier" (accusing Trump of ties
with Russia) to the press and a number of other people in Washington, including the "midwife of
Maidan" herself, Victoria Nuland.
Among the McCain Institute's other donors are George Soros and his Open Society Foundations,
as well as Saudi Arabia – though Volker had to disavow them last year, calling it a
one-time donation and saying he won't
accept any more Saudi cash after the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal
Khashoggi.
All of this adds up to the question no one seems to have asked yet: Whose interests in
Ukraine is Kurt Volker actually representing – those of the Trump administration, or
those of his donors and the ghost of John McCain?
No he is not. But he is the US puppet. Yet another neoliberal that will fleece Ukraine for the benefit of international
financial oligarchy.
The article is a usual incompetent neocon/neolib garbage and does not demonstrate any knowledge of the
Ukrainian political situation. But one paragraph does make sense. Zelensky was like Trump: he was
elected because the other candidate was despicable corrupt warmonger
The level of connections of Zelensky to oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Soros is still unclear.
Kolomoyskyi was rumored as one of the initiator and sponsors of Odessa massacre and the financier of pro-Nazi
Azov battalion (he is now hiding from persecution for his financial crimes in Israel) .
The
only question about Zelensky is whose puppet he is. Anyway Poor Ukraine is up top another round of stripping its wealth
by oligarchs and foreign financial sharks, while the standard of living will deteriorate and stay
of the same dismal level as now (essentially Central African poverty level).
Any attempt of Zelensky to escape the puppet status will be cut in short. In no way he can depose key officials from Nuland
junta which came in power in 2014, or challenge the power of the US embassy over Ukraine. With Biden in the past routinely
firing Ukrainian Chief Prosecutor, when he start digging on his son dealings in Ukraine.
Poroshenko lost not because Zelenskiy was better. Although hard to measure, it is perceived
by some in Ukraine's parliament that a vote for Zelenskiy was simply an anti-Poroshenko vote,
rather than a truly pro-Zelenskiy one.
"... Russia is preparing for war and I know the mood there. If it starts, it will start conventionally with strikes on US forces in Europe, especially naval assets in Med. Russia has a control of escalation there. US military knows this and already calculated the "weight" of the first salvo from Russian side on US Navy assets. ..."
"... Nothing would be gained for US interests in such a thing. It would merely be an example of the domination of the US by Zionist fantasies. ..."
"... IMO you are right in thinking that the present inhabitants of the leadership of the BORG are a sub-species of the classic Straussian ideology driven race. The Old Ones were driven by their madcap exotericism and were entertaining. These are merely imperialists. ..."
What is gained for US interests to start a war that puts the entire middle east in flames?
That causes oil prices to spike to over $200 a barrel? That kills probably hundreds of
thousands and immiserates millions?
DO these guys see a massive depression coming and think the only way out is to go to war
as in WW2? Is it population control? Surely there is a better way to get rid of surplus male
population than total war - can't they figure out a way to game it so that warriors fight
warriors and total populations are not destroyed?
This thing looks so wrong and counter-productive to me, stupid and evil and needing
massive amounts of lies and propaganda to get people onboard. WHo benefits? I say no one but
obviously I am wrong - the people who are prosecuting this thing seem to think that they and
their sponsors will benefit mightily.....
Russia would have to choose between acceptance and the risk of utter destruction. The US
neocons would have already chosen for us if they were able to persuade Trump.
Russia would have to choose between acceptance and the risk of utter destruction. The US
neocons would have already chosen for us if they were able to persuade Trump.
Russia is preparing for war and I know the mood there. If it starts, it will start
conventionally with strikes on US forces in Europe, especially naval assets in Med. Russia
has a control of escalation there. US military knows this and already calculated the "weight"
of the first salvo from Russian side on US Navy assets.
IMO you are right in thinking that the present inhabitants of the leadership of the BORG
are a sub-species of the classic Straussian ideology driven race. The Old Ones were driven by
their madcap exotericism and were entertaining. These are merely imperialists.
"... FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing." ..."
"... Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned. ..."
"... Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government. ..."
"... Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it. ..."
The Mueller Special Counsel inquiry is far from over even though a
final report on its findings has been issued. Although the investigation had a mandate to
explore all aspects of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, from the start
the focus was on the possibility that some members of the Trump campaign had colluded with the
Kremlin to influence the outcome of the election to favor the GOP candidate. Even though that
could not be demonstrated, many prominent Trump critics, to include Laurence Tribe of the
Harvard Law School,
are demanding that the investigation continue until Congress has discovered "the full facts
of Russia's interference [to include] the ways in which that interference is continuing in
anticipation of 2020, and the full story of how the president and his team welcomed, benefited
from, repaid, and obstructed lawful investigation into that interference and the president's
cooperation with it."
Tribe should perhaps read the report more carefully. While it does indeed confirm some
Russian meddling, it does not demonstrate that anyone in the Trump circle benefited from it or
cooperated with it. The objective currently being promoted by dedicated Trump critics like
Tribe is to make a case to impeach the president based on the alleged enormity of the Russian
activity, which is not borne out by the facts: the Russian role was intermittent, small scale
and basically ineffective.
One interesting aspect of the Mueller inquiry and the ongoing Russophobia that it has
generated is the essential hypocrisy of the Washington Establishment. It is generally agreed
that whatever Russia actually did, it did not affect the outcome of the election. That the
Kremlin was using intelligence resources to act against Hillary Clinton should surprise no one
as she described Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler and also made clear that she would
be taking a very hard line against Moscow.
The anti-Russia frenzy in Washington generated by the vengeful Democrats and an
Establishment fearful of a loss of privilege and entitlement claimed a number of victims. Among
them was Russian citizen Maria Butina, who has a court date and will very likely be
sentenced tomorrow .
Regarding Butina, the United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe
that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association
(NRA) by having a Russian citizen take out a life membership in the organization with the
intention of corrupting it and turning it into an instrument for subverting American democracy.
Maria Butina has, by the way, a long and well documented history as an advocate for gun
ownership and was a co-founder in Russia of Right to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence
front organization of some kind. It is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active
membership and agenda. Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can
own guns but the licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to
Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.
Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in a federal prison, having been
charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She was
arrested on July 15, 2018. It is decidedly unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed
to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) , but she has not been granted bail because, as a
Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee the US and
return home.
FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to
registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts.
Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while
deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to
advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and
assessing."
Maria eventually pleaded guilty of not registering under FARA to mitigate any punishment,
hoping that she would be allowed to return to Russia after a few months in prison on top of the
nine months she has already served. She has reportedly fully cooperated the US authorities,
turning over documents, answering questions and undergoing hours of interrogation by federal
investigators before and after her guilty plea.
Maria Butina basically did nothing that damaged US security and it is difficult to see where
her behavior was even criminal, but the prosecution is asking for 18 months in prison for her
in addition to the time served. She would be, in fact, one of only a handful of individuals
ever to be imprisoned over FARA, and they all come from countries that Washington considers to
be unfriendly, to include Cuba, Saddam's Iraq and Russia. Normally the failure to comply with
FARA is handled with a fine and compulsory registration.
Butina was essentially convicted of the crime of being Russian at the wrong time and in the
wrong place and she is paying for it with prison. Selective enforcement of FARA was,
ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to
the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump
Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should
have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law
Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no
extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned.
Kushner reportedly aggressively
pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United
Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United
Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed
when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National
Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice
and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York
City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government.
Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser
George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately
determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that
Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli
government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to
do nothing about it.
As so often is the case, inquiries that begin by looking for foreign interference in
American politics start by focusing on Washington's adversaries but then comes up with Israel.
Noam Chomsky
described it best "First of all, if you're interested in foreign interference in our
elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as
compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Netanyahu
goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with
overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies -- what happened with Obama
and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress
trying to -- calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And
that's just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence."
Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered
security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior
advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access
to openly promote the interests of a foreign government. Mueller knows all about it but
recommended nothing, as if it didn't happen. The media is silent. Congress will do nothing. As
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it "We in Congress stand by
Israel. In Congress, we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel." Indeed.
Smiling Joe Biden, the glad handler from Delaware, is nothing more than another neocon
wolf in sheep's clothing. His tenure as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1993
resulted in the infamous Anita Hill debacle due to his failure to investigate Ms. Hill's
allegations that then SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her several years
earlier. The result was an embarrassing televised hearing that exposed Biden's
incompetence, along with that of other members of the committee.
In the end, an unqualified right wing legal 'bump on the log' attained a seat as a
Supreme Court justice. Later it was proven that Ms. Hill's claims were true, but the damage
was done. BTW, Biden's penchant for fascists was on display in the Yugoslavian civil
war.
Well known Twitter "bot" Ian56 has published a thread about Biden
. I suggest people give it a looksee. Ian asks in his first entry:
"How the hell does the Oligarchy think they are going to get Creepy Joe Biden past the
public? I mean the average American Joe is extremely dumb & ignorant, but even they are
not that dumb."
I just posted the answer @11. Welcome to 1984. We are now officially at war with
Eastasia!
The good thing about Biden entering the race is that it complicates an already difficult path
to the nomination for the slew of establishment candidates. Biden is not a first choice for
the Democratic intelligentsia. Sample Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight regularly and you'll know
that Kamala Harris and boy-mayor Buttigieg are the favorites. Of course, Trump would eat
either whole.
I'm rooting for Sanders, not because I believe him to be uniquely authentic, but because
he is the one who scares the shit out of the big-ticket donors who guide the Democratic
Party.
Read last week's
front-pager from Jonathan Martin. Guaranteed if Bernie walks away with the primary in a
rout, you'll see prominent Dems back a third party candidate.
The fact that Biden survived the "GropeGate" stuff from a view weeks ago reinforces how the
msm is cooking coverage or withholding it altogether.
Take a look at some video compilations of ol' Gropey-Joe as he is swearing in elected reps
and photo-documenting the occasion.
Irrespective of his Obama-esque policies and status as standard-bearer for TPTB, the guy
is just a straight up creep. And a particularly bad Catholic.
...
I agree that Sanders-Gabbard would absolutely destroy Trump and garner perhaps even more
backing than Obama c. 2008.
I put the scary Socialist angle that is used against Sanders as carrying the same weight
as the whole Crouching Blackman, Hidden Muslim thing that followed Obama during his run.
It is just hard to tell as to how sensible they (Sanders and Gabbard) would be allowed to
be WRT FP.
But Trump had an opportunity to love his country. And he chose orherwise. SAD!
As long as Hunter Biden is still a director
of Burisma Holdings (which includes at least one other unpleasant individual on
the Board of Directors), there is always a chance that elements within or connected to the
Ukrainian government (even under Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Presidency, when he has his back
turned on his fellow politicians), the previous Poroshenko government or Poroshenko himself,
and / or the Maidan Revolution - Crowdstrike, Dmitri Alperovich and Chalupa sisters, we're
looking at all of you - might try to derail any or all of the Democratic Party presidential
candidates in attempts to have Joe Biden declared the official Democrat presidential
contender in 2020. The only question is how openly brazen these people are going to be in
order to save their pet project in Kiev before Ukraine erupts in civil war (and it won't be
civil war in the Donbass area) and the entire country goes down in flames.
As for the rest of the 20 candidates, I would prefer Tulsi Gabbard out of the lot. In this
respect India's general elections, already under way, are going to be important. Gabbard
needs to let go of Narendra Modi and his Hindutva BJP party - her friendship with Modi and
his association with Hindutva are sure to come under scrutiny as will also any connections
she and her office staff have with
The Science of Identity Foundation organisation.
Joe Biden is hard wired to the corruption in the corporate DNC. The tell on this will be when
the media starts to roll him out with the fanfare of a new model car. It is hard to imagine
that he can inspire voters in the primaries. But if the sell goes overboard and it becomes
obvious that the fixers are determined to hand him the nomination; then it will be a real
poke in the eye, and another PSYOPS to grossly demoralize voters in this country. Biden is
about as exciting as a glass of milk that's curdled overnight on the end table by the bed.
The Deep State wanted a MAGA nationalist to counter the challenge from Russia and China and
that's what they got.
Sanders is a sheepdog/stooge that works for the Zionist establishment and Deep State just
like Biden and a few others that are in the race. As much as you wag your 'tale', the stink
remains.
The oligarchy reels out all tired scams over and over, until you want to cry out in anguish.
Don't let them wear you down. Never capitulate. If Biden by some horrible chance has the
winning hand, I'm guessing he will pick Gillibrand for his VP, a centrist of compromising
kind, a shapeshifting clone to remind people of Hillary on some subconscious level. More of
the same will fix us right up, on our journey to virtual political reality, and the end of
humanity. These fucks will use the "little nukes" as they tuck us into bed.
Bibi's best bet to solve his intractable Hezbollah problem is when his bitch Trump is in
office. Nothing like getting for free the USAF to do the work his IAF can't do. Of course
Trump can follow Dubya's footsteps and become the war president. Nothing like a
neocon-inspired war to shore his support is what Bolton & Pompeo will advise and Adelson
will be crooning too.
How do you think Hezbollah will react when the die is cast and the casus belli is
manufactured? Would they preempt and launch all they have knowing they would have to go down
when the tens of thousands of sorties of the USAF commence? Syed Nasrallah apparently has
warned his commanders to expect an Israeli war this summer.
Would Putin & Xi sit it out & let Hezbollah go down in flames?
"Would Putin & Xi sit it out & let Hezbollah go down in flames?"
That is almost certain. What the Russians have demonstrated is there absolute weakness in
the face of US economic dominance and military might. These Chinese have demonstrated their
inability to show any sort of political backbone, but suck in as much world capital as they
possibly can in silence.
BP - If a massive heavy bomber strike is made on Hizbullah it may cripple Hizbullah's ability
to lay down a lot of fire in Israel. This Hizbullahis must have figured this out. That
creates a hair trigger possibility for a preemptive strike on Israel. This is a very
dangerous situation. my crystal ball is cloudy. I have no idea what Putin and Xi might do.
"Best in Show" is a great film depicting a wonderful breed.
How likely is it that the US could surprise Hizbullah with a massive strategic bombing
strike?
Would not Russia see this coming and probably warn Hizbullah?
And does anyone her have a sense of the extent of area that would need to be covered and
the density of Hizbullah fortifications within this area? Would it be plausible to cover the
full extent of the threat to Israel in one strike?
Also, I recently read an article by an air force officer assigned to the MACV combat
operations center during the siege of Khe Sanh. He indicated that intelligence was received
that the NVA were going to try to tunnel under the Marine defense lines. This officer vaguely
remembered that a bunker-busting/deep penetration weapon for B-52s was somewhere "in the
inventory". It turned out some were in stock in Okinawa, so were relatively immediately
available to use at Khe Sanh. So if these weapons (or something similar) remain available,
their impact could potentially be greater on Hizbullah fortifications than what Col. Lang
observed on his BDA.
The US is very good at OPSEC and IMO Hizbullah would have no warning at all until the
bombs started to fall from way up in the sky. And unlike a lot of target system the Tabbouleh
line cannot be moved without a lot of trouble. How big a target set? Essentially the width of
Lebanon and three or four miles wide against what by now must be a fully developed picture of
the arrray of targets. This will have been developed in full by now by DIA and the USAF
targeting people. You people are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. And since Hizbullah is
designated as a terrorist organization the AUMF would apply. The only thing protecting
Hizbullah in Tabbouleh Line is fear of the reaction of the American people and that can be
overcome by a supposed attack on Israel.
Ukraine with the help of lunatics in the Washington, DC is moving to the right direction
in order to become Malorussia soon. It will not take long. Chervonarussia a.k.a. Ruthenia in
Hapsburg newspeak will take longer time. However, people in that region still identify
themselves as Russinians (Русины). With coming
dissolution of once Anglo-German-Dutch City-on-the-Hill into amorphous salad of different
cultures and total loss internal cohesion we may see comparative bloodless transition to new
era.
the gfc tells us otherwise. a financial collapse is a probable scenario; leading to a
prolonged depression. May not be the catastrophic vision our friend has in mind, but would be
pretty bad. Even in today's great economy forty million are living in poverty. Another
financial collapse could see that number double
"What lessons can Western policymakers learn from Poroshenko's crushing defeat?"
A pointless question as the US/EU establishment don't seem to be able to accept the
reality of what is happening, and won't accept any lessons as that might get in the way of
the Neoliberal globalist expansionist agenda and undermine its supporting narratives.
Zelensky won't be a quantum improvement, but at least he isn't a raving Ultra-nationalist
looney. He's not much more that the Ukro version of Frances Micron, a political light-weight
foisted onto the public by the mostly-hidden hand of corrupt Oilgarchs. Ukraines rot from
within will continue...
As most Russians, I don't have high hopes for Zelensky. Almost certainly, his campaign was
bankrolled by oligarch Kolomoisky. So he will represent the interests of large money, not of
Ukranian people. And he will have to deal with these crazy nationalists, which are over 25%
of population. And the debts with IMF strings attached. He stood on his knees at the debate
with Poroshenko - I think he will have to be forced to do that more often than that during
his presidency.
Donbass will remain the festering wound in Ukraines side that weakens and eventually
destroys the accursed Banderite state. Russia needs to keep up the pressure and ensure that
the DPR/LPR can defend themselves against the Kiev regime and make sure the nationalist
whack-jobs understand that any attempt to seizethe territory of Free Ukraine will result in a
world of pain descending on their heads. Time is on Russia's side as the US loses focus, the
EU loses interest, and the harsh realities of geo-politics and economics takes its toll on
the bumbling tin-pot kleptocracy that Ukr has become.
Parashenko is criminal. The same as Saakashvili. Both shelled peaceful living homes from
artillery and with rockets. They both deserve to be hanged. But the West calls them
"democrats".
Western policy is infinitely malleable and adaptable to whatever agenda they want to
pursue. They will defend the Banderite madhouse in Ukropistan as a "democracy" (even as it
makes war on its own people) yet insist that Venezuela is a dictatorship, despite the free
and fair elections that return the Chavistas to power, time and time again. They will rail
against Russia for being "corrupt" (even though they jail senior figures who still try to
extract Yeltsin-era "tributes") yet strain their collectives necks as they look away from
watching Ukr regime insiders conduct outright theft of IMF loan cash.
Sometimes, too little pride in one's nation can be a problem, providing no sense of
cohesion, purpose or unity. And sometimes, too much pride can also be equally
problematic.
Is it liberal to complain about not being hard enough on Russia?
Interesting that Hillary Clinton said Trump was a "Russian puppet" (probably after
Obama sent the FBI after the GOP campaign) and NBC's Holt (Nov 9 2016) said the US
election was a Russian coup. Since when (except maybe if Joe McCarthy were a
democrat).
A parallel maybe. In Ukraine since 2004 the popularly elected president was deposed
twice by extreme right wing ultra nationalists. In 2014 the popular Yanukovych was
deposed in the Maidan revolution with help from the US replaced with no election by Petro
Poroshenko.
Sunday we hear that a comedian Zelenskiy soundly beat Poroshenko in a popular
vote.
To this Poroshenko: "Poroshenko said on social media he thought Zelenskiy's win would
spark celebrations in the Kremlin."
"They believe that with a new inexperienced Ukrainian president, Ukraine could be
quickly returned to Russia's orbit of influence," he wrote.
Clinton and Holt could be writing for Poroshenko, a far right wing ultra
nationalist!
I worry a lot about Obama's spying on the Trump campaign and the supposed liberals in
this country sounding like far right, ultra nationalist, looking for a new, expensive
cold war!
Bolton? NSA? Do you mean NSC? Everything we hear about Bolton lately is ideological
labeling as a so-called Neocon, more ambiguous bullshit, or tainting him by association with
Israelis. Funny how everybody just forgot what Bolton did at the UN, when Bush shoehorned him
in there without congressional consent. Bolton personally constipated the drafting of the
Summit Outcome Document to remove awkward mentions of the magic word impunity. The old perv
put up 700 amendments to obstruct the process.
Now, who cares that much about impunity? And why would it be such a big deal, unless you
had impunity in municipal law but the whole world was committed to ending impunity? Cause if
you think about it, that's what the whole world has been doing for 70 years, codifying the
Pre-CIA Nuremberg Principles as international criminal law and developing state
responsibility for internationally wrongful acts as customary and then conventional
international law. Who doesn't want that?
CIA. Impunity is CIA's vital interest. They go to war to keep it all the time.
@DESERT FOX
Wisely, DESERT FOX recalled Colonel Fletcher Prouty, and wrote: " the CIA is the zionist
chain dogs that rule America!"
Dear DESERT FOX,
As you know, for some very dramatic time, Attorney Garrison held Clay Shaw's
feet-to-the-fire while demonstrating the latter businessman's connection to the Israeli
company, Permindex.
So naturally, a reasonable & respectful question arises, for which there is likely no
available & conclusive determination.
Are CIA, Mossad, and M16 joined as one (1) ruling and globally unaccountable
"(Western) Zionist chain dog" link? Tough one, D.F., but am confident you can intelligently
handle it. Thanks & salud!
@ChuckOrloski
From what I have read, MI6 is under zionist control and is the template for the CIA and the
Mossad and is the controller of both the CIA and the Mossad and all three are under zionist
control.
Another good book is The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman a former officer in MI6 and
his videos on youtube.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton have vowed to
strangle Iran and cut off all oil exports. They claim it's because of Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons and missiles and its support for terrorism. In a recent speech at Texas A&M
University he finally told the truth about the CIA and the neocons - they lie and cheat and
steal. So should we believe him now?
April 12, 2019 Back in April 2017, then CIA Director Mike Pompeo
delivered a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In this speech,
he made some very pointed comments about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange that provide us with a
glimpse into the mindset that currently inhabits the Department of State in particular and
Washington as a whole and why the events of April 11th, 2019 occurred.
Here are some key quotes from the rather lengthy speech which looked at America's intelligence
community. Early in the speech, he makes this comment:
" As a policy, we at CIA do not comment on the accuracy of purported intelligence
documents posted online. In keeping with that policy, I will not specifically comment on the
authenticity or provenance of recent disclosures. But the false narratives that increasingly define our public discourse cannot be
ignored.There are fictions out there that demean and distort the work and achievements
of CIA and of the broader Intelligence Community. And in the absence of a vocal rebuttal, these
voices -- ones that proclaim treason to be public advocacy -- gain a gravity they do not
deserve." (my bolds)
It is important to note that Mr. Pompeo will not comment on the authenticity of documents that
are disclosed by whistleblowers but that, in the next breath, he states that these documents
are part of a false narrative that demean and distort the work of America's intelligence
community.
He goes on to note that the CIA does admit to making mistakes and that it is accountable to the
"free and open society that they help to defend" and that the CIA is willing to make its
mistakes public to a degree that other nations cannot match.`
Here's what he has to say about WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange:
" And that is one of the many reasons why we at CIA find the celebration of entities like
WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling. Because while we do our best to quietly
collect information on those who pose very real threats to our country, individuals such as
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves.
As long as they make a splash, they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage
they cause to national security. WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence
service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain
intelligence.It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret
information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from
anti-democratic countries and organizations. It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile
intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this
year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence -- the GRU --
had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber
operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia's
primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks. Now, for those of you who read the editorial page of the Washington Post -- and I have a
feeling that many of you in this room do -- yesterday you would have seen a piece of sophistry
penned by Mr. Assange. You would have read a convoluted mass of words wherein Assange compared
himself to Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of
legitimate news organizations such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. One can only
imagine the absurd comparisons that the original draft contained. Assange claims to harbor an overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of
America. But I assure you that this man knows nothing of America and our ideals. He knows
nothing of our third President, whose clarion call for life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness continue to inspire us and the world. And he knows nothing of our 34th President, a
hero from my very own Kansas, who helped to liberate Europe from fascists and guided America
through the early years of the Cold War. No, I am quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, he would
have found himself on the wrong side of history. We know this because Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today. Yes,
they try unsuccessfully to cloak themselves and their actions in the language of liberty and
privacy; in reality, however, they champion nothing but their own celebrity. Their currency is
clickbait; their moral compass, nonexistent. Their mission: personal self-aggrandizement
through the destruction of Western values. They do not care about the causes and people they claim to represent. If they did, they
would focus instead on the autocratic regimes in this world that actually suppress free speech
and dissent. Instead, they choose to exploit the legitimate secrets of democratic governments
-- which has, so far, proven to be a much safer approach than provoking a tyrant. Clearly, these individuals are not especially burdened by conscience. We know this, for
example, because Assange has been more than cavalier in disclosing the personal information of
scores of innocent citizens around the globe. We know this because the damage they have done to
the security and safety of the free world is tangible. And the examples are numerous." (my bolds)
Actually, when it comes to Russia and the "pass" that it has been given by WikiLeaks, Mr.
Pompeo could not be more wrong. On September 19, 2017, WikiLeaks published its " Spy Files Russia " documents which
provided insight into Russia's surveillance contractors. In the case of Russia, Russias
communication providers are required by law to install components for surveillance which is
provided by the FSB which are linked to the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service. And,
perhaps we can attribute WikiLeaks ability to release information on America's intelligence
community because it is far more prone to leaks than the intelligence communities of other
nations.
Mr. Pompeo also provided his audience with a direct link between WikiLeaks and terrorism:
" As for Assange, his actions have attracted a devoted following among some of our most
determined enemies. Following a recent WikiLeaks disclosure, an al Qa'ida in the Arabian
Peninsula member posted a comment online thanking WikiLeaks for providing a means to fight
America in a way that AQAP had not previously envisioned. AQAP represents one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country and the world. It
is a group that is devoted not only to bringing down civilian passenger planes, but our way of
life as well.That Assange is the darling of terrorists is nothing short of
reprehensible." (my bold)
Here is Mr. Pompeo's three part solution to the Assange "problem": 1.) It is high time we called out those who grant a platform to these leakers and so-called
transparency activists. We know the danger that Assange and his not-so-merry band of brothers
pose to democracies around the world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is no longer an
acceptable excuse for lionizing these demons. 2.) There are steps that we have to take at home -- in fact, this is a process we've already
started. We've got to strengthen our own systems; we've got to improve internal mechanisms that
help us in our counterintelligence mission. All of us in the Intelligence Community had a
wake-up call after Snowden's treachery. Unfortunately, the threat has not abated. I can't go
into great detail, but the steps we take can't be static. Our approach to security has to be
constantly evolving. We need to be as clever and innovative as the enemies we face. They won't
relent, and neither will we. 3.) We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude
to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated
secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now."
Let's close with two brief items. First, here's what the ACLU has to
say about the arrest and potential American prosecution of Julian Assange:
Second, after Assange's arrest, Donald Trump had this to say about WikiLeaks:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ztxcRHCHj4
" I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing and I know there is something having to
do with Julian Assange. I've been seeing what's happened with Assange and that will be a
determination I would imagine mostly by the Attorney General who is doing an excellent
job." Here's what the
President had to say about WikiLeaks during the 2016 Presidential election cycle:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/xnEoVzLKNPw
While it may have taken a few days less than two years to complete his dream of getting rid of
Julian Assange, it is abundantly clear from the CIA Director's speech that Mr. Assange's fate
was sealed once Mike Pompeo had direct access Washington's power brokers no matter what Donald
Trump had to say about WikiLeaks back in 2016. Fortunately for those of us on the outside that
rely on WikiLeaks to learn more about the hidden secrets of governments and the corporate
world, the group will continue to exist with or without its founder.
Posted by A Political Junkie at
8:30 AM Labels: Julian Assange ,
Mike
Pompeo , Wikileaks2
comments:
Dedicated to revealing facts that allows the public to "see" the truth is Julian
Assange, a man of integrity that is lacking in many of our politicians. They say the
"truth" hurts but it is the only way to gain wisdom to improve our world.
a) violate sanctions and risk severe penalties; or
b) go along with sanctions but if Iran pulls the pin on the world economy, China could
very well completely crash economically, to the point that I wonder if there could be a
revolution. Also, everyone knows about China's Muslim issues, Iran could say "it would be
shame if someone armed those tens of million of Muslims you have".
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif has
conducted an interview with Reuters saying Trump didn't want war but could be "lured into
one." As usual, Reuters doesn't just provide a transcript of the interview, only publishing
what it wants to publish. We'll need to await the official Iranian transcript to note what
else was said and what was reported out-of-context.
China will ignore the illegal Outlaw US Empire diktat and carry on as before. If it's
challenged, it has the means to defend itself and will. The Empire is beholden to China not
the other way-round.
@39
Nobody cares what Italy and Greece need. They are good little vassals and will do what told.
Turkey is of course a bigger problem, but might just be mostly overlooked and ignored.
The big fish are China and India. Those are the major users of iranian oil, and neither of
them is likely to desist. What will the US do with them? Not possiple to financially sanction
China.
That's why I think there will be lots of talk, but no action against anyone still buying
iranian oil. Especially since Venezuela is not resolved. Nobody, not even the US, intends to
march into Venezuela to "liberate" any oil wells any time soon.
While Maduro might some day collapse under his camarilla's corruption and his own
incompetence, it will take a long time, probably years. Especially the opposition against him
is similary incompetent. My guess is, it will take longer than Trump will be in office.
For
decades, Washington's favourite means of punishing nations that do not subscribe to its
narrative has been through the imposition of economic sanctions. This has become particularly
apparent with the ongoing and increasing sanctions against Iran, Russia and North Korea. While
sanctions against these governments have garnered headlines for the past few years, in fact,
there are far more sanctions that we rarely hear about.
In 1950, the Office of Foreign
Assets Control was formed as part of the United States Department of the Treasury. OFAC
administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions that are based on U.S. foreign policy and
national security goals. Sanctions have been imposed for the following reasons:
1.) terrorism
2.) international narcotics trade
3.) proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
4.) threats to national security, foreign policy and/or economy of the United States
Economic sanctions, in their most basic form, are defined as the withdrawal of trade and
financial relations with a targeted nation for foreign and security policy purposes. Economic
sanctions can take many forms including freezing of assets, arms embargoes, trade restrictions
and bans, capital restraints, foreign aid reductions and travel bans. According to the Council on
Foreign Relations , the United States uses economic and financial sanctions more than any
other nation.
In the United States, sanctions can originate in either the Executive or Legislative branches
of government. Presidents begin the process by issuing an Executive Order or EO which affords
the president social powers to regulate commerce with a given entity. Under the EO, the
president declares that there is a national emergency in response to "unusual and
extraordinary" foreign threats, for instance, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
and the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States. In addition to Executive actions,
Congress can also pass legislation to both modify and impose sanctions. Most sanctions programs
are administered by the previously mentioned OFAC, however, other government departments may be
involved including Homeland Security, Justice, State and Commerce.
On the OFAC website interested parties can search for information on federally mandated
sanctions programs. Under each sanctions program there is an exhaustive listing of changes to
the programs, guidelines that must be followed under penalty of law. There is also a listing of
"General Licences" which are issued in order to authorize activities that would otherwise be
prohibited under law. Here is a
list from OFAC showing active sanctions programs and the date of their last update:
OFAC also tracks " Specially
Designated Nationals (SDNs) and Blocked Individuals ". This list contains the names of
individuals and companies that are owned, controlled by or acting on behalf of targeted nations
as well as the names of terrorists and narcotics traffickers that are not affiliated with any
nation. The assets of these SDNs are blocked and American citizens and permanent residents are
prohibited from doing business with them. Here is a very small sampling of SDNs from the PDF
version of the complete listing:
In total, there are 1157 pages listing the names of over 6000 SDNs and blocked individuals.
Here is a specific person showing how difficult it is to ensure that you are not dealing with a
SDN with an unknown number of aliases:
In this case, the SDGT following his name indicates that he is sanctioned under the Global
Terrorism Sanctions Regulations.
OFAC can impose civil penalties on individuals and organizations that act in contradiction to
the imposed sanctions. So far in 2018, there have been two penalties imposed as shown
here
for doing business with Iran:
...and here for doing business with Sudan:
During 2017 , 16 OFAC
Enforcement Actions resulted in penalties of $119,527,845, up substantially from penalties
totalling $21,609,315 in 2016.
Let's now look at the sanctions programs that are currently in place from the Council on
Foreign Relations. Here is a graphic showing the current U.S. sanctions programs and their year
of inception:
With this background on Washington's use of sanctions, let's look at what the World Economic
Forum (WEF) has to say about the effectiveness of
sanctions . The key factor in the effectiveness of sanctions is the size and capacity of
the nation being sanctioned and the power of the sanctioning nation or coalition. Applying
sanctions is a double-edged sword; for instance, in the case of Iran, China and Russia have
stepped in to develop Iran's massive natural gas reserves whereas American oil companies are
banned from investing and profiting from their potential investments in Iran. There are also
longer term impacts of sanctions as show in this quote from the WEF:
" The consequences of this trend are evolving, but they potentially include companies'
"de-globalization". That is, as companies are increasingly forced to think of themselves as
tied to their home governments, they will think twice before investing in certain markets
abroad. Other consequences include changes in traditional foreign trade patterns in line with
new geopolitical alignments. Faced in 2006 with the Russian wine embargo, Georgia had to
look for new markets in the West, where it was headed politically. When in 2014 Russia faced
Western sanctions, it accelerated its rapprochement with China, the one major power that
refused to condemn its actions and shared Moscow's opposition to US global dominance. The outcome of these geo-economic campaigns is not a zero-sum game. The stronger economy
backed by other forms of power can incur more damage on the target country than it will sustain
in return, but it does not always alter the political behaviour of the government to be
"punished". Sometimes sanctions can make that behaviour even more problematic. Ironically,
the true winner may be a third party that jumps into the opening: European countries in the
initial phases of US-Iran sanctions; China in the case of current Western sanctions against
Russia; Russia in the case of the post-Tiananmen Western weapons ban on China; Turkey in the
situation when EU pressure made Russia abandon its South Stream gas pipeline project. " (my
bolds)
In many cases (i.e. Iran, Syria and North Korea), the ultimate desired impact of sanctions is
to create an atmosphere where the targeted government is subjected to "regime change". As well,
sanctions are generally less effective against nations that are adversaries since the sanctions
may create a political climate where there is a stiffening of resolve of the people being
punished by an outside power. We need look no further than the example of Vladimir Putin who,
despite nearly five years of sanctions, still retains the backing of the majority of Russians
as shown here :
One would think that Washington would have concluded that economic sanctions have not
necessarily proven to be an effective means of getting its way in the world and, in fact, may
have punished domestic businesses more than they punished foreign adversaries. The lessons
taught by nearly 70 years of American economic isolation against Cuba are a prime example;
while the sanctions have been painful, they resulted in a nation that has maintained its
resolve in the face of economic difficulties and a leader that outlived and out ruled the
reigns of U.S. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I,
Clinton and Bush II.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019US Power
Wielding - Unconventional Warfare and Financial Power Back in December 2008, WikiLeaks
released a relatively little-noted document "
US Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare ". This 248-page, nine chapter
publication was the September 2008 revision of the U.S. Army Field Manual 3-05.130, the
keystone doctrine for Army special operations forces operations in unconventional warfare.
This document defines unconventional warfare as:
" Operations conducted by, with or through irregular forces against a variety of state and
no-state opponents. "
These operations are conducted:
" ...in support of a resistance movement, an insurgency, and ongoing or pending conventional
military operations "
Such operations have the following common conceptual core:
". ..working by, with, or through irregular surrogates in a clandestine and/or covert manner
against opposing actors. "
In Chapter 2, the document outlines the instruments of United States national power which help
the United States to achieve its national strategic objectives. These instruments of national
power include diplomacy, information, intelligence, economic, financial, law enforcement and
military. For the purposes of this posting, let's focus on one of these instruments as follows,
the Financial Instrument of National Power . Here's how the document describes this
instrument:
" The financial instrument of national power promotes the conditions for prosperity and
stability in the United States and encourages prosperity and stability in the rest of the
world. The Department of the Treasury (Treasury) is the primary federal agency responsible
for the economic and financial prosperity and security of the United States and as such is
responsible for a wide range of activities, including advising the President on economic and
financial issues, promoting the President's growth agenda, and enhancing corporate governance
in financial institutions. In the international arena, the Treasury works with other federal
agencies, the governments of other nations, and the international financial institutions to
encourage economic growth; raise standards of living; and predict and prevent, to the extent
possible, economic and financial crises." I like that " encourages
prosperity and stability intherest of the world ". That is true, unless you
happen to live in a nation which doesn't share Washington's viewpoint. Just ask people living
in one of many nations who are currently subject to one or another of Washington's long list of
sanctions as shown here (current to
mid-2017):
The document proceeds to note the following:
" T he application of economic or financial incentives is among the most powerful ideas
in the U.S. arsenal of power. Although some U.S. adversaries are irreconcilable to
accommodation with U.S. interests and must be engaged in other ways, many declared or
potential adversaries can be persuaded or dissuaded by economic or financial means to become
declared or potential allies (or at least neutralized) the ability of the United States
government to affect the economic environment is enormous, and it has economic weapons at its
disposal. Unconventional warfare planners must carefully coordinate the introduction and
withholding of economic and financial assets into the Unconventional Warfare Operational Area
(UWOA) with their interagency partners. For example, direct application of USAID grants to
specific human groups can alter negative behaviors or cement positive affiliations. At the
highest levels of diplomatic and financial interaction, the United States Government's ability
to influence international financial institutions -- with corresponding effects to exchange
rates, interest rates, credit availability, and money supplies -- can cement multinational
coalitions for unconventional warfare campaigns or dissuade adversary nation-state governments
from supporting specific actors in the UWOA. " (my bolds)
As you can see, the United States is willing to use financial blackmail including exchange and
interest rate manipulation, credit availability and the supply of money to either persuade
certain nations to join its unconventional warfare campaign or to dissuade adversarial nations
from supporting the "other side" of an unconventional warfare strategy.
Here is a screen capture of page 2-8 of the document outlining how the United States can use
financial incentives to manipulate other nations (ARSOF = Army Special Operations Forces and UW
= Unconventional Warfare, DOS = Department of State, IC = Intelligence Community):
Note this sentence:
" Government can apply unilateral and indirect financial power through persuasive
influence to international and domestic financial institutions regarding availability and terms
of loans, grants, or other financial assistance to foreign state and nonstate actors
."
It is also interesting to note that the document clearly states that the World Bank,
International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Bank for
International Settlements are basically functioning as organizations that Washington can use to
drive its global agenda and as yet another tool in America's quest for global hegemony. This
isn't terribly surprising in the case of the World Bank since we find the following on its
website:
In addition, the Treasury Department's
Office of Foreign Assets Control whose sole responsibility is as follows:
". ..to administer and enforce economic and trade sanctions based on U.S. foreign policy and
national security goals against targeted foreign countries and regimes, terrorists,
international narcotics traffickers, those engaged in activities related to the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction and other threats the national security... "
...has a " long history of conducting economic warfare valuation to any Army Special
Operations Forces unconventional warfare. ".
This Army manual, leaked over a decade ago by WikiLeaks, gives us a very clear view of how
Washington uses financial manipulation through its influence on the World Bank, IMF, OECD and
other "global" groups to wage unconventional warfare on any nation that doesn't share its view
of how the world should function and that threatens America's control of the globe. The use of
financial blackmail to bend countries to America's narrative and overthrow nations who do not
succumb to America's wishes is not terribly surprising, however, it is interesting to actually
see one key aspect of Washington's unconventional warfare methodology in print.
You sir are delusional. Trump was dead set against taking down Iran and Venezuela from day
one. Trump is a Zionist. I wish people would get that through their thick skulls.
There is no surprise here. Everything is rolling along on schedule according to plan. The
Empire can now call the shots unilaterally. You have all allowed for this domination by
trying to ridicule and shut down the discussion of Zionism's role in this outcome. We are not
free! Millions of people around the world marched against the proposed invasion of Iraq and
the Empire's vassals came running to help (I'm pointing especially to you, U.K., trying to
take Corbyn down while welcoming the Orange Oaf for an official visit!). The WMD's were a
hoax. Bolton admitted that regime change was always the goal, and same goes for Venezuela and
Iran.
Trump is not a Zionist hostage suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Let me spell out the
writing that has been on the wall from day one: TRUMP IS A ZIONIST. Trump is accelerating the
ZEmpire's domination in every way imaginable. Trump die-hard supporters are Zionists of all
stripes even if the more liberal ones try desperately to conceal that fact, and the rest are
loyal donkeys with blinders on.
>>>>>>>>>>>
I don't expect Russia to come to Iran's rescue. a) Iran is a gas competitor. And b)
Zionist Russian oligarchs are deep in Trump's corner.
Israel has been attacking Iran on Syrian soil with Putin's blessing.
I don't know what Putin's game is, but muti-polarity doesn't seem to be at the top of his
list as it is with some of us here.
There is only one way to deal with ZUSA aggression: DETERRENCE.
Iran should stop being so prudish regarding nukes. Iran could have had a stockpile by now.
Maybe North Korea can start doing business.
Peaceful means of resistance to Zionism do not work! Zionists are only satisfied with
total domination and they are proving it.
We are not free. We are powerless. We have already been muzzled left an right and they are
trying to legitimize restraint on our rights. We have no democracy. This has been happening
while you were all sleeping.
Trump is an enforcer of Zionism and many of you are drunk uncle toms high on his
neutralizing moonshine or stealth Zionists still peddling his Zionist bullshet as 4D
chess.
Trump is a Zionist enforcer and is accelerating ZEmpire domination. They know the jig is
up and time is of the essence. The goal is to make all resistance futile. Some of you here
have been helping them achieve this goal, and now your 11th-hour shock and awe and armchair
musings ring cheap and hollow.
You are chamberlains unable to call what is steering the Empire's domination by its name:
ZIONISM.
How can you fight the enemy you refuse to acknowledge? So here we are, NEXT STOP: IRAN AND
WAR.
What a joke. Trump is a Zionist. The "deep state" is Zionist. The trillionaires are Zionists.
Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. Continues the illegal wars in Syria and Yemen.
Unilaterally declares the Golan Heights to be Israeli territory.
Kushner is Genie Energy. Cheney, et al. Stealing Syrian national wealth.
Trump is a tool.
Those who supported Trump are fools. Those who thought Mueller would find impeachable
offenses are fools. We are all either fools or tools.
@Wallbanger Of
course, Trump is pro-Zionist, and he hardly needed any pressure for this. Kushner is a close
friend of Netanyahu, and we don't know anything about conflicts between Trump and Kushner.
But I think the Russiagate conspiracy theory still may have served important foreign policy
goals.
I think it is important to distinguish between Israeli foreign policy and US neocon foreign
policy, even though they are close allies. At least superficially, these are two rather
different things, and to me, it is an open question to what degree these differences are only
superficial.
US neocons follow the doctrine of „full spectrum dominance". This leads them to having
military bases all over the world, stoking up conflicts, and destabilizing countries that have
or want good relations with rivals like China and Russia. The idea that such „full
spectrum dominance" will be used for the benefit of Israel certainly goes a long way for
explaining why neocons think it is worth the price – after all, many US neocons are
Jewish Zionists, and many of their lower-rank supporters are Christian Zionists. But their goal
of „full spectrum dominance" goes beyond matters related to Israel, it leads to conflicts
and tensions all over the world, Israel is just one of the motivating factors.
Israeli foreign policy is very different. It does not share the US' hostility towards other
great powers. Israel has good relations with Russia and China. It refused to follow the US and
the EU in sanctioning Russia, Netanyahu meets Putin regularly, and, like Trump with the Golan
recognition, Putin also gave Netanyahu a present a short time before the elections (retrieving
remains of an Israeli soldier who was missing since 1982 from Syria). Of course, Russia and
Israel supported different sides in Syria, but they still seem to take into account each
other's interest to some degree. Israel also has good relations and a strong economic
partnership with China and participates in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The general
principle seems to be that whenever there is a conflict and rivalry, Israel wants to have good
relations and influence on both sides. There are some exceptions, in the Sunni-Shia conflict,
Israel only has behind-the-scenes influence on the Sunni-Wahhabi side, but that is probably one
of the reasons why good relations with Russia, which has closer contacts with Iran, are
important to Israel. In the case of the conflict in Ukraine (which is quite relevant for Israel
because many Israeli citizens are from Russia or Ukraine), Israel remained neutral and has
strong connections to both sides. Such a policy of keeping good relations with as many powerful
nations as possible obviously seems smart for a smaller (albeit in many respects very strong)
country in a difficult part of the world.
Of course, the Israeli government is very much aware that there could hardly ever be a
powerful country where Israel is as influential as it is in the US. Israel has some significant
influence in Western Europe and Russia, criticizing Israel can be risky, and overall, these
countries have rather pro-Israeli policies (as does, as far as I know, China). But they will
never be as extremely pro-Israeli as the US. There are many votes in the UN were there is just
Israel and the US on one side (sometimes together with some tiny micronations that depend on
the US). Therefore, it is in Israel's interest that the US tries at all cost to gain influence
relative to other great powers that are less extremely pro-Israeli. Thus, US neocons who drive
the US towards a costly „full spectrum dominance" policy are unequivocally positive and
worthy of support from the perspective of the Israeli government. But for Israeli foreign
policy itself, due to risk management considerations, the priorities are different. The
best-case scenario for them is that a) Israeli influence in the US remains strong and b) the US
can achieve and maintain „full-spectrum dominance" for a long time. But they also know
that this best-case scenario is far from assured, and therefore, they also consider good
relations between Israel and potentially powerful countries like China and Russia
important.
I think Trump's foreign policy ideas (before any pressure was applied to him) was quite
close to the Israeli ideas (rather than the positions of the US neocons). Unlike Israel, he had
some ideas about confronting China (mainly on trade), and certainly, he wanted pro-Israeli
policies, but it seems he also wanted to have a general policy of „getting along" with
relatively important countries rather than pursuing „full-spectrum dominance" wherever
possible and stoking up proxy conflicts at every occasion. On the whole, it seems Trump wanted
a US foreign policy that is closer to the Israeli one than to the one of US neocons. If Israel
can „get along" with Russia, why shouldn't the US? The Israeli and international press
does not scream „treason" every time Netanyahu and Putin meet (which they do quite
often).
This idea of a normalization of US-Russian relations is what led to such strong opposition
from US neocons. I think they all knew that it would never be in doubt that Trump's policies
would be pro-Israeli. But that was not enough for them. According to them, the US, unlike
Israel, has to have a strongly anti-Russian stance.
I think there are two plausible explanations, one that does involve Israel and one that does
not. They may both be partially be true (probably, for some US neocons, it is more the one,
while for others, it is more the other).
The first explanation is that US neocons who strongly identify with Israel, as I argued
above, recognize that Israel should have good relations with Russia and China because of risk
management considerations, but at the same time, Israel wants to have the US to have as much
power as possible because it will never have as much influence in Russia and China as it has in
the US. The Russia hysteria has helped increasing military spending (and Democrats going along
with this), which may increase the chances of "full spectrum dominance" – and this
dominance will, among other things, be used on behalf of Israel. In that case, it may have been
a kind of misunderstanding. Trump may have thought that for neocons, it would be enough if he
is pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian and has normal, non-hostile relations with Russia, as Israel
has – ignoring that the roles Israel and the US should play according to the neocons are
very different.
But I am not so sure if Israel would really have minded much if the US had normalized its
relations with Russia. Netanyahu hardly ever was hostile towards Trump, he knew he was a
reliable ally. Some may even think it weakens the ability of the US to support Israel if it
gets entangled in conflicts and confrontations all over the world. So, I suppose that for many
true Israel-firsters, Trump was hardly seen as a problem (as long as he is pro-Israeli and
anti-Iranian, and there had hardly been any doubt that he is).
There also do not seem to be strong indications about Israeli involvement in
Russiagate/Spygate. Some Israelis seem to have been involved in the entrapment of Papadopoulos,
but it was not necessarily the Israeli government as a whole that was behind this (they may
just have been needed because Israeli energy policy is one of the main specializations of
Papadopoulos), and I think there are at least as strong indications of an Israeli involvement
on the pro-Trump side.
Russiagate/Spygate mainly seems to be an affair of US and British intelligence services, not
so much of Israel. Certainly, in the US, many neocons were strongly involved, but it may not
have so much to do with Israel. While support of Israel is one of the reasons why some neocons
passionately pursue „full-spectrum dominance", for many of them, this has probably become
a goal in itself, even in cases in which it is not needed for Israel – partially for
ideological reasons, partially because many of them profit from increased military
spending.
The right ((neocons)), on the other hand, see Trump as a quisling to rally the hated white
men into dying for greater Israel. The perfect Commander and Chief of the Janissaries for
Zion.
i agree that initially it was always a possibility he was a neocon plant i.e. neocons
couldn't get a war in Syria so decided to put up a candidate who'd promise stuff on trade and
immigration to get into office but then ignore it all afterwards and just do neocon stuff
but
1) if so he didn't need to say the anti-war stuff
and
2) neocons like Kristol hated him and did everything they could to stop him.
You might call them the Alan Dershowitz wing of the Jewish supremacists. I see that mug on
Tucker Carlson defending Trump, and he's positively beaming.
right but he'd be beaming like that even more if he knew Trump was originally isolationist
but now is compromised and compliant.
too early to tell for sure but my take is if neocons and the media now start going easier on
him i think that will prove they got him and want to keep him in office.
(nb it doesn't change anything if he was always a shill or he wasn't but they got him
– the end result is the same)
1) if so he didn't need to say the anti-war stuff
and
the only reason I was duped into voting for Dubya his first term, was because I was appalled
at Clinton's flouting of international law when he bombed Serbia, and Dubya said specifically
said he wasn't a "nation builder". Boy oh boy was I chumped by that one.
And we were all chumped by Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and serial war pig.
But what choice do we have but to at least vote for the peace candidate, and then
wait until, on cue, we're all betrayed once again by the Jewish supremacist deepstate.
So far, Trump hasn't started any new wars. So as Mr. Giraldi says, "one hopes"
if neocons and the media now start going easier on him
then we're toast
it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the
core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not.
If the media likes them, then they're as rotten as they come.
If the media hates them, (Ron Paul, Julian Assange
others..)
then there is likely at least something redeeming about them.
The main reason for (pathetically) clinging to some tiny, gossamer wisp of hope for Trump,
is that ((they)) continue to be unhinged in their hysterical enmity for all things Trump.
But considering that he's basically giving them everything they want, (sans an all out war
on Iran), it seems the main reason they still hate his guts, is because the despised rubes in
flyover country still like him. And I suppose because of a few good judges and justices.
But as long as Bubba continues to proudly wear the hat, they're going to hate Donald Trump
with a seething malevolence.
And I have to confess to getting great satisfaction by seeing these rats going apoplectic
over Trump.
a guilty secret of mine is that everyday that this sick, twisted bitch
@Rurik the
other potentially relevant thing about Trump imo is he made some comments on 9/11 at the time
about how strong the twin towers were (i forget the exact details) which could be construed as
walking the edge of disbelief.
this may be related to Brennan in particular having such a hysterical reaction to Trump's
candidacy.
it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the
core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not.
I would contend, this is not a reliable indicator. If they really dislike someone, they will
simply not report anything at all. It would be a declared and enforced taboo to report.
Negative publicity is also publicity, and the guys behind the curtain know this.
But what choice do we have but to at least vote for the peace candidate, and then wait
until, on cue, we're all betrayed once again by the Jewish supremacist deepstate.
It won't change anything, but you won't feel betrayed.
To think that any indictments will come of this is naïve, and an understatement of the
power of the deep state. The only thing that keeps Trump alive is his usefulness to Netanyahu,
also known as Benji the NutnYahoo.
For anyone of a social democratic (or lefter) persuasion, and/or see war as something that
should only be used as an absolute last resort (due to it invariably being a moral horror),
then the Democrats have indeed been the lesser of two evils, and Republican-lite.
Take Obama for instance. He ran a cleverly ambiguous campaign where he sounded to many as
being progessive and left, a breath of fresh air, something finally that would put a stop to
limitless capitalism and unwind the Bush era. But in fact he's a 'centrist', which really means
thoroughly neoliberal. He's prepared to file some of the sharp edges off capitalism, but he
neither promised nor offered a genuine alternative to a lightly regulated free market.
I mean, look at his most famous legacy: the health care reforms. This is a thoroughly
market-based solution that leaves the marketplace largely as it was. Nationalization was
nowhere in sight. And the policy was based on one his elecotoral opponent enacted when he was
governing Massachusetts! It is literally the case that voting in Democrats at the national
level gets you the policy of Republican presidential candidates.
Also, he's quite happy to unilaterally blow up stuff, including innocent people, in other
countries, in order to crush his enemies and to look good domestically. We have no problems in
calling this 'evil' when our enemies do anything like this.
Brian 04.21.19 at 2:43 pm (no link)
I think the real question is not whether Trump is successful or not. That question is a red
herring in American politics today. The real question is whether or not the Democratic
"leadership" can allow nomination of a candidate that the Democrat rank and file want. Bernie
Sanders should have won the nomination last time. But the superdelegate system gives a
literal handful of mandarins the ability to fake the primary process. (I say that as someone
who has significant issues with some of Sanders positions.)
Trump won because Hillary was a horrific candidate. Voters stayed home, disgusted. Trump
won because the Obama administration didn't deliver hope nor change. He delivered a
government of the corporate criminal bankers for them. Middle and working class America got
screwed. Black people got screwed worst. Trump won because the utter corruption at the heart
of the DNC was exposed for all to see in the emails. Trump win because of the Obama
administration making a trade deal top secret classified and trying to force a vote through
congress. Not seeing any point in voting, Democrats didnt.
All the evidence since shows the DNC leadership didn't learn anything. They are just as
contemptuous of voters, just as manipulative with their window dressing as ever. The
Democratic party is the party of endless war even more than the Republicans. It's a party
that stopped every effort by Trump to wind down or end war posture with Russia and North
Korea. There's now 2 parties in Netanyahu's pocket implementing Likuds insane middle east
ideas.
Put some solar energy and LGBTQ butter on it with a side of women's rights bullshit and
it's "Democrat". But the politicians are just as venal. The legislature just as wildly right
wing war mongering.
The 1960's is long over. The Democratic party hasn't seen a new idea since and has
converted to govern to the right of Nixon. Way to Nixon's right. The Democratic party is the
tool of the Uber-ization of not just America, but the whole world. Flour and break the law to
pauperize the working class, and suck money to a few in the SF Bay Area. That's policy
now.
You can see it already. Sanders is ahead. But Buttigieg is being anointed. He's the
perfect candidate. He's gay! He's out of the closet! And he's a corporate tool who can talk
smoothly without speaking a clear word. Best of all, he has ZERO foreign policy experience or
positions. So he'll be putty in the hands of the corporations that want endless war for
profits. Wall Street wants him. And the street owns the Democratic party. Will he give a
flying f*@k about the middle and working class? Will he be anything but another neo-liberal
who can be differentiated from a neo-conservative only by mild difference in racism? (Overt
vs.covert)
At least Buttigieg isn't Beto O'Rourke, the most completely empty skin in Congress.
There's that.
All the evidence I see is no. The Democrat "leadership" don't understand. I predict a
Trump win, or else a squeaker election that barely scrapes by with a win.
No matter what, the idiot Democrats won't get it. Pelosi will do her best to cast the
Republicans anti-tax anti-government (federal) government culture war in concrete with
balanced budget horse manure. The Democrats will continue to force a new cold war on Russia.
They will keep backing companies that steal from the middle and working class. (Yes, Uber and
Lyft are massive theft operations. They implemented taxi service without licenses. Those
licenses cost a lot of money to those who bought them. They put the public at risk causing
multiple deaths and assaults from unlicensed taxi drivers.)
Trump's appeal is that he at least talks a game of "f*@k you". Domestically it's all lies
on all sides. He lies to everyone. But at least he doesn't lie smoothly like the "good
Democrat" candidates do.
Understand this if nothing else, Khalifa Haftar is a terrorist hand puppet of the CIA. He
is a thief, a liar, a thug, and a traitor to Libya. He threatens legitimate Libyans daily and
uses the NSA listening equipment (brought into Libya in 2011) to target any Libya who speaks
his name. Khalifa Haftar would not ever be supported by Russia. This lie has been perpetrated
in the mainstream for years. Now they have stepped up their game and have stated that Russian
mercenaries are in Libya supporting Haftar at the behest of the leader of Russia. Nothing
could be farther from the truth.
The Great Tribes have confirmed to me everything that I have written.
Libya has lost their country to terrorist thugs, their infrastructure has been destroyed,
their wealth has been stolen and continues to be stolen. They have had one million Libyans
killed....
It is the assets and geographical location that they would own. The ruination, destruction
and death of Libya and her people are just acceptable collateral damage to achieve their evil
agenda.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction or SIGAR just released the
third edition of its High-Risk List to the 116th Congress of the United States and the
Secretaries of both State and Defense. In this report, SIGAR identifies the most serious
threats to the American government's $132 billion reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. This
information is of particular interest and importance given that negotiations are currently
underway to end the United States' involvement in Afghanistan, involvement that began on
October 7, 2001, making this the longest military engagement in American history.
The report opens with this rather sobering summary of the past, present and future in
Afghanistan:
" The $132 billion appropriated since 2002 for Afghanistan's reconstruction has been used to
train and equip Afghan security forces, strengthen government institutions, promote the rule of
law, protect women's rights, improve health and education, and stimulate economic development,
among other objectives. Yet the gains from our nation's investment in Afghanistan's reconstruction face multiple
threats: continued insecurity, endemic corruption, weak Afghan institutions, the insidious
impact of the narcotics trade, and inadequate coordination and oversight by donors. While an equitable and sustainable peace agreement in Afghanistan could end much of the
violence that presents the greatest threat to the reconstruction effort, a peace agreement may
bring its own set of challenges to sustaining the gains that the United States, its Coalition
partners, and the Afghan government have achieved over that time." (my bold)
Here is a listing of the eight current high risk areas: 1.) Widespread Insecurity - whether a peace plan is put into place or not, Afghanistan
is likely to continue to experience multiple violent extremist organizations. The Afghan
National Defense and Security Forces require annual funding of between $4 billion and $5
billion to remain viable. 2.) Underdeveloped Civil Policing Capability - The United States has spent more effort
reconstructing the Afghan National Army than on the Afghan National Police meaning that there
is no strategy for a competent civil police force backed by rule of law. Sustaining a national
police force will require significant foreign funding. 3.) Endemic Corruption - Corruption is endemic and forms a significant threat to the
Afghan government. This means that reconstruction programs will continue to be subverted and
are likely to fail. Here is a graphic from Transparency International showing where Afghanistan
lies on the global spectrum when it comes to corruption:
Afghanistan has the world's 9th lowest corruption score as shown on this list: 4.) Sluggish Economic Growth - Afghanistan's legal economy is sluggish and there are
numerous barriers to further economic growth. 5.) Illicit Narcotics Trade - Afghanistan remains the world's largest producer of opium
poppies and had the two highest years of cultivation in 2017 and 2018. Funds from the illicit
drug trade fund the Taliban, corrupt members of the Afghan government, military and police and
also employ 600,000 Afghanis. 6.) Threats to Women's Rights - More than $1 billion has been spent since 2002 to
advance the status of women in Afghanistan but gains made so far are fragile, particularly in
rural areas, and are likely to be unprotected should the Taliban be part of a peace
settlement. 7.) Challenge of Reintegration - The social, economic and political reintegration of
tens of thousands of former fighters back into Afghan society will be difficult, particularly
in light of the nation's weak economy and political uncertainty and distrust. 8.) Restricted Oversight - If a peace settlement includes reductions in foreign
personnel providing oversight on foreign funded programs, problems in the nation will only
increase thanks to high levels of corruption.
Let's look at some examples of where U.S. tax dollars have been spent in Afghanistan. Since
2001, an estimated $780 billion has been appropriated for Afghanistan including war funding,
diplomatic and consular programs, military and embassy construction projects etcetera. Of this
$738 billion or 95 percent of the total was obligated by the Department of Defense.
Reconstruction costs make up 15 percent of total U.S. funds obligated for Afghanistan since
2001 and are broken down as follows: 1.) Security - $83.1 billion (63 percent of the total) to build up Afghan military and
police. In fiscal 2019, 82 percent of the funds appropriated for Afghanistan reconstruction
were spent on assisting the security sector. The "success" of this program can be put into
perspective with
this map showing the areas of Afghanistan that are under control of the Taliban, the
original target of Operation Enduring Freedom: 2.) Governance and Economic Development - $33.9 billion (26 percent of the total). In
fiscal 2018, only 12 percent of the funds appropriated for Afghanistan reconstruction were
spent on improving the nation's economy. 3.) Counternarcotics Programs - $8.9 billion (7 percent of the total).
The remaining 4 percent of reconstruction funds have been spent to support civilian operations,
humanitarian initiatives and in combating society-wide corruption.
Let's close by looking at a few quotes from the report that show just how dire the situation in
Afghanistan still is nearly 18 years after Operation Enduring Freedom began and how unlikely a
peace settlement is likely to change the situation on the ground: 1.)Failure to successfully reintegrate an estimated 60,000 Taliban fighters and
their families, and other illegal armed groups, could undermine the successful implementation
of any peace agreement.
2.) The opium trade plays a significant role in the Afghan economy and it is difficult to
seehow a peace accord between the Afghan government and the insurgency would translate
into the collapse or contraction of the illicit drug trade. The country requires a growing
economy or favorable economic conditions to provide farmers and former insurgents with
legitimate employment and a reliable income to replace opium poppy cultivation. The Afghan
government also needs to pursue major drug traffickers, which it has not done consistently or
successfully. According to the Department of Justice, "certain influential people are above the
law."
3.) Effective policing will require a force that gives citizens the presumption of innocence
rather than anticipating and taking preemptive offensive operations against perceived threats.
U.S. agencies, such as the Justice Department, currently lack the personnel numbers and
para-military strength to accompany Afghan National Police trainees into high-threat
districts.
4.) In a post-settlement environment, depending on the terms of an agreement, there may also
be the challenge of integrating former Taliban fighters into the national security forces and
society. These issues could become more acute should international financial and military
support decline sharply before, during, or after peace talks between the Afghan government and
the Taliban.
Let's close this sobering view of Afghanistan's future with an excerpt from the prepared
remarks given by
the the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, John F. Sopko that
accompanied the release of the report:
" If the U.S. reduces its presence in Afghanistan but feels compelled to provide significant
financial support for reconstruction, there may be little choice but to provide a greater
proportion of funding as on-budget assistance. But if that road is taken, assistance should be
conditioned on an independent finding that adequate monitoring mechanisms and internal controls
for the Afghan ministry or multilateral trust fund in question are in place. If those conditions are lacking and assistance is provided anyway, we may as well set the
cash ablaze on the streets of Kabul for all the good it will do. I urge Congress to not just think about how much money should be given, but also to think
about how that money will be provided and monitored. If the need for oversight is ignored or
sidelined, both the American taxpayer and the Afghan people will suffer, even with a successful
peace agreement." (my bold)
At the very least, it appears that 18 years of war has accomplished almost nothing when it
comes to meaningful and permanent changes in Afghanistan despite the spending of hundreds of
billions of hard-earned taxpayers' dollars.
@Wizard of Oz
CIA and State Dept. want(ed) regime change in Syria but couldn't get public support for an
invasion so they covertly supported Isis against Assad instead (mostly using Saudi as a
proxy).
They don't want it to come out.
(of course it may go back further than that nb Brennan was CIA chief in Saudi in the run
up to 9/11)
@Wizard of Oz
Jihadist groups were used to fight the Russians in Afghanistan, destroy Libya and Syria, and
are currently employed to destabilize Iran. They are the primary instrument of the Oded Yinon
plan. Unless you consider the United States to be the primary instrument, and the jihadist
groups merely a tool.
Israel has subverted the United States, turning it into its poodle, it's slush fund, and
it's mercenary military force.
For five thousand years the Jews, in their unique geopolitical condition as an internally
cohesive yet dispersed ethnic group, have worked within their host nations and, by virtue of
their talent, achieved prosperity and power. Then, in a repeating and easily predictable
pattern, as a consequence of the power they achieve, arrogantly abuse the local majority,
repeatedly provoking the historically-recorded reaction in its various forms: enslavement,
expulsion, and attempted annihilation in Egypt; annihilation and dispersion by the Romans in
Old Israel; in Spain and Portugal, the demand on pain of death to convert to Christianity;
suppression by law throughout Europe during the Middle Ages; destruction of the Jewish Khazar
Empire by the Russ in 979; and near annihilation by the Nazis in the last century.
There's a pattern here. People don't just wake up one day and say "We hate the Jews, let's
kill them." There's a reason, a logical reason. Essentially, in the diaspora, the Jews exist
in a condition of tribal competition with the local majority culture. That competition
inevitably progresses to tribal conflict -- that is, war against the Jews. The pattern is
logical and predictable: fueled by tribal ambition, enabled by tribal economic success that
leads eventually to Jewish tribal overreach, which then results in a hostile majority-culture
pushback. The Jews scream "Anti-Semitism" but the reality is that the particular case of
Jews-vs-"The Other" tribalism with its Jewish exceptionalism and supremacism, inevitably
leads to a showdown over power where the majority culture has political and numerical
advantages.
The time is rapidly approaching when the 310 million non-Jewish Americans will realize
that they've been made the tools of the Jews and the US society looted. Then the pattern of
five thousand years will repeat itself yet again.
"... Plenty of people still fool themselves into believing Trump has been captured by the deep state and is only going along with them to stay alive. Bunk. Ever since Trump sat in the power chair he willingly joined the deep state. He's even going one further and his goal is a one world government led by the US. He knows the American populace won't condone a new war so his weapons are sanctions, the dollar, and trade wars. All viable tools as long as the US continues to control the financial system. ..."
It's complete fiction that the US is going after Venezuelan oil so as to confront Iran. If
Maduro goes so does Venezuela as civil war erupts and spreads to other countries. No oil
company is going to put itself and it's employees in such a danger zone.
It is also complete fiction that Trump was against going after Venezuela as he has been on
them almost from day one and every time Trump announces more sanctions or makes threats he's
as giddy as a kid in a candy store and relishes handing out the pain. In one of his latest
speeches to a gathering of the faithful he not only gleefully stomped on Venezuela but also
announced the US is going to overthrow the governments of Cuba and Nicaragua.
Trump was barely in office when the US undid the efforts by Obama to normalize relations
with Cuba and as of the first of the year put sanctions on Nicaragua.
This after NED and USAID last summer brought radicals from Nicaragua to DC for training in
riots and rabble rousing. Which they did after returning home. In his speech Trump claimed
that by overthrowing those governments this hemisphere will be the "only totally free
hemisphere in the world". If the plan was to get Venezuelan oil so as to shut off Iran the US
would have supported Maduro, Venezuela is no danger to US security, and offered to send in
the best engineers to get the oil industry rolling. The US is now sanctioning the tankers so
as to cut off even more revenue to Venezuela and deprive Cuba of oil.
Plenty of people still fool themselves into believing Trump has been captured by the deep
state and is only going along with them to stay alive. Bunk. Ever since Trump sat in the
power chair he willingly joined the deep state. He's even going one further and his goal is a
one world government led by the US. He knows the American populace won't condone a new war so
his weapons are sanctions, the dollar, and trade wars. All viable tools as long as the US
continues to control the financial system.
If the US does attack Iran it will be a Libya affair using only air power to cripple them
and cause internal chaos.
Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with
democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or
something. It is a curious belief, Washington being interested in all of them. Other people
are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America's international behavior. Really, the
explanation is simple.
MARCH 13, 2019 'Imperialism on Trial' tour comes to Northern Ireland on March 19th and
21st
Next week, the Imperialism on Trial tour comes to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and will
include an impressive line-up of speakers, including two former British Ambassadors, a former
British soldier, an Irish Republican writer, and a veteran CIA analyst – each
presenting their own analysis of world events, and interrogating the role played at home and
abroad – by western powers.
Israel and the Ukraine are now the two countries on the planet in which both the
President [Zelenskii] and the Prime-Minister [Groisman] are Jews
just a day after his election Zelenskii is already making all sorts of anti-Russian
statements.
since Zelenskii has no personal power base of any kind, Kolomoiskii will have him do
exactly as he is told and Kolomoiskii can easily be told to behave by the Empire.
Here is a new ruler of Ukraine, the Israeli/Ukrainian/Swiss citizen Kolomoisky
:
The ethnically Jewish Kolomojsky has been the main financier of Azov Battalion
:
The Azov Battalion was initially formed out of the neo-Nazi gang Patriot of Ukraine.
Azov Battalion -- which is accused of human-rights abuses, including torture, by Human
Rights Watch and the United Nations -- was incorporated into Ukraine's National Guard.
The New York Times called the battalion "openly neo-Nazi," while USA Today, The Daily
Beast, The Telegraph, and Haaretz documented group members' proclivity for swastikas,
salutes, and other Nazi symbols
"... RT has been able to capitalise on growing mistrust of western media among westerners. During the breaking of the coverage of many political scandals, RT articles aggressively raised issues that many felt were not being pursued by the western media, which is frequently seen as covering up non-PC stories. Many users believe that RT is willing to talk about incidents that western media will not, a belief that RT actively encourages. As such, many users of a both far-right and far-left disposition are willing to listen to RT, even being aware of RT's control by the government, rather than western media. ..."
"... On page four of this this interesting sentence we find the following sentence: " Driving a wedge between Russians and government is key. " ..."
"... It is interesting to see that Integrity Initiative was ahead of the game when it came to punishing Russia for its involvement in Crimea's move to independence from Ukraine to the point that their greatest hope was that there would be regime change in Russia. ..."
"... As you can see from these documents, Integrity Initiative, a government-funded, not-for-profit charity has a mandate to ensure that the West is immune to Russia's ongoing propaganda campaign by providing propaganda of its own. ..."
While
it received relatively little coverage from the Western mainstream media establishment, a
recent 42 megabyte upload on an Anonymous server provides us with an inside glimpse into
the genesis of the Western anti-Russia narrative.
According to the documents, an organization (rather ironically) named Integrity Initiative with the moniker
"Defending Democracy Against Disinformation" was organized to mobilize global public opinion
against Russia and its agenda as you can see on the organization's "About" webpage:
The non-for-profit charity was set up in 2015 as a partnership of several independent
organizations led by The Institute for Statecraft. It claims that it is dedicated to "
education in good governance and to enabling societies to adapt to a rapidly changing
world. ", a rather benign mission statement. In its first two years, it was funded by
private individuals, however, funding for 2017 and 2018 was largely provided by governments,
particularly the United Kingdom, reflecting the U.K.'s appreciation of the " importance of
the threat, and a wish to support civil society programmes seeking to rebuild the ability of
democratic societies to resist large scale, malicious disinformation and influence
campaigns."
According to the documents a number of organizations including the United States Department of
State, the U.K.'s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), NATO, Facebook and the Lithuanian
Ministry of Defense were looking to fund the Integrity Initiative as you can see here:
Integrity Initiative
states the following about its services:
" It is inevitable that a programme tackling disinformation in Europe finds itself spending
much of its time addressing the activities of the Russian State, including those carried out
through its intelligence services. The Kremlin has invested more operational thought, intent
and resource in disinformation, in Europe and elsewhere in the democratic world, than any other
single player. "
Not surprisingly, Integrity Initiative has comments on the leaking of its own documents by
Anonymous:
" We note both the attempts by Russian state propaganda outlets to amplify the volume of
this leak; and the suggestion by a major Anonymous-linked Twitter account that the Kremlin
subverted the banner of Anonymous to disguise their responsibility for it...
It is of course a matter of deep regret that Integrity Initiative documents have been stolen
and posted on line, still more so that, in breach of any defensible practice, Russian state
propaganda outlets have published or re-published a large number of names and contact details.
We have not yet had the chance to analyse all of the documents, so cannot say with confidence
whether they are all genuine or whether they include doctored or false material.
Although it is clear that much of the material was indeed on the Integrity Initiative or
Institute systems, much of it is dated and was never used. In particular, many of the names
published were on an internal list of experts in this field who had been considered as
potential invitees to future cooperation. In the event, many were never contacted by the
Integrity Initiative and did not contribute to it. Nor were these documents therefore included
in any funding proposals. Not only did these individuals have nothing to do with the programme
– they may not even have heard of us. We are of course trying to contact all named
individuals for whom we have contact details to ensure that they are aware of what has
happened. "
With that background, let's look at four of the documents that were posted.
1.) A undated document discussing Russia's use of social media as a proxy for
propaganda:
Note the following comments regarding Russia Today aka RT:
" RT has been able to capitalise on growing mistrust of western media among westerners.
During the breaking of the coverage of many political scandals, RT articles aggressively raised
issues that many felt were not being pursued by the western media, which is frequently seen as
covering up non-PC stories. Many users believe that RT is willing to talk about incidents that
western media will not, a belief that RT actively encourages. As such, many users of a both
far-right and far-left disposition are willing to listen to RT, even being aware of RT's
control by the government, rather than western media. "
Here is a page from the document which discusses the target audiences for Russian social
media propaganda:
Note that the memo clearly states that Russian media outlets like RT and Sputnik are
targeting an audience that is "distrusting of statecraft and major media groups.". I wonder why
Westerners would be distrusting of their own media?
2.) A 2017 document outlining plans for developing an American arm of Integrity
Initiative:
Note that the writer of the memo states that the West is badly in need of a reassertion of
U.S. leadership and that America needs to rebuild its understanding of Russia and how to deal
with it. It also notes that the international community needs to rebuild its understanding of
Russia to ensure that Western governments get the popular support that democracies require
(i.e. a strongly anti-populist movement).
3.) An undated document showing how Integrity Initiative is planning to expand "expert
clusters" to other nations including Austria, Canada, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland
among others:
4.) A
January 2015 document showing Integrity Initiative's views on setting up anti-Russia
sanctions with the goal of changing Russia's behaviour, peace in Ukraine, a return of Crimea
and, most importantly, possible regime change in Russia:
On page four of this this interesting sentence we find the following sentence:
" Driving a wedge between Russians and government is key. "
It is interesting to see that Integrity Initiative was ahead of the game when it came to
punishing Russia for its involvement in Crimea's move to independence from Ukraine to the point
that their greatest hope was that there would be regime change in Russia.
As you can see from these documents, Integrity Initiative, a government-funded, not-for-profit
charity has a mandate to ensure that the West is immune to Russia's ongoing propaganda campaign
by providing propaganda of its own. It's certainly a good thing that Integrity Initiative has
the "real truth" and is willing to pressure us into seeing the global geopolitical quagmire
with its 20/20 vision. Apparently, integrity in this post-truth era is in the eye of the
beholder/purveyor.
April 12, 2019 Back in April 2017, then CIA Director Mike Pompeo
delivered a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In this speech,
he made some very pointed comments about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange that provide us with a
glimpse into the mindset that currently inhabits the Department of State in particular and
Washington as a whole and why the events of April 11th, 2019 occurred.
Here are some key quotes from the rather lengthy speech which looked at America's intelligence
community. Early in the speech, he makes this comment:
" As a policy, we at CIA do not comment on the accuracy of purported intelligence
documents posted online. In keeping with that policy, I will not specifically comment on the
authenticity or provenance of recent disclosures. But the false narratives that increasingly define our public discourse cannot be
ignored.There are fictions out there that demean and distort the work and achievements
of CIA and of the broader Intelligence Community. And in the absence of a vocal rebuttal, these
voices -- ones that proclaim treason to be public advocacy -- gain a gravity they do not
deserve." (my bolds)
It is important to note that Mr. Pompeo will not comment on the authenticity of documents that
are disclosed by whistleblowers but that, in the next breath, he states that these documents
are part of a false narrative that demean and distort the work of America's intelligence
community.
He goes on to note that the CIA does admit to making mistakes and that it is accountable to the
"free and open society that they help to defend" and that the CIA is willing to make its
mistakes public to a degree that other nations cannot match.`
Here's what he has to say about WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange:
" And that is one of the many reasons why we at CIA find the celebration of entities like
WikiLeaks to be both perplexing and deeply troubling. Because while we do our best to quietly
collect information on those who pose very real threats to our country, individuals such as
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves.
As long as they make a splash, they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage
they cause to national security. WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence
service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain
intelligence.It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret
information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from
anti-democratic countries and organizations. It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile
intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this
year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence -- the GRU --
had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber
operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia's
primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks. Now, for those of you who read the editorial page of the Washington Post -- and I have a
feeling that many of you in this room do -- yesterday you would have seen a piece of sophistry
penned by Mr. Assange. You would have read a convoluted mass of words wherein Assange compared
himself to Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of
legitimate news organizations such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. One can only
imagine the absurd comparisons that the original draft contained. Assange claims to harbor an overwhelming admiration for both America and the idea of
America. But I assure you that this man knows nothing of America and our ideals. He knows
nothing of our third President, whose clarion call for life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness continue to inspire us and the world. And he knows nothing of our 34th President, a
hero from my very own Kansas, who helped to liberate Europe from fascists and guided America
through the early years of the Cold War. No, I am quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, he would
have found himself on the wrong side of history. We know this because Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today. Yes,
they try unsuccessfully to cloak themselves and their actions in the language of liberty and
privacy; in reality, however, they champion nothing but their own celebrity. Their currency is
clickbait; their moral compass, nonexistent. Their mission: personal self-aggrandizement
through the destruction of Western values. They do not care about the causes and people they claim to represent. If they did, they
would focus instead on the autocratic regimes in this world that actually suppress free speech
and dissent. Instead, they choose to exploit the legitimate secrets of democratic governments
-- which has, so far, proven to be a much safer approach than provoking a tyrant. Clearly, these individuals are not especially burdened by conscience. We know this, for
example, because Assange has been more than cavalier in disclosing the personal information of
scores of innocent citizens around the globe. We know this because the damage they have done to
the security and safety of the free world is tangible. And the examples are numerous." (my bolds)
Actually, when it comes to Russia and the "pass" that it has been given by WikiLeaks, Mr.
Pompeo could not be more wrong. On September 19, 2017, WikiLeaks published its " Spy Files Russia " documents which
provided insight into Russia's surveillance contractors. In the case of Russia, Russias
communication providers are required by law to install components for surveillance which is
provided by the FSB which are linked to the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service. And,
perhaps we can attribute WikiLeaks ability to release information on America's intelligence
community because it is far more prone to leaks than the intelligence communities of other
nations.
Mr. Pompeo also provided his audience with a direct link between WikiLeaks and terrorism:
" As for Assange, his actions have attracted a devoted following among some of our most
determined enemies. Following a recent WikiLeaks disclosure, an al Qa'ida in the Arabian
Peninsula member posted a comment online thanking WikiLeaks for providing a means to fight
America in a way that AQAP had not previously envisioned. AQAP represents one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country and the world. It
is a group that is devoted not only to bringing down civilian passenger planes, but our way of
life as well.That Assange is the darling of terrorists is nothing short of
reprehensible." (my bold)
Here is Mr. Pompeo's three part solution to the Assange "problem": 1.) It is high time we called out those who grant a platform to these leakers and so-called
transparency activists. We know the danger that Assange and his not-so-merry band of brothers
pose to democracies around the world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is no longer an
acceptable excuse for lionizing these demons. 2.) There are steps that we have to take at home -- in fact, this is a process we've already
started. We've got to strengthen our own systems; we've got to improve internal mechanisms that
help us in our counterintelligence mission. All of us in the Intelligence Community had a
wake-up call after Snowden's treachery. Unfortunately, the threat has not abated. I can't go
into great detail, but the steps we take can't be static. Our approach to security has to be
constantly evolving. We need to be as clever and innovative as the enemies we face. They won't
relent, and neither will we. 3.) We have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude
to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated
secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now."
Let's close with two brief items. First, here's what the ACLU has to
say about the arrest and potential American prosecution of Julian Assange:
Second, after Assange's arrest, Donald Trump had this to say about WikiLeaks:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ztxcRHCHj4
" I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing and I know there is something having to
do with Julian Assange. I've been seeing what's happened with Assange and that will be a
determination I would imagine mostly by the Attorney General who is doing an excellent
job." Here's what the
President had to say about WikiLeaks during the 2016 Presidential election cycle:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/xnEoVzLKNPw
While it may have taken a few days less than two years to complete his dream of getting rid of
Julian Assange, it is abundantly clear from the CIA Director's speech that Mr. Assange's fate
was sealed once Mike Pompeo had direct access Washington's power brokers no matter what Donald
Trump had to say about WikiLeaks back in 2016. Fortunately for those of us on the outside that
rely on WikiLeaks to learn more about the hidden secrets of governments and the corporate
world, the group will continue to exist with or without its founder.
Posted by A Political Junkie at
8:30 AM Labels: Julian Assange ,
Mike
Pompeo , Wikileaks2
comments:
Dedicated to revealing facts that allows the public to "see" the truth is Julian
Assange, a man of integrity that is lacking in many of our politicians. They say the
"truth" hurts but it is the only way to gain wisdom to improve our world.
I found it particularly interesting that nations like Germany, Japan, Mexico and South Korea
which have traditionally been viewed as pro-American overwhelmingly found that the United
States was a greater threat to their nation than Russia. Not surprisingly, only a very small 15
percent of Israelis felt that the United States was a greater threat compared to 28 percent who
felt that Russia was a greater threat, however the percentage of Israelis that are concerned
about American power is up from only 9 percent in 2013.
Looking back in time, more people now believe that the United States is a greater threat to
their nation than in 2013 and 2017; in 2018, a median of 45 percent of all respondents believed
that the United States was a major threat to their nation, up from 38 percent in 2017 and 25
percent in 2013.
... ... ...
Once again, it is interesting to observe that nations like France and Germany that have
traditionally been viewed as pro-American have seen the highest increase in their assessment of
the threat posed by American power.
The growing power and influence wielded by the United States is now rather widely viewed by
the world as a far greater threat than the power and influence wielded by Russia, particularly
when one looks back to 2013. Respondents in just over 70 percent of the 26 nations in the study
feel that America forms a greater threat to their home nation than the much-vilified Russia, a
result that is not terribly surprising given the events of the past two years in
Washington.
Oil prices are on the rise after the United States announced a new crackdown on Iran's oil
exports aiming to reduce them to zero.
Iran's threatening retaliation by blocking the Strait of Hormuz - the world's lifeline of oil
from all Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.
The move has
Economic Sanctions === Economic Terrorist Attack Recent terrorist attacks indicate that
the United States is using extremist organizations to provoke religious wars. The aim is to
split Eurasia and make troubles for Europe. The United States is very afraid of peace in
Eurasia, because it will make the United States a third world country.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton have vowed to
strangle Iran and cut off all oil exports. They claim it's because of Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons and missiles and its support for terrorism. In a recent speech at Texas A&M
University he finally told the truth about the CIA and the neocons - they lie and cheat and
steal. So should we believe him now?
Looks like tail wags the dog -- CIA controls the US foreign policy and in the last elections
also played active role in promoting Hillary. A the level of top brass we have
several people mentioned by Giraldi who are probably as dangerous as Allen Dulles was. Brennan
is one example.
The parade of rogues that Philip describes is really
alarming. Each with agenda that directly harms
the USA as a country promoting the interest of military-industrial complex and neocon
faction within the government...
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, one can start with Tenet if one wants to create a roster of recent CIA Directors who have lied to permit the White House to engage in a war crime. Tenet and his staff knew better than anyone that the case against Saddam did not hold water, but President George W. Bush wanted his war and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA had any say in the matter. ..."
"... Back then as now, international Islamic terrorism was the name of the game. It kept the money flowing to the national security establishment in the false belief that America was somehow being made "safe." But today the terror narrative has been somewhat supplanted by Russia, which is headed by a contemporary Saddam Hussein in the form of Vladimir Putin. If one believes the media and a majority of congressmen, evil manifest lurks in the gilded halls of the Kremlin. Russia has recently been sanctioned (again) for crimes that are more alleged than demonstrated and President Putin has been selected by the Establishment as the wedge issue that will be used to end President Donald Trump's defiance of the Deep State and all that pertains to it. The intelligence community at its top level would appear to be fully on board with that effort. ..."
"... Remarkably, he also said that there is only "minimal evidence" that Russia is even fighting ISIS. The statement is astonishing as Moscow has most definitely been seriously and directly engaged in support of the Syrian Arab Army. Is it possible that the head of the CIA is unaware of that? It just might be that Pompeo is disparaging the effort because the Russians and Syrians have also been fighting against the U.S. backed "moderate rebels." That the moderate rebels are hardly moderate has been known for years and they are also renowned for their ineffectiveness combined with a tendency to defect to more radical groups taking their U.S. provided weapons with them, a combination of factors which led to their being denied any further American support by a presidential decision that was revealed in the press two weeks ago. ..."
"... Pompeo's predecessor John Brennan is, however, my favorite Agency leader in the category of totally bereft of his senses. ..."
"... Brennan is certainly loyal to his cause, whatever that might be. At the same Aspen meeting attended by Pompeo, he told Wolf Blitzer that if Trump were to fire special counsel Robert Mueller government officials should "refuse to carry out" his orders. In other words, they should begin a coup, admittedly non-violent (one presumes), but nevertheless including federal employees uniting to shut the government down. ..."
"... And finally, there is Michael Morell, also a former Acting Director, who was closely tied to the Hillary Clinton campaign, apparently driven by ambition to become Director in her administration. Morell currently provides commentary for CBS television and is a frequent guest on the Charlie Rose show. Morell considerably raised the ante on Brennan's pre-electoral speculation that there had been some Russian recruitment of Trump people. He observed in August that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them [did exactly that] early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." ..."
"... Nothing new. In the '50s CIA was making foreign wars and cultivating chaos at home, and blaming all of it on Russia. In the '80s CIA was cultivating anti-nuke groups to undermine Reagan, and blaming it on Russia. CIA has been the primary wellspring of evil for a long time. ..."
"... Yes you read that right and they are going to the rotten core of this coup against the United States by presenting a report stating that the DNC was "Leaked" not hacked. The real hacking came from President Obama's weaponizing of our intelligence agencies against Russia. ..."
"... The CIA is the USA's secret army, it is not comparable to a real intelligence organization like the British MI5. The CIA is more like WWII SOE, designed to set fire to Europe, Churchill's words. ..."
"... As has been the case for decades the Deep State allows Presidents and legislators to make minor decisions in our government as long as those decisions do not in any way interfere with the Deep State's goals of total world hegemony and increase in overwhelming power and wealth. Those who make the important decisions in this country are not elected. The elected 'officials' are sycophants of the Deep State. ..."
"... The term is appropriated from the use to describe the mutually loyal corps of Ataturkians in the Turkish military and intelligence services who were united in service to uphold the ideal of Ataturkian secular modernisation. The term implies no public accountability or publicity unnecessary to its purposes. ..."
"... The CIA's source, its birth, is from British secret service. Brit spying. And Brit secret service, long before the official founding of MI5, did exactly the kinds of things you note the CIA has done. ..."
"... The Mossad is another direct fruit of Brit secret service, as is the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency. ..."
"... While there can be no doubt about the crackpots in high positions of the most powerful bureaucracies, it seems to me that the CIA loonies are merely shock troops for an even worse bunch of evil psychos, the bankster mafiosi. ..."
"... I am a retired CIA operations officer (something none of the men mentioned by Giraldi are – Brennan was a failed wanna be, couldn't cut it as an ops officer). He is spot on in his comments. The majority of people in the CIA, the ones who do the heavy lifting, are patriotic Americans who are proud of serving their country. I am sure that most voted for Trump as they all know too well the truth about the Clintons and Obama. ..."
"... Giraldi is not the only one to notice the upward progress of the most incompetent yes-men in the Agency. A close look at most of them reveals a track record of little or no operational success balanced by excellent sucking up skills. These characters quickly figured out how to get ahead and doing your job in the field is not it. Of course, most are ego maniacs so they are totally oblivious to their own uselessness. ..."
"... How "Russiagate" began: After the primaries, both Hillary and Donald faced divided political parties even though they had won the nomination. These divisions were worse than the normal situation after contested primaries. On the Democratic side, Hillay had just subverted the will of the voters of her party, who seemed to favor Bernie Sanders over her. Hillay had won with corrupt collusion and rigging amongst the DNC, the higher ranks of the Democratic Party, and major media such as the NYT and CNN. ..."
"... Then, a leak of emails from the DNC HQ publicized her interference in the democratic processes of the Democratic Party. This threatened to ene the Hillary for President campaign right then and there. If the majority of Democrats who'd favored Bernie refused to support Hillary because of her corruption and collusion in denying democracy within the party, she was a sure loser in the fall election. The Hillary camp then immediately started blaming Russia for the exposure of her corruption and rigging of the Democratic process. And that's how "Russiagate" began. ..."
"... Take that bunch of mediocre thinkers, and then make most of them obsessed with their own career advancement above all else. The most dangerous place for a career-obsessed individual is outside the group consensus. ..."
"... So, for instance, Trump should veto the act of war known as the recent sanctions bill. Who cares if it gets overridden? Then he goes back to the voters, who are clearly sick of endless war and who for obvious reasons don't want a nuclear war, and he says this is where I stand. Support me by electing Fill-In-The-Blank to Congress. With the nuclear Doomsday Clock pushing ever closer to midnight, he might just win that fight over the big money and media opposition he's sure to face. ..."
"... Not only has Trump failed to even try to fight the Deep State, but he's also failing to set himself up for success in the next elections. ..."
"... What we are seeing now is The Donald's role in the serial Zionist THEATER. Think deeper about the motive behind Mr. Giraldi's choice to use the Orwellian word "Groupthink" in characterizing the CIA zeitgeist? In the classic work "1984," one observes Big Brother as the catalyst in control of the proles' thought pattern & subsequent action. ..."
"... To rise & FALL as a POTUS is a matter of theater and the American proles are entertained by the political for either 4 or 8 years and the Zionists get their next Chosen actor/actress dramatically sworn in on a bible. ..."
Long ago, when I was a spear carrying middle ranker at CIA, a colleague took me aside and said
that he had something to tell me "as a friend," that was very important. He told me that his wife
had worked for years in the Agency's Administrative Directorate, as it was then called, where she
had noticed that some new officers coming out of the Career Trainee program had red tags on their
personnel files. She eventually learned from her boss that the tags represented assessments that
those officers had exceptional potential as senior managers. He added, however, that the reverse
appeared to be true in practice as they were generally speaking serial failures as they ascended
the bureaucratic ladder, even though their careers continued to be onward and upward on paper. My
friend's wife concluded, not unreasonably, that only genuine a-holes had what it took to get promoted
to the most senior ranks.
I was admittedly skeptical but some recent activity by former and current Directors and Acting
Directors of CIA has me wondering if something like my friend's wife's observation about senior management
might indeed be true. But it would have to be something other than tagging files, as many of the
directors and their deputies did not come up through the ranks and there seems to be a similar strain
of lunacy at other U.S. government intelligence agencies. It might be time to check the water supply
in the Washington area as there is very definitely something in the kool-aid that is producing odd
behavior.
Now I should pause for a moment and accept that the role of intelligence services is to identify
potential threats before they become active, so a certain level of acute paranoia goes with the job.
But at the same time, one would expect a level of professionalism which would mandate accuracy rather
than emotion in assessments coupled with an eschewing of any involvement in the politics of foreign
and national security policy formulation. The enthusiasm with which a number of senior CIA personnel
have waded into the Trump swamp and have staked out positions that contradict genuine national interests
suggests that little has been learned since CIA Director George Tenet sat behind Secretary of State
Colin Powell in the UN and nodded sagaciously as Saddam Hussein's high crimes and misdemeanors were
falsely enumerated.
Indeed, one can start with Tenet if one wants to create a roster of recent CIA Directors who
have lied to permit the White House to engage in a war crime. Tenet and his staff knew better than
anyone that the case against Saddam did not hold water, but President George W. Bush wanted his war
and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA had any say in the matter.
Back then as now, international Islamic terrorism was the name of the game. It kept the money
flowing to the national security establishment in the false belief that America was somehow being
made "safe." But today the terror narrative has been somewhat supplanted by Russia, which is headed
by a contemporary Saddam Hussein in the form of Vladimir Putin. If one believes the media and a majority
of congressmen, evil manifest lurks in the gilded halls of the Kremlin. Russia has recently been
sanctioned (again) for crimes that are more alleged than demonstrated and President Putin has been
selected by the Establishment as the wedge issue that will be used to end President Donald Trump's
defiance of the Deep State and all that pertains to it. The intelligence community at its top level
would appear to be fully on board with that effort.
The most recent inexplicable comments come from the current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, speaking
at the Aspen Institute Security Forum. He began by asserting that Russia had interfered in the U.S.
election
before saying that the logic behind Russia's Middle Eastern strategy is to stay in place in Syria
so Moscow can "stick it to America." He didn't define the "it" so one must assume that "it" stands
for any utensil available, ranging from cruise missiles to dinner forks. He then elaborated, somewhat
obscurely, that "I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think
they find that something that's useful."
Remarkably, he also said that there is only "minimal evidence" that Russia is even fighting
ISIS. The statement is astonishing as Moscow has most definitely been seriously and directly engaged
in support of the Syrian Arab Army. Is it possible that the head of the CIA is unaware of that? It
just might be that Pompeo is disparaging the effort because the Russians and Syrians have also been
fighting against the U.S. backed "moderate rebels." That the moderate rebels are hardly moderate
has been known for years and they are also renowned for their ineffectiveness combined with a tendency
to defect to more radical groups taking their U.S. provided weapons with them, a combination of factors
which led to their being denied any further American support by a presidential decision that was
revealed in the press two weeks ago.
Pompeo's predecessor John Brennan is, however, my favorite Agency leader in the category of
totally bereft of his senses. In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee back in May,
he suggested that some Trump associates might have been recruited by the Russian intelligence service.
He testified that
"I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions
between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about
because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind whether
or not Russia was able to gain the co-operation of those individuals."
In his testimony, Brennan apparently forgot to mention that the CIA is not supposed to keep tabs
on American citizens. Nor did he explain how he had come upon the information in the first place
as it had been handed over by foreign intelligence services, including the British, Dutch and Estonians,
and at least some of it had been sought or possibly inspired by Brennan unofficially in the first
place. Brennan then used that information to request an FBI investigation into a possible Russian
operation directed against potential key advisers if Trump were to somehow get nominated and elected,
which admittedly was a longshot at the time. That is how Russiagate started.
Brennan is certainly loyal to his cause, whatever that might be. At the same Aspen meeting
attended by Pompeo, he
told Wolf Blitzer that if Trump were to fire special counsel Robert Mueller government officials
should "refuse to carry out" his orders. In other words, they should begin a coup, admittedly non-violent
(one presumes), but nevertheless including federal employees uniting to shut the government down.
A lesser known former CIA senior official is
John McLaughlin,
who briefly served as acting Director in 2004. McLaughlin was particularly outraged by Trump's recent
speech to the Boy Scouts, which he described as having the feel "of a third world authoritarian's
youth rally." He added that "It gave me the creeps it was like watching the late Venezuelan [President
Hugo] Chavez."
And finally, there is Michael Morell, also a former Acting Director, who was closely tied
to the Hillary Clinton campaign, apparently driven by ambition to become Director in her administration.
Morell currently provides commentary for CBS television and is a frequent guest on the Charlie Rose
show. Morell considerably raised the ante on Brennan's pre-electoral speculation that there had been
some Russian recruitment of Trump people.
He observed in August that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, "trained to identify
vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them [did exactly that] early in the primaries. Mr.
Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr.
Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."
I and others noted at the time that Putin and Trump had never met, not even through proxies, while
we also wondered how one could be both unwitting and a recruited agent as intelligence recruitment
implies control and taking direction. Morell was non-plussed, unflinching and just a tad sanctimonious
in affirming that his own intelligence training (as an analyst who never recruited a spy in his life)
meant that "[I] call it as I see it."
One could also cite Michael Hayden and James Clapper, though the latter was not CIA They all
basically hew to the same line about Russia, often in more-or-less the same words, even though no
actual evidence has been produced to support their claims. That unanimity of thinking is what is
peculiar while academics like Stephen Cohen, Stephen Walt, Andrew Bacevich, and John Mearsheimer,
who have studied Russia in some depth and understand the country and its leadership far better than
a senior CIA officer, detect considerable nuance in what is taking place. They all believe that the
hardline policies current in Washington are based on an eagerness to go with the flow on the comforting
inside-the- beltway narrative that paints Russia as a threat to vital interests. That unanimity of
viewpoint should surprise no one as this is more of less the same government with many of the same
people that led the U.S. into Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. They all have a vested interested in the
health and well-being of a fully funded national security state.
And the other groupthink that seems to prevail among the senior managers except Pompeo is that
they all hate Donald Trump and have done so since long before he won the election. That is somewhat
odd, but it perhaps reflects a fear that Trump would interfere with the richly rewarding establishment
politics that had enabled their careers. But it does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of CIA
employees. Though it is admittedly unscientific analysis on my part, I know a lot of former and some
current CIA employees but do not know a single one who voted for Hillary Clinton. Nearly all voted
for Trump.
Beyond that exhibition of tunnel vision and sheer ignorance, the involvement of former senior
intelligence officials in politics is itself deplorable and is perhaps symptomatic of the breakdown
in the comfortable bipartisan national security consensus that has characterized the past fifty years.
Once upon time former CIA officers would retire to the Blue Ridge mountains and raise Labradors,
but we are now into something much more dangerous if the intelligence community, which has been responsible
for most of the recent leaks, begins to feel free to assert itself from behind the scenes. As Senator
Chuck Schumer
recently warned "Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community -- they have six ways
from Sunday at getting back at you."
In jumping this fascist nihilist shark, the groupthinkers have closed themselves off from the
logical conclusion to their viewpoint, which is final annihilation.
Brennan, Morell, and Pompeo should better find ways to justify their salaries: the U.S. has
suffered the greatest breach in cybersecurity on their watch:
" an enormous breach of the United States Security Apparatus by as many as 80 Democrat members
of Congress (past and present). We rail on about the Russians and Trump, but t he media avoids
providing nightly updates about these 5 spies that have compromised Congress ."
"In total, Imran's firm was employed by 31 Democrats in Congress, some of whom held extremely
sensitive positions on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House
Committee on Foreign Affair s."
Nothing new. In the '50s CIA was making foreign wars and cultivating chaos at home, and
blaming all of it on Russia. In the '80s CIA was cultivating anti-nuke groups to undermine Reagan,
and blaming it on Russia. CIA has been the primary wellspring of evil for a long time.
And back to reality we have VIPS Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Yes you read that right and they are going to the rotten core of this coup against the
United States by presenting a report stating that the DNC was "Leaked" not hacked. The real hacking
came from President Obama's weaponizing of our intelligence agencies against Russia.
That is war, World War Three and it would seem now that Congress is marching that way, but
the report below hold the key to fighting back.
One of the VIPS is William Binney fomer NSA Technical Director, an important expert. leading
the group is Ray McGovern with some whit and grace, well yes how about some sanity, to which humor
is important to the insight and to stay in the sights of what is clever thievery and worse. Much
worse,
and there is a twinkle in the eye when realize that it is straight forward.
And Congress could stop it tout sweet, but well old habits but they have taken an Oath of Office,
so, so what, yeah they did go after Bernie, so will you challenge your elected officials, either
do their sworn duty or resign, for what this sanctions bill against Russia and Iran is a declaration
of war, not only against Russia and Iran, but a declaration of war against the United States.
for there is no reason to do this against Russia when indeed there are great opportunities to
get along, but war is the insanity as it is sedition and treason. Tell them that,
I wonder if groupthink exists.
In any organisation people know quite well why the organisation exists, what the threats are to
its existence.
If they think about this, I wonder.
The CIA is the USA's secret army, it is not comparable to a real intelligence organization like
the British MI5.
The CIA is more like WWII SOE, designed to set fire to Europe, Churchill's words.
If indeed Trump changes USA foreign policy, no longer trying to control the world, the CIA is
obsolete, as obsolete as NATO.
" but President George W. Bush wanted his war and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA
had any say in the matter."
Not to defend the CIA, but didn't Rumsfeld, doubt the enthusiasm of the CIA for providing the
slanted, bogus, "sexed up" intelligence the Executive required to make its "destroy Iraq now"
case ? So Rumsfeld therefore set up an independent intelligence agency within the Defence Dept
to provide/create the required "intelligence" ?
I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think they find
that something that's useful."
Yeah, because that's what resource-constrained countries with limited ability to tap the global
capital markets do. Methinks Mr. Pompeo is projecting his and the neocons' fantasies on the Russians.
As has been the case for decades the Deep State allows Presidents and legislators to make minor
decisions in our government as long as those decisions do not in any way interfere with the Deep
State's goals of total world hegemony and increase in overwhelming power and wealth. Those who
make the important decisions in this country are not elected. The elected 'officials' are sycophants
of the Deep State.
Being resistant to jargon and catch phrases it is only slowly that I have accepted that "Deep
State" is not entirely pretentious waffle when used to describe aspects of the US. However I may
not be your only reader PG who would appreciate a clear explanatory description of the American
Deep State and how it works.
Here are some suggested parameters.
The term is appropriated from the use to describe the mutually loyal corps of Ataturkians in
the Turkish military and intelligence services who were united in service to uphold the ideal
of Ataturkian secular modernisation. The term implies no public accountability or publicity unnecessary
to its purposes.
And its origins imply that it is not just one in a number of major influences ln government or
those who vote for it.
So one has to acknowledge that in the US the Deep State has to be different in the important
respect that levers of power are observably wielded by lobbies for the aged, gun owners and sellers,
Israel, Wall Street, bio fuels, sugar and other ag, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, the arms industry,
Disney and other Hollywood and media, health insurers and the medical profession, and I could
go on.
These are all relevant to legal events like votes on impeachment or to hold up appointments.
The CIA and FBI together completely united (and note how disunited 9/11 showed them to be) wouldn't
remotely approach the old Turkish Deep State's ability to stage a coup. Are all of the putative
elements of the Deep State together today as powerful as J.Edgar Hoover with his dirt files on
everyone? (A contrast and compare exercise of today's presumed Deep State configuration and modus
operandi with the simpler Hoover days might shine some light on who does what and how today. And
how effectively).
To avoid lack of focus can a convincing account of the US Deep State be best given in terms
of a plausible scenario for
getting rid of Trump as President and/or
maintaining the lunacy and hubris which has the US wasting its substance on totally unnecessary
antagonistic relations with China and Russia and interference in the ME?
I would read such accounts with great interest. (Handwavers need not apply).
Of course the US Deep State must hate Russia. First, Jews have a very long history of hating Russia and Russians. That never changed. The
USSR was not Russia; the USSR was Marxism replacing Russia. Jews tended to love that. Rich Jews
from across the world, from the US and the UK of most interest to us, sent money to support the
Bolshevik Revolution.
Russia managed to survive the USSR and is slowly coming back around to Russian common sense
from the Christian perspective. Neither Jews nor their WASP BFFs can ever forgive that. They want
Russia to act now to commit cultural and genetic suicide, like Western Europe and the entire Anglosphere
are doing.
@polistraThe CIA's source, its birth, is from British secret service. Brit spying. And Brit secret service,
long before the official founding of MI5, did exactly the kinds of things you note the CIA has
done.
The Mossad is another direct fruit of Brit secret service, as is the Saudi General Intelligence
Presidency.
While there can be no doubt about the crackpots in high positions of the most powerful bureaucracies,
it seems to me that the CIA loonies are merely shock troops for an even worse bunch of evil psychos,
the bankster mafiosi.
But doing so would mean a voluntary end to playing the role of Sauron, determined to find and
wear the One Ring to Rule Them All. The average Elite WASP, and his Jewish BFF, definitely would
prefer to destroy the world, at least outside their gated compounds of endless luxury, than to
step down from that level of global domination.
@Wizard
of Oz Wiz – Here is an article I did on the Deep State two years ago. It was one of the first
in the US media looking at the issue. It would have to be updated now in light of Trump, but much
of what it states is still more-or-less correct.
But we need to make certain that your use of the word 'mafiosi' does not lead anyone to assume
that group has more than a handful of Italians. Jews, WASPs, and continental Germanics each will
outnumber Italians by at least 30 to 1.
I am a retired CIA operations officer (something none of the men mentioned by Giraldi are –
Brennan was a failed wanna be, couldn't cut it as an ops officer). He is spot on in his comments.
The majority of people in the CIA, the ones who do the heavy lifting, are patriotic Americans
who are proud of serving their country. I am sure that most voted for Trump as they all know too
well the truth about the Clintons and Obama.
Giraldi is not the only one to notice the upward progress of the most incompetent yes-men in the
Agency. A close look at most of them reveals a track record of little or no operational success
balanced by excellent sucking up skills. These characters quickly figured out how to get ahead
and doing your job in the field is not it. Of course, most are ego maniacs so they are totally
oblivious to their own uselessness.
Well before he was elected I had a letter delivered to President Trump in which I outlined in
detail what would happen to him if he did not immediately purge the CIA of these assholes. I know
that at least some people on his staff read it but, of course, my advice was ignored. Trump has
paid dearly for not listening to an ordinary CIA guy who wanted to give him a reality brief on
those vicious snakes.
Historical facts teach humanity that Anglo-Saxon group of Nations was built on slavery, thuggery
and theft of other peace loving Civilizations.
We Slavs are the New "niggers", hate is the glue that holds you "toGether".
People of color have been successfully conditioned and practice it as well.
Time will tell how well it holds when balloon bursts and 99% gets called to serve as cannon fodder.
Terrorizing UNARMED and WEAKER is not true test of "superiority" and "exceptionalism".
Tiny, extremely tiny minority of Anglo-Saxons and Satraps understand this.
How "Russiagate" began: After the primaries, both Hillary and Donald faced divided political parties even though they
had won the nomination. These divisions were worse than the normal situation after contested primaries.
On the Democratic side, Hillay had just subverted the will of the voters of her party, who seemed
to favor Bernie Sanders over her. Hillay had won with corrupt collusion and rigging amongst the
DNC, the higher ranks of the Democratic Party, and major media such as the NYT and CNN.
Then, a leak of emails from the DNC HQ publicized her interference in the democratic processes
of the Democratic Party. This threatened to ene the Hillary for President campaign right then
and there. If the majority of Democrats who'd favored Bernie refused to support Hillary because
of her corruption and collusion in denying democracy within the party, she was a sure loser in
the fall election. The Hillary camp then immediately started blaming Russia for the exposure of her corruption
and rigging of the Democratic process. And that's how "Russiagate" began.
It probably does as do group psychoses and group fantasies.. Anyone who's ever served in a beuaracracy
knows that groupthink exists.
Take a bunch of mediocre minds. And, they do exist, as Garrison Keiler once famously made a
joke out of with his line Welcome to Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average.
Take that bunch of mediocre thinkers, and then make most of them obsessed with their own career
advancement above all else. The most dangerous place for a career-obsessed individual is outside
the group consensus. If everyone is wrong, then there is safety in the group. After all, if they
are wrong, so was everyone else in the organization. Thus they are immune to attack and censure
for being wrong. But if someone takes a position outside of the group consensus, that can be a
career-ending move if they are wrong, as now everyone else will be in the I-told-U-So camp. And
even if they are correct, they will still be hated and shunned just for being the person who pointed
out to the group that they are wrong.
So, you take your typical average mind, and not only do they not have any great insights of
their own, but they tend to stick to the group out of sheer survival and then when you take a
mass of these mediocre minds you have 'groupthink'.
If only Trump would really clean the swamp - particularly the neo-cons and other traitors and
globalists. One can dream ....
What we've learned from Trump is that 'Draining the Swamp' will
take more than an individual. It will take a political movement.
One sees this on the fringes of politics. Someone gets the idea of running for President, and
they point out all that is wrong. But, they focus only on their own campaign, their own goal,
and they thus gloss over the fact that they'll be outnumbered and powerless even if they win.
Seen this often on the Left. The most recent example is Bernie Sanders. Likewise, had Bernie
been elected President, he too would face an entrenched establishment and media with only a small
fraction of the Congress supporting him.
Change has to be built from the bottom up. There are no shortcuts. Electing a Trump, or a Nader
or a Bernie does not lead to real change. Step one is to build the political movement such that
it has real voting block power and which has already won voting majorities in the legislature
before the movement achieves the election of a President.
What Trump has needed to be doing for this first two years is to form clear divisions that
he could then take to his voters in the mid-term elections. He's needed to lay out his own agenda.
So what if he loses votes in Congress? He then takes that agenda back to the voters in 2018 with
a nationwide slate of Congressional candidates who support that agenda and runs a midterm campaign
asking the voters to help him drain that swamp.
So, for instance, Trump should veto the act of war known as the recent sanctions bill. Who
cares if it gets overridden? Then he goes back to the voters, who are clearly sick of endless
war and who for obvious reasons don't want a nuclear war, and he says this is where I stand. Support
me by electing Fill-In-The-Blank to Congress. With the nuclear Doomsday Clock pushing ever closer
to midnight, he might just win that fight over the big money and media opposition he's sure to
face.
Not only has Trump failed to even try to fight the Deep State, but he's also failing to set
himself up for success in the next elections.
It is a serious error to consider President Trump "naive."
What we are seeing now is The Donald's role in the serial Zionist THEATER. Think deeper about the motive behind Mr. Giraldi's choice to use the Orwellian word "Groupthink"
in characterizing the CIA zeitgeist? In the classic work "1984," one observes Big Brother as the catalyst in control of the proles'
thought pattern & subsequent action.
To rise & FALL as a POTUS is a matter of theater and the American proles are entertained by
the political for either 4 or 8 years and the Zionists get their next Chosen actor/actress dramatically
sworn in on a bible.
Mr. Trump is neither naive nor stupid. Sheldon Adelson would not donate $millioms to any POTUS
wannabe who could not effectively lead the American Groupthink tradition. Subsequently, the political
horror show is brought to you in the understandable form of the perpetually elusive Deep State
which gets annual Academy Award.
" Venezuela tops the list with 300.9 billion barrels of oil in reserve – but even
this vast wealth in natural resources has not been enough to save the country from its
recent economic and humanitarian crisis."
LOL, good one. It's BECAUSE of their vast wealth that they cannot operate a country free
of external interference, internal sabotage and the world's biggest bully attacking its
electrical generation and grid. We can't have a successful socialist economy with THAT much
oil, now, can we? And while Maduro did make some mistakes with the economy, it wasn't enough
to bring about this "economic and humanitarian crisis." No, that level of shitstorm requires
the intervention of the Yoo Nited States of America and "experts" on the region like Elliot
Abrams (why isn't he in jail again? Oh yeah never mind, two systems of law in this country)
and Mike Pom-Pom-Peon.
If the U.S. hadn't attempted coup after coup after coup, and actually let Venezuela's
little experiment in Chavismo socialism play out on its own, we'd probably be seeing a South
American version of Libya - at one time the richest country in Africa with healthcare for
everyone - before France and the Yooo Nited States decided to destroy it. Of course it's too
much to ask for a blog called "Visual Capitalist" to acknowledge this, and it's also pretty
much par for the course with the sour right who comes to ZH for their daily fix of liberal
bashing and rah, rah America is great! And so are (((they))). Of course.
You're way out of your depth on this topic. You wouldn't be able to point to a single
thing that Maduro did which would have had long-lasting consequences such as what we are
seeing now. Total moron - the Venezuelan masses wealth was stolen by the landed former
Spanish colonialists and their offspring, who then were given all the good oil leases, and
bailed on the country (sabotaged it on their way out - along with the food supply) as Chavez
started giving wealth BACK to the masses. You know NOTHING about Venezuela and like many
other things you parade around pretending to be some kind of expert while you're just a
typical zionist moron.
The US and our buddies have been cutting VZ off from any external capital, but more
importantly FREEZING their assets and preventing them from accessing THEIR OWN gold. If that
was happening to one of our so-called allies, we'd be calling it THEFT. You idiot.
But let's play - find me a source that backs your assertions. Point to paragraph and
sentence where your claims are laid out clearly for all to see. How did Maduro COMPLETELY
**** up Venezuela? Your turn...
The Bolivarian Revolution, a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically
reduced poverty and
illiteracy while greatly improving health and other living conditions for millions of
Venezuelans, drew worldwide acclaim. The reforms, which included
nationalizing key components of the nation's economy as part of an agenda of socialist
uplift, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela's
oligarchs. The exportation of the Bolivarian Revolution, which included forging stronger,
more peaceful inter-American relations and even the provision of
free home heating oil for hundreds of thousands of needy people in the United States,
made Chávez a marked man in Washington.
The administration of George W. Bush -- whom Chávez infamously called "the
devil" in a speech before the United Nations -- backed a failed military
coup against Chávez in 2002. The attempted coup was closely linked to prominent
neoconservatives including
Elliott Abrams , the disgraced Iran-Contra criminal who played a key role in covering up
massacres committed by US-backed death squads in Central America and Otto Reich, a staunch
supporter of Cuban exile terrorists who have
killed at least hundreds of innocent men, women and children throughout the Americas. Two
key coup plotters, Army commander Efraín Vasquez and Gen. Ramirez Poveda, were
trained at the US Army
School of the Americas. The coup briefly ousted Chávez but loyalist forces and popular
support restored his rule 47 hours later.
Barack Obama continued Bush's policy of demonizing Chávez, whose government he
called "authoritarian." This, despite the fact that former president Jimmy Carter, who won
the Nobel Peace Prize for his work at the election-monitoring Carter Center,
called Venezuela's election process "the best in the world." In 2015, Obama
declared Venezuela an "extraordinary threat to national security," a bewildering
assertion considering the country has never started a war in its history. The United States,
on the other hand, has intervened in, attacked, invaded or occupied Latin American and
Caribbean nations more than 50 times and, as Obama spoke, the US military was busy bombing
seven countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. For decades, successive US
administrations have also lavished Venezuela's neighbor Colombia -- which has been condemned
for its government and paramilitary
death squad massacres and deadly corporate-backed crackdowns on
indigenous peoples and workers -- with
billions upon billions of dollars in military and economic aid.
How would they reinstate that "talent" if it was being blocked and bribed not to go to
Venezuela by....you know who?
Chavez purged the firm because it was the same rich elites running it and threatening to
use it as a form of blackmail.
Failure to regrow human capital base? Is that a repeat of what you just said about PDVSA?
What does that even mean?
What about the US sanctions, freezing of their access to their own money, coup attempts,
sabotage, the rich cutting off the food supply chain, etc? Which of these things contributed
more to the current state of VZ?
President Chávez had to withstand three successive attempts to remove him -- the
2002 coup, 2002-03 bosses' lockout and the 2004 recall referendum. Five times he was
elected president, never with less than 55 percent of the vote, and overall he won 16 of 17
elections and referendums in which his movement participated. The election system put in
place by the Chávez government was declared by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's
Carter Center to be "
the best in the world ." None of this prevented the late president from being furiously
denounced as a "dictator."
The latest, issued on January 28, freezes all property and interests of PDVSA subject to
U.S. jurisdiction -- in other words, blocking Venezuela from any access to the profits
generated by PDVSA's U.S. subsidiary, Citgo, or any PDVSA activities in the United States.
The Trump administration expects Venezuela
to lose US$11 billion this year, The New York Times reports.
and Maduro being a "dictator"
President Maduro is repeatedly called a "dictator," an epithet endless repeated across
the corporate media. But when a portion of the opposition boycotts, can it be a surprise
that the incumbent wins? The opposition actually asked the United Nations
to not send observers , a sure sign that they expected to lose a fair election despite
their claims that the election would be rigged. Nonetheless, a coalition of Canadian
unions, church leaders and other officials declared the election to be "a transparent,
secure, democratic and orderly electoral and voting process."
So yeah, you're on the same side of this issue as Barack Obama, George Soros and Hillary
Kkklinton. Hope you're happy with that company.
The Trump administration is poised to tell five nations, including allies Japan, South
Korea and Turkey, that they will no longer be exempt from U.S. sanctions if they continue to
import oil from Iran.
U.S. officials say Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to announce on Monday that the
administration will not renew sanctions waivers for the five countries when they expire on
May 2.
Refusing to offer new sanctions waivers is the latest sign that Trump is once again giving
in to the most extreme Iran hawks. When sanctions on Iran's oil sector went into effect last
November, the administration initially granted waivers to the top importers of Iranian oil to
avoid a spike in the price of oil, but that is now coming to an end. The economic war that the
U.S. has been waging against Iran over the last year is about to expand to include some of the
world's biggest economies and some of America's leading trading partners. It is certain to
inflict more hardship on the Iranian people, and it will damage relations between the U.S. and
other major economic powers, including China and India, but it will have no discernible effect
on the Iranian government's behavior and policies. India, China, and Turkey are practically
guaranteed to ignore U.S. demands that they eliminate all Iranian oil imports.
The decision to end waivers has implications for world oil markets, which have been
eagerly anticipating President Trump's decision on whether to extend waivers. The officials
said market disruption should be minimal for two reasons: supply is now greater than demand
and Pompeo is also set to announce offsets through commitments from other suppliers such as
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Trump spoke about the issue Thursday with the
UAE's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability in
Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to rise.
Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation for no
good reason as part of a regime change policy that can't and won't succeed. It cannot be
emphasized enough that the reimposition of sanctions on Iran is completely unwarranted and
represents a betrayal of previous U.S. commitments to Iran and our allies under the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action. The decision to refuse any new sanctions waivers is a clear sign
that the most fanatical members of the Trump administration have prevailed in internal debates
and U.S. Iran policy is held hostage to their whims.
Maybe Trump will reap the benefits of this if oil prices go up a lot and it torpedos his
reelection in 2020.
One thing I'm really not clear on how are these proposed sanctions against third parties
(e.g. Japan, etc etc) not a violation of trade agreements? Are there escape clauses in those
agreements that allow the US to do these things, or is it merely that these other countries
are (usually) not willing to rely on the trade agreements' protections because, at the end of
the day, it would mean a trade war with the US, which they're not willing to countenance?
Iran policy ??? What about foreign policy in general ?? Interventionism is NOT what Americans
want, or can afford! No more lives & limbs (and dollars) for foreign countries!!
"Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability
in Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to
rise. Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation
for no good reason "
But there is a good reason. Forcing up oil prices is a shot in the arm for the Saudi
economy. Remember "Israel first, and Saudi Arabia second". That formula explains most of
Trump's foreign policy, the rest being a jumble of random impulses and the consequences of
infighting among his advisors.
Gas is already $3.20 in the Chicago suburbs, and we are not into the summer driving season
yet. Overseas – India is going to the poll. India imports most of its oil, and Iran is
a major supplier. Yes, the Saudis have been trying to get India to switch over to more Saudi
imports – but it would look like "strong" Modi is giving in to Trump and MBS.
We are going to sanction China for buying Iranian oil? Does anyone seriously think they are
going to submit to that gracefully? Japan and Korea might, they are much smaller and stuck
with us. But China?
And I seriously doubt that sanctioning India for buying Iranian oil will advance our
strategic alliance with them, either.
The Trump administration is poised to tell five nations, including allies Japan, South
Korea and Turkey, that they will no longer be exempt from U.S. sanctions if they continue to
import oil from Iran.
U.S. officials say Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to announce on Monday that the
administration will not renew sanctions waivers for the five countries when they expire on
May 2.
Refusing to offer new sanctions waivers is the latest sign that Trump is once again giving
in to the most extreme Iran hawks. When sanctions on Iran's oil sector went into effect last
November, the administration initially granted waivers to the top importers of Iranian oil to
avoid a spike in the price of oil, but that is now coming to an end. The economic war that the
U.S. has been waging against Iran over the last year is about to expand to include some of the
world's biggest economies and some of America's leading trading partners. It is certain to
inflict more hardship on the Iranian people, and it will damage relations between the U.S. and
other major economic powers, including China and India, but it will have no discernible effect
on the Iranian government's behavior and policies. India, China, and Turkey are practically
guaranteed to ignore U.S. demands that they eliminate all Iranian oil imports.
The decision to end waivers has implications for world oil markets, which have been
eagerly anticipating President Trump's decision on whether to extend waivers. The officials
said market disruption should be minimal for two reasons: supply is now greater than demand
and Pompeo is also set to announce offsets through commitments from other suppliers such as
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Trump spoke about the issue Thursday with the
UAE's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability in
Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to rise.
Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation for no
good reason as part of a regime change policy that can't and won't succeed. It cannot be
emphasized enough that the reimposition of sanctions on Iran is completely unwarranted and
represents a betrayal of previous U.S. commitments to Iran and our allies under the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action. The decision to refuse any new sanctions waivers is a clear sign
that the most fanatical members of the Trump administration have prevailed in internal debates
and U.S. Iran policy is held hostage to their whims.
Maybe Trump will reap the benefits of this if oil prices go up a lot and it torpedos his
reelection in 2020.
One thing I'm really not clear on how are these proposed sanctions against third parties
(e.g. Japan, etc etc) not a violation of trade agreements? Are there escape clauses in those
agreements that allow the US to do these things, or is it merely that these other countries
are (usually) not willing to rely on the trade agreements' protections because, at the end of
the day, it would mean a trade war with the US, which they're not willing to countenance?
Iran policy ??? What about foreign policy in general ?? Interventionism is NOT what Americans
want, or can afford! No more lives & limbs (and dollars) for foreign countries!!
"Between the administration's Venezuela and Iran oil sanctions and increased instability
in Libya (also supported by the Trump administration), oil prices are nonetheless likely to
rise. Even if they don't, Trump's Iran obsession is causing significant economic dislocation
for no good reason "
But there is a good reason. Forcing up oil prices is a shot in the arm for the Saudi
economy. Remember "Israel first, and Saudi Arabia second". That formula explains most of
Trump's foreign policy, the rest being a jumble of random impulses and the consequences of
infighting among his advisors.
Gas is already $3.20 in the Chicago suburbs, and we are not into the summer driving season
yet. Overseas – India is going to the poll. India imports most of its oil, and Iran is
a major supplier. Yes, the Saudis have been trying to get India to switch over to more Saudi
imports – but it would look like "strong" Modi is giving in to Trump and MBS.
We are going to sanction China for buying Iranian oil? Does anyone seriously think they are
going to submit to that gracefully? Japan and Korea might, they are much smaller and stuck
with us. But China?
And I seriously doubt that sanctioning India for buying Iranian oil will advance our
strategic alliance with them, either.
"... What most people don't realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years after he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative. In his 2012 book, Strategic Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America's unavoidable transition (decline?) without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos. ..."
"... Haass's critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future. ..."
"... Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of US decline and the final collapse of the liberal world order. ..."
"... "The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today" Thanks for the laugh. It was over with the passing of the 1947 National Security Act. ..."
"... It is not a coincidence that this anti-Russian climate of hatred started back when Putin showed up the left's president, Barack Obama, over Libya. ..."
"... political globalists who wanted a liberal world order but didn't think about the economic side of things much and so let their economic policy be decided by the central banking mafia ..."
"... You should think more about US being aced. Syria was a masterstroke, but so was Ukraine, and not for Russia. Russia lost an extremely valuable ally and a trully brother nation, maybe forever. Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia. ..."
"... You definitely missed last 25 years of Russian-Ukrainian relations. You also, evidently, have very vague understanding of the Ukrainian inner dynamics. I am not sure we can speak of "brother nation" because Ukraine as political nation (and she did form as such by early 2000s) can not be "brother nation" to Russia by definition. In fact, being anti-Russia is the only natural state of Ukrainian political nation ..."
"... As it turned out, Russia is doing just fine without Ukraine. In a long run, if what is called Ukraine today decides to commit suicide by the cop, she sure can try to place US military bases East of Dniepr and we will observe a rather peculiar case of fireworks. ..."
"... It would have been a total catastrophe for Russia had she lost Sebastopol; but so long as Crimea is safely in Moscow's hands, Ukraine is not make-or-break. Russia's global position now, in fact, is even stronger than it was in 2014. ..."
"... Western corporations have been competing with each other (for decades now) to offshore everything to reduce costs /increase profits. The idea is to sell at Western prices and produce at Eastern prices, and this arbitrage has reached crazy proportions. ..."
"... Jews also hate nationalism since it threatens their (minority) power and highlights dual loyalty (or no loyalty) so the Zio-Glob are on one side, and the public on the other, with little common ground between them. ..."
"... At least Brzezinski became well aware of this shift. So many of America's neo-conservatives have largely failed in expressing this defeat. Between Brzezinski and Boot, & the Others, they've all turned out to be fanatic ideologues. ..."
The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today, is rapidly collapsing. The center of gravity is
shifting from west to east where China and India are experiencing explosive growth and where a revitalized Russia has restored its
former stature as a credible global superpower. These developments, coupled with America's imperial overreach and chronic economic
stagnation, have severely hampered US ability to shape events or to successfully pursue its own strategic objectives. As Washington's
grip on global affairs continues to loosen and more countries reject the western development model, the current order will progressively
weaken clearing the way for a multipolar world badly in need of a new security architecture. Western elites, who are unable to accept
this new dynamic, continue to issue frenzied statements expressing their fear of a future in which the United States no longer dictates
global policy.
At the 2019 Munich Security Conference, Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, underscored many of these same themes. Here's an excerpt
from his presentation:
"The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was Not only do war and violence play a
more prominent role again: a new great power confrontation looms at the horizon. In contrast to the early 1990s, liberal democracy
and the principle of open markets are no longer uncontested .
In this international environment, the risk of an inter-state war between great and middle powers has clearly increased .What
we had been observing in many places around the world was a dramatic increase in brinkmanship, that is, highly risky actions on
the abyss – the abyss of war .
No matter where you look, there are countless conflicts and crises the core pieces of the international order are breaking
apart, without it being clear whether anyone can pick them up – or even wants to. ("Who will pick up the pieces?",
Munich Security Conference )
Ischinger is not alone in his desperation nor are his feelings limited to elites and intellectuals. By now, most people are familiar
with the demonstrations that have rocked Paris, the political cage-match that is tearing apart England (Brexit), the rise of anti-immigrant
right-wing groups that have sprung up across Europe, and the surprising rejection of the front-runner candidate in the 2016 presidential
elections in the US. Everywhere the establishment and their neoliberal policies are being rejected by the masses of working people
who have only recently begun to wreak havoc on a system that has ignored them for more than 30 years. Trump's public approval ratings
have improved, not because he has "drained the swamp" as he promised, but because he is still seen as a Washington outsider despised
by the political class, the foreign policy establishment and the media. His credibility rests on the fact that he is hated by the
coalition of elites who working people now regard as their sworn enemy.
The president of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, summed up his views on the "weakening of the liberal
world order" in an article that appeared on the CFR's website. Here's what he said:
"Attempts to build global frameworks are failing. Protectionism is on the rise; the latest round of global trade talks never
came to fruition. .At the same time, great power rivalry is returning
There are several reasons why all this is happening, and why now. The rise of populism is in part a response to stagnating
incomes and job loss, owing mostly to new technologies but widely attributed to imports and immigrants. Nationalism is a tool
increasingly used by leaders to bolster their authority, especially amid difficult economic and political conditions .
But the weakening of the liberal world order is due, more than anything else, to the changed attitude of the U.S. Under President
Donald Trump, the US decided against joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. It
has threatened to leave the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. It has unilaterally introduced steel
and aluminum tariffs, relying on a justification (national security) that others could use, in the process placing the world at
risk of a trade war .America First" and the liberal world order seem incompatible." ("Liberal World Order, R.I.P.", Richard Haass,
CFR )
What Haass is saying is that the cure for globalisation is more globalization, that the greatest threat to the liberal world order
is preventing the behemoth corporations from getting more of what they want; more self-aggrandizing trade agreements, more offshoring
of businesses, more outsourcing of jobs, more labor arbitrage, and more privatization of public assets and critical resources. Trade
liberalization is not liberalization, it does not strengthen democracy or create an environment where human rights, civil liberties
and the rule of law are respected. It's a policy that focuses almost-exclusively on the free movement of capital in order to enrich
wealthy shareholders and fatten the bottom line. The sporadic uprisings around the world– Brexit, yellow vests, emergent right wing
groups– can all trace their roots back to these one-sided, corporate-friendly trade deals that have precipitated the steady slide
in living standards, the shrinking of incomes, and the curtailing of crucial benefits for the great mass of working people across
the US and Europe. President Trump is not responsible for the outbreak of populism and social unrest, he is merely an expression
of the peoples rage. Trump's presidential triumph was a clear rejection of the thoroughly-rigged elitist system that continues to
transfer the bulk of the nation's wealth to tiniest layer of people at the top.
Haass's critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future.
As we noted earlier, the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, which is the one incontrovertible fact that cannot be
denied. Washington's brief unipolar moment –following the breakup of the Soviet Union in December, 1991 -- has already passed and
new centers of industrial and financial power are gaining pace and gradually overtaking the US in areas that are vital to America's
primacy. This rapidly changing economic environment is accompanied by widespread social discontent, seething class-based resentment,
and ever-more radical forms of political expression. The liberal order is collapsing, not because the values espoused in the 60s
and 70s have lost their appeal, but because inequality is widening, the political system has become unresponsive to the demands of
the people, and because US can no longer arbitrarily impose its will on the world.
Globalization has fueled the rise of populism, it has helped to exacerbate ethnic and racial tensions, and it is largely responsible
for the hollowing out of America's industrial core. Haass's antidote would only throw more gas on the fire and hasten the day when
liberals and conservatives form into rival camps and join in a bloody battle to the end. Someone has to stop the madness before the
country descends into a second Civil War.
What Haass fails to discuss, is Washington's perverse reliance on force to preserve the liberal world order, after all, it's not
like the US assumed its current dominant role by merely competing more effectively in global markets. Oh, no. Behind the silk glove
lies the iron fist, which has been used in over 50 regime change operations since the end of WW2. The US has over 800 military bases
scattered across the planet and has laid to waste one country after the other in successive interventions, invasions and occupations
for as long as anyone can remember. This penchant for violence has been sharply criticized by other members of the United Nations,
but only Russia has had the courage to openly oppose Washington where it really counts, on the battlefield.
Russia is presently engaged in military operations that have either prevented Washington from achieving its strategic objectives
(like Ukraine) or rolled back Washington's proxy-war in Syria. Naturally, liberal elites like Haass feel threatened by these developments
since they are accustomed to a situation in which 'the world is their oyster'. But, alas, oysters have been removed from the menu,
and the United States is going to have to make the adjustment or risk a third world war.
What Russian President Vladimir Putin objects to, is Washington's unilateralism, the cavalier breaking of international law to
pursue its own imperial ambitions. Ironically, Putin has become the greatest defender of the international system and, in particular,
the United Nations which is a point he drove home in his presentation at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in New York
on September 28, 2015, just two days before Russian warplanes began their bombing missions in Syria. Here's part of what he said:
"The United Nations is unique in terms of legitimacy, representation and universality .We consider any attempt to undermine
the legitimacy of the United Nations as extremely dangerous. It may result in the collapse of the entire architecture of international
relations, leaving no rules except the rule of force. The world will be dominated by selfishness rather than collective effort,
by dictate rather than equality and liberty, and instead of truly sovereign nations we will have colonies controlled from outside."(Russian
President Vladimir Putin at the 70th session of the
UN General Assembly )
Putin's speech, followed by the launching of the Russian operation in Syria, was a clear warning to the foreign policy establishment
that they would no longer be allowed to topple governments and destroy countries with impunity. Just as Putin was willing to put
Russian military personnel at risk in Syria, so too, he will probably put them at risk in Venezuela, Lebanon, Ukraine and other locations
where they might be needed. And while Russia does not have anywhere near the raw power of the US military, Putin seems to be saying
that he will put his troops in the line of fire to defend international law and the sovereignty of nations. Here's Putin again:
"We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one center of dominance, and those who found themselves
at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they know best what needs to
be done and thus they don't need to reckon with the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often stands
in their way .
We should all remember the lessons of the past. For example, we remember examples from our Soviet past, when the Soviet Union
exported social experiments, pushing for changes in other countries for ideological reasons, and this often led to tragic consequences
and caused degradation instead of progress.
It seems, however, that instead of learning from other people's mistakes, some prefer to repeat them and continue to export
revolutions, only now these are "democratic" revolutions. Just look at the situation in the Middle East and Northern Africa already
mentioned by the previous speaker. Instead of bringing about reforms, aggressive intervention indiscriminately destroyed government
institutions and the local way of life. Instead of democracy and progress, there is now violence, poverty, social disasters and
total disregard for human rights, including even the right to life.
I'm urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you've done?" (Russian President Vladimir
Putin at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly)
Here Putin openly challenges the concept of a 'liberal world order' which in fact is a sobriquet used to conceal Washington's
relentless plundering of the planet. There's nothing liberal about toppling regimes and plunging millions of people into anarchy,
poverty and desperation. Putin is simply trying to communicate to US leaders that the world is changing, that nations in Asia are
gaining strength and momentum, and that Washington will have to abandon the idea that any constraint on its behavior is a threat
to its national security interests.
Former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, appears to agree on this point and suggests that the US
begin to rethink its approach to foreign policy now that the world has fundamentally changed and other countries are demanding a
bigger place at the table.
What most people don't realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years after
he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative. In his 2012 book, Strategic
Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America's unavoidable transition (decline?)
without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos. Here's a short excerpt from an article
he wrote in 2016 for the American Interest titled "Toward a Global Realignment":
"The fact is that there has never been a truly "dominant" global power until the emergence of America on the world scene .That
era is now ending .As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power
architecture .The United States is still the world's politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given
complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power.
America can only be effective in dealing with the current Middle Eastern violence if it forges a coalition that involves, in
varying degrees, also Russia and China .
A constructive U.S. policy must be patiently guided by a long-range vision. It must seek outcomes that promote the gradual
realization in Russia that its only place as an influential world power is ultimately within Europe. China's increasing role in
the Middle East should reflect the reciprocal American and Chinese realization that a growing U.S.-PRC partnership in coping with
the Middle Eastern crisis is an historically significant test of their ability to shape and enhance together wider global stability.
The alternative to a constructive vision, and especially the quest for a one-sided militarily and ideologically imposed outcome,
can only result in prolonged and self-destructive futility.
Since the next twenty years may well be the last phase of the more traditional and familiar political alignments with which
we have grown comfortable, the response needs to be shaped now . And that accommodation has to be based on a strategic vision
that recognizes the urgent need for a new geopolitical framework." ("Toward a Global Realignment", Zbigniew Brzezinski,
The American Interest
)
This strikes me as a particularly well-reasoned and insightful article. It shows that Brzezinski understood that the world had
changed, that power had shifted eastward, and that the only path forward for America was cooperation, accommodation, integration
and partnership. Tragically, there is no base of support for these ideas on Capital Hill, the White House or among the U.S. foreign
policy establishment. The entire political class and their allies in the media unanimously support a policy of belligerence, confrontation
and war. The United States will not prevail in a confrontation with Russia and China any more than it will be able to turn back the
clock to the post war era when America, the Superpower, reigned supreme. Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of US decline
and the final collapse of the liberal world order.
Zbig has fially admitted that America needs to become friends with Russia. We can not handle the world alone,but with Russia we
would have 90% of the worlds nuclear weapons and vast geopolitical ifluence. Americans do hot have anything against Russia. It
is the neocon cabal that is fostering conflict . Thet just can not get over the fact that they tried and failed to take control
of Russia. They are trying to do so to the u.S.A.
"2. Russia should become the real leader of the new process. (It has already become it but not yet aware of the fact.) The
West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world more than anything else, and this alliance is possible only through
Russia. Only Russia in an alliance with the Muslim world can keep China in check without conflicts, helping it find its new place
in the world as another super-power.
3. Leaders of Russia, America, Israel, Europe, Iran, India, and international financial capitals must initiate a dialogue over
leaving this crisis behind and preventing events like those which swept America on September 11.
A time of change is upon us, and it's futile to wish we were living in some other era. We have to change ourselves and change
the world "
Novaya Gazeta
No. 75 October 2001
THE THIRD FORCE OF WORLD WAR III
[MORE]
"THE AMERICANS DON'T REALIZE IT YET, BUT CHINA HAS WRITTEN ITS OWN SCRIPT FOR SQUEEZING THE UNITED STATES OFF THE WORLD STAGE.
CHINA SUPPORTS ACTIONS OF THE WEST AIMED AT MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION OF RUSSIA AND THE MUSLIM WORLD. THE WEST, RUSSIA, ISRAEL,
AND THE MUSLIM WORLD MUST WORK TOGETHER.
THE WESTERN SCRIPT
[ ]
"Using techniques of manipulating public opinion, the West is trying to establish the illusion of a global forces with the
fascist- like ideology of Wahhabi fundamentalism. As far as the West is concerned, Wahhabi and Islam are the same thing. It is
because of this that the essential terrorism of Wahhabi ideas is being formulated so simply for public consumption: all Muslims
are terrorists by nature.
The preliminary objective of brainwashing (Islam is the basis of terrorism) is thus achieved. "
"This script becomes possible when we assume that some Western elites and secret services made a kind of covert pact with this
still-unknown Player."
THE CHINESE SCRIPT
[ ]
" Throw a great deal of dollars into the market all at once, and the dollar will crash. A conflict with Taiwan may follow.
It will be a conflict waged with American money, with American weapons, investment, and high technology. Add the nuclear factor
here. Suffice it to recall the recent scandal when Chinese intelligence obtained all major nuclear secrets of the United States.
"
What most people don't realize about Brzezinski, is that he dramatically changed his views on global hegemony a few years
after he published his 1997 masterpiece The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperative. In his 2012 book,
Strategic Vision, Brzezinski recommended a more thoughtful and cooperative approach that would ease America's unavoidable transition
(decline?) without creating a power vacuum that could lead to global chaos.
So somebody put forth a deluded crack-pot idea that got great traction and made a lot of people very rich and powerful who
want to stay that way, but the originator now says he was wrong and we should change. Yeah, those rich and powerful people just
have to agree to give up some of that. How likely is that without a major catastrophe forcing them, given what we know about human
nature?
Maybe the lesson is to have realistic ideas about foreign policy and relations in the future. Did anybody seriously believe
countries with long histories like Russia and China were always going to be happy playing second fiddle to the US?
Haass's critique illustrates the level of denial among elites who are now gripped by fear of an uncertain future.
True, but their problem is compounded with their fear which is anchored in the past, whose real history blows all current,
being discredited as I type this, narratives out of the water. This, plus most of them, Haas and CFR included, do not operate
with actual facts and data.
"The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world"
Unfortunately, this is probably not entirely feasible considering the United States's inappropriately close relationship to
Israel and the American government's radical stance of forcing LGBTQ issues; as San Jose proves, these people aren't simply going
to leave you alone, but rather they will make you conform under threat. Probably what will happen in the future is a Japan-EU-Russia
alliance that makes peace with the Middle East and contains the Chinese military as much as possible.
The US could very well find itself cut out at some point. It has already proved itself both reckless and incompetent
with its handling of Iran, Israel, and Venezuela. Also, I suspect that neither ordinary EU citizens nor Asians will want to be
ruled over by a group of POC racists who discriminate against Europeans, Asian males, and traditional families.
I think the rest of the world should begin considering alternate defense arrangements. The US cannot afford to defend their
interests forever with an aging, shrinking white Caucasian population and a growing, less capable and less conscientious replacement
population less willing to die in imperial wars. Increasingly, the US will be less capable of defending others in the Pacific
from China as it Affirmative Actions its air force; Obama was trying to do that throughout the whole of the American military
and accomplished his objective by lowering standards. I think this process should continue in the future with disastrous results.
In the future, Asia will try to make peace with China before they get too strong and China will reciprocate with generous territorial
concessions in exchange for neutrality. For example, the Chinese may relinquish territorial claims in the Philippines in exchange
for a treaty stating that the Philippines will not base the American military or buy weapons from them, but they would be allowed
to buy weapons from third parties such as the Russians. A series of moves like this might dramatically weaken the American position
in the region, allowing China to jumpskip to Africa and the Middle East more effectively. Perhaps a similar deal will be worked
out with Taiwan: autonomy and a peace treaty in exchange for no weapon purchases or defense arrangements with the US, but Taiwan
could still buy Russian weapons.
"Zbig has fially admitted that America needs to become friends with Russia."
As Karlin has noted, I don't see this happening in the near future, not with the insane levels of anti-Russian hate coming
from the American left, some of which is just pure racial hatred of whites projected onto Russians.
All this is irrelevant in the long run. America will be a third-world country in 50 years or less. Imagine a government filled
with AOCs, Omars, and Bookers, with a constituency that matches. Brazil of the North isn't going to be a superpower. We can look
on that as a silver lining.
The United States will not prevail in a confrontation with Russia and China any more than it will be able to turn back the
clock to the post war era when America, the Superpower, reigned supreme. Confrontation will only accelerate the pace of
US decline and the final collapse of the liberal world order.
Very dangerous times are ahead. A declining superpower in late empire mode may make risky decisions. I wonder if America will
have a Suez event in the upcoming decade? The 1956 Suez crisis heralded the rise of a new superpower and the eclipse of another
one.
"The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today" Thanks for the laugh. It was over with the
passing of the 1947 National Security Act.
@Walt I don't know how
fucked up you have to be to use "We" to refer to the murderous US State but you should seek competent professional psychiatric
assistance, Soon.
The attitudes and political beliefs of your average Russian are very similar to many Red State conservatives, as has been noted
on this webzine at least once in recent memory (and with an accompanying political map with similarities noted between American
Blue and Red States compared with Russia). The American left projects its racist hate onto the Russians in response to those similarities.
It is not a coincidence that this anti-Russian climate of hatred started back when Putin showed up the left's president,
Barack Obama, over Libya.
That also explains the left's hypocrisy on war: their tribe's racial leader, Obama, wanted war in Libya, so war is now good;
Russia opposed it and later prevented war in Syria (which Obama wanted), so the Russians are now the bad guys. It's purely a matter
of tribal affiliation and racial hate on the part of the American left.
I wonder if America will have a Suez event in the upcoming decade?
She already had it and one is unfolding right this moment. For an empire of this size and influence, granted declining dramatically,
it takes a sequence of events. "Suez Moment" for Britain happened during WW II, the actual Suez crisis was merely a nominal conclusion
to British Empire dying in WW II.
We'll see in the coming years if we get a crisis that lays it all bare.
Ongoing real Revolution in Military Affairs and US losing conventional (and nuclear) arms race is what unfolds right now. Realistically,
Putin's March 1, 2018 Speech to Federal Assembly was also one of these moments -- as I said, the process is protracted and at
each of its phases US geopolitical cards have been aced and trumped, NO pun intended.
when i read these people i get the impression there are two camps:
1) political globalists who wanted a liberal world order but didn't think about the economic side of things much and so
let their economic policy be decided by the central banking mafia
and
2) The central banking mafia who understood globalization was simply their criminal looting of the West backed
up by a big military who could be rented out from a corrupted political class.
it seems the first group still don't understand that it was the banking mafia's neoliberal economics
– currency debasement
– usury
– cheap labor
that destroyed their dream.
the same three things have been destroying civilizations for 3000 years.
The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world more than anything else, and this alliance is possible
only through Russia.
i think this is short-sighted. The global north needs to combine to contain the global south or the central banking mafia will
eventually use them to destroy the north's genetic advantages and all our descendants will end up as 85 IQ slave-cattle.
The liberal world order, which lasted from the end of World War 2 until today, is rapidly collapsing.
Really? Where? US is still in Middle East and now threatens war with Iran. Venezuela is on the brink. Japan and EU are the
ever loyal dogs of the US. If they've been upset with Trump, it's not because he wants to exert more influence but less.
the actual Suez crisis was merely a nominal conclusion to British Empire dying in WW II
The Atlantic charter signed aboard the HMS Prince of Wales, in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland on August 14, 1941 by FDR and Churchill
was probably the moment when the old British empire traded places with the new global power, the United States. So you are correct
in your analysis.
@MarkinLA This is not
really about history, it is about power. Many of the US allies have much longer histories, but that does not help them in the
power department. China and Russia have enough power to stand only on their own two feet.
@Andrei MartyanovYou should think more about US being aced. Syria was a masterstroke, but so was Ukraine, and not for Russia. Russia lost an
extremely valuable ally and a trully brother nation, maybe forever. Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for
Russia.
The West and Israel need a strategic alliance with the Muslim world more than anything else, and this alliance is possible
only through Russia.
Sberbank calls on UAE businesses to invest in Russia, offers help
"According to the statement, the Gulf countries' total capital available for investment is estimated at more than $3.2 trillion
but only "a small part" of capital earmarked for investing in Russia has actually gone into Russia-based projects."
"The Russian visitors set out Sberbank's technology strategy and described achievements by the Moscow-based lender in artificial
intelligence development.
They also "pointed out interest in Islamic finance", the statement said."
Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia.
You definitely missed last 25 years of Russian-Ukrainian relations. You also, evidently, have very vague understanding
of the Ukrainian inner dynamics. I am not sure we can speak of "brother nation" because Ukraine as political nation (and she did
form as such by early 2000s) can not be "brother nation" to Russia by definition. In fact, being anti-Russia is the only natural
state of Ukrainian political nation.
There is another twist to all this–these are Russians now, who do not want to deal with Ukraine in any of her manifestations
and, to rub the salt into the wound, Zbig was delusional when thought that denying Ukraine to Russia would spell the end of Russian
"imperialism". As it turned out, Russia is doing just fine without Ukraine. In a long run, if what is called Ukraine today
decides to commit suicide by the cop, she sure can try to place US military bases East of Dniepr and we will observe a rather
peculiar case of fireworks.
The Atlantic charter signed aboard the HMS Prince of Wales,in Placentia Bay,Newfoundland on August 14, 1941 by FDR and Churchill
was probably the moment when the old British empire traded places with the new global power, the United States.
This happened in 1941 at secret ABC (America-Britain-Canada) consultations where Lord Halifax was trying to recruit American
resources for defense of Britain's imperial interests. US "politely" declined. Big Three became Big Two and a Half at 1943 Tehran
Conference at which Stalin was very specific that USSR wanted American as a head of Overlord.
All this pursuant to a strategic scandal between US and British Empire at Casablanca where General Stanley Embick of Marshall's
OPD accused Britain in his memorandum of avoiding fighting main Nazi forces due to Britain's imperial interests. Churchill knew
the significance of Tehran and suffered non-stop bouts of jealousy and suspicion towards FDR and Stalin.
I am sure Sir Winston knew that FDR wanted to meet Stalin without him. Stalin refused to do so without Churchill. As per "global
power"–sure, except for one teeny-weeny fact (or rather facts), since WW II "global power" didn't win a single war against even
more-or-less determined enemy.
Ukraine, in the grand scheme of things, is a huge defeat for Russia.
It would have been a total catastrophe for Russia had she lost Sebastopol; but so long as Crimea is safely in Moscow's
hands, Ukraine is not make-or-break. Russia's global position now, in fact, is even stronger than it was in 2014.
It will be much worse than Brazil, Brazil managed to cover up the reality that whites dominate politics and the economy (although
there is a new push to copy the American affirmative action ideology). In America whites will not be able to do what is happening
in Brazil, all politics will be non white dominated, likewise the woke corporate blue haired brigade will ensure that non whites
dominate all companies, no exceptions allowed. The end result of this is predictable, Americans will be wishing they were like
Brazil.
@Republic No it was
earlier, it was when it decided to declare war on the Third Reich. It decided that Poland was more important than keeping its
empire.
Globalization has fueled the rise of populism, it has helped to exacerbate ethnic and racial tensions, and it is largely
responsible for the hollowing out of America's industrial core.
Western corporations have been competing with each other (for decades now) to offshore everything to reduce costs /increase
profits. The idea is to sell at Western prices and produce at Eastern prices, and this arbitrage has reached crazy proportions.
The US has in fact exported whole industrial sectors (with the jobs and innovation). Same in Europe with a company such as
Decathlon (Europe's Nº1 sport goods supplier) entirely sourcing its products outside Europe.
Conclusion that if globalization fails, then so do these companies, and they have a massive incentive buy political protection
from Western governments – which they are doing. Nationalism and America First are anathema to them and they have (amazingly)
managed to built globalization and open frontiers into the ethos of the EU and US – with all the self-serving multicultural Save
the World blah.
Jews also hate nationalism since it threatens their (minority) power and highlights dual loyalty (or no loyalty) so the
Zio-Glob are on one side, and the public on the other, with little common ground between them.
This doesn't mean that it's impossible to stop outsourcing. If it happened, then Decathlon would either go bankrupt or have
to switch production to Rumania or Portugal = higher prices, but at least the money would stay in Europe. Same with the other
industries, and the first step has to be to cut down the power of the EU bureaucracy and Washington.
Just prepare fort the impending surge in Totalitarian methods to halt the inevitable in the USA.
The rest of the world is not our playground.
Good luck.
@Andrei Martyanov
Haas and CFR included, do not operate with actual facts and data.
Absolutely correct. Without an honest media, it is impossible to make good decisions.
Those Zionists who control the media in the West are deluding themselves. They will be the biggest losers when ordinary people
finally wake up to the fact that they have been lied to for over 100 years – WW1, WW2, Palestine, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Ukraine,
Russia, Crimea, MH-17, Skripals, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, 9/11 and many other instances.
Not so fast. OK, so maybe Zbig had some second thoughts about the whole project in 2012. But didn't the same Zbig opine in 2015,
at the start of Russia's Syria intervention, that the US should strike hard and fast before the Russkies managed to complete their
buildup there? To me that sounded rather much like an unprovoked attack on Russian troops, who were legally in Syria at the invitation
of its internationally recognized government.
Bottom line, for all of his far-too-long career Mr. Brzezinski has been exactly what one would expect from the spiritual father
of al-Qaeda: a vile and reckless individual. Anyone looking that way for salvation needs some time out for reflection.
This strikes me as a particularly well-reasoned and insightful article. It shows that Brzezinski understood that the world
had changed, that power had shifted eastward,
This is an excellent article, which addresses the key historic driver of our time. By 2015, world GDP had already passed the
threshold where the GDP share of the West had become lesser than the share of the Rest.
The major share of global wealth shifting towards Asia is an ineluctable historic re-alignment; it is a natural return to the
long-term historic balance pre-Industrial Revolution.
Western politicians ' problem is that they don't want to "break the news" to their people that Western standards of living
are going to degrade ineluctably over the coming years , because that would expose their incompetence, as well as highlight
the need to address wealth inequality in the West .
It is easier instead to the blame the disenfranchised, pauperised citizens voting for Trump, Brexit, and other "extreme" political
parties.
At least Brzezinski became well aware of this shift. So many of America's neo-conservatives have largely failed in expressing
this defeat. Between Brzezinski and Boot, & the Others, they've all turned out to be fanatic ideologues.
@notanon Ralph Nader
used to say the big issue is money in politics -- the money that "Congress Critters" use to get their government jobs at $174k.
To get one of those government jobs, you don't have to understand something as complex as the banking system, which is made more
opaque by the globalist neoliberals who want to maintain the Cheap Labor Lobby's beloved status quo.
You don't have to be Nomi Prins, someone who actually worked on Wall Street and knows its nooks and crannies, to get a Congress
Critter job. You just have to be the right kind of pander bear with the right kind of faux outrage at selective moments.
The other problem is that -- like most of us in the general public -- Congress Critters have to rely on people in the financial
system to navigate the terrain. It's a math-heavy field. Politicians have apparently always done this. They have created more
than one era with too-big-to-fail institutions. That is what one of Prins' books describes.
But it does not matter whether it's bankers or the manufacturers, employing welfare-assisted illegal aliens or foreign nationals
on foreign soil. And it does not matter that Congress Critters occasionally put the bigwigs on the hot seat as a PR stunt. They
aren't going to do anything to actually change policy unless the corporate masters who fund their campaigns give them the go ahead.
And they don't really even understand why.
[MORE]
If you think Congress Critters understand the global banking system, you should watch the banking committee hearing on C-SPAN,
where they grilled the Treasury Secretary, dressing him down like he was a $10-per-hour call center worker. It makes for good
theater.
Just like at a call center, the humiliation parade had nothing to do with the details of the work or getting anything done
other than convincing voters that a bunch of fabulously wealthy legislators (every one) with a 212-day work year really care,
especially about predatory factors in the financial system that supposedly affect only oppressed skin-pigmentation factions, located
in their districts.
You vicariously enjoy rebellious facial expressions that you could never exhibit during a frequently absentee mom manager's
tirades for fear of being fired from a churn job that does not cover the cost of rent that has risen by 72% over 25 years, even
when you add any paltry commission for taking the trouble to always meeting your numbers. But that will be the extent of it. It
is for show.
My favorite part was Empire-related; it involved the Rep. from Guam, a Congress Critter from one of US's far-flung territories.
His mild and precise disposition made a strong contrast with the Chairwoman's fiery ambiguity. Since his questions were math-related
and about specific budgetary matters, the Treasury Secretary seemed more frazzled than when he was receiving the emotional Sermon
from the gavel-happy chairwoman.
Guam Rep asked the Treasury Secretary about a massive transference of funds from the budget, affecting things like the territory's
education budget, trying to clarify whether the Earned Income Tax Credit was actually a "liability."
The language of most of our legislators reflects how bought off they are by the Cheap Labor Lobby. Which is why this Rep from
Guam's straight-forward language was so refreshing.
By design, the "Child" "Tax" "Credit" and the Earned Income Tax Credit sound like things that would not subtract from the overall
budget to me, too, but this is not money going to people who paid too much income tax. This is money that is credited back to
people who make too little to pay income tax.
The moms often call it their "taxes," when explaining to you what they plan to spend it on. It is not education, Rep. from
Guam. It is stuff like trips to the beach with a boyfriend and tattoos. That's doable for many low-wage mom workers since their
major monthly bills are covered by government.
I enjoyed the Treasury Secretary's facial expressions at this point as well. It appeared to be two math types who didn't really
thrive on the process of figuring out how to spin this fiscal irresponsibility, squirming in their chairs and / or looking kind
of aghast at the absurdity of the situation.
It would have been nice if the Rep from Guam had been honest enough to narrow that down even more, explaining that the small
amount of EITC money going to non-womb-productive, non-welfare-eligible citizens who mostly don't bother to claim such a paltry
sum is the not the big issue.
It is the Refundable Child Tax Credit up to $6,431, not so much the smaller maximum EITC of up to $451. It is the big check,
given as an additional reward to single-breadwinner, womb-productive households that also often receive free EBT food, reduced-cost
rent, monthly cash assistance and free electricity when the single breadwinner works part-time, keeping her income under the earned-income
limits for the programs.
He mentioned that Guam has a lot of poor workers like that, but so does the mainland. It is one of the big reasons for the
impending collapse: undremployment of prime-aged citizens.
If it is due to technology, it is just because employers of office workers now mostly need data entry people since advanced
software does most of the mid-level analytical work. And employers love to hire a near-100% womb-productive "diversity"of childbearing-aged
moms with spousal income, rent-covering child support or welfare and refundable child tax credit cash who do not need decent pay
or full-time hours. "It would mess them up with the government," as one all-mom employer put it.
Employers benefit from a welfare-fueled workforce that does not need higher pay. The Cheap Labor Lobby benefits. Congress Critters
at $174k benefit via fat campaign war chests, but the many welfare-ineligible job seekers who need for pay alone to cover all
household bills are screwed royally in this rigged system.
It is also screwing the SS Trust Fund that is no longer running surpluses and a lot of other things.
Guam Rep asked the Treasury Secretary if he was responsible and, specifically, what could he done to help restore fiscal order.
Of course, the Treasury Secretary isn't responsible for the mid-allocation of funds. Pandering Congress Critters are. They have
the "power of the purse" per US Constitution. The Treasury Sec. just tries to balance the books.
But it was nice that at least one of them showed some non-theatrical concern for finding out which of the six-figure Critters
is responsible. He sounded like he wanted constructive action to stop the Neoliberal House of Cards from just putting more structurally
unsound cards on the deck.
Powerful video about US propaganda machine. Based on Iraq War propaganda efforts. This is a
formidable machine.
Shows quite vividly that most US politicians of Bush era were war criminal by Nuremberg
Tribunal standards. Starting with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They planned the war of aggression
against Iraq long before 9/11.
"... Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers. ..."
"... Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him to act. This was the beginning of downward slope. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer. ..."
"... The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have been there anyway. ..."
"... No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful way ..."
"... " ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people." ..."
"... All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests. ..."
"... A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated the 98% poor, to stay rich. When there were insurrections federal troops restored order. Also FDR put down strikes with troops. ..."
"... The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter. ..."
"... "The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story after another would achieve the desired result " ..."
"... But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world. ..."
"... I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and facts don't matter! ..."
"... Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about intimidating them. ..."
"... The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was, and that means as bad as Hell itself. ..."
"... Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the 60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally flawed. I would say more so. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. ..."
"... That pre-9/11 "cooperation" nearly destroyed Russia. Nobody in Russia (except, perhaps, for Pussy Riot) wants a return to the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it. ..."
"... [The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank. ..."
"... Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran. ..."
"... Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington. ..."
"... Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who dictates what they can and can't say. ..."
"... Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt, compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into something much worse. ..."
"... Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six month actions – they go on and on.) ..."
"... Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are we attacking with drones? Where is congress? ..."
"... Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies. ..."
Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call
the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a
brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers.
Again Mike Whitney does not get it. Though in the first part of the article I thought he
would. He was almost getting there. The objective was to push new administration into the
corner from which it could not improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he
wanted to during the campaign.
Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion
with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of
paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which
the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe
or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him
to act. This was the beginning of downward slope.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by
all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the
zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer.
The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine
with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have
been there anyway.
No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The
Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they
have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful
way
The one thing I am not positive about. If the elite really believe that Russia is a
threat, then Americans have done psych ops on themselves.
The US was only interested in Ukraine because it was there. Next in line on a map. The
rather shocking disinterest in investing money -- on both sides -- is inexplicable if it was
really important. Most of it would be a waste -- but still. The US stupidly spent $5 billion
on something -- getting duped by politicians and got theoretical regime change, but it was
hell to pry even $1 billion for real economic aid.
" ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people."
All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were
the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests.
I am reading Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the USA, 1492 to the Present.
A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated
the 98% poor, to stay rich.
When there were insurrections federal troops restored order.
Also FDR put down strikes with troops.
You should be aware that Zinn's book is not, IMO, an honest attempt at writing history. It
is conscious propaganda intended to make Americans believe exactly what you are taking from
it.
The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America
and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and
Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter.
Until that fact changes Americans will continue to fight and die for Israel.
"The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and
unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident
Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story
after another would achieve the desired result "
But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out
neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions
fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world.
I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's
not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of
brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and
facts don't matter!
Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about
intimidating them.
Whitney is another author who declares the "Russians did it" narrative a psyop. He then
devotes entire columns to the psyop, "naww Russia didn't do it". There could be plenty to write about – recent laws that do undercut liberty, but no,
the Washington Post needs fake opposition to its fake news so you have guys like Whitney in
the less-mainstream fake news media.
So Brennan wanted revenge? Well that's simple enough to understand, without being too
stupid. But Whitney's whopper of a lie is what you're supposed to unquestionably believe. The
US has "rival political parties". Did you miss it?
The US is doing nothing more than acting as the British Empire 2.0. WASP culture was born of a Judaizing heresy: Anglo-Saxon Puritanism. That meant that the
WASP Elites of every are pro-Jewish, especially in order to wage war, physical and/or
cultural, against the vast majority of white Christians they rule.
By the early 19th century, The Brit Empire's Elites also had a strong, and growing, dose
of pro-Arabic/pro-Islamic philoSemitism. Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and
most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which
means being pro-Wahhabi and permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite
Mohammedans.
So, by the time of Victoria's high reign, the Brit WASP Elites were a strange brew of
hardcoree pro-Jewish and hardcore pro-Arabic/islamic. The US foreign policy of today is an
attempt to put those two together and force it on everyone and make it work.
The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the
Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless
lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was,
and that means as bad as Hell itself.
Fair enough. I didn't know that about the foreword. If accurate, that's a reasonable
approach for a book.
Here's the problem.
Back when O. Cromwell was the dictator of England, he retained an artist to paint him. The
custom of the time was for artists to "clean up" their subjects, in a primitive form of
photoshopping.
OC being a religious fanatic, he informed the artist he wished to be portrayed as God had
made him, "warts and all." (Ollie had a bunch of unattractive facial warts.) Or the artist
wouldn't be paid.
Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the
60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major
role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally
flawed. I would say more so.
All I am asking is that American (and other) history be written "warts and all." The
triumphalist version is true, largely, and so is the Zinn version. Gone With the Wind
and Roots both portray certain aspects of the pre-war south fairly accurately..
America has been, and is, both evil and good. As is/was true of every human institution
and government in history. Personally, I believe America, net/net, has been one of the
greatest forces for human good ever. But nobody will realize that if only the negative side
of American history is taught.
"There must be something really dirty in Russigate that hasn't yet come out to generate
this level of panic."
You continue to claim what you cannot prove.
But then you are a Jews First Zionist.
Russia-Gate Jumps the Shark
Russia-gate has jumped the shark with laughable new claims about a tiny number of
"Russia-linked" social media ads, but the US mainstream media is determined to keep a
straight face
Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually
coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which means being pro-Wahhabi and
permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite Mohammedans.
Thanks for the laugh. During the 19th century, the Sauds were toothless, dirt-poor hicks
from the deep desert of zero importance on the world stage.
The Brits were not Saudi proponents, in fact promoting the Husseins of Hejaz, the guys
Lawrence of Arabia worked with. The Husseins, the Sharifs of Mecca and rulers of Hejaz, were
the hereditary enemies of the Sauds of Nejd.
After WWI, the Brits installed Husseins as rulers of both Transjordan and Iraq, which with
the Hejaz meant the Sauds were pretty much surrounded. The Sauds conquered the Hejaz in 1924,
despite lukewarm British support for the Hejaz.
Nobody in the world cared much about the Saudis one way or another until massive oil
fields were discovered, by Americans not Brits, starting in 1938. There was no reason they
should. Prior to that Saudi prominence in world affairs was about equal to that of Chad
today, and for much the same reason. Chad (and Saudi Arabia) had nothing anybody else
wanted.
'Putin stopped talking about the "Lisbon to Vladivostok" free trade area long ago" --
Michael Kenney
Putin was simply trying to sell Russia's application for EU membership with the
catch-phrase "Lisbon to Vladivostok". He continued that until the issue was triply mooted (1)
by implosion of EU growth and boosterism, (2) by NATO's aggressive stance, in effect taken by
NATO in Ukraine events and in the Baltics, and, (3) Russia's alliance with China.
It is surely still true that Russians think of themselves, categorically, as Europeans.
OTOH, we can easily imagine that Russians in Vladivostok look at things differently than do
Russians in St. Petersburg. Then again, Vladivostok only goes back about a century and a
half.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration.
I generally agree with your comment, but that part strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration.
While relations with Russia certainly haven't improved, how have they really worsened? The
second round of sanctions that Trump reluctantly approved have yet to be implemented by
Europe, which was the goal. And apart from that, what of substance has changed?
It's not surprising that 57 percent of the American people believe in Russian meddling.
Didn't two-thirds of the same crowd believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, too? The American
public is being brainwashed 24 hours a day all year long.
The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst
has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton
gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it.
This disinformation campaign might be the prelude to an upcoming war.
Right now, the US is run by jerks and idiots. Watch the video.
Only dumb people does not know that TRUMP IS NETANYAHU'S PUPPET.
The fifth column zionist jews are running the albino stooge and foreign policy in the
Middle East to expand Israel's interest against American interest that is TREASON. One of
these FIFTH COLUMNISTS is Jared Kushner. He should be arrested.
[The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held
views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist
line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign
policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also
long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.
Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of
state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not
appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on
Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with
Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete
withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran.
Bolton spoke with Trump by phone on Thursday about the paragraph in the deal that vowed it
would be "terminated" if there was any renegotiation, according to Politico. He was calling
Trump from Las Vegas, where he'd been meeting with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the third
major figure behind Trump's shift towards Israeli issues. Adelson is a Likud supporter who
has long been a close friend of Netanyahu's and has used his Israeli tabloid newspaper Israel
Hayomto support Netanyahu's campaigns. He was Trump's main campaign contributor in 2016,
donating $100 million. Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in
Washington -- especially with regard to Iran.]
Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It
means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources
and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital
the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US
debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will
steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in
Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple
Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington
must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate
their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain
its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to
success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington.
American dominance is very much tied to the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency,
and the rest of the world no longer want to fund this bankrupt, warlike state –
particularly the Chinese.
First, it confirms that the US did not want to see the jihadist extremists
defeated by Russia. These mainly-Sunni militias served as Washington's proxy-army
conducting an ambitious regime change operation which coincided with US strategic
ambitions.
The CIA run US/Israeli/ISIS alliance.
Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news
gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who
dictates what they can and can't say.
They are given the political line and they broadcast it.
The loosening of rules governing the dissemination of domestic propaganda coupled with
the extraordinary advances in surveillance technology, create the perfect conditions for
the full implementation of an American police state. But what is more concerning, is
that the primary levers of state power are no longer controlled by elected officials but by
factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people. That can only lead to trouble.
At some point Americans are going to get a "War on Domestic Terror" cheered along by the
media. More or less the arrest and incarceration of any opposition following the Soviet
Bolshevik model.
On the plus side, everyone now knows that the Anglo-US media from the NY Times to the
Economist, from WaPo to the Gruniard, and from the BBC to CNN, the CBC and Weinstein's
Hollywood are a worthless bunch of depraved lying bastards.
Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt,
compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most
people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of
mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into
something much worse.
The thing is, no matter how thick the mental cages are, and how carefully they are
maintained by the daily massive injections of "certified" truth (via MSM), along with
neutralizing or compromising of "troublemakers", the presence of multiple alternative sources
in the age of Internet makes people to slip out of these cages one by one, and as the last
events show – with acceleration.
It means that there's a fast approaching tipping point after which it'd be impossible for
those in power both to keep a nice "civilized" face and to control the "cage-free"
population. So, no matter how the next war will be called, it will be the war against the
free Internet and free people. That's probably why N. Korean leader has no fear to start
one.
All government secrecy is a curse on mankind. Trump is releasing the JFK murder files to the public. Kudos! Let us hope he will follow up with a full 9/11 investigation.
The objective was to push new administration into the corner from which it could not
improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he wanted to during the campaign.
Good point. That was probably one of the objectives (and from the point of view of the
deep-state, perhaps the most important objective) of the "Russia hacked our democracy"
narrative, in addition to the general deligitimization of the Trump administration.
And, keep in mind, Washington's Sunni proxies were not a division of the Pentagon; they
were entirely a CIA confection: CIA recruited, CIA-armed, CIA-funded and
CIA-trained.
Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign
nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's
that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six
month actions – they go on and on.)
Are committees of six congressman and six senators, who meet in secret, just avoiding the
grave constitutional questions of war? We the People cannot even interrogate these
politicians. (These politicians make big money in the secrecy swamp when they leave
office.)
Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are
we attacking with drones? Where is congress?
Spying is one thing – covert action is another – covert is wrong – it
goes against world order. Every year after 9/11 they say things are worse – give them
more money more power and they will make things safe. That is BS!
9/11 has opened the flood gates to the US government attacking at will, the various
peoples of this Earth. That is NOT our prerogative.
We are being exceptionally arrogant.
Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies.
"... Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. ..."
"... The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player. ..."
"... Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance. ..."
"... Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline. ..."
"... Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. ..."
"... A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions ..."
"... Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination. ..."
Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite
that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite
inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. Alternative social forces, like
the ones behind Trump's presidential triumph, only have a limited impact on domestic and ultimately
on foreign policy. A conceptual detour and a brief on history and on Trump's domestic setting when
he was elected will help clarifying these theses.
Beyond the different costumes that it wears (dealing with ideology, international law, and even
religion), foreign policy follows domestic policy. The domestic policy actors are the social forces
at work at a given point of time, mainly the economic agents and their ambitions (in their multiple
expressions), including the ruling power elite. Society's aspirations not only relate to material
welfare, but also to ideological priorities that population segments may have at a given point of
time.
From America's initial days until the mid 1800s, there seems to have been a broad alignment of
US foreign policy with the wishes of its power elite and other social forces. America's expansionism,
a fundamental bulwark of its foreign policy from early days, reflected the need to fulfill its growing
population's ambitions for land and, later on, the need to find foreign markets for its excess production,
initially agricultural and later on manufacturing. It can be said that American foreign policy was
broadly populist at that time. The power elite was more or less aligned in achieving these expansionist
goals and was able to provide convenient ideological justification through the writings of Jefferson
and Madison, among others.
As the country expanded, diverging interests became stronger and ultimately differing social forces
caused a significant fracture in society. The American Civil War was the climax of the conflicted
interests between agricultural and manufacturing led societies. Fifty years later, a revealing manifestation
of this divergence (which survived the Civil War), as it relates to foreign policy, is found during
the early days of the Russian Revolution when, beyond the ideological revulsion of Bolshevism, the
US was paralyzed between the agricultural and farming businesses seeking exports to Russia and the
domestic extractive industries interested in stopping exports of natural resources from this country.
The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the
ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's
aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic
forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment,
as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War
II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player.
Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War
II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces
shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time.
The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence
of NATO, for instance.
Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable
to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown.
Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in
the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the
bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened
and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict
across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline.
Trump won his presidency because he was able to get support from the country's growing frustrated
white population. His main social themes (bringing jobs to America by stopping the decline of its
manufacturing industry, preventing further US consumer dependence on foreign imports and halting
immigration) fitted well with the electors' anger. Traditional populist themes linked to foreign
policy (like Russophobia) did not play a big role in the last election. But whether or not the Trump
administration can align with the ruling power elite in a manner that addresses the key social and
economic needs of the American people is still to be seen.
Back to foreign policy, we need to distinguish between Trump's style of government and his administration's
actions. At least until now, focusing excessively on Trump's style has dangerously distracted from
his true intentions. One example is the confusion about his initial stance on NATO which was simplistically
seen as highly critical to the very existence of this organization. On NATO, all that Trump really
cared was to achieve a "fair" sharing of expenditures with other members and to press them to
honor
their funding commitments.
From immigration to defense spending, there is nothing irrational about Trump's foreign policy
initiatives, as they just reflect a different reading on the American people's aspirations and, consequently,
they attempt to rely on supporting points within the power elite which are different from the ones
used in the past.
Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge
it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues,
will consolidate its economic domination. A far-reaching lesson, although still being ignored, is
that China's economic might is showing that capitalism as understood in the West is not winning,
much less in its American format. It also shows that democracy may not be that relevant, as it is
not necessarily a corollary or a condition for economic development. Perhaps it even shows the superiority
of China's economic model, but this is a different matter.
As Trump becomes more aware about his limitations, he has naturally reversed to the basic imprints
of America's traditional foreign policy, particularly concerning defense. His emphasis on a further
increase in defense spending is not done for prestigious or national security reasons, but as an
attempt to preserve a job generating infrastructure without considering the catastrophic consequences
that it may cause.
On Iran, Obama's initiative to seek normalization was an attempt to walk a fine line (and to find
a less conflictive path) between supporting the US traditional Middle East allies (mainly the odd
combination of Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) and recognizing Iran's growing aspirations. Deep
down, Obama was trying to acknowledge Iran's historical viability as a country and a society that
will not disappear from the map, while Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, may not be around in a few
years. Trump's Iran policy until now only represents a different weighing of priorities, although
it is having far reaching consequences on America's credibility as a reliable contractual party in
international affairs.
In the case of Afghanistan, Trump's decision to increase boots on the ground does not break the
inertia of US past administrations. Aside from temporary containment, an increasing military presence
or a change in tactics will not alter fundamentally this reality.
Concerning Russia, and regardless of what Trump has said, actions speak more than words. A continuous
deterioration of relations seems inevitable.
Trump will also learn, if he has not done so already, about the growth of multipolar forces in
world's events. Russia has mastered this reality for several years and is quite skillful at using
it as a basic tool of its own foreign goals. Our multipolar world will expand, and Trump may even
inadvertently exacerbate it through its actions (for instance in connection with the different stands
taken by the US and its European allies concerning Iran).
While fulfilling the aspirations of the American people seems more difficult within the existing
capitalist framework, there are also growing apprehensions coming from America's power elite as it
becomes more frustrated due to its incapacity of being more effective at the world level. America's
relative adolescence in world's history will become more and more apparent in the coming years.
A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its
different dimensions. The US has never suffered the consequences of an international conflict in
its own backyard. The American Civil War, despite all the suffering that it caused, was primarily
a domestic event with no foreign intervention (contrary to the wishes of the Confederation). The
deep social and psychological damage caused by war is not part of America's consciousness as it is,
for instance in Germany, Russia or Japan. America is insensitive to the lessons of history because
it has a very short history itself.
Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there
is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined
with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous
combination.
Oscar Silva-Valladares is a former investment banker that has lived and worked in North and
Latin America, Western & Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the Philippines and Western Africa.
He currently chairs Davos International Advisory, an advisory firm focused on strategic consulting
across emerging markets.
Have you ever noticed how whenever someone inconveniences the dominant western power
structure, the entire political/media class rapidly becomes very, very interested in letting us
know how evil and disgusting that person is? It's true of the leader of every nation which
refuses to allow itself to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized power alliance, it's
true of anti-establishment political candidates, and it's true of WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange.
Corrupt and unaccountable power uses its
political and
media influence to smear Assange because, as far as the interests of corrupt and
unaccountable power are concerned, killing his reputation is as good as killing him. If
everyone can be paced into viewing him with hatred and revulsion, they'll be far less likely to
take WikiLeaks publications seriously, and they'll be far more likely to consent to Assange's
imprisonment, thereby
establishing a precedent for the future prosecution of leak-publishing journalists around
the world. Someone can be speaking 100 percent truth to you, but if you're suspicious of him
you won't believe anything he's saying. If they can manufacture that suspicion with total or
near-total credence, then as far as our rulers are concerned it's as good as putting a bullet
in his head.
Those of us who value truth and light need to fight this smear campaign in order to keep our
fellow man from signing off on a major leap in the direction of Orwellian dystopia, and a big
part of that means being able to argue against those smears and disinformation wherever they
appear. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any kind of centralized source of information
which comprehensively debunks all the smears in a thorough and engaging way, so with the help
of hundreds of
tips from my
readers and social media followers
I'm going to attempt to make one here. What follows is my attempt at creating a tool kit people
can use to fight against Assange smears wherever they encounter them, by refuting the
disinformation with truth and solid argumentation.
This article is an ongoing project which will be updated regularly where it appears on
Medium and caitlinjohnstone.com as new information comes in and new smears spring up in need of
refutation.
So, you have a very odd circumstance where we have a lot of discussion about Russia's
influence here. They have got nothing. They have sanctions, nothing. As a journalist, I find it
quite amazing that there's no question raised with Pelosi, with Schumer, with any of the
leading Democrats. What is going on? You attack Trump for everything. How come you don't attack
him for giving Netanyahu a blank check to do what he wants? It must be frustrating to an
observer like yourself, no?
Gordon begins her
comparison by exploring the main charge levied against Nazis during the Nuremberg trials, which was
committing a crime against peace due to Germany's breach of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which, she
explains, "essentially outlawed war." American prosecutors in the mid-20th century insisted that this
initial crime was the unlawful act from which all other crimes committed by the Nazis originated.
"By comparison," the author tells Scheer, "I look at the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to make
an unnecessary and illegal war, both in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq.
"It's very clear from the documentary record that exists that the main reason people were being
tortured [by the U.S. before the Iraq War began] was because they wanted to get somebody somewhere to say
that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida, so that there could be an excuse for invading Iraq,"
Gordon says.
Throughout the so-called war on terror, the ethics expert says, the U.S. has also violated several
rules set forth in just-war theory, including what constitutes collateral damage and proportionality, in
its slaughter of countless Iraqi civilians.
"We took what had been one of the most vibrant, developed and cosmopolitan countries in that part of
the world -- which was Iraq -- and we essentially did what [U.S. military officials] used to say they wanted to
do to North Vietnam: bombed it back to the Stone Age," Gordon says.
Listen to Scheer and Gordon discuss a range of moral issues that Americans for several generations
have swept under the rug as the government both openly and secretly commits crimes in their name abroad.
You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player.
Robert Scheer:
Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence.
The intelligence comes from my guests. In this case, it's Rebecca Gordon. And she has her doctorate in
ethics and social theory. I teach ethics at USC; you teach at the University of San Francisco, which is a
Catholic school, so presumably with all their difficulties they're still concerned about ethics. And
actually we have a good pope, in major ways, who's dealing with the subject I want to talk to you about:
the ethics of war making, and the violence that has been unleashed on the world. And you wrote two very
important books, maybe the most important in some ways. One is called
Mainstreaming Torture,
and
another is called
American Nuremberg.
So the question I want to ask you, you know, because we've
always treated the crimes of others, particularly the Germans, the worst crimes of modern history, as an
aberration in the development of the human race. Those people went berserk, crazy, and they were evil;
now we have another category, Muslims are evil, they do terrible things. We're recording this on a day
where in New Zealand, some 48 people trying to practice their religion were killed. So we see a lot of
crime against Muslims, as there was obviously a lot of crimes against Jews and other people. And in your
writing, you're very clear that the crimes of Nuremberg, of the Nazis, are a low level of evil. But the
real question is, the Germans are so much like Americans. They were–largest number of immigrants in this
country were Germans; they're a white, Anglo-Saxon population; they're highly educated, probably the
highest level of music and science at that point. And can it happen here?
Rebecca Gordon:
And that, of course, is the question many of us have been asking at
least since the election of 2016, and probably before that. And the answer in some ways, of course, is
that it did happen here with the invasion of the Americas by people from Europe, and the destruction of
all the peoples who were living here at the time. So there has been a genocide on this continent and in
South America that, you know, we just forget about, because it happened a while ago. But coming to
Nuremberg, what I was trying to do in the book is to say how important the principle was that was
established at Nuremberg, which is that international law is real law. And when you break international
law, there are genuine consequences, and people can and should be held accountable. So what I looked at
was the conduct of this so-called War on Terror in the post-September 11th period, and asked: Could the
United States be accused of the same categories of crimes for which the Nazi leadership were held
accountable? And there were three categories that were established by the prosecution, and these were
crimes against peace; ordinary war crimes, which had already been well described in the body of
international law; and a new category, crimes against humanity, which was created in order to take in the
enormity of what had been done in Europe by the Nazis. But what was very interesting is that it was
Americans who insisted that the first of these crimes should be crimes against peace. So what's that?
That means making an aggressive war. It means starting a war that was not a war of self-defense, that was
not a war of so-called necessity, but making an aggressive war. Why was that illegal? It was illegal
because Germany and the United States and many other countries in Europe had signed a treaty in 1928
called the Kellogg–Briand Treaty, which essentially outlawed war. It said that nations will not use war
to settle their disputes. And the argument that the U.S. prosecutors made was that all the other crimes
that the Germans committed actually sprang from this first crime of making this aggressive, unnecessary,
illegal war. And so by comparison, I look at the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to make an
unnecessary and illegal war, both in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq. And just as the Nazi crimes
arose from this making of a war that was wrong and illegal, the U.S. crimes–and specifically now because
my area of expertise is torture, I look at the reasons why the United States became involved in torture.
And in the beginning, it's very clear from the documentary record that exists, that the main reason
people were being tortured, both in the CIA dark sites and also at Guantanamo under the Department of
Defense, was because they wanted to get somebody somewhere to say that Saddam Hussein was in league with
Al-Qaeda, so that there could be an excuse for invading Iraq. And so the other crimes–
RS:
But wait, let's be very clear about that. This would be like the Nazis saying,
Jewish bankers destroyed our economy and colluded with Western powers, and therefore made life untenable
in Germany. That was the vicious scapegoating argument to justify Nazi expansion and destruction of other
societies. So this thing of whether Bush–you know, it's kind of become part of folklore–they lied us into
the war in Iraq. But what you're saying, and very clearly, the very idea of going to war in Iraq over the
9/11 incident, which not only did Saddam Hussein have–
RG:
Nothing to do with.
RS:
–nothing to do with, but actually he was opposed to Al-Qaeda, and it was the one
country where Al-Qaeda could not operate in, was Iraq. But instead of going to war with Pakistan, or
going to war, you know, elsewhere–no. We–
RG:
Or Saudi Arabia.
RS:
Well, of course, Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 hijackers–
RG:
Came from.
RS:
–came from. You could actually make an argument to go into–hey, you attacked us,
you supplied the money and so forth. No, we whitewashed the Saudi Arabia thing and went to war with Iraq.
So your analogy, listeners should understand, is very precise. It is inventing an excuse, a defensive
excuse, to engage an offensive invasion.
RG:
Exactly. And from that spring all of these other kinds of crimes. So then I look
at ordinary war crimes, and if you go over the Geneva Conventions and the various other laws of war, you
can see that there are a number of categories of crimes. Many of them have to do with failing to make the
distinction between civilians and fighters, combatants. And of course the Bush-Cheney administration very
early on decided to create a third, nonexistent category called unlawful combatants. But this designation
doesn't exist in the International Red Cross's understanding; it doesn't exist in the Geneva
Convention's. It was just a convenient way of saying this particular group of people, whoever it is that
we choose to capture, detain forever, torture–they have no legal standing in the world. They exist
outside of international law.
RS:
So let me pick up on that also. And I don't want to lose the earlier thread of
the invention of war, and connecting with this incredibly important work you've done on torture. And you
made the statement, which I think people should ponder: the reason we were torturing these people was not
to get information about a future attack. We already had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and everything, we knew
everything about it, and so forth. The real reason for it was to invent an alibi for the invasion, to get
somebody to say Saddam Hussein was backing them. And I think that's a very important–a reason, by the
way, to read your book,
Mainstreaming Torture
; let me give a plug here. But this other argument
is also interesting, the whole idea of the noncombatant. And we are doing this interview at a time when
Chelsea Manning, formerly Bradley Manning, is in prison–
RG:
Yes.
RS:
–again, because they want to fabricate a story about WikiLeaks and all that, and
get everybody off the hook for all of the crimes and torture and everything they've done. But the
interesting thing is, if you look at what did WikiLeaks–and they were just like in the position of the
Washington Post
with the Pentagon Papers, they're the publisher–what did Chelsea Manning reveal?
She revealed the death of noncombatants, including journalists. So why don't you develop that a little
bit, because that is so critical to the moment, that no one–no one has been prosecuted for those attacks
that she revealed with the data. But she is now sitting in prison.
RG:
And this is, of course–the fate of whistleblowers all over the world, and
certainly in this country, is exactly that. That the matters that they have revealed disappear in a story
that becomes about the crimes of the revealer. And of course in the war in Iraq, there was tremendous
amounts of civilian death. And it falls into a number of categories; one category is those people who had
actually been detained and were being held by U.S. forces. And for example at Abu Ghraib, we know–which
is the prison outside of Baghdad that had been Saddam Hussein's major torture site, and which the U.S.
decided in its wisdom would be the perfect place to hold detainees, and where we know a group of
reservists ended up torturing people. But the real torture was going on upstairs, by the employees of
various C.I.A. contractors, and by the C.I.A. itself. And that's where people actually died. So there's
that whole category of people, but that's a much smaller category than the category of ordinary civilians
whose lives were either ended or destroyed by the regular U.S. use of warfare in places like Fallujah and
other cities. So that we took what had been one of the most vibrant, developed, and cosmopolitan
countries in that part of the world–which was Iraq–and we essentially did what they used to say they
wanted to do to North Vietnam, bombed it back to the Stone Age. And so in just war theory, there are
these rules about discriminating between combatants and noncombatants, and you are permitted a certain
number of civilian deaths as long as they are side effects of your attempt to go after some legitimate
military target. And this is called collateral damage; it's, collateral means on the side, right? But in
fact, in Iraq, we don't know because there are many different counts, but anywhere between 500,000 and a
million people have died in the U.S. invasion and occupation in Iraq. And when you lay that against the
3,000 people who died on September 11th, none of whom were killed by anyone even from Iraq, you also see
that we have violated another rule of just war theory, which is proportionality. We have destroyed human
life out of all proportion.
RS:
And let me just–you know, it's so difficult to grapple with these questions. And
you are teaching at one of the major Catholic universities here.
RG:
It's a Jesuit university, and that's a little different. And these are the
left-wing Jesuits.
RS:
I'm not putting down your school. [Laughter] Hey, I teach ethics at the
University of Southern California–
RG:
Enough said.
RS:
–and clearly, yes, we are ethically challenged at this moment. I was about to
actually celebrate the pope in this regard. And so there is a certain necessity for being consistent in
the application of these principles, or they mean nothing.
RG:
Exactly.
RS:
And I think that's the body of your life's work, to remind us of that. So in a
sense, you are at a good place where you're teaching. I'm just wondering, how is this disregarded so
widely? I mean, people make a big deal about don't kill the unborn child. You know, I could see arguments
about that. But if that's the beginning of a consistent, pro-life position, yes, it makes certain sense.
If it's the end of a pro-life position, and then you end welfare and you don't care what happens to the
baby and so forth, you're into a deep immorality. And it seems to me you're at a very interesting place.
Because for better or worse, this pope seems to be the only one able to challenge, let's call it U.S.
imperialism or imperial ventures, on a moral basis.
RG:
I think that's right. He certainly is doing a better job of that than either of
his last two predecessors.
RS:
Or the major–
RG:
Other major, yeah. No, I think that's right. And I think, you know, it's
interesting that at USF, we have Reserve Officers' Training Corps. We have people who are training to be
second lieutenants when they leave university in the U.S. Army. And I have had students tell me, I had a
student from Guam who told me, you know, Professor Gordon, I know that when they send me to basic
training, they're going to try to take me apart and change me from being a person into being a soldier.
And I just want you to know that I'm not going to let them do that to me. He said, but you know, ROTC was
my ticket off the island, and I have a duty now to follow through with my promise. And I just, my heart
broke for him. Because what they do to you in basic training is actually a slightly lighter version of
what they do when they train torturers. Everyone who becomes a torturer–and people don't just torture on
a whim; people are trained to be torturers. And part of that training involves being brutalized first
yourself, and having survived that ordeal, you emerge with this sense of yourself as an elite person who
therefore has the right, as a superior being, and now the skills, to turn around and abuse and torture
people who come along behind you. And the U.S. has its own methods of training, and its own locations
where this happens.
RS:
[omission for station break] I'm back after our break with Professor and Doctor
Rebecca Gordon. And we were just talking about how we train people to be torturers. And this is
fascinating, because if you don't consider this question, that you're getting basically good people to do
horrible things, you're missing the whole point. But I just want to say something about the good German.
Because the basic appeal of Hitler was the solid–you know, he was going to make Germany great again. And
this is, I'm not demonizing Germans here, but Donald Trump's father was obviously familiar with this in
his lineage, in that tradition. And the whole appeal, even though this dictator Hitler was this
funny-looking guy, hardly the Aryan model–was to a notion of order. And even in the concentration camps,
keeping direct bookkeeping of how many teeth you pulled and gold you found in the teeth, and so forth.
But it's not–manners. They had the manners. And what bothers me about the very simplistic Trumpwashing
that we're going through now, that Trump is uniquely evil–it's all about manners. He's crude, he's
boorish, he's a misogynist, he says these things, he does these things, he grabs people's private parts,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's not his crime. His crime is he's continuing a tradition of
bombing people who we have no right to bomb. And so I want to push this a little bit more, the whole
question of manners. Because what Nuremberg did is unmask the manners. And this was also true in the
Eichmann trial that Hannah Arendt talked about, when she talked about the banality of evil. Evil can be
masked by manners. Smile while you learn to kill, right?
RG:
That's exactly right. And I especially know, when you talk about the meticulous
records that they kept, this is a hallmark of torture regimes all over the world. This very careful
record-keeping, this documentation of the work that's been done–because there's no shame about the work.
The process of becoming a torturer includes developing a sense of yourself as doing something uniquely
courageous, uniquely necessary, a unique sacrifice that you as the torturer, more in sorrow than in
anger, are being forced to do by the tremendous evil that confronts you. And so you're absolutely right
that especially among upper-class liberals in the United States, the objection to Trump is his manner,
and his manner is crude and obnoxious, as you say. But what he's really doing is not only continuing to
kill people, and in fact increasing the number of drone strikes, for example, over the already great
number that the Obama administration–
RS:
A man of impeccable manners. Barack Obama. I even feel that way about Bill
Clinton. When Bill Clinton's on television, I smile. I like him. He's warm, he's encouraging. And then I
forget, he's the guy that ended the welfare system, for example. Yes.
RG:
Exactly. Exactly right. And you know, Trump is now with his, I don't know if
you've taken a look at his so-called budget, but he's planning to take away our Medicare and Medicaid,
just in case you might have wanted to have healthcare. Obviously, that's dead on arrival. But
nonetheless, the point is that he is masking what he is actually doing by distracting us with this
bombastic display. And in fact, one of his officials in the EPA actually recently said exactly that, that
they've been able to make all these regulatory changes because every time it looks as though the press is
going to notice, Trump fires off a tweet, and everybody's like, ooh, shiny!
RS:
This is a really important point. Because if you look at the Nuremberg Trial or
you look at the Eichmann trial, these people all hid behind manners. They were well spoken, they were
well educated, and they were following a Charlie Chaplinesque figure, a ludicrous figure; Hitler was
certainly a, yes, he was a more ludicrous figure than Trump, in terms of manners and style and
everything. But his popularity was largely based on being a sort of comic figure, in a way. He inspired a
whole nation of logical, scientific, well-educated–probably the best-educated population in the world.
And so I've had this experience, I've talked to people in the business community and they say well, you
know, but Trump is good for business. And we did have a mess before, and then look at what's happened to
unemployment, and so forth and so on. And so we are really at the limit of manners as a guide. And that's
really what Nuremberg is about. Nuremberg was unmasking manners. Now, we didn't continue after that; we
had the brief Eichmann trial. But what we didn't really ever do in this country–and this is why I want
people to listen or to read your book, better to read it, although listening is great–we never really
took apart the Nazi experience. Because we wanted the ex-Nazis and other Germans to be our allies in the
Cold War. So we have never had that investigation of how an incredibly well-educated, Christian,
law-and-order nation goes into madness.
RG:
Not only that, we never did what the next step was supposed to be, which is
establish a venue in which U.S. war crimes could also be examined in World War II. And there were a
number of people who developed the Nuremberg principles, and worked on the original trial, who really
honestly believed that this would be the prelude to establishing an international court for trying
offenses committed during war, and expected that the United States would in fact be held accountable, not
only for the firebombing of German cities, but for the destruction of up to 60 Japanese cities which were
constructed of wood and paper and reduced to ashes, in a campaign that really very few people in this
country even know about. Although Robert McNamara actually describes it in that excellent documentary–
RS:
The Fog of War
, yeah.
RG:
--
The Fog of War.
RS:
And it's excellent because you see that McNamara was involved in designing the
bombing of Japan and Germany. But also, I mean–like, we talk about Korea. Oh, North Korea, animals, and
Kim Il-sung and his progeny–nobody I ever run into knows we leveled every single structure in North Korea
during the Korean War. Again, a war that was not needed; it was an attempt to get a Chinese communist who
had come to power the year before. I mean, it's bizarre. Then you look at what we did to North Vietnam,
and the carpet bombing, and everything. So this is critical. American exceptionalism–I've mentioned this
a number of times on this podcast–to my mind, is a really, it's the most profound problem that American
people have to face.
RG:
It's a vicious idea. And it's been taken up in different ways by both the liberal
democratic world, and by the, you know, the hard right in this country. The idea that by definition, the
United States can do no wrong, because we are the leader of the so-called free world. Which is a locution
I don't even understand anymore, given that we're not competing anymore with the unfree communist world
that supposedly we were in opposition to. But the idea that–and this was the argument, actually, that the
Bush administration made about torture. By definition, the United States is a country that does not
torture. Therefore, whatever it is that you are observing, it cannot be torture, because that would be a
logical contradiction, because we are the nation that doesn't do that. And it's almost impossible to
enter into that understanding of the world, because no amount of evidence that you can present to the
person who believes that is going to break that worldview. And so American exceptionalism allows us not
only to have military bases in over 100 countries around the world; not only to conduct secret wars that
the people in this country don't even know about–we just suddenly woke up and said, oh my gosh, we're
having a war in Somalia! Who knew. And not to mention Yemen–I was very heartened to see that the Senate
had actually voted with the House to reprimand the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia in Yemen. But leave
that aside. This whole idea that we are a unique bearer of human rights and democracy in the world–it's
very hard to break, because it's a concealed, hermetically sealed worldview that people imbibe in grade
school. And they imbibe it as they grow up, and it takes a lot of effort to break through. And one of the
sad things that I see, especially with younger people that I've worked with in organizations like War
Times/Tiempo de Guerras, is that once you've broken through, it then becomes very hard to imagine that
the United States is not permanently and always going to be the hegemon. It almost, having made the
effort and understood the danger the U.S. actually presents to the world, it becomes almost impossible to
recognize when the U.S. actually loses one. And I think it's very important we claim our victories.
RS:
Well you know, you hit it clearly with this, the abandonment by the Democratic
Party of any serious oppositional role. [With] control of the House now, there should be hearings about
what are we doing in these different countries. And instead they're actually criticizing Trump for being,
kind of selling out by getting out of Afghanistan, or not fighting more aggressively in Syria. And we've
actually sort of lost the peace movement, in a way, is a theme I get back to once in a while here. And we
forget, actually, most of the terrible wars since World War II have been fought under democrats, and
financed enthusiastically. So I want to get back to basic moral principles, because they don't mean
anything if you're not consistent. You have to call out people on the left or on the right, you have to
call out war crimes, you have to call out the attacks on homosexuals, black people, Jewish
people–anybody, any other, and so forth. It's something that Jesus reminded us of in the tale of the Good
Samaritan, if you can believe that Luke is the word of God, and not the others, [Laughter] where the Good
Samaritan doesn't appear. I don't want to get into your whole Catholic university thing here. But it's
interesting to me, this notion of consistency. Because it's painful to be consistent. It requires
examining the motives of people you voted for. And this was the problem of Germany: people forget Hitler
was elected. People forget Germany had all the trappings of a–
RG:
Of a democracy.
RS:
–of a democracy. And more important, the conceit that somehow
education–education, and manners–will prevent genocide is a lie. Maybe it's time to recognize this whole
notion of American greatness is the end of thought; if you are by definition great, there's nothing to
question. And it seems to me that main religions that we've had, their one demand that they have in
common is you must question not only your nation's morality, but your own. The devil is in you. We have
to struggle with this devil, we have to struggle with these forces. Yet as a nation, we think America the
beautiful absolves us all. And that's what you're saying in your torture book. That basically, you take
these young recruits that have a very limited knowledge of our history, and you convince them that they
are the agents, really, of a higher power.
RG:
Absolutely right. And in doing that, you pervert the very virtues that we say the
United States is supposed to represent. The virtue of courage, for example, becomes the courage to
suppress your squeamishness at causing pain to another human being. And justice becomes the idea that you
give the punishment first and the trial later, if ever. Right? And this is exactly what we see in the way
our detainees have been treated. And honestly, another locus of this that we don't often recognize is
what goes on on the U.S. soil prisons and jails in this country, where we have 2.2 million people locked
up in cages, and where torture is a regular feature of prison life. It's no accident that the reservists
who were downstairs at Abu Ghraib, they were from West Virginia, and most of them in their civilian life
were prison guards. They were corrections officers. And there's a famous email that one of the
ringleaders, Charles Graner, sent home which said: The Christian in me knows it's wrong, but the
corrections officer in me loves to see a grown man piss himself. And that is exactly the attitude of the
people who are caging up 2.2 [million] largely, vastly disproportionately, black and Latino, Latinx,
people in this country today. And so torture actually is a red thread that runs through the entire
history of the United States, beginning with the Native American population. Slavery itself would not
have been as successful as it was at allowing the amassing of capital–which is, you know if you're a good
Marxist, the congealed labor of these unpaid, captive people, who when they got to the United States, or
what was not even yet the United States, would not work unless, the farmers figured out, they were caused
physical pain. And it was the use, the concerted, intentional, well-documented use of physical pain in
the cotton fields a century later that forced people to develop a physical technology of their bodies
that allowed them, in the course of 40 years, to multiply by eight times the amount of cotton a human
being could pick in a day, because the alternative was to have the skin taken off your back with a whip.
RS:
You know, increasingly in my life I have been a bad Marxist. And I've embraced
some truths that seemed to come out of these religions that, growing up, really frightened me or were
intimidating, and also were on the wrong side. But let's take it back to the pope, let's take it back to
the Jesuit school, University of San Francisco, where you teach. There's a wisdom that I daresay Karl
Marx did not sufficiently embrace. It is that we all have a capacity for evil. That we have virtue; we
care, we bring children into this world, we nurture them, we care about others, we can cry over a
refugee. On the other hand, the 2.2 million–I've been on Death Row quite recently interviewing Kevin
Cooper, who I believe is an innocent man. And fortunately, the governor of California has suspended the
death penalty, and I think Gavin Newsom deserves great credit for his courage. But–and it is a cage, and
we don't care; we don't care about these people. And we don't care about the people we bomb, and we don't
care–they're expendable, they're throwaway people. You want them out of sight, out of mind. It's very
deliberate. And the problem is, if Marxism were accurate [Laughter]–I don't know, not too many people
care, anyway, but since the two of us are talking about it–you know, if it was just the economic motive,
we'd probably do better. The libertarians, for instance–to the degree that they're right, they're right,
yes. But the wars don't make sense. And growing that cotton that way didn't ultimately make sense. And
slavery didn't make sense. Except–except if we have a barbaric part of our nature, if we have a need to
exploit others. Not just for economic reasons; if power corrupts. And this, not to quote Marx, but to
quote Jefferson or Washington, these people who came to power in this great experiment of ours, with all
its contradictions–I repeat this ad nauseum on these podcasts. All their, yes, white, male, I got it, I
got it, slave owners, the whole thing–they were on to a wisdom about their own corruption. And the reason
we have the First Amendment, the reason we have all the amendments, the reason we have separation of
powers, is that power corrupts.
RG:
Absolutely.
RS:
And what comes through in these torture stories and so forth–I talked, I have one
student, just like you, I've had students go off to these wars. I had one who ended up at Abu Ghraib and
at Guantanamo, a reserve officer. He was outside with the families. I'm not going to compromise his
privacy. But he told me what shook him up was he was being told all these things about the people inside
the jail, but his job was to herd the families that were trying to visit. And he could not deny that
there was some kind of humanity going on with these people inside, or why would all these people care so
much about them. And I think we need to be reminded of our own capacity for evil. I think that's what
Nuremberg was about, that the people who commit evil don't present as evil and are not inherently more
evil than we are.
RG:
Exactly.
RS:
And we have to struggle with this. And the good liberals who accommodate this,
and say well, you know, Barack Obama had to do this with the drones, and governor so-and-so had to kill
these people even though he didn't believe in the death penalty–we have to challenge that. Because that
is the fount of evil.
RG:
So, my favorite virtue, Aristotle calls it phronesis, or practical wisdom. St.
Thomas Aquinas calls it prudentia, prudence. But what it really is, is that capacity of the mind that
allows you to actually understand the moral questions that are in front of you. And not to be fooled by
the fog of American exceptionalism, by the distraction of a Trumpian tweet, but to be able to actually
examine and really see, in this case, the effects of U.S. policy on actual human beings around the world.
And this requires a kind of courage to be willing to accept that your own self-understanding, and the
understanding of your people, your country, might be wrong. But it also requires a willingness to look,
to actually see and examine what's in front of you. And if there's one virtue I would like to see
developed, and that I try to develop in my own students, it's this virtue of practical wisdom, where you
actually are responsible for what the effects of your actions can reasonably be foreseen to be. And this
is something that we in the United States really don't have. It's trained out of us, we don't have it.
And part of it, yes, is that capacity to understand that the ability to do evil things exists in all of
us, and it's also to understand that when you multiply that capacity by the technological and economic
power that a country like the United States has, the results–well, the results
Powerful video about US propaganda machine. Based on Iraq War propaganda efforts. This is a
formidable machine.
Shows quite vividly that most US politicians of Bush era were war criminal by Nuremberg
Tribunal standards. Starting with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They planned the war of aggression
against Iraq long before 9/11.
"... Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers. ..."
"... Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him to act. This was the beginning of downward slope. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer. ..."
"... The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have been there anyway. ..."
"... No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful way ..."
"... " ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people." ..."
"... All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests. ..."
"... A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated the 98% poor, to stay rich. When there were insurrections federal troops restored order. Also FDR put down strikes with troops. ..."
"... The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter. ..."
"... "The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story after another would achieve the desired result " ..."
"... But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world. ..."
"... I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and facts don't matter! ..."
"... Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about intimidating them. ..."
"... The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was, and that means as bad as Hell itself. ..."
"... Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the 60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally flawed. I would say more so. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. ..."
"... That pre-9/11 "cooperation" nearly destroyed Russia. Nobody in Russia (except, perhaps, for Pussy Riot) wants a return to the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it. ..."
"... [The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank. ..."
"... Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran. ..."
"... Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington. ..."
"... Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who dictates what they can and can't say. ..."
"... Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt, compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into something much worse. ..."
"... Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six month actions – they go on and on.) ..."
"... Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are we attacking with drones? Where is congress? ..."
"... Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies. ..."
Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call
the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a
brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers.
Again Mike Whitney does not get it. Though in the first part of the article I thought he
would. He was almost getting there. The objective was to push new administration into the
corner from which it could not improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he
wanted to during the campaign.
Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion
with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of
paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which
the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe
or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him
to act. This was the beginning of downward slope.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by
all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the
zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer.
The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine
with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have
been there anyway.
No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The
Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they
have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful
way
The one thing I am not positive about. If the elite really believe that Russia is a
threat, then Americans have done psych ops on themselves.
The US was only interested in Ukraine because it was there. Next in line on a map. The
rather shocking disinterest in investing money -- on both sides -- is inexplicable if it was
really important. Most of it would be a waste -- but still. The US stupidly spent $5 billion
on something -- getting duped by politicians and got theoretical regime change, but it was
hell to pry even $1 billion for real economic aid.
" ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people."
All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were
the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests.
I am reading Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the USA, 1492 to the Present.
A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated
the 98% poor, to stay rich.
When there were insurrections federal troops restored order.
Also FDR put down strikes with troops.
You should be aware that Zinn's book is not, IMO, an honest attempt at writing history. It
is conscious propaganda intended to make Americans believe exactly what you are taking from
it.
The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America
and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and
Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter.
Until that fact changes Americans will continue to fight and die for Israel.
"The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and
unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident
Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story
after another would achieve the desired result "
But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out
neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions
fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world.
I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's
not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of
brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and
facts don't matter!
Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about
intimidating them.
Whitney is another author who declares the "Russians did it" narrative a psyop. He then
devotes entire columns to the psyop, "naww Russia didn't do it". There could be plenty to write about – recent laws that do undercut liberty, but no,
the Washington Post needs fake opposition to its fake news so you have guys like Whitney in
the less-mainstream fake news media.
So Brennan wanted revenge? Well that's simple enough to understand, without being too
stupid. But Whitney's whopper of a lie is what you're supposed to unquestionably believe. The
US has "rival political parties". Did you miss it?
The US is doing nothing more than acting as the British Empire 2.0. WASP culture was born of a Judaizing heresy: Anglo-Saxon Puritanism. That meant that the
WASP Elites of every are pro-Jewish, especially in order to wage war, physical and/or
cultural, against the vast majority of white Christians they rule.
By the early 19th century, The Brit Empire's Elites also had a strong, and growing, dose
of pro-Arabic/pro-Islamic philoSemitism. Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and
most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which
means being pro-Wahhabi and permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite
Mohammedans.
So, by the time of Victoria's high reign, the Brit WASP Elites were a strange brew of
hardcoree pro-Jewish and hardcore pro-Arabic/islamic. The US foreign policy of today is an
attempt to put those two together and force it on everyone and make it work.
The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the
Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless
lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was,
and that means as bad as Hell itself.
Fair enough. I didn't know that about the foreword. If accurate, that's a reasonable
approach for a book.
Here's the problem.
Back when O. Cromwell was the dictator of England, he retained an artist to paint him. The
custom of the time was for artists to "clean up" their subjects, in a primitive form of
photoshopping.
OC being a religious fanatic, he informed the artist he wished to be portrayed as God had
made him, "warts and all." (Ollie had a bunch of unattractive facial warts.) Or the artist
wouldn't be paid.
Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the
60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major
role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally
flawed. I would say more so.
All I am asking is that American (and other) history be written "warts and all." The
triumphalist version is true, largely, and so is the Zinn version. Gone With the Wind
and Roots both portray certain aspects of the pre-war south fairly accurately..
America has been, and is, both evil and good. As is/was true of every human institution
and government in history. Personally, I believe America, net/net, has been one of the
greatest forces for human good ever. But nobody will realize that if only the negative side
of American history is taught.
"There must be something really dirty in Russigate that hasn't yet come out to generate
this level of panic."
You continue to claim what you cannot prove.
But then you are a Jews First Zionist.
Russia-Gate Jumps the Shark
Russia-gate has jumped the shark with laughable new claims about a tiny number of
"Russia-linked" social media ads, but the US mainstream media is determined to keep a
straight face
Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually
coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which means being pro-Wahhabi and
permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite Mohammedans.
Thanks for the laugh. During the 19th century, the Sauds were toothless, dirt-poor hicks
from the deep desert of zero importance on the world stage.
The Brits were not Saudi proponents, in fact promoting the Husseins of Hejaz, the guys
Lawrence of Arabia worked with. The Husseins, the Sharifs of Mecca and rulers of Hejaz, were
the hereditary enemies of the Sauds of Nejd.
After WWI, the Brits installed Husseins as rulers of both Transjordan and Iraq, which with
the Hejaz meant the Sauds were pretty much surrounded. The Sauds conquered the Hejaz in 1924,
despite lukewarm British support for the Hejaz.
Nobody in the world cared much about the Saudis one way or another until massive oil
fields were discovered, by Americans not Brits, starting in 1938. There was no reason they
should. Prior to that Saudi prominence in world affairs was about equal to that of Chad
today, and for much the same reason. Chad (and Saudi Arabia) had nothing anybody else
wanted.
'Putin stopped talking about the "Lisbon to Vladivostok" free trade area long ago" --
Michael Kenney
Putin was simply trying to sell Russia's application for EU membership with the
catch-phrase "Lisbon to Vladivostok". He continued that until the issue was triply mooted (1)
by implosion of EU growth and boosterism, (2) by NATO's aggressive stance, in effect taken by
NATO in Ukraine events and in the Baltics, and, (3) Russia's alliance with China.
It is surely still true that Russians think of themselves, categorically, as Europeans.
OTOH, we can easily imagine that Russians in Vladivostok look at things differently than do
Russians in St. Petersburg. Then again, Vladivostok only goes back about a century and a
half.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration.
I generally agree with your comment, but that part strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration.
While relations with Russia certainly haven't improved, how have they really worsened? The
second round of sanctions that Trump reluctantly approved have yet to be implemented by
Europe, which was the goal. And apart from that, what of substance has changed?
It's not surprising that 57 percent of the American people believe in Russian meddling.
Didn't two-thirds of the same crowd believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, too? The American
public is being brainwashed 24 hours a day all year long.
The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst
has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton
gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it.
This disinformation campaign might be the prelude to an upcoming war.
Right now, the US is run by jerks and idiots. Watch the video.
Only dumb people does not know that TRUMP IS NETANYAHU'S PUPPET.
The fifth column zionist jews are running the albino stooge and foreign policy in the
Middle East to expand Israel's interest against American interest that is TREASON. One of
these FIFTH COLUMNISTS is Jared Kushner. He should be arrested.
[The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held
views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist
line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign
policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also
long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.
Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of
state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not
appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on
Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with
Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete
withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran.
Bolton spoke with Trump by phone on Thursday about the paragraph in the deal that vowed it
would be "terminated" if there was any renegotiation, according to Politico. He was calling
Trump from Las Vegas, where he'd been meeting with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the third
major figure behind Trump's shift towards Israeli issues. Adelson is a Likud supporter who
has long been a close friend of Netanyahu's and has used his Israeli tabloid newspaper Israel
Hayomto support Netanyahu's campaigns. He was Trump's main campaign contributor in 2016,
donating $100 million. Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in
Washington -- especially with regard to Iran.]
Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It
means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources
and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital
the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US
debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will
steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in
Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple
Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington
must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate
their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain
its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to
success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington.
American dominance is very much tied to the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency,
and the rest of the world no longer want to fund this bankrupt, warlike state –
particularly the Chinese.
First, it confirms that the US did not want to see the jihadist extremists
defeated by Russia. These mainly-Sunni militias served as Washington's proxy-army
conducting an ambitious regime change operation which coincided with US strategic
ambitions.
The CIA run US/Israeli/ISIS alliance.
Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news
gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who
dictates what they can and can't say.
They are given the political line and they broadcast it.
The loosening of rules governing the dissemination of domestic propaganda coupled with
the extraordinary advances in surveillance technology, create the perfect conditions for
the full implementation of an American police state. But what is more concerning, is
that the primary levers of state power are no longer controlled by elected officials but by
factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people. That can only lead to trouble.
At some point Americans are going to get a "War on Domestic Terror" cheered along by the
media. More or less the arrest and incarceration of any opposition following the Soviet
Bolshevik model.
On the plus side, everyone now knows that the Anglo-US media from the NY Times to the
Economist, from WaPo to the Gruniard, and from the BBC to CNN, the CBC and Weinstein's
Hollywood are a worthless bunch of depraved lying bastards.
Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt,
compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most
people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of
mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into
something much worse.
The thing is, no matter how thick the mental cages are, and how carefully they are
maintained by the daily massive injections of "certified" truth (via MSM), along with
neutralizing or compromising of "troublemakers", the presence of multiple alternative sources
in the age of Internet makes people to slip out of these cages one by one, and as the last
events show – with acceleration.
It means that there's a fast approaching tipping point after which it'd be impossible for
those in power both to keep a nice "civilized" face and to control the "cage-free"
population. So, no matter how the next war will be called, it will be the war against the
free Internet and free people. That's probably why N. Korean leader has no fear to start
one.
All government secrecy is a curse on mankind. Trump is releasing the JFK murder files to the public. Kudos! Let us hope he will follow up with a full 9/11 investigation.
The objective was to push new administration into the corner from which it could not
improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he wanted to during the campaign.
Good point. That was probably one of the objectives (and from the point of view of the
deep-state, perhaps the most important objective) of the "Russia hacked our democracy"
narrative, in addition to the general deligitimization of the Trump administration.
And, keep in mind, Washington's Sunni proxies were not a division of the Pentagon; they
were entirely a CIA confection: CIA recruited, CIA-armed, CIA-funded and
CIA-trained.
Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign
nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's
that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six
month actions – they go on and on.)
Are committees of six congressman and six senators, who meet in secret, just avoiding the
grave constitutional questions of war? We the People cannot even interrogate these
politicians. (These politicians make big money in the secrecy swamp when they leave
office.)
Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are
we attacking with drones? Where is congress?
Spying is one thing – covert action is another – covert is wrong – it
goes against world order. Every year after 9/11 they say things are worse – give them
more money more power and they will make things safe. That is BS!
9/11 has opened the flood gates to the US government attacking at will, the various
peoples of this Earth. That is NOT our prerogative.
We are being exceptionally arrogant.
Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies.
"... Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. ..."
"... The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player. ..."
"... Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance. ..."
"... Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline. ..."
"... Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. ..."
"... A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions ..."
"... Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination. ..."
Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite
that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite
inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. Alternative social forces, like
the ones behind Trump's presidential triumph, only have a limited impact on domestic and ultimately
on foreign policy. A conceptual detour and a brief on history and on Trump's domestic setting when
he was elected will help clarifying these theses.
Beyond the different costumes that it wears (dealing with ideology, international law, and even
religion), foreign policy follows domestic policy. The domestic policy actors are the social forces
at work at a given point of time, mainly the economic agents and their ambitions (in their multiple
expressions), including the ruling power elite. Society's aspirations not only relate to material
welfare, but also to ideological priorities that population segments may have at a given point of
time.
From America's initial days until the mid 1800s, there seems to have been a broad alignment of
US foreign policy with the wishes of its power elite and other social forces. America's expansionism,
a fundamental bulwark of its foreign policy from early days, reflected the need to fulfill its growing
population's ambitions for land and, later on, the need to find foreign markets for its excess production,
initially agricultural and later on manufacturing. It can be said that American foreign policy was
broadly populist at that time. The power elite was more or less aligned in achieving these expansionist
goals and was able to provide convenient ideological justification through the writings of Jefferson
and Madison, among others.
As the country expanded, diverging interests became stronger and ultimately differing social forces
caused a significant fracture in society. The American Civil War was the climax of the conflicted
interests between agricultural and manufacturing led societies. Fifty years later, a revealing manifestation
of this divergence (which survived the Civil War), as it relates to foreign policy, is found during
the early days of the Russian Revolution when, beyond the ideological revulsion of Bolshevism, the
US was paralyzed between the agricultural and farming businesses seeking exports to Russia and the
domestic extractive industries interested in stopping exports of natural resources from this country.
The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the
ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's
aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic
forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment,
as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War
II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player.
Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War
II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces
shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time.
The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence
of NATO, for instance.
Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable
to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown.
Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in
the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the
bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened
and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict
across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline.
Trump won his presidency because he was able to get support from the country's growing frustrated
white population. His main social themes (bringing jobs to America by stopping the decline of its
manufacturing industry, preventing further US consumer dependence on foreign imports and halting
immigration) fitted well with the electors' anger. Traditional populist themes linked to foreign
policy (like Russophobia) did not play a big role in the last election. But whether or not the Trump
administration can align with the ruling power elite in a manner that addresses the key social and
economic needs of the American people is still to be seen.
Back to foreign policy, we need to distinguish between Trump's style of government and his administration's
actions. At least until now, focusing excessively on Trump's style has dangerously distracted from
his true intentions. One example is the confusion about his initial stance on NATO which was simplistically
seen as highly critical to the very existence of this organization. On NATO, all that Trump really
cared was to achieve a "fair" sharing of expenditures with other members and to press them to
honor
their funding commitments.
From immigration to defense spending, there is nothing irrational about Trump's foreign policy
initiatives, as they just reflect a different reading on the American people's aspirations and, consequently,
they attempt to rely on supporting points within the power elite which are different from the ones
used in the past.
Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge
it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues,
will consolidate its economic domination. A far-reaching lesson, although still being ignored, is
that China's economic might is showing that capitalism as understood in the West is not winning,
much less in its American format. It also shows that democracy may not be that relevant, as it is
not necessarily a corollary or a condition for economic development. Perhaps it even shows the superiority
of China's economic model, but this is a different matter.
As Trump becomes more aware about his limitations, he has naturally reversed to the basic imprints
of America's traditional foreign policy, particularly concerning defense. His emphasis on a further
increase in defense spending is not done for prestigious or national security reasons, but as an
attempt to preserve a job generating infrastructure without considering the catastrophic consequences
that it may cause.
On Iran, Obama's initiative to seek normalization was an attempt to walk a fine line (and to find
a less conflictive path) between supporting the US traditional Middle East allies (mainly the odd
combination of Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) and recognizing Iran's growing aspirations. Deep
down, Obama was trying to acknowledge Iran's historical viability as a country and a society that
will not disappear from the map, while Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, may not be around in a few
years. Trump's Iran policy until now only represents a different weighing of priorities, although
it is having far reaching consequences on America's credibility as a reliable contractual party in
international affairs.
In the case of Afghanistan, Trump's decision to increase boots on the ground does not break the
inertia of US past administrations. Aside from temporary containment, an increasing military presence
or a change in tactics will not alter fundamentally this reality.
Concerning Russia, and regardless of what Trump has said, actions speak more than words. A continuous
deterioration of relations seems inevitable.
Trump will also learn, if he has not done so already, about the growth of multipolar forces in
world's events. Russia has mastered this reality for several years and is quite skillful at using
it as a basic tool of its own foreign goals. Our multipolar world will expand, and Trump may even
inadvertently exacerbate it through its actions (for instance in connection with the different stands
taken by the US and its European allies concerning Iran).
While fulfilling the aspirations of the American people seems more difficult within the existing
capitalist framework, there are also growing apprehensions coming from America's power elite as it
becomes more frustrated due to its incapacity of being more effective at the world level. America's
relative adolescence in world's history will become more and more apparent in the coming years.
A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its
different dimensions. The US has never suffered the consequences of an international conflict in
its own backyard. The American Civil War, despite all the suffering that it caused, was primarily
a domestic event with no foreign intervention (contrary to the wishes of the Confederation). The
deep social and psychological damage caused by war is not part of America's consciousness as it is,
for instance in Germany, Russia or Japan. America is insensitive to the lessons of history because
it has a very short history itself.
Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there
is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined
with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous
combination.
Oscar Silva-Valladares is a former investment banker that has lived and worked in North and
Latin America, Western & Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the Philippines and Western Africa.
He currently chairs Davos International Advisory, an advisory firm focused on strategic consulting
across emerging markets.
Have you ever noticed how whenever someone inconveniences the dominant western power
structure, the entire political/media class rapidly becomes very, very interested in letting us
know how evil and disgusting that person is? It's true of the leader of every nation which
refuses to allow itself to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized power alliance, it's
true of anti-establishment political candidates, and it's true of WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange.
Corrupt and unaccountable power uses its
political and
media influence to smear Assange because, as far as the interests of corrupt and
unaccountable power are concerned, killing his reputation is as good as killing him. If
everyone can be paced into viewing him with hatred and revulsion, they'll be far less likely to
take WikiLeaks publications seriously, and they'll be far more likely to consent to Assange's
imprisonment, thereby
establishing a precedent for the future prosecution of leak-publishing journalists around
the world. Someone can be speaking 100 percent truth to you, but if you're suspicious of him
you won't believe anything he's saying. If they can manufacture that suspicion with total or
near-total credence, then as far as our rulers are concerned it's as good as putting a bullet
in his head.
Those of us who value truth and light need to fight this smear campaign in order to keep our
fellow man from signing off on a major leap in the direction of Orwellian dystopia, and a big
part of that means being able to argue against those smears and disinformation wherever they
appear. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any kind of centralized source of information
which comprehensively debunks all the smears in a thorough and engaging way, so with the help
of hundreds of
tips from my
readers and social media followers
I'm going to attempt to make one here. What follows is my attempt at creating a tool kit people
can use to fight against Assange smears wherever they encounter them, by refuting the
disinformation with truth and solid argumentation.
This article is an ongoing project which will be updated regularly where it appears on
Medium and caitlinjohnstone.com as new information comes in and new smears spring up in need of
refutation.
"... Great points, Mr. Cohen....this protracted attack on Russia via the phoney "Russiagate" investigation has set back relations with Russia for years to come. ..."
"... That Trump represents a thinking that the post Soviet reality is not of a uni-superpower world, but one of a multi-polar world dominated by US economic empire. ..."
"... After reading "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century" in 2005, I came to the idea that the most dangerous section of the American elite were those that posited this uni-superpower world order idea; ..."
"... The problem is the incorrigible Big C (Capital) that wanted to eat away Russian minerals that Putin stopped in national interest. Any subsequent cooperation from the Russian side was probably was only for strategic cooperation with the U.S. to have world peace. ..."
"... Not a word in Cohen's appraisal about US criminality. Jay was pushing in that direction. I hope they get around to the criminality of the Deep State Mafia. ..."
"... Despite all the chaos and the moral panics that keep rocking the White House, Trump's three National Security Advisors - Flynn, McMaster, Bolton - had one core commonality: they want war with Iran. Watching the sinister neo-con Jim Woolsey betray the frothing neo-con Flynn to Joe Biden was a comedy of neo-con infighting. A major part of Russiagate was the older 'Atlanticist' neo-cons boxing in the boorish 'Trumpist' neo-cons. Whether Atlantic Council or US-homegrown both flavors of neo-conservatism want war with Iran. ..."
PAUL JAY: Welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. I'm Paul
Jay.
And we're continuing our series of discussions with Stephen Cohen. And his biography is down
below the video player, and you really should watch the first few segments anyway and you'll
get where we are. Thanks for joining us again.
STEPHEN COHEN: Thank you.
PAUL JAY: So I've watched several of your interviews. You've done Larry King and
others, and you've been positive about Trump's attitude towards sort of a detente, lowering
tensions with Russia. And in terms of my personal view, I think you're right. I think anything
that lowers tensions between two nuclear powers is a good thing, and I think this
self-righteous American attitude towards Putin and Russia– when you look at the scale of
crimes committed by countries internationally, there is nothing that Russia has done that
compares to the Iraq war, and go on and on with the United States has done, and to have some
self-righteous attitude Two, it's clear it's so hypocritical to worry about political rights in
Russia, because it's clear in terms of U.S. foreign policy if you can ally with Saudi Arabia,
the Israeli occupation, and you name it how many dictators the United States has supported over
the years, it's not about democracy.
So whatever Trump's intent is, I think I agree that this is a good thing. I actually think
Trump framed it quite well himself, where he said, "Russia is not our adversary, they're our
competitor, the way other big capitalist countries are our competitors." I think all that makes
sense. Where I push back is I think you need to add that one of the prime reasons Trump wants
to diminish tensions with Russia–assuming he really does, because some of the people that
work for him, Nikki Haley in the UN and others, have said as outrageous stuff about Russia as
any Democrat has said.
All that being said, I think the Trump presidency is one of the most dangerous presidencies
ever, and he is planning and his whole foreign policy agenda has been regime change in Iran.
And I think that if they don't accomplish that through economic warfare against Iran, with John
Bolton there, the possibility of some kind of at least bombing attack on Iran before 2020 is
very possible. One of the reasons I think he wants to lower tensions with Russia is so he can
go after China. His acting defense secretary justified this new military expenditure, the new
budget, the 765 billion dollar budget, with three words, "China, China, China." Their strategic
vision–and you can see this in Steve Bannon's interviews and language–is diminish
the tensions with Russia, go after Iran and go after China. And I think one needs to say this,
otherwise it kind of looks like Trump is some kind of peacenik. And far from it, I think
they're militarists.
STEPHEN COHEN: Not sure what the question is, though. Is it about–
PAUL JAY: Well, my question is, I think when you are saying positive things about
Trump diminishing tensions with Russia, which I think is correct, but I think you need to add
this guy does not have peaceful intentions, he's very dangerous.
STEPHEN COHEN: I live in a social realm–to the extent that I have any social
life at all anymore– where people get very angry if I say, or anybody says, anything
positive about Donald Trump. When Trump was campaigning in 2016, he said, "I think it would be
great to cooperate with Russia." All of my adult life, my advocacy in American foreign
policy–I've known presidents, the first George Bush invited me to Camp David to consult
with him before he went to the Malta Summit. I've known presidential candidates, Senators and
the rest, and I've always said the same thing. American national security runs through Moscow,
period. Nothing's changed.
In the era of weapons of mass destruction, not only nuclear, but primarily nuclear, ever
more sophisticated, the Russians now have a new generation of nuclear weapons–Putin
announced them on March 1, they were dismissed here, but they're real–that can elude any
missile defense. We spent trillions on missile defense to acquire a first strike capability
against Russia. We said it was against or Iran, but nobody believed it. Russia has now thwarted
us; they now have missile defense-evading nuclear weapons from submarines, to aircraft, to
missiles. And Putin has said, "It's time to negotiate an end to this new arms race," and he's
100 percent right. So when I heard Trump say, in 2016, we have to cooperate with Russia, I had
already become convinced–and I spell this out in my new book, War with Russia?–that
we were in a new cold war, but a new cold war more dangerous than the preceding one for reasons
I gave in the book, one of them being these new nuclear weapons.
So I began to speak positively about Trump at that moment–that would have been
probably around the summer of 2016–just on this one point, because none of the other
candidates were advocating cooperation with Russia. And as I told you before, Paul, all my life
I've been a detente guy. Detente means cooperate with Russia. I saw in Trump the one candidate
who said this is necessary, in his own funny language. Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, was
very much a hawk. When she said publicly that Vladimir Putin has no soul, you could not commit
or utter a more supreme statement of anti-diplomacy, and particularly addressing the Russians,
who put a lot of stock in soul. To say somebody has no soul and then go on to equate him with
Hitler, I found that so irresponsible. I didn't vote for Trump, but I did begin to write and
broadcast that this was of vital importance that we have this discussion, that we needed a new
detente because of the new and more dangerous Cold War.
Since he's been president, I think he's been ineffective in regard to pursuing detente with
Russia for a couple of reasons. I think that the people who invented Russiagate were the
enemies of detente, and they piled on. So they've now demonized Russia, they've crippled Trump.
Anything he does diplomatically with Putin is called collusion. No matter what Mueller says,
it's collusion. This is anti-democracy, and detente is pursued through democracy. So whatever
he really wants to do–it's hard to say–he's been thwarted. I think it's also one of
the reasons why he put anti-detente people around him.
PAUL JAY: Why didn't he pull out of the arms treaty?
STEPHEN COHEN: So this is a separate issue now, and a complicated one. We have been
in violation–let's be clear for folks which treaty we're talking about. We're talking
about the so-called Intermediate-Range Treaty. This band of deployment of missiles that could
fly roughly from 500, I think, to 3000 miles, they were exceedingly dangerous. The American
ones have been based in Europe. They were very dangerous because they tested high-alert
systems. They flew low, fast, they could elude radar. They were dangerous. Reagan and Gorbachev
abolished them in 1987, correct? Now, stop and think for a minute, Paul. What Reagan and
Gorbachev did in 1987 was the first ever, ever in history, act of nuclear abolitionism. They
abolished an entire category of nuclear weapons. That was a sacred act. It needed to be
cherished and preserved forever, no matter what difficulties emerged.
But then comes the history, and we need to remember the history. In 2002, the second
President Bush withdrew the United States unilaterally from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty,
correct? Now, this treaty was related, because it forbid the deployment of so-called missile
defense in a way that either side, American or Russian, could think that it had such great
missile defense, it had a first strike capability. And everybody agreed nobody should think
that. Mutually assured destruction had kept us safe in the nuclear age. But if Russia or the
United States gets a first strike capability, then you don't have assured mutual destruction,
and some crazy person might be tempted to risk it. So how did the Russians react to that? They
began to develop–as I said before, when we began to deploy missile defense–a new
generation of weapons. In other words, you're getting this classic action, reaction, action,
reaction that drove the previous nuclear arms race, and now it's happening again.
So that brings us to Trump's decision. We don't know yet where it's going to lead, because
Trump has said we're withdrawing. He said the Russians have been in violation. But in fact,
we've been in violation since we deployed the missile defense systems. Just for the record, by
the way–and professor Theodore Postol at MIT has been very good about this–these
missile defense installations that we've installed around Russia, land, air, and sea, can
actually fire cruise missiles. They are in violation of that Intermediate-Range Treaty, so
we've been in systematic violation. Pushes come to shove, we withdrew, the Russians have now
withdrawn. But Trump has said two things that are interesting and maybe correct, that
technically the treaty was out of date because of the new weaponry. And secondly, who has the
most cruise missiles? China. 30 years ago in 1987, it was only the United States and Russia,
the Soviet Union. But now China, because of its vast regional presence, has all these
intermediate range missiles.
So Trump says offhandedly, maybe in a Tweet, "Have you ever looked at the military budget of
Russia, China, and the United States? It's obscene. We should cut it." What does that mean?
What does that mean? It's a good idea, right? Then he said, "We can't have such a treaty
without China." The Russians know this too, so let us hope that what they're stumbling toward
is a new, modernized intermediate-range ban that would include China. China, however, will
never sign it. But if they begin the negotiations and China doesn't deploy any more during the
negotiations, and the negotiations go on indefinitely, we are safer than we now are. Now, do I
think that Trump is cunning and thought this up? I'm not sure, but he's got China on the mind,
and I don't quite agree with you that–he's got a kind of dualistic attitude toward China.
It's a threat, but every time he makes a new trade deal with China, he brags on it that it's
great for us.
You would agree with that, right? He's always talking about, "We're going to have this
wonderful trade agreement with China, it's going to be so good for us." So in his mind, Trump's
mind, China is kind of potentially–in his businessman mind–this big economic plus
that he alone is going to get right. Let him try.
PAUL JAY: I don't know how much of this policy at all is Trump or not Trump. I think
the brains behind a lot of this policy now is Bolton and some of the other neocon crazies
around him.
STEPHEN COHEN: But Trump has been saying the same thing about cooperating with Russia
long before he took on Bolton. There's two ways to look at this.
PAUL JAY: But his attitude towards China–
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, just stay for one minute on Russia, because the China thing is
worth talking about too. But he says, almost alone, for the first time–how long has it
been since we had a president really pursue detente? It's been a very long time. Obama called
it a reset, but it was fraudulent. It was basically saying to the Russians, "Give us
everything, and we aren't going to give you anything." It was doomed from the beginning. Plus,
they wagered that Putin wouldn't return to the presidency. Do you know, by the way, speaking of
meddling, that Biden went to Moscow and told Putin not to return to the presidency in 2012?
PAUL JAY: No.
STEPHEN COHEN: Wrap your head around that a minute. The vice president of the United
States goes to Moscow and tells Putin, who's now prime minister because he termed out, but he
could return, "We don't think you should return to the presidency." So you know what I'm
wondering, I'm wondering whether Biden's calling up Putin today and asking Putin whether Biden
should get into the presidential race here. I mean, what the hell? What the hell? And we talk
about meddling? So the point about Trump, to finish this, is for the first time in many, many
years, a presidential candidate, one that I didn't vote for and didn't care for, had said it's
necessary to cooperate with Russia.
PAUL JAY: OK, but I've got to contextualize it. Because it's not enough–because
first of all, Trump's a big liar, and everyone, from beginning to end, for real.
STEPHEN COHEN: Politicians lie, Paul. Welcome to the world,
PAUL JAY: No, but I think he lied on Russia.
STEPHEN COHEN: About what?
PAUL JAY: Well, on two things. I think number one–I think two things drove his
Russia–
STEPHEN COHEN: Let me get my word in. Then I'll give it to you, I promise I'll pass
it right to you, because this is going to set you up beautifully. When he said, Trump, 2016,
"It's necessary to cooperate with Russia," there are two ways to interpret that. He was wise
and smart, or the Kremlin had something on him.
PAUL JAY: No, I don't think either of those are true.
STEPHEN COHEN: And then we go straight to Russia.
PAUL JAY: Neither of those are true.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, I'm not saying you say that, but that's the way it was
taken.
PAUL JAY: No, I think there's two things drove the Russia thing. Number one, they
wanted sanctions lifted because Tillerson and the American oil companies, especially Exxon,
wanted a big energy play in Russia, and they needed to lift the sanctions to do it, and
Tillerson was all positioned for it. And if it hadn't been for this whole Russiagate stuff,
they would have sailed along, had a detente, lifted the sanctions, and had a whole realm of new
energy.
STEPHEN COHEN: You mean under Trump.
PAUL JAY: Under Trump. And I think that would have been a good thing. I'm not
critiquing that in the sense that anything that reduces tensions between the United States and
Russia is a good, thing normalizing, even if it's exploitive and ripping off the Russian people
in their oil, I don't care. The nuclear threat is so paramount, anything that reduces those
tensions are good. But these are not peacenik intentions.
STEPHEN COHEN: Where do we disagree? You've lost me.
PAUL JAY: I'm not saying we necessarily disagree on this. The second part of it
is–and this is where I think is the dangerous part. Because I think sometimes when Trump
and Putin get together and talk quietly, part of that conversation could well be about Iran.
Because when they had the first big round of sanctions on Iran, Russia supported them, Russia
came in on it. And if your foreign policy objective–and clearly it is, between whether it
was Flynn, or whether it was Mattis, or whether it was Bolton, all of them are "regime change
in Iran is the prime objective." And if you want to do that, wouldn't you want Russia to at the
very least step back a little bit?
STEPHEN COHEN: I got you now, I see where you're going.
PAUL JAY: Number one. And number two, the big strategic guns are focused on China. So
if you want to focus on China, wouldn't it be nice to have a strategic normalization with
Russia, try to split Russia from China? Because in their minds, the real enemy is not Russia,
the real enemy is a superpower economy–
STEPHEN COHEN: In whose mind?
PAUL JAY: Much of the American foreign policy establishment, both Democrat and
Republican.
STEPHEN COHEN: The real enemy is ?
PAUL JAY: China. Because that's the global economy, that's going to be the competing
superpower.
STEPHEN COHEN: Let's say you're right.
PAUL JAY: And that doesn't in any way say it's still, in the final analysis, a good
thing if Trump can diminish these tensions. But let's give it the whole context.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, but it doesn't–I'm not sure what the whole context is. It
seems to me you just said to me that Trump or these people were playing for Russia's support
against Iran in China.
PAUL JAY: As one piece of this, yeah.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, if so, it's a fool's folly. Russia is leaving the West. I mean,
it can't leave the West geopolitically, because Russia is so big, it's half in the West and a
half in the un-West geographically. But American foreign policy, NATO expansion, the unwise
policies made in Brussels and Washington, are driving Russia from the West.
PAUL JAY: No doubt.
STEPHEN COHEN: And when you leave the West, where do you end up, Paul?
PAUL JAY: They are pushing exactly the kind of a line–
STEPHEN COHEN: Where do you go?
PAUL JAY: Well, with China, of course.
STEPHEN COHEN: And not only China, where else? All major powers that are not members
of NATO, including Iran. So when Putin came to power, he was very much in the tradition of
Gorbachev and Yeltsin. He wanted a strategic alliance with the United States. Who was the first
person to call up Bush after 9/11? Putin. And he said, "George, anything." And if you go back
and look at what the Russians did to help the American ground war in Afghanistan against the
Taliban, whether you think it was a good idea or not, that ground war, Russia did more to save
American lives–Russian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan–than any NATO country
did.
PAUL JAY: No, Iran did more than any NATO country to help America.
STEPHEN COHEN: But Russia had assets, unbelievable assets, and corridors for
transportation, and even an army, the Northern Alliance, that it kept in Afghanistan. It gave
it all to the United States. Putin wanted a strategic alliance with the United States, and what
did he get in return? He got from Bush, the second Bush, more NATO expansion right to Russia's
borders, and as I mentioned before, American withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty,
which had been the bedrock of Russian nuclear security for 30 or 40 years. He got betrayed, and
they use that word, "We were betrayed by Washington." This is serious stuff.
The pivot away from the West begins there and continues with these crazy policies that
Washington has pursued toward Russia. It doesn't mean that Russia is gone forever from the
West, but if you look at the billions of dollars of investment, you look at which way the
pipelines flow, you look at Russia–Putin meets like six times a year, maybe more, with
the leader of China. They've each called each other their best friend in politics. Trump meets
with Putin and we think, "Oh my god, how can he meet with him." I mean, it's normal.
PAUL JAY: Netanyahu just met with Putin; nobody said a word.
STEPHEN COHEN: But the point here is that Russia has been torn between East and the
West forever. Its best policy, in its own best interest, is to straddle East and West, not to
be of the East or the West, but it's impossible in this world today. And U.S.-led Western
policy since the end of the Soviet Union, and particularly since Putin came to power in 2000,
has persuaded the Russian ruling elite that Russia can not count any longer, economically,
politically, militarily, on being part of the West. It has to go elsewhere. So all this talk
about wanting to win Russia to an American position that's anti-Iranian and anti-Chinese is
conceived in disaster and will end in disaster. They should think of some other foreign
policy.
PAUL JAY: I agree, but I think that's what Trump's–the people around Trump that
wanted the detente–
STEPHEN COHEN: We should get new people.
PAUL JAY: Well
STEPHEN COHEN: I'll tell you truthfully, if Trump really wants to cooperate with
Russia for the sake of American national security, if we forget all this Russiagate stuff and
we say, "The guy is a little dim, but his ideas are right, you've got to cooperate with
Russia," he has to get some new advisors. Because the people around him don't have a clue how
to do it.
PAUL JAY: I don't think that is the intent, the intent is make money. I don't think
there's any other intent. Make money for arms manufacturers, fossil fuel–
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, hope dies with us. I just don't see that constant bashing of
Trump demeaning him, though it's so easy to do, helps us think clearly about American national
interests.
PAUL JAY: I don't think bashing Trump by dredging up the demons of the Cold War is
anything but war mongering. On the other hand, I don't think we should create any illusions
about who Trump is.
STEPHEN COHEN: So let me give you the part with a paradox. We shouldn't have any
illusions about who Trump is, that seems like–
PAUL JAY: Or who the system is, really.
STEPHEN COHEN: OK. So let's say–I mean, that seems a sensible point of view.
But let me ask you a question. Why was it that American presidents since Eisenhower could do
detente with Soviet communist leaders, and they weren't demonized after Stalin, but we're not
permitted–and certainly Trump is not permitted–to do detente with a Russian Kremlin
anti-communist leader, which Putin is? Did we like the communists better than the
anti-communists in the Kremlin?
PAUL JAY: No. I'll give you what I think, it's just a layman's opinion. I think the
foreign policy establishment, the elite, they were absolutely furious that after all these
decades of trying to overthrow the Soviet Union, and they finally accomplish–although I
think it was mostly an internal phenomenon, but still–and then they get Yeltsin and they
have open Wild West, grabbing all these resources. I think they were really pissed that a state
emerged, led by Putin, that said, "Hold on, it may be oligarchs, but they're going to be
Russian, and you Americans aren't going to have a free-for–all, taking up the resources
and owning the finance. We're not going to be a third world country to your empire."
STEPHEN COHEN: That's correct.
PAUL JAY: And they're pissed off at that.
STEPHEN COHEN: They, meaning ?
PAUL JAY: The Americans.
STEPHEN COHEN: Our people.
PAUL JAY: Our people. Well, I don't want to even take ownership for it.
STEPHEN COHEN: Don't run away. I don't know your age–
PAUL JAY: I'm 67.
STEPHEN COHEN: So we've established that I'm older than you.
PAUL JAY: No doubt. But you look younger, and I'm pissed at that.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, that's a separate subject.
PAUL JAY: You've got more hair.
STEPHEN COHEN: I've got more hair. You've distracted me. What we share, despite the
age difference, is that we grew up at a time when we were told–whether you or I believed
it or not, but our generations, two generations, were told we are against Russia because it's
communist. We were told that for decade after decade after decade. Now, Russia, the Kremlin, is
not communist, it's anti-communist, and we're still against Russia. How do Russian
intellectuals and policy-makers interpret that turnabout, that it was never about communism, it
was about Russia? There's a saying in Russia formulated by a philosopher, his name was
Zinoviev, he passed on but he was very influential, they were shooting–meaning the
West–they were shooting at communism, but they were aiming at Russia.
And the view, very widespread among the Russian policy intellectual class today, is that
Washington, in particular, will never accept Russia as an equal great power in world affairs,
regardless of whether Russia is communist or anti-communist. And if that is so, Russia has to
entirely reconceive its place in the world and its thinking about the West. And that point of
view is ascending in Russia today due to Western policy. But just remember the view that all
during the previous Cold War, they claim they were shooting at communism, but it was really
Russia. And they still are today.
PAUL JAY: Yeah, I agree with that. I just–
STEPHEN COHEN: But we don't–you and I may agree, but we don't want Russians to
think that way.
PAUL JAY: But I think the view coming out of World War II about being the global
hegemon, the superpower, what that also means is you can't have any adversarial regional
powers. And whether it's Russia or Iran, if you're not in the smaller American sphere of
influence, the umbrella, you can't be there.
STEPHEN COHEN: It's funny you say that. I mean, I'm not a Putin apologist or a Trump
apologist, but I do like intellectual puzzles. If you're saying that we have to give up our
thinking about a multipolar world, so to speak, that there'll be other regional superpowers or
great powers, then isn't Trump the first American president who seems to be OK with that? I
don't see in Trump much a demand that we be number one.
PAUL JAY: Oh, I think Make America Great Again?
STEPHEN COHEN: But he didn't say Make American Number One Again. Maybe that's what he
means, but you don't have Trump–
PAUL JAY: I don't think it kind of matters what the hell Trump thinks or says. And I
think–
STEPHEN COHEN: Have you heard Trump say this thing that Obama and Madeleine Albright
ran around saying for years, that American is "the indispensable nation?" Do you know how
aggravated that made other states in the world? I mean, stop and think about it. Who runs
around saying "we're indispensable?" I haven't heard Trump say that, maybe he has.
PAUL JAY: I just don't think we should put too much weight into whatever Trump says.
I think he's a vehicle, he's a vessel.
STEPHEN COHEN: You take what you can get these days.
PAUL JAY: He's a vessel, first and foremost, for the arms manufacturers, for the
fossil fuel industry. He's a vessel for right-wing evangelical politics. He's not a philosopher
king. He's not a peacenik.
STEPHEN COHEN: You have to have priorities.
PAUL JAY: I think he's rather banal.
STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, probably, but you have to have priorities. My priority in
international affairs is to avoid a military conflict with Russia. In my book, my new book, War
with Russia?, when I start writing that book in 2013, I never intended to give it that title.
But as I worked and watched events unfold since 2013 to 2019, for the first time in my long
career, I thought war with Russia was possible. I didn't even think there was going to be a
war–as I remember it, I don't remember it vividly–during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Today, I assure you, the new Cold War is fraught with multiple Cuban Missile Crises. Take your
pick; in the Baltic area where NATO is building up, in Ukraine where we've got ourselves
involved in a proxy war, in Georgia where NATO is trespassing again as we talk, in Syria where
American and Russian forces are flying and fighting on the ground in close proximity. By the
way, Trump was absolutely right in withdrawing those–what were they–3000 Americans
in Syria because whatever, Russia had killed just one of them.
With Trump in the White House, the trip wires, a war between nuclear Russia and nuclear
America, are far greater and more multiple than they have ever been. That's the danger.
Therefore, at this moment, if Trump says it's necessary to cooperate with Russia, on that one
issue we must support him. It's existential at this moment. And believe me, and believe me,
people love to hate on Putin in this country; "Putin's evil, Putin's bad." It's nonsense. Putin
is a recognizable leader in Russia's tradition. Putin, as you said I think before, came to
power wanting an alliance with the United States. He's spoken of his own illusions publicly.
Leaders very rarely admit they ever had an illusion, rights, it's not something they do. He is
reproached in Russia, reproached in Russia, for still having illusions about the West. You know
what they say about him in high places in Russia? "He's not proactive, he just reacts, he waits
for the West to do something abysmal to Russia, and then he acts. Why doesn't he first see
what's coming?" What do they cite? They cite Ukraine.
PAUL JAY: Well, that's the next segment, because my question to you is going to be,
"Did Putin make a mistake in Crimea?" So please join us for the continuation of our series of
interviews with Stephen Cohen on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network.
In a country where the media runs the lives of gullible citizens, it is easy to
believe that all the moves are being made for the peace and well being of all. Behind the
curtains, a narcissistic and egotistic machine is hard at work trying to sell war for
peace. This business only benefits a few and causes great suffering on others ... but who
am I kidding, no one cares, as long money is being made ... no one really cares!
The US Constitution and other supporting documents have long stymied attempts at
direct democracy in the US. Beware of anyone claiming to be a strict Constitutionalist !
They hate democracy and embrace slavery in all its disguises.
Great points, Mr. Cohen....this protracted attack on Russia via the phoney
"Russiagate" investigation has set back relations with Russia for years to come....of
course, even here in Bezerkeley, there were signs posted everywhere before the 2016 election: "Hillary=WWIII
(just sayin')".....even the libs around here knew the Clinton cabal wanted a war with
Russia ASAP
That Trump represents a thinking that the post Soviet reality is not of a
uni-superpower world, but one of a multi-polar world dominated by US economic empire.
I think that's true.
After reading "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New
Century" in 2005, I came to the idea that the most dangerous section of the American
elite were those that posited this uni-superpower world order idea; an impossibility in
this age of technology (one in which even small economies like Canada could lead the
world in nuclear physics understandings and implementation, and one where our collective
wealth of scientific understanding and method, plus systems management, can 'leap' a
large agrarian/industrial economy (China) to a 2nd generation industrial world power in
50 years, proves that understanding).
I haven't read the first part. But what the second part reveals is not that
unravelling. American power is despotic. No principles. Money gain only. Russia turned
democratic after enlightened brains like Yuri Andropov (Jewish-born ex-KGB Chief), old
fox Andrei Gromyko, Gorbachev plus- plus, decided to change the system. In other words,
Russia was willing for openness. But American oligarchs wanted to usurp Russian wealth
with a hand stroke after Soviet State implosion.
Second, why did Rothschild-Rockefeller Banker vassals like Henry Kissinger, Schultz under
Edward Teller influence, sabotage the Reagan-Gorbachev understanding to eliminate nuclear
weapons entirely in Reykjavik, insisting unilateral Star Wars capability for the U.S. to
remain as sole Superpower.
The problem is the incorrigible Big C (Capital) that wanted to eat away Russian minerals
that Putin stopped in national interest. Any subsequent cooperation from the Russian side
was probably was only for strategic cooperation with the U.S. to have world peace.
Steve belongs to that lone group of handful, distinguished U.S. intellectuals who see
problems as they are in eventual meaningfulness for objective U.S. politics. I admire his
talent and courage and support him.
George Chakko, former U.N. correspondent, now retiree in Vienna, Austria.
Vienna, 20/04/2019 06:05 am CET
Not a word in Cohen's appraisal about US criminality. Jay was pushing in that
direction. I hope they get around to the criminality of the Deep State Mafia.
That is the
narrative that will get the most results. Trump is greedy and the neocons have already
attacked him on two fronts: Russiagate and his need for money. He will likely do what the
New World Order folks want him to do. Russiagate will turn out to be a benefit as long as
he sticks with the program that the Neocons want. Who has pushed the US hard to get into
war with Russia? Hilary, Obama, Cheney, now Bolton --all New World Order soldiers who
will commit any crime to rule the world. This is what we are facing.
Trump like every POTUS since JFK does the bidding of the Zionist masters. Every POTUS
except Nixon and Carter that is, and they were demonised and side tracked respectively.
Nixon for his feral decision to recognise China and Jimmy Carter for being a dangerous
liberal. But Trump is a normal run of the mill POTUS minus the PR masking tape. Perhaps
the system has decided that the nice respectable masking tape is now an unnecessary
add-on and every future president (if there are any or many) will do the will of Wall St
and Tel Aviv as openly as does Trump and the msm will assure us that this is good and
necessary. Good fo the economy and necessary to protect the poor suffering Jewish nation
from the anti Semitic hatred of the deluded Palestinian lovers
and finally i think Putin is for Russian greatness, trump is for money for himself and
his family, but also for a white America if that can fit in with his money making
schemes.
I'm sorry, but Paul Jay, whom I sincerely admire, though with some reservations,
sounds in this--very important--interview as if he were suffering from attention deficit
syndrome. You see it most of all in the transcript. Stephen Cohen attempted to keep the
discussion coherent and focused, and Paul injected irrelevancies. Paul, please keep your
eye on the ball. Stephen Cohen is presenting an important message. It's OK to disagree
with it, if you have coherent reasons, but it's important even if it's wrong.
I think it's a mistake to take Trump at his word on anything that doesn't directly
benefit himself. He is two things; an economic animal and a con man, and his motives are
no more complicated than those of a cat. Unlike HRC, Bolton, Cheney Bush etc. he's no
ideologue for war, however, I don't think he has any deep seated dislike of it either, so
taking him at his word, either for or against any military action is foolish; basically,
he's running a con and seeing where it goes, especially if there's any money in it for
him or his family, a very obvious characteristic of his relationship with the Saudis and
his continuing support of their genocidal war in Yemen, a gift he inherited from our
Nobel Peace Prize president.
In the long run, there will be no stopping an alliance between the PRC and Russia,
especially given our political elites' inability to see we are living in a world they can
no longer dominate through an institution, the military, that few have ever been in, and
those of Vietnam war draft eligibility, avoided at all costs, and they will continue that
losing effort until the combined economic might of those nations and their geographic
location on the world's most important land mass, Eurasia, and its proximity to resource
rich Africa, eventually bring about the downfall of the American Empire.
1) Trump personally doesn"t want wars, never mind a war with Russia, though he's no
philosopher or angel.
2) the neolibs, who almost had Russia in the bag before Putin came to power, have been
pissed off at Putin and want regime change in Russia.
3) the same neolibs also want to pit russia, iran, and china against each other, in order
to complete and maintain their New World Order.
4) the same neolibs panicked at Trump's election victory but has reined him in since with
Russiagate. so whatever Trump wants matters not at the moment.
5) the same neolibs have miserably failed in their pursuit of 2) and 3) because of the
alliance of the three, russia, china, and iran. now the entire arab world has declared
independence from the US of Israel, because they now see an alternative bloc of russia,
china, and iran to work with.
all the above are true. more and more people see the truth and reject the neolibs that
the DNC leadership represents.
Trump will be reelected in 2020, if he fires bolton / pompeo / mnuchin / abrams etc.
so far, he's been all bark but no bite, which is a good sign.
Ever noticed how contradictory people you know can be? Ever noticed how contradictory
in yourself, in your own attitudes and deeds you can be? So why be surprised that Trump
can be Stephen Cohen's Trump as much as Paul Jay's Trump? No problem really :-)
There is no contraction between Cohen's observation that
Trump is a voice of sanity on Russia (it just shows how bad US discourse on Russia is)
and Jay's concern that detente with
Russia is part of larger plan for war (economic, kinetic or
hybrid) against Iran and China.
Real or fake, Trump's isolationism has produced no more peace than
Obama's tepid liberalism did and Trump's veto of a bipartisan resolution to forced an end
to American military involvement in Yemen has shown any arguments for an 'anti-war' Trump
were pure self-delusion.
Despite all the chaos and the moral panics that keep rocking the White House, Trump's
three National Security Advisors - Flynn, McMaster, Bolton - had one core commonality:
they want war with Iran. Watching the sinister neo-con Jim Woolsey betray the frothing
neo-con Flynn to Joe Biden was a comedy of neo-con infighting. A major part of Russiagate
was the older 'Atlanticist' neo-cons boxing in the boorish 'Trumpist' neo-cons. Whether
Atlantic Council or US-homegrown both flavors of neo-conservatism want war with Iran.
Wonderful article with Mr Jay playing the role of village idiot ? Mr Cohen speaks with
extreme clarity on Russia, which is totally unacceptable in for profit America by all
sides, where arms sales are us. In regards to Crimea , I'd ask Mr Jay, did Bush 1 make a
mistake in Panama where we killed 4 thousand civilians in keeping China from acquiring an
interest in the Panama canal?
There are so many contradictions under the tent of Killer Clown's circus that it
really isn't possible to make clear sense of them, is there?
I'll just say that he absolutely pimps "Amerika über alles", as it's the putrid
patriotic red white and blue meat he throws his base.
Does he buy his own sales pitch? He does whatever his tiny but tricky little mind
tells him is to his benefit. He'd be perfectly happy as a Russian oligarch or Saudi
prince (as long as Putin or MBS let him bloviate to his heart's content).
His only allegiance is to the state of his ego and bank account.
"... Sanctions are road rage. When you don't have a real policy, you do sanctions. But what's the logic of the sanctions? The sanction is we put this punishment on you. But when you change your behavior we will remove the punishment. Isn't that what we say with sanctions? Therefore sanctions have to be discussed if you're going to have diplomacy. So I would expect an American president to say to the Kremlin we need to have a lot of discussions, including the discussion of sanctions. The ones we've imposed. ..."
"... Actually, by now, depending on what comes next, I don't think the Kremlin cares very much. They've coped very nicely with the sanctions. Though it's hurting their ability to roll over their loans with Western banks, it's true. But generally speaking, they've managed. And Europe wants the sanctions ended, because it's hurt European manufacturers, I think there's 9,000 German firms that were or are making a profit in Russia. It's hurt European -- we have almost no trade with Russia, the United States. Sanctions is -- hurting Europe. ..."
"... Flynn was a professional intelligence officer. Let's repeat that. A professional intelligence officer. He knew everybody was listened to. It didn't bother him. The president had told him to have conversations with the Russian ambassador. There was a tradition of doing this. He had nothing to hide. ..."
"... The psychopaths in the Clinton campaign had no concern that the Russiagate meme would cause enormous consequences in the US relationships with important governments around the globe. Hillary Clinton attempted to damage Trump, the candidate that she wished for the Republicans to nominate, by alleging he was "Putin's puppet." More importantly, Clinton wanted to change the subject from her corruption that was evidenced in her leaked emails (likely by the murdered Seth Rich to Assange). The emails, among other things, proved that she and her toady Debbie Wasserman Schultz et al schemed to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... It's about Russian interference alright, but not in the election, rather with Washington's hegemonic ambitions in Eastern Europe (Ukraine), then in the Middle East (Syria) and now in South America (Venezuela). Charles Krauthammer's "unipolar moment" is over, the Bear is back. ..."
PAUL JAY: Welcome to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. And I'm Paul
Jay.
People that follow this show know I particularly like to interview people that stick their
neck out and stick to their guns for what they believe in, what they're fighting for. And our
next guest is someone who's done both of those things under a lot of pressure. So this is the
story, to begin with, of Stephen Cohen. Stephen is emeritus professor of politics at Princeton
University, professor emeritus of Russian studies and history at New York University, and his
most recent book: War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russia. Thanks for
joining us again.
STEPHEN COHEN: Thanks, Paul.
PAUL JAY: So a lot of people were rather happy with Barr's summary of the Mueller
report. And as we sit here talking today we haven't seen the Mueller report, it hasn't been
given to Congress yet, and it may even happen tomorrow. We don't know. And it may change what
we think of what I'm about to ask, but I don't think it's going to change too much about what
I'm going to ask.
Obviously President Trump's pretty happy so far with the no collusion argument. And that was
pretty clear from what Mueller said; what Barr says Mueller said. There's a quote from Mueller
in Barr's summary. But I thought some people who've been critical of Russiagate were a little
bit too happy about this, because the more important, I thought, substance of what Mueller says
is that, in fact, Russia did interfere in the elections. And he takes it very seriously. And
the more important part of Russiagate narrative, I don't think, was ever the collusion part. In
fact, we all knew Mueller was not heading down any big collusion road anyway, because as you
pointed out in one of your interviews, I don't know if it was Larry King, you know, you could
see from how other people were being charged, Manafort and others, there was no breadcrumb
leading you to a collusion argument with Trump. The real problem is the underlying idea is that
this is an existential threat to American democracy, and Mueller more or less confirms
that.
And I thought people shouldn't be so happy about that part of it, because the substantial
argument -- and I'll quote you again -- is that whatever they did it was low-level stuff. It
happens all the time between these countries. They all interfere in each other's elections. And
then it gets raised to the existential level. That's the problem. And Mueller more or less
confirms that.
STEPHEN COHEN: You are absolutely right, only not right enough. This expression,
which has become a truth in the media and for too many politicians that "Russia attacked
America during the 2016 presidential election" is both exceedingly dangerous and a complete
falsehood. Why is it dangerous? Because if a great power is attacked, that great power has to
eventually attack back, counterattack. This is a ticking time bomb in relations with Russia. No
attack on America occurred in 2016. I was awake, present, and observant. I saw no missiles
descending on our country. No Russian paratroopers. No Russian submarines. No Russian combat
planes. Nothing. It's a complete fiction.
It's a form, I guess, of hyperbole. Did the Russians meddle? Some Russians? I don't know.
I'm not even sure the Kremlin knew anything about it. But the Russiagate story is that Putin
decided he wanted Trump to be in the White House. So he attacked American elections and rigged
it. So Trump is now in the White House. I don't know how many people actually believe this. But
too many continue to say it, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC. Too
many influential news outlets are putting out an exceedingly dangerous fiction which is a form
of warmongering. It didn't happen, but they won't let go of it.
So I agree with you. There was no attack on America. But they're keeping this up. Was there
meddling? As you say, sure. So let's do the -- briefly -- the history of Russian-American
meddling in each other's politics. Where would you like to begin? Should we begin with the
American intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1918? I mean, Wilson sent about 8,000
American troops to try to help overthrow the new red Communist government. Was that meddling?
Really, is it meddling? You tell me. Sounds like meddling to me.
PAUL JAY: It's armed intervention.
STEPHEN COHEN: It's armed intervention. All right. What about, to leap forward, 1996?
I was in Moscow, I observed it. Then-president of post-Soviet Russia Boris Yeltsin stood no
chance of being reelected. No chance whatsoever. He was like 3 percent in the polls. But the
Clinton administration desperately needed to keep him in power. So they meddled, big time. They
sent electoral experts -- not unlike, by the way, Paul Manafort. Guys who make a living
advising other countries about how to rig elections. We've got lots of them who do this for big
money. So they set up in the presidential hotel. You could see them. Clinton arranged, I think,
it was $10 billion, I may be wrong there, IMF loan to Yeltsin so Yeltsin could pay pensions and
salaries he hadn't paid for five years. I mean, we did the whole -- I mean this was a massive
intervention into Russia's election. And basically we kept Russia, Yeltsin, in the presidency.
Is that meddling? Is that meddling?
PAUL JAY: Yeah, of course.
STEPHEN COHEN: What happened with Russian meddling in 2016, compared to the kind of
meddling both sides have done, was jaywalking. The only reason it became one of the worst
scandals, and I think most damaging in American history, because of the loathing for Trump and
because the Clinton people couldn't accept that she was defeated fair and square. So they made
up a story. You know, there's this book Shattered which tells about how they sat around and
said we'll blame it on the Russians. However, it's exceedingly unpatriotic. It's warmongering.
It's damaging our institutions of the presidency.
I mean, if it's true -- for example, let's say it's true that the Kremlin can put Trump in
the White House. Then evidently our electoral system in this country is not reliable. And why
not a governor, or a senator, or a member of the Congress that Putin likes? And what about the
next one? I think it's going to erode confidence in our electoral system on the part of
American voters. And what about the presidency itself? I mean, people actually say that a
Kremlin puppet sits in the presidency. Do they think that the damage done to the institution of
the presidency is going to end when Trump leaves? And do they think Republicans aren't going to
do something similar to the next Democratic president?
And the media's scandalous coverage of this, abandoning their own standards. I mean, you
don't get your virginity back quite that easily. I mean, they've got a lot to atone for, but at
the moment they're not even prepared to say they did anything wrong. Just the other day the
heads of these -- CNN, the executive editor of the New York Times and the Washington Post --
all said they thought their coverage of Russiagate had been great. I mean, really? Really? I
mean, that's like a brain surgeon missing cancer, and then saying he thought he did a good job.
I mean, it's preposterous.
So we have a major problem here. And the myth -- there was no Russian attack. The Russians
meddled. Mainly what made the meddling different from the kind of meddling that went on, for
example, when there were Russian-backed American communist parties, for example, in this
country, is social media. It was a social media thing.
And a final point. Let's say that the Russians -- they didn't -- launched a major social
media attack to distort the thinking of American voters, and were successful. Because that's
one of the premises, right? People are saying that, right?
PAUL JAY: Yeah.
STEPHEN COHEN: What does that say for American voters? What contempt people have for
American voters. So-called American Democrats have contempt for American voters. And now what
are they doing? They're out busy censoring social media so that we won't get any information
that might disorient an American voter. You can't -- if you don't believe that the electorate
will reach a rational decision in voting by whatever interests individual voters have, you're
not a democrat. I don't mean a member of the Democratic Party. You're not a democratic person.
If you don't believe in voters you can't be a democratic person. Then you're an
authoritarian.
PAUL JAY: The story that got completely lost as they focused on low-level meddling
that was mostly -- that I think anyone can determine rather ineffective -- was the Cambridge
Analytica story, and Bannon, and the use of troll farms, American-controlled troll farms, to do
this targeted social media manipulation. And that's out there, including an arm of Cambridge
Analytica which helped shape the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. And the role of Robert
Mercer, who funded Bannon and Kellyanne Conway and originally backed Cruz, and then helped
create Trump as president, I mean, that's the real story of the Trump presidency. Not this
low-level meddling. And they've never really told that story in mainstream media. We did a
whole documentary on it on The Real News. This whole thing's been lost about the real kind of
sinister dark side to the 2016 elections.
STEPHEN COHEN: What worries me more, though, is the way Russiagate, Russiagaters, the
zealots of Russiagate, have criminalized contacts with Russia. I think that this Clinton
organization -- what's it called, Center for American Progress, or something, CAP, which has a
website called Thought Progress or something -- has some posted 150 Trump-related contacts with
Russia. I mean, I've had most of those contacts with Russia. I mean, I've had contacts with
Russian intelligence agents. One was a good friend of mine. Five or six of them I worked with
in a historical archive, and we did smoking breaks and lunch breaks together, and we talked. I
mean, I've had all sorts of contacts in my nearly 50 years of dealing with Russia. There was a
time when contacts were supposed to be good because it was a way of understanding and avoiding
conflict. Part of detente. Part of diplomacy. But Russiagate, the allegations -- and I don't
believe any of them, by the way -- the allegations have criminalized contacts.
Incidentally, as we talk, this young Russian woman, Marina Butina -- sometimes pronounced
here BuTIna, but it's BUtina, B-U-T-I-N-A -- has been sitting in an American prison for more
than six months, most of it in solitary, for doing nothing other than what many Americans do in
Russia, and that is go around talking about how good the American political system is to
Russia, Russians. She went around bragging on Putin and the Russian political system here. For
that she's been kept in prison, and was, as Russians say, finally broken. Literally. That's how
Russians break people. They lock you away to you confess. We call confession a plea. So she --
and she's still in prison, even though she pled.
What did she plead guilty to? Coming here and advocating Russian perspectives without
registering as a foreign agent. This is a Soviet practice, Paul. One of the things that worries
me is that Russiagate has generated too many Soviet-style practices by American authorities.
The use of informers. People who were sent to inform on members of Trump's team, like
Papadopoulos, for example. Holding people's families hostage. I mean, Mueller held General
Flynn's son hostage, essentially, until Flynn pled. And Flynn never should have pled guilty.
Never. In fact, he said the other day he regretted it.
Let's talk about Flynn, for example, to see how bogus this is. Flynn was taped, as he knew
he would be, making contact after Trump was elected, before Trump came President, with the
Russian ambassador, correct? That was how the story began.
PAUL JAY: And they had to know they were being listened to.
STEPHEN COHEN: Of course they [inaudible].
PAUL JAY: Or he should have.
STEPHEN COHEN: Well, so you would say if he knew he was being listened to, why would
he go forward and have this meeting, or discussions, with the Russian ambassador? Because Trump
had told him to do it. And the reason is very simple to anyone who knows even a little history.
At least since Nixon -- maybe since Eisenhower and Kennedy -- but at least since Nixon, every
American president-elect has made a so-called back channel connection with the Russians, with
the Kremlin, before taking office. End of story. And we know -- I mean, Kissinger did it for
Nixon.
PAUL JAY: But Nixon did it with the North Vietnamese, and Johnson called it
treason.
STEPHEN COHEN: I don't care. The point of it is it's become traditional standard
practice for the president-elect to reach out to the Russians to say basically chill out, we're
going to discuss everything. I mean, you got to remember what happened. I mean, this was
dangerous. Obama, to his eternal disgrace, threatened the Russians with a cyberattack. He
threatened them. He said we've implanted in your infrastructure some kind of cyber thing.
PAUL JAY: And passed sanctions.
STEPHEN COHEN: But forget the sanctions. Forget the sanctions. He threatened them
with a secret attack on their infrastructure. Did it mean their medical system? Did it mean
their banking system? Did it mean their nuclear control system? And then the nitwit Vice
President -- Obama's -- goes out and tells jokes about it on late night TV. Yeah, hey, we got
him. What kind of behavior is this?
So I think Trump did absolutely the right thing. He told General Flynn, after Obama had made
this reckless statement, but after Trump was elected, but not yet president, told Flynn, go
tell the Russians not to overreact to what Obama said. Don't do anything crazy. We'll sort this
out when I take office. I personally am grateful he did that, because there were people in
Moscow arguing to Putin that they had to wage some kind of counterattack first. I mean, this
was a very dangerous moment that Obama created, unnoticed in this country. Unreported on.
But not only was it the tradition that the president-elect made contact with the Russians.
Backdoor. Everyone had done it. But in this case it was essential, because the crazies in
Moscow were urging Putin to do something based on what Obama had said. By the way, who's
vanished. On the question of Russiagate, Obama has disappeared himself. I mean Russiagate began
on Obama's watch as president. You'd think he'd have something to say. He hadn't said a
word.
PAUL JAY: But let me counter. I mean, I think the sanctions Obama put on Russia for
Russia's meddling in the U.S. elections was uncalled for; aggressive, and so on. And a
continuation of a bunch of aggressive policy. But their argument is Obama was the president,
and the sanctions had been implemented. And Trump was saying to Putin, don't worry, we're going
to get rid of them.
STEPHEN COHEN: No there's no record. This is-
PAUL JAY: I thought that was Flynn's conversation.
STEPHEN COHEN: No. No. What Flynn told Kislyak, so far as we know, I haven't heard
the tape, was do not overreact to this statement by Obama that your infrastructure is going to
be attacked, and we will discuss everything, maybe he said including sanctions, when Trump
takes the White House.
Now, let's back up a minute. Why shouldn't we discuss sanctions? The logic -- I don't
believe in sanctions. They're road rage. I mean, as we talk, a few nitwit senators are up on
the Hill trying to think up some new sanctions. And if you ask them what they're sanctioning
Russia for today, they couldn't tell you. Everything. In fact, they do tell you. It's called
for Putin's malign behavior in the world. It's not about Crimea anymore. It's not about voter
interference. It's just basically he's a malign character, and you can't have too many
sanctions.
Sanctions are road rage. When you don't have a real policy, you do sanctions. But what's
the logic of the sanctions? The sanction is we put this punishment on you. But when you change
your behavior we will remove the punishment. Isn't that what we say with sanctions? Therefore
sanctions have to be discussed if you're going to have diplomacy. So I would expect an American
president to say to the Kremlin we need to have a lot of discussions, including the discussion
of sanctions. The ones we've imposed.
Actually, by now, depending on what comes next, I don't think the Kremlin cares very
much. They've coped very nicely with the sanctions. Though it's hurting their ability to roll
over their loans with Western banks, it's true. But generally speaking, they've managed. And
Europe wants the sanctions ended, because it's hurt European manufacturers, I think there's
9,000 German firms that were or are making a profit in Russia. It's hurt European -- we have
almost no trade with Russia, the United States. Sanctions is -- hurting Europe.
PAUL JAY: Well, let's get back to Flynn. How could he not know that's being listened
to? And I guess they assume that this was not abnormal for an incoming president to have a
conversation like this.
STEPHEN COHEN:Flynn was a professional intelligence officer. Let's repeat that.
A professional intelligence officer. He knew everybody was listened to. It didn't bother him.
The president had told him to have conversations with the Russian ambassador. There was a
tradition of doing this. He had nothing to hide.
PAUL JAY: OK. There's a part of this that I don't think we're going to agree on, and
we're going to talk about that in the next-
STEPHEN COHEN: I don't even know you were disagreeing with me. Those are just facts I
gave you.
PAUL JAY: I didn't disagree up until this point. We might agree on something and then
disagree in the next segment. So please join us for the next segment of our series of
interviews with Stephen Cohen.
Stephen Cohen: "... [B]ecause of the loathing for Trump and because the Clinton people
couldn’t accept that she was defeated fair and square. So they made up a story. You
know, there’s this book Shattered which tells about how they sat around and said
we’ll blame it on the Russians."
The psychopaths in the Clinton campaign had no concern that the Russiagate meme would
cause enormous consequences in the US relationships with important governments around the
globe. Hillary Clinton attempted to damage Trump, the candidate that she wished for the
Republicans to nominate, by alleging he was "Putin's puppet." More importantly, Clinton
wanted to change the subject from her corruption that was evidenced in her leaked emails
(likely by the murdered Seth Rich to Assange). The emails, among other things, proved
that she and her toady Debbie Wasserman Schultz et al schemed to steal the nomination
from Bernie Sanders.
In fact Billary won the "election" by 3 million votes. But since we are not a
democracy it did not matter. Trump was appointed by America's elites, claiming otherwise
just serves the status quo. I'm sure Mr Cohen knows that?
It's about Russian interference alright, but not in the election, rather with
Washington's hegemonic ambitions in Eastern Europe (Ukraine), then in the Middle East
(Syria) and now in South America (Venezuela). Charles Krauthammer's "unipolar moment" is
over, the Bear is back.
Just a question Paul. Who is "too happy" that no collusion was found? Can you name
names? Russiagate debunkers like Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Mate may feel vindicated, but
I don't see happiness in the fact that the whole episode probably helps Trump.
"But I thought some people who’ve been critical of Russiagate were a little bit
too happy about this, because the more important, I thought, substance of what Mueller
says is that, in fact, Russia did interfere in the elections..."
If there was interference , it was , as Cohen says , on the level of jaywalking in its
seriousness. What would really constitute "an existential threat to American democracy"
is if this whole affair began and continued as a fabricated-from-whole-cloth stitch-up of
a candidate and then sitting President , orchestrated and implemented at the highest
levels of the CIA , FBI , Justice and State Depts. , etc., and possibly all the way up to
ex-Pres. Obama. If the origin of this whole mess is ever investigated properly , as it
should be , I hope TRNN will cover it and the ramifications of its findings at least as
thoroughly as it has the hoax itself , and will invite Stephen Cohen back to contribute
to that analysis. You certainly won't hear from him on the MSM , where such honesty and
clarity of thought are effectively banned.
Where is part 2? What is it that Paul Jay disagrees with Cohen? Sanctions are utterly
stupid. ALL sanctions against all countries should be removed, including those on Russia,
Iran, Venezuela, China and even North Korea. No self-respecting counties will submit to
the ridiculous demands of the terrorist empire because of sanctions.
Sanctions, embargoes, and tariffs, are a forms of taxation that harm the masses in the
state that applies them, while their rulers blame others for the resulting shortages and
higher prices.
fewer and fewer parties are concerning themselves about the US sanctions. not "even"
north korea, according to their latest communique. maybe that's why cohen says "forget
the sanctions."
Okay, Mr. Cohen spends a lot of time trashing the Clintons but is almost an apologist
for the Trump administration. He states correctly that the U.S. has meddled in Russian
politics in the past, notably in the 1920s and 1990s, which we probably shouldn't have
done but that does not make it okay for the Russians to do the same to us. His position
seems to be, tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye, so what, forget it. He dismisses, with
contempt, the idea that Russia meddled at all, but no one knows how much they meddled or
what the effects were because no one has looked into it.
Mr. Cohen states that Russia did not attack the U.S. by which he means militarily with
troops and missles. Obviously, that is true but so what. Is cyberassault not something
the U.S. should worry about? Also Mr. Cohen seems to imply that Vladimir Putin is not
that bad as leaders go, despite the poisonings, the assassinations, the imprisonment of
critics and banning of political opponents, and most egregious, the invasion of the
Ukraine and occupation of Crimea. He seems to think invading other countries is okay and
that the Europeans don't care because sanctions against Russia cause them economic
hardship. I suspect that many Europeans care very much about European countries invading
each other. He criticizes President Obama for placing sanctions on Russia and states that
Obama did so because the U.S. doesn't have a strategy regarding Russia. How does he think
the U.S. should respond? What does he think U.S. policy should be towards Russia?
Mr. Cohen defends Michael Flynn stating all new administrations contact Russia to
reassure them. Maybe so but that doesn't explain why Mr. Flynn failed to register as a
lobbyist for Turkey. Mr. Mueller would not have been able to hold Mr. Flynn's son
"hostage" if neither Flynn or his son had not done something illegal. Cohen also defends
Ms. Butina even though she was in contact with the National Rifle Association.
Altogether I don't find Mr. Cohen persuasive because of his dismissive arrogance of
everything supporting the Russiagate scandal. At this point no on is in a position to
accurately critique Russiagate until the report by Mr. Mueller is released.
It would have helped his case if he had expressed as much contempt for the Trump
Administration as he did of the Clinton and the Democrats such as some acknowledgement
that Trump is a dispicable, cruel, vicious and pathological narcissist. It also did not
help that Mr. Jay seemed embarrassed to question or critique Mr. Cohen's assertions.
Unfortunately in making his points Mr. Cohen takes too much information out of context
and leaves out far too many details of the Russiagate scandal.
I think if you listen more to professor Cohen (try Stephen Cohen John Batchelor show)
, you find acknowledgement of all of Trumps faults as well that you accurately described
and realize his "dismissive arrogance" relates to his informed knowledge of the
Russiagate scandal.
I couldn’t have put it any more coherently. I don’t find Mr. Cohen
persuasive at all, particularly after watching the Russian intelligence and counter
intelligence cohort at the House Intelligence Committee hearing. (They were extremely
knowledgeable.) After hearing them, this guy seems unbelievable to me. But! Paul got his
anti-Mueller report guy. At this point, this country is like a boulder ready to roll down
a cliff and finish democracy for good. Two of the issues I found ironic was that Mr.
Cohen 1) feels that Democrats must not think voters are very smart if they are swayed by
the Social Networks (ha!) and 2) he really believes (straight face) that our voting
system and elections in this country are solid and uncorrupted. Where has he been? Thank
you, Mark Swanson, for your eloquent analysis.
An historically factual and informative article once again based based on a false
premise. Trump was not elected. Billary won the election by 3 million votes. Trump was
appointed POTUS by the Electoral College, as Bush2 was appointed by the SCOTUS and then
employed a government official in Ohio to stuff electronic ballot boxes to secure himself
a second term, and the US media forced fed to desperate but credulous Americans the empty
suit Obomber turned out to be to. The US is not and has never been a Democracy, more a
police state run by Plutocrats . Mr Cohen simply trumpets the corporate approved
narrative offering incrementalism for obedience. Kissinger and friends, investment
advisers to most of the worlds tyrants, continues to facilitate Putin's end run around US
sanctions helping him invest his enormous fortune.
you don't like the rules? then change the rules first. Trump won the election fair and
square, following the rules. if the rules had been different, voters and candidates would
have behaved totally differently as well in terms of campaign strategies and voting.
Trump could have won the popular vote by a landslide. ever thought about that? no.
"... Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures for the various departments. ..."
"... I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet. ..."
"... A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies). ..."
It is not about politics, but Trump's peculiar management style, Timofey Bordachev, Director
of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the Faculty of World Economy
and International Affairs at Russia's High School of Economics, told RIA Novosti.
"Those who have been studying the business biography of the newly elected president have
noted that he has always played off his high-ranking employees against each other. While doing
so he remained above the fight," he said.
And
Gevorg Mirzayan, an assistant professor of the Political Science department at the Financial
University in Moscow pointed out two purposes for the nominations.
The above brings rationality to the diverse selections made by Trump.
However, the black swan event will be an economic collapse (fast or protracted over several
years). That will be the defining event in the Trump presidency. I have no inkling how he or those
who may replace him would respond.
I had guessed myself that Trump was going to run the government as a business corporation. Surrounding
himself with people of competing viewpoints, and hiring on the basis of experience and skills
(and not on the basis of loyalty, as Hillary Clinton might have done) would be two ways Trump
can change the government and its culture. Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity
of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow
and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with
Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures
for the various departments.
If running the US government as a large mock business enterprise brings a change in its culture
so it becomes more open and accountable to the public, less directed by ideology and identity
politics, and gets rid of people engaged in building up their own little empires within the different
departments, then Trump might just be the President the US needs at this moment in time.
Interesting that Russian academics have noted the outlines of Trump's likely cabinet and what
they suggest he plans to do, and no-one else has. Does this imply that Americans and others in
the West have lost sight of how large business corporations could be run, or should be run, and
everyone is fixated on fake "entrepreneurship" or "self-entrepreneur" (whatever that means) models
of running a business where it's every man, woman, child and dog for itself?
I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet.
Trump may have noted how Putin did an incredible turnaround of Russia and it all started with
three objectives: restore the integrity of the borders, rebuild the industrial base and run off
the globalists/liberals/kreakles. I am certainly not the first one to say this and I think that
there is a lot of basis for that analysis. However, Trump will have a far more difficult challenge
and frankly I don't think he has enough allies or smarts to pull it off.
A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions
remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected
and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies).
Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?
Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:
The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the
package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.
Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be
avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military.
NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)
What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump
wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a
surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily
managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.
"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.
After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT
workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA
to send over some flypaper!
I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be
almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might
be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple
missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff,
either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive
Outsiders.
And the neocon-ization of the Trump administration continues.
While The Donald is packing away Big Macs and Diet Cokes, his neocon secretary of state is
appointing likeminded warmongers.
Ortagus has been a fixture of the GOP foreign policy establishment for more than a decade.
She has served as a press officer at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a
financial intelligence officer at the Treasury Department and an intelligence officer in the
US Naval Reserve. She has also worked with several political campaigns, as well as a
political action committee, and has experience working on Wall Street and in foreign policy
consulting.
In addition to working with spooks and a federal agency that undermines elections
and foments coups in foreign lands, Ortagus "served on the boards" at the Institute for the
Study of War (ISW), a coven of warmongers run by Kimberly Kagan, wife of notorious neocon
Frederick Kagan.
ISW is funded by the death merchants -- Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp, and others --
and it pushes the concept of the indispensable nation engaged in forever war around the world,
a conflict promoted in the name of "democracy," which is code for mass murder campaigns waged
by the financial elite in its quest for total domination and theft of everything valuable on
planet Earth.
Naturally, some folks over on the so-called "New Right" support the appointment of an ardent
neocon -- a former pretty face from Fox News -- at the State Department, thus demonstrating
they are little different than establishment Republicans, or for that matter Democrats.
' doesn't this prove I was wrong about Trump and his movement all along?
I was very wrong to discount the role of character, personality, and intelligence: Trump
is simply not fit to be President '
Raimondo's reaction to Dump's incredible imbecility re the Syria 'chemical attacks
'
' A child could see through the fake "chemical attack" supposedly launched by Bashar
al-Assad just as his troops defeated the jihadists and Trump said he wanted out of Syria
'
Yes anyone watching that white helmets footage is immediately cringing for those poor kids
being abused as props in a macabre stage play
So he's not just stupid, and crazy – he's also a coward. He refuses
to confront the War Party head on, despite his campaign trail rhetoric. Just the other day he
was telling crowds in Ohio how we were on the way out of Syria because "we have to take care
of our own country." The crowd cheered. Would he go back to that same audience and tell them
we need to intervene in a country that's been wracked by warfare for years, with no real hope
of a peaceful settlement? Of course not.
Coulter:
He is a shallow, lazy ignoramus who just wants Goldman Sachs to like him.
We get words; the neocon banker NY scum, running and ruining this world on the fast track
since 9-11, get action. They also own the congressional swamp with its amazingly high
approval rating of 15%. They own the former liberal left, now the Resistance, that can turn
out half a million bleeding hearts in pussy hats but the same oddly can't be bothered to
protest war.
Although I believe the timing of the raid on Trump's lawyer's office to be convenient to
help persuade him to ignore his base and appease his owners, at this point I won't be
troubled when they throw him away.
So the USA helped to re-install medieval treatment of woman in Afghanistan and then called it progress toward human rights...
Notable quotes:
"... But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as well. ..."
Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who
and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal.
... ... ...
To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the
discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a
critical history that has been suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the
attacks occurred, when "some people did something." Many of those people served at the highest
levels of U.S. government, and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an
international network – and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.
Taliban 'Unimportant'
Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the
Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy
weapons in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi
clerics such as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of
dollars worth of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them
to commit acts of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to
wreak havoc on the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause
with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct
assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of
Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign
Islamist fighters.
These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the
Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept
watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the
Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed
by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.
These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names
like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the
aisle in Congress.
When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided
Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a
war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the
Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.
"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?"
remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the
Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were
unimportant."
To some in Washington, the Taliban were a historical footnote. To others, they were allies
of convenience. As a top State Department diplomat commented to journalist Ahmed Rashid in
February 1997, "The Taliban will probably develop like Saudi Arabia. There be [the Saudi-owned
oil company] Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with
that."
CIA Cover-ups and Blowback
Back in the U.S., some people fueled the blowback from the Afghan proxy war. The Blind
Sheikh was given a special entry visa by the CIA as payback for the services he provided in
Afghanistan, allowing him to take over the al-Kifah Center in New York City, which had
functioned as the de facto U.S. arm of Al Qaeda's Services Bureau. Under his watch and with
help from bin Laden, some people and lots of aid were shuttled to the front lines of U.S. proxy
wars in Bosnia and Chechnya while the Clinton administration generally looked the other
way.
Though the Blind Sheikh was eventually convicted in a terror plot contrived by a paid
informant for the FBI, some people in federal law enforcement had been reluctant to indict him.
"There was a whole issue about [Abdel-Rahman] being given a visa to come into this country and
what the circumstances were around that," one of his defense lawyers, Abdeed Jabara told me.
"The issue related to how much the government was involved with the jihadist enterprise when it
suited their purposes in Afghanistan and whether or not they were afraid there would be
exposure of that. Because there's no question that the jihadists were using the Americans and
the Americans were using the jihadists. There's a symbiotic relationship."
During the 1995 trial of members of the Blind Sheikh's New York-based cell, another defense
lawyer, Roger Stavis, referred to his clients before the jury as "Team America," emphasizing
the role they had played as proxy fighters for the U.S. in Afghanistan. When Stavis attempted
to summon to the witness stand a jihadist operative named Ali Abdelsauod Mohammed who had
trained his clients in firearms and combat, some people ordered Mohammed to refuse his
subpoena. Those people, according to journalist Peter Lance, were federal prosecutors Andrew
McCarthy and Patrick Fitzgerald.
The government lawyers were apparently fretting that Mohammed would be exposed as an active
asset of both the CIA and FBI, and as a former Army sergeant who had spirited training manuals
out of Fort Bragg while stationed there during the 1980s. So Mohammed remained a free man,
helping Al Qaeda plan attacks on American consular facilities in Tanzania and Kenya while the
"Day of the Planes" plot began to take form.
In early 2000, some people gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to prepare the most daring Al
Qaeda operation to date. Two figures at the meeting, Saudi citizens named Nawaf al-Hazmi and
Khalid al-Midhar, were on their way to the United States. While in Kuala Lumpur, the duo's
hotel room was broken into by CIA agents, their passports were photographed, and their
communications were recorded. And yet the pair of Al Qaeda operatives was able to travel
together with multiple-entry visas on a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles. That's
because for some reason, some people from the CIA failed to notify any people at the FBI about
the terror summit that had just taken place. The "Day of Planes" plot was moving forward
without a kink.
In Los Angeles, some people met Hazmi and Midhar at the airport, provided the two
non-English speakers with a personal caretaker and rented them apartments, where neighbors said
they were routinely visited each night by unknown figures in expensive cars with darkened
windows. Those people were Saudi Arabian intelligence agents named Omar Bayoumi and Khaled
al-Thumairy.
Crawford , Texas
It was not until August 2001 that Midhar was placed on a terrorist watch list. That month,
some people met at a ranch in Crawford, Texas, and reviewed a classified document headlined,
"Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the US." The bulletin was a page-and-a-half long, with
detailed intelligence on the "Day of Planes" plot provided by Ali Mohammed, the Al
Qaeda-FBI-CIA triple agent now registered as "John Doe" and disappeared somewhere in the
federal prison system. Those people reviewed the document for a few minutes before their boss,
President George W. Bush, moved on to other matters.
According to The Washington Post , Bush exhibited an "expansive mood" that day,
taking in a round of golf. "We are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die,
and it could be in the U.S.," CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black warned days later. Bush
did not meet with his cabinet heads again to discuss terrorism until Sept. 4.
A week later, on Sept. 11, some people did something.
They hijacked four civilian airliners and changed the course of American history with little
more than box cutter blades in their hands. Fifteen of those 19 people, including Hazmi and
Midhar, were citizens of Saudi Arabia. They were products of a Wahhabi school system and a
politically stultifying society that had thrived under the protection of a special relationship
with the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. had showered theocratic allies like Saudi Arabia with aid and
weapons while threatening secular Arab states that resisted its hegemony with sanctions and
invasion. The Saudis were the favorite Muslims of America's national security elite not because
they were moderate, which they absolutely were not, but because they were useful.
In the days after 9/11, the FBI
organized several flights to evacuate prominent Saudi families from the U.S., including
relatives of Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, Islamophobia erupted across the country, with even
mainstream personalities such as TV news anchor Dan Rather taking to the airwaves to claim
without evidence that Arab-Americans had celebrated the 9/11 attacks.
Unable to find a single operational Al Qaeda cell in the country, the FBI turned to an army
of paid snitches to haul in mentally unstable Muslims, dupes and idlers like the Lackawanna 6
in manufactured plots. Desperate for a high-profile bust to reinforce the "war on terror"
narrative, the bureau hounded Palestinian Muslim activists and persecuted prominent Islamic
charities like the Holy Land Foundation, sending its directors to prison for decades for the
crime of sending aid to NGOs in the occupied Gaza Strip.
As America's national security state cracked down on Muslim civil society at home, it turned
to fanatical Islamist proxies abroad to bring down secular and politically independent Arab
states. In Libya, the U.S. and UK helped arm the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a longtime
affiliate of Al Qaeda, using it as a proxy to depose and murder Muammar Gaddafi. As that
country transformed from a stable, prosperous state into an Afghanistan-style playground for
rival militias, including a chapter of the Islamic State, the Obama administration moved to do
the same to Damascus.
In Syria, the CIA armed an outfit of supposedly "moderate rebels" called the Free Syrian
Army that turned out to be nothing more than a political front and weapons farm for an array of
extremist insurgent factions including Al Qaeda's local affiliate and the Islamic State. The
latter two groups were, of course, products of the sectarian chaos of Iraq, which had been
ruled by a secular government until the U.S. came knocking after 9/11.
The blowback from Iraq, Libya and Syria arrived in the form of the worst refugee crises the
world has experienced since World War II. And then came the bloodiest terror attack to hit the
UK in history – in Manchester. There, the son of a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member,
who traveled to Libya and Syria on an MI6 ratline, slaughtered concert-goers with a nail
bomb.
Cataclysmic social disruptions like these were like steroids for right-wing Islamophobes,
electrifying Trump's victorious 2016 presidential campaign, a wing of the Brexit "Leave"
campaign in the UK, and far-right parties across Europe. But as I explain in "The Management of
Savagery," these terrifying trends were byproducts of decisions undertaken by national security
elites more closely aligned with the political center – figures who today attempt to
position themselves as leaders of the anti-Trump resistance.
Which people did which things to drag us into the political nightmare we're living through?
For those willing to cut through the campaign season bluster, Ilhan Omar's comments dare us to
name names.
Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling
" Republican
Gomorrah ," " Goliath ," "
The
Fifty One Day War " and " The Management of
Savagery ," published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles
for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including "
Killing Gaza " and "
Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie ." Blumenthal founded the
Grayzone in 2015 to shine a
journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic
repercussions. 36 comments for "Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of 9/11"
Jeff Harrison , April 19, 2019 at 11:24
The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains
why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us. This will get
worse as we move into a more imperialistic mode. We continue to use the anachronistic phrase
"leader of the free world" all the while missing out on the fact that the rest of the world
has, in essence, become free and they, for the most part, don't want us leading them.
bill haymes , April 19, 2019 at 05:20
everyone who has not examined ALL THE EVIDENCE of 9/11 WITH AN OPEN MIND is imo simply
whistling in the wind
Anarcissie , April 19, 2019 at 11:12
I suppose, then, that that would mean going back to the earliest days of the 20th century,
when the British leadership, considering that its future navy, a main pillar of its empire,
would have to be fueled with oil instead of coal, and that there was a lot of oil in the
Middle East, began its imperial projects there, which of course involved wars, police, spies,
economic blackmail, and other tools of empire. The US seized or wangled or inherited the
imperial system from the British and thus acquired the associated regional, ethnic, and
religious hostilities as well. Since the Arabs and other Muslims were weak compared with the
Great Powers, resistance meant terrorism and guerrilla warfare on one side and massive
intervention and the support of local strongmen, Mafia bosses, dictators, and so on on the
other.
After 9/11. mentioning this important fact became 'justifying bin Laden' or 'spitting on
the graves of the dead' so you couldn't talk about it.
But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a
conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open.
Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as
well.
Abe , April 18, 2019 at 23:23
Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of the pro-Israel Lobby
Max Blumenthal's article and his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery: How America's
National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump (2019), is an
impressive exercise in burying the leads.
Blumenthal does chronicle a decades-long panoply of active measures by numerous pro-Israel
Lobby figures, groups and think tanks. Yet he fails to explicitly recognize the connection
between pro-Israel Lobby efforts and the covert operations and overt invasions of America's
national security state.
Julian Assange of Wikileaks was more explicit. Assange named the "country that has
interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has
corrupted America's legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to
initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and
has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media
to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all
that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby [ ] That
country is, of course, Israel."
i really like her and support her but if she just had the good sense to have simply said
"some people did something terrible" none of the present chapter of "islamophobia" would be
acted out..no matter how much we think we know about the real truth(?) what happened that day
did not blow up the white house, congress or the ruling class of america but nearly three
thousand pretty ordinary folks yes, just like what "we" do repeatedly, but nevertheless, and
considering the overwhelming mind fuck that went on with replaying the tragedy on tv for days
so that millions across the nation were put in shock, we need to be just a little more
considerate and possibly understanding both about how many people might feel and how some
people might use any opportunity to perform this second rate islamophobia, which is a tiny
fractional form of the original monstrous behavior that has destroyed nations, governments
and millions of people in the islamic world..that is islamophobia, not the reactionary crap
that passes for it which should be as understandable – under the circumstances –
as terrorism!
Zhu , April 18, 2019 at 22:32
It should have been obvious that our government had made enemies around the world &
that some would attempt revenge some day. Instead, we all thought that what we did to other
people could never happen to us.
Joe Tedesky , April 18, 2019 at 21:41
This is a must read for the skeptics who doubt any questioning of the official 9/11
Commission Report. This investigative reporting by Max Blumenthal is another good reason to
read the Consortium.
hetro , April 18, 2019 at 17:18
Max Blumenthal's emphasis on "somebody did something" in echo to Ilhan Omar's comments,
plus his emphasis on what has been "suppressed," will hopefully lead on to further
disclosures of what took place for the 9/11 event.
Anyone who watches the Omar video will see she is mainly emphasizing a disgraceful
demonizing of Muslims in general. Additionally, what has brought on all the hatred to her,
she did not speak with the "quasi-theological understanding" that demands the official
narrative, with hushed tones, while speaking of the event:
Max Blumenthal above:
". . . by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim
narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must
be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."
It would be a fine thing for CN, despite Mr. Parry's former reservations, to open up
enquiry into further discussion of what has been "suppressed"–or at the very least to
the very serious questions that have not yet been answered on that horrible day.
OlyaPola , April 18, 2019 at 14:17
"Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who
and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal."
All processes of suppression tend to spread that which is being suppresed facilitating
de-suppression of much that is being suppressed leaving a residual.
Framing and access to sources may continue the lack of perception of this residual and
hence facilitate misrepresentation through ommission.
"Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the
Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly."
Restriction of frame is a tool of obfuscation and choice of point of initiation a tool of
misrepresentation.
During the early 1970's due to internal factors primarily but not wholly in the period of
1964 to 1970, the Politburo of the Soviet Union agreed detente on the bases of spheres of
influence with the United States of America facilitating the creation of a greater assay of
and reliance upon the US dollar fiat currency, further butressed by commodity arrangements
including but not restricted to the petro-dollar, in part to underpin the United States of
America economic recovery including recovering their control over their perceived threats
within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan.
In reaction/attempt at circumvention in 1973 Mitsui-Mitsubishi representing the zaibatsu
sought to jointly develop the Trans-Siberian railway, the port of Nahodka and other
industrial options including in Japan primarily in Northern Honshu and in Hokkaido with the
Soviet Union but this project was terminated by the Politburo, the reason given being
potential threats from China after confrontation including on the Amur and the need to build
BAM (Baikal-Amur Railway) to the north of the Trans-Siberian Railway – the projects
rejected were ancestor of the present OBOR project with differing participants re-explored
from 1993 onwards.
These opportunities and trajectories in the 1970's were explained to the Politburo in the
1970's but rejected by the Politburo.
The Soviet Union was invited into Afghanistan by the Afghani government and hence never
"invaded" Afghanistan.
The Politburo accepted the invitation of the Afghani government despite the advice of
those practiced in strategic evaluation – the illusion that the Politburo was practiced
in strategic evaluation endured in an ideological half-life post August 1968 but increasingly
was ignored in practice.
During the 1970's there was an oscillating aspect of contrariness and attempt to regain
perceived control in many of the decision of the Politburo led by the man who loved medals
and awards Mr. Brezhnev.
Consequently the Politburo and the Soviet Union was complicit in facilitating
opportunities for " Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert
operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft
underbelly."
However the targets of these operations were not restricted to the Soviet Union but
included as part of an ongoing "strategy" "to underpin the United States of America economic
recovery/maintainence including recovering/maintaining their control over their perceived
threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan." and the
location of these efforts were chosen the middle of Central Asia in reaction to experiences
in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Israel post 1973.
The above are necessarily thumbnails in confirmation and extension of the not widely
perceived causation/facilitation/ history/trajectories/time horizons which may aid
perception, as may testing the hypotheses that Ms. Omar is being attacked for challenging
myth irrespective of which myth she attempts to challenge.
The only US president to complete his term without war, military attack or occupation has
called the United States "the most warlike nation in the history of the world."
During his regular Sunday school lesson at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of
Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter
revealed that he had recently spoken with President Donald Trump about China. Carter, 94,
said Trump was worried about China's growing economy and expressed concern that "China is
getting ahead of us."
Carter, who normalized diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing in 1979, said he
told Trump that much of China's success was due to its peaceful foreign policy.
"Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody?" Carter
asked.
"None, and we have stayed at war." While it is true that China's last major war -- an invasion
of Vietnam -- occurred in 1979, its People's Liberation Army pounded border regions of Vietnam
with artillery and its navy battled its Vietnamese counterpart in the 1980s. Since then,
however, China has been at peace with its neighbors and the world.
Carter then said the US has been at peace for only 16 of its 242 years as a nation. Counting
wars, military attacks and military occupations, there have actually only been five years of
peace in US history -- 1976, the last year of the Gerald Ford administration and 1977-80, the
entirety of Carter's presidency. Carter then referred to the US as "the most warlike nation in
the history of the world," a result, he said, of the US forcing other countries to "adopt our
American principles."
China's peace dividend has allowed and enhanced its economic growth, Carter said. "How many
miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?" he asked. China has around 18,000
miles (29,000 km) of high speed rail lines while the US has "wasted, I think, $3 trillion" on
military spending. According to a November 2018
study by Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, the US
has spent $5.9 trillion waging war in Iraq,
Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other nations since 2001.
"It's more than you can imagine," Carter said of US war spending. "China has not wasted a
single penny on war, and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way."
"And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure
you'd probably have $2 trillion leftover," Carter told his congregation. "We'd have high-speed
railroad. We'd have bridges that aren't collapsing, we'd have roads that are maintained
properly. Our education system would be as good as that of say South Korea or Hong Kong."
While there is a prevalent belief in the United States that the country almost always wages
war for noble purposes and in defense of freedom, global public opinion and facts paint a very
different picture. Most countries surveyed in a 2013 WIN/Gallup poll
identified the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, and a 2017 Pew Research
poll
found that a record number of people in 30 surveyed nations viewed US power and influence
as a "major threat."
The US has also invaded or bombed dozens of
countries and supported nearly every single right wing dictatorship in the world since the
end of World War II. It has overthrown
or attempted to overthrow dozens of foreign governments since 1949 and has actively sought to
crush nearly every single people's liberation movement over that same period. It has also
meddled in scores of elections, in countries that are allies and adversaries alike.
Join
the debate on Facebook More articles by: Brett Wilkins
Brett Wilkins is editor-at-large for US news at Digital Journal. Based in San Francisco,
his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace.
For Western world, especially people of the USA, the collapse of the USSR was really geopolitical catastrophe, as Putin
once put it. It unleaseshed cannibalistic instincts of neoliberal elite.
" "Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?"
remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski "
Yeah, I can.
There never would have been a war on Iraq in 1991 nor an obliteration of Iraq in 2003,
which has lasted until the present day. The destruction of Yugoslavia never would have taken
place and the wars and proxy wars on Syria and Libya would have only existed in the twisted
and depraved imaginations of the Zionist and militarist psychos in our midst.
TINA never would have been an imperative and the working people of the Western world
(primarily the U.S.) wouldn't be in a race to the bottom as it comes to wages, healthcare
insurance, poverty levels, infant mortality, life-expectancy, union power in the workplace,
secure retirements, and outlandish housing costs. With the demise of the USSR the millionaire
capitalist-investor class really took the gloves off and saw no reason to provide the working
masses with certain life-affirming policies, it was time to really sock it to the bottom
90%.
Despite some its faults, the world's people have been paying dearly for the demise of the
USSR.
For further reading on what I've outlined above:
"Blood Lies" by Grover Furr
"Blackshirts and Reds" by Michael Parenti
"Fool's Crusade" by Diana Johnstone
"Against Empire" by Michael Parenti
essays and articles by Paul Craig Roberts
essays and articles by Andre Vltchek
Al Pinto , April 18, 2019 at 13:31
In short, without an antidote, the US does what the neocons and Israel decide to do.
Welcome to the world of "my way, or the highway" cowboy mentality
Actually, people in the USSR lived lives of constant fear (they call it the “Time of
Terror”) that their friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers, even their children,
would “tattle” on them and they would wind up in the torture chambers. They lived
in stark, nearly unbearable poverty; the only comfort was that they all were in the same
godforsaken boat. Communism might be a good idea on paper, but in reality, because of the
ignorance of the bureaucratic leadership, it was a dismal failure.
The demise of the USSR would have no effect whatsoever on the hegemonic madness of the US
which, under the guiding light of the Monroe Doctrine (established way before the USSR),
carries on destroying one country after another. I would ask, “What would the world do
without the USA?” Live in a much more peaceful world for sure. As for Omar, I wish her
the fortitude to continue telling the truth. Again, Max Blumenthal proves himself one of the
world’s best reporters.
OlyaPola , April 19, 2019 at 05:33
“constant fear”
The years of 1928 to 1953 were not constant since there were the years 1954 and
subsequent.
That’s not true Rob Roy. You’re parroting Western capitalist talking points. A whole host of brand new scholarly literature
has hit the shelves in just the last few years proving the USSR was nowhere near as horrible as the Washington imperialist
media made it out to be. In fact, under Stalin the Soviet Union made substantial gains in women’s rights, literacy, healthcare
and industrial wages. Also, had it not been for Stalin’s agrarian plan there would have been more famines and more severe
famines.
And as everyone knows, if
Stalin never crash course industrialized the country they never would have defeated Nazi
Germany.
Far from the USSR being a police-state it was often seen as a giant trough in which, for
example, rent wouldn’t be paid and no one would come around to collect it.
Please see the following books for a truth trip: “Blood Lies” by Grover Furr and
“Stalin, Waiting for the Truth” by Grover Furr. Also, Michael Parenti’s
“Blackshirts and Reds is excellent.
Dump Pelousy , April 18, 2019 at 20:52
Micheal Perenti is the best. He was the Truth To Power voice before 9/11, before all the
yuppie reporters sold their souls for “access” and a talking heads show. I
watched it happen in slow motion with great dismay.
mp66 , April 18, 2019 at 22:23
Spot on. The western owner class was forced to share at least one plate with the rest of
the population to make the west appear superior in material terms, and with that incentive or
threat gone, there is no more need for a plate, few crumbs under the table should be
sufficient. But as usual, greed goes along with stupidity, they forgot that doing so for
decades undermines the stability of the system. Trump, Brexit, trade wars, abrogations of
treaties, blatant disregard for bare basics of international law etc. are just symptoms of
deeper discontent across the globe.
The military offensive against Tripoli is more political than in fact a military offensive
to overwhelm the enemy. Of course battles are fought but just the fact that heavy weapons
(tanks, artillery etc...) were not used in the first few weeks could indicate that the attack
was somehow aiming to be fast, to aim fo tribal allegiance shifts or just to make a point.
Only in the past week or so we have seen tanks and air strikes taking place, which seems an
escalation of the conflict.
Haftar's LNA has won this war, though many battles will be fought ahead, the LNA has
brought a very united support from Egypt, KSA and UAE and with that it brings France, Russia
and now the US in supporting it, either as opportunistic, individual agenda or simply to
speed up the peaceful process.
The fact is the GNA is becoming seriously isolated, very few support besides Turkey, Qatar
and Italy, all the indication that there is a good chance for Tripoli to saved from
destruction in a mix of military/political solution in weeks to come. Key tribal vocal and on
the ground support, like Zittan's, will be crucial for this peace process.
Then Misrata will be a totally different animal, here Muslin Brotherhood/al Qaeda and ISIS
are packed and strong, support from Turkey and Qatar is abundant, there is no peaceful
solution for Misrata, only annihilation of the filthy terrorists, like in Idlib in Syria.
Trump is supporting Haftar because he is STILL a CIA asset and to keep Russia's hands off
Libya. Haftar is also friends with the Egyptian Zionist Sissy and likewise, MbinSaw.
So now, there's only one smart thing for Putin to do; support THE OTHER SIDE. If he
doesn't do this, the U.S. has a CIA stooge ruling Libya, who is friends with all its allies
including the most lunatic state of the 3 -- Israel, though all three are ruled by despot
nutjobs.
Putin should at worst remain neutral or support the other side to mess with Trump's
geo-engineering.
Now that Putin and Kim will be holding a summit soon; it would be nice to see Putin f...ck
up U.S. plans in Libya too!
It's about putting up roadblocks to the Empire's geopolitical grab. That's the way you
balance power. If ever war breaks out, you want to have as many allies, friendly air space
and allied ports as possible. It doesn't mean a World War will happen again, but it could,
and geostrategy is good INSURANCE. The U.S. will never be Russia's natural ally, not even
close, therefore Putin better play it smart always planning for the worst while hoping for
the best.
Alas, I'm not sure what Putin's thinking lately allowing the lunatic state to attack
Iranian military assets in Syria! Too many Zionist oligarchs in Putin's sphere. One day Putin
will utter Caesar's last words: Et tu, Brute? Because you sure as hell can't trust a Zionist
when it comes to securing your own power!
But only the LNA and GNA are mentioned. I thought there were 3 governments in Libya - one
west, one east, and one pushed by the UN. Wikipedia's Libyan Civil War entry adds the
National Salvation Army to the LNA and GNA. But the NSA may no longer play a part with the
militias rising to the fore. And do the militias support the UN-backed GNA? From what I've
read the militias are working together against "one-man rule" of Haftar.
Libya is a broken country, Haftar brings stability, the end of the militias, Islamists and
slavery. Haftar has already won that is why the US are now supporting him.
Russia has had a long standing dialogue with Haftar. Haftar will probably gain some sort
of independence by balancing these conflicting powers (Russia and US). The US will get oil at
the price they want (need) but I expect that Russia will gain most from Haftar coming out on
top.
Haftar was part of the revolution that brought Gadaffi to power - I doubt that he is a CIA
poodle.
Haftar was part of the revolution that brought Gadaffi to power - I doubt that he is a CIA
poodle.
Posted by: ADKC | Apr 19, 2019 5:30:50 PM
Hogwash. You left out the part where Haftar joined the revolution that deposed and
murdered Gaddafi after returning to Libya from Langley! Haftar is a ruthless power-lusting
butcher and not trustworthy at all!
Yes he was part of the forces that overthrew Gaddafi and also connected to the CIA - I
didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I would very much prefer Gaddafi to still be in power -
Libyans almost certainly feel the same (the vast majority felt the same when the uprising
happened).
But Haftar has won and the alternative to Haftar is criminal gangs and Islamist militias.
So what choice is there really? Haftar brings a much greater likelihood of peace and
stability. But, he won't be bringing back the life that Libyans had when Gaddafi was in
charge.
It appears that he instigated his war in 2015 without the agreement/support of US &
CIA and this may well indicate that he is his own person - but this might just be a
smokescreen. Regardless, what real choice is there for ordinary Libyans - continuing war,
chaos and conflict or accepting that Haftar has won?
But Haftar has won and the alternative to Haftar is criminal gangs and Islamist
militias. So what choice is there really?
Wrong. It's not an either Haftar or terrorists situation, dynamic whatever. This falsehood
is UAE, SAUDI bullshet propaganda. Wahhabism is trying to take over Libya and Sudan! Wherever
the Saudis are involved trouble follows lest you forget Syria and Yemen!
Haftar is bad for Libya PERIOD. More proof is that before Trump called Haftar to offer his
support, he spoke with UEA's MBZ. It all stinks! Leave Libya alone -- hands off! All foreign
influence out! That's the best option.
financial matters , Apr 19, 2019 7:08:35 PM |
link
Nice to see Russia and the US on the same side actually fighting real terrorism. This is a
win against the deep state.
The US doesn't care what murderous thug is in charge.
Posted by: BraveNewWorld | Apr 19, 2019 3:22:46 PM | 9
My first thought was -- now they are telling us?
Of course, HRC put it nicely in a debate with Trump: "you will never see me singing
praises for a dictator or strongmen who does no love America." Qaddafi, RIP, did not love
America, so he had to go once an opportunity emerged. Maduro does not love America. Sisi may
have a kind word now and then etc.
"... But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as well. ..."
Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who
and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal.
... ... ...
To effectively puncture Trump's demagogic ploys, the
discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a
critical history that has been suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the
attacks occurred, when "some people did something." Many of those people served at the highest
levels of U.S. government, and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an
international network – and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.
Taliban 'Unimportant'
Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the
Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy
weapons in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi
clerics such as "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of
dollars worth of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them
to commit acts of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to
wreak havoc on the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause
with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan's Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct
assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of
Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign
Islamist fighters.
These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the
Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept
watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the
Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed
by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.
These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names
like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the
aisle in Congress.
When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided
Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a
war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the
Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.
"Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?"
remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the
Afghan proxy war. "So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were
unimportant."
To some in Washington, the Taliban were a historical footnote. To others, they were allies
of convenience. As a top State Department diplomat commented to journalist Ahmed Rashid in
February 1997, "The Taliban will probably develop like Saudi Arabia. There be [the Saudi-owned
oil company] Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with
that."
CIA Cover-ups and Blowback
Back in the U.S., some people fueled the blowback from the Afghan proxy war. The Blind
Sheikh was given a special entry visa by the CIA as payback for the services he provided in
Afghanistan, allowing him to take over the al-Kifah Center in New York City, which had
functioned as the de facto U.S. arm of Al Qaeda's Services Bureau. Under his watch and with
help from bin Laden, some people and lots of aid were shuttled to the front lines of U.S. proxy
wars in Bosnia and Chechnya while the Clinton administration generally looked the other
way.
Though the Blind Sheikh was eventually convicted in a terror plot contrived by a paid
informant for the FBI, some people in federal law enforcement had been reluctant to indict him.
"There was a whole issue about [Abdel-Rahman] being given a visa to come into this country and
what the circumstances were around that," one of his defense lawyers, Abdeed Jabara told me.
"The issue related to how much the government was involved with the jihadist enterprise when it
suited their purposes in Afghanistan and whether or not they were afraid there would be
exposure of that. Because there's no question that the jihadists were using the Americans and
the Americans were using the jihadists. There's a symbiotic relationship."
During the 1995 trial of members of the Blind Sheikh's New York-based cell, another defense
lawyer, Roger Stavis, referred to his clients before the jury as "Team America," emphasizing
the role they had played as proxy fighters for the U.S. in Afghanistan. When Stavis attempted
to summon to the witness stand a jihadist operative named Ali Abdelsauod Mohammed who had
trained his clients in firearms and combat, some people ordered Mohammed to refuse his
subpoena. Those people, according to journalist Peter Lance, were federal prosecutors Andrew
McCarthy and Patrick Fitzgerald.
The government lawyers were apparently fretting that Mohammed would be exposed as an active
asset of both the CIA and FBI, and as a former Army sergeant who had spirited training manuals
out of Fort Bragg while stationed there during the 1980s. So Mohammed remained a free man,
helping Al Qaeda plan attacks on American consular facilities in Tanzania and Kenya while the
"Day of the Planes" plot began to take form.
In early 2000, some people gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to prepare the most daring Al
Qaeda operation to date. Two figures at the meeting, Saudi citizens named Nawaf al-Hazmi and
Khalid al-Midhar, were on their way to the United States. While in Kuala Lumpur, the duo's
hotel room was broken into by CIA agents, their passports were photographed, and their
communications were recorded. And yet the pair of Al Qaeda operatives was able to travel
together with multiple-entry visas on a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles. That's
because for some reason, some people from the CIA failed to notify any people at the FBI about
the terror summit that had just taken place. The "Day of Planes" plot was moving forward
without a kink.
In Los Angeles, some people met Hazmi and Midhar at the airport, provided the two
non-English speakers with a personal caretaker and rented them apartments, where neighbors said
they were routinely visited each night by unknown figures in expensive cars with darkened
windows. Those people were Saudi Arabian intelligence agents named Omar Bayoumi and Khaled
al-Thumairy.
Crawford , Texas
It was not until August 2001 that Midhar was placed on a terrorist watch list. That month,
some people met at a ranch in Crawford, Texas, and reviewed a classified document headlined,
"Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the US." The bulletin was a page-and-a-half long, with
detailed intelligence on the "Day of Planes" plot provided by Ali Mohammed, the Al
Qaeda-FBI-CIA triple agent now registered as "John Doe" and disappeared somewhere in the
federal prison system. Those people reviewed the document for a few minutes before their boss,
President George W. Bush, moved on to other matters.
According to The Washington Post , Bush exhibited an "expansive mood" that day,
taking in a round of golf. "We are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die,
and it could be in the U.S.," CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black warned days later. Bush
did not meet with his cabinet heads again to discuss terrorism until Sept. 4.
A week later, on Sept. 11, some people did something.
They hijacked four civilian airliners and changed the course of American history with little
more than box cutter blades in their hands. Fifteen of those 19 people, including Hazmi and
Midhar, were citizens of Saudi Arabia. They were products of a Wahhabi school system and a
politically stultifying society that had thrived under the protection of a special relationship
with the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. had showered theocratic allies like Saudi Arabia with aid and
weapons while threatening secular Arab states that resisted its hegemony with sanctions and
invasion. The Saudis were the favorite Muslims of America's national security elite not because
they were moderate, which they absolutely were not, but because they were useful.
In the days after 9/11, the FBI
organized several flights to evacuate prominent Saudi families from the U.S., including
relatives of Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, Islamophobia erupted across the country, with even
mainstream personalities such as TV news anchor Dan Rather taking to the airwaves to claim
without evidence that Arab-Americans had celebrated the 9/11 attacks.
Unable to find a single operational Al Qaeda cell in the country, the FBI turned to an army
of paid snitches to haul in mentally unstable Muslims, dupes and idlers like the Lackawanna 6
in manufactured plots. Desperate for a high-profile bust to reinforce the "war on terror"
narrative, the bureau hounded Palestinian Muslim activists and persecuted prominent Islamic
charities like the Holy Land Foundation, sending its directors to prison for decades for the
crime of sending aid to NGOs in the occupied Gaza Strip.
As America's national security state cracked down on Muslim civil society at home, it turned
to fanatical Islamist proxies abroad to bring down secular and politically independent Arab
states. In Libya, the U.S. and UK helped arm the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a longtime
affiliate of Al Qaeda, using it as a proxy to depose and murder Muammar Gaddafi. As that
country transformed from a stable, prosperous state into an Afghanistan-style playground for
rival militias, including a chapter of the Islamic State, the Obama administration moved to do
the same to Damascus.
In Syria, the CIA armed an outfit of supposedly "moderate rebels" called the Free Syrian
Army that turned out to be nothing more than a political front and weapons farm for an array of
extremist insurgent factions including Al Qaeda's local affiliate and the Islamic State. The
latter two groups were, of course, products of the sectarian chaos of Iraq, which had been
ruled by a secular government until the U.S. came knocking after 9/11.
The blowback from Iraq, Libya and Syria arrived in the form of the worst refugee crises the
world has experienced since World War II. And then came the bloodiest terror attack to hit the
UK in history – in Manchester. There, the son of a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member,
who traveled to Libya and Syria on an MI6 ratline, slaughtered concert-goers with a nail
bomb.
Cataclysmic social disruptions like these were like steroids for right-wing Islamophobes,
electrifying Trump's victorious 2016 presidential campaign, a wing of the Brexit "Leave"
campaign in the UK, and far-right parties across Europe. But as I explain in "The Management of
Savagery," these terrifying trends were byproducts of decisions undertaken by national security
elites more closely aligned with the political center – figures who today attempt to
position themselves as leaders of the anti-Trump resistance.
Which people did which things to drag us into the political nightmare we're living through?
For those willing to cut through the campaign season bluster, Ilhan Omar's comments dare us to
name names.
Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling
" Republican
Gomorrah ," " Goliath ," "
The
Fifty One Day War " and " The Management of
Savagery ," published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles
for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including "
Killing Gaza " and "
Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie ." Blumenthal founded the
Grayzone in 2015 to shine a
journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic
repercussions. 36 comments for "Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of 9/11"
Jeff Harrison , April 19, 2019 at 11:24
The US doesn't seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains
why we don't understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us. This will get
worse as we move into a more imperialistic mode. We continue to use the anachronistic phrase
"leader of the free world" all the while missing out on the fact that the rest of the world
has, in essence, become free and they, for the most part, don't want us leading them.
bill haymes , April 19, 2019 at 05:20
everyone who has not examined ALL THE EVIDENCE of 9/11 WITH AN OPEN MIND is imo simply
whistling in the wind
Anarcissie , April 19, 2019 at 11:12
I suppose, then, that that would mean going back to the earliest days of the 20th century,
when the British leadership, considering that its future navy, a main pillar of its empire,
would have to be fueled with oil instead of coal, and that there was a lot of oil in the
Middle East, began its imperial projects there, which of course involved wars, police, spies,
economic blackmail, and other tools of empire. The US seized or wangled or inherited the
imperial system from the British and thus acquired the associated regional, ethnic, and
religious hostilities as well. Since the Arabs and other Muslims were weak compared with the
Great Powers, resistance meant terrorism and guerrilla warfare on one side and massive
intervention and the support of local strongmen, Mafia bosses, dictators, and so on on the
other.
After 9/11. mentioning this important fact became 'justifying bin Laden' or 'spitting on
the graves of the dead' so you couldn't talk about it.
But, yes, 'somebody did something'. You don't need a conspiracy theory, because a
conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open.
Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren't other conspiracies as
well.
Abe , April 18, 2019 at 23:23
Behind the Omar Outrage: Suppressed History of the pro-Israel Lobby
Max Blumenthal's article and his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery: How America's
National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump (2019), is an
impressive exercise in burying the leads.
Blumenthal does chronicle a decades-long panoply of active measures by numerous pro-Israel
Lobby figures, groups and think tanks. Yet he fails to explicitly recognize the connection
between pro-Israel Lobby efforts and the covert operations and overt invasions of America's
national security state.
Julian Assange of Wikileaks was more explicit. Assange named the "country that has
interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has
corrupted America's legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to
initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and
has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media
to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all
that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby [ ] That
country is, of course, Israel."
i really like her and support her but if she just had the good sense to have simply said
"some people did something terrible" none of the present chapter of "islamophobia" would be
acted out..no matter how much we think we know about the real truth(?) what happened that day
did not blow up the white house, congress or the ruling class of america but nearly three
thousand pretty ordinary folks yes, just like what "we" do repeatedly, but nevertheless, and
considering the overwhelming mind fuck that went on with replaying the tragedy on tv for days
so that millions across the nation were put in shock, we need to be just a little more
considerate and possibly understanding both about how many people might feel and how some
people might use any opportunity to perform this second rate islamophobia, which is a tiny
fractional form of the original monstrous behavior that has destroyed nations, governments
and millions of people in the islamic world..that is islamophobia, not the reactionary crap
that passes for it which should be as understandable – under the circumstances –
as terrorism!
Zhu , April 18, 2019 at 22:32
It should have been obvious that our government had made enemies around the world &
that some would attempt revenge some day. Instead, we all thought that what we did to other
people could never happen to us.
Joe Tedesky , April 18, 2019 at 21:41
This is a must read for the skeptics who doubt any questioning of the official 9/11
Commission Report. This investigative reporting by Max Blumenthal is another good reason to
read the Consortium.
hetro , April 18, 2019 at 17:18
Max Blumenthal's emphasis on "somebody did something" in echo to Ilhan Omar's comments,
plus his emphasis on what has been "suppressed," will hopefully lead on to further
disclosures of what took place for the 9/11 event.
Anyone who watches the Omar video will see she is mainly emphasizing a disgraceful
demonizing of Muslims in general. Additionally, what has brought on all the hatred to her,
she did not speak with the "quasi-theological understanding" that demands the official
narrative, with hushed tones, while speaking of the event:
Max Blumenthal above:
". . . by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim
narratives unchallenged. "The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must
be done with reverence," insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."
It would be a fine thing for CN, despite Mr. Parry's former reservations, to open up
enquiry into further discussion of what has been "suppressed"–or at the very least to
the very serious questions that have not yet been answered on that horrible day.
OlyaPola , April 18, 2019 at 14:17
"Trump's demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who
and what led to the "Day of Planes," writes Max Blumenthal."
All processes of suppression tend to spread that which is being suppresed facilitating
de-suppression of much that is being suppressed leaving a residual.
Framing and access to sources may continue the lack of perception of this residual and
hence facilitate misrepresentation through ommission.
"Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the
Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly."
Restriction of frame is a tool of obfuscation and choice of point of initiation a tool of
misrepresentation.
During the early 1970's due to internal factors primarily but not wholly in the period of
1964 to 1970, the Politburo of the Soviet Union agreed detente on the bases of spheres of
influence with the United States of America facilitating the creation of a greater assay of
and reliance upon the US dollar fiat currency, further butressed by commodity arrangements
including but not restricted to the petro-dollar, in part to underpin the United States of
America economic recovery including recovering their control over their perceived threats
within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan.
In reaction/attempt at circumvention in 1973 Mitsui-Mitsubishi representing the zaibatsu
sought to jointly develop the Trans-Siberian railway, the port of Nahodka and other
industrial options including in Japan primarily in Northern Honshu and in Hokkaido with the
Soviet Union but this project was terminated by the Politburo, the reason given being
potential threats from China after confrontation including on the Amur and the need to build
BAM (Baikal-Amur Railway) to the north of the Trans-Siberian Railway – the projects
rejected were ancestor of the present OBOR project with differing participants re-explored
from 1993 onwards.
These opportunities and trajectories in the 1970's were explained to the Politburo in the
1970's but rejected by the Politburo.
The Soviet Union was invited into Afghanistan by the Afghani government and hence never
"invaded" Afghanistan.
The Politburo accepted the invitation of the Afghani government despite the advice of
those practiced in strategic evaluation – the illusion that the Politburo was practiced
in strategic evaluation endured in an ideological half-life post August 1968 but increasingly
was ignored in practice.
During the 1970's there was an oscillating aspect of contrariness and attempt to regain
perceived control in many of the decision of the Politburo led by the man who loved medals
and awards Mr. Brezhnev.
Consequently the Politburo and the Soviet Union was complicit in facilitating
opportunities for " Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert
operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft
underbelly."
However the targets of these operations were not restricted to the Soviet Union but
included as part of an ongoing "strategy" "to underpin the United States of America economic
recovery/maintainence including recovering/maintaining their control over their perceived
threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan." and the
location of these efforts were chosen the middle of Central Asia in reaction to experiences
in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Israel post 1973.
The above are necessarily thumbnails in confirmation and extension of the not widely
perceived causation/facilitation/ history/trajectories/time horizons which may aid
perception, as may testing the hypotheses that Ms. Omar is being attacked for challenging
myth irrespective of which myth she attempts to challenge.
The situation in Syria is concerning. Meyssan has a piece on the geopolitics of oil. An
excerpt:
"The attitude of the White House towards Syria is different, insofar as this country is
currently unable to exploit its reserves, and Russia is allowing time to pass. The aim is to
prevent reconstruction and therefore make life impossible for its people. The CIA is
implementing an intense strategy of sabotage against any form of energy supply. The majority
of the population, for example, has no more gas for heating their homes, nor for cooking
purposes."
Given that Russia's economy today is smaller than Italy's and its military budget wouldn't
buy a toilet seat or hammer in the U.S. military procurement system, the question of why Russia
would seem a great mystery outside of history. And left unstated is that the U.S. defense
industry needs enemies to survive. 'Radical Islam,' an invention of oil and gas industry flacks
that turned out to be serviceable for marketing Tomahawk missiles and stealth fighter jets as
well, lost some of its luster when ISIS and Al Qaeda came over to 'our side.' And humanitarian
intervention ain't what it used to be with Libya reduced to rubble and open-air slave markets
now dotting the landscape.
From 1948 through the early 1990s Russia was Pennywise the evil clown, helping to sell
bananas, nuclear weapons and cut-rate underwear around the globe wherever American empire
alighted. Costumed 'communists,' locals paid a day-rate to dress up and shout whatever slogans
conveyed evil most effectively, were a staple of CIA interventions from Iran to Guatemala to
the streets of New York, Boston and Los Angeles. Never mind that the slayer of monsters is more
monstrous than an army of evil clowns, as the Koreans, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians,
Nicaraguans, El Salvadorans, Chileans, Iraqis, Afghanis, Yemenis and on and on, were to
learn.
The big why (?) here would suggest an eternal mystery were it not for the arithmetic we
learned as tykes. The U.S. has an annual military budget that is larger than the next seven
evil empires combined. Killing people and blowing shit up is what America does. Stated
reverse-wise, what is the point of being able to end all human life on earth more than once?
Yet the U.S. can do it 3X -- 5X or 30X -- 50X, depending on which analysis is chosen. And while
it would be anti-historical to remove mal-intent as motive, an alternative explanation of the
militarization of the police is 'overstock,' that there is nothing else to do with the stuff
that the Pentagon produces.
This would seem a tremendous waste of resources under any reasonable theory of their
efficient use (e.g. capitalism). The explanation of 'national defense' reads as legitimate
until history is brought back in. For a few thousand years, the argument against maintaining a
standing army was that standing armies tend to get used. Preparations for armed conflict
facilitate armed conflict. The mobilizations for WWI and WWII were mobilizations, not drawdowns
from existing military inventory. There is something to be said for wars requiring large
expenditures of time, effort and resources from everyone for whom they are undertaken.
Otherwise, they are likely to be started lightly.
The U.S. has long been the most militaristic
nation in the world. This probably doesn't read right to most Americans. 'We' are a
peace-loving nation that only sends in the military as a last resort, goes the myth. And 'we'
changed the name from the Department of War to the Department of Defense. It was early in the
twentieth century that U.S. General Smedley Butler proclaimed that 'war is a racket' (racket =
organized crime) as he described his military career as a ' gangster for capitalism .' The business of war in support
of capitalism had long been a business in its own right, just ask Wall Street.
When the George W. Bush administration created the Department of Homeland Security following
9/11, the obvious question from people who thought about such things was: what are these people
going to do all day? With daily briefings presented to Mr. Bush entitled ' Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.
'before 9/11, the only intelligence failure, if that is what it was, occurred in the White
House. Mr. Bush's entourage had been rumbling about going back to Iraq to 'finish the job'
since the end of his father's war. How much of a leap was it then to assume that Mr. Bush's WMD
scam was a pretext for re-invading Iraq?
But the question isn't rhetorical. With 240,000 people employed by DHS to find terrorists,
terrorists will be found. The basic insight is that justifying one's employment is crucial to
keeping it. In this light, the FBI counter-terrorism unit spent its time since 2001 enticing
poor and desperate people to claim each other as terrorists. The first person to point out that
there are no terrorists would be the first to receive a pink slip. And the same is true of
government contracting. Brave entrepreneurs who feed at the trough of military largesse need to
justify their existences. If they don't, some other proud patriot will step forward and do so.
A logic of necessity becomes a legitimating belief system More broadly, one could argue that
manufacturing terrorists has been the strategic goal of U.S. military operations for much of
the last century. If you bomb enough villages and wedding parties, people will fight back.
Wasn't this the implied storyline of anti-communist agitprop like Red Dawn and anti-Muslim
agitprop like Zero Dark Thirty -- if you invade 'our' country and / or bomb 'our' villages and
wedding parties, we will fight back. As a business proposition, the more people that are
killed, the more legitimate the operation is made to appear. Make the weapons, then employ
hundreds of thousands of people to explain why 'we' need to bomb villages. Then make more
weapons.
Graphic: Time Magazine was the voice of post-War liberalism in the 1970s -- it reflected
the opinions emanating from American officialdom through a faux-critical lens. This cover
featuring Muammar Gaddafi presaged the Obama administration's destruction of Libya by 35 years.
The main difference then was relative honesty about U.S. motives -- 'Oil' was the lede in 1973,
where 'humanitarian' concerns drove the American propaganda effort in 2011. Note: 'Arab' was
replaced by 'Muslim extremist' following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Source: Time,
Inc.
Propaganda theory is relevant here because of the ease with which the Russiagate story was
sold -- all evidence, no matter how contradictory, was claimed to point in only one direction.
Contrariwise, Russia isn't the Soviet Union. America's political leaders have long supported
strongmen and dictators. The biggest threat to free and fair elections in the U.S. is American
oligarchs followed by Israel. The Democrat running in the 2016 presidential election openly
manipulated the 1996 Russian presidential election. Russia today is a neoliberal petrostate.
Vladimir Putin is admired in Russia because he booted out corrupt American 'advisors' who were
looting the country. In other words, Russia today isn't Russia!
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and ostensible end of the first Cold War, a '
peace dividend ' of
reduced military spending was expected to fund increased domestic spending, the classic 'guns
versus butter' formulation shifted in favor of butter. A drop to pre-WWII levels of military
spending would have meant 95%+ of the military-industrial complex went away. Following a very
brief drop in the rate of growth of military spending in the early 1990s, a recession caused by
the looting of Savings & Loans and its aftermath led to the argument that 'the economy'
couldn't withstand a reduced military. September 11 th , 2001 was the best day ever
for U.S. military contractors. America was back in the business of industrial-scale
slaughter.
Early on, the American defense industry tried a few new enemies on for size. The George W.
Bush administration's WMD scam targeted an audience that had been primed by several decades of
anti-Muslim propaganda (see Time cover above) tied to oil geopolitics. The only WMDs found in
Iraq had come from the Reagan administration in its effort to keep Iraq warring with Iran in
the Iran-Iraq war. Current American amnesia over the genesis of Islamophobia is quaint. The New
York Times has been demonizing
Muslims since the 1970s . It was hardly incidental that 'reporting' on the Iraq war
contained breathless descriptions of newly created instruments of mass slaughter.
However, there were two tacks that propelled the Iraq War forward. Humanitarian intervention
had been the liberal formulation for selling the carpet bombing of civilian populations as in
the interest of those being bombed. The term was used for the aerial bombardment of civilian
populations in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid-1990s. And it was the back-up explanation for the
American war against Iraq -- to remove an evil dictator in order to liberate the people of
Iraq. It was also used to justify the U.S. / NATO bombing of Libya in 2011. To the certain
dismay of the defense industry, none of those interventions retained the patina of good
intentions once it became known that the target nations had been functionally destroyed.
Russiagate has been a godsend for those who profit from destruction. As the story goes, the
wily Russian bear, led by an evil dictator and newly trained in the technologies of modernity,
set loose a witch's brew of inter-continental ballistic internet messages to sow dissent
amongst the brothers and sisters of die Vaterland united by their common bond of loving
America. For younger readers, the claim that foreign 'agitation' motivated the Civil Rights and
anti-War movements, and more broadly, the American Left, has been a mainstay of CIA and FBI
propaganda since these agencies were created. Old playbooks are good playbooks?
Those with a sense of humor, if humor includes installing a drunken buffoon to head a
nuclear armed foreign power, might offer that 'Trump' is the English translation of 'Yeltsin.'
In 1996 the American President colluded with people inside the Russian government to overturn
the democratic will of the Russian people to install Boris Yeltsin as President of Russia. Yuk,
yuk -- an unstable jackass was installed to head a foreign government. The 'payback' narrative
no-doubt motivated true belief amongst some American officials after 2016. But alas, as with
bombed villages and wedding parties, unless you just will not stop fucking with other people,
they generally have other things to do than plot revenge.
None of the propagators of the phony WMD stories suffered from passing off state propaganda
as news. The New York Times and Washington Post found themselves on the winning side of the
'fake news' scam to shut down the opposition press. Even Judith Miller, brief heroine of the
free press for being 'stove-piped' by Dick Cheney, went on to a well-paid gig at Fox News,
wrote an autobiography that more than just her immediate family read and now lives as a
'celebrity.' Heroes of the #Resistance like David Corn, Rachel Maddow and Michael Isikoff have
the proceeds from book sales and television appearances to sustain them until their services
are needed to sell the next scam-with-a-purpose.
The economic role of American defense spending will lead to endless iterations of WMD and
Russiagate scams until the Pentagon is shut down. And that's the good part. The wars that these
scams support are the bane of humanity. Their true costs, in terms of lives destroyed, appear
to be meaningless to people living in twenty-room houses who want to live in thirty room
houses. Winding down the warfare state would be less politically fraught if people had
non-murderous ways of paying their bills. But how was this not understood as the warfare state
was being built?
Finally,
apologists for Russiagate claim that it has been nowhere near as dangerous as WMD lies.
Let's see: a cadre of national security officials spent two-and-one-half years claiming that it
has secret evidence that the President of the U.S. colluded with the leader of a foreign
government to assume power and then use his office for the benefit of that foreign leader.
Following, the domestic press claimed that the U.S. 'was under attack' and 'was at war' with
this foreign power. Meanwhile, the U.S. went about arming anti-Russian militias on Russia's
border while unilaterally abrogating a short-and-intermediate range nuclear weapons treaty
after publicly announcing that it was 'modernizing' its stockpile of
short-and-intermediate-range nuclear weapons.
Respectfully, this has all been a tad less than constructive.
For Western world, especially people of the USA, the collapse of the USSR was really geopolitical catastrophe, as Putin
once put it. It unleashed cannibalistic instincts of neoliberal elite.
" "Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?"
remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski "
Yeah, I can.
There never would have been a war on Iraq in 1991 nor an obliteration of Iraq in 2003,
which has lasted until the present day. The destruction of Yugoslavia never would have taken
place and the wars and proxy wars on Syria and Libya would have only existed in the twisted
and depraved imaginations of the Zionist and militarist psychos in our midst.
TINA never would have been an imperative and the working people of the Western world
(primarily the U.S.) wouldn't be in a race to the bottom as it comes to wages, healthcare
insurance, poverty levels, infant mortality, life-expectancy, union power in the workplace,
secure retirements, and outlandish housing costs. With the demise of the USSR the millionaire
capitalist-investor class really took the gloves off and saw no reason to provide the working
masses with certain life-affirming policies, it was time to really sock it to the bottom
90%.
Despite some its faults, the world's people have been paying dearly for the demise of the
USSR.
For further reading on what I've outlined above:
"Blood Lies" by Grover Furr
"Blackshirts and Reds" by Michael Parenti
"Fool's Crusade" by Diana Johnstone
"Against Empire" by Michael Parenti
essays and articles by Paul Craig Roberts
essays and articles by Andre Vltchek
Al Pinto , April 18, 2019 at 13:31
In short, without an antidote, the US does what the neocons and Israel decide to do.
Welcome to the world of "my way, or the highway" cowboy mentality
Actually, people in the USSR lived lives of constant fear (they call it the “Time of
Terror”) that their friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers, even their children,
would “tattle” on them and they would wind up in the torture chambers. They lived
in stark, nearly unbearable poverty; the only comfort was that they all were in the same
godforsaken boat. Communism might be a good idea on paper, but in reality, because of the
ignorance of the bureaucratic leadership, it was a dismal failure.
The demise of the USSR would have no effect whatsoever on the hegemonic madness of the US
which, under the guiding light of the Monroe Doctrine (established way before the USSR),
carries on destroying one country after another. I would ask, “What would the world do
without the USA?” Live in a much more peaceful world for sure. As for Omar, I wish her
the fortitude to continue telling the truth. Again, Max Blumenthal proves himself one of the
world’s best reporters.
OlyaPola , April 19, 2019 at 05:33
“constant fear”
The years of 1928 to 1953 were not constant since there were the years 1954 and
subsequent.
That’s not true Rob Roy. You’re parroting Western capitalist talking points. A whole host of brand new scholarly literature
has hit the shelves in just the last few years proving the USSR was nowhere near as horrible as the Washington imperialist
media made it out to be. In fact, under Stalin the Soviet Union made substantial gains in women’s rights, literacy, healthcare
and industrial wages. Also, had it not been for Stalin’s agrarian plan there would have been more famines and more severe
famines.
And as everyone knows, if
Stalin never crash course industrialized the country they never would have defeated Nazi
Germany.
Far from the USSR being a police-state it was often seen as a giant trough in which, for
example, rent wouldn’t be paid and no one would come around to collect it.
Please see the following books for a truth trip: “Blood Lies” by Grover Furr and
“Stalin, Waiting for the Truth” by Grover Furr. Also, Michael Parenti’s
“Blackshirts and Reds is excellent.
Dump Pelousy , April 18, 2019 at 20:52
Micheal Perenti is the best. He was the Truth To Power voice before 9/11, before all the
yuppie reporters sold their souls for “access” and a talking heads show. I
watched it happen in slow motion with great dismay.
mp66 , April 18, 2019 at 22:23
Spot on. The western owner class was forced to share at least one plate with the rest of
the population to make the west appear superior in material terms, and with that incentive or
threat gone, there is no more need for a plate, few crumbs under the table should be
sufficient. But as usual, greed goes along with stupidity, they forgot that doing so for
decades undermines the stability of the system. Trump, Brexit, trade wars, abrogations of
treaties, blatant disregard for bare basics of international law etc. are just symptoms of
deeper discontent across the globe.
Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?
Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:
The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the
package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.
Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be
avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military.
NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)
What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump
wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a
surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily
managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.
"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.
After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT
workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA
to send over some flypaper!
I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be
almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might
be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple
missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff,
either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive
Outsiders.
Not only they lost all moral authority. UK MSM became openly neofascist in some areas exceeeding the press of Third Riech and the
USSR in distortions and falsifications. .
Notable quotes:
"... Corruption of government and media, is also exceedingly dangerous, for everyone's mental health. People begin to subconsciously know that they are being lied to, but they cannot accept it, because the lies conflict with their worldview, which quite naturally is based on trust for authority, and that nice man reading the news on TV. ..."
"... In 2004, Karl Rove in The Bush Government " Guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [ ] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do' ..."
Even if the Skripal affair WAS staged, you shouldn't get too excited about it. In fact, you should be rather pleased because
it would demonstrate that the tired, incompetent old UK is still capable of mounting an operation of which young, vigorous, competent
Russia would be proud.
The UK can fake events with the best of them! I would find that reassuring rather than deplorable because it's a nasty world
out there.
The Government and the media, have not been telling the whole truth for a long time. Sometimes they blatantly lie. Most people
still believe most of what they say, as there is an in-built trust of authority, for some very good historical reasons. The Skripal
story, made it obvious to a large number of people, that some of it could not be true. Most still believe it or din't take much
notice. The arrest of Julian Assange made it clearer, to an even larger number of people, that the government and the media, had
lost all moral authority. Still many people didn't take much notice, or were convinced by the lies in the media, that he was a
rapist and should be in jail.
The lies and corruption from government, is now increasingly out in the open. I believe that this is deliberate. I also think
that it is exceedingly dangerous for society for multiple reasons. We are conditioned to accept authority as our moral guide.
They act as an example of acceptable behaviour. If society as a whole, behaved like government, all trust would break down. Virtually
all functions of society are based on trust. Without such trust, nothing will work.
Corruption of government and media, is also exceedingly dangerous, for everyone's mental health. People begin to subconsciously
know that they are being lied to, but they cannot accept it, because the lies conflict with their worldview, which quite naturally
is based on trust for authority, and that nice man reading the news on TV.
I believe this has all been pre-planned, and it will result in a disastrous effect on all society, unless something happens
to bring the governments and media back to truth and sanity. I have no idea what that might be, but I expect it will not be pleasant.
The following was an early warning of the mass insanity affecting The US Government. It has spread like a highly infectious
disease.
In 2004, Karl Rove in The Bush Government " Guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined
as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [ ] 'That's not the way the world
really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying
that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's
how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'
Trump betrayed anti-war republicans. As the result he lost any support of anti-war
Republicans. That can't be revered as he proved to be a marionette of Israel lobby. How that will
influence outcome of 2020 elections remains to be seen.
"The president has said that he does not want to see this country involved in endless wars .
I agree with that," Bernie Sanders told the Fox News audience at Monday's town hall meeting in
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Then, turning and staring straight into the camera, Bernie added: "Mister President, tonight
you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia
should not be determining the military or foreign policy of this country."
Sanders was talking about a War Powers Act resolution that would have ended U.S. involvement
in the five-year civil war in Yemen that has created one of the great humanitarian crises of
our time, with thousands of dead children amidst an epidemic of cholera and a famine.
Supported by a united Democratic Party on the Hill, and an anti-interventionist faction of
the GOP led by Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed
both houses of Congress.
But 24 hours after Sanders urged him to sign it, Trump, heeding the hawks in his Cabinet and
National Security Council, vetoed S.J.Res.7, calling it a "dangerous attempt to weaken my
constitutional authorities."
With sufficient Republican votes in both houses to sustain Trump's veto, that should have
been the end of the matter.
It is not: Trump may have just ceded the peace issue in 2020 to the Democrats. If Sanders
emerges as the nominee, we will have an election with a Democrat running on the "no-more-wars"
theme Trump touted in 2016. And Trump will be left defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and
civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
Does Trump really want to go into 2020 as a war party president? Does he want to go into
2020 with Democrats denouncing "Trump's endless wars" in the Middle East? Because that is where
he is headed.
In 2008, John McCain, leading hawk in the Senate, was routed by a left-wing first-term
senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who had won his nomination by defeating the more hawkish
Hillary Clinton, who had voted to authorize the war in Iraq.
In 2012, the Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who was far more hawkish than Obama on Russia,
lost.
Yet in 2016, Trump ran as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war and
an anti-interventionist who wanted to get along with Russia's Vladimir Putin and get out of
these Middle East wars.
Looking closely at the front-running candidates for the Democratic nomination of 2020 -- Joe
Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker --
not one appears to be as hawkish as Trump has become.
Trump pulled us out of the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by Secretary of State John
Kerry and re-imposed severe sanctions.
He declared Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, to which
Tehran has responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist organization. Ominously, the
IRGC and its trained Shiite militias in Iraq are in close proximity to U.S. troops.
Trump has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the
consulate that dealt with Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to the Palestinians, recognized
Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights seized from Syria in 1967, and gone silent on Bibi
Netanyahu's threat to annex Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
Sanders, however, though he stands by Israel, is supporting a two-state solution and
castigating the "right-wing" Netanyahu regime.
Trump has talked of pulling all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Yet the
troops are still there.
Though Trump came into office promising to get along with the Russians, he sent Javelin
anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced a pullout from Ronald Reagan's 1987 INF treaty that
outlawed all land-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
When Putin provocatively sent 100 Russian troops to Venezuela -- ostensibly to repair the
S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged in recent blackouts -- Trump,
drawing a red line, ordered the Russians to "get out."
Biden is expected to announce next week. If the stands he takes on Russia, China, Israel,
and the Middle East are more hawkish than the rest of the field, he will be challenged by the
left wing of his party and by Sanders, who voted "no" on the Iraq war that Biden supported.
The center of gravity of U.S. politics is shifting towards the Trump position of 2016. And
the anti-interventionist wing of the GOP is growing.
And when added to the anti-interventionist and anti-war wing of the Democratic Party on the
Hill, together, they are able, as on the Yemen War Powers resolution, to produce a new
bipartisan majority.
Prediction: by the primaries of 2020, foreign policy will be front and center, and the
Democratic Party will have captured the "no more wars" political high ground that candidate
Donald Trump occupied in 2016.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made
and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and
read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at
www.creators.com.
And the neocon-ization of the Trump administration continues.
While The Donald is packing away Big Macs and Diet Cokes, his neocon secretary of state is
appointing likeminded warmongers.
Ortagus has been a fixture of the GOP foreign policy establishment for more than a decade.
She has served as a press officer at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a
financial intelligence officer at the Treasury Department and an intelligence officer in the
US Naval Reserve. She has also worked with several political campaigns, as well as a
political action committee, and has experience working on Wall Street and in foreign policy
consulting.
In addition to working with spooks and a federal agency that undermines elections
and foments coups in foreign lands, Ortagus "served on the boards" at the Institute for the
Study of War (ISW), a coven of warmongers run by Kimberly Kagan, wife of notorious neocon
Frederick Kagan.
ISW is funded by the death merchants -- Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp, and others --
and it pushes the concept of the indispensable nation engaged in forever war around the world,
a conflict promoted in the name of "democracy," which is code for mass murder campaigns waged
by the financial elite in its quest for total domination and theft of everything valuable on
planet Earth.
Naturally, some folks over on the so-called "New Right" support the appointment of an ardent
neocon -- a former pretty face from Fox News -- at the State Department, thus demonstrating
they are little different than establishment Republicans, or for that matter Democrats.
"... I was pleasantly surprised to see that Team Trump not only had an intoxicating dream, but also a very logical and disciplined strategy to win the election. Trump kept up a cracking pace and worked tirelessly to the end of the campaign season. It's no wonder that his supporters are reluctant to desert such an inspirational candidate. ..."
I've suggested Trump has "elevated" Pompeo and Bolton and Pence because he was forced
to do so. It's even scarier if the old (soon-to-be-73) fart has drunk the kool-aid and wants
to be a prime mover in the End Times. From all I've read of late the man is gullible enough
to buy into such a scheme.
Opinions vary. I beg to differ about Trump being gullible.
I neither knew nor cared who "Donald Trump" was until he became a candidate for POTUS, and I
never watched The Apprentice for more than 3 seconds, and then only by accident.
But I liked his campaign antics right from the start. And I wasn't alone. To me, he came
across as the sharpest knife in the drawer, by a big margin. Putting himself forward as the
Drain the Swamp candidate was worthy of close attention for two reasons:
It took balls to stick his neck out so defiantly
Of far greater significance was the fact that here was an AmeriKKKan Presidential
candidate claiming to have an MLK-ish dream and a PLAN to achieve it.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Team Trump not only had an intoxicating dream, but
also a very logical and disciplined strategy to win the election. Trump kept up a cracking
pace and worked tirelessly to the end of the campaign season. It's no wonder that his
supporters are reluctant to desert such an inspirational candidate.
Given that he entered the race with an undisclosed plan to win the election and won it,
it's quite likely that his undisclosed plan to Drain The Swamp has a good chance of being
equally successful.
-------
Talking about undisclosed plans, Trump is the only person in the Known Universe with a Drain
The Swamp plan so it's only sensible to assume that he's the best person to decide how to
achieve it. 3D Chess sounds cute but reverse psychology sounds far more practical. It's been
apparent for some time that the individuals who pop their heads above the parapet to promote
and justify the Swamp's insanely counter-intuitive plans, have scornfully rejected the Human
concepts of decency and morality. They also believe too much of their own bullshit.
Trump has already given them several opportunities to spout their drivel publicly and they've
enthusiastically grabbed each one with indecent haste, despite the obvious idiocy and
illegality.
John Bolton was interviewed on PBS Newshour on March 17. Look it up and watch it and ask
yourself "Is this creature sane or rational?"
So then you want Trump to win, because you can't honestly compare Trump to Sanders! It's
just not intellectually honest!
Hoarsewhisperer @73
Pure Trumpjuice swilling rubbish, as usual. I guess you sleep all day and miss the news
because after all the shet Trump has pulled, he couldn't be better for maintaining the Swamp
than he is. Reversse pyschology, my ass! You must think you have the power to make others see
what even you don't see. News flash, you sound more ridiculous every day. I ask myself why I
bother to engage such nonsense. I think it's because I know ONLY Zionists still support Trump
the way you do and I just can't let you push that kind of dishonest crap and let you dream
you're getting away with it. People whose perception I respect 100 times more than you are
now knocking that Trump excuse bullset you're peddling: like reverse psychology and
dimensional chess. Honestly? You think anyone but the Zionist West Bank choir you're
preaching to buys that kind of dishonest garbage?
As if to balance the article cited @30, there's this
"Moscow's Strategy: To Win Everywhere, Every Time" by Federico Pieraccini. Blowback at
Neocon inspired conflict has allowed "[t]he ability of the Russian Federation to mediate and
be present in almost every conflict on the globe restores to the country the international
stature that is indispensable in counterbalancing the belligerence of the United States."
The result that Pieraccini sees isn't as much Multipolar as a reversion to a bipolar
world:
"Trump's 'America First' policy, coupled with the conviction of American exceptionalism,
is driving international relations towards two poles rather than multipolar ones, pushing
China, Russia and all other countries opposed to the US to unite in order to collectively
resist US diktats."
One wonders if certain Senators will awaken to the reality of the world their policies
have created or if they'll continue smoking their own Projection.
"... Skripal was just one more effort to tighten sanctions against Putin's allies in the Russian oligarchy and isolate Trump from foreign policy initiatives not approved by the Deep State. ..."
"... The significance of the NY Times story, then, is that, inadvertently it reinforces the reality that in the matter of Russiagate and Trump all roads lead to London, the Tory Establishment, which has been living off US-Russian tensions for seventy years and security agencies doing what the CIA cannot do for itself. ..."
Craig Murray has a piece on this today. There is nothing very new in what he writes but he
sees the significance of this story, which is not about ducks or children or Donald Trump's
personality but a concerted and thorough campaign, carried out largely by British state
actors, to deepen the 'west's' isolation of Russia.
The real story of both the Cold War and the continually recurring propaganda stories about
the "millions" of "victims of communism" is that the Soviet Union was manipulated throughout
its history by capitalist control over the international economy. Like a demonic organist
capitalist governments pulled out all the stops to control the moods and the policies of a
state that the Bolsheviks never did get to rule.
In the end the Politburo gave in and did what the 'west' had always been wanted which is
to hand over the country, lock, stock and population to the cannibals of capital.
The result being what was probably, after the 1930-45 war, the largest kill off of
Russians in modern history: Yeltsin plus Harvard Business School being responsible for many
more deaths than even the intoxicated propagandist Robert Conquest ever dreamed of.
It is that total control over Russia, through the manipulation of its economy, and the
direction of its capitalists, that is behind the long series of sanctions, which are being
added to every day: their purpose is to re-invent Yeltsinism, re-empower the Fifth Column in
the Kremlin, and, in a stroke, re-establish the inevitable and eternal hegemony of the
Washington centered Empire.
In this work the assistance of the 'cousins'in MI6 and GCHQ, plus the entire British
military establishment has been crucial in a period in which the subservience of POTUS to the
Deep State was, thanks to the underestimation of his electoral chances, very much in
question. During a period in which Trump had to be tamed and brought under control the UK
Establishment's assistance in coming up with a series of highly publicised interventions was
crucia l.
Lysias points out that Haspel had acted as the CIA's Head of Station in London in 2016. It
was in London that the entire "Russiagate" nonsense was put together, with British based
actors continually prodding Congress, the media and the Democrats to act on revelations
regarding Papadopolous, Mifsud, Stefan Halper.
Skripal was just one more effort to
tighten sanctions against Putin's allies in the Russian oligarchy and isolate Trump from
foreign policy initiatives not approved by the Deep State.The significance of the
NY Times story, then, is that, inadvertently it reinforces the reality that in the matter of
Russiagate and Trump all roads lead to London, the Tory Establishment, which has been living
off US-Russian tensions for seventy years and security agencies doing what the CIA cannot do
for itself.
Way to brave predictions, I think... I think he grossly underestimates
durability of neoliberal state like the USA. May be in 20 years the USA will really start
experiencing huge problems like he described due to the end of cheap oil". But before that only
huge exogenous shock can crash such a society.
Notable quotes:
"... It will be interesting to see how public and government workers, as a group, react to the realization that the retirements they have been promised no longer exist; perhaps that will tip the entire system into a defunct state. ..."
"... And so, Trump or no Trump, we are going to have more of the same: shiny young IT specialists skipping and whistling on the way to work past piles of human near-corpses and their excrement; Botoxed housewives shopping for fake organic produce while hungry people in the back of the store are digging around in dumpsters ..."
"... well-to-do older couples dreaming of bugging out to some tropical gringo compound in a mangrove swamp where they would be chopped up with machetes and fed to the fish; and all of them believing that things are great because the stock market is doing so well. ..."
"... But he simply does not understand the USA. He’s been predicting collapse for some time and it has not occurred or come close to happening. Washington is filled with smart kleptocrats who understand they cannot afford to destroy the country that keeps on giving them the wealth and power they crave. Trump, can flounce around Washington and the rest of the country and do and say outrageous things and it has no effect on life whatsoever. ..."
"... While, on the surface, people support ideas like higher minimum wage, universal health-care and other aspects of social democracy, it their masters say “no” then they’ll forgo it and take pride in their ability to endure suffering, early death, their children on heroin or meth, and so on. ..."
"... Since I’m fairly “connected” to the lower/working class and its struggles in my part of the world I can assure you people almost enjoy suffering to a degree that foreigners easily miss and seldom ascribe it to the thieves and criminals who run our society. ..."
"... Will there be a civil war in the US, like in the 1861-1865 period ? No, I don’t think so. Will there be severe social disturbances ? Yes, these I do expect, leading to the break up of the US. The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force will be the old South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. The US has been kicking the financial can down the road for a long time. This cannot last for ever. ..."
"... with people like Siluanov and Nabiullina in charge of the nation’s money, I am not optimistic… ..."
"... The acceleration of economic collapse in the West will be likely bring (overt) fascism and war–world war. ..."
"... In particular, the AngloNazi sorry Anglosphere nations (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of course America) are a clear and present threat that should not be underestimated, discounted, or spin-doctored away. ..."
"... But the Anglos studiously avoid facing the reality that their precious way of life, capitalist system, and Anglo-American world order itself are premised upon their own ruthless exploitation of the Global South and developing nations in general. ..."
"... Trump and the MAGA hordes, as well as similar xenophobic and nationalist movements throughout the Anglosphere and Europe, are only a precursor to what is coming. They represent the grievances of the lower-middle classes within the Anglo American Empire and Europe who want a greater cut of the economic loot of empire for themselves–which necessitates an even more aggressive and militaristic grab for global resources, markets, and geopolitical power. ..."
"... He’s way too negative on the USA’s domestic prospects. Despite its absurdities, the US system is fundamentally robust and unlikely to suffer any major, sudden collapse, at least for many decades. It will certain decline further, plumbing the depths of depravity more than it has to date, but the system will chug along. The US has vacuumed up talent from all over the world, bolstering it’s economic capacity and the rents extracted by oligo. It’s day to day institutions, such as courts, post offices and the like function better now than they did in the 80s or 90s. ..."
"... All the incentives are there to keep the thing together, with little real risk of some sort of succession movement or serious insurrection. The main advantages the US has on this score are it’s mass surveillance system, policing infrastructure and media. The US media can make the great bulk of the people believe absolutely anything, if given enough time. ..."
The Saker: You recently wrote an article titled " Is the USS
Ship of Fools Taking on Water? " in which you discuss the high level of stupidity in
modern US politics? I have a simple question for you: do you think the Empire can survive Trump
and, if so, for how long?
Dmitry Orlov: I think that the American empire is very much over already, but it hasn't been
put to any sort of serious stress test yet, and so nobody realizes that this is the case. Some
event will come along which will leave the power center utterly humiliated and unable to
countenance this humiliation and make adjustments. Things will go downhill from there as
everyone in government in media does their best to pretend that the problem doesn't exist. My
hope is that the US military personnel currently scattered throughout the planet will not be
simply abandoned once the money runs out, but I wouldn't be too surprised if that is what
happens.
The Saker: Lastly, a similar but fundamentally different question: can the USA (as
opposed to the Empire) survive Trump and, if so, how? Will there be a civil war? A military
coup? Insurrection? Strikes? A US version of the Yellow Vests?
Dmitry Orlov: The USA, as some set of institutions that serves the interests of some
dwindling number of people, is likely to continue functioning for quite some time. The question
is: who is going to be included and who isn't? There is little doubt that retirees, as a
category, have nothing to look forward to from the USA: their retirements, whether public or
private, have already been spent. There is little doubt that young people, who have already
been bled dry by poor job prospects and ridiculous student loans, have nothing to look forward
to either.
But, as I've said before, the USA isn't so much a country as a country club. Membership has
its privileges, and members don't care at all what life is like for those who are in the
country but aren't members of the club. The recent initiatives to let everyone in and to let
non-citizens vote amply demonstrates that US citizenship, by itself, counts for absolutely
nothing. The only birthright of a US citizen is to live as a bum on the street, surrounded by
other bums, many of them foreigners from what Trump has termed "shithole countries."
It
will be interesting to see how public and government workers, as a group, react to the
realization that the retirements they have been promised no longer exist; perhaps that will tip
the entire system into a defunct state.
And once the fracking bubble is over and another third of the population finds that it can
no longer afford to drive, that might force through some sort of reset as well. But then the
entire system of militarized police is designed to crush any sort of rebellion, and most people
know that. Given the choice between certain death and just sitting on the sidewalk doing drugs,
most people will choose the latter.
And so, Trump or no Trump, we are going to have more of the same: shiny young IT specialists
skipping and whistling on the way to work past piles of human near-corpses and their excrement;
Botoxed housewives shopping for fake organic produce while hungry people in the back of the
store are digging around in dumpsters; concerned citizens demanding that migrants be allowed
in, then calling the cops as soon as these migrants set up tents on their front lawn or ring
their doorbell and ask to use the bathroom; well-to-do older couples dreaming of bugging out to
some tropical gringo compound in a mangrove swamp where they would be chopped up with machetes
and fed to the fish; and all of them believing that things are great because the stock market
is doing so well.
At this rate, when the end of the USA finally arrives, most of the people won't be in a
position to notice while the rest won't be capable of absorbing that sort of upsetting
information and will choose to ignore it. Everybody wants to know how the story ends, but that
sort of information probably isn't good for anyone's sanity. The mental climate in the US is
already sick enough; why should we want to make it even sicker?
I love Orlov’s wit and general cynical attitude as it mirrors mine (perhaps not the
wit). I think he seems to understand the Ukraine and Russia relatively well though I’m
not in a position to question him on that but I do know something about the politics of
NATO/EU/USA and their intentions and that Orlov gets.
But he simply does not understand the USA. He’s been predicting collapse for some
time and it has not occurred or come close to happening. Washington is filled with smart
kleptocrats who understand they cannot afford to destroy the country that keeps on giving
them the wealth and power they crave. Trump, can flounce around Washington and the rest of
the country and do and say outrageous things and it has no effect on life whatsoever.
If
anything the economy actually is “better” not as good as the cooked statistics
indicate but things have improved for people I know in that area. Americans, despite the
obvious propaganda nature of the media still are true-believers in the official Narrative
because meaning and myth always trumps reality.
While, on the surface, people support ideas
like higher minimum wage, universal health-care and other aspects of social democracy, it
their masters say “no” then they’ll forgo it and take pride in their
ability to endure suffering, early death, their children on heroin or meth, and so on.
Since
I’m fairly “connected” to the lower/working class and its struggles in my
part of the world I can assure you people almost enjoy suffering to a degree that foreigners
easily miss and seldom ascribe it to the thieves and criminals who run our society. Americans
strut around but feel powerless and don’t have a plan or think they can have a plan
because they lack the conceptual frameworks to understand that their leadership is thoroughly
rotten.
Having said that, I agree with Auslander, Americans don’t need the central
government and would do better, initially, in a highly chaotic situation and establish their
own order in their communities and rig up a new set of arrangements very quickly.
In some
ways the fall of Washington would be the best thing to ever happen in my country.
I am afraid you are wrong. Orlov does understand the US, just like I do, as I have lived
in the US. Yes, Orlov has been predicting the collapse of the US, and it will happen. I would
like to direct your attention to the following video (the second part is very
interesting):
Will there be a civil war in the US, like in the 1861-1865 period ? No, I don’t
think so. Will there be severe social disturbances ? Yes, these I do expect, leading to the
break up of the US. The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force
will be the old South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. The US has been
kicking the financial can down the road for a long time. This cannot last for ever.
“The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force will be the old
South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. ”
Maybe, but actually I would say most regions of the USA have some kind of “old
tradition” —and a lot nicer ones than that of the old racist South. I’ll
take New England and the Maritimes any day over the steamy South where the kudzu creeps over
I mean *everything*, the snakes proliferate, and you can’t survive the summer without
AC 24/7.
Well…I just started in on this piece and already I have a major
beef…Orlov’s notion that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was good for
Russia…
China was [and arguably still is] an empire of diverse regions, ethnicities and
religions…but how is that holding China back today, or during previous centuries of
imperial glory…?
Clearly China doesn’t fit into Orlov’s idea of an empire as a ‘wealth
pump’ that sucks from the periphery to enrich the center…this is true of course
of exploitation-based imperial projects such as western colonialism…but is clearly not
applicable to the Chinese model, which has been both the biggest and most durable empire in
human history…so that is a big hole in Orlov’s ‘theory’…
It is true that the USSR was a fundamentally different kind of empire from the
exploitative western colonialism…and it is also true that it ultimately did not
succeed…although it managed to accomplish almost incomprehensible progress in
modernization, science and technology…and industrialization…the foundations of
Russian strength today rest squarely on the foundations put in place during the Stalin
era…
Elsewhere on this site there is a brilliant series of essays by Ramin Mazaheri about the
tumultuous cultural revolution of the 1960s…and why it was necessary…Russia
also needed a cultural revolution around this time…the system needed to be rejigged to
better serve the people…in living standard…fairness and
justice…opportunity for social advance…etc…
But it never happened…instead the system became more sclerotic than ever…and
the welfare of the people stagnated…at the very moment in time when the capitalist
west, especially the United States, was able to reign in the appetites of its parasite class
and provide the people with a decent share of its [largely ill-gotten, by means of global
finance colonialism] gains…[during the postwar decades, the share of national wealth
of the 0.1 percent fell to an all time low of about 7 percent…about a quarter of
historic, and current levels]…
This was the golden age in the US…well paying jobs in industry were plentiful and
the company president made perhaps ten times what the shop floor worker took home…a
second household income was completely unnecessary…university education at state
colleges was practically free…
The life of the Soviet citizen in the1960s was not too far behind…Stalin’s
five year plans in the1930s had created an industrial powerhouse…it was Russia’s
ability to produce that allowed it to prevail over Germany in the existential war…and
despite the devastation of the people, cities and countryside Russia was able to quickly
become a technological superpower…as an aerospace engineer I have a deep appreciation
of the depth and breadth of Russian technical achievements and the basic scientific advances
that made that possible…the US was laughably left in the dust, despite having skimmed
the cream of Nazi Germany’s technical scientific talent…and contrary to what US
propaganda would have the people believe…
... ... ...
Of course the massive Chinese empire has been adapting like this for centuries, if not
millennia…Russia with the Soviet Union only needed to make similar smart
adjustments…instead they threw out the baby with the bathwater…let’s see
where Russia goes from here, but with people like Siluanov and Nabiullina in charge of the
nation’s money, I am not optimistic…
But back to Orlov…let’s see where he goes after starting off very clumsily.
.
The acceleration of economic collapse in the West will be likely bring (overt) fascism and
war–world war.
In particular, the AngloNazi sorry Anglosphere nations (Britain, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, and of course America) are a clear and present threat that should not be
underestimated, discounted, or spin-doctored away.
As collapse intensifies, these Anglo American entities led by the USA will surely lash out
in even more aggressive wars to maintain their unipolar world order that they have ruled over
since the fall of the Soviet Union. The use of tactical nuclear weapons, bio-warfare, and
other "exotic" weapons should not be ruled out.
At base, the Anglo Americans possess an inbred sense of economic entitlement. They whine
like snowflakes about the foreign outsourcing of jobs or "illegal immigrants stealing our
jobs" as a chauvinistic demand for a greater share of the economic spoils of imperialism.
But the Anglos studiously avoid facing the reality that their precious way of life,
capitalist system, and Anglo-American world order itself are premised upon their own ruthless exploitation of the Global
South and developing nations in general.
And God forbid that the Anglos lose their parasitic way of life and (horror) are compelled
to live like the vast majority of humanity in the developing world from Africa to Asia to
Latin America to the Middle East.
The disaffected middle classes and labor aristocracy of the Anglosphere will comprise the
grassroots basis for 21st-century fascism, similar to how these socio-economic classes were
the grassroots support for the German Third Reich or Mussolini's Italy in the 1930s-40s.
Trump and the MAGA hordes, as well as similar xenophobic and nationalist movements
throughout the Anglosphere and Europe, are only a precursor to what is coming. They represent
the grievances of the lower-middle classes within the Anglo American Empire and Europe who
want a greater cut of the economic loot of empire for themselves–which necessitates an
even more aggressive and militaristic grab for global resources, markets, and geopolitical
power.
As Martin Lee has put it, the Beast reawakens.
Boswald Bollocksworth on April 17, 2019 · at 9:37 pm EST/EDT
He’s way too negative on the USA’s domestic prospects. Despite its absurdities, the US system is fundamentally robust
and unlikely to suffer any major, sudden collapse, at least for many decades. It will certain decline further, plumbing the
depths of depravity more than it has to date, but the system will chug along. The US has vacuumed up talent from all over the
world, bolstering it’s economic capacity and the rents extracted by oligo. It’s day to day institutions, such as courts, post
offices and the like function better now than they did in the 80s or 90s.
All the incentives are there to keep the thing together, with little real risk of some sort of succession movement or
serious insurrection. The main advantages the US has on this score are it’s mass surveillance system, policing infrastructure
and media. The US media can make the great bulk of the people believe absolutely anything, if given enough time.
The US capacity to meddle overseas will wither, after all how well can a submarine filled with drag queens and single
mothers operate? And who’d be willing to endure shelling for a monstrosity like contemporary America?
But the domestic system is brilliantly designed, not going anywhere.
"... Haspel is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy. ..."
"... In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President. This has been the case in the US since Kennedy. ..."
"... Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway. ..."
"If Trump were not in on the schemes he would just fire his underlings!"
This sentiment indicates a failure to understand the power dynamics at play here. Haspel
is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an
oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to
serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.
In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President.
This has been the case in the US since Kennedy.
Trump cannot fire Haspel or Pompeo. They can fire him, though, and with a sniper's bullet
if they want.
Unfortunately for the oligarchy, that would cause additional complications at a time when
they have lots of tricky and inexplicably unstable (for them) operations ongoing, which is
why they are just steering Trump around instead of replacing him. And Trump is willfully
cooperating, even if they are not filling him in on the plans.
Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and
Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script
then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway.
"The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional
to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely
proportional to its enemy status."--John McEvoy
So, lets employ this maxim to Russiagate and the Skripal Saga and the respective national
media. In the first case, the Russian public's completely ignored unless it's a member of the
so-called opposition while Putin and Russia get slandered constantly. The same treatment goes
for the UK media and a case could be made that the two act in tandem, implying
innerconnectivity between their spy agencies as suspected.
"... That fact is a very sad and disturbing commentary on what America is or has become. Tolerating torture and excusing such an activity in the name of national security is the same justification that Stalin and Castro employed to punish dissidents. ..."
"... Let me be clear about my position. If Gina was in fact the Chief of Base and oversaw the application of the waterboarding and other inhuman treatment then she lacks the moral authority to head the CIA. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of overlooking human rights violations and war crimes. ..."
"... Students of WW II will recall that US military intelligence recruited and protect Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, as an asset after the war. He murdered Jews and sent others to Auschwitz. He should have been hung. Instead, we turned a blind eye and gave him a paycheck. ..."
"... I've read that she enjoyed torture and mocked a prisoner who was drooling by accused him of faking it. I never knew anything about her sexual orientation but now I have to consider if she's so cruel because she hates men. ..."
"... Yes, waterboarding is torture. We considered it so egregious that we prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for using it on POWs. ..."
"... just reinforces the feeling that those at the upper echelons are completely out of touch or alternatively are just lying/posturing to present themselves in a better light. ..."
"... A torturer is a torturer, no matter how one try to glaze it, or sugar coat it. If one is against torture, or the fancy name for it EIT, one should come out and say it like it is. This lady is accused of torturing captives ( enemy combatant) that can't and will not go away unless she come clean. ..."
Before Gina became the Chief of Staff for Rodriguez, what role did she play in the waterboarding of two AQ operatives in Thailand?
It appears that she was at least witting of what was going on. Did she have the authority to decide what measures to apply to the
two? Did she make such decisions?
Those are facts still to be determined. I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. But there are others who I respect
that are adamant in opposing her nomination. The only thing I know for sure is that her nomination will be a bloody and divisive
political battle. If it comes down to embracing waterboarding as an appropriate method to use on suspected terrorists, then a majority
of Americans are supportive of that practice and will cheer the appointment of Haspel.
That fact is a very sad and disturbing commentary
on what America is or has become. Tolerating torture and excusing such an activity in the name of national security is the same justification
that Stalin and Castro employed to punish dissidents. It is true that one man's terrorist is another woman's freedom fighter.
Let me be clear about my position. If Gina was in fact the Chief of Base and oversaw the application of the waterboarding
and other inhuman treatment then she lacks the moral authority to head the CIA. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history
of overlooking human rights violations and war crimes.
Students of WW II will recall that US military intelligence recruited and protect Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon,
as an asset after the war. He murdered Jews and sent others to Auschwitz. He should have been hung. Instead, we turned a blind eye
and gave him a paycheck.
I've read that she enjoyed torture and mocked a prisoner who was drooling by accused him of faking it. I never knew anything about her sexual orientation but now I have to consider if she's so cruel because she hates men.
IIRC, Haspel was the chief of staff to whom Rodriguez refers. That does not sound like a bit player. Would you say that Kelly
is a bit player in the Trump admin? As you say, we should know the facts, but so far it looks like she both participated in torture
and in its cover-up.
With all the crap going on at the FBI, the last thing we need now is a divisive candidate for any top level government position
(torture advocacy is divisive for many of us).
A woman, a lesbian, who cares as long as they are a capable and decent law-abiding
individual.
Yes, waterboarding is torture. We considered it so egregious that we prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for using
it on POWs.
And where do you get "admitted" terrorists from? In America, even with suspected terrorists, there is the principle
of innocent until proven guilty. At least we once believed in that standard.
And I very much respect you for your position on this (it is this American's view as well).
What amazes me (and yet doesn't) is the example of Rodriguez's supposed introspection "How bad could this be?" Really?!? That
just strikes me as not having any feel for the media, US citizenry, or even common sense, and just reinforces the feeling that
those at the upper echelons are completely out of touch or alternatively are just lying/posturing to present themselves in a better
light.
PT -- Thank you. Much to consider in these times. I come down on the "no torture and waterboarding is torture" side of the debate
but am also just eager for some competence and professional experience in key positions.
That these positions may be mutually
exclusive says a great deal about our current situation. Again, thank you, for your opinions and information.
A torturer is a torturer, no matter how one try to glaze it, or sugar coat it. If one is against torture, or the fancy name for
it EIT, one should come out and say it like it is. This lady is accused of torturing captives ( enemy combatant) that can't and
will not go away unless she come clean.
At the end of the day that don't matter, since as a policy, and base on your own statement,
this country's government will prosecut and punish for liking of torture but not torture and tortures. And, furthermore, is not
even willing to do away with it, per it's elected president. Trying to show a clean, moral, democracy on the hilltop image, is
a BS and a joke.
Yeah, my eyes almost popped out of my head as I read it in the news. Direct brazen
manipulation of your boss, who happens to be a commander in chief of a nuclear power. And
no, I don't hear any howls about treason and conspiracy from across the pond.
"Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied".
This would indicate, if true, that the Brits desired to manipulate and used the CIA here
mainly as conduit to influence Trump. It would make more sense, historically as well,
interpreting causality and motive this way.
"... The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France) after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness – in which case there is no need to make anything up. ..."
"... Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the need for US diplomatic action. ..."
"... Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President is this you or a fake President? ..."
"... Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits us up the backside with a banjo yet again. ..."
I took note when I read that on the Guardian website late last night. What struck me was
the treatment of the statement as if it could be true, but in more than one way.
The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is
similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France)
after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was
telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness –
in which case there is no need to make anything up.
Even if the story is true, the article accepts it as fact and in no way qualifies it,
which is just plain misrepresentation as Craig points out.
The reference to the two Russian operatives at that time is certainly a give away one way
and another – but nothing in the article to highlight that inconsistency.
Strange timing too for the appearance of the article too. No doubt there will be a
response from the Russian Embassy.
Trump brings together stupidity, narcissistic mental illness and obnoxiousness such that
when an official has to deal with him their attitude must surely be to tell the moron
whatever gets him to do what they want as soon as possible, so they don't have to spend any
more time than necessary in a room with him.
He lies all the time – the guy can't stop
lying – nobody wants to spend time with a person like that – even his wife can't
stand the sight of him – and it doesn't matter what it is that you tell him or show
him.
Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not
likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the
need for US diplomatic action.
The question is who was behind the anti-Russian side of the
Skripal story and why. Not much progress will be made without looking at the British
defence review and the huge increase in military spending that warfare interests have
moved Gavin Williamson's lips to call for.
"(E)xtremely clear CCTV footage of the duck feeding"? So there are fixed cameras watching
where the ducks swim in Queen Elizabeth's Park in Salisbury, are there? Because I haven't
been able to find even some lamp posts they might be secured to. (
Some images .) Which is not to say the Skripals weren't photographed. And how's the
Nikolai Glushkov inquest going?
Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President
is this you or a fake President?
Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits
us up the backside with a banjo yet again.
Simple really: Show the video of the Skripal actively feeding the ducks – blank the
kids faces and we'll be able to see them in all of their pre poisoned glory.
All this has been done before by the MS – The London Bridge attackers – 7/7
and so on.
So why not show the video? Because it shows something(s) which they want to hide. I have my views as to why, as do others but once you start lying you have to develop a
good memory and ' British Intelligence ' is a misnomer.
Let us not for one moment forget: Yulia musty be alive somewhere. I reckon they did in
Sergei – serve him right for being a double (or triple) agent – but Yulia must
still be around. She TOLD US in her video she was fine and getting better.
Thank god for Craig Murray and the Off-Guardian, they have preserved our sanity over this mad
story, this maddest of British Intel cockups.
@Nicholas – I'd advise delaying the conclusion that it was a cockup, except in the
sense that in most military and intelligence operations something cocks up –
until we hear what happens with British military spending plans.
Someone said to me on Twitter that confirmation of Novichock was from a Mass Spec of the
nerve agent bound to some enzyme (probably acetyl cholinesterase). Is this really the
official line? If so it's rubbish. Whoever made such a claim was clearly no chemist. Acetyl
Cholinesterase weighs about 66700 Daltons and the nerve agent weighed, say between 200 and
400 daltons. Firstly a mass spectrum of the protein would be that of the protein plus or
minus anything upto about 300 water molecules Which makes the mass (69400 +/- 2700) and a
multitude of other possible ions or other factors bound to it. The error in the mass of the
protein clearly exceeds the mass of the nerve agent. Given that, because of the blinding
uncertainties as to what species are actually hitting the detector in the mass spectrometer,
no-one anywhere attempts to study ligands bound to proteins by mass spec and certainly not
one of this size, why would they do it in this case?
The CIA Director tells outright lies to her boss, who as a result approves a stern
national rebuke.
In a cartoon version of life where Dick Dastardly gets to be an intelligence supremo, and
a total dummy gets to be President, this would be highly likely. Needless to say, to believe
such a scenario would exist in the real world requires a massive suspension of logic.
More likely there's something coming down the track that requires Haspel, and or the CIA,
to be discredited prior to its becoming visible to the public ?
What could possibly be coming down the track that isn't comparable to what we already know
about Haspel and the CIA though?
If you can straight faced maintain support for an admitted and documented human rights
abuser who heads a non accountable government spy agency that has been extra judicially
torturing, assassinating and over throwing any who stands in its way for 70 years; what on
earth could be about to come out that's suddenly going to convince our bought and paid for
media, and by extension the general public, that these monsters have been discredited?
UK spooks are switching to damage limitation mode, with the help of the Deborah Haynes of
Sky and II:
"Update: UK security sources say they're unaware of children hospitalised because of
#novichok or wildlife killed in #Skripal attack. May have been a photo of a dead swan though
not evidence swan was killed by #Novichok. If that's true, I wonder what these images used by
CIA were! "
"... I was not in the least surprised at reports that a known torturer was slated to head the CIA, and I expected quick confirmation. Such is my opinion of our ruling classes. ..."
"... Whatever Haspel may be, we can be sure the CIA will continue to torture, detain people without charge, assassinate and terrorize with its own drone force, and cause mayhem around the world and at home. No one can be trusted with the Ring of Power. ..."
"... American Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is always virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy." ..."
"... Fast forward to January, 2017 and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachael Maddow that President-elect Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by criticizing the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities: Shumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." No, Shumer wasn't joking. He was serious. ..."
"... There won't be a 'Nuremberg' tribunal because Al Qaida didn't defeat the United States, and you'd have to convict not just Ms. Haspel, but a sizeable portion of the U.S. Government. ..."
"... If nothing else, the appointment of Bloody Gina as CIA head finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the myth that "we're The Good Guys(tm)!" or its cousin "all we gotta do is elect Team D and we can be The Good Guys(R) again!" ..."
"... I do not know whether to admire Mr. van Buren's idealism or be astonished at his naivete. Has he never heard of the School of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence? People in Latin America know better than to believe the U.S. protestations of virtue. They know about torturers, and the U.S. support for them. ..."
"... She was put in charge there not long after and oversaw the waterboarding of at least one prisoner, and later followed orders to destroy the tapes of waterboarding at that site. Your claim that " She had nothing to do with torture anywhere" is incorrect. ..."
"... furbo: your contention that " US extreme interrogation techniques are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones" is wrong. The UN Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, states " For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person " Ask anyone who has been waterboarded whether that fits the official definition? ..."
"... Ceterum censeo: given that the Iraq invasion and occupation was an act of aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter and thus illegal under US law, it is not just torturers but also war criminals in government and general staff that have to be considered in the contexts of these words. ..."
Nothing will say more about who we are, across three American administrations -- one that demanded torture, one that covered it
up, and one that seeks to promote its bloody participants -- than whether Gina Haspel becomes director of the CIA.
Haspel oversaw the
torture of human beings in Thailand as the chief of a CIA black site in 2002. Since then, she's worked her way up to deputy director
at the CIA. With current director Mike Pompeo slated to move to Foggy Bottom, President Donald Trump has proposed Haspel as the Agency's
new head.
Haspel's victims waiting for death in Guantanamo cannot speak to us, though they no doubt remember their own screams as they were
waterboarded. And we can still hear former CIA officer
John Kiriakousay : "We did
call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because
they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information."
It was Kiriakou who exposed the obsessive debate over the effectiveness of torture as false. The real purpose of torture conducted
by those like Gina Haspel was to seek vengeance, humiliation, and power. We're just slapping you now, she would have said in that
Thai prison, but we control you, and who knows what will happen next, what we're capable of? The torture victim is left to imagine
what form the hurt will take and just how severe it will be, creating his own terror.
Haspel won't be asked at her confirmation hearing to explain how torture works, but those who were waterboarded under her stewardship
certainly could.
I met my first torture victim in Korea, where I was adjudicating visas for the State Department. Persons with serious criminal
records are ineligible to travel to the United States, with an exception for dissidents who have committed political crimes. The
man I spoke with said that under the U.S.-supported military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee he was tortured for writing anti-government
verse. He was taken to a small underground cell. Two men arrived and beat him repeatedly on his testicles and sodomized him with
one of the tools they had used for the beating. They asked no questions. They barely spoke to him at all.
Though the pain was beyond his ability to describe, he said the subsequent humiliation of being left so utterly helpless was what
really affected his life. It destroyed his marriage, sent him to the repeated empty comfort of alcohol, and kept him from ever putting
pen to paper again. The men who destroyed him, he told me, did their work, and then departed, as if they had others to visit and
needed to get on with things. He was released a few days later and driven back to his apartment by the police. A forward-looking
gesture.
The second torture victim I met was while I was stationed in Iraq. The prison that had held him was under the control of shadowy
U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces. Inside, masked men bound him at the wrists and ankles and hung him upside-down. He said they
neither asked him questions nor demanded information. They did whip his testicles with a leather strap, then beat the bottoms of
his feet and the area around his kidneys. They slapped him. They broke the bones in his right foot with a steel rod, a piece of rebar
ordinarily used to reinforce concrete.
It was painful, he told me, but he had felt pain before. What destroyed him was the feeling of utter helplessness, the inability
to control things around him as he once had. He showed me the caved-in portion of his foot, which still bore a rod-like indentation
with faint signs of metal grooves.
Gina Haspel is the same as those who were in the room with the Korean. She is no different than those who tormented the Iraqi.
As head of a black site, Haspel had sole authority to halt the questioning of suspects, but she allowed torture to continue.
New information
and a redaction of earlier reporting that said Haspel was present for the waterboarding and torture of Abu Zubaydah (she was
actually the station chief at the black site after those sessions) makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture
of all of the prisoners there, but pay it little mind. The confusion arises from the government's refusal to tell us what Haspel
actually did as a torturer. So many records have yet to be released and those that have been are heavily redacted. Then there are
the tapes of Zubaydah's waterboarding, which Haspel later pushed to have destroyed.
Arguing over just how much blood she has in her hands is a distraction from the fact that she indeed has blood on her hands.
Gina Haspel is now eligible for the CIA directorship because Barack Obama did not prosecute anyone for torture; he merely signed
an executive order banning it in the future. He did not hold any truth commissions, and ensured that almost all government documents
on the torture program remained classified. He did not prosecute the CIA officials who destroyed videotapes of the torture scenes.
Obama ignored the truth that sees former Nazis continue to be hunted some 70 years after the Holocaust: that those who do evil
on behalf of a government are individually responsible. "I was only following orders" is not a defense of inhuman acts. The purpose
of tracking down the guilty is to punish them, to discourage the next person from doing evil, and to morally immunize a nation-state.
To punish Gina Haspel "more than 15 years later for doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told
were lawful orders, would be a travesty and a disgrace,"
claims one of
her supporters. "Haspel did nothing more and nothing less than what the nation and the agency asked her to do, and she did it well,"
said Michael Hayden,
who headed the CIA during the height of the Iraq war from 2006-2009.
Influential people in Congress agree. Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which will soon review
Haspel's nomination,
said , "I know Gina personally and she has the right skill set, experience, and judgment to lead one of our nation's most critical
agencies."
"She'll have to answer for that period of time, but I think she's a highly qualified person,"
offered Senator
Lindsey Graham. Democratic Senator Bill Nelson
defended Haspel's
actions, saying they were "the accepted practice of the day" and shouldn't disqualify her.
His fellow Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, signaled her likely acceptance,
saying , "Since my concerns were raised over the torture situation, I have met with her extensively, talked with her She has
been, I believe, a good deputy director." Senator Susan Collins
added that Haspel "certainly has the expertise and experience as a 30-year employee of the agency." John McCain, a victim of
torture during the Vietnam War,
mumbled only that Haspel would have to explain her role.
Nearly alone at present, Republican Senator Rand Paul says he will
oppose Haspel's nomination. Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, both Democrats, have told Trump she is unsuitable and will
likely also vote no.
Following World War II, the United States could have easily executed those Nazis responsible for the Holocaust, or thrown them
into some forever jail on an island military base. It would have been hard to find anyone who wouldn't have supported brutally torturing
them at a black site. Instead, they were put on public trial at Nuremberg and made to defend their actions as the evidence against
them was laid bare. The point was to demonstrate that We were better than Them.
Today we refuse to understand what Haspel's victims, and the Korean writer, and the Iraqi insurgent, already know on our behalf:
unless Congress awakens to confront this nightmare and deny Gina Haspel's nomination as director of the CIA, torture will have transformed
us and so it will consume us. Gina Haspel is a torturer. We are torturers. It is as if Nuremberg never happened.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of
We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People andHooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan. He tweets@WeMeantWell.
Covering up torture is quite possibly the worst thing Obama did. (I'd put it neck-and-neck with targeted killing.) This nation
desperately needs a president who will expose all of these horrors, and appoint an attorney general who will prosecute these acts
as war crimes.
Trump likes waterboarding. He said so himself. One assumes he meant, being a whimpering coward himself, when someone else does
it to someone else. But who knows? Enjoy judge Gorsuch.
"doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told were lawful orders"
To complete the parallel, we would need to prosecute and punish those who asked her to do it, and those who told her those
orders were lawful. Instead, some are doing paintings of their toes, some are promoted to be Federal judges, and some are influential
professors at "liberal" law schools. Why punish *only* her?
I was not in the least surprised at reports that a known torturer was slated to head the CIA, and I expected quick confirmation.
Such is my opinion of our ruling classes. I am in full support of Mr. Van Buren's thesis. However, Pro Publica, which seems
to have been the source of much reporting of Haspel's torture record, has retracted the claim that Haspel had tortured in Thailand.
Mr. Van Buren quotes another source from his blog that supports the thesis that Haspel is a torturer. How does one know what to
believe? Whatever Haspel may be, we can be sure the CIA will continue to torture, detain people without charge, assassinate
and terrorize with its own drone force, and cause mayhem around the world and at home. No one can be trusted with the Ring of
Power.
Its because we lost our sense of what makes us who we are. We are an empire that dances for private interests. In Rome they were
called families and led by patricians, they had money private guards, gladiators, and even street people supporting them. In the
Modern USA they are called Interest Groups and/or Corporations. They are lead by CEOs and instead of gladiators they have Lawyers.
Our being better matters less then their own squabbles which is why a torturer could reach the highest seat in intel. The majority
of Americans have lost their sense of being Americans instead they are Republicans, Democrats, etc, etc. Things that once use
to be part of an American have come to define us.
American Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is always
virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military
governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy."
At least this appointment along with the election of Trump shows the true face of the United States in international affairs.
When we face the fact we are (a) an oligarchy and (b) a brutal Empire we might have a chance to return to something more human.
Few readers, even of TAC, will want to look at our recent history of stunning brutality and lack of interest in even being in
the neighborhood of following international law.
CIA has purposefully refused to disclose Haspel's role for a decade+ They have selectively released information last week to discredit
those criticizing her. I don't think we should play their game, letting them set the agenda. Instead, I declaim torture itself
and any role she played in it, whether she poured the water or kept the books.
Does Peter Van Buren's criticism of the CIA's Haspel put him at risk?
In the 2003 film "Love Actually" the British Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) jokes with a Downing Street employee Natalie
(Martine McCutcheon):
"PM: You live with your husband? Boyfriend, three illegitimate but charming children? –
"NATALIE: No, I've just split up with my boyfriend, so I'm back with my mum and dad for a while.
"PM: Oh. I'm sorry.
"NATALIE: No, it's fine. I'm well shot of him. He said I was getting fat.
"PM: I beg your pardon?
"NATALIE: He said no one's going to fancy a girl with thighs the size of big tree trunks. Not a nice guy, actually, in the end.
"PM: Right You know, being Prime Minister, I could just have him murdered.
"NATALIE: Thank you, sir. I'll think about it.
"PM: Do – the SAS are absolutely charming – ruthless, trained killers are just a phone call away."
It's just a film. It's just a joke. But the joke works because the public knows that – in reality – the security services have
the skills-sets and the abilities, to do damage anyone they want to do damage to -- and to probably get away with it.
Fast forward to January, 2017 and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachael Maddow that President-elect
Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by criticizing the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities:
Shumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, So even
for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." No, Shumer wasn't joking. He was serious.
Fast forward again to yesterday, March 17, 2018: Former CIA Director John Brennan wasn't joking when he reacted to the firing
of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe -- and President Donald Trump's tweeted celebration of it -- by tweeting this attack against
Trump:
"When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful
place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America America
will triumph over you."
Obama UN Representative Samantha Power followed up on the Brennan tweet with this:
"Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan."
When public officials and former public officials -- like Shumer, Brennan and Power -- make such public statements it must
necessarily have a chilling effect on public criticism of the security services.
After all, none of the three are joking. They're serious. And the American people know that they're serious.
Does Peter Van Buren's criticism of CIA operative Haspel put him at risk?
New information makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture of all of the prisoners at her black site, but pay it little
mind. The confusion is because the government refuses to tell us what Haspel actually did as a torturer. Arguing over just how
much blood she has on her hands is a distraction when she indeed has blood on her hands.
The idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient to disqualify her from heading the Agency. If the
Agency wishes to clarify her role, as was done via trial for the various Nazis at Nuremberg, we can deal with her actions more
granularly.
Since we have not had any more successful attacks on the scale of 9-11, it is very easy to be scrupulous regarding rough treatment
of terrorists.
But if we had suffered a dozen or more such attacks, of increasing magnitude and maybe involving nuclear weapons, how many
of you would still be condemning Mrs Haspel et al.? Or would you then be complaining they had not used water-boarding enough?
The 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, was caught weeks before 9-11. Investigators figured out he was up to no good, tried
to get permission to search his computer, but were denied. The U.S. Government carefully protected his privacy rights. So are
you pleased with the outcome, Mr van Buren?
I'm sorry – this whole piece is a massive non sequitur. Ms. Haspel has no 'blood' on her hands as US extreme interrogation techniques
(sleep deprivation, uncomfortable positions, waterboarding) didn't draw any. They are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating
the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones. US techniques might have been bad policy – won't argue – but lets not fall
for a false equivalency.
Ms. Haspel was an agent of her government, acting on it's orders under it's policies and guidelines. Which leads to
Nuremberg. The Nuremberg tribunals (they were military tribunals – not trials) were conducted by a victorious military force
against a defeated military force. They were widely criticized as vengeance even by such august people as Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court Stone and associate Justice Douglas. There won't be a 'Nuremberg' tribunal because Al Qaida didn't defeat the
United States, and you'd have to convict not just Ms. Haspel, but a sizeable portion of the U.S. Government.
And lastly there's this from a comment of the authors: "The idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient
to disqualify her from heading the Agency." Utter nonsense. That was the mission of the Agency at that time. It's like saying
a 33yr old Drone Pilot who takes out an ISIS/Al Qaida operative as well as 15 civilians is disqualified to be the Sec Def 2 decades
later.
If nothing else, the appointment of Bloody Gina as CIA head finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the myth
that "we're The Good Guys(tm)!" or its cousin "all we gotta do is elect Team D and we can be The Good Guys(R) again!"
We demonize Russia at every opportunity, but I don't see Russia rewarding torturers by appointing them to high office.
I didn't know too much about this woman's background until I read that Rand Paul opposes her nomination. I tend to take notice
whenever Rand Paul holds forth on any subject. All I can say is that if her actual record even approximates what has been alleged,
then this woman is unfit for the post–Nuremberg or no Nuremberg.
"As we've proved, we're not better than them. Any of them." Oh, -PLEASE-, spare us the hyperbole! WE burn alive captives held
in cages? WE saw off their heads?
Thousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape
(S.E.R.E.) training programs.
All of the torturers should be brought to justice. So should all of the officials who ordered or authorized torture.
There is no statute of limitations on capital Federal crimes. For a U.S. citizen to kill via torture is a capital Federal crime,
no matter where the torture took place. If statutes of limitations make it too late to prosecute some acts of torture, it is not
too late to bring about some measure of justice by making torturers pariahs. As many sexual harassers have recently learned, there
is no statute of limitations in the court of public opinion.
The story linking her to torture has been formally retracted. She had nothing to do with torture anywhere. How about a retraction
of this story and an apology.
I do not know whether to admire Mr. van Buren's idealism or be astonished at his naivete. Has he never heard of the School
of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence? People in Latin America know
better than to believe the U.S. protestations of virtue. They know about torturers, and the U.S. support for them.
Personally,
I prefer that the cruelty should be, as Lincoln once put it, "unalloyed by the base metal of hypocrisy"
bob sykes: you should read Pro Publica's retraction (
https://www.propublica.org/article/cia-cables-detail-its-new-deputy-directors-role-in-torture
) of the claim that Haspel was in charge of the Thai black site when Abu Zubaydeh was tortured. She was put in charge there
not long after and oversaw the waterboarding of at least one prisoner, and later followed orders to destroy the tapes of waterboarding
at that site. Your claim that " She had nothing to do with torture anywhere" is incorrect.
Winston: why do you suppose "thousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion,
Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) training programs"? Is it not to prepare them for the possibility of what we call torture when
used by our adversaries?
furbo: your contention that " US extreme interrogation techniques are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals,
pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones" is wrong. The UN Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, states "
For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental,
is intentionally inflicted on a person " Ask anyone who has been waterboarded whether that fits the official definition?
Wilfred, the problem was not that the Feds protected Zacarias Moussaoui's right to privacy. The problem is that it let any of
the 20 Arab Muslims into the US in the first place. Closing our borders and mass deportations would have been the best thing to
do in the aftermath of 9/11, not torture and invasions.
Very well put. Lest we forget: Bush also delivered the stern warning that "war crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be
punished, and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders'."
Ceterum censeo: given that the Iraq invasion and occupation was an act of aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter
and thus illegal under US law, it is not just torturers but also war criminals in government and general staff that have to be
considered in the contexts of these words.
Chris Mallory (Mar 19 @1:47 p.m.), I agree with you. We shouldn't be letting them in.
But if someone had sneaked-a-peek at Moussaoui's laptop during the 3 weeks they had him before 9-11, we might have been able
to thwart the attack altogether. (And the Press has been strangely incurious about investigating whoever it was who issued the
injunction protecting Moussie's precious computer). This type of hand-wringing cost us 3,000 lives. Even more, considering the
Afghan & 2nd Iraq wars would never have been launched, were it not for 9-11.
"... Haspel is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy. ..."
"... In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President. This has been the case in the US since Kennedy. ..."
"... Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway. ..."
"If Trump were not in on the schemes he would just fire his underlings!"
This sentiment indicates a failure to understand the power dynamics at play here. Haspel
is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an
oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to
serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.
In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President.
This has been the case in the US since Kennedy.
Trump cannot fire Haspel or Pompeo. They can fire him, though, and with a sniper's bullet
if they want.
Unfortunately for the oligarchy, that would cause additional complications at a time when
they have lots of tricky and inexplicably unstable (for them) operations ongoing, which is
why they are just steering Trump around instead of replacing him. And Trump is willfully
cooperating, even if they are not filling him in on the plans.
Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and
Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script
then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway.
"The media's interest in the well-being of a foreign population is directly proportional
to the West's interest in toppling its government, while editorial standards are inversely
proportional to its enemy status."--John McEvoy
So, lets employ this maxim to Russiagate and the Skripal Saga and the respective national
media. In the first case, the Russian public's completely ignored unless it's a member of the
so-called opposition while Putin and Russia get slandered constantly. The same treatment goes
for the UK media and a case could be made that the two act in tandem, implying
innerconnectivity between their spy agencies as suspected.
"... The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative =
British, Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on. ..."
"... The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. ..."
The Steele dossier is British, Orbis intelligence = British, Institute for statecraft / Integrity Initiative = British,
Skripal defection. Location, evidence, statements = British, the list goes on and on.
You'd think someone might have noticed something of a trend by now.
They just don't bother anymore, the level of double black psy-ops and gaslighting is a mine field of disinformation. That's what
you get when Washington - Obama, gives the green light to propagandizing their people. It's escalated, like we haven't noticed,
under Trump despite his pathetic attempts at assuring folks it's fake news.
The UK's propaganda machine rivals and even surpasses Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. I watched about 10 minutes of a
documentary about Easter Island, as an example, and it was revisionist to the nth degree. Just absolute rubbish insinuating that
white European travelers destroyed the Island. This is what British kids are now being marinated in, "He who controls the past"
"... This is a humiliation for the US in that it demonstrates the waning power and influence of the US in the region and most especially of Donald Trump who has demonstrated his indifference to the interests of the Arabs in repeated slavish support of Israel against the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. pl ..."
It surprises me that Egypt has rather brazenly walked away from the Boltonesque fantasy of
an "Arab NATO." I would have thought that the paychecks Egypt receives every year from the
American taxpayer and the Saudis would have kept Sisi in line, but apparently the prospect of
other sources of funding affected the decision to defy the Amiirkaan.
With the exception of Jordan's small but competent armed forces, Egypt is the only country
among the members that possesses significant military power, The armed forces of the other
countries are mere playthings for princes. Egypt's withdrawal from this alliance makes the
farcical nature of the plan quite clear.
This is a humiliation for the US in that it
demonstrates the waning power and influence of the US in the region and most especially of
Donald Trump who has demonstrated his indifference to the interests of the Arabs in repeated
slavish support of Israel against the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. pl
We respect the ICC and its judgment on Kosovo "independence" (which, by the way, was
purely advisory and non-binding) which we helped carve out from her mother country via 78
days of day-and-night bombing raids. ICC is the highest legal institution of the world
community and its rulings must be mandatory on all UN members. Therefore, the Kosovo
"independence" is a legally done deal and must be respected.
(fast forward 11 years):
The very same United Kingdom Government:
The ICC's ruling on Chagos Archipelago is a piece of **** and the institution itself is
totally illegitimate and illegal farce and should be disbanded. Of course the British
government has no intention whatsoever of ever complying with such an idiotic ruling from a
quasi-legal institution. The right lies where our might rests.
So there, folks. Take it from the royal horse's mouth.
"The suit was brought by Mauritius and some of the 1,500 Chagos islanders who were
forcibly removed from the archipelago in 1973."
The decision was made on Feb 25, 2019. What happened in the 46 years between 1973 and the
court decision?
Did it take that long for the UN Court to be bribed?
"Diego Garcia: Is The "Terror Fulcrum" of the United States in the Eastern
Hemisphere's Indian Ocean.
The delusional American people think their government is such a benevolent, kind,
peace-loving force in the world. My God... the results of the tribe's decades-long
brainwashing upon an ignorant goy host is breathtaking.
Hold on here, Poncho. The US does not recognize the Hague-based International Court of
Justice as legitimate in the matter. Furthermore, such court is impotent in matters of
enforcement. So the US military will be staying on the island for a period not to exceed
indefinitely. And that's a very, very long time.
Strange how people develop reading comprehension problems when they don't like facts - the
main thrust of the article is here: ' How Great Britain can argue for international law in
the Crimea and South China Sea, while ignoring the International Court of Justice on the
Chagos'............ nope, we don't like it when other people do what we do, cant do that! we
are exceptional..........
You're right. I see people like Robert Kagan's opinions being respectfully asked on foreign affairs, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams
being hired to direct our foreign policy.
The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and
flourishing careers. Now they're angling for war with Iran.
It's preposterous and sickening. And it can't be allowed to stand, so you can't just stand off and say you're "wrecked". Keep
fighting, as you're doing. I will fight it until I can't fight anymore.
Fact-bedeviled JohnT: “McCain was a problem for this nation? Sweet Jesus! There quite simply is no rational adult on the planet
who buys that nonsense.”
McCain had close ties to the military-industrial complex. He was a backer of post-Cold War NATO. He was a neoconservative darling.
He never heard of a dictator that he didn’t want to depose with boots on the ground, with the possible exception of various Saudi
dictators (the oil-weaponry-torture nexus). He promoted pseudo-accountability of government in campaign finance but blocked accountability
for the Pentagon and State Department when he co-chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs with John
Kerry.
And, perhaps partly because of the head trauma and/or emotional wounds he suffered at the hands of Chinese-backed Commies,
it’s plausible to think he was regarded by the willy-nilly plotters of the deep state as a manipulable, and thus useful, conduit
of domestic subversion via the bogus Steele dossier.
Unfortunately, the episode that most defines McCain’s life is the very last one–his being a pawn of M-16 in the the deep state’s
years-long attempt to derail the presidency of Donald Trump.
Measuring success means determining goals. The goals of most wars is to enrich the people in charge. So, by this metric, the war
was a success. The rest of it is just props and propaganda.
“Pyrrhic Victory” look it up the Roman Empire Won but lost if the US is invaded and the government does not defend it I would
like to start my own defense: But the knee jerk politics that stirs America’s cannon fodder citizens is a painful reminder of
a history of jingoist lies where at times some left and right agree at least for a short moment before the rich and powerful push
their weight to have their way.
If All politics is relative Right wingers are the the left of what? Nuclear destruction? or Slavery?
My goodness! I am also a veteran, but of the Vietnam war, and my father was a career officer from 1939-1961 as a paratrooper first,
and later as an intelligence officer. He argued vigorously against our Vietnam involvement, and was cashiered for his intellectual
honesty. A combat veteran’s views are meaningless when the political winds are blowing.
Simply put, we have killed thousands of our kids in service of the colonial empires left to us by the British and the French
after WWII. More practice at incompetent strategies and tactics does not make us more competent–it merely extends the blunders
and pain; viz the French for two CENTURIES against the Britsh during the battles over Normandy while the Planagenet kings worked
to hold their viking-won inheritance.
At least then, kings risked their own lives. Generals fight because the LIKE it…a lot. Prior failures are only practice to
the, regardless of the cost in lives of the kids we tried to raise well, and who were slaughtered for no gain.
We don’t need the empire, and we certainly shouldn’t fight for the corrupt businessmen who have profited from the never-ending
conflicts. Let’s spend those trillions at home, so long as we also police our government to keep both Democrat and Republican
politicians from feathering their own nests. Term limits and prosecutions will help us, but only if we are vigilant. Wars distract
our attention while corruption is rampant at home.
Thanks, I appreciate this article.
I’ll make two points, my own opinion:
it’s the same story as Vietnam, the bull about how the politicians or anti-war demonstrators tied the military ‘hand,’ blah, blah.
Nonsense. Invading a nation and slaughtering people in their towns, houses…gee…what’s wrong with that, eh?
The average American has a primitive mind when it comes to such matters.
Second point I have, is that both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Hillary and Trump should be dragged to a world court, given a fair trial
and locked up for life with hard labor… oh, and Cheney too,for all those families, in half a dozen nations, especially the children
overseas that suffered/died from these creeps.
And, the families of dead or maimed American troops should be apologized to and compensation paid by several million dollars to
each.
The people I named above make me sick, because I have feelings and a conscience. Can you dig?
Though there is a worldly justification for killing to obtain or maintain freedoms, there is no Christian justification for it.
Which suggests that Christians who die while doing it, die in vain.
America’s wars are prosecuted by a military that includes Christians. They seldom question the killing their country orders
them to do, as though the will of the government is that of the will of God. Is that a safe assumption for them to make? German
Christian soldiers made that assumption regarding their government in 1939. Who was there to tell them otherwise? The Church failed,
including the chaplains. (The Southern Baptist Convention declared the invasion of Iraq a just war in 2003.) These wars need to
be assessed by Just War criteria. Christian soldiers need to know when to exercise selective conscientious objection, for it is
better to go to prison than to kill without God’s approval. If Just War theory is irrelevant, the default response is Christian
Pacifism.
“Iraq Wrecked” a lot of innocent people. Millions are dead, cities reduced to rubble, homes and businesses destroyed and it was
all a damned lie. And the perpetrators are Free.
Now there is sectarian violence too, where once there was a semblance of harmony amongst various denominations. See article link
below.
“Are The Christians Slaughtered in The Middle East Victims of the Actions of Western War Criminals and Their Terrorist Supporting
NATO ‘Allies’”?
We are a globalist open borders and mass immigration nation. We stand for nothing. To serve in this nation’s military is very
stupid. You aren’t defending anything. You are just a tool of globalism. Again, we don’t secure our borders. That’s a very big
give away to what’s going on.
If our nation’s military really was an American military concerned with our security we would have secured our border after 9/11,
reduced all immigration, deported ALL muslims, and that’s it. Just secure the borders and expel Muslims! That’s all we needed
to do.
Instead we killed so many people and imported many many more Muslims! And we call this compassion. Its insane.
Maybe if Talibans get back in power they will destroy the opium. You know, like they did when they were first in power…. It seems
that wherever Americans get involved, drugs follow…
“Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very
structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” In Eisenhower’s televised farewell address January 17, 1961.
Rational thought would lead one to believe such words from a fellow with his credentials would have had a useful effect. But it
didn’t. In point of fact, in the likes of Eric Prince and his supporters the notion of war as a profit center is quite literally
a family affair.
The military-industrial complex couldn’t accomplish this all by its lonesome self. The deep state was doing its thing. The two
things overlap but aren’t the same. The deep state is not only or mainly about business profits, but about power. Power in the
world means empire, which requires a military-industrial complex but is not reducible to it.
We now have a rare opportunity to unveil the workings of the deep state, but it will require a special counsel, and a lengthy
written report, on the doings in the 2016 election of the FBI (Comey, Strzok, et. al.), and collaterally the CIA and DIA (Brennan
and Clapper). Also the British government (M-16), John McCain, and maybe Bush and Obama judges on the FISA courts.
"... The U.S. alone expelled 60 Russian officials. Trump was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year ago the Washington Post described the scene: ..."
"... Today the New York Times portraits Gina Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position. They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its own purpose: ..."
"... Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives. ..."
"... Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he embraced the strong option. ..."
"... If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked. ..."
"... The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to manipulate him: ..."
"... The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own policies. ..."
"... The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma all agency owned men. ..."
"... The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead. ..."
"... It is interesting to see that nations that have traditionally been pro-American feel that the threat posed by American power is growing. ..."
"... Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter. ..."
"... Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn, completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold for their putative boss. ..."
"... Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War. ..."
"... after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the msm will not be talking about integrity initiative.. ..."
"... once Teresa May has spoken in Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative version of the truth is possible. ..."
"... Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger one to blame the Russians. ..."
"... The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about both. ..."
"... Haspel will not be fired. ..."
"... It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). .. ..."
"... The actors in government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. ..."
An ass kissing portrait of Gina Haspel,
torture
queen and director of the CIA, reveals that she lied to Trump to push for more
aggression against Russia.
In March 2018 the British government asserted, without providing any evidence, that the
alleged 'Novichok' poisoning of Sergej and Yulia Skripal was the fault of Russia. It urged
its allies to expel Russian officials from their countries.
The U.S. alone expelled
60 Russian officials. Trump
was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year
ago the Washington Post described the scene:
President Trump seemed distracted in March as his aides briefed him at his Mar-a-Lago
resort on the administration's plan to expel 60 Russian diplomats and suspected spies.
The United States, they explained, would be ousting roughly the same number of
Russians as its European allies -- part of a coordinated move to punish Moscow for the
poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil.
"We'll match their numbers," Trump instructed, according to a senior administration
official. "We're not taking the lead. We're matching."
The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials
said. To his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian
officials -- far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on.
The president, who seemed to believe that other individual countries would largely
equal the United States, was furious that his administration was being portrayed in the
media as taking by far the toughest stance on Russia.
The expulsion marked a turn in the Trump administration's relation with Russia:
The incident reflects a tension at the core of the Trump administration's increasingly
hard-nosed stance on Russia: The president instinctually opposes many of the punitive
measures pushed by his Cabinet that have crippled his ability to forge a close
relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The past month, in particular, has marked a major turning point in the
administration's stance, according to senior administration officials. There have been
mass expulsions of Russian diplomats, sanctions on oligarchs that have bled billions of
dollars from Russia's already weak economy and, for the first time, a presidential tweet
that criticized Putin by name for backing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Today the New York Timesportraits Gina
Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position.
They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her
shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its
own purpose:
Last March, top national security officials gathered inside the White House to discuss
with Mr. Trump how to respond to the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal,
the former Russian intelligence agent.
London was pushing for the White House to expel dozens of suspected Russian
operatives, but Mr. Trump was skeptical. ... During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump.
She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told
the president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not
the only victims of Russia's attack.
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children
hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals.
She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently
killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but
pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the
pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he
embraced the strong option.
The Skripal case was widely covered and we
followed it diligently (scroll down). There were no reports of any children affected by
'Novichok' nor were their any reports of dead ducks. In the official storyline the
Skripals, before visiting a restaurant,
fed bread to ducks at a pond in the Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury.
They also
gave duck-bread to three children to do the same. The children were examined and their
blood was tested.
No
poison was found and none of them fell ill . No duck died. (The duck feeding episode
also disproves
the claim that the Skripals were poisoned by touching a door handle.)
If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British
government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced
policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked.
The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were
fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to
manipulate him:
The outcome was an example, officials said, of how Ms. Haspel is one of the few people
who can get Mr. Trump to shift position based on new information.
Co-workers and friends of Ms. Haspel push back on any notion that she is manipulating
the president. She is instead trying to get him to listen and to protect the agency,
according to former intelligence officials who know her.
The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own
policies. Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in
the game:
Ms. Haspel won the trust of Mr. Pompeo, however, and has stayed loyal to him. As a
result, Mr. Trump sees Ms. Haspel as an extension of Mr. Pompeo, a view that has helped
protect her, current and former intelligence officials said.
Posted by b on April 16, 2019 at 08:37 AM |
Permalink
I don't see how it's possible to manipulate someone (and especially the US president) into
doing something they don't want to do with lies like the ones described here. On the
contrary presidents, CEOs etc. favor the staffers who tell them the kind of lies they want
to hear in order to reinforce what they wanted to do in the first place.
I've never seen any reason to alter my first position on Trump, that like any other
president he does what he wants to do.
The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create
trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life
with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma
all agency owned men.
The joke 7in the final scene Robert Redford tells See Eye A man Cliff Robertson that he
gave all the evidence to the NY Times. What a joke. The NY Times and the Wash Post are the
mouthpieces for the SEE Eye A. The AP news sources most of their stories from those two
papers and other lackey See Eye A newspapers.
One final criticism in moon's story. The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the
President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead.
After this, she got the top job, so what is the real lesson here? Sociopathic liars get
promoted....or you can tell the truth, try to be honorable and fade into obscurity.. In a nest of psychos, you have to really be depraved to become the top psycho...
Nuke it for orbit, it's the only way to be sure...
Backing up Russ's point, when will you realise the "buck stops" on Trump's desk for any
and all departments he oversees, which are run by his appointees? Trump is dedicated to
creating a neoconservative foreign policy melded to a neoliberal economic policy favouring
his corporate fascist sponsors. Recently, you've been all over the Assange indictment,
Trump's relationship with Nuttyahoo and the related rollback of JCPOA. Is this what you
want to see continued into a second term?
There is much evidence to show Trump and the GOP working steadily towards a "democracy"
where Congress is castrated (one might say the system castrates Congress anyway), opposing
candidates are jailed, opposition votes are suppressed and the media is weakened to the
point where no one can tell the difference.
They haven't got there quite yet but once the judiciary is controlled by GOP ideologues
it's game over. And McConnell is dedicating his life to make that the reality ASAP.
Meanwhile back at the ranch we are dedicated to knocking down any and all potential
opposition to this GOP hostile takeover for some reason I've yet to fathom.
Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire
Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in
the game[Pompeo]
Hopefully yes to all four propositions. Why am I sceptical though (except conceivably
the first)?
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any
effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. He's the first POTUS in decades I
believe to not even pretend to like dogs by having an official White House dog and every
policy his Administration can take against animals, they have taken. I'm not even sure I
buy the spin that he cared about dead kids either. And NYT readers know this about him, so
I don't understand what the point of peddling this fiction is other than to paint Torture
Queen in some kind of good light (and we KNOW that she certainly doesn't care about dead
anything).
another example of trump's stupidity and pathological inability to think for himself. he
gets his views from fox and his policy from bolton. his equally vapid daughter and kushner
whine to him about sooper sad syria pictures they saw in a sponsored link while googling
for new tmz gossip.
even worse that this is the twat in charge of one of russiagate's main instigating "deep
state" agencies. he spent the entirety of his presidency railing against their various lies
then takes this wankery at face value. it's just like the "chinese soldiers in venezuela";
if those pictures were legit they'd have been splattered over every front page and
permanently attached to screeching cnn and msnbc segments demanding trump "finally get
tough" on "putin's russia".
my only surprise is that she didn't tell him about british babies ripped from incubators
and dipped in anthrax powder.
the nyt shilling for a soCIopAth? not that surprising.
The consultant in emergency medicine at Salisbury hospital wrote to The Times, shortly
after the Skripal incident. His choice of words was odd, and some have said they indicate
no novichok poisoning occurred. Leaving that to one side, his letter certainly puts paid to
the idea that more than three people (the Skripals and the policeman, DCI Bailey) were
poisoned.
https://www.onaquietday.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DocSaysNoNerveAgentInSalisbury.jpg
" the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, "
There was no attack on the Skripals. or on anyone else.
The Russophobia in whose context it falls, is of a higher order, in which a fabricated
narrative of a Skripal-like attack had an important function.
The Skripals were perfectly happy to lend their name to the fabrication, and are living
happily, probably in New Zealand.
The Daily Beast article that b linked to describes how many serious, well-informed people
felt that Haspel was unsuitable to lead the CIA. Even more strange and troubling was that Haspel was supported by Trump's nemesis,
John Brennan.
Despite all that, MAGA Trump still nominated her. Any notion that Trump is at odds with, or "manipulated" by, Haspel, Bolton, or Pompeo is
just propaganda. We've seen such reporting before (esp. wrt Bolton) and Trump has taken no
action.
I see that Trump derangement is alive and well here at MoA. Commenters talk as if Trump is
the first president stupid enough to be manipulated by the security agencies and shadow
government sometimes referred to as a "deep state". People don't have to be historians or
look back to Rome, just read the books about how the great general who "won WWII" was used
by the oligarchy which had full control of US foreign policy throughout Eisenhower's term in
office.
Works produced after WWII, C. Wright Mills, The Power elite was written in 1956,The
Brothers and The Divil's Chessboard each about the Dulles Brothers and how they operated US
foreign policy for the interests of the oligarchy, and the work Peter Phillips, GIANTS: The
Global Power Elite and the work of David Rothkopf which thoroughly describes the feudal
system under which the Western cultures are ruled.
The US government is a pantomime it is a show it has no power.
How many here can honestly say they understand that the US dollar itself and the ENTIRE
GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM is privately owned. Why do you think the "banks were bailed out"?
because the banks were in power not the government. The US is 22 trillion in debt - the
oligarchy is the creditor - take over the US gov. and you have a powerless pile of
debt.
Around 6,000 people control 85% of global assets until that changes nothing will change.
The oligarchy won virtually all the mines and control the price of all basic commodities
necessary for modern life, the internet, oil of course and more.
What is failing and what has failed over and over for 500 years is Western Civilization and
its three "great religions" which preach obedience, oppression, domination by a one god
suffocating mythology.
But the oligarchy doesn't own just the basic commodities, it owns the religions and it owns
the drugs and all illegal trade as well.
Western "civilization" is really nothing more than one vast feudal kingdom, with royal
courts in DC, Tel Aviv and Ryiadh. Wheather there is a god or not, religion is made of
flesh and blood not miracles. No Rabbi or Priest or Imam claims visitations by god to
instruct them on doctrine - they are flesh and blood and they want power so they behave
like sycophants to the money they need to expand their power...all for the good souls under
their care.
Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired
to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more
likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter.
What can we expect from a tv personality who became a US president? A man who ran with an
advertisement worthy of a business man like him, "Make America Great Again." How does he go
about doing it? Giving more money to the military industrial-Congressional complex, even
though we are really flat broke. Using aggressive tactics used by Wall Street in hostile
company takeovers to really intimidate other nations. And hire and place those he really
agrees with in important positions who really reflect his true feelings. I'm sure when he
spoke with Haspel before offering her the job, he brought up the topic of torture and
agreed with her on its use on terrorists.
I think there's a reasonable case to be made that they conspired not to stop Trump but
to further speculation of Trump's "collusion" with Russia (what would later be known as
Russiagate). The "collusion" and "Russia meddled" accusations are what fueled the new
McCarthyism.
I'll just add to Jerry's comment at #3 that the final line in the movie "Day of the Condor"
is something like "But will they print it?" which really spoke to the message of the film
in its entirety. The condor being an endangered bird for whom the hero is named, and the
beginning outrage being the brutal murder of book lovers researching useable plot details
for the 'company'makes this message current and applicable to what we see in the Skripal
case. And instead of librarians, we now have online commenters, a doughty breed, and we
have Assange.
Instead of 'Will they print it?' I am wondering 'Will they make another movie about
it?'
Remind me, where is Yulia Skripal these days? Well and truly 'disappeared' it seems. The
mask is off. the snarling face of the beast is there for all to see.
What a total waste of an article discussing a story published in NYT or WaPo.
b, the World has divided itself into those who consume alternative media such as this
and stupidos who consume MSM. There is nothing in-between that you are attempting to
discuss and dissect here. NYT = cognitive value zero.
Fake News not worth one millisecond of our time, not even to decode what the regime
wants us to know, we know all that already. Personally, I am only interested in the new
methods of domestic repression, what is next after the warning of Assange arrest, future
rendition and torture. The Deep Stare appears to be coming out into open, will it soon get
rid of the whole faux democracy construct and just use iron fist to rule? It already impose
its will as the rule of law. All of the Western block is heading in this direction.
Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn,
completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its
contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold
for their putative boss.
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any
effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. Mataman | Apr 16, 2019 9:45:30 AM
This assumes that Trump would primarily care about the ducks (and children) when he
approved a massive expulsion, rather that his image and "ah, in that case it would look bad
if we do not do something really decisive".
In any case, I was thinking why NYT would disclose something like that. The point is
that readers of Craig Murray (not so few, but mostly Scottish nationalists who are also
leftist and have scant possibilities and/or inclination to vote in USA) and MoonOfAlabama
would quickly catch a dead fish here, but 99.9% of the public is blissfully unaware of any
incongruences in the "established" Skripal narrative.
BTW, it is possible that the journalist who scribbled fresh yarn obtained from CIA did it
earnestly. Journalists do not necessarily follow stories that they cover -- scribbling from
given notes does not require overtaxing the precious attention span that can be devoted to
more vital cognitive challenges. I am lazy to find the link, but while checking for news on
Venezuela, I stumbled on a piece from Express, a British tabloid, where Guaido was named a
"figurehead of the oposition" supported by "450 Western countries". My interpretation was
that more literate journalists were moved for to more compelling stories as Venezuela went
to the back burner.
Yes, indeed, the Skripal Affair is one of the obviously contrived stunts we've seen.
Just outrageous in its execution. On a par with the US having a man who didn't even run for president of Venezuela swear
himself in and then pressure everyone to accept him as president.
Interesting, I had no idea Gina Haspel - aka, The Queen of Blood - played a role. I
thought it was all original dirty work by Britain's Theresa May. Boy, I hope people are through with the false notion that if women just get into
leadership, the world will become a better gentler place.
Macron was (afaik?) the only EU 'leader' who was quoted in the MSM as bruiting re. the
Skripal affair a message like:
.. no culpability in the part of Russia has been evidenced .. for now...
I suppose he was enjoined to shut his gob right quick (have been reading about brexit so
brit eng) as nothing more in that line was heard.
Hooo, the EU expelled a lot of Russ. diplomats, obeying the USuk, which certainly
created some major upsets on the ground.
Some were expelled, went into other jobs, other places, but then others arrived, etc.
The MSM has not made any counts - lists - of names numbers - etc. of R diplos on the job -
anywhere. As some left and then others arrived.
Once more, this was mostly a symbolic move, if extremely nasty, insulting, and
disruptive.
Theresa May's speech re. Novichok, Independent 14 March 2018:
.. on Monday I set out that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a
Novichok: a military grade nerve agent developed by Russia. Based on this capability,
combined with their record of conducting state sponsored assassinations – including
against former intelligence officers whom they regard as legitimate targets – the UK
Government concluded it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for this reckless and
despicable act. ..
imo, the media has, once again, simply taken its lead from trump himself, & started
making things up completely. & you're absolutely correct in pointing out that, much
like trump's true believers, the msm's targeted audience never even notices...
Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY
Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of
which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power
sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter
hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War.
after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the
msm will not be talking about integrity initiative..
what i didn't know is what @18 lysias pointed out.."Haspel was CIA station chief in
London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In
her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it.
That Brennan supported her argues for the latter." ditto jr's speculation @20 too...
so gaspel shows trump some cheap propaganda that she got from who??
my main problem with b's post - i tend to see it like kiza @23) is maintaining the idea
trump isn't in on all of this.. the thought trump is being duped by his underlings.. if he
was and it mattered, he would get rid of them.. the fact he doesn't says to me, he is in on
it - get russia, being the 24/7 game plan of the west here still..
Please stop listening to idiot libertarians and their "US is flat broke" meme.
The reality is that: so long as Americans transact in dollars, the United States government
can tax anytime it feels like by issuing new dollars via the Fed.
Equally, so long as 60% of the world's trade is conducted in dollars, this is tens to
hundreds of billions of dollars of additional taxation surface area.
The MMT people - I don't agree 100% with everything they say, but they do understand the
actual operation of fiat currency.
The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion to
hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that currency
devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy.
I doubt Haspel knew the ducks were fake - she was probably just given stuff to pass up
the chain.
It is a lot like John Kerry who was shown convincing satellite data of the BUK launch that
hit MH17 - but no one could be bothered to pass on even the launch site coordinates to the
JIT. I'm sure this stuff goes on all the time, and of course, once Teresa May has spoken in
Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative
version of the truth is possible.
Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to
get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might
have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger
one to blame the Russians.
The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both
originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about
both.
"The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion
to hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that
currency devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy."
The useful idiocy is most surprising among US farmers. In the 19th century they broadly
understood that fiat money was good for chronic low-wealth debtors like themselves, while
hard money was bad and a gold standard lethal. This was the basis of the Populist movement.
Nothing has changed financially, but today's farmers, and the low-wealth debtor class in
general, seem more likely to be goldbuggers than to have any knowledge of economics or of
their own political history.
karlof1 36
Once a faction becomes submerged in the Mammon theocracy and becomes nothing but
mercenary nihilists, thinking is no longer necessary or desirable, except to come up with
attractive, pseudo-plausible lies.
This certainly characterizes "the right" (including liberals), but they have no monopoly
on it. By now "the left" is nearly as thoughtless and instrumental on behalf of Mammon,
except to the extent that a few people are starting to really grapple with what it means to
have an intrinsically ecocidal and therefore suicidal civilization. That's really the only
thought frontier left, all else has been engulfed in Mammon, productionism, scientism and
technocracy.
I remind that Mussolini wasted his legislature.. 1 balmy after noon @ a roadside spot.
it made his government stronger.?
It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no
one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes
anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). ..
The actors in
government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the
rest of the world. Everyone in the government is covering for the behaviors of someone else
in government, the MSM has raised the price of a pencil to just under a million, stock
markets are bags of hot thin air, and everyone in side and outside of the centers of power
at all levels of government have lied thru their teeth so much that their teeth are melting
from the continuous flow of hot deceitful air.
Corrupt is now the only qualification for
political office, trigger happy screwball the only qualification for the police and the
military and . making progress is like trying to conduct a panty raid at a female nudist
camp.
John Anthony La Pietra , Apr 16, 2019 3:47:03 PM |
link
China has come out swinging after Mike Pompeo's three-day Latin
America tour in which the Secretary of State
publicly called out China for spreading "disorder" in Latin America alongside Russia.
Pompeo identified the two countries, both of which have over the past two months condemned US
efforts toward regime change in Venezuela, of backing failing investment projects that only
fuel corruption and undermine democracy, especially in Venezuela.
China's ambassador to Chile, Xu Bu, quickly lashed out in response to America's top diplomat
blaming China for Latin America's economic woes which first came last Friday while standing
alongside Chilean President Sebastian Pinera. Ambassador Xu told the Chilean
newspaper La Tercera : "Mr Pompeo has lost his mind."
Pompeo had asserted during his tour that Chinese investment and economic intervention in
Venezuela, now facing financial and infrastructural collapse amidst political turmoil, had
"helped destroy" the country and said Latin American leaders must therefore see who their "true
friend" is.
"China's bankrolling of the Maduro regime helped precipitate and prolong the crisis in that
country," Pompeo had stated , and further
described Maduro as "a power-hungry tyrant who has brought ruin to his country and to his
people".
"I think there's a lesson to be learned for all of us: China and others are being
hypocritical calling for non-intervention in Venezuela's affairs. Their own financial
interventions have helped destroy that country," Pompeo added.
China is Venezuela's biggest foreign creditor has provided up to $62bn in loans since 2007,
according to estimates.
The Chinese foreign ministry didn't hold back in its response: "For some time, some US
politicians have been carrying the same version, the same script of slandering China all over
the world , and fanning the flames and sowing discord everywhere," Ministry spokesman Lu Kang
said in a
Monday statement .
"The words and deeds are despicable. But lies are lies, even if you say it a thousand times,
they are still lies. Mr Pompeo, you can stop, " the spokesman said.
Hinting at Washington's Cold War era record of overthrowing governments in Latin America --
a longstanding tradition that can be traced all the way back to the Cold War, the statement
added: "The Latin American countries have good judgment about who is their true friend and who
is false, and who is breaking rules and making trouble," Lu said.
The Chinese Ambassador to Chile's remarks had also remotely invoked a continued Monroe
Doctrine mentality on the part of US officials, saying "Pompeo's body has entered the 21st
century but his mind remains in the 20th century, full of thoughts about hegemony and the cold
war ," Amb. Xu told La Tercera .
In addition to being the Maduro government's single largest creditor, China has recently
offered to help Venezuela with its failing power grid, after a series of devastating mass
outages over the past month has resulted in "medieval" conditions amidst an already collapsing
infrastructure. This as Pompeo and Bolton came close to positively celebrating the mass outages
as proof of the ineptness of the Maduro regime.
Beijing also recently denied it has deployed troops to Venezuela after media reports a week
ago cited online photos which appeared to show a Chinese military transport plane deployed to
Caracas.
Given how boldly and directly Chinese officials' Monday statements were, it appears
Beijing's patience with Pompeo is running thin, to the point of giving up on a positive avenue
with the White House, also amidst a broader trade war. It appears the proverbial gloves are
coming off.
China's ambassador Xu Bu is certainly correct that "Mr Pompeo has lost his mind" like the
rest of US supremacist elites. Another good example is the demented Nikki Haley. Then there
is Bolton that is in a class of his own.
Victory in Yemen! Victory in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else! Our $trillon military, led by genius generals, will bring home slaves and loot to
replenish our bankrupt treasury. We shall crush our enemies and hear the lamentations of their women.
ClickNLook, 44 minutes ago
MAKE YEMEN SHITHOLE AGAIN!
warsev
I guess we now know fully where President Trump stands on reining in executive warmongering.
"... What's the real agenda though behind that article? It's to put Gina Haspel in a favourable light at the same time as it's criticising Trump. Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future. ..."
"... I see it as a complex exercise in CYA. They need to reinforce certain narratives. ..."
"... As of almost 8 PM, there are 35 comments. In a national newspaper on a story like this? There must be a committee cherry picking them for "suitability" - the collection is as fake as the article. Wonderful Haspel at the head of an amazing CIA tutoring a clueless moron of a POTUS. The third part they got right. ..."
"... Why are they fluffing the torturer and the out-of-control CIA? Is something planned where they want both to shine in their future stories on that "something"? ..."
The New York Times article seems whiffy to me. (Is anything from the NYT not whiffy?) The
article is the work of no fewer than five writers and the part about Donald Trump being
swayed by pictures of sick children in hospital and dead ducks seems a bit like a game of
Chinese whispers.
What's the real agenda though behind that article? It's to put Gina Haspel in a favourable
light at the same time as it's criticising Trump. Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone
who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the
first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future.
Better not play too many of those
"Call of Duty" video games either. You might find that being a pretend mercenary shooting
up innocent people in foreign lands is not just for the purpose of wasting a half of day on
mindless entertainment.
I see it as a complex exercise in CYA. They need to reinforce certain narratives.
>> The media was right about Trump: he has a soft spot for Russia.
>> Trump cares about people (and even ducks) - remember how he bombed Syria because
of the babies? Now Trump is super concerned about the people of Venezuela. What a
humanitarian!
>> Russia has no reason to oppose USA (in Venezuela or elsewhere) - they could just
contact their friend Trump! To do otherwise demonstrates malicious intent.
As of almost 8 PM, there are 35 comments. In a national newspaper on a story like this?
There must be a committee cherry picking them for "suitability" - the collection is as fake
as the article. Wonderful Haspel at the head of an amazing CIA tutoring a clueless moron of a
POTUS. The third part they got right.
Why are they fluffing the torturer and the out-of-control CIA? Is something planned where
they want both to shine in their future stories on that "something"?
Trump also hoped the Sisi meeting would re-invigorate his idea of an "Arab NATO", the
proposed Middle East Security Alliance (MESA), raised at the beginning of his Presidency. MESA
would, U.S. planners believed, align the Gulf Arab states -- particularly Saudi Arabia -- with
Jordan and Egypt to strategically balance and oppose Iran. Cairo cannot realistically support
such a position in black and white terms (neither can Qatar or Jordan, at this stage).
Cairo is actually open to improved relations with Iran, particularly because the Egyptian
Government feels less than secure that the current Saudi regime is stable and reliable.
Trump, during the White House meeting, strenuously attempted to support Saudi Arabia and
MbS, but received strong pushback from al-Sisi on that account.
The measure of Egypt's rejection of the U.S. pressure was indicated when al-Sisi,
immediately upon returning to Cairo on April 10, 2019, formally withdrew Egypt from MESA. Egypt
had very deliberately not sent a delegation to the MESA summit in Riyadh on April 8, 2019.
...
The ongoing belief in the U.S. that Egypt's defenses are existentially dependent on
Washington is something which Cairo cannot comprehend. Washington policy thinking is that Cairo
would obey U.S. diktat because it needed spare parts for U.S.-supplied equipment, or because it
so needed the relatively small contribution offered by the Camp David Accord aid payments.
The author says very little about Egypts relations with Syria. I remember when the US
agent Morsi tried to push Egypt to fight against Assad. Genral Al Sisi stopped this because
it would have torn also Egypt apart, especially the Army which has very friendly ties with
the Syrian army.
General Al Sisi and President Assad have something very basic in common. Both want to
preserve the culture of their countries which are multi religious, representing the
developments in these areas over thousands of years. AL Sisi was acting swiftly to protect
the Copts which is a christian religion, maybe the true birthplace of christianity. The copts
have deep roots in the old Egyptian religion. In a speech Al Sisi said that the copts are an
essential part of Egypt and that they are the link to Egypts great past.
You sure as hell can't say trump isn't trying! He just vetoed the Senate bill to end all
aid to continue the war on Yemen! What did Yemen ever do to us? Not a damn thing! His true
colors are shining more every day. His followers will say it's a trick! It's 4d chess! It's
disgusting!
The area around Venezuela is actually now the richest "oil region" in the world.
You know... I often ponder how must simpler and peaceful the world could and SHOULD be
were the ziombie United States not such a belligerent force. Our Founding Fathers would be
outrageously appalled at their descendants to whom they bequeathed responsibility for
maintaining and championing their original philosophy.
The question now is who in the Washington bureaucracy will take the blame for pushing
Trump to insist on actions by al-Sisi which any fundamental analysis of the situation points
to being infeasible and against Egypt's view of its own strategic interests.
i think the question now is whether Trump is such an idiot Zionist that he takes his
orders from Sheldon Adelson Bolt-on, and Pompous. MIGA.
Already answered,and the ***-whipping when he takes on Iran will be well deserved,no way
to
win short of using nukes. Iran is far too important to Russia and China for that to be
allowed. Logistics and demographics are not on the US's side, even the Pentagram wants
nothing to do with an actual war with Iran.
Victory in Yemen! Victory in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else! Our $trillon military, led by genius generals, will bring home slaves and loot to
replenish our bankrupt treasury. We shall crush our enemies and hear the lamentations of their women.
ClickNLook, 44 minutes ago
MAKE YEMEN SHITHOLE AGAIN!
warsev
I guess we now know fully where President Trump stands on reining in executive warmongering.
Look on the bright side, Trump's overt pandering to Israel has disgusted the Europeans so
much that Macron is at the lowest point in his popularity as Rothschild's puppet, and there
is rising support for the AfD in Germany.
The NYT reported that 40% of Germans now think it's right to blame Jews for Israel's
policy in the Mideast, German youth couldn't care less about the holocaust, and Merkel is
pivoting to Russia.
It is now (America + Israel) vs. (the rest of the world led by Russia, China, Iran, Syria,
with increasing pivot from Germany and India)
Even the rest of the Five Eyes a.k.a. America's lap dogs are casting a wary eye towards
this unholy alliance, and avoid outright support for Israel. Netanyahu has let his new found
power, i.e. America's muscles, gone to his head. He's digging a grave for himself, turning
Israel more and more into a pariah state with each passing day.
I'm guessing chess is not Trump's strong suit, nor any of the Israel Firsters (incl. Pence
& Pompeo) hanging around him. They're all letting their new found power go to their
collective heads. Things are going to backfire on them sooner or later.
@wayfarer
"Trump panders to his base at the Republican Jewish Coalition."
The trouble is, the Republican Jewish Coalition was never his base. These people were the
biggest Trump haters until he got elected. Now they're just holding their noses to buy power
through him.
Meanwhile, the real Trump's base could care less about Israel, and are frankly disgusted
with his foreign policy and complete failure on immigration.
So newly reelected Israeli monster-in-chief Benjamin Netanyahu
has boasted , with a grin, that America's President Donald J. Trump followed through on his
proposal to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist group. Bibi was
smiling because the timing of the move, one day before the Israeli election, strongly suggests
it was done to assist him against what had become a very strong opposition challenge. That
Trump likely colluded with Netanyahu to blatantly interfere in the election has apparently
bothered no one in Israel or in the tame American media.
The gift from Washington came on top of recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan
Heights, threatening members of the International Criminal Court if they try to prosecute
Israel for war crimes, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, removing the word "occupation"
from the State Department's assessments of human rights infringements on the West Bank,
eliminating relief funding for Palestinian refugees, leaving the U.N. Human Rights Council
because it was too critical of Israel, and looking the other way as Israel declared itself a
state only for Jews. Washington also ignored the bombing of hospitals, schools and water
treatment infrastructure in Gaza while Israeli army snipers were shooting unarmed demonstrators
demanding their freedom.
The labeling of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group is particularly disturbing as
it means that the United States military by virtue of the Authorization to Use Military Force
(AUMF) now has a mandate to attack the IRGC wherever it appears, including in Syria or even in
the waterway the Straits of Hormuz, where the guard has regular patrols in small boats. It is a
de facto declaration of war and it comes on top of a number of deliberate provocations
directed against Iran starting with the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement Joint
Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) one year ago, which led to the unilateral imposition of
harsh sanctions directed against the Iranian economy to bring about a popular uprising as well
as regularly repeated false claims that Iran is the leading "state sponsor of terrorism." Next
month, the U.S. will begin enforcing a unilaterally declared worldwide sanction on any and all
Iranian oil sales.
Netanyahu pledged to annex Israeli settlements on the largely Palestinian West Bank if
elected, which is undoubtedly a move cleared in advance with the Trump team of foreign policy
sociopaths as it de facto puts an end to any delusional speculation over a possible
two-state negotiated solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict. It will also lead to a massive
upsurge in violence as the Palestinians object, which is neither a concern for the White House
or Netanyahu, as they are assuming that it can be suppressed by overwhelming force directed
against an almost completely unarmed civilian population.
And Trump will no doubt expect Bibi to return the favor when he is running for reelection in
2020 by encouraging American Jews who care about Israel to support the Republicans. Trump is
focused on his own electability and is absolutely shameless about his betrayal of actual
American interests in the Middle East, possibly because he has no inkling of the actual damage
that he is doing.
His speech last week before the casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson-hosted Jewish
Republican Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas was a disgusting pander to a group
that includes many key players who have little or no concern for what happens to the United
States as long as Israel flourishes. The only good news that came out of the meeting was that
Adelson himself appears to be "gravely ill."
Trump at times appeared to be speaking to what he thought was a group of Israelis,
referring to "your prime minister" when mentioning Benjamin Netanyahu and several times
describing Israel as "yours," suggesting that deep down he understands that many American Jews
are more loyal to Israel than to the United States. At another point, Trump declared that "The
Democrats have even allowed the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism to take root
in their party and their country," apparently part of a White House plan to keep playing that
card to turn American Jews and their political donations in a Republican direction before
elections in 2020.
Trump also told the Republican Coalition audience how he came to a decision on recognizing
Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. He described how
"he'd been speaking to his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, as well as U.S.
ambassador to Israel David Friedman and his Israel adviser, Jason Greenblatt, over the phone
about an unrelated issue when he suddenly brought up the Golan Heights." Trump shared how "I
said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of
things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie.' After the advisers filled him
in, Trump said he asked Friedman: 'David, what do you think about me recognizing Israel and the
Golan Heights?' Friedman, apparently surprised by the suggestion, reacted like a 'wonderful,
beautiful baby,' Trump said, and asked if he would 'really do that.' 'Yeah, I think I'm doing
it right now. Let's write something up,' Trump said he responded, prompting applause and cheers
from his audience in Las Vegas. 'We make fast decisions and we make good decisions.'"
Putting the Trump story about the Golan Heights in some kind of context is not really
that difficult. He wanted an answer to please Netanyahu and he went to three Orthodox Jews who
support the illegal Israeli settlements and have also individually contributed financially to
their growth so he was expecting the response that he got. That he was establishing a
precedent by his moves on Jerusalem and the Golan apparently did not occur to him as his
administration prides itself on having a foreign policy vision that extends no longer than the
beginning of next week, which is why he hired Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams. And
then there is always the doleful Stephen Miller lurking in the background as well as the three
musketeers of Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman for really serious questions relating to why
acceding to the wishes of parasite state Israel should continue to be the apparent number one
priority of the government of the United States.
Donald Trump neither poses nor answers the question why he feels compelled to fulfill all
of the campaign pledges he made to the Jewish community, which by and large did not vote for
him, while failing to carry out the promises made to those who actually did support him .
The absurd Jewish Republican Coalition narrative about how Trump gave Israel the Golan Heights
should have resulted in a flood of opprobrium in the U.S. media about his profound ignorance
and fundamental hypocrisy, but there was largely silence.
The nonsense going on in Las Vegas in front of a lot of fat cats who regard the United
States as little more than a cash cow that they control as well as in the White House itself
unfortunately has real world consequences. America is being led by the nose by a
well-entrenched and powerful group of Israeli loyalists and this will not end well. The
U.S. doesn't even have a Middle Eastern foreign policy anymore – it has a "to do" list
handed by Netanyahu to whomever is president. The fact that the current man in charge in
Washington is either so ignorant or so deluded as to allow the process to escalate until the
U.S. is drawn into yet more catastrophic wars is beyond regrettable. U.S. foreign policy should
not depend on the perceptions of Kushner and company. It should be based on real, tangible
American interests, not those of Israel. Someone should explain that to the president.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address
is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].
The gift from Washington came on top of recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan
Heights, threatening members of the International Criminal Court if they try to prosecute
Israel for war crimes
It reminds me of the following agreements concluded during the Bush era:
US Bilateral Exemption Agreements
"The Bush Administration is actively opposed to the International Criminal Court. Its
insistence on placing all Americans above international law risks undermining the ICC in its
earliest and most fragile years. Currently, the State Department is pushing individual
countries to conclude bilateral agreements with the US, exempting all Americans (and even
some non-nationals) from accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war
crimes . These proposed agreements, in the form requested by the US government, are
illegal under the Rome Statute and are not required by US law.
· The European Union has concluded that "Entering into US agreements – as
presently drafted would be inconsistent with ICC States Parties' obligations with regard to
the ICC Statute and may be inconsistent with other international agreements."
To bring the US proposal back within the legal scope of Article 98(2), the EU would
require four modifications:
· No impunity: A guarantee that the US would investigate and potentially prosecute
the accused in its domestic courts.
· No reciprocity: Nationals of ICC States Parties must be excluded from
coverage.
· No universal scope: These agreements can only cover persons officially sent on
government business by a State.
· Ratification: The agreement must be approved according to the constitutional
procedures of each individual state.
Soon after WWII, U.S. statesman Dean Acheson warned that creating Israel on land already
inhabited by Palestinians would "imperil" both American and all Western interests in the
region. Despite warnings such as this one, President Truman supported establishing a Jewish
state on land primarily inhabited by Muslims and Christians.
Few Americans today are aware that U.S. support enabled the creation of modern Israel.
Even fewer know that U.S. politicians pushed this policy over the forceful objections of top
diplomatic and military experts.
As this work demonstrates, these politicians were bombarded by a massive pro-Israel
lobbying effort that ranged from well-funded and very public Zionist organizations to an
"elitist secret society" whose members included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.
Against Our Better Judgment brings together meticulously sourced evidence to illuminate a
reality that differs starkly from the prevailing narrative. It provides a clear view of the
history that is key to understanding one of the most critically important political issues of
our day.
Interview with Scholar and Journalist, Mark Bruzonsky. Mark Bruzonsky, a Jewish, American
Scholar and Journalist, has been a key member behind the scenes of the Israeli Palestinian
peace initiative in the 1980s, meeting with Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and with
Palestinian officials. In this exclusive interview with Press TV's Autograph, Mr. Bruzonsky
talks about the challenges and missed opportunities he witnessed first-hand, and how Zionist
groups infiltrated American politics, US institutions and organizations. He goes further to
explain the specific time and day Obama sold out to the AIPAC lobby, and how President Obama
would never dare oppose the stronghold of the Zionist, Israeli Lobby in the US.
Defending The
Revolution a short film about the People's Militia in Venezuela. Not gonna be easy.
And one more time,
Whitney Webb is doing a bang up job with this series:
This article is Part II of a multi-part investigative series examining the efforts of the
global elite, as well as powerful elements of the global Zionist lobby and the government
of Israel, to create an independent state out of Argentina's southern Patagonia region in
order to plunder its natural resources and to fulfill long-standing Zionist interest in the
territory that dates back to the "founding father" of Zionism, Theodore Herzl. Part I,
which focuses on the de facto "parallel state" created by British billionaire Joe Lewis in
Argentina's Patagonia, can be read here. Part II focuses on Eduardo Elsztain -- one of
Argentina's wealthiest businessmen, who is deeply connected to the global elite and global
Zionist lobbies -- and his role in a scheme to undercut Argentina's democracy by hijacking
its voting system.
See my "lost" comment at the end of OT 2019-20, #167
Those numbers make Bernie a pauper relative to other Congress people. I hope that this
pulls on two threads - one is more pressure on Donald Trump to release his, and two, to
make it more uncomfortable for the Nancy Pelosis to be so "independently wealthy."
@dkmich from a big Wall St. firm (to repay his generosity to them and make sure that
future Presidents will know that they will be amply rewarded for being Wall St. friendly). So
Obama makes more for an hour's speech than Bernie made in 2015.
You're right. I see people like Robert Kagan's opinions being respectfully asked on foreign affairs, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams
being hired to direct our foreign policy.
The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and
flourishing careers. Now they're angling for war with Iran.
It's preposterous and sickening. And it can't be allowed to stand, so you can't just stand off and say you're "wrecked". Keep
fighting, as you're doing. I will fight it until I can't fight anymore.
Fact-bedeviled JohnT: “McCain was a problem for this nation? Sweet Jesus! There quite simply is no rational adult on the planet
who buys that nonsense.”
McCain had close ties to the military-industrial complex. He was a backer of post-Cold War NATO. He was a neoconservative darling.
He never heard of a dictator that he didn’t want to depose with boots on the ground, with the possible exception of various Saudi
dictators (the oil-weaponry-torture nexus). He promoted pseudo-accountability of government in campaign finance but blocked accountability
for the Pentagon and State Department when he co-chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs with John
Kerry.
And, perhaps partly because of the head trauma and/or emotional wounds he suffered at the hands of Chinese-backed Commies,
it’s plausible to think he was regarded by the willy-nilly plotters of the deep state as a manipulable, and thus useful, conduit
of domestic subversion via the bogus Steele dossier.
Unfortunately, the episode that most defines McCain’s life is the very last one–his being a pawn of M-16 in the the deep state’s
years-long attempt to derail the presidency of Donald Trump.
Measuring success means determining goals. The goals of most wars is to enrich the people in charge. So, by this metric, the war
was a success. The rest of it is just props and propaganda.
“Pyrrhic Victory” look it up the Roman Empire Won but lost if the US is invaded and the government does not defend it I would
like to start my own defense: But the knee jerk politics that stirs America’s cannon fodder citizens is a painful reminder of
a history of jingoist lies where at times some left and right agree at least for a short moment before the rich and powerful push
their weight to have their way.
If All politics is relative Right wingers are the the left of what? Nuclear destruction? or Slavery?
My goodness! I am also a veteran, but of the Vietnam war, and my father was a career officer from 1939-1961 as a paratrooper first,
and later as an intelligence officer. He argued vigorously against our Vietnam involvement, and was cashiered for his intellectual
honesty. A combat veteran’s views are meaningless when the political winds are blowing.
Simply put, we have killed thousands of our kids in service of the colonial empires left to us by the British and the French
after WWII. More practice at incompetent strategies and tactics does not make us more competent–it merely extends the blunders
and pain; viz the French for two CENTURIES against the Britsh during the battles over Normandy while the Planagenet kings worked
to hold their viking-won inheritance.
At least then, kings risked their own lives. Generals fight because the LIKE it…a lot. Prior failures are only practice to
the, regardless of the cost in lives of the kids we tried to raise well, and who were slaughtered for no gain.
We don’t need the empire, and we certainly shouldn’t fight for the corrupt businessmen who have profited from the never-ending
conflicts. Let’s spend those trillions at home, so long as we also police our government to keep both Democrat and Republican
politicians from feathering their own nests. Term limits and prosecutions will help us, but only if we are vigilant. Wars distract
our attention while corruption is rampant at home.
Thanks, I appreciate this article.
I’ll make two points, my own opinion:
it’s the same story as Vietnam, the bull about how the politicians or anti-war demonstrators tied the military ‘hand,’ blah, blah.
Nonsense. Invading a nation and slaughtering people in their towns, houses…gee…what’s wrong with that, eh?
The average American has a primitive mind when it comes to such matters.
Second point I have, is that both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Hillary and Trump should be dragged to a world court, given a fair trial
and locked up for life with hard labor… oh, and Cheney too,for all those families, in half a dozen nations, especially the children
overseas that suffered/died from these creeps.
And, the families of dead or maimed American troops should be apologized to and compensation paid by several million dollars to
each.
The people I named above make me sick, because I have feelings and a conscience. Can you dig?
Though there is a worldly justification for killing to obtain or maintain freedoms, there is no Christian justification for it.
Which suggests that Christians who die while doing it, die in vain.
America’s wars are prosecuted by a military that includes Christians. They seldom question the killing their country orders
them to do, as though the will of the government is that of the will of God. Is that a safe assumption for them to make? German
Christian soldiers made that assumption regarding their government in 1939. Who was there to tell them otherwise? The Church failed,
including the chaplains. (The Southern Baptist Convention declared the invasion of Iraq a just war in 2003.) These wars need to
be assessed by Just War criteria. Christian soldiers need to know when to exercise selective conscientious objection, for it is
better to go to prison than to kill without God’s approval. If Just War theory is irrelevant, the default response is Christian
Pacifism.
“Iraq Wrecked” a lot of innocent people. Millions are dead, cities reduced to rubble, homes and businesses destroyed and it was
all a damned lie. And the perpetrators are Free.
Now there is sectarian violence too, where once there was a semblance of harmony amongst various denominations. See article link
below.
“Are The Christians Slaughtered in The Middle East Victims of the Actions of Western War Criminals and Their Terrorist Supporting
NATO ‘Allies’”?
We are a globalist open borders and mass immigration nation. We stand for nothing. To serve in this nation’s military is very
stupid. You aren’t defending anything. You are just a tool of globalism. Again, we don’t secure our borders. That’s a very big
give away to what’s going on.
If our nation’s military really was an American military concerned with our security we would have secured our border after 9/11,
reduced all immigration, deported ALL muslims, and that’s it. Just secure the borders and expel Muslims! That’s all we needed
to do.
Instead we killed so many people and imported many many more Muslims! And we call this compassion. Its insane.
Maybe if Talibans get back in power they will destroy the opium. You know, like they did when they were first in power…. It seems
that wherever Americans get involved, drugs follow…
“Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very
structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether
sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” In Eisenhower’s televised farewell address January 17, 1961.
Rational thought would lead one to believe such words from a fellow with his credentials would have had a useful effect. But it
didn’t. In point of fact, in the likes of Eric Prince and his supporters the notion of war as a profit center is quite literally
a family affair.
The military-industrial complex couldn’t accomplish this all by its lonesome self. The deep state was doing its thing. The two
things overlap but aren’t the same. The deep state is not only or mainly about business profits, but about power. Power in the
world means empire, which requires a military-industrial complex but is not reducible to it.
We now have a rare opportunity to unveil the workings of the deep state, but it will require a special counsel, and a lengthy
written report, on the doings in the 2016 election of the FBI (Comey, Strzok, et. al.), and collaterally the CIA and DIA (Brennan
and Clapper). Also the British government (M-16), John McCain, and maybe Bush and Obama judges on the FISA courts.
"... The U.S. alone expelled 60 Russian officials. Trump was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year ago the Washington Post described the scene: ..."
"... Today the New York Times portraits Gina Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position. They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its own purpose: ..."
"... Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives. ..."
"... Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he embraced the strong option. ..."
"... If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked. ..."
"... The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to manipulate him: ..."
"... The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own policies. ..."
"... The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma all agency owned men. ..."
"... The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead. ..."
"... It is interesting to see that nations that have traditionally been pro-American feel that the threat posed by American power is growing. ..."
"... Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter. ..."
"... Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn, completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold for their putative boss. ..."
"... Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War. ..."
"... after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the msm will not be talking about integrity initiative.. ..."
"... once Teresa May has spoken in Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative version of the truth is possible. ..."
"... Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger one to blame the Russians. ..."
"... The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about both. ..."
"... Haspel will not be fired. ..."
"... It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). .. ..."
"... The actors in government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. ..."
An ass kissing portrait of Gina Haspel,
torture
queen and director of the CIA, reveals that she lied to Trump to push for more
aggression against Russia.
In March 2018 the British government asserted, without providing any evidence, that the
alleged 'Novichok' poisoning of Sergej and Yulia Skripal was the fault of Russia. It urged
its allies to expel Russian officials from their countries.
The U.S. alone expelled
60 Russian officials. Trump
was furious when he learned that EU countries expelled less than 60 in total. A year
ago the Washington Post described the scene:
President Trump seemed distracted in March as his aides briefed him at his Mar-a-Lago
resort on the administration's plan to expel 60 Russian diplomats and suspected spies.
The United States, they explained, would be ousting roughly the same number of
Russians as its European allies -- part of a coordinated move to punish Moscow for the
poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil.
"We'll match their numbers," Trump instructed, according to a senior administration
official. "We're not taking the lead. We're matching."
The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials
said. To his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian
officials -- far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on.
The president, who seemed to believe that other individual countries would largely
equal the United States, was furious that his administration was being portrayed in the
media as taking by far the toughest stance on Russia.
The expulsion marked a turn in the Trump administration's relation with Russia:
The incident reflects a tension at the core of the Trump administration's increasingly
hard-nosed stance on Russia: The president instinctually opposes many of the punitive
measures pushed by his Cabinet that have crippled his ability to forge a close
relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The past month, in particular, has marked a major turning point in the
administration's stance, according to senior administration officials. There have been
mass expulsions of Russian diplomats, sanctions on oligarchs that have bled billions of
dollars from Russia's already weak economy and, for the first time, a presidential tweet
that criticized Putin by name for backing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Today the New York Timesportraits Gina
Haspel's relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA's position.
They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her
shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its
own purpose:
Last March, top national security officials gathered inside the White House to discuss
with Mr. Trump how to respond to the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal,
the former Russian intelligence agent.
London was pushing for the White House to expel dozens of suspected Russian
operatives, but Mr. Trump was skeptical. ... During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump.
She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told
the president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not
the only victims of Russia's attack.
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children
hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals.
She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently
killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but
pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the
pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he
embraced the strong option.
The Skripal case was widely covered and we
followed it diligently (scroll down). There were no reports of any children affected by
'Novichok' nor were their any reports of dead ducks. In the official storyline the
Skripals, before visiting a restaurant,
fed bread to ducks at a pond in the Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury.
They also
gave duck-bread to three children to do the same. The children were examined and their
blood was tested.
No
poison was found and none of them fell ill . No duck died. (The duck feeding episode
also disproves
the claim that the Skripals were poisoned by touching a door handle.)
If the NYT piece is correct, the CIA director, in cooperation with the British
government, lied to Trump about the incident. Their aim was to sabotage Trump's announced
policy of better relations with Russia. The ruse worked.
The NYT piece does not mention that the pictures Gina Haspel showed Trump were
fake. It pretends that her lies were "new information" and that she was not out to
manipulate him:
The outcome was an example, officials said, of how Ms. Haspel is one of the few people
who can get Mr. Trump to shift position based on new information.
Co-workers and friends of Ms. Haspel push back on any notion that she is manipulating
the president. She is instead trying to get him to listen and to protect the agency,
according to former intelligence officials who know her.
The job of the CIA director is to serve the president, not to protect the agencies own
policies. Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in
the game:
Ms. Haspel won the trust of Mr. Pompeo, however, and has stayed loyal to him. As a
result, Mr. Trump sees Ms. Haspel as an extension of Mr. Pompeo, a view that has helped
protect her, current and former intelligence officials said.
Posted by b on April 16, 2019 at 08:37 AM |
Permalink
I don't see how it's possible to manipulate someone (and especially the US president) into
doing something they don't want to do with lies like the ones described here. On the
contrary presidents, CEOs etc. favor the staffers who tell them the kind of lies they want
to hear in order to reinforce what they wanted to do in the first place.
I've never seen any reason to alter my first position on Trump, that like any other
president he does what he wants to do.
The 1970s movie 3 Days of The Condor is about the evils of the See Eye A. Also they create
trial balloon in the movie about taking middle east oil. This later happens in real life
with NeoCon See Eye A stooges - Poppy Bush then later GW Bush-Cheney, Clintons and Oboma
all agency owned men.
The joke 7in the final scene Robert Redford tells See Eye A man Cliff Robertson that he
gave all the evidence to the NY Times. What a joke. The NY Times and the Wash Post are the
mouthpieces for the SEE Eye A. The AP news sources most of their stories from those two
papers and other lackey See Eye A newspapers.
One final criticism in moon's story. The head of the See Eye A is to serve the elites-Central banksters not the
President. They did not serve JFK. Any President who crosses the central bankers aka roth-schilds ends up dead.
After this, she got the top job, so what is the real lesson here? Sociopathic liars get
promoted....or you can tell the truth, try to be honorable and fade into obscurity.. In a nest of psychos, you have to really be depraved to become the top psycho...
Nuke it for orbit, it's the only way to be sure...
Backing up Russ's point, when will you realise the "buck stops" on Trump's desk for any
and all departments he oversees, which are run by his appointees? Trump is dedicated to
creating a neoconservative foreign policy melded to a neoliberal economic policy favouring
his corporate fascist sponsors. Recently, you've been all over the Assange indictment,
Trump's relationship with Nuttyahoo and the related rollback of JCPOA. Is this what you
want to see continued into a second term?
There is much evidence to show Trump and the GOP working steadily towards a "democracy"
where Congress is castrated (one might say the system castrates Congress anyway), opposing
candidates are jailed, opposition votes are suppressed and the media is weakened to the
point where no one can tell the difference.
They haven't got there quite yet but once the judiciary is controlled by GOP ideologues
it's game over. And McConnell is dedicating his life to make that the reality ASAP.
Meanwhile back at the ranch we are dedicated to knocking down any and all potential
opposition to this GOP hostile takeover for some reason I've yet to fathom.
Hopefully Trump will hear about the anecdote, recognize how he was had, and fire
Haspel. He should not stop there but also get rid of her protector who likely had a role in
the game[Pompeo]
Hopefully yes to all four propositions. Why am I sceptical though (except conceivably
the first)?
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any
effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. He's the first POTUS in decades I
believe to not even pretend to like dogs by having an official White House dog and every
policy his Administration can take against animals, they have taken. I'm not even sure I
buy the spin that he cared about dead kids either. And NYT readers know this about him, so
I don't understand what the point of peddling this fiction is other than to paint Torture
Queen in some kind of good light (and we KNOW that she certainly doesn't care about dead
anything).
another example of trump's stupidity and pathological inability to think for himself. he
gets his views from fox and his policy from bolton. his equally vapid daughter and kushner
whine to him about sooper sad syria pictures they saw in a sponsored link while googling
for new tmz gossip.
even worse that this is the twat in charge of one of russiagate's main instigating "deep
state" agencies. he spent the entirety of his presidency railing against their various lies
then takes this wankery at face value. it's just like the "chinese soldiers in venezuela";
if those pictures were legit they'd have been splattered over every front page and
permanently attached to screeching cnn and msnbc segments demanding trump "finally get
tough" on "putin's russia".
my only surprise is that she didn't tell him about british babies ripped from incubators
and dipped in anthrax powder.
the nyt shilling for a soCIopAth? not that surprising.
The consultant in emergency medicine at Salisbury hospital wrote to The Times, shortly
after the Skripal incident. His choice of words was odd, and some have said they indicate
no novichok poisoning occurred. Leaving that to one side, his letter certainly puts paid to
the idea that more than three people (the Skripals and the policeman, DCI Bailey) were
poisoned.
https://www.onaquietday.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DocSaysNoNerveAgentInSalisbury.jpg
" the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, "
There was no attack on the Skripals. or on anyone else.
The Russophobia in whose context it falls, is of a higher order, in which a fabricated
narrative of a Skripal-like attack had an important function.
The Skripals were perfectly happy to lend their name to the fabrication, and are living
happily, probably in New Zealand.
The Daily Beast article that b linked to describes how many serious, well-informed people
felt that Haspel was unsuitable to lead the CIA. Even more strange and troubling was that Haspel was supported by Trump's nemesis,
John Brennan.
Despite all that, MAGA Trump still nominated her. Any notion that Trump is at odds with, or "manipulated" by, Haspel, Bolton, or Pompeo is
just propaganda. We've seen such reporting before (esp. wrt Bolton) and Trump has taken no
action.
I see that Trump derangement is alive and well here at MoA. Commenters talk as if Trump is
the first president stupid enough to be manipulated by the security agencies and shadow
government sometimes referred to as a "deep state". People don't have to be historians or
look back to Rome, just read the books about how the great general who "won WWII" was used
by the oligarchy which had full control of US foreign policy throughout Eisenhower's term in
office.
Works produced after WWII, C. Wright Mills, The Power elite was written in 1956,The
Brothers and The Divil's Chessboard each about the Dulles Brothers and how they operated US
foreign policy for the interests of the oligarchy, and the work Peter Phillips, GIANTS: The
Global Power Elite and the work of David Rothkopf which thoroughly describes the feudal
system under which the Western cultures are ruled.
The US government is a pantomime it is a show it has no power.
How many here can honestly say they understand that the US dollar itself and the ENTIRE
GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM is privately owned. Why do you think the "banks were bailed out"?
because the banks were in power not the government. The US is 22 trillion in debt - the
oligarchy is the creditor - take over the US gov. and you have a powerless pile of
debt.
Around 6,000 people control 85% of global assets until that changes nothing will change.
The oligarchy won virtually all the mines and control the price of all basic commodities
necessary for modern life, the internet, oil of course and more.
What is failing and what has failed over and over for 500 years is Western Civilization and
its three "great religions" which preach obedience, oppression, domination by a one god
suffocating mythology.
But the oligarchy doesn't own just the basic commodities, it owns the religions and it owns
the drugs and all illegal trade as well.
Western "civilization" is really nothing more than one vast feudal kingdom, with royal
courts in DC, Tel Aviv and Ryiadh. Wheather there is a god or not, religion is made of
flesh and blood not miracles. No Rabbi or Priest or Imam claims visitations by god to
instruct them on doctrine - they are flesh and blood and they want power so they behave
like sycophants to the money they need to expand their power...all for the good souls under
their care.
Haspel was CIA station chief in London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired
to stop Trump's candidacy. In her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more
likely she participated in it. That Brennan supported her argues for the latter.
What can we expect from a tv personality who became a US president? A man who ran with an
advertisement worthy of a business man like him, "Make America Great Again." How does he go
about doing it? Giving more money to the military industrial-Congressional complex, even
though we are really flat broke. Using aggressive tactics used by Wall Street in hostile
company takeovers to really intimidate other nations. And hire and place those he really
agrees with in important positions who really reflect his true feelings. I'm sure when he
spoke with Haspel before offering her the job, he brought up the topic of torture and
agreed with her on its use on terrorists.
I think there's a reasonable case to be made that they conspired not to stop Trump but
to further speculation of Trump's "collusion" with Russia (what would later be known as
Russiagate). The "collusion" and "Russia meddled" accusations are what fueled the new
McCarthyism.
I'll just add to Jerry's comment at #3 that the final line in the movie "Day of the Condor"
is something like "But will they print it?" which really spoke to the message of the film
in its entirety. The condor being an endangered bird for whom the hero is named, and the
beginning outrage being the brutal murder of book lovers researching useable plot details
for the 'company'makes this message current and applicable to what we see in the Skripal
case. And instead of librarians, we now have online commenters, a doughty breed, and we
have Assange.
Instead of 'Will they print it?' I am wondering 'Will they make another movie about
it?'
Remind me, where is Yulia Skripal these days? Well and truly 'disappeared' it seems. The
mask is off. the snarling face of the beast is there for all to see.
What a total waste of an article discussing a story published in NYT or WaPo.
b, the World has divided itself into those who consume alternative media such as this
and stupidos who consume MSM. There is nothing in-between that you are attempting to
discuss and dissect here. NYT = cognitive value zero.
Fake News not worth one millisecond of our time, not even to decode what the regime
wants us to know, we know all that already. Personally, I am only interested in the new
methods of domestic repression, what is next after the warning of Assange arrest, future
rendition and torture. The Deep Stare appears to be coming out into open, will it soon get
rid of the whole faux democracy construct and just use iron fist to rule? It already impose
its will as the rule of law. All of the Western block is heading in this direction.
Photos of fake dead ducks and fake sickened children confirm the Skripal story is, in turn,
completely fake. It says a lot that the NY Times either does not know this or that its
contempt for its readership matches the contempt by which the intelligence agencies hold
for their putative boss.
The story veers into complete fiction when it claims that pictures of dead ducks had any
effect on Trump. He doesn't like, nor care about animals. Mataman | Apr 16, 2019 9:45:30 AM
This assumes that Trump would primarily care about the ducks (and children) when he
approved a massive expulsion, rather that his image and "ah, in that case it would look bad
if we do not do something really decisive".
In any case, I was thinking why NYT would disclose something like that. The point is
that readers of Craig Murray (not so few, but mostly Scottish nationalists who are also
leftist and have scant possibilities and/or inclination to vote in USA) and MoonOfAlabama
would quickly catch a dead fish here, but 99.9% of the public is blissfully unaware of any
incongruences in the "established" Skripal narrative.
BTW, it is possible that the journalist who scribbled fresh yarn obtained from CIA did it
earnestly. Journalists do not necessarily follow stories that they cover -- scribbling from
given notes does not require overtaxing the precious attention span that can be devoted to
more vital cognitive challenges. I am lazy to find the link, but while checking for news on
Venezuela, I stumbled on a piece from Express, a British tabloid, where Guaido was named a
"figurehead of the oposition" supported by "450 Western countries". My interpretation was
that more literate journalists were moved for to more compelling stories as Venezuela went
to the back burner.
Yes, indeed, the Skripal Affair is one of the obviously contrived stunts we've seen.
Just outrageous in its execution. On a par with the US having a man who didn't even run for president of Venezuela swear
himself in and then pressure everyone to accept him as president.
Interesting, I had no idea Gina Haspel - aka, The Queen of Blood - played a role. I
thought it was all original dirty work by Britain's Theresa May. Boy, I hope people are through with the false notion that if women just get into
leadership, the world will become a better gentler place.
Macron was (afaik?) the only EU 'leader' who was quoted in the MSM as bruiting re. the
Skripal affair a message like:
.. no culpability in the part of Russia has been evidenced .. for now...
I suppose he was enjoined to shut his gob right quick (have been reading about brexit so
brit eng) as nothing more in that line was heard.
Hooo, the EU expelled a lot of Russ. diplomats, obeying the USuk, which certainly
created some major upsets on the ground.
Some were expelled, went into other jobs, other places, but then others arrived, etc.
The MSM has not made any counts - lists - of names numbers - etc. of R diplos on the job -
anywhere. As some left and then others arrived.
Once more, this was mostly a symbolic move, if extremely nasty, insulting, and
disruptive.
Theresa May's speech re. Novichok, Independent 14 March 2018:
.. on Monday I set out that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a
Novichok: a military grade nerve agent developed by Russia. Based on this capability,
combined with their record of conducting state sponsored assassinations – including
against former intelligence officers whom they regard as legitimate targets – the UK
Government concluded it was highly likely that Russia was responsible for this reckless and
despicable act. ..
imo, the media has, once again, simply taken its lead from trump himself, & started
making things up completely. & you're absolutely correct in pointing out that, much
like trump's true believers, the msm's targeted audience never even notices...
Thanks for bringing this Skripal segment to light, b, as most of us don't read the NY
Times in any form. Haspel likely had a hand in the planning of the overall scheme of
which the Skripal saga and Russiagate are interconnected episodes. Clearly, the Money Power
sees the challenge raised by Russia/China/Eurasia as existential and is trying to counter
hybridly as it knows its wealth won't save it from Nuclear War.
after integrity initiative, we know the uk is full of shite on most everything... thus, the
msm will not be talking about integrity initiative..
what i didn't know is what @18 lysias pointed out.."Haspel was CIA station chief in
London in 2016, when U.S. and Brit intel agencies conspired to stop Trump's candidacy. In
her position, Haspel had to know about the plotting, more likely she participated in it.
That Brennan supported her argues for the latter." ditto jr's speculation @20 too...
so gaspel shows trump some cheap propaganda that she got from who??
my main problem with b's post - i tend to see it like kiza @23) is maintaining the idea
trump isn't in on all of this.. the thought trump is being duped by his underlings.. if he
was and it mattered, he would get rid of them.. the fact he doesn't says to me, he is in on
it - get russia, being the 24/7 game plan of the west here still..
Please stop listening to idiot libertarians and their "US is flat broke" meme.
The reality is that: so long as Americans transact in dollars, the United States government
can tax anytime it feels like by issuing new dollars via the Fed.
Equally, so long as 60% of the world's trade is conducted in dollars, this is tens to
hundreds of billions of dollars of additional taxation surface area.
The MMT people - I don't agree 100% with everything they say, but they do understand the
actual operation of fiat currency.
The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion to
hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that currency
devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy.
I doubt Haspel knew the ducks were fake - she was probably just given stuff to pass up
the chain.
It is a lot like John Kerry who was shown convincing satellite data of the BUK launch that
hit MH17 - but no one could be bothered to pass on even the launch site coordinates to the
JIT. I'm sure this stuff goes on all the time, and of course, once Teresa May has spoken in
Parliament, and Trump committed to expelling embassy staff, there is no way any alternative
version of the truth is possible.
Skripal of course was a colleague of Steele, and possibly the only person he asked to
get info for the dossier beyond what Nellie Ohr had already given him. His evidence might
have been crucial. The CIA and others have a strong motive to kill Skripal and a stronger
one to blame the Russians.
The fact that the 'Dirty Dossier' and the 'Skripal "story"' both
originate in one and the same small town in the UK, tells you all you need to know about
both.
"The people who want a hard currency are either wealthy (and understand that conversion
to hard currency cements their wealth) or are useful idiots who don't understand that
currency devaluation is the single easiest way to tax in a democracy."
The useful idiocy is most surprising among US farmers. In the 19th century they broadly
understood that fiat money was good for chronic low-wealth debtors like themselves, while
hard money was bad and a gold standard lethal. This was the basis of the Populist movement.
Nothing has changed financially, but today's farmers, and the low-wealth debtor class in
general, seem more likely to be goldbuggers than to have any knowledge of economics or of
their own political history.
karlof1 36
Once a faction becomes submerged in the Mammon theocracy and becomes nothing but
mercenary nihilists, thinking is no longer necessary or desirable, except to come up with
attractive, pseudo-plausible lies.
This certainly characterizes "the right" (including liberals), but they have no monopoly
on it. By now "the left" is nearly as thoughtless and instrumental on behalf of Mammon,
except to the extent that a few people are starting to really grapple with what it means to
have an intrinsically ecocidal and therefore suicidal civilization. That's really the only
thought frontier left, all else has been engulfed in Mammon, productionism, scientism and
technocracy.
I remind that Mussolini wasted his legislature.. 1 balmy after noon @ a roadside spot.
it made his government stronger.?
It is clear the USA, France, Israel and UK are fasting approaching ungovernable .. no
one in government can keep the lies of the other hidden, and none of the governed believes
anyone in government, the MSM, the MIC or the AIG (ATT, Intel and Google). ..
The actors in
government, their lawyers, playmates and corporations have become the laughing stock of the
rest of the world. Everyone in the government is covering for the behaviors of someone else
in government, the MSM has raised the price of a pencil to just under a million, stock
markets are bags of hot thin air, and everyone in side and outside of the centers of power
at all levels of government have lied thru their teeth so much that their teeth are melting
from the continuous flow of hot deceitful air.
Corrupt is now the only qualification for
political office, trigger happy screwball the only qualification for the police and the
military and . making progress is like trying to conduct a panty raid at a female nudist
camp.
John Anthony La Pietra , Apr 16, 2019 3:47:03 PM |
link
"The current U.S. policy has produced an array of unpleasant results, and cries out for
reassessment."
"RE-assess" implies there was an original assessment. I've seen no evidence that this
revolving-door administration ever "assessed" any foreign policy principles in the first
place.
With no strategy to pursue, they mostly just react to random events around the world,
treating each as equally meaningful -- like a dog chasing its tail.
As generations replace generations, the world forgets which country has saved them again and
again. Just wait until they cry-out for someone in a Red MAGA hat to save them just one more
time –
Well, it is the correct assessment of to-day's reality. But is it something new? Back in 1994
great Samuel Huntington published well known article "Clash of Civilizations?" and predicted
literally all what happened to USA if we will choose the road of being world policeman and
"big brother". Among all – Russia and China united against America and even events in
Ukraine as complete trouble for us. Alas, he was not listened and now almost forgotten. It is
a shame!
Alliances are forged out of interest, like the 'dynastic Stalinism' of North Korea and the
'Muslim theocracy' of Iran. As Ted Galen Carpenter points out: 'The most worrisome and
potentially deadly case is the deepening relationship between Russia and China.' Interest
cuts across all apparently unifying principles: family, kin, nation, religion, ideology,
politics – everything. We unite with the enemies of our principles, because that is
what serves our interest. An alliance between Moscow and Beijing is the one most likely to
drag us into global confrontation. It is the interconnectedness of disputes that can turn a
localized flashpoint into a world war. The pattern of history shows the pursuit of interest
frequently 'undermines rather than enhances' those interests. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
The Israeli military officers have an inside joke that Hasan Nasrallah is unable to lie.
Indeed, the Hezbollah leader is one of the most truthful and straightforward leader in the
world. What else could explain the US Mainstream media making absolutely sure that deplorable
American citizens never hear his speeches? They might notice that he makes a lot of sense,
fights terrorism, and protects the people of Lebanon: Christians, Shiite muslims and Sunni
muslims. I have seen Nasrallah answer a question about accusations of Hezbollah trafficking
in the drug trade. I believe his unequivocal denial far more than I do the empty accusations
that are linked and parroted by the author of this article.
"... For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork??? ..."
"... I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy ..."
"... To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president. ..."
"... Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors. ..."
"... Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors. ..."
"... "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands." ..."
"... Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side. ..."
"... It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times! ..."
"... The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible. ..."
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake of historic dimensions. The "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a lie. When I see George
W. Bush smiling on TV, I want to puke. Likewise, I cannot view an image of Lyndon Johnson without revulsion. They are both responsible
for much death and suffering. I have heard people try to excuse both of them, with the statement that "they meant well." The road
to Hell is paved with good intentions.
For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional
sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to
need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork???
I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with
more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy.
The war In Afghanistan would have ended 15 years ago if the sons of members of Congress were being drafted. "It's easy to send
someone else's sons to war."
You left out the phrase "anything other than" following the phrase "have served this nation with" in your last sentence.
You forgot to express your confidence in John McCain. Good luck with that. McCain's top aide flew to a foreign city to receive
the Steele dossier, gave it to the senator, who then gave it to the FBI–as per Steele's script, I assume. It's another reason
why we need a special counsel to look into the FBI's role. A special counsel can hardly omit the McCain piece of the puzzle, whereas
a regular prosecutor can easily ignore it and cover McCain's keister.
To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able
to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't
be president.
More than anything else concerning the FBI's election shenanigans, the McCain-Steele nexus–specifically the report written
about it by a special counsel–could expose the deep state's modus operandi. Not even an inspector general's report can do that
as well as a special counsel's report.
Your book will go out of print. In 10 to 20 years it will be reprinted and sell well. It takes that long for people to remove
their heads from their nether regions and be willing to contemplate the errors made.
The real irony is that we know better. There is a vast body of literature on major cognitive errors, and the whole catalog
is on display in the debacle described. Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field
(medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though
systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you
have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that
catch the errors.
Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional
complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors.
I commiserate with your disillusioning journey because I went through a similar odyssey into self-awareness like yours many decades
ago. I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 – 31 May 1968). It's all been downhill from there. A gradual slide
down the slippy slope of history in our decline as a nation. There's not much one can really do. But at my age, I will be long
gone when our country hits burns and crashes as it hits bottom.
"Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world
and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't
matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did
not come home; all died at their own hands."
Enough books and movies about those poor damaged American boys yet?
The navel gazing never stops.
Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions
of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government
in the world on their side.
Get over yourselves! Honestly! It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many
times!
The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did
you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way?
Not possible.
Just a cynical take, but implying that there are lessons to be learned from previous or present wars that should keep us from
engaging in future wars presumes that the goal is to, where possible, actually avoid war.
It also suggests a convenient, simplistic narrative that the military/DOD is incompetent and stupid, and unable to learn from
previous engagements.
I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military; if it seems as though there is no
plan, no objective, no victory for these engagements, maybe that is because the only objectives and victory are to provide practical
war training for our troops, test equipment and tactics, keep defense contractors employed and the Pentagon's budget inflated,
and to project power and provide a convenient excuse for proximity to our 'real' enemies.
Draping these actions under a pretense of spreading 'peace and democracy' is just a pretense and, as we can see by our track
record, has nothing to do with actual victory. "Victory", depending on who you ask, is measured in years of engagement and dollars
spent, period.
And because it is primarily taking place in the far away and poorly understood Middle East, it is never going to be enough
of an issue with voters for politicians to have to seriously contend with.
This person is a crybaby. At 49 he went to a war that most rational people knew already, was an immoral, illegal waste of people,
time and money. But now he wants to whine about PTSD. I have the same opinion about most soldiers who fought there also. Nobody
made them volunteer for that junk war so quit whining when things get a little hard
Editor's Note: @ProfessorsBlogg tweeted 14/4 a translation of "Mi
Amigo Julian Assange", authored by Ms Alicia Castro, formerly Argentina's ambassador in the
UK and Venezuela. The text in Spanish appeared the same day in Página 12 ,
Argentina. Text translated by Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli, April 14, 2019.
In 2012, the year I arrived in London as ambassador, Julian Assange obtained the
diplomatic asylum of Ecuador and settled in the embassy on Hans Crescent Street. That day the
embassy was surrounded by cars of the British police and some agents struggled to enter. My
first reflection was to send some trays with meat pasties -"empanadas"- and sweet pastries to
alleviate the doings of ambassador Ana Alban. During the following days, together we organized
a meeting of Latin American ambassadors, to follow from the legation of Ecuador the session of
the OAS [the Organization of American States] where the asylum of Assange was discussed. We
sat, for the first time, around that dark table, in an austere room. Suddenly, and discreetly,
as we all were waiting, Julian Assange burst in. He was already a legend. I expressed to him
how much, we the Latin Americans, had to thank for his revelations about the diplomatic cables
that showed the deep and perverse degree of interference by the United States government in our
affairs. I myself had as proof the cable that the ambassador of the United States in Argentina,
Lino Gutierrez, wrote about my appointment as ambassador in Venezuela, where specific details
of my actions are described, which I did not even remember.
That day began a long series of encounters that I had with Julian throughout the four years
of my mission in London and in subsequent years, when I visited him several times. Our first
conversation revolved around the accusations in Sweden about sexual abuse; We spoke frankly,
and I concluded that it was a fabrication of two unscrupulous women with whom he had casual
relationships, who had been manipulated to accuse him of criminal doings. Sweden demanded his
extradition to respond to these allegations -they never pressed charges against him- while his
lawyers tirelessly requested that he could testify in London, since Sweden would extradite him
to the United States for revealing state secrets.
At that time, the embassy was crowded with interesting people who visited him; philosophers,
politicians, musicians, designers. And I could regret that I had missed the visit of Zizek,
Yoko Ono or Yannis Varoufakis, but in a next meeting I was meeting the designer Vivienne
Westwood, the human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy, the filmmaker Ken Loach, Bianca Jagger, and
mythical investigative journalists -such as the American Gavin MacFadyen, creator of the Centre
for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) and the Australian John Pilger. Many of them are my friends
until today. We tried to alleviate [Julian Assange's] confinement with any excuse: we
celebrated his birthday parties, his 100 days of asylum -for which I brought a cake with the
number 100-, my daughter and I went with enthusiasm to assemble Julian's Christmas tree,
and I also accompanied him at some New Year Eve festivities. end of the year accompanying him.
Ecuador came to be at the centre of London's political and cultural life, and former President
Rafael Correa was recognized by the progressive sectors as a definite defender of human
rights.
In each of my long conversations with Julian I learned something, that he is a man obsessed
with a clear and uncommon mission: to democratize the truth. Unlike other platforms, Wikileaks
does not reveal information related to a certain political affiliation , but publishes the
information it receives, once it is accurately deciphered and checked, and without revealing
the source. It has published more than 10 million classified documents revealing the secrets
that once belonged to a small elite linked to the military industrial complex
As time went by, the threats at the embassy were decreasing; the next ambassador prescribed
stricter visiting conditions; there was hardly any food one night when former Foreign Minister
Ricardo Patiño visited him -when he caught me by surprise that he tirelessly sings a
whole Latin American repertoire, being totally abstemious, and [also] the grace of Judge
Baltasar Garzon (one of the Assange team's lawyers) in dancing flamenco . We tried
unsuccessfully that Julian would sing a syllable or dance, but we never succeeded. He relaxed
though and accompanied us with that radiant smile of his, which is lost today. One day I
realized that Julian had not touched an animal for years, and I began to visit him with my dog
Mandiyu, whom he sat on his lap and became fond of, as he did of "empanadas"
[meat pasties] and our Malbec wine, which I brought him occasionally.
Then we succeeded that he would be allowed to have a kitten, whose company he greatly
enjoyed, and whose presence at the embassy has generated one of the most odd and obtuse amongst
the complaints raised by the current president of Ecuador. Lenin Moreno took away [Julian
Assange's] diplomatic asylum in violation of international law and the resolution of UN
Committee on Arbitrary Detention which established in 2015 that Assange's detention is
arbitrary and illegal and that he should be released.
The last times I saw him, his situation was worrisome. He was being spied on, and had a
ribbon hanging from his neck with a series of pen drives. We talked in the dining room, around
that table where we met for the first time, raising the volume of the radio and writing part of
what we wanted to say, exchanging two notebooks and covering our heads to avoid cameras and
microphones. He would never give up.
Julian was violently dragged out from the embassy of Ecuador and taken captive by the police
of the decadent Teresa May, while he was shouting that the United Kingdom must resist the
pressure of Trump. That image destroys me and I cannot see it without crying, nor can I stop
thinking of my friend now unjustly confined in prison.
Lenin Moreno has agreed with Donald Trump the rendition [of Assange] to the United States,
and Assange will have to face an extradition trial, accused of "conspiracy" for alleged
cooperation with the former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to decipher the password of a
US Defence Ministry computer belonging to the Secret Internet Protocol Network (SIPRNet). Trump
and May defend and implement the espionage on the private life of the citizens and the opacity
of the States.
Today, that all of us are victims of the gross manipulation of information, subject to media
operations designed to demonize and wage causes against political and social leaders , in the
middle of a war of "fake news" that distorts reality, it is shocking and paradoxical that a
journalist is imprisoned for acting as a soldier of the truth.
Assange is not American [citizen] and the Wikileaks platform is a foreign news
organization. The idea that the government of the United States can reach and extradite a
member of any media in the world is terrifying. Never in the history of the United States has
an editor been persecuted for presenting truthful information to the public. It creates the
precedent that any journalist can be extradited, tried and imprisoned for publishing accurate
information about the United States. The freedom of the press does not consist only in the
right to publish, but also in the right to read, in the right to be informed, in the right to
be informed that we have, as readers.
This universal right has its best defender in Julian Assange, a hero of a new type, for whose
freedom we will tirelessly claim, together with the men and women of the world who believe that
the truth will set us free.
"... For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork??? ..."
"... I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy ..."
"... To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president. ..."
"... Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors. ..."
"... Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors. ..."
"... "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands." ..."
"... Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side. ..."
"... It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times! ..."
"... The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible. ..."
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake of historic dimensions. The "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a lie. When I see George
W. Bush smiling on TV, I want to puke. Likewise, I cannot view an image of Lyndon Johnson without revulsion. They are both responsible
for much death and suffering. I have heard people try to excuse both of them, with the statement that "they meant well." The road
to Hell is paved with good intentions.
For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional
sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to
need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork???
I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with
more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy.
The war In Afghanistan would have ended 15 years ago if the sons of members of Congress were being drafted. "It's easy to send
someone else's sons to war."
You left out the phrase "anything other than" following the phrase "have served this nation with" in your last sentence.
You forgot to express your confidence in John McCain. Good luck with that. McCain's top aide flew to a foreign city to receive
the Steele dossier, gave it to the senator, who then gave it to the FBI–as per Steele's script, I assume. It's another reason
why we need a special counsel to look into the FBI's role. A special counsel can hardly omit the McCain piece of the puzzle, whereas
a regular prosecutor can easily ignore it and cover McCain's keister.
To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able
to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't
be president.
More than anything else concerning the FBI's election shenanigans, the McCain-Steele nexus–specifically the report written
about it by a special counsel–could expose the deep state's modus operandi. Not even an inspector general's report can do that
as well as a special counsel's report.
Your book will go out of print. In 10 to 20 years it will be reprinted and sell well. It takes that long for people to remove
their heads from their nether regions and be willing to contemplate the errors made.
The real irony is that we know better. There is a vast body of literature on major cognitive errors, and the whole catalog
is on display in the debacle described. Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field
(medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though
systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you
have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that
catch the errors.
Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional
complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors.
I commiserate with your disillusioning journey because I went through a similar odyssey into self-awareness like yours many decades
ago. I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 – 31 May 1968). It's all been downhill from there. A gradual slide
down the slippy slope of history in our decline as a nation. There's not much one can really do. But at my age, I will be long
gone when our country hits burns and crashes as it hits bottom.
"Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world
and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't
matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did
not come home; all died at their own hands."
Enough books and movies about those poor damaged American boys yet?
The navel gazing never stops.
Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions
of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government
in the world on their side.
Get over yourselves! Honestly! It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many
times!
The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did
you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way?
Not possible.
Just a cynical take, but implying that there are lessons to be learned from previous or present wars that should keep us from
engaging in future wars presumes that the goal is to, where possible, actually avoid war.
It also suggests a convenient, simplistic narrative that the military/DOD is incompetent and stupid, and unable to learn from
previous engagements.
I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military; if it seems as though there is no
plan, no objective, no victory for these engagements, maybe that is because the only objectives and victory are to provide practical
war training for our troops, test equipment and tactics, keep defense contractors employed and the Pentagon's budget inflated,
and to project power and provide a convenient excuse for proximity to our 'real' enemies.
Draping these actions under a pretense of spreading 'peace and democracy' is just a pretense and, as we can see by our track
record, has nothing to do with actual victory. "Victory", depending on who you ask, is measured in years of engagement and dollars
spent, period.
And because it is primarily taking place in the far away and poorly understood Middle East, it is never going to be enough
of an issue with voters for politicians to have to seriously contend with.
This person is a crybaby. At 49 he went to a war that most rational people knew already, was an immoral, illegal waste of people,
time and money. But now he wants to whine about PTSD. I have the same opinion about most soldiers who fought there also. Nobody
made them volunteer for that junk war so quit whining when things get a little hard
I recently spoke to some college students who, I realized, were in fifth grade when I got on
a plane to Iraq. They now study that stuff in history classes like "Opportunities and Errors:
21st-Century America in the Middle East." About halfway through our conversation, I realized
it's coming up on 10 years since I first went to Iraq. Now that's real history.
I was a Foreign Service Officer then, a diplomat, embedded with the U.S. Army at a series of
forward operating bases and in charge of a couple of reconstruction teams, small parts of a
complex failure to rebuild the Iraq we wrecked. I ended up writing a book about it all,
explaining in tragicomic terms how we failed (those "Errors").
The book, We Meant Well: How I Helped
Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People was -- and wasn't --
well-received. People laughed at the funny parts, but my message -- it didn't work and here's
why -- was largely dissipated at the time (2012) by government and media propaganda centered on
The Surge. That was David Petraeus's plan to pacify the Sunnis and push al-Qaeda away, while
clearing, holding, and building across the country, apparently to make room so ISIS and the
Iranians could move in.
Meanwhile, the new American president, elected in part based on his "no" vote on the war in
2003, proclaimed it all a victory and started bringing the troops home even while I was still
in Iraq. Meanwhile my employer, the U.S. Department of State, was unhappy with my book. After a
year-long
process , State pushed me into early retirement. My career was history.
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Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that
traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing
witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I
might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in,
three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands. Around us, Iraqis blew
themselves up alongside children. Everyone was a potential killer and a potential target. I did
this at age 49, on antidepressants and with a good family waiting back home. I cannot imagine
what it would have done to 18-year-old me. And I had it easier than most, and much easier than
many.
People asked in line at Trader Joe's and in interviews on semi-important TV shows, "Was it
all worth it to you?" I always answered yes. I'm not important, I said, but the story is. And
now we're making the same mistakes in Afghanistan. The only way to even start to justify it was
to think there might be some meaning behind it all. It didn't do anything for me but fill my
soul with vodka but maybe somehow it helped?
See, my book wasn't aimed at cataloging the failures in Iraq per se, but in trying to make
sure we didn't do the same thing in Afghanistan. The initial title wasn't We Meant Well,
but Lessons for Afghanistan from the Reconstruction of Iraq . The early drafts were
pretentious scholarly stuff, outlining our mistakes. Harvard Business School-like case studies.
Maps. Footnotes. It would have sold maybe five copies, and so my editors encouraged me to add
more funny parts. NPR's Fresh Air actually added a laugh track to my
interview . I figured I'd get the lessons across with humor more effectively anyway. In
such situations, you have to think that way. You can't believe that what you went through
didn't matter and keep getting out of bed every morning.
I now know officially that it did not matter. It was pointless. SIGAR shows I accomplished
nothing.
SIGAR is the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, a government oversight
body that is supposed to prevent waste, fraud, and mismanagement of the billions of dollars
being spent rebuilding Afghanistan but that has its hands full just keeping a CVS
receipt-length history of what's wrong. Sound familiar?
SIGAR just released its " 2019 High-Risk List ," which
points out especially egregious things that will follow in the wake of any peace agreement in
Afghanistan. Here are some quoted highlights:
set the
cash ablaze on the streets of Kabul for all the good it will do."
That last line really got me. In my book, I'd written, "While a lot of the money was spent
in big bites at high levels through the Embassy, or possibly just thrown into the river when no
one could find a match to set it on fire ." Had SIGAR read what I'd written? Or was the
joke just so obvious that we'd both come to the same punchline 10 years and two countries
apart?
Word for word as in Iraq, and after over 17 years of American effort, the U.S. has failed to
establish a viable government in Afghanistan, eliminate the local
insurgents/patriots/residents, establish a civil society, tamp down corruption, and ensure some
sort of national defense. Afghanistan has almost no chance of survival except as a Taliban
narcoland with financial support needed indefinitely to avoid whatever "worse" would be in that
calculus.
But there still are semi-believers. One former State Department colleague is on her fourth
assignment in Kabul, roughly half her career. Her job is to liaise with the few NATO officials
still hanging around. She says it's easy work; they've known each other for years. She's heard
we're making progress.
Around the same time as the SIGAR report, the Army War College released its history of the Iraqi Surge, a quagmire of dense
prose that I'm only about halfway through, but so far no mention of the impact of
reconstruction. The theme seems to be that the Army had some good ideas but the politicians got
in the way. Fair enough, but they misspelled Vietnam as I-r-a-q all throughout.
The post-9/11 wars have metastasized across three presidencies so far. Pick the thing you
detest most about Bush, Obama, and Trump, and complain about how it was never investigated
enough and how there weren't enough hearings. And then I'll disagree, for most everything that
happened and continues to happen in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone uninvestigated, unheard of,
and unpunished. It's ancient history.
We all want to believe that what we did, what we didn't do, the moral injury, the PTSD, the
fights with spouses, the kid at home we smacked too hard when she wouldn't eat her green beans,
all of what we saw and heard, mattered. You read that SIGAR report and tell me how. Because
basically I'm history now.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for
the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan.
"... Even if Maduro were forced out by his current supporters in the military, it does not follow that Guaido or any other opposition figure would take over later. At that point, does the policy of forcing regime change continue shuffling forward like a zombie, or will the U.S. then accept a military government in Venezuela that is run by someone not named Maduro? How long does the U.S. keep trying to install its preferred government in power before admitting that it won't work? ..."
"... Since these haven't occurred, they have no plan except to strangle Venezuela's economy further through sanctions. Perhaps the best part is that the administration claims that Guaido is president of Venezuela, but that his presidency hasn't actually started yet. The administration's special representative, Elliott Abrams, claimed this in a press briefing last month , saying that the 30-day "interim" period of Guaido's "presidency" won't begin until after Maduro leaves office. ..."
"... Abrams' comments remind us of the shaky legal basis for everything that Guaido has been doing this year. As Noah Feldman pointed out shortly after this started, the provision in the Venezuelan constitution that Guaido invoked to claim his position as "interim" president was intended to apply in cases of death or incapacity of the incumbent president. It wasn't a loophole for declaring the presidency vacant when it is still very much occupied. Now because it is occupied, the official line is that Guaido's "interim" presidency hasn't really begun. Judging from how the regime change effort has been going so far, it probably never will. ..."
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Credit: StringerAL/Shutterstock
The Trump administration's statements about Venezuela are beginning to
sound eerily like Western governments' pronouncements about Syria over the last seven years:
The United States has no timeline for a change in government in Venezuela, a U.S. top official said, but is certain embattled
President Nicolas Maduro will not remain in power.
Almost three months have passed since the U.S. threw its support behind Guaido as "interim" president. During that tine, the opposition
has made no discernible progress in taking over, and the military remains firmly on Maduro's side for now. The administration has
no "timeline" for when Maduro will leave power because they and the opposition have no idea how to achieve the regime change they
are seeking, but that isn't stopping them from pursuing it anyway. Like the confident Western assertions from 2012 that Assad "must
go," the administration is "certain" of an outcome that seems increasingly unlikely to happen.
It is possible that the top military brass will eventually decide that it is better for them to rid themselves of the unpopular
ruler and retain power for themselves, just as Algeria's military did with Bouteflika and Sudan's military did with Bashir recently,
but there is no guarantee that this would lead to a "restoration of democracy."
On the contrary, a transition that depends so heavily on the military is much more likely to produce another dictatorship.
Even if Maduro were forced out by his current supporters in the military, it does not follow that Guaido or any other opposition
figure would take over later. At that point, does the policy of forcing regime change continue shuffling forward like a zombie, or
will the U.S. then accept a military government in Venezuela that is run by someone not named Maduro? How long does the U.S. keep
trying to install its preferred government in power before admitting that it won't work?
The absurdity of the administration's current policy is quite remarkable. They insist that Maduro is no longer president, but
the president they recognize controls nothing. The success of their ill-conceived regime change "plan" depended almost entirely on
mass defections from the military, but they have
found no way to spur
these defections.
Since these haven't occurred, they have no plan except to strangle Venezuela's economy further through sanctions. Perhaps
the best part is that the administration claims that Guaido is president of Venezuela, but that his presidency hasn't actually started
yet. The administration's special representative, Elliott Abrams, claimed this in a
press briefing last month , saying that the 30-day
"interim" period of Guaido's "presidency" won't begin until after Maduro leaves office. According to them, Guaido is the "legitimate"
president but has not yet assumed office:
QUESTION: So Juan Guaido is the interim president of an interim that doesn't exist yet?
MR ABRAMS: The 30-day end to his interim presidency starts counting. Because he's not in power, that's the problem [bold
mine-DL]. Maduro is still there. So they have decided that they will count that from when he actually is in power and Maduro's
gone. I think it's logical.
QUESTION: So then he really isn't interim president, then?
MR ABRAMS: He is interim president, but he's not --
QUESTION: With no power.
MR ABRAMS: -- able to exercise the powers of the office because Maduro still is there.
Abrams' comments remind us of the shaky legal basis for everything that Guaido has been doing this year. As Noah Feldman
pointed out shortly after this started, the provision in the Venezuelan constitution that Guaido invoked to claim his position
as "interim" president was intended to apply in cases of death or incapacity of the incumbent president. It wasn't a loophole for
declaring the presidency vacant when it is still very much occupied. Now because it is occupied, the official line is that Guaido's
"interim" presidency hasn't really begun. Judging from how the regime change effort has been going so far, it probably never will.
Nearly three months later, Venezuela's top-heavy military remains largely intact under
President Nicolás Maduro. The once-brisk pace of defections to neighboring Colombia
has slowed to a trickle. Fewer than 1,500 Venezuelan soldiers, relieved by the Colombian
government of their weapons and uniforms and housed in sparsely furnished hotel rooms near
the border, now sit waiting for something to happen.
The idea that the Venezuelan army would defect was always crazy. Anyone with a bit of
knowledge of Venezuela could predict that it would never do so. Reports of lonely soldiers
isolated in fourth class hotels in Columbia will not incite any further defections. While the
random opposition guy promised amnesty for any soldier moving to his site, the U.S. seeks to
arrest one of the few who did:
Venezuela's longtime spy chief was arrested Friday in Madrid by Spanish police acting on a
U.S. drug warrant a few weeks after he threw his support behind opponents of President
Nicolas Maduro.
...
The opposition saw Carvajal's criticism of Venezuela's socialist government as a stimulus to
prod other military figures to defect, but the country's armed forces have remained largely
loyal to current Maduro.
With the situation stalled the U.S. is ramping up talk of a military attack on
Venezuela:
EXCLUSIVE: Away from the public eye, the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS) think tank hosted a top-level, off-the-record meeting to explore US military options
against Venezuela.
Such talks are poor attempts to create some psychological pressure. There are no sound
military options. The U.S. is not going to invade Venezuela. It will ramp up sanctions and
press its 'allies' to do the same. Venezuela and its people will suffer but they will not give
up on resisting U.S. pressure. The current situation will only resolve itself when the regime
in Washington or in one of Venezuela's neighboring countries changes.
"... While Russia is being set up as the scapegoat of the collapsing western liberal establishment, this most recent red alarm by Freeland and Canada's response to the "danger" is useful for two reasons: ..."
"... First and foremost, Freeland's shameless warnings over "foreign interference" have become so loud that an irony has become unavoidable. She has after all been caught red handed behind the destabilization of both Ukraine and Venezuela. Secondly, by reviewing the mechanisms being created by Canada to counter-act this "threat", a clear insight is provided into the inner workings of the actual foreign influences which infiltrated Canada many decades ago. ..."
"... On the first point, Freeland's role as a co-architect of the nazi-fueled overthrow of a pro-Russian government in February 2014 is now well known. Aside from her family's Nazi connections going back to her grandfather Michael Chomiak's leading role as a Nazi collaborator in WWII, and her own mother's role in helping to draft Ukraine's neo-liberal constitution, Freeland herself not only befriended leading neo-Nazi collaborators such as Canadian Ukrainian Congress' president Paul Grod and but has also promoted NATO's anti-Russian expansion across eastern Europe. ..."
"... Freeland set up a program for regime change which involved a two-part formula of 1) mobilizing mass direct support for the overthrow of a government, and 2) gaining international support for said overthrow. ..."
"... Canada itself was infiltrated by a foreign player many years ago and what we will briefly see is that Canada can only be called the "world's first post national-state nation" because it never really became a genuine nation in the first place, but was always manipulated by a foreign power... although not the one you think. ..."
"... It is from this cybernetics central node that the web of governance both in Canada and also across other British infiltrated territories in the Trans-Atlantic system is coordinated under the directives of London. ..."
In the midst of one of the
most de-stabilizing scandals to rock Canada in years, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland
announced on April
5 that the threat of "Foreign interference" going into the October 2019 elections was at an all-time high. Sitting beside her UK
counterpart at a G7 meeting in France, Freeland stated:
"Interference is very likely and we think there have already been efforts by malign foreign actors to disrupt our democracy"
. Her warning was echoed by an embattled puppet Prime Minister in Ottawa who
stated it is "very clearly that countries like Russia are behind a lot of the divisive campaigns that have turned our politics
even more divisive and more anger-filled than they have been in the past. "
The Measures to Defend the British Deep State
In order to counteract this "foreign threat", several Canadian mechanisms have been announced to "keep democracy safe" in alignment
with the G7, Five Eyes and NATO. These mechanisms are:
The creation of an " Incident
Public Protection Panel " run by five Privy Council bureaucrats under the Clerk of the Privy Council which will exist outside
of the authority of the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, whose job is to maintain the integrity of elections. In defense of this
mysterious group, Canada's Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould stated that "it won't be one person who will decide what
Canadians will be allowed to know" (apparently having five people decide is more democratic). The new Clerk of the Privy Council
is Ian Stugart, who served as former deputy minister to Chrystia Freeland until just a few weeks ago.
A
Security and Intelligence Election Threats Task Force which will incorporate all of Canada's intelligence agencies such as the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and Freeland's Global Affairs Canada.
All of these agencies are Privy Council organizations.
The Rapid
Response Mechanism of the G7 created in June 2018 and headquartered in Ottawa Canada in Freeland's Global Affairs Office and
Privy Council Office.
While Russia is being set up as the scapegoat of the collapsing western liberal establishment, this most recent red alarm
by Freeland and Canada's response to the "danger" is useful for two reasons:
First and foremost, Freeland's shameless warnings over "foreign interference" have become so loud that an irony has become
unavoidable. She has after all been
caught red handed
behind the destabilization of both Ukraine and Venezuela. Secondly, by reviewing the mechanisms being created by Canada to counter-act
this "threat", a clear insight is provided into the inner workings of the actual foreign influences which infiltrated Canada many
decades ago.
Chrystia Freeland: Regime Change Princess of Ukraine and Venezuela
On the first point, Freeland's role as a co-architect of the nazi-fueled overthrow of a pro-Russian government in February
2014 is now well known. Aside from her family's Nazi connections going back to her grandfather Michael Chomiak's leading role as
a
Nazi collaborator in WWII, and her own mother's role in helping to draft Ukraine's neo-liberal constitution, Freeland herself
not only befriended leading neo-Nazi collaborators such as Canadian Ukrainian Congress'
president Paul
Grod and but has also promoted NATO's anti-Russian expansion across eastern Europe.
Working alongside fellow Oxford operative Ben Rowswell (now head of the Canadian International Council/ Chatham House of Canada)
during his three year tenure as Ambassador to Venezuela (2014-2017), Freeland set up a program for regime change which involved
a two-part formula of 1) mobilizing mass direct support for the overthrow of a government, and 2) gaining international support for
said overthrow.
Rowswell's on-the-ground work was designed to achieve the former as he himself admitted in
a 2017 interview saying "We became one of the
most vocal embassies in speaking out on human rights issues and encouraging Venezuelans to speak out" . Before leaving his post to
become the head of the Chatham House of Canada,
he tweeted "I don't think they (anti-Maduro forces) have anything to worry about because Minister Freeland has Venezuela way
at the top of her priority list" .
Working on fulfilling the 2nd part of the formula, Freeland directed the creation of the "Lima Group". A
Global News article of
January 24 described the group in the following terms:
"Playing a key role behind the scenes was Lima Group member Canada, whose Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaido
the night before Maduro's swearing-in ceremony to offer her government's support should he confront the socialist leader".
It shouldn't be too surprising in our day and age that a nation with such a high reputation as "polite Canada" is actuality, an
active agency for regime change and global governance. Canada's very Prime Minister
did assert in 2016 that
"Canada is the world's first post national-state nation" . What may surprise some readers is that Canada itself was infiltrated
by a foreign player many years ago and what we will briefly see is that Canada can only be called the "world's first post national-state
nation" because it never really became a genuine nation in the first place, but was always manipulated by a foreign power... although
not the one you think.
The "Foreign Influence" Controlling Canada
While a longer presentation is needed to do this story justice, it is enough to note for now that neither Freeland, nor Rowswell
are operating on behalf of Canada's interests, but are rather both operatives run by an entity that took over Canada many decades
ago and are currently directed by two interlocking organizations: The Privy Council Office and the Rhodes-Milner Round Table Group
.
The Privy Council Office
The Privy Council office was set up in 1867 in order to act as the British hand guiding its newly formed confederacy (Canada nearly
became a part of Lincoln's America in the wake of the Civil War. The only thing stopping that outcome was Britain's creation of a
confederation. The full story is told in the
Imperial Myth of Canada's National
Policy. ). While its power was always great, there was still room for independent policy making by nationalistic elected officials
when the international conditions were favorable.
This was nearly entirely destroyed during the reign of technocratic golden boy Pierre Elliott Trudeau during his
1968-1973 reform of the Federal Government
under the guidance of the OECD's
Sir Alexander King. It was during this time Sir King's Club of Rome (Ottawa branch) was set up in Ottawa under the guidance of
Trudeau and his clerk of the Privy Council Michael Pitfield, and other neo-Malthusian technocrats such as Privy Council President
Michel Lamontagne, Maurice Strong, and Governor General Roland Mitchener.
It was from this control point in Ottawa in 1971 that the work later to become known as Limits to Growth was funded by tax payers
and which became the bible for the new Malthusianism and blueprint for the "post-industrial society". It is from this cybernetics
central node that the web of governance both in Canada and also across other British infiltrated territories in the Trans-Atlantic
system is coordinated under the directives of London.
this whole world wide medeling thing after our govs have been unashamedly meddling everywhere for years , it just shows thier
fear, they are loosing thier populaces and looking for scapegoats, i love it, times are changing
...will Canada follow suit in order to become a true sovereign nation freed of all foreign imperial influence once and for
all?
Ha ha (Bart Simpson style). Canada has, and will always be, a British-USA vassal-state (with a veneer of democratic elections).
Washington tells the Ottawa government to jump! After asking permission from the UK, Canada negotiates with America as to how
high - since the country is technically insolvent there isn't that much jumping room.
Russia is charged with bringing things in the open, to the light, instead of letting creatures of the dark skulk in shadows,
plotting, backstabbing, poisoning and conducting their "business" as usual. Because apparently democracy flourishes in darkness
and ignorance...
"... In SUPERCLASS we learn that this class of people actually own and control the three largest Western religions and many of the secondary ones - they all preach obedience to authority as paramount. They also own the drugs trade around the world. 95% of the world supply of opium comes out of Afghanistan under the watchful eye of the Elite through use of the US military. ..."
"... And just as an aside to any historians out there, Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-first Century shows how a critical mass of capital was had formed 500 years ago and has grown consistently at a rate greater than the general economy ever sense. He showed that before, during and after the French Revolution and later the US "revolution" the core capital of the west made profits. These revolutions, like government today, were pantomimes whilew the real power profited from the slaughter. The Elite prosper from war that is why there has been continual war and slaughter on their behalf sinse August 6, 1945. The nuclear weapons belong to them. ..."
You ask a question about European political class's perception and defence of European
interests that is as perplexing here as it is in regard to Libya and Syria, to name just
these. There was at least some coherent defence of international law and principle during
Bush II's lead up to the Iraq war, but Europe's defence of law and Europe's common interests
seem to have ceased at some point since then.
Because, like the US European government is a tool of the Global Power Elite, it is
nothing more than pantomime. The West is fully owned and operated by the global elite.
In books going back to C Wright Mills' The Power Elite in 1956 to SUPERCLASS by David
Rothkopf, and GIANTS: The Global Power Elite by Peter Phillips clearly outline just how
powerful the Global Elites really are.
In SUPERCLASS we learn that this class of people actually own and control the three
largest Western religions and many of the secondary ones - they all preach obedience to
authority as paramount. They also own the drugs trade around the world. 95% of the world
supply of opium comes out of Afghanistan under the watchful eye of the Elite through use of
the US military.
There is one and only one Western empire - that of the Global Elites.
85% of the valuable assets in the world are controlled by the Global Elites.
There is no offsetting force against them, there simply does not exist today a force
capable of challenging their ownership of the world.
And just as an aside to any historians out there, Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the
Twenty-first Century shows how a critical mass of capital was had formed 500 years ago and
has grown consistently at a rate greater than the general economy ever sense. He showed that
before, during and after the French Revolution and later the US "revolution" the core capital
of the west made profits. These revolutions, like government today, were pantomimes whilew
the real power profited from the slaughter. The Elite prosper from war that is why there has
been continual war and slaughter on their behalf sinse August 6, 1945. The nuclear weapons
belong to them.
House Oversight Committee members will decide Tuesday whether to subpoena senior Trump
administration officials over a whistleblower's claim. The issue is top-level security
clearances, including those for the president's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared
Kushner, who are both presidential advisers. Paula Reid reports.
The issuance of security clearances is an executive agency function controlled by
executive order and entirely within the discretion of the president. Trump isn't violating
anything if he overrides a lower level determination on a security clearance since the entire
function of issuing a security clearance stems from his own constitutional authority. The
whole idea around security clearances is that the president has people in executive agencies
that he can trust. He can trust his own daughter and son-in-law, even if some woman in the
clearance department thinks otherwise.
I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a
man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's. Mark Twain
Jared Kushner is the in-law that Trump calls "his son," he's has a similar back story to the
President elect. But who is the man touted for a big role in the new administration? Subscribe
to us and get more videos from Channel 4 News Subscribe for more: bit.ly/LtASif.
Jared Kushner has allegedly been peddling his Trump White House credentials to influence
foreign policy in an attempt to save his sinking real estate business.
Former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste tells CBC The Weekly's Wendy Mesley the
Trump administration seems to lack any 'normative behaviour.'
This slur "authoritarian state" is now peddled by neocons as synonym for the "countries we do not like"
This neocons in not very inventive... We already saw this line from Robert Kagan, who
actually is a better writer. This neocon/neolib pressitute can't even use proper terms such as
"neoliberalism" and "Washington consensus"
And slide to far-right nationalism and neo-fascism is direct result of neoliberalism
dominance for the last 40 years (since Carter) and sliding of the standard of living of workers
and the middle class.
Notable quotes:
"... Both countries have touted the virtues of their systems, while arguing that Western values are a source of decadence, amorality and disorder in the Western world. ..."
As international rivalry intensifies, the core strategic task for the U.S.-led democratic
community is to contain the geopolitical influence and political disruption caused by
authoritarian great powers, namely China and Russia. Yet that task is made all the harder
because illiberalism -- and sympathy for those illiberal powers -- is simultaneously surging
among key actors on the political right. If the U.S. and its allies are to succeed in the great
global rivalry of the 21st century, the right must confront the threat of illiberalism within
its ranks -- just as the left did during a previous twilight struggle in the 20th century.
... ... ...
This time, the threat is not expansionist communism, but a combination of autocracy and
geopolitical revisionism. China has been moving toward a dystopian future of high-tech
authoritarianism, as it pushes for greater power and influence overseas. Putin's Russia has
consolidated an illiberal oligarchy, while using information warfare, political meddling and
other tools to subvert liberal democracies in Europe, the U.S. and beyond.
Both countries have touted the virtues of their systems, while arguing that Western
values are a source of decadence, amorality and disorder in the Western world.
... ... ...
It is not for nothing that the political scientist Marc Plattner has
written that the gravest threat to liberal democracy today is “that it will end up
being abandoned by substantial segments of the right.” And even in the U.S., there are
alarming signs that conservative commitment to the norms of liberal democracy is under
strain.
Communism was not a threat, but actually benefited the world in many ways.
It was communism that put pressure on capitalism to provide labor a fair share of wealth and
income. As soon as Soviet communism collapsed, capitalism returned to its avaricious roots,
resulting in stagnant wages for the working class. And the pauperization of the working class
in recent decades is the cause for the current revolt against liberal capitalism.
So it was the competition from communism that was helping capitalism to stay healthy. Without
it capitalism has degenerated into a Dickensian dystopia. We should therefore welcome any
alternative socio-economic models to liberal capitalism.
It was communism that put pressure on capitalism to provide labor a fair
share of wealth and income. As soon as Soviet communism collapsed,
capitalism returned to
Thats a great point Che.
I have never ever looked at it from that angle.
Interesting.
Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, who has long been a leading conservative
intellectual, warns that this disillusion with liberal democracy “is clearly present
among American conservatives, and not just among the ‘alt-right.’
Honest and real conservatives are far and fewer in today's MAGA/tea party infested GOP.
Forget career politicians like Ted Cruz or McConnell, even the previously decent conservative
think tanks/pundits like from NR or Erik Erickson or others have all given up on any
principles and just bow at the altar of Trump now.
No they haven’t, Trump decided to put McConnell in charge so of course the
#neverTrumpers like the McConnell presidency...which consists of appointing Republican judges
at record pace and little else.
The biggest need is to resist holy warriors like Hal Brands who want to destroy the world
if it resists their version of revealed truth. They are the biggest threat to the human
future. The United States has to learn to live in a world that it cannot control. The
American goal should be to work towards a constructive human future not some kind of holy war
to impose American control on the rest of the world. The United States is the biggest
military spender. In recent history, It has been the world's global aggressor.
It has an
history of wars that have made little difference whether America won or lost them. Perhaps
the United States could succeed with some kind of genocide that wiped out all of the parts of
the world that refuse to accept American supremacy. But, short of that kind of disgrace, the
United States is not going to succeed in achieving any meaningful goal through war. As long
as America does not destroy the world, the future is going to be determined by economic
competition and the destinies that the people of different parts of the world choose for
themselves.
I had wondered if it was noticed the Liberalism was dying. The world has turned hard
right, with all the anger, nationalism, do-as-I-say, and social intolerance.
I don't even the children of today.
I might suggest that liberals themselves are destroying their freedoms with illogical
illiberal liberalism.
YOU can't do that, say that, act like that, think like that...no no no...we must act and
be correct, nice, polite, all forgiving and never critical.
Huh?
The freedoms that so many of us marched for, fought for, voted for, sang about (thank gawd
the music still lives), got bloody for, even died for, are slipping away quicker than you can
say me, me, me...it's all about me.
Maybe...small maybe...our youth can once again awaken America and the world's conscience.
Maybe? Maybe not!
Wha? It seems our LIttle Cultural Revolution is just warming up. Wait till AOC et al are
all growed up.
"This is a moment when the “free world” needs to be strong and united."
Is this the same "free" world that jails grandmothers over contested historical views?
That has reneged on free speech?
Thanks to a truly ethnomasochistic immigration policy, I assure you that this will not
happen. The West will be lucky if squeaks through this period without a civil war.
US neocons motto as expressed by Ledeen, who was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende : "Every ten years or so, the United States
needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
The US foreign policy is defined by interests of neoliberals and neocons, or to be exact by interests of multinational corporations,
who are not necessary led by Jews ;-). The whole discussion of the US foreign policy via the lens of Jew/non-Jew dichotomy is far from
the best approach to this problem.
While it is true that a large number of neocons end even some "economic nationalists" like Steve Bannon identify with Israel. But
the real allegiance of neocons is not to Israel. It is to many from American MIC. In this sense, neither chickenhawk Michael
Ledeen (a second rate figure at best, without much political influence), no chickenhawk Bill Kristol (third rate figure, with little
or no political influence at all), but Senator McCain and Dick Cheney are proper examples of really dangerous neocons.
Yes, neocons has a large, sometimes decisive influence on the US foreign policy. But this is because they are neoliberals with the
gun, political prostitutes serving MIC interests, not so much because some of them are "Israel-firsters"
(this term is not without problems,
although it denotes Jewish nationalists pretty well, see an interesting discussion in
The Volokh Conspiracy )
Notable quotes:
"... Netanyahu is making an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home & safe haven ..."
"... I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
"... This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud. ..."
"... Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s. ..."
"... Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. ..."
"... Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout. ..."
"... The Jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted. ..."
"... I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism. ..."
"... You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan. ..."
"... Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down. ..."
"... A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an article in the MSM. ..."
"... So now US troops are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them. ..."
"... Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN. Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel. ..."
"... There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable). The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it.. ..."
"... Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.) military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"? ..."
"... I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad? ..."
"... Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it). ..."
"... Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba). ..."
"... How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"? ..."
"... "The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while taking it good and hard? ..."
@Brabantian
Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing positive
links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel:
US alt-right leader, Richard Spencer, appeared on Israeli TV last month to call himself a "white Zionist"
The above from an interesting
article by British activist and Nazareth, Palestine resident Jonathan Cook , speaking of how Israel's Netanyahu is making
an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home
& safe haven ... and hence the 'progressive' Jews should abandon any support for boycott of Israel or for Palestinian rights:
The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly called on all Jews to come to Israel, claiming it as the only safe haven from an
immutable global anti-semitism. And yet, Mr Netanyahu is also introducing a political test before he opens the door.
Jews supporting a boycott of Israel are already barred. Now, liberal Jews and critics of the occupation like Mr Soros are
increasingly not welcome either. Israel is rapidly redefining the extent of the sanctuary it offers – for Jewish supremacists
only.
For Mr Netanyahu may believe he has much to gain by abandoning liberal Jews to their fate, as the alt-right asserts its
power in western capitals.
The "white Zionists" are committed to making life ever harder for minorities in the West in a bid to be rid of them. Sooner
or later, on Mr Netanyahu's logic, liberal Jews will face a reckoning. They will have to accept that Israel's ultra-nationalists
were right all along, and that Israel is their only sanctuary.
Guided by this cynical convergence of interests, Jewish and white supremacists are counting on a revival of anti-Semitism
that will benefit them both.
Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing
positive links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel
Steve Bannon and his supposed alt-right rag Breitbart are incredibly pro-Israel. I supposed it has something to do with its
founder Andrew Breitbart being a Jew. Every time Trump or Nikki Haley says something nasty about Iran, you'll get plenty of Breitbart
commenters echoing their sentiment egging them on, you can tell by their inane comments many have no idea why they should hate
Iran, other than Breitbart told them to.
They've fully bought into the Breitbart narrative that Iran is evil and must be destroyed. The Trump fan boys/girls who continue
to blindly support him despite all his betrayals are every bit as stupid as the libtards they claim to hate.
@Tom Welsh
"And I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht..."
I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young
and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against
the wall, just to show the world we mean business".
This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud.
Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was
involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s.
I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including
Trump himself.
Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting
examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.
In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely
that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism
to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically
accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.
What gives?
Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which
isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.
Of course, the Israel Lobby
is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas
about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.
That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The Jewish individuals named
by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy
Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed
and which promoted.
"What gives" is that I think lunatic screeds about "America's Jews" (like Noam Chomsky?) manipulating foreign policy do damage
to the anti-war cause. I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism.
Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just Jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders
into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot
of its political clout.
That's slightly better than the 1-dimensional Joo-paranoia, but it doesn't begin to describe the problem.
You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern
oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled
source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan.
I am glad you think Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Yet it doesn't square with your earlier statement which reads " I'm glad
they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them ". There are no scenarios in
which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?
Before you decide to label as sociopath, anyone who proposes a worldview grounded in reality, you might think long and hard
about the multitude of paths this world can take under the scenario of a wholesale withdrawal of U.S. presence in the Gulf. Most
one hears on this forum, including your own, reduce to precious nothing over virtue signaling.
Like it or not the world is never going to assume the shape of a collection of nations equal in power, interests and endowments.
Hoping for that is to live in a state of delusion.
U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran . Far from it; yet facilitating her allies' aspirations
to join the American vision isn't one we are about to walk away from. That is not chest beating. It is eminently in evidence from
the number of nations wishing to join the Western economic and cultural model. I am keenly aware of the lunatics on this forum
who believe they'd be perfectly happy to embrace other cultures, I can only invite them to make haste.
Spare me the rest of your sanctimony.
"I'm glad they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them". There are no
scenarios in which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?
In the case of a defensive war with United States, there sure would be. At that point Iran would not have much hope but to
inflict as much damage as possible on the aggressor. Although Iran does not nearly have the ability to fully reciprocate the harm
the US can inflict on it, it hopefully has the capability to inflict enough damage so that an offensive war against it would be
intolerable to the US. That's how deterrence works.
U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran.
If that's true, and I sincerely hope it is, it's because Iran has sufficient deterrent capacity, which includes not only the
anti-ship missiles in the Gulf, but also Hezbollah's arsenal of ~130,000 short, medium and long-range rockets capable of reaching
every square inch of Israeli territory.
Believe me, I'm a realist. You don't have to lecture me on the reality of aggressive rogue nations.
@Tom Welsh
Nope. As far as I know, he was being perfectly serious.
And that is exactly the way the power elite think - although they are usually much more cautious about speaking their mind
in public.
Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed
or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling
of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that
undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down.
Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or
maimed – not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling
of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir.
True words sir!
The evil empire sustains itself primarily through this attitude of its people. It does not matter how the Jews connive to shape
it. Only thing that matters is that they buy into it without exercising their conscience.
Americans, remember, such glory has a cost. You will find soon enough that a cancerous soul is too high a price to be "Top
Nation," for essentially a blink in cosmic time.
A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an
article in the MSM.
The late Samuel Huntington said in his amazing book Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order that Saudi
Arabia and Iran are fighting for supremacy in the Islamic world. Syria is a proxy war between the two countries. Now Israel has
become BFF with Saudi Arabia because they too want a piece of Syria, for the oil reserve in the Golan Heights. So now US troops
are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms
supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them.
Make no mistake Jews and Arabs run this country. That is why Trump went to Israel and SA for his first foreign trip, he knows
who America's daddy is, even if most Americans are still in the dark.
His entire administration is crawling with Israel loving Jews, starting with his son-in-law the most loyal son of Israel. Even
Steve Bannon and Breitbart are crazy gung ho pro-Israel. Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN.
Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel.
When was the last time Iran conducted a jihad against the west? All the Muslim terrorists now attacking the west are Sunnis,
funded by Saudi Arabia. The only time Iran had direct armed conflict with the US was when they kicked us out of Tehran, for trying
to steal their oil. All their beef is with Israel, not with the US. Why are we taking up Israel's cause? Trump is a moron of the
first order and has no understanding of what really goes on in the mideast. He surrounds himself with pro-Israel neocons and Jews
and is easily manipulated. He's stupid and dangerous. I voted for him because he presented himself as someone completely different,
someone anti-war and anti-immigration, now he's a neocon globalist libtard, the worst of all worlds. Someone needs to primary
him out in 2020.
Speaking of unhinged I'd say the sentiment that America has the right to threaten and/or attack other countries to maintain
its "economic interests" is sociopathic. What would you call it? And I didn't say that he personally was in charge of US/Israeli/Saudi
policy towards Iran, if that's what you thought I meant. That would be unhinged. I just said that sociopaths like him
are.
@KBRO [In
comments, allcaps is shouting. Stop shouting or your comments will be trashed.]
RE:
BUSH-CHENEY-CLINTON-TRUMP--MCMASTER--KELLY---AND THE LOT OF THEM ALL AIN'T JEWS:
WELL PUT. GIRALDI IS A MIXED BAG, WRITES SOME GOOD STUFF, BUT IT MISIDENTIFIES THE PROBLEM--THE ENEMY-- BY LABELING IT AS "THE
JEWS". THE NEO-CONS--AND NEO-LIBERALS--WHO DRIVE U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD COME IN MANY
FLAVORS.
I'M AN ANTI-ZIONIST, AND IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST.
IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST
There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable).
The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being
disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives
are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it..
Giraldi is discussing the latter and not the former, and doing a service to the American nation by his taboo-busting.
I wonder where Mr. Giraldi would put David Horowitz on the list? Although Horowitz is not a public policy maker, but rather
an author and blogger, but definitely is a known Jewish voice. I respect Horowitz tremendously because of his background as an
ex-Communist and his dead-on criticism of the American Left, both historically and currently. Although rather knee-jerk in his
defense of Israel, I would not doubt his loyalty to this country one iota.
I do not know if David Horowitz is a dual Israeli-American citizen, but he is not a legislator nor a government policy maker,
so as far as I am concerned, the issue is moot. If one questions the loyalty to America, of Jews or any other group for that matter,
the issue of holding dual citizenship while holding certain government offices should be something of concern. Once out of public
office or service, then they can resume their dual citizenship. It makes the issue of loyalty less questionable.
Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.)
military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into
the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"?
reckon his serving in other ways was/is lying and pushing for wars for his real country israel. Truth hurts, America.
Of the 58,220 Americans who were sacrificed during the Vietnam War, 270 were Jewish. That's approximately 0.46 percent or less
than a half of one-percent.
Guess they were too busy partying in college, while pursuing their law degrees.
During the Vietnam war the U.S. selective service system gave deferments to those attending college, which delayed their eligibility
for conscription.
"Among partners of the top law firms in New York, I estimate that at least 25% are Jews."
@matt I
didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including
Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment
(which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. It's
not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".
I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too,
including Trump himself.
Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting
examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.
In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely
that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism
to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically
accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.
What gives?
Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't
close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.
Of course, the Israel Lobby is
much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about
Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.
That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The jewish individuals named
by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy
jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed
and which promoted.
@matt I'm
strongly against any war with Iran, but this comes of as an unhinged and bigoted rant. Not nearly everyone who is pushing for
war with Iran is Jewish, and this narrative perpetuates the myth, beloved by alt-right types and paleocons, of a well-intentioned
but naive Trump administration that was hijacked by Jewish neocons. In reality, despite differences within the administration,
Iran was always something they could all agree on. H.R. McMaster and James Mattis are well known Iran hawks, and neither are Jewish.
Nikki Haley isn't Jewish, nor is Rex Tillerson. Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn wouldn't have stopped Trump from going to war if
they hadn't been forced out of the administration, as both, especially the latter, were absolute lunatics when it came to Iran.
On that subject, they were worse than neocons. And of course there's Trump himself, whose bloodlust regarding Iran has always
been on full display from the beginning, if you were paying attention. Hostility toward Iran might in fact be the most consistent
theme of the Trump administration and of Trump himself, who has been known to vacillate on virtually every issue, except this
one.
If you supported Trump because you thought he might be some sort of isolationist dove, you have only yourself to blame. Evil
Jewish neocons didn't force you to ignore the massive evidence that was always right in front of your face. The fact that there
are so many who profess to the Christian faith, who are as evil as those Joo neocons, such as those you mentioned, simply cannot
be denied. Even if hypothetically speaking the Joos were to vanish overnight, the wars of aggression by the Evil Empire will continue
unabated.
The Evil Empire and its Evil b!tch both share the same satanic vision of world domination. Two evil nations, made for each
other, in a match made in Hell.
Btw, the orange scumbag was hilariously evil at the UN.
Both N.Korea and Iran should simply call this bastard's bluff, by literally giving him the finger. I say, let the chips fall
where they may. Let's see how the American, Japanese, S.Korean, Israeli & "Royal" pussies like the consequences.
To you N.Koreans, its been written that you will target the thousands of American Terrorists stationed in the south. I am counting
on that, so don't you miss chaps.
They should. If Raimondo starts blaming the Jews, he can avoid taking responsibility for his idiotic and embarrassing cheerleading
for the current warmonger-in-chief.
I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for
Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad?
And started plans for attacking Iran? Who? Hillary? Hahahaha. Ted Cruz? Hahahaha. Etc.
Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have
attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he
probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it).
Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike
even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to
preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration
of diplomatic ties with Cuba).
If an article titled "America's Jews are Behind America's Wars" isn't unhinged and bigoted, I'd like you to tell me what
is.
How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg
Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"?
Or is it not the statement of the facts that you are outraged by, but merely the proposed solutions? If so, then what solutions
to the problem identified by Giraldi and by Haaretz would you propose?
If Trump's insane rhetoric on Iran and push for war isn't an example of bloodlust, why don't you tell me what it is?
Good examples might be the desperate attempts to prevent the deal with Iran that hopefully will prove to have cauterised the longstanding
efforts to use the spurious nuclear weapons issue to push the US towards confrontation and war with Iran:
Or when Israel's primary agents of political influence in the US went "all out" to try to get the US to attack Syria and hand
yet another country to (even more) jihadist-ridden chaos:
But hey, I suppose for you those are just more examples of "unhingedness" and "bigotedness".
It must be strange living in the world you inhabit, so far removed from basic reality by a desperate need to avoid being seen
as any kind of badwhite. I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews
pushing for one too, including Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American
foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated
by clever Jews. It's not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".
@Sam Shama
They can certainly try, and, I suppose you'd require the U.S. to stay her hand as a matter of fair principle while watching said
bases destroyed. Nice idea, but I'd stick to reality. U.S. has vast interests, including economic ones; those which benefit every
U.S. citizen, and, to be practical, all her allies. Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Its anti-ship missiles are for deterrence,
which Iran has plenty of need for, as sociopaths like you populate the American, Israeli, and Saudi governments and are itching
to attack.
@WJ Outside
of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?
I remember the debate between Pence and the hideous Tim Kaine where the Democrat vowed that there would be No Fly Zone over
Syria which would certainly have allowed the head chopping rebels to gain a stronger foothold.
In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic.
US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.
Outside of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?
You haven't been paying attention. Since the initial strike in April, the Trump administration has deliberately attacked regime
or allied forces an additional five times. (
one
,
two ,
three , four ,
five ).
Including the Tomahawks in April, that's a total of 6 deliberate attacks on the Syrian Arab Republic or its allies (so far),
which is already 6 more than Obama carried out during his entire presidency. And it's not like this is the end of Trump's tenure,
either; it's the 9th goddamn month since he's been in office. I'm sure the war hawks in Wahington are quite pleased with his progress,
as they should be.
In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic.
Anyone could tell by that point that Assad isn't going to be overthrown. The aim now is to limit the Assad regime's territorial
gains as much as possible, and the "rebels" proved they were useless at doing that when Shia militia reached the Iraqi border
at al-Tanf, and cut them off from reaching Deir ez-Zor back in May (which was what one of the attacks mentioned above was about).
After that, the Trump administration put all its eggs in the "Syrian Democratic Forces/People's Protection Units (SDF/YPG)
basket, the mainly Kurdish (with some Arab fighters) militia that the US has been using to fight ISIS since 2015 (it's also, ironically,
a hard left socialist organization. Think Kurdish Antifa. Though I doubt Trump knows or cares or could do anything about it even
if he did). Trump has given the SDF <a title=""
https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/"
; https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/"
;heavy weaponry with the aim of confronting Assad and limiting his territorial gains. They've also been pressuring the rebel groups
they formerly supported to join the SDF.
I have sympathy for the SDF/YPG and the Syrian Kurds, and it made sense to support them when they were under direct assault
from ISIS (though US motives were hardly altruistic even then). But ISIS is all but beaten now, and this is a dangerous game the
US is playing, which could readily lead to a military confrontation betweeen the US and Russia and/or Iran. In fact, just a few
days ago, the SDF seized part of Deir ez-Zor after SAA forces reached the city, and the Pentagon is now accusing Russia
(which has in the past at least had
good
relations with the SDF/YPG), of deliberately bombing SDF fighters, in close proximity to American special forces.
US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.
Only 15,000! I guess you wouldn't mind, then, if they Taliban, or the Afghan Army for that matter, or any other country,
put 15,000 troops on American soil, as a "symbolic" gesture.
Trump has also accelerated US collaboration in the sadistic torture of Yemen by the Saudis, past the levels under even Obama,
which was already shameful.
And again, we should also keep in mind that it's only been 9 months. For his next act, Trump might be thinking about
ending the Iran deal in October.
@Thomm Jews
are white. Ashkenazi Jews, and those are the ones we are mainly dealing with, are an endogamous caste of bankers, progressive
journalists, lawyers, and social scientists (including, now, education), that have migrated all over Europe, but never identifying
as European, with exceptions that prove the rule.
As a tribe, once can read Kevin MacDonald's work to see how they work in remarkable ethnic cohesion–not necessarily as an "organized
conspiracy" (though that certainly happens), but as an ethnic drive.
Being neither European as such, nor Christian, and although their skin is white, they are not White.
Dual loyalty is an avoided and career-ending subject for a couple reasons. One must never, ever, criticize Jews (a third rail
at complete odds with) and one may not criticize immigrants' behavior.
The obvious problem is Treason. Just how much Treason is the result of so-called "dual loyalty"? And isn't Treason subject
to some rather serious legal sanctions?
I just want to point out, being a (fake) "news" consumer, I hear about Israel all the time, all while not hearing a lot of
follow-up detail about Israel and its interests. Isn't that a clever sleight of hand? According to the pro-Israel (by extension
jews) propaganda I'm required to care about, despite it having nothing to do with my life, my family's life, my neighbors' lives,
and my community's lives Israel is that big of a deal. Actually, I hear more about Israel in the media than I hear about my home
state of Michigan. Michigan is probably a lot more important to the US economy, US security, US tourism industry, Midwestern industrial
technology industry, US engineering industry, and the Midwestern Farming economy, than Israel is. Then there are the people who
live here, who are Americans. Israel first, then Americans? Okay, got it.
If the public were exposed to as much emotionally captivating propaganda about Michigan as they were about Israel, I'd posit
the public would see a far better investment in Michigan than they would in Israel. That includes an emotional investment.
I don't know what can be politely said or how it would shape up, but Midwesterners desperately need to understand the Israel
(by extension jewish) problem. They're bleeding us and getting away with it, all while getting away with incessantly calling us
racists and anti-semites. Because again, caring about Michigan and its people first is just morally irreprehensible. Israel first,
then Israel second, etc Got it bigot? That sleight of hand, it's just always there. I don't fully grasp how this large scale agit-prop
psychology works. I do understand jewish solidarity. I'll hand it to jews, they have the strongest ethnic/religious/cultural solidarity
I've ever seen. If Midwesterners realized the value of this level of solidarity, they wouldn't enlist their sons in the military
to serve jewish interests overseas.
From Money Manipulation And Social Order (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1944) by Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., Professor of
Philosophy and Church History, Holy Ghost Missionary College, Dublin:
When the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, created in 1913 by Mr. Paul Warburg, a German Jew belonging to the
Banking Firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company, had been a few years in existence, in 1916 to be precise, President Woodrow Wilson
thus summed up the situation in U.S.A.: "A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit
is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. . .
We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized
world!no longer a Government by conviction and the free vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of
small groups of dominant men." From the similar testimonies quoted by Christopher Hollis in The Two Nations, let us take one.
"Behind the ostensible government," ran Roosevelt's policy, " sits enthroned an invisible government owning no allegiance and
acknowledging no responsibility to the people."
Anyone who reads knows that Israel (and its agents, where not dual citizens, the Jewish ones effectively all are, and the
goyim dupes and toadies, who are not, 'cept sometimes with marriage) have been the tail that wags the US dog for many years,
starting over a century ago, in finance, commerce, and law in NYC, in a small way the scope is ever wider and the effects more
and more blatant.
The USA is a colony of Israel, everybody is knowing it, but some lie and deny.
From my reading of history, I would placing the tipping point from 'excessive power' to 'colonial masters' at the 1967 war
of Israel and its neighbours.
Others may dating it to the end of the Third Reich, with all sorts of Jewish DPs and US Jews who had never seen combat running
around in US military and MP uniforms to persecuting and killing Germans, under the command of Eisenhauer, the Morgenthau plan,
etc.
Others may picking a different time.
It is funny that you are posting as Anonymous on this, can only mean that you are a more subtle pro-Israel troll with your
usual u-name. "So it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran comes from Israel and from American
Jews."
Certainly SOME Israelis and American Jews are involved in developing policy designed to generate hostility to the point of
potential war.
But Dick Cheney and Erik Prince, among other prominent non-Jews, bear mentioning.
Regardless, the Jew fixation here is duly noted. Boo! Goes the Joo!
"The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this
situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while
taking it good and hard?
US neocons motto as expressed by Ledeen, who was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende : "Every ten years or so, the United States
needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
The US foreign policy is defined by interests of neoliberals and neocons, or to be exact by interests of multinational corporations,
who are not necessary led by Jews ;-). The whole discussion of the US foreign policy via the lens of Jew/non-Jew dichotomy is far from
the best approach to this problem.
While it is true that a large number of neocons end even some "economic nationalists" like Steve Bannon identify with Israel. But
the real allegiance of neocons is not to Israel. It is to many from American MIC. In this sense, neither chickenhawk Michael
Ledeen (a second rate figure at best, without much political influence), no chickenhawk Bill Kristol (third rate figure, with little
or no political influence at all), but Senator McCain and Dick Cheney are proper examples of really dangerous neocons.
Yes, neocons has a large, sometimes decisive influence on the US foreign policy. But this is because they are neoliberals with the
gun, political prostitutes serving MIC interests, not so much because some of them are "Israel-firsters"
(this term is not without problems,
although it denotes Jewish nationalists pretty well, see an interesting discussion in
The Volokh Conspiracy )
Notable quotes:
"... Netanyahu is making an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home & safe haven ..."
"... I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
"... This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud. ..."
"... Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s. ..."
"... Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. ..."
"... Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout. ..."
"... The Jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted. ..."
"... I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism. ..."
"... You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan. ..."
"... Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down. ..."
"... A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an article in the MSM. ..."
"... So now US troops are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them. ..."
"... Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN. Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel. ..."
"... There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable). The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it.. ..."
"... Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.) military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"? ..."
"... I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad? ..."
"... Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it). ..."
"... Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba). ..."
"... How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"? ..."
"... "The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while taking it good and hard? ..."
@Brabantian
Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing positive
links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel:
US alt-right leader, Richard Spencer, appeared on Israeli TV last month to call himself a "white Zionist"
The above from an interesting
article by British activist and Nazareth, Palestine resident Jonathan Cook , speaking of how Israel's Netanyahu is making
an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home
& safe haven ... and hence the 'progressive' Jews should abandon any support for boycott of Israel or for Palestinian rights:
The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly called on all Jews to come to Israel, claiming it as the only safe haven from an
immutable global anti-semitism. And yet, Mr Netanyahu is also introducing a political test before he opens the door.
Jews supporting a boycott of Israel are already barred. Now, liberal Jews and critics of the occupation like Mr Soros are
increasingly not welcome either. Israel is rapidly redefining the extent of the sanctuary it offers – for Jewish supremacists
only.
For Mr Netanyahu may believe he has much to gain by abandoning liberal Jews to their fate, as the alt-right asserts its
power in western capitals.
The "white Zionists" are committed to making life ever harder for minorities in the West in a bid to be rid of them. Sooner
or later, on Mr Netanyahu's logic, liberal Jews will face a reckoning. They will have to accept that Israel's ultra-nationalists
were right all along, and that Israel is their only sanctuary.
Guided by this cynical convergence of interests, Jewish and white supremacists are counting on a revival of anti-Semitism
that will benefit them both.
Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing
positive links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel
Steve Bannon and his supposed alt-right rag Breitbart are incredibly pro-Israel. I supposed it has something to do with its
founder Andrew Breitbart being a Jew. Every time Trump or Nikki Haley says something nasty about Iran, you'll get plenty of Breitbart
commenters echoing their sentiment egging them on, you can tell by their inane comments many have no idea why they should hate
Iran, other than Breitbart told them to.
They've fully bought into the Breitbart narrative that Iran is evil and must be destroyed. The Trump fan boys/girls who continue
to blindly support him despite all his betrayals are every bit as stupid as the libtards they claim to hate.
@Tom Welsh
"And I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht..."
I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young
and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against
the wall, just to show the world we mean business".
This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud.
Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was
involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s.
I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including
Trump himself.
Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting
examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.
In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely
that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism
to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically
accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.
What gives?
Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which
isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.
Of course, the Israel Lobby
is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas
about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.
That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The Jewish individuals named
by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy
Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed
and which promoted.
"What gives" is that I think lunatic screeds about "America's Jews" (like Noam Chomsky?) manipulating foreign policy do damage
to the anti-war cause. I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism.
Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just Jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders
into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot
of its political clout.
That's slightly better than the 1-dimensional Joo-paranoia, but it doesn't begin to describe the problem.
You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern
oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled
source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan.
I am glad you think Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Yet it doesn't square with your earlier statement which reads " I'm glad
they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them ". There are no scenarios in
which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?
Before you decide to label as sociopath, anyone who proposes a worldview grounded in reality, you might think long and hard
about the multitude of paths this world can take under the scenario of a wholesale withdrawal of U.S. presence in the Gulf. Most
one hears on this forum, including your own, reduce to precious nothing over virtue signaling.
Like it or not the world is never going to assume the shape of a collection of nations equal in power, interests and endowments.
Hoping for that is to live in a state of delusion.
U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran . Far from it; yet facilitating her allies' aspirations
to join the American vision isn't one we are about to walk away from. That is not chest beating. It is eminently in evidence from
the number of nations wishing to join the Western economic and cultural model. I am keenly aware of the lunatics on this forum
who believe they'd be perfectly happy to embrace other cultures, I can only invite them to make haste.
Spare me the rest of your sanctimony.
"I'm glad they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them". There are no
scenarios in which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?
In the case of a defensive war with United States, there sure would be. At that point Iran would not have much hope but to
inflict as much damage as possible on the aggressor. Although Iran does not nearly have the ability to fully reciprocate the harm
the US can inflict on it, it hopefully has the capability to inflict enough damage so that an offensive war against it would be
intolerable to the US. That's how deterrence works.
U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran.
If that's true, and I sincerely hope it is, it's because Iran has sufficient deterrent capacity, which includes not only the
anti-ship missiles in the Gulf, but also Hezbollah's arsenal of ~130,000 short, medium and long-range rockets capable of reaching
every square inch of Israeli territory.
Believe me, I'm a realist. You don't have to lecture me on the reality of aggressive rogue nations.
@Tom Welsh
Nope. As far as I know, he was being perfectly serious.
And that is exactly the way the power elite think - although they are usually much more cautious about speaking their mind
in public.
Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed
or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling
of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that
undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down.
Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or
maimed – not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling
of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir.
True words sir!
The evil empire sustains itself primarily through this attitude of its people. It does not matter how the Jews connive to shape
it. Only thing that matters is that they buy into it without exercising their conscience.
Americans, remember, such glory has a cost. You will find soon enough that a cancerous soul is too high a price to be "Top
Nation," for essentially a blink in cosmic time.
A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an
article in the MSM.
The late Samuel Huntington said in his amazing book Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order that Saudi
Arabia and Iran are fighting for supremacy in the Islamic world. Syria is a proxy war between the two countries. Now Israel has
become BFF with Saudi Arabia because they too want a piece of Syria, for the oil reserve in the Golan Heights. So now US troops
are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms
supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them.
Make no mistake Jews and Arabs run this country. That is why Trump went to Israel and SA for his first foreign trip, he knows
who America's daddy is, even if most Americans are still in the dark.
His entire administration is crawling with Israel loving Jews, starting with his son-in-law the most loyal son of Israel. Even
Steve Bannon and Breitbart are crazy gung ho pro-Israel. Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN.
Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel.
When was the last time Iran conducted a jihad against the west? All the Muslim terrorists now attacking the west are Sunnis,
funded by Saudi Arabia. The only time Iran had direct armed conflict with the US was when they kicked us out of Tehran, for trying
to steal their oil. All their beef is with Israel, not with the US. Why are we taking up Israel's cause? Trump is a moron of the
first order and has no understanding of what really goes on in the mideast. He surrounds himself with pro-Israel neocons and Jews
and is easily manipulated. He's stupid and dangerous. I voted for him because he presented himself as someone completely different,
someone anti-war and anti-immigration, now he's a neocon globalist libtard, the worst of all worlds. Someone needs to primary
him out in 2020.
Speaking of unhinged I'd say the sentiment that America has the right to threaten and/or attack other countries to maintain
its "economic interests" is sociopathic. What would you call it? And I didn't say that he personally was in charge of US/Israeli/Saudi
policy towards Iran, if that's what you thought I meant. That would be unhinged. I just said that sociopaths like him
are.
@KBRO [In
comments, allcaps is shouting. Stop shouting or your comments will be trashed.]
RE:
BUSH-CHENEY-CLINTON-TRUMP--MCMASTER--KELLY---AND THE LOT OF THEM ALL AIN'T JEWS:
WELL PUT. GIRALDI IS A MIXED BAG, WRITES SOME GOOD STUFF, BUT IT MISIDENTIFIES THE PROBLEM--THE ENEMY-- BY LABELING IT AS "THE
JEWS". THE NEO-CONS--AND NEO-LIBERALS--WHO DRIVE U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD COME IN MANY
FLAVORS.
I'M AN ANTI-ZIONIST, AND IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST.
IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST
There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable).
The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being
disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives
are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it..
Giraldi is discussing the latter and not the former, and doing a service to the American nation by his taboo-busting.
I wonder where Mr. Giraldi would put David Horowitz on the list? Although Horowitz is not a public policy maker, but rather
an author and blogger, but definitely is a known Jewish voice. I respect Horowitz tremendously because of his background as an
ex-Communist and his dead-on criticism of the American Left, both historically and currently. Although rather knee-jerk in his
defense of Israel, I would not doubt his loyalty to this country one iota.
I do not know if David Horowitz is a dual Israeli-American citizen, but he is not a legislator nor a government policy maker,
so as far as I am concerned, the issue is moot. If one questions the loyalty to America, of Jews or any other group for that matter,
the issue of holding dual citizenship while holding certain government offices should be something of concern. Once out of public
office or service, then they can resume their dual citizenship. It makes the issue of loyalty less questionable.
Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.)
military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into
the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"?
reckon his serving in other ways was/is lying and pushing for wars for his real country israel. Truth hurts, America.
Of the 58,220 Americans who were sacrificed during the Vietnam War, 270 were Jewish. That's approximately 0.46 percent or less
than a half of one-percent.
Guess they were too busy partying in college, while pursuing their law degrees.
During the Vietnam war the U.S. selective service system gave deferments to those attending college, which delayed their eligibility
for conscription.
"Among partners of the top law firms in New York, I estimate that at least 25% are Jews."
@matt I
didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including
Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment
(which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. It's
not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".
I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too,
including Trump himself.
Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting
examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.
In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely
that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism
to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically
accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.
What gives?
Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't
close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.
Of course, the Israel Lobby is
much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about
Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.
That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The jewish individuals named
by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy
jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed
and which promoted.
@matt I'm
strongly against any war with Iran, but this comes of as an unhinged and bigoted rant. Not nearly everyone who is pushing for
war with Iran is Jewish, and this narrative perpetuates the myth, beloved by alt-right types and paleocons, of a well-intentioned
but naive Trump administration that was hijacked by Jewish neocons. In reality, despite differences within the administration,
Iran was always something they could all agree on. H.R. McMaster and James Mattis are well known Iran hawks, and neither are Jewish.
Nikki Haley isn't Jewish, nor is Rex Tillerson. Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn wouldn't have stopped Trump from going to war if
they hadn't been forced out of the administration, as both, especially the latter, were absolute lunatics when it came to Iran.
On that subject, they were worse than neocons. And of course there's Trump himself, whose bloodlust regarding Iran has always
been on full display from the beginning, if you were paying attention. Hostility toward Iran might in fact be the most consistent
theme of the Trump administration and of Trump himself, who has been known to vacillate on virtually every issue, except this
one.
If you supported Trump because you thought he might be some sort of isolationist dove, you have only yourself to blame. Evil
Jewish neocons didn't force you to ignore the massive evidence that was always right in front of your face. The fact that there
are so many who profess to the Christian faith, who are as evil as those Joo neocons, such as those you mentioned, simply cannot
be denied. Even if hypothetically speaking the Joos were to vanish overnight, the wars of aggression by the Evil Empire will continue
unabated.
The Evil Empire and its Evil b!tch both share the same satanic vision of world domination. Two evil nations, made for each
other, in a match made in Hell.
Btw, the orange scumbag was hilariously evil at the UN.
Both N.Korea and Iran should simply call this bastard's bluff, by literally giving him the finger. I say, let the chips fall
where they may. Let's see how the American, Japanese, S.Korean, Israeli & "Royal" pussies like the consequences.
To you N.Koreans, its been written that you will target the thousands of American Terrorists stationed in the south. I am counting
on that, so don't you miss chaps.
They should. If Raimondo starts blaming the Jews, he can avoid taking responsibility for his idiotic and embarrassing cheerleading
for the current warmonger-in-chief.
I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for
Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad?
And started plans for attacking Iran? Who? Hillary? Hahahaha. Ted Cruz? Hahahaha. Etc.
Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have
attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he
probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it).
Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike
even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to
preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration
of diplomatic ties with Cuba).
If an article titled "America's Jews are Behind America's Wars" isn't unhinged and bigoted, I'd like you to tell me what
is.
How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg
Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"?
Or is it not the statement of the facts that you are outraged by, but merely the proposed solutions? If so, then what solutions
to the problem identified by Giraldi and by Haaretz would you propose?
If Trump's insane rhetoric on Iran and push for war isn't an example of bloodlust, why don't you tell me what it is?
Good examples might be the desperate attempts to prevent the deal with Iran that hopefully will prove to have cauterised the longstanding
efforts to use the spurious nuclear weapons issue to push the US towards confrontation and war with Iran:
Or when Israel's primary agents of political influence in the US went "all out" to try to get the US to attack Syria and hand
yet another country to (even more) jihadist-ridden chaos:
But hey, I suppose for you those are just more examples of "unhingedness" and "bigotedness".
It must be strange living in the world you inhabit, so far removed from basic reality by a desperate need to avoid being seen
as any kind of badwhite. I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews
pushing for one too, including Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American
foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated
by clever Jews. It's not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".
@Sam Shama
They can certainly try, and, I suppose you'd require the U.S. to stay her hand as a matter of fair principle while watching said
bases destroyed. Nice idea, but I'd stick to reality. U.S. has vast interests, including economic ones; those which benefit every
U.S. citizen, and, to be practical, all her allies. Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Its anti-ship missiles are for deterrence,
which Iran has plenty of need for, as sociopaths like you populate the American, Israeli, and Saudi governments and are itching
to attack.
@WJ Outside
of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?
I remember the debate between Pence and the hideous Tim Kaine where the Democrat vowed that there would be No Fly Zone over
Syria which would certainly have allowed the head chopping rebels to gain a stronger foothold.
In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic.
US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.
Outside of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?
You haven't been paying attention. Since the initial strike in April, the Trump administration has deliberately attacked regime
or allied forces an additional five times. (
one
,
two ,
three , four ,
five ).
Including the Tomahawks in April, that's a total of 6 deliberate attacks on the Syrian Arab Republic or its allies (so far),
which is already 6 more than Obama carried out during his entire presidency. And it's not like this is the end of Trump's tenure,
either; it's the 9th goddamn month since he's been in office. I'm sure the war hawks in Wahington are quite pleased with his progress,
as they should be.
In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic.
Anyone could tell by that point that Assad isn't going to be overthrown. The aim now is to limit the Assad regime's territorial
gains as much as possible, and the "rebels" proved they were useless at doing that when Shia militia reached the Iraqi border
at al-Tanf, and cut them off from reaching Deir ez-Zor back in May (which was what one of the attacks mentioned above was about).
After that, the Trump administration put all its eggs in the "Syrian Democratic Forces/People's Protection Units (SDF/YPG)
basket, the mainly Kurdish (with some Arab fighters) militia that the US has been using to fight ISIS since 2015 (it's also, ironically,
a hard left socialist organization. Think Kurdish Antifa. Though I doubt Trump knows or cares or could do anything about it even
if he did). Trump has given the SDF <a title=""
https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/"
; https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/"
;heavy weaponry with the aim of confronting Assad and limiting his territorial gains. They've also been pressuring the rebel groups
they formerly supported to join the SDF.
I have sympathy for the SDF/YPG and the Syrian Kurds, and it made sense to support them when they were under direct assault
from ISIS (though US motives were hardly altruistic even then). But ISIS is all but beaten now, and this is a dangerous game the
US is playing, which could readily lead to a military confrontation betweeen the US and Russia and/or Iran. In fact, just a few
days ago, the SDF seized part of Deir ez-Zor after SAA forces reached the city, and the Pentagon is now accusing Russia
(which has in the past at least had
good
relations with the SDF/YPG), of deliberately bombing SDF fighters, in close proximity to American special forces.
US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.
Only 15,000! I guess you wouldn't mind, then, if they Taliban, or the Afghan Army for that matter, or any other country,
put 15,000 troops on American soil, as a "symbolic" gesture.
Trump has also accelerated US collaboration in the sadistic torture of Yemen by the Saudis, past the levels under even Obama,
which was already shameful.
And again, we should also keep in mind that it's only been 9 months. For his next act, Trump might be thinking about
ending the Iran deal in October.
@Thomm Jews
are white. Ashkenazi Jews, and those are the ones we are mainly dealing with, are an endogamous caste of bankers, progressive
journalists, lawyers, and social scientists (including, now, education), that have migrated all over Europe, but never identifying
as European, with exceptions that prove the rule.
As a tribe, once can read Kevin MacDonald's work to see how they work in remarkable ethnic cohesion–not necessarily as an "organized
conspiracy" (though that certainly happens), but as an ethnic drive.
Being neither European as such, nor Christian, and although their skin is white, they are not White.
Dual loyalty is an avoided and career-ending subject for a couple reasons. One must never, ever, criticize Jews (a third rail
at complete odds with) and one may not criticize immigrants' behavior.
The obvious problem is Treason. Just how much Treason is the result of so-called "dual loyalty"? And isn't Treason subject
to some rather serious legal sanctions?
I just want to point out, being a (fake) "news" consumer, I hear about Israel all the time, all while not hearing a lot of
follow-up detail about Israel and its interests. Isn't that a clever sleight of hand? According to the pro-Israel (by extension
jews) propaganda I'm required to care about, despite it having nothing to do with my life, my family's life, my neighbors' lives,
and my community's lives Israel is that big of a deal. Actually, I hear more about Israel in the media than I hear about my home
state of Michigan. Michigan is probably a lot more important to the US economy, US security, US tourism industry, Midwestern industrial
technology industry, US engineering industry, and the Midwestern Farming economy, than Israel is. Then there are the people who
live here, who are Americans. Israel first, then Americans? Okay, got it.
If the public were exposed to as much emotionally captivating propaganda about Michigan as they were about Israel, I'd posit
the public would see a far better investment in Michigan than they would in Israel. That includes an emotional investment.
I don't know what can be politely said or how it would shape up, but Midwesterners desperately need to understand the Israel
(by extension jewish) problem. They're bleeding us and getting away with it, all while getting away with incessantly calling us
racists and anti-semites. Because again, caring about Michigan and its people first is just morally irreprehensible. Israel first,
then Israel second, etc Got it bigot? That sleight of hand, it's just always there. I don't fully grasp how this large scale agit-prop
psychology works. I do understand jewish solidarity. I'll hand it to jews, they have the strongest ethnic/religious/cultural solidarity
I've ever seen. If Midwesterners realized the value of this level of solidarity, they wouldn't enlist their sons in the military
to serve jewish interests overseas.
From Money Manipulation And Social Order (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1944) by Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., Professor of
Philosophy and Church History, Holy Ghost Missionary College, Dublin:
When the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, created in 1913 by Mr. Paul Warburg, a German Jew belonging to the
Banking Firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company, had been a few years in existence, in 1916 to be precise, President Woodrow Wilson
thus summed up the situation in U.S.A.: "A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit
is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. . .
We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized
world!no longer a Government by conviction and the free vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of
small groups of dominant men." From the similar testimonies quoted by Christopher Hollis in The Two Nations, let us take one.
"Behind the ostensible government," ran Roosevelt's policy, " sits enthroned an invisible government owning no allegiance and
acknowledging no responsibility to the people."
Anyone who reads knows that Israel (and its agents, where not dual citizens, the Jewish ones effectively all are, and the
goyim dupes and toadies, who are not, 'cept sometimes with marriage) have been the tail that wags the US dog for many years,
starting over a century ago, in finance, commerce, and law in NYC, in a small way the scope is ever wider and the effects more
and more blatant.
The USA is a colony of Israel, everybody is knowing it, but some lie and deny.
From my reading of history, I would placing the tipping point from 'excessive power' to 'colonial masters' at the 1967 war
of Israel and its neighbours.
Others may dating it to the end of the Third Reich, with all sorts of Jewish DPs and US Jews who had never seen combat running
around in US military and MP uniforms to persecuting and killing Germans, under the command of Eisenhauer, the Morgenthau plan,
etc.
Others may picking a different time.
It is funny that you are posting as Anonymous on this, can only mean that you are a more subtle pro-Israel troll with your
usual u-name. "So it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran comes from Israel and from American
Jews."
Certainly SOME Israelis and American Jews are involved in developing policy designed to generate hostility to the point of
potential war.
But Dick Cheney and Erik Prince, among other prominent non-Jews, bear mentioning.
Regardless, the Jew fixation here is duly noted. Boo! Goes the Joo!
"The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this
situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while
taking it good and hard?
Is this Dementia? Or arrogance? Or incompetence? Or all of them ?
Notable quotes:
"... "I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie," Trump said to laughter from the Las Vegas crowd, Reuters reported. ..."
"... "I went - 'BING!' - it was done," Trump said on Saturday, describing the swiftness of his decision. "We make fast decisions. And we make good decisions." ..."
Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas, Trump said he made the
snap decision during a discussion with his top Middle East peace advisers, including the US
ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
"I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a
lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie," Trump said to laughter
from the Las Vegas crowd, Reuters reported.
"'How do you like the idea of me recognizing exactly what we're discussing?'" said Trump,
recounting the conversation.
Trump said Friedman was shocked, "like a wonderful, beautiful baby," and asked the president
if he would actually do it.
"I went - 'BING!' - it was done," Trump said on Saturday, describing the swiftness of his
decision. "We make fast decisions. And we make good decisions."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Trump last month. At their March 25
meeting, Trump signed a proclamation officially granting US recognition of the Golan as Israeli
territory.
Golan is a border area the Tel Aviv regime seized from Syria in 1967.
It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez-if elected–sticks to her principles
or succumbs to the shekel storm headed her way.
Radical Jews of the Hasidic type are also acting thuggish on American streets, like in
Brooklyn where they committed assault, battery and kidnapping on a bicyclist.
These kind of fanatics are growing in numbers all over the USA.
If you think Trump is spineless towards Israel, wait until Israel's next choice for
POTUS, Nutty Nikky Haley steals the WH.
" it seems the usa is no longer willing to go full on.."
What is being missed by most is that we entered a new era March 2018 when Putin unveiled
his new toys. The u.s. is no longer the presumed supreme military power on the planet. Of
course they will not not admit this, but I believe we are approaching the moment when the
U.S. will be told to stand down or suffer the consequences, whether it be in Syria, Venezuela
or Ukraine.
"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought
to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed at containing
our country's development: Everything that you wanted to impede with your policies has
already happened," he said. "You have failed to contain Russia."
"No one listened to us then. So listen to us now," Putin said to thunderous applause in
the speech, which was held at a venue just outside the Kremlin and televised live
nationwide.
The pentagon has admitted it has no defense against those hypersonic missiles.
"If that happens, what kind of defense do we have against the hypersonic threat?"
Inhofe asked.
Hyten replied, "We have a very difficult -- well, our defense is our deterrent
capability. We don't have any defense that could deny theemployment of such a weapon against
us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear
capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat."
Putin has quite clearly stated the what the Russian response will be should the U.S.
resort to the use of nuclear weapons.
"Only when we know for certain – and this takes a few seconds to understand
– that Russia is being attacked we will deliver a counter strike. This would be a
reciprocal counter strike. Why do I say 'counter'? Because we will counter missiles flying
towards us by sending a missile in the direction of an aggressor. Of course, this amounts to
a global catastrophe but I would like to repeat that we cannot be the initiators of such a
catastrophe because we have no provision for a pre-emptive strike. Yes, it looks like we are
sitting on our hands and waiting until someone uses nuclear weapons against us. Well, yes,
this is what it is. But then any aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable and
they will be annihilated. And we as the victims of an aggression, we as martyrs would go to
paradise while they will simply perish because they won't even have time to repent their
sins. "
Russia is not going to allow the U.S. to destroy Venezuela, Iran, Syria or Ukraine. It makes
sense because Ru cannot allow the United States and vassals to continually put Ru in the
position of one step forward two steps backs via their destructive policies and I firmly
believe that Putin will not allow the u.s. time to develop counters to their new missiles.
That would be foolish as the u.s. has shown what they are capable of when there is no serious
threat to their military. It will be a world war and the unites states has been pushing hard
to keep its allies on a short tether.
U.S. has been stalemated in Syria, (soon to be ejected) Ukraine is about to fall back into
ru orbit after the elections next week. Venezuela has Russians on the ground. They dare not
go into Iran, because the iron dome is rusty and one direct hit by the foab about 13k
southeast of dimona is going to make a large part of that illegal settlement called israel
uninhabitable .
There is much room for miscalculation, and I believe war is an almost certainty. At the
same time, I think we need a few tens to hundreds of millions to meet their maker as the
human race is only growing more stupid by the minute and eliminating a large portion of the
race will likely extend its survival. Sad but true.
"... I MET ONE JEWISH OFFICER IN COMBAT ARMS, PERIOD!!!!! ..."
"... Compare that to their ever-presence in politics and, in particular, among the Neocons who are ceaselessly starting wars and sending non-Jews to die for them. It's disgusting. ..."
"... Here's a quote from Kissinger which neatly sums it up: "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." ..."
"... "The dislike is profoundly visceral, not rational" ..."
"... Let's see Fred.. Heard of the Neocons, near exclusively Jews, running US foreign policy to establish Israel's hegemony in the Middle East a la Oden Yinon? Who openly acknowledges running Hollywood, Freddie? How about the moral quality of what Hollywood produces. ..."
"... "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." ..."
"... Also, there's the paraphrased quote from the Godfather Movie; "men in suits and ties make better bank robbers than men with guns." ..."
I thought Mr. Reed provided a good summary of the situation. The diversity of responses
suggests that he struck a nice balance in presenting his observations.
I am a mixed-ethnicity Roman Catholic but starting with college and ever since, most of my
closest associates and many of those with whom I work and play, except for immediate family,
have been middle class Jews. I have found these individuals to be generous and kind and not
at all clannish. All regard themselves as and in fact are patriotic Americans. Many have
achieved extraordinary success and contributed to the commonweal. Many have gone out of their
way to help and comfort me in times of personal crisis.
I find my personal experiences with individual Jews hard to reconcile with the – to
me – obvious observation that, considered as a group, American Jews have had a
disastrous impact on the United States in many areas including invidious control of (1) the
news media, publishing, and entertainment industries, (2) culture generally, (3) finance, (4)
legal institutions. (5) the government generally, and (6) foreign policy in particular.
In high school I monitored a college course on democratic political theory (excluding
Rousseau's totalitarian version) and democracy's totalitarian opponents, i.e., communism and
fascism. The readings on fascism included lengthy sections from Rosenberg's "Myth of the
Twentieth Century".
At the time, I thought that even the less hyperbolic of Rosenberg's rants verged on
insanity. Now, after observing our Jewish-dominated late republic hurtling towards utter
ruination, I'm not so sure.
"What have Jews actually done to you? Hacked your bank account? Gypped you out of your house?
Shot your dog?" and the answer will likely be, "Nothing."
Simple. I served in the Marines for about 7 years as an infantry officer. I met, worked
with and greatly valued many 10s of thousands of Marines.
Infantry is combat arms as are artillery, special ops, missile forces, Marine Air,
etc.
I MET ONE JEWISH OFFICER IN COMBAT ARMS, PERIOD!!!!!
Now, they were everywhere in professional positions in our sister service, the Navy.
Doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc. But almost none in combat arms in America but well
represented in the armed forces of Israel.
Compare that to their ever-presence in politics and, in particular, among the Neocons
who are ceaselessly starting wars and sending non-Jews to die for them. It's
disgusting.
Onward Christian soldier is the new Jewish American national anthem. They're disloyal
cowards and they're a fifth column for Israel here in the U.S. If they vaporized tomorrow
we'd be better off.
Here's a quote from Kissinger which neatly sums it up: "Military men are just dumb,
stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."
No wonder to me why they were burned in the crematoriums in German during WWII.
I've long wondered how that 2% number was arrived at. Who is counted as Jewish? If it's
only those who actively practice the religion, then I'd guess 2% is about right. But how many
more are there whose ancestors were Jewish but who aren't religious (like me) or practice
Christianity (like my brother)?
Granted, the number of non-religious Jews is shrinking, as Corvinus pointed out upthread.
My brothers and I would all be considered Jewish by ancestry, but none of our children are,
because their mothers aren't.
I suspect that support for Israel and Zionism is much stronger among religious Jews than
my sort. I've never been to Israel, and you'd have to pay me a lot of money to get me to go
there. My parents' opinion was that the state of Israel should never have been created.
This article should be entitled "1000 Reasons why Fred Reed is a Complete Moron".
"The dislike is profoundly visceral, not rational"
Let's see Fred.. Heard of the Neocons, near exclusively Jews, running US foreign
policy to establish Israel's hegemony in the Middle East a la Oden Yinon? Who openly
acknowledges running Hollywood, Freddie? How about the moral quality of what Hollywood
produces.
Fred apparently slept through Bible class, but the New Testament refers to it as devouring
widow's houses.
Matthew 23:14 "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a
pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation."
Also, there's the paraphrased quote from the Godfather Movie; "men in suits and ties
make better bank robbers than men with guns."
let the US give itself back to the Indians, and then ask Israel to act the same way
Give the US back to the amerindians! Give Aus back to the abos! This does not work; it's
called 'moral relativism' and/or the 'tu quoque' [appeal to hypocrisy] fallacy.
Then ask Israel to act err, hello? Israel has been 'asked,' over 100 times by some
counts, to 'get legal' under UN resolutions. Israel is an outlaw.
Kindly consider the I/J/Z-plex's 10 steps to utter, criminal ignominy:
Herzl; coveting, expropriation (1897+)
Balfour; aid Zs, no consult Ps
Jabotinsky; colonise by force
Ben-Gurion: "we are the attackers and the Arabs own the land" [points 1 - 4 all
pre-WW2]
UNGA181: "an area shall be evacuated" (invalid + no UNSC action = not law)
Meir; $US50mio for arms + Plan Dalet&Co = premeditated, murdering to steal
aggression
When immigrants (=aliens) attack natives, it's *not* civil war but Nuremberg-class
crime
Z-terrorism; down to today; alien invaders' highest-tech vs. besieged & blockaded,
basically unarmed natives
US-support incl. UNSC vetoes; also down to 'current moment'
Z-hasbarah = mostly lies, designed and deployed to deceive
More: Post-WW2, Nuremberg trials, hanging perpetrators for murdering invasions for
Lebensraum predate King David Hotel bombing, Plan Dalet with outrages like the Deir
Yassin massacre, etc.. Similar outrages continue to be perpetrated by the illegitimate
entity, into 'the current moment.'
Lemma: At any crime-scene, there are one or more perpetrators, possibly accessories,
apologists and/or 'idle' bystanders. It is incumbent upon *all* witnesses to attempt to a)
restrain malefactors and where possible b) rescue victims from harm. *All* present and not in
active resistance to the crime attract proportional guilt.
Addendum: Any person profiting from crime also makes him/herself an accessory, like all
residents in the 'illegitimate entity,' say.
Also post WW2, we got the post-colonial era; the illegitimate entity fulfils the
'premeditated supreme international crime' criteria. RoR+R*3 NOW! QED
PS Showing 'support' for criminals adopts part guilt for those criminals' crimes via the
accessory process; why would anyone in their 'right' = correct mind do that?
If a nuclear device is "lit off" in an American or European city, it will have Israel's
fingerprints all over it. Israel is desperate to keep the American money spigot running, as
well as sabotaging the Palestinian "peace process" that the world wants it to take seriously.
In fact, if a nuclear device is "lit off" anywhere in the world, it will have come from
Israel's secret nuclear "stockpile".
The "power outage" in Atlanta was a convenient excuse for Israel to perform a logistical
"sleight of hand", as an Israeli plane was allowed to land and take off during the "power
outage" without receiving customs clearance or inspection. This is one of many Israeli
companies that possesses a "special exemption" granted by the U S government that frees it
from customs inspections. Just maybe another one of Israel's nukes was just being
pre-positioned or nuclear triggers (tritium) were being renewed, getting ready for "the big
one". As most Americans are tired of all of the foreign wars being fought for Israel's
benefit, another "incident" on American soil would be enough to galvanize the American
public, once again, (just like WTC 9-11) to support another war for Israel's benefit.
Israel's "samson option" is a real threat to "light one off" in a European or American city,
if Israel's interests are not taken seriously.
Israel refuses to abide by IAEA guidelines concerning its nukes as they are already
distributed around the world. Israel would not be able to produce all of them as most of them
are not in Israel, proper. No delivery systems are needed as Israel's nukes are already "in
place". Look for another "false flag" operation with the blame being put on Iran or Syria.
You can bet that some Iranian or Syrian passports will be found in the rubble.
Israel also threatens to detonate nuclear devices in several US cities. Talk about total
INSANITY; the so-called "Samson Option" is it.
As an aside, American "foreign aid" is prohibited from being given to any country that has
not signed the "Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty" or refuses to abide by "International
Atomic Energy Agency" (IAEA) guidelines regarding its nuclear devices. Guess what?? Israel
does not abide by EITHER and still gets the majority of American "foreign aid". This
prohibition also applies to countries that do not register their "agents of a foreign
government" with the U S State Department. Guess what?? Israel (again) with its "American
Israel Political Action Committee" (AIPAC) still gets "foreign aid" in contravention of
American law..
There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy "wonks"
infecting the U S government who hold "dual citizenship" with Israel. Such dual citizenship
must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said
foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of
American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed
to serve in any American governmental capacity.
When Netanyahu addressed both houses of congress, it was sickening to see our politicians
slobber all over themselves to PROVE that they were unconditional supporters of Israel just
who the hell do they work for? Certainly not for the interests of the American people and the
United States they should renounce their United States citizenship and be deported to
Israel
Giraldi is here-unlike in most of his regularly anti-Semitic texts- right about one crucial
thing: American Gentile cow-towing to (real or imagined) Jewish power in the US, as
illustrated by absurd Baron Cohen's episode.
However, I don't blame most of US Jews for that. Jewish ethnocentrists are to be suspect,
sure, but the main question for US gentile politicians & public figures remains: why are
you such suckers, anyway?
Between Jessica at #23, and Anon at #45 lay two paramount pieces of instruction which Phil
Giraldi ought to heed.
Ordinary Jews are no more required to register their objections over AIPAC's actions than
are Christians over the actions of their top leaders including the POTUS, domestic MIC
lobbies, the Gun Lobby and the Oil lobby; no more that is, beyond what each citizen expresses
through her vote. Individuals may choose; to go beyond, into political activism; yet
choice is the operative notion.
And no, Geokat, Power isn't listening to Phil over the sound of crickets for the simple
reason that Power does not read the UR, couldn't care less if they did, as the Review quite
rapidly degenerates to the station of an unrelenting hate rag frequented by dubious IQ
cultists, antisemites and White Nationalism apologists.
"Many in the intelligence and law enforcement communities suspect that it (Israel) had
considerable prior intelligence regarding the 9/11 plot but did not share it with
Washington."
And according to Jimmy Carter Israeli intelligence had advance information of the suicide
attack on the US barracks in Beirut in 1983 that killed 243 US servicemen (one of whom was a
member of my family). The Israelis decided to not inform US intelligence in the hope that a
major attack on US personnel would precipitate a commitment of US troops and arms into the
region. So much for our Israeli "ally".
You are, of course, correct that the US committed either genocide or near-genocide
(depending on your definition of the term) against Native Americans. However, NOW, in the
21st century, any Native American who is a US citizen is free to buy property in any part of
America and live where he chooses. Native Americans are no longer confined to reservations.
While poverty is a fact of life for many Native Americans, some tribes have profited
substantially from gambling. In Florida, Seminoles may receive upward of 40,000 a year (each
man, woman, and child) as their share of the gambling revenues. They can certainly afford to
buy property just about anywhere.
(Note that I am not denying that much discrimination and inequality still persist and that
most reservations with gambling offer very little to tribal members.)
In Israel, however, Palestinians cannot return to their home towns and buy property. They
are not free to live where they choose. Many are still confined to refugee camps. Housing
discrimination continues to persist for Israeli Arabs. Yes, the High Court ruled it illegal,
but few remedies are in place, which means the practice continues largely unabated.
If you want to use historical analogies, I believe you should use them in full.
Cohen's performance is instructive. A man shows up in Israeli uniform, claims to be a
terrorism expert or even a Mossad agent, and he gains access to powerful Americans who are
willing to do anything he says.
It is very telling about the human material on the right in America. Complete morons. Now
think about it. It was a prank, right? But I can imagine that real negotiations with Israelis
are very similar and produce similar positive outcomes for Israelis. Israelis play Americans
anyway they want on all levels of federal and local administrations. They have the same
attitude towards Americans as Jack Abramoff had towards his counterparts at Indian
reservations. Why shouldn't they? It works.
he called his Indian clients "troglodytes" and "morons" and "monkeys," "the stupidest
idiots in the land." In one particularly damning e-mail he counseled Scanlon, "The key
thing to remember with all these clients is that they are annoying, but that the
annoying losers are the only ones which have this kind of money and part with it so
quickly . So, we have to put up with this stuff."
At best American are annoying losers who part with their money quickly.
Mr. Giraldi, why do you bother with your articles? You still have illusions that you can
educate the monkeys?
It smacks of supremacism, doesn't it? It means the US must favor Zionist occupiers in West
Bank over Palestinians, the very people who are being occupied.
It means the US must favor Israel, a nation that stole uranium from US and has 300 nukes,
over Iran, a nation that passed all inspections and has no nukes.
This special relationship is a form of worship. It is never discussed rationally
WHY Israel is so crucial to us. Instead, politicians and pundits gush about it with fanatical
devotion, as if it's a sacred truth. Anyone who questions it even slightly is marginalized or
destroyed. Some might Giraldi has been too strident, but even mild criticism of Israel or
Zionism can get you banned from media or politics.
I find it odd that Jews always remind us that Old America was 'racist' because it favored
Europeans over non-whites, especially in immigration and foreign policy. After all, the US
often sided with European imperialists over non-white subjects of colonialism.
In New America, there is supposed to no Special Treatment for any group, but Jews and
Israel get it all the time. In asylum(Save Soviet Jews), in immigration, in college
admission, in foreign policy -- not just in supporting Israel at every turn but in waging
Wars for Israel and hating on any nation hated by Jews, esp Russia, Iran, and Syria.
While secular "cultural nationalism" is probably essential to the survival of the nation, far right nationalism is a
cancer.
There is a vicious spiral: Israel actions, which are essentially American-style colonization of the territory, radicalize
Palestinians, and their actions in turn radicalize Jews feeling far right nationalism.
The early Zionists were mostly atheist. Zionists quoting the Bible for legitimacy of their land claims I'd take with a pinch of
salt regarding their sincerity.
Notable quotes:
"... "No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can't be silent about this anymore. I think I was primarily compelled [to speak out] on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes. The idea that we are not supposed to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me." ..."
"... I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs. It also means that the United States is being played for a patsy by people who believe themselves to be superior in every way to Americans. ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. ..."
"... I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs ..."
"... As Kevin Macdonald would point out Middle Eastern peoples are extreme in their ethnocentricism, explaining the chronic instability in the region, but Jews are at the extreme end of that extremism. The media does a good job of covering up the hypoethnocentricism evident in Jewish life in Israel and the West. ..."
One paragraph in particular in the
article I read was highly suggestive, the claim that Ocasio-Cortez had been strongly opposed to the
Israelis' routine slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, which has by now become of such little import that it
is not even reported any more in the U.S. media. She is also allegedly a supporter of the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS), which pressures Israel to end its theft and occupation of
Palestinian land. The article expressed some surprise that anyone in New York City would dare to say
anything unpleasant about Israel and still expect to get elected.
This is what Ocasio-Cortez, who called the shooting of more than 130
Gazans a "massacre," actually
said
and
wrote
:
"No state or entity is absolved of
mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity,
as anyone else. Democrats can't be silent about this anymore. I think I was primarily compelled [to speak
out] on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if
60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes. The idea that we are not supposed
to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me."
Five hours later, when I arrived home in
Virginia I went to pull up
the article
I had read in the morning to possibly use it in a piece of my own and was somewhat surprised
to discover that the bit about Israel had been excised from the text. It was clearly yet another example of
how the media self-censors when there is anything negative to say about Israel and it underlines the
significance of the emergence of recent international media reporting
in The Guardian
and elsewhere regarding how Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson largely dictates U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East. That means that the conspiracy of silence over Israel's manipulation of
the United States government is beginning to break down and journalists have become bold enough to challenge
what occurs when pro-Israel Jews obtain real power over the political process. Adelson, for what it's worth,
wants war with Iran and has even suggested detonating a nuclear device on its soil to "send a message."
I personally would have liked to see
Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by
a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes
to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs. It also means that the United States is being
played for a patsy by people who believe themselves to be superior in every way to Americans.
The question of the relationship with
Israel comes at a time when everyone in America, so it seems, is concerned about children being separated
from their parents who have illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. The concern is
legitimate given the coarse and sometimes violent justifications coming out of the White House, but it's a
funny thing that Israeli abuse and even killing of Arab children is not met with the same opprobrium. When a
Jewish fanatic/Israel settler kills Palestinian children and is protected by his government in so doing,
where is the outrage in the U.S. media? Settlers and soldiers kill Palestinians, young and old, with
impunity and are almost never punished. They destroy their orchards and livestock to eliminate their
livelihoods to drive them out. They bulldoze their homes and villages. The Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency does none of that and is yet subject to nonstop abuse in the mainstream media, so what
about Israel?
A recent story illustrates just how
horrible the Israelis can be without any pushback whatsoever coming from Washington objecting to their
behavior. As the United States is the only force that can in any way compel Israel to come to its senses and
chooses not to do so, that makes U.S. policymakers and by extension the American people complicit in
Israel's crimes.
The particularly horrible
recent account
that I am referring to describes how fanatical Jewish settlers burned alive a Palestinian
family on the West Bank, including a baby, and then celebrated the deaths while taunting the victims'
surviving family when they subsequently appeared in court. The story was covered in Israel and Europe but
insofar as I could determine did not appear in any detail in the U.S. mainstream media.
Israeli Jewish settlers carried out
their shameful deed outside a court in the city of Lod,
chanting
"'Ali was burned, where is Ali? There is no Ali. Ali is burned. On the fire. Ali is on the
grill!" referring to the 18-month old baby Ali Dawabsheh, who was
burnt alive
in 2015 by Jewish settlers hurling Molotov cocktails into a house in the West Bank town of
Duma. Ali's mother Riham and father Saad also died of their burns and were included in the chanting "Where
is Ali? Where is Riham? Where is Saad? It's too bad Ahmed didn't burn as well." Five year-old Ahmed, who
alone survived the attack with severe burns, will have scars for the rest of his life.
The settlers were taunting Ali's
grandfather Hussein Dawabsheh, who accompanied Ahmed, at a preliminary hearing where the court
indicted
a man who confessed to the murders and a minor who acted as an accomplice. A video of the
chanting shows Israeli policemen standing by and doing nothing. The court appearance also revealed that
there have been another Molotov cocktail attack by settlers on another Dawabsheh family house in May that
may have been an attempt to silence testimony relating to the first attack. Fortunately, the family managed
to escape.
And by all accounts this outrage was
not the first incident in which the burning of the Palestinian baby was celebrated. A December 15
th
wedding video
showed
settlers engaged in an uproarious party that featured dances with Molotov cocktails and waving
knives and guns. A photo of baby Ali was on display and was repeatedly stabbed. A year later, 13 people from
what became known as the "murder wedding" were
indicted
for incitement to terrorism, but as of today no one has actually been punished. Israelis who
kill Arabs are rarely indicted or tried. If it is a soldier or policeman that is involved, which occurs all
too often, the penalty is frequently either nothing at all a slap on the wrist. Indeed, the snipers who
fired on Gazans recently were actually ordered to shoot the unarmed civilians and directed to take out
anyone who appeared to be a "leader," which included medical personnel.
The Trump Administration could, of
course, stop the Israeli brutality if it chooses to do so, but it does not think Benjamin Netanyahu's crimes
against humanity are on the agenda. Nor did Clinton, Bush and Obama dare to confront the power of Israel's
lobby, though Obama tried a little pushback in a feeble way.
Someone in Washington should be asking
why the United States should be fighting unnecessary wars and becoming an international pariah defending a
country and people that believe they are "chosen" by God? One can only hope that the shift in perceptions on
the Middle East by liberal Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez has some legs and will lead to some real change in
U.S. foreign policy. To succeed the liberal Democrats will need to push against some formidable obstacles
within their own party, most notably the Clinton wing and people like Senator Chuck Schumer, Minority leader
in the Senate, who describes himself as Israel's "shomer" or defender in the Upper House. Perhaps someone on
the
New York Times
editorial board should publicly suggest to Schumer that he go and run for office
in Israel since he seems to prefer it to the country that has made him rich and powerful. But of course, the
Times
and all the other mainstream media, which is responsible for what we are not allowed to know
about Israel and its American mouthpieces, will never entertain that suggestion or anything like it.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is
Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation
that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
[email protected].
I personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. Israel is a place where
conventional morality has been replaced by a theocratically and culturally driven sense of entitlement which
has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of inferior Christian and Muslim Arabs
Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country. The two settlers guilty of arson
are disgusting zealots. But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.
The criticism of Israel in Western media is disproportionately
extremely
high given the much higher
rates of this type of thing in the majority of the rest of the world.
As for sniping the leaders of a huge mob trying to invade your country/storm your borders, doesn't that seem
like the most humane way to
deal
with it? What does Giraldi suggest they do?
I suppose Western anti-Semites see Western countries going down because they are unable to deal with this
type of thing and get jealous and want to drag Israel down with them. I prefer that America follow the example
of Matteo Salvini. Giraldi prefers 'abolish borders' Cortez. Indeed, he'd like her to "go a lot farther".
Washington is not spineless. Washington is bought and paid for. In America, the general rule is that money
rules, and the people (and their political representatives!) follow.
" I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and
killed in the West Virginia teachers' strikes."
Only 60? We really have become a nation of p
*****
s. If we're going to be an empire that
pushes the rest of the world around, we need to act like one. The Byzantine General Belisaurius, under
Justinian I, put down the Nika riots by killing as many as 30,000 people, and the Byzantine empire went on for
another 900 years. If we dither over 60 people, we won't last another 50 years.
As for the Israelis, they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction, but given the number of nukes they
are reputed to have and the global reach they seem to have, they are going to take the rest of us with them if
the US simply walks away from them and leaves them on their own.
As Kevin Macdonald would point out Middle Eastern peoples are extreme in their ethnocentricism, explaining
the chronic instability in the region, but Jews are at the extreme end of that extremism. The media does a good
job of covering up the hypoethnocentricism evident in Jewish life in Israel and the West.
That crazed looking group of young fanatical Zionists taunting a Palestinian mother and child is a classic. ZOG
has got to be defeated!
However , speaking of that 'Latina' who beat a political hack in Queens and the Bronx, she's already started to
edit some of her internet posts. She knows who rules and will get in line with the 'mainstream' Zionist party
line. She's also an 'open borders' radical which doesn't sit well with the likes of me and most Americans.
She's also a 'Bronx girl' by way of suburban Westchester county, lol. As phony as phony gets.
The verse in question was specifically regarding the
church
in Jerusalem. In other words, financial help
by gentile believers for Jewish followers of Jesus who were impoverished at that time.
It is not to be
interpreted as a general charity for Jews, most of whom are hostile to Christianity both then and today. Bible
verses have to be read within the context of the surrounding text.
Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country.
Better yet to be a Jewish minority in any place but Israel.
It's weird how the vast majority of Jews themselves can't be persuaded into moving to Israel, but would
rather be a minority elsewhere. Why is that so? Not so great a place as you purport?
The total number of people who hold or are eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return is
estimated at around 23 million, of which 6.6 million were living in Israel as of 2015. wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country
Well, where do the people get their ideas anyway? The mass media.
In Germany there was recently a bad case of antisemitism which was reported widely in the media. A large
newspaper had a long article telling how a Jewish pupil in an elite school in Berlin was harassed or bullyed
for months and that the school didn't do enough to protect him. It's a school to which the sons of ambassators,
of diplomatic personal and of the international high class community in Berlin go. The article brought many
details about the case: how they told the pupil that Ausschwitz wasn't far away (or something similar) and so
on. The case even came in the television news of the main German channel (I only watched the late news, but I
think that the case also came in the absolutely main news of German television at 8 o'clock P.M.). The media
spoke of "antisemitism in Berlin." A pupil was harassed and told a few unpleasant things in a school in Berlin
and this came in the main tv news of the country! The most important weekly magazine had also an article about
"antisemitism in Berlin". At the end of the long article they told something that the other midia hadn't told.
The pupil had been harassed because he favoured the Palestinians! The colleagues who bullyed him were probably
American Jews.
but it's a funny thing that Israeli abuse and even killing of Arab children is not met with the same
opprobrium.
Also the intentional starving of children in Yemen. And the huge pile of dead babies in Iraq, Libya and
Syria. All of them murdered by Imperial Washington.
I much prefer President Trump to any of the candidates he defeated in the primaries and general election.
But I regret that he is a Jew.
Newly popular Democratic politician hero and nominee for a seat in the U.S. Congress Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez used to have these words on her website:
A Peace Economy
"Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States has entangled itself in war and occupation
throughout the Middle East and North Africa. As of 2018, we are currently involved in military action in
Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. According to the Constitution, the right to
declare war belongs to the Legislative body, not the President. Yet, most of these acts of aggression have
never once been voted on by Congress. Alex believes that we must end the forever war by bringing our troops
home and ending the air strikes and bombings that perpetuate the cycle of terrorism and occupation
throughout the world."
Now they're gone. Asked about it on Twitter, she replied:
"Hey! Looking into this. Nothing malicious! Site is supporter-run so things happen -we'll get to the
bottom of it."
It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez will/can maintain her position on Israeli crimes. Public figures
have a long history of backpedaling after getting the riot act read to them from the hebrew masters.
"The two settlers guilty of arson are disgusting zealots."
Correction. They're unrepentant
murderers, empowered by disgusting zealots tolerated (if not pampered) by Likud.
"But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on"
The 'they do it too' defense? So what? How many F-35s is the US giving Iraq, Syria, Iran?
Why should Likud conduct be excused by comparing it to those Israel routinely condemns?
"As for sniping the leaders of a huge mob trying to invade your country/storm your borders, doesn't
that seem like the most humane way to deal with it?"
Does "sniping" mean shooting/killing/maiming unarmed people from a safe distance? Without risk to the
sniper?
That's "more humane" than water-cannon, tear gas, and other non-lethal restraint? For the sniper, perhaps,
but for the victim?
Sounds like the same rationalization murderers used at Babi-Yar.
"The criticism of Israel in Western media is disproportionately extremely high given the much higher
rates of this type of thing in the majority of the rest of the world."
American media is disproportionately silent in criticism of Likud compared with Israeli media. Why?
"I suppose Western anti-Semites see Western countries going down because they are unable to deal with
this type of thing and get jealous and want to drag Israel down with them."
In other words, Trump should use snipers and live fire on illegal immigrants crossing borders? Wow!
These people used to be called Judeonazis by Hebrew University chemistry professor Israel Shahak and by the
noted "radio rabbi", Rabbi Yeshayahu Leibowitz. Both predicted that the occupation would be Israel's downfall.
Likely it is the downfall of the Palestinian people and possibly the rest of us. (Note that Israel has nuclear
weapons and its policy of "nishtagea" – pulling down the temple around Sampson-type threat – is meant to
guarantee its hegemony in the region. That suits the US down to the ground, where the oil is.
What are we to expect from a criminal state, founded by international terrorists like Ben Gurion, Begin,
Yitzakh Shamir, etc.?
If it had been Palestinian terrorists who had blown up the King David Hotel, murdered Lord Moyne and Count
Folke Bernadotte, and Jewish women and children in Deir Yassin, you would see monuments to these victims all
over the western world, Hollywood films by the score, and the kvetching from the usual suspects would only have
been amplified over time. If it had been Palestinian terrorists who concocted the Lavon Affair false flag plan,
or Palestinian naval and air forces which attacked an American naval vessel in broad daylight, flying a large
American flag and attempted to murder the entire crew, likewise. There would be memorials in Arlington, and all
over the U.S., to the brave crew members and their captain, whose actions saved the vessel. Instead all we get
are crickets chirping.
For while the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national consciousness of the
Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim.
It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there;
all they want is a central organization for their international world swindle, endowed with its own
sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a
university for budding crooks.
How prescient and prophetic these words were, written decades before the founding of the criminal entity in
Palestine! Israel does not serve as a Jewish homeland, it serves as a base of criminal operations, a weapons
depot, and a sanctuary for international fugitives from justice
Now that the Israeli-backed head choppers and liver eaters have been defeated, Syria has returned to the the
multi-confessional, pluralistic paradise it always was when compared with the abomination West of the Jordan
River. Before the establishment of the Zionist state, Jews as well as Christians were welcome in Arab states.
Even after 1948, Sephardim did not immediately flock to Israel.
When Ashkenazi Zionists discovered they had created a labor shortage by ethnically cleansing Palestinians,
they embarked on a propaganda and false flag campaign to get Sephardim to migrate to Israel, where many of
those well-educated and formerly wealthy Jews were discriminated against and forced to take menial jobs. The
false flags designed specifically to stampede Jews out of Iraq are well documented, so don't lie about it,
Tyrion. Jews were among the wealthiest of Iraqis, and had little organic reason to emigrate. The propaganda of
Arab governments expelling the Sephardim is largely false.
The racist, European (white) supremacist narrative (what Edward Said called "Orientalism") that Arabs and
Muslims are always killing each other and Europe must intervene for humanitarian reasons is actively cultivated
by Israel in order to justify its own ethno-supremacist society. That's why Israel encourages Wahhabi terrorism
emanating from the Gulf.
Better to be a minority in Israel than any other Middle Eastern country. The two settlers guilty of arson
are disgusting zealots. But their type is exponentially more common in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.
The minority groups in Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, would laugh at you and the Jew of Iran prefer Iran to
Israel. These sorts of lunatics, without Israeli, West interference, are rare in Iraq, Syria, Iran and so on.
Israel is dominated by disgusting zealots. Israel is a zealot state of zealots.
Why I am all for wire tapping and all other spying by the CIA and FBI ...get all the uber Jews
and all the politicians and make it public.
Would be delighted if all the news channels did nothing but play the tapes on the daily news.
Following is a transcript of the Oct. 22, 1992 conversation with President David Steiner
of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recorded without his knowledge by New
York businessman Haim (Harry) Katz. Its existence was first revealed to the Washington Times
and its release triggered Steiner's resignation.
(sample)
HK: Let me tell you, I was planning, I was planning to, to . . . Inouye, by the way, is in
real trouble? He's been there forever. . .
DS: Yeah! Well, we might lose him. There's been such a sea change, such trouble this year, I
can't believe all our friends that are in trouble. Because there's an anti-incumbency mood,
and foreign aid has not been popular. You know what I got for, I met with [U.S. Secretary
of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know
they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear . .
.
HK: Right.
DS: Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in
foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people
don't even know about .
HK: Such as?
DS: $700 million in military draw-down, from equipment that the United States Army's going
to give to Israel; $200 million the U.S. government is going to preposition materials in
Israel, which Israel can draw upon; put them in the global warning protection system; so when
if there's a missile fired, they'll get the same advanced notification that the U.S., is
notified, joint military exercises -- I've got a whole shopping list of things .
By the "reasoning" of the likes of Noam Chomsky, for the countries in which U.S.
presidents meddled, the default setting was a state of affairs that tended towards long-term
stability, peace and prosperity.
@wayfarer Good share wayfarer. January 10, 2014 *500* Years of History Shows that Mass
Spying Is Always Aimed at Crushing Dissent *It's Never to Protect Us From Bad Guys*
No matter which government conducts mass surveillance, they also do it to crush dissent,
and then give a false rationale for why they're doing it.
This is a pretty accurate description of "Myth about the USA" which is very common in xUSSR area too.
Notable quotes:
"... The farther you are from the US, the more mythical it becomes. Here in Ea Kly, most people have never been to Saigon, much less California, New York or Las Vegas, so their faith in the US can become childishly fanatical. This week, I met three brothers who still regret not jumping on a boat to escape, forty years ago. Every Vietnamese they know who ended up in the US had become fabulously rich, they insisted, and they cited a man who returned to build a road for his village as a typical example. ..."
"... A man in his 40's asked me if wife swapping is common in the US. As evidenced by every movie and music video, America is this insanely sexed up place where everybody is always jumping into everybody else's bed, not the land of widespread porn addiction, compulsive masturbators, bitter divorcees, smart phone exhibitionism, paid cuddlers and the never married growing old alone. ..."
"... A woman told me that she had a friend in the US who was making "only" $2,400 a month, "How can you live on so little?" "Many Americans make less than that," I answered. "I sure did most of my time there." ..."
"... She looked amused. She had no idea most Americans have to pay around 20% of their incomes on taxes, and that housing and transportation costs eat up half of their paychecks. ..."
"... As New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles become covered with feces from homeless Americans, American colonies will be set up not just on Mars, but Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in whatever order, for they're all as near as Hollywood, or your computer, assuming you'll still have one. ..."
America's most enduring export has been its image. Self-infatuated, it seduces everyone into
worshipping its self-portrait. In 1855, Walt Whitman wrote, "The United States themselves are
essentially the greatest poem," then set out to define this "greatest poem" to the rest of the
world, a monumental achievement. In 2005, Harold Pinter said, "I put to you that the United
States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and
ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most
saleable commodity is self-love. It's a winner."
The farther you are from the US, the more mythical it becomes. Here in Ea Kly, most people
have never been to Saigon, much less California, New York or Las Vegas, so their faith in the
US can become childishly fanatical. This week, I met three brothers who still regret not
jumping on a boat to escape, forty years ago. Every Vietnamese they know who ended up in the US
had become fabulously rich, they insisted, and they cited a man who returned to build a road
for his village as a typical example.
These aborted
boat people looked at me with scorn when I told them there are plenty of poor Americans,
with many in such despair they drug themselves to death, and life in the US is often a very
lonely experience, even for the native-born, with roots going back generations. I was
besmirching these naïfs' religion.
A man in his 40's asked me if wife swapping is common in the US. As evidenced by every movie
and music video, America is this insanely sexed up place where everybody is always jumping into
everybody else's bed, not the land of widespread porn addiction, compulsive masturbators,
bitter divorcees, smart phone exhibitionism, paid cuddlers and the never married growing old
alone.
A woman told me that she had a friend in the US who was making "only" $2,400 a month, "How
can you live on so little?" "Many Americans make less than that," I answered. "I sure did most of my time there."
She looked amused. She had no idea most Americans have to pay around 20% of their incomes on
taxes, and that housing and transportation costs eat up half of their paychecks.
Most people in Ea Kly have never even seen an American. In the next town, Krong Buk, there's
a white resident, the only one in a 30 mile radius. Most of his neighbors know him as simply
ông Tây, Mr. Westerner, though some do call by his first name, Peter.
A man said to Peter, "Merci, madame," the only Western phrase he knew.
Most have no idea that Peter is actually
Swiss
, and not American, but he's rich enough, by local standards, so he's more or less an
American.
White people are rich, live in fabulous countries, travel all over and can suddenly show up
even in Krong Buk to buy a nice piece of land by the lake, build an elegant house, with a guest
bungalow next to it. Whereas the locals only
fish
in this lake ,
the white man swims daily, for he knows how to enjoy life.
The apex of whiteness, though, is the United States of America, a country that didn't just
drop seven million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, as well as 20 million gallons
of herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, but sent twelve tall, clean cut and good intentioned white
men to the moon, a transcendental feat that's still unequaled after half a century, and it's a
safe bet that neither the Russians, Chinese nor anyone else will be able to accomplish this for
a while, maybe ever. Of course, Americans can return to the moon tomorrow if they want to, but
they're already looking way beyond it.
As New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles become
covered with feces from homeless Americans, American colonies will be set up not just on Mars,
but Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in whatever order, for they're all as
near as Hollywood, or your computer, assuming you'll still have one.
Trump administration still is playing old color revolution game: accusing somebody of corruption is the best way to endure the regime
change.
Unfortunately for them the game is well known now, and as such is less effective.
It might succeed this time though, as Venezuela is their backyard, so to speak. But after Libya there will be a fight and it it
will cost the USA. .
Looks like they are now trying to bribe China.
Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo and Piñera also generally discussed the U.S.-China trade war and Beijing's "Belt and Road" initiative, with Pompeo suggesting he was optimistic about solving the tariff war with China. But the focus remained finding a US-desired outcome to the Venezuela crisis. ..."
Speaking Friday in Chile upon the start of his three-day South American tour, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called out China
and Russia for spreading "disorder" in Latin America through failing investment projects that only fuel corruption and undermine
democracy , especially in places like Venezuela.
According to
Bloomberg , Pompeo specifically listed a failing dam project in Ecuador, police advisory programs in Nicaragua, and Chinese loans
to the Maduro government, which goes further back to Chavez.
Pompeo asserted Chinese loans in Latin America "often injects corrosive capital into the economic bloodstream, giving life to
corruption, and eroding good governance." Both Beijing and Moscow have ultimately spread their economic tentacles into the region
to "spread disorder," he added.
In what appears an effort to sustain momentum toward pressuring regime change in Caracas, America's highest diplomat met Chilean
President Sebastian Pinera earlier Friday, and will hit Paraguay, Peru next, and finally on Sunday will travel to a Colombian town
on the border with Venezuela.
Pompeo and Piñera also generally discussed the U.S.-China trade war and Beijing's "Belt and Road" initiative, with Pompeo
suggesting he was optimistic about solving the tariff war with China. But the focus remained finding a US-desired outcome to the
Venezuela crisis.
As part of the broader pressure campaign on Maduro, Pompeo said the U.S. has revoked visas for 718 people and sanctioned over
150 individuals and entities. On Friday, the U.S. sanctioned four companies it says transport much of the 50,000 barrels of oil
that Venezuela provides to Cuba each day.
That happened often when a second rate provincial lawyer became the Secretary of State. At least Kerry knows French. Pompeo
knows absolution nothing and is capable only of repeating old cliché.
Today's special word is: Projection
Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!. ..."
"... Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture. ..."
Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to
shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!.
I luv my country, but I hate my government.
beemasters
This must have been the most transparently crooked administration ever in the US history! Ain't that the pot calling the
kettle black!
2willies
Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture.
Idaho potato head
At some point even the most deluded sheep has got to realize he is being lied to. Or is it just as in the Matrix, there is
an age limit as to when a mind can be awoken.
After reading CYMS1 below I retract that question.
The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they
hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort.
Why not make every
day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year
instead?
So true.
If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in
Somalia for a day.
This will at least wake up those morons at places like Breitbart that Trump is nothing more
than a neocon swine. I mean how much more evidence do they need to see that he is invite the
world, invade the world. On top of that mass censorship being unleashed under Trump, how can
anyone still be conned into supporting him.
This is why Anglo-Saxon propaganda is so very effective. They have freedom of speech,
see? Though of course saying politically incorrect things might socially kill you, so it's
understood you won't do that. You will say PC (including anti-Russian, etc.) platitudes
always. So people will not even notice PC propaganda, like fish don't notice they're wet.
And when trying to convince a normie, you have to break a very long, almost infinite chain
of assumptions, which you won't know how to do.
Take a look at the career of Charles Austin Beard, for example.
He was one of the single most highly-regarded historians in America; his contributions to
the field were well-known and massively important. But even he could not break through the
pillars of propaganda when he published his book about the folly of Franklin Roosevelt's
foreign policy. The "court historians" like Samuel Eliot Morison and Schlesinger, et al,
blackballed his work and dismissed it with the most flippant arrogance and lack of care for
detail. The major newspapers and periodicals followed suit. Overnight he became all but a
pariah. Only a few regional newspapers were willing to treat his work with serious care. To
his credit, Beard had anticipated this reaction, but published his works anyway.
After World War 1, revisionism became par for the course in America – the vast
majority of historians, journalists, together with the public as a whole, came to agree that
America's entry into that conflict had been a selfish mistake. But during and after World War
Two, what you call "Anglo-Saxon propaganda" tightened up to a remarkably successful degree,
and to this day the pro-interventionist myth of the "great crusade" is all but unimpeachable
among the masses. In fact, the anti-revisionists, the "court historians," even managed to
defeat the old inter-war consensus about World War One, so that even it is now regarded as an
idealistic crusade for democracy! Very remarkable stuff, though sad!
I would probably do the same thing in Putin's situation. At a very basic level you simply
cannot trust people like Assange. Giving refuge to a spy is one thing; you're not going to
let him near any state secrets so it's not like he could betray you even if he wanted to (and
it's easy to keep an eye on him). For somebody like Assange there's the constant threat that
he could turn against you: acquire damaging information and use it as leverage, or simply
release it for the sake of his own ego or murky ideals. Too much potential for embarrassment.
Snowden was closer in spirit to a spy imo; Assange is more like bin Laden or a mafia boss,
the head of a shadowy international organization with significant reach and resources.
It's sort of like the French Foreign Legion: they take a dim view of British and American
recruits and generally won't let them join unless they speak French or have prior military
experience. The reason is psychological unsuitability: no sensible British or American person
interested in a military career would volunteer to be a mercenary for a foreign country over
serving in his own country's well-funded armed forces. Romantics and escapists are inherently
flaky and unreliable people. That's also why Brazilians are regarded as the best Legion
soldiers: they just do it to get EU citizenship
Ecuador rented a house opposite their main offices in Knightsbridge, and had three agents
in the house to permanently monitor Assange on cameras (for a cost of $1 million a year).
So they might be more intelligent than we think?
At the same time, Ecuador's politicians had problems justifying the costs of this to their
media.
Perhaps it seems more like this was perceived by Ecuador, as an intelligence operation, to
monitor Assange, and get intelligence information they could would use as leverage with the
Americans.
Today, the Ecuadorian interior minister is suddenly boasting about how they monitored and
have knowledge about two hackers who worked with Assange.
@reiner Tor Scotland yard
tried to play down their own costs of hanging outside the Ecuadorian embassy, which in 2015
was already estimated to be well over £10m over the prior three years, by saying that a
lot of that cost was money they would have spent on policing anyway: Tell that to the rapidly
increasing numbers of families of murder victims in the Capital. Oops, careful about saying
that in the UK, as the police there will pick you up for a thought-crime.
Elites around the globe protect each other more than they protect the interests of non-elites
in their own nations and any who side with non-elites in any non-trivial way, so it makes
sense that Latin American elites side with US elites who favor the mass immigration that has
driven down wages for 40 years and the mass exportation of US jobs to Latin American since it
1) boosts the profits of American elites and 2) relieves pressure on Latin American elites.
Ecuador seemed to get fed up with Assange – cutting him off from the world, badmouthing
him in MSM, etc – early 2018 when he was mostly tweeting about Catalonia. Spain is
supposedly Ecuador's closest partner in Europe. The timing could've been coincidental but
probably not.
@neutral He was always
scum but he was still the better choice than Hillary Clinton. He may still be better than his
opponent in 2020. That's how bad things are at the centre of the American empire.
Trump had the potential to be better than he is now but Washington has pushed his back
against the wall and his shitty character has thus shown itself in full. He could have been a
better President under different circumstances; even with these same character flaws.
@neutral Trump was and
still is the chaos candidate. When a better option than sabotage presents itself, then Trump
will become the second best choice.
Many, if not most, people knew he was the sabotage candidate when they supported him.
Hillary was understood to be worse because she'd maintain and even strengthen a bad system
while Trump would bugger it up.
@Thorfinnsson The Deep
State might already be beyond repair. So perhaps, come the Revolution, new, revolutionary
state organs will need to be set up in a clean break with the obscurantist blank slatist
regime. The state secrets of these new, revolutionary organs should be protected by any means
necessary. But then we'll have free countries for ourselves.
Until then, we don't need to protect the secrets of the oppressive obscurantist
regime.
Disagree here, he's energised the left to a degree that wouldn't have happened had he not
been elected and his policies are now no different to what Clinton's would have been. In
American politics, what you say appears to matter much more than what you do, so we've now
got the perfect storm of someone who talks like a right wing populist, and the resulting
backlash, but nothing to show for it. I remember ak mentioning that the only saving grace of
his administration being that it had alienated allies, but even that hasnt materialised. The
guy is a conman and a sellout, but he's very clearly noticed the fact that European
governments will unquestionably obey the US, so it's pointless to treat them with any respect
whatsoever: THATs the one and only positive thing I can say about him. Still not looking
forward to his successor.
@The
Alarmist Trump said he liked Wikileaks at that time, because they released some
embarrassing emails about Hilary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential election.
If they released embarrassing emails about Trump, he would have said the opposite.
Trump will not have any specific principles that would make him support asylum for
leakers, or generalized protection for dissidents, unless it might specifically be explained
that it would help him in some way (and unless there are emails to leak about his opponent in
2020, how will it help him?).
@reiner Tor But Trump
would say anything that would get him elected, and he would do many of these things. But, as
plutocrat surrounded by plutocrats, he'll never open the market for housing (allow easier
re-zoning), or transportation (dismantle the dealership racket), or hospitals / doctors.
Yeah, apparently he lacks the levers to reduce housing costs, but he can always fix, or
promise to fix, something about Assange, or about Christian-Obamacare conflicts –
despite them being equally remote from his mandate. Watch the idiotic boomers drooling all
over unz.com about Trump's "efforts" to fix immigration.
These being the highest expenses of an American, I can see who is the idiot here.
@simple_pseudonymic_handle
The most obvious parallel was the UK's refusal to extradite Gary McKinnon to the US.
McKinnon gained access to 97 US military and NASA networks between early 2001 and 2002. he
was also very very shit at covering his tracks.
The US sought extradition; McKinnon's lawyers challenged it on a bunch of grounds;
McKinnon won.
Part of the range of stuff that got him off was the refusal of the US to make guarantees
that he would not be housed in a SuperMax and that he would not be placed in solitary
confinement, That, plus McKinnon's "Asperger's" (diagnosed after he was arrested), was
enough for the system to tell the US government to pound sand.
I as among the people who warned JA not to go to the UK when he was leaving Sweden. (I've
known the guy as a nodding acquaintance since the 1980s and WANK; I'm in he & Suelette's
book, under a different pseudonym).
He was warned against one of the classic blunders.
The first two classic blunders are known to all –
① never start a land war in Asia , and
② never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line .
The third is less well-known:
③ when you've been honeypotted, DO NOT SEEK REFUGE ON A FUCKING ISLAND
.
When he ignored us, he was dropped from several DMSes.
For a very smart bloke, his judgement was always suspect: he allowed a fucking nappy like
Dumb Shitberg (Domscheit-Berg) inside his circle of confidants.
This whole damn country is a pile of lies. I don't know how you guys keep your sanity.
I think America may crack in the next ten years.
I live in a "minority-majority" area. It is all bullshit.
Hey, let's take all the worlds nations, races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, lifestyles,
sexual orientations, etc and stick them in one place!
On top of this we have a government that doesn't listen, ruled by special interest group.
My god, how long America?
I can't stand this place anymore.
It's going to be very interesting to see the next 10 years. The country is cracking up.
For my part, I'm learning a foreign language right now, it will come in handy when I have
enough money to bail.
Gentleman, there is nothing here worth left of preserving, only rot.
I miss a consideration, that wikileaks could be a Mossad/Unit8200 operation.
If I look at the wikileak's site, menu "partners", all is clear to me, "Der Spiegel" and
truth are mutually exclusive.
Wikileaks "revealed" an EU plan to use military against the poor human traffickers and
Israeli NGOs who bring in these Africans and "refugees". Fascinating, they have once in their
evil life a good plan in Brussels, and wikileaks shoots against it.
I think the question for Russian asylum is the same question why Russia did not spell the
beans on 911.
@Meimou The leader of
progressives, the dual-loyalty opportunist and CIA stooge Schumer:
Chuck Schumer
@SenSchumer
Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his
meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government.
@Hyperborean Trumpstein
and his sleazy family keep delivering for the vile jooies and the JudenPresse, JudenTV, and
JudenNet will make sure he gets reelected especially if he attacks Iran. Where is Titus now
that we need him?
Not to mention more than a few paedo-grooming ring members who are still awaiting
deportation
How convenient these immigrants are when a good smokescreen is needed.
And how about a paedophile UK Prime Minister never investigated ?
"Sir Edward Heath WAS a paedophile, says police chief: Astonishing claim is made
that the former PM is guilty of vile crimes 'covered up by the Establishment'"
I think most people, (especially Russians), can relate to this sentiment. The average Ruski
is incredibly hard on their own country. But it's like how you can make fun of your siblings,
but when someone else does you knock their teeth in. I'd like to say I always respected this,
but it's not true. I was more brazen in my earlier days of travel, and hypocritically
complained about Japan with the very Muslim I referred to earlier. It's not just me, though. Go
on any expat forum, and it's full of gripes.
The first thing ESL teachers talk about when they meet is how much they miss peanut butter
or how they hate the pollution or whatever. And yet, they don't go home. The same is true of
Mexican immigrants in America and Africans in Europe, if you ever take the time to chat with
them. (Which is part of what made me more rightwing and nationalist.) The vast majority who
don't go home are economic migrants. Economic in terms of balancing the supply & demand of
money, or balancing sexual market value.
... ... ...
What is some advice you have for Americans who also want to get out?
YOU ARE INCREDIBLY LUCKY!!!
It really can't be overstated how blessed you are to have American citizenship. You can be
in tons of debt, have zero dollars in the bank, and several misdemeanors, and you'll still get
an automatic 90 day visa on arrival. Even with a one way plane ticket. This is unheard of and
will likely not be the case in the near future if current demographic trends continue. So seize
the day!
Seriously. In these past 8 years, I've met so many wealthy, well educated, amazing
[Russian] people who have to jump through so many hoops and sacrifice so much for the mere
chance of a USA tourist visa. If you only knew
... ... ...
Or "life happens" and you'll need to pay for the broken water heater or flat tire. So just
run away while you still can. The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for
80% of the year in a job they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized
luxury resort. Why not make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by
moving somewhere for a year instead? In my experience, the most expensive part of travel is the
plane ticket. So be smart and just get a one way ticket and find a job once you get there.
have peace of mind knowing the American Embassy will take care of your spoiled ass.
Pfft. What an idiot! The State Dept employees at my local embassy wouldn't piss on me if I
was on fire – mostly because they would spend half the day researching what the proper
protocol is, and if wasn't in the book(which is most often the case) their un-thinking ass
wouldn't know whether to shit or wind their watch.
If you needed a big headed egotistical asshole for whatever reason you'd be in the right
place.
One of the more endearing compliments I ever received was from an old Russian girlfriend, who
told her friends, "He's one of the good ones he has a Russian soul." She and her friends were
just as described above, generous to a fault despite what was an obvious wealth gap.
But the funniest thing she ever did was to use her bare hand to kill a cock-roach that had
dared to cross our table at a restaurant.
Should have married that girl. Then again, I might have dodged the Babooshka bomb.
Interestingly enough, she had no desire to ever go to the US, so that was not a part of the
calculus.
Have some sympathy for our poor consular officers abroad they spend far too much time face
to face with the wretched refuse of the world trying to scam their way into the US.
The thing is, I don't want a "benevolent dictatorship" like Singapore or Russia. I want
to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended.
Pick a number: everybody wants to "live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America
intended," probably even the Founding Fathers themselves did. But is seems that all our
governments just end up being dictatorships sooner or later anyway; so that being the case, I
would prefer a sane dictatorship (like Russia or Singapore) to an insane one, which is what
we Americans have at the moment.
The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job
they hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort. Why not
make every day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for
a year instead?
So true.
If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in
Somalia for a day.
This is a pretty accurate description of "Myth about the USA" which is very common in xUSSR area too.
Notable quotes:
"... The farther you are from the US, the more mythical it becomes. Here in Ea Kly, most people have never been to Saigon, much less California, New York or Las Vegas, so their faith in the US can become childishly fanatical. This week, I met three brothers who still regret not jumping on a boat to escape, forty years ago. Every Vietnamese they know who ended up in the US had become fabulously rich, they insisted, and they cited a man who returned to build a road for his village as a typical example. ..."
"... A man in his 40's asked me if wife swapping is common in the US. As evidenced by every movie and music video, America is this insanely sexed up place where everybody is always jumping into everybody else's bed, not the land of widespread porn addiction, compulsive masturbators, bitter divorcees, smart phone exhibitionism, paid cuddlers and the never married growing old alone. ..."
"... A woman told me that she had a friend in the US who was making "only" $2,400 a month, "How can you live on so little?" "Many Americans make less than that," I answered. "I sure did most of my time there." ..."
"... She looked amused. She had no idea most Americans have to pay around 20% of their incomes on taxes, and that housing and transportation costs eat up half of their paychecks. ..."
"... As New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles become covered with feces from homeless Americans, American colonies will be set up not just on Mars, but Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in whatever order, for they're all as near as Hollywood, or your computer, assuming you'll still have one. ..."
America's most enduring export has been its image. Self-infatuated, it seduces everyone into
worshipping its self-portrait. In 1855, Walt Whitman wrote, "The United States themselves are
essentially the greatest poem," then set out to define this "greatest poem" to the rest of the
world, a monumental achievement. In 2005, Harold Pinter said, "I put to you that the United
States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and
ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most
saleable commodity is self-love. It's a winner."
The farther you are from the US, the more mythical it becomes. Here in Ea Kly, most people
have never been to Saigon, much less California, New York or Las Vegas, so their faith in the
US can become childishly fanatical. This week, I met three brothers who still regret not
jumping on a boat to escape, forty years ago. Every Vietnamese they know who ended up in the US
had become fabulously rich, they insisted, and they cited a man who returned to build a road
for his village as a typical example.
These aborted
boat people looked at me with scorn when I told them there are plenty of poor Americans,
with many in such despair they drug themselves to death, and life in the US is often a very
lonely experience, even for the native-born, with roots going back generations. I was
besmirching these naïfs' religion.
A man in his 40's asked me if wife swapping is common in the US. As evidenced by every movie
and music video, America is this insanely sexed up place where everybody is always jumping into
everybody else's bed, not the land of widespread porn addiction, compulsive masturbators,
bitter divorcees, smart phone exhibitionism, paid cuddlers and the never married growing old
alone.
A woman told me that she had a friend in the US who was making "only" $2,400 a month, "How
can you live on so little?" "Many Americans make less than that," I answered. "I sure did most of my time there."
She looked amused. She had no idea most Americans have to pay around 20% of their incomes on
taxes, and that housing and transportation costs eat up half of their paychecks.
Most people in Ea Kly have never even seen an American. In the next town, Krong Buk, there's
a white resident, the only one in a 30 mile radius. Most of his neighbors know him as simply
ông Tây, Mr. Westerner, though some do call by his first name, Peter.
A man said to Peter, "Merci, madame," the only Western phrase he knew.
Most have no idea that Peter is actually
Swiss
, and not American, but he's rich enough, by local standards, so he's more or less an
American.
White people are rich, live in fabulous countries, travel all over and can suddenly show up
even in Krong Buk to buy a nice piece of land by the lake, build an elegant house, with a guest
bungalow next to it. Whereas the locals only
fish
in this lake ,
the white man swims daily, for he knows how to enjoy life.
The apex of whiteness, though, is the United States of America, a country that didn't just
drop seven million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, as well as 20 million gallons
of herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, but sent twelve tall, clean cut and good intentioned white
men to the moon, a transcendental feat that's still unequaled after half a century, and it's a
safe bet that neither the Russians, Chinese nor anyone else will be able to accomplish this for
a while, maybe ever. Of course, Americans can return to the moon tomorrow if they want to, but
they're already looking way beyond it.
As New York, Chicago, Miami, Houston, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles become
covered with feces from homeless Americans, American colonies will be set up not just on Mars,
but Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, in whatever order, for they're all as
near as Hollywood, or your computer, assuming you'll still have one.
The United States are working hard to identify the perpetrators of the attack against the
plane of the Malaysian Airlines and were very quick to point the finger at pro-Russian
rebels.
Atlantico: The United States put a lot of efforts for blaming those who they consider to
be the perpetrators of the attack against the plane of the Malaysian Airlines and were very
quick to point the finger at pro-Russian. What interest do they have to point finger at
Russia?
Jean-Bernard Pinatel: Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, policy
makers and American politicians perceived a major threat:
that a reconciliation and an alliance between Europe and Russia would challenge the
supremacy of the United States, which is allowing them with impunity to interfere in the
internal affairs of any country, or invade them, and intepret international law in their
private interests as most recently demonstrated the case of the BNP bank.
To understand this undeniable reality requires that we consider a historical context of
those events.
In 1997, former National Security Adviser of the United States, Zbigniew Brzezinski,
published under the title "The Grand Chessboard" a book adopting the two concepts, coined by
Mackinder, Eurasia and "Heartland." He repeated his account his famous maxim: "who governs the
Eastern Europe dominates the Heartland; who governs the Heartland dominates EuroAsia; which
governs the EuroAsia dominates the World World. "
He makes the following conclution: "For America, the chief geopolitical issue is Eurasia."
In another publication (1), he make this though more explicit: "If Ukraine fell, he wrote, it
would greatly reduce the geopolitical options for Russia. Even without the Baltic states and
Poland, Russia, which would retain control of Ukraine could always aspire with confidence to
the direction of a Eurasian empire. But without Ukraine and its 52 million Slav brothers and
sisters, any attempt to Moscow to rebuild the Eurasian empire threatens to lead Russia in
lengthy disputes with non-Slavic national and difference religious groups. ".
Between 2002 and 2004, to implement this strategy, the United States has spent hundreds of
millions of dollars to help the pro-Western Ukrainian opposition to gain power. Millions of
dollars also cooperation came from private institutes such as the Soros Foundation and European
governments. This money does not go directly to political parties. He passed by including
foundations and non-governmental organizations who advised the opposition, allowing it to be
equipped with the technical resources and the latest advertising tools. An American cable from
January 5, 2010, published on the WikiLeaks website (ref. 10WARSAW7) shows the involvement of
Poland in color revolutions of former Eastern European countries. The role of NGOs is
particularly exposed (2). The Wikileaks cables demonstrate continuous efforts and the continued
commitment of the United States to extend their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, and
first of all in Ukraine.
Ukraine is undergoing a civil war. Yet nobody in the West denounced the ardor with which
the Ukrainian government is trying to subdue the separatists. What is the real interest of
Americans to ignore this reality and support the Ukrainian government? What did they
gain?
The Ukrainian state is a construction of Stalin and exists independently only since 1991,
after the breakup of the Soviet bloc. He previously existed between 1917 and 1921 between the
fall of Tsarism in 1917 and the victory of the Bolsheviks that dismambered this new state into
4 parts. Ex-Russian part of Ukraine, with Kiev as its capital, the birthplace of civilization
and Russian culture was integrated with the USSR while the former Austrian part, with Lviv's as
the local capital was absorbed by the Poland.
Little Ukraine "Transcarpathia" voted for unification with Czechoslovakia and in Bukovina
Ukrainian minority resigned himself to unification with Romania.
But Ukraine does not mean a nation. Ukrainians have no common history. Quite the contrary.
During the second world war, when in the summer of 1941, Ukraine was invaded by the armies of
the Reich, the Germans were received as liberators by the Western part of Ukraine. In contrast
in the Easten Ukraine, they met strong resistance from the local population which continued
until 1944
In retaliation, the Germans track down supporters and burned hundreds of villages. In April
1943, an SS division Galicia is made from Ukrainian volunteers whose descendants formed the
stromtroops of the EuroMaidan. This SS division was also used by the Germans in Slovakia to
suppress the Slovak national movement. But Ukrainian and American pro-Western did everything at
the end of the war, to throw a veil over the atrocities committed by this division and retain
only the anti-Soviet struggle. However, historians estimate more than 220,000 Ukrainians
enlisted alongside the German forces during the Second World War to fight the Soviet
regime.
This history helps explain why civil war is possible and why the part of Ukrainian forces
consisting of troops from the West can use tanks and planes against separatists from the
East.
Ukrainian President with the complicity of silence of the majority of politicians and
Western media launched a war against part of the population of the country with the same
cruelty that is attibuted to Syrian dictator. In addition, the Ukrainian armed forces are
advised by American special forces and mercenaries.
The USA and Obama was [rpovoke Russia into invation of Ukraine in order to revive the cold
war between the West and the East. Putin has understood the trap "Nobel Peace Winner" Obama
created for him. First he advised the Ukrainian separatists not to hold the referendum; then he
did not recognize its result and showed a moderation which surprised all independent observers
while tanks and planes indiscrimnatly attack a Russian-speaking population.
How Ukraine can prevent the creation of a Europe-Russia alliance? Why the United States
so actively try to prevent it?
The Americans continued to put pressure on Europe in order to integrate Ukraine and Georgia
into NATO, which would constitute an unacceptable provocation to Russia.
Fortunately, European leaders have not bent to the will of Washington, which in this case
acts solely in its own interests. Similarly, if Putin gave in to pressure from
ultra-nationalist and openly intervened in Ukraine, the United States would achieved their
strategic goal and the Cold War in Europe would be restarted damaging our fundamental
interests.
Why Europe acts as vassal of the USA? Does it really interested to follow the American
strategy?
Many European leaders got their education in the United States. They are members of American
"Think-Tanks" or "transatlantic foundations" such as the "American Foundation" which largely
finance their benefits and travel. The Atlanticism is certainly manufactured not only by the
awareness that we share the same democratic values with the American people but
also by the multitude of personal interests of many European leaders whose standard of living
depends on their submission to the will of the USA.
Nevertheless, more and more Europeans are beginning to tell the difference between the
American state which is, in fact, run by lobbies, the most important of which is the
military-industrial lobby and the American nation whose values and economic and
cultural dynamism possess an undeniable attractiveness and remains for young European wonderful
school.
Angela Merkel and the Germans are at the forefront of this awareness because they have not
accepted the permanent industrial espionage which the NSA use againt this country. Furthermore,
the revelation of the laptop plays Angela Merkel strongly shocked the country. Spiegel of
November 3, 2013 claiming that now even political asylum for Edward Snowden in on the agenda.
In the article "Asil Für Snowden" Europe's biggest daily published extensive excerpts of
his revelations.
On 10 July 2014, the German government announced the expulsion of the head of the American
secret services in Germany, as part of a spy case against German officials who provided
intelligence information to Washington, a move unprecedented among allies within NATO. "The
representative of the United States Intelligence Agency at the Embassy of the United States of
America was asked to leave Germany," said the government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a
statement. The expulsion comes "in response to a lack of cooperation that was long in efforts
to clarify" the activity of American intelligence agents in Germany, told a German MEP, Clemens
Binninger, President of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on intelligence, which met in
Berlin on Thursday.
In France, the former Prime Minister Michel Rocard , a sociologist Edgar Morin , former
ministers Luc Ferry and Jack Lang and former European MP Daniel Cohn- Bendit, launched a
petition calling on President Francois Hollande , his Prime Minister Manuel Valse and Foreign
Minister Laurent Fabius "promptly grant Edward Snowden political asylum .
Unfortunately for France and Europe , Francois Hollande , as part of the French
intelligentsia , still admires Barack Obama , and Laurent Fabius for a long time received funds
from U.S. foundations . Neither of them realize that their policies pose a threat to the
strategic interests of France and Europe.
Jean-Bernard Pinatel , General, recognized expert on economic and geopolitical matters.
Excellent Short Film About the Separatist Fighters of Donbas by Russell 'Texas'
Bentley (Video)
A monastery near the Donetsk airport was strategically important to hold for the fighter,
so a bitter shooting battle erupted over it, taking many lives on both sides. The monastery
was badly damaged in the process.
That happened often when a second rate provincial lawyer became the Secretary of State. At least Kerry knows French. Pompeo
knows absolution nothing and is capable only of repeating old cliché.
Today's special word is: Projection
Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!. ..."
"... Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture. ..."
Pompeo should go into advertising. Since the late '50's, we've torn Latin America to
shreds, but we're the good guys, eh?!.
I luv my country, but I hate my government.
beemasters
This must have been the most transparently crooked administration ever in the US history! Ain't that the pot calling the
kettle black!
2willies
Doesn't Pompeo also believe in the rapture.
Idaho potato head
At some point even the most deluded sheep has got to realize he is being lied to. Or is it just as in the Matrix, there is
an age limit as to when a mind can be awoken.
After reading CYMS1 below I retract that question.
The other mistake I see people make is that they toil away for 80% of the year in a job they
hate, so they can splurge for a few days in an Americanized luxury resort.
Why not make every
day exotic and truly get a feel for the local atmosphere by moving somewhere for a year
instead?
So true.
If all else fails, just buy a bus ticket to Minnesota and see what it's like to live in
Somalia for a day.
"Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time – a man who will
have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long enough to write those
books "
-- The presstituting crowd of stenographers (MSM) and the zionized X-tian war profiteers
have made everything in their power (inadvertently) to ensure that Assange is and will be a
towering figure of our time.
Even in distress, Assange has been fighting for truth and dignity; the ongoing show of
lawlessness exposes the rot. The moral and creative midgets constituting the core of MSM and
the satanic deciders are upset. Good!
The idiotic Senior District "Judge" Emma Arbuthnot (a wife and beneficiary of a mega-war
profiteer Lord Arbuthnot -- Arbuthnot served as Chairman of the Defence Select Committee from
2005 to 2014) and the no less idiotic District "Judge" Michael Snow have entered the history
books as well. As scoundrels: http://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1555064882.html
Snow does his best to bring the Judiciary into disrepute by playing to the gallery. He
comments on the extradition in the same vein in a totally unprofessional manner. He is of
course in a long line of disreputable members of the judiciary Snow's place in history is
now secured – he chose to abuse the defendant rather than perform his role which was
really quite straightforward. He is the narcissist and guilty of self interest not Julian
Assange.
"... "The Western liberal model of development, which particularly stipulates a partial loss of national sovereignty – this is what our Western colleagues aimed at when they invented what they called globalization – is losing its attractiveness and is no more viewed as a perfect model for all. Moreover, many people in the very western countries are skeptical about it," Lavrov said. ..."
"... "The US and its allies are trying to impose their approaches on others," Lavrov noted. ..."
"... "They are guided by a clear desire to preserve their centuries-long dominance in global affairs although from the economic and financial standpoint, the US – alone or with its allies – can no longer resolve all global economic and political issues," he said. ..."
"... "In order to preserve their dominance and recover their indisputable authority, they use blackmail and pressure. They don't hesitate to blatantly interfere in the affairs of sovereign states." ..."
"... Agree with the assessment other than the claim the US has had centuries long global dominance, or even influence. ..."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared today that the Western, liberal model of society is dying, and a new world order
is taking its place.
Lavrov made the comments at his annual meeting with students and professors at the Foreign Ministry's Diplomatic Academy, reported
Russian state news agency TASS.
"The Western liberal model of development, which particularly stipulates a partial loss of national sovereignty – this
is what our Western colleagues aimed at when they invented what they called globalization – is losing its attractiveness and is
no more viewed as a perfect model for all. Moreover, many people in the very western countries are skeptical about it," Lavrov
said.
According to him, global development is guided "by processes aimed at boosting multipolarity and what we call a polycentric world
order."
"Clearly, multipolarity and the emergence of new centers of power in every way requires efforts to maintain global stability
and search for a balance of interests and compromises, so diplomacy should play a leading role here," Lavrov went on to say.
"Particularly because there are a lot of issues that require generally acceptable solutions."
These include regional conflicts, international terrorism, food security and environmental protection. This is why we believe
that only diplomacy can help make agreements and reach sustainable decisions that will be accepted by all.
"The US and its allies are trying to impose their approaches on others," Lavrov noted.
"They are guided by a clear desire to preserve their centuries-long dominance in global affairs although from the economic
and financial standpoint, the US – alone or with its allies – can no longer resolve all global economic and political issues,"
he said.
"In order to preserve their dominance and recover their indisputable authority, they use blackmail and pressure. They don't
hesitate to blatantly interfere in the affairs of sovereign states."
Perry Colace
When I was a kid, the Soviet Union was the enemy. Now Russia (with an economy, population, military and world influence the
fraction of the United States) seems to be one of the few places in the world that makes any bit of sense and ACTUALLY cares a
little bit about its culture and people.
Fluff The Cat
"The Western liberal model of development, which particularly stipulates a partial loss of national sovereignty – this is
what our Western colleagues aimed at when they invented what they called globalization – is losing its attractiveness and is
no more viewed as a perfect model for all.Moreover, many people in the very western countries are skeptical about it," Lavrov
said.
A Judaic-Masonic world order is the end goal. It entails the complete loss of sovereignty for all Western nations and the slow
genocide of white Christians via miscegnation and displacement by third-worlders.
lnardozi
I can't think of a man more American than Putin.
Sell the bases, come home, stop bothering others and trying to run world affairs.
Then we can spend a nice nice century or so rebuilding our infrastructure and trimming our out-of-control federal government.
The clue is right there in the name - the united STATES of America. A state is a sovereign country with its own laws - except
for those powers enumerated in the Constitution which the federal government should have.
That's the whole point - competition in government. You don't like the state you're in - you're guaranteed the choice of 49
others, along with all your possessions.
notfeelinthebern
Agree with the assessment other than the claim the US has had centuries long global dominance, or even influence.
johnnycanuck
Western global dominance, US took over from the British Empire with the assistance of the banksters class. It's all there in
the history books, you just need to spend time
consider me gone
As much as I hate to say it, this was Winston Churchill's idea. Even as the war was just starting, he was a major advocate
for the West controlling the globe after WWII.
But I'll bet he had no idea that the West would abandon traditional Western values in the process. He wouldn't watch TV and
predicted it would turn society into unthinking idiots. He nailed that one anyhow.
The Alliance
"...many people in the very western countries are skeptical about it," Lavrov said.
Skeptical?
I, for one, would show up early and highly motivated to march against, and to destroy, these treasonous, malevolent, collectivist
Globalists.
The Globalists within the United States government are traitors--traitors, by definition. They have declared war on our republic.
CDN_Rebel
Russia works because they have a ruthless tyrant who happens to be incredibly competent. That same system with a weak ruler
will collapse entirely in a matter of months. I like Putin, but he needs to groom an ironfisted successor pronto.
As for the chows - they need to print half a trillion a month to stay afloat and that's your model?
The west is only fucked because the sleeping masses refuse to acknowledge that Marxists have undermined our institutions...
It would take only a few years to scrub these subversive ***** from our society if we had the balls to do it
johnnycanuck
yadda yadda yadda.. marxists, subversives, commies, all the catch phrases of ye old Joe McCarthy. Russia works because Russians
have a history of enduring adversity. Unlike Americans.
Moribundus
It is eventually end of era of western imperialism, era that lasted 900 years. Game is over
"... A great many American expats are blacks who served in the military or have a pension who can live in an Asian subdivision instead of in low-income housing with crack dealers and gangs. ..."
"... Overall, your observation is correct. The wealth divisions in the US are so vast that lower class white Americans are essentially living in an internal third world even it is only 20 miles from the suburbs. ..."
"... Asia might be more corrupt and the people materially poorer, but you are far safer in Singapore or ANYWHERE in SEA than in the urban US. None of this applies to suburban whites and hicks from the sticks. ..."
"... The average public school in any US city or exurb is MUCH WORSE than Asia. I grew up in Ann Arbor and Warren, hardly the ghetto, and even in these public schools were bad. ..."
"... I have personally known of people trapped in Kuwait and Bahrain, federal contractors who got fired and could not leave because of phone bills. Just in limbo on someone's couch hoping someone else would come up with the money from home. ..."
"... I also know of two female military contractors who got sentenced to TWENTY-FIVE years for selling a few grams of marijuana. ..."
"... I lived in the Arab Gulf for years, like Truth, and although they are the most openly opposed to Jews, they are not wallowing in porn, poverty, out-of-wedlock single mothers, drug abuse, promiscuity, petty crime, hopelessness. ..."
"... Whites are increasingly stricken with all of these things. Yet Muslims, who openly detest Jews and Zionism are not suffering these social pathology. ..."
"... If you obey the laws in Kuwait or Oman or Bahrain you are going to be safer than in any US city. I know, as well as you know, that if you had to choose between walking around at night in Dubai or LA or Flint or Baltimore, you'll choose Dubai. ..."
"... The occasional terrorist threat does not destroy a country as fast as narco-economies run by warring gangs of Hispanics or feral inner-city blacks. ..."
"... Drug trafficking is a brutal game, involving kidnapping, common assault, robbery, harrasment and gang wars. It only leads to more criminality as well. Drugs breed criminality. It corrupts the mind of the youth, and it ruins the mind of the single mother who has to take care of her kid, or the father. ..."
"... Most drug addicts in these countries do not become drug dealers. In Western countries, every regular coke head or stoner ends up dealing to cover the cost of their own use. But in Muslim countries, the penalties for dealing are so severe that very few druggies ever sell drugs. They just remain users. ..."
I've seen loads of American men who blew their wad on hookers and booze at the Manila
Embassy trying this.
You'll be on the street for about a month waiting for the papers to clear. Don't expect to
be staying with the US Ambassador at his house while you're waiting either, you'll be on the
street and in SEA or Eastern Europe (Which is cold as hell) and this is no fun.
The Embassy will make you call relatives in the US and determine that nobody will pay for
your return flight.
You'll have to repay the US government for the cost of the ticket and your passport will
be cancelled for two years as a punishment you won't even be able to fly to Puerto Rico.
MILITARY SPACE AVAILABLE
One American I knew in the Philippines was named Clinton Macbeth and he was a hardcore
drunk and pothead who'd been stationed in the Philippines and figured he would just take
military space available on a DC 10 or whatever.
The US GOVERNMENT has now cancelled this program and you cannot take military space
available back to your own country.
The US Embassy will, eventually, cover the cost of your ticket back. But they make this a
lonnnggg unpleasant process to prevent everyone who wants to be repatriated from simply
coming into the Embassy and saying "send me home Business class".
Try sleeping for a week outside a US Embassy. Invariably the US Consular director will
tell you "it will take some time for these papers to clear".
Believe me, you won't be flown back in 24 hours.
And the Marine Embassy Guards will then make sure you don't hang around. You'll be giving
an appointment at the Embassy about a week after you report in. In the interim. the Marine
Embassy Guards etc. will behave like bouncers to make sure you don't come back inside the
Embassy.
Ken was an older American from NYC who married a Filipino woman of 23. He was an architect
and he spent most of his life savings building a hotel for his wife with the intent of
renting rooms to Japanese tourists-which would have set him up for life.
In the Philippines, all property belongs to the wife of the expat under law. He was kicked
out by security guard after their marriage collapsed-which May/September marriages in the
Philippines usually do.
He was 60 and his wife and her family simply threw him on the road-no passport, money in
his pocket, clothes on his back. Ken did not even have ID to prove he was an American. The
first night on the road, he was mugged by Filipino street kids and did not have a peso.
Finally, he managed to get his passport. His wife had his bank card and withdrew all his
savings by then. A sympathetic American paid his way to Manila where he got his brother to
send him a ticket.
We are invariably male, urban and lower middle class.
A great many American expats are blacks who served in the military or have a pension
who can live in an Asian subdivision instead of in low-income housing with crack dealers and
gangs.
For lower class whites, it is not so much dangerous as sordid in poor white exurbs or
rural areas. I knew one white scrap dealer named Clayton whose son was a hopeless meth addict
who beat the shit out of him in his house and robbed him. Opoid addicts in the nearby trailer
park burglarized his house. Whiggers spray painted his house. He lived in a gated community
in the Philippines with mostly merchant Chinese-Filipino families and was pretty glad to be
away from white trash.
I've observed the following about American white expats, myself included.
1) We are generally male. I've never MET a permanent white expat female in Southeast
Asia.
2) I've never met a Mexican of either gender or any black woman in Asia. And few in Europe
or Dubai. The only Native American I ever met overseas was a female married to an English
guy. I've never met a white American woman who was living permanently overseas.
3) The real white trash or Cholos or Hood Rats cannot live overseas. If you are on parole,
probation, on welfare or a junkie you cannot get on a plane for 14 hours.
4) On the other hand I've never met a bona fide upper middle class American in Southeast
Asia either. Most of the Americans I met were tradespeople-plumbers, mechanics, factory
foreman, postal workers, commercial fisherman.
5) Americans under 35 are fairly rare in Asia.
Philippines is not very attractive to backpackers. You meet them in other parts of Asia,
of course, but not there.
Overall, your observation is correct. The wealth divisions in the US are so vast that
lower class white Americans are essentially living in an internal third world even it is only
20 miles from the suburbs.
One Brit in Goa I heard of had gotten Indian credit cards and got WAYYY overextended. He
also had a medical bill he could not pay. They would not let him out of the country even
though he had a return ticket.
When he was sleeping rough one night, some thirsty Indian men who were drunk simply rolled
him over and pinned him and 9 of them serially sodomized him.
The Indian Tourist Police called the British Embassy and demanded they do something. So he
was repatriated. But he will be wearing adult diapers for the rest of his life.
If you are a foreigner sleeping rough in India or Dubai, you might be raped by prowling
queers. Even if you're the toughest MMA fighter if you are malnourished and exhausted from
being on the street for two weeks and 9 thirsty sodomites jump you you are going to end up
buggered.
Hands down I was MUCH safer than I had been as a white post-college entry-level Graphic
Artist in Phoenix living in Tempe on the border of the Guadalupe barrio.
Born in Ann Arbor and raised in Warren, I've seen black crime.
Asia might be more corrupt and the people materially poorer, but you are far safer in
Singapore or ANYWHERE in SEA than in the urban US. None of this applies to suburban whites
and hicks from the sticks.
America is not a police state because of the Founding Fathers, but because of Mestizos and
Hood Rats and redneck tweakers who can only be contained by a constant police presence.
Perhaps Singapore would have slightly more crime if it was not a dictatorship, but not like
the US.
I moved to Dubai directly from Phoenix and believe me, riding the public transport there
and living in modest-income housing was MUCH SAFER than Phoenix or Warren.
I've been in an expat for 20 years and was never again menaced by Mestizos or witnessed
black crack dealers chimping out at a bus stop or was followed by a desperate redneck
tweaker.
The average public school in any US city or exurb is MUCH WORSE than Asia. I grew up in
Ann Arbor and Warren, hardly the ghetto, and even in these public schools were bad.
Finally, I've worked overseas my entire life and I never had to worry about a pink slip by
some HR female who is 23 and was blowing every Frat guy two years earlier because I said the
word "fag".
Overseas, you can say what you want (Except about them or their government) and nobody
cares. You don't even have to PRETEND that you are PC.
@jeff
strykerI have personally known of people trapped in Kuwait and Bahrain, federal
contractors who got fired and could not leave because of phone bills. Just in limbo on
someone's couch hoping someone else would come up with the money from home.
I also know of two female military contractors who got sentenced to TWENTY-FIVE years
for selling a few grams of marijuana.
Kuwaitis will forgive a home brewer making some beer for himself and his expat friends.
But if you get caught selling hashish, you are screwed. And to be honest anyone who is dumb
enough to sell hashish or smoke it in Kuwait is not intelligent enough to be overseas.
I've known some potheads in U.A.E. who refuted the statement that cannabis is not
addictive. In a country where penalties include spending years in jail for a couple of
joints, they STILL went out and scored pot.
They don't screw around with debt under Muslim law. If you cannot pay a phone or medical
bill, you're stuck. It goes out as a warrant and you won't be able to leave the country
through the airport.
You know TRUTH, being an expat is a learning curve. Some people just don't make it and do
something INCREDIBLY STUPID like the kid in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS.
I want to add something. The Americans who do these things are mostly white hicks from the
sticks who have no idea how to act overseas.
Marijuana is not habit forming, which is why so many Westerners cannot even go for six
months without risking a MIDNIGHT EXPRESS jail to smoke a lousy joint.
4 foot
average-looking Filipino women become the sexiest females alive to thirsty males. And
sometimes these Filipino women have a penis.
White hicks who would be white trash by
Archie Bunker's standards come to believe they have special privileges because they are
American in countries where anti-Western sentiment is right under the surface.
Someone
forgot to tell Kuwaitis that Jews were the chosen people given their arrogance. .
The
brotherhood of Islam does not apply to South Asians. .
Americans who feel that whites are
racist never met an Arab.
Pakistani workers guzzle perfume.
For such chaste women, Arab
women have more anal sex than Stormy Daniels.
@jeff
stryker Many good points, although it may be evil (I don't think so) the total block
every block of the writing, it is bullshit, sorry, I have no conscience re. Moslems, I have
had enough threats to my life from them, have had personal attacks on myself and loved ones,
Tarrant was perfectly logical.
How many Muslims kill and terrorize how many others?
I lived in the Arab Gulf for years, like Truth, and although they are the most openly
opposed to Jews, they are not wallowing in porn, poverty, out-of-wedlock single mothers, drug
abuse, promiscuity, petty crime, hopelessness.
Whites are increasingly stricken with all of these things. Yet Muslims, who openly
detest Jews and Zionism are not suffering these social pathology.
In Dubai, I never was menaced by street criminals, which was a fairly common experience
for me in both Phoenix and Warren, Michigan.
Mestizos in Phoenix had NO motive. They were not menacing or assaulting whites over drug
deals or gang territory or even some vague religious reason. "Cholos" as these Mexicans were
called, simply enjoyed assaulting or terrorizing middle-class whites for lack of anything
better to do.
Whites will complain about the IQ of Mestizos or US ghetto blacks but it is a good thing
they are not intelligent enough to be organized criminals like Russian or Italian mafias. If
they were capable of building bombs like Muslim terrorists than they would be blowing up
buildings over rival dealers selling crack on the street corner.
If you obey the laws in Kuwait or Oman or Bahrain you are going to be safer than in any
US city. I know, as well as you know, that if you had to choose between walking around at
night in Dubai or LA or Flint or Baltimore, you'll choose Dubai.
Much is made of the drug laws in Arab countries and the film MIDNIGHT EXPRESS but try
being followed around by redneck tweakers who are desperate to get more meth.
I'm not discounting terrorism. But America, and I cannot speak for other countries, will
never face the threat of extinction from Muslims.
The occasional terrorist threat does not destroy a country as fast as narco-economies
run by warring gangs of Hispanics or feral inner-city blacks.
@jeff
stryker Asia always has nepotism, my experience, almost half life, it is less. Even the
idea that 'Asia' is a term with any meaning, it does not.
I also never got all the outrage coming from everyone in particular regarding the
"draconian" laws regarding drug trafficking and drugs in general, in the Asian countries,
particularly, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines,etc. People keep telling us that
these are "victimless" crimes, and that these are non-violent crimes. We all know that is
simply not the case.
Drug trafficking is a brutal game, involving kidnapping, common assault, robbery,
harrasment and gang wars. It only leads to more criminality as well. Drugs breed criminality.
It corrupts the mind of the youth, and it ruins the mind of the single mother who has to take
care of her kid, or the father.
It leads to domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse and many other things. It makes
me quite confused when they, the rabid liberals, try to downplay these things, and claim that
these are "victimless" or "non-violent". Also, does the Italian Mafia still "exist"? Why
would they, weren't they just the result of discrimination and the sorts and lack of
opportunities? One would think that kind of stuff is all gone ..
The brotherhood of Islam does not apply to South Asians.
It certainly does not apply to the low level cleaners and all the deplorables at least. I
would beg to disagree on this one. I am very close with many Arabs in that region and friends
with others and as are other South Asians who are not working the menial jobs which I have
mentioned. Class-ism is very much a thing, and it exists here.
If the Indian guy is a higher class guy, they'll treat you like a brother. This is coming
from yours truly ;-) I feel like I would fit right in. I sneer at the peasants and all the
deplorables, and we openly joke about them.
Pakistani workers guzzle perfume
This is certainly true, they bathe in that stuff. Ever visited Muscat?
Lets take Brampton. Italians used to completely run the prostitution, trucking, extortion,
drugs etc. in Ontario in industrial towns like Brampton because Anglo Canadians were
basically pleasant middle-class people.
Then came Sikhs, Tamils, Jamaicans. But especially Sikhs. Sikh separatists and Tamil
Tigers were not afraid of some middle-aged portly Italian men like Tony Soprano scarfing down
pizza at a strip joint.
By the end of the eighties, the Italians simply decided to move into white-collar fraud
like "Pump and Dump" stock scams. It was not worth getting their asses shot off by crazy
gun-toting Sikhs or Tamils who would tie someone to an anthill just to prove that nobody's
life mattered to them but their own.
This is why Crips and Bloods and Mexican street gangs never got a foothold in Vancouver or
Ontario. Sikhs and Tamils have a reputation for being bloodthirsty maniacs that even
redoubted US gangs avoid.
The same occurred in the US, really.
As for drugs, anybody who has walked through East Vancouver once has seen the end-result
of a decriminalization.
That is not to say that drugs will not be consumed in Muslim countries. I've known hashish
smokers my entire time in Dubai and even chewed Khat once with a Yemeni taxi driver to see
what it was about (It has the kick of three cans of Red Bull but lasts longer).
But pot smokers and Khat chewers in Dubai or U.A.E. won't get a gun and try to kill
somebody to get more. For one thing, chronic hashish smokers have no energy and are spaced
out. Crackheads in US cities or heroin addicts in Grandville will.
Meth addicts are not so much dangerous as horribly annoying. When I first moved to Phoenix
I lived in low-income housing and one meth addict ex-convict simply followed me around
pleading for money every time I walked out my front door. Like some kind of stray dog, he
also tore through my garbage to get my returnables. When I moved out of the apartment to
share a condo with some IT guys, he injured himself breaking into my apartment trying to
sleep somewhere and my ex-landlord called me to tell me he had been injured by the window
glass.
I was a hashish myself as a young man of course .Like all Goras who are employed in India,
as soon as I had my paycheck I got the hell to Goa and got stoned. Every white employed in
India will take their pay and go to Goa and buy hashish from some Kashmiri carpet shop.
Goan police know full well that 100% of the Westerners there are smoking pot. Goa is
India's Amersterdam.
But in Dubai or other Muslim countries, the police simply don't allow crack houses or
staggering half-mad meth addicts. You cannot "corner deal" in Dubai or Jakarta.
Most drug addicts in these countries do not become drug dealers. In Western countries,
every regular coke head or stoner ends up dealing to cover the cost of their own use. But in
Muslim countries, the penalties for dealing are so severe that very few druggies ever sell
drugs. They just remain users.
Like most demented cowards he was totally logical. He did not approach armed Muslim men
and challenge them one-to-one.
He shot unarmed women and children.
This makes sense, because at the bottom of it, on average, white Christian men usually
don't have the courage of most other fanatics to be willing to die trying to kill others who
are capable of murdering them, like Tamil Tigers.
As a result, Anglo-Saxon terrorism has a sickeningly cowardly streak to it.
The Tamil extremist blows herself up to kill the Indian Prime Minister, for example.
But the white extremist like Tim McVeigh or Dylan the church bomber either sets a fire or
like Brevik shoots unarmed civilians and then surrenders, lacking the courage to take his own
life even though it is effectively over.
@jeff
stryker You're not wrong about the Punjabis and Tamils. There many reports or claims
years ago during the Sri Lankan Civil War of the Tamil Eelam separatists receiving funding
from the Tamil gangs in the GTA( Greater Toronto Area).
The Khalistani movement in the Punjab has some modest support amongst the natives in
India, however, it is well known that most of their support comes from the Punjabi(Sikh)
diaspora. The NDP leader himself, a man by the name of Jagmeet Singh, is a proud Khalistani
supporter, and he had not disavowed the terrorism espoused by these groups.
He is an open suppprter. And I want you to realize the same guy is the leader of the third
largest, politically relevant part in Canada, which is the NDP. Guess his constituency it's
Burnaby.
The positive side of this is that US black and Mexican gangs have never been able to get a
significant foothold in Canada. Even re-doubted LA Crips and Bloods think that Canadian Sikh
gangs in Surrey or Brampton are bloodthirsty maniacs.
Sikh separatism was never possible in India because New Delhi is located in Punjab and the
province is also a border state with Pakistan. I've been there.
In my opinion, East Vancouver is what happens when drugs are decriminalized. Anybody who
would like to see drugs legalized can visit Grandville and Hastings.
Potheads really are not a threat to the public; they are too sluggish and spaced out.
Thr idea of decriminalization is a bad one, as well as the idea ofbopen injection
sites.
Toronto has a couple of these kind of areas if I am to remember correctly, and it's a
mess. There have been needles everwhere, which increase the likelihood of infection, and
people just don't care anymore. How does it look on the kids, who are shown adults openly
injecting drugs? It's a mess. Quite literally as well on the ground.
It discourages businesses in the area, and it brings down the neighbourhoods surrounding
it.
Has it solved our problems or Vancouver's? We both know the answer.
The areas that were clean and empty, around these spots have turned into literal drug
hubs, and places where violence occurs frequently.
I do think Sikh seperatism was possible at one point, but the Sikh terrorists hiding in
the Gurdwara was a turning point. That was put down brutally as I'm sure you remember, which
lead to some destruction of that site. All hope was lost when the Sikh bodyguards killed her
as well. But at one point, it was possible
@BengaliCanadianDude
I knew Burnaby in the '80's and early '90's. Decent working class area in transition I
thought, although it looked like a place to find hashish even then. I am not really that good
on Canada. Mostly Burnaby/Vancouver with a some time in the middle of Ottawa and by lake
Erie; my cousin owned a small lakefront palace in Mississauga.
@jeff
stryker Hell, East Vancouver was full of junkies even back in mid-90s, I assume before
de-criminalization Drug deals done in broad light right on the corner of Hastings and
Commercial But at the time Burnaby was almost exclusively white – that's where I lived
for 2 years so I'd know Indians were all in surrey.
@Philip
Owen I also lived in Burnaby in early 90s when I was enroled at sfu it was a decent if
boring lower middle class suburb. The only seedy place was North Burnaby Inn on E. Hastings,
the only place for miles to get a beer – where you could get an eyeful at the same time
Fiendish killers like Pickton and grotesque pimps like Paul Snider were committing crimes
in the seventies and by the nineties the place had the highest AIDS rate in North
America.
Most of the druggies are either Natives or from places back East like Ontario or
Quebec.
The low-life drug dealers in Vancouver are usually internal migrants from California or
Newfoundland who came to Vancouver to ply their trade because. When I lived in Ontario I knew
a guy whose Dad had made a great deal of money operating a pawn shop; if you are a drug
dealer or pawn shop owner you can get rich at the expense of the junkie populace even if you
are a shaved monkey.
My experience in Canada as an American was that the Natives in Canada were worse off than
they are in the States.
I found Natives in Canada to be some of the most dangerous underclass people around. After
living in Norther Ontario for two years I was shocked at how brazen their criminality
was.
In regards to your gun laws, I had a female friend who accidentally offended some Natives
and they brazenly walked over to her house to attack her on her property. She pulled a 22
repeater on them and saved her life (This was in Northern Ontario) but had to move from there
afterwards.
Most Americans and perhaps even people from Southern Canada have no idea how dangerous
Natives can be.
I don't know why Natives in the US are less of a threat on the street. Maybe because there
are less of them.
Canadian aboriginals are also unintelligent. They might even be less intelligent than
ahem, other underclasses.
@jeff
stryker I'm not actually Canadian, I was in Vancouver for 2 years while studying. Didn't
have any dealings with the natives (no big loss based on what you say! )
@Plato's
Dream I never went to a city with more open drug use or more aggressive homeless people
than East Vancouver. Okay, its not Detroit and you won't be shot, but its a bad place.
@The
Anti-Gnostic The entire American industrial workforce had to be retrained for new work
from the 1970s onward, so really, a 28-year-old without a family should be able to train for
a career well before he needs his first colonoscopy.
With personal anectodes for perspective, my wife went to med school at 35 and is now a
radiologist at 52.
Perhaps you were a Ho Ho-eating degenerate at 28, but the rest of non-alcoholic, non-drug
addicted, non-obese, non-mentally ill Homo sapiens seems to adjusts well to the demands of
reality and to challenges unforeseen.
Too old for the trades? Really? Have you been to a gym lately-or ever?
"... The "founding fathers" did their founding for their own benefit under various "do-gooder" pretexts like everything else power hungry people typically do. In other words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and governments are generally instituted to keep things that way despite the rhetoric and mythology. ..."
"... The slow death of the USA, or shall we say its metamorphosis into the full-fledged Anglo-Zionist Empire, was ongoing no later than the John Quincy Adams election, after the arch-Judaizing heretics Unitarians and Universalists (who were small minority groups even in New England, but were very rich and acted with precision behind the scenes) had gained total control over Harvard, Yale, Williams and several other 'elite' colleges. ..."
"... I preferred your "America is a government" comment. America is most definitely not a country. It is an Empire based on usury and militarism like so many before it. ..."
"... Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country ..."
"... Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't even need to lock their doors ..."
"... While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated. Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of Haiti" ..."
"The idea of a nation where people from all over the world live is a political
absurdity. If has no logical unifying basis "
Very well said. Indeed, the United States is not a country, rather it is a government.
And I despise that government.
Things are going to change swiftly after Trump is replaced. The 'coalition of the fringes'
is real. It's game over for America. The people living in that country have been too
distracted to notice.
America is a deeply delusion society held together by a deeply delusional government.
I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended.
The dude has come a long way, but he's still a bit brainwashed. I should read, "as the f f
supposedly intended."
The "founding fathers" did their founding for their own benefit under various
"do-gooder" pretexts like everything else power hungry people typically do. In other
words, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and governments are generally instituted
to keep things that way despite the rhetoric and mythology.
"I want to live in a country like the Founding Fathers of America intended."
That is not possible without the conditions that prevailed in the late 18th century, which
featured rebellion against the British Empire and therefore against Elite WASP culture.
The
slow death of the USA, or shall we say its metamorphosis into the full-fledged Anglo-Zionist
Empire, was ongoing no later than the John Quincy Adams election, after the arch-Judaizing
heretics Unitarians and Universalists (who were small minority groups even in New England,
but were very rich and acted with precision behind the scenes) had gained total control over
Harvard, Yale, Williams and several other 'elite' colleges.
@Baxter A
nation is different than a country. A country is geographical area with boundaries. A nation
is the people within a geographical area who have lived together for a long time and have
shared experiences. Nation from the French naître – to be born.
The US, like most other European based populations, was a nation. It has become a
country.
I
preferred your "America is a government" comment. America is most definitely not a country.
It is an Empire based on usury and militarism like so many before it.
Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country
Although discriminated against, most Americans, except maybe those down on their luck and
real life losers without any skills, live in nice, clean suburbs and in many cases they don't
even need to lock their doors, except for areas that are adjacent to urban, Hispanic, or
Black neighbourhoods, which they have abandoned and given up on decades ago following the
anti American Civil Rights movement. Show me a place in America where garbage trucks don't
come every week.
While it's not Germany or Sweden when garbage is concerned, America utilizes its trash
quite properly, and about 75 to 85% is incinerated. Meanwhile in Russia: "If government officials continue ignoring the problem, in a few
years the Russians will live in a landfill, as it is now happening with the residents of
Haiti"- http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/124947-russia_garbage/
or http://www.pravdareport.com/society/5701-recycling/
.
Americans in the US now total about 55% of the population: Wikipedia says: "197,285,202
(Non-Hispanic: 2017), 60.7% of the total U.S. population"- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_American
, however this number is flawed as they count various non-whites like Berbers, or Turkic
people like Albanians, Turks, Kurds, Georgians, and Azerbaijanis as whites.
Money quote (from comments): This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with
Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling
pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.
Notable quotes:
"... As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials: ..."
"... After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do. ..."
"... Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies ..."
"... There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors. ..."
"... Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him. ..."
"... Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support. ..."
"... I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?! ..."
"... Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. ..."
"... The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it. ..."
"... I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel. ..."
"... To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye. ..."
"... Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation. ..."
"... All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into. ..."
As usual, Trump
made the announcement
of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials:
President Donald Trump's tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own
Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials.
U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week's meetings
between Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential
announcement this week.
No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump's decision, and the diplomats
responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark.
Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump's message.
After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone
that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably
sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do.
Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies and dealing
with the international fallout, and that is probably why so many of his policy decisions end up being exceptionally poor ones. The
substance of most of Trump's foreign policy decisions was never likely to be good, but the lack of an organized policy process on
major decisions makes those decisions even more haphazard and chaotic than they would otherwise be.
There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical
political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at
shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors.
Whatever short-term benefit Israel gains from it, the U.S. gains nothing and stands to lose quite a bit in terms of our international
standing.
There has been no consideration of the costs and problems this will create for the U.S. in its relations with other regional states
and beyond because Trump couldn't care less about the long-term effects that his decisions have on the country.
Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the
United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders
flatter and praise him.
Trump's bad decision can be traced back to Bolton's visit to Israel earlier this year:
Administration officials said that National Security Advisor John Bolton was instrumental to the decision, after visiting Israel
in January to assure officials there that the United States would not abandon them in Syria despite Trump's sudden withdrawal
of troops from the battlefield.
Nervous Israeli officials saw an opportunity. "It was an ask," one Israeli source said, "because of the timing -- it suddenly
became a relevant issue about Iran."
Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful
influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the
Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange
for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support.
Well, of course Trump puts America last. There is one and only one person he is interested in -- himself. As you say this is his
narcissistic personality at work.
My never ending question is always, "Why does any Republican with a conscience remain silent? Are they really all this shallow
and self absorbed? Is there nothing Trump does that will finally force them to put country before party and their own ambition?"
It's a really sad state of events that has put this country on the road to ruin.
Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. Straightening out all this stupidity will take
years. Here's hoping that Trump gets to watch his foreign policy decisions tossed out and reversed from federal prison.
The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders
of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it.
The administration says that a Russian missile violates the treaty but it will not tell us what the range of the missile is.
Nor will it allow its weapons inspectors to go and look at it.
The reason is clear: Fear that the weapons inspectors' findings would contradict the administration's claims.
I voted Republican ever since I started voting. I voted for Bush I, Dole, Dubya, and McCain. I couldn't vote for either Obama
or Romney, but I voted for Trump because of Hillary Clinton.
I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats,
for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks
to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm
bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain
sight with Israel.
To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite
so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off,
a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend.
Europoliticians tell that last one a lot. "We really don't want to but the Americans twisted our arms ZOMG Special Relationship
so sorry ZOMG!" Only with a lot more Eurobureaucratese.
I agree with the article's premise, but not because of this move regarding Israel.
Personally, I believe this move will have little impact on the outcome of the crisis in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the
other Arab monarchies are too focused on containing Iran and Turkey to give a crap about what Israel does. The only Arab states
that I can see objecting to this move are Syria (obviously) and the others who were already allied with Iran and/or Turkey to
begin with.
Right now, the REAL center of attention in the region should be Northern Syria. THAT's where the next major war likely will
begin. In that area, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are the ones doing the major escalations,
while Israel has virtually no role at all aside from sideline cheer-leading. And of course, Trump is doing nothing to stop what
could become the next July Crisis. What's "America First" about that?
Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war
with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye.
There is no way our international reputation will come out of this war unscathed, and odds are we'll be in a far worse position
diplomatically than we were at any point in our history, even during the Iraq war. When that happens, the American people will
be out to assign blame. Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism,
and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation.
All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused
on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either,
because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the
Middle East into.
I don't think the issue is to end capitalism, but economic Zionism (all known as
capitalism changed into monopoism) is on its way out. Revolutionaries, all over the world, are
in place to revert monopolism back to capitalism and democracy back to human rights.**
She [Hillary] was the dream for Big Banking, the apartheid Jewish state, and probably a
lot more folks. That didn't happen, and some people became unhinged. by Zachary Smith @85 As
things have turned out.. we might have all been better off with Hillary than Trump.. Next time
around I am going to vote for the most obvious liar, and the candidate with the most stinking
capaign promises. looking back over the elections since Abe Lincolm was assassinated by the
city of London.. because Lincoln was moving to make USA its own bank and to issue its own
currency.. **
At http://representativepress.org/IsraelViolatesResolution.html
c/b found the pre conditions, all of which Israel agreed to,
for admission of Israel into the UN..
1. he status of jerusalem w/n/b altered
2. Palestinans w/b permitted to return
3. The partition agreement w/become the final borders.
Text of General Assembly Resolution 273 of May 11, 1949 admitting Israel into the UN,
notes Israel agreed to comply with Resolution 194 : UNITED NATIONS General Assembly A/RES/273
(III) 11 May 1949
what is really interesting is to take a look at the low life supporting this UN action at
the press, in the white house and at the MIC. Many supporters there played at hugmongous part
in the rest of the rise of Economic Zionism which depends on leg breaker USA to get its
way..
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Instagram March 10, 2019:
"Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the Nation-State Law that we
passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People -- and them alone."
It is a fascinating, though rather grim, story, spanning the First World War, the
creation of the states of Israel, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and taking in Lawrence of
Arabia, all the way to the fall of Gadaffi in Libya, the Syria Civil War and Rise of the
so-called Islamic State, among other things. It's a story of long-term manipulation,
insidious indoctrination, and secret, almost 'mythical' works of literature.
These two ideologies -- Wahhabism in Islam and Zionism which is linked primarily to the
Jewish religion -- may seem like unrelated entities on the surface of it
"Germany still owes Israel $19 billion for the Holocaust. The new estimate was calculated
by independent American economist Sidney Zabludoff, a former CIA, White House and U.S.
Treasury official."
@ Zachary Smith who wrote about Clinton II
"
She was the dream for Big Banking, the apartheid Jewish state, and probably a lot more
folks.
"
So that makes Trump a nightmare for Big Banking, the apartheid Jewish state, etc., right?
I encourage you to understand how much you are being played. If Big Banking has both of
them, whom is being played?
@ 92 * time for everyone to stand up for human rights promoter Assange?
The end of capitalism, in disguise. US pol structure does not allow for such, as the US
(and other West, the US is just a stellar ex.) are ruled by rapacious coproratist (typo)
oligarchs. Won't happen.
@ Grieved with the UN/Pence story....here is China's take on the situation
"
UNITED NATIONS, April 10 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations on
Wednesday rejected U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's accusation against China over Venezuela.
"China categorically rejects the accusation," Ma Zhaoxu, China's permanent representative
to the United Nations, told a Security Council meeting on the situation in Venezuela.
"Earlier in his intervention, the U.S. representative leveled an unfounded accusation on
China's position on Venezuela in the Security Council," he said, referring to Pence's remarks
that Russia and China obstructed Council action on Venezuela with their veto power.
China has all along maintained friendly and cooperative relations with other countries
around the world, including Venezuela, on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful
Coexistence, he said.
"We support peoples of all countries in independently choosing their development paths
that cater to their national conditions. We never interfere in other countries' internal
affairs, nor do we impose anything on other countries," Ma added.
Members of the Security Council should faithfully abide by the purposes and principles of
the UN Charter and the universally recognized norms of international relations, genuinely
respect the choices of peoples of other countries, and do more positive and practical things
for the people of Venezuela rather than the opposite, said the Chinese envoy."
"... On June 12, 2018 The Washington Post ran an overlooked story where they disclosed that National Security Advisor John Bolton had accepted money from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Deutsche Bank and HSBC to return for his participation in speeches and panel discussions ..."
"... John Bolton accepted $115,000 from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation to speak at multiple events hosted by the Foundation including one in September 2017 where Bolton assured his audience that President Donald Trump would not radically change US foreign policy despite his explicit campaign promises to do so. ..."
"... More broadly, John Bolton's work for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, HSBC and Deutsche Bank shows that while he preaches hardline foreign policy approaches towards nations such as Iran and North Korea he has no issue tying himself to those who openly flaunt American sanctions and diplomatic attempts to pressure these states. For an individual who is the President's National Security Advisor to have taken money from banks who provide financial services to terror groups who have murdered thousands of Americans is totally unacceptable. ..."
On June 12, 2018 The Washington Post ran an overlooked story where they
disclosed that National Security Advisor John Bolton had accepted money from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Deutsche Bank and HSBC
to return for his participation in speeches and panel discussions. These three entities have been linked to various kinds of corruption
including sanctions evasion for Iran, money laundering on behalf of drug cartels, provision of banking services to backers of Islamic
terror organizations and controversial donations to the Clinton Foundation.
The financial ties between Bolton and these institutions highlight serious ethical concerns about his suitability for the position
of National Security Advisor.
I. Victor Pinchuk Foundation
John Bolton accepted $115,000 from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation to speak at multiple events hosted by the Foundation including
one in September 2017 where Bolton assured his audience that President Donald Trump would not radically change US foreign policy
despite his explicit campaign promises to do so.
The Victor Pinchuk Foundation was blasted in 2016 over their donation of $10 to $25 million to the
Clinton Foundation between 1994 and 2005. The donations lead to accusations
of influence peddling after it emerged that Victor Pinchuk had been invited
to Hillary Clinton's home during the final year of her tenure as Secretary of State.
Even more damning was Victor Pinchuk's participation in activities that constituted evasions of sanctions levied against Iran
by the American government. A 2015 exposé by Newsweek highlighted the fact
that Pinchuk owned Interpipe Group, a Cyprus-incorporated manufacturer of seamless pipes used in oil and gas sectors. A now-removed
statement on Interpipe's website showed that they
were doing business in Iran despite US sanctions aimed to prevent this kind of activity.
Why John Bolton, a notorious war hawk who has called for a hardline approach to Iran, would take money from an entity who was
evading sanctions against the country is not clear. It does however, raise serious questions about whether or not Bolton should
be employed by Donald Trump, who made attacks on the Clinton Foundation's questionable donations a cornerstone of his 2016 campaign.
II. HSBC Group
British bank HSBC paid Bolton $46,500 in June and August 2017 to speak at two gatherings of hedge fund managers and investors.
HSBC is notorious for its extensive ties to criminal and terror organizations for whom it has provided illegal financial services.
Clients that HSBC have laundered money for include Colombian drug traffickers
and Mexican cartels who have terrorized the country and recently
raised murder rates to the highest levels in Mexico's history . They have
also offered banking services to Chinese individuals
who sourced chemicals and other materials used by cartels to produce methamphetamine and heroin that is then sold in the United
States. China's Triads have helped open financial markets in Asia to cartels
seeking to launder their profits derived from the drug trade.
In 2012, HSBC was blasted by the US Senate for for allowing money from
Russian and Latin American criminal networks as well as Middle Eastern terror groups to enter the US. The banking group ultimately
agreed to pay a $1.9 billion fine for this misconduct as well as their involvement
in processing sanctions-prohibited transactions on behalf of Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma.
Some of the terror groups assisted by HSBC include the notorious Al Qaeda. During the 2012 scrutiny of HSBC, outlets such as
Le Monde , Business Insider
and the New York Times revealed that HSBC had maintained ties to Saudi
Arabia's Al Rajhi Bank. Al Rajhi Bank was one of Osama Bin Ladin's "Golden Chain" of Al Qaeda's most important financiers. Even
though HSBC's own internal compliance offices asked for the bank to terminate their relationship with Al Rajhi Bank, it continued
until 2010.
More recently in 2018, reports have claimed that HSBC was used for illicit
transactions between Iran and Chinese technology conglomerate Huawei. The US is currently seeking to extradite Huawei CFO Meng
Wanzhou after bringing charges against Huawei related to sanctions evasion
and theft of intellectual property. The company has been described as a "backdoor" for elements of the Chinese government by certain
US authorities.
Bolton's decision to accept money from HSBC given their well-known reputation is deeply hypocritical. HSBC's connection to
terror organizations such as Al Qaeda in particular is damning for Bolton due to the fact that he formerly served as the chairman
of the Gatestone Institute , a New York-based advocacy group that purports
to oppose terrorism. These financial ties are absolutely improper for an individual acting as National Security Advisor.
III. Deutsche Bank
John Bolton accepted $72,000 from German Deutsche Bank to speak at an event in May 2017.
Deutsche Bank has for decades engaged in questionable behavior. During World War II, they
provided financial services to the Nazi Gestapo and financed construction
of the infamous Auschwitz as well as an adjacent plant for chemical company IG Farben.
Like HSBC, Deutsche Bank has provided illicit services to international criminal organizations. In 2014
court filings showed that Deutsche Bank, Citi and Bank of America had all
acted as channels for drug money sent to Colombian security currency brokerages suspected of acting on behalf of traffickers.
In 2017, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a $630 million fine after working with
a Danish bank in Estonia to launder over $10 billion through London and
Moscow on behalf of Russian entities. The UK's financial regulatory watchdog
has said that Deutsche Bank is failing to prevent its accounts from being used to launder money, circumvent sanctions and
finance terrorism. In November 2018, Deutsche Bank's headquarters was raided
by German authorities as part of an investigation sparked by 2016 revelations in the "Panama Papers" leak from Panama's Mossack
Fonseca.
Two weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Bush administration signed
an executive order linking a company owned by German national Mamoun Darkazanli to Al Qaeda. In 1995,
Darkazanli co-signed the opening of a Deutsche Bank account for Mamdouh
Mahmud Salim. Salim was identified by the CIA as the chief of bin Laden's computer operations and weapons procurement. He was
ultimately arrested in Munich, extradited to the United States and
charged
with participation in the 1998 US embassy bombings.
In 2017, the Office of the New York State Comptroller opened an investigation into accounts that Deutsche Bank was operating
on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP is defined by both the United States and the European
Union as a terrorist organization. It is ironic that Bolton, who is a past recipient of the "Guardian of Zion Award" would accept
money from an entity who provided services to Palestinian groups that Israel considers to be terror related.
IV. Clinton-esque Financial Ties Unbecoming To Trump Administration
Bolton's engagement in paid speeches, in some cases with well-known donors to the Clinton Foundation, paints the Trump administration
in a very bad light. Donald Trump criticized Hillary Clinton during his
2016 Presidential campaign for speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs that were
labeled by her detractors as "pay to play" behavior. John Bolton's acceptance of money from similar entities, especially the Victor
Pinchuk Foundation, are exactly the same kind of activity and are an embarrassment for a President who claims to be against corruption.
More broadly, John Bolton's work for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, HSBC and Deutsche Bank shows that while he preaches
hardline foreign policy approaches towards nations such as Iran and North Korea he has no issue tying himself to those who openly
flaunt American sanctions and diplomatic attempts to pressure these states. For an individual who is the President's National
Security Advisor to have taken money from banks who provide financial services to terror groups who have murdered thousands of
Americans is totally unacceptable.
It is embarrassing enough that Donald Trump hired Bolton in the first place. The next best remedy is to let him go as soon
as possible.
The Russians are not very worried about crossing the British but I cannot imagine what
the fallout would be if one of their spies got caught got caught killing someone here.
Sir, you are a rare breed. I didn't believe who believe that nonsense about the Russians
killing Litvinenko or Skripals actually existed. You have a remarkable capacity of swallowing
a large pile of BS.
"... Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time. ..."
"... In his own words, Donald Trump reveals his hypocrisy about Iraq, immigration, health care, abortion, Libya, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and more. ..."
@WorkingClass
Alex Graham is right. I voted for Trump because he promised:
(1) to end the wars the US is fighting as a sock puppet of Israel and her domestic agents,
the so-called neocons and the traitorous Zionist fifth column in this country, exemplified by
Adelson, Saban, Kushner, et al.;
(2) to restore the rule of law regarding illegal aliens in this country by removing these
criminals post haste;
(3) to restore order at the border and end the massive stream of illegals and contraband
entering our country every day;
(4) to establish reasonable laws and policies regulating immigration and naturalization so
that new immigrants and citizens improve rather than diminish the quality of life for current
citizens; and
(5) to eliminate and/or restructure trade agreements so they are bilateral and not
destructive of the USA's industrial and economic base.
Trump has reneged on all these promises and in many cases done the exact opposite. I
suspect that part of this was deliberate lying on Trump's part but a lot of it is due to his
sheer, mind-boggling incompetence, coupled with modest intelligence, and some rather severe
personality disorders that have manifested themselves more clearly over time.
By all means, do not vote for Trump ever again. I don't intend to. But please don't
consider voting for a Democrat. They will just more efficiently screw us than Trump is doing
now.
"... Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985, for instance. ..."
"... Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view, but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.) ..."
"... Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board of his National Council for the American Worker (which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders in its job postings. ..."
"... There are more former Goldman Sachs employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined. ..."
"... It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives ..."
"... As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon. " ..."
"... Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the passing of a bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional $550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation. ..."
"... Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better. ..."
"... We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more" ..."
"Unlike other presidents, I keep my promises," Trump boasted in a
speech delivered on Saturday to the Republican Jewish Congress
at a luxury hotel in Las Vegas. Many in the audience wore red yarmulkes emblazoned with his name. In his speech, Trump condemned
Democrats for allowing "the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism to take root in their party" and emphasized his loyalty to Israel.
Trump has kept some of his promises. So far, he has kept every promise that he made to the Jewish community. Yet he has reneged
on his promises to white America – the promises that got him elected in the first place. It is a betrayal of the highest order: millions
of white Americans placed their hopes in Trump and wholeheartedly believed that he would be the one to make America great again.
They were willing to endure social ostracism and imperil their livelihoods by supporting him. In return, Trump has turned his back
on them and rendered his promises void.
The most recent example of this is Trump's failure to keep his promise to close the border. On March 29, Trump threatened to close
the border if Mexico did not stop all illegal immigration into the US. This would likely have been a highly effective measure given
Mexico's dependence on cross-border trade. Five days later, he suddenly retracted this threat and said that he would give Mexico
a " one-year warning
" before taking drastic action. He further claimed that closing the border would not be necessary and that he planned to establish
a twenty-five percent
tariff on cars
entering the US instead.
Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened
before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985,
for instance.
Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak
into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador
is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs
that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view,
but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.)
The past two years have seen a surge in illegal immigration without precedent in the past decade. Since late December, the Department
of Homeland Security has released 125,565 illegal aliens into the country. In the past two weeks alone,
6,000 have been admitted. According to current projections, 2019 will witness around 500,000 to 775,000 border crossings. Additionally,
about 630,000 illegal aliens will be added to the population after having overstayed their visas. By the end of the year,
more than one million illegal aliens will have been added to the population:
These projections put the number of illegal aliens added to the U.S. population at around one to 1.5 million, on top of the
11 to
22 million illegal aliens who are already living across the country. This finding does not factor in the illegal aliens who
will be deported, die over the next year, or leave the U.S. of their own will. As DHS data has revealed, once border crossers
and illegal aliens are released into the country, the overwhelming majority are never deported.
In February, Trump signed a
bill allowing the DHS
secretary to add another 69,320 spots to the current H-2B cap of 66,000. On March 29, DHS began this process by announcing that it
would issue an additional
30,000 H-2B visas this year. The H-2B visa program allows foreign workers to come to the US and work in non-agricultural occupations.
Unlike the H-1B program, a Bachelor's degree is not required; most H-2B workers are employed in construction, maintenance, landscaping,
and so on. The demographic most affected by the expansion of the H-2B program will be unemployed working-class Americans. This flies
in the face of Trump's promise to protect American workers and stop importing foreigners.
Trump has indicated that he has plans to expand the H-1B visa program as well. "We want to encourage talented and highly skilled
people to pursue career options in the U.S.," he said in a
tweet in January.
Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board
of his National Council for the American Worker
(which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has
expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders
in its job postings.
Trump has been working on legal immigration with Jared Kushner, who has quietly been crafting a
plan to grant
citizenship to more "low- and high-skilled workers, as well as permanent and temporary workers" (so, just about everyone). Kushner's
plan proves the folly of the typical Republican line that legal immigration is fine and that only illegal immigration should be opposed.
Under his plan, thousands of illegal aliens will become "legal" with the stroke of a pen.
There is a paucity of anti-immigration hardliners in Trump's inner circle (though Stephen Miller is a notable exception). Trump
has surrounded himself with moderates: the Kushners, Mick Mulvaney, Alex Acosta, and others. There are more former Goldman Sachs
employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined.
The new DHS secretary, Kevin McAleenan, who was appointed yesterday following Kirstjen Nielsen's resignation, is a middle-of-the-road
law enforcement official who served under Obama and Bush and is responsible for the revival of the "
catch-and-release " policy, whereby
illegal aliens are released upon being apprehended. It was reported last week that Trump was thinking of appointing either Kris Kobach
or Ken Cuccinelli to a position of prominence (as an "
immigration czar "),
but this appears to have been another lie.
Trump's failure to deliver on his promises cannot be chalked up to congressional obstruction. Congress. As Kobach said in a recent
interview , "It's not like we're powerless and it's not like we have to wait for Congress to do something. . . . No, we can actually
solve the immediate crisis without Congress acting." Solving the border crisis would simply demand "leadership in the executive branch
willing to act decisively." Kobach recently outlined an intelligent
three-point plan that Trump could implement:
Publish the final version of the regulation that would supersede the Flores Settlement. The initial regulation was
published by the Department of Homeland
Security in September 2018. DHS could have published the final regulation in December. Inexplicably, DHS has dragged its feet. Finalizing
that regulation would allow the United States to detain entire families together, and it would stop illegal aliens from exploiting
children as get-out-of-jail free cards. Set up processing centers at the border to house the migrants and hold the hearings in one
place. The Department of Justice should deploy dozens of immigration judges to hear the asylum claims at the border without releasing
the migrants into the country. FEMA already owns
thousands of travel trailers and mobile homes that it has used to address past hurricane disasters. Instead of selling them (which
FEMA is currently doing), FEMA should ship them to the processing centers to provide comfortable housing for the migrants. In addition,
a fleet of passenger planes should deployed to the processing centers. Anyone who fails in his or her asylum claim, or who is not
seeking asylum and is inadmissible, should be flown home immediately. It would be possible to fly most migrants home within a few
weeks of their arrival. Word would get out quickly in their home countries that entry into the United States is not as easy as advertised.
The incentive to join future caravans would dissipate quickly. Publish a proposed Treasury regulation that prohibits the sending
home of remittances by people who cannot document lawful presence in the United States. This will hit Mexico in the pocketbook: Mexico
typically brings in well over $20 billion a year in
remittances , raking in
more than $26 billion in 2017. Then, tell the government of Mexico that we will finalize the Treasury regulation unless they do two
things to help us address the border crisis: (1) Mexico immediately signs a "safe third country agreement" similar to our agreement
with Canada. This would require asylum applicants to file their asylum application in the first safe country they set foot in (so
applicants in the caravans from Central America would have to seek asylum in Mexico, rather than Canada); and (2) Mexico chips in
$5 billion to help us build the wall. The threat of ending remittances from illegal aliens is a far more powerful one than threatening
to close the border. Ending such remittances doesn't hurt the U.S. economy; indeed, it helps the economy by making it more likely
that such capital will be spent and circulate in our own country. We can follow through easily if Mexico doesn't cooperate.
It would not be all that difficult for Trump to implement these proposals. Kobach still has faith in Trump, but his assessment
of him appears increasingly to be too generous. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in
curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions
of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives . At the same time, he wants to
maintain the illusion that he cares about his base.
As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish.
The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon.
"
Nearly everything Trump has done in the name of restricting immigration has turned out to be an empty gesture and mere theatrics:
threatening to close the border, offering protections to "Dreamers" in exchange for funding for the ever-elusive wall, threatening
to end the "anchor baby" phenomenon with an executive order (which never came to pass), cutting off aid to Central American countries,
claiming that he will appoint an "immigration czar" (and then proceeding to appoint McAleenan instead of Kobach as DHS secretary),
and on and on.
While Trump has failed to keep the promises that got him elected, he has fulfilled a number of major promises that he made to
Israel and the Jewish community.
First, he moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump claimed that the move would only cost $200,000, but in
reality it will end up being more than
$20 million . The construction
of the embassy also led to a series of bloody protests; it is located in East Jerusalem, which is generally acknowledged to be Palestinian
territory.
Second, he pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu
claimed on Israeli TV that Israel was responsible for convincing him to exit the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran. (Both Trump
and Netanyahu falsely alleged that Iran lied about the extent of its nuclear program; meanwhile, Israel's large arsenal of chemical
and biological weapons has escaped mention.) Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the
passing of a
bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional
$550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation.
Fourth, he recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights (in defiance of the rest of the world, which recognizes the
Golan Heights as Syrian territory under Israeli occupation). Trump's Golan Heights proclamation was issued on March 21 and was celebrated
by Israel. Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed
to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most
credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess
game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better.
If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story
of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.
I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is,
and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.
Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?
Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on
BookTV .
Yep. Trump's a lying POS pond scum like the rest of the DC swamp that he said he was going to drain, turns out he is one of them
all along. We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more. He needs to change his campaign slogan to MIGA, Make Israel
Great Again, that was the plan of his handlers all along.
What I want to know is, who are those idiots who still keep showing up at his rallies? Are they really that dumb?
Even Sanders came out and said we can't have open borders. I've also heard him said back in 2015 that the H1b visa program
is a replacement program for American workers. If he grows a pair and reverts back to that stance, teams up with Tulsi Gabbard,
I'll vote for them 2020. Fuck Trump! Time for him and his whole treasonous rat family to move to Israel where they belong.
His "implicitly white" supporters would have abandoned him in droves, not wanting to be associated with a racist, thus pointing
up the weakness of implicit whiteness as a survival strategy. And is it actually a survival strategy? A closer look at it makes
me think it's more of a racial self-extermination strategy. After all, what kind of a survival strategy is it that can't even
admit its goals to itself? And it's exactly this refusal of whites to explicitly state that they collectively want to continue
to exist as a race that is the greatest impediment to their doing so. It's an interesting problem with no easy solution. How
do you restore the will to live to a race that seems to have lost it? And not only lost its will to live, but actually prides
itself on doing so? Accordingly, this "betrayal" isn't a betrayal at all. It's what American whites voted for and want. Giving
their country away and accepting their own demographic demise is proof of their virtue; proof of their Christian love for all
mankind.
You are definitely onto something here.
Still, I feel it's not that deep and complicated. It could be that they simply don't believe that the danger is closing in.
Boils down to wrong judgment. People who haven't had the need to think hard about serious things tend to develop that weakness.
I guess that boils down to "good times make weak men."
Hard times are coming and they'll make hard men.
The catch is simple: will be enough of them in time ?
Switching to the Democrats is no solution. The DNC has proven itself to be a criminal organization through sabotaging Sander's
campaign and then being instrumental in creating Russophobia, in collusion with Obama, the CIA, the FBI, and the DoJ. The DNC
has rules in place stating that super delegates – elitists aligned with the DNC – can vote if one nominee does not win on the
first ballot at the National Convention.
Because we have a HUGE number of hats in the Democratic ring, the chances that the nomination
will not be decided on a first vote are extremely high, with the result being that the Democratic nominee is not going to be decided
by voters in the primaries but by super delegates, i.e., the elitists and plutocrats.
Democracy exists when we vote to support
candidates chosen by the elites for the elites; when we stop doing that, the elites turn on democracy. It is a sham; we will have
a choice in 2020: between Pepsi and Coke. You are free to choose which one you prefer, because you live in a democracy. For more
on the rigging of the democratic primaries for 2020, see
"... Weakened by "Russiagate" accusations, Trump was forced to back off his agenda of ending the wars. He put policy in the hands of neoconservative warmongers like John Bolton and Pompeo, and expanded the prospect of wars into Iran and Venezuela. Trump in office bears little resemblance to Trump campaigning for the presidency. ..."
"... It is not clear how Trump has benefited from his groveling. If polls can be believed, Trump's pandering has done him no good with American Jews, 70% of whom disapprove of Trump. Moreover, the Israel Lobby failed to use its influence to silence the presstitutes false "Russiagate" accusations against Trump. Perhaps the Lobby wanted to keep Trump in a weak position in order to extract more concessions from him. ..."
"... Trump, who campaigned on peace so that America's attention and resources could be focused on America's own situation, now has the US more embroiled than ever in the affairs of foreign countries, principally Israel, a Zionist state. This fact makes it reasonable to conclude that Trump is America's first Zionist president, a development that bodes more ill for the world. ..."
It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for President Donald Trump. His agenda to restore
normal relations with Russia and to end Washington's gratuitous wars has been frustrated by the
"Russiagate hoax" that the military/security complex and corrupt Democratic Party used in the
effort to remove Trump from the presidency. He and his wife have been embarrassed by the fake
"Steele Dossier" paid for by the Clinton campaign and used by a corrupt FBI leadership to
illegitimately obtain spy warrants on Trump and his associates. Accused of cavorting with
prostitutes in Moscow and confronted with claims by a porn star of an affair in order to boost
the recognition value of her name, Trump and his wife have experienced uncomfortable times. Now
that the lies the presstitutes have told since 2016 have been exposed by Mueller's inability,
despite his use of every dirty trick, to come up with any indictable offense connected to
"Russiagate," the psychopathic liars who comprise the presstitute media are on the verge of
tears. Mueller has betrayed them, they claim, by letting Trump off the hook. https://www.rt.com/usa/454550-mueller-media-reactions-trump-indictment/
In other words, there will be no apology to Trump. Don't be surprised to see the deranged
accusation that Mueller himself was part of the Russian collusion and was appointed for the
purpose of covering it up.
Weakened by "Russiagate" accusations, Trump was forced to back off his agenda of ending the
wars. He put policy in the hands of neoconservative warmongers like John Bolton and Pompeo, and
expanded the prospect of wars into Iran and Venezuela. Trump in office bears little resemblance
to Trump campaigning for the presidency.
Under such pressure Trump has broken American diplomatic precedent and international law
with respect to Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights in his effort to seek the protection of
the powerful Israel Lobby. He recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the US Embassy
there, and on March 22 he said it is time to accept the reality of Israel's occupation of
Syria's Golen Heights as Israeli territory. This extreme pandering to Israeli Zionism is a
disgrace to the United States. https://www.rt.com/news/454528-trump-recognize-golan-heights-netanyahu/
It is not clear how Trump has benefited from his groveling. If polls can be believed,
Trump's pandering has done him no good with American Jews, 70% of whom disapprove of Trump.
Moreover, the Israel Lobby failed to use its influence to silence the presstitutes false
"Russiagate" accusations against Trump. Perhaps the Lobby wanted to keep Trump in a weak
position in order to extract more concessions from him.
Nevertheless, by terminating US aid to Palestinians and by being the only head of state to
fully recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and to assign Syrian territory to Israel,
Trump has established a US relationship with Israeli Zionism that the US has with no other
state and that Israel has with no other state. On any issue that pertains to Israel's interest,
Trump has placed US foreign policy into Israel's hands.
Various diplomats and analysts are saying that Trump gifted the Golan Heights to Israel in
order to help out Netanyahu who faces indictment for corruption. I think the explanation is
that the neoconservatives running US foreign policy are Zionists and that the only ally Trump
has, other than the remnants of the American working class now dismissed as "white
supremacists," is the Israel Lobby.
The hostility of the Trump regime toward Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and
Venezuela does America no good (except for the shareholders of the military/security complex).
But the hostility toward Iran, Syria, and their protector -- Russia -- does benefit Israel.
Israel has been frustrated in its desire to occupy southern Lebanon by the Hezbollah militia,
which is supported by Syria and Iran. If Washington can destabilize Syria and Iran, as it did
Iraq and Libya, Hezbollah would be cut off from support. Moreover, Washington's accusations
against Russia and missile bases on Russia's border can distract Russia's attention and
resources away from the Middle East and leave Syria and Iran less able to resist the US/Israeli
pressures.
Trump, who campaigned on peace so that America's attention and resources could be focused on
America's own situation, now has the US more embroiled than ever in the affairs of foreign
countries, principally Israel, a Zionist state. This fact makes it reasonable to conclude that
Trump is America's first Zionist president, a development that bodes more ill for the
world.
King Solomon wrote, "Much study is a weariness of the flesh." (Eccl. 12:12 KJV) I will add that it doesn't
make one a lot of friends either -- especially if what one discovers through his studies cuts against the grain of
commonly accepted teaching.
In
my message to Liberty Fellowship last Sunday
, I made the point that Zionism is one of America's greatest
threats. I do not say that lightly. Many years and untold hours of laborious study have led me to that
conclusion. Only the lack of truth-preaching (including truth-preaching about Zionism) from America's pulpits
is a greater threat to our country. Beyond that, Zionism is one of the most politically protected institutions
in America. No! It is THE most politically protected institution in the country. Bar none!
The influence and intimidation that Zionism wields over America's major institutions and industries are
incalculable -- and seemingly impenetrable. From the church house to the White House, from Main Street to Wall
Street, from Hollywood and Vine to Broadway and from the marbled halls of Congress to the hallowed halls of
ivy-covered universities, Zionism reigns supreme.
ROBERT STEELE:
This is the single best over-all denouncement of the Zionist parasite as it
exists in America, that I have ever read. The pastor does three things: itemizes Zionist control and
atrocities of control, including the most recent attempts to destroy Senator Rand Paul and Representative Ilhan
Omar; challenges our President, whose past includes deep deep Zionist ties suggestive of compromise; and
explains how so many Christian Zionists have been bribed and brainwashed -- the two go together -- to place
Israel First instead of America First.
Zionism in the USA is OVER. The tide has turned.
I personally am hopeful that our President will divorce himself from the Zionists who think they own
him, and truly commit to America First.
Now we simply have to make #UNRIG – Election Integrity Act and disclosure of the Zionist role in
9/11 the twin demands of our President
if he wishes to be re-elected in 2020, AND to have a Congress
free of Zionist bribery, blackmail, and lies in 2020 and beyond.
On Monday, President Donald Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, the first time the
United States has designated part of another nation's government as such a threat.
Iran's Supreme National Security Council responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist group.
With 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 2,000 in Syria, often in proximity to Iranian units, this inches America closer to war.
Why did we do it? What benefit did the U.S. derive?
How do we now negotiate with the IRGC on missile tests?
Israel's Bibi Netanyahu took credit for Trump's decision, tweeting, "Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression
and terrorism. Thank you for accepting another important request of mine."
Previous "requests" to which Trump acceded include moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, declaring Jerusalem Israel's eternal
capital, closing the Palestinian consulate and cutting off aid, and U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in
1967, as sovereign Israeli territory.
What Bibi wants, Bibi gets.
One hopes his future requests will not include a demand that we cease dithering and deliver the same "shock and awe" to Iran that
George W. Bush delivered to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
With Bibi's election win Tuesday, his fifth, the secret Mideast peace plan Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has been laboring
on these last two years is likely to be unveiled.
Yet it is hard to see how Jared's baby is not stillborn.
Bibi is not going to accept a Palestinian right of return to Israel, or a sharing of the Holy City with a Palestinian state ruled
by a successor of Yasser Arafat. And as Bibi fought Ariel Sharon's withdrawal of the 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza, he is not going
to order the removal of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from homes on the West Bank.
Indeed, on the eve of his reelection Tuesday, Bibi promised Israelis he would begin the annexation of Jewish settlements on the
West Bank.
As for Trump, he is the most popular man in Israel. And he is not going to force Bibi to do what Bibi does not want to do and
thereby imperil his major political gains in the U.S. Jewish community.
Given the indulgence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for BDS, the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction
movement, and the divisions among Democrats over Netanyahu's expansionism, the president's pro-Israel stance has proven a political
winner for the GOP.
But while a U.S. war with Iran may be what Bibi wants, it is not what America wants or needs.
Consider what 20 years of U.S. wars in the Mideast have cost this country, as China has stayed out of the region and pushed its
power and influence into Asia, Africa and Europe.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have regained control of more territory than they have held since 2001, and they are negotiating with
the Americans for a withdrawal of our remaining 14,000 troops.
Cost of the Afghan war: 2,400 U.S. dead, 32,000 wounded, $1 trillion sunk, and the U.S. on the precipice of a potential strategic
defeat.
So dreadful has become the five-year Yemeni civil war between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed regime they ousted
that the U.S. House and Senate have invoked the War Powers Act and directed Trump to terminate U.S. assistance for the Saudi intervention.
In Libya, where a U.S.-led NATO intervention overthrew Colonel Gadhafi in 2011, a renegade general now controls two-thirds of
the country and is mounting an assault on Tripoli. U.S. soldiers and diplomats fled the capital last week.
In Syria, President Bashar Assad, with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, defeated the U.S. backed-rebels years ago.
The Syrian Kurdish militia we partnered with to crush ISIS have been designated as terrorists by the Turks, who promise to annihilate
the Kurds if they try to return to homes along the Turkish border.
As for Turkey itself, President Erdogan says he will take delivery this summer of a Russian-made S-400 air and missile defense
system.
Go through with that, says the U.S., and we cancel your order for 100 F-35s. The justified U.S. fear: Russia's S-400 system will
be tested against America's most advanced fifth-generation fighter, the F-35.
If Turkey does not cancel the S-400, a NATO crisis appears imminent.
In Iraq, where 5,000 U.S. troops remain, the government has both pro-U.S. and pro-Iran elements in Baghdad, and mutual designation
of the IRGC and CENT-COM as terrorist organizations can only present hellish problems for America's soldiers and diplomats still
in that country.
Bottom line: Though Bibi and John Bolton may want war with Iran, U.S. national interests, based on the awful experience of two
decades, and Trump's political interests, dictate that he not start any more wars.
Not a single Middle East war this century has gone as we planned or hoped.
@Thomm
That's so true that it's almost incredible, Andrew Anglin of the daily stormer has been
campaigning for Tulsi Gabbard & Andrew Yang for well over a month
He could be said to be instrumental in putting Yang on the democratic primaries and
possibly Tulsi as well all the while using his weaponized memes against Trump!! I'm in
disbelief.
Gabbard: Assange arrest is a threat to journalists
By Rachel Frazin – 04/11/19 06:10 PM EDT
Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) condemned the arrest of
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday, calling the arrest a threat to
journalists.
"The arrest of #JulianAssange is meant to send a message to all Americans and
journalists: be quiet, behave, toe the line. Or you will pay the price," Gabbard
tweeted.
The Democrat's remark came hours after police in London arrested Assange, citing charges
he is facing in the U.S.
Assange is accused of conspiring to hack into computers in connection with WikiLeaks's
release of classified documents from former Army private and intelligence analyst Chelsea
Manning.
The fact that Glenn Greenwald proved to be a despicable pressitute cast a long shadow of
Snowden and Assange.
Notable quotes:
"... Not mentioned by any of the major news media is the fact that Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (sic), renowned for its interference in foreign elections, funding terrorists and overthrowing governments the US doesn't approve of. ..."
A quick comment about the two Russian alleged assassins, exposed, we are told by the
'investigative' Website, Bellingcat. Not mentioned by any of the major news media is the fact
that Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (sic), renowned for its
interference in foreign elections, funding terrorists and overthrowing governments the US
doesn't approve of.
Media Lens picked up on this awhile back in reference to another Western financed
outfit, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), funded by the UK Foreign Office. I've
also expanded this by quoting from Media Lens' other article that deals with Western-funded
disinfo, ' Douma: Part 1
– Deception In Plain Sight':
Liberal corporate journalists and politicians have been impressed by the fact that SOHR
and White Helmets claims have been supported by ostensibly forensic analysis supplied by the
Bellingcat website, which publishes 'citizen journalist' investigations. As we noted
in a recent alert, Bellingcat is funded by the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is funded by the US government and is 'a notorious
vehicle for US soft power'. – '
The Syrian Observatory – Funded By The Foreign Office ', Media Lens, June 4
2018
It's worth quoting more of the Media Lens article as it exposes the nature of Western
so-called lefties and their attachment to Western (funded) propaganda outfits:
In the New Statesman, Paul Mason
offered a typically nonsensical argument, linking to the anti-Assad website,
Bellingcat:
'Despite the availability of public sources showing it is likely that a regime Mi-8
helicopter dropped a gas container onto a specific building, there are well-meaning people
prepared to share the opinion that this was a "false flag", staged by jihadis, to pull the
West into the war. The fact that so many people are prepared to clutch at false flag theories
is, for Western democracies, a sign of how effective Vladimir Putin's global strategy has
been.'
Thus, echoing Freedland's reference to 'denialists and conspiracists', sceptics can only
be idiot victims of Putin's propaganda. US media analyst Adam Johnson of FAIR accurately
described Mason's piece as a 'mess', adding :
'I love this thing where nominal leftists run the propaganda ball for bombing a country 99
yards then stop at the one yard and insist they don't support scoring goals, that they in
fact oppose war.'
Surprisingly, the Bellingcat website, which publishes the findings of 'citizen journalist'
investigations, appears to be taken seriously by some very high-profile progressives.
In the Independent, Green Party leader Caroline Lucas also
mentioned the Syrian army 'Mi-8' helicopters. Why? Because she had read the same
Bellingcat blog as Mason, to which she linked:
'From the evidence we've seen so far it appears that the latest chemical attack was likely
by Mi-8 helicopters, probably from the forces of Syria's murderous President Assad.'
On Democracy Now!, journalist Glenn Greenwald said of
Douma:
'I think that it's -- the evidence is quite overwhelming that the perpetrators of this
chemical weapons attack, as well as previous ones, is the Assad government '
This was an astonishing comment. After receiving fierce challenges (not from us),
Greenwald partially retracted, tweeting :
'It's live TV. Something [sic – sometimes] you say things less than ideally. I think
the most likely perpetrator of this attack is Syrian Govt.'
We wrote to Greenwald asking what had persuaded him of Assad's 'likely' responsibility for
Douma. (Twitter, April 10, direct message)
The first piece of evidence he sent us (April 12) was the Bellingcat blog mentioning
Syrian government helicopters cited by Mason and Lucas. Greenwald also sent us a
report from Reuters, as well as a
piece from 2017, obviously prior to the alleged Douma event.
This was thin evidence indeed for the claim made. In our discussion with him, Greenwald
then completely retracted his claim (Twitter, April 12, direct message) that there was
evidence of Syrian government involvement in the alleged attack. [My emph. WB] – '
Douma: Part
1 – Deception In Plain Sight'
@AnonJ ust for a
more important record -- no surprise here -- my quick scan of the index of file names of that
"massive data dump at Wikileaks" found quite a few files about Scientology, one about tuition
increase at "uofa," another concerning Hawaii's announcement about Obama's birth certificate,
and a "yes-we-can mp4," but nothing at all about the World Trade Center or 9/11 that I could
find.
The Russians are not very worried about crossing the British but I cannot imagine what
the fallout would be if one of their spies got caught got caught killing someone here.
Sir, you are a rare breed. I didn't believe who believe that nonsense about the Russians
killing Litvinenko or Skripals actually existed. You have a remarkable capacity of swallowing
a large pile of BS.
In reality, Chabad's ideology is NOT Jewish. In Israel, Chabad is considered by the most
important Rabbis as a religion different from Judaism. Chabad is a different religion.
Chabadism is NOT Judaism.
So, why is this bad for the Jews? Chabad is a criminal organization. Chabad is mostly
involved in white collar criminal activities such as financial fraud, tax evasion, and money
laundering.
Chabad has also been linked to various Jewish child abuse cases
When these criminal activities are discovered and exposed to the public, and because Chabad
poses as a Jewish organization, anti-Jewish hatred is created. That is, Chabad creates
anti-semitism in the world.
Also, many of Chabad victims are Jewish. Mostly, Jewish children. Chabad runs several
schools around the world. The objective of these schools is NOT to provide a good Jewish
education for their students. The objective of these schools is to MAKE A PROFIT at the expense
of the Jewish children.
... ... ...
Chabad-Lubavitch is also an international organized crime syndicate that strangles free
enterprise and raises the level of violence, fraud, and corruption in various cities in the
USA, and across the world.
... ... ...
Disclaimer: Please conduct your own investigation about the issues
mentioned in this website. This website is only a brief summary of the problems with Chabad.
For more information, please talk to your local community Rabbi. Also, if you really care about
being Jewish, come live in Israel and study Judaism.
Copyright Notice: According to Jewish Law, it is a Mitzva, a religious obligation, to
provide this information to every Jew in the world, in order to protect Jewish children from
Chabad, and to save Jewish lives and Jewish souls from being destroyed by Chabad. Therefore,
permission is granted to copy and reproduce all of the information found on this website in any
form and publication, including any website or blog, and to translate it to any language. The
only requirement is that you mention that the information was obtained from this website, and
in the case of internet pages, please add a link back to this website.
Unfortunately, the near totality of this country's populace is effectively illiterate
and poorly equipped to think critically and independently, preferring to accept the
verdicts of their oleaginous talking heads at face value without ever troubling themselves
to examine why.
(The dubious products of the glorified diploma mills we call "higher education" are
often the most gullible and dim-witted.)
Someday, when we all have multiple degrees from prestigious institutions of exalted
learning, our collective I.Q. will be substantially higher than it is today, and we will
understand everything.
"... He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague ..."
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from
within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner
openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling
through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
For the traitor appears
not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and
their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He rots
the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of
the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to
fear. The traitor is the plague."
Money quote: "The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from
the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White
House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. There are clear parallels between the end stages
of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from
reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against
the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not
lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate."
Notable quotes:
"... Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’ ..."
"... Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .) ..."
"... Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them. ..."
"... ‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’ ..."
"... The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same. ..."
"... A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation. ..."
"... In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’) ..."
"... The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief. ..."
"... There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller." ..."
"... I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language. ..."
"... The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. ..."
"... There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate. ..."
"Dan, Thanks for the reference, which I will follow up. Unfortunately, although Bongino has produced a lot of extremely valuable
material, a lot of it is buried in the 'postcasts', searching through which is harder than with printed materials. It would greatly
help if there were transcripts, but of course those cost money.
I am still trying to fit the exploding mass of information which has been coming out into a coherent timeline. Part of the
problem is that there is so much appearing in so many different places. In addition to trying to think through the implications
of the information in this post and the subsequent exchanges of comments, I have been trying to make sense of evidence coming
out about the British end of the conspiracy.
An important development here has been rather well covered by Chuck Ross, in a recent ‘Daily Caller’ piece headlined ‘Cambridge
Academic Reflects On Interactions With 'Spygate’ Figure’ and one on ‘Fox’ by Catherine Herridge and Cyd Upson, entitled ‘Russian
academic linked to Flynn denies being spy, says her past contact was “used” to smear him.’ However, the evidence involved has ramifications
which they cannot be expected to understand, as yet at least.
At issue is the attempt to use the – apparently casual – encounter between Lieutenant-General Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova at a
dinner in Cambridge (U.K.) in February 2016 to smear him by, among other things, portraying her as some kind of ‘Mata Hari’ figure.
Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016
– a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with
Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’
This suggests that this was not simply a case Halper acting on his own. It also I think brings us back to the central importance
of Flynn’s visit to Moscow in December 2015.
Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come.
It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk
.)
Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This
points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians
might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic,
with Dearlove certainly among them.
Some of Lokhova’s comments on ‘twitter’ are extremely entertaining. An example, with which I have much sympathy:
‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to
cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes
#Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’
Meanwhile, another interesting recent ‘tweet’ comes from Eliot Higgins, of ‘Bellingcat’ fame. He is known to some skeptics as
‘the couch potato’ – perhaps he should be rechristened ‘king cockroach.’ It reads:
‘Looking forward to gettin g things rolling with the Open Information Partnership, with @bellingcat, @MDI_UK, @DFRLab, and @This_Is_Zinc
https://www.openinformation...’
There is an interesting ‘backstory’ to this. The announcement of an FCO-supported ‘Open Information Partnership of European Non-Governmental
Organisations, charities, academics, think-tanks and journalists’, supposedly to counter ‘disinformation’ from Russia, came in a
written answer from the Minister of State, Sir Alan Duncan, on 3 April.
In turn this followed the latest in a series of releases of material either leaked or hacked from the organisations calling themselves
‘Institute for Statecraft’ and ‘Integrity Initiative’ by the group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ on 25 March.
The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium
whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium
member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same.
A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian
organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible
explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation.
An interesting paragraph reads as follows:
‘An expanded research component could generate better understanding of the drivers (psychological, sociopolitical, cultural
and environmental) of those who are susceptible to disinformation. This will allow us to map vulnerable audiences, and build scenario
planning models to test the efficiency of different activities to build resilience of those populations over time.’
They have not yet got to the point of recommending psychiatic treatment for ‘dissidents’, but these are still early days. The
‘Sovietisation’ of Western life proceeds apace.
In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different
countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright
to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they
need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’)
Study of the proposal hacked/leaked by ‘Anonymous’ bring out both the ‘boondoggle’ element – there is a lot of state funding available
for people happy to play these games – and also the strong transatlantic links.
A particularly significant presence, here, is the ‘DFRLab’. This is the ‘Digital Forensic Research Lab’ at the ‘Atlantic Council’,
where Eliot Higgins is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’ The same organisation has a ‘Cyber Statecraft Initiative’ where Dmitri Alperovitch
is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’
It cannot be repeated often enough that it is difficult to see any conceivable excuse for the FBI to fail to secure access to
the DNC servers. One would normally moreover expect that, on an issue of this sensitivity, they would have the ‘digital forensics’
done by their own people.
There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been
a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that
organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic ‘Atlantic Council’ is even more preposterous.
The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored
by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief.
There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from
‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly
goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller."
OT but related, just watched a former naval Intelligence officer, now working for the Hoover Institute interviewed on FOX about
the Rooshins in Venezuela. Said, the 100 Russians are there to protect Maduro because he cannot trust his own army. Maduro's days
are numbered because he is toxically unpopular.
Got me thinking, our Intelligence services are good at psy-ops and keeping our gullible MSM in line but God help us if we ever
actually needed real Intelligence about a country. I remember about a month ago how all of these 'Think Tank Guys' were predicting
how the only people loyal to Maduro were a few of his crony Generals, that the rank and file military hated him and there were
going to be mass defections.
It didn't happen and we are all just supposed to forget that.
[not a socialist, don't have any love for Maduro, I just know that I will never learn anything of about Venezuela from these think
tank dudes, we are just getting groomed]
Venezuela isn't about "socialism," or even Maduro--it's about the oil. They have the largest proven reserves in the world, though
much of it is non-conventional and would need a ton of investment to exploit. But it's their oil, not ours, and we have no right
to meddle in their internal affairs.
Venezuela is neither about socialism nor oil in my opinion. It is everything to do with the neocons. And Trump buying into their
hegemonic dreams. Notice the resurrection of Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame as the man spearheading this in a triumvirate
with Bolton & Pompeo. IMO, a perfect foil for Putin & Xi to embroil the US in another regime change quagmire that further weakens
the US.
"There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has
been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating
for that organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic 'Atlantic Council' is even more preposterous."
True; and true. It is also true that the Clinton e-mail investigation was faux, a limp caricature of what an investigation
would look like when it is designed to uncover the truth. Allowing a subject's law firm to review the subject's e-mails from when
she was in government for relevancy is beyond preposterous. An investigation conducted in the normal way by apolitical Agents
in a field office would not walk away from a trove of evidence empty handed.
The inter-relatedness and overlapping of DoJ, CIA, and FBI personnel assigned to the Clinton e-mail case, the Russophobic nightmare
of a 'case' targeting Carter Page, and by extension, the Trump presidential campaign, and yes, the Mueller political op, all reek
of political bias and ineptitude followed by more political bias; and then culmination in a scorched earth investigation more
characteristic of something the STASI might have undertaken than American justice.
Early morning raids, gag orders, solitary confinements, show indictments that will never see adjudication in a court room - truly
unbelievable.
In your opinion was this surveillance, criminal & counter-intelligence investigation as well as information operations against
Trump centrally orchestrated or was it more reactive & decentralized?
There are so many facets. Fusion GPS & Nellie Ohr with her previous CIA connection. Her husband Bruce at the DOJ stovepiping
the dossier to the FBI. Brennan and his EC. Clapper and his intelligence assessment. Halper, Mifsud, Steele along with Hannigan
and the MI6 + GCHQ connection. Downer and the Aussies. FISA warrants on Page & Papadopolous. The whole Strzok & Page texting.
Comey, Lynch & the Hillary exoneration. McCabe. Then all the Russians. And the media leaks to generate hysteria.
I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its
about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal
had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary,
increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language.
And yet the chatterati
continued to chatter and invent ludicrously unreal worlds and analyses of the actual world they lived in until... bang... it was
no more.
I'd skip the first few chapters which are full of impenetrable marxist jargon.
The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go.
This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House.
It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler.
There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion
is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their
facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising
inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire
crashes we may not be so fortunate.
Money quote: "The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from
the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White
House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. There are clear parallels between the end stages
of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from
reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against
the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not
lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate."
Notable quotes:
"... Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’ ..."
"... Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .) ..."
"... Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them. ..."
"... ‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’ ..."
"... The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same. ..."
"... A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation. ..."
"... In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’) ..."
"... The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief. ..."
"... There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller." ..."
"... I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language. ..."
"... The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. ..."
"... There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate. ..."
"Dan, Thanks for the reference, which I will follow up. Unfortunately, although Bongino has produced a lot of extremely valuable
material, a lot of it is buried in the 'postcasts', searching through which is harder than with printed materials. It would greatly
help if there were transcripts, but of course those cost money.
I am still trying to fit the exploding mass of information which has been coming out into a coherent timeline. Part of the
problem is that there is so much appearing in so many different places. In addition to trying to think through the implications
of the information in this post and the subsequent exchanges of comments, I have been trying to make sense of evidence coming
out about the British end of the conspiracy.
An important development here has been rather well covered by Chuck Ross, in a recent ‘Daily Caller’ piece headlined ‘Cambridge
Academic Reflects On Interactions With 'Spygate’ Figure’ and one on ‘Fox’ by Catherine Herridge and Cyd Upson, entitled ‘Russian
academic linked to Flynn denies being spy, says her past contact was “used” to smear him.’ However, the evidence involved has ramifications
which they cannot be expected to understand, as yet at least.
At issue is the attempt to use the – apparently casual – encounter between Lieutenant-General Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova at a
dinner in Cambridge (U.K.) in February 2016 to smear him by, among other things, portraying her as some kind of ‘Mata Hari’ figure.
Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016
– a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with
Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’
This suggests that this was not simply a case Halper acting on his own. It also I think brings us back to the central importance
of Flynn’s visit to Moscow in December 2015.
Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come.
It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk
.)
Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This
points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians
might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic,
with Dearlove certainly among them.
Some of Lokhova’s comments on ‘twitter’ are extremely entertaining. An example, with which I have much sympathy:
‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to
cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes
#Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’
Meanwhile, another interesting recent ‘tweet’ comes from Eliot Higgins, of ‘Bellingcat’ fame. He is known to some skeptics as
‘the couch potato’ – perhaps he should be rechristened ‘king cockroach.’ It reads:
‘Looking forward to gettin g things rolling with the Open Information Partnership, with @bellingcat, @MDI_UK, @DFRLab, and @This_Is_Zinc
https://www.openinformation...’
There is an interesting ‘backstory’ to this. The announcement of an FCO-supported ‘Open Information Partnership of European Non-Governmental
Organisations, charities, academics, think-tanks and journalists’, supposedly to counter ‘disinformation’ from Russia, came in a
written answer from the Minister of State, Sir Alan Duncan, on 3 April.
In turn this followed the latest in a series of releases of material either leaked or hacked from the organisations calling themselves
‘Institute for Statecraft’ and ‘Integrity Initiative’ by the group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ on 25 March.
The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium
whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium
member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same.
A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian
organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible
explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation.
An interesting paragraph reads as follows:
‘An expanded research component could generate better understanding of the drivers (psychological, sociopolitical, cultural
and environmental) of those who are susceptible to disinformation. This will allow us to map vulnerable audiences, and build scenario
planning models to test the efficiency of different activities to build resilience of those populations over time.’
They have not yet got to the point of recommending psychiatic treatment for ‘dissidents’, but these are still early days. The
‘Sovietisation’ of Western life proceeds apace.
In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different
countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright
to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they
need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’)
Study of the proposal hacked/leaked by ‘Anonymous’ bring out both the ‘boondoggle’ element – there is a lot of state funding available
for people happy to play these games – and also the strong transatlantic links.
A particularly significant presence, here, is the ‘DFRLab’. This is the ‘Digital Forensic Research Lab’ at the ‘Atlantic Council’,
where Eliot Higgins is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’ The same organisation has a ‘Cyber Statecraft Initiative’ where Dmitri Alperovitch
is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’
It cannot be repeated often enough that it is difficult to see any conceivable excuse for the FBI to fail to secure access to
the DNC servers. One would normally moreover expect that, on an issue of this sensitivity, they would have the ‘digital forensics’
done by their own people.
There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been
a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that
organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic ‘Atlantic Council’ is even more preposterous.
The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored
by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief.
There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from
‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly
goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller."
OT but related, just watched a former naval Intelligence officer, now working for the Hoover Institute interviewed on FOX about
the Rooshins in Venezuela. Said, the 100 Russians are there to protect Maduro because he cannot trust his own army. Maduro's days
are numbered because he is toxically unpopular.
Got me thinking, our Intelligence services are good at psy-ops and keeping our gullible MSM in line but God help us if we ever
actually needed real Intelligence about a country. I remember about a month ago how all of these 'Think Tank Guys' were predicting
how the only people loyal to Maduro were a few of his crony Generals, that the rank and file military hated him and there were
going to be mass defections.
It didn't happen and we are all just supposed to forget that.
[not a socialist, don't have any love for Maduro, I just know that I will never learn anything of about Venezuela from these think
tank dudes, we are just getting groomed]
Venezuela isn't about "socialism," or even Maduro--it's about the oil. They have the largest proven reserves in the world, though
much of it is non-conventional and would need a ton of investment to exploit. But it's their oil, not ours, and we have no right
to meddle in their internal affairs.
Venezuela is neither about socialism nor oil in my opinion. It is everything to do with the neocons. And Trump buying into their
hegemonic dreams. Notice the resurrection of Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame as the man spearheading this in a triumvirate
with Bolton & Pompeo. IMO, a perfect foil for Putin & Xi to embroil the US in another regime change quagmire that further weakens
the US.
"There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has
been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating
for that organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic 'Atlantic Council' is even more preposterous."
True; and true. It is also true that the Clinton e-mail investigation was faux, a limp caricature of what an investigation
would look like when it is designed to uncover the truth. Allowing a subject's law firm to review the subject's e-mails from when
she was in government for relevancy is beyond preposterous. An investigation conducted in the normal way by apolitical Agents
in a field office would not walk away from a trove of evidence empty handed.
The inter-relatedness and overlapping of DoJ, CIA, and FBI personnel assigned to the Clinton e-mail case, the Russophobic nightmare
of a 'case' targeting Carter Page, and by extension, the Trump presidential campaign, and yes, the Mueller political op, all reek
of political bias and ineptitude followed by more political bias; and then culmination in a scorched earth investigation more
characteristic of something the STASI might have undertaken than American justice.
Early morning raids, gag orders, solitary confinements, show indictments that will never see adjudication in a court room - truly
unbelievable.
In your opinion was this surveillance, criminal & counter-intelligence investigation as well as information operations against
Trump centrally orchestrated or was it more reactive & decentralized?
There are so many facets. Fusion GPS & Nellie Ohr with her previous CIA connection. Her husband Bruce at the DOJ stovepiping
the dossier to the FBI. Brennan and his EC. Clapper and his intelligence assessment. Halper, Mifsud, Steele along with Hannigan
and the MI6 + GCHQ connection. Downer and the Aussies. FISA warrants on Page & Papadopolous. The whole Strzok & Page texting.
Comey, Lynch & the Hillary exoneration. McCabe. Then all the Russians. And the media leaks to generate hysteria.
I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its
about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal
had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary,
increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language.
And yet the chatterati
continued to chatter and invent ludicrously unreal worlds and analyses of the actual world they lived in until... bang... it was
no more.
I'd skip the first few chapters which are full of impenetrable marxist jargon.
The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go.
This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House.
It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler.
There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion
is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their
facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising
inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire
crashes we may not be so fortunate.
If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story
of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.
I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is,
and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.
Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?
Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on
BookTV .
Thanks for sharing the links on the Kushner Crime Family. It has been quite an adventure watching the MAGA man "transition"
into the MIGA man. What amazes me are the number of dumb f*ck Americans who still worship this ass hat, all the while he is driving
the betrayal dagger deeper into their back.
Sakers has a strong pro-Russian bias, and it shows. the process of distancing from Russia was
common for all post-Soviet republics and actually was caused by the mere fact of acquiring
independence. That it took such a self-destructive form in Ukraine is many ways the net result to
Washington geopolitical machinations (supported by Germany, Poland and Sweden).
The key problem is not EuroMaydan nationalist "revolution" per se, but that fact that
Ukrainian nationalists proved to be neoliberal compradors. Ukraine became the debt slave of the
West. Under neoliberal neocolonialism this is a very stable condition that guarantees that the
standard of living of people will not improve. The country will be sacked dry. So Ukraine is an
example of "Latin-Americanization" of post Soviet space -- that policy that Washington actively
implemented since 1991. After huge initial success with puppet Yeltsin regime, they failed to
weaken and dismember Russia further due to ascendance of Putin. But for all other republics it
was pretty successful neocolonial policy. They now have military bases in few of those republics
and most of them are debt slaves of IMF and World bank. In a way EuroMaydan signified the
finishing touches of conversion of this region into dent slaves.
Neoliberal Washington was turned into an oligarchy, an autocracy run by Davos billionaires.
Their "liberty" and democracy was an early example of Orwellian Doublethink. It was to destroy
everybody else's liberty so they could grab whatever they could, enslave the debtors and
create the polarized hostile to each other countries in post-Soviet state that are easily
controlled ("divide and conquer" strategy along with "Full Spectrum Dominance" mantra and
neoliberal "Washington Consensus" method of enslavement). Ukraine is the most glaring example of
this enslavement --the country with Central African level of poverty. It is very similar how
Roman oligarchy behaved -- the Roman oligarchy accused anyone of supporting debtor rights and
opposing its land grabs of "seeking kingship." Such men were murdered, century after century. It
seems that unless there's a Hammurabi-style "divine king" or some elected civic regulatory
authority arise, local neoliberal oligarchies arise and help to exploit their societies by
Washington as much as they can, while trying to prevent the country from defending itself. In few
countries like Hungary far right ascendance slowed down this process, but for how long is unlearn
as global finance is controlled from London and Washington and can crash any individual country
like a bug.
The Romans brutal "mission civilisatrice", can be viewed as to instll local oligarchy and and
kind of "financialized" economy in other countries. For performing this service, the imperial
power takes all the money that its colonies can generate. Washington is not different. That's why
the US meddles in foreign politics of other countries, as we have just seen in Ukraine, Libya and
Syria.
This overgrowth of debt under neoliberalism is highly destabilizing. Financial oligarchy have
broken free of tax liability and are enriching themselves not by helping the overall country
economy grow and raising living standards, but just the opposite: by getting the country into
bigger and bigger debt. This is the essence of Poroshenko regime -- corrupt comprador
oligarchy.
So there is no surprise that everybody hates Poroshenko and even huge "administrative
resource" and personal wealth did not help him to get more then 15% of votes (of which 5-10% are
probably fraudulent). That's typical for any neoliberal president who stand for re-election in a
debt slave country. But it is important to to note that this Washington marionette made the
situation much worse that the situation existed under Yanukovich (which was also corrupt as
hell).
The role of Israel in EuroMaydan is open to review and one comment below addresses that.
Some comments are more informed and are more interesting then the article, for example by
Beckow.
An interesting and funny detail is proliferation of "Children of lieutenant Schmitt" --
Holocaust survivors in Ukraine. People who were born in 1945, the first post-war generation, are
now 75, right ? And life expectantly for this generation is probably 65 for men and 75 for
women.
Notable quotes:
"... Poroshenko's absolutely vital goal was to make it into the 2nd round. Had he failed to make it he would have had to immediately jump into an aircraft and leave the country (because the most likely victor of the Presidential election would have been Iulia Tymoshenko and we can be darn sure that she would immediately jail him and most of his cronies). ..."
"... it is practically impossible to falsify an election and compensate for, say, a 15%-20% difference. But to cheat and change a result by less than 5% is much more doable. ..."
"... As for Zelenskii, he scores just like Poroshenko. ... ... ... ...Zelenskii is just a glorified puppet and everybody in the Ukraine knows that his puppet-master is Igor Kolomoiskii who is waiting out the final outcome of the Presidential election safely hidden in, you guessed it, Israel. ..."
"... Still, in theory, it is almost impossible for Poroshenko to win this one. Not only do all the other candidates hate Poroshenko way more than they would dislike Zelenskii, voters for Tymoshenko or Boiko are far more likely to vote for Zelenskii than for Poroshenko. ..."
"... Most votes went to Zelenski that is indication that Ukrainians now did loose their enthusiasm, and they are becoming more lethargic. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's State Department funneled $5 billion to orchestrate a "revolution" to overthrow the elected President of Ukraine in 2014. (See my June 7, 2016 blog post for details.) Ukraine's President was ousted because he refused to support Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, and violence spread throughout Ukraine as CIA funded factions fought for power. ..."
"... With the exception of the Baltic states, that simply isn't true of any nation from the former Soviet Union. Otherwise, the Russians couldn't have set up the Eurasian Customs Union which covers ~90% of the former USSR. There are even many Georgians working in Russia, in spite of the short war that was started by US dummy and former Georgian then Ukrainian, now stateless, Mikheil Saakashvili. ..."
"... I say the best solution for Ukraine would be to leave the nazis among themselves by giving independence to Galicia. If it's the price to pay to reintegrate Donbass, for the economy, and for peace and stability, it's worth it. ..."
"... He has been in the office for 5 years and 85% of people want someone else. How much clearer could this be? This was a massive vote of no-confidence by Ukrainians. If Porky squeezes or cheats his way into staying as president, he is asking for trouble – it is not sustainable and Washington knows it. ..."
"... Galicia and Donbas also clearly cannot coexist in the same non-federated state, they are on opposite sides. ..."
"... That takes away 3-5% of the Ukrainian economy. If Russia piles on and restricts more trade, or limits remittances, there will inevitably by a recession in Ukraine. The circus is about to re-start, no wonder the clowns are renting stadiums. But at some point the distractions will cease to distract – and then the damn reality will hit even harder ..."
"... Most importantly, the masters are OK with it. Imperial gauleiter of Ukraine Volker has already voiced his support for Porky. Porky would likely be more obedient than anyone else: he can be blackmailed, as he has already earned gallows (or life in prison in countries that don't have death penalty). So, the masters have already chosen their favorite puppet. We'll see on April 21st how much influence they have. ..."
"... I am not saying that Zelensky (and his puppet master Kolomoisky) won't do, but from masters' point of view old clown is apparently preferable to the new one. ..."
"... the first step when things don't go well, is to rotate the clowns. We got Macron, the German doppelganger for Merkel, elites tried Renzi in Italy, so maybe Zelinsky could work. He is a complete tabula rasa, non-entity, that wouldn't know how to find the executive washroom. At a minimum, he would buy some time. Next they can still try Tymoshenko. This will not get resolved through the political process. ..."
"... If the masters allow new clown to win, Gas princess can be made the speaker of the Rada ..."
"... I am not sure what is left to be gained in Ukraine, it is all costs and very few benefits. That's what happens when the layered lying becomes so convoluted that the masters lose track of the objectives. ..."
"... They wanted Crimea (actually Russia out of Crimea bases, NATO in) – that failed. Everything else were distractions, false promises, and payoffs to locals. A normal master would accept the defeat, take his toys home, and wait for the next time. The post-modern Washingtonians instead pretend that the sweet talk was real , try for silly, secondary objectives (how about a few missiles on the Russian border? that would work out great), or refuse to accept the obvious. Making the whole fiasco more costly. ..."
"... As to a few missiles on Russian border, they already have that in Baltic vaudeville states, which are much closer to Moscow and especially Sankt Petersburg then Zhmerinka. ..."
"... Then again, I am looking at it rationally, whereas Washington politburo is getting even less rational that the Soviet one under Brezhnev. ..."
"... In April this year [2018] the U.S. supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and in May 2018 the U.S. Congress approved $250m of military funding, specifically including deliveries of lethal weaponry. ..."
"... President Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker (a neocon, acolyte of senator John McCain, previously appointed by George Bush as U.S. ambassador to NATO) announced further U.S. arms supplies would follow, boasting of rising anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine. ..."
"... The zionists have been in cahoots with the neo-Nazi throughout the whole State Dept. criminal enterprise in Ukraine. The Kagans clan of holo-biz survivors and other pro-Nazi Jewish activists such as Gershman (NED) and Foxman (ADL) have been the moving force towards banderization of Ukraine ..."
By "Nazis" I primarily
mean their main figurehead – Petro Poroshenko (the rest of the "minor Nazis" did so
poorly that they don't matter anymore). Think of it: in spite of his immense wealth (he
outspent everybody else and even spent more that twice what the next big spender –
Tymoshenko – doled out for each vote), in spite of his immense "administrative resource"
(that is the Russian expression for the ability to use the power of the state for your personal
benefit), in spite of his "victory" with the Tomos , in spite of triggering the Kerch bridge
incident, in spite of breaking all the remaining treaties with Russia, in spite of his control
of the media and in spite of the (now admittedly lukewarm) support of the West, Poroshenko
suffered a crushing defeat. Look at the only two regions Petro Poroshenko (i.e. the Nazis)
actually won (in blue) and see how nicely they overlap with the rough historical contours of
the Galicia region.
But Poroshenko managed to even lose part of that to Iulia Tymoshenko! Bottom line: except for a
minority of rabid hardcore Nazis in Galicia, the rest of the Ukraine hates the Poroshenko
Ukronazi regime. We always knew that, but now we have the proof. ... ... ... Remember how
Poroshenko promised peace in weeks, a full respect for the Russian language and prosperity for
all? Well, all he delivered was chaos, insecurity, poverty, violence, a massive influx of
Ukronazis from Canada and the USA and, above all, a completely hysterical, rabid,
russophobia combined with abject groveling before the AngloZionist Empire. He also brought
an absolutely unbelievable level of corruption, having personally doubled his net worth many
times over. The legacy Ziomedia and the Ukropropaganda can say all they want, and they can try
to ban the Russian media and Internet in the Ukraine. But the truth is that everybody in the
Ukraine knows that the Ukraine went from being the richest Soviet Republic to the poorest
country in Europe. In fact, there are quite a few African countries which are doing much
better than the Ukraine. The truth is, and has been for several years now, that the Ukraine
is a failed state and that there is absolutely no even vaguely plausible scenario in the
foreseeable future in which the Ukraine could begin to recover. Hence this amazing result:
short of the Galician Nazis, everyone else absolutely hates the regime in power. So
Poroshenko's score is a humiliating defeat for all the Ukronazis. But not for Petro Poroshenko
himself!
Poroshenko's absolutely vital
goal was to make it into the 2nd round. Had he failed to make it he would have had to
immediately jump into an aircraft and leave the country (because the most likely victor of the
Presidential election would have been Iulia Tymoshenko and we can be darn sure that she would
immediately jail him and most of his cronies). In order to make it into the 2nd round,
Poroshenko did not have to defeat Zelenskii, but only defeat Tymoshenko and that Poroshenko
also succeeded in doing. Oh sure – it was thanks to a huge, massive fraud all over the
country (especially in the easternmost and westernmost regions) and he beat her only by 2.5%
but that is more than enough.
Besides, it is practically impossible to falsify an election and compensate for, say, a
15%-20% difference. But to cheat and change a result by less than 5% is much more doable.
In fact, if we assume that a 5% fraud is well within the means of an outgoing President and
billionaire, then we can also see that we will never know who really won . See here for an
almost finished (99.68%) count for the top four contenders: While Zelenskii is untouchable and
way ahead of everybody else, Poroshenko, Tymoshenko and Boiko are all within less than 5% of
each other. Interesting, no?
Keep in mind that Boiko is the closest thing to a pro-Russian candidate and that just a few
years ago he was virtually unknown. See for yourself: 2014 results vs 2018 poll Look at the
stats for 2014: Poroshenko had 55% of the vote, Tymoshenko 8% and Boiko just about 0%. Please
also notice that in the 2018 poll Tymoshenko is way ahead of Poroshenko while Boiko is not far
behind.
As for Zelenskii, he scores just like Poroshenko. ... ... ... ...Zelenskii is just a
glorified puppet and everybody in the Ukraine knows that his puppet-master is Igor Kolomoiskii
who is waiting out the final outcome of the Presidential election safely hidden in, you guessed
it, Israel. This is how the Tablet concludes:
The transformation wrought in Ukraine by the Maidan revolution has been an exhilarating
roller coaster that has not bypassed Ukrainian Jewry, which is now in the midst of an
exciting period of cultural revival paralleling that of the wider Ukrainian society, which is
still just beginning to rediscover its own past and imagine an independent future. Whether
this post-Soviet country will choose to elect an openly Jewish president, or a part-Jewish
president, or continue with its current philo-Semitic president, the future of Ukraine's Jews
would appear to be brighter than anyone might reasonably have imagined.
Where Poroshenko was the ultimate apparatchik Zelenskii is the ultimate outsider
and just as the people of the USA did not vote "for" Trump as much as they voted "against"
Hillary, so the people of the Ukraine did not really vote "for" Zelenskii, but "against"
Poroshenko. In fact, Zelenskii does not have anything resembling a political program (only
vague and nice sounding slogans) and he most certainly has no other political record other than
being a standup comedian and actors in several (pretty good) satirical series. Frankly, it
appears that Zelenskii was as stunned by his victory as Trump was by his.
Still, in theory, it is almost impossible for Poroshenko to win this one. Not only do
all the other candidates hate Poroshenko way more than they would dislike Zelenskii, voters for
Tymoshenko or Boiko are far more likely to vote for Zelenskii than for Poroshenko. This
creates an extremely dangerous situation: Poroshenko can only win by a massive fraud . Now
Tymoshenko did declare that the first round was stolen, but she decided not to appeal this
officially. Furthermore, it is now apparent that Tymoshenko was ditched by most of her US
supporters, something which she clearly did not expect and which came as a total shock to her,
hence her stunned reaction to the announced figures. She has always been, and still is, a
remarkably intelligent lady and a very calculating realist: she simply knows that an official
rejection of the outcome from her would make no difference. But you can be sure that behind the
scenes the interests Tymoshenko represents are now talking to the people of Kolomoiskii and
that Poroshenko is fully aware of that. ... ... ...
Poroshenko is now truly cornered: he absolutely must win, or he must run. In order to win,
his options are very limited
... ... ...
The infamous Minister of the Interior, Arsen Avakov, arguably currently the most powerful
and dangerous man in the Ukraine, has made an
most interesting statement about Zelenskii:
"A decent man from another world. From another plane. Ready to deal with problems, but
at the same time recognizing that in many issues he is not fully competent. In my
understanding, this means that he is ready to delegate authority. However, the question
arises: can we – Ukrainian society – offer the quality of the elite, which can
be entrusted with the implementation of such powers? After all, if he delegates authority
to scoundrels – as it happens in some series of "Servants of the people" – it
will be very bad for the country. Using expats is also not an option "( ) "He knows for
sure that from point A it is necessary to come to point B, and I am ready to agree with it.
But the problem is how to go this way. Often, if you go head-on, you will crash into a wall
or break. Therefore, it is necessary to choose the right path – and here should work
competent and honest specialists"
In plain English this simply means: Zelenskii has no personal power base, he will be a
puppet, so he better offer me a good deal (" delegate authority "), or I will turn
against him and, how knows, an unpredictable accident (" you will crash into a wall or
break ") can easily happen. Shocking? Welcome to "Ukrainian thug politics"! Besides, if
the Nazis decide to kill Zelenskii they can easily blame it on Russia. Either that, or on a
"lone, deranged, gunman" which they can find in the thousands amongst the various Nazi
death-squads.
Right now the Nazis are in a total panic, they are declaring that Zelenskii's victory is
"Moscow's triumph", they say that Zelenskii will sell out everything Ukrainian and that he is
a Putin agent. At the very least, they will now dig up as much dirt on Zelenskii as possible
(whether real or manufactured).
Zelenski means green man and has Polish indication. So he is one of the holocaust
survivors. (There are suspiciously too many of them these days.)
Timoshenko was virulently anti Russian but not so much anymore. All industrial plants in
Ukraine were built by Russians making products for Russia, I have doubt that they can make
anything that west needs. So Ukraine now is fully depended on agriculture. That is why
Ukraine is going down.
Most votes went to Zelenski that is indication that Ukrainians now did loose their
enthusiasm, and they are becoming more lethargic.
Galicia is multicultural area consisting mostly Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian,
Russian, and some other nationals. There is no unity there, and never will be
@Ilyana_Rozumova Maybe Galicia should be returned to Poland? From my blog:
May 1, 2017 – Must Ukraine Return Volhynia?
Hillary Clinton's State Department funneled $5 billion to orchestrate a "revolution"
to overthrow the elected President of Ukraine in 2014. (See my June 7, 2016 blog post for
details.) Ukraine's President was ousted because he refused to support Ukraine joining the
EU and NATO, and violence spread throughout Ukraine as CIA funded factions fought for
power.
Crimea was part of Russia for over a century until it was administratively attached to
Ukraine in 1954 by a Soviet premier to promote Soviet solidarity. Russians are the majority
people in Crimea and Russian is the common language, but they were not consulted. In 2014,
after years of Ukrainian political turmoil and an American coup in Kiev, Russia accepted a
request by the people of Crimea to rejoin Russia after 94% voted in favor. (See my Aug 8,
2016 blog post for details.) Russians and Crimeans were puzzled by intense American
opposition to this reannexation, and rightly concluded the Americans really wanted "NATO"
military bases in strategic Crimea.
For those concerned about European borders and justice, they should address a truly
outrageous annexation. In 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland and seized half of its land
while Soviet police massacred 22,000 influential Polish POWs and civilians. This area was
invaded by Germany two years later, which formed Ukrainian paramilitary units that murdered
over 100,000 Poles during the war.
Entire Polish villages disappeared as Ukrainians massacred everyone to include women and
children, who were buried in mass graves. After the war, the Polish regions of Volhynia and
Eastern Galicia were formally annexed by Soviet Ukraine after 1.5 million Poles were
forcibly deported. Over the next decade, another 1.5 million Poles were deported by Ukraine
to ethically cleanse these regions (noted in yellow below).
The West did nothing about this brutality because it occurred within the powerful Soviet
Union. However, that union broke up and Ukraine is weak and at odds with Russia. On July
22, 2016, the Parliament of Poland passed a resolution recognizing the massacres of ethnic
Poles in Volhynia and Galicia as genocide. Poland is now part of NATO and American troops
are based there. Thousands of Poles are still alive who were expelled from these regions.
Homes and land were seized from millions of Poles. Ukrainian war criminals remain at
large.
This raises several questions. If Poland demands a return of its territory or
compensation for Poles, will powerful NATO support its demand? Will sanctions be imposed
against Ukraine for this genocide and illegal seizure of Polish territory? Since Crimea was
attached to Ukraine without a democratic vote, and the citizens of Crimea voted to rejoin
Russia, should sanctions against Russia be removed?
Informed people know these issues will never be addressed because NATO does not exist to
protect member states, but is a proxy arm of America's neocon empire trying to conquer the
world. However, as Poland's military grows stronger and Ukraine struggles, this issue may
arise, and crafty Russia may support a return of Poland's, Slovakia's, and Romania's seized
territories!
With the exception of the Baltic states, that simply isn't true of any nation from
the former Soviet Union. Otherwise, the Russians couldn't have set up the Eurasian Customs
Union which covers ~90% of the former USSR. There are even many Georgians working in
Russia, in spite of the short war that was started by US dummy and former Georgian then
Ukrainian, now stateless, Mikheil Saakashvili.
I say the best solution for Ukraine would be to leave the nazis among themselves by
giving independence to Galicia. If it's the price to pay to reintegrate Donbass, for the
economy, and for peace and stability, it's worth it.
@Carlton Meyer Poles would be crazy to take back Galicia. Just fence the nazi lunatics
in with electrified barbed wire and leave them among themselves.
@One Tribe Well, yes, in a fashion. I'm from the old South (Roosevelt was in his second
term when I was born). Though I was educated at a fine old southern university and though I
have lived a significant part of my adult life in Europe, Asia and Africa, I still revel in
being called a redneck, a hick, a yokel, a cracker.
I embrace all of those terms because they only illustrate the ignorance of those who use
them in a derogatory manner. I also embrace being a part of the goyim. Those who use those
terms to wound only shows their fear, their own sense of inferiority to me, to us,
Christian southerners both white and black.
"Zionist praise for a Nazi" Poroshenko has Jewish ancestry, you dimwit. Go read the article
in Forward called 'Poroshenko's Secret Jewish Roots'. Ukraine has three Jewish men in a row
as prime minister. How interesting, given their rather low population percentage.
Nazi, Nazi, Nazi. Do these guys ever stop? It reminds me of the old Jews in Queens, NY,
every time they got into a disagreement with anyone, they yelled "Nazi". Even the regular
Jews got sick of it. The Ukrainians have a long history of nationalist thinkers, opposed to
Russian domination. Like the Finns, the Ukrainian patriots may have taken German support in
WW2, but that doesn't make the "Nazis". The National Socialists were a unique party to the
Germany of the 1930s, would you call Italian Fascists "Nazis"?
Ask yourself why, in general, one country/nation hates another? It's because of attempts
at invasion and domination. And historically, who is going to invade/dominate you? Those
geographically closest obviously. Sure, there are exceptions to this–the Mongol
Empire, the Arab Caliphate, and most strikingly, the Western invasion of well, everywhere
in the 16th-20th centuries.
But in most of the world most of the time for most of human existence, it's the guy next
door who is going to screw you and whom you in turn will screw.
One commenter suggested a comparison with Latin American attitudes towards the US. This
is partly true, but there are several differences. First, national identity is, on the
whole, relatively weak in New World. What does it really mean to be a Honduran? Secondly,
the main US security mechanism in the Western Hemisphere has been its navy which means
relatively less direct occupation and repression of places like Mexico. Russia, invaded
from East and West, has always sought security zones that inevitably mean occupation and
subjugation. Third, US hegemonism has only really gotten going over the last 125 years, so
it hasn't had as much time to antagonize its neighbors, and we had the good fortune of
ravaging most of the locals near at hand with the small pox, etc that we brought along with
us.
These factors combine to explain why the hatred quotient towards Russia by its neighbors
is higher than that towards the US.
"Zelenski means green man and has Polish indication. So he is one of the holocaust
survivors. (There are suspiciously too many of them these days.)"
– The endless numbers of "survivors" are especially amazing since it's claimed
that 'the Germans tried to kill every Jew they could get their hands on.'
Galicia is multicultural area consisting mostly Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian,
Russian, and some other nationals. There is no unity there, and never will be.
Then why do they seem to behave politically in ways that set them apart from all those
around them?
Really? I never thought of Slovaks as owning much of anything–not even Slovakia
historically. Hungarians, Austrians, Czechs all dominated Slovakia. Could you expand on
your notion of the majority of Galicia belonging to Slovakia?
When a sitting president anywhere in the world runs for re-election and gets 15%, the
decent thing is to step aside. It doesn't matter how many other candidates run, there could
be hundreds – what matters is that 85% of people voted against Porky as their
first choice .
He has been in the office for 5 years and 85% of people want someone else. How much
clearer could this be? This was a massive vote of no-confidence by Ukrainians. If Porky
squeezes or cheats his way into staying as president, he is asking for trouble – it
is not sustainable and Washington knows it.
Galicia and Donbas also clearly cannot coexist in the same non-federated state, they
are on opposite sides.
Economy: is it not going to get better. The bad news have been pushed after the
elections, and in 2020 two things will happen:
Kiev will have to start paying back at
least some of the Western loans Income from gas transit will be gone (and possibly the gas
itself).
That takes away 3-5% of the Ukrainian economy. If Russia piles on and restricts more
trade, or limits remittances, there will inevitably by a recession in Ukraine. The circus
is about to re-start, no wonder the clowns are renting stadiums. But at some point the
distractions will cease to distract – and then the damn reality will hit even
harder
@Vojkan The Poles deserve the ziocon-"renovated" & "liberated" Galicia festering
with the active Banderites. Look how the Poles have been treating the monuments to the
fallen Soviet soldiers. Let the Poles enjoy their passionate brotherly love with the ZUSA.
As Saker writes,
Fundamentally, Nazis and Zionists are twin brothers, even if deep down they hate (and
often admire!) each other.
If there is something positive about Maidan regime change, it is the revelation of the
ziocons active role in the revival of neo-Nazism in Ukraine. The revelation is a death blow
to the holo-biz profiteering schema.
Whether the Jewish State's provisions of Israel-made ammunition to the neo-Nazis or the
ADL & Simon Wiesenthal Center support for the neo-Nazi (see the zionists scandalous
behavior re the Conyers' Amendment), the zionists did indeed come out (again!) as the "twin
brothers" of the worsts among Nazis.
I disagree that Porky is dumb. He successfully fleeced the whole country, including
competing oligarchs, for 5 years. Dumb are the people who still support him. Ukrainians
voting for Porky are like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders. But some morons never
learn.
Porky might be fond of his drink. He showed up seriously inebriated several times
publicly, but he wouldn't be able to steal hundreds of millions consistently while being
drunk all the time. Saakashvili (admittedly, hardly a reliable source of info) said that
Porky ran the country into the ground being sober. Well, Porky never cared about the
country, all he is interested in is the trough. That's why he wants five more years of
stealing, and he is reluctant to yield his place at the trough to someone else.
Most importantly, the masters are OK with it. Imperial gauleiter of Ukraine Volker
has already voiced his support for Porky. Porky would likely be more obedient than anyone
else: he can be blackmailed, as he has already earned gallows (or life in prison in
countries that don't have death penalty). So, the masters have already chosen their
favorite puppet. We'll see on April 21st how much influence they have.
I am not saying that Zelensky (and his puppet master Kolomoisky) won't do, but from
masters' point of view old clown is apparently preferable to the new one.
@Oscar Peterson Transcarpathia is a long extension of Slovakia. It was taken from
Czechoslovakia after WWII and given to Soviet Ukraine. The people of this region never
thought of themselves as Ukrainian or Galician but as Rusyns or Ruthenians. Transcarpathia
was mainly given to Soviet Union because it is a good gateway for tanks into Eastern Europe
such as the case for Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. This region also has a
large Hungarian population, since Hungary used to rule it in the Austro-Hungarian empire
times.
For some he is preferable, he is more reliable. Anytime a new clown is elevated, there
is some unpredictability. Bosses hate surprises.
On the other hand, the first step when things don't go well, is to rotate the
clowns. We got Macron, the German doppelganger for Merkel, elites tried Renzi in Italy, so
maybe Zelinsky could work. He is a complete tabula rasa, non-entity, that wouldn't know how
to find the executive washroom. At a minimum, he would buy some time. Next they can still
try Tymoshenko. This will not get resolved through the political process.
Next they can still try Tymoshenko. This will not get resolved through the
political process.
Why not? If the masters allow new clown to win, Gas princess can be made the speaker
of the Rada . Then an unfortunate accident can be easily arranged, and she becomes
next successor perfectly legally. The masters do these things pretty often: remember Ulof
Palme or Aldo Moro. Zelensky can be got rid of the same way, if the masters decide that
it's to their benefit.
@AnonFromTN That's a possible scenario. But in that part of the world, scenarios never
play out the way they are planned.
I am not sure what is left to be gained in Ukraine, it is all costs and very few
benefits. That's what happens when the layered lying becomes so convoluted that the masters
lose track of the objectives.
They wanted Crimea (actually Russia out of Crimea bases, NATO in) – that
failed. Everything else were distractions, false promises, and payoffs to locals. A normal
master would accept the defeat, take his toys home, and wait for the next time. The
post-modern Washingtonians instead pretend that the sweet talk was real , try for
silly, secondary objectives (how about a few missiles on the Russian border? that would
work out great), or refuse to accept the obvious. Making the whole fiasco more
costly.
The only reason they didn't abandon failed Ukrainian project I can see is that from
imperial standpoint the more irritants you create for Russia, the better. Current Ukraine
is an irritant. When its further disintegrates and becomes a huge Somalia on Russian
doorstep, it would become an even grater irritant. Of course, Poles would suffer, too,
but when did the masters take aborigines into account?
As to a few missiles on Russian border, they already have that in Baltic vaudeville
states, which are much closer to Moscow and especially Sankt Petersburg then
Zhmerinka.
Then again, I am looking at it rationally, whereas Washington politburo is getting
even less rational that the Soviet one under Brezhnev.
In April this year [2018] the U.S. supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine
and in May 2018 the U.S. Congress approved $250m of military funding, specifically
including deliveries of lethal weaponry.
President Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker (a neocon, acolyte
of senator John McCain, previously appointed by George Bush as U.S. ambassador to NATO)
announced further U.S. arms supplies would follow, boasting of rising anti-Russian
sentiment in Ukraine.
Kurt Volker, similar to the deceased McCain, is a loyal servant to ziocons and war
profiteers. Actually, Volker is a war profiteer himself.
The US's envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, who is connected to Raytheon, is in favor of
this arms shipment, and it's inevitable that it [arms shipment] will reach Azov
[Battalion]
Azov Battalion functions in a lot of ways like ISIS has in Syria and Iraq Azov camps
with an enormous trove of weapons .. we are talking about hundreds of pounds of C4
explosives, automatic weapons and grenade launchers.
Azov's own website demonstrates that US military trainers have visited Azov in the
field to train and exchange logistical information. They appeared in uniform with Azov
Battalion members who were wearing the wolf's angel patch, which is a Nazi SS symbol, a
runic neo-Nazi symbol on their arm. This is just a scandalous spectacle. Not only that,
contracts have been revealed showing that the Texas-based AirTronic arms company has
produced PSRL-1 grenade launchers that were actually authorized under this watch of the
State Department and delivered directly into the hands of the Azov Battalion. The US has
armed Azov.
Again, what the ADL has been squeaking about -- that there are too many Holo-biz
Deniers? -- The zionists have been in cahoots with the neo-Nazi throughout the whole
State Dept. criminal enterprise in Ukraine. The Kagans clan of holo-biz survivors and other
pro-Nazi Jewish activists such as Gershman (NED) and Foxman (ADL) have been the moving
force towards banderization of Ukraine (Babij Yar, ADL?).
None of them cares about the memory of WWII victims the zionists only care about
profits. As for Kurt Volker, he is with zionists in the search for mega-profit. He is a
regular opportunist devoid of dignity.
Volker served on the staff of Senator John McCain from 1997 to 1998. He was
appointed United States Permanent Representative to NATO in July 2008 by President George
W. Bush.
Volker went into the private sector in 2009, becoming an independent director at The
Wall Street Fund Inc. He was a member of the board of directors at Capital Guardian Funds
Trust Volker was also an independent director at Evercore Wealth Management Macro
Opportunity Fund
Volker served as a senior advisor at McLarty Associates, a global consulting firm. In
2011, he joined BGR Group, a Washington-based lobbying firm and investment bank
He has been a Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International Studies since September 2009, and a Senior
Advisor at the Atlantic Council since October 2009. [Atlantic Council has been a safe
harbor for the rabidly Russophobic Elliot Higgins and Dmitri Alperovich of Russia-gate
fame, https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/29/how-russia-gate-rationalizes-censorship/
)
Kurt Volker, a certified war profiteer and money manager using his position as a
government employee for making money on lobbying What can be wrong with his judgements?
Special Education comment for the fluoride-lobotomized vegetables, known internationally as
AMERICANS: Petro Poroshenko, described in this article as the figurehead of rhe "Nazis" is
a Jew. When the US sponsored the coup in the Ukraine, both the democratically elected
President and Prime Minister were replaced by Jews.
The alleged Neo-Nazis, "Right Sector" were unemployed punks led by Israeli mercenaries,
virtually unchallenged by effectively bribed, Ukrainian military commanders.
If Adolf Hitler were alive today and controlled the Ukraine, he would order that --
without exception -- every member of Right Sector be either euthanized or sterilized to
prevent the Right Sector Stupid Gene to infect the Aryan Race.
Anyone or any organization that refers to the Jewish president of the Ukraine and his
followers as "Nazis" are obviously Zionist propaganda agents misleading the mentally
feeble.
@AnonFromTN When we were kids we would climb into neighbours' gardens to steal
cherries. You climb up a tree, break a few branches, take the cherries. No guilt. Every kid
feels ' exceptional , it is something that comes naturally to all 12-year olds.
The weird thing about modern Washingtonians is that they never outgrew that infantile
stage. They still feel 'exceptional', taking other people's stuff is ok. Why wouldn't be ?
If one is exceptional, he is by definition better than others, and the others really have
no rights, except the ones given to them by the exceptional people.
When a thieving raid by the exceptional people is blocked – as in Crimea
– it leaves no good options. Should one admit that they were about to take the
'stuff' (the Sebastopol bases), lost out, and simply retreat? No, it is hard to stay
exceptional when losing. Image and perceptions are everything in Washington.
Should they escalate and try to storm Crimea to get what they want and deserve?
Again, no, because exceptional people can't risk hurt or injury, they are too precious,
they are after all 'exceptional'.
Should they send their decidedly unexceptional underlings to storm Crimea? Well, that
would be ideal, but the underlings are too stupid to even get into the garden, and climbing
a tree is way beyond their ability. One can train them, send them ladders – but
everyone knows that they will never do it.
That leaves the least bad option of sticking around to ' irritate ' Russia. There
is not much gain in it, it gets old very quickly, it is also costly and even dangerous. But
it preserves the image of 'exceptional' people, it can be spun around for different
perceptions, and it makes the local allies less antsy and less likely to run away with
their loot. Other than that it achieves nothing.
That's where we are: a bunch of unserious morons sitting in a car parked outside the
cherry orchard, scared to go in, scared to leave, hoping that nobody notices, and still
craving the sweet cherries without even being able to admit that's what they are there
for.
"Nearly a quarter million people were killed between 1962 and 1996 in Guatemala, 93 percent at the hands of pro-government forces.
The UN-backed Commission for Historical Clarification classified the massacre of Mayan Indians, treated by the military as a potential
constituency for guerrillas, as genocide, including the destruction of up to 90 percent of the Ixil-Mayan towns and the bombing
of those fleeing. In El Salvador, 988 of the 75,000 killed between 1980 and 1992 -- also overwhelmingly by pro-government forces
-- were massacred in the Morazán Department in the "El Mozote" case, whose prosecution is at risk.
Most of the victims were children, who were shot down, burned and raped en masse or hung upside down and bled from their throats.
Refuting claims by defendants that victims were combatants, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team has stated: "We only found
marbles, toys, coins, cooking utensils, sandals and flip-flops next to their bodies." It was the largest single documented massacre
in modern Latin American history.
What the ruling class wants to be "forgotten" is the fact that their only response to the crisis of global capitalism is dictatorship,
war and barbarism."
There are always pick-and-shovel men like Abrams around to do the wet work – for their part, because they like it, and are contemptuous
of those who shrink from violence. But they are singularly useful for the reigning government, as well, since it has to sing soothing
songs of respect for human rights and pretend to view violence as repugnant and unnecessary. It would be, if the government had
forever to achieve its aims. But it usually has to bank on putting America in the place it wants it to be in four years. Sometimes
that means a bunch of people have to be eliminated, or else you run out of time.
People like Elliott Abrams are seldom kept around after the goals are won, though – too much danger they might develop loose
lips. So, often, something 'happens' to them. In this case, it couldn't 'happen' to a righter guy.
Trump had 4 bankruptcies let him run your economy !!
2+ years into his presidency, there is little room left for doubt about his competency. I
regret having supported him, although arguably, the alternative was worse.
On a lighter note, here is Trump singing from Eurythmics, courtesy of Google AI:
Russian research team which claimed to have detected signs of intelligent life in Washington has now discovered the life there
not to be quite so intelligent after all.
A Russian spokesman, who wishes to remain anonymous, told our Moscow science correspondent -- who also wishes to remain anonymous
-- that the Washington atmosphere has been poisoned by huge clouds of putrid hot air belching from the corporate media. He explained
that such a hostile environment makes it almost impossible for intelligent life to survive, let alone evolve a sustainable culture.
The Russian team believes there may still be small pockets of intelligent life elsewhere on the North American continent but without
the necessary conditions they need to thrive they are destined to disappear without trace.
Speaking off the record, the Russian spokesman, who asked us not to disclose his identity, added that hopes of finding intelligent
life in London, Paris, Berlin and other Western European locations, where it might be expected to flourish, are fading fast. Though
it is believed intelligent life once existed in Occiental Europe, an atmosphere suitable for the maintenance of such life has all
but evaporated.
"Nearly a quarter million people were killed between 1962 and 1996 in Guatemala, 93 percent at the hands of pro-government forces.
The UN-backed Commission for Historical Clarification classified the massacre of Mayan Indians, treated by the military as a potential
constituency for guerrillas, as genocide, including the destruction of up to 90 percent of the Ixil-Mayan towns and the bombing
of those fleeing. In El Salvador, 988 of the 75,000 killed between 1980 and 1992 -- also overwhelmingly by pro-government forces
-- were massacred in the Morazán Department in the "El Mozote" case, whose prosecution is at risk.
Most of the victims were children, who were shot down, burned and raped en masse or hung upside down and bled from their throats.
Refuting claims by defendants that victims were combatants, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team has stated: "We only found
marbles, toys, coins, cooking utensils, sandals and flip-flops next to their bodies." It was the largest single documented massacre
in modern Latin American history.
What the ruling class wants to be "forgotten" is the fact that their only response to the crisis of global capitalism is dictatorship,
war and barbarism."
There are always pick-and-shovel men like Abrams around to do the wet work – for their part, because they like it, and are contemptuous
of those who shrink from violence. But they are singularly useful for the reigning government, as well, since it has to sing soothing
songs of respect for human rights and pretend to view violence as repugnant and unnecessary. It would be, if the government had
forever to achieve its aims. But it usually has to bank on putting America in the place it wants it to be in four years. Sometimes
that means a bunch of people have to be eliminated, or else you run out of time.
People like Elliott Abrams are seldom kept around after the goals are won, though – too much danger they might develop loose
lips. So, often, something 'happens' to them. In this case, it couldn't 'happen' to a righter guy.
"... Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to lease the troubled office tower for 99 years and is paying for the lease up front, rather than in the typical yearly ground rent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The financial terms of the deal were not made public, but the New York Times reports that Brookfield is paying $1.1B. ..."
"... Thanks b and you are wise to be sceptical. The up front payment to the Kusher kleptocracy by Brookfield Partners (Asset Management) is not just unusual but more like extraordinary! One test will be how this deal compares to other deals. Was Kushner avoiding taxes by doing a lease? Is this a common practice? ..."
"... It is an old story. From February 12, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair: Qatar Shocked, Shocked to Learn It Accidentally Bailed Out Jared Kushner ..."
"... In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head ..."
"... Qatar paid over a billion dollars to build and expand the US base in Qatar and charges no rent for that base. This allows Qatar to easily brush aside any question of loyalty that may be posed by USA and makes the US/US military reluctant to pressure Qatar. But Israel would have no qualms about apply pressure. The "Jared bailout" allows for a narrative of Qatari leadership as weak and corrupt - much like the ridiculous claims that Putin is pro-Israel. ..."
Kushner Extorted Qatar - Or Did He?DG , Mar 30, 2019 5:37:23 PM |
link
The Hillreporter just published a very juicy story about Jared Kushner, the son in law and senior advisor of President
Trump.
It says that Kushner, with the help of the Saudi clown prince Mohammad bin Salman, extorted Qatar for $1 billion to save his families
real estate business in New York.
While the story sounds plausible and fits the public known timeline of other events, there is so far no evidence that supports
it.
Ward first talked through the story on yesterday's KrassenCast
, a podcast by the anti-Trump and
somewhat shady Krassenstein
brothers who also run the Hillreporter .
In 2007, at the hight of the real estate bubble, the Kushner family bought the 666 5th Avenue building in New York City for $1.8
billion. Ten years later the Kushners were in real trouble. Plans to replace the building with a new one found no financing. The
property was losing lots of money and a huge mortgage payment was due in January 2019. The family had to look for a bail out.
In early 2017 the Kushner family had several meetings with Qatari officials to discuss a deal. The Intercept
reported :
Joshua Kushner, a venture capitalist and the younger brother of White House adviser Jared Kushner, met with Qatari Finance Minister
Ali Sharif Al Emadi the same week as his father, Charles Kushner, did in April 2017, in an independent effort to discuss potential
investments from the Qatari government. Both meetings took place at Al Emadi's St. Regis Hotel suite in Manhattan.
This revelation comes after Charles Kushner, in an interview with the Washington Post this week, confirmed for the first time
that his meeting with Al Emadi had indeed taken place on the subject of financing for the underwater Kushner property at 666 Fifth
Avenue.
"What I have learned is that in the ensuing month [May 2017] before the US visit to Riyadh, Jared Kushner got on a plane and flew
to Doha, the Qatari capital, and he reamed the Qatari ruling family, the al-Thanis, for not doing the deal with his father They
began to feel that he was indirectly threatening their sovereignty. The next thing they know, when they show up to the summit
in Riyadh, the Emir, the ruler of Qatar, arrives with an entourage, but his entourage is suddenly cut off from him, and not allowed
into the summit at the same time by the Saudis, which he felt was a move to deliberately make him look weak. You have to remember
during this summit, Jared and Ivanka go off for a cozy secret unmonitored dinner with [Saudi Crown Prince] MBS. Nobody knows what
they talked about."
Fifteen days later the Saudis and the UAE blockade Qatar and send troops to its border. Trump supports the Saudi blockade against
the advice of his Secretary of State Tillerson and his Defense Secretary Mattis and despite the fact the the biggest U.S. base in
the area is in Qatar.
Nine months later, a Canadian company, Brookfield Partners, who the Qatari Investment Authority owns a $1.8 billion or 9% stake
in, bailed out Kushner Properties, with a 99-year lease agreement for 666 5th Ave.
...
Around this same time, President Trump publicly shifts course, no longer supporting the blockade, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
tells Saudi Arabia to stop the embargo.
If the blockade of Qatar originates in a Kushner extortion scheme, as the story insinuates, it would have serious political consequences.
But is that true?
Charles Kushner, head of the Kushner Companies, is in advanced talks with Brookfield Asset Management over a partnership to take
control of the 41-story aluminum-clad tower in Midtown Manhattan, 666 Fifth Avenue, according to two real estate executives who
have been briefed on the pending deal but were not authorized to discuss it.
The deal only
closed in August 2018 on terms that had changed from the first report and were unusual:
Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to lease the troubled office tower for 99 years and is paying for the lease up front,
rather than in the typical yearly ground rent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The financial terms of the deal were not made
public, but the New York Times reports that Brookfield is paying $1.1B.
What was the real sequencing here? Was the property deal agreed upon before the Trump administration changed its stand on the
Qatar blockade or after that happened? Was it related to it or not? We don't know. There is no public record of the alleged Jared
Kushner flight to Qatar. There is so far no other evidence that would support the story. The tale fits the publicly known timeline,
but that is not enough to believe it. Its authors may have used the public timeline to then fit a story onto it.
It is possible that the Kushner property deal and the Qatar blockade are intimately intertwined but there is, so far, no proof
for it. That idea that Kushner played the Saudis is dubious. The other way around is more likely.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE had plenty of reason to blockade Qatar. Both countries fear the Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
They hate Qatar's Al Jazeerah TV because it often publicly opposes their policies. The Saudis need money and annexing the very rich
Qatar would solve all their problems. Brookfield Properties denies that Qatar or the Qatari investment agency had any involvement
in 666 5th Ave. deal.
Even if Qatar, through Brookfield, made a deal with the Kushner family, it does not mean that it was extorted. The Qatari rulers
might simply have hoped that the deal would help them. It did not. The blockade still continues despite the real estate deal. Trump
had his own reasons to support the Saudis Qatar blockade. He wanted them to buy as many U.S. weapon system as possible, if only to
beat out Obama, who sold the Saudis all sorts of military trash for a record amount of money.
During the Mueller Russia investigation lots of smoke seemed to show that there was a 'collusion' fire burning somewhere under
the hundreds of facts and figures. There wasn't.
The story about the Kushner 'extortion of Qatar' might create a similar '
the walls are closing in ' (vid) farce only to end up with
nothing. It is interesting that the Vicky Ward story was published on March 29, a day after Jared Kushner
was interviewed
behind closed door by the Senate Intelligence Commission:
President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner returned to the Senate Intelligence Committee for a closed door interview Thursday
as part of the committee's Russia investigation.
...
The first time Kushner appeared before the panel in 2017, he was interviewed by committee staff. The committee has wanted to re-interview
witnesses central to the investigation. On Thursday, senators were sitting in on the interview.
Russiagate is really finished
. The Republican's rule the Senate. Why would they continue to interview Kushner and why would senators sit in on it? Might the 'Kushner
extorted Qatar' be a planned sequel to Russiagate or why else was it launched right now?
Posted by b on March 30, 2019 at 05:28 PM |
Permalink
One has to wonder whether Kushner's influence was involved in this deal which would have seen the geopolitical balance in the
Middle East tilt into Saudi Arabia's favour.
Thanks b and you are wise to be sceptical. The up front payment to the Kusher kleptocracy by Brookfield Partners (Asset Management)
is not just unusual but more like extraordinary! One test will be how this deal compares to other deals. Was Kushner avoiding
taxes by doing a lease? Is this a common practice?
I did like the reference to Trump outdoing Obummer in arms deals and had a good laugh at Trumps childish racism in that game.
He sure hates Obummer but he sure won't go after him in any way. Trump wont even go after $hillary and her global empire shakedown
Foundation. Sometimes I think he is now a sitting duck but then I am an optimist.
In addition to likely having had the chance to hear about the deal through Brookfield directly or read about it in the paper
of record, one would imagine the Qataris were keeping tabs on all things Kushner on account of Jared's father, Charles Kushner,
taking a meeting with Qatar's finance minister, Ali Sharif Al Emadi in April 2017. (Kushner the Elder later said he accepted
the invite purely "out of respect" for the Qataris to tell them there was no way "we could do business.")
Of course Trump throwing the full weight of the US behind Saudi Arabia and UAE was a de facto shake down of Qatar. And of course,
Saudi and UAE were actively lobbying for it.
thanks b.. it will be interesting to see how much traction vicky wards reporting gets and whether any of it gets substantiated..
i do believe the usa is crazy enough to do another witch hunt, so anything is possible here... she works for the huffpost..
that is grounds to discredit here right there in my books..
More theatrics as diversion, while the crooks in D.C. dismantle the agencies that keep the wealthy oligarchs at bay, as they rewrite
the rules to allow greed and avarice to become virtues.
"Rules and regulations never changed a man's heart, but they can restrain the heartless."
Meanwhile, propaganda organs in America won't publicize real Donald Trump scandals like the case of ''Maria'' a Waterbury 12-year
old alleged child rape victim of Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The crimes allegedly occurred at a midtown
Manhattan mansion owned by Epstein's friend Les Wexner.
Donald Trump recently named as his Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta, former U.S. Attorney for South Florida, the federal official
directly overseeing sweetheart future immunity deal for Grifter in Chief acolytes like Jeffrey Epstein... As Labor Secretary,
Acosta is charged with overseeing federal laws designed to combat domestic and international sex trafficking.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York is currently deciding whether to unseal the documents from a 2017
lawsuit involving one of Epstein's sex trafficking victims and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's assistant.
Other possible corrupt practices involving stable genius center around China's decision to grant Ivanka Trump 38 new trademarks
in the middle of a trade war dispute... Part of current trade war negotiations are EB-5 investment visas. Jared Kushner and Trump
stand to benefit from EB-5 visas designed to attract Chinese investment in the United States in return for permanent residency.
Curiously an EB-5 visa scam was being run out of an office in Jupiter, Florida, located across the street from the Orchids
of Asia massage parlor raided by police where Trump billionaire friend Kraft was caught in a possible Chinese Honey Trap.
Russiagate may be done but thats because it was defined improperly. Sometimes it helps to look back to get a big picture perspective
Starting in 1999, Putin enlisted two oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would go on to become Chabad's biggest
patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar,
who would come to be known as "Putin's rabbi."
Roman Abramovich is the owner of the Chelsea Football Club of the English Premier League. He was a victor (along with Paul
Manafort's patron Oleg Deripaska) in the aluminum wars of the 1990s and reportedly the person who convinced Boris Yeltsin that
Putin would be a proper successor.
Ivanka Trump is very close friends with Abramovich's wife , Dasha Zhukova. Zhukova reportedly attended the inauguration as
Ivanka's personal guest. Leviev is the one with the closest links to the Trumps and Israel
It starts with Bayrock . This is the company that Donald Trump teamed up with to build his Trump Soho project. There were three
main actors . One was convicted mob associate and FBI informant Felix Sater. Another was Tevfik Arif, a likely Russian intelligence
connection who was once was arrested by the Turks . The third was the late Tamir Sapir, another man with ties to Russian intelligence.
The late billionaire Tamir Sapir, was born in the Soviet state of Georgia. Trump has called Sapir "a great friend." In December
2007, he hosted the wedding of Sapir's daughter, Zina, at Mar-a-Lago. The groom, Rotem Rosen, was the CEO of the American branch
of Africa Israel, the Putin oligarch Leviev's holding company, and known as Leviev's right hand man.
As mentioned Leviev was one of two oligarch's who Putin had establish the "Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia" under
the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as 'Putin's rabbi.'" Sater, Sapier, Jared, Ivanka are all
Chabad members and/or donors
Trump had business discussions in Moscow in 2013 about Moscow real estate projects with Agalarovs, Alex Sapir (son of Tamir
Sapir, brother of Zina, and brother-in-law of Rotem Rosen.) and Rotem Rosen, a pair of New York-based Russian . This may also
have been discussed during the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower that was attended by Kushner, Manafort and Donald Trump Jr and
a Russian lawyer associated with Fusion GPS (Steele dossier) and the Leviev linked Prevezon
Agalarov is a Moscow-based property developer who had won major contracts from Putin's government. He hosted Trump's 2013 Miss
Universe contest at his concert hall in Moscow. He orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and formed a new American shell
company a month beforehand with the help of the Russian lawyer who attended the meeting.
In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street
from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the
transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head
Deutsche Bank and two companies tied to Leviev, Africa Israel Investments and Prevezon, have all recently been the subject
of money laundering investigations. A laundering case against Prevezon was settled two months after Trump fired Bharara, with
a $6M slap on the wrist settlement that raised some eyebrows.
As for 666, Kushner gets bailed out by Brookfield who has Qatar as its 2nd largest investor. But consider that at the same
time they did this deal they also acquired Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power company. Now members of the Trump administration
propose selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. Interesting.
Can't seem to find a Putin/Russian oligarch connection although that's probably due to the fact you cant use anonymous shell
companies to buy property in NYC any longer due to new rules by FinCEN
But so many conflict of interests here, Israel, China, Saudis, Russian oligarchs, etc and virtually no oversight or transparency.
With twitter being used to manipulate markets one has to imagine rampant insider trading as well (hey guys, my tweets going out
at 3 pm, get your trades in and remember my 5%).
@7 savvy globalist somebody wants us to know that there's nothing to see here!
But the Vanity Fair article he links to, written by Bess L-evin, makes this unsubstantiated(!) point:
So why is Doha taking pains to insist it accidentally bailed out the First-in-Laws on their no good, very bad investment
now?
1) Actually, the Reuters article that she refers to explicitly states that Qatar has a minority position and no board representation
! It is a known in the financial world as a "passive investment".
2) L-evin's wording is extremely disingenuous: the Qataris never said they bailed out anyone, accidentally or otherwise!!
Interestingly, Vicky Ward used to work at Vanity Fair, and is currently an editor at HuffPost (a Democratic rag). And media that
broke/promoted this story (Leevin and Krasseenstein) could (naturally) rise some suspicions of a connection to Israel's conflict
with Iran. Qatar shares a huge gas field with Iran so Qatar has been reluctant to join KSA and Israel against Iran.
Qatar paid over a billion dollars to build and expand the US base in Qatar and charges no rent for that base. This allows
Qatar to easily brush aside any question of loyalty that may be posed by USA and makes the US/US military reluctant to pressure
Qatar. But Israel would have no qualms about apply pressure. The "Jared bailout" allows for a narrative of Qatari leadership as
weak and corrupt - much like the ridiculous claims that Putin is pro-Israel.
1) Documentation is scarce and the few that exist don't fit the journalist's story chronology (even though, in the concrete
case, you could argue for expediency/bureacratic delay, so this criterium alone doesn't bust the journalist's chronology)
2) The whole narrative simply doesn't have social cohesion. It simply doesn't make any sense for Trump to risk be impeached
in such polarized scenario just to rescue his son-in-law. It makes even less sense for the Arab royalties to submit to a much
weaker political player such as Kushner. And, as b mentions, Trump had many more powerful reasons to sanction Qatar.
@11 &12
Corruption abounds, but any of it that touches Zionists, the Clinton's, or the royal family (Epstein, Prince Andrew) is off limits.
They are untouchable to the MSM.
people like Brennan & Clapper are feeding the "trump really, really, no really hearts putin" narrative to the msdnc crowd, and
this of an administration being helmed by CIA men like Pompeo.
like the fbi's manufacture wholesale of "islamo-terrorist" non-events
in part to distract from the presence of the actual threat of rising fascism & racism (a la Nazism, as in NZ) from the usual suspects,
much beloved of the fibbies, it's convenient for all, incl trump, to be painted as bff's with Vlad.
if the goal was to stop or in any way impede the trump admin (not just trump himself, who is a know-nothing shit golem animated
by the glad-handing he receives from the people actually in charge, who just feed his narcissistic fantasies), there are other,
more practical & achievable ways to do it. in-fighting among the herd who have not yet jumped off the Gadarene cliffs is not the
same thing as opposition, not among the Legion possessed swine in D.C. they are just grunting & snorting at each other, occasionally,
very occasionally & deliberately, trampling one of their own, as they plummet over the edge.
it's pretty clear that funny things like such pigs' full-throated support of Zionism is more important to Pelosi & Schumer
than resisting the Trump admin *in any way,* no matter how much they personally despise trump. and mainly they despise him for
helping to reveal what some POTUS would have sooner or later: the pointlessness of Congress; that the "unitary executive", as
the titular head of the corporate security state, is already fully in charge; that "dyarchy," dual rule by legislative & executive,
is non-existent.
"On Friday, the United Nations Security Council, following a closed-door meeting, issued a
statement to the press calling for Hifter's LNA to "halt its military activity" near Tripoli.
When Britain proposed a formal resolution along these lines, however, Russia opposed it, no
doubt fearing that it could become the pretext for a fresh Western intervention in Libya.
The British draft included a passage calling "for those who undermine Libya's peace and
security to be held to account."
What hypocrisy! There was no such call when the UK joined with France and the United
States to overthrow the country's government and inflict death upon its population and
destruction upon its infrastructure.
*****No one, from Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron on down, was ever held
accountable for a criminal war of aggression that turned the country into a living
hell.****
Launched under the pretext of a UN resolution authorizing the imposition of a no-fly zone
over Libya to halt the supposed (but non-existent) threat of a massacre in the eastern city
of Benghazi, the war saw money and arms poured into Islamist militias and lavished on Al
Qaeda operatives, who were backed by a relentless bombing campaign, which included nearly
30,000 sorties in the course of seven months.
A war launched on the pretext of protecting civilians culminated in the carpet bombing of
Sirte, a bastion of popular support for Gaddafi, and the lynch-mob torture and murder of the
Libyan leader, over which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughingly gloated, "We
came, we saw, he died."
"In the intervening eight years, the attempts to install a pro-Western puppet regime in a
devastated country controlled by clashing Islamist, tribal and other militias have failed
miserably. The regime headed up by Sarraj, recognized as Libya's "legitimate" government,
barely controls even Tripoli. Under its supposed rule, the country's education and health
systems have collapsed, while inflation is ravaging living standards, the unemployment rate
has reached 30 percent, and fully a third of the population lives below the poverty line.
Conditions of life for masses of Libyans have deteriorated dramatically since the overthrow
of Gaddafi."
For its part, the United States insists on running Ukraine, appointing a special envoy
– Kurt Volker – to preserve its feeling of international importance after it was
pointedly left out of the Normandy Format; Meddlers R Us; we don't need no steenking
invitations.
A glance over trade statistics suggests this
was a wise choice for the Exceptional Nation – the year before the Glorious Maidan,
Revolution of Dignity, the USA did around $3 Billion worth of trade with Ukraine, selling it
$1.92 Billion worth of goods and services, and buying $1.03 Billion worth of goods and services
from it, posting an American trade surplus of $888 Million. Last year the USA did around $4
Billion worth of trade with Ukraine, selling it $2.46 Billion in goods and services, and buying
$1.35 Billion worth of goods and services from it, handsomely increasing the American trade
surplus to $1.13 Billion. Considering Ukraine is impoverished and living on handouts, while the
per-capita GDP has fallen by more than 6% despite the country having lost about 3 million
people (Ukraine's population today is almost exactly what it was in 1960), that's quite an
achievement.
Just to point out once again, it is a war crime and a violation of the International Rules of
Armed Conflict for the ENEMY to cut civilians off from the services they need to live. And he
wants to lead the country??!!
Certainly getting the poor and the middle class on his side. Here's an NPR interview with
Ari Shapiro, on the Colombian border with Venezuela. Along with bigging up the impression
that there is a shitload of military deserters just waiting to have a crack at Maduro,
including the 80% who want him gone but don't dare say so out of fear – by the simple
device of interviewing some young men we know nothing about, not even their names because
their identities must be kept secret – he says this:
"This is the Colombian ambassador to the U.S., Francisco Santos. Ambassador Santos
insists there is still time for what we'll call plan A – international pressure and
sanctions to force Maduro out. Venezuela would then hold elections, and Guaido would take
power."
Guaido would take power. Oh, wait, wait: we have to have an election first.
Obviously it is inconceivable that anyone else might win. The guy most of the country had
never heard of a year ago, now is a shoo-in for the presidency. Isn't democracy fun
???? You just never know what's going to happen!
The USA and its 'partners' are moving forward with a debt-restructuring plan for Venezuela
– which you just know is going to include massive loans by the IMF and arm-twisting of
allies to persuade them to forgive debt to help the US State Department's newest plaything
– just as if Guaido is inevitable.
Well, he's not. And few things would give me as much pleasure as seeing the smirk slapped
off their faces.
"And I repeat, the cessation of darkness will definitely come with the cessation of
usurpation," culminates the self-proclaimed Juan Guaidó"
It's odd that the sabotage includes that element of blackmail, i.e., "put me in office,
and I will turn the lights on again." How would he expect to do that, if the grid has been
damaged?
Such blackmail only makes sense if Guaidó had, like, the secret password that would
turn off the viruses(?)
Because, if the damage is physical, then it will take a while to fix, even if Guaidó
and the American engineers worked at it night and day.
Even if he has no control over it, he is talking it up like he has, more like "I know
people". Which tends to make it sound more as if it is his backers doing it.
I would say he is well on his way to making himself the most hated man in Venezuela, at
least barring those who hope to sweep him into power.
I know. How can you even imagine being that guy? Who deprives your neighbors of their
electricity and then asks them to vote for you, so you would turn it on again?
A person like that would be lynched!
As Grayzone Project's Max Blumenthal says, the irony is that Nicolas Maduro's government
is protecting Guaido and his freedom to travel around Caracas through the police. So much for
Maduro being a tyrannical dictator
"... Poroshenko's electoral appeal is rooted in the notion of 'better the devil you know' and his presidential campaign rests on his ability to convince voters that he is the lesser of all available evils." ..."
"... Let me put my cards on the table here – the current political class in Washington, irrespective of party affiliation and almost without exception, is so debauched and untethered that it enthusiastically supports the election of unabashed criminals where their election serves American foreign-policy goals. Is it too late to be astounded? Yes, it is. Ukraine is lightly chided for its rampant corruption, while Russia is held up to universal scorn because Putin. ..."
Poroshenko's electoral appeal is rooted in the notion of 'better the devil you know' and
his presidential campaign rests on his ability to convince voters that he is the lesser of all
available evils."
Poroshenko might have an uphill battle convincing his own voters of that reality, but he has
plainly gone down a treat in Washington.
Let me put my cards on the table here – the current political class in Washington,
irrespective of party affiliation and almost without exception, is so debauched and untethered
that it enthusiastically supports the election of unabashed criminals where their election
serves American foreign-policy goals. Is it too late to be astounded? Yes, it is. Ukraine is
lightly chided for its rampant corruption, while Russia is held up to universal scorn because
Putin.
Well, Poroshenko would certainly need to explain how he could win in the second round against
a candidate who polled twice the vote as he did in the first round. But Poroshenko owns or
controls a lot of media, and it's all about pushing a narrative. Ukrainians were satisfied,
the story will go, that Poroshenko learned his lesson from being rebuked in the first round;
he is sorry, and humbled, and will turn over a new leaf.
Meanwhile (still the story), many
Ukrainians are waking up to the shock of what they did, and are suffering buyers remorse, bla, bla. He only needs to squeak out a narrow win when it's down to just he and Zelinskiy,
and the west will immediately hoot that democracy has spoken, my, what an exciting ride, and
Zelinskiy will fade back into political obscurity.
Actually Peter Dickinson is just one of several supposed "experts" and "observers" at The
Atlantic Council of Ukraine's political scene who have expressed opinions that basically
exonerate Poroshenko as godfather of a group of hucksters smuggling Russian weapons and
military spare parts into Ukraine and then charging the Ukrainian government hefty prices for
them. John Herbst thinks it's great that the Banderites got weapons from Russia and the only
thing they did wrong was take a hefty personal cut from the sale; never mind that they broke
some other laws, let's say, laws that forbid Ukraine from purchasing anything from Russia
because Russia is under US / EU sanctions. Other opinions suggest that Poroshenko should just
distance himself from the people involved in the scandal because the most important thing is
to lead Ukraine as far away from Russia as possible – as if it is that easy for
Poroshenko to do, because if he did, his associates in the scandal will squeal on him.
It's hilarious reading those "opinions" and see how far those Atlantic Council people are
trying to excuse Poroshenko by blaming the journalists for bringing up the story or
insinuating that Tymoshenko or the Kremlin is trying to bring Poroshenko down.
I shall paste her article below as I have access beyond the pay-wall to a limited number
of articles published in that rag:
Some in Ukraine may feel that April Fool's Day 2019 started a few hours early, at 8pm
the previous evening to be precise, when the polls in the first round of the country's
presidential election closed and the exit polls showed an actor who plays a fictional
president beating the real president into second place by a margin of almost two to
one.
Official results give Volodymyr Zelensky (the actor) around 30 per cent of the vote,
compared with 16 per cent for president Petro Poroshenko. From a field of 39 – yes, 39
– presidential hopefuls, it will be these two heading into the run-off on 21
April.
Yulia Tymoshenko – the only woman anywhere near the top 10 and the most
recognisable face for many outside Ukraine as "la pasionaria" of the 2004 Orange Revolution,
had led when the campaign began last December, but was knocked into third place. Mercifully,
the 3 percentage point margin between her and Poroshenko is probably clear enough to pre-empt
any challenge or dispute.
The question now facing the more than half of Ukraine's 35 million electorate who voted
for neither Zelensky nor Poroshenko on Sunday is which of the two to choose in three weeks'
time – and for the rest whether to stick with their original choice.
It would be fair to say that opinions about Zelensky are sharply divided. On the one
hand are those who argue that anything has to be better than the glacial pace of change and
endemic corruption over which Poroshenko has presided.
They include many young people who have joined what might be described as the
pan-European anti-politics tendency that brought Italy's current government to power.
Zelensky and his team of largely young volunteers ran a welcoming and modern campaign that
took on a life of its own as – rather like Jeremy Corbyn's 2017 campaign in the UK
– supporters spread the word on social media.
At the same time, there are many – perhaps over-represented among highly educated
professional Ukrainians at home and abroad – who view Zelensky with trepidation and
suspicion as just another populist, capitalising on his fame in another sphere. Their fear
– tinged with condescension – is that he could endanger the relative stability
Poroshenko has brought after the tumult of the Euromaidan (a wave of demonstrations) five
years ago.
The size of Zelensky's first-round vote, however, and its geographical spread –
he managed to appeal to Russian-speakers in the eastern areas bordering the war zone as well
as those in central and southern Ukraine – have led even doubters to feel that this
election is now his to lose. Poroshenko, however, should not be written off too soon. It is
not just fear of the unknown that could make the run-off very close; there are other reasons
why Poroshenko could yet prevail.
One is that, although Zelensky comes across well when he appears on his own terms
– at the comedy shows he preferred to conventional political rallies – he
performed poorly in the few television interviews he gave, appearing out of his depth and
using language that suggested a rather unreconstructed view of women.
It had been expected that one or more formal television debates might test his mettle,
but the plan for first-round debates foundered when Poroshenko and Zelensky both declined to
take part, and it now appears there may be no second-round debate either. With the contest
now reduced to two, however, this is bound to concentrate minds.
Another is the question of Zelensky's funding. Some suspect that the hand (and money)
of the exiled businessman/oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky, is behind him. Zelensky denies that he
depends on anyone, and some close to the campaign say that associates of Kolomoisky are at
best on the outer fringe of the campaign. But the suspicion persists, and when Poroshenko
spoke of "populists" and "puppets" in his campaign speeches, the inference was clear.
Poroshenko's first-round campaign pitch – a responsible leader whose video
stresses the importance of the nation, the army and the Church – could have more
resonance now that it will be pitted directly against what could seem a leap into the unknown
with Zelensky. Then again, just looking at the way the two handled the provisional
first-round results on the night – Poroshenko looking exhausted and just a little
jaded, and Zelensky bouncing around, smiling, with a ready word for the media and
glad-handing his supporters, it was tempting to imagine a new Ukraine already eclipsing the
old.
But – to put it at its most basic – will Zelensky be "allowed" to win?
While there have been some reports of polling violations on Sunday, the first round appears
to have been an admirably clean and open election to the point where a complete outsider was
not only able to stake a claim to the country's top job, but to reach the run-off. And the
outside attempts to influence the poll (by Russia and the west), so apparent in previous
elections, were almost not in evidence.
With the presidency itself now at stake, however, and the confusion of a ballot paper
with 39 candidates safely in the past, could the old ways make a comeback? Might there be a
sudden upsurge of attempts to influence the campaign from the outside: new money, hacking,
dirty tricks,"Kompromat"? Is there a "deep state" that could stop Zelensky?
Leaving aside the imponderable, there are perhaps three factors to watch over the three
weeks. The first is whether any of the other first-round candidates who obtained more than a
handful of votes will endorse – or do any deal with either of the candidates. And if
they did – if Timoshenko, for instance, or Yuriy Boyko, the pro-Russia candidate,
backed Zelensky – would it have a positive or negative effect on his campaign? One key
broker could be the anti-corruption candidate, Anatoliy Hrytsenko, who came fifth.
The second is how far Zelensky can convince his critics that he could actually do the
job. Members of his team told me that he was consulting widely and taking the prospect very
seriously and he has attracted at least two past ministers to his team. The fluidity of
Ukraine's political parties also means that not having a developed party of his own might not
be a huge liability in parliament, as MPs might well flock to a winner. Parliamentary
elections later in the year could do the rest.
His manifesto is also more specific than his detractors say: it includes an end to
immunity from prosecution for MPs and government officials; "not a battle, but the defeat, of
corruption", referendums on important state issues, including possible membership of Nato,
talks with Russia to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine, tax breaks for entrepreneurs, a
drive to introduce technology in schools, higher pay for the military.
But the biggest question could be this: how far will voters distinguish between
Zelensky the real-life candidate and the fictional schoolmaster-turned-president whose
secretly taped anti-corruption rant propelled him to the top job?
By using the title of the series Servant of the People as his campaign slogan, and the
name of his embryonic political party, Zelensky could be accused of encouraging the
confusion. And the fictional president comes with an attitude and an almost naive agenda that
is the stuff of many a Ukrainian's dreams. He is principled, quizzical, supports the "little
man" and has the welfare of his people at heart. The less voters are able, or choose, to
distinguish the two, the better Zelensky's chances of leading the real Ukraine.
Note how, in the extract below, Dejevsky displays her lack of objectivity in the way she
regards the Ukraine from her oh-so-liberal point of view and, thereby, morally castigating
the dump after having right at the top her article mentioned that Tymoshenko was "the only
woman anywhere near the top 10":
although Zelensky comes across well when he appears on his own terms – at the
comedy shows he preferred to conventional political rallies – he performed poorly in
the few television interviews he gave, appearing out of his depth and using language that
suggested a rather unreconstructed view of women .
[my stress]
Yes, that will really turn the Yukies against him, I am sure, Ms
Dejevsky!
A filthy mysogynist!
How shocking!!!
One could not possibly cast one's vote for such a monster!
And what's with this criticism of both Zelensky and Poroshenko's refusal to have a
televised debate?
True, they hold such debates in US presidential elections as part of the "real democracy"
show in the "exceptional nation", but if other countries shy from similar performances, is
that so bad, so "undemocratic"?
And one comment, so far to the article, from a frequent troll at the Independent who likes
to add ПТН X̆ЛО (abbreviation for the Russian "Putin is a
prick) just to show how smart he is:
As usual no mention of any Russian monkey business so I guess Mary is still angling for
the dacha near Moscow.
I have a dacha near Moscow, wanker! Does that mean I am a tool of the Kremlin?
How about digging up the evidence for "Russian monkey business" and presenting it
yourself, arsehole, if you are so sure that such interference by Russia in Banderastan
politics exists?
PressTV: How Zionism Infiltrated The United States
Interview with Scholar and Journalist, Mark Bruzonsky. Mark Bruzonsky, a Jewish, American Scholar and Journalist, has been
a key member behind the scenes of the Israeli Palestinian peace initiative in the 1980s, meeting with Former Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat and with Palestinian officials. In this exclusive interview with Press TV's Autograph, Mr. Bruzonsky talks about the
challenges and missed opportunities he witnessed first-hand, and how Zionist groups infiltrated American politics, US institutions
and organizations.
He goes further to explain the specific time and day Obama sold out to the AIPAC lobby, and how President Obama would never
dare oppose the stronghold of the Zionist, Israeli Lobby in the US.
a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the
Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the
state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of
Israel.
According to the documents, VIAB, which avoids any public disclosure of its activities,
is currently also being scrutinized by the state Attorney General over its handling of
government funds.
VIAB was founded in 2001 but it grew significantly under governor Terry McAuliffe's
administration McAuliffe, regarded by many as the Clintons' "bag man," received what were
regarded as generous out-of-state campaign contributors from actively pro-Israeli
billionaires Haim Saban and J.B. Pritzker, who were both affiliated with the Democratic
Party.
The Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) reports that VIAB is "the only Israel
business promotion entity in the United States embedded within a state government and
funded entirely by the state's taxpayers.
In terms of the overall state budget, VIAB's direct share is small ($209,068 for fiscal
years 2017 and 2018). However, VIAB's diversion of state, federal and private grants, as
well as demands on state-funded entities like colleges and universities to collaborate in
projects designed primarily to benefit Israel, run in the millions of dollars per year.
a so-called Virginia-Israel Advisory Board (VIAB) has actually been funded by the
Commonwealth of Virginia taxpayers to promote and even subsidize Israeli business in the
state, business that currently runs an estimated $500 million per annum in favor of
Israel.
Reconciliation between Palestinians and Israeli might now be impossible. But the county can't keep more then a million people in
Bantustan forever. Probably Israel eventually will go the way South Africa went and settlers will repatriate to Western countries, Russia
and Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... A number of analysts were quick to point out how this sets the stage for further unnecessary tit-for-tat escalation inevitably making things messier for US forces in the Middle East, and significantly increases the changes of direct war. ..."
"... Netanyahu is taking credit for Trump's decision to designate the Revolutionary Guard as terrorists. "Thank you for responding to another important request of mine," Bibi says. ..."
"... He got the Golan 2 weeks ago and now this 1 day before Israel's election ..."
"... Likely the statement was not made in English in order to avoid making President Trump look weak in front of US political leaders and the American public , while at the same bolstering (in Hebrew to Israel's domestic audience) Netanyahu's ability to immediately make Washington bend to Israel's interests. ..."
"... Though Trump has clearly thrown his full support behind a Netanyahu victory, it doesn't bode well for "America First" having the Israeli leader essentially bragging that Washington policy can be dictated from Jerusalem. ..."
"... Netanyahu is the friend one appreciates not having. He's unable to avoid insulting everyone he's around, because he just can't control his need to announce at every opportunity how much better and smarter and prettier than everyone else he is. (Are we sure he's not a New Yorker? :-) ..."
"... Netanyahu over the weekend historically declared that he fully intends to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The incumbent prime minister also said he had told President Donald Trump that would not evacuate "a single person" from the 400,000 or so Jews residing in the West Bank. ..."
"... "There will be no Palestinian state," he said, "not like the one people are talking about. It won't happen." ..."
We noted Monday that just hours after President Trump formally designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist
organization, Iran's foreign ministry
responded
in kind , immediately put forward a bill placing US Central Command on a list of organizations designated as terrorists, akin
to Daesh.
A number of analysts were
quick to point out how this sets the stage for further unnecessary tit-for-tat escalation inevitably making things messier for
US forces in the Middle East, and significantly increases the changes of direct war. Soon after the White House's IRGC designation,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump in a tweet, the Hebrew version of which bragged it was all the
prime minister's idea .
Netanyahu said in the Hebrew-only tweet that he was glad Trump "answered another one of my important requests" which will keep
the world safe from Iran. It's unclear what the prime minister mean from "another" of his requests, but less than two weeks ago Trump
made a dramatic decisions to overturn decades of official US policy and bestow formal recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the
Golan Heights after receiving a
"quickie"
history lesson .
It's well known that Netanyahu had personally lobbied for weeks and months for that decision, and on Monday appeared to be touting
both as his initiative on the eve of Israel's election.
According to The Intercept's translation the statement said: "Thank you, my dear friend, President Donald Trump," Netanyahu
tweeted in Hebrew , "for answering another one of my important requests."
Netanyahu is taking credit for Trump's decision to designate the Revolutionary Guard as terrorists. "Thank you for responding
to another important request of mine," Bibi says.
Likely the statement was not made in English in order to avoid making President Trump look weak in front of US political leaders
and the American public , while at the same bolstering (in Hebrew to Israel's domestic audience) Netanyahu's ability to immediately
make Washington bend to Israel's interests.
Though Trump has clearly thrown his full support behind a Netanyahu victory, it doesn't bode well for "America First" having
the Israeli leader essentially bragging that Washington policy can be dictated from Jerusalem.
On the further significance of the statement, The Intercept
observed :
Joe Dyke, an Agence France-Presse correspondent, pointed out that Netanyahu omitted the claim that Trump's move was made at
his request in a subsequent tweet in English. That left the prime minister open to the charge often leveled at Palestinian leaders
by Israelis, that they placate the international community in English and then say something quite different for domestic consumption
in their native tongue.
Israelis head to the polls to elect a prime minister on Tuesday, and one key feature of Netanyahu's campaign -- lately beset by
no less than three corruption charges as prime minister -- has been his warm relations with the American president and close cooperation.
while at the same bolstering (in Hebrew to Israel's domestic audience) Netanyahu's ability to immediately make Washington bend
to Israel's interests.....
Disgusting. Zionist evil neo-con warmongers pulling strings in DC....what else is new.
I have to challenge your position for its intellectual integrity...
Is is "disgusting" for a group - any group - to use all methods of influence to reach their goals, or is it disgusting that
it's targets fold so easily?
Your indignation at the situation may be just, but your wrath is misplaced. Direct it at the cowards and scumbags who can be
flipped so easily.
Do you now understand why Zionists refer to us as "Dumb* Goyim"?
* 'Dumb' seems kind, given how a tiny minority can bridle the large majority so so easily. Other choice words come to mind.
HRC: Do you now understand why Zionists refer to us as "Dumb* Goyim"?
* 'Dumb' seems kind, given how a tiny minority can bridle the large majority so so easily.
Blind: Nepotism is why Jews are successful in host nations - Tribalism is a form of nepotism.
Also there is parasitism. The Jewish nation living independently within a host nation, meets the definition of a parasite:
one independent entity living within another, and deriving sustenance from it.
And CONCEALMENT is the main form of defense of every PARASITE.
● FOR EXAMPLE: The private-currency Ponzi-scheme PARASITE. In America they call their banks FEDERAL-Reserve banks, and their
currency FEDERAL-Reserve Notes. The "FEDERAL" part is to suggest FEDERAL-government and CONCEAL the fact they are PRIVATE. And
their FEDERAL-Reserve Notes look just like FEDERAL-government notes - more CONCEALMENT.
● FOR ANOTHER EXAMPLE, click this link:
http://static.neatorama.com/images/2006-08/cymothoa-exigua.jpg
[[Cymothoa exigua PARASITE enters the HOST fish and REPLACES it's tongue .. and CONCEALS the job by the PARASITE's body looking
just like the HOST's original tongue.]]
At best there is the suspicion that Israeli intelligence knew something was coming up. But same can be said about American intelligence,
where at some levels suspicions were pronounced, which due to incompetence and/or miscommunication between services weren't followed
upon.
The idea that Israel would stage super-complex false flag massacres against its big brother ally, using no less than 4 planes,
with Muslim recruits (mostly Saudis) is ridiculous. There is everything too lose, too little to gain.
Look at the aftermath: Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded. What's the gain here for Israel?!?! It had no big issues with any
of those two countries. And Iran was NOT attacked.
Critical: Look at the aftermath: Iraq and Afghanistan was invaded. Israel had no big issues with any of those countries.
Blind: Nonsense! Both countries stood in the way of the "Greater Israel" ("from the Nile to the Euphrates") project. Especially
IRAQ, the Euphrates River runs right through the middle of it!
The Greater Israel fantasy is an outlandish theory. Maybe some jewish reli-nutcases adhere to it, but it is mostly a fruit
of the mind of conspiracy theorists without geopolitical knowledge and realism.
Proof: Israel gave the Sinai back to Egypt + they left Southern Lebanon + it walled itself in...
The perpetrators own the media, own Hollywood and domimate the advertising industry. They've engineered our society so any
discussion of their political motives/actions is met with cries of bigotry. They've also used social engineering to turn half
of us against the other. We're on the losing end of a cultural war and 99% of us don't even know it's happening and 50% of those
people have mush for brains.
Captain: The [911] information is out there. They [Americans] just don't care.
Blind: The same people who engineered 9/11, also own the American Mainstream Media, and the keep us in the dark and feed us
********. The mushroom syndrome.
Yes of course! The Mossad 9/11 project was enabled by traitorous INSIDERS within the US government. Led by Cheney and Bush.
9/11 was an INSIDE job, as well as a false-flag to make Israel's enemies look like ours.
SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit, launched its Beresheet moon lander on a SpaceX rocket in February. ... Russia, China, and the
United States. Could Israel innovate and actually achieve this ...
The moon is in reach for Israel's Beresheet mission. The privately funded SpaceIL spacecraft is currently orbiting our lunar
neighbor and making preparations to attempt a soft landing Thursday.
Israel is on track to attempt a moon landing Thursday and, if successful, the tiny nation will become just the fourth to touch
down on the lunar surface. The landing attempt of the robotic probe ...
Netanyahu is the friend one appreciates not having. He's unable to avoid insulting everyone he's around, because he just
can't control his need to announce at every opportunity how much better and smarter and prettier than everyone else he is. (Are
we sure he's not a New Yorker? :-)
TEL AVIV – The U.S. is fully aware of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's flat rejection of the creation of a Palestinian state
along with his plans to extend Israeli law to West Bank settlements, the Israeli premier said on Monday.
In an interview with
Channel 12 , Netanyahu pushed back against his main challenger Benny Gantz's claims that his vow to annex the West Bank was
nothing more than an empty campaign promise.
Netanyahu over the weekend
historically declared that he fully intends to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The incumbent prime minister
also said he had told President Donald Trump that would not evacuate "a single person" from the 400,000 or so Jews residing in
the West Bank.
Gantz on Sunday said Netanyahu's statement was "meaningless" and no more than a last-minute bid for Likud to gain the upper
hand over Gantz's Blue and White party. Netanyahu, however, countered that such radical moves did not happen overnight.
"Why did it take two years to get recognition of the Golan Heights even with such a friendly president? These things takes
time," said Netanyahu in reference to Trump's presidential order last month recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Netanyahu said annexation of the West Bank would happen in three stages and he hoped to do it with "full American support."
"I discussed [annexation] with representatives of President Trump and I expressed my belief that there is no other option,
I think it is also the right move," he said.
"I want to do it gradually. If possible, I want to do it with full American support," the prime minister added.
"It is going to happen," he stated. "This isn't something I invented for the elections."
"I was under incredible pressure from the Obama administration -- that no prime minister has ever had -- to cease construction
in the [West Bank] and yet I withstood them and we continued building and now we will continue," he said.
Netanyahu also told
Army Radio that the Palestinians would not have a state or security control.
"There will be no Palestinian state," he said, "not like the one people are talking about. It won't happen."
"... Booker is a close friend of the controversial "America's rabbi" Shmuley Boteach and has taught himself enough Hebrew to pop out sentences from Torah with Jewish audiences. ..."
"... Last week the Intercept published a secret recording of Booker meeting with a group of Jews from New Jersey at the recently concluded AIPAC summit in Washington, which Booker, unlike a number of other Democratic presidential hopefuls, attended enthusiastically. Booker pandered so assiduously that it is hard to believe that he actually knows what he is saying in an effort to be more Israeli than the Israelis. ..."
"... Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss sums up the high points of what Booker said and did not say in the meeting: "Donald Trump is endangering Israel's security in Syria; there is no 'greater moral vandalism' than dividing the U.S. and Israel; ..."
"... A progressive senator who invokes Martin Luther King Jr. over and over again has not one word to say about the Jim Crow status of Palestinians while describing Israel as a 'country that I love so deeply, that changed my life from the day I went there as a 24 year old.'" ..."
"... Booker elaborated in his own words: "Israel is not political to me. It's not political. I was a supporter of Israel well before I was a United State Senator. I was coming to AIPAC conferences well before I knew that one day I would be a federal officer. If I forget thee, o Israel, may I cut off my right hand." ..."
"... Normally progressive Booker, who has criticized the endless war in Afghanistan on the campaign trail, has hypocritically condemned Trump for not continuing war in Syria to protect Israel ..."
"... Do we need a man like Cory Booker as President of the United States? He is articulate enough to cite "moral vandalism" but not perceptive enough to take the concept one step further and appreciate that uncritical close ties to Israel's feckless and fascist government could easily lead to a nuclear war that would constitute something far worse. He further believes that Israel's hand deep in the U.S. Treasury is a desirable policy, that unlimited "all resources" support of Israel is a U.S. national imperative, that ending the continued American military presence in the Middle East "would endanger our ally" Israel, and that moves to nonviolently oppose Israel's oppression of the Palestinians must be made illegal. ..."
"... Frankly, we already have an American leader who puts Israel first in Donald Trump and we don't need another round of wag the dog in our next president. ..."
Israel works hard to influence the United States at all levels. Its tentacles dig deep, now extending to local and state government
levels where candidates for office can expect to be grilled by Jewish constituents regarding their views on the Middle East. The
constituents often insist that the responses be provided in writing. The candidates being grilled understand perfectly well that
their answers will determine what kind of press coverage and level of donations they will receive in return.
One of the most blatant propaganda programs is the sponsorship of free "educational" trips to Israel for all newly elected congressmen
and spouses. The trips are normally led by Israel boosters in Congress like Democratic House Speaker Steny Hoyer, who recently boasted
at an AIPAC gathering how he has done 15 trips to Israel and is now preparing to do another with 30 Democratic congressmen, including
nearly all of those who are newly elected. The congressional trips are carefully coordinated with the Israeli government and are
both organized and paid for by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the
American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) . Other trips sponsored
by AIEF as well as by other Jewish organizations include politicians at state and even local levels as well as journalists who write
about foreign policy.
As noted above, all the trips to Israel are carefully choreographed to present a polished completely Israel-slanted point of view
on contentious issues. Visits to Palestinian areas are arranged selectively to avoid any contact with actual Arabs. Everyone is expected
to return and sing the praises of the wonderful little democracy in the Middle East, which is of course a completely false description
as Israel is a militarized ethno-theocratic kleptocracy headed by a group of corrupt right-wing fanatics who also happen to be racists.
Even progressive politicians who are aware that the Israeli message is bogus and also resent the heavy handedness of the Israelis
and their diaspora friends often decide that it is better to go along for the ride rather than resist. But some embrace it enthusiastically,
like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, a liberal Democrat running for his party's nomination for president, who has, by his own
admission, visited Israel many times. Israel and its friends are, of course, both courting and promoting him assiduously.
Booker inevitably reminds one of ex-President Barack Obama because he is black but the similarity goes beyond that as he is also
presentable, well-spoken and slick in his policy pronouncements. One suspects that like Obama he would say one thing to get elected
while doing something else afterwards, but we Americans have become accustomed to that in our presidents. More to the point, Booker
was and is a complete sell-out to Israel and its Jewish supporters during his not completely successful career in New Jersey as mayor
of Newark as well as in his bid for the presidential nomination. Booker is
a close friend of the controversial
"America's rabbi" Shmuley Boteach and has taught himself enough Hebrew to pop out sentences from Torah with Jewish audiences.
Last week the Intercept published
a secret recording of Booker meeting with a group of Jews from New Jersey at the recently concluded AIPAC summit in Washington,
which Booker, unlike a number of other Democratic presidential hopefuls, attended enthusiastically. Booker pandered so assiduously
that it is hard to believe that he actually knows what he is saying in an effort to be more Israeli than the Israelis. He described
an Israel that deserves total commitment from Washington and stated clearly that he wants to create a "unified front" against the
nonviolent boycott movement (BDS). He said that there is "no greater moral vandalism than abandoning Israel."
Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss sums up
the high points of what Booker said and did not say in the meeting: "Donald Trump is endangering Israel's security in Syria; there
is no 'greater moral vandalism' than dividing the U.S. and Israel; Booker would cut off his right hand before abandoning Israel;
he lobbied black congresspeople not to boycott Netanyahu's 2015 speech because we need to show a 'united front' with Israel; AIPAC
is an 'incredible great' organization whose mission is urgent now because of rising anti-Semitism; he 'text messages back and forth
like teenagers' with AIPAC's president Mort Fridman; and he swears to uphold bipartisan support in the Congress for Israel and give
it even more money. And Booker says not one word about Palestinian human rights or Israel's persecution of Palestinians. That's right.
A progressive senator who invokes Martin Luther King Jr. over and over again has not one word to say about the Jim Crow status of
Palestinians while describing Israel as a 'country that I love so deeply, that changed my life from the day I went there as a 24
year old.'"
Booker elaborated in his own words: "Israel is not political to me. It's not political. I was a supporter of Israel well before
I was a United State Senator. I was coming to AIPAC conferences well before I knew that one day I would be a federal officer. If
I forget thee, o Israel, may I cut off my right hand."
Booker described how he is appalled by the rise of alleged anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. and worldwide. Rather than using
that possible development as leverage to get Israel to behave more humanely, he instead prefers to punish all Americans with new
legislation intended to strip all everyone of their First Amendment rights. Per Booker "We must take acts on a local stage against
vicious acts that target Israel. That's why I'm cosponsor of Senate Bill 720. Israel anti-Boycott Act."
Normally progressive Booker, who has criticized the endless war in Afghanistan on the campaign trail, has hypocritically condemned
Trump for not continuing war in Syria to protect Israel, saying
"This administration's seeming willingness to pull away from Syria makes it more dangerous to us, makes it more dangerous to
Israel, and this is not sound policy . When you're tweeting about pulling out of Syria within days, when that would create a vacuum
that would not only endanger the United States of America but it would endanger our ally Israel as well. We need a comprehensive
strategy for that region because Israel's neighborhood is getting more dangerous than less. Syria is becoming a highway for Iran
to move more precision guided missiles to Hezbollah. There has got to be a strategy in this country to support Israel that is
bipartisan that is wise and that frankly calls upon all the resources of this country, not just military".
And because Israel always needs more money, Booker is ready to deliver: "Unequivocally 100 percent absolutely [yes] to the 3.3
billion [a year]. I have been on the front lines every time an MOU is up to make sure Israel gets the funding it needs. I even pushed
for more funding."
Do we need a man like Cory Booker as President of the United States? He is articulate enough to cite "moral vandalism" but not
perceptive enough to take the concept one step further and appreciate that uncritical close ties to Israel's feckless and fascist
government could easily lead to a nuclear war that would constitute something far worse. He further believes that Israel's hand deep
in the U.S. Treasury is a desirable policy, that unlimited "all resources" support of Israel is a U.S. national imperative, that
ending the continued American military presence in the Middle East "would endanger our ally" Israel, and that moves to nonviolently
oppose Israel's oppression of the Palestinians must be made illegal.
One does not see an actual American interest in any of that, but perhaps special spectacles made in Israel are needed, an environment
where Booker has clearly spent a great deal of time both physically and metaphorically. Or maybe it's the Benjamins. Booker will
need millions of dollars to mount his campaign and he knows where to go and what he needs to say to get it.
One struggles to see just a tiny bit of humanity in Booker vis-à-vis the Arabs who have lost their homes and livelihoods to Israeli
criminality, but none of that comes through in a session in which, admittedly, the Senator from New Jersey is speaking with his Jewish
donor/supporters. Booker is on record favoring an Israel-Palestine "two state solution," which is no longer viable, though he has
not objected to Israeli army snipers shooting dead children, journalists, medical personnel and unarmed protesters in Gaza.
Frankly,
we already have an American leader who puts Israel first in Donald Trump and we don't need another round of wag the dog in our next
president.
Cory Booker should work hard to maintain his perfect attendance record at AIPAC as he texts "like a teenager" with Mort
Fridman, but maybe someday he will actually grow up and learn to think for himself. As he is a U.S. Senator that certainly is something
we might all hope for.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational
foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].
Russian research team which claimed to have detected signs of intelligent life in Washington has now discovered the life there
not to be quite so intelligent after all.
A Russian spokesman, who wishes to remain anonymous, told our Moscow science correspondent -- who also wishes to remain anonymous
-- that the Washington atmosphere has been poisoned by huge clouds of putrid hot air belching from the corporate media. He explained
that such a hostile environment makes it almost impossible for intelligent life to survive, let alone evolve a sustainable culture.
The Russian team believes there may still be small pockets of intelligent life elsewhere on the North American continent but without
the necessary conditions they need to thrive they are destined to disappear without trace.
Speaking off the record, the Russian spokesman, who asked us not to disclose his identity, added that hopes of finding intelligent
life in London, Paris, Berlin and other Western European locations, where it might be expected to flourish, are fading fast. Though
it is believed intelligent life once existed in Occiental Europe, an atmosphere suitable for the maintenance of such life has all
but evaporated.
Trump had 4 bankruptcies let him run your economy !!
2+ years into his presidency, there is little room left for doubt about his competency. I
regret having supported him, although arguably, the alternative was worse.
On a lighter note, here is Trump singing from Eurythmics, courtesy of Google AI:
"... "Fareed Zakaria '86 (center) former President of the Yale Political Union argued that Yale should not divest from its holdings in South Africa " ..."
Read the tweets. Vast majority are skewering the fascist Zakaria.
Best tweet of all: Angel Schatz tweeted some skeletons in Fareed's closet, like how this
tosser supported South African apartheid when he was at Yale University (class of '86).
"Fareed Zakaria '86 (center) former President of the Yale Political Union argued that Yale
should not divest from its holdings in South Africa "
In other words, Zakharia has ALWAYS been a racist pig! And now earns his bread slandering
Russia.
So Trump administration will spend billion of fighting Iran, instead of helping US middle
class to survive... Guns instead of butter policy. This is clearly Obama-style betrayal of Trump
voters. Trump’s Budget Would Deny Food to 400,000 Children and Pregnant People By Dean
Baker
cepr.net
While any theocratic regime is reprehensible Trump clearly prefers one theocratic regime to
another.
From comments: "Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metaphor but a foreign policy
statement! The house of Kushner that Trump built."
Just hours after President Trump formally designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps as a terrorist organization, Iran's foreign ministry has put forward a bill placing US
Central Command on a list of organizations designated as terrorists, akin to
Daesh.
Today, I am formally announcing my Administration’s plan to designate Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This
unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not
only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and
promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft. The IRGC is the Iranian government’s
primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign.
This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of
another government as a FTO. It underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are
fundamentally different from those of other governments. This action will significantly
expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime. It makes crystal
clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC. If you are
doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism.
This action sends a clear message to Tehran that its support for terrorism has serious
consequences. We will continue to increase financial pressure and raise the costs on the
Iranian regime for its support of terrorist activity until it abandons its malign and outlaw
behavior.
Previously, the Iranian Foreign Minister noted that those US officials who
advocated IRGC blacklisting, "seek to drag the US into a quagmire".
"#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organisation) of the
IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to
drag the US into a quagmire on his behalf," Mohammed Javad Zarif said on his Twitter account.
"@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster."
Von Clausewitz. Just because I abbreviate it, does not make me wrong. Here's today's gift,
his eight book library that I spent hundreds on in college, free for the asking. it might
just help clarify some of the world's realities for you.
With Jared kushner ( Bibis bff and playing the role of **** Cheney) and Aldonson Trumps
private banker ( aka Vegas buddies) what could go wrong in PEACE negotiations?
Campaign 💩of Trump.
'We'll stop racing to topple foreign regimes with a policy of intervention and chaos
because we're all over the place fighting areas that we shouldn't be fighting in".
Disclaimer: except when it comes to family Zionism.
Trump actions:
1- On December 6, 2017, US President Donald Trump announced the United States recognition
of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
2-Mar 22, 2019 · (CNN)President Donald Trump on Thursday overturned longstanding US
policy regarding the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, announcing "it is time" for the US to
"fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty" over the region.
3- Trump approves Saudi Arabi nuclear plant without agreement for oversight.
Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metephor but a foreign policy
statement!💊🐍 the house of Kushner that Trump built.😡
Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization
Haha, Really? and what will they do? Attack US military?
Today, I am formally announcing my Administration’s plan to designate Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO)
Judizing American foreign policy has made our military soliders martyrs for the State of
Isreal not terrorists in the international sense.
Our troops have been dying for the State of Isreal to " protect it" since the Zionist
movement that took over the Plaistinians land through Britian... The expansion will never
stop and americans will always be " mercinaries" for Isreal... Without proper
compensation.
With Jared kushner ( Bibis bff and playing the role of **** Cheney) and Aldonson Trumps
private banker ( aka Vegas buddies) what could go wrong in PEACE negotiations?
... ... ...
Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metephor but a foreign policy
statement!💊🐍 the house of Kushner that Trump built.
Establishment
historians claim that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt never wanted war and made every reasonable effort to prevent war. This
article will show that contrary to what establishment historians claim, Franklin Roosevelt and his administration wanted war and
made every effort to instigate World War II in Europe.
The Germans seized a mass of documents from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs when they invaded Warsaw in late September 1939.
The documents were seized when a German SS brigade led by Freiherr von Kuensberg captured the center of Warsaw ahead of the regular
German army. Von Kuensberg's men took control of the Polish Foreign Ministry just as Ministry officials were in the process of burning
incriminating documents. These documents clearly establish Roosevelt's crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. They
also reveal the forces behind President Roosevelt that pushed for war.
[1] Weber, Mark,
"President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Vol.
4, No. 2 , Summer 1983, pp. 136-137, 140. Some of the secret Polish documents were first published in the United States
as The German White Paper . Probably the most-revealing document in the collection is a secret report dated January 12, 1939
by Jerzy Potocki, the Polish ambassador to the United States. This report discusses the domestic situation in the United States.
I quote (a translation of) Ambassador Potocki's report in full:
There is a feeling now prevalent in the United States marked by growing hatred of Fascism, and above all of Chancellor Hitler
and everything connected with National Socialism. Propaganda is mostly in the hands of the Jews who control almost 100% [of the]
radio, film, daily and periodical press. Although this propaganda is extremely coarse and presents Germany as black as possible–above
all religious persecution and concentration camps are exploited–this propaganda is nevertheless extremely effective since the
public here is completely ignorant and knows nothing of the situation in Europe. At the present moment most Americans regard Chancellor
Hitler and National Socialism as the greatest evil and greatest peril threatening the world. The situation here provides an excellent
platform for public speakers of all kinds, for emigrants from Germany and Czechoslovakia who with a great many words and with
most various calumnies incite the public. They praise American liberty which they contrast with the totalitarian states. It is
interesting to note that in this extremely well-planned campaign which is conducted above all against National Socialism, Soviet
Russia is almost completely eliminated. Soviet Russia, if mentioned at all, is mentioned in a friendly manner and things are presented
in such a way that it would seem that the Soviet Union were cooperating with the bloc of democratic states. Thanks to the clever
propaganda the sympathies of the American public are completely on the side of Red Spain. This propaganda, this war psychosis
is being artificially created. The American people are told that peace in Europe is hanging only by a thread and that war is inevitable.
At the same time the American people are unequivocally told that in case of a world war, America also must take an active part
in order to defend the slogans of liberty and democracy in the world. President Roosevelt was the first one to express hatred
against Fascism. In doing so he was serving a double purpose; first he wanted to divert the attention of the American people from
difficult and intricate domestic problems, especially from the problem of the struggle between capital and labor. Second, by creating
a war psychosis and by spreading rumors concerning dangers threatening Europe, he wanted to induce the American people to accept
an enormous armament program which far exceeds United States defense requirements. Regarding the first point, it must be said
that the internal situation on the labor market is growing worse constantly. The unemployed today already number 12 million. Federal
and state expenditures are increasing daily. Only the huge sums, running into billions, which the treasury expends for emergency
labor projects, are keeping a certain amount of peace in the country. Thus far only the usual strikes and local unrest have taken
place. But how long this government aid can be kept up it is difficult to predict today. The excitement and indignation of public
opinion, and the serious conflict between private enterprises and enormous trusts on the one hand, and with labor on the other,
have made many enemies for Roosevelt and are causing him many sleepless nights. As to point two, I can only say that President
Roosevelt, as a clever player of politics and a connoisseur of American mentality, speedily steered public attention away from
the domestic situation in order to fasten it on foreign policy. The way to achieve this was simple. One needed, on the one hand,
to enhance the war menace overhanging the world on account of Chancellor Hitler, and, on the other hand, to create a specter by
talking about the attack of the totalitarian states on the United States. The Munich pact came to President Roosevelt as a godsend.
He described it as the capitulation of France and England to bellicose German militarism. As was said here: Hitler compelled Chamberlain
at pistol-point. Hence, France and England had no choice and had to conclude a shameful peace. The prevalent hatred against everything
which is in any way connected with German National Socialism is further kindled by the brutal attitude against the Jews in Germany
and by the émigré problem. In this action Jewish intellectuals participated; for instance, Bernard Baruch; the Governor of New
York State, Lehman; the newly appointed judge of the Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter; Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, and
others who are personal friends of Roosevelt. They want the President to become the champion of human rights, freedom of religion
and speech, and the man who in the future will punish trouble-mongers. These groups, people who want to pose as representatives
of "Americanism" and "defenders of democracy" in the last analysis, are connected by unbreakable ties with international Jewry.
For this Jewish international, which above all is concerned with the interests of its race, to put the President of the United
States at this "ideal" post of champion of human rights, was a clever move. In this manner they created a dangerous hotbed for
hatred and hostility in this hemisphere and divided the world into two hostile camps. The entire issue is worked out in a mysterious
manner. Roosevelt has been forcing the foundation for vitalizing American foreign policy, and simultaneously has been procuring
enormous stocks for the coming war, for which the Jews are striving consciously. With regard to domestic policy, it is extremely
convenient to divert public attention from anti-Semitism which is ever growing in the United States, by talking about the necessity
of defending faith and individual liberty against the onslaught of Fascism.
[2] Count
Jerzy Potocki to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the
Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 29-31.
On January 16, 1939, Potocki reported to the Warsaw Foreign Ministry a conversation he had with American Ambassador to France William
Bullitt. Bullitt was in Washington on a leave of absence from Paris. Potocki reported that Bullitt stated the main objectives of
the Roosevelt administration were:
1. The vitalizing foreign policy, under the leadership of President Roosevelt, severely and unambiguously condemns totalitarian
countries. 2. The United States preparation for war on sea, land and air which will be carried out at an accelerated speed and
will consume the colossal sum of $1,250 million. 3. It is the decided opinion of the President that France and Britain must put
[an] end to any sort of compromise with the totalitarian countries. They must not let themselves in for any discussions aiming
at any kind of territorial changes. 4. They have the moral assurance that the United States will leave the policy of isolation
and be prepared to intervene actively on the side of Britain and France in case of war. America is ready to place its whole wealth
of money and raw materials at their disposal."
[3] Ibid
., pp. 32-33. (Count Jerzy Potocki to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents
Issued by the Berlin Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp.
29-31.)
Juliusz (Jules) Łukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador to France, sent a top-secret report from Paris to the Polish Foreign Ministry
at the beginning of February 1939. This report outlined the U.S. policy toward Europe as explained to him by William Bullitt:
A week ago, the Ambassador of the United States, W. Bullitt, returned to Paris after having spent three months holiday in America.
Meanwhile, I had two conversations with him which enable me to inform Monsieur Minister on his views regarding the European situation
and to give a survey of Washington's policy . The international situation is regarded by official quarters as extremely serious
and being in danger of armed conflict. Competent quarters are of the opinion that if war should break out between Britain and
France on the one hand and Germany and Italy on the other, and Britain and France should be defeated, the Germans would become
dangerous to the realistic interests of the United States on the American continent. For this reason, one can foresee right from
the beginning the participation of the United States in the war on the side of France and Britain, naturally after some time had
elapsed after the beginning of the war. Ambassador Bullitt expressed this as follows: "Should war break out we shall certainly
not take part in it at the beginning, but we shall end it."
[4] Juliusz
Lukasiewicz to Polish Foreign Minister in Warsaw, The German White Paper: Full Text of the Polish Documents Issued by the Berlin
Foreign Office; with a foreword by C. Hartley Grattan, New York: Howell, Soskin & Company, 1940, pp. 43-44.
On March 7, 1939, Ambassador Potocki sent another remarkably perceptive report on Roosevelt's foreign policy to the Polish government.
I quote Potocki's report in full:
The foreign policy of the United States right now concerns not only the government, but the entire American public as well. The
most important elements are the public statements of President Roosevelt. In almost every public speech he refers more or less
explicitly to the necessity of activating foreign policy against the chaos of views and ideologies in Europe. These statements
are picked up by the press and then cleverly filtered into the minds of average Americans in such a way as to strengthen their
already formed opinions. The same theme is constantly repeated, namely, the danger of war in Europe and saving the democracies
from inundation by enemy fascism. In all of these public statements there is normally only a single theme, that is, the danger
from Nazism and Nazi Germany to world peace. As a result of these speeches, the public is called upon to support rearmament and
the spending of enormous sums for the navy and the air force. The unmistakable idea behind this is that in case of an armed conflict
the United States cannot stay out but must take an active part in the maneuvers. As a result of the effective speeches of President
Roosevelt, which are supported by the press, the American public is today being conscientiously manipulated to hate everything
that smacks of totalitarianism and fascism. But it is interesting that the USSR is not included in all of this. The American public
considers Russia more in the camp of the democratic states. This was also the case during the Spanish civil war when the so-called
Loyalists were regarded as defenders of the democratic idea. The State Department operates without attracting a great deal of
attention, although it is known that Secretary of State [Cordell] Hull and President Roosevelt swear allegiance to the same ideas.
However, Hull shows more reserve than Roosevelt, and he loves to make a distinction between Nazism and Chancellor Hitler on the
one hand, and the German people on the other. He considers this form of dictatorial government a temporary "necessary evil." In
contrast, the State Department is unbelievably interested in the USSR and its internal situation and openly worries itself over
its weaknesses and decline. The main reason for the United States interest in the Russians is the situation in the Far East. The
current government would be glad to see the Red Army emerge as the victor in a conflict with Japan. That's why the sympathies
of the government are clearly on the side of China, which recently received considerable financial aid amounting to 25 million
dollars. Eager attention is given to all information from the diplomatic posts as well as to the special emissaries of the President
who serve as ambassadors of the United States. The President frequently calls his representatives from abroad to Washington for
personal exchanges of views and to give them special information and instructions. The arrival of the envoys and ambassadors is
always shrouded in secrecy and very little surfaces in the press about the results of their visits. The State Department also
takes care to avoid giving out any kind of information about the course of these interviews. The practical way in which the President
makes foreign policy is most effective. He gives personal instructions to his representatives abroad, most of whom are his personal
friends. In this way the United States is led down a dangerous path in world politics with the explicit intention of abandoning
the comfortable policy of isolation. The President regards the foreign policy of his country as a means of satisfying his own
personal ambition. He listens carefully and happily to his echo in the other capitals of the world. In domestic as well as foreign
policy, the Congress of the United States is the only object that stands in the way of the President and his government in carrying
out his decisions quickly and ambitiously. One hundred and fifty years ago, the Constitution of the United States gave the highest
prerogatives to the American parliament which may criticize or reject the law of the White House. The foreign policy of President
Roosevelt has recently been the subject of intense discussion in the lower house and in the Senate, and this has caused excitement.
The so-called Isolationists, of whom there are many in both houses, have come out strongly against the President. The representatives
and the senators were especially upset over the remarks of the President, which were published in the press, in which he said
that the borders of the United States lie on the Rhine. But President Roosevelt is a superb political player and understands completely
the power of the American parliament. He has his own people there, and he knows how to withdraw from an uncomfortable situation
at the right moment. Very intelligently and cleverly he ties together the question of foreign policy with the issues of American
rearmament. He particularly stresses the necessity of spending enormous sums in order to maintain a defensive peace. He says specifically
that the United States is not arming in order to intervene or to go to the aid of England or France in case of war, but because
of the need to show strength and military preparedness in case of an armed conflict in Europe. In his view this conflict is becoming
ever more acute and is completely unavoidable. Since the issue is presented this way, the houses of Congress have no cause to
object. To the contrary, the houses accepted an armament program of more than 1 billion dollars. (The normal budget is 550 million,
the emergency 552 million dollars). However, under the cloak of a rearmament policy, President Roosevelt continues to push forward
his foreign policy, which unofficially shows the world that in case of war the United States will come out on the side of the
democratic states with all military and financial power. In conclusion it can be said that the technical and moral preparation
of the American people for participation in a war–if one should break out in Europe–is proceeding rapidly. It appears that the
United States will come to the aid of France and Great Britain with all its resources right from the beginning. However, I know
the American public and the representatives and senators who all have the final word, and I am of the opinion that the possibility
that America will enter the war as in 1917 is not great. That's because the majority of the states in the mid-West and West, where
the rural element predominates, want to avoid involvement in European disputes at all costs. They remember the declaration of
the Versailles Treaty and the well-known phrase that the war was to save the world for democracy. Neither the Versailles Treaty
nor that slogan have reconciled the United States to that war. For millions there remains only a bitter aftertaste because of
unpaid billions which the European states still owe America.
[5] Germany.
Foreign Office Archive Commission. Roosevelts Weg in den Krieg: Geheimdokumente zur Kriegspolitik des Praesidenten der Vereinigten
Staaten . Berlin: Deutscher Verlag, 1943. Translated into English by Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite
War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , pp.
150-152.
These secret Polish reports were written by top-level Polish ambassadors who were not necessarily friendly to Germany. However, they
understood the realities of European politics far better than people who made foreign policy in the United States. The Polish ambassadors
realized that behind all of their rhetoric about democracy and human rights, the Jewish leaders in the United States who agitated
for war against Germany were deceptively advancing their own interests. There is no question that the secret documents taken from
the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw are authentic. Charles C. Tansill considered the documents genuine and stated, "Some months
ago I had a long conversation with M. Lipsky, the Polish ambassador in Berlin in the prewar years, and he assured me that the documents
in the German White Paper are authentic."
[6] Tansill,
Charles C., "The United States and the Road to War in Europe," in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
, Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 184 (footnote 292). William H. Chamberlain wrote , "I
have been privately informed by an extremely reliable source that Potocki, now residing in South America, confirmed the accuracy
of the documents, so far as he was concerned."
[7] Chamberlain,
William Henry, America's Second Crusade , Chicago: Regnery, 1950, p. 60 (footnote 14). Historian Harry Elmer Barnes also
stated, "Both Professor Tansill and myself have independently established the thorough authenticity of these documents."
[8] Barnes,
Harry Elmer, The Court Historians versus Revisionism , N.p.: privately printed, 1952, p. 10. Edward Raczyński, the Polish
ambassador to London from 1934 to 1945, confirmed in his diary the authenticity of the Polish documents. He wrote in his entry on
June 20, 1940: "The Germans published in April a White Book containing documents from the archives of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
consisting of reports from Potocki from Washington, Łukasiewicz in Paris and myself. I do not know where they found them, since we
were told that the archives had been destroyed. The documents are certainly genuine, and the facsimiles show that for the most part
the Germans got hold of the originals and not merely copies."
[9] Raczynski,
Edward, In Allied London , London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963, p. 51. The official papers and memoirs of Juliusz Łukasiewicz
published in 1970 in the book Diplomat in Paris 1936-1939 reconfirmed the authenticity of the Polish documents. Łukasiewicz
was the Polish ambassador to Paris, who authored several of the secret Polish documents. The collection was edited by Wacław Jędrzejewicz,
a former Polish diplomat and cabinet member. Jędrzejewicz considered the documents made public by the Germans absolutely genuine,
and quoted from several of them. Tyler G. Kent, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in London in 1939 and 1940, has also confirmed the
authenticity of the secret Polish documents. Kent says that he saw copies of U.S. diplomatic messages in the files which corresponded
to the Polish documents.
[10] Weber,
Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal of Historical Review,
Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , p. 142. The German Foreign Office published the Polish documents on March 29, 1940. The Reich
Ministry of Propaganda released the documents to strengthen the case of the American isolationists and to prove the degree of America's
responsibility for the outbreak of war. In Berlin, journalists from around the world were permitted to examine the original documents
themselves, along with a large number of other documents from the Polish Foreign Ministry. The release of the documents caused an
international media sensation. American newspapers published lengthy excerpts from the documents and gave the story large front-page
headline coverage.
[11] Ibid
., pp. 137-139. (Weber, Mark, "President Roosevelt's Campaign to Incite War in Europe: The Secret Polish Documents," The Journal
of Historical Review, Summer 1983, Vol. 4, No. 2 , p. 142.) However, the impact of the released documents was far
less than the German government had hoped for. Leading U.S. government officials emphatically denounced the documents as not being
authentic. William Bullitt, who was especially incriminated by the documents, stated, "I have never made to anyone the statements
attributed to me." Secretary of State Cordell Hull denounced the documents: "I may say most emphatically that neither I nor any of
my associates in the Department of State have ever heard of any such conversations as those alleged, nor do we give them the slightest
credence. The statements alleged have not represented in any way at any time the thought or the policy of the American government."
[12] New
York Times , March 30, 1940, p. 1. American newspapers stressed these high-level denials in reporting the release of the
Polish documents. These categorical denials by high-level U.S. government officials almost completely eliminated the effect of the
secret Polish documents. The vast majority of the American people in 1940 trusted their elected political leaders to tell the truth.
If the Polish documents were in fact authentic and genuine, this would mean that President Roosevelt and his representatives had
lied to the American public, while the German government told the truth. In 1940, this was far more than the trusting American public
could accept.
While the secret Polish documents alone indicate that Roosevelt was preparing the American public for war against Germany, a large
amount of complementary evidence confirms the conspiracy reported by the Polish ambassadors. The diary of James V. Forrestal, the
first U.S. secretary of defense, also reveals that Roosevelt and his administration helped start World War II. Forrestal's entry
on December 27, 1945 stated:
Played golf today with Joe Kennedy [Roosevelt's Ambassador to Great Britain in the years immediately before the war]. I asked
him about his conversations with Roosevelt and Neville Chamberlain from 1938 on. He said Chamberlain's position in 1938 was that
England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going to war with Hitler. Kennedy's view: That Hitler would
have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had not been for Bullitt's urging on Roosevelt in the summer
of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland; neither the French nor the British would have made Poland a cause of
war if it had not been for the constant needling from Washington. Bullitt, he said, kept telling Roosevelt that the Germans wouldn't
fight; Kennedy that they would, and that they would overrun Europe. Chamberlain, he says, stated that America and the world Jews
had forced England into the war. In his telephone conversations with Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 the President kept telling
him to put some iron up Chamberlain's backside. Kennedy's response always was that putting iron up his backside did no good unless
the British had some iron with which to fight, and they did not . What Kennedy told me in this conversation jibes substantially
with the remarks Clarence Dillon had made to me already, to the general effect that Roosevelt had asked him in some manner to
communicate privately with the British to the end that Chamberlain should have greater firmness in his dealings with Germany.
Dillon told me that at Roosevelt's request he had talked with Lord Lothian in the same general sense as Kennedy reported Roosevelt
having urged him to do with Chamberlain. Lothian presumably was to communicate to Chamberlain the gist of his conversation with
Dillon. Looking backward there is undoubtedly foundation for Kennedy's belief that Hitler's attack could have been deflected to
Russia ."
[13] Forrestal,
James V., The Forrestal Diaries , edited by Walter Millis and E.S. Duffield, New York: Vanguard Press, 1951, pp. 121-122.
Joseph Kennedy is known to have had a good memory, and it is highly likely that Kennedy's statements to James Forrestal are accurate.
Forrestal died on May 22, 1949 under suspicious circumstances when he fell from his hospital window. Sir Ronald Lindsay, the British
ambassador to Washington, confirmed Roosevelt's secret policy to instigate war against Germany with the release of a confidential
diplomatic report after the war. The report described a secret meeting on September 18, 1938 between Roosevelt and Ambassador Lindsay.
Roosevelt said that if Britain and France were forced into a war against Germany, the United States would ultimately join the war.
Roosevelt's idea to start a war was for Britain and France to impose a blockade against Germany without actually declaring war. The
important point was to call it a defensive war based on lofty humanitarian grounds and on the desire to wage hostilities with a minimum
of suffering and the least possible loss of life and property. The blockade would provoke some kind of German military response,
but would free Britain and France from having to declare war. Roosevelt believed he could then convince the American public to support
war against Germany, including shipments of weapons to Britain and France, by insisting that the United States was still neutral
in a non-declared conflict.
[14] Dispatch
No. 349 of Sept. 30, 1938, by Sir Ronald Lindsay, Documents on British Foreign Policy , (ed.). Ernest L. Woodard, Third Series,
Vol. VII, London, 1954, pp. 627-629. See also Lash, Joseph P., Roosevelt and Churchill 1939-1941, New York: Norton, 1976,
pp. 25-27. President Roosevelt told Ambassador Lindsay that if news of their conversation was ever made public, it could mean
Roosevelt's impeachment. What Roosevelt proposed to Lindsay was in effect a scheme to violate the U.S. Constitution by illegally
starting a war. For this and other reasons, Ambassador Lindsay stated that during his three years of service in Washington he developed
little regard for America's leaders.
[15] Dallek,
Robert, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932-1945 , New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, pp. 31, 164-165.
Ambassador Lindsay in a series of final reports also indicated that Roosevelt was delighted at the prospect of a new world war. Roosevelt
promised Lindsay that he would delay German ships under false pretenses in a feigned search for arms. This would allow the German
ships to be easily seized by the British under circumstances arranged with exactitude between the American and British authorities.
Lindsay reported that Roosevelt "spoke in a tone of almost impish glee and though I may be wrong the whole business gave me the impression
of resembling a school-boy prank." Ambassador Lindsay was personally perturbed that the president of the United States could be gay
and joyful about a pending tragedy which seemed so destructive of the hopes of all mankind. It was unfortunate at this important
juncture that the United States had a president whose emotions and ideas were regarded by a friendly British ambassador as being
childish. [16]
Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989,
pp. 518-519. Roosevelt's desire to support France and England in a war against Germany is discussed in a letter from Verne Marshall,
former editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette , to Charles C. Tansill. The letter stated:
President Roosevelt wrote a note to William Bullitt [in the summer of 1939], then Ambassador to France, directing him to advise
the French Government that if, in the event of a Nazi attack upon Poland, France and England did not go to Poland's aid, those
countries could expect no help from America if a general war developed. On the other hand, if France and England immediately declared
war on Germany, they could expect "all aid" from the United States. F.D.R.'s instructions to Bullitt were to send this word along
to "Joe" and "Tony," meaning Ambassadors Kennedy, in London, and Biddle, in Warsaw, respectively. F.D.R. wanted Daladier, Chamberlain
and Josef Beck to know of these instructions to Bullitt. Bullitt merely sent his note from F.D.R. to Kennedy in the diplomatic
pouch from Paris. Kennedy followed Bullitt's idea and forwarded it to Biddle. When the Nazis grabbed Warsaw and Beck disappeared,
they must have come into possession of the F.D.R. note. The man who wrote the report I sent you saw it in Berlin in October, 1939.
[17] Tansill,
Charles C., "The United States and the Road to War in Europe," in Barnes, Harry Elmer (ed.), Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace
, Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, p. 168.
William Phillips, the American ambassador to Italy, also stated in his postwar memoirs that the Roosevelt administration in late
1938 was committed to going to war on the side of Britain and France. Phillips wrote: "On this and many other occasions, I would
have liked to have told him [Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister] frankly that in the event of a European war, the United States
would undoubtedly be involved on the side of the Allies. But in view of my official position, I could not properly make such a statement
without instructions from Washington, and these I never received."
[18] Phillips,
William, Ventures in Diplomacy , North Beverly, Mass.: privately published, 1952, pp. 220-221. When Anthony Eden returned
to England in December 1938, he carried with him an assurance from President Roosevelt that the United States would enter as soon
as practicable a European war against Hitler if the occasion arose. This information was obtained by Senator William Borah of Idaho,
who was contemplating how and when to give out this information, when he dropped dead in his bathroom. The story was confirmed to
historian Harry Elmer Barnes by some of Senator Borah's closest colleagues at the time.
[19] Barnes,
Harry Elmer, Barnes against the Blackout , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1991, p. 208. The American
ambassador to Poland, Anthony Drexel Biddle, was an ideological colleague of President Roosevelt and a good friend of William Bullitt.
Roosevelt used Biddle to influence the Polish government to refuse to enter into negotiations with Germany. Carl J. Burckhardt, the
League of Nations High Commissioner to Danzig, reported in his postwar memoirs on a memorable conversation he had with Biddle. On
December 2, 1938, Biddle told Burckhardt with remarkable satisfaction that the Poles were ready to wage war over Danzig. Biddle predicted
that in April a new crisis would develop, and that moderate British and French leaders would be influenced by public opinion to support
war. Biddle predicted a holy war against Germany would break out.
[20] Burckhardt,
Carl, Meine Danziger Mission 1937-1939 , Munich: Callwey, 1960, p. 225. Bernard Baruch, who was Roosevelt's chief advisor,
scoffed at a statement made on March 10, 1939 by Neville Chamberlain that "the outlook in international affairs is tranquil." Baruch
agreed passionately with Winston Churchill, who had told him: "War is coming very soon. We will be in it and you [the United States]
will be in it."
[21] Sherwood,
Robert E., Roosevelt and Hopkins, an Intimate History , New York: Harper & Brothers, 1948, p. 113. Georges Bonnet, the
French foreign minister in 1939, also confirmed the role of William Bullitt as Roosevelt's agent in pushing France into war. In a
letter to Hamilton Fish dated March 26, 1971, Bonnet wrote, "One thing is certain is that Bullitt in 1939 did everything he could
to make France enter the war."
[22] Fish,
Hamilton, FDR The Other Side of the Coin: How We Were Tricked into World War II, New York: Vantage Press, 1976, p. 62.
Dr. Edvard Beneš, the former president of Czechoslovakia, wrote in his memoirs that he had a lengthy secret conversation at Hyde
Park with President Roosevelt on May 28, 1939. Roosevelt assured Beneš that the United States would actively intervene on the side
of Great Britain and France against Germany in the anticipated European war.
[23] Beneš,
Edvard, Memoirs of Dr. Edvard Beneš , London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954, pp. 79-80. American newspaper columnist Karl
von Wiegand, who was the chief European newspaper columnist of the International News Service, met with Ambassador William Bullitt
at the U.S. embassy in Paris on April 25, 1939. More than four months before the outbreak of war, Bullitt told Wiegand: "War in Europe
has been decided upon. Poland has the assurance of the support of Britain and France, and will yield to no demands from Germany.
America will be in the war soon after Britain and France enter it."
[24] "Von Wiegand
Says-," Chicago-Herald American , Oct. 8, 1944, p. 2. When Wiegand said that in the end Germany would be driven into the
arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, Ambassador Bullitt replied: "What of it. There will not be enough Germans left when the war
is over to be worth Bolshevizing."
[25] Chicago-Herald
American , April 23, 1944, p. 18. On March 14, 1939, Slovakia dissolved the state of Czechoslovakia by declaring itself an
independent republic. Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha signed a formal agreement the next day with Hitler establishing a German
protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the Czech portion of the previous entity. The British government initially
accepted the new situation, reasoning that Britain's guarantee of Czechoslovakia given after Munich was rendered void by the internal
collapse of that state. It soon became evident after the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia that the new regime
enjoyed considerable popularity among the people living in it. Also, the danger of a war between the Czechs and the Slovaks had been
averted. [26]
Hoggan, David L., The Forced War: When Peaceful Revision Failed , Costa Mesa, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1989,
p. 250. However, Bullitt's response to the creation of the German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia was highly unfavorable.
Bullitt telephoned Roosevelt and, in an "almost hysterical" voice, Bullitt urged Roosevelt to make a dramatic denunciation of Germany
and to immediately ask Congress to repeal the Neutrality Act.
[27] Moffat,
Jay P., The Moffat Papers 1919-1943 , Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956, p. 232. Washington journalists
Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen reported in their nationally syndicated column that on March 16, 1939, President Roosevelt "sent
a virtual ultimatum to Chamberlain" demanding that the British government strongly oppose Germany. Pearson and Allen reported that
"the President warned that Britain could expect no more support, moral or material through the sale of airplanes, if the Munich policy
continued."
[28] Pearson, Drew and Allen, Robert S., "Washington Daily Merry-Go-Round," Washington Times-Herald , April 14, 1939, p. 16.
Responding to Roosevelt's pressure, the next day Chamberlain ended Britain's policy of cooperation with Germany when he made a speech
at Birmingham bitterly denouncing Hitler. Chamberlain also announced the end of the British "appeasement" policy, stating that from
now on Britain would oppose any further territorial moves by Hitler. Two weeks later the British government formally committed itself
to war in case of German-Polish hostilities. Roosevelt also attempted to arm Poland so that Poland would be more willing to go to
war against Germany. Ambassador Bullitt reported from Paris in a confidential telegram to Washington on April 9, 1939, his conversation
with Polish Ambassador Łukasiewicz. Bullitt told Łukasiewicz that although U.S. law prohibited direct financial aid to Poland, the
Roosevelt administration might be able to supply warplanes to Poland indirectly through Britain. Bullitt stated: "The Polish ambassador
asked me if it might not be possible for Poland to obtain financial help and airplanes from the United States. I replied that I believed
the Johnson Act would forbid any loans from the United States to Poland, but added that it might be possible for England to purchase
planes for cash in the United States and turn them over to Poland."
[29] U.S. Department
of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (Diplomatic Papers), 1939, General, Vol. I, Washington: 1956, p. 122.
Bullitt also attempted to bypass the Neutrality Act and supply France with airplanes. A secret conference of Ambassador Bullitt with
French Premier Daladier and the French minister of aviation, Guy La Chambre, discussed the procurement of airplanes from America
for France. Bullitt, who was in frequent telephonic conversation with Roosevelt, suggested a means by which the Neutrality Act could
be circumvented in the event of war. Bullitt's suggestion was to set up assembly plants in Canada, apparently on the assumption that
Canada would not be a formal belligerent in the war. Bullitt also arranged for a secret French mission to come to the United States
and purchase airplanes in the winter of 1938-1939. The secret purchase of American airplanes by the French leaked out when a French
aviator crashed on the West Coast.
[30] Chamberlain,
William Henry, America's Second Crusade , Chicago: Regnery, 1950, pp. 101-102. On August 23, 1939, Sir Horace Wilson,
Chamberlain's closest advisor, went to American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy with an urgent appeal from Chamberlain to President Roosevelt.
Regretting that Britain had unequivocally obligated itself to Poland in case of war, Chamberlain now turned to Roosevelt as a last
hope for peace. Kennedy telephoned the State Department and stated: "The British want one thing from us and one thing only, namely
that we put pressure on the Poles. They felt that they could not, given their obligations, do anything of this sort but that we could."
Presented with a possibility to save the peace in Europe, President Roosevelt rejected Chamberlain's desperate plea out of hand.
With Roosevelt's rejection, Kennedy reported, British Prime Minister Chamberlain lost all hope. Chamberlain stated: "The futility
of it all is the thing that is frightful. After all, we cannot save the Poles. We can merely carry on a war of revenge that will
mean the destruction of all Europe."
[31] Koskoff,
David E., Joseph P. Kennedy: A Life and Times , Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974, p. 207; see also Taylor, A.J.P.,
The Origins of the Second World War , New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005, p. 272.
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers played a crucial role in planning and instigating World War II. This is
proven by the secret Polish documents as well as numerous statements from highly positioned, well-known and authoritative Allied
leaders who corroborate the contents of the Polish documents.
When these documents were published, their authenticity was denied by both Bullitt and by the Polish Ambassador to the
U.S. The Polish Ambassador later informed Hoover that he denied their authenticity at the request of the State Department.
@Paul More than four months before the outbreak of war, Bullitt told Wiegand: "War in Europe has been decided upon.
Poland has the assurance of the support of Britain and France, and will yield to no demands from Germany. America will be
in the war soon after Britain and France enter it."[24] When Wiegand said that in the end Germany would be driven into the
arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, Ambassador Bullitt replied: "What of it. There will not be enough Germans left when
the war is over to be worth Bolshevizing."
those behind the wars do not serve ideology or democracy. they serve their own interests. then and now. they rule by
dividing the rest of the world. by pitting germany against russia, in this case, they worked toward their own domination.
their short term goal is the elimination of competitions by all means. their long tern goal is their hegemony and domination
of the world. they believe that they are that superior.
Roosevelt was no incompetent or fool. he knew exactly what he was doing. he was executive and ran his show.
Roosevelt was elite and smart enough to know how to compromise and neutralize the american socialist cat until he had
a war to smash all worker opposition, directing it into war and depopulation of the capitalist opposition.
@Wally
The Nazis very clearly did dismember Czechoslovakia, which is what destroyed Hitler's credibility with the British. It's also
what German_reader found objectionable about the original piece.
I'm not a supporter of the Icebreaker thesis, though obviously Bolshevism had aggressive intentions.
If true, that's indeed interesting, I might have to look into this. The arguments in the article above (referring to
a lot of pretty weak sources like newspaper articles or much later reminiscences) don't seem convincing to me though.
What would have been Roosevelt's reasoning for pushing for a European war? I know he was pathologically anti-German and
soft on communism, but that doesn't seem like a sufficient rationale.
Commenters here would of course argue that he was a mere puppet of the Jews, but I don't buy that either (during the war
the Holocaust doesn't seem to have been a central preoccupation for him).
It may be down simply to politics.
Roosevelt's New Deal proved to be a failure, and the Roosevelt Recession was especially damaging to his power and prestige.
While it could be a coincidence (or merely a response to increasingly assertive German policy), it's noteworthy that the aggressive
turn in Roosevelt's foreign policy coincided with the Roosevelt Recession.
It's forgotten today, but many of the policies of the New Deal were not Keynesian and were actually inspired by WW1 planning.
FDR's prewar budget deficits were on average lower than American fiscal deficits are today. Thus rearmament appeared to offer
a way out of the intractable Depression.
That Roosevelt himself was a Germanophobe, an Anglophile, a naval enthusiast, and extremely weak on communism no doubt contributed.
Biographers have also noted that FDR always wanted to be a wartime President, comparing himself to Lincoln.
Roosevelt was also influenced by the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Halford John Mackinder. Thus he subscribed to the
idea that the US needed to prevent any one power from controlling the "heartland". Wartime American propaganda reflects these
ideas by noting the strategic need to prevent the Axis powers from completely controlling two of the world's three "industrial
regions".
I know about those sentiments on the other hand his policy made the US the dominant world power, at the cost of the lowest
casualties among WW2 combatants.
Personally I've come to view US post-war dominance quite negatively (not least because it facilitated the spread of US liberalism
with its particularly demented manifestations like Negrophilia, which may well lead to the eventual destruction of the entire
pan-European world), but from the point of view of most Americans FDR's foreign policy must be seen as highly successful
imo.
This American views FDR's foreign policy very negatively, and the domestic effects of America's strategic reorientation
must be considered in any assessment. The perceived requirements of WW2 and the subsequent Cold War led to the replacement
of America's "white nationalism" with "civil rights". It also led to the dismantling of America's formidable protective barriers
and those which existed between the other industrial powers, which in turn allowed them to converge with America's level of
economic development.
FDR simply converted latent potential into military and diplomatic power. What actually turned America into the world's
greatest power was seizing the best parts of the North American continent, populating it with white people, a good legal and
economic system, and a consistent pro-manufacturing policy orientation until 1945.
WW2 in fact planted the seeds for the end of America (via the destruction of its racial identity) and its eclipse as the
world's foremost power by China (via its unification).
It's also worth pointing out that other than the capital expenditures made during the war Americans got nothing out of victory.
Just a bunch of vassal states to garrison with troops and propped up with ruinous economic concessions. The only actual gains
were German scientists and intellectual property.
This fundamental reorientation of America has persisted for more than seventy years and is destroying the country. It has
also had decidedly negative consequences for Europe as you note.
@jacques
sheeteHitler was to blame? Tell us about how blameless the Marxist "world revolution" fanatics and their Wall Street
backers were. Then you can enlighten us about the Treaty of Versailles and how that played so little part in the ensuing hostilities.
Long standing British imperialistic policies? No problem, eh? Zionist intrigue? Never happened, right? (Ever hear of "rabbi"
Stephen Wise? G-wd's messenger on Earth, right?)
The problem with such uber-contextual logic is that everyone can blame the world for all his actions. He can say the World
made me do it.
Yes, there was Versailles Treaty, communism, and British fears of Germany. All of that is true.
But there was also this. Brits came around to feeling that Germans got a raw deal after WWI. British hostility mostly ebbed
away by the time of Hitler's rise.
It's true that World Jewry hated the rise of Hitler and tried to hurt Germany. But Jews back then didn't have the power
to force world governments to strangulate Germany.
The fact is France and UK let Germany retake the Rhineland. They allowed the unification of Germany and Austria. And they
let Germany take Sudetenland. And when Germany overstepped its bounds and took Crezh territory, UK made a deal with Germany.
But Germans went beyond that and invaded Poland. They didn't just invade but made a pact with USSR. Now, this was an evil
pact but very smart on Hitler's part. He knew that aggression against Poland could set UK and France against him. So, as backup,
it was good to have Russia on his side.
People say World War II began with invasion of Poland but no so. Poland was quickly quelled, and German-French war ended quickly.
With most of Western allied with Germany, occupied by Germany, or neutral and with USSR on his side, the smart thing for Hitler
was to wait it out in a war of contrition with UK. But Hitler decided to attack Russia, and that set off the real WWII in 1941,
esp sealed after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and brought US into the war.
Even if FDR wanted war or hostility, the fact is most American didn't want war, and FDR had run on peace. He couldn't bring
US to war against Germany UNLESS Germans(and their Japanese allies) did something spectacularly foolish.
If Germany hadn't attacked USSR and hadn't emboldened Japan to make a even dumber move against the US, WWII could have been
avoided.
Some argue that Hitler invaded USSR because Stalin planned to attack first, and their evidence is offensive Soviet positions
against German lines. But knowing Stalin, it's difficult to imagine he was willing to risk everything. Stalin was more a scavenger
than hunter. He looked for weak spots and easy opportunities. He didn't like to risk all. If Soviet positions had really been
placed offensively against Germany, it was likely a bluff to force Germans into defensive position, making them less likely
to take the offensive initiative. Stalin was a mind-gamer like Hitler, who was also a mind-gambler.
From the article above, it's instructive to know that the events that led to WWII weren't entirely Hitler's fault and that
he was working within the context of larger world politics, but as John Lukacs said, HE was the main driver of events that
led to WWII. It wasn't FDR or Stalin or Churchill even though some of their actions made things worse. A more cautious and
sensible Hitler could have prevented the war from turning into a total war.
It's like events in the Middle East since end of Cold War must be mostly blamed on Jewish Globalists. They were the main
drivers. Sure, Iran, Iraq, and etc. did their part to destabilize the region, but the main drivers were Zionists who took the
initiative to turn the whole place upside down to serve Zionist supremacism.
However, I know the American public and the representatives and senators who all have the final word, and I am of the
opinion that the possibility that America will enter the war as in 1917 is not great. That's because the majority of the
states in the mid-West and West, where the rural element predominates, want to avoid involvement in European disputes at
all costs. They remember the declaration of the Versailles Treaty and the well-known phrase that the war was to save the
world for democracy. Neither the Versailles Treaty nor that slogan have reconciled the United States to that war. For
millions there remains only a bitter aftertaste because of unpaid billions which the European states still owe America
.
the average American was bitter because of unpaid billions still owed or because they lost a father, a brother, or another
relative in that war?
Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha signed a formal agreement the next day with Hitler establishing a German protectorate
over Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the Czech portion of the previous entity.
It might have had something to do with Hitler's threat to bomb Prague, if Hácha didn't give in to his blackmail.
It soon became evident after the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia that the new regime enjoyed considerable
popularity among the people living in it.
Lol. Sure, Czechs must have been thrilled at losing their independence and being occupied by a foreign power, at least some
of whose representatives eventually developed extremely sinister plans for the future of Czechs (Heydrich during his time in
the protectorate thought that about 50% of Czechs had to be "deported", while 50% could be Germanized, but Czech nationhood
had to disappear in any case).
I don't know why Ron Unz keeps publishing these absolutely retarded "revisionist" pieces which are little more than full-on
Nazi apologetics, completely unconvincing in their arguments (the documents cited above are totally unremarkable imo and in
no way show Roosevelt "instigated" WW2 it was Hitler's decision to start a war with Poland).
Best book about these events is The Forced War by David Hoggan. He goes over many of these same events with a great attention
to detail, though certainly from a pro-German stance.
He said Chamberlain's position in 1938 was that England had nothing with which to fight and that she could not risk going
to war with Hitler. Kennedy's view: That Hitler would have fought Russia without any later conflict with England if it had
not been for Bullitt's urging on Roosevelt in the summer of 1939 that the Germans must be faced down about Poland
Stalin understood that he was freeing Hitler to strike in the west by making a pact with Hitler. In effect he facilitated
it. The British considered the Soviet Union to be the real problem. Stalin had already grabbed the Baltic states plus parts
of Finland and Romania. The British were mobilizing against the USSR over the war with Finland even after declaring war
with Germany. The British guarantee to Poland originally covered only their independence not territory ; the British
thought allowing Germany to take Polish land was acceptable and it would make war between Germany and the USSR quite likely
(Chamberlain's strategy was to let Hitler and Stalin into conflict). Only after the Nazi-Soviet Pact was announced was the
guarantee extended to Poland's territory because at that point the British decided war was necessary; Germany and the USSR
being friendly was not acceptable as it meant Hitler was going to go West instead of East.
Clearly Stalin wanted to sit the war between the capitalists out and reap the rewards. Neville Chamberlain wanted to see
the fighting done by the Germans and Bolshies, we know he thought that because he said so to a meeting of important Tories.With
the the Nazi-Soviet pact the powerful Soviet deterrent to any aggression was out of the equation and the British realized the
balance of power had moved against them, which was unacceptable in a way that war between the Nazis and Soviets was not. If
Hitler didn't have to worry about the Soviets at his back that suddenly made all the previous calculations obsolete.
Although Stalin may have anticipated territorial demands or military pressure such as border incidents he was astounded
when Hitler subjected the USSR to an all out attack with the promethean goal of conquering the Soviet state. Everybody underestimated
the effectiveness of the combination of Weimar reforms increasing centralised revenue raising for military purposes, Hitler's
decisiveness and the German army's fighting power.
@German_reader
As thrilled as the Germans were when Bohemia and Moravia was taken from them (Austria) and over three million Germans forcibly
became Czech citizens in a newly created state that never existed before.
This video is banned here in Europe, where the lies are upheld by the law, but it can be viewed in the USA.
1942 – At a mass meeting in Prague, 200,000 Czechs pledge loyalty to their homeland and to the German Reich. Czech Minister
Emanuel Moravec addresses the large rally on July 3, 1942, on Wenceslas Square, near the historic statute of St. Wenceslas.
He concludes with an expression of confidence in a better future for the Czech people, and of support for the "new Europe,"
the "National Socialist revolution," "our leader, Adolf Hitler," and "our state president, Dr. Hacha." Emil Hacha, head of
the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia government is present, along with many other officials. The meeting concludes with the
crowd singing the Czech national hymn. Three minute newsreel clip, with Czech narration.
@anonthe average American was bitter because of unpaid billions still owed or because they lost a father, a brother, or another
relative in that war?
The Wikipedia says that 4,000,000 American soldier were mobilised and 111,000 killed – mostly by disease.
That is absolutely nothing compared to the losses of Imperial Russia (12,000,000), France (8,900,000) and the British Empire
(9,000,000). The demographics of France will never recover.
The USA entered the war only 18 months before it ended. Of course, it took months before the troops even got there.
I fear that the average educated American has no idea what war is like when it is fought in their homeland. Putin warned
the Americans that the next war will not be fought on Russian soil. The American elites think that he means it will be fought
in Europe. LOL
a German SS brigade led by Freiherr von Kuensberg captured the center of Warsaw ahead of the regular German army
Nonsense. Gruppe Künsberg was sent into Warsaw in October 1939 after the unconditional surrender at the end of September
of Warsaw's defenders.
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his advisers played a crucial role in planning and instigating World War II.
Also nonsense. Preparing for a (by that time foreseeable) war is not the same as instigating it. Unless you can show that
the US was behind Hitler breaching the Munich Agreement & later attacking Poland, you have no case.
There is a lot of interesting information in the article and reports hitherto not familiar to me but I think the author has
too limited a focus and certainly doesn't justify the big claims that WW2 was aimed for and caused by FDR. You only have to
suppose that, in Roosevelt's judgment Hitler was going to make war and that the US had to be in it for its long term security.
He may eell have regarded the Soviet Union as weak and vulnerable enough for their to be no reason to be actively anti Bolshevik.
And – maybe alternatively – he would have had the Japanese well in mind and applauded the Soviet Union having recently given
them a licking.
Most of the information in this article was gathered together by Herbert Hoover who wrote it up in long book form in the 1950s.
He worked from Polish documents captured in Warsaw as the article says. Hoover's Ms remained unpublished for many years. After
it was published, as Freedom Betrayed a few years ago, I wrote to the editor, Stephen Nash who did not reply. I also called
the publisher's editor who would not discuss it with me. I concluded that they were hostile because my German histories, Other
Losses and Crimes and Mercies, by and large confirmed that the tales told by court historians such as Nash, Stephen E Ambrose.
"Sir" Michael Howard, Martin Gilbert and so on are sweet-smelling fantasies laid on the rotting corpses of the people who died
because of the mistakes made and hatred fomented by leaders on all sides. The leaders included Roosevelt in a gallery of the
guilty running from him through Churchill, and Hitler to Stalin and Henry C Morgenthau, deviser of the infamous Morgenthau
Plan for the destruction of the German people.
US and USSR emerged as superpowers.
Post-war Europe recovered fast and living standards improved greatly.
Jews lost a great deal in the war. Shoah.
If Jews emerged victorious, it was because they took over institutions in the US. It would have happened even without WWII
though, minus the Shoah narrative, Jewish power would have had less of a moral shield.
@German_readerthese absolutely retarded "revisionist" pieces which are little more than full-on Nazi apologetics, completely unconvincing
in their arguments (the documents cited above are totally unremarkable imo and in no way show Roosevelt "instigated" WW2 it
was Hitler's decision to start a war with Poland).
These revisionist pieces are 50% kooky but offer up kernels of facts and insights that reveal aspects of the time mostly
buried by the Judeo-centric media. It has elements of Nazi apologia, but keep in mind that much of US narrative is Jewish Supremacist
propaganda.
Now, there is something to be learned from the Jewish Narrative as it isn't all lies either.
If we can select the truths from the Jewish Supremacist narrative and truths from the Nazi-sympathizing narrative, we can
construct a truer narrative. Of course the lies and distortions of both.
The recent events in Iraq and Syria and the whole Russia Collusion hysteria go to show that the 'liberal'corporate media
can be just as full of BS as any totalitarian press.
Of course, the difference is Putin and Assad are NOT Hitlers whereas Hitler was truly a hitler, a pathological demagogue.
Hitler is mainly to blame for WWII, and one could argue that FDR's hostility toward Hitler was well-grounded given Hitler's
actions against Poland and then against the USSR, an ally. Also,Hitler was someone with whom diplomacy was often impossible
since he regarded the compromise of others as weakness to exploit.
But it's also true that the US, for ideological, imperial, and tribal reasons of its own, believed Germany must be toppled
first before its preferred world order could prevail.
This is another great article and both the author and UR deserve to be highly commended.
Potocki's reports (according to the translations given) were amazingly perceptive on all points.
The President regards the foreign policy of his country as a means of satisfying his own personal ambition.
That's a conclusion that, while obvious, is almost never addressed but should be. It also sounds a lot like the doofus,
Woody Wilson, and his fake messianic "idealism." Both of those clowns were amoral narcissistic fools to the max and menaces
to world peace. Both were functionally crazy, cunning and downright evil.
It's interesting to note that FDR was taken to task for essentially sitting out WW1 at a desk job by Teddy Roosevelt ( another
militaristic, blowhard, self stroking fool) while Teddy's 4 sons were fighting in Europe, so he took a "playtime" tour of the
battlefields to bolster his "war" credentials.
He also
was enjoying every aspect of being a man of authority in a government at war. Early on he had confided to a friend, "It
would be wonderful to be a war president."
– Thomas Fleming,
The Illusion of Victory, p254 (2003)
For me, one of the morals of all that is that men cannot be trusted in positions of power and "we" must act accordingly.
Another lesson learned is that the US government has long acted against the interests of the American prols, peasants, peons
and pissants, and no doubt shall as long as it exists. What to do about it appears to be, at this point, an individual thing.
It might have had something to do with Hitler's threat to bomb Prague, if Hácha didn't give in to his blackmail.
Credible source, please.
Now go back and read the article and try to find out who was threatening whom. You could also review the causes of WW1,
but that may be asking too much.
Also, it would be interesting to hear your opinion on the report that New York "Jews" declared war on Germany in 1933, years
before the Nazis did anything (they were subsequently accused of) to the Jews.
I concluded that they were hostile because my German histories, Other Losses and Crimes and Mercies, by and large confirmed
that the tales told by court historians are sweet-smelling fantasies laid on the rotting corpses of the people who died
because of the mistakes made and hatred fomented by leaders on all sides.
@German_reader
The Nazi apologism of these pieces is unfortunate (e.g. casually glossing over the German destruction of Czechoslovakia as
you cite), but other than that they're quite valuable. The standard narrative is that America was completely neutral until
the outbreak of war, after which it adopted pro-British neutrality.
The reality is that the Roosevelt Administration actively worked to foment war, and once war had broken out its policy was
to commit America to the war.
That obviously does not absolve the Axis powers. If the US had maintained its neutrality, perhaps the Poles would've accepted
German demands. It of course doesn't follow that this would've preserved the peace in Europe.
This also has special relevance for American politics as Roosevelt has long been a despised figure on the American right.
Preparing for a (by that time foreseeable) war is not the same as instigating it.
Duh.
That's a classic straw man fallacy. Unless you can show that the author claimed what you said he did, you have no case.
And since the Dizzard agreed with you, it's almost certain that you have none.
No doubt the Roosevelt administration was agitating for war. Between the Soviets, the Nazis and FDR's chums what chance
did Europe have? Always found the US saving Britain meme particularly offensive.
somehow you left the belligerent Churchill out of this mix
note that he was on the hook to some jew bankers for the solvency of his entire estate, also note the quip by a Rothschild
woman "if my sons didn't want wars there would be no wars"
Maybe a few little ones did, but the bigshot moneybag crowd probably did not.
Here's an anecdote to ponder.
The new [Jewish] prosperity was born in rearmament, and that was begun in the name of anti-Communism and anti-Semitism.
Abyssinia, Spain and China have already shown that the new armaments race spells death, not for Jews, but for indiscriminate
millions of helpless Gentiles, Africans, Chinese and whatnot. The profits from the armaments race will go largely into
the pockets of Jews, because of their preponderant share in retail trade Such is Hitler's achievement in the cause of
antiSemitism.
I was talking one day to Z, a Jewish journalist expelled from Germany who has settled in Vienna, where he has a pleasant
home and a motor car. He talked with bitter resentment of Germany. 'Ah', he complained, 'the Poles murdered us, but the
Germans have robbed us', and it was quite clear from his tone which was the worse thing for him. Then he told me how his
son was still working for a big German film company in Berlin and had thrice had his salary raised to induce him not to
leave and emigrate, as he desired, wishing to join his father. The Jews. As I write, in Vienna, they are all about me, watching
with non-committal, veiled, appraising eyes the comedy that is going on in Insanity Fair. They know that when Hitlerism
has passed away they will still be trading in the Kärntnerstrasse.
Hitler is mainly to blame for WWII, and one could argue that FDR's hostility toward Hitler was well-grounded
Hitler was to blame? Tell us about how blameless the Marxist "world revolution" fanatics and their Wall Street backers were.
Then you can enlighten us about the Treaty of Versailles and how that played so little part in the ensuing hostilities. Long
standing British imperialistic policies? No problem, eh? Zionist intrigue? Never happened, right? (Ever hear of "rabbi" Stephen
Wise? G-wd's messenger on Earth, right?)
I don't think so, imo those pieces without exception are so stupid that they'll actually be counter-productive and reinforce
existing narratives.
I actually think there are some areas of WW2 where revisionism might be justified (and you don't even have to go to kooky "revisionists"
for it, the gap between the mythology and the writings even of many quite mainstream historians is often wide) but Unz review
has nothing to contribute in this regard.
The reality is that the Roosevelt Administration actively worked to foment war
I don't think the article above demonstrated that, tbh the documents cited in it appear to be totally unremarkable to me
and don't support such a thesis.
Maybe someone else has made a better case for it, but that Roosevelt actively wanted a European war seems unlikely to me.
If the US had maintained its neutrality, perhaps the Poles would've accepted German demands.
But the US didn't really do anything in 1939/40, it was just words. iirc even Lend-Lease was only adopted after the fall
of France.
The backing of Britain and France (still seen as premier world powers at the time, and in the case of France with a large army
with modern equipment) was probably enough for Poland, I don't think the remote possibility of American intervention (which
was years away anyway) was decisive.
A fundamental issue was of course that Hitler had already shown with the destruction of Czechoslovakia (so casually dismissed
in the article above) in March 1939 that his ambitions went beyond merely uniting all majority German areas in the Reich and
that he wasn't trustworthy at all.
In the beginning of World War I, Woodrow Wilson had adopted initially a policy of neutrality. But the Morgan Bank, which
was the most powerful bank at the time, and which wound up funding over 75 percent of the financing for the allied forces during
World War I pushed Wilson out of neutrality sooner than he might have done, because of their desire to be involved on one side
of the war.
I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are started for no other purpose than
to force private central banks onto nations, so let me share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is
mired in so many wars against so many foreign nations. There is ample precedent for this.
from the up-to-date history of the second world war it is now possible to see the utter madness, irrelevance really of white
people! from Churchill and the English, to Roosevelt, the Germans, the Russians.. and all others at the top of the white countries..the
white elites..what on earth are they, what are they about on planet earth, what do they want?
they smash, beat, poison, blow up, lie all the time, cheat, steal, draw all human profit off into few hands, bring world
economy to a standstill then create wars for all and every socially controlling purpose including the reduction of ordinary
people..all working people. war is to protect the money grubbers and economic slavers from the mess they make in their own
profit taking and exploitation of the people..to reduce the people to easy captivity, their numbers as a fighting force capable
of social revolution and on and on, permitting the restart of another profit taking cycle and the same flow of events again
and again and again
by new information when properly considered Hitler comes of a relatively sane man who did not want war..but look at the
things he did himself!
and over all of this, like mad directors of a horror movie are the fake Jews, the Khazars who collectively must be the devil
himself, directing a MADD movie of existence.
LOOK AT WHAT THEY ARE ALL COLLECTIVELY DOING -HAVE DONE. IT IS CONSTANT CENTURIES LONG LUNACY, PURE NAKED INSANITY THAT
THEY HAVE MANAGED TO PUT OR PULL A CONSISTENT PATINA OVER, THAT ALLOWS THE REST OF US TO TAKE THEIR BEHAVIOR AS SANE AND TO
ACCEPT WHITE PEOPLE AS LOGICAL AND RIGHT IN THE WORLD..THE ACTUAL OPPOSITE OF WHO/WHAT THEY ARE
I don know of anything historically like the 19 century. from the Japanese Russian war, the first world war, the Russian
revolution, the economic games of the years between 1920-39 they call the great crash, the second world war..all the way to
currently when white people appear to be finally tired of themselves and are ready to end it all in another explosion of war
with nuclear weapons..we have had such a show of absolutely human insanity there are negative words capable of describing that
flow of human time and the people involved.
Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Churchill, Chamberlin, Mussolin, DeGaulle,..all, an endless flow of terrible human beings..and it
has not stopped, all the way through the Clintons, Obama, Macron..and on and on and on, the same carnage, the same insanity..it
never stops, never ever. nothing depresses me as human history does..the white part of it..the rise of the white man. there
is no way out of it..white outlook and socially dominant power, will not allow for anything positive in the human potential
to manifest. only genocide, human engineering and the development of social grotesque forms of social organization looms for
the human future
and they say some god made this life..a supreme and good god worked all this out and made ot, let it be. and of course that
is more grotesque nonsense that leads to more hell for humanity.
I dont see the point to life. the ancient Africans had a point. they developed a life in nature, accepted nature as the
template and flowed accordingly. in that way they gave us all a chance by developing the basis of survival, of social organization
and spiritual sanity. the white man took that and poisoned it, twisted it into all the insane religious nonsense that drives
human suicide currently.
but with the rise of the white male into global power for 500 years now humanity has gone totally insane..impenetrably insane,
comprehensively insane. we have all been made nuts by white logic. we have ringed ourselves by that same logic with every conceivable
weapon that can kill all humanity. we have actually set the stage for the possible rise out of nature itself organic mutations
that may wipe humanity all on their own..mutations changed by what we have routinely thrown into the world as waste for which
humanity has no biological defense.
that is the white mans logic..operating on the principle that there is a free lunch, always looking for on and causing existential
chaos in the process. I want to cite the obvious stupidity in that approach..a collectively arsine approach..but it is far,
far, far, far .. worse than that. the condition of the white man appears to be irreversible, cannot be changed and with the
destructive means the white elites now have it is totally unlikely that humanity comes out of the experience of white power,
white global domination, alive..or in one piece. we may crawl out alive but we wont be human anymore
SCREW ROOSEVELT. HE WAS THE WORST FROM THE START! I KNEW THAT SINCE I WAS MUCH YOUNGER AND COULD CONSIDER REALITY. ROOSEVELT
HAS BEEN BUILT INTO A HERO, HE IS A FAKE HERO!.
I HOPE TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE HIS STATUE TORN DOWN AS LENIN'S STATUE WAS WITH THE FALL OF RUSSIAN STATE CAPITALISM
The myth that the US and their henceforth junior partner UK- along with the Soviet Union- "liberated" Europe ought to be
put to rest. There was no "liberation" of Europe from Germany, unless massive civilian deaths and the unprecedented destruction
of property and cultural landmarks equates to "liberation." As an American, this is disturbing to me, but it is the truth.
FDR was an ignoramus and an ingenue surrounded, in his later years, by communists and their sympathizers. Had he adopted
National Socialist economic policies here in the US, he could have ended the depression and brought America to unprecedented
prosperity and the ultimate fulfillment of its great providential mission to be an impregnable continental power. Instead,
he squandered all that and doubled down on the catastrophically error of his predecessor Wilson.
In both cases- FDR's and Wilson's- Europe lost. Disastrously and tragically.
I tend to concetrate on Rosenfeldt's actions in the Pacific, knew about many non-neutral actions in the Atlantic, non-neutrality
of 'lend-lease', but most (all )of the content of this article is new to me.
Very interesting.
Changing the subject a little for entertainment, I enjoy reading Charles Bukowski (RIP) at times.
His account of the behaviour of young men post-Pearl Harbour is hilarious, he is drinking (and drunk) on a park bench, suddenly
sees them start shouting 'godawar' and frantically running around.
I forget the title, but it is a very laconic and funny description.
When seeing Starship Troopers by Verhoeven, I always think that at least one of the scriptwriters must have read
Bukowski.
"... In so doing, he has effectively repudiated the entire post-World War II international order and signalled that wars of conquest and territorial aggrandisement are the order of the day. Such annexations were declared illegal under the Geneva Conventions, enacted in the wake of the Second World War to prevent the repetition of similar actions carried out by Germany's Nazi regime, which set the stage for the outbreak of war in 1939. ..."
"... Netanyahu's announcement will give succour to his support base among fascistic layers of the settlers and religious nationalists, driving Israel's capitalist political setup ever further toward outright apartheid, fascism and military dictatorship. It is a prelude to intensified Israeli military aggression in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and the broader Middle East. ..."
"... He has brought into his electoral coalition, and a possible share of government power should he win, outright fascist elements linked to the banned Kach Party of the late Meir Kahane, a party that was designated a terrorist organization by the US, Canada, the European Union, Japan and Israel itself. ..."
"... Trump's naked interference in the Israeli elections is bound up with US imperialism's broader aim of escalating its military intervention in the Middle East to roll back the growth of Iranian influence in the wake of the successive debacles suffered by Washington in Iraq, Libya and Syria. ..."
"... The political antecedents of Netanyahu's Likud Party, Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionists, who were to remain a minority tendency until the 1970s, articulated this position most clearly. Their aim was the establishment of a Jewish state on the entire land of Biblical Palestine, including Transjordan. With the Jews a minority in Palestine, such a state would necessarily mean expelling the Arab population to ensure its Jewish character. ..."
"... In 1923, Jabotinsky explained, in an article titled "The Iron Wall," that the Zionist project could be achieved only against the wishes of the native population. He envisaged the need for an iron wall to protect the Jews from the native population. He said, "A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the near future." Without a garrison, Zionist colonization of Palestine would be impossible, and "therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force." ..."
"... Netanyahu has now made explicit what has long been implicit: the incorporation of the West Bank into a Greater Israel. It can be achieved and sustained only through the imposition of military rule. To this end, his government has passed a series of measures, including the openly racist "Nation-State Law" enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state, bringing the political and legal system into alignment with the reality of Jabotinsky's garrison state, based on the brutal oppression of an entire people, the Palestinians. ..."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his intention of extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, captured in
the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, if he is re-elected prime minister in Tuesday's general election.
In so doing, he has effectively repudiated the entire post-World War II international order and signalled that wars of conquest
and territorial aggrandisement are the order of the day. Such annexations were declared illegal under the Geneva Conventions, enacted
in the wake of the Second World War to prevent the repetition of similar actions carried out by Germany's Nazi regime, which set
the stage for the outbreak of war in 1939.
Netanyahu's announcement will give succour to his support base among fascistic layers of the settlers and religious nationalists,
driving Israel's capitalist political setup ever further toward outright apartheid, fascism and military dictatorship. It is a prelude
to intensified Israeli military aggression in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and the broader Middle East.
Netanyahu told a television Channel 12 interviewer on Saturday that he would not "evacuate any community." Nor would he divide
Jerusalem, a reference to Palestinian demands for East Jerusalem to serve as the capital of a future Palestinian state. He said,
"I will not divide Jerusalem, I will not evacuate any community and I will make sure we control the territory west of Jordan."
He added, "A Palestinian state will endanger our existence and I withstood huge pressure over the past eight years. No prime minister
has withstood such pressure. We must control our destiny."
Netanyahu made it clear that he viewed President Donald Trump's recognition of Israel's illegal annexation of Syria's Golan Heights,
captured in 1967, as a green light to press on with Likud's long-held expansionist policy of a Greater Israel. He said, "Will we
move ahead to the next stage? Yes. I will extend sovereignty, but I don't distinguish between the settlement blocs and the isolated
ones, because each settlement is Israeli, and I will not hand it over to Palestinian sovereignty."
Speaking about the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, which he has pledged to evacuate despite international outrage, Netanyahu
promised that "it will happen." He added, "I promised, and it will happen at the soonest opportunity."
Netanyahu's announcement was aimed at bolstering his position in the election, which he had called ahead of schedule in order
to win political backing to ensure his immunity from prosecution on a raft of corruption charges. Facing unexpectedly strong opposition
from a slate of generals assembled by the so-called Blue and White coalition, headed by former chief of staff Benny Gantz, he has
leveraged Trump's support to appeal to his right-wing support base.
He has brought into his electoral coalition, and a possible share of government power should he win, outright fascist elements
linked to the banned Kach Party of the late Meir Kahane, a party that was designated a terrorist organization by the US, Canada,
the European Union, Japan and Israel itself.
Trump's naked interference in the Israeli elections is bound up with US imperialism's broader aim of escalating its military
intervention in the Middle East to roll back the growth of Iranian influence in the wake of the successive debacles suffered by Washington
in Iraq, Libya and Syria.
Netanyahu's growing alliance with the House of Saud and the petro-monarchs of the Gulf has served to ensure their acquiescence
-- with pro forma denunciations -- to this latest assault on the Palestinians.
But apart from Netanyahu's short-term political calculations, his announcement derives from Zionism's foundation upon exclusivist
conceptions of racial, religious and linguistic hegemony to justify the establishment of a Jewish state through the violent dispossession
of the indigenous Arab population, who formed the overwhelming majority of the population, making use of the horrors of the Holocaust
as a rationale for the oppression of another people.
The political antecedents of Netanyahu's Likud Party, Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionists, who were to remain a minority tendency
until the 1970s, articulated this position most clearly. Their aim was the establishment of a Jewish state on the entire land of
Biblical Palestine, including Transjordan. With the Jews a minority in Palestine, such a state would necessarily mean expelling the
Arab population to ensure its Jewish character.
In 1923, Jabotinsky explained, in an article titled "The Iron Wall," that the Zionist project could be achieved only against
the wishes of the native population. He envisaged the need for an iron wall to protect the Jews from the native population. He said,
"A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the near future." Without a garrison, Zionist
colonization of Palestine would be impossible, and "therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force."
The establishment of a Jewish state was viewed with sympathy by millions of people around the world, who were appalled at the
catastrophe that had befallen the Jews. But the major powers excluding Britain, but including the Soviet Union, supported the establishment
of a Jewish state as a means of blocking Britain's position in the Middle East. As a result, the UN voted in 1947 for the partition
of Palestine, hailing the new state as a progressive entity dedicated to building a democratic and egalitarian society for the most
cruelly oppressed people of Europe.
As soon as the State of Israel was declared in 1948, war broke out between the Arabs and the Jews, who were able to seize more
land than was included in the 1947 partition plan, driving out some 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. Not wanting to pay the
price of the concessions demanded by the superpowers, in terms of borders and refugees, Israel's Labour government did not try to
make peace after the war, instead instituting a policy of "striving for peace" -- but not too fast -- which became the template for
future governments. The more Israel got used to the situation of neither peace nor war, the louder grew the voices calling for the
maintenance of the status quo.
After the 1967 war, when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, Gaza from Egypt and the Golan Heights from
Syria, the Labour government moved rapidly to annex East Jerusalem and build settlements in the occupied territories that are now
home to some 700,000 Israeli Jews, many of them extreme nationalists and religious zealots who are heavily armed. Labour had, in
effect, adopted the Revisionists' policy.
The war and the settlement movement spawned the growth of immensely reactionary political and social forces within Israel itself,
with Menachem Begin's Likud party demanding the territories be brought under Israeli sovereignty on the grounds that they were the
Biblical lands of Samaria and Judea, promised by God to the Jewish people.
In 1993, a Labour government signed an illusory peace deal, the Oslo Accords, brokered by the US, with the Palestine Liberation
Organization. Ostensibly, the agreement was to usher in a Palestinian statelet. But its real purpose was to prevent the intifada
that broke out in 1987 from developing into a revolutionary uprising by the Palestinian masses in the occupied territories, and to
subcontract the task of suppressing the masses to the Palestinian bourgeoisie.
Instead of peace and a Palestinian state, the Oslo Accords set the stage for an expansion of the settlements and land seizures
to control the access roads to these enclaves and strengthen their connection to Israel itself, with the Palestinian Authority left
to police small patches of land, mostly impoverished cities, surrounded and cut off by Israeli troops.
In line with its long-held policy, the Likud Party vehemently opposed any territorial concessions to the Palestinians embodied
in the Accords. Its leaders stood by as its angry supporters called Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a traitor, paving the way for his
murder in 1995 by a right-wing fanatic. With none of the mainstream political parties prepared to make any fundamental changes, the
fraudulent peace process was all but dead.
Netanyahu has now made explicit what has long been implicit: the incorporation of the West Bank into a Greater Israel. It
can be achieved and sustained only through the imposition of military rule. To this end, his government has passed a series of measures,
including the openly racist "Nation-State Law" enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state, bringing the political
and legal system into alignment with the reality of Jabotinsky's garrison state, based on the brutal oppression of an entire people,
the Palestinians.
The so-called "centre-left" opposition in the elections, led by Gantz, has not challenged Netanyahu's annexation pledge, resorting
to verbal obfuscations and calls for a "regional conference" or "secure separation," thereby signifying consent.
This marks the historic bankruptcy and culmination of the entire reactionary Zionist project and all such nationalist programs.
The very good profits of the 17 year long and continuing global war for profits has spent the
US into no longer being dominant in the US' preferred way of war!
"The most dogmatic, tautological, egregiously unsubstantiated assertion, and the one most
likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, comes in four parts: 1) The United States is
emerging from a period of strategic atrophy; 2) Our competitive military advantage has been
eroding; .."
The US has had a huge amount of housing abandoned, or turned into "slums", as a result of
increasing profits by outsourcing jobs outside the traditional heart of US production, the
Midwest.
Case-shiller does not reflect housing abandoned because the house prices fell below labor
costs.
Just as stock indexes remove the shares of stock that start losing price so the continuing
price losses do not drag down the market index.
Ie, GE drove up the indexes while stock prices rose, but as it restructures from decades
of pillaged and plunder of its most valuable capital, its workers with culture of innovation,
it has been removed from indexes so it does not correct the indexes its bad management
inflated by fake profits when GE was really losing value.
"The confluence of their interests as Jews in promoting the policies of the Israeli right
wing and their construction of American interests allows them to submerge or even deny the
relevance of their Jewish identity while posing as American patriots. [ ] Indeed, since
neoconservative Zionism of the Likud Party variety is well known for promoting a
confrontation between the United States and the entire Muslim world, their policy
recommendations best fit a pattern of loyalty to their ethnic group, not to America."
[4]
Kevin McDonald, Cultural Insurrection, op. cit., p. 66.
The neocons' U.S. foreign policy has always coincided with the best interest of Israel as
they see it. Before 1967, Israel's interest rested heavily on Jewish immigration from Eastern
Europe. From 1967, when Moscow closed Jewish emigration to protest Israel's annexation of Arab
territories, Israel's interest included the U.S. winning the Cold War. That is when the
editorial board of Commentary, the monthly magazine of the American Jewish Committee,
experienced their conversion to "neoconservatism," and Commentary became, in the words
of Benjamin Balint, "the contentious magazine that transformed the Jewish left into the
neoconservative right . " [5]
Benjamin Balint, Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish
Left into the Neoconservative Right, Public Affairs, 2010. Irving Kristol explained to
the American Jewish Congress in 1973 why anti-war activism was no longer good for Israel: "it
is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the
United States. [ ] American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to
say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget
big, so that we can defend Israel." [6]
Congress Bi-Weekly, quoted by Philip Weiss, "30 Years Ago, Neocons Were More Candid
About Their Israel-Centered Views," Mondoweiss.net, May 23, 2007:
mondoweiss.net/2007/05/30_years_ago_ne.html This tells us what "reality" Kristol was
referring to, when he famously defined a neoconservative as "a liberal who has been mugged by
reality" ( Neoconservatism: the Autobiography of an Idea, 1995).
With the end of the Cold War, the national interest of Israel changed once again. The
primary objective became the destruction of Israel's enemies in the Middle East by dragging the
U.S. into a third world war. The neoconservatives underwent their second conversion, from
anti-communist Cold Warriors to Islamophobic "Clashers of Civilizations" and crusaders in the
"War on Terror."
The neocons' capacity to deceive the American public by posturing as American rather than
Israeli patriots required that their Jewishness be taboo, and Carl Bernstein, though a Jew
himself, provoked a scandal by citing on national television the responsibility of "Jewish neocons" for the Iraq
war. [14]
April 26, 2013, on MSNBC, watch on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRlatDWqh0o. But the
fact that the destruction of Iraq was carried out on behalf of Israel is now widely accepted,
thanks in particular to the 2007 book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby
and U.S. Foreign Policy . And even the best liars betray themselves sometimes. Philip
Zelikow briefly dropped the mask during a conference at the University of Virginia on September
10, 2002:
Norman Podhoretz, editor-in-chief of Commentary (and father-in-law of Elliott
Abrams), said that after June 1967, Israel became "the religion of the American Jews."
[16]
Norman Podhoretz, Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir, Harper & Row , 1979, p.
335. That is, at least, what he started working at. But, naturally, such religion had
better remain discreet outside the Jewish community, if possible even secret, and disguised as
American patriotism. The neocons have perfected this fake American patriotism wholly profitable
to Israel, and ultimately disastrous for Americans -- a pseudo-Americanism that is really a
crypto-Israelism or crypto-Zionism.
On a less exalted note, I've long found it a convincing theory that as Jews have ceased to take
Judaism seriously and have become culturally almost indistinguishable from gentile whites,
Israel and Zionism have become increasingly important as the sole remaining touchstone of
Jewish identity. Like as not, a modern American Jew has only his loyalty to Israel as evidence
that he remains a good Jew.
For most Jews, Judaism and its strictures have ceased to be compelling. One can get modern
secular Jews to eat pork, or marry gentiles, or cease practicing their religion entirely; but
for that very reason, there are few who are prepared to renounce Israel outright.
For the moment I will only make this observation. The UN did not base their establishment of
Israel on the promises of the OT – certainly not formally. And nothing about the state of
Israel relations with God makes her exempt from international law. And to my knowledge nothing
about the current rules regarding international law demand that Israel do anything to disobey
God.
So if the article is intended to be informative – ok. But what of a prescription is
intended to promote, if any is unknown to me.
This film goes in detail through the untold history of The Project for the New American
Century with tons of archival footage and connects it right into the present.
Jun 29, 2016 Neoconservatives Endorse Hillary Clinton for President Because They Know She's
One of Them
Neoconservatives like Iraq warmonger Robert Kagan aren't endorsing Hillary Clinton for
president merely because they want rid of Donald Trump, but because she's one of them, writes
Trevor Timm at The Guardian.
@Matt07924
It doesn't matter. When a group of people can get together and find psychic connection to one
another through some talisman, no matter how inconsequential, they form a group of self
interested individuals who can and do control their own destiny.
As we see in the west today, they can, by controlling the money, take over the leadership of
the area where they live. Thereby dictating that which can be discussed in polite company. i.e.
Political Correctness.
There are other, less effective groups that have done the same thing. But not recently.
Excellent article. Brilliant! This is why Unz.com is now my favorite website. Guyénot
has already written several fine articles for Unz, but this is probably his best yet. Keep 'em
coming!
I have been exposed to elements of Guyénot's thesis before in various different
contexts. For example, I understand that many of the original Gnostic sects of Christianity
also rejected the idea that Yahweh and the Creator God were one and the same being. Many
Gnostics seemed to have regarded the former as a 'lesser god', or as a Platonic demiurge, or
even as a completely diabolical entity. In their view, Jesus had come to rebuke the
Israelites–the Pharisees especially–for worshipping a false god, and for putting
themselves on a pedestal relative to the goyim. (He often spoke sympathetically of the
Samaritans, for example, who were a race of lowly converts.)
All of which makes me wonder about Christianity and the Abrahamic religions generally. I,
personally, am sure that there is a God or a supreme spirit of some sort; but I really just
don't buy the catechism I was raised with at all. And if, once upon a time, I might have gone
along with it in public anyway, accepting its theological anomalies as the price that had to be
paid for preserving the moral foundations of civilization, now that I no longer believe it does
our civilization any good, I have lost all interest in it whatsoever.
But what shall replace Christianity now that it is dead? Nihilism is an inherently unstable
state; nature–including human nature–abhors a vacuum. We need some kind of civic
religion to provide moral order. At the moment, 'Holocaustianity' serves as our overarching
civic religion, and so we get a modern version of the old faith vs. good-works dichotomy (i.e.,
Zionism vs. SJWism). Generally speaking, the hardline Protestants prefer the former, while the
remaining denominations prefer the latter. Virtually all of our remaining 'Christian' churches,
it seems, have lined up behind one or the other; but either way you go, it's all for the
benefit of another people–not our own.
Very interesting article. Informative throughout. Purely on a political level, this piece has
given me a much greater understanding of the psychic sources of historical abuses by those who
call themselves Jews...
I think this is another very important concept. Its not that Jews don't hold themselves to
moral standards, but it's that sin cannot alter their fundamental 'rightnes'. They are Chosen
– if they sin they will be punished mercilessly, but they are fundamentally and basically
'justified' unto eternity.
Catholics used to have this concept as well, and it was also a source of immense strength
for them – first, you are saved through Jesus. Jesus took on the sins of humanity.
Nothing you can do will make you any less saved, provided you accept Jesus's gift.
Second, by confessing your sins you are absolved.
So the old Christian is eternally justified and his sins cannot fundamentally put him on the
'wrong' side of life.
This also led to that absolutely crucial thing – in Jungian terms, acceptance of the
Shadow, the bad and weak side of man. People were not afraid to accept the dirty and bad and
weak about themselves without collapsing into self hatred, because they knew they were
fundamentally right anyways. This is an immense source of strength and integrity.
When the modern Western world lost this ability to accept the Shadow, and strove to become
God itself, it very easily fell into a crushing sense of guilt and self hatred at its 'sins',
as it no longer has a theology that allowed to accept its common human frailty without
collapsing into self hatred.
The Jews never abandoned their theory of being 'saved' – and so their evil and
weakness does not result in self hatred, but is more accepted.
@AaronB
This is too divorced from reality & is basically some kind of dubious philosophy of
history.
Simply, traditional Jewish culture is not that different from other traditional cultures.
Jews' behavior & position in pre-modern Europe was not determined by some metaphysical
ingredient in their belief, or their ethnic-religious peculiarity. They were middle-eastern
tolerated aliens in Christian Europe, and they survived because medieval Christian order had
found a place for them (unlike Muslims, who were not tolerated).
After assimilation in 19th C, we can't speak of a unified (more or less) "Jewish culture".
True, some branches like ethno-psychology could find common traits among them (professions
oriented, eager to get educated, politicized, showbiz & entertainment,..), but they are not
too adaptable -- persons of Jewish ancestry are, perhaps, but many/most of them are not Jews
anymore. Assimilated individuals of Jewish ancestry do not show any more flexibility than their
co-nationals of other faiths.
As for Zionism, this is a typical late 19th C national ideology from central- & eastern
Europe. It differs from pre-modern Jewish historical mass movements.
@Anon
Theologically Jesus came to offer a new message of universal brotherhood to replace the
tribalism and overly legalistic Law of Moses.
The reason the New Testament quotes so heavily from the Old Testament is that the early
church sought to cement it's legitimacy by establishing that Jesus was the one prophesied
about.
Simply, traditional Jewish culture is not that different from other traditional
cultures
Agreed. What was distinctively 'modern' in European culture was the one-sided development of
abstract reason and the increasing neglect of the emotional, aesthetic, and spiritual side of
man. At first the imaginative arts responded to this challenge – producing masterpieces
– and attempted to incorporate or ameliorate this development. Eventually, in our day,
the 'managerial' movement became exclusively dominant, as was bound to happen.
So we can turn to any traditional culture, not just Jewish. What is unusual about Jews
perhaps is that they went further than other traditional cultures in adopting European abstract
reason and participating in European culture.
I am unclear yet what the author's point besides making a claim that Israel has no right to be
a state based on false notions of scripture. But that has very little to do with why Israel is
a state in the secular understanding.
One can complain about Israel from now till doomsday, but until you make a case to Israel's
supporting states that Israel is out of line -- the complaint doesn't have much weight. They
exist by international law. And they engage in tactics to their own interests – no
kidding.
Israel is not going to change course if what she is doing yields her results. The attempt to
decouple support for Israel by engaging in arguments about how "rotten" she is only fuels the
complaint that Israel is surrounded by enemies that seek her destruction. Which is fed into the
"holocaust" pipeline, which in the secular is why Israel was afforded the statehood she now
has.
Theologically Communism came to offer a new message of universal brotherhood to replace
the tribalism and overly legalistic Law of nationalism.
Fixed it for you.
As with communism, Christianity was written by the very same nationalists (Jews) who wrote
it to use as a cultural and political weapon against their enemies and peoples they wished to
eventually rule. Such international domination being the expressed primary goal of the Jewish
god as described in the Jewish Torah.
@Digital
Samizdat'This. Jewish 'leftism' historically is mostly about destroying the church, the
(goy) family and the (goy) nations. It is almost never about helping the working class or
making life better for the goyim generally.'
I don't think that's fair -- but at the same time, there is something mindlessly destructive
about Jewish radicalism.
I'm reminded of More Powerful than Dynamite -- a fairly good book about the radical
upheavals that beset New York City around 1915.
The author doesn't seem to notice, but a disproportionate number of his protagonists are
young Jewish immigrants, fresh out of the shetl. The young Jewesses seem to have been
the worst; those girls had the devil in them somehow.
I think it probably all had more to do with a rebellion against the traditional authorities
of Judaism more than anything; the rabbis et al who had held Eastern Jewry in thrall for so
long. I'm not saying they actually wished gentiles well -- but I don't think destroying
gentile society was really the motive.
Maybe it's one of those secrets like, deligitimizing Israel's right to exist. That if one
dismantles the Zionist pose, then the UN will simply reneg the 1948 resolution and Israel will
be no more. I think I can keep that secret.
I have news for you. It's not going to happen. Not even the Russians or the Chinese are on
that band wagon
But what shall replace Christianity now that it is dead? Nihilism is an inherently
unstable state; nature–including human nature–abhors a vacuum. We need some kind
of civic religion to provide moral order.
Atheists in the real world don't act like the Christian belief about them. This suggests
that atheists didn't invent nihilism; instead Christians imagined nihilism late in history as a
new Christian doctrine about atheism in response to the growth of nonbelief among quite
functional people in Western countries since the Enlightenment, and they did so as a new
strategy to try to recover from their loss of power and status.
Of course, real atheists, as opposed to Christians' fantasy atheists, face no obligation to
live according to the Christian stereotype. And atheists have made enormous contributions to
civilization in recent generations. You have to wonder why they would have bothered if they
suffered from "nihilism."
Dr. Guyenot, your book is excellent and so are your sources/recommendations. What needs to be
sorely addressed is Zionist exploitation of Christ in the free world. Jewish and Christian
Zionists are no different than Al Sharpton never did see the first relavent issue (he/they)
couldn't exploit. It's all about Israel first and nothing second. That is they ONLY seek to
possess, enslave and then destroy (their) host friend or foe conquering nation or friendly host
for the Zionist parasite. Good job as always. Like Douglas Reed your prior preparations have
brought you to your most important work.
@Laurent
Guyénot You are treading a thin line. I wish too that they could be convinced to
recant their belief in a vengeful, merciless, whimsical, jealous, nepotistic,
'variable-geometry' God. The world would be spared a lot of suffering.
Tough talk about the need to punish Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election is running into the reality that
Congress's enthusiasm for additional sanctions is waning.
"We face a little bit of sanctions fatigue around here these days," said Republican Senator Marco Rubio of
Florida, the sponsor of one of the bills aimed at Russia. "Hopefully we'll get more people on board."
Two main proposals are circulating aimed at increasing pressure on Russian individuals and companies by
restricting their access to U.S. markets and capital. Both Senate bills received significant attention in 2018
after President Donald Trump failed to condemn Russia for its election meddling, but they lost steam after
November's midterm elections and aren't moving any faster in this year's Congress.
Many lawmakers still want Russia to face stronger consequences for its actions in the U.S. and elsewhere, but
there's no clear consensus on how to send the right message to the Kremlin. Two other factors add to the
hesitation: concern about unintended
economic
consequences, and the difficulty of passing legislation in a divided Congress when the measures don't
have the president's support.
"Sanctions can often be a double-edged sword," said Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, chairman of
the Homeland Security Committee. "So we really should take a little bit of a step back and assess where we are and
what we can really do."
Sovereign Debt
Markets are closely watching the next U.S. moves on sanctions, since any action may
affect
Russia's sovereign debt. The ruble has depreciated against the dollar since 2014, when the U.S. imposed
sanctions on during the Obama administration.
Senators Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, in February
reintroduced their
DASKA Act
, which would impose sanctions on Russian individuals, cyber operations and liquid natural gas export
facilities. The legislation calls for the president to "
prescribe
regulations
" for sanctions on sovereign debt issued 90 days after the law is enacted. The bill would also
reinforce support for NATO, and would create a new office in the State Department to respond to cyber threats.
The other Senate bill, the
DETER Act
, was reintroduced last week by Rubio and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. It would
require the Director of National Intelligence to tell Congress on any foreign interference within 60 days of a
federal election. If a Russian violation is found, sanctions would target that country's political figures and its
energy and defense sectors. Sanctions could also extend to government and state-owned company bonds issued after
the bill is signed into law.
Van Hollen said the current version of his bill includes an
option
for the president to waive sanctions in the interest of "national security." Senators considered adding
this provision in 2018 as an escape valve that would improve its chances of getting a floor vote, after the
Treasury Department
warned of
potential economic spillover.
Previous versions of both bills failed to advance at the end of 2018 as Congress turned its focus to government
spending measures, judicial nominations and a farm bill.
Van Hollen said the new version would deter Russian misbehavior because it would punish future action.
"We're not talking about adding new sanctions now, we're sending a clear signal that if you screw around in our
elections again, there's going to be swift and severe punishment," he said. "It makes much more sense to tie a
sanction to future conduct to deter the conduct."
The U.S. has
sanctioned
roughly 700 Russian entities since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and fostered unrest in eastern
Ukraine. Other sanctions were imposed
following
the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the
poisoning
of a former Russian agent and his daughter in the U.K. in March 2018.
Lawmakers last year stepped up the push for legislation compelling new sanctions after Trump sparked bipartisan
outcry
when he stood beside Russian President Vladimir Putin following a one-on-one summit in Helsinki and
said he believed Putin's denial of Russia interference in U.S. elections.
Mueller Momentum
While senior lawmakers now express mixed feelings about what to do next, the upcoming release of portions of
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of the 2016 election and the Trump campaign could bring renewed
attention to the sanctions bills.
"You'll see more interest in this from other members who may not have been as involved when they can see the
full Mueller report," said Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia and vice chairman of the Intelligence
Committee.
Some key lawmakers are taking their time, though, as they try to decide the best next steps. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Chair Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican, said he isn't backing any particular proposal at this
time.
'It's Getting Worse'
"The purpose is to persuade people to adjust their conduct, and it's not happening," Risch said. "In fact, if
anything it's getting worse. That's what is causing the discussion."
Risch said he couldn't "really judge what the appetite is" in the Senate for more sanctions, but he'd like to
see a strong stance from the U.S. "I'm interested in seeing Russia change their conduct," he said. "And the
Russian administration, they're not nice people. They do bad things."
Jim Risch
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, a Democrat on Risch's committee, said Congress's willingness to
further punish Russia will also hinge on that country's participation in other conflicts around the world.
"We're seeing their activities in Venezuela," Shaheen said of Russia's support for the faltering Nicolas Maduro
regime
that the U.S. has sought to transition out of power. "If we see those kinds of activities continue,
that there will be a growing appetite for additional sanctions."
Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat also on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Congress should be
thinking "a little more creatively about how to make Russia pay a price." Murphy said the focus should be on how
to address underlying geopolitical problems, rather than focusing on isolated punitive measures.
"We could spend our time talking about actual long-term strategies to try to combat Russia's influence, or we
could spend all our time slapping sanctions on Russian individuals and banks," Murphy said. "The former is
probably more important than the latter."
Russiagate is about keeping Russian down via additional sections. As simple as that. Epidemics of Neo-McCarthyism also
helps to cement cracks in the US neoliberal facade and, as such, is very helpful for the US elite.
It also absolves Neoliberal Democrats of the political fiasco of the century -- rejection of establishment candidate by
the majoring of working Americans which happened when Hillary Clinton was defeated by a person with zero political experience and no
political patty behind him.
Notable quotes:
"... "The results of Mueller's investigations are a disgrace to the U.S. and their political elite. It's now confirmed that all their allegations have been plucked out of thin air. The media have played a shameful role of lie-mongers in a campaign built on lies. The adherents of this conspiracy theory are discredited. Only an idiot can believe them now." ..."
"... We've seen anti-Russian xenophobia spread into the American mainstream. Etched in our minds are comments like the one James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, made in an interview when he said that Russians are "almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever." ..."
"... To those of us who paid attention to American media and politics over the past two years, it quickly became clear that too many in the United States know nothing about our country. ..."
Alexey Pushkov, a former diplomat and a political analyst,
tweeted to his 360,000 followers on Tuesday
, following the release of Attorney General William Barr's summary of the report:
"The results of Mueller's investigations are
a disgrace to the U.S. and their political elite. It's now confirmed that all their allegations have been plucked out of thin air.
The media have played a shameful role of lie-mongers in a campaign built on lies. The adherents of this conspiracy theory are discredited.
Only an idiot can believe them now."
To the Kremlin and its supporters, Russia is the aggrieved party here, and the government's consistent denials of interfering
in America's internal affairs have been fully vindicated. Appearing on the Russian talk show "60 Minutes," Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman
for the foreign ministry, said the ministry was preparing a report to name and shame the "brigade of propagandists" -- pointing at,
among others, Fareed Zakaria -- who tried to tie Mr. Trump to Russia. She added that "apologies are expected."
... ... ...
...it becomes clear that whatever the outcome of
the Mueller investigation, our relationship with America has changed.
We've seen anti-Russian xenophobia spread into the American mainstream. Etched in our minds are comments like the one James
Clapper, the former director of national intelligence,
made in an interview when he
said that Russians are "almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever."
... ... ...
In the atmosphere where "contacts with Russians" has become cause for suspicion, every bank transaction and visa application faces
extra scrutiny. I've heard from people I know about how exchange programs, conferences and businesses are suffering.
To those of us who paid attention to American media and politics over the past two years, it quickly became clear that too many
in the United States know nothing about our country. Ominous images of onion-shaped domes
taking over the
White House baffled us; St. Basil's Cathedral is not part of the Kremlin complex and has no political connotation. The ubiquity
of hammers and sickles in visuals accompanying Trump-Russia reports seemed likewise absurd. Our country hasn't been Communist for
about 30 years.
So Trump administration will spend billion of fighting Iran, instead of helping US middle
class to survive... Guns instead of butter policy. This is clearly Obama-style betrayal of Trump
voters. Trump’s Budget Would Deny Food to 400,000 Children and Pregnant People By Dean
Baker
cepr.net
While any theocratic regime is reprehensible Trump clearly prefers one theocratic regime to
another.
From comments: "Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metaphor but a foreign policy
statement! The house of Kushner that Trump built."
Just hours after President Trump formally designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps as a terrorist organization, Iran's foreign ministry has put forward a bill placing US
Central Command on a list of organizations designated as terrorists, akin to
Daesh.
Today, I am formally announcing my Administration’s plan to designate Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. This
unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not
only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and
promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft. The IRGC is the Iranian government’s
primary means of directing and implementing its global terrorist campaign.
This designation will be the first time that the United States has ever named a part of
another government as a FTO. It underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are
fundamentally different from those of other governments. This action will significantly
expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime. It makes crystal
clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC. If you are
doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism.
This action sends a clear message to Tehran that its support for terrorism has serious
consequences. We will continue to increase financial pressure and raise the costs on the
Iranian regime for its support of terrorist activity until it abandons its malign and outlaw
behavior.
Previously, the Iranian Foreign Minister noted that those US officials who
advocated IRGC blacklisting, "seek to drag the US into a quagmire".
"#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organisation) of the
IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to
drag the US into a quagmire on his behalf," Mohammed Javad Zarif said on his Twitter account.
"@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster."
Von Clausewitz. Just because I abbreviate it, does not make me wrong. Here's today's gift,
his eight book library that I spent hundreds on in college, free for the asking. it might
just help clarify some of the world's realities for you.
With Jared kushner ( Bibis bff and playing the role of **** Cheney) and Aldonson Trumps
private banker ( aka Vegas buddies) what could go wrong in PEACE negotiations?
Campaign 💩of Trump.
'We'll stop racing to topple foreign regimes with a policy of intervention and chaos
because we're all over the place fighting areas that we shouldn't be fighting in".
Disclaimer: except when it comes to family Zionism.
Trump actions:
1- On December 6, 2017, US President Donald Trump announced the United States recognition
of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
2-Mar 22, 2019 · (CNN)President Donald Trump on Thursday overturned longstanding US
policy regarding the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, announcing "it is time" for the US to
"fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty" over the region.
3- Trump approves Saudi Arabi nuclear plant without agreement for oversight.
Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metephor but a foreign policy
statement!💊🐍 the house of Kushner that Trump built.😡
Iran Designates US Military As Terrorist Organization
Haha, Really? and what will they do? Attack US military?
Today, I am formally announcing my Administration’s plan to designate Iran’s
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO)
Judizing American foreign policy has made our military soliders martyrs for the State of
Isreal not terrorists in the international sense.
Our troops have been dying for the State of Isreal to " protect it" since the Zionist
movement that took over the Plaistinians land through Britian... The expansion will never
stop and americans will always be " mercinaries" for Isreal... Without proper
compensation.
I know many people have a great deal of difficulty comprehending just how many wars are
started for no other purpose than to force private central banks onto nations, so let me
share a few examples, so that you understand why the US Government is mired in so many wars
against so many foreign nations.
Thank you in spades for bringing our attention to that truth.
"... The seeds sown in the US' "Long War"* are terrible. Libya discord gave arms and bases for US support to Salafi jihad in Syria, ISIS is US sown, Iraq is to be a permanent occupation more dangerous than South Korea, Afghanistan is a tottering escapade each new commander bringing a fresh set of objectives none connected to an end to the blood shed. ..."
"... The press is at fault, they work for the empire's war profiteers. ..."
"... *Many commentators on the US' military horrors since 9/11/01 stopped saying "global war on terror" and use "Long War". ..."
7 years after the US - led by Obama, Hillary & @SamanthaJPower - bombed Libya in the
name of "humanitarianism" along with the UK & France & then utterly ignored it, the
country is so violent, unstable & dangerous that US troops can no longer safely
remain
American troops in Libya moved out of country as violence escalates near capital
The announcement comes as the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli vowed to defend the
capital against a renegade militia seeking to storm its way into the city, a showdown that
threatened to spill into bloody urban combat in the streets of Tripoli.
How come none of this is on page one above the fold?
EMichael, goes after Chinese oppression of Muslims, but never a word about humanitarian
tragedies US spreads from Caracas to Yemen through Kandahar to Pyongyang.
Russia doing any of this to Ukraine or Georgia would be howled about!
The seeds sown in the US' "Long War"* are terrible. Libya discord gave arms and bases for
US support to Salafi jihad in Syria, ISIS is US sown, Iraq is to be a permanent occupation
more dangerous than South Korea, Afghanistan is a tottering escapade each new commander
bringing a fresh set of objectives none connected to an end to the blood shed.
The press is at fault, they work for the empire's war profiteers.
*Many commentators on the US' military horrors since 9/11/01 stopped saying "global war on
terror" and use "Long War".
With Jared kushner ( Bibis bff and playing the role of **** Cheney) and Aldonson Trumps
private banker ( aka Vegas buddies) what could go wrong in PEACE negotiations?
... ... ...
Apparently Bibi sleeping in Jareds bed wasn't a metephor but a foreign policy
statement!💊🐍 the house of Kushner that Trump built.
Note: Michael Hudson published and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure, and
Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year in November of last year. It is the
first volume in what will be a trilogy on the long history of the tyranny of debt. I have
interviewed him extensively as he writes the second volume, The Collapse of
Antiquity.
John Siman : Michael, in the first volume of your history of debt -- "
ORDER IT NOW
and forgive them their debts , dealing with the Bronze Age Near East, Judaism and
early Christianity -- you showed how over thousands of years, going back to the invention of
interest-bearing loans in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, many kings from a variety of
Mesopotamian civilizations proclaimed Clean Slate debt cancellations on a more or less regular
basis. And you showed that these royal proclamations of debt amnesty rescued the lower classes
from debt bondage, maintaining a workable economic balance over many centuries. Because these
kings were so powerful -- and, let's say, enlightened -- they were able to prevent the social
and economic polarization that is inevitable when there is no check on an oligarchic creditor
class extracting exponentially increasing interest from debtors.
But now, as you write the second volume, your theme gets turned upside down. You are showing
how the Greeks and the Romans learned about interest-bearing debt from their contacts with
Middle Eastern civilizations, but tragically failed to institute programs of Clean Slate debt
amnesty. Their failure has been a kind of albatross around the neck of Western economies ever
since.
So I'd like to start this conversation in the late 500s BC, because we can see at that time
the beginnings of both the Athenian democracy and the Roman Republic, plus of two more
important civilizations. First was the Athens of Cleisthenes, who had led the overthrow the
"tyrant" Hippias and became the father of Athenian democracy. Second, there was the Roman
Republic of Lucius Junius Brutus, who overthrew the last of Rome's legendary kings, the
"tyrant" Tarquinius Superbus.Third was the Persian civilization of Cyrus the Great. He was a
"divine king," in many ways in the ancient tradition of Hammurabi. Fourth were the post-exilic
Jews of Ezra and Nehemiah, who returned to Jerusalem, rebuilt the Temple and redacted the
Bible. They were the inventors of the Jubilee years of Clean Slate debt forgiveness, even
though they depicted the teaching as coming from Moses.
So, beginning with the late 500s BC, to what extent was the notion of Clean Slate debt
amnesty remembered, and to what extent was it rejected?
Michael Hudson : Every kind of reform, from Mesopotamia to Greece, was put forth as
if it simply restored the way things were in the beginning. There was no concept of linear
progress in Antiquity. They thought that there was only one way to do things, so any reform
must be the way the world was meant to be in the very beginning. All reformers would say that
in the beginning everybody must have been equal. Their reform was aimed at restoring this state
of affairs.
That's why, when Plutarch and even the Spartan kings in the third century BC talked about
canceling debts and promoting equality, they said that they were simply restoring the original
system that Lycurgus had created. But there was no sign that Lycurgus had really done these
things. It was made up. Lycurgus was a legendary figure. So was Moses in the Jewish tradition.
When the Bible was redacted and put together after the return from Babylon, they put debt
cancellation and land redistribution -- the Jubilee Year -- right in the center of Mosaic Law.
So it seemed that this was not an innovation, but what Moses said in the beginning. They
created a Moses figure much like the Greeks created a Lycurgus figure. They said that this is
how things were meant to be. This is how it was in the beginning -- and it just happened to be
their own program.
This was a projection backwards: a retrojection. Felix Jacoby wrote that Athenian history
was that way, basically party pamphleteering projecting their ideal program back to Solon or to
whomever one might choose as a good guy to model. Writers would then say that this original
good guy supported the program that they were proposing in their epoch. This was the ancient
analogy to "Constitutional Originalism" in the United States as a frame for right-wing
policies.
JS : So, ever since the 500s BC, the surefire way to critique the status quo has been
to say you are trying to go back to the Garden of Eden or to some other pristine Saturnian
Golden Age.
MH : Yes, you want to say that the unfair world around you isn't what was meant, so
this couldn't have been the original plan, because the past had to be a successful takeoff. So
the program that reformers always turned out to be what the Founding Fathers meant.
JS : That's veryinspirational!
MH : The key is to appear as a conservative, not a radical. You accuse the existing
status quo as being the beneficiaries of the radicals who have distorted the original Fair Plan
that you're trying to restore.
JS : So in the 500s BC we have Cyrus -- and his inscription on the Cyrus Cylinder --
boasting that he freed the Babylonians from their tax debt and bonds, and we have the
post-exilic Jews proclaiming d'ror
[דְּרֹ֛ור] in Leviticus 25, proclaiming
"liberty throughout the land." We also have the reforms of Cleisthenes in Athens,
isonomia [ἰσονομία, literally, equality
under the law], a genuine attempt at democracy. But let's start with Rome. What do you want to
say about the nova libertas , the "new liberty" proclaimed in Rome after the last king
was expelled and the Republic was founded? Didn't Brutus and his wellborn friends boast that
they were the institutors of true liberty?
MH : Liberty for them was the liberty to destroy that of the population at large.
Instead of cancelling debts and restoring land tenure to the population, the oligarchy created
the Senate that protected the right of creditors to enslave labor and seize public as well as
private lands (just as had occurred in Athens before Solon). Instead of restoring a status
quo ante of free cultivators -- free of debt and tax obligations, as Sumerian amargi
and Babylonian misharum and andurarum meant -- the Roman oligarchy accused anyone
of supporting debtor rights and opposing its land grabs of "seeking kingship." Such men were
murdered, century after century.
Rome was turned into an oligarchy, an autocracy of the senatorial families. Their "liberty"
was an early example of Orwellian Doublethink. It was to destroy everybody else's
liberty so they could grab whatever they could, enslave the debtors and create the polarized
society that Rome became.
JS : OK, but this program worked. The Republic grew and grew and conquered everyone
else for century after century. Then the Principate became the supreme power in the Western
world for several more centuries.
MH : It worked by looting and stripping other societies. That can only continue as
long as there is some society to loot and destroy. Once there were no more kingdoms for Rome to
destroy, it collapsed from within. It was basically a looting economy. And it didn't do more
than the British colonialists did: It only scratched the surface. It didn't put in place the
means of production that would create enough money for them to grow productively. Essentially,
Rome was a financial rentier state .
Rentiers don't create production. They live off existing production, they don't
create it. That's why the classical economists said they were supporting industrial
capitalists, not British landlords, not monopolists and not predatory banks.
JS : This has all been forgotten, both in the United States and in England --
MH : Let's say, expurgated from the curriculum.
JS : Worse than forgotten!
MH : That's why you don't have any history of economic thought taught anymore in the
United States. Because then you'd see that Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and the "Ricardian
socialists" and indeed most of the 19th century had a completely opposite idea of what
constituted a free market.
JS : Opposite? How so?
MH : Opposite from the neoliberal idea that freedom means freedom for the wealthy to
indebt and destroy the economy. Opposite from the liberty of Brutus to overthrow the Roman
kings and establish an autocratic oligarchy.
JS : So do we want to see the Roman kings as defenders of the people -- defending
them from predatory oligarchs?
MH : Yes, especially Servius Tullius. There was a great flowering of Rome, making it
attractive to immigrants by making the city livable for newcomers. They did this because at
that time, in the 6th century BC, all societies had a shortage of labor. Labor was the factor
of production in short supply, not land. Not even in Athens was land in short supply in the 6th
and 5th centuries. You needed labor, and so you had to make it attractive for immigrants to
join your society instead of having your people run away, as they would in a society run by
creditors reducing clients to bondage.
JS : So you are writing about how Roman liberty was actually the liberty of
oligarchic creditors from populist pressures for debt forgiveness. What of the
d'ror of Leviticus 25 -- the liberty of the postexilic Jews? Did they actually proclaim
years of Jubilee in which debts were forgiven and bondservants were returned to their
families?
MH : After the Babylonian Jews returned to Jerusalem, I'm sure that they said that it
was time for the land to be returned to its original owners -- and their families, by the way,
were the original owners who were exiled in the Babylonian Captivity. I rely largely on Baruch
Levine for this idea of the ge'ullah
[גְּאֻלָּה], saying give us back our
ancestral lands. [See thecolloquium Levine and Hudson co-edited on Land and Urbanization in
the Ancient Near East , and their preceding volume on ancient privatization.] There must
have been some kind of settlement along those lines. Unfortunately, the Judaic lands did not
keep their records on on clay tablets that could be thrown out and recovered thousands of years
later. We don't have any record of their economic history after the Return.
JS : Now I've brought along the transcriptions of several Egyptian papyri for you to
look at. I also want to show you a papyrus in Aramaic from Judæa. It's not direct
evidence that the post-exilic Jews were having Jubilee years, but it's indirect evidence,
because it says that a particular debt has to be paid, even during a time of general debt
amnesty, even if it falls due in a shmita [שמיטה], a
sabbath year. So it sounds like the Jews were finding loopholes --
MH : It certainly sounds like it! Babylonian creditors tried a similar ploy, but this
was disallowed. (We have court records confirming the realm's misharum acts.)
JS : In the Mosaic commandments to forgive debt, can we infer that there was some
sort of program of debt forgiveness in place already in place in postexilic Jerusalem?
MH : Yes, but it ended with Rabbi Hillel and the Prozbul clause. Debtors had to sign
this clause at the end of their debt contracts saying that they waived their rights under the
Jubilee year in order to get a loan. That was why Jesus fought against the Pharisees and the
rabbinical leadership. That's what Luke 4 is all about [ And there was delivered unto him
the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it
was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord" = the Jubilee year.] Luke also pointed out that the
Pharisees loved money!
JS : Let me ask you about Egypt here. Unfortunately, as you said, the postexilic Jews
did not leave us any clay tablets and almost no papyri, but we do have loads of papyri
concerning the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt. So from, say, 300 B.C. to the death of Cleopatra, we
have official evidence that the Egyptian kings proclaimed debt amnesties. Maybe one of the
reasons, or perhaps the main reason for this, is because they were so powerful, like the
Mesopotamian kings. So even though the Ptolemaic kings were biologically and genetically
Macedonian Greek -- married to their sisters, too -- they aspired to rule in the ancient
Egyptian pharaonic tradition of We Are God-Kings and We Own Everything in the Kingdom.
MH : Certainly the Hellenistic kings had the ancient pharaonic Sed festivals, which
go back thousands of years and were a kind of jubilee. The Egyptians had regular debt
cancellations, because under the pharaohs the debts that would have been cancelled were
basically tax debts. They were owed to the crown, so he was cancelling debts owed to himself
ultimately. And we see this thousands of years later in the trilingual stone, the Rosetta
Stone, which the priests wrote for that young boy who was Ptolemy V. They explained to him that
this is how Egypt always had done it, and to act as a pharaoh, he had to do the same.
JS : And I think it is worth pointing out here that the same verb-plus-noun
combination for forgiving debts that the priests used in Greek on the Rosetta Stone is also
used by Matthew in the Lord's Prayer
[ἀφῆκεν/ἄφες
ὀφειλήματα, aphēken/aphes
opheilēmata]. It shows up in lots of papyri. The same Greek verb and noun, again and again
and again.
But let's go back to the Greeks of the 500s BC. They are a couple of hundred years out of
their Dark Age, so their society has been reconstituted after the demographic wipeout. It's
been reconstituted, but without Near Eastern-style "divine kingship" and its Clean Slate
proclamations. Just the opposite. Socrates had conversations with the rhapsodes who had
memorized and recited the Iliad . Even in their great epic, the Greeks' legendary king
of kings Agamemnon comes across as a kind of narcissistic loser. How would you describe Greek
kingship, especially the so-called tyrants?
MH : There never really were Greek kings of the type found throughout the Bronze Age
Near East and surviving into the first millennium in Assyria and even in Persia. The Greek
polities that emerged from their Dark Age were run by what shrewd Classicists call
mafiosi , something like the post-Soviet kleptocrats. They formed closed political
monopolies reducing local populations to clientage and dependency. In one polity after another
they were overthrown and exiled, mainly by aristocratic reformers from the elite families
(often secondary branches, as was Solon). Later oligarchic writers called them "tyrants" as an
invective, much as the word rex -- king -- became an invective in oligarchic Rome.
These tyrant-reformers consolidated their power by redistributing land from the leading
families (or in Sparta, land conquered from Messenia, along with its population reduced to
helotage) to the citizen-army at large all over Greece – except in Athens. That was one
of the most reactionary cities in the 7th century, as shown by what is known about the laws of
Draco. After some abortive coups in the seventh century, Solon was appointed in 594 to avoid
the kind of revolution that had led reformer "tyrants" to overthrow narrow aristocracies in
neighboring Megara and Corinth. Solon decreed a half-way reform, abolishing debt slavery (but
not the debtor's obligation to work off debts with his own labor), and did not redistribute
Athenian land from the city's elites.
Athens was one of the last to reform but then because it was such a badly polarized
autocratic society, it swung -- like Newton's Third Law of Motion: every action has an equal
and opposite reaction -- it swung to become the most democratic of all the Greek polities.
Some historians in the past speculated that Solon might somehow have been influenced by
Judaic law or other Near Eastern practice, but this is not realistic. I think Solon was simply
a pragmatist responding to widespread demands that he do what the reformers -- the so-called
tyrants -- were doing throughout Greece. He didn't redistribute the land like they did, but he
at least ended outright debt slavery. Free debtors (mainly cultivators on the land) were being
seized and sold outside of Athens to slave dealers. Solon also tried to recover some of the
land that wealthy families had grabbed. At least, that's what he wrote in his poems describing
his actions.
So to answer your question, I think debt cancellations were not a diffusionist policy from
the East, but a spontaneous pragmatic response such as was being widely advocated as far west
as Rome with its Secession of the Plebs a century later -- followed by much of Greece in the
4th century BC, and Sparta's kings in the late 3rd century BC.
Poorer Athenians were so angry with Solon for being not revolutionary enough that he went
into exile for 10 years. The real creators of Athenian democracy were Peisistratos [died 528/7
BC], his sons, also called tyrants, and then Cleisthenes in 507. He was a member of the wealthy
but outcast family, the Alcmaeonidae, who had been expelled in the 7th century. Solon had
allowed them to return, and they were backed by Delphi (to which the family contributed
heavily). Cleisthenes fought against the other oligarchic families and restructured Athenian
politics on the basis of locality instead of clan membership. Servius Tullius is credited for
enacting much the same reform in Rome. Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society [1877]
described this restructuring of voting districts as the great watershed creation of
western-style democracy.
JS : Let me go back now to the way Athens and the other poleis emerged from
the Dark Age.
MH : Judging from the art and pottery, Greece didn't begin to recover until the 8th
century BC.
JS : So we're talking about the 700s BC. As Greece was learning from the Near Eastern
civilizations, everything from mythology to the alphabet to weights and measures --
MH : And commercial practices, credit practices.
JS : Yes, all this came from the Near East, including the practice of charging
interest. But what about Clean Slate debt amnesty? I want to argue logically here -- not from
any hard historical evidence, but only deductively -- that the Greeks would have wanted the
concept of Clean Slate debt forgiveness, they would have wanted to learn this too from the Near
East, but they could not do it because they were always going to lack a Hammurabi-style "divine
king."
MH : I think you miss the whole point of how Western civilization evolved here. First
of all, who "wanted" Near Eastern kingship? Certainly not the emerging oligarchies. The ruling
elites wanted to use interest-bearing debt to enrich themselves – by obtaining control
over the labor power of debtors.
Second, I don't think the Greeks and Italians knew about Near Eastern royal proclamations,
except as an alien practice much further East than Asia Minor. Falling into debt was a disaster
for the poor, but a means for their Western patrons to gain power, land and wealth. There is no
record of anyone suggesting that they should be in the Near East. The connection between the
Near East and Greece or Italy was via traders. If you're a Phoenician or Syrian merchant with
the Aegean or Italy, you're going to set up a temple as an intermediary, typically on an
island. Such temples became the cosmopolitan meeting places where you had the oligarchs of the
leading families of Greek cities visiting each other as part of a Pan-Hellenic group. You could
say that Delphi was the "Davos" of its day.
It was through these trading centers that culture diffused – via the wealthiest
families who travelled and established relationships with other leading families. Finance and
trade have always been cosmopolitan. These families learned about debt obligations and
contracts from the Near East, and ended up reducing much of their local populations to
clientage, without kings to overrule them. That would have been the last thing they wanted.
JS : So absent Hammurabi-style "divine kingship," is debt bondage and brutal
polarization almost inevitably going to happen in any society that adopts interest-bearing
debt?
MH : We see a balance of forces in the ancient Near East, thanks to the fact that its
rulers had authority to cancel debt and restore land that wealthy individuals had taken from
smallholders. These kings were powerful enough to prevent the rise of oligarchies that would
reduce the population to debt peonage and bondage (and in the process, deprive the palace of
revenue and corvée labor, and even the military service of debtors owing their labor to
their private creditors). We don't have any similar protection in today's Western Civilization.
That's what separates Western Civilization from the earlier Near Eastern stage. Modern
financialized civilization has stripped away the power to prevent a land-grabbing creditor
oligarchy from controlling society and its laws.
So you could characterize Western Civilization is being decadent. It's reducing populations
to austerity on a road to debt peonage. Today's new oligarchy calls this a "free market," but
it is the opposite of freedom. You can think of the Greek and Roman decontextualization of Near
Eastern economic regulations as if the IMF had been put in charge of Greece and Rome, poisoning
its legal and political philosophy at the outset. So Western Civilization may be just a vast
detour. That's what my forthcoming book, The Collapse of Antiquity, is all about. That
will be the second volume in my trilogy on the history of debt.
JS : So are we just a vast detour?
MH : We have to restore a balanced economy where the oligarchy is controlled, so as
to prevent the financial sector from impoverishing society, imposing austerity and reducing the
population to clientage and debt serfdom.
JS : How do you do that without a Hammurabi-style "divine kingship"?
MH : You need civil law to do what Near Eastern kings once did. You need a body of
civil law with a strong democratic government acting to shape markets in society's overall
long-term interest, not that of the One Percent obtaining wealth by impoverishing the 99
Percent. You need civil law that protects the population from an oligarchy whose business plan
is to accumulate wealth in ways that impoverish the economy at large. This requires a body of
civil law that would cancel debts when they grow too large for the population to pay. That
probably requires public banking and credit – in other words, deprivatization of banking
that has become dysfunctional.
All this requires a mixed economy, such as the Bronze Age Near Eastern economies were. The
palace, temples, private sector and entrepreneurs acted as checks and balances on each other.
Western Civilization isn't a mixed economy. Socialism was an attempt to create a mixed economy,
but the oligarchs fought back. What they call a "free market" is an unmixed monolithic,
centrally planned financialized economy with freedom for the oligarchy to impoverish the rest
of society. That was achieved by landlordism monopolizing the land in feudal Europe, and it is
done by finance today.
John Siman : Could you define what you mean by a mixed economy ?
Michael Hudson : There are many degrees of how "mixed" an economy will be -- meaning
in practice, how active its government sector will be in regulating markets, prices and credit,
and investing in public infrastructure.
In the 20 th century's Progressive Era a century ago, a "mixed economy" meant
keeping natural monopolies in the public sector: transportation, the post office, education,
health care, and so forth. The aim was to save the economy from monopoly rent by a either
direct public ownership or government regulation to prevent price gouging by monopolies.
The kind of "mixed economy" envisioned by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and other classical
19 th century free market economists aimed at saving the economy from land rent paid
to Europe's hereditary landlord class. Either the government would tax away the land's rent, or
would nationalize it by taking land out of the hands of landlords. The idea was to free markets
from economic rent ("unearned income") in general, including monopoly rents, and also to
subsidize basic needs to create a price-competitive national economy.
Long before that, in the Bronze Age -- which I describe in and forgive them their
debts -- the palace reversed the buildup of personal and agrarian debts by annulling them
on a more or less regular basis. This freed the economy from the overgrowth of debt that tended
to build up chronically from the mathematical dynamics of compound interest, and from crop
failures or other normal "market" phenomenon.
In all these cases a mixed economy was designed to maintain stability and avoid exploitation
that otherwise would lead to economic polarization.
JS: So a mixed economy is still a market economy?
MH : Yes. All these degrees of "mixed economy" were market economies. But their
markets were regulated and subordinated to broad social and political objectives rather than to
personal rent-seeking or creditor gains. Their economic philosophy was long-term, not
short-term, and aimed at preventing economic imbalance from debt and land monopoly.
Today's "mixed economy" usually means an active public sector undertaking investment in
infrastructure and controlling money and credit, and shaping the context of laws within which
the economy operates. This is best understood by contrasting it to what neoliberals call a
"pure" or "market" economy – including what the Trump administration accuses China of
when it proposes countervailing tariffs to shape the U.S. and international market in a way
that favors American corporations and banks.
So it is necessary to clear the terminological slate before going into more detail. Every
economy is a "market economy" of some sort or another. What is at issue is how large a role
governments will play -- specifically, how much it will regulate, how much it will tax, how
much it will invest directly into the economy's infrastructure and other means of production or
act as a creditor and regulator of the monetary and banking system.
JS: What can we learn from the mixed economies of the Ancient Near East? Why were
they so prosperous and also stable for so long?
MH : The Bronze Age mixed economies of Sumer, Babylonia, Egypt and their Near Eastern
neighbors were subject to "divine kingship," that is, the ability of kings to intervene to keep
restoring an economy free of personal and rural debt, so as to maintain a situation where the
citizenry on the land was able to serve in the military, provide corvée labor to create
basic infrastructure, and pay fees or taxes to the palace and temples.
Mesopotamian rulers proclaimed Clean Slates to keep restoring an idealized status quo
ante of free labor (free from debt bondage). Babylonian rulers had a more realistic view of
the economy than today's mainstream economists. They recognized that economies tended to
polarize between wealthy creditors and debtors if what today are called "market forces" are not
overridden -- especially the "market forces" of debt, personal liberty or bondage, and land
rent. The task of Bronze Age rulers in their kind of mixed economy was to act from
"above" the market so as to prevent creditors from reducing the king's subjects (who were their
military defense force) to bondage from appropriating their land tenure rights. By protecting
debtors, strong rulers also prevented creditors from becoming an oligarchic power in opposition
to themselves.
JS: What kind of economic theories and economic models are the critics of mixed
economies trying to advance?
MH : Opponents of a mixed economy have developed an "equilibrium theory" claiming to
show that markets come to a natural, fair and stable balance without any government
"interference." Their promise is that if governments will refrain from regulating prices and
credit, from investing and from providing public services, economies will settle naturally at a
highly efficient level. This level will be stable, unless "destabilized" by government
"interference." Instead of viewing public investment as saving the economy from monopoly rent
and debt peonage, the government itself is described as a "rent seeker" exploiting and
impoverishing the economy.
JS: But is this sort of economic theory legitimate, or just a libertarian-sounding
camouflage for neoliberal pillage?
MH : It's Orwellian Doublethink. Today's neoliberal theory justifies oligarchies
breaking free of public control to appropriate the economic surplus by indebting economies to
skim off the economic surplus as interest and then foreclose on personal landholdings and
public property, overthrowing "mixed economies" to create a "pure oligarchy." Their idea of a
free market is one free for creditors and monopolists to deny economic freedom to the rest of
the population. The political extension of this approach in antiquity was to unseat kings and
civic regimes, to concentrate power in the hands of an increasingly predatory class reducing
the economy to bondage, impoverishing it, and ultimately leaving it to be conquered by
outsiders. That is what happened to Rome in Late Antiquity.
Advocates of strong government have a diametrically opposite mathematical model. Ever since
the Bronze Age, they recognized that the "natural" tendency of economies is to polarize between
a wealthy creditor and land-owning class and the rest of society. Bronze Age rulers recognized
that debts tend to grow faster than the ability to pay (that is, faster than the economy).
Babylonian rulers recognized that if rulers did not intervene to cancel personal debts (mainly
agrarian debts by cultivators) when crops failed, when military action interfered, or simply
when debts built up over time, then creditors would end up taking the crop surplus and even the
labor services of debtors as interest, and finally foreclosing on the land. This would have
deprived the palatial economy of land and labor contributions. And by enriching an independent
class of creditors (on their way to becoming large landowners) outside of the palace, financial
wealth would express itself in economic and even military power. An incipient financial and
landholding oligarchy would mount its own military and political campaign to unseat rulers and
dismantle the mixed palatial/private economy to create one that was owned and controlled by
oligarchies.
The result in Classical Antiquity was economic polarization leading to austerity and
bondage, grinding the economy to a halt. That is the tendency of economies in "unmixed"
economies where the public sector is privatized and economic regulation is dismantled. Land and
credit was monopolized and smallholders became dependent clients and ultimately were replaced
by slaves.
Mixed economies by the late 19 th century aimed at minimizing market prices for
real estate and monopoly goods, and for credit. The economic aim was to minimize the cost of
living and doing business so as to make economies more productive. This was called "socialism"
as the natural outgrowth of industrial capitalism protecting itself from the most burdensome
legacies of feudalism: an absentee landlord class, and a banking class whose money-lending was
not productive but predatory.
JS: So mixed economies require strong and ultimately good governments.
MH : Any "mixed" economy has some basic economic theory of what the proper role of
government is. At the very least, as in the 20 th century, this included the
limitation of monopoly rents. The neoclassical (that is, anti-classical) reaction was to
formulate a euphemistic theory of consumer "demand" -- as if American consumers "demand" to pay
high prices for pharmaceuticals and health care. Likewise in the case of housing prices for
renters or, for owner-occupied housing, mortgage charges: Do renters and home buyers really
"demand" to pay higher and higher rents and larger and larger mortgages? Or are they compelled
to pay out of need, paying whatever their suppliers demand ( e.g ., as in "Your money or
your life/health").
So to answer your question, a mixed economy is one in which governments and society at large
realize that economies need to be regulated and monopolies (headed by credit and land
ownership) kept out of the hands of private rent-seekers in order to keep the economy free and
efficient.
JS : Has there ever been a civil society that effectively implemented a mixed economy
since, say, 500 BC?
MH : All successful economies have been mixed economies. And the more "mixed" they
are, the more successful, stable and long-lasting they have been as a result of their mutual
public/private checks and balances.
America was a mixed economy in the late 19th century. It became the world's most successful
industrial economy because it didn't have an absentee landlord class like Europe did (except
for the railroad octopus), and it enacted protective tariffs to endow a domestic manufacturing
class to catch up with and overtake England.
JS : Other countries?
MH : Germany began to be a mixed economy in the decades leading up to World War I.
But it had a mentally retarded king whom they didn't know how to restrain, given their cultural
faith in royalty. China is of course the most successful recent mixed economy.
JS : Isn't it pretty brutal in China for most of the population?
MH : Most of the population does not find it brutal there. It was brutal under
colonialism and later still, under Mao's Cultural Revolution. But now, most people in China
seem to want to get rich. That's why you're having a consolidation period of trying to get rid
of the local corruption, especially in the rural areas. You're seeing a consolidation period
that requires clamping down on a lot of people who became successful through shady
operations.
JS : So how would you describe an ideal society without a Hammurabi-style "divine
kingship"? An ideal mixed economy?
MH : The credit system would be public. That way, public banks could create credit
for socially productive purposes -- and could cancel the occasional overgrowth of debts without
causing private creditors to lose and protest. The public sector also would own and operate the
natural infrastructure monopolies. That was the basic principle of classical economics from
Adam Smith to Marx, even for erstwhile libertarians such as Henry George. Everybody in the 19th
century expected a mixed economy with governments playing a growing role, replacing absentee
landlords, bankers and monopolists with public collection of economic rent, public control of
the credit system and provider of basic needs.
JS : How extensive should the public sector be?
MH : A classical public sector would include the natural monopolies that otherwise
would engage in price gouging, especially the credit and banking system. These sectors should
be public in character. For one thing, only a public bank can write down the debts -- like
student debts today -- without hurting an independent oligarchic financial class. If student
debts and mortgage debts were owed to public banks, they could be written down in keeping with
the reasonable ability to be paid. Also, public banks wouldn't make junk mortgage loans to
NINJA borrowers, as did Citibank and the other crooked banks. A public bank wouldn't make
predatory corporate raiding and takeover loans, or finance and speculate in derivative
gambles.
Most of all, when the debt overhead becomes too large -- when a large corporation that is
essential to the economy can't pay its debts -- public banks can write down the debt so that
the company isn't forced into bankruptcy and sold to an American vulture fund or other vulture
fund. It can keep operating. In China the government provides this essential service of public
banks.
The key public concern throughout history has been to prevent debt from crippling society.
That aim is what Babylonian and other third-millennium and second-millennium Near Eastern
rulers recognized clearly enough, with their mathematical models. To make an ideal society you
need the government to control the basic utilities -- land, finance, mineral wealth, natural
resources and infrastructure monopolies (including the Internet today), pharmaceuticals and
health care so their basic services can be supplied at the lowest price.
All this was spelled out in the 19 th century by business school analysts in the
United States. Simon Patten [1852-1922] who said that public investment is the "fourth factor
of production." But its aim isn't to make a profit for itself. Rather, it's to lower the cost
of living and of doing business, by providing basic needs either on a subsidized basis or for
free. The aim was to create a low-cost society without a rentier class siphoning off
unearned income and making this economic rent a hereditary burden on the economy at large. You
want to prevent unearned income.
To do that, you need a concept to define economic rent as unearned and hence unnecessary
income. A well-managed economy would do what Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Marx
and Veblen recommended: It would prevent a hereditary rentier class living off unearned
income and increasing society's economic overhead. It's okay to make a profit, but not to make
extractive monopoly rent, land rent or financial usury rent.
JS : Will human beings ever create such a society?
MH : If they don't, we're going to have a new Dark Age.
JS : That's one thing that especially surprises me about the United States. Is it not
clear to educated people here that our ruling class is fundamentally extractive and
exploitative?
MH : A lot of these educated people are part of the ruling class, and simply taking
their money and running. They are disinvesting, not investing in industry. They're saying, "The
financial rentier game is ending, so let's sell everything and maybe buy a farm in New
Zealand to go to when there is a big war." So the financial elite is quite aware that they are
getting rich by running the economy into the ground, and that this must end at the point where
they've taken everything and left a debt-ridden shell behind.
JS : I guess this gets back to what you were saying: The history of economics has
been expurgated from the curriculum.
MH : Once you strip away economic history and the history of economic thought, you
wipe out memory of the vocabulary that people have used to criticize rent seeking and other
unproductive activity. You then are in a position to redefine words and ideals along the lines
that euphemize predatory and parasitic activities as if they are productive and desirable, even
natural. You can rewrite history to suppress the idea that all this is the opposite of what
Adam Smith and the classicaleconomists down through Marx advocated.
Today's neoliberal wasteland is basically a reaction against the 19 th century
reformers, against the logic of classical British political economy. The hatred of Marx is
ultimately the hatred of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, because neoliberals realize that
Smith and Mill and Ricardo were all leading to Marx. He was the culmination of their free
market views -- a market free from rentiers and monopolists.
That was the immediate aim of socialism in the late 19 th century. The logic of
classical political economy was leading to a socialist mixed economy. In order to fight
Marxism, you have to fight classical economics and erase memory of how civilization has dealt
with (or failed to deal with) the debt and rent-extracting problems through the ages. The
history of economic thought and the original free-market economics has to be suppressed.
Today's choice is therefore between socialism or barbarism, as Rosa Luxemburg said.
JS : Let's consider barbarism: When I observe the neoliberal ruling class -- the
people who control the finance sector and the managerial class on Wall Street -- I often wonder
if they're historically exceptional because they've gone beyond simple greed and lust for
wealth. They now seek above all some barbaric and sadistic pleasure in the financial
destruction and humiliation of other people. Or is this historically normal?
MH : The financial class has always lived in the short run, and you can make
short-term money much quicker by asset stripping and being predatory can by being productive.
Moses Finley wrote that there was not a single productive loan in all of Antiquity. That was
quite an overstatement, but he was making the point that there were no productive financial
markets in Antiquity. Almost all manufacturing, industry, and agriculture was self-financed. So
the reader of Finley likely infers that we modern people have progressed in a fundamental way
beyond Antiquity. They were characterized by the homo politicus , greedy for status. We
have evolved into homo œconomicus , savvy enough to live in stable safety and
comfort.
We are supposedly the beneficiaries of the revolution of industrial capitalism, as if all
the predatory, polarizing, usurious lending that you had from feudal times (and before that,
from Antiquity), was replaced by productive lending that finances means of production and
actual economic growth.
But in reality, modern banks don't lend money for production. They say, "That's the job of
the stock market." Banks only lend if there's collateral to grab. They lend against assets in
place. So the result of more bank lending is to increase the price of the assets that banks
lend against -- on credit! This way of "wealth creation" via asset-price inflation is the
opposite of real substantive progress. It enriches the narrow class of asset holders at the top
of the economic pyramid.
JS : What about the stock market?
MH : The stock market no longer primarily provides money for capital investment. It
has become a vehicle for bondholders and corporate raiders to borrow from banks and private
funds to buy corporate stockholders, take the companies private, downsize them, break them up
or strip their assets, and borrow more to buy back their stocks to create asset-price gains
without increasing the economy's tangible real asset base. So the financial sector, except for
a brief period in the late 19th century, especially in Germany, has rarely financed productive
growth. Financial engineering has replaced industrial engineering, just as in Antiquity
creditors were asset strippers.
The one productive activity that the financial sector engaged in from the Bronze Age onward
was to finance foreign trade. The original interest-bearing debt was owed by merchants to
reimburse their silent partners, typically the palace or the temples, and in time wealthy
individuals. But apart from financing trade – in products that were already produced
– you've rarely had finance increase the means of production or economic growth. It's
almost always been to extract income. The income that finance extracts is at the expense of the
rest of society. So the richer the financial sector is, the more austerity is imposed on the
non-financial sector.
JS : That's pretty depressing.
MH : When I did the show with Jimmy Dore [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSvcB55R8jM
], he saw that the most important dynamic to understand is that debts grow more rapidly than
the economy at large. The rate of interest is higher than the rate of growth. It may not be
higher than the profit rate, but it's higher than the rate of growth. So every society that has
interest-bearing debt is going to end up deeper and deeper in debt. At a certain point the
creditors are paid at the expense of production and investment -- and soon enough they
foreclose.
JS : And then?
MH : Then you have debt deflation. That is the norm. Austerity. It is not an anomaly,
but the essence. The Babylonians knew this, and they tried to avoid debt deflation by wiping
out the predatory personal debts, not the business debts that were commercial and productive.
Only the non-commercial debts were wiped out.
JS : How could Modern Monetary Theory be used now, effectively?
MH : The main way is to say that governments don't have to borrow at interest from
existing financial "savers," mainly the One Percent. The government can do what America did
during the Civil War: print greenbacks. (The MMT version is the Trillion-dollar platinum coin.)
The Treasury can provide the money needed by the economy. It does that by running a budget
deficit and spending money into the economy. If you don't do that, if you do what Bill
Clinton did in the last years of his presidency and run a budget surplus, then you force the
economy to depend on banks for credit.
The problem is that bank credit is essentially predatory and extractive. The same thing
happens in Europe. The Eurozone governments cannot run a budget deficit of more than 3 percent,
so the government is unable to spend enough money to invest in public infrastructure or
anything else. As a result, the Eurozone economy is subject to debt deflation, which is
exacerbated by people having to borrow from the banks at high interest rates that far exceeds
the rate of growth. So Europe is suffering an even more serious debt deflation than the United
States.
JS : Is any of this going to change, either in Europe or here?
MH : Not until there's a crash. Not until it gets serious enough that people realize
that there has to be an alternative. Right now Margaret Thatcher and the neoliberals have won.
She said there was no alternative, and as long as people believe There Is No Alternative,
they're not going to realize that it doesn't have to be this way, and that you don't need a
private banking sector. A public banking sector would be much more efficient.
JS : How would you sum up Wall Street right now? Is it entirely predatory? Entirely
parasitical? What are Wall Street's essential functions now?
MH : Number one, to run a casino. By far the largest volume at stake is betting on
whether interest rates, foreign exchange rates or stock prices will go up or down. So the
financial system has turned into a gambling casino. Its second aim is to load the economy down
with as much debt as possible. Debt is the banking system's "product," and the GDP counts its
"carried interest" penalties and late fees, its short-term trading gains as "financial
services" counted as part of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The aim is to get as much of these financial returns as possible, and finally to foreclose
on as much property of defaulting debtors as possible. The business plan -- as I learned at
Chase Manhattan years ago -- is to transfer all economic growth into the hands of financial
investors, the One Percent. The financial business plan is to create a set of laws and mount a
campaign of regulatory capture so that all the growth in the economy accrues to the One
Percent, not the 99 Percent. That means that as the One Percent's rentier income grows,
the 99 Percent gets less and less each year, until finally it emigrates or dies off, or is put
into a for-profit prison, which looks like a growth industry today.
JS : Is there a single good thing that Wall Street does? Is there anything good that
comes out of Wall Street?
MH: You have to look at it as a system. You can't segregate a particular action from
the overall economy. If the overall system aims at making money in predatory ways at somebody
else's expense, then it is a zero-sum game. That is essentially a short-run business model. And
politically, it involves opposing a mixed economy. At least, the "old fashioned" socialist
mixed economy in which governments subordinate short-term gain-seeking to long-term objectives
uplifting the entire economy.
As the Greek philosophers recognized, wealthy people define their power by their ability to
injure the rest of society, so as to lord it over them. That was the Greek philosophy of
money-lust [πλεονεξία, pleonexia ]
and hubris [ὕβρις] -- not merely arrogance, but behavior that was
injurious to others.
Rentier income is injurious to society at large. Rentiers define a "free
market" as one in which they are free to deny economic freedom to their customers,
employees and other victims. The rentier model is to enrich the oligarchy to a point
where it is able to capture the government.
John Siman : It seems that unless there's a Hammurabi-style "divine king" or some
elected civic regulatory authority, oligarchies will arise and exploit their societies as much
as they can, while trying to prevent the victimized economy from defending itself.
Michael Hudson : Near Eastern rulers kept credit and land ownership subordinate to
the aim of maintaining overall growth and balance. They prevented creditors from turning
citizens into indebted clients obliged to work off their debts instead of serving in the
military, providing corvée labor and paying crop rents or other fees to the palatial
sector.
JS : So looking at history going back to 2000 or 3000 BC, once we no longer have the
powerful Near Eastern "divine kings," there seems not to have been a stable and free economy.
Debts kept mounting up to cause political revolts. In Rome, this started with the Secession of
the Plebs in 494 BC, a century after Solon's debt cancellation resolved a similar Athenian
crisis.
MH : Near Eastern debt cancellations continued into the Neo-Assyrian and
Neo-Babylonian Empires in the first millennium BC, and also into the Persian Empire. Debt
amnesties and laws protecting debtors prevented the debt slavery that is found in Greece and
Rome. What modern language would call the Near Eastern "economic model" recognized that
economies tended to become unbalanced, largely as a result of buildup of debt and various
arrears on payments. Economic survival in fact required an ethic of growth and rights for the
citizenry (who manned the army) to be self-supporting without running into debt and losing
their economic liberty and personal freedom. Instead of the West's ultimate drastic solution of
banning interest, rulers cancelled the buildup of personal debts to restore an idealized order
"as it was in the beginning."
This ideology has always needed to be sanctified by religion or at least by democratic
ideology in order to prevent the predatory privatization of land, credit, and ultimately the
government. Greek philosophy warned against monetary greed
[πλεονεξία, pleonexia ] and
money-love [φιλοχρηματία,
philochrêmatia ] from Sparta's mythical lawgiver Lycurgus to Solon's poems
describing his debt cancellation in 594 and the subsequent philosophy of Plato and Socrates, as
well as the plays of Aristophanes. The Delphic Oracle warned that money-love was the only thing
that could destroy Sparta [Diodorus Siculus 7.5]. That indeed happened after 404 BC when the
war with Athens ended and foreign tribute poured into Sparta's almost un-monetized regulated
economy.
The problem, as famously described in The Republic and handed down in Stoic
philosophy, was how to prevent a wealthy class from becoming wealth-addicted, hubristic and
injurious to society. The 7 th -century "tyrants" were followed by Solon in Athens
in banning luxuries and public shows of wealth, most notoriously at funerals for one's
ancestors. Socrates went barefoot
[ἀνυπόδητος, anupodêtos ] to
show his contempt for wealth, and hence his freedom from its inherent personality defects. Yet
despite this universal ideal of avoiding extremes, oligarchic rule became economically
polarizing and destructive, writing laws to make its creditor claims and the loss of land by
smallholders irreversible. That was the opposite of Near Eastern Clean Slates and their
offshoot, Judaism's Jubilee Year.
JS : So despite the ideals of their philosophy, Greek political systems had no
function like that of Hammurabi-like kings -- or philosopher-kings for that matter -- empowered
to hold financial oligarchies in check. This state of affairs led philosophers to develop an
economic tradition of lamentation instead. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Livy and Plutarch
bemoaned the behavior of the money-loving oligarchy. But they did not develop a program to
rectify matters. The best they could do was to inspire and educate individuals -- most of whom
were their wealthy students and readers. As you said, they bequeathed a legacy of Stoicism.
Seeing that the problem was not going to be solved in their lifetimes, they produced a
beautiful body of literature praising philosophical virtue.
MH : The University of Chicago, where I was an undergraduate in the 1950s, focused on
Greek philosophy. We read Plato's Republic , but they skipped over the discussion of
wealth-addiction. They talked about philosopher-kings without explaining that Socrates' point
was that rulers must not own land and other wealth, so as not to have the egotistical tunnel
vision that characterized creditors monopolizing control over land and labor.
JS : In Book 8 of the Republic , Socrates condemns oligarchies as being
characterized by an insatiable greed [ἀπληστία,
aplêstia ] for money and specifically criticizes them for allowing polarization
between the super-rich
[ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi
] and the poor [πένητες, penêtes ], who are made
utterly resourceless [ἄποροι, aporoi ].
MH : One needs to know the context of Greek economic history in order to understand
The Republic 's main concern. Popular demands for land redistribution and debt
cancellation were resisted with increasing violence. Yet few histories of Classical Antiquity
focus on this financial dimension of the distribution of land, money and wealth.
Socrates said that if you let the wealthiest landowners and creditors become the government,
they're probably going to be wealth-addicted and turn the government into a vehicle to help
them exploit the rest of society. There was no idea at Chicago of this central argument made by
Socrates about rulers falling subject to wealth-addiction. The word "oligarchy" never came up
in my undergraduate training, and the "free market" business school's Ayn Rand philosophy of
selfishness is as opposite from Greek philosophy as it is from Judeo-Christian religion.
JS : The word "oligarchy" comes up a lot in book 8 of Plato's Republic . Here
are 3 passages:
1. At Stephanus page 550c "And what kind of a regime," said he, "do you understand by
oligarchy [ὀλιγαρχία]?" "That based on a
property qualification," said I, "wherein the rich
[πλούσιοι] hold office [550d] and the poor man
[πένης, penês ] is excluded.
2. at 552a "Consider now whether this polity [ i.e . oligarchy] is not the first that
admits that which is the greatest of all such evils." "What?" "The allowing a man to sell all
his possessions, which another is permitted to acquire, and after selling them to go on living
in the city, but as no part of it, neither a money-maker, nor a craftsman, nor a knight, nor a
foot-soldier, but classified only as a pauper [πένης, penês
] and a dependent [ἄπορος, aporos ]." [552b] "This
is the first," he said. "There certainly is no prohibition of that sort of thing in
oligarchical states. Otherwise some of their citizens would not be excessively rich
[ὑπέρπλουτοι, hyper-ploutoi
], and others out and out paupers [πένητες,
penêtes ]."
3 at 555b: "Then," said I, "is not the transition from oligarchy to democracy effected in
some such way as this -- by the insatiate greed
[ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for that which
oligarchy set before itself as the good, the attainment of the greatest possible wealth?"
MH : By contrast, look where Antiquity ended up by the 2 nd century BC.
Rome physically devastated Athens, Sparta, Corinth and the rest of Greece. By the Mithridatic
Wars (88-63 BC) their temples were looted and their cities driven into unpayably high debt to
Roman tax collectors and Italian moneylenders. Subsequent Western civilization developed not
from the democracy in Athens but from oligarchies supported by Rome. Democratic states were
physically destroyed, blocking civic regulatory power and imposing pro-creditor legal
principles making foreclosures and forced land sales irreversible.
JS: It seems that Greek and Roman Antiquity could not solve the problem of economic
polarization. That makes me want to ask about our own country: To what extent does America
resemble Rome under the emperors?
MH: Wealthy families have always tried to break "free" from central political power
-- free to destroy the freedom of people they get into debt and take their land and property.
Successful societies maintain balance. That requires public power to check and reverse the
excesses of personal wealth seeking, especially debt secured by the debtor's labor and land or
other means of self-support. Balanced societies need the power to reverse the tendency of debts
to grow faster than the ability to be paid. That tendency runs like a red thread through Greek
and Roman history.
This overgrowth of debt is also destabilizing today's U.S. and other financialized
economies. Banking and financial interests have broken free of tax liability since 1980, and
are enriching themselves not by helping the overall economy grow and raising living standards,
but just the opposite: by getting the bulk of society into debt to themselves.
This financial class is also indebting governments and taking payment in the form of
privatizing the public domain. (Greece is a conspicuous recent example.) This road to
privatization, deregulation and un-taxing of wealth really took off with Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan cheerleading the anti-classical philosophy of Frederick von Hayek and the
anti-classical economics of Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys.
Something much like this happened in Rome. Arnold Toynbee described its oligarchic land grab
that endowed its ruling aristocracy with unprecedented wealth as Hannibal's Revenge. That was
the main legacy of Rome's Punic Wars with Carthage ending around 200 BC. Rome's wealthy
families who had contributed their jewelry and money to the war effort, made their power grab
and said that what originally appeared to be patriotic contributions should be viewed as having
been a loan. The Roman treasury was bare, so the government (controlled by these wealthy
families) gave them public land, the ager publicus that otherwise would have been used
to settle war veterans and other needy.
Once you inherit wealth, you tend to think that it's naturally yours, not part of society's
patrimony for mutual aid. You see society in terms of yourself, not yourself as part of
society. You become selfish and increasingly predatory as the economy shrinks as a result of
your indebting it and monopolizing its land and property. You see yourself as exceptional, and
justify this by thinking of yourself as what Donald Trump would call "a winner," not subject to
the rules of "losers," that is, the rest of society. That's a major theme in Greek philosophy
from Socrates andPlato and Aristotle through the Stoics. They saw an inherent danger posed by
an increasingly wealthy landholding and creditor ruling class atop an indebted population at
large. If you let such a class emerge independently of social regulation and checks on personal
egotism and hubris, the economic and political system becomes predatory. Yet that has been the
history of Western civilization.
Lacking a tradition of subordinating debt and land foreclosure from smallholders, the Greek
and Italian states that emerged in the 7 th century BC took a different political
course from the Near East. Subsequent Western civilization lacked a regime of oversight to
alleviate debt problems and keep the means of self-support broadly distributed.
The social democratic movements that flowered from the late 19 th century until
the 1980s sought to re-create such regulatory mechanisms, as in Teddy Roosevelt's trust
busting, the income tax, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, postwar British social democracy. But
these moves to reverse economic inequality and polarization are now being rolled back, causing
austerity, debt deflation and the concentration of wealth at the top of the economic pyramid.
As oligarchies take over government, they lorded it over the rest of society much like feudal
lords who emerged from the wreckage of the Roman Empire in the West.
The tendency is for political power to reflect wealth. Rome's constitution weighted voting
power in proportion to one's landholdings, minimizing the voting power of the non-wealthy.
Today's private funding of political campaigns in the United States is more indirect in
shifting political power to the Donor Class, away from the Voting Class. The effect is to turn
governments to serve a financial and property-owning class instead of prosperity for the
economy at large. We thus are in a position much like that of Rome in 509 BC, when the kings
were overthrown by an oligarchy claiming to "free" their society from any power able to control
the wealthy. The call for "free markets" today is for deregulation of rentier wealth,
turning the economy into a free-for-all.
Classical Greece and Italy had a fatal flaw: From their inception they had no tradition of a
mixed public/private economy such as characterized in the Near East, whose palatial economy and
temples produced the main economic surplus and infrastructure. Lacking royal overrides, the
West never developed policies to prevent a creditor oligarchy from reducing the indebted
population to debt bondage, and foreclosing on the land of smallholders. Advocates of debt
amnesties were accused of "seeking kingship" in Rome, or aspiring to "tyranny"(in Greece).
JS: It seems to me that you're saying this economic failure is Antiquity's original
sin as well as fatal flaw. We have inherited a great philosophic and literary tradition from
them analyzing and lamenting this failure, but without a viable program to set it right.
MH: That insight unfortunately has been stripped out of the curriculum of classical
studies, just as the economics discipline sidesteps the phenomenon of wealth addiction. If you
take an economics course, the first thing you're taught in price theory is diminishing marginal
utility: The more of anything you have, the less you need it or enjoy it. You can't enjoy
consuming it beyond a point. But Socrates and Aristophanes emphasized, accumulating money is
not like eating bananas, chocolate or any other consumable commodity. Money is different
because, as Socrates said, it is addictive, and soon becomes an insatiable desire
[ἀπληστία, aplêstia ].
JS: Yes, I understand! Bananas are fundamentally different from money because you can
get sick of bananas, but you can never have too much money! In your forthcoming book, The
Collapse of Antiquity , you quote what Aristophanes says in his play Plutus (the god
of wealth and money). The old man Chremylus -- his name is based on the Greek word for money,
chrêmata [χρήματα] -- Chremylus and his slave
perform a duet in praise of Plutus as the prime cause of everything in the world, reciting a
long list. The point is that money is a singular special thing: "O Money-god, people never get
sick of your gifts. They get tired of everything else; they get tired of love and bread, of
music and honors, of treats and military advancement, of lentil soup, etc., etc. But they never
get tired of money. If a man has thirteen talents of silver -- 13 million dollars, say -- he
wants sixteen; and if he gets sixteen, he will want forty, and so forth, and he will complain
of being short of cash the whole time."
MH: Socrates's problem was to figure out a way to have government that did not serve
the wealthy acting in socially destructive ways. Given that his student Platowas an aristocrat
and that Plato's students in the Academy werearistocratsas well, how can you have a government
run by philosopher-kings? Socrates's solution was not practical at that time: Rulers should not
have money or property. But all governments were based on the property qualification, so his
proposal for philosopher-kings lacking wealth was utopian. And like Plato and other Greek
aristocrats, they disapproved of debt cancellations, accusing these of being promoted by
populist leaders seeking to become tyrants.
JS: Looking over the broad sweep of Roman history, your book describes how, century
after century, oligarchs were whacking every energetic popular advocate whose policies
threatened their monopoly of political power, and their economic power as creditors and
privatizers of the public domain, Rome's ager publicus , for themselves.
I brought with me on the train Cæsar's Gallic War . What do you think of
Cæsar and how historians have interpreted his role?
MH: The late 1 st century BC was a bloodbath for two generations before
Cæsar was killed by oligarchic senators. I think his career exemplifies what Aristotle
said of aristocracies turning into democracies: He sought to take the majority of citizens into
their own camp to oppose the aristocratic monopolies of landholding, the courts and political
power.
Cæsar sought to ameliorate the oligarchic Senate's worst abuses that were stifling
Rome's economy and even much of the aristocracy. Mommsen is the most famous historian
describing how rigidly and unyieldingly the Senate opposed democratic attempts to achieve a
role in policy-making for the population at large, or to defend the debtors losing their land
to creditors, who were running the government for their own personal benefit. He described how
Sulla strengthened the oligarchy against Marius, and Pompey backed the Senate against Caesar.
But competition for the consulship and other offices was basically just a personal struggle
among rival individuals, not rival concrete political programs. Roman politics was autocratic
from the very start of the Republic when the aristocracy overthrew the kings in 509 BC. Roman
politics during the entire Republic was a fight by the oligarchy against democracy and the
populace as a whole.
The patricians used violence to "free" themselves from any public authority able to check
their own monopoly of power, money and land acquisition by expropriating smallholders and
grabbing the public domain being captured from neighboring peoples. Roman history from one
century to the next is a narrative of killing advocates of redistributing public land to the
people instead of letting it be grabbed by the patricians, or who called for a debt
cancellation or even just an amelioration of the cruel debts laws.
On the one hand, Mommsen idolized Cæsar as if he were a kind of revolutionary
democrat. But given the oligarchy's total monopoly on political power and force, Mommsen
recognized that under these conditions there could not be any political solution to Rome's
economic polarization and impoverishment. There could only be anarchy or a dictatorship. So
Caesar's role was that of a Dictator -- vastly outnumbered by his opposition.
A generation before Caesar, Sulla seized power militarily, bringing his army to conquer Rome
and making himself Dictator in 82 BC. He drew up a list of his populist opponents to be
murdered and their estates confiscated by their killers. He was followed by Pompey, who could
have become a dictator but didn't have much political sense, so Caesar emerged victorious.
Unlike Sulla or Pompey, he sought a more reformist policy to check the senatorial corruption
and self-dealing.
The oligarchic Senate's only "political program" was opposition to "kingship" or any such
power able to check its land grabbing and corruption. The oligarchs assassinated him, as they
had killed Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus in 133 and 121, the praetor Asellio who sought to
alleviate the population's debt burden in 88 by trying to enforce pro-creditor laws, and of
course the populist advocates of debt cancellation such as Catiline and his supporters.
Would-be reformers were assassinated from the very start of the Republic after the aristocracy
overthrew Rome's kings.
JS: If Caesar had been successful, what kind of ruler might he have been?
MH: In many ways he was like the reformer-tyrants of the 7 th and 6
th centuries in Corinth, Megara and other Greek cities. They all were members of the
ruling elite. He tried to check the oligarchy's worst excesses and land grabs, and like
Catiline, Marius and the Gracchi brothers before him, to ameliorate the problems faced by
debtors. But by his time the poorer Romans already had lost their land, so the major debts were
owed by wealthier landowners. His bankruptcy law only benefited the well-to-do who had bought
land on credit and could not pay their moneylenders as Rome's long Civil War disrupted the
economy. The poor already had been ground down. They supported him mainly for his moves toward
democratizing politics at the expense of the Senate.
JS: After his assassination we get Caesar's heir Octavian, who becomes Augustus. So
we have the official end of the Republic and the beginning of a long line of emperors, the
Principate. Yet despite the Senate's authority being permanently diminished, there is continued
widening of economic polarization. Why couldn't the Emperors save Rome?
MH: Here's an analogy for you: Just as nineteenth-century industrial reformers
thought that capitalism's political role was to reform the economy by stripping away the legacy
of feudalism -- a hereditary landed aristocracy and predatory financial system based mainly on
usury -- what occurred was not an evolution of industrial capitalism into socialism. Instead,
industrial capitalism turned into finance capitalism. In Rome you had the end of the senatorial
oligarchy followed not by a powerful, debt-forgiving central authority (as Mommsen believed
that Caesar was moving toward, and as many Romans hoped that he was moving towards), but to an
even more polarized imperial garrison state.
JS: That's indeed what happened. The emperors who ruled in the centuries after
Cæsar insisted on being deified -- they were officially "divine," according to their own
propaganda. Didn't any of them have the potential power to reverse the Roman economy's
ever-widening polarization of the, like the Near Eastern "divine kings" from the third
millennium BC into the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and even the Persian Empire in the first
millennium?
MH: The inertia of Rome's status quo and vested interests among patrician nobility
was so strong that emperors didn't have that much power. Most of all, they didn't have a
conceptual intellectual framework for changing the economy's basic structure as economic life
became de-urbanized and shifted to self-sufficient quasi-feudal manor estates. Debt amnesties
and protection of small self-sufficient tax-paying landholders as the military base was
achieved only in the Eastern Roman Empire, in Byzantium under the 9 th – and
10 th -century emperors (as I've described in my history of debt cancellations in
and forgive them their debts ).
The Byzantine emperors were able to do what Western Roman emperors could not. They reversed
the expropriation of smallholders and annulled their debts in order to keep a free tax-paying
citizenry able to serve in the army and provide public labor duties. But by the 11
th and 12 th centuries, Byzantium's prosperity enabled its oligarchy to
create private armies of their own to fight against centralized authority able to prevent their
grabbing of land and labor.
It seems that Rome's late kings did something like this. That is what attracted immigrants
to Rome and fueled its takeoff. But with prosperity came rising power of patrician families,
who moved to unseat the kings. Their rule was followed by a depression and walkouts by the bulk
of the population to try and force better policy. But that could no be achieved without
democratic voting power, so faith was put in personal leader -- subject to patrician violence
to abort any real economic democracy.
In Byzantium's case, the tax-avoiding oligarchy weakened the imperial economy to the point
where the Crusaders were able to loot and destroy Constantinople. Islamic invaders were then
able to pick up the pieces.
The most relevant point of studying history today should be how the economic conflict
between creditors and debtors affected the distribution of land and money. Indeed, the tendency
of a wealthy overclass to pursue self-destructive policies that impoverish society should be
what economic theory is all about. We'll discuss this in Part 4.
John Siman: I want to spell out the implications of the points that Socrates brought
up, and with which you and I agree. That leaves the question facing us today: Is the American
oligarchy and state as rapacious as that of Rome? Or is it universally the nature of oligarchy
in any historical setting to be rapacious? And if so, where is it all leading?
Michael Hudson : If Antiquity had followed the "free market" policies of modern
neoliberal economics, the Near East, Greece and Rome would never have gained momentum. Any such
"free market" avoiding mutual aid and permitting a wealthy class to emerge and enslave the bulk
of the population by getting it into debt and taking its land would have shrunk, or been
conquered from without or by revolution from within. That's why the revolutions of the 7
th century BC, led to reformers subsequently called "tyrants" in Greece (and "kings"
in Rome) were necessary to attract populations rather than reduce them to bondage.
So of course it is hard for mainstream economists to acknowledge that Classical Antiquity
fell because it failed to regulate and tax the wealthy financial and landowning classes, and
failed to respond to popular demands to cancel personal debts and redistribute the land that
had been monopolized by the wealthy.
The wealth of the Greek and Roman oligarchies was the ancient counterpart to today's
Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, and their extractive and predatory behavior
is what destroyed Antiquity. The perpetuation of this problem even today, two thousand years
later, should establish that the debt/credit dynamic and polarization of wealth is a central
problem of Western civilization.
JS : So what were -- and are -- the political and social dynamic at work?
MH : The key is the concept of wealth addiction and how it leads to hubris --
arrogance that seeks to increase power in ways that hurt other people. Hubris is not merely
over-reaching; it is socially injurious. The wealthy or power injure other people knowingly, to
establish their power and status.
That is what Aristophanes meant when his characters say that wealth is not like bananas or
lentil soup. Wealth has no object but itself . Wealth is status -- and also political
control. The creditor's wealth is the debtor's liability. The key to its dynamic is not
production and consumption, but assets and liabilities -- the economy's balance sheet. Wealth
and status in the sense of who/whom. It seeks to increase without limit, and Socrates and
Aristotle found the major example to be creditors charging interest for lending "barren" money.
Interest had to be paid out of the debtor's own product, income or finally, forfeiture of
property; creditors did not provide means of making interest to pay off the loan.
This is the opposite of Austrian School theories that interest is a bargain to share the
gains to be made from the loan "fairly" between creditor and debtor. It also is the opposite of
neoclassical price theory. The economics taught in universities today is based on a price
theory that does not even touch on this point. The liberty that oligarchs claim is the right to
indebt the rest of society and then demand full payment or forfeiture of the debtor's
collateral. This leads to massive expropriations, as did the Junk Mortgage foreclosures after
2008 when President Obama failed to write down debts to realistic market values for real estate
financed on loans far beyond the buyer's ability to pay. The result was 10 million
foreclosures.
Yet today's mainstream economics treats the normal tendency to polarize between creditors
and debtors, the wealthy and the have-nots, as an anomaly. It has been the norm for the last
five thousand years, but economics sidesteps actual empirical history as if it is an anomaly in
the fictional parallel universe created by the mainstream's unrealistic assumptions. Instead of
being a science, such economics is science fiction.It trains students in cognitive dissonance
that distracts them from understanding Classical Antiquity and the driving dynamics of Western
civilization.
JS: This gets us back to the question of whether universities should just be shut
down and started up all over again.
MH: You don't shut them down, you create a new group of universities with a different
curriculum. The path of least resistance is to house this more functional curriculum in new
institutions. That's what America's Republican and pro-industrial leaders recognized after the
Civil War ended in 1865. They didn't shut down Harvard and Yale and Princeton and the Christian
free-trade Anglophile colleges. They created state colleges funded by land grants, such as
Cornell in upstate New York, and business schools such as the Wharton School at the University
of Pennsylvania, endowed by industrialists to providing an economic logic for the state's
steel-making and related industrial protectionism. The result was an alternative economics to
describe how America should develop as what they saw as a new civilization, free of the
vestiges of Europe's feudal privileges, absentee ownership and colonialist mentality.
The Republicans and industrialists saw that America's prestige colleges had been founded
long before the Civil War, basically as religious colleges to train the clergy. They taught
British free trade theory, serving the New England commercial and banking interests and
Southern plantation owners. But free trade kept the United States dependent on England. My book
America's Protectionist Takeoff describes how the American School of Political Economy,
led by Henry Carey and E. Peshine Smith (William Seward's law partner), developed an
alternative to what was being taught in the religious colleges.
This led to a new view of the history of Western civilization and America's role in fighting
against entrenched privilege. William Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe , and
Andrew Dixon White's History of the Warfare of Science with Theology saw the United
States as breaking free from the feudal aristocracies that were a product of the way in which
antiquity collapsed, economically and culturally.
JS : So business schools were originally progressive!
MH : Surprising as it may seem, the answer is Yes, to the extent that they described
the global economy as tending to polarize under free trade and an absence of government
protectionism, not to become more equal. They incorporated technology, energy-use and the
environmental consequences of trade patterns into economic theory, such as soil depletion
resulting from plantation monocultures. Mainstream economics fought against such analysis
because it advocated markets "free" for polluters, "free" for nations to pursue policies that
made them poorer and dependent on foreign credit.
JS : So this is how the Wharton School's first professor of economics, Simon Patten,
one of the founders of American sociology, fits into this anti- rentier tradition! That
is such a revelation to me! They developed an analysis of technology's effects on the economy,
of monopoly pricing and economic rent as unearned income that increases the cost of living and
cost of production. They explained the benefits of public infrastructure investment. Today that
is called "socialism," but it was industrial capitalists who took the lead in urging such
public investment, so as to lower their cost of doing business.
MH : The first U.S. business schools in the late 19 th century described
rentiers as unproductive. That is why today's neoliberals are trying to rewrite the
history of Institutionalism in a way that expurgates the Americans who wanted the government to
provide public infrastructure to make America a low-cost economy, undersell England and other
countries, and evolve into the industrial giant it became by the 1920s.
JS : That was Simon Patten's teaching at the Wharton School -- government-subsidized
public infrastructure as the fourth factor of production.
MH : Yes. America's ruling political class tried to make the United States a dominant
economy instead of a rentier economy of landlords and financial manipulators.
JS : How did the robber barons fit into this story?
MH : Not as industrialists or manufacturers, but as monopolists opposed by the
industrial interests. It was Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting and the Republicans that enacted
the Sherman antitrust act. Its spirit was continued by Franklin Roosevelt.
JS :Is today's economy a second age of robber barons?
MH : It's becoming a second Gilded Age. An abrupt change of direction in economic
trends occurred after Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were elected in 1979/80. The result
has been to invert what the 19 th -century economists understood to be a free market
-- that is, a market free from a privileged hereditary class living on unearned income in the
form of land rent, monopoly rent and financial extraction.
JS : I was in my first few years of college when Thatcher came in in 1979, and when
Reagan was elected in 1980. I asked my economics professors what was going on, but I could not
find a single professor to coherently describe the U-turn that was occurring. It certainly
wasn't in Paul Samuelson's textbook that we were given.
MH : There's little logic for neoliberalism beyond a faith that short-term greed is
the best way to optimize long-term growth. It is natural for the wealthiest classes to have
this faith. Neoliberalism doesn't look at the economy as a social system, and it excludes as
"externalities" concerns with the environment, debt dependency and economic polarization. It
only asks how to make a short-term hit-and-run gain, regardless of whether this is done in a
way that has a positive or negative overall social effect. Realistic economic logic is social
in scope, and distinguishes between earned and unearned income. That is why economists such as
Simon Patten and Thorstein Veblen decided to start afresh and create the discipline of
sociology, to go beyond narrow individualistic economics being taught.
Today's mathematical economics is based on circular reasoning that treats all that has
happened as having been inevitable. It is all survival of the fittest, so it seems that there
is no alternative. This policy conclusion is built into economic methodology. If we weren't the
fittest, we wouldn't have survived, so by definition (that is, circular reasoning), any
alternative is less than fit.
Regarding the fact that you had to read Samuelson when you were in college, he was famous
for his Factor Price Equalization Theorem claiming to prove mathematically that everybody and
every nation tends naturally to become more and more equal (if government stands aside). He
denied that the tendency of the global economy is to polarize, not equalize. The political
essence of this equilibrium theory is its claim that economies tend to settle in a stable
balance. In reality they polarize and then collapse if they do not reverse their polarizing
financial and productivity and wealth dynamics are.
The starting point of economic theorizing should explain the dynamic that lead economics to
polarize and collapse. That is the lesson of studying antiquity that we have discussed in our
earlier talks. Writers in classical antiquity, like Bronze Age Near Eastern rulers before them
and the Biblical prophets, recognized that a rentier economy tends to destroy the
economy's productivity and widespread prosperity, and ultimately its survival. In today's world
the Finance, Insurance,and Real Estate [FIRE] sector and monopolies are destroying the rest of
the economy, using financial wealth to take over the government and disable its ability to
prevent their operating in corrosive and predatory ways.
JS : Why aren't more people up in arms?
MH : They're only up in arms if they believe that there is an alternative. As long as
the vested interests can suppress any idea that there is an alternative, that matters
don't have to be this way, people just get depressed. In our third interview you spoke about
Socrates and the Stoics producing a philosophy of lamentation and resignation. By his day there
seemed no solution except to denounce wealth. When matters got much worse in the Roman Empire,
wealth was abhorred. That became the message of Christianity.
What is needed is to define the scope of the alternative that you want. How can the economy
grow when households, business, and government have to pay more and more of their revenue to
the financial sector, which then turns around and lends its interest and related income out to
indebt the economy even more? The effect is to extract even more income. Rising government debt
and tax cuts for the rentiers lead to the privatization of public infrastructure and
natural monopolies. Higher prices are charged for tolls to pay for public healthcare,
education, roads and other services that were expected to be provided for free a century ago.
Financialized privatization thus creates a high-rent, high-cost economy -- the opposite of
industrial capitalism evolving into socialism to finally free society from rentier
income.
JS: Wouldn't that be based on the insatiable desire
[ἀπληστία, aplêstia ] for money and the
super-rich [ὑπέρπλουτοι,
hyper-ploutoi ] oligarchs in Book 8 of Plato's Republic ? So we get back to my
question: Is the behavior of the super-rich a constant in human nature?
MH: Money-love
[φιλοχρηματία,
philochrêmatia ] has always been extreme because wealth is addictive. But their
dynamic of credit -- other peoples' debts -- increasing at compound interest is mathematized
and the economy is put on automatic pilot to self-destruct. Its business plan to "create
wealth" by making financial gains at somebody else's expense, without limit. This kind of
financial wealth is a zero-sum activity. The wealth of the creditor class, the One Percent, is
achieved by indebting the 99 Percent.
JS: Why is it a zero-sum activity?
MH: A zero-sum activity is when one party's gain is another's loss. Instead of income
paid to creditors being reinvested in means of production to help the economy grow, it's spent
on buying more assets. The most wasteful examples are corporate stock buyback programs and
financial raids. And the largest effect of financialization occurs as loans and Quantitative
Easing simply bid up the price of real estate, stocks, bonds and other assets. The effect is to
put housing and a retirement income further out of range of people who have to live by working
for wages and salaries instead of living off absentee ownership, interest and financial
asset-price gains.
JS: Why is this being done instead of investing in the economy to help the population
live a better and more prosperous life?
MH: The tax and regulatory system is set up to make financial gains or create
monopoly privileges. That is quicker and more certain, especially in an economy shrinking as a
result of financialization and the austerity it imposes. It's hard to make profits by investing
in a shrinking economy suffering from debt deflation and a squeeze on family budgets to pay for
health care, education and other basic needs.
JS: So it becomes more about extraction. Let's come back to Global Climate Change and
rising sea levels as a foundation of American foreign policy.
MH: Since the 19th century, American policy has been based on the recognition that
GDP growth reflects rising energy use per capita. Rising productivity is almost identical with
the curve of energy use per worker. That was the basic premise of E. Peshine Smith in 1853, and
subsequent writers, whom I describe in America's Protectionist Takeoff: 1918-1914 . The
policy conclusion is that if you can control the source of energy -- which remains mainly oil
and coal -- then you can control global GDP growth. That is why Dick Cheney invaded Iraq: to
grab its oil. It is why Trump announced his intention to topple Venezuela and take its oil.
If other nations are obliged to buy their oil from the United States or its companies, then
it's in a monopoly position to turn off their electricity (like the United States did to
Venezuela) and hurt their economies if they don't acquiesce in a world system that lets
American financial firms come in and buy out their most productive monopolies and privatize
theirpublic domain. That's why America's foreign policy is to monopolize the world's oil, gas
and coal in order to have a stranglehold on the rate of growth of other countries by being able
to deny them energy. It's like denying countries food in order to starve them out. The aim isto
exploit Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America what Rome exploited its Empire.
JS: Would you be comfortable using words like evil to describe what's going on
now?
MH : Evil essentially is predatory and destructive behavior. Socrates said that it
ultimately is ignorance, because nobody would set out intentionally to do it. But in that case,
evil would be an educational system that imposes ignorance and tunnel vision, distracting
attention from understanding how economic society actually works in destructive ways. On that
logic, post-classical neoliberal economics and the Chicago Boys are evil because their ideology
breeds ignorance and leads its believers to act in ways that are injurious to society,
preventing personal fulfillment through economic growth. Evil is a policy that makes most of
society poorer, simply in order to enrich an increasingly wealth-addictive rentier layer
at the top. Werner Sombart described the bourgeoisie as floating like a globules of fat on top
of a soup.
JS: This is now happening on a path that follows an exponential extreme. I guess
global warming makes it particularly evil. We're not simply talking about taking advantage of
other people within a society, we're talking about destruction of the planet and its
environment.
MH: Economists dismiss this as an "externality," that is, outside the scope of their
models. So these models are deliberately ignorant. You could say that this makes them evil.
JS: That is what I've suspected since we started the Iraq War in 2003.
MH: America's military buildup, its anti-environmental policy and global wars are
part of the same symbiotic strategy. The reason why America will not be part of a real effort
to mitigate global warming is that its policy is still based on grabbing the oil resources of
the Near East, Venezuela, and everywhere else that it can. Also, the oil industry is the most
tax-exempt and politically powerful sector. If it also happens to be the primary cause of
global warming, that is viewed as just collateral damage to America's attempt to control the
world by controlling the oil supply. In that sense the environmental impasse is a byproduct of
American imperialism.
JS: What's hopeful in the United States right now? What is a possible good
outcome?
MH: T he precondition would be for people to realize that there is an
alternative. Starting with wiping out of student debts, they can realize that the overall debt
overhead can be wiped out without hurting the economy -- and indeed, rescuing it from the
financial rentier class inasmuch as all debts on the liabilities side of the balance
sheet have their counterpart on the asset side as the savings of today's financial oligarchy,
which is doing to the U.S. economy what Rome's Senate did to the ancient world.
JS: How can people proceed from here?
MH: Understanding must come first. Once you have to have a sense of history, you
realize that there is an alternative. You also see what happens when a creditor
oligarchy gets strong enough to prevent any public power from writing down debts and to prevent
attempts to tax it.
You have to do to America today what the Republicans did after the Civil War: You have to
have a new university curriculum dealing with economic history, the history of economic thought
and the real world's long-term development.
JS: And what would be the premise for such economic history?
MH: T he starting point is to realize that civilization began in the ancient Near
East, and made a turn to oppose a strong public regulatory sector in Classical Greece and Rome.
The long-term tension is the eternal fight by the oligarchy of creditors and large land owners
to reduce the rest of society to serfdom, and to oppose strong rulers empowered to act in the
economy's long-term interest by creating checks against this polarization.
JS : So how much longer does this go on -- for months, for years, for decades?
MH : It always goes on longer than you think it will. Inertia has a great elastic
self-reinforcing power. Polarization will widen until people believe that there is an
alternative and decide to fight for it. Two things are required for this to happen: First, a
large proportion of people need to see that the economy is impoverishing them, and that the
existing picture of what is happening is misleading. Instead of wealth trickling down, it is
defying gravity and sucking income up from the base of the economic pyramid. People are having
to work harder just to stay in place, until their life style breaks down.
Second, people must realize that it doesn't have to be this way. There is an
alternative
JS : Right now most people think that government regulation and progressive taxation
will make things worse, and that the wealthy are job creators, not job destroyers. They think
that the system needs to be bolstered, not replaced, because the alternative is "socialism" --
that is, what the Soviets did, not what Franklin Roosevelt was doing. But today bailing out the
banks and giving subsidies to new employers is said to be for our own good.
MH : That's what the Romans told their provinces. Everything they did was always to
preserve "good order," meaning open opportunities for their own wealth grabbing. They never
said they were out to destroy and loot other societies. Madeline Albright followed this
rhetorical pattern in describing as being, like the Romans and France's brutal mission
civilisatrice , a program to uplift the world free-market efficiency. For performing this
service, the imperial power takes all the money that its colonies, provinces and allies can
generate. That's why the U.S. meddles in foreign politics, as we have just seen in Ukraine,
Libya and Syria.
JS : You've described the greatest meddling as distorting the narrative of history to
depict creditor and rentier drives toward oligarchy as being democratic and helping to raise
living standards and culture. Your books show just the opposite.
MH : Thank you. (Republished from
Naked Capitalism by permission of author or representative)
Questions for Dr. Hudson: Why should a public banking system charge interest at all on loans?
Could they not merely charge a one-time service fee to cover the cost of loan administration
and a one-time insurance fee to cover the costs of defaulting on the loan? After all, they
are not actually loaning money – they are creating money at minimal risk to the bank.
Charging interest to create money strikes me as mere theft.
Charging interest to create money strikes me as mere theft.
The school of Salamanca is where this idea of interest on money was codified, where the
Jesuit priests proclaimed it as a loss of wants. That is, since people loaned out their
money, they didn't get use of it, so they should be paid for their loss.
If you examine how banking works, banks hypothecate new money the moment you sign a debt
instrument. Both the new bank credit and debt instrument pop into being simultaneously.
To ask for compounding interest on this simple legerdemain is an outrageous abuse, so you
are right it is theft.
There are situations where it is not usurious. For example, Schacht's MefoBills scheme,
the interest fluxed outward from Reichsbank to the bill holder. A bill would be
presented to industry, and said industry would then start work making goods. Bill would then
be presented for discount, which is fancy way of saying paid for, or paid off. Upon discount,
bill would be examined to see if goods were produced. Then the bill would be paid its full
face value AND the interest it accrued.
Reichsmarks flowed from Reichsbank to the bill holder, who was paid interest. The bill
holder then spent his new Reichsmarks into the money supply.
Benjamin Franklin's public bank spent into the commons the extra money necessary
for debtors to pay interest on their loans. The commons were improved, so one could view this
as non usurious, even though it was positive interest. For the most part, FEES are all that
should accompany new loans, not compounding interest.
Canada had a quasi sovereign economy 1938 to 1974 and spent debt free into the
commons and on public infrastructure, their economy did not polarize toward creditors. The
Ministry of Finance owned all the common shares of Bank of Canada. BOC was a crown bank.
Note in all the "good" examples, interest flowed outward from an exogenous creator toward
the population. In bad examples of interest, it drains purchasing power from the
population.
By the way, a MEFOBILL scheme today could be used to release debts. The bill is created
exogenously by Treasury or even a shell company. The bill has a drawer, payee and drawee. It
is like a check. It channels toward a specific goal. For example, if you wanted to pay off
student debts, then the bill would aim at the student, who then presents bill to bank holding
student's debt instrument. Bill would eventually make its way to the FED through bank reserve
loops, and FED would expand their ledger. FED would use their keyboard to make new dollars,
which flow back into private bank system to pay off the students debt instrument. So double
entry mechanic laws are not abrogated. Student's debt disappeared, and Mefobill stays on FED
ledger forever, not accruing interest. Or, you could specify a small amount of interest to
the bank as a fee for their operations.
U.S. could use Mefobill scheme to lure industry back to the U.S. as it specifically
channels toward a goal.
The money system is something we humans created, it can be used for good or ill. To
paraphrase Michael, we need good civil law that codes for morality.
That was a soul-transforming read. It put into words what I could never put into words, but
on an instinctive level I have always felt these things. I have always had this irrational
hatred of bankers, landlords, capitalists, and any one else who dances to that faggy Gordon
Gekko tune. But I could never figure out why, let alone explain it clearly. This article has
done that for me right here and right now today. I am so grateful. This one is a keeper, now
I finally understand my hate. And I am proud of it. This is why Hitler was a good person, he
made these little bitch finance fags squeal and screech like the untermenschen they really
are.
It is interesting to note that the facts explored in this article corroborate and
synchronize with the facts explored in an amateur work titled "The Sumerian Swindle: How the
Jews Betrayed Mankind." If you look you can print the book free off the internet
somewhere.
From now on I only see humans in two distinct groups: productive people who work for a
living, and parasitic leeches who exploit the former. Twas ever thus. Let us successfully
genocide the latter in the near future.
The book sounds extremely interesting. I will probably get it, but that thing about the
Kaiser is a bad mistake. The German nation had been subjected to France and its proxies
marching across it for centuries. As always happens it unified in the face of threat, but
financially the structure was still harking back to the Holy Roman Empire. Being
decentralised as far as raising revenues was concerned, the Kaiser was unable to exert the
full strength of Germany. The Weimar government instituted reforms were intended to remedy
that for defensive purposes, but unfortunately Hitler inherited those reforms and that extra
wherewithal was a major reason for the early military successes in WW2 that set the world
agog.
Germany began to be a mixed economy in the decades leading up to World War I. But it had
a mentally retarded king whom they didn't know how to restrain, given their cultural faith
in royalty. China is of course the most successful recent mixed economy.
Dubious.France had financed massive military preparation by Russia, and Poincaire (cousin
of the brilliant physicist) was fixated with recovering Alsace and Lorraine (where he was
born). The military situation was gravely deteriorating for Germany partly because Germany.
The Kaiser did not attack France in 1905 when Britain had a tiny army and Russia was in
chaos. That was the craziest thing he did as leader.
Mr. Hudson thinks we can get the desirable results of Divine Kingship without having Divine
Kings, simply by enacting "laws" that promote a broad distribution of wealth. But he also
says that the oligarchy makes the laws and appoints the "elected" lawmakers. So he's engaged
in an exercise in wishful thinking. There is no democratic path to his desired result.
An excellent tour de force completely relevant to the major problems we face today, so
thank you , Ron Unz!
and turn the government into a vehicle to help them exploit the rest of society.
It's extremely obvious that's is exactly what our "constitution" was designed to do.
Hudson's insistence that debt must be government controlled runs into the problem
consistently, which both he and the interviewer discuss.
Essentially, the problem is that whoever gets the power will abuse it. "The government" is
no more a disinterested group of parties than the oligarchs or the plutocrats. The best
answer is to have a noble ruling class, but good luck with that; it will never happen at
least on a permanent basis.
So what's the answer? I wish I knew
The best [the Greek philosophers] could do was to inspire and educate individuals
I highly doubt anyone can do much more, but the last thing to do is to hope for some
Messiah, especially a rich one. Are you tRumpeteers listening?
PS: I liked the mention of Aristophanes. All of his plays are as instructive as they are
amusing and should be read by all. Same with Lucian of Samosata and Juvenal to mention just a
few.
JS said: "Right now most people think that government regulation and progressive taxation
will make things worse,"
Er, no, most people do not "think" that [ if they "think" at all].
They mostly "think" the exact opposite.
Due to their public [ie government funded] er,"education" [ie brainwashing], they are
actually dumb enough to believe that more government, and more regulations will make things
better for them, despite the fact that more than any other factor, it is the size and scope
of government that has directly caused the financial problems most of them are now
experiencing. "Stupid is a stupid does".
In fact, more, bigger government and more regulations will only further increase poverty
and make things even worse for them all than they are today.
This just in:
"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and
counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very
cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in
scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree
Government doesn't work" Harry Browne
"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way
to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those
of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock
"Everything government touches turns to crap" Ringo Starr
"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the
kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken
There was no concept of linear progress in Antiquity. They thought that there was only
one way to do things, so any reform must be the way the world was meant to be in the very
beginning.
The Hebrews had their liberation from captivity, Hesiod had his three prior ages "before
there was iron," Odysseus travels the world observing the various ways of men, Plato
envisions a radical transformation of human society, Aristotle compares the constitutions of
various Greek city-states, Thucydides resorts to archaeology to show that the Athenians were
not the original inhabitants of the Attic Peninsula.
It's not difficult to come up with what seem to be counter examples to Hudson's assertion
that there was no "linear progress" and no vision of other ways of doing things in Antiquity.
Ancient Mediterranean societies did see humanity as moving in a direction, evolving by
discovery and by making new institutions to address novel problems.
I found that peculiar as well. Another thing that was out of place was the "deification"
of Teddy Roosevelt and his so called trust busting as well as FDR's continuously "evolving"
New Deals. Both Roosevelts and their programs were tRump-like frauds whose main interest was
self aggrandizement at whatever cost.
Like tRump, the rhetoric was grand but the motive and execution left much to be desired.
While I get what Hudson is saying when he sez "there oughta be a law," I think history has
proven, repeatedly, that while there's a possibility that there ought to be one, it's not
likely it'll do much good, and certainly no permanent good.
The greatest debt creator in the history of America is the zionists privately owned FED and
the zionist owned central banks in every country in the world that create money out of thin
air and charge the goyim/proles for the use of this zionist created charade, which started in
1913 here in the zio/US with the diabolical draconian demonic FED.
Free America, abolish the FED and return to government created , debt free money as was
the case prior to December 23, 1913!
@G.
Poulin G. Poulin says: "Mr. Hudson thinks we can get the desirable results of Divine
Kingship without having Divine Kings, simply by enacting "laws" that promote a broad
distribution of wealth. "
Yup. The whole, as per usual, "benevolent dictator" fantasy writ large, yet once again. It
never stops.
You'd think that by now, this late in the game, and given history, that most people would
have finally figured out that government "solutions" never worked , and never can, or
will.
But no, luckily for governments, there's always a plentiful supply of new, brainwashed
dreamer/fantasists [or "suckers" as P.T Barnum reportedly called them], who are ever more
eager for a government that does what they think it should do, and who "think" that it/they
actually will, despite all the historical evidence directly contradicting their inane
fantasies.
"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the
government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the
government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of
kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."
–Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801.
" idealists and realists begin to get on each other's nerves. But the real difference is
in the capacity for appreciating the immense gap of blue inane which separates earth from
heaven, and in the realist's unwillingness to assume that men have angels' wings. "
@onebornfree
oneborn free, your screed is you projecting fears about abusive government.
Hudson just explained in historical terms that it is only properly constructed government
that can reign in Oligarchy. It is clear that society WILL polarize toward creditors if
certain safeguards are not put in place.
So, you will have to come to grips with your cognitive dissonance.
Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role." Anything outside of that
role is government overstepping its bounds.
By providing the framework, Hudson is doing the world a tremendous service, and as such he
will go down as one of the great men of history.
New glasses are being put on your nose, but you prefer to wear your old glasses that make
you see improperly?
It reminds me of all the wishful thinking about China, how their ghost cities are going to
do them in, and their economy cannot keep doing so well, and so on. It is people not
believing what is right in front of their eyes, or their inability to see outside of their
brainwashed mentality.
Hudson says that public banks are an option for erasing debts.
China does this now with their state banks, which is one of their secret weapons.
In the mid 90's China swept all of their old communist era debt into the trash can. This
then made their "books" look good to Western Finance standards, and China was essentially
given MFN status.
Then it was game on! Wall Street soon greenmailed American industry to leave for China, to
then get some of that wage arbitrage. We are living in the aftermath of this civilization
destroying decision making by our ruling finance class.
China has helped the wall street finance class loot America, as China creates new Yuans
from their state banks to match their countries growth rate. These new Yuans have to be there
in order to swap for dollars won in trade. The dollars end up in China's state banks, and are
recycled back to the U.S. to buy TBills instead of buying goods from mainstreet.
Today and reality is staring you in the face. Look at it. America's finance class did
indeed export jobs and our patrimony, and china did indeed use their public banking system.
China is working for their people's benefit, while a traitor class of finance oligarchy is
working against the public interest in America.
Those of you who are against Public banks need to get real and look at actual data. For
example, the bank of North Dakota is a public bank and has a good track record. Please, use
data and think for yourself rather than being a brainwashed dupe.
Another way is to continue to use PRIVATE BANKS, and have public money. The money supply
is nationalized, not the bank. All new money comes into being from a monetary authority or
Treasury as per the constitution. Banks then become gyro, which is a fancy word for
inter-mediation. Banks stop making money with a new debt instrument, but instead only match
up new creditors and debtors with existing money.
Within each private bank are two piles of numbers: 1) Pile A is people's savings, which
preferably was debt free at inception 2) Pile B is government credit, or national credit.
National Credit can be channeled toward specific goals that the country has agreed is in
its interests.
You as a debtor can borrow from either pile. The national credit creates a debt instrument
that can be easily jubileed in the same easy way as could a debt instrument hypothecated at a
public bank.
Public banks to my mind are a little too close to government even though they have a good
history. Nationalizing the money supply instead is better. Why? A good percentage of supply
becomes floating money (debt free) and this component becomes a permanent inheritance to the
people, giving them freedom to do commerce. An economically free people are also politically
free.
@onebornfreeSavior? Nothing can stop what has been set in motion, namely, Earth's Sixth Mass
Extinction, as the climate shifts rapidly to a
New Cretaceous "hothouse" climate. Neither voting nor your anarchism can invalidate
scientific evidence. Apparently, you can't read, because McPherson's Paradox
explains humanity's conundrum in plain terms: (a) continuing to evaporate Earth's coal beds
and oil fields into the atmosphere ensures our quick extinction from global warming, and (b)
stopping fossil fuel use only hastens our demise, because of "global masking effect" or "
global dimming
." Do you really think that evaporating coal beds and oil fields into the atmosphere has no
consequences?
"[T]heir complete extinction (in the co-extinction scenario) was abrupt, and
happened far from their tolerance limits, and close to global diversity collapse (
around 5 °C of heating )"
Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change
(Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 16724, published 13 November 2018) http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35068-1
Remember, Trump has already promised 4 °C of heating is baked into the cake,
and stopping fossil fuel use would remove the "global dimming" effect of air pollution and
lead to a near instantaneous rise of 2°C. A true paradox has no solution.
1. Please use your commenting privilege to address the substance of the articles. The
sentence that you first quote is ancillary to this one, but you've plucked it out as a wedge
for your umpteenth anarchic strut.
2. Why so frequently insulting? I happen to share your general perspective, but if you're
prosletyzing your style stinks.
3. If nothing else, please realize that you only need to piss once on each hydrant to
leave your mark.
@Dutch
Boy Unfortunately, Dr. Hudson never attacks the "Elephant in the Room -- –The
Control of Economies by the Magic Jews." The Jews control all pathways including media,
social and economic which they will never relinquish because with the money they make they
control the world's politicians by using the greed of mankind against them.
The Jews use the Holocaust to intimidate stupid whites in Western Civilization with guilt
and control everything including our foreign policy to immigration. Civilization will not
survive as long as the power of the Jews continue to rule mankind.
@Dutch
Boy Consider that a 10 year loan at 4% now would then have a fee (simple, not even
compound interest) of 40% of the principle.
It defeats the purpose of a loan paying over time. Even the 20% down is for equity, not
prepayment of interest.
Or you could simply roll the fees in. There is a House for sale for $200,000. The bank
buys it but then to get ownership with lein, and you have to pay the bank $300,000 to cover
everything (do you get any equity before going positive?).
How about just saving money including gold in your mattress until you can afford
something?
@MEFOBILLS
Federal Reserve, TARP, and QE – the debts of the banksters were erased and they paid
themselves bonuses, and it took more cash that would pay off every mortgage of those who lost
their homes
Unfortunately, Dr. Hudson never attacks the "Elephant in the Room -- –The Control
of Economies by the Magic Jews."
Hudson does but in a peripheral way. See below. Our (((friends))) like to use their
capital rather than labor. They use usury as a weapon, and tend to be among the Oligarch
class. Why? Because their religion gives cover and sanction for predatory behavior. Note that
our friends adore Hillel. Jewish religion went off the rails after Hillel, and is now an
apologist for the creditor class, and hence against a balanced logos type world.
Hudson cannot go after the Jews, but I can and so can you. It is ok to point out where
Jewish ideology becomes "Crime Inc." In fact, I find the most moral people to be
anti-semites, so Hudson who obviously has a strong moral basis, is smart enough to NOT touch
the Jewish third rail, or he would become persona non-grata.
There is no question Hudson possesses a first class mind, and by not touching the third
rail he is preserving his career. It is up to us to decode what he is saying and we can be
more blunt about things.
You don't have to be Jewish to be a predator, and by association most of us can decode
what he is saying.
MH: Yes, but it ended with Rabbi Hillel and the Prozbul clause. Debtors had to sign this
clause at the end of their debt contracts saying that they waived their rights under the
Jubilee year in order to get a loan. That was why Jesus fought against the Pharisees and
the rabbinical leadership. That's what Luke 4 is all about
@jacques
sheete He also seems very keen on China's policy. From what I can make out this is
because the government loans the money and can cancel the debt. So China being locked into
growth by massively Keynesian policies that cannot be haltet for fear of global economic
collapse is a good thing it seems. Hmmm.
@tz1
Federal Reserve, TARP, and QE – the debts of the banksters were erased and they paid
themselves bonuses, and it took more cash that would pay off every mortgage of those who lost
their homes
Yes of course. It would have been much better to take over the banks and give the "bond
holders" a haircut.
What the haircut means is that the debt instrument cannot make claims on the future. The
amount it can claim is written down to what the real economy can pay.
Our financial oligarchy did not want to take a haircut, and since they own the government,
they made their politician puppets dance.
We cannot see what is in the bill till we pass the bill.
Some here have pointed out that democracy is a joke. Yes it is. Universal Suffrage
democracy, where any rube can vote is especially bad.
You do need a ruling class which looks like the people it rules over. This ruling class
also has to be servants of their people.
China's ruling class is constantly polling their people to get data on how they are doing.
If a politician is found to be corrupt, they are killed or ejected. Think of it like your
body, bad elements and parasites are attacked by the immune system, otherwise you (the host)
will die.
@Biff
"You're a broken record that needs to be tossed up in the air in front of a twelve gauge."
Seem like a lot of trouble to go to – especially as I might be carrying a 12 gauge,
or similar, myself
This just in: there's an "ignore" button – I suggest you learn how to use it.
But regardless of whether the "commniunist" label is completely accurate or not, he's just
yet another in a long line of naive intellectuals who thinks that the government can solve
problems, problems it alone created.
"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the
kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken
@tz1
Fee's on a loan should cover the bank's cost, which is a tiny fraction of what they take now
in the form of usury.
Think closely on this, the bank makes a loan, and it is only a matter of typing of a debt
instrument. Today with computers that amounts to a few minutes of work. They then on-sale the
debt instrument to another, usually TBTF bank, and get rid of any risk.
The better way is for people to pool their savings, and the bank is gyro. Debtor then buys
a house borrowing your savings. The old savings and loan system worked like this.
In Canada, when they had a sovereign banking system (1938 to 1974) they used trusts. Banks
were not allowed to hypothecate new housing loans. Trusts and savings and loans both pool
existing money and loan it out.
It was a beneficial cycle where the young borrowed from the old, and the old benefited
from some interest income, to then buy goods and services produced by the young.
Interest isn't always bad, but you have to look at it in context. About 70% of debt
instruments resident at banks are hypothecated against land. This is so finance oligarchy can
GRAB THE LAND in a depression via swaps or other schemes. Depressions are inevitable when M2
is always draining to pay debts at interest.
In the case of Canada's trust system, the interest was cycling back to the young (interest
was pointing outward to the population) to buy goods and services they produced.
@MEFOBILLS
MEFOBILLS says: "Hudson just explained in historical terms that it is only properly
constructed government that can reign in Oligarchy. It is clear that society WILL polarize
toward creditors if certain safeguards are not put in place.So, you will have to come to
grips with your cognitive dissonance. Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper
role." Anything outside of that role is government overstepping its bounds."
Short answer: "The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is
always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken
MEFOBILLS says: "Hudson also sets the framework for governments "proper role.""
This just in: it's "proper role" [ in the US] was already [supposedly ]"set" via
the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and more famously via a coup
d'etat which resulted in the scam called "The Constitution and Bill of Rights" .
Although the Constitution remains a scam to this day, a return to its supposed limits
would, at least temporarily, drastically downsize the federal government, which would be step
in the right direction.
For government is the problem, never the solution.
But of course, yourself [and most others here] remain too brainwashed [by the government,
and with your money] to ever understand that
Ya gotta watch out when someone takes Marx's economic observations (which were impressive) as
an automatic pass for his social prescriptions (which were a gateway to hell on earth).
@Dutch
Boy As a matter of logic aren't those creators of money reducing the value of the money
held by those who have saved to get it? So doesn't fairness require that they use interest
rates to maimtain the stability of the currency's value?
@Max So
you advocate euthanasia (when you are feeling nice rather than cruel and vengeful) of the
rapidly increasing retired population? Understood that you need to support the infant
generation but Hitler had the answer for that one didn't he: euthanasia of those who wouldn't
be able to contribute. How long do we indulge people with an unemployment benefit?
@jacques
sheete Which US subsidy programs might be regarded as proleptic jubilees? And writeoffs
like that massive solar energy disaster under Obama are surely equivalent to the jubilees.
And welfare payments are surely jubilees in advance.
@Sollipsist
Sollipsist says: "Ya gotta watch out when someone takes Marx's economic observations
(which were impressive) as an automatic pass for his social prescriptions (which were a
gateway to hell on earth)."
Wrongo. Marx's economic theories were as as idiotic as his social prescriptions- in fact,
his "social prescriptions" were directly derived from his idiotic economic theories, which is
exactly why such "social prescriptions" are, as you say, "a gateway to hell on earth".
As for the author of this article , pure Marxist or not, his own "social prescriptions"
are, like Marx's , the mere pontifications of a pseudo-intellectual statist, fantasizing
about solving social problems via that which he worships and adores , that is , yet more
government [of the "right" kind, mind you, and despite its obvious failure to do any such
thing to date].
Another case of "the blind leading the blind", I'm afraid, just more of the same old
hackneyed "government should do this- government can solve this " claptrap .
Hudson spent half the article talking about mixed economies being the best and only type
to work.
Also, it was the JEWISH CREDITOR CLASS, that funded Bolshevism. Wall Street Jews and some
London money funded the Bolsheviks.
Bolshevism in turn was not what Marx had intended.
Marx thought that industrial capitalism, especially that of the type he witnessed in
Germany, would evolve into an advanced form of socialism mixed economy. It would evolve after
industrial capitalism failed, or industrial capitalism would have evolved.
Instead, finance capitalism, that of the rentier credit class won out .
When Marx died, he said "I am a most unhappy man."
Instead of getting caught up in labels, look at the data or what they actually believe in.
It takes a little bit more energy and effort, rather than falling for simple platitudes.
Hudson's childhood background was Bolshevik, but he didn't pick his parents. If you look
at his actual body of work, he is analyzing where all economic systems fail.
Russian and Chinese communism failed because markets are not purely inelastic. You cannot
pretend that every market type needs government control, especially when pricing signals will
work. Systems that are predicated on lies, will not survive in the long term.
For government is the problem, never the solution.
Simple minded platitudes.
ALL COMPLEX SYSTEMS HAVE HIERARCHY!
All advanced civilizations have hierarchy.
There has to be a "brain" for any complex organization, it will not self organize.
This whole market is your god, or gold is your god is the rentier class duping you with
hypnosis.
Funny thing about Libertarian-tards and their junk economics, the very thing they want
they cannot have because their ideology brings about what they don't want – economic
slavery.
Free markets are free for the rentier to take his gains on your life energy and turn you
into his debt slave.
• This is the "anarchy" of the future stateless society which Marx and Engels had
accepted in 1872. Man becomes "his own master – free". The first condition for this
full-fledged freedom is: freedom from the state, not of the state, nor merely in the state.
As far as Marx's eye could see, the state is not the guarantor of freedom http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1970/xx/state.html
This is one the most brilliant things I've ever read here. I've read a great deal about the
various facts and events Mr. Hudson talks about but I've never been able to put them together
like Mr. Hudson. He's provided a framework for realizing how all these seemingly disparate
events fit together. I'm very grateful.
@Wizard of
Oz Retirees weren't regarded as parasites by National Socialism, Schlomo. Your
parasitic ilk, however, were.
"The Nazi social welfare provisions included old age insurance , rent
supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes the NSV often
refused to provide aid to Jews " – National Socialist
People's Welfare
This is fake history. Mythology becoming history. A Jewish speciality.
1- The Jews were never in Ancient Egypt – or the Egyptians would have documented
it.
2- There is absolutely no archeological artifact from the Palestine region that show that
they were there before their exile. Plenty of proof that the Egyptians had been there earlier
on.
3- Palestine was desert at that time and had been abandoned by the Egyptians as it was
infertile – not a land of milk and honey. Yemen was agricultural and prosperous.
4- The Jews were exiled from Yemen – because they and non-Jewish Arabs (the Jews and
Arabs were the same people at that time), continued to raid the caravans bringing goods from
Yemen to Petra. The Babylonians punished them by taking them back to Babylon. After the
Persians liberated them, some went back to Yemen and some went to Palestine.
5- Locations in the Old Testament correspond to places in Yemen and Hejaz. Even their
names.
The best counter to Robert Michels's iron law of oligarchy (whatever the ostensible form of
government, it turns out in practice to be oligarchic rule by the group that has the real
power) was devised by Cleisthenes in Athens shortly before 500 B.C.: give power to average
citizens by appointing to offices ordinary citizens randomly chosen. It worked, as is shown
by how deeply resented it was by oligarchs like Plato.
Is a U.S. Presidential Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933 , by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt forbidding the hoarding of gold within the continental United
States .
It required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount
of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve
, in exchange for $20.67 (consumer price index, adjusted value of $400 today) per troy
ounce. Under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the recently passed
Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up
to $10,000 (equivalent to $193,548 today) or up to ten years in prison, or both .
Order 6102 specifically exempted "customary use in industry, profession or art", a
provision that covered artists, jewelers, dentists, and sign makers among others. The order
further permitted any person to own up to $100 in gold coins (a face value equivalent to 5
troy ounces (160 g) of gold valued at about $6,339 in 2016).
@MEFOBILLS
MEFOBILLS says: "All advanced civilizations have hierarchy.There has to be a "brain" for
any complex organization, it will not self organize. "
So presumably, a half wit such as yourself knows exactly what that hierarchy should be,
who the "brain" "should" be and exactly what and where everyone's "correct" place within it
"should" be, because people cannot self organize.
Sieg Heil, mein fuhrer! You're an even dumber sheep than I had initially suspected!
"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and
counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very
cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed","improved", nor "limited" in
scope, simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree
"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way
to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those
of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock
"Everything government touches turns to crap" Ringo Starr
"The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the
kind of man whose ideas are idiotic" H.L.Mencken
There are several problems with Dr. Hudson's views here. Some have referenced some. I would
point out that we already have laws and practices to restrict the use of wealth from
impoverishing the population. But you have to have a leadership willing to enforce or apply
them. We have had no less than three major financial bailouts of the financial class in the
US. And at no time was the bailout extended to the industries consumers. I am unclear what
the prescription is to divorce the political class from the financial class.
The only new law that would make sense are laws that bar legislators from owning, stocks,
sitting on the boards of stocks or any financial institution they manage. And that would have
to extend to all immediate family members. Further, one has to completely cut off funds from
lobbyists, activists and the corporate class entities.
The economy is already comprised of mixed practices: private ownership and wealth
creation, government employment, non-profit entities and taxation and other programs that
assist citizens, i.e. welfare
The one over riding observation I would make about the economy is that we continue to have a
trade imbalance, which according to an old rule of thumb suggests that economy is not really
growing.
@G.
Poulin Mr. Hudson makes his contribution towards the greater good by educating the
populace. What's your problem? -- He is not a fairy. He is a knowledgeable and honest person;
the former requires a lot of willpower, the second requires courage.
@MEFOBILLS
Libertarians were invented and constructed on purpose to serve as the useful idiots of
oligarchs whom they worship and do everything to protect their right to be oligarchs while at
the same time being sodomized by them.
I am very happy to read this interview, because for me, this is the first time that I have
completely understood Michael Hudson's work. And I say this after watching countless of his
interviews over the past 8 years.
Before this interview here, I had always wanted to ask him if the Clean Slate policies
disappeared over 3000 years ago, then what was he saying in his books and lectures? If the
entirety of Western Civilization is based on oligarchy, rentiers, then what hope is there for
anything? I mean the Romans lasted a thousand years doing this rentier stuff. That's a long
time for misery.
Now, with this interview I understand more fully the period after the Civil War and into
the FDR Presidency as a partially-successful attempt to make things in the country different,
more egalitarian, more correct. And after this interview, I understand Hudson's main point:
the road to change lies in understanding the failures of antiquity.
Looking at things through the rentier oligarchy lens has been the revelation in my life in
the past 10 years. I never undeststood Chile & Allende until then. Likewise with
antiquity and likewise with the history of the United States. But those of us who do
understand these things, thanks in great part to Michael Hudson, are few.
As part of a very late stage college degree I earned 4 years ago, I took an Econ class in
my last semester. The class featured certain films as it related to economics and that was
indeed very interesting (I had never seen Coppola's "Tucker: The Man And His Dream" before so
that was "entertaining"), but the text book for the class was Friedman. I read it and could
not believe how dunderheaded, how wrong it was. And I realized from communication with the
professor that he believed all of it. His attitude seemed to be: who are you to question
economics orthodoxy, you uppity undergrad.
This interview above was both enlightening and depressing. How many decades longer do we
have to go before things change?
Because there is a presidential
election coming up next year, the Donald
Trump Administration appears to be looking for a
country that it can attack and destroy in order to prove its toughness
and willingness to
go all the way in support of alleged American interests. It is a version of the old neocon doctrine
attributed to Michael Ledeen, the belief that every once in a while, it is necessary to pick out
some crappy little country and throw it against the wall just to demonstrate that the United States
means business.
"Meaning business" is a tactic whereby the adversary surrenders immediately in fear of
the possible consequences, but there are a couple of problems with that thinking.
The first is that an opponent who can resist will sometimes balk and create a
continuing problem for the United States, which has a demonstrated inability to start and end
wars in any coherent fashion.
This tendency to get caught in a quagmire in a situation that might have been resolved
through diplomacy has been exacerbated by the current White House's negotiating style, which is
to both demand and expect submission on all points even before discussions begin. That was
clearly the perception with North Korea, where National Security Advisor John Bolton insisted
that Pyongyang had agreed to American demands over its nuclear program even though it hadn't and
would have been foolish to do so for fear of being treated down the road like Libya, which
denuclearized but then was attacked and destroyed seven years later. The Bolton mis-perception,
which was apparently bought into by Trump, led to a complete unraveling of what might actually
have been accomplished if the negotiations had been serious and open to reasonable compromise
right from the beginning.
Trump's
written
demand
that Kim Jong Un immediately hand over his nuclear weapons and all bomb making
material was a non-starter based on White House misunderstandings rooted in its disdain for
compromise. The summit meeting with Trump, held in Hanoi at the end of February, was abruptly
canceled by Kim and Pyongyang subsequently accused Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of
making "gangster-like" demands.
The second problem is that there are only a few actual casus belli situations under
international law that permit a country to attack another preemptively, and they are usually
limited to actual imminent threats.
The current situation with Venezuela is similar to
that with North Korea in that Washington is operating on the presumption that it has a right to
intervene and bring about regime change, using military force if necessary, because of its
presumed leadership role in global security, not because Caracas or even Pyongyang necessarily
is threatening anyone. That presumption that American "exceptionalism" provides authorization to
intervene in other countries using economic weapons backed up by a military option that is "on
the table" is a viewpoint that is not accepted by the rest of the world.
In the case of Venezuela, where Trump has dangerously demanded that Russia withdraw the hundred
or so advisors that it sent to help stabilize the country, the supposition that the United States
has exclusive extra-territorial rights is largely based on nineteenth and early twentieth century
unilaterally declared "doctrines."
The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the Roosevelt Corollary
of 1904 de facto established the United States as the hegemon-presumptive for the entire Western
Hemisphere, stretching from the Arctic Circle in the north to Patagonia in the south.
John Bolton has been the leader in
promoting
the Monroe Doctrine
as justification for Washington's interference in Venezuela's politics,
apparently only dimly aware that the Doctrine, which opposed any attempts by European powers to
establish new colonies in the Western Hemisphere, was only in effect for twenty-two years when the
United States itself annexed Texas and then went to war with Mexico in the following year
I spent last week at Angelo State University in remote central Texas as a panelist for the
annual All-Volunteer Force (AVF)
Forum . It was a strange forum in many ways, but nonetheless instructive. I was the
youngest (and most progressive) member, as well as the lowest-ranking veteran among a group of
leaders and speakers that included two retired generals, the chief of staff to
former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a few former colonels and several academics. Despite
having remarkably diverse life experiences and political opinions, all concluded that America's
all-volunteer military is not equitable, efficient or sustainable. The inconvenient truth each
of the panel participants had the courage to identify is that the end of the draft in the U.S.
had many unintended -- and ultimately tragic -- consequences for the republic.
... ... ...
Wildly Inefficient
Contrary to early optimistic promises, the U.S. military since 1973 sports a poor efficiency
record . Especially since 9/11 -- the real first test of the new system -- American armed
forces have produced exactly zero victories. Prior to the World Trade Center attack, it can be
argued that a much larger AVF crushed Saddam Hussein's poorly led and equipped Iraqi army in
1991, but it's important to remember that that war was an anomaly -- Saddam's troops fought us
in an open desert, without any air support, and according to the conventional tactics the U.S.
military had been training against for years. I also refuse to count the imperial punishments
inflicted on Panama (1989) and Grenada (1983) as victories, because neither was a necessary or
even a fair fight. Besides, the invasion of the tiny island of Grenada was more
fiasco than triumph .
Worst of all, the AVF is inefficient because it enables the militarization of U.S. foreign
policy, ensuring high costs and much wear and tear on equipment and personnel. The lack of a
draft means the loss of what the co-founder of the AVF Forum, retired Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich,
calls "skin in the game."
When the citizenry isn't subjected to the possibility of military service, it becomes
apathetic, ignores foreign affairs and fails to pressure Congress to check presidential war
powers. Without this check, president after president -- Democrats and Republicans -- have
centralized control of foreign affairs in what has resulted in increasingly imperial
presidencies . With its huge budget, professional flexibility and can-do attitude, the
military has become the primary -- in some ways, the only -- tool in America's arsenal as
presidents move living, breathing soldiers around the world like so many toy
soldiers.
Completely Unsustainable
The AVF could also bankrupt us, or, at the very least, crash the economy. Thanks to the
influence of the military-industrial complex and the militarization of foreign policy, U.S.
defense budgets have soared into the stratosphere. At present, America spends more than $700
billion on defense -- a figure greater than all domestic discretionary spending and larger than
the combined budgets of the next seven largest militaries . As
the Vietnam War should have taught us, skyrocketing military spending without concurrent tax
increases often results in not only massive debt but crippling inflation. After 18 years of
forever global war without any meaningful increase in taxation on the nation's top earners, get
ready for the next crash. Trying to stay a hegemon (a dubious proposition in the first place)
with rising deficits and a paralyzing national debt is a recipe for failure and, ultimately,
disaster.
As recent recruitment shortfalls show, getting volunteers may not be a sustainable certainty
either. This also increases costs -- the military has had to train more full-time recruiters,
pay cash bonuses for enlistment and retention, and hire extremely expensive civilian
contractors to fill in operational gaps overseas. Nor can the AVF count on getting the best and
brightest Americans in the long term. With elites opting out completely and fewer Americans
possessing the combination of capacity -- only 30 percent of the populace is
physically/mentally qualified for the military -- and propensity to serve, where will the
military find the foot soldiers and cyberwarriors it needs in the 21st century?
In sum, throughout this century the U.S. military has won zero wars, achieved few, if any,
"national goals" and cost Americans $5.9 trillion tax dollars, more than 7,000 troop deaths,
and tens of thousands more wounded soldiers. It has cost the world 480,000 direct war-related deaths , including
244,000 civilians, and created 21 million refugees. Talk about unsustainable.
An
Unpopular Proposal
At the recent forum, Laich proposed an alternative to the current volunteer system. To
ensure fairness, efficiency and sustainability, the U.S. could create a lottery system (with no
college or other elite deferments) that gives draftees three options :
serve two years on active duty right after high school,
serve six years in the reserves,
or go straight to college and enroll in the ROTC program .
Additionally, this lottery would apply to both men and women, and would require only one
combat deployment from each reservist. Whether or not one agrees with this idea, it would
create a more egalitarian, representative, affordable and sustainable national defense tool.
Furthermore, with the children of bankers, doctors, lawyers and members of Congress subject to
service, the government might think twice before embarking on the next foolish, unwinnable
military venture.
Few Americans, however, are likely to be comfortable delegating the power of conscription to
a federal government they inherently distrust. Still, paradoxically, the move toward a
no-deferment, equitable lottery draft might result in a nation less prone to militarism and
adventurism than the optional AVF has. Parents whose children are subject to military service,
as well as young adults themselves, might prove to be canny students of foreign policy who
would actively oppose the next American war. Imagine that: an engaged citizenry that holds its
legislators accountable and subsequently hits the streets to oppose unnecessary and unethical
war. Ironic as it may seem, more military service may actually be the only workable formula for
less war. Too bad returning to a citizens' military is as unpopular as it is unlikely.
"The king said
that the plan was dangerous and not simple to implement, in particular the part relating to the
land swaps in Tzofar, a moshav in the Arava desert, and Naharayim, where Jordan conquered in 1948
the Island of Peace and a hydroelectric power-plant that belonged to Israel.
According to the
Trump proposal, Jordan would receive from Saudi Arabia an area equal in size to these territories
which Israel would reacquire.
In addition, Jordan has been asked to take in a million
"Palestinian" refugees in several stages, in return for $45 billion in investments.
Jordan's
entire GDP is only $40 billion. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states will finance these
investments."
Jewish Press
--------------
The full "good deal of the century" will evidently be
revealed after the Israeli election. Pieces of the "good deal of the century" have previously
been revealed. The move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem has been followed by endless Palestinian
waves of self immolation along the Gaza "dead line." This will continue indefinitely unless the Beebster or his successor decide to re-occupy Gaza to stop Palestinian rockets reaching Tel Aviv.
Now, that would be a spectacle.
Another piece of "The Kushner Plan" was the cession by the US of
the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to Israel. The justification for this was that the Israelis
hold it by force of arms. Syria, of, course does not accept the US transfer of title deed to part
of its territory. These two things are typical of Trump's NY City real estate methodology. In his
mind he is systematically taking points of contention off "the bargaining table" so that he can
"close" over what's left. This latest "offer" made to Jordan is part of what is left.
Perhaps
some savant can explain what the various parts of this "partial good deal" mean. " A million
Palestinians?" Where would they come from? Would they be round up for transportation to The East?
Saudi Arabia would transfer land to Jordan? Where? On the Gulf of Akabah coast near Tabuk?
Really?
The Saudis and Gulfies would cough up $45 billion for investments in Jordan? To do what?
Tourism? Really?
And who would own these enterprises? Lebanon will give its citizenship to the
hordes of Palestinian descended people who inhabit the country? They have firmly resisted this
for decades. Explain all this, someone. pl
Would King Abdullah accept any of Kushner's offers? He knows that at best Kushner will be
around for another 6 years. What happens after? Recent history (past 50 years) shows that the
US can't be trusted in any deal.
According to people I talk with in Israel, when Israel takes over the West Bank the
Palestinians would not be offerred Israeli Citizenship or national voting rights. The theory
is Israel is not annexing the West Bank but just acting as a Civil Administrator. A semantic
justification but Israel would have total control over the West Bank and it's people.
"Would they be round up for transportation to The East?"
Well that would be the irony to end all ironies; the sight of Jews rounding up millions of
citizens, whom the Israeli Reich considers it is better off without. Whoops, forgot we are
not supposed to make comparisons with the folk whose own Deal of the Century was aimed at
bringing about their ethnically pure state.
Colonel, I wonder, how is this brazen collusion with Zionists likely to go down with the
regular people of the Gulf states. Have MbS' bread and forthcoming circuses replaced all
solidarity with the Ummah, or might we see some resistance to this planned grand betrayal of
the Palestinians?
Why would KSA give some of its land to Jordan? Why would "Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states"
finance those "investments"? I don't understand what's in this for SA and the Gulfies.
We might recall that the King of Jordan, heir to the Hashemite kingdom, asserted his
historical claim and authority over the two holy cities (Mecca and Medina) and a good part of
western Saudi Arabia. His declaration to the world came about at the same time as Saddam
overran Kuwait and was preparing to take the Northestern Province of Saudi Arabia and the
oilfiields there. So the current 'deal of the century' would lay to rest those claims,
leaving S.A. with control of the holy cities. The price would be paying off Jordan with
billions and giving them some, but not nearly all the land they had claimed and now
controlled by Saudi Arabia.
It gets better. Looks like an attempt to ensure that Syria can never get its land back.
Striking when Syria is weak. Not sure how the other Arabs will react, if at all.
Via Middle East Monitor,
Israel is planning to settle some 250,000 settlers in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights
over the next 30 years, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA) revealed yesterday.
Money quote: "Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots
that the West is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets
should be built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion.
But the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like
the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union. "
Notable quotes:
"... Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative. The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international organizations. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act, in my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally. ..."
"... There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent investigator or judge. ..."
In 2016, Andrei Lvovich Nekrasov, a well-known Russian film-maker, playwright, theater director, and actor, released a docudrama
entitled, The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes . Although the film won many artistic accolades, including a special commendation
from the Prix Europa Award for a Television Documentary, public screenings were abruptly canceled in both Europe and the United States.
Political pressure from various constituents and the threat of lawsuits from William Browder, the American-British billionaire and
human-rights activist, ensured the limitation of the film to a single website. To the knowledge of this author, there has been only
one public screening of The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes in the United States. In June 2016, Seymour Hersch, a renowned investigative
journalist, presided over a showing of the film at the Newseum in Washington, DC, that generated much controversy. The American press
has not been kind to either the film or the director, Andrei Nekrasov. The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker,
and The Daily Beast all seem to agree that the film is an overt work of Russian propaganda that aims to introduce confusion
about the circumstances leading to the death of tax accountant, Sergei Magnitsky, in the minds of the viewers. The Putin administration,
which has been the prime target of both the 2012 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Accountability Act and the 2016 Global Magnitsky Human
Rights Accountability Act, has good reason to promote a film that questions the circumstances surrounding Magnitsky's untimely death
in Moscow's Butyrka Prison in 2009.
Despite a flood of persuasive articles and editorials by well-known journalists suggesting that this inconvenient film deserves
no more than a quick burial, I was drawn to reconsider both the film and the political controversy that it continues to create for
two main reasons. First, as the collapse of the Soviet Union and our own recent presidential campaigns show, we can never entirely
prohibit the intrusion of propaganda or politically slanted content into the public sphere. Instead, as a historian and faculty member
who serves at a public university, I believe that it is my job to teach our students how to diagnose an issue, and how to consider
the many sides that a story necessarily involves. As an intellectual process this has immense value both in and of itself. Source
criticism is a time tested and reliable means through which we can make sense of an event or a phenomenon. Our students need to learn
both the mechanics and the intellectual value of analyzing a source and should be able to evaluate the nature of political content
whether it is embedded in a Facebook post, a scholarly article, or a documentary.
The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes can serve as an important vehicle to introduce the contested nature of historical
truth, and as a prism, it allows us to view the multiple modes through which various versions of the truth are disseminated in the
twenty-first century. Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a
real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating
analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative.
The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's
death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary.
Second, I am concerned by the fact that both critics and supporters have turned the debate about the film into a referendum on
William Browder, his business dealings as well as his global human rights activism, and the Putin administration. In this interview
with Andrei Nekrasov, I turn the spotlight back on the film-maker, his motivations for making the film, and on his political experiences
since the release of the film. It is important to remember that in the past Nekrasov has made several politically charged films including
Disbelief (2004), and Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File (2007) -- films that are extremely critical of the
Putin administration. Nekrasov, a student of philosophy and literature, is in the unique position of having experienced censorship
in the Soviet Union, Putin's Russia, and in the democratic countries of Western Europe and the United States.
1) Why did you want to make a film about the Magnitsky Act? What drew you to this project?
Andrei Nekrasov : I felt that the story of Magnitsky, in its accepted version, was very powerful and important. I thought that
Sergei Magnitsky was a hero, and I wanted to tell the story of the modern hero, my compatriot. His case seemed very special because
Magnitsky, a tax lawyer (in reality, an accountant) had come from the world of capitalism, to symbolize all that is good and moral
in modern Russia. I believed that Magnitsky did not surrender under torture and sacrificed his life fighting corruption.
2) Who has funded the making of this film and what motivated them to invest in this production?
AN : The film was produced by Piraya Film, a Norwegian company. There is a long list of funders, and none are from Russia. (Please
visit www.magnitskyact.com for further information). And they are all
very "mainstream." I believe in the United States and Russia it is easier to construe the specific reasons that motivate funders,
who are mostly private, to support a project. In Europe, where more public money is available for the arts, the state is more or
less obliged to fund the cultural process. So I submit an idea to a producer, and if they like it, they introduce it into a complex
system of funding that is supposed to be politically neutral. Only quality matters, in theory. In practice "quality" has political
aspects, and its interpretation is open to prejudices.
But it would be a simplification to say the film was funded because I had set out to tell Browder's version of the Magnitsky case.
Those funders who were (through their commissioning editors) monitoring the editing process, ZDF/ARTE, for example, became aware
of the inconsistencies in Browder's version and supported my investigation into the truth. What they did not realize was who, and
what, we were all dealing with. They did not realize that Browder was supported by the entire political system of North America and
Western Europe. They realized that only when they were told by politicians to stop the film. And they obeyed, contrary to what I
thought was their principles.
3) How has the role of censorship, both in Russia and the West, affected your artistic career?
AN : Censorship has had a very strong and damaging impact on my career. But while censorship in Russia had never been something
surprising to me, the way that the film T he Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes was treated by western politicians was totally
unanticipated and shocking. Yet, intellectually, the experience was very illuminating. The pro-Western intelligentsia of Russia,
a class to which I have belonged, idolizes the West and believes that the freedom of expression is an essential and even intrinsic
part of Western culture. The notion that the interests of economically powerful groups can set a geopolitical agenda and that easily
overrides democratic freedom of expression is considered to be a remnant of Soviet era thinking. So I had to have a direct and personal
experience of Western censorship to realize that that notion is rooted in reality.
The issue of censorship in Russia is, on the other hand, often misunderstood in the West. There is no direct political censorship
of the kind that existed in the Soviet Union, and that possibly exists in countries like China today. Many popular Russian news outlets
are critical of the government, and of Putin personally as evidenced by the content in media outlets such as Ekho Moskvy, Novaya
Gazeta, Dozhd TV, New Times, Vedomosti, Colta. ru, and others. The internet is full of mockery of Putin, his ministers and of
his party's representatives. There is neither a system nor the kind of wellresourced deep state structures that control the flow
of information. Many Russian media outlets, for example, repeat Browder's story of Magnitsky killed by the corrupt police with the
state covering it up. All that is perfectly "allowed" while Putin angrily condemns Browder as a criminal and Browder calls himself
Putin's number one enemy. In reality, it is not allowed but simply happens because of the lack of consistent political censorship.
However, you will hardly ever hear a proper analysis and criticism in the Russian media of the big corporations, and of the oligarchs
that make up the state. It is also true that such acute crises as military operations, such as Russian-Georgian war of 2008 produce
intolerance to the voices of the opposition. My film Russian Lessons (2008) about the suffering of the Georgians during that
short war and its aftermath wasbanned in Russia. But nationalism is not only a government policy. It's the prevailing mood. The supposedly
democratic leader of the opposition, that the West seems to praise and support, Alexei Navalny, was on the record insulting Georgians
in jingo-nationalistic posts during the war. The film industry is, of course, easier to steer in the "right direction" as films,
unlike articles and essays, are very expensive to produce. But Russia is a complex society, deeply troubled, but also misunderstood
by the West. If my films, such as Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File , and Russian Lessons (2010) were attacked
by pro-government media, then some of my articles were censored by the independent, "opposition" outlets, such as Ekho Moskvy
.
4) Did you actually begin filming the movie with an outcome of supporting Browder's story in mind, as you represent in the
film, or did you plan from the start of the filming process to end the film as it now stands?
AN : I started filming the story. I totally believed in the story that Browder had told me, and all the mainstream media repeated
after him.
5) You know that there are many more "disappeared" journalists and others listed in the formal US Congress Magnitsky Act
who have suffered from the effects of corrupt power in Russia. Why did you not address the fates of some of those others as well
in your film?
AN : I may be misunderstanding this question, but I do not see how addressing the fates of "disappeared" journalists and others'
would be relevant to the topic of my film in its final version. I obviously condemn the "disappearance" of journalists and others.
In Russia journalists disappear usually by being "simply" shot (not in "sophisticated" Saudi ways), and as far as I remember only
one is referred to in The Magnitsky Act , Paul Khlebnikov. He was the editor of Forbes, Russia , and was shot in 2004
when Bill Browder was a great fan of Vladimir Putin and continued to be for some time. I have not seen any evidence or even claim,
that Putin may have been behind that murder. I was a friend of Anna Politkovskaya, perhaps the most famous of all Russian journalists
who was assassinated in the recent past. She is featured in my film, Poisoned by Polonium .
The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a
fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally
sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international
organizations.
6) Does William Browder's role in the formulation of the Magnitsky Act invalidate its value and that of the Global
Magnitsky Act, in seeking to provide protection for those suffering from the effects of deadly and corrupt power such as the recently
deceased Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi?
AN : Let me, for the argument's sake, pose myself what would seem like a version of your question: "Would Browder's role in creating
a weapon that could protect someone like Khashoggi from deadly and corrupt power invalidate that weapon?" My answer would be, no,
it would not invalidate that weapon. However, we are dealing with a fallacy here, in my humble opinion. The Magnitsky Act, in
my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of
Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was
he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never
mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people
named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen
and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights
of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent
investigator or judge.
Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots that the West
is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets should be
built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion. But
the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like
the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union.
Choi Chatterjee is a Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles. Chatterjee, along with Steven Marks,
Mary Neuberger, and Steve Sabol, edited The Wider Arc of Revolution in three volumes (Slavica Publishers).
Money quote: "Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots
that the West is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets
should be built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion.
But the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like
the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union. "
Notable quotes:
"... Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative. The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international organizations. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act, in my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally. ..."
"... There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent investigator or judge. ..."
In 2016, Andrei Lvovich Nekrasov, a well-known Russian film-maker, playwright, theater director, and actor, released a docudrama
entitled, The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes . Although the film won many artistic accolades, including a special commendation
from the Prix Europa Award for a Television Documentary, public screenings were abruptly canceled in both Europe and the United States.
Political pressure from various constituents and the threat of lawsuits from William Browder, the American-British billionaire and
human-rights activist, ensured the limitation of the film to a single website. To the knowledge of this author, there has been only
one public screening of The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes in the United States. In June 2016, Seymour Hersch, a renowned investigative
journalist, presided over a showing of the film at the Newseum in Washington, DC, that generated much controversy. The American press
has not been kind to either the film or the director, Andrei Nekrasov. The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker,
and The Daily Beast all seem to agree that the film is an overt work of Russian propaganda that aims to introduce confusion
about the circumstances leading to the death of tax accountant, Sergei Magnitsky, in the minds of the viewers. The Putin administration,
which has been the prime target of both the 2012 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Accountability Act and the 2016 Global Magnitsky Human
Rights Accountability Act, has good reason to promote a film that questions the circumstances surrounding Magnitsky's untimely death
in Moscow's Butyrka Prison in 2009.
Despite a flood of persuasive articles and editorials by well-known journalists suggesting that this inconvenient film deserves
no more than a quick burial, I was drawn to reconsider both the film and the political controversy that it continues to create for
two main reasons. First, as the collapse of the Soviet Union and our own recent presidential campaigns show, we can never entirely
prohibit the intrusion of propaganda or politically slanted content into the public sphere. Instead, as a historian and faculty member
who serves at a public university, I believe that it is my job to teach our students how to diagnose an issue, and how to consider
the many sides that a story necessarily involves. As an intellectual process this has immense value both in and of itself. Source
criticism is a time tested and reliable means through which we can make sense of an event or a phenomenon. Our students need to learn
both the mechanics and the intellectual value of analyzing a source and should be able to evaluate the nature of political content
whether it is embedded in a Facebook post, a scholarly article, or a documentary.
The Magnitsky Act -- Behind the Scenes can serve as an important vehicle to introduce the contested nature of historical
truth, and as a prism, it allows us to view the multiple modes through which various versions of the truth are disseminated in the
twenty-first century. Taught in tandem with William Browder's book Red Notice , this film can provide students with a
real-life experience in the practice of critical thinking. The film also allows us to revive a discussion of Hayden White's penetrating
analysis of the ways in which the structure of the form necessarily influences the content of any artistic or historical narrative.
The vehicle of the docudrama that Nekrasov uses in his film, and the competing narratives about the circumstances leading to Magnitsky's
death, merit literary and intellectual analysis, along with geopolitical commentary.
Second, I am concerned by the fact that both critics and supporters have turned the debate about the film into a referendum on
William Browder, his business dealings as well as his global human rights activism, and the Putin administration. In this interview
with Andrei Nekrasov, I turn the spotlight back on the film-maker, his motivations for making the film, and on his political experiences
since the release of the film. It is important to remember that in the past Nekrasov has made several politically charged films including
Disbelief (2004), and Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File (2007) -- films that are extremely critical of the
Putin administration. Nekrasov, a student of philosophy and literature, is in the unique position of having experienced censorship
in the Soviet Union, Putin's Russia, and in the democratic countries of Western Europe and the United States.
1) Why did you want to make a film about the Magnitsky Act? What drew you to this project?
Andrei Nekrasov : I felt that the story of Magnitsky, in its accepted version, was very powerful and important. I thought that
Sergei Magnitsky was a hero, and I wanted to tell the story of the modern hero, my compatriot. His case seemed very special because
Magnitsky, a tax lawyer (in reality, an accountant) had come from the world of capitalism, to symbolize all that is good and moral
in modern Russia. I believed that Magnitsky did not surrender under torture and sacrificed his life fighting corruption.
2) Who has funded the making of this film and what motivated them to invest in this production?
AN : The film was produced by Piraya Film, a Norwegian company. There is a long list of funders, and none are from Russia. (Please
visit www.magnitskyact.com for further information). And they are all
very "mainstream." I believe in the United States and Russia it is easier to construe the specific reasons that motivate funders,
who are mostly private, to support a project. In Europe, where more public money is available for the arts, the state is more or
less obliged to fund the cultural process. So I submit an idea to a producer, and if they like it, they introduce it into a complex
system of funding that is supposed to be politically neutral. Only quality matters, in theory. In practice "quality" has political
aspects, and its interpretation is open to prejudices.
But it would be a simplification to say the film was funded because I had set out to tell Browder's version of the Magnitsky case.
Those funders who were (through their commissioning editors) monitoring the editing process, ZDF/ARTE, for example, became aware
of the inconsistencies in Browder's version and supported my investigation into the truth. What they did not realize was who, and
what, we were all dealing with. They did not realize that Browder was supported by the entire political system of North America and
Western Europe. They realized that only when they were told by politicians to stop the film. And they obeyed, contrary to what I
thought was their principles.
3) How has the role of censorship, both in Russia and the West, affected your artistic career?
AN : Censorship has had a very strong and damaging impact on my career. But while censorship in Russia had never been something
surprising to me, the way that the film T he Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes was treated by western politicians was totally
unanticipated and shocking. Yet, intellectually, the experience was very illuminating. The pro-Western intelligentsia of Russia,
a class to which I have belonged, idolizes the West and believes that the freedom of expression is an essential and even intrinsic
part of Western culture. The notion that the interests of economically powerful groups can set a geopolitical agenda and that easily
overrides democratic freedom of expression is considered to be a remnant of Soviet era thinking. So I had to have a direct and personal
experience of Western censorship to realize that that notion is rooted in reality.
The issue of censorship in Russia is, on the other hand, often misunderstood in the West. There is no direct political censorship
of the kind that existed in the Soviet Union, and that possibly exists in countries like China today. Many popular Russian news outlets
are critical of the government, and of Putin personally as evidenced by the content in media outlets such as Ekho Moskvy, Novaya
Gazeta, Dozhd TV, New Times, Vedomosti, Colta. ru, and others. The internet is full of mockery of Putin, his ministers and of
his party's representatives. There is neither a system nor the kind of wellresourced deep state structures that control the flow
of information. Many Russian media outlets, for example, repeat Browder's story of Magnitsky killed by the corrupt police with the
state covering it up. All that is perfectly "allowed" while Putin angrily condemns Browder as a criminal and Browder calls himself
Putin's number one enemy. In reality, it is not allowed but simply happens because of the lack of consistent political censorship.
However, you will hardly ever hear a proper analysis and criticism in the Russian media of the big corporations, and of the oligarchs
that make up the state. It is also true that such acute crises as military operations, such as Russian-Georgian war of 2008 produce
intolerance to the voices of the opposition. My film Russian Lessons (2008) about the suffering of the Georgians during that
short war and its aftermath wasbanned in Russia. But nationalism is not only a government policy. It's the prevailing mood. The supposedly
democratic leader of the opposition, that the West seems to praise and support, Alexei Navalny, was on the record insulting Georgians
in jingo-nationalistic posts during the war. The film industry is, of course, easier to steer in the "right direction" as films,
unlike articles and essays, are very expensive to produce. But Russia is a complex society, deeply troubled, but also misunderstood
by the West. If my films, such as Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File , and Russian Lessons (2010) were attacked
by pro-government media, then some of my articles were censored by the independent, "opposition" outlets, such as Ekho Moskvy
.
4) Did you actually begin filming the movie with an outcome of supporting Browder's story in mind, as you represent in the
film, or did you plan from the start of the filming process to end the film as it now stands?
AN : I started filming the story. I totally believed in the story that Browder had told me, and all the mainstream media repeated
after him.
5) You know that there are many more "disappeared" journalists and others listed in the formal US Congress Magnitsky Act
who have suffered from the effects of corrupt power in Russia. Why did you not address the fates of some of those others as well
in your film?
AN : I may be misunderstanding this question, but I do not see how addressing the fates of "disappeared" journalists and others'
would be relevant to the topic of my film in its final version. I obviously condemn the "disappearance" of journalists and others.
In Russia journalists disappear usually by being "simply" shot (not in "sophisticated" Saudi ways), and as far as I remember only
one is referred to in The Magnitsky Act , Paul Khlebnikov. He was the editor of Forbes, Russia , and was shot in 2004
when Bill Browder was a great fan of Vladimir Putin and continued to be for some time. I have not seen any evidence or even claim,
that Putin may have been behind that murder. I was a friend of Anna Politkovskaya, perhaps the most famous of all Russian journalists
who was assassinated in the recent past. She is featured in my film, Poisoned by Polonium .
The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes is about the ways in which the notion of human rights is sometimes used as a
fake alibi for white-collar crimes. Though I explore just one case, I think that I have managed to show that those ways are exceptionally
sophisticated and efficient, and enlist all the major media, civil society, NGOs, governments, parliaments, and major international
organizations.
6) Does William Browder's role in the formulation of the Magnitsky Act invalidate its value and that of the Global
Magnitsky Act, in seeking to provide protection for those suffering from the effects of deadly and corrupt power such as the recently
deceased Saudi Arabian journalist, Jamal Khashoggi?
AN : Let me, for the argument's sake, pose myself what would seem like a version of your question: "Would Browder's role in creating
a weapon that could protect someone like Khashoggi from deadly and corrupt power invalidate that weapon?" My answer would be, no,
it would not invalidate that weapon. However, we are dealing with a fallacy here, in my humble opinion. The Magnitsky Act, in
my view, is not a weapon that can protect people. The Magnitsky Act was designed to punish those deemed murderers and torturers of
Magnitsky. Well, if my film demonstrates that Magnitsky was not murdered (by the people Browder claims he was murdered by), nor was
he tortured, the Magnitsky Act is nonsensical. You cannot punish someone for something that did not happen. Can you then say, never
mind, human rights violations happen, and it's good to have a mechanism to punish violators even if there's no evidence that people
named as violators are guilty? I don't think one can say "never mind". Neither legally, nor, morally.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the government of the United States conducted independent investigations of the policemen
and the judges who were supposedly involved in the death of Magnitsky. And no one seems to be concerned of course about the rights
of those on the Magnitsky list, who can't even reply to the accusations, let alone have the accusations verified by an independent
investigator or judge.
Instead of protecting people, the Magnitsky case helps the "bad guys" to demonstrate to their Russian compatriots that the West
is rotten to the core, its policies are created by compliant stooges (lying thieves and useful idiots), and more rockets should be
built to confront America's injustice towards Russia and others. A lie can never really protect anyone, in my humble opinion. But
the problem is worse. It turns human rights into a hypocritical ideology to protect the interests of the powers that be, a bit like
the slogans about brotherhood and justice in the Soviet Union.
Choi Chatterjee is a Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles. Chatterjee, along with Steven Marks,
Mary Neuberger, and Steve Sabol, edited The Wider Arc of Revolution in three volumes (Slavica Publishers).
Am grateful for your noble stand and having written: " and we know who US support,
Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra, etc."
For your information, come Monday, PreZident t-Rump plans to lie & dangerously declare
Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. (Zigh) Doing so, no doubt, will provoke NSA
Director Boltom to experience an orgasm in his Wall Mart suit pants.
Nonetheless, linked below is a Counterpunch article where William Collins described going
to Iran along with colleagues on a peace mission. A fellow suffered a heart problem, and
entered an Iranian hospital where he was treated successfully. Nonetheless, when it came time
to use his health care plan to pay the bill, Mr. Collins learned the claim was refused
because such transaction (obligation) would violate ZUS economic sanctions!
Am grateful for your noble stand and having written: " and we know who US support,
Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Al-Nusra, etc."
For your information, come Monday, PreZident t-Rump plans to lie & dangerously declare
Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. (Zigh) Doing so, no doubt, will provoke NSA
Director Boltom to experience an orgasm in his Wall Mart suit pants.
Nonetheless, linked below is a Counterpunch article where William Collins described going
to Iran along with colleagues on a peace mission. A fellow suffered a heart problem, and
entered an Iranian hospital where he was treated successfully. Nonetheless, when it came time
to use his health care plan to pay the bill, Mr. Collins learned the claim was refused
because such transaction (obligation) would violate ZUS economic sanctions!
"... US President John Bolton is a disaster for our country. This is going to end bad. ..."
"... Adelson/Bolton/Netanyahu Remember Israel is in bed with Saudi Arabia. Don Corleone Trump is just their puppet. ..."
"... Well let's get ready for another 20 year war trying to bring "Democracy" or fighting "Terrorists" which will be paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Lets just open up the check book now and write one out to John Bolton so it can save everybody time. ..."
"... Trump drained the swamp and put the worst swamp creatures in his administration. ..."
It always ends up with the middle east. Adelson/Bolton/Netanyahu Remember Israel is in bed with Saudi Arabia. Don Corleone
Trump is just their puppet.
Obama made so many enemies in the world, and then we get this cult in DC. Who are hell bent on supremacy of the world. Batshit
crazy times we're witnessing.
Well let's get ready for another 20 year war trying to bring "Democracy" or fighting "Terrorists" which will be paid for
with U.S. tax dollars. Lets just open up the check book now and write one out to John Bolton so it can save everybody time.
Looks like Trump is a tenant of House of Bolton, not the owner of the White House ;-)
It always ends up with Adelson/Bolton/Netanyahu. Looks like Adelson is a new Don Corleone Trump is just their puppet.
Ilhan is right and DC is ZOGGED!
Notable quotes:
"... How is it that President Trump's national security advisor John Bolton seems to actually be running things and even over-riding his boss's foreign policy? ..."
"... It is similar to the role played by Bolton's ideological comrades in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war: Keep control of the president and make sure he sees nothing that contradicts what is your desired policy: ..."
How is it that President Trump's national security advisor John Bolton seems to actually be running things and even over-riding
his boss's foreign policy?
As RPI Director Daniel McAdams tells Rick Sanchez of RT America, it's because he's frozen everyone else from the intelligence
and national security community out and insists on controlling all information that gets to the president.
It is similar to the role played by Bolton's ideological comrades in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war: Keep control of the
president and make sure he sees nothing that contradicts what is your desired policy:
Fred - I don't think it's going to go away that easily. This is the BBC web site today, again
keeping alive much the same theme as your man of courage. We're moving on from whether Trump
was a Russian agent to whether Trump deliberately attempted to stop us finding out whether he
was a Russian agent -
"But Mr Mueller declined to draw a conclusion on whether Mr Trump had obstructed
justice, saying only that the president could not be exonerated.
Attorney General Barr, who was appointed by the president, concluded in his summary of
the report that there was not enough evidence to determine if the president had committed the
offence."
So it's too useful a theme to be let go entirely, and fits with the general suspicion of
Russian interference.
It's a difficult one, that. Looking at the Integrity Initiative and 77 Brigade it's clear
that information warfare at all levels - academia, the media, on down to the little
subsidized web sites and right on down to the individuals who are paid to insert comments on
social media - is now regarded in England as an integral part of Intelligence work.
Presumably everyone else is doing it too so why not the Russians? But to trace the huge
political movements of our time back to Moscow, as if they were due to sinister Russians
cleverly playing us via social media and other propaganda outlets, seems to me to be grossly
overdone. After all, if it were that easy it would have worked for the West too. Iran would
now be another Syria and Syria long since gone.
No, even the most ardent Russophobes on our side of the Atlantic might have to admit
sometimes that the reason we're screwed up in Europe at present is that we've screwed
ourselves up. We are not uniformly happy prosperous peoples who would continue to be
uniformly happy and prosperous were it not for Moscow. So it must be in the States.
Even so, the Russians are still the get-out for many. On English web sites "Putin done it"
surfaces regularly as the reason for us voting Brexit. There were suggestions that he had
stirred up the Yellow Vests in France. The Italians are sometimes viewed with suspicion for
the same reason.
And I got caught up in an unusual traffic hold-up just this morning. I can't prove to you
it was the Russians. But can you prove to me it wasn't?
"... This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else. ..."
"Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as
European. That's why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean,
a community referred to by Russian experts as 'the Union of Europe' which will strengthen Russia's potential in its economic pivot
toward the 'New Asia.'" Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, February 2012
The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that
Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles
across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim.
The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political
establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony.
Try to imagine for a minute, that the hacking claims were not part of a sinister plan by Vladimir Putin "to sow discord and division"
in the United States, but were conjured up to create an external threat that would justify an aggressive response from Washington.
That's what Russiagate is really all about.
US policymakers and their allies in the military and Intelligence agencies, know that relations with Russia are bound to get increasingly
confrontational, mainly because Washington is determined to pursue its ambitious "pivot" to Asia plan. This new regional strategy
focuses on "strengthening bilateral security alliances, expanding trade and investment, and forging a broad-based military presence."
In short, the US is determined to maintain its global supremacy by establishing military outposts across Eurasia, continuing to tighten
the noose around Russia and China, and reinforcing its position as the dominant player in the most populous and prosperous region
in the world. The plan was first presented in its skeletal form by the architect of Washington's plan to rule the world, Zbigniew
Brzezinski. Here's how Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor summed it up in his 1997 magnum opus, The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives:
"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia (p.30) .. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically
axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions.
. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its
enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's
known energy resources." ("The Grand Chessboard:American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives", Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic
Books, page 31, 1997)
14 years after those words were written, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took up the banner of imperial expansion and
demanded a dramatic shift in US foreign policy that would focus primarily on increasing America's military footprint in Asia. It
was Clinton who first coined the term "pivot" in a speech she delivered in 2010 titled "America's Pacific Century". Here's an excerpt
from the speech:
"As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot
point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be
smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership,
secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will
therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific
region
Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge
technology ..American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia The region already generates more than
half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama's goal of doubling exports by 2015,
we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia and our investment opportunities in Asia's dynamic markets."
("America's Pacific Century", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton", Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)
The pivot strategy is not some trifling rehash of the 19th century "Great Game" promoted by think-tank fantasists and conspiracy
theorists. It is Washington's premier foreign policy doctrine, a 'rebalancing' theory that focuses on increasing US military and
diplomatic presence across the Asian landmass. Naturally, NATO's ominous troop movements on Russia's western flank and Washington's
provocative naval operations in the South China Sea have sent up red flags in Moscow and Beijing. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao
summed it up like this:
"The United States has strengthened its military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthened the US-Japan military
alliance, strengthened strategic cooperation with India, improved relations with Vietnam, inveigled Pakistan, established a pro-American
government in Afghanistan, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and so on. They have extended outposts and placed pressure points on
us from the east, south, and west."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been equally critical of Washington's erratic behavior. NATO's eastward expansion has convinced
Putin that the US will continue to be a disruptive force on the continent for the foreseeable future. Both leaders worry that Washington's
relentless provocations will lead to an unexpected clash that will end in war.
Even so, the political class has fully embraced the pivot strategy as a last-gasp attempt to roll back the clock to the post war
era when the world's industrial centers were in ruins and America was the only game in town. Now the center of gravity has shifted
from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and
gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening
rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred
and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end.
Washington has many ways of dealing with its enemies, but none of these strategies have dampened the growth of its competitors
in the east. China is poised to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy sometime in the next 2 decades while Russia's intervention
in Syria has rolled back Washington's plan to topple Bashar al Assad and consolidate its grip on the resource-rich Middle East. That
plan has now collapsed forcing US policymakers to scrap the War on Terror altogether and switch to a "great power competition" which
acknowledges that the US can no longer unilaterally impose its will wherever it goes. Challenges to America's dominance are emerging
everywhere particularly in the region where the US hopes to reign supreme, Asia.
This is why the entire national security state now stands foursquare behind the improbable pivot plan. It's a desperate "Hail
Mary" attempt to preserve the decaying unipolar world order.
What does that mean in practical terms?
It means that the White House (the National Security Strategy) the Pentagon (National Defense Strategy) and the Intelligence Community
(The Worldwide Threat Assessment) have all drawn up their own respective analyses of the biggest threats the US currently faces.
Naturally, Russia is at the very top of those lists. Russia has derailed Washington's proxy war in Syria, frustrated US attempts
to establish itself across Central Asia, and strengthened ties with the EU hoping to "create a harmonious community of economies
from Lisbon to Vladivostok." (Putin)
Keep in mind, the US does not feel threatened by the possibility of a Russian attack, but by Russia's ability to thwart Washington's
grandiose imperial ambitions in Asia.
As we noted, the National Security Strategy (NSS) is a statutorily mandated document produced by the White House that explains
how the President intends to implement his national security vision. Not surprisingly, the document's main focus is Russia and China.
Here's an excerpt:
"China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They
are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress
their societies and expand their influence." (Neither Russia nor China are attempting to erode American security and prosperity."
They are merely growing their economies and expanding their markets. If US corporations reinvested their capital into factories,
employee training and R and D instead of stock buybacks and executive compensation, then they would be better able to complete globally.)
Here's more: "Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries
around the world." (This is a case of the 'pot calling the kettle black.')
"Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries
target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data." (The western media behemoth is the biggest disinformation
bullhorn the world has ever seen. RT and Sputnik don't hold a candle to the ginormous MSM 'Wurlitzer' that controls the cable news
stations, the newspapers and most of the print media. The Mueller Report proves beyond a doubt that the politically-motivated nonsense
one reads in the media is neither reliably sourced nor trustworthy.)
The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community is even more explicit in its attacks on Russia. Check it out:
"Threats to US national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively
compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners . We assess that Moscow will continue pursuing
a range of objectives to expand its reach, including undermining the US-led liberal international order, dividing Western political
and security institutions, demonstrating Russia's ability to shape global issues, and bolstering Putin's domestic legitimacy.
We assess that Moscow has heightened confidence, based on its success in helping restore the Asad regime's territorial control
in Syria, ·Russia seeks to boost its military presence and political influence in the Mediterranean and Red Seas mediate conflicts,
including engaging in the Middle East Peace Process and Afghanistan reconciliation .
Russia will continue pressing Central Asia's leaders to support Russian-led economic and security initiatives and reduce engagement
with Washington. Russia and China are likely to intensify efforts to build influence in Europe at the expense of US interests
" ("The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community",
USG )
Notice how the Intelligence Community summary does not suggest that Russia poses an imminent military threat to the US, only that
Russia has restored order in Syria, strengthened ties with China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East,
and used the free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The IC appears to find fault
with Russia because it is using the system the US created to better advantage than the US. This is entirely understandable given
Putin's determination to draw Europe and Asia closer together through a region-wide economic integration plan. Here's Putin:
"We must consider more extensive cooperation in the energy sphere, up to and including the formation of a common European energy
complex. The Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea and the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea are important steps
in that direction. These projects have the support of many governments and involve major European energy companies. Once the pipelines
start operating at full capacity, Europe will have a reliable and flexible gas-supply system that does not depend on the political
whims of any nation. This will strengthen the continent's energy security not only in form but in substance. This is particularly
relevant in the light of the decision of some European states to reduce or renounce nuclear energy."
The gas pipelines and high-speed rail are the arteries that will bind the continents together and strengthen the new EU-Asia superstate.
This is Washington's greatest nightmare, a massive, thriving free trade zone beyond its reach and not subject to its rules. In 2012,
Hillary Clinton acknowledged this new threat and promised to do everything in her power to destroy it. Check out this excerpt:
"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described efforts to promote greater economic integration in Eurasia as "a move to
re-Sovietize the region." . "We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it,"
she said at an international conference in Dublin on December 6, 2012, Radio Free Europe."
"Slow down or prevent it"?
Why? Because EU-Asia growth and prosperity will put pressure on US debt markets, US corporate interests, US (ballooning) national
debt, and the US Dollar? Is that why Hillary is so committed to sabotaging Putin's economic integration plan?
Indeed, it is. Washington wants to block progress and prosperity in the east in order to extend the lifespan of a doddering and
thoroughly-bankrupt state that is presently $22 trillion in the red but continues to write checks on an overdrawn account.
But Russia shouldn't be blamed for Washington's profligate behavior, that's not Putin's fault. Moscow is merely using the free
market system more effectively that the US.
Now consider the Pentagon's 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) which reiterates many of the same themes as the other two documents.
"Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We
are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order -- creating a
security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition,
not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security."
(Naturally, the "security environment" is going to be more challenging when 'regime change' is the cornerstone of one's foreign
policy. Of course, the NDS glosses over that sad fact. Here's more:)
"Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions
of its neighbors ..(Baloney. Russia has been a force for stability in Syria and Ukraine. If Obama had his way, Syria would have wound
up like Iraq, a hellish wastelands occupied by foreign mercenaries. Is that how the Pentagon measures success?) Here's more:
"China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model
"China and Russia are now undermining the international order from within the system .
Get the picture? China and Russia, China and Russia, China and Russia. Bad, bad, bad.
Why? Because they are successfully implementing their own development model which is NOT programed to favor US financial institutions
and corporations. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. The only reason Russia and China are a threat to the "rules-based system",
is because Washington insists on being the only one who makes the rules. That's why foreign leaders are no longer falling in line,
because it's not a fair system.
These assessments represent the prevailing opinion of senior-level policymakers across the spectrum. (The White House, the Pentagon
and the Intelligence Community) The USG is unanimous in its judgement that a harsher more combative approach is needed to deal with
Russia and China. Foreign policy elites want to put the nation on the path to more confrontation, more conflict and more war. At
the same time, none of these three documents suggest that Russia has any intention of launching an attack on the United States. The
greatest concern is the effect that emerging competitors will have on Washington's provocative plan for military and economic expansion,
the threat that Russia and China pose to America's tenuous grip on global power. It is that fear that drives US foreign policy.
And this is broader context into which we must fit the Russia investigation. The reason the Russia hacking furor has been allowed
to flourish and spread despite the obvious lack of any supporting evidence, is because the vilifying of Russia segues perfectly with
the geopolitical interests of elites in the government. The USG now works collaboratively with the media to influence public attitudes
on issues that are important to the powerful foreign policy establishment. The ostensible goal of these psychological operations
(PSYOP) is to selectively use information on "audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately
the behavior of organizations, groups, and individuals."
The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and
perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the
The emerging Euro-Asian power block is very heterogeneous. Russia, China, and the smaller affiliated players like Central Asia,
Iran, Syria, Turkey don't agree on almost anything. They have different cultures, religions, economies, demographic profiles,
even writing systems. The most rational strategy to prevent the Euro-Asian block from consolidating would be to get them to fight
each other. Alternatively, find the weakest link and attack it in an area where its reluctant allies don't share its interests.
Exactly the opposite has happened in the last 5-10 years: US has seemingly worked overtime to get China-Russia alliance of
the ground. They used to distrust each other, today, after Ukraine, South China See, etc they have become close allies. Same with
Iran and Syria: instead of letting them stew in their own internal problems – mostly religious and having a nepotistic elite –
US has managed to turn the fight into an external geo-political struggle, literally invited Russia to join in, and ended up losing.
Bush turned Iraq from a fanatically anti-Iran bastion to a reliable ally of Iran and started an un-winnable land war in Afghanistan
(incredible!). Obama turned Libya, the richest and most stable African country that threatened no-one and kept African migrants
far away, into a chaotic hellhole where slave trade flourishes and millions of Sub-Saharan Africans can use it to move on to Europe.
Then Obama tried to coup-de-etat Erdogan in Turkey, and – even worse – failed miserably. This gang can't shoot straight
– whatever they put in their position papers is meaningless drivel because they are too stupid to think. They have no patience
to wait for the right time to move, no ability to manage on the ground allies, and an aversion to casualties that makes winning
a war impossible. Today Trump threatens Germany over its energy security (pipelines), further antagonises Turkey and Erdogan,
watches helplessly as EU becomes the next UN (lame and irrelevant), and bets everything on a few small allies like Saudi Arabia
and Izrael that are of almost no use in Euro-Asia.
A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that ' maybe I had bad information ' is no master of the universe.
And he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or ' information warfare ' – is
a pathetic sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.
the russophobia is just drama to keep the MIC spending at $700+ billion per year
there is no way to justify that level of spending and pretend they don't have $25 billion one time to actually help solve the
real problem for the U.S.
"The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes
and perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the battlespace" which they must exploit in order to build public support for their
vastly unpopular wars and interventions. "
Here is a short guide on how to detect subversion of the mind by the media and their handlers by a former military intelligence
officer.
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing
"Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an "realist"
and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation
of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".
Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki himself
proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American Primacy".
Recognizing this however one can't escape the conclusion that this "Grand Chessboard" with its consistent 'amoral realist imperatives'
is serving up inherently immoral 'imperatives' as inescapable options dressed up in academic language and with absolutely abhorrent
arrogance.
Stating that Brennan's Russophobia is somehow a degeneration of Brzezinki's "Grand Chessboard" is completely overlooking how
difficult it would be to outdo Brzezinki's own total moral degeneration.
One has to recognize that by now the only bipartisan aspect of US policy can be found in sharing these despicable and immoral
'imperatives' to maintain that "American Primacy" at all cost (of course to the rest of the world).
"The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that
Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its
tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda,
but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire
Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony."
TRUE!
I would suggest that the initials 'US' in the final sentence be changed to: Anglo-Zionist Empire.
"Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants
in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn
the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging,
and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle
Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end."
Just like the Brit Empire – of which the Yank Empire is merely Part 2, the part where it becomes obvious that it is the Anglo-Zionist
Empire, which, like a band of screeching Pharisees standing on the walls of Jerusalem hurling curses at the Romans they inform
that Jehovah will soon wipe out all Romans to save His Chosen Race, would choose utter destruction for all over any common sense
backing down to prevent mass slaughter.
Nothing harmed US more than Brzezinski's ideology. US did build up far east with their investments, while neglecting their own
backyard. US should have build up rather North and South America and make it the envy of the world. Neglecting particularly South
America now created Desperate south American people, who have no jobs and no future and these people are now invading US.
A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that 'maybe I had bad information' is no master of the universe. And
he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or 'information warfare' – is a pathetic
sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.
Testosterone plus steady, unrelenting decline and corruption of American "elites" most of who have no background in any fields
related to actual effective governance especially in national security (military) and diplomatic fields. Zbig's book is also nothing
more than doctrine-mongering based on complete lack of understanding of Russian history.
Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki
himself proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American
Primacy".
Zbig was a political "scientist" (which is not a science) by education, fact aggravated by his Russophobia, and thus inability
to grasp fundamentals of military power and warfare–a defining characteristic of American "elites". He, obviously, missed on the
military-technological development of 1970s through 1990s, to arrive to the inevitable conclusion that classic "geopolitics" doesn't
apply anymore. Today we all can observe how it doesn't apply and is made obsolete.
(Jan.1998) US history – "How Jimmy Carter I Started the Mujahideen" – Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor 1977-1981
"Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services
began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security
adviser to President Carter.
Zbigniew Brzezinski Taliban Pakistan Afghanistan pep talk 1979
In 1979 Carters National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski went into Pakistans border regions with Afghanistan to give
a little pep talk to some prospective majehadeen (Holy Warriors). In a 1997 interview for CNN's Cold War Series, Brzezinski hinted
about the Carter Administration's proactive Afghanistan policy before the Soviet invasion in 1979, that he had conceived.
@DESERT FOX Why was it that the Brit Empire kept acting throughout the later 18th, the 19th and early 20th centuries to harm
Russia, even when it technically was allied with Russia? Why the Crimean War, for example?
Why, for example, was Brit secret service all over the assassination of Rasputin and tied in multiple ways to most non-Marxist
revolutionary groups?
This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by
any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks
total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else.
@anon Like the Ukranians, the 'Balts' virtually always are controlled by somebody else. When Russia does not control the Baltic
states, they are controlled by either Poles or Germans. Russians know what that means: the Baltic states are then used as weapons
to attack Russia.
The region is much calmer when Russia controls the Baltic states, and that is before taking into consideration how the Polish-Lithuanian
Empire turned its Jews lose to terrorize all Orthodox Christians and how Germanic states later used Lutheranism as a force in
the Baltics to ignite war with Russia and, under the queer Frederick the Great also used Jewish bankers to finance wars against
Russia.
The best defense, the saying goes, is a good offense.
The key orchestrators of the Big Trump-Russia Collusion Lie seem to have hewed tightly to that tactical advice.
Over the past two years, one of their biggest "tells" has been their hyper-aggressive and gratuitous attacks on the president.
Given that special counsel Robert Mueller 's
investigation found no collusion or obstruction of justice, their constant broadsides now look, in retrospect, like calculated pre-emptive
strikes to deflect attention and culpability away from themselves.
By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves
were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.
We now know that former FBI
Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew
McCabe, are hip-deep in the conspiracy. Both wrote supposed "tell-all" books and carpet-bombed the media with interviews in which
they regularly flung criminal accusations against the president. Whenever asked about their own roles, they reverted to denouncing
Mr. Trump .
With Mr. Mueller 's findings,
Mr. Comey 's and Mr. McCabe's media benders look
increasingly suspicious.
As do those of their comrades in the Obama national security apparatus, including former Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper and his partner in possible crime, former
CIA Director
John Brennan , who, apart from former President
Barack Obama himself, may be the biggest player
of them all.
Any investigation into the origins and execution of the Big Lie must focus on Mr.
Brennan , whose job as the nation's chief spook
would have prohibited him, by law, from engaging in any domestic political spy games.
Of course, the law didn't stop him from illegally spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee by hacking into its computers and
lying repeatedly about it, prompting Democratic senators to call for his resignation.
Once out of Langley, Mr. Brennan tore into
Mr. Trump, accusing him of "treason" (among other crimes) in countless television appearances and bitter tweets. It got so vicious
that Mr. Trump pulled his security clearance.
Consider a few critical data points.
The Obama Department of Justice and
FBI targeting of two low-level
Trump aides, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, was carried out in the spring of 2016 because they wanted to spy on the Trump campaign
but needed a way in. They enlisted an American academic and shadowy
FBI informant named Stefan
Halper to repeatedly sidle up to both Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Page. But complementing his work for the
FBI , Mr. Halper had a side
gig as an intelligence operative with longstanding ties to the
CIA and British intelligence
MI6.
Another foreign professor, Joseph Mifsud, who played an important early part in targeting Papadopoulos, also had abiding ties
to the CIA , MI6
and the British foreign secretary.
A third operative, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, targeted Mr. Papadopoulos in a London bar. It was Mr. Downer's "tip"
to the FBI that provided the
justification for the start of Russia counterintelligence investigation, complete with fraudulently-obtained FISA warrants to spy
on the Trump campaign.
All of these interactions reek of entrapment. Mr. Papadopoulos now says, "I believe Australian and UK intelligence were involved
in an active operation to target Trump and his associates." Like Mr. Halper and Mr. Mifsud, Mr. Downer had ties to the
CIA , MI6 and (surprise!)
the Clintons.
Given the deep intelligence backgrounds of these folks, it's difficult to believe that former DOJ/
FBI officials such as Peter
Strzok or even James Comey and Andrew McCabe
on their own devised the plan to deploy them.
So: who did? How did the relationships with Messrs. Halper, Mifsud and Downer come about? Who suggested them for these tasks?
To whom did they report? How were they compensated?
Any investigation must follow the money -- and the personnel. There were plenty of DOJ/
FBI officials involved, but
what about intelligence officials? Was Mr. Brennan
a central player in the hoax, which would help explain the participation of Mr. Halper, Mr. Mifsud and Mr. Downer? Intel officials
are likely to draw on other intelligence operatives.
There is also a glimpse of a paper trail.
Fox News' Catherine Herridge reported last week that "in a Dec. 12, 2016 text, [
FBI lawyer Lisa] Page wrote
to McCabe: "Btw, Clapper told Pete that he was meeting with
Brennan and Cohen for dinner tonight. Just
FYSA [for your situational awareness ]."
"Within a minute, McCabe replied, "OK."
Ms. Herridge notes that those named are likely Peter Strzok and
Mr. Brennan 's then-deputy, David Cohen. Ms. Herridge
also notes that while we don't yet know what was discussed during the dinner, government sources thought it "irregular" for Mr. Clapper
to be in contact with the more junior-level Mr. Strzok. She also points out that the text came "during a critical time for the Russia
probe."
Indeed. It was right before the publication of the ICA, the official Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian 2016 election
interference.
As Paul Sperry has reported, "A source close to the House investigation said
Brennan himself selected the
CIA and
FBI analysts who worked on
the ICA, and that they included former
FBI counterespionage chief
Peter Strzok.
"Strzok was the intermediary between Brennan
and Comey , and he was one of the authors
of the ICA," according to the source." Recall that the dossier-based ICA was briefed to
Obama , Trump and Congress ahead of Trump's
inauguration.
Post- Mueller report,
Mr. Brennan is spinning wildly that perhaps his
early condemnations of Mr. Trump were based on
"bad information."
These are just some of the threads suggesting Mr.
Brennan may be one of the Masters of the Big Lie, requiring full investigation.
If the devil is in the details, Mr. Brennan
is all over the details.
No wonder he -- and his fellow caballers -- have been so loud. They doth protest too much.
By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves
were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.
Hillary setup a unsecured server and had confidential government information on it, including 20 emails with Obama suspiciously
using an alias. If you're in law enforcement, and get a tip that Papadopolous may get some of those emails from Russians, what
crime has been committed by Papadopolous? Isn't Papadopolous doing the US a favor by obtaining those emails from those who hacked
her server?
If you believe Hillary that her server wasn't hacked (and you don't have any evidence because Obama's people allowed practically
all the evidence to be destroyed) then there's no reason to investigate Papadopolous. If you think Hillary's server was hacked,
shouldn't you be investigating her and examining her server to see who hacked her and what damage was done, such as blackmailing
her and Obama into appeasement and flexibility, like selling 20% of the US's uranium reserves to Russians just before an election?
John Brennan, James Clapper, Strozk, Ohr, Page were only some of Obama's political pythons operating in the jungle of Washington.
Obama orchestrated a symphony of harmful actions that will take the US a generation to recover from. That is if Obama's criminal
actions can be undone and then we get to recover.
So Trump took Adelson money and completely lost his independence, became Bolton marionette. He betrayed all major point of
his election campaign.
Notable quotes:
"... The fact is, the neo conservative "Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well. ..."
"... Adelson's only concern, by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo, another one of Adelson's boys. ..."
"... Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit. ..."
"... it turns out that Politico published a big piece , last Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White House. ..."
"... According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation. ..."
"... After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner. ..."
"... The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army. ..."
"... He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House. Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements. ..."
"... Adelson is a long time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million. ..."
"... It was Bolton, Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather, to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did. ..."
"... Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror," said Senator Ted Cruz. ..."
"... Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete nonsense," Haley said (is it, realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom." ..."
"... It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a direct line to the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a close relationship. ..."
"... Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton, writing in Lobelog, yesterday, argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016, they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money. By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent seat at the inauguration ceremony. ..."
"... "Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write. ..."
"... Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and Pompeo. ..."
"... According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real." ..."
"... "To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program." ..."
"... On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. ..."
"... Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. ..."
"... Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership, have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran as almost a moral obligation. ..."
"... Ha'aretz's sources say, however, that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done." ..."
"... If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing new. Gareth Porter, in an article that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested ..."
"... Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003. ..."
"... This is one dangerous pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this sort of thing. ..."
A review of publicly available reporting that I have accumulated in my files over the past two years would suggest that John Bolton's
boss is really Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino king who has plied the Republican Party with tens of millions of dollars in
largesse in order to remake it in his image. This conclusion is irrespective of what you might think of Trump himself and whether
or not you believe he really meant it when he said there should be no more regime change wars. The fact is, the neo conservative
"Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective
prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also
on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't
improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well.
Bolton's history goes back to the Reagan Administration in the 1980's, and his perfidy during the runup to the Iraq invasion is
well known to this readership. What I focus on here is the period from January of 2017 through mid-2018, around the time of his appointment
to be Trump's national security advisor, plus a couple of months, during which period a number of interesting reports were posted
on Trump's lobbying of the White House to get an administration position and his sponsorship by Adelson. Adelson's only concern,
by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran
if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson
is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo,
another one of Adelson's boys.
What follows is a time line of summaries of news stories covering the period above in the form that I wrote them at the time with
the dates over each one of them. It's not meant to be comprehensive–there's undoubtedly a great deal of insight still to be gained
on how deeply these neo-con networks have actually penetrated the administration–and the news reports the summaries are based on
likely vary in their quality. I hope anyone with such deeper insights will post them in the comments section.
Appended at the end of the time line is a short report on Richard Goldberg, the Z-lobby activist who Bolton brought onto the NSC
in January to be his "Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit.
1) John Bolton: A Timeline for 2017-2018
Feb. 19, 2017
AP circulated a
wire , yesterday, reporting that Trump was interviewing candidates for the National Security Advisor position at his estate
in Florida. The names mention were Cheneyac John Bolton (who, if I remember correctly, was already rejected by the Trump administration
for a State Department job) and LTG H.R. McMaster, according to one unnamed White House official. Another had said that Trump
had been interested in David Petraeus but that Petraeus was not a finalist for the position. Picking Bolton would be shear lunacy,
but McMaster is highly interesting. McMaster wrote a famous book about the Vietnam war in which he documented that practically
everybody in the military leadership, and especially Maxwell Taylor lied about Vietnam and, like Mattis, he has a history of being
a harsh critic of the RMA. I'll have more to say about him if he gets the job.
May 10, 2017
Bloomberg's Eli Lake, in a
column posted on Monday, described what amounts to a factional war inside the White House, with Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus
on one side and H.R. McMaster on the other. Trump himself is said to have blasted McMaster for his phone conversation with his
South Korean counterpart during which he assured him that Trump didn't really mean it when he said that South Korea should pay
for the THAAD deployment. "McMaster's allies and adversaries inside the White House tell me that Trump is disillusioned with him,"
Lake writes. "This professional military officer has failed to read the president -- by not giving him a chance to ask questions
during briefings, at times even lecturing Trump."
According to Lake's sources (and I'm wondering if they might, in fact, be Bannon and Priebus, or people close to them), Trump
has complained in front of McMaster in intelligence briefings about "the general undermining my policy." They say Trump has privately
expressed regret for choosing McMaster and even called in neo-con John Bolton to talk being McMaster's deputy, an idea which was
ultimately dropped.
Oct. 17, 2017
Nikki Haley told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that it's the administration's hope that America stays with the Iran nuclear
deal if Congress takes action to keep it together. "I think right now you are going to see us stay in the deal," she said. "What
we hope is that we can improve the situation," she added. "And that's the goal. So I think right now, we're in the deal to see
how we can make it better. And that's the goal. It's not that we're getting out of the deal. We're just trying to make the situation
better so that the American people feel safer." The NBC
press report doesn't report whether or not she explained how the JCPOA is going to be made better when all of the other parties
agree that it's not up for renegotiation. They note, however, that Haley was one of the few voices in the Trump administration
to encourage the president to declare Iran in violation. It's well known that both Tillerson and Mattis opposed decertification,
with Mattis telling the Senate Armed Services Committee, two weeks ago, that it was in the US interest to stay in the agreement.
I didn't come across this until yesterday afternoon, but it turns out that Politico published a
big piece , last
Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White
House. At the other end of the channel is John Bolton, who even is able to get Trump on the phone himself from time to time, despite
John Kelly's efforts to obstruct him.
According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could
pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling
from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further
explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation.
The article otherwise goes into great depth on how Haley is at odds with most of the rest of the administration on Iran, particularly
Tillerson, her nominal boss and who is reported to have strenuously objected to her trip to Vienna in August to put pressure on
the IAEA to demand inspection of military sites in Iran. One White House official described the escalating tensions between Tillerson
and Haley as reaching "World War III" proportions. Two weeks after the Vienna trip, Haley appeared at the AEI in Washington where
she publicly floated what became the parameters of the policy that Trump announced on Friday. "The purpose of the AEI speech was
to figure out, 'Is this gonna work? Does this thread that needle?'" one official said. After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The
Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly
transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner.
Asked about the Politico report on Sunday, Haley said "That is just so much drama. I mean, it's really, it's all this palace
intrigue."
Anti-neocon activist and former US Air Force analyst Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski
told Sputnik that
she believes that Trump was mislead by fake intelligence. "I suspect that Mr. Trump is being fed information regarding Iran as
a nation and as a government that is cherry-picked and creatively elaborated, largely outside of intelligence channels, by his
neoconservative advisers," she said. She noted despite Trump's 2016 promise to "drain the swamp" of discredited foreign policy
interventionists, many of them have managed to weasel their way back into government service. "This faction has always slated
the destruction of Iran as a regional power for several decades now, and if they have the ear of the President, there is never
a better time than the present to press their case," she said. She insisted, however, that neither Trump himself, nor the U.S.
military is determined on war against Iran.
Oct. 24, 2017
According to VOA (at any rate), there's a big fight in Washington over the future of U.S. adherence to the JCPOA. Lunatic Lindsey
Graham fully supports the policy that Trump announced on Oct 13 (no surprise there), while the French armed forces minister, Florence
Parly, who was in Washington, last week, supports the agreement. "We need the JCPOA," she
said during an appearance at
CSIS on Friday. "Scrapping it would be a gift to Iran's hardliners and a first step towards future wars." Tim Kaine, who has leading
an effort in the Senate to write a new war authorization, echoed her. "If you weaken diplomacy, you raise the risk of unnecessary
war, and that's what this president is doing. If we take a step back from the deal, Iran will take a step back. And what will
they ask for, that they get to now increase centrifuges or get some of their enriched uranium back? I do not want to give Iran
one thing back from this deal," said Kaine.
But, if you believe Graham, Iran will be let loose from the deal in 15 years (some people say 10 or even 8 years) to enrich
as much uranium as it wants. This ignores the fact that Iran will still be a member of the NPT and will be subject to its additional
protocol. Top Iranian officials have said that if the US sabotages the JCPOA, Iran will make appropriate decisions in response,
but they won't be building bombs.
The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an
op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran
and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need
to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army.
"Rapidly increased pressure against Iran's role as the world's central banker
of international terrorism, stressed in Trump's Oct. 13 speech, cannot come fast enough," he goes on. And, of course, European
commercial relations with Iran are not to be tolerated. Othewise, "Tehran will rightly conclude the United States is really not
serious about confronting their threat to us and our allies. That is the legacy of the Obama administration. It should not also
be the legacy of the Trump administration." Nobody wants to rush the country headlong into disastrous faster then the neo-cons.
Oct. 26, 2017
Gareth Porter, in an
article that was posted on Oct. 20 (but that I didn't come across until yesterday) on the American Conservative, reports that
the new policy that Trump announced on Oct. 13 not only "clearly represents a dangerous rejection of diplomacy in favor of confrontation"
but also marks "a major shift toward a much closer alignment of U.S. policy with that of the Israeli government of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu." "Whether explicitly or not, Trump's vow to work with Congress to renegotiate the Iran nuclear agreement,
and his explicit threat to withdraw from the deal if no renegotiation takes place, appear to be satisfying the hardline demands
Netanyahu has made of Washington's policy toward Tehran," Porter writes. Those demands being either US withdrawal from the JCPOA
altogether, or demanding changes in it that cannot be attained.
Porter goes deeper into the conduits for this policy into the White House than a Politico article I reported on earlier that
came out at about the same time. He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House.
Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements.
He also delves deeper into the significance of Sheldon Adelson than the Politico report did, noting that Adelson is a long
time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million.
"Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in Washington -- especially with regard to Iran," Porter notes,
adding that in 2013, Adelson openly called for the nuclear intimidation of Iran. In the next few paragraphs, Porter provides a
thumbnail sketch of the history of the neo-cons in order to highlight the role of John Bolton in all of this. It was Bolton,
Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on
nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather,
to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying
that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did.
Jan. 3, 2018
The protests in Iran may have started spontaneously in anger at economic conditions, and/or at the instigation of Rouhani's
rival Raisi and his father -in-law in Mashad, but the evidence that they're being, at the very least, encouraged from the outside
is growing. Unnamed Trump Administration officials
told
the Washington Free Beacon that both Trump and Pence are watching the protests very closely and the officials said they are working
to ensure that Trump does not miss an opportunity to incubate a possible revolution that could topple Iran's hardline ruling regime.
"With the world watching growing demonstrations across Iran, the Trump administration sees an opportunity to feed the growing
protests," the Free Beacon reports, something that they and the neo-cons say that Obama failed to do in 2009, when protests erupted
against Ahmedinijad's re-election. "The Trump administration's strong and vocal support for the demonstrators is a 180 from the
Obama administration's approach and it's signaling to Tehran that this will not be a repeat of the 2009 demonstrations," the administration
official said.
The regime change cheerleader from outside the administration is, not surprisingly, John Bolton. During an appearance on "Fox
and Friends" on Monday, Bolton
argued
that these protests are different than the post-election protests in Iran in 2009, which questioned the legitimacy of the election
of then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and who should lead the regime. "These protests are about whether the regime survives
or not, and that makes them much more threatening to the ayatollahs, much more dangerous, and raises the stakes considerably,"
Bolton said. He called on Trump to end the nuclear deal, re-impose previous sanctions and impose new ones that increase the economic
pressure on Iran and provide material support to opposition forces. "There's a lot we can do to, and we should do it," Bolton
said. "Our goal should be regime change in Iran."
Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want
freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror,"
said Senator Ted Cruz.
"Iranians are looking toward America to support their struggle," Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, urging the White House to continue condemning the
regime, and follow up with "sanctions targeting corruption and human-rights abuses."
Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship
is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete
nonsense," Haley
said (is it,
realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom."
March 10, 2018
John Bolton has been snooping around the White House. CNN
reported on Wednesday,
that Trump met with him at the White House, suggesting that he may be under consideration as an "outside expert" to help the State
Department manage the North Korea portfolio. CNN says that Bolton argues that a pre-emptive strike on North Korea would not only
be legal but also effective at curbing the threat.
On Tuesday, Bolton
told Fox News that "The only thing North Korea is serious about is getting deliverable nuclear weapons." Bolton said direct
and indirect talks with North Korea have occurred for the last 25 years and never end up successful. He said if a new round of
talks begins, North Korea will possess a deliverable nuclear weapon by the end of the year. So, Bolton obviously believes that
the past determines the future.
The Washington Post, in the above cited article, reports that Christopher Hill, who was on Capitol Hill this week to talk about
North Korea, said that he face "withing attacks" from conservative Republicans when he was engaged in the six-party talks in 2005.
"People like John Bolton said I was a traitor for talking to the North Koreans," Hill said in an interview. The Post then reports
that Bolton offered conditioned praise for Trump, saying Friday that he expected the president to deliver a warning about U.S.
willingness to use military force.
Daniel Davis, in an
op-ed in Fox News, argues that Trump goes ahead with announced plans to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, he would
open the door to potentially solving our nuclear dispute with the Communist nation short of war. This is a far better course that
listening to the calls from some to give up on diplomacy and use military force against the North. The "some" include Bolton who
has been making the case for a preventive military strike against North Korea. "If such a U.S. strike were ordered, it would have
catastrophic consequences for us. Far from ensuring our safety, it would impose egregious levels of casualties on U.S. forces
and American civilians [not to mention Koreans who would make up the bulk of casualties -cjo], and harm – not help – our security
and our prosperity," Davis writes.
March 23, 2018
You've all seen the headlines by now. I'm not going to say a lot about it. The punditry is that it means more aggressive US
policies towards both Iran and North Korea. It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a
direct line to
the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a
close relationship. The
suggestion in the press coverage is that Bolton is more likely to tell Trump what he wants to hear, particularly on Iran,
but we probably shouldn't automatically assume that Trump wants to go to war as badly as Bolton does.
March 25, 2018
Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton,
writing in Lobelog, yesterday,
argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016,
they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money.
By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands
to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent
seat at the inauguration ceremony.
"Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that
Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies,
as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write.
"One month later, Adelson used his own newspaper, The Las Vegas Review Journal, to express his frustration with Trump's failure
to quickly redeem his promise to move the embassy. Two months after that, Trump reversed a half century of U.S. policy by formally
recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. According to Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury, Steve Bannon credited Adelson for
Trump's decision."
Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made
the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to
keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and
Pompeo. Ands Bolton, like Adelson, has long favored a "military solution" to the Iran nuclear problem. In 2013, Adelson posted
an op-ed in his newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, calling for the nuclear bombing of Iran, first in some uninhabited area
of the country to send Iran's leaders "a message" and if that didn't work, a second bombing of Tehran itself (this of course,
would be a war crime in the first degree). Bolton, himself, in an op-ed two years later, held up the Israeli bombing of Iraq's
Osirak reactor as the model for what the US should (as was later documented by a Norwegian researcher who's name I don't recall,
the bombing of Osirak did not end Saddam's Hussein's nuclear bomb program. Rather, it forced it underground and out of sight,
as UN weapons inspectors discovered in the 1990's after Gulf War I).
March 31, 2018
Journalist Whitney Webb,
writing Mintpress News, finds Bolton's appointment as Trump's national security advisor, to be particularly dangerous. Webb
puts Bolton's appointment in the context of those of Pompeo to be secretary of state and Gina Haspell to run the CIA, but finds
Bolton the most dangerous of the three, "due to his bellicose rhetoric, unilateral decision-making, and his "kiss up, kick down"
style of interaction with superiors and colleagues, allowing him to be remarkably effective in getting his way."
Webb's purpose is to explore what Bolton's appointment means for US national security policy and he begins with Bolton's deep
ties to Israel–ties "so deep that some have posited that his commitment to extreme Zionism has led him to betray the national
interest of his own country on more than one occasion." Webb cites a number of examples of this, which add up to Bolton pursuing
his own warmongering policy against Iran even when the administration he was nominally working for had the opposite policy. Bolton
has pressured Israeli officials to attack Iran even when calling for such an attack was not the U.S. government's position.
According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which
Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real."
May 8, 2018
Trump tweeted yesterday that he would be announcing his decision on Iran today at 2 PM. The Washington Post, citing the usual
gaggle of unnamed officials, US and foreign,
reports that he is expected to say that he will not continue a waiver of sanctions against Iran. Exactly what this means is
not at all clear. Trump is not expected to renege on the nuclear deal altogether. Instead, the Post says, he will address a portion
of the wide range of sanctions that were waived when the deal was first implemented, while leaving in limbo other waivers that
are due in July. As for what comes next, Boris Johnson said that as far as he knows, the administration has no clear "Plan B"
for what's to follow. The affected sanctions, the Post notes, not only impose restrictions on US trade with Iran but also threaten
pther countries that buy Iranian oil. Officials, who spoke to the Post about the upcoming announcement on the condition of anonymity,
suggested that Trump will use the threat of further measures as leverage on both the Europeans and Iran itself.
As has been too often the case, we may be seeing Trump and his advisors expressing two different policies on Iran. Rudy Giuliani,
Trump's newest lawyer, delivered remarks to meeting of something called the Iran Freedom Convention for Democracy and Human Rights,
during which he advocated regime change in Tehran. "We have a president who is tough," Giuliani is reported to have said. "We
have a president who is as committed to regime change as we are." Confronting Iran, he added, is "more important than an Israeli-Palestinian
deal." He also
predicted
the end of the nuclear deal. "What do you think is going to happen to that agreement!" Giuliani said of the deal, before taking
a piece of paper in his hands and pretending to rip it apart.
The State Department immediately dismissed Giuliani's remarks. "He speaks for himself and not on behalf of the administration
on foreign policy," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told The Associated Press on Monday. The Hill further
noted that U.S. officials were alarmed by Giuliani's comments and said they weren't consistent with the White House's policy.
This is confirmed by another
report in the Washington Post. "But if regime change is on the agenda, Trump has been far more circumspect about how it would
happen," writes the Post's Ishaan Tharoor. "Dethroning the mullahs would likely involve waging war against Iran, a prospect at
odds with his own stated desire to withdraw from Syria and disentangle the United States from a generation of costly conflicts
in the Middle East." Tharoor goes on to tie the regime change crowd, including Giuliani and Bolton directly to the MeK. The MeK,
Tharoor writes, was behind the event at which Giuliani spoke this weekend, "marking yet another episode in his long, cozy relationship
with the organization." Tharoor cites Politico reporting that the MeK has paid Giuliani "handsomely," to include not only appearances
before the group but also for lobbying to have it removed from the State Department's terror list, which was done in 2012.
Tharoor also cites Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter who was detained in Iran for a year-and-a-half, reporting that
the MeK is held with contempt by ordinary Iranians, who view the organization as a craven, treacherous outfit. "In the seven years
I lived in Iran, many people expressed criticism of the ruling establishment -- at great potential risk to themselves," noted
Rezaian. "In all that time, though, I never met a person who thought the MEK should, or could, present a viable alternative."
"To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For
the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared
to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program."
May 9, 2018
Before I get into the reactions following Trump's
speech of yesterday, I'll cover a few other details from what Trump announced.
The
memorandum that he signed after concluding his remarks states that the policy of the U.S. is "that Iran be denied a nuclear
weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles; that Iran's network and campaign of regional aggression be neutralized; to disrupt,
degrade, or deny the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its surrogates access to the resources that sustain their destabilizing
activities; and to counter Iran's aggressive development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities."
In addition to directing the Secretaries of State and Treasury to begin the process of reimposing the economic sanctions that
were waived as a result of the nuclear deal, it also directs the Secretary of Defense to "prepare to meet, swiftly and decisively,
all possible modes of Iranian aggression against the United States, our allies, and our partners. The Department of Defense shall
ensure that the United States develops and retains the means to stop Iran from developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon and related
delivery systems."
Trump's speech was shortly followed by a
press briefing by John Bolton. One of the matters that came up repeatedly was the question of regime change. The first question
was whether or not the administration was hoping that regime change would be part of addressing Iran's supposed malign activities.
"No," Bolton said. What Trump has said, he went on, "is that one of the fundamental criticisms that the President and others have
made to the deal is that it sought to address only a limited aspect of Iran's unacceptable behavior -- certainly a critical aspect
-- but not taking into account the fact this is, and has been for many years, the central banker of international terrorism."
Secondly, he was asked if this was a precursor for the U.S. putting boots on the ground in Iran. Anybody who believes that
"would be badly mistaken if that's what they thought," Bolton said.
Thirdly, a reporter asked Bolton if the administration was in contact with the MeK or other exile groups about a government
in exile. 'I'm not aware of any of that, and that's just not something that's ever come up," he said.
Bolton was then asked if the administration would support a regime change in Syria as well. "I think the President made clear
in his address a couple weeks ago when he announced the response to the Syrian chemical weapons attack, that the use of military
force there and our diplomatic responses was limited to the question of the use of weapons of mass destruction," he siad. He then
added that the real concern was Iran extending its influence through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon."
On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't
acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. "I think there are plenty of cases where
we're simply incapable of saying whether they're in compliance or not. There are others where I think they've clearly been in
violation," he said. "For example, their production of heavy water has repeatedly exceeded the limits permissible under the JCPOA.
They're almost in the heavy water production business. They sell excess to Oman. They've sold it to European countries. It's a
way of keeping the heavy water production facilities alive. They're warm. And that's part of the danger. And they have exceeded
the limits."
At the end of his speech, yesterday, Trump said that the future of Iran belongs to its people. At first, this sounded to me
like the preface to a call for regime change. What he said was this: "Iran's leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate
a new deal; they refuse. And that's fine. I'd probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is they are
going to want to make a new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people. When they do, I am ready,
willing, and able." A reporter asked Bolton if this meant that the US was ready tot alk to the Iranians from a position of strength.
He replied that what the administration is prepared to do, along with the Europeans and others, is "to talk about a much broader
deal addressing all of the aspects of Iran's conduct that we find objectionable. We're prepared to do that beginning right now."
May 21, 2018
If the New York Times is to be believed, Bolton is
bringing
with him, the same coterie of old neo-con cronies to work for him in the NSC that he's been surrounded by since his days in the
Reagan Administration in the 1980's. This includes Charles M. Kupperman, a former Reagan administration official and defense contracting
executive, who has come in as a temporary advisor. The list of those under consideration for positions in the NSC includes Frederick
H. Fleitz, Sarah Tinsley and David Wurmser. "Mr. Bolton's relationships with most of the associates date back decades, to his
days working in positions related to foreign policy in the Reagan administration. But he continued working with them in the dozen
years since he has been out of government, serving as an adviser to Mr. Wurmser's company, according to its website, while relying
on Mr. Kupperman, Ms. Tinsley and several other associates to help run a constellation of conservative political organizations
that he founded to advance his foreign policy views and political prospects," the Times reports. "The activity brought Mr. Bolton
into regular contact with some of the biggest donors on the right, while giving him a platform to explore his own possible presidential
campaign in 2016 and to be an advocate for confrontational strategies in dealing with Iran, North Korea and Russia."
The Times report is a little weak on the ideology of these folks, preferring instead to focus on Bolton's ethical lapses, but
can't avoid the matter entirely. Matthew C. Freedman, a long time associate who Bolton appointed to interview prospective hires,
Kupperman, Tinsley and another associate, Garrett Marquis, the Times reports further, were affiliated with a Bolton-led nonprofit,
the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, which aired ads in 2015 opposing the Iran nuclear deal. The Times also notes
Bolton's close relationship with Sheldon Adelson, whom the Times describes as "an influential hawk and supporter of Israel from
whom Mr. Bolton has sought assistance for his political ventures."
May 22, 2018
Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are
the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has
lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to
two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. "After investing so heavily in the
GOP in 2016, Adelson's decision to again donate tens of millions of dollars to Republican efforts to stay in power is a direct
consequence of how successfully Adelson has been able to influence U.S. policy since Trump and the GOP rode to victory in the
last election cycle," Webb writes. "Adelson's belief that Trump would be "good for Israel" was the main driver behind his decision
to spend more than $90 million on helping Trump and other Republicans win in the last election."
June 29, 2018
Mark Perry, in an article posted
in Foreign Policy, yesterday, posits that Mattis is waging a losing battle against Bolton over the question of war with Iran.
He reports that since his arrival at the White House, Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so
Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a
lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades
of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership,
have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton
and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran
as almost a moral obligation.
Mattis' concerns are shared by the senior military leadership. "We've been in the air and in combat since 1993," a senior retired
Air Force officer said, "and the wear and tear on the force has been considerable. The tempo has been crushing." Perry says this
is actually an understatement, given that 30 percent of Air Force aircraft are not "mission capable," in part because of huge
pilot shortfalls and a deterioration of military capability. The story is the same for the other services.
Then there's the military campaign itself. An air campaign could easily destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and its conventional
military forces, but what happens afterwards? As noted by several experts that Perry consulted, the end of the air campaign would
be the beginning of the war, not the end of it. There's no reason to expect that the government in Tehran would surrender and
it would be able to fight on with its considerable unconventional military capabilities, not only in the IRGC but its proxy forces
as well, such as Hezbollah.
In truth, the unease over any future conflict goes much deeper than these concerns, Perry notes, "and is seeded by what one
senior and influential military officer called 'an underlying anxiety that after 17 years of sprinkling the Middle East with corpses,
the U.S. is not any closer to a victory over terrorism now than it was on September 12.' It is this anxiety that undergirds military
doubts about going to war with Iran -- that the United States would be adding bodies to the pile and not much more." In other
words, it would be another forever war, only one that asborbs many times mor resources than even the ones we're in right now have
done.
July 2, 2018
Ha'aretz ran a
story , yesterday, very similar to the Mark Perry article I reported on last week, on the policy fight within the administration
over what to do about Iran. Officially, the administration is committed to diplomatic and economic pressure to bring Iran to the
negotiating table, where a new agreement should be constructed that would replace the JCPOA. Ha'aretz's sources say, however,
that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views
the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the
regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently
spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done."
Mattis, on the other hand, despite is long held animus towards Iran is skeptical of regime change. Mattis, the sources stated,
supports increasing pressure on Iran, but with the clear objective of bringing the Iranians back to the table for a better agreement
– one that would roll back their regional aggression. Pompeo is said to lie in between but is moving towards Mattis.
Ha'aretz also points to the influence of outside advisors like Rudy Giuliani–who recently addressed the annual conference of
the National Council of Resistance in Iran in Paris as–as a further factor in the uncertainty around Trump's policy. What Ha'aretz
doesn't mention, though, is the Russia factor and that what Trump ultimately decides to do could be determined in Helsinki on
July 16.
July 26, 2018
Fazel Hawramy, an independent journalist working in Iraqi Kurdistan,
reports in an article in Al Monitor, that the State Department is replacing the outgoing counsel general in Erbil with an
Iran expert by the name of Steven Fagin, the director of the Office of Iranian Affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Near
Eastern Affairs. As director of the Office of Iranian Affairs, which has several outposts around the world, including in Istanbul
and Dubai, Fagin was responsible for developing, coordinating, recommending and executing US policy on Iran, Hawramy reports.
Fagin's presence in Iraqi Kurdistan is significant given that the armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups fighting the Islamic
Republic are based in the region. Hawramy names the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), in particular, whose leader, Mustafa
Hijri, Fagin met with last month, when he was in Washington, by invitation from the Trump Administration, for a week long series
of meetings at various think tanks. Each side is said to be exploring the seriousness of the other.
The KDPI, it turns out, is a military organization that has a long history of staging attacks against the IRGC in Iran. The
KDPI has also stepped up efforts to establish an entity through which all the Kurdish parties can coordinate their efforts against
Tehran. Meanwhile, on July 21, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, announced the killing
of 15 Iranian soldiers near the town of Marivan, close to the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. No mention is made of how much support
these groups might have among Iranian Kurds, however. They may not be any more viable than the MeK, except for making trouble
of course.
If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing
new. Gareth Porter, in an
article
that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively
for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested. Bolton may find history repeating itself, with Trump resisting
his plan for regime change, just as Bush did in 2003, Porter writes. In the week before Porter's article came out, Bolton denied
that the administration policy for Iran was regime change, despite the pullout from the JCPOA. "I've written and said a lot of
things when I was a complete free agent. I certainly stand by what I said at the time, but those were my opinions then. The circumstance
I'm in now is I'm the national security adviser to the president. I'm not the national security decision-maker," he told CNN's
Situation Room. The implication is clear. Number one, Bolton still believes in regime change. Number two, his view has not prevailed
with Trump. The recent comments by both Trump and Pompeo would seem to bear out that Trump's policy remains, as Pompeo said, to
change the regime's behavior, not to change the regime.
2) Who Is Richard Goldberg?
In early January of this year, Bolton brought onto the NSC, one Richard Goldberg, to be the NSC's "Director for Countering
Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, Jewish Insider
reported on Jan. 7, was the
lead Congressional staff negotiator for sanctions on Iran prior to the nuclear deal in 2015 in his capacity as deputy chief of
staff and senior foreign policy adviser to former Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), and later served as chief of staff for former Illinois
Governor Bruce Rauner. After leaving government in 2017, Goldberg joined the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
The National Interest's Curt Mills
confirmed
Goldberg's neo-con credentials the same day. "Couldn't think of anyone better than my @FDD colleague @rich_goldberg to join NSC
to maximize the maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran." FDD president mark Dubowitz jubilantly tweeted.
Goldberg "takes a view of Iran similar to many of Washington's most committed Iran hawks. He views the regime in Tehran as akin
to the Soviet Union -- a hub of a global, anti-American counterculture and internally collapsible if Reagan-style pressure is
applied," Mills reports. "For FDD, which has functioned as the administration's go-to think-tank on Iran, it's another coup. The
Goldberg move to the White House comes as at a time when the organization had been publicly doubting the administration's course
for the first time," Mills reports later in the article.
Daniel Larison,
writing
in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a
fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration
is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'"
One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003.
As for Goldberg's history, we find that he's been a very militant advocate for Likudnik Israel going back to 2004 when he first
arrived on Capitol Hill as a staffer (Goldberg is a young punk and was probably in his early to mid-20's in 2004). According to
the FDD's biography of him, Goldberg was "A leader in
efforts to expand U.S. missile defense cooperation with Israel, Richard played a key role in U.S. funding for the Arrow-3 program,
Iron Dome and the deployment of an advanced missile defense radar to the Negev Desert." During his time working for Mark Kirk,
Goldberg "emerged as a leading architect of the toughest sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was the lead Republican
negotiator for three rounds of sanctions targeting the Central Bank of Iran, the SWIFT financial messaging service, and entire
sectors of the Iranian economy. Richard also drafted and negotiated legislation promoting human rights and democracy in Iran,
including sanctions targeting entities that provide the Iranian regime with the tools of repression."
In September 2017, Goldberg authored a memo that was circulated on Capitol Hill which advocated that the president should declare
to Congress next month that the deal is no longer in the national security interest of the United States, Foreign Policy
reported at the time. Then the president
would make clear his readiness to hit Iran with a "de-facto global economic embargo" if it failed to meet certain conditions over
a 90-day period, including opening military sites to international inspectors. "This would be a 21st century financial version
of [John F.] Kennedy's Cuba quarantine," according to a copy of the proposal obtained by Foreign Policy. The embargo would involve
reimposing sanctions lifted under the deal, as well as additional measures including restrictions on oil exports. This is clearly
recognizable, now, as the policy that the Trump Administration has imposed on Iran since Trump announced the US withdrawal from
the JCPOA in May 2018.
TTG • 3 hours ago
Willy B., thanks for pulling all this information together into a very readable piece. Well done. This is one dangerous
pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this
sort of thing.
"... This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else. ..."
"Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as
European. That's why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean,
a community referred to by Russian experts as 'the Union of Europe' which will strengthen Russia's potential in its economic pivot
toward the 'New Asia.'" Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, February 2012
The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that
Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles
across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim.
The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political
establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony.
Try to imagine for a minute, that the hacking claims were not part of a sinister plan by Vladimir Putin "to sow discord and division"
in the United States, but were conjured up to create an external threat that would justify an aggressive response from Washington.
That's what Russiagate is really all about.
US policymakers and their allies in the military and Intelligence agencies, know that relations with Russia are bound to get increasingly
confrontational, mainly because Washington is determined to pursue its ambitious "pivot" to Asia plan. This new regional strategy
focuses on "strengthening bilateral security alliances, expanding trade and investment, and forging a broad-based military presence."
In short, the US is determined to maintain its global supremacy by establishing military outposts across Eurasia, continuing to tighten
the noose around Russia and China, and reinforcing its position as the dominant player in the most populous and prosperous region
in the world. The plan was first presented in its skeletal form by the architect of Washington's plan to rule the world, Zbigniew
Brzezinski. Here's how Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor summed it up in his 1997 magnum opus, The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives:
"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia (p.30) .. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically
axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions.
. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its
enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's
known energy resources." ("The Grand Chessboard:American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives", Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic
Books, page 31, 1997)
14 years after those words were written, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took up the banner of imperial expansion and
demanded a dramatic shift in US foreign policy that would focus primarily on increasing America's military footprint in Asia. It
was Clinton who first coined the term "pivot" in a speech she delivered in 2010 titled "America's Pacific Century". Here's an excerpt
from the speech:
"As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot
point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be
smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership,
secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will
therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment -- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise -- in the Asia-Pacific
region
Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge
technology ..American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia The region already generates more than
half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama's goal of doubling exports by 2015,
we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia and our investment opportunities in Asia's dynamic markets."
("America's Pacific Century", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton", Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)
The pivot strategy is not some trifling rehash of the 19th century "Great Game" promoted by think-tank fantasists and conspiracy
theorists. It is Washington's premier foreign policy doctrine, a 'rebalancing' theory that focuses on increasing US military and
diplomatic presence across the Asian landmass. Naturally, NATO's ominous troop movements on Russia's western flank and Washington's
provocative naval operations in the South China Sea have sent up red flags in Moscow and Beijing. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao
summed it up like this:
"The United States has strengthened its military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthened the US-Japan military
alliance, strengthened strategic cooperation with India, improved relations with Vietnam, inveigled Pakistan, established a pro-American
government in Afghanistan, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and so on. They have extended outposts and placed pressure points on
us from the east, south, and west."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been equally critical of Washington's erratic behavior. NATO's eastward expansion has convinced
Putin that the US will continue to be a disruptive force on the continent for the foreseeable future. Both leaders worry that Washington's
relentless provocations will lead to an unexpected clash that will end in war.
Even so, the political class has fully embraced the pivot strategy as a last-gasp attempt to roll back the clock to the post war
era when the world's industrial centers were in ruins and America was the only game in town. Now the center of gravity has shifted
from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and
gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening
rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred
and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end.
Washington has many ways of dealing with its enemies, but none of these strategies have dampened the growth of its competitors
in the east. China is poised to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy sometime in the next 2 decades while Russia's intervention
in Syria has rolled back Washington's plan to topple Bashar al Assad and consolidate its grip on the resource-rich Middle East. That
plan has now collapsed forcing US policymakers to scrap the War on Terror altogether and switch to a "great power competition" which
acknowledges that the US can no longer unilaterally impose its will wherever it goes. Challenges to America's dominance are emerging
everywhere particularly in the region where the US hopes to reign supreme, Asia.
This is why the entire national security state now stands foursquare behind the improbable pivot plan. It's a desperate "Hail
Mary" attempt to preserve the decaying unipolar world order.
What does that mean in practical terms?
It means that the White House (the National Security Strategy) the Pentagon (National Defense Strategy) and the Intelligence Community
(The Worldwide Threat Assessment) have all drawn up their own respective analyses of the biggest threats the US currently faces.
Naturally, Russia is at the very top of those lists. Russia has derailed Washington's proxy war in Syria, frustrated US attempts
to establish itself across Central Asia, and strengthened ties with the EU hoping to "create a harmonious community of economies
from Lisbon to Vladivostok." (Putin)
Keep in mind, the US does not feel threatened by the possibility of a Russian attack, but by Russia's ability to thwart Washington's
grandiose imperial ambitions in Asia.
As we noted, the National Security Strategy (NSS) is a statutorily mandated document produced by the White House that explains
how the President intends to implement his national security vision. Not surprisingly, the document's main focus is Russia and China.
Here's an excerpt:
"China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They
are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress
their societies and expand their influence." (Neither Russia nor China are attempting to erode American security and prosperity."
They are merely growing their economies and expanding their markets. If US corporations reinvested their capital into factories,
employee training and R and D instead of stock buybacks and executive compensation, then they would be better able to complete globally.)
Here's more: "Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries
around the world." (This is a case of the 'pot calling the kettle black.')
"Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries
target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data." (The western media behemoth is the biggest disinformation
bullhorn the world has ever seen. RT and Sputnik don't hold a candle to the ginormous MSM 'Wurlitzer' that controls the cable news
stations, the newspapers and most of the print media. The Mueller Report proves beyond a doubt that the politically-motivated nonsense
one reads in the media is neither reliably sourced nor trustworthy.)
The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community is even more explicit in its attacks on Russia. Check it out:
"Threats to US national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively
compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners . We assess that Moscow will continue pursuing
a range of objectives to expand its reach, including undermining the US-led liberal international order, dividing Western political
and security institutions, demonstrating Russia's ability to shape global issues, and bolstering Putin's domestic legitimacy.
We assess that Moscow has heightened confidence, based on its success in helping restore the Asad regime's territorial control
in Syria, ·Russia seeks to boost its military presence and political influence in the Mediterranean and Red Seas mediate conflicts,
including engaging in the Middle East Peace Process and Afghanistan reconciliation .
Russia will continue pressing Central Asia's leaders to support Russian-led economic and security initiatives and reduce engagement
with Washington. Russia and China are likely to intensify efforts to build influence in Europe at the expense of US interests
" ("The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community",
USG )
Notice how the Intelligence Community summary does not suggest that Russia poses an imminent military threat to the US, only that
Russia has restored order in Syria, strengthened ties with China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East,
and used the free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The IC appears to find fault
with Russia because it is using the system the US created to better advantage than the US. This is entirely understandable given
Putin's determination to draw Europe and Asia closer together through a region-wide economic integration plan. Here's Putin:
"We must consider more extensive cooperation in the energy sphere, up to and including the formation of a common European energy
complex. The Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea and the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea are important steps
in that direction. These projects have the support of many governments and involve major European energy companies. Once the pipelines
start operating at full capacity, Europe will have a reliable and flexible gas-supply system that does not depend on the political
whims of any nation. This will strengthen the continent's energy security not only in form but in substance. This is particularly
relevant in the light of the decision of some European states to reduce or renounce nuclear energy."
The gas pipelines and high-speed rail are the arteries that will bind the continents together and strengthen the new EU-Asia superstate.
This is Washington's greatest nightmare, a massive, thriving free trade zone beyond its reach and not subject to its rules. In 2012,
Hillary Clinton acknowledged this new threat and promised to do everything in her power to destroy it. Check out this excerpt:
"U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described efforts to promote greater economic integration in Eurasia as "a move to
re-Sovietize the region." . "We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it,"
she said at an international conference in Dublin on December 6, 2012, Radio Free Europe."
"Slow down or prevent it"?
Why? Because EU-Asia growth and prosperity will put pressure on US debt markets, US corporate interests, US (ballooning) national
debt, and the US Dollar? Is that why Hillary is so committed to sabotaging Putin's economic integration plan?
Indeed, it is. Washington wants to block progress and prosperity in the east in order to extend the lifespan of a doddering and
thoroughly-bankrupt state that is presently $22 trillion in the red but continues to write checks on an overdrawn account.
But Russia shouldn't be blamed for Washington's profligate behavior, that's not Putin's fault. Moscow is merely using the free
market system more effectively that the US.
Now consider the Pentagon's 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) which reiterates many of the same themes as the other two documents.
"Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We
are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order -- creating a
security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition,
not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security."
(Naturally, the "security environment" is going to be more challenging when 'regime change' is the cornerstone of one's foreign
policy. Of course, the NDS glosses over that sad fact. Here's more:)
"Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions
of its neighbors ..(Baloney. Russia has been a force for stability in Syria and Ukraine. If Obama had his way, Syria would have wound
up like Iraq, a hellish wastelands occupied by foreign mercenaries. Is that how the Pentagon measures success?) Here's more:
"China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model
"China and Russia are now undermining the international order from within the system .
Get the picture? China and Russia, China and Russia, China and Russia. Bad, bad, bad.
Why? Because they are successfully implementing their own development model which is NOT programed to favor US financial institutions
and corporations. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. The only reason Russia and China are a threat to the "rules-based system",
is because Washington insists on being the only one who makes the rules. That's why foreign leaders are no longer falling in line,
because it's not a fair system.
These assessments represent the prevailing opinion of senior-level policymakers across the spectrum. (The White House, the Pentagon
and the Intelligence Community) The USG is unanimous in its judgement that a harsher more combative approach is needed to deal with
Russia and China. Foreign policy elites want to put the nation on the path to more confrontation, more conflict and more war. At
the same time, none of these three documents suggest that Russia has any intention of launching an attack on the United States. The
greatest concern is the effect that emerging competitors will have on Washington's provocative plan for military and economic expansion,
the threat that Russia and China pose to America's tenuous grip on global power. It is that fear that drives US foreign policy.
And this is broader context into which we must fit the Russia investigation. The reason the Russia hacking furor has been allowed
to flourish and spread despite the obvious lack of any supporting evidence, is because the vilifying of Russia segues perfectly with
the geopolitical interests of elites in the government. The USG now works collaboratively with the media to influence public attitudes
on issues that are important to the powerful foreign policy establishment. The ostensible goal of these psychological operations
(PSYOP) is to selectively use information on "audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately
the behavior of organizations, groups, and individuals."
The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and
perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the
The emerging Euro-Asian power block is very heterogeneous. Russia, China, and the smaller affiliated players like Central Asia,
Iran, Syria, Turkey don't agree on almost anything. They have different cultures, religions, economies, demographic profiles,
even writing systems. The most rational strategy to prevent the Euro-Asian block from consolidating would be to get them to fight
each other. Alternatively, find the weakest link and attack it in an area where its reluctant allies don't share its interests.
Exactly the opposite has happened in the last 5-10 years: US has seemingly worked overtime to get China-Russia alliance of
the ground. They used to distrust each other, today, after Ukraine, South China See, etc they have become close allies. Same with
Iran and Syria: instead of letting them stew in their own internal problems – mostly religious and having a nepotistic elite –
US has managed to turn the fight into an external geo-political struggle, literally invited Russia to join in, and ended up losing.
Bush turned Iraq from a fanatically anti-Iran bastion to a reliable ally of Iran and started an un-winnable land war in Afghanistan
(incredible!). Obama turned Libya, the richest and most stable African country that threatened no-one and kept African migrants
far away, into a chaotic hellhole where slave trade flourishes and millions of Sub-Saharan Africans can use it to move on to Europe.
Then Obama tried to coup-de-etat Erdogan in Turkey, and – even worse – failed miserably. This gang can't shoot straight
– whatever they put in their position papers is meaningless drivel because they are too stupid to think. They have no patience
to wait for the right time to move, no ability to manage on the ground allies, and an aversion to casualties that makes winning
a war impossible. Today Trump threatens Germany over its energy security (pipelines), further antagonises Turkey and Erdogan,
watches helplessly as EU becomes the next UN (lame and irrelevant), and bets everything on a few small allies like Saudi Arabia
and Izrael that are of almost no use in Euro-Asia.
A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that ' maybe I had bad information ' is no master of the universe.
And he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or ' information warfare ' – is
a pathetic sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.
the russophobia is just drama to keep the MIC spending at $700+ billion per year
there is no way to justify that level of spending and pretend they don't have $25 billion one time to actually help solve the
real problem for the U.S.
"The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes
and perceptions as "the cognitive domain of the battlespace" which they must exploit in order to build public support for their
vastly unpopular wars and interventions. "
Here is a short guide on how to detect subversion of the mind by the media and their handlers by a former military intelligence
officer.
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing
"Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia", "Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an "realist"
and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation
of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".
Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki himself
proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American Primacy".
Recognizing this however one can't escape the conclusion that this "Grand Chessboard" with its consistent 'amoral realist imperatives'
is serving up inherently immoral 'imperatives' as inescapable options dressed up in academic language and with absolutely abhorrent
arrogance.
Stating that Brennan's Russophobia is somehow a degeneration of Brzezinki's "Grand Chessboard" is completely overlooking how
difficult it would be to outdo Brzezinki's own total moral degeneration.
One has to recognize that by now the only bipartisan aspect of US policy can be found in sharing these despicable and immoral
'imperatives' to maintain that "American Primacy" at all cost (of course to the rest of the world).
"The allegations of 'Russian meddling' only make sense if they're put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that
Washington is implementing an aggressive "containment" strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its
tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda,
but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire
Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony."
TRUE!
I would suggest that the initials 'US' in the final sentence be changed to: Anglo-Zionist Empire.
"Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants
in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world's biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn
the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging,
and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle
Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end."
Just like the Brit Empire – of which the Yank Empire is merely Part 2, the part where it becomes obvious that it is the Anglo-Zionist
Empire, which, like a band of screeching Pharisees standing on the walls of Jerusalem hurling curses at the Romans they inform
that Jehovah will soon wipe out all Romans to save His Chosen Race, would choose utter destruction for all over any common sense
backing down to prevent mass slaughter.
Nothing harmed US more than Brzezinski's ideology. US did build up far east with their investments, while neglecting their own
backyard. US should have build up rather North and South America and make it the envy of the world. Neglecting particularly South
America now created Desperate south American people, who have no jobs and no future and these people are now invading US.
A guy who says about the Russia-gate collusion fiasco that 'maybe I had bad information' is no master of the universe. And
he run the joint under Obama. Complaining about Russia saying bad stuff about you – or 'information warfare' – is a pathetic
sign of weakness. Maybe the testosterone levels have dropped more than we have been told.
Testosterone plus steady, unrelenting decline and corruption of American "elites" most of who have no background in any fields
related to actual effective governance especially in national security (military) and diplomatic fields. Zbig's book is also nothing
more than doctrine-mongering based on complete lack of understanding of Russian history.
Reluctant to use that Hitler comparison one ought to read the Introduction of the "Grand Chessboard" in which Brzezinki
himself proudly refers to both Hitler and Stalin sharing his ideas about control over Eurasia as a prerequisite for that "American
Primacy".
Zbig was a political "scientist" (which is not a science) by education, fact aggravated by his Russophobia, and thus inability
to grasp fundamentals of military power and warfare–a defining characteristic of American "elites". He, obviously, missed on the
military-technological development of 1970s through 1990s, to arrive to the inevitable conclusion that classic "geopolitics" doesn't
apply anymore. Today we all can observe how it doesn't apply and is made obsolete.
(Jan.1998) US history – "How Jimmy Carter I Started the Mujahideen" – Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor 1977-1981
"Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services
began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security
adviser to President Carter.
Zbigniew Brzezinski Taliban Pakistan Afghanistan pep talk 1979
In 1979 Carters National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski went into Pakistans border regions with Afghanistan to give
a little pep talk to some prospective majehadeen (Holy Warriors). In a 1997 interview for CNN's Cold War Series, Brzezinski hinted
about the Carter Administration's proactive Afghanistan policy before the Soviet invasion in 1979, that he had conceived.
@DESERT FOX Why was it that the Brit Empire kept acting throughout the later 18th, the 19th and early 20th centuries to harm
Russia, even when it technically was allied with Russia? Why the Crimean War, for example?
Why, for example, was Brit secret service all over the assassination of Rasputin and tied in multiple ways to most non-Marxist
revolutionary groups?
This entire article fleshes out one central truth – capitalism as practiced by the US Government inevitably involves war by
any and all means, seeking total domination of every human being on the planet, foriegn or native to the US Hegemon. It seeks
total rule of the rich and powerful over everyone else.
@anon Like the Ukranians, the 'Balts' virtually always are controlled by somebody else. When Russia does not control the Baltic
states, they are controlled by either Poles or Germans. Russians know what that means: the Baltic states are then used as weapons
to attack Russia.
The region is much calmer when Russia controls the Baltic states, and that is before taking into consideration how the Polish-Lithuanian
Empire turned its Jews lose to terrorize all Orthodox Christians and how Germanic states later used Lutheranism as a force in
the Baltics to ignite war with Russia and, under the queer Frederick the Great also used Jewish bankers to finance wars against
Russia.
@Rurik Upon consideration, what Putin should do is set up a "Free" German government in
Königsburg just like the US is doing with Gaido in Venezuela. Get China to recognize it.
Then they should start negotiating lucrative contracts, treaties and alliances between the
Free Germans and the rest of OBOR. It would be fascinating to see how ZOG reacted.
Oh, and most important of all, declare a new debt free currency, perhaps gold backed. I
could live with the Reichsmark.
@Johnny
Walker Read "People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act
out of religious conviction."
― Umberto Eco
"What can you say to a man who tells you he prefers obeying God rather than men, and that
as a result he's certain he'll go to heaven if he cuts your throat?"
― Voltaire
"Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves. The more untenable their
position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do
to support it."
― Mercedes
"Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous form of insanity."
― Robert Graves
@anon
As most aggressive and most rotten player in the most rotten and most massmurderous part of
humanity, the Anglosphere, you dare to compare Russian dealing with a Soviet hunger
catastrophe, which occured all over the Soviet Union, btw worst in Kazakhstan and western
Siberia, and in Ukraine, where consfiscation of grain occured mainly by Ukrainian Soviets,
and hunger in Ukraine mostly in eastern Ukraine, where people felt and feel close to Russia,
with USAist ongoing practice of aggressive wars, genocidal supremacy and massmurder?
See as well: Philipp Merl : Sowjetisierung in Wirtschaft und Landwirtschaft, EGO (European
History Online), pdf.
That solid German historians unanimously revealed propagandistic attempts to sell the
1932/33 famine remotely as equivalent to Anglosaxon hunger genocides, like that of the Irish,
Indians and Iranians, has nothing to do with historiography, but with anti-Russian hate
propaganda, can be clearly deduced from publications by the German historians Jürgen
Zarusky and Jörg Ganzenmüller.
The best places to learn about Nazi atrocities is btw Berlin.
However, where is the place where the two intertwined most massmurderous nations of the
planet openly expose their crimes, which are the most horrendous and giant humanity has
committed?
It simply does not exist.
Nobody else has liquidated more than 90% of the indigenous populatio on robbed territory
but USAist and Australians, both degenerated Anglosaxons.
Nobody else has robbed as much territory from a neighbour country than the US has done with
Mexico.
Nobody committed comparable genocidal losses on Indian ground, Iranian ground, even
Chinese
ground – in proportion, Japanese in WW2 could not compete, than Brits. In Africa,
British bloodtoll is likewise unequalled – France and Belgium come close behind, but do
not match that bloodtoll.
No other nation, not even in Europe and not even Nazi Germany, has committed a genocide of
neighbours which resembles what Brits die with their Irish neighbour country, whose
population was three times in history reduced by 50% by them.
From the last genocide in the midst of the 19th century, Ireland has not even recovered
after 150 years: There population of 12 million Irish then was never achieved again.
In comparison: In the Soviet Union, which btw was not identical with Russia, Ukrainian
population was 29.5 million in 1926 and 40.469 million in 1939. This is official Soviet
Census, which Ukraine keeps still as their official national census. And you have the cheek
to suggest with a solely propagandistic term that Georgian Stalin, whatever his
responsibility in the famine was, committed anything comparable with Anglosaxon ongoing
slaughtering?
The US started their history with the eracidation of 90% of native Americans.
They have , in their short history, conducted more than a hundred aggressive wars, were in
wars, which were never against anybody who had remotely threatened USAists on their ground,
325 years in 349 years of US history and have, since 1949 alone, caused further 30 million
causualties minimum.
And in that role, they were since the Round Table of Cecil Rhode the followers of the most
genocidal nation of the planet, Brits, whose suprematist colonialism massmurdered more than
100 million people minimum.
In the Cold War, btw, the US was most willing to conduct a nuclear Holocaust of 200
million western Europeans, 200 million eastern Europeans, including Russians, and 200 million
eastern Asians – if Soviet atomic bombs had not posed the danger that USAists could die
a nuclear death in that case as well. https://www.democracynow.org/2017/12/6/doomsday_machine_daniel_ellsberg_reveals_he
AND YOU HAVE NEVER CEASED TO BE MASSMURDERERS – EVEN WILLING TO COMMIT HUMANOCIDE AS
A WHOLE – TO MAINTAIN HEGEMONY OF THE WORLD's CULTURALLY MOST DISTORTED AND DEGENERATED
NATION.
And you vermin dare to point with a finger on Russians?
"... the behavior of the US after the Cold War suggests NATO was primarily for US hegemony and not for fending off the Evil Empire of the Soviets. ..."
"... After all, Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War. And then communism collapsed(or was collapsed from the top) in Russia. And Russia was reaching out to the West for friendship and aid. Russia was at its weakest position since who knows? And it was totally friendly to the West. It was a tamed bear. But what did the US do when Russia was most pro-Western and most willing to submit(and even surrender its sovereignty)? The US expanded NATO up to Russian borders. ..."
"... Why expand NATO when there's no more Soviet threat and when Russia wants to be a friendly player with the West? It's like the moment when Vito Corleone realizes it had been Barzini all along. ..."
"... It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It was about imposing US hegemony on Europe. So, the chances are that, even if Soviets had ended the Occupation of Eastern Europe soon after end of WWII, the US would have created something like NATO and pushed it all the way up to Soviet borders. ..."
"... @Asagirian As Lord Ismay once said: "The purpose of NATO is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." ..."
It's been our understanding that NATO was necessary
because of the Iron Curtain. Soviets took over Eastern Europe and denied it freedom, and there
was the danger that Soviets would expand further West.
So, US and Western European nations made a Three Musketeers or Mickey Mouseketeers pact of
'one for all and all for one'.
Now, suppose we do a thought experiment of alternative history: The Soviets withdrew from
Eastern Europe, and Eastern European nations like Poland and Hungary became democratic and
capitalist soon after WWII. And there is no East and West Germany but just democratic
Germany.
Would NATO still have been created? If so, for what? To contain the Soviets? But the Soviets
left Eastern Europe in our hypothetical scenario. If NATO was created even after Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe soon after WWII,
there could be only one reason: US hegemony and domination over Western Europe.
Now, there is no way to validate a 'what if' scenario.
However, the behavior of the US after the Cold War suggests NATO was primarily for US
hegemony and not for fending off the Evil Empire of the Soviets.
After all, Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War. And then communism collapsed(or was
collapsed from the top) in Russia. And Russia was reaching out to the West for friendship and
aid.
Russia was at its weakest position since who knows? And it was totally friendly to the West. It
was a tamed bear. But what did the US do when Russia was most pro-Western and most willing to submit(and even
surrender its sovereignty)? The US expanded NATO up to Russian borders.
Why expand NATO when there's no more Soviet threat and when Russia wants to be a friendly
player with the West? It's like the moment when Vito Corleone realizes it had been Barzini all along.
It seems NATO was never about the principle of defending free nations from the Soviets. It
was about imposing US hegemony on Europe. So, the chances are that, even if Soviets had ended
the Occupation of Eastern Europe soon after end of WWII, the US would have created something
like NATO and pushed it all the way up to Soviet borders.
...NATO is even more of a US
imperialist project. And this time, the 'new cold war' was entirely the fault of the US.
The best defense, the saying goes, is a good offense.
The key orchestrators of the Big Trump-Russia Collusion Lie seem to have hewed tightly to that tactical advice.
Over the past two years, one of their biggest "tells" has been their hyper-aggressive and gratuitous attacks on the president.
Given that special counsel Robert Mueller 's
investigation found no collusion or obstruction of justice, their constant broadsides now look, in retrospect, like calculated pre-emptive
strikes to deflect attention and culpability away from themselves.
By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves
were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.
We now know that former FBI
Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew
McCabe, are hip-deep in the conspiracy. Both wrote supposed "tell-all" books and carpet-bombed the media with interviews in which
they regularly flung criminal accusations against the president. Whenever asked about their own roles, they reverted to denouncing
Mr. Trump .
With Mr. Mueller 's findings,
Mr. Comey 's and Mr. McCabe's media benders look
increasingly suspicious.
As do those of their comrades in the Obama national security apparatus, including former Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper and his partner in possible crime, former
CIA Director
John Brennan , who, apart from former President
Barack Obama himself, may be the biggest player
of them all.
Any investigation into the origins and execution of the Big Lie must focus on Mr.
Brennan , whose job as the nation's chief spook
would have prohibited him, by law, from engaging in any domestic political spy games.
Of course, the law didn't stop him from illegally spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee by hacking into its computers and
lying repeatedly about it, prompting Democratic senators to call for his resignation.
Once out of Langley, Mr. Brennan tore into
Mr. Trump, accusing him of "treason" (among other crimes) in countless television appearances and bitter tweets. It got so vicious
that Mr. Trump pulled his security clearance.
Consider a few critical data points.
The Obama Department of Justice and
FBI targeting of two low-level
Trump aides, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, was carried out in the spring of 2016 because they wanted to spy on the Trump campaign
but needed a way in. They enlisted an American academic and shadowy
FBI informant named Stefan
Halper to repeatedly sidle up to both Mr. Papadopoulos and Mr. Page. But complementing his work for the
FBI , Mr. Halper had a side
gig as an intelligence operative with longstanding ties to the
CIA and British intelligence
MI6.
Another foreign professor, Joseph Mifsud, who played an important early part in targeting Papadopoulos, also had abiding ties
to the CIA , MI6
and the British foreign secretary.
A third operative, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, targeted Mr. Papadopoulos in a London bar. It was Mr. Downer's "tip"
to the FBI that provided the
justification for the start of Russia counterintelligence investigation, complete with fraudulently-obtained FISA warrants to spy
on the Trump campaign.
All of these interactions reek of entrapment. Mr. Papadopoulos now says, "I believe Australian and UK intelligence were involved
in an active operation to target Trump and his associates." Like Mr. Halper and Mr. Mifsud, Mr. Downer had ties to the
CIA , MI6 and (surprise!)
the Clintons.
Given the deep intelligence backgrounds of these folks, it's difficult to believe that former DOJ/
FBI officials such as Peter
Strzok or even James Comey and Andrew McCabe
on their own devised the plan to deploy them.
So: who did? How did the relationships with Messrs. Halper, Mifsud and Downer come about? Who suggested them for these tasks?
To whom did they report? How were they compensated?
Any investigation must follow the money -- and the personnel. There were plenty of DOJ/
FBI officials involved, but
what about intelligence officials? Was Mr. Brennan
a central player in the hoax, which would help explain the participation of Mr. Halper, Mr. Mifsud and Mr. Downer? Intel officials
are likely to draw on other intelligence operatives.
There is also a glimpse of a paper trail.
Fox News' Catherine Herridge reported last week that "in a Dec. 12, 2016 text, [
FBI lawyer Lisa] Page wrote
to McCabe: "Btw, Clapper told Pete that he was meeting with
Brennan and Cohen for dinner tonight. Just
FYSA [for your situational awareness ]."
"Within a minute, McCabe replied, "OK."
Ms. Herridge notes that those named are likely Peter Strzok and
Mr. Brennan 's then-deputy, David Cohen. Ms. Herridge
also notes that while we don't yet know what was discussed during the dinner, government sources thought it "irregular" for Mr. Clapper
to be in contact with the more junior-level Mr. Strzok. She also points out that the text came "during a critical time for the Russia
probe."
Indeed. It was right before the publication of the ICA, the official Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian 2016 election
interference.
As Paul Sperry has reported, "A source close to the House investigation said
Brennan himself selected the
CIA and
FBI analysts who worked on
the ICA, and that they included former
FBI counterespionage chief
Peter Strzok.
"Strzok was the intermediary between Brennan
and Comey , and he was one of the authors
of the ICA," according to the source." Recall that the dossier-based ICA was briefed to
Obama , Trump and Congress ahead of Trump's
inauguration.
Post- Mueller report,
Mr. Brennan is spinning wildly that perhaps his
early condemnations of Mr. Trump were based on
"bad information."
These are just some of the threads suggesting Mr.
Brennan may be one of the Masters of the Big Lie, requiring full investigation.
If the devil is in the details, Mr. Brennan
is all over the details.
No wonder he -- and his fellow caballers -- have been so loud. They doth protest too much.
By accusing Mr. Trump of what they themselves
were guilty of, they created a masterful distraction through projection.
Hillary setup a unsecured server and had confidential government information on it, including 20 emails with Obama suspiciously
using an alias. If you're in law enforcement, and get a tip that Papadopolous may get some of those emails from Russians, what
crime has been committed by Papadopolous? Isn't Papadopolous doing the US a favor by obtaining those emails from those who hacked
her server?
If you believe Hillary that her server wasn't hacked (and you don't have any evidence because Obama's people allowed practically
all the evidence to be destroyed) then there's no reason to investigate Papadopolous. If you think Hillary's server was hacked,
shouldn't you be investigating her and examining her server to see who hacked her and what damage was done, such as blackmailing
her and Obama into appeasement and flexibility, like selling 20% of the US's uranium reserves to Russians just before an election?
John Brennan, James Clapper, Strozk, Ohr, Page were only some of Obama's political pythons operating in the jungle of Washington.
Obama orchestrated a symphony of harmful actions that will take the US a generation to recover from. That is if Obama's criminal
actions can be undone and then we get to recover.
RobinG
says: April 2, 2019
at 11:35 pm GMT 100 Words @Cloak And
Dagger What do they say about Tulsi? Please note in this interview when Cenk asks her
directly if she opposes the Occupation, she says Yes! A true Zio supporter (as some here have
accused her!) would object to even using the word. And she addresses the Adelson question. On
the conflict, her answer is pretty pablum, but probably as far as she can go strategically.
Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her. IMO it's
a very good interview. Can you picture for a moment, Tulsi in a debate with Trump? What are her
boosters doing to prepare her for that? She's handling all the animosity with equanimity, and
she'll arrive at the final contest battle-hardened.
Cenk has been castigated from both sides, either as too harsh or too easy with her.
It is a good interview and she handles herself very well and her positions are well
articulated. I remain wary of her, however, but I will keep an open mind and watch her in the
months ahead to see where her funding comes from.
@JR ssaid:
If one recognizes that Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard, American Primacy & Its
Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)" in replacing "Lebensraum" with "control over Eurasia",
"Tausendjähriges Reich" with "American Primacy" and providing our 'elite' with an
"realist" and "amoral" excuse to act completely and consistently immoral one has to recognize
too that this "Grand Chessboard" is an amalgamation of 'Mein Kampf' and 'Il Principe".
Except that Germany did not send Germans into the conquered territories during WWII,
though they wanted to do so.
"... Well, since 2002, people made a lot about the neo-cons being heavily influenced by Leo Strauss. I think this is only part of it. These people seem to me to be just as heavily influenced by George Berekeley: things don't really exist, there's no causation, therefore there's no consequences to one's own actions. ..."
"... "Corruption cannot lead to prosperity." Nor can it field a competent military with functional weapon systems. ..."
"... The comments at the end about how Turkey can maintain good relations with NATO and at the same time develop cooperation with Russia is clearly nonsense. NATO whole reason for existence now is as an anti-Russia military alliance. Pence is absolutely right about that ... you cannot be a member of NATO and develop close cooperation with Russia. ..."
Tweeting direct from NATO
meeting provides inside details not found in press articles, particularly the NATO
talking-point ending. IMO, the tweeter Mehta was right to highlight this exchange:
"Bennan: Do you know what the US policy in syria is?
"Çavuşoğlu: No, and this is the problem.
"He points to different statements from WH, Pentagon, CENTCOM, State. 'There is no clear
strategy. This is the problem.'"
Further on:
"Wow. Çavuşoğlu just compared Turkey to Ukraine, saying Ukraine let
itself be told it had to decide between West and Russia, and look what happened; Turkey
cannot be forced into same choice."
Pence threat is also stupid as there is no mechanism to expulse any member from NATO. NATO
members can only leave voluntarily.
Since when this stopped the USA?
The reason Turkey won't exit NATO are many. Among them:
1) Turkey's economy is in meltdown. It only didn't collapse yesterday because, luckily,
Turkey has only "burnt" one third of its Dollar reserves. For comparison, the usurper
government which toppled Dilma Rousseff burnt almost 50% of Brazil's then gigantic US$ 795
billion -- only to try to keep interest at a staggering 9.5% rate. Lucky for the Turkish
people, Erdogan survived the 2016 coup, but he was already trounced in the three main cities
and those reserves won't last forever. Time is in favor of the Americans in this case;
2) Contrary to, e.g. China and Russia, Turkey has a strong pro-USA political-popular base.
It really doesn't need to topple Erdogan through a violent coup (Obama made an unforced error
in 2016) in order to install a puppet government in Turkey;
3) The USA has the IMF. The IMF is the only institution which can do regime change and
nobody will question. Erdogan is, for now, refusing its "aid", but he's just one man. That
means that, even if Turkey remains with an Islamist (Ottomanist) or end up electing a neutral
government, the Americans will still be capable of exerting formidable pressure;
4)Turkey is, perhaps, the geostrategically most important individual country for NATO. If
the Americans still dream of defeating and balkanizing Russia through a hot war, then the
path will go through Turkey and the Bosphorus. It is not on rogue POTUS or Veep who will
change that.
"But current American elites have no concept of own actions having consequences."
Well, since 2002, people made a lot about the neo-cons being heavily influenced by Leo
Strauss. I think this is only part of it. These people seem to me to be just as heavily
influenced by George Berekeley: things don't really exist, there's no causation, therefore
there's no consequences to one's own actions.
Bolton
unwittingly utters truism but has no idea that it applies to him and the Outlaw US
Empire billions of times over: "Corruption cannot lead to prosperity." Nor can it field a
competent military with functional weapon systems.
Another OT note, this one about the technical development of generation 6 military
aircraft,
Hypersonic and hydrogen fueled and most likely piloted by droids or remotely given speed
and G-forces.
The US are threatening friend and foe alike, whereas those sanctions against their foe's are
real, sanctions against NATO members can be counterproductive, for instance Germany being
told to stop Nord Stream 2 and increase its contributions to NATO, 2% of Germany's GDP [4
trillion dollars] is an enormous amount of money to protect against a non existent enemy.
The
time will come when the US will be ignored, then, unless the US acts on those threats, its
own credibility will be called into question, then the only way is down.
Whenever anyone suggests that we should stop supplying bombs and military equipment to the
Saudis who are murdering Yemenis, moralists like Mike Pence, Pompeo, and the rest of the
religious right thunder, 'THEY WILL BUY ARMS FROM THE ROOOSHINS!'
So it is quite funny that they are willing to play hardball with the Turks.
The comments at the end about how Turkey can maintain good relations with NATO and at
the same time develop cooperation with Russia is clearly nonsense. NATO whole reason for
existence now is as an anti-Russia military alliance. Pence is absolutely right about
that ... you cannot be a member of NATO and develop close cooperation with Russia.
At
least in the eyes of NATO (i.e. the US) Russia is the enemy.
In comments at a 2007 hearing before the State Department subcommittee for ‘International Religious Freedom’, Iran was singled
out for special attention and Jeff Feltman testified that State Department was funding NGOs that “could not be named for their own
protection.”
These NGOs were “promoting democratic values” and aiding the Iranian people to liberate themselves.”
You may remember Feltman as Victoria Kagan Nuland’s United Nations contact in the subversion of Ukraine, and as the man Hillary
Clinton’s State Department assigned to “manage” the “Arab Spring” that erupted in Tunisia.
So Trump took Adelson money and completely lost his independence, became Bolton marionette. He betrayed all major point of
his election campaign.
Notable quotes:
"... The fact is, the neo conservative "Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well. ..."
"... Adelson's only concern, by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo, another one of Adelson's boys. ..."
"... Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit. ..."
"... it turns out that Politico published a big piece , last Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White House. ..."
"... According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation. ..."
"... After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner. ..."
"... The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army. ..."
"... He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House. Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements. ..."
"... Adelson is a long time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million. ..."
"... It was Bolton, Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather, to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did. ..."
"... Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror," said Senator Ted Cruz. ..."
"... Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete nonsense," Haley said (is it, realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom." ..."
"... It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a direct line to the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a close relationship. ..."
"... Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton, writing in Lobelog, yesterday, argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016, they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money. By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent seat at the inauguration ceremony. ..."
"... "Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write. ..."
"... Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and Pompeo. ..."
"... According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real." ..."
"... "To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program." ..."
"... On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. ..."
"... Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. ..."
"... Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership, have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran as almost a moral obligation. ..."
"... Ha'aretz's sources say, however, that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done." ..."
"... If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing new. Gareth Porter, in an article that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested ..."
"... Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'" One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003. ..."
"... This is one dangerous pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this sort of thing. ..."
A review of publicly available reporting that I have accumulated in my files over the past two years would suggest that John Bolton's
boss is really Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino king who has plied the Republican Party with tens of millions of dollars in
largesse in order to remake it in his image. This conclusion is irrespective of what you might think of Trump himself and whether
or not you believe he really meant it when he said there should be no more regime change wars. The fact is, the neo conservative
"Never Trumpers" began moving in on Trump almost as soon as he won the election in order to ensure that their policy perspective
prevailed. Greased by Adelson's money, it appears that they have succeeded to a considerable degree, particularly on Iran, but also
on other aspects of national security policy as well, including, it appears, on Venezuela. And if US relations with Russia don't
improve now that Russia-gate is dead, it'll be because of this crowd as well.
Bolton's history goes back to the Reagan Administration in the 1980's, and his perfidy during the runup to the Iraq invasion is
well known to this readership. What I focus on here is the period from January of 2017 through mid-2018, around the time of his appointment
to be Trump's national security advisor, plus a couple of months, during which period a number of interesting reports were posted
on Trump's lobbying of the White House to get an administration position and his sponsorship by Adelson. Adelson's only concern,
by his own quoted words, is protecting Israel and, according to the reports below, has even advocated the nuclear bombing of Iran
if it doesn't give up a nuclear weapons program that every reasonable intelligence assessment and the IAEA say it doesn't have. Adelson
is also credited with facilitating the firing of both H.R. McMaster and Rex Tillerson and replacing them with Bolton and Mike Pompeo,
another one of Adelson's boys.
What follows is a time line of summaries of news stories covering the period above in the form that I wrote them at the time with
the dates over each one of them. It's not meant to be comprehensive–there's undoubtedly a great deal of insight still to be gained
on how deeply these neo-con networks have actually penetrated the administration–and the news reports the summaries are based on
likely vary in their quality. I hope anyone with such deeper insights will post them in the comments section.
Appended at the end of the time line is a short report on Richard Goldberg, the Z-lobby activist who Bolton brought onto the NSC
in January to be his "Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, who came out of the neo-con Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies, is clearly part of Adelson's orbit.
1) John Bolton: A Timeline for 2017-2018
Feb. 19, 2017
AP circulated a
wire , yesterday, reporting that Trump was interviewing candidates for the National Security Advisor position at his estate
in Florida. The names mention were Cheneyac John Bolton (who, if I remember correctly, was already rejected by the Trump administration
for a State Department job) and LTG H.R. McMaster, according to one unnamed White House official. Another had said that Trump
had been interested in David Petraeus but that Petraeus was not a finalist for the position. Picking Bolton would be shear lunacy,
but McMaster is highly interesting. McMaster wrote a famous book about the Vietnam war in which he documented that practically
everybody in the military leadership, and especially Maxwell Taylor lied about Vietnam and, like Mattis, he has a history of being
a harsh critic of the RMA. I'll have more to say about him if he gets the job.
May 10, 2017
Bloomberg's Eli Lake, in a
column posted on Monday, described what amounts to a factional war inside the White House, with Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus
on one side and H.R. McMaster on the other. Trump himself is said to have blasted McMaster for his phone conversation with his
South Korean counterpart during which he assured him that Trump didn't really mean it when he said that South Korea should pay
for the THAAD deployment. "McMaster's allies and adversaries inside the White House tell me that Trump is disillusioned with him,"
Lake writes. "This professional military officer has failed to read the president -- by not giving him a chance to ask questions
during briefings, at times even lecturing Trump."
According to Lake's sources (and I'm wondering if they might, in fact, be Bannon and Priebus, or people close to them), Trump
has complained in front of McMaster in intelligence briefings about "the general undermining my policy." They say Trump has privately
expressed regret for choosing McMaster and even called in neo-con John Bolton to talk being McMaster's deputy, an idea which was
ultimately dropped.
Oct. 17, 2017
Nikki Haley told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that it's the administration's hope that America stays with the Iran nuclear
deal if Congress takes action to keep it together. "I think right now you are going to see us stay in the deal," she said. "What
we hope is that we can improve the situation," she added. "And that's the goal. So I think right now, we're in the deal to see
how we can make it better. And that's the goal. It's not that we're getting out of the deal. We're just trying to make the situation
better so that the American people feel safer." The NBC
press report doesn't report whether or not she explained how the JCPOA is going to be made better when all of the other parties
agree that it's not up for renegotiation. They note, however, that Haley was one of the few voices in the Trump administration
to encourage the president to declare Iran in violation. It's well known that both Tillerson and Mattis opposed decertification,
with Mattis telling the Senate Armed Services Committee, two weeks ago, that it was in the US interest to stay in the agreement.
I didn't come across this until yesterday afternoon, but it turns out that Politico published a
big piece , last
Friday, basically attributing Trump's decertification decision to Haley, who is portrayed as a neo-con channel into the White
House. At the other end of the channel is John Bolton, who even is able to get Trump on the phone himself from time to time, despite
John Kelly's efforts to obstruct him.
According to Politico's sources, the line in Trump's speech where he said that the US could
pull out of the JCPOA "at any time" was added after Bolton reached Trump on the phone on Thursday afternoon. Bolton was calling
from Las Vegas where he "was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson." Adelson's possible role in this is not further
explored in the Politico article but probably bears further investigation.
The article otherwise goes into great depth on how Haley is at odds with most of the rest of the administration on Iran, particularly
Tillerson, her nominal boss and who is reported to have strenuously objected to her trip to Vienna in August to put pressure on
the IAEA to demand inspection of military sites in Iran. One White House official described the escalating tensions between Tillerson
and Haley as reaching "World War III" proportions. Two weeks after the Vienna trip, Haley appeared at the AEI in Washington where
she publicly floated what became the parameters of the policy that Trump announced on Friday. "The purpose of the AEI speech was
to figure out, 'Is this gonna work? Does this thread that needle?'" one official said. After Trump's speech, Bolton gloated: "The
Iran deal may not have died today, but it will die shortly." He supports full US withdrawal from the agreement, and has reportedly
transmitted his view to the White House through Jared Kushner.
Asked about the Politico report on Sunday, Haley said "That is just so much drama. I mean, it's really, it's all this palace
intrigue."
Anti-neocon activist and former US Air Force analyst Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski
told Sputnik that
she believes that Trump was mislead by fake intelligence. "I suspect that Mr. Trump is being fed information regarding Iran as
a nation and as a government that is cherry-picked and creatively elaborated, largely outside of intelligence channels, by his
neoconservative advisers," she said. She noted despite Trump's 2016 promise to "drain the swamp" of discredited foreign policy
interventionists, many of them have managed to weasel their way back into government service. "This faction has always slated
the destruction of Iran as a regional power for several decades now, and if they have the ear of the President, there is never
a better time than the present to press their case," she said. She insisted, however, that neither Trump himself, nor the U.S.
military is determined on war against Iran.
Oct. 24, 2017
According to VOA (at any rate), there's a big fight in Washington over the future of U.S. adherence to the JCPOA. Lunatic Lindsey
Graham fully supports the policy that Trump announced on Oct 13 (no surprise there), while the French armed forces minister, Florence
Parly, who was in Washington, last week, supports the agreement. "We need the JCPOA," she
said during an appearance at
CSIS on Friday. "Scrapping it would be a gift to Iran's hardliners and a first step towards future wars." Tim Kaine, who has leading
an effort in the Senate to write a new war authorization, echoed her. "If you weaken diplomacy, you raise the risk of unnecessary
war, and that's what this president is doing. If we take a step back from the deal, Iran will take a step back. And what will
they ask for, that they get to now increase centrifuges or get some of their enriched uranium back? I do not want to give Iran
one thing back from this deal," said Kaine.
But, if you believe Graham, Iran will be let loose from the deal in 15 years (some people say 10 or even 8 years) to enrich
as much uranium as it wants. This ignores the fact that Iran will still be a member of the NPT and will be subject to its additional
protocol. Top Iranian officials have said that if the US sabotages the JCPOA, Iran will make appropriate decisions in response,
but they won't be building bombs.
The even more lunatic John Bolton is thrilled about Trump's policy, but complains, in an
op-ed in The Hill, that so far at least, it doesn't go far enough. After blaming Obama for giving the Middle East to Iran
and Russia, Bolton demands that Trump recognize Kurdish independence and give the peshmerga the weapons and support they need
to face the American-made tanks of the Iraqi army.
"Rapidly increased pressure against Iran's role as the world's central banker
of international terrorism, stressed in Trump's Oct. 13 speech, cannot come fast enough," he goes on. And, of course, European
commercial relations with Iran are not to be tolerated. Othewise, "Tehran will rightly conclude the United States is really not
serious about confronting their threat to us and our allies. That is the legacy of the Obama administration. It should not also
be the legacy of the Trump administration." Nobody wants to rush the country headlong into disastrous faster then the neo-cons.
Oct. 26, 2017
Gareth Porter, in an
article that was posted on Oct. 20 (but that I didn't come across until yesterday) on the American Conservative, reports that
the new policy that Trump announced on Oct. 13 not only "clearly represents a dangerous rejection of diplomacy in favor of confrontation"
but also marks "a major shift toward a much closer alignment of U.S. policy with that of the Israeli government of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu." "Whether explicitly or not, Trump's vow to work with Congress to renegotiate the Iran nuclear agreement,
and his explicit threat to withdraw from the deal if no renegotiation takes place, appear to be satisfying the hardline demands
Netanyahu has made of Washington's policy toward Tehran," Porter writes. Those demands being either US withdrawal from the JCPOA
altogether, or demanding changes in it that cannot be attained.
Porter goes deeper into the conduits for this policy into the White House than a Politico article I reported on earlier that
came out at about the same time. He identifies Jared Kushner as the main conduit for the Likudist outlook into the White House.
Kushner is a friend and supporter of Netanyahu and his parents have been backers of Israeli settlements.
He also delves deeper into the significance of Sheldon Adelson than the Politico report did, noting that Adelson is a long
time friend of Netanyahu, has used his assets in Israel to give Netanyahu political support and gave the Trump campaign $100 million.
"Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in Washington -- especially with regard to Iran," Porter notes,
adding that in 2013, Adelson openly called for the nuclear intimidation of Iran. In the next few paragraphs, Porter provides a
thumbnail sketch of the history of the neo-cons in order to highlight the role of John Bolton in all of this. It was Bolton,
Porter reports, "who worked with Israeli officials to plan a campaign to convince the world that Iran was secretly working on
nuclear weapons." But the real purpose, which continues, was not so much to scare the world about an Iranian bomb, but rather,
to use it as an issue to be exploited to weaken the Islamic regime and ultimately achieve regime change. Porter concludes by saying
that Trump is cooperating with this objective even more enthusiastically than GW Bush did.
Jan. 3, 2018
The protests in Iran may have started spontaneously in anger at economic conditions, and/or at the instigation of Rouhani's
rival Raisi and his father -in-law in Mashad, but the evidence that they're being, at the very least, encouraged from the outside
is growing. Unnamed Trump Administration officials
told
the Washington Free Beacon that both Trump and Pence are watching the protests very closely and the officials said they are working
to ensure that Trump does not miss an opportunity to incubate a possible revolution that could topple Iran's hardline ruling regime.
"With the world watching growing demonstrations across Iran, the Trump administration sees an opportunity to feed the growing
protests," the Free Beacon reports, something that they and the neo-cons say that Obama failed to do in 2009, when protests erupted
against Ahmedinijad's re-election. "The Trump administration's strong and vocal support for the demonstrators is a 180 from the
Obama administration's approach and it's signaling to Tehran that this will not be a repeat of the 2009 demonstrations," the administration
official said.
The regime change cheerleader from outside the administration is, not surprisingly, John Bolton. During an appearance on "Fox
and Friends" on Monday, Bolton
argued
that these protests are different than the post-election protests in Iran in 2009, which questioned the legitimacy of the election
of then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and who should lead the regime. "These protests are about whether the regime survives
or not, and that makes them much more threatening to the ayatollahs, much more dangerous, and raises the stakes considerably,"
Bolton said. He called on Trump to end the nuclear deal, re-impose previous sanctions and impose new ones that increase the economic
pressure on Iran and provide material support to opposition forces. "There's a lot we can do to, and we should do it," Bolton
said. "Our goal should be regime change in Iran."
Neo-cons in the Congress and elsewhere in Washington are enthusiastically following Bolton's lead. "The Iranian people want
freedom and an end to the ayatollahs' reign of terror,"
said Senator Ted Cruz.
"Iranians are looking toward America to support their struggle," Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, urging the White House to continue condemning the
regime, and follow up with "sanctions targeting corruption and human-rights abuses."
Bolton's protégé, Nikki Haley, is calling for an emergency UNSC session to discuss the crisis in Iran. "The Iranian dictatorship
is trying to do what it always does, which is to say that the protests were designed by enemies. We all know that is complete
nonsense," Haley
said (is it,
realy?), yesterday. "The U.N. must speak out," Haley added. "We must not be silent. The people of Iran are crying out for freedom."
March 10, 2018
John Bolton has been snooping around the White House. CNN
reported on Wednesday,
that Trump met with him at the White House, suggesting that he may be under consideration as an "outside expert" to help the State
Department manage the North Korea portfolio. CNN says that Bolton argues that a pre-emptive strike on North Korea would not only
be legal but also effective at curbing the threat.
On Tuesday, Bolton
told Fox News that "The only thing North Korea is serious about is getting deliverable nuclear weapons." Bolton said direct
and indirect talks with North Korea have occurred for the last 25 years and never end up successful. He said if a new round of
talks begins, North Korea will possess a deliverable nuclear weapon by the end of the year. So, Bolton obviously believes that
the past determines the future.
The Washington Post, in the above cited article, reports that Christopher Hill, who was on Capitol Hill this week to talk about
North Korea, said that he face "withing attacks" from conservative Republicans when he was engaged in the six-party talks in 2005.
"People like John Bolton said I was a traitor for talking to the North Koreans," Hill said in an interview. The Post then reports
that Bolton offered conditioned praise for Trump, saying Friday that he expected the president to deliver a warning about U.S.
willingness to use military force.
Daniel Davis, in an
op-ed in Fox News, argues that Trump goes ahead with announced plans to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, he would
open the door to potentially solving our nuclear dispute with the Communist nation short of war. This is a far better course that
listening to the calls from some to give up on diplomacy and use military force against the North. The "some" include Bolton who
has been making the case for a preventive military strike against North Korea. "If such a U.S. strike were ordered, it would have
catastrophic consequences for us. Far from ensuring our safety, it would impose egregious levels of casualties on U.S. forces
and American civilians [not to mention Koreans who would make up the bulk of casualties -cjo], and harm – not help – our security
and our prosperity," Davis writes.
March 23, 2018
You've all seen the headlines by now. I'm not going to say a lot about it. The punditry is that it means more aggressive US
policies towards both Iran and North Korea. It also likely means that Sheldon Adelson has a
direct line to
the White House and Nikki Haley's position at the UN has been strengthened, since she and Bolton have been reported to have a
close relationship. The
suggestion in the press coverage is that Bolton is more likely to tell Trump what he wants to hear, particularly on Iran,
but we probably shouldn't automatically assume that Trump wants to go to war as badly as Bolton does.
March 25, 2018
Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton,
writing in Lobelog, yesterday,
argue that Sheldon Adelson was responsible for Trump's turnaround from populist anti-war candidate to pro-Israel hawk. In 2016,
they write, Trump was mocking those, like Marco Rubio, who were seeking Adelson's support, meaning they were seeking his money.
By the time of his inauguration, however, Trump had adopted Adelson's militant pro-Israel stance, including Adelson's demands
to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and pursue a confrontationist approach to Iran, and Adelson occupied a prominent
seat at the inauguration ceremony.
"Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that
Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington's European allies,
as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating," Lobe and Clifton write.
"One month later, Adelson used his own newspaper, The Las Vegas Review Journal, to express his frustration with Trump's failure
to quickly redeem his promise to move the embassy. Two months after that, Trump reversed a half century of U.S. policy by formally
recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. According to Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury, Steve Bannon credited Adelson for
Trump's decision."
Adelson's big protégé, as I've reported previously, is John Bolton. According to Lobe and Clifton, it was Adelson who made
the arrangements to get Bolton back into the White House, overcoming efforts by White House chief of staff John Kelly keep to
keep him out. Adelson also reportedly orchestrating the firing of McMaster and of Tilleson and their replacements by Bolton and
Pompeo. Ands Bolton, like Adelson, has long favored a "military solution" to the Iran nuclear problem. In 2013, Adelson posted
an op-ed in his newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal, calling for the nuclear bombing of Iran, first in some uninhabited area
of the country to send Iran's leaders "a message" and if that didn't work, a second bombing of Tehran itself (this of course,
would be a war crime in the first degree). Bolton, himself, in an op-ed two years later, held up the Israeli bombing of Iraq's
Osirak reactor as the model for what the US should (as was later documented by a Norwegian researcher who's name I don't recall,
the bombing of Osirak did not end Saddam's Hussein's nuclear bomb program. Rather, it forced it underground and out of sight,
as UN weapons inspectors discovered in the 1990's after Gulf War I).
March 31, 2018
Journalist Whitney Webb,
writing Mintpress News, finds Bolton's appointment as Trump's national security advisor, to be particularly dangerous. Webb
puts Bolton's appointment in the context of those of Pompeo to be secretary of state and Gina Haspell to run the CIA, but finds
Bolton the most dangerous of the three, "due to his bellicose rhetoric, unilateral decision-making, and his "kiss up, kick down"
style of interaction with superiors and colleagues, allowing him to be remarkably effective in getting his way."
Webb's purpose is to explore what Bolton's appointment means for US national security policy and he begins with Bolton's deep
ties to Israel–ties "so deep that some have posited that his commitment to extreme Zionism has led him to betray the national
interest of his own country on more than one occasion." Webb cites a number of examples of this, which add up to Bolton pursuing
his own warmongering policy against Iran even when the administration he was nominally working for had the opposite policy. Bolton
has pressured Israeli officials to attack Iran even when calling for such an attack was not the U.S. government's position.
According to Shaul Mofaz, former Israeli defense minister, Bolton "tried to convince me that Israel needs to attack Iran," which
Mofaz recently asserted was not "a smart move – not on the part of the Americans today or anyone else until the threat is real."
May 8, 2018
Trump tweeted yesterday that he would be announcing his decision on Iran today at 2 PM. The Washington Post, citing the usual
gaggle of unnamed officials, US and foreign,
reports that he is expected to say that he will not continue a waiver of sanctions against Iran. Exactly what this means is
not at all clear. Trump is not expected to renege on the nuclear deal altogether. Instead, the Post says, he will address a portion
of the wide range of sanctions that were waived when the deal was first implemented, while leaving in limbo other waivers that
are due in July. As for what comes next, Boris Johnson said that as far as he knows, the administration has no clear "Plan B"
for what's to follow. The affected sanctions, the Post notes, not only impose restrictions on US trade with Iran but also threaten
pther countries that buy Iranian oil. Officials, who spoke to the Post about the upcoming announcement on the condition of anonymity,
suggested that Trump will use the threat of further measures as leverage on both the Europeans and Iran itself.
As has been too often the case, we may be seeing Trump and his advisors expressing two different policies on Iran. Rudy Giuliani,
Trump's newest lawyer, delivered remarks to meeting of something called the Iran Freedom Convention for Democracy and Human Rights,
during which he advocated regime change in Tehran. "We have a president who is tough," Giuliani is reported to have said. "We
have a president who is as committed to regime change as we are." Confronting Iran, he added, is "more important than an Israeli-Palestinian
deal." He also
predicted
the end of the nuclear deal. "What do you think is going to happen to that agreement!" Giuliani said of the deal, before taking
a piece of paper in his hands and pretending to rip it apart.
The State Department immediately dismissed Giuliani's remarks. "He speaks for himself and not on behalf of the administration
on foreign policy," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told The Associated Press on Monday. The Hill further
noted that U.S. officials were alarmed by Giuliani's comments and said they weren't consistent with the White House's policy.
This is confirmed by another
report in the Washington Post. "But if regime change is on the agenda, Trump has been far more circumspect about how it would
happen," writes the Post's Ishaan Tharoor. "Dethroning the mullahs would likely involve waging war against Iran, a prospect at
odds with his own stated desire to withdraw from Syria and disentangle the United States from a generation of costly conflicts
in the Middle East." Tharoor goes on to tie the regime change crowd, including Giuliani and Bolton directly to the MeK. The MeK,
Tharoor writes, was behind the event at which Giuliani spoke this weekend, "marking yet another episode in his long, cozy relationship
with the organization." Tharoor cites Politico reporting that the MeK has paid Giuliani "handsomely," to include not only appearances
before the group but also for lobbying to have it removed from the State Department's terror list, which was done in 2012.
Tharoor also cites Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter who was detained in Iran for a year-and-a-half, reporting that
the MeK is held with contempt by ordinary Iranians, who view the organization as a craven, treacherous outfit. "In the seven years
I lived in Iran, many people expressed criticism of the ruling establishment -- at great potential risk to themselves," noted
Rezaian. "In all that time, though, I never met a person who thought the MEK should, or could, present a viable alternative."
"To those who claim that the nuclear deal isn't working, regime change remains the only solution," wrote Rezaian. "For
the MEK, and Bolton, if his words are to be taken at face value, the only path to that could be war. The group has long been prepared
to do whatever it takes to see that happen, including presenting fake intelligence about Iran's nuclear program."
May 9, 2018
Before I get into the reactions following Trump's
speech of yesterday, I'll cover a few other details from what Trump announced.
The
memorandum that he signed after concluding his remarks states that the policy of the U.S. is "that Iran be denied a nuclear
weapon and intercontinental ballistic missiles; that Iran's network and campaign of regional aggression be neutralized; to disrupt,
degrade, or deny the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its surrogates access to the resources that sustain their destabilizing
activities; and to counter Iran's aggressive development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities."
In addition to directing the Secretaries of State and Treasury to begin the process of reimposing the economic sanctions that
were waived as a result of the nuclear deal, it also directs the Secretary of Defense to "prepare to meet, swiftly and decisively,
all possible modes of Iranian aggression against the United States, our allies, and our partners. The Department of Defense shall
ensure that the United States develops and retains the means to stop Iran from developing or acquiring a nuclear weapon and related
delivery systems."
Trump's speech was shortly followed by a
press briefing by John Bolton. One of the matters that came up repeatedly was the question of regime change. The first question
was whether or not the administration was hoping that regime change would be part of addressing Iran's supposed malign activities.
"No," Bolton said. What Trump has said, he went on, "is that one of the fundamental criticisms that the President and others have
made to the deal is that it sought to address only a limited aspect of Iran's unacceptable behavior -- certainly a critical aspect
-- but not taking into account the fact this is, and has been for many years, the central banker of international terrorism."
Secondly, he was asked if this was a precursor for the U.S. putting boots on the ground in Iran. Anybody who believes that
"would be badly mistaken if that's what they thought," Bolton said.
Thirdly, a reporter asked Bolton if the administration was in contact with the MeK or other exile groups about a government
in exile. 'I'm not aware of any of that, and that's just not something that's ever come up," he said.
Bolton was then asked if the administration would support a regime change in Syria as well. "I think the President made clear
in his address a couple weeks ago when he announced the response to the Syrian chemical weapons attack, that the use of military
force there and our diplomatic responses was limited to the question of the use of weapons of mass destruction," he siad. He then
added that the real concern was Iran extending its influence through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon."
On the JCPOA Bolton denied that the US had violated the agreement. Instead, the US is withdrawing from it. But he wouldn't
acknowledged that Iran is in compliance, as the IAEA has reported numerous times. "I think there are plenty of cases where
we're simply incapable of saying whether they're in compliance or not. There are others where I think they've clearly been in
violation," he said. "For example, their production of heavy water has repeatedly exceeded the limits permissible under the JCPOA.
They're almost in the heavy water production business. They sell excess to Oman. They've sold it to European countries. It's a
way of keeping the heavy water production facilities alive. They're warm. And that's part of the danger. And they have exceeded
the limits."
At the end of his speech, yesterday, Trump said that the future of Iran belongs to its people. At first, this sounded to me
like the preface to a call for regime change. What he said was this: "Iran's leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate
a new deal; they refuse. And that's fine. I'd probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is they are
going to want to make a new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people. When they do, I am ready,
willing, and able." A reporter asked Bolton if this meant that the US was ready tot alk to the Iranians from a position of strength.
He replied that what the administration is prepared to do, along with the Europeans and others, is "to talk about a much broader
deal addressing all of the aspects of Iran's conduct that we find objectionable. We're prepared to do that beginning right now."
May 21, 2018
If the New York Times is to be believed, Bolton is
bringing
with him, the same coterie of old neo-con cronies to work for him in the NSC that he's been surrounded by since his days in the
Reagan Administration in the 1980's. This includes Charles M. Kupperman, a former Reagan administration official and defense contracting
executive, who has come in as a temporary advisor. The list of those under consideration for positions in the NSC includes Frederick
H. Fleitz, Sarah Tinsley and David Wurmser. "Mr. Bolton's relationships with most of the associates date back decades, to his
days working in positions related to foreign policy in the Reagan administration. But he continued working with them in the dozen
years since he has been out of government, serving as an adviser to Mr. Wurmser's company, according to its website, while relying
on Mr. Kupperman, Ms. Tinsley and several other associates to help run a constellation of conservative political organizations
that he founded to advance his foreign policy views and political prospects," the Times reports. "The activity brought Mr. Bolton
into regular contact with some of the biggest donors on the right, while giving him a platform to explore his own possible presidential
campaign in 2016 and to be an advocate for confrontational strategies in dealing with Iran, North Korea and Russia."
The Times report is a little weak on the ideology of these folks, preferring instead to focus on Bolton's ethical lapses, but
can't avoid the matter entirely. Matthew C. Freedman, a long time associate who Bolton appointed to interview prospective hires,
Kupperman, Tinsley and another associate, Garrett Marquis, the Times reports further, were affiliated with a Bolton-led nonprofit,
the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, which aired ads in 2015 opposing the Iran nuclear deal. The Times also notes
Bolton's close relationship with Sheldon Adelson, whom the Times describes as "an influential hawk and supporter of Israel from
whom Mr. Bolton has sought assistance for his political ventures."
May 22, 2018
Sheldon Adelson has only one issue, Israel, and he has paid the Republican Party handsomely to make sure his views are
the views of the party. According to Mintpress News' Whitney Webb, Adelson has
lavished some $90 million on the part since 2016, including $35 million to the Trump campaign, and another $55 million to
two Republican SuperPACS, Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund. "After investing so heavily in the
GOP in 2016, Adelson's decision to again donate tens of millions of dollars to Republican efforts to stay in power is a direct
consequence of how successfully Adelson has been able to influence U.S. policy since Trump and the GOP rode to victory in the
last election cycle," Webb writes. "Adelson's belief that Trump would be "good for Israel" was the main driver behind his decision
to spend more than $90 million on helping Trump and other Republicans win in the last election."
June 29, 2018
Mark Perry, in an article posted
in Foreign Policy, yesterday, posits that Mattis is waging a losing battle against Bolton over the question of war with Iran.
He reports that since his arrival at the White House, Bolton has marginalized Mattis in national security policy making, so
Mattis is turning his energies towards preventing a US attack on Iran. At the core of Mattis' concerns is, number one, it's a
lot easier to start a war with Iran than to end it, and secondly, the US military services are all in poor shape after decades
of wars and other never-ending contingency operations. Mattis, like many of his colleagues in the senior military leadership,
have a long standing animus towards Iran, but at the same time, they don't see any good way through a war against Iran. Bolton
and his co-thinkers, on the other hand, see a war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to change the regime in Tehran
as almost a moral obligation.
Mattis' concerns are shared by the senior military leadership. "We've been in the air and in combat since 1993," a senior retired
Air Force officer said, "and the wear and tear on the force has been considerable. The tempo has been crushing." Perry says this
is actually an understatement, given that 30 percent of Air Force aircraft are not "mission capable," in part because of huge
pilot shortfalls and a deterioration of military capability. The story is the same for the other services.
Then there's the military campaign itself. An air campaign could easily destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and its conventional
military forces, but what happens afterwards? As noted by several experts that Perry consulted, the end of the air campaign would
be the beginning of the war, not the end of it. There's no reason to expect that the government in Tehran would surrender and
it would be able to fight on with its considerable unconventional military capabilities, not only in the IRGC but its proxy forces
as well, such as Hezbollah.
In truth, the unease over any future conflict goes much deeper than these concerns, Perry notes, "and is seeded by what one
senior and influential military officer called 'an underlying anxiety that after 17 years of sprinkling the Middle East with corpses,
the U.S. is not any closer to a victory over terrorism now than it was on September 12.' It is this anxiety that undergirds military
doubts about going to war with Iran -- that the United States would be adding bodies to the pile and not much more." In other
words, it would be another forever war, only one that asborbs many times mor resources than even the ones we're in right now have
done.
July 2, 2018
Ha'aretz ran a
story , yesterday, very similar to the Mark Perry article I reported on last week, on the policy fight within the administration
over what to do about Iran. Officially, the administration is committed to diplomatic and economic pressure to bring Iran to the
negotiating table, where a new agreement should be constructed that would replace the JCPOA. Ha'aretz's sources say, however,
that Bolton is behind the scenes advancing the option of collapsing the Iranian regime. According to those sources, Bolton views
the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state of the country's economy as an indication of the
regime's weakness. He has told Trump that increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse. One person who recently
spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done."
Mattis, on the other hand, despite is long held animus towards Iran is skeptical of regime change. Mattis, the sources stated,
supports increasing pressure on Iran, but with the clear objective of bringing the Iranians back to the table for a better agreement
– one that would roll back their regional aggression. Pompeo is said to lie in between but is moving towards Mattis.
Ha'aretz also points to the influence of outside advisors like Rudy Giuliani–who recently addressed the annual conference of
the National Council of Resistance in Iran in Paris as–as a further factor in the uncertainty around Trump's policy. What Ha'aretz
doesn't mention, though, is the Russia factor and that what Trump ultimately decides to do could be determined in Helsinki on
July 16.
July 26, 2018
Fazel Hawramy, an independent journalist working in Iraqi Kurdistan,
reports in an article in Al Monitor, that the State Department is replacing the outgoing counsel general in Erbil with an
Iran expert by the name of Steven Fagin, the director of the Office of Iranian Affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Near
Eastern Affairs. As director of the Office of Iranian Affairs, which has several outposts around the world, including in Istanbul
and Dubai, Fagin was responsible for developing, coordinating, recommending and executing US policy on Iran, Hawramy reports.
Fagin's presence in Iraqi Kurdistan is significant given that the armed Iranian Kurdish opposition groups fighting the Islamic
Republic are based in the region. Hawramy names the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), in particular, whose leader, Mustafa
Hijri, Fagin met with last month, when he was in Washington, by invitation from the Trump Administration, for a week long series
of meetings at various think tanks. Each side is said to be exploring the seriousness of the other.
The KDPI, it turns out, is a military organization that has a long history of staging attacks against the IRGC in Iran. The
KDPI has also stepped up efforts to establish an entity through which all the Kurdish parties can coordinate their efforts against
Tehran. Meanwhile, on July 21, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, announced the killing
of 15 Iranian soldiers near the town of Marivan, close to the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. No mention is made of how much support
these groups might have among Iranian Kurds, however. They may not be any more viable than the MeK, except for making trouble
of course.
If the US is really seeking to employ such groups to try to destablilize Iran along ethnic lines, this would be nothing
new. Gareth Porter, in an
article
that appeared in Middle East Eye on May 18, reports that John Bolton, when he was in the GW Bush Administration pushed aggressively
for regime change but that Bush himself wasn't interested. Bolton may find history repeating itself, with Trump resisting
his plan for regime change, just as Bush did in 2003, Porter writes. In the week before Porter's article came out, Bolton denied
that the administration policy for Iran was regime change, despite the pullout from the JCPOA. "I've written and said a lot of
things when I was a complete free agent. I certainly stand by what I said at the time, but those were my opinions then. The circumstance
I'm in now is I'm the national security adviser to the president. I'm not the national security decision-maker," he told CNN's
Situation Room. The implication is clear. Number one, Bolton still believes in regime change. Number two, his view has not prevailed
with Trump. The recent comments by both Trump and Pompeo would seem to bear out that Trump's policy remains, as Pompeo said, to
change the regime's behavior, not to change the regime.
2) Who Is Richard Goldberg?
In early January of this year, Bolton brought onto the NSC, one Richard Goldberg, to be the NSC's "Director for Countering
Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction." Goldberg, Jewish Insider
reported on Jan. 7, was the
lead Congressional staff negotiator for sanctions on Iran prior to the nuclear deal in 2015 in his capacity as deputy chief of
staff and senior foreign policy adviser to former Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), and later served as chief of staff for former Illinois
Governor Bruce Rauner. After leaving government in 2017, Goldberg joined the neo-con Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
The National Interest's Curt Mills
confirmed
Goldberg's neo-con credentials the same day. "Couldn't think of anyone better than my @FDD colleague @rich_goldberg to join NSC
to maximize the maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran." FDD president mark Dubowitz jubilantly tweeted.
Goldberg "takes a view of Iran similar to many of Washington's most committed Iran hawks. He views the regime in Tehran as akin
to the Soviet Union -- a hub of a global, anti-American counterculture and internally collapsible if Reagan-style pressure is
applied," Mills reports. "For FDD, which has functioned as the administration's go-to think-tank on Iran, it's another coup. The
Goldberg move to the White House comes as at a time when the organization had been publicly doubting the administration's course
for the first time," Mills reports later in the article.
Daniel Larison,
writing
in The American Conservative, characterized Goldberg this way: "Goldberg has been a leading opponent of the nuclear deal and a
fanatical advocate for enforcing new sanctions on Iran and anyone that does business with them. Bringing Goldberg into the administration
is a sign that the Iran obsession is getting worse, and by making him the 'Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction.'"
One might say we've seen this playbook before, in Iraq in 2002-2003.
As for Goldberg's history, we find that he's been a very militant advocate for Likudnik Israel going back to 2004 when he first
arrived on Capitol Hill as a staffer (Goldberg is a young punk and was probably in his early to mid-20's in 2004). According to
the FDD's biography of him, Goldberg was "A leader in
efforts to expand U.S. missile defense cooperation with Israel, Richard played a key role in U.S. funding for the Arrow-3 program,
Iron Dome and the deployment of an advanced missile defense radar to the Negev Desert." During his time working for Mark Kirk,
Goldberg "emerged as a leading architect of the toughest sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was the lead Republican
negotiator for three rounds of sanctions targeting the Central Bank of Iran, the SWIFT financial messaging service, and entire
sectors of the Iranian economy. Richard also drafted and negotiated legislation promoting human rights and democracy in Iran,
including sanctions targeting entities that provide the Iranian regime with the tools of repression."
In September 2017, Goldberg authored a memo that was circulated on Capitol Hill which advocated that the president should declare
to Congress next month that the deal is no longer in the national security interest of the United States, Foreign Policy
reported at the time. Then the president
would make clear his readiness to hit Iran with a "de-facto global economic embargo" if it failed to meet certain conditions over
a 90-day period, including opening military sites to international inspectors. "This would be a 21st century financial version
of [John F.] Kennedy's Cuba quarantine," according to a copy of the proposal obtained by Foreign Policy. The embargo would involve
reimposing sanctions lifted under the deal, as well as additional measures including restrictions on oil exports. This is clearly
recognizable, now, as the policy that the Trump Administration has imposed on Iran since Trump announced the US withdrawal from
the JCPOA in May 2018.
TTG • 3 hours ago
Willy B., thanks for pulling all this information together into a very readable piece. Well done. This is one dangerous
pack of rats. It's frightening how easily prone to manipulation Trump has proven. One would think he'd be more resistant to this
sort of thing.
Because of Trump's recent recognition of Israel's ownership of the Golan Heights, I Googled
"Israel six day war," which in turn led me to the page link below. Turns out, Isreal lied
about everything.
1) Both Egypt and Israel claim the other side started it. Israel lied.
2) Israel claims Egyptian forces were assembling for an offensive strike. Israel lied.
3) Israel merely initiated a pre-emptive war, rather than because the two stripes on its
flag represent the boundaries of its nation as the Nile and the Euphrates. Israel lied.
@mark
green I think a deceptively simple exercise would produce surprising results. We should
try to figure out what Anti-Semitism is.
The answer will be that it's a vague concept like 'racism' that is used as a pejorative
and slur, and that it would be very hard to find any real, verifiable 'Anti-Semites' or
'racists' who could be shown to hate all members of their chosen enemy group.
Yes, there are people who imagine that they hate all Jews, or all black people, etc. But I
doubt that they really know who they hate, and would be surprised to find that they mostly
hate a concept, rather than real people.
People who self-identify as 'Jews' are varied, by many different measures, and not all
'semitic', either. And not all people with 'semitic' genes identify as being a 'Jew'.
To those who would say, "well, we still know what we mean by the terms" I would respond,
"I think you do, in the very fuzzy, vague, dangerous sense that characterizes your
thinking."
That's one point. A second is that it's not a crime to hate anyone or anything. If you
hate something or someone, you're within your rights to do so .waste of time and energy that
that usually is.
Zionist colonization of America is nearing culmination. Nothing short of a comprehensive
anti-colonial resistance movement will rid us of the Zio-cancer that is corroding our
national identity, integrity, self determination and independence. The cancer must be
extirpated and the time is now.
Anybody reading from West Virginia? Our Senator Joe Manchin receives six figures of donations
from AIPAC. Don't vote for him.
AIPAC's February 2019 press release stated, "AIPAC commends Congress for strongly
supporting Israeli security and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship in provisions
included in the new spending bill. Importantly, the legislation increases security assistance
to Israel by $200 million to fully fund the first year of the new 10-year U.S.-Israel
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). These funds help Israel maintain its qualitative military
edge in the region in order to defend itself, by itself, from mounting threats on its
borders." This plundering was co-sponsored by the other West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore
Capito. So don't vote for her either.
So where does that leave West Virginia voters? Staying home and abstaining from voting,
because we never get a good alternative due to the primary election. Which actually solves
nothing.
Yep, looking at our options, the only change is going to come from a coup or
revolution.
In other words Russiagate was a smoke screen over Isrealgate...
Notable quotes:
"... Being a citizen of a country is not just an accident of birth. It requires loyalty to the interests of that country and to one's fellow citizens. ..."
"... The Lobby works assiduously to compel American government at all levels to adopt positions that are beneficial to Israel and almost invariably harmful to U.S. interests. Asserting that the two nations have nearly identical interests is little more than a fraud. ..."
"... Second, there is the claim that Israel benefits American security. That is also a lie. Washington's relationship with Israel, which is now more subservient than it ever has been, is a major liability that is and always has been damaging to both American regional and global interests. ..."
"... Former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman has also rejected the claim that Israel is a security asset by observing that "Israeli spies have done more harm and have damaged the United States more than the intelligence agents of all other countries on earth combined. They are the gravest threat to our national security." ..."
"... Israel and AIPAC have relentlessly pursued their agenda while also corrupting the Congress of the United States to support the Israeli government with money and political cover. ..."
"... There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy wonks. infecting the U S government who hold dual citizenship with Israel. Such dual citizenship must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed to serve in any American governmental capacity. ..."
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just completed its annual summit in
Washington. It claims that 18,000 supporters attended the event, which concluded with a day of
lobbying Congress by the attendees. Numerous American politicians addressed the gathering and
it is completely reasonable to observe that the meeting constituted the most powerful gathering
of people dedicated to promoting the interests of a foreign nation ever witnessed in any
country in the history of the world.
There are a number of things that one should understand about the Jewish state of Israel and
its powerful American domestic lobby. First of all, the charge that the actions of The Lobby
(referred to with capital letters because of its uniqueness and power) inevitably involves dual
or even singular allegiance based on religion or tribe to a country where the lobbyist does not
actually reside is completely correct by definition of what AIPAC is and why it exists. It
claims to work to "ensure
that the Jewish state is safe, strong and secure" through "foreign aid, government
partnerships, [and] joint anti-terrorism efforts ," all of which involve the U.S. as the donor
and Israel as the recipient.
Being a citizen of a country is not just an accident of birth. It requires loyalty to
the interests of that country and to one's fellow citizens. No two countries have
identical interests, something that is particularly true when one is considering Israel, an
ethno-religious autocracy, and the United States, where The Lobby works assiduously to
compel American government at all levels to adopt positions that are beneficial to Israel and
almost invariably harmful to U.S. interests. Asserting that the two nations have nearly
identical interests is little more than a fraud.
Second, there is the claim that Israel benefits American security. That is also a lie.
Washington's relationship with Israel, which is now more subservient than it ever has been, is
a major liability that is and always has been damaging to both American regional and global
interests. The recent decisions to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize
Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights were ill-conceived and have been condemned by the
world community, including by nearly all of America's genuine close allies.
The harm done by the Israeli connection to policy formulation in Washington and to U.S.
troops based in the Middle East has been noted both by Admiral Thomas Moorer and General David
Petraeus, with Moorer decrying how
"If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government,
they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."
Petraeus complained to a Senate Committee that U.S. favoritism towards Israel puts American
soldiers based in the Middle East at risk. He was quickly forced to recant, however.
Former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman has also rejected the claim that Israel
is a security asset by observing that "Israeli spies have done more harm and have damaged the
United States more than the intelligence agents of all other countries on earth combined. They
are the gravest threat to our national security." Inman was referring to American Jewish
spy Jonathan Pollard, who stole for Israel an entire roomful of the most highly classified
defense information. Israeli spies, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Hollywood movie producer Arnon Milchan, also participated in the systematic theft of weapons
grade uranium and nuclear triggers in the 1960s so Israel could secretly create a nuclear
weapons arsenal. The FBI, for its part, in its annual counterintelligence report, consistently
identifies Israel as the "friendly" country that spies most persistently against the U.S. FBI
Agents have testified that there are very
few prosecutions of the swarms of Israeli spies due to "political pressure."
Third, there is the myth that the United States and Israel have "shared values," which is
meant to imply that both are liberal democracies where freedom and human rights prevail,
beacons of light offering enlightened leadership in a world where tyranny threatens at every
turn. This was stressed in the opening remarks last weekend by AIPAC Executive Director Howard
Kohr, who described Israel as "A nation
always striving to be better, more just and true to the message of its founders, a nation
dedicated to freedom of religion for people of all faiths. We do our work for all to see. What
unites our pro-Israel movement is the passion for bringing American and Israel closer for the
benefit of both and the benefit of all. We look like America because we are America."
Kohr is, of course, preaching to an audience that wants desperately to believe what he says
in spite of what they have been able to see with their own eyes in the media when it dares to
publish a story criticizing Israel. Jewish hypocrisy about one standard for Israel and Jews
plus another standard for everyone else operates pretty much out in the open if one knows where
to look. Zionist Organization of America's Morton Klein, who once tweeted regarding a "filthy
Arab,"
was interviewed by journalist Nathan Thrall and asked why he believed it was "utterly
racist and despicable" to support a "white nationalist" ethnic group but not racist for Israel
to do the same. He responded "Israel is a unique situation. This is really a Jewish state given
to us by God. God did not create a state for white people or for black people." Senator Charles
Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, who calls himself the Senate's "shomer" or guardian
for American Jews, had a slightly different take on it: "Of course, we say it's our land, the
Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not
peace."
But Kohr, Klein and Schumer all know as well as anyone that Israeli Jews, fortified by their
conceit of being a "Chosen people," are not interchangeable with contemporary Americans, or at
least not "like" the Americans who still care about their country. There are hundreds of mostly
Jewish pro-Israel organizations in America, having a
combined endowment of $16 billion, that are actively propagandizing and promoting Israeli
interests by ignoring or lying about the downside of the relationship. The University of
Michigan affiliate of the Hillel International campus organization alone has a multistory
headquarters supported by a budget of $2 million and a staff of 15. It hosts an emissary of the
Jewish Agency for Israel, an Israeli government supported promotional enterprise.
So, what is the meaning of the "American" in AIPAC? Requiring a religious-ethnic litmus test
for full citizenship and rights is Israeli, not American. Having local government admissions
committees that can bar Israeli-Palestinian citizens based on "social suitability" would not be
acceptable to most Americans. Demanding a unique Israeli right to exist while denying it to
Israel's neighbors; demolishing homes while poisoning Palestinian livestock and destroying
orchards; shooting children for throwing stones; and inflicting death, terror and deprivation
upon the imprisoned people of Gaza are all everyday common practice for the Israeli
government.
Israel and AIPAC have relentlessly pursued their agenda while also corrupting the
Congress of the United States to support the Israeli government with money and political
cover. Israel and friends like Kohr routinely make baseless charges of anti-Semitism
against critics while also legislating against free-speech to eliminate any and all criticism.
This drive to make Israel uniquely free from any critique has become the norm in the United
States, but it is a norm driven by Israeli interests and Israel's friends, most of whom are
Jewish billionaires or Jewish organizations that meet regularly and discuss what they might do
to benefit the Jewish state.
And the fourth big lie is that the American people support Israel on religious as well as
cultural grounds, not because mostly Jewish money has corrupted our political system and media.
Indeed, many Christian fundamentalists have various takes on what Israel means, but their
influence is limited. The Israel-thing is Jewish in all ways that matter and its sanitized
Exodus -version that has been sold to the public is essentially a complete fraud
nurtured by the media, also Jewish controlled, by Hollywood, and by the Establishment.
"This weekend the New York Times
breaks one of the biggest taboos , describing the responsibility of Jewish donors for the
Democratic Party's slavish support for Israel. Nathan Thrall's groundbreaking piece repeats a
lot of data we've reported here and says in essence that it really is about the Benjamins, as
Rep. Ilhan Omar said so famously. The donor class of the party is overwhelmingly Jewish, and
Jews are still largely wed to Zionism– that's the nut." Ben Rhodes, a former deputy
national-security adviser to ex-President Barack Obama recounted in the article how "a more
assertive policy toward Israel" never evolved "The Washington view of Israel-Palestine is
still shaped by the [Jewish] donor class."
And the support for Israel goes beyond money. The Times article included an October
2018
"Survey of 800 American voters who identify as Jewish, conducted by the Mellman Group on
behalf of the Jewish Electoral Institute, 92 percent said that they are 'generally
pro-Israel.' In the same poll -- conducted after the United States closed the Palestinian
diplomatic mission in Washington, moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem, appointed a fund-raiser for the settlements as U.S. ambassador and cut
humanitarian aid to Palestinians -- roughly half of American Jews said they approved of
President Trump's handling of relations with Israel. On what is considered the most divisive
issue in U.S.-Israel relations, the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank,
a November 2018 post-midterm election poll of more than 1,000 American Jews that was
commissioned by J Street, the pro-Israel lobby aligned with Democrats, found that roughly
half said the expansion of settlements had no impact on how they felt about Israel.
According to a 2013 Pew survey , 44 percent of Americans and 40 percent of American Jews
believe that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God, [a] fact that Jews believe they
have rights in historic Palestine that non-Jews do not."
And one only has to listen to the AIPAC speeches made by leading members of the U.S.
government establishment to appreciate the essential hypocrisy over the U.S. wag-the-dog
relationship with the Jewish state of Israel. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
led the parade of Democrats on the first evening of AIPAC, thundering "When someone accuses
American supporters of Israel of dual loyalty, I say: Accuse me, I am part of a large,
bipartisan coalition in Congress supporting Israel -- an overwhelming majority of the United
States Congress. I tell Israel's accusers and detractors: Accuse me."
Well, Steny there is a certain irony in your request and to be sure you should be accused
over betrayal of your oath to uphold the constitution against all enemies "domestic and
foreign." Hoyer is a product of the heavily Jewish Maryland Democratic Party machine that has
also produced Pelosi and Senator Ben Cardin. Pelosi told the AIPAC audience about her
father in Baltimore, a so-called Shabbos goy who would perform services for Jews on the
sabbath and who would also speak Yiddish while at home with his Italian family. Cardin
meanwhile has been the sponsor of legislation to make criticism or boycotting of Israel
illegal, up to and including heavy fines and prison time.
Hoyer, widely regarded as one of the most pro-Israel non-Jewish congressman, also boasted to
AIPAC about the 15 official trips to Israel he's made in forty years in Congress, accompanied
by more than 150 fellow Democrats. "This August, I will travel with what I expect will be our
largest delegation ever -- probably more than 30 Democratic members of Congress, including many
freshmen."
Steny Hoyer will be on an AIPAC affiliate sponsored trip in which any contact with
Palestinians will be both incidental and carefully managed. He also clearly has no problem in
spending the taxpayer's dime to go to Israel on additional "codels" to get further
propagandized. He is flat out wrong about Israel in general, but don't expect him to be
convinced otherwise, which may be somehow related to the $317,525 in pro-Israel PAC
contributions he has received.
There was much more at the AIPAC Summit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced "the
pernicious myth of dual loyalty and foreign allegiance" while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
fresh from selling out U.S. interests on a visit to Israel, declared that "We live in
dangerous times. We have to speak the truth. Anti-Semitism should and must be rejected by all
decent people. Anti-Semitism – anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, and any nation that
espouses anti-Zionism, like Iran, must be confronted. We must defend the rightful homeland of
the Jewish people."
Vice President Mike Pence, like Pompeo an evangelical Christian, piled on in his Monday
prime time speech,
declaring that "Anyone who aspires to the highest office of the land should not be afraid
to stand with the strongest supporters of Israel in America. It is wrong to boycott Israel. It
is wrong to boycott AIPAC. Anti-Semitism has no place in the Congress of the United States of
America. Anyone who slanders this historic alliance between the United States and Israel should
never have a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee."
Clearly, there is considerable evidence to support the theory that one has to be completely
ignorant to hold high office in the United States. Rejecting Zionism and/or questioning Israeli
policies is not anti-Semitism and the Jewish state is in fact no actual ally of the United
States. Nor is there any mandate to defend it in its questionable "rightful homeland."
Furthermore, dual-loyalty is what the relationship with Israel is all about and it is Jewish
money and political power that makes the whole thing work to Israel's benefit.
But the good news is that all the lying blather from the likes of Steny Hoyer and Howard
Kohr reveals their desperation. They are running scared because "the times they are a
changing." Sure, Congressmen will continue to be bought and sold and Jewish money and the
access to power that it buys will be able to prevail in the short term in a conspiratorial
fashion. But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty
to the United States. And what Israel is doing is evil, as is becoming increasingly clear. It
is trying to convince Washington to make war on Iran, a country that does not threaten the
U.S., while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as
Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are starving will
not continue indefinitely. It must not continue and we Americans should do whatever it takes to
stop it.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box
2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected].
No he chose to. He was a high ranking general nearing retirement. Nobody could touch him
if he really was looking out for the country as he took and oath to do.
It must not continue and we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it.
Amen, brother Phil!
We are all suffering from cognitive dissonance where our conflicted minds refuse to force
our government to declare AIPAC as an agent of a foreign nation that must be made to register
as such.
But, as I said in a previous post, the foxes are guarding the henhouse. We need to take
them down by hook or by crook. I have made it a mission in my copious free time to confront
every politician that I can and ask them uncomfortable questions about their loyalty to this
nation. So far, success has been limited, but if more people would join me, we could make
these sniveling cowards fear us more than they fear The Lobby.
We have put together a series of articles that explore the candidates’ (and
potential candidates’) Jewish connections — from those who identify as Jews, or
are married to one, to candidates who are not Jewish but have ties to the community in
different ways. We also explore their views on Israel.
Below are links to articles, sorted alphabetically, that our staff has written about some of
the political contenders, mostly those seeking the Democratic nomination. This list will be
updated as additional candidates join the fray.
And you thought Israel only dictated US policy in the ME? Every country knows that to get
anything from the US they have to go thru the Jews. The only thing of value Israel has ever
had to sell is its control of the US. Lets see how long it takes for Trump and congress to
reinstate the aid.
Trump cuts aid to 3 countries with strong relations with Israel
Last week, in his speech at the AIPAC policy conference, said President Juan Orlando
Hernández of Honduras that he would open a commercial office in Jerusalem – but
not an embassy.
By OMRI NAHMIAS Jerusalem Post
April 1, 2019 08:47
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump decided to stop programs of foreign aid for
three states in the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, who are
known to have a strong relationship with Israel. Trump is cutting off nearly $500 million to
put pressure on the three governments to stop their citizens from trying to cross the Mexican
border into the US. However, it could also jeopardize the Israeli efforts to convince
Honduras to move its Embassy to Jerusalem.
Last week, in his speech at the AIPAC policy conference, President Juan Orlando
Hernández of Honduras said that he would open a commercial office in Jerusalem –
but not an embassy.
Just three months ago, things were moving in a positive direction. A trilateral meeting
between Hernández, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Pompeo was followed
by an announcement from the government of Honduras, saying it opened a dialogue with
Netanyahu to explore the possibility of opening an embassy in Jerusalem.
After the trilateral meeting, Israeli media outlets indicated that Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to mediate a deal between Honduras and United States to secure
the continuing of foreign aid to the country in exchange for opening a Honduran embassy in
Jerusalem.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington, as well Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office did not
respond for a comment request from The Jerusalem Post on that matter. Another country that
would face a cut in foreign aid is Guatemala – the only country that followed the US
and moved the embassy to Jerusalem”
Petraeus is in position to have lucrative –part-time– broadcasting
appearances. He would not get those opportunities, if if he espoused that Israeli-bought US
favoritism was wrong. Bobby Inman while not caring about the media, would be true to his
beliefs.
JFK and LBJ both knew it was wrong three generations ago. The difference was that JFK knew
it, complained to his underlings and at least partially did things that rocked the Israelis.
LBJ just wanted ‘the Jews off my back’ and acted accordingly with regard to
Israel.
while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as
Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are
starving
” In Beit Suhur outside Bethlehem, I have seen IDF troops shoot at Palestinian
Christian women hanging out laundry in their gardens. This was done with tank coaxial machine
guns from within a bermed up dirt fort a couple of hundred yards away, and evidently just for
the fun of it.
In Bethlehem a lieutenant told me that he would have had his men shoot me in the street
during a demonstration that I happened to get caught in, but that he had not because he
thought I might not be a Palestinian and that if I were not the incident would have caused
him some trouble.
I have seen a lot of things like that”……Col Pat Lang
Israel is a crime that makes me wish I was the US President.
The comment on the stealing of nuclear materials in the sixties reminds that Michael
Scheuer’s blog has been pulled, any chance we could have him hosted here?
If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government,
they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes
on.
and
But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty to
the United States.
How long is this “long run” when the people who don’t know finally
know?
Israeli spies, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hollywood movie
producer Arnon Milchan, also participated in the systematic theft of weapons grade uranium
and nuclear triggers in the 1960s so Israel could secretly create a nuclear weapons
arsenal.
I’ve been bringing that up for years on various platforms and have yet to get any
comment on it. Why there isn’t enough outrage to barley even address it is inexplicable
to me. Netanyanhoo belongs in solitary for the rest of his miserable days but instead gets
treated better than royalty by our butt-kissing politicians. Sick, sick sick.
As far as the Izzies running our military, the Air Force officer Karen Kwiatkowski has
written about it in the past, and is hardly ever mentioned.
“My fellow escort and I chatted on the way back to our office about how the
[Israeli] generals knew where they were going [in the Pentagon] (most foreign visitors to
the five-sided asylum don’t) and how the [Israeli]generals didn’t have to
sign in. I felt a bit dirtied by the whole thing and couldn’t stop comparing that
experience to the grace and gentility of the Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian ambassadors
with whom I worked”.
Thank you for your exceptional and important work. Please allow me to suggest that you
back off a bit from referencing (and elevating) the manipulative term
‘anti-Semitism’. It’s a tendentious phrase designed to stifle much-needed
criticism and much-needed opposition to the world’s most coddled brand of political
extremism.
‘Anti-Semitic theory’ promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews)
who reject the depredations of Organized Jewry are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or
prone to irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.
Ironically, as pro-Zionist violence is embraced by Official Washington, verbal expressions
that are “too critical” of (lethal) Israeli policies–or which dare to
explore the destructive role of Zionist operatives inside Washington–are the kiss of
political death here in the Land of the Free.
Thou shalt not… say that.
How did this happen?
Jewish-manufactured taboos have allowed the perpetrators of serial warfare to snatch
sensitivity points as Israeli missiles fly. This perverse mindset and oddball collection of
modern double-standards have turned the rule of law on its head. Common sense is also a
causality.
People should have the right to think whatever they want. The one red line that must never
be crossed however is initiating aggressive physical violence.
How simple. How appealing. How universal. How old fashioned.
How did we ever forget it?
(Political necessity?)
Indeed, Official Washington now does pretty much the opposite. Contemporary
‘American’ leaders embrace (and vote to subsidize) serial Israeli
warfare/expansion along with Israeli ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, far less powerful US
citizens and political observers get slammed for making mere utterances about Israeli
ruthlessness and the Zionist domination of Washington.
How much longer will these strange delusions last?
Thank you for a very informative, if thoroughly depressing, article.
we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it
As a first step, stop supporting your two pro-Israel Establishment parties. If you keep
voting for them, they will carry on as before, nothing will change. Politicians only ever sit
up and take notice when their access to power comes under threat.
That said, there is little chance Valerie Plame will be tweeting this one like she
previously did two others of yours.
Excerpts from Former Spy Accused Of Anti-Semitism Eyeing Senate Run :
Former CIA spy Valerie Plame Wilson is considering a run for the United States Senate in
New Mexico, the Washington Examiner reported Friday.
One early obstacle for Plame Wilson, should she choose to run, is an anti-Semitism
controversy: She was criticized in September 2017 for tweeting links to anti-Semitic
articles, including a column titled “American Jews Are Driving America’s
Wars” and another called “The Dancing Israelis” that insinuated the
Mossad was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Plame at first defended her sharing of the
“Jews drive wars” article, arguing, “many neocon hawks ARE Jewish.”
But she eventually apologized and resigned from her position on the board of the
Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear not-for-profit foundation. She has not tweeted
since.
Plame Wilson told the Examiner on Friday that she would “like another
opportunity to serve my country” and would run as a Democrat. The seat will open
up in 2020 after the retirement of incumbent Sen. Tom Udall.
More accurately, she would like to serve those who’ll be funding her campaign.
There are forty or so congressmen, senators and thousands of high-level policy wonks.
infecting the U S government who hold dual citizenship with Israel. Such dual citizenship
must be strictly prohibited. Those holding dual citizenship must be required to renounce said
foreign citizenship. Refusal to do so should result in immediate deportation with loss of
American citizenship. Present and former holders of dual citizenship should never be allowed
to serve in any American governmental capacity.
In addition, any American citizen who serves in a foreign military (Israel Defense Forces)
should automatically lose their American citizenship.
When Netanyahu addressed both houses of congress, it was sickening to see our politicians
slobber all over themselves to PROVE that they were unconditional supporters of Israel. It
was a scene out of the Soviet Politburo where every jewish or Israel supporter tried to outdo
the others with the applause. Just who the hell do they work for? Certainly not for the
interests of the American people and the United States,they should renounce their United
States citizenship and be deported to Israel.
WASP culture was completed, formed fully, finalized, by Puritans and Puritanism, by
Judaizing heresy. WASP culture, therefore, always must gravitate toward Jews, always must
be pro-Semitic, always will feature a drive to neutralize, and preferably destroy, that
which is aligned toward historic Christianity and Christendom, while promoting endless
heretical groups, especially those that reveal a willingness to be subservient to Jews and
to WASP Elites who invariably are staunchly pro-Semitic (either pro-Jewish or
pro-Arabic/Islamic).
I don’t know about that. The Nazis were WASPs, they clearly didn’t get your
memo. The WASPs who are most eager to drink the Jew liberal Kool-aid are all atheists.
I am not fond of the title given the piece, but Mr Giraldi always has something to say worth
listening to.
" But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not
loyalty to the United States. And what Israel is doing is evil, as is becoming increasingly
clear. It is trying to convince Washington to make war on Iran, a country that does not
threaten the U.S., while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the
other way as Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who
are starving will not continue indefinitely. "
Well said indeed.
I am generally an optimist for the long term., although forced to be a pessimist for the
near future.
Such abuse and oppression just cannot go on forever.
Even the mighty Soviet Union finally collapsed, leaving a peaceful and reasonable Russia
in its place.
And, while not generally noticed, there are many parallels between modern Israel and the
USSR.
You cannot go on proclaiming democracy when half the people you rule cannot even vote.
They could all vote in the USSR, but their votes meant nothing.
You cannot claim to represent our great Western values when oppression is an integral part
of your society.
Millions of prisoners cannot be kept without rights indefinitely. Only a tyranny such as
the USSR is capable even of attempting it.
But in the meantime, many must suffer terribly while the nightmarish events which
represent Israel's behavior play themselves out.
If you are willing to use brutality regularly to get your way, as the USSR did and as
Israel does, you can continue for quite a while, but not indefinitely.
I think this is not true. Only if the person puts interests of the other state above the interests of the home state
such behaviour can be qualified as the fifth column mentality.
Peter Beinart and the rest of the 'Goldstein-Big Brother' tagteam have a cynical hasbara
role to disguise the real fight, which is ending 'Jewish Kahanism'
Screw Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism, the 'Zionists' are KAHANISTS
Peter Beinart's shtick of being a 'Liberal Kahanist' is just his way of conning America
while appearing respectable rather than being shunned
At time of Pollard's release, Fortress America was not completely dominated by
Israel
He was released in November, 2015, only 52 months ago. I don't believe that the Israeli
lobby was much weaker then.
He was release under parole in accordance with US law.
According to the Tel Aviv edited source, wikipedia, Rumsfeld,Cheney,Tenet,several former
sec. of defense, a bi-partisan group of US congressional leaders and members of the US
intelligence community, all opposed clemency for Pollard.
He deeply angered many top Americans, so clemency was not possible. Parole, however
was.
Pollard, I understand sold much information to other nations. Maybe if he had only stolen
information for Israel he could have gotten clemency.
Pollard tried to get asylum in the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, but was refused
entry. His Israeli handlers in Washington DC all fled the US within 24 hours after his
arrest
At the time of his arrest in 1985, Israeli power over Washington was far weaker than it is
today. America apparently still had some patriots at high levels at that time.
"The problem with statements like this is that their very utterance reveals the presence of
the strategically damaging assumption that Israel and Jews can be reasoned with on these
topics."
I am disinclined to relegate but a few to this kind of stricture. The issue not can a
Jewish person be reasoned with, but who has the ability to stand on disagreements that might
not be in line with the ambitions of the other. And certainly all indications are that Jews
can be reasoned with. I don't subscribe to a totalitarian view that this is an impossibility.
I will say what I have said since entering these discussions. Despite where one falls on
Israel's selection by God, they are still responsible for behaving as members of the larger
community and even God says so. In fact Israel should as an agent selected by God, if such be
the case, be the leading actor of responsible behavior. I have made that point before and
their I rest.
She should be responsible and accountable. In the same manner as Christians are
responsible and accountable in the countries in which they live. Those parameters do not in
any manner diminish one's special role or character.
In regards to the secular, the elected and appointed members of the the US represent the
interests of the US first and foremost – period. And they can certainly support
Israel's existence without denying her any sleight of her unique spiritual of scriptural
meaning. Her ability to leverage the three variables to her stead is more a reflection on the
weakness of US representatives to tackle each of those variables head on in relation to how
supports US policy. God is not going to be chagrined about telling Israel, she cannot merely
confiscate land as she wants. But that she must obey/abide by the rules that govern sovereign
states. The holocaust, real or manufactured does make room for running ruff shod over her
neighbors. There are processes by which she could press for more territory that are legal --
she should use that process.
The ability to reason requires the ability to stand against unreason and their in my view
is where the US simply fails. Can one reason with Israel, sure as long as one has the
backbone to stand.
__________________
My love and support for Israel in no manner condones violations of rules that in no manner
contradict spiritual or scriptural truth. And I am confident that includes abiding by the
rules of members states of the international community. No one need be a "jew worshiper" or
"worshiper of Israel" to support Israel or hold her accountable among the nation-state
community.
And no one has to become a Jew to support Israel or be a christian while there are deep
roots, the two are not the same by a long shot.
I remain steadfastly in support of her right to exist, self defense and that others have
no less a right than she. My original position from start to this moment and unlikely to
change.
That is key. The right of others to co-exist alongside Israel the issue. The state of
Israel, regardless of her standing with respect to scripture and christian ethos, as a
nation state she is bound by the same rules as other nation states.
The problem with statements like this is that their very utterance reveals the presence of
the strategically damaging assumption that Israel and Jews can be reasoned with on these
topics.
Even if that reason is by way of potential sanctions, boycotts, and other forms of
political and economic pressure.
The truth of the matter is that anyone who would theoretically be engaging with Israel, or
even the gentile groups that put various forms of pressure on Israel, absolutely has to be
well-educated in Judaism.
To know Judaism is to know that its core thesis is that Jews are not bound by the same
rules as other peoples and nations. It is to know that Judaism's core tenet is that Israel is
the only legitimate nation and therefore the only nation that is destined to survive. It is
to know that it is religiously incumbent on the Jews to not make concessions that would allow
any other nation to survive in the long term.
To know all of this is to come to the strategic conclusion that attempting to reason with
Israel in regard to playing by the rules is a failed effort before it begins. In fact, it
would do nothing more than to waste time and allow Israel an opportunity for further
deception toward its ultimate nation-destroying goals.
Instead, Israel and the wider Jewish nation must be dealt with on an open foundation of
their religiously expressed hostility to all other nations that includes their expressed
domination and genocide goals. Anything else allows them a certain degree of cover that
allows them to maneuver to our detriment.
Thank you for your exceptional and important work. Please allow me to suggest that you
back off a bit from referencing (and elevating) the manipulative term 'anti-Semitism'. It's a
tendentious phrase designed to stifle much-needed criticism and much-needed opposition to the
world's most coddled brand of political extremism.
'Anti-Semitic theory' promulgates the false notion that those of us (non-Jews) who reject
the depredations of Organized Jewry are spiritually deformed, mentally ill, or prone to
irrational acts of physical violence. This is a calculated libel.
Ironically, as pro-Zionist violence is embraced by Official Washington, verbal expressions
that are "too critical" of (lethal) Israeli policies–or which dare to explore the
destructive role of Zionist operatives inside Washington–are the kiss of political
death here in the Land of the Free.
Thou shalt not say that.
How did this happen?
Jewish-manufactured taboos have allowed the perpetrators of serial warfare to snatch
sensitivity points as Israeli missiles fly. This perverse mindset and oddball collection of
modern double-standards have turned the rule of law on its head. Common sense is also a
causality.
People should have the right to think whatever they want. The one red line that must never
be crossed however is initiating aggressive physical violence.
How simple. How appealing. How universal. How old fashioned.
How did we ever forget it?
(Political necessity?)
Indeed, Official Washington now does pretty much the opposite. Contemporary 'American'
leaders embrace (and vot to subsidize) serial Israeli warfare/expansion along with Israeli
ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, far less powerful US citizens and political observers get
slammed for making mere utterances about Israeli ruthlessness and the Zionist domination of
Washington.
How much longer will these strange delusions last?
The term and multi-tiered concept marketed as 'anti-Semitism' is a deceptive misnomer.
This is no accident.
Where's the 'Jew' in 'anti-Semitism'?
It's missing. But why?
After all, 'anti-Semitism' is basically about one thing: anti-Jewishness.
Yet the J-word is missing.
Did someone forget?
Of course not. The Jews have removed 'Jew' from this manipulative term for a strategic
purpose.
Keep in mind that 'Semites' are a real (and diverse) collection of peoples. So are Semitic
languages which involve millions of mostly-Arab peoples who dwell in different countries,
speak various languages, and practice different religions.
Yet, 'anti-Semitism' in the West means only one thing: 'anti-Jewishness'.
And Jews–unlike 'Semites'–are one cohesive people who claim one exclusive
country with one supreme religion. And they also happen to play an exceedingly powerful role
throughout Europe and America.
So why the linguistic sleight-of-hand with 'anti-Semitism'?
After all, Semitic Arabs get no protection from charges involving 'anti-Semitism'. It's
all about Jews.
Why not call 'anti-Semitism' what it actually is?–'Jew hatred or Jews contempt'?
'Jew fatigue', perhaps?
That's because the shomers who safeguard Jewry don't want anti-Jewish sentiment to
be simple or comprehensible or (most importantly) made legitimate in any way
whatsoever.
After all, hate is a common emotion and it is routinely directed from high above at
certain unpopular groups, ideologies and 'bad' countries. Nothing wrong with that, right?
Not so fast.
Jewry has conflated 'anti-Semitism' with 'genocide' and 'white supremacy' (See: Hitler).
Very clever. This ramps up gentile guilt and Jewish untouchability.
Anti-Jewishness ('anti-Semitism') is therefore designed to be understood as a unique
mental disorder with unique political dangers. This is no small accomplishment,
especially when one considers that Jews aren't exactly the 'innocent victims' that they claim
to be.
Indeed, if anti-Jewish commentary ('anti-Semitic speech') was brought down to earth and
even permitted, this would undermine Israeli power inside America as well as the
effectiveness of the taboos and 'red flags' which have elevated 'anti-Semitism' into a
rarified class of evil–not to mention 'political tool' for it's handlers.
Indeed, without the special shield that 'anti-Semitic theory' accords Jews, they would be
subject to the same harsh criticism often accorded Arabs, Russians, Iranians, Germans or
Muslims.
So the Guardians of Zion have cooked up a theoretical framework to pretty-much prevents
all that. It serves them quite well.
Thus conceptual 'anti-Semitism' is a self-exonerating paradigm. This also empowers Israel
enormously.
Anti-Semitic theory injects voodoo Freudianism and Frankfurt School gobbledegook into all
Jewish historiography. In doing so, it establishes two dubious beachheads.
1) 'Anti-Semitism' is not about Jewish behavior, nor is 'anti-Semitism' about everyday
political and economic conflicts that involve the collective (and conflicting) interests of
Jews and gentiles. No siree. Not that!
Such a bilateral and down-to-earth view is unacceptable. It's far too simple, too
accessible– too empowering for the anti-Semitic rabble.
To truly comprehend 'anti-Semitism' requires the expertise of a psychiatrist (preferably
Jewish) or qualified 'expert'. Please check with the 'Jewish Studies' Dept. for further
information.
These scholars will cleanly explain the dark, hidden forces that drive the periodic
eruptions (pograms, genocides) involving political good (the Jew) and evil (the
'anti-Semite').
Thus 'anti-Semitic theory' communicates the view that Jewish power, Jewish abuse of power
and Jewish crypsis are 'myths and allegations' and not relevant to understanding anti-Jewish
sentiment among the evious goyim.
'Anti-Semitism'? It's all in your head! And those afflicted with it are suffering from
hidden conflicts in their hate-filled twisted minds! Hitler!
('Trust me', says the 'expert'. 'Would I lie about such a thing'?)
Once the kosher 'diagnosis' is established, 'Anti-Semitism' becomes a powerful and handy
political weapon. And they certainly know how to use it.
'Anti-Semitic theory' even flips overdue criticism of Zio-Israeli power into this:
'You people (goys) who have a grievance against God's chosen people are merely
jealous. Jews don't mean any harm. Their violence is all in self-defense.
'You are projecting your own pathetic feelings of inferiority. Your contempt for Jew[ish
conduct and beliefs] is a neurotic projection of your own pathologies.
'So don't muddy the waters with irrelevant references to wars in Europe and Russia and
now in the Middle East that have killed tens of millions.
'And certainly don't discuss the unimportant Jewish role in banking, finance,
immigration policies, education, law, entertainment and the manufacture of 'news'. All that
bigoted discourse is anti-Semitic propaganda and is irrelevant.
'We must strive to assure Jewish safety and Jewish survival.'
@Fran
Taubman The US has been providing a safe and prosperous home for your ungrateful lot. And
yet, the Jews are seemingly not able to be loyal to a country of their dwelling because "next
year in Jerusalem" -- even if the majority of the Jews prefer to admire Jerusalem from a
distance.
It is not just the Jewish treasonous behavior towards the USA citizenry, which is so
repulsive. The problem is the subversive influence of the Lobby towards the western values at
large (such as the First Amendment, including the active suppression of factual information
that is unpleasant for the tribe) -- all while the holo-biz continues encouraging the whining
and wailing about special victimhood of the Jews. This does not work anymore. After
converting tens of thousands of Middle Eastern children into the bags of shredded meat in the
name of Eretz Israel and after supporting military the Kievan neo-Nazi, the Jewish State's
screeching about existential threat and some special dues that western world owes to the
Jewish tribe do not have any power anymore. It's over.
In addition, the cynicism, indecency, and the cruelty displayed by the Jews against
Palestinians, Arabs, and Russians have made the AIPAC, the ADL, and other mighty Jewish
organization into pariahs among decent people.
It has no sense to engage in name-calling ("all the fringe sick people on UNZ"). Look at a
mirror. Your tribe has lost the moral fiber. It does not help that the Jewish mythology
treats non-Jews as subhumans.
"These imbeciles perceive in US-Jews their own human distortion – and hate
themselves in projecting self-hate on a tiny minority within their degenerated
population."
-- Anja, why does this article about the pernicious influence of the Lobby made you so
hysterical? The "tiny minority" has decided to be loyal to the tribal Jewish interests on its
own volition. The tiny minority has a choice to relocate to its "promised land" and thus
leave the US alone. The parasitic and disloyal minority is not welcome by the decent
Americans, whereas the zionized degenerate in the US Congress do behave treasonously towards
the US citizenry. Just take Bolton, Pompeo, Schumer, and Pelosi with you.
Leave the US alone. Sort out your problems with your Arab cousins ((Ishmaels) on your own.
And, by the way, stop murdering the Middle Eastern children; this is a very bad behavior that
is not going to be forgotten by good people.
Israeli nukes were always our government's policy.
First off, Lot, given your passionate attachment to the Zionist Project, you need to be a
little clearer as to whom you are referring when you write "our" government.
Secondly, if you were referring to the policy of the US gov't, as you are no doubt aware,
JFK had several correspondences with David Ben Gurion in which he warned him against the
development of a nuclear program for fear of nuclear proliferation in the region. The issue was
so divisive that it led to DBG's resignation and JFK's demise.
@renfroHow about POTUS making a secret pledge to Israel? Clinton, Bush the younger, Obama,
and Trump have all signed letters pledging never to expose Israel's nuclear arsenal. At last
week's conference, Grant Smith outlined his efforts to stop this practice of subverting both
letter and spirit of US law. For starters, we should demand that all presidential candidates
pledge: No Secret Pledge to a (((Foreign))) Power.
U.S. foreign aid and the Israeli nuclear weapons program – Grant F. Smith
"It's the Benjamins Baby" -- money is everything to the Jew.
Israeli banks screw America – help US Jews to circumvent taxes
US MSM screw America – never tell the American people about it.
Media Blackout as Israel's Largest Banks Pay over $1 Billion in Fines for US Tax
Evasion Schemes
Israel's three largest banks -- Hapoalim Bank, Leumi Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank -- have
all been ordered to pay record fines, which collectively are set to total over $1 billion, to
the U.S. government after the banks were found to have actively colluded with thousands of
wealthy Americans in massive tax-evasion schemes.
80% of the American people are serfs – living paycheck to paycheck – paying
interest on everything – receiving none back – actually, outright owning little of
value.
The American people have gotten extraordinarily tired of the demands, bullying, and blackmail
the American government has received from the fully nuclear armed, viciously apartheid,
theocracy which is what neo-nazi Israel has become in the 21st century.
And we have one word for you: enough!!
We will provide you no more American military to get slaughtered or maimed for life in the
process of "neutralizing" all your alleged existential threats in the Middle East. And of
course, as we both know, that includes all of your neighbors in the region.
And on top of that, sir, we would appreciate it greatly if the US government immediately
pull all financial and military aid from your country immediately, as all this aid is
completely illegal under the Symington Amendment.
We the people would like to see this accomplished and immediately, sir. The days of the
host/parasite relationship between the Us government and that of Israel may well be coming to
a very abrupt halt, and it is damn well about time, sir!!!
Sun comes up, Israel demands money. Sun goes down, Israel demands money. Moon waxes,
Israel demands money. Moon wanes, Israel demands money. Weather is sunny, Israel demands
money. Weather is rainy, Israel demands money. I sense a pattern here!
Junk author, junk book of the butcher of Yugoslavia who would be hanged with Bill clinton by
Nuremberg Tribunal for crimes against peace. Albright is not bright at all. she a female bully
and that shows.
Mostly projection. And this arrogant warmonger like to exercise in Russophobia (which was the
main part of the USSR which saved the world fro fascism, sacrificing around 20 million people)
This book is book of denial of genocide against Iraqis and Serbian population where bombing with
uranium enriched bombs doubled cancer cases.If you can pass over those facts that this book is
for you.
Like Robert Kagan and other neocons Albright is waiving authoritarism dead chicken again and
again. that's silly and disingenuous. authoritarism is a method of Governance used in military.
It is not an ideology. Fascism is an ideology, a flavor of far right nationalism. Kind of
"enhanced" by some socialist ideas far right nationalism.
The view of fascism without economic circumstances that create fascism, and first of
immiseration of middle and working class and high level of unemployment is a primitive
ahistorical view. Fascism is the ultimate capitalist statism acting simultaneously as the civil
religion for the population also enforced by the power of the state. It has a lot of common with
neoliberalism, that's why neoliberalism is sometimes called "inverted totalitarism".
In reality fascism while remaining the dictatorship of capitalists for capitalist and the
national part of financial oligarchy, it like neoliberalism directed against working class
fascism comes to power on the populist slogans of righting wrong by previous regime and kicking
foreign capitalists and national compradors (which in Germany turned to be mostly Jewish)
out.
It comes to power under the slogans of stopping the distribution of wealth up and elimination
of the class of reinters -- all citizens should earn income, not get it from bond and other
investments (often in reality doing completely the opposite).
While intrinsically connected and financed by a sizable part of national elite which often
consist of far right military leadership, a part of financial oligarchy and large part of lower
middle class (small properties) is is a protest movement which want to revenge for the
humiliation and prefer military style organization of the society to democracy as more potent
weapon to achieve this goal.
Like any far right movement the rise of fascism and neo-fascism is a sign of internal problem
within a given society, often a threat to the state or social order.
Still another noted that Fascism is often linked to people who are part of a distinct ethnic
or racial group, who are under economic stress, and who feel that they are being denied rewards
to which they are entitled. "It's not so much what people have." she said, "but what they think
they should have -- and what they fear." Fear is why Fascism's emotional reach can extend to
all levels of society. No political movement can flourish without popular support, but Fascism
is as dependent on the wealthy and powerful as it is on the man or woman in the street -- on
those who have much to lose and those who have nothing at all.
This insight made us think that Fascism should perhaps be viewed less as a political
ideology than as a means for seizing and holding power. For example, Italy in the 1920s
included self-described Fascists of the left (who advocated a dictatorship of the
dispossessed), of the right (who argued for an authoritarian corporatist state), and of the
center (who sought a return to absolute monarchy). The German National Socialist Party (the
Nazis) originally came together ar ound a list of demands that ca- tered to anti-Semites,
anti-immigrants, and anti-capitalists but also advocated for higher old-age pensions, more
educational op- portunities for the poor, an end to child labor, and improved ma- ternal health
care. The Nazis were racists and, in their own minds, reformers at the same time.
If Fascism concerns itself less with specific policies than with finding a pathway to power,
what about the tactics of lead- ership? My students remarked that the Fascist chiefs we remem-
ber best were charismatic. Through one method or another, each established an emotional link to
the crowd and, like the central figure in a cult, brought deep and often ugly feelings to the
sur- face. This is how the tentacles of Fascism spread inside a democ- racy. Unlike a monarchy
or a military dictatorship imposed on society from above. Fascism draws energy from men and
women who are upset because of a lost war, a lost job, a memory of hu- miliation, or a sense
that their country is in steep decline. The more painful the grounds for resentment, the easier
it is for a Fascist leader to gam followers by dangling the prospect of re- newal or by vowing
to take back what has been stolen.
Like the mobilizers of more benign movements, these secular evangelists exploit the
near-universal human desire to be part of a meaningful quest. The more gifted among them have
an apti- tude for spectacle -- for orchestrating mass gatherings complete with martial music,
incendiary rhetoric, loud cheers, and arm-
lifting salutes. To loyalists, they offer the prize of membership in a club from which
others, often the objects of ridicule, are kept out. To build fervor, Fascists tend to be
aggressive, militaristic, and -- when circumstances allow -- expansionist. To secure the
future, they turn schools into seminaries for true believers, striv- ing to produce "new men"
and "new women" who will obey without question or pause. And, as one of my students observed,
"a Fascist who launches his career by being voted into office will have a claim to legitimacy
that others do not."
After climbing into a position of power, what comes next: How does a Fascist consolidate
authority? Here several students piped up: "By controlling information." Added another, "And
that's one reason we have so much cause to worry today." Most of us have thought of the
technological revolution primarily as a means for people from different walks of life to
connect with one another, trade ideas, and develop a keener understanding of why men and women
act as they do -- in other words, to sharpen our perceptions of truth. That's still the case,
but now we are not so sure. There is a troubling "Big Brother" angle because of the mountain of
personal data being uploaded into social media. If an advertiser can use that information to
home in on a consumer because of his or her individual interests, what's to stop a Fascist
government from doing the same? "Suppose I go to a demonstra- tion like the Women's March,"
said a student, "and post a photo
on social media. My name gets added to a list and that list can end up anywhere. How do we
protect ourselves against that?"
Even more disturbing is the ability shown by rogue regimes and their agents to spread lies
on phony websites and Facebook. Further, technology has made it possible for extremist
organiza- tions to construct echo chambers of support for conspiracy theo- ries, false
narratives, and ignorant views on religion and race. This is the first rule of deception:
repeated often enough, almost any statement, story, or smear can start to sound plausible. The
Internet should be an ally of freedom and a gateway to knowledge; in some cases, it is
neither.
Historian Robert Paxton begins one of his books by assert- ing: "Fascism was the major
political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain." Over the
years, he and other scholars have developed lists of the many moving parts that Fascism
entails. Toward the end of our discussion, my class sought to articulate a comparable list.
Fascism, most of the students agreed, is an extreme form of authoritarian rule. Citizens are
required to do exactly what lead- ers say they must do, nothing more, nothing less. The
doctrine is linked to rabid nationalism. It also turns the traditional social contract upside
down. Instead of citizens giving power to the state in exchange for the protection of their
rights, power begins with the leader, and the people have no rights. Under Fascism,
the mission of citizens is to serve; the government's job is to rule.
When one talks about this subject, confusion often arises about the difference between
Fascism and such related concepts as totalitarianism, dictatorship, despotism, tyranny,
autocracy, and so on. As an academic, I might be tempted to wander into that thicket, but as a
former diplomat, I am primarily concerned with actions, not labels. To my mind, a Fascist is
someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is
unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are necessary --
including violence -- to achieve his or her goals. In that conception, a Fascist will likely be
a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a Fascist.
Often the difference can be seen in who is trusted with the guns. In seventeenth-century
Europe, when Catholic aristocrats did battle with Protestant aristocrats, they fought over
scripture but agreed not to distribute weapons to their peasants, thinking it safer to wage war
with mercenary armies. Modern dictators also tend to be wary of their citizens, which is why
they create royal guards and other elite security units to ensure their personal safe- ty. A
Fascist, however, expects the crowd to have his back. Where kings try to settle people down,
Fascists stir them up so that when the fighting begins, their foot soldiers have the will and
the firepower to strike first.
Hypocrisy at its worst from a lady who advocated hawkish foreign policy which included the
most sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam, when, in 1998, Clinton began almost daily
attacks on Iraq in the so-called no-fly zones, and made so-called regime change in Iraq
official U.S. policy.
In May of 1996, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Madeleine Albright, who at the time was
Clinton's U.N. ambassador. Correspondent Leslie Stahl said to Albright, in connection with
the Clinton administration presiding over the most devastating regime of sanctions in history
that the U.N. estimated took the lives of as many as a million Iraqis, the vast majority of
them children. , "We have heard that a half-million children have died. I mean, that's more
children than died in Hiroshima. And -- and, you know, is the price worth it?"
Madeleine Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think
the price is worth it.
While I found much of the story-telling in "Fascism" engaging, I come away expecting much
more of one of our nation's pre-eminent senior diplomats . In a nutshell, she has devoted a
whole volume to describing the ascent of intolerant fascism and its many faces, but punted on
the question "How should we thwart fascism going forward?"
Even that question leaves me a bit unsatisfied, since it is couched in double-negative
syntax. The thing there is an appetite for, among the readers of this book who are looking
for more than hand-wringing about neofascism, is a unifying title or phrase which captures in
single-positive syntax that which Albright prefers over fascism. What would that be? And, how
do we pursue it, nurture it, spread it and secure it going forward? What is it?
I think Albright would perhaps be willing to rally around "Good Government" as the theme
her book skirts tangentially from the dark periphery of fascistic government. "Virtuous
Government"? "Effective Government"? "Responsive Government"?
People concerned about neofascism want to know what we should be doing right now to avoid
getting sidetracked into a dark alley of future history comparable to the Nazi brown shirt or
Mussolini black shirt epochs. Does Albright present a comprehensive enough understanding of
fascism to instruct on how best to avoid it? Or, is this just another hand-wringing exercise,
a la "you'll know it when you see it", with a proactive superficiality stuck at the level of
pejorative labelling of current styles of government and national leaders? If all you can say
is what you don't want, then the challenge of threading the political future of the US is
left unruddered. To make an analogy to driving a car, if you don't know your destination, and
only can get navigational prompts such as "don't turn here" or "don't go down that street",
then what are the chances of arriving at a purposive destination?
The other part of this book I find off-putting is that Albright, though having served as
Secretary of State, never talks about the heavy burden of responsibility that falls on a head
of state. She doesn't seem to empathize at all with the challenge of top leadership. Her
perspective is that of the detached critic. For instance, in discussing President Duterte of
the Philippines, she fails to paint the dire situation under which he rose to national
leadership responsibility: Islamic separatists having violently taken over the entire city of
Marawi, nor the ubiquitous spread of drug cartel power to the level where control over law
enforcement was already ceded to the gangs in many places...entire islands and city
neighborhoods run by mafia organizations. It's easy to sit back and criticize Duterte's
unleashing of vigilante justice -- What was Mrs. Albright's better alternative to regain
ground from vicious, well-armed criminal organizations? The distancing from leadership
responsibility makes Albright's treatment of the Philippines twin crises of gang-rule and
Islamist revolutionaries seem like so much academic navel-gazing....OK for an undergrad
course at Georgetown maybe, but unworthy of someone who served in a position of high
responsibility. Duterte is liked in the Philippines. What he did snapped back the power of
the cartels, and returned a deserved sense of security to average Philippinos (at least those
not involved with narcotics). Is that not good government, given the horrendous circumstances
Duterte came up to deal with? What lack of responsibility in former Philippine leadership
allowed things to get so out of control? Is it possible that Democrats and liberals are
afraid to be tough, when toughness is what is needed? I'd much rather read an account from an
average Philippino about the positive impacts of the vigilante campaign, than listen of
Madame Secretary sermonizing out of context about Duterte. OK, he's not your idea of a nice
guy. Would you rather sit back, prattle on about the rule of law and due process while
Islamic terrorists wrest control over where you live? Would you prefer the leadership of a
drug cartel boss to Duterte?
My critique is offered in a constructive manner. I would certainly encourage Albright (or
anyone!) to write a book in a positive voice about what it's going to take to have good
national government in the US going forward, and to help spread such abundance globally. I
would define "good" as the capability to make consistently good policy decisions, ones that
continue to look good in hindsight, 10, 20 or 30 years later. What does that take?
I would submit that the essential "preserving democracy" process component is having a
population that is adequately prepared for collaborative problem-solving. Some understanding
of history is helpful, but it's simply not enough. Much more essential is for every young
person to experience team problem-solving, in both its cooperative and competitive aspects.
Every young person needs to experience a team leadership role, and to appreciate what it
takes from leaders to forge constructive design from competing ideas and champions. Only
after serving as a referee will a young person understand the limits to "passion" that
individual contributors should bring to the party. Only after moderating and herding cats
will a young person know how to interact productively with leaders and other contributors.
Much of the skill is counter-instinctual. It's knowing how to express ideas...how to field
criticism....how to nudge people along in the desired direction...and how to avoid ad-hominem
attacks, exaggerations, accusations and speculative grievances. It's learning how to manage
conflict productively toward excellence. Way too few of our young people are learning these
skills, and way too few of our journalists know how to play a constructive role in managing
communications toward successful complex problem-solving. Albright's claim that a
journalist's job is primarily to "hold leaders accountable" really betrays an absolving of
responsibility for the media as a partner in good government -- it doesn't say whether the
media are active players on the problem-solving team (which they have to be for success), or
mere spectators with no responsibility for the outcome. If the latter, then journalism
becomes an irritant, picking at the scabs over and over, but without any forward progress.
When the media takes up a stance as an "opponent" of leadership, you end up with poor
problem-solving results....the system is fighting itself instead of making forward
progress.
"Fascism" doesn't do nearly enough to promote the teaching of practical civics 101 skills,
not just to the kids going into public administration, but to everyone. For, it is in the
norms of civility, their ability to be practiced, and their defense against excesses, that
fascism (e.g., Antifa) is kept at bay.
Everyone in a democracy has to know the basics:
• when entering a disagreement, don't personalize it
• never demonize an opponent
• keep a focus on the goal of agreement and moving forward
• never tell another person what they think, but ask (non-rhetorically) what they think
then be prepared to listen and absorb
• do not speak untruths or exaggerate to make an argument
• do not speculate grievance
• understand truth gathering as a process; detect when certainty is being bluffed;
question sources
• recognize impasse and unproductive argumentation and STOP IT
• know how to introduce a referee or moderator to regain productive collaboration
• avoid ad hominem attacks
• don't take things personally that wrankle you;
• give the benefit of the doubt in an ambiguous situation
• don't jump to conclusions
• don't reward theatrical manipulation
These basics of collaborative problem-solving are the guts of a "liberal democracy" that
can face down the most complex challenges and dilemmas.
I gave the book 3 stars for the great story-telling, and Albright has been part of a great
story of late 20th century history. If she would have told us how to prevent fascism going
forward, and how to roll it back in "hard case" countries like North Korea and Sudan, I would
have given her a 5. I'm not that interested in picking apart the failure cases of
history...they teach mostly negative exemplars. Much rather I would like to read about
positive exemplars of great national government -- "great" defined by popular acclaim, by the
actual ones governed. Where are we seeing that today? Canada? Australia? Interestingly, both
of these positive exemplars have strict immigration policies.
Is it possible that Albright is just unable, by virtue of her narrow escape from Communist
Czechoslovakia and acceptance in NYC as a transplant, to see that an optimum immigration
policy in the US, something like Canada's or Australia's, is not the looming face of fascism,
but rather a move to keep it safely in its corner in coming decades? At least, she admits to
her being biased by her life story.
That suggests her views on refugees and illegal immigrants as deserving of unlimited
rights to migrate into the US might be the kind of cloaked extremism that she is warning us
about.
Albright's book is a comprehensive look at recent history regarding the rise and fall of
fascist leaders; as well as detailing leaders in nations that are starting to mimic fascist
ideals. Instead of a neat definition, she uses examples to bolster her thesis of what are
essential aspects of fascism. Albright dedicates each section of the book to a leader or
regime that enforces fascist values and conveys this to the reader through historical events
and exposition while also peppering in details of her time as Secretary of State. The climax
(and 'warning'), comes at the end, where Albright applies what she has been discussing to the
current state of affairs in the US and abroad.
Overall, I would characterize this as an enjoyable and relatively easy read. I think the
biggest strength of this book is how Albright uses history, previous examples of leaders and
regimes, to demonstrate what fascism looks like and contributing factors on a national and
individual level. I appreciated that she lets these examples speak for themselves of the
dangers and subtleties of a fascist society, which made the book more fascinating and less of
a textbook. Her brief descriptions of her time as Secretary of State were intriguing and made
me more interested in her first book, 'Madame Secretary'. The book does seem a bit slow as it
is not until the end that Albright blatantly reveals the relevance of all of the history
relayed in the first couple hundred pages. The last few chapters are dedicated to the reveal:
the Trump administration and how it has affected global politics. Although, she never
outright calls Trump a fascist, instead letting the reader decide based on his decisions and
what you have read in the book leading up to this point, her stance is quite clear by the
end. I was surprised at what I shared politically with Albright, mainly in immigration and a
belief of empathy and understanding for others. However, I got a slight sense of
anti-secularism in the form of a disdain for those who do not subscribe to an Abrahamic
religion and she seemed to hint at this being partly an opening to fascism.
I also could have done without the both-sides-ism she would occasionally push, which seems
to be a tactic used to encourage people to 'unite against Trump'. These are small annoyances
I had with the book, my main critique is the view Albright takes on democracy. If anything,
the book should have been called "Democracy: the Answer" because that is the most consistent
stance Albright takes throughout. She seems to overlook many of the atrocities the US and
other nations have committed in the name of democracy and the negative consequences of
capitalism, instead, justifying negative actions with the excuse of 'it is for democracy and
everyone wants that' and criticizing those who criticize capitalism.
She does not do a good job of conveying the difference between a communist country like
Russia and a socialist country like those found in Scandinavia and seems okay with the idea
of the reader lumping them all together in a poor light. That being said, I would still
recommend this book for anyone's TBR as the message is essential for today, that the current
world of political affairs is, at least somewhat, teetering on a precipice and we are in need
of as many strong leaders as possible who are willing to uphold democratic ideals on the
world stage and mindful constituents who will vote them in.
The book is very well written, easy to read, and follows a pretty standard formula making
it accessible to the average reader. However, it suffers immensely from, what I suspect are,
deeply ingrained political biases from the author.
Whilst I don't dispute the criteria the author applies in defining fascism, or the targets
she cites as examples, the first bias creeps in here when one realises the examples chosen
are traditional easy targets for the US (with the exception of Turkey). The same criteria
would define a country like Singapore perfectly as fascist, yet the country (or Malaysia)
does not receive a mention in the book.
Further, it grossly glosses over what Ms. Albright terms facist traits from the US
governments of the past. If the author is to be believed, the CIA is holier than thou, never
intervened anywhere or did anything that wasn't with the best interests of democracy at
heart, and American foreign policy has always existed to build friendships and help out their
buddies. To someone ingrained in this rhetoric for years I am sure this is an easy pill to
swallow, but to the rest of the world it makes a number of assertions in the book come across
as incredibly naive. out of 5 stars
Trite and opaque
We went with my husband to the presentation of this book at UPenn with Albright before it
came out and Madeleine's spunk, wit and just glorious brightness almost blinded me. This is a
2.5 star book, because 81 year old author does not really tell you all there is to tell when
she opens up on a subject in any particular chapter, especially if it concerns current US
interest.
Lets start from the beginning of the book. What really stood out, the missing 3rd Germany
ally, Japan and its emperor. Hirohito (1901-1989) was emperor of Japan from 1926 until his
death in 1989. He took over at a time of rising democratic sentiment, but his country soon
turned toward ultra-nationalism and militarism. During World War II (1939-45), Japan attacked
nearly all of its Asian neighbors, allied itself with Nazi Germany and launched a surprise
assault on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, forcing US to enter the war in 1941. Hirohito
was never indicted as a war criminal! does he deserve at least a chapter in her book?
Oh and by the way, did author mention anything about sanctions against Germany for
invading Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland? Up until the Pearl Harbor USA and
Germany still traded, although in March 1939, FDR slapped a 25% tariff on all German goods.
Like Trump is doing right now to some of US trading partners.
Next monster that deserves a chapter on Genocide in cosmic proportions post WW2 is
communist leader of China Mao Zedung. Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural
history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic
torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants compares to the Second World
War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in
China over these four years; the total worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55
million.
We learn that Argentina has given sanctuary to Nazi war criminals, but she forgets to
mention that 88 Nazi scientists arrived in the United States in 1945 and were promptly put to
work. For example, Wernher von Braun was the brains behind the V-2 rocket program, but had
intimate knowledge of what was going on in the concentration camps. Von Braun himself
hand-picked people from horrific places, including Buchenwald concentration camp. Tsk-Tsk
Madeline.
What else? Oh, lets just say that like Madelaine Albright my husband is Jewish and lost
extensive family to Holocoust. Ukrainian nationalists executed his great grandfather on
gistapo orders, his great grandmother disappeared in concentration camp, grandfather was
conscripted in june 1940 and decommissioned september 1945 and went through war as
infantryman through 3 fronts earning several medals. his grandmother, an ukrainian born jew
was a doctor in a military hospital in Saint Petersburg survived famine and saved several
children during blockade. So unlike Maideline who was raised as a Roman Catholic, my husband
grew up in a quiet jewish family in that territory that Stalin grabbed from Poland in 1939,
in a polish turn ukrainian city called Lvov(Lemberg). His family also had to ask for an
asylum, only they had to escape their home in Ukraine in 1991. He was told then "You are a
nice little Zid (Jew), we will kill you last" If you think things in ukraine changed, think
again, few weeks ago in Kiev Roma gypsies were killed and injured during pogroms, and nobody
despite witnesses went to jail. Also during demonstrations openly on the streets C14 unit is
waving swastikas and Heils. Why is is not mentioned anywhere in the book? is is because
Hunter Biden sits on the board of one of Ukraine's largest natural gas companies called
Burisma since May 14, 2014, and Ukraine has an estimated 127.9 trillion cubic feet of
unproved technically recoverable shale gas resources? ( according to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration (EIA).1 The most promising shale reserves appear to be in the
Carpathian Foreland Basin (also called the Lviv-Volyn Basin), which extends across Western
Ukraine from Poland into Romania, and the Dnieper-Donets Basin in the East (which borders
Russia).
Wow, i bet you did not know that. how ugly are politics, even this book that could have been
so much greater if the author told the whole ugly story. And how scary that there are
countries where you can go and openly be fascist.
To me, Fascism fails for the single reason that no two fascist leaders are alike. Learning
about one or a few, in a highly cursory fashion like in this book or in great detail, is
unlikely to provide one with any answers on how to prevent the rise of another or fend
against some such. And, as much as we are witnessing the rise of numerous democratic or
quasi-democratic "strongmen" around the world in global politics, it is difficult to brand
any of them as fascist in the orthodox sense.
As the author writes at the outset, it is difficult to separate a fascist from a tyrant or
a dictator. A fascist is a majoritarian who rouses a large group under some national, racial
or similar flag with rallying cries demanding suppression or exculcation of those excluded
from this group. A typical fascist leader loves her yes-men and hates those who disagree: she
does not mind using violence to suppress dissidents. A fascist has no qualms using propaganda
to popularize the agreeable "facts" and theories while debunking the inconvenient as lies.
What is not discussed explicitly in the book are perhaps some positive traits that separate
fascists from other types of tyrants: fascists are rarely lazy, stupid or prone to doing
things for only personal gains. They differ from the benevolent dictators for their record of
using heavy oppression against their dissidents. Fascists, like all dictators, change rules
to suit themselves, take control of state organizations to exercise total control and use
"our class is the greatest" and "kick others" to fuel their programs.
Despite such a detailed list, each fascist is different from each other. There is little
that even Ms Albright's fascists - from Mussolini and Hitler to Stalin to the Kims to Chavez
or Erdogan - have in common. In fact, most of the opponents of some of these
dictators/leaders would calll them by many other choice words but not fascists. The
circumstances that gave rise to these leaders were highly different and so were their rules,
methods and achievements.
The point, once again, is that none of the strongmen leaders around the world could be
easily categorized as fascists. Or even if they do, assigning them with such a tag and
learning about some other such leaders is unlikely to help. The history discussed in the book
is interesting but disjointed, perfunctory and simplistic. Ms Albright's selection is also
debatable.
Strong leaders who suppress those they deem as opponents have wreaked immense harms and
are a threat to all civil societies. They come in more shades and colours than terms we have
in our vocabulary (dictators, tyrants, fascists, despots, autocrats etc). A study of such
tyrant is needed for anyone with an interest in history, politics, or societal well-being.
Despite Ms Albright's phenomenal knowledge, experience, credentials, personal history and
intentions, this book is perhaps not the best place to objectively learn much about the risks
from the type of things some current leaders are doing or deeming as right.
Each time I get concerned about Trump's rhetoric or past actions I read idiotic opinions,
like those of our second worst ever Secretary of State, and come to appreciate him more.
Pejorative terms like fascism or populism have no place in a rational policy discussion. Both
are blatant attempts to apply a pejorative to any disagreeing opinion. More than half of the
book is fluffed with background of Albright, Hitler and Mussolini. Wikipedia is more
informative. The rest has snippets of more modern dictators, many of whom are either
socialists or attained power through a reaction to failed socialism, as did Hitler. She
squirms mightily to liken Trump to Hitler. It's much easier to see that Sanders is like
Maduro. The USA is following a path more like Venezuela than Germany.
Her history misses that Mussolini was a socialist before he was a fascist, and Nazism in
Germany was a reaction to Wiemar socialism. The danger of fascism in the US is far greater
from the left than from the right. America is far left of where the USSR ever was. Remember
than Marx observed that Russia was not ready for a proletarian revolution. The USA with ready
made capitalism for reform fits Marx's pattern much better. Progressives deny that Sanders
and Warren are socialists. If not they are what Lenin called "useful idiots."
Albright says that she is proud of the speech where she called the USA the 'Indispensable
Nation.' She should be ashamed. Obama followed in his inaugural address, saying that we are
"the indispensable nation, responsible for world security." That turned into a policy of
human rights interventions leading to open ended wars (Syria, Yemen), nations in chaos
(Libya), and distrust of the USA (Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Tunisia, Israel, NK). Trump now has
to make nice with dictators to allay their fears that we are out to replace them.
She admires the good intentions of human rights intervention, ignoring the results. She says
Obama had some success without citing a single instance. He has apologized for Libya, but
needs many more apologies. She says Obama foreign policy has had some success, with no
mention of a single instance. Like many progressives, she confuses good intentions with
performance. Democracy spreading by well intentioned humanitarian intervention has resulted
in a succession of open ended war or anarchy.
The shorter histories of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Venezuela are much more
informative, although more a warning against socialism than right wing fascism. Viktor Orban
in Hungary is another reaction to socialism.
Albright ends the book with a forlorn hope that we need a Lincoln or Mandela, exactly what
our two party dictatorship will not generate as it yields ever worse and worse candidates for
our democracy to vote upon, even as our great society utopia generates ever more power for
weak presidents to spend our money and continue wrong headed foreign policy.
The greatest danger to the USA is not fascism, but of excessively poor leadership
continuing our slow slide to the bottom.
@Rurik Upon consideration, what Putin should do is set up a "Free" German government in
Königsburg just like the US is doing with Gaido in Venezuela. Get China to recognize it.
Then they should start negotiating lucrative contracts, treaties and alliances between the
Free Germans and the rest of OBOR. It would be fascinating to see how ZOG reacted.
Oh, and most important of all, declare a new debt free currency, perhaps gold backed. I
could live with the Reichsmark.
Sean
says:
April 4, 2019 at 4:51 pm GMT 300 Words I am not aware that anyone has ever considered Syria
a crucial centre of world power, and while Ukraine was once thought of that way back in the
days of Halford Makinder, I am afraid now they are both worthless.
I think you should distinguish between the deep state and the elite. The former are
primarily concerned with US primacy. The elite are economic internationalists and focused on
profit. Carter instituted a decades long policy mandating officials to help trade with China
under the influence of Brzezinski's Russophobia.
They fundamentally miscalculated the ability
of China to rapidly rival the West in productive capacity. Now the Western economies are
dependant on a Keynesian and financially frail China going all out for future growth. The elite
are in no position to lower the boom on China, and I think that is the last thing they
intend.
China is a milch cow for the global capitalists, they are dependant on China
succeeding.
Everyone is in favour of free trade if they think they will be successful in it, so the
Chinese enthusiasm is no evidence of altruism or the absence of a venal elite in their country.
Free trade allocating reward based on merit will benefit the American elite through their
Chinese investments, but it does not sound like good news for the American worker.
If there is pressure for something to stop China it will not just be coming from the rust
belt. The deep state plus the working class versus the financial elite is already ongoing; a
struggle to control American policy as the wealth generated by China is reaped by Western
financial elites and America falls to the status of second rate power.
@Anon
You are no Christians. USAism and all radical Protestantism is abusing the surface of
Christianity for satanic anti-Christianity.
There is no Christianity but what is rooted in the old and everlasting Church of which
Christ is the Head in the Holy Spirit, as laid in apostle's hands and transferred by Church
fathers.
Christianity is genuinely collectivist, it has nothing to do with the perverted
individualism of Anglosaxon background and does not agree with the inherent nihilistic energy
of capitalism.
Even as President Donald Trump threatens to shut down the southern border, his
administration is quietly working on a plan to expand some forms of legal immigration into the
U.S.
Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, has been working for months on a
proposal that could increase the number of low- and high-skilled workers admitted to the
country annually, four people involved in the discussions told POLITICO.
The low-profile effort to allow more legal immigrants into the U.S. stands in stark contrast
to Trump's increasingly dramatic efforts to curb illegal immigration, an issue he speaks about
daily and describes as a national crisis. But Trump himself has publicly said he also supports
higher levels of legal immigration, a priority generally backed by a business community short
on skilled workers.
The effort began in January when Kushner started to convene a series of meetings with dozens
of advocacy groups, including business and agriculture organizations. Some, though not all of
them, openly support the expansion of legal immigration. It has continued in recent weeks with
a smaller four-person White House working group led by Kushner and could generate a proposal
for Congress by summer.
Trump personally tasked Kushner -- who successfully
forged a December compromise on criminal justice reform but is still struggling to deliver
a Middle East
peace plan -- with the priority of legal immigration. But it is a daunting challenge,
requiring legislation in an issue area that has confounded Congress in recent years.
I hate the Washington doublespeak about "rules-based international order."
When has the Imperial State ever followed any "rules?"
For instance, didn't the Nuremberg trials establish the principle that wars of aggression
constituted international war crimes? Wasn't the invasion of Iraq a violation of "rules-based
international order." And what about UN approval for the use of force. Did the US get UN
approval when they decided to overturn the Assad regime. Wasn't that a violation of
"rules-based international order."
The same can be said about the wars in Afghanistan, Libya and the coming war against
Venezuela.
What Washington really means when they talk about a "rules-based international order"
is "we make up the rules as we go along and those rules don't apply to us."
@Andrei Martyanov All true. And one more point: compared with China, how much of the
present-day US economy is even real – i.e., results in the production of actual
goods that people might want, as opposed to dodgy financial/insurance transactions which may
add a lot of dollar value to GDP, but don't create anything real that enhances the quality of
life for the masses?
Economist used to have a joke: every time you break your leg, you increase GDP. First, you
gotta pay the hospital (transaction), then you gotta pay your doctor (another transaction),
then you gotta pay for your case (yet another transaction). All those transactions make it
look like 'wealth' is being created, because they are–numerically, at
least–increasing per capita GDP. But still: wouldn't you and the country actually be
better off if you hadn't broken your leg in the first place?
China, emerged as an "honest broker" among countries in the Middle East, and used the
free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The
IC appears to find fault with Russia because it is using the system the US created to
better advantage than the US.
Industrial Capitalism is the system China and Russia are running on. America briefly had
this system from 1868 to 1912; it was called the American System of Economy (Henry
Clay/Peshine Smith).
This type of economy uses state credit (from Treasury not banks) and injects it into
industry. Industry then grows, and people's welfare is increased through improved
productivity.
Finance Capitalism came out of London and hopped to America, especially post WW2. At the
same time Atlantacism and Rim theory hopped. America still runs under this BIZWOG (Britain
Israel World Government) matrix. This matrix depends on finance capitalism.
Finance Capitalism is the placing of EXISTING ASSETS onto a private bank ledger, to then
hypothecate said assets into new bank credit. For example, a ships bill of lading may be used
to create new bank credit, or existing homes are put on double entry ledger to make housing
bubbles.
The closer analogs to China and Russian economy are American System of Economy, not the
current American BIZWOG finance capital. The historical analogs would also be Canada
1938-1974, when Canada had a sovereign economy. Canada post 1974 was converted to finance
capitalism and now are debt laden and suffering like the rest of the west.
Kaiser's Germany used industrial capitalism then Japan's Manchurian Railroad Engineers
copied it for Japan. Mussolini in Italy copied parts of it, and NSDAP in Germany resurrected
Frederick List and the Kaiser's methods.
Finance Capital out of wall street funded the Bolsheviks in what amounted to a looting
operation of Russia. It is any wonder that finance capitalism found succor with communism
since they are both pyramid schemes?
Rim Theory, Atlantacism, Finance Capitalism, and Brzezinsky's chessboard are part of the
same thing, an excuse matrix for gobbling up the world into one double entry private bank
ledger, to then benefit a special (((usury))) finance class of plutocrats.
The "markets" that China and Russia operate on are those of industrial capitalism, using
state credit. China has four large state banks, and they often cancel debt instruments
(housed in the state bank) to then effectively put debt free money into their economy. Russia
injects gold into their Central Bank Reserves, to then emit Rubles. Both China and Russia
inject into industry, their farm sectors, and other sectors to get a desired output to help
their people, not put them into debt servitude.
The BIZWOG matrix will collapse, it is anti-logos and hence against the natural order. It
is on the wrong side of history.
Radio Sputnik's Loud and Clear spoke with Daniel Lazare,
a journalist and author of three books, "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's
Undeclared War," about what we can expect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation
in 2019, its third year of operation.
"A House committee can keep the ball rolling indefinitely," Lazare noted. "Nothing solid has
turned up about collusion in the Russiagate story. Yet, the story keeps going and going, a new
tidbit is put out every week, and so the scandal keeps somehow perpetuating itself. And even
though there's less and less of substance coming out, so I expect that'll be the pattern for
the next few months, and I expect that the Democrats will revv this whole process up to make it
sort of seem as if there really is an avalanche of information crashing down on Trump when
there really isn't."
investigation, noting it had produced little to nothing of substance in support of the
thesis justifying its existence: that Russia either colluded with the Trump campaign or
conspired to interfere in the US election to tilt it in Trump's favor.
Indeed,
report after
report on the data that has been provided to Congress by tech giants like Facebook, Twitter
and Google show an underwhelming performance by any would-be Russian actors. In contrast to the
apocalyptic claims by Democrats and the mainstream media about the massive disinformation
offensive waged by Russian actors, the websites, social media accounts, post reach and ad money
associated with "Russians" is always
dwarfed by the equivalent actions of the Trump campaign and the campaign of its rival in
the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, along with their throngs of supporters
across the US corporate world, both of whom sunk hundreds of millions into winning the
social media game.
Among the chief motivations for Democrats going into 2019 is that "Democrats are now the
party of war," Lazare said, noting that Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump's
prospective withdrawal from Syria a "Christmas gift to ISIS [Daesh]."
"This is the raison d'etre for Russiagate: they're trying to maneuver Trump into
hostilities with Russia, China, North Korea, etc. I mean, this is foreign policy by
subterfuge it's about keeping 2,000 troops in Syria as well, and getting Americans' heads
blown off in Afghanistan, all of which the Democrats want to do. The whole thing is backroom
government of the worst kind."
Долгие годы я
жил в ощущении
правильности
произошедшего
в 1991 и 1993 годах. Хотя,
конечно, у меня
были серьезные
внутренние
разногласия с
той толпой,
которая
носилась по
Москве и ломала
памятники. Но я
это в себе как-то
давил. В 1993 году
мне казалось
правильным, что
танк стреляет
по дому с
вооруженными
людьми. Я тоже
хотел
раздавить
гадину, потому
что гадина
представлялась
мне гадиной. Я
был юн и еще не
понимал, что
демократия -- это
всегда толпа,
ломающая
памятники. И что
любой
парламент -- это
всегда гадина.
Но это не значит,
что его надо из
танков
расстреливать.
Но даже когда
ко мне пришло
понимание этих
двух
постулатов, я
все равно
продолжал
смеяться над
мифологией
защитников
гадины. О
массовых
расстрелах на
стадионе
"Красная Пресня".
И, конечно, о
таинственных
снайперах,
которые
стреляли по
простым
прохожим. Зачем
снайперам
стрелять по
простым
прохожим? Какой
в этом военный
тактический
смысл? Однако
время всё
ставит по своим
местам.
Снайперы,
стреляющие по
простым
прохожим нужны
для того же, для
чего нужны две
бочки хлора. Для
провокации.
А где же еще мы
видели
снайперов,
стрелявших по
людям для
провокации
насилия?
Правильно, мы
видели их в
Киеве на
Майдане. И вот
когда у тебя в
голове вдруг
складывается
Майдан и 1993 год, то
становится
неприятно.
Потому что ты
начинаешь
понимать
природу
произошедшего
в 1993 году. Это был
такой же Майдан.
И он, как и в
Киеве, победил.
Раздавили
гадину. Америка,
матушка-спасительница,
помогла. И в 1993м. И в
2014. Только почему
же ты, сволочь,
тогда был на
одной стороне, а
потом -- на
другой? А потому
что дурак был.
А когда
картинка
сложилась,
сразу же много
стало понятнее.
И весь тот ад
девяностых,
который был так
похож на то, что
ныне
происходит на
Украине. Война
против
собственных
граждан
негодной,
разворованной
армией. Полный
крах экономики,
зависимость от
денег МВФ,
выделяемых по
милостивому
разрешению США.
Вооруженные
люди, убивающие
друг друга в
центрах
городов.
Эта мысль
может
показаться
диковатой, но
вот, наконец, у
нее случилось
документальное
подтверждение.
В США
опубликованы
расшифровки
телефонных
разговоров
президента
Билла Клинтона.
В том числе и с
президентом
Борисом
Ельциным. В
которых Ельцин
пугает
Клинтона
коммунистами,
жалуется, что
коммунисты,
если победят,
могут отобрать
Крым (!). И просит
два с половиной
миллиарда
долларов на
выборы. После
чего МВФ
выделяет
России займ, а в
Москве
приезжают
американские
политические
консультанты. И
выборы 1996 года
превращаются в
Оранжевую
революцию --
только вместо
концертов на
Майдане тур
"Голосуй или
проиграешь". А в
результате всё
равно
сфальсифицированные
результаты.
Методы и те же,
разве что
последовательность
разная.
И вот с высоты
этого
понимания
хорошо бы
оглядеть
перспективы. В
России
случился Путин,
она очистилась
от скверны и
таки приняла
вернувшийся
Крым. Значит ли
это, что
подобный исход
событий
возможен на
Украине?
Интересная
могла бы
получиться
экстраполяция:
Порошенко
находит
какого-то
малоизвестного
человека,
выходца из СБУ,
которого
назначает
преемником.
Этот человек
выгоняет
американцев,
восстанавливает
экономику,
мирится с
Донбассом,
равноудаляет
старых
олигархов и
возвращает
Крым? Сценарий,
как вы
понимаете,
фантастический.
И дело даже не в
Крыме, который
никуда
"возвращаться"
не собирается,
потому что он
уже вернулся
домой. Дело в
том, что Ельцин
вовсе не хотел,
чтобы Путин
сделал всё то,
что он сделал. Он
хотел просто
гарантий
безопасности
для себя и семьи.
И то, что Путин
оказался не тем,
кем его
представлял
себе Ельцин --
это счастливая
случайность.
Божий промысел,
если хотите. Pussy Riot
просили
Богородицу,
чтобы она
забрала Путина,
а устами
художника
всегда говорит
Бог. То есть,
прося
Богородицу,
чтобы она
забрала Путина,
Pussy Riot тем самым (и
сами того не
понимая)
говорили нам,
что Богородица
Путина нам дала.
Это шутка,
конечно.
Впрочем, как мне
кажется,
довольно
изящная.
Порошенко,
разумеется,
тоже ничего из
того, что сделал
Путин, не хочет.
Он хочет или
остаться у
власти (что
мирным путем
невозможно) или
же обеспечить
себе
безопасность.
Кто именно мог
бы обеспечить
ему такую
безопасность
(то есть -- быть
потенциальным
украинским
Путиным) отсюда
пока никак не
просматривается.
Но вопрос ведь
не в этом. Вопрос
в том, будет ли к
этому иметь
отношение
Богородица.
А также в том,
что нам теперь
совсем не с руки
смеяться над
нынешней
Украиной и ее
выбором. Мы с
вами вышли из
такого же
дерьма. Природа
современного
русского
государства
такая же --
поддержанный
американцами
майдан. И хорошо
бы никогда об
этом не
забывать. И
соответственно
относиться к
тем, кто тоскует
по тем
временам.
А лично мне
достаточно
того, что
Богородица не
послушала Pussy Riot. И
слава богу. RT
"The Zionists have a long historical experience with bringing terror to the world ,
one example being the Zionist/ Bolshevik revolution in Russia where the Bolsheviks killed
some 60 million Russians bringing terror to Russia on an industrial level turning the whole
country into a slaughter house!"
Your excellent narrative is weakened by the above cited & unproved assertion. The
official Zionist narratives of 6 million Jews supposedly singled out and exterminated by
Germans during WW II, or the 60 million Russians killed by the Bolsheviks, ( the Zionists
agree with the 60 million figure-as well), contain numbers that do not add up. They
apparently enjoy citing with the number 6.
You do an excellent job on the phony 6 million narrative, but accept the 60 million
narrative -- without a demur. Does accepting the one allow you to freely declare the
other?
The population of Russia after WW I was an estimated 120 million. By 1979, the population
rose to 137.6 million. It is advised to distinguish between Russian, and Russian Empire
populations. The Tsarist Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union were larger than -- just
Russia. My citations below are of figures for the Russian population, as the official
Propaganda Charge is that "60 million Russians" were murdered.
It appears, that, taking into account (or not) the high Russian casualties of World War
II, (of both civilian and Armed Forces), the "Bolsheviks killed some 60 million Russians" is
clearly FAR more of an impossibility than the sacrosanct '6 million'.
This 60 million figure pushed by the American Zionist owned Mainstream Media, including
Zio-American texts and Hollywood, is most likely highly in error.
Slight digression:
One of the distinguishing features, when one compares the American with the Soviet Gulags,
is that the Soviet leadership viewed their prison system as a source of Cheap Labor, whereas
in America, prisoners are regarded as so much flesh -- to allow to rot away in the all but
Completely Unproductive American Gulag.
The American Gulag is profitable for corporations that build the prisons and supply
America's more than 2 million prisoners. The Russian Gulag had a much healthier -- human use
for their prisoners.
For the most part, Solzhenitsyn' s "GULAG Archipelago" supports this analysis.
After the fall of the Marxist Soviet government in 1990, the Russian Gulag quickly emptied
out, as it was more profitable for Russia to maximize the number of Free Laborers (workers
responsible for their own well being, and raising useful Russian progeny).
In Conclusion:
The Gulag was not a picnic, or Boy Scout Camp, few prison systems are. However there
were no gas chambers (get my attempt at mis-directional humor?). I have no doubt that, as
Solzhenitsyn wrote, millions died -- thru execution, or being worked to death. However:
I fail to see the "60 million Russians" killed by the Bolsheviks. If you can enlighten,
and document, we can continue this discussion.
In America, we must Restore Our Republic! And free all our Prisoners -- inside and
outside of the official Prison Walls.
@Durruti I am using
Alexander Solzhenitsyns figure for the 60 million Russians killed by the Zionist/communists
in Russia and Solzhenitsyn had access to Russian archives for his research and his experience
in the Gulags, and I have read The Gulag Archipelago and that is what I am going on.
I do not accept the Zionist figure of 6 million as the Zionists were pushing that figure
long before WWII in a propaganda effort , however I do think that several million jews were
killed along with Lutherans and Catholics and various other religions and political
dissidents and I base this on books like The Good Old Days by Ernst Klee and Willi Dressen
and Volker Reiss, among others that I have read.
The Zionist perpetrated slaughter house is now in operation in the Mideast and has been
for some 30 years and the Zionists show no signs of slowing down and want to use the Ukraine
as an agent provocateur to get the west into a war with Russia. One sign of how the Zionist
think is a remark by Madeline Albright , when aske if she thought the some 500,ooo thousand
children killed in Iraq were worth it, and she said it was worth it, these Satanists have no
regard for human life !
I believe at some point the Ukraine is going to be the powder keg used to start WWIII and
the Zionists believe they will survive in the DUMBS and this is what they believe will usher
in their messiah ie satan, read The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed and The Committee of
300 by Dr. John Coleman.
@Cassander There is no democracy in US. There is civil war between two dysfunctional
parties. How come you did not notice? Or you just came from enchanted kingdom?
This article by late Robert Parry is from 2016 but is still relevant in context of the
current Ukrainian elections and the color revolution is Venezuela. The power of neoliberal
propaganda is simply tremendous. For foreign events it is able to distort the story to such an
extent that the most famous quote of CIA director William Casey "We'll know our disinformation
program is complete when everything the American public believes is false" looks like
constatation of already accomplished goal.
Exclusive: Several weeks before Ukraine's 2014 coup, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Nuland had already picked Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be the future leader, but now "Yats" is no
longer the guy, writes Robert Parry.
In reporting on the resignation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the major
U.S. newspapers either ignored or distorted Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's
infamous intercepted
phone call before the 2014 coup in which she declared "Yats is the guy!"
Though Nuland's phone call introduced many Americans to the previously obscure Yatsenyuk,
its timing – a few weeks before the ouster of elected Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych – was never helpful to Washington's desired narrative of the Ukrainian people
rising up on their own to oust a corrupt leader.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the
Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.
Instead, the conversation between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt
sounded like two proconsuls picking which Ukrainian politicians would lead the new government.
Nuland also disparaged the less aggressive approach of the European Union with the pithy
put-down: "Fuck the E.U.!"
More importantly, the intercepted call, released onto YouTube in early February 2014,
represented powerful evidence that these senior U.S. officials were plotting – or at
least collaborating in – a coup d'etat against Ukraine's democratically elected
president. So, the U.S. government and the mainstream U.S. media have since consigned this
revealing discussion to the Great Memory Hole.
On Monday, in reporting on Yatsenyuk's Sunday speech in which he announced that he is
stepping down, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention the Nuland-Pyatt
conversation at all. The New York Times did mention the call but misled its readers regarding
its timing, making it appear as if the call followed rather than preceded the coup. That way
the call sounded like two American officials routinely appraising Ukraine's future leaders, not
plotting to oust one government and install another.
The Times
article by Andrew E. Kramer said: "Before Mr. Yatsenyuk's appointment as prime minister in
2014, a leaked recording of a telephone conversation between Victoria J. Nuland, a United
States assistant secretary of state, and the American ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt,
seemed to underscore the West's support for his candidacy. 'Yats is the guy,' Ms. Nuland had
said."
Notice, however, that if you didn't know that the conversation occurred in late January or
early February 2014, you wouldn't know that it preceded the Feb. 22, 2014 coup. You might have
thought that it was just a supportive chat before Yatsenyuk got his new job.
You also wouldn't know that much of the Nuland-Pyatt conversation focused on how they
were going to "glue this thing" or "midwife this thing," comments sounding like prima facie
evidence that the U.S. government was engaged in "regime change" in Ukraine, on Russia's
border.
The 'No Coup' Conclusion
But Kramer's lack of specificity about the timing and substance of the call fits with a long
pattern of New York Times' bias in its coverage of the Ukraine crisis. On Jan. 4, 2015, nearly
a year after the U.S.-backed coup, the Times published an "investigation" article declaring
that there never had been a coup. It was just a case of President Yanukovych deciding to leave
and not coming back.
That article reached its conclusion, in part, by ignoring the evidence of a coup, including
the Nuland-Pyatt phone call. The story was co-written by Kramer and so it is interesting to
know that he was at least aware of the "Yats is the guy" reference although it was ignored in
last year's long-form article.
Instead, Kramer and his co-author Andrew Higgins took pains to mock anyone who actually
looked at the evidence and dared reach the disfavored conclusion about a coup. If you did, you
were some rube deluded by Russian propaganda.
"Russia has attributed Mr. Yanukovych's ouster to what it portrays as a violent,
'neo-fascist' coup supported and even choreographed by the West and dressed up as a popular
uprising," Higgins and Kramer
wrote . "Few outside the Russian propaganda bubble ever seriously entertained the Kremlin's
line. But almost a year after the fall of Mr. Yanukovych's government, questions remain about
how and why it collapsed so quickly and completely."
The Times' article concluded that Yanukovych "was not so much overthrown as cast adrift by
his own allies, and that Western officials were just as surprised by the meltdown as anyone
else. The allies' desertion, fueled in large part by fear, was accelerated by the seizing by
protesters of a large stock of weapons in the west of the country. But just as important, the
review of the final hours shows, was the panic in government ranks created by Mr. Yanukovych's
own efforts to make peace."
Yet, one might wonder what the Times thinks a coup looks like. Indeed, the Ukrainian coup
had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in
1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.
The way those coups played out is now historically well known. Secret U.S. government
operatives planted nasty propaganda about the targeted leader, stirred up political and
economic chaos, conspired with rival political leaders, spread rumors of worse violence to come
and then – as political institutions collapsed – watched as the scared but duly
elected leader made a hasty departure.
In Iran, the coup reinstalled the autocratic Shah who then ruled with a heavy hand for the
next quarter century; in Guatemala, the coup led to more than three decades of brutal military
regimes and the killing of some 200,000 Guatemalans.
Coups don't have to involve army tanks occupying the public squares, although that is an
alternative model which follows many of the same initial steps except that the military is
brought in at the end. The military coup was a common approach especially in Latin America in
the 1960s and 1970s.
' Color Revolutions'
But the preferred method in more recent years has been the "color revolution," which
operates behind the façade of a "peaceful" popular uprising and international pressure
on the targeted leader to show restraint until it's too late to stop the coup. Despite the
restraint, the leader is still accused of gross human rights violations, all the better to
justify his removal.
Later, the ousted leader may get an image makeover; instead of a cruel bully, he is
ridiculed for not showing sufficient resolve and letting his base of support melt away, as
happened with Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
But the reality of what happened in Ukraine was never hard to figure out. Nor did you have
to be inside "the Russian propaganda bubble" to recognize it. George Friedman, the founder of
the global intelligence firm Stratfor, called Yanukovych's overthrow "the most blatant coup
in history."
Which is what it appears if you consider the evidence. The first step in the process was to
create tensions around the issue of pulling Ukraine out of Russia's economic orbit and
capturing it in the European Union's gravity, a plan defined by influential American neocons in
2013.
On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has been a
major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and
called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
At the time, Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress to the tune of about $100
million a year, was financing scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists, paying for
journalists and organizing business groups.
As for the even bigger prize -- Putin -- Gershman wrote: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe
will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents.
Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near
abroad but within Russia itself."
At that time, in early fall 2013, Ukraine's President Yanukovych was exploring the idea of
reaching out to Europe with an association agreement. But he got cold feet in November 2013
when economic experts in Kiev advised him that the Ukrainian economy would suffer a $160
billion hit if it separated from Russia, its eastern neighbor and major trading partner. There
was also the West's demand that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International
Monetary Fund.
Yanukovych wanted more time for the E.U. negotiations, but his decision angered many western
Ukrainians who saw their future more attached to Europe than Russia. Tens of thousands of
protesters began camping out at Maidan Square in Kiev, with Yanukovych ordering the police to
show restraint.
Meanwhile, with Yanukovych shifting back toward Russia, which was offering a more generous
$15 billion loan and discounted natural gas, he soon became the target of American neocons and
the U.S. media, which portrayed Ukraine's political unrest as a black-and-white case of a
brutal and corrupt Yanukovych opposed by a saintly "pro-democracy" movement.
Cheering an Uprising
The Maidan uprising was urged on by American neocons, including Assistant Secretary of State
for European Affairs Nuland, who passed out cookies at the Maidan and reminded Ukrainian
business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European
aspirations."
A screen shot of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland
speaking to U.S. and Ukrainian business leaders on Dec. 13, 2013, at an event sponsored by
Chevron, with its logo to Nuland's left.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also showed up, standing on stage with right-wing extremists
from the Svoboda Party and telling the crowd that the United States was with them in their
challenge to the Ukrainian government.
As the winter progressed, the protests grew more violent. Neo-Nazi and other extremist
elements from Lviv and other western Ukrainian cities began arriving in well-organized brigades
or "sotins" of 100 trained street fighters. Police were attacked with firebombs and other
weapons as the violent protesters began seizing government buildings and unfurling Nazi banners
and even a Confederate flag.
Though Yanukovych continued to order his police to show restraint, he was still depicted
in the major U.S. news media as a brutal thug who was callously murdering his own people. The
chaos reached a climax on Feb. 20 when mysterious snipers opened fire, killing both police and
protesters. As the police retreated, the militants advanced brandishing firearms and other
weapons. The confrontation led to significant loss of life, pushing the death toll to around 80
including more than a dozen police.
U.S. diplomats and the mainstream U.S. press immediately blamed Yanukovych for the sniper
attack, though the circumstances remain murky to this day and some investigations have
suggested that the lethal sniper fire came from buildings controlled by Right Sektor
extremists.
To tamp down the worsening violence, a shaken Yanukovych signed a European-brokered deal on
Feb. 21, in which he accepted reduced powers and an early election so he could be voted out of
office. He also agreed to requests from Vice President Joe Biden to pull back the police.
The precipitous police withdrawal opened the path for the neo-Nazis and other street
fighters to seize presidential offices and force Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their
lives. The new coup regime was immediately declared "legitimate" by the U.S. State Department
with Yanukovych sought on murder charges. Nuland's favorite, Yatsenyuk, became the new prime
minister.
Throughout the crisis, the mainstream U.S. press hammered home the theme of white-hatted
protesters versus a black-hatted president. The police were portrayed as brutal killers who
fired on unarmed supporters of "democracy." The good-guy/bad-guy narrative was all the American
people heard from the major media.
The New York Times went so far as to delete the slain policemen from the narrative and
simply report that the police had killed all those who died in the Maidan. A typical Times
report on March 5, 2014, summed up the storyline: "More than 80 protesters were shot to death
by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February."
The mainstream U.S. media also sought to discredit anyone who observed the obvious fact that
an unconstitutional coup had just occurred. A new theme emerged that portrayed Yanukovych as
simply deciding to abandon his government because of the moral pressure from the noble and
peaceful Maidan protests.
Any reference to a "coup" was dismissed as "Russian propaganda." There was a parallel
determination in the U.S. media to discredit or ignore evidence that neo-Nazi militias had
played an important role in ousting Yanukovych and in the subsequent suppression of anti-coup
resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine. That opposition among ethnic-Russian Ukrainians
simply became "Russian aggression."
Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine's Azov battalion. (As filmed by a
Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)
This refusal to notice what was actually a remarkable story – the willful unleashing
of Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II –
reached absurd levels as The New York Times and The Washington Post buried references to the
neo-Nazis at the end of stories, almost as afterthoughts.
The Washington Post went to the extreme of rationalizing Swastikas and other Nazi symbols by
quoting one militia commander as calling them "romantic" gestures by impressionable young men.
[See Consortiumnews.com's " Ukraine's
'Romantic' Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers ."]
But today – more than two years after what U.S. and Ukrainian officials like to
call "the Revolution of Dignity" – the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government is sinking into
dysfunction, reliant on handouts from the IMF and Western governments.
And, in a move perhaps now more symbolic than substantive, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is
stepping down. Yats is no longer the guy.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The
Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen
Narrative, either in print here or
as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ).
Khalid Talaat , April 16, 2016 at 20:39
Is it too far fetched to think that all these color revolutions are a perfection of the
process to unleash another fake color revolution, only this time it is a Red, White and Blue
revolution here at home? Those that continue to booze and snooze while watching the tube will
not know the difference until it is too late.
The freedom and tranquility of our country depends on finding and implementing a
counterweight to the presstitutes and their propaganda. The alternative is too
destructive in its natural development.
Abe , April 15, 2016 at 18:49
Yats and Porko are the guys who broke Ukraine. By the end of December 2015, Ukraine's
gross domestic product had shrunk around 19 percent in comparison with 2013. Its decimated
industrial sector needs less fuel. Yatsie did a heck of a job.
The timing of "Yats" departure is ominous. Mid-April, six weeks from now would be the
first chance to renew the invasion of DPR Donesk/Lugansk."Yats" failed in 2014, and didn't
try in 2015. Who is "the new guy"? Will the new Prime Minister begin raving about renewing
the holy war to recover the lost oblasts? 2016 is really Ukraine's last chance. Ukraine
refuses to implement Minsk2, and they have been receiving lots of new weapons. I believe
President Putin put the Syrian operation on " standby" not only to avoid approaching the
border, provoking a Turkish intervention, but also so he can give undistracted attention to
DPR Donesk/Lugansk.
Bill Rood , April 12, 2016 at 11:50
I guess I must be inside the Russian propaganda bubble. It was obvious to me when I
looked at the YouTube videos of policemen burning after being hit with Molotov
cocktails.
We played the same game of encouraging government "restraint" in Syria, where we
demanded Assad free "political prisoners," but we now accuse him of deliberately encouraging
ISIS by freeing those people, so that he can point to ISIS and ask, "Do you want that?"
Targeted leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Andrei , April 12, 2016 at 10:26
"the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the
CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954", Romania 1989 Shots
were fired by snipers in order to stirr the crowds (sounds familiar?) and also by the army
after Ceasescu ran away, which resulted in civilians getting murdered. Could it possibly be
that it was said : "Iliescu (next elected president) is the guy!" ?
Joe L. , April 12, 2016 at 11:00
Check out the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela 2002, that is very
similar with protesters, snipers on rooftops, IMF immediately offering loans to the new coup
government, new government positions for the coup plotters, complacency with the media
– propaganda, funding by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy etc. John
Pilger documents how the coup occurred in his documentary "War on Democracy" –
https://vimeo.com/16724719 .
archaos , April 12, 2016 at 09:45
It was noted in the minutes of Verkhovna Rada almost 2 years before Maidan 2 , that
Geoffrey Pyatt was fomenting and funding destabilisation of Ukraine.
All of Svoboda Nazis in parliament (and other fascisti) then booed the MP who stated
this.
Mark Thomason , April 12, 2016 at 06:57
Also, the Dutch voted "no" on the economic agreement the coup was meant to force through
instead of the Russian agreement accepted by the President it overthrew. Now both "Yats" and
the economic agreement are gone. All that is left is the war. Neocons are still happen.
They wanted the war. They really want to overthrow Putin, and Ukraine was just a tool in
that.
Realist , April 12, 2016 at 05:51
You're right, it doesn't have to be the military that carries out a coup by deploying
tanks on the National Mall. In 2000, it was the United States Supreme Court that exceeded
its constitutional authority and installed George W. Bush as president, though in reality he
had lost that election. I wonder when that move will rightfully be characterized as a coup by
the historians.
"On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has
been a major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington
Post and called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling
Russian President Vladimir Putin."
It should be remembered that Victoria Nuland took up the post of Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs in Washington on September 18, 2013.
Coincidentally, two other women closely connected to events in Ukraine were also in
Washington during September 2013.
Friend of Nuland and boss of the IMF, which has its own HQ in Washington, Christine
Lagarde was swift to respond to a Ukraine request for IMF loans on February 27th 2014, just
five days after the removal of Yanukovych on February 22nd. Lagarde is pictured with
Baronness Catherine Ashton in Washington in a Facebook entry dated September 30th 2013.
Ashton was High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at the
time.
Though visiting Kiev at the same time as Nuland in February 2014 Catherine Ashton never
appeared in public with her, which seems a little odd considering the women were on the same
mission, and talking to the same people. Nevertheless, despite appearing shy of being
photographed with each other the two women weren't quite so shy of being pictured with
leaders of the coup, including the right wing extremist, Oleh Tyahnybok.
Ashton refused to be drawn into commenting on Nuland's "Fuck the E.U.!" outburst,
describing Nuland as "a friend of mine." The two women certainly weren't strangers, they had
worked closely together before. September 2012 saw them involved in discussions with Iran
negotiator Saeed Jalili over the country's supposed nuclear arms ambitions.
The question is not so much whether the three women talked about Ukraine's future –
it would be ridiculous to think they did not – but how closely they worked together,
and exactly how closely they might have been involved in events leading up to the overthrow
of the legitimate government in Kiev. More on this here:
Another failed "regime change". Aren't these guys (Neoconservatives) great. They fail,
piss off/kill millions, yet seem to keep making money and retaining power. Time to WAKE UP
AMERICA.
Skip Edwards , April 11, 2016 at 20:06
Read "The Devil'Chessboard" by David Talbot to understand what has been occurring as a
result of America's Dark, Shadow government, an un-elected bunch of vicious psychopaths
controlling our destiny; unless stopped. Get a clue and realize that "Yats is our guy"
Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton's "gal." Hillary Clinton is Robert Kagen's "gal." Time to
flush all these rats out of the hold and get on with our lives.
Joe L. , April 11, 2016 at 18:40
Mr. Parry thank you for delving into the proven history of coups and the parallels with
Ukraine. It amazes me how anyone can outright deny this was a coup especially if they know
anything about US coups going back to WW2 (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, attempt in
Venezuela 2002 etc. – and there are a whole slew more). I read before, as you have
rightly pointed out, that in 1953 the CIA led a propaganda campaign in Iran against Mossadegh
as well as financing opposition protesters and opposition government officials. Another
angle, as well, is looking historically back to what papers such as the New York Times were
reporting around the time of the coup in Iran – especially when we know that the
US/Britain overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh for their own oil interests
(British Petroleum):
New York Times: "Mossadegh Plays with Fire" (August 15, 1953):
The world has so many trouble spots these days that one is apt to pass over the odd one
here and there to preserve a little peace of mind. It would be well, however, to keep an eye
on Iran, where matters are going from bad to worse, thanks to the machinations of Premier
Mossadegh.
Some of us used to ascribe our inability to persuade Dr. Mossadegh of the validity of our
ideas to the impossibility of making him understand or see things our way. We thought of him
as a sincere, well-meaning, patriotic Iranian, who had a different point of view and made
different deductions from the same set of facts. We now know that he is a power-hungry,
personally ambitious, ruthless demagogue who is trampling upon the liberties of his own
people. We have seen this onetime champion of liberty maintain martial law, curb freedom of
the press, radio, speech and assembly, resort to illegal arrests and torture, dismiss the
Senate, destroy the power of the Shah, take over control of the army, and now he is about to
destroy the Majlis, which is the lower house of Parliament.
His power would seem to be complete, but he has alienated the traditional ruling classes
-the aristocrats, landlords, financiers and tribal leaders. These elements are
anti-Communist. So is the Shah and so are the army leaders and the urban middle classes.
There is a traditional, historic fear, suspicion and dislike of Russia and the Russians. The
peasants, who make up the overwhelming mass of the population, are illiterate and
nonpolitical. Finally, there is still no evidence that the Tudeh (Communist) party is strong
enough or well enough organized, financed and led to take power.
All this simply means that there is no immediate danger of a Communist coup or Russian
intervention. On the other hand, Dr. Mossadegh is encouraging the Tudeh and is following
policies which will make the Communists more and more dangerous. He is a sorcerer's
apprentice, calling up forces he will not be able to control.
Iran is a weak, divided, poverty-stricken country which possesses an immense latent wealth
in oil and a crucial strategic position. This is very different from neighboring Turkey, a
strong, united, determined and advanced nation, which can afford to deal with the Russians
because she has nothing to fear -and therefore the West has nothing to fear. Thanks largely
to Dr. Mossadegh, there is much to fear in Iran.
My feeling is that the biggest sin that our society has is forgetting history. If we
remembered history I would think that it would be very difficult to pull off coups but most
media does not revisit history which proves US coups even against democracies. I actually
think that the coup that occurred in Ukraine was similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela
in 2002 with snipers on rooftops, immediate blame for the deaths on Hugo Chavez where media
manipulated the footage, immediate acceptance of the temporary coup government by the US
Government, immediately offering IMF loans for the new coup government, government positions
for many of the coup plotters, and let us not leave out the funding for the coup coming from
USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. I also remember seeing the New York Times
immediately blaming Chavez and praising the coup but when the coup was overturned and US
fingerprints started to become revealed (with many of the coup plotters fleeing to the US)
then the New York Times wrote a limited retraction buried in their paper. Shameless.
SFOMARCO , April 11, 2016 at 15:16
How was NED able to finance "scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists,
paying for journalists and organizing business groups", not to mention to host such
dignitaries as Cookie Nuland, Loser McCain and assorted Bidens? Seems like a recipe for a
coup "hidden in plain sight".
Bob Van Noy , April 11, 2016 at 14:36
Ukraine, one would hope, represents the "Bridge Too Far" moment for the proponents of
regime change. Surely Americans must be catching on to what we do for selected nations in the
name of "giving them their freedoms". The Kagan Family, empowered by their newly endorsed
candidate for President, Hillary Clinton, will feel justified in carrying on a new cold war,
this time world wide. Of course they will not be doing the fighting, they, like Dick Cheney
are the self appointed intellects of geopolitical chess, much like The Georgetown Set of the
Kennedy era, they perceive themselves as the only ones smart enough to plan America's
future.
Helen Marshall , April 11, 2016 at 17:11
I wish. How many Americans know ANYTHNG about what has happened in Ukraine, about Crimea
and its history, and/or could even locate them on a map?
Pastor Agnostic , April 12, 2016 at 04:11
Nuland is merely the inhouse, PNAC female version of Sidney Blumenthal. Which raises the
scary question. Who would she pick to be SecState?
Under neoliberalism any regime change is necessary followed by an economic rape. That was the case with the USSR in 1991,
that was the case in Ukraine in 2014. Only the size and length of the looting varies depending of the strength of new government.
Both the size and the length is maximal if in power are marionette like Yeltsin or Yatsenyuk/Poroshenko.
Saying "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" now should sound as "Beware of Americans who bring you color revolutions." They bring the
economic rape (aka "Disaster
capitalism") as the second phase. That's the nature of neocolonialism -- now you do not need to occupy the country.
It's enough to make it a debt slave using IMF and install compradors to endure the low of money and continuing impoverishment of the
population.
With such crooked and greedy friends as Biden and Kerry and their narcoaddicts sons you do not need enemies. But the main
danger are not individual sharks but Western financial institutions like IMF and World bank. Those convert countries into debt slaves
and that means permanently low standard (Central African in case of Ukraine, something like $2 a day) of living for generations
to come.
What is interesting is that unlike say German nationalists in 30th, the Ukrainian nationalists proved to be completly
useless in defending the Ukraine from looting. They actually serves as supplementary tool of the same looting.
The standard of living of Ukrainians dropped 2-3 times since 2014. How pensioners survive, on $50 a month pension I simply do not
understand. In any case Neoliberalism proved to be very effecting is keeping "developing" nations economic growth down and converting
them into debt slaves. The fact that Biden use loans as a tool of extortion (as in threat to cancel one billion loan) to close criminal
investigation of his sons company is just an icing on the cake. Poroshenko and his camarilla should be tried in the court of law for
his corruption and pandering to the Western sharks, who were happy to steal from Ukraine as much as then can.
To pay $166K a month for Biden's son cocaine is way too much to such impoverished country as Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... "I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling the conversation with Poroshenko. ..."
"... " Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council on Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat. ..."
"... The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden's younger son, Hunter, as a board member. ..."
"... U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden's American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts -- usually more than $166,000 a month -- from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia. - The Hill ..."
"... And before he was fired, Shokin says he had made "specific plans" for the investigation - including "interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden." "I would like to emphasize the fact that presumption of innocence is a principle in Ukraine," added Shokin. Joe Biden "clearly had to know" about the probe before he insisted on Shokin's ouster . Via The Hill: ..."
"... The U.S. Embassy in Kiev that coordinated Biden's work in the country repeatedly and publicly discussed the general prosecutor's case against Burisma; ..."
"... President Obama named Biden the administration's point man on Ukraine in February 2014 ..."
"... Remember Victoria Nuland's famous phone recording of "**** the EU?" This was nothing more than another CIA destabilization campaign carried out of another Sovereign Country. With the goal of breaking the Bush Senior & Jim Baker agreement of not surrounding Russia with NATO countries after their Collapse. ..."
"... Let's face it. If Ukrainians loved it's Country, Joey, Hunter and the Choco-**** would have wound up like Mikhail Lesin during an all night party in an upscale grotto in Kiev by now! ..."
"... At last some questions for this dirt ball-burisma is tied in with one of the most if not the most corrupt oligarch, Koloimiski. Biden is up to his eyeballs in some dodgy deals in china as well-this guy and his son are walking corruption personified. ..."
"... Didn't Hillary teach Joe that a tax free foundation is better than using your son's LLC for laundering the bribes... This is basic stuff. ..."
"... Joe "the Conqueror" "Caesar Magnus" Biden. Joe of Ukraine, the best bud of $oro$. ..."
Originally from:
Forget 'Creepy'
- Biden Has A Major Ukraine Problem Joe Biden appears to have made a major tactical error last year when he bragged to an
audience of foreign policy experts how he threatened to hurl Ukraine into bankruptcy if their top prosecutor, General Viktor Shokin,
wasn't immediately fired, according to
The Hill 's John Solomon.
In his own words, with video cameras rolling,
Biden described
how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in
U.S. loan guarantees , sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn't immediately fire Prosecutor General
Viktor Shokin. -
The Hill
"I said, ' You're not getting the billion .' I'm going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at
them and said: ' I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money, '" bragged Biden, recalling
the conversation with Poroshenko.
" Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden said at the Council
on Foreign Relations event - while insisting that former president Obama was complicit in the threat.
Interviews with a half-dozen senior Ukrainian officials confirm Biden's account, though they claim the pressure was applied
over several months in late 2015 and early 2016, not just six hours of one dramatic day . Whatever the case, Poroshenko and Ukraine's
parliament obliged by
ending Shokin's tenure as prosecutor. Shokin was facing steep criticism in Ukraine, and among some U.S. officials, for not
bringing enough corruption prosecutions when he was fired. -
The Hill
And why would Biden want the "son of a bitch" fired?
In what must be an amazing coincidence, the prosecutor was leading a wide-ranging corruption investigation into a natural gas
firm - which Biden's son, Hunter, sat on the board of directors.
The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm
Burisma Holdings
that employed Biden's younger son, Hunter, as a board member.
U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden's American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers
into one of its accounts -- usually more than $166,000 a month -- from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period
when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia. -
The Hill
The Hill 's Solomon reviewed the general prosecutor's file for the Burisma probe - which he reports shows Hunter Biden, his business
partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money.
And before he was fired, Shokin says he had made "specific plans" for the investigation - including "interrogations and other
crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden." "I would like to emphasize the fact
that presumption of innocence is a principle in Ukraine," added Shokin. Joe Biden "clearly had to know" about the probe before he
insisted on Shokin's ouster . Via The Hill:
Although Biden made no mention of his son in his 2018 speech, U.S. and Ukrainian authorities both told me Biden and his office
clearly had to know about the general prosecutor's probe of Burisma and his son's role. They noted that:
Hunter Biden's appointment to the board was widely reported in American media;
The U.S. Embassy in Kiev that coordinated Biden's work in the country repeatedly and publicly discussed the general prosecutor's
case against Burisma;
Great Britain took very public action against Burisma while Joe Biden was working with that government on Ukraine issues;
Biden's office was quoted, on the record, acknowledging Hunter Biden's role in Burisma in a New York Times article about the
general prosecutor's Burisma case that appeared four months before Biden forced the firing of Shokin. The vice president's office
suggested in that article that Hunter Biden was a lawyer free to pursue his own private business deals.
President Obama named Biden the administration's point man on Ukraine in February 2014 , after a popular revolution ousted
Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych and as Moscow
sent military forces into Ukraine's Crimea territory.
***
Key questions for 'ol Joe:
Was it appropriate for your son and his firm to cash in on Ukraine while you served as point man for Ukraine policy? What work
was performed for the money Hunter Biden's firm received? Did you know about the Burisma probe? And when it was publicly announced
that your son worked for Burisma, should you have recused yourself from leveraging a U.S. policy to pressure the prosecutor who
very publicly pursued Burisma?
Remember Victoria Nuland's famous phone recording of "**** the EU?" This was nothing more than another CIA destabilization
campaign carried out of another Sovereign Country. With the goal of breaking the Bush Senior & Jim Baker agreement of not surrounding
Russia with NATO countries after their Collapse.
Let's face it. If Ukrainians loved it's Country, Joey, Hunter and the Choco-**** would have wound up like Mikhail Lesin
during an all night party in an upscale grotto in Kiev by now!
Amazing that all 3 of them are still alive and that "Song Bird" McCain (#4) was allowed to die from his brain cancer instead
of joining them or being dismembered and put on display when he made these visit(s) (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbfsTcJCKDE ) along
with General Vallely (#5)!!!
Taras Bulba , 1 hour ago
At last some questions for this dirt ball-burisma is tied in with one of the most if not the most corrupt oligarch, Koloimiski.
Biden is up to his eyeballs in some dodgy deals in china as well-this guy and his son are walking corruption personified.
CarifonianSeven, 2 hours ago
Didn't Hillary teach Joe that a tax free foundation is better than using your son's LLC for laundering the bribes... This
is basic stuff.
Pernicious Gold Phallusy, 1 hour ago
Joe cheated his way through undergrad and law school. He would be unable to understand any of that.
whittler, 1 hour ago
What? You mean folks will finally care about little Hunter hiring Azov neo-Nazi fighters (oops! security I mean) to protect
his fracking site just north of the 'troubles' in the eastern Ukraine? I'm sure they were working for free and that no Biden money
was ever used to payoff (oops again! I mean pay the wages of) a bunch of Nazis (dang it again, I mean neo-Nazis, it sounds so
much warmer and fuzzier when you add 'neo').
Creepy Joe and all D's agree, 'Nazi' = bad, neo-Nazi = warm, fuzzy and good; heck, they even like to kill Russians Russians
Russians!!!
Cracker 16 , 1 hour ago
Joe "the Conqueror" "Caesar Magnus" Biden. Joe of Ukraine, the best bud of $oro$.
"... Slick Willy, recruited by the CIA to report on anti-war activism from Oxford back in 1968. ..."
"... we get America's first Black President, which serves to paralyze the left with identity politics in exactly the same way that the first woman President would. ..."
"... Unfortunately for the CIA and neoliberal establishment, Trump's unexpected win ( "Damn you ornery American voters!" ) has mortally wounded identity politics as an ideology, so the corporate mass media has tons of work ahead of them for getting plans back on track, if it is possible at all. ..."
Here is the way the CIA planned it from way back in Ronald Raygun's presidency:
PotUS 41: Bush Sr, CIA Don.
PotUS 42:Slick Willy, recruited by the CIA to report on anti-war activism from
Oxford back in 1968.
PotUS 43: Bush the Lesser, raised by the CIA.
PotUS 44: Slick Willy's ambitious cling-on who forced her way into the CIA scheme
back in the 1970s. Intended to be the first woman President. This symbolic
faux-progressive "victory" was intended to paralyze what remains of America's left
while she worked for the interests of the capitalist elites. Plan failed, but not too
badly. CIA candidate who was doing the trial run for PotUS 45 and getting some election
cred won instead. "No big deal!" sez the CIA, "44, 45 and 46 are all
interchangeable anyway." Instead we get America's first Black President, which serves
to paralyze the left with identity politics in exactly the same way that the first woman
President would. ( Aside:Obama's mamma was a CIA mule channeling financing to death squads
in Indonesia via the CIA cutout the Ford Foundation. The CIA crime family keeps tabs on
all of their used assets in case they get chatty and need to be quieted down. This
brought boy Obama to their attention and allowed them to groom him from infancy to be
their tool )
PotUS 45: Originally intended to be the "First Black President!" but
switched out for Clinton when plans SNAFUed in 2008. Hey, "First woman President!"
works just as good to choke criticism from the left, right? Right?
PotUS 46 (2024): What can you follow "First Black President!" and
"First woman President!" with to leverage identity politics and render the left
impotent? Why, the "First gay President!" , of course! With a name like Buttgig they
are shoving it right in our faces.
But the American electorate threw a monkey wrench (or an orange buffoon?) into the works
and screwed everything up. Trump was just floated as a "heel" (pro wrestling term)
or "foil" to be beaten, and in the process of being beaten reinforce the identity politics of
the victor and discredit populism.
Not having any better ideas, and not having any idea why their plans failed, the CIA is
just charging ahead with their idea of installing a gay President in 2024 and giving the
electorate some exposure to their tool now.
Unfortunately for the CIA and neoliberal establishment, Trump's unexpected win ( "Damn
you ornery American voters!" ) has mortally wounded identity politics as an ideology, so
the corporate mass media has tons of work ahead of them for getting plans back on track, if
it is possible at all.
"... Trump crushes adderol and snorts the powder. ..."
"... Whereas, Obama maintained a cool composure as he lied - those whoppers!; and as he expanded Corporate and MIC power and Cut Taxes on the rich, while smiling and telling you he was on your side, but gosh darn it - those mean republicans.... ..."
"... Obama seemed the Cyborg. Not on drugs, but who knows? ..."
"... Now Trump and Dubya. These guys share certain drug induced behaviors. Harder to control. Neither is very bright or curious. Bit of a loose cannon, harder to control. So you see these ticks and twitches and highs and lows. ..."
Whereas, Obama maintained a cool composure as he lied - those whoppers!; and as he
expanded Corporate and MIC power and Cut Taxes on the rich, while smiling and telling you he
was on your side, but gosh darn it - those mean republicans....
Obama seemed the Cyborg. Not on drugs, but who knows? He's got Michael's big pecker, so
he's content; and he'll make lots of money and live a jet set lifestyle of the rich and
famous. Easy. He's smart and slicker than cat shite. He guided the USA farther down the path
to the New World Order. No problem.
Now Trump and Dubya. These guys share certain drug induced behaviors. Harder to
control. Neither is very bright or curious. Bit of a loose cannon, harder to control. So you
see these ticks and twitches and highs and lows.
And Kushner. Too Young and inexperienced to do all that he does. It points to puppet masters pulling their strings.
Trump just wanted some good looking pussycats to come up to his suite; and some
hamberders.
"... Putin understands that both the loser and the winner lose in the confrontation. Therefore, he always offers a compromise for a long time, almost to the last opportunity, even to those who clearly do not deserve it, moving to other solutions only after the opponent has clearly crossed all possible red lines and can pose a threat to the vital interests of Russia. An agreement based on consideration of each other's interests is always stronger than any short-term 'victories', which tomorrow will result in the need to reaffirm their status of the winner again and again. It seems to me that Putin understands this well. Hence the effectiveness of his actions. ..."
That's a great piece by Escobar, and it contains snippets from his talk with Ishchenko,
which I recall he said was coming but which I don't think I ever saw anywhere until now.
I have to quote this perfect illustration of Putin from Ishchenko:
Putin understands that both the loser and the winner lose in the confrontation. Therefore,
he always offers a compromise for a long time, almost to the last opportunity, even to
those who clearly do not deserve it, moving to other solutions only after the opponent has
clearly crossed all possible red lines and can pose a threat to the vital interests of
Russia. An agreement based on consideration of each other's interests is always stronger
than any short-term 'victories', which tomorrow will result in the need to reaffirm their
status of the winner again and again. It seems to me that Putin understands this well.
Hence the effectiveness of his actions.
As to Pepe's main theme, that the Pentagon is hardening its stances, it's well reported,
and fits nicely with the latest piece from Whitney Webb, which Escobar linked form his
Facebook page, by the way (I get a lot of good "heads-up" links from there). I'll post it in
the next comment.
Webb's story is about the newly developed RED team, the "sole contractor" to USAID with
regard to Venezuela. The piece illustrates both the exact playbook to be used in Venezuela
and a hardening of stance in the covert activity sphere equal with the military sphere's
hardening that karlof1 cites @73:
For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost
doing capacity of USAID." Another USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in
"extremely denied environments," stated that:
"We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody
who doesn't think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special
forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant USAID
is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must
happen."
This seems to speak a lot of the Trump administration's true ambitions in the Rambo
theater of fantasy and cruelty. This RED team is armed with cash and weaponry for offensive
violence, along with an entire vocabulary of institutional words that almost seem harmless
until you explore the implications, as Webb does.
I have to say in passing that I just don't know if we've ever been able to see so clearly
before - i.e. at the level of one magazine article citing the published declarations of the
actors - the exact and precise methods by which regime change will attempt to be imposed on a
target country.
Presumably Gerasimov and the rest of the Russia team are hip to every one of these moves,
and will counter effectively and creatively.
"The Supreme Court of Justice of #Venezuela ratifies precautionary measures to Juan
#Guaidó: prohibition to exit the country, prohibition to transfer his property,
blockade and immobilization of bank accounts or any other financial instrument in
Venezuela."
"The Supreme Court of Justice imposes a fine on Juan #Guaidó and asks the National
Constituent Assembly to lift the parliamentary immunity after Guaidó broke the
prohibition of leaving the country."
What will be the next "Or Else" utterance by the Naked Emperor's Agents be? Will they
threaten to throw the table holding all those possibilities? Perhaps also add the chairs?
Meanwhile, China delivers another freighter full of medical supplies.
"... Volodymyr Zelensky isn't pro-Russia. However, he isn't anti-Russia , which is a huge change from President Petro O. Poroshenko, who came in a distant second. ..."
"... While two pro-Western candidates will go head to head in a runoff in three weeks, Russia-friendly Yuriy Boyko and Oleksandr Vilkul garnered a combined 15 percent. ..."
"... This is also a smear, Boyko and Vilkul aren't "loyal to the Kremlin", but they are pro-Russian. Between Boyko and Vilkul's votes, plus Zelensky's votes, it virtually assures that Ukraine won't have an anti-Russian President in a few months. ..."
"... All I know about the Ukraine is that Hillary, Kerry and Co. fucked them over and went with the Nazis contingency. Sorry but the world as it stands is so fucked up I can't keep track of the players or the plays. ..."
Volodymyr Zelensky isn't pro-Russia. However, he isn't anti-Russia , which is a huge
change from President Petro O. Poroshenko, who came in a distant second.
Turnout was estimated at about 63 percent, slightly more than the 60 percent who voted in
2014.
A better-than-expected showing for Russia-leaning candidates in the first round of Ukraine's
presidential election could mean forces loyal to the Kremlin make inroads at the country's
parliamentary vote later this year.
While two pro-Western candidates will go head to head in a runoff in three weeks,
Russia-friendly Yuriy Boyko and Oleksandr Vilkul garnered a combined 15 percent.
This is also a smear, Boyko and Vilkul aren't "loyal to the Kremlin", but they are
pro-Russian. Between Boyko and Vilkul's votes, plus Zelensky's votes, it virtually assures that
Ukraine won't have an anti-Russian President in a few months.
All I know about the Ukraine is that Hillary, Kerry and Co. fucked them over and went
with the Nazis contingency. Sorry but the world as it stands is so fucked up I can't keep
track of the players or the plays.
There all obscene and guess who stands in the center
of this global nightmare instigating all this darkness. Hummmmmm.....USA,USA,USA. Makes
me want to puke. Makes me feel like voting for anyone I'm allowed to is nothing but a
crime against humanity.
Including Bernie or anyone the powers that be kindly allow us to
consider under their carefully controlled game. Oh well.
Guess I'm glad that the Ukraine
may just get out from under their whatever. Hey maybe if people globally all stood up and
refused to vote for any of these assholes they fling out there what would happen? Nothing
most likely as there is always the specter hanging around of what will happen to your
life if you step out of line.
This article by late Robert Parry is from 2016 but is still relevant in context of the
current Ukrainian elections and the color revolution is Venezuela. The power of neoliberal
propaganda is simply tremendous. For foreign events it is able to distort the story to such an
extent that the most famous quote of CIA director William Casey "We'll know our disinformation
program is complete when everything the American public believes is false" looks like
constatation of already accomplished goal.
Exclusive: Several weeks before Ukraine's 2014 coup, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
Nuland had already picked Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be the future leader, but now "Yats" is no
longer the guy, writes Robert Parry.
In reporting on the resignation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the major
U.S. newspapers either ignored or distorted Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland's
infamous intercepted
phone call before the 2014 coup in which she declared "Yats is the guy!"
Though Nuland's phone call introduced many Americans to the previously obscure Yatsenyuk,
its timing – a few weeks before the ouster of elected Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych – was never helpful to Washington's desired narrative of the Ukrainian people
rising up on their own to oust a corrupt leader.
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the
Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.
Instead, the conversation between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt
sounded like two proconsuls picking which Ukrainian politicians would lead the new government.
Nuland also disparaged the less aggressive approach of the European Union with the pithy
put-down: "Fuck the E.U.!"
More importantly, the intercepted call, released onto YouTube in early February 2014,
represented powerful evidence that these senior U.S. officials were plotting – or at
least collaborating in – a coup d'etat against Ukraine's democratically elected
president. So, the U.S. government and the mainstream U.S. media have since consigned this
revealing discussion to the Great Memory Hole.
On Monday, in reporting on Yatsenyuk's Sunday speech in which he announced that he is
stepping down, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention the Nuland-Pyatt
conversation at all. The New York Times did mention the call but misled its readers regarding
its timing, making it appear as if the call followed rather than preceded the coup. That way
the call sounded like two American officials routinely appraising Ukraine's future leaders, not
plotting to oust one government and install another.
The Times
article by Andrew E. Kramer said: "Before Mr. Yatsenyuk's appointment as prime minister in
2014, a leaked recording of a telephone conversation between Victoria J. Nuland, a United
States assistant secretary of state, and the American ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt,
seemed to underscore the West's support for his candidacy. 'Yats is the guy,' Ms. Nuland had
said."
Notice, however, that if you didn't know that the conversation occurred in late January or
early February 2014, you wouldn't know that it preceded the Feb. 22, 2014 coup. You might have
thought that it was just a supportive chat before Yatsenyuk got his new job.
You also wouldn't know that much of the Nuland-Pyatt conversation focused on how they
were going to "glue this thing" or "midwife this thing," comments sounding like prima facie
evidence that the U.S. government was engaged in "regime change" in Ukraine, on Russia's
border.
The 'No Coup' Conclusion
But Kramer's lack of specificity about the timing and substance of the call fits with a long
pattern of New York Times' bias in its coverage of the Ukraine crisis. On Jan. 4, 2015, nearly
a year after the U.S.-backed coup, the Times published an "investigation" article declaring
that there never had been a coup. It was just a case of President Yanukovych deciding to leave
and not coming back.
That article reached its conclusion, in part, by ignoring the evidence of a coup, including
the Nuland-Pyatt phone call. The story was co-written by Kramer and so it is interesting to
know that he was at least aware of the "Yats is the guy" reference although it was ignored in
last year's long-form article.
Instead, Kramer and his co-author Andrew Higgins took pains to mock anyone who actually
looked at the evidence and dared reach the disfavored conclusion about a coup. If you did, you
were some rube deluded by Russian propaganda.
"Russia has attributed Mr. Yanukovych's ouster to what it portrays as a violent,
'neo-fascist' coup supported and even choreographed by the West and dressed up as a popular
uprising," Higgins and Kramer
wrote . "Few outside the Russian propaganda bubble ever seriously entertained the Kremlin's
line. But almost a year after the fall of Mr. Yanukovych's government, questions remain about
how and why it collapsed so quickly and completely."
The Times' article concluded that Yanukovych "was not so much overthrown as cast adrift by
his own allies, and that Western officials were just as surprised by the meltdown as anyone
else. The allies' desertion, fueled in large part by fear, was accelerated by the seizing by
protesters of a large stock of weapons in the west of the country. But just as important, the
review of the final hours shows, was the panic in government ranks created by Mr. Yanukovych's
own efforts to make peace."
Yet, one might wonder what the Times thinks a coup looks like. Indeed, the Ukrainian coup
had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in
1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.
The way those coups played out is now historically well known. Secret U.S. government
operatives planted nasty propaganda about the targeted leader, stirred up political and
economic chaos, conspired with rival political leaders, spread rumors of worse violence to come
and then – as political institutions collapsed – watched as the scared but duly
elected leader made a hasty departure.
In Iran, the coup reinstalled the autocratic Shah who then ruled with a heavy hand for the
next quarter century; in Guatemala, the coup led to more than three decades of brutal military
regimes and the killing of some 200,000 Guatemalans.
Coups don't have to involve army tanks occupying the public squares, although that is an
alternative model which follows many of the same initial steps except that the military is
brought in at the end. The military coup was a common approach especially in Latin America in
the 1960s and 1970s.
' Color Revolutions'
But the preferred method in more recent years has been the "color revolution," which
operates behind the façade of a "peaceful" popular uprising and international pressure
on the targeted leader to show restraint until it's too late to stop the coup. Despite the
restraint, the leader is still accused of gross human rights violations, all the better to
justify his removal.
Later, the ousted leader may get an image makeover; instead of a cruel bully, he is
ridiculed for not showing sufficient resolve and letting his base of support melt away, as
happened with Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
But the reality of what happened in Ukraine was never hard to figure out. Nor did you have
to be inside "the Russian propaganda bubble" to recognize it. George Friedman, the founder of
the global intelligence firm Stratfor, called Yanukovych's overthrow "the most blatant coup
in history."
Which is what it appears if you consider the evidence. The first step in the process was to
create tensions around the issue of pulling Ukraine out of Russia's economic orbit and
capturing it in the European Union's gravity, a plan defined by influential American neocons in
2013.
On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has been a
major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and
called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
At the time, Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress to the tune of about $100
million a year, was financing scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists, paying for
journalists and organizing business groups.
As for the even bigger prize -- Putin -- Gershman wrote: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe
will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents.
Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near
abroad but within Russia itself."
At that time, in early fall 2013, Ukraine's President Yanukovych was exploring the idea of
reaching out to Europe with an association agreement. But he got cold feet in November 2013
when economic experts in Kiev advised him that the Ukrainian economy would suffer a $160
billion hit if it separated from Russia, its eastern neighbor and major trading partner. There
was also the West's demand that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International
Monetary Fund.
Yanukovych wanted more time for the E.U. negotiations, but his decision angered many western
Ukrainians who saw their future more attached to Europe than Russia. Tens of thousands of
protesters began camping out at Maidan Square in Kiev, with Yanukovych ordering the police to
show restraint.
Meanwhile, with Yanukovych shifting back toward Russia, which was offering a more generous
$15 billion loan and discounted natural gas, he soon became the target of American neocons and
the U.S. media, which portrayed Ukraine's political unrest as a black-and-white case of a
brutal and corrupt Yanukovych opposed by a saintly "pro-democracy" movement.
Cheering an Uprising
The Maidan uprising was urged on by American neocons, including Assistant Secretary of State
for European Affairs Nuland, who passed out cookies at the Maidan and reminded Ukrainian
business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European
aspirations."
A screen shot of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland
speaking to U.S. and Ukrainian business leaders on Dec. 13, 2013, at an event sponsored by
Chevron, with its logo to Nuland's left.
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also showed up, standing on stage with right-wing extremists
from the Svoboda Party and telling the crowd that the United States was with them in their
challenge to the Ukrainian government.
As the winter progressed, the protests grew more violent. Neo-Nazi and other extremist
elements from Lviv and other western Ukrainian cities began arriving in well-organized brigades
or "sotins" of 100 trained street fighters. Police were attacked with firebombs and other
weapons as the violent protesters began seizing government buildings and unfurling Nazi banners
and even a Confederate flag.
Though Yanukovych continued to order his police to show restraint, he was still depicted
in the major U.S. news media as a brutal thug who was callously murdering his own people. The
chaos reached a climax on Feb. 20 when mysterious snipers opened fire, killing both police and
protesters. As the police retreated, the militants advanced brandishing firearms and other
weapons. The confrontation led to significant loss of life, pushing the death toll to around 80
including more than a dozen police.
U.S. diplomats and the mainstream U.S. press immediately blamed Yanukovych for the sniper
attack, though the circumstances remain murky to this day and some investigations have
suggested that the lethal sniper fire came from buildings controlled by Right Sektor
extremists.
To tamp down the worsening violence, a shaken Yanukovych signed a European-brokered deal on
Feb. 21, in which he accepted reduced powers and an early election so he could be voted out of
office. He also agreed to requests from Vice President Joe Biden to pull back the police.
The precipitous police withdrawal opened the path for the neo-Nazis and other street
fighters to seize presidential offices and force Yanukovych and his officials to flee for their
lives. The new coup regime was immediately declared "legitimate" by the U.S. State Department
with Yanukovych sought on murder charges. Nuland's favorite, Yatsenyuk, became the new prime
minister.
Throughout the crisis, the mainstream U.S. press hammered home the theme of white-hatted
protesters versus a black-hatted president. The police were portrayed as brutal killers who
fired on unarmed supporters of "democracy." The good-guy/bad-guy narrative was all the American
people heard from the major media.
The New York Times went so far as to delete the slain policemen from the narrative and
simply report that the police had killed all those who died in the Maidan. A typical Times
report on March 5, 2014, summed up the storyline: "More than 80 protesters were shot to death
by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February."
The mainstream U.S. media also sought to discredit anyone who observed the obvious fact that
an unconstitutional coup had just occurred. A new theme emerged that portrayed Yanukovych as
simply deciding to abandon his government because of the moral pressure from the noble and
peaceful Maidan protests.
Any reference to a "coup" was dismissed as "Russian propaganda." There was a parallel
determination in the U.S. media to discredit or ignore evidence that neo-Nazi militias had
played an important role in ousting Yanukovych and in the subsequent suppression of anti-coup
resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine. That opposition among ethnic-Russian Ukrainians
simply became "Russian aggression."
Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine's Azov battalion. (As filmed by a
Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)
This refusal to notice what was actually a remarkable story – the willful unleashing
of Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II –
reached absurd levels as The New York Times and The Washington Post buried references to the
neo-Nazis at the end of stories, almost as afterthoughts.
The Washington Post went to the extreme of rationalizing Swastikas and other Nazi symbols by
quoting one militia commander as calling them "romantic" gestures by impressionable young men.
[See Consortiumnews.com's " Ukraine's
'Romantic' Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers ."]
But today – more than two years after what U.S. and Ukrainian officials like to
call "the Revolution of Dignity" – the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government is sinking into
dysfunction, reliant on handouts from the IMF and Western governments.
And, in a move perhaps now more symbolic than substantive, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk is
stepping down. Yats is no longer the guy.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The
Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen
Narrative, either in print here or
as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ).
Khalid Talaat , April 16, 2016 at 20:39
Is it too far fetched to think that all these color revolutions are a perfection of the
process to unleash another fake color revolution, only this time it is a Red, White and Blue
revolution here at home? Those that continue to booze and snooze while watching the tube will
not know the difference until it is too late.
The freedom and tranquility of our country depends on finding and implementing a
counterweight to the presstitutes and their propaganda. The alternative is too
destructive in its natural development.
Abe , April 15, 2016 at 18:49
Yats and Porko are the guys who broke Ukraine. By the end of December 2015, Ukraine's
gross domestic product had shrunk around 19 percent in comparison with 2013. Its decimated
industrial sector needs less fuel. Yatsie did a heck of a job.
The timing of "Yats" departure is ominous. Mid-April, six weeks from now would be the
first chance to renew the invasion of DPR Donesk/Lugansk."Yats" failed in 2014, and didn't
try in 2015. Who is "the new guy"? Will the new Prime Minister begin raving about renewing
the holy war to recover the lost oblasts? 2016 is really Ukraine's last chance. Ukraine
refuses to implement Minsk2, and they have been receiving lots of new weapons. I believe
President Putin put the Syrian operation on " standby" not only to avoid approaching the
border, provoking a Turkish intervention, but also so he can give undistracted attention to
DPR Donesk/Lugansk.
Bill Rood , April 12, 2016 at 11:50
I guess I must be inside the Russian propaganda bubble. It was obvious to me when I
looked at the YouTube videos of policemen burning after being hit with Molotov
cocktails.
We played the same game of encouraging government "restraint" in Syria, where we
demanded Assad free "political prisoners," but we now accuse him of deliberately encouraging
ISIS by freeing those people, so that he can point to ISIS and ask, "Do you want that?"
Targeted leaders are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Andrei , April 12, 2016 at 10:26
"the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the
CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954", Romania 1989 Shots
were fired by snipers in order to stirr the crowds (sounds familiar?) and also by the army
after Ceasescu ran away, which resulted in civilians getting murdered. Could it possibly be
that it was said : "Iliescu (next elected president) is the guy!" ?
Joe L. , April 12, 2016 at 11:00
Check out the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela 2002, that is very
similar with protesters, snipers on rooftops, IMF immediately offering loans to the new coup
government, new government positions for the coup plotters, complacency with the media
– propaganda, funding by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy etc. John
Pilger documents how the coup occurred in his documentary "War on Democracy" –
https://vimeo.com/16724719 .
archaos , April 12, 2016 at 09:45
It was noted in the minutes of Verkhovna Rada almost 2 years before Maidan 2 , that
Geoffrey Pyatt was fomenting and funding destabilisation of Ukraine.
All of Svoboda Nazis in parliament (and other fascisti) then booed the MP who stated
this.
Mark Thomason , April 12, 2016 at 06:57
Also, the Dutch voted "no" on the economic agreement the coup was meant to force through
instead of the Russian agreement accepted by the President it overthrew. Now both "Yats" and
the economic agreement are gone. All that is left is the war. Neocons are still happen.
They wanted the war. They really want to overthrow Putin, and Ukraine was just a tool in
that.
Realist , April 12, 2016 at 05:51
You're right, it doesn't have to be the military that carries out a coup by deploying
tanks on the National Mall. In 2000, it was the United States Supreme Court that exceeded
its constitutional authority and installed George W. Bush as president, though in reality he
had lost that election. I wonder when that move will rightfully be characterized as a coup by
the historians.
"On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has
been a major neocon paymaster for decades, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington
Post and called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling
Russian President Vladimir Putin."
It should be remembered that Victoria Nuland took up the post of Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs in Washington on September 18, 2013.
Coincidentally, two other women closely connected to events in Ukraine were also in
Washington during September 2013.
Friend of Nuland and boss of the IMF, which has its own HQ in Washington, Christine
Lagarde was swift to respond to a Ukraine request for IMF loans on February 27th 2014, just
five days after the removal of Yanukovych on February 22nd. Lagarde is pictured with
Baronness Catherine Ashton in Washington in a Facebook entry dated September 30th 2013.
Ashton was High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at the
time.
Though visiting Kiev at the same time as Nuland in February 2014 Catherine Ashton never
appeared in public with her, which seems a little odd considering the women were on the same
mission, and talking to the same people. Nevertheless, despite appearing shy of being
photographed with each other the two women weren't quite so shy of being pictured with
leaders of the coup, including the right wing extremist, Oleh Tyahnybok.
Ashton refused to be drawn into commenting on Nuland's "Fuck the E.U.!" outburst,
describing Nuland as "a friend of mine." The two women certainly weren't strangers, they had
worked closely together before. September 2012 saw them involved in discussions with Iran
negotiator Saeed Jalili over the country's supposed nuclear arms ambitions.
The question is not so much whether the three women talked about Ukraine's future –
it would be ridiculous to think they did not – but how closely they worked together,
and exactly how closely they might have been involved in events leading up to the overthrow
of the legitimate government in Kiev. More on this here:
Another failed "regime change". Aren't these guys (Neoconservatives) great. They fail,
piss off/kill millions, yet seem to keep making money and retaining power. Time to WAKE UP
AMERICA.
Skip Edwards , April 11, 2016 at 20:06
Read "The Devil'Chessboard" by David Talbot to understand what has been occurring as a
result of America's Dark, Shadow government, an un-elected bunch of vicious psychopaths
controlling our destiny; unless stopped. Get a clue and realize that "Yats is our guy"
Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton's "gal." Hillary Clinton is Robert Kagen's "gal." Time to
flush all these rats out of the hold and get on with our lives.
Joe L. , April 11, 2016 at 18:40
Mr. Parry thank you for delving into the proven history of coups and the parallels with
Ukraine. It amazes me how anyone can outright deny this was a coup especially if they know
anything about US coups going back to WW2 (Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, attempt in
Venezuela 2002 etc. – and there are a whole slew more). I read before, as you have
rightly pointed out, that in 1953 the CIA led a propaganda campaign in Iran against Mossadegh
as well as financing opposition protesters and opposition government officials. Another
angle, as well, is looking historically back to what papers such as the New York Times were
reporting around the time of the coup in Iran – especially when we know that the
US/Britain overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh for their own oil interests
(British Petroleum):
New York Times: "Mossadegh Plays with Fire" (August 15, 1953):
The world has so many trouble spots these days that one is apt to pass over the odd one
here and there to preserve a little peace of mind. It would be well, however, to keep an eye
on Iran, where matters are going from bad to worse, thanks to the machinations of Premier
Mossadegh.
Some of us used to ascribe our inability to persuade Dr. Mossadegh of the validity of our
ideas to the impossibility of making him understand or see things our way. We thought of him
as a sincere, well-meaning, patriotic Iranian, who had a different point of view and made
different deductions from the same set of facts. We now know that he is a power-hungry,
personally ambitious, ruthless demagogue who is trampling upon the liberties of his own
people. We have seen this onetime champion of liberty maintain martial law, curb freedom of
the press, radio, speech and assembly, resort to illegal arrests and torture, dismiss the
Senate, destroy the power of the Shah, take over control of the army, and now he is about to
destroy the Majlis, which is the lower house of Parliament.
His power would seem to be complete, but he has alienated the traditional ruling classes
-the aristocrats, landlords, financiers and tribal leaders. These elements are
anti-Communist. So is the Shah and so are the army leaders and the urban middle classes.
There is a traditional, historic fear, suspicion and dislike of Russia and the Russians. The
peasants, who make up the overwhelming mass of the population, are illiterate and
nonpolitical. Finally, there is still no evidence that the Tudeh (Communist) party is strong
enough or well enough organized, financed and led to take power.
All this simply means that there is no immediate danger of a Communist coup or Russian
intervention. On the other hand, Dr. Mossadegh is encouraging the Tudeh and is following
policies which will make the Communists more and more dangerous. He is a sorcerer's
apprentice, calling up forces he will not be able to control.
Iran is a weak, divided, poverty-stricken country which possesses an immense latent wealth
in oil and a crucial strategic position. This is very different from neighboring Turkey, a
strong, united, determined and advanced nation, which can afford to deal with the Russians
because she has nothing to fear -and therefore the West has nothing to fear. Thanks largely
to Dr. Mossadegh, there is much to fear in Iran.
My feeling is that the biggest sin that our society has is forgetting history. If we
remembered history I would think that it would be very difficult to pull off coups but most
media does not revisit history which proves US coups even against democracies. I actually
think that the coup that occurred in Ukraine was similar to the attempted coup in Venezuela
in 2002 with snipers on rooftops, immediate blame for the deaths on Hugo Chavez where media
manipulated the footage, immediate acceptance of the temporary coup government by the US
Government, immediately offering IMF loans for the new coup government, government positions
for many of the coup plotters, and let us not leave out the funding for the coup coming from
USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. I also remember seeing the New York Times
immediately blaming Chavez and praising the coup but when the coup was overturned and US
fingerprints started to become revealed (with many of the coup plotters fleeing to the US)
then the New York Times wrote a limited retraction buried in their paper. Shameless.
SFOMARCO , April 11, 2016 at 15:16
How was NED able to finance "scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists,
paying for journalists and organizing business groups", not to mention to host such
dignitaries as Cookie Nuland, Loser McCain and assorted Bidens? Seems like a recipe for a
coup "hidden in plain sight".
Bob Van Noy , April 11, 2016 at 14:36
Ukraine, one would hope, represents the "Bridge Too Far" moment for the proponents of
regime change. Surely Americans must be catching on to what we do for selected nations in the
name of "giving them their freedoms". The Kagan Family, empowered by their newly endorsed
candidate for President, Hillary Clinton, will feel justified in carrying on a new cold war,
this time world wide. Of course they will not be doing the fighting, they, like Dick Cheney
are the self appointed intellects of geopolitical chess, much like The Georgetown Set of the
Kennedy era, they perceive themselves as the only ones smart enough to plan America's
future.
Helen Marshall , April 11, 2016 at 17:11
I wish. How many Americans know ANYTHNG about what has happened in Ukraine, about Crimea
and its history, and/or could even locate them on a map?
Pastor Agnostic , April 12, 2016 at 04:11
Nuland is merely the inhouse, PNAC female version of Sidney Blumenthal. Which raises the
scary question. Who would she pick to be SecState?
"... Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. ..."
"... As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive relationship."' ..."
"... But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'. ..."
"... In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin. Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West. ..."
"... Putin is not the man who, after coming to power in 2000, "de-democratized" a Russian democracy established by President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and restored a system akin to Soviet "totalitarianism." ..."
"... Nor did Putim then make himself a tsar or Soviet-like autocrat, which means a despot with absolute power to turn his will into policy, the last Kremlin leader with that kind of power was Stalin, who died in 1953, and with him his 20-year mass terror. ..."
"... Putin is not a Kremlin leader who "reveres Stalin" and whose "Russia is a gangster shadow of Stalin's Soviet Union." 13 , 14 These assertions are so far-fetched and uninfoimed about Stalin's terror-ridden regime, Putin, and Russia today, they barely warrant comment. ..."
"... Nor did Putin create post-Soviet Russia's "kleptocratic economic system," with its oligarchic and other widespread corruption. This too took shape under Yeltsin during the Kremlin's shock-therapy "privatization" schemes of the 1990s, when the "swindlers and thieves" still denounced by today's opposition actually emerged. ..."
"... Which brings us to the most sinister allegation against him: Putin, trained as "a KGB thug," regularly orders the killing of inconvenient journalists and personal enemies, like a "mafia state boss." ..."
"... More recently, there is yet another allegation: Putin is a fascist and white supremacist. The accusation is made mostly, it seems, by people wishing to deflect attention from the role being played by neo-Nazis in US-backed Ukraine. ..."
"... Finally, at least for now. there is the ramifying demonization allegation that, as a foreign-policy leader. Putin has been exceedingly "aggressive" abroad and his behavior has been the sole cause of the new cold war. ..."
"... Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians. ..."
"... The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America." ..."
"... Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations, he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States." 3 " ..."
"... A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy, without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34 ..."
"... <img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png"> P. Philips ..."
"... "In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" ..."
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
"... If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris. ..."
THE SPECTER OF AN EVIL-DOING VLADIMIR PUTIN HAS loomed over and undermined US thinking about Russia for at least a decade. Inescapably,
it is therefore a theme that runs through this book. Henry' Kissinger deserves credit for having warned, perhaps alone among prominent
American political figures, against this badly distorted image of Russia's leader since 2000: "The demonization of Vladimir Putin
is not a policy. It is an alibi for not having one." 4
But Kissinger was also wrong. Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal
vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. Those policies spread from growing complaints
in the early 2000s to US- Russian proxy wars in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and eventually even at home, in Russiagate allegations.
Indeed, policy-makers adopted an earlier formulation by the late Senator .Tolm McCain as an integral part of a new and more dangerous
Cold War: "Putin [is] an unreconstructed Russian imperialist and K.G.B. apparatchik.... His world is a brutish, cynical place....
We must prevent the darkness of Mr. Putin's world from befalling more of humanity'." 3
Mainstream media outlets have play'ed a major prosecutorial role in the demonization. Far from aty'pically', the Washington Post's
editorial page editor wrote, "Putin likes to make the bodies bounce.... The rule-by-fear is Soviet, but this time there is no ideology
-- only a noxious mixture of personal aggrandizement, xenophobia, homophobia and primitive anti-Americanism." 6 Esteemed
publications and writers now routinely degrade themselves by competing to denigrate "the flabbily muscled form" of the "small gray
ghoul named Vladimir Putin." 7 , 8 There are hundreds of such examples, if not more, over many years. Vilifying
Russia's leader has become a canon in the orthodox US narrative of the new Cold War.
As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's
anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New
York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building
a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive
relationship."'
But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently
explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version
of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start
thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'.
Who has Putin really been during his many years in power? We may' have to leave this large, complex question to future historians,
when materials for full biographical study -- memoirs, archive documents, and others -- are available. Even so, it may surprise readers
to know that Russia's own historians, policy intellectuals, and journalists already argue publicly and differ considerably as to
the "pluses and minuses" of Putin's leadership. (My own evaluation is somewhere in the middle.)
In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin.
Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including
those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West.
By identifying and examining, however briefly, the primary "minuses" that underpin the demonization of Putin, we can understand
at least who he is not:
Putin is not the man who, after coming to power in 2000, "de-democratized" a Russian democracy established by President
Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and restored a system akin to Soviet "totalitarianism." Democratization began and developed in
Soviet Russia under the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, in the years from 1987 to 1991.
Yeltsin repeatedly dealt that historic Russian experiment grievous, possibly fatal, blows. Among his other acts, by using tanks,
in October 1993, to destroy Russia's freely elected parliament and with it the entire constitutional order that had made Yeltsin
president. By waging two bloody' wars against the tiny breakaway province of Chechnya. By enabling a small group of Kremlin-connected
oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty' and misery',
including the once-large and professionalized Soviet middle classes. By rigging his own reelection in 1996. And by' enacting a
"super-presidential" constitution, at the expense of the legislature and judiciary but to his successor's benefit. Putin may have
furthered the de-democratization of the Yeltsin 1990s, but he did not initiate it.
Nor did Putim then make himself a tsar or Soviet-like autocrat, which means a despot with absolute power to turn his
will into policy, the last Kremlin leader with that kind of power was Stalin, who died in 1953, and with him his 20-year mass
terror. Due to the increasing bureaucratic routinization of the political-administrative system, each successive Soviet leader
had less personal power than his predecessor. Putin may have more, but if he really is a "cold-blooded, ruthless" autocrat --
"the worst dictator on the planet" 1 " -- tens of thousands of protesters would not have repeatedly appeared in Moscow
streets, sometimes officially sanctioned. Or their protests (and selective arrests) been shown on state television.
Political scientists generally agree that Putin has been a "soft authoritarian" leader governing a system that has authoritarian
and democratic components inherited from the past. They disagree as to how to specify, define, and balance these elements, but
most would also generally agree with a brief Facebook post, on September 7, 2018, by the eminent diplomat-scholar Jack Matlock:
"Putin ... is not the absolute dictator some have pictured him. His power seems to be based on balancing various patronage networks,
some of which are still criminal. (In the 1990s, most were, and nobody was controlling them.) Therefore he cannot admit publicly
that [criminal acts] happened without his approval since this would indicate that he is not completely in charge."
Putin is not a Kremlin leader who "reveres Stalin" and whose "Russia is a gangster shadow of Stalin's Soviet Union."
13 , 14 These assertions are so far-fetched and uninfoimed about Stalin's terror-ridden regime, Putin, and Russia
today, they barely warrant comment. Stalin's Russia was often as close to unfreedom as imaginable. In today's Russia, apart from
varying political liberties, most citizens are freer to live, study, work, write, speak, and travel than they have ever been.
(When vocational demonizers like David Kramer allege an "appalling human rights situation in Putin's Russia," 1 " they
should be asked: compared to when in Russian history, or elsewhere in the world today?)
Putin clearly understands that millions of Russians have and often express pro-Stalin sentiments. Nonetheless, his role in
these still-ongoing controversies over the despot's historical reputation has been, in one unprecedented way, that of an anti-Stalinist
leader. Briefly illustrated, if Putin reveres the memory of Stalin, why did his personal support finally make possible two memorials
(the excellent State Museum of the History of the Gulag and the highly evocative "Wall of Grief') to the tyrant's millions of
victims, both in central Moscow? The latter memorial monument was first proposed by then-Kremlin leader Nikita Khrushchev, in
1961. It was not built under any of his successors -- until Putin, in 2017.
Nor did Putin create post-Soviet Russia's "kleptocratic economic system," with its oligarchic and other widespread corruption.
This too took shape under Yeltsin during the Kremlin's shock-therapy "privatization" schemes of the 1990s, when the "swindlers
and thieves" still denounced by today's opposition actually emerged.
Putin has adopted a number of "anti-corruption" policies over the years. How successful they have been is the subject of legitimate
debate. As are how much power he has had to rein in fully both Yeltsin's oligarchs and his own, and how sincere he has been. But
branding Putin "a kleptocrat" 16 also lacks context and is little more than barely informed demonizing.
A recent scholarly book finds, for example, that while they may be "corrupt," Putin "and the liberal technocratic economic
team on which he relies have also skillfully managed Russia's economic fortunes." 1 ' A former IMF director goes further,
concluding that Putin's current economic team does not "tolerate corruption" and that "Russia now ranks 35th out of 190 in the
World Bank's Doing Business ratings. It was at 124 in 2010." 18
Viewed in human teims, when Putin came to power in 2000, some 75 percent of Russians were living in poverty. Most had lost
even modest legacies of the Soviet era -- their life savings; medical and other social benefits: real wages; pensions; occupations;
and for men life expectancy, which had fallen well below the age of 60. In only a few years, the "kleptocrat" Putin had mobilized
enough wealth to undo and reverse those human catastrophes and put billions of dollars in rainy-day funds that buffered the nation
in different hard times ahead. We judge this historic achievement as we might, but it is why many Russians still call Putin "Vladimir
the Savior."
Which brings us to the most sinister allegation against him: Putin, trained as "a KGB thug," regularly orders the killing
of inconvenient journalists and personal enemies, like a "mafia state boss." This should be the easiest demonizing axiom to dismiss
because there is no actual evidence, or barely any logic, to support it. And yet, it is ubiquitous. Times editorial writers and
columnists -- and far from them alone -- characterize Putin as a "thug" and his policies as "thuggery" so often -- sometimes doubling
down on "autocratic thug" 19 -- that the practice may be specified in some internal manual. Little wonder so many politicians
also routinely practice it, as did US Senator Ben Sasse: "We should tell the American people and tell the world that we know that
Vladimir Putin is a thus. He's a former KGB aaent who's a murderer." 20
Leaving aside other world leaders with minor or major previous careers in intelligences services. Putin's years as a KGB intelligence
officer in then -East Germany were clearly formative. Many years later, at age 67. he still spoke of them with pride. Whatever
else that experience contributed, it made Putin a Europeanized Russian, a fluent Geiman speaker, and a political leader with a
remarkable, demonstrated capacity for retaining and coolly analyzing a very wide range of information. (Read or watch a few of
his long interviews.) Not a bad leadership trait in very fraught times.
Moreover, no serious biographer would treat only one period in a subject's long public career as definitive, as Putin demonizers
do. Why not instead the period after he left the KGB in 1991, when he served as deputy to the mayor of St. Petersburg, then considered
one of the two or three most democratic leaders in Russia? Or the years immediately following in Moscow, where he saw first-hand
the full extent of Yeltsin-era corruption? Or his subsequent years, while still relatively young, as president?
As for being a "murderer" of journalists and other ''enemies." the list has grown to scores of Russians who died, at home or
abroad, by foul or natural causes -- all reflexively attributed to Putin. Our hallowed tradition puts the burden of proof on the
accusers. Putin's accusers have produced none, only assumptions, innuendoes, and mistranslated statements by Putin about the fate
of "traitors." The two cases that firmly established this defamatory practice were those of the investigative journalist Anna
Politkovskaya, who was shot to death in Moscow in 2006; and Alexander Litvinenko, a shadowy one-time KGB defector with ties to
aggrieved Yeltsin-era oligarchs, who died of radiation poisoning in London, also in 2006.
Not a shred of actual proof points to Putin in either case. The editor of Politkovskaya's paper, the devoutly independent Novaya
Gazeta. still believes her assassination was ordered by Chechen officials, whose human-rights abuses she was investigating. Regarding
Litvinenko, despite frenzied media claims and a kangaroo-like "hearing" suggesting that Putin was "probably" responsible, there
is still no conclusive proof even as to whether Litvinenko's poisoning was intentional or accidental. The same paucity of evidence
applies to many subsequent cases, notably the shooting of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, "in [distant] view of the Kremlin,"
in 2015.
About Russian journalists, there is, however, a significant overlooked statistic. According to the American Committee to Protect
Journalists, as of 2012, 77 had been murdered -- 41 during the Yeltsin years, 36 under Putin. By 2018, the total was 82 -- 41
under Yeltsin, the same under Putin. This strongly suggests that the still -- pairtially corrupt post-Soviet economic system,
not Yeltsin or Putin personally, led to the killing of so many journalists after 1991, most of them investigative reporters. The
former wife of one journalist thought to have been poisoned concludes as much: "Many Western analysts place the responsibility
for these crimes on Putin. But the cause is more likely the system of mutual responsibility and the culture of impunity that began
to form before Putin, in the late 1990s.""
More recently, there is yet another allegation: Putin is a fascist and white supremacist. The accusation is made mostly, it
seems, by people wishing to deflect attention from the role being played by neo-Nazis in US-backed Ukraine. Putin no doubt regards
it as a blood slur, and even on the surface it is, to be exceedingly charitable, entirely uninformed. How else to explain Senator
Ron Wyden's solemn warnings, at a hearing on November 1, 2017, about "the current fascist leadership of Russia"? A young scholar
recently dismantled a senior Yale professor's nearly inexplicable propounding of this thesis.' 3 My own approach is
compatible, though different.
Whatever Putin's failings, the fascist allegation is absurd. Nothing in his statements over nearly 20 years in power are akin
to fascism, whose core belief is a cult of blood based on the asserted superiority of one ethnicity over all others. As head of
a vast multi-ethnic state -- embracing scores of diverse groups with a broad range of skin colors -- such utterances or related
acts by Putin would be inconceivable, if not political suicide. This is why he endlessly appeals for harmony in "our entire multi-ethnic
nation" with its "multi-ethnic culture," as he did once again in his re-inauguration speech in 2018. 24
Russia has, of course, fascist-white supremacist thinkers and activists, though many have been imprisoned. But a mass fascist
movement is scarcely feasible in a country where so many millions died in the war against Nazi Geimany, a war that directly affected
Putin and clearly left a formative mark on him. Though he was born after the war, his mother and father barely survived near-fatal
wounds and disease, his older brother died in the long German siege of Leningrad, and several of his uncles perished. Only people
who never endured such an experience, or are unable to imagine it, can conjure up a fascist Putin.
There is another, easily understood, indicative fact. Not a trace of anti-Semitism is evident in Putin. Little noted here but
widely reported both in Russia and in Israel, life for Russian Jews is better under Putin than it has ever been in that country's
long history."
Finally, at least for now. there is the ramifying demonization allegation that, as a foreign-policy leader. Putin has been
exceedingly "aggressive" abroad and his behavior has been the sole cause of the new cold war.26 At best, this is an
"in-the-eve-of-the-beholder" assertion, and half-blind. At worst, it justifies what even a German foreign minister characterized
as the West's "war-mongering" against Russia."
In the three cases widely given as examples of Putin's "aggression," the evidence, long cited by myself and others, points
to US-led instigations, primarily in the process of expanding the NATO military alliance since the late 1990s from Germany to
Russia's borders today. The proxy US-Russian war in Georgia in 2008 was initiated by the US-backed president of that country,
who had been encouraged to aspire to NATO membership. The 2014 crisis and subsequent proxy war in Ukraine resulted from the longstanding
effort to bring that country, despite large regions' shared civilization with Russia, into NATO.
And Putin's 2015 military intervention
in Syria was done on a valid premise: either it would be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus or the terrorist Islamic
State -- and on President Barack Obama's refusal to join Russia in an anti-ISIS alliance. As a result of this history, Putin is
often seen in Russia as a belatedly reactive leader abroad, as a not sufficiently "aggressive" one.
Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet
Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union
was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually
said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians.
Though often critical of the Soviet system and its two formative leaders, Lenin and Stalin, Putin, like most of his generation,
naturally remains in part a Soviet person. But what he said in 2010 reflects his real perspective and that of very many other Russians:
"Anyone who does not regret the break-up of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants its rebirth in its previous form has
no head." 28 , 29
The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed
the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America."30
, 31 A simple reading of his years in power tells us otherwise. A Westernized Russian, Putin came to the presidency in
2000 in the still prevailing tradition of Gorbachev and Yeltsin -- in hope of a "strategic friendship and partnership" with the United
States.
How else to explain Putin's abundant assistant to US forces fighting in Afghanistan after 9/1 1 and continued facilitation of
supplying American and NATO troops there? Or his backing of harsh sanctions against Iran's nuclear ambitions and refusal to sell
Tehran a highly effective air-defense system? Or the information his intelligence services shared with Washington that if heeded
could have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2012?
Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was
a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations,
he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital
from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States."
3 "
Given all that has happened during the past nearly two decades -- particularly what Putin and other Russian leaders perceive to
have happened -- it would be remarkable if his views of the W^est, especially America, had not changed. As he remarked in 2018, "We
all change." 33
A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy,
without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West
is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34
"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of
George Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the
American People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.
Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions
raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His
Readers:
"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet
Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist"
-- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian
history. But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different
-- inspired by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like.
I never respond specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem
attacks. Instead, I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that
the orthodox policies my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they
assail -- are patriotic heretics. Here too readers can judge."
Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.
Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional
United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this
important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.
Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent
figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?
If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson
on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods
by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a
loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional
nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.
I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported
by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious
politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble
purpose.
If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.
America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."
"... Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. ..."
"... As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive relationship."' ..."
"... But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'. ..."
"... In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin. Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West. ..."
"... Putin is not the man who, after coming to power in 2000, "de-democratized" a Russian democracy established by President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and restored a system akin to Soviet "totalitarianism." ..."
"... Nor did Putim then make himself a tsar or Soviet-like autocrat, which means a despot with absolute power to turn his will into policy, the last Kremlin leader with that kind of power was Stalin, who died in 1953, and with him his 20-year mass terror. ..."
"... Putin is not a Kremlin leader who "reveres Stalin" and whose "Russia is a gangster shadow of Stalin's Soviet Union." 13 , 14 These assertions are so far-fetched and uninfoimed about Stalin's terror-ridden regime, Putin, and Russia today, they barely warrant comment. ..."
"... Nor did Putin create post-Soviet Russia's "kleptocratic economic system," with its oligarchic and other widespread corruption. This too took shape under Yeltsin during the Kremlin's shock-therapy "privatization" schemes of the 1990s, when the "swindlers and thieves" still denounced by today's opposition actually emerged. ..."
"... Which brings us to the most sinister allegation against him: Putin, trained as "a KGB thug," regularly orders the killing of inconvenient journalists and personal enemies, like a "mafia state boss." ..."
"... More recently, there is yet another allegation: Putin is a fascist and white supremacist. The accusation is made mostly, it seems, by people wishing to deflect attention from the role being played by neo-Nazis in US-backed Ukraine. ..."
"... Finally, at least for now. there is the ramifying demonization allegation that, as a foreign-policy leader. Putin has been exceedingly "aggressive" abroad and his behavior has been the sole cause of the new cold war. ..."
"... Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians. ..."
"... The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America." ..."
"... Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations, he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States." 3 " ..."
"... A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy, without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34 ..."
"... <img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png"> P. Philips ..."
"... "In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" ..."
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
"... If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris. ..."
THE SPECTER OF AN EVIL-DOING VLADIMIR PUTIN HAS loomed over and undermined US thinking about Russia for at least a decade. Inescapably,
it is therefore a theme that runs through this book. Henry' Kissinger deserves credit for having warned, perhaps alone among prominent
American political figures, against this badly distorted image of Russia's leader since 2000: "The demonization of Vladimir Putin
is not a policy. It is an alibi for not having one." 4
But Kissinger was also wrong. Washington has made many policies strongly influenced by' the demonizing of Putin -- a personal
vilification far exceeding any ever applied to Soviet Russia's latter-day Communist leaders. Those policies spread from growing complaints
in the early 2000s to US- Russian proxy wars in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and eventually even at home, in Russiagate allegations.
Indeed, policy-makers adopted an earlier formulation by the late Senator .Tolm McCain as an integral part of a new and more dangerous
Cold War: "Putin [is] an unreconstructed Russian imperialist and K.G.B. apparatchik.... His world is a brutish, cynical place....
We must prevent the darkness of Mr. Putin's world from befalling more of humanity'." 3
Mainstream media outlets have play'ed a major prosecutorial role in the demonization. Far from aty'pically', the Washington Post's
editorial page editor wrote, "Putin likes to make the bodies bounce.... The rule-by-fear is Soviet, but this time there is no ideology
-- only a noxious mixture of personal aggrandizement, xenophobia, homophobia and primitive anti-Americanism." 6 Esteemed
publications and writers now routinely degrade themselves by competing to denigrate "the flabbily muscled form" of the "small gray
ghoul named Vladimir Putin." 7 , 8 There are hundreds of such examples, if not more, over many years. Vilifying
Russia's leader has become a canon in the orthodox US narrative of the new Cold War.
As with all institutions, the demonization of Putin has its own history'. When he first appeared on the world scene as Boris Yeltsin's
anointed successor, in 1999-2000, Putin was welcomed by' leading representatives of the US political-media establishment. The New
York Times ' chief Moscow correspondent and other verifiers reported that Russia's new leader had an "emotional commitment to building
a strong democracy." Two years later, President George W. Bush lauded his summit with Putin and "the beginning of a very' constructive
relationship."'
But the Putin-friendly narrative soon gave away to unrelenting Putin-bashing. In 2004, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof inadvertently
explained why, at least partially. Kristof complained bitterly' of having been "suckered by' Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version
of Boris Yeltsin." By 2006, a Wall Street Journal editor, expressing the establishment's revised opinion, declared it "time we start
thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the United States." 10 , 11 The rest, as they' say, is history'.
Who has Putin really been during his many years in power? We may' have to leave this large, complex question to future historians,
when materials for full biographical study -- memoirs, archive documents, and others -- are available. Even so, it may surprise readers
to know that Russia's own historians, policy intellectuals, and journalists already argue publicly and differ considerably as to
the "pluses and minuses" of Putin's leadership. (My own evaluation is somewhere in the middle.)
In America and elsewhere in the West, however, only purported "minuses" reckon in the extreme vilifying, or anti-cult, of Putin.
Many are substantially uninformed, based on highly selective or unverified sources, and motivated by political grievances, including
those of several Yeltsin-era oligarchs and their agents in the West.
By identifying and examining, however briefly, the primary "minuses" that underpin the demonization of Putin, we can understand
at least who he is not:
Putin is not the man who, after coming to power in 2000, "de-democratized" a Russian democracy established by President
Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and restored a system akin to Soviet "totalitarianism." Democratization began and developed in
Soviet Russia under the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, in the years from 1987 to 1991.
Yeltsin repeatedly dealt that historic Russian experiment grievous, possibly fatal, blows. Among his other acts, by using tanks,
in October 1993, to destroy Russia's freely elected parliament and with it the entire constitutional order that had made Yeltsin
president. By waging two bloody' wars against the tiny breakaway province of Chechnya. By enabling a small group of Kremlin-connected
oligarchs to plunder Russia's richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty' and misery',
including the once-large and professionalized Soviet middle classes. By rigging his own reelection in 1996. And by' enacting a
"super-presidential" constitution, at the expense of the legislature and judiciary but to his successor's benefit. Putin may have
furthered the de-democratization of the Yeltsin 1990s, but he did not initiate it.
Nor did Putim then make himself a tsar or Soviet-like autocrat, which means a despot with absolute power to turn his
will into policy, the last Kremlin leader with that kind of power was Stalin, who died in 1953, and with him his 20-year mass
terror. Due to the increasing bureaucratic routinization of the political-administrative system, each successive Soviet leader
had less personal power than his predecessor. Putin may have more, but if he really is a "cold-blooded, ruthless" autocrat --
"the worst dictator on the planet" 1 " -- tens of thousands of protesters would not have repeatedly appeared in Moscow
streets, sometimes officially sanctioned. Or their protests (and selective arrests) been shown on state television.
Political scientists generally agree that Putin has been a "soft authoritarian" leader governing a system that has authoritarian
and democratic components inherited from the past. They disagree as to how to specify, define, and balance these elements, but
most would also generally agree with a brief Facebook post, on September 7, 2018, by the eminent diplomat-scholar Jack Matlock:
"Putin ... is not the absolute dictator some have pictured him. His power seems to be based on balancing various patronage networks,
some of which are still criminal. (In the 1990s, most were, and nobody was controlling them.) Therefore he cannot admit publicly
that [criminal acts] happened without his approval since this would indicate that he is not completely in charge."
Putin is not a Kremlin leader who "reveres Stalin" and whose "Russia is a gangster shadow of Stalin's Soviet Union."
13 , 14 These assertions are so far-fetched and uninfoimed about Stalin's terror-ridden regime, Putin, and Russia
today, they barely warrant comment. Stalin's Russia was often as close to unfreedom as imaginable. In today's Russia, apart from
varying political liberties, most citizens are freer to live, study, work, write, speak, and travel than they have ever been.
(When vocational demonizers like David Kramer allege an "appalling human rights situation in Putin's Russia," 1 " they
should be asked: compared to when in Russian history, or elsewhere in the world today?)
Putin clearly understands that millions of Russians have and often express pro-Stalin sentiments. Nonetheless, his role in
these still-ongoing controversies over the despot's historical reputation has been, in one unprecedented way, that of an anti-Stalinist
leader. Briefly illustrated, if Putin reveres the memory of Stalin, why did his personal support finally make possible two memorials
(the excellent State Museum of the History of the Gulag and the highly evocative "Wall of Grief') to the tyrant's millions of
victims, both in central Moscow? The latter memorial monument was first proposed by then-Kremlin leader Nikita Khrushchev, in
1961. It was not built under any of his successors -- until Putin, in 2017.
Nor did Putin create post-Soviet Russia's "kleptocratic economic system," with its oligarchic and other widespread corruption.
This too took shape under Yeltsin during the Kremlin's shock-therapy "privatization" schemes of the 1990s, when the "swindlers
and thieves" still denounced by today's opposition actually emerged.
Putin has adopted a number of "anti-corruption" policies over the years. How successful they have been is the subject of legitimate
debate. As are how much power he has had to rein in fully both Yeltsin's oligarchs and his own, and how sincere he has been. But
branding Putin "a kleptocrat" 16 also lacks context and is little more than barely informed demonizing.
A recent scholarly book finds, for example, that while they may be "corrupt," Putin "and the liberal technocratic economic
team on which he relies have also skillfully managed Russia's economic fortunes." 1 ' A former IMF director goes further,
concluding that Putin's current economic team does not "tolerate corruption" and that "Russia now ranks 35th out of 190 in the
World Bank's Doing Business ratings. It was at 124 in 2010." 18
Viewed in human teims, when Putin came to power in 2000, some 75 percent of Russians were living in poverty. Most had lost
even modest legacies of the Soviet era -- their life savings; medical and other social benefits: real wages; pensions; occupations;
and for men life expectancy, which had fallen well below the age of 60. In only a few years, the "kleptocrat" Putin had mobilized
enough wealth to undo and reverse those human catastrophes and put billions of dollars in rainy-day funds that buffered the nation
in different hard times ahead. We judge this historic achievement as we might, but it is why many Russians still call Putin "Vladimir
the Savior."
Which brings us to the most sinister allegation against him: Putin, trained as "a KGB thug," regularly orders the killing
of inconvenient journalists and personal enemies, like a "mafia state boss." This should be the easiest demonizing axiom to dismiss
because there is no actual evidence, or barely any logic, to support it. And yet, it is ubiquitous. Times editorial writers and
columnists -- and far from them alone -- characterize Putin as a "thug" and his policies as "thuggery" so often -- sometimes doubling
down on "autocratic thug" 19 -- that the practice may be specified in some internal manual. Little wonder so many politicians
also routinely practice it, as did US Senator Ben Sasse: "We should tell the American people and tell the world that we know that
Vladimir Putin is a thus. He's a former KGB aaent who's a murderer." 20
Leaving aside other world leaders with minor or major previous careers in intelligences services. Putin's years as a KGB intelligence
officer in then -East Germany were clearly formative. Many years later, at age 67. he still spoke of them with pride. Whatever
else that experience contributed, it made Putin a Europeanized Russian, a fluent Geiman speaker, and a political leader with a
remarkable, demonstrated capacity for retaining and coolly analyzing a very wide range of information. (Read or watch a few of
his long interviews.) Not a bad leadership trait in very fraught times.
Moreover, no serious biographer would treat only one period in a subject's long public career as definitive, as Putin demonizers
do. Why not instead the period after he left the KGB in 1991, when he served as deputy to the mayor of St. Petersburg, then considered
one of the two or three most democratic leaders in Russia? Or the years immediately following in Moscow, where he saw first-hand
the full extent of Yeltsin-era corruption? Or his subsequent years, while still relatively young, as president?
As for being a "murderer" of journalists and other ''enemies." the list has grown to scores of Russians who died, at home or
abroad, by foul or natural causes -- all reflexively attributed to Putin. Our hallowed tradition puts the burden of proof on the
accusers. Putin's accusers have produced none, only assumptions, innuendoes, and mistranslated statements by Putin about the fate
of "traitors." The two cases that firmly established this defamatory practice were those of the investigative journalist Anna
Politkovskaya, who was shot to death in Moscow in 2006; and Alexander Litvinenko, a shadowy one-time KGB defector with ties to
aggrieved Yeltsin-era oligarchs, who died of radiation poisoning in London, also in 2006.
Not a shred of actual proof points to Putin in either case. The editor of Politkovskaya's paper, the devoutly independent Novaya
Gazeta. still believes her assassination was ordered by Chechen officials, whose human-rights abuses she was investigating. Regarding
Litvinenko, despite frenzied media claims and a kangaroo-like "hearing" suggesting that Putin was "probably" responsible, there
is still no conclusive proof even as to whether Litvinenko's poisoning was intentional or accidental. The same paucity of evidence
applies to many subsequent cases, notably the shooting of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, "in [distant] view of the Kremlin,"
in 2015.
About Russian journalists, there is, however, a significant overlooked statistic. According to the American Committee to Protect
Journalists, as of 2012, 77 had been murdered -- 41 during the Yeltsin years, 36 under Putin. By 2018, the total was 82 -- 41
under Yeltsin, the same under Putin. This strongly suggests that the still -- pairtially corrupt post-Soviet economic system,
not Yeltsin or Putin personally, led to the killing of so many journalists after 1991, most of them investigative reporters. The
former wife of one journalist thought to have been poisoned concludes as much: "Many Western analysts place the responsibility
for these crimes on Putin. But the cause is more likely the system of mutual responsibility and the culture of impunity that began
to form before Putin, in the late 1990s.""
More recently, there is yet another allegation: Putin is a fascist and white supremacist. The accusation is made mostly, it
seems, by people wishing to deflect attention from the role being played by neo-Nazis in US-backed Ukraine. Putin no doubt regards
it as a blood slur, and even on the surface it is, to be exceedingly charitable, entirely uninformed. How else to explain Senator
Ron Wyden's solemn warnings, at a hearing on November 1, 2017, about "the current fascist leadership of Russia"? A young scholar
recently dismantled a senior Yale professor's nearly inexplicable propounding of this thesis.' 3 My own approach is
compatible, though different.
Whatever Putin's failings, the fascist allegation is absurd. Nothing in his statements over nearly 20 years in power are akin
to fascism, whose core belief is a cult of blood based on the asserted superiority of one ethnicity over all others. As head of
a vast multi-ethnic state -- embracing scores of diverse groups with a broad range of skin colors -- such utterances or related
acts by Putin would be inconceivable, if not political suicide. This is why he endlessly appeals for harmony in "our entire multi-ethnic
nation" with its "multi-ethnic culture," as he did once again in his re-inauguration speech in 2018. 24
Russia has, of course, fascist-white supremacist thinkers and activists, though many have been imprisoned. But a mass fascist
movement is scarcely feasible in a country where so many millions died in the war against Nazi Geimany, a war that directly affected
Putin and clearly left a formative mark on him. Though he was born after the war, his mother and father barely survived near-fatal
wounds and disease, his older brother died in the long German siege of Leningrad, and several of his uncles perished. Only people
who never endured such an experience, or are unable to imagine it, can conjure up a fascist Putin.
There is another, easily understood, indicative fact. Not a trace of anti-Semitism is evident in Putin. Little noted here but
widely reported both in Russia and in Israel, life for Russian Jews is better under Putin than it has ever been in that country's
long history."
Finally, at least for now. there is the ramifying demonization allegation that, as a foreign-policy leader. Putin has been
exceedingly "aggressive" abroad and his behavior has been the sole cause of the new cold war.26 At best, this is an
"in-the-eve-of-the-beholder" assertion, and half-blind. At worst, it justifies what even a German foreign minister characterized
as the West's "war-mongering" against Russia."
In the three cases widely given as examples of Putin's "aggression," the evidence, long cited by myself and others, points
to US-led instigations, primarily in the process of expanding the NATO military alliance since the late 1990s from Germany to
Russia's borders today. The proxy US-Russian war in Georgia in 2008 was initiated by the US-backed president of that country,
who had been encouraged to aspire to NATO membership. The 2014 crisis and subsequent proxy war in Ukraine resulted from the longstanding
effort to bring that country, despite large regions' shared civilization with Russia, into NATO.
And Putin's 2015 military intervention
in Syria was done on a valid premise: either it would be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus or the terrorist Islamic
State -- and on President Barack Obama's refusal to join Russia in an anti-ISIS alliance. As a result of this history, Putin is
often seen in Russia as a belatedly reactive leader abroad, as a not sufficiently "aggressive" one.
Embedded in the "aggressive Putin" axiom are two others. One is that Putin is a neo-Soviet leader who seeks to restore the Soviet
Union at the expense of Russia's neighbors. Fie is obsessively misquoted as having said, in 2005, "The collapse of the Soviet Union
was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," apparently ranking it above two World Wars. What he actually
said was "a major geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century," as it was for most Russians.
Though often critical of the Soviet system and its two formative leaders, Lenin and Stalin, Putin, like most of his generation,
naturally remains in part a Soviet person. But what he said in 2010 reflects his real perspective and that of very many other Russians:
"Anyone who does not regret the break-up of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants its rebirth in its previous form has
no head." 28 , 29
The other fallacious sub-axiom is that Putin has always been "anti-Western," specifically "anti-American," has "always viewed
the United States" with "smoldering suspicions." -- so much that eventually he set into motion a "Plot Against America."30
, 31 A simple reading of his years in power tells us otherwise. A Westernized Russian, Putin came to the presidency in
2000 in the still prevailing tradition of Gorbachev and Yeltsin -- in hope of a "strategic friendship and partnership" with the United
States.
How else to explain Putin's abundant assistant to US forces fighting in Afghanistan after 9/1 1 and continued facilitation of
supplying American and NATO troops there? Or his backing of harsh sanctions against Iran's nuclear ambitions and refusal to sell
Tehran a highly effective air-defense system? Or the information his intelligence services shared with Washington that if heeded
could have prevented the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2012?
Or, until he finally concluded that Russia would never be treated as an equal and that NATO had encroached too close, Putin was
a full partner in the US-European clubs of major world leaders? Indeed, as late as May 2018, contrary to Russiagate allegations,
he still hoped, as he had from the beginning, to rebuild Russia partly through economic partnerships with the West: "To attract capital
from friendly companies and countries, we need good relations with Europe and with the whole world, including the United States."
3 "
Given all that has happened during the past nearly two decades -- particularly what Putin and other Russian leaders perceive to
have happened -- it would be remarkable if his views of the W^est, especially America, had not changed. As he remarked in 2018, "We
all change." 33
A few years earlier, Putin remarkably admitted that initially he had "illusions" about foreign policy,
without specifying which. Perhaps he meant this, spoken at the end of 2017: "Our most serious mistake in relations with the West
is that we trusted you too much. And your mistake is that you took that trust as weakness and abused it." 34
"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of
George Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the
American People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.
Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions
raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His
Readers:
"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet
Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist"
-- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian
history. But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different
-- inspired by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like.
I never respond specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem
attacks. Instead, I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that
the orthodox policies my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they
assail -- are patriotic heretics. Here too readers can judge."
Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.
Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional
United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this
important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.
Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent
figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?
If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson
on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods
by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a
loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional
nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.
I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported
by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious
politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble
purpose.
If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.
America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."
Not since the witchcraft hysteria of the Middle Ages have we seen such a display of human
idiocy, credulity and absurdist behavior. I refer, of course, to the two-year witch hunt
directed against President Donald Trump which hopefully just concluded last week –
provided that the Hillaryites, Democratic dopes and secret staters who fueled this mania don't
manage to keep the pot boiling.
This column has said from Day 1 that claims Trump was somehow a Russian agent were absurd in
the extreme. So too charges that Moscow had somehow rigged US elections. Nonsense. We know it's
the US that helps rig elections around the globe, not those bumbling Russians who can't afford
the big bribes such nefarious activity requires.
What Muller found after he turned over the big rock was a bevy of slithering, slimy
creatures, shyster lawyers, and sleazes that are normally part of New York's land development
industry. No surprise at all that they surrounded developer Trump. Son-in-law Jared Kushner
hails from this same milieu. The Kushners are pajama-party buddies with Israel's leader,
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Now that the Muller investigation found no collusion between the Trump camp and the Kremlin,
we Americans owe a great big apology to Vladimir Putin for all the slander he has suffered. Too
bad he can't sue the legions of liars and propagandists who heaped abuse on him and,
incidentally, pushed the US and Russia to the edge of war.
People who swallowed these absurdist claims really should question their own grasp of
reality. Those who believed that the evil Kremlin was manipulating votes in Alabama or Missouri
would make good candidates for Scientology or the John Birch Society.
They were the simple fools. Worse, were the propagandists who promoted the disgusting
Steele dossier, a farrago of lies concocted by British intelligence and apparently promoted by
the late John McCain and Trump-hating TV networks. One senses Hillary Clinton's hand in all
this. Hell indeed hath no fury like a woman scorned.
It's so laughably ironic that while the witch hunt sought a non-existent Kremlin master
manipulator, the real foreign string-puller was sitting in the White House Oval office
chortling away: Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, behind him, the moneybags
patron of Trump and Netanyahu, American billionaire gambling mogul, Sheldon Adelson, the
godfather of Greater Israel.
The three amigos had just pulled off one of the most outrageous violations of international
law by blessing Israel's annexation of the highly strategic Golan Heights that Israel had
seized in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. This usurpation was so egregious that all 14 members of
the UN Security Council condemned it. Even usually wimpy Canada blasted the US.
Giving Golan to Israel means it has permanently secured new water sources from the Mount
Hermon range, artillery and electronic intelligence positions overlooking Damascus, and the
launching pad for new Israeli land expansion into Lebanon and Syria. Israel is said to be
preparing for a new war against Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.
In contrast to this cynical business over Golan, the Trump administration is still
hitting Russia with heavy sanctions over Moscow's re-occupation of Crimea, a strategic
peninsula that was Russian for over 300 years. So Israel can grab Golan but Russia must vacate
Crimea. The logic of sleazy politics.
We also learned last week that according to State Secretary Mike Pompeo, Trump might have
been sent by us by God, like ancient Israel's Queen Esther, to defend Israel from the wicked
Persians. Up to a quarter of Americans, and particularly Bible Belt voters, believe such crazy
nonsense. For them, Trump is a heroic Crusading Christian warrior.
This is as nutty as Trump being a Commie Manchurian candidate. We seem to be living in an
era of absurdity and medieval superstition. No wonder so many nations around the globe fear us.
We too often look like militant Scientologists with nuclear weapons.
Fortunately, the cool, calm, collected Vladimir Putin remains in charge of the other side in
spite of our best efforts to overthrow or provoke him.
"... Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom." ..."
"... Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela. ..."
"... The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities." ..."
"... Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government." ..."
"... This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO. ..."
"... This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate." ..."
"... The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela. ..."
With its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions - such as those described in the RED Team document
- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.
Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed "interim president of Venezuela" who is supported by the United States government, recently announced
coming "tactical actions" that will be taken by his supporters starting April 6 as part of "
Operation Freedom ," an alleged grassroots effort
to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
That operation, according to Guaidó, will be
led by "Freedom and Aid Committees" that in turn create "freedom cells" throughout the country -- "cells" that will spring to
action when Guaidó gives the signal on April 6 and launch large-scale community protests. Guaidó's stated plan involves the Venezuelan
military then taking his side, but his insistence that "all options are still on the table" (i.e., foreign military intervention)
reveals his impatience with the military, which has continued to stay loyal to Maduro throughout Guaidó's "interim presidency."
However, a document released by the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) in February, and highlighted last month in
a report
by Devex, details the creation of networks of small teams, or cells, that would operate in a way very similar to what Guaidó
describes in his plan for "Operation Freedom."
Given that Guaidó
was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take
his marching orders from Washington, including
his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth
considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise
"Operation Freedom."
RED Teams
Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page
document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab,
a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development
officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied
environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's
authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela.
The approach put forth in this report involves the creation of rapid expeditionary development (RED) teams, who would "be deployed
as two-person teams and placed with 'non-traditional' USAID partners executing a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations
in extremis conditions." The report notes later on that these "non-traditional" partners are U.S. Special Forces (SF) and the CIA.
The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local
communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency
of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,'
observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities."
In other words, these teams of combined intelligence, military and/or "democracy promoting" personnel would work as "super enablers"
of "small-scale activities" focused on "social movement theory" and community mobilizations, such as the mobilizations of protests.
The decentralized nature of RED teams and their focus on engineering "social movements" and "mobilizations" is very similar to
Guaidó's plan for "Operation
Freedom." Operation Freedom is set to begin through "Freedom and Aid committees" that cultivate decentralized "freedom cells" throughout
the country and that create mass mobilizations when Guaidó gives the go ahead on April 6. The ultimate goal of Operation Freedom
is to have those "freedom cell"-generated protests converge on Venezuela's presidential palace, where Nicolás Maduro resides. Given
Guaidó lack of momentum and popularity within Venezuela, it seems highly likely that U.S. government "catalytic actors" may be a
key part of his upcoming plan to topple Maduro in little over a week.
Furthermore, an appendix included in the report states that RED Team members, in addition to being trained in social movement
theory and community mobilization techniques, would also be trained in "weapons handling and use," suggesting that their role as
"catalytic actors" could also involve Maidan-esque behavior. This is a distinct possibility raised by the report's claim that RED
Team members be trained in the use of both "offensive" and "defensive" weaponry.
In addition, another appendix states that RED Team members would help "identify allies and mobilize small amounts of cash to establish
community buy-in/relationship" -- i.e., bribes -- and would particularly benefit the CIA by offering a way to "transition covert
action into community engagement activities."
Feeling Bolsonaro's breath on its neck
Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team
pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED
Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is
fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government."
This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close
to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's
recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President
Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before"
and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO.
Though Bolsonaro's government
has claimed late in February that it would not allow the U.S. to launch a military intervention from its territory, Bolsonaro's
son, Eduardo Bolsonaro -- an adviser to his father and a Brazilian congressman --
said
last week that "use of force will be necessary" in Venezuela "at some point" and, echoing the Trump administration, added that
"all options are on the table." If Bolsonaro's government does allow the "use of force," but not a full-blown foreign military intervention
per se, its closeness to the Trump administration and the CIA suggests that covert actions, such as those carried out by the proposed
RED Teams, are a distinct possibility.
Frontier Design Group
The RED Team report was authored by members of Frontier Design Group (FDG) for USAID's Global Development Lab. FDG is a national
security contractor and its mission statement on its website is quite revealing:
Since our founding, Frontier has focused on the challenges and opportunities that concern the "3Ds" of Defense, Development
and Diplomacy and critical intersections with the intelligence community. Our work has focused on the wicked and sometimes overlapping
problem sets of fragility, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war, and insurgency. Our work on these complex issues has included
projects with the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, USAID, the National Counterterrorism Center and the U.S. Institute of
Peace."
FDG also states on is website that it also regularly does work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Omidyar Group -- which
is controlled by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire with deep ties to the U.S. national security establishment that were the subject of
a recent MintPress series. According to journalist Tim Shorrock, who mentions the document in
a recent investigation
focusing on Pierre Omidyar for Washington Babylon , FDG was the "sole contractor" hired by USAID to create a "new counterinsurgency
doctrine for the Trump administration" and the fruit of that effort is the "RED Team" document described above.
One of the co-authors of the document is
Alexa Courtney , FDG founder
and former USAID liaison officer with the Department of Defense; former manager of civilian counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan
for USAID; and former counterinsurgency specialist for U.S. intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
In addition, according to Shorrock, Courtney's name has also been found "on several Caerus [Associates] contracts with USAID and
US intelligence that were leaked to me on a thumb drive, including a $77 million USAID project to track 'licit and illicit networks'
in Honduras." Courtney, according to
her LinkedIn account, was also
recently honored by Chevron Corporation for her "demonstrated leadership and impact on development results." MintPress
recently reported
on the role of Chevron in the current U.S.-led effort to topple Maduro and replace him with Guaidó.
Send in the USAID
Though Devex was told last month that USAID was "still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development
(RED) Teams initiative," Courtney
stated
that the report's contents had been "received really favorably" by "very senior" and "influential" former and current government
officials she had interviewed during the creation of the document.
For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost doing capacity of USAID." Another
USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in "extremely denied environments," stated that:
We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody who doesn't think we need to be working
in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant
USAID is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must happen."
Given that the document represents the efforts of the sole contractor tasked with developing the current administration's new
counterterrorism strategy, there is plenty of reason to believe that its contents -- published for over a year -- have been or are
set to be put to use in Venezuela, potentially as part of the upcoming "Operation Freedom," set to begin on April 6.
This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power
outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A
recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail
how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed
event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate."
The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result
of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator
Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents
and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela.
Furthermore, it would make sense for the Trump administration to attempt to enact such an initiative as that described in the
document, given its apparent inability to launch a military intervention in Venezuela, despite its frequent claims that "all options
are on the table." Indeed, U.S. allies -- including those close to Venezuela, like Colombia --
have rejected military intervention, given the U.S.' past role in bloody coups and civil wars throughout the region.
Thus, with its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions -- such as those described in the RED Team
document -- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.
"... The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years. ..."
"... It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people. Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land. ..."
"... Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because Russians are subhumans. ..."
"... The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored, as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring with each other. ..."
"... The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course, endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language with the same Cyrillic writing system. ..."
The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates
the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people
will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been
systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years.
It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people.
Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any
kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land.
Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum
level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because
Russians are subhumans.
Whatever they do, it's always wrong, bad, oppressive, etc. Russians are bad because they're bad. They must be "taught a lesson",
"put into their place". It would, of course, be beneficial and highly profitable for Europeans to break with Anglo-Saxons and
to live in peace and harmony with Russia, but Europeans simply can not overcome their racism towards Russians. The young Europeans
are just as racist, with their incessant memes about "squatting Russians in tracksuits", "drunken Russians", etc., as if there's
nothing else that is notable about a country of 147 million people.
The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of
Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored,
as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring
with each other.
The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call
their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course,
endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language
with the same Cyrillic writing system.
Israel is running America into the ground, wrecking Europe and trying to start a war with
Russia. America needs to cut all aid and get away from the nasty little cancer before they
finish the Job and start WW3!
@A123 Palestinain Mandate and Palestine are historically 2 completely separate
entities.
But Jews have a knack of conflating and presenting the mess as the reality that you and me
have to respect. No, we don't.
Long time ago Israel started giving biblical names to certain areas of Palestine to make it
appealing to the ignoramus leaders among the Bible thumping Western crowd of 1900.
It was planted as religious historical archeological realities with deeply emotional arc
that bound lefties conservatives religion secular educated uneducated, local fellow
international citizen and spliced together vast segmented stratified minds of western society
to one theme – positive view about Jew and Zionism-on the sly.
It succeeded. But that success is an abomination. It is travesty, it is moral and
intellectual and ethical failures of western education and politics. it is a dereliction of
academic responsibility .
Now the tide is against the presence of intellectual dishonesty . BDS is part of that , so
is the truth being forced on Democrats voters . Chasm is widening with raw edges .
Conservatives still cling to the old charade at a cost . It hurts them BY allowing continued
presence of the disastrous Zionist views on each and every aspect of their lives, they lose-
religion,economy,society , and values. . It robs them a safe a prosperous future .
"... She suggests, "Kushner was increasingly caught up in his own mythology. He was the president's son-in-law, so he apparently thought he was untouchable." (Pg. 114) She notes, "allowing Kushner to work in the administration broke with historical precedent, overruling a string of Justice Department memos that concluded it was illegal for presidents to appoint relatives as White House staff." (Pg. 119) ..."
"... She observes, "Those first few days were chaotic for almost everyone in the new administration. A frantic Reince Priebus would quickly discover that it was impossible to impose any kind of order in this White House, in large part because Trump didn't like order. What Trump liked was having people fight in front of him and then he'd make a decision, just like he'd made snap decisions when his children presented licensing deals for the Trump Organization. This kind of dysfunction enabled a 'floater' like Kushner, whose job was undefined, to weigh in on any topic in front of Trump and have far more influence than he would have had in a top-down hierarchy." (Pg. 125) ..."
Author Vicky Ward wrote in the Prologue to this 2019 book, "Donald Trump
was celebrating being sworn in as president And the whole world knew that his daughter and
son-in-law were his most trusted advisers, ambassadors, and coconspirators. They were an
attractive couple---extremely wealthy and, now, extraordinarily powerful. Ivanka looked like
Cinderella Ivanka and her husband swept onto the stage, deftly deflecting attention from Donald
Trump's clumsy moves, as she had done do often over the past twenty years. The crowd roared in
approval They were now America's prince and princess."
She notes, "Jared Kushner learned about the company [his father's] he would later run. Jared
was the firm's most sheltered trainee. On his summer vacations, he'd go to work at Kushner
Companies construction sites, maybe painting a few walls, more often sitting and listening to
music No one dared tell him this probably would not give him a deep understanding of the
construction process. But Charlie [Jared's father] doggedly groomed his eldest son for
greatness, seeing himself as a Jewish version of Joseph Kennedy " (Pg. 17-18)
She states, "Ivanka had to fight for her father's attention and her ultimate role as the
chief heir in his real estate empire When Donald Trump divorced her mother, Ivana she would go
out of her way to see more of her father, not less she'd call him during the day and to her
delight, he'd always take her call. (Trump's relationship with the two sons he had with Ivana,
Don Jr. and Eric, was not nearly so close for years.) 'She was always Daddy's little girl,'
said a family friend." (Pg. 32-33) She adds, "As Ivanka matured, physically and emotionally,
her father talked openly about how impressed he was with her appearance---a habit he has
maintained to this day." (Pg. 35)
She recounts, "at a networking lunch thrown by a diamond heir Jared was introduced to Ivanka
Jared and Ivanka quickly became an intriguing gossip column item. They seemed perfectly matched
But after a year of dating, they split in part because Jared's parents were dismayed at the
idea of their son marrying outside the faith Soon after, Ivanka agreed to convert to Judaism
Trump was said to be discombobulated by the enormity of what his daughter had done. Trump, a
Presbyterian, who strikes no one as particularly religious, was baffled by his daughter's
conversion 'Why should my daughter convert to marry anyone?'" (Pg. 51-53)
She observes, "Ivanka Trump was critical in promoting her husband as the smoother, softer
counterpart to his father's volatility.. they could both work a room, ask after people's
children, talk without notes, occasionally fake a sense of humor And unlike her husband, she
seemed to have a ready command of figures and a detail, working knowledge of all the properties
she was involved in Ivanka seemed to control the marital relationship, but she also played the
part of devoted, traditional Orthodox wife." (Pg. 70-71)
Of 2016, she states, "No one thought Kushner or Ivanka believed in Trump's populist
platform. 'The two of them see this as a networking opportunity,' said a close associate.
Because Kushner and Ivanka only fully immersed themselves in Trump's campaign once he became
the presumptive Republican nominee they had to push to assert themselves with the campaign
staff Kushner quickly got control of the campaign's budget, but he did not have as much
authority as he would have liked." (Pg. 74-75) She adds, "Ivanka appeared thrilled by her
husband's rising prominence in her father's campaign. It was a huge change from the days when
Trump had made belittling jokes about him. If Don Jr. and Eric were irked by the new favorite
in Trump's court, they did not show it publicly." (Pg. 85)
She points out, "Trump tweeted an image [Hillary with a backdrop of money and a Star of
David] widely viewed as anti-Semitic an 'Observer' writer, criticized Kushner in his own
newspaper for standing 'silent and smiling in the background' while Trump made 'repeated
accidental winks' to white supremacists Kushner wrote a response [that] insisted that Trump was
neither anti-Semitic nor a racist Not all of Kushner's relatives appreciated his efforts to
cover Trump's pandering to white supremacists." (Pg. 86-87) Later, she adds, "U.S.-Israel
relations was the one political issue anyone in the campaign ever saw Kushner get worked up
about." (Pg. 96)
On election night, "Kushner was shocked that Trump never mentioned him in his speech and
would later tell people he felt slighted. He was going to find a way to get Trump to notice him
more. Ivanka would help him the couple would become known as a single, powerful entity:
'Javanka.'" (Pg. 101) She suggests, "Kushner was increasingly caught up in his own mythology.
He was the president's son-in-law, so he apparently thought he was untouchable." (Pg. 114) She
notes, "allowing Kushner to work in the administration broke with historical precedent,
overruling a string of Justice Department memos that concluded it was illegal for presidents to
appoint relatives as White House staff." (Pg. 119)
She observes, "Those first few days were chaotic for almost everyone in the new
administration. A frantic Reince Priebus would quickly discover that it was impossible to
impose any kind of order in this White House, in large part because Trump didn't like order.
What Trump liked was having people fight in front of him and then he'd make a decision, just
like he'd made snap decisions when his children presented licensing deals for the Trump
Organization. This kind of dysfunction enabled a 'floater' like Kushner, whose job was
undefined, to weigh in on any topic in front of Trump and have far more influence than he would
have had in a top-down hierarchy." (Pg. 125)
She recounts, "Another epic [Steve] Bannon/Ivanka fight came when bannon was in the Oval
Office dining room while Trump was watching TV and eating his lunch Ivanka marched in, claiming
Bannon had leaked H.R. McMaster's war plan [Bannon said] 'No, that was leaked by McMaster '
Trump [told her], 'Hey, baby, I think Steve's right on this one ' Bannon thought he would be
fired on the spot. But he'd learned something important: much as Trump loved his daughter and
hated saying no to her, he was not always controlled by her." (Pg. 138-139)
She notes, "[Ivanka] also found a way to be near Trump when he received phone calls from
foreign dignitaries -- while she still owned her business. While Ivanka's behavior was
irritating, Kushner was playing a game on a whole different level: he was playing for serious
money at the time of the Qatari blockade Kushner's family had been courting the Qataris for
financial help and had been turned town. When that story broke the blockade and the Trump
administration's response to it suddenly all made sense." (Pg. 156)
Arguing that "Kushner was behind the decision to fire [FBI Director James] Comey" (Pg.
163-164), "Quickly, Trump realized he'd made an error, and blamed Kushner. It seemed clear to
Trump's advisers, and not for the first time, that he wished Kushner were not in the White
House. He said to Kushner in front of senior staff, 'Just go back to New York, man '" (Pg. 167)
She adds, "[Ivanka's] reluctance to speak frankly to her father was the antithesis of the story
she had been pushing in the media Ivanka had told Gayle King 'Where I disagree with my father,
he knows it. And I express myself with total candor.'" (Pg. 170)
She states, "at the Group of 20 summit in Germany she briefly took her father's seat when he
had to step out The gesture seemed to send the message that the U.S. government was now run on
nepotism." (Pg. 182)
E-mails from George Nader [an adviser to Shiekh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown
prince of Abu Dhabi] "made it clear that Kushner's friends in the Gulf mocked him behind his
back Nader wrote 'Nobody would even waste a cup of coffee on him if it wasn't for who he was
married to.'" (Pg. 206)
She points out, "since October 2017, hundreds of children had been taken from their parents
while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border and detained separately news shows everywhere
showed heartbreaking images of young children being detained. The next month, Ivanka posted on
Instagram a photograph of herself holding her youngest child in his pajamas. Not for the first
time, her tone-deaf social media post was slammed as being isolated in her elitist, insulated
wealthy world On June 20, Trump signed an executive order that apparently ended the border
separations. Minutes later, Ivanka finally spoke publicly on the issue Her tactic here was tell
the public you care about an issue; watch silently while your father does the exact opposite;
and when he moves a little, take all the credit." (Pg. 225)
She asserts, "Kushner's friendship with a Saudi crown prince was now under widespread
scrutiny [because] Rather than expressing moral outrage over the cold-blooded murder of an
innocent man [Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi], Kushner did what he always does in a crisis:
he went quiet." (Pg. 232)
She concludes, "Ivanka Trump has made no secret of the fact that she wants to be the most
powerful woman in the world. Her father's reign in Washington, D.C., is, she believes, the
beginning of a great American dynasty Ivanka has been carefully positioning herself as
[Trump's] political heir " (Pg. 236)
While not as "scandalous" as the book's subtitle might suggest, this is a very interesting
book that will be of great interest to those wanting information about these crucial members of
the Trump family and presidency.
"... On March 18, 2019, the military commanders of Iran, Syria, and Iraq convened in Damascus in order to discuss long-term strategic and operational cooperation. The delegations were led by Mohammad Bagheri (Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces), Ali Abdullah Ayyoub (the Syrian Defense Minister), and Othman al-Ghanmi (Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Military). Officially, the summit addressed coordination in counter-terrorism operations, joint securing and opening of borders, and restoring Damascus' control over the en-tire Syrian territory. ..."
"... In mid-March 2019, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Muhterem Ince and his Iranian counterpart, Hussein Zulfiqari, reached "an agreement on launching a simultaneous operation against terror groups that threat-en the security of both countries" during a meeting in Ankara. If successful, this would be the first of many operations. The first joint operation was conducted on March 18-23, 2019, mainly in northern Iraq. In addition to widespread bombing and shelling, around 600 Turkish and Iranian special forces carried out joint raiding operations against Kurdish "terrorist camps". In the last days of the operation, aerial bombings were directed at all Kurdish nemeses in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. On March 24, 2019, Ankara and Tehran announced that they "are determined to continue carrying out such joint counter-terrorism operations". ..."
"... The first priority was to build Qatar's new oil and gas pipelines to the Mediterranean via Iran-Iraq-Syria and also connect to the pipelines in Turkey. These pipelines would substitute for the originally planned "Sunni pipelines" which were to transverse Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Iraq-Syria and which had originally led to the Qatari support for the Syrian jihad. The new pipelines would move to the shores of the Mediterranean -- mainly the Syrian port of Latakia -- gas and oil from both Qatar and Iran. The pipelines would be followed by electricity lines and a fully integrated transportation infrastructure on a regional basis. ..."
"... Taken together, the transportation cooperation agreement between the three bloc members (Qatar, Iran, and Turkey), and the transportation agreement between Iran, Iraq, and Syria, provide for a road and rail-way system linking all these states. This makes Iran the lynchpin of the regional transportation networks, and, thus, a crucial purveyor of access for the PRC. Indeed, PRC senior officials consider Iran to be "a key pivot to China's BRI in the region". ..."
The key to the success of the bloc is the emerging correlation of influence of the great
powers in the aftermath of the wars in Syria and Iraq . Russia and the People's Republic of
China are ready to compromise with the regional powers in order to secure their vital and
global interests, while the US, Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, Israel, are the nemeses
of the bloc.
The roots of "the Middle Eastern Entente" are in Doha. Qatar in Summer 2017 initiated a
myriad of bilat-eral and trilateral discussions with Iran and Turkey after Saudi Arabia and the
GCC allies imposed the siege on Qatar in June of that year. However, it was not until the
second half of 2018, with the initial impact of the siege largely ameliorated, that the
long-term post-war posture of the greater Middle East became a major priority.
It was then that Doha, Tehran, and Ankara started talking about forming a coherent strategic
bloc.
According to Iman Zayat, the Managing Editor of The Arab Weekly, in late November 2018, the
three coun-tries struck a deal in Tehran to create a "joint working group to facilitate the
transit of goods between the three countries". This was the beginning of a profound realignment
of the three regional powers. "Qatar has irrevocably joined with Ankara and Tehran against its
former Arab allies. It has conclusively positioned itself in a regional alliance that pursues
geopolitical dominance by driving instability," Zayat noted.
It did not take long for the three powers to realize that for such a bloc to succeed it must
focus on security issues and not just economic issues.
Hectic negotiations followed. In mid-December 2018, the three foreign ministers -- Muhammad
bin Ab-dulrahman al-Thani, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and Mevlut Çavusoglu -- signed the
protocols and agree-ments for the new bloc on the sidelines of the 18th Doha Forum. In the
Forum, Qatar formally called for "a new alliance that would replace the four-decade-old Gulf
Cooperation Council". Since then, specific and concrete negotiations on the consolidation of
the bloc have been taking place. The final modalities for joint actions and common priorities,
particularly the integration of the Arab states, were formulated in ear-ly March 2019.
Iran was the dominant force in this phase.
The last decisive push for the Arab integration took place during Bashar al-Assad's visit to
Tehran on Feb-ruary 25, 2019. There, he submitted to the demands of the Iranian mullahs and to
tight supervision by Teh-ran. Significantly, during his stay in Tehran, Assad was constantly
escorted by Qassem Soleimani, Mahmoud Alavi, and Ali Akbar Velayati, who attended all his
meetings with Iranian leaders. In Tehran, Assad commit-ted to supporting the new bloc and to
support the greater Middle East the bloc members were trying to create.
The geo-strategic and geo-economic objectives of the bloc are huge, and, as things stand in
late March 2019, largely attainable.
The first objective of "the Middle Eastern Entente" was to quickly consolidate strong
influence, if not he-gemony, over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan before the Fertile Crescent
of Minorities could re-emerge as a viable geo-strategic and political entity. The primary
rôle of the revived Fertile Crescent of Minorities was to constitute a buffer containing
the upsurge of the Sunni Arab milieu and blocking the access of both Iran and Turkey to the
heartlands of al-Jazira.
The greatest fear of the bloc members, however, was the possible ascent of the Kurds as a
regional power once they internalized the US betrayal and were ready to strike deals with
Moscow and Damascus. The overall susceptibility of the four Arab countries to the new regional
posture was evident from their blatant disregard of the US sanctions on Iran. Hence, this
region would soon become the key to a new grand-strategic and grand-economic posture for the
entire greater Middle East.
Tehran emerged as the dominant power in the security posture.
The surge has been conducted under the command of Maj.-Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Commander of
the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC: Pasdaran). Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i on March 11, 2019, awarded Soleimani a unique and high State honor: the
Order of Zolfaghar. [Significantly, this order, established in 1856 as The Decoration of the
Commander of the Faithful by Em-peror Naser al-Din Shah, was awarded until 1925 where it was
renamed as The Order of Zolfaghar by Em-peror Reza Shah I. It had not been awarded since the
downfall of the Shah in 1979 until the award -- pre-sumably in the highest of the three classes
of the Order -- to Maj.-Gen. Soleimani.]
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the Mehr News Agency that Soleimani received the
award on account of his leading "the fight against terrorism and extremism in the region".
Zarif stressed that So-leimani's achievements "have prepared the grounds for creating a strong
and stable region free from violence and radicalization".
On March 18, 2019, the military commanders of Iran, Syria, and Iraq convened in Damascus in
order to discuss long-term strategic and operational cooperation. The delegations were led by
Mohammad Bagheri (Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces), Ali Abdullah Ayyoub (the Syrian
Defense Minister), and Othman al-Ghanmi (Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Military). Officially, the
summit addressed coordination in counter-terrorism operations, joint securing and opening of
borders, and restoring Damascus' control over the en-tire Syrian territory.
In reality, the tripartite summit discussed the emerging regional posture now that the wars
in Syria and Iraq are nearing their end. Bashar al-Assad addressed the summit and stressed
long-term security and policy issues.
Bagheri explained that the objective of "the tripartite summit between Iran, Syria and Iraq
with the participation of their senior commanders [was] to coordinate efforts on the fight
against terrorist groups in the region. ... Over the last few years, excellent coordination has
been achieved between Iran, Syria, Russia and Iraq, and there has been solidarity with the
Resistance Axis that led to significant victories in counter-ing terrorism, and today, on the
basis of these victories, the consolidation of sovereignty and progress to-wards the liberation
of the rest of Syria is taking place."
Concurrently, the initial indications of things to come were already unfolding.
In mid-March 2019, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Muhterem Ince and his Iranian counterpart,
Hussein Zulfiqari, reached "an agreement on launching a simultaneous operation against terror
groups that threat-en the security of both countries" during a meeting in Ankara. If
successful, this would be the first of many operations. The first joint operation was conducted
on March 18-23, 2019, mainly in northern Iraq. In addition to widespread bombing and shelling,
around 600 Turkish and Iranian special forces carried out joint raiding operations against
Kurdish "terrorist camps". In the last days of the operation, aerial bombings were directed at
all Kurdish nemeses in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. On March 24, 2019, Ankara and Tehran announced that they "are determined
to continue carrying out such joint counter-terrorism operations".
Meanwhile, Qatar has emerged as the dominant power regarding all issues pertaining to the
regional economy.
The first priority was to build Qatar's new oil and gas pipelines to the Mediterranean via
Iran-Iraq-Syria and also connect to the pipelines in Turkey. These pipelines would substitute
for the originally planned "Sunni pipelines" which were to transverse Qatar-Saudi
Arabia-Iraq-Syria and which had originally led to the Qatari support for the Syrian jihad. The
new pipelines would move to the shores of the Mediterranean -- mainly the Syrian port of
Latakia -- gas and oil from both Qatar and Iran. The pipelines would be followed by
electricity lines and a fully integrated transportation infrastructure on a regional
basis.
The long-term strategic infrastructure envisioned by "the Middle Eastern Entente" reflected
the grand-strategic aspirations of Iran and Turkey.
The key arteries would be from Iran to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from western
Turkey to the Red Sea and the Hijaz. Ultimately, these roads would be supplanted by railways.
Iran and Iraq have already started constructing the railway line from the Shalamcheh border
crossing to Basra in Iraq. This is the first segment of a line which would reach Latakia.
Tehran is negotiating with Damascus Iranian management of the civilian port in Latakia (the
Russians control the military facilities) in the next few months as a major outlet for Iran's
international trade.
Taken together, the new railroads would provide access for the New Silk Road to the eastern
Mediterra-nean and the Red Sea; would connect the Russia-Iran north-south route with the
Mediterranean; and would constitute an extension of the Europe-Turkey rail-line much like the
old Baghdad and Persian Gulf railway. The existing Iranian railroad system connects the
north-south rail-line to the Pakistani border and, thus, ultimately to western China.
Both Beijing and Moscow are most interested in the speedy completion of these rail-lines as
part of the extended Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Taken together, the transportation cooperation agreement between the three bloc members
(Qatar, Iran, and Turkey), and the transportation agreement between Iran, Iraq, and Syria,
provide for a road and rail-way system linking all these states. This makes Iran the lynchpin
of the regional transportation networks, and, thus, a crucial purveyor of access for the PRC.
Indeed, PRC senior officials consider Iran to be "a key pivot to China's BRI in the
region".
On March 19, 2019, PRC Minister of Commerce Zhong Shan stressed the rôle of Iran as "the strategic partner" in the greater Middle East for "the further development of economic
and trade ties" with the entire region. "Iran is China's strategic partner in the Middle-East
and China is the biggest trade partner and im-porter of oil from Iran," Zhong said. Ultimately,
this would secure for Iran a central place in the overall PRC strategic and economic
calculations.
The second objective of "the Middle Eastern Entente" was to use the Arab bloc, particularly
its Sunni elements, in conjunction with escalation in Yemen and growing hostility of
(non-Sunni, but Ibadi) Oman, in order to smother and subdue Saudi Arabia. With Saudi Arabia
already near implosion as a result of the erratic reign of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
bin 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Saud, the leaders in Doha, Tehran, and Ankara appear convinced that it
would only take little pressure in order to bring about the break-up and self-dismemberment of
Saudi Arabia.
The key to the bloc's anticipated success was in its capitalizing on heritage-based trends
already growing throughout Saudi Arabia. The aggregate impact of the Turkish-Jordanian and
Islamist-jihadist subversion in the Hejaz, the growing impact of the anti-al-Saud tribal and
jihadist movements organizing in the Nejdi highlands, and the Iran-facilitated radicalization
and militancy of the Shi'ite communities in the Saudi Arabian east would accelerate the
self-dismemberment of Saudi Arabia along traditional lines. Even if the House of al-Saud did
not lose power soon, the myriad of internal problems would prevent Saudi Arabia from playing a
regional rôle against the new bloc and its allies.
A large number of intelligence officials and experts throughout the Middle East concur with
this assessment.
... ... ...
Meanwhile, the Qataris and their allies have made it clear that they do not fear a US
reaction to the emergence of "the Middle Eastern Entente".
Qatari senior officials attribute this to repeated threats from Doha that should the US
interfere with the new bloc and its ascent to prominence, Doha would order the immediate
closure of the huge US base in Al-Udeid, Qatar, and would also stop interceding with Tehran to
prevent Iran-sponsored Shi'ite jihadists from attacking the US Navy base in Bahrain. As well,
the growing dependence of the US Intelligence Community on Turkish Intelligence (Milli
?stihbarat Te?kilat?: MIT) for clandestine operations in Central Asia and in sup-port of the
secessionist Muslim communities of both Russia and China accounts for the US muted reaction to
the Turkish abandonment of NATO.
The same logic would negate US resistance to the ascent of the bloc. Similarly, the US
eagerness for a Trump-Rouhani summit (tailored after the Trump-Kim summit), where Qatar and Oman were the chief mediators, would also restrain a harsh reaction to Iran's growing regional
rôle.
The Trump Administration is cognizant of the US limitations in the greater Middle East.
At the same time, the US remains adamant on preventing the PRC and Russia from consolidating their influence in the greater
Middle East and bringing the New Silk Road into the region. Senior US officials, mainly National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, have warned repeatedly that there could be no compromise with the PRC, nor tolerance of
the ascent of the PRC anywhere. "This is a very big issue, how to deal with China in this
century -- probably the biggest international issue we face," Bolton said on March 21,
2019.
"... Given that Guaidó was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take his marching orders from Washington, including his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise "Operation Freedom." ..."
"... Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela. ..."
"... The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,' observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities." ..."
"... Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government." ..."
"... This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before" and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO. ..."
"... This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate." ..."
"... The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela. ..."
With its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions - such as those described in the RED Team document
- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.
Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed "interim president of Venezuela" who is supported by the United States government, recently announced
coming "tactical actions" that will be taken by his supporters starting April 6 as part of "
Operation Freedom ," an alleged grassroots effort
to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
That operation, according to Guaidó, will be
led by "Freedom and Aid Committees" that in turn create "freedom cells" throughout the country -- "cells" that will spring to
action when Guaidó gives the signal on April 6 and launch large-scale community protests. Guaidó's stated plan involves the Venezuelan
military then taking his side, but his insistence that "all options are still on the table" (i.e., foreign military intervention)
reveals his impatience with the military, which has continued to stay loyal to Maduro throughout Guaidó's "interim presidency."
However, a document released by the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) in February, and highlighted last month in
a report
by Devex, details the creation of networks of small teams, or cells, that would operate in a way very similar to what Guaidó
describes in his plan for "Operation Freedom."
Given that Guaidó
was trained by a group funded by USAID's sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) -- and is known to take
his marching orders from Washington, including
his self-proclamation as "interim president" and his return to Venezuela following the "humanitarian aid" showdown -- it is worth
considering that this USAID document may well serve as a roadmap to the upcoming and Guaidó-led "tactical actions" that will comprise
"Operation Freedom."
RED Teams
Titled "Rapid Expeditionary Development (RED) Teams: Demand and Feasibility Assessment," the 75-page
document was produced for the U.S. Global Development Lab,
a branch of USAID. It was written as part of an effort to the "widespread sentiment" among the many military, intelligence, and development
officials the report's authors interviewed "that the USG [U.S. government] is woefully underperforming in non-permissive and denied
environments," including Venezuela. Notably, some of the military, intelligence and development officials interviewed by the report's
authors had experience working in a covert capacity in Venezuela.
The approach put forth in this report involves the creation of rapid expeditionary development (RED) teams, who would "be deployed
as two-person teams and placed with 'non-traditional' USAID partners executing a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations
in extremis conditions." The report notes later on that these "non-traditional" partners are U.S. Special Forces (SF) and the CIA.
The report goes on to state that "RED Team members would be catalytic actors, performing development activities alongside local
communities while coordinating with interagency partners." It further states that "[i]t is envisioned that the priority competency
of proposed RED Team development officers would be social movement theory (SMT)" and that "RED Team members would be 'super enablers,'
observing situations on the ground and responding immediately by designing, funding, and implementing small-scale activities."
In other words, these teams of combined intelligence, military and/or "democracy promoting" personnel would work as "super enablers"
of "small-scale activities" focused on "social movement theory" and community mobilizations, such as the mobilizations of protests.
The decentralized nature of RED teams and their focus on engineering "social movements" and "mobilizations" is very similar to
Guaidó's plan for "Operation
Freedom." Operation Freedom is set to begin through "Freedom and Aid committees" that cultivate decentralized "freedom cells" throughout
the country and that create mass mobilizations when Guaidó gives the go ahead on April 6. The ultimate goal of Operation Freedom
is to have those "freedom cell"-generated protests converge on Venezuela's presidential palace, where Nicolás Maduro resides. Given
Guaidó lack of momentum and popularity within Venezuela, it seems highly likely that U.S. government "catalytic actors" may be a
key part of his upcoming plan to topple Maduro in little over a week.
Furthermore, an appendix included in the report states that RED Team members, in addition to being trained in social movement
theory and community mobilization techniques, would also be trained in "weapons handling and use," suggesting that their role as
"catalytic actors" could also involve Maidan-esque behavior. This is a distinct possibility raised by the report's claim that RED
Team members be trained in the use of both "offensive" and "defensive" weaponry.
In addition, another appendix states that RED Team members would help "identify allies and mobilize small amounts of cash to establish
community buy-in/relationship" -- i.e., bribes -- and would particularly benefit the CIA by offering a way to "transition covert
action into community engagement activities."
Feeling Bolsonaro's breath on its neck
Also raising the specter of a Venezuela link is the fact that the document suggests Brazil as a potential location for a RED Team
pilot study. Several of those interviewed for the report asserted that "South American countries were ripe for pilots" of the RED
Team program, adding that "These [countries were] under-reported, low-profile, idiot-proof locations, where USG civilian access is
fairly unrestrained by DS [Diplomatic Security] and where there is a positive American relationship with the host government."
This January, Brazil inaugurated Jair Bolsonaro as president, a fascist who has made his intention to align the country close
to Washington's interests no secret. During Bolsonaro's
recent visit to Washington, he became the first president of that country to visit CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. President
Donald Trump said during his meeting with Bolsonaro that "We have a great alliance with Brazil -- better than we've ever had before"
and spoke in favor of Brazil joining NATO.
Though Bolsonaro's government
has claimed late in February that it would not allow the U.S. to launch a military intervention from its territory, Bolsonaro's
son, Eduardo Bolsonaro -- an adviser to his father and a Brazilian congressman --
said
last week that "use of force will be necessary" in Venezuela "at some point" and, echoing the Trump administration, added that
"all options are on the table." If Bolsonaro's government does allow the "use of force," but not a full-blown foreign military intervention
per se, its closeness to the Trump administration and the CIA suggests that covert actions, such as those carried out by the proposed
RED Teams, are a distinct possibility.
Frontier Design Group
The RED Team report was authored by members of Frontier Design Group (FDG) for USAID's Global Development Lab. FDG is a national
security contractor and its mission statement on its website is quite revealing:
Since our founding, Frontier has focused on the challenges and opportunities that concern the "3Ds" of Defense, Development
and Diplomacy and critical intersections with the intelligence community. Our work has focused on the wicked and sometimes overlapping
problem sets of fragility, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war, and insurgency. Our work on these complex issues has included
projects with the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, USAID, the National Counterterrorism Center and the U.S. Institute of
Peace."
FDG also states on is website that it also regularly does work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Omidyar Group -- which
is controlled by Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire with deep ties to the U.S. national security establishment that were the subject of
a recent MintPress series. According to journalist Tim Shorrock, who mentions the document in
a recent investigation
focusing on Pierre Omidyar for Washington Babylon , FDG was the "sole contractor" hired by USAID to create a "new counterinsurgency
doctrine for the Trump administration" and the fruit of that effort is the "RED Team" document described above.
One of the co-authors of the document is
Alexa Courtney , FDG founder
and former USAID liaison officer with the Department of Defense; former manager of civilian counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan
for USAID; and former counterinsurgency specialist for U.S. intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
In addition, according to Shorrock, Courtney's name has also been found "on several Caerus [Associates] contracts with USAID and
US intelligence that were leaked to me on a thumb drive, including a $77 million USAID project to track 'licit and illicit networks'
in Honduras." Courtney, according to
her LinkedIn account, was also
recently honored by Chevron Corporation for her "demonstrated leadership and impact on development results." MintPress
recently reported
on the role of Chevron in the current U.S.-led effort to topple Maduro and replace him with Guaidó.
Send in the USAID
Though Devex was told last month that USAID was "still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development
(RED) Teams initiative," Courtney
stated
that the report's contents had been "received really favorably" by "very senior" and "influential" former and current government
officials she had interviewed during the creation of the document.
For instance, one respondent asserted that the RED Team system would "restore the long-lost doing capacity of USAID." Another
USAID official with 15 years of experience, including in "extremely denied environments," stated that:
We have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant. Anybody who doesn't think we need to be working
in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve. We are either going to be up front or irrelevant
USAID is going through a lot right now, but this is an area where we can be of utility. It must happen."
Given that the document represents the efforts of the sole contractor tasked with developing the current administration's new
counterterrorism strategy, there is plenty of reason to believe that its contents -- published for over a year -- have been or are
set to be put to use in Venezuela, potentially as part of the upcoming "Operation Freedom," set to begin on April 6.
This is supported by the troubling correlation between a document produced by the NED-funded group CANVAS and the recent power
outages that have taken place throughout Venezuela, which were described as U.S.-led "sabotage" by the country's government. A
recent report by The Grayzone detailed how a September 2010 memo by CANVAS -- which trained Juan Guaidó -- described in detail
how the potential collapse of the country's electrical infrastructure, like that recently seen in Venezuela, would be "a watershed
event" that "would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate."
The document specifically named the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Plant at Guri Dam, which failed earlier this month as a result
of what the Venezuelan government asserted was "sabotage" conducted by the U.S. government. That claim was bolstered by U.S. Senator
Marco Rubio's apparent foreknowledge of the power outage. Thus, there is a precedent of correlation between these types of documents
and actions that occur in relation to the current U.S. regime-change effort in Venezuela.
Furthermore, it would make sense for the Trump administration to attempt to enact such an initiative as that described in the
document, given its apparent inability to launch a military intervention in Venezuela, despite its frequent claims that "all options
are on the table." Indeed, U.S. allies -- including those close to Venezuela, like Colombia --
have rejected military intervention, given the U.S.' past role in bloody coups and civil wars throughout the region.
Thus, with its hands tied when it comes to military intervention, only covert actions -- such as those described in the RED Team
document -- are likely to be enacted by the U.S. government, at least at this stage of its ongoing "regime change" effort in Venezuela.
"... On Wednesday while meeting with the wife of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, President Trump called on Russia to pull its troops out of Venezuela, warning that "all options" were on the table to make that happen. ..."
Days after Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded that Russia " cease its unconstructive behavior " by landing a transport
plane
full of Russian troops in Caracas last Saturday, the Kremlin has responded - essentially telling Washington to pound sand - and
that their troops will remain in Venezuela "for as long as needed " according to the
Independent .
In the latest indication the crisis in Venezuela is taking on elements of a proxy battle between the former Cold War rivals,
a spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry said the troops had been dispatched to fulfil "military contracts".
" They are involved in the implementation of agreements in the sphere of military and technical cooperation ," said Maria Zakharova,
according to the AFP, adding that the troops would stay there " for as long as needed ".
" Russia is not changing the balance of power in the region, Russia is not threatening anyone ," she said. -
Independent
Last week we also noted that
new satellite images reveal a major deployment of S-300 air defense missile systems to a key air base south of Caracas shortly
after Russia arrived.
On Wednesday while meeting with the wife of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, President Trump called on Russia to pull its troops
out of Venezuela, warning that "all options" were on the table to make that happen.
What sets disinformation apart from other forms of manipulative or persuasive
content
Why today's information environment amplifies disinformation
What is Disinformation? Is it Different from Propaganda?
Disinformation is a relatively new word. Most observers
trace it back to the Russian word dezinformatsiya , which Soviet planners in the
1950s defined as "dissemination (in the press, on the radio, etc.) of false reports intended
to mislead public opinion." Others suggest that the
earliest use of the term originated in 1930s Nazi Germany. In either case, it is much younger
(and less commonly used) than ' propaganda, ' which originated in
the 1600s and generally connotes the selective use of information for political effect.
Whether and to what degree these terms overlap is subject to debate. Some define propaganda
as the use of non-rational arguments to either advance or undermine a political ideal, and
use disinformation as an alternative name for undermining propaganda. Others consider
them to be separate concepts altogether. One popular distinction holds that disinformation
also describes politically motivated messaging designed explicitly to engender public
cynicism, uncertainty, apathy, distrust, and paranoia, all of which disincentivize citizen
engagement and mobilization for social or political change. "Misinformation," meanwhile,
generally refers to
the inadvertent sharing of false information.
Analysts generally
agree that disinformation is always purposeful and not necessarily composed of outright
lies or fabrications. It can be composed of mostly true facts, stripped of context or blended
with falsehoods to support the intended message, and is always part of a larger plan or
agenda. In the Russian context, observers
have described its use to pursue Moscow's foreign policy goals through a "4D" offensive:
dismiss an opponent's claims or allegations, distort events to serve political
purposes, distract from one's own activities, and dismay those who might
otherwise oppose one's goals.
Analysts generally agree that disinformation is always purposeful and not necessarily
composed of outright lies or fabrications. It can be composed of mostly true facts,
stripped of context or blended with falsehoods to support the intended message, and is
always part of a larger plan or agenda."
Disinformation in the Digital Age
The reemerging interest in disinformation is
not because such techniques are novel. There are similarities between the contemporary 4D
model and, for example, Soviet active
measures . Rather, a
growingconsensus
asserts that while the use of disinformation is not new, the digital revolution has
greatly enhanced public vulnerability to manipulation by information -- a trend which is
predicted to continue .
In part, these changes have been wrought by the advent of
new social media platforms and their growing dominance over advertising revenues.
This shift in the media funding environment has weakened traditional media gatekeepers,
changed incentives for content providers, and promoted the rise of unprofessional and/or
unscrupulous outlets capable of drawing large audiences at a low cost. As digital advertising
assumes an ever-larger role in shaping news consumption, targeted advertising allows for more
sophisticated forms of propaganda: for example, in September of 2017, Facebook
disclosed that roughly 3,000 ads related to divisive US political issues were purchased
by a network of 470 accounts and pages suspected to be run out of Russia. The company says
that at
least a quarter of those ads were geographically targeted. Twitter
later deleted two hundred accounts linked to those same Facebook accounts and pages and
revealed that in 2016, the Russian state-funded broadcaster RT spent $274,100 on advertising
targeting users in the United States.
Research suggests the total scale of "low quality political information" on those
platforms during the 2016 US elections was much larger, particularly in swing states. The
degree of Russian influence on this market for digital disinformation is unknown;
post-election, researchers are launching new efforts to track and analyze
it.
Although there is no universal definition, fake news generally refers to misleading
content found on the internet, especially on social media."
The Rise of 'Fake News'
The role of disinformation in recent elections has given rise to another distinct, but
related, term: '
fake news .'
Although there is no universal definition, fake news generally refers to misleading
content found on the internet, especially on social media. One analysis lays
out five types of fake news, including intentionally deceptive content, jokes taken at face
value, large-scale hoaxes, slanted reporting of real facts, and coverage where the truth may
be uncertain or contentious. These are not new: an
example of fake news from 2011 involves websites masquerading as real news organizations
to spread false information about the health benefits of acai berries.
Much of this content is produced by for-profit websites and Facebook pages
gaming the platform for advertising revenue. By producing tailored false content targeted
at the views, concerns, and preferences of social media users, these pages can generate tens
of thousands of interactions and thousands of dollars a month. In 2015, Facebook began
taking steps
to curtail this content, which it called a form of "news feed spam." By 2016, it became clear
the problem was growing out of control. Fabricated and fiercely partisan political content --
much of it
produced abroad for profit -- in some instances
outpaced engagement with credible mainstream news outlets.
Facebook initially downplayed the
potential influence of fake news, although it also pledged to pursue a response involving
expanded partnerships with fact-checkers, increased emphasis on detection and reporting,
warning labels for untrustworthy stories, and a crackdown on for-profit fake news pages.
Twitter
also reacted , developing an experimental prototype feature to allow users to report
"fake news" and exploring the use of machine learning to detect automated accounts spreading
political content.
Is Fake News Disinformation?
More often than not, fake news does not meet the definition of disinformation or
propaganda. Its motives are usually financial, not political, and it is usually not tied to a
larger agenda. One attempt to classify
various types of misleading and manipulative news content separates misinformation
(inadvertent sharing of false information) from disinformation, which is deliberate, and
arranges examples by motivation and degree of deception. Most of the fake news described
above falls somewhere in the middle: not inadvertent, but motivated by profit rather than
influence. To the degree that its purpose can be described as political, fake news begins to
resemble more insidious content.
Fake news' political prominence does have lessons for analysts of disinformation. Fake
news draws audiences because it validates their political preconceptions and worldviews,
capitalizing on media consumers' confirmation
bias . Many argue that because social media curates content according to user
preferences, it has a
polarizing effect that leaves consumers more vulnerable to manipulation in this way.
Political actors have been able to use this to their advantage by producing incendiary
content that spreads rapidly through grassroots online networks (some call this "
political astroturfing ").
More often than not, fake news does not meet the definition of disinformation or
propaganda. Its motives are usually financial, not political, and it is usually not tied to
a larger agenda."
Marketing, Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy, and other "Information
Campaigns"
Some analysts also differentiate
between various types of "information campaigns" -- organized attempts to communicate with
large groups of individuals -- which may include marketing, public affairs, and public
diplomacy. All of these terms are worth disentangling from each other and from propaganda and
disinformation writ large.
Marketing and public relations rely on a mix of facts, opinions, and emotional cues to
persuade audiences and build affinity between individuals and brands or organizations. As
promotional activities meant to augment or protect the reputation of the messenger, their
goals may be commercial or political, or they may simply aim to generate publicity. Similarly
promotional is public diplomacy, which states utilize to represent their viewpoints to
foreign audiences and promote positive associations with that country among foreign publics.
Done well, public diplomacy distinguishes
itself from propaganda by never intentionally spreading false information or relying on
non-rational means of persuasion (though marketing and public relations, of course, may rely
on such non-rational devices).
Marketing, public relations, public diplomacy, and similar information campaigns are all
related to the field of " strategic
communication ," broadly defined as the purposeful use of information and messaging to
advance the mission of a given organization, be it a corporate, government, non-profit, or
military actor. In the military context, a 2007 paper
from the U.S. Army War College emphasizes that strategic communication in a military
context aims to influence adversaries, reassure allies, and persuade publics. Because it may
be impossible to deceive one of these audiences without deceiving others, some
advocate that "deception should be rigorously forbidden in strategic communication" and
that the use of disinformation should never fall under the rubric of strategic
communication.
Done well, public diplomacy distinguishes itself from propaganda by never intentionally
spreading false information or relying on non-rational means of persuasion."
Intent as a Distinguishing Feature
Some
argue the intent of the messenger is crucial to distinguishing between different types of
messages. This makes it difficult to draw a bright, clear line between marketing, public
relations, and public diplomacy, on one side, and propaganda and disinformation on the other.
This is especially true when the content in question includes both objective fact and
subjective interpretation but no clear falsehood, because it may be unclear whether the
message reflects a genuine perspective or an intent to mislead. When content does include
falsehoods, it may be unclear whether they are accidental or purposeful.
If an information campaign uses falsehoods and emotional appeals not to persuade or
attract but to disrupt, divide, confuse, or otherwise damage target audiences' understanding
or political cohesion, it more closely aligns with disinformation and its undermining
function. This is not solely the realm of the state:
many activities undertaken by
non-state actors may also fit this description.
If an information campaign uses falsehoods and emotional appeals not to persuade or
attract but to disrupt, divide, confuse, or otherwise damage target audiences'
understanding or political cohesion, it more closely aligns with disinformation and its
undermining function."
Information Operations as a Tool of Political Influence
Information campaigns with these goals in mind are now sometimes referred to as
"information operations," a term until recently used primarily by defense officials in
referring broadly to the use of communications in military operations. In April 2017,
Facebook
described "information (or influence) operations" on the platform, which aim "to achieve
a strategic and/or geopolitical outcome" using "a combination of methods, such as false news,
disinformation, or networks of fake accounts (false amplifiers) aimed at manipulating public
opinion." In the run-up to the 2017 French presidential election, Facebook deleted 30,000
fake French accounts from the platform, providing a sense of the scale these operations can
reach.
In that election, an information operation (
likely of Russian origin ) released
hacked documents just before the beginning of a legally mandated election news blackout
in order to damage the campaign of Emmanuel Macron, the eventual winner. The manipulation of
information has been a
feature of Syria's civil war since the conflict's beginning.
Research from a diverse set of country case studies suggests that a wide array of
political, military, and private actors now routinely use social media to manipulate public
opinion. Italy's populist Five Star Movement, for instance,
is tied to a large constellation of online disinformation outlets. Taiwanese democracy
must grapple with both
domestic and cross-strait sources of disinformation. Information operations, including
those involving the use of disinformation during elections, are likely to remain a tool of
political influence well into the foreseeable future.
Brief prepared by Dean Jackson, International Forum for Democratic Studies.
It is now apparent with the
release
of the Mueller investigation findings
, that the great storm that has embattled the US
government and establishment since 2016 over supposed Russia-Trump collusion during the US
elections,
originates not from a genuine tangible source, but a constant stream of
rhetoric driven by partisan corporate media.
One certainty though is the Western
narrative of Russia as a 'malign influence' will not go away.
While America's liberal establishment continues to rage at Trump, Europe allies, under the
influence of Washington, maintain their aggressive stance towards Russia following the
catastrophic
US
meddling in Ukraine
in 2014 and the subsequent
reunification
of Crimea with Russia
.
The question is how can the narrative of 'malign Russian influence' be kept going?
Mainstream media will continue its role in this, but Western governments are also pouring
resources into promulgating certain narratives while containing others.
This week, hackers released more documents from the UK government-funded project
known as the
Integrity
Initiative
, revealing British government plans to build an umbrella network of
organisations across Europe to counter 'Russian disinformation'.
The following is a look at one of the EU projects already operating to ensure European
populations do not stray from this constructed narrative that at times crosses over into real
xenophobic racism, or Russophobia.
While researching this phenomenon, it was impossible not
to find some of the EU's counter-propaganda material quite funny.
If we want to know the meaning of disinformation, the American think tank known as the
National
Endowment for Democracy
which
funds
regime change
in the service of US corporate interests, has its own
definition
,
but it's not important – so long as we believe Russia or the Nazis invented the problem. In fact,
if we search the word 'disinformation,' a good number of the results tell us it originated in
Russia and is the baby of Stalin or the KGB. If we are not careful, we could end up thinking that
dishonesty is an inherent characteristic of Russians, a view actually
promoted
by
the former US Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper
, who,
coincidentally was caught '
wilfully
'
lying
to
Congress.
The view of Russians being hard-wired for corruption was also promoted by the
New York Times
in
an article published in February,
The
Putin I knew; the Putin I know
, written by Franz J Sedelmeyer, exposing deep prejudice
behind the corporate media's shallow identity politics.
But this narrative fails to credit the CIA, which has spent decades crafting skills
carrying out the most grotesque deceptions in history targeted abroad and at home.
To
leave out the role of the CIA in disinformation must be the equivalent of writing an omelette
recipe and leaving out the eggs. In fact, the CIA doesn't just carry out disinformation campaigns,
as Victor Marchetti, former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA described it:
the
CIA manufactures history
. Not to recognise American intelligence services or government in
the history of disinformation while painting Russia as its mother is to deprive America of the
recognition it deserves for one of its most notable institutions. Somewhat ironically, you can
learn all about the history of disinformation from both
Google
and
the
National
Endowment for Democracy
which are two entities which have received financial support from the
CIA.
What about the EU? Does Brussels think that Russia is an inherently dishonest nation? Are they
aware that the CIA could be manufacturing Europe's history this very moment? Members of the
European Parliament (MEPs) so concerned about disinformation might want to study the documented
atrocities
of
the CIA, some of which were carried out in Europe. Perhaps they are not aware of the
US
intelligence services' role
in the history of subterfuge in Europe:
memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a
fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the American
wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.
Paradoxically, given the probability rate of the CIA meddling in the EU, MEPs should consider
putting out a public warning:
The CIA is the most likely source of disinformation in Europe today. It manufactures
crises – and we've plenty of those.
But none of it. Instead, the European Parliament is fixated on ensuring its populations
fear
Russia
and are accepting of the narratives pushed on them. The EU released a new
report
this
month repeating the narratives it has been accumulating to justify increasing actions against
Russia, particularly since 2014 following the reunification of Crimea. It has passed a resolution
stating that Russia could no longer be considered a strategic partner of the EU:
While condemning the illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea, as well as Russia's
continued violation of the territorial integrity of Georgia and Moldova, Members stressed that
the EU cannot envisage a gradual return to business as usual until Russia fully implements the
Minsk Agreement and restores the territorial integrity of Ukraine
Members condemned Russia's involvement in the Skripal case, and in disinformation
campaigns and cyberattacks carried out by the Russian intelligence services aimed at
destabilising public and private communications infrastructure and at increasing tensions within
the EU and its Member States
They are concerned about the relations between the Russian government and the extreme
right-wing and populist nationalist parties and governments in the EU, such as in Hungary. They
also recalled that the interference of Russian state actors in the referendum campaign on Brexit
is currently under investigation by the UK authorities
As Russia can no longer be considered a strategic partner in the current circumstances,
Members believe that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement should be reconsidered
As well as the coordinated strategic isolation of Russia by the EU, members of the G7 have
signed up to a
Rapid
Response Mechanism
(RRM) designed to:
see hostile states publicly 'called out' for their egregious behaviour – with coordinated
international attribution of cyber and other attacks.
The agreement involves
sharing intelligence
,
attribution of hostile activity
and
forming a
common narrative and response,
effectively a military-like propaganda
coordination between the countries that can be applied for a chosen agenda.
To protect its version of history the EU has created
mechanisms
to
fight off alternative realities, narratives, or truths – which ever word fits – claiming any fact
or opinion contrary to those of the stated EU decree must be condemned as pro-Kremlin, pro-Russian,
or 'Putinist', a derogatory depiction presently supported by the corporate media. The EU claims
these 'alternative narratives' are the product of a Russian disinformation campaign and has
developed resources to 'disprove' that disinformation. These are the EU vanguards of
truth
set
up and funded by the European Council in 2015: the
European External Action Service East
Stratcom Task Force
or unaffectionately known here as Team
East
Stratcom
. A brief study of their work only leads to further concerns about who is
manufacturing history, but also to the likely conclusion that Team East Stratcom is made up of
media studies students who drink beer and watch RT all day.
Here's how Team East Stratcom describes itself in a Q&A:
Does the team engage in counter-propaganda?
No. It identifies and corrects disinformation
Counter-propaganda vs correct disinformation (you say tomatto, I say tomayto).
Julian King, the EU's security commissioner, has described it as a
counter-propaganda
cell
. Come on Brussels, make up your mind.
What does Team East StratCom do, and what is the role of its website
EUVDisinfo
?
The Task Force reports on and analyses disinformation trends, explains and exposes
disinformation narratives, and raises awareness of disinformation coming from Russian State,
Russian sources and spread in the Eastern neighbourhood media space
RUSSIAN MEMES: Official EU conspiracy theory diagram explains how 'Russian disinfo'
permeates mainstream western discourse (
EU
External Action
2017)
Firstly, who defines what is disinformation? Is it just assumed that any information emanating
from a Russian media outlet is automatically disinformation?
Narratives and sources. Does this mean that any narrative which matches a Russian one is then
classed as
Russian
in origin? If a Western alternative media outlet publishes a narrative
which happens to match that of a Russian media outlet, does this then mean that the said
alternative media outlet is 'under Russian influence', or 'in league with the Kremlin'? Could such
a politicized method of labelling lead to potential McCarthyite targeting of independent
journalists?
The Task Force does not target opinions and does not seek to "blacklist" anyone. It
checks facts and identifies disinformation coming from Russian State, Russian language and
Eastern
Neighbourhood
media. It focuses on the disinformation message, not the messenger.
Yet, individual journalists are identified in many of these so-called 'disinformation cases' and
described as supporters of one leader or other on the EU's list of bogeymen. Team East StratCom –
there is no need to be shy about McCarthyism. Certain mainstream media stalwarts of establishment
narratives are more upfront about whom they do and do not want in the club, as Oliver Kamm of
The
Times
has demonstrated:
For an agency already struggling with the concept of truth, Team
East StratCom
is
not off to a great start.
So how does Team East StratCom protect EU narratives? The European Council made it
clear
in
2015 they wanted to counter narratives about
regime
change
in
Ukraine
and
its consequences. In fact, about half of its 'disinformation cases' are about Ukraine:
Ukraine tops the EUvsDisinfo database as the most frequent target with 461 references among
a total of 1,000 disinformation cases reported in the course of 2018.
So how does Team East StratCom counter propaganda sorry correct disinformation? The following
are a few case samples that help to illuminate their methodologies (although with a budget increase
from €1.1 million in 2018 to €3 million in 2019, it may find new and diverse ones):
Disinformation Example 1: Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe
Team East StratCom argues that undermining the credibility of Ukraine benefits Russia. It
reports that RT Deutsch described Ukraine as the most corrupt country in Europe. It then tries to
debunk this using
Transparency International
's
corruption perception index, a chart which is created and paid for by Western neoliberal
governments – the same ones that help to keep corrupt governments in power so long as they provide
opportunities to serve Western corporate interests.
Team East StratCom tries to disprove this case by drawing our attention away from corruption in
Europe to corruption worldwide. This puts 60 countries ahead of Ukraine. That is sneaky Team East
StratCom because, aside from Russia, which we must believe is the most corrupt country in Europe,
Ukraine actually tops the list. So why does the EU want to hide the extent of corruption in
Ukraine and is it the only thing being hidden about the country? According to Russian Foreign
Ministry Spokeswoman
Maria Zakharova
the West wants
to stop the world from recognising Crimea as part of Russia's territory. In order to do this it
must maintain a manufactured reality; the narrative of Ukraine being a victim of Russian aggression
and in no way a liability due, at least in part, to the West's meddling. This approach also entails
downplaying any suggestion that
the
West planned and orchestrated
a
coup d'etat
in Kiev in February 2014.
Disinformation Example 2: Far-right groups in Ukraine
This extract by Team East StratCom criticises the reporting of far-right groups in Ukraine:
Dehumanise, demoralise, make Ukraine the guilty party
Pro-Kremlin disinformation about Ukraine targets audiences in Russia, in Ukraine and in
third countries, including the West. Domestic audiences in Russia are e.g. faced with
narratives which dehumanise Ukrainians and show the authorities in Kyiv as a cynical modern heir
to 20th century Nazism. Such a strategy can turn Ukraine into an acceptable target of the
Kremlin's military aggression.
The involvement of far right groups in the run-up to and during 2014 Maidan events and
since
,
has already been widely reported across much of the global mainstream media, for example,
here
,
here
,
here
,
here
and
here
,
as well as in alternate media. To suggest that this narrative is Russian disinformation is
ludicrous. What's more, the
European
Parliament
have already recognised in 2012 the threat of the far-right parties like Svoboda and
Pravi Sektor in Ukrainian politics:
Parliament goes on to express concern about the rising nationalistic sentiment in
Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda Party, which, as a result, is one of the two new
parties to enter the Verkhovna Rada. It recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views
go against the EU's fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to pro-democratic
parties in the Verkhovna Rada not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party.
Team East StratCom, you are implying the EU dehumanised Ukraine! But then the EU did later
drop
its
objection as members of the same racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic party
gained
positions in Ukraine's government
, so perhaps you will be forgiven. Perhaps sowing a little
confusion of its own, is Brussels.
Disinformation Example 3: Russia is depicted as a 'defender' and a 'peacekeeper' and
the West – as the villain
.
Team East Stratcom likes using Twitter graphics as evidence when 'disproving pro-Kremlin
disinformation.' Never mind history, reason and common sense – just bring out a nice Twitter
graphic! According to disinfo mavens, any spike in Twitter activity with the words 'Russia'
'Moscow' or 'Putin' in reference to Venezuela is proof of a 'pro-Kremlin' disinformation campaign,
says Team East StratCom. Here is
their
graphical chart
of Twitter traffic:
But Russia is an ally of Venezuela so why would this not be reflected on Twitter when there is a
blatant attempt by a Western aggressor to impose its military and economic will on Venezuela? Such
was the situation in February when the US tried to pressure the Venezuelan government into allowing
in trucks, supposedly carrying humanitarian aid, into the country. Aid as a Trojan Horse for
weapons has historical context, especially with regards to the US and its new special envoy to
Venezuela,
Elliot Abrams
, a
convicted
war criminal
who illicitly supplied weapons to death squads in Nicaragua, El Salvador and
Guatemala on behalf of the Reagan presidency in the 1980s. Now that he is special envoy to
Venezuela, it is common sense to suspect foul play. Can such people really be seen as peacekeepers,
Team East Stratcom? And using a Twitter graphic to divert attention from a flagrant coup attempt by
an aggressive power is more than a little contemptible. What's more, a few days afterwards, one of
those trucks carrying supplies was found to contain nails and other materials useful for making
barricades:
And so to sum up the tactics used by Team East StratCom for 'disproving pro-Kremlin
disinformation', based on the above cases alone, a list could include for starters:
Categorical denial of any wrongdoing by Western powers or NATO members
Label any information emanating from a Russia media outlet as 'disinformation' or
'Kremlin propaganda'
Discredit alternate media journalists who stray from Official
Washington/London/Brussels position
Diversion and distraction – dazzle the public with colourful Twitter graphics
Remove any key political, geopolitical context
Obscure or erase history
Use of online tools like the Corruption Index promoted by same Western governments
that fund bloody imperialist wars
Use emotive, jingoistic themes
Associate perceived ideological opponents with leaders on Western bogeyman list
Repetition of pejorative terms and ad hominem smears such as 'pro-Kremlin' and'
'Putinist' to create division
Infer that any dissenter in the West is a 'traitor.'
But Team East StratCom can't erase history or delete context or bore us half to death
with those Twitter graphics and still expect to retain their credibility.
What's more, given the Russia-Trump collusion narrative has been exposed as a hoax, Team East
StratCom really ought to
let
that one go
.
"... Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, tweeted: "Time to investigate the Obama officials who concocted and spread the Russian conspiracy hoax!" Representative Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, said "underlying documents" supporting what became Mueller's probe should be released to the public. ..."
"... A McCain associate, David Kramer, acknowledged in a deposition in a libel case that he spread word of the dossier to several news organizations. ..."
President Donald Trump and a key ally, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, said Monday that after Robert Mueller closed
his Russia probe, they want an investigation of the investigators.
Graham said at a news conference that Attorney General William Barr should appoint a new special counsel to examine why the U.S.
government, under President Barack Obama, decided to open an investigation into Russian election interference in 2016, and whether
it was an excuse to spy on Trump's campaign.
"Was it a ruse to get into the Trump campaign?" Graham said at the news conference. "I don't know but I'm going to try to find
out."
Trump told reporters at the White House that unspecified "people" behind the Russia probe would "be looked at."
The remarks show that Trump and some of his allies have retribution and score-settling on their minds after Mueller found no evidence
that the president or his campaign colluded with the Kremlin's election interference. It's unclear whom Trump wants investigated,
but possibilities include former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired in May 2017; Obama's CIA Director John Brennan, whom Trump
stripped of his security clearance last year; and other former intelligence and Justice Department officials who have vocally criticized
the president.
The stage is also set for dueling and contradictory congressional investigations. In the House, controlled by Democrats, several
committees have opened investigations into the president's financial and business affairs, and Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler
said Sunday he wants Barr to testify soon on his finding that Mueller didn't produce sufficient evidence that Trump obstructed justice
by interfering in the Russia inquiry.
The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, on Monday blocked a vote on a measure by the Democratic leader, Chuck
Schumer of New York, calling for Mueller's report to be made public. McConnell said Barr should have time to consider which portions
of the report can be publicly released given concerns about classified information, ongoing investigations and other information
protected by law.
Republican Allies
Several other Republicans backed Graham and Trump on Monday. Senate Oversight Committee Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said
he'd like to work with Graham "to get those answers for the American public."
"We need to find out what happened," he said in an interview.
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, tweeted: "Time to investigate the Obama officials who concocted and spread the Russian
conspiracy hoax!" Representative Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, said "underlying documents" supporting what became Mueller's
probe should be released to the public.
"Let them decide for themselves whether this investigation was warranted -- or whether it was a two-year long episode of political
targeting, driven by FBI and DOJ executives who wanted to retaliate against a legitimately elected president," Meadows said in an
interview.
Graham said his committee would also look into the FBI's handling of the inquiry into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's
use of a private email server, saying that Comey's actions in that investigation "did affect" the 2016 election. Comey held a news
conference in July 2016 to announce that Clinton wouldn't be charged with a crime, and then announced less than two weeks before
the election that the investigation had been re-opened after additional emails were discovered.
'Evil Things'
Trump's indication that unnamed people responsible for the probe would be investigated was vague. He didn't name anyone, and after
he made similar remarks on Sunday, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters that Barr hadn't been directed
to open any investigations of Democrats.
"People that have done such harm to our country," Trump complained on Monday. "We've gone through a period of really bad things
happening. Those people will certainly be looked at. I've been looking at them for a long time and I'm saying, why haven't they been
looked at. They lied to Congress. Many of them. You know who they are. They've done so many evil things."
Trump added that he hasn't considered pardoning anyone convicted in connection to Mueller's probe.
Graham said he planned to talk with Barr on Monday and hoped to hold a public hearing with the attorney general to explain his
findings in the Mueller probe. Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress on Sunday summarizing Mueller's findings, which have not
been publicly released.
"I'm asking him to lay it all out," Graham said.
Both Trump and Graham said they support Barr publicly releasing as much of Mueller's report as possible. The investigation turned
out "100 percent" as it should have, Trump told reporters.
Dossier Distribution
Trump has previously singled out individuals over their role in the probe, calling for an investigation into the "
other side " of the investigation. He's mentioned Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former FBI employees Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page, and Justice Department attorney Bruce Ohr.
Graham also said he advised his friend and Senate colleague John McCain to give the FBI the so-called Steele dossier on Trump,
rebutting the president's accusations that McCain tried to hinder his 2016 election.
Graham told reporters that McCain, an Arizona Republican who died last year, had shown him the unverified collection of intelligence
reports on Trump's links to Russia that was put together by a former British spy, Christopher Steele. Steele was commissioned to
compile the information by an opposition research firm hired by Democrats.
McCain put the dossier in his safe and handed it over to the FBI the next day, Graham said.
A McCain associate, David Kramer, acknowledged in a deposition in a libel case that he spread word of the dossier to several news
organizations.
-- With assistance by Billy House
( Updates with McConnell blocking Schumer measure in seventh paragraph. ) Published on March 25, 2019 12:37 PM
Updated on March 25, 2019 5:58 PM
Juan Guaido getting a ''warm'' welcome from population in El Valle. Apparently, Venezuelan
masses have had enough of comprador sellouts backed by European powers.
Without police presence, the Yankee puppet would in all likelihood end up lynched and
hanging from lamppost.
Exceptionals are in for a rude awakening, if they attempt to overthrow Chavistas using
direct kinetic operations.
Any invasion will be met with fierce resistance. No volveran to Pre-Chavez years. Orange
dotard and his neo-confederates in the white house fancy themselves crushing ''subhuman''
resistance from shitholes and securing the hemisphere for wall street looters. The gambit
will backfire, and could end up kickstarting hostilites that will span the Continent from
Patagonia to Rio Grande. MAGA the gift that keeps on giving. #winning... https://www.facebook.com/venesolidarite/videos/814971605532561/
Seems to me what that BigLie's about is this tale: Relations with Russia during the
post-USSR age were going along swell until Russia began involved in the Venezuelan
Crisis.
The attempt is to try a new narrative using a different angle to blame Russia which is the
goal of the BigLie. Signal a new line of approach in dealing with the attitude toward Russia
to the trusty echoers of His Master's Voice.
"... The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years. ..."
"... It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people. Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land. ..."
"... Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because Russians are subhumans. ..."
"... The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored, as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring with each other. ..."
"... The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course, endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language with the same Cyrillic writing system. ..."
The purpose is very simple: to create the perception that the government of Russia still somehow controls or manipulates
the US government and thus gains some undeserved improvements in relations with the U.S. Once such perception is created, people
will demand that relations with Russia are worsened to return them to a "fair" level. While in reality these relations have been
systematically destroyed by the Western establishment (CFR) for many years.
It's a typical inversion to hide the hybrid war of the Western establishment against Russian people. Yes, Russian people.
Not Putin, not Russian Army, not Russian intelligence services, but Russian people. Russians are not to be allowed to have any
kind of industries, nor should they be allowed to know their true history, nor should they possess so much land.
Russians should work in coal mines for a dollar a day, while their wives work as prostitutes in Europe. That's the maximum
level of development that the Western establishment would allow Russians to have (see Ukraine for a demo version). Why? Because
Russians are subhumans.
Whatever they do, it's always wrong, bad, oppressive, etc. Russians are bad because they're bad. They must be "taught a lesson",
"put into their place". It would, of course, be beneficial and highly profitable for Europeans to break with Anglo-Saxons and
to live in peace and harmony with Russia, but Europeans simply can not overcome their racism towards Russians. The young Europeans
are just as racist, with their incessant memes about "squatting Russians in tracksuits", "drunken Russians", etc., as if there's
nothing else that is notable about a country of 147 million people.
The end goal of the Western establishment is a complete military, economic, psychological, and spiritual destruction of
Russia, secession of national republics (even though in some of them up to 50% of population are Russians, but this will be ignored,
as it has been in former Soviet republics), then, finally, dismemberment of what remains of Russia into separate states warring
with each other.
The very concept of Russian nation should disappear. Siberians will call their language "Siberian", Muscovites will call
their language "Moscovian", Pomorians will call their language "Pomorian", etc. The U.S. Department of State will, of course,
endorse such terminology, just like they endorse the term "Montenegrian language", even though it's the same Serbo-Croatian language
with the same Cyrillic writing system.
"... "If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets, why President Trump concealed his role in overruling that recommendation, why [former White House chief of staff John] Kelly and [former White House counsel Don] McGahn both felt compelled to document these actions, and why your office is continuing to withhold key documents and witnesses from this Committee," wrote Cummings. ..."
"... Since then, the White House has yet to release the documents, and Kushner has come under further scrutiny for allegedly discussing sensitive government matters over WhatsApp and private email. Cummings wrote another letter demanding documents related to Kushner's communication practices on March 21, 2019, threatening to subpoena if the White House fails to comply by April 1. ..."
"... During his period with top-security clearance, the President's son-in-law had access to the nation's most sensitive information. Like President Trump, Kushner did not put his assets in a blind trust, and he retains extensive real estate properties and substantial ownership of Kushner companies. Kushner Companies sought investment from Qatar in the family's heavily indebted 666 Fifth Avenue property (which has since been rescued by Brookfield Properties), which the Qataris denied, weeks before the Saudi and UAE blockade on the nation. ..."
"... In February 2019, a report titled "Whistleblowers Raise Grave Concerns with Trump Administration's Efforts to Transfer Sensitive Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia," House Democrats detailed a push by top Trump officials, including Kushner, to give Saudi Arabia technology to build nuclear power plants. According to the Intercept , the Saudi crown prince boasted to the Emirati prince he had Kushner "in his pocket." ..."
"... Although it appears Kushner may no longer have to worry about the Mueller investigation, the President's son-in law's financial conflicts of interest and foreign policy inexperience make him a dangerous liability to the national security of the United States, and evidence indicates he will remain under the scrutiny of the House Oversight Committee for the foreseeable future. ..."
Jared Kushner Called Before Senate
Intelligence Committee
"If
true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about
Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets."
On March 28, 2019, the Senate Intelligence
Committee called President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner for a closed-door meeting. It
was Kushner's second meeting in front of the panel, having previously testified about his contacts with
Russians during the 2016 campaign in July, 2017.
Kushner has faced intense media scrutiny since his
nomination, as the 38-year-old real estate developer and investor held no prior foreign policy experience at
the time President Trump designated him as the administration's Middle East emissary. His failure to disclose
numerous encounters with Russians he made during Trump's campaign, such as Russian Ambassador
Sergey Kislyak
and banker
Sergei Gorkov
, fueled suspicions of collusion that have plagued his tenure.
It is unknown what was discussed in Kushner's most
recent meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee, but he later expressed hope the Mueller probe's
conclusion would put an end to the suspicions. After his meeting with the Congressional Committee, Kushner gave
Axios
a statement:
"Today I voluntarily
answered follow up questions with the Senate Committee on Intelligence to help them complete their
investigation. Which they said would be soon. I hope my cooperation will help the country get the transparency
it deserves and puts an end to these baseless accusations. It is time for Congress to complete its work, move
on, and to turn its attention to the real problems facing Americans every day."
Jared Kushner's Access to Government Intel
Raises Alarm
Intelligence and White House officials have
expressed concern about granting Kushner access to government secrets in lieu of his failure to disclose his
meetings with foreign contacts in his clearance application.
Reports
that President Trump ordered his then-Chief of Staff, John Kelly, to override the misgivings of
senior officials and approve Kushner's security clearance led to the House Oversight Committee demanding the
White House release documents related to the clearances of top advisors. The committee's chairman,
Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), wrote a
letter
to White House counsel Pat Cipollone, ordering the documents to be handed over by March 4, 2019.
"If true, these new
reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to
recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets, why President Trump concealed his role in
overruling that recommendation, why [former White House chief of staff John] Kelly and [former White House
counsel Don] McGahn both felt compelled to document these actions, and why your office is continuing to
withhold key documents and witnesses from this Committee," wrote Cummings.
Since then, the White House has yet to release the
documents, and Kushner has come under further scrutiny for allegedly discussing sensitive government matters
over WhatsApp and private email. Cummings
wrote another
letter demanding documents related to Kushner's communication practices on March 21, 2019,
threatening to subpoena if the White House fails to comply by April 1.
During his period with top-security clearance, the
President's son-in-law had access to the nation's most sensitive information. Like President Trump, Kushner
did not
put his assets in a blind trust, and he retains extensive real estate properties and substantial
ownership of Kushner companies. Kushner Companies
sought investment
from Qatar in the family's heavily indebted 666 Fifth Avenue property (which has since
been
rescued
by Brookfield Properties), which the Qataris denied, weeks before the Saudi and UAE blockade on the
nation.
Jared Kushner's Cozy Relationship with Saudi
Arabia, MBS
Kushner's financial conflicts of interest lead to
serious national security concerns. Kushner has maintained a close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman, whom he allegedly messages directly over
WhatsApp
.
In February 2019, a
report
titled "Whistleblowers Raise Grave Concerns with Trump Administration's Efforts to Transfer
Sensitive Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia," House Democrats detailed a push by top Trump officials,
including Kushner, to give Saudi Arabia technology to build nuclear power plants. According to the
Intercept
, the Saudi crown prince boasted to the Emirati prince he had Kushner "in his pocket."
In the
report
, the whistleblowers stated, "Strong private commercial interests have been pressing aggressively for
the transfer of highly sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia." Around the same time, Brookfield Asset
Management made a deal with the Kushner's to bail out the underwater 666 Fifth Avenue property; Brookfield
announced the $4.6 billion purchase of Westinghouse Electric, a bankrupt nuclear power company. Westinghouse
Electric has previously
sought bids
to develop atomic energy in the Saudi kingdom.
Although it appears Kushner may no
longer have to worry about the Mueller investigation, the President's son-in law's financial conflicts of
interest and foreign policy inexperience make him a dangerous liability to the national security of the United
States, and evidence indicates he will remain under the scrutiny of the House Oversight Committee for the
foreseeable future.
Russiagate may be done but thats because it was defined improperly. Sometimes it helps to
look back to get a big picture perspective
Starting in 1999, Putin enlisted two oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would
go on to become Chabad's biggest patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish
Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be
known as "Putin's rabbi."
Roman Abramovich is the owner of the Chelsea Football Club of the English Premier League.
He was a victor (along with Paul Manafort's patron Oleg Deripaska) in the aluminum wars of
the 1990s and reportedly the person who convinced Boris Yeltsin that Putin would be a proper
successor.
Ivanka Trump is very close friends with Abramovich's wife , Dasha Zhukova. Zhukova
reportedly attended the inauguration as Ivanka's personal guest. Leviev is the one with the
closest links to the Trumps and Israel
It starts with Bayrock . This is the company that Donald Trump teamed up with to build his
Trump Soho project. There were three main actors . One was convicted mob associate and FBI
informant Felix Sater. Another was Tevfik Arif, a likely Russian intelligence connection who
was once was arrested by the Turks . The third was the late Tamir Sapir, another man with
ties to Russian intelligence.
The late billionaire Tamir Sapir, was born in the Soviet state of Georgia. Trump has
called Sapir "a great friend." In December 2007, he hosted the wedding of Sapir's daughter,
Zina, at Mar-a-Lago. The groom, Rotem Rosen, was the CEO of the American branch of Africa
Israel, the Putin oligarch Leviev's holding company, and known as Leviev's right hand
man.
As mentioned Leviev was one of two oligarch's who Putin had establish the "Federation of
Jewish Communities of Russia" under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would
come to be known as 'Putin's rabbi.'" Sater, Sapier, Jared, Ivanka are all Chabad members
and/or donors
Trump had business discussions in Moscow in 2013 about Moscow real estate projects with
Agalarovs, Alex Sapir (son of Tamir Sapir, brother of Zina, and brother-in-law of Rotem
Rosen.) and Rotem Rosen, a pair of New York-based Russian . This may also have been discussed
during the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower that was attended by Kushner, Manafort and Donald
Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer associated with Fusion GPS (Steele dossier) and the Leviev
linked Prevezon
Agalarov is a Moscow-based property developer who had won major contracts from Putin's
government. He hosted Trump's 2013 Miss Universe contest at his concert hall in Moscow. He
orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and formed a new American shell company a
month beforehand with the help of the Russian lawyer who attended the meeting.
In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New
York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev
Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction,
despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head
Deutsche Bank and two companies tied to Leviev, Africa Israel Investments and Prevezon,
have all recently been the subject of money laundering investigations. A laundering case
against Prevezon was settled two months after Trump fired Bharara, with a $6M slap on the
wrist settlement that raised some eyebrows.
As for 666, Kushner gets bailed out by Brookfield who has Qatar as its 2nd largest
investor. But consider that at the same time they did this deal they also acquired
Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power company. Now members of the Trump administration
propose selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. Interesting.
Can't seem to find a Putin/Russian oligarch connection although that's probably due to the
fact you can't use anonymous shell companies to buy property in NYC any longer due to new
rules by FinCEN
But so many conflict of interests here, Israel, China, Saudis, Russian oligarchs, etc
and virtually no oversight or transparency. With twitter being used to manipulate markets
one has to imagine rampant insider trading as well (hey guys, my tweets going out at 3 pm,
get your trades in and remember my 5%).
They lost control of Saudi Arabia, after trying to take down MBS and then betraying him by unexpectedly allowing waivers on
Iranian oil in November.
The U.S. cannot take down Iran without Venezuelan oil. What is worse, right now they don't have access to enough heavy oil
to meet their own needs.
Controlling the world oil trade is central to Trump's strategy for the U.S. to continue its empire. Without Venezuelan oil,
the U.S. is a bit player in the energy markets, and will remain so.
Having Russia block the U.S. in Venezuela adds insult to injury. After Crimea and Syria, now Venezuela, Russia exposes the
U.S. as a loud mouthed-bully without the capacity to back up its threats, a 'toothless tiger', an 'emperor without clothes'.
If the U.S. cannot dislodge Russia from Venezuela, its days as 'global hegemon' are finished. For this reason the U.S. will
continue escalating the situation with ever-riskier actions, until it succeeds or breaks.
In the same manor, if Russia backs off, its resistance to the U.S. is finished. And the U.S. will eventually move to destroy
Russia, like it has been actively trying to do for the past 30 years. Russia cannot and will not back off.
Venezuela thus becomes the stage where the final act in the clash of empires plays out. Will the world become a multi-polar
world, in which the U.S. becomes a relatively isolated and insignificant pole? Or will the world become more fully dominated by
a brutal, erratic hegemon?
So Russiagate smoothly transferred in Neo-McCarthyism and it will poison the US political atmosphere for a decade or two.
Notable quotes:
"... But as I foresaw well before the summary of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." ..."
"... Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections ..."
"... Persistent demands to "secure our elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process ..."
"... Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites, which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people? ..."
"... Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. ..."
"... Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, " have no regrets ." ..."
"... Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance." With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations. ..."
"... Rachel Maddow continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.) ..."
"... Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be " derisive and scornful " toward our political life. ..."
But as I foresaw well before the summary
of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests
are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent
of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." Joy Reid of MSNBC, which has been
a citadel of Russiagate allegations along with CNN, even suggested that Mueller and Attorney General William Barr were themselves
engaged in " a cover-up
."
Contrary to a number of major media outlets, from Bloomberg News to The Wall Street Journal , nor does Mueller's
exculpatory finding actually mean that "
Russiagate
is dead " and indeed that " it expired
in an instant ." Such conclusions reveal a lack of historical and political understanding. Nearly three years of Russiagate's
toxic allegations have entered the American political-media elite bloodstream, and they almost certainly will reappear again and
again in one form or another.
This is an exceedingly grave danger, because the real costs of Russiagate are not the estimated $25–40 million spent on the Mueller
investigation but the corrosive damage it has already done to the institutions of American democracy -- damage done not by an alleged
"Trump-Putin axis" but by Russsigate's perpetrators themselves. Having examined this collateral damage in my recently published book
War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate , I will only note them here.
§ Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack
of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections everywhere -- national, state, and local. If true, or even
suspected, how can voters have confidence in the electoral foundations of American democracy? Persistent demands to "secure our
elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate
declining confidence in the entire electoral process.
Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites,
which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people?
§ Defamatory Russsiagate allegations that Trump was a "Kremlin puppet" and thus "illegitimate" were aimed at the president but
hit the presidency itself, degrading the institution, bringing it under suspicion, casting doubt on its legitimacy. And if an "agent
of a hostile foreign power" could occupy the White House once, a "Manchurian candidate," why not again? Will Republicans be able
to resist making such allegations against a future Democratic president? In any event, Hillary Clinton's failed campaign manager,
Robby Mook, has already told us that there will be a "
next time ."
§ Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers
and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate
media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. No mainstream media
did anything to expose, for example, two crucial and fraudulent Russiagate documents -- the so-called Steele Dossier and the January
2017 Intelligence Community Assessment -- but instead relied heavily on them for their own narratives. Little more need be said here
about this institutional self-degradation. Glenn Greenwald and a few others followed and exposed it throughout, and now Matt Taibbi
has given us a meticulously documented
account of that systematic malpractice , concluding that Mueller's failure to confirm the media's Russiagate allegations "is
a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media."
Nor, it must be added, was this entirely inadvertent or accidental. On August 8, 2016, the trend-setting New York Times
published on its front page
an astonishing editorial manifesto by its media critic. Asking whether "normal standards" should apply to candidate Trump, he
explained that they should not: "You have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the
past half-century." Let others decide whether this Times proclamation unleashed the highly selective, unbalanced, questionably
factual "journalism" that has so degraded Russiagate media or instead the publication sought to justify what was already underway.
In either case, this remarkable -- and ramifying -- Times rejection of its own professed standards should not be forgotten.
Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the
Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, "
have no regrets ."
§ For better or worse, America has a two-party political system, which means that the Democratic Party is also a foundational
institution. Little more also need be pointed out regarding its self-degrading role in the Russiagate fraud. Leading members of the
party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell
from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance."
With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional
damage being done by Russiagate allegations.
As for Mueller's finding, the party's virtual network, MSNBC, remains undeterred.
Rachel Maddow
continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it
did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other
Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous
absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.)
§ Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political,
economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived,
as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's
necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts
with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle
has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be "
derisive and scornful
" toward our political life.
Grey prostitute usually adopts pro-isreal position as for Iran deal. no suprose here. Why
Trump admnistration did the same is an interesting question. Is this Kushner influnce? is this
Trump jewesh ficnacier influnce? or Both?
Notable quotes:
"... As a nonproliferation agreement, the JCPOA continues to work as intended despite the active sabotage of the Trump administration. That is a testament to the value of the agreement and to the overwhelming international consensus in favor of it. The U.S. has stupidly and unnecessarily broken with that consensus for the sake of its obsession with hostility towards Iran. ..."
tries to claim
that reneging on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been good for the U.S.:
It's been nearly a year since Donald Trump made the decision to withdraw from the Iran
nuclear deal, to loud cries that it would bring nothing but woe to the United States and our
interests in the Middle East.
So far, the result has been closer to the opposite.
Nuclear deal opponents always argue in bad faith, and Stephens' latest column is no
exception. For starters, virtually no one said that reneging on the deal would bring "nothing
but woe." It was nonetheless an irrational, costly decision whose costs continue to add up as
time goes by. Some of the worst-case scenarios have not yet happened, but reneging on the deal
has done nothing but harm U.S. interests and our relations with major allies. No one can point
to any real gains for the U.S., and even by the Trump administration's own standards their Iran
policy has failed to achieve anything. U.S. relations with European allies have come under
significant strain, and their determination to sustain the deal has led them to create
workarounds to allow legitimate trade with Iran to continue. Pressuring Iraq to join the
anti-Iran sanctions has likewise strained relations with Baghdad and contributed to the
backlash against the U.S. there.
Stephens applauds the damage that the reimposition of U.S. sanctions is doing to Iran's
economy, but inflicting pain for its own sake is pointless cruelty. The U.S. gains nothing from
this, and it imposes enormous costs on the Iranian people who bear most of the burden. The
sanctions were originally created to pressure Iran into making the concessions on the nuclear
issue that they have made. The sanctions cannot do anything except inflict damage on Iran's
economy because Iran's government is already doing the things that were required to get them
lifted. Strangling Iran's economy doesn't make the U.S. any safer, but it does make us seem
treacherous and underhanded in our dealings with other states. Reneging on the JCPOA has
inflicted diplomatic and political costs on the U.S. that make it more difficult for any other
government to trust ours to honor its side of agreements, and it has made a mockery of our
government's commitment to nonproliferation.
It needs to be emphasized here that all of the costs of reneging on the deal are purely
self-inflicted. The president pandered to the ideologues and hard-liners that hated the deal
from the beginning and made an unnecessary, irresponsible decision to give up on a successful
agreement. Meanwhile, the vast majority of arms control and nuclear experts opposed the
decision. All that the U.S. had to do to keep faith with Iran and the other parties was to lift
sanctions and keep them lifted. It cost us nothing to do this, and it created an opening for
reduced tensions and improved relations with Iran that stood to benefit both of our countries
and the surrounding region. Throwing that away has gained the U.S. nothing, and it has isolated
the U.S. internationally from almost all other governments that support the agreement. Any fair
and honest reckoning of the costs and benefits of Trump's decision to renege would show that
the U.S. is now in a worse and weaker position than it was before that decision. It is the
definition of a foreign policy fiasco.
U.S. withdrawal has not caused the agreement to collapse yet, but that is only because all
of the other parties to it have made concerted efforts to keep it alive in spite of completely
unwarranted sanctions. Contrary to hawkish predictions that Iran would cheat on the agreement,
Iran has fulfilled its obligations to the satisfaction of the IAEA for more than three years.
Even though Iran has received very few of the promised benefits for complying with the
agreement, Iran has done what it said it would do. That doesn't line up very well with the Iran
hawks' usual picture of a fanatical government hell-bent on acquiring a nuke.
As a
nonproliferation agreement, the JCPOA continues to work as intended despite the active sabotage
of the Trump administration. That is a testament to the value of the agreement and to the
overwhelming international consensus in favor of it. The U.S. has stupidly and unnecessarily
broken with that consensus for the sake of its obsession with hostility towards Iran.
This bit may be the least credible part of Stephens' column:
The point isn't to punish Iran for punishment's sake. It's to create leverage for a better
nuclear deal.
If unjustly reimposing sanctions on Iran was meant to "create leverage for a better nuclear
deal," it has completely failed. Iran has no interest in renegotiating the agreement that it
has honored from the start, and it has no reason to trust the government that just went back on
its word that it will obtain sanctions relief by offering more concessions. Quitting agreements
does not create additional leverage on the other parties to an agreement. It necessarily
weakens the U.S. position by making our promises seem worthless. A "better" deal isn't
possible, but then Iran hawks' interest in one has always been disingenuous. They have never
wanted a "better" deal. They have wanted Iranian capitulation. That is reflected in the
preposterous demands that Pompeo made last year. No Iranian government would ever agree to the
vast majority of those demands, and they amount to abandoning its foreign policy and its
nuclear program. Stephens marvels that "any of it should be controversial," which should tell
you how clueless he is.
It's worth noting here that Stephens has been and still is one of the most fanatical
opponents of the nuclear deal. When the P5+1 concluded the interim nuclear deal, the Joint Plan
of Action (JPOA), in 2013, he asserted
that forerunner to the JCPOA was "worse than Munich." Anyone who invoked Nazi appeasement in
the context of negotiations for a nonproliferation agreement has no credibility to chide anyone
else about anything related to foreign policy.
Stephens declares:
Non-nuclear states that sponsor terrorism and subscribe to millenarian ideologies should
never have access to any part of the nuclear fuel cycle, ever.
Here he is falling back on an old, discredited trope of Iran as a "martyr-state" to
support his fanatical position that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear program at all. Not only is
the Iranian government not filled with "millenarian" zealots (they are interested in
self-preservation and staying in power just like any regime), but Stephens ignores that Iran is
entitled to possess and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes under the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). If the U.S. seeks to deprive them of that access, they might
end up choosing to go the North Korea route by leaving the treaty and developing nuclear
weapons. That isn't the most likely outcome right now, but the more that the U.S. pressures
Iran the greater their incentive to acquire a nuclear deterrent becomes.
Stephens concludes:
The Trump administration has succeeded in dramatically raising the costs to Iran for its
sinister behavior, at no cost to the United States or our allies.
U.S.-European relations are frayed and probably worse than at any time since the Iraq war
debate, and those strains have mostly been caused by the administration's bankrupt Iran policy.
Our government has violated the JCPOA and the Security Council resolution that endorsed it, and
that has both left the U.S. isolated on this issue and weakened our position internationally.
Our allies have been forced to defend themselves against U.S. sanctions, and their efforts to
circumvent the sanctions will have longer term negative consequences for U.S. foreign policy.
The Iranian government's behavior has not changed significantly, and the costs borne by the
Iranian people are very high. Our government is inflicting collective punishment of an entire
nation for no good reason, and we are teaching another generation of Iranians to loathe and
distrust us. Stephens can ignore reality if he wants, but the costs to the U.S. and our allies
are real and growing.
Reneging on the nuclear deal was a destructive and stupid move, and the U.S. will be paying
for it for years to come. If it hasn't led to the worst possible outcomes yet, that doesn't
change the fact that it has been a colossal blunder and a huge own goal by the Trump
administration. It isn't surprising that a hardened ideologue like Stephens defends such a bad
decision, but his readers are poorly served by his propaganda masquerading as
analysis.
If the anti-deal hawks got their way, Iran would have the bomb by now
How this isn't obvious to them is beyond me, it makes me wonder if their actual plan was
to ratchet up tensions so they would have no choice but to invade to stop Iran from getting
the bomb. They would get to accomplish their true goal, regime change.
You also have those outraged that Obama 'gave' the Iranians billions. First off Obama gave
them nothing, it was their money. Many of them know this but it sounds better to pretend it
was US taxpayer dollars instead of Iranian money in frozen accounts. Then it seems they don't
know how deals are supposed to work, you can't expect to get something it you offer nothing
in return.
They lost control of Saudi Arabia, after trying to take down MBS and then betraying him by unexpectedly allowing waivers on
Iranian oil in November.
The U.S. cannot take down Iran without Venezuelan oil. What is worse, right now they don't have access to enough heavy oil
to meet their own needs.
Controlling the world oil trade is central to Trump's strategy for the U.S. to continue its empire. Without Venezuelan oil,
the U.S. is a bit player in the energy markets, and will remain so.
Having Russia block the U.S. in Venezuela adds insult to injury. After Crimea and Syria, now Venezuela, Russia exposes the
U.S. as a loud mouthed-bully without the capacity to back up its threats, a 'toothless tiger', an 'emperor without clothes'.
If the U.S. cannot dislodge Russia from Venezuela, its days as 'global hegemon' are finished. For this reason the U.S. will
continue escalating the situation with ever-riskier actions, until it succeeds or breaks.
In the same manor, if Russia backs off, its resistance to the U.S. is finished. And the U.S. will eventually move to destroy
Russia, like it has been actively trying to do for the past 30 years. Russia cannot and will not back off.
Venezuela thus becomes the stage where the final act in the clash of empires plays out. Will the world become a multi-polar
world, in which the U.S. becomes a relatively isolated and insignificant pole? Or will the world become more fully dominated by
a brutal, erratic hegemon?
So Russiagate smoothly transferred in Neo-McCarthyism and it will poison the US political atmosphere for a decade or two.
Notable quotes:
"... But as I foresaw well before the summary of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." ..."
"... Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections ..."
"... Persistent demands to "secure our elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate declining confidence in the entire electoral process ..."
"... Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites, which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people? ..."
"... Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. ..."
"... Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, " have no regrets ." ..."
"... Leading members of the party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance." With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional damage being done by Russiagate allegations. ..."
"... Rachel Maddow continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.) ..."
"... Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political, economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived, as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be " derisive and scornful " toward our political life. ..."
But as I foresaw well before the summary
of Mueller's "Russia investigation" appeared, there is unlikely to be much, if any. Too many personal and organizational interests
are too deeply invested in Russiagate. Not surprisingly, leading perpetrators instead immediately met the summary with a torrent
of denials, goal-post shifts, obfuscations, and calls for more Russiagate "investigations." Joy Reid of MSNBC, which has been
a citadel of Russiagate allegations along with CNN, even suggested that Mueller and Attorney General William Barr were themselves
engaged in " a cover-up
."
Contrary to a number of major media outlets, from Bloomberg News to The Wall Street Journal , nor does Mueller's
exculpatory finding actually mean that "
Russiagate
is dead " and indeed that " it expired
in an instant ." Such conclusions reveal a lack of historical and political understanding. Nearly three years of Russiagate's
toxic allegations have entered the American political-media elite bloodstream, and they almost certainly will reappear again and
again in one form or another.
This is an exceedingly grave danger, because the real costs of Russiagate are not the estimated $25–40 million spent on the Mueller
investigation but the corrosive damage it has already done to the institutions of American democracy -- damage done not by an alleged
"Trump-Putin axis" but by Russsigate's perpetrators themselves. Having examined this collateral damage in my recently published book
War with Russia? From Putin and Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate , I will only note them here.
§ Clamorous allegations that the Kremlin "attacked our elections" and thereby put Trump in the White House, despite the lack
of any evidence, cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections everywhere -- national, state, and local. If true, or even
suspected, how can voters have confidence in the electoral foundations of American democracy? Persistent demands to "secure our
elections from hostile powers" -- a politically and financially profitable mania, it seems -- can only further abet and perpetuate
declining confidence in the entire electoral process.
Still more, if some crude Russian social-media outputs could so dupe voters, what does this tell us about what US elites,
which originated these allegations, really think of those voters, of the American people?
§ Defamatory Russsiagate allegations that Trump was a "Kremlin puppet" and thus "illegitimate" were aimed at the president but
hit the presidency itself, degrading the institution, bringing it under suspicion, casting doubt on its legitimacy. And if an "agent
of a hostile foreign power" could occupy the White House once, a "Manchurian candidate," why not again? Will Republicans be able
to resist making such allegations against a future Democratic president? In any event, Hillary Clinton's failed campaign manager,
Robby Mook, has already told us that there will be a "
next time ."
§ Mainstream media are, of course, a foundational institution of American democracy, especially national ones, newspapers
and television, with immense influence inside the Beltway and, in ramifying synergic ways, throughout the country. Their Russiagate
media malpractice, as I have termed it, may have been the worst such episode in modern American history. No mainstream media
did anything to expose, for example, two crucial and fraudulent Russiagate documents -- the so-called Steele Dossier and the January
2017 Intelligence Community Assessment -- but instead relied heavily on them for their own narratives. Little more need be said here
about this institutional self-degradation. Glenn Greenwald and a few others followed and exposed it throughout, and now Matt Taibbi
has given us a meticulously documented
account of that systematic malpractice , concluding that Mueller's failure to confirm the media's Russiagate allegations "is
a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media."
Nor, it must be added, was this entirely inadvertent or accidental. On August 8, 2016, the trend-setting New York Times
published on its front page
an astonishing editorial manifesto by its media critic. Asking whether "normal standards" should apply to candidate Trump, he
explained that they should not: "You have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the
past half-century." Let others decide whether this Times proclamation unleashed the highly selective, unbalanced, questionably
factual "journalism" that has so degraded Russiagate media or instead the publication sought to justify what was already underway.
In either case, this remarkable -- and ramifying -- Times rejection of its own professed standards should not be forgotten.
Almost equally remarkable and lamentable, we learn that even now, after Mueller's finding is known, top executives of the
Times and other leading Russiagate media outlets, including The Washington Post and CNN, "
have no regrets ."
§ For better or worse, America has a two-party political system, which means that the Democratic Party is also a foundational
institution. Little more also need be pointed out regarding its self-degrading role in the Russiagate fraud. Leading members of the
party initiated, inflated, and prolonged it. They did nothing to prevent inquisitors like Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell
from becoming the cable-news face of the party. Or to rein in or disassociate the party from the outlandish excesses of "The Resistance."
With very few exceptions, elected and other leading Democrats did nothing to stop -- and therefore further abetted -- the institutional
damage being done by Russiagate allegations.
As for Mueller's finding, the party's virtual network, MSNBC, remains undeterred.
Rachel Maddow
continues to hype "the underlying reality that Russia did in fact attack us." By any reasonable definition of "attack," no, it
did not, and scarcely any allegation could be more recklessly warmongering, a perception the Democratic Party will for this and other
Russiagate commissions have to endure, or not. (When Mueller's full report is published, we will see if he too indulged in this dangerous
absurdity. A few passages in the summary suggest he might have done so.)
§ Finally, but potentially not least, the new Cold War with Russia has itself become an institution pervading American political,
economic, media, and cultural life. Russiagate has made it more dangerous, more fraught with actual war, than the Cold War we survived,
as I explain in War with Russia? Recall only that Russiagate allegations further demonized "Putin's Russia," thwarted Trump's
necessary attempts to "cooperate with Russia" as somehow "treasonous," criminalized détente thinking and "inappropriate contacts
with Russia" -- in short, policies and practices that previously helped to avert nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Russiagate spectacle
has caused many ordinary Russians who once admired America to now be "
derisive and scornful
" toward our political life.
It is too bad that there has been no investigation into Victoria Nuland's role in Ukraine's
2014 revolution. The ouster of the corrupt Russian leaning administration and its replacement
by a new gang of thieves who were more pro West with neo-Nazi sympathies led to the Ukrainian
civil war and the takeover of Crimea by Russia. Although Russia's nominal GNP per capita
remains low vs industrial countries, it remains a military superpower.
Interesting information about Cuban lobby and Trump
Notable quotes:
"... George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation. ..."
Well now that most everyone knows Trump's ME policy on Iran is run by his Zionists.
We would be remiss in not mentioning the "other foreign lobby" .the Cuban exiles ..who are all very interested in Venezuela.
I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.
I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or paid
by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.
What triggered the escalation of US-Venezuela policy?
For two decades the US was powerless to alter the course of Venezuela's socialist rule. But, in recent weeks Trump has turned
the screws on the Maduro regime. So, what changed? How a casual meeting at Trump Tower and a photo op at the White House, dovetailed
with the evolving crisis inside Venezuela
Two days after taking office in January 2017 President Donald Trump surprised White House staff by asking for a briefing on
Venezuela. At the time, Fernando Cutz was on the National Security Council staff as the President's Director for South America.
"For whatever reason, and honestly I don't know what the reason was, but President Trump started on Day One, literally on Day
One, asking about Venezuela. So, it was a priority of his from the very start," Cutz told a forum at the Wilson Center, a Washington
think tank, after he left government last year.
Cutz didn't know, but the seed was planted a few days before Trump's inauguration during a casual meeting at Trump Tower in
New York. Trump had invited some South Florida friends to pay him a visit, among them Freddy Balsera, a Cuban American Democrat,
who represented the real estate mogul on several South Florida golf projects.
During the meeting, Trump asked Balsera for some advice on what South Floridians would like to see from his presidency, according
to witnesses. Balsera mentioned taking a tougher line on the Maduro regime in Venezuela, adding it would have bipartisan support
and could make for a good foreign policy victory
The president's son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner, was in the room and his ears picked up, the sources said. Balsera
told Trump and Kushner about Venezuela's most famous political prisoner: Leopoldo Lopez. And he had a suggestion: "You should
meet with his wife, Lilian Tintori," he said.
That's precisely what happened a few weeks later, courtesy of another Cuban American – a Republican this time – Senator Marco
Rubio
Rubio's influence has also grown since that White House visit with Lilian Tintori. Despite calling him 'Little Marco' during
the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has now taken to heaping President Donald Trump has lately taken to heaping praise on his
former presidential rival
"I do listen a lot to Senator Rubio on Venezuela, it's close to his heart," Trump told a small group of reporters representing
regional news outlets last month.
Rubio was also instrumental in bringing into the government some key Cuban Americans; Mauricio Claver-Carone at the NSC. Another
John Barsa, is awaiting confirmation to lead USAID's operations in Latin America. Claver-Carone is a longtime activist on Cuba
policy and staunch backer of the economic embargo against Havana's communist government]
Otto Reich, another conservative Cuban American and former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela says the Trump administration clearly
has Cuba in its sights.
"I think that what they are preparing in the government is first of all to use the fall of the Venezuelan dictatorship that has
financed so much violence and subversion in the hemisphere, to later bring about changes, transitions in Cuba and Nicaragua,"
White House to appoint Cuba hardliner to head Latin America policy Mauricio Claver-Carone, a vocal critic of the Obama administration's
engagement with Cuba, is taking over as the National Security Council's influential director for Latin America policy.
I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.
Well, 'we' got a tax cut. And 'we' are going to have mandated vaccinations from companies exempt from liability. And 'we' will
get the joys of subsidizing the 5G rollout for total internet connectivity from the toilet to the grave. 'We' get total surveillance,
too, so there is that.
I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or
paid by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.
But we're a nation of immigrants, so we celebrate all those hyphenated pseudo-Americans hijacking our country for foreign benefit.
Why, I think one of the reasons President Kushner wants immigrants in the largest numbers ever is to provide more boots for all
of our wars. Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, reduxes on Iraq and Lebanon? Adventures in Africa? Wheel of fortune, who
hurts Ivanka's feelings first?
@chris Two-fer? I don't think so. Trump
will be a popular wartime president . The media has already changed its tone. No, Trump is completely housebroken, a useful
fool. He's good for more than one war, so will probably be re-elected. How many wars do you think we're good for before total
collapse?
President Trump is a complete and total whore for Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson.
Shelly Adelson is an ISRAEL FIRST Jew who wants to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle
East and West Asia.
Shelly Adelson wants to flood more mass legal immigration into the United States.
Shelly Adelson wants to give amnesty to upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA.
Shelly Adelson demanded 4 things from Trump:
1) Adelson wanted the US military to attack and invade Iran.
2) Adelson wanted the US military to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran as a demonstration of resolve and power.
3) Adelson wanted the US embassy moved to Jerusalem.
4) Adelson wanted the Iran nuclear deal killed and buried.
Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and Trump has moved a satellite branch of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Trump and the
US military have refused to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran. Trump and the US military have refused to attack and invade Iran.
If Trump continues on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals
and admirals with guts and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.
@Charles PewittIf Trump continues
on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals and admirals with guts
and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.
Sorry but there is not one US general who will act against Israel – period.
@Talha If Jews want to live in Palestine
there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But they have to live as the locals do and without any special favors.
What is BS is the special favors the USA gives them. They even have the gall to say that our giving $5 billion in military
aid to them is a favor to us.
George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel
First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War.
The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing
the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America.
Trump went to a 2016 GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina and said the US military was dragged into the Iraq War
debacle by George W Bush on false claims.
Trump:
He added, forcefully: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction – there were none. And they knew there
were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction."
The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased
Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation.
One of the rare early realistic assessments of Trump foreign policy. most were wrong. Circe was right in major points. The
appointment of CIA director was the litmus test and Trump failed it by appointing neocon Pompeo.
Trump foreign policy is a typical neocon foreign policy. People just tried to overlook it in vain hopes that Trump will change the US
foreign policy
Notable quotes:
"... 95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time. ..."
"... And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason. ..."
"... Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,". ..."
"... Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon -unfriendly President was elected. ..."
"... Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms. ..."
"... And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly. ..."
"... What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense. ..."
"... he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh? ..."
95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated
obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is
a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This
is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.
And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden
is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him
to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already
stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for
treason.
Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the
Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern
of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,".
That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up the Iran deal.
Many of you here are extremely naïve regarding Trump.
b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run by a deep-state faction that found
the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.
Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke
of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet. The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly
President was elected.
Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The
'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to
fund security agencies and buy arms.
And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder
until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad
as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.
What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military
(note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.
And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel
or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh?
The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:
>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?
>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only check on elites are other elite factions?
An enormous cultural failure that has produced a brittle social fabric.
>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow the another to gain power?
Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction
or a real attempt at a 'color revolution'.
"... Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding? ..."
"... If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint. ..."
"... Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative destruction to government ..."
"... Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt. ..."
"... Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain. The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again ..."
"... One quibble: The destruction he applies will not be creative. It will be thorough but entirely unimaginative. ..."
"... Why do you think a war is brewing? What do you think is going to happen? They'll give him bad intel like they did with Bush? ..."
"... The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread. ..."
"... Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general I mean a state of mutual distrust. ..."
Just as an aside - not really economics, but I am really worrying about what the war between the future white house team and the
CIA that seems to be brewing. I don't see good solutions to this. It is sort of unprecedented in a major western country. Can
you think of a similar case (where the intelligence services - and perhaps the military as well regarded there own government
head as an enemy agent)?
Define unprecedented. What are your standards for a "major western nation"? Any moral standard? Do they include blowing up
countries, using militarized spooks with unlimited secret funding?
If you side with the devil what are you? In tilting with the CIA, Trump is a saint.
Don't worry. Be happy. Nothing can be done now. The voters wanted someone to "shake things up." Trump will be applying creative
destruction to government
Obama failed to drive the NeoCons out of government. Trump may do so, but the replacement might be fundamentally more corrupt.
As with Obamacare, the idea is to destroy it and replace it with something better. Most revolutions find it easy to destroy
and very much harder to build Most sane leaders recognize this difficulty and modify the existing rather than destroy and never
getting around to replacement or find the replacement to be worse than the existing.
Looters on the other hand love destruction. The resulting chaos affords them more opportunity to get windfalls. Trump will
give the voters the radical change they think they want. But Trump will use the destruction as an opportunity for personal gain.
The public will be left with a gutted government that will need to be rebuilt before it will function again
I don't believe in "creative destruction", I believe in "destructive creation" which is something quite different. But that is
not the point. This is not about the government as such, it is about the security apparatus in itself. It could get very nasty
if that ends up either totally alienated or politicized.
If I were President, provoking an organization whose specialty is covert operations and which has track record of bringing about
the demise of insufficiently agreeable leaders would not be high on my to-do list.
The meme that Trump will "get US into war" is a Clinton loser-whiner meme! Delusional and misleading; the neocon Clinton would
have done Putin first CIA fictional, regime change excuse the yellow press could spread.
Trump is an isolationist who repeatedly said the Iraq war was a disaster, which it was. If the CIA is going after Trump they're
doing a bad job. The worst they could come up with is some unverified accounts that Trump likes pee-pee parties.
Because they are already reportedly telling some of their contacts not to trust the government with information in case it
ends up with hostile governments. Maybe using the word "war" is misleading. Maybe "cold war" is more accurate, but in general
I mean a state of mutual distrust.
Kristof panic was premature and just shows that he is a really has no political analyst
talent whatsoever. Trump was quickly co-opted by neocons.
It is interesting that Kristof, even at such an early stages of Russiagate was already
"FullOfSchiff"
"... The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and,
according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree
with that conclusion. ..."
"... Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character
by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack
on the United States. ..."
"... Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager.
Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with
Russia's "Order of Friendship." ..."
In 1972, President Richard Nixon's White House dispatched burglars to bug Democratic Party
offices. That Watergate burglary and related "dirty tricks," such as releasing mice at a
Democratic press conference and paying a woman to strip naked and shout her love for a
Democratic candidate, nauseated Americans - and impelled some of us kids at the time to pursue
journalism.
Now in 2016 we have a political scandal that in some respects is even more staggering.
Russian agents apparently broke into the Democrats' digital offices and tried to change the
election outcome. President Obama on Friday suggested that this was probably directed by
Russia's president, saying, "Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin."
In Watergate, the break-in didn't affect the outcome of the election. In 2016, we don't know
for sure. There were other factors, but it's possible that Russia's theft and release of the
emails provided the margin for Donald Trump's victory.
The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and,
according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree
with that conclusion.
Both Nixon and Trump responded badly to the revelations, Nixon by ordering a cover-up and
Trump by denouncing the CIA and, incredibly, defending Russia from the charges that it tried to
subvert our election. I never thought I would see a dispute between America's intelligence
community and a murderous foreign dictator in which an American leader sided with the
dictator.
Let's be clear: This was an attack on America, less lethal than a missile but still
profoundly damaging to our system. It's not that Trump and Putin were colluding to steal an
election. But if the CIA is right, Russia apparently was trying to elect a president who would
be not a puppet exactly but perhaps something of a lap dog - a Russian poodle.
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely (and unfairly) mocked as President George
W. Bush's poodle, following him loyally into the Iraq war. The fear is that this time Putin may
have interfered to acquire an ally who likewise will roll over for him.
Frankly, it's mystifying that Trump continues to defend Russia and Putin, even as he
excoriates everyone else, from CIA officials to a local union leader in Indiana.
Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character
by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its
attack on the United States.
Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager.
Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with
Russia's "Order of Friendship."
Whatever our personal politics, how can we possibly want to respond to Russia's interference
in our election by putting American foreign policy in the hands of a Putin friend?
Tillerson's closeness to Putin is especially troubling because of Trump's other Russia
links. The incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, accepted Russian money to attend
a dinner in Moscow and sat near Putin. A ledger shows $12.7 million in secret payments by a
pro-Russia party in Ukraine to Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. And the Trump
family itself has business connections with Russia.
"... Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course. ..."
"... Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy mess in Iraq and now Syria. ..."
"... This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what? No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.' ..."
"... If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. ..."
"... Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases, acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it. ..."
What I found most impressive this time was the reaffirmation of America's dedication to the peaceful transfer of political power.
This was the 45th time this miracle has happened. Saying this is perhaps banal, but the handover of power never fails to make me
proud to be an American and thankful we had such brilliant founding fathers.
This peaceful transfer sets the United States apart from many of the world's nations, even Britain and Canada, where leaders under
the parliamentary system are chosen in a process resembling a knife fight in a dark room. The US has somehow managed to retain its
three branches of government in spite of the best efforts of self-serving politicians to wreck it.
Each new president inherits a sea of problems from his predecessor. Donald Trump's biggest legacy headaches and priority will
be in the Mideast, a disaster area on its own but made far, far worse by the bungling of the Obama administration and its dimwitted
attempts to put the US and Russia on a collision course.
Thanks to George W. Bush – who dared show his face at the inauguration – and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama, Trump inherits
America's longest war, Afghanistan, with our shameful support of mass drug dealing, endemic corruption and war crimes. Add the crazy
mess in Iraq and now Syria.
This week US B-2 heavy bombers attacked Libya. US forces are fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and parts of Africa. For what?
No one is quite sure. America's foreign wars, fueled by its $1 trillion military budget, have assumed a life of their own. Once a
great power goes to war, its proponents insist, 'we can't be seen to back down or our credibility will suffer.'
Trump will struggle to find a face-saving retreat from these unnecessary conflicts and shut his ears to the siren songs of the
war party and deep state which just failed to stage a 'soft' coup to block his inauguration. Waging little wars against weak nations
is a multi-billion dollar national industry in the US. America has become as addicted to war as it has to debt.
If President Trump truly wants to bring some sort of peace to the explosive Mideast, he will have to reject the advice of the
hardline Zionists with whom he has chosen to surround himself. Their primary interest is Greater Israel, free of Arabs, not in a
Greater America. Trump is too smart not to know this. But he may also listen to his blood and guts former generals who lost the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Trump appears to have been gulled into believing the canard that Mideast-origin violence is caused by what he called in his inaugural
speech, radical Islamic terrorism. This is a favorite device promoted by the hard right and Israel to de-legitimize any resistance
to Israel's expansion and ethnic cleansing. The label of 'terrorism' serves the same purpose.
Trump should be reminded that the 9/11 attackers cited two reasons for their attack: 1. Occupation of Saudi Arabia by the
US; 2. Continued US-backed occupation of Palestine. Persistent attacks on western targets that we call terrorism are, in most cases,
acts of revenge for our neo-colonial actions in the Muslim world, the 'American Raj' as I term it.
Unfortunately, President Trump is unlikely to get this useful advice from the men who now surround him, with the possibly exception
of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Let's hope that Tillerson and not Goldman Sachs bank ends up steering US foreign policy.
(Reprinted from EricMargolis.com by permission
of author or representative)
"... And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist. ..."
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump] plans to do what is best for
the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then,
let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony, he is going to have to put raw
elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.
And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow through with his rhetoric is
who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff
and Stephen Bannon as White House chief strategist.
Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign.
He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably
picked him because he is in so tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment,
thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment
agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out at worst.
On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right"
media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington,
D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naïve about the New World Order. I don't
believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it.
To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE
than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State
in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical
New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But
Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment of cozying up to (and "supporting")
Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint
him to a key cabinet post in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential administration.
Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind
(NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he
appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration, I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the
swamp." You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump
would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.
Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating
and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true
judgment of his presidency. But for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of
what we need to know.
What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume
that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because
at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.
There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic ones over the past few decades.
And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian, pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults
against our liberties are sound asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give
the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.
The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington
establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will
NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected.
I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly, if this opportunity is squandered,
there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.
"... Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week ahead of his April 9 re-election vote. While he's officially coming for the AIPAC conference, an annual pro-Israel policy gathering, his visit will serve up excellent campaign material back home. He's certain to be photographed meeting Trump while his speech, delivered in his American-accented baritone, will get plenty of airtime in Israel. ..."
"... "What Trump is doing is totally gratuitous," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton. "He is intervening in an Israeli election for the sake of his friend Bibi Netanyahu, and in the process undermining Israel's chances of achieving peace with its neighbor Syria." ..."
"... Asked about the report, which dropped the previous use of the word "occupied" in reference to the Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza, Pompeo said the change in language was intentional. "It wasn't a mistake; it wasn't an error. It was done knowingly. We believe it's the most factual description that was appropriate for the report," he said. ..."
"... "I can say that all of you can imagine what would have happened if Israel were not in the Golan," Netanyahu said. "I think it's time the international community recognizes Israel's stay in the Golan, the fact that the Golan will always remain part of the state of Israel." ..."
"... Pompeo told reporters at a briefing in Kuwait on Wednesday that there had been no change in U.S. policy toward the Golan Heights. In a media roundtable on Thursday, he declined to say whether the U.S. was weighing whether to recognize Israel's annexation of the Golan. ..."
Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu
Netanyahu to visit Trump next week ahead of tough re-election
Move would be at odds with longstanding international policy
President Donald Trump said it's time for the
U.S. to "fully recognize" Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a political gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just
weeks before a tough re-election vote.
The remark -- which would break with decades of U.S. policy -- could prove decisive in swaying Israeli voters just as Netanyahu
faces corruption allegations that have marred his campaign. It is also likely to draw a rebuke from the international community,
which never recognized Israel's sovereignty over the territory it captured in 1967.
"The message that President Trump has given the world is that America stands by Israel," Netanyahu said Thursday after Trump's
tweet.
Trump's message came a day after Netanyahu, in a press briefing with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Jerusalem, called for
the U.S. and the rest of the world to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Israel extended its law to the area in
1981.
The future of the plateau, a scenic area containing important water sources, had long been considered a subject for negotiation
in any potential peace agreement with Syria. Now, with Syria wracked by a civil war that includes support from Iran, Israel wants
its control over the area to be recognized worldwide.
"I've been thinking about doing that for a long time," Trump said in an interview to be broadcast Friday on Fox Business Network's
"Mornings With Maria." "It's been a very hard decision for every president, no president has done it. This is very much like Jerusalem,
moving the embassy to Jerusalem -- I did that."
While the news was welcomed by most Israelis, some saw it as a cynical ploy to interfere in their election and help Netanyahu
at a time when he's facing increasing scrutiny in a sprawling corruption probe. Merav Michaeli, a member of the opposition Labor
party, said there's little national debate that the Golan should stay in Israeli hands.
It "only helps public opinion for Netanyahu," she added. "That's why it came now. And so it doesn't really benefit Israel now,
it benefits Netanyahu."
Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week ahead of his April 9 re-election vote. While he's officially coming
for the AIPAC conference, an annual pro-Israel policy gathering, his visit will serve up excellent campaign material back home. He's
certain to be photographed meeting Trump while his speech, delivered in his American-accented baritone, will get plenty of airtime
in Israel.
"What Trump is doing is totally gratuitous," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton.
"He is intervening in an Israeli election for the sake of his friend Bibi Netanyahu, and in the process undermining Israel's chances
of achieving peace with its neighbor Syria."
Trump's move may also give the president a political boost as he courts Jewish voters in the U.S.
The U.S. had signaled strongly in recent weeks it was ready to accept Israeli sovereignty. In an annual report on human rights
released last week, the State Department referred to the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza as "Israeli-controlled," not "Israeli-occupied."
Asked about the report, which dropped the previous use of the word "occupied" in reference to the Golan Heights, West Bank, and
Gaza, Pompeo said the change in language was intentional. "It wasn't a mistake; it wasn't an error. It was done knowingly. We believe it's the most factual description that was appropriate
for the report," he said.
American support for Israel has strengthened under Trump, who moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 and backed
out of the nuclear agreement his predecessor Barack Obama negotiated with Iran, a cherished goal of Netanyahu.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said Trump's move would destabilize the region.
"I can say that all of you can imagine what would have happened if Israel were not in the Golan," Netanyahu said. "I think it's
time the international community recognizes Israel's stay in the Golan, the fact that the Golan will always remain part of the state
of Israel."
The U.S. recognition underscores the changing reality on the ground, as the chances of Israel returning the northern territory
to Syria diminished.
Pompeo told reporters at a briefing in Kuwait on Wednesday that there had been no change in U.S. policy toward the Golan Heights.
In a media roundtable on Thursday, he declined to say whether the U.S. was weighing whether to recognize Israel's annexation of the
Golan.
"The administration's considering lots of things always, and I try to make sure we get to answers before we talk
That was written in March 2017. Looks like Paul Craig Roberts was completely detached from reality
Notable quotes:
"... By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade. ..."
"... These offshoring firms not only have destroyed the economic prospects of millions of Americans, but also have destroyed the payroll tax base of Social Security and Medicare, and the tax base of local and state governments, with the consequence that numerous pension systems are on the verge of failure. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has just failed. This failure, experts predict, is the beginning of a tsunami that will spread into municipal and state pension systems. ..."
"... Once Trump put Flynn's blood in the water, he set the situation for the sacrifice of other of his appointees, ending with himself. At the present time, "the Russian connection" black mark is operating against Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. If Sessions falls, Trump is next. ..."
"... Despite the facts, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and all the rest of the CIA's media whores are consciously and intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Americans do not need any more evidence that the entirety of the American media is totally devoid of integrity and respect for truth. The American media is a collection of whores who lie for a living. The presstitutes are despicable, the scum of the earth. ..."
"... The real question is how has contact with Russian government officials become criminalized, grounds for removing a National Security Adviser, an Attorney General, and impeaching a President himself. President John F. Kennedy had ongoing contact with Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet government, in order to resolve the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis without nuclear war. President Nixon had ongoing contact with the Russians in order to achieve SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Carter had ongoing contact with Russians in order to achieve SALT II. President Reagan worked with the Russian leader in order to end the Cold War. I know. I was there. ..."
"... Dear reader, ask yourself, how did communications with Russians in the interest of peace and the reduction of tensions become a criminal act? Have laws been passed that it is forbidden for US officials to speak with Russian officials? Are you so utterly stupid that a presstitute media that has never in your entire life told you anything that was truthful can convince you that those who seek to avoid a conflict between thermo-nuclear powers are "Russian agents"? ..."
"... The entirety of the world has been put on the knife edge of existence by the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the neoconservative pursuit of American world hegemony. The neoconservative ideology is perfect cover for the material interest of the military/security Deep State that is driving the world to destruction. ..."
"... W Bush: "Dad, what's a neocon?" HW Bush: "You want names or description?" W: "Description." HW: "Israel." ..."
"... "To see who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." -Voltaire ..."
"... Hint: If you criticize them, you're called an anti-Semite. And they're not even Semites. ..."
"... Insouciant is merely Paul Craig Roberts way of registering his extreme disgust, being a gentlemen, unlike me, he doesn't use other, more crude adjectives .. ..."
"... What we are witnessing is calculated, but is driven by desperation.. Trump has resources now that he did not have as a candidate, and he is using them. Yes, it is taking longer than we hoped, but the progressives are doing everything possible to slow if not stop him. I seriously doubt any president has faced such resistance before. We still don't know the story behind Flynn. He surely knew his phones were tapped and is surely smart enough to know they would leak it. And, while he lost his title, he is still there with his team. ..."
"... No, because if he gets too close to anything important his family members start dropping dead. He knows this... he knew it before he ran. If he goes after the rothchild-backed cabal he gets dead. ..."
"... It's war and there is no going back. Trump has the will and the resources, so all we can do is support where possible....and hope. ..."
"... The public does know what is going on. Nobody is being fooled. The problem is that the press presents the narrative (often implicitly) that gives the impression PCR is conveying here. ..."
The question in the title is V.I. Lenin's question. His answer was to create a revolutionary "vanguard" to spread
revolutionary ideas among the workers, the economic class that Karl Marx had declared to be the class rising to the ascendency of
political power. Finally, democracy, frustrated by upper class interests in its earlier manifestations, would become reality. The
workers would rule.
Given the presence of evil and human failing, it did not work out in that way. But Lenin's question remains a valid one.
Americans whose economic life and prospects for their children have been destroyed by the offshoring of American manufacturing and
tradable professional skills jobs, such as software engineering, answered the question by electing Donald Trump.
The Americans, dispossessed by the offshoring corporations, elected Trump, because Trump was the only American running for a political
office who called attention to the problem and declared his intention to fix it.
By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit
from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists
describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade.
These offshoring firms not only have destroyed the economic prospects of millions of Americans, but also have destroyed the
payroll tax base of Social Security and Medicare, and the tax base of local and state governments, with the consequence that numerous
pension systems are on the verge of failure. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has just failed. This failure,
experts predict, is the beginning of a tsunami that will spread into municipal and state pension systems.
When you add up the external costs of jobs offshoring that are imposed on Americans, the costs far exceed the value of the profits
that flow to the One Percent. Clearly, this is an intolerable situation.
Dispossessed Americans rose up. They ignored the presstitute media, or perhaps were driven to support Trump by
the hostility of the media. Trump was elected by dispossessed America, by the working class.
The working class is out of favor with the elite liberal/progressive/left which abhors the working class as racist, misogynist,
homophobic, gun nuts who oppose transgendered toilet facilities. Thus, the working class, and their chosen representative,
Donald Trump, are under full assault by the presstitutes. "Trump Must Go" is their slogan.
And well he might. Trump, in a fit of stupidity, dismissed his National Security Advisor, Gen. Flynn, because Flynn did what he
should have done and spoke with the Russian ambassador in order to avoid a Russian response to Obama's provocation of expelling Russian
diplomats at Christmas.
Russians have been demonized and ascribed demonic powers. If you speak to a Russian, you fall under suspicion
and become a traitor to your country. This is the story according to the CIA, the Democratic Party, the military/security complex,
and the presstitute media.
Once Trump put Flynn's blood in the water, he set the situation for the sacrifice of other of his appointees, ending with himself.
At the present time, "the Russian connection" black mark is operating against Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. If Sessions
falls, Trump is next.
Let's be clear. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sessions met with the Russian ambassador, just as he met with
a number of other countries' ambassadors. There is nothing unusual or surprising about a US senator meeting with foreign diplomatic
representatives.
Those who accuse Sessions of lying are misrepresenting the facts. Sessions met with ambassadors in his capacity
as a US Senator, not in his capacity as a Trump representative. As a former US Senate staffer, I can attest that it is perfectly
normal for US Senators to meet with diplomats. John McCain and Lindsey Graham even fly to the Middle East to meet with terrorists.
Despite the facts, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and all the rest of the CIA's media whores are consciously and
intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Americans do not need any more evidence that the entirety of the American media is totally
devoid of integrity and respect for truth. The American media is a collection of whores who lie for a living. The presstitutes are
despicable, the scum of the earth.
The real question is how has contact with Russian government officials become criminalized, grounds for removing a National
Security Adviser, an Attorney General, and impeaching a President himself. President John F. Kennedy had ongoing contact with Khrushchev,
the head of the Soviet government, in order to resolve the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis without nuclear war. President Nixon had
ongoing contact with the Russians in order to achieve SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Carter had ongoing
contact with Russians in order to achieve SALT II. President Reagan worked with the Russian leader in order to end the Cold War.
I know. I was there.
But if President Trump wants to defuse the extremely dangerous tensions that the reckless Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes
have resurrected with a powerful thermo-nuclear state that only wants peace with the US, President Trump and any of his appointees
who spoke to a Russian are unfit for office! This madness is the position of the idiot liberal/progressive/left, the CIA,
the Democratic Party, the right-wing morons of the Republican Party such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and the two-bit whores
that comprise the Western media.
Dear reader, ask yourself, how did communications with Russians in the interest of peace and the reduction of tensions become
a criminal act? Have laws been passed that it is forbidden for US officials to speak with Russian officials? Are you so utterly stupid
that a presstitute media that has never in your entire life told you anything that was truthful can convince you that those who seek
to avoid a conflict between thermo-nuclear powers are "Russian agents"?
I have no doubt that the vast bulk of Western populations are insouciant. But if there is no intelligence and
awareness left anywhere in the population, and most certainly there is none whatsoever in the governments of the West or in the Western
media or the Identity Politics of the liberal/progressive/left, then don't expect to be alive much longer.
The entirety of the world has been put on the knife edge of existence by the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the neoconservative
pursuit of American world hegemony. The neoconservative ideology is perfect cover for the material interest of the military/security
Deep State that is driving the world to destruction.
Trump needs to tighten up. Get even tougher than he is now. Go out and do more speeches. Take the message STRAIGHT to the masses.........unfiltered.
LET the MSM "fake" that.
W Bush: "Dad, what's a neocon?" HW Bush: "You want names or description?" W: "Description." HW: "Israel."
The neocons are Israel-first fanatics. They did 9/11 and support all terrorist groups. And because Russia came to Syria's aid,
they're after Russia as well.
In Dr Strangelove, the mindblowingly stupid response of the characters played by the generals saying "attack Russia no matter
what they do" was portrayed as a joke, and the audience got it. Nobody could be that stupid, so it looked funny.
We are in desperately sick times when the attitude displayed by those comedically-stupid characters has become our official
policy and our propaganda.
Let's pray the American people are not yet completely stupid, and that there are still enough who see this insanity for the
immediate and extreme danger that it is.
The purpose of all of this "RussiaDidIt" bollocks has long been postulated as having the purpose of starting the Last War.
The question arises: "Who benefits?" (Ordinarily, no-one 'benefits' and only morons think that a 'benefit' could arise)
But, just for a moment, turn it on its head and ask the counter-question: "Who benefits the least ?"
Pretty obviously, the USA and the Russian Federation come out badly. Assume the impossible: that it doesn't spread out and
result in planetdeath.
Who just (quite coincidentally - of course) had its main rivals effectively eliminated? Quietly. Efficiently. Anonymously...
Who, currently quietly colonizing Africa for its resorce base, might now divert their attentions to the (much greater and closer)
resource base to their North, West and East, ostensibly in the name of "reconstruction?"
Naturally, it's just a coincidence that a large slice of Global Manufacturing has recently been transferred to that country
(recent decades)
So congrats are due to the DemoCrud skum who perpetrated this crime against humanity as the willing "useful idiots" of the
PuppetMasters. Burn in Hell you motherfukkerz.
The only way to "drain the swamp" is to eliminate the brainwashed masses who enable the warmongering globalist neocons. Without
the democratic partys' tens of million sheeple, the power hungry devils like Soros, the Clintons, McCain, Pelosi, Feinstein, and
the rest of the "perverted elite" would have no power.
Having considered this FACT, I have decided not to oppose their quest to start a global thermonuclear war with Russia. I saw
war up close and personal in Viet-Nam. I am 71 years old, so not much time remaining to waste in a political battle against the
snowflakes here in Californicate. I feel confident that I have a better chance of surviving than they do.
I have also decided to sit back, with my personal defenses in hand, and watch them experience, up close and personal for themselves,
the horrors of war like they are presently inflicting on the mid-eastern countries. The children of these despots, if they survive,
will finally witness proof that their parents are the cause of their misery.
Then, and only then, will the survivors be able to reconstruct toward a peaceful world.
1. free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.
I agree, we're way past that ... Robert's knows this , all too well ..
Insouciant is merely Paul Craig Roberts way of registering his extreme disgust, being a gentlemen, unlike me, he doesn't
use other, more crude adjectives ..
I cut him slack on his overuse of the word insouciant, because it would just seem so out of place substituting instead, "fucking
assholes," for every place it is prominently used in his writing.
I mean can you imagine?
No, I'm glad he's more refined than me. Makes for a more interesting and gentile world.
Hahaa Dr Strangelove. Strange movie, for even stranger times
"They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist
infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all
of our precious bodily fluids."
What we are witnessing is calculated, but is driven by desperation.. Trump has resources now that he did not have as a
candidate, and he is using them. Yes, it is taking longer than we hoped, but the progressives are doing everything possible to
slow if not stop him. I seriously doubt any president has faced such resistance before. We still don't know the story behind Flynn.
He surely knew his phones were tapped and is surely smart enough to know they would leak it. And, while he lost his title, he
is still there with his team.
Everything is obvious now and I think this is what Trump has been goading them into. Putting blood in the water to draw the
sharks to the surface. We will see.
i hope you're right. i keep wanting to think he's a clever fox but the acceleration of events is mind-boggling. the liberal
onslaught is from all directions and relentless. i pray he's able to withstand their attacks and counter with an epic T-Day rout--one
for the history books--that exposes and annihilates the seditious traitors in the world of public opinion, giving him political
capital to rid our nation of the unconstitutional Patriot Act and Big Brother's illegal 4th Amendment violations of illegal search
and seizure.
it's hard to keep the faith right now... i wanna believe he's got the wherewithall to pull this off. if i get weak and shout
for quick solutions, just downvote my stupid butt bigly.
No, because if he gets too close to anything important his family members start dropping dead. He knows this... he knew
it before he ran. If he goes after the rothchild-backed cabal he gets dead.
Give up guys... there's no winning this. The sooner we accept this the sooner we can maybe fucking DO something.
i think you are suggesting first touch/listen of utah spying. if true, step one. step 2 is to take down the main operatives
and bring them down with all the resources of the justice dept.
this is assuming that all parties stay in the confines of law...hmmm
Exactly, Trump needs to go on TV and speak plainly, layout the thesis as outlined in this article. Make sure the country knows
EXACTLY what is going on and what the stakes are. Most libtards don't have one fucking clue how they are being used by these sick
fucks. Get everything he knows and what he SUSPECTS, even with no direct evidence out into the general public. Time is running
short.
I don't twit. I don't even 'follow' a twit. I don't know how.
But I'm pretty sure this sort of message would take a hell of a lot more characters than, what is it, 140?
That means he would need some other means to deliver a complicated message that by-passes an inherently hostile media yet still
gets viewed by tens of millions.
Couldn't agree more. I fail to fathom how meeting with Russian diplomats constitutes any type of crime. That's what diplomats
do for God's sake. Wake up people before it's too late.
Ah, but everything PCR says is true. It's what he doesn't say that gives away the lie.
All of his articles demonize the west (and he's right). But he's deliberately not looking at the higher dynamics of this globalist,
central bank-led kabuki theater.
I think he's a 'gatekeeper' who's job is to point out the evils of the west and make the east look good in comparison, so that
when the 'reset' comes people will buy into the globalist one world currency that will be offered.
I've never seen him talk disparagingly about either China or Russia or the BRICS. Certainly he has mentioned the FED and the
IMF, but not the big one - the BIS - that I have seen. And until he does, he's just another Rothschild/Rockefeller plant to me.
he takes on the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, NATO, liberals, Ruling Establishment, Obama the War Criminal Butcherer of
Women and Children, Kissinger, pretty much everybody. i agree he's not a Russiaphobe, thankfully someone's got a balanced position.
anyway... we'll have to agree to disagree. i believe he's a patriot true blue... errr, red. nope. red, white and blue.
it's nothing to me and i'm not trying to defend him. i just think he's not what you suggest. professionals feel responsible
for their words and only write about what they know. we can all speculate about 9/11 but without launching our own investigation,
it's just "talk." and at PCR and Stockman's level, they refrain from flapping their lips to hear themselves speak, metaphorically.
> "He is a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy.
> He is a former editor at the Wall Street Journal.
> He was the "first occupant of the William E. Simon Chair for Economic Policy at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies [CSIS], then part of Georgetown University." It's worth noting that Georgetown is a Jesuit institution, and the Board
of Trustees of CSIS includes Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and representatives of Exxon Mobil, Boeing, Coca Cola, AIG,
GlaxoSmithKline, and Morgan Stanley (to name a few).
Looking at the high positions this guy has held in the Washington/Wall Street Establishment, ask yourself this: "Is PCR really
going against all of his lifelong associates or is he simply carrying water for them like he always has?" "
i consider myself open-minded and reviewed your link.
as far as the 3 bullet points the author suggests condemn PCR:
Austrian economics are largely followed by most conservative economists as opposed to Keynesian.
I would also argue the American govt pursues global hegemony, i.e., an American empire
Who among us would not believe there is widespread incompetence in DC? Would anyone use the term "competent" with Obama,
other than describing his knack for telling untruths and perhaps killing innocent Near East women and children?
He was former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Reagan
A strong critic of the Bush (and later
Obama ) administrations' handling of the
War on Terror , he has taken positions strongly at odds
with mainstream politicians: harshly criticising the ineffectiveness, severity and high rates of incarceration associated with
the War on Drugs , excessive police violence and use
of SWAT teams against civilians. He has criticised the
law and order politics and congressional
approval of increased government surveillance associated with the
War on Terror age, which he views as fundamental threats
to the civil liberties and Right to Privacy enshrined
in the US constitution, opening the way for an oligarchic
police state to be imposed upon the US population... --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts
sorry, i just don't see it. as far as his association with the WSJ and Georgetown Univ, that would pretty much be the aspirations
of most journalists. and lastly, here are the closing statements from his newsletter yesterday:
The voice here at this website, my voice, provides perspectives that permit escape from the Matrix, but it depends on your
support. As March is upon us, so is my quarterly request for your support. So far, we have both kept our word. You have supported
the site, and I have continued to ruin my reputation in Washington by writing explanations that are unpopular in the ruling circles.
but even more than that, i read his articles and take what i want and discard the rest. no one is mind controlling me. can't
be brainwashed. got to have a brain first. (;
"I have no doubt that the vast bulk of Western populations are insouciant. But if there is no intelligence and awareness left
anywhere in the population, and most certainly there is none whatsoever in the governments of the West or in the Western media
or the Identity Politics of the liberal/progressive/left, then don't expect to be alive much longer."
The public does know what is going on. Nobody is being fooled. The problem is that the press presents the narrative (often
implicitly) that gives the impression PCR is conveying here.
Stay Out Of Western Hemisphere! Bolton Warns Russia Over Troops In Venezuela
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/29/2019 - 18:25 162 SHARES
The White House has dramatically stepped up its rhetoric threatening action against Russia's
military presence in Venezuela after the Kremlin deployed a troop contingency to Caracas last
Saturday.
Trump's national security adviser John Bolton took tensions to a new level, on Friday
issuing a new Monroe doctrine of sorts, telling Moscow any attempt to establish or expand
military operations in the western hemisphere constitutes a "provocative" and "direct threat"
to international peace and security in the region. "We strongly caution actors external to the
Western Hemisphere against deploying military assets to Venezuela, or elsewhere in the
Hemisphere, with the intent of establishing or expanding military operations," Bolton said in
a statement .
"We will consider such provocative actions as a direct threat to international peace and
security in the region," he added. This follows the president's own warning on Wednesday that
"all options" are on the table regarding potential expanding Russian presence in Venezuela.
Two Russian aircraft carrying about 100 servicemen and 35 tons of cargo arrived in Caracas
last Saturday, led by Russian General Vasily Tonkoshkurov, identified as chief of the Main
Staff of the Ground Forces and First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of
Russia.
This prompted Trump's Wednesday warning to Russia against involvement in the Latin American
nation; he told reporters in
the Oval Office that :
" Russia has to get out."
Kremlin officials responded by explaining that it deployed military specialists merely to
service preexisting arms contracts with Venezuela, and that Russia is not interfering in the
Latin American country's internal affairs.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing on Thursday when asked how long the
Russian troop contingency led by a high ranking general will stay:
"How long? As long as they need to, and as long as the Venezuelan government needs them.
It all is being done based on bilateral agreements."
Russia's position is that it is not interfering in Venezuela's internal affairs by merely
cooperating on legal and existing service contracts, and that no other country should do so
either. It said that only "specialists" had entered Venezuela under a pre-existing agreed upon
military cooperation deal .
However, the White House isn't buying it, as Bolton's Friday statement further condemned
Maduro's "use of foreign military personnel in his attempt to remain in power, including the
introduction of Russian military personnel and equipment into Venezuela."
"Maduro will only use this military support to further repress the people of Venezuela;
perpetuate the economic crisis that has destroyed Venezuela's economy; and endanger regional
stability," Bolton
said .
All of this also comes as the Maduro government stripped US-backed opposition leader Juan
Guaido of his position in the National Assembly, further barring
him from holding public office for 15 years .
"... Even though Western Europe has lined up in opposition to any future conflict with Iran, even though Russia and China would rail against it, even though most Washington foreign policy experts would be horrified by the outbreak of such a war, it could happen. ..."
"... Despite growing Trump administration tensions with Venezuela and even with North Korea, Iran is the likeliest spot for Washington's next shooting war. Years of politically charged anti-Iranian vituperation might blow up in the faces of President Trump and his two most hawkish aides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, setting off a conflict with potentially catastrophic implications. ..."
"... With Bolton and Pompeo, both well-known Iranophobes, in the driver's seat, few restraints remain on President Trump when it comes to that country. ..."
"... On the roller coaster ride that is Donald Trump's foreign policy, it's hard to discern what's real and what isn't, what's rhetoric and what's not. When it comes to Iran, it's reasonable to assume that Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo aren't planning an updated version of the unilateral invasion of Iraq that President George W. Bush launched in the spring of 2003. ..."
"... Yet by openly calling for the toppling of the government in Tehran, by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement and reimposing onerous sanctions to cripple that country's economy, by encouraging Iranians to rise up in revolt, by overtly supporting various exile groups (and perhaps covertly even terrorists ), and by joining with Israel and Saudi Arabia in an informal anti-Iranian alliance , the three of them are clearly attempting to force the collapse of the Iranian regime, which just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. ..."
"... Until now, the Iranian leadership has avoided a direct response that would heighten the confrontation with Israel, just as it has avoided unleashing Hezbollah, a well-armed, battle-tested proxy force. That could, however, change if the hardliners in Iran decided to retaliate. Should this simmering conflict explode, does anyone doubt that President Trump would soon join the fray on Israel's side or that congressional Democrats would quickly succumb to the administration's calls to back the Jewish state? ..."
The Trump Administration Is Reckless Enough to Turn the Cold War With Iran Into a Hot
One
Here's the foreign policy question of questions in 2019: Are President Donald Trump, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all severely
weakened at home and with few allies abroad, reckless enough to set off a war with Iran? Could
military actions designed to be limited -- say, a heightening of the Israeli bombing of Iranian
forces inside Syria, or possible U.S. cross-border attacks from Iraq, or a clash between
American and Iranian naval ships in the Persian Gulf -- trigger a wider war?
Worryingly, the answers are: yes and yes. Even though Western Europe has lined up in
opposition to any future conflict with Iran, even though Russia and China would rail against
it, even though most Washington foreign policy experts would be horrified by the outbreak of
such a war, it could happen.
Despite growing Trump administration tensions with Venezuela and even with North Korea, Iran
is the likeliest spot for Washington's next shooting war. Years of politically charged
anti-Iranian vituperation might blow up in the faces of President Trump and his two most
hawkish aides, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton,
setting off a conflict with potentially catastrophic implications.
Such a war could quickly spread across much of the Middle East, not just to Saudi Arabia and
Israel, the region's two major anti-Iranian powers, but Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the
various Persian Gulf states. It might indeed be, as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
suggested last year (unconsciously echoing Iran's
former enemy, Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein) the "mother of all wars."
With Bolton and Pompeo, both well-known Iranophobes, in the driver's seat, few restraints
remain on President Trump when it comes to that country. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly,
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, President Trump's
former favorite generals who had urged caution, are
no longer around . And though the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution last month
calling for the United States to return to the nuclear agreement that President Obama signed,
there are still a significant number of congressional Democrats who believe that Iran is a
major threat to U.S. interests in the region.
During the Obama years, it was de rigueur for Democrats to support the president's
conclusion that Iran was a prime state sponsor of terrorism and should be treated accordingly.
And the congressional Democrats now leading the party on foreign policy -- Eliot Engel, who
currently chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Bob Menendez and Ben Cardin, the two
ranking Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- were opponents of the 2015
nuclear accord (though all three now claim to have
changed their minds ).
Deadly Flashpoints for a Future War
On the roller coaster ride that is Donald Trump's foreign policy, it's hard to discern
what's real and what isn't, what's rhetoric and what's not. When it comes to Iran, it's
reasonable to assume that Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo aren't planning an updated version of the
unilateral invasion of Iraq that President George W. Bush launched in the spring of 2003.
Yet by openly calling
for the toppling of the government in Tehran, by withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement
and reimposing onerous sanctions to cripple that country's economy, by
encouraging Iranians to rise up in revolt, by overtly supporting
various exile groups (and perhaps covertly even
terrorists ), and by joining with Israel and Saudi Arabia in an informal
anti-Iranian alliance , the three of them are clearly attempting to force the collapse of
the Iranian regime, which just celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic
revolution.
There are three potential flashpoints where limited skirmishes, were they to break out,
could quickly escalate into a major shooting war.
The first is in Syria and Lebanon. Iran is deeply involved in defending Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad (who only recently returned from a visit
to Tehran) and closely allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite political party with a potent
paramilitary arm. Weeks ago, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu openly boasted
that his country's air force had successfully taken out Iranian targets in Syria. In fact,
little noticed here, dozens of such strikes have taken place for more
than a year , with mounting Iranian casualties.
Until now, the Iranian leadership has avoided a direct response that would heighten the
confrontation with Israel, just as it has avoided unleashing Hezbollah, a well-armed,
battle-tested proxy force. That could, however, change if the hardliners in Iran decided to
retaliate. Should this simmering conflict explode, does anyone doubt that President Trump would
soon join the fray on Israel's side or that congressional Democrats would quickly succumb to
the administration's calls to back the Jewish state?
Next, consider Iraq as a possible flashpoint for conflict. In February, a blustery Trump
told
CBS's Face the Nation that he intends to keep U.S. forces in Iraq "because I want to be
looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is the real problem." His comments did not exactly go
over well
with the Iraqi political class, since many of that country's parties and militias are
backed by Iran.
Trump's declaration followed a Wall Street Journalreport
late last year that Bolton had asked the Pentagon -- over the opposition of
various generals and then-Secretary of Defense Mattis -- to prepare options for "retaliatory
strikes" against Iran. This roughly coincided with a couple of small rocket attacks
against Baghdad's fortified Green Zone and
the airport in Basra, Iraq's Persian Gulf port city, neither of which caused any
casualties.
Writing in Foreign Affairs , however, Pompeo blamed Iran for the attacks, which he
called "life-threatening," adding, "Iran did not stop these attacks, which were carried out by
proxies it has supported with funding, training, and weapons." No "retaliatory strikes" were
launched, but plans do undoubtedly now exist for them and it's not hard to imagine Bolton and
Pompeo persuading Trump to go ahead and use them -- with incalculable consequences.
"... When we mix this with the recent India-Pakistan scuffle, a wider message emerges. There was absolutely no interest by Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani intelligence, ISI, to launch an attack on India in Kashmir. Pakistan was about to run out of money and about to be bolstered by the U.S., via Saudi Arabia with $20 billion and an IMF loan. ..."
"... At the same time, there were two almost simultaneous terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan – against Iran and against India in mid-February. There's no smoking gun yet, but these attacks may have been manipulated by a foreign intelligence agency. ..."
"... Lavrov explained how Washington was engaged in acquiring mortars and portable air defense systems "in an East European country, and mov(ing) them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a regime that is rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space." ..."
"... That leaves Plan D – which is essentially to try to starve the Venezuelan population to death via viciously lethal additional sanctions. Sanctioned Syria and sanctioned Iran didn't collapse. Even boasting myriad comprador elites aggregated in the Lima group, exceptionalists may have to come to grips with the fact that deploying the Monroe doctrine essentially to contain China's influence in the young 21stcentury is no "cakewalk." ..."
A hefty case can be made that the Empire of Chaos currently has no allies; it's essentially
surrounded by an assortment of vassals, puppets and comprador 5thcolumnist elites professing varied
degrees of – sometimes reluctant – obedience.
The Trump administration's foreign policy
may be easily deconstructed as a crossover between The Sopranos and late-night comedy
– as
in the whole episode of designating State Department/CIA regime change, lab experiment Random Dude
as President of Venezuela. Legendary cultural critic Walter Benjamin would have called it
"the
aestheticization of politics,"
(turning politics into art), as he did about the Nazis, but this
time it's the Looney Tunes version.
To add to the conceptual confusion, despite countless "an offer you can't refuse" antics
unleashed by psychopaths of the John Bolton and Mike Pompeo variety, there's this startling
nugget
.
Former Iranian diplomat Amir Moussavi has revealed that Trump himself demanded to visit Tehran, and
was duly rebuffed. "Two European states, two Arab countries and one Southeast Asian state" were
mediating a series of messages relayed by Trump and his son-in-law Jared "of Arabia" Kushner,
according to Moussavi.
Is there a method to this madness?
An attempt at a Grand Narrative would go
something like this: ISIS/Daesh may have been sidelined – for now; they are not useful anymore, so
the U.S. must fight the larger "evil": Tehran. GWOT has been revived, and though Hamza bin Laden
has been designated the new Caliph, GWOT has shifted to Iran.
When we mix this with the recent India-Pakistan scuffle, a wider message emerges. There was
absolutely no interest by Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani
intelligence, ISI, to launch an attack on India in Kashmir. Pakistan was about to run out of money
and about to be bolstered by the U.S., via Saudi Arabia with $20 billion and an IMF loan.
At the same time, there were two almost simultaneous terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan –
against
Iran
and against India in mid-February. There's no smoking gun yet, but these attacks may have
been manipulated by a foreign intelligence agency. The Cui Bono riddle is which state would profit
immensely from a war between Pakistan and Iran and/or a war between Pakistan and India.
The bottom line:
hiding in the shadow of plausible deniability – according to which
what we understand as reality is nothing but pure perception – the Empire of Chaos will resort to
the chaos of no-holds-barred Hybrid War to avoid "losing" the Eurasian heartland.
Show Me How Many Hybrid Plans You Got
What applies to the heartland of course also applies to the backyard.
The case of Venezuela shows that the "all options on the table" scenario has been de
facto aborted by Russia,
outlined in an
astonishing
briefing
by Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and then
subsequently
detailed
by Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj at a
crucial RIC (part of BRICS) summit in China, Lavrov said, "Russia keeps a close eye on brazen US
attempts to create an artificial pretext for a military intervention in Venezuela The actual
implementation of these threats is pulling in military equipment and training [US] Special Forces."
Lavrov explained how Washington was engaged in acquiring mortars and portable air defense
systems "in an East European country, and mov(ing) them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a
regime that is rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space."
The U.S. attempt at regime change in Venezuela has been so far unsuccessful in several ways.
Plan A – a classic color revolution -has miserably failed,
in part because
of a lack of decent local intelligence.
Plan B was a soft version of humanitarian imperialism,
with a resuscitation
of the nefarious, Libya-tested
responsibility to protect (R2P)
; it also failed, especially
when the American tale that the Venezuelan government burnt humanitarian aid trucks at the
border with Colombia was a lie exposed, no less, than by
The New York Times.
Plan C was a classic Hybrid War technique: a
cyberattack
,
replete with a revival of
Nitro
Zeus
, which shut down 80 percent of Venezuela's electricity.
That plan had already been
exposed
by
WikiLeaks, via a 2010 memo by a U.S.-funded, Belgrade-based color revolution scam that helped
train self-proclaimed "President" Random Dude, when he was just known asJuan Guaidó. The leaked
memo said that attacking the Venezuelan power grid would be a "watershed event" that "would
likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever
hope to generate."
But even that was not enough.
That leaves Plan D – which is essentially to try to starve the Venezuelan population
to death
via viciously lethal additional sanctions. Sanctioned Syria and sanctioned
Iran didn't collapse. Even boasting myriad comprador elites aggregated in the Lima group,
exceptionalists may have to come to grips with the fact that deploying the
Monroe
doctrine
essentially to contain China's influence in the young 21stcentury is no "cakewalk."
Plan E -- for extreme -- would be U.S. military action, which Bolton won't take off the
table.
Show Me the Way to the Next War Game
So where do all these myriad weaponizations of chaos theory leave us? Nowhere, if they
don't follow the money.
Local comprador elites must be lavishly rewarded, otherwise you're
stuck in hybrid swamp territory. That was the case in Brazil – and that's why the most
sophisticated hybrid war case history so far has been a success.
In 2013, Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks revealed how the NSA was spying on Brazilian energy giant
Petrobras and the Dilma Rousseff government beginning in 2010. Afterwards, a complex, rolling
judicial-business-political-financial-media coup ended up reaching its two main objectives; in
2016, with the impeachment of Rousseff, and in 2018, with Lula thrown in jail.
Now comes arguably the juiciest piece of the puzzle. Petrobras was supposed to pay $853 million
to the U.S. Department of Justice for not going to trial for crimes it was being accused of in
America. But then a dodgy
deal
was struck
according to which the fine will be transferred to a Brazilian fund as long as Petrobras commits to
relay confidential information about its businesses to the United States government.
Mattis: Wrote on hybrid war in 2005.
Hybrid war against BRICS member Brazil worked like a charm, but trying it against nuclear
superpower Russia is a completely different ball game. U.S. analysts, in another case of culture
jamming, even accuse Russia itself of deploying hybrid war – a concept actually invented in the
U.S. within a counter-terrorism context; applied during the occupation of Iraq and later
metastasized across the color revolution spectrum; and featuring, among others, in an
article
co-authored
by former Pentagon head James "Mad Dog" Mattis in 2005 when he was a mere lieutenant general.
At a recent conference about Russia's military strategy, Chief of General Staff Gen.
Valery Gerasimov stressed that the Russian armed forces must increase both their "classic" and
"asymmetrical" potential.
In the U.S. this is interpreted as subversion/propaganda hybrid
war techniques as applied in Ukraine and in the largely debunked Russia-gate. Instead, Russian
strategists refer to these techniques as "complex approach" and "new generation war".
Santa Monica's RAND Corporation still sticks to good ol' hot war scenarios. They have been
holding "Red on Blue"
war
games
simulations since 1952 – modeling how the proverbial "existential threats" could use
asymmetric strategies. The latest
Red on Blue
was not exactly swell.
RAND analyst
David Ochmanek famously said that with Blue representing the current U.S. military potential and
Red representing Russia-China in a conventional war, "Blue gets its ass handed to it."
None of this will convince Empire of Chaos functionary Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently told a Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon will
continue to
refuse
a "no first use" nuclear strategy.
Aspiring Dr. Strangeloves actually believe the U.S. can start a nuclear war and get away with it.
Talk about the Age of Hybrid Stupidity going out with a bang.
Interesting information about Cuban lobby and Trump
Notable quotes:
"... George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America. ..."
"... The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation. ..."
Well now that most everyone knows Trump's ME policy on Iran is run by his Zionists.
We would be remiss in not mentioning the "other foreign lobby" .the Cuban exiles ..who are all very interested in Venezuela.
I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.
I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or paid
by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.
What triggered the escalation of US-Venezuela policy?
For two decades the US was powerless to alter the course of Venezuela's socialist rule. But, in recent weeks Trump has turned
the screws on the Maduro regime. So, what changed? How a casual meeting at Trump Tower and a photo op at the White House, dovetailed
with the evolving crisis inside Venezuela
Two days after taking office in January 2017 President Donald Trump surprised White House staff by asking for a briefing on
Venezuela. At the time, Fernando Cutz was on the National Security Council staff as the President's Director for South America.
"For whatever reason, and honestly I don't know what the reason was, but President Trump started on Day One, literally on Day
One, asking about Venezuela. So, it was a priority of his from the very start," Cutz told a forum at the Wilson Center, a Washington
think tank, after he left government last year.
Cutz didn't know, but the seed was planted a few days before Trump's inauguration during a casual meeting at Trump Tower in
New York. Trump had invited some South Florida friends to pay him a visit, among them Freddy Balsera, a Cuban American Democrat,
who represented the real estate mogul on several South Florida golf projects.
During the meeting, Trump asked Balsera for some advice on what South Floridians would like to see from his presidency, according
to witnesses. Balsera mentioned taking a tougher line on the Maduro regime in Venezuela, adding it would have bipartisan support
and could make for a good foreign policy victory
The president's son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner, was in the room and his ears picked up, the sources said. Balsera
told Trump and Kushner about Venezuela's most famous political prisoner: Leopoldo Lopez. And he had a suggestion: "You should
meet with his wife, Lilian Tintori," he said.
That's precisely what happened a few weeks later, courtesy of another Cuban American – a Republican this time – Senator Marco
Rubio
Rubio's influence has also grown since that White House visit with Lilian Tintori. Despite calling him 'Little Marco' during
the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has now taken to heaping President Donald Trump has lately taken to heaping praise on his
former presidential rival
"I do listen a lot to Senator Rubio on Venezuela, it's close to his heart," Trump told a small group of reporters representing
regional news outlets last month.
Rubio was also instrumental in bringing into the government some key Cuban Americans; Mauricio Claver-Carone at the NSC. Another
John Barsa, is awaiting confirmation to lead USAID's operations in Latin America. Claver-Carone is a longtime activist on Cuba
policy and staunch backer of the economic embargo against Havana's communist government]
Otto Reich, another conservative Cuban American and former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela says the Trump administration clearly
has Cuba in its sights.
"I think that what they are preparing in the government is first of all to use the fall of the Venezuelan dictatorship that has
financed so much violence and subversion in the hemisphere, to later bring about changes, transitions in Cuba and Nicaragua,"
White House to appoint Cuba hardliner to head Latin America policy Mauricio Claver-Carone, a vocal critic of the Obama administration's
engagement with Cuba, is taking over as the National Security Council's influential director for Latin America policy.
I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans.
Well, 'we' got a tax cut. And 'we' are going to have mandated vaccinations from companies exempt from liability. And 'we' will
get the joys of subsidizing the 5G rollout for total internet connectivity from the toilet to the grave. 'We' get total surveillance,
too, so there is that.
I challenge anyone to find anyone involved in our foreign policy that isn't ethnically connected to a foreign country or
paid by a foreign country's supporters. Hell if you look at their bios half of them weren't even born in the US.
But we're a nation of immigrants, so we celebrate all those hyphenated pseudo-Americans hijacking our country for foreign benefit.
Why, I think one of the reasons President Kushner wants immigrants in the largest numbers ever is to provide more boots for all
of our wars. Syria, Iran, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, reduxes on Iraq and Lebanon? Adventures in Africa? Wheel of fortune, who
hurts Ivanka's feelings first?
@chris Two-fer? I don't think so. Trump
will be a popular wartime president . The media has already changed its tone. No, Trump is completely housebroken, a useful
fool. He's good for more than one war, so will probably be re-elected. How many wars do you think we're good for before total
collapse?
President Trump is a complete and total whore for Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson.
Shelly Adelson is an ISRAEL FIRST Jew who wants to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle
East and West Asia.
Shelly Adelson wants to flood more mass legal immigration into the United States.
Shelly Adelson wants to give amnesty to upwards of 30 million illegal alien invaders in the USA.
Shelly Adelson demanded 4 things from Trump:
1) Adelson wanted the US military to attack and invade Iran.
2) Adelson wanted the US military to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran as a demonstration of resolve and power.
3) Adelson wanted the US embassy moved to Jerusalem.
4) Adelson wanted the Iran nuclear deal killed and buried.
Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and Trump has moved a satellite branch of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Trump and the
US military have refused to detonate a nuclear weapon in Iran. Trump and the US military have refused to attack and invade Iran.
If Trump continues on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals
and admirals with guts and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.
@Charles PewittIf Trump continues
on his whorish course and attempts to accede to all Adelson's demands, I hope there are enough generals and admirals with guts
and balls to tell Trump and Adelson to go to Hell.
Sorry but there is not one US general who will act against Israel – period.
@Talha If Jews want to live in Palestine
there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But they have to live as the locals do and without any special favors.
What is BS is the special favors the USA gives them. They even have the gall to say that our giving $5 billion in military
aid to them is a favor to us.
George W Bush and the ISRAEL FIRST Jews and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative faction in the Republican Party and the Israel
First faction in the Democrat Party led by Hillary Clinton all pushed for the Iraq War.
The Iraq War debacle was designed to advance the foreign policy interests of Israel. The Iraq War was never about advancing
the strategic foreign policy goals of the United States of America.
Trump went to a 2016 GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina and said the US military was dragged into the Iraq War
debacle by George W Bush on false claims.
Trump:
He added, forcefully: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction – there were none. And they knew there
were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction."
The Iraq War debacle might have been used to increase the power of Iran in the region, in order to use the fact of increased
Iranian influence -- caused by the Iraq War debacle -- to eventually attack and invade Iran. That might be overthinking the situation.
"... There are no agency in the USA, and no one powerful enough, to prosecute a flagrant deviation or to stop a completely fraudulent activity intentionally done in violation of the election promises made and facts presented within the pre election candidate prospectus. What the elected do is so different from what the candidates promise..that.. ? ..."
"... Those elected have not just broken the international law, they have eliminated it. International law and domestic law no longer exist ..."
"... Americans need the power to appoint their own prosecutors, cut the middle man USA out, take the power to appoint the prosecutor away from the USA, and take the power to appoint judges (Article 3) away from the USA, and give that power to the governed Americans, ain't nothing going to change but the candidate names. ..."
"... Without enforcement, prosecution, adjudication, and punishment there is no law capable to reach those who file a prospectus. just a long trail of broken promises and Palin type Caribou caucuses. ..."
Though I would agree that an SEC type full disclosure prospectus required of candidates could be useful. There are no agency
in the USA, and no one powerful enough, to prosecute a flagrant deviation or to stop a completely fraudulent activity intentionally
done in violation of the election promises made and facts presented within the pre election candidate prospectus. What the elected
do is so different from what the candidates promise..that.. ?
Those elected have not just broken the international law, they have eliminated it. International law and domestic law no
longer exist to those who are part of economic zionism (EZ); they use government to establish their monopolies not to prevent
them. Not only have the EZ eliminated International Law, they have given themselves, and each person they allow to be elected,
unlimited get out of jail free cards.
My question Captain Willard is: who would enforce the intentional misrepresentations, glaring omissions, hoax after hoax embedded
within the candidate prospectus you propose? Who who prosecute the lies? Who would prosecute the behaviors done contrary to the
promises made in the prospectus? Can't even get Trump to make public his Tax Returns and half the FBI can't publish an investigation
on el presidente.
Until governed Americans change the constitution to take the power to appoint the judges (article 3) and the Prosecutors that
can prosecute the EZ and the elected from the 450 Article I liars, and the 2 Article BoZoos nothing is going to change.
Americans need the power to appoint their own prosecutors, cut the middle man USA out, take the power to appoint the prosecutor
away from the USA, and take the power to appoint judges (Article 3) away from the USA, and give that power to the governed Americans,
ain't nothing going to change but the candidate names.
Without enforcement, prosecution, adjudication, and punishment there is no law capable to reach those who file a prospectus.
just a long trail of broken promises and Palin type Caribou caucuses.
"... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
"... "How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked. ..."
"... Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance. ..."
"... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." ..."
"... THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " ..."
"... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail? ..."
"... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
"... Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/ As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control. ..."
Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only
now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.
While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.
"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine.
"He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger
side."
Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed
he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the
comment curious.
"How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came
nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida
charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney
asked.
Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd
be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no,
that was probably Bill.
"The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..."
THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians
victims, for over 70 years... "
Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble
... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to
jail?
I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp
can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed,
etc.'
I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition
country - ASAP.
Saker is talking about this episode YouTube. Trump clearly
tries to exploit this episode to his advantage...
There is also such thing as Diplomacy... To say "members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish
groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)" (as if this is a new) you are clearly positioning herself against
the colleagues, not matter who they are. that complicates your position without any return on investment.
Notable quotes:
"... In fact, all Omar did was to say on Twitter that some members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Duh?! Is that really news to anybody? Even Trump himself mentioned that during this campaign. ..."
"... By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here: http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/ . This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together! ..."
"... But the Neocons have now "lowered" Trump to the status of "rooster" and he now is acting like a willing "combat rooster" for those who "lowered" him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of "rooster": one who willingly serves his own rapists. See for yourself: ..."
In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, one of the tricks used by the prison/camp administration to break a prisoner (be he political
or not) was to stick him into a cell with the so-called "roosters". In the slang of the Russian criminal underworld, the "roosters"
are the very lowest category of prisoners (in what is a rather complex hierarchy): "roosters" are either homosexuals, rapists, child
molesters or men who have been down-ranked ("lowered" in slang) to that status as a punishment for some kind of action which the
criminals consider reprehensible (like interacting with other "roosters", mistakenly sitting down next to one, not repaying a card-debt,
etc.).
I won't go into all the details here, but suffice to say that one thing which was well known in the Soviet jails/camps is that
somebody who has committed some kind of trespass can be "lowered" to the status of "rooster" and that the prison/camp administration
often uses these man as "combat roosters" – they send them to attack and even rape some prisoner who needs to be broken. And, needless
to say, after you have been raped by such "roosters" you yourself get that status for the rest of your life.
What Trump did in the case of Rep. Ilhan Omar is act like a "lowered combat rooster", sent to abuse somebody else on the behalf
of the prison/camp administration. Of all people, Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total
hogwash. This is just a verbal whip used by AIPAC/ADL/etc to beat up their opponents. In fact, all Omar did was to say on Twitter
that some members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Duh?! Is that really news to anybody? Even Trump himself mentioned that during this campaign.
By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here:
http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/
. This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!
But the Neocons have now "lowered" Trump to the status of "rooster" and he now is acting like a willing "combat rooster" for
those who "lowered" him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of "rooster": one who willingly serves
his own rapists. See for yourself:
jacques sheete, February 17, 2019 at 12:07 pm GMT • 100 Words
@der einzige
Thanks for that! Still the article was excellent just for this alone.:
But the Neocons have now "lowered" Trump to the status of "rooster" and he now is acting like a willing "combat rooster"
for those who "lowered" him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of "rooster"
The only beef I have with that statement is that no one did it to him and he obviously volunteered for the job right from the
start.
GOLAN HEIGHTS . Bingo! There goes the Western case on South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Karabakh, Transdnestr and, of course, Crimea.
(One yuuuge difference being, of course, that in the other
cases the locals were consulted.)
"... While Kim has not tested his missiles or nuclear warheads in a year, few believe he will ever surrender the weapons that secure his survival and brought the U.S. superpower to the negotiating table. ..."
"... Is Trump prepared to accept a deal that leaves a nuclear North but brings about a peace treaty, diplomatic relations and a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula? Or are American forces to be in Korea indefinitely? ..."
"... What is our vital interest in Yemen's civil war? Why would Trump not wish to extricate us from that moral and humanitarian disaster? Answer: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his regime would sustain a strategic defeat should the Houthis, supported by Iran, prevail. ..."
"... Before the Warsaw conference called by the U.S. to discuss the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu's office tweeted: "This is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran." ..."
"... The "war-with-Iran" tweet was swiftly deleted, replaced with a new tweet that spoke of "the common interest of combating Iran." Like many Americans with whom he is close, Bibi has never hidden his belief as to what we Americans must do to Iran. ..."
"... Today, the U.S. maintains a policy of containment of Russia and China, which are more united than they have been since the first days of the Cold War. We are responsible for defending 28 NATO nations in Europe, twice as many as during the Cold War, plus Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. ..."
"... We have troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and appear on the cusp of collisions with Venezuela and Iran. Yet we field armed forces a fraction of the size they were in the 1950s and 1960s and the Reagan era. ..."
In the Venezuelan crisis, said President Donald Trump in Florida, "All options are on the table." And if Venezuela's generals
persist in their refusal to break with Nicolas Maduro, they could "lose everything."
Another example of Yankee bluster and bluff? Or is Trump prepared to use military force to bring down Maduro and install Juan
Guaido, the president of the national assembly who has declared himself president of Venezuela? We will get an indication this weekend,
as a convoy of food and humanitarian aid tries to force its way into Venezuela from Colombia. Yet, even given the brutality of the
regime and the suffering of the people -- 1 in 10 have fled -- it is hard to see Trump sending the Marines to fight the Venezuelan
army in Venezuela.
Where would Trump get the authority for such a war? Still, the lead role that Trump has assumed in the crisis raises a question.
Does the reflexive interventionism -- America is "the indispensable nation!" -- that propelled us into the forever war of the Middle
East, retain its hold on the American mind?
Next week, Trump meets in Hanoi with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. While Kim has not tested his missiles or nuclear warheads
in a year, few believe he will ever surrender the weapons that secure his survival and brought the U.S. superpower to the negotiating
table.
Is Trump prepared to accept a deal that leaves a nuclear North but brings about a peace treaty, diplomatic relations and a
withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula? Or are American forces to be in Korea indefinitely?
Nancy Pelosi's House just voted to cut off U.S. support for the Saudi war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Senate may follow.
Yet Trump is prepared to use his first veto to kill that War Powers Resolution and retain the right to help the Saudi war effort.
What is our vital interest in Yemen's civil war? Why would Trump not wish to extricate us from that moral and humanitarian
disaster? Answer: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his regime would sustain a strategic defeat should the Houthis, supported
by Iran, prevail.
Before the Warsaw conference called by the U.S. to discuss the Middle East, Bibi Netanyahu's office tweeted: "This is an open
meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common
interest of war with Iran."
The "war-with-Iran" tweet was swiftly deleted, replaced with a new tweet that spoke of "the common interest of combating Iran."
Like many Americans with whom he is close, Bibi has never hidden his belief as to what we Americans must do to Iran.
Early this week came leaks that Trump officials have discovered that Shiite Iran has been secretly collaborating with the Sunni
terrorists of al-Qaida. This could, headlined The Washington Times, provide "the legal rationale for U.S. military strikes" on Iran.
At the Munich Security Conference, however, NATO allies Britain, France and Germany recommitted to the Iran nuclear treaty from
which Trump withdrew, and to improved economic relations with Tehran.
Trump pledged months ago to bring home the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria and half of the 14,000 in Afghanistan. But he is meeting
resistance in his own party in Congress and even in his own administration. Reasons: A U.S. pullout from Syria would abandon our
Kurdish allies to the Turks, who see them as terrorists, and would force the Kurds to cut a deal with Syria's Bashar Assad and Russia
for their security and survival. This week, Britain and France informed us that if we leave Syria, then they leave, too. As for pulling
out of Afghanistan, the probable result would be the fall of the Kabul government and return of the Taliban, who hold more territory
now than they have since being overthrown 18 years ago. For Afghans who cast their lot with the Americans, it would not go well.
U.S. relations with Russia, which Trump promised to improve, have chilled to Cold War status. The U.S. is pulling out of Ronald
Reagan's INF treaty, which bans land-based nuclear missiles of 300 to 3,000 mile range.
Putin has said that any reintroduction of land-based U.S. missiles to Europe would mean a new class of Russian missiles targeted
on Europe -- and on the United States.
Today, the U.S. maintains a policy of containment of Russia and China, which are more united than they have been since the
first days of the Cold War. We are responsible for defending 28 NATO nations in Europe, twice as many as during the Cold War, plus
Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.
We have troops in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and appear on the cusp of collisions with Venezuela and Iran. Yet we field
armed forces a fraction of the size they were in the 1950s and 1960s and the Reagan era.
And the U.S. national debt is now larger than the U.S. economy. This is imperial overstretch. It is unsustainable.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided
America Forever." Copyright 2019 Creators.com.
"... It gives a formal US stamp of approval to Israel's violation of international law, and, in particular of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. Roughly 20,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied Golan Heights today – now with the unambiguous backing of the US government. ..."
"... Jared Kusher's family is so close Netanyahu that the prime minister once slept in Kushner's childhood bedroom . Between the Trump administration's personnel and rightward lurch in Israeli politics, the pieces that would make the current one-state reality permanent are rapidly falling into place. ..."
No country in the world recognizes Israel's rule over the Golan Heights, occupied by
Israel in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981 – no country,
that is, until now.
Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation on Monday formally recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, still
considered Syrian territory under international law. Standing by President Trump's side during an address by the two heads of state
in Washington DC, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly called Trump's decision "
historic justice " and gifted the president a box of wine from the occupied territory. As they embraced, Israeli forces began
an aerial bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip after rockets launched from Gaza hit a house in a community north of Tel Aviv earlier
that day.
Trump's announcement is unmistakably an election-time favor for Netanyahu. Saddled with multiple corruption charges, including
one for bribery, Netanyahu and his Likud party have been flagging in the polls. Likud increasingly appears threatened by the center-right
Blue and White party, jointly headed by the taciturn retired general Benny Gantz and former TV personality Yair Lapid. Netanyahu's
desperation can be measured by the extremity of his rhetoric. He and his surrogates have spent the past several weeks waging a hateful,
vicious campaign, accusing the Arab political parties of supporting terrorism and explicitly warning that a Gantz and Lapid victory
would lead to dead Israelis.
Many in Israel, however, view Netanyahu, despite his flaws, as a talented statesman and skilled advocate for the country's interests
on the international stage, and Netanyahu has campaigned on achievements such as normalizing relations with the Gulf states and the
US embassy's move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Golan Heights declaration – which initially took even the secretary of state, Mike
Pompeo, who was in Israel at the time, by surprise – is likely meant to bolster this image.
Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights marks the total capture of US policymaking in the Middle East by pro-Israel right
But Trump's Golan Heights proclamation is not just a cynical political gambit. It is a dramatic change in US policy in the Middle
East that could have serious consequences. Trump, unlike his predecessors, has never even pretended to abide by international norms
and conventions. And yet the decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over territory that the international community nearly unanimously
considers occupied, or at the very least disputed, is unprecedented.
It gives a formal US stamp of approval to Israel's violation of international law, and, in particular of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilians into occupied territory. Roughly 20,000 Israeli settlers
live in the occupied Golan Heights today – now with the unambiguous backing of the US government.
This potentially paves the way for Israel's annexation, in part or whole, of the West Bank. It has long been a talking
point on the Israeli hard right that, despite the international community's protestations, there would be few consequences for extending
Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank . Trump's declaration,
it seems, has not only proven them right, but given them an added boost: unlike during the Obama years, they can be confident that
the global hegemon will take their side.
If Netanyahu's Likud wins enough seats on 9 April to form a government, it is very like that annexation, at the very least, will
be on the table for discussion. The Likud's central committee unanimously voted in 2017 in favor of annexing the West Bank. Naftali
Bennett, co-chair of the New Right party, has proposed a plan to annex parts of Area C of the West Bank. And the other rightwing
parties – the extremist Union of Parties of the Right and Moshe Feiglin's Identity party, both of which would almost certainly sit
in a future Likud government – have only more extreme proposals for dealing with "the Palestinian question", including the forced
transfer of Palestinians out of the West Bank and into Jordan.
Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights marks the total capture of US policymaking in the Middle East by pro-Israel right. US
ambassador to Israel David Friedman is an opponent of the two-state solution who previously operated the charitable arm of
a rightwing orthodox religious seminary in the West Bank settlement of Beit El. Jared Kusher's family is so close Netanyahu
that the prime minister once slept
in Kushner's childhood bedroom . Between the Trump administration's personnel and rightward lurch in Israeli politics, the pieces
that would make the current one-state reality permanent are rapidly falling into place.
It is important to remember this in light of the glitz and pablum of the AIPAC policy conference taking place this week in Washington
DC, where the PR hacks and policy flacks are working hard to launder Israel's image, to obscure the fact that there is one sovereign
state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that determines the lives of roughly 13 million people; that of those 13
million, only half – Israeli Jews – have full citizenship and social rights; and that the other half, the Palestinians, live under
a range of discriminatory systems, from codified discrimination but legal citizenship within Israel, to residency without the right
to vote in East Jerusalem, to military dictatorship in the West Bank.
Donald Trump , his administration, the pro-Israel lobby,
and Netanyahu all intend to keep it that way.
Joshua Leifer is an associate editor at Dissent. Previously, he worked at +972 Magazine and was based in Jerusalem
AFP news agency
Verified account @AFP
2h2 hours ago
#UPDATE Saudi Arabia has rejected US President Donald Trump's recognition of Syria's Golan
Heights as Israeli territory, condemning it as a violation of international law http://u.afp.com/JqPV #GolanHeights
"US President Ronald Reagan on Israel's decision to annex the 🇸🇾 Syrian
Golan Heights 🇸🇾 in 1981:
"'We do deplore this unilateral action by Israel, which has increased the difficulty of
seeking peace in the Middle East under the terms of the U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338.'"
His attitude made UNSCR 497 possible. Trump's move shows he's anti-Reagan, which is a
point his opponents could use if they weren't pro-Zionist like Trump.
This rocket attack was a gift to Bibi, not a constraint in any manner. The one thing that
could save that pathetic waste of oxygen is another war in Gaza. Taken together with the
upcoming election, it's even harder to see how Hamas could possibly benefit from the
situation. Therefore my money would be on a splinter group in Gaza aiming to erode popular
support for Hamas, or a false flag by Netanyahoo and cohorts.
Israel now has the pretext the media desires to whitewash its crimes and the Israelis will
once again be picnicking along the Palestinian border in Gaza cheering the destruction.
I can only agree with Gideon Levy quoted @51 as the explanation for the Israeli madness:
they have thoroughly brainwashed themselves. Bibi isn't the cause for the racism, he is a
symptom. There will be no one stepping forward from that populace who would even poke at the
status quo. Change will only be imposed from the outside. Much like in the US where the
'progressives' (maximum snark) have deluded themselves into thinking Trump is the problem.
Trump is the symptom, not the cause. We ourselves, both the left and the right, are the
problem.
The recent missile attack was denied by Hamas and claimed by what was a new unknown group
whose name I can't recall. Interesting that in the very limiting confines of Gaza there could
arise a group armed with missiles unknown to Hamas. That led me to think in terms of Zionist
provocation to help criminal Bibi.
Nutty clearly reached a dead-end policy-wise long ago and has done nothing to solve
Palestine's fundamental problem of the presence of so many Zionists. Trump hasn't helped
Zionistan with his illegal declaration of Golan belonging to it as it only ensures Syria will
eventually regain it in what will be a ruinous war.
Nobody has mentioned the presence of an enlightened Zionist leader (is there such a
thing?) amongst the candidates. But if there is one, s/he needs to be elected as at some
future point Israel will be replaced by Palestine.
April-May-June sure looking like some very interesting months geopolitically.
Israel/Gaza
Ukraine
Brexit/UK - bye-bye May?
EU Elections - bye-bye Merkel?
Indonesia Elections
India Elections
South Africa Elections
Australia Elections
That's 25% of the G20 right there potentially changing leaders.
"But whoever wins the election will have an interest in a fundamental change of the
situation. A new leader in Tel Aviv might have ideas on how to do that."
Gideon Levy, in a recent article in Haaretz, dispels any notion that fundamental change is
even possible in Israel.
"Simply put, the people are the problem. Netanyahu has voters. There are those who vote
for his kind. There are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu. There are those who
despise blacks, detest foreigners, exploit the weak and look down their noses at the whole
world – and not because of Netanyahu. There are those who believe they are the chosen
people and therefore deserve everything.
There are those who think that after the Holocaust, they are permitted to do anything.
There are those who believe that Israel is tops in the world in every field, that
international law doesn't apply to it, and that no one can tell it what to do.
There are those who think Israelis are victims – always victims, the only victims
– and that the whole world is against us. There are those who are convinced that Israel
is allowed to do anything, simply because it can.
There are those who believe in the sword alone. There are those who champion aggression,
in the territories and on the roads, and who don't know any other language. There are
unprecedented levels of ignorance.
There's brainwashing to an extent unknown in a democracy. Is Netanyahu responsible for all of
this? Come on.
The problem is the atmosphere, the spirit of the times, the values and outlooks that
have become ingrained here during decades of Zionism.
...The apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure; it probably
won't even be dented. One of the most racist nations in the world cannot complain about its
prime minister's racism....That there is no ideological alternative has nothing to do with
Netanyahu."
One can only imagine the reaction stateside if this article appeared in a major American
publication. Politicians would be falling over themselves in a frenzy of outrage and the
jewish lobbies would be pounding the drumbeats of 'anti-semite'.
As per the above assessment, the 'single missile at long range near a fine hospital, with
seven "wounded" and none killed' seems like the most likely scenario.
So what would this accomplish? Well most people here have been saying that Benny will most
likely pull some sort of military escalation in the face of being tried for various things
and being called 'soft' on Palestinian "terrorists". In his position how can he not? With the
official nod from The Orange One re: the annexation of the Golan to ratchet up the tension,
maybe even some further escalation? A recently installed USAn base and a few pledge of
allegiance papers signed might be a good trip-wire in case thins heat up... As we have seen
seemingly disparate events are often planned to coincide at pivotal times. What might be some
others that are ready to be sprung? Is the Donbass line ready to burst as the temps warm? Are
there a few B-52s lumbering around the airspace? Maybe the regime change dream-team is
brewing up something nasty and new in Venezuela having exhausted the rather dated playbook?
Perhaps when the Brexit fiasco begins to boil over, there will be a chaotic chorus of events
unleashed to thrill us all...!!!
"Trump & his crew have made a mockery of both #AmericaFirst & #MAGA concepts by
putting the interests of a foreign country before those of the US. I just cant understand how
Americans put up w/ this shit. Zionists & Evangelicals support it but why do the rest
stay silent?"
My simple answer: Small minds dominated by BigLie Media.
Is he really that stupid? After Hillary Clinton email scandal ? Amazing ! Those people really feel that they are above the
law.
Notable quotes:
"... But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White House email account, Cummings wrote. ..."
"... Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account. ..."
President Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner used the encrypted
messaging service WhatsApp as well as his personal email account to conduct official business,
a top House Democrat charged Thursday.
The revelation came during a Dec. 19 meeting of the House Oversight and Reform Committee,
which released the information in a letter Thursday.
Chairman Elijah Cummings wrote to White House counsel Pat Cipollone to tell him that
Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had confirmed during the meeting that Kushner "continues to use"
WhatsApp to conduct White House business.
But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to
be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White
House email account, Cummings wrote.
Kushner, whom the president put in charge of finding peace in the Middle East, regularly
communicates with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman via WhatsApp, Politico reported.
It was unclear whether Kushner continued to use WhatsApp after the December meeting.
Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the
chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka
Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account.
"These communications raise questions about whether these officials complied with the
Presidential Records Act and whether the White House identified this personal email use during
its internal review and took steps to address it," Cummings wrote.
This is one of the best summaries of Chris christi book. Bravo !
It is important to understand that Flynn approached Russian at Kusher request with the goal to derail anti-Isreali resoluition in
the US.
So if Jared then initiated firing of Flynn then Jared is a really dangerous ruthless shark.
Notable quotes:
"... When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here," Bannon told him, according to the book. ..."
"... Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings -- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes. ..."
"... Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm" in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes. ..."
Chris Christie, in his new tell-all about working on Donald Trump's campaign, paints a scathing portrait of first son-in-law Jared
Kushner -- depicting him as a vengeful, underhanded dullard ill equipped to work in the White House.
In " Let Me Finish
," the former New Jersey governor accuses Kushner of orchestrating a "hit job" on him in revenge for Christie's prosecution of
Jared's dad, Charles Kushner, which resulted in him doing time in a federal pen.
"Steve Bannon made clear to me that one person and one person only was responsible for the faceless execution that Steve was now
attempting to carry out. Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that had occurred a decade ago," Christie writes in
the book, a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian.
In other revelations:
Christie writes about how Trump told him he was too fat and that he needed to slim down. "You gotta look better to be able
to win" in politics, Trump told him over dinner in 2005. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he also urged Christie to wear
longer ties -- like the president's -- because it would make him look thinner.
He trashes Trump's pick for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, saying that the arch-conservative former Alabama senator was
"not-ready-for-prime-time" and that his recusal from the special counsel's Russia probe led to its expansion. Christie himself
wanted the job, but he was blackballed by Kushner and Trump's daughter, Ivanka, according to the book.
Christie also slammed disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who faces sentencing for lying to the FBI about
his contacts with Russia, branding him "the Russian lackey and future federal felon."
Christie mocked the former Army general as "a train wreck from beginning to end a slow-motion car crash."
But most of his venom
is directed at Kushner,
who talked Trump out of naming Christie the head of his transition team, a position that ultimately went to Vice President Mike
Pence.
When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening
that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over
Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here,"
Bannon told him, according to the book.
Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 charges and served 14 months in a federal pen in Alabama. He also hired a hooker to
seduce his brother-in-law, recorded them doing the deed and sent a tape of the encounter to his sister -- an effort to force his
brother-in-law's silence about Kushner's crimes.
Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition
chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings
-- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes.
Kushner insisted the sex tape and blackmailing were a family matter and that his father should not have been prosecuted for it.
"This was a family matter, a matter to be handled by the family or by the rabbis," Christie writes.
Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn
would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm"
in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes.
Christie also claims that the Trump White House -- which other exposes have portrayed as beset by chaos and scandal -- would be
running like a Swiss watch if he had been in charge of the transition. Pence's transition team had a "thrown-together approach"
that resulted in bad hires for top posts "over and over again." Unlike other tomes by former White House staffers and journalists,
Christie takes it easy on the president, admitting only that he often speaks off the cuff, creating needless controversy.
"... The president's tweet does not signal any definitive action or official state recognition, but it does do much to boost Netanyahu's profile with possible voters. ..."
President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Thursday that he would recognize and support Israel's control
over the disputed Golan Heights territory on the border of Syria.
The decision immediately followed
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday, nearly a
year after Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the sole capital of Israel and announced that he would
move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv.
"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan
Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional
Stability!" Trump tweeted early Thursday afternoon.
Smoke from explosions rises during
fighting in the village of Jubata Al Khashab, held by Syrian rebel groups fighting to overthrow President
Bashar al-Assad, as seen from the Israeli side of the border fence between Syria and the Israeli-occupied
Golan Heights, on September 11, 2016.
REUTERS/Baz
Ratner
Netanyahu, a conservative leader who is currently facing the threat of indictment for bribery and three
counts of breach of trust, has a tough election coming up in early April. The president's announcement,
followed by a planned trip to the White House, will surely bolster the Israeli leader's chances of retaining
his seat.
In fact, in 2015, President Barack Obama refused to meet with Netanyahu close to his election date,
saying, "He needs to be far away enough from the election that it doesn't look like in some ways we're
meddling or putting our thumbs on the scale."
But President Trump has signaled that he doesn't mind putting his thumb on the scale for his political
ally, even when it involves the controversial and much-disputed Golan Heights territory.
"At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly
recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights," Netanyahu tweeted on Thursday. "Thank you President
Trump!"
The Golan Heights, a strategically situated 400-plus square mile area that overlooks Damascus, was first
captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Arab war. In 1973, Syria attempted to take the land back during
the Yom Kippur War and during a surprise attack, Egyptian and Syrian troops managed to kill 2,688 Israeli
soldiers. Israel, however, prevailed and retained control. They annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, but the
move was never officially recognized by the international community, including the United States. Syria and
Israel are still technically in a state of war over the land, but the area is now a demilitarized zone
occupied by U.N. observers.
The Golan Heights are an atypically fertile land in the desert that holds key water sources: About
one-third of Israel's water supply currently comes from Golan. The territory also provides Israel with a
high vantage point to monitor the Syrian military and ward off attacks.
There are currently about 30 Israeli settlements on the land, which are home to 20,000 citizens. Experts
estimate that there are likely about 20,000 Syrians living in Golan, as well. They are mostly part of the
Druze sect. The Druze, however, are typically at odds with the Syrian government.
There are also military concerns about Trump's move. Israel is currently in the middle of a precarious
situation with its neighbors: It has been striking Iranian targets in Syria and this latest development,
created by the Trump, could provoke Syria, Russia and Iran to further isolate and perhaps attack Israel,
complicating matters immensely.
The situation also hurts America's standing on Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. "It makes it
quite hard for the US to continue to contest Russia's annexation of Crimea under the principle that taking
territory by force is illegal," wrote Ilan Goldenberg, Middle East security director at the Center for a New
American Security, on Twitter. "We now have no leg to stand on and the Russians will use it."
The president's tweet does not signal any definitive action or official state recognition, but it does do
much to boost Netanyahu's profile with possible voters.
Related Stories
Russiagate is a story about greed and lust for power manifesting as treachery and corruption.
As a hoax it is notable for it's size and duration and damage done. But it is nothing at all
compared to 9/11. I am impressed by the sheer silliness of Russiagate and the tenacious
ignorance of those who still believe the corporate media.
President Trump reportedly ordered former Chief of Staff John Kelly to give son-in-law Jared
Kushner a top-secret security clearance, even though the decision was not supported by the
intelligence community.
Trump directed Kelly to give his senior adviser the security clearance early last year after
both Kushner and wife, Ivanka Trump, told the president to intervene in the process,
according to The Washington Post .
Kelly was apparently so concerned about the move, he documented Trump's request in a memo,
the paper said. Kushner finally received the clearance in May.
Both Ivanka and the president have said in the past that they did not interfere in the
security-clearance process.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Thursday
that his committee is already probing the process and is awaiting documents they had requested
from the White House.
A spokesman for Kushner's lawyer told the paper that in 2018, "White House and security
clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner's security clearance was handled in the regular
process with no pressure from anyone."
Is he really that stupid? After Hillary Clinton email scandal ? Amazing ! Those people really feel that they are above the
law.
Notable quotes:
"... But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White House email account, Cummings wrote. ..."
"... Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account. ..."
President Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner used the encrypted
messaging service WhatsApp as well as his personal email account to conduct official business,
a top House Democrat charged Thursday.
The revelation came during a Dec. 19 meeting of the House Oversight and Reform Committee,
which released the information in a letter Thursday.
Chairman Elijah Cummings wrote to White House counsel Pat Cipollone to tell him that
Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had confirmed during the meeting that Kushner "continues to use"
WhatsApp to conduct White House business.
But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to
be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White
House email account, Cummings wrote.
Kushner, whom the president put in charge of finding peace in the Middle East, regularly
communicates with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman via WhatsApp, Politico reported.
It was unclear whether Kushner continued to use WhatsApp after the December meeting.
Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the
chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka
Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account.
"These communications raise questions about whether these officials complied with the
Presidential Records Act and whether the White House identified this personal email use during
its internal review and took steps to address it," Cummings wrote.
Before Jared Kushner became a senior White House adviser, he was at the helm
of the New York Observer - where he would personally order the removal of content that was critical of his
associates.
According to a report by
Buzzfeed
, the president's son-in-law ordered a software developer at his newspaper to kill a handful of
stories that were unfavorable to his cronies.
One of the stories that he had removed from online was a seemingly benign
story from 2012 about
NBA
Commissioner Adam Silver purchasing a $6.75million apartment, however personal real estate purchases
are something privacy-conscious famous New Yorkers typically like to keep out of the press.
The NBA commissioner has since publicly praised his friend, Kushner, for
helping the NBA find space for a retail store.
Kushner also had a legal story about a 2010 settlement between a then-New York
attorney general Andrew Cuomo and real estate firm Vantage Properties wiped from the Observer site.
That suit alleged Vantage illegally forced tenants out of their apartments to
raise rents.
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'Nothing Sacred But the Truth': Before Jared Kushner went to work for the Trump
administration he was at the helm of the New York Observer after purchasing the publication in 2006 for
$10million. According to a report, Kushner used his power to have stories that were critical of his rich
friends wiped from the site
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Jared Kushner used his position as owner of the New York Observer to wipe stories
from the site that his upper-echelon associates would not want out. One of the vanished pieces was about
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's (pictured) purchasing a $6.7million apartment
Additionally Kushner ordered another 2010 article deleted about Vantage's top
executive Neil Rubler removed that apparently had him on a '10 worst landlords' list.
The Observer's articles often took aim at the city's upper-echelon but it
faltered under Kushner's leadership.
He stepped down from the helm of the publication to join the Trump
administration. The ownership of the Observer is currently in a family trust, with the Observer Media Group
saying he does not currently have a hand in editorial matters.
Austin Smith, the software employee who handled the eye-raising requests for
content to be deleted, told Buzzfeed: 'That Kushner, a newspaper owner of all people, would participate in
an administration that labels news media the enemy of the people, is an affront to the very notion of the
freedom of the press and an utter betrayal of those who worked hard and in good faith for him at the
Observer,'
Meanwhile Elizabeth Spiers who was the Editor-in-Chief at the time Kushner was
purging articles he found unfavorable, said she was not aware that he was doing so, and that he purposely
went behind her back to get the underhanded job done.
'If I had known about it, Jared and I would have had a big problem,' she
said.
'Jared's such a coward. Went directly to Austin because he knew I wouldn't do
it.' Spiers said adding that that Smith didn't have any choice in the matter but to delete the stories since
he was not an editorial employee.
Spiers took to Twitter Monday night with some choice words for Kushner.
'I found out a few months ago that while I was the editor in chief of the
Observer, Jared was instructing our third party tech provider to delete articles critical of his business
associates w/out my knowledge. I don't have enough choice expletives describe my feelings about that,' she
tweeted in response to the report published by Buzzfeed.
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Elizabeth Spiers pictured with Kushner at an Observer event in 2011 had choice
words for the president's son-in-law's under-handed deletion of articles to the favor of his wealthy
friends
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...
Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump made $83 million in 2017
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'But if you want to be the worst possible owner of a news operation,
vindictively and unethically erasing the work of your own your own (severely underpaid, hardworking)
journalists solely to lubricate the volume and frequency of your cocktail party invites is a good way to do
it,' Spiers added.
Kushner's under-the-table favors via his news publication did not end when
Spiers was out.
Instead, he continued wiping the pages clean for his friends in high places
under Aaron Gell as well.
Gell, Spiers' deputy editor and successor, said he also was unaware that
Kushner was deleting the work of his editorial staff as favors to his friends, as the president's son-in-law
was still using the tech team to remove the articles.
'When Jared announced I was out, he told me, ''I just needed someone I could
trust,'' Gell said to BuzzFeed News.
'The more I learn about how he wanted to run the paper, the more I've been
able to take that as a compliment.'
Kushner purchased the New York Observer in 2006 for $10million, with money he
made from real-estate investments. The money for those property investments was gifted to him by his
family.
Advertisement
Read more:
Observer Media has once again bounced its editor-in-chief -- the latest sign of turmoil at the New York publication with ties
to Jared Kushner, the real estate scion and senior adviser to President Trump.
Ben Robinson
, a former chief creative officer of Thrillist, was out on Friday after only 10 months as the editor-in-chief. Observer president
James Karklins said the EIC job is not being replaced and that instead there would be "continued executive direction."
Also gone in the Friday shakeup is deputy editor Adam Laukhuf.
The top edit job now falls to social media editor Mary von Aue, according to changes posted on the Observer website, which listed
her as editorial director.
Kushner, married to Ivanka Trump, said he was stepping away from involvement with the publication he bought in 2005 shortly after
becoming an unpaid senior adviser to President Trump in early 2017. At that time, he handed the Observer to a family trust and appointed
his brother-in-law Joseph Meyer as CEO.
Karklins did not mention the new role for von Aue in his statement to The Post.
"Ben Robinson is no longer with the organization and has stepped down as Editor-in-chief of Observer," he said. "At this time
the Observer is not replacing the Editor-in-chief position and will continue to execute our content strategy with our current editorial
team in place and continued executive direction."
Said one former staffer, "Working at the Observer, you get used to unpleasant surprises. And every setback -- especially the latest
one, which I fear may signal the death of the Observer -- is entirely the fault of upper management."
Observer names former Thrillist executive to top editor job The Observer Media Group finally tapped a new editor-in-chief,
naming...
The ex-staffer said that Robinson had hoped to rekindle some of the Observer's past glory when he joined on Feb. 14, 2018. He
had staffers read "The Kingdom of New York," a collection of classic Observer stories.
"Upper management treated Ben horribly and they should be ashamed of themselves though I know they're not," the ex-staffer added.
The publication, once a salmon-colored print weekly, in its glory days had been a must-read for the media and political chattering
classes following its founding by Arthur Carter. Graydon Carter had once been its editor-in-chief before landing at Vanity Fair.
Under EIC Peter Kaplan, its "Sex and the City" column by Candice Bushnell inspired the hit TV show that starred Sarah Jessica Parker.
The publication dropped New York from its title and abandoned its print edition in early 2017 in favor of chasing a national digital
audience.
Kushner reportedly paid $10 million to acquire the money-losing publication from Arthur Carter in 2005.
Said former executive editor Merin Curotto, "More than anything, I think it's really sad. When our last EIC Ken Kurson resigned,
the editorial team -- one that for nearly two years had weathered the Trump-Kushner turmoil -- was left essentially lost at sea.
It took nine months not only to find Ben Robinson, but to convince him the Observer really was an environment ripe for change."
"... "Mr. Kushner pled guilty, he admitted the crimes. So what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor?" Christie asked. "If a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, and videotapes it, and then sends the videotape to his sister in an attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?" ..."
"... Christie now writes that Jared Kushner retaliated after the 2016 election by having Stephen K. Bannon, then an executive for Trump's campaign, fire him. The White House and a spokesperson for Jared Kushner did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ..."
"... Jared is ethically deficient if he thinks his father's behavior was acceptable. ..."
"... Two crime families: a marriage made in "heaven".! ..."
Chris Christie rips Kushner's dad: 'One of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted' - The Washington Post
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie took several shots at White House senior adviser Jared Kushner in his new book "
Let Me Finish ," alleging that in an act of spite, Donald Trump's son-in-law coordinated his removal from the president's transition
team shortly after the 2016 election.
He claims Kushner was still "seething" from events that took place more than a decade prior -- when Christie, as a U.S. attorney,
prosecuted Kushner's father, Charles, for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions, sending the elder Kushner
to prison for 14 months.
The former governor did not mince words while discussing the case Tuesday:
"Mr. Kushner pled guilty, he admitted the crimes. So what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor?" Christie asked. "If a guy
hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, and videotapes it, and then sends the videotape to his sister in an attempt to intimidate
her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?"
He added, "It's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. attorney," Christie said during
a segment with PBS's "Firing Line With Margaret Hoover." "And I was a U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Margaret -- so we had some loathsome
and disgusting crime going on there!"
"It's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted...and I was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey."
@ChrisChristie talks about prosecuting Charles
Kushner for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering.
#FiringLineShowPBS pic.twitter.com/rBNn0j0bCY
-- Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow)
January 29, 2019
Charles Kushner, a wealthy and well-connected real estate developer, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 18 counts of filing false tax returns,
retaliating against witnesses and making illegal campaign contributions. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison and served 14.
Christie at the time wrote in a
news release that Kushner's
guilty plea was a "great victory for the people of New Jersey."
"No matter how rich and powerful any person may be, they will be held accountable for criminal conduct by this office," he wrote.
Christie now writes that Jared Kushner retaliated after the 2016 election by having Stephen K. Bannon, then an executive for
Trump's campaign, fire him. The White House and a spokesperson for Jared Kushner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that occurred a decade ago, was exacting a plot of revenge against me, a
hit job that made no sense at all for the man we had just helped elect," Christie wrote in "Let Me Finish." "And Steve Bannon, hot-shot,
big-balls campaign executive, was quietly acquiescing to it."
He continued, "What wimps, what cowards. And how disloyal to Donald Trump."
MollyNYC, 1 month ago (Edited)
So Charles Kushner (by way of suborning a witness) hires a hooker to destroy his own sister's marriage, humiliate her, and
cause what was probably profound emotional harm.
His own sister.
What does it say about Jared Kushner that after all those years, he still couldn't wrap his head around the idea that his father
-- not the federal attorney -- was the bad guy in this story?
Marilynn Gray-Raine, 1 month ago (Edited)
A SNAKE PIT, People !!! What slimy vipers, every one of them! Rotten, deeply flawed creatures in human guise! Mobsters! Soul-less
ignoranus's*. Beyond contempt. White collar crime "punishment" should be much harsher. 14 months in jail?! Really?
The cancerous
crimes these capitalist thugs commit against weaker individuals and the planet at large are IMMENSE , and the punishment should
fit the crime! I say they should all be sardined in a sewer cell with Bernie Madoff forever !
*"ignoranus" someone who is both
ignorant and an a**hole !
Wolfie Smith, 1 month ago (Edited)
tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions ... WTF!!!
Am I alone in seeing patterns in this White House, only the best people can attend the court of King Donald.
Aumale, 1 month ago
More proof that Trump and his ilk operate like mobsters.
UrbanLover, 1 month ago
Jared is ethically deficient if he thinks his father's behavior was acceptable.
This is one of the best summaries of Chris christi book. Bravo !
It is important to understand that Flynn approached Russian at Kusher request with the goal to derail anti-Isreali resoluition in
the US.
So if Jared then initiated firing of Flynn then Jared is a really dangerous ruthless shark.
Notable quotes:
"... When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here," Bannon told him, according to the book. ..."
"... Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings -- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes. ..."
"... Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm" in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes. ..."
Chris Christie, in his new tell-all about working on Donald Trump's campaign, paints a scathing portrait of first son-in-law Jared
Kushner -- depicting him as a vengeful, underhanded dullard ill equipped to work in the White House.
In " Let Me Finish
," the former New Jersey governor accuses Kushner of orchestrating a "hit job" on him in revenge for Christie's prosecution of
Jared's dad, Charles Kushner, which resulted in him doing time in a federal pen.
"Steve Bannon made clear to me that one person and one person only was responsible for the faceless execution that Steve was now
attempting to carry out. Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that had occurred a decade ago," Christie writes in
the book, a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian.
In other revelations:
Christie writes about how Trump told him he was too fat and that he needed to slim down. "You gotta look better to be able
to win" in politics, Trump told him over dinner in 2005. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he also urged Christie to wear
longer ties -- like the president's -- because it would make him look thinner.
He trashes Trump's pick for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, saying that the arch-conservative former Alabama senator was
"not-ready-for-prime-time" and that his recusal from the special counsel's Russia probe led to its expansion. Christie himself
wanted the job, but he was blackballed by Kushner and Trump's daughter, Ivanka, according to the book.
Christie also slammed disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who faces sentencing for lying to the FBI about
his contacts with Russia, branding him "the Russian lackey and future federal felon."
Christie mocked the former Army general as "a train wreck from beginning to end a slow-motion car crash."
But most of his venom
is directed at Kushner,
who talked Trump out of naming Christie the head of his transition team, a position that ultimately went to Vice President Mike
Pence.
When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening
that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over
Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here,"
Bannon told him, according to the book.
Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 charges and served 14 months in a federal pen in Alabama. He also hired a hooker to
seduce his brother-in-law, recorded them doing the deed and sent a tape of the encounter to his sister -- an effort to force his
brother-in-law's silence about Kushner's crimes.
Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition
chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings
-- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes.
Kushner insisted the sex tape and blackmailing were a family matter and that his father should not have been prosecuted for it.
"This was a family matter, a matter to be handled by the family or by the rabbis," Christie writes.
Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn
would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm"
in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes.
Christie also claims that the Trump White House -- which other exposes have portrayed as beset by chaos and scandal -- would be
running like a Swiss watch if he had been in charge of the transition. Pence's transition team had a "thrown-together approach"
that resulted in bad hires for top posts "over and over again." Unlike other tomes by former White House staffers and journalists,
Christie takes it easy on the president, admitting only that he often speaks off the cuff, creating needless controversy.
I
would like to express my gratitude to
Jared
Kushner
for reviving interest in my 2006 book,
The
Price of Admission
. I have never met or spoken with him, and it's rare in this life to find such a selfless benefactor. Of
course, I doubt he became Donald Trump's son-in-law and
consigliere
merely
to boost my lagging sales, but still, I'm thankful.
My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their underachieving children's way into elite
universities with massive, tax-deductible donations. It reported that New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner had
pledged $2.5m to
Harvard
University
not long before his son Jared was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school, which at the time accepted about
one of every nine applicants. (Nowadays, it only takes one out of 20.)
I also quoted administrators at Jared's high school, who described him as a less-than-stellar student and expressed dismay at
Harvard's decision.
"There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,'' a former
official at the Frisch school in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. "His GPA [grade point average] did not warrant it, his SAT scores
did not warrant it. We thought, for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It
was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they
did not.''
Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, said in an email on Thursday that "the allegation'' that Charles Kushner's gift
to Harvard was related to Jared's admission "is and always has been false". His parents, Charles and Seryl Kushner, "are
enormously generous and have donated over $100m to universities, hospitals and other charitable causes. Jared Kushner was an
excellent student in high school and graduated from Harvard with honours.'' (About 90% of Jared's 2003 class at Harvard also
graduated with honours.)
My Kushner discoveries were an offshoot of my research for a chapter on Harvard donors. Somebody had slipped me a document I had
long coveted: the membership list of Harvard's Committee on University Resources. The university wooed more than 400 of its
biggest givers and most promising prospects by putting them on this committee and inviting them to campus periodically to be
wined, dined and subjected to lectures by eminent professors.
My idea was to figure out how many children of these corporate titans, oil barons, money managers, lawyers, high-tech consultants
and old-money heirs had gone to Harvard. A disproportionate tally might suggest that the university eased its standards for the
offspring of wealthy backers.
I began working through the list, poring over Who's Who in America and Harvard class reunion reports for family information.
Charles and Seryl Kushner were both on the committee. I had never heard of them, but their joint presence struck me as a sign
that Harvard's fundraising machine held the couple in especially fond regard.
The clips showed that Charles Kushner's empire encompassed 25,000 New Jersey apartments, along with extensive office, industrial
and retail space and undeveloped land. Unlike most of his fellow committee members, though, Kushner was not a Harvard man. He had
graduated from New York University. This eliminated the sentimental tug of the alma mater as a reason for him to give to Harvard,
leaving another likely explanation: his children.
Sure enough, his sons Jared and Joshua had both enrolled there.
Charles Kushner differed from his peers on the committee in another way: he had a criminal record. Five years after Jared entered
Harvard, the elder Kushner pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax violations, illegal campaign donations and retaliating against a
witness. (As it happens, the prosecutor in the case was Chris Christie,
recently
ousted
as the head of Trump's transition team.)
Charles
Kushner had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law
, who was cooperating with federal authorities. Kushner then had a
videotape of the tryst sent to his sister. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison.
I completed my analysis, which justified my hunch. Of the 400-plus tycoons on Harvard's list – which included people who were
childless or too young to have college-age offspring – more than half had sent at least one child to the university.
I also decided that the Kushner-Harvard relationship deserved special attention. Although the university often heralded big gifts
in press releases or a bulletin called, in a classic example of fundraising wit, Re:sources, a search of these outlets came up
empty. Harvard didn't seem eager to be publicly associated with Charles Kushner.
While looking into Kushner's taxes, though, federal authorities had subpoenaed records of his charitable giving. I learned that
in 1998, when Jared was attending the Frisch school and starting to look at colleges, his father had pledged $2.5m to Harvard, to
be paid in annual instalments of $250,000. Charles Kushner also visited Neil Rudenstine, then Harvard president, and discussed
funding a scholarship programme for low- and middle-income students.
I phoned a Harvard official, with whom I was on friendly terms. First I asked whether the gift played any role in Jared's
admission. "You know we don't comment on individual applicants,'' he said. When I pressed further, he hung up. We haven't spoken
since.
At Harvard, Jared Kushner majored in government. Now the 35-year-old is poised to become the power behind the presidency. What he
plans to do, and in what direction he and his father-in-law will lead the country, are far more important than his high school
grades.
In a recent thought-provoking article
Gideon Levy, probably one of the last genuine Israeli voices for peace, claims that "It is
not Netanyahu who is responsible for Israeli 'racism, extreme nationalism, divisiveness,
incitement, hatred, anxiety and corruption.'" Behind Netanyahu, Levy says, there's a nation of
voters and other elected officials that aren't very different from their leader.
"Simply put, the people are the problem There are those who have hated Arabs long before
Netanyahu. There are those who despise blacks, detest foreigners, exploit the weak and look
down their noses at the whole world – and not because of Netanyahu. There are those who
believe they are the chosen people and therefore deserve everything."
Levy reaffirms the observation that I have been pushing for two decades. The problem with Israel is
not of a political
kind . The conflict with the Palestinians or the Arabs is not of a political nature as some
delusional characters within the Palestinian solidarity movement have been proclaiming for
years. Israel defines itself as the Jewish state. In order to grasp Israel, its politics, its
policies and the intrusive nature of its lobby, we must understand the nature of
Jewishness. We must learn to define the differences between Jews (the people), Judaism
(the religion) and Jewishness (the ideology). We have to understand how those terms are related
to each other and how they influence Israeli and Jewish politics globally.
Levy writes that "there are those who think that after the Holocaust, they are permitted to
do anything. There are those who believe that Israel is tops in the world in every field, that
international law doesn't apply to it, and that no one can tell it what to do. There are those
who think Israelis are victims – always victims, the only victims – and that the
whole world is against us. There are those who are convinced that Israel is allowed to do
anything, simply because it can."
In order to understand what Levy is referring to we must dig into the core of Jewish
identification and once and for all grasp the notion of Jewish choseness. Levy contends that
"racism and xenophobia are deeply entrenched here, far more deeply than any Netanyahu The
apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure; it probably won't even be
dented. One of the most racist nations in the world cannot complain about its prime minister's
racism." Netanyahu as such, is not the disease. He is a mere symptom.
ORDER IT NOW
The devastating news is that neither the Israeli 'Left' nor the Jewish so-called 'anti'
Zionist league are any less racist than their Zionist foes. The Israeli Left pushes for a 'two
state solution.' It crudely ignores the Palestinian cause i.e. the Right of Return. The Israeli
Left advocates segregation and ghettoization; not exactly the universal message of harmony one
would expect from 'leftists.' Disturbingly, the Diaspora Jewish 'anti' Zionist Left is even
more racially exclusive than the Israeli Right. As I have explored many times in the past,
Corbyn's 'favourite Jewish political group namely, Jewish Voice for Labour
(JVL) is a racially exclusive political cell. It wouldn't allow gentiles into its Jews-only
club. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is no better. It will happily take donations from Goyim but
will never allow those Goyim to become its board members.
Levy proclaims that "Netanyahu is the best thing to ever happen to Israeli politics –
you can dump everything on him." But in his most astute observation, which has been explored
before by Uri Avnery (may he rest in peace) and yours truly, Levy continues, "It would be great
if some local Nelson Mandela would arise, a brave leader with vision who would change the
country's basic values and lead a revolution. But no such person has been born here, and it's
doubtful he ever will be."
Levy points at the core of the Zionist failure. If early Zionism was a promise to civilise
the diaspora Jew by means of 'homecoming,' Israel happened to do the complete opposite. Not
much is left out of the Zionist promise to make the Jews 'people like all other people': as
Israel is about to perpetrate another colossal war crime in Gaza, we have to admit that we are
dealing with an institutionally racist and dangerous identity like no other.
Another good one Atzmon. I thinks it's hard for people to grasp outside of Israel the
connection you speak of between the religion, the people, and the ideology. Its underreported
for obvious reasons in the media, plus the control the Israel lobby and its donors the
Adelsons, Sabans, and Singers have in the US on what people hear about Israel and its
citizens. All you hear is it's a democracy among hostile states that hate it because of
freedom or democracy or whatever propaganda speak the mouth peace for Israel/Zionism media
uses. You never hear about Israel's and its citizens actions that cause it just the eternal
victim status they have been awarded.
Violent Islam is the Disease, Resistance Leaders are the Symptom
The author makes a good point. Netanyahu is not unique:
– Modi resists violent Islam in Kashmir.
– Jinping resists violent Islam in Xinjiang.
– Orban resists violent Islam in Hungary.
– Trump resists violent Islam in the U.S.
– Netanyhau resists violent Islam in Israel.
And, there are more cases not in the list above
Islam views all non-Muslims as infidels. Violent Islam wages Jihad until the infidels are
killed, converted, or willingly submit as Dhimmi slaves. Until Islam changes, Resistance
leaders will continue to protect their people. Perhaps the collapse of the Iranian government
and its funding of terrorism will open the door to that change.
______
Israel started as a far left venture where the people lived in true communist shared
estates know as Kibbutz. Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed the people into
a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive.
The upcoming election makes no difference in Israeli survival strategy. Netanyahu's only
serious competitor, Benny Gantz, openly states he will fight Iran's violent Islamic expansion
in Lebanon & Syria (Iranian Hezbollah) and in Gaza (Iranian Hamas).
First:
Yes, do let's differentiate between Jews, judaism and jewishness (lest anyone be accused of
criticizing "Jews the people," which is something only an anti-semite or a self-hating Jew
might do, isn't it?).
The Jews are the people, judaism is their deeply inculcated worldview and ethos, and
jewishness is their inherently logical behavior.
Or the Jews are the computer, judaism is its operating system and jewishness its
applications.
Or the Jews are the rice, while judaism and jewishness are the white on rice.
Second:
The zionism did NOT fail to deliver its promise to make the Jews "people like other people."
It is Atzmon who fails to understand that the Jews' definition of "people" ("nations") is
based on the very Jewish worldview of the model: irrationally hateful, brutal, greedy,
covetous, and ruthless "winners." I would say zionism succeeded remarkably well, but it had
eager students to start with.
Mr. Atzmon has painted himself in a corner on this otherwise tough editorial. But let's
give him some credit. Gilad's taken a hell of a lotta heat for his rough and penetrating
criticisms of the Zionist colony and its endless deceptions. And he (generally) pulls no
punches.
But when all is said and done, and all the hairs are split, and all the (overdue) debates
are finally finished (and we can somehow separate the 'racist' Jews from the good,
'humanitarian' Jews) we are nevertheless left with a core Jewish identity that puts God's
Chosen People forever and eternally above the rest of humanity. God says so!
Basically, the problem is that Jewishness and 'Jewish supremacism' are pretty much one and
the same.
@A123
"Israel started as a far left venture Seventy years of resisting violent Islam has changed
the people into a practical group that will do what is necessary to stay alive."
I wonder why the Palestinians employ violence ? Of course, the State of Israel was born out
of terrorism (King David hotel, multiple assassinations etc) & ethnic cleansing (ie Nakba
). And yes, the Palestinians were also violent.
As for Israel's "survival" -- that's been a none issue since the late 70's, at a minimum.
Israel with its 100's of nuclear weapons & it's US body guard has NO survival issues.
It's all the poor bastards around them who have survival problems : (Syria, Lebanon, Gaza,
Iran, Libya etc)
Typical brain dead Hasbara nonsense. Orban resists third world immigration, which I
support, the problem is about mass non white immigration not Islam. The ultimate problem is
the jew, it is they that push for mass immigration and miscegenation the most.
And the rest of this article just goes on and on about how evil , Israel, Israelis are ,
and as to how they are self-justified and unified in being so. And this is a Jew writing
this.
Wow. What is the world to do? Doesn't seem to be any other option or solution, except a
trip to Wannsee.
@A123
Dancing Isreaeli said to the cops:" We are not your problem . Arabs are "
This guy is shouting at China India Russia and at the God : Israel is not the problem Its
these Muslims.
Question is this : will these guys be allowed on the graves of the 911 victims strewn all
across the world- Germany Soviet Russia, Poland, American rust belt, WW1 and 2 British
cemeteries?
When did they say something that turned out to be true?
Having said that, the world would be a better place if they ended up destroying elite run
US UK . Yes they would cut the branch on which they are sitting . But they would jump the
ship just before taht happening
You know Albert Sasson whow as knighted , who married in Riothchilds family, whose grand
son / nephew or another Sasson – by name Amery gave us the Balfour in part . He was
thrown out of Iraq court for corruption He made it to Raj's India and planted the seed of
opium That soon ate up all the available fertile lands of north India . The opium made him
rich made India poor corrupted British Raj and led to Chinese deprivations rebellion and to
communism
@neutral
Regardless, Jews (definition as provided and all three facets) are the most coherent group
globally. They can muster the most coordination, the strongest drive, the detachment and
loyalty, add as needed,
Since everyone here on unz likes thinking in bursts, to the matter. That makes for
success. No reason to whine about for the loosing party, the WASP, traditional US elites. If
some other group has ambitions, it should acquire that type of quality identity.
Islam is a poor enemy, as Jews see them as target practice, so should other entities
maybe.
Western European descend Whites, and the ambition of enlightenment, (for one, all
individuals across ethnic and religious lines being equals), should stow their ambitions of
principle until they are in charge. That will require appropriating the same acerbic mindset
of the Jew, and not whine publicly about the teacher. White elites have sold out, they are
burdened by a commoner population that far exceeds any asset value. To disconnect their base,
also made them hostages of Jew elites.
From the point of view of the Euro-descend commoner, non-Jew, unpriviledged, as long as
they see themselves as genuine and belonging to the system, the US, and not the trash they
are treated as, as long as the non-Jewish middle classes continue their egocentric quest for
scraps, they deserve the Gaza they are converted into. No Jew should be blamed for pushing an
outsider into demise. The tactics are in the open for grabs, Whites (non-Latino, non-Jew)
have only themselves to blame for their demise.
"... On May 9, 2004, according to the court documents, Kushner got in touch with one of the private detectives and instructed him to mail the tape and still photos to his sister Esther, who opened the package and saw her husband having sex with the prostitute. If Charles Kushner's plan was to "gain leverage" over his sister, it didn't work. Esther and Schulder took the tape to law enforcement, and another count, retaliating against a cooperating witness, was added to the charges against Kushner. ..."
"... Charles Kushner was charged in July 2004. He had all the resources anyone would need to fight the charges, but instead chose to plead guilty. He was sentenced to two years in prison and served 14 months, at a facility in Alabama. His son Jared flew down to visit him every Sunday. ..."
"... Last November, Kushner told Forbes that, "Six months ago, Gov. Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together. The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing him out or his people." Maybe. Maybe, as Jared Kushner maintains, all the reports of "differences" between him and Christie are inaccurate. But if the case of Kushner's father, and his uncle, and his other uncle, and his aunt, and their business is any indication, putting aside differences is not the family way. ..."
Jared Kushner is thought to have been behind the purging of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from the presidential transition.
By all accounts, Jared Kushner, the husband of President Trump's favorite daughter, has become an extraordinarily powerful man
in the White House. To formally appoint Kushner a senior adviser, with a top security clearance, the president sought and received
a Justice Department opinion declaring the White House exempt from federal anti-nepotism laws. That meant Kushner could have an official
White House title to go along with his trusted-member-of-the-family influence. But Kushner wielded plenty of power before joining
the White House staff.
For one thing, he is thought to have been behind the purging of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from the presidential transition.
Of course, Christie, tainted by Bridgegate, had problems of his own. But opposition from Kushner is said to have blocked Christie
at key points during the campaign and transition. Kushner's ire reportedly targeted others, too, for their Christie connections.
After Christie was fired from heading the transition, two colleagues Christie had brought into the effort, Mike Rogers and Matthew
Freedman, were dumped as well. "Both were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner," the
New York Times reported on November
15. "Mr. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Mr. Rogers who had ties with Mr. Christie."
"As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Christie sent Mr. Kushner's father to jail," the Times noted. Many other sources have confirmed
the origin of Kushner's animus was Christie's prosecution of the elder Kushner. But most public mentions of the reason have been
as brief as the Times'. It turns out the story behind the story is much longer, and more complicated. And ugly. The short version
is: In 2004, Jared Kushner's father Charles, a real estate magnate in New Jersey and New York, pleaded guilty to a tax fraud scheme
in which he claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in phony deductions for office expenses at the partnerships he created to manage
the apartment buildings he owned. Kushner, a major donor to the Democratic Party, also pleaded guilty to fraudulently making hundreds
of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in the names of employees and associates who didn't know their names were being
used. Finally, Kushner pleaded guilty to retaliating against a cooperating witness in the case -- his sister. He did so by setting
a trap in which he hired a prostitute to lure his sister's husband into a sexual encounter in a New Jersey hotel, where the action
was secretly photographed and videotaped. Kushner sent the pictures and tape to his sister as revenge, apparently motivated by Kushner's
belief that she and her husband were helping U.S. Attorney Christie and his prosecutors. Another Kushner brother-in-law, his wife's
brother Richard Stadtmauer, was charged in the tax evasion scheme, and was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Beyond
that, the Kushner family also brought employees into the fraud, with three Kushner Companies workers charged in the matter. All pleaded
guilty.
Given the extent of the criminal behavior involved -- confirmed by guilty pleas and a conviction at trial -- it's hard to imagine
that one could examine the Kushner family case and conclude that the prosecutor was the bad guy. But in the Trump campaign and presidency,
Christie has apparently suffered for his role in bringing members of the Kushner family and their employees to justice. The criminal
case began as a family feud. (For a detailed look at the complicated and intense relations between the various Kushners, see this
Gabriel Sherman New York magazine article from 2009.) Some of
the problems seemed rooted in the lifelong competitiveness between Charles Kushner and his brother Murray. In the early 2000s, Murray
Kushner came to believe there was serious mismanagement going on in Kushner Companies. Murray sued Charles. The suit was settled
and sealed. But then, while the suit was still in arbitration, a Kushner Companies employee, accounting manager Robert Yontef, filed
a suit of his own against Charles. Yontef alleged that Charles used monies from various real estate properties (referred to as "the
entities" in the lawsuit) for activities that had nothing to do with the companies, like paying speaking fees to Benjamin Netanyahu
($100,000), Bill Clinton ($125,000), Paul Volcker ($50,000), and Terry Bradshaw. (Alas, the lawsuit gave no dollar figure for the
former quarterback's speaking appearance.)
Yontef also charged that Charles Kushner had made millions in campaign contributions through a fraudulent bundling scheme. "Initially,
contributions that Charles made through the entities were returned because there was a requirement that the names of partners be
given when a partnership makes a political contribution," the suit said. "As a result, Charles issued partnership checks for the
contribution and then attributed the contribution to particular partners. These partners, however, were not notified that certain
contributions had been made in their names until after the contributions were made, and in many instances were never notified that
other political contributions were being made by Charles with partnership funds in their names." In a declaration attached to the
suit, Yontef said that he had become increasingly upset by what he had seen at the Kushner Companies, and that he told Charles' sister
Esther and her husband William Schulder, who also worked for the company, what Charles was doing. According to Yontef, Esther introduced
Yontef to Murray Kushner, and Yontef also told him the story. "Over the next months, I would occasionally provide Murray with samples
of the documents which demonstrate these wrongdoings," Yontef said. The lawsuits did more than aggravate existing family antagonisms.
They also raised the suspicions of law enforcement and gave investigators a roadmap into what was going on inside Kushner Companies.
And indeed, in February 2003, the office of U.S. Attorney Christie began a grand jury investigation. In the months that followed,
the grand jury heard evidence of tax fraud, illegal political contributions, and more. An attachment to the criminal information
ultimately filed against Charles Kushner refers to Cooperating Witness 1 (CW1), Cooperating Witness 2 (CW2), and Cooperating Witness
3 (CW3). They are not named in the case, but a look at circumstances and other documents strongly suggests that CW1 was Esther, CW2
was her husband William Schulder, and CW3 was Yontef. The three of them, court papers noted, provided information and documents to
the FBI and prosecutors. The criminal information laid out an extensive scheme to use "the entities," that is, Kushner-created companies
that owned and managed individual Kushner properties, as vehicles for phony deductions. An entity known as Pheasant Hollow Associates
filed for $41,356 in "fraudulent office expenses" on Tax Day, 1999, the information said, and for $142,030 in such expenses on Tax
Day, 2000. Another entity, Quail Ridge Associates, filed for $119,000 in fake office expenses on Tax Day 2000 and $349,123 in 2001.
Still another entity, Westminster Management, filed for $112,250 in phony expenses on Tax Day 2001. In another count, the criminal
information says Charles Kushner, "without the knowledge or permission of certain partners," made federal campaign contributions
"in excess of $385,000" in the names of those unwitting partners. (Kushner was a major supporter of New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jim
McGreevey, who in 2002 appointed Kushner to the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. McGreevey wanted to make
Kushner chairman of the Port Authority, but backed down after accusations the appointment would have been a political payoff.) The
criminal information says Charles Kushner became aware of the grand jury investigation in March 2003, and that his sister Esther
was "providing information to investigating law enforcement." In the weeks and months that followed, authorities said, Kushner's
lawyers made "regular efforts" to convince investigators that CW1, CW2, and CW3 were "generally untrustworthy." The efforts were,
apparently, to no avail.
Then, in August 2003, according to court documents, Kushner "initiated a scheme" to "gain leverage" over Esther and William Schulder.
The idea was to "orchestrate the covert videotaped seduction" of Schulder and then hit Esther with video of her husband committing
adultery. Charles Kushner recruited two private investigators to do the work. In New York , Gabriel Sherman reported that
Kushner complained to one of the men that Schulder "has been f -- king around on my sister forever." Kushner paid the two men a total
of $25,000 to set the trap. The problem was, they didn't do it. According to court papers, the men spent weeks complaining that they
couldn't find a woman who would agree to have sex with Schulder on camera. "The scheme stalled," according to court papers. Things
went nowhere for about four months. Then, in November 2003, a frustrated Charles Kushner took matters into his own hands and "personally
recruited" a New York prostitute for the job. The two private investigators took a room in the Red Bull Inn in Bridgewater, New Jersey
and wired it for video. It took a couple of tries, but the Kushner-recruited prostitute found Schulder in a diner, introduced herself,
told him her car had broken down, and asked for a ride back to the hotel. When Schulder agreed, she invited him to her room. He declined,
but got her phone number.
The next day, he came back, and Charles Kushner got the video he wanted. After the sexual encounter, one of the private investigators
took the video to Kushner. "In a conference room with an associate present, defendant Charles Kushner viewed the videotape and expressed
satisfaction with it," the criminal information says.
Kushner was so pleased, the court papers say, that he wanted the two investigators to set the same trap for Robert Yontef. In
December, another woman was recruited, the hotel room was wired, the my-car-broke-down approach was made. But Yontef turned the woman
down twice. There was no sex, and no tape. According to the papers, Kushner didn't use the Schulder videotape until May 2004, when
he learned that some of his associates had been told they were targets of the grand jury investigation.
On May 9, 2004, according to the court documents, Kushner got in touch with one of the private detectives and instructed him
to mail the tape and still photos to his sister Esther, who opened the package and saw her husband having sex with the prostitute.
If Charles Kushner's plan was to "gain leverage" over his sister, it didn't work. Esther and Schulder took the tape to law enforcement,
and another count, retaliating against a cooperating witness, was added to the charges against Kushner.
Of course, the sex angle got the most coverage in the New Jersey and New York media. When the prostitute who had been with Schulder
cooperated with authorities, the New York Post ran a
story headlined, "Sex
Gal Now Helping Feds -- Hooker Turns On Kushner."
Charles Kushner was charged in July 2004. He had all the resources anyone would need to fight the charges, but instead chose
to plead guilty. He was sentenced to two years in prison and served 14 months, at a facility in Alabama. His son Jared flew down
to visit him every Sunday.
Brother-in-law Richard Stadtmauer went to trial in 2009 and was convicted and sentenced to three years. The others charged in
the case pleaded guilty and received lesser sentences. While it was all going on, Jared Kushner was a student at Harvard and, later,
studied for law and business degrees at New York University. He was not involved in the family's criminal activity. His father's
spectacular flameout meant that Jared, who conferred with Charles constantly on matters of business, had to take a much bigger role
in the family's business affairs.
Chris Christie, has paid a price for bringing a case in which every single defendant was guilty.
Who did Jared blame
for what had happened? Not his father. "Charlie and Jared blamed papers in general and more specifically the Newark Star-Ledger
for besmirching the family name," Gabriel Sherman wrote in 2009: And, the crimes notwithstanding, [Jared] sees his father as
a victim. "His siblings stole every piece of paper from his office, and they took it to the government," Jared maintained.
"Siblings
that he literally made wealthy for doing nothing. He gave them interests in the business for nothing. All he did was put the tape
together and send it. Was it the right thing to do? At the end of the day, it was a function of saying 'You're trying to make my
life miserable? Well, I'm doing the same.'"
Five years later, in a 2014
interview with the New York real estate publication The Real Deal, Jared called his father's treatment "obviously unjust" and
said the experience had soured him on an earlier ambition to become a prosecutor.
"If you're convicting murderers, it's one thing,"
Jared said. "It's often fairly clear. When you get into things like white-collar crime, there are often a lot of nuances. Seeing
my father's situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him."
Now the pursuer, the prosecutor-turned-governor-turned-Trump-supporter
Chris Christie, has paid a price for bringing a case in which every single defendant was guilty. Both Jared Kushner and Christie
deny there's a problem. "That stuff is ancient history,"
Christie
told ABC two weeks ago, on March 29.
Last November,
Kushner told Forbes that, "Six months ago, Gov. Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we
may have had in the past, and we worked very well together. The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't
talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing him out or his people." Maybe. Maybe, as Jared Kushner maintains,
all the reports of "differences" between him and Christie are inaccurate. But if the case of Kushner's father, and his uncle, and
his other uncle, and his aunt, and their business is any indication, putting aside differences is not the family way.
Byron York is the chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, a Fox News contributor and the author of The
Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.
This is probably the most comprehensive outline of the color revolution against Trump. Bravo, simply bravo !!!
Reads like Agatha Christi Murder on the Orient
Express ;-) Rosenstein role is completely revised from a popular narrative. Brennan role clarifies and detailed. Obama
personal role hinted. Victoria Nuland role and the role of the State Department in Russiagate is documented for the first
time, I think.
Notable quotes:
"... The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered. ..."
"... Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier. ..."
"... The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission. ..."
"... Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken. ..."
"... The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time. ..."
"... The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents? ..."
Spygate: The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] How America's most powerful agencies were weaponized against President
Donald Trump
Although the details remain complex, the structure underlying Spygate -- the creation of the false narrative that candidate Donald
Trump colluded with Russia, and the spying on his presidential campaign -- remains surprisingly simple:
CIA Director John Brennan, with some assistance from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, gathered foreign intelligence
and fed it throughout our domestic Intelligence Community.
The FBI became the handler of Brennan's intelligence and engaged in the more practical elements of surveillance.
The Department of Justice facilitated investigations by the FBI and legal maneuverings, while providing a crucial shield of
nondisclosure.
The Department of State became a mechanism of information dissemination and leaks.
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee provided funding, support, and media collusion.
Obama administration officials were complicit, and engaged in unmasking and intelligence gathering and dissemination.
The media was the most corrosive element in many respects. None of these events could have transpired without their willing
participation. Stories were pushed, facts were ignored, and narratives were promoted.
Let's start with a simple premise: The candidacy of Trump presented both an opportunity and a threat.
Initially not viewed with any real seriousness, Trump's campaign was seen as an opportunistic wedge in the election process. At
the same time, and particularly as the viability of his candidacy increased, Trump was seen as an existential threat to the established
political system.
The sudden legitimacy of Trump's candidacy was not welcomed by the U.S. political establishment. Here was a true political outsider
who held no traditional allegiances. He was brash and boastful, he ignored political correctness, he couldn't be bought, and he didn't
care what others thought of him -- he trusted himself.
Governing bodies in Britain and the European Union were also worried. Candidate Trump was openly challenging monetary policy,
regulations, and the power of special interests. He challenged Congress. He challenged the United Nations and the European Union.
He questioned everything.
Brennan played a crucial role in the creation of the Russia-collusion narrative and the spying on the Trump campaign. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty
Images)
Brennan became the point man in the operation to stop a potential Trump presidency. It remains unclear whether his role was self-appointed
or came from above. To embark on such a mission without direct presidential authority seems both a stretch of the imagination and
particularly foolhardy.
Brennan took unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates --
primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia.
Individuals in official positions in UK intelligence, such as Robert Hannigan -- head of the UK Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of the National Security Agency) -- partnered with former UK foreign intelligence members. Former MI6
head Sir Richard Dearlove
, former Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, and private UK intelligence firm
Hakluyt all played a role.
In the summer of 2016, Hannigan traveled to Washington to
meet with Brennan
regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. On Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration
-- Hannigan abruptly announced
his retirement. The Guardian openly
speculated that Hannigan's
resignation was directly related to the sharing of UK intelligence.
One method used to help establish evidence of collusion was the employment of "spy traps." Prominent among these were ones set
for Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. The intent was to provide or establish connections between the Trump
campaign and Russia. The content and context mattered little as long as a connection could be established that could then be publicized.
The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting was another such attempt.
Western intelligence assets were used to initiate and establish these connections, particularly in the cases of Papadopoulos and
Page.
Ultimately, Brennan formed an inter-agency task
force comprising an estimated six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry
into Trump and possible Russia connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency
(NSA) handled foreign and intelligence aspects.
Brennan's inter-agency task force is not to be confused with the July 2016 FBI counterintelligence investigation, which was formed
later at Brennan's urging.
During this time, Brennan also employed the use of
reverse targeting , which relates to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen.
This effort was uncovered and
made public by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in a March 2017
press conference :
"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the president-elect and his team were monitored and disseminated out in
intelligence-reporting channels. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent
foreign-intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.
"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying
to get to the bottom of it."
As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a
process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed
the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. Brennan repeatedly noted this during
a May 23, 2017, congressional testimony :
"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump
campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."
Brennan also admitted that his intelligence helped establish
the FBI investigation:
"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in
my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and
it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."
Once the FBI began its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, Brennan shifted his focus. Through a series of meetings
in August and September 2016, Brennan informed the congressional Gang of Eight regarding intelligence and information he had gathered.
Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately, calling into question whether each of the members received the same information.
Efforts to
block the release of the transcripts from each meeting remain ongoing.
This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump.
Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.
Although the FBI is technically part of the DOJ, it is best for the purposes of this article that the FBI and DOJ be viewed as
separate entities, each with its own related ties.
The FBI itself was comprised of various factions, with a particularly active element that has come to be known as the "insurance
policy group." It appears that this faction was led by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and comprised other notable names such as
FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and FBI general counsel James Baker.
The FBI established the counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russia collusion with the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016.
Comey initially refused to say whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between members of the Trump campaign and Russia.
He would continue to refuse to provide answers until March 20, 2017, when he disclosed the existence of the FBI investigation
during congressional testimony.
Comey also testified that he did not provide notification to the Gang of Eight until early March 2017 -- less than one month earlier.
This admission was in stark contrast to actions taken by Brennan, who had notified members of the Gang of Eight individually during
August and September 2016. It's likely that Brennan never informed Comey that he had briefed the Gang of Eight in 2016. Comey did
note that the DOJ "had been aware" of the investigation all along.
Comey opened the counterintelligence investigation into Trump on the urging of CIA Director John Brennan.
Following Comey's firing on May 9, 2017, the FBI's investigation was transferred to special counsel Robert Mueller. The
Mueller investigation remains ongoing.
The FBI's formal involvement with the
Steele dossier began on July 5, 2016,
when Mike Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the US Embassy in Rome, was dispatched to visit former MI6 spy Christopher
Steele in London. Gaeta would return from this meeting with a copy of Steele's first memo. This memo was given to Victoria Nuland
at the State Department, who passed it along to the FBI.
Gaeta, who also headed the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, had known Steele since at least 2010, when Steele had provided
assistance to the FBI's investigation into the
FIFA corruption
scandal .
Prior to the London meeting, Gaeta may also have met on a less formal basis with Steele
several weeks earlier.
"In June, Steele flew to Rome to brief the FBI contact with whom he had cooperated over FIFA," The Guardian reported. "His information
started to reach the bureau in Washington."
It's worth noting that there was no "dossier" until it was fully compiled in December 2016. There was only a sequence of documents
from Steele -- documents that were passed on individually -- as they were created. Therefore, from the FBI's legal perspective, they
didn't use the dossier. They used individual documents.
For the next month and a half, there appeared to be little contact between Steele and the FBI. However, the FBI's interest in
the dossier suddenly accelerated in late August 2016, when the bureau
asked Steele "for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify
his sources."
In September 2016, Steele traveled back to Rome to meet with the FBI's Eurasian squad once again. It's likely that the meeting
included several other FBI officials as well. According to a
House Intelligence Committee
minority memo , Steele's reporting reached the FBI counterintelligence team in mid-September 2016 -- the same time as Steele's
September trip to Rome.
The reason for the FBI's renewed interest had to do with an adviser to the Trump campaign -- Carter Page -- who had been in
contact with Stefan Halper, a CIA
and FBI source, since July 2016. Halper
arranged to meet with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a
Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page took a trip
to Moscow. Speakers at the symposium included Madeleine Albright, Vin Webber, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6.
Page was now the FBI's chosen target for a FISA warrant that would be obtained on Oct. 21, 2016. The Steele dossier would be the
primary evidence used in obtaining the FISA warrant, which would be renewed three separate times, including after Trump took office,
finally expiring in September 2017.
Former volunteer Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Nov. 2, 2017. The FBI obtained a retroactive FISA spy warrant
on Page.
After being in contact with Page for 14 months, Halper stopped contact exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. Page,
who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was never charged with any crime by the FBI. Efforts for the declassification of the
Page FISA application are currently ongoing through the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were two prominent members of the FBI's "insurance policy" group. Strzok, a senior FBI agent, was the
deputy assistant director of FBI's Counterintelligence Division. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, served as special counsel to FBI Deputy
Director Andrew McCabe.
Strzok was in charge of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government business. He helped
FBI Director James Comey draft the statement exonerating Clinton and was personally responsible for changing specific wording within
that statement that reduced Clinton's legal liability. Specifically, Strzok changed the words "grossly negligent," which could be
a criminal offense, to "extremely careless."
Strzok also personally led the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the alleged Trump–Russia collusion and signed the
documents that opened the investigation on July 31, 2016. He was one of the FBI agents who interviewed Trump's national security
adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Strzok met multiple times with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and received information from Steele at those
meetings.
Following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Strzok would join the team of special counsel Robert Mueller. Two months later,
he was removed from that team after the DOJ inspector general discovered a lengthy series of texts between Strzok and Page that contained
politically charged messages. Strzok would be fired from the FBI in August 2018.
Both Strzok and Page engaged in strategic
leaking to the press. Page did so at the direction of McCabe, who directly
authorized Page to share information with Wall Street
Journal reporter Devlin Barrett. That information was used in an Oct. 30, 2016, article headlined
"FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe ." Page leaked to Barrett thinking she had been granted legal and official authorization
to do so.
McCabe would later initially deny providing such
authorization to the Office of Inspector General. Page, when confronted with McCabe's denials, produced texts refuting his statement.
It was these texts that led to the inspector general uncovering the texts between Strzok and Page.
The two exchanged thousands of texts, some of them indicating surveillance activities, over a two-year period. Texts sent between
Aug. 21, 2015, and June 25, 2017, have been made
public . The series comes
to an end with a final text by Page telling Strzok, "Don't ever text me again."
On Aug. 8, 2016, Stzrok wrote that they would prevent candidate Trump from becoming president:
Page: "[Trump is] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"
Strzok: "No. No he won't. We'll stop it."
On Aug. 15, 2016, Strzok sent a text referring to an "insurance policy":
"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way [Trump] gets elected --
but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."
The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation,
led by McCabe, could continue unhindered.
Department of Justice
The Department of Justice, which comprises 60 agencies , was transformed
during the Obama years. The department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation.
However, a
series
of investigative articles by PJ Media published during Eric Holder's tenure as attorney general revealed an unsettling pattern
of ideological conformity among new hires at the DOJ: Only lawyers from the progressive left were hired. Not one single moderate
or conservative lawyer made the cut. This is significant as the DOJ enjoys significant latitude in determining who will be subject
to prosecution.
The DOJ's job in Spygate was to facilitate the legal side of surveillance while providing a protective layer of cover for all
those involved. The department became a repository of information and provided a protective wall between the investigative efforts
of the FBI and the legislative branch. Importantly, it also served as the firewall within the executive branch, serving as the insulating
barrier between the FBI and Obama officials. The department had become legendary for its stonewalling tactics with Congress.
DOJ Official Bruce Ohr on Aug. 28, 2018. Ohr passed on information from Christopher Steele to the FBI.
The DOJ, which was fully aware of the actions being taken by James Comey and the FBI, also became an active element acting against
members of the Trump campaign. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, along with Mary McCord, the head of the DOJ's National Security
Division, was actively
involved in efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn from his position as national security adviser to President Trump.
To this day, it remains unknown which individual was responsible for making public Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. Flynn
ultimately pleaded guilty to a process crime: lying to the FBI. There have been
questions raised in Congress regarding the possible alteration of FD-302s, the written notes of Flynn's FBI interviews. Special
counsel Robert Mueller has repeatedly deferred Flynn's sentencing hearing.
David Laufman, deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterintelligence at the DOJ's National Security Division, played
a key role in both the Clinton email server and Russia hacking investigations. Laufman is currently the attorney for Monica McLean,
the long-time friend of Christine Blasey Ford, who recently accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high
school. McLean was also
employed
by the FBI for 24 years.
Bruce Ohr was a significant DOJ official who played a
key role in Spygate. Ohr held
two important positions at the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task
Force. As associate deputy attorney general, Ohr was just four offices away from then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and he
reported directly to her. As director of the task force, he was in charge of a program described as "the centerpiece of the attorney
general's drug strategy."
Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known
since at
least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr,
an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working
for Fusion GPS sometime in
late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier.
According to testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok, he and Ohr met at least five times during 2016 and 2017. Strzok was working
directly with then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Additionally, Ohr met with the FBI at least
12 times between late November 2016 and May 2017 for a series of interviews. These meetings could have been used to
transmit information from Steele to the FBI. This came after the FBI had formally severed contact with Steele in late October
or early November 2016.
John Carlin is another notable figure with the DOJ. Carlin was an assistant attorney general and the head of the DOJ's National
Security Division until October 2016. His role will be discussed below in the section on FISA abuse.
The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance
policy" text message.
McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.
On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic
situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months
earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation
being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.
Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken
leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.
On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public
Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day. McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration
for the permanent position.
On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding
apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe"
by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations
Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."
At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate
fully known.
In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor
before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.
Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.
On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark
was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former
FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement
denying the accusations.
The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation
into the president." An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat
differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"
Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview
for the FBI director job. On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's
encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.
The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein
would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.
Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would
have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was
reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would
have retained control.
On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to
The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.
On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority"
that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the
new FBI director.
Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray
were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.
That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically
that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely
neutralized.
On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand
jury investigation.
State Department
The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer
of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally
facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for
FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership.
Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.
Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he
began to provide reports
informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State
Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of
the U.S.
response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.
Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau
sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018,
appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":
"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short
points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI
if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's
something for the FBI to investigate."
Steele also
met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy
for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the
following:
"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources
suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign
but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."
In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a
separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been
compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer
then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to
share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.
Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)
Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK,
reportedly funneled his conversation
with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation --
directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.
"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy
assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018,
article .
If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos
information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.
Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the
first memo written
by Steele on June 20, 2016:
"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many
years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet
been distributed abroad, including to Trump."
Clinton Campaign and the DNC
The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee both occupied a unique position. They had the most to gain but they
also had the most to lose. And they stood willing and ready to do whatever was necessary to win. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager,
Robby Mook, is credited with being the first to raise the specter of candidate Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.
The entire Clinton campaign willfully promoted the narrative of Russia–Trump collusion despite the uncomfortable fact that they
were the ones who had engaged the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele through their law firm Perkins Coie. Information
flowed from the campaign -- sometimes through Perkins Coie, other times through affiliates -- ultimately making its way into the
media and sometimes to the FBI. Information from the Clinton campaign may also have ended up in the Steele dossier.
Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in tandem with Jake Sullivan, the senior policy adviser
to the campaign,
took the lead in briefing the press on the Trump–Russia collusion story.
Another example of this behavior can be seen from an instance when Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann
leaked information from Steele and Fusion GPS to Franklin Foer of Slate magazine. This event is described in the House Intelligence
Committee's final report on
Russian active measures
, in footnote 43 on page 57. Foer then published the article
"Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? " on Oct. 31, 2016. The article concerns allegations regarding a server in the
Trump Tower.
The Slate article managed to attract the immediate attention of Clinton, who posted a
tweet on the same day the article was
published:
"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."
Attached to her tweet was a
statement from Sullivan:
"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert
server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.
"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization
felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."
These statements, which were later proven to be incorrect, are all the more disturbing with the hindsight knowledge that it was
a senior Clinton/DNC lawyer who helped plant the story. And given the prepared statement by Sullivan, the Clinton campaign knew this.
This type of behavior would be engaged in repeatedly -- damning leaks leading to media stories, followed by ready attacks from
the Clinton campaign.
Alexandra Chalupa is a Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee. Chalupa
met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia.
Chalupa began investigating
Manafort in 2014. In late 2015, Chalupa expanded her opposition research on Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia. In January
2016, Chalupa shared her information with a senior DNC official.
Chalupa's meetings with DNC and Ukrainian officials would continue. On April 26, 2016, investigative reporter Michael Isikoff
published a story
on Yahoo News about Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a DNC email leaked
by Wikileaks that Chalupa had been working with Isikoff
-- the same journalist Christopher Steele
leaked to
in September 2016. Manafort would later be indicted for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations that occurred during the Obama
administration.
Perkins Coie
International law firm Perkins Coie served as the legal arm for both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Ties to Perkins Coie extended
beyond the DNC into the Obama White House.
Bob Bauer, a partner at the law firm and founder of its political law practice, served as
White House counsel to President Barack Obama throughout 2010 and 2011. Bauer was also
general counsel to Obama's campaign organization, Obama for America, in 2008 and 2012.
Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann each played critical roles and were the ones who hired Fusion GPS and Steele.
Sussmann
personally handled the alleged hack of the DNC server. He also transmitted information, likely from Steele and Fusion GPS, to
James Baker, then-chief counsel at the FBI, and to several members of the press.
Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann. Sussmann transmitted information to FBI chief counsel James Baker and several
journalists. (Courtesy Perkins Coie)
According to a
letter
dated Oct. 24, 2017, written by Matthew Gehringer, general counsel at Perkins Coie, the firm was approached by Fusion GPS founder
Glenn Simpson in early March 2016 regarding the possibility of hiring Fusion GPS to continue opposition research into the Trump campaign.
Simpson's overtures were successful, and in April 2016, Perkins Coie
hired
Fusion GPS on behalf of the DNC.
Sometime in April or May 2016, Fusion GPS
hired Christopher Steele. During
this same period, Fusion also reportedly
hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Steele would complete his first memo on June 20, 2016,
and send it to Fusion via enciphered mail.
Perkins Coie appears to have also been acting as a conduit between the DNC and the FBI.
Documents suggest that Sussmann was feeding information to FBI general counsel James Baker and at least one journalist ahead
of the FBI's application for a FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.
The information provided by Sussmann may have been used by the FBI as "corroborating information."
Obama Administration
The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is
provided by
Section
2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's
data-sharing
order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance
simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.
Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't
sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.
The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between
agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.
An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017,
MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration
gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:
"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as
much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'
"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try
to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the
leaking."
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia Evelyn Farkas on May 6, 2014. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating
impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the
attorney general's office. According to congressional
testimony by Horowitz:
"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply
a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going
to give us that information."
These new restrictions were
put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a
letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015,
with a 58-page
memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including
intercepted communications and national security letters.
The New York Times recently
disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.
At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The
Intelligence Community assessment was released
internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national
security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email
documenting
the meeting.
The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they
gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey,
Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.
Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later
explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview
why:
"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."
Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The
significance of the meeting was material, as Comey
noted in
a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:
"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write
that the FBI has the material."
Clapper leaked information to CNN, after which he publicly condemned the leaks. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey
briefed Trump that
CNN reported
on the dossier. It was later
revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.
The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of
intelligence unmaskings
, the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha
Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.
The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser,
Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division,
led that effort
.
Executive Order 13762
President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ.
The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold
the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her
position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.
Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership.
The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.
Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips,
after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced
to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming
under intense scrutiny.
The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian
ambassador.
Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.
Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.
On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings
appear to have been unexpected.
Media
In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven
irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts
ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a
series of payments to several as-of-yet-
unnamed reporters .
The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In
September 2016 ,
he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according
to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.
In mid-October
2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother
Jones reporter David Corn.
Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the
unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the
intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical
pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.
On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article "
A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in
court documents
relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance
in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, "
FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA
warrant.
The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security
for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and
charged with one count of lying
to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment
alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.
Reporter Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.
It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application. According to the
indictment , Wolfe
exchanged 82 text messages with
Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call. The original Page FISA application is 83 pages
long, including one final signatory page.
In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions
for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.
Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original
unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly
stated that evidence within the FISA application
shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.
Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence
having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit
their complicity.
Foreign Intelligence
UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.
Britain's GCHQ was involved in
collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert
Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to
meet personally
with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.
Former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan in this file photo. Hannigan transmitted information regarding Donald Trump to John
Brennan in the summer of 2016. (Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images)
Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers.
In the following year, Hannigan
abruptly announced
his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.
As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted
after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant
Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly
so.
Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele
retains close ties with Dearlove.
Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to
work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at
the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter
Page to attend.
Dearlove knows Halper through their
mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is
an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence
and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and
retains close ties to UK intelligence services.
Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has
co-authored two books.
Downer, who
met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting
established through a chain
of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt
from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still
maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish
the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.
The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the
former
British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later
relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute,
to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017,
statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.
Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations
-- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can
we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.
In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that
the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.
Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified
documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest
idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?
Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release
appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.
Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele
Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion
was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against
Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
The company was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC–through law firm Perkins Coie–to produce the dossier on Trump.
Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he
and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele
maintains contact with British intelligence,
Sir Richard Dearlove
, and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.
Steele appears to have been
represented
by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from
texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:
"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important
concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort.
I will be with him next tuesday for a week."
Steele also appears to have
lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in
emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently
disclosed by the Washington Examiner:
"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool'
of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."
Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation
pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler,
who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower
meeting, at which she discussed the
Magnitsky Act .
Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson
met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.
A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government
agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside
contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.
Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.
Nellie Ohr, the wife of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS to work on the dossier on Trump.
Bruce and Nellie Ohr have
known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a
DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography
lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr
before and after the 2016 election.
Bruce Ohr had been in
contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later
actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions
between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s
-- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.
Spy Traps
In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps
were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos
and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has
ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.
Papadopoulos and Mifsud
both worked
at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around
November
2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly
joined
LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some
reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November
or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths
until March 14, 2016, in Italy.
Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and
Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and
Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days
in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.
Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but
was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.
Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed
as a
chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.
Papadopoulos was introduced
to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened
to
be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit
remains unknown.
The Papadopoulos–Downer
meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly
reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.
Foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign was approached by several individuals with ties to UK and U.S. intelligence
agencies. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point
mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the
lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told
The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging
to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."
Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was
responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.
Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017,
BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted
to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended
target of these failed FISAs.
Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael
Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.
Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.
After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter
Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized
with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct.
21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.
Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a
Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016
Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known
each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.
Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with
Page. Current information suggests there was only
one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named
in the Buryakov case.
Page, who
cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted
by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov
pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was
sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was
deported to Russia.
FBI informant Stefan Halper approached Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes
said in August that exculpatory evidence
on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence
likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.
If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application
to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.
Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.
FISA Abuse
Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for
uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page
unsealed FISA
court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:
"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.
"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.
"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."
The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:
"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar
disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."
The FISA Court
disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to
the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.
In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of
improper
contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he
directed the NSA's Office
of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."
On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors
working for the FBI.
Then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on May 23, 2017. Rogers uncovered widespread abuse of FISA data by the FBI. (Saul
Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed
2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was
part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016,
report by the Office
of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose
Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.
The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin
announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.
After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing
numerous "about query"
violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and
reported his findings
to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are
not "to" or "from" the target.
On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance
on Carter Page from the FISA Court.
At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.
On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally
informed
the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings
of his audit.
The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.
Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions
at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.
The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a
recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.
The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing
to present his findings to the FISA Court.
The Insurance Policy
Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of
wide speculation.
Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter
Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying
meaning of the text.
The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative.
It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's
leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation
into the Trump campaign.
The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.
The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the
foundation for the Russia narrative.
The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating
their Intelligence Community assessment.
This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in
its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.
Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win
the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.
Spygate
Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation's history. A sitting administration actively colluded with a political
campaign to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Government agencies were weaponized and a complicit media spread
intelligence community leaks as facts.
But a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and
our political agencies? Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger pattern
extending back decades?
The intensity, scale, and coordination suggest something greater than overzealous actions taken during a single election. They
represent a unified reaction of the establishment to a threat posed by a true outsider -- a reaction that has come to be known as
Spygate.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy. ..."
"... Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported. ..."
The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer
of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally
facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for
FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership.
Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.
Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he
began to provide reports
informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State
Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of
the U.S.
response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.
Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau
sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018,
appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":
"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short
points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI
if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's
something for the FBI to investigate."
Steele also
met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy
for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the
following:
"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources
suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign
but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."
In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a
separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been
compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer
then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to
share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.
Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)
Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK,
reportedly funneled his conversation
with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation --
directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.
"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy
assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018,
article .
If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos
information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.
Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the
first memo written
by Steele on June 20, 2016:
"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many
years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet
been distributed abroad, including to Trump."
"... "Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration," Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold." ..."
"... "Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic]," the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is." ..."
"... "Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you, and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence agencies and top administration officials. ..."
"... "Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time." ..."
"... Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance, allegedly disregarding the objections. ..."
Laurence Tribe, a professor
of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, slammed President Donald Trump's son-in-law of Jared Kushner in a tweet this weekend,
suggesting he would soon be "exposed" as a traitor.
Sharing a long Twitter thread by attorney and academic Seth Abramson, who is also a
columnist for Newsweek , Tribe on Saturday referred
to Kushner as "Smarmy, slimy, smiling."
Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, was appointed by the president as a senior White House adviser in January 2017.
"Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration,"
Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed
as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold."
Tribe is referring to the infamous General Benedict Arnold, an early hero of the American Revolution against the British, who
later switched sides and betrayed his young nation in 1779. "His name has since become synonymous with the word 'traitor,'"
according to History .
Abramson's thread , shared by Tribe,
laid out a case for why Kushner is allegedly the "greatest domestic danger to America."
The attorney and columnist made the claim after "many months" of research for a forthcoming book titled Proof of Conspiracy
. "Many former US government officials know for a fact that what I've just said is true," Abramson wrote in his first tweet in the
series.
"Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic],"
the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort
richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is."
"Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you,
and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to
the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence
agencies and top administration officials.
"Trump circumventing our intelligence community to give his son-in-law that access is the shibboleth that made the current danger
to America *possible* [sic]," Abramson warned.
"Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump
axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to
blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time."
Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive
top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to
a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance,
allegedly disregarding the objections.
Jim Boyle Kathy Rhodarmer The article said the details will be revealed soon, so I guess we'll all just have to wait for the investigation
to decide. Traitor is pretty strong accusation, but the massive Qatar loan, secretive relationship with MSB and intelligence agencies
concern with his security clearance are all big red flags. The oversight will continue...
Martin Wulfe Tribe is a highly respected constitutional lawyer,
but so far this article is a real disappointment and lacks any details. We'll just have to wait until the full article comes out
to see what actual evidence there is to back this up, if there is any.
Danny LaMaster Trump and Kushner are selling American
secrets for personal gain
Bud
Dailey Kushner is not and never will be a American patriot , and has no business in American government.
Kathy
Dreher The same is true of the Trump crime family.
Joan Nelson Jared is too cozy with our enemy, no, not
ally, Saudi Arabia.Setting up some opportunities for himself and his family after he leaves the WH. The scummy atmosphere in the
WH is reflective of the presence of incompetent family members who have no business there...
In Ber 2018 Kusher security clearance wasdongraded.
Notable quotes:
"... Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said. ..."
"... Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost ..."
" Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law
and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience,
according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter.
Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico,
the current and former officials said.
It is unclear if any of those countries acted on the discussions, but Kushner's contacts with certain foreign government officials
have raised concerns inside the White House and are a reason he has been unable to obtain a permanent security clearance, the officials
said.
Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the
regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost
------------------
Most people will probably be struck by the fall from grace of Kushner and other WH staff dilettantes. I am not terribly interested
in that. What strikes me is that this is the third major compromise of US SIGINT products in the last year. The first was the felonious
disclosure to the press of US intelligence penetration of Russian diplomatic communications. the second was the disclosure to the
press of penetration of GRU communications. In this one the oral or written discussions among the officials of several foreign countries
are revealed. These conversations were probably encrypted.
Is Jeff Sessions still alive? Why are there no prosecutions for these felonies? pl
"... Jared sold himself as the only man who could make a deal between Dems and the GOP. He pointed to "his" recent success with prison reform as proof of his bonafides. ..."
"... Of course, he blew it as usual. He told his side that Dems would vote for Trump's $5.7 billion "wall, or whatever you want to call it" -- and they didn't. He said the Dems would break ranks -- and they didn't. ..."
"... The Senate votes came, and the Trump proposal got FEWER votes than the Democratic proposal, which managed to get 6 GOP Senators to jump ship. Kushner had not only failed; he'd embarrassed the boss. ..."
"... Of course, it was Donald who appointed Jared, and gave him the reins on this critical project -- ignoring the fact that Pence had actually served in Congress, knew the players, and knew the game. Even after two years' worth of evidence that a political neophyte cannot solve all the nation's most intractable problems just because he sleeps with the boss's daughter, the First Con fell for a con man. ..."
Jared sold himself as the only man who could make a deal between Dems and the GOP. He pointed to "his" recent success with
prison reform as proof of his bonafides.
Of course, he blew it as usual. He told his side that Dems would vote for Trump's $5.7 billion "wall, or whatever you want
to call it" -- and they didn't. He said the Dems would break ranks -- and they didn't.
It appears that Kushner talked to a few junior Dems, who were too wet behind the ears to tell the president's son in law that
he needed to change his meds. He read their silence as meaning they were prepared to commit mutiny and, putting all his chips
on that bet, stopped talking to both Pelosi (where the real power lies) and Schumer.
Then he told everyone he'd cracked it.
The Senate votes came, and the Trump proposal got FEWER votes than the Democratic proposal, which managed to get 6 GOP
Senators to jump ship. Kushner had not only failed; he'd embarrassed the boss.
As others have said below, Trump always finds someone to blame for his mistakes. But in this case there were very good reasons
for pointing the finger at Kushner.
Of course, it was Donald who appointed Jared, and gave him the reins on this critical project -- ignoring the fact that
Pence had actually served in Congress, knew the players, and knew the game. Even after two years' worth of evidence that a political
neophyte cannot solve all the nation's most intractable problems just because he sleeps with the boss's daughter, the First
Con fell for a con man.
Bush II campaigned on "no nation building" mantra. He lied. Crump campaigned no foreign wars manta. He lied.
Notable quotes:
"... The 16th anniversary of the Iraq war last week was marked by a shortage of people defending the costliest foreign policy blunder of this young century, even in circles where support for that misadventure was once sacrosanct. ..."
"... Yet even as the folly and injustice of Iraq congeals into conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, famously resistant to rethinking bipartisan military interventions no matter how ill-advised, it is an open question whether anything has changed. Dick Cheney's protestations notwithstanding , the presidential wars largely continue unimpeded by the "America First" commander-in-chief. ..."
"... John Bolton seems to have more say about when American troops will leave Syria or Afghanistan than the president of the United States. Trump's second veto will almost certainly be of a bipartisan resolution rebuking -- and terminating -- U.S. support for the war in Yemen. We appear to be escalating in Somalia. Tensions are rising with Iran and Venezuela, with the administration trending toward a functionally neoconservative position on both despite major newspapers publishing pleas to retire that label . ..."
The 16th anniversary of the Iraq war last week was marked by a shortage of people defending the costliest foreign policy blunder
of this young century, even in circles where support for that misadventure was once sacrosanct.
Former George W. Bush mouthpiece Ari Fleischer supplied a
promptly ratioed
tweetstorm that quibbled with the "Bush
lied, people died" mantra concerning his old boss's handling of the intelligence on Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Never Trumper David French
gamely argued
that Saddam Hussein was a greater source of instability than the chaos brought about by the invasion, followed by Barack Obama's
withdrawal. In so doing, French reminded us that, however off-putting some conservatives find Donald Trump, the president's
criticism
of the war matters more to
many of those who devote their time to denouncing his every utterance.
Yet even as the folly and injustice of Iraq congeals into conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, famously resistant to rethinking
bipartisan military interventions no matter how ill-advised, it is an open question whether anything has changed. Dick Cheney's
protestations notwithstanding , the presidential wars largely continue unimpeded by the "America First" commander-in-chief.
John Bolton seems to have more say about when American troops will leave Syria or Afghanistan than the president of the United
States. Trump's second veto will almost certainly be of a bipartisan resolution rebuking -- and terminating -- U.S. support for the
war in Yemen. We appear to be escalating in Somalia. Tensions are rising with Iran and Venezuela, with the administration trending
toward a functionally neoconservative position on both despite major newspapers publishing pleas to
retire that label .
It is interesting to read how naive Thierry Meyssan was in 2018
Notable quotes:
"... Over the last 70 years, Israël has continually been stealing its neighbours' territory. It currently occupies the Syrian Golan, the farms of the Lebanese Shebaa, and a very large part of the Palestinian territories of 1967, including almost all of East Jerusalem. ..."
"... For Fatah, Israël is a second Rhodesia, a colonial State which pronounced itself independent. For Hamas, based on an interpretation of the Hadiths (not the Coran), the problem is that a Muslim land cannot be governed by non-Muslims. ..."
"... Equally, it is today extremely unjust, not to transfer the US embassy to West Jerusalem, but to give up on establishing the Palestinian government in East Jerusalem. Here again, the responsibility does not lie with Jared Kushner, but with the " international community ", and in particular with the Arab Sionist governments, who have allowed Israël, for the last 70 years, to eat up the city, apartment by apartment. ..."
"... So while, for 70 years, Western diplomats have contrived to multiply and complexify the conflicts in the Middle East, Jared Kushner is the first to have brought a resolution. The angel-faced Presidential advisor is a talented organiser. Thierry Meyssan ..."
Jared Kushner is a very secret personality about whom we know very little. At best, we know
he has a high regard for the Law, and was destined to become a prosecutor. However, when his
father was arrested and incarcerated for tax evasion, he was sure this was an injustice.
According to him, his father had fallen victim to a sting operation. He therefore abandoned his
law studies and set to work rescuing the family business, a real estate development firm -
which he managed with success. During this period, he developed for himself the smoothest image
possible in order to distance himself from the accusations leveled against his father.
His father-in-law, Donald Trump, seems to trust him implicitly, to the point of tasking him
de facto with the organization of his electoral campaign. Certain of his adversaries expressed
their surprise that he was able to run this campaign with minimal means, and yet lead it to
victory.
As soon as he arrived at the White House, President Trump asked him to participate in the
most secret meetings, despite the fact that he does not have Top Secret accreditation –
which in fact he still does not have.
Hoping to leave a name in History by succeeding in a task that his predecessors have all
addressed without ever having realised, President Trump tasked him with resolving the
Israëli-Arab conflict and pacifying the Middle East. This is a gamble which is all the
more perilous in that the young man (age 36) has previously taken a stand alongside Israël
by financially supporting Tsahal and the Jewish colonies on Palestinian land. However, Kushner
has a great need of being accepted by his milieu, so it is quite possible that these gifts have
another meaning.
Nominating for this assignment a trusted personality who is devoid of diplomatic experience
is a second challenge for President Trump. Considering the failure of US professional
diplomats, he is attacking an old problem from a new angle. For this mission, Jared Kushner has
obtained a rare privilege – he is the only senior administrator whose meetings with
foreign political personalities are not the object of written records. In this way, no-one can
rebuke him for his mistakes, nor even criticise the way in which he approaches the subjects -
not even the Secretary of State, since he is accountable only to the President.
In the opinion of those personalities who have met him, Kushner follows the same principles
as his father-in-law:
first of all, acknowledge reality, even if this implies abandoning well-established
official rhetoric;
secondly, consider all the advantages that can be drawn from earlier bilateral
agreements;
and thirdly, as far as possible, take into account multilateral Law.
The only difference with his father-in-law is his perfect mutism, as compared to the
provocative and contradictory declarations used by the President to destabilise his
listeners.
During the last ten months, Jared Kushner has multiplied his journeys to the Middle East -
particularly to his favorite destinations – Saudi Arabia and Israël. We have just
experienced, without understanding it, the beginning of his operation.
Saudi Arabia
The reality of
Arabia, from Trump's point of view during his electoral campaign, was as follows:
• the accumulation of petro-dollars, or the massive sums in dollars paid by the USA for
oil that the Saudis do not produce.
• the central role of the Kingdom, under the control of MI6 and the CIA, in the fight
against Arab nationalism and the manipulation of Islamic terrorism.
• Its crisis of succession.
The bilateral agreements are the Quincy agreements signed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1945,
renewed by George Bush Jr. in 2005, and valid until 2065. Although they have never been
published, many people who participated in their negotiation have described them as
follows:
• The King of Arabia accepts the control of its oil by the United States, while in return,
the US agrees to protect the King, and by extension, his private property, Saudi Arabia.
• The King of Arabia agrees to raise no obstacle against the creation of a state for the
Jewish population of the ex-Ottoman Empire, while the United States favors its regional
role.
So Jared Kushner prepared the summit on 21 May 2017 in Riyadh which brought together almost
all of the heads of state of the Muslim world around President Trump. Saudi Arabia immediately
broke its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and ceased financing the jihadist groups all over
the world – at least, almost all, except for Yemen [ 1 ]. The Kingdom used its influence to
convince the other Muslim states present. However, this success had a price:
• Qatar refused the new US policy. Not wishing to have wasted the 137 billion dollars it
had spent in the fight against Syria [ 2 ], it continued its support for
certain jihadists. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates unilaterally decided on an
embargo. While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tried to distance himself from this quarrel,
Kushner and President Trump took sides with Arabia.
• Kushner agreed to help King Salman sort out his succession to the throne as he saw
fit.
The palace coup of 4 November
At the end of October, Jared Kushner went to Saudi Arabia for three days. He shared long
work sessions with the King's son, Prince Mohammed ben Salmane (MBS), and drew up with him a
list of the members of the royal family who were to be neutralised. Unsure of the possible
reactions of the Royal Guard once Prince Mutaib had been dismissed, he offered MBS the
assistance of the mercenaries of Academi (ex-Blackwater) in order to proceed with the arrests.
Finally, remembering the media campaign against his father, he provided the spin doctors with a
soothing tale of " the fight against corruption " with which to gloss over the palace coup.
He had already left Riyadh when the Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri – the legal
son of Rafic Hariri, but the biological son of a Fadh prince [ 3 ] – was invited to an emergency
meeting in Riyadh, " where he would be received by King Salman ". We know the end of this story
[ 4 ] –
the resignation speech of Hariri and the arrest or execution of all the princes capable of
contesting or claiming the succession to the throne.
Hundreds of cousins of MBS were arrested, and placed under house arrest or in detention. One
after the other, they agreed – often under torture – to hand over their fortunes to
their sovereign. In this way he collected more than 800 billion dollars, according to the
Wall Street Journal [ 5 ].
No voices anywhere in the world spoke up to come to the aid of these fallen billionaires,
who until then had sat in the most prestigious board of directors.
Witnesses declared that certain members of the royal family were hospitalised and treated
before they were taken back into the interrogation room. MBS affirmed that he had liberated
several personalities, including Prince Mutaib himself, Turki ben Abdallah, Doctor Ibrahim ben
Abdelaziz ben Abdallah al-Assaf (ex-Saudi Minister of finances) and Mohammad ben Abdel Rahman
al-Toubaichi (ex-head of protocol to the Court).
This is certainly not the end of the story. In conformity with the instructions of President
Trump, Jared Kushner will now attempt to recuperate part of the confiscated fortunes for his
country.
The Hariri affair
Contrary to what the French Press pretends, the liberation of the Lebanese Prime Minister
owes little to Paris. It is true that President Emmanuel Macron intervened, since Saad Hariri
has triple nationality - Saudi-Lebanese-French. It is true, Macron went to Riyadh, but only
succeeded in being insulted [ 6 ]. The only useful action came from
his Lebanese counterpart, President Michel Aoun.
France was blocked by a simple reality – in international consular Law, multinationals
are not allowed to benefit from diplomatic immunity in a country of which they are citizens.
However President Aoun overturned the situation by defending not Saad Hariri the man, but his
Prime Minister Saad Hariri. There is no doubt whatsoever that arresting and placing under house
arrest the head of the government of another country outside of any judicial procedure is an
act of war – and indeed, the international press whispered rumours of a possible Saudi
bombardment of Lebanon. Immediately, the Baabda palace threatened to bring the affair before
the arbitration court of the United Nations, and simultaneously, to alert the Security Council.
And via his Syrian counterpart Bachar el-Assad, he also contacted Egyptian President Abdel
Fattah al-Sissi, who made the connection between the pro- and anti-US. It was al-Sissi who
telephoned Jared Kushner and obtained, with his support, the liberation of the Prime Minister.
And in fact, as soon as Hariri was freed, he went to Cairo to thank al-Sissi.
The
Israëli-Arab question
This leaves us with the Israëli-Palestinian question.
The naked reality is this:
Over the last 70 years, Israël has continually been stealing its neighbours'
territory. It currently occupies the Syrian Golan, the farms of the Lebanese Shebaa, and a very
large part of the Palestinian territories of 1967, including almost all of East Jerusalem.
The leaders of the Palestinian Resistance have almost all been neutralised by
Israël – many of them have been assassinated, those who remain with Fatah have
mostly been corrupted by their enemies, while those of Hamas have openly collaborated with
Mossad to eliminate their rivals [ 7 ]. The only organisations who
continue to fight for their rights are a few small groups like the Islamic Jihad and the
FPLP-CG.
It is true that the Palestinians and the other Arab and/or Muslim people maintain a
sense of the Law, and militate for the respect of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian
people. But in the absence of credible political representation, they can do nothing, apart
from marching by the tens of millions on " Jerusalem Day ".
The bilateral agreements are:
The realisation of the project expressed by the British Balfour Declaration, and by the
14 points of US President Wilson which created Israël [
8 ].
The letter addressed to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon by President George Bush Jr., which
refutes the right of return to Palestinian refugees, and recognises the territories conquered
since 1949 as being integral parts of Israël [
9 ].
The multilateral agreements are:
Resolutions 242 [ 10 ] and 338 [
11 ] of the United Nations
Security Council and article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention.
Only President Trump and a few of his advisors know the scenario written by Jared Kushner.
He has followed the policy of his predecessors by reducing the situation to a simple
Israëli-Arab dispute. Following the line of John Kerry, he has favored the reconciliation
of Fatah and Hamas against Israël, and has succeeded in persuading them (but not the
FPLP-CG, nor the Islamic Jihad) to sign an agreement, on 12 October in Cairo [ 12 ]. He has engineered
the election to the head of Hamas of a childhood friend of the leader of Fatah, Mohammed
Dahlan, in preparation for the fusion of the two movements.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian factions continue to express radically different ideas. For
Fatah, Israël is a second Rhodesia, a colonial State which pronounced itself independent.
For Hamas, based on an interpretation of the Hadiths (not the Coran), the problem is that a
Muslim land cannot be governed by non-Muslims.
The beginning of events came with the announcement of the transfer of the US embassy from
Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.
Clearly, the White House is testing its ability to force its way through. Indeed, on one
hand, the plan for the sharing of Palestine in fact anticipates that West Jerusalem will be the
capital of the Hebrew state. But on the other hand, the Security Council has condemned
Israël for designating West Jerusalem as its capital [ 13 ].
The strange meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which has just been held in
Istanbul, proposed to transfer the capital of the Palestinian State from Ramallah to East
Jerusalem [ 14
]. Except that this seems difficult to realise, and in fact has not been realised. Perhaps this
was simply a gallant last stand designed to force the acceptance of this abandon by Muslim
public opinion.
Provisional Conclusion
The adversaries of President Trump are attempting by any means possible to oblige him to
give up on his advisor Jared Kushner. Nevertheless, he is still in office. He has, for the
moment, managed to end Saudi support for terrorist groups and resolve the question of the
succession to the throne by cutting the Gordian knot, in other words, by neutralizing the royal
family. We may regret the method chosen – hanging old men by their feet and torturing
them until they hand over their bank accounts. The fact remains that all the other solutions,
or even worse, the absence of solutions, could have led to a civil war. The fault lies not with
Jared Kushner, but with those who have for so long accepted the barbaric and medieval
régime of the Saudis.
Equally, it is today extremely unjust, not to transfer the US embassy to West Jerusalem, but
to give up on establishing the Palestinian government in East Jerusalem. Here again, the
responsibility does not lie with Jared Kushner, but with the " international community ", and
in particular with the Arab Sionist governments, who have allowed Israël, for the last 70
years, to eat up the city, apartment by apartment.
So while, for 70 years, Western diplomats have contrived to multiply and complexify the
conflicts in the Middle East, Jared Kushner is the first to have brought a resolution. The
angel-faced Presidential advisor is a talented organiser. Thierry Meyssan
This is probably the most comprehensive outline of the color revolution against Trump. Bravo, simply bravo !!!
Reads like Agatha Christi Murder on the Orient
Express ;-) Rosenstein role is completely revised from a popular narrative. Brennan role clarifies and detailed. Obama
personal role hinted. Victoria Nuland role and the role of the State Department in Russiagate is documented for the first
time, I think.
Notable quotes:
"... The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered. ..."
"... Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier. ..."
"... The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission. ..."
"... Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken. ..."
"... The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time. ..."
"... The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents? ..."
Spygate: The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] How America's most powerful agencies were weaponized against President
Donald Trump
Although the details remain complex, the structure underlying Spygate -- the creation of the false narrative that candidate Donald
Trump colluded with Russia, and the spying on his presidential campaign -- remains surprisingly simple:
CIA Director John Brennan, with some assistance from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, gathered foreign intelligence
and fed it throughout our domestic Intelligence Community.
The FBI became the handler of Brennan's intelligence and engaged in the more practical elements of surveillance.
The Department of Justice facilitated investigations by the FBI and legal maneuverings, while providing a crucial shield of
nondisclosure.
The Department of State became a mechanism of information dissemination and leaks.
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee provided funding, support, and media collusion.
Obama administration officials were complicit, and engaged in unmasking and intelligence gathering and dissemination.
The media was the most corrosive element in many respects. None of these events could have transpired without their willing
participation. Stories were pushed, facts were ignored, and narratives were promoted.
Let's start with a simple premise: The candidacy of Trump presented both an opportunity and a threat.
Initially not viewed with any real seriousness, Trump's campaign was seen as an opportunistic wedge in the election process. At
the same time, and particularly as the viability of his candidacy increased, Trump was seen as an existential threat to the established
political system.
The sudden legitimacy of Trump's candidacy was not welcomed by the U.S. political establishment. Here was a true political outsider
who held no traditional allegiances. He was brash and boastful, he ignored political correctness, he couldn't be bought, and he didn't
care what others thought of him -- he trusted himself.
Governing bodies in Britain and the European Union were also worried. Candidate Trump was openly challenging monetary policy,
regulations, and the power of special interests. He challenged Congress. He challenged the United Nations and the European Union.
He questioned everything.
Brennan played a crucial role in the creation of the Russia-collusion narrative and the spying on the Trump campaign. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty
Images)
Brennan became the point man in the operation to stop a potential Trump presidency. It remains unclear whether his role was self-appointed
or came from above. To embark on such a mission without direct presidential authority seems both a stretch of the imagination and
particularly foolhardy.
Brennan took unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates --
primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia.
Individuals in official positions in UK intelligence, such as Robert Hannigan -- head of the UK Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of the National Security Agency) -- partnered with former UK foreign intelligence members. Former MI6
head Sir Richard Dearlove
, former Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, and private UK intelligence firm
Hakluyt all played a role.
In the summer of 2016, Hannigan traveled to Washington to
meet with Brennan
regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. On Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration
-- Hannigan abruptly announced
his retirement. The Guardian openly
speculated that Hannigan's
resignation was directly related to the sharing of UK intelligence.
One method used to help establish evidence of collusion was the employment of "spy traps." Prominent among these were ones set
for Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. The intent was to provide or establish connections between the Trump
campaign and Russia. The content and context mattered little as long as a connection could be established that could then be publicized.
The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting was another such attempt.
Western intelligence assets were used to initiate and establish these connections, particularly in the cases of Papadopoulos and
Page.
Ultimately, Brennan formed an inter-agency task
force comprising an estimated six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry
into Trump and possible Russia connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency
(NSA) handled foreign and intelligence aspects.
Brennan's inter-agency task force is not to be confused with the July 2016 FBI counterintelligence investigation, which was formed
later at Brennan's urging.
During this time, Brennan also employed the use of
reverse targeting , which relates to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen.
This effort was uncovered and
made public by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in a March 2017
press conference :
"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the president-elect and his team were monitored and disseminated out in
intelligence-reporting channels. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent
foreign-intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.
"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying
to get to the bottom of it."
As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a
process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed
the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. Brennan repeatedly noted this during
a May 23, 2017, congressional testimony :
"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump
campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."
Brennan also admitted that his intelligence helped establish
the FBI investigation:
"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in
my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and
it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."
Once the FBI began its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, Brennan shifted his focus. Through a series of meetings
in August and September 2016, Brennan informed the congressional Gang of Eight regarding intelligence and information he had gathered.
Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately, calling into question whether each of the members received the same information.
Efforts to
block the release of the transcripts from each meeting remain ongoing.
This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump.
Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.
Although the FBI is technically part of the DOJ, it is best for the purposes of this article that the FBI and DOJ be viewed as
separate entities, each with its own related ties.
The FBI itself was comprised of various factions, with a particularly active element that has come to be known as the "insurance
policy group." It appears that this faction was led by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and comprised other notable names such as
FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and FBI general counsel James Baker.
The FBI established the counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russia collusion with the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016.
Comey initially refused to say whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between members of the Trump campaign and Russia.
He would continue to refuse to provide answers until March 20, 2017, when he disclosed the existence of the FBI investigation
during congressional testimony.
Comey also testified that he did not provide notification to the Gang of Eight until early March 2017 -- less than one month earlier.
This admission was in stark contrast to actions taken by Brennan, who had notified members of the Gang of Eight individually during
August and September 2016. It's likely that Brennan never informed Comey that he had briefed the Gang of Eight in 2016. Comey did
note that the DOJ "had been aware" of the investigation all along.
Comey opened the counterintelligence investigation into Trump on the urging of CIA Director John Brennan.
Following Comey's firing on May 9, 2017, the FBI's investigation was transferred to special counsel Robert Mueller. The
Mueller investigation remains ongoing.
The FBI's formal involvement with the
Steele dossier began on July 5, 2016,
when Mike Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the US Embassy in Rome, was dispatched to visit former MI6 spy Christopher
Steele in London. Gaeta would return from this meeting with a copy of Steele's first memo. This memo was given to Victoria Nuland
at the State Department, who passed it along to the FBI.
Gaeta, who also headed the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, had known Steele since at least 2010, when Steele had provided
assistance to the FBI's investigation into the
FIFA corruption
scandal .
Prior to the London meeting, Gaeta may also have met on a less formal basis with Steele
several weeks earlier.
"In June, Steele flew to Rome to brief the FBI contact with whom he had cooperated over FIFA," The Guardian reported. "His information
started to reach the bureau in Washington."
It's worth noting that there was no "dossier" until it was fully compiled in December 2016. There was only a sequence of documents
from Steele -- documents that were passed on individually -- as they were created. Therefore, from the FBI's legal perspective, they
didn't use the dossier. They used individual documents.
For the next month and a half, there appeared to be little contact between Steele and the FBI. However, the FBI's interest in
the dossier suddenly accelerated in late August 2016, when the bureau
asked Steele "for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify
his sources."
In September 2016, Steele traveled back to Rome to meet with the FBI's Eurasian squad once again. It's likely that the meeting
included several other FBI officials as well. According to a
House Intelligence Committee
minority memo , Steele's reporting reached the FBI counterintelligence team in mid-September 2016 -- the same time as Steele's
September trip to Rome.
The reason for the FBI's renewed interest had to do with an adviser to the Trump campaign -- Carter Page -- who had been in
contact with Stefan Halper, a CIA
and FBI source, since July 2016. Halper
arranged to meet with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a
Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page took a trip
to Moscow. Speakers at the symposium included Madeleine Albright, Vin Webber, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6.
Page was now the FBI's chosen target for a FISA warrant that would be obtained on Oct. 21, 2016. The Steele dossier would be the
primary evidence used in obtaining the FISA warrant, which would be renewed three separate times, including after Trump took office,
finally expiring in September 2017.
Former volunteer Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Nov. 2, 2017. The FBI obtained a retroactive FISA spy warrant
on Page.
After being in contact with Page for 14 months, Halper stopped contact exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. Page,
who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was never charged with any crime by the FBI. Efforts for the declassification of the
Page FISA application are currently ongoing through the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were two prominent members of the FBI's "insurance policy" group. Strzok, a senior FBI agent, was the
deputy assistant director of FBI's Counterintelligence Division. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, served as special counsel to FBI Deputy
Director Andrew McCabe.
Strzok was in charge of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government business. He helped
FBI Director James Comey draft the statement exonerating Clinton and was personally responsible for changing specific wording within
that statement that reduced Clinton's legal liability. Specifically, Strzok changed the words "grossly negligent," which could be
a criminal offense, to "extremely careless."
Strzok also personally led the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the alleged Trump–Russia collusion and signed the
documents that opened the investigation on July 31, 2016. He was one of the FBI agents who interviewed Trump's national security
adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Strzok met multiple times with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and received information from Steele at those
meetings.
Following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Strzok would join the team of special counsel Robert Mueller. Two months later,
he was removed from that team after the DOJ inspector general discovered a lengthy series of texts between Strzok and Page that contained
politically charged messages. Strzok would be fired from the FBI in August 2018.
Both Strzok and Page engaged in strategic
leaking to the press. Page did so at the direction of McCabe, who directly
authorized Page to share information with Wall Street
Journal reporter Devlin Barrett. That information was used in an Oct. 30, 2016, article headlined
"FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe ." Page leaked to Barrett thinking she had been granted legal and official authorization
to do so.
McCabe would later initially deny providing such
authorization to the Office of Inspector General. Page, when confronted with McCabe's denials, produced texts refuting his statement.
It was these texts that led to the inspector general uncovering the texts between Strzok and Page.
The two exchanged thousands of texts, some of them indicating surveillance activities, over a two-year period. Texts sent between
Aug. 21, 2015, and June 25, 2017, have been made
public . The series comes
to an end with a final text by Page telling Strzok, "Don't ever text me again."
On Aug. 8, 2016, Stzrok wrote that they would prevent candidate Trump from becoming president:
Page: "[Trump is] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"
Strzok: "No. No he won't. We'll stop it."
On Aug. 15, 2016, Strzok sent a text referring to an "insurance policy":
"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way [Trump] gets elected --
but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."
The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation,
led by McCabe, could continue unhindered.
Department of Justice
The Department of Justice, which comprises 60 agencies , was transformed
during the Obama years. The department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation.
However, a
series
of investigative articles by PJ Media published during Eric Holder's tenure as attorney general revealed an unsettling pattern
of ideological conformity among new hires at the DOJ: Only lawyers from the progressive left were hired. Not one single moderate
or conservative lawyer made the cut. This is significant as the DOJ enjoys significant latitude in determining who will be subject
to prosecution.
The DOJ's job in Spygate was to facilitate the legal side of surveillance while providing a protective layer of cover for all
those involved. The department became a repository of information and provided a protective wall between the investigative efforts
of the FBI and the legislative branch. Importantly, it also served as the firewall within the executive branch, serving as the insulating
barrier between the FBI and Obama officials. The department had become legendary for its stonewalling tactics with Congress.
DOJ Official Bruce Ohr on Aug. 28, 2018. Ohr passed on information from Christopher Steele to the FBI.
The DOJ, which was fully aware of the actions being taken by James Comey and the FBI, also became an active element acting against
members of the Trump campaign. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, along with Mary McCord, the head of the DOJ's National Security
Division, was actively
involved in efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn from his position as national security adviser to President Trump.
To this day, it remains unknown which individual was responsible for making public Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. Flynn
ultimately pleaded guilty to a process crime: lying to the FBI. There have been
questions raised in Congress regarding the possible alteration of FD-302s, the written notes of Flynn's FBI interviews. Special
counsel Robert Mueller has repeatedly deferred Flynn's sentencing hearing.
David Laufman, deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterintelligence at the DOJ's National Security Division, played
a key role in both the Clinton email server and Russia hacking investigations. Laufman is currently the attorney for Monica McLean,
the long-time friend of Christine Blasey Ford, who recently accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high
school. McLean was also
employed
by the FBI for 24 years.
Bruce Ohr was a significant DOJ official who played a
key role in Spygate. Ohr held
two important positions at the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task
Force. As associate deputy attorney general, Ohr was just four offices away from then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and he
reported directly to her. As director of the task force, he was in charge of a program described as "the centerpiece of the attorney
general's drug strategy."
Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known
since at
least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr,
an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working
for Fusion GPS sometime in
late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier.
According to testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok, he and Ohr met at least five times during 2016 and 2017. Strzok was working
directly with then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Additionally, Ohr met with the FBI at least
12 times between late November 2016 and May 2017 for a series of interviews. These meetings could have been used to
transmit information from Steele to the FBI. This came after the FBI had formally severed contact with Steele in late October
or early November 2016.
John Carlin is another notable figure with the DOJ. Carlin was an assistant attorney general and the head of the DOJ's National
Security Division until October 2016. His role will be discussed below in the section on FISA abuse.
The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance
policy" text message.
McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.
On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic
situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months
earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation
being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.
Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken
leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.
On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public
Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day. McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration
for the permanent position.
On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding
apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe"
by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations
Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."
At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate
fully known.
In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor
before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.
Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.
On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark
was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former
FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement
denying the accusations.
The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation
into the president." An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat
differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"
Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview
for the FBI director job. On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's
encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.
The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein
would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.
Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would
have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was
reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would
have retained control.
On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to
The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.
On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority"
that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the
new FBI director.
Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray
were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.
That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically
that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely
neutralized.
On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand
jury investigation.
State Department
The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer
of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally
facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for
FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership.
Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.
Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he
began to provide reports
informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State
Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of
the U.S.
response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.
Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau
sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018,
appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":
"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short
points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI
if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's
something for the FBI to investigate."
Steele also
met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy
for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the
following:
"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources
suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign
but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."
In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a
separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been
compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer
then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to
share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.
Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)
Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK,
reportedly funneled his conversation
with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation --
directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.
"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy
assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018,
article .
If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos
information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.
Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the
first memo written
by Steele on June 20, 2016:
"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many
years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet
been distributed abroad, including to Trump."
Clinton Campaign and the DNC
The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee both occupied a unique position. They had the most to gain but they
also had the most to lose. And they stood willing and ready to do whatever was necessary to win. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager,
Robby Mook, is credited with being the first to raise the specter of candidate Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.
The entire Clinton campaign willfully promoted the narrative of Russia–Trump collusion despite the uncomfortable fact that they
were the ones who had engaged the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele through their law firm Perkins Coie. Information
flowed from the campaign -- sometimes through Perkins Coie, other times through affiliates -- ultimately making its way into the
media and sometimes to the FBI. Information from the Clinton campaign may also have ended up in the Steele dossier.
Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in tandem with Jake Sullivan, the senior policy adviser
to the campaign,
took the lead in briefing the press on the Trump–Russia collusion story.
Another example of this behavior can be seen from an instance when Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann
leaked information from Steele and Fusion GPS to Franklin Foer of Slate magazine. This event is described in the House Intelligence
Committee's final report on
Russian active measures
, in footnote 43 on page 57. Foer then published the article
"Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? " on Oct. 31, 2016. The article concerns allegations regarding a server in the
Trump Tower.
The Slate article managed to attract the immediate attention of Clinton, who posted a
tweet on the same day the article was
published:
"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."
Attached to her tweet was a
statement from Sullivan:
"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert
server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.
"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization
felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."
These statements, which were later proven to be incorrect, are all the more disturbing with the hindsight knowledge that it was
a senior Clinton/DNC lawyer who helped plant the story. And given the prepared statement by Sullivan, the Clinton campaign knew this.
This type of behavior would be engaged in repeatedly -- damning leaks leading to media stories, followed by ready attacks from
the Clinton campaign.
Alexandra Chalupa is a Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee. Chalupa
met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia.
Chalupa began investigating
Manafort in 2014. In late 2015, Chalupa expanded her opposition research on Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia. In January
2016, Chalupa shared her information with a senior DNC official.
Chalupa's meetings with DNC and Ukrainian officials would continue. On April 26, 2016, investigative reporter Michael Isikoff
published a story
on Yahoo News about Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a DNC email leaked
by Wikileaks that Chalupa had been working with Isikoff
-- the same journalist Christopher Steele
leaked to
in September 2016. Manafort would later be indicted for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations that occurred during the Obama
administration.
Perkins Coie
International law firm Perkins Coie served as the legal arm for both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Ties to Perkins Coie extended
beyond the DNC into the Obama White House.
Bob Bauer, a partner at the law firm and founder of its political law practice, served as
White House counsel to President Barack Obama throughout 2010 and 2011. Bauer was also
general counsel to Obama's campaign organization, Obama for America, in 2008 and 2012.
Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann each played critical roles and were the ones who hired Fusion GPS and Steele.
Sussmann
personally handled the alleged hack of the DNC server. He also transmitted information, likely from Steele and Fusion GPS, to
James Baker, then-chief counsel at the FBI, and to several members of the press.
Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann. Sussmann transmitted information to FBI chief counsel James Baker and several
journalists. (Courtesy Perkins Coie)
According to a
letter
dated Oct. 24, 2017, written by Matthew Gehringer, general counsel at Perkins Coie, the firm was approached by Fusion GPS founder
Glenn Simpson in early March 2016 regarding the possibility of hiring Fusion GPS to continue opposition research into the Trump campaign.
Simpson's overtures were successful, and in April 2016, Perkins Coie
hired
Fusion GPS on behalf of the DNC.
Sometime in April or May 2016, Fusion GPS
hired Christopher Steele. During
this same period, Fusion also reportedly
hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Steele would complete his first memo on June 20, 2016,
and send it to Fusion via enciphered mail.
Perkins Coie appears to have also been acting as a conduit between the DNC and the FBI.
Documents suggest that Sussmann was feeding information to FBI general counsel James Baker and at least one journalist ahead
of the FBI's application for a FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.
The information provided by Sussmann may have been used by the FBI as "corroborating information."
Obama Administration
The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is
provided by
Section
2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's
data-sharing
order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance
simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.
Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't
sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.
The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between
agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.
An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017,
MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration
gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:
"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as
much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'
"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try
to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the
leaking."
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia Evelyn Farkas on May 6, 2014. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating
impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the
attorney general's office. According to congressional
testimony by Horowitz:
"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply
a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going
to give us that information."
These new restrictions were
put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a
letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015,
with a 58-page
memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including
intercepted communications and national security letters.
The New York Times recently
disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.
At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The
Intelligence Community assessment was released
internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national
security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email
documenting
the meeting.
The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they
gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey,
Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.
Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later
explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview
why:
"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."
Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The
significance of the meeting was material, as Comey
noted in
a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:
"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write
that the FBI has the material."
Clapper leaked information to CNN, after which he publicly condemned the leaks. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey
briefed Trump that
CNN reported
on the dossier. It was later
revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.
The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of
intelligence unmaskings
, the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha
Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.
The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser,
Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division,
led that effort
.
Executive Order 13762
President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ.
The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold
the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her
position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.
Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership.
The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.
Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips,
after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced
to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming
under intense scrutiny.
The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian
ambassador.
Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.
Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.
On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings
appear to have been unexpected.
Media
In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven
irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts
ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a
series of payments to several as-of-yet-
unnamed reporters .
The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In
September 2016 ,
he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according
to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.
In mid-October
2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother
Jones reporter David Corn.
Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the
unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the
intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical
pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.
On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article "
A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in
court documents
relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance
in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, "
FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA
warrant.
The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security
for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and
charged with one count of lying
to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment
alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.
Reporter Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.
It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application. According to the
indictment , Wolfe
exchanged 82 text messages with
Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call. The original Page FISA application is 83 pages
long, including one final signatory page.
In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions
for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.
Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original
unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly
stated that evidence within the FISA application
shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.
Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence
having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit
their complicity.
Foreign Intelligence
UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.
Britain's GCHQ was involved in
collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert
Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to
meet personally
with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.
Former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan in this file photo. Hannigan transmitted information regarding Donald Trump to John
Brennan in the summer of 2016. (Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images)
Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers.
In the following year, Hannigan
abruptly announced
his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.
As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted
after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant
Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly
so.
Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele
retains close ties with Dearlove.
Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to
work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at
the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter
Page to attend.
Dearlove knows Halper through their
mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is
an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence
and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and
retains close ties to UK intelligence services.
Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has
co-authored two books.
Downer, who
met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting
established through a chain
of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt
from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still
maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish
the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.
The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the
former
British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later
relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute,
to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017,
statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.
Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations
-- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can
we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.
In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that
the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.
Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified
documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest
idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?
Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release
appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.
Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele
Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion
was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against
Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
The company was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC–through law firm Perkins Coie–to produce the dossier on Trump.
Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he
and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele
maintains contact with British intelligence,
Sir Richard Dearlove
, and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.
Steele appears to have been
represented
by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from
texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:
"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important
concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort.
I will be with him next tuesday for a week."
Steele also appears to have
lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in
emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently
disclosed by the Washington Examiner:
"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool'
of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."
Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation
pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler,
who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower
meeting, at which she discussed the
Magnitsky Act .
Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson
met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.
A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government
agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside
contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.
Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.
Nellie Ohr, the wife of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS to work on the dossier on Trump.
Bruce and Nellie Ohr have
known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a
DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography
lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr
before and after the 2016 election.
Bruce Ohr had been in
contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later
actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions
between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s
-- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.
Spy Traps
In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps
were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos
and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has
ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.
Papadopoulos and Mifsud
both worked
at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around
November
2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly
joined
LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some
reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November
or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths
until March 14, 2016, in Italy.
Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and
Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and
Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days
in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.
Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but
was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.
Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed
as a
chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.
Papadopoulos was introduced
to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened
to
be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit
remains unknown.
The Papadopoulos–Downer
meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly
reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.
Foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign was approached by several individuals with ties to UK and U.S. intelligence
agencies. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point
mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the
lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told
The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging
to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."
Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was
responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.
Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017,
BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted
to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended
target of these failed FISAs.
Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael
Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.
Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.
After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter
Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized
with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct.
21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.
Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a
Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016
Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known
each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.
Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with
Page. Current information suggests there was only
one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named
in the Buryakov case.
Page, who
cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted
by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov
pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was
sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was
deported to Russia.
FBI informant Stefan Halper approached Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes
said in August that exculpatory evidence
on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence
likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.
If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application
to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.
Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.
FISA Abuse
Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for
uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page
unsealed FISA
court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:
"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.
"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.
"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."
The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:
"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar
disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."
The FISA Court
disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to
the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.
In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of
improper
contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he
directed the NSA's Office
of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."
On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors
working for the FBI.
Then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on May 23, 2017. Rogers uncovered widespread abuse of FISA data by the FBI. (Saul
Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed
2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was
part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016,
report by the Office
of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose
Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.
The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin
announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.
After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing
numerous "about query"
violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and
reported his findings
to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are
not "to" or "from" the target.
On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance
on Carter Page from the FISA Court.
At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.
On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally
informed
the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings
of his audit.
The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.
Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions
at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.
The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a
recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.
The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing
to present his findings to the FISA Court.
The Insurance Policy
Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of
wide speculation.
Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter
Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying
meaning of the text.
The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative.
It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's
leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation
into the Trump campaign.
The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.
The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the
foundation for the Russia narrative.
The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating
their Intelligence Community assessment.
This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in
its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.
Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win
the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.
Spygate
Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation's history. A sitting administration actively colluded with a political
campaign to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Government agencies were weaponized and a complicit media spread
intelligence community leaks as facts.
But a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and
our political agencies? Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger pattern
extending back decades?
The intensity, scale, and coordination suggest something greater than overzealous actions taken during a single election. They
represent a unified reaction of the establishment to a threat posed by a true outsider -- a reaction that has come to be known as
Spygate.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... The transfer of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership. Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy. ..."
"... Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he began to provide reports informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported. ..."
The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer
of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally
facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for
FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership.
Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.
Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he
began to provide reports
informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State
Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of
the U.S.
response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.
Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau
sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018,
appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":
"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short
points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI
if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's
something for the FBI to investigate."
Steele also
met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy
for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the
following:
"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources
suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign
but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."
In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a
separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been
compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer
then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to
share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.
Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)
Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK,
reportedly funneled his conversation
with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation --
directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.
"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy
assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018,
article .
If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos
information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.
Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the
first memo written
by Steele on June 20, 2016:
"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many
years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet
been distributed abroad, including to Trump."
Is Trump's Jared Kushner connection to the Chabad Lubavitch sect the cause for his dramatic U-turn? The sect is deliberately
fomenting a prophesied Third World War.
It believes Jews are God's chosen people and
everyone else is trash. In the book "Gatherings of Conversations"Rebbe
Schneerson tells his followers that Jewish people are an extension of God and
Gentiles are destined to serve the Jews .
"Israel wasn't a political discussion for him; it was his family, his life, his people,"
said Hirschy Zarchi, rabbi at the Chabad House at Harvard.
Between 2003 and 2013, his family foundation donated a total of $342,500 to various
institutions and projects associated with the movement. Especially endowed was the Chabad
center at Harvard University, which received $150,000 in 2007 (the foundation's single biggest
donation to a Lubavitch-affiliated enterprise) and then another $3,600 in 2013. In addition
, the Donald J. Trump Foundation has donated $11,550 to three Chabad institutions. In
2006,
Kushner's father Charles was sentenced to 24 months in prison for making illegal campaign
donations & witness tampering.
He and the rest of his family are all crooks as are most politicians. Deals are made
between thieves. Wealth serves as a mask.
I wonder how much he will make! Am so sick at
the lack of morals among officials all over the world. Do good because it is the right
thing to do not because of the accolades. Let thereby real judge!
No! Of course not. Why does anyone believe this nonsense!
First off, I think by "bring peace to the Middle East" you must be referring to "solve the
Israeli-Palestinian dilemma". There are numerous conflicts in the broader Middle East that make
broader peace impossible.
Jared Kushner has no diplomatic experience. He doesn't seem to have any special knowledge
about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Being raised an Orthodox Jew, I think
it will be impossible for the Palestinians to see him as a neutral party.
Here's something that people should have learned before the election: p...
(more)
"... "Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration," Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold." ..."
"... "Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic]," the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is." ..."
"... "Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you, and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence agencies and top administration officials. ..."
"... "Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time." ..."
"... Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance, allegedly disregarding the objections. ..."
Laurence Tribe, a professor
of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, slammed President Donald Trump's son-in-law of Jared Kushner in a tweet this weekend,
suggesting he would soon be "exposed" as a traitor.
Sharing a long Twitter thread by attorney and academic Seth Abramson, who is also a
columnist for Newsweek , Tribe on Saturday referred
to Kushner as "Smarmy, slimy, smiling."
Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, was appointed by the president as a senior White House adviser in January 2017.
"Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration,"
Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed
as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold."
Tribe is referring to the infamous General Benedict Arnold, an early hero of the American Revolution against the British, who
later switched sides and betrayed his young nation in 1779. "His name has since become synonymous with the word 'traitor,'"
according to History .
Abramson's thread , shared by Tribe,
laid out a case for why Kushner is allegedly the "greatest domestic danger to America."
The attorney and columnist made the claim after "many months" of research for a forthcoming book titled Proof of Conspiracy
. "Many former US government officials know for a fact that what I've just said is true," Abramson wrote in his first tweet in the
series.
"Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic],"
the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort
richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is."
"Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you,
and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to
the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence
agencies and top administration officials.
"Trump circumventing our intelligence community to give his son-in-law that access is the shibboleth that made the current danger
to America *possible* [sic]," Abramson warned.
"Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump
axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to
blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time."
Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive
top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to
a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance,
allegedly disregarding the objections.
Jim Boyle Kathy Rhodarmer The article said the details will be revealed soon, so I guess we'll all just have to wait for the investigation
to decide. Traitor is pretty strong accusation, but the massive Qatar loan, secretive relationship with MSB and intelligence agencies
concern with his security clearance are all big red flags. The oversight will continue...
Martin Wulfe Tribe is a highly respected constitutional lawyer,
but so far this article is a real disappointment and lacks any details. We'll just have to wait until the full article comes out
to see what actual evidence there is to back this up, if there is any.
Danny LaMaster Trump and Kushner are selling American
secrets for personal gain
Bud
Dailey Kushner is not and never will be a American patriot , and has no business in American government.
Kathy
Dreher The same is true of the Trump crime family.
Joan Nelson Jared is too cozy with our enemy, no, not
ally, Saudi Arabia.Setting up some opportunities for himself and his family after he leaves the WH. The scummy atmosphere in the
WH is reflective of the presence of incompetent family members who have no business there...
In Ber 2018 Kusher security clearance wasdongraded.
Notable quotes:
"... Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said. ..."
"... Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost ..."
" Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law
and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience,
according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter.
Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico,
the current and former officials said.
It is unclear if any of those countries acted on the discussions, but Kushner's contacts with certain foreign government officials
have raised concerns inside the White House and are a reason he has been unable to obtain a permanent security clearance, the officials
said.
Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the
regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost
------------------
Most people will probably be struck by the fall from grace of Kushner and other WH staff dilettantes. I am not terribly interested
in that. What strikes me is that this is the third major compromise of US SIGINT products in the last year. The first was the felonious
disclosure to the press of US intelligence penetration of Russian diplomatic communications. the second was the disclosure to the
press of penetration of GRU communications. In this one the oral or written discussions among the officials of several foreign countries
are revealed. These conversations were probably encrypted.
Is Jeff Sessions still alive? Why are there no prosecutions for these felonies? pl
"... In phone conversations with friends, Trump would share his frustrations concerning members of his staff and the internal chaos that drove the White House. ..."
"... Kushner was a suck-up. ..."
"... Jared and Ivanka should never have come to Washington. ..."
In phone conversations with friends, Trump would share his frustrations concerning members
of his staff and the internal chaos that drove the White House.
When he got on the phone after dinner, he'd speculate on the flaws and weaknesses of each
member of his staff. Bannon was disloyal (not to mention he always looks like shit). Priebus
was weak (not to mention he was short -- a midget). Kushner was a suck-up. Sean Spicer was
stupid (and looks terrible too). Conway was a crybaby. Jared and Ivanka should never have
come to Washington.
Wolff reveals that the small group of friends did not keep details of Trump's calls to them
confidential.
... ... ...
Trump fired Priebus and brought Gen. John Kelly in to serve as the White House chief of
staff. Bannon left the White House soon after, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are serving a
more diminished role in the White House. Sean Spicer also quit, and Kellyanne Conway remains a
counselor to the president.
There is a probably difference between contacts with officials of Russian state and member of
Jewish mafia of Russia/USSR origin. But it never ne investigated.
The Soviet and
Russian émigré
community in New York's Brighton Beach contains a large Jewish
presence. Some of these newer American-based Jewish gangsters, such as Ludwig Fainberg (who has lived in Ukraine,
Israel and the United States, but never in Russia), share more in common culturally with Russia
and the Soviet republics than their predecessors, such as Meyer Lansky. [36][ page
needed ]
Russian Jewish mafia figures, such as Semion Mogilevich , have attempted to
penetrate the United States, including participating in a US$10 billion money laundering scheme
through the Bank of New York in 1998.
Israeli mobsters also have had a presence in the United States. The Israeli mafia (such as the Abergil crime family ) is heavily
involved in ecstasy trafficking
in America. [37]
US President Donald
Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is also a senior adviser to the White House, is under FBI
scrutiny as part of its probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election, NBC News reported
on Thursday.
The report citing multiple sources said Kushner's interaction with the Russians has been a
focus of the investigation. In December, Kushner met with the Russian ambassador to the US
Sergey Kislyak and a banker from Moscow, according to NBC.
But it remains unclear exactly what activities have drawn the FBI's attention, and
investigators' interests in Kushner "does not mean they suspect him of a crime or intend to
charge him," the report said.
This came after reports that Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn and
campaign manager Paul Manafort have been examined for their connections with the Russian
government.
The 36-year-old Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, is an American real
estate investor and worked in his father-in-law's presidential campaign team as a key adviser
on US policy toward Israel and campaign strategy. In January, he was named senior adviser to
the president and became a powerful figures in the West Wing.
"The Iraq war began sixteen years ago tomorrow," Fleischer tweeted on March
19. "There is a myth about the war that I have been meaning to set straight for years. After no
WMDs were found, the left claimed 'Bush lied. People died.' This accusation itself is a lie.
It's time to put it to rest."
Fleischer goes on to declare that "The fact is that President Bush (and I as press
secretary) faithfully and accurately reported to the public what the intelligence community
concluded," before noting that "The CIA, along with the intelligence services of Egypt, France,
Israel and others concluded that Saddam had WMD. We all turned out to be wrong. That is very
different from lying."
As a Chief Weapons Inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Iraq from
1991 through 1998, I was intimately familiar with the intelligence used by the U.S.
Intelligence Community to underpin the case for war (which I debunked in June 2002 in an
article published in Arms Control Today ). Armed with the
unique insights that came from this experience, I can state clearly and without any reservation
that Ari Fleischer, once again, has misrepresented the facts when it comes to the Bush
administration's decision to invade Iraq in March 2003.
Advertisement
The fact is, the Iraq War was never about WMD. Rather, it was waged for one purpose and one
purpose only -- regime change. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the sole focus of this effort,
and the so-called "intelligence" used to justify this act was merely an excuse for action. Ari
Fleischer knows this, and to contend otherwise -- as he does via twitter -- is simply a
continuation of the lies he told from the very beginning about the U.S. case for war with
Iraq.
UNSCOM had, by the fall of 2002, been relegated to the pages of history, replaced by a new
inspection organization, the United
Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) . It is through the
work of UNMOVIC that Ari Fleischer's defense of George W. Bush collapses. In November 2002 the
Bush administration pushed for the UN Security Council to pass Resolution
1441 , which found Iraq to be in "material breach" of its disarmament obligations.
Inspectors from UNMOVIC were dispatched to Iraq shortly thereafter in a last-ditch effort to
account for the totality of Iraq's WMD.
The work of the inspectors was undermined from the start by the Bush administration, led by
Ari Fleischer. "It is very well true that the inspectors who are working as diligently as they
can in an environment made very difficult for them by Iraqi actions, may not be giving notice,"
Fleischer
explained in a press conference, "but that does not mean Iraq is not receiving notice as a
result of their electronic means and other means to know what the inspectors are doing. Which
puts the inspectors in a very hard position."
But Fleischer had no evidence that Iraq was getting advance notice, and the experience of UNMOVIC
inspectors on the ground suggested otherwise. When asked by a reporter about the
possibility of giving the UN weapons inspectors more time to complete their task, Fleischer
fired back, asking "More time for what? More time to be run-around by a regime that has not
complied, that has concealed its weapons, and that has grown throughout the years --
particularly the four years when no one was in the country -- extraordinarily good at hiding
what they have and deceiving those who are there to do their level best."
Left unsaid was the fact that the inspectors had repeatedly asked the U.S. for access to the
very intelligence being used to underpin the American claims that Iraq was holding on to
prohibited WMD and were denied. "If the UK and the U.S. are convinced and they say they have
evidence," Hans
Blix, the head of UNMOVIC, had noted on December 20, 2002, "then one would expect they
would be able to tell us where is this stuff." When asked if they were getting cooperation from
U.S. and Western intelligence agencies, Blix replied, "Not yet. We get some, but we don't get
all we need."
In 2010,
Blix commented on the provisions of Security Council resolution 1441, which had declared
Iraq to be in "material breach" of its obligation to disarm, and which was cited
by Ari Fleischer to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003. "The
declaration, I felt, might give Iraq a chance for a new start," Blix noted, " except that it
was very hard for them to declare any weapons when they didn't have any. "
This is the conclusion that anyone taking umbrage with Ari Fleischer over his attempt to
whitewash the role he played -- as an extension of President George W. Bush -- in facilitating
the Iraq War should rely on. Deflecting blame onto the U.S. intelligence community ignores the
fact that the decision to go to war was the exclusive purview of the Executive Branch that
Fleischer served. Iraq's alleged retention of proscribed WMD were merely an excuse to achieve
the higher goal of regime change. The inspection process initiated in November 2002 to
investigate Iraq's WMD programs was, from the U.S. perspective, a façade created to
justify a decision to go to war that was made long before the inspectors ever set foot on the
ground.
"Intelligence," therefore, was an artifice manufactured by the Bush administration as a
smoke screen. A memorandum prepared by
the head of the British MI-6 intelligence service , Richard Dearlove, following a July 23,
2002 meeting in Washington, DC, underscores this truth: "There was a perceptible shift in
attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through
military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD . But the intelligence
and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Bush knew that the engagement with the United Nations, including the crafting of resolution
1441 and the dispatch of inspectors to Iraq, was simply an elaborate charade, cruel theatrics
meant to dangle the prospects of peace, all the while preparing for war -- something Ari
Fleischer knew all along, as this exchange
with the press aptly demonstrates:
Question: "Does regime change mean that you want to change the leader of Iraq, or you want
to change the nature of the regime?"
Fleischer: "The objective is for Saddam Hussein's Iraq to disarm, to stop threatening its
neighbors, to stop repressing minorities within its own country. And that's why Congress passed
the policy of regime change."
Press: "Well, which of those definitions is correct?"
Fleischer: "Well, let's do it -- let me cut to the bottom line on it. What I would propose
is that in the event Saddam Hussein gives the order, and under his leadership and direction
disarms Iraq, gives up its weapons of mass destruction, has no more chemical weapons, no more
biological weapons, stops using hostility as a way to deal with its neighbors, stops repression
of minorities with his own country, give me a call. After you cover Saddam Hussein doing these
things, let's talk about it. Until then, the president is focused on making sure that these
developments take place as a result either of the UN resolutions being enforced, or by whoever
in Iraq taking these actions to make it happen. But this is probably the mother of all
hypotheticals. Give me a phone call when it happens."
Press: "So Saddam could stay in power if those objectives were carried out?"
Fleischer: "Again, call me up when Saddam Hussein gives the directions for all those factors
to take place."
Press: "So, that's a yes?"
Fleischer: "I think this is a question of how many devils can dance on the head of a
pin."
Press: "It's not. Can he stay in power and have regime change?"
Fleischer: "You're asking the mother of hypotheticals. And I think it's a rather "
Press: "Does it refer to a leader or a government regime change?"
Fleischer: "It refers to actions that have to be taken to keep the peace."
Press: "So it's a question of policy, not personnel?"
Fleischer: "That's a good way to put it."
Press: "So he could stay in power if those things happen?"
Fleischer: "If you want to fool yourselves into believing that that's what Saddam Hussein
would do in policy, that's an interesting way to approach it."
The fact of the matter is that Saddam did, in fact, do everything listed by Ari Fleischer to
effect a change in the policies of Iraq in order to preserve his regime. But President Bush --
whom Fleischer represented -- never had any intention of recognizing such change, even when it
occurred. President Bush, Ari Fleischer and every representative of the U.S. administration
involved in formulating and implementing U.S. policy on Iraq was being dishonest in the extreme
when dangling the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the Iraq problem.
In short, they all lied, and Ari Fleischer was the mouthpiece for disseminating these lies,
a task he continues to perform to this day.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author ofDeal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West's Road
to War . 14 Responses to Ari Fleischer Lied, and People Died
Thank you for another reminder of what really happened. My only quibble is that this uses
GWB, the figurehead, as the power and decision-maker. Like Bolton & Co today, the ones
calling the plays are not the public face that can get elected by the proles. It was the
Cheney/Wolfy/Rummy cabal, smokescreened by Rove, who sent Iraq back to the stone age at the
behest of Israel.
One down and more to go Iran is the next big target of the same mentality.
It is interesting to note the following requirement: "stops repression of minorities with
his own country". It indicates that Bush administration had a plan B for invading Iraq, on
the template of Kosovo
The writer states: "In short, they all lied, "
Therefore, based on the evidence that the Iraq war was a lie, where are the prosecutions?
Millions of people are dead, soldiers are dead or maimed, Iraq is reduced to rubble in parts
of its land and nothing happens to the perpetrators of lies. What does this say about our
so-called "justice system"? http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/12/will-war-criminals-be-brought-to.html
"But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
It is the same today with the intelligence being fixed to justify the US exit from the INF
treaty.
Why does the administration not tell us what the range of the disputed missile is?
Why would Russia deploy a land-based missile in breach of the treaty when it could deploy
it at sea and not violate any treaty?
Not surprisingly, this information has not been supplied.
Behind the decision to leave the INF treaty is John Bolton. He also fought to remove Jose
Bustani as the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which
governs the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Bustani was trying to bring Iraq into that treaty. That is why he had to go. If he had
succeeded it would have removed the excuse for war.
It's astonishing that creeps like Fleischer have the temerity to show their faces in public.
His lies caused terrible damage to America and millions of innocent civilians in the Middle
East. He should shut the **** up and thank his lucky stars he wasn't sent to prison for his
part in this disgusting episode.
The War of Lies Against Iraq
By Eric S. Margolis
March 23, 2019
Sixteen years ago, the US and Britain committed a crime of historic proportion, the
invasion and destruction of Iraq. It was as egregious an aggression as Nazi Germany's 1939
invasion of Poland.
Large numbers of Iraqi civilians died from 2003-2007. Iraq's water and sewage systems were
bombed, causing widespread cholera. The UN estimated 500,000 Iraqi children alone died as a
result. Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, said it was 'a price worth paying.'
[read more at link below]
And now we get to do all over again, with the right target this time, Iran. Don't forget that
after 9/11 the first call was to go after Iran and not our trusty allies in the ME who were
the real perps. Iraq was just the consolation prize for these insane ideologues, who should
all be in jailed for war crimes.
If you define weapons of mass destruction as nuclear war capabilities, then Iraq had none. If
you define weapons of mass destruction as chemical, then Iraq historically had these weapons
which it used against Iran, the Kurds, and shot some in Iraq War I at Israel. What happened
to the chemical weapons? They were sold/moved to Syria, where they still are today, and still
being used by the Assad regime. When the US troops got to Iraq in Gulf War II, the chemical
weapons were gone from Iraq, but not from Syria, which is why Iran, has a vested interest in
being involved in Syria, not to mention Israel. Does this help to make more sense of what
seems to be a perpetual war?
Trump just wanted these chemical weapons destroyed and never created again, and the US will
evacuate the Middle East once this is accomplished.
The article and the comments say it all: the lies, nothing else, were used to destroy Iraq!
No intell "mistake" can be offered-it is and was a neo con deception of the country and
the world.
Accountability, however, will not happen. Very ominous for the situation pertaining to
Iran and Venezuela. If the thugs in suits, pompeo, bolton, abrams, feel no consequence will
happen, why worry-it is off to intervention/regime change they go.
American sheeple have the institutional memory of a gnat and the mass media coverup and
malfeseance will continue.
"Liberals were called traitors, we were right
The Bush admin's push for war stank from the beginning"
On the issue of Iraq, there's no hiding behind liberal, democrats, conservative,
republicans, libertarians, etc.
Most of the country was heck bent on war as a matter of revenge, regardless of policy. The
fear mongering for policies adjecent to the actual events and actors of 9/11 was not only
coming out of DC, but main street. New Yorkers were no less intent on war making than the WH,
Congress or various think tanks, businesses or educators from elite or non-elite schools.
And what has occurred since moots any real escape in labels. The group who should have
been the least likely and the most prudent, the most thoughtful – the conservatives had
bent conservatism so out of distortion that even they had no defense against unreason.
I have tended to give the president and those in the WH and Congress the benefit of the
doubt that they sincerely considered a response in the region as a defense. I did not go to
select schools, and the schools I did attend did not require me to Ovid or an overview of the
classics in Greek or Latin. I had not attended a war college class or anything of the kind.
But when the case was presented for war – it simply didn't have the evidence or a
rationale that made sense. In fact, some of those contentions contradicted the what was known
as well as each other. It was deeply disturbing and disappointing. But when I read the
president's response to Dir. Tenet,
"If that's all you got, we can't go to war"
or words to that effect, they reflected my thoughts entirely. And for a long time I
considered that all of this mayhem was part of a diplomatic package. I was already outside
the main on the issue of Afghanistan, which I thought was overkill and strategically unsound
for the what should have been the goal – dealing with the actors of 9/11.
I do agree with Inspector Ritter, it was also quite clear that until the inspectors had
finished their mission, minus any evidence that Pres Hussein was in violation – there
was no case. Nor was there a case for invasion based on any humanitarian crisis or
genocide.
But what I have not been able to do is cross that line that they the president knowing and
deliberately conspired to manufacture (lie) evidence against an innocent party. And I have
been able to cross that line to despite having contemplated this article for two days and I
will no doubt read it again, to include the references. Those of that objected the first go
'round, if not pacifists, have problem read several pools of of information and arguments
regarding the case or lack thereof for war and the misleading the country by the leadership.
And it's frustrating that those who actually got the matter spot on are still battling the
those that got the matter and subsequent similar advances incorrect to this day. It's down
right painful considering the measures that were engaged to not merely silence opposition,
but to destroy people's lives.
What has been broken may not be repairable, one hopes it is, believes it is, but reading
this article is just too deep wound to see it. And what is salt in the wound has been three
years of accusations about Russian collusion for the purposes of undermining the executive
who claimed we should reconsider how we address the adventures. And the near total buy in of
that press by half of the country minus any catastrophic event, makes the wars seem as window
dressing to a much deeper and darker ethic that plagues us.
And then there is the question of what to do about all of this official misrepresentation.
Not only must we filter out whether they knowingly lied, but what to do about it. The
daunting task of arresting so many in so many positions of leadership and research. I
consider it serious business to make a false report, much less doing so on a document of
declaration for official business -- that is purjury. We impeached a president because he
mislead about what was a private intimate indiscretion --
What s described above is devastatingly more egregious by several Everests in
magnitude.
And it implicates our partners in what could only be a crime: Great Britain, Israel,
Australia, Poland and others who aided and abetted in the matter.
Caveat pre-defense: L'est I be called an anti-semite, Israel has a right to exist and self
defense.
They were wrong. And that the factual data contradicted their claims may not be enough to
claim they did not genuinely believe their own "lies" if "lies" they were. Or maybe I am just
unwilling to hold people on my team to account to the standard required. Perhaps, accepting
the idea that they knowingly perjured themselves is just too painful to accept.
Unwilling to call a spade a spade – maybe just too merciful or at the end of the day
-- cowardice.
"... The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections. ..."
"... At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this. ..."
"... I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy. ..."
"... It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further. ..."
"... They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. ..."
"... Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal. ..."
"... The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue; ..."
"... Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law. ..."
"... It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.) ..."
There were no major disagreements between Mueller and his managers at the U.S. Department of
Justice (DOJ).
The Russians who tried to interfere in the 2016 election were exposed and charged -- but no
American was charged with any effort to conspire with Moscow and hijack the election.
the "Steele dossier" that was the main FISA evidence was paid for with funds
from Hillary Clinton
's campaign and the Democratic Party;
Christopher Steele, the dossier's author, had told a senior DOJ official he was desperate to
defeat Trump;
most of the dossier was not verified before it was used as evidence of alleged Trump-Russia
collusion; and
agents collected statements from key defendants such as Papadopoulos and Carter Page during
interactions with an FBI informant that strongly suggested their innocence.
Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and
every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.
An upcoming DOJ inspector general's report should trigger the beginning of that
accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying
all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials. " The Hill
------------
Pilgrims, the seditious conspiracy to depose the elected president of the United States for
conspiracy to commit treason with the Government of the Russian Federation has been
defeated.
The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously
used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make
an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to
overturn the results of elections.
At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary
Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever,
clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the
even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British
intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose
staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this.
The leftist press is already discounting the results of Mueller's investigation while
gloating over how long the Democratic held House of Representatives can continue to search
through Trump's life trying to find criminality.
AG Barr should stand Mueller up next to him at a press conference to make clear the results
of his report and to answer questions about it. After that the prosecutions should begin.
pl
I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee –
Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled
against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this
conspiracy.
It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a
strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' –
notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which
case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further.
The argument that declassification of relevant documentation would harm the intelligence
relationship between the U.S. and U.K. has clearly been made with great emphasis from this
side.
In fact, it is pure bollocks. A serious investigation on your side, which could lead to
the kind of clean-out which should have happened when the scale of the corruption of
intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq became clear, might pave the way for us
to reconstruct reasonably functional intelligence services.
Doing this on both sides of the Atlantic might pave the way for a reconstruction of an
intelligence relationship which was actually beneficial to both countries, as in recent years
it patently has not been.
Whether there is a realistic prospect of people on your side opening the cans of worms on
ours, as well as your own, of course remains a moot point.
I'm glad the Steele affair has been examined at the American end -
"They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with
Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US
political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and
spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York.
"
What about the UK end? We're fussing over some little local difficulties in the UK at the
moment and at our end the questions still remain - Who in the UK authorised it and how high did it go?
The problem with criminal prosecution is one must cite a Brit or US law which was violated.
The only ones in US law that I am aware of stipulate that the plotting must be by means of
violence, "by force". All this appears to me to be only the propagation of rumors.
I think it might be more the investigation of the propagation of rumours. Think back to that election campaign, and to the period before the inauguration.
Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an
odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers
nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it
turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal.
With respect it is not propagating rumours to ask how that happened. As for my own
interest in the affair, it is not propagating rumours to ask how a senior UK ex-Intelligence
Officer comes to be mixed up in it all. I suppose I started to look on it as rather more than a prank or a few cogs slipping when
that senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer got whisked away to a safe house. We're a penny
pinching lot over here and we don't run to that sort of thing for nothing.
An investigation could certainly be predicated on the reasonable suspicion that Steele, et
al, conspired to defraud the United States, in this case a purposeful and knowing smear of a
candidate for office; also, another potential violation could be lying to the FBI, T 18 USC
1001.
The problem, as I see it, is sorting out the malignant from the merely incompetent. As I've
argued many times, the dossier should have been dismissed from the outset as a pile of
garbage, empty of actionable content, because the ultimate sources could not be vetted: the
information could not be said to be either credible or reliable. The information was acted on
by screening it behind the reliabilty and credibility, so called, of Steele. So it would be
necessary to show that Steele knew that the information, point by point, was false. This
could be difficult. Steele's first line of defense would be that he threw everything that he
heard from anyone at all into the mix in the expectation that the "professionals" would
figure it out.
Yes, they were all partisan, Steele, his sources, his bosses, the so called
professionals, and their partisanship would be easy to prove; and yes, almost assuredly their
partisanship contributed, perhaps even explained, their defective judgement as to how to
handle the scurrilous information, especially on the part of the so called professionals, but
proving they actually knew the materials to be false would be difficult.
They couldn't know
that it was false because they had no ability to run down the sources. The professionals
would defend themselves by saying they had no ability to vet the sources but the information
represented such a serious security threat that they had no alternative but to try to vet the
information by launching the investigation against the targets. This puts the cart before the
horse, represents an astonishing lack of judgement, especially considering the "exalted"
positions in the Intel Community the people exercising the bad judgement occupied, but there
it is - "we thought we were doing the right thing."
Perhaps this defense could be overcome by
demonstrating that people at such high and important heights of government could not possible
be so stupid... maybe.
And of course we have the orchestrated leaks to various media, the orchestrated unmaskings,
all of which kept the media frenzy fired up. All in all, it was the greatest political dirty
trick ever attempted in American Politics, and did devastating damage to both domestic
tranquility and national security. Trump survived, but the damage done is incalculable.
So It pains me greatly to think that the reckoning will likely have to be political rather
than criminal because the malice that can be demonstrated is so admixed and even overshadowed
by incompetence and judgement flaws; and even a political reckoning given the state of the
country is so uncertain.
I hope that I am wrong and that some kind of prosecution can be fashioned because of the
sheer enormity of violence that was done to our electoral system, surpassing by far the
chickenshit case Mueller brought against the Russian troll farm; but I fear that I am right.
It hurts to think that so much damage can be caused by scheming little political weasels and
that they all may well walk away scot free; and even be lionized by their political confreres
as having tried to do the right thing. This is the state of American politics today!!!
I see that some of the midgets on horseback are saying that they will bring Mueller before
congress to explain himself. Their knight in shining armor has failed to return with the holy
grail. A couple even suggested that perhaps Mueller has been influenced by the Russians or
somehow intimated by Trump.
The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue;
and that
+ all the crazy Marxism (social and economic), bad immigration policy and Green New Deal is
going to doom the Democrats in 2020. They look like they are jumping off a final sake fueled
banzai charge. Maybe they think the best defense is a good offense re; the prosecutions that
should happen. What is the chance that Mueller will pass *all* he has learned to help get the
criminal cases under way?
On 13 July 2018, when announcing the indictment of 12 Russian military officers by the
Mueller group for "conspiring to interfere" in the 2016 presidential election, Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein admitted that no "interference" actually happened. In this
video of his announcement, starting at 5 minutes, 52 seconds into it and ending at the 6
minute, 5 second mark, he says--
"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.
There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election
result."
Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results
of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly
pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law.
However, I am concerned that the new attorney general, William Barr, will not do so based
on his past associations and work. I hope I am wrong about that, but I am not optimistic.
It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly
unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a
weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection"
operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such
obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.)
I'm wrestling with the idea that 'twas ever thus and now with the internet its workings
are revealed to a "lay" audience with no connection to the dark arts of the spy business. But
I am curious, with the good Colonel's indulgence, if the new tools of the trade have made
things which should be secret not possible to be kept secret?
Amen to the prosecutions. If there is seen to be no accountability for this fraud then we are
seriously damaging what's left of democracy. Who, in their right mind, is going to publicly
support and assist a political candidate who is not "Swamp approved" if they face the threat
of thereby triggering their own, and their family's destruction by the judicial system?
I suggest that even a pardon is not enough for those entrapped in this mess. There needs
to be restitution.
To put that another way, in my opinion, "birther" allegations could be passed off as
political tactics. Nobody got hurt. It is just good luck that Russiagate hasn't resulted in
suicide or worse - so far.
I certainly agree that consequences must be brought to bear: lying politicians without a
shred of evidence, nor did they offer any for their lies; press for their utter and complete
malfeasance and corruption without a shred of evidence, the doj/fbi corrupted and coup
plotting officials,and finally the shame to all who shrieked about "evil" putin, russia the
aggressor, etc. It has set our discourse back decades, forced any critics of this insanity
into the shadows, and completely killed any attempt at normal diplomacy between nations.
I noted one astute writer as equating this russiagate insanity to the lies surrounding wmd
and the destruction of iraq. Close. The damage from this criminality is incalculable!
Will the shrillest of all in the press lose their jobs? Nah, not a chance. Prob get raise
or promotion.Will the brennans, clintons, clappers, et al do the perp walk. Nah, not a
chance. High paid lawyers will tie the courts up for years if not decades.
And america has the institutional memory of a gnat. And of course, the question is as to
high up did this criminality go? I personally do not believe it is a question-it is obvious
to me. The major question for me is how high up the prosecution, if any, will go.
Problem is...who's going to do the prosecuting?
The DOJ - protector of the swamp - has become thoroughly corrupted as an arm of the
Democrat-media party.
Should (can) Trump appoint a special prosecutor as far as possible from the DOJ?
The president might use this and any Republican-led prosecutions as leverage to work out
deals that will allow him to achieve his agenda. I think he'll need to given how the
Democrats intend to use their house majority to launch investigations and hearings to find
something, anything to howl about and impede his agenda.
Still need to see the full report. I hope it is releasable. Otherwise the conspiracy theories
or leaks will never let up. The article cited is a partisan opinion piece, not a news report.
It accepts the fallback stance that yes, crimes were committed but collusion by Trump was not
among them. This actually seems possible if only in light of the chaotic condition of the
campaign.
That said, I would not be surprised to find collusion discounted. Not that the Russians
didn't interfere. That would be entirely in character. But I don't know any reason for
supposing that they would have a better understanding of American political dynamics than the
Americans who make good livings being the best in that arena. The Russians seem to have been
doing the same things as numerous other players. They shouldn't have been in that game, but
there is no strong reason for according them Superman status. Their strongest feature seems
to have been sheer quantity. Outrage over their actions often seems to flow from a poor grasp
of the real nature of normal political process.
"The Russians seem to have been doing the same things..."
Multiple members of the FBI and DOJ seem to have been interfering in the 2016 Presidential
election. How many other federal and state elections did they interfere with?
Can you cite a single piece of hard evidence, not simply allegation, that proves the Russians
interfered in the 2016 election? If so, please cite it, since I know of none. Thank you.
"... Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. ..."
"... As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch ..."
"... I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way. ..."
"... Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove. ..."
"... It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon. ..."
"... It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better. ..."
Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy
that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump
president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who
bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful
wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact
that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, was a loudmouth
bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people
did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment
stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump
in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by
inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the
American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives,
getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote
this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to
conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every
component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence
agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to
remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of
amounts to an attempted soft coup.
It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was
nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. The Clintons once
again, both Bill and Hillary, have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug in the White
House to the status of some kind of martyr. What a country America it is. One thing should be
clear however. Any politician or media pundit that towed the pro-Clintonista line should be
barred from public office or the media forever.
As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary,
they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry.
Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch. There is one difference between Typhoid
Mary, and Bill and Hillary: Typhoid Mary didn't realize what she was doing, the Clintons did!
sorry to double post, but it just occurred to me that they pulled a classic DC move: if you
have something humiliating or horrible to admit, do it on a friday night.
i have to wonder if the entire western media is cynically praying for a (coincidentally
distracting) school shooting or terrorist attack within the next two days.
I have close friends that have been on the MSNBC/Maddow Kool-Ade for years. Constantly
declaring Mueller was on the verge of closing in on Trump and associates for treason with the
Russians. On Friday night after dinner at our home, the TV was tuned to MSNBC so they could
watch their spiritual leader Rachel Maddow....what a pitiful sight (both Maddow and friends).
No one was going to jail or be impeached for conspiring with Putin.....how on how could that
be true. Putin personally stole the election from Clinton and THEY are just going to let him
walk was the declaration a few feet from my chair. Normally, I would recommend grieve
counseling, but they are still my friends ... now they can go back to blaming Bernie for
Clinton's loss. Maybe I will recommend grieve counseling!
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 23, 2019 2:27:18 PM |
link
@dltravers: Apart from the "goyim" you may be right.. But if you want to claim with that
Trumps opponents where under the pressure of the Zionists, you got it all wrong man.. ;) No
presidents been more under the Zionist thumb than DJT.
That ofc doesnt make Hillarys Saudi and Muslim brotherhood connections better.. ;)
Anyway, cheers to the end of this BS! And lets hope that Trump has now payed off his debts
with Adelson now that he secured Bibis reelection. But dont hold your breath.. ;)
"very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this
moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life".
I wish so, but that's not how the exceptional nation of US of A works, as demonstrated by
the Iraq WMD fiasco case. In fact, very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit
(about Saddam's WMD" BS) is alive and well, spreading more BS. What is even more depressing
is that the huge chunk of this exceptional nation cannot have enough of the BS and is
chanting "give me more, give me more...".
The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion.
However some good things have come out of the investigation. It cost taxpayers 2 million
but recouped over 25 million from those convicted of fraud and tax evasion.
And its not over, Mueller has sent 5 to 7 referrals or evidence/witnesses to SDNY, EDNY, DC,
EDVA, plus the National Security and Criminal Divisions. These from information turned up
crimes unrelated to his Russia probe and allegedly concerning Trump or his family business, a
cadre of his advisers and associates. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles
to Brooklyn.
The bad news is it exposed how wide spread and corrupt the US has become...in private and
political circles.
The other bad news is most of the Trump lovers and Trump haters are too stupid to drop
their partisan and personal blinders and recognize that ....ITS THE CORRUPTION STUPID.
b you have repeatedly made the case that this whole thing was kicked off by the Steele
dossier. That is factually incorrect. The first investigation was already running before the
dossier ever materialized. That investigation spawned the special prosecutors investigation
when Trump fired Comey and then went on TV and said it was because of the Russia
investigation. The Russia investigation was originally kicked off by Papadopoulos drinking
with the the Australian ambassador and bragging about what the campaign was doing with
Russia. Remember the original evidence was presented to the leadership of both the House and
the Senate when they were both controlled by the Republican party and every one that was
briefed came out on camera and said the Justice dept was doing the right thing in pursuing
this.
I think the Democrats should lose Hillary down a deep hole and not let her near any of the
coming campaign events. But this came about because of the actions of the people around
Trump. Not because Hillary controls the US government from some secret bunker some where.
One could argue Russiagate was on the contrary quite a success. The Elites behind the scheme
never believed it would end up with Trump's impeachment. What they did accomplish though is a
deflection via "Fake News" from the Dem's election failures & shenanigans and refocus the
attention towards the DNC's emerging pedophilia scandals (Weiner, the Podesta's, Alefantis,
etc) & suspicious deaths (Seth Rich, etc) towards a dead-end with the added corollary of
preventing US/Ru rapprochement for more then half an administration..
Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 3:10:02 PM |
link
The deeply tragic thing about this for the media, the neocons, and the liberals is that they
brought it upon themselves by moving the goalposts continuously. If, after Hillary lost, they
had stuck to the "Russia hacked WikiLeaks" lie, then they probably have sufficient proof from
their perspective and the perspective of most of the public that Russia helped Trump win. In
this case it would be remembered by the Democrats like the stolen election of 2000 (albeit
the fact that it was a lie this time). They had multiple opportunities to jump off this
train. Even the ridiculous DNI report could have been their final play: "Russia helped
Trump." Instead of going with 2000 they went with 2001, aka 9-11, with the same neocon
fearmongers playing the pipe organ of lies. As soon as they accepted the Steele Dossier,
moving the focus to "collusion" they discredited themselves forever. Many of the lead
proponents were discredited Iraq war hawks. Except this time it was actually worse because
the whole media bought into it. This leaves an interesting conundrum: there were at least
some pro-Afghanistan anti-Iraq warmongers who rejected the Bush premise in the media, so they
took over the airwaves for about two years before the real swamp creatures returned. This
time, it will be harder to issue a mea culpa. They made this appear like 9-11, well, this
time the truthers have won, and they are doomed.
Societies collapse when their systems (institutions) become compromised. When they are no
longer capable of meeting the needs of the population, or of adapting to a changing world.
Societal systems become compromised when their decision making structures, which are
designed to ensure that decisions are taken in the best interest of the society as a whole,
are captured by people who have no legitimacy to make the decisions, and who make decisions
for the benefit of themselves, at the expense of society as a whole.
Russia-gate is a flagrant example of how the law enforcement and intelligence institutions
have been captured. Their top officials, no longer loyal to their country or their
institution, but rather to an international elite (including the likes of Soros, the
Clintons, and far beyond) have used these institutions in an attempt to delegitimize a
constitutionally elected president and to over turn an election. This is no less than treason
of the highest order.
Indeed, the actions much of the Washington establishment, as well as a number
international actors, since Trump was elected seems suspiciously like one of the 'Color
Revolutions' that are visited upon any country who's citizens did not 'vote right' the first
time. Over-throw the vote, one way or another, until the result that is wanted is achieved.
None of these 'Color Revolutions' has resulted in anything good for the country involved.
Rather they have resulted in the destruction of each country's institutions, and eventually
societal collapse.
In the U.S. the capturing of systems' decision making structures is not limited to
Russia-Gate and the overturning of the electoral system. Their are other prime examples:
- The capture of the Air Transport Safety System by Boeing that has resulted in the recent
737 Max crashes, and likely the destruction of the reputation of the U.S. aviation industry,
in an industry where reputation is everything.
- The capture of the Financial Regulatory System, by Wall Street, who in 1998 rewrote the
rules in their own favor, against the best interests of the population as a whole. The result
was the 2008 financial crisis and the inability of the U.S. economy to effectively recover
from that crisis.
- This capture is also seen in international diplomatic systems, where the U.S. is
systematically by-passing or subverting international law and international institutions,
(the U.N. I.C.J., I.N.F. treaty) etc., and in doing so is destroying these institutions and
the ability to maintain peace.
The result of system (institution) capture is difficult to see at first. But, in time, the
damage adds up, the ability of the systems to meet the needs of the population disappears,
and societal decline sets in.
It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of
many indicators.
Your comment on the BBC is on the mild side. I listen to it when I drive in in the morning
and also get annoyed sometimes. When it is reporting on the Westminster bubble it is
factually accurate as far as I can judge. Apart from that, and particularly in the case of
the BBC news, we're in information control territory.
But accept that and the BBC turns into quite a valuable resource. It's well staffed, has
good contacts, and picks up what the politicians want us to think with great accuracy.
In that respect it's better than the newspapers and better also than the American media.
Those news outlets have several masters of which the political elite is only one. The BBC has
just the one master, the political elite, and is as sensitive as a stethoscope to the
shifting currents within that political elite.
So I wouldn't despise the BBC entirely. It tells us how the politicians want us to think.
In telling us that it sometimes gives us a bearing on what the politicians et al are doing
and what they intend to do.
The never-Trumpers will never let their dreams die. Of course, they never oppose Trump on
substantive issues like attempting a coup in Venezuela, withdrawing from the INF treaty,
supporting the nazis in Ukraine, supporting Al Qaeda forces in Syria, etc. But somehow
they're totally against him and ready to haul out the latest stupid thing he said as their
daily fodder for conversation...
renfro @ 10 said;"The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion."
Uh no, just doing their job of distracting the public, while ignoring the real issues
the
American workers care about. You know, the things DJT promised the workers, but has never
delivered.(better health care for all, ending the useless wars overseas, an
infrastructure
plan to increase good paying jobs), to name just a few.
The corporate Dems( which is the lions share of them), are bought and paid for to
distract, and they've done it well.
The Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, and most who have come before, are of the same
ilk.
Bend over workers and lube up, for more of the same in 2020...
I profoundly disagree with the notion that Russiagate had anything to do with Hillary's
collusion with the DNC. Gosh, that is naive at best.
1) Hillary didn't need to collude against Sanders - the additional money that she got from
doing so was small change compared the to overall amount she raised for her campaign.
2) Sanders was a long-time friend of the Clintons. He boasted that he's known Hillary
for over 25 years.
3) Sanders was a sheepdog meant to keep progressives in the Democratic Party. He was
never a real candidate. He refused to attack Hillary on character issues and remained loyal
even after Hillary-DNC collusion was revealed.
When Sanders had a chance to total disgrace Hillary, he refused to do so. Hillary
repeatedly said that she had NEVER changed for vote for money but Warren had proven that
she had: Hillary changed her vote on the Bankruptcy Bill for money from the credit card
industry.
4) Hillary didn't try to bury her collusion with the DNC (as might be expected), instead
she used it to alienate progressive voters by bring Debra Wasserman-Shultz into her
campaign.
5) Hillary also alienated or ignored other important constituencies: she wouldn't
support an increase in the minimum wage but accepted $750,000 from Goldman Sachs for a
speech; she took the black vote for granted and all-but berated a Black Lives Matters
activist; and she called whites "deplorables".
Hillary threw the race to her OTHER long-time friend in the race: Trump. The
Deep-State wanted a nationalist and that's just what they got.
6) Hillary and the DNC has shown NO REMORSE whatsoever about colluding with Sanders and
Sanders has shown no desire whatsoever to hold them accountable.
IMO Russiagate (Russian influence on Trump) and accusations of "Russian meddling" in the
election are part of the same McCarthyist psyop to direct hate at Russia and stamp out any
dissent. Trump probably knowingly, played into the Deep State's psyop by:
> hiring Manafort;
> calling on Russia to release Hillary's emails;
> talking about Putin in a admiring way.
And it accomplished much more than hating on Russia:
> served as excuse for Trump to do Deep State bidding;
> distracted from the real meddling in the 2016 election;
> served as a device for settling scores:
- Assange isolated
(Wikileaks was termed an "agent of a foreign power");
- Michael Flynn forced to resign
(because he spoke to the Russian ambassador).
hopehely , Mar 23, 2019 3:49:15 PM |
link The US owes Russia an official apology. And also Russia should get its stolen
buildings and the consulate back. And maybe to get paid some compensation for the injustice
and for damages suffered. Without that, the Russiagate is not really over.
If memory serves me correctly, the initial accusations of collusion between DJT's
presidential campaign and the Kremlin came from Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company hired
by the Democratic National Committee to oversee the security of its computers and databases.
This was done to deflect attention away from Hillary Clinton's illegal use of a personal
server at home to conduct government business during her time as US State Secretary (2009 -
2013), business which among other things included plotting with the US embassy in Libya (and
the then US ambassador Chris Stevens) to overthrow Muammar Gaddhafi's government in 2011, and
conspiring also to overthrow the elected government in Honduras in 2010.
The business of Christopher Steele's dossier (part or even most of which could have been
written by Sergei Skripal, depending on who you read) and George Papadopoulos' conversation
with the half-wit Australian "diplomat" Alexander Downer in London were brought in to bolster
the Russiagate claims and make them look genuine.
As B says, Crowdstrike does indeed have a Ukrainian nationalist agenda: its founder and
head Dmitri Alperovich is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council (the folks who fund
Bellingcat's crapaganda) and which itself receives donations from Ukrainian oligarch Viktor
Pinchuk. Crowdstrike has some association with one of the Chalupa sisters (Alexandra or
Andrea - I can't be bothered dredging through DuckDuckGo to check which - but one of them was
employed by the DNC) who donated money to the Maidan campaign that overthrew Viktor
Yanukovych's government in Kiev in February 2014.
thanks b... i would like russiagate to be finished, but i tend to see it much like kadath
@2.. the link @2 is worth the read as a reminder of how far the usa has sunk in being a
nation of passive neocons... emptywheel can't say no to this as witnessed by her article
from today.. ) as a consequence, i agree with @14 dh-mtl's conclusion - "It looks today
like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators."
the irony for those of us who don't live in the usa, is we are going to have watch this
sad state of affairs continue to unravel, as the usa and the west continue to unravel in
tandem.. the msm as corporate mouthpiece is not going to be tell us anything of relevance..
instead it will be continued madcow, or maddow bullshit 24-7... amd as kadath notes @2 - if
any of them are to step up as a truth teller - they will be marginalized or silenced... so
long as the mainstream swallow what they are fed in the msm, the direction of the titanic is
still on track...
@19 hopehely... you can forget about anything like that happening..
What Difference Does it Make?
They don't really need Russia-gate anymore. It bought them time. As we speak nuclear bombers
make runs near Russian borders every day and Russian consulates get attacked with heavy
weaponry in the EU and no Russian outlet is even making a reference,while Israel is ready to
move heavy artillery in to Golan targeting Russia bases in Syria and China raking all their
deals for civilian projects in the Med.
Russia got stuffed in the corner getting all the punches.
What a horrible witch hunt, but the msm will keep on denying and keep creating new hoaxes
about Trump, Russia.
Heck the media even deny there was no collussion, they keep spinning it in different ways!
Thanks for citing Caitlin Johnstone's wonderful epitaph, b--Russiavape indeed!
During the fiasco, the Outlaw US Empire provided excellent proof to the world that it does
everything it accused Russia of doing and more, while Russia's cred has greatly risen.
Meanwhile, there're numerous other crimes Trump, his associates, Clinton, her
associates--like Pelosi--ought to be impeached, removed from office, arrested, then tried in
court, which is diametrically opposed to the current--false--narrative.
Scotch Bingeington , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:39 PM |
link
The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people
anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.
Yes, absolutely. And not just regarding the world's future, but even if you happen to be
in the same building with one of them and he/she bursts into your already smoke-filled room
yelling that the house is on fire.
Btw, whatever authority has ever ruled that "ex-MI6 dude" Steele (who doesn't remind me of
steel at all, but rather of a certain nondescript entity named Anthony Blair) is in fact
merely 'EX'? He himself? The organisation? The Queen perhaps?
Expose them at every opportunity, they should not get away with this like nothing
happend:
If you think a single Russiagate conspiracist is going to be held accountable for media
malpractice, you clearly haven't been awake the past 2 decades. No one will pay for being
wrong. This profession is as corrupt & rotten as the kleptocracy it serves
defeatism isn't the answer -- should remind & mock these hacks every opportunity.
Just need to be aware of the beast we're up against.
The establishment plays on peoples fears and so we all sink together as we all cling to
our "lesser evils", tribal allegiances, and try to avoid the embarrassment of being
wrong.
Although everyone is aware of the corruption and insider dealing, no one seems to want to
acknowledge the extent, or to think critically so as to reveal any more than we already
know.
It's almost as though corruption (the King's nudity) is a national treasure and revealing
it would be a national security breach in the exceptional nation.
And so to the Deep State cabal continues to rule unimpeded.
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by
inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the
American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives,
getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote
this story on a daily basis for nearly three years
Posted by: Ken | Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | 4
You people don't get it do you?
'The Plan' was to get rid of Turkey-Russia-Israel (and a few others) with one fell
swoop....
Russia gate was both a diversion from the real collusions (Russian Mafia , China and Israel)
and a clever ruse to allow Trump to back off from his campaign promise to improve relations
with Russia. US policy toward Russia is no different under Trump than it was during Obamas
administration. Exactly what the Russia Gaters wanted and Trump delivered.
That Mueller could find nothing more than some tax/money laundering/perjury charges in
which the culprits in the end get pardoned is hardly surprising given his history. Want
something covered up? Put Mueller on it.
To show how afraid Trump was of Mueller he appointed his long term friend Barr as AJ and
pretended he didn't know how close they were when it came out. There is no lie people wont
believe. Lol
Meanwhile Trumps Russian Mafia connections stay under the radar in MSM, Trump continues as
Bibi's sock puppet, the fake trade war with China continues as Ivanka is rolling in China
trademarks .
The Rothschild puppet that bailed out Trumps casinos as Commerce Secretary overseeing
negotiations that will open the doors for more US and EU (they willy piggy back on the deal
like hyenas) jobs to go to China (this time in financial/services) and stronger IPR
protections that will facilitate this transfer, and will provide companies more profits in
which to buyback stocks but wont bring manufacturing jobs back.
The collusion story has been hit badly and it will likely lose its momentum, but I wonder how
far reaching this loss of momentum is. There are many variants. The 'unwitting accomplice' is
an oxymoron which isn't finished yet. The Russians hacking the election: not over. The
Russians sowing discord and division. Not over. Credibility of the Russiagate champions
overall? Not clear. Some could take a serious hit. Brennan and other insiders who made it
onto cable tv?
It is possible that the whole groupthink about Russiagate changes drastically
and that 'the other claims' also lose their credibility but it's far from certain. After
years of building up tension Russia's policies are also changing. I think they have shown
restraint but their paranoia and aggressiveness is also increasing and some claims will
become true after all.
"Russiagate" has always been a meaningless political fraud.
When folks like Hillary Clinton sign on to something and give it a great deal of weight,
you really do know you are talking about an empty bag of tricks. She is a psychopathic liar,
one with a great deal of blood on her hands.
My problem with this official result is that it may tend to give Trump a boost, new
credibility.
The trouble with Trump has never been Russia - something only blind ideologues and people
with the minds of children believe - it is that he is genuinely ignorant and genuinely
arrogant and loud-mouthed - an extremely dangerous combination.
And in trying to defend himself, this genuine coward has completely surrendered American
foreign policy to its most dangerous enemies, the Neocons.
Blaming Russiagate on Hillary is very easy for those who hate her or hope that Trump will
deliver on his faux populist fake-agenda.
No one wants to contemplate the possibility that Hillary and Trump, and the duopoly they
lead, fixed the election and planned Russiagate in advance.
It seems a bridge too far, even for the smart skeptics at MoA.
So funny.
Trump has proven himself to be a neocon. He broke his campaign promise to investigate
Hillary within DAYS of being elected. He has brought allies of his supposed enemies into his
Administration.
Yet every one turns from the possibility that the election was fixed. LOL.
The horrible possibility that our "democracy" is managed is too horrible to contemplate.
Lets just blame it all on Hillary.
Those who have been holding their breath for two years can finally exhale. I guess the fever
of hysteria will have to be attended a while longer. A malady of this kind does not easily
die out overnight. Those who have been taken in, and duped for so long, can not so easily
recover. The weight of so much cognitive dissonance presses down on them like a boulder. The
dust of the stampeded herd behind Russiagate is enough paralyze the will of those who have
succumbed.
As Joseph Conrad once wrote, "The ways of human progress are inscrutable."
Russiagate is a pendulum, it reached the dead point, it would hange in the air for a moment,
then it would start swinging right backwards at full speed crashign everything in the way!
It would be revealed, it was Russia who paid Muller to start that hysteria and stole money
from American tax-payers and make America an international laughing stock. "Putin benefited
from it", highly likely!
Muller's investigation is paid for with Manafort's seized cash and property and Manafort
has made Yanukovich king of Ukraine, so Manafort is Putin's agent, so Muller is working of
Putin's money, so it was Putin's collusion everything that Muller is doing! Highly
likely.
There is no "Liberal Media". Those whom claim to be Liberal and yet support the Warmonger
Democratic Party (Republican lite) are frauds. Liberalism does not condone war and it most
certainly does not support wars of aggression - especially those wars waged against
defenseless nations. Neither can liberalism support trade sanctions or the subjugation of
Palestinians in the Apartheid State of ISreal.
We must be very careful with the words we choose, in order to paint the correct
conjuncture and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
It's one thing to say Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary; it's another completely
different thing to say he was in cahoots with the Clintons.
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary. Not only he chose to do so, but he only didn't win
because the DNC threw all its weight against him.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist. He's an imperialist who believes the
spoils of the empire should be also used to build a Scandinavian-style Welfare State for the
American people only. A cynic would tell you this would make him a Nazi without the race
theme, but you have to keep in mind societies move in a dialectical patern, not a linear one:
if you preach for "democratic socialism", you're bringing the whole package, not only the
bits you want.
I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it
exists. Americans are more aware of their own contradictions (more enlightened) now than
before he disputed those faithful primaries of 2016. And the most important ingredient for
that, in my opinion, was the fact he was crushed by both parties; that the "establishment"
acted in unison not to let him get near the WH. That was a didactic moment for the American
people (or a signficant part of it).
But I agree Russiagate went well beyond just covering the Clintons' dirt in the DNC.
It may have be born like that, but, if that was the case, the elites quickly realized it
had other, ampler practical uses. The main one, in my opinion, was to drive a wedge between
Trump's Clash of Civilizations's doctrine -- which perceives China as the main long term
enemy, and Russia as a natural ally of the West -- and the public opinon. The thing is most
of the American elite is far too dependent on China's productive chain; Russia is not, and
can be balkanized.
There is a funny video compilation of the TV talking heads predicting the end of Trump, new
bombshells, impeachment, etc., over the last two years.
Unfortunately, the same sort of compilation could be made of sane people predicting "this new
information means the end of Russiagate" over the same time period.
The truth is that the truth doesn't matter, only the propaganda, and it has not stopped, only
spun onto new hysteria.
As others have said, hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been
wrong all along. They have too much emotional investment in the grand conspiracy theory to
simply let it go. Rather, they will forever point to what they believe are genuine bits of
evidence and curse Mueller for not following the leads. And the Dems in the House of
Representatives will waste more time and resources on pointless investigations in an effort
to keep the public sufficiently distracted from more important matters, such as the endless
wars and coups that they support. A pox on all their houses, both Democrats and
Republicans.
"...hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along."
Wrong about what? There seems to be "narrative" operative here that there are only two
positions on this matter: the "right" one and the "wrong" one and nothing else.
Ben's and other comments might make this a little bit superfluous but it's short.
A case of divide and conquer against the population
This time it was a fabricated scandal.
Continued control over "facts" and narratives, the opportunity for efficient misdirection
and distraction, stealing and wasting other people's time and effort, spurious disagreements,
wearing down relations.
The illusion of choice, (false) opposition, blinded "oversight", and mythical claims
concerning a civilian government (in the case of the US: "of, for, and by" or something like
that).
Who knew or knows is irrelevant as long as the show goes on. There's nothing to prove
anything significant about who if anyone may or may not be behind the curtain and thus on
towards the next big or small scandal we go because people will be dissatisfied and hungry
and ready to bite as hard as possible on some other bait for or against something.
Maybe "Russiagate" was impeccably engineered or maybe it organically outcompeted other
distractions on offer that would ultimately also waste enormous amounts of time and
effort.
Management by crisis
The scandals, crises, "Science says" games and rubbish, outrage narratives, and any other
manipulations attempt and perhaps succeed at controlling the US and the world through
spam.
Jonathan @39: Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for.
Well, you can say the same think about money-as-speech , gerrymandering, voter
suppression, etc. Despite all these, Americans believe that their democracy works.
I contend that what we witnessed in 2016 was a SHOW. Like American wrestling. It was
(mostly) fake. The proper term for this is kayfabe .
My advice to the yanks mourning Russiagate: move to the UK. The sick Brits will keep the
Russia hating cult alive even after they spend a decade puking over Brexit.
Jackrabbit @18
So, you don't think HRC qualifies as a nationalist? She can't fake populist, but she can do
nationalist.
I also think she is much too ambitious to have intentionally thrown the election. It was her
turn dammit! Take a look at her behavior as First Lady if you think she's the kind of
personality that is content to wield power from behind the scenes.
They didn't fall for the Steele dossier. I recall that emptywheel had discredited the dossier
during the election as it was known to have been rejected by major media outlets leading up
to the election. I think they merely fell behind the others as the outgoing administration,
the Democrats, the CIA, and the media chose to use the dossier to 'blackmail' Trump.
The most important fruit of russiagate, from the view of the establishment of the hegemon, is
that America has now taken a giant step towards full bore censorship.
We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby
inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the
bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?
Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told
Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's
typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's
that?
The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him
and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.
Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax
returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the
press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of
returns). Bernie refused.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie
Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things
for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.
What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate,
meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like
open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the
Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.
Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character
issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other
examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's
well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer
Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make")
and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").
And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find
that even a little bit strange?
We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby
inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the
bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?
Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told
Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's
typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?
The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and
Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.
Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns.
Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press
asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of
returns) . Bernie refused.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie
Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things
for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.
What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless
astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders.
These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and
another 4 years for Trump.
Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and
to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie
refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to
squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk
about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the
overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").
And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that
even a little bit strange?
mourning dove @57: Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not
voters.
Do you think Hillary didn't know that? She refused to campaign in the three mid-western
states that would've won her the electoral college. Each of the states were won by Trump by a
thin margin.
Gosh and Blimey!
Comment #56 in a thread about an utterly corrupt political system and no-one has mentioned
the pro-"Israel" Lobby?
Words fail me. So I'll use someone else's...
From Xymphora March 21, 2019.
"Truth or Trope?" (Sailer):
"Of the top 50 political donors to either party at the federal level in 2018, 52 percent
were Jewish and 48 percent were gentile. Individuals who identify as Jewish are usually
estimated to make up perhaps 2.2 percent of the population.
Of the $675 million given by the top 50 donors, 66 percent of the money came from Jews and 34
percent from gentiles.
Of the $297 million that GOP candidates and conservative causes received from the top 50
donors, 56 percent was from Jewish individuals.
Of the $361 million Democratic politicians and liberal causes received, 76 percent came from
Jewish givers.
So it turns out that Rep. Omar and Gov. LePage appear to have been correct, at least about
the biggest 2018 donors. But you can also see why Pelosi wanted Omar to just shut up about
it: 76 percent is a lot."
Next up another false flag operation. The thing is, it would have be non-trivial and
involving the harming of people to jolt the narrative back to that favoring the deep state.
And taking off the proverbial media table, that Mueller found no collusion. Yes, election in
2016 no collusion, but Putin was behind the latest horrific false flag, "oh look, Trump is
not confronting Putin"...
Not even getting into the "treason", "putin's c*ckholster", "what's the time on Moscow,
troll!" crap we've been subjected to for 3 years, please enjoy this mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUvfZj-Fm0.
I've said before that she's a terrible strategist and she ran a terrible campaign and she's
terribly out of touch. I think she expected a cake walk and was relying on Trump being so
distasteful to voters that they'd have no other option.
I think Trump legitimately won the election and I don't believe for a second that she won the
popular vote. There were so many problems with the election but since they were on the losing
side, nobody cares. In 2012 I didn't know anyone else who was voting for Jill Stein, way too
many people were still in love with Obama. She got .4% of the vote. In 2016 most of the
people I knew were voting for Jill Stein, she drew a large crowd from DemExit, but they say
she got .4% of the vote. Total bullshit. There was also ballot stuffing and lots of other
problems, but it still wasn't enough.
I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her
elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and
the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way.
Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough
to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has
helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller
to prove.
It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that
Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the
"national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify
the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon.
It is time to build
cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony.
Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it.
The truth will work better.
"... RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there. ..."
"... And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless. ..."
"... They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. ..."
"... The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion." ..."
"... It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. ..."
"... If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb. ..."
"... If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate. ..."
"... And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us. ..."
"... Hillary is the epitome of evil. ..."
"... I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. ..."
"... Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected. ..."
"... Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected". ..."
"... HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH ..."
"... It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible ..."
"... When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself. ..."
During most of the RussiaGate investigation against Donald Trump I kept saying that all
roads lead to Hillary Clinton.
Anyone with three working brain cells knew this, including
'Miss' Maddow, whose tears of disappointment are particularly delicious.
Robert Mueller's investigation was designed from the beginning to create something out of
nothing. It did this admirably.
It was so effective it paralyzed the country for more than two years, just like Europe has
been held hostage by Brexit. And all of this because, in the end, the elites I call The Davos
Crowd refused to accept that the people no longer believed their lies about the benefits of
their neoliberal, globalist agenda.
Hillary Clinton's ascension to the Presidency was to be their apotheosis along with the
Brexit vote. These were meant to lay to rest, once and for all time, the vaguely libertarian
notion that people should rule themselves and not be ruled by philosopher kings in some distant
land.
Hillary's failure was enormous. And the RussiaGate gambit to destroy Trump served a laundry
list of purposes to cover it:
Undermine his legitimacy before he even takes office.
Accuse him of what Hillary actually did: collude with Russians and Ukrainians to effect
the outcome of the election
Paralyze Trump on his foreign policy desires to scale back the Empire
Give aid and comfort to hurting progressives and radicalize them further undermining our
political system
Polarize the electorate over the false choice of Trump's guilt.
Paralyze the Dept. of Justice and Congress so that they would not uncover the massive
corruption in the intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.
Isolate Trump and take away every ally or potential ally he could have by turning them
against him through prosecutor overreach.
Hillary should have been thrown to the wolves after she failed. When you fail the people she
failed and cost them the money she cost them, you lose more than just your funding. What this
tells you is that Hillary has so much dirt on everyone involved, once this thing started
everyone went along with it lest she burn them down as well.
Burnin' Down da House
Hillary is the epitome of envy. Envy is the destructive sin of coveting someone else's life
so much they are obsessed with destroying it. It's the sin of Cain. She envies what Trump has,
the Presidency. And she was willing to tear it down to keep him from having it no matter how
much damage it would do. She's worse than the Joker from The Dark Knight.
Because while the Joker is unfathomable to someone with a conscience there's little stopping
us from excising him from the community completely., even though Batman refuses.
Hillary hates us for who we are and what we won't give her. And that animus drove her to
blackmail the world while putting on the face of its savior.
And that's what makes what comes next so obvious to me. RussiaGate was never a sustainable
narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there
are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there.
Mueller thought all he had to do was lean on corrupt people and threaten them with
everything. They would turn on Trump. He would resign in disgrace from the public outcry. It
didn't work. In the end Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone all held their ground or
perjured themselves into the whole thing falling apart.
Andrew Weissman's resignation last month was your tell there was nothing. Mueller would
pursue this to the limit of his personal reputation and no further. Just like so many other
politicians.
Vote Your Pocketbook
With respect to Brexit I've been convinced that it would come down to reputations. Would the
British MP's vote against their own personal best interests to do the bidding of the EU? Would
Theresa May eventually realize her historical reputation would be destroyed if she caves to
Brussels and betrays Brexit in the end? Always bet on the fecklessness of politicians. They
will always act selfishly when put to the test. While leading RussiaGate, Mueller was always
headed here if he couldn't get someone to betray Trump.
And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his
reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now
worthless.
They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she
has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. The
progressives that were convinced of Trump's treason are bereft; their false hope stripped away
like standing in front of a sandblaster. They will be raw, angry and looking for blood after
they get over their denial.
Everyone else who was blackmailed into going along with this lunacy will begin cutting deals
to save their skins. The outrage over this will not end. Trump will be President when he stands
for re-election.
The Wolves Beckon
The Democrats do not have a chance against him as of right now. When he was caving on
everything back in December it looked like he was done. That there was enough meat on the
RussiaGate bones to make Nancy Pelosi brave. Then she backed off on impeachment talk.
Oops....
... ... ...
The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something
dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time.
Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion."
It's clear that RussiaGate is
a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall
on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. There is only one answer. And Obama's
people are still in place to protect him. I said last fall that " Hillary would
indict herself. " And I meant it. Eventually her blackmail and drive to burn it all down
led to this moment.
The circumstances are different than I expected back then, Trump didn't win the mid-terms.
But the end result was always the same. If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then
all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb.
Because the bigger project, the erection of a transnational superstate, is bigger than any
one person. Hillary is expendable. Lies are expensive to maintain. The truth is cheap to
defend. Think of the billions in opportunity costs associated with this. Once the costs rise
above the benefits, change happens fast. If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this
country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason
anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate.
We all know it's the truth. So, the cheapest way out of this mess for them is to give the
MAGApedes what they want, Hillary.
And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us.
I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch,
Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice,
Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. Think of the
taxpayer money wasted on this ridiculous Mueller investigation! The Roger Stone arrest was an
outrage. Who tipped off CNN? Who ordered it? What was with the attack dogs and machine guns?
And now we have Nadler trying to destroy anyone and everyone who ever did business with
Trump. All those 80 people who got letters from him asking for documents will now be
bankrupted by legal fees.
According to Scott Adams, one recipient is refusing to
cooperate -- he's saying "I can't afford for me and family to be destroyed." He put the request
for documents in a drawer. He has no money for lawyers.
This insanity and abuse of power has
got to stop. Meanwhile, nothing gets done in Congress. We're all looking at censorship,
tilted search engines, de-monetization, being beat up on campus for trying to express an
opinion, being accosted in a restaurant (or, VP Pence, from the stage ("Hamilton"), getting
sucker-punched for wearing a MAGA hat, having elections stolen through myriad Dem cheating
methods, and NOTHING is being done.
Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian
meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate
cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a
Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for
becoming elected.
Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately
sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also
raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The
damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of
treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a
war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections
and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because
it was her turn to get elected".
It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of
Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be
nobody to hold them responsible.
When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to
justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they
were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself.
"... Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I was sure they were going to go ahead and fabricate some kind of "smoking gun" evidence (like the pee-stained sheets from that Moscow hotel), or coerce one of his sleazy minions into testifying that he personally saw Trump down on his knees "colluding" Putin in the back room of a Russian sauna. ..."
"... This is what Trump is about to do with Russiagate. ..."
"... He is going to explain to the American people that the Democrats, the corporate media, Hollywood, the liberal intelligentsia, and elements of the intelligence agencies conspired to try to force him out of office with an unprecedented propaganda campaign and a groundless special investigation. He is going to explain to the American people that Russiagate, from start to finish, was, in his words, a ridiculous "witch hunt," a childish story based on nothing. Then he's going to tell them a different story. ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. ..."
"... Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... The Russo-Nazi Terrorists are not coming. The global capitalist ruling classes are putting down a populist insurgency , delegitimizing any and all forms of dissent from their global capitalist ideology and resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism. In the process, they are conditioning people to completely abandon their critical faculties and behave like twitching Pavlovian idiots who will obediently respond to whatever stimuli or blatantly fabricated propaganda the corporate media bombards them with. ..."
If Nietzsche was right, and what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger, we can thank the
global capitalist ruling classes, the Democratic Party, and the corporate media for four more
years of Donald Trump. The long-awaited Mueller report is due any day now, or so they keep
telling us. Once it is delivered, and does not prove that Trump is a Russian intelligence
asset, or that he personally conspired with Vladimir Putin to steal the presidency from Hillary
Clinton, well, things are liable to get a bit awkward.
Given the amount of goalpost-moving and
focus-shifting that has been going on, clearly, this is what everyone's expecting.
Honestly, I'm a bit surprised. I was sure they were going to go ahead and fabricate some
kind of "smoking gun" evidence (like the pee-stained sheets from that Moscow hotel), or coerce
one of his sleazy minions into testifying that he personally saw Trump down on his knees
"colluding" Putin in the back room of a Russian sauna. After all, if you're going to accuse a
sitting president of being a Russian intelligence asset, you kind of need to be able to prove
it, or (a) you defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, (b) you destroy your own credibility,
and (c) you present that sitting president with a powerful weapon he can use to bury you.
This is not exactly rocket science. As any seasoned badass will tell you, when you're
resolving a conflict with another seasoned badass, you don't take out a gun unless you're going
to use it. Taking a gun out, waving it around, and not shooting the other badass with it, is
generally not a winning strategy. What often happens, if you're dumb enough to do that, is that
the other badass will take your gun from you and either shoot you or beat you senseless with
it.
This is what Trump is about to do with Russiagate. When the Mueller report fails to present
any evidence that he "colluded" with Russia to steal the election, Trump is going to reach
over, grab that report, roll it up tightly into a makeshift cudgel, and then beat the snot out
of his opponents with it. He is going to explain to the American people that the Democrats, the
corporate media, Hollywood, the liberal intelligentsia, and elements of the intelligence
agencies conspired to try to force him out of office with an unprecedented propaganda campaign
and a groundless special investigation. He is going to explain to the American people that
Russiagate, from start to finish, was, in his words, a ridiculous "witch hunt," a childish
story based on nothing. Then he's going to tell them a different story.
That story goes a little something like this
Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy
that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president.
They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who bragged about
"grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful wall" and making
the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact that Donald Trump had
zero experience in any political office whatsoever, and was a loudmouth bigot, and was possibly
out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people did not care. They were so
disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment stooges like the Clintons,
the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump in office, because, fuck it,
what did they have to lose?
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing
a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American
people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every
organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a
daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official
investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy.
Every component of the ruling
establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal
intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president
from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft
coup.
This is the story Donald Trump is going to tell the American people.
A minority of ideological heretics on what passes for the American Left are going to help
him tell this story, not because we support Donald Trump, but because we believe that the mass
hysteria and authoritarian fanaticism that has been manufactured over the course of Russiagate
represents a danger greater than Trump. It has reached some neo-Riefenstahlian level, this
bug-eyed, spittle-flecked, cult-like behavior worse even than the mass hysteria that gripped
most Americans back in 2003, when they cheered on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the murder,
rape, and torture of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children based on a bunch of
made-up horseshit.
We are going to be vilified, we leftist heretics, for helping Trump tell Americans this
story. We are going to be denounced as Trumpenleft traitors ,
Putin-sympathizers, and Nazi-adjacents (as we were denounced as terrorist-sympathizers and
Saddam-loving traitors back in 2003). We are going to be denounced as all these things by
liberals, and by other leftists. We are going to be warned that pointing out how the
government, the media, and the intelligence agencies all worked together to sell people
Russiagate will only get Trump reelected, and, if that happens, it will be the End of
Everything.
It will not be the End of Everything.
What might, however, be the End of Everything, or might lead us down the road to the End of
Everything, is if otherwise intelligent human beings continue to allow themselves to be whipped
into fits of mass hysteria and run around behaving like a mindless herd of
propaganda-regurgitating zombies whenever the global capitalist ruling classes tell them that
"the Russians are coming!" or that "the Nazis are coming!" or that "the Terrorists are
coming!"
The Russo-Nazi Terrorists are not coming. The global capitalist ruling classes are putting
down a
populist insurgency , delegitimizing any and all forms of dissent from their global
capitalist ideology and resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism. In the process, they
are conditioning people to completely abandon their critical faculties and behave like
twitching Pavlovian idiots who will obediently respond to whatever stimuli or blatantly
fabricated propaganda the corporate media bombards them with.
If you want a glimpse of the dystopian future it isn't an Orwellian boot in your face. It's
Invasion of the Body Snatchers . Study the Russiagate believers' reactions to the
Mueller report when it is finally delivered. Observe the bizarre intellectual contortions their
minds perform to rationalize their behavior over the last three years. Trust me, it will not be
pretty. Cognitive dissonance never is.
Or, who knows, maybe the Russiagate gang will pull a fast one at the eleventh hour, and
accuse Robert Mueller of Putinist sympathies (or appearing in that FSB video of Trump's
notorious Moscow pee-party), and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the special
prosecutor. That should get them through to 2020!
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Following the 'red lines' meeting between Ryabkov and Elliot Abrams in Rome a couple of
days ago, after which Ryabkov said bluntly:
"We assume that Washington treats our priorities seriously, our approach and
warnings."
One of those warnings delivered by Ryabkov is understood to have been that no American
military intervention in Venezuela will be tolerated by Moscow.
For his part, Abrams sounded as if he had emerged from the meeting after having been given
a severe reprimand.
"No, we did not come to a meeting of minds, but I think the talks were positive in the
sense that both sides emerged with a better understanding of the other's views," he told
reporters.
"A better understanding of the other's views," means that the American side was given a
red line to back off.
So, the Russian Army advanced party has arrived today, 99 in an Il-62 and goodness knows
what in an An-124 on a direct flight from Syria.
And now, according to journalist Javier I. Mayorca, Colonel General Vasily Tonkoshkurov,
chief of the Main Staff of the Ground Forces - First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land
Forces of Russia, arrived in Venezuela.
So we have one of the most significant Russian Generals now in Venezuela with his staff
and protection teams with their equipment coming out the back of the Antonov and I think we
can be certain that there is no beachware included.
This is looking more like the start up of Russian ops in Syria. This is the 'what do you
need, how can we help' team.
This could be Venezuela transforming from a hedgehog into a porcupine.
I bet the An-124 was filled with captured NATO arms, particularly TOWs, of which there're
many warehouses in Syria packed to the rafters--$billions$ in armaments at no charge! In
contrast with France, every Saturday there's a massive Solidarity March in
Caracas and other Venezuelan cities in support of Maduro, the government and the Bolivarian
Constitution. One of the most important differences between Venezuela and other
South-of-the-border regime changes is that an entire generation has grown up under
Chavezismo, the Bolivarian Constitution, and the great social changes--literacy and education
for the masses being #1--that have occurred over the past 20+ years. Those coming of age now
will be even more Anti-USA and Anti-OAS than ever before. This chart shows almost 50% of
the current population's coming of age During the Bolivarian/Chavista Age proves that
point.
As with Iran and Cuba, the Bolivarian Revolution's ingrained into the government's
structure, and perpetuated by society and culture. The penchant for the Outlaw US Empire to
task its vassals with killing off the entire Leftist political spectrum leaving only
reactionaries and their kin has always been genocidal in scope, and in Venezuela's case would
amount to @22 million requiring purging. And let's not kid ourselves--A world filled with
docile reactionaries is exactly the sort of prole-based planet the Outlaw US Empire
craves.
This is the most grandiose False flag propaganda operation known to the mankind. McCarthyism while more vicious was just a blip
of the screen in comparison this this tide of disinformation and insinuations. Iraq WDM resulted in more casualties but was much
more short term. Damage for the USA from this false flag operation might even exceed the damage for Iraq WDM fiasco.
British government and intelligence serves were active participants and in this sense "Skripals poisoning" looks
like a perverted form of "witness protection:" program. A false flag operation on the top of a false flag operation
("Russiagate").
What is amazing is how unapt were the major players.
Notable quotes:
"... Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media. ..."
"... A few weeks after that hearing, Steele gave testimony in a British lawsuit filed by one of the Russian companies mentioned in his reports. In a written submission , Steele said his information was "raw" and "needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified." He also wrote that (at least as pertained to the memo in that case) he had not written his report "with the intention that it be republished to the world at large." ..."
"... That itself was a curious statement, given that Steele reportedly spoke with multiple reporters in the fall of 2016, but this was his legal position. This story about Steele's British court statements did not make it into the news much in the United States, apart from a few bits in conservative outlets like The Washington Times. ..."
"... The Steele report was the Magna Carta of #Russiagate. It provided the implied context for thousands of news stories to come, yet no journalist was ever able to confirm its most salacious allegations: the five year cultivation plan, the blackmail, the bribe from Sechin, the Prague trip, the pee romp, etc. In metaphorical terms, we were unable to independently produce Steele's results in the lab. Failure to reckon with this corrupted the narrative from the start. ..."
"... "Just called," Page said to McCabe. "Apparently the DAG [Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates] now wants to be there, and WH wants DOJ to host. So we are setting that up now. ... We will very much need to get Cohen's view before we meet with her. Better, have him weigh in with her before the meeting. We need to speak with one voice, if that is in fact the case." ..."
"... Someday I hope that Hillary has to be rolled up to testify about the Benghazi business. Grab the guns and the gold (and the oil). Ukraine gold: check. Libyan gold and weapons: check. ..."
The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it...
Note to readers: in light of news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation is complete, I'm releasing this chapter
of Hate Inc. early, with a few new details added up top. Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller
is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media.
As has long been rumored
, the former FBI chief's independent probe will result in multiple indictments and convictions, but no "
presidency-wrecking
" conspiracy charges, or anything that would meet the layman's definition of "collusion" with Russia.
With the caveat that even this news might somehow turn out to be botched, the key detail in the many stories about the end of
the Mueller investigation was best expressed
by the New York Times :
A senior Justice Department official said that Mr. Mueller would not recommend new indictments.
The Times tried to soften the emotional blow for the millions of Americans trained in these years to place hopes for the overturn
of the Trump presidency in Mueller. Nobody even pretended it was supposed to be a fact-finding mission, instead of an act of faith.
The Special Prosecutor literally became a religious figure during the last few years, with
votive candles sold in his image and Saturday Night Live cast members
singing "
All I Want for Christmas is You " to him featuring the rhymey line: "Mueller please come through, because the only option is
a coup."
The Times story today tried to preserve Santa Mueller's reputation, noting Trump's Attorney General William Barr's reaction was
an "endorsement" of the fineness of Mueller's work:
In an apparent endorsement of an investigation that Mr. Trump has relentlessly attacked as a "witch hunt," Mr. Barr said Justice
Department officials never had to intervene to keep Mr. Mueller from taking an inappropriate or unwarranted step.
Mueller, in other words, never stepped out of the bounds of his job description. But could the same be said for the news media?
For those anxious to keep the dream alive, the Times published its usual graphic of Trump-Russia "contacts," inviting readers
to keep making connections. But in a
separate piece by Peter
Baker , the paper noted the Mueller news had dire consequences for the press:
It will be a reckoning for President Trump, to be sure, but also for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for Congress,
for Democrats, for Republicans, for the news media and, yes, for the system as a whole
This is a damning page one admission by the Times. Despite the connect-the-dots graphic in its other story, and despite the astonishing,
emotion-laden editorial the paper also ran suggesting "
We don't need to read the Mueller
report " because we know Trump is guilty, Baker at least began the work of preparing Times readers for a hard question: "Have
journalists connected too many dots that do not really add up?"
The paper was signaling it understood there would now be questions about whether or not news outlets like themselves made a galactic
error by betting heavily on a
new, politicized approach , trying to be true to "history's judgment" on top of the hard-enough job of just being true. Worse,
in a brutal irony everyone should have
seen coming , the press has now handed Trump the mother of campaign issues heading into 2020.
Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population, a group that (perhaps
thanks to this story) is now larger than his original base. As Baker notes, a full 50.3% of respondents in
a poll conducted this month said they agree with Trump the Mueller probe is a "witch hunt."
Stories have been coming out for some time now hinting Mueller's final report might leave audiences "
disappointed
," as if a President not being a foreign spy could somehow be bad news.
Openly using such language
has, all along, been an indictment. Imagine how tone-deaf you'd have to be to not realize it makes you look bad, when news does not
match audience expectations you raised. To be unaware of this is mind-boggling, the journalistic equivalent of walking outside without
pants.
There will be people protesting: the Mueller report doesn't prove anything! What about the 37 indictments? The convictions? The
Trump tower revelations? The lies! The meeting with Don, Jr.? The financial matters ! There's an ongoing grand jury investigation,
and possible sealed indictments, and the House will still investigate, and
Stop. Just stop. Any journalist who goes there is making it worse.
For years, every pundit and Democratic pol in Washington hyped
every new Russia headline like the Watergate break-in. Now, even Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment is out, unless something "so
compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan" against Trump is uncovered it would be worth their political trouble to prosecute.
The biggest thing this affair has uncovered so far is Donald Trump paying off a porn star. That's a hell of a long way from what
this business was supposedly about at the beginning, and shame on any reporter who tries to pretend this isn't so.
The story hyped from the start was espionage: a secret relationship between the Trump campaign and Russian spooks who'd helped
him win the election.
The betrayal narrative was not reported at first as metaphor. It was not "Trump likes the Russians so much, he might as well be
a spy for them." It was literal spying, treason, and election-fixing – crimes so severe, former NSA employee John Schindler told
reporters, Trump "
will die in jail ."
In the early months of this scandal, the New York Times said Trump's campaign had "repeated contacts" with Russian intelligence;
the Wall Street Journal told us our spy agencies
were withholding intelligence
from the new President out of fear he was compromised; news leaked out our spy chiefs had even told other countries like Israel
not to share their intel with us, because the Russians might have "leverages of pressure" on Trump.
CNN told us Trump officials had been in "constant contact" with "Russians known to U.S. intelligence," and the former director
of the CIA, who'd helped kick-start the investigation that led to Mueller's probe, said the President was guilty of "high crimes
and misdemeanors," committing acts "
nothing short of treasonous ."
Hillary Clinton insisted Russians "could not have known how to weaponize" political ads unless they'd been "guided" by Americans.
Asked if she meant Trump, she said, "
It's pretty hard not to ." Harry Reid similarly said he had "no doubt" that the Trump campaign was "
in on the
deal " to help Russians with the leak.
None of this has been walked back. To be clear, if Trump were being blackmailed by Russian agencies like the FSB or the GRU, if
he had any kind of relationship with Russian intelligence, that would soar over the "overwhelming and bipartisan" standard, and Nancy
Pelosi would be damning torpedoes for impeachment right now.
There was never real gray area here. Either Trump is a compromised foreign agent, or he isn't. If he isn't, news outlets once
again swallowed a massive disinformation campaign, only this error is many orders of magnitude more stupid than any in the recent
past, WMD included. Honest reporters like ABC's Terry Moran understand: Mueller coming back empty-handed on collusion means a "
reckoning for the media ."
Of course, there won't be such a reckoning. (There never is). But there should be. We broke every written and unwritten rule in
pursuit of this story, starting with the prohibition on reporting things we can't confirm.
#Russiagate debuted as a media phenomenon in mid-summer, 2016. The roots of the actual story, i.e. when the multi-national investigation
began, go back much further, to the previous year at least. Oddly, that origin tale has not been nailed down yet, and blue-state
audiences don't seem terribly interested in it, either.
By June and July of 2016, bits of the dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, which
had been funded by the Democratic National Committee through the law firm Perkins Coie (which in turn hired the opposition research
firm Fusion GPS), were already in the ether.
The Steele report occupies the same role in #Russiagate the tales spun by Ahmed Chalabi occupied in the WMD screwup. Once again,
a narrative became turbo-charged when Officials With Motives pulled the press corps by its nose to a swamp of unconfirmable private
assertions.
Some early stories, like a July 4, 2016 piece by Franklin Foer in Slate called "
Putin's Puppet ," outlined future Steele themes in "circumstantial" form. But the actual dossier, while it influenced a number
of pre-election Trump-Russia news stories (notably
one by Michael Isiskoff of Yahoo! that would be
used in a FISA warrant application ), didn't make it into print for a while.
Though it was shopped to
at least nine news organizations during the summer and fall of 2016, no one bit, for the good reason that news organizations
couldn't verify its "revelations."
The Steele claims were explosive if true. The ex-spy reported Trump aide Carter Page had been offered fees on a big new slice
of the oil giant Rosneft if he could help get sanctions against Russia lifted. He also said Trump lawyer Michael Cohen went to Prague
for "secret discussions with Kremlin representatives and associated operators/hackers."
Most famously, he wrote the Kremlin had kompromat of Trump "deriling" [sic] a bed once used by Barack and Michelle Obama by "employing
a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show."
The piece didn't have pee, Prague, or Page in it, but it did say Russian intelligence had material that could "blackmail" Trump.
It was technically kosher to print because Corn wasn't publishing the allegations themselves, merely that the FBI had taken possession
of them.
A bigger pretext was needed to get the other details out. This took place just after the election, when four intelligence officials
presented copies of the dossier to both President-Elect Trump and outgoing President Obama.
From his own
memos , we know FBI Director James Comey, ostensibly evincing concern for Trump's welfare, told the new President he was just
warning him about what was out there, as possible blackmail material:
I wasn't saying [the Steele report] was true, only that I wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports
were in many hands. I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give
them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material or [redacted] and that we were keeping it very close-hold [sic].
Comey's generous warning to Trump about not providing a "news hook," along with a promise to keep it all "close-held," took place
on January 6, 2017. Within four days, basically the entire Washington news media somehow knew all about this top-secret meeting and
had the very hook they needed to go public. Nobody in the mainstream press thought this was weird or warranted comment.
Even Donald Trump was probably smart enough to catch the hint when, of all outlets, it was CNN that first broke the story of "Classified
documents presented last week to Trump"
on January 10 .
At the same time, Buzzfeed
made
the historic decision to publish the entire Steele dossier, bringing years of pee into our lives. This move birthed the Russiagate
phenomenon as a never-ending, minute-to-minute factor in American news coverage.
Comey was right. We couldn't have reported this story without a "hook." Therefore the reports surrounding Steele technically weren't
about the allegations themselves, but rather the journey of those allegations, from one set of official hands to another. Handing
the report to Trump created a perfect pretext.
This trick has been used before, both in Washington and on Wall Street, to publicize unconfirmed private research. A short seller
might hire a consulting firm to prepare a report on a company he or she has bet against. When the report is completed, the investor
then tries to get the SEC or the FBI to take possession. If they do, news leaks the company is "under investigation," the stock dives,
and everyone wins.
This same trick is found in politics. A similar trajectory
drove negative headlines in the scandal surrounding New Jersey's Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who was said to be under investigation
by the FBI for underage sex crimes (although some
were skeptical
). The initial story didn't hold up, but led to other investigations.
Same with the so-called "
Arkansas project ," in which millions of Republican-friendly private research dollars produced enough noise about the Whitewater
scandal to create years of headlines about the Clintons. Swiftboating was another example. Private oppo isn't inherently bad. In
fact it has led to some incredible scoops, including Enron. But reporters usually know to be skeptical of private info, and figure
the motives of its patrons into the story.
The sequence of events in that second week of January, 2017 will now need to be heavily re-examined. We now know,
from his own testimony , that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had some kind of role in helping CNN do
its report, presumably by confirming part of the story, perhaps through an intermediary or two (there is some controversy over whom
exactly was contacted, and when).
Why would real security officials help litigate this grave matter through the media? Why were the world's most powerful investigative
agencies acting like they were trying to move a stock, pushing an private, unverified report that even Buzzfeed could see had factual
issues? It
made no sense at the time , and makes less now.
In January of 2017, Steele's pile of allegations became public, read by millions. "It is not just unconfirmed," Buzzfeed
admitted
. "It includes some clear errors."
Buzzfeed's decision exploded traditional journalistic standards against knowingly publishing material whose veracity you doubt.
Although a few media ethicists wondered
at it , this seemed not to bother the rank-and-file in the business. Buzzfeed chief Ben Smith is still
proud of
his decision today. I think this was because many reporters believed the report was true.
When I read the report, I was in shock. I thought it read like fourth-rate suspense fiction (I should know: I write fourth-rate
suspense fiction). Moreover it seemed edited both for public consumption and to please Steele's DNC patrons.
Steele wrote of Russians having a file of "compromising information" on Hillary Clinton, only this file supposedly lacked "details/evidence
of unorthodox or embarrassing behavior" or "embarrassing conduct."
We were meant to believe the Russians, across decades of dirt-digging, had an empty kompromat file on Hillary Clinton, to say
nothing of human tabloid headline Bill Clinton? This point was made more than once in the reports, as if being emphasized for the
reading public.
There were other curious lines, including the bit about Russians having "moles" in the DNC, plus some linguistic details that
made me wonder at the nationality of the report author.
Still, who knew? It could be true. But even the most cursory review showed the report had issues and would need a lot of confirming.
This made it more amazing that the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, held hearings on March 20,
2017 that blithely read out Steele report details as if they were fact. From Schiff's opening statement:
According to Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who is reportedly held in high regard by U.S. Intelligence,
Russian sources tell him that Page has also had a secret meeting with Igor Sechin (SEH-CHIN), CEO of Russian gas giant Rosneft
Page is offered brokerage fees by Sechin on a deal involving a 19 percent share of the company.
I was stunned watching this. It's generally understood that members of congress, like reporters, make an effort to vet at least
their prepared remarks before making them public.
But here was Schiff, telling the world Trump aide Carter Page had been offered huge fees on a 19% stake in Rosneft – a company
with a $63 billion market capitalization – in a secret meeting
with a Russian oligarch who was also said to be "a KGB agent and close friend of Putin's."
(Schiff meant "FSB agent." The inability of #Russiagaters to remember Russia is not the Soviet Union became increasingly maddening
over time. Donna Brazile still hasn't deleted her tweet about how "
The Communists are now dictating the
terms of the debate ." )
Schiff's speech raised questions. Do we no longer have to worry about getting accusations right if the subject is tied to Russiagate?
What if Page hadn't done any of these things? To date, he hasn't been charged with anything. Shouldn't a member of Congress worry
about this?
A few weeks after that hearing, Steele gave testimony in a British lawsuit filed by one of the Russian companies mentioned in
his reports. In a
written submission , Steele said his information was "raw" and "needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified." He
also wrote that (at least as pertained to the memo in that case) he had not written his report "with the intention that it be republished
to the world at large."
That itself was a curious statement, given that Steele reportedly spoke with multiple reporters in the fall of 2016, but this
was his legal position. This story about Steele's British court statements did not make it into the news much in the United States,
apart from a few bits in conservative outlets like The Washington Times.
I contacted Schiff's office to ask if the congressman if he knew about Steele's admission that his report needed verifying, and
if that changed his view of it at all. The response (emphasis mine):
The dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and which was leaked publicly several months
ago contains information that may be pertinent to our investigation. This is true regardless of whether it was ever intended for
public dissemination. Accordingly, the Committee hopes to speak with Mr. Steele in order to help substantiate or refute each of
the allegations contained in the dossier.
Schiff had not spoken to Steele before the hearing, and read out the allegations knowing they were unsubstantiated.
The Steele report was the Magna Carta of #Russiagate. It provided the implied context for thousands of news stories to come, yet
no journalist was ever able to confirm its most salacious allegations: the five year cultivation plan, the blackmail, the bribe from
Sechin, the Prague trip, the pee romp, etc. In metaphorical terms, we were unable to independently produce Steele's results in the
lab. Failure to reckon with this corrupted the narrative from the start.
For years, every hint the dossier might be true became a banner headline, while every time doubt was cast on Steele's revelations,
the press was quiet. Washington Post reporter Greg Miller went to Prague and led a team looking for evidence Cohen had been there.
Post reporters, Miller said, "literally spent weeks and months trying to run down" the Cohen story.
"We sent reporters through every hotel in Prague, through all over the place, just to try to figure out if he was ever there,"
he said, "and came away empty."
This was heads-I-win, tails-you-lose reporting. One assumes if Miller found Cohen's name in a hotel ledger, it would have been
on page 1 of the Post. The converse didn't get a mention in Miller's own paper. He only told the story during a discussion
aired by C-SPAN about a new book he'd published. Only The Daily Caller and a few conservative blogs picked it up.
It was the same when Bob Woodward said, "I did not find [espionage or collusion] Of course I looked for it, looked for it hard."
The celebrated Watergate muckraker – who once said he'd
succumbed to "groupthink"
in the WMD episode and added, "I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder" – didn't push very hard here, either. News that
he'd tried and failed to find collusion didn't get into his own paper. It only came out when Woodward was promoting his book Fear
in a discussion with conservative host Hugh Hewitt.
When Michael Cohen testified before congress and denied under oath ever being in Prague, it was the same. Few commercial news
outlets bothered to take note of the implications this had for their previous reports. Would a man clinging to a plea deal lie to
congress on national television about this issue?
Perhaps worst of all was the episode involving Yahoo! reporter Michael Isikoff. He had already been part of one strange tale:
the FBI double-dipping when it sought a FISA warrant to conduct secret surveillance of Carter Page, the would-be mastermind who was
supposed to have brokered a deal with oligarch Sechin.
In its FISA application, the FBI included both the unconfirmed Steele report and Isikoff's September 23, 2016 Yahoo! story, "
U.S. Intel Officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin ." The Isikoff story, which claimed Page had met with "high
ranking sanctioned officials" in Russia, had relied upon Steele as an unnamed source.
This was similar to a laundering technique used in the WMD episode called "stove-piping," i.e. officials using the press to "confirm"
information the officials themselves fed the reporter.
But there was virtually no non-conservative press about this problem apart from a Washington Post story pooh-poohing the issue.
(Every news story that casts any doubt on the collusion issue seems to meet with an instantaneous "fact check" in the Post .) The
Post insisted the FISA issue wasn't serious among other things because Steele was not the "foundation" of Isikoff's piece.
Isikoff was perhaps the reporter most familiar with Steele. He and Corn of Mother Jones , who also dealt with the ex-spy, wrote
a bestselling book that relied upon theories from Steele, Russian Roulette , including a rumination on the "pee" episode. Yet Isikoff
in late 2018 suddenly said he believed the Steele report would turn out to be "
mostly
false ."
Once again, this only came out via a podcast, John Ziegler's "Free Speech Broadcasting" show. Here's a transcript of the relevant
section:
Isikoff: When you actually get into the details of the Steele dossier, the specific allegations, you know, we have not seen
the evidence to support them. And in fact there is good grounds to think some of the more sensational allegations will never be
proven, and are likely false.
Ziegler: That's...
Isikoff: I think it's a mixed record at best at this point, things could change, Mueller may yet produce evidence that changes
this calculation. But based on the public record at this point I have to say that most of the specific allegations have not been
borne out.
Ziegler: That's interesting to hear you say that, Michael because as I'm sure you know, your book was kind of used to validate
the pee tape, for lack of a better term.
Isikoff: Yeah. I think we had some evidence in there of an event that may have inspired the pee tape and that was the visit
that Trump made with a number of characters who later showed up in Moscow, specifically Emin Agalarov and Rob Goldstone to this
raunchy Las Vegas nightclub where one of the regular acts was a skit called "Hot For Teacher" in which dancers posing as college
Co-Ed's urinated – or simulated urinating on their professor. Which struck me as an odd coincidence at best. I think, you know,
it is not implausible that event may have inspired...
Ziegler: An urban legend?
Isikoff: ...allegations that appeared in the Steele dossier.
Isikoff delivered this story with a laughing tone. He seamlessly transitioned to what he then called the "real" point, i.e. "the
irony is Steele may be right, but it wasn't the Kremlin that had sexual kompromat on Donald Trump, it was the National Enquirer.
"
Recapping: the reporter who introduced Steele to the world (his September 23, 2016 story was the first to reference him as a source),
who wrote a book that even he concedes was seen as "validating" the pee tape story, suddenly backtracks and says the whole thing
may have been based on a Las Vegas strip act, but it doesn't matter because Stormy Daniels, etc.
Another story of this type involved a court case in which Webzilla and parent company XBT sued Steele and Buzzfeed over the mention
their firm in one of the memos. It came out in court testimony that Steele had culled information about XBT/Webzilla from a
2009 post on CNN's "iReports"
page .
Asked if he understood these posts came from random users and not CNN journalists who'd been fact-checked, Steele replied, "
I do not ."
This comical detail was similar to news that the second British Mi6 dossier released just before the Iraq invasion had been
plagiarized in part from a thirteen year-old student thesis from California State University, not even by intelligence people,
but by mid-level functionaries in Tony Blair's press office.
There were so many profiles of Steele as an "
astoundingly
diligent " spymaster straight
out of LeCarre : he was routinely
described like a LeCarre-ian grinder like the legendary George Smiley, a man in the shadows whose bookish intensity was belied
by his "average," "neutral," "quiet," demeanor, being "more low-key than Smiley." One would think it might have rated a mention that
our "Smiley" was cutting and pasting text like a community college freshman. But the story barely made news.
This has been a consistent pattern throughout #Russiagate. Step one: salacious headline. Step two, days or weeks later: news emerges
the story is shakier than first believed. Step three (in the best case) involves the story being walked back or retracted by the
same publication.
That's been rare. More often, when explosive #Russiagate headlines go sideways, the original outlets simply ignore the new development,
leaving the "retraction" process to conservative outlets that don't reach the original audiences.
This is a major structural flaw of the
new fully-divided media
landscape in which Republican media covers Democratic corruption and Democratic media covers Republican corruption. If neither
"side" feels the need to disclose its own errors and inconsistencies, mistakes accumulate quickly.
This has been the main difference between Russiagate and the WMD affair. Despite David Remnick's post-invasion protestations that
"nobody got [WMD] completely right," the Iraq war was launched against the objections of the 6 million or more people who did get
it right, and protested on the streets
. There was open skepticism of Bush claims dotting the press landscape from the start, with people like
Jack Shafer tearing apart every Judith Miller story
in print. Most reporters are Democrats and the people hawking the WMD story were mostly Republicans, so there was political space
for protest.
Russiagate happened in an opposite context. If the story fell apart it would benefit Donald Trump politically, a fact that made
a number of reporters queasy about coming forward. #Russiagate became synonymous with #Resistance, which made public skepticism a
complicated proposition.
Early in the scandal, I appeared on To The Point, a California-based public radio show hosted by Warren Olney, with Corn of Mother
Jones. I knew David a little and had been friendly with him. He once hosted a book event for me in Washington. In the program, however,
the subject of getting facts right came up and Corn said this was not a time for reporters to be picking nits:
So Democrats getting overeager, overenthusiastic, stating things that may not be [unintelligible] true ? Well, tell me a political
issue where that doesn't happen. I think that's looking at the wrong end of the telescope.
I wrote him later and suggested that since we're in the press, and not really about anything except avoiding "things that may
not be true," maybe we had different responsibilities than "Democrats"? He wrote back:
Feel free to police the Trump opposition. But on the list of shit that needs to be covered these days, that's just not high
on my personal list.
Other reporters spoke of an internal struggle. When the Mueller indictment of the Internet Research Agency was met with exultation
in the media, New Yorker writer Adrian Chen, who broke the original IRA story, was
hesitant to come forward with some mild qualms about the way the story was being reported:
"Either I could stay silent and allow the conversation to be dominated by those pumping up the Russian threat," he said, "or I
could risk giving fodder to Trump and his allies."
"What I meant to write is, I wasn't skeptical," he said.
Years ago, in the midst of the WMD affair, Times public editor Daniel Okrent noted the paper's standard had moved from "Don't
get it first, get it right" to "Get it first and get it right." From there,
Okrent wrote , "the next devolution was an obvious one."
We're at that next devolution: first and wrong. The Russiagate era has so degraded journalism that even once "reputable" outlets
are now only about as right as politicians, which is to say barely ever, and then only by accident.
Early on, I was so amazed by the sheer quantity of Russia "bombshells" being walked back, I started to keep a list. It's well
above 50 stories now. As has been noted by Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept and others, if the mistakes were random, you'd
expect them in both directions , but Russiagate errors uniformly go the same way.
In some cases the stories are only partly wrong, as in the case of the famed "
17 intelligence agencies said Russia was behind the hacking " story (it was actually four: the Director of National Intelligence
"hand-picking" a team from the FBI, CIA, and NSA).
In other cases the stories were blunt false starts, resulting in ugly sets of matching headlines:
" Trump
Campaign Aides had repeated contacts with Russian Intelligence ," published by the Times on Valentine's Day, 2017, was an important,
narrative-driving "bombshell" that looked dicey from the start. The piece didn't say whether the contact was witting or unwitting,
whether the discussions were about business or politics, or what the contacts supposedly were at all.
Normally a reporter would want to know what the deal is before he or she runs a story accusing people of having dealings with
foreign spies. "Witting" or "Unwitting" ought to be a huge distinction, for instance. It soon after came out that people like former
CIA chief John Brennan don't think this is the case. "Frequently, people who are on a treasonous path do not know they're on a treasonous
path,"
he said, speaking of Trump's circle.
This seemed a dangerous argument, the kind of thing that led to trouble in the McCarthy years. But let's say the contacts were
serious. From a reporting point of view, you'd still need to know exactly what the nature of such contacts were before you run that
story, because the headline implication is grave. Moreover you'd need to know it well enough to report it, i.e. it's not enough to
be told a convincing story off-the-record, you need to be able to share with readers enough so that they can characterize the news
themselves.
Not to the Times, which ran the article without the specifics. Months later, Comey blew up this "contacts" story in public, saying,
" in the
main, it was not true ."
As was the case with the "17 agencies" error, which only got fixed when Clapper testified in congress and was forced to make the
correction under oath, the "repeated contacts" story was only disputed when Comey testified in congress, this time
before the
Senate Intelligence Committee . How many other errors of this type are waiting to be disclosed?
Even the mistakes caught were astounding. On December 1, 2017, ABC reporter Brian Ross claimed Trump "as a candidate" instructed
Michael Flynn to contact Russia. The news caused the Dow to plummet 350 points. The story was retracted almost immediately and
Ross was suspended .
Bloomberg reported Mueller subpoenaed Trump's Deutsche Bank accounts; the subpoenas turned out to be of
other
individuals' records. Fortune said C-SPAN
was hacked after Russia Today programming briefly interrupted coverage of a Maxine Waters floor address. The New York Times
also ran the story, and it's
still up, despite C-SPAN insisting its own "internal routing error" likely caused the feed to appear in place of its own broadcast.
CNN has its own separate sub-list of wrecks. Three of the network's journalists
resigned after a story purporting to tie Trump advisor Anthony Scaramucci to a Russian investment fund was retracted. Four more
CNN reporters (Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus) were bylined in a story that claimed Comey was expected
to refute Trump's claims he was told he wasn't the target of an investigation. Comey blew that one up, too.
In another CNN scoop gone awry, "
Email pointed Trump campaign to WikiLeaks documents ," the network's reporters were off by ten days in a "bombshell" that supposedly
proved the Trump campaign had foreknowledge of Wikileaks dumps. "It's, uh, perhaps not as significant as what we know now," offered
CNN's Manu Raju in a painful on-air retraction .
The worst stories were the ones never corrected. A particularly bad example is "
After Florida School Shooting,
Russian 'Bot' Army Pounced ," from the New York Times on Feb 18, 2018. The piece claimed Russians were trying to divide Americans
on social media after a mass shooting using Twitter hashtags like #guncontrolnow, #gunreformnow and #Parklandshooting.
The Times ran this quote high up:
"This is pretty typical for them, to hop on breaking news like this," said Jonathon Morgan, chief executive of New Knowledge,
a company that tracks online disinformation campaigns. "The bots focus on anything that is divisive for Americans. Almost systematically."
About a year after this story came out, Times reporters Scott Shane and Ann Blinder
reported that the same outfit,
New Knowledge , and in particular that same Jonathon Morgan, had participated in a cockamamie scheme to fake Russian troll activity
in an Alabama Senate race. The idea was to try to convince voters Russia preferred the Republican.
The Times quoted a New Knowledge internal report about the idiotic Alabama scheme:
We orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media
by a Russian botnet
The Parkland story was iffy enough when it came out, as Twitter
disputed
it, and another of the main sources for the initial report, former intelligence official Clint Watts, subsequently
said he was "not convinced" on the whole "bot thing."
But when one of your top sources turns out to have faked exactly the kind of activity described in your article, you should at
least take the quote out, or put an update online. No luck: the story remains up on the Times site, without disclaimers.
Russiagate institutionalized one of the worst ethical loopholes in journalism, which used to be limited mainly to local crime
reporting. It's always been a problem that we publish mugshots and names of people merely arrested but not yet found guilty. Those
stories live forever online and even the acquitted end up permanently unable to get jobs, smeared as thieves, wife-beaters, drunk
drivers, etc.
With Russiagate the national press abandoned any pretense that there's a difference between indictment and conviction. The most
disturbing story involved Maria Butina. Here authorities and the press shared responsibility. Thanks to an indictment that initially
said the Russian traded
sex for favors, the Times and other outlets flooded the news cycle with breathless stories about a redheaded slut-temptress come
to undermine democracy, a "real-life Red Sparrow," as ABC put it.
But a judge threw out the sex charge after "five minutes" when it turned out to be based on a
single joke text to a friend who had taken Butina's car for inspection.
It's pretty hard to undo public perception you're a prostitute once it's been in a headline, and, worse, the headlines are still
out there. You can still find stories like "
Maria Butina, Suspected
Secret Agent, Used Sex in Covert Plan " online in the New York Times.
Here a reporter might protest: how would I know? Prosecutors said she traded sex for money. Why shouldn't I believe them?
How about because, authorities have been lying their faces off to reporters since before electricity! It doesn't take much investigation
to realize the main institutional sources in the Russiagate mess – the security services, mainly – have extensive records of deceiving
the media.
As noted before, from World War I-era tales of striking union workers being German agents to the "missile gap" that wasn't (the
"gap" was leaked to the press before the Soviets had even one operational ICBM) to the Gulf of Tonkin mess to all the smears of people
like Martin Luther King, it's a wonder newspapers listen to whispers from government sources at all.
In the Reagan years National Security Adviser John Poindexter spread false stories about Libyan terrorist plots to The Wall Street
Journal and other papers. In the Bush years, Dick Cheney et al were selling manure by the truckload about various connections between
Iraq and al-Qaeda, infamously including a story that bomber Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague.
The New York Times
ran a story that Atta was in Prague in late October of 2001, even giving a date of the meeting with Iraqis, April 8, or "just
five months before the terrorist attacks." The Prague story was another example of a tale that seemed shaky because American officials
were putting the sourcing first on foreign intelligence, then on reporters themselves. Cheney cited the Prague report in subsequent
TV appearances, one of many instances of feeding reporters tidbits and then selling reports as independent confirmation.
It wasn't until three years later, in 2004, that Times reporter James Risen definitively killed the Atta-in-Prague canard (why
is it always Prague?) in a story entitled "
No evidence of meeting with Iraqi ." By then, of course, it was too late. The Times also
held a major dissenting piece by Risen about the WMD case, "C.I.A. Aides Feel Pressure in Preparing Iraqi Reports," until days
after war started. This is what happens when you start thumbing the scale.
This failure to demand specifics has been epidemic in Russiagate, even when good reporters have been involved. One of the biggest
"revelations" of this era involved a story that was broken first by a terrible reporter (the Guardian's Luke Harding) and followed
up by a good one (Jane Mayer of the New Yorker ). The key detail involved the elusive origin story of Russiagate.
Mayer's piece, the March 12, 2018 "
Christopher
Steele, the Man Behind The Trump Dossier " in the New Yorker , impacted the public mainly by seeming to bolster the credentials
of the dossier author. But it contained an explosive nugget far down. Mayer reported Robert Hannigan, then-head of the GCHQ (the
British analog to the NSA) intercepted a "stream of illicit communications" between "Trump's team and Moscow" at some point prior
to August 2016. Hannigan flew to the U.S. and briefed CIA director John Brennan about these communications. Brennan later testified
this inspired the original FBI investigation.
When I read that, a million questions came to mind, but first: what did "illicit" mean?
If something "illicit" had been captured by GCHQ, and this led to the FBI investigation (one of several conflicting public explanations
for the start of the FBI probe, incidentally), this would go a long way toward clearing up the nature of the collusion charge. If
they had something, why couldn't they tell us what it was? Why didn't we deserve to know?
I asked the Guardian: "Was any attempt made to find out what those communications were? How was the existence of these communications
confirmed? Did anyone from the Guardian see or hear these intercepts, or transcripts?"
Their one-sentence reply:
The Guardian has strict and rigorous procedures when dealing with source material.
That's the kind of answer you'd expect from a transnational bank, or the army, not a newspaper.
I asked Mayer the same questions. She was more forthright, noting that, of course, the story had originally been broken
by Harding , whose
own report said "the precise nature of these exchanges has not been made public."
She added that "afterwards I independently confirmed aspects of [Harding's piece] with several well-informed sources," and "spent
months on the Steele story [and] traveled to the UK twice for it." But, she wrote, "the Russiagate story, like all reporting on sensitive
national security issues, is difficult."
I can only infer she couldn't find out what "illicit" meant despite proper effort. The detail was published anyway. It may not
have seemed like a big deal, but I think it was.
To be clear, I don't necessarily disbelieve the idea that there were "illicit" contacts between Trump and Russians in early 2015
or before. But if there were such contacts, I can't think of any legitimate reason why their nature should be withheld from the public.
If authorities can share reasons for concern with foreign countries like Israel, why should American voters not be so entitled?
Moreover the idea that we need to keep things secret to protect sources and methods and "tradecraft" (half the press corps became
expert in goofy spy language over the last few years, using terms like "SIGINT" like they've known them their whole lives), why are
we
leaking news of our ability to hear Russian officials cheerin g Trump's win?
Failure to ask follow-up questions happened constantly with this story. One of the first reports that went sideways involved a
similar dynamic: the contention that some leaked DNC emails were forgeries.
MSNBC's "Intelligence commentator" Malcolm Nance, perhaps the most enthusiastic source of questionable #Russiagate news this side
of Twitter conspiracist Louise Mensch,
tweeted on October 11, 2016: " #PodestaEmails
are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries &
#blackpropaganda not even professionally done."
As noted in The Intercept and elsewhere, this was re-reported by the likes of
David Frum (a key member of the club that has now contributed to both the WMD and Russiagate panics) and MSNBC host
Joy Reid . The reports didn't stop until roughly October of 2016, among other things because the Clinton campaign kept suggesting
to reporters the emails were fake. This could have been stopped sooner if examples of a forgery had been demanded from the Clinton
campaign earlier.
Another painful practice that became common was failing to confront your own sources when news dispositive to what they've told
you pops up. The omnipresent Clapper told Chuck Todd on March 5, 2017, without equivocation, that there had been no FISA application
involving Trump or his campaign. " I can deny it ," he
said.
It soon after came out this wasn't true. The FBI had a FISA warrant on Carter Page. This was not a small misstatement by Clapper,
because his appearance came a day after Trump claimed in a tweet he'd had his "
wires tapped ." Trump was widely ridiculed for this claim, perhaps appropriately so, but in addition to the Page news, it later
came out there had been a FISA warrant of Paul Manafort as well, during which time Trump may have been the subject of "
incidental " surveillance.
Whether or not this was meaningful, or whether these warrants were justified, are separate questions. The important thing is,
Clapper either lied to Todd, or else he somehow didn't know the FBI had obtained these warrants. The latter seems absurd and unlikely.
Either way, Todd ought to been peeved and demanded an explanation. Instead, he had
Clapper back on again within months and gave him the usual softball routine, never confronting him about the issue.
Reporters repeatedly got burned and didn't squawk about it. Where are the outraged stories about all the scads of anonymous "people
familiar with the matter" who put reporters in awkward spots in the last years? Why isn't McClatchy demanding the heads of whatever
"four people with knowledge" convinced them to
double down on the Cohen-in-Prague story ?
Why isn't every reporter who used "New Knowledge" as a source about salacious
Russian troll stories
out for their heads (or the heads of the congressional sources who passed this stuff on), after reports they faked Russian trolling?
How is it possible NBC and other outlets continued to use
New Knowledge as a source in stories identifying antiwar Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as a Russian-backed candidate?
How do the Guardian's editors not already have Harding's head in a vice for hanging them out to dry on the most
dubious un-retracted story in modern history – the tale that the most watched human on earth, Julian Assange, had somehow been
visited in the Ecuadorian embassy by Paul Manafort without leaving any record? I'd be dragging Harding's "well placed source" into
the office and beating him with a hose until he handed them something that would pass for corroborating evidence.
The lack of blowback over episodes in which reporters were put in public compromised situations speaks to the overly cozy relationships
outlets had with official sources. Too often, it felt like a team effort, where reporters seemed to think it was their duty to take
the weight if sources pushed them to overreach. They had absolutely no sense of institutional self-esteem about this.
Being on any team is a bad look for the press, but the press being on team FBI/CIA is an atrocity, Trump or no Trump. Why bother
having a press corps at all if you're going to go that route?
This posture all been couched as anti-Trump solidarity, but really, did former CIA chief John Brennan – the same Brennan who should
himself have faced charges for
lying to congress about hacking the computers of Senate staff – need the press to
whine on his behalf when Trump yanked his security clearance? Did we need the press to hum Aretha Franklin tunes, as ABC did,
and chide Trump for lacking
R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the CIA? We don't have better things to do than that "work"?
This catalogue of factual errors and slavish stenography will stand out when future analysts look back at why the "MSM" became
a joke during this period, but they were only a symptom of a larger problem. The bigger issue was a radical change in approach.
A lot of #Russiagate coverage became straight-up conspiracy theory, what Baker politely called "connecting the dots ." This was
allowed because the press committed to a collusion narrative from the start, giving everyone cover to indulge in behaviors that would
never be permitted in normal times.
Such was the case with Jonathan
Chait's #Russiagate opus , "PRUMP TUTIN: Will Trump be Meeting With his Counterpart – or his Handler?" The story was also pitched
as "What if Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987," which recalls the joke from The Wire: "
Yo, Herc, what if your mother and father never met ?" What
if isn't a good place to be in this business.
This cover story (!) in New York magazine was released in advance of a planned "face-to-face" summit between Trump and Putin,
and posited Trump had been under Russian control for decades. Chait noted Trump visited the Soviet Union in 1987 and came back "fired
up with political ambition." He offered the possibility that this was a coincidence, but added:
Indeed, it seems slightly insane to contemplate the possibility that a secret relationship between Trump and Russia dates back
this far. But it can't be dismissed completely.
I searched the Chait article up and down for reporting that would justify the suggestion Trump had been a Russian agent dating
back to the late eighties, when, not that it matters, Russia was a different country called the Soviet Union.
Only two facts in the piece could conceivably have been used to support the thesis: Trump met with a visiting Soviet official
in 1986, and visited the Soviet Union in 1987. That's it. That's your cover story.
Worse, Chait's theory was first espoused in Lyndon Larouche's "
Elephants and Donkeys " newsletter
in 1987, under a headline, "Do Russians have a Trump card?" This is barrel-scraping writ large.
It's a mania. Putin is literally in our underpants. Maybe, if we're lucky, New York might someday admit
its report claiming Russians set up an anti-masturbation hotline to trap and blackmail random Americans is suspicious, not just
because it seems absurd on its face, but because its source is the same "New Knowledge" group that admitted to faking Russian influence
operations in Alabama.
This ultimately will be the endgame of the Russia charade. They will almost certainly never find anything like the wild charges
and Manchurian Candidate theories elucidated in the Steele report. But the years of panic over the events of 2016 will lead to radical
changes in everything from press regulation to foreign policy, just as the WMD canard led to torture, warrantless surveillance, rendition,
drone assassination, secret budgets and open-ended, undeclared wars from Somalia to Niger to Syria. The screw-ups will be forgotten,
but accelerated vigilance will remain.
It's hard to know what policy changes are appropriate because the reporting on everything involving the Russian threat in the
last two to three years has been so unreliable.
I didn't really address the case that Russia hacked the DNC, content to stipulate it for now. I was told early on that this piece
of the story seemed "solid," but even that assertion has remained un-bolstered since then, still based on an "
assessment " by the intelligence services that
always had issues, including the use of things like RT's "anti-American" coverage of fracking as part of its case. The government
didn't even examine the DNC's server, the kind of detail that used to make reporters nervous.
We won't know how much of any of this to take seriously until the press gets out of bed with the security services and looks at
this whole series of events all over again with fresh eyes, as journalists, not political actors. That means being open to asking
what went wrong with this story, in addition to focusing so much energy on Trump and Russia.
The WMD mess had massive real-world negative impact, leading to over a hundred thousand deaths and trillions in lost taxpayer
dollars. Unless Russiagate leads to a nuclear conflict, we're unlikely to ever see that level of consequence.
Still, Russiagate has led to unprecedented cooperation between the government and Internet platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and
Google, all of which are censoring pages on the left, right, and in between in the name of preventing the "sowing of discord." The
story also had a profound impact on the situation in places like Syria, where Russian and American troops have sat across the Euphrates
River from one another, two amped-up nuclear powers at a crossroads.
As a purely journalistic failure, however, WMD was a pimple compared to Russiagate. The sheer scale of the errors and exaggerations
this time around dwarfs the last mess. Worse, it's led to most journalists accepting a radical change in mission. We've become sides-choosers,
obliterating the concept of the press as an independent institution whose primary role is sorting fact and fiction.
We had the sense to eventually look inward a little in the WMD affair, which is the only reason we escaped that episode with any
audience left. Is the press even capable of that kind of self-awareness now? WMD damaged our reputation. If we don't turn things
around, this story will destroy it
Taibbi is spot on, and in depth with this writing. The main stream media sold Americans on the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Almost 2 decades later, we have spent 6 trillion dollars, 8 millions lives have been lost, and millions of refugees have flooded
out of those countries, causing instability in Europe and beyond. For the past 2 years, 24/7, we have not been able to escape
the claims of Russiagate. He does not mention how the very same media gave Trump 24/7 coverage long before he was elected, and
in fact this free publicity, is probably why Trump is in the White House today. Without the constant press coverage of his campaign,
coverage that was not provided to other candidates, he would most likely not have found his way to the White House. Taibbi does
not go on to tell us what the motivation of the press is, or what he thinks can be done. News shows in the US have become little
more than entertainment. Many of us no longer rely on main stream press for any real news. The mass media has become irrelevant
at it's best, and dangerous, at it's worst. The driving force behind the so called news today, is the advertising dollars, and
the politics of the owners of the networks. How can we have a "free press" when just a few individuals own all the major news
outlets? We are not going to get the real news on tv of from the big newspapers, as long as the power is in the hands of a few
rich and powerful individuals, who decide what is news.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread" - Alexander Pope
The rash or inexperienced will attempt things that wiser people are more cautious of.
Finally the libs will agree that guns do have their place in society. These crazy zealots may just blow their own brains out
or just find the nearest cliff. Ace Hardware is loading up on rope.
hmmm....just imagine if - sleyers money contribution fo impeach trump was turned into a movie where a "sponsor" drew up a hit
list of batshit crazy MSM "personalities" to include late night "comfuckedupedians"
Even if you were stupid enough to believe Trump was getting dirt on Hillary from the Russians, what is wrong with that? Is
there a law against that? Why is it OK for Obama and the FBI to get away with wiretapping Trump during the election? Why is it
OK for NSA to wiretap All Americans and store all their conversations and internet traffic on hard drives?
Steele, Orbis, Pablo Miller, Salisbury, Porton Down, golden-shower dossier supposedly written by a native Russian speaker with
an intelligence background....it all makes me wonder what happened to Skripal.
"Skripalgate" is suppressed by UK law. All russians are evil in the UK. The fact that (as with tony Bliar and yellowcake Iraq)
any sitting government can prosecute another country without a trial, witnesses or evidence - as in the Skripals and within the
FUKUS cabal that bombed syria because of - "chlorine barrel bomb attacks on civilians" who later showed up unscathed in Den Haag.
UK governments cannot be held to account for their actions domestically or overseas.
Both parties have been playing up the threat from Russia for decades. The Military Industrial Complex was built on creating
fear about the possibility of war with Russian. The military industrial complex owns Congress, so of course Congress is going
to play up this threat. " The reason why media is working so hard to create the impression that Russia is actively conspiring
against is because conflict with the former Soviet Union is good for business." We can expect this to continue in one form or
another. If Americans were not afraid of Russia, we would not support a defense budget that is equal to all other countries in
the world combined.
Right. The depth of your analysis is impressive. You seem to have an unlimited knowledge of world and national affairs too.
Other than some stalking tendencies, why do you post on ZH? You don't really seem to have any interest in the content, or the
discussion.
I dont want to type up everything that led me to believe this. But the racism, his empathy towards certain muslims groups and
how he treated the war, the prisoner release, the sailors broadcasted on tv about drifting into territorial waters, I mean it
was so obvious how he felt about America.
Pile on his efforts to interfere in the election and eavesdrop, unmasking with Hillary getting and receiving emails from her
home brew server not to mention her foundation pulling in 145 million from Russia.
The CIA is sickening to what has developed over the last 20 years
Blind: If so, it just means it will not be reported on in the MainStream Media(MSM) and soon forgotten.
The same people who own the private central bank and currency, also own the MSM, and they control the narrative on ALL TOPICS.
And control of narrative mean control of what people think.
Control of money and mind means TOTAL control of a country.
Nothing will change until control of minds is returned to the people, then issuance of currency can be returned to the government.
Alex Jones' of Infowars got it right when he said "There's a war on for your mind!" ... even though he became a turncoat himself,
soon after.
Hillary lost a freaking election. After almost 3 freaking years of coup d'état the left deserves mocking humiliation. Mock
them ruthlessly. Never, ever let them forget the horrible thing that they did.
Never stop making fun of them and reminding them how stupid and crazy they acted during this humiliating period of US history.
Never let them forget what they did to the nation or what they cost us all. Never let Democrats forget how much time and energy
they wasted, how very, very wrong they were.
Every politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this moronic load of Russia! Russia!
Russia! has utterly discredited themselves for life. They executed and failed to accomplish a coup d'état. These are the very
last people anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world or an ice cream truck.
Refuse them, laugh at them, ignore them. They earned it and deserve nothing but the greatest disdain.
Without Russia, ASSAD would be long gone and IRAN would have been bombed to oblivion, and Greater Israhell would have been
fulfilled and ruling over the MidEast.
There was never real gray area here. Either Trump is a compromised foreign agent, or he isn't.
Of course there isn't. But this doesn't mean that a prosecutor like Mueller can prove this beyond any reasonable doubt. In
fact it is quite likely that he cannot. The only charge that should be fairly easy to establish is obstruction of justice.
Without knowing what is in the report, Taibbi really jumps the gun here. Especially given the comparison to WMDs.
I knew there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion because I followed, and chose to believe, a credible diplomat like Hans
Blix over the dog and pony show that Colin Powell put on. But WMDs are very tangible you either find the hardware or you do not.
Yet, what Putin and Trump discuss without a single other American in the room nobody knows but the Kremlin and Trump.
"It has been people, individuals who have banded together, ordinary people who simply saw what needed to be done and came
together and supported those ideals who have made the difference.
They've marched, they've bled and yes, some of them died. This is hard. Every good thing is. We have done this before. We
can do this again ."
Hardly the call for violent civil war at which it has been portrayed.
The most coiffed, manicured, made up sacks of **** ever to glorify the airwaves tell US what THEY think and get paid handsome
salaries for their effort to overthrow the American system. Freedom of Speech? That'll be gone in a heartbeat if THEY get power.
We have an obligation to not just protect it but a greater one to preserve it.
"I didn't really address the case that Russia hacked the DNC, content to stipulate it for now." - exce
The State Department paused its investigation of the Secretary's emails so as not to interfere with the Mueller investigation.
Here we see Taibbi writes an exhaustive condemnation of the Western press while leaving out the very crux of the story, the very
source of the stolen DNC emails was Clapper and Brennan pretending to be Guccifer 2.0.
Pitiful attempt at redemption there Matt. Seriously, go **** your self.
"After reading several articles, it seemed clear that key difficulties for Russians communicating in English include: definite
and indefinite articles, the use of presuppositions and correct usage of say/tell and said/told. Throughout 2017, I
constructed a corpus of Guccifer 2.0's communications
and analyzed the frequency of different types of mistakes. The
results of this work
corroborate Professor Connolly's assessment.
Overall, it appears Guccifer 2.0 could communicate in English quite well but chose to use inconsistently broken English at
times in order to give the impression that it wasn't his primary language. The manner in which Guccifer 2.0's English was broken,
did not follow the typical errors one would expect if Guccifer 2.0's first language was Russian.
To date, Connolly's language study has not drawn any significant objections or criticism."
Here's the goddam thing IMO. There is this thing called freedom of the press, it's constitutionally protected, no different
than the right to bear arms.
But just because I have the right to carry an M+A 9mm around, that doesn't mean I can point it at the guy who cut me off in
traffic. In that case, I go to jail.
For almost three years now, I've been hearing "bombshell" after unsourced "bombshell" from CNN/MSNBC/WaPo/NPR/NYT et. al. Here's
how it usually goes:
"NPR has been unable to independently confirm, but other major news organizations are reporting that . . ."
"CNN is working to confirm a bombshell report from the Washington Post . . ."
"The New York Times, echoing other major news outlets, is reporting that . . ."
And now let's turn to our panel of experts to "unpack" this latest revelation . . .
These people have criminally abused their rights, and those rights need to be taken away.
Otschelnik,
If Rachel Maddow, Chris Mathews, Judy Woodruff, Chuck Todd, Anderson Cooper, Brian Stelter, Chris Hayes, Mika Brzezinski,
Don Lemon, Alysin Camerota, Lawrence O'Donnell had the slightest inkling of professional integrity, and human conscience -
they'd commit seppuku on national live TeeVee to restore their honor.
A rope leash, 3 hours ago
In his effort to cleanse himself of the slimy residue of his profession, Tiabbi has written a fine piece here, a nice
little documentation of press collusion with government spooks and political operatives.
If a little honest reporting will offer some redemption to damned journalists, his name was Seth Rich.
hooligan2009, 3 hours ago
don't forget that Obama was PERSONALLY and DIRECTLY involved in all aspects of Russiagate.
read between these lines
On Oct. 14, 2016, Page again wrote to McCabe, this time concerning a meeting with the White House.
"Just called," Page said to McCabe. "Apparently the DAG [Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates] now wants to be there,
and WH wants DOJ to host. So we are setting that up now. ... We will very much need to get Cohen's view before we meet with
her. Better, have him weigh in with her before the meeting. We need to speak with one voice, if that is in fact the case."
newworldorder, 3 hours ago
The simple truth here is that most Americans no longer have any critical thinking skills, - all media realized this a long
time ago, and catered to their audience.
The Benjamin Franklin famous quote in answer to the question of "what kind of government have you given us?" rings very hollow
after 240+ years. The "Republic" exists in name only, because its people have not protected it, after the passing of the WW2
generation.
Unrestricted, open borders invasion disguised as alleged migration, and the legalization of an eventual 100+ million new
"migrant" voters will be the final nail on the coffin of the US Republic by 2030.
Mob rule will finally destroy the greatest Republic ever conceived by the mind of men.
Mike Rotsch, 3 hours ago (Edited)
If "open borders" is your measuring stick on Americans' critical-thinking skills, then where does that place Europeans?
They actually have them officially.
Paracelsus, 3 hours ago
Someday I hope that Hillary has to be rolled up to testify about the Benghazi business. Grab the guns and the gold (and
the oil). Ukraine gold: check. Libyan gold and weapons: check.
Ghaddafi actually warned the west that after him would come a deluge of illegals (okay refugees: young males, black, often
Islamic, with little respect for women or experience with western society).
While I have reservations about Trump and his policies, the MSM owe him a huge mea culpa.
"... The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections. ..."
"... At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this. ..."
"... I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy. ..."
"... It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further. ..."
"... They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. ..."
"... Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal. ..."
"... The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue; ..."
"... Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law. ..."
"... It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.) ..."
There were no major disagreements between Mueller and his managers at the U.S. Department of
Justice (DOJ).
The Russians who tried to interfere in the 2016 election were exposed and charged -- but no
American was charged with any effort to conspire with Moscow and hijack the election.
the "Steele dossier" that was the main FISA evidence was paid for with funds
from Hillary Clinton
's campaign and the Democratic Party;
Christopher Steele, the dossier's author, had told a senior DOJ official he was desperate to
defeat Trump;
most of the dossier was not verified before it was used as evidence of alleged Trump-Russia
collusion; and
agents collected statements from key defendants such as Papadopoulos and Carter Page during
interactions with an FBI informant that strongly suggested their innocence.
Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and
every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.
An upcoming DOJ inspector general's report should trigger the beginning of that
accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying
all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials. " The Hill
------------
Pilgrims, the seditious conspiracy to depose the elected president of the United States for
conspiracy to commit treason with the Government of the Russian Federation has been
defeated.
The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously
used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make
an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to
overturn the results of elections.
At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary
Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever,
clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the
even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British
intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose
staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this.
The leftist press is already discounting the results of Mueller's investigation while
gloating over how long the Democratic held House of Representatives can continue to search
through Trump's life trying to find criminality.
AG Barr should stand Mueller up next to him at a press conference to make clear the results
of his report and to answer questions about it. After that the prosecutions should begin.
pl
I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee –
Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled
against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this
conspiracy.
It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a
strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' –
notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which
case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further.
The argument that declassification of relevant documentation would harm the intelligence
relationship between the U.S. and U.K. has clearly been made with great emphasis from this
side.
In fact, it is pure bollocks. A serious investigation on your side, which could lead to
the kind of clean-out which should have happened when the scale of the corruption of
intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq became clear, might pave the way for us
to reconstruct reasonably functional intelligence services.
Doing this on both sides of the Atlantic might pave the way for a reconstruction of an
intelligence relationship which was actually beneficial to both countries, as in recent years
it patently has not been.
Whether there is a realistic prospect of people on your side opening the cans of worms on
ours, as well as your own, of course remains a moot point.
I'm glad the Steele affair has been examined at the American end -
"They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with
Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US
political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and
spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York.
"
What about the UK end? We're fussing over some little local difficulties in the UK at the
moment and at our end the questions still remain - Who in the UK authorised it and how high did it go?
The problem with criminal prosecution is one must cite a Brit or US law which was violated.
The only ones in US law that I am aware of stipulate that the plotting must be by means of
violence, "by force". All this appears to me to be only the propagation of rumors.
I think it might be more the investigation of the propagation of rumours. Think back to that election campaign, and to the period before the inauguration.
Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an
odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers
nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it
turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal.
With respect it is not propagating rumours to ask how that happened. As for my own
interest in the affair, it is not propagating rumours to ask how a senior UK ex-Intelligence
Officer comes to be mixed up in it all. I suppose I started to look on it as rather more than a prank or a few cogs slipping when
that senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer got whisked away to a safe house. We're a penny
pinching lot over here and we don't run to that sort of thing for nothing.
An investigation could certainly be predicated on the reasonable suspicion that Steele, et
al, conspired to defraud the United States, in this case a purposeful and knowing smear of a
candidate for office; also, another potential violation could be lying to the FBI, T 18 USC
1001.
The problem, as I see it, is sorting out the malignant from the merely incompetent. As I've
argued many times, the dossier should have been dismissed from the outset as a pile of
garbage, empty of actionable content, because the ultimate sources could not be vetted: the
information could not be said to be either credible or reliable. The information was acted on
by screening it behind the reliabilty and credibility, so called, of Steele. So it would be
necessary to show that Steele knew that the information, point by point, was false. This
could be difficult. Steele's first line of defense would be that he threw everything that he
heard from anyone at all into the mix in the expectation that the "professionals" would
figure it out.
Yes, they were all partisan, Steele, his sources, his bosses, the so called
professionals, and their partisanship would be easy to prove; and yes, almost assuredly their
partisanship contributed, perhaps even explained, their defective judgement as to how to
handle the scurrilous information, especially on the part of the so called professionals, but
proving they actually knew the materials to be false would be difficult.
They couldn't know
that it was false because they had no ability to run down the sources. The professionals
would defend themselves by saying they had no ability to vet the sources but the information
represented such a serious security threat that they had no alternative but to try to vet the
information by launching the investigation against the targets. This puts the cart before the
horse, represents an astonishing lack of judgement, especially considering the "exalted"
positions in the Intel Community the people exercising the bad judgement occupied, but there
it is - "we thought we were doing the right thing."
Perhaps this defense could be overcome by
demonstrating that people at such high and important heights of government could not possible
be so stupid... maybe.
And of course we have the orchestrated leaks to various media, the orchestrated unmaskings,
all of which kept the media frenzy fired up. All in all, it was the greatest political dirty
trick ever attempted in American Politics, and did devastating damage to both domestic
tranquility and national security. Trump survived, but the damage done is incalculable.
So It pains me greatly to think that the reckoning will likely have to be political rather
than criminal because the malice that can be demonstrated is so admixed and even overshadowed
by incompetence and judgement flaws; and even a political reckoning given the state of the
country is so uncertain.
I hope that I am wrong and that some kind of prosecution can be fashioned because of the
sheer enormity of violence that was done to our electoral system, surpassing by far the
chickenshit case Mueller brought against the Russian troll farm; but I fear that I am right.
It hurts to think that so much damage can be caused by scheming little political weasels and
that they all may well walk away scot free; and even be lionized by their political confreres
as having tried to do the right thing. This is the state of American politics today!!!
I see that some of the midgets on horseback are saying that they will bring Mueller before
congress to explain himself. Their knight in shining armor has failed to return with the holy
grail. A couple even suggested that perhaps Mueller has been influenced by the Russians or
somehow intimated by Trump.
The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue;
and that
+ all the crazy Marxism (social and economic), bad immigration policy and Green New Deal is
going to doom the Democrats in 2020. They look like they are jumping off a final sake fueled
banzai charge. Maybe they think the best defense is a good offense re; the prosecutions that
should happen. What is the chance that Mueller will pass *all* he has learned to help get the
criminal cases under way?
On 13 July 2018, when announcing the indictment of 12 Russian military officers by the
Mueller group for "conspiring to interfere" in the 2016 presidential election, Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein admitted that no "interference" actually happened. In this
video of his announcement, starting at 5 minutes, 52 seconds into it and ending at the 6
minute, 5 second mark, he says--
"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.
There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election
result."
Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results
of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly
pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law.
However, I am concerned that the new attorney general, William Barr, will not do so based
on his past associations and work. I hope I am wrong about that, but I am not optimistic.
It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly
unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a
weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection"
operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such
obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.)
I'm wrestling with the idea that 'twas ever thus and now with the internet its workings
are revealed to a "lay" audience with no connection to the dark arts of the spy business. But
I am curious, with the good Colonel's indulgence, if the new tools of the trade have made
things which should be secret not possible to be kept secret?
Amen to the prosecutions. If there is seen to be no accountability for this fraud then we are
seriously damaging what's left of democracy. Who, in their right mind, is going to publicly
support and assist a political candidate who is not "Swamp approved" if they face the threat
of thereby triggering their own, and their family's destruction by the judicial system?
I suggest that even a pardon is not enough for those entrapped in this mess. There needs
to be restitution.
To put that another way, in my opinion, "birther" allegations could be passed off as
political tactics. Nobody got hurt. It is just good luck that Russiagate hasn't resulted in
suicide or worse - so far.
I certainly agree that consequences must be brought to bear: lying politicians without a
shred of evidence, nor did they offer any for their lies; press for their utter and complete
malfeasance and corruption without a shred of evidence, the doj/fbi corrupted and coup
plotting officials,and finally the shame to all who shrieked about "evil" putin, russia the
aggressor, etc. It has set our discourse back decades, forced any critics of this insanity
into the shadows, and completely killed any attempt at normal diplomacy between nations.
I noted one astute writer as equating this russiagate insanity to the lies surrounding wmd
and the destruction of iraq. Close. The damage from this criminality is incalculable!
Will the shrillest of all in the press lose their jobs? Nah, not a chance. Prob get raise
or promotion.Will the brennans, clintons, clappers, et al do the perp walk. Nah, not a
chance. High paid lawyers will tie the courts up for years if not decades.
And america has the institutional memory of a gnat. And of course, the question is as to
high up did this criminality go? I personally do not believe it is a question-it is obvious
to me. The major question for me is how high up the prosecution, if any, will go.
Problem is...who's going to do the prosecuting?
The DOJ - protector of the swamp - has become thoroughly corrupted as an arm of the
Democrat-media party.
Should (can) Trump appoint a special prosecutor as far as possible from the DOJ?
The president might use this and any Republican-led prosecutions as leverage to work out
deals that will allow him to achieve his agenda. I think he'll need to given how the
Democrats intend to use their house majority to launch investigations and hearings to find
something, anything to howl about and impede his agenda.
Still need to see the full report. I hope it is releasable. Otherwise the conspiracy theories
or leaks will never let up. The article cited is a partisan opinion piece, not a news report.
It accepts the fallback stance that yes, crimes were committed but collusion by Trump was not
among them. This actually seems possible if only in light of the chaotic condition of the
campaign.
That said, I would not be surprised to find collusion discounted. Not that the Russians
didn't interfere. That would be entirely in character. But I don't know any reason for
supposing that they would have a better understanding of American political dynamics than the
Americans who make good livings being the best in that arena. The Russians seem to have been
doing the same things as numerous other players. They shouldn't have been in that game, but
there is no strong reason for according them Superman status. Their strongest feature seems
to have been sheer quantity. Outrage over their actions often seems to flow from a poor grasp
of the real nature of normal political process.
"The Russians seem to have been doing the same things..."
Multiple members of the FBI and DOJ seem to have been interfering in the 2016 Presidential
election. How many other federal and state elections did they interfere with?
Can you cite a single piece of hard evidence, not simply allegation, that proves the Russians
interfered in the 2016 election? If so, please cite it, since I know of none. Thank you.
"... Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. ..."
"... As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch ..."
"... I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way. ..."
"... Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove. ..."
"... It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon. ..."
"... It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better. ..."
Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy
that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump
president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who
bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful
wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact
that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, was a loudmouth
bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people
did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment
stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump
in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by
inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the
American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives,
getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote
this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to
conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every
component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence
agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to
remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of
amounts to an attempted soft coup.
It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was
nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. The Clintons once
again, both Bill and Hillary, have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug in the White
House to the status of some kind of martyr. What a country America it is. One thing should be
clear however. Any politician or media pundit that towed the pro-Clintonista line should be
barred from public office or the media forever.
As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary,
they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry.
Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch. There is one difference between Typhoid
Mary, and Bill and Hillary: Typhoid Mary didn't realize what she was doing, the Clintons did!
sorry to double post, but it just occurred to me that they pulled a classic DC move: if you
have something humiliating or horrible to admit, do it on a friday night.
i have to wonder if the entire western media is cynically praying for a (coincidentally
distracting) school shooting or terrorist attack within the next two days.
I have close friends that have been on the MSNBC/Maddow Kool-Ade for years. Constantly
declaring Mueller was on the verge of closing in on Trump and associates for treason with the
Russians. On Friday night after dinner at our home, the TV was tuned to MSNBC so they could
watch their spiritual leader Rachel Maddow....what a pitiful sight (both Maddow and friends).
No one was going to jail or be impeached for conspiring with Putin.....how on how could that
be true. Putin personally stole the election from Clinton and THEY are just going to let him
walk was the declaration a few feet from my chair. Normally, I would recommend grieve
counseling, but they are still my friends ... now they can go back to blaming Bernie for
Clinton's loss. Maybe I will recommend grieve counseling!
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 23, 2019 2:27:18 PM |
link
@dltravers: Apart from the "goyim" you may be right.. But if you want to claim with that
Trumps opponents where under the pressure of the Zionists, you got it all wrong man.. ;) No
presidents been more under the Zionist thumb than DJT.
That ofc doesnt make Hillarys Saudi and Muslim brotherhood connections better.. ;)
Anyway, cheers to the end of this BS! And lets hope that Trump has now payed off his debts
with Adelson now that he secured Bibis reelection. But dont hold your breath.. ;)
"very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this
moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life".
I wish so, but that's not how the exceptional nation of US of A works, as demonstrated by
the Iraq WMD fiasco case. In fact, very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit
(about Saddam's WMD" BS) is alive and well, spreading more BS. What is even more depressing
is that the huge chunk of this exceptional nation cannot have enough of the BS and is
chanting "give me more, give me more...".
The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion.
However some good things have come out of the investigation. It cost taxpayers 2 million
but recouped over 25 million from those convicted of fraud and tax evasion.
And its not over, Mueller has sent 5 to 7 referrals or evidence/witnesses to SDNY, EDNY, DC,
EDVA, plus the National Security and Criminal Divisions. These from information turned up
crimes unrelated to his Russia probe and allegedly concerning Trump or his family business, a
cadre of his advisers and associates. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles
to Brooklyn.
The bad news is it exposed how wide spread and corrupt the US has become...in private and
political circles.
The other bad news is most of the Trump lovers and Trump haters are too stupid to drop
their partisan and personal blinders and recognize that ....ITS THE CORRUPTION STUPID.
b you have repeatedly made the case that this whole thing was kicked off by the Steele
dossier. That is factually incorrect. The first investigation was already running before the
dossier ever materialized. That investigation spawned the special prosecutors investigation
when Trump fired Comey and then went on TV and said it was because of the Russia
investigation. The Russia investigation was originally kicked off by Papadopoulos drinking
with the the Australian ambassador and bragging about what the campaign was doing with
Russia. Remember the original evidence was presented to the leadership of both the House and
the Senate when they were both controlled by the Republican party and every one that was
briefed came out on camera and said the Justice dept was doing the right thing in pursuing
this.
I think the Democrats should lose Hillary down a deep hole and not let her near any of the
coming campaign events. But this came about because of the actions of the people around
Trump. Not because Hillary controls the US government from some secret bunker some where.
One could argue Russiagate was on the contrary quite a success. The Elites behind the scheme
never believed it would end up with Trump's impeachment. What they did accomplish though is a
deflection via "Fake News" from the Dem's election failures & shenanigans and refocus the
attention towards the DNC's emerging pedophilia scandals (Weiner, the Podesta's, Alefantis,
etc) & suspicious deaths (Seth Rich, etc) towards a dead-end with the added corollary of
preventing US/Ru rapprochement for more then half an administration..
Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 3:10:02 PM |
link
The deeply tragic thing about this for the media, the neocons, and the liberals is that they
brought it upon themselves by moving the goalposts continuously. If, after Hillary lost, they
had stuck to the "Russia hacked WikiLeaks" lie, then they probably have sufficient proof from
their perspective and the perspective of most of the public that Russia helped Trump win. In
this case it would be remembered by the Democrats like the stolen election of 2000 (albeit
the fact that it was a lie this time). They had multiple opportunities to jump off this
train. Even the ridiculous DNI report could have been their final play: "Russia helped
Trump." Instead of going with 2000 they went with 2001, aka 9-11, with the same neocon
fearmongers playing the pipe organ of lies. As soon as they accepted the Steele Dossier,
moving the focus to "collusion" they discredited themselves forever. Many of the lead
proponents were discredited Iraq war hawks. Except this time it was actually worse because
the whole media bought into it. This leaves an interesting conundrum: there were at least
some pro-Afghanistan anti-Iraq warmongers who rejected the Bush premise in the media, so they
took over the airwaves for about two years before the real swamp creatures returned. This
time, it will be harder to issue a mea culpa. They made this appear like 9-11, well, this
time the truthers have won, and they are doomed.
Societies collapse when their systems (institutions) become compromised. When they are no
longer capable of meeting the needs of the population, or of adapting to a changing world.
Societal systems become compromised when their decision making structures, which are
designed to ensure that decisions are taken in the best interest of the society as a whole,
are captured by people who have no legitimacy to make the decisions, and who make decisions
for the benefit of themselves, at the expense of society as a whole.
Russia-gate is a flagrant example of how the law enforcement and intelligence institutions
have been captured. Their top officials, no longer loyal to their country or their
institution, but rather to an international elite (including the likes of Soros, the
Clintons, and far beyond) have used these institutions in an attempt to delegitimize a
constitutionally elected president and to over turn an election. This is no less than treason
of the highest order.
Indeed, the actions much of the Washington establishment, as well as a number
international actors, since Trump was elected seems suspiciously like one of the 'Color
Revolutions' that are visited upon any country who's citizens did not 'vote right' the first
time. Over-throw the vote, one way or another, until the result that is wanted is achieved.
None of these 'Color Revolutions' has resulted in anything good for the country involved.
Rather they have resulted in the destruction of each country's institutions, and eventually
societal collapse.
In the U.S. the capturing of systems' decision making structures is not limited to
Russia-Gate and the overturning of the electoral system. Their are other prime examples:
- The capture of the Air Transport Safety System by Boeing that has resulted in the recent
737 Max crashes, and likely the destruction of the reputation of the U.S. aviation industry,
in an industry where reputation is everything.
- The capture of the Financial Regulatory System, by Wall Street, who in 1998 rewrote the
rules in their own favor, against the best interests of the population as a whole. The result
was the 2008 financial crisis and the inability of the U.S. economy to effectively recover
from that crisis.
- This capture is also seen in international diplomatic systems, where the U.S. is
systematically by-passing or subverting international law and international institutions,
(the U.N. I.C.J., I.N.F. treaty) etc., and in doing so is destroying these institutions and
the ability to maintain peace.
The result of system (institution) capture is difficult to see at first. But, in time, the
damage adds up, the ability of the systems to meet the needs of the population disappears,
and societal decline sets in.
It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of
many indicators.
Your comment on the BBC is on the mild side. I listen to it when I drive in in the morning
and also get annoyed sometimes. When it is reporting on the Westminster bubble it is
factually accurate as far as I can judge. Apart from that, and particularly in the case of
the BBC news, we're in information control territory.
But accept that and the BBC turns into quite a valuable resource. It's well staffed, has
good contacts, and picks up what the politicians want us to think with great accuracy.
In that respect it's better than the newspapers and better also than the American media.
Those news outlets have several masters of which the political elite is only one. The BBC has
just the one master, the political elite, and is as sensitive as a stethoscope to the
shifting currents within that political elite.
So I wouldn't despise the BBC entirely. It tells us how the politicians want us to think.
In telling us that it sometimes gives us a bearing on what the politicians et al are doing
and what they intend to do.
The never-Trumpers will never let their dreams die. Of course, they never oppose Trump on
substantive issues like attempting a coup in Venezuela, withdrawing from the INF treaty,
supporting the nazis in Ukraine, supporting Al Qaeda forces in Syria, etc. But somehow
they're totally against him and ready to haul out the latest stupid thing he said as their
daily fodder for conversation...
renfro @ 10 said;"The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion."
Uh no, just doing their job of distracting the public, while ignoring the real issues
the
American workers care about. You know, the things DJT promised the workers, but has never
delivered.(better health care for all, ending the useless wars overseas, an
infrastructure
plan to increase good paying jobs), to name just a few.
The corporate Dems( which is the lions share of them), are bought and paid for to
distract, and they've done it well.
The Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, and most who have come before, are of the same
ilk.
Bend over workers and lube up, for more of the same in 2020...
I profoundly disagree with the notion that Russiagate had anything to do with Hillary's
collusion with the DNC. Gosh, that is naive at best.
1) Hillary didn't need to collude against Sanders - the additional money that she got from
doing so was small change compared the to overall amount she raised for her campaign.
2) Sanders was a long-time friend of the Clintons. He boasted that he's known Hillary
for over 25 years.
3) Sanders was a sheepdog meant to keep progressives in the Democratic Party. He was
never a real candidate. He refused to attack Hillary on character issues and remained loyal
even after Hillary-DNC collusion was revealed.
When Sanders had a chance to total disgrace Hillary, he refused to do so. Hillary
repeatedly said that she had NEVER changed for vote for money but Warren had proven that
she had: Hillary changed her vote on the Bankruptcy Bill for money from the credit card
industry.
4) Hillary didn't try to bury her collusion with the DNC (as might be expected), instead
she used it to alienate progressive voters by bring Debra Wasserman-Shultz into her
campaign.
5) Hillary also alienated or ignored other important constituencies: she wouldn't
support an increase in the minimum wage but accepted $750,000 from Goldman Sachs for a
speech; she took the black vote for granted and all-but berated a Black Lives Matters
activist; and she called whites "deplorables".
Hillary threw the race to her OTHER long-time friend in the race: Trump. The
Deep-State wanted a nationalist and that's just what they got.
6) Hillary and the DNC has shown NO REMORSE whatsoever about colluding with Sanders and
Sanders has shown no desire whatsoever to hold them accountable.
IMO Russiagate (Russian influence on Trump) and accusations of "Russian meddling" in the
election are part of the same McCarthyist psyop to direct hate at Russia and stamp out any
dissent. Trump probably knowingly, played into the Deep State's psyop by:
> hiring Manafort;
> calling on Russia to release Hillary's emails;
> talking about Putin in a admiring way.
And it accomplished much more than hating on Russia:
> served as excuse for Trump to do Deep State bidding;
> distracted from the real meddling in the 2016 election;
> served as a device for settling scores:
- Assange isolated
(Wikileaks was termed an "agent of a foreign power");
- Michael Flynn forced to resign
(because he spoke to the Russian ambassador).
hopehely , Mar 23, 2019 3:49:15 PM |
link The US owes Russia an official apology. And also Russia should get its stolen
buildings and the consulate back. And maybe to get paid some compensation for the injustice
and for damages suffered. Without that, the Russiagate is not really over.
If memory serves me correctly, the initial accusations of collusion between DJT's
presidential campaign and the Kremlin came from Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company hired
by the Democratic National Committee to oversee the security of its computers and databases.
This was done to deflect attention away from Hillary Clinton's illegal use of a personal
server at home to conduct government business during her time as US State Secretary (2009 -
2013), business which among other things included plotting with the US embassy in Libya (and
the then US ambassador Chris Stevens) to overthrow Muammar Gaddhafi's government in 2011, and
conspiring also to overthrow the elected government in Honduras in 2010.
The business of Christopher Steele's dossier (part or even most of which could have been
written by Sergei Skripal, depending on who you read) and George Papadopoulos' conversation
with the half-wit Australian "diplomat" Alexander Downer in London were brought in to bolster
the Russiagate claims and make them look genuine.
As B says, Crowdstrike does indeed have a Ukrainian nationalist agenda: its founder and
head Dmitri Alperovich is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council (the folks who fund
Bellingcat's crapaganda) and which itself receives donations from Ukrainian oligarch Viktor
Pinchuk. Crowdstrike has some association with one of the Chalupa sisters (Alexandra or
Andrea - I can't be bothered dredging through DuckDuckGo to check which - but one of them was
employed by the DNC) who donated money to the Maidan campaign that overthrew Viktor
Yanukovych's government in Kiev in February 2014.
thanks b... i would like russiagate to be finished, but i tend to see it much like kadath
@2.. the link @2 is worth the read as a reminder of how far the usa has sunk in being a
nation of passive neocons... emptywheel can't say no to this as witnessed by her article
from today.. ) as a consequence, i agree with @14 dh-mtl's conclusion - "It looks today
like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators."
the irony for those of us who don't live in the usa, is we are going to have watch this
sad state of affairs continue to unravel, as the usa and the west continue to unravel in
tandem.. the msm as corporate mouthpiece is not going to be tell us anything of relevance..
instead it will be continued madcow, or maddow bullshit 24-7... amd as kadath notes @2 - if
any of them are to step up as a truth teller - they will be marginalized or silenced... so
long as the mainstream swallow what they are fed in the msm, the direction of the titanic is
still on track...
@19 hopehely... you can forget about anything like that happening..
What Difference Does it Make?
They don't really need Russia-gate anymore. It bought them time. As we speak nuclear bombers
make runs near Russian borders every day and Russian consulates get attacked with heavy
weaponry in the EU and no Russian outlet is even making a reference,while Israel is ready to
move heavy artillery in to Golan targeting Russia bases in Syria and China raking all their
deals for civilian projects in the Med.
Russia got stuffed in the corner getting all the punches.
What a horrible witch hunt, but the msm will keep on denying and keep creating new hoaxes
about Trump, Russia.
Heck the media even deny there was no collussion, they keep spinning it in different ways!
Thanks for citing Caitlin Johnstone's wonderful epitaph, b--Russiavape indeed!
During the fiasco, the Outlaw US Empire provided excellent proof to the world that it does
everything it accused Russia of doing and more, while Russia's cred has greatly risen.
Meanwhile, there're numerous other crimes Trump, his associates, Clinton, her
associates--like Pelosi--ought to be impeached, removed from office, arrested, then tried in
court, which is diametrically opposed to the current--false--narrative.
Scotch Bingeington , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:39 PM |
link
The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people
anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.
Yes, absolutely. And not just regarding the world's future, but even if you happen to be
in the same building with one of them and he/she bursts into your already smoke-filled room
yelling that the house is on fire.
Btw, whatever authority has ever ruled that "ex-MI6 dude" Steele (who doesn't remind me of
steel at all, but rather of a certain nondescript entity named Anthony Blair) is in fact
merely 'EX'? He himself? The organisation? The Queen perhaps?
Expose them at every opportunity, they should not get away with this like nothing
happend:
If you think a single Russiagate conspiracist is going to be held accountable for media
malpractice, you clearly haven't been awake the past 2 decades. No one will pay for being
wrong. This profession is as corrupt & rotten as the kleptocracy it serves
defeatism isn't the answer -- should remind & mock these hacks every opportunity.
Just need to be aware of the beast we're up against.
The establishment plays on peoples fears and so we all sink together as we all cling to
our "lesser evils", tribal allegiances, and try to avoid the embarrassment of being
wrong.
Although everyone is aware of the corruption and insider dealing, no one seems to want to
acknowledge the extent, or to think critically so as to reveal any more than we already
know.
It's almost as though corruption (the King's nudity) is a national treasure and revealing
it would be a national security breach in the exceptional nation.
And so to the Deep State cabal continues to rule unimpeded.
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by
inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the
American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives,
getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote
this story on a daily basis for nearly three years
Posted by: Ken | Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | 4
You people don't get it do you?
'The Plan' was to get rid of Turkey-Russia-Israel (and a few others) with one fell
swoop....
Russia gate was both a diversion from the real collusions (Russian Mafia , China and Israel)
and a clever ruse to allow Trump to back off from his campaign promise to improve relations
with Russia. US policy toward Russia is no different under Trump than it was during Obamas
administration. Exactly what the Russia Gaters wanted and Trump delivered.
That Mueller could find nothing more than some tax/money laundering/perjury charges in
which the culprits in the end get pardoned is hardly surprising given his history. Want
something covered up? Put Mueller on it.
To show how afraid Trump was of Mueller he appointed his long term friend Barr as AJ and
pretended he didn't know how close they were when it came out. There is no lie people wont
believe. Lol
Meanwhile Trumps Russian Mafia connections stay under the radar in MSM, Trump continues as
Bibi's sock puppet, the fake trade war with China continues as Ivanka is rolling in China
trademarks .
The Rothschild puppet that bailed out Trumps casinos as Commerce Secretary overseeing
negotiations that will open the doors for more US and EU (they willy piggy back on the deal
like hyenas) jobs to go to China (this time in financial/services) and stronger IPR
protections that will facilitate this transfer, and will provide companies more profits in
which to buyback stocks but wont bring manufacturing jobs back.
The collusion story has been hit badly and it will likely lose its momentum, but I wonder how
far reaching this loss of momentum is. There are many variants. The 'unwitting accomplice' is
an oxymoron which isn't finished yet. The Russians hacking the election: not over. The
Russians sowing discord and division. Not over. Credibility of the Russiagate champions
overall? Not clear. Some could take a serious hit. Brennan and other insiders who made it
onto cable tv?
It is possible that the whole groupthink about Russiagate changes drastically
and that 'the other claims' also lose their credibility but it's far from certain. After
years of building up tension Russia's policies are also changing. I think they have shown
restraint but their paranoia and aggressiveness is also increasing and some claims will
become true after all.
"Russiagate" has always been a meaningless political fraud.
When folks like Hillary Clinton sign on to something and give it a great deal of weight,
you really do know you are talking about an empty bag of tricks. She is a psychopathic liar,
one with a great deal of blood on her hands.
My problem with this official result is that it may tend to give Trump a boost, new
credibility.
The trouble with Trump has never been Russia - something only blind ideologues and people
with the minds of children believe - it is that he is genuinely ignorant and genuinely
arrogant and loud-mouthed - an extremely dangerous combination.
And in trying to defend himself, this genuine coward has completely surrendered American
foreign policy to its most dangerous enemies, the Neocons.
Blaming Russiagate on Hillary is very easy for those who hate her or hope that Trump will
deliver on his faux populist fake-agenda.
No one wants to contemplate the possibility that Hillary and Trump, and the duopoly they
lead, fixed the election and planned Russiagate in advance.
It seems a bridge too far, even for the smart skeptics at MoA.
So funny.
Trump has proven himself to be a neocon. He broke his campaign promise to investigate
Hillary within DAYS of being elected. He has brought allies of his supposed enemies into his
Administration.
Yet every one turns from the possibility that the election was fixed. LOL.
The horrible possibility that our "democracy" is managed is too horrible to contemplate.
Lets just blame it all on Hillary.
Those who have been holding their breath for two years can finally exhale. I guess the fever
of hysteria will have to be attended a while longer. A malady of this kind does not easily
die out overnight. Those who have been taken in, and duped for so long, can not so easily
recover. The weight of so much cognitive dissonance presses down on them like a boulder. The
dust of the stampeded herd behind Russiagate is enough paralyze the will of those who have
succumbed.
As Joseph Conrad once wrote, "The ways of human progress are inscrutable."
Russiagate is a pendulum, it reached the dead point, it would hange in the air for a moment,
then it would start swinging right backwards at full speed crashign everything in the way!
It would be revealed, it was Russia who paid Muller to start that hysteria and stole money
from American tax-payers and make America an international laughing stock. "Putin benefited
from it", highly likely!
Muller's investigation is paid for with Manafort's seized cash and property and Manafort
has made Yanukovich king of Ukraine, so Manafort is Putin's agent, so Muller is working of
Putin's money, so it was Putin's collusion everything that Muller is doing! Highly
likely.
There is no "Liberal Media". Those whom claim to be Liberal and yet support the Warmonger
Democratic Party (Republican lite) are frauds. Liberalism does not condone war and it most
certainly does not support wars of aggression - especially those wars waged against
defenseless nations. Neither can liberalism support trade sanctions or the subjugation of
Palestinians in the Apartheid State of ISreal.
We must be very careful with the words we choose, in order to paint the correct
conjuncture and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
It's one thing to say Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary; it's another completely
different thing to say he was in cahoots with the Clintons.
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary. Not only he chose to do so, but he only didn't win
because the DNC threw all its weight against him.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist. He's an imperialist who believes the
spoils of the empire should be also used to build a Scandinavian-style Welfare State for the
American people only. A cynic would tell you this would make him a Nazi without the race
theme, but you have to keep in mind societies move in a dialectical patern, not a linear one:
if you preach for "democratic socialism", you're bringing the whole package, not only the
bits you want.
I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it
exists. Americans are more aware of their own contradictions (more enlightened) now than
before he disputed those faithful primaries of 2016. And the most important ingredient for
that, in my opinion, was the fact he was crushed by both parties; that the "establishment"
acted in unison not to let him get near the WH. That was a didactic moment for the American
people (or a signficant part of it).
But I agree Russiagate went well beyond just covering the Clintons' dirt in the DNC.
It may have be born like that, but, if that was the case, the elites quickly realized it
had other, ampler practical uses. The main one, in my opinion, was to drive a wedge between
Trump's Clash of Civilizations's doctrine -- which perceives China as the main long term
enemy, and Russia as a natural ally of the West -- and the public opinon. The thing is most
of the American elite is far too dependent on China's productive chain; Russia is not, and
can be balkanized.
There is a funny video compilation of the TV talking heads predicting the end of Trump, new
bombshells, impeachment, etc., over the last two years.
Unfortunately, the same sort of compilation could be made of sane people predicting "this new
information means the end of Russiagate" over the same time period.
The truth is that the truth doesn't matter, only the propaganda, and it has not stopped, only
spun onto new hysteria.
As others have said, hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been
wrong all along. They have too much emotional investment in the grand conspiracy theory to
simply let it go. Rather, they will forever point to what they believe are genuine bits of
evidence and curse Mueller for not following the leads. And the Dems in the House of
Representatives will waste more time and resources on pointless investigations in an effort
to keep the public sufficiently distracted from more important matters, such as the endless
wars and coups that they support. A pox on all their houses, both Democrats and
Republicans.
"...hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along."
Wrong about what? There seems to be "narrative" operative here that there are only two
positions on this matter: the "right" one and the "wrong" one and nothing else.
Ben's and other comments might make this a little bit superfluous but it's short.
A case of divide and conquer against the population
This time it was a fabricated scandal.
Continued control over "facts" and narratives, the opportunity for efficient misdirection
and distraction, stealing and wasting other people's time and effort, spurious disagreements,
wearing down relations.
The illusion of choice, (false) opposition, blinded "oversight", and mythical claims
concerning a civilian government (in the case of the US: "of, for, and by" or something like
that).
Who knew or knows is irrelevant as long as the show goes on. There's nothing to prove
anything significant about who if anyone may or may not be behind the curtain and thus on
towards the next big or small scandal we go because people will be dissatisfied and hungry
and ready to bite as hard as possible on some other bait for or against something.
Maybe "Russiagate" was impeccably engineered or maybe it organically outcompeted other
distractions on offer that would ultimately also waste enormous amounts of time and
effort.
Management by crisis
The scandals, crises, "Science says" games and rubbish, outrage narratives, and any other
manipulations attempt and perhaps succeed at controlling the US and the world through
spam.
Jonathan @39: Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for.
Well, you can say the same think about money-as-speech , gerrymandering, voter
suppression, etc. Despite all these, Americans believe that their democracy works.
I contend that what we witnessed in 2016 was a SHOW. Like American wrestling. It was
(mostly) fake. The proper term for this is kayfabe .
My advice to the yanks mourning Russiagate: move to the UK. The sick Brits will keep the
Russia hating cult alive even after they spend a decade puking over Brexit.
Jackrabbit @18
So, you don't think HRC qualifies as a nationalist? She can't fake populist, but she can do
nationalist.
I also think she is much too ambitious to have intentionally thrown the election. It was her
turn dammit! Take a look at her behavior as First Lady if you think she's the kind of
personality that is content to wield power from behind the scenes.
They didn't fall for the Steele dossier. I recall that emptywheel had discredited the dossier
during the election as it was known to have been rejected by major media outlets leading up
to the election. I think they merely fell behind the others as the outgoing administration,
the Democrats, the CIA, and the media chose to use the dossier to 'blackmail' Trump.
The most important fruit of russiagate, from the view of the establishment of the hegemon, is
that America has now taken a giant step towards full bore censorship.
We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby
inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the
bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?
Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told
Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's
typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's
that?
The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him
and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.
Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax
returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the
press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of
returns). Bernie refused.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie
Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things
for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.
What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate,
meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like
open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the
Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.
Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character
issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other
examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's
well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer
Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make")
and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").
And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find
that even a little bit strange?
We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby
inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the
bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?
Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told
Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's
typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?
The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and
Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.
Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns.
Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press
asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of
returns) . Bernie refused.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie
Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things
for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.
What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless
astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders.
These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and
another 4 years for Trump.
Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and
to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie
refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to
squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk
about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the
overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").
And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that
even a little bit strange?
mourning dove @57: Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not
voters.
Do you think Hillary didn't know that? She refused to campaign in the three mid-western
states that would've won her the electoral college. Each of the states were won by Trump by a
thin margin.
Gosh and Blimey!
Comment #56 in a thread about an utterly corrupt political system and no-one has mentioned
the pro-"Israel" Lobby?
Words fail me. So I'll use someone else's...
From Xymphora March 21, 2019.
"Truth or Trope?" (Sailer):
"Of the top 50 political donors to either party at the federal level in 2018, 52 percent
were Jewish and 48 percent were gentile. Individuals who identify as Jewish are usually
estimated to make up perhaps 2.2 percent of the population.
Of the $675 million given by the top 50 donors, 66 percent of the money came from Jews and 34
percent from gentiles.
Of the $297 million that GOP candidates and conservative causes received from the top 50
donors, 56 percent was from Jewish individuals.
Of the $361 million Democratic politicians and liberal causes received, 76 percent came from
Jewish givers.
So it turns out that Rep. Omar and Gov. LePage appear to have been correct, at least about
the biggest 2018 donors. But you can also see why Pelosi wanted Omar to just shut up about
it: 76 percent is a lot."
Next up another false flag operation. The thing is, it would have be non-trivial and
involving the harming of people to jolt the narrative back to that favoring the deep state.
And taking off the proverbial media table, that Mueller found no collusion. Yes, election in
2016 no collusion, but Putin was behind the latest horrific false flag, "oh look, Trump is
not confronting Putin"...
Not even getting into the "treason", "putin's c*ckholster", "what's the time on Moscow,
troll!" crap we've been subjected to for 3 years, please enjoy this mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUvfZj-Fm0.
I've said before that she's a terrible strategist and she ran a terrible campaign and she's
terribly out of touch. I think she expected a cake walk and was relying on Trump being so
distasteful to voters that they'd have no other option.
I think Trump legitimately won the election and I don't believe for a second that she won the
popular vote. There were so many problems with the election but since they were on the losing
side, nobody cares. In 2012 I didn't know anyone else who was voting for Jill Stein, way too
many people were still in love with Obama. She got .4% of the vote. In 2016 most of the
people I knew were voting for Jill Stein, she drew a large crowd from DemExit, but they say
she got .4% of the vote. Total bullshit. There was also ballot stuffing and lots of other
problems, but it still wasn't enough.
I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her
elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and
the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way.
Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough
to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has
helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller
to prove.
It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that
Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the
"national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify
the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon.
It is time to build
cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony.
Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it.
The truth will work better.
"... RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there. ..."
"... And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless. ..."
"... They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. ..."
"... The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion." ..."
"... It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. ..."
"... If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb. ..."
"... If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate. ..."
"... And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us. ..."
"... Hillary is the epitome of evil. ..."
"... I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. ..."
"... Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected. ..."
"... Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected". ..."
"... HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH ..."
"... It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible ..."
"... When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself. ..."
During most of the RussiaGate investigation against Donald Trump I kept saying that all
roads lead to Hillary Clinton.
Anyone with three working brain cells knew this, including
'Miss' Maddow, whose tears of disappointment are particularly delicious.
Robert Mueller's investigation was designed from the beginning to create something out of
nothing. It did this admirably.
It was so effective it paralyzed the country for more than two years, just like Europe has
been held hostage by Brexit. And all of this because, in the end, the elites I call The Davos
Crowd refused to accept that the people no longer believed their lies about the benefits of
their neoliberal, globalist agenda.
Hillary Clinton's ascension to the Presidency was to be their apotheosis along with the
Brexit vote. These were meant to lay to rest, once and for all time, the vaguely libertarian
notion that people should rule themselves and not be ruled by philosopher kings in some distant
land.
Hillary's failure was enormous. And the RussiaGate gambit to destroy Trump served a laundry
list of purposes to cover it:
Undermine his legitimacy before he even takes office.
Accuse him of what Hillary actually did: collude with Russians and Ukrainians to effect
the outcome of the election
Paralyze Trump on his foreign policy desires to scale back the Empire
Give aid and comfort to hurting progressives and radicalize them further undermining our
political system
Polarize the electorate over the false choice of Trump's guilt.
Paralyze the Dept. of Justice and Congress so that they would not uncover the massive
corruption in the intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.
Isolate Trump and take away every ally or potential ally he could have by turning them
against him through prosecutor overreach.
Hillary should have been thrown to the wolves after she failed. When you fail the people she
failed and cost them the money she cost them, you lose more than just your funding. What this
tells you is that Hillary has so much dirt on everyone involved, once this thing started
everyone went along with it lest she burn them down as well.
Burnin' Down da House
Hillary is the epitome of envy. Envy is the destructive sin of coveting someone else's life
so much they are obsessed with destroying it. It's the sin of Cain. She envies what Trump has,
the Presidency. And she was willing to tear it down to keep him from having it no matter how
much damage it would do. She's worse than the Joker from The Dark Knight.
Because while the Joker is unfathomable to someone with a conscience there's little stopping
us from excising him from the community completely., even though Batman refuses.
Hillary hates us for who we are and what we won't give her. And that animus drove her to
blackmail the world while putting on the face of its savior.
And that's what makes what comes next so obvious to me. RussiaGate was never a sustainable
narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there
are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there.
Mueller thought all he had to do was lean on corrupt people and threaten them with
everything. They would turn on Trump. He would resign in disgrace from the public outcry. It
didn't work. In the end Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone all held their ground or
perjured themselves into the whole thing falling apart.
Andrew Weissman's resignation last month was your tell there was nothing. Mueller would
pursue this to the limit of his personal reputation and no further. Just like so many other
politicians.
Vote Your Pocketbook
With respect to Brexit I've been convinced that it would come down to reputations. Would the
British MP's vote against their own personal best interests to do the bidding of the EU? Would
Theresa May eventually realize her historical reputation would be destroyed if she caves to
Brussels and betrays Brexit in the end? Always bet on the fecklessness of politicians. They
will always act selfishly when put to the test. While leading RussiaGate, Mueller was always
headed here if he couldn't get someone to betray Trump.
And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his
reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now
worthless.
They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she
has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. The
progressives that were convinced of Trump's treason are bereft; their false hope stripped away
like standing in front of a sandblaster. They will be raw, angry and looking for blood after
they get over their denial.
Everyone else who was blackmailed into going along with this lunacy will begin cutting deals
to save their skins. The outrage over this will not end. Trump will be President when he stands
for re-election.
The Wolves Beckon
The Democrats do not have a chance against him as of right now. When he was caving on
everything back in December it looked like he was done. That there was enough meat on the
RussiaGate bones to make Nancy Pelosi brave. Then she backed off on impeachment talk.
Oops....
... ... ...
The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something
dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time.
Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion."
It's clear that RussiaGate is
a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall
on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. There is only one answer. And Obama's
people are still in place to protect him. I said last fall that " Hillary would
indict herself. " And I meant it. Eventually her blackmail and drive to burn it all down
led to this moment.
The circumstances are different than I expected back then, Trump didn't win the mid-terms.
But the end result was always the same. If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then
all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb.
Because the bigger project, the erection of a transnational superstate, is bigger than any
one person. Hillary is expendable. Lies are expensive to maintain. The truth is cheap to
defend. Think of the billions in opportunity costs associated with this. Once the costs rise
above the benefits, change happens fast. If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this
country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason
anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate.
We all know it's the truth. So, the cheapest way out of this mess for them is to give the
MAGApedes what they want, Hillary.
And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us.
I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch,
Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice,
Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. Think of the
taxpayer money wasted on this ridiculous Mueller investigation! The Roger Stone arrest was an
outrage. Who tipped off CNN? Who ordered it? What was with the attack dogs and machine guns?
And now we have Nadler trying to destroy anyone and everyone who ever did business with
Trump. All those 80 people who got letters from him asking for documents will now be
bankrupted by legal fees.
According to Scott Adams, one recipient is refusing to
cooperate -- he's saying "I can't afford for me and family to be destroyed." He put the request
for documents in a drawer. He has no money for lawyers.
This insanity and abuse of power has
got to stop. Meanwhile, nothing gets done in Congress. We're all looking at censorship,
tilted search engines, de-monetization, being beat up on campus for trying to express an
opinion, being accosted in a restaurant (or, VP Pence, from the stage ("Hamilton"), getting
sucker-punched for wearing a MAGA hat, having elections stolen through myriad Dem cheating
methods, and NOTHING is being done.
Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian
meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate
cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a
Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for
becoming elected.
Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately
sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also
raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The
damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of
treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a
war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections
and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because
it was her turn to get elected".
It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of
Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be
nobody to hold them responsible.
When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to
justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they
were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself.
This is clear that the Emollients Law is being broken. Kushner is making a ton of money
and using over seas trips to create a larger establishment for his own empire . He is trying
to make up for his big loses . This truly Breaks all laws of our Government .Using his
position to make money . He needs to go ................
The Family Trump, the people are absolutely no shame, not 1%, to the Millions of poor
Americans, on the Streets, in Tents, on Highways, under Highways!!! Ivanka Trump, she a young
Women, no heart!!! No Empathy to the Millions of poor Amer.
It's not rocket science people! They were raised by corrupt parents and grandparents who
taught them well. Children will model what their parents teach them. They are also children
who are inexperienced & way over their head and very unqualified so they are
overwhelmed.
"... The people who paid for Trump's election campaign, foremost casino magnate and zionist Sheldon Adelson, want to keep the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahoo in office. ..."
"... Trump needs money for his re-election campaign and is willing to do anything to get it. ..."
"... Trump is colluding with Netayahoo to influence the Israeli election. It is the reason why he decided yesterday to claim that Israel has sovereignty over the Golan Heights : ..."
The people who paid for Trump's election campaign, foremost casino magnate and zionist
Sheldon Adelson, want to keep the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahoo in office.
Netanyahoo
is under investigation in several corruption cases and has a serious competitor in the upcoming
general elections in Israel. Trump needs money for his re-election campaign and is willing to
do anything to get it.
Trump is colluding with Netayahoo to influence the Israeli election. It is the reason why
he decided yesterday to claim that Israel has sovereignty over the Golan Heights :
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump - 16:50 utc - 21 Mar
2019
After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over
the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of
Israel and Regional Stability!
The Heights are Syrian lands that were occupied by Israel during its 1967 war of aggression
against Egypt and Syria.
The business of Trump giving away something he doesn't own is insane. But insanity has been
the theme of most everything else him and his neocon helpers have been doing of late.
I believe it's time to start paying attention to the truly nutty stories. The crazier
sounding ones ought to get the most attention. After all, who would have conceived the
Trumpies declaring a genuine nobody to be the true President of Venezuela? Early finds:
A US military base on Taiwan. New weapons to Taiwan. More high-level contacts with that
nation. All proposed by the Trumpies. Who benefits most from a small or large war with China?
Headline from the neocon york times:
Israel Is on the Brink of Disaster. Trump Just Made Things Worse.(March 22,
2019)
On Twitter on Thursday, he wrote that "it is time for the United States to fully
recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and
security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!" It is the latest, and
most important, signal from Washington that Mr. Trump is ready to acknowledge Israeli
control of the Golan Heights.
But those signals are also being read by the Israeli right wing as an encouragement to
pursue annexation of territory in the West Bank -- a far more dangerous step that would
present Israel with an unparalleled existential threat to its Jewish and democratic
character.
I'd ask if there is any reason for the murdering and stealing rightwingnut
settlers not to celebrate? Trump has been doing their bidding at every turn, even when
it does direct harm to the US. Are there any indications the Trumpies have something planned
for the subhuman Palestinians. As a matter of fact, YES.
The are much better 'Kushner, boy wonder' articles than this one floating around, but I
want to focus on a single part:
Kushner said in February the White House was poised to unveil the peace plan after
Israel's election in April. While in Warsaw, Kushner said the plan will impact the
entire Middle East region and is "really about establishing border and resolving
final-status issues," according to Sky News Arabia.
Change "final-status" to Final Solution and that would be just about right.
Death-March time, Baby, and to the exultant Republican & End-Timers chant of "they had
their chance, but blew it".
The Trump administration along with Jared Kushner employed in the White House, a lawyer by
the name of Ira Greenstein from Newark, New Jersey, who was by all accounts still acting
as President and/or in the interest of his energy corporation when the U.S. bombed Syria.*
Genie Energy.
An energy corporation operating privately in Syrian territory -- the Israeli-occupied
Golan Heights.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration are inherently subjugated by this
paradigm of interests. When commencing with hostile military action against Syria, they
did so while having a direct conflict of interest, primarily related to business ties with
this corporation. This, along with seemingly ulterior political dealings with the Israeli
government, has gone part and parcel to the destabilization of Syria.
While benefiting
Genie Energy, its backers and involved officials.
Officials such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This essentially represents extortion against Syria, as part of a behind-the-scenes
deal between parties, with Greenstein's boss, the founder of Genie Energy and top
Netanyahu donor Howard Jonas having made billions through a telecommunications deal made
possible under the watch of both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and White
House Office of American Innovation (OAI ) -- for which to benefit said parties for their
actions.
*
The U.S. has since attacked Syria's government a number of times, furthering the
risk of nuclear war or a widened conflict in the Middle East. Ira Greenstein left the
White House on March 30th, 2018 following earlier reporting by this author.
U.S. Navy's USS Porter strikes Syria in April of 2017.
On April
6th, 2017, the U.S. launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria.
Targeting Shayrat Airbase (FAA LID: OS65), numerous aircraft were
destroyed, primarily Mikoyan Mig-23ML and Sukhoi Su-22M3 models. These
being the same parent models which had been involved in
operations
over Daraa, which is a choke point near the Golan Heights,
it remains as of this posting as being under the control of hostile actors
such as Islamic State (ISIS).*
*
Syria has since made strides in retaking this key area.
On April 14th, 2018, about a year later, this act was repeated with
U.S.-led military strikes against a large number of targets within
Syria -- both France and the U.K. participated in this escalation despite
the associated risks.
Ira Greenstein
Troop deployments
had preceded the airstrikes, with a permanent
presence
with or without ISIS
being
touted
in 2017, setting U.S. involvement in Syria at an ever
increasing rate
. Continued or further involvement in Syria by the Trump
administration or other U.S.-led actors, as shown below in this article, is
illegal.
James Mattis
claimed
at the time that approximately 20% of the Syrian Arab Air Force
(SyAAF) was destroyed; impacting Syria's military capabilities, this would
then continue with further bombings on Syria by the Israeli Air Force.
Israel would find herself
losing
an F-16 this year after Syrian Air Defenses retaliated in
self-defense due to these bombings.
More recently
, activity has included an increasing amount of U.S.
military action against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) or its pro-government
forces, despite inherent conflicts of interest present within the Trump
administration.
This type of behavior sits in stark contrast to Iran and Russia having
been formally invited by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to participate in
Syria's affairs militarily.
To get to the very heart of the matter, we have to go back to the
presidential transition period, when Newark
lawyer
Ira Greenstein was a member of ex-Congressman John Sweeney's
"Tiger Team."
While he was still Genie Energy's acting President.
This made Greenstein an official presidential transition team member for
the incoming Trump administration, as some may recall, Jared Kushner was a
member
of this team as well.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that there is a strong possibility that Trump's family
could be indicted by other entities based on the work of Mueller. http:// ow.ly/ZibI30o9PFQ
This month marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Allied Force, NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia. It was a war waged
as much against Serbian civilians – hundreds of whom perished – as it was against Slobodan Milošević's forces, and it was a campaign
of breathtaking hypocrisy and selective outrage. More than anything, it was a war that by President Bill Clinton's own admission
was fought for the sake of NATO's credibility.
One Man's Terrorist
Our story begins not in the war-torn Balkans of the 1990s but rather in the howling wilderness of Afghanistan at the end of the
1980s as defeated Soviet invaders withdrew from a decade of guerrilla warfare into the twilight of a once-mighty empire. The United
States, which had provided arms, funding and training for the mujahideen fighters who had so bravely resisted the Soviet occupation,
stopped supporting the jihadis as soon as the last Red Army units rolled across the Hairatan Bridge and back into the USSR. Afghanistan
descended deeper into civil war.
The popular narrative posits that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, Washington's former mujahideen allies, turned on the
West after the US stationed hundreds of thousands of infidel troops in Saudi Arabia – home to two out of three of Sunni Islam's holiest
sites – during Operation Desert Shield in 1990. Since then, the story goes, the relationship between the jihadists and their former
benefactors has been one of enmity, characterized by sporadic terror attacks and fierce US retribution. The real story, however,
is something altogether different.
From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon flew
thousands of al-Qaeda mujahideen, often accompanied by US Special Forces, from Central Asia to Europe to reinforce Bosnian Muslims
as they fought Serbs to gain their independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Clinton administration
armed and trained these fighters in
flagrant violation of United Nations accords; weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran were secretly shipped to the jihadists
via Croatia, which netted a hefty profit from each transaction. The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in
which thousands of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb and Serbian paramilitary forces, concluded
that the United States was "very closely involved" in these arms transfers.
When the Bosnian war ended in 1995 the United States was faced with the problem of thousands of Islamist warriors on European
soil. Many of them joined the burgeoning Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which mainly consisted of ethnic Albanian Kosovars from what
was still southwestern Yugoslavia. Emboldened by the success of the Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians and Bosnians who had won their
independence from Belgrade as Yugoslavia literally balkanized, KLA fighters began to violently expel as many non-Albanians from Kosovo
as they could. Roma, Jews, Turks and, above all, Serbs were all victims of Albanian ethnic cleansing.
The United States was initially very honest in its assessment of the KLA. Robert Gelbard, the US special envoy to Bosnia,
called it "without any question a terrorist
group." KLA backers allegedly included Osama bin Laden
and other Islamic radicals; the group largely bankrolled its activities by trafficking heroin and sex slaves. The State Department
accordingly added the KLA to its list of terrorist organizations in 1998.
However, despite all its nastiness the KLA endeared itself to Washington by fighting the defiant Yugoslavian President Slobodan
Milošević. By this time Yugoslavia, once composed of eight nominally autonomous republics, had been reduced by years of bloody civil
war to a rump of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. To Serbs, the dominant ethnic group in what remained of the country, Kosovo is regarded
as the very birthplace of their nation. Belgrade wasn't about to let it go without a fight and everyone knew it, especially the Clinton
administration. Clinton's hypocrisy was immediately evident; when Chechnya fought for its independence from Moscow and Russian forces
committed horrific atrocities in response, the American president
called the war an internal Russian affair
and barely criticized Russian President Boris Yeltsin. But when Milošević resorted to brute force in an attempt to prevent Yugoslavia
from further fracturing, he soon found himself a marked man.
Although NATO
called
the KLA "the main initiator of the violence" in Kosovo and blasted "what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation" against
the Serbs, the Clinton administration was nevertheless determined to attack the Milošević regime. US intelligence confirmed that
the KLA was indeed provoking harsh retaliatory strikes by Serb forces in a bid to draw the United States and NATO into the conflict.
President Clinton, however, apparently wasn't listening. The NATO powers, led by the United States, issued Milošević an ultimatum
they knew he could never accept: allow NATO to occupy all of Kosovo and have free reign in Serbia as well. Assistant US Secretary
of State James Rubin later
admitted that "publicly we had to make clear we were seeking an agreement but privately we knew the chances of the Serbs agreeing
were quite small."
Wagging the Dog?
In 1997 the film Wag the Dog debuted to rave reviews. The dark comedy concerns a Washington, DC spin doctor and a Hollywood
producer who fabricate a fictional war in Albania to distract American voters from a presidential sex scandal. Many observers couldn't
help but draw parallels between the film and the real-life events of 1998-99, which included the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's
impeachment and a very real war brewing in the Balkans. As in Wag the Dog , there were exaggerated or completely fabricated
tales of atrocities, and as in the film the US and NATO powers tried to sell their war as a humanitarian intervention. An attack
on Yugoslavia, we were told, was needed to avert Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanians.
There were two main problems with this. First, there was no Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars until after NATO
began mercilessly bombing Yugoslavia. The German government
issued several reports confirming this. One, from October 1998, reads, in part:
The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no
proof of a persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or a part of it. What was involved in the Yugoslav violent actions
and excesses since February 1998 was a selective forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the KLA) A
state program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now nor earlier.
Subsequent German government reports issued through the winter of 1999 tell a similar story. "Events since February and March
1998 do not evidence a persecution program based on Albanian ethnicity," stated one report released exactly one month before the
NATO bombing started. "The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first instance directed toward combating the KLA
and its supposed adherents and supporters."
While Serbs certainly did commit atrocities (especially after the ferocious NATO air campaign began), these were often greatly
exaggerated by the Clinton administration and the US corporate mainstream media. Clinton claimed – and the media dutifully parroted
– that 600,000 Albanians were "trapped within Kosovo lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home or buried in mass graves."
This was completely false . US diplomat David
Scheffer claimed that "225,000 ethnic Albanian men are missing, presumed dead." Again, a
total fabrication . The FBI, International War Crimes
Tribunal and global forensics experts flocked to Kosovo in droves after the NATO bombs stopped falling; the total number of victims
they found was around 1 percent of the figure claimed by the United States.
However, once NATO attacked, the Serb response was predictably furious. Shockingly, NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark declared
that the ensuing Serbian atrocities against the Albanian Kosovar population had been
"fully anticipated" and were apparently of little concern to Washington.
Not only did NATO and the KLA provoke a war with Yugoslavia, they did so knowing that many innocent civilians would be killed, maimed
or displaced by the certain and severe reprisals carried out by enraged Serb forces. Michael McGwire, a former top NATO planner,
acknowledged that "to describe the bombing as a humanitarian intervention is really grotesque."
Bloody Hypocrites
The other big problem with the US claiming it was attacking Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds was that the Clinton administration
had recently allowed – and was at the time allowing – far worse humanitarian catastrophes to rage without American intervention.
More than 800,000 men, women and children were slaughtered while Clinton and other world leaders stood idly by during the 1994 Rwandan
genocide. The US also courted the medievally brutal
Taliban regime in hopes of achieving stability in Afghanistan and with an eye toward building a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through
Afghanistan to Pakistan. Clinton also did nothing to stop Russian forces from viciously crushing nationalist uprisings in the Caucuses,
where Chechen rebels were fighting for their independence much the same as Albanian Kosovars were fighting the Serbs.
Colombia, the Western Hemisphere's leading recipient of US military and economic aid, was waging a fierce, decades-long campaign
of terror against leftist insurgents and long-suffering indigenous peoples. Despite
horrific brutality and pervasive human rights violations, US aid to Bogotá increased year after year. In Turkey, not only did
Clinton do nothing to prevent government forces from committing widespread atrocities against Kurdish separatists, the administration
positively encouraged its NATO ally with billions of dollars in loans and arms sales. Saudi Arabia, home to the most repressive fundamentalist
regime this side of Afghanistan, was – and remains – a favored US ally despite having one of the
world's worst human rights
records. The list goes on and on.
Much closer to the conflict at hand, the United States tacitly approved the largest ethnic cleansing campaign in Europe since
the Holocaust when as many as 200,000 Serbs were
forcibly expelled from the Krajina region of Croatia by that country's US-trained military during Operation Storm in August 1995.
Krajina Serbs had purged the region of its Croat minority four years earlier in their own ethnic cleansing campaign; now it was the
Serbs' turn to be on the receiving end of the horror. Croatian forces stormed through Krajina, shelling towns and slaughtering innocent
civilians. The sick and the elderly who couldn't escape were executed or burned alive in their homes as Croatian soldiers machine-gunned
convoys of fleeing refugees.
"Painful for the Serbs"
Washington's selective indignation at Serb crimes both real and imagined is utterly inexcusable when held up to the horrific and
seemingly indiscriminate atrocities committed during the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. The prominent Australian journalist
John Pilger noted that "in the attack on Serbia, 2 percent of NATO's missiles hit military targets, the rest hit hospitals, schools,
factories, churches and broadcast studios." There is little doubt that US and allied warplanes and missiles were targeting the Serbian
people as much as, or even more than, Serb forces. The bombing knocked out electricity in 70 percent of the country as well as much
of its water supply.
NATO warplanes also deliberately bombed a building containing the headquarters of Serbian state television and radio in the middle
of densely populated central Belgrade. The April 23, 1999 attack occurred without warning while 200 employees were at work in the
building. Among the 16 people killed were a makeup artist, a cameraman, a program director, an editor and three security guards.
There is no doubt that the attack was meant to demoralize the Serbian people. There is also no doubt that those who ordered the bombing
knew exactly what outcome to expect: a NATO planning document viewed by Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President
Jacques Chirac forecast as
many as 350 deaths in the event of such an attack, with as many as 250 of the victims expected to be innocent civilians living in
nearby apartments.
Allied commanders wanted to fight a "zero casualty war" in Yugoslavia. As in zero casualties for NATO forces, not the people they
were bombing. "This will be painful for the Serbs," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon sadistically predicted. It sure was. NATO warplanes
flew sorties at 15,000 feet (4,500 meters), a safe height for the pilots. But this decreased accuracy and increased civilian casualties
on the ground. One attack on central Belgrade mistakenly
hit Dragiša Mišović hospital with a laser-guided "precision" bomb, obliterating an intensive care unit and destroying a children's
ward while wounding several pregnant women who had the misfortune of being in labor at the time of the attack. Dragana Krstić, age
23, was recovering from cancer surgery – she just had a 10-pound (4.5 kg) tumor removed from her stomach – when the bombs blew jagged
shards of glass into her neck and shoulders. "I don't know which hurts more," she lamented, "my stomach, my shoulder or my heart."
Dragiša Mišović wasn't the only hospital bombed by NATO. Cluster bombs dropped by fighter jets of the Royal Netherlands Air Force
struck a hospital and a market in the city of Niš on May 7,
killing 15 people and wounding 60 more. An emergency clinic
and medical dispensary were also bombed in the
mining town of Aleksinac on April 6, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more.
Bridges were favorite targets of NATO bombing. An international passenger train traveling from Belgrade to Thessaloniki, Greece
was
blown apart by two missiles as it crossed over Grdelica gorge on April 12. Children and a pregnant woman were among the 15 people
killed in the attack; 16 other passengers were wounded. Allied commander Gen. Wesley Clark claimed the train, which had been damaged
by the first missile, had been traveling too rapidly for the pilot to abort the second strike on the bridge. He then offered up a
doctored video that was sped up more than three times so that the pilot's behavior would appear acceptable.
On May 1, at least 24 civilians, many of them children, were killed when NATO warplanes
bombed a bridge in Lužane just as a bus was crossing.
An ambulance rushing to the scene of the carnage was struck by a second bomb. On the sunny spring afternoon of May 30, a bridge over
the Velika Morava River in the small town of Vavarin was
bombed by low-flying German Air Force F-16 fighters while hundreds of local residents gathered nearby to celebrate an Orthodox
Christian holiday. Eleven people died, most of them when the warplanes returned and bombed the people who rushed to the bridge to
help those wounded in the first strike.
No One Is Safe
The horrors suffered by the villagers of Surdulica shows that no one in Serbia was safe from NATO's fury. They endured some 175
bombardments during one three-week period alone, with 50 houses destroyed and 600 others damaged in a town with only around 10,000
residents. On April 27, 20 civilians, including 12 children,
died when bombs meant to
destroy an army barracks slammed into a residential neighborhood. As many as 100 others were wounded in the incident. Tragedy
befell the tiny town again on May 31 when NATO
warplanes returned to bomb an ammunition depot but instead hit an old people's home; 23 civilians, most of them helpless elderly
men and women, were blown to pieces. Dozens more were wounded. The US military initially said "there were no errant weapons" in the
attack. However, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre later testified before Congress that it "was a case of the pilot getting confused."
The CIA was also apparently confused when it relied on what it claimed was an outdated map to approve a Stealth Bomber strike
on what turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Three Chinese journalists were killed and 27 other people were wounded.
Some people aren't so sure the attack was an accident – Britain's Observer later
reported that the US deliberately bombed the
embassy after discovering it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.
There were plenty of other accidents, some of them horrifically tragic and others just downright bizarre. Two separate attacks
on the very Albanians NATO was claiming to help killed 160 people, many of them women and children. On April 14, NATO warplanes bombed
refugees along a 12-mile (19-km) stretch of road between the towns of Gjakova and Deçan in western Kosovo, killing 73 people including
16 children and wounding 36 more. Journalists reported
a grisly scene of "bodies charred or blown to pieces, tractors reduced to twisted wreckage and houses in ruins." Exactly one month
later, another column of refugees was
bombed near Koriša, killing
87 – mostly women, children and the elderly – and wounding 60 others. In the downright bizarre category, a wildly errant NATO missile
struck a residential neighborhood in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, some 40 miles (64 km) outside of Serbia. The American AGM-88 HARM
missile blew the roof off
of a man's house while he was shaving in his bathroom.
NATO's "Murderous Thugs"
As the people of Yugoslavia were being terrorized by NATO's air war, the terrorists of the Kosovo Liberation Army stepped up their
atrocities against Serbs and Roma in Kosovo. NATO troops deployed there to keep the peace often failed to protect these people from
the KLA's brutal campaign. More than 164,000 Serbs fled or
were forcibly driven from the Albanian-dominated province and by the summer of 2001 KLA ethnic cleansing had rendered Kosovo almost
entirely Albanian, with just a few die-hard Serb holdouts living in fear and surrounded by barbed wire.
The KLA soon expanded its war into neighboring Macedonia. Although NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson called the terror group
"murderous thugs," the United States – now with George W. Bush as president – continued to offer its invaluable support. National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice personally
intervened in an attempt to persuade Ukraine to halt arms sales to the Macedonian army and when a group of 400 KLA fighters were
surrounded at Aracinovo in June 2001, NATO ordered Macedonian forces to hold off their attack while a convoy of US Army vehicles
rescued the besieged militants. It later
emerged that 17 American military advisers were embedded with the KLA at Aracinovo.
Credibility Conundrum
The bombing of Yugoslavia was really about preserving the credibility of the United States and NATO. The alliance's saber rattling
toward Belgrade had painted it into a corner from which the only way out was with guns blazing. Failure to follow threats with deadly
action, said President Clinton, "would discredit NATO." Clinton
added
that "our mission is clear, to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO's purpose." The president seemed willfully ignorant of NATO's
real purpose, which is to defend member states from outside attack. British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with Clinton,
declaring on the eve of the war that
"to walk away now would destroy NATO's credibility." Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute,
wrote that the Clinton administration
"transformed a conflict that posed no threat to the territorial integrity, national sovereignty or general welfare of the United
States into a major test of American resolve."
Waging or prolonging war for credibility's sake is always dangerous and seems always to yield disastrous results. Tens of thousands
of US troops and many times as many Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian soldiers and civilians died while Richard Nixon sought an "honorable"
way out of Vietnam. Ronald Reagan's dogged defense of US credibility cost the lives of 299 American and French troops killed in Hezbollah's
1983 Beirut barracks bombing. This time, ensuring American credibility meant backing the vicious KLA – some of whose fighters had
trained at Osama bin Laden's terror camps in Afghanistan. This, despite the fact that al-Qaeda had already been responsible for deadly
attacks against the United States, including the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
It is highly questionable whether bombing Yugoslavia affirmed NATO's credibility in the short term. In the long term, it certainly
did not. The war marked the first and only time NATO had ever attacked a sovereign state. It did so unilaterally, absent any threat
to any member nation, and without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. "If NATO can go for military action without
international blessing, it calls into question the reliability of NATO as a security partner," Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak,
then Moscow's ambassador to NATO, told me at a San Francisco reception.
Twenty years later, Operation Allied force has been all but forgotten in the United States. In a country that has been waging
nonstop war on terrorism for almost the entire 21st century, the 1999 NATO air war is but a footnote in modern American history.
Serbs, however, still seethe at the injustice and hypocrisy of it all. The bombed-out ruins of the old Yugoslav Ministry of Defense,
Radio Television of Serbia headquarters and other buildings serve as constant, painful reminders of the horrors endured by the Serbian
people in service of NATO's credibility.
Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based author and activist. His work, which focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights,
is archived atwww.brettwilkins.com
"... But facts matter little when it comes to dishing out propaganda to a largely clueless American public. Conveniently excluded from our mythical account of the defeat of ISIS is the critical role played by Russia and Iran in bolstering Syria's military capabilities and carrying out a decisive ground campaign that is the real cause of the death of ISIS. ..."
"... I agree with damned near every word you said, Larry. Our policies and actions in Syria have been horrid from the beginning. The only bright spot was the assistance we provided to the Kurds against the IS jihadis. ..."
"... What good we did there, although still illegal under international law, is being wiped out by our insistence on staying there and obstruction of Kurdish reconciliation with Damascus. ..."
I wish we could say that the lies and self-deception that are
the core of U.S. policy and actions in Syria are an isolated incident. Sadly, no. On almost
every issue--from the Russian threat to the 12 doom countdown on climate change--Americans are
being fed a steady stream of bullshit and there is virtually no pushback or derision.
I bring this up in light of the media's current coverage of the "defeat" of ISIS in Syria.
According to the media and punditry meme, this is the result of vigorous and persistent action
by U.S. ground forces in Syria and that 2000 brave men (and very few women) have flushed ISIS
into the bowels of history. No one dare mention the fact that the United States is violating
international law by carrying out military operations on Syrian territory. Nope. Don't fit the
meme.
Nearly a third of territory reclaimed from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria since 2014
has been won in the past six months, due to new policies adopted by the Trump administration, a
senior State Department official said Friday.
Brett McGurk, the State Department's senior envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, said
that steps President Trump has taken, including delegating decision-making authority down from
the White House to commanders in the field, have "dramatically accelerated" gains against the
militants.
Trump has worked this miracle with a measly 2000 Special Ops and Special Forces troops. Or
so we are told. Now for the facts:
The United States ground forces have not carried out nor spearheaded a single major ground
campaign or attack in Iraq. If you recall the assault on Fallujah during the early days of
the war in Iraq, the US Marines employed 15,000 marines in that effort. Two thousand troops
can defend a fixed position but are virtually useless as a military force going up against an
entrenched enemy.
The 2000 U.S. military personnel have been involved for the most part in
training and intel collection. When U.S. assets were employed it involved almost exclusively
air attacks from drones, fixed wing and helicopters.
Oh yeah--EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE AIR
OPERATIONS WERE COORDINATED WITH THE RUSSIAN MILITARY COMMAND FROM THE CAOC (COMBINED AIR
OPERATIONS CENTER) IN AL-UDEID AIR FORCE BASE IN QATAR.
But facts matter little when it comes to dishing out propaganda to a largely clueless
American public. Conveniently excluded from our mythical account of the defeat of ISIS is the
critical role played by Russia and Iran in bolstering Syria's military capabilities and
carrying out a decisive ground campaign that is the real cause of the death of ISIS.
Despite our supposedly decisive victory, we are still being told that we must keep ground
forces in Syria. Donald Trump's initial instinct in 2015--i.e., we should not be in Syria--has
been trumped by die hard neocons like John Bolton with the help self-serving twits in Congress
and the media. That list includes the disgraced and deceased Senator John McCain. When McCain
was still emitting flatulence and helping speed the doom of the planet from climate change, he
was a leading cheerleader for invading a country, Syria, which had not attacked us.
Why care about international law when we, as a nation, seem so content to embrace the
illegal and the immoral. A true head scratcher.
−
+
No one dare mention the fact that the United States is violating international law by
carrying out military operations on Syrian territory. Nope.
International Law vs the so-called "liberal international rules-based order". Liberal,
international?
Graham Allison: Basically, if you look at the piece I wrote for Foreign Affairs last
year -- about which there was great controversy -- it argues that the concept of the liberal
international rules-based order is mostly mythology.
Contrary to the conventional claims about this "liberal international rules-based
order," as I explain in that article:
(1) The primary cause of the "long peace" of the past seven decades has not been some
liberal international order, but rather, for the first four decades of that period, the
stalemate between two deadly adversaries in the Cold War;
(2) the primary driver of U.S. involvement in the world over these decades was not to
build some liberal international order but to defeat what it saw as an existential threat to
itself posed by an expansionist, revolutionary, Communist Soviet Union;
(3) and although Trump is undermining key elements of the current order, he is far from
the biggest threat to global stability. The main changes that have happened in the
arrangements and procedures of the past seven decades are: the decline in U.S. share of
global power as China has risen meteorically; the return of Russia as a player that is still
a nuclear superpower, or certainly second to none with respect to destructive power, with a
military that's willing and ready to fight for the Kremlin's objectives; and the discrediting
of the American foreign policy establishment in the 21st century, from the 2003 invasion of
Iraq to attempts to create a democracy in Afghanistan.
All those, in my view, are much greater factors in the changing world order than Donald
Trump -- though most people want to avoid these painful truths and just blame Trump.
The Myth of the Liberal Order. From Historical Accident to Conventional Wisdom
By Graham Allison
These misconceptions about the liberal order's causes and consequences lead its
advocates to call for the United States to strengthen the order by clinging to pillars from
the past and rolling back authoritarianism around the globe. Yet rather than seek to return
to an imagined past in which the United States molded the world in its image, Washington
should limit its efforts to ensuring sufficient order abroad to allow it to concentrate on
reconstructing a viable liberal democracy at home.
You mean all those politicians leading Europe have no leadership ability, or do you mean all
those Europeans are rubes who just don't get the truth about what a great job Merkel and
Macron and what's his name in Brussels have really been doing all these years.
I agree with damned near every word you said, Larry. Our policies and actions in Syria have
been horrid from the beginning. The only bright spot was the assistance we provided to the
Kurds against the IS jihadis.
What good we did there, although still illegal under
international law, is being wiped out by our insistence on staying there and obstruction of
Kurdish reconciliation with Damascus.
U.S. out of Iraq. U.S. out of Syria. U.S. out of Afghanistan. U.S. out of South Korea.
U.S. out of Okinawa. U.S. out of Germany. U.S. out of Saudi Arabia. U.S. out of Cameroon.
U.S. out of Djibouti. U.S. out of Qatar. U.S. out of Niger.
"... The story comes after a number of leading candidates- Sen. Bernie Sanders , Sen. Kamala Harris , Sen. Elizabeth Warren , Beto O'Rourke , Mayor Julián Castro , Governor Jay Inlsee , and Mayor Pete Buttigieg - said that they will not attend AIPAC's conference. ..."
"... "The influx of progressive candidates confirming they will not attend-even those who have gone in years past-shows how the momentum is shifting. In 2007, for example, ..."
"... both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton attended, ..."
"... going so far as to throw parties at the conference. ..."
"... "AIPAC is clearly a partisan lobbying group that has undermined diplomatic efforts. It's no secret that that AIPAC has worked to hinder diplomatic efforts like the Iran deal, is undermining Palestinian self-determination, and inviting figures actively involved in human rights violations to its stage. Meanwhile, they give platforms to ..."
"... and refuse to condemn the anti-Semitism stemming from Republicans. It should come as no surprise that progressives don't want anything to do with this conference. ..."
"... "The fact that no 2020 Democratic presidential contenders have as of yet publicly committed to attending AIPAC's conference in DC this weekend-with seven candidates confirming they will definitely not ..."
"... stands in sharp contrast to the past. MoveOn members applaud the candidates for taking a stand against AIPAC's dangerous, partisan lobbying efforts." ..."
"... more than 74 percent of MoveOn members who responded agree or strongly agree with the statement that "any progressive vying to be the Democratic nominee for President should skip the AIPAC conference." ..."
"... AIPAC spent tens millions of dollars in 2015 to defeat the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama along with our European and international allies-a historic diplomatic agreement that Trump has tried to derail since taking office. ..."
"... This year's AIPAC conference is headlined by Benjamin Netanyahu under whose leadership, according to the U.N., Israel may have committed war crimes in attacks on Gaza. Netanyahu also has been indicted on bribery and fraud charges, and recently made a deal to bring the "Israeli KKK" party into the next government. ..."
"... AIPAC has been known to traffic in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric while providing a platform to Islamophobes. ..."
Iram Ali, campaign director at MoveOn, explained the significance:
"The influx of progressive candidates confirming they will not attend-even those who have gone in years past-shows how
the momentum is shifting. In 2007, for example, both Barack Obama and
Hillary Clinton attended, going so far as to throw parties at the conference.
"AIPAC is clearly a partisan lobbying group that has undermined diplomatic efforts. It's no secret that that AIPAC has
worked to hinder diplomatic efforts like the Iran deal, is undermining Palestinian self-determination, and inviting figures actively
involved in human rights violations to its stage. Meanwhile, they give platforms to Islamophobes
and refuse to condemn the anti-Semitism stemming from Republicans. It should come as no surprise that progressives don't want
anything to do with this conference.
"The fact that no 2020 Democratic presidential contenders have as of yet publicly committed to attending AIPAC's conference
in DC this weekend-with seven candidates confirming they will definitely not attend-stands in sharp contrast to the past.
MoveOn members applaud the candidates for taking a stand against AIPAC's dangerous, partisan lobbying efforts."
On Wednesday, MoveOn released the results of a member survey which found that more than 74 percent of MoveOn members who responded
agree or strongly agree with the statement that "any progressive vying to be the Democratic nominee for President should skip the
AIPAC conference."
Here are some of the reasons MoveOn called on 2020 candidates to skip AIPAC:
AIPAC spent tens millions of dollars in 2015 to defeat the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by President Obama along with
our European and international allies-a historic diplomatic agreement that Trump has tried to derail since taking office.
This year's AIPAC conference is headlined by Benjamin Netanyahu under whose leadership, according to the U.N., Israel may
have committed war crimes in attacks on Gaza. Netanyahu also has been indicted on bribery and fraud charges, and recently made
a deal to bring the "Israeli KKK" party into the next government.
AIPAC has been known to traffic in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric while providing a platform to Islamophobes.
AIPAC has refused to condemn the anti-Semitism of Republicans, such as Trump's friend and advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon's wife
reported that he had their kids removed from a school because of "the number of Jews that attend," and that "he didn't want the
girls going to school with Jews. While many groups condemned Bannon, Politico reported that AIPAC "declined to weigh in." This
is one of many examples.
But Clintons are mobsters in disguise, so what's the difference. Jared Kushner father is as close to a mobster as one can get (hiring a prostitute to compromise relative is one of his tricks)
Notable quotes:
"... Don't ever think the Democratic establishment is your friend. They want you to die in foreign wars and your children to work in starvation-wage service jobs until they're 70 so that the top 0.1% can buy their kids' way into Yale ..."
Don't ever think the Democratic establishment is your friend. They want you to die in foreign wars and your children to
work in starvation-wage service jobs until they're 70 so that the top 0.1% can buy their kids' way into Yale
Navi 9:50 AM - 22 Mar 2019
"It's already happening" while the DCCC is trying their best to stop primary challenges is a little shortsighted no? If you
don't call out what is wrong what are you really 'fixing'? We can walk and chew gum at the same time!
The Trump administration has
ignored yet another mandated deadline for reporting to Congress on Yemen:
A senior Pentagon official had pledged to deliver the strategy report at the beginning of
March after failing to meet a Feb. 1 deadline mandated by law.
In recent months, the Trump administration has disregarded several certification
requirements from Congress. In February, the State Department refused to say whether the
Saudi-led force had reduced civilian casualties in the Yemeni conflict. And the White House
failed to respond to lawmakers' query about whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
was responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Last year, the administration met the first certification deadline by brazenly lying to
Congress that the Saudi coalition was successfully reducing harm to civilians in Yemen.
Congress completely failed to hold Secretary Pompeo accountable for those lies, and the
administration has obviously concluded that it can get away with disregarding these
requirements. For the last several months, both the Secretary of State and the Pentagon have
simply refused to comply with the law. In this case, the Pentagon probably can't "detail
specific US diplomatic and national security objectives" because the only discernible objective
of reflexive support for the Saudis and Emiratis in Yemen is to indulge them in whatever they
want to do. An administration that has illegally involved the U.S. in the war on Yemen for more
than two years obviously won't have any respect for legal requirements set by Congress when
they can't even be bothered to respect the Constitution.
The administration's contempt for the law and their disrespect for Congress are additional
reasons why the House should vote on and pass the antiwar Yemen resolution that the Senate
passed earlier this month. Beyond that, Congress needs to increase pressure on the Saudi and
Emirati governments with additional measures to cut off arms sales and hearings to scrutinize
the numerous human rights abuses and war crimes committed by their forces and their
proxies.
When war supporters object that Congress risks undermining the U.S.-Saudi relationship, it
is important for members of Congress to know that it is Mohammed bin Salman who has jeopardized
the relationship through his reckless and destructive behavior. The Saudi government has been
desperately lying about its conduct in Yemen and elsewhere to the U.S. and the entire world,
and the crown prince has proven himself to be completely unreliable and strikingly incompetent
at everything except grabbing more power for himself:
"We know who this guy is, we know what he's capable of, and treating him like he's an ally
or a reliable partner is totally untenable," said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former US Agency for
International Development director during the Obama administration.
The Saudi government has made itself a liability to the U.S. Since the administration puts
Saudi Arabia first and won't do anything to defend American interests, it falls to Congress to
do what the president won't.
"... State sovereignty means nothing to these people. The post-Westphalia international system means nothing to them. Trump does not have a clue about the ME but Ivanka and Jared are pleased I am sure. pl ..."
"President Donald Trump on Thursday overturned longstanding US policy regarding the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, announcing "it is time" for the US to "fully recognize Israel's
sovereignty" over the region. "After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully
recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and
security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability," Trump tweeted." CNN
This sounds like the Mustachioed Menace (Bolton) and his All Star team at work.
Help Bibi.
Weaken the Syrian government.
Demonstrate to the Lebanese that parts of their
strange little country could experience something similar in the south.
Show everyone that
the US is in charge of - everything.
State sovereignty means nothing to these people. The post-Westphalia international system
means nothing to them. Trump does not have a clue about the ME but Ivanka and Jared are pleased
I am sure. pl
"... Perhaps most dangerous of all is the signal that it sends to Israeli hard-liners that want to annex some or all of the West Bank. ..."
"... Trump's statement is just the latest in a string of bad decisions that are absurdly biased in favor of Israel. No U.S. interests are advanced by doing this, and it discredits any criticisms that the U.S. wants to make of any other government's illegal occupation and annexation of territory. The double standard that the U.S. applies when it comes to violations of international law by itself and its clients could not be more obvious, and it will make it much more difficult to challenge similarly egregious violations in the future. ..."
There were hints
in recent days that U.S. recognition of Israel's claim to the Golan Heights was coming, and now the president has done it. Israel's
control of this territory dates back to the 1967 war, when Israel grabbed this part of Syria and refused to return it. Israel has
no legitimate claim to this territory, and in recognizing Israeli sovereignty over land that it seized during a war the U.S. is sending
a potentially very dangerous message to governments all around the world.
Perhaps most dangerous of all is the signal that it sends
to Israeli hard-liners that want to annex some or all of the West Bank. It tells them that illegal occupation will eventually be
rewarded with full U.S. recognition, and it also tells them that the U.S. isn't going to pay any attention to international law when
it comes to making decisions regarding Israeli control over occupied territories.
Trump's statement is just the latest in a string of bad decisions that are absurdly biased in favor of Israel. No U.S. interests
are advanced by doing this, and it discredits any criticisms that the U.S. wants to make of any other government's illegal occupation
and annexation of territory. The double standard that the U.S. applies when it comes to violations of international law by itself
and its clients could not be more obvious, and it will make it much more difficult to challenge similarly egregious violations in
the future.
"... The White House didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. But in another stand-off with House Democrats, Cipollone on Thursday rejected a request renewed last week from Cummings and two other committee chairmen for information on Trump's communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Cummings said the committee obtained a document that "appears" to show that McFarland conducted official business on her personal email account. He said the document was related to efforts by McFarland and other White House officials to transfer sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia "in coordination with Tom Barrack, a personal friend of President Trump and the chairman of President Trump's inaugural committee." ..."
"... Regarding Trump's communications with Putin, Cummings, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel say they are examining the substance of in-person meetings and phone calls, the effects on foreign policy, and whether anyone has sought to conceal those communications. ..."
"... The Constitution gives the executive branch exclusive power to conduct foreign relations, Cipollone said. "Congress cannot require the president to disclose confidential communications with foreign leaders." ..."
A key House Democrat is renewing demands that the White House turn over documents about the use of private texts or emails by
Jared Kushner, saying Kushner's lawyer acknowledged that the senior aide used the non-secure WhatsApp application to communicate
with foreign leaders.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said in a letter sent Thursday to White House Counsel
Pat Cipollone that the administration has failed to produce documents tied to Kushner and other officials despite requests from the
committee since 2017. Cummings also sought a briefing on how the official messages are being preserved.
... ... ...
The White House didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. But in another stand-off with House Democrats, Cipollone on
Thursday rejected a request renewed last week from Cummings and two other committee chairmen for information on Trump's communications
with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
WhatsApp
Cummings, to underscore his concern about whether unsecured White House communications have included classified information, said
in his letter that Lowell acknowledged during the December meeting that Kushner had used WhatsApp to communicate with foreign leaders.
Kushner is a senior White House adviser and the son-in-law of President
Donald Trump , overseeing the administration's Middle
East policies among other issues. Cummings said he and then-Oversight Chairman
Trey Gowdy , a Republican who has since retired from Congress,
met with Lowell in December.
Cummings's letter said Lowell said that Kushner has been in compliance with the law, and that he takes "screenshots" of communications
on his private WhatsApp account and forwards them to his official White House email account or to the National Security Council.
Cummings wrote that when asked whether Kushner ever used WhatsApp to discuss classified information, Lowell replied, "That's above
my pay grade."
The focus on Kushner and others follows the earlier investigations by the Justice Department and Republican-controlled congressional
committees of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state during the Obama administration.
'Alternative Means'
In Thursday's letter, Cummings said the White House's refusal to turn over documents is "obstructing the committee's investigation
into allegations of violations of federal records laws" and potential breaches of national security. He demanded that the White House
say by March 28 whether it intends to comply voluntarily with the renewed requests.
"If you continue to withhold these documents from the committee, we will be forced to consider alternative means to obtain compliance,"
Cummings said.
... ... ....
K.T. McFarland
Cummings also wrote that his committee has obtained new information about other White House officials that raises additional security
and federal records concerns about the use of private email and messaging applications.
His letter said others may have been involved in the practice while they worked at the White House, including former deputy national
security adviser K.T. McFarland and former chief strategist
Steve Bannon.
Cummings said the committee obtained a document that "appears" to show that McFarland conducted official business on her personal
email account. He said the document was related to efforts by McFarland and other White House officials to transfer sensitive U.S.
nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia "in coordination with Tom Barrack, a personal friend of President Trump and the chairman of President
Trump's inaugural committee."
The chairman said another document appeared to show that Bannon received documents "pitching the plan from Mr. Barrack through
his personal email account," at a time Bannon was at the White House and working on broader Middle East policy.
Regarding Trump's communications with Putin, Cummings, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and Foreign Affairs Chairman
Eliot Engel say they are examining the substance of in-person meetings and phone calls, the effects on foreign policy, and whether
anyone has sought to conceal those communications.
In a written response Thursday, Cipollone wrote, "While we respectfully seek to accommodate appropriate oversight requests, we
are unaware of any precedent supporting such sweeping requests."
The Constitution gives the executive branch exclusive power to conduct foreign relations, Cipollone said. "Congress cannot require
the president to disclose confidential communications with foreign leaders."
In a joint statement on Thursday night, Cummings, Engel and Schiff said that the Obama administration had "produced records describing
the president and secretary of state's calls with foreign leaders." The congressmen added that "President Trump's decision to break
with this precedent raises the question of what he has to hide."
( Updates with statement from Cummings, Schiff and Engel, in final paragraph.
Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu
By
Nick Wadhams and
David Wainer
March 21, 2019 1:00 PM Updated on March 21, 2019 5:04 PM Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding
Netanyahu
By
Nick Wadhams and
David Wainer
, March 21, 2019 1:00 PM
Netanyahu to visit Trump next week ahead of tough re-election
Move would be at odds with longstanding international policy
President Donald Trump said it's time for the
U.S. to "fully recognize" Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a political gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just
weeks before a tough re-election vote.
The remark -- which would break with decades of U.S. policy -- could prove decisive in swaying Israeli voters just as Netanyahu
faces corruption allegations that have marred his campaign. It is also likely to draw a rebuke from the international community,
which never recognized Israel's sovereignty over the territory it captured in 1967.
"The message that President Trump has given the world is that America stands by Israel," Netanyahu said Thursday after Trump's
tweet.
Trump's message came a day after Netanyahu, in a press briefing with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Jerusalem, called for
the U.S. and the rest of the world to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Israel extended its law to the area in
1981.
The future of the plateau, a scenic area containing important water sources, had long been considered a subject for negotiation
in any potential peace agreement with Syria. Now, with Syria wracked by a civil war that includes support from Iran, Israel wants
its control over the area to be recognized worldwide.
"I've been thinking about doing that for a long time," Trump said in an interview to be broadcast Friday on Fox Business Network's
"Mornings With Maria." "It's been a very hard decision for every president, no president has done it. This is very much like Jerusalem,
moving the embassy to Jerusalem -- I did that."
While the news was welcomed by most Israelis, some saw it as a cynical ploy to interfere in their election and help Netanyahu
at a time when he's facing increasing scrutiny in a sprawling corruption probe. Merav Michaeli, a member of the opposition Labor
party, said there's little national debate that the Golan should stay in Israeli hands.
It "only helps public opinion for Netanyahu," she added. "That's why it came now. And so it doesn't really benefit Israel now,
it benefits Netanyahu."
Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week ahead of his April 9 re-election vote. While he's officially coming
for the AIPAC conference, an annual pro-Israel policy gathering, his visit will serve up excellent campaign material back home. He's
certain to be photographed meeting Trump while his speech, delivered in his American-accented baritone, will get plenty of airtime
in Israel.
"What Trump is doing is totally gratuitous," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton.
"He is intervening in an Israeli election for the sake of his friend Bibi Netanyahu, and in the process undermining Israel's chances
of achieving peace with its neighbor Syria."
Trump's move may also give the president a political boost as he courts Jewish voters in the U.S.
The U.S. had signaled strongly in recent weeks it was ready to accept Israeli sovereignty. In an annual report on human rights
released last week, the State Department referred to the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza as "Israeli-controlled," not "Israeli-occupied."
Asked about the report, which dropped the previous use of the word "occupied" in reference to the Golan Heights, West Bank, and
Gaza, Pompeo said the change in language was intentional.
"It wasn't a mistake; it wasn't an error. It was done knowingly. We believe it's the most factual description that was appropriate
for the report," he said.
American support for Israel has strengthened under Trump, who moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 and backed
out of the nuclear agreement his predecessor Barack Obama negotiated with Iran, a cherished goal of Netanyahu.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said Trump's move would destabilize the region.
"I can say that all of you can imagine what would have happened if Israel were not in the Golan," Netanyahu said. "I think it's
time the international community recognizes Israel's stay in the Golan, the fact that the Golan will always remain part of the state
of Israel."
The U.S. recognition underscores the changing reality on the ground, as the chances of Israel returning the northern territory
to Syria diminished.
Pompeo told reporters at a briefing in Kuwait on Wednesday that there had been no change in U.S. policy toward the Golan Heights.
In a media roundtable on Thursday, he declined to say whether the U.S. was weighing whether to recognize Israel's annexation of the
Golan.
"The administration's considering lots of things always, and I try to make sure we get to answers before we talk
"... A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side... ..."
"In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the
systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:"
Many thanks, and much respect to you Sir for bringing this important piece to my attention.
I apologize for another somewhat off topic posting, but I have not seen it posted here earlier, and I think that this should be
seen by as many eyes as possible.
It is one of the most important aspects of our media system -- and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international
news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.
The key role played by these agencies means that Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording.
In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages
around the world.
A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles
are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews
are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side...
"... In a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News, Trump highlighted a paragraph in the letter about the U.S. goals in Syria, which said, "Like you, we seek to ensure that all of the gains made in Syria are not lost, that ISIS never returns, that Iran is not emboldened, and that we consolidate our gains and ensure the best outcome in Geneva for American interests." ..."
Two months after saying all U.S. troops are leaving Syria, the president wrote members of Congress that he agrees with keeping
a U.S. presence in Syria. A bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives wrote to Trump on Feb. 22,
applauding
his decision to keep a small residual force in Syria.
"We support a small American stabilizing force in Syria," the group wrote, adding that a force "which includes a small contingent
of American troops and ground forces from our European allies, is essential to ensure stability and prevent
the return of ISIS ."
In a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News, Trump highlighted a paragraph in the letter about the U.S. goals in Syria, which
said, "Like you, we seek to ensure that all of the gains made in Syria are not lost, that ISIS never returns, that Iran is not emboldened,
and that we consolidate our gains and ensure the best outcome in Geneva for American interests."
"I agree 100%. ALL is being done," President Trump responded, writing directly on the letter and signing it.
David Kramer, a long-time advisor to late Senator John McCain, revealed that he met with two Obama administration officials
to inquire about whether the anti-Trump dossier authored by former British spy Christopher Steele was being taken seriously.
In one case, Kramer said that he personally provided a copy of the dossier to Obama National Security Council official Celeste
Wallander.
In a deposition on Dec. 13, 2017 that was recently posted online, Kramer said that McCain specifically asked him in early December
2016 to meet about the dossier with Wallander and Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry's State Department. Senator McCain
asked me to meet with both of them to see if this was being taken seriously in the government," Kramer said.
"And Senator McCain asked you to meet with them?" Kramer was asked to clarify.
"Yes, just to see if this was being taken seriously. I think he wanted to do -- this was his kind of due diligence before he went
to Director Comey."
Kramer testified that in his conversations with Nuland and Wallander he was told by both of them that each were aware of the dossier
and that Nuland "thought Steele was a serious person."
Kramer revealed that he gave a copy of the dossier to Wallander, who was familiar with the contents but did not have a copy.
"I had a subsequent conversation with Ms. Wallander in which I gave her a copy of the document. That was probably around New Year's,"
he said.
"She had not seen it herself until I had shown it to her," Kramer added. "She had heard about it. And she didn't know the status
of it."
In the same testimony, the McCain associate revealed that he held a meeting about the dossier with a reporter from BuzzFeed News
who he says snapped photos of the controversial document without Kramer's permission when he left the room to go to the bathroom.
That meeting was held at the McCain Institute office in Washington, Kramer stated.
BuzzFeed infamously
published Steele's full dossier on January 10, 2017 setting off a firestorm of news media coverage about the document.
Prior to his death, McCain admitted to personally handing the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey but he refused repeated
requests for comment about whether he had a role in providing the dossier to BuzzFeed, including numerous inquiries sent to his office
by this reporter.
In his
book published last year, McCain maintained he had an "obligation" to pass the dossier charges against Trump to Comey and he
would even do it again. "Anyone who doesn't like it can go to hell," McCain exclaimed.
Kramer, meanwhile, also said that he briefed others reporters on the dossier contents, including CNN's Carl Bernstein, in an effort
to have the anti-Trump charges verified.
The same day BuzzFeed released the full dossier, CNN first
reported
the leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings inside classified
documents presented one week earlier to then-President Obama and President-elect Trump.
Kramer said that he believed McCain was sought out in order to provide credibility to the dossier claims.
"I think they felt a senior Republican was better to be the recipient of this rather than a Democrat because if it were a Democrat,
I think that the view was that it would have been dismissed as a political attack," Kramer stated.
The controversial Fusion GPS firm hired Steele to do the anti-Trump work that resulted in the compilation of the dossier. Fusion
GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie
law firm.
Kramer's testimony sheds a new light on the role of the Obama administration in disseminating the largely-discredited dossier
that was reportedly involved in the FBI's initial investigation into the Trump campaign and unsubstantiated claims of Russian collusion.
Also Comey
cited the dossier as evidence in a successful FISA application to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a
former adviser to President Trump's 2016 campaign. The testimony also revealed how McCain was utilized to give the wild dossier charges
a credibility boost.
Nuland and dossier
Nuland's specific role in the dossier episode has been the subject of some controversy for her.
In their
book , "Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," authors and reporters
by Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier's
claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.
Steele sought out Rome-based FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta, with whom he had worked on a previous case. Before Gaeta met with
Steele on July 5, 2016, the book relates that the FBI first secured the support of Nuland, who at the time was assistant Secretary
of State for European and Eurasian Affairs specializing in Russia.
Regarding the arrangements for Steele's initial meeting with the FBI about the dossier claims, Isikoff and Corn report:
There were a few hoops Gaeta had to jump through. He was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Rome. The FBI checked with Victoria
Nuland's office at the State Department : Do you support this meeting ? Nuland, having found Steele's reports on Ukraine to have
been generally credible, gave the green light.
Within a few days, on July 5, Gaeta arrived and headed to Steele's office near Victoria station . Steele handed him a copy
of the report. Gaeta, a seasoned FBI agent, started to read . He turned white. For a while, Gaeta said nothing . Then he remarked,
"I have to report this to headquarters."
The book documents that Nuland previously received Steele's reports on the Ukrainian crisis and had been familiar with Steele's
general work.
Nuland faced confirmation
questions
prior to her appointment as assistant secretary of state over her reported role in revising controversial Obama administration
talking points about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Her
reported changes sought to protect
Clinton's State Department from accusations that it failed to adequately secure the woefully unprotected U.S. Special Mission in
Benghazi.
Nuland's name surfaced in a flurry of news media reports last year about the dossier and Kerry's State Department.
Sidney Blumenthal
An extensive New Yorker profile
of Steele named another former official from Kerry's State Department for alleged involvement in circulating the dossier. The
magazine reported that Kerry's chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer, obtained the contents of a two-page summary of
the dossier and eventually decided to share the questionable document with Kerry.
Finer received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing
and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with
Nuland.
After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington
Post
oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.
Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime
Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an "old friend." Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which
Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.
Nuland, Winer Give Conflicting Accounts
There are seeming discrepancies between Winer and Nuland about actions taken involving the dossier.
Nuland described in a Politico podcast
interview
what she claimed was her reaction when she was presented with Steele's dossier information at the State Department.
She said that she offered advice to "those who were interfacing with" Steele, immediately telling the intermediary or intermediaries
that Steele "should get this information to the FBI." She further explained that a career employee at the State Department could
not get involved with the dossier charges since such actions could violate the Hatch Act, which prevents employees in the executive
branch of the federal government from engaging in certain kinds of political activities.
In a second interview, this one with CBS's Face The Nation, Nuland also stated that her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele
to the FBI.
Here is a transcript of the
relevant
section of her February 5 interview with Susan B. Glasser, who described Nuland as "my friend" and referred to her by her nickname
"Toria":
Glasser: When did you first hear about his dossier?
Nuland: I first heard -- and I didn't know who his client was until much later, until 2017, I think, when it came out. I first
heard that he had done work for a client asserting these linkages -- I think it was late July, something like that.
Glasser: That's very interesting. And you would have taken him seriously just because you knew that he knew what he was talking
about on Russia?
Nuland: What I did was say that this is about U.S. politics, and not the work of -- not the business of the State Department,
and certainly not the business of a career employee who is subject to the Hatch Act, which requires that you stay out of politics.
So, my advice to those who were interfacing with him was that he should get this information to the FBI, and that they could evaluate
whether they thought it was credible.
Glasser: Did you ever talk about it with anyone else higher up at the department? With Secretary Kerry or anybody else?
Nuland: Secretary Kerry was also aware. I think he's on the record and he had the same advice.
Nuland stated that Kerry "was also aware" of the dossier, but she did not describe how he was made aware. She made clear that
she told "those who were interfacing" with Steele to go to the FBI since any State Department involvement could violate the Hatch
Act.
Her Politico podcast interview was not the only time she claimed that her reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI.
On Face The Nation on February 4, Nuland engaged in the following
exchange in which she stated her "immediate" reaction was to refer Steele to the FBI (emphasis added):
MARGARET BRENNAN: The dossier.
VICTORIA NULAND: The dossier, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding, and our immediate reaction
to that was, "This is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI, if there is any concern here that one candidate or the
election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate."
And that was our reaction when we saw this. It's not our -- we can't evaluate this. And frankly, if every member of the campaign
who the Russians tried to approach and tried to influence had gone to the FBI as well in real time, we might not be in the mess
we're in today.
Nuland gave the two interviews after her name started surfacing in news media reports involving Kerry's State Department and the
dossier. Her name also came up in relation to a criminal referral of Steele to the Justice Department in the form of a letter authored
last year by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who at the time chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
The Grassley-Graham criminal referral
contains redacted information that Steele received information from someone in the State Department, who in turn had been in
contact with a "foreign sub-source" who was in touch with a redacted name described as a "friend of the Clintons."
Numerous media reports have since stated that the source of information provided to the State Department that was in turn passed
on to Steele was Cody Shearer, a controversial figure tied to the Clintons who is also an associate of longtime Clinton friend Sidney
Blumenthal. According to sources who
spoke
to CNN, Shearer's information was passed from Blumenthal to Winer, who at the time was a special State Department envoy for Libya
working under Kerry. Winer
says that Kerry personally recruited him to work at the State Department.
It is Winer's version of events that seems to conflict with Nuland's.
In an
oped published in the Washington Post, Winer identified Nuland as the State Department official with whom he shared Steele's
information. Winer writes that Nuland's reaction was that "she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made aware of this material."
He does not relate any further reaction from Nuland.
Winer wrote in the Washington Post (emphasis added):
In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald
Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures,"
a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.
In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources
suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign
but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.
I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a
two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state needed to be made
aware of this material.
That was the extent of Winer's description of Nuland's reaction upon being presented with Steele's dossier claims. Nuland's public
claim that her "immediate" response was to refer Steele to the FBI since State involvement could violate the Hatch Act seems to conflict
with the only reaction that Winer relates from Nuland – that she felt Kerry should be made aware of the dossier information.
In Winer's Washington Post oped, he writes that Steele had a larger relationship with the State Department, passing over
100 reports relating to Russia to the U.S. government agency through Winer. Winer wrote that Nuland found Steele's reports to be
"useful" and asked Winer to "continue to send them."
He wrote:
In 2013, I returned to the State Department at the request of Secretary of State John F. Kerry, whom I had previously served
as Senate counsel. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department
would like copies of new information as he developed it. I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant
secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me they were useful
and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts
at the State Department, who continued to find them useful. None of the reports related to U.S. politics or domestic U.S. matters,
and the reports constituted a very small portion of the data set reviewed by State Department experts trying to make sense of
events in Russia.
Kramer and the dossier
In his book, "The Restless Wave," McCain provided an inside account of how he says he came across the dossier.
He wrote that he was told about the claims in the document at a security conference in Canada in November 2016, where he was approached
by Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow and friend of ex-British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier.
McCain wrote that Wood told him Steele "had been commissioned to investigate connections between the Trump campaign and Russian
agents as well as potentially compromising information about the President-elect that Putin allegedly possessed."
McCain, however, did not address the obvious question of whether he was told exactly who "commissioned" Steele to "investigate"
the alleged Russian ties. The dossier was paid for by Clinton's campaign and the DNC.
McCain goes on to describe Wood as telling him Steele's work "was mostly raw, unverified intelligence, but that the author strongly
believed merited a thorough examination by counterintelligence experts."
The politician says the dossier claims described to him were "too strange a scenario to believe, something out of a le Carré novel,
not the kind of thing anyone has ever actually had to worry about with a new President, no matter what other concerns."
Still, McCain says he reasoned that "even a remote risk that the President of the United States might be vulnerable to Russian
extortion had to be investigated."
McCain concedes Wood told him he had not actually read the dossier himself, and writes that he wasn't sure if he ever met Wood
before and couldn't recall previously having a conversation with Wood. Still, McCain took Wood's word for it when Wood vouched for
Steele's credibility. "Steele was a respected professional, Wood assured us, who had good Russian contacts and long experience collecting
and analyzing intelligence on the Kremlin," McCain wrote.
Present at the meeting with Wood and McCain was Kramer, who McCain writes agreed to "go to London to meet Steele, confirm his
credibility and report back to me."
McCain doesn't detail Kramer's visit to London beyond simply writing, "When David returned, and shared his impression that the
former spy was, as Sir Andrew had vouched, a respected professional, and not to outward appearances given to hyperbole or hysteria,
I agreed to receive a copy of what is now referred to as 'the dossier.'''
McCain leaves out exactly where Kramer obtained his dossier copy.
The Washington Post
reported last February that Kramer received the dossier directly from Fusion GPS after McCain expressed interest in it. Those
details marked the clearest indication that McCain may have known that the dossier originated with Fusion GPS, meaning that he may
have knowingly passed on political material to the FBI.
Also, in a New York Times oped in January,
GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritch wrote that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the Obama-era intelligence
community via an unnamed "emissary."
In his own testimony, Kramer relates conversations with Simpson about the dossier.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author
and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, " Aaron Klein Investigative
Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on
Facebook.
Guado looks more and more like Russian Navalny -- another color revolution Trojan Horse.
Notable quotes:
"... Half a BILLION dollars to be spent to overthrow Maduro, and they spent how much time making claims like Putin hacked the election.... Lies, More lies, Damn lies..... Same as it ever was. ..."
"... "The first round of the U.S. 'regime change' change attempt in Venezuela failed but it is far from over. The State Department alone foresees to spend $500 million more on it: ..."
"... The Fiscal Year 2020 budget request includes funding to support democracy in Venezuela and provides the flexibility to make more funds available to support a democratic transition, including up to $500 million in transfer authority." ..."
"... Given the results of the last 70 years of US policies I would say that quote should now be updated to "Trillions for war, but not one cent for the people." ..."
On February 23 the U.S. created a 'humanitarian aid' stunt at the border between Colombia
and Venezuela. The stunt ended in a riot during which the supporters of the self declared
'president' Guaidó burned the trucks that where supposed to transport the 'aid'. Even
the New York Times had to admit that.
The riots also marked the day that Guaidó
lost the legal argument he had used to make himself 'interim president'.
Guaido also lost his original legal position. He claimed the presidency on January 23 under
this paragraph of article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution :
When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his
inauguration, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within
30 consecutive days . Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the
President of the National Assembly shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.
That the "elected President becomes permanently unavailable" was never the
case to begin with. But if article 233 would apply Guaido would have had 30 days to hold
new elections. The 30 days are over and Guaido did not even call for elections to be held.
He thereby defied the exact same paragraph of the constitution that his (false) claim to
the presidency is based on.
The hapless coup plotters in Washington DC were finally put on notice that the issue
creates a legal problem for them. During a March 15 press briefing Elliott Abrams, the
U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela, was asked about the issue:
QUESTION: [C]ould you explain to us the article under which Mr. Guaido declared himself
president? It is said that it has expired last month. Could you explain that to us? What is
the --
MR ABRAMS: As to the Venezuelan constitution, the National Assembly has passed a resolution
that states that that 30-day period of interim presidency will not start ending or counting
until the day Nicolas Maduro leaves power. So the 30 days doesn't start now, it starts
after Maduro. And they – that's a resolution of the National Assembly.
A resolution of the National Assembly, which the Supreme Court of Venezuela holds in
contempt over the seating illegally elected persons, can change the country's constitution?
That does not sound convincing to me. The journalists in the briefing were equally curious of
how the rules could be changed like that during the ongoing game:
During Bosonaro's visit to the US Trump also announced his support for
Brazil's entrance into the NATO alliance, if I was Germany I'd veto that idea outright, the
last thing NATO needs is a basket case like Brazil.
But I imagine the Pentagon is already
counting all the additional arms they can sell to Brazil as a member of NATO without having
to go through all the additional hoops they would while it's just an ally of NATO
Never Mind the Bollocks , Mar 19, 2019 2:39:09 PM |
link
Random Guy also appointed an ambassador, Carlos Vecchio, to the US who just took over the
Venezuela's diplomatic buildings (empty since Venezuela broke off relations with the US over
the attempted coup), including the consular building in New York.
So far it doesn't look like
the US has succeed in replacing Venezuela's representative to the UN with a US stooge, but I
imagine the US is working hard on that front as well.
The US looks just ridiculous doing a
stunt this, but B is right, the US always doubles down, especially on a losing plan.
Half a BILLION dollars to be spent to overthrow Maduro, and they spent how much time making
claims like Putin hacked the election.... Lies, More lies, Damn lies..... Same as it ever was.
thanks b... some crazy talk in that daily press briefing with abrams...
"Q: So Juan Guaido is the interim president of an interim that doesn't exist yet?
A: The 30-day end to his interim presidency starts counting. Because he's not in power,
that's the problem. Maduro is still there. So they have decided that they will count that
from when he actually is in power and Maduro's gone. I think it's logical.
Q: So then he really isn't interim president, then?
A: He is interim president, but he's not --
Q: With no power."
that sounds about par fe the course for the usa... as kadath says - they always double
down on losing plans!
i am a bit mystified as to the plan of maduros to get the cabinet to resign.. what is the
concept there? does he have a number of members that could be persuaded by the logic of
abrams? with a little bribery money, no doubt..
i wonder how brazilians are looking at the stooge they have in power now, sucking up to
the usa-cia..
The optics of groveling to the US and Israel, and military opposition, are not good for our
friend Jair. It's only a matter of time until Bolsonaro starts hemorrhaging support and
Brazilian nationalism abandons him.
- If Maduro is in power, then the office is not vacant. Therefore, Guaidó cannot be
interim president.
- If the office is vacant, then there is no president. Therefore, Guaidó either is or
isn't the interim president (i.e. he can't be the interim president of the interim president,
which in this case is nobody).
If you want to suspend the Constitution, declare a civil war. If you win the civil war,
then you can do whatever you please (including obeying and/or reinterpreting the old
Constitution). In the strict legal sense, Guaidó's position is untenable. Even the
counting of days was wrong: January has 31 days, not 30, therefore his alleged 30-day mandate
was over at the 21st of February, not at the 23rd.
Re:#6 James, normally when you request that your own cabinet resigns it means that you've
either lost faith in their ability to perform their jobs - OR - your making a drastic change
in direction for your government and you need people with a different skill set to run the
various government departments. I imagine Maduros's decision is a mixture of needing to
create a "war government" to fight the economic war the US is waging against him and ensuring
the loyalty of powerful political rivals by giving them cabinet posts. Maduro will probably
announce some major new policies in the coming weeks aimed at 1) resisting US economic
pressure 2) increase Maduro's support among the population (maybe some policies aimed at the
urban middle class to split them off from Random Guy) and 3) announce some foreign
relationship drive to hopefully block more countries from supporting random guy's
pseudo-government and hopefully win some countries back. economic advisors from Russia, Cuba,
China and maybe Iran & Syria will be providing vital support for any economic policies
aimed at avoid US sanctions
"The first round of the U.S. 'regime change' change attempt in Venezuela failed but it is far
from over. The State Department alone foresees to spend $500 million more on it:
The Fiscal Year 2020 budget request includes funding to support democracy in Venezuela and
provides the flexibility to make more funds available to support a democratic transition,
including up to $500 million in transfer authority."
Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint, MI and our other cities
with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for.
@ lgfocus who asked
"
Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint, MI and our other cities
with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for.
"
Keep asking those questions and maybe Americans will grow the sentiments necessary to
stand up.
Where are the Bernie crowd that are going to make so much difference in the coming
(s)election?
Even the counting of days was wrong: January has 31 days, not 30, therefore his alleged
30-day mandate was over at the 21st of February, not at the 23rd.
Posted by: vk | Mar 19, 2019 3:33:55 PM | 10
They made their general ops to produce public results specifically at 23 of this month or
for several more months. They obviously wanted to make a point like they were doing at least
since 2016 for almost each consequtive month, only for that period favorable date number was
11. Check events for every 11th of each month since 2016 and check what dominated US and EU
news.
Yet in current Venezuela events there seem to be so much FAIL regarding the US
clandestine strategies.
There's also rising domestic pushback within the Outlaw US Empire while the hypocrisy of
Russiagate rises like a massive iceberg on the horizon. This also puts additional pressure on
Vassal EU governments whose publics see through the Empire's lies and thus further
delegitimizes their national governments.
French Yellow Vests will not surrender until Macron
and his backing Establishment does, and they're motivating other nation's citizens.
Will
Poroshenko get reelected in 12 days or ?
IMO, both Trump and Bolsonaro will be ousted before
Maduro. It appears the Truth Brigades outnumber the liebots thanks to b and a host of other
genuine journalists.
@11 kadath.. thanks for the response to my question.. we will have to wait and see how this
unfolds.. it reminds me a bit of the ukraine 2014 scenario, but different too... in ukraines
case, they already had a split dynamic in the country itself.. here, i don't see it.. the
split seems to be along economics - who are the upper class, with some middle class in tow,
verses everyone else..
@13 lgfocus - that sounds suspiciously like something a COMMUNIST would say!!!!!!! During the
1797 XYZ scandal C.C. Pinckney reportedly said "Millions for defense, but not one cent for
tribute." which has been quoted by the Military Industrial Complex ad nauseam for the last 70
years to justify massive military budgets to fight the forever wars.
Given the results of the
last 70 years of US policies I would say that quote should now be updated to "Trillions for
war, but not one cent for the people."
So if Elliott Abrams is correct, the Venezuelan National Assembly (a now illegitimate entity
by the way) has passed a resolution that Juan Guaido's "interim presidency" only begins AFTER
Nicolas Maduro leaves the presidency? Is that not admitting that Maduro is the legitimate
president?
That Jair Bolsonaro is visiting the CIA to discuss overthrowing Maduro may alarm quite a
few people even among the top tiers of the Brazilian military who otherwise support him.
What's to stop Bolsonaro from discussing with the CIA how to get rid of more than a few top
Brazilian generals who disagree with overthrowing the government of a neighbouring
country?
Now let's all imagine what would happen if Brazil was accepted into NATO like Trump &
the MIC wants and the Brazilian Generals decided to continue their time-honoured tradition of
toppling the current Brazilian President. NATO has no means of ejecting or even suspending a
member so any such crisis in Brazilian leadership would immediately trigger a crisis within
NATO itself on how to respond and accepting a coup government into NATO would kill the
illusion that NATO is some sort of league of Democracies that Bolton hopes to promote as a
replacement to the UN assembly.
Well, Bolsonaro's complete and absolute submission to Donald Trump and the US is probably
surprising even the most optmistic hawks in the White House. The golden shower president will
probably accept anything the US tries to push to Brazil.
It strikes me that the futility of trying to stir up a revolution with an elite constituency
seems completely lost on the coup planners. The Venezuelan elite might want the government
overthrown but there is no way that they'll put their own blood on the line for it. It's
really puzzling trying to understand how they see this playing out. And what will their elite
supporters think if US sanctions mean they can't use their Visa or MasterCard? And the
businesses that cater to the elite?
The Brazil to NATO call sounds awfully like a forecast of significant cross-border
provocations by Brazil which, if responded to by the Venezuelans, could trigger the old
Article 5 musketeers to intervene militarily. Just as ludicrous (and dangerous) as the UK 's
FCE attempt to confer diplomatic status on the BBC Farsi woman jailed in Iran. Student union
politics.
Abrams is attempting to claim that Random Guy is "interim President-in-waiting".
Q: What is that Interim President-in-waiting actually waiting for?
A: He's waiting for the position of President to become vacant.
THAT is the fatal flaw in all of Abrams legal mumbo-jumbo i.e. the articles of the
Venezuelan Constitution that Random Guy invoked to claim the title of Interim President are
only applicable when the office of President (and also Vice President) are VACANT.
Then and only then can the leader of the National Assembly take on the role of "interim
President" until elections take place 30 days later.
Abrams is admitting that the office of President isn't vacant.
This is an important legal point, so it bears repeating: Abrams accepts that someone holds
that position, albeit he is insisting that the current office-holder's claim to that chair is
illegitimate (in Constitutional terms, Maduro is "unfit" to be President).
Again, that exposes Abrams argument as legal mumbo-jumbo, precisely because the leader of
the National Assembly does not possess the authority to declare that a sitting President is
"unfit" for the office. The Venezuelan Constitution is quite clear on that point: that
authority rests with the supreme court, who are perfectly satisfied with Madura's fitness to
be President.
Abrams argument is therefore fraught with danger for Random Guy.
The Constitution clearly states that he can not claim the "interim Presidency" unless the
position is already vacant, which it clearly is not.
The Constitution also clearly states that he does not have the authority to declare the
position to be vacant.
Yet Guaido has done both, and done so at the acknowledged urging of a foreign power.
At the very least that amounts to insurrection, if not treason.
1. Counterpunch
I want to add extra focus on the excellent interview b linked to over at Counterpunch which
was also posted over at Zerohedge.
CG: There's not the chaos US and Trump were expecting. (Opposition leader and
self-proclaimed president Juan) Guaidó is the most hated guy in Venezuela. He has to
stay in luxury hotel in La Mercedes, an expensive neighbourhood of Caracas. They have
electricity there, as they were prepared, so bought generators. That is why Guaidó
went there, and has a whole floor of a luxury hotel for him and his family. While people
are suffering Guaidó is trying on suits for his upcoming trip to Europe. It is a
parallel world.
AG: You think Guaidó will fail?
CG: Venezuelans are making so many jokes with his name, as there's a word similar to
stupid in Spanish – guevon. And look at the demonstration in La Mercedes the other
day (12 March), the crowds didn't manifest. It is becoming a joke in the country. The more
the Europeans and the US make him a president, the more bizarre the situation becomes, as
Guaidó is not president of Venezuela! Interestingly, Chavez predicted what is
happening today, he wrote about it, so people are going back to his works and reading him
again.
2. Military Times
It could well have been me making b's conclusion on the following as well but since it isn't
it gives me an opportunity to warn about and completely disagree when it comes to the content
at Military Times and the conclusions drawn from it: that content if anything is
circumstantial proof that a decision has already been made in favor of a larger war
(technically the US has already launched a war by its actions, or at least according to its
own definitions as it applies it to others attacking them, if I remember correctly they would
even allow themselves to respond with nuclear weapons in such a scenario).
It might not have been the intent of Military Times (I do not know them) but everything
about their content at that link screams war is coming.
Notice how the US congress etc. portrays themselves as unwilling to go to war. We all know
this is untrue.
Notice how "everyone" portray themselves as more or less being forced against their will to
get involved. We all know this is untrue.
"They" love to do this, to wallow in "reluctance", to play innocent, to further the
narrative of "the good guys", because doing so preys on those who still believe they are on
the side of good (or in this case preys on anybody's remaining hope that they have some shred
of sanity left or that they've run out of bloodlust) and more or less guarantees their
support or silent acceptance in the general public. I recognize this all to well because I
fell for it myself in the past. It is a large part of their cherished narrative and has
self-reinforcing properties. They would say it even if no one listened but it is still
completely untrue.
Notice how they constantly hint at what amounts to "if we had to we would".
Notice that despite how every US action mentioned (except for some nebulous bill that might
as well be a unicorn fart) goes against avoiding a war they quote some ex-CIA person on all
of it being the exact opposite and a way to avoid war (but still meet their objective
consisting of unconditional demands).
Notice how at first they claim to believe it would be hard and thus something they obviously
wouldn't want to choose and thus if given no choice then it can't be their fault.
Nevertheless, the crisis is deteriorating rapidly.
Yeah of course it is, as planned and as caused by themselves.
Notice the laundry list of "bad stuff happening".
Notice the appeal to military solutions.
Notice how they then claim it might not be so hard after all, or at least necessary or worth
it.
Notice how they list military options to choose between.
It has already been decided and has already started.
3. Refinery fires
Did anyone else wonder at the sudden pair of refinery fires in Houston?
Posted by: Peter VE | Mar 19, 2019 4:22:48 PM | 19
Yes, since the second larger one went off because I didn't hear about the first one until
then and don't know anything more than that there was one. These things do happen during
normal operation of plants and refineries because every day it doesn't happen
unavoidably breeds some false sense of security and familiarity with the potential energies
involved.
And if that's not what happened then it will be a very hot US summer.
For those who didn't catch it here's all I've got (two measly links). RT
(2nd one)
ZH today (2nd one is now bigger):
This Moderate Rebels Transcript contains excellent revelatory points about Bolsonaro, the
rise of Brazilian Fascism and its connections to the Outlaw US Empire and its ally Zionistan.
I'm uncertain if b linked to it previously as I just stumbled across it.
After the people of Brazil got a taste of power with Lula, their social and national
conscience has risen. A Brazilian military aggression in Venezuela on behalf of American
Imperialism will be viciously opposed by the peoples of Latin America and Spain and Portugal.
The Colombian ELN and Venezuela's Bolivarian militias will unite and begin to attack the US
military in Colombia and fight the vassal state of Colombia. These militias will fight to the
death. Ecuador will catch on fire as well since traitor Moreno backs the US invasion. This
will get ugly.
US will just make up another excuse. These guys don't follow any laws so there is no point
interpreting them. Raw power and a good defense strategy is what it counts now for Venezuela.
They need more S-300, Buk, coastal defense and allies. This is the key for survival of
Venezuela. US will then back down or nuke Venezuela into democracy and freedom of press.
The always interesting Florida Maquis YT channel covers S. America extensively and mentioned
today Trump is putting Brazil forward for OECD membership which may give leverage to their
fascist leader.
The news that Maduro is making a new cabinet could be very important. The current cabinet was
chosen to implement policies designed to prevent a coup by compromising with moderate
elements of the bourgeoisie. Such policies involved the watering down of the revolutionary
policies of 21st Century Socialism, which has led to the erosion of political support for
Maduro without making any perceptible difference the bourgeois commitment to coups and other
antidemocratic measures.
If the revolution is to survive it must continue to deepen, bringing gains to the masses
besides which the inconveniences of sanctions/sabotage are pinpricks which only serve to
deepen popular support of national independence and socialist reform.
If the revolution deepens it will not only increase the strength of the popular movement but
broaden the appeal of Venezuela's policies to the millions of Latin Americans currently
watching in dismay as neo-liberalism cuts into their living standards and aspirations of
security. Nowhere are there millions more sympathetic to revolutionary programmes than in
Colombia, a byword for bad government and inequality and Brazil where the current Presidency
is completely illegitimate.
It will be interesting to see whether Maduro's new cabinet is more attuned to the revolution
and less interested in compromises with a comprador class whose alliance with the US is based
as much on racism and hatred of its own countrymen as it is on greed. Anbd that is saying
something.
Thank you Karlof1 and Zachary Smith, I'll do my best to remember not to go "link crazy" in
the future :D
Aside from all that and on the comments here on Colombia it makes me reconsider if there
was any positive value at all in the mediation by Norway (and others? I think the current
"social democrat" secretary general of NATO was prime minister there at the time...) to
curtail or end the civil war or if it was all a ploy in bad faith. I could be wrong about
this.
I was wrong but I've found out where the confusion stems from; Norway was the second
"guarantor country" after Cuba.
Once the negotiators had been agreed upon, the two sides moved to designate foreign
guarantor countries. Cuba, host to previous encounters, was a logical choice, while Norway
was chosen as the second guarantor country for its active role in international conflict
mediation. Additionally, two facilitator or 'accompanying countries' were also designated.
The FARC chose Venezuela, while the Colombian government chose Chile.[14] Exploratory
meetings continued in Havana in February 2012, with limited [...]
"With more candidates early on, it takes all that energy and diffuses it for petty warfare
instead of a firmly focused "machine" that would take over Congress through the Dem
party."
Well, when your strategy is identity politics you do need a crowd; so all of your supporters
can "identify" with their own special someone and be sad and upset when they lose.
Keep them divided, keep it about race/sexual identity/religion/favorite vegetable if need be,
oh, and of course that favorite mantra; hatred of the "other(s)."
The Dem party is gone, what is left is a divisive machine whose sole purpose seems to be to
separate people into separate boxes with separate identities only united by their hatred of
"other" parties and always completely blind to what is being done in the world in their (US)
name.
Nowhere are there millions more sympathetic to revolutionary programmes than in Colombia, a
byword for bad government and inequality ... bevin | Mar 19, 2019 8:34:12 PM
Current president was elected with rather thin majority -- not as thin as Trump -- and
while economy is "thriving" according to some measures, the fruits of it are even less evenly
distributed than in USA, and the resurgence of the left is fully possible. Importantly,
Colombian society is still very divided in the aftermath of La Violencia of 1950-s, violence
that never truly went away. Colombia and Venezuela are closely connected since colonial times
and troubles easily cross the border. In turn, Venezuelans seems to be easy going
bunglers.
Chavista have "the heart in right place", but even in easier times they had troubles with
the economy. The opposition is all thumbs. The freedom fighters who defected into Colombia
seem to be a bunch of loosers, correctly evicted from a homeless shelter once found useless.
Their putative paymasters seem particularly egregious, good for them to manage to get rid of
the traitors before the latter found a nerve to unionize, but what was the plan anyway?. Sic
sempter traditoribus.
"The Colombian ELN and Venezuela's Bolivarian militias will unite and begin to attack the US
military in Colombia and fight the vassal state of Colombia. These militias will fight to the
death. Ecuador will catch on fire as well since traitor Moreno backs the US invasion. This
will get ugly."
You left out the elephant or rather landmass in the room; Latin America is connected to the
US by land. This US misadventure will come home to roost, it will explode everywhere and
anywhere, finally and at long last IMO the US will reap what it has sown.
lgfocus @ 13 said in part;"Tell me again how much it will cost to bring clean water to Flint,
MI and our other cities with water problems. You know, the things we don't have money for."
This would be a excellent point for all the Dems chasing the POTUS, but, even if they did,
it probably wouldn't get any play on the corporate MSM.
It makes too much sense!
kudos for the relevant mention......
German foreign policy disaster. German freelancer journalist Billy Six jailed in Venezuela,
now back in Germany after intervention by Russian foreign minister Lawrov.
Press conference
with Billy after his arrival in Germany. Must see (German) Germany is accused in the
participation of the drone attack against Maduro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsg5Jx5xzrU
Abrams trying to explain Guano and Venezuelan law is a bit like trying to explain western
democracy VS 'non democratic' Assad and Putin and Maduro. Doesn't matter the majority of
people have voted for them. That's not 'democratic'. A lot of Guano in western so called
democracy.
"The far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil supported that but the military of Brazil,
which holds significant power in the cabinet, vetoed it..."
I would be willing to bet that one of the purposes of Bolsonaro's visit to the CIA and DC
was to see how he could remedy that situation, perhaps by getting rid of just a few of these
troublesome military generals who are opposed to his using the Brazilian military, overt and
covert, against Venezuela....
not to mention of course the usual and disgusting CIA options of subversion and other
covert operations agasint Venezuelan democracy
Maybe Maduro is changing his cabinet to get people in who are not under US sanctions. The US
claims most of it's sanctions are against bad guys but the reality is naming individuals is a
propaganda ruse as the sanctions go far deeper than the individuals. People who don't look
past the headlines believe it's only individuals so they fall for the US line it's Maduro and
his polices not the US that's causing the economic problems in Venezuela. Thus a new cabinet
could give Maduro some breathing room until the US can sanction the new guys.
If the US does shut off Mastercard and Visa it will be huge mistake as I doubt very few of
the governments supporters have credit cards. Those the US claims to be hitting with this
action can get a Russian credit card if it's possible. The upper class Gweedo lovers will be
the ones hardest hit which doesn't bode well for Gweedo boy who spouts guano and promises he
can't keep every time he opens his mouth.
Lots of blather of the citizens of the US should stand against the governments actions in
Venezuela. The US government and it's lap dog press control the narrative thus it won't
happen. But if it came to a military invasion the citizens will come out of cocoons and say
hell no like they did with Syria when Obama wanted to bomb that country into the stone age
when Assad, it was the rebels that used gas, crossed his red line. A military invasion and
resulting guerilla warfare in Venezuela will send American boys and girls home in body bags
and Trump can kiss his reelection goodbye and he knows it. Thus no invasion by the US but
that doesn't rule out covert commando raids and sabotage by US personnel inside the
country.
The attack took place when vehicle traffic was stopped at a train crossing, but whether the
raiders indeed had intended to steal the uranium shipment has yet to be determined. Civil
Police are now trying to establish the motive behind the incident. The attackers have
managed to flee the scene, but police have recovered a 9mm pistol which they are now trying
to trace back to the armed group.
I don't speak Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese but those that do will likely find more
information in the
Globo article .
The Globo article says an enriched Uranium convoy, sent to the Angra dos Reis nuclear power
plant, was attacked by local criminal gangs. The area of Angra dos Reis, renowned for its
beautiful coastline and luxury resorts, is now roamed by criminal gangs that threaten the
population and overtly defy law enforcement forces. Police forces and armed convoys moving
along the highway are frequently ambushed.
Despite Bolsonaro's campaign promises, gangs seems to remain in charge, even in Angra dos
Reis! From the Globo article:
"One of the most beautiful places of the State of Rio, the county of Angra dos Reis has
experienced an increase in violence, with the presence of fire-armed drug dealers inside
communities that were previously considered peaceful."
There is also an extended version of the press conference where Billy Six answers some
more questions. One is particulary interesting as he points out the economic interests of the
German government in Venezuela. He mentions explicitly SIEMENS, Linde, Lufthansa and DHL
which are excluded from free-convertability into Dollar-reserves since Chavez established
currency controls in 2003.
He also claims that the Federal Government in the person of the now expelled German
ambassador to Venezuela Daniel Kriener has met with the father of Juan Requesens who is/was
member of the National Assembly, associated to the student protest newtwork of 'Generation
2007' to which Juan Guaido belongs, and whose party Primero Justicia is the party of Julio
Borges - the former president of the National Assembly and co-plotter of the 2002 coup on
Chavez. Juan Requesens is under arrest and accused to be part of the drone attack on Maduro
in August last year along with 16 other conspirators. According to Six - who had contact with
several of these plotters in prison - the coup in effect did happen and failed because the
Maduro government was pre-informed about the plot and an anti-drone shield could prevent the
assault.
What made it even worse for Six, according to what was told to him by SEBIN (political police
force of Venezuela), was that the German government was aware of this drone in advance which
is why the German embassy had taken such a stand for Juan Requesens to get him out of prison.
This, however, is suppose to be one of the reasons why, of those foreign ambassadors of
Venezuela who received Guaido at the airport two weeks ago, German ambassador Kriener was the
only one who was to leave the country upon the advice of the Bolivarian Government.
There is certainly more to follow and it is perhaps not wrong to keep an eye on this
I would not trust the Brazilian people or the Brazilian left to take care of the issue.
The non-Venezuelan Latin American left is one of the most innofensive, docile and
innefective lefts of the Third World. This is specially the case of the Brazilian left, which
is also deeply balkanized, torn down in inumerous factions -- from the social liberals to
communists.
Besides, the far-right has genuine and huge popular support in Brazil. Bolsonaro's is not
a political giant by any means, nor is he the novelty/outsider e.g. Trump is (he was a
Congressman for 28 consecutive years before becoming president). The far-right is at least
25% of the voting adult population, most probably around 40%, and this mass will go until the
end with their design. Bolsonaro is no Temer.
Excellent post B. Thanks for keeping Venezuela front and center in your blogs.
From my perspective, it looks like Russia is effectively running Venezuela.
What are the indicators:
- Russia is handling Venezuelan oil sales
- Russia is handling Venezuelan international banking
- Maduro has made no strategic mistakes during the coup attempt. Every U.S. move has been
effectively thwarted.
- With few exceptions, military discipline has been maintained.
- The new government realignment looks like something that Maduro would not have come up with
on his own. It is probably a part of the economic plan the Russia prepared for Venezuela over
the past couple of months.
Venezuela is starting to look a lot like Crimea. The U.S. wanted Crimea in order to take
over the Russian naval base and effectively neutralize Russia's Black Sea Fleet. But Russia
was there first, thwarted the U.S.' every move, and now the U.S., in the Black Sea, is in a
much weaker position than before 2014.
In Venezuela, the U.S. wanted Venezuelan oil. But Russia was there first. So far every
U.S. move has been thwarted and the U.S. is starting to suffer from a scarcity of heavy
crudes. If past is prologue, the U.S. will have no more success in Venezuela than it did in
Crimea. It will not dare to take on Venezuela militarily, as this would mean to take on
Russia militarily.
Venezuela will represent another watershed moment in separating the world into those who
are with the U.S., and those who are against. And the U.S. side will be somewhat smaller than
it was before their Venezuelan adventure started.
There's a mind-boggling Extortiongate scandal going on in Argentina - with links throughout
Latin America including Venezuela, and to Elliot Abrams:
Don't Spy
for Me Argentina In fact, it connects with virtually everything!
Abrams to media....."Constitutional rules? We ain't got no rules! We don't need no rules!
I don't have to show you any stinking rules!" The US cannot be serious, $500 million to take
over Venezuela with the greatest oil reserves on the planet. Victoria Nuland said the US
spent $5 Billion on regime change in Ukraine.. F-----g cheapskates. They will double down,
wait for the secondary sanctions, it is so important that Venezuela keeps its oil markets,
especially Russia and China.
Contrary to what the article states, Brazil has a negligible wheat production. However,
Argentina has, and its main importer until now was Brazil. A huge blow to the Argentinian
economy, whose trade balance will fall even more. The situation in Brazil so calamitous that it produced an extremely rare Chinese
manifestation about the country:
It looks like the US is having to rescue some of the Venezuelan oligarchs from the effect
of the sanctions. This being Fox, it blames socialism, which is utterly backwards, but the
facts are there.
US lifts
sanctions on wives of Venezuela TV magnates
Oh the poor dears. How they must have suffered.
Also, it looks like they (US) are thinking about cutting off credit cards, which as you've
opined, would hurt the middle and upper classes much more than the typical Chavista.
Credit card
sanctions?
That whole press conference exchange has a faintly Mad Hatter Tea Party quality to it.
At one point Abrams says the interim presidency doesn't start counting until "after
Maduro", but the whole raison d'etre of article 233 in the first place is to ensure a
constitutional transition of power in the event that the president becomes unavailable. So
that (the president becoming unavailable) would had to have happened FIRST -- prior to the
implementation of (the relevant passage of) article 233. In other words, that would have to
be the triggering event.
If this seems a bit like stating the obvious -- it is. As the article states,'That the
"elected President becomes permanently unavailable" was never the case to begin with.' That's
end of discussion right there. It never happened. And they have everybody talking in circles
about whether or not the thirty day election requirement was fulfilled? It's absurd.
One thing I'll give the neo-cons credit for is their ability to take obvious lies/complete
fabrications and somehow get people to discuss them as if there was any reality to it. Like
in the case of Iraq they had the whole world discussing the threat of non-existent WMDs. All
these "serious" pundits would prattle on endlessly about the pros and cons of an issue for
which there was not a scintilla of evidence. I think even Goebbels would have to stand back
in awe of what they do.
"The #TrumpRegime is not a government that can provide services. It is a transnational
criminal organization which should be designated as a terrorist group."
Holy crap on a cracker, Batman! Half of all the evil entities in the world are crawling
about within this massive web of crime and treason.
I would beg to make one small change to the exposé; instead of --
" The CIA, under 'extraordinary rendition' proponent Gina Haspel, has become a foot
soldier army for Trump's whims and Bolton's and Pompeo's neo-con dark policies, "
-- I would say that Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and Haspel have become foot-soldiers for the
CIA's neo-con dark policies.
Venezuela: Guaido loyalists seize diplomatic properties in US
Envoys loyal to Venezuela's interim president have taken control of diplomatic buildings
and a consulate. Caracas has severed ties with the US, accusing it of staging a coup against
acting President Maduro.
Don't Spy for Me Argentina. In fact, it connects with virtually everything!
Posted by: BM | Mar 20, 2019 11:35:21 AM | 69
The CIA, under "extraordinary rendition" proponent Gina Haspel, has become a foot soldier
army for Trump's whims and Bolton's and Pompeo's neo-con dark policies. It is clear that
Abrams, Bolton, Pompeo, Rubio, Bannon, and their cohorts, including Macri and Bolsonaro,
are attempting to re-create OPERATION CONDOR, the 1960s, 70s, and 80s alliance of the
intelligence services of the Latin American military dictatorships of Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, which were full members, with Ecuador and Peru as
associate partners. Tens of thousands of leftist dissidents were tracked down and executed
during CONDOR, which operated with the full approval and involvement of the CIA.
They lost so many opportunities during the 70's. USSR was in their way in so many places.
But now happy days are here again, with Russia, China containment strategies and Trump and
other supremacist leaders being installed everywhere in the West and Americas.
It's about opening Pandora's Box though. 0 latency networks, even negative time ...with
whatever that implicates and a space programe but not the one you see in plain view.
There is a three part video of the UN conference featuring Anya Parampil, Alfred de Zayas and
Max Blumenthal which has debunked the US propaganda on Venezuela at a United Nations Human
Rights Council session in Geneva on March 19.
See also "The Visible Hand of the Market- Economic War in Venezuela" by Pasqualina
Curcio.
Perhaps random guy Guaidó will join other collaborators with the US are just seen as
throw-away pawns by the Empire:
"The Venezuelan military deserters who crossed over to Colombia on February 23, 2019, now
find themselves abandoned both by Colombia and the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees. The UNCHR and the Colombian Government have given the soldiers 4 days to leave the
refugee camp"
The good news is that the health of Venezuelans is improving due to a more healthy diet
due to US led sanctions. Everyone has been forced to have a vegetarian diet substituting
vegetables, lentils, and black beans for meat. Seems that lots of people are growing their
own (organic) vegetables.
From a sociological point of view even the electrical blackouts are bringing the people
together as they spend the time sharing:
"During blackouts, people told stories, played music, or went out and talked on the streets.
It was a paradise, no TVs, smartphones, but real human contact. People cook together. During
the day they're playing board games, dominoes, and kids are having fun."
Thanks for your report! The unintended consequences as you note can be powerful allies for
those being attacked. The well stated case at the UN will also have consequences and generate
more solidarity for Venezuela and condemnation of the Outlaw US Empire, Pompeo, Rubio,
Abrams, Bolton, and Trump.
Merkel might say: "There is definitely a place for Brazil in NATO. They can have ours."
Forget it! Merkel is the most servile lackey that the US could wish for. She is
doing everything her masters in Washington ask her to do. For example the German public is
awaiting a mildly entertaining show of their government on how to work around yesterdays
court decision:
International law is the yardstick for international politics. This has been clarified by
the Higher Administrative Court in Münster in a spectacular ruling on lethal US drone
missions in Yemen. Several relatives of victims who were killed in such attacks had sued.
They hold the Federal Republic of Germany jointly responsible for this because the United
States allegedly also uses the US airbase in Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate for these
fatal attacks.
There are important indications that the drone attacks in question violate international
law and the fundamental right to life. The Federal Republic of Germany must protect these
rights and stand up for them. Therefore the Federal Republic must clarify now in a first
step whether the attacks offend against international right.
NOT! Aside from the fact, that the public press largely ignores this decision, our
governments have a long record of doing actually nothing when formally independent judges
even from the highest courts ask them to adhere to the law.
Speaking of embarrassing lackeys, when the empire was seeking a new nodal point to more
efficiently drone bomb Northern Africa the most obvious/nearby European locations like Italy,
France or Greece all said "Nah, better not". But, don't you worry, Missus Merkel was of
course happy to offer Stuttgard in Southern Germany as base for AFRICOM!
This article was written 4 years ago, but the problem with Putin successor remains. Putin is a unique politician and his replacement
might be much weaker, causing troubles for Russia. This is not new problem for Russia, but this time it will be especially
acute. BTW this comment thread looks like "who is who" list for NATObots.
Notable quotes:
"... We could all use a real leader like Putin who takes no b.s. from anybody and is quick to adapt to any situation in a calm assertive way. He earns our admiration every day, the way he steers across an ever changing minefield and not because of his mucho image. We do not need leaders who deceit people by spewing relentless propaganda and no clarity. They fail as individuals and as a group because they are spineless. If multiple people repeat the same lie it does not make it true. It must be a club membership requirement to play the politics game and keep quiet about wrong things you see. ..."
"... Action man outwitting the Neocons in the international chess game. More surprises to come ..."
"... Karl Rove said "Empire creates its own reality". No wonder the mantra "Assad must go" is now enshrined in international politics by the Neocon alliance. They didnt figure on Putin obviously. ..."
"... It happens regardless, take the example in Volgograd (Vauxhall) two years ago. I am afraid that KSA and the Gulf States will be funding the usual mix of 'moderately terroristic shenanigans" in reprisal, but they did this before anyways. ..."
"... He making the US looked like whiny bitches. Good job; you alienate Russia and manage to strengthen the China-Russo relationrelationship. Sanctions that don't work, secret economic wars and multiple failed coup d'etat in Georgia and Ukraine [also do not work] ..."
"... Like US - Hospital - Afganistain. anyway ISIS are paid money by the CIA and don't care who they work for it's money that they are motivated by not ideology, that ideology stuff is made-up. Google it and dig, get yourself informed. ..."
"... Not quite sure why Mr Putin playing ice-hockey on his birthday is worthy of a story to open up for comments unless the Guardian is ' trawling ' to encourage some new anti-Putin Cold War rhetoric in the comments section. ..."
"... PS / Don't forget that nice Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu's birthday and how he celebrates it. Ensure you open it up for comment as I'm sure also that many will wish to voice an opinion. Will this now be a standard ' Birthday Feature ' for all world leaders in the Guardian, or has this newspaper just granted an exception for Mr Putin's birthday ? ..."
I wonder if everyone on the Guardian staff has the same "man crush" on Putin? Could explain all these obsessive articles. I
also wonder if he spent any time in the penalty box?
laticsfanfromeurope -> Extracrispy 7 Oct 2015 17:06
You prefer ISIS and Al-Nusra then the legitimate Syrian gov. and the legitimate help of Russia...not a surprise from stupid
western supporters!
pfox33 7 Oct 2015 17:05
There isn't one of our western politicians that wouldn't sell his fucking mother to be getting the attention that Putin's getting.
I thought he was supposed to be isolated.
So to keep the hockey thing going, Putin's stolen the puck in the neutral zone, split the Nato defensemen who were too far
forward and is on a breakaway.
I feel sorry for Obama because I think he's a good leader but when it comes to trying to maneuver in a geopolitical situation
like Syria he's fucked before he leaves the house. Putin can just act without trying to herd cats like Obama has to do with his
Nato minions. He doesn't have a bunch of recalcitrant GOP senators calling him everything but a white man and running their mouths
about what they would do.
... ... ...
filin led -> Braminski 7 Oct 2015 16:55
It's you who are a troll, sir. By what you say, anything can be dismissed as paid propaganda. That means, you are as likely
to be a paid agent yourself. So, if you can't come up with a constructive argument, stop commenting please.
Mordantdude -> Poppy757 7 Oct 2015 16:40
As Russians say: "Envy silently".
giacinto101 7 Oct 2015 15:59
We could all use a real leader like Putin who takes no b.s. from anybody and is quick to adapt to any situation in a calm
assertive way. He earns our admiration every day, the way he steers across an ever changing minefield and not because of his mucho
image. We do not need leaders who deceit people by spewing relentless propaganda and no clarity. They fail as individuals and
as a group because they are spineless. If multiple people repeat the same lie it does not make it true. It must be a club membership
requirement to play the politics game and keep quiet about wrong things you see.
SilkverBlogger 7 Oct 2015 15:54
Action man outwitting the Neocons in the international chess game. More surprises to come
CIAbot007 -> Poppy757 7 Oct 2015 15:39
Most of Aussies have a bit of common sense which says that you can't blame anyone before it is prooved. With Western MSM propaganda
machine blaming Russia and Putin even before anything happens you bet there's no such thing as balanced and unskewed reporting
and even will for any kind of such thing. Don't get fooled, use your brain or your brain will be used by someone else.
SilkverBlogger 7 Oct 2015 14:48
Karl Rove said "Empire creates its own reality". No wonder the mantra "Assad must go" is now enshrined in international
politics by the Neocon alliance. They didnt figure on Putin obviously.
PekkaRoivanen MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:30
In the West, we don't have a sycophantic press kissing the leader's backside:
Guardian: Barack Obama scores just 2 out of 22 basketball hoops - video
You wrote that Obama plays basketball and you prove it with this video where Obama wears dress shirt (tie removed :-D) and
scores badly.
Are you sure Obama plays basketball? Or is it just press kissing his backside?
Kev Kev Hektor Uranga 7 Oct 2015 14:28
the USA persecutes and kills people who speak out against it. Only difference is the USA does it in ways that nobody sees..
In other words the USA is the same as Russia only they do their work in the dark. When nobody is looking.
Abiesalba MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:26
That's the guy who is wishing Putin a happy birthday.
The US/UK duo have caused with their insane illegal wars more than a million deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and
counting.
I recommend you look up a little the complex history and present situation in Chechnya and the North Caucasus region.
ISIS (which the insanely aggressive US/UK duo have in effect created) is already spreading its influence INSIDE the Russian
Federation. So Putin has direct interests to defeat ISIS and stabilise Syria (and Iraq). In addition, the south of the Russian
Federation is on the map of territories which ISIS plans to conquer.
See for example:
-
8 ISIS supporters killed in N. Caucasus special op
(2 August 2015)
Russian security forces have foiled a terrorist group that recently pledged allegiance to ISIS in Ingushetia, in the Northern
Caucasus, according to the National Anti-Terror Committee (NAC). Security forces seized explosives, weapons and over 2,000 rounds
of ammunition.
-
How Russian Militants Declared A New ISIS 'State' In Russia's North Caucasus
(26 June 2015)
The Islamic State group announced the creation of its northernmost province this week, after accepting a formal pledge of allegiance
from former al Qaeda militants in the North Caucasus region of Russia.
-
-
It is true that at present, the Chechens are begging Putin to let them strike in Syria (and this is also closely linked to the
complicated history of North Caucasus), but Putin has not unleashed them. See for example here:
-
-
Kadyrov asks Putin to allow Chechen infantry to fight in Syria (RT, 2 October 2015)
-
The head of the Chechen Republic has asked the Russian president to send Chechen units to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)
in Syria, adding that his fighters have sworn to fight terrorists till the end.
"Being a Muslim, a Chechen and a Russian patriot I want to say that in 1999 when our republic was overrun with these devils
we swore on the Koran that we would fight them wherever they are," the Chechen leader said. "But we need the Commander-in-Chief's
decision to do this," he emphasized. According to the Russian Constitution, the president [Putin] is also the commander-in-chief
of the military forces.
BMWAlbert clanview46 7 Oct 2015 14:26
It happens regardless, take the example in Volgograd (Vauxhall) two years ago. I am afraid that KSA and the Gulf States
will be funding the usual mix of 'moderately terroristic shenanigans" in reprisal, but they did this before anyways.
Julian1972 MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:21
That was last year...also it was authored by a combination of the CIA and their right-wing 'Operation Stay Behind' cohorts...though,
if you don't know that by now you doubtless never will.
Abiesalba MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:16
Murderers, thieves and embezzlers stroking each other's egos.
Putin has a long way to go to match the US/UK.
-
-
Here is a recent report about 'collateral damage' compiled by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Global Survival
and the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War:
-
Body Count: Casualty Figures After 10 Years of the 'War on Terror' (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan)
(March 2015)
-
This investigation comes to the conclusion that the war has, directly or indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000
in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, i.e. a total of around 1.3 million.
NOT included in this figure are further war zones such as Yemen.
The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware of and propagated
by the media and major NGOs.
And this is only a conservative estimate. The total number of deaths in the three countries named above could also be in excess
of 2 million, whereas a figure below 1 million is extremely unlikely.
-
-
For more about civilian casualties due to the US-led coalition strikes in Syria and Iraq, see the Airwars website:
584 – 1,720 civilians killed:
To date, the international coalition has only conceded two "likely" deaths, from an event in early November 2014. It is also
presently investigating seven further incidents of concern; is carrying out credibility assessments on a further 13; and has concluded
three more investigations – having found no 'preponderance of evidence' to support civilian casualty claims.
More Power -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:13
He making the US looked like whiny bitches. Good job; you alienate Russia and manage to strengthen the China-Russo relationrelationship.
Sanctions that don't work, secret economic wars and multiple failed coup d'etat in Georgia and Ukraine [also do not work].
Just look at the World Bank, BRICS is on the door step. Happy birth day Putin. A badass mofo
blueskis -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 14:06
The vats majority of the 5500 killed have been civilians in East Ukraine killed by airstrikes ordered by kiev/washington, fully
justifying Russian intervention.
ooTToo -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:40
Like US - Hospital - Afganistain. anyway ISIS are paid money by the CIA and don't care who they work for it's money that
they are motivated by not ideology, that ideology stuff is made-up. Google it and dig, get yourself informed.
geedeesee -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:19
Russia is attacking what they said they'd attack, Tavernier. ISIS, al-Nusrah, and other terrorist organisations.
inconvenienttruth13 -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:18
No he isn't. Anybody with a functioning brain knows he had nothing to do with that. Unlike the US genocide in the Middle East
- over 2 million dead and counting - not to mention the deliberate and sustained attack on a hospital. Maybe you don' get to see
the news in your ward?
inconvenienttruth13 -> MTavernier 7 Oct 2015 13:13
The US created, funds, trains and arms ISIS - they are only supporting terrorists in their campaign to effect regime change.
Russia is responding to a request fro the Syrian government, so its actions are entirely legal. The faces that the USA and the
KSA are the biggest sponsors of terrorism in the world.
monteverdi1610 7 Oct 2015 12:22
Not quite sure why Mr Putin playing ice-hockey on his birthday is worthy of a story to open up for comments unless the
Guardian is ' trawling ' to encourage some new anti-Putin Cold War rhetoric in the comments section.
PS / Don't forget that nice Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu's birthday and how he celebrates it. Ensure you open it
up for comment as I'm sure also that many will wish to voice an opinion. Will this now be a standard ' Birthday Feature ' for
all world leaders in the Guardian, or has this newspaper just granted an exception for Mr Putin's birthday ?
Foreign policy is no longer controlled by the President of the USA. It is controlled by the Deep state.
This article is from 2015 but can easily be written about Trump administration
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, as Putin himself had proposed in his visionary October 2011 article, the Eurasian Union could have become one of the pillars of a huge harmonized economic area stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and based on the EU's single-market rules (acquis communautaire). ..."
"... First and foremost, because the self-proclaimed "exceptional" power (actually, a mere "outlying island" in the Atlantic, according to the founder of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder) and its dysfunctional "deep-state" officialdom did not want it to be. How could they have permitted such a thing? How could they have allowed other countries to get on with improving the lives of their citizens without being obliged to seek Washington's approval every step of the way? ..."
"... In order to make sure that they were not side-lined, the US elites had to intervene. The Western propaganda machine started churning out all sorts of nonsense that Putin is a new Hitler who is bent on restoring the Soviet empire and who is bullying Europe, while continuing to bang on about his "increasingly autocratic rule". ..."
"... Deadly attacks by chauvinistic proxies were launched on the Russophone people in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 and more recently in Ukraine. ..."
"... Stuck in an Orwellian nightmare, Europe has to demonstrate its unfailing loyalty to Big Brother and go along with the view that Russia, an intrinsic and valuable part of the European mainstream both historically and culturally, represents universal evil and that the Earth will not be safe until the Federation has been dismembered and Putinism wiped out once and for all. ..."
"... Having self-destructed in two world wars, it has become an easy and even willing prey to an arrogant, ignorant and power-drunk predator that has never experienced the hardships and horrors that Europe has. ..."
"... Even more terrifying, intellectually third-rate Washington viceroys such as Victoria Nuland and the freelancing armchair warrior Senator McCain are allowed to play God with our continent. ..."
"... Indeed, the damage extends beyond the economy. By aligning with the forces of chaos – such as chauvinistic extremists in Ukraine – Washington and its Euro-vassals are corrupting the moral (and intellectual) core of the West. ..."
"... 'My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: "Money, we give them money." "Foreign aid?" I asked. "No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale. We bought them. They report to us." Perhaps this explains Tony Blair's $50 million fortune one year out of office'. ..."
"... "We, the [CENSORED] people, control America and the Americans know it." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED] ..."
Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy... European
democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy
The avalanche of commentary since the Ukrainian crisis erupted a year ago has overshadowed any reflections on the immense forgone
benefits (technically speaking, the "opportunity cost") of what might have been if Washington had been working for peace and stability
instead of war and chaos.
Imagine the following: After the unraveling of the Communist bloc, Europe, in partnership with the US, had forged a new security
system in which Russia was treated as a valued and equal partner – one whose interests were respected. Russia, decimated by a century
of wars and Communist imperialism, would doubtless have eagerly reciprocated in kind. Most countries of the former Soviet Union would
have then proceeded to build a new Eurasian structure of which Russia would have served as the natural umbrella, given its long-standing
interaction with the region's diverse nations and cultures.
Indeed, as Putin himself had proposed in his visionary October 2011 article, the Eurasian Union could have become one of the
pillars of a huge harmonized economic area stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and based on the EU's single-market rules (acquis
communautaire).
The rising Far Eastern economic powerhouse, with the world's most populous country, China, at its centre, would have linked up
with the world's largest economy (the EU). An enormous Eurasian production and financial bloc would have been created – one that
drew primarily on secure supplies of Russian energy and other natural resources. Untold investment opportunities would have opened
up in Siberia and Russia's Far East as well as in Central Asia. Hundreds of millions of people in Eurasia and elsewhere would have
been lifted out of poverty. And, not least, the EU would have been refashioned as an integral part of the dynamic trans-Eurasian
economy (rather than as a German-centred empire, as appears to be the case today), thereby making a major contribution to overcoming
the ongoing global economic depression.
All of this was not to be, however. Why not? First and foremost, because the self-proclaimed "exceptional" power (actually, a
mere "outlying island" in the Atlantic, according to the founder of geopolitics, Halford Mackinder) and its dysfunctional "deep-state"
officialdom did not want it to be. How could they have permitted such a thing? How could they have allowed other countries to
get on with improving the lives of their citizens without being obliged to seek Washington's approval every step of the way?
European democracy is threatened by US, not Russian, foreign policy
In order to make sure that they were not side-lined, the US elites had to intervene. The Western propaganda machine started
churning out all sorts of nonsense that Putin is a new Hitler who is bent on restoring the Soviet empire and who is bullying Europe,
while continuing to bang on about his "increasingly autocratic rule".
Deadly attacks by chauvinistic proxies were launched on the Russophone people in South Ossetia, Georgia in 2008 and more recently
in Ukraine.
And in what is eerily reminiscent of Stalinist "bloc discipline", the EU/NATO nomenclature was ordered to implement the absurd
strategy of severing the Russian economy from the EU. For their part, the cowering Eurocrats willingly obliged by imposing sanctions
on Russia that, perversely, have had a negative impact on their own economies (but, let it be stressed, not that of the US). No questions
raised and no public debate on the wisdom of such a strategy permitted.
Stuck in an Orwellian nightmare, Europe has to demonstrate its unfailing loyalty to Big Brother and go along with the view
that Russia, an intrinsic and valuable part of the European mainstream both historically and culturally, represents universal evil
and that the Earth will not be safe until the Federation has been dismembered and Putinism wiped out once and for all.
This abuse and humiliation of Europe is unparalleled. The continent that gave the world the wonders of the Antiquity, modern democracy,
the industrial revolution and what is arguably the greatest tradition of philosophy, fine arts and classical music is being bullied
by its oversized offspring. Having self-destructed in two world wars, it has become an easy and even willing prey to an arrogant,
ignorant and power-drunk predator that has never experienced the hardships and horrors that Europe has. War and extermination
camps are etched into the European DNA. America "knows" about them only from afar – and, not least, from the Hollywood entertainment
industry.
Even more terrifying, intellectually third-rate Washington viceroys such as Victoria Nuland and the freelancing armchair warrior
Senator McCain are allowed to play God with our continent. The so-called European "leaders" are colluding with them in plunging
Europe into the abyss and thereby risking nuclear confrontation.
America, too, is a loser
But this is not just a tragedy for Europe and Eurasia. We are also witnessing the wilful misrule of America and, by default, of
the entire West. Indeed, Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy. The
"democracy-promoters" running Washington's foreign-policy apparatus apparently do not understand that America has nothing to lose
and a lot to gain from the Eurasian economic project: the rising tide of global economic welfare would lift everyone's boats, including
its own. Why should it matter to Washington if the rising tide comes from other quarters beyond its control?
Indeed, the damage extends beyond the economy. By aligning with the forces of chaos – such as chauvinistic extremists in Ukraine
– Washington and its Euro-vassals are corrupting the moral (and intellectual) core of the West. If it continues to support such
forces against Russia, united Europe will lose not only its backbone but its very soul. The moral consequences of this loss will
be enormous and could lead to the precipitous erosion of Western democracy.
The 'autocrats' want to work with the West, not against it
US and EU leaders believe that the Russian and Chinese "autocrats" are out to destroy the West because the latter hate freedom
(as George W. Bush might have put it). And hence, they argue, the autocrats must be stopped in their tracks. The simple truth is
that Western leaders are too blinkered to understand that far from desiring to destroy the West, Russia and China want it to prosper
so that they can work with it to everyone's benefit. Having enjoyed a privileged position over several centuries and having attained
unprecedented prosperity in recent decades, the West simply cannot understand that the rest of humanity has no interest in fomenting
the "clash of civilizations" but rather craves peace and stability so that it can finally improve its economic lot.
Perhaps, however, all is not yet lost. It is still possible that reason – and economic forces – will prevail and force the West
to correct the errors of its ways. What we need, perhaps, more than ever is the ability to step out of the box, question our fundamental
assumptions (not least about Russia and China) and find the courage to change policies that have proved disastrous. After all, critical
thought, dispassionate analysis and the ability to be open to new ideas is what made the West so successful in the past. If we are
to thrive once again in the future, we must resurrect these most valuable and unsurpassed assets.
What I cannot understand is the naive belief that elected politicians would act in the interests of those whom they represent.
Under what other circumstances do we see human beings act with disinterested altruism? So why would a bunch of people who have
been ruthlessly selected for selfishness, arrogance, and callousness - a bunch of carefully chosen psychopaths, if you will -
behave in that way?
'My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to
my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: "Money, we give them money." "Foreign
aid?" I asked. "No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale. We bought them. They report to
us." Perhaps this explains Tony Blair's $50 million fortune one year out of office'.
- Paul Craig Roberts
jabirujoe
"Washington is betraying the best interests of the American people through its current foreign policy".
Not only it's foreign policy but it's domestic policy as well. Let's call it for what it really is. The Wall Street/Corporate
policy which is the driving force behind behind everything the US does
Toddrich
"We, the [CENSORED] people, control America and the Americans know it." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]
"When we're done with the U.S. it will shrivel up and blow away." -- Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of [CENSORED]
The welfare or future of the American people are not part of the equation.
Michelle is the same blatant liar as her husband, the king of "bait and switch" Obama. From
comments: "Yea heard the speech - can I throw up now? How can anyone be taken in by the total
insincerity of the whole charade. Hypocrisy rules the political roost and people just love
it."... "Obama's old lady was as cheesy as the rest of them. Shallow words from shallow
people."
Yeah, they are good with words the Obama. They can talk the talk. But they don't walk the
walk. All we got from Obama was more wars, more regime changes, more torture prisons,
hundreds of thousands of more dead women and children in the middle east, more racist killer
cops at home and a new cold war. And Hilary will bring more of the same. Now that is
something to cry about.
Collective amnesia here. The speech brought me to tears also, tears for a once proud Dem
party. The Obamas are backing a person, Clinton, who was "extremely careless" with emails in
relation to national security (FBI words) and who clearly lied under oath to Congress and who
is also clearly behind rigging the Dem nomination process to shaft Sanders and the millions
of young people who supported him, absolutely shameless
Caring Hillary? A woman who said of Gadaffi's murder "We came, we saw, he died." He was,
apparently, sodomised with a bayonet beforehand. And Obama's care for children seems limited
by borders. Doesn't seem to care much about the kids of Afghanistan or Yemen.
" In 2009, President Obama stood before an adoring crowd in the centre of Prague, in
the heart of Europe. He pledged himself to make "the world free from nuclear weapons".
People cheered and some cried. A torrent of platitudes flowed from the media. Obama was
subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
It was all fake. He was lying.
The Obama administration has built more nuclear weapons, more nuclear warheads, more
nuclear delivery systems, more nuclear factories. Nuclear warhead spending alone rose higher
under Obama than under any American president. The cost over thirty years is more than $1
trillion."
Michelle said (Hillary) "Advocating for kids with disabilities as a young lawyer" This is
the same Lawyer that bragged about getting a 41 year old pedophile off the hook for raping a
12 year old girl.
Where to next Madam Obama ? You have a few months left to scrounge on the taxpayer
dime, so where is the next multi-million dollar all-expenses paid vacation with Mammy, the
kids and the entire entourage gonna be ?
Yea heard the speech - can I throw up now? How can anyone be taken in by the total
insincerity of the whole charade. Hypocricy rules the political roost and people just love
it.
An overpopulated planet, a poisoned biosphere, a militant and violent global insurgency by a
7th Century tribal faith; a potential woman in the Whitehouse (and what a gleaming example of
womanhood she is!)? A complete irrelevance. Bread and circuses and maudlin hyperbole that
will keep the tiny minds of SJWs happy but which won't solve a thing.
Only Obama obviously wasn't the first "African American" president. He was the first
African American who sold out his fellow African Americans to be a president. To big
money.
BTW he's preparing to go on his conference tour. If you think about all the public money
he used to save the banking sector (without any consequence for the banking sector), he
should be touring at the end of his life. Poor Hillary. She so wanted the job Obama got.
The Americans are so good at farce (Trump) or heart-rending tear-jerkers (Michelle) that are
always somewhat repulsive or embarrassing, shall I say, to our European ears. It is a form of
popular catharsis that is second-nature to artists and politicians there.
These conventions seem like well managed cult get together. Both republicans and democrats
seem like mindless zombies. Obama's old lady was as cheesy as the rest of them. Shallow
words from shallow people.
I recall when she came to an inner city girls' school in London a couple of years back, on
what's despairingly referred to as a sink estate. She gave one of those syrupy, nuero
linguistic programming speeches, favoured by her dark arts husband's, TelePrompTer speech
writing team. Full of all that usual suspect; "hopey, changey, reach for the stars, you
can do it if you believe and want it bad enough" nonsense to the assembled teenage girls. And
there in lies the point of the Obamas; they're an antidepressant, a simple and effective
calming drug for sections of the masses.
"... "If that was to happen and no energy source can cover the decline rate, wouldn't the world be pretty fucked economically thereafter? Hence one can assume or take a wild ass guess that the decline after peak would resemble something like Venezuela. So not a smooth short % decline rate." ..."
"... Realistically the global economy is already in a tight spot. It started back in 2000 when Oil prices started climbing from about $10/bbl in 1998 to about $30/bbl in 2000. Then the World Major Central banks dropped interest which ended triggering the Housing Boom\Bust and carried Oil prices to $147/bbl. Since then Interest rates have remained extremely low while World Debt has soared (expected to top $250T in 2019). ..."
"... Probably the biggest concern for me is the risking risks for another World war: The US has been targeting all of the major Oil exporters. The two remaining independent targets are Venezuela & Iran. I suspect Venzuela will be the next US take over since it will be a push over compared to Iran. ..."
"If that was to happen and no energy source can cover the decline rate, wouldn't the world be pretty fucked economically
thereafter? Hence one can assume or take a wild ass guess that the decline after peak would resemble something like Venezuela.
So not a smooth short % decline rate."
Energy is the economy, The economy cannot function without energy. Thus its logical that a decline in energy supply will reduce
the economy. The only way for this not to apply is if there are efficiency gains that offset the decline. But at this point the
majority of cost effective efficiency gains are already in place. At this point gains become increasing expensive with much smaller
gains (law of diminishing returns). Major infrastructure changes like modernizing rail lines take many decades to implement and
also require lots of capital. Real capital needed will be difficult to obtain do to population demographics (ie boomers dependent
on massive unfunded entitlement & pensions).
Realistically the global economy is already in a tight spot. It started back in 2000 when Oil prices started climbing from
about $10/bbl in 1998 to about $30/bbl in 2000. Then the World Major Central banks dropped interest which ended triggering the
Housing Boom\Bust and carried Oil prices to $147/bbl. Since then Interest rates have remained extremely low while World Debt has
soared (expected to top $250T in 2019).
My guess is that global economy will wipe saw in the future as demographics, resource depletion (including Oil) and Debt all
merge into another crisis. Gov't will act with more cheap and easy credit (since there is no alterative TINA) as well as QE\Asset
buying to avoid a global depression. This creating a wipesaw effect that has already been happening since 2000 with Boom Bust
cycles. This current cycle has lasted longer because the Major central banks kept interest rates low, When The Fed started QT
and raising rate it ended up triggering a major stock market correction In Dec 2018. I believe at this point the Fed will no longer
seek any further credit tightening that will trip the economy back into recession. However its likely they the global economy
will fall into another recession as consumers & business even without further credit tighting by CB (Central Banks) Because they've
been loading up on cheap debt, which will eventually run into issues servicing their debt. For instance there are about 7M auto
loans in delinquency in March of 2019. Stock valuations are largely driven by stock buybacks, which is funded by debt. I presume
companies are close to debt limit which is likely going to prevent them from purchase more stock back.
Probably the biggest concern for me is the risking risks for another World war: The US has been targeting all of the major
Oil exporters. The two remaining independent targets are Venezuela & Iran. I suspect Venzuela will be the next US take over since
it will be a push over compared to Iran. I think once all of remaining independent Oil Exports are seized that is when the
major powers start fighting each other. However is possible that some of the proxy nations (Pakastan\India),(Israel\Iran), etc
trigger direct war between the US, China, and Russia at any time.
Notice that the US is now withdrawing from all its major arms treaties, and the US\China\Russia are now locked into a Arms
race. Nuclear powers are now rebuilding their nuclear capacity (more Nukes) and modernizing their deployment systems (Hypersonic,
Very large MIRV ICBMS, Undersea drones, Subs, Bombers, etc.
My guess is that nations like the US & China will duke it out before collapsing into the next Venezuela. If my assessment is
correct, The current state of Venezuela will look like the garden of Eden compared to the aftermath of a full scale nuclear war.
Currently the Doomsday clock (2019) is tied with 1953 at 2 minutes:
1953 was the height of the cold war. I presume soon the Doomsday clock will be reduced to less than 2 Minutes later this
year, due to recent events in the past few weeks.
"the world's nuclear nations proceeded with programs of "nuclear modernization" that are all but indistinguishable from
a worldwide arms race, and the military doctrines of Russia and the United States have increasingly eroded the long-held taboo
against the use of nuclear weapons."
" The current international security situation -- what we call the "new abnormal" -- has extended over two years now.
It's a state as worrisome as the most dangerous times of the Cold War, a state that features an unpredictable and shifting
landscape of simmering disputes that multiply the chances for major military conflict to erupt."
Credibility of the US government and Justice system was greatly undermined, if not destroyed
by the Russiagate. Inability to investigate more plausible election interference by British an,
Saudi and Israeli actors by Mueller paints him as a despicable political operative working for
Clintons, not an independent Prosecutor, who diligently investigate the foreign interference in
elections.
The role of Rosenstein is the role of co-conspirator in a plot to deprive Trump of the
Presidency or, at least, for force him to pursue the Deep State foreign policy, which is totally
bankrupt policy. And they succeeded in this. Trump wet kiss with neocons was probably the part of
the deal.
Notable quotes:
"... When even Trump who was the victim of the machinations cares only to tweet witch hunt, why would anyone expect that any of those involved in the attempted "coup" would be held to account? ..."
"... I wondered about that myself. When I was doing clan work in Europe, recruiting UK citizens was absolutely forbidden. I needed special dispensation from Bonn Station to not declare my Russian assets to the Brits when they merely traveled to the UK. I think Steele's relationship with the FBI was not as a standard recruited asset or informer. It was a business contract. An article from a year ago sheds some light on that relationship. The first instance concerns his assistance in the FIFA investigation. ..."
When even Trump who was the victim of the machinations cares only to tweet witch hunt, why
would anyone expect that any of those involved in the attempted "coup" would be held to
account?
No one is going to face any consequences - legal or other. Hell, most of them will make money
from writing books about their "dedicated service." When was the last time the swamp applied
the laws to one of it's own. Answer: never.
The laws are enforced on us - the "deplorables out there," not the swamp creature
"elite." We are not governed, we are ruled.
And sadly that situation is as much the result of an indifferent and ignorant populace as
the behavior of the ruling class.
"One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes
(i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's
spies. Christopher Steele's employ with the FBI violates this policy."
I see Steele's surfacing again. Might I put in a minor query. Does this longstanding
agreement cover retired personnel?
I wondered about that myself. When I was doing clan work in Europe, recruiting UK citizens
was absolutely forbidden. I needed special dispensation from Bonn Station to not declare my
Russian assets to the Brits when they merely traveled to the UK. I think Steele's
relationship with the FBI was not as a standard recruited asset or informer. It was a
business contract. An article from a year ago sheds some light on that relationship. The
first instance concerns his assistance in the FIFA investigation.
"Steele might have been expected to move on once his investigation of the bidding was
concluded. But he had discovered that the corruption at FIFA was global, and he felt that it
should be addressed. The only organization that could handle an investigation of such scope,
he felt, was the F.B.I. In 2011, Steele contacted an American agent he'd met who headed the
Bureau's division for serious crimes in Eurasia. Steele introduced him to his sources, who
proved essential to the ensuing investigation. In 2015, the Justice Department indicted
fourteen people in connection with a hundred and fifty million dollars in bribes and
kickbacks."
The second instance of Steele's cooperation with the FBI even had a peripheral
relationship with Trump. "Several years ago, the FBI hired Steele to help crack an
international gambling and money-laundering ring purportedly run by a suspected Russian
organized-crime figure named Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov. The syndicate was based in an apartment
in Trump Tower. Eventually, federal officials indicted more than thirty co-conspirators for
financial crimes. Tokhtakhounov, though, eluded arrest, becoming a fugitive. Interpol issued
a "red notice" calling for his arrest. But, in the fall of 2013, he showed up at the Miss
Universe contest in Moscow -- and sat near the pageant's owner, Donald Trump."
According to the New Yorker magazine article, it was standard Orbis procedure to warn
authorities about national security threats. Steele warned German authorities about IS
militants using the refugee flow to infiltrate Europe. "When Steele took his suspicions about
Trump to the FBI in the summer of 2016, it was in keeping with Orbis protocol, rather than a
politically driven aberration."
Within the FBI, I'm sure Steele was coded as a source in some way as a standard procedure
to use his information. We did the same with our non-asset sources in DOD. Hell, I was even
coded as an intelligence asset when I was a SMU operative/case officer. This was different
from the reporter number all case officers are given.
Philip Giraldi, on March 13, 2018, has an essay about this New Yorker article: 'Christopher
Steele as seen by the New Yorker. Liberal fantasies beatify the messenger.' This is in the
Unz Review.
www.unz.com/pgiraldi/christ... .
Mayer doesn't mention that Steele was almost certainly identified as MI6 during the
years (possibly 1990-1993) that he was stationed in Moscow under diplomatic cover. Russian
counterintelligence agents broke into his apartment, used the toilet, left it unflushed; they
stole his wife's best shoes. He was definitely identified by 1999 when he was in Paris. There
was a DSMA notice. Too late. Then, in 2006, when Steele is said to have had the Russia desk,
there was the highly embarrassing electronic spy rock in a Moscow park. Surely he held some
responsibility for that? And if Steele was a Russian expert why were his talents being wasted
in Afghanistan?
John Helmer quotes some old intelligence hands who deny that he was a particularly
impressive agent or was deeply knowledgeable about Russia. Steele never went back to Russia
after 1992 or 1993. Mayer, in the New Yorker article, makes no mention of what surely were
setbacks for British intelligence regarding Russia in which Steele likely was playing a large
part.
We've been here before in this discussion. The question remains-- was Steele an unwitting
puppet of a Russian master counterstrike, an aikido throw which has badly shaken and
distracted America? DH, we await your comments. Has TTG gone wobbly?
I'm also fairly certain RIS was aware of Steele's status as an MI6 officer when he was
stationed in Moscow. I would think anyone working out of a diplomatic embassy is first
assumed to be an intelligence officer by the host nation. I stayed away from embassies and
other government facilities just to avoid that taint. The one time I was summoned to an
embassy, I conducted extensive surveillance detection measures both before and after the
visit and I wore a disguise.
It was a normal matter for intelligence officers to be cycled through Afghanistan and Iraq
post 9-11, no matter what their former expertise. I did my turn. CIA's "Russia House" was
bitter about their fall from the pinnacle to be replaced by all things CT during that
time.
Was some of the raw information in Steele's dossier planted by RIS? That's very possible.
Several experienced former US intelligence officers have voiced that possibility, especially
about the more salacious bits of the dossier.
That's a nice piece in the New Yorker. They mention the golden shower episode in Moscow,
however, left out Loretta Lynch. "In was in her role as district attorney that her
involvement in the Fifa investigation began. Over the course of five years in Brooklyn..."
See the BBC article on FIFA from 2015: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32912118
So did Loretta Lynch talk to Christopher Steele during this case or did Steele just
talk to the FBI agent who was years later in London? When did then US attorney for New York's
Eastern District Lorretta Lynch get informed and by which FBI agent? Who did that agent tell
about the Steele dossier, when did it get to the AG's ears, and when did she tell
Obama?
"On January 5, 2017, it became clear that at least two Washingtonians remained in the dark
about the dossier: the President and the Vice-President. " Oh, apparently AG Lynch never told
Obama, because????????
Another New Yorker Enigma: "Robert Hannigan, then the head of the U.K.'s intelligence
service the G.C.H.Q., had recently flown to Washington and briefed the C.I.A.'s director,
John Brennan, on a stream of illicit communications between Trump's team and Moscow that had
been intercepted. (The content of these intercepts has not become public.) "
So the UK has been spying on US Presidential candidates? Oh, they said they were "illicit"
communications. What does that mean? Who was communicating with Whom? And how did G.C.H.Q.
decide these communications were "illicit" but others, well they'd have to have them all to
make a comparison, wouldn't they? Put a ribbon on top of that one. DId they also intercept
any of Hilary's communications?
Given that Steele played an important role in at least two major FBI investigations
leading to multiple indictments, I would assume Lynch knew about Steele. Whether they ever
conversed, I don't know.
Comey was not at all sure about Lynch's impartiality. It would not surprise me if he kept
details of the Russian investigation, including the dossier, from her. She probably learned
about it shortly before Obama and Trump were briefed on the dossier. Obama knew enough about
the Russian investigation, without the dossier, to warn Putin to knock it off in September
2016.
I don't know if the Brits spied on our Presidential candidates. I wouldn't doubt it. We
bugged Merkel's phone. What I am sure of is that the Brits spy on every Russian of importance
within their capabilities. If Trump's campaign was in contact with those Russians, the Brits
would know about it. They obviously thought those conversations were illicit enough to inform
their US counterparts and reveal that they did monitor members of the Trump campaign. They
wouldn't have done that just for shits and giggles.
"They obviously thought those conversations were illicit enough to inform their US
counterparts and reveal that they did monitor members of the Trump campaign."
They thought it illicit? Listening is one thing, giving information to aid your country's
government's preferred candidate is interference in an election process - ours. How many
times has our ally the UK interfered with US elections? They had plenty of help from the FBI
and DOJ here in the US in 2016. Who elected GCHQ to be arbiters of US elections? I can't
find them in the US Constitution. Using the FBI and DOJ to sabatouge your party's political
opponents, that's third world government standards.
If the Brits wanted to directly influence the election, they would have publicly released
their information about "illicit' contacts. Keeping it within intelligence channels does
nothing to influence an election. I would hope the Brits would never hold back on information
concerning a possible CI threat.
TTG - thank you for your reply above. The picture one gets of Steele is no longer that of
a loose canon who somehow got himself involved in a presidential election campaign. It is
that of an experienced and respected professional working in tandem, if perhaps
unconventionally, with other professionals.
And perhaps thinking that he or his contacts back home had stumbled over important
information showing that a presidential candidate was compromised. That information possibly
being the tip of the iceberg and urgently demanding further investigation.
But that makes what happened all the more unusual -
1. Why didn't the further investigation happen? Surely the fact that such an important
matter wasn't thoroughly investigated, and that using all possible resources in the States
and abroad, shows that it was no serious investigation in the first place?
And more to the point here -
2. If those involved were professionals working away soberly at a necessary investigation,
what were they doing suddenly branching out into a smear campaign?
For none, even the originators of the dossier, are claiming that the more discreditable
part of the Steele dossier is true. That is not Intelligence material. It is sensationalised
smear material.
This objection has been met in part with the claim that the dossier was all raw unsifted
Intelligence and therefore was released as is.
But surely experienced Intelligence professionals don't suddenly pitch raw unsifted
Intelligence into the middle of the political arena while they are supposed to be still
assessing that intelligence?
Irrespective of the question of whether Trump was compromised the question therefore
arises - what were American officials doing running a smear campaign against a presidential
candidate?
Which leads back to the original question. What officials this side of the Atlantic were
also involved, and how high did the authorisation for their involvement go in England.
.
On a matter I'm better informed about, I don't see the Colonel quietly farming away in
Kent. I see him striding across the limitless expanse of a Scottish grouse moor. If our lot
had known their business they'd have worked that into their offer.
The counterintelligence investigation was in progress through the lead up to the 2016
election and is still in progress. Through 2016, it was done in a remarkably quiet fashion.
That's how these investigations are supposed to work. No one hears about them until there is
an arrest or indictment. That's how Mueller is running his investigation. We hear nothing
from him except for the indictments already issued. And they are characteristically slow and
methodical, usually spanning years before an arrest is made.
None of this investigation, including Steele's reporting was used in a pre-election smear
campaign. In my opinion, the reason the Obama administration did not publicize the idea of
Russian interference with the election and possible involvement of Trump campaign officials
is that it would surely have been seen as a partisan smear campaign. The public did not hear
of the Steele dossier until well after the election was over.
It was not just British intelligence involved in collecting on Russian interference in
the election. The Estonians, the Dutch, the Australians and probably others contributed to
the intelligence picture. We may not learn the full extent of that cooperation for many
years. Given the changing nature of information warfare and social media manipulation, I
sincerely wish the full extent of that intelligence is made public quickly. Sure that would
probably also cramp Western media manipulation capabilities, of which we are far from
innocent, but the sunlight would help inoculate all of us against this malignant
phenomenon.
The retirement farm and the big stipend sounds pretty good. I could do without the best club
and the career assistance. Sounds like they appreciated you a lot more than DIA.
DIA made me an SES-4 with presidential rank (Distinguished). Looks like the Brits expected me
to have a lot of access. They claimed these guys were off the reservation. and that they were
not authorized to pitch me.
Off the reservation my ass. I would say those Brits were a bunch of cheeky blokes who did not
do a thorough enough job of assessing your susceptibility to recruitment.
You seem more upset over this than I was. We accepted their false statements of innocence
betrayed by their own and went right on working with them. Why would they try this? Simple.
As we do they wanted to know what we were not telling them. everyone does it. A basic
principle. Recruit your liaison.
You're right. I never worked out of an embassy or in any long term liaison function. If I was
the target of such a pitch, it would have meant that I was blown along with any operations I
was involved with. For me, it would have been life altering.
Thanks for this. I am wondering what Larry Johnson and the other members of this Committee of
Correspondence make of the possible connection between Christopher Steele, Pablo Miller, and
Sergei Skripal?
Some of Craig Murray's speculations in his latest post on the Skripal incident
regarding the coordinated role of Orbis Intelligence, the BBC, and the British state (which
issued a DSMA notice prohibiting press mention of Pablo Miller) are quite plausible. Murray
is, like the members of this committee, a veteran of the game....
Was Skripal coerced/encouraged by Miller to serve as one of Steele's unattributed
Russian "sources"? Did he later get cold feet? Or did he later attempt to buy his way back
into Russia with the claim that he could provide proof that the Dossier was a fraud? Or was
he working as a triple agent the whole time? Were the two sightseeing Russians "Borishov" and
"Petrov" sent to retrieve something from Skripal?
Try this. This theory ties together all the incoherencies of the official explanation better
than anything I have seen. And, I'm pleased to see it is getting reprinted here and
there.
https://michaelantonyblog.w...
I concur. This is the most plausible explanation of what really happened in Salisbury that I
have read so far.
Colonel - might this theory be worth a dedicated SST post? It is 5,000 words, so perhaps
Patrick, David Habakkuk, or another interested member of the committee would be happy to
summarize the salient details (e.g. that Borisov & Petrov intended to return to Russia
with Sergei Skripal). The author's contact details are in the comments section re reprint
rights.
"... A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side... ..."
"In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the
systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:"
Many thanks, and much respect to you Sir for bringing this important piece to my attention.
I apologize for another somewhat off topic posting, but I have not seen it posted here earlier, and I think that this should be
seen by as many eyes as possible.
It is one of the most important aspects of our media system -- and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international
news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.
The key role played by these agencies means that Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording.
In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages
around the world.
A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles
are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews
are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side...
The comments below is just a small secion of almost 200 comment for the article. Moststrong
opinions are deliberately omitted...
Many people now realize that they live in occupied by neocons for 40 years county and want to
get thier state back. Tulsi Gabbard in this sense is just the pit of the iceberg.
Looks like alt-Right is now turned completely anti-Israeli.
Notable quotes:
"... Senator Lindsey Graham intends to initiate legislative action to compel the United States to actually recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights which has not been recognized as part of Israel by any other country or international body. ..."
@Willie'
They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries,
they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not
fair.'
What a farcical distortion. The last actual Jewish civilian actually killed within the
actual borders of Israel died over two years ago. It's not a battle for 'Jewish
self-determination' but an endless exercise in vicious oppression. It's about as morally
edifying as the Nazi occupation of Poland.
Israel is a racist apartheid state and I resent that my tax dollars are sent there to buy
bombs to slaughter Palestinians that have never done anything to harm me.
" They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only
countries, they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars
are not fair.'"
The cure is diversity, mass immigration and equality. That is what the Jewish media,
academia, judiciary, US rabbis say, yes to their white hosts in the diaspora. It is virtuous
and noble to listen to Jewish media and do exactly as they wish.
Israel, do unto thy selves as your diaspora insists is the moral thing to do. Make
yourselves a minority in Eretz Yisroel as you wish unto white goyim. KILL YOURSELF.
Recognising the West Bank as part of Israel without risking Arab numbers and fertility having
the consequences to be expected in a modern democratic country would make it impossible for
Israel to escape the description of apartheid state. How is that consideration going to
affect outcomes in the near future?
The Jewish Firster colonization of the United States has been incremental. It is now nearing
completion. Few countries if any, colonized by other (usually more powerful) countries appear
to have accepted colonization with such alacrity as have many Americans in their colonization
by Israel. Most have resisted colonial rule and even launched wars to rid themselves of
their colonial masters.
Question is, if Israel were to be a 51st American state, would she get away with so
many crimes as she does outside the Union? Or is this a case of an informal union of two
criminal gangster nations? We have read in the UR of the compelling evidence of Jewish
collusion in history's two most devastating world wars. The Third one -- and mother of all
wars, is sure to be instigated by Zionist Israel. BTW, this post is not addressed to paid
Hasbara trolls.
Zionist pigs are nothing but FAKE Jews, they are the STATE, and DO NOT represent the majority
of the Israeli people. This action is nothing more than criminal FASCISM with an Imperialist
agenda!
It is not the pig that is disgusting and filthy, it is the Zionist State and the rodents
that control it, such as the Premier. The USA is nothing more than a filthy shit bag whore to
Israel, as is the rest of the West!
Where is the UN and ICC? Eating their pork chops laughing all the way to bank. The sooner
Israel is bombed to rubble, the better the world will be. Hitler new the truth about these
filthy scum, that is why he wanted to remove them from planet earth. The Lords day is coming,
but the Zionist scum's are coming to an end!
AIPAC's annual star-studded gala demonstrates once again that Zio-Israeli influence in
American life is alive and well and operating unopposed.
No foreign or domestic lobby comes even close to The Lobby's baleful impact on American
independence. This includes its shameless role in the manufacture of Zionist-friendly Fake
News, Congressional waste and murderous appropriations, as well as Zio-Washington's
blood-soaked war machinery that rewards one 'democratic ally' way over yonder while it
relentlessly targets that same ally's foes, rivals, and outcasts.
Is this any way to run an Empire?
In any case, one is expected to not examine this phenomena too critically as it's
already Badthink to do so (and possibly even verging on 'anti-Semitism'!)
Just. Don't. Go. There.
Thus the great majority of middle-of-the-road, 'centrist-seeking' Americans have learned
to bow their collective heads in a show of deference when the activist offspring and
well-heeled advocates of a certain downtrodden tribe of Glorious Survivors gather in DC to
make political whoopee by praising the Zionist juggernaut and raising boatloads of
influence-buying shekels for America's next class of political prostitutes. It's who we
are.
And as for you HATERS out there, we have this to say:
Six Million! Six million you Nazi scum! We are coming for you!
Understand?
Therefore Do Not talk back. Do Not get out of line.
Bear in mind that those who do get out of line tend to disappear rapidly from
public life. (worth keeping in mind, eh?)
It is advised therefore to not examine this phenomena too aggressively. (Just be
quiet)
This is America and compromises must be made!
Israel's pampered, moneyed, exclusive, and relentlessly militarized agenda therefore
must get special, praised, and privileged treatment on every DC stage and from the mouth of
every pundit and tastemaker on every American TV.
It's unanimous! Gotta love em!
(or else).
Why spoil the party with needless dissent, unpleasant facts, or contrary opinions?
Really.
Thus when AIPAC's in town, there's glorious bipartisanship and wondrous unanimity. Zionism
is great!
To make political matters even more surreal, Democrat attack-dog, Robert Mueller (with
forward assistance of our Israeli-centric news and entertainment media) is still sniffing
around Google and still turning over rocks on Facebook and elsewhere in hopes of finding
those dastardly Russian fingerprints that will 'prove' (once and for all!) that Putin and a
handful of underpaid Russian propagandist tricked the American people into voting the WRONG
WAY.
The Russkies stole the whole damn election on behalf of Trump and his deplorable base of
rednecks and white supremacists. Just check with the attendees at this season's AIPAC soiree,
they'll splain it to ya. It's Russia!
However, when one considers that the Russian/US cold war has only escalated since
the election of Donald J. Trump, this far Left conspiracy theory does not entirely hold
water.
Oh well.
Thank goodness Israel is intervening here and helping and orchestrating for the good of
America (and for democracy in general) and that the Israeli people stand united and for all
things righteous and democratic and free.
Circumspect, thoughtful and well done. Unfortunately, religion in general, and its relation
to Israel specifically, seem to function as areas of inactivity in our President's otherwise
well-functioning intellect.
It is not Otzma Yehudit that some fascist fraction of Israel or Judaism, no –
exceptionalism is fascism by a simpler name, and those that self declare themselves as the
chosen people of God are all fascists.
@Colin
Wright Israel has no borders defined.
The jews regard greater Israel the borders, Euphrates and Nile, the two blue strips on their
flag.
It is in plain sight, but many can't see it.
Depressing as usual Philip Giraldi, thanks for brightening up my day, lol.
Other leading American politicians who will be at AIPAC in supporting rolls include the
slimy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the despicable former U.N.
Ambassador Nikki Haley.
A who's who of Zionist lackeys.
It will also include numerous other congressmen, administration officials and the usual
scumbags who gravitate to these events, including pardoned criminal Elliott Abrams and
unindicted felon Senator Robert Menendez. Abrams, who believes that Jews and gentiles
should not intermarry, is currently engaged in destroying Venezuela and just might be
otherwise occupied.
I live in the Garden State and can't believe Menendez got re-elected, but really I
do.
As for Abrams I have to agree with him there, Jews and Gentiles shouldnt be allowed to
intermarry or have children.
There are many reasons for this, some good and some maybe not so good (in your eyes). Let me
cut to the chase and be as offensive , to some, as I can. Infesting gentile blood
lines (white Christian) with Jew-ish ones only muddies the waters even more in the battle or
right and wrong, from deep philosophical and religious grounds, Christianity versus Judaism
and Islam, to the earthly issue of landing the Zionist Entity right smack on top of
Palestine.
Going back to the big picture, I'm may not be a very good Christian but as a follower of
Christ and knowing of the Book of Revelation and even less of the works of Nostradamus, it
seems that Christian Zionists, for all their stupidity, may be on to something especially
with the approximate timelines of Nostradamus.
I will just hope for the best and that 'the truth shall set me free.'
He has entered into a coalition with the openly racist Kahanist party Otzma Yehudit
Racist and anti-Christian. Its leader, Michael Ben-Ari, tore up a New Testament,
describing it as a despicable book which should be in history's trash can. Activist Benzi
Gopstein has called for churches in Israel to be burned down and has
described Christians as blood-sucking vampires who should be expelled from Israel.
The New Observer
has the story . Ben-Ari's racism was too much even for Israel and he has been banned from
standing in next month's election.
Senator Lindsey Graham intends to initiate legislative action to compel the United
States to actually recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights which has not been
recognized as part of Israel by any other country or international body.
The US has a record of recognizing scumbag regimes, and here's another
example.:
Even after Woody Wilson's attorney general Mitchell Palmer's "Great Red Scare*" of 1919 in
the USA and much opposition to International Commienizm, Stalin-stlye, 'Ol FDR couldn't
wait to recognize the USSR which is something he did shortly after getting elected in
1933 after getting a meaningless "promise" from Stalin that he'd stop supporting Red terror*
in the US. It must not have mattered to him that Lenin and Stalin had been terrorizing their
own for over a decade, and in fact, Stalin had just finished engineering a slow
death-by-starvation holocaust of up to 10 million Ukrainians. He also deported many
adults, leaving their children to starve in the streets.
Americans support Jews and Israel over Muslims, Arabs and Palestine, because they
identify with Jews, and feel a kinship*.
My, how tender. But keep dreaming and scheming; why else do you think AIPAC et al
exist? Thanks for the laughs. It has nothing to do with kinship, but rather much to do about knowing who's "boss," at
least for now.
AIPAC is a seriously threatening organization with income of more than $100 million per
annum, nearly 400 employees, 100,000 members, seventeen regional offices, and a "vast pool of
donors." It clearly includes a lot of smart and savvy folks who know a lot about what is
going on in the Middle East, but its panels will not include a single word about shooting
unarmed protesters, declaring Israel to be a "nation state for Jews alone," its own acceptance
of laws attacking freedom of speech, or its use of Jewish donated money to corrupt the American
political system encouraging "allegiance to a foreign country" on the part of U.S. citizens.
Bibi will undoubtedly pick up on AIPAC's cozy theme of inclusiveness by taking the opportunity
to burnish his credentials as the leader who can continue to deliver on unlimited and
uncritical support from the United States. He will almost certainly meet with President Donald
Trump and the two will undoubtedly mention the terrible wave of anti-Semitism that is sweeping
the globe, justifying still more ethnic cleansing of the diminishing number of Arabs living in
Greater Israel and the bombing of Iran.
Other leading American politicians who will be at AIPAC in supporting rolls include the
slimy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the despicable former U.N. Ambassador
Nikki Haley. It will also include numerous other congressmen, administration officials and the
usual scumbags who gravitate to these events, including pardoned criminal Elliott Abrams and
unindicted felon Senator Robert Menendez. Abrams, who believes that Jews and gentiles should
not intermarry, is currently engaged in destroying Venezuela and just might be otherwise
occupied.
A number of the "American" government attendees at the event are actually Israeli citizens.
Sigal Mandelker,
a committed Zionist who holds the perpetually Jewish position of Under Secretary for
Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the United States Department of Treasury, is an Israeli
by birth and it is widely believed that a number of Jewish congressmen and government officials
who will be attending the AIPAC conference have dual citizenship. On the conference website's
roster of attendees, it is amusing to see the official photos in which the U.S. legislators and
officials are standing in front of the American flag, seemingly disinterested in the irony that
what AIPAC is doing is destructive of democracy in America and a sell-out to Israeli interests,
undermining those of the United States.
Netanyahu's most serious opposition in the election appears to be
a centrist coalition headed by former Israeli Defense Force chief General Benny Gantz, who
has spoken of his pride in killing 1,364 "terrorists" in Gaza, and former Finance Minister
Yair Lapid. It is the principal challenge to incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
re-election hopes. Israeli courts have also meanwhile banned several Arab parties while
allowing extreme right-wing Jewish parties to appear on the ballot
Well they are swinging for the fences, what would you like them to do, invite Hezbollah for
tea, these Islamist make no small talk about destroying the Jewish state completely IE the
Jews.
So what would you have them do. If you are in favor of the Jewish state going down, you are
in the minority not because of dual loyalty evil AIPAC.
Americans support Jews and Israel over Muslims, Arabs and Palestine, because they identify
with Jews, and feel a kinship. Jews fought in both World wars, I mean search thru a
microscope for a muslim, and lets face it Shira is anti capitalist, anti women, and anti
separation of church and state.
Nothing like the obvious reasons, yet you like to make it all about the Jews.
They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only countries,
they are going to fight to the death, too bad if civilians get in the way, wars are not fair.
They are engaged in a battle for Jewish self determination in a sea of Muslim only
countries,
Such a shame the zionists did not know about that sea of Muslim only countries in 1897
when they started plotting to take over Palestine.
All those Muslims. who knew?
RFLMAO. That's EXACTLY the line the PR advisers coached you to say, right?
Good boy, Willie. LOL. There's a great film about Israeli propaganda, FREE online. Watch the
Israeli spokesman bleat, "What would you do?"
THE OCCUPATION OF THE AMERICAN MIND
__________________________________ Israel's Public Relations War in the United States
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's main political opponent Benny Gantz, who is heading
the "Blue and White" party that leads in the polls, thinks President Trump could recognize
Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights in order to help Netanyahu win the April 9
elections, three Gantz aides told me.
Why it matters: Israel has occupied the Golan Heights from Syria since 1967. U.S.
recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights would be a huge diplomatic win for
Netanyahu -- no less significant than the moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. In the
last year, Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians, including Gantz's political ally Yair
Lapid, have started calling for U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights.
•Gantz's aides told me they think Trump could announce U.S. recognition of the
Golan Heights during Netanyahu's visit to the White House two weeks from now. Gantz's aides
told me that if Trump does this, it will give Netanyahu a huge achievement to campaign
on.
****
Driving the news: Netanyahu discussed the possibility of U.S. recognition of the Golan
Heights during a visit to the territory on Monday with Sen. Lindsey Graham. U.S. Ambassador
to Israel David Friedman attended all of Netanyahu's talks with Graham.
•After the talks, Graham stood next to Netanyahu in front of cameras and said that
once he arrives back to Washington, he will help push Sen. Ted Cruz's initiative to pass a
bill in the Senate for U.S. recognition in the Golan Heights.
****
The White House refrained from commenting and a State Department official told me there is
no change to the U.S. position on the Golan Heights for the moment.
"... In Kushner, Inc. , investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth the couple has created, depicting themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy presidency, and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the President's chief enablers: they, like him, appear disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics. ..."
"... They are entitled inheritors of the worst kind; their combination of ignorance, arrogance, and an insatiable lust for power has caused havoc all over the world ..."
"... In Kushner, Inc. , Ward holds Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump accountable: she unveils the couple's self-serving transactional motivations and how those have propelled them into the highest levels of the US government where no one, the President included, has been able to stop them. ..."
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are the self-styled Prince and Princess of America. Their
swift, gilded rise to extraordinary power in Donald Trump's White House is unprecedented and
dangerous.
In Kushner, Inc. , investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth
the couple has created, depicting themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy
presidency, and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the President's chief enablers:
they, like him, appear disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics.
They are entitled
inheritors of the worst kind; their combination of ignorance, arrogance, and an insatiable lust
for power has caused havoc all over the world, and may threaten the democracy of the United
States.
Ward follows their trajectory from New Jersey and New York City to the White House, where
the couple's many forays into policy-making and national security have mocked long-standing
U.S. policy and protocol. They have pursued an agenda that could increase their wealth while
their actions have mostly gone unchecked.
In Kushner, Inc. , Ward holds Jared Kushner
and Ivanka Trump accountable: she unveils the couple's self-serving transactional motivations
and how those have propelled them into the highest levels of the US government where no one,
the President included, has been able to stop them.
To paraphrase the author, on the dangerous scale, Jared & Ivanka are #1 & #2 with
Donald Trump, as terrible as he is, coming in at #3. Imagine that. While Donald Trump is
acting out, getting all of the attention, these two are like sharks below the surface,
making policy in the Middle East in order to make the Saudi's happy and being paid
personally & handsomely for that policy". It's like Donald Trump is running cover for
Jared & Ivanka. The biggest question remains. How much longer is the Republican Party
going to allow this kind of nepotism and corruption to continue?
Inside the Kushner pompousness. Vicky did a great job showing how dangerous these two
ignorant no nothing people are ruining our democracy. A must read.
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services?
Notable quotes:
"... Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? ..."
"... "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5." ..."
"... Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll. ..."
"... The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants. ..."
"... As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career". ..."
"... Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance. ..."
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? The following extracts are from
an article at the excellent Medialens
And so to Nottingham University (on Sunday 26 February) for a well-attended conference...
I focus in my talk on the links between journalists and the intelligence services: While it might be difficult to identify precisely
the impact of the spooks (variously represented in the press as "intelligence", "security", "Whitehall" or "Home Office" sources)
on mainstream politics and media, from the limited evidence it looks to be enormous.
As Roy Greenslade, media specialist at the Telegraph (formerly the Guardian), commented:
"Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5."
Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished
journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll.
And in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct
Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.
In their analysis of the contemporary secret state, Dorril and Ramsay gave the media a crucial role. The heart of the secret
state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed
forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.
As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of
the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood
at the end of their career".
Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent
is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.
A brief history
Going as far back as 1945, George Orwell no less became a war correspondent for the Observer - probably as a
cover for intelligence work. Significantly most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest
Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.
Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf
of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance.
The release of Public Record Office documents in 1995 about some of the operations of the MI6-financed propaganda unit, the
Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, threw light on this secret body - which even Orwell aided
by sending them a list of "crypto-communists". Set up by the Labour government in 1948, it "ran" dozens of Fleet Street journalists
and a vast array of news agencies across the globe until it was closed down by Foreign Secretary David Owen in 1977.
According to John Pilger in the anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, IRD was so successful that the journalism
served up as a record of those episodes was a cocktail of the distorted and false in which the real aims and often atrocious behaviour
of the British intelligence agencies was hidden.
And spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, has made the amazing statement that the British secret
service then controlled large parts of the press – just as they may do today.
In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA, the reports of the Senate's Church Committee and the House of Representatives'
Pike Committee highlighted the extent of agency recruitment of both British and US journalists.
And sources revealed that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll.
David Leigh, in The Wilson Plot, his seminal study of the way in which the secret service smeared through the mainstream media
and destabilised the Government of Harold Wilson before his sudden resignation in 1976, quotes an MI5 officer: "We have somebody
in every office in Fleet Street"
Leaker King
And the most famous whistleblower of all, Peter (Spycatcher) Wright, revealed that MI5 had agents in newspapers and publishing
companies whose main role was to warn them of any forthcoming "embarrassing publications".
Wright also disclosed that the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, "was a longstanding agent of ours" who "made it clear
he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction".
Selective details about Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, were leaked by the intelligence services to sympathetic Fleet
Street journalists. Wright comments: "No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot". King was also closely
involved in a scheme in 1968 to oust Prime Minister Harold Wilson and replace him with a coalition headed by Lord Mountbatten.
Hugh Cudlipp, editorial director of the Mirror from 1952 to 1974, was also closely linked to intelligence, according
to Chris Horrie, in his recently published history of the newspaper.
David Walker, the Mirror's foreign correspondent in the 1950s, was named as an MI6 agent following a security
scandal while another Mirror journalist, Stanley Bonnet, admitted working for MI5 in the 1980s investigating the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament.
Maxwell and Mossad
According to Stephen Dorril, intelligence gathering during the miners' strike of 1984-85 was helped by the fact that during the
1970s MI5's F Branch had made a special effort to recruit industrial correspondents – with great success.
In 1991, just before his mysterious death, Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell was accused by the US investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh of acting for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, though Dorril suggests his links with MI6
were equally as strong.
Following the resignation from the Guardian of Richard Gott, its literary editor in December 1994 in the wake of allegations that
he was a paid agent of the KGB, the role of journalists as spies suddenly came under the media spotlight – and many of the leaks
were fascinating.
For instance, according to The Times editorial of 16 December 1994: "Many British journalists benefited from CIA or MI6 largesse
during the Cold War."
The intimate links between journalists and the secret services were highlighted in the autobiography of the eminent newscaster
Sandy Gall. He reports without any qualms how, after returning from one of his reporting assignments to Afghanistan, he was asked
to lunch by the head of MI6. "It was very informal, the cook was off so we had cold meat and salad with plenty of wine. He wanted
to hear what I had to say about the war in Afghanistan. I was flattered, of course, and anxious to pass on what I could in terms
of first-hand knowledge."
And in January 2001, the renegade MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, claimed Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph
and son of the former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, provided journalistic cover for an MI6 officer on a mission to the Baltic to
handle and debrief a young Russian diplomat who was spying for Britain.
Lawson strongly denied the allegations.
Similarly in the reporting of Northern Ireland, there have been longstanding concerns over security service disinformation. Susan
McKay, Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, has criticised the reckless reporting of material from "dodgy security
services". She told a conference in Belfast in January 2003 organised by the National Union of Journalists and the Northern Ireland
Human Rights Commission: "We need to be suspicious when people are so ready to provide information and that we are, in fact, not
being used." (www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=635)
Growing power of secret state
Thus from this evidence alone it is clear there has been a long history of links between hacks and spooks in both the UK and US.
But as the secret state grows in power, through massive resourcing, through a whole raft of legislation – such as the Official
Secrets Act, the anti-terrorism legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and so on – and as intelligence moves into
the heart of Blair's ruling clique so these links are even more significant.
Since September 11 all of Fleet Street has been awash in warnings by anonymous intelligence sources of terrorist threats.
According to former Labour minister Michael Meacher, much of this disinformation was spread via sympathetic journalists by
the Rockingham cell within the MoD.
A parallel exercise, through the office of Special Plans, was set up by Donald Rumsfeld in the US. Thus there have been constant
attempts to scare people – and justify still greater powers for the national security apparatus.
Similarly the disinformation about Iraq's WMD was spread by dodgy intelligence sources via gullible journalists.
Thus, to take just one example, Michael Evans, The Times defence correspondent, reported on 29 November 2002: "Saddam Hussein
has ordered hundred of his officials to conceal weapons of mass destruction components in their homes to evade the prying eyes of
the United Nations inspectors." The source of these "revelations" was said to be "intelligence picked up from within Iraq". Early
in 2004, as the battle for control of Iraq continued with mounting casualties on both sides, it was revealed that many of the lies
about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD had been fed to sympathetic journalists in the US, Britain and Australia by the exile group,
the Iraqi National Congress.
Sexed up – and missed out
During the controversy that erupted following the end of the "war" and the death of the arms inspector Dr David Kelly (and the
ensuing Hutton inquiry) the spotlight fell on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the claim by one of his sources that the government
(in collusion with the intelligence services) had "sexed up" a dossier justifying an attack on Iraq.
The Hutton inquiry, its every twist and turn massively covered in the mainstream media, was the archetypal media spectacle that
drew attention from the real issue: why did the Bush and Blair governments invade Iraq in the face of massive global opposition?
But those facts will be forever secret.
Significantly, too, the broader and more significant issue of mainstream journalists' links with the intelligence services was
ignored by the inquiry.
Significantly, on 26 May 2004, the New York Times carried a 1,200-word editorial admitting it had been duped in its coverage of
WMD in the lead-up to the invasion by dubious Iraqi defectors, informants and exiles (though it failed to lay any blame on the US
President: see Greenslade 2004). Chief among The Times' dodgy informants was Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress
and Pentagon favourite before his Baghdad house was raided by US forces on 20 May.
Then, in the Observer of 30 May 2004, David Rose admitted he had been the victim of a "calculated set-up" devised to foster the
propaganda case for war. "In the 18 months before the invasion of March 2003, I dealt regularly with Chalabi and the INC and published
stories based on interviews with men they said were defectors from Saddam's regime." And he concluded: "The information fog is thicker
than in any previous war, as I know now from bitter personal experience. To any journalist being offered apparently sensational disclosures,
especially from an anonymous intelligence source, I offer two words of advice: caveat emptor."
Let's not forget no British newspaper has followed the example of the NYT and apologised for being so easily duped by the intelligence
services in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq.
~
Richard Keeble's publications include Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare (John
Libbey 1997) and The Newspapers Handbook (Routledge, fourth edition, 2005). He is also the editor of Ethical Space: The International
Journal of Communication Ethics. Richard is also a member of the War and Media Network.
amazing, simply amazing. You need to watch this Town Hall in full to appreciate the skills she demonstrated in defense of
her principles. What a fearless young lady.
And this CNN warmonger, a prostitute of MIC was/is pretty devious. Question were selected with malice to hurt Tulsi and people who
ask them were definitely pre-selected with an obvious intent to smear Tulsi. In no way those were spontaneous question. This was a session
of Neocon//Neolib inquisition. Tulsi behaves like a modern Joan of Arc
From comments: "People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000
unique donors required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25"(mrfuzztone)
Notable quotes:
"... Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people are starting to get fed up with the show. About time ..."
"... WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CRONY CAPITALIST PYRAMID SCHEME AND CNN PLAYS IT'S PART TO KEEP THAT SYSTEM IN PLACE ..."
"... I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi. ..."
Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people
are starting to get fed up with the show. About time✌️ 😉
I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have
I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate
Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins.
Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi.
Tulsi handled these hacks like a pro LOOL Are you a capitalist? LOL What s stupid question.....CCN usually stacks there town
halls with corporate cronies. I bet Bernie picks her for a high position in his government.
People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000 unique donors
required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25.
"... General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children. ..."
"... Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War". ..."
"... The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war. ..."
"... the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces. ..."
"... The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening ..."
"... In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing. ..."
"... The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. ..."
"... Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet. ..."
"... But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day. ..."
The American Public has gotten exactly what it deserved. They have been dumbed-down in our poor-by-intention school systems. The
moronic nonsense that passes for news in this country gets more sensational with each passing day. Over on Fox, they are making
the claim that ISIS fighters are bringing Ebola over the Mexican Border, which prompted a reply by the Mexican Embassy that won't
be reported on Fox.
We continue to hear and it was even reported in this very fine article by Ms. Benjamin that the American
People now support this new war. Really? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that support anywhere but on the news and I just don't
believe it any more.
There is also the little problem of infiltration into key media slots by paid CIA Assets (Scarborough and brainless Mika are
two of these double dippers). Others are intermarried. Right-wing Neocon War Criminal Dan Senor is married to "respected" newsperson
Campbell Brown who is now involved in privatizing our school system. Victoria Nuland, the slimey State Department Official who
was overheard appointing the members of the future Ukrainian Government prior to the Maidan Coup is married to another Neo-Con--Larry
Kagan. Even sweet little Andrea Mitchell is actually Mrs. Alan Greenspan.
General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC.
MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market.
Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being
CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli
Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women
and Children.
Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is
connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option
discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to
a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior
put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War".
Yesterday there was a coordinated action by all of the networks, which was clearly designed to support the idea that the generals
want Obama to act and he just won't. The not-so-subtle message was that the generals were right and that the President's "inaction"
was somehow out of line-since, after all, the generals have recommended more war. It was as if these people don't remember that
the President, sleazy War Criminal that he is, is still the Commander in Chief.
The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our
various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that
they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war.
Finally, this Sunday every NFL Game will begin with some Patriotic "Honor America" Display, which will include a missing man
flyover, flags and fireworks, plenty of uniforms, wounded Vets and soon-to-be-wounded Vets. A giant American Flag will, once again,
cover the fields and hundreds of stupid young kids will rush down to their "Military Career Center" right after the game. These
are the ones that I pity most.
Let's be frank: powerful interests want war and subsequent puppet regimes in the half dozen nations that the neo-cons have been
eyeing (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan). These interests surely include industries like banking, arms and oil-all of
whom make a killing on any war, and would stand to do well with friendly governments who could finance more arms purchases and
will never nationalize the oil.
So, the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come
back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact
that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark
forces.
IanB52, 10 October 2014 6:57pm
The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening. When I'm down at the gym they always have CNN on (I can
only imagine what FOX is like) which is a pretty much dyed in the wool yellow jingoist station at this point. With all the segments
they dedicate to ISIS, a new war, the "imminent" terrorist threat, they seem to favor talking heads who support a full ground
war and I have never, not once, heard anyone even speak about the mere possibility of peace. Not ever.
In media universe there
is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing.
I'd imagine that these media companies have a lot stock in and a cozy relationship with the defense contractors.
Damiano Iocovozzi, 10 October 2014 7:04pm
The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. The media doesn't report on anything but
relies on repeating manufactured crises, creating manufactured consent & discussing manufactured solutions. Follow the oil, the
pipelines & the money. Both R's & D's are left & right cheeks of the same buttock. Thanks to Citizens United & even Hobby Lobby,
a compliant Supreme Court, also owned by United States of Corporations, it's a done deal.
Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer
have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department
to your favorite media outlet.
Let me give you one clear example. A year ago Barack Obama came very close to bombing Syria to
kingdom come, the justification used was "Assad gassed his own people", referring to a sarin gas attack near Damascus. Well, it
turns out that Assad did not initiate that attack, discovered by research from many sources including the prestigious MIT, it
was a false flag attack planned by Turkey and carried out by some of Obama's own "moderate rebels".
But all that research from
MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written
still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and
distorts and misrepresents the news every day.
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services?
Notable quotes:
"... Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? ..."
"... "Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5." ..."
"... Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll. ..."
"... The heart of the secret state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants. ..."
"... As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood at the end of their career". ..."
"... Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance. ..."
Can you trust the BBC news? How many journalists are working for the security services? The following extracts are from
an article at the excellent Medialens
And so to Nottingham University (on Sunday 26 February) for a well-attended conference...
I focus in my talk on the links between journalists and the intelligence services: While it might be difficult to identify precisely
the impact of the spooks (variously represented in the press as "intelligence", "security", "Whitehall" or "Home Office" sources)
on mainstream politics and media, from the limited evidence it looks to be enormous.
As Roy Greenslade, media specialist at the Telegraph (formerly the Guardian), commented:
"Most tabloid newspapers - or even newspapers in general - are playthings of MI5."
Bloch and Fitzgerald, in their examination of covert UK warfare, report the editor of "one of Britain's most distinguished
journals" as believing that more than half its foreign correspondents were on the MI6 payroll.
And in 1991, Richard Norton-Taylor revealed in the Guardian that 500 prominent Britons paid by the CIA and the now defunct
Bank of Commerce and Credit International, included 90 journalists.
In their analysis of the contemporary secret state, Dorril and Ramsay gave the media a crucial role. The heart of the secret
state they identified as the security services, the cabinet office and upper echelons of the Home and Commonwealth Offices, the armed
forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries together a network of senior civil servants.
As "satellites" of the secret state, their list included "agents of influence in the media, ranging from actual agents of
the security services, conduits of official leaks, to senior journalists merely lusting after official praise and, perhaps, a knighthood
at the end of their career".
Phillip Knightley, author of a seminal history of the intelligence services, has even claimed that at least one intelligence agent
is working on every Fleet Street newspaper.
A brief history
Going as far back as 1945, George Orwell no less became a war correspondent for the Observer - probably as a
cover for intelligence work. Significantly most of the men he met in Paris on his assignment, Freddie Ayer, Malcolm Muggeridge, Ernest
Hemingway were either working for the intelligence services or had close links to them.
Stephen Dorril, in his seminal history of MI6, reports that Orwell attended a meeting in Paris of resistance fighters on behalf
of David Astor, his editor at the Observer and leader of the intelligence service's unit liasing with the French resistance.
The release of Public Record Office documents in 1995 about some of the operations of the MI6-financed propaganda unit, the
Information Research Department of the Foreign Office, threw light on this secret body - which even Orwell aided
by sending them a list of "crypto-communists". Set up by the Labour government in 1948, it "ran" dozens of Fleet Street journalists
and a vast array of news agencies across the globe until it was closed down by Foreign Secretary David Owen in 1977.
According to John Pilger in the anti-colonial struggles in Kenya, Malaya and Cyprus, IRD was so successful that the journalism
served up as a record of those episodes was a cocktail of the distorted and false in which the real aims and often atrocious behaviour
of the British intelligence agencies was hidden.
And spy novelist John le Carré, who worked for MI6 between 1960 and 1964, has made the amazing statement that the British secret
service then controlled large parts of the press – just as they may do today.
In 1975, following Senate hearings on the CIA, the reports of the Senate's Church Committee and the House of Representatives'
Pike Committee highlighted the extent of agency recruitment of both British and US journalists.
And sources revealed that half the foreign staff of a British daily were on the MI6 payroll.
David Leigh, in The Wilson Plot, his seminal study of the way in which the secret service smeared through the mainstream media
and destabilised the Government of Harold Wilson before his sudden resignation in 1976, quotes an MI5 officer: "We have somebody
in every office in Fleet Street"
Leaker King
And the most famous whistleblower of all, Peter (Spycatcher) Wright, revealed that MI5 had agents in newspapers and publishing
companies whose main role was to warn them of any forthcoming "embarrassing publications".
Wright also disclosed that the Daily Mirror tycoon, Cecil King, "was a longstanding agent of ours" who "made it clear
he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction".
Selective details about Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, were leaked by the intelligence services to sympathetic Fleet
Street journalists. Wright comments: "No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot". King was also closely
involved in a scheme in 1968 to oust Prime Minister Harold Wilson and replace him with a coalition headed by Lord Mountbatten.
Hugh Cudlipp, editorial director of the Mirror from 1952 to 1974, was also closely linked to intelligence, according
to Chris Horrie, in his recently published history of the newspaper.
David Walker, the Mirror's foreign correspondent in the 1950s, was named as an MI6 agent following a security
scandal while another Mirror journalist, Stanley Bonnet, admitted working for MI5 in the 1980s investigating the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament.
Maxwell and Mossad
According to Stephen Dorril, intelligence gathering during the miners' strike of 1984-85 was helped by the fact that during the
1970s MI5's F Branch had made a special effort to recruit industrial correspondents – with great success.
In 1991, just before his mysterious death, Mirror proprietor Robert Maxwell was accused by the US investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh of acting for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, though Dorril suggests his links with MI6
were equally as strong.
Following the resignation from the Guardian of Richard Gott, its literary editor in December 1994 in the wake of allegations that
he was a paid agent of the KGB, the role of journalists as spies suddenly came under the media spotlight – and many of the leaks
were fascinating.
For instance, according to The Times editorial of 16 December 1994: "Many British journalists benefited from CIA or MI6 largesse
during the Cold War."
The intimate links between journalists and the secret services were highlighted in the autobiography of the eminent newscaster
Sandy Gall. He reports without any qualms how, after returning from one of his reporting assignments to Afghanistan, he was asked
to lunch by the head of MI6. "It was very informal, the cook was off so we had cold meat and salad with plenty of wine. He wanted
to hear what I had to say about the war in Afghanistan. I was flattered, of course, and anxious to pass on what I could in terms
of first-hand knowledge."
And in January 2001, the renegade MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, claimed Dominic Lawson, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph
and son of the former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson, provided journalistic cover for an MI6 officer on a mission to the Baltic to
handle and debrief a young Russian diplomat who was spying for Britain.
Lawson strongly denied the allegations.
Similarly in the reporting of Northern Ireland, there have been longstanding concerns over security service disinformation. Susan
McKay, Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, has criticised the reckless reporting of material from "dodgy security
services". She told a conference in Belfast in January 2003 organised by the National Union of Journalists and the Northern Ireland
Human Rights Commission: "We need to be suspicious when people are so ready to provide information and that we are, in fact, not
being used." (www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=635)
Growing power of secret state
Thus from this evidence alone it is clear there has been a long history of links between hacks and spooks in both the UK and US.
But as the secret state grows in power, through massive resourcing, through a whole raft of legislation – such as the Official
Secrets Act, the anti-terrorism legislation, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and so on – and as intelligence moves into
the heart of Blair's ruling clique so these links are even more significant.
Since September 11 all of Fleet Street has been awash in warnings by anonymous intelligence sources of terrorist threats.
According to former Labour minister Michael Meacher, much of this disinformation was spread via sympathetic journalists by
the Rockingham cell within the MoD.
A parallel exercise, through the office of Special Plans, was set up by Donald Rumsfeld in the US. Thus there have been constant
attempts to scare people – and justify still greater powers for the national security apparatus.
Similarly the disinformation about Iraq's WMD was spread by dodgy intelligence sources via gullible journalists.
Thus, to take just one example, Michael Evans, The Times defence correspondent, reported on 29 November 2002: "Saddam Hussein
has ordered hundred of his officials to conceal weapons of mass destruction components in their homes to evade the prying eyes of
the United Nations inspectors." The source of these "revelations" was said to be "intelligence picked up from within Iraq". Early
in 2004, as the battle for control of Iraq continued with mounting casualties on both sides, it was revealed that many of the lies
about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD had been fed to sympathetic journalists in the US, Britain and Australia by the exile group,
the Iraqi National Congress.
Sexed up – and missed out
During the controversy that erupted following the end of the "war" and the death of the arms inspector Dr David Kelly (and the
ensuing Hutton inquiry) the spotlight fell on BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the claim by one of his sources that the government
(in collusion with the intelligence services) had "sexed up" a dossier justifying an attack on Iraq.
The Hutton inquiry, its every twist and turn massively covered in the mainstream media, was the archetypal media spectacle that
drew attention from the real issue: why did the Bush and Blair governments invade Iraq in the face of massive global opposition?
But those facts will be forever secret.
Significantly, too, the broader and more significant issue of mainstream journalists' links with the intelligence services was
ignored by the inquiry.
Significantly, on 26 May 2004, the New York Times carried a 1,200-word editorial admitting it had been duped in its coverage of
WMD in the lead-up to the invasion by dubious Iraqi defectors, informants and exiles (though it failed to lay any blame on the US
President: see Greenslade 2004). Chief among The Times' dodgy informants was Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress
and Pentagon favourite before his Baghdad house was raided by US forces on 20 May.
Then, in the Observer of 30 May 2004, David Rose admitted he had been the victim of a "calculated set-up" devised to foster the
propaganda case for war. "In the 18 months before the invasion of March 2003, I dealt regularly with Chalabi and the INC and published
stories based on interviews with men they said were defectors from Saddam's regime." And he concluded: "The information fog is thicker
than in any previous war, as I know now from bitter personal experience. To any journalist being offered apparently sensational disclosures,
especially from an anonymous intelligence source, I offer two words of advice: caveat emptor."
Let's not forget no British newspaper has followed the example of the NYT and apologised for being so easily duped by the intelligence
services in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq.
~
Richard Keeble's publications include Secret State, Silent Press: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare (John
Libbey 1997) and The Newspapers Handbook (Routledge, fourth edition, 2005). He is also the editor of Ethical Space: The International
Journal of Communication Ethics. Richard is also a member of the War and Media Network.
Vesti calls out Pompeo on lying about Russia invading Ukraine [Video]
Secretary Pompeo displayed either stunning ignorance or a mass-attack of propaganda about
what must be the most invisible war in history.
After the 2014 Maidan revolution and the subsequent secessions of
Lugansk and Donetsk in Ukraine, and after the rejoining of Crimea with its original nation of
Russia, the Western media went on a campaign to prove the Russia is (/ was / was about to / had
already / might / was thinking about / was planning to etc.) invade Ukraine. For the next year
or so, about every two weeks, internet news sources like Yahoo! News showed viewers pictures of
tanks, box trucks and convoys to "prove" that the invasion was underway (or any of the other
statuses confirming the possibilities above stated.) This information was doubtless provided to
US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
Apparently, Secretary Pompeo believed this ruse, or is being paid to believe this ruse
because in a speech recently,
he talked about it as fact:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Russia's annexation of Crimea and aggression in
eastern Ukraine an attempt to gain access to Ukraine's oil and gas reserves. He stated this
at IHS Markit's CERAWeek conference in Houston, the USA,
Reuters reports.
Pompeo urged the oil industry to work with the Trump administration to promote U.S.
foreign policy interests, especially in Asia and in Europe, and to punish what he called "bad
actors" on the world stage.
The United States has imposed harsh sanctions in the past several months on two major
world oil producers, Venezuela and Iran.
Pompeo said the U.S. oil-and-gas export boom had given the United States the ability to
meet energy demand once satisfied by its geopolitical rivals.
"We don't want our European allies hooked on Russian gas through the Nord Stream 2
project, any more than we ourselves want to be dependent on Venezuelan oil supplies," Pompeo
said, referring to a
natural gas pipeline expansion from Russia to Central Europe .
Pompeo called Russia's invasion of Ukraine an attempt to gain access to the country's oil
and gas reserves.
Although the state-run news agency Vesti News often comes under criticism for rather
reckless, or at least, extremely sarcastic propaganda at times, here they rightly nailed Mr.
Pompeo's lies to the wall and billboarded it on their program:
The news anchors even made a wisecrack about one of the political figures, Konstantin
Zatulin saying as a joke that Russia plans to invade the United States to get its oil. They
further noted that Secretary Pompeo is uneducated about the region and situation, but they
offered him the chance to come to Russia and learn the correct information about what is going
on.
However, the oil and gas side of the anti-Russian propaganda operation by the US is
significant. The US wishes for Europe to buy gas from American suppliers, even though this is
woefully inconvenient and expensive when Russia is literally at Europe's doorstep with easy
supplies. However, the Cold War Party in the United States, which still has a significant hold
on US policy making categorizes the sale of Russia gas to powers like NATO ally Germany as a
"threat" to European security.
It is interesting that Angela Merkel herself does not hold this line of thinking. It is also
interesting and worthy of note, that this is not the only NATO member that is dealing more and
more with Russia in terms of business. It underscores the loss of purpose that the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization suffers now since there is no Soviet Union to fight.
However, the US remains undaunted. If there is no enemy to fight, the Americans feel that
they must create one, and Russia has been the main scapegoat for American power ambitions. More
than ever now, this tactic appears to be the one in use for determining the US stance towards
other powers in the world.
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Reading
Reminder why should never listen to MadCow show ;-). And BTW MadCow is paid 30K a day... You
decide whether she is lazy and incompetent, or bought and evil...
Before the election, Rachel Maddow pointed out new polling that showed a strong shift
towards Democrats in key "toss up" states, all states Trump won. Jimmy Dore breaks it down.
Subscribe...
Vesti calls out Pompeo on lying about Russia invading Ukraine [Video]
Secretary Pompeo displayed either stunning ignorance or a mass-attack of propaganda about
what must be the most invisible war in history.
After the 2014 Maidan revolution and the subsequent secessions of
Lugansk and Donetsk in Ukraine, and after the rejoining of Crimea with its original nation of
Russia, the Western media went on a campaign to prove the Russia is (/ was / was about to / had
already / might / was thinking about / was planning to etc.) invade Ukraine. For the next year
or so, about every two weeks, internet news sources like Yahoo! News showed viewers pictures of
tanks, box trucks and convoys to "prove" that the invasion was underway (or any of the other
statuses confirming the possibilities above stated.) This information was doubtless provided to
US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
Apparently, Secretary Pompeo believed this ruse, or is being paid to believe this ruse
because in a speech recently,
he talked about it as fact:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Russia's annexation of Crimea and aggression in
eastern Ukraine an attempt to gain access to Ukraine's oil and gas reserves. He stated this
at IHS Markit's CERAWeek conference in Houston, the USA,
Reuters reports.
Pompeo urged the oil industry to work with the Trump administration to promote U.S.
foreign policy interests, especially in Asia and in Europe, and to punish what he called "bad
actors" on the world stage.
The United States has imposed harsh sanctions in the past several months on two major
world oil producers, Venezuela and Iran.
Pompeo said the U.S. oil-and-gas export boom had given the United States the ability to
meet energy demand once satisfied by its geopolitical rivals.
"We don't want our European allies hooked on Russian gas through the Nord Stream 2
project, any more than we ourselves want to be dependent on Venezuelan oil supplies," Pompeo
said, referring to a
natural gas pipeline expansion from Russia to Central Europe .
Pompeo called Russia's invasion of Ukraine an attempt to gain access to the country's oil
and gas reserves.
Although the state-run news agency Vesti News often comes under criticism for rather
reckless, or at least, extremely sarcastic propaganda at times, here they rightly nailed Mr.
Pompeo's lies to the wall and billboarded it on their program:
The news anchors even made a wisecrack about one of the political figures, Konstantin
Zatulin saying as a joke that Russia plans to invade the United States to get its oil. They
further noted that Secretary Pompeo is uneducated about the region and situation, but they
offered him the chance to come to Russia and learn the correct information about what is going
on.
However, the oil and gas side of the anti-Russian propaganda operation by the US is
significant. The US wishes for Europe to buy gas from American suppliers, even though this is
woefully inconvenient and expensive when Russia is literally at Europe's doorstep with easy
supplies. However, the Cold War Party in the United States, which still has a significant hold
on US policy making categorizes the sale of Russia gas to powers like NATO ally Germany as a
"threat" to European security.
It is interesting that Angela Merkel herself does not hold this line of thinking. It is also
interesting and worthy of note, that this is not the only NATO member that is dealing more and
more with Russia in terms of business. It underscores the loss of purpose that the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization suffers now since there is no Soviet Union to fight.
However, the US remains undaunted. If there is no enemy to fight, the Americans feel that
they must create one, and Russia has been the main scapegoat for American power ambitions. More
than ever now, this tactic appears to be the one in use for determining the US stance towards
other powers in the world.
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Reading
amazing, simply amazing. You need to watch this Town Hall in full to appreciate the skills she demonstrated in defense of
her principles. What a fearless young lady.
And this CNN warmonger, a prostitute of MIC was/is pretty devious. Question were selected with malice to hurt Tulsi and people who
ask them were definitely pre-selected with an obvious intent to smear Tulsi. In no way those were spontaneous question. This was a session
of Neocon//Neolib inquisition. Tulsi behaves like a modern Joan of Arc
From comments: "People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000
unique donors required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25"(mrfuzztone)
Notable quotes:
"... Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people are starting to get fed up with the show. About time ..."
"... WE CURRENTLY HAVE A CRONY CAPITALIST PYRAMID SCHEME AND CNN PLAYS IT'S PART TO KEEP THAT SYSTEM IN PLACE ..."
"... I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins. Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi. ..."
Braver then 99.9% of all men in power. They just enjoy watching the blood sports they create for profit. Looks like people
are starting to get fed up with the show. About time✌️ 😉
I'm 66, a Progressive formerly from Boston where we eat and breathe politics and I'll tell you... never in my life have
I seen a Democratic candidate like this fearless young woman who will simultaneously attract veterans AND anti-war folks AND moderate
Republicans AND youth. NO OTHER CANDIDATE CAN DO THIS. My absolute belief is that if Tulsi's not on the ticket... Trump wins.
Sorry Bernie, this time I'm going with Tulsi.
Tulsi handled these hacks like a pro LOOL Are you a capitalist? LOL What s stupid question.....CCN usually stacks there town
halls with corporate cronies. I bet Bernie picks her for a high position in his government.
People need to donate to Tulsi Gabbard for president so she is allowed on the DNC sponsored debate stages. 65000 unique donors
required to be in the debates. Donation can be as small as $1 if you can't afford $25.
CNN is just mouthpiece for intelligence community and MIC
The question of a type "did you finished to beat your wife" are very difficult to ask. So how
skillfully Tulsi handled those "sinking" question comment her skills.
The problem with Jimmy Dore is he has some kind of mental block or is somehow completely
unaware of the reasons we bomb countries that are hostile to Israel and located right on
their border or at least near them. You also have to be completely unaware of the power of
the Jewish lobbies and their obvious bias towards their own interests to ignore Jews role in
promoting wars that benefit Israel. It's not the "military industrial complex" Jimmy, it's
who controls that complex. Jeff Zucker, the head of CNN is a Jew, that like Jake Tapper (also
a Jew) sees any destruction of Syria as beneficial to Israel. The neo-Con Max Boot was born
in Russia and still wants to bomb Russia because he's a Jew that doesn't want Putin
preventing Jewish controlled US from destroying Syria. I can level some similar criticism at
Jimmy that he levels at the mainstream media.
Rubble aftermath of a Saudi airstrike on a Yemeni neighborhood in 2015.
Almigdad Mojalli/Voice of America The Wall Street Journal echoes Pompeo's
obnoxious Yemen
lies in their editorial on the antiwar resolution that the Senate passed last week:
The Saudis aren't in danger of an Iranian invasion, but don't underestimate the signal
that abandoning our ally would send across the Middle East. It will be seen by Iran and
Russia as an invitation to more trouble-making, and another signal to allies that the U.S.
can't be trusted. More war is the likeliest result.
There is no foreign war so despicable and unjust that The Wall Street Journal won't
defend it to the end. It is telling that the WSJ editors don't talk about the war on
Yemen until Congress moves to try to withdraw the U.S. from it. The massive humanitarian crisis
that threatens the lives of as many as 15 million Yemenis doesn't concern them (and it never
comes up in this editorial), because if they mentioned it that would remind everyone that the
Saudi coalition bears the greatest responsibility for causing mass starvation and creating the
conditions for the world's worst modern cholera outbreak. The U.S. has not only been enabling
Saudi war crimes in its bombing campaign, but our government has also been helping to create
the world's worst humanitarian crisis through our unstinting support for the war. The editorial
omits all of this because including it would show how breathtakingly cynical and horrible the
pro-war argument is. War supporters never acknowledge the consequences of the destructive
policies they defend because they know it would discredit them, and so they try to change the
subject to anything else. In this case, war supporters have been desperate to make the Yemen
debate about Iran because they cannot honestly talk about the costs of the conflict or the U.S.
role in it.
Saudi Arabia is not an ally of the United States, and our government isn't obliged to
support them in a military intervention they chose to begin along with the United Arab Emirates
without consulting Washington. The U.S. certainly isn't obliged to indulge them in their failed
war of choice almost four years later. The war has become a drain on Saudi and Emirati
resources, and it has exposed them as weak, cruel, and incompetent as they have devastated
Yemen's infrastructure, starved its people, and failed achieved any of their stated goals. No
one should care about doing these despotic governments any favors, but forcing them to end
their war would be doing them a favor all the same. If the U.S. were perceived as abandoning
the Saudis by halting support for their war, that would be guaranteed to improve our country's
reputation around the world rather than harm it. The U.S.-Saudi relationship is a liability and
an embarrassment for our country, and the sooner we are rid of it in its current form the
better it will be for us and the region.
Supporters of the war on Yemen have no rational argument for continued U.S. involvement, and
so they are reduced to changing the subject from the war criminal states that the U.S. aids and
abets to the Iranian government that has almost nothing to do with the conflict. Ending U.S.
support for the war would be a "gift" to Iran, the WSJ editors tell us, as if four years
of keeping the Saudis and Emiratis bogged down in a war they cannot win has done anything to
harm Iran or curtail its influence in the region. The lie at the heart of the war on Yemen is
that it has something to do with opposing so-called Iranian "expansionism," but it is the war
itself that has done more for Iranian influence in Yemen than anything else. The longer that
the U.S. enables the Saudi coalition to continue its senseless and indefensible campaign, the
better it is for the Saudis' and Emiratis' rivals. Iran hawks are always wrong about what
benefits Iran's government and what harms it, and this is no exception.
The editorial's comparison between last week's vote and Congressional opposition to
continued involvement in the Vietnam War is unintentionally revealing and damning for their
side. Just like supporters of the Vietnam War, supporters of the war on Yemen are defending a
war that can't be won in a place where the U.S. should never have been involved. In this case,
war supporters are squarely on the side of the aggressors, and in their continued backing for
this disgraceful policy they show their utter contempt for the lives of the people of
Yemen.
This MIC prostitute Karan, like his wife Nuland are un-reformable. They just earn their living ing by warmongering. And they
will screem like pigs if they are deprived from those money, and do not care one bit how many people will be
killed as the result of their policies.
There is no war that those neocon chickenhawks do not like. It's their family racket.
Notable quotes:
"... Kagan's preferred foreign policy requires that there is some global "ideological confrontation" for the U.S. to be engaged in. If there isn't one, it has to be invented. ..."
"... Kagan isn't all that interested in details or accuracy. Those are "beside the point." ..."
"... Kagan doesn't make it explicit in this essay, but his larger goal in all of this is to advocate for a more confrontational foreign policy mobilized against the authoritarian enemies that he has described. He hints at this when he disparages contemporary "realists" ..."
"... realists, non-interventionists, and progressives that see no compelling reason for the U.S. to engage in destructive rivalries with major authoritarian powers in their own backyards. Except for a lame, overused comparison to the 1930s, Kagan doesn't even try to explain why we are wrong to think this. Kagan assumes that such destructive rivalries are both necessary and desirable, and this essay is the latest part of his effort to lay the groundwork for the ideological justification for those rivalries. ..."
"... A recent WSJ article (03/11/19) titled "Russian Gas Plan Divides U.S., Allies" with the subtitle "Washington fears undersea project would make Germany too reliant on Moscow" tells the tale of what the real reasons for America to demonize Russia and Putin. The U.S. leaders fear that the German-Russian pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, will make Europe reliant on Russian energy instead of Europe purchasing it energy from the United States. What gives the U.S. the right to stop one nation from doing commerce with other nations? The answer is "Greed." ..."
"... Kagan is and will until the bitter end defend American hegemony and the ideological mantle will be used as a cover ..."
"... People also forget that US is not a democracy, but a managed Republic, and according to all indicators, it is not even that liberal ..."
"... The fallout from the actions of these "interventionists" is millions are dead in a number of countries. Millions are refugees and thousands of soldiers are dead or maimed. More facts on these war criminals at link below. https://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-facts-on-crimes-of-war-criminals.html ..."
"... This Kagan family, with Robert now the lead figure, has done a great deal towards furthering conflicts and violence in the world. It is long past time that they be put in their place, whatever that is, but it will not happen because their Zionist mindset is very well funded. ..."
"... "The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for and endorsed. We shouldn't make the same mistake again when the stakes are even higher." We ought to do more than that. He should be muzzled and sent to live in a cave somewhere to repent the consequences of the terrible damage he and other incompetents have done to America. That people like this still have access to the media is almost beyond belief. ..."
Brookings Senior Fellow and author Robert Kagan in March 2018. (Brookings Institution/Paul Morigi) Robert Kagan
warns us about global authoritarianism:
Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days, the one for which we are least
prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism. We are not used to thinking of authoritarianism as a
distinct worldview that offers a real alternative to liberalism.
We are not used to thinking of authoritarianism as a distinct worldview because it isn't one. All authoritarian states share certain
things in common, and they may see some of the same things as threats, but there isn't a single worldview that all authoritarian
governments subscribe to. There is no one ideology that binds them together. Most of them are nationalistic to one degree or another,
but because of that they usually have competing and opposing goals. Treating all authoritarian regimes as part of the same global
threat lumps illiberal and majoritarian democracies together with kleptocracies, communist dictatorships, and absolute monarchies.
That exaggerates the danger that these regimes pose, and it tries to invent a Cold War-like division between rival camps that doesn't
really exist. If the U.S. treats these states as if they are all in league with one another, it will tend to drive together states
that would otherwise remain at odds and keep each other at arm's length.
Kagan's preferred foreign policy requires that there is some global "ideological confrontation" for the U.S. to be engaged in.
If there isn't one, it has to be invented. His account of the history of the 20th century shows how determined he is to see international
politics in terms of grand ideological battles even when there wasn't one. He takes seriously the idea that WWI is one of these struggles:
"But for those who fought it, on both sides, it was very much a war between liberalism and authoritarianism." Kagan makes the mistake
of treating wartime propaganda descriptions of the war as the real motivation for the war, and he relies on stereotypes of the nations
on the other side of the war as well. The world's largest colonial empires were not fighting for "the liberties of Europe" and they
certainly weren't fighting for the rights of small nations, as wartime British propaganda would have it, and that became abundantly
clear in the post-war settlement. It was primarily a war among empires for supremacy in Europe, and the surviving Allied empires
consolidated their hold on their own colonial possessions and gained more. To the extent that Americans genuinely believed that joining
the war had something to do with vindicating the cause of democracy, they were quickly disabused of that notion when they saw the
fruits of the vindictive settlement that their allies imposed on the losing side.
Kagan admits that there are many differences of regime type that he is trying to collapse into one group:
We have become lost in endless categorizations, viewing each type of non-liberal government as unique and unrelated to the
others -- the illiberal democracy, the "liberal" or "liberalizing" autocracy, the "competitive" and "hybrid" authoritarianism.
These different categories certainly describe the myriad ways non-liberal societies may be governed. But in the most fundamental
way, all of this is beside the point.
In other words, Kagan isn't all that interested in details or accuracy. Those are "beside the point." What matters is dividing
up the world into two opposing camps: "Nations are either liberal, meaning that there are permanent institutions and unchanging norms
that protect the "unalienable" rights of individuals against all who would infringe on those rights, whether the state or the majority;
or they are not liberal." The criteria for qualifying as a liberal nation are extremely demanding. What institutions can honestly
be called "permanent" and what norms are ever truly "unchanging"? Judged against this extreme and unreasonable standard, there won't
ever be many nations that qualify as liberal, including quite a few that we would normally consider liberal democracies in good standing.
That makes it a lot easier for Kagan to exaggerate the power of "resurgent authoritarianism."
Kagan doesn't make it explicit in this essay, but his larger goal in all of this is to advocate for a more confrontational foreign
policy mobilized against the authoritarian enemies that he has described. He hints at this when he disparages contemporary "realists"
whom he doesn't name or cite:
Just as during the 1930s, when realists such as Robert Taft assured Americans that their lives would be undisturbed by the
collapse of democracy in Europe and the triumph of authoritarianism in Asia, so we have realists today insisting that we pull
back from confronting the great authoritarian powers rising in Eurasia.
To be much more accurate, there are realists, non-interventionists, and progressives that see no compelling reason for the U.S.
to engage in destructive rivalries with major authoritarian powers in their own backyards. Except for a lame, overused comparison
to the 1930s, Kagan doesn't even try to explain why we are wrong to think this. Kagan assumes that such destructive rivalries are
both necessary and desirable, and this essay is the latest part of his effort to lay the groundwork for the ideological justification
for those rivalries.
Kagan's analysis suffers from the problem of mirror-imaging that always plagues ideologues. He assumes that everyone sees the
world in starkly ideological categories just as he does, and he thinks that other actors are just as determined to export their ideology
as he is. His entire worldview depends on linking great power competition with larger ideological causes, and for almost thirty years
there has been no such "ideological confrontation" for Kagan to theorize about. Despite Kagan's insistence to the contrary, there
still isn't. He wants the U.S. to take a more confrontational approach to dealing with Russia and China, and in order to sell that
today he has to dress it up as something more than the destructive and costly pursuit of hegemony that he has been pushing for decades.
The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for and endorsed.
We shouldn't make the same mistake again when the stakes are even higher.
A recent WSJ article (03/11/19) titled "Russian Gas Plan Divides U.S., Allies" with the subtitle "Washington fears undersea
project would make Germany too reliant on Moscow" tells the tale of what the real reasons for America to demonize Russia and Putin.
The U.S. leaders fear that the German-Russian pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, will make Europe reliant on Russian energy instead
of Europe purchasing it energy from the United States. What gives the U.S. the right to stop one nation from doing commerce with
other nations? The answer is "Greed."
All wars are predicated on lies, and all wars are fought for economic reasons and not the so called humanitarian reasons that
are fed to the people.
Always insightful indeed: Kagan is and will until the bitter end defend American hegemony and the ideological mantle will
be used as a cover (Mel Gibson screaming "Freedom!" in Bravehart; killing the babies and stealing the incubators!).
People also forget that US is not a democracy, but a managed Republic, and according to all indicators, it is not even
that liberal
So better save this post because you are still young and in 30 years from now you will be able to re-post it and just change
a couple of names
Anytime, anywhere, anyone comes out and destroys kagan's Zionist globalist babble as you have done, it is a very commendable
exercise for the good of mankind and America.
This Kagan family, with Robert now the lead figure, has done a great deal towards furthering conflicts and violence in
the world. It is long past time that they be put in their place, whatever that is, but it will not happen because their Zionist
mindset is very well funded.
"The U.S. has spent the last twenty years fighting wars that Kagan and other like-minded interventionists advocated for
and endorsed. We shouldn't make the same mistake again when the stakes are even higher."
We ought to do more than that. He should be muzzled and sent to live in a cave somewhere to repent the consequences of the
terrible damage he and other incompetents have done to America. That people like this still have access to the media is almost
beyond belief.
Reminder why should never listen to MadCow show ;-). And BTW MadCow is paid 30K a day... You
decide whether she is lazy and incompetent, or bought and evil...
Before the election, Rachel Maddow pointed out new polling that showed a strong shift
towards Democrats in key "toss up" states, all states Trump won. Jimmy Dore breaks it down.
Subscribe...
"... General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children. ..."
"... Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War". ..."
"... The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war. ..."
"... the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces. ..."
"... The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening ..."
"... In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing. ..."
"... The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. ..."
"... Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet. ..."
"... But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day. ..."
The American Public has gotten exactly what it deserved. They have been dumbed-down in our poor-by-intention school systems. The
moronic nonsense that passes for news in this country gets more sensational with each passing day. Over on Fox, they are making
the claim that ISIS fighters are bringing Ebola over the Mexican Border, which prompted a reply by the Mexican Embassy that won't
be reported on Fox.
We continue to hear and it was even reported in this very fine article by Ms. Benjamin that the American
People now support this new war. Really? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that support anywhere but on the news and I just don't
believe it any more.
There is also the little problem of infiltration into key media slots by paid CIA Assets (Scarborough and brainless Mika are
two of these double dippers). Others are intermarried. Right-wing Neocon War Criminal Dan Senor is married to "respected" newsperson
Campbell Brown who is now involved in privatizing our school system. Victoria Nuland, the slimey State Department Official who
was overheard appointing the members of the future Ukrainian Government prior to the Maidan Coup is married to another Neo-Con--Larry
Kagan. Even sweet little Andrea Mitchell is actually Mrs. Alan Greenspan.
General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC.
MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market.
Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being
CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli
Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women
and Children.
Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is
connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option
discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to
a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior
put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War".
Yesterday there was a coordinated action by all of the networks, which was clearly designed to support the idea that the generals
want Obama to act and he just won't. The not-so-subtle message was that the generals were right and that the President's "inaction"
was somehow out of line-since, after all, the generals have recommended more war. It was as if these people don't remember that
the President, sleazy War Criminal that he is, is still the Commander in Chief.
The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our
various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that
they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war.
Finally, this Sunday every NFL Game will begin with some Patriotic "Honor America" Display, which will include a missing man
flyover, flags and fireworks, plenty of uniforms, wounded Vets and soon-to-be-wounded Vets. A giant American Flag will, once again,
cover the fields and hundreds of stupid young kids will rush down to their "Military Career Center" right after the game. These
are the ones that I pity most.
Let's be frank: powerful interests want war and subsequent puppet regimes in the half dozen nations that the neo-cons have been
eyeing (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan). These interests surely include industries like banking, arms and oil-all of
whom make a killing on any war, and would stand to do well with friendly governments who could finance more arms purchases and
will never nationalize the oil.
So, the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come
back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact
that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark
forces.
IanB52, 10 October 2014 6:57pm
The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening. When I'm down at the gym they always have CNN on (I can
only imagine what FOX is like) which is a pretty much dyed in the wool yellow jingoist station at this point. With all the segments
they dedicate to ISIS, a new war, the "imminent" terrorist threat, they seem to favor talking heads who support a full ground
war and I have never, not once, heard anyone even speak about the mere possibility of peace. Not ever.
In media universe there
is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing.
I'd imagine that these media companies have a lot stock in and a cozy relationship with the defense contractors.
Damiano Iocovozzi, 10 October 2014 7:04pm
The media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. The media doesn't report on anything but
relies on repeating manufactured crises, creating manufactured consent & discussing manufactured solutions. Follow the oil, the
pipelines & the money. Both R's & D's are left & right cheeks of the same buttock. Thanks to Citizens United & even Hobby Lobby,
a compliant Supreme Court, also owned by United States of Corporations, it's a done deal.
Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer
have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department
to your favorite media outlet.
Let me give you one clear example. A year ago Barack Obama came very close to bombing Syria to
kingdom come, the justification used was "Assad gassed his own people", referring to a sarin gas attack near Damascus. Well, it
turns out that Assad did not initiate that attack, discovered by research from many sources including the prestigious MIT, it
was a false flag attack planned by Turkey and carried out by some of Obama's own "moderate rebels".
But all that research from
MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written
still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and
distorts and misrepresents the news every day.
"... It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians. ..."
"... Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation. ..."
"... What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse? ..."
"... Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. ..."
"... We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks. ..."
"... This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune. ..."
"... Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020. ..."
"... Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c ..."
"... Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. ..."
"... Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. ..."
"... Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm ..."
"... It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray! ..."
"... Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished. ..."
I could not suffer through reading the whole article. This is mainly because I have
watched the news daily about Mueller's Investigation and I sincerely believe that Mueller is
Champion of the Democrats who are trying to depose President Donald Trump at any cost.
For what Mueller found any decent lawyer with a Degree and a few years of experience could
have found what Mueller found for far far less money. Mueller only found common crimes AND NO
COLLUSION BETWEEN PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PUTIN!
The Mueller Investigation should be given to an honest broker to review, and Mueller
should be paid only what it would cost to produce the commonplace crimes Mueller, The
Democrats, and CNN has tried to convince the people that indeed Trump COLLUDED with RUSSIA.
Mueller is, a BIG NOTHING BURGER and THE DEMOCRATS AND CNN ARE MUELLER'S SINGING CANARYS!
Mueller should be jailed.
Bogdan Miller , March 15, 2019 at 11:04 am
This article explains why the Mueller Report is already highly suspect. For another thing,
we know that since before 2016, Democrats have been studying Russian Internet and hacking
tactics, and posing as Russian Bots/Trolls on Facebook and other media outlets, all in an
effort to harm President Trump.
It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians
and Democrats posing as Russians.
B.J.M. Former Intelligence Analyst and Humint Collector
vinnieoh , March 15, 2019 at 8:17 am
Moving on: the US House yesterday voted UNANIMOUSLY (remember that word, so foreign these
days to US governance?) to "urge" the new AG to release the complete Mueller report.
A
non-binding resolution, but you would think that the Democrats can't see the diesel
locomotive bearing down on their clown car, about to smash it to pieces. The new AG in turn
says he will summarize the report and that is what we will see, not the entire report. And
taxation without representation takes a new twist.
... ... ...
Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:38 pm
What else would you expect from two Political Parties who are really branches of the ONE
Party which Represents DEEP STATE".
DWS , March 15, 2019 at 5:58 am
Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the
security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week
as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand
down and close the murder case without further investigation.
Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:47 pm
EXACTLY! But, Deep State will not allow that. And, it would ruin the USA' plan to continue
to invade more sovereign countries and steal their resources such as oil and Minerals. The
people of the USA must be Ostriches or are so terrified that they accept anything their
Criminal Governments tell them.
Eventually, the chickens will come home to roost and perhaps the USA voters will ROAST
when the crimes of the USA sink the whole country. It is time for a few Brave Men and Women
to find their backbones and throw out the warmongers and their leading Oligarchs!
KiwiAntz , March 14, 2019 at 6:44 pm
What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of
the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined
Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or
Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American
Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump
impeached & removed from the Whitehouse?
If you can't get him out via a Election, try
& try again, like Maduro in Venezuela, to forcibly remove the targeted person by setting
him up with fake, false accusations & fabricated evidence? How very predictable & how
very American of Mueller & the Democratic Party. Absolute American Corruption, corrupts
absolutely?
Brian Murphy , March 15, 2019 at 10:33 am
Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on
as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another
reason to stop the investigation.
If the investigation wraps up and finds nothing, that means Trump has already completely
sold out. If the investigation continues, it means someone important still thinks Trump retains some
vestige of his balls.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pm
By last June or July the Mueller investigation has resulted in roughly 150 indictments
for perjury/financial crimes, and there was a handful of convictions to date. The report did
not support the Clinton wing's anti-Russian allegations about the 2016 election, and was
largely brushed aside by media. Mueller was then reportedly sent back in to "find something."
presumably to support the anti-Russian claims.
mike k , March 14, 2019 at 12:57 pm
From the beginning of the Russia did it story, right after Trump's electoral victory, it
was apparent that this was a fraud. The democratic party however has locked onto this
preposterous story, and they will go to their graves denying this was a scam to deny their
presidential defeat, and somehow reverse the result of Trump's election. My sincere hope is
that this blatant lie will be an albatross around the party's neck, that will carry them down
into oblivion. They have betrayed those of us who supported them for so many years. They are
in many ways now worse than the republican scum they seek to replace.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:26 pm
Trump is almost certain to be re-elected in 2020, and we'll go through this all over
again.
The very fact that the FBI never had access to the servers and took the word of a private
company that had a history of being anti-Russian is enough to throw the entire ruse out.
LJ , March 14, 2019 at 2:39 pm
Agreed!!!! and don't forget the FBI/Comey gave Hillary and her Campaign a head's up before
they moved to seize the evidence. . So too, Comey said he stopped the Investigation , thereby
rendering judgement of innocence, even though by his own words 'gross negligence' had a
occurred (which is normally considered grounds for prosecution). In doing so he exceeded the
FBI's investigative mandate. He rationalized that decision was appropriate because of the
appearance of impropriety that resulted from Attorney General Lynch having a private meeting
on a plane on a runway with Bill and Hillary . Where was the logic in that. Who called the
meeting? All were Lawyers who had served as President, Senator, Attorney General and knew
that the meeting was absolutely inappropriate. . Comey should be prosecuted if they want to
prosecute anyone else because of this CRAP. PS Trump is an idiot. Uhinfortunately he is just
a symptom of the disease at this point. Look at the cover of Rolling Stone magazine , carry a
barf bag.
Jane Christ , March 14, 2019 at 6:51 pm
Exactly. This throws doubt on the ability of the FBI to work independently. They are
working for those who want to cover -up the Hillary mess . She evidently has sufficient funds
to pay them off. I am disgusted with the level of corruption.
hetro , March 14, 2019 at 10:50 am
Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for
Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue.
If there were something hot and lingering and about to emerge, this decision is highly
unlikely, especially with the reasoning she gave at "so as not to divide the American
people." Dividing the people hasn't been of much concern throughout this bogus witch hunt on
Trump, which has added to his incompetence in leavening a growing hysteria and confusion in
this country. If there is something, anything at all, in the Mueller report to support the
collusion theory, Pelosi would I'm sure gleefully trot it out to get a lesser candidate like
Pence as opposition for 2020.
We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded
the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C.
park for transport to Wikileaks.
We must also honor Shawn Lucas assassinated for serving DNC with a litigation notice
exposing the DNC conspiracy against Sanders.
hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:18 pm
Where has Assange confirmed this? Assange's long-standing position is NOT to reveal his
sources. I believe he has continued to honor this position.
Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:15 am
It has merely been insinuated by the offering of a reward for info on Seth's murder. In
one breath he says wikileaks will never divulge a source, and in the next he offers a $20k
reward saying that sources take tremendous risk. Doesn't take much of a logical leap to
connect A to B.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:30 pm
Are you aware that Democrats split apart their 0wn voting base in the 1990s, middle class
vs. poor? The Obama years merely confirmed that this split is permanent. This is particularly
relevant for Democrats, as their voting base had long consisted of the poor and middle class,
for the common good. Ignoring this deep split hasn't made it go away.
hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:24 pm
Even more important is how the Democrats have sold out to an Establishment view favoring
neocon theory, since at least Bill Clinton. Pelosi's recent behavior with Ilhan Omar confirms
this and the split you're talking about. My point is it is distinctly odd that Pelosi is
discouraging impeachment on "dividing the Party" (already divided, of course, as you say),
whereas the Russia-gate fantasy was so hot not that long ago. Again it points to a cynical
opportunism and manipulation of the electorate. Both parties are a sad excuse to represent
ordinary people's interests.
Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:21 am
She said "dividing the country", not the party. I think she may have concerns over Trump's
heavily armed base. That said, the statement may have been a ruse. There are plenty of
Republicans that would cross the line in favor of impeachment with the right "conclusions" by
Mueller. Pelosi may be setting up for a "bombshell" conclusion by Mueller. One must never
forget that we are watching theater, and that Trump was a "mistake" to be controlled or
eliminated.
Mueller should be ashamed that he has made President Trump his main concern!! If all this
investigation would stop he could save America millions!!! He needs to quit this witch-hunt
and worry about things that really need to be handled!!! If the democrats and Trump haters
would stop pushing senseless lies hopefully this would stop ? It's so disgusting that his
democrat friend was never really investigated ? stop the witch-hunt and move forward!!!!
torture this , March 14, 2019 at 7:29 am
According to this letter, mistakes might have been made on Rachel Maddow's show. I can't
wait to read how she responds. I'd watch her show, myself except that it has the same effect
on me as ipecac.
Zhu , March 14, 2019 at 3:37 am
People will cling to "Putin made Trump President!!!" much as many cling "Obama's a Kenyan
Muslim! Not a real American!!!". Both nut theories are emotionally satisfying, no matter what
the historical facts are. Many Americans just can't admit their mistakes and blaming a
scapegoat is a way out.
O Society , March 14, 2019 at 2:03 am
Thank you VIPS for organizing this legit dissent consisting of experts in the field of
intelligence and computer forensics.
This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press"
failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call
the tune.
It is astounding how little skepticism and scientifically-informed reasoning goes on in
our media. These folks show themselves to be native advertising rather than authentic
journalists at every turn.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:33 pm
But it has been Democrats and the media that market to middle class Dems, who persist in
trying to sell the Russian Tale. They excel at ignoring the evidence that utterly contradicts
their claims.
Oh, we're well beyond your "Blame the middle class Dems" stage.
The WINNING!!! team sports bullshit drowns the entire country now the latrine's sprung a
leak. People pretend to live in bubbles made of blue or red quite like the Three Little Pigs,
isn't it? Except instead of a house made of bricks saving the day for the littlepiggies, what
we've got here is a purple puddle of piss.
Everyone's more than glad to project all our problems on "THEM" though, aren't we?
Meanwhile, the White House smells like a urinal not washed since the 1950s and simpletons
still get their rocks off arguing about whether Mickey Mouse can beat up Ronald McDonald.
T'would be comic except what's so tragic is the desperate need Americans have to believe,
oh just believe! in something. Never mind the sound of the jackhammer on your skull dear,
there's an app for that or is it a pill?
I don't know, don't ask me, I'm busy watching TV. Have a cheeto.
Very good analysis clearly stated, especially adding the FAT timestamps to the
transmission speeds.
Minor corrections: "The emails were copied from the network" should be "from the much
faster local network" because this is to Contradict the notion that they were copied over the
internet network, which most readers will equate with "network." Also "reportedin" should be
"reported in."
Michael , March 13, 2019 at 6:25 pm
It is likely that New Knowledge was actually "the Russians", possibly working in concert
with Crowdstrike. Once an intelligence agency gets away with something like pretending to be
Russian hackers and bots, they tend to re-use their model; it is too tempting to discard an
effective model after a one-off accomplishment. New Knowledge was caught interfering/
determining the outcome in the Alabama Senate race on the side of Democrat Doug Jones, and
claimed they were merely trying to mimic Russian methods to see if they worked (they did; not
sure of their punishment?). Occam's razor would suggest that New Knowledge would be competent
to mimic/ pretend to be "Russians" after the fact of wikileaks' publication of emails. New
Knowledge has employees from the NSA and State department sympathetic to/ working with(?)
Hillary, and were the "outside" agency hired to evaluate and report on the "Russian" hacking
of the DNC emails/ servers.
DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:48 pm
Mueller released report last summer, which resulted in (the last I checked) roughly 150
indictments, a handful of convictions to date, all for perjury/financial (not political)
crimes. This wasn't kept secret. It simply wasn't what Democrats wanted to hear, so although
it was mentioned in some lib media (which overwhelmingly supported neoliberal Hillary
Clinton), it was essentially swept under the carpet.
Billy , March 13, 2019 at 11:11 pm
Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They
all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't
care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump.
So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because
they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020.
Realist , March 14, 2019 at 3:22 am
You betcha. Moreover, who but the Russians do these idiots have left to blame? Everybody
else is now off limits due to political correctness. Sigh Those Catholics, Jews, "ethnics"
and sundry "deviants" used to be such reliable scapegoats, to say nothing of the
"undeveloped" world. As Clapper "authoritatively" says, only this vile lineage still carries
the genes for the most extremes of human perfidy. Squirrels in your attic? It must be the
damned Russkies! The bastards impudently tried to copy our democracy, economic system and
free press and only besmirched those institutions, ruining all of Hillary's glorious plans
for a worldwide benevolent dictatorship. All this might be humorous if it weren't so
funny.
And those Chinese better not get to thinking they are somehow our equals just because all
their trillions invested in U.S. Treasury bonds have paid for all our wars of choice and MIC
boondoggles since before the turn of the century. Unless they start delivering Trump some
"free stuff" the big man is gonna cut off their water. No more affordable manufactured goods
for the American public! So there!
As to the article: impeccable research and analysis by the VIPS crew yet again. They've
proven to me that, to a near certainty, the Easter Bunny is not likely to exist. Mueller
won't read it. Clapper will still prance around a free man, as will Brennan. The Democrats
won't care, that is until November of 2020. And Hillary will continue to skate, unhindered in
larding up the Clinton Foundation to purposes one can only imagine.
Joe Tedesky , March 14, 2019 at 10:02 pm
Realist,
I have posted this article 'the Russia they Lost' before and from time to time but
once again it seems appropriate to add this link to expound upon for what you've been saying.
It's an article written by a Russian who in they're youth growing up in the USSR dreamed of
living the American lifestyle if Russia were to ever ditch communism. But . Starting with
Kosovo this Russian's youthful dream turned nightmarishly ugly and, as time went by with more
and yet even more USA aggression this Russian author loss his admiration and desire for all
things American to be proudly envied. This is a story where USA hard power destroyed any hope
of American soft power for world unity. But hey that unity business was never part of the
plan anyway.
right you are, joe. if america was smart rather than arrogant, it would have cooperated
with china and russia to see the belt and road initiative succeed by perhaps building a
bridge or tunnel from siberia to alaska, and by building its own fleet of icebreakers to open
up its part of the northwest passage. but no, it only wants to sabotage what others propose.
that's not being a leader, it's being a dick.
i'm gonna have to go on the disabled list here until the sudden neurological problem with
my right hand clears up–it's like paralysed. too difficult to do this one-handed using
hunt and peck. at least the problem was not in the old bean, according to the scans. carry
on, sir.
Brian James , March 13, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ &
FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c
DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:55 pm
Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless,
short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. Trump and the
Republicans continue to win by default, as Democrats only drive more voters away.
Thank you Ray McGovern and the Other 17 VIPS C0-Signers of your National Security Essay
for Truth. Along with Craig Murray and Seymour Hirsch, former Sam Adams Award winners for
"shining light into dark places", you are national resources for objectivity in critical
survival information matters for our country. It is more than a pity that our mainstream
media are so beholden to their corporate task masters that they cannot depart from the
company line for fear of losing their livelihoods, and in the process we risk losing life on
the planet because of unconstrained nuclear war on the part of the two main adversaries
facing off in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. Let me speak plainly. THEY SHOULD BE
TALKING TO YOU AND NOT THE VESTED INTERESTS' MOUTHPIECES. Thank you for your continued
leadership!
Roger Ailes founder of FOX news died, "falling down stairs" within a week of FOX news
exposing to the world that the assassinated Seth Rich downloaded the DNC emails.
DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 6:03 pm
Google the Mueller investigation report from last June or July. When it was released, the
public response was like a deflated balloon. It did not support the "Russian collusion"
allegations -- the only thing Democrats still had left to sell. The report resulted in
roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes (not political), and a handful of
convictions to date -- none of which had anything to do with the election results.
Hank , March 13, 2019 at 6:19 pm
Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian
meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is
that stupid. They are probably right, but the REAL reason that Hillary lost is because there
ARE enough informed people now in this nation who are quite aware of the Clinton's sordid
history where scandals seem to follow every where they go, but indictments and/or
investigations don't. There IS an internet nowadays with lots of FACTUAL DOCUMENTED
information. That's a lot more than I can say about the mainstream corporate-controlled
media!
I know this won't ever happen, but an HONEST investigation into the Democratic Party and
their actions during the 2016 election would make ANY collusion with ANY nation look like a
mole hill next to a mountain! One of the problems with living in this nation is if you are
truly informed and make an effort 24/7 to be that way by doing your own research, you
more-than-likely can be considered an "island in a sea of ignorance".
We know that the FBI never had access to the servers and a private company was allowed to
handle the evidence. Wasnt it a crime scene? The evidence was tampered with And we will never
know what was on the servers.
Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:10 pm
As a complement to this excellent analysis, I would like to make 2 further points:
The Mueller indictment of Russian Intelligence for hacking the DNC and transferring their
booty to Wikileaks is absurd on its face for this reason: Assange announced on June 12th the
impending release of Hillary-related emails. Yet the indictment claims that Guccifer 2.0 did
not succeed in transferring the DNC emails to Wikileaks until the time period of July 14-18th
– after which they were released online on July 22nd. Are we to suppose that Assange, a
publisher of impeccable integrity, publicly announced the publication of emails he had not
yet seen, and which he was obtaining from a source of murky provenance? And are we further to
suppose that Wikileaks could have processed 20K emails and 20K attachments to insure their
genuineness in a period of only several days? As you will recall, Wikileaks subsequently took
a number of weeks to process the Podesta emails they released in October.
And another peculiarity merits attention. Assange did not state on June 12th that he was
releasing DNC emails – and yet Crowdstrike and the Guccifer 2.0 personna evidently knew
that this was in store. A likely resolution of this conundrum is that US intelligence had
been monitoring all communications to Wikileaks, and had informed the DNC that their hacked
emails had been offered to Wikileaks. A further reasonable prospect is that US intelligence
subsequently unmasked the leaker to the DNC; as Assange has strongly hinted, this likely was
Seth Rich. This could explain Rich's subsequent murder, as Rich would have been in a position
to unmask the Guccifer 2.0 hoax and the entire Russian hacking narrative.
Curious that Assange has Not explicitly stated that the leaker was Seth Rich, if it was,
as this would take pressure from himself and incriminate the DNC in the murder of Rich.
Perhaps he doesn't know, and has the honor not to take the opportunity, or perhaps he knows
that it was not Rich.
View the Dutch TV interview with Asssange and there is another interview available on
youtube in which Assange DOES subtly confirmed it was Seth Rich.
Assange posted a $10,000 reward for Seth Rich's murders capture.
Abby , March 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm
Another mistaken issue with the "Russia hacked the DNC computers on Trump's command" is
that he never asked Russia to do that. His words were, "Russia if you 'find' Hillary's
missing emails let us know." He said that after she advised congress that she wouldn't be
turning in all of the emails they asked for because she deleted 30,000 of them and said that
they were personal.
But if Mueller or the FBI wants to look at all of them they can find them at the NYC FBI
office because they are on Weiner's laptop. Why? Because Hillary's aid Huma Abedin, Weiner's
wife sent them to it. Just another security risk that Hillary had because of her private
email server. This is why Comey had to tell congress that more of them had been found 11 days
before the election. If Comey hadn't done that then the FBI would have.
But did Comey or McCabe look at her emails there to see if any of them were classified? No
they did not do that. And today we find out that Lisa Page told congress that it was Obama's
decision not to charge Hillary for being grossly negligent on using her private email server.
This has been known by congress for many months and now we know that the fix was always in
for her to get off.
robert e williamson jr , March 13, 2019 at 3:26 pm
I want to thank you folks at VIPS. Like I have been saying for years now the relationship
between CIA, NSA and DOJ is an incestuous one at best. A perverse corrupted bond to control
the masses. A large group of religious fanatics who want things "ONE WAY". They are the
facilitators for the rogue government known as the "DEEP STATE"!
Just ask billy barr.
More truth is a very good thing. I believe DOJ is supporting the intelligence community
because of blackmail. They can't come clean because they all risk doing lots of time if a new
judicial mechanism replaces them. We are in big trouble here.
Apparently the rule of law is not!
You folks that keep claiming we live in the post truth era! Get off me. Demand the truth
and nothing else. Best be getting ready for the fight of your lives. The truth is you have to
look yourself in the mirror every morning, deny that truth. The claim you are living in the
post truth era is an admission your life is a lie. Now grab a hold of yourself pick a
dogdamned side and stand for something,.
Thank You VIPS!
Joe Tedesky , March 13, 2019 at 2:58 pm
Hats off to the VIP's who have investigated this Russian hacking that wasn't a hacking for
without them what would we news junkies have otherwise to lift open the hood of Mueller's
never ending Russia-gate investigation. Although the one thing this Russia-gate nonsense has
accomplished is it has destroyed with our freedom of speech when it comes to how we citizens
gather our news. Much like everything else that has been done during these post 9/11 years of
continual wars our civil rights have been marginalized down to zero or, a bit above if that's
even still an argument to be made for the sake of numbers.
Watching the Manafort sentencing is quite interesting for the fact that Manafort didn't
conclude in as much as he played fast and loose with his income. In fact maybe Manafort's
case should have been prosecuted by the State Department or, how about the IRS? Also wouldn't
it be worth investigating other Geopolitical Rain Makers like Manafort for similar crimes of
financial wrongdoing? I mean is it possible Manafort is or was the only one of his type to do
such dishonest things? In any case Manafort wasn't charged with concluding with any Russians
in regard to the 2016 presidential election and, with that we all fall down.
I guess the best thing (not) that came out of this Russia-gate silliness is Rachel
Maddow's tv ratings zoomed upwards. But I hate to tell you that the only ones buying what Ms
Maddow is selling are the died in the wool Hillary supporters along with the chicken-hawks
who rally to the MIC lobby for more war. It's all a game and yet there are many of us who
just don't wish to play it but still we must because no one will listen to the sanity that
gets ignored keep up the good work VIP's some of us are listening.
Andrew Thomas , March 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm
The article did not mention something called to my attention for the first time by one of
the outstanding members of your commentariat just a couple of days ago- that Ambassador
Murray stayed publicly, over two years ago, that he had been given the thumb drive by a
go-between in D.C. and had somehow gotten it to Wikileaks. And, that he has NEVER BEEN
INTERVIEWED by Mueller &Company. I was blown away by this, and found the original
articles just by googling Murray. The excuse given is that Murray "lacks credibility ", or
some such, because of his prior relationship with Assange and/or Wikileaks. This is so
ludicrous I can't even get my head around it. And now, you have given me a new detail-the
meeting with Pompeo, and the complete lack of follow-up thereafter. Here all this time I
thought I was the most cynical SOB who existed, and now I feel as naive as when I was 13 and
believed what Dean Rusk was saying like it was holy writ. I am in your debt.
Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 2:33 pm
Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and
propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized
over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about
them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm
Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:18 pm
A small correction: the Daily Mail article regarding Murray claimed that Murray was given
a thumbdrive which he subsequently carried back to Wikileaks. On his blog, Murray
subsequently disputed this part of the story, indicating that, while he had met with a leaker
or confederate of a leaker in Washington DC, the Podesta emails were already in possession of
Wikileaks at the time. Murray refused to clarify the reason for his meeting with this source,
but he is adamant in maintaining that the DNC and Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked.
And it is indeed ludicrous that Mueller, given the mandate to investigate the alleged
Russian hacking of the DNC and Podesta, has never attempted to question either Assange or
Murray. That in itself is enough for us to conclude that the Mueller investigation is a
complete sham.
Ian Brown , March 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm
It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi
as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray!
LJ , March 13, 2019 at 12:29 pm
A guy comes in with a pedigree like that, """ former FBI head """ to examine and validate
if possible an FBI sting manufactured off a phony FISA indictment based on the Steele Report,
It immediately reminded me of the 9-11 Commission with Thomas Kean, former Board member of
the National Endowment for Democracy, being appointed by GW Bush the Simple to head an
investigation that he had previously said he did not want to authorize( and of course bi
partisan yes man Lee Hamilton as #2, lest we forget) . Really this should be seen as another
low point in our Democracy. Uncle Sam is the Limbo Man, How low can you go?
After Bill and
Hillary and Monica and Paula Jones and Blue Dresses well, Golden Showers in a Moscow luxury
hotel, I guess that make it just salacious enough.
Mueller looks just like what he is. He
has that same phony self important air as Comey . In 2 years this will be forgotten.. I do
not think this hurts Trumps chances at re-election as much as the Democrats are hurting
themselves. This has already gone on way too long.
Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic
charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and
Russians.
Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass
media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by
Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump, which was
the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein, Brennan, Podesta and Mueller's crusade on behalf
of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. It will be fascinating to
witness how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent
edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?
So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to
their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was likely in bed with the Winter Hill Gang.
Jack , March 13, 2019 at 12:21 pm
You have failed. An investigation is just that, a finding of the facts. What would Mueller
have to extricate himself from? If nothing is found, he has still done his job. You are a
divisive idiot.
Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:13 pm
Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to
make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war
continues. Mission Accomplished.
@Jack,
Keep running cover for an out of control prosecutor, who, if he had any integrity, would have
hit the bully pulpit mos ago declaring there's nothing of substance to one of the most
potentially dangerous accusations in world history: the Kremlin hacking the election. Last I
checked it puts two nuclear nation-states on the brink of potential war. And you call me
divisive? Mueller's now a willing accomplice to this entire McCarthyite smear and
disinformation campaign. It's all so pathetic that folks such as yourself try and mislead and
feed half-truths to the people.
Drew, you might enjoy this discussion Robert Scheer has with Stephen Cohen and Katrina
vanden Heuvel.
Realist , March 15, 2019 at 3:38 am
Moreover, as the Saker pointed out in his most recent column in the Unz Review, the entire
Deep State conspiracy, in an ad hoc alliance with the embarrassed and embarrassing Democrats,
have made an absolute sham of due process in their blatant witch hunt to bag the president.
This reached an apex when his personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen, was trotted out before congress to
violate Trump's confidentiality in every mortifying way he could even vaguely reconstruct.
The man was expected to say anything to mitigate the anticipated tortures to come in the
course of this modern day inquisition by our latter day Torquemada. To his credit though,
even with his ass in a sling, he could simply not confabulate the smoking gun evidence for
the alleged Russian collusion that this whole farce was built around.
Mueller stood with Bush as he lied the world into war based on lies and illegally spied on
America and tortured some folks.
George Collins , March 13, 2019 at 2:02 pm
QED: as to the nexus with the Winter Hill gang wasn't there litigation involving the
Boston FBI, condonation of murder by the FBI and damages awarded to or on behalf of convicted
parties that the FBI had reason to know were innocent? The malfeasance reportedly occurred
during Mueller time. Further on the sanctified diligence of Mr. Mueller can be gleaned from
the reports of Coleen Rowley, former FBI attorney stationed in Milwaukee??? when the DC FBI
office was ignoring warnings sent about 9/11. See also Sibel Edmonds who knew to much and was
court order muzzled about FBI mis/malfeasance in the aftermath of 9/11.
I'd say it's game, set, match VIPS and a pox on Clapper and the
complicit intelligence folk complicit in the nuclear loaded Russia-gate fibs.
Kiers , March 13, 2019 at 11:47 am
How can we expect the DNC to "hand it " to Trumpf, when, behind the scenes, THEY ARE ONE
PARTY. They are throwing faux-scary pillow bombs at each other because they are both
complicit in a long chain of corruptions. Business as usual for the "principled" two party
system! Democracy! Through the gauze of corporate media! You must be joking!
Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 11:28 am
"We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to
prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become
aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very
different conclusions."
I wish I shared this belief. However, as with Nancy Pelosi's recent statement regarding
pursuing impeachment, I smell a rat. I believe with the help of what the late Robert Parry
called "the Mighty Wurlitzer", Mueller is going to use coerced false testimony and fabricated
forensics to drop a bombshell the size of 911. I think Nancy's statement was just a feint
before throwing the knockout punch.
If reason ruled the day, we should have nothing to worry about. But considering all the
perfidy that the so-called "Intelligence" Agencies and their MSM lackeys get away with daily,
I think we are in for more theater; and I think VIPS will receive a cold shoulder outside of
venues like CN.
I pray to God I'm wrong.
Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:32 pm
My extensive experience with DOJ and the federal judiciary establishes that at least 98%
of them are dedicated career liars, engaged in organized crime to serve political gangs, and
make only a fanatical pretense of patriotism or legality. They are loyal to money alone,
deeply cynical and opposed to the US Constitution and laws, with no credibility at all beyond
any real evidence.
Eric32 , March 14, 2019 at 4:24 pm
As near I can see, Federal Govt. careers at the higher levels depend on having dirt on
other players, and helping, not hurting, the money/power schemes of the players above
you.
The Clintons (through their foundation) apparently have a lot of corruption dirt on CIA,
FBI etc. top players, some of whom somehow became multi-millionaires during their civil
service careers.
Trump, who was only running for President as a name brand marketing ploy with little
desire to actually win, apparently came into the Presidency with no dirt arsenal and little
idea of where to go from there.
Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 11:09 am
I remember reading with dismay how Russians were propagandized by the Soviet Press
Management only to find out later the depth of disbelief within the Russian population
itself. We now know what that feels like. The good part of this disastrous scenario for
America is that for careful readers, disinformation becomes revelatory. For instance, if one
reads an editorial that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or continually refers to
Russian interference in the last Presidential election, then one can immediately dismiss the
article and question the motivation for the presentation. Of course the problem is how to
establish truth in reporting
Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 10:41 am
Thank you, VIPs. Hopefully, you don't expect this to make a difference. The US has moved
into a post truth, post reality existence best characterized by Karl Rove's declaration:
"we're an empire now, when we act, we create our own reality." What Mr. Rove in his arrogance
fails to appreciate is that it is his reality but not anyone else's. Thus Pompous can claim
that Guaido is the democratic leader in Venezuela even though he's never been elected .
Thank you. The next time one of my friends or family give me that glazed over stare and
utters anymore of the "but, RUSSIA" nonsense I will refer them directly to this article. Your
collective work and ethical stand on this matter is deeply appreciated by anyone who values
the truth.
Russiagate stands with past government propaganda operations that were simply made up out
of thin air: i.e. Kuwaiti incubator babies, WMD's, Gaddafi's viagra fueled rape camps, Assad
can't sleep at night unless he's gassing his own people, to the latest, "Maduro can't sleep
at night unless he's starving his own people."
The complete and utter amorality of the deep state remains on display for all to see with
"Russiagate," which is as fact-free a propaganda campaign as any of those just mentioned.
Marc , March 13, 2019 at 10:13 am
I am a computer naif, so I am prepared to accept the VIPS analysis about FAT and transfer
rates. However, the presentation here leaves me with several questions. First, do I
understand correctly that the FAT rounding to even numbers is introduced by the thumb drive?
And if so, does the FAT analysis show only that the DNC data passed through a thumb drive?
That is, does the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a
thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to
give a copy to Wikileaks? Second, although the transatlantic transfer rate is too slow to fit
some time stamps, is it possible that the data were hacked onto a local computer that was
under the control of some faraway agent?
Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 11:12 am
Not quite. FAT is the crappy storage system developed by Microsoft (and not used by UNIX).
The metadata associated with any file gets rewritten when it gets moved. If that movement is
to a storage device that uses FAT, the timestamp on the file will end in an even number. If
it were moved to a unix server (and most of the major servers run Unix) it would be in the
UFS (unix file system) and it would be the actual time from the system clock. Every storage
device has a utility that tells it where to write the data and what to write. Since it's
writing to a storage device using FAT, it'll round the numbers. To get to your real question,
yes, you could hack and then transfer the data to a thumb drive but if you did that the dates
wouldn't line up.
Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 8:05 am
Jeff-
Which dates wouldn't line up? Is there a history of metadata available, or just metadata
for the most recent move?
David G , March 13, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Marc asks: "[D]oes the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred
to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg,
to give a copy to Wikileaks?"
I asked that question in comments under a previous CN piece; other people have asked that
question elsewhere.
To my knowledge, it hasn't been addressed directly by the VIPS, and I think they should do
so. (If they already have, someone please enlighten me.)
Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:07 pm
I am no computer wiz, but Binney has repeatedly made the point that the NSA scoops up
everything. If there had been a hack, they'd know it, and they wouldn't only have had
"moderate" confidence in the Jan. assessment. I believe that although farfetched, an argument
could be made that a Russian spy got into the DNC, loaded a thumb drive, and gave it to Craig
Murray.
David G , March 13, 2019 at 3:31 pm
Respectfully, that's a separate point, which may or may not raise issues of its own.
But I think the question Marc posed stands.
Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 7:59 am
Hi David-
I don't see how it's separate. If the NSA scoops up everything, they'd have solid evidence
of the hack, and wouldn't have only had "moderate" confidence, which Bill Binney says is
equivalent to them saying "we don't have squat". They wouldn't even have needed Mueller at
all, except to possibly build a "parallel case" due to classification issues. Also, the FBI
not demanding direct access to the DNC server tells you something is fishy. They could easily
have gotten a warrant to examine the server, but chose not to. They also purposely refuse to
get testimony from Craig Murray and Julian Assange, which rings alarm bells on its own.
As for the technical aspect of Marc's question, I agree that I'd like to see Bill Binney
directly answer it.
The final Mueller report should be graded "incomplete," says VIPS, whose forensic work proves the speciousness of the story that
DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The Attorney General
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings
Executive Summary
Media reports are predicting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to give you the findings of his probe into any
links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.
If Mueller gives you his "completed" report anytime soon, it should be graded "incomplete."
Major deficiencies include depending on a DNC-hired cybersecurity company for forensics and failure to consult with those who
have done original forensic work, including us and the independent forensic investigators with whom we have examined the data. We
stand ready to help.
We veteran intelligence professionals (VIPS) have done enough detailed forensic work to prove the speciousness of the prevailing
story that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking. Given the paucity of evidence to support that story,
we believe Mueller may choose to finesse this key issue and leave everyone hanging. That would help sustain the widespread belief
that Trump owes his victory to President Vladimir Putin, and strengthen the hand of those who pay little heed to the unpredictable
consequences of an increase in tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.
There is an overabundance of "assessments" but a lack of hard evidence to support that prevailing narrative. We believe that there
are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly
if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions.
We know only too well -- and did our best to expose -- how our former colleagues in the intelligence community manufactured fraudulent
"evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
We have scrutinized publicly available physical data -- the "trail" that every cyber operation leaves behind. And we have had
support from highly experienced independent forensic investigators who, like us, have no axes to grind. We can prove that the conventional-wisdom
story about Russian-hacking-DNC-emails-for-WikiLeaks is false. Drawing largely on the unique expertise of two VIPS scientists who
worked for a combined total of 70 years at the National Security Agency and became Technical Directors there, we have regularly published
our findings. But we have been deprived of a hearing in mainstream media -- an experience painfully reminiscent of what we had to
endure when we exposed the corruption of intelligence before the attack on Iraq 16 years ago.
This time, with the principles of physics and forensic science to rely on, we are able to adduce solid evidence exposing mistakes
and distortions in the dominant story. We offer you below -- as a kind of aide-memoire -- a discussion of some of the key
factors related to what has become known as "Russia-gate." And we include our most recent findings drawn from forensic work on data
associated with WikiLeaks' publication of the DNC emails.
We do not claim our conclusions are "irrefutable and undeniable," a la Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq war. Our judgments,
however, are based on the scientific method -- not "assessments." We decided to put this memorandum together in hopes of ensuring
that you hear that directly from us.
If the Mueller team remains reluctant to review our work -- or even to interview willing witnesses with direct knowledge, like
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, we fear that many of those yearning earnestly for the truth on Russia-gate
will come to the corrosive conclusion that the Mueller investigation was a sham.
In sum, we are concerned that, at this point, an incomplete Mueller report will fall far short of the commitment made by then
Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "to ensure a full and thorough investigation," when he appointed Mueller in May 2017. Again,
we are at your disposal.
Discussion
The centerpiece accusation of Kremlin "interference" in the 2016 presidential election was the charge that Russia hacked Democratic
National Committee emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to embarrass Secretary Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump win. The weeks following
the election witnessed multiple leak-based media allegations to that effect. These culminated on January 6, 2017 in an evidence-light,
rump report misleadingly labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)." Prepared by "handpicked analysts" from only three of
the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, and NSA), the assessment expressed "high confidence" in the Russia-hacking-to-WikiLeaks
story, but lacked so much as a hint that the authors had sought access to independent forensics to support their "assessment."
The media immediately awarded the ICA the status of Holy Writ, choosing to overlook an assortment of banal, full-disclosure-type
caveats included in the assessment itself -- such as:
" When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as 'we assess' or 'we judge,' they are conveying an analytic assessment
or judgment. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on
collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment
is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong."
To their credit, however, the authors of the ICA did make a highly germane point in introductory remarks on "cyber incident attribution."
They noted: "The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber
operation -- malicious or not -- leaves a trail." [Emphasis added.]
Forensics
The imperative is to get on that "trail" -- and quickly, before red herrings can be swept across it. The best way to establish
attribution is to apply the methodology and processes of forensic science. Intrusions into computers leave behind discernible physical
data that can be examined scientifically by forensic experts. Risk to "sources and methods" is normally not a problem.
Direct access to the actual computers is the first requirement -- the more so when an intrusion is termed "an act of war" and
blamed on a nuclear-armed foreign government (the words used by the late Sen. John McCain and other senior officials). In testimony
to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that he did not insist on physical access
to the DNC computers even though, as he conceded, "best practices" dictate direct access.
In June 2017, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr asked Comey whether he ever had "access to the actual hardware
that was hacked." Comey answered, "In the case of the DNC we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic
information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. " Sen. Burr followed up: "But no content? Isn't content
an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?" Comey: "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks
is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016."
The "private party/high-class entity" to which Comey refers is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm of checkered reputation and multiple
conflicts of interest, including very close ties to a number of key anti-Russian organizations. Comey indicated that the DNC hired
CrowdStrike in the spring of 2016.
Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation – including a possible impeachment battle and greatly increased tension
between Russia and the U.S. -- it is difficult to understand why Comey did not move quickly to seize the computer hardware so the
FBI could perform an independent examination of what quickly became the major predicate for investigating election interference by
Russia. Fortunately, enough data remain on the forensic "trail" to arrive at evidence-anchored conclusions. The work we have done
shows the prevailing narrative to be false. We have been suggesting this for over two years. Recent forensic work significantly strengthens
that conclusion.
We Do Forensics
Recent forensic examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23, 25 and 26 May 2016. (On June 12, Julian
Assange announced he had them; WikiLeaks published them on July 22.) We recently discovered that the files reveal a FAT (File Allocation
Table) system property. This shows that the data had been transferred to an external storage device, such as a thumb drive,
before WikiLeaks posted them.
FAT is a simple file system named for its method of organization, the File Allocation Table. It is used for storage only and is
not related to internet transfers like hacking. Were WikiLeaks to have received the DNC files via a hack, the last modified times
on the files would be a random mixture of odd-and even-ending numbers.
Why is that important? The evidence lies in the "last modified" time stamps on the Wikileaks files. When a file is stored under
the FAT file system the software rounds the time to the nearest even-numbered second. Every single one of the time stamps in the
DNC files on WikiLeaks' site ends in an even number.
We have examined 500 DNC email files stored on the Wikileaks site. All 500 files end in an even number -- 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If
those files had been hacked over the Internet, there would be an equal probability of the time stamp ending in an odd number. The
random probability that FAT was not used is 1 chance in 2 to the 500th power. Thus, these data show that the DNC emails posted by
WikiLeaks went through a storage device, like a thumb drive, and were physically moved before Wikileaks posted the emails on the
World Wide Web.
This finding alone is enough to raise reasonable doubts, for example, about Mueller's indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers
for hacking the DNC emails given to WikiLeaks. A defense attorney could easily use the forensics to argue that someone copied the
DNC files to a storage device like a USB thumb drive and got them physically to WikiLeaks -- not electronically via a hack.
Role of NSA
For more than two years, we strongly suspected that the DNC emails were copied/leaked in that way, not hacked. And we said so.
We remain intrigued by the apparent failure of NSA's dragnet, collect-it-all approach -- including "cast-iron" coverage of WikiLeaks
-- to provide forensic evidence (as opposed to "assessments") as to how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks and who sent them. Well before
the telling evidence drawn from the use of FAT, other technical evidence led us to conclude that the DNC emails were not hacked over
the network, but rather physically moved over, say, the Atlantic Ocean.
Is it possible that NSA has not yet been asked to produce the collected packets of DNC email data claimed to have been hacked
by Russia? Surely, this should be done before Mueller competes his investigation. NSA has taps on all the transoceanic cables leaving
the U.S. and would almost certainly have such packets if they exist. (The detailed slides released by Edward Snowden actually show
the routes that trace the packets.)
The forensics we examined shed no direct light on who may have been behind the leak. The only thing we know for sure is that the
person had to have direct access to the DNC computers or servers in order to copy the emails. The apparent lack of evidence from
the most likely source, NSA, regarding a hack may help explain the FBI's curious preference for forensic data from CrowdStrike. No
less puzzling is why Comey would choose to call CrowdStrike a "high-class entity."
Comey was one of the intelligence chiefs briefing President Obama on January 5, 2017 on the "Intelligence Community Assessment,"
which was then briefed to President-elect Trump and published the following day. That Obama found a key part of the ICA narrative
less than persuasive became clear at his last press conference (January 18), when he told the media, "The conclusions of the intelligence
community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to how 'the DNC emails that were leaked' got to WikiLeaks.
Is Guccifer 2.0 a Fraud?
There is further compelling technical evidence that undermines the claim that the DNC emails were downloaded over the internet
as a result of a spearphishing attack. William Binney, one of VIPS' two former Technical Directors at NSA, along with other former
intelligence community experts, examined files posted by Guccifer 2.0 and discovered that those files could not have been downloaded
over the internet. It is a simple matter of mathematics and physics.
There was a flurry of activity after Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016: "We have emails relating to Hillary Clinton which
are pending publication." On June 14, DNC contractor CrowdStrike announced that malware was found on the DNC server and claimed there
was evidence it was injected by Russians. On June 15, the Guccifer 2.0 persona emerged on the public stage, affirmed the DNC statement,
claimed to be responsible for hacking the DNC, claimed to be a WikiLeaks source, and posted a document that forensics show
was synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."
Our suspicions about the Guccifer 2.0 persona grew when G-2 claimed responsibility for a "hack" of the DNC on July 5, 2016, which
released DNC data that was rather bland compared to what WikiLeaks published 17 days later (showing how the DNC had tipped the primary
scales against Sen. Bernie Sanders). As VIPS
reported in a wrap-up
Memorandum for the President on July 24, 2017 (titled "Intel Vets Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence)," forensic examination of the
July 5, 2016 cyber intrusion into the DNC showed it NOT to be a hack by the Russians or by anyone else, but rather a copy onto an
external storage device. It seemed a good guess that the July 5 intrusion was a contrivance to preemptively taint anything WikiLeaks
might later publish from the DNC, by "showing" it came from a "Russian hack." WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on July 22, three
days before the Democratic convention.
As we prepared our July 24 memo for the President, we chose to begin by taking Guccifer 2.0 at face value; i. e., that the documents
he posted on July 5, 2016 were obtained via a hack over the Internet. Binney conducted a forensic examination of the metadata contained
in the posted documents and compared that metadata with the known capacity of Internet connection speeds at the time in the U.S.
This analysis showed a transfer rate as high as 49.1 megabytes per second, which is much faster than was possible from a remote online
Internet connection. The 49.1 megabytes speed coincided, though, with the rate that copying onto a thumb drive could accommodate.
Binney, assisted by colleagues with relevant technical expertise, then extended the examination and ran various forensic tests
from the U.S. to the Netherlands, Albania, Belgrade and the UK. The fastest Internet rate obtained -- from a data center in New Jersey
to a data center in the UK -- was 12 megabytes per second, which is less than a fourth of the capacity typical of a copy onto a thumb
drive.
The findings from the examination of the Guccifer 2.0 data and the WikiLeaks data does not indicate who copied the information
to an external storage device (probably a thumb drive). But our examination does disprove that G.2 hacked into the DNC on July 5,
2016. Forensic evidence for the Guccifer 2.0 data adds to other evidence that the DNC emails were not taken by an internet spearphishing
attack. The data breach was local. The emails were copied from the network.
Presidential Interest
After VIPS' July 24, 2017 Memorandum for the President, Binney, one of its principal authors, was invited to share his insights
with Mike Pompeo, CIA Director at the time. When Binney arrived in Pompeo's office at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017 for an
hour-long discussion, the director made no secret of the reason for the invitation: "You are here because the President told me that
if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk with you."
Binney warned Pompeo -- to stares of incredulity -- that his people should stop lying about the Russian hacking. Binney then started
to explain the VIPS findings that had caught President Trump's attention. Pompeo asked Binney if he would talk to the FBI and NSA.
Binney agreed, but has not been contacted by those agencies. With that, Pompeo had done what the President asked. There was no follow-up.
Confronting James Clapper on Forensics
We, the hoi polloi, do not often get a chance to talk to people like Pompeo -- and still less to the former intelligence
chiefs who are the leading purveyors of the prevailing Russia-gate narrative. An exception came on November 13, when former National
Intelligence Director James Clapper came to the Carnegie Endowment in Washington to hawk his memoir. Answering a question during
the Q&A about Russian "hacking" and NSA, Clapper said:
" Well, I have talked with NSA a lot And in my mind, I spent a lot of time in the SIGINT business, the forensic evidence
was overwhelming about what the Russians had done. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever." [Emphasis added]
Clapper added: " as a private citizen, understanding the magnitude of what the Russians did and the number of citizens in our
country they reached and the different mechanisms that, by which they reached them, to me it stretches credulity to think they didn't
have a profound impact on election on the outcome of the election."
(A transcript of the interesting Q&A can be found
here and a commentary
on Clapper's performance at Carnegie, as well as on his longstanding lack of credibility, is
here .)
Normally soft-spoken Ron Wyden, Democratic senator from Oregon, lost his patience with Clapper last week when he learned that
Clapper is still denying that he lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the extent of NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens.
In an unusual outburst, Wyden said: "James Clapper needs to stop making excuses for lying to the American people about mass surveillance.
To be clear: I sent him the question in advance. I asked him to correct the record afterward. He chose to let the lie stand."
The materials brought out by Edward Snowden in June 2013 showed Clapper to have lied under oath to the committee on March 12,
2013; he was, nevertheless, allowed to stay on as Director of National Intelligence for three and half more years. Clapper fancies
himself an expert on Russia, telling Meet the Press on May 28, 2017 that Russia's history shows that Russians are "typically,
almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever."
Clapper ought to be asked about the "forensics" he said were "overwhelming about what the Russians had done." And that, too, before
Mueller completes his investigation.
For the steering group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:
William Binney , former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA's Signals
Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
Richard H. Black , Senator of Virginia, 13th District; Colonel US Army (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division,
Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Pentagon (associate VIPS)
Bogdan Dzakovic , former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Girald i, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel , former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the
Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
James George Jatras , former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate leadership (Associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson , former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
John Kiriakou , former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski , former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture
of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Edward Loomis , Cryptologic Computer Scientist, former Technical Director at NSA (ret.)
David MacMichael , Ph.D., former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern , former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray , former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & CIA
political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce , MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Peter Van Buren , US Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton , CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Kirk Wiebe , former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Ann Wright , retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq
War
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers
and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington's justifications for launching
a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived
threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of
VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.
"... Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results. ..."
"... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
"... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " WARNING: Graphic Images ..."
"... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. ..."
"... The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI . ..."
"... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again . The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and
only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.
While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.
"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine.
"He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger
side."
Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed
he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the
comment curious.
"How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly
six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges
of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked.
Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd
be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no,
that was probably Bill.
"The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for
this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims,
for over 70 years... " WARNING:
Graphic Images
I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The
$wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become
'depressed, etc.'
I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition
country - ASAP.
As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for
office because they are easier to blackmail and control.
"... It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians. ..."
"... Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation. ..."
"... What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse? ..."
"... Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue. ..."
"... We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks. ..."
"... This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press" failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune. ..."
"... Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020. ..."
"... Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c ..."
"... Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. ..."
"... Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. ..."
"... Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm ..."
"... It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray! ..."
"... Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished. ..."
I could not suffer through reading the whole article. This is mainly because I have
watched the news daily about Mueller's Investigation and I sincerely believe that Mueller is
Champion of the Democrats who are trying to depose President Donald Trump at any cost.
For what Mueller found any decent lawyer with a Degree and a few years of experience could
have found what Mueller found for far far less money. Mueller only found common crimes AND NO
COLLUSION BETWEEN PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PUTIN!
The Mueller Investigation should be given to an honest broker to review, and Mueller
should be paid only what it would cost to produce the commonplace crimes Mueller, The
Democrats, and CNN has tried to convince the people that indeed Trump COLLUDED with RUSSIA.
Mueller is, a BIG NOTHING BURGER and THE DEMOCRATS AND CNN ARE MUELLER'S SINGING CANARYS!
Mueller should be jailed.
Bogdan Miller , March 15, 2019 at 11:04 am
This article explains why the Mueller Report is already highly suspect. For another thing,
we know that since before 2016, Democrats have been studying Russian Internet and hacking
tactics, and posing as Russian Bots/Trolls on Facebook and other media outlets, all in an
effort to harm President Trump.
It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians
and Democrats posing as Russians.
B.J.M. Former Intelligence Analyst and Humint Collector
vinnieoh , March 15, 2019 at 8:17 am
Moving on: the US House yesterday voted UNANIMOUSLY (remember that word, so foreign these
days to US governance?) to "urge" the new AG to release the complete Mueller report.
A
non-binding resolution, but you would think that the Democrats can't see the diesel
locomotive bearing down on their clown car, about to smash it to pieces. The new AG in turn
says he will summarize the report and that is what we will see, not the entire report. And
taxation without representation takes a new twist.
... ... ...
Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:38 pm
What else would you expect from two Political Parties who are really branches of the ONE
Party which Represents DEEP STATE".
DWS , March 15, 2019 at 5:58 am
Maybe the VIPS should look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the
security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week
as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand
down and close the murder case without further investigation.
Raymond Comeau , March 15, 2019 at 12:47 pm
EXACTLY! But, Deep State will not allow that. And, it would ruin the USA' plan to continue
to invade more sovereign countries and steal their resources such as oil and Minerals. The
people of the USA must be Ostriches or are so terrified that they accept anything their
Criminal Governments tell them.
Eventually, the chickens will come home to roost and perhaps the USA voters will ROAST
when the crimes of the USA sink the whole country. It is time for a few Brave Men and Women
to find their backbones and throw out the warmongers and their leading Oligarchs!
KiwiAntz , March 14, 2019 at 6:44 pm
What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of
the phony Russiagate project? And there's no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined
Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or
Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American
Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump
impeached & removed from the Whitehouse?
If you can't get him out via a Election, try
& try again, like Maduro in Venezuela, to forcibly remove the targeted person by setting
him up with fake, false accusations & fabricated evidence? How very predictable & how
very American of Mueller & the Democratic Party. Absolute American Corruption, corrupts
absolutely?
Brian Murphy , March 15, 2019 at 10:33 am
Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on
as long as Trump is in office. Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another
reason to stop the investigation.
If the investigation wraps up and finds nothing, that means Trump has already completely
sold out. If the investigation continues, it means someone important still thinks Trump retains some
vestige of his balls.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pm
By last June or July the Mueller investigation has resulted in roughly 150 indictments
for perjury/financial crimes, and there was a handful of convictions to date. The report did
not support the Clinton wing's anti-Russian allegations about the 2016 election, and was
largely brushed aside by media. Mueller was then reportedly sent back in to "find something."
presumably to support the anti-Russian claims.
mike k , March 14, 2019 at 12:57 pm
From the beginning of the Russia did it story, right after Trump's electoral victory, it
was apparent that this was a fraud. The democratic party however has locked onto this
preposterous story, and they will go to their graves denying this was a scam to deny their
presidential defeat, and somehow reverse the result of Trump's election. My sincere hope is
that this blatant lie will be an albatross around the party's neck, that will carry them down
into oblivion. They have betrayed those of us who supported them for so many years. They are
in many ways now worse than the republican scum they seek to replace.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:26 pm
Trump is almost certain to be re-elected in 2020, and we'll go through this all over
again.
The very fact that the FBI never had access to the servers and took the word of a private
company that had a history of being anti-Russian is enough to throw the entire ruse out.
LJ , March 14, 2019 at 2:39 pm
Agreed!!!! and don't forget the FBI/Comey gave Hillary and her Campaign a head's up before
they moved to seize the evidence. . So too, Comey said he stopped the Investigation , thereby
rendering judgement of innocence, even though by his own words 'gross negligence' had a
occurred (which is normally considered grounds for prosecution). In doing so he exceeded the
FBI's investigative mandate. He rationalized that decision was appropriate because of the
appearance of impropriety that resulted from Attorney General Lynch having a private meeting
on a plane on a runway with Bill and Hillary . Where was the logic in that. Who called the
meeting? All were Lawyers who had served as President, Senator, Attorney General and knew
that the meeting was absolutely inappropriate. . Comey should be prosecuted if they want to
prosecute anyone else because of this CRAP. PS Trump is an idiot. Uhinfortunately he is just
a symptom of the disease at this point. Look at the cover of Rolling Stone magazine , carry a
barf bag.
Jane Christ , March 14, 2019 at 6:51 pm
Exactly. This throws doubt on the ability of the FBI to work independently. They are
working for those who want to cover -up the Hillary mess . She evidently has sufficient funds
to pay them off. I am disgusted with the level of corruption.
hetro , March 14, 2019 at 10:50 am
Nancy Pelosi's announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for
Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific "collusion" issue.
If there were something hot and lingering and about to emerge, this decision is highly
unlikely, especially with the reasoning she gave at "so as not to divide the American
people." Dividing the people hasn't been of much concern throughout this bogus witch hunt on
Trump, which has added to his incompetence in leavening a growing hysteria and confusion in
this country. If there is something, anything at all, in the Mueller report to support the
collusion theory, Pelosi would I'm sure gleefully trot it out to get a lesser candidate like
Pence as opposition for 2020.
We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded
the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C.
park for transport to Wikileaks.
We must also honor Shawn Lucas assassinated for serving DNC with a litigation notice
exposing the DNC conspiracy against Sanders.
hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:18 pm
Where has Assange confirmed this? Assange's long-standing position is NOT to reveal his
sources. I believe he has continued to honor this position.
Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:15 am
It has merely been insinuated by the offering of a reward for info on Seth's murder. In
one breath he says wikileaks will never divulge a source, and in the next he offers a $20k
reward saying that sources take tremendous risk. Doesn't take much of a logical leap to
connect A to B.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:30 pm
Are you aware that Democrats split apart their 0wn voting base in the 1990s, middle class
vs. poor? The Obama years merely confirmed that this split is permanent. This is particularly
relevant for Democrats, as their voting base had long consisted of the poor and middle class,
for the common good. Ignoring this deep split hasn't made it go away.
hetro , March 14, 2019 at 3:24 pm
Even more important is how the Democrats have sold out to an Establishment view favoring
neocon theory, since at least Bill Clinton. Pelosi's recent behavior with Ilhan Omar confirms
this and the split you're talking about. My point is it is distinctly odd that Pelosi is
discouraging impeachment on "dividing the Party" (already divided, of course, as you say),
whereas the Russia-gate fantasy was so hot not that long ago. Again it points to a cynical
opportunism and manipulation of the electorate. Both parties are a sad excuse to represent
ordinary people's interests.
Skip Scott , March 15, 2019 at 7:21 am
She said "dividing the country", not the party. I think she may have concerns over Trump's
heavily armed base. That said, the statement may have been a ruse. There are plenty of
Republicans that would cross the line in favor of impeachment with the right "conclusions" by
Mueller. Pelosi may be setting up for a "bombshell" conclusion by Mueller. One must never
forget that we are watching theater, and that Trump was a "mistake" to be controlled or
eliminated.
Mueller should be ashamed that he has made President Trump his main concern!! If all this
investigation would stop he could save America millions!!! He needs to quit this witch-hunt
and worry about things that really need to be handled!!! If the democrats and Trump haters
would stop pushing senseless lies hopefully this would stop ? It's so disgusting that his
democrat friend was never really investigated ? stop the witch-hunt and move forward!!!!
torture this , March 14, 2019 at 7:29 am
According to this letter, mistakes might have been made on Rachel Maddow's show. I can't
wait to read how she responds. I'd watch her show, myself except that it has the same effect
on me as ipecac.
Zhu , March 14, 2019 at 3:37 am
People will cling to "Putin made Trump President!!!" much as many cling "Obama's a Kenyan
Muslim! Not a real American!!!". Both nut theories are emotionally satisfying, no matter what
the historical facts are. Many Americans just can't admit their mistakes and blaming a
scapegoat is a way out.
O Society , March 14, 2019 at 2:03 am
Thank you VIPS for organizing this legit dissent consisting of experts in the field of
intelligence and computer forensics.
This so-called "Russiagate" narrative is an illustration of our "freedom of the press"
failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call
the tune.
It is astounding how little skepticism and scientifically-informed reasoning goes on in
our media. These folks show themselves to be native advertising rather than authentic
journalists at every turn.
DH Fabian , March 14, 2019 at 1:33 pm
But it has been Democrats and the media that market to middle class Dems, who persist in
trying to sell the Russian Tale. They excel at ignoring the evidence that utterly contradicts
their claims.
Oh, we're well beyond your "Blame the middle class Dems" stage.
The WINNING!!! team sports bullshit drowns the entire country now the latrine's sprung a
leak. People pretend to live in bubbles made of blue or red quite like the Three Little Pigs,
isn't it? Except instead of a house made of bricks saving the day for the littlepiggies, what
we've got here is a purple puddle of piss.
Everyone's more than glad to project all our problems on "THEM" though, aren't we?
Meanwhile, the White House smells like a urinal not washed since the 1950s and simpletons
still get their rocks off arguing about whether Mickey Mouse can beat up Ronald McDonald.
T'would be comic except what's so tragic is the desperate need Americans have to believe,
oh just believe! in something. Never mind the sound of the jackhammer on your skull dear,
there's an app for that or is it a pill?
I don't know, don't ask me, I'm busy watching TV. Have a cheeto.
Very good analysis clearly stated, especially adding the FAT timestamps to the
transmission speeds.
Minor corrections: "The emails were copied from the network" should be "from the much
faster local network" because this is to Contradict the notion that they were copied over the
internet network, which most readers will equate with "network." Also "reportedin" should be
"reported in."
Michael , March 13, 2019 at 6:25 pm
It is likely that New Knowledge was actually "the Russians", possibly working in concert
with Crowdstrike. Once an intelligence agency gets away with something like pretending to be
Russian hackers and bots, they tend to re-use their model; it is too tempting to discard an
effective model after a one-off accomplishment. New Knowledge was caught interfering/
determining the outcome in the Alabama Senate race on the side of Democrat Doug Jones, and
claimed they were merely trying to mimic Russian methods to see if they worked (they did; not
sure of their punishment?). Occam's razor would suggest that New Knowledge would be competent
to mimic/ pretend to be "Russians" after the fact of wikileaks' publication of emails. New
Knowledge has employees from the NSA and State department sympathetic to/ working with(?)
Hillary, and were the "outside" agency hired to evaluate and report on the "Russian" hacking
of the DNC emails/ servers.
DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:48 pm
Mueller released report last summer, which resulted in (the last I checked) roughly 150
indictments, a handful of convictions to date, all for perjury/financial (not political)
crimes. This wasn't kept secret. It simply wasn't what Democrats wanted to hear, so although
it was mentioned in some lib media (which overwhelmingly supported neoliberal Hillary
Clinton), it was essentially swept under the carpet.
Billy , March 13, 2019 at 11:11 pm
Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They
all know that "Russia hacked the DNC" and "Russia meddled" is fabricated garbage. They don't
care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn't beat Donald goofball Trump.
So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because
they're gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020.
Realist , March 14, 2019 at 3:22 am
You betcha. Moreover, who but the Russians do these idiots have left to blame? Everybody
else is now off limits due to political correctness. Sigh Those Catholics, Jews, "ethnics"
and sundry "deviants" used to be such reliable scapegoats, to say nothing of the
"undeveloped" world. As Clapper "authoritatively" says, only this vile lineage still carries
the genes for the most extremes of human perfidy. Squirrels in your attic? It must be the
damned Russkies! The bastards impudently tried to copy our democracy, economic system and
free press and only besmirched those institutions, ruining all of Hillary's glorious plans
for a worldwide benevolent dictatorship. All this might be humorous if it weren't so
funny.
And those Chinese better not get to thinking they are somehow our equals just because all
their trillions invested in U.S. Treasury bonds have paid for all our wars of choice and MIC
boondoggles since before the turn of the century. Unless they start delivering Trump some
"free stuff" the big man is gonna cut off their water. No more affordable manufactured goods
for the American public! So there!
As to the article: impeccable research and analysis by the VIPS crew yet again. They've
proven to me that, to a near certainty, the Easter Bunny is not likely to exist. Mueller
won't read it. Clapper will still prance around a free man, as will Brennan. The Democrats
won't care, that is until November of 2020. And Hillary will continue to skate, unhindered in
larding up the Clinton Foundation to purposes one can only imagine.
Joe Tedesky , March 14, 2019 at 10:02 pm
Realist,
I have posted this article 'the Russia they Lost' before and from time to time but
once again it seems appropriate to add this link to expound upon for what you've been saying.
It's an article written by a Russian who in they're youth growing up in the USSR dreamed of
living the American lifestyle if Russia were to ever ditch communism. But . Starting with
Kosovo this Russian's youthful dream turned nightmarishly ugly and, as time went by with more
and yet even more USA aggression this Russian author loss his admiration and desire for all
things American to be proudly envied. This is a story where USA hard power destroyed any hope
of American soft power for world unity. But hey that unity business was never part of the
plan anyway.
right you are, joe. if america was smart rather than arrogant, it would have cooperated
with china and russia to see the belt and road initiative succeed by perhaps building a
bridge or tunnel from siberia to alaska, and by building its own fleet of icebreakers to open
up its part of the northwest passage. but no, it only wants to sabotage what others propose.
that's not being a leader, it's being a dick.
i'm gonna have to go on the disabled list here until the sudden neurological problem with
my right hand clears up–it's like paralysed. too difficult to do this one-handed using
hunt and peck. at least the problem was not in the old bean, according to the scans. carry
on, sir.
Brian James , March 13, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a 'Crime Victim' by Illegal Deep State DOJ &
FBI Abuses: https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c
DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 5:55 pm
Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless,
short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. Trump and the
Republicans continue to win by default, as Democrats only drive more voters away.
Thank you Ray McGovern and the Other 17 VIPS C0-Signers of your National Security Essay
for Truth. Along with Craig Murray and Seymour Hirsch, former Sam Adams Award winners for
"shining light into dark places", you are national resources for objectivity in critical
survival information matters for our country. It is more than a pity that our mainstream
media are so beholden to their corporate task masters that they cannot depart from the
company line for fear of losing their livelihoods, and in the process we risk losing life on
the planet because of unconstrained nuclear war on the part of the two main adversaries
facing off in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. Let me speak plainly. THEY SHOULD BE
TALKING TO YOU AND NOT THE VESTED INTERESTS' MOUTHPIECES. Thank you for your continued
leadership!
Roger Ailes founder of FOX news died, "falling down stairs" within a week of FOX news
exposing to the world that the assassinated Seth Rich downloaded the DNC emails.
DH Fabian , March 13, 2019 at 6:03 pm
Google the Mueller investigation report from last June or July. When it was released, the
public response was like a deflated balloon. It did not support the "Russian collusion"
allegations -- the only thing Democrats still had left to sell. The report resulted in
roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes (not political), and a handful of
convictions to date -- none of which had anything to do with the election results.
Hank , March 13, 2019 at 6:19 pm
Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about "Russian
meddling" in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is
that stupid. They are probably right, but the REAL reason that Hillary lost is because there
ARE enough informed people now in this nation who are quite aware of the Clinton's sordid
history where scandals seem to follow every where they go, but indictments and/or
investigations don't. There IS an internet nowadays with lots of FACTUAL DOCUMENTED
information. That's a lot more than I can say about the mainstream corporate-controlled
media!
I know this won't ever happen, but an HONEST investigation into the Democratic Party and
their actions during the 2016 election would make ANY collusion with ANY nation look like a
mole hill next to a mountain! One of the problems with living in this nation is if you are
truly informed and make an effort 24/7 to be that way by doing your own research, you
more-than-likely can be considered an "island in a sea of ignorance".
We know that the FBI never had access to the servers and a private company was allowed to
handle the evidence. Wasnt it a crime scene? The evidence was tampered with And we will never
know what was on the servers.
Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:10 pm
As a complement to this excellent analysis, I would like to make 2 further points:
The Mueller indictment of Russian Intelligence for hacking the DNC and transferring their
booty to Wikileaks is absurd on its face for this reason: Assange announced on June 12th the
impending release of Hillary-related emails. Yet the indictment claims that Guccifer 2.0 did
not succeed in transferring the DNC emails to Wikileaks until the time period of July 14-18th
– after which they were released online on July 22nd. Are we to suppose that Assange, a
publisher of impeccable integrity, publicly announced the publication of emails he had not
yet seen, and which he was obtaining from a source of murky provenance? And are we further to
suppose that Wikileaks could have processed 20K emails and 20K attachments to insure their
genuineness in a period of only several days? As you will recall, Wikileaks subsequently took
a number of weeks to process the Podesta emails they released in October.
And another peculiarity merits attention. Assange did not state on June 12th that he was
releasing DNC emails – and yet Crowdstrike and the Guccifer 2.0 personna evidently knew
that this was in store. A likely resolution of this conundrum is that US intelligence had
been monitoring all communications to Wikileaks, and had informed the DNC that their hacked
emails had been offered to Wikileaks. A further reasonable prospect is that US intelligence
subsequently unmasked the leaker to the DNC; as Assange has strongly hinted, this likely was
Seth Rich. This could explain Rich's subsequent murder, as Rich would have been in a position
to unmask the Guccifer 2.0 hoax and the entire Russian hacking narrative.
Curious that Assange has Not explicitly stated that the leaker was Seth Rich, if it was,
as this would take pressure from himself and incriminate the DNC in the murder of Rich.
Perhaps he doesn't know, and has the honor not to take the opportunity, or perhaps he knows
that it was not Rich.
View the Dutch TV interview with Asssange and there is another interview available on
youtube in which Assange DOES subtly confirmed it was Seth Rich.
Assange posted a $10,000 reward for Seth Rich's murders capture.
Abby , March 13, 2019 at 10:11 pm
Another mistaken issue with the "Russia hacked the DNC computers on Trump's command" is
that he never asked Russia to do that. His words were, "Russia if you 'find' Hillary's
missing emails let us know." He said that after she advised congress that she wouldn't be
turning in all of the emails they asked for because she deleted 30,000 of them and said that
they were personal.
But if Mueller or the FBI wants to look at all of them they can find them at the NYC FBI
office because they are on Weiner's laptop. Why? Because Hillary's aid Huma Abedin, Weiner's
wife sent them to it. Just another security risk that Hillary had because of her private
email server. This is why Comey had to tell congress that more of them had been found 11 days
before the election. If Comey hadn't done that then the FBI would have.
But did Comey or McCabe look at her emails there to see if any of them were classified? No
they did not do that. And today we find out that Lisa Page told congress that it was Obama's
decision not to charge Hillary for being grossly negligent on using her private email server.
This has been known by congress for many months and now we know that the fix was always in
for her to get off.
robert e williamson jr , March 13, 2019 at 3:26 pm
I want to thank you folks at VIPS. Like I have been saying for years now the relationship
between CIA, NSA and DOJ is an incestuous one at best. A perverse corrupted bond to control
the masses. A large group of religious fanatics who want things "ONE WAY". They are the
facilitators for the rogue government known as the "DEEP STATE"!
Just ask billy barr.
More truth is a very good thing. I believe DOJ is supporting the intelligence community
because of blackmail. They can't come clean because they all risk doing lots of time if a new
judicial mechanism replaces them. We are in big trouble here.
Apparently the rule of law is not!
You folks that keep claiming we live in the post truth era! Get off me. Demand the truth
and nothing else. Best be getting ready for the fight of your lives. The truth is you have to
look yourself in the mirror every morning, deny that truth. The claim you are living in the
post truth era is an admission your life is a lie. Now grab a hold of yourself pick a
dogdamned side and stand for something,.
Thank You VIPS!
Joe Tedesky , March 13, 2019 at 2:58 pm
Hats off to the VIP's who have investigated this Russian hacking that wasn't a hacking for
without them what would we news junkies have otherwise to lift open the hood of Mueller's
never ending Russia-gate investigation. Although the one thing this Russia-gate nonsense has
accomplished is it has destroyed with our freedom of speech when it comes to how we citizens
gather our news. Much like everything else that has been done during these post 9/11 years of
continual wars our civil rights have been marginalized down to zero or, a bit above if that's
even still an argument to be made for the sake of numbers.
Watching the Manafort sentencing is quite interesting for the fact that Manafort didn't
conclude in as much as he played fast and loose with his income. In fact maybe Manafort's
case should have been prosecuted by the State Department or, how about the IRS? Also wouldn't
it be worth investigating other Geopolitical Rain Makers like Manafort for similar crimes of
financial wrongdoing? I mean is it possible Manafort is or was the only one of his type to do
such dishonest things? In any case Manafort wasn't charged with concluding with any Russians
in regard to the 2016 presidential election and, with that we all fall down.
I guess the best thing (not) that came out of this Russia-gate silliness is Rachel
Maddow's tv ratings zoomed upwards. But I hate to tell you that the only ones buying what Ms
Maddow is selling are the died in the wool Hillary supporters along with the chicken-hawks
who rally to the MIC lobby for more war. It's all a game and yet there are many of us who
just don't wish to play it but still we must because no one will listen to the sanity that
gets ignored keep up the good work VIP's some of us are listening.
Andrew Thomas , March 13, 2019 at 12:42 pm
The article did not mention something called to my attention for the first time by one of
the outstanding members of your commentariat just a couple of days ago- that Ambassador
Murray stayed publicly, over two years ago, that he had been given the thumb drive by a
go-between in D.C. and had somehow gotten it to Wikileaks. And, that he has NEVER BEEN
INTERVIEWED by Mueller &Company. I was blown away by this, and found the original
articles just by googling Murray. The excuse given is that Murray "lacks credibility ", or
some such, because of his prior relationship with Assange and/or Wikileaks. This is so
ludicrous I can't even get my head around it. And now, you have given me a new detail-the
meeting with Pompeo, and the complete lack of follow-up thereafter. Here all this time I
thought I was the most cynical SOB who existed, and now I feel as naive as when I was 13 and
believed what Dean Rusk was saying like it was holy writ. I am in your debt.
Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 2:33 pm
Andrew Thomas I'm afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and
propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized
over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about
them. https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm
Mark McCarty , March 13, 2019 at 4:18 pm
A small correction: the Daily Mail article regarding Murray claimed that Murray was given
a thumbdrive which he subsequently carried back to Wikileaks. On his blog, Murray
subsequently disputed this part of the story, indicating that, while he had met with a leaker
or confederate of a leaker in Washington DC, the Podesta emails were already in possession of
Wikileaks at the time. Murray refused to clarify the reason for his meeting with this source,
but he is adamant in maintaining that the DNC and Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked.
And it is indeed ludicrous that Mueller, given the mandate to investigate the alleged
Russian hacking of the DNC and Podesta, has never attempted to question either Assange or
Murray. That in itself is enough for us to conclude that the Mueller investigation is a
complete sham.
Ian Brown , March 13, 2019 at 4:43 pm
It's pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi
as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray!
LJ , March 13, 2019 at 12:29 pm
A guy comes in with a pedigree like that, """ former FBI head """ to examine and validate
if possible an FBI sting manufactured off a phony FISA indictment based on the Steele Report,
It immediately reminded me of the 9-11 Commission with Thomas Kean, former Board member of
the National Endowment for Democracy, being appointed by GW Bush the Simple to head an
investigation that he had previously said he did not want to authorize( and of course bi
partisan yes man Lee Hamilton as #2, lest we forget) . Really this should be seen as another
low point in our Democracy. Uncle Sam is the Limbo Man, How low can you go?
After Bill and
Hillary and Monica and Paula Jones and Blue Dresses well, Golden Showers in a Moscow luxury
hotel, I guess that make it just salacious enough.
Mueller looks just like what he is. He
has that same phony self important air as Comey . In 2 years this will be forgotten.. I do
not think this hurts Trumps chances at re-election as much as the Democrats are hurting
themselves. This has already gone on way too long.
Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic
charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and
Russians.
Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass
media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by
Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump, which was
the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein, Brennan, Podesta and Mueller's crusade on behalf
of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. It will be fascinating to
witness how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent
edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?
So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to
their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was likely in bed with the Winter Hill Gang.
Jack , March 13, 2019 at 12:21 pm
You have failed. An investigation is just that, a finding of the facts. What would Mueller
have to extricate himself from? If nothing is found, he has still done his job. You are a
divisive idiot.
Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:13 pm
Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to
make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war
continues. Mission Accomplished.
@Jack,
Keep running cover for an out of control prosecutor, who, if he had any integrity, would have
hit the bully pulpit mos ago declaring there's nothing of substance to one of the most
potentially dangerous accusations in world history: the Kremlin hacking the election. Last I
checked it puts two nuclear nation-states on the brink of potential war. And you call me
divisive? Mueller's now a willing accomplice to this entire McCarthyite smear and
disinformation campaign. It's all so pathetic that folks such as yourself try and mislead and
feed half-truths to the people.
Drew, you might enjoy this discussion Robert Scheer has with Stephen Cohen and Katrina
vanden Heuvel.
Realist , March 15, 2019 at 3:38 am
Moreover, as the Saker pointed out in his most recent column in the Unz Review, the entire
Deep State conspiracy, in an ad hoc alliance with the embarrassed and embarrassing Democrats,
have made an absolute sham of due process in their blatant witch hunt to bag the president.
This reached an apex when his personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen, was trotted out before congress to
violate Trump's confidentiality in every mortifying way he could even vaguely reconstruct.
The man was expected to say anything to mitigate the anticipated tortures to come in the
course of this modern day inquisition by our latter day Torquemada. To his credit though,
even with his ass in a sling, he could simply not confabulate the smoking gun evidence for
the alleged Russian collusion that this whole farce was built around.
Mueller stood with Bush as he lied the world into war based on lies and illegally spied on
America and tortured some folks.
George Collins , March 13, 2019 at 2:02 pm
QED: as to the nexus with the Winter Hill gang wasn't there litigation involving the
Boston FBI, condonation of murder by the FBI and damages awarded to or on behalf of convicted
parties that the FBI had reason to know were innocent? The malfeasance reportedly occurred
during Mueller time. Further on the sanctified diligence of Mr. Mueller can be gleaned from
the reports of Coleen Rowley, former FBI attorney stationed in Milwaukee??? when the DC FBI
office was ignoring warnings sent about 9/11. See also Sibel Edmonds who knew to much and was
court order muzzled about FBI mis/malfeasance in the aftermath of 9/11.
I'd say it's game, set, match VIPS and a pox on Clapper and the
complicit intelligence folk complicit in the nuclear loaded Russia-gate fibs.
Kiers , March 13, 2019 at 11:47 am
How can we expect the DNC to "hand it " to Trumpf, when, behind the scenes, THEY ARE ONE
PARTY. They are throwing faux-scary pillow bombs at each other because they are both
complicit in a long chain of corruptions. Business as usual for the "principled" two party
system! Democracy! Through the gauze of corporate media! You must be joking!
Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 11:28 am
"We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to
prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly if they become
aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very
different conclusions."
I wish I shared this belief. However, as with Nancy Pelosi's recent statement regarding
pursuing impeachment, I smell a rat. I believe with the help of what the late Robert Parry
called "the Mighty Wurlitzer", Mueller is going to use coerced false testimony and fabricated
forensics to drop a bombshell the size of 911. I think Nancy's statement was just a feint
before throwing the knockout punch.
If reason ruled the day, we should have nothing to worry about. But considering all the
perfidy that the so-called "Intelligence" Agencies and their MSM lackeys get away with daily,
I think we are in for more theater; and I think VIPS will receive a cold shoulder outside of
venues like CN.
I pray to God I'm wrong.
Sam F , March 13, 2019 at 7:32 pm
My extensive experience with DOJ and the federal judiciary establishes that at least 98%
of them are dedicated career liars, engaged in organized crime to serve political gangs, and
make only a fanatical pretense of patriotism or legality. They are loyal to money alone,
deeply cynical and opposed to the US Constitution and laws, with no credibility at all beyond
any real evidence.
Eric32 , March 14, 2019 at 4:24 pm
As near I can see, Federal Govt. careers at the higher levels depend on having dirt on
other players, and helping, not hurting, the money/power schemes of the players above
you.
The Clintons (through their foundation) apparently have a lot of corruption dirt on CIA,
FBI etc. top players, some of whom somehow became multi-millionaires during their civil
service careers.
Trump, who was only running for President as a name brand marketing ploy with little
desire to actually win, apparently came into the Presidency with no dirt arsenal and little
idea of where to go from there.
Bob Van Noy , March 13, 2019 at 11:09 am
I remember reading with dismay how Russians were propagandized by the Soviet Press
Management only to find out later the depth of disbelief within the Russian population
itself. We now know what that feels like. The good part of this disastrous scenario for
America is that for careful readers, disinformation becomes revelatory. For instance, if one
reads an editorial that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or continually refers to
Russian interference in the last Presidential election, then one can immediately dismiss the
article and question the motivation for the presentation. Of course the problem is how to
establish truth in reporting
Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 10:41 am
Thank you, VIPs. Hopefully, you don't expect this to make a difference. The US has moved
into a post truth, post reality existence best characterized by Karl Rove's declaration:
"we're an empire now, when we act, we create our own reality." What Mr. Rove in his arrogance
fails to appreciate is that it is his reality but not anyone else's. Thus Pompous can claim
that Guaido is the democratic leader in Venezuela even though he's never been elected .
Thank you. The next time one of my friends or family give me that glazed over stare and
utters anymore of the "but, RUSSIA" nonsense I will refer them directly to this article. Your
collective work and ethical stand on this matter is deeply appreciated by anyone who values
the truth.
Russiagate stands with past government propaganda operations that were simply made up out
of thin air: i.e. Kuwaiti incubator babies, WMD's, Gaddafi's viagra fueled rape camps, Assad
can't sleep at night unless he's gassing his own people, to the latest, "Maduro can't sleep
at night unless he's starving his own people."
The complete and utter amorality of the deep state remains on display for all to see with
"Russiagate," which is as fact-free a propaganda campaign as any of those just mentioned.
Marc , March 13, 2019 at 10:13 am
I am a computer naif, so I am prepared to accept the VIPS analysis about FAT and transfer
rates. However, the presentation here leaves me with several questions. First, do I
understand correctly that the FAT rounding to even numbers is introduced by the thumb drive?
And if so, does the FAT analysis show only that the DNC data passed through a thumb drive?
That is, does the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a
thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to
give a copy to Wikileaks? Second, although the transatlantic transfer rate is too slow to fit
some time stamps, is it possible that the data were hacked onto a local computer that was
under the control of some faraway agent?
Jeff Harrison , March 13, 2019 at 11:12 am
Not quite. FAT is the crappy storage system developed by Microsoft (and not used by UNIX).
The metadata associated with any file gets rewritten when it gets moved. If that movement is
to a storage device that uses FAT, the timestamp on the file will end in an even number. If
it were moved to a unix server (and most of the major servers run Unix) it would be in the
UFS (unix file system) and it would be the actual time from the system clock. Every storage
device has a utility that tells it where to write the data and what to write. Since it's
writing to a storage device using FAT, it'll round the numbers. To get to your real question,
yes, you could hack and then transfer the data to a thumb drive but if you did that the dates
wouldn't line up.
Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 8:05 am
Jeff-
Which dates wouldn't line up? Is there a history of metadata available, or just metadata
for the most recent move?
David G , March 13, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Marc asks: "[D]oes the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred
to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg,
to give a copy to Wikileaks?"
I asked that question in comments under a previous CN piece; other people have asked that
question elsewhere.
To my knowledge, it hasn't been addressed directly by the VIPS, and I think they should do
so. (If they already have, someone please enlighten me.)
Skip Scott , March 13, 2019 at 1:07 pm
I am no computer wiz, but Binney has repeatedly made the point that the NSA scoops up
everything. If there had been a hack, they'd know it, and they wouldn't only have had
"moderate" confidence in the Jan. assessment. I believe that although farfetched, an argument
could be made that a Russian spy got into the DNC, loaded a thumb drive, and gave it to Craig
Murray.
David G , March 13, 2019 at 3:31 pm
Respectfully, that's a separate point, which may or may not raise issues of its own.
But I think the question Marc posed stands.
Skip Scott , March 14, 2019 at 7:59 am
Hi David-
I don't see how it's separate. If the NSA scoops up everything, they'd have solid evidence
of the hack, and wouldn't have only had "moderate" confidence, which Bill Binney says is
equivalent to them saying "we don't have squat". They wouldn't even have needed Mueller at
all, except to possibly build a "parallel case" due to classification issues. Also, the FBI
not demanding direct access to the DNC server tells you something is fishy. They could easily
have gotten a warrant to examine the server, but chose not to. They also purposely refuse to
get testimony from Craig Murray and Julian Assange, which rings alarm bells on its own.
As for the technical aspect of Marc's question, I agree that I'd like to see Bill Binney
directly answer it.
Karl Rove's Prophecy: "We're an Empire Now, and When We Act, We Create our Own
Reality" By Karel van Wolferen Global
Research, February 05, 2017 Region: USA
In a famous exchange between a high official at the court of George W. Bush and
journalist Ron Susskind, the official – later acknowledged to have been Karl Rove –
takes the journalist to task for working in "the reality-based community." He defined that as
believing "that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." Rove then
asserted that this was no longer the way in which the world worked.
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're
studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating
other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're
history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." (Ron
Suskind, NYTimes Magazine, Oct. 17, 2004).
This declaration became popular as an
illustration of the hubris of the Bush-Cheney government. But we could also see it as fulfilled
prophecy. Fulfilled in a manner that no journalist at that time would have deemed possible.
Yes, the neoconservatives brought disrepute upon themselves because of the disaster in Iraq.
Sure, opposition to the reality Rove had helped create in that devastated country became a
first rung on the ladder that could lead to the presidency, as it did for Barack Obama. But the
neocons stayed put in the State Department and other positions closely linked to the Obama
White House, where they became allies with the liberal hawks in continuing to 'spread
democracy' by overthrowing regimes.
America's mainstream news and opinion purveyors, without demurring, accommodated the
architects of reality production overseen by Dick Cheney. This did not end when Obama became
president, but in fact with seemingly ever greater eagerness they gradually made the
CIA/neocon-neoliberal created reality appear unshakably substantial in the minds of most
newspaper readers and among TV audiences in the Atlantic basin. This was most obvious when
attention moved to an imagined existential threat posed by Russia supposedly aimed at the
political and 'Enlightenment' achievements of the West. Neoconservatives and liberal hawks bent
America's foreign-policy entirely to their ultimate purpose of eliminating a Vladimir Putin who
had decided not to dance to Washington's tune so that he might save the Russian state, which
had been disintegrating under his predecessor and Wall Street's robber barons. With President
Obama as a mere spectator, the neocon/liberals could – without being ridiculed –
pass off the coup d'état they had fomented in the Ukraine as a popular revolution. And
because of an unquestioned Atlanticist faith, which holds that without the policies of the
United States the world cannot be safe for people of the Atlantic basin, the European elites
that determine policy or comment on it joined their American counterparts in endorsing that
reality.
As blind vassals the Europeans have adopted Washington's enemies as their own. Hence the ease
with which the European Union member states could be roped into a system of baseless economic
sanctions against Russia, much to the detriment of their own economic interests. Layers upon
layers of anti-Russian propaganda have piled up to bamboozle a largely unsuspecting public on
both sides of the Ocean. In the Netherlands, from where I have been watching all this, Putin
was held personally responsible in much of the media for the shooting down of a Malaysian
airliner flying over the Ukraine, which killed 298 people. No serious investigation was
undertaken. The presentation of 'almost definitive' findings by the joint investigation team
under Dutch leadership has neither included clues supplied by jet fighter cannon holes in the
wrecked fuselage nor eyewitness stories, which would make the government in Kiev the prime
suspect. Moscow's challenging the integrity of the investigation, whose agreed-upon rules
allowed publication of findings only if Kiev agreed with them, were met with great indignation
by the Dutch Foreign and Prime Ministers.
As the fighting in Syria reached a phase when contradictions in the official Washington/NATO
story demanded a stepping back for a fresh look, editors were forced into contortions to make
sure that the baddies stayed bad, and that no matter how cruel and murderously they went about
their occupation in Aleppo and elsewhere, the jihadi groups fighting to overthrow the secular
Assad government in Damascus remained strictly labeled as moderate dissidents worthy of Western
support, and the Russians as violators of Western values.
Architects of an official reality that diverges widely from the facts you thought you knew
must rely on faits accompli they achieve through military or police violence and
intimidation, in combination with a fitting interpretation or a news blackout delivered by
mainstream media. These conditions have been widely obtained in the Atlantic basin through a
gradual loss of political accountability at top levels, and through government agencies
protected by venerated secrecy that are allowed to live lives of their own. As a result
American and European populations have been dropped into a fantasy world, one under constant
threat from terrorists and an evil dictator in Moscow. For Americans the never ending war waged
by their own government, which leaves them with no choice but to condone mass murder, is
supposedly necessary to keep them safe.
For Europeans, at least those in the northern half, the numerous NATO tanks rolling up to
the border of the Russian Federation and the massing of troops in that area are an extra
guarantee, on top of the missiles that were already there, that Vladimir Putin will restrain
his urges to grab a European country or two. On a smaller scale, when every May 4th the 1940-45
war dead are remembered in the Netherlands, we must now include the fallen in Afghanistan as if
they were a sacrifice to defend us against the Taliban threat from behind the Hindu Kush.
Ever since the start of this millennium there has been a chain of realities as prophesied by
Karl Rove, enhanced by terrorist attacks, which may or may not have been the work of actual
terrorists, but whose reality is not questioned without risking one's reputation. The
geopolitical picture that they have helped build in most minds appears fairly consistent if one
can keep one's curiosity on a leash and one's sense of contradiction sufficiently blunt. After
all, the details of the official reality are filled in and smoothed out all the time by crafty
campaigns produced in the PR world, with assistance from think tanks and academia. But the
question does reappear in one's thoughts: do the politically prominent and the well-positioned
editors, especially those known for having once possessed skeptical minds, actually believe it
all? Do those members of the cabinet or parliament, who can get hot under their collar as they
decry the latest revelation about one or other outrage committed by Putin, take seriously what
they're saying?
Not all of them are believers. I know this from off the record conversations. But there
appears to be a marked difference between the elite in government, in the media, in prominent
social positions, and ordinary people who in these recent times of anguish about populism are
sometimes referred to as uneducated. Quite a few among the latter appear to think that
something fishy is going on. This could be because in my experience the alert ones have
educated themselves, something that is not generally understood by commentators who have made
their way through the bureaucracy of standard higher education. A disadvantage of being part of
the elite is that you must stick to the accepted story. If you deviate from it, and have your
thoughts run rather far away from it, which is quite inevitable once you begin with your
deviation, you can no longer be trusted by those around you.
If you are a journalist and depend for your income on a mainstream newspaper or are hired by
a TV company, you run the risk of losing your job if you do not engage in self-censorship.
Consequently, publications that used to be rightly known as quality newspapers have turned into
unreadable rags. The newspaper that was my employer for a couple of decades used to be edited
on the premise that its correspondents rather than authorities were always correct in what they
were saying. Today greater loyalty to the reality created in Washington and Langley cannot be
imagined. For much of northern Europe the official story that originates in the United States
is amplified by the BBC and other once reliable purveyors of news and opinion like the
Guardian, the Financial Times and the (always less reliable) Economist.
Repetition lends an ever greater aura of truth to the nonsense that is relentlessly repeated
on the pages of once serious publications. Detailed analyses of developments understood through
strings of false clues give the fictions ever more weight in learned heads and debates in
parliament. At the time of writing, the grave concern spread across the opinion pages on my
side of the Atlantic is about how Putin's meddling in upcoming European elections can be
prevented.
The realities Rove predicted have infantilized parliamentary debates, current affairs
discussion and lecture events, and anything of a supposedly serious nature on TV. These now
conform to comic book simplicities of evil, heroes and baddies. They have produced a multitude
of editorials with facts upside-down. They force even those who advise against provoking Moscow
to include a remark or two about Putin being a murderer or tyrant, lest they could be mistaken
for traitors to Enlightenment values or even as Russian puppets, as I have been. Layers of
unreality have incapacitated learned and serious people to think clearly about the world and
how it came to be that way.
How could Rove's predictions so totally materialize? There's a simple answer: 'they' got
away with momentous lies at an early stage. The more authorities lie successfully the more they
are likely to lie again in a big way to serve the purposes of earlier lies. The 'they' stands
for those individuals and groups in the power system who operate beyond legal limits as a
hydra-headed entity, whose coordination depends on the project, campaign, mission, or operation
at hand. Those with much power got away with excessive extralegal use of it since the beginning
of this century because systems of holding the powerful to account have crumbled on both sides
of the Atlantic. Hence, potential opposition to what the reality architects were doing dwindled
to almost nothing. At the same time, people whose job or personal inclination leads them to
ferret out truth were made to feel guilty for pursuing it.
The best way, I think, to make sense of how this works is to study it as a type of
intimidation. Sticking to the official story because you have to may not be quite as bad as
forced religious conversion with a gun pointed at your head, but it belongs to the same
category. It begins with the triggering of odd feelings of guilt. At least that is how I
remember it. Living in Tokyo, I had just read Mark Lane's Rush To Judgment , the first
major demolishing in book form of the Warren Report on the murder of John F. Kennedy, when I
became aware that I had begun to belong to an undesirable category of people who were taking
the existence of conspiracies seriously. We all owe thanks to writers of Internet-based
samizdat literature who've recently reminded us that the pejorative use of the conspiracy label
stems from one of the greatest misinformation successes of the CIA begun in 1967.
So the campaign to make journalists feel guilty for their embarrassing questions dates from
before Dick Cheney and Rove and Bush. But it has only reached a heavy duty phase after the
moment that I see as having triggered the triumph of political untruth.
We have experienced massive systemic intimidation since 9/11. For the wider public we have
the absurdities of airport security – initially evidenced by mountains of nail-clippers
– reminding everyone of the arbitrary coercive potential that rests with the authorities.
Every time people are made to take off their belts and shoes – to stick only to the least
inane instances – they are reminded: yes, we can do this to you! Half of Boston or all of
France can be placed under undeclared martial law to tell people: yes, we have you under full
control! For journalists unexamined guilt feelings still play a major role. The serious ones
feel guilty for wanting to ask disturbing questions, and so they reaffirm that they still
belong to 'sane' humanity rather than the segment with extraterrestrials in flying saucers in
its belief system. But there is a confused interaction with another guilty feeling of not
having pursued unanswered questions. Its remedy appears to be a doubling down on the official
story. Why throw in fairly common lines like "I have no time for truthers" unless you feel that
this is where the shoe pinches?
You will have noticed a fairly common response when the 9/11 massacre enters a discussion.
Smart people will say that they "will not go there", which brings to mind the "here be dragons"
warning on uncharted bits of medieval maps. That response is not stupid. It hints at an
understanding that there is no way back once you enter that realm. There is simply no denying
that if you accept the essential conclusions of the official 9/11 report you must also concede
that laws of nature stopped working on that particular day. And, true enough, if you do go
there and bear witness publicly to what you see, you may well be devoured; your career in many
government positions, the media and even academia is likely to come to an end.
So, for the time being we are stuck with a considerable chunk of terra incognita relating to
recognized political knowledge; which is an indispensable knowledge if you want to get current
world affairs and the American role in it into proper perspective.
Mapping the motives of those who decide "not to go there" may be a way to begin breaking
through this disastrous deadlock. Holding onto your job is an honorable motivation when you
have a family to maintain. The career motivation is not something to scorn. There is also an
entirely reasonable expectation that once you go there you lose your voice publicly to address
very important social abuse and political misdeeds. I think it is not difficult to detect
authors active on internet samizdat sites who have that foremost in mind. Another possible
reason for not going there is the more familiar one, akin to the denial that one has a dreadful
disease. Also possible is an honorable position of wishing to preserve social order in the face
of a prospect of very dramatic political upheaval caused by revelations about a crime so huge
that hardly anything in America's history can be compared to it. Where could such a thing end
– civil war? Martial law?
What I find more difficult to stomach is the position of someone who is worshiped by what
used to be the left, and who has been guiding that class of politically interested Americans as
to where they can and cannot go. Noam Chomsky does not merely keep quiet about it, but mocks
students who raise logical questions prompted by their curiosity, thereby discouraging a whole
generation studying at universities and active in civil rights causes. One can only hope that
this overrated analyst of the establishment, who helps keep the most embarrassing questions out
of the public sphere, trips over the contradictions and preposterousness of his own judgments
and crumples in full view of his audience.
The triumph of political untruth has brought into being a vast system of political
intimidation. Remember then that the intimidator does not really care what you believe or not,
but impresses you with the fact that you have no choice. That is the essence of the exercise of
brute power. With false flag events the circumstantial evidence sometimes appears quite
transparently false and, indeed could be interpreted as having been purposeful. Consider the
finding of passports or identity papers accidentally left by terrorists, or their almost always
having been known to and suspected by the police. And their deaths through police shooting
before they can be interrogated. Could these be taunting signals of ultimate power to a
doubting public: Now you! Dare contradict us! Are the persons killed by the police the same who
committed the crime? Follow-up questions once considered perfectly normal and necessary by news
media editors are conspicuous by their absence.
How can anyone quarrel with Rove's prophecy. He told Susskind that we will forever be
studying newly created realities. This is what the mainstream media continue to do. His words
made it very clear: you have no choice!
A question that will be in the minds of perhaps many as they consider the newly sworn in
president of the United States, who like John F. Kennedy appears to have understood that
"Intelligence" leads a dangerously uncontrolled life of its own: At what point will he give in
to the powers of an invisible government, as he is made to reckon that he also has no
choice?
The final Mueller report should be graded "incomplete," says VIPS, whose forensic work proves the speciousness of the story that
DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The Attorney General
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Mueller's Forensics-Free Findings
Executive Summary
Media reports are predicting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to give you the findings of his probe into any
links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.
If Mueller gives you his "completed" report anytime soon, it should be graded "incomplete."
Major deficiencies include depending on a DNC-hired cybersecurity company for forensics and failure to consult with those who
have done original forensic work, including us and the independent forensic investigators with whom we have examined the data. We
stand ready to help.
We veteran intelligence professionals (VIPS) have done enough detailed forensic work to prove the speciousness of the prevailing
story that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking. Given the paucity of evidence to support that story,
we believe Mueller may choose to finesse this key issue and leave everyone hanging. That would help sustain the widespread belief
that Trump owes his victory to President Vladimir Putin, and strengthen the hand of those who pay little heed to the unpredictable
consequences of an increase in tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.
There is an overabundance of "assessments" but a lack of hard evidence to support that prevailing narrative. We believe that there
are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of "evidence," particularly
if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions.
We know only too well -- and did our best to expose -- how our former colleagues in the intelligence community manufactured fraudulent
"evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
We have scrutinized publicly available physical data -- the "trail" that every cyber operation leaves behind. And we have had
support from highly experienced independent forensic investigators who, like us, have no axes to grind. We can prove that the conventional-wisdom
story about Russian-hacking-DNC-emails-for-WikiLeaks is false. Drawing largely on the unique expertise of two VIPS scientists who
worked for a combined total of 70 years at the National Security Agency and became Technical Directors there, we have regularly published
our findings. But we have been deprived of a hearing in mainstream media -- an experience painfully reminiscent of what we had to
endure when we exposed the corruption of intelligence before the attack on Iraq 16 years ago.
This time, with the principles of physics and forensic science to rely on, we are able to adduce solid evidence exposing mistakes
and distortions in the dominant story. We offer you below -- as a kind of aide-memoire -- a discussion of some of the key
factors related to what has become known as "Russia-gate." And we include our most recent findings drawn from forensic work on data
associated with WikiLeaks' publication of the DNC emails.
We do not claim our conclusions are "irrefutable and undeniable," a la Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq war. Our judgments,
however, are based on the scientific method -- not "assessments." We decided to put this memorandum together in hopes of ensuring
that you hear that directly from us.
If the Mueller team remains reluctant to review our work -- or even to interview willing witnesses with direct knowledge, like
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, we fear that many of those yearning earnestly for the truth on Russia-gate
will come to the corrosive conclusion that the Mueller investigation was a sham.
In sum, we are concerned that, at this point, an incomplete Mueller report will fall far short of the commitment made by then
Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "to ensure a full and thorough investigation," when he appointed Mueller in May 2017. Again,
we are at your disposal.
Discussion
The centerpiece accusation of Kremlin "interference" in the 2016 presidential election was the charge that Russia hacked Democratic
National Committee emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to embarrass Secretary Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump win. The weeks following
the election witnessed multiple leak-based media allegations to that effect. These culminated on January 6, 2017 in an evidence-light,
rump report misleadingly labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)." Prepared by "handpicked analysts" from only three of
the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, and NSA), the assessment expressed "high confidence" in the Russia-hacking-to-WikiLeaks
story, but lacked so much as a hint that the authors had sought access to independent forensics to support their "assessment."
The media immediately awarded the ICA the status of Holy Writ, choosing to overlook an assortment of banal, full-disclosure-type
caveats included in the assessment itself -- such as:
" When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as 'we assess' or 'we judge,' they are conveying an analytic assessment
or judgment. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on
collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment
is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong."
To their credit, however, the authors of the ICA did make a highly germane point in introductory remarks on "cyber incident attribution."
They noted: "The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber
operation -- malicious or not -- leaves a trail." [Emphasis added.]
Forensics
The imperative is to get on that "trail" -- and quickly, before red herrings can be swept across it. The best way to establish
attribution is to apply the methodology and processes of forensic science. Intrusions into computers leave behind discernible physical
data that can be examined scientifically by forensic experts. Risk to "sources and methods" is normally not a problem.
Direct access to the actual computers is the first requirement -- the more so when an intrusion is termed "an act of war" and
blamed on a nuclear-armed foreign government (the words used by the late Sen. John McCain and other senior officials). In testimony
to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that he did not insist on physical access
to the DNC computers even though, as he conceded, "best practices" dictate direct access.
In June 2017, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr asked Comey whether he ever had "access to the actual hardware
that was hacked." Comey answered, "In the case of the DNC we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic
information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. " Sen. Burr followed up: "But no content? Isn't content
an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?" Comey: "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks
is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016."
The "private party/high-class entity" to which Comey refers is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm of checkered reputation and multiple
conflicts of interest, including very close ties to a number of key anti-Russian organizations. Comey indicated that the DNC hired
CrowdStrike in the spring of 2016.
Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation – including a possible impeachment battle and greatly increased tension
between Russia and the U.S. -- it is difficult to understand why Comey did not move quickly to seize the computer hardware so the
FBI could perform an independent examination of what quickly became the major predicate for investigating election interference by
Russia. Fortunately, enough data remain on the forensic "trail" to arrive at evidence-anchored conclusions. The work we have done
shows the prevailing narrative to be false. We have been suggesting this for over two years. Recent forensic work significantly strengthens
that conclusion.
We Do Forensics
Recent forensic examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23, 25 and 26 May 2016. (On June 12, Julian
Assange announced he had them; WikiLeaks published them on July 22.) We recently discovered that the files reveal a FAT (File Allocation
Table) system property. This shows that the data had been transferred to an external storage device, such as a thumb drive,
before WikiLeaks posted them.
FAT is a simple file system named for its method of organization, the File Allocation Table. It is used for storage only and is
not related to internet transfers like hacking. Were WikiLeaks to have received the DNC files via a hack, the last modified times
on the files would be a random mixture of odd-and even-ending numbers.
Why is that important? The evidence lies in the "last modified" time stamps on the Wikileaks files. When a file is stored under
the FAT file system the software rounds the time to the nearest even-numbered second. Every single one of the time stamps in the
DNC files on WikiLeaks' site ends in an even number.
We have examined 500 DNC email files stored on the Wikileaks site. All 500 files end in an even number -- 2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If
those files had been hacked over the Internet, there would be an equal probability of the time stamp ending in an odd number. The
random probability that FAT was not used is 1 chance in 2 to the 500th power. Thus, these data show that the DNC emails posted by
WikiLeaks went through a storage device, like a thumb drive, and were physically moved before Wikileaks posted the emails on the
World Wide Web.
This finding alone is enough to raise reasonable doubts, for example, about Mueller's indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers
for hacking the DNC emails given to WikiLeaks. A defense attorney could easily use the forensics to argue that someone copied the
DNC files to a storage device like a USB thumb drive and got them physically to WikiLeaks -- not electronically via a hack.
Role of NSA
For more than two years, we strongly suspected that the DNC emails were copied/leaked in that way, not hacked. And we said so.
We remain intrigued by the apparent failure of NSA's dragnet, collect-it-all approach -- including "cast-iron" coverage of WikiLeaks
-- to provide forensic evidence (as opposed to "assessments") as to how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks and who sent them. Well before
the telling evidence drawn from the use of FAT, other technical evidence led us to conclude that the DNC emails were not hacked over
the network, but rather physically moved over, say, the Atlantic Ocean.
Is it possible that NSA has not yet been asked to produce the collected packets of DNC email data claimed to have been hacked
by Russia? Surely, this should be done before Mueller competes his investigation. NSA has taps on all the transoceanic cables leaving
the U.S. and would almost certainly have such packets if they exist. (The detailed slides released by Edward Snowden actually show
the routes that trace the packets.)
The forensics we examined shed no direct light on who may have been behind the leak. The only thing we know for sure is that the
person had to have direct access to the DNC computers or servers in order to copy the emails. The apparent lack of evidence from
the most likely source, NSA, regarding a hack may help explain the FBI's curious preference for forensic data from CrowdStrike. No
less puzzling is why Comey would choose to call CrowdStrike a "high-class entity."
Comey was one of the intelligence chiefs briefing President Obama on January 5, 2017 on the "Intelligence Community Assessment,"
which was then briefed to President-elect Trump and published the following day. That Obama found a key part of the ICA narrative
less than persuasive became clear at his last press conference (January 18), when he told the media, "The conclusions of the intelligence
community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to how 'the DNC emails that were leaked' got to WikiLeaks.
Is Guccifer 2.0 a Fraud?
There is further compelling technical evidence that undermines the claim that the DNC emails were downloaded over the internet
as a result of a spearphishing attack. William Binney, one of VIPS' two former Technical Directors at NSA, along with other former
intelligence community experts, examined files posted by Guccifer 2.0 and discovered that those files could not have been downloaded
over the internet. It is a simple matter of mathematics and physics.
There was a flurry of activity after Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016: "We have emails relating to Hillary Clinton which
are pending publication." On June 14, DNC contractor CrowdStrike announced that malware was found on the DNC server and claimed there
was evidence it was injected by Russians. On June 15, the Guccifer 2.0 persona emerged on the public stage, affirmed the DNC statement,
claimed to be responsible for hacking the DNC, claimed to be a WikiLeaks source, and posted a document that forensics show
was synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."
Our suspicions about the Guccifer 2.0 persona grew when G-2 claimed responsibility for a "hack" of the DNC on July 5, 2016, which
released DNC data that was rather bland compared to what WikiLeaks published 17 days later (showing how the DNC had tipped the primary
scales against Sen. Bernie Sanders). As VIPS
reported in a wrap-up
Memorandum for the President on July 24, 2017 (titled "Intel Vets Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence)," forensic examination of the
July 5, 2016 cyber intrusion into the DNC showed it NOT to be a hack by the Russians or by anyone else, but rather a copy onto an
external storage device. It seemed a good guess that the July 5 intrusion was a contrivance to preemptively taint anything WikiLeaks
might later publish from the DNC, by "showing" it came from a "Russian hack." WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on July 22, three
days before the Democratic convention.
As we prepared our July 24 memo for the President, we chose to begin by taking Guccifer 2.0 at face value; i. e., that the documents
he posted on July 5, 2016 were obtained via a hack over the Internet. Binney conducted a forensic examination of the metadata contained
in the posted documents and compared that metadata with the known capacity of Internet connection speeds at the time in the U.S.
This analysis showed a transfer rate as high as 49.1 megabytes per second, which is much faster than was possible from a remote online
Internet connection. The 49.1 megabytes speed coincided, though, with the rate that copying onto a thumb drive could accommodate.
Binney, assisted by colleagues with relevant technical expertise, then extended the examination and ran various forensic tests
from the U.S. to the Netherlands, Albania, Belgrade and the UK. The fastest Internet rate obtained -- from a data center in New Jersey
to a data center in the UK -- was 12 megabytes per second, which is less than a fourth of the capacity typical of a copy onto a thumb
drive.
The findings from the examination of the Guccifer 2.0 data and the WikiLeaks data does not indicate who copied the information
to an external storage device (probably a thumb drive). But our examination does disprove that G.2 hacked into the DNC on July 5,
2016. Forensic evidence for the Guccifer 2.0 data adds to other evidence that the DNC emails were not taken by an internet spearphishing
attack. The data breach was local. The emails were copied from the network.
Presidential Interest
After VIPS' July 24, 2017 Memorandum for the President, Binney, one of its principal authors, was invited to share his insights
with Mike Pompeo, CIA Director at the time. When Binney arrived in Pompeo's office at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017 for an
hour-long discussion, the director made no secret of the reason for the invitation: "You are here because the President told me that
if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk with you."
Binney warned Pompeo -- to stares of incredulity -- that his people should stop lying about the Russian hacking. Binney then started
to explain the VIPS findings that had caught President Trump's attention. Pompeo asked Binney if he would talk to the FBI and NSA.
Binney agreed, but has not been contacted by those agencies. With that, Pompeo had done what the President asked. There was no follow-up.
Confronting James Clapper on Forensics
We, the hoi polloi, do not often get a chance to talk to people like Pompeo -- and still less to the former intelligence
chiefs who are the leading purveyors of the prevailing Russia-gate narrative. An exception came on November 13, when former National
Intelligence Director James Clapper came to the Carnegie Endowment in Washington to hawk his memoir. Answering a question during
the Q&A about Russian "hacking" and NSA, Clapper said:
" Well, I have talked with NSA a lot And in my mind, I spent a lot of time in the SIGINT business, the forensic evidence
was overwhelming about what the Russians had done. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever." [Emphasis added]
Clapper added: " as a private citizen, understanding the magnitude of what the Russians did and the number of citizens in our
country they reached and the different mechanisms that, by which they reached them, to me it stretches credulity to think they didn't
have a profound impact on election on the outcome of the election."
(A transcript of the interesting Q&A can be found
here and a commentary
on Clapper's performance at Carnegie, as well as on his longstanding lack of credibility, is
here .)
Normally soft-spoken Ron Wyden, Democratic senator from Oregon, lost his patience with Clapper last week when he learned that
Clapper is still denying that he lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the extent of NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens.
In an unusual outburst, Wyden said: "James Clapper needs to stop making excuses for lying to the American people about mass surveillance.
To be clear: I sent him the question in advance. I asked him to correct the record afterward. He chose to let the lie stand."
The materials brought out by Edward Snowden in June 2013 showed Clapper to have lied under oath to the committee on March 12,
2013; he was, nevertheless, allowed to stay on as Director of National Intelligence for three and half more years. Clapper fancies
himself an expert on Russia, telling Meet the Press on May 28, 2017 that Russia's history shows that Russians are "typically,
almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever."
Clapper ought to be asked about the "forensics" he said were "overwhelming about what the Russians had done." And that, too, before
Mueller completes his investigation.
For the steering group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:
William Binney , former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA's Signals
Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
Richard H. Black , Senator of Virginia, 13th District; Colonel US Army (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division,
Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Pentagon (associate VIPS)
Bogdan Dzakovic , former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Girald i, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel , former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the
Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
James George Jatras , former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate leadership (Associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson , former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
John Kiriakou , former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski , former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture
of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Edward Loomis , Cryptologic Computer Scientist, former Technical Director at NSA (ret.)
David MacMichael , Ph.D., former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern , former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray , former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & CIA
political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce , MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Peter Van Buren , US Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton , CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Kirk Wiebe , former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Ann Wright , retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq
War
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers
and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington's justifications for launching
a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived
threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of
VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.
A newly declassified US intelligence memo has been unearthed this week and featured in a bombshell
Wall
Street Journal
report. It proves that the year prior to the Bush administration's 2003
invasion of Iraq the White House was expressly warned in great detail of all that could and would
go wrong in the regime change war's aftermath, including
the Sunni-Shia sectarian chaos and
proxy war with Iran
that would define Iraq and the whole region for years following. And
crucially, it reveals that seven months
before
the US invasion of Iraq, American
intelligence officials understood that
Osama bin Laden was likely "alive and well and
hiding in northwest Pakistan"
--
important given that a key Bush
admin claim to sell the war was that Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were
"in league"
against the
United States.
The
July 2002 memo
was authored by William Burns, then serving as assistant secretary of state for near eastern
affairs, and though clearly dismissed by the Bush neocons making the case for war, proved prescient
on many levels.
"Following are some very quick and informal thoughts on how events before,
during and after an effort to overthrow the regime in Baghdad could unravel if we're not careful,
intersecting to create
a 'perfect storm'
for American interests,"
Burns wrote
in the memo, classified 'Secret' and sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The classified memo's existence was first brought to the public's attention through
Knight Ridder's reporting
in July 2003, which sought to reveal at the time there were pockets
of dissenting voices in the State Department and intelligence community pushing back against the
absurd White House claim that the whole operation would be a
"cakewalk"
and US troops would be greeted as "liberators". And there's Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous
declaration that the military effort
would take
"weeks rather than months."
Now, sixteen years after the start of the war the "perfect storm" intel briefing has been made
public in fully redacted form and it affirms, as the
WSJ reports
, "Diplomats accurately forecast many setbacks:
sectarian violence, attacks
on U.S. troops, Iranian intervention and long road to structural change
." Out of this came
the rise of ISIS and the continued unleashing of regime change and sectarian chaos on neighboring
Syria.
The ten page memo outlines a litany of
catastrophic doom and gloom scenarios
resulting from the invasion which would destabilize not only Iraq, but
unleash sectarian
hell on the entire region
.
Here are but a handful of the memo's many warnings which later proved right on target, as
summarized by the military reporting website
Task
& Purpose
:
Iran increasing aid to anti-American groups in both Iraq and Afghanistan because it
feared being "next on US hit list."
Security in Iraq collapsing following regime change because Iraqi troops and police would
be too afraid to patrol while Iraqis aligned with the United States would prove to be inept.
U.S. troops coming under increasing attacks as they patrol both Shiite and Sunni cities.
"If they intervene to stop disputes, they are perceived to have sided with one party or
another in a tribal dispute, thus incurring the wrath of the opposing party."
Afghanistan's security situation simultaneously deteriorating, creating the need for more
U.S. troops there.
"Carpetbaggers, bill collectors, expats and exiles," arriving in Iraq. "It will be a wild
mix."
"I don't mean to be pessimistic, because I really do believe that if we do it right this could
be a tremendous boon to the future of the region, and to U.S. national security interests," the
memo stated. "But we should have no illusion that it will be quick or easy."
And further contradicting Cheney's "weeks rather than months" claim, the memo accurately
predicted that U.S. troops would have to stay for,
"Five years – maybe four if we're lucky,
ten if we're not."
Some further interesting highlights from the July 2002 'Secret' report are below.
* * *
Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan
(the Bush admin claimed Saddam
and bin Laden were in cahoots)
"Osama bin Laden turns out to be alive and well and hiding in NW Pakistan. We press Paks,
internal stresses grow in Pakistan."
Iran and Syria targeted next
"Following US warnings that it would take the war on terrorism to all groups with global
capabilities, Iran and Syria hold summit meeting, decide US has targeted them."
Iran and Syria "strengthen positions in face of perceived US threat against them following
action in Iraq."
Sectarian score settling and Shia uprising
"This means night becomes the time for revenge, all over Iraq. A horrible wave of bloodletting
and private vengeance begins... US forces are helpless to stop the countrywide phenomenon. Police,
intelligence, senior military, and Baath Party officials effectively go into hiding..."
"Shia religious and political leaders, unhappy with composition of provisional government and
determined to secure greater share of power in post-Saddam Iraq... This leads to more violent
confrontations, and deaths, and the riots become a political tool to demonstrate power and increase
leverage against Sunnis and Kurds..."
Long US quagmire to put down sectarian powder keg
"Faced with inchoate and escalating disorder in the provinces, the US faces an agonizing
decision: step up to a more direct security role, or devolve power to local leaders."
"The Shia in the south, quietly aided by Iran, stage major revolt, taking over local government
offices and killing interim officials."
Weapons from Saddam's army will disappear (to be later used against US occupation)
"Law and Order, collecting weapons. We won't get them, most will go to ground."
"All for one, one for all, free for all - deals, short-term scrambles. It will be every clan for
itself."
Venezuela production is not only being hit by the blackout – which seems to have
damaged their overall grid capacity – but by new sanctions. Their diluent supplier has
just stated they will stop business.
Perhaps useful to note that Maduro was just as incompetent 6 months ago as presumably he is
now. He was just as incompetent 9 months ago as presumably he is now. And indeed, he was just
as incompetent three months ago as he is now. In fact we could take it back years.
Thus, it surely is just a coincidence that their blackout occurred at a point in time when
a foreign coup attempt was underway, rather than 9 or 6 or 3 months ago. Sabotage could not
be involved because we're told that incompetence and corruption is responsible, of the sort
that just happened to manifest itself at this point in time.
The 20 folks who are alleged to have died in hospitals from lack of power just
coincidentally died at this particular point in time. Because it is merely coincidence, the
saboteurs probably cannot be tried for murder.
Power has apparently been restored. Oil will resume its flow at whatever magnitude.
Of course there are no coincidences, just the things that the CIA, the Illuminati, the
freemasons, the jewish bankers and the Martians wanted to happen.
"Thus, it surely is just a coincidence that their blackout occurred at a point in time when a
foreign coup attempt was underway, rather than 9 or 6 or 3 months ago. Sabotage could not be
involved because we're told that incompetence and corruption is responsible, of the sort that
just happened to manifest itself at this point in time."
I am sure the US is trying to speed up the process. After all, those Aid buses were not
torched by Mo or his supporters but by Western agents. Its difficult to know who is really to
blame for the blackout, but the US has an agenda to take control over VZ. I would not rule
out the US causing it.
"... As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card , "essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan." ..."
"... For decades, the DoD's leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and drive the DoD's budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity ..."
"... That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control "we the people" have over our runaway government. ..."
Our nation is being preyed upon by a military industrial complex that is propped up by war
profiteers, corrupt politicians and foreign governments.
America has so much to offer -- creativity, ingenuity, vast natural resources, a rich
heritage, a beautifully diverse populace, a freedom foundation unrivaled anywhere in the world,
and opportunities galore -- and yet our birthright is being sold out from under us so that
power-hungry politicians, greedy military contractors, and bloodthirsty war hawks can make a
hefty profit at our expense.
Don't be fooled into thinking that your hard-earned tax dollars are being used for national
security and urgent military needs.
It's all a ruse.
You know what happens to tax dollars that are left over at the end of the government's
fiscal year? Government agencies -- including the Department of Defense -- go on a "use it or
lose it" spending spree so they can justify asking for money in the next fiscal year.
According to an investigative report by Open the Government, among the items purchased
during the last month of the fiscal year when government agencies go all out to get rid of
these "use it or lose it" funds: Wexford Leather club chair ($9,241), china tableware
($53,004), alcohol ($308,994), golf carts ($673,471), musical equipment including pianos,
tubas, and trombones ($1.7 million), lobster tail and crab ($4.6
million) , iPhones and iPads ($7.7 million), and workout and recreation equipment ($9.8
million).
Anyone who suggests that the military needs more money is either criminally clueless or
equally corrupt, because the military isn't suffering from lack of funding -- it's suffering
from lack of proper oversight.
Rest assured, however, that if Trump gets his way -- to the tune of a
$4.7 trillion budget that digs the nation deeper in debt to foreign creditors, adds
$750 billion for the
military budget , and
doubles the debt growth that Trump once promised to erase -- the war profiteers (and
foreign banks who "own" our debt) will be raking in a fortune while America goes belly up.
This is basic math, and the numbers just don't add up.
As it now stands, the U.S. government is operating in the negative on every front: it's
spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is
borrowing heavily ( from foreign governments
and Social Security ) to keep the government operating and keep funding
its endless wars abroad .
Certainly, nothing about the way the government budgets its funds puts America's needs
first.
The nation's educational system is pathetic (young people are learning nothing about their
freedoms or their government). The infrastructure is antiquated and growing more outdated by
the day. The health system is overpriced and inaccessible to those who need it most. The
supposedly robust economy is belied by the daily
reports of businesses shuttering storefronts and declaring bankruptcy. And our so-called
representative government is a sham.
If this is a formula for making America great again, it's not working.
The White House wants taxpayers to accept that the only way to reduce the nation's
ballooning deficit is by cutting "entitlement" programs such as Social Security and Medicare,
yet the glaring economic truth is that at the end of the day, it's the military industrial
complex -- and not the sick, the elderly or the poor -- that is pushing America towards
bankruptcy.
We have become a debtor nation , and the
government is sinking us deeper into debt with every passing day that it allows the military
industrial complex to call the shots.
Simply put, the government cannot afford to maintain its over-extended military empire.
To be clear, the U.S government's defense spending is about one thing and one thing only:
establishing and maintaining a global military empire.
Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world's population, America boasts almost
50% of
the world's total military expenditure , spending
more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined.
The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its
breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.
Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent
government officials, America's expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate
of more than $32 million
per hour .
The U.S. government is spending money it doesn't have on a military empire it can't
afford.
As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United
States has been fighting
terrorism with a credit card , "essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of
purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local
governments, and by countries like China and Japan."
For decades, the DoD's leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic,
unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and
drive the DoD's budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity. DoD has literally been
making up numbers in its annual financial reports to Congress -- representing trillions
of dollars' worth of seemingly nonexistent transactions -- knowing that Congress would rely
on those misleading reports when deciding how much money to give the DoD the following
year.
Unfortunately, the outlook isn't much better for the spending that can be tracked.
A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging
taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As
the report noted, the American
taxpayer paid :
$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a
dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another
tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000
percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the
tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.
That price
gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a
sad statement on how little control "we the people" have over our runaway government.
Mind you, this isn't just corrupt behavior. It's deadly, downright immoral behavior.
The U.S. government is not making the world any safer. It's making the world more dangerous.
It is estimated that the U.S. military
drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes . Since 9/11, the United States
government has directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000. Every one of those deaths
was paid for with taxpayer funds.
Those who call the shots in the government -- those who push the military industrial
complex's agenda -- those who make a killing by embroiling the U.S. in foreign wars -- have not
heeded Johnson's warning.
The U.S. government is not making American citizens any safer . The repercussions of
America's military empire have been deadly, not only for those innocent men, women and children
killed by drone strikes abroad but also those here in the United States.
The transformation of America into a battlefield is blowback.
All of this carnage is being carried out with the full support of the American people, or at
least with the proxy that is our taxpayer dollars.
The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying
the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer
dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.
As Martin Luther King Jr. recognized, under a military empire, war and its profiteering will
always take precedence over the people's basic human needs.
Similarly, President Dwight Eisenhower warned us not to let the profit-driven war machine
endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the
final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not
clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its
laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern
heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power
plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half
million bushels of wheat. We
pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it
is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. [ ] Is there no other way the world may live?"
We failed to heed Eisenhower's warning.
The illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government that Eisenhower warned
against has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation today.
It's not sustainable, of course.
Eventually, inevitably, military empires fall and fail by spreading themselves too thin and
spending themselves to death.
As long as "we the people" continue to allow the government to wage its costly, meaningless,
endless wars abroad, the American homeland will continue to suffer: our roads will crumble, our
bridges will fail, our schools will fall into disrepair, our drinking water will become
undrinkable, our communities will destabilize, our economy will tank, crime will rise, and our
freedoms will suffer.
So who will save us?
As I make clear in my book, Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , we'd better start saving ourselves: one by one,
neighbor to neighbor, through grassroots endeavors, by pushing back against the police state
where it most counts -- in our communities first and foremost, and by holding fast to what
binds us together and not allowing politics and other manufactured nonrealities to tear us
apart.
Start today. Start now. Do your part.
Literally and figuratively, the buck starts and stops with "we the people."
When we should be paying our seniors a generous amount of social security and pensions to
people who earned them, we are paying illegals and their kids to come to America and act like
parasites. Our children will be debt slaves because of Congress.
We are also paying trillions to the MIC and three letter agencies with absolutely no
oversight. We pay hundreds of thousands of totally useless government employees including the
military and over a 1000 bases on foreign soil.
Eisenhower warned against letting the MIC take control of the country.
What is weird, you spend that money on infrastructure, which would substantially improve
the economy through gained efficiencies and you can afford to waste it but if you waste it,
you can not spend it on infrastructure to be able to afford to burn it, blow it up, fire it
or just plain dump it.
Well, it is pretty clear, from the screams of the insiders, the reform is coming and they
know it. The louder the rants of screams of the establishment, the closer they are to
losing.
Look at what they do, they kill people for profit, if they could silence us by killing us,
they would, they can not, they have already lost, now it is just a matter of political grind
and legal process, to root them out and then investigate and prosecute them, en mass.
They had total control for decades and most knew nothing, now control is broken and most
people know.
Ditch the ABM and INF treaties. Extend NATO to Russia's borders. Regime change in Ukraine.
Demonize Putin/Russia. Then claim umpteen billions more needed for national defense.
Wonderful.
this article would not have seen the light of day on facebook or youtube, but thanks to
Tyler of zerohedge with his total respect for free speech, people can learn why their country
is bankrupt.
Its funny. Less than 40 years after the cold war and the Russian successor state is
putting on the same trick to the USSA that doomed the USSR. Russia is lean and mean now and its forcing the US to spend just truly insane amounts on
weapons.
War spending has always - ALWAYS! - since at least the late 19th Century - been an
instrument of wealth redistribution: from the poor to the rich.
The only question I have is: where did all that wealth go? It would be fun to collect the
dots and find out who now owns AT LEAST $3 TRILLION stolen from the Pentagon since 2001.
I don't get this stolen bit. Nothing is stolen from US tax payers. Its US debt holders
that get screwed. The US is one big worldwide theft of finished goods , resources and
capaital
nothing is lost or stolen, the defense department is totally careless with the people's
money.
$20 billions of weapons were left in Iraq after the us left but the funny part they were
left in far warehouses that only ISIS got hold of them.
If I was a conspiracy theorist , I would say they left these weapons on purpose for isis
to wage war and invade Syria which they did, but all this stuff was in vain as all these
weapons got destroyed by the Russians and the american people lost $20 billion.
Welcome to the New Rome, ruled by the Military Industrial Complex (M.I.C.) and the
Bansksters (Wall Street, FED, Treasury, Corporations, Insurers) and their bought corrupt
CONgress members.
"Save for retirement!" to pay the bonuses of the rats above.
"Support the Troops!" to die for the corrupt rats above.
"... At least two of the 10 assailants who broke into the embassy and interrogated diplomatic staff have been identified and have connections to the US intelligence agency ..."
"... Some of the assailants were Asian and spoke Korean language. They were probably from the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), a subsidiary of the CIA know for its extremely hawkish politics. It often rigged elections in South Korea in support of hawkish conservatives candidates. ..."
"... A story was thought up and pushed to the favorite CIA outlet, the Washington Post . It wasn't the CIA which did it, writes the Post's national security reporter, it was a CIA controlled 'regime change' organization. ..."
"... The White Helmets, the MI-6 organization for 'regime change' in Syria, has the website domain "www.syriacivildefense.org". Cheollima's website domain is "www.cheollimacivildefense.org". The logos of the two organization are also somewhat similar. ..."
March 15, 2019 CIA Blames Its Proxy For Its Raid On North Korea's Embassy In Spainjames , Mar 15, 2019 7:15:08 PM |
link
The CIA is
the main suspect in the military style raid on the North Korean embassy in Madrid. It now
launched a somewhat hapless effort to deflect from it. The original Spanish report said :
At least two of the 10 assailants who broke into the embassy and interrogated diplomatic
staff have been identified and have connections to the US intelligence agency. The CIA has
denied any involvement but government sources say their response was "unconvincing."
That the CIA is the main suspect in the assault was reported on
Wednesday in the Spanish mainstream paper El Pais . The paper made the extra effort to
publish an abbreviated English language
version . It was widely picked up by
other
international
outlets . Some of the assailants were Asian and spoke Korean language. They were probably
from the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), a subsidiary of the CIA know for
its extremely hawkish politics. It often
rigged elections in South Korea in support of hawkish conservatives candidates.
Attacking a foreign embassy in a third country is far out of bounce of international law
and diplomatic decency. After the El Pais report something had to be done to direct
the attention away from the CIA and to find some other culprit.
A story was thought up and pushed to the favorite CIA outlet, the Washington Post .
It wasn't the CIA which did it, writes the Post's national security reporter, it was a
CIA controlled 'regime change' organization.
In broad daylight, masked assailants infiltrated North Korea's embassy in Madrid,
restrained the staff with rope, stole computers and mobile phones, and fled the scene in
two luxury vehicles.
The group behind the late February operation is known as Cheollima Civil Defense , a
secretive dissident organization committed to overthrowing the Kim dynasty, people familiar
with the planning and execution of the mission told The Washington Post.
...
People familiar with the incident say the group did not act in coordination with any
governments. U.S. intelligence agencies would have been especially reluctant to do so given
the sensitive timing and brazen nature of the mission. But the raid represents the most
ambitious operation to date for an obscure organization that seeks to undermine the North
Korean regime and encourage mass defections, they say.
The CIA agents, led by
torture queen Gina Haspel, are snowflakes who would never break the law or cause some
international outrage. It must have been some independent group:
"This group is the first known resistance movement against North Korea, which makes its
activities very newsworthy," said Sung-Yoon Lee, a North Korea expert at Tufts University.
The identity of the assailants is a particularly sensitive topic given the delicate
nature of Trump and Kim's relationship.
...
Any hint of U.S. involvement in an assault on a diplomatic compound could have derailed the
talks , a prospect the CIA would likely be mindful of.
Derailing the talks was and is exactly what Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton
wanted to do. We know that because the Post
reported it on February 20, two days before the raid on the embassy and seven days before
the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi:
Last month, in a lengthy speech at Stanford University, [Trump's special envoy Stephen E.]
Biegun set out his vision for North Korea to dismantle its plutonium and uranium enrichment
facilities in exchange for "corresponding measures" by the United States.
Hawks such as Bolton have fiercely opposed this "step-by-step" process in favor of
maintaining maximum pressure through economic sanctions that would, in theory , force a
better deal by eroding North Korea's resolve.
Tasking the CIA to raid a North Korean embassy to spoil the talks is exactly a thing John
Bolton would do. The Post's shameful attempt to make believe otherwise is
laughable :
"Infiltrating a North Korean embassy days before the nuclear summit would throw that all
into jeopardy," said Sue Mi Terry, a former Korea analyst at the CIA . "This is not
something the CIA would undertake."
The agency declined to comment.
We can of course fully believe the 'former' CIA analyst's assertion that the CIA never do
such a thing. Aside from Bolton's urge to sabotage the negotiations it would have had no
motive. Except, of course, it would have many:
Experts say the computers and phones seized in the raid amount to a treasure trove of
information that foreign intelligence agencies are likely to seek out from the group.
In 2017 Spain asked the North Korean ambassador Kim Hyok Chol to leave. He is now the
leader of the negotiations with the United States. To know everything about him is important.
He may even be susceptible to blackmail:
The assailants also possess a video recording they took during the raid, which they could
release anytime, said one person who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to
discuss a sensitive and illegal operation.
The Spanish language
version of the El Pais report had a side box that might explain the possible
content of a video (machine translated):
One of the darkest aspects of the assault on the North Korean Embassy in Madrid is the
interrogation to which the head of the command, who called himself The Entrepreneur,
subjected the charge of business, leading the diplomatic delegation since the ambassador
was expelled. The head of the commando separated the diplomat from the rest of the hostages
and locked himself alone with him. It is not known what he intended, but the current head
of the Pyongyang delegation in Madrid probably knows a lot about Kim Hyok Chol, head of the
North Korean delegation in the nuclear negotiations before the US, with whom he coincided
when the latter was ambassador in Madrid, between 2014 and 2017.
Mentioning a video recording taken during the raid is supposed to sow 'fear and doubt' in
the North Korean negotiator.
The new Washington Post /CIA story
goes on to describe the 'regime change' organization that is supposed to divert from the
direct CIA involvement in the raid:
The Cheollima group, which also goes by the name Free Joseon, came to prominence in 2017
after it successfully evacuated the nephew of Kim Jong Un from Macau when potential threats
to his life surfaced. The nephew was the son of Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean leader's
exiled half brother who was assassinated in a nerve-gas attack in a Malaysian airport in
2017.
...
For safety reasons, the leader of the group does not disclose his name, and his identity
is known only to a small group of people.
Cheollima is the name of a mythical horse in Chinese and Korean folklore. The Joseon dynasty ruled Korea from 1392
to 1897. It went down when Japan tried to gain control of the country which it achieved a few
years later.
Kim Jong Nam was killed on February 13, 2017. In a redacted video his son Kim Han-sol thanks the people
who picked him up. (They might want to use him as a future replacement for Kim Jong-un.) The
video was recorded on February 15 2017 ("my father was killed two days ago"). It was
published on March 7 2017 on a Cheollima channel on
Youtube created on March 4 2017. The Cheollima website domain the group uses was
anonymously registered in March 2017. It was updated on November 29 2918 shortly after the
South Korean NIS
received new orders from its headquarter in Washington DC.
Cheollima/Free Joseon
also
seeks defectors from North Korea. On February 28 2019 (not "in March" as the Post
claims), the very same day the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi
failed , Cheollima published a
manifest that clearly aims at 'regime change' in North Korea:
WE DECLARE ON THIS DAY the establishment of Free Joseon, a provisional government preparing
the foundations for a future nation built upon respect for principles of human rights and
humanitarianism, holding sacred a manifest dignity for every woman, man, and child.
We declare this entity the sole legitimate representative of the Korean people of the
north.
The U.S. driven 'regime change' attempt in Venezuela also has a figure that claims to be
the "sole legitimate representative" while having zero power in that country.
The English version of the manifest reads like it was written by someone who is a native
English speaker or at least studied English literature:
Joseon must and shall be free. Arise! Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!
We reject the chains of our historic unrequited grief, declare henceforth a new era in
our history, and prepare the way for a New Joseon. We therefore proclaim the birth of our
revolution and our intentions towards building a more just and equal society, as truest
expressions of the shared affections of our people.
A report on the manifest launch in the British Sun
remarks :
The Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD) organisation has declared itself as a shadow government
which is working to overthrow the regime.
...
Not a lot is known about the CCD but some people believe it is linked to South Korea's spy
agency.
The White Helmets, the MI-6 organization for 'regime change' in Syria, has the website
domain "www.syriacivildefense.org". Cheollima's website domain is
"www.cheollimacivildefense.org". The logos of the two organization are also somewhat
similar.
Is there a corporate design/marketing company specialized in spy service cutouts for
'regime change'?
The 'former' CIA analyst in the Post piece 'predicts' that there
will be more 'embassy raid' operations:
"In its messaging, the group said they have formed a provisional government to replace the
regime in Pyongyang," said Terry, who is a scholar at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington. "They have now shown the seriousness of their intent
and some capabilities to carry out operations. We will see in the coming months the extent
of their capabilities."
While the CIA makes a hapless attempt to cover its traces in Madrid, North Korea continues
to follow its game plan for the next round of negotiations. It prepares the public for a U.S.
failure
:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will soon decide whether to continue diplomatic talks and
maintain his moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests, a senior North Korean
official said Friday, adding that the U.S. threw away a golden opportunity at the recent
summit between their leaders.
...
She said Pyongyang now has no intention of compromising or continuing talks unless the
United States takes measures that are commensurate to the changes it has taken -- such as
the 15-month moratorium on launches and tests -- and changes its "political calculation."
The North Korean statement blames Bolton and Secretary of State Pompeo for the failure of
the negotiations while it empathizes a special relation between Kim and Trump.
The
signaled satellite launch by North Korea will proceed. It will push the Trump
administration back to the starting point of its efforts to 'denuclearize' North Korea.
The difference now is that North Korea has earned good will in China and Russia. It showed
its willingness to negotiate and stuck to its commitments made in the Joint Declaration in
Singapore while the U.S. obviously refused to fulfill its parts. China and Russia already
gave North Korea some unofficial 'sanction relief'. They are unlike to again support the
failed 'maximum pressure' approach the Trump administrations once set out with.
The hapless CIA nonsense will not change those facts.
Posted by b on March 15, 2019 at 06:50 PM |
Permalink
Comments thanks for this b.. fascinating.. reality is stranger then fiction.. trust the
wapo prints mostly fiction to run to the cias rescue..
yeah, i just can't imagine the cia doing anything bad... that would really be unlike
them!! the logo designers are going to have to be more creative, but until such time as they
are, we can count on such branding that appears to come out of the same graphic design
outfit.. i wonder how the poodle spain proceeds from here??
Tasking the CIA to raid a North Korean embassy to spoil the talks is exactly a thing John
Bolton would do.
So it was probably Bolton after all. If he had no authority to issue orders
within the CIA, things would have been lots fuzzier with that "proxy". Especially if somebody
was waving around shopping bags full of large bills. The other day at the xymphora site the
blogger wrote this:
More Bolton hyper-aggression on multiple fronts. Bolton out of control is the best example
of the complete deterioration of Trump. Remember it was Sheldon who forced Trump to appoint
him, and the equally incompetent Abrams. One of the problems with the Deep State animosity
towards Trump is that the 'adults' who would normally move in to fix this have relatively
little influence over Trump, who is now flailing away under the influence of shekels and
the most obvious blackmail I've ever seen.
Influence! But only today did I read a comment which caused me to add 2 + 2 to
get 4.
Maybe Trump will fire Bolton and Abrams. That's not the outcome I expect if the apartheid
Jewish state holds videos demonstrating behavior both sinful and criminal.
Given the current world geopolitical situation and the American intelligence network's
close involvement in the Russian meddling narrative, it's looking this former president's
assessment was prescient.
It was not me defence does not work in real life. In the master of reality distortion field
it is accepted effective SOP. My SITRAP tells me that this operating system is due to crash.
Some more context on "Cheollima," in Korean mythology the Cheollima arrives to sanctify the
founder of a new dynasty, thus quite literally a reference to "regime change." Also, Joseon
is both a reference to the last dynasty and a reference to the official name of North Korea,
which prefers "Joseon" to South Korea's "Han." Both terms are frequently used in Juche
ideology, meaning they've worked out a communications strategy for this outfit that fits with
the ruling ideology of the Communist Party.
"We will see in the coming months the extent of their capabilities."
Followed by... "While the CIA makes a hapless attempt to cover its traces in Madrid..."
My god, are these fkrs even trying to be subtle anymore, or are they (as the Saker has
asserted) just that stupid? They sure as sheise aren't doing very well at the "cover
its traces" part...
I'd also like to add that despite all the cracks about "little rocket man," "fat boy," pie,
and cakes, etc., Kim Jong Un is proving to be just about as sharp as Kim Il Sung (I hear
Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong is also very bright).
Excellent report; many thanks once again, b.
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 15, 2019 8:17:49 PM |
link
@B: Thanks for connecting the dots. Thats the great strength of MoA IMHO, that you put all
details together, revealing the whole picture. Those details, that even supposed first class
journalists dont (want to) remember. Thus enabling a look on the deeper truths.
@John: Thanks for the background info!
Trump IS being blackmailed. Not by Russia, but by Sheldon Adelson and Co. With the neocons
in the admin being the price DJT and we all now pay.
That this can not end well, no matter if with Trump or Clinton or whoever, should be clear by
now. The USA and us their vassals are on a path on which there are no happy endings i fear.
Only crash and burn, and the near hope to rebuild something liveable out of the ruins.
Dystopia.
Do not forget the Democrats hand in this. They want Trump to fail. They held the Cohen
hearings while Trump was negotiating with Kim in Vietnam. Clearly that was intended to show
that Trump is weak and not in control. Joined together with the embassy raid it shows the NK
leadership that any promises made are not likely to be kept by the next administration.
Trump needs to change tack by backing off slightly on his demands and getting the UN more
involved bypassing his national security establishment.
I cannot recall there ever being a regime change organization directed at North Korea.
All of this is obvious, the war party is using its resources to push North Korea away from
the table. In my opinion the South is way to smart to swallow that BS. The South does have
its war hawks as well but it appears that the desire for reunification is quite strong.
The Tick 201 The Little Wooden Boy, part 2, dialog around 5:50 of the You Tube video:
Wonder Woman: "So it is true! The Swiss mean to take over the City!"
Anonymous person with gray mustache, a leader of a masked group, all armed in huge and
very special Swiss Army Knives: "No, no, no, no! Silly American woman, we are certainly
Swiss, but our actions IN NO WAY represent the policies of the Swiss government. Actually, we
are more like, err, criminals."
1) AFAIK Bolton can't order the CIA to do anything.
2) If Bolton has any 'pull' it's because he is a neocon and advances their agenda (but he
can't order CIA to do anything).
3) Gina Haspel is Brennan's gal at CIA. Trump appointed her as well as others connected to
his (supposed) enemies like:
- VP Pence, long-time friend of John McCain;
Bolton, who Trump had praised long before the election;
William Barr, who is close to Robert Mueller;
4) In foreign policy, Trump plays the good cop to the Deep State's bad cop.
5) We've seen apologists give numerous excuses for Trump:
- he's a foreign policy neophyte, getting played by the neocons!
- he's playing 11-dimensional chess!
- Bolton!
The same sort of excuses were made for Obama, USA's previous faux
populist President.
When people tire of the excuses, maybe they will start to see how a) faux populism
is a political model that serves the establishment and b) revisit the 2016 Presidential
election and connect the memory-holed dots:
- the Deep State wanted a nationalist President to counter the challenge from Russia-China
( Kissinger alluded to MAGA in his WSJ Op-Ed in August 2014) ;
- Trump was the ONLY populist running on the Republican side (out of 19
candidates!) ;
- Trump was close to the Clintons for years (even their daughters are close)
;
- Felix Sater worked for Trump for over a decade while an informant for Robert Mueller's
FBI (Sater's family had Russian mob connections) ;
- Virtually all of the dubious Russian oligarch ties attributed to Trump are Jewish and
are likely (if not known to be) more connected to Israel than Russia;
- Sanders was a sheepdog (this 25-year friend of Hillary's was not a real
candidate) ;
Jackrabbit @ 12 beat me in saying that John Bolton has no authority over the CIA to tell them
to do anything but he's head of the NSA and that organisation could have been tasked with
organising the raid using mercenaries.
John Bolton is National Security
Advisor (NSA), and as the name implies, it is an ADVISORY position (with no formal
command authority):
The National Security Advisor participates in meetings of the National Security Council
(NSC) and ... is supported by NSC staff who produce research and briefings ...
The influence and role of the National Security Advisor varies from administration to
administration and depends not only on the qualities of the person appointed to the
position, but also on the style and management philosophy of the incumbent
President....
... (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of
Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence [DNI] . The
NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and
data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes ...
No Bolton can't order the CIA to do anything. But he can indicate to the Korean Intelligence
Service (Formerly known as the Korean CIA) that an attack on the Embassy would be a good
thing to do.
There are rogue players here, one is the ultra right Korean deep state. Another is Japan.
Both are committed to keeping US troops in Korea and to continuing to treat the North as an
enemy.
Then there is the influence, in both Korea and Japan, of the Pentagon or elements within it
equally committed to maintaining the status quo: permanent war with the North, permanent
control over South Korea's forces, butting up to China's border, and the continued hostility
between Japan and China.
One thing we do know is that the South Korean government will not have approved of this raid.
Ordinarily, when you get an order from headquarters you never obey it the first time
because you're not sure they mean it. It might be some guy telling you to do something to
get himself off the hook, being on record as having ordered it. So you always wait until
the second time. But if there's a White House code word, you'd better take it seriously.
The message from the White House said he was to assassinate Lumumba(...)
(...)my complaint has been that the CIA isn't overthrowing enough anti-American
governments or assassinating enough anti-American leaders, but I guess I'm getting old.
What's keeping the agency inactive is Congress and disinformed public opinion(...
Especially interesting the part dedicated to poisonoing, Skripal case comes to mind,
taking into account the coordianted effort in expelling diplomats and the US expelling more
than anybody, even than UK...
Trump approves all this outrage, it has his seal all the way...
Who do you talk to for military advice right now? ... is there a go-to for
you?
DONALD TRUMP:
Yeah, probably there are two or three. I mean, I like Bolton. I think he's, you
know, a tough cookie, knows what he's talking about . Jacobs is a good guy--
CHUCK TODD:
Do you mean Ambassador John Bolton--
DONALD TRUMP:
Yes. I think he's terrific --
CHUCK TODD:
You mean Colonel Jack Jacobs?
DONALD TRUMP:
Colonel Jack Jacobs is a good guy. And I see him on occasion.
With this quite obvious violation of International Law on top of the seemingly infinite
previous violations, Pompeo and Bolton have tag
teamed to tell the ICJ they'll sanction anyone that comes after any Outlaw US Empire
individual, the threat itself likely being against the UN Charter and thus unlawful. I really
don't have much further comment on this incident other than to reiterate that the United
States of America should no longer be called that as it now proven beyond all doubt to be the
Outlaw US Empire--internationally, the USA's Federal government's an Outlaw and must
be treated as such. It's time to flip GW Bush's ultimatum on its head and tell every nation
on the planet that if you're with the Outlaw US Empire then you're also an Outlaw, part of
its Evil designs and abettor of its crimes. The UK & Zionistan have already proven
themselves to be the top accomplices, with France and Canada their juniors. It's long past
time to form an international posse, and no nation can claim ignorance.
"... Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president. ..."
"... Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells. ..."
"... Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars. ..."
"... "Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run. ..."
"... Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks. ..."
When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was
more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders,
said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004
liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals,
saying they would damage women's rights
in Afghanistan.
The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003,
warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill
Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.
Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal
viewers by peddling
wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist
Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck
standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that
nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."
The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic
presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC,
Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what
their liberal audiences currently want or will accept.
Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick
to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.
... ... ...
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with
Senator Rand Paul.
The antiwar movement is not a "liberal" movement. Hundreds of mainly your people addressed the San Francisco board of supervisors
asking them to condemn an Israeli full-fledged attack on Gaza. When they were finished, without objection from one single supervisor,
the issued was tabled and let sink permanently in the Bay, never to be heard of again. Had the situation been reversed and Israel
under attack there most probably would have been a resolution in nanoseconds. Maybe even half the board volunteering to join the
IDF? People believed Trump would act more objectively. That is why he got a lot of peace votes. What AIPAC wants there is a high
probability our liberal politicians will oblige quickly and willingly. Who really represents America remains a mystery?
"That abiding hatred will continue to play an outsized and often illogical role in determining what most Democrats believe about
foreign policy."
True, but the prowar tendency with mainstream liberals ( think Clintonites) is older than that. The antiwar movement among
mainstream liberals died the instant Obama entered the White House. And even before that Clinton and Kerry and others supported
the Iraq War. I think this goes all the way back to Gulf War I, and possibly further. Democrats were still mostly antiwar to some
degree after Vietnam and they also opposed Reagan's proxy wars in Central America and Angola. Some opposed the Gulf War, but it
seemed a big success at the time and so it became centrist and smart to kick the Vietnam War syndrome and be prowar. Bill Clinton
has his little war in Serbia, which was seen as a success and so being prowar became the centrist Dem position. Obama was careful
to say he wasn't antiwar, just against dumb wars. Gore opposed going into Iraq, but on technocratic grounds.
And in popular culture, in the West Wing the liberal fantasy President was bombing an imaginary Mideast terrorist country.
Showed he was a tough guy, but measured, unlike some of the even more warlike fictitious Republicans in that show. I remember
Toby Ziegler, one of the main characters, ranting to his pro diplomacy wife that we needed to go in and civilize those crazy Muslims.
So it isn't just an illogical overreaction to Trump, though that is part of it.
Won't happen. Gabbard is solid and sincere but she's not Hillary so she won't be the candidate. Hillary is the candidate forever.
If Hillary is too drunk to stand up, or too obviously dead, Kamala will serve as Hillary's regent.
The problem isn't THAT Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The problem is HOW Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria.
The Left isn't fighting about 'keeping troops indefinitely in Syria' vs pulling troops out of Syria'. Its a fight over 'pulling
troops out in a way that makes it so that we don't have to go back in like Obama and Iraq' vs 'backing the reckless pull out Trump
is going to do'.
For Democrats, everything depends on what the polls say, which issues seem important to get elected. They will say anything,
no matter how irrational & outrageously insane if the polls say Democrat voters like them. If American involvement in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan are less important according to the polls, Democratic 2020 hopefuls will not bother to focus on it.
For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally
right, & what is morally evil.
"I am glad Donald Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the intervention."
Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US
military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan
(!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells.
Kasoy: "For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is
morally right, & what is morally evil."
I think that needs the trademark symbol, i.e True Christians™
The Second Coming of Jack Hunter. Given his well-documented views on race, it's no surprise he's all in on Trump. That surely
outweighs Trump's massive spending and corruption that most true libertarians oppose.
Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in
Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars.
Of course, the left would come out against puppies and sunshine if Trump came out for those things.
But if they are smart, they'd recognize that on war, or his lack of interest in starting new wars, even the broken Trump clock
has been right twice a day.
The flip side of this phenomenon is that so many Republican voters supported Trump's withdrawal from Syria. Had it been Obama
withdrawing the troops, I suspect 80-90% of Republicans would have opposed the withdrawal.
This does show that Republicans are listening to Trump more than Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio on foreign policy. But once
Trump leaves office, I fear the party will swing back towards the neocons.
"Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace
platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case?
At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run.
Dopey Trump campaigned on something different and has now surrounded himself with GOP hawks, probably because he's lazy and
doesn't know any better.
Bernie, much like Ron Paul was, 180 degrees away, is the only one who might do different if he got into office, and the rate
the left is going he may very well be the nominee.
Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't
go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks.
The least bad comment on Democrats is that everyone in DC is a hawk, not just them.
"... Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president. ..."
"... Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells. ..."
"... Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars. ..."
"... "Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run. ..."
"... Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks. ..."
When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was
more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders,
said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004
liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals,
saying they would damage women's rights
in Afghanistan.
The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003,
warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill
Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.
Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal
viewers by peddling
wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist
Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck
standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that
nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."
The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic
presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC,
Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what
their liberal audiences currently want or will accept.
Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick
to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.
... ... ...
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with
Senator Rand Paul.
The antiwar movement is not a "liberal" movement. Hundreds of mainly your people addressed the San Francisco board of supervisors
asking them to condemn an Israeli full-fledged attack on Gaza. When they were finished, without objection from one single supervisor,
the issued was tabled and let sink permanently in the Bay, never to be heard of again. Had the situation been reversed and Israel
under attack there most probably would have been a resolution in nanoseconds. Maybe even half the board volunteering to join the
IDF? People believed Trump would act more objectively. That is why he got a lot of peace votes. What AIPAC wants there is a high
probability our liberal politicians will oblige quickly and willingly. Who really represents America remains a mystery?
"That abiding hatred will continue to play an outsized and often illogical role in determining what most Democrats believe about
foreign policy."
True, but the prowar tendency with mainstream liberals ( think Clintonites) is older than that. The antiwar movement among
mainstream liberals died the instant Obama entered the White House. And even before that Clinton and Kerry and others supported
the Iraq War. I think this goes all the way back to Gulf War I, and possibly further. Democrats were still mostly antiwar to some
degree after Vietnam and they also opposed Reagan's proxy wars in Central America and Angola. Some opposed the Gulf War, but it
seemed a big success at the time and so it became centrist and smart to kick the Vietnam War syndrome and be prowar. Bill Clinton
has his little war in Serbia, which was seen as a success and so being prowar became the centrist Dem position. Obama was careful
to say he wasn't antiwar, just against dumb wars. Gore opposed going into Iraq, but on technocratic grounds.
And in popular culture, in the West Wing the liberal fantasy President was bombing an imaginary Mideast terrorist country.
Showed he was a tough guy, but measured, unlike some of the even more warlike fictitious Republicans in that show. I remember
Toby Ziegler, one of the main characters, ranting to his pro diplomacy wife that we needed to go in and civilize those crazy Muslims.
So it isn't just an illogical overreaction to Trump, though that is part of it.
Won't happen. Gabbard is solid and sincere but she's not Hillary so she won't be the candidate. Hillary is the candidate forever.
If Hillary is too drunk to stand up, or too obviously dead, Kamala will serve as Hillary's regent.
The problem isn't THAT Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The problem is HOW Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria.
The Left isn't fighting about 'keeping troops indefinitely in Syria' vs pulling troops out of Syria'. Its a fight over 'pulling
troops out in a way that makes it so that we don't have to go back in like Obama and Iraq' vs 'backing the reckless pull out Trump
is going to do'.
For Democrats, everything depends on what the polls say, which issues seem important to get elected. They will say anything,
no matter how irrational & outrageously insane if the polls say Democrat voters like them. If American involvement in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan are less important according to the polls, Democratic 2020 hopefuls will not bother to focus on it.
For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally
right, & what is morally evil.
"I am glad Donald Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the intervention."
Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US
military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan
(!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells.
Kasoy: "For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is
morally right, & what is morally evil."
I think that needs the trademark symbol, i.e True Christians™
The Second Coming of Jack Hunter. Given his well-documented views on race, it's no surprise he's all in on Trump. That surely
outweighs Trump's massive spending and corruption that most true libertarians oppose.
Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in
Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars.
Of course, the left would come out against puppies and sunshine if Trump came out for those things.
But if they are smart, they'd recognize that on war, or his lack of interest in starting new wars, even the broken Trump clock
has been right twice a day.
The flip side of this phenomenon is that so many Republican voters supported Trump's withdrawal from Syria. Had it been Obama
withdrawing the troops, I suspect 80-90% of Republicans would have opposed the withdrawal.
This does show that Republicans are listening to Trump more than Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio on foreign policy. But once
Trump leaves office, I fear the party will swing back towards the neocons.
"Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace
platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case?
At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run.
Dopey Trump campaigned on something different and has now surrounded himself with GOP hawks, probably because he's lazy and
doesn't know any better.
Bernie, much like Ron Paul was, 180 degrees away, is the only one who might do different if he got into office, and the rate
the left is going he may very well be the nominee.
Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't
go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks.
The least bad comment on Democrats is that everyone in DC is a hawk, not just them.
Could you say that "checks and balances" of the US in current stage are "unbalanced"
Looks like executive branch has its own policies and legislative branch is trying very
hard to nullify whatever executive branch can or could potentially do (and it will impact
future presidents too).
And more importantly all this "meddling" (forgive me the pun) between the branches
essentially cripples the US politics, foreign and internal.
If one can imaging THAT is the Russian goal then perhaps Mr. Trump could get the Star of Hero
of the Russian Federation pretty soon
"... Ward delves into questions about whether Kushner misused his role as a way to find financing to rescue a Fifth Avenue property in Manhattan and suggests that Kushner dimwittedly nearly dragged the United States into a war in the region. It is a dark and mostly one-sided portrait, one with which the Kushner and Trump families no doubt will disagree. ..."
"... The greatest challenge of the book, and one that is likely to raise questions, is fulfilling the third element of Ward's subtitle: "Greed. Ambition. Corruption." The latter word connotes criminality; while Kushner's father served time in prison, neither Jared nor Ivanka has been accused of crimes by a prosecutor. ..."
"... To be sure, President Trump and his family have thrown around such concepts loosely, and without hedging. During the 2016 campaign, he called Hillary Clinton the " Most Corrupt Candidate Ever! ," retweeting an image that encased the words in a Jewish star against a backdrop of U.S. currency, a tweet widely criticized as anti-Semitic. (Trump said he thought it was a sheriff's star.) Clinton, like Jared and Ivanka, has not been charged by prosecutors with corruption. ..."
"... To rehabilitate the family image, Ward writes, the elder Kushner adopted a plan that called for transitioning from owning garden apartments in New Jersey to acquiring a Fifth Avenue office tower, a "trophy" that would dazzle the doubters. In addition, Jared would buy the New York Observer to get friendly media treatment, and he would "date someone prominent." While the father pulled the strings, the son got the credit -- and later the blame -- for buying the nation's most expensive office property just before the Great Recession, leaving him with a staggering debt. As for the prominent woman, Kushner dated Ivanka Trump. ..."
"... In the rather cynical portrait Ward draws, Ivanka, too, was strategic. Ward quotes her as saying in her own book, " The Trump Card ": "If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true." ..."
"... She writes that only after a thorough investigation by Congress and other authorities might they "finally face a reckoning." ..."
Kushner, Inc. Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump By Vicky Ward
St. Martin's. 286 pp. $28.99
... ... ...
There are no blockbuster revelations here regarding Kushner's meeting with a Russian banker or his involvement in a meeting with
a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower, two issues that have drawn the interest of investigators. Ward is, however, particularly critical
of Trump's decision to hand over Middle East policy to Kushner, which led to clashes with then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and
others.
Ward delves into questions about whether Kushner misused his role as a way to find financing to rescue a Fifth Avenue property
in Manhattan and suggests that Kushner dimwittedly nearly dragged the United States into a war in the region. It is a dark and mostly
one-sided portrait, one with which the Kushner and Trump families no doubt will disagree.
For much of the book, as is often the case with volumes seeking to tell an inside story of the White House, the sources are anonymous
and highly critical. If Ward secured on-the-record interviews with her two main subjects, she does not say so; their voices are mostly
filtered through the mouths of others, most of whom may have a vested interest in spinning conversations a certain way. It is, to
be sure, a particularly challenging task that Ward has undertaken, given Kushner's rare public comments and the couple's obsession
with maintaining their image and protecting the president.
The greatest challenge of the book, and one that is likely to raise questions, is fulfilling the third element of Ward's subtitle:
"Greed. Ambition. Corruption." The latter word connotes criminality; while Kushner's father served time in prison, neither Jared
nor Ivanka has been accused of crimes by a prosecutor.
In the text, while Ward hammers the couple on page after page, she doesn't explicitly accuse them of corruption as defined by
legal statutes. Perhaps the closest she comes is when she writes that "it's been reported" that Ivanka Trump oversaw her family's
project in Azerbaijan in which a partner's brother had been described in a U.S. diplomatic cable as corrupt.
"As a result, it's possible that the Trump Organization violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act," Ward writes, providing
a notable hedge.
To be sure, President Trump and his family have thrown around such concepts loosely, and without hedging. During the 2016
campaign, he called Hillary Clinton the "
Most Corrupt Candidate Ever! ," retweeting an image that encased the words in a Jewish star against a backdrop of U.S. currency,
a tweet widely criticized as anti-Semitic. (Trump said he thought it was a sheriff's star.) Clinton, like Jared and Ivanka, has not
been charged by prosecutors with corruption.
Ward, who relies heavily on the reporting of others (noted in endnotes), as well as her own sources, has a tendency, particularly
in the first half of the book, to make sweeping statements and repeat rumors, some of which she then bats down. She writes that one
man "was rumored to sleep with men and hired prostitutes," and says another was "not one to be troubled by ethics."
Ward paints a sordid portrait of Kushner's coming-of-age, retelling tales of how his father's contributions to Harvard may have
greased his way into the college. A war within the Kushner family led his father, Charles Kushner, to arrange for a prostitute to
entrap a relative with whom he had feuded. Charles Kushner went to prison for his part in the scheme and other matters. Jared later
told New York magazine that his father's viewpoint was: "
You're trying to make my life miserable? Well, I'm doing
the same. "
To rehabilitate the family image, Ward writes, the elder Kushner adopted a plan that called for transitioning from owning
garden apartments in New Jersey to acquiring a Fifth Avenue office tower, a "trophy" that would dazzle the doubters. In addition,
Jared would buy the New York Observer to get friendly media treatment, and he would "date someone prominent." While the father pulled
the strings, the son got the credit -- and later the blame -- for buying the nation's most expensive office property just before
the Great Recession, leaving him with a staggering debt. As for the prominent woman, Kushner dated Ivanka Trump.
Donald Trump was not pleased at first, according to Ward. "Why couldn't she have married Tom Brady?" he said, referring to the
New England Patriots quarterback, Ward writes. "Have you seen how he throws a football?"
In the rather cynical portrait Ward draws, Ivanka, too, was strategic. Ward quotes her as saying in her own book, "
The Trump Card ": "If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true."
When President Trump said there were "
very fine people, on both sides " of a Charlottesville clash during which white supremacists shouted "Jews will not replace us,"
Trump's economic adviser Gary Cohn threatened to resign, noting that some of his family members had been killed in the Holocaust.
Ivanka urged him to stay, telling him: "My dad's not a racist. He didn't mean any of it; he's not anti-Semitic," according to Ward.
Cohn remained in his post.
At first, Jared and Ivanka didn't plan to work in the White House, but after Trump brought them in as advisers, they frequently
clashed with chief strategist Stephen Bannon and others. An "epic" and profane fight took place between Bannon and Ivanka over who
was leaking stories, Ward writes.
"Everybody knows you leak," Bannon is reported to have told Ivanka.
"You're a f---ing liar," she is said to have responded. "Everything that comes out of your mouth is a f---ing lie."
"Go f--- yourself. . . . You are nothing," Bannon reportedly said.
The president, according to Ward, eventually wanted to send Jared and Ivanka back to New York, but after so many firings and resignations
in the White House, he needed them more than ever.
Some of their activities have remained largely opaque. And Ward can take speculation about corruption only so far. She writes
that only after a thorough investigation by Congress and other authorities might they "finally face a reckoning."
Hate of Russia national runs deep with the infected bowels of the State Department. Sounds
like Neo-cons saber rattling and wanting to start WWIII over a bunch of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis
installed thanks to Victoria Nuland.
So much for detente with Russia. Trump proved to be just a marionette of MIC...
Sentiments about Trump at Zerohedge noticeably deteriorates since 2016
The US State Department announced on Friday that it would be joining
the European Union and Canada to impose new sanctions against Russia in response to the
Kremlin's "continued aggression in Ukraine."
Sanctions will apply to six "individuals who orchestrated the unjustified November 25 attack
on three Ukrainian naval vessels near the Kerch Strait."
Also sanctioned by the United States are eight companies, including six Russian defense
firms, "including shipbuilding companies; two individuals involved in the NOvember sham
"elections" in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine; and two Russian energy and construction
companies operating in Crimea."
Read the State Department announcement below:
Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets
Control (OFAC) designated six Russian individuals and eight entities in response to Russia's
continued and ongoing aggression in Ukraine. Today's action targets individuals and entities
playing a role in Russia's unjustified attacks on Ukrainian naval vessels in the Kerch Strait,
the purported annexation of Crimea, and backing of illegitimate separatist government elections
in eastern Ukraine. These actions complement sanctions also taken today by the European Union
and Canada, and underscore the strength and commitment of the transatlantic partnership to
counter Russia's continued destabilizing behavior and malign activities.
"The United States and our transatlantic partners will not allow Russia's continued
aggression against Ukraine to go unchecked. This joint initiative with our partners in the
European Union and Canada reinforces our shared commitment to impose targeted and meaningful
sanctions in response to the Kremlin's attempts to disregard international norms and
undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said Treasury Secretary Steven T.
Mnuchin. "The international community is strongly aligned against Russia's naval attacks in
the Kerch Straight, purported annexation of Crimea, and support for the illegitimate
separatist-conducted elections in eastern Ukraine."
OVERVIEW
Five years after its invasion of Ukraine and its attempted annexation of Crimea, Russia
continues to undermine Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity while failing to
implement its obligations under the Minsk agreements. On November 25, 2018, Russian authorities
opened fire on and rammed three Ukrainian ships off the coast of Crimea, seizing the ships and
capturing 24 Ukrainian crew members, who remain illegally detained in Russia. Russia also
continues its occupation of Crimea, and the Kremlin has also backed illegitimate elections held
by Ukrainian separatists in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic on November 11, 2018.
As a result of today's designations, all property and interests in property of the
designated individuals and entities are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from
transacting with them. Moreover, any entities owned 50 percent or more by these designated
persons are also blocked by operation of law.
Designations Related to Russia's Attack in the Kerch Strait
OFAC today sanctioned four Russian officials who were involved in the Kerch Strait attack.
OFAC designated Gennadiy Medvedev, the Deputy Director of the Border Guard Service of Russia's
Federal Security Service; Sergey Stankevich, the Head of the Border Directorate of Russia's
Federal Security Service; and Andrey Shein, the Deputy Head of the Border Directorate and Head
of the Coast Guard Unit of Russia's Federal Security Service. Medvedev and Stankevich directly
controlled and organized the attack against the Ukrainian ships and their crew, while Shein
participated in the operation against the seized Ukrainian ships and crew.
OFAC also designated Ruslan Romashkin, the Head of the Service Command Point of the Federal
Security Service of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol.
Medvedev, Stankevich, Shein, and Romashkin are being designated pursuant to Executive Order
(E.O.) 13661 for being officials of the Government of the Russian Federation.
DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO RUSSIA'S PURPORTED ANNEXATION OF CRIMEA
Today's action also targets six Russian defense firms with operations in Crimea, several of
which misappropriated Ukrainian state assets to provide services to the Russian military. Four
of these entities are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the defense and
related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy, and two entities are being
designated pursuant to E.O. 13685 for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine.
Yaroslavsky Shipbuilding Plant is a Russian state-owned shipbuilding plant that has built
vessels for Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Yaroslavsky Shipbuilding Plant is also the project developer for a naval vessel that was
completed at the Federal SUE Shipyard "Morye" in Crimea. Yaroslavsky Shipbuilding Plant is
being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the defense or related materiel sector
of the Russian Federation economy.
Zelenodolsk Shipyard Plant, named after A.M. Gorky, is one of the largest ship manufacturers
in Russia and has produced missile frigates and corvettes for the Russian Navy. The Zelenodolsk
Shipyard Plant has collaborated with Crimea-based enterprise Skloplastic, which was unlawfully
nationalized by the Russian government following its illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014. The
Zelenodolsk Shipyard Plant is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the
defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy.
AO Kontsern Okeanpribor (Okeanpribor) is a producer of hydroacoustic equipment and has
supplied components to the Russian Navy. Okeanpribor has also collaborated on a naval project
at the Federal SUE Shipyard "Morye" in Crimea. Federal SUE Shipyard "Morye" was designated by
OFAC on September 1, 2016. Okeanpribor is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating
in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy.
PAO Zvezda (Zvezda) is a supplier of diesel engines to the Russian Navy. Zvezda has also
supplied components for Russian naval vessels that were being built at the Federal SUE Shipyard
"Morye" in Crimea. Zvezda is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13662 for operating in the
defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy.
AO Zavod Fiolent (Fiolent) is a Crimea-based electronics manufacturer that has supplied
parts for use in Russian military equipment. Fiolent was unlawfully seized by the Russian
Federation following its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Fiolent is being designated pursuant to
E.O. 13685 for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine.
GUP RK KTB Sudokompozit (Sudokompozit) is a Crimea-based producer of defense components that
are supplied for Russian military use. Sudokompozit was unlawfully seized by the Russian
Federation following its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Sudokompozit is being designated
pursuant to E.O. 13685 for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine.
OFAC also designated the following two entities pursuant to E.O. 13685, due to their
activities in Crimea.
LLC SK Consol-Stroi LTD is being designated for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine.
LLC SK Consol-Stroi LTD, a limited liability company registered in the city of Simferopol,
Crimea, is one of Crimea's largest construction companies. LLC SK Consol-Stroi LTD is engaged
in the construction of residential and commercial real estate in cities throughout the Crimea
region including, among others, Feodosia, Kerch, Yalta, Simferopol, Sevastopol, and
Yepatoria.
LLC Novye Proekty is being designated for operating in the Crimea region of Ukraine. In
2016, Russian authorities awarded the private company Novye Proekty an oil and gas exploration
license for the Crimean Black Sea shelf. The Crimean shelf is believed to be rich in
hydrocarbons and authorities in Ukraine have reported that Ukraine lost about 80 percent of its
oil and gas deposits in the Black Sea due to Russia's purported annexation of Crimea. Novye
Proekty's license permits geological studies, prospecting, and the extraction of raw
hydrocarbon materials from the Black Sea's Glubokaya block. Prior to Russia's purported
annexation of Crimea the Glubokaya block was estimated to hold reserves of 8.3 million tons of
crude and 1.4 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO ILLEGITIMATE SEPARATIST GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS IN UKRAINE
Today's action also targets two Ukrainian separatists who were involved in the organization
of the November 2018 illegitimate elections in the so-called Donetsk People's Republic. These
illegitimate elections clearly contradict Russia's commitments under the Minsk agreements, and
were strongly opposed by the United States and EU.
Aleksey Alekseevich Naydenko is the Deputy Chair of the Central Election Commission of the
so-called Donetsk People's Republic. Naydenko is being designated for being responsible for or
complicit in, or having engaged in, directly or indirectly, actions or policies that threaten
the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Vladimir Yurievich Vysotsky is the Secretary of Central Election Commission of the so-called
Donetsk People's Republic. Vysotsky is being designated for being responsible for or complicit
in, or having engaged in, directly or indirectly, actions or policies that threaten the peace,
security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine.
View identifying information on the individuals designated today.
" DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO RUSSIA'S PURPORTED ANNEXATION OF CRIMEA"
purported
/pərˈpôrdəd/
adjective
appearing or stated to be true, though not necessarily so; alleged.
There is nothing "purported" about it, it was true and as legitimate as it could possibly
be.
Then under "DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO ILLEGITIMATE SEPARATIST GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS IN
UKRAINE" they claim that Russia violated its committments under Minsk 2, which the US never
officially recognized. Minsk 2 intended increased sovereignty for the Oblasts under a new
Ukraine Federal constitutional arrangement. That constitutional amendment has never been
initiated by Kiev, with the blessing of Uncle Sam. It is the Ukraine puppet government who is
in violation of Minsk 2.
If the US wrote this, assume the opposite to be true.
[Article]: " Sanctions will apply to six "individuals who orchestrated the unjustified
November 25 attack on three Ukrainian naval vessels near the Kerch Strait." "
Translation: "The propaganda lunacy will continue". "We will keep telling the same old
same old lies until people believe them".
My understanding of that incident is that the Ukrainian boats had some unexplained special
forces people on board and they refused to pull over when ordered to. From Russia's view,
there was a real risk of these people planning to plant explosives to blow up the Kerch
bridge.
Now it appears that no matter which government is in power they go along with the
aggressive agenda of the US.
Been like that since the '50's, just that you believed that the economy and world was
good.
Voting matters ZERO. The lie you are made to believe is that there is a choice when
voting, when in fact the ruling party is the financial engineers and bankers behind all
governments.
Voting is a waste of time. The heart of the beast is the USD reserve and the Rothschild
empire. Once we abolish that pig, all western governments implode under their own weight of
cheap talk and empty "policy".
The evidence that the orange swine is a Rothschild Trojan Horse is overwhelming at this
point. Only a scumbag or an absolute imbecile would fail to see it. Fvck you orange
roach.
I didn't read your comments at that time but I tip my hat to you. I realised that
everything he said during the campaign was bullsh!t after he started appointing Goldman Sachs
bankers to his cabinet...
Well Pelosi, here we have attempted murder as a high crime to Impeach Trump, Pence,
Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams with, or is that something too "trivial" for you!
Could you say that "checks and balances" of the US in current stage are "unbalanced"
Looks like executive branch has its own policies and legislative branch is trying very
hard to nullify whatever executive branch can or could potentially do (and it will impact
future presidents too).
And more importantly all this "meddling" (forgive me the pun) between the branches
essentially cripples the US politics, foreign and internal.
If one can imaging THAT is the Russian goal then perhaps Mr. Trump could get the Star of Hero
of the Russian Federation pretty soon
Blooming Barricade , Mar 14, 2019 5:36:22 PM |
link
Pierre Omidyar opens up new Integrity Initiative
Omidyar's Democracy Fund has also helped to finance the "News Integrity Initiative," a
name that evokes the U.K.'s notorious Integrity Initiative. The latter group claimed to be an
independent charity battling foreign disinformation until it was exposed by hackers as a
propaganda mill run by military officers and covertly funded by the British Foreign Office to
cultivate public opinion in support of heightened conflict with Russia. Leaked communications
revealed how the Integrity Initiative mobilized clusters of journalists, self-styled
disinformation experts, academics and political figures throughout the West to advocate for a
long-term war footing against the Russian menace.
For its part, the News Integrity Initiative is a murky $14 million operation intended to
"combat media manipulation" through a network of "journalists, technologists, academic
institutions, non-profits, and other organizations." The set-up is eerily evocative of the
influence clusters developed by the British Integrity Initiative. Few specifics are provided,
however, on what the group actually does.
A hint about the agenda of the News Integrity Initiative lies in a grant of $1 million it
made to an outlet called Internews in 2017. The bulk of Internews' money -- some 80 percent
of it -- comes from the U.S. government. It has also received backing from liberal financier
George Soros and USAID, which provided the group with seed money for a Russian-language
television network, helped drive the pro-NATO color revolution in the Republic of Georgia,
and published footage of Russian casualties in Chechnya to erode Russian public support for
the war.
In countries that are considered official and semi-official enemies of the United States,
Internews has organized de facto boot camps for opposition journalists. "In the Middle East,"
says Internews founder David Hoffman, "training sessions often begin with discussion of
whether Internews is really U.S. propaganda or the CIA." However Hoffman answers the
question, it is abundantly clear that his outlet has advanced Washington's priorities abroad
behind the guise of independent journalism.
In November 2017, the News Integrity Initiative hosted a workshop alongside Internews and
the Omidyar-backed First Draft News in Kiev, Ukraine, according to the initiative's managing
director, Molly de Aguiar. Kiev is today a nexus for intelligence-connected media crusaders
and a launch pad for projects ostensibly aimed at countering Russia's "information warfare."
But, what exactly the News Integrity Initiative was doing there was left unsaid.
While Omidyar ploughs his fortune into organizations that claim to be countering
"disinformation," especially of the Russian variety, he has established a culture factory to
publicize the supposed feats of the journalists often hyped up by the cartel of media
transparency groups and fact-checking sites he funds.
Yang is a businessman who has worked in several fields, but was best known for founding
Venture for America , which helps
college graduates become entrepreneurs. However, he is now gaining recognition for his
signature campaign promise -- $1,000 a month for every American.
ORDER IT NOW
Yang promises a
universal entitlement, not dependent on income, that he calls a "freedom dividend." To be
funded through a value added tax , Yang claims that
it would reduce the strain on "health care, incarceration, homeless services, and the like" and
actually save billions of dollars. Yang also
notes that "current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice
between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally."
As Yang himself notes, this is not a new idea, nor one particularly tied to the Left.
Indeed, it's been proposed by several prominent libertarians because it would replace the far
more inefficient welfare system. Charles Murray called for
this policy in 2016. [ A guaranteed income
for every American, AEI, June 3, 2016]
Milton Friedman suggested a similar policy in a 1968 interview with William F. Buckley,
though Friedman called
it a "negative income
tax."
It's also been proposed by many nationalists, including, well, me. At the January 2013
VDARE.com Webinar, I
called for a "straight-up minimum income for citizens only" among other policies that would
build a new nationalist majority and deconstruct Leftist power. I've
retained that belief ever since and argued for it here for years.
However, I've also made the argument that it only works if it is for citizens only and is combined with a restrictive immigration policy. As I previously
argued in a piece attacking Jacobin's
disingenuous complaints about the "reserve army of the unemployed," you simply can't
support high wages, workers' rights, and a universal basic income while still demanding mass
immigration.
Yang is also directly addressing the crises that the Trump Administration has seemly
forgotten. Unlike Donald Trump himself, with his endless boasting about "low black and Hispanic
unemployment," Yang has directly spoken about
the demographic collapse of white people because of "low birth rates and white men dying from
substance abuse and suicide ."
Significantly, President Trump himself has never once specifically recognized the plight of
white Americans.
Of course, Yang has foolish, even flippant policies on other issues. He wants to make Puerto
Rico a state . He supports a path to citizenship
for illegal aliens, albeit with an 18-year waiting period and combined with pledges
to secure the border and deport illegals who don't enroll in the citizenship program. He
wants to create a
massive bureaucratic system to track gun owners, restrict
gun ownership , and require various "training" programs for licenses. He wants to
subsidize local journalists with
taxpayer dollars, which in practice would mean just paying Leftist activists to dox people in
their communities.
(Though as some have pointed out, with a thousand dollars a month no matter what,
right-wingers wouldn't have to worry as much about being targeted by
journofa ).
Indeed, journalists, hall monitors that they are, have recognized that President Trump's
online supporters are flocking to Yang, bringing him a powerful weapon in the meme wars.
(Sample meme at right.) And because many of these online activists are "far right" by Main
Stream Media standards, or at least Politically Incorrect, there is much hand-waving and
wrist-flapping about the need for Yang to decry "white nationalists." So of course, the
candidate has dutifully done so, claiming "racism and white nationalism [are] a threat to the
core ideals of what it means to be an American". [ Presidential
candidate Andrew Yang has a meme problem, by Russell Brandom, The Verge,
March 9, 2019]
But what does it mean to be an American? As more and more of American history is
described as racist, and even national symbols and the national anthem are targets for protest,
"America" certainly doesn't seem like a real country with a real identity. Increasingly,
"America" resembles a continent-sized shopping mall, with nothing holding together the warring
tribes that occupy it except money.
President Trump, of course, was elected because many people thought he could reverse this
process, especially by limiting mass immigration and taking strong action in the culture wars,
for example by promoting official English. Yet in recent weeks, he has repeatedly endorsed more
legal immigration. Rather than fighting, the president is content to brag about the economy and
whine about unfair press coverage and investigations. He already seems like a lame duck.
The worst part of all of this is that President Trump was elected as a response not just to
the Left, but to the failed Conservative Establishment. During the 2016 campaign, President
Trump specifically pledged
to protect entitlements , decried foreign wars, and argued for a massive infrastructure
plan. However, once in office, his main legislative accomplishment is a tax cut any other
Republican president would have pushed. Similarly, his latest budget contains the kinds of
entitlement cuts that are guaranteed to provoke Democrat attack ads. [ Trump said he wouldn't cut Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare . His 2020 budget
cuts all 3, by Tara Golshan, Vox, March 12, 2019] And the president has
already backed down on withdrawing all troops from Syria, never mind Afghanistan.
Conservatism Inc., having learned nothing from candidate Donald Trump's scorched-earth path
to the Republican nomination, now embraces Trump as a man but ignores his campaign message.
Instead, the conservative movement is still promoting the same tired slogans about "free
markets" even as they have appear to have lost an
entire generation to socialism. The most iconic moment was Charlie Kirk, head of the free
market activist group Turning Point USA, desperately trying to tell his followers not to cheer
for Tucker Carlson because Carlson had suggested a nation should be
treated like a family, not simply a marketplace .
Thus, especially because of his cowardice on immigration, many of President Trump's most
fervent online supporters have turned on him in recent weeks. And the embrace of Yang seems to
come out of a great place of despair, a sense that the country really is beyond saving.
Yang has Leftist policies on many issues, but many disillusioned Trump supporters feel like
those policies are coming anyway. If America is just an economy, and if everyone in the world
is a simply an American-in-waiting, white Americans might as well get something out of this
System before the bones are picked clean.
National Review ' s Theodore Kupfer just claimed the main importance of Yang's
candidacy is that it will prove meme-makers ability to affect the vote count "has been
overstated" [ Rise of the pink
hats, March 12, 2019]. Time will tell, but it is ominous for Trump that many of
the more creative and dedicated people who formed his vanguard are giving up on him.
You are a little wrong when you call this system "colonial". Today it is neo-colonialism.
When the United States subordinates the country, they do not bear any responsibility for the
fate of this country, since the formally subordinate country remains independent and all its
actions are performed "voluntarily."
Ukraine is a good example. Now this country commits ritual suicide "completely
voluntarily."
They've thought of that. That's why they tell us "The US has no colonies". Because you
have to support them if you admit to owning them. That's why by 1960, every colonial nation
on earth was giving its own colonies independence. They were costing more than they were
worth.
What we do now is to groom some local fellow, like Guaido, to take over the government and
run it the way we would like him to. We pay generously for this favor, in the form of loans
and direct investments. The fortunate ones near the seat of power come out fabulously well.
But neither we nor the country's rulers take on any responsibility for the welfare of their
people.
One of the dictators we backed was the director of the Brazilian military, who seized
power back in 1964... a fellow named Castelo Branco. And he was asked once at a press
conference how the economy was doing.
He replied "The economy, it is doing marvelously! The people, on the other hand-- not so
good."
If you don't offer protection to your puppet eventually some other power might try the
same trick and overthrow him. But if you do provide protection that area becomes a
colony.
So what you describing can only work when there is only one major power on the planet. The US
enjoyed it for some time but it can't have it anymore, that's reality.
The system is predicted to work some time into the future, for the reason that it is based
on subterfuge and military force. And we have a military as large as that of the entire rest
of the planet put together. So to us it doesn't matter what you call it. They control the
media, so they can just not report a word you say about them.
What will undo it will be a collapse of the dollar-based economy. And that will be kind of
hard to achieve, as every rich person on earth keeps his wealth denominated in dollars. So
there is little pressure to kill it. That's why we always used to call it The Almighty
Dollar.
However there are limits. Our main weapon now being used to enforce behavior is financial
sanctions. So it's pretty much assured that at some point in the near future the sanctioned
nations (Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela...) will be getting together to set up an alternate
financial system. Probably based on the yuan.
That's the thing about offensive weapons systems. As a Mexican wit put it "Let them build
a twenty foot wall. We will build a 21 foot ladder."
When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of
U.S. troops from Syria, there was more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The
2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders, said virtually nothing at
the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum
too. The 2004 liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals, saying they would
damage women's rights in Afghanistan.
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The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been
sounding more like Fox News circa 2003, warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national
security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill Kristol and other
neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.
Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become
arguably more popular than ever with liberal viewers by peddling
wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her
cockamamie theories, progressive journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck
standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that
she's right, but Beck himself proved that nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding
deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."
The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign
policy, is precisely what makes Democratic presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal
position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC, Maddow, and
many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is
simply them gauging what their liberal audiences currently want or will accept. Warren could
have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She
instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it
meant siding with the president.
Can anyone confirm what will happen when Germany will shut down those US Command Center
(NATO) because Germany is able to finance their own. (US Personal has to go) Nato support Act
is an US Law and not an authorized NATO Law
that's a fake battle. The US foreign policy is controlled by MIC and Wall Street. Elected
officials, as we see in cases of both Oabma and Trump administrations, "simply does not
matter."
That arrangement (which now is associated with the term the Deep state") is a part of the
rule of military-industrial complex and due to the existence of powerful three letter agencies
created by Truman can't be changed. Essntially Truman secured the victory of military industrial
complex for the next hundred years or more.
Congressional efforts are underway to seize control of foreign-policy decisions from the
executive. Who will win?
There are signs of growing congressional inconsistency, if not incoherence, regarding the
authority of the president in foreign affairs. The legislature seeks to interfere on issues
that are the president's responsibility while still failing to fulfill its own constitutionally
mandated responsibility regarding the war power.
An incident of misplaced assertiveness took place in January when the House of
Representatives passed the NATO Support Act prohibiting the executive branch from using any
funds to facilitate U.S. withdrawal from the Alliance in any way. The legislation appears to
bar a drawdown of U.S. troop levels in Europe and any effort to terminate U.S. membership in
NATO.
Enacting the legislation seemed weirdly premature. President Donald Trump has not even taken
any substantive actions that might diminish U.S. participation in NATO affairs. He has merely
criticized the allies for their lack of burden-sharing in the collective defense effort and
(correctly) suggested that NATO itself might be "obsolete" given how much the European and
global security environments have changed since the Alliance's birth at the dawn of the Cold
War against the Soviet Union.
The constitutionality of such restrictions also is highly suspect. The Constitution makes
the president the steward of foreign affairs. Presidents historically have enjoyed wide
latitude regarding the interpretation, execution, and even termination of U.S. treaties. Chief
executives have enjoyed even greater latitude regarding troop deployments, especially in
noncombat situations, and the nature, extent, and duration of military commitments to implement
treaties or other agreements. Congressional interference in the form of the NATO Support Act
would be truly revolutionary -- and not in a good way. It is a transparent congressional
attempt to usurp the president's rightful constitutional authority and seek to micromanage U.S.
foreign policy.
The NATO issue is not the only case in which congressional efforts are underway to seize
control of foreign-policy decisions from the executive. A faction in both houses is now pushing
a measure that would prevent the White House from failing to honor U.S. obligations under the
Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty until it expires in February 2021. Unlike in the case
of NATO, the president has taken tangible steps against the INF. After accusing Russia of
violating its obligations under the treaty, Trump announced that the United States intended to
withdraw from the INF . It should be stressed that the issue is not whether the president's
policies on NATO or the INF are wise or misguided; the relevant issue is whether the
Constitution invests the executive or Congress with the authority to make those decisions.
Greater congressional assertiveness on such issues is especially odd given how readily
Congress has abandoned its own explicit constitutional authority to control the war power. Even
as legislators moved to restrict Trump regarding NATO and the INF, there was no effective
campaign to prevent him from implementing his decision to keep at least two hundred troops in
Syria, despite the continuing lack of any congressional authorization for U.S. military
involvement in that combat zone.
... ... ...
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a
contributing editor at the National Interest , is the author of twelve books and more than 750
articles on foreign affairs.
Could you say that "checks and balances" of the US in current stage are "unbalanced"
Looks like executive branch has its own policies and legislative branch is trying very hard
to nullify whatever executive branch can or could potentially do (and it will impact future
presidents too).
And more importantly all this "meddling" (forgive me the pun) between the branches
essentially cripples the US politics, foreign and internal.
If one can imaging THAT is the Russian goal then perhaps Mr. Trump could get the Star of Hero
of the Russian Federation pretty soon
Our system of checks and balances has become totally unbalanced, destabilized like some
Arab government we've decided don't like. Political scientists are all telling us that we're
on the way to having a classic autocratic regime, where nothing matters except what El
Supremo says matters.
And Congress is supine. They really don't care much about how the country is being run,
they just care if they get re-elected. And the right half of them thinks they won't get
re-elected if they oppose Trump. So there's no veto-proof majority.
It never used to be this way. But it has been said that "The tree of liberty must be
refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants." (Thomas Jefferson)
And we just don't have enough patriots to get the job done. I look to the young people to
be changing that.
Political scientists are all telling us that we're on the way to having a classic
autocratic regime, where nothing matters except what El Supremo says matters.
I have elusive feeling that American policies have already been praying to "El Supremo" for
some time, it just wasn't so openly obvious until now.
And the "El Supremo" name is "Wall Street". Globalisation have taken over American policies
for some time.
It became obvious after "too big to fail" incidents of 2008.
Another example: FAANG has so much power now that it can literally kill smaller private
companies with a mouse click. It can shape public opinion and no doubt it can soon be able to
elect politicians.
That's something different. Wall Street funds quite a large portion of the campaigns waged
by both parties. So whichever party wins an election, they are anxious to never offend their
sponsors. You might look up the proportions of presidential elections contributions made by
the financial and insurance industries.
(This is also why we can never seem to get a good single-payer health system. It would get
rid of private health insurance.)
I was talking about the once-creeping, now-galloping expansion of presidential powers.
This was first evident during the presidency of George W Bush, when the theory of the
Unitary Executive was put forth, by people like John Yoo and David Addington.
It establishes the theory that the Constitution allows a sitting president to disregard
those laws he doesn't want to enforce and to take executive actions that do not depend on
congressional approval. That is, he is above the law and accountable to no one.
Empire, even a powerful one cannot win prosperity with a war or wars. Eventually you'd
need to provide some economy to the colonies. The less you provide the more they gonna hate
you and resist you. The more you provide the less they gonna need you and eventually
overthrow you.
Winning with wars is utopia, like communism.
You are a little wrong when you call this system "colonial". Today it is neo-colonialism.
When the United States subordinates the country, they do not bear any responsibility for the
fate of this country, since the formally subordinate country remains independent and all its
actions are performed "voluntarily."
Ukraine is a good example. Now this country commits ritual suicide "completely
voluntarily."
The CIA is conspiring with ISIS commanders in northeastern Syria supplying them with fake documents
and then transferring them to Iraq, according to reports in Turkish pro-government media.
About
2,000 ISIS members were questioned in the areas of Kesra, Buseira, al-Omar and Suwayr in Deir Ezzor
province and at least 140 of them then received fake documents. Some of the questioned terrorists
were then moved to the camps of al-Hol, Hasakah and Rukban, which are controlled by US-backed
forces. The CIA also reportedly created a special facility near Abu Khashab with the same purpose.
Israeli, French and British special services are reportedly involved.
An interesting observation is that the media of the country, which in the previous years of
war, used to conspire with ISIS allowing its foreign recruits to enter Syria and buying smuggled
oil from the terrorists, has now become one of the most active exposers of the alleged US ties with
ISIS elements.
Another issue often raised in Turkish media is the poor humanitarian situation in the refugee
camps controlled by US-backed forces. These reports come in the course of other revelations.
According to the International Rescue Committee, about 100 people, mostly children, died in combat
zones or in the al-Hol camp controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces just recently.
In its turn, the Russian Defense Ministry released a series of satellite images revealing the
horrifying conditions in the al-Rukban camp. The imagery released on March 12 shows at least 670
graves, many of them fresh, close to the camp's living area. The tents and light constructions used
to settle refugees are also located in a close proximity to large waste deposits.
A joint statement by the Russian and Syrian Joint Coordination Committees for Repatriation of
Syrian Refugees said that refugees in al-Rukban are suffering from a lack of water, food,
medication and warm clothing, which is especially important during winter. According to the
statement, members of the US-backed armed group Maghawir al-Thawra disrupt water deliveries to the
camp, using this as a bargaining chip for blackmailing and profiteering purposes.
Tensions are once again growing between Syria and Israel. Earlier in March, Syrian Deputy
Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad submitted an official letter to the head of the United Nations Truce
Supervision Organization (UNTSO) Kristin Lund that Damascus "will not hesitate to confront Israel"
if it continues refusing to withdraw from the Golan Heights.
Israeli media and officials responded with a new round of allegations that Hezbollah is
entrenching in southern Syria therefore justifying a further militarization of the Golan Heights.
The BBC reports
on a very strange story from Spain about last month's attack on the North Korean embassy:
Spanish investigators are probing an alleged attack on the North Korean embassy in
Madrid.
On 22 February, a group of 10 assailants reportedly broke into the building, tying up,
beating and interrogating eight people inside.
The incident took place just days before a key summit between US President Donald Trump
and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
And now there are reports US intelligence services were involved.
The alleged involvement of men with ties to the CIA was first reported in
the Spanish daily El Pais . According to El Pais ' sources, the men that attacked
the embassy may have been looking for information on North Korean diplomat Kim Hyok-chol, who
had served as North Korea's ambassador to Spain until he was expelled in 2017. Kim has also
been one of the leading officials involved in the negotiations with the U.S. over the last
year.
Whatever the reason for it, invading another state's embassy and assaulting the personnel
there obviously constitute gross violations of the conventions governing protections for
diplomatic facilities. Judging from these reports, the attack was extraordinarily brazen and
risky. It is doubtful that any information obtained from the devices that the assailants stole
could have been worth the risk of attacking an embassy and beating up embassy staffers, but
someone must have thought it was. If anyone connected with the U.S. government was involved,
both Spain and North Korea will be understandably outraged. The intelligence committees in
Congress should look into this matter to determine what role, if any, the U.S. government had
in this incident.
"... Revealed: Donald Trump's son-in-law challenged by Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn for mixing personal interests with US foreign policy ..."
"... Jared Kushner was told by the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, that his interference had 'endangered the US', while his wife Ivanka's team was derided as the 'home of all bad ideas'. Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner , was confronted by two of the most senior US government officials for mixing his personal interests with US foreign policy, according to a new book. ..."
"... Ward reports that Tillerson blamed Kushner for Trump's abrupt endorsement of a provocative blockade and diplomatic campaign against Qatar by Saudi Arabia and several allies in June 2017. ..."
"... "You've got to be crazy," Cohn is said to have told Kushner in front of others. Kushner met the executives around the time he hosted Chinese government officials at the Fifth Avenue tower. The building was eventually refinanced by a Qatari-backed investment fund. ..."
"... Ward's book portrays Kushner and Ivanka Trump as relentlessly ambitious operators who are loathed by many forced to work with them. She reports that White House staffers mocked Kushner as the "secretary of everything" for his wide-ranging meddling and derided Ivanka Trump's team as Habi – "home of all bad ideas". ..."
"... Bannon recalls Kushner furiously shouting at him at the White House in 2017 after he confronted Kushner about holding secret talks with senators on immigration reform. "He goes from a little boy to, like, this fucking devil," Bannon is quoted as saying. ..."
"... Bannon also claims to have told Ivanka Trump: "Go fuck yourself you are nothing" in front of her father, during an argument over who was the bigger leaker to the media. Ivanka Trump is said to have called Bannon a "fucking liar". ..."
Revealed: Donald Trump's son-in-law challenged by Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn for mixing personal interests with US foreign policy
Jared Kushner was told by the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, that his interference had 'endangered the US', while his wife
Ivanka's team was derided as the 'home of all bad ideas'. Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters Donald Trump's son-in-law,
Jared Kushner , was confronted by two of the most
senior US government officials for mixing his personal interests with US foreign policy, according to a new book.
Kushner, an envoy to the Middle East for his father-in-law, is said to have been robustly challenged by both Rex Tillerson, then
secretary of state, and Gary Cohn, formerly Trump's top economic adviser.
The confrontations are detailed in Kushner Inc by the journalist Vicky Ward, who also describes interference in foreign relations
by Kushner's wife, Ivanka Trump . The book is scheduled
to be released on 19 March. A copy was obtained by the Guardian.
Ward reports that Tillerson blamed Kushner for Trump's abrupt endorsement of a provocative blockade and diplomatic campaign
against Qatar by Saudi Arabia and several allies in June 2017. The US has thousands of troops stationed in Qatar.
Tillerson "told Kushner that his interference had endangered the US", an unidentified Tillerson aide tells Ward. Tillerson is
also said to have read negative "chatter" about himself in intelligence reports after Kushner belittled him to Kushner's friend Mohammed
bin Salman, the controversial Saudi crown prince.
Meanwhile, Cohn is said to have rebuked Kushner in January 2017 after it was revealed Kushner had dined with executives from the
Chinese financial corporation Anbang, which was considering investing in the Kushner family's troubled tower at 666 Fifth Avenue
in Manhattan.
The heart of the US-Saudi relationship lies in the Kushner-prince friendship | Mohamad Bazzi Read
more
"You've got to be crazy," Cohn is said to have told Kushner in front of others. Kushner met the executives around the time
he hosted Chinese government officials at the Fifth Avenue tower. The building was eventually refinanced by a Qatari-backed investment
fund.
Ivanka Trump is reported to have interfered in telephone calls between her father and foreign dignitaries despite having overseas
business interests. "Thanks so much for the CD you sent me," she is quoted as having told an Indian leader by someone who heard the
call. The Trump Organization owns several residential towers in India.
Ward's book portrays Kushner and Ivanka Trump as relentlessly ambitious operators who are loathed by many forced to work with
them. She reports that White House staffers mocked Kushner as the "secretary of everything" for his wide-ranging meddling and derided
Ivanka Trump's team as Habi – "home of all bad ideas".
John Kelly, formerly Trump's chief of staff and homeland security secretary, is quoted as dismissing the couple as "just playing
government".
The book also details disagreements between them and Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign chief and top White House strategist.
Bannon clashed with the couple, who are former Democrats, while pushing to convert Trump's aggressively nationalist campaign rhetoric
into government policy.
Bannon recalls Kushner furiously shouting at him at the White House in 2017 after he confronted Kushner about holding secret
talks with senators on immigration reform. "He goes from a little boy to, like, this fucking devil," Bannon is quoted as saying.
Bannon also claims to have told Ivanka Trump: "Go fuck yourself you are nothing" in front of her father, during an argument
over who was the bigger leaker to the media. Ivanka Trump is said to have called Bannon a "fucking liar".
For her part, Ivanka Trump is focused on cementing a Trump dynasty to rival the Kennedys and Bushes by becoming commander-in-chief
herself one day, according to Ward. "She thinks she's going to be president of the United States," Cohn is quoted as saying.
Washington announced late Monday that it is withdrawing all of its embassy personnel from
Caracas in what may signal preparations for a direct US military intervention to consummate
the protracted regime change operation unleashed against Venezuela.
"This decision reflects the deteriorating situation in Venezuela as well as the conclusion
that the presence of U.S. diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a constraint on U.S.
policy," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
Pressed at a State Department press conference Tuesday as to what Pompeo meant by
"constraint," Elliott Abrams, the Trump administration's special envoy for regime change in
Venezuela, said that it was "prudent to take these folks out" because their presence made it
"more difficult for the United States to take the actions that it needed to do to support the
Venezuelan people."
Asked whether military intervention was being prepared and if the Maduro government should
see Pompeo's statement as a threat, Abrams, a former Reagan administration State Department
official who oversaw vast war crimes in Central America in the 1980s and was convicted of
lying to Congress about an illegal operation to fund the "contra" terrorist war against
Nicaragua, responded that he would "continue to say, because it is true, all options are on
the table."
"... When Guaido returned to Venezuela on March 4 he was greeted at the airport by several foreign diplomats. Among the receiving dignitaries was Germany's envoy Daniel Kriener. ..."
"... What's more, the explicit backing of Juan Guaido by Germany's envoy was carried out on the "express order" of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas , according to Deutsche Welle. ..."
"... Russia's envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzia, at a Security Council session last month, excoriated the US for its gross violation of international law with regard to Venezuela. Moscow's diplomat also directed a sharp rebuke at other nations "complicit" in Washington's aggression, saying that one day "you will be next" for similar American subversion in their own affairs. ..."
"... German politicians, diplomats and media were apoplectic in their anger at perceived interference by the US ambassador in Berlin's internal affairs. Yet the German political establishment has no qualms whatsoever about ganging up – only weeks later – with Washington to subvert the politics and constitution of Venezuela. ..."
Germany has
taken the lead among European Union member states to back Washington's regime-change agenda for
Venezuela.
Berlin's hypocrisy and double-think is quite astounding.
Only a few weeks ago, German politicians and media were up in arms protesting to the
Trump administration for interfering in Berlin's internal affairs.
There were even
outraged complaints that Washington was seeking "regime change" against Chancellor Angela Merkel's
government.
Those protests were sparked when Richard Grenell, the
US ambassador to Germany,
warned
German
companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia that they could be hit with
American economic sanctions
if they go ahead with the Baltic seabed project.
Earlier, Grenell provoked fury among Berlin's political establishment when he openly gave his
backing to opposition party Alternative for Germany. That led to consternation and denunciations of
Washington's perceived backing for regime change in Berlin. They were public calls for Grenell to
be expelled over his apparent breach of diplomatic protocols.
Now, however, Germany is shamelessly kowtowing to an even more outrageous American
regime-change plot against Venezuela.
Last week, the government of President Nicolas Maduro ordered the expulsion of German ambassador
Daniel Kriener after he greeted the US-backed opposition figure Juan Guaido on a high-profile
occasion. Guaido had just returned from a tour of Latin American countries during which he had
openly called for the overthrow of the Maduro government. Arguably a legal case could be made for
the arrest of Guaido by the Venezuelan authorities on charges of sedition.
When Guaido returned to Venezuela on March 4 he was greeted at the airport by several
foreign diplomats. Among the receiving dignitaries was Germany's envoy Daniel Kriener.
The opposition figure had declared himself "interim president" of Venezuela on January 23 and
was immediately recognized by Washington and several European Union states. The EU has so far not
issued an official endorsement of Guaido over incumbent President Maduro. Italy's objection blocked
the EU from adopting a unanimous position.
Nevertheless, as the strongest economy in the 28-member bloc, Germany can be seen as de facto
leader of the EU. Its position on Venezuela therefore gives virtual EU gravitas to the geopolitical
maneuvering led by Washington towards the South American country.
What's more, the explicit backing of Juan Guaido by Germany's envoy was carried out on
the "express order" of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas
,
according
to
Deutsche Welle.
"It was my express wish and request that Ambassador Kriener turn out with representatives of
other European nations and Latin American ones to meet acting President Guaido at the airport,"
said Maas.
"We had information that he was supposed to be arrested there. I believe that the presence
of various ambassadors helped prevent such an arrest."
It's staggering to comprehend the double-think involved here.
Guaido was hardly known among the vast majority of Venezuelans until he catapulted on to
the global stage by declaring himself "interim president".
That move was clearly executed
in a concerted plan with the Trump White House. European governments and Western media have
complacently adopted the White House line that Guaido is the legitimate leader while socialist
President Maduro is a "usurper".
That is in spite of the fact that Maduro was re-elected last year in free and fair
elections by a huge majority of votes.
Guaido's rightwing, pro-business party boycotted
the elections. Yet he is anointed by Washington, Berlin and some 50 other states as the legitimate
leader.
Russia, China, Turkey, Cuba and most other members of the United Nations have refused to
adopt Washington's decree of recognizing Guaido.
Those nations (comprising 75 per cent of
the UN assembly) continue to recognize President Maduro as the sovereign authority. Indeed, Russia
has been highly critical of Washington's blatant interference for regime change in oil-rich
Venezuela. Moscow has warned it will not tolerate US military intervention.
Russia's envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzia, at a Security Council session last month,
excoriated
the
US for its gross violation of international law with regard to Venezuela. Moscow's diplomat also
directed a sharp rebuke at other nations "complicit" in Washington's aggression, saying that one
day "you will be next" for similar American subversion in their own affairs.
Germany's hypocrisy and double-think is, to paraphrase that country's national anthem,
"über alles" (above all else).
German politicians, diplomats and media were apoplectic in their anger at perceived interference
by the US ambassador in Berlin's internal affairs. Yet the German political establishment has no
qualms whatsoever about ganging up – only weeks later – with Washington to subvert the politics and
constitution of Venezuela.
How can Germany be so utterly über servile to Washington and the latter's brazen
criminal aggression towards Venezuela?
It seems obvious that Berlin is trying to ingratiate itself with the Trump
administration. But what for?
Trump has been pillorying Germany with allegations of "unfair trade" practices. In particular,
Washington is recently stepping up its threats to slap punitive tariffs on German auto exports.
Given that this is a key sector in the German export-driven economy, it may be gleaned that Berlin
is keen to appease Trump. By backing his aggression towards Venezuela?
Perhaps this policy of appeasement is also motivated by Berlin's concern to spare the
Nord Stream 2 project from American sanctions.
When NS2 is completed later this year, it
is reckoned to double the capacity of natural gas consumption by Germany from Russia. That will be
crucial for Germany's economic growth.
Another factor is possible blackmail of Berlin by Washington.
Recall the
earth-shattering revelations made by American whistleblower Edward Snowden a few years back when he
disclosed that US intelligence agencies were tapping the personal phone communications of
Chancellor Merkel and other senior Berlin politicians.
Recall, too, how the German state
remarkably
acquiesced
over what should
have been seen as a devastating infringement by Washington.
The weird lack of action by Berlin over that huge violation of its sovereignty by the Americans
makes one wonder if the US spies uncovered a treasure trove of blackmail material on German
politicians.
Berlin's pathetic kowtowing to Washington's interference in Venezuela begs an ulterior
explanation. No self-respecting government could be so hypocritical and duplicitous.
Whatever Berlin may calculate to gain from its unscrupulous bending over for Washington,
one thing seems clear, as Russian envoy Nebenzia warned: "One day you are next" for American
hegemonic shafting.
Germany already forgot, how they blew up Yugoslavia.
It was
because of German diplomacy plotting and meddling, that Croatia
and Slovenia announced their abandonment of federation of Balkan
states - which Yugoslavia de facto was.
Another reason for this, was to destroy a forming Hexagonale -
an alliance of central and southern european states.
As long as Germany has its imperial resentements, there will be
no peace in Europe.
They want in on the Venezuelan petroleum game if/when regime
change happens, obviously. Aruba (controlled by the Dutch) is
about 20miles off the coast of Venezuela and and there is a small
but significant population of German Venezuelans in Venezuela.
CITGO was was trying to restart the large refinery located in
Aruba not long back, haven't heard anything about it lately.
The Strategic Culture Foundation. A culture of strategy? That
sounded interesting. So I dug.
". . . Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet,
we work to spread reliable information, critical thought and
progressive
ideas
."
That explains why I'm seeing
socialists defending socialists. What a surprise. Not very
critical if you ask me, but definitely "progressive" to the
core.
And as for the author, nearly every one of his articles attack the
US and its allies. You'd think that if he's writing for the
Strategic Culture Foundation, he'd be into
critical thought
.
Meaning, we'd see some minuses
and
pluses in his
work. The fact that we don't, makes him a propagandist, not a
journalist. Then again,
is there such a thing as a journalist
anymore these days
?
I'd like to think so. Yet, when you evaluate someone's work and
see little more than the fermenting of hatred and discontent,
there has to be a motive. For him, it could be personal, given
the amount of passion and conspiracy theory that he puts into his
hatred. For his employers, though, the motive seems to be
strategic
.
Anyway, it's disappointing to find it here at ZH, but I guess the
bills must get paid somehow.
"Military intervention in
Venezuela is totally unacceptable."
She opposed the US and the self-appointed Guaido.
It follows that she had to act not only with the consent of
Berlin and Paris, but in their mandate. This suggests that the EU
has reassessed the situation and changed its position on President
Maduro.
Berlin has come to know that the EU has created an
international contact group, including Germany and France. The
group is conducting talks with the Venezuelan government and with
the opposition, aiming to achieve a peaceful solution to the
critical situation in Venezuela, and as the group spokesman said,
everything will be done to make the solution democratic.
The unnamed French source claims that Beijing and Moscow are
behind the change of Berlin and Paris.
"Hypocrisy" or "getting it right for a change" - that is the
question ! Merkel, the putative Conservative, has sold her own
people down the river many times in the last few years. She has
demonstrated the George W Bush style, over the people in her own
Party. And the results are obvious.
Now, after ruining her
country both culturally and financially, she makes ONE correct
decision. Hardly HYPOCRISY; more like contrition for her
ineptitude.
Well, Merkel is doing a good job of protecting Germany's interests
by opposing the U.S. regarding North Stream 2. The German stand on
Venezuela is disappointing, but they might be figuring no skin off
their back, since Venezuela is not in Europe, so might as well
appease cheeto head.
Shocking, right? Lol. I could have written this article myself.
Just had this conversation with a friend here regarding German
hypocriscy. Germany is a true vassal nation run by puppets.
Highlights the total lack of coordination at the highest levels of
German government. They just can't concieve that anyone is onto
their game but it is blatanly obvious to anyone who can chew gum
and walk simultaneously. The link to the demographic crisis (and
by exstension the coming pension crisis) to the importation of
"refugees" is a bit harder for many to see but still plainly
obvious if one tries just a little. Truly sad state of affairs in
all of Europe only masked over by the ECB. At least for now.
After almost 1 week it seems Venezuela is still around
85%
to 90% blacked-out
'We call it survival': Venezuelans improvise solutions as
blackout continues
With the crisis in its sixth day, neighbors are sharing
generators, contraband supplies and skills for survival
Joe Parkin Daniels and Patricia Torres in Caracas
Tue 12 Mar 2019
18.30 AEDT
Last modified on
Wed 13 Mar 2019
03.06 AEDT
People use their mobile phones at the Distribuidor Altamira
-main exit of Francisco Fajardo highway- where they can get
telephone service during a partial power outage in Caracas on
March 9, 2019.
At a street corner in eastern Caracas, Rosa Elena stepped
from her car and started picking handfuls of leaves from a
modest tree growing at the roadside. "This is neem," she said.
"It's high in sugar and great in a tea." Her interest was more
than academic: Rosa Elena is diabetic, and when the lights went
out in Venezuela last Thursday, she began to worry that the
blackout would ruin her insulin supply, which must be kept
refrigerated. Since then she has been making rounds of the
city, stockpiling neem leaves, which some people believe can be
used to control diabetes.
As a crippling blackout drags into a sixth day,
Venezuelans are being forced to improvise solutions for a
crisis that is affecting every aspect of daily life. Although
there is intermittent power in the capital, some neighbourhoods
have been in the dark since last week, and schools and
businesses will remain closed on Tuesday.
Food has rotted in refrigerators, hospitals have struggled
to keep equipment operating, and people gather on street
corners to pick up patchy telephone signals.
At Residencias Karina, an apartment complex in the
south-eastern municipality of Baruta – the power was still off
on Monday evening, and residents had come together to share
expertise and survival tactics. One elderly resident has lent
his generator to the operation, with cables running up the side
of the red-brick building into a flat where neighbours charge
their phones. To stop the device overheating or getting rained
out, they have fashioned a cover out of cardboard and
tarpaulin.
In ordinary times, petrol is practically free in Venezuela,
due to government subsidies. But power cuts have put many pumps
out of action, and fuel is hard to come by. It is illegal to
fill jerry cans at petrol stations, so people are often forced
to resort to the black market to obtain fuel for generators.
"The government calls it contraband – we call it survival,"
said Carolina, one resident who preferred not to give her
surname for fear of reprisals.
Members of the Bolivarian National Police escort a tanker as
they help organize the distribution of drinking water to
residents of San Agustin neighbourhood in Caracas on March 11,
2019, while a massive power outage continues affecting parts of
the country.
Another neighbour, Pedro Martínez, was once a farmer in the
country's vast western plains, and has brought his own unique
skillset to the team. "I'm a campesino," he said. "I don't know
about phones and I can live without them. But I do know how to
salt meat." Martínez has been turning the residents' supplies
of beef into jerky, so food supplies can last longer. "The
chicken and the fish people had is already rotten," he said.
Late on Sunday night, the housing complex was rocked by a
string of explosions after an electrical substation caught fire
in circumstances which remain unexplained. "It sounded like a
plane taking off," said Carolina, as the stench of burnt
plastic drifted across from the smouldering power plant. The
explosion added to a sense of desperation in a neighbourhood
that had already seen outbreaks of looting. Residents have
mounted lookouts to warn of the government security forces and
paramilitary gangs called colectivos, who they fear will take
down their jerry-rigged infrastructure. "It's like Jumanji
here," Martínez said. "Except instead of elephants and lions
running around it's the national guard and colectivos."
Residents have started pumping water from a well behind the
front gate, and taking turns to carry supplies to elderly
neighbours on higher floors. Water is in short supply across
the city: at a pharmacy in the upmarket commercial
neighbourhood of Las Mercedes, the queue for bottled water
stretched for several blocks – longer than the line outside
some petrol stations. Moisés de Lima, a homeowner and new
father, loaded gallon bottles of water into his car. He was
stockpiling in expectation of a prolonged crisis.
"We are in a wartime economy now," De Lima said, his
voice trembling with anger. "This is what this government has
done to us, and it has the nerve to just make excuses and play
the blame game."
On Monday night Maduro made a
conspiratorial televised address to the nation,
claiming the
power cut was part of a "demonic" plot dreamed up in the White
House by Donald Trump
in an attempt to plunge Venezuela
into chaos and justify a military invasion and occupation.
Most locals, however, are convinced the cause is years of
under-investment, mismanagement and corruption. "Chavistas have
been in power for 20 years and we have had 20 years of energy
crises," said De Lima
, who paid for his water in dollars,
which swiftly became the de facto currency as cashpoints and
card-readers went out of action.
"After 20 years, you can't
blame other people for your problems."
Outside La Carlota military airbase near the centre of the
city, locals had descended on a tap outside a local police
station, bringing empty bottles, jugs and tubs. Waiting in line
was Jeancary Lugo, a business administrator, who was dismayed
by the efforts of some storekeepers to profit from the crisis.
"On Friday, I bought a bag of ice from a store for $1.50.
Yesterday they wanted $8," she complained. "There's a lot of
solidarity here but there's also people taking advantage. I
feel like they are [trying to] rob us."
Across the road, dozens of national guardsmen lined up,
with riot shields and gas masks at the ready. "Is this what
Venezuela deserves?" one person in line shouted at a police
officer by the station house. The officer shrugged. "In the
command centre there's no water either, and electricity comes
and goes. We're all suffering the same," he said.
Venezuela: Guaidó under investigation for 'sabotage' of
power grid
Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent
Wed 13 Mar 2019
06.20 AEDT
First published on Wed 13 Mar 2019 05.13 AEDT
Venezuelans head to collect water from a sewage canal at the
river Guaire in Caracas. President Nicolás Maduro has alleged a
US attack crippled the country's electrical system.
Venezuela's chief prosecutor has asked the country's supreme
court to open an investigation into opposition leader Juan
Guaidó for alleged involvement in the "sabotage" of the
country's power grid. Tarek Saab announced the inquiry on
Tuesday, a day after the embattled president, Nicolás Maduro,
accused Donald Trump of masterminding a "demonic" plot with the
country's opposition to force him from power.
Guaidó – who most western governments now recognize as
Venezuela's legitimate interim leader – is already under
investigation for allegedly fomenting violence, but authorities
have not tried to detain him since he violated a travel ban and
then returned home from a tour of Latin American countries.
Saab said the case against Guaidó also involves messages
allegedly inciting people to robbery and looting during the
crippling blackout which began on Thursday.
Maduro's political foes and many specialists believe the
nationwide blackout is the result of years of mismanagement,
corruption and incompetence. "We are in the middle of a
catastrophe that is not the result of a hurricane, that is not
the result of a tsunami," Guaidó told CNN on Sunday. "It's the
product of the inefficiency, the incapability, the corruption
of a regime that doesn't care about the lives of Venezuelans."
But in a televised nationwide address on Monday night
Maduro accused the White House of launching an imperialist
"electromagnetic attack".
Critics condemned it as a cynical
attempt to deflect criticism of his regime's responsibility.
"The United States' imperialist government ordered this
attack," Maduro claimed in his 35-minute speech, only his
second significant intervention since the crisis began last
week. "They came with a strategy of war of the kind that only
these criminals – who have been to war and have destroyed the
people of Iraq, of Libya, of Afghanistan and of Syria – think
up." Maduro alleged the US had conducted the attack – in league
with "puppets and clowns" from the Venezuelan opposition – to
create "a state of despair, of widespread want and of conflict"
that would justify a foreign intervention.
Maduro, who gave no evidence for his claims, gave little
hint that an end was in sight to a crisis that the opposition
blames for at least 21 deaths and many fear could plunge the
country into violence and turmoil.
On Tuesday, the foreign
minister, Jorge Arreaza, ordered US diplomats to leave the
country within 72 hours. "The presence on Venezuelan soil of
these officials represents a risk for the peace, unity and
stability of the country," the government said in a statement.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, had announced on Monday
night that Washington was withdrawing all remaining diplomatic
staff from Caracas. "This decision reflects the deteriorating
situation in Venezuela as well as the conclusion that the
presence of US diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a
constraint on US policy," Pompeo tweeted.
Maduro has been fighting for political survival since
January when Guaidó declared himself Venezuela's legitimate
leader and was swiftly recognised as interim president by
dozens of western nations including the US and Britain.
Maduro's many opponents –
who blame him for an economic
collapse that has triggered the most severe migration crisis in
recent Latin American history
– ridicule his claims that
the outage is part of a White House conspiracy. Anna Ferrera, a
student activist in Caracas, said:
"They go around and
around saying this was sabotage and how the US always sabotages
things and the empire is going against Venezuela. But they
haven't given any [credible] explanation. "They always make up
stories to explain the flaws of the system. This is
outrageous," added Ferrera, who said she feared many might
accept Maduro's version because the blackout had knocked out
communication systems across the country, giving his
administration a monopoly on information.
Dimitris Pantoulas, a Caracas-based political analyst, said
Maduro had appeared "worried, anxious and absolutely
desperate" in his Monday night broadcast,
suggesting the
situation was dire. "It is clear, from what he said, that
the government does not control the situation (nobody does) and
they do not have any plan or strategy,"
Pantoulas tweeted.
In his speech, Maduro, who inherited Hugo Chávez's
Bolivarian revolution after his 2013 death, vowed that the
supposed attack on Venezuela's grid would be thwarted. "Victory
belongs to us," he declared. "What you can be certain of is
that sooner rather later, in the coming days, we will win this
battle definitively. We will win – and we will do it for
Venezuela. We will do it for our homeland. We will do it for
you. We will do it because of our people's right to happiness."
An epic cautionary tale of the danger of electing loony left
governments, led by hopey water-melons and warped and insane
neo-communist idiots. These poor sad scared people are going to be
stuffed for at least the next generation.
Germany excuse in WWII: "just obeying orders"
Germany excuse in VZ: "just obeying orders"
Some people never learn. It is obvious that Germany after ww2
became a US vassal following the dictamenes from WDC otherwise
it will face the consequences.
With Germany awash with migrant crime - no go areas - their
women and children afraid to go to swimming pools, concerts,
new year celebrations, rather than deal with their own horrific
issues they want to overthrow a democratically elected leader -
just another USA poodle state
Nah, the Orange Messiah doesn't need an excuse. He'll cut SS
and Medicare for the poor while giving trillions to his
oligarch buddies in tax cuts and crony capitalist MIC
contracts, while spending huge treasury to advance ZioNazism
and Bolshevism worldwide. TrumpTARDs suck his mushroom to his
satisfaction in any event.
Virologists are working around the clock to map the genome of this scurrilous scourge, about
which very little is known, other than that it has a sudden onset, and attacks the language
center of the brain, causing the sufferer to express opinions about "Zionism," "globalism,"
"the Israel lobby," "banks," and other code words for "Jews." Patients appear to be unaware
that they are spouting these anti-Semitic code words until they are told they are by the
corporate media, or their colleagues, or some random account on Twitter, at which point their
symptoms alter dramatically, and they suffer a series of petit mal seizures, causing them to
repeatedly apologize for unintentionally advocating the extermination of the entire Jewish
people and the establishment of a worldwide Nazi Reich.
At the moment, Britain is taking the brunt of it. Despite the best efforts of the ruling
classes and the media to contain its spread, several new cases of anti-Semitism have been
reported throughout the Kingdom, or at least among the Labour Party, which, at this point, has
been so thoroughly infected that it resembles a
neo-Nazi death cult .
Jeremy Corbyn, who contracted the virus more or less the moment he assumed the leadership,
is now exhibiting symptoms of late-stage disease. Reliable sources close to the party, reached
for comment at a brunch in Qatar with Tony Blair and a bunch of Saudis, report that Corbyn is
running around Momentum HQ in full Nazi regalia, alternately heiling Hitler and looking for
journalists to apologize to.
Another Labour MP, Chris Williamson, had to be summarily quarantined after publicly
apologizing for not apologizing for inciting a gathering of Labour members to stop apologizing
for refusing to apologize for being disgusting anti-Semites or something basically along those
lines. Owen Jones is fiercely denying denying that the party is a hive of Nazis, and that he
ever denied that denying the fact that there is zero
actual evidence of that fact is essential to preserving what is left of the party, once it
has been cured of anti-Semitism, or disbanded and reconstituted from scratch.
Emergency measures are now in effect. A full-scale Labour Party lockdown is imminent. Anyone
not already infected is being advised to flee the party, denounce anyone who hasn't done so as
"a Hitler-loving Corbyn-sympathizer," and prophylactically apologize for any critical
statements they might have made about Israel, or "elites," or "global capitalism," or
"bankers," or anything else that anyone can construe as anti-Semitism (
preferably in the pages of The Guardian ).
Nor has the Continent been spared! What at first appeared to be a series of spontaneous
protests against Emmanuel Macron, economic austerity, and global capitalism by the so-called
"Yellow Vests" in France has
now been officially diagnosed as a nationwide anti-Semitism outbreak. In a heroic attempt
to contain the outbreak, Macron has dispatched his security forces to shoot the eyes out of
unarmed women , pepper spray paraplegics in wheelchairs , and
just
generally beat bloody hell out of everyone . Strangely, none of these tactics have worked,
so France has decided to join the USA, the UK, Germany, and the rest of the empire in
defining anti-Zionism as form of anti-Semitism , such that anyone implying that Israel is
in any way inherently racist, or a quasi-fascist Apartheid state, or making jokes about
"elites" or "bankers," can be detained and prosecuted for committing a "hate-crime."
Meanwhile, in the United States (where Donald Trump, "U.S. patient zero," had already
single-handedly infected the vast majority of the American populace, and transformed the nation
into an unrecognizable, genocidal Nazi Reich), the anti-Semitism virus has now spread to
Congress, where Representative Ilhan Omar (reputed to be a hardcore member of the infamous "
Axis of
Anti-Semitism ") has apparently totally lost her mind and started talking about the Israel
lobby, and the billions of dollars the U.S. government provides to Israel on an annual basis,
and other Israel-related subjects one simply does not talk about (unless one writes for The
New York Times and isn't a hijab-wearing Muslim, in which case it's completely fine to
characterize support for Israel as being "
bought and paid for by the Israel lobby ").
OK, I know, you're probably questioning the fact that this anti-Semitism pandemic just
sprang up out of the ether one day, more or less in perfect synch with the Russian plot to
destroy democracy that Vladimir Putin set in motion the moment the Global War on Terror seemed
to be running out of steam. If you are, you need to close this essay, pull up either MSNBC or
The Guardian website on your phone, and inoculate yourself against such thoughts. That
conspiratorial type of thinking is one of the early warning signs that you have been infected
with anti-Semitism! Unless you act now to protect yourself, before you know it, you'll be
raving about "the ruling classes," "globalist elites," "austerity," "neoliberalism," "the
Israel lobby," or even "Palestinians."
... ... ...
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
"Anti-semite" has lost its sting, because every justified criticism of the fully nuclear
armed, viciously apartheid, theocratic Zionist Israeli government is declared to be
anti-semitism. The word is so overused and misapplied as to be useless. Indeed, to be
declared "anti-semite" by the Israel Lobby is to be declared a person of high moral
conscience.
"Another Labour MP, Chris Williamson, had to be summarily quarantined after publicly
apologizing for not apologizing for inciting a gathering of Labour members to stop
apologizing for refusing to apologize for being disgusting anti-Semites or something
basically along those lines. Owen Jones is fiercely denying denying that the party is a
hive of Nazis, and that he ever denied that denying the fact that there is zero actual
evidence of that fact is essential to preserving what is left of the party, once it has
been cured of anti-Semitism, or disbanded and reconstituted from scratch."
brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! y, it's much the same here across the pond.
Nikki2 comment on Youtube: "GUYS! Tulsi needs 65,000 individual donations to get into the
debates. Even if she's not your #1 candidate, please donate a small amount so she can bring the
foreign policy/regime change conversation to the debates"
@ChuckOrloski
Chelsea Manning is imprisoned (from the article you cited) "for refusing to testify in front
of a secretive Grand Jury." The regime is after Julian Assange, so they're trying to squeeze
Manning. Not happening!
Is there any other nation that wields such a stranglehold on any other as Israel does the
United States? Is there any other nation that has so completely surrendered its sovereignty
to another as has the United States to Israel. Does any other country (size of Israel) strike
fear and dread into the hearts of its lawmakers to the point of complete serfdom as Israel
does the US? Can any other country allow any foreign country to override its head of state to
address lawmakers as Israel has done to the US in the case of Obama, despite his complete
servility to Israel, thereby rendering himself a victim of dual abuses: racism and disregard
of American sovereignty? Has any other country sacrificed so many of its citizens for wars on
behalf of any other country as we have done for Israel? Can any other country receiving
billions of dollars of taxpayers money in aid and military hardware shamelessly call the
shots as Israel does with America, with America not as much as questioning orders from
Israel? Can we realistically celebrate Independence Day with so much fanfare when another
country has us so completely by the balls as to make a mockery of the word "independence".
Can any country strip any other of its sovereignty as Israel has done to the US, including
undermining its constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, with our total collusion?
Having raised all these questions, can there be realistic grounds for hoping for a ray of
light at the end of the tunnel, short of a comprehensive revolution that would rehabilitate a
nation led by quislings into one of principled men and women?
anyone here who chooses to hate me. I recognize that that you have the right to do so. And
that that right s Constitutionally protected. You are entitled to your feelings.
What I must object to and call into question is your attempt to engage in acts that in any
threaten, thwart, disrupt my right as a US citizen to access every aspect of what is
guaranteed to me by the US constitution. That includes manufacturing false claims to
undermine the same.
I will defend your right to your feelings and your right to express them in a manner in
accordance with the first amendment. I cannot support acts that deprive myself my
constitutional rights in any manner.
I am not a promoter of hate, but I certainly recognize the right that people have for
their feelings and the desire to one's express them.
[Bret Stephens] attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry"
observing how "she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he
called Congress "Israeli-occupied" territory."
If what Rep. Omar said wasn't too different from what Mr. Buchanan said previously, why
haven't we heard a peep out of him on this issue?
a liar and a hypocrite, and that alone should disqualify them for office.
Hello?
Where the bleep have you been, Pardner? You got that exactly backwards; mendacity
and hypocrisy are mandatory minimum qualifications for the positions.
Ms. Omar is dis qualified because she is honest enough to speak the truth.
Now, go learn to shoot straight before shooting off yer mug, and you can start with
this,
I must take issue with your observation that Mr. Truman is an habitual liar, not because
I disagree with you, but because I disagree with your manner in presenting it as a
derogatory statement. Is not the ability of lying necessary to political
leadership ?
And this, which illustrates several points regarding politicians, their characteristics
and motives.:
Two candidates for political office in a debate
SAUSAGE-SELLER
No, Cleon, little you care for his reigning in Arcadia, it's to pillage and impose on the
allies at will that you reckon; you wish the war to conceal your rogueries as in a mist,
that Demos may see nothing of them, and harassed by cares, may only depend on yourself for
his bread. But if ever peace is restored to him, if ever he returns to his lands to comfort
himself once more with good cakes, to greet his cherished olives, he will know the
blessings you have kept him out of, even though paying him a salary; and, filled with
hatred and rage, he will rise, burning with desire to vote against you. You know this only
too well; it is for this you rock him to sleep with your lies.
until there is a much larger block of anti israel congresspeople nothing is going to change.
What is the USs interest? They sure are not interested in making things better for the
majority/middle class. All the while continuing to enrich the already too wealthy ever more.
Media is a lying POS and yet people still watch Fox or Cnn or msnbc. All of them produce
nothing but propaganda garbage. Unfortunately, it seems like most in the USA just don't care.
In Venezuela look at the protesters the US media sets up and/or loves so much, try that in
the USA and you'll end up in jail.
For me, Ilhan Omar's statements were the most exciting political event in decades. I'm not
surprised that she is being punished, but the viciousness of the attacks have certainly gone
up a notch.
America's big mistake: allowing all the media to congeal into one big bullhorn that is
controlled by Jewish interests. As long as they control the media there will be no national
debate of zionist power in America.
Another great article by Giraldi. He is consistently the most forceful and articulate
writer regarding the subversion of America's national interests to Israel.
As much as I despise Omar's politics, in this case she is right to expose the dirty politics
that Israel uses on it's "friend and ally" the United States of America.
AIPAC is the most powerful foreign lobby in the United States and has done more to influence
and damage the American political process than just about any other lobby. It is a
loosely-guarded secret that, in order to garner jewish support, prospective politicians must
sign a loyalty oath promising support for Israel. This, in itself is un-American and borders
on treason. Failure to sign the loyalty oath almost always assures a political death. AIPAC
will spend millions to elect a candidate as long as he "toes the Israeli line".
Remember the USS Liberty (GTR-5), the American naval vessel that was deliberately attacked
with massive loss of American lives (an act of war) by "our friend and ally" Israel on June
8, 1967. If I had my way, Israel would have been turned into a "glass parking lot" on June 9,
1967.
As an aside, we must constantly hit our politicians with charges of treason, citing the
"loyalty oaths" to Israel that almost all of them have signed.
Dual citizens of Israel are through out the US government and have given America unending
wars and debt and an unconstitutional FED and IRS. No dual citizen from any nation should be
able to hold office in any government or state or county or city government in the US, no one
can serve two masters and citizens of Israel serve Israel and that is why America has been at
war for 18 years and counting in the Mideast!
Israel was everywhere at the Jewish day school I attended in New York. The Israeli and
American flags were proudly displayed together, no matter that I, like the majority of my
classmates, was not Israeli.
This alone might be innocuous, a loose cultural affinity that would be familiar in a
French or German language academy. But in Jewish day school life, outright political
mobilization for Israel and its policies was a requirement.
Every year we would be "strongly encouraged" to attend the Salute to Israel parade on
New York's Fifth Avenue. Teachers were marshals, and mocking stories about pro-Palestinian
activists were exchanged in class the following day.
One year, we were outright required to join a protest in support of Israel, during the
school day, at the United Nations.
This school-mandated allegiance seeped into even the most casual conversations. I
remember once debating with my group of friends whether we'd rather serve with the Israeli
Defense Forces or the U.S. military. Even though all of us, and our parents, were born and
raised in the United States, we were unanimous: we'd rather fight for Israel.
With any other cultural group in America, for any other country, these statements
would be shocking. After all, when was the last time you heard of an Italian-American
birthright trip to Sicily? But for American Jews, the centrality of allegiance to Israel in
our communal organizations is the norm.
There is one big omission in your article PG. If you read more than the tweet from Rep. Juan
Vargas that you linked as
"Questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable."
you must have been pleased by the deluge (maybe hundreds) of Tweets uniformly condemning
him and including many from people claiming believably to be Jews.
BTW Australia doesn't allow dual citizenship by its national MPs and senators and has had
in the last few years a previously unparalleled spate of challenges to members already seated
in Parliament. The courts have interpreted the constitutional provision strictly and MPs
whose Italian born mothers filled in a form which gave them Italian citizenship without their
knowledge have been caught (or at least been taken to court).
I would tend to argue that dual citizenship should be declared but that it is up yo the
voters to decide whether they want to be represented by someone who isn't only an Australian.
There are counterarguments however and avoidance of America's Israel First situation is
certainly one of them.
It is simple, really. The US needs a law prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold
public office. Stated allegiance to any other country should be treated as high treason,
which it is. However, I don't see Congress doing any of this: we all know what happens when
the improvements in henhouse safely is in the hands of foxes.
Anyway All US political system is running on bribery. So the bribery is legal and cannot be
tackled.
The only way to go is to distinguish the bribery and divide it into two groups.
Patriotic bribery and non patriotic bribery.
Here is a funny thing!!!!!!!!!
The Arabs have a proper English word for bribery: Backshish.
1 It is done in the back, so nobody sees it.
2 Shish means you should be quiet about it.
What bribery you may ask.
So what are those prepayed trips to Israel where the Congress people are treated as kings,
and they have chance to make love to the Jewish wall of the temple. They stick their wishes
written on paper into crevices of the wall. (Not too many records if the wall did take care
of their wishes.}
@AnonFromTN You
dont have to be a dual citizen be a traitor.
So what the US needs is an amendment to the Constitution expanding the definitions of
treason and subversion to better reflect the modern day realities of our political
system.
Perhaps suggest to the Magnificent Three that they put forth a bill calling for that.
What makes this piece meaningful is he is 100% correct. Representative Ilhar Omar should
be applauded for her bravery. She truly is courageous, as she not only risks her political
career but also her life. And by doing so she leaves open the door for others to follow.
We'll soon see how serious the Zionists take this matter.
JFK called for AIPAC to register as a foreign agent, however sense his murder not one
politician has ever mentioned it again. I think this says a lot about how much influence that
particular lobby has. Too much.
Dual loyalty is a fuzzy term. Why not go back to the tried-and-true fifth column? These
domestic Zionazis are Israel's fifth column. They constitute the vanguard of an
international, and their program is clearly shown here:
Israel leads a counterrevolutionary plan and conspiracy for bad-faith subversion of all
your human rights including your human right to peace. Israel's existence depends on domestic
Apartheid, totalitarian repression in client states such as the US, and continual threats to
peace worldwide. The government of Israel has forfeited its sovereignty by shirking its
responsibility to protect with the crime against peace of aggression and the crime against
humanity of extermination. In consequence, it must give way to a free Palestine.
The only way you're going to shake off Israel's fifth column is end Israel. You've got to
do to Israel what we did to South Africa.
"No politician can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or
he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve America and Israel."
@jo6pac There
are 40 Jews in the house and senate .that is not 89% of the total 500 congressmen and
senators.
Crap claims like this are actually harmful to the effort to get the Jewish Fifth Column
and Israel out of the US because the lie will be pointed out and much fun made of the
nutcases by the uber Jews.
Duel citizenship is only acceptable if one citizenship is from where you were born, over
which you had no choice, and the other is where you have chosen to live, made your home, and
become a citizen thereof. Two citizenship by choice is a sham: getting the benefactors of one
but maintaining your loyalty to another.
[Stephens] attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how
"she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress
"Israeli-occupied" territory." And it's all " how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an
acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It's why anti-Semitism is just outside the
frame, bidding to get in.
Let's examine how and why the cunning and bigotry of Bret Stephens gets projected by him
onto Ilhan Omar.
1. Charge, sans evidence, your opponent with your own crimes and repeat the charge ad
nauseam.
2. In lieu of refutation of your opponent's argument, train your reader to identify his
argument as galling chutzpah and your galling chutzpah as an argument.
3. Double down on the accusatory inversion and invoke anti- Semitism: It is not the Jewish
demand that the USA shut-up and bow down before Israel which is threatening to provoke an
anti-Semitic reaction; no: anti-Semitism results from acknowledging as legitimate a scrutiny of
the claims and aims of the Zionist state.
Mr. Stephen's rhetoric is an admission that he and his kind hate Jews, insisting as it does
on the implicit acceptance of Jewish identity as irrational and homicidal. His rhetoric also
represents an ultimatum to the USA: honor Israel's irrational hatred and killing of its
neighbors or you are guilty of irrationally killing Jews.
This is known as desperation and is an infallible sign that yet another false Jewish messiah
– Neoconservatism-has failed.
"... I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors " ..."
I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations
have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters –
"one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "
Anti-Semitism theater – a carefully staged social movement organized by Government
owned media to divide the peons and make them hate each other. Real hate-group profit lies in
charging for vast quantities of militarism but making just enough to kill women and children
overseas.
Back home the flag waving patriots insist they need a giant military with weapons
for anyone who can pay to protect them and their families. Dual loyalty to the Jewish lobby
and the defense lobby.
We do not know the value of 30 pieces of silver today, but I do presume that Jewish
bribes of Congress people are also hit by inflation. (like food). Or not?
US military spending is always by far the largest on the planet, several times the amount of
the next highest spending, China. But while other nations like China and Russia are scaling
back their budgets, the Pentagon's budget, as ever, continues to rise.
Trump's proposal would bring the overall defense budget for 2020 to $750 billion. This
includes a $544 billion base-line defense budget, which is not in and of itself a huge
increase. But on top of that
will be a nearly $100 billion in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) Fund , and a $9
billion "emergency" funding request meant to make up for the money already taken from the
military to build the border wall.
Using the OCO budget as an avenue for driving military spending up has been a common tactic
in recent decades, though it had fallen out of favor in the past few years. The OCO has been
heavily criticized because its nature makes it effectively a black hole, allowing the Pentagon
to shuffle money around to different projects as it sees fit.
Exploding the OCO, nearly tripling it from the current year's levels, while keeping base
funding roughly in line, seems meant to allow the administration to present themselves as
keeping past commitments, while fueling a precipitous spending increase all the same.
Zionist-controlled US carried out globalist-pogroms or globogroms all over the world, esp
against Muslim nations. Just ask the Iraqis and Syrians. (As for Palestinians, they got it
bad from Ziogroms.)
Jewish elite love to talk about 'Munich', but the Munich moment in our world is about
stopping Judeo-Nazi supremacists from hatching another war, such as against Iran.
Someone must draw a line in the sand and say NO. Jewish Power has crossed too many
lines.
If there is World War III, it will have been instigated mainly by the Tribe.
"... I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters – "one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors " ..."
I thought we lived in a corporate state and since the Supreme Court has ruled corporations
have rights – the voting morons already have loyalty to their corporate masters –
"one nation, under God and all of his defense contractors "
Anti-Semitism theater – a carefully staged social movement organized by Government
owned media to divide the peons and make them hate each other. Real hate-group profit lies in
charging for vast quantities of militarism but making just enough to kill women and children
overseas.
Back home the flag waving patriots insist they need a giant military with weapons
for anyone who can pay to protect them and their families. Dual loyalty to the Jewish lobby
and the defense lobby.
We do not know the value of 30 pieces of silver today, but I do presume that Jewish
bribes of Congress people are also hit by inflation. (like food). Or not?
The Solons on Capitol Hill are terrified of the expression "dual loyalty." They are afraid
because dual loyalty means that one is not completely a loyal citizen of the country where one
was born, raised and, presumably, prospered. It also suggests something more perverse, and that
is dual citizenship, which in its present historic and social context particularly refers to
the Jewish congressmen and women who just might be citizens of both the United States and
Israel. There is particular concern over the issue at the moment because a freshman
congresswoman Ilhan Omar has let the proverbial cat out of the bag by alluding to
American-Jewish money buying uncritical support for a foreign country which is Israel without
any regard to broader U.S. interests, something that everyone in Washington knows is true and
has been the case for decades but is afraid to discuss due to inevitable punishment by the
Israel Lobby.
Certainly, the voting record in Congress would suggest that there are a lot of congress
critters who embrace dual loyalty, with evidence that the loyalty is not so much dual as skewed
in favor of Israel. Any bill relating to Israel or to Jewish collective interests, like the
currently fashionable topic of anti-Semitism, is guaranteed a 90% plus approval rating no
matter what it says or how much it damages actual U.S. interests. Thursday's 407 to 23 vote in
the House of Representatives on a meaningless and almost unreadable
"anti-hate" resolution was primarily intended to punish Ilhan Omar and to demonstrate that
the Democratic Party is indeed fully committed to sustaining the exclusive prerogatives of the
domestic Jewish community and the Jewish state.
The voting on the resolution was far from unusual and would have been unanimous but for the
fact that twenty-three Republicans voted "no" because they wanted a document that was only
focused on anti-Semitism, without any references to Muslims or other groups that might be
encountering hatred in America. That the congress should be wasting its time with such nonsense
is little more than a manifestation of Jewish power in the United States, part of a long-sought
goal of making any criticism of Israel a "hate" crime punishable by fining and imprisonment.
And congress is always willing to play its part. Famously, American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) official Steven Rosen once boasted that he
could take a napkin and within 24 hours have the signatures of 70 Senators on it, reflective of
the ability of the leading pro-Israel organization to impel the U.S. legislature to respond
uncritically to its concerns.
Ilhan Omar has certainly been forced to apologize and explain her position as she is under
sustained attack from the left, right and center as well as from the White House. One
congressman told her that "Questioning support for the
US-Israel relationship is unacceptable." Another said "there are many reasons to
support Israel, but there is no reason to oppose Israel" while yet another one declared that
all in Congress are committed to insuring that the "United States and Israel stand as one."
But Omar has defended herself without abandoning her core arguments and she has further
established her bona fides as a credible critic of what passes for U.S. foreign policy
by virtue of an astonishing attack on former President Barack Obama, whom she criticized
obliquely
in an interview Friday , saying "We can't be only upset with Trump. His policies are bad,
but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more
polished than he was. That's not what we should be looking for anymore. We don't want anybody
to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies
that are behind the pretty face and the smile." Presumably Omar was referring to Obama's death
by drone program and his destruction of Libya, among his other crimes. Everything she said
about the smooth talking but feckless Obama is true and could be cast in even worse terms, but
to hear the truth from out of the mouth of a liberal Democrat is something like a revelation
that all progressives are not ideologically fossilized and fundamentally brain dead. One
wonders what she thinks of the Clintons?
The Democrats are in a tricky situation that will only wind up hurting relationships with
some of their core constituencies. If they come down too hard on Omar – a Muslim woman of
color who wears a head covering – it will not look good to some key minority voters they
have long courted. If they do not, the considerable Jewish political donations to the
Democratic Party will certainly be diminished if not slowed to a trickle and much of the media
will turn hostile. So they are trying to bluff their way through by uttering the usual
bromides. Senator Kristin Gillibrand of New York characteristically tried to cover both ends
by
saying "Those with critical views of Israel, such as Congresswoman Omar, should be able to
express their views without employing anti-Semitic tropes about money or influence." Well, of
course, it is all about Jews, money buying access and obtaining political power, with the
additional element of supporting a foreign government that has few actual interests in common
with the United States, isn't it?
As Omar put it, "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it
is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country " She also tweeted to a
congressional critic that "I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a
foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee." Gilad Atzmon,
a well known Jewish critic of Israel,
observed drily that "How reassuring is it that the only American who upholds the core
values of liberty, patriotism and freedom is a black Muslim and an immigrant "
But such explicatory language about the values that Americans used to embrace before
Israel-worship rendered irrelevant the Constitution clearly made some lightweights from the GOP
side nervous. Megan McCain, daughter of thankfully deceased "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"
Senator John McCain appears on a mind numbing talk-television program called The View
where she
cried as she described her great love for fellow Israel-firster warmonger former U.S.
Senator Joe Lieberman as "like family," before launching into her own "informed" analysis: "I
take the hate crimes rising in this country incredibly seriously and I think what's happening
in Europe is really scary. On both sides it should be called out. And just because I don't
technically have Jewish family that are blood-related to me doesn't mean that I don't take this
seriously and it is very dangerous, very dangerous what Ilhan Omar is saying is very scary to
me."
The New York Times also had a lot to say, covering the story on both its news and
op-eds pages daily. Columnist Michelle Goldberg, who is usually sensible,
criticizes Omar because of her "minimizing the legacy of the holocaust" and blames her
because "she's committed what might be called, in another context, a series of microaggressions
-- inadvertent slights that are painful because they echo whole histories of trauma." In other
words, if some Jews are indeed deliberately corrupting American politics on behalf of Israel
and against actual U.S. interests using money to do so it is not a good idea to say anything
about it because it might revive bad historical – or not so historical – memories.
It is perpetual victimhood employed as an excuse for malfeasance on the part of Jewish groups
and the Jewish state.
Another Times columnist Bret Stephens also takes up the
task of defenestrating Omar with some relish, denying that "claims that Israel uses money
to bend others to its will, or that its American supporters 'push for allegiance to a foreign
country'" are nothing more than the "repackage[ing] falsehoods commonly used against Jews for
centuries." He attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry" observing how
"she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he called Congress
"Israeli-occupied" territory." And it's all " how anti-Zionism has abruptly become an
acceptable point of view in reputable circles. It's why anti-Semitism is just outside the
frame, bidding to get in." He concludes by asking why the Democratic Party "has so much trouble
calling out a naked anti-Semite in its own ranks."
Stephens clearly does not accept that what Oran claims just might actually be true. Perhaps
he is so irritated by her because he himself is a perfect example of someone who suffers from
dual loyalty syndrome, or perhaps it would be better described as single loyalty to his tribe
and to Israel. Review some of his recent columns in The Times if you do not believe that
to be true. He has an obsession with rooting out people that he believes to be anti-Semites and
believes all the nonsense about Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East." In his op-ed
he claims that "Israel is the only country in its region that embraces the sorts of values the
Democratic Party claims to champion." Yes, a theocratic state's summary execution of unarmed
protesters and starving civilians while simultaneously carrying out ethnic cleansing are
traditional Democratic Party programs, at least as Bret sees it.
People like Stephens are unfortunately possessors of a bully pulpit and are influential. As
they are public figures, they should be called out regarding where their actual loyalties lie,
but no one in power is prepared to do that. Stephens wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is
pro-Israel far beyond anyone else writing at The Times . He and other dual loyalists, to
be generous in describing them, should be exposed for what they are, which is the epitome of
the promoters of the too "passionate attachment" with a foreign state that President George
Washington once warned against. If the United States of America is not their homeland by every
measure, they should perhaps consider doing Aliyah and moving to Israel. We genuine
Americans would be well rid of them.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East. Website is <a://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
title="http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
href="http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/">www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
<a:[email protected]" title="mailto:[email protected]"
href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected].
Stephens wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is pro-Israel far beyond anyone else
writing at The Times
Amazingly the Times has actually improved from 30 years ago, when their op-ed page included
Abe Rosenthal and William Safire, two of the most repulsive Zionists to ever appear in print.
I still remember Safire's campaign against Bobby Inman. Inman's 1994 press conference is
still a classic. (The good part begins at 23:00)
Weirdly, Trump abruptly attacked Ann Coulter , one of his earliest
and
most eloquent backers , on Twitter Saturday night, perhaps signaling he is repudiating the
immigration patriotism he won on -- or perhaps that he knows Ann is right:
In reality of course, "major sections of the wall" have not been built. And the
administration suffered yet another defeat in the courts last week over its attempts to enforce
immigration law. [ In another blow to Trump, judge rules in favor of ACLU in family separations case ,
by Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post , March 8, 2019] Trump is fighting, to his
credit, but he simply is not winning on the border.
Congressional Republicans also seem uninterested in immigration patriotism.
Many Republicans want to block President Trump's national emergency declaration on the
border -- the one good thing Trump has recently done on immigration–because it goes
against their " principles ."
Thirteen House Republicans voted to block the executive order last month. "The president
doesn't get to just declare an emergency for something that Congress has deliberated many times
over the past several years," Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian, said of why he
sponsored legislation to stifle the national emergency. [ Rep. Justin
Amash: 'The President Doesn't Get To Just Declare an Emergency' , by Joe Seyton,
Reason, February 26, 2019]. Amash was joined by a group primarily made up of squishy
Republicans. [ Meet the 13
Republicans who rebuked Trump over his national emergency , by Bridget Bowman, Roll
Call , February 26, 2019]
Trump's executive order is receiving even more pushback from Senate Republicans. Senators
such as Shelly Moore-Capito (R-West Virginia) and Susan Collins think the national
emergency is "concerning" and believe Trump already has enough wall money without the
declaration. [ GOP
wants Trump to back off on emergency , by Alexander Bolton, The Hill , March 6,
2019]
Four Republican Senators have announced their intention to vote for legislation to block the
national emergency: Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and usual Trump ally Rand Paul. More
are likely to announce their support for this measure as the vote approaches this week. Pat
Toomey and Todd Young, both who are close with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, want to
propose resolutions to give
cucky Republicans a way to voice their disapproval without voting with the Democrats.
The resolutions would convey the message that Republicans want border security, but don't
want to take the necessary actions to fund said border security. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wants to
pass a resolution that would restrict the president's emergency powers and place a 30-day or
60-day time limit on how long they can be in effect without congressional approval.
McConnell announced Monday that he could not prevent passage of legislation blocking Trump's
national emergency declaration. The New York Times declared this announcement as proof
that Trump has lost influence within his own party. [ Trump's Grip
Shows Signs of Slipping as Senate Prepares to Block Wall Emergency , By Sheryl Gay
Stolberg and Emily Cochrane, The New York Times , March 4, 2019]
The good news is that Trump will most likely veto this legislation and Congress doesn't have
enough votes to override the veto. The President is also threatening senators who vote for the
block with stiff consequences. [ Senate Republicans divided ahead of vote on disapproval of national emergency , by
Ted Barrett, CNN , March 7, 2019] There is little chance the President will sign a bill
that overrides his own action, even if his close advisers tell him to do so. Trump's instincts
would never allow such behavior.
The bad news: it's a sign congressional Republicans have no will to support immigration
patriotism at the moment. This is very bad considering the immigration bills that may come
before them in the near future, including the possible White House measure on guest worker
visas. House Democrats are set to introduce a new DREAM Act that will legalize at least 1.8
million illegals and extend Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of foreign
nationals.
Congressional Republicans need to get their act together to kill these pieces of
legislation. But
they may be at the forefront in support of them. Last fall, multiple Republican senators,
including the appalling
Thom Tillis, proposed a bill that would double the number of H-2b visas and screw over
low-skilled American workers. And last month, several Republicans -- alas, including supposed
immigration patriot
Tom Cotton -- championed the easement of some regulations on H-1b visas.
The better hope for killing a guest worker expansion lies with the Democrats. Anyone with a
brain realizes this would be bad for American workers and benefits greedy corporations.
Democrats have never been too fond of this plan, as evidenced by their skepticism about its
expansion in the Gang of Eight Amnesty. [ Gang
of 8 defends guest worker plan , by Seung Min Kim, Politico , May 13, 2013].
What better way to portray Trump as a phony populist in 2020 than to skewer him for this gift
to the cheap labor lobby?
The House Democrats' proposed DREAM Act will probably go nowhere–unless Trump includes
that idea in his immigration package. There are some positive signs that the White House won't
do this; and that Republicans would block its passage. Kushner floated the idea of giving green
cards for Dreamers in exchange for wall funding during shutdown negotiations earlier this year.
That plan was firmly opposed by conservative senators who thought it was insanity [ A "go big" idea to end the shutdown , by Jonathan Swan, Axios , January 23,
2019]
Though Congress and the White House seem set on terrible immigration ideas, it's worth
remembering there are alternative patriotic immigration proposals they could push. All of these
ideas would not likely pass the current Congress, but they would shape the immigration debate
in a positive direction ahead of the 2020 election.
El Chapo Act:
This bill proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz would confiscate the money of drug lords like Joaquin
"El Chapo" Guzman and allocate it to building the wall. Cruz reintroduced the proposal in
February and believes the government could obtain $14 billion out of El Chapo's drug profits
through this law [ Sen. Ted Cruz's solution to border wall impasse: Make El Chapo pay for it , by
Deanna Paul, The Washington Post , February 13, 2019]. This would be more money than
Trump currently has for wall construction and would send a strong message to the cartels. The
president himself has said Sen. Cruz's idea is "interesting." There is no reason Republicans
shouldn't hold a vote on this bill and make Democrats stand up for drug cartels.
Kate's Law:
This bill, named after Kate Steinle who was murdered by an illegal alien, would institute
harsher penalties for illegals caught re-entering the country. This measure passed the House in
2017, but it died in the (n.b. GOP-controlled)Senate [ Senate Has Not Voted On Kate's Law Five Months After It Passed The House With Bipartisan
Support , by Will Racke, The Daily Caller , December 1, 2017].
Trump should resurrect the bill. Yes, it's passage is less likely with a Democrat-controlled
House. That doesn't matter. The president needs to convey he still wants to crack down on
illegal immigration and that his opponents favor criminal aliens over American citizens.
Along with the El Chapo Act, probably has the best chance at passage among the ideas the
Trump admin could push as multiple Democrats voted for it back in 2017. There is still a chance
enough Democrats would vote for it again to achieve passage.
No Sanctuary for Criminals Act:
This act would cut Sanctuary Cities off from federal law enforcement funds and it was also
passed by the House in 2017, albeit by a smaller margin than Kate's Law. It also went nowhere
in the (GOP-controlled) Senate. If Republicans want to highlight the chaos created by Democrat
policies, they should revive this bill and remind Americans that Trump stands up for law and
order. This act, however, does have less chance of passage as it was more strongly opposed by
Democrats [ Dems
block Senate vote on sanctuary cities , by Alexander Bolton, The Hill , February
13, 2018]
Mandatory e-Verify:
Requiring all American companies to use e-verify seems almost too good of an idea for
Republicans. The bill explicitly protects American workers and puts the onus on employers to
make sure they only hire those who are here legally. This should receive bipartisan support as
both parties want to portray themselves as the true protectors of American workers.
House Republicans included the measure in their DACA deal last year, so they are aware of
this proposal [ Goodlatte offers E-Verify mandate, farm worker fix for immigration bill , by John
Bresnahan, Politico , June 26, 2018]. We just need one patriot Republican to stand up
and offer mandatory e-Verify. This proposal also has a decent chance of passage.
Override the Flores Settlement:
This 1997 court decision has handcuffed the Trump administration's ability to enforce
immigration law and is directly responsible for the current border collapse. It has allowed
liberal judges to deem it unlawful for the government to detain illegal alien minors for more
than 20 days. It also has allowed for these minors to have better access to asylum as they
remain in America undetained. Some Republican lawmakers, including Ted Cruz, suggested
legislative action in the last congressional session to correct this loophole [ The History of the Flores
Settlement , by Matt Sussis, Center for Immigration Studies , February 11,
2019].
A bill to end this policy would not likely pass as many Republicans shrank from the Trump's
family detention policies last summer [ Here
Are the Republicans Opposing Migrant Family Separation , by Jeff Cirillo, Roll
Call , June 19, 2018]. That doesn't change the fact that the Trump administration needs
this legislation to avoid further court losses and to shift public discussion on family
detention to focus on Democratic preference for illegal immigrants.
Eliminating birthright citizenship:
There is no way that this idea would pass Congress, but it does have the backing of the
President and one prominent Republican senator. Trump said he may eliminate birthright
citizenship by executive order and
Sen. Lindsey Graham proposed a bill to do so right before the 2018 election. [ Lindsey
Graham Seconds Trump Proposal to End Birthright Citizenship , by Niels Lesniewski,
Roll Call , October 30, 2018]
Those plans, however, seem to have disappeared since then. But Trump still seems interested
in the issue -- he mentioned it in his speech to CPAC -- and events may prompt the president to
revisit the topic. A bill would cause an uproar within Congress and among the Republican
caucus, let alone an executive order. And that's good. If Trump wants to have a serious
discussion on citizenship and reduce the negative effects of mass immigration, then he must
force this issue into the public square.
Javanka would likely oppose any such effort, so perhaps their White House influence would
have to be minimalized from what it is today for this to happen.
The RAISE Act:
The RAISE
Act would halve America's yearly immigration intake and structure our system to be more
"merit-based." It would also cap annual refugee numbers at 50,000 and eliminate the diversity
visa lottery. The bill was introduced by Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue with Trump's backing
in August 2017. But (again, despite GOP control of Congress) nothing happened.
If Trump wants to show he still puts America first ahead of 2020, he could resurrect the
RAISE Act. There is no chance it would pass, but it would force Republicans to run on the plan
and win the seats necessary to pass it in Trump's second term.
These are some positive things Trump and Republicans can do. Whether they choose to do them
is up to them.
It's not looking good.
Washington Watcher [ email him ] is an anonymous source
Inside The Beltway.
"... That 93% of all personnel that are employed by the CIA are paper pushers in Langley and just 7% are in the field, of which I read sometime ago, has a ring of truth to me. ..."
Anyone remember Mullah Omar, the deceased leader of the Taliban? The U.S. military and intelligence services claimed over and
over again that he was hiding in Pakistan. Bette Dam
finds (pdf) that he wasn't:
After 2001, Mullah Omar never stepped foot in Pakistan, instead opting to hide in his native land -- and for eight years,
lived just a few miles from a major U.S. Forward Operating Base that housed thousands of soldiers.
In late 2001, after the U.S. invasion, Mullah Omar resigned as leader of the Taliban and the movement officially surrendered
to Hamid Karzai who promised them reconciliation. The U.S. did not like that and launched a vengeful campaign against all former
Taliban member. Eighteen years later the U.S. is suing for peace.
Mullah Omar lived quietly, meditated and studied religious text. Allah remarked on his death:
On April 23, 2013, Mullah Omar passed away. That day, Jabbar Omari told me, the hot, dry lands of southern Afghanistan experienced
something he'd never seen before: a hail storm. I assumed it was hagiographic bluster, but later I found a U.S. army publication
referring to that day: "More than 80 Task Force Falcon helicopters were damaged when a sudden unprecedented hailstorm hit
Kandahar Airfield April 23, where nearly half of the brigade's helicopters were parked."
The fact that Mullah Omar's death was suppressed for two years even from high-level official sources, indicates to me that the
theory bin Laden died in 2001 is very plausible. We even have a similar progression of statements regarding their respective health,
doubts of whether they were alive at the respective time, etc.
Of course, both terror leaders were kept "alive" for geopolitical reasons. Once ISIS (and later Russia/China) took over as
a serious threat in the corporate media narrative, they no longer had to cling to those old phantoms.
The story on Omar is astonishing, but to me not surprising. If the US spends billions on finding one guy, and at the end of the
day, he is literally just down the road, it shows how incompetent and useless our intelligence gathering has become.
That 93% of all personnel that are employed by the CIA are paper pushers in Langley and just 7% are in the field, of which
I read sometime ago, has a ring of truth to me.
Stupidity has a firm grip on our rulers, and they are getting, not only us but many others, killed for absolutely no reason.
And the dunces called the American voter, keep re-electing them. It leaves me breathless.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has ordered the Syrian government to pay $302
million in damages for the murder of journalist Marie Colvin in a 2012 artillery
strike. The decision, issued on Wednesday, marks the first time in the seven-year conflict
that a court has declared Syrian forces loyal to the government of President Bashar
al-Assad responsible for deliberately attacking civilians.
Then there is the case of Iran's destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001.
Iran is ordered to pay "$12,500,000 per spouse, $8,500,000 per parent, $8,500,000 per
child, and $4,250,000 per sibling" to the families and estates of the deceased, court
filings say.
A 4.96 annual interest rate will also be applied to the amount, starting from September
11, 2001 to the date of the judgement.
I'm mentioning this because of a story I saw on a blog operated by the son of America's
Most Famous Jewish Orthodox Author. The fellow was gloating about the apartheid Jewish state
"...cutting terror salaries from Palestinian Authority taxes..."
The guy's smug satisfaction gave me an idea. What If the US of A chose a number somewhere
between the "life value" of Marie Colvin and the values assigned to the 9/11 victims, and
subtracted the money from the 'allowance" given to the apartheid Jewish state. Every time
they murder a Palestinian, they lose XX million dollars. Naturally the same thing would apply
to times Palestinians murder one of their occupiers.
Or is it "anti-semitic" to even compare God's Most Favorite Thieves and Murderers with the
subhuman creatures they're trampling underfoot?
On the NYT story, you have to love how transparent the propaganda is, and yet they (Bolton, Pompeo, Rubio) don't care whatsoever.
Oh, and not one critical word about people throwing Molotov cocktails. Like that's a perfectly normal, non-violent means of protest.
Hmmmm I think IMHO that any analogies with Gorbachev are misplaced and superficial. I
don't think Gorbachev knew what he was doing and was profoundly naive (or worse, but that's
the best that can be said about him, let's leave it at that – and I admired him as a
teen behind the iron curtain).
I think Sanders knows what he's doing and is clear eyed about who he's dealing with in
terms of system and people -- unlike Gorbachev.
As for people in the USSR giving up – I don't think they got anything of what they
really wanted, and I don't think anyone really asked them. So they never had a chance to give
up anything. They were simply led along a short hopeful path – and then summarily and
mercilessly crushed.
Sanders is a healthy thing for this country and the Dem party. Unlike Gorbachev, he's
ushering in healthy forces. Let the chips fall where they may.
"... The multi-polar world is quickly becoming a reality and the US empire is in decline. Doubtful this brouhaha about 'protection money' will change that trend in any meaningful way. ..."
Trump has driving desire to be seen as the first businessman president.
The appeal of Trump making 'allies pay their fair share' any reality check on how counterproductive the effort is to the
waning US empire
Trump's unique candidacy put him in the White House without any real foreign policy staff who would have long ago gotten
Trump to abandon the silly idea - at least after he was elected.
The multi-polar world is quickly becoming a reality and the US empire is in decline. Doubtful this brouhaha about 'protection
money' will change that trend in any meaningful way.
The only other explanation is this really is 4D chess on Trump's part where he sees these silly shakedown attempts as the most
efficient way of getting the US out of NATO.
Thanks B. This is how empires end, or at least one way. Hubris gets them every time. I for
one will be glad to see US troops at the very least reduced in Italy, and for all of Europe
for that matter.
Especially now that the INF is dead. And I hear that Italy is now looking at
embracing China's B&R Initiative. I say have at it! There's the shiver waiting to run up
Washington's spine. You might find this amusing, too: >
https://thesaker.is/us-treats-luxembourg-like-a-vassal-state-or-us-imperial-hubris-gone-bonkers/
Little Luxembourg. It does bring a big smile. Keep going, Trump. You're on the right track.
More Art of the Deal, anyone?
This will be good for every one. Trump demands the Germans and Japanese pay for US
protection, which they reject and the US military goes home. Isn't that an excellent outcome
for all parties?
The only section that is slightly unclear is, "The only sound reason to keep the 30,000
U.S. troops in Germany is to prevent them from moving to Poland from where they could
threaten the country."
Surely the US occupation of Germany has been tacitly or latently threatening and
controlling and dominating and bullying and extorting Germany for around 74 years?
So what major difference would it make if they were moved a few hundred kilometers
away?
Kick 'em out! Germany has more than served her sentence!
The European people should support Trump in his desire to eliminate NATO. Of course the Deep
State in both Europe and the US will fight it tooth and nail. Maybe the #GiletsJaunes who
have been erased from western media will finally topple the Party of Davos candidate Macron.
And similar populist movements in other European countries can topple other Deep State
stooges from western Europe. Merkel is already on her way out as the CDU/CSU combine and the
Social Democrats implode in Germany.
Extortion because you're broke. We don't have the money to pay for it, so this
administration resorts to mob tactics to keep the scam going. "The government and us are cut
from the same cloth." Sam Giancana, former Chicago mob boss.
If that graphic is any indication of public opinion in Germany, things are even worse than
I'd heard.
There has been a small series of events where the German Government gave the US meddlers a
shove-off. First was the new gas pipeline Nord 2 - they refused to fold for perfectly good
economic reasons. Next was the German rejection of the horrible F-35. Recently I'm seeing
headlines about Germany and the Chinese 5G company.
Given all of this, I'm beginning to doubt if the Germans will allow the US to plant new
short-range nuclear missiles on their soil. Becoming a WW3 target for no good reason except
to please the US of A Imperia wouldn't seem to be a very clever move on their part.
I agree with Elliott A that it is better to have the US troops in Poland than in Germany -
and better that the inviters of the US troops then become the target for the defensive
nuclear missiles they force Russia to deploy rather than Germany.
Furthermore, if Poland is forced to pay the full cost of their invited US guests, maybe
their voters will eventually come to their senses and vote in more rational Polish
politicians.
The Poles are generally pseudo-Catholic and mercenary, pro-American in-name-only; as soon
as it could hit them in the pocket, they will pipe down very quickly and balk/bridle.
Hence Poland is a worthy (temporary) stopover for the US (including the NSA) when evicted
from Germany. The fact that Merkel is out soon is dangerous because she doesn't really G/A/F,
and will defer the decision to the next poor blighter.
There could be a treaty in place that says American troops can remain in Germany until the
year 2500 but Trump's just shot himself in the foot again by giving Germany a get-out
clause.
Zero hedge is reporting that Pence went a bit further than that and urged Germany To provoke
Russian Navy in the Kerch Strait by sending ships there in a freedom of navigation exercise.
Strangely enough Merkel said she was willing to provoke Russia, but thought doing it wouldn't
accomplish anything so she didn't want to provoke Russia for no reason. God, how insane are
these idiots. And now it looks like in response Pence/Trump will extort Germany for not being
mindlessly obedient enough.
Merkel is already on her way out as the CDU/CSU combine and the Social Democrats implode
in Germany.
Posted by: ab initio | Mar 8, 2019 11:49:49 AM | 6
The problem is though, that the Deep State have already reserved their places in Merkel's
successors, the AfD. All of these right-wing "populist" parties acros Europe seem to be no
more than a cynical vehicle for the Deep State to hijack popular discontent and channel it
into a new form of slavery to replace the old. Hence Steve Banner's dubious and highly
dangerous politicking for the so-called populist movement in Europe.
A real future lies in Jeremy Corbyn and maybe also a few other left-wing parties in Europe
(as long as they don't become compradors like Syriza) - but the Deep State is fighting Corbyn
tooth and nail. In Germany there is Die Linke who have some good people and some good
policies (from my limited knowledge!) - but their popularity is still in the doldrums,
unfortunately.
And of course, the extortion must be paid in US Dollars. Clearly, the threat is all about
keeping Dollar Hegemony alive by reducing the massive trade deficit. I see AfD making capital
thanks to this. As for Japan, Russia will not sign a Peace Treaty with it until all foreign
military forces are removed--a condition that's been reiterated several times over the last
few months to which I've linked. Okinawans are furious at being twice colonized and are at
the end of their rope. So far they've been peaceful, but I think it's clear to them by now
that the only way to remove the foreign vermin is to literally push them into the sea.
Korea's situation's been discussed on that thread.
For the domestic Outlaw US Empire, shutting down the Overseas Empire of Bases and the
related destabilization projects globally would save @ $1 Trillion/year--an utter wastage of
monies for projects that are decidedly NOT in the National Interest. And as most here
understand, the world would be more peaceful if the Outlaw US Empire would cease being an
Outlaw and an Empire. And it would become cleaner too as the US Military is the most
polluting entity on the planet.
Isn't Poland offering to pay the United States $2 billion to establish a base called Fort
Trump?
BTW, perhaps this is a ruse to remove all U.S. troops from Syria. I'd love to be there
when Elliott "debt collector" Abrams turns up demanding the money from Assad. There is an
opportunity for one of the greatest reality TV programs ever (I'm a neo-con, get me out of
here) which makes me wonder if that's Trump's reason for this scheme.
All Americans needs to protect Americans in the US is a coast guard and a border patrol.
Everything else is either protection for corporations doing business [which should be added
to the price of their products/services to reflect true costs] or empire.
Yes, it's another damp squib, another no-win, another over-promise, another posture, like all
the others.
This is all Trump knows and integrity never enters the equation.
Any sign of that border wall, that the Mexican government was going to pay for?
Not exactly "The Art of The Deal". more like one long and embarrassing suicide note.
I don't exactly dislike Trump particularly as he has "Mullered" a number of cretinous
insiders whom required a reality check but he is hindbound by his capinet; none of his plans
went through and he is in it well over his depth particularly since he appears to be
suffering from ADHD, dementia and schizophrenia - just what you need in the
Commander-in-Chief?
On the bright side, you can get a bigly discount for being a faithful toady and swearing
allegiance to the US of A. Wonder where the US 'leaders' got the idea of swearing allegiance
to a foreign power?
....the world would be more peaceful if the Outlaw US Empire would cease being an Outlaw
and an Empire....
Trump's just demonstrated that by staying out of the very recent Indo-Pakistan incident.
Maybe he didn't want Americans dying in the shithole that is the sub-continent. Maybe he
didn't see any opportunity to line his own pocket. Whatever his reason, he did the right
thing. Would Hillary have done the same? I don't know.....
Empire is getting the rest of its plates spinning so that must mean that the end is
getting closer. I don't think that the Philippine's plate is spinning fast enough so Trump
needs to give it some special love.
Pretty soon we will need a plate spinning scorecard just to keep track of all the
action.
Syria
Iran
Ukraine
Venezuela
Russia
China
Korea
EU w/ NATO
and now Germany and Japan
What plates am I missing?
Think about how much of the peoples resources are going to keeping these plates
spinning.
Who are going to come to the table with what arguments when the debt music stops?
* Trump has driving desire to be seen as the first businessman president.
* The appeal of Trump making 'allies pay their fair share' any reality check on how
counterproductive the effort is to the waning US empire
* Trump's unique candidacy put him in the White House without any real foreign policy staff
who would have long ago gotten Trump to abandon the silly idea - at least after he was
elected.
The multi-polar world is quickly becoming a reality and the US empire is in decline.
Doubtful this brouhaha about 'protection money' will change that trend in any meaningful
way.
The only other explanation is this really is 4D chess on Trump's part where he sees these
silly shakedown attempts as the most efficient way of getting the US out of NATO.
American troops pack up your shit and get the f*ck out, oh and here's an invoice for $100
billion to cover the cost of cleaning up your toxic waste.
Thanks for your business.
The only Germans that want them are restaurants and shops located near the bases and other
businesses that cater to them.
Yes, Trump's new policy is very welcome if it gets Germany to kick them out or, better
yet, get out of NATO. I wonder if Trump intends it - or is he just plain stupid?
Victor Cha, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington, said the administration was sending a deliberate message by demanding "Cost
Plus 50" from South Korea first , even though that effort fell short.
Ouch, poor SK. What a timing, straight after 'successful' NK talks.
With allies like that, who needs enemies?
Perhaps this will finally get the EU to kick the US and its NATO out.
But I don't underestimate the ability of EU elites to crawl to the US. It's like second
nature. And they get their pockets stuffed full of dollars to be kept in line.
Let me guess the free loading douche bag country that gets the most support from the US will
magically be excluded from these demands yet again.
I sure hope they try this protection racquet in Iraq. The government is already under huge
pressure to kick the Americans out after Trumps visit there last month.
What's America's plan to maintain economic wealth at the end of the debt spiral and dollar
collapse????
I have an idea!! Tribute! Hey, it worked for the Aztecs. Soon many countries will
see it as a small price to pay to avoid having democracy brought to their countries. Previous
versions of this scheme, such as buying US treasury debt knowing full well it will never be
repaid wont cut it anymore. So we are moving towards the real thing.
When I used to play football in my young days (i.e. soccer for the american lads here), I had
to pass by a huge US military base in the south of Germany each time in order to reach the
training ground. But strangely, I never challenged the necessity of that base in the first
place - probably due to my lack of geopolitical, historical consciousness. Only after they
build a second, even bigger base directly on the opposite side of the road and after two
combat helicopters - for the first time - flew directly above my head, I finally became aware
and started to question things. I wonder how many people that drive the same road each day
actually do feel the same...
Anyway, thank you b and thanks to all the well-experienced forumites for providing the vital
informations and inputs that helped me to better understand what is going on after all.
This is quite a slap in the face as the US has been raising tensions with Russia and any
conflict with Russia would likely cause the destruction of Europe.
Wondering how this will play out in places such as the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain where
the U.S. actually pays the dictator to lease the Navy and Air Force bases? Where the U.K.
pays the dictator for a British naval facility, too, which is shared?
Remember when Bahrain and other Arab countries in the Persian Gulf didn't want bases to be
called bases? Instead they were each a Regional Operations Support Establishment, aka ROSE.
Surely there's a different term now, but we still pay to lease bases.
Give trump credit: he raises the issue. And by doing so he gives people the opportunity to be
thrust into the act of questioning.
I continue to believe that this is really the overriding attribute of his presidency. What
people like the Germans do with this opportunity is entirely incumbent on them. But it is an
opportunity nonetheless, and as b correctly asserts, this is a welcomed change from the
political grab ass of the preceding administrations.
We should wish good luck to the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) in hosting US
bases: not only will they have to foot the cost of hosting US forces but their entire
economies by now must be revolving around being open-air military barracks. All while their
own citizens are voting with their feet.
Psychohistorian @ 22: You're missing large parts of Africa (possibly Djibouti where there's a
US base; Rwanda which is a US satrapy under President Paul Kagame; western Africa where there
are offshore oil and gas deposits) and Georgia where the US operates a bioweapons laboratory.
Once again, on the surface this is obvious extortion. But I can't help but think this is
really a purposeful 'own goal.' I know this is likely giving Trump too much credit, but in a
parallel universe this is exactly what you would do if you had a hidden agenda to enfeeble
the US to cause our eventual pull back. There's no political way to slowly scale back our
involvement, but there is a way to overreach under everyone's noses and get the same end
result. Is this a 666d chess move or just what happens as empire descends into chaos,
grasping at straws? Either way I'm fine with the obvious result!
We are seeing the true colors. What we now have are Co-Presidents: Bolton, Trump; and Co-Vice
Presidents Pompous and Pence. The 4 morons do not realize they are isolating the U.S.A. and
hastening rejection of the USD.
Adhere my diktat and keep purchasing our T-bills.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has allegedly stood up to pressure from Washington as she
declined a proposal by Vice President Mike Pence to send German Navy ships towards Russia's
Crimea, Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. Pence
allegedly wanted German ships to sail through the Kerch Strait separating Crimea from
mainland Russia. France, [.]
next, trump asks venezuela to pay in advance for the invasion. in usd.
Emmanuel Goldstein , Mar 8, 2019 3:59:51 PM |
link
This is an utterly brilliant Empire-killing move by Trump. Speaking of the UK I wonder how
much we will be asked to pony up for the US air bases and troops still in the UK 75 years
after D-day. This should hit just after Brexit and we may have a different government in the
chair......
the germans would be owned by the russian,gadaffi saddam hussein serbia and hitler if it was
not for uk and usa.
we keep the world safe and stop irania and the hamas terroist pushing israel into the sea.
i say to the germans pay the man or be invaded by evil doers
Although I didn't read or watch, it appears most major BigLie Media have published/aired this
story, a point I was curious about since Friday's usually a slow news day, thus begging the
question: What's the public's reaction? Might there be a groundswell calling for returning
the troops home so that both the occupied nation and the occupier save monies? And what of
the opposite argument, that even more troops and bases are needed to defend against the Red
and Yellow Menace?
If I was a president who could not step too far out of line due to powerful forces all around
me, I would take the ideas of neocons et al and push them even further over the line past
reasonable.
No-one in power could argue against me because I'm implementing their ideas, even though I'm
taking them too far.
But pushing things too far creates real resistance, and makes the real policies obvious, and
brings about the end of the empire.
I might decide to:
1. Move the US embassy to Jerusalem, to make it clear who calls the shots
2. Demand that NATO countries pay more and publicly disrespect their leaders
3. Demand that Germany and Japan pay for their occupation
4. Obviously attack Venezuela (in contrast to previous less-obvious attacks)
5. and other increasingly outrageous demands until the vassals get fed up
Meanwhile I'd do other things that I have to do to keep the powerful forces happy.
I may be a terrible person with no 3-d chess master plan, but perhaps things would be
different after my term. And "different" might approximate "better".
"Obama
was a smiling murderer, says Ilhan Omar" And of course, she's 100% correct. As Ben Norton
noted in this tweet , Omar's
words were citied in a Politico article that he linked. You'll note, that by extension
she also called Trump a murderer, just not as "polished."
There's merit in your argument. For example, the so far small contingent of anti-war
Progressive Democrats either were elected or emboldened thanks to Trump, Rep. Omar being the
most prominent example. The same could be said of pushing the far-right's policy goals, as
that's also generated resistance. Too bad the initial call for resistance was based on the
Russiagate hoax. Time will tell!
Okay. If you don't get your weekly payola, then shut down the foreign bases. Only thing is,
what do we do with all these armed people trained to kill on command, looking for some action
in between saying the Pledge of Allegiance and painting Bible verses on bombs?
I sure as shit don't want them all coming back here, loitering around in the US. Got too
many cops on steroids as it is.
@ teri who wrote
"
I sure as shit don't want them all coming back here, loitering around in the US. Got too many
cops on steroids as it is.
"
Its called karma
I live here too....the energy needs to be refocused on planet rehab and going to the stars
along with my standard make global finance public
It sure will.
Especially the Neocons as they scramble around trying to collect all the rust flakes to glue
them back onto dilapidated USA's dilapidated Foreign Policy.
I'm sorry, but many people posting here are delusional about Trump's motives.
For a start, none of the issues discussed in this post would cause the American people
much in the way of dispute. Broadly, most Americans would think that other countries should
pay for US "support". Americans disagree quite a bit about "The Wall" and gender issues
around public restrooms; but not so much about the issues raised in this post. So there IS NO
RESISTANCE, and WILL NOT BE ANY RESISTANCE, within the US, on getting countries to pay.
Other countries might have problems but what other countries think has never been much of
an issue for Americans.
The issue of getting other countries to pay is about cost and the out-of-control US debt.
And, also, about Trump electioneering.
Should other countries refuse to pay (or request US troops to leave), then they can expect
to be sanctioned or economically damaged. Just consider how France (a US ally) had one of
their prize jewel (world-beating) nuclear technology intellectual assets, Alstom's
Arabelle steam turbine , taken from them by the US. This happened way before Trump so
demonstrates how the US operates (the art of the [coercive] deal is the way the US rolls).
France, and in particular Macron, who was French Finance/Economic Minster, at the time, had
no choice but to accept the takeover. Macron actually appeared quite gleeful about it (Macron
was effectively working for US, not French, interests).
Can Columbia or Kosovo afford to pay? Or will Washington increase the financial support they
give to those countries to cover the bill.
As for NATO, the core system was based on the countries that are members providing a
reliable easily-secured base for American expeditionary forces to attack and invade one of
the two countries that are at the heart of the Eurasian landmass. In exchange for that the
United States bankrolled NATO. If Trump breaks that bargain, what incentive is there for the
core members of NATO to allow wars to be fought on their territory particularly now that
Putin has said he is focused on improving the lives of ordinary Russians rather than going to
war with Europe but will make sure that the decision centres of any countries that attack or
are somehow involved in an attack on Russia will be destroyed. None as far as I can see, so
it looks like it'll be goodbye NATO.
@55ADKC - why would other countries pay to have the usa military on their soil? this explains
the whole agenda of fearmongering that has been in overdrive 24/7 since i was a kid...
nothing else explains it.. keep the fear up to justify this craziness.. i can't see anyone
paying for it.. i sure wouldn't want that if i was german, japanese or south korean for
example... now, maybe the leaders of these countries are going to be faced with a stark
choice... side with this b.s., or get removed from office... i praise trump for bringing this
forth and hope that he strikes a big fat zero from the countries that have usa bases on
them...
I think Trump believes the hype fed to Americans forever that the US soldiers are the good
guys and they really are protecting these countries. He also has a reputation for squeezing
contractors etc.
To MAGA he thinks it needs better deals and more people sending money in.
@59. I think that's right. He genuinely believes US forces are out there protecting 'our
allies' and keeping the world safe for democracy etc. But he also thinks 'our allies' are
taking advantage of American generosity. This is a common sentiment among Trump voters.
I think most Americans think they are protecting the world.
iv> i agrees we are the white hatters many folks hate the uk and usa and
norway for are freedoms.
we need to be able to affords a big bat to stomp the evil doers if we cannot afford the big bat
folks must suffer.
the uk and usa tax payers are sick of paying for new bats to protect the world if the world
does not pay for protection new hitlers arrafats,gadaffis and hezbollah terrosits will be along
soon to take are democrasy
Posted by: chuck newsum , Mar 8, 2019 6:50:20 PM |
link
i agrees we are the white hatters many folks hate the uk and usa and norway for are
freedoms.
we need to be able to affords a big bat to stomp the evil doers if we cannot afford the big
bat folks must suffer.
the uk and usa tax payers are sick of paying for new bats to protect the world if the world
does not pay for protection new hitlers arrafats,gadaffis and hezbollah terrosits will be
along soon to take are democrasy
Posted by: chuck newsum | Mar 8, 2019 6:50:20 PM |
link
Because they are (particularly, in Europe) occupied countries and many things can be done
to ensure compliance (economic, gladio operations, sanctions, theft of assets, prosecution
for any offence [no matter how small, incidental, or accidental] if a dollar is involved,
influx of refugees, war [directly or adjacent to target country], removal of post-colonial
areas of influence, instigating financial collapse [Deutche Bank is supposed to be very
vulnerable and would effect the entire EU/world], etc).
Why couldn't France protect Alstom? Would France be able to resist if the US targeted the
African CFA countries (which are France's neo-colonial milk-cows and essential to the
economic well-being of France and detrimental to the African people subject to the CFA
franc)?
You "praise Trump" for raising this issue but it's just the same old, same old.
The only place relatively secure is the Chinese/Russia milieu but that's the other side of
the real "wall" and restricts the expansion of OBOR. And the price (for Russia and China) is
having the entire western nuclear arsenal aimed at you.
Whether or not any payments are actually made will make no difference; US troops will
remain in occupied territory. (BTW: Europe will pay, the key is Germany. If Germany refuse to
pay the rest will follow. But Germany can't fudge this; it would amount to open resistance
and a re-negotiation of the outcome of the 2nd World War and, unless the US want to give up
the fruits of their 1945 victory, I don't see that happening. Germany will realise that, if
the US insist, they will have to comply; it's the direct consequence of losing the war and
being occupied.]
Moving American troops to Poland? Surely, the benefits are many. First, since the size of the
military is much smaller than in Warsaw block times, there are many military grounds.
Particularly in areas where forests are larger, climate harsher, and local men are fond of
beating up strangers when they get drunk. Local roads are crappy and American soldiers are
prone to hit side road trees. To summarize, martial skills and spirit are bound to improve.
For even better results, they should be moved to Estonia, Latvia and Finnmark, areas
bordering Russian Federation. OTOH, fleecing Balts would be like squeezing blood from stone.
E.g. Lithuania is an exemplary NATO member, spending 2% of GDP on the military, and yet they
cannot afford a tank.
He's already said he doesn't believe the hype. He said it 60 Minutes after his
inauguration...
"We've spent 6 Trillion dollars in the Middle East....6 Trillion! We could have rebuilt
America twice. It's unfair what's happened to the American people, and we're gonna put a stop
to it."
The countries Trump wants to hit with fees are those he wanted the US military to pull out of
anyway. The cold war relics. Europe, Korea ect. Any bases to do with Israel Iran Venezuela
will not be hitting up the host country for extortion money. Bases he wants to use to
pressure China will also likely be exempt.
Those that do get hit with the fees, Trump doesn't give a shit if the US stays or leaves, so
long as the US is well paid if it stays.
I don't think Corbyn is the Messiah you take him for. He has sound ideas on not bombing
foreigners - unusual in a British politician - but apart from that he's a busted flush. Not
even close observers care to predict who will come out on top in the mud wrestling at
Westminster but if Corbyn makes it watch him accommodate.
.
With great respect, "b", and as happens rarely, I don't believe this article is on target.
America is the spine and most of the muscle of European defence. Forget Aachen. It'll be a
long time before any purely European defence force is up to scratch.
The Europeans are hoping that America will hold the fort in the meantime. That's not an
alliance. It's a marriage of temporary convenience.
Of course the other problem with this is it makes the American forces official mercenaries
rather than national forces and all the legal consequences that flow from that.
History first as tragedy and later as a farce. Alexander Solzhenitsyn: "Beria reported only
to Stalin and Stalin reported only to Satan." Now Bolton reports only to Trump and Chump
reports only to Sreadsheets. So much winning and multi-dimensional chess... It's deplorable.
Lol
@59 and @60 This is why the shock will be all the more stunning to the Americans.
Its "allies" have no problem with Uncle Sam spending like a drunken sailor. As far as they
are concerned, well, who cares.
But if Trump insists THEY pay for American profligacy then they are going to say "no".
American pundits will then pontificate on how much MORE it would cost those allies, and
the response will be: don't be stupid, we won't spend money to protect ourselves against a
threat that doesn't exist.
Because - and let's be honest here - in a post-NATO world the only military threat to
Europe will be the USA, and the US Army will be on the other side of the Atlantic.
I see a number of comments where the question's begged: Just what nation intends to invade
Europe such that the continuing Outlaw US Empire's occupation's warranted? Putin and Xi want
Europe to join the EAEU/BRI confab--invasion via commerce?!
It appears the Anti-Communist Crusade is having a hard time dying in some quarters,
particularly where continually invoking it is required dogma by controlling interests.
I think Trump and his MAGA boils everything down to money. Money goes out and money comes in.
His job is to slow the money going out and get more money coming in. I think it is that
simple. You get bombed by our smart freedom and democracy bombs then you should be decent
enough to pay for it. Also our bases are protecting you from getting bombed by evildoers
bombs. You should definitely pay for that. Why are we?
I'd like to see a study of the amount of money spent into the local economy by the occupation
forces in Germany, Japan and South Korea. Not just by the military but by the servicemen,
families, civilian contractors for housing, travel, schools, food, entertainment, etc
Obviously paying to be occupied is not happening, but there is some logic to the idea that
the occupied receive some economic benefits from being occupied, including but not limited to
a reduction in spending on their own military.
Any spending into the local economy is dwarfed by the amount of ecological damage
done--just look at Subic Bay or Okinawa. And yes, studies have been done into both aspects;
I've read them, but have no links.
." It's unfair what's happened to the American people, and we're gonna put a stop to
it."
Trump just does not believe in others hype, only his own hype. So show me evidence he is
stopping the spending which was his main point in what was infaur to Americans. Spending on
the military is even higher, 6 trillion is now 8 trillion even if the accountants still cant
tell who got paid
If Trump has shown us anything it is that he believes in the hype that whats good for Big
Business is good for America. Even his request for more money from NATO countries is a
request/demand to buy more from the MIC and not money to offset US military spending.
Sure, the reasons for the increased military spending are bogus, but he adds fuel to
supposed conflicts with Iran, Russia, China, North Korea that allows him to justify more
spending. Trumps just replaced Obama/Bush hype with his own personal hype. Call it Trump
hype.
Pft, that's what economist Michael Hudson has been saying:
The US military spending overseas during the Vietnam war resulted in a balance of payments
crisis, with the surprise solution being the recycling of USD from offshore economies back
into the US financial sector.
And it's been going on ever since.
I'll try to get a link ... Super
Imperialism also recently linked by the indefatigable karlof1.
The larger America's balance-of-payments deficit becomes, the more dollars end up in the
hands of European, Asian and Near Eastern central banks, and the more money they must
recycle back to the United States by buying U.S. Treasury bonds.
It's worthwhile to read any and all of Hudson's writings, including his autobiographical
essay. He has worked in the belly of the beast; Chase Manhattan bank and Standard Oil (Exxon)
just for starters, the Treasury and Finance departments of USA and Canada amongst others.
People, people!...Where will the military go? It's so obvious, it is staring us in the
face...
Space!
Ah, but not just space --
Mars!
The War Planet!
And best of all -- there's no people there! They can have their war games ad infinitum!!!
To boldly go...ok, I know, that dates me...
But oh my, blow it up! Blow it all up!! Keep on making horrible weapons, ship them off to
Mars! Raytheon on steroids; what's not to love????? Trump will go down in history - no - up,
up, and AWAY!!! [Just think - he'll have to visit the troops at Thanksgiving, take them a
turkey - oh and take any Bushes and Boltons and Obamas and Clintons with him as it is rather
far, a few Thanksgivings away but who's counting?]
People are really thinking too hard.
The Trump strategy is simple a la "The Apprentice":
Get a bunch of ambitious people to commit to deliver to outlandish goals. These goals are set
such that achieving or failing them, the blame goes to the failure but the success goes to
the leader.
If they fail: "You're Fired"
If they succeed: "I'm Brilliant"
This proposal broadens USA's demand that Germany terminate its plans to obtain energy imports
from Russia via Northstream. Trump has already asserted publicly (weeks ago) that the added
cost of LNG imports should be viewed as a defense-related cost. Via this new mechanism, the
cost will be not be borne 100% by Germany.
To understand why this new approach is likely to work, please read ADKC's comments.
Pundits may poke fun but the AZ Empire is deadly serious and most AZ elites will be
supportive. Especially when they are insulated from the cost (as they are).
@6ADKC... i agree with arbys view on this... trump and an undue number of americans probably
think they are doing some good protecting others.. it's laughable! now, as to your question
about france and alstrom... i don't know the specifics, but i know how easily euro
politicians, and politicians in general can be bought... i think it is excellent trump is
raising this issue, as i hope the leadership in these poodle countries recognize their goose
will be cooked soon enough, as ordinary people won't stand for it.. so, i am simplifying here
and i have to race out and will be back later to add more.. i see what you and jackrabbit are
getting at, but at some point this mafia-gangster strategy is going to collapse.. maybe i am
too naive, or idealistic.. i will give you that!
Your assessment is fine and not without merits but the other variable you seem to be
missing is the German people and others in Europe, themselves.
Will this cowtowing to the US bullying not in the end fully ensconse their leaders as the
globalist shills they truly are and thus lead to their demise? That is what b us alluding to.
We are unaware of Trump's motivations, here, but that is inconsequential when we are talking
about him waking up the people of Europe to finally give US the boot.
While cruising around the internet tubes I ran into a casual remark about Syria to the effect
that since the US is doing an occupation there, aren't "we" entitled to payment? If there is
any truth to a spate of recent headlines, the neocons have already solved that one.
How would ISIS have acquired any tonnage of gold? Perhaps it was part-payment for the oil
they sold until the Russians intervened. (the US sure didn't bother those sales!) More likely
they stole it from citizens and businesses. There have been LOTS of reports about the US
secretly rescuing ISIS fighters. Now here is yet another motive for those airlifts. I predict
any such gold will be quickly melted down so as to make it forever untraceable. Would Pompeo
or Bolton do such a thing?
It's bad enough that Omar tackled AIPAC, but to dump on Saint Obama is likely to get her
pegged as a "self-hating negro". Wonder what Speaker Nancy will do this time? Threaten to
waterboard her?
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This was sent to me yesterday by a concerned Indian, with the tag of..."Be careful with
your country"
He's right!
Re: "America is the spine and most of the muscle of European defence."
Defence against whom exactly? People pushing the narrative that the Russian Federation is
a menace never mention the numbers involved. The European countries have roughly 3 times the
population, 5 times the military spending and a massive advantage in GDP, look it up. If you
add the US to the equation then more like 5 times the population and 15 times the military
spending. The Russians have nukes of course but with the odds stacked up so spectacularly
against them I don't blame them for thinking they need them as a deterrent. If you had
another adversary in mind don't be shy.
Thanks for the links. I have been following Hudson for the last 12 years and agree with
much of what he says. I do disagree that dollar holdings are a tax on other countries. These
dollars for the most part are paid to companies for goods and services. They exchange some of
this with their central bank to invest locally or pay expenses. The central bank then prints
their local currency out of thin air to exchange. The USD are then counted as reserves which
allows them to create more local currency by 10+ times, depending on their reserve
requirements. This money is spent or invested in the local economy.
The USD reserves can also be used to fund their own trade deficits with other countries,
or pay of USD denominated loans
A lot has changed since 1971. After the Vietnam War was winding down the US pulled out of
Bretton Woods as Hudson anticipated. They then established the Petrodollar which was not
anticipated. This put more USD into the hands of OPEC nations as they were told to accept
only USD and in return would be allowed higher oil prices, and much was recycled back to the
US, but they and the rest of the world had other options.
This option was the Eurodollar which began in the 60's in a limited fashion . A later
sub-option was Eurodollars in the many tax havens, which developed first on British
territories and then in the Carribean.
These options being exercised limited the amount of dollars coming back to the US and
caused higher interest rates in order to attract some more of the dollars back.
The 1985 Plaza accord put in place an agreement to weaken the dollar with the US to buy
more imported goods as they encouraged more US companies to move offshore to produce in low
wage countries to keep inflation down. In return the deficits would be funded by other
countries resending back the USD they received by buying treasuries. This was when the US
realized they could spend and run up fiscal/trade deficits without consequences, and so they
did. Oh my.
Then after the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent looting bu oligarchs the
Eurodollar Market, especially in the tax havens , exploded even further as these oligarchs
and western investors transferred their stolen loot to these offshore tax havens which were
already loaded with dollars from the criminal drug trade (mafia-five eyes) and multinational
corporations evading taxes at home
In 1990 the Fed then made it easier for US banks to import and use these Eurodollars by
setting a zero reserve requirement (same as Fed Funds) on Eurodollar deposits which they
could then loan out at many order of magnitudes. This fueled the great credit and asset
bubbles using drug money and stolen Soviet asset money which came in to buy Trumps property
and stocks. It also allowed banks to increase credit to cash strapped consumers who felt the
pinch of neoliberalism and globalization, since the banks were flush with cheap cash. This
led to the Great Collapse in 2008
Added to this Eurodollar supply from 1993 was Chinas own oligarchs growing increasingly
rich from US investment/trade and from converting the peoples assets to individual party
members who wanted a safe place to hide their loot and evade taxes in China
Quantitative Easing following the crash of 2008 provided another source of a cash influx
for the US. Toxic waste from foreign and local banks were bought with USD printed from thin
air.
Recent Quantitative Tightening meant trouble though. So Trumps new tax measures made it
possible for US corporations to return Eurodollars hidden offshore which is fueling stock
buybacks and propping up the market. If not for this a 2008 collapse would be here.
When the next crash happens, I am sure the US will surprise us yet again. Pretty sure the
fix will be named Green something or another and a Carbon Dollar/Tax
@70 english outsider.. i agree with @13 BM... however, the msm in the uk is so warped, maybe
they will succeed in marginalizing corbyn.. i thought
this article today from jonathan cook was pretty good.. as for the usa being the backbone
of europe military and etc.. europe needs to grow a spine themselves and stop taking it in
the rear from the usa.. this suggestion from trump is a good place to start by saying no...
maybe the poodles are incapable.. that sounds like what you are saying..
@pft... i think i agree with you, although i don't study the financial dynamics enough..
the bailout from 2008 will be followed by more bailouts.. they will just be bigger... that is
the name of the game - bust and bailout.. bailing out the banks, until the world asks for
something different..
From the University of Chicago Magazine (believe it or not), October, 1999:
" who invented the Holocaust the first place? Who decided to capitalize the noun
"holocaust" and transform genocide into a political weapon and fund raising tool? "
" its message of an exclusivity in suffering-serving to promote a Zionist agenda ."
Why would only blacks object to existence of these monuments? What about the purported
victors of that war? They could have objected but did not. The people attacking these
monuments are effectively declaring that they want a civil war, as I see it.
Icons of outstanding accomplishment seem nearly always to be about war.. and the political
figures that made the Oligarchs filthy rich prosecuting a war that killed millions. The more
dead, the bigger the statute.
Where are the monuments to Watson and Crick, Newton, the persons that discovered penicillin,
the engines that convert energy from one form to a more usable other form or statutes of the
persons that founded our great universities or the persons that discovered how to capture
electricity and make available in every household?
Few icons to those that have made the quality of our lives better are ever produced,
Why?
Probably because the war mongers would have none of that.. Oligarchs own 90% of the press,
the media, and
means of communicating their wars, no damn invention that makes life better for the
displicibles is going to get into the way of profit making wars that fund so much of Economic
Zionism.
Consider the recent invention at the U of Australia where hard work discovered 2,200
different places in the world, where a combination of sunlight and wind energy can produce
and store sufficient energy to supply 24/7 all the energy the entire world needs on the power
grid. Not a word of it in the media. Soon I expect to see a monument to the shock and awe
bastards?
Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with
democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or
something. It is a curious belief, Washington being interested in all of them. Other people
are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America's international behavior. Really, the
explanation is simple.
Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Edward W. Said's pioneering
book, Orientalism , as well as fifteen years since the Palestinian-American
intellectual's passing. To bid farewell to such an important scholar shortly after the 2003
U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Said fiercely criticized until his dying breath before succumbing
to leukemia, made an already tremendous loss that much more impactful. His seminal text forever
reoriented political discourse by painstakingly examining the overlooked cultural imperialism
of colonial history in the West's construction of the so-called Orient. Said meticulously
interrogated the Other-ing of the non-Western world in the humanities, arts, and anthropology
down to its minutiae. As a result, the West was forced to confront not just its economic and
political plunder but the long-established cultural biases filtering the lens through which it
viewed the East which shaped its dominion over it.
His writings proved to be so influential that they laid the foundations for what is now
known as post-colonial theory. This became an ironic category as the author himself would
strongly reject any implication that the subjugation of developing countries is a thing of the
past. How apropos that the Mandatory Palestine-born writer's death came in the midst of the
early stages of the 'War on Terror' that made clear Western imperialism is very much alive.
Despite its history of ethnic cleansing, slavery, and war, the United States had distinguished
itself from Britain and France in that it had never established its own major colonies within
the Middle East, Asia or North Africa in the heart of the Orient. According to Said, it was now
undergoing this venture as the world's sole remaining superpower following the end of the Cold
War with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Today's political atmosphere makes the Bush era seem like eons ago. Thanks to the shameful
rehabilitation of neoconservatism by centrist extremists, Americans fail to understand how
Trumpism emerged from the pandora's box of destructiveness of Bush policies that destabilized
the Middle East and only increased international terrorism. Since then, another American enemy
has been manufactured in the form of the Russian Federation and its President, Vladimir Putin,
who drew the ire of the West after a resurgent Moscow under his leadership began to contain
U.S. hegemony. This reached a crescendo during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election with the
dubious accusations of election interference made by the same intelligence agencies that sold
the pack of lies that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. The establishment has even
likened the alleged intrusion by Moscow to 9/11.
If a comparison between the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans and the still
unproven allegations of Russian meddling seems outrageous, it is precisely such an analogy that
has been made by Russiagate's own biggest proponents, from neoconservative
columnist Max Boot to Hillary
Clinton herself . Truthfully, it is the climate of hysteria and dumbing down of discourse
to such rigid dichotomies following both events where a real similarity can be drawn. The 'with
us or against us' chasm that followed 9/11 has reemerged in the 'either/or' post-election
polarity of the Trump era whereby all debate within the Overton window is pigeonholed into a
'pro vs. anti-Trump' or 'pro vs. anti-Russia' false dilemma. It is even perpetrated by some on the
far left , e.g. if one critiques corporate media or Russiagate, they are grouped as
'pro-Trump' or 'pro-Putin' no matter their political orientation. This dangerous atmosphere is
feeding an unprecedented wave of censorship of dissenting voices across the spectrum.
In his final years, not only did Edward Said condemn the Bush administration but highlighted
how corporate media was using bigoted tropes in its representations of Arabs and Muslims to
justify U.S. foreign policy. Even though it has gone mostly undetected, the neo-McCarthyist
frenzy following the election has produced a similar travesty of caricatures depicting Russia
and Vladimir Putin. One such egregious example was a July 2018 article in the
Wall Street Journal entitled "Russia's Turn to Its Asian Past" featuring an illustration
portraying Vladimir Putin as Genghis Khan. The racist image and headline suggested that Russia
is somehow inherently autocratic because of its past occupation under the Mongol Empire during
its conquest of Eastern Europe and the Kievan Rus state in the 13th century. In a conceptual
revival of the Eurocentric trope of Asiatic or Oriental despotism, the hint is that past
race-mixing is where Russia inherited this tyrannical trait. When the cover story appeared,
there was virtually no outcry due to the post-election delirium and everyday fear-mongering
about Russia that is now commonplace in the media.
The overlooked casual racism used to demonize Russia in the new Cold War's propaganda
doesn't stop there. One of the main architects of Russiagate, former Director of National
Intelligence James R. Clapper, in an
interview with NBC's Meet the Press on the reported meddling stated :
"And just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, almost genetically
driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were
concerned."
Clapper, whose Office of the DNI published the Intelligence Community Assessment
(ICA) "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections", has been widely
praised and cited by corporate media as a trustworthy source despite his previous history of
making intentionally false statements at a public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee
denying that the National Security Agency (NSA) was unconstitutionally spying on U.S.
citizens.
The disclosures of NSA activities by whistleblower Edward Snowden that shocked the world
should have discredited Clapper's status as a reliable figure, but not for mainstream media
which has continuously colluded with the deep state during the entire Russia investigation. In
fact, the scandal has been an opportunity to rehabilitate figures like the ex-spymaster
complicit in past U.S. crimes from surveillance to torture. Shortly after the interview with
NBC, Clapper repeated his prejudiced sentiments against Russians
in a speech at the National Press Club in Australia:
"But as far as our being intimate allies, trusting buds with the Russians that is just not
going to happen. It is in their genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed, to the United
States and to Western democracies."
The post-election mass Trump derangement has not only enabled wild accusations of treason to
be made without sufficient evidence to support them, but such uninhibited xenophobic remarks to
go without notice or disapproval.
In fact, liberals have seemingly abandoned their supposed progressive credence across the
board while suffering from their anti-Russia neurological disorder. In an exemplar of yellow
journalism, outlets like NBC News published sensational articles
alleging that because of the perceived ingratiation between Trump and Putin, there was an
increase in Russian 'birth tourism' in the United States. More commonly known by the pejorative
'anchor babies', birth tourism is the false claim that many immigrants travel to countries for
the purpose of having children in order to obtain citizenship. While there may be individual
cases, the idea that it is an epidemic is a complete myth -- the vast majority of
immigration is motivated by labor demands and changes in political or socio-economic factors in
their native countries, whether it is from the global south or Eastern Europe. Trump has been
rightfully criticized for promoting this falsehood regarding undocumented immigrants and his
executive orders targeting birthright citizenship, but it appears liberals are willing to
unfairly apply this same fallacy toward Russians for political reasons.
This connected continents of Europe and Asia have 70% of the world population, so it is the
center of the world. But the United States is not a local power, it's thousands of miles away
from it. Therefore, the US NEEDS conflicts in Europe and Asia to maintain its influence in
the world stage and its status of "safe haven for capita", as it found out in WW2 that can be
very profitable.
Peace and integration in Europe and Asia is the last thing the US wants. This is why it'd
try its hardest to stir up tension in Europe, Asia and MiddleEast. The Russians were naive to
believe it was about Communism.
World dominance has been very profitable for the capital class, whether the cost for world
dominance worth it for the working class, is open for debate, as citizens of the dominate
nation enjoy nice benefits too.
Just how
weak a president has Donald Trump become? For an illustration, see a terrific Washington
Post article on the
foreign-policy decision-making process since John Bolton became Trump's national security
adviser. Or, rather, the absence of anything resembling a process.
As Heather Hurlburt
pointed out when Bolton took the job, he's ill-suited for it. Bolton is a policy advocate,
not the honest broker that the position calls for. That's a particular problem for Trump.
Because the president is inexperienced in national-security matters, he doesn't know whether
Bolton is speaking for the experts on a policy question or just advocating for his own
preferences. Because Trump knows little about the executive branch, Bolton can use his
bureaucratic skills to advance his own agenda -- including impeding Trump's plan to withdraw
U.S. troops from Syria.
This isn't to say that Bolton's policies are necessarily wrong; that's for others to judge.
But it creates a real problem for the presidency when top advisers are looking out for their
own interests and not the president's.
On this point, Ronald Reagan's administration is instructive. By all accounts, Reagan was
more informed about policy than Trump is. He was also a pragmatic politician, capable of
compromising or even backing down entirely when it was in his interests. Reagan's weakness,
however, was that he could be curiously passive at times, and (like many presidents) too easily
swayed by anecdotes. That meant he needed high-level staffers who could serve as honest
brokers. His first-term chief of staff, James Baker, allowed him to make good decisions.
Baker's replacement, Donald Regan, failed to do so. Partly as a result, Reagan's presidency had
almost completely collapsed by the time Regan was fired amid the Iran-Contra scandal.
"Russians are brainwashed daily that the West is an awful place and we are going to
invade them at any moment. " Oh rather you're brainwashed daily that Russia is an awful place
where Russians are brainwashed daily that the West is an awful place and we are going to
invade them at any moment.
I'm pretty sure not a single Russian believes that the west is going to invade. For
reasons that are obvious, or should be obvious.
You must be joking ! 70 per cent of Americans do not know what the Constitution is, and
six per cent don't even know when Independence Day falls. In a recent survey just over a half
of Americans didn't know what the Taliban are , despite the fact they led the charge in
Afghanistan.
When looking at a map of the world, young Americans had a difficult time correctly
identifying Iraq (1 in 7) and Afghanistan (17%). This isn't that surprising, but only a slim
majority (51%) knew where New York was. According to Forbes and National Geographic, an
alarming 29% couldn't point to the Pacific Ocean.
Many didn't know where Europe is let alone Spain.
Americans cultural ? What a hoot !
runner911 -> jezzam 5 Sep 2015 04:09
Be assured Russia is more than capable of defending itself against Western ( USA )
aggression, plus they hold the biggest nuclear arsenal on the planet , so lets be clear
no-one is going to attack Russia and risk nuclear annihilation in return. As regards being
surrounded by NATO, how do you think the yanks would react if the same were to apply to the
USA and that sad corrupt country was surrounded by Russian Forces ? The last time it happened
in 1962, as I recall the yanks were whining like whipped dogs, but eventually agreed to
dismantle their missiles in Turkey provided the Russians did the same in Cuba.
Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 5 Sep 2015 11:59
You lost the argument, so you are trying to change the subject. Now we can see why Western
media doesn't allow an open discussion - you don't have much to say.
East-central Europe was invaded by Germans, Russians, Ottomans, French, even the Swedes.
Germans murdered about 15 million people here. Ottomans (Turks) about 10 million. Russians
liberated us from a murderous German occupation after WWII and stayed way too long...
Russian victims are in tens of thousands. Given that Russians lost about 1.5 million
soldiers liberating us from Germans and saved us from planned extermination by Nazis over
time, we keep some perspective about it. But I am not sure your ideological and slogan-driven
thinking would understand any of it...
EugeneGur -> zenithmaster 5 Sep 2015 11:43
This has zero to do with Russia's poor relations with the EU and everything to do the
Russians' smaller spending power.
This is not quite true. You underestimate the power of the sentiment. One example:
Russian tourism to Estonia dropped 60% after the scandal with the Bronze soldier in 2007,
long before any decrease in the buying power, and it never recovered.
You are right, of course, that the decreased value of the ruble affected mass tourism,
but the effect was multiplied by the anger towards Europe, believe me, it was. Going through
the visa process was always annoying and humiliating but under the present circumstances it
became unbearable. This one thing that affects all European countries whether its Bulgaria or
Italy.
MaoChengJi -> jezzam 5 Sep 2015 09:56
Yeah, something like what thecorporateclass said above.
I'll add this: deep down even people like you don't believe in any Russian 'invasion'
in Ukraine. They know: if Russia did invade, it would've been over long time ago. The
question, rather, is about Kiev regime's control of the border, which would amount to a
blockade of Donetsk-Lugansk republics; blocking all the supplies, attacking from all
directions, and exterminating people who feel ethnically Russian.
This can not happen: it would've brought the Russian government down, and therefore no
Russian government could participate in it; be it led by Putin, Dugin, or Navalny, or anyone
at all. It's just a physical impossibility. IMO.
TheCorporateClass -> jezzam 5 Sep 2015 06:37
The West agrees to drop this missile shield, Putin agrees to stop his military
interference in Ukraine.
This needs correcting IF it is to work as a solution.
The West agrees to drop this missile shield, agrees to stop it's interventions into
Ukrainian government and it's politics, agrees to stop FUNDING and GUIDING far right neo-nazi
militias and their political wings, agrees to stop making intentionally
false/unproven/fictional accusations against Russia & Putin's Government, stops providing
military intelligence to Ukraine (a non-Nato country), and admits to the direct connection
between the externally caused "political and social" instability in Ukraine begun by EU/NATA
and the externally caused "political and social" instability and then Civil War in Syria with
oil/gas supplies from Russia and Qatar ... then that would be a great first step towards the
truth of matters bullshit.
Then all of Russia and Putin at their ELECTED President would no doubt agree to stop his
humane military interference in Ukraine on behalf of those people having their human rights
and lives taken by ideologically driven psychopaths and their corrupt crazies from
Washington, Berlin, Riyadh, Doha, and Tel Aiv.
Simple really.
HollyOldDog -> raffine 5 Sep 2015 04:59
Whereas there are convoys of Russian trucks that are stopping the East Ukrainians of
starving to death. The only 'gifts' that West Ukraine gives to their East compatriates is
constant shelling, grad missile fire, mine fields and snipers that shoot any East Ukrainians
on sight whether they are men ,women or children.
MaoChengJi -> jezzam 4 Sep 2015 23:48
I believe the western anti-missile installations along the Russian borders give the
impression that the US is trying to break the MAD balance and create, at some point in the
future, a defense against retaliatory nuclear strike. That seems like the only rational
explanation for those installations. For do you think they are for?
MaoChengJi -> andy4248 4 Sep 2015 22:10
"Russians are brainwashed daily that the West is an awful place and we are going to
invade them at any moment. "
Oh rather you're brainwashed daily that Russia is an awful pleace where Russians are
brainwashed daily that the West is an awful place and we are going to invade them at any
moment.
I'm pretty sure not a signle Russian believes that the west is going to invade. For
reasons that are obvious, or should be obvious.
crackling -> MaoChengJi 4 Sep 2015 22:03
fingerprints is copying GWBush's data collection on citizens and visitors to the US - last
night I just had my photo and fingerprints taken on customs entry to Taiwan - I expect it's
becoming the norm these days.
Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 4 Sep 2015 21:22
Address Obama's admission that "US assisted in the transition of power", why do you skip
over it? $15 billion was a loan and it was used for the Ukrainian budget. If someone stole
some of it, prove it and charge them.
I never said that Russians didn't try to influence Kiev, but so did US - listen to the
recording, it assigns roles for different protest leaders. Ashton was an EU official and she
was standing with the protestors - so were many others, incl. Nuland, ambassador, etc... -
that goes way beyond "trade agreement".
I am a Slovak and I comment on anything I feel like. If you have a problem with that,
maybe you don't understand democracy and freedom of speech. By the way, most people in my
part of Europe (from Budapest to Vienna to Prague) roughly share my view of the situation. We
know Russians, we know Ukrainians, and we can judge for ourselves.
Popeyes -> andy4248 4 Sep 2015 19:45
It's very sad but Russians are for more aware of what's going on politically than their
Western counterparts. The fact that they have a low opinion of Westerners is hardly
surprising and they certainly don't have to be " brainwashed ' by the Kremlin to know what's
going on. They only have to look at Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Ukraine the list is endless to
figure it out. You could blame GM food for the fact that Americans seem to be pretty dim and
clueless on Europeans affairs, but as for the rest of Europeans I guess they are the ones
that are really "brainwashed".
Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 4 Sep 2015 19:32
Thou protest too much.
The "baroness" was an EU foreign secretary, that's pretty high up. In addition: US
ambassador, assistant sec for Europe (Nuland), and a number of other officials were at the
Maidan protests - videos and all.
The recording was very specific about who (Yats) should be Prime Minister and how it
should be done. If US also does that in Spain, that's even a bigger problem.
$5bn is a lot of "civil organizations" - most of it in the last 5-10 years. Russia gave a
loan - that is very different.
Finally, Obama literally said "we assisted with the transition of power in Ukraine"
what other proof can one possible have than an admission by the chief?
By the way I used the term "assist in an overthrow". To "orchestrate" is more pro-active.
Given what has been made public there definitely was "assistance" (see Obama's statement
above), whether that amounts to "orchestrate" like in 1953 Iran, I would leave to the
historians.
Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 4 Sep 2015 18:52
There are videos of dozens of Western leaders standing on the podium with the
demonstrators on Maidan (just imagine Lavrov joinig an Occupy protest in New York or
London).
There are recordings of Nuland deciding on who will run Ukraine ("f...k Europe").
US spent 5 billion in 20 years on "civil groups" in Ukraine.
If you prefer an infantile denial, I can't help you. Just don't be surprised if you become
irrelevant.
Beckow -> dmitryfrommoscow 4 Sep 2015 18:34
Yes it was always mostly about the visa-free access to EU. Ukrainians want to move to
Europe for jobs, benefits, school, etc... That was what drove Maidan energy (and US took
advantage of it).
But your numbers are off. There are about 1 million Ukrainians now in EU, mostly in UK,
Czech, Hungary and Poland. E.g. Poland has about 400,000 new Ukrainian migrants. The real
large numbers are yet to come. I think they will - they are watching the Syrians and getting
jealous, worried that all the empathy will be used up. Slovakia (my country) has camps ready
on the border. We also suddenly have a lot of Ukrainians who have discovered the Slovak (or
Czech) heritage. The same thing is going on in Poland, Romania and Hungary.
Millions are coming. And they won't be tourists or have money for Italian hotels. But I am
sure the Western media will find a way to blame it on Russia. Such are the pleasures of
dead-end ideologies, everything is very simple: "Putin did it!."
Beckow -> notoriousANDinfamous 4 Sep 2015 18:26
"US didn't orchestrate a coup in Ukraine and hasn't offered Kiev a military
alliance"
I suppose that would depend on your definition of "orchestrate" and a "coup". Most
rational observers would agree that US at a minimum assisted with the Maidan revolution (or a
coup). There are videos, recordings, financial transfers. Until the whole Maidan thing went
bad, the US State Department was very open about the assistance that they had provided on
Maidan, Obama said "we assisted with the transition of power in Ukraine" (actual quote).
US has said since 2008 that Ukraine will join Nato. They reiterated it last year and
Ukraine has an official policy of joining Nato. There are joint exercises and training with
Nato. It is rather conclusive that US and Ukraine are having a "military alliance".
Given those two facts how can you deny it? Or do you also deny the nose between your
eyes?
magicmirror1 4 Sep 2015 18:11
Fingerprints to get a visa.
Welcome to democratic EU. This is the future European leaders are building and I cannot
understand why.
dmitryfrommoscow -> Ola Smith 4 Sep 2015 16:46
Ola, the problem is there are no 45 million people in Ukraine these days. As many as 2.8
million people with Ukrainian passports work and live in Russia alone. And I think twice as
many live and work in the EU. And about five to seven million are in a crouch start position
to rush elsewhere at the first opportunity that avails itself. After all the Maidan
hullabaloo was about getting free access to European -- and probably North American -- job
markets and disappearing there for good. Let's throw aside all that talk about 'democracy and
values' and be honest about it.
Just how
weak a president has Donald Trump become? For an illustration, see a terrific Washington
Post article on the
foreign-policy decision-making process since John Bolton became Trump's national security
adviser. Or, rather, the absence of anything resembling a process.
As Heather Hurlburt
pointed out when Bolton took the job, he's ill-suited for it. Bolton is a policy advocate,
not the honest broker that the position calls for. That's a particular problem for Trump.
Because the president is inexperienced in national-security matters, he doesn't know whether
Bolton is speaking for the experts on a policy question or just advocating for his own
preferences. Because Trump knows little about the executive branch, Bolton can use his
bureaucratic skills to advance his own agenda -- including impeding Trump's plan to withdraw
U.S. troops from Syria.
This isn't to say that Bolton's policies are necessarily wrong; that's for others to judge.
But it creates a real problem for the presidency when top advisers are looking out for their
own interests and not the president's.
On this point, Ronald Reagan's administration is instructive. By all accounts, Reagan was
more informed about policy than Trump is. He was also a pragmatic politician, capable of
compromising or even backing down entirely when it was in his interests. Reagan's weakness,
however, was that he could be curiously passive at times, and (like many presidents) too easily
swayed by anecdotes. That meant he needed high-level staffers who could serve as honest
brokers. His first-term chief of staff, James Baker, allowed him to make good decisions.
Baker's replacement, Donald Regan, failed to do so. Partly as a result, Reagan's presidency had
almost completely collapsed by the time Regan was fired amid the Iran-Contra scandal.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Rand Paul
(R-KY) and Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced the 2019 American Forces Going Home After Noble (AFGHAN)
Service Act to end America's longest war, honor the volunteers who bravely serve our nation by
providing bonuses to those who have deployed in support of the Global War on Terrorism, and
redirect the savings from ending nation-building in Afghanistan to America's needs at home.
Though American troops achieved what they were sent to carry out in October 2001, the
mission shift to nation-building has kept our forces in Afghanistan over 17 years later. Over
2,300 military members have sacrificed their lives in the war, with another 20,000 wounded in
action. In addition, the Afghanistan war has cost the United States $2 trillion, with the war
currently costing over $51 billion a year.
"Endless war weakens our national security, robs this and future generations through
skyrocketing debt, and creates more enemies to threaten us. For over 17 years, our soldiers
have gone above and beyond what has been asked of them in Afghanistan. It is time to declare
the victory we achieved long ago, bring them home, and put America's needs first," said Sen.
Paul .
"Soon, U.S. service members will begin deploying to Afghanistan to fight in a war that began
before they were born. As we face this watershed moment, it's past time to change our approach
to the longest war in our country's history," said Sen. Udall . "Our armed forces in
Afghanistan, including many from New Mexico, have served with exceptional valor and
effectiveness in the face of extraordinary challenges. After expelling the Taliban from power
and dismantling Al Qaeda's base of power in Afghanistan, they enabled a new Afghan government
to be formed while also eliminating Osama Bin Laden. But it is Congress that has failed to
conduct the proper oversight of this nearly 18-year war. Now, we must step up, and listen to
the American people -- who rightly question the wisdom of such endless wars. This bipartisan
resolution would bring our troops home at long last, while implementing a framework for
reconciliation."
The 2019 AFGHAN Service Act
• Declares victory in Afghanistan. The masterminds of the 9/11 attack are no longer
capable of carrying out such an attack from Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011,
and Al Qaeda has been all but eliminated from Afghanistan.
• Pays, within one year, a $2,500 bonus to all members of the military who have served
in the Global War on Terrorism. Since 2001, more than 3,002,635 men and women have deployed
overseas in support of this effort. This would be a one-time cost of approximately $7 billion
and an immediate savings of over 83% when compared to the current yearly costs. The $51 billion
a year can be redirected to domestic priorities.
• Additionally, there is precedent for service bonuses going back to the Revolutionary
War.
• Sets guidelines for withdrawal. Within 45 days, a plan will be formulated for an orderly
withdrawal and turnover of facilities to the Afghan Government, while also setting a framework
for political reconciliation to be implemented by Afghans in accordance with the Afghan
Constitution. Within a year, all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Afghanistan.
• At the completion of withdrawal, the 2001 AUMF will be repealed.
You can read the entire 2019 AFGHAN Service Act below:
Yes, in a slightly modified form this is a very true statement: "Disinformation destroys
reality. The USA is master of this -- they have built a parallel reality."
But the real issues here is the neoliberalism is in decline, and to compensate for loss of power of neoliberal propaganda
Western MSM now use neo-McCarthyism. That is a very sad but pretty understandable story.
Just as disturbing is an analysis of Russia's worldwide fake news
campaign , which spreads contradictory reports and Kremlin-friendly propaganda.
"The Russians understand Western media far better than the Western media understands
itself," one interviewee says. "And they play to the Western media's short attention span."
Another says: "Disinformation destroys reality. The Russians are masters of this -- they
have built a parallel reality."
Yes, in a slightly modified form this is a very true statement: "Disinformation destroys
reality. The USA is master of this -- they have built a parallel reality."
But the real issues here is the neoliberalism is in decline, and to compensate for loss of power of neoliberal propaganda
Western MSM now use neo-McCarthyism. That is a very sad but pretty understandable story.
Just as disturbing is an analysis of Russia's worldwide fake news
campaign , which spreads contradictory reports and Kremlin-friendly propaganda.
"The Russians understand Western media far better than the Western media understands
itself," one interviewee says. "And they play to the Western media's short attention span."
Another says: "Disinformation destroys reality. The Russians are masters of this -- they
have built a parallel reality."
Memorandum of Agreement on Security Cooperation
(October 31, 1998)
"The United States Government would view with particular gravity direct threats to Israel's
security arising from the regional deployment of ballistic missiles of intermediate range or
greater.
In the event of such a threat, the United States Government would consult promptly with the
Government of Israel,
with respect to what support, diplomatic or otherwise, or assistance, , it can lend to
Israel."
Realize as an indirect result of the USA withdrawing from the INF and accusing Russia of
having IRBM's(600 mile range , and the Crimiea being only 800 miles from Israel , this
immediately gave Israel carte' blanche for any and all defense "requests" the foreseeable
future. This goes beyond even the previous status of Iran for all concerns presenting an IRBM
threat as well.
There is also the default alliance created by the USA recently building an Airbase inside
the bounds of Israel's Mashabim Air Base, near Dimona, that any air or actual missile attack on
Israel will be considered an attack that threatened or was toward a US military
installation.
They got the US permanently allied/tied covering their butts . No need for further
acknowledgment in writing required IMO.
Yes, in a slightly modified form this is a very true statement: "Disinformation destroys
reality. The USA is master of this -- they have built a parallel reality."
Just as disturbing is an analysis of Russia's worldwide fake news
campaign , which spreads contradictory reports and Kremlin-friendly propaganda.
"The Russians understand Western media far better than the Western media understands
itself," one interviewee says. "And they play to the Western media's short attention span."
Another says: "Disinformation destroys reality. The Russians are masters of this -- they
have built a parallel reality."
Now they do not even pretend that Justice exists in the USA: only kangaroo courts
Why they are sill waving a dead chicken ? Because they are crooks and can't prosecute Trump for his real misdeeds. Or investigate
influence of MI6 and Israeli lobby on the USA elections. Crooks. all of them.
Notable quotes:
"... This is not a standard beltway tit for tat investigation. Even before Trump took office, the tools of government were used against him. What is more interesting is that the inquisitors have unchecked authority. There is no limit imposed on the inquisitors either in scope or frankly legality. ..."
"... The Republican Party has consistently undermined him. It is the American electorate that will not turn on him. Do you blame them!.? They are slowly realizing that a war has been waging against them. Their way of life, the American way of life, is being dismantled. Years and years of compromise and lofty adherence to reasonable principles by the American electorate have done not a damn thing to abate the onslaught against them. ..."
"... Your timing as well as details are off. Iran-Contra was in the 80s. Laundering money from arms sales to Iran to fund the Contras in violation of the Boland amendement is far different than the Affaire de coeur Russia, which is now turning into an investigation of every financial deal Trump ever did. ..."
"... "The tradition" is using investigative powers to politicaly attack ones opponents when you are in power. ..."
"House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, who would eventually lead any impeachment proceedings, on Sunday
signaled a significant escalation into congressional inquiries into the President.
The New York Democrat plans on Monday to request documents from 60 people and entities close to Trump, including from the Department
of Justice, the White House and the Trump Organization. The document trawl will be used "to present the case to the American people
about obstruction of justice, about corruption and abuse of power, " Nadler said on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday.
Nadler stuck to the House Democratic position that impeachment "is a long way down the road," apparently in order to avoid
Republican arguments that the decision has already been made to try to oust Trump. The document requests are not taking place
under the auspices of an official impeachment investigation."
Nadler could not be more clear. He and the other kangaroos in the Democrat herd (flock?) will search through every aspect of Trump's
life for the purpose of finding something that will cause a revulsion against Trump among the American people. If they can find that,
their allies among the press and TeeVee agitprop apparatchiks will make judgments evident as to whether or not a bill of impeachment
would result in a conviction in the senate. This method is reminiscent of the attempt to impeach President Andrew Johnson. Remember
him? The Radical Republicans hated this Southern War Democrat simply because he was Southern without regard for his well demonstrated
hatred for the planter class in the greater South as opposed to his east Tennessee anti-slavery home. So, pilgrims, American tradition
is to be reversed. The Democrats will seek for confirmation bias of Trump's "crimes" because of their "progressive" hatred of his
perhaps cynical leadership of a popular revolution against them and the idiot college kids. pl
IMO, Trump could blow the kangaroos off the range by declassifying it all and allowing the American people to see the details
of the attempted coup. And the collusion among the kangaroos. But he chooses to not do that. Very puzzling.
Clearly it can't be because of Mueller and the potential charge of obstruction of justice, as the kangaroos are running hard
towards getting him and his family in any case. So what's behind his strategy of just tweeting witch hunt, which he's been doing
for 2 years, and not doing what could blow this all up which is his prerogative as POTUS?
This is the politics necessary to continue to govern a largely unified country as if it were deeply divided:
https://www.nytimes.com/201...
The minorities that both of our parties represent have had their way for forty years, the majority is fed up by not being represented
and increasingly absurd distractions are required to maintain this status quo.
This has been standard beltway politics since at least the Iran-Contra and Whitewater investigations. It hit hot and heavy once
the Republicans regained control of the Congress in 2014 and hit Obama/Clinton with the Benghazi hearings. I think the political
purpose behind all these investigations, including the current crop of investigations into Trump can best be summed up in this
quote concerning the Benghazi hearings. "In September 2015, Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy famously said Clinton's
"numbers are dropping" because "we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee." I doubt Nadler will ever pursue
an impeachment. His goal is to tear at Trump until the 2020 elections. Anyways, I can't think of anything Trump could have done
or will do that would persuade the Republican party to turn on him. Nothing. You're right. Whoever wins that election will be
subject to the same scrutiny.
This is not a standard beltway tit for tat investigation. Even before Trump took office, the tools of government were used
against him. What is more interesting is that the inquisitors have unchecked authority. There is no limit imposed on the inquisitors
either in scope or frankly legality.
The Republican Party has consistently undermined him. It is the American electorate that will not turn on him. Do you blame
them!.? They are slowly realizing that a war has been waging against them. Their way of life, the American way of life, is being
dismantled. Years and years of compromise and lofty adherence to reasonable principles by the American electorate have done not
a damn thing to abate the onslaught against them.
2020 elections will be won by a Democrat. Trump won by razor thin margins, and those margins will be erased as a malignant
crop of woke young voters will come of age. Frankly I am curious if his health can hold up for another campaign.
Your timing as well as details are off. Iran-Contra was in the 80s. Laundering money from arms sales to Iran to fund the Contras
in violation of the Boland amendement is far different than the Affaire de coeur Russia, which is now turning into an investigation
of every financial deal Trump ever did.
The Republicans didn't control the House until the mid-90s and lost it in 2007. The invasion and occupation of Iraq played
a big part in losing the House then.
The Congressional investigation of Iran-Contra was also referred to as a witch hunt by Republicans. So that usage of the term
was around since the 80s. Reagan's Tower Commission was a different animal altogether. We'll probably never see something as introspective
as that again.
I mentioned both Iran-Contra and Whitewater to point out the longstanding tradition of politically tinged Congressional investigations.
The Whitewater Congressional investigations went into overdrive up after the Republicans won the House in 1994. The Republican
controlled both the House and Senate in 2014. That's when the Benghazi hearings really ramped up. The ramp up of Congressional
investigations with the Democratic winning of the House last year is just following in that tradition.
Selling weapons to Iran was a crime. "The tradition" is using investigative powers to politicaly attack ones opponents when
you are in power. Kind of like using the executive branch of government to hinder opponents activities, such as preventing
IRS non-profit status, or spying on them like the NSA has been doing. All done by the Obama administration. Then there is the
conduct of the FBI. I haven't seen Trump do any of those things with executive branch powers.
TTG hit the nail on the head. Since Clinton and Whitewater, investigations have been the method to hit back at the Presidency
you don't support. The only thing I would add is the Iran-Contra investigation was much more relevant than Whitewater, the Clinton's
Christmas card list, or Benghazi; officials were actually convicted from the Iran-Contra investigation. The sad fact is that some
investigations that are BS successfully work to rile up the investigator's supporters, example Benghazi. I would only add that
Trump's past history provides a lot of fuel for the investigatory fire.
This is from 2015, but it show that fight again ISIS was a sham from the very beginning. It wqas all about "regime change" and ISIS
was an instrument to facilitate this change. Obama was a closet supporter of Muslim Brotherhood all his tenure. While hillary was just
a bloodthrusty maniak ("We came, we saw, he died")
Money do not smell...
Notable quotes:
"... Why then don't we impose sanctions on the IS and block their banks, and freeze their accounts? ..."
"... This goes on to demonstrate that the IS is a useful tool for American foreign policy, and if they didn't create it, at least they don't strive for its eradication. ..."
Maurizio Blondet is an Italian blogger. In
this article [in Italian] he ironically
suggests to Obama two different solutions to eradicate the Islamic State.
The first one is to bomb the road between Mosul (Iraq) and Batman (Turkey). Along this 344 km road, the IS sends every
day 20000 barrels of oil (see map in the article). The oil is sold for 30$ a barrel and under, and refined in Batman before
being sold. The alleged reason why the US has not bombed this road so far, is that it wanted to avoid civilian casualties.
This is quite amusing from the same country that did not hesitate to carpet bomb Sirte in Libya (not to mention the Iraq war).
But Blondet pretends to buy into this excuse, so goes on to notice that the IS controls 24 banks between Syria and Iraq.
These banks make financial transactions every day, including international transactions. Why then don't we impose sanctions
on the IS and block their banks, and freeze their accounts?
This goes on to demonstrate that the IS is a useful tool for American foreign policy, and if they didn't create it, at
least they don't strive for its eradication.
@Felix
Keverich You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little
fart ? are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or
do you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?
The Ukraine certainly had all kinds of 'entrepreneurs' they're called OLIGARCHS who
very capably enriched themselves unfortunately 'entrepreneurs' are what normal people would
call parasites, flim-flam men and hucksters
As for Ukrainian workers lacking 'marketable skills' I guess that would be 'skills' like
TROLLING, your specialty and making retarded statements on discussion fora
Ukraine had more very qualified engineers per capita than any country in Europe a huge
amount of intellectual capacity, and a very good industrial base especially in high tech
areas like aerospace and propulsion their problem was that they chose to play games with the
rotten west, instead of friendship with Russia, with which their industry was
integrated
You're a complete wanker in the A. Karlin mold. Get lost you have nothing to
contribute
@Big
Bill They fought that it was Russia, that was holding them back, and by separating they
could quickly achieve Western European standard of living. The first guy to become
president of independent Ukraine promised people that they were going to "live like France"
.in 5 years (!). lol
So their plan was something like this:
Lately, they began to think that the Ukraine's path to prosperity goes through EU
membership, hence popular support for Euromaidan, and you know the results
You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little fart
? are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or do
you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?
Your industries are worth ZERO, if you're unable to sell your products, and the Ukraine
struggled to sell its manufactured goods after 1991. Its traditional customer – Russia
began to import Western goods.
You sound like Martyanov. lol It doesn't take any "special qualification" to figure out
that Soviet-era factories were churning out worthless crap – there is a reason why that
system fell apart, you know.
What a breathtaking example of stupidity. This is level of absurd that is unachievable even to Onion. for those congresswoman Putin
became a fetish born of secret admiration and repressed fear.
WASHINGTON, February 28, 2019, 02:27 -- REGNUMmembers of the house of representatives of the U.S. Congress, Val Demings
and Elise Stefanik, have introduced a bill demanding that the intelligence services provide information on the income and property
of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports the ABC channel .
According to ABC, the bill called "The Vladimir Putin Transparency Act" has been proposed by these members of the Intelligence
Committee. The bill is related to the alleged ambitions of Russia to undermine American democracy. It is assumed that information
about Putin's income will help defend democracy in the United States.
Also in January, the U.S. Senate introduced a bill on protection against "Kremlin aggression". The bill also contained a request
that the intelligence community provide data on the assets and income of the Russian leader.
I'm not the only one here who thinks this is like, weird, right? Right?
Forget "Putin Derangement Syndrome", it's gotta be pretty deep into fetish territory now. I can only imagine they would also
like to know where he takes his lunch breaks and what he thinks about in the shower too. Perhaps they fantasize about what sweet
nothings the Russian head of state whispers into his pillows before falling asleep.
No, you're obviously not the only one who thinks this is weird. Washington's persistent preoccupation with Putin is indeed in
fetish territory now; he has become the bogeyman, the witch who brings damaging storms down on American heads, causes crops to
fail and cows to give sour milk. I would not be at all surprised to see the House come up with a bill proposing he be tried for
witchcraft.
The only explanation I can offer – except mass craziness brought on by too much junk food – is a propaganda machine which has
slipped its governor, and cannot stop churning out ever-more-outrageous claims. The extremes generated on Venezuela are similar
in nature – Maduro is the ultimate evil, to the point that no option exists but his immediate overthrow, without which all Venezuelans
are doomed to early deaths.
Especially as it was what the Panama papers already tried to do, and failed miserably. In thousands and thousands of published
documents, there wasn't anything even remotely belonging to Putin. It only reinforced that there was no "fortune" to find.
Someone probably ought to tell Demings and Stefanik that their bill is the 100,000,001st bill to be put to Congress demanding
that all 17 intel agencies in the US pull out all the stops to find Putin's hidden $40 billion fortune, even if they have to lose
a few agents on a one-way trip into the heart of the Sun or down the Puerto Rico Trench in search of his assets.
Yes, a great history lesson and it places events in a proper context regarding Russian behavior as they expanded eastwards. I
suspect a "Western" mentality would have slaughtered all of the descendants of Khan empire. No, a Western mentality would slaughter
ANY non-Western population regardless of preceding history. Russians and Orthodox Slavs, in general, are forgiving as we see to
this very day.
Well, to be fair, Ivan IV's victorious army put the majority of the Kazan population to the sword when the city fell to his forces
in 1552 and for the rest of the 16th century, Tatars were forbidden to live in the city, which became Russified. There was official
discrimination against Tatars but it lessened as the years passed.
By the 19th century, Tatars had cornered the market in St.Petersburg and Moscow in the restaurant trade -- as waiters. And
I reckon most railway porters at the raiway termini in Moscow are Tatars as well.
I don't think Russians are even necessarily "forgiving", I think it's something else. and I don't believe that this has much,
if anything, to do with Christianity. The Russian mentality is fundamentally different from the European mentality.
Europeans see "others" as sub-humans. Russians simply see people as people. Whether friends or enemies. If enemies, then they
are killed in battle, but once the battle is over, they start getting married.
I always point to the Russian national poem "The Tale of Igor's Host" as the prime example of this attitude. Prince Igor and
the Cumans are fighting to the death. Igor loses. The Cumans take him captive. The Cuman Khan marries his daughter to Igor's son.
See, Russians and Cumans have the same attitude here: We fight, and then we get married. That's the difference. (And the Cumans
are not Christian.)
That's why it would have been impossible for Russia to have Jim Crow laws like in the U.S., which forbid people of different ethnic
groups to get married.
And P.S., speaking of racism, I had
to get this post off my chest , because I am really worried about certain Russian pundits being infected by American ALT-Rightie
type racism.
I truly believe that biological racism is alien to the Russian mentality, and yet certain individuals are becoming infected, as
the American cultural influence spreads.
Not that this particular incident involves actual racism, but it still bothers me that the Russian pundits are starting to use
American vocabulary, such as "white people", and that sort of thing.
I personally believe these Catholic "Covington" boys are little shits who needed a cultural slap-down. It's just too bad that
those delivering the spanking are barking mad themselves. But such is the American political scene .
P.S. – an etymological note. The American term "white cracker" had nothing to do with actual crackers or any other type of foodstuff.
It originated in slave times. The "cracker" was the hired hand who "cracked the whip" and beat the slaves. It's all there in that
Bible of Slavery, namely Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin". There you can read how slave-owners who were too squeamish (or too lazy)
to whip their own slaves, could outsource the punishment to official businesses run by local "crackers" who would strip the skin
off human backs, for a fee.
The etymology of cracker is probably nonsense. A good starting point for understanding the use of cracker in states originally
settled by the "Scots-Irish" ( in today's parlance Ulster Scots) would be the Wikipedia entry on "craic"; I have a book chez Mrs
C by a writer from GA making that very argument, that "cracker" was and is the archetypal carnaptious, disputatious rural type
who would argue with God Almighty.
A gauche youngster doesn't and didn't deserve to be vilified after being abused by an old attention seeker and useless media and
I hope the Covington kid is hugely successful in the litigation. On a literary note, what happened was a good illustration of
the "pecking party" memorably described by Kesey in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest."
Just three examples. All those people would have troubles in the USA now. And that tells us
something about the USA:
The wealthy Jews control the world, in their hands lies the fate of governments and
nations. They set governments one against the other. When the wealthy Jews play, the nations
and the rulers dance. One way or the other, they get rich."
'The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and
spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social
obligations, knows no order nor discipline.'
'The enterprising spirit of the Jew is irrepressible. He refuses to remain a
proletarian. He will grab at the first opportunity to advance to a higher rung in the social
ladder.'
The comments above weren't made by Adolf Hitler or a member of the Nazi party but by some of
the most dedicated early Zionists:
"... Face it. Mass production of consumer electronics in the USA is almost non-existent. An entire important industry has been lost forever based on wage arbitrage. But even if there were not a 10:1 wage disparity, the skill level and work ethic of Americans is pathetic compared to the diligent Asian worker bees. Reality is a cruel mistress ..."
"... Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich in minerals, timber, water, etc. ..."
"... With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc. ..."
"... The Western European based US economy is fast draining out (along with people of Western European descent) and the days of US world manufacturing leadership (1950's) are a distant memory. ..."
"... Maybe the takeaway from US/Chinese history is that the US needs its own Maoist style Cultural Revolution. Nothing short of US Maoism is needed to root out every aspect of the current rotten system and get a fresh start from zero. ..."
War, in this model, begins when the first shots are fired.
Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition.
It all war, all the time and another point to remember is that there is always a war between
the .001% and the rest of us.
Another thing is that we proles, peasants and peons should give some serious thought to
having the "elite" fight their own battles, on their "own" (though mostly stolen) shekels for
once. Read More Agree: foolisholdman Reply
Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
Feb 15, 2019 Next Phase, Xi & Trump, Coordinate The Transition
US industrial production plunges, this doesn't mean that manufacturing jobs are not coming
back to the US this means the [CB] is deteriorating quickly as Trump brings back
manufacturing.
Feb 16, 2019 Pentagon Warns of Chinese Space Lasers | China News Headlines
A new Pentagon report says #China and Russia have developed #laser weapons to target US
satellites. Need a Space Force?
governing elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and
covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is
already in close to full combat mode with respect to China.
Looked at this way, there are countless wars all the time as well as a huge gray area that
is debatable. I think there is merit in defining war as actual kinetic weapons firing in both
directions. Even then, there are gray areas, but at least they are minimized
"The time and investment required to rebuild/replace supply chains in a JIT world means
much of what's left of America's real economy would disappear within weeks.
American trade negotiators are apparently oblivious to this. I find that very weird."
Of course they're not oblivious, as you can see everytime the stock market goes down, some
US official came out to say a deal/talk is on the way. Both the negotiators and the market
know.
They're just betting on enough pressure will force China to surrender, like Japan did in
the 80s.
@Erebus In the distant past
there were at least 1000 PC Board manufacturers in the US .now there are only 2 or 3. Most US
PCB houses are actually a middleman with an iphone fronting for one of the many Chinese PCB
factories. You supply the Gerber Files and the payment, of course, and your finished PC
Boards come back by air the next day.
Now here is the kicker: our US PC Board supplier is
located in Illinois and owned by you guessed it Hindus. Half the staff are also Hindus. In
general, the Chinese PCBs are of higher quality than the Hindu .er US PCBs.
Face it. Mass
production of consumer electronics in the USA is almost non-existent. An entire important
industry has been lost forever based on wage arbitrage. But even if there were not a 10:1
wage disparity, the skill level and work ethic of Americans is pathetic compared to the
diligent Asian worker bees. Reality is a cruel mistress
Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year on
year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands rich
in minerals, timber, water, etc.
With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock therapy
(induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real enemy is.
Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to influence
politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the Rothschild
gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off, etc.
Russia could go further in their symphony of church and state, and copy Justinian
(Byzyantine empire) and prevent our (((friends))) from teaching in schools,bein control of
money, or in government.
With regards to China, they would be not be anywhere near where they are today if the West
had not actively transferred their patrimony in the form of transplanted industry and
knowledge.
China is only temporarily dependent on export of goods via their Eastern seaboard, but as
soon as belt and road opens up, she will pivot further toward Eurasia. If the U.S. factories
withdrew from China tomorrow, China already has our "knowledge" and will find markets in
Eurasia and raw materials in Africa, etc.
People need to stop whistling past the graveyard.
The atalantacist strategy has run its course, internal development of U.S. and linking up
with belt and road would be in America's best future interests. But, to do that requires
first acknowledging that money's true nature is law, and not private bank credit. Further,
the U.S. is being used as whore of Babylon, where her money is "Federal Reserve Notes" and
are international in character. The U.S is not sovereign. Deep state globalism does not
recognize national boundaries, or sovereignty.
@Alfa158 Alternatively, one
could examine a nations ability to rapidly expand their economy to meet wartime needs. In
this scenario, other factors such as access to raw materials come into play. In this
perspective, the equations would change dramatically.
I think there is merit in defining war as actual kinetic weapons firing
Why limit it to that? I'd say there's plenty of merit in the author's definition especially since it would tend
to shed some lights on the origins of major conflicts.
That US elites that are split on who to go after first compromised by going after both Russia
and China at the same time is a definition of insanity. The US doesn't have a chance in hell
of subduing or defeating the Russia/China alliance. The US is already checkmated. The more it
goes after some big win the worse will be its defeat.
So the question (for me) is not which side will win, the question is the scenario of the
decline of the US Empire. Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU
will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then
the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself.
The US has recently focused on South America by installing several fascist regimes and is
now trying to get Venezuela. But the US backed regimes are laying the groundwork for the next
wave of revolution soon to come. Wherever I look the US is its own worst enemy. The big
question is how much suffering before it ends.
@jacques
sheete The author's definition makes the term a purely rhetorical one tantamount to an
angry child saying "this means war!" to another angry child, or "The War on Drugs" or "The
Battle of the Sexes" etc.
Admittedly, this is all semantics, so have it your way if you want, as it is not worth the
time of further debate. As for me, I prefer to have terms as precise as possible.
Klare discovers the US crusade against China – 8 years after the Obama/Hillary "pivot"
to East Asia sending 2/3 of the US Navy there and putting together the TPP to excluded China.
As usual he is right on top of things.
And he begins with this gem: " "The media and many politicians continue to focus on
U.S.-Russian relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016
American presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation." Huh? Does he mean the
$4700 in Google ads or the $50,000 in Facebook ads traced to some alleged Russian sources? A
Russiagater from the start.
I remember some years ago before the shale revolution Klare was warning us about "peak oil."
I think we were supposed to have run out of it by now.
Klare is a hack who cycles things that any conscious person reading the newspapers would have
known long ago.
P.s. He says that Apple is the number one cell phone. No longer. He should improve his
Google search skills or his set of assumptions which have turned him into a Russiagater.
Huawei now sells more cell phones worldwide than Apple ( https://gearburn.com/2018/08/huawei-smartphone-sales-2018/
). And Huawei does this even though it is effectively excluded from the US market (You cannot
find it in stores) whereas Apple has unfettered access to the enormous Chinese market. You
find Huawei everywhere – from Italy to Tanzania. How would Apple fare if China stopped
purchases of its products? Not so well I am afraid.
Usa is at war against everyone , from China to Latinamerica , from Europe to India , from the
islamic world to Africa . Usa is even at war against its own citizens , at least against its
best citizens .
I don't think it's simple "Eastern" vs "Western" Europeans; my take is Protestants vs
Catholics vs Orthodox. In that order. The biggest difference is between Protestant and
Orthodox. Catholics are, sort of, in the middle.
Or, in practical terms, don't see much difference between Austrians and Slovenes.
That's for Europe.
When we speak of the culture war or the war on drugs or the war between the sexes or a trade
war we are misusing the word war.
War with China means exactly shooting and bombing and killing Chinese and American people.
Expanding the meaning of the word only makes it meaningless.
Admittedly, this is all semantics, so have it your way if you want, as it is not worth
the time of further debate. As for me, I prefer to have terms as precise as possible.
I agree on all four points.
However, if you didn't want a debate, or at least a response, then why did you bother
bringing it up? (That's a rhetorical question, since I neither expect nor really care what
the response would be; now I'm asking myself why I bothered !!!)
Russia under Putin is an exporter of non GMO grains where as the U.S. exports GMO grains
thatt the Chinese do not want as these GMO grains are a destuctive to humans and
animals.
I hope that's true. To Hell with that GMO crap!!! Anyone using it for farming ought to be forced to drink
glyphosate straight for breakfast.
As far as the war with China goes, we ain't seen nothing yet. It won't be pretty, especially
considering that the US is starting it with severe self-inflicted wounds.
Yes, and the ads were often absurd – one somehow featuring Yosemite Sam and gun rights
and another for a dildo, I believe. Great for click bait maybe but not real winners for a
campaign.
As the incomparable Jimmy Dore says on his show, which should be required watching for
everyone, if the Russians can swing an election with such modest resources against maybe $1-2
billion spent by the Donald and the Hillary together, then every candidate for offices high
and low should run not walk with $54,700 in hand to secure a cheap and easy victory from the
Russobots.
I don't think China stands the chance. As we all know diversity is strength and China is
mono-cultured rather than the obviously superior multi. So China will continue to decline,
while US goes from strength to strength thanks to its brilliant, brilliant multicultural
philosophy.
China was dumb enough to try real socialism, while obviously the fake one is the way to
go. You convince your domestic population of your humanitarian credentials – via the
phony socialism, plus you don't have to share a cent with them. How clever is that? Phony
socialism is the way to go – it eliminates the need for the real one.
At some point one must consider that this is all a fraud. In Washington Ocasio-Cortez and the
Democrats are proposing to eviscerate the US economy with their Green New Deal. While here we
find Washington launching a long term struggle for economic, political, and military
superiority over China.
As was once said in another context by an individual remembered in history, "What is
truth?" A question which either revealed his own puzzlement or was simply a rhetorical
dismissal of the question altogether. Likely both at the same time. One can be simply bemused
by the turn of events.
Is all this activity simply a song and dance to entertain, terrify, confuse, and amuse the
public while the real ordering of the world takes place behind closed doors? Put
Ocasio-Cortez together with the Pentagon and we have apparently a commitment by the US to
force the entire world to immolate itself. No state shall be superior to the US and the US
shall be a third world hellhole. Cui bono?
@joe
webb Russia and China are certainly not natural allies. However, deranged international
banditry of the US (called foreign policy in the DC bubble) literally forced them to ally
against a common threat: dying demented Empire.
As you call Chinese "Chinks", I suggest you stop using everything made in China, including
your clothes, footwear, tools, the light bulbs in your house, etc. Then, using your likely
made in China computer and certainly made in China mouse, come back and tell us how great
your life has become. Or you can stick to your principles of not using China-made stuff,
write a message on a piece of paper (warning: make sure that neither the paper nor the pen is
made in China), put it into a bottle, and throw it in the ocean. Be patient, and in a few
centuries you might get an answer.
In the halls of the Kremlin these days, it's all about China -- and whether or not
Moscow can convince Beijing to form an alliance against the West.
Russia's obsession with a potential alliance with China was already obvious at the
Valdai Discussion Club, an annual gathering of Russia's biggest foreign policy minds, in
2017.
At their next meeting, late last year, the idea seemed to move from the speculative to
something Russia wants to realize. And soon
Seen from Moscow, there is no resistance left to a new alliance led by China. And now
that Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, Russia hopes China will finally
understand that its problem is Washington, not Moscow.
In the past, the possibility of an alliance between the two countries had been hampered
by China's reluctance to jeopardize its relations with the U.S. But now that it has already
become a target, perhaps it will grow bolder. Every speaker at Valdai tried to push China
in that direction.
Another hurdle, reported in the journal Nature this week, is that China is cleaning up
its air pollution. That sounds great for pollution-weary Chinese citizens. But
climatologists point out that some of that air pollution had actually been cooling the
atmosphere, by blocking out solar radiation. Ironically, less air pollution from China
could mean more warming for the Earth.
@AnonFromTN Frankly, I
really don't give a damn about what you say. But do not use racial slurs FIRST. I use racial
slurs ONLY in RESPONSE to the comments that contain them, in retaliation. If you don't use
racial slurs, I wouldn't either.
@DB
Cooper DB,
Thanks for the PCB mfg video. Asian roboticized surface mount assembly plants are even more
impressive. At one time supplied specialized instrumentation to the FN factory in South
Carolina where the 50 cal machine guns are made, and received a tour. Crude by Asian
standards, but efficient in its own way. Base price on a 50 LMG at the time was $5k without
any of the extras: tripod, flash suppressor, water cooling, advanced night vision sights,
etc. Base price would be $10k by now. The US Guv does not allow this kind of production to go
offshore .but apparently cares not a jot about the production of consumer electronics, a
massive and growing worldwide market.
Have read the Chinese shops assemble $1000 I-pods for
as little as $5 each including parts sourcing, making domestic production here impractical.
Surprisingly, the Germans manage to produce high end electronics and their manufacturing
labor rates are even higher than North America. Says something about the skill and diligence
level of the US workforce ..where just passing a drug test and not having felonies or bad
credit is a major achievement.
@Anonymous Yes, it is quite
off putting, even though most of the article is quite sound. Possibly Klare was obliged to
add this bit of nonsense in order to get it published in TomDispatch but who knows.
@nsa
A good friend supplies hi-end PCBs to EU & RU electronics mfrs, particularly in DE.
Judging by the numbers I hear, hi-end electronics is still very much alive in Europe while
it's all but dead in NA.
It's a capital intensive business, and raw labour cost is a minor component in the total
cost of doing business. NA has put so many socio-political obstructions & regulatory
costs in the way that even at min wage it makes no business sense to locate there. I doubt it
would make sense even with free labour.
As Steve Jobs told Obama point blank, "Those jobs aren't coming back". NA's manufacturing
ecosystem (rather than mere infrastructure), which includes social-cultural aspects as well
as physical plant has been disappeared, and only dire necessity will build a new one. I
explicitly avoid the word "rebuild", as that train left the station years ago. NA still
"assembles" stuff, but it doesn't manufacture except on a small, niche scale.
Manufacturing is a difficult and very demanding business. 21st C manufacturing is not
simply an extension of the 20th's. It's a radically different hybrid of logistics, design
& production engineering, "smart" plant, and financial mgmt.
Not for the faint of heart. Much easier to flip burgers/houses/stocks/used
cars/derivatives/credit swaps/ until there's nothing left to flip.
Where a war begins – or ends – can be hard to define. Michael Klare is right,
'War' and 'peace' are not 'polar opposites'. We often look at wars in chronological
abstraction: the First World War started on the 28th July 1914. Or did it only become a
global war one week later when Great Britain declared war on Germany? The causes can be of
long duration. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, for which the other Great Powers were
positioning themselves to benefit, might have begun as far back as 1683 when the Turks were
defeated at the Battle of Vienna. It ultimately led to the events of 1914.
Great power rivalry has always led to wars; in the last hundred years world wars. Graham
Allison wrote that the US can 'avoid catastrophic war with China while protecting and
advancing American national interests' if it follows the lessons of the Cold War. History
shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense.
When core interests collide there is no alternative to war – however destructive. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
The real conflict is a cultural/ideological war in which liberal democracy tries to apply
its system worldwide under the delusion that egalitarianism, freedom, your definition of
rights, is universal.
China will never accept this. Russia is already fighting back. Nor does any developing
country look like they will ever truly embrace western values. It's gonna be SWPLs + WEIRDs
vs The Rest of Humanity.
The new Cold War will last much longer than any trade issue and conflict over values will
always be the underlying motivation, until the west either ends its universalist crusade, or
abolishes liberal democracy within its own borders.
I would be more sympathetic with Klare's fear of cold war with China if he could just assure
me that Chinese writers are equally able to voice concern with their own government's side of
the equation.
History shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some
else's expense. When core interests collide there is no alternative to war – however
destructive.
Pretty much, BUT, with one little difference re "some else's expense" now. M.A.D.
scenario.
Even limited exchange of thermonuclear M.I.R.V.s could affect everyone (even if somebody
can define that "limited" in the first place).
My take: we haven't developed, as species, along our capability for destruction.
Cheerful thought, I know.
Pepe Escobar says:
'US elites remain incapable of understanding China'
That's B.S., Pepe should've known better .
They dont 'misunderstand', they'r simply lying thru their teeth.
The following are all bald faced lies,
Classic bandits crying robbery.
Lawmaker: Chinese navy seeks to encircle US homeland
[bravo, This one really takes the cake !]
US Accuses China Of Preparing For World War III
US accuses China of trying to militarise and dominates space
USN have to patrol the SCS to protect FON for international shipping..
tip of an iceberg
Those who uttered such nonsense aint insane, stupid or cuz they 'misunderstand'
[sic] China. They know we know they'r telling bald faced lies
but that doesnt stop them lying with straight face .
This is the classic def of psychopaths:
people who'r utterly amoral, no sense of right or wrong, there's no such word as
embarrassment in their vocab.
Is it sheer coincidence that all the 5lies have been ruled by such breeds ?
Ask Ian Fleming's fundamental law of prob .
but why couldnt they produce one decent leader
in all of three hundred years.
5lies have more than their fair share of psychopaths no doubt, but surely not everybody is
like joe web and co., I know this for a fact. ?
Trouble is .
Washington DC is a veritable cesspool that
no decent man would want to dip his foot into it.
They might as well put it in the job requirement, 'Only psychopaths need apply '
Thats why in the DC cesspool, only the society's dregs rise up to the top.
A case of garbage in, garbage out .
A vicious circle that cant be fixed, except to be broken.
1) People from China PRC has as a people on the whole become quite disgusting. But please
exclude ppl from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibetans, Uyghurs etc. I confirm that PRC China people by
and large are now locusts of the world. I am one of them by birth. how did it happen? Deep
question for philosophers. It wasn't like this 60 years ago. some poisonous element entered
the veins of the collective, infected at least 70 percent. I worry for Russia due to its
inflated self confidence when dealing with PRC. Lake Baikal deal was almost sealed before it
got shelved. Still, using racial curses don't hurt anyone but yourself. All the big internet
advocates for Russia such as Orlov and Saker and Karlin don'tunderstand The Danger of China
PRC. If you understand then you have a responsibility to keep yourself décent and
respectable.
2) USA aside from its liberals and Zionist Jews etc. Has become a slowly stewing big asylum
for psychologically infantile and demented big babies. How did it happen again is a big
philosophical myth to me. Western Europe is sinking primarily because they came to resemble
the US. especially French and Brits and Spanish.
3) Russia is ruled by a few individuals with brains and maybe a bit of conscience but the
elite ruling class behave in such a way that one would conclude that they share the China PRC
virus, just not as advanced. Your basic Russian people are in a state of abject degradation
dejection, not changed all that much since 1990s. Only slightly ahead of the Ukrainians. If
one cares about Russia then shove aside 19th century naive romanticism and face reality.
4) A sustained and massive war by USA against China maybe the only miniscule chance
Greek/Christian civilization can be saved. Otherwise descend of history into thousand year
dark age. The latter is more likely due to advanced stage of brain dead disease gripping the
entire West.
If you have observed cities like Detroit or Greater Los Angeles than you know that "white
flight" as oppose to sycophancy is the end result of black or Hispanic populations reaching a
certain level. Whites leave and the US then has another internal third world like Detroit or
East LA.
It is a game of musical chairs where the white move into remote hinterlands, which develop
into suburbs or exurbs, then of course as these become population centers the blacks and
Hispanics enter them and the whites flee again.
What you will see is white flight from the US with the wealthiest whites simply moving to
other developed countries. The 1% would move to New Zealand or Tasmania.
The handicap for the USA in the confrontation is twofold its élite are in conflict
(and afraid, and contemptuous of) at least half of their own populace.
Plus, all the resources of all kinds directed to enterprises in the Middle East, subtracted
thusly from other enterprises.
Furthermore, there is the occasional bullying of Europe, and the continuous bullying of
Russia, yet more resource drains.
The USA spreads itself too thin, perhaps.
@peterAUS Chinese are
neither for money nor for ethnic power, Chinese is for 5 principles of peaceful coexistence,
treating all nations large and small as equal with respect.
Chinese believes we are now living in a rapidly changing world Peace, development,
cooperation and mutual benefit have become the trend of our times. To keep up with the times,
we cannot have ourselves physically living in the 21st century, but with a mindset belonging
to the past stalled in the oldays of colonialism, and constrained by the zero-sum Cold War
mentality.
Chinese is determined to help the world to achieve harmony, peace and prosperity thru the
win-win approaches.
@Китайский
дурак 2) The riddle reads simply: democracy,
multiracialism, economic welfare (no-limit printing of currency made possible by uncontested
military "overmatch").
I lived in the Philippines and would chalk that up to fairly typical of a country run by
China since it is effectively controlled by a syndicate of Fujian family cartels.
First, you have a choke-hold on the economy and wages are depressed to near starvation
levels.
Second, Chinese will bring corruption to the nth degree by bribing whichever politician
will serve their own interests at the expense of the public.
Thirdly, those Chinese who cannot succeed in business will get into the drug trade and
China and Taiwan has created the Philippines drug war by making meth.
Fourth, there are fiery pogroms when the local population react with "burnouts" and
innocent Chinese are killed.
This is on the horizon in Africa. Probably.
In the West, Chinese were held in check by Jews and WASPS and to some degree by
Malaysians. I see Africa becoming like the Philippines once Chinese can become citizens
there, however.
@Biff The Romans create a
desert and call it peace; British Empire imitated Roman Empire, USA is born out of British
Empire; so only the White People particular the Anglo-Saxon is not ready for peace or
salvation. But rest of the world has been waiting for peace or salvation for a long long
time.
Chinese are neither for money nor for ethnic power, Chinese is for 5 principles of
peaceful coexistence, treating all nations large and small as equal with respect.
Peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit have become the trend of our
times.
Chinese is determined to help the world to achieve harmony, peace and prosperity thru
the win-win approaches.
Three options here:
Preferably,you are just pulling our legs. Not bad attempt, actually. Got me for a second.
Most likely, you are simply working. Sloppy and crude but, well, "you get what you pay
for". 50 Cent Army. Retired but needing money. Sucks, a?
Crazy and the least probable, you really believe in all that. Ah, well
@jeff
stryker Obviously you are brain washed by the 'god-fearing' morally defunct evil
'Anglo-Saxon', blaming every of your own failure on the Chinese just like what the Americans
and their Five-Eyes partners are doing right now.
The Filippino, the Malay and all the SE Asia locals have the guns not the Chinese, if the
Chinese do not hand over their hard earned money they will use what their ex-colonial masters
taught them since Vasco da Gama discovered the East Indies, masscared the Chinese and took it
all. The Dutch, Spanish, English, Japanese and the American all have done it before in order
to colonized the East Indies.
Before WWII, the American is just one of the Western imperialists ravaged and wreaked
havoc of Asia with barbaric wars, illicit drugs like Opium, slavery, stealing, robbing,
looting, plundering, murdering, torturing, exploiting, polluting, culture genocide, 'pious'
fanaticism, unmatchable greed and extreme brutality. In fact it is hard to tell the
difference between the American and the unrepentant war criminal Japanese who is more lethal
and barbaric to Asians until the Pearl Harbour incident.
For over seventy years the US has dominated Asia, ravaging the continent with two major
wars in Korea and Indo-China with millions of casualties, and multiple counter-insurgency
interventions in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Timor, Myanmar, Pakistan and
Afghanistan. The strategic goal has been to expand its military and political power, exploit
the economies and resources and encircle China.
USA is 10,000 miles away on the other side of the Pacific. USA is not an Asian nation, and
American is an alien to Asia. American is a toxin and a plague to Asian, They have done
enough damage to Asian already, they are not wanted, not invited and not loved in Asia, go
home Yankee.
@peterAUS You should know
the White man has some fallacies built into their culture, such as they believe that the
White man's words must be taken as given truth, only the White man can invent and the White
man can succeed, and the Whte man's culture is the final form of civilization.
The West (Europeans and their offshoots like the American, Aussie, etc.) is where is now,
because of those hundreds of millions of people all over the world who were robbed and
murdered, those who become victims of their very madness of colonialism and orientalism, of
the crusades and the slave and Opium trades. Cathedrals and palaces, museums and theatres,
train stations – all had been constructed on horrid foundations of bones and blood, and
amalgamated by tears.
The West squandered all the wealth they obtained thru stealing, looting and murdering
hundreds of millions of people all over the world in the scrabbling of a dog-eat-dog play
rough over the monopoly to plunder the rest of the world through two World Wars, one on the
edge of Armageddon, and on the verge of another Armageddon. It proves the West is incapable
of bringing peace and prosperity to the mankind because of their flawed culture, civilization
and religion. The chaos and suffering of the world in the last few hundreds of years under
the dominance the West proves they are a failure.
Human beings deserve better, we need to depart from the chaotic and harmful world order
and path established by the moronic West. China proposed a new way of life, a win-win
approach for the well-being of mankind like Belt-Road-Initiative to build and trade the world
into peace, harmony and prosperity. The West should not be the obstacle for achieving such
refreshing winner for all initiative. The West should embrace the new approach proposed by
China because the West will benefit from it. I call upon you, let go the old, obsolete,
failed and detrimental believe passed onto you by your colonialist forebears please, welcome
the new era.
As Steve Jobs told Obama point blank, "Those jobs aren't coming back". NA's
manufacturing ecosystem (rather than mere infrastructure), which includes social-cultural
aspects as well as physical plant has been disappeared, and only dire necessity will build
a new one. I explicitly avoid the word "rebuild", as that train left the station years ago.
NA still "assembles" stuff, but it doesn't manufacture except on a small, niche scale.
Manufacturing is a difficult and very demanding business. 21st C manufacturing is not
simply an extension of the 20th's. It's a radically different hybrid of logistics, design
& production engineering, "smart" plant, and financial mgmt.
Not for the faint of heart. Much easier to flip burgers/houses/stocks/used
cars/derivatives/credit swaps/ until there's nothing left to flip.
All true, leaving the question of what happens to North America before it reaches the
African street market economy (low tech, low investment, low trust, basic products, vibrant
and over each morning).
The Western European based US economy is fast draining out (along with people of Western
European descent) and the days of US world manufacturing leadership (1950's) are a distant
memory.
Maybe the takeaway from US/Chinese history is that the US needs its own Maoist style
Cultural Revolution. Nothing short of US Maoism is needed to root out every aspect of the
current rotten system and get a fresh start from zero.
If Chinese took over the world it would look like the Philippines.
Shabu labs everywhere? Corrupt politicians blowing away homeless squatters when some
Chinese guy wanted to build a shopping center or Chinese arsonists setting squats on fire?
Dictators living off wages Chinese don't want to pay exploited peasants?
No thanks, the whites don't want Chinese family cartels running our economies. We can see
the harm you have done in Burma, Philippines etc.
@jeff
stryker This Joe Wong is obviously a WuMao (professional trolls paid by Beijing to parrot
their government's pathological propaganda). Any mainland Chinese who can read will confirm
this fact. It is not worth your time to deal with folks like him.
@jeff
stryker Australians, Philippines, Singaporeans, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Russians,
Italians, Japanese,Mongolians, Koreans, New Zealanders, a tiny anguished minority of mainland
Chinese themselves, everyone has gotten the mail, everyone has seen them on the streets,
everyone understood -- what a Beijing lorded world shall be like, coffee beans in the
morning. Americans are last in getting the news. Americans can be dim witted. Too many Nobel
winning economists and globalist bankers in America. And China is the gift of these white
people to the world.
@peterAUS thanks and if you
are a young man, congrats for your rationality. I am old, but probably have ten or 20 years
left, if not all those years real fit.
The young guys need to not fuc themselves up with regard to earning a living .keep your
mouth shut , sort of, and your name protected.
I hope a new generation of "White Nationalists" come along sans Hitlerism. Stay rational,
with just the facts M'am if you don't recall that line it was Dragnet and Detective Jack Webb
I think .you are young, Congrats.
Stick to the facts, keep your ego under control, keep a smile on your face .. Buddhist
wisdom to spread a little love around and it is essential for snaring a woman.
The Facts are with us. The Future is with us, including hard times, civil war, and so on.
The Sentimental Lie (Joseph Conrad) of race equality cannot stand for long.
@jeff
stryker Australian people nowadays are far less wrapped up in America than at any time
that I can remember but Australian politicians are just as bought and paid for as are those
in the US.
Australians generally are much more well travelled than most Americans and have been to
various places both in Asia and Europe, especially the UK. Despite having seen the longer
term results of "diversity" with their own eyes they overwhelmingly seem to think that things
will somehow work out differently in Australia. To even suggest that mass immigration from
the third world is a ticking time-bomb is to be branded a racist of the very worst kind.
"The best way for the US to win a war over China is not to outsource their labor
there."
Too bad you don't get to decide what "the best way for the US" is, no matter how many
times you vote America has owners, and the owners aren't the average Americans.
PS. Philippines is just the poor-man version of USA. Does the American capitalist class
have many concerns for their working class? The money class are all the same.
Your rant about Chinese of SE Asia is also quite similar with that of American Whites for
the Jews, or South African Blacks for the Whites, just only on economic side, not
politics.
Filipinos are nothing but semi retarded 85 IQ trying hard Americans, the vast majority who
are too stupid to copy the better parts of US high culture, and so ape and cargo cult the
trashiest and lowest of the low parts of US culture, or maybe low IQ Austronesians are just
prone to overall trashiness unless they are regulated by a somewhat draconian conservative
culture like Muslim Malays are.
@Китайский
дурак Perhaps some Russians like you are willing to live
under the Anglo-Saxon's dominance, submitted to Anglo-Saxon's zero-sum, beggar-thy-neighbour,
negative energy infested cult culture, and try to talk like them and walk like them, but not
everybody is like those feeble Russians. Other people has their long history, culture and
identity to protect. Please do not smear other people's integrity because you are lack of it.
If they turn on their radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to- air
missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace We dictate the way they
live and talk. And that's what's great about America right now . It's a good thing,
especially when there's a lot of oil out there we need.
Comments about the bombing of Iraq in the late 1990s, which he directed. Interview
Washington Post (August 30, 1999); quoted in Rogue State, William Blum, Common Courage Press,
2005, p. 159.
William Blum,
RIP
Somebody should do an autopsy on him !
In korea, a UN coaliton force , bristling with bombers, jet fighters, complete air
superiority.no less. Tanks, artilleries, carbines, couldnt subdue the PLA fighting with ww1
vintage rifles.
There is never any UN coalition force in Korea war. Its a illegal US led aggression, known
as Unified/United Command, in violating of UNSC charter. US deceived UN by using 'United
Command' in its letterhead when communicating. And then go ahead to lie shamelessly using UN
name.
By acting before the Security Council could act, the US was in violation of Article 2(7)
of the UN Charter which requires a Security Council action under Chapter VII before there
is any armed intervention into the internal affairs of another nation unless the arms are
used in self-defense. (See Article 51 of the UN Charter. The US armed intervention in Korea
was clearly not an act of self defense for the US.) Also the actions of the UN have come to
be referred to as the actions of the "United Nations Command"(UNC), but this designation is
not to be found in the June and July 1950 Security Council resolutions authorizing
participation in the Korean War. (3) What is the significance of the US using the UN in
these ways?
The current US military command in South Korea claims to wear three hats: Command of US
troops in South Korea, Combined Forces Command (US and South Korean troops), and "United
Nations Command" with responsibilities with respect to the Armistice. The United Nations,
however, has no role in the oversight or decision making processes of the "United Nations
Command". The US Government is in control of the "United Nations Command". The use by the
US of the designation "United Nations Command", however, creates and perpetuates the
misconception that the UN is in control of the actions and decisions taken by the US under
the "United Nations Command".
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (more commonly referred to as North Korea) has
called for disbanding the "United Nations Command"(UN Command). At a press conference held
at the United Nations on June 21, 2013, the North Korean Ambassador to the UN, Ambassador
Sin Son Ho argued that the actions of the US Government using the designation "United
Nations Command" are not under any form of control by the United Nations. (4) Since the UN
has no role in the decision making process of what the US does under the title of the
"United Nations Command", North Korea contends the US should cease its claim that it is
acting as the "United Nations Command".
Anyway, there is hardly a tree left in China and since 2006, China has been the world's
largest emitter of CO2 annually and though they pay lip service they accept no binding
target for reduction; quite the opposite.
Pls has slight decency to check before spewing nonsense.
According to Nasa, China has planted & expanded forest the size of Amazon,
contributing 1/4 of global greenery effort.
Its now working on massive irrigation projects in Tibet & Xinjiang, including dams
that will overshadow 3Gorges. These will convert arid Xinjiang into another green agriculture
pasture & food basket providing economic to it landlocked natives.
China's effort to roll back desertification is also very impressive, converting thousands
of hectares deserts into green forest using proprietary planting method.
It has built world most hydropower stations & dams in China, and help built in Asia,
Africa with grants & subsidized loan. Forefront in reusable energy, EV, solar.
And China is the staunchest supporter of CO2 emission control with solid actions, when US
write off Kyoto treaty in Paris as hoax.
what's about Spore that have 75% majority Chinese mainly come from Fujian too, HK,
Taiwan!? Do they fare well & very safe, or a shithole filled with drugs & crimes that
you projected to be?
And then compare with Chinese minority countries:
Msia with 25% Chinese contributing 70% economy, Indonesia 3% Chinese contributing 70%
economy.
Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, .
It seems that the more Chinese % a country has, the more its prosperous & safe, vice
versa. So Chinese is in fact the main economic & safety contributing factor, instead of
the other way round you painted.
If Chinese are indeed as evil as you make out to be, then China will be worst than India,
dysfunctional like Philippines, completely crimes & drugs infested like Mexico. Yet China
today is biggest growing economy in real ppp, and world safest country well surpassing nearly
all whites countries. No?
Vietnam tried to purge Chinese ethics under Ho Chih Min anti-China policy, ended paralyzed
its entire economy until Chinese were brought back to help. Today its still the Chinese
ethics controlling its majority economy & ruling elites.
Indonesia Prez Suharto slaughtered million of Chinese ethics under Yanks CIA instigation
to coup pro-China Prez Sukarno, and their economy suffered. Suharto later brought back
Chinese to run 70% of economy, while his cronies suck off remaining.
Malaysia Mahatir had forthright admonished his disgruntled Malays complaining about 20%
Chinese controlling 70% economy. He famously said Malays race by inheritance is lazy and bad
in economic, screwing up every gov granted projects & handouts. So let the skillful
Chinese take care of all business, and Malays can tax on them to make Malaysia prosperous.
All subsequent leaders follow that policy, and the result is continuous economy growth.
Myanmar purged Chinese after independent, immediately encountered dysfunction economy.
Today its still relying on Chinese ethic to support the main economy behind.
Thailand, Cambodia, Laos didn't purge Chinese ethics, and Chinese are similarly their main
economy contributors.
There is one common observation in all these countries, where ever Chinese live, they are
mostly law obedient, work diligently and eventually established in businesses contributing to
most prosperity.
Whereas in majority Catholics Philippines, are literally controlled by Vatican appointed
bishops, who forbid contraceptive & divorce, directly causing its explosive population,
leading to grave poverty & crimes. These bishops are also colluding with corrupted
politicians to dictate election outcome using their churh influence.
When pro-China Prez Duerte declared war on drugs with China help is achieving good result,
these West-appointed bishops are leading their followers in full force to oppose, all in syn
with West govs 'human rights'. Dont that smell fishy?
So will Philippines be better off without Chinese? Im not sure, just like whites, some
Chinese are also ruthless crimals. But your sweeping statements & allegation certainly is
fundamentally flawed.
But CIA has been plotting anti-Chinese ethic riots in Asean for a long time as part of
China containment plan. Previously Denk posted one article on this.
@TT
Your description of Malaysians as lazy and stupid is why Indonesians kill ethnic Chinese and
not some CIA plot. That's the thinking right there that motivates Malays to dislike ethnic
Chinese.
China did not help Duterte. China makes the drugs there or in Taiwan. Duterte pleaded with
them to stop sending shabu to the Philippines but China does not care and so Filipinos
continue to stagger around like zombies in their squats.
Philippines has the additional post-colonial curse of Mestizo half-breed Spanish
landowning and political class of "Hacienderos" while Malaysians are unified under Islam.
Since these Spanish-blooded elite are part-white, some of the blame for the problems in the
Philippines can be attributed to whites.
As for CIA containment plans, you'll probably say that the reason Singapore immigration
allowed so many Indians in was because the US government wanted to import a competitive
ethnic group to prevent Chinese in Singapore from controlling all of Southeast Asia.
"An emboldened China could someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an
outcome American elites are determined to prevent at any cost."
They will fail. The United States, like Carthage, is doomed to lose its struggle for
dominance; too many things are running against it. Not only does China have the far larger
population, but consider the following factors that run in their favor:
1. Like the US, China has a highly advanced and productive agriculture industry, making
them all but immune to nation-killing food blockades.
2. China has an average IQ that may approach Japan's before it levels out; Japan is
insanely outsized in terms of competitiveness, mainly due to its intelligent, group-oriented
population, so imagine how much stronger China could be.
3. China is geographically situated in the heart of the world's economic engine, Asia.
This puts China in prime position to break out from US dominance and, potentially, even
surround the Americans by making their trading partners their vassals.
4. The US is located far away and in a fairly unimportant region of the world. It will be
difficult for the US to get reinforcements to the Asian theater in the advent of a conflict.
American allies know this, so they will be predisposed to making peace with the Chinese as
the power balance continues to shift in China's favor.
5. Universalist dogma outsourced to American satellites Australia and New Zealand will
eventually make both countries Chinese vassals. Sometime in this century both countries will
have majority Asian populations due to immigration. Polls have repeatedly shown that Asian
immigrants have positive feelings towards the Chinese, despite the propaganda efforts of the
Americans. Take a look at what the Israel Lobby has accomplished and imagine what a future
China Lobby in those countries will do. Also, there is virtually no way to stop this from
eventually happening as this diversity dogma is spouted by the US at the highest level and is
now deeply ingrained in its future Chinese satellites. Before the end of the century, the
Chinese will have naval bases in both countries and the US will have none.
6. China is free from the social-trust killing, national ethos-sapping political
divisiveness seen in the US – no feminism, no attacks on its majority Han population.
America, on the other hand, is beset with hundreds of hate hoaxes targeted at its most
important demographic, white males – the group that disproportionately dies in its
wars, invents its best technology, and exports the best elements of its culture. If there is
a military conflict between China and the United States ten years hence, expect the critical
white male demographic to sit it out.
7. The Chinese are deeply patriotic and nationalistic. The US has experienced an
unprecedented decline in patriotism according to polls; that trend will continue. Therefore,
there is little appetite in the US for confrontation. This as a hungry China chomps at the
bit to show everyone who "the real ruler of the world is", a concept I sometimes see floated
on their social media.
8. The US is rapidly losing cultural influence due to a diminished Hollywood. The last
several American tent poll films, for instance, have crashed in Asia. Meanwhile movies like
Alita: Battle Angel (adapted from a Japanese anime) have done well in that market while doing
not so well in the US (and coming under immense fire from SJW gatekeepers for portraying a
female as something other than a weirdo). This means that tastes are diverging between the
two markets, a trend the Chinese can exploit in the future due to shared tastes across the
region and American inability to make anything other than low-quality superhero movies.
Hollywood is also now pretty much incapable of making the kinds of movies Asians (and
Europeans) used to see – science fiction, fantasy, and action/adventure movies –
due to rampant anti-white male hate and an industry focused on other demographics. Gone are
the movies like Robocop, Aliens, Jurassic Park, Die Hard, The Terminator, The Lord of The
Rings, and the Matrix. Gone because the white guys who made them are aging out of the
industry (or changing genders) and now all Hollywood wants to make are infantile superhero
movies for the Idiocracy demographic.
And did you see the Oscars this year? What an embarrassment. They actually nominated Black
Panther for Best Picture. I can't imagine anyone in Asia cares. They couldn't even get a
host.
9. The Chinese are primed to dominate influential cultural industries like video games in
a way that the Americans cannot due to checklist diversity requirements and the many
anti-male gatekeepers within the industry.
The video game industry is now three times the size of Hollywood and much more influential
than Hollywood for the youth. When technology and budgets are not a limiting factor,
politically-incorrect nations like Japan dominate over large American corporations like
Microsoft. The American video game industry, led by Microsoft, has effectively zero influence
in Asian nations due to American corporate greed, developer laziness, checklist diversity,
feminism, and a short-sighted strategy of broadly targeting low quality material to low
quality people (stupid FPS games).
Microsoft has been crushed so badly by the Japanese that they are now putting their
software on the Nintendo Switch; they simply cannot compete on any level. Meanwhile, Chinese
cultural influencers grow in power. They await only a maturation in Chinese taste and a
forward-thinking export policy but it will come. China's Tencent already owns a significant
stake in Epic Games, a streaming platform that will compete with America's Steam for
dominance of the huge online market.
One day, China will dominate their inferior American competition just as the Japanese and
Koreans have done. This bodes very badly for the US in the future, especially when you stop
to consider that all movies may be CGI in the future. The Chinese market is still immature,
but when it does mature, it will dominate – games, movies, music everything.
10. Divisive rhetoric promoted by the American elite and aimed at white European-Americans
– an effort to suppress white group solidarity – will eventually drive a wedge
between Europe and America that the Chinese, through their Russian ally, can exploit. You
already see a bit of this in Germany's refusal to cancel their gas pipeline (Nordstream 2, if
I recall), and Italy's defiance of the Empire over Venezuela. When racist American
politicians like Kamala Harris begin stealing money from European Americans and handing it to
blacks through reparations schemes, expect the Europeans to start thinking twice about their
relationship with this country.
After Trump loses in 2020, European elites will celebrate but not for long. Over the
following decade, both the far left (for economic reasons) and the far right (for ethnic
reasons) may unite against the United States. That will be made all the easier once the
United States is no longer able to elect a competent European as president. Europe isn't
going to want to be ruled over by someone of a different ethnic group that hates their
own.
11. China is unified in a way the US never can be again. China is 90% Han Chinese. The US
gets more diverse and divided by the day. Therefore, the Chinese public is more resilient to
conflict with rivals.
12. China's political model is far superior to their American counterpart. The Americans,
for instance, elect incompetent leaders through national popularity contests; said leaders
then rule only for favored interests. China, on the other hand, is run by smart people for
the benefit of all Chinese – the nation-state.
13. China's economic model is far superior to the corrupt, inefficient American corporate
model. Whereas China is a meritocracy not beset with crippling diversity requirements and
feminism. Tellingly, whenever the two models have gone head-to-head, such as in Africa, the
Chinese have won by a large margin. I see nothing that will change that in the future as that
would require a wholesale rethinking in the US of their basic philosophies, both on the left
and the right and that is impossible at this point.
The US is a proposition nation, so dogma lies at the heart of civic life. The Chinese, in
contrast, are free to pick and chose from the best of each ideology and apply it where
warranted because they are a blood and soil nation – group interest comes first, not
allegiance to dogma. Everyone in the US is an extremist of some sort – socialist,
corporatist, environmentalist, etc. That's no way to run a government.
14. The US will soon lose the moral high ground. As the US devolves into a police state,
as it continues kicking dissidents off the internet and silencing whistle blowers (and
attacking nations like Iran and Venezuela), nations around the world will cease to see a
difference between the US and China. At that point, they my either go independent (perhaps in
alliance with India or Russia) or openly start to flirt with a Chinese alliance. After all,
what does it matter if both states are authoritarian? At least the Chinese don't have a
history of invading their competition.
15. The divided American public may not support more military spending over social service
spending; this likelihood will only increase in the future due to demographic changes. They
see that China has a competent single-payer medical program and will want the same for
themselves, not pay for missiles and guns for other people.
16. The US cannot pursue relationships with vital nations like Russia due its anti-male
and anti-European dogma, now infused into society at the highest levels. It will take decades
to erase that and by then it will be too late.
"Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU will decide that staying a
US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then the virus of US insanity
will turn inwards into itself."
True. One day someone like Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams will be president. Will Europe
want to be ruled by non-Europeans who hate Europeans, want to tear down their monuments, and
steal their money for reparations payments?
"The USA has lost strategic air superiority, as well as strategic brain power. I wonder
how the USA would look after a week of retaliatory aerospace strikes?"
Like New Orleans after Katrina – a breakdown in the social order as all the diverse
groups start fighting each other and shooting at rescue efforts because they're morons and
thieves.
"Open the USA borders wide open and encourage 1 billion South Aemricans, Africans, SE
Asians and South Asians into the USA is the fastest and easiest way to close the human
resource gap between the USA and China."
How exactly is an efficient democracy supposed to work in that instance? Seems like
dysfunction, low social trust, and corruption would reign. Besides, the Chinese population
will still be far more intelligent overall, so no gap will be closed. The US should have
focused on immigration from Europe and increasing its white birth rate back in the 1970s.
They'd be in a far stronger position now if they had done that then.
@Anon Which West European
nations willing to move to dysfunctional disUnited States filled with crimes &
unemployment en masse?
May be some poor cousins of East European. But they will soon find US is worst than their
country, no good jobs, homeless without affordable accommodation, crime infested, their
whites is actually marginalized by diversification, LGBT conflict with their WASP value. Most
will want go back soon.
So its left with only choice of finest selection of 1.3B poor Indians, Latino, South
Americans, Africans & ME refugees willing to go anywhere just to get out of their
countries shithole.
When they arrived, hundreds of millions whites, Chinese & Asians will flee like been
no tomorrow.
Here it go, United States of Asshole is founded. Pls handover all nukes to UNSC before
implementing lest been exchange for food or use for heating in winter.
@jeff
stryker Its Malaysia PM Mahatir who said Malays are inheritingly lazy. Im just quoting.
Do educate yourself about CIA & Muslim politicians instigated riots against ethnic
Chinese before writing off in ignorant.
Spore was shielded from all these info distorted with West msm propaganda. I had only
learned about these details from Indonesian Chinese friends whose family had suffered these
trauma. After some readings, also Indonesia under current Chinese ethnic President Jokowi,
did all these CIA-Muslims Generals collision genocides been publicized. How about you, where
you got yours?
China did not help Duterte. China makes the drugs there or in Taiwan. Duterte pleaded
with them to stop sending shabu to the Philippines but China does not care and so Filipinos
continue to stagger around like zombies in their squats.
Why did you say China didn't help Prez Duerte in drugs war, your Chinese philippino
mistress told you? Pls cite your evidence.
Its widely publicized in our msm, West msm that China gov working with Philippines police
to track & dry up many drugs supply, even donated rehab centers as part of long term
solution. So you mean all these West msm are lying to help China.
In your word, these shabu are make & sold by China gov? Or they are part of global
drug syndicates that operated in every countries including all West?
As for CIA containment plans, you'll probably say that the reason Singapore immigration
allowed so many Indians in was because the US government wanted to import a competitive
ethnic group to prevent Chinese in Singapore from controlling all of Southeast Asia.
Let these unequal US FTA & India CECA speak itself. These were shoved into our PM LEE
ass to screw SG, allowing unlimited Indians of all kinds & their families to live &
work in SG, with their mostly internationally unrecognized qualifications mandatory to be
accepted.
Also both US & India nationals enjoy tax free in property investment, while Sporeans
& all foreigners subjected to 3% + 7% + 7% tax regimes, literally giving them a 10~17%
profits upfront.
Indians as " competitive " ethnic group to suppress SG Chinese, you are joking or
seriously think Indians IQ80 & its education is superior to Sg Chinese IQ107 that rank
consistently Top in SAT, PISA & Olympiad?
These are the dredge of India, violent drunkard, not those US get. Numerous are caught
with fake certificates when they simply could not even do the most basic task, near
illiterate. A documentary show was make to investigate how widespread & complex is it in
India, even there are someone stationed to pick up call as reference to certify everything.
These including medical MD cert, aka fake Indian Drs that India Health Ministry condemn
openly been so rampant up to 80% of India Drs(that was posted in one of Unz old discussion
2yrs ago)
@Erebus If both US &
China go on full trade war 100% tariff, to the brim of stop trading, who do you think can
last longer?
As you said, in mere wks, US will be paralyzed with every shelves empty & factories
shut down. Emergency declared with imports from other sources with much chaos. Frustrated,
nation wide civil riots may ensue with states like California, Texas, demanding
independent.
Whereas for China its life as usual with some restructuring, since it can live without
yanks useless financial services, msm & few chips easily replaced by EU/Jp or live
without. Airbus will be happy to replace Boeing.
China total export to US is ~$500B, 50% are imported components, so $350B damage is passed
back to US $250B(total US export to China) & global suppliers $100B.
That make China actual impact only $150B, $4T reserved, it can theoretically offset the
trade loss for >20yrs, while continue to expand its domestic consumption, BRI & global
trade to fuel growth.
But the world will be in chaos to get double impact of a totally collapsed US $21T GDP
& China import cut. With all economies stunt, global financial mkt burst, consumption all
dive, US allies turning to China for leadership & trade, a WW3 look imminent as yank is
left with only one product – weapons!
But not to worry, it should be very short one in yelling, as no yanks want to die with
empty belly, nor there are $ to pump vessels & bombers or resources to prepare long war.
Military is quickly paralyzed with desertion, & split between seperated states. There go
51 disUnited states of America.
So China is indeed discussing with yanks from great strength. But with farsight, they
prefer to settle yanks brinkmanship in Chinese humble & peaceful way.
I hope China can drag on until US can no longer conceal its pain with fake data,
screamming out loudly for truce to sign China dictates trade agreement. China need to teach
yank a painful lesson to humble it once & for all, including a WTO style unequal treaty
that yank shoved down china throat.
For all the refugees the US creates in the Mideast, it doesn't except many of them. Most
Iraqi and Afghani refugees have no hope of entering the US; European countries that protested
the war in Iraq end up absorbing the human cost.
As for the CIA cooperating with Muslims in anti-Chinese anything, I am skeptical. My
feeling about Indonesia is that a 3% minority owning everything and displaying contempt for
the natives as lazy savages is enough fuel ethnic hatred and Chinese backing of Suharto
didn't help things.
Indians don't represent job competition for Singapore, they are simply a basic menace to
your society. And it is possible that the US government, not wanting to see Singapore become
a vassal state of China, wanted your country's population to become more well,
diversified.
If both US & China go on full trade war 100% tariff, to the brim of stop trading,
who do you think can last longer?
China would take a hit, but not greater than the whole world could be expected to take.
Probably quite a bit less.
There's little doubt in my mind that China is in a much stronger position to both survive
and to be in a position to take advantage of the world's eventual recovery. As you note
$4T reserved, it can theoretically offset the trade loss for >20yrs
It also has the world's widest and deepest industrial infrastructure.
It's not only the $4T and the infrastructure. China also has a lot of gold within its
domestic system, which it can mobilize to make purchases from the the rest of the world's
staggered economies. Approx 20kT, by some quite carefully done estimates. Mobilizing that
gold, of course, is where things get tricky. The world would be awash with useless dollars
and how all that liability gets unwound would cause a lot of Central Bankers and their govts
a lot of sleepless nights.
"Which West European nations willing to move to dysfunctional disUnited States filled with
crimes & unemployment en masse?"
Quite a number of Europeans would have moved to the US circa 1965 – 1990 with the
countries then demographics, which was the point being made in the comment. The US is a huge
country with lots of space. In 1980, virtually all Eastern Europeans would have been better
off in almost any place in the US over where they were. The US Ruling Class had the chance
but cast it aside for lesser and more divisive groups so they could win elections and stiff
their workers. Even the US now is a mostly a better place to live than virtually any place in
Eastern Europe, and quite a number of places in overcrowded Western Europe – now filled
with Muslim invaders, rising crime, higher unemployment than the US, and yearly riots.
@Erebus One TV celebrity
went on crusade to expose Monsanto GMO toxicity impact in food chain few yrs ago.
He visited US & collected clinical evidences of GMO cancer causing from several US
professors, publicized them online. These force China gov to investigate, and their clinical
test too revealed mice & animals fed with GMO have huge tumors growing all over
shortly.
China agriculture minister was investigated, found to hold lucrative high pay job in
Monsanto taking bribery, and blanket approved all untested Monsanto GMO seeds, grains &
weed killer. Even those used as domestic animals feed but banned for wild animals in US were
introduced into food chain. Some also passed off as non GMO to plant in vast land not
approved for GMO.
About 30% of China food chain & vast agriculture lands contaminated, no longer
productive. That agri minister got arrested. No sure what China gov is doing about it. But
Prez Xi is hailing organic food. Tibets & Xinjiang have mega irrigation projects on going
now, might be to open up new agri lands to offset.
@jeff
stryker Tonnes of evidences on CIA-Muslim generals instigated riots & massacre since
1965. You choose to see otherwise.
A trove of recently released declassified documents confirms that Washington's role in the
country's 1965 massacre was part of a bigger Cold War strategy. https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/543534/
I couldn't find one article published in one unz comment by Denk?, where West msm
interviewing Indonesia biggest opposition party. Their chiefs had audacity to brag how they
will instigate another massive anti-Chinese riots to win next election.
The jews are much more vicious & open in controlling US, but you won't see CIA staged
riots & protest against their jewish masters Aipac.
Thailand Chinese ethnic are holding most economy too, but their politicians elites been
Chinese don't instigate riot against own ethnic to meddle election.
US government, not wanting to see Singapore become a vassal state of China, wanted your
country's population to become more well, diversified.
Its not diversification, its complete indianized with Weapon of Mass Migration, by jews
controlled US to push back China influence. As China refused to let jews control them!!! Its
also happening for Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Mauritius now.
Its Top to bottom all indians now in SG, 9% Indians with India new migrants controlling
75% Chinese & 15% Malays. Since when Indians have turn so great well surpass all Chinese
capability, over a short span of 10yrs since Obama's new balance in Asia Pacific started. Its
a regime change, silent coup.
Starting from Indian Prez, Indian DPM(a ex-criminal for leaking state secret data, he was
highly touted as best future PM to test voter response, but a Chinese PM candidate was
eventually selected for coming election as voters brainwashing not yet complete), national
DBS bank CEO chairman Indian. Central bank MAS chief Indian. Law, Home Affair, Foreign
Minister all Indians. High court judges flooded Indians. Chief judge Indian. Top senior
counsels(equivalent to Queen Councils) many Indians. MPs also new india migrants. MSM
journalist & writers flooded Indians.
Some are India newly arrived Indians of no credential. Yet no msm reporting on that. Its
near complete regime change in stealth.
@Erebus In addition to the
herbicide and insecticide resistance some plants are modified to withstand prolonged dry
conditions, or to produce more of certain proteins or vitamins, or to increase yields.
The corn or maize we now have started from an indigenous plant in Central and South
America. Twenty plants would produce a tablespoon of grain. The native corn plant can still
be found. Over thousands of years these were bred for increased size and yields but probably
for other reasons as well like drought resistance. That's genetic modification over many
generations.
In this country the Food and Drug Admin. and Dept. of Agriculture have studied the
genetically modified plants extensively. Not that government agencies always get it right but
it would be interesting to see a real life example of these plants actually harming people,
or animals and insects. Sometimes the fear of Frankenfoods is related to a fear of lower cost
imports and a sop for the local farmers.
Having an interest in horticulture I produced greenhouse bedding plants for the most part.
One significant expense was pesticides. We took great pains to carefully watch the crops. If
the aphids, or other creatures, showed up we would strive to isolate the affected plants and
only treat the ones with aphids and some that were nearby. Lots of hours with a bright light
and magnifying glass. We didn't proactively apply these because of the expense. Sometimes an
entire greenhouse required several treatments and there goes much of the profit. On the other
hand refusing to use pesticides leads to total crop failures. Nobody applies pesticides if
there are no pests. Without pesticides the world population would be much smaller and the
remaining living people would know about famines.
In terms of space, most Europeans would immigrate to US cities. Chicago was popular with
Slavs, for instance. And of course Silicone Valley. Very few immigrants move to rural
wide-open areas. There is nothing to do there and Norwegians in 1990 were no longer
homesteading on the North Dakota plains.
By 1990, few Irish wanted to immigrated to Boston or Italians to New Jersey. Europe was
actually safer and more prosperous when I was young than the US.
Europeans prior to 1965 were attracted to the US middle-class standard of living and that
has shrunken precipitously.
The refugee crisis in Europe is relatively recent. As for unemployment, indeed this is
bad. But the social safety net is slightly better and there is less poverty overall in
Western Europe.
"Very few immigrants move to rural wide-open areas."
Sure, if you're talking Nevada or New Mexico desert. But there are areas considered
"rural" in the US that have relatively mid-sized cities nonetheless. Oklahoma City has a
population roughly equal to the population of Latvia's capital, for example. And I'm sure
that Eastern Europeans could have been coaxed to leave Europe for the US had America pursued
a deal with the Soviets – white South Africans, too. Certainly, this could have been
done with success post Soviet breakup. Some Western Europeans could also have been coaxed,
perhaps a few million, with the right financial incentives. Along with substantial efforts to
increase the native European birthrate and targeted, gender-imbalanced ~skills-based
immigration* from emerging market, high IQ countries, US demographics would be in a far
better place today. The country would be less divided and more rational on a global stage
(and probably friends with Russia, too).
*In other words, purposely encourage 2 to 1 female immigration from places like Korea and
China back when they were both poor and filled with people ready to emigrate and compliment
that with an equal but reversed ratio elsewhere (Vietnam, Laos). This forces interbreeding
and prevents formation of divisive ethnic communities, while also having the benefit of
harming your competitor's demographics down the road. Actor Keanu Reeves is something like
1/8th Japanese. But most people just think he's a white guy.
If that kind of policy had been adopted in 1965, along with my plan above (and a few other
things not mentioned), things would be better for the US now. The US would be overwhelmingly
white with a small admixture of smart Asian while leaving descendants who look European; the
kind of internecine racial strife we see now could have been avoided. However, that kind of
plan requires a competent, and rational, near-authoritarian to be in charge. As Fred Reed has
pointed out, that kind of plan is not capable in Western countries that choose their leaders
via popularity contest with a birthright citizenship voting base.
That's genetic modification over many generations.
One wonders how many fish genes made their way into corn over those generations, and how
they got in there.
it would be interesting to see a real life example of these plants actually harming
people, or animals and insects.
Pesticides of increasing toxicity are surely not good for insects. As for harming people,
I doubt we'd see any more harm than the fructose and aspartame etc, or the growth hormones
and rampant anti-biotic use in husbandry that those agencies approved have caused. Of course,
genetics is much more complex, and so who knows what will turn up in humans a few generations
from now.
Without pesticides the world population would be much smaller and the remaining living
people would know about famines.
I'm of the firm opinion that a smaller population would be a very, very good thing, and
we'll be seeing famines soon enough anyway, but on a scale that will dwarf all other
famines.
"Pesticides of increasing toxicity are surely not good for insects. As for harming people, I
doubt we'd see any more harm than the fructose and aspartame etc, or the growth hormones and
rampant anti-biotic use in husbandry that those agencies approved have caused. Of course,
genetics is much more complex, and so who knows what will turn up in humans a few generations
from now.'
The pests who feed on domesticated crops lived in nature before people were around. When
they stumble upon thousands of acres of corn or wheat they rapidly reproduce to exploit the
windfall. The pesticides will hopefully kill or drive off many of these insects but their
total number would probably be higher than in a pre-human environment. There is a balance of
power.
Utilizing the "precautionary principle" one could say any technical advance might have
some unanticipated detrimental effect in the near or distant future. Therefore let's stop all
new technology. For now we have the methods of physical science to guide us. These aren't
perfect but it's the best we have and more sensible than the precautionary principle, also
called the paralysis principle.
"..a smaller population would be a very, very good thing, and we'll be seeing famines soon
enough anyway, but on a scale that will dwarf all other famines.".
I'm hoping my family and I (and you) are not among the culled billions. Death by
starvation is not a pleasant way to go, so I've heard.
their total number would probably be higher than in a pre-human environment. There is a
balance of power.
Probably? Pre-human? Yours is the disingenuity of a pesticide salesman.
The insect world is in a massive die off, losing of ~75% its flying population over 3
decades, as attested by countless studies. The studies tell us what we already know. 40 yrs
ago, a 2 hr drive in the countryside at night meant 30 min spent scraping insects off your
windshield and headlights. Every lonely streetlight in the middle of nowhere had a cloud
around it. Screens to protect the radiator, or even the entire front of the car were sold by
every automotive shop and gas station. Seen one lately?
Utilizing the "precautionary principle" one could say any technical advance might have
some unanticipated detrimental effect in the near or distant future.
One could say it, and one would often be right for doing so. As the complexity of the
technological advance increases, so do its effects. Who considered 50 years ago that
pesticide use would devastate the insect world? Who knows with any level of certainty what
the effect of that will be on the ecosystem we live in? What we know is it ain't gonna likely
to be good, and may be devastating. They're now found in mother's milk with potential effects
we lack the tools and brain power to comprehend, never mind predict.
When it comes to playing with complex, chaotic systems that support our life on the
planet, humans are like a monkey with a hand-grenade. To borrow a phrase "If the planet's
ecosystem was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it. " Our
myopia & hubris will kill us, if our stupidity and belligerence doesn't do it first.
The insect "die off" is an interesting occurrence. Puerto Rico lost a large percentage of
insects while at the same time they decreased pesticide use by 80%. This die off is observed
in a limited number of regions of the world. It isn't known exactly what caused the drop in
insect population. Some say pesticides, others say climate change (the theory that explains
all things), are killing the bugs.
Pesticides have been overused in the past but there have been impressive improvements in
the technology which reduces the amounts required. There are herbicides and pesticides
designed with chemical half lives. These kill the weeds or pests then break down into
harmless components and in 10-14 days can no longer be detected in the field. Unfortunately
for some any improvements will require some kind of technology.
We are all going to die eventually, hopefully later rather than sooner.
In his highly acclaimed 2017 book, Destined for
War , Harvard professor Graham Allison assessed the likelihood that the United States
and China would one day find themselves at war. Comparing the U.S.-Chinese relationship to
great-power rivalries all the way back to the Peloponnesian War of the fifth century BC, he
concluded that the future risk of a conflagration was substantial. Like much current analysis
of U.S.-Chinese relations, however, he missed a crucial point: for all intents and purposes,
the United States and China are already at war with one another. Even if their present
slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a conventional hot war, its
long-term consequences could prove no less dire.
To suggest this means reassessing our understanding of what constitutes war. From Allison's
perspective (and that of so many others in Washington and elsewhere), "peace" and "war" stand
as polar opposites. One day, our soldiers are in their garrisons being trained and cleaning
their weapons; the next, they are called into action and sent onto a battlefield. War, in this
model, begins when the first shots are fired.
Well, think again in this new era of growing great-power struggle and competition. Today,
war means so much more than military combat and can take place even as the leaders of the
warring powers meet to negotiate and share
dry-aged steak and whipped potatoes (as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping did at Mar-a-Lago in 2017).
That is exactly where we are when it comes to Sino-American relations. Consider it war by
another name, or perhaps, to bring back a long-retired term, a burning new version of a cold
war.
Even before Donald Trump entered the Oval Office, the U.S. military and other branches of
government were already gearing up for a
long-term quasi-war, involving both growing economic and diplomatic pressure on China and a
buildup of military forces along that country's periphery. Since his arrival, such initiatives
have escalated into Cold War-style combat by another name,
with his administration committed to defeating China in a struggle for global economic,
technological, and military supremacy.
This includes the president's much-publicized "trade war" with China, aimed at hobbling that
country's future growth; a techno-war designed to prevent it from overtaking the U.S. in key
breakthrough areas of technology; a diplomatic war intended to isolate Beijing and frustrate
its grandiose plans for global outreach; a cyber war (largely hidden from public scrutiny); and
a range of military measures as well. This may not be war in the traditional sense of the term,
but for leaders on both sides, it has the feel of one.
Why China?
The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large part
because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election and the
ongoing Mueller investigation. Behind the scenes, however, most senior military and foreign
policy officials in Washington view China, not Russia, as the country's principal adversary. In
eastern Ukraine, the Balkans, Syria, cyberspace, and in the area of nuclear weaponry, Russia
does indeed pose a variety of threats to Washington's goals and desires. Still, as an
economically hobbled petro-state, it lacks the kind of might that would allow it to truly
challenge this country's status as the world's dominant power. China is another story
altogether. With its vast economy, growing technological prowess, intercontinental "Belt and
Road" infrastructure project, and rapidly modernizing military, an emboldened China could
someday match or even exceed U.S. power on a global scale, an outcome American elites are
determined to prevent at any cost.
Washington's fears of a rising China were on full display in January with the release of the
2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, a synthesis of the views
of the Central Intelligence Agency and other members of that "community." Its conclusion: "We
assess that China's leaders will try to extend the country's global economic, political, and
military reach while using China's military capabilities and overseas infrastructure and energy
investments under the Belt and Road Initiative to diminish U.S. influence."
To counter such efforts, every branch of government is now expected to mobilize its
capabilities to bolster American -- and diminish Chinese -- power. In Pentagon documents, this
stance is summed up by the term "overmatch," which translates as the eternal preservation of
American global superiority vis-à-vis China (and all other potential rivals). "The
United States must retain overmatch," the administration's National
Security Strategy insists, and preserve a "combination of capabilities in sufficient scale
to prevent enemy success," while continuing to "shape the international environment to protect
our interests."
In other words, there can never be parity between the two countries. The only acceptable
status for China is as a distinctly lesser power. To ensure such an outcome, administration
officials insist, the U.S. must take action on a daily basis to contain or impede its rise.
In previous epochs, as Allison makes clear in his book, this equation -- a prevailing power
seeking to retain its dominant status and a rising power seeking to overcome its subordinate
one -- has almost always resulted in conventional conflict. In today's world, however, where
great-power armed combat could possibly end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation,
direct military conflict is a distinctly unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing
elites have developed other means of warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to
achieve such strategic objectives. Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to
full combat mode with respect to China.
Trade War
When it comes to the economy, the language betrays the reality all too clearly. The Trump
administration's economic struggle with China is regularly described, openly and without
qualification, as a "war." And there's no doubt that senior White House officials, beginning
with the president and his chief trade representative, Robert
Lighthizer , see it just that way: as a means of pulverizing the Chinese economy and so
curtailing that country's ability to compete with the United States in all other measures of
power.
Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump's May 2018 decision to impose $60 billion in tariffs
on Chinese imports ( increased
in September to $200 billion) was to rectify a trade imbalance between the two countries, while
protecting the American economy against what is described as China's malign behavior. Its trade
practices "plainly constitute a grave threat to the long-term health and prosperity of the
United States economy," as the president put it when
announcing the second round of tariffs.
An examination of the demands submitted to Chinese negotiators by the U.S. trade delegation
last May suggests, however, that Washington's primary intent hasn't been to rectify that trade
imbalance but to impede China's economic growth. Among the stipulations Beijing must acquiesce
to before receiving tariff relief, according to leaked documents
from U.S. negotiators that were spread on Chinese social media:
halting all government
subsidies to advanced manufacturing industries in its Made in China 2025 program, an endeavor
that covers 10 key economic sectors, including aircraft manufacturing, electric cars, robotics,
computer microchips, and artificial intelligence; accepting American restrictions on
investments in sensitive technologies without retaliating; opening up its service and
agricultural sectors -- areas where Chinese firms have an inherent advantage -- to full
American competition.
In fact, this should be considered a straightforward declaration of economic war.
Acquiescing to such demands would mean accepting a permanent subordinate status
vis-à-vis the United States in hopes of continuing a profitable trade relationship with
this country. "The list reads like the terms for a surrender rather than a basis for
negotiation," was the way Eswar
Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, accurately described these
developments.
Technological Warfare
As suggested by America's trade demands, Washington's intent is not only to hobble China's
economy today and tomorrow but for decades to come. This has led to an intense, far-ranging
campaign to deprive it of access to advanced technologies and to cripple its leading
technology firms.
Chinese leaders have long realized that, for their country to achieve economic and military
parity with the United States, they must master the cutting-edge technologies that will
dominate the twenty-first-century global economy, including artificial intelligence (AI),
fifth-generation (5G) telecommunications, electric vehicles, and nanotechnology. Not
surprisingly then, the government has invested in a major way in science and technology
education, subsidized research in pathbreaking fields, and helped launch promising startups,
among other such endeavors -- all in the very fashion that the Internet and other American
computer and aerospace innovations were originally financed and
encouraged by the Department of Defense.
Chinese companies have also demanded technology transfers when investing in or forging
industrial partnerships with foreign firms, a common practice in international development.
India, to cite a recent example of this phenomenon, expects
that significant technology transfers from American firms will be one outcome of its
agreed-upon purchases of advanced American weaponry.
In addition, Chinese firms have been accused of
stealing American technology through cybertheft, provoking widespread outrage in this country.
Realistically speaking, it's difficult for outside observers to determine to what degree
China's recent technological advances are the product of commonplace and legitimate investments
in science and technology and to what degree they're due to cyberespionage. Given Beijing's
massive investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education at the
graduate and post-graduate level, however, it's safe to assume that most of that country's
advances are the result of domestic efforts.
Certainly, given what's publicly known about Chinese cybertheft activities, it's reasonable
for American officials to apply pressure on Beijing to curb the practice. However, the Trump
administration's drive to blunt that country's technological progress is also aimed at
perfectly legitimate activities. For example, the White House seeks to ban Beijing's government
subsidies for progress on artificial intelligence at the same time that the Department of
Defense is
pouring billions of dollars into AI research at home. The administration is also acting to
block the Chinese acquisition of U.S. technology firms and of
exports of advanced components and know-how.
In an example of this technology war that's made
the headlines lately, Washington has been actively seeking to sabotage the efforts of
Huawei , one of China's most
prominent telecom firms, to gain leadership in the global deployment of 5G wireless
communications. Such wireless
systems are important in part because they will transmit colossal amounts of electronic
data at far faster rates than now conceivable, facilitating the introduction of self-driving
cars, widespread roboticization, and the universal application of AI.
Second only to Apple as the world's supplier of smartphones and a major producer of
telecommunications equipment, Huawei has sought to take the lead in the race for 5G adaptation
around the world. Fearing that this might give China an enormous advantage in the coming
decades, the Trump administration has tried to prevent that. In what is widely described as a "
tech
Cold War ," it has put enormous
pressure on both its Asian and European allies to bar the company from conducting business
in their countries, even as it sought the arrest in Canada of Huawei's chief financial officer,
Meng Wanzhou, and her extradition
to the U.S. on charges of tricking American banks into aiding Iranian firms (in violation of
Washington's sanctions on that country). Other attacks on Huawei are in the works, including a
potential
ban on the sales of its products in this country. Such moves are regularly described as
focused on boosting the security of both the United States and its allies by preventing the
Chinese government from using Huawei's telecom networks to steal military secrets. The real
reason -- barely disguised -- is simply to block China from gaining technological parity with
the United States.
Cyberwarfare
There would be much to write on this subject, if only it weren't still hidden in the shadows
of the growing conflict between the two countries. Not surprisingly, however, little
information is available on U.S.-Chinese cyberwarfare. All that can be said with confidence is
that an intense war is now being waged between the two countries in cyberspace. American
officials accuse
China of engaging in a broad-based cyber-assault on this country, involving both outright
cyberespionage to obtain military as well as corporate secrets and widespread political
meddling. "What the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing,"
said Vice President Mike Pence last October in a speech at the Hudson Institute, though --
typically on the subject -- he provided not a shred of evidence for his claim.
Not disclosed is what this country is doing to combat China in cyberspace. All that can be
known from available information is that this is a two-sided war in which the U.S. is
conducting
its own assaults. "The United States will impose swift and costly consequences on foreign
governments, criminals, and other actors who undertake significant malicious cyber activities,"
the 2017 National Security Strategy affirmed. What form these "consequences" have taken has yet
to be revealed, but there's little doubt that America's cyber warriors have been active in this
domain.
Diplomatic and Military Coercion
Completing the picture of America's ongoing war with China are the fierce pressures being
exerted on the diplomatic and military fronts to frustrate Beijing's geopolitical ambitions. To
advance those aspirations, China'sleadership is relying heavily on a much-touted
Belt and Road Initiative , a trillion-dollar plan to help fund and encourage the
construction of a vast new network of road, rail, port, and pipeline infrastructure across
Eurasia and into the Middle East and Africa. By financing -- and, in many cases, actually
building -- such infrastructure, Beijing hopes to bind the economies of a host of far-flung
nations ever closer to its own, while increasing its political influence across the Eurasian
mainland and Africa. As Beijing's leadership sees it, at least in terms of orienting the
planet's future economics, its role would be similar to that of the Marshall Plan that cemented
U.S. influence in Europe after World War II.
And given exactly that possibility, Washington has begun to actively seek to undermine the
Belt and Road wherever it can -- discouraging allies from participating, while stirring up
unease in countries like Malaysia and Ugandaover the enormous
debts to China they may end up with and the heavy-handed
manner in which that country's firms often carry out such overseas construction projects.
(For example, they typically bring in Chinese laborers to do most of the work, rather than
hiring and training locals.)
"China uses bribes, opaque agreements, and the strategic use of debt to hold states in
Africa captive to Beijing's wishes and demands," National Security Advisor John Bolton
claimed in a December speech on U.S. policy on that continent. "Its investment ventures are
riddled with corruption," he added, "and do not meet the same environmental or ethical
standards as U.S. developmental programs." Bolton promised that the Trump administration would
provide a superior alternative for African nations seeking development funds, but -- and this
is something of a pattern as well -- no such assistance has yet materialized.
In addition to diplomatic pushback, the administration has undertaken a series of
initiatives intended to isolate China militarily and limit its strategic options. In South
Asia, for example, Washington has abandoned its past position of maintaining rough parity in
its relations with India and Pakistan. In recent years, it's
swung sharply towards a strategic alliance with New Dehli, attempting to enlist it fully in
America's efforts to contain China and, presumably, in the process punishing Pakistan for its
increasingly enthusiastic role in the Belt and Road Initiative.
In the Western Pacific, the U.S. has stepped up its naval patrols and forged new
basing arrangements with local powers -- all with the aim of confining the Chinese military to
areas close to the mainland. In response, Beijing has sought to escape the grip of American
power by establishing miniature bases on Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea (or
even
constructing artificial islands to house bases there) -- moves widely condemned by the
hawks in Washington.
To demonstrate its ire at the effrontery of Beijing in the Pacific (
once known as an "American lake"), the White House has ordered an increased pace of
so-called freedom-of-navigation operations (FRONOPs). Navy warships regularly sail within
shooting range
of those very island bases, suggesting a U.S. willingness to employ military force to resist
future Chinese moves in the region (and also creating situations in which a misstep
could lead to a military incident that could lead well, anywhere).
In Washington, the warnings about Chinese military encroachment in the region are already
reaching a fever pitch. For instance, Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of U.S. forces in the
Pacific, described the
situation there in recent congressional testimony this way: "In short, China is now capable of
controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States."
A Long War of Attrition
As Admiral Davidson suggests, one possible outcome of the ongoing cold war with China could
be armed conflict of the traditional sort. Such an encounter, in turn, could escalate to the
nuclear level, resulting in mutual annihilation. A war involving only "conventional" forces
would itself undoubtedly be devastating and lead to widespread suffering, not to mention the
collapse of the global economy.
Even if a shooting war doesn't erupt, however, a long-term geopolitical war of attrition
between the U.S. and China will, in the end, have debilitating and possibly catastrophic
consequences for both sides. Take the trade war, for example. If that's not resolved soon in a
positive manner, continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese
economic growth and so
weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth, including this one.
High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger
the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and
components.
This new brand of war will also ensure that already sky-high defense expenditures will
continue to rise, diverting funds from vital needs like education, health, infrastructure, and
the environment. Meanwhile, preparations for a future war with China have already become the
number one priority at the Pentagon, crowding out all other considerations. "While we're
focused on ongoing operations," acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan reportedly
told
his senior staff on his first day in office this January, "remember China, China, China."
Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all the
creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world's top two emitters of climate-altering
greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are
doomed to a hellish future. With a war under way, even a non-shooting one, the chance for such
collaboration is essentially zero. The only way to save civilization is for the U.S. and China
to declare peace and focus together on human salvation.
Michael T. Klare, aTomDispatch
regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security
studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. His
most recent book isThe Race for What's
Left. His next book, All Hell Breaking Loose: Climate Change, Global Chaos, and
American National Security , will be published in 2019.
The genuinely expert panelists could not articulate America's demands beyond the familiar
'level playing field' that America created by shackling China with uniquely humiliating
conditions before admitting it to the WTO.
Today, China generates 20% of global GDP (the US 15%), its imports and exports are in
balance, its currency fairly valued, its economy one third larger and growing three times
faster than America's and it produces essential technology that America needs and cannot
provide.
It is almost impossible to imagine a war scenario that the US could win, short of China
invading America.
Excellent article Mister Klare, but would like to raise a few quibbles.
1) As far as "economic" war, China has been fighting one for decades. It's called competing
and trying to do the best to improve your people's lot. The US is finally starting to fight
back but some of it's measures are inappropriate and/or ineffective.
2) As far as the US trying to confine the Chinese military to its own region, I really
haven't seen that the Chinese military is particularly interested in operation outside their
own region anyway. It seems to be focused on protecting China and its own neighborhood and
interests, and the Chinese aren't stupid enough to bleed away their wealth and blood in
distant misadventures.
3) I'd gotten the impression from the Deep State's rhetoric that they are much hotter on
fighting a shooting war with Russia than with China. In an extended struggle, as long as it
doesn't go nuclear, US chances are much better against a Russia whose economy is only a
fraction of China's.
Keynes says this, "All trade is only barter." The Wall Street/China Gambit is key to
understanding today. Clinton signed MFN trade status with China, screwing over NAFTA. Those
Zenith TV's that were supposed to be made in Mexico became Chinese made electronics.
Balanced trade was also thrown out the window, as Wall Street was in on the gambit. Trade
in goods was unbalanced, and America supplied dollars to China to make up the difference.
China then recycled those mercantile won dollars back to the U.S. to buy Tbills, helping keep
interest rates low, and acting as a prime variable in forming U.S. housing bubble. Returning
dollars then spun out into the American economy, so American's could buy more Chinese goods
from transplanted American factories.
The wall street China gambit turned mainstreet American's into Zeros, while wall street
became heroes.
Any discussion of China current economic status cannot overlook the role of Wall Street
exporting of jobs, to then get wage arbitrage. Immigrating third world people into America is
also a function of this "finance capitalism" as it wants wage arbitrage from third world
labor as well.
Finance Capitalism in turn is part of Zion and Atlantacism. International credit "banking"
will send its finance capital anywhere in the world to get the lowest price. In the case of
China, overhang of communist labor in the mid 90's was available to make things, and then
export Chinese made goods back to U.S. (at the China price.)
China still uses Atlantic doctrine, where raw materials come in by ship, and finished
goods with increment of production value add leave by ship. (Value add is key element to
making any economy thrive. Just extracting raw materials turns a country into Africa, witness
the attempt at turning Russia into an extraction economy in the 90's.)
Note difference in American policy in the 90's: Russia was to become extraction, and China
was to become value add. As Tucker Carlson says, America is run by a ship of fools.
For China, "Eurasia" beckons, and raw materials can be had from China's interior and via
overland routes. This then is a pivot away from London/Zion Atlantacism (finance capital) and
toward industrial capitalism.
In other words, both U.S. and the West have hoisted themselves on their own petard. People
that wax poetic about China's gains overlook this important mechanism of "gifting" of our
patrimony to China. It is very easy to copy or be a fast follower, it is beyond difficult to
invent and create.
Wall Street and greed gave away our patrimony, which was hard won over the ages in order to
make wage arbitrage today, and gave away the future.
China uses state banks, and also forgives debts lodged in their state banks. This is
actually one of the secret methods used to rope-a-dope on the west. The Chinese economy is
not debt laden, and what public debts there are, are lodged in a State Bank, where they can
be jubileed or ignored.
The U.S. and the West had better take a long hard look at finance capital method, which
uses only "price signals" to make economic decisions, as pricing is main vector from which
jobs were exported, and which China cleverly used to climb up its industrial curve. Sovereign
money/Industrial Capitalism IS the American System of Peshine Smith and Henry Clay.
Atlantacism/Zionism/Finance Capital is not American – the parasite jumped to the U.S.
from London.
China is wisely in control of its money power via its state banks and is pivoting away
from Atlantacism now that it has served its purpose. The belt and road routes are mostly
overland, with some coastal sea routes, and there isn't a thing sea power (((atlantacists)))
can do about it.
China has played the game well, but don't overlook the gifting of Western patrimony caused
by a false neo-liberal finance capital economic ideology, which blinds Western adherents.
@joe
webb Yeah, so America can topple China and go after Russia immediately afterwards? I
don't think the Russians are so stupid.
There is only 1 way Russia survives the 21st century without being broken up and ruined,
and that is allying itself with China. The same is true for China.
The only way China can survive intact is to ally itself with Russia.
Pretty simple stuff I am sure each country understands.
China's real economy, of course dwarfs that of the US'.
The author touches on a nuclear trade option China holds over the US that I see little
mention of elsewhere. High tariffs are one thing, but a closure of trade in components and
raw materials would do far more than
endanger the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials
and components.
Should China block exports of everything other than finished goods to the US, almost every
US factory would close due to lack of parts and materials. The time and investment required
to rebuild/replace supply chains in a JIT world means much of what's left of America's real
economy would disappear within weeks.
What then?
Unlike Russia, the US is highly vulnerable to targeted sanctions. American trade
negotiators are apparently oblivious to this. I find that very weird.
author Klare said: "The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian
relations, in large part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American
presidential election and the ongoing Mueller investigation."
– What "revelations"? "What meddling"?
– He tipped his hand right off the bat. Klare is just another run of the mill
Communist with a case of the Trump Derangement Syndrome, complete with Communism's favorite
scam, 'global warming'.
Klare said: "Ostensibly, the aim of President Trump's May 2018 decision to impose $60
billion in tariffs on Chinese imports (increased in September to $200 billion) was to rectify
a trade imbalance between the two countries "
– No, the aim is to encourage China to removes it vastly more & extreme tariffs
on US goods & services.
Klare said: " continuing high U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will severely curb Chinese
economic growth and so weaken the world economy as a whole, punishing every nation on Earth,
including this one. High tariffs will also increase costs for American consumers and endanger
the prosperity and survival of many firms that rely on Chinese raw materials and
components."
– Nonsense, all China needs to do is remove it's many times over more severe
tariffs.
– If the US's lesser tariffs on Chinese goods / services 'hurt the US', then why
don't China's massive tariffs on US goods / services hurt China?
And to think some take this fraud, Klare, seriously.
The media and many politicians continue to focus on U.S.-Russian relations, in large
part because of revelations of Moscow's meddling in the 2016 American presidential election
and the ongoing Mueller investigation.
It's not the economy stupid. According to many "experts" on this site, since the US economy
and military expenditures are 10 times bigger than Russia's, it seems "logical" to those
experts that the US army is 10 times better. I would argue that not only is not 10 times
better, it's not even equal to Russia's army. Again, according to the same types of "experts"
Russia's economy is the size of Italy. Why don't then someone break the good news to Italy
and encourage them to go to war with Russia? Since their economies are equal – it seems
that Italy stands a fair chance of beating Russia, thus eliminating the need of the 10 times
superior army to fight them. The moronity on this site, man – it's unbelievable.
China is not suffering from massive degeneration as the US is. Instead of trying to prevent
China from becoming a leading nation of the world, why could the US not accept China's coming
prominence and concentrate on strengthening its own population ? Unlike the US, China is not
interested in "ruling the world", it is only interested in expanding its economy. For the
rest, it is dedicated to stability and cooperation. No threat to the world at all, except for
some compulsive hegemonists in the Pentagon.
This article is pure propaganda and as such is based upon lies, misconceptions and pure
fantasy.
If there already is a war it is all in the minds of Anericans, and they have already lost
that war because America needs allies and can only create enemies amongst people that were
its friends.
Europe will join with Russia as soon as it can get away from the US bully. That means
550million Europeans will join 160 million Russians. 710 million people with Russian
technology and Chinese investment (China already runs Btitain's North Sea gas), will produce
an economic power that will humiliate the USA at every turn.
All of South America wants to break with the US, the entire Orient hates the US. America is
actually doing to Africa what the US accuses Russia and China of doing.
If there really is a war between the US and China then the US has already lost it. The rest
of the world wants only one thing: the absolute collapse of the entire US. Everyone hates the
US. No one will ever support you US dictators and bullies 100%.
You stab everyone in the back sooner or later and your only interest is supporting the
fascist and racist Israel that is genociding the true Semites, the Palestinians.
I'm amazed Fred Unz publishes this sort of trash. It is unadulterated lies, brainless
stupidity and total hog wash. Pure drivel.
It is often said that, had the Western and Eastern Europeans formed a coalition rather
than fight WW I, they would still be dominant.
And if I had wings, I could fly to the moon.
The Eastern Europeans had never accepted the Western Enlightenment (still haven't), and to
have done so would have destabilized their family structure -- the deep structure of their
society -- exactly as it has finally destabilized ours, today. The nature of authority and
organization in Eastern Europe differed considerably from that of Western Europe. Their forms
of organization were different enough to make integration impossible, and perhaps to make
formation of a coalition impossible.
China's organizational forms, family structure, and and social assumptions in general
differ even more from the present day form of the Western Enlightenment than did those of
East Europe c.a. AD 1900.
It's at times like these we get to test the assumption that reason and fear of death can
lead to agreement on a modus vivendi.
I will never believe the Zionist controlled U.S. will go to war with China as long as one
U.S. company remains in China and damn near all the major U.S. companies are in business in
China, this is a ploy for the zionist controlled MIC to loot the America taxpayer!
I didnt read the article but I dont think china needs the US for anything they are well on
their way to be the dominant world power the US and ist zionist occupied government are
losers the zionists want never ending wars which stupid USA has done,,china and all the rest
will eventually dump the rothchild banking system and form its own which will in all likely
hood benefit more than the zionist one does
No mention of an ideological battle, and no wonder, as "the Chinks" et al have apparently
already won that one, as evidenced by the fact that the last US general election was merely
yet another idiotic, meaningless [ yet highly entertaining], cat fight over blue socialism
versus red socialism.
The US vs China trade war is just another power/domination battle scam between two
competing, wholly criminal orgs, both totally against anything ever resembling truly free
trade ..nothing more.
"The US and China must work together to halt global warming or all of us are doomed to a
hellish future." Really? If this doesn't prove this guy is a lefty shill, nothing does. Even
the clowns raking in grants and trying to impoverish everyone with higher taxes have seen the
light and have been saying "climate change" lately. Many scientists are now arguing that we
may be headed into a new cooling period rather than a "hellish" warming period that brought
us so much prosperity. This "global warming" religion with its hockey stick icons and polar
bear mythology is worse than the Heaven's Gate religion.
"The rest of the world wants only one thing: the absolute collapse of the entire US.
Everyone hates the US. No one will ever support you US dictators and bullies
100%. You stab everyone in the back sooner or later and your only interest is supporting
the fascist and racist Israel that is genociding the true Semites, the Palestinians."
Well yes. As history has shown, occupation and rule by Jahweh's Chosen People tends to
bring this fate down upon the host country.
Oh, for Pete's sake:
1. It will always be China+Russia vs. the US. The EU, site of WWIII, will just soil
itself.
2. The Debt Bubble US economy will collapse. At some point. Changes every calculation.
3. The US will devolve into a state of civil war. Of some sort. Paralyze the place.
Momentum is with China and Russia. The US is sliding into history's toilet.
Just give it a few more years. And the whole world sees and knows it. The whole world can
get along very well without the US. And would very much like that to be.
Global warming my azz! But the rest of it rings pretty true. If nukes arn't used, Russia and
China will win this war simply because they have the gold now and the US has spread its fiat
petro dollar all over the world which will come back big time to bite them. That is if China
and Russia are smart enough to go on a gold exchange standard.
since the US economy and military expenditures are 10 times bigger than Russia's, it
seems "logical" to those experts that the US army is 10 times better. I would argue that
not only is not 10 times better, it's not even equal to Russia's army.
I would argue the same.
Russia is a land power. This means using a land army and area denial. Russia does not need
to power project with a blue water Navy and she does not follow Atlantacist doctrine.
Atlantacist doctrine got its start when our (((friends))) evolved the method during the
Levantine Greek City State period, where our tribal friends would be stationed in various
entrepot cities ringing the Mediterranean. They would use their tribal connections to Launder
pirated goods, and to push their "international" usurious money type, which in those days was
silver. Simultaneously they were taking rents on their secret East/West mechanism, whereby
exchange rates between gold and silver were exploited. Gold was plentiful in India and Silver
more plentiful in the West, so the Caravan's took arbitrage on exchange rates as silver
drained east and gold drained west.
The U.S. inherited Atlanticist method after WW2. The U.S. is not an island economy like
England – it does not need to go around the world beating up others to then extract raw
materials. The U.S. is actually more like Russia in that U.S. can afford to have economic
autarky and be independent. The U.S. does not need to power project with a blue water navy,
despite the false narrative (((inheritance))) passed down to us, especially after WW2. Nobody
likes being punked with false narrative.
U.S. military expenditures are so heavy because of this tendency of finance capital to
search the world for gains, and this means posting overseas military bases, which in turn are
expensive to operate. Russia only has a "close in" defensive posture of area denial. This is
far less expensive than power projecting.
Also, GDP figures are misleading. In the U.S. if housing prices go up it reflects in GDP
growth, when in reality – the house didn't improve. GDP figures are lies. If finance
takes 50% cut of the economy, they are only pushing finance paper back and forth at each
other this is not the real economy, but it shows up in GDP because finance paper is an
"asset".
Russia's economy is much larger than their GDP, probably it is closer to Germany's in real
terms. Real terms = real economy = the making of goods and services.
China is not America's natural ally, Russia is. Atlantacist doctrine sold America's
patrimony to China for cheap, and then the ((international)) will just jump to another
host.
America has been parasitized by false doctrine and the output is thus that of an infected
brain – an output that is crazy. Finance plutocracy typically will not let go
willingly, but has to be removed forcefully.
Russia is a country of vodka drunks and Dubai prostitutes run by a syndicate of Israel
oligarchs and ex-KGB who kill their journalists in foreign countries.
China is dependent on outsourcing and if the US factories were to withdraw tomorrow the
Chinese economy would take a huge hit.
@Erebus The US is vulnerable
in so many other ways too, see how fast the store shelves empty just on the news of an
approaching big storm. Panic buying is rife and some people keep minimal food available at
home. I know people who have to stop at an ATM to get $20. All kinds of vital distribution of
food, water, power, fuel and more seems to pass through a myriad of often vulnerable
bottle-necks real or virtual. Easy targets for low cost, low tech sabotage teams I'd think.
I'm inclined to think also that this threatening hysteria possibly is a deep state psy-op
designed to prime Americans prior to the enactment of some sort of "democracy"
modifications.
America is the most powerful country solely because it has the most powerful economy in the
world, and that was in no small measure due to America's abundance of arable land, navigable
waterways, natural resources ect ect. . In a few decades China has rocketed close to US level
and is in a global hegemon trajectory solely on the quality and size of its population .
There is not much doubt about the outcome of any competition between China and the West,
especially as much of the profits of the ruling class in the West has come from offshoring
and investment in China and their economy of scale production suppressing labour's power in
the West. The Chinese and their Western collaborators will just wait Trump out. Trump is a
populist not a creature of the Deap State alarmed at China's rise. The leading strategists of
America's foreign policy establishment still don't realise what they are dealing with in
China.
Perhaps the greatest victim of this ongoing conflict will be planet Earth itself and all
the creatures, humans included, who inhabit it. As the world's top two emitters of
climate-altering greenhouse gases, the U.S. and China must work together to halt global
warming or all of us are doomed to a hellish future.
Better to reign in hell. Anyway, there is hardly a tree left in China and since 2006,
China has been the world's largest emitter of CO2 annually and though they pay lip
service they accept no binding target for reduction; quite the opposite.
Even if their present slow-burn conflict may not produce the immediate devastation of a
conventional hot war, its long-term consequences could prove no less dire.
The manufacturing should be done in the most advanced regions of Earth ie the West,
because that is where the technology and will exists to protect the environment. China is
trying to churn out cheaper goods and does not care what damage they do in cutting
environmental corners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_China
China still supports the "common but differentiated responsibilities" principle, which
holds that since China is still developing, its abilities and capacities to reduce
emissions are comparatively lower than developed countries'. Therefore, its emissions
should not be required to decrease over time, but rather should be encouraged to increase
less over time until industrialization is farther along and reductions are feasible
In other words the global environment is going to continue to be ripped apart like a car
in a wrecking yard by China. "Industrialization is farther along" is obviously Chinese speak
for "when China is able to dominate the world with enormous productive capacity and we do not
even have to pay lip service any more".
In today's world, however, where great-power armed combat could possibly end in a
nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation, direct military conflict is a distinctly
unappealing option for all parties. Instead, governing elites have developed other means of
warfare -- economic, technological, and covert -- to achieve such strategic objectives.
Viewed this way, the United States is already in close to full combat mode with respect to
China.
No, the appeal of a real war will increase precipitously for any clear loser in the
economic competition who has a rapidly declining military advantage (especially in
thermonuclear first strike capacity due to proximity fuses and sub location tech), and we all
know who that is going to be. A shooting war will come, and the sooner it comes the
better for the whole world. Reassuring Russia that it will not be subjected to the same
treatment by the West at some point in the future will be the main problem inhibiting the
coming military take down (and nuking if necessary) of China.
As to bringing in Hindoos and Pakis into to the America-China conflict with a singular
example of the demand for defense related technology transfer by the former
India is a mediocrity but Pakistan is a nightmare for all concerned, given that after
imbibing religious mumbo jumbo from moronic Arabs, with which havocs were created in
Afghanistan via neoconnish America, now they are fellating uncircumcised Chinese for crumbs
the ungodly Chinese will play the idiotic Pakis like a fiddle to the detriment of the
West!
I was expecting that if a Western invasion of Venezuela were to go ahead, that Brazil and
Colombia would decline to commit troops, the US would be overstretched, and Canada would take
the lead in organising an invasion force.
But I have just heard that Justin Bieber Turdeau is facing calls to resign after former
federal attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould testified that she'd been pressured to drop
bribery charges against SNC-Lavalin by government officials (of whom some were from the Prime
Minister's Office) wanting her to apply deferred prosecution (by which SNC-Lavalin would
merely pay a fine). The charges against SNC-Lavalin involve former company executives making
illegal donations to the Liberal Party from 2004 to 2011. SNC-Lavalin also paid huge bribes
to Libyan govt officials to secure contracts in Libya and has been shut out of contracts by
the World Bank for corrupt practices in Bangladesh.
If JWR's allegations that Turdeau pressured her, directly or indirectly, then he could be
charged with obstructing the course of justice. Deferred prosecution itself is recent
legislation introduced by the Turdeau government and SNC-Lavalin had lobbied for it.
Looks like Canada will be too busy dealing with the Turdeau govt's own corruption instead
of Maduro.
The silver lining is that Chrystia Freeland has said she supports JBT 100%, although with
her record of telling the truth one can never be too sure and she might not be willing to go
down with him if he has to resign.
That will teach me a lesson; I just lost a very lengthily-developed comment because I was
typing too fast, and accidentally hit the wrong combination of keys. Therefore, this one will
evolve in the form of saves and updates.
Yes, he's in serious trouble. Wilson-Raybould was one of his big success stories, the
first aboriginal woman to be appointed Justice Minister. She's also a lawyer, and kept
detailed records of who said what to her when. After the SNC-Lavalin affair broke and
following her obviously-unsatisfactory performance in refusing to keep things on the down-low
so they would be allowed to settle out of court and probably just pay a fine, she was removed
from her position in a cabinet shuffle, and given Veterans Affairs.
She pissed off Veterans with her obvious discontent with her new portfolio, as if it is
unworthy of her talents, and there is a substantial question why she did not immediately
resign as soon as she was pressured to do something she obviously knew was at least unethical
if not illegal. But otherwise she seems to have all her ducks in a row, and it is going to be
very difficult for the Trudeau government to attack her position.
They're not too busy to proceed with the extradition of Meng Wanzhou, though, I see.
This is not necessarily the end of the line, and is just a hearing, not a trial.
Nonetheless, it moves the decision into ministerial territory, and the higher you go in the
Canadian government, the more people you meet who like to lick the US government's shoes, and
would no more tell it "No" than they would come to work with no pants on. More ominously, the
Canadian Justice Department claims to have thoroughly reviewed the US charges, and consider
them satisfactorily supported to proceed.
Extremely curious timing, as there was just a story in today's National Post which mostly
scoffed at the American inveigling against Huawei, referring to it as 'exaggerated', and even
having the temerity to point out the USA has actually done what it accuses China of doing,
while China has not been caught – ever – inserting 'backdoors' in any of its
software. The USA built backdoors into equipment made by Cisco Systems, and then shipped it
around the world, which is why China banned it.
Predictably, after London declined to ban Huawei outright, saying the risk could be
'managed' – a terrific blow to the American argument – other countries with less
backbone, Canada among them, claim to have been of the same mind.
Curiously, as well, the original reference points out that the charges against Meng, which
the Minister deems substantial enough to proceed with the extradition hearing, relate to
matters which are not offenses in Canada. That struck a chord with me, because I remember
that when William Browder was detained in Spain on a Russian Interpol warrant, the official
reason Spain gave for letting him go was that the matters on which he was ordered held were
not crimes in Spain.
Unofficially, as revealed by Browder himself, the Interpol General Secretary in Lyon
advised the Spanish government not to honour the Russian warrant. Yet when the EU demands
that Russia release Khodorkovsky, or Navalny or whatever prominent 'Kremlin critic' is in
jail at the moment, they expect Russia to jump right the fuck to it.
This just in .Saint Obama is no longer infallible among Dems. Winds of change are blowing. Six months ago, you couldn't get
away with saying this kind of thing.
"The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Obama will receive the sum - equal to his annual pay as president - for a speech
at Cantor Fitzgerald LP's healthcare conference, though there has been no public announcement yet."
=======================================
Sheer coincidence that what Obama campaigned on and what Obama governed on appear to be influenced by rich people. Physics prevents
single payer health care .dark energy, dark matter, dark, dark, money ..
Until a strong majority of dems are ready to say what is patently obvious to anyone even mildly willing to acknowledge reality,
i.e., that policy is decided not by a majority of voters, but by a majority of dollars, than there is simply no hope for reform.
Just three examples. All those people would have troubles in the USA now. And that tells us
something about the USA:
The wealthy Jews control the world, in their hands lies the fate of governments and
nations. They set governments one against the other. When the wealthy Jews play, the nations
and the rulers dance. One way or the other, they get rich."
'The Jew is a caricature of a normal, natural human being, both physically and
spiritually. As an individual in society he revolts and throws off the harness of social
obligations, knows no order nor discipline.'
'The enterprising spirit of the Jew is irrepressible. He refuses to remain a
proletarian. He will grab at the first opportunity to advance to a higher rung in the social
ladder.'
The comments above weren't made by Adolf Hitler or a member of the Nazi party but by some of
the most dedicated early Zionists:
The USA in decline needs friends. Instead it got a powerful and well armed afversary, that
stupid neocon jerks (including academic jerks like Summers) tried to play to get some dollars in
theirs pockets... Add to this tentions with china and Harvard boys should probably be hanged on
lampposts.
As the incomparable Jimmy Dore says on his show, which should be required watching for
everyone, if the Russians can swing an election with such modest resources against maybe $1-2
billion spent by the Donald and the Hillary together, then every candidate for offices high and
low should run not walk with $54,700 in hand to secure a cheap and easy victory from the
Russobots.
When you beat a person who is down with boots and this person survive, you should not expect
any mercy in the next fight.
Russia just passed up the U.S. in grain exports. Their economy in real terms grows year
on year. Russia has more natural wealth available to exploit than USA that includes lands
rich in minerals, timber, water, etc.
With regards to traitorous fifth column atlantacists and oligarchy, Russia's shock
therapy (induced by the Harvard Boys) in the 90's helped Russian's figure out who the real
enemy is. Putin has marginalized most of these ((Oligarchs)), and they longer are allowed to
influence politics. Many have also been stripped of their ill gotten gains, for example the
Rothschild gambit to grab Yukos and to own Russia was thwarted. Dollar debts were paid off,
etc.
Russia could go further in their symphony of church and state, and copy Justinian
(Byzyantine empire) and prevent our (((friends))) from teaching in schools,bein control of
money, or in government.
With regards to China, they would be not be anywhere near where they are today if the West
had not actively transferred their patrimony in the form of transplanted industry and
knowledge.
China is only temporarily dependent on export of goods via their Eastern seaboard, but
as soon as belt and road opens up, she will pivot further toward Eurasia. If the U.S.
factories withdrew from China tomorrow, China already has our "knowledge" and will find
markets in Eurasia and raw materials in Africa, etc.
People need to stop whistling past the graveyard.
The Atlantics strategy has run its course, internal development of U.S. and linking up
with belt and road would be in America's best future interests. But, to do that requires
first acknowledging that money's true nature is law, and not private bank credit. Further,
the U.S. is being used as whore of Babylon, where her money is "Federal Reserve Notes" and
are international in character. The U.S is not sovereign. Deep state globalism does not
recognize national boundaries, or sovereignty.
That US elites that are split on who to go after first compromised by going after both
Russia and China at the same time is a definition of insanity. The US doesn't have a chance
in hell of subduing or defeating the Russia/China alliance. The US is already checkmated. The
more it goes after some big win the worse will be its defeat.
So the question (for me) is not which side will win, the question is the scenario of the
decline of the US Empire. Someone here mentioned the EU turning East. At some point the EU
will decide that staying a US vassal is suicide and it will turn East. When that happens then
the virus of US insanity will turn inwards into itself.
The US has recently focused on South America by installing several fascist regimes and
is now trying to get Venezuela. But the US backed regimes are laying the groundwork for the
next wave of revolution soon to come. Wherever I look the US is its own worst enemy. The big
question is how much suffering before it ends.
Huawei now sells more cell phones worldwide than Apple ( https://gearburn.com/2018/08/huawei-smartphone-sales-2018/
). And Huawei does this even though it is effectively excluded from the US market (You cannot
find it in stores) whereas Apple has unfettered access to the enormous Chinese market. You
find Huawei everywhere -- from Italy to Tanzania. How would Apple fare if China stopped
purchases of its products? Not so well I am afraid.
Usa is at war against everyone , from China to Latinamerica , from Europe to India , from the
islamic world to Africa . Usa is even at war against its own citizens , at least against its
best citizens .
When we speak of the culture war or the war on drugs or the war between the sexes or a trade
war we are misusing the word war.
War with China means exactly shooting and bombing and killing Chinese and American people.
Expanding the meaning of the word only makes it meaningless.
@joe
webbRussia and China are certainly not natural allies. However, deranged
international banditry of the US (called foreign policy in the DC bubble) literally forced
them to ally against a common threat: dying demented Empire.
As you call Chinese "Chinks", I suggest you stop using everything made in China, including
your clothes, footwear, tools, the light bulbs in your house, etc. Then, using your likely
made in China computer and certainly made in China mouse, come back and tell us how great
your life has become. Or you can stick to your principles of not using China-made stuff,
write a message on a piece of paper (warning: make sure that neither the paper nor the pen is
made in China), put it into a bottle, and throw it in the ocean. Be patient, and in a few
centuries you might get an answer.
In the halls of the Kremlin these days, it's all about China -- and whether or not
Moscow can convince Beijing to form an alliance against the West.
Russia's obsession with a potential alliance with China was already obvious at the
Valdai Discussion Club, an annual gathering of Russia's biggest foreign policy minds, in
2017.
At their next meeting, late last year, the idea seemed to move from the speculative to
something Russia wants to realize. And soon
Seen from Moscow, there is no resistance left to a new alliance led by China. And now
that Washington has imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, Russia hopes China will finally
understand that its problem is Washington, not Moscow.
In the past, the possibility of an alliance between the two countries had been hampered
by China's reluctance to jeopardize its relations with the U.S. But now that it has already
become a target, perhaps it will grow bolder. Every speaker at Valdai tried to push China
in that direction.
Where a war begins -- or ends -- can be hard to define. Michael Klare is right, 'War' and
'peace' are not 'polar opposites'. We often look at wars in chronological abstraction: the
First World War started on the 28th July 1914. Or did it only become a global war one week
later when Great Britain declared war on Germany? The causes can be of long duration. The
decline of the Ottoman Empire, for which the other Great Powers were positioning themselves
to benefit, might have begun as far back as 1683 when the Turks were defeated at the Battle
of Vienna. It ultimately led to the events of 1914.
Great power rivalry has always led to wars; in the last hundred years world wars. Graham
Allison wrote that the US can 'avoid catastrophic war with China while protecting and
advancing American national interests' if it follows the lessons of the Cold War. History
shows that wars are caused by the clash of interests, that's always at some else's expense.
When core interests collide there is no alternative to war -- however destructive.
The Duran's Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the Munich Security Conference,
and Angela Merkel's stunning defiance of Mike Pence, after the United States Vice President urged Germany to cease
its economic activities with Russia and China, starting with Nord Stream 2 and the deepening energy links to
Russia.
U.S. Congress wants to know about Putin's income and assets
It is assumed that information about Putin's income will help protect democracy in the United
States
WASHINGTON, February 28, 2019, 02:27 -- REGNUMmembers of the house of
representatives of the U.S. Congress, Val Demings and Elise Stefanik, have introduced a bill
demanding that the intelligence services provide information on the income and property of
the Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports the ABC channel .
According to ABC, the bill called "The Vladimir Putin Transparency Act" has been
proposed by these members of the Intelligence Committee. The bill is related to the alleged
ambitions of Russia to undermine American democracy. It is assumed that information about
Putin's income will help defend democracy in the United States.
Also in January, the U.S. Senate introduced a bill on protection against "Kremlin
aggression". The bill also contained a request that the intelligence community provide data
on the assets and income of the Russian leader.
What a breathtaking example of stupidity. They can't even get reliable data on their own
current president's income, and a significant element of the American electorate will never
be satisfied with the proof provided that the previous president was not born in Kenya.
America's obsession with Putin is getting creepy, in a distinctly disturbing,
mentally-unstable way. Especially considering you can tell them anything, so long as you say
their own intelligence services have a 'high confidence' that it is true, and they will
believe it – witches flying around the rotunda on brooms, no problem. How did it turn
out that such a nation of crackpots is also the custodian of a huge nuclear arsenal?
I imagine both Putin and Russia will refrain from reacting, except to chuckle with
amusement at such foolishness. But it will be interesting to see what they come up with;
remember, Gennady Timchenko threatened to sue The Economist for saying in print that Putin
was a ghost owner of Gunvor Energy, which Timchenko in fact co-owned with Swedish billionaire
Torbjörn Törnqvist, and The Economist backed down and issued an apology. Presumably
the American intelligence services will find eager sources in 'Kremlin insider' fatboy
blabbermouths Stas Belkovsky and Gleb Pavlovsky, both of whom can yarn on all day long about
the oozing evil of Putin and the unimaginable billions he has salted away. But they will have
no proof whatsoever, as except for a few luxurious perks like fancy wristwatches and a mohair
workout suit, Putin lives what is to all appearances a somewhat austere and totally
non-indulgent lifestyle, and gives no sign of being stinking rich. The 'palaces' attributed
to him all belong to the state, although he has the use of them owing to his office as
president. So what will Russia do if the US intelligence services report some fantastic sum,
but decline to offer any proof which might be quickly refuted? Sue them for defamation?
Let's get it on the record – never before has such a self-important busybody
republic existed, so full of itself and absorbed with its omnipotent airs. The less a truly
democratic global presence and trusted world citizen it becomes, the louder it screeches
about its own greatness and exceptionalism. Wow. Embarrassing. And I didn't think that was
still possible. Shows how much I know.
Russia should respond tit for tat: for everything the Americans publish (be it true or lies),
the Russian press should publish major dirt on American politicians and lawmakers.
American culture is devoid of shame or decency – what 'dirt' could you possibly throw
at them? Being caught with a dead girl is survivable, as Edward Kennedy demonstrated, and
being caught with a live boy is now a bonus. Joe Biden stole a speech from Neil Kinnock and
can't appear in public without groping somebody, and he's frequently floated as a
presidential candidate.
About the only thing that does rouse indignation anymore is having met a Russian once, and
even that's excusable as long as you profess to hate them like the plague now. Beyond posting
old yearbook photos of American politicians in blackface I don't know what you could possibly
hope to shame these creatures with.
Ahhh..yes..nothing like the handiwork of the shitstains,morons ,leprechauns, cnts and
cckskkers in the USA State Department over the last few decades that COUL:D have fostered
fundamental sanity in international relations but did not do so:
"A nuclear catastrophe in the making?
No one should underestimate the danger of what would be the first-ever war between
nuclear-armed states. Since the 2001-2002 war crisis, which saw a million Indian troops
deployed on the Pakistan border for nine months, both countries have developed hair-trigger
strategies, with a dynamic impelling rapid escalation. In response to India's Cold Start
strategy, which calls for the rapid mobilization of Indian forces for a multi-front invasion
of Pakistan, Islamabad has deployed tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons. India has, in
return, signaled that any use by Pakistan of tactical nuclear weapons will break the
"strategic threshold," freeing India from its "no first use" nuclear-weapon pledge, and be
met with strategic nuclear retaliation.
All this would play out in a relatively small, densely populated area. The center of
Lahore, Pakistan's second largest city with a population in excess of 11 million, lies little
more than 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from the Indian border. The distance from New Delhi to
Islamabad is significantly less than that between Berlin and Paris or New York and Detroit
and would be travelled by a nuclear-armed missile in a matter of minutes.
A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would not only kill tens of millions in
South Asia. A 2008 simulation conducted by scientists who in the 1980s alerted the world to
the threat of "nuclear winter" determined that the detonation of a hundred Hiroshima-scale
nuclear weapons in an Indo-Pakistani war would, due to the destruction of large cities,
inject so much smoke and ash into the upper atmosphere as to trigger a global agricultural
collapse. This, they predicted, would lead to a billion deaths in the months that followed
South Asia's "limited" nuclear war."
Syria's Permanent Representative at the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari, said that Western states,
particularly the United States, are working to prolong the crisis in Syria by investing in
terrorism, stressing that a military resolution in Idleb is inevitable if the political efforts
to implement the Sochi agreement fail.
In an interview given to Al-Mayadeen TV channel on Friday, al-Jaafari said that US President
Donald Trump has said more than once that his country's forces which occupy parts of Syrian
territory will withdraw from them, but this hasn't happened yet because his administration
wants to continue investing in terrorism in Syria and Iraq in order to carry out its agenda in
the region in collusion with Turkey and militias in the Syrian al-Jazeera area.
He said that the so-called international coalition which Washington created without Security
Council approval continues to support Daesh (ISIS), as it has transported leaders and members
of the terrorist organization more than once, with the latest chapter in the US cooperation
with Daesh involved a deal with the terrorists by which Washington received tens of tons of
gold in exchange for allowing Daesh leaders and members to leave areas in Deir Ezzor, with US
army helicopters transporting the gold under cover of night.
Al-Jaafari said that terrorism is used as a tool by its sponsors and financers, and from
time to time they recycle it to utilize it in one area or another, as proven by the incident
when Algerian authorities arrested hundreds of terrorists on its borders with Nigeria, and
after interrogating the terrorists it was revealed that they had come from Aleppo's
countryside, wondering who transported these terrorists from Syria to the Algerian-Nigerian
borders.
Syria's Representative said that since the beginning of the crisis, the Turkish regime has
been facilitating the transit of terrorists through its territories and into Syria, sponsoring
all sorts of international terrorists from all over the world.
He added that the Turkish regime has yet to implement its commitments as per the Sochi
agreement regarding the removal of terrorist organizations from the de-escalation zone in
Idleb, stressing that a military resolution in Idleb is inevitable if the political efforts to
implement the Sochi agreement fail.
Regarding the situation in al-Rukban camp, al-Jaafari said that two humanitarian corridors
have been opened at the outskirts of al-Tanf area on February 16th by Syria and Russia to
evacuate the displaced people being detained in the camp.
He said that Western states are not comfortable with any objective effort carried out by UN
envoys to Syria, and they always pester them at the Security Council when they make statements
by making preconditions and objections to pressure them to act outside their mission.
Al-Jaafari said that the current UN envoy Geir Pedersen understands his role correctly,
which is why Syria is ready to cooperate with him to help carry out his task of facilitating
intra-Syrian dialogue led and owned by Syria in order to move forward along the political
track.
He concluded by asserting that Syria always has and always will view the Palestinian cause
as the central cause, adding that all that is happening in the region seeks to liquidate this
cause, and that the Warsaw conference came to achieve this end, in addition to normalizing
relations between the Israeli enemy and certain Arab regimes.
My, Ukraine's American Minister of Health – Yuliana Suprun – is doing an
outstanding job. Ukraine was the locus of the world's biggest rise in measles cases in 2018,
from about 5,000 cases the year before to 35,120 the year just past. Moreover, 24,042 new
cases were reported in the first 2 months of this year.
But it was the Moskali who caused the epidemic by trolling social network sites with false
information as regards the efficacy of vaccination against measles.
Russian-backed attempts to sabotage Ukraine's economic, political, and health
developments have left the country fighting a measles outbreak and continuing a bloody,
undeclared war. The situation is emblematic of increasing tension between the ideologies of
President Vladimir Putin and countries of the pro-democratic, neoliberal west.
The measles outbreak -- affecting other countries including Serbia, Georgia, Greece,
and Italy -- has hit Ukraine hardest, with the country's 23 000 cases accounting for
more than half the European regional total. Kremlin-supported social media accounts spreading
discredited theories about the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine, combined with shortages
and underfunding, have been blamed for the outbreak. Research published on Aug 23 concluded
Russian trolls promoted discord and, masquerading as legitimate users, created a false
impression that arguments for and against vaccination were equipoised. The result has been an
erosion of public consensus on the value of vaccine programmes. The precipitous fall in
vaccination level began after 2008, when 95% of eligible children in Ukraine received their
second (and final) recommended dose of the MMR vaccine. By 2016, the rate was 31%, among the
lowest in the world.
Although now rising again, the latest 85% measles vaccination rate recorded by WHO
remains below that needed for herd immunity. Records in 2016 show poor vaccination rates for
other diseases: only 19% of children received the third recommended dose of the
diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine and 56% received the third recommended dose of oral
polio vaccine.
Hepatitis B vaccination was low, with coverage with hepatitis B birth-dose and
third-dose vaccines at 37% and 26%, respectively. WHO estimates between 3% and 5% of the
Ukraine's 45 million population has been infected with hepatitis C.
Ukraine bears the second largest HIV epidemic in eastern Europe and central
Asia.
The above was printed in the much respected "The
Lancet" . Who wrote it, I know not -- but I can hazard a guess.
It begins with the outrageous statement that "Russia" is resposible for the epidemic,
specifically, the"ideology" of the Russian president is the cause of the epidemic.
No proof given: no data: sweet fuck all. Just an assertion that "Pyutin" is
responsible.
You know, it's a shame Ukrainians are so gullible, and believe Russia's lies without checking
any other sources of information – don't they know how to use The Microsoft and The
Google? Not to mention gullible Americans, who also fell for it.
Oh, and the Australians, who were so gobsmacked by Russia's campaign to discredit
vaccinations that being a 'vaccine skeptic' is now punishable by up to 10 years in
prison.
Mind you, the 'anti-vaxxers' in those instances are reportedly Australian nurses and
midwives – but I daresay they. too, were taken in by clever Russian trolls posing as
legitimate users on social media.
Some of you will probably be asking "At what point, for the love of Christ, are people
expected to take responsibility for their own decisions, instead of hiding behind the
feebleminded excuse that they were tricked by the Russians?" For my part, I am convinced that
Russia is going to take over the world, because Russian trolls are so much smarter than the
public in any country you care to name. With a few cat pictures and a sprinkling of Black
Lives Matter stories, many of them generated after the American election was actually over,
the Russians tricked the American electoral college into making Donald Trump president of the
United States instead of Mrs. Clinton, but in such a way that more of the public actually
voted for Clinton than for Trump. And the electoral college is supposed to be made up of
America's leaders. Brilliant, you must admit.
Watch out for the Kremlin campaign against photography – because having your picture
taken steals your soul – due to open in The Ukraine this summer. Then there will not
even be a photographic record of all the Ukrainians who died from measles, conniption fits,
brain fever and the fantods, as the Kremlin wipes them out with their own gullibility.
Survival of the fittest, baby.
Red Alert!! Nobody will ever know the true winner (cough * Petro Poroshenko * cough) of the
Ukrainian elections in 2019, because the Russians are already preparing fake exit-poll
results, so that not even those who vote will be able to remember who they voted for. The
situation probably cannot be stabilized until the reigning government reviews the results and
supplies the ballots it says were properly counted. Better just play it safe, and leave
Poroshenko as president forever.
Please note, the fake exit-poll meddling is in addition to other Russian meddling efforts
which will take place at polling stations during the vote. It is literally not possible to
hold an actual democratic election any more, Putin has ruined everything. Democracy is dead.
Voting as a means of selecting a national leader is over.
This is so confusing -- Porko has single digit support last I heard so it would be expected
that exit polls would show a similar result. But, if the exit polls are consistent with
Porko's opinion polls then it must be a sign of Russian meddling! Geez, I would have thought
it would be the other way around -- an inconsistently high exit poll result would only be
consistent with pro-Porko rating swindle. Shows how little I know about these matters.
Exit polling is tremendously important, and in previous colour revolutions the west always
tried to get control of exit polling; often it was invited to do so by the target country,
since it was felt by the government that the imprimatur of western observers would help
reassure nervous westerners that the elections were fair and democratic. They apparently did
not realize that all the west needs to tip over your victory is exit-poll results which are
dramatically different from the way the vote was counted -- for example, Yanukovych wins with
39% of the vote, but the exit polls, in which those just leaving the polling station are
asked who they voted for, say his opponent got way more votes than he did. Bingo -- the
election is a big fraud -- campers, set up your tents on the Maidan, we're not going anywhere
until this grievous wrong has been redressed. Thanks, Berezovsky, for the tents and the hot
soup. But nobody really knows what the actual exit-poll results were, so the western
observers can basically say anything they want, and the western press will immediately run
with it.
Porky knows this very well, so he is trying to de-legitimize the vote in advance, knowing
he doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning himself. If Zelenskiy wins, he'll be
a Russian pawn put in place by Putin, and consequently will have to make the most belligerent
statements against Russia and swear that he sleeps with a life-size blow-up doll of Bandera
so as not to be thought 'soft' on the Kremlin.
The west was not invited to do exit polls in Russia, but in each of Putin's wins as well
as that of Medvedev, the vote was consistent with pre-election polling in which decided
voters announced who they intended to vote for. Nonetheless, there is always a great boil of
noise afterward about ballot-stuffing and carousel voting, even by those who like to use the
term but don't know what it means.
I have often wondered which news agency Matt works for.
If he really did not know what carousel voting was, he should have contacted Yulia
Latynina, she 'd have told him; she's the carousel voting specialist: she can spot voters
being bused in at a 1,000 paces. During elections, she drives around Moscow sussing them out,
trailing them, writing reports on her findings in Novaya Gazeta or on the Ekho Moskvy site or
ranting on about them in her talk show there.
I wonder what she's doing now? I heard she had emigrated. She still sends in copy for the
aforementioned news media, though.
I remember with affection the old Anatoly Karlin, who could not endure western hypocrisy
without pointing it out with highly-enjoyable sarcasm. In the instance I'm thinking of, it
was the 'huge protest' (organizers claimed 120,000, police said around 29,000, objective
analysis put it at about 80,000) in Sakharov St. where the 'fiery' Alexey Navalny said he saw
'enough people to take the Kremlin'. The answering roar must have terribly tempted him to try
it, but he didn't. Anyway, there was a photo of that protest, taken from overhead – I
can't find it now – which showed a large block of city buses drawn up side-to-side;
transport for the protesters. They were 'bused in'. When you're going to attend a
western-backed demonstration, of course, you're just 'proceeding in an
environmentally-conscious manner to a responsible protest action'. When you are part of a
factory crew and the company lays on a bus to take everyone to the polls, you're 'bused in
for carousel voting', and the bus takes the entire contingent to multiple polling places
where they vote again and again. Or so Latynina says, although all she ever shows to back up
her assertions is a photo of a bus with people on it. But the western press is perfectly
happy to accept her word that they are seeing another sad example of the perversion of
democracy in Russia.
So there you have it, as usual – western exceptionalism goes global. When we do it
('we' being the children of the Limousine Liberals), we're just using a socially-responsible
method of getting to a place where we can make our voices heard and hold the authorities
accountable. When they do it, they're cheating democracy and imposing an oligarchical system
on us.
I have seen lots of photos of people on buses, and am perfectly happy to accept that they
all came from the same workplace – that makes perfect sense to me, and I see nothing
ominous in it. I have never seen any evidence that such people vote multiple times as a
group, and must therefore conclude that 'carousel voting' is a buzzword dreamed up by western
analysts in concert with sympathetic Russian liberal enablers.
The son of Dawn Sturges, who died in 2018 as a result of poisoning in Amesbury, has
written to Russian President Vladimir Putin an open letter in which he asks him to help in
the investigation.
"I'm desperate. Putin is the only person that can make it so that justice will prevail.
I need his help to pay tribute to my mum. I'm counting on it", Evan Hope told the British
tabloid "The Mirror". The publication presents the full text of the message:
"It's been almost a year since my mother, Dawn, was killed by Novichok in Salisbury,
and my pain, like the pain of my family members, does not pass. The British police believe
that at least two Russian citizens are responsible for her death, but it seems that they are
under the protection of your state. I'm asking you as a person, to allow our officers to
question these people about the murder of my mother. She at least deserves
somejustice."
Mr. Hope told the publication that the UK government has not provided any support for
his family. "I feel betrayed by the government", he said. He stated that it endorsed the
support of Sergei and Yulia Sripal, who was poisoned by the same substance. "But my family
has had no such support, and we are the ones who have lost our mother. She was an innocent
victim, but we have never heard from Theresa May nor the government -- no phone call, no
letter, nor anything else", he said.
Unsubstanttiated allegations taken as gospel. Wonder who put Evan up to writing to
"Pyutin"?
Zakharova is already girding her loins for the 1st anniversary (tomorrow) of the diabolical nerve agent
attack by Pyutin's agents that took place in Salisbury on March 4, 2018.
"Caroline's friend told "The Sun" that Dawn had switched from being a popular pupil at Durrington school
in Wiltshire to a homeless alcoholic due to post-natal depression when her son Aidan was born.
Her personality changed. She became like a zombie."
It's clearly very wrong for members of the British establishment to exploit members of Dawn Sturges's family
in this way. What they should get help in pressing for is a proper non-politicised investigation into what
exactly happened to her.
The relative clause "
who died in 2018 as a result of poisoning in Amesbury
" should not have had
commas separating it from the main clause "
The son of Dawn Sturges has written to Russian President
Vladimir Putin an open letter in which he asks him to help in the investigation
", in that it is a
defining relative clause whose antecedent is "Dawn Sturges" and not the subject of the main clause, "Ewan
Hope".
As a result of mistakenly placing commas before and after the relative clause in question, that clause is
a non-defining relative clause, adding, in parentheses as it were, additional information about the subject
of the main clause.
Ewan Hope is alive: his mother, who was Dawn Sturges, is the woman who died of unnatural causes in
Amesbury last year. (Two relative clauses in the preceding sentence, each having "who" as its relative
pronoun, the first relative clause being non-defining and having "mother" as its antecedent, the second
being defining, having "woman" as its antecedent.)
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
Perhaps I have lived too long here: all relative clauses, be they defining or non-defining, are separated
by commas in Russian.
It is ironic that almost every week I have to point out to Russians the very different English
punctiation rules as regards relative clauses, an English grammar topic that Russians often find hard to
grasp.
Wrong usage of commas in contracts drawn up in English can sometimes have unforeseen and very costly
results.
I often ask Russians what information is given about the subject (the passengers) in the following two
sentences, which are, apart from their punctuation, identical:
The passengers who could speak Russian had few problems at immigration control.
The passengers, who could speak Russian, had few problems at immigration control.
In each instance, how many passengers had few problems?
Are your impressive grammatical skills typical of English folks of your generation? Us Americans (see
what I did?) can hardly put two words together without screwing up a grammatical rule.
In London staged a Shenderovich play "To See
Salisbury". The heroes are two gay men who want to save the world
The theatrical production company StageRC has announced the premiere of a play by the writer Viktor
Shenderovich "To see Salisbury", which will be held in late March in London.
The comedy is built on the fact that Boshirov and Petrov are really two gays who went to England to see the
cathedral. At the end of the play, an apocalypse takes place.
Shenderovich himself also spoke about his new work. "The play 'To See Salisbury' began with my bold assumption
that these people (Petrov and Boshirov) were telling the truth. This is a couple who love each other, and, keeping
it secret from their families, just went off to London. One of them, in addition to loving his partner, also loves
Gothic architecture. And I have assumed that this is true. And this assumption seemed to me so touching", said the
writer.
The company website informs that the premiere performances in Russian and English will be held on March 30 and
31.
The play, balancing between the Theatre of the Absurd and farce, ends on the verge of apocalypse -- the
insane Dementia Petrovna being ready to start a nuclear war.
The drunk feller she defended shakes her hand in gratitude. Notice that two other guys come from around the
corner and take the bully's place in the queue.
Darren Till who posted that video is a mixed martial arts practitioner. Wonder if he'll offer the woman a
place in his training camp?
A few of his followers have fallen in love with her.
Can't find the link but Bill Maher said an Indo-Pakistani war would be "entertaining" or
"amusing" or something like that. That guy has become untethered from his brain.
God, that Trish Regan is a moron on steroids. But, it was very heartening to see Russia
stepping up with aid. Certainly, the physical aid is important to Venezuela but, more
important, is the knowledge that they are not facing the US alone – cautiously
optimistic that Venezuela can survive the assault.
Soooo many bullshit moments, my head is reeling. "The ones who are the aggressors here are
the RUSSIANS, the United States supports a peaceful transition of power". Yes, to the leader
it picked for the country, in a process about as far from democracy as an egg is from an
eggplant. "Russia might not have the same good sweet deals, there would be a more competitive
landscape, and they don't like that". Trish, baby – your National Security Advisor is
on record as publicly stating it would make a big difference to the US economy if the USA
could invest in and produce Venezuela's oil. It already has complete control of the refining
end – if it were also investing in it and producing it what would be left for the
Venezuelans?
It is important to Americans that they always are doing the right thing, the just thing,
the altruistic thing, and that nothing so smutty as American profit and financial gain come
into it. It is for this reason they are fed such self-serving pablum daily by their news
media.
But why should someone as wealthy and well known as Robert Kraft visit a massage parlor in a
strip mall? He could have top whores from around the world flown in to his penthouse . For
god's sake, he could have gone to that private Caribbean Island where the insiders go for
illicit sex with whomever/whatever they could imagine. Something is weirder than average
here.
Log books show Bill Clinton just loved Island hospitality as evidenced by his numerous
visits. Odd, how utterly quiet the MSM is about this – y'ld think that industrial scale
rape of young girls would be newsworthy in the MSM. No, just the Covington Kid get them
going. Eyes Wide Shut at work here.
I think it's the thrill of the chase that appeals, plus knowing that you did something
illegal (either secretly or in full view) and got away with it. Having whores flown to your
place wouldn't have the same appeal.
Well, I suppose being a Peeping Tom could his next adventure. Nevertheless, it still makes
little sense from a psychological aspect. Some say he was somehow set up as a lot of NFL
owners are tired of his team winning the Superbowl every other year and wanted to take him
down a notch or two.
I suspect that most super rich, if not perverts from a young age, end up being perverted
– the power of money and a highly developed market offering perversion is just too much
to resist for most humans. That is a major reason why capitalism or free markets or whatever
you want to call a system that encourages accumulation of vast amounts of wealth is (drum
roll) perverted.
Again, the only defense needed by a cop in killing a suspect was "I thought my life was in
danger" regardless if that were actually the case. In the particular instance, I do think the
cops may have thought such but they were apparently trigger happy and reacted to a "flash of
light" or glint off some something metallic. They thought it was a muzzle blast. Really? They
offered confusing statements as well – the suspect advanced on them in a shooting
stance but refused to show his hands. What kind of shooting stance would that be?
I don't think it was cold blooded murder in this case – just manslaughter. They
ought to be charged accordingly and kicked off the force. But no, everything is OK, nothing
to see. Besides, it would have a chilling effect on police everywhere if they were fearful of
being charged every time they killed someone. I mean, like, who would want to be a cop?
I note that in this instance, though, the deceased was committing a crime; a series of them,
in fact. Nothing he needed to be killed for, certainly, but a case removed from all the other
black men who have been shot with their cell phone in their hand, or nothing at all, while
the cops who decided to 'question' them ( sometimes for nothing more than walking on the
sidewalk in a mostly-white neighbourhood) had no apparent reason to be bothering them. Police
intervention was certainly called for here, although it is hard to believe it could not have
been carried out without any real violence at all. The list of people who actually decided to
go for their gun when ordered to put their hands up by police who already have their weapons
out must be a short one.
Police in America seem uniformly convinced that black men they detain will try to kill
them. I wonder why? Have a lot of police officers been shot to death by black men? I bet the
list of black men killed by police is a lot longer.
To partially address the question of how many police are killed by felonious acts (shot, run
over, etc.) versus how many they have killed by shooting (not counting fatalities from
crashes during police chases), its roughly 65 to 1,000+. or better than a 15 to 1 kill ratio.
31% of the civilian victims were black.
In Britain and Japan, there were a few civilians killed by police last year. China had 4
(US rate was 1,500 times higher per capita). Could not find info on Russia. Philippines was
way higher than the US rate apparently due to the drug war and terrorists may be included in
that data as well.
Can't find the link but Bill Maher said an Indo-Pakistani war would be "entertaining" or
"amusing" or something like that. That guy has become untethered from his brain.
"... I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia. (My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.) ..."
"... IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU. ..."
"... 'Obama Urges Trump to Maintain Pointless, Hyper-Aggresive Encirclement of Russia Strategy, Acknowledge Nuclear Apocalypse "Inevitable"' ..."
"... In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office. ..."
"... The good people of the US are awaiting DHS' final report on Russia's attempts to hack our elections. We deserve as much. ..."
"... If there's any basis to the allegations it's about time someone provided it. Up till now it's been unfounded assertions. Highly suspect at that. ..."
"... My guess is the whole Russian boogeyman was a ploy to attract those "moderate Republicans" who liked Romney. ..."
"... "My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow exactly our approach." ..."
"... Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international norms ..."
"... Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things like that without vomiting? ..."
I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia.
(My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another
place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.)
IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted
to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might
have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his
own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU.
Which I am sure he will do once everyone recognizes that that is the appropriate thing to do.
But as we well know everyone else will have to do the heavy lifting of figuring that out before
he will even acknowledge the possibility.
In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter
and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he
goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go
the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office.
In this case, Obama is probably too vain and Michelle being the saner of the two might rein
him in? Best of any world would, as you say, STFU. (As the Ex Prez. Obamamometer, that is probably
not in the cards.)
Maybe he will end up like Geo Bush, sitting in the bathtub drooling while he paints childish
self-portraits
Or maybe he will end up like OJ, where he tries to go hang out with all his cool friends and they
tell him to get lost
Ppl still mention him as a master orator, etc. Lots of post presidency speaking engagements
I suppose. I'd prefer him not to but then again if he makes enough annually from it to beat the
Clintons we might get the satisfaction of annoying them
"My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach,
finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that
the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values
and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow
exactly our approach." What Obama is saying is he wants Russia to join America in bombing
hospitals, schools, children, doctors, public facilities like water treatment plants, bridges,
weddings, homes, and civilians to list just few – while arming and supporting terrorists for regime
change. And if anyone points this out, Russia like the US is supposed to say "I know you are but
what am I?"
Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so
enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international
norms
Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things
like that without vomiting?
Is this the same Russia that just hacked our election and subverted our fine democracy? Why,
President Obama, I believe it behooves you to stand up to Russia yourself. Show President-Elect
Trump how it is done sir!
The attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the military supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process.
The evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate with Mueller appointment very rapidly.
Notable quotes:
"... In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife' for these 'regime changes'. ..."
"... Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly. ..."
"... In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists. ..."
"... The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'. ..."
"... The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election – essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'. ..."
"... Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia. ..."
"... Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. ..."
"... Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future. ..."
"... If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables'). ..."
"... He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him. ..."
"... It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984. ..."
"... What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally–you know, a kosher nostra! ..."
"... I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else. ..."
"... Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand! ..."
"... What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia. ..."
"... Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason. ..."
A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from
taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This 'palace coup'
is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election.
The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to
the current President, from sectors of the intelligence community, billionaire financiers out to
the more marginal 'leftist' shills of the Democratic Party.
The build-up for the coup is gaining momentum, threatening to eliminate normal constitutional
and democratic constraints. This essay describes the brazen, overt coup and the public operatives,
mostly members of the outgoing Obama regime.
The second section describes the Trump's cabinet appointments and the political measures that
the President-Elect has adopted to counter the coup. We conclude with an evaluation of the potential
political consequences of the attempted coup and Trump's moves to defend his electoral victory and
legitimacy.
The Coup as 'Process'
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in
Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife'
for these 'regime changes'.
Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups, in which the elected Presidents were ousted
through a series of political interventions orchestrated by economic elites and their political allies
in Congress and the Judiciary.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were deeply involved in these operations as part
of their established foreign policy of 'regime change'. Indeed, the 'success' of the Latin American
coups has encouraged sectors of the US elite to attempt to prevent President-elect Trump from taking
office in January.
While similarities abound, the on-going coup against Trump in the United States occurs within
a very different power configuration of proponents and antagonists.
Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to
take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Coup-makers depend on the 'Big Lie' as their point of departure – accusing President-Elect Trump
of
being a Kremlin stooge, attributing his electoral victory to Russian intervention against his
Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton and
blatant voter fraud in which the Republican Party
prevented minority voters from casting their ballot for Secretary Clinton.
The first operatives to emerge in the early stages of the coup included the marginal-left Green
Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who won less than 1% of the vote, as well as the mass
media.
In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green
Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George
Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money
financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media.
The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American
Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'.
Like the Billionaire Soros-funded 'Color Revolutions', from Ukraine, to Georgia and Yugoslavia,
the 'Rainbow Revolt' against Trump, featured grass-roots NGO activists and 'serious leftists', like
Jill Stein.
The more polished political operatives from the upscale media used their editorial pages to question
Trump's illegitimacy. This established the ground work for even higher level political intervention:
The current US Administration, including President Obama, members of the US Congress from both parties,
and current and former heads of the CIA jumped into the fray. As the vote recount ploy flopped, they
all decided that 'Vladimir Putin swung the US election!' It wasn't just lunatic neo-conservative
warmongers who sought to oust Trump and impose Hillary Clinton on the American people, liberals and
social democrats were screaming 'Russian Plot!' They demanded a formal Congressional investigation
of the 'Russian cyber hacking' of Hillary's personal e-mails (where she plotted to cheat her rival
'Bernie Sanders' in the primaries). They demanded even tighter economic sanctions against Russia
and increased military provocations. The outgoing Democratic Senator and Minority Leader 'Harry'
Reid wildly accused the FBI of acting as 'Russian agents' and hinted at a purge.
ORDER IT NOW
The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called
on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election
– essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused
to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'.
President Obama solemnly declared the Trump-Putin conspiracy was a grave threat to American democracy
and Western security and freedom. He darkly promised to retaliate against Russia, " at a time and
place of our choosing".
Obama also pledged to send more US troops to the Middle East and increase arms shipments to the
jihadi terrorists in Syria, as well as the Gulf State and Saudi 'allies'. Coincidentally, the Syrian
Government and their Russian allies were poised to drive the US-backed terrorists out of Aleppo –
and defeat Obama's campaign of 'regime change' in Syria.
Trump Strikes Back: The Wall Street-Military Alliance
Meanwhile, President-Elect Donald Trump did not crumple under the Clintonite-coup in progress.
He prepared a diverse counter-attack to defend his election, relying on elite allies and mass supporters.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He appointed three
retired generals to key Defense and Security positions – indicating a power struggle between the
highly politicized CIA and the military. Active and retired members of the US Armed Forces have been
key Trump supporters. He announced that he would bring his own security teams and integrate them
with the Presidential Secret Service during his administration.
Although Clinton-Obama had the major mass media and a sector of the financial elite who supported
the coup, Trump countered by appointing several key Wall Street and corporate billionaires into his
cabinet who had their own allied business associations.
One propaganda line for the coup, which relied on certain Zionist organizations and leaders (ADL,
George Soros et al), was the bizarre claim that Trump and his supporters were 'anti-Semites'. This
was were countered by Trump's appointment of powerful Wall Street Zionists like Steven Mnuchin as
Treasury Secretary and Gary Cohn (both of Goldman Sachs) to head the National Economic Council. Faced
with the Obama-CIA plot to paint Trump as a Russian agent for Vladimir Putin, the President-Elect
named security hardliners including past and present military leaders and FBI officials, to key security
and intelligence positions.
The Coup: Can it succeed?
In early December, President Obama issued an order for the CIA to 'complete its investigation'
on the Russian plot and manipulation of the US Presidential election in six weeks – right up to the
very day of Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017! A concoction of pre-cooked 'findings' is already
oozing out of secret clandestine CIA archives with the President's approval. Obama's last-ditch effort
will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well
and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with
Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque
policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. Will Trump succumb? The legitimacy of his election
and his freedom to make policy will depend on overcoming the Clinton-Obama-neo-con-leftist coup with
his own bloc of US military and the powerful Wall Street allies, as well as his mass support among
the 'angry' American electorate. Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires
his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic
agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed
to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger
of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future.
If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack
support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies,
but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables').
He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among
the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to
the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire',
not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him.
A very insightful analysis. The golpistas will not be able to prevent Trump from taking power.
But will they make the country ungovernable to the extent of bringing down not just Trump but the
whole system?
If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists
eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a
failure.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the
top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance
of the Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids?
Replies:
@Skeptikal I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first=level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department). ,
@animalogic Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president.
An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words -- & not one shred
of supporting evidence.... ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity --
If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
Excellent analysis! Mr. Petras, you delved right into the crux of the matter of the balance of forces
in the U.S.A. at this very unusual political moment. I have only a very minor correction to make, and
it is only a language-related one: you don't really want to say that Trump's "illegitimacy" is being
questioned, but rather his legitimacy, right?
Another thing, but this time of a perhaps idiosyncratic nature: I am a teeny-weeny bit more optimistic
than you about the events to come in your country. (Too bad I cannot say this about my own poor country
Brazil, which is going faster and faster down the drain.)
@John Gruskos If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises
by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and
the Trump campaign was a failure.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the
term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since
before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans
are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the
books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with
this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to
assent by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was
the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?]
of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft .such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers .such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still–that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this I think we are all in very great danger today–now– AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That
could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is
real and substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]–a felony under existing laws.
–Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future–or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
–FOR TRUMP–
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of
"man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft ....such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers....such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still--that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this......I think we are all in very great danger today--now-- AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could
be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and
substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]--a felony under existing laws.
--Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future--or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
--FOR TRUMP--
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!
It needs to be published as a feature story.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
• Replies:
@El Dato Hmmm.... If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all
the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some
balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump–not Obama–that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump–out of fear and necessity–run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?–Or
will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say.
Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?–Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and
qualifications, though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead foreever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") - Caligula ,
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to
confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set
about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive
amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that
Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not
until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game. , @map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained.
How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors. ,
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office.
Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile... The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights'
at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS
directly.
The real issue at stake is that Presidential control of the system is non existent, and although
Trump understands this and has intimated he is going to deal with it, it is clear his hands will now
be tied by all the traitors that run the US.
You need a Nuremburg type show trial to deal with all the (((usual suspects))) that have usurped
the constitution. (((They))) arrived with the Pilgrim Fathers and established the slave trade buying
slaves from their age old Muslim accomplices, and selling them by auction to the goyim.
(((They))) established absolute influence by having the Fed issue your currency in 1913 and forcing
the US in to three wars: WWI, WWII and Vietnam from which (((they))) made enormous profits.
You have to decide whether you want these (((professional parasitical traitors))) in your country
or not. It is probably too late to just ask them to leave, thus you are faced with the ultimate reality:
are you willing to fight a civil war to free your nation from (((their))) oppression of you?
This is the elephant in the room that none of you will address. All the rest of this subject matter
is just window dressing. Do you wish to remain economic slaves to (((these people))) or do you want
to be free [like the Syrians] and live without (((these traitor's))) usurious, inflationary and dishonest
policies based upon hate of Christ and Christianity?
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo
loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
• Replies:
@annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to
file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are
not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups
The US is not at the stage of these countries yet. To compare them to us, politically, is moronic.
In another several generations it likely will be different. But by then there won't be any "need" for
a coup.
If things keep up, the US "electorate" will be majority Third World. Then, these people will
just vote as a bloc for whomever promises them the most gibs me dat. That candidate will of course be
from the oligarchical elite. Trump is likely the last white man (or white man with even marginally white
interests at heart) to be President. Unless things drastically change, demographically.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
Hmmm . If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up
to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.
Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.
D.C. has passed their propaganda bill so I am not shocked.
Dec 27, 2016 "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" Signed Into Law! (NDAA 2017)
It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media.
While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law
which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press
For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth"
in George Orwell's book 1984.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department).
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president. An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words - & not one shred
of supporting evidence . ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity -- If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8
million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and
NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American
voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term;
this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before
Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed
up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books,
but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is
that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent
by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it
was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications,
though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead for ever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") – Caligula
@Karl
the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before
Dr Stein's recount circuses.
They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches - it wouldn't fly.
Nothing else they try will fly.
Correct me if I am wrong.... plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer"
to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s)
are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
@Max Havelaar
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to
revenge Aleppo loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZK2FZGKAd0
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites"
in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the
US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does
not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is
the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell – who has never been in combat and
never demonstrated any intellectual vigor – is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated
opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do? ,
@Max Havelaar
A serial killer, paid by US taxpayers. By universal human rights laws he would hang.
I agree with some, mostly the pro-Constitutionalist and moral spirit of the essay, but differ as
to when the Coup D'etat is going to – or has already taken place .
The coup D'etat that destroyed our American Republic, and its last Constitutional President, John
F. Kennedy, took place 53 years ago on November 22, 1963. The coup was consolidated at the cost of 2
million Vietnamese and 1 million Indonesians (1965). The assassinations of JF Kennedy's brother, Robert
Kennedy, R. Kennedy's ally, Martin L. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, John Lennon, and many others, followed.
Mr. Petras, the Coup D'etat has already happened.
Our mission must be the Restore our American Republic! This is The Only Road for us. There
are no shortcuts. The choice we were given (for Hollywood President), in 2016, between a psychotic Mass
Murderer, and a mid level Mafioso Casino Owner displayed the lack of respect the Oligarchs have for
the American Sheeple. Until we rise, we will never regain our self-respect, our Honor.
I enclose a copy of our Flier, our Declaration, For The Restoration of the Republic below,
for your perusal. We (of the Anarchist Collective), have distributed it as best we can.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute
new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence , written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy
destroyed the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963, when they assassinated the last democratically
elected president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments
have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the
Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy,
left 2 million dead in a wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965 , the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala.
In the 1970s , the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class,
by encouraging the export of industry and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence
wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long
decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working citizens, as well
as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without
a productive foundation, the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion . This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations. Concurrently, the top 1% of the
nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate has
been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings
cannot stay even with the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures,
and is or has recently conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700
military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much on military weapons of terror as the rest of the
nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget is spent on the military
and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the
Founders of the United States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous
administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens
of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely tortured. The Patriot Act
and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican factions
of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled , and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population;
the people are intimidated and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is
bought, utterly owned and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds,
Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government,
with its controlling International Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for
imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations, including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts
owed to that unconstitutional regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts,
will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with a clean slate.
As American Founder, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct
to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their
own right. The 2d. Generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of
the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead
and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government
which will ensure President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression,
freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom from want "which means economic understandings which
will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants " and freedom from fear "which means
a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people.
We will establish a government, hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians
of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic! Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
@annamaria
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do?
• Replies:
@Bill Jones
The corruption is endemic from top to bottom.
My previous residence was in Hamilton Township in Monroe County, PA . Population about 8,000.
The 3 Township Supervisors appointed themselves to township jobs- Road master, Zoning officer etc and
pay themselves twice the going rate with the occupant of the job under review abstaining while his two
palls vote him the money. Anybody challenging this is met with a shit-storm of propaganda and a mysterious
explosion in voter turn-out: guess who runs the local polls?
The chief of the local volunteer fire company has to sign off on the sprinkler systems before any occupation
certificate can be issued for a commercial building. Conveniently he runs a plumbing business. Guess
who gets the lion's share of plumbing jobs for new commercial buildings?
As they climb the greasy pole, it only gets worse.
Meanwhile the routine business of looting continues:
My local rag (an organ of the Murdoch crime family) had a little piece last year about the new 3 year
contract for the local county prison guards. I went back to the two previous two contracts and discovered
that by 2018 they will have had 33% increases over nine years. Between 2008 and 2013 (the latest years
I could find data for) median household income in the county decreased by 13%.
At some point some rogue politician will start fighting this battle.
If the US is split between Trump and Clinton supporters, then the staffs of the CIA and FBI are probably
split the same way.
The CIA and FBI leadership may take one position or another, but many CIA and FBI employees joined
these agencies in the first place to serve their country – not to assist Neo-con MENA Imperial projects,
and they know a lot more than the general public about what is really going on.
Employees can really mess things up if they have a different political orientation to their employers.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress
to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can
set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require
massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced
that Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action.
Not until. At least that is my hope, however naïve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game.
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel
has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power two words
in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and
Russia – hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP.
Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to
undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds
of hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt"
you seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff ..like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned ..Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
@Tomster
What does Russian intelligence know? Err ... perhaps something like that the US/UK have
sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous
brains are?). Who knows? - but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@Art
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to
Israel has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power
two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia
– hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Peace --- Art
"If we get past the inauguration ."
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) – doing his best to screw things up
before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at
war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act – providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes:
" I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on
Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It
is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if
Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis
to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
• Replies:
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb ,
@RobinG
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash."
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the
Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably
did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but
Joe Webb
• Replies:
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
@Realist
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented
any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers.
Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb the
zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last
month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their
supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on." Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies – the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes: "... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
Hi RobinG,
This is much ado about nothing – in a NYT's article today – they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 – they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart – not the DNC – it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really – how pissed off can they be?
Peace - Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
The feds have now released their reports, detailing how the dastardly Russians darkly influenced
the 2016 presidential election by releasing Democrats' emails, and giving the American public a peek
inside the Democrat machine.
Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This
shall not stand!
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.
Hi Art,
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG --- Agree 100% - some times I get things crossed up --- Peace Art
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' - does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see
https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp .
@annamaria
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and
war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists... The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb ...
the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted
last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut
their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on."
Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies - the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their
land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not
change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a
comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on
board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose
a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
• Replies:
@Tomster
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs - who have done virtually nothing for them.
,
@joe webb
good points. Yet, Palestinians ..."They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim
Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs.
Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything
for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there
were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much...even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty
will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like
Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway. Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as
Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their
jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other
race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' -- does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the
Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
"Was" is the operative word:
Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker
https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/ ,
@alexander
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow
today ....combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the
American people over the last sixteen years...
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment...
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor...who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine...that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss ... who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to
shut Seth's mouth, permanently...."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party)......probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge
his bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back.....four times...
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks..... demanding faux accountability... culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp.......all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
But hey, that's life in the USA....Right, Seamus ?
"what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist
policies. "
The longer Israel persists in its "facts-on-the-ground" thievery, the less moral standing it has
for its white country. And it is a racist state also within its own "borders."
A pathetic excuse for a country. Without the USA it wouldn't exist.
A black mark on both countries' report cards.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by?
The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash."
Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians,
while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
"As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup
in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG - Agree 100% – some times I get things crossed up - Peace Art
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at
the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of
hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you
seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff.....like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned........Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
What does Russian intelligence know? Err perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes
to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains
are?). Who knows? – but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs – who have done virtually nothing for them.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today .combined
with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people
over the last sixteen years
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut
Seth's mouth, permanently ."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party) probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his
bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back ..four times
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks .. demanding faux accountability culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp .all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
good points. Yet, Palestinians "They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of
affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns
anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere
that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under
discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way
humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like
Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway.
Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just
as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for
their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any
other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain. Joe Webb
Trump has absolutely no support in the media. With the Fox News and Fox Business, first string, talking
heads on vacation (minimal support) the second and third string are insanely trying to push the Russian
hacking bullshit. Trump better realize that the only support he has are the people that voted for him.
January 2017 will be a bad month for this country and the rest of 2017 much worse.
Sorry Joe, the "whites" did not give the Jews the atomic bomb. In truth, the Jews were critically
important in developing the scientific ideas and technology critical to making the first atomic bomb.
I can recognize Jewish malfeasance where it exists, but to ignore their intellectual contributions
to Western Civilization is sheer blindness.
"... The Puppet show display by Pence & Pompeo to rap Europeans over the knuckles for everything from not exiting the Iran Nuclear deal to not stopping the Nordstream pupeline & trying to contain Hiawei is blowing up in the Trump Administration's faces as these so called Allies or Vassals of the American Empire are refusing to tow the line? ..."
"... A failure for US oligarchy foreign policy is a win for the US and the rest of the world. ..."
The "Exceptional Nation" has now become the "Detestable Nation"!
The Puppet show display
by Pence & Pompeo to rap Europeans over the knuckles for everything from not exiting the
Iran Nuclear deal to not stopping the Nordstream pupeline & trying to contain Hiawei is
blowing up in the Trump Administration's faces as these so called Allies or Vassals of the
American Empire are refusing to tow the line?
Trump has alienated & disgusted it's
Allies, so much that they can now see how deranged, unworkable & destructive is the
Americans Foreign Policy & its bankrupt disfunctional , delusional Policies?
It's
ridiculous, irrational & pathological hatred for Iran has shown that the US is the main
Terrorist Nation on Earth not Iran who has never invaded anyone unlike the hypocritical US
Empire!
Meanwhile in Sochi, the real Diplomacy for peace is taking place with Russia, Iran,
Turkey & Syria having won the War against the US Empire & its cowardly, crony white
helmeted, ragtag bunch of proxy Army misfits made up of Israel, ISIS, SDF & the Kurds now
scurrying out of the Country like rats leaving a sinking ship!
And what was really laughable
about VP Pences speech in Warsaw was the defeating silence to the pauses in that speech
expecting people to clap on demand which never happened?
How embarrassing & really showed
the lack of respect & utter contempt that everyone has for America these days!
Sam F, February 20, 2019 at 12:32 pm
A failure for US oligarchy foreign policy is a win for the US and the rest of the world.
Let's hope we see the end of NATO as an excuse for US bully tyrants to "defend" us with greedy aggression.
Perhaps that will lead to strengthening the UN and isolating it from the economic power of US tyrants.
The UN would be far stronger if it taxed its members instead of begging for support, on pain of embargo by all members, and
monitored for corrupt influence.
It'll eventually dawn on the Yanks that it was NK's Nukes which brought AmeriKKKa to the
negotiating table; NOT US sanctions which brought NK to the table.
The ability to "Manhattan" Manhattan is too strong a negotiating position to swap for some
insulting threats and vague non-binding promises. The biggest problem for the US now will be
the impossibility of "proving" that it can be trusted.
Just more grist for the bullshit mill that is US foreign policy, i.e. the US government can
never be trusted at the negotiating table. Ridiculous to demand N. Korea dismantle their
nuclear reactor before sanctions are lifted. Fucking ridiculous demand, why in the hell would
N. Korea do that? They need it to produce energy, and to make plutonium to defend themselves
from total asshole country USA which, as everybody knows has been on a 25 year
sanctioning/bombing/country destroying rampage, leaving entire countries laid to waste. Rest
assured, that if N. Korea gets rid of all its nukes as USA wants -- before the drop of a hat
USA will totally, completely wipe N. Korea off the map with its own nukes and massive military
buildup surrounding N. Korea. As usual, the USA is the biggest problem for the entire world's
progress towards peace and prosperity :-(((
The Korean people have paid a very heavy price simply because of their unfortunate
geographic location immediately adjacent to the world's largest Communist state.
Never believe the CIA. Ever! January 26, 2019 CIA Was Aiding Jihadists Before Soviets
Invaded Afghanistan
According to recently declassified documents of the White House, CIA and State Department
as reported by Tim Weiner for The Washington Post, the CIA was aiding Afghan jihadists before
the Soviets invaded in 1979. The then American President Jimmy Carter signed the CIA
directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979, whereas the former Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan in December the same year.
Author Originally, there were four parties involved in the Afghan conflict which are
mainly responsible for the debacle in the Af-Pak region. Firstly, the former Soviet Union
which invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Secondly, Pakistan's security agencies which
nurtured the Afghan so-called "mujahideen" (freedom fighters) on the behest of
Washington.
what you say is true and correct. Fast forward to 2019. I never thought I would have to
believe those "authorities" or organizations to stop our own president. How far down the
rabbit hole we are. Keep it up . I should mention that consortium news was one of the sites
that was hit by a barrage of not true things. Do you remember KIllary Shillary, world war 3
on this website? That is when I stopped. No defence of Ms Clinton, but the attacks were
relentless. I do believe consortium news was hijacked by some really partisan people.
OlyaPola , February 22, 2019 at 3:12 am
"Before Soviets Invaded Afghanistan"
The Soviet forces were invited to Afghanistan by the Afghani Government – they never
invaded Afghanistan or Syria.
Cohen tried to describe his former boss to those gathered and watching in terms befitting
the unique political phenomenon that has captured American politics for almost four years. "Mr.
Trump is an enigma," said Cohen. "He is complicated, as am I. He has both good and bad, as do
we all. But the bad far outweighs the good, and since taking office, he has become the worst
version of himself."
Cohen had said to start that if they expected him to dish out bombshell evidence of
'Russian collusion', he had none to give, and just like that, he let all the air out of
the room. Disappointed Democrats grasping for air used their last breaths as to not let
today's hearing go to waste, tried to put some value on Cohen's testimony against the
President. Cohen used the usual scripted buzzwords Hillary had used then repeated by the
mainstream media since the Presidential debates. What followed is hearing turned
spectacle and circus.
The author writes: "What a job Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo did in Europe last week. If the objective was to worsen an already critical
trans–Atlantic rift and further isolate the U.S., they could not have returned to
Washington with a better result.
We might have to mark down this foray as among the clumsiest and most abject foreign policy
FAILURES since President Donald Trump took office two years ago. "
Depends on how you look at it.
If you see the US as the greatest threat to world peace, as most people in the world do, this
was a great SUCCESS. It has weakened the US Empire and moved us closer to a genuine
multipolar world.
Congrats to the two Mikes (Pompeo and Pence) and to you too John. Even such worthless
creatures and poor excuses for human beings can make a contribution.
Frederike , February 20, 2019 at 4:16 pm
I like your statement.
Could I just ask you whom you mean with "Congrats to the two Mikes (Pompeo and Pence) and to
you too John. "
Who is John? (Maybe I missed something?)
michael , February 20, 2019 at 7:50 pm
Agreed. Clumsily, transparently our foreign policy has become clear to the EU and the
world (it is mostly based on Israel's and Saudi Arabia's needs), not just since Trump, but
since Reagan. The veil has been lifted and all the previous BS and talk of the shining city
on the hill is now recognized as political gaslighting and self aggrandizing.
A slight correction to "the more than eight years of sanctions" on Syria: there are two
current National "Emergencies" sets of sanctions on Syria going back to 2004. If Trump had
lost, a no fly zone would likely have been implemented in the country, forcing the EU to join
another coalition against their self interest. It is much easier to say "NO!" to the
abominable Trump than to the slick Obama or the psychopathic but respected Hillary.
The goal of any attack would be containment of the Iranian threat.
(sigh) Yeah, I'm sure any day now Persians are going to be landing boats, D-Day style, on
Coney Island I'm certain my cat has nightmares about this, which is why he meows strangely at
night for no apparent reason.
I know, I know, I've been through the drill enough times now; "if we don't fight them over
there "
He was elected using Israel lobby money, so now he heed to pay them off.
Notable quotes:
"... B..b..but his campaign promises .. the upcoming election .. his noninterventionist principles .. MAGA! The cynics were right. Pro-Trump dreamers (including the pro-Russian/anti-US contingent at MoA) were wrong. Another misleading narrative bites the dust. Another populist outsider is revealed to be a faux populist bullshitter. ..."
"... For anyone paying attention, this kind of thinking (that Trump is a hero that is undermined by the Deep State) is not dumb, it is suspect. We saw the same rear-action BS from Obamabots who sought to excuse every betrayal of the faux populist hero. Faux populists like Trump, Obama, Sanders, Macron, Guaido, etc. are members of the establishment (which the Deep State works for) that pretend to be on the side of ordinary people. ..."
B..b..but his campaign promises .. the upcoming election .. his noninterventionist principles .. MAGA! The cynics were
right. Pro-Trump dreamers (including the pro-Russian/anti-US contingent at MoA) were wrong. Another misleading narrative bites
the dust. Another populist outsider is revealed to be a faux populist bullshitter.
For anyone paying attention, this kind of thinking (that Trump is a hero that is undermined by the Deep State) is
not dumb, it is suspect. We saw the same rear-action BS from Obamabots who sought to excuse every betrayal of the faux populist
hero. Faux populists like Trump, Obama, Sanders, Macron, Guaido, etc. are members of the establishment (which the Deep
State works for) that pretend to be on the side of ordinary people.
Charles Shoebridge , Feb 18, 2019 3:34:25 PM |
link
Syria Chemical Weapons Used... But Used by Whom?
Given the gravity of this claim and its consequences, as well as a recent history of
unevidenced assertions based on inaccurate intelligence being used to justify involvement in
foreign wars, how does the evidence in the latest assertion stack up?
This is from 2015. Not much changed... But relevant for Venezuela. So what will happen with Venesuellians if
the color revolution suceeed, is easy to predict using Ukrainian example
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine, what a mess. As though it was ever about the people. It was a grab for resources, 19-century style. But with 21st-century stakes. You can see what the West is after when you look at the US-Ukraine Business Council. ..."
"... Meanwhile last night & this morning, just to distract the people of what is going on in the West, Kiev launched a massive shelling over Donetsk and other places in Donbass using weapons forbbiden by the Minsk agreements, including Tor missiles, one of which fell at a railway station but didn't explode... it was defused by emergency workers but the proof is there if you care to see... it was thesecond biggest attack since the cease fire... ..."
"... This is the IMF hired guns now going after the very people who helped the Wall Street IMF shysters in the illegitimate coup and the set up of the illegitimate Kiev junta, a mix of half Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian mongrels. ..."
"... Furthermore, instead of bringing in the people who helped overthrow Janukovich into the government fold, the IMF is placing it's foreign collaborators in ministerial positions by making them instant Ukrainian citizens, while keeping the right wing, without whose help the coup would not have succeeded, out of government and slowly trying to eliminate them with their private foreign mercenary force. ..."
"... Madame "F*ck the EU Nuland from the US state department bordello, a devout Zionist, enticed these supposed Ukrainian NAZIs to help her in her dirty deeds, no doubt with promises of power sharing. ..."
"... She no doubt got her position not by intelligence but by connections. More than 6000 Ukrainians, human beings, innocent men women and children, have died in madame Nuland's engineered coup, putting her in league with her mentor, Henry Kissinger, aka the butcher of Vietnam. ..."
"... The Ukrainian sub-saharan African minimum wage is now being accompanied by Somali-style politics. ..."
"... The BBC are bravely sticking to their decision not to report this story. Congratulations are in order for such dedication. The graun protected its readership from this confusing information for 24 hours and then caved to the temptation to report news. Too bad. ..."
"... Can we officially congratulate Nuland for a crappy job and also for providing Putin with all the tools he needed to bring back Ukraine under his wing. False flag operations for American private interests must stop now. They are immoral, unethical and only bring death and destruction to otherwise stable societies. The UN should have a say. ..."
"... Neither Azov nor Right Sector want peace. On 3 July 4,000 men from these units protested in Kiev, calling for resumption of the war against the eastern provinces. They favour ethnic cleansing. ..."
"... The west would not have dialogue with Russia because it was not what Washington wanted. Washington wanted to push a wedge between Russia and EU at any cost even 6500 lives and unfortunately they succeeded ..."
"... The Right Sector does not exist, or if it does, it has been created by Moscow. The crisis in Greece is also the work of Russian agents. The ISIS is financed and trained by Putin. Ebola was cooked up in a laboratory in Saint Petersburg. Look for the Russian! ..."
"... this is what happens when you play with fire: you get burned. Using Neo-Nazi's to implement Nato expansionist policies was always a very bad idea. It's just a shame it is not people like Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland who will have to suffer the blowback consequences- it is the poor Ukrainian people. This is not that different to what has happened in Libya- where Islamic extremists were used as a proxy force to oust Gaddafi. ..."
"... the jihadists in Ukraine are the integral part of Iraqization of Ukraine. The lovers of Nuland's cookies are still in denial that Ukraine was destined by the US plutocrats to become a sacrificial lamb in a fight to preserve the US dollar hegemony. ..."
"... Why, don't you know? They infiltrated Ukraine, the CIA (and NATO and the EU somehow) created Maidan, their agents killed the protesters, then they overthrew a legitimate government and installed a neo-nazi one, proceeded to instigate a brutal oppression against Russian speakers, then started a war against the peaceful Eastern Ukrainians and their innocent friends in the Kremlin, etc etc. Ignorant question that, by now you should know the narrative! ..."
"... The BBC investigative reported earlier this year that a section of Maidan protesters deliberately started shooting the police. This story was also reported in the Guardian. Google and you will easily find it. The BBC also reported that the Prosecutors Office in Kiev was forbidden by Rada officials from investigating Maiden shooters. ..."
"... have you ever studied geography? If yes, you should remember the proximity of Ukraine to Russia (next door) and the proximity of Ukraine to the US (thousands miles away). Also, have you heard about the CIA Director Brennan and his covert visit to Kiev on the eve of the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine? This could give you an informed hint about the causes of the war. Plus you may be interested to learn about Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (Ms. Nudelman), her cookies, and her foul language. She is, by the way, a student of Dick Cheney. If you were born before 2000, you might know his name and his role in the Iraq catastrophe. Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (and the family of Kagans she belongs to) finds particular pleasure in creating military conflicts around the globe. It is not for nothing that the current situation in Ukraine is called Iraqization of Eastern Europe. ..."
"... This newspaper and other western media documented the armed members of far right groups on Maidan. One BBC journalist was actually shot at by a Svoboda sniper, operating from Hotel Ukraina - the video is still on the BBC website. ..."
"... As predicted the real civil war in Ukraine is still to happen. The split between the east and the ordinary Ukrainian was largely manufactured ..."
"... "When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as it is, in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules all Western mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at that time?" ..."
"... in time Ukrainians will regard Maidan's aftermath as most of them view the Orange Revolution -- with regret and cynicism. ..."
"... Of course the Guardian doesn't like to explain that 'Right Sector' are genuine fascists - by their own admission! These fascists, who wear Nazi insignia, were the people who overthrew the elected government of Ukraine in the US / EU-supported coup - which the Guardianistas and other PC-brainwashed duly cheered on as a supposed triumph of democracy. Since that glorious US-financed and EU-backed coup, wholly illegal under international law, Ukraine's economy has collapsed, as has Ukrainians' living standards. ..."
The Georgian authorities have asked Interpol to put a Red notice on Mikheil Saakashvili as the
request to Ukraine to return him for trial in Georgia was refused.
ww3orbust PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 20:22
That does not detract from the fact that the Ukrainian cabinet has been chosen by the US state
department. Natives of the US, Georgia and Lithuania were hastily granted Ukrainian citizenship
in order to maintain an iron grip on Ukraine, while accusing Putin of appointing majors or governors
- in his capacity as head of state?
ww3orbust 13 Jul 2015 20:16
Amazing, nothing at all mentioned by the BBC. It does not fit in to their narrative to see the
country descend into a new stage of anarchy, between the people who murdered police and protesters
on Maidan square, and the US state department installed cabinet. Presumably if Right Sector refuse
to disarm and continue torturing civilians and murdering police, the BBC will continue to ignore
it and focus instead on its Russo-phobic narrative, while accusing Russia of propaganda with the
self-righteous piety that only the BBC are capable of. Or god forbid, more stories about what
colour stool our future king has produced this week.
The thing is, Ukraine is unique in allowing their Nazi thugs to be armed and have some semi-official
status. Everywhere else (including Russia), governments are looking to constrain the activities
of Nazis and prosecute them where possible.
jgbg Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 18:26
If it was not for the right sector, Ukraine would still be one united nation.
Them and Svoboda. If it had just been Orange Revolution II, with a simple change of Jewish
oligarchs in charge, there might have been some complaints but little more. It is the Russian-hating
far right that has brought about the violence and everything that has happened since.
PrinceEdward GreatMountainEagle 13 Jul 2015 18:22
Last I heard, Ukraine owes China billions for undelivered Grain.
HollyOldDog gimmeshoes 13 Jul 2015 18:11
But the Euro Maidan press is just an Ukrainian rag that invents stories to support its corrupt
government in Kiev.
jgbg PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 17:54
I forget the article, but in the comments I mentioned that multiple Georgians were being
appointed to high level positions by Kiev, and some Russophobe called me a liar.
Not a few days later, Shakashvilli was appointed governor of Odessa. An ex-president of another
country, as governor of a province in another one! Apparently, none of the millions upon millions
of Ukrainians were qualified for the job.
Sakashvilli's former Minister of Internal Affairs in Georgia, Eka Zguladze, is First Deputy
Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Of course, the Georgian people removed these chumps from
power the first chance they got but the Ukrainian electorate haven't had any say in the appointments
of foreigners in their country.
Well ... when it comes to Ukraine, the need to stock up on popcorn. This bloody and unpredictable
plot is not even in the "Game of Thrones." And this is only the middle of the second season.
Today Speaker of the "RS" Andrew Sharaskin, said: Sports Complex in Mukachevo where the shooting
occurred, was used as the base of the separatists DNR.
- A place 1,000 kilometers from Donetsk! But it's a great excuse to murder the guard in the café
and wounded police officers.
I think tomorrow will say that there have seen Russian Army tanks and Putin - 100%
"Ukraine is part of Europe" - the slogans of the Maidan in action...
Pravyi Sektor were not wrong. However, you cannot have armed groups cleaning up corruption
outside the law...that only works in Gotham City.
Right Sector weren't trying to clean up corruption, they were simply trying to muscle in on
the cigarette smuggling business. If Right Sector cared about crime and public order, they wouldn't
be driving around, armed to the teeth, in vehicles stolen in the EU. (In the video linked in the
article, all of their vehicles have foreign number plates. At least one of those vehicles is on
the Czech police stolen vehicle database:
http://zpravy.idnes.cz/pravy-sektor-mel-v-mukacevu-auta-s-ceskymi-spz-fqj-/zahranicni.aspx?c=A150713_102110_zahranicni_jj)
The EU and the US have stated on many occasions that there are "No Right Wing Nationalists" operating
in Ukraine and its simply propaganda by Putin.
So there shouldn't be anything to worry about should there ?
Stas Ustymenko hfakos 13 Jul 2015 15:15
Yes, yes. You seem to tolerate Medvedchuk and Baloga mafias way better, for years.
Transcarpathian Region is the most corrupt in all of Ukraine (which is quite a fit). What we see
here is a gang war in fatigues.
tanyushka Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 15:14
sorry i posted the same above... i was just to hasty.. sorry again...
in the main picture of the same article it's interesting to notice the age of most of the conscripted
soldiers... they are in their 30's, theirs 40's and even in their 50's... it's forced conscription,
they are not volunteers... while all the DPR & LPR soldiers are real volunteers...
an uncle, the father of a cousin, was conscripted in Kherson... my cousin had to run away to South
American to say with an aunt to avoid conscription... many men are doing it in Ukraine nowadays...
not because they are cowards but because they don't want to kill their brothers & sisters for
the benefit of the oligarchs and their NATO masters (and mistresses...)
did you know that all the conscripts have to pay for their own uniforms and other stuff, while
in the National Guard and the oligarchs batallions everything is top quality and for free... including
bulletproof vests and other implements courtesy of NATO
Demi Boone 13 Jul 2015 15:13
Well finally they reveal themselves. These Ukraine Nationalists are the people who instigated
the anarchy and shootings at Maidan and used it as an excuse to wrongfully drive out an elected
President and in the chaos that followed bring in a coup Government which represents only West-Ukraine
and suppress' East-Ukraine. You are looking at the face of the real Maidan and not the dream that
a lot of people have tried to paint it to be.
Stas Ustymenko MartinArvay 13 Jul 2015 15:11
Many Right Sector members are indeed patriots. But it looks like the organisation itself is,
sadly, much more useful for providing thugs for hire than "justice".
BMWAlbert PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 14:20
But seriously, the naval base is probably the reason, it is too important for some interests
to have a less-reliable (Ukrainian) in charge, this is a job only for the most trusted poodles.
If things had gone differently, the tie-eatimng chap would have been appointed Mayor of Sebastopol.
BMWAlbert PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 14:15
There appears to be a Quisling-shortage in Ukraine at present.
Stas Ustymenko obscurant 13 Jul 2015 13:32
More accurately, Kolomoyskiy is Ukrainian oligarch. Who happens to be ethnically, culturally
and, by all accounts, religiously, a Jew.
Stas Ustymenko Kaiama 13 Jul 2015 13:24
Ukrainian Volunteer Corps of the Right Sector fighting in Donbass is two battalions. How is
this a "key organization"? They are a well-known brand and fought bravely on some occasions, but
the wider org is way too eager to brandish arms outside of combat or training. They will be reigned
in, one way or another, and soon.
GameOverManGameOver Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 12:02
Shh shh shh. This news does not exist yet in the western media, therefore it's nothing but
Russian propaganda.
Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 11:54
It gets worse - soldiers from the UA are now refusing to follow orders in protest against the
total anarchy sweeping the chain of command, and their lack of rest and equipment.
Tensions have been rising between the government and the Right Sector militia that has
helped it fight pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
Finally, the Guardian decided to report the actual new after satisfying itself with ample discussion
of the quality of Russian cheeses. Right sector "helped" to fight "separatists"? Really? Does
Alec Luhn know that there are currently two (!) RS battalions at the front and 19 (!) inside Ukraine?
They are some warriors. Now they are occupying themselves fighting as criminals they are for the
control of contraband.
At the ATO zone, they help consists of plundering, murdering and raping the local population.
They enter a village, take everything of value from houses and then blow them up. They rape women
and girls as young as 10 years old. They've been doing this for more than a year, and we've been
telling you that for more than a year. But apparently in the fight against "pro-Russian separatists"
everything is good. These crimes are so widespread, even the Ukrainian "government" is worried
this will eventually becomes impossible to deny. Some battalions such as Shakhtersk and Aidar
have been officially accused of crimes and ompletely or partially reformed.
Examples: http://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/EUR50/040/2014/en/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bfb_1413804655
Ukraine, what a mess. As though it was ever about the people. It was a grab for resources,
19-century style. But with 21st-century stakes. You can see what the West is after when you look
at the US-Ukraine Business Council. It bring NATO, Monsanto and the Heritage Foundation under
one roof:
You'd be surprised, but I like Bandera (controversial as he was) way more than I trust some
people who wrap themselves in his red-and-black Rebel banner. Yarosh included. Banderite rebellion
ended 60 years ago. Its major goal was establishing a "united, free Ukrainian state"; by contrast,
stated ultimate goals of the Right Sector are way murkier; I'm not sure even most of the movement's
members are clear on what these are.
With present actions, Right Sector has a huge image problem in the West. If it will come to all-out
conflict, no doubt the West will back Poroshenko government over a loose confederation of armed
dudes linked by the thin thread of 30ies ideology (suspect even then). And the West will be right.
Stas Ustymenko Nik2 13 Jul 2015 11:03
Methinks you're way overselling a thug turf war as "major political event. Truth is, the region
has been long in the hands of organized crime. The previous regime incorporated and controlled
almost all organized crime in the country, hence no visible conflict. Now, individual players
try to use temporary uncertainty to their advantage.
Right Sector claims they were trying to fight
the smuggling, but this doesn't sound plausible. The word is, what's behind the events is struggle
for control over lucrative smuggling between two individuals (who are both "businessmen" and "politicians",
members of Parliament). Both are old-school players, formerly affiliated with Yanukovitch party.
One just was savvy enough to buy himself some muscle under Right Sector banner. Right Sector will
either have to straighten out its fighters (which it may not be able to do) or disappear as a
political player. I fail to see how people see anything "neo-Nazi" in this gang shootout.
PaddyCannuck Cavirac 13 Jul 2015 10:21
Nobody here is an apologist for Stalin, who was a brutal and cruel despot, and the deportations
of the Crimean Tatars were quite indefensible. However, a few observations might lend some perspective.
1. Crimea has been invaded and settled by an almost endless succession of peoples over the
millennia. The Crimean Tatars (who are of Turkic origin) were by no means the first, nor indeed
the last, and cannot in any meaningful sense be regarded as the indigenous people of Crimea.
2. The Crimean Tatars scarcely endeared themselves to the Russians, launching numerous raids,
devastating many towns, including the burning of Moscow in 1571, and sending hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of Russians into slavery in the Ottoman Empire.
3. The deportations took place in 1942 - 1943 against the backdrop of World War II, when a lot
of bad stuff happened, including -
4. The American (and also Canadian) citizens of Japanese ethnicity who had their property confiscated
and were likewise shipped off to camps. Their treatment, if anything, was worse.
Sevastopol, Pearl Harbor. What's the difference? What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Meanwhile last night & this morning, just to distract the people of what is going on in the West,
Kiev launched a massive shelling over Donetsk and other places in Donbass using weapons forbbiden
by the Minsk agreements, including Tor missiles, one of which fell at a railway station but didn't
explode... it was defused by emergency workers but the proof is there if you care to see... it
was thesecond biggest attack since the cease fire...
Nik2 6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:53
Not exactly. By now, BBC has made good coverage of these events in Ukrainian and Russian languages,
but not in English. It looks like BBC considers that Western public does not deserve the politically
sad truth about armed clashes between "champions of Maidan Revolution" and "new democratic authorities,
fighting corruption". Western public should not be in doubt about present-day "pro-European" Ukraine.
And "The Guardian" still has only one article on the issue that could be a turning point in Ukrainian
politics. This is propaganda, not informing about or analyzing really serious political events.
VictorWhisky 13 Jul 2015 09:51
This is the IMF hired guns now going after the very people who helped the Wall Street IMF shysters
in the illegitimate coup and the set up of the illegitimate Kiev junta, a mix of half Ukrainian
and non-Ukrainian mongrels.
Furthermore, instead of bringing in the people who helped overthrow Janukovich into the government fold, the IMF is placing it's foreign collaborators in ministerial
positions by making them instant Ukrainian citizens, while keeping the right wing, without whose
help the coup would not have succeeded, out of government and slowly trying to eliminate them
with their private foreign mercenary force.
Madame "F*ck the EU Nuland from the US state department
bordello, a devout Zionist, enticed these supposed Ukrainian NAZIs to help her in her dirty deeds,
no doubt with promises of power sharing.
So madame Nuland was perfectly willing to get in bed
with the Ukrainian NAZI devils (her Jewish friend should be proud) and when the dirty deed was
done, she is now turning against Ukrainian nationalists in the attempt to have outside forces
in control of Ukraine. Madame Nuland is not as intelligent or capable as portrayed, because if
she was, she would have known Ukraine has a very delicate and very complicated political structure
and history with nearly half the country speaking Russian and more loyal to the Russians than
to the US.
An intelligent person familiar with Ukrainian history would know any attempt of placing
a US stooge in Kiev would certainly result in a civil war.
She no doubt got her position not by
intelligence but by connections. More than 6000 Ukrainians, human beings, innocent men women and
children, have died in madame Nuland's engineered coup, putting her in league with her mentor,
Henry Kissinger, aka the butcher of Vietnam. That intelligent idiot's policies resulted in the
death of 3 million Vietnamese and 50,000 young Americans. Does madame Nuland intend to sacrifice
that many Ukrainians to prove her ultimate stupidity?
Jeremn Luminaire 13 Jul 2015 09:51
The conscripts didn't want to shoot their fellow Ukrainians. The nationalists don't believe
the people in the east are their fellow Ukrainians.
Because they were lovely guys, evidently, and their "popularity" has nothing to do with armed
thugs beating you up if you say anything against them (or the state prosecuting you for denying
or questioning their heroism).
Jeremn jezzam 13 Jul 2015 09:35
Ukrainian media, reporting Ukrainian government official:
12 police dead in two days, 180 wounded with gunshot wounds.
Still Kremlin lies?
Jeff1000 13 Jul 2015 09:30
Thank God Ukraine is finally free and democratic. The old autocratic regime actually had the
gall to make running street battles illegal - but those dark days are in the past. In the liberated
Ukraine you are free spend the dollar a day you get paid on a bullet proof vest so the rampant
Nazi street gangs don't kill you.
Jeremn SHappens 13 Jul 2015 09:26
You'd be surprised, there are Bandera-lovers in the UK too. There's a Bandera museum. And there
is this lot, teaching Christian values to children. And telling them that Bandera was a hero.
Future Right Sector supporters being crafted as we type.
6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:24
The Ukrainian sub-saharan African minimum wage is now being accompanied by Somali-style politics. Luckily, the Russians have liberated Crimea so piracy on the high seas isn't an option for
the Ukrainians.
6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:18
Apparently, UAVs generously supplied to Ukrainians by the Canadian taxpayers are being put
to good use smuggling cigarettes into Slovakia.
6i9vern 13 Jul 2015 09:12
The BBC are bravely sticking to their decision not to report this story. Congratulations are
in order for such dedication.
The graun protected its readership from this confusing information for 24 hours and then caved
to the temptation to report news. Too bad.
aucontraire2 13 Jul 2015 08:36
Can we officially congratulate Nuland for a crappy job and also for providing Putin with
all the tools he needed to bring back Ukraine under his wing.
False flag operations for American private interests must stop now. They are immoral, unethical
and only bring death and destruction to otherwise stable societies. The UN should have a
say.
SomersetApples 13 Jul 2015 08:25
The country is bankrupt; the Kiev putschists are selling off the country's assets to their
New York allies, the oligarchs and Nazis are at war against each other and the illegal putschist
government and now toilet mouth Nuland is back on the scene. Looks like a scene form Dante's Inferno.
todaywefight Polvilho 13 Jul 2015 07:54
Which Russian invasion will this be the of he approximately 987 mentioned by Poroshenko and
our man Yatz...or are you referring to the people of the AUTONOMOUS REPUBLIC OF CRIMEA's (yes
that was what was called after the 1994 referendum) massive wishes to (like Donbass) go against
a government who illegally dismissed an elected president a wish that was reflected on a referendum
which was allowed by their constitution 18(7)
Bosula Scepticbladderballs 13 Jul 2015 07:38
Yes. Most of the protesters are good people who just want a better deal in life.
monteverdi1610 13 Jul 2015 06:54
Remember all those CIF threads when those of us who pointed to the neo-Nazis in Ukraine were
immediately called ' Putinbots ' ?
PS/ Apologies would be the order of the day , perhaps ?
Sturney 13 Jul 2015 06:49
Apparently this conflict is over. Temporarily over. Anyway in ever-contracting economy, in
a Mariana trench between Russia and EU, in the most totalitarian country in history, such conflicts
will continue. Since Nuland tossed yeast in the outhouse nobody can stop fermentation of sh*t.
Help yourself with some beer and shrimps. I am looking forward when these masses splash out to
EU, preferably to Poland. Must be fun to watch. (Lipspalm)
Justin Obisesan 13 Jul 2015 06:33
In the run-up to the Euro 2012 football tournament, jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine, I
remember how the media in this country worked themselves into a frenzy harping on about the presence
of violent neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. After the removal of Mr Yanukovych from office, the same
media organisations changed their tune by describing any talk of neo- Nazis in Ukraine as "Russian
propaganda". The Western media coverage of the Ukrainian crises has been so blatantly pro-Kiev
and anti-Donbass that their claims of impartiality and objectivity cannot be taken seriously anymore.
Jeremn jgbg 13 Jul 2015 06:16
It is fine when they are shooting at Donetsk, but not so good when they use the same tactics
in western Ukraine.
Azov are the same, violent neo-Nazi thugs given authority, and this article notes that PrivatBank
is the bank that services requests for donations to the Azov funds, using J P Morgan as intermidiary.
Neither Azov nor Right Sector want peace. On 3 July 4,000 men from these units protested in
Kiev, calling for resumption of the war against the eastern provinces.
They favour ethnic cleansing.
Jeremn William Fraser 13 Jul 2015 06:10
The people who support Bandera are in western Ukraine. They are the ones who say Stalin starved
the Ukrainian people.
Trouble is, in the 1930s, western Ukraine belonged to Poland.
It was the Russians, eastern Ukrainians and other Soviet people who starved, not the western
Ukrainians.
Kefirfan 13 Jul 2015 06:02
Good, good. Let the democracy flow through you...
Pwedropackman SHappens 13 Jul 2015 05:53
It will be interesting to see which side the US and Canada will support. Probably Poroshenko
and the Oligarchs because the Right Sector is not so happy about the ongoing sales of Ukraine
infrastructure to US corporates.
SHappens 13 Jul 2015 05:14
Harpers' babies are out manifesting, supporting the good guys:
"Supporters of Ukraine's Right Sector extremist group rallied in Ottawa Sunday amid the
radicals' ongoing standoff with police in western Ukraine."
The rally outside the Ukrainian embassy was organized by the Right Sector's representative
office in the Canadian capital, 112 Ukraine TV channel reported, citing the Facebook account of
the so-called Ukrainian Volunteer Corps.
careforukraine 13 Jul 2015 05:09
I wonder how long it will be before the us denounces nazi's in ukraine?
Kind of seems like we have seen this all before.
Almost like how ISIS were just freedom fighters that needed our support until ?.....
Well we all know what happened there.
Pwedropackman 13 Jul 2015 05:04
If it was not for the right sector, Ukraine would still be one united nation.
GameOverManGameOver Chris Gilmore 13 Jul 2015 04:41
Yes, I agree, they do wreck the economy. That was my point. Russia want's strong economies
to do business with, not broken economies that only ask for financial aid.
Like I said, no evidence of Russian troops in Donbass and South Ossetia asked for the presence
of Russian troops to deter the Georgian government from trying another invasion.
And organisations like CIS are meant to expand economic ties. Just like the EU I suppose. They
function in pretty much the same way with everyone getting a chance to lead. So I don't know why
that should be a bad thing. Since the EU is not interested in admitting Russia why can't Russia
go to other organisations?
VladimirM Dmitriy Grebenyuk 13 Jul 2015 04:26
It's a poisonous sarcasm, I think. But I've heard that RS accuse the Ukrainian government of
being pro-Putin as the government accuse them of being Russian agents. Surreal a bit.
stewfen FOHP46 13 Jul 2015 04:24
The west would not have dialogue with Russia because it was not what Washington wanted. Washington
wanted to push a wedge between Russia and EU at any cost even 6500 lives and unfortunately they
succeeded
GameOverManGameOver Chris Gilmore 13 Jul 2015 03:54
I'll admit that frozen conflicts could be useful to Russia. But only from a security point
of view. And why not, exactly? NATO is Russia's biggest threat, so it would make sense for the
government to want to avoid it expanding any further. I understand your misgivings since you're
speaking from the position that NATO should expand to deter Russi I mean 'Iran', but surely you
understand that Russia wanting to prevent that makes logical sense? Sure, it's at someone else's
expense but let's not pretend that big countries doing something at someone else's expense is
a new and revolutionary concept reserved only to Russia. And the Georgian conflict dates back
to the very early 90's.
From an economic point of view though, no sense at all. Frozen conflicts usually bring economic
barriers. Believe it or not Russia's priority isn't expansion, but the economy. And trade with
it's neighbours is an important element of the Russian economy. It's very hard to trade with areas
that are in the middle of a frozen conflict. So in that sense the last thing Russia would want
are profitable areas in a frozen conflict around it's borders hampering it's economic growth.
And none of this has anything to do with Marioupol.
Debreceni 13 Jul 2015 03:38
The Right Sector does not exist, or if it does, it has been created by Moscow. The crisis in
Greece is also the work of Russian agents. The ISIS is financed and trained by Putin. Ebola was
cooked up in a laboratory in Saint Petersburg. Look for the Russian!
Kaiama PrinceEdward 13 Jul 2015 02:50
We don't know if PS were also doing it as well or just poking their noses into someone else's
business. Who started it? I doubt the correct answer will ever be known. Two unsavoury groups
arguing about an illegal business. The problem is that the MP is an MP whereas PS is a national
organisation.
It's never the US....it's never the West.....
(you know, to balance things) : )
todaywefight 13 Jul 2015 01:53
If any one on the other side, the dark side, ever thought that these lot will hold hands with
any one, lay down their arms and sing Kumbaya, uou are either utterly naive or willfully ignorant.
Apparently, these lot have 23 battalions, armed to their teeth, the added bonus for the Privy
Sektor is that , due to expedience and cowardice , they have just made legal and incorporated
into the Ukrainian army, Kyiv is in a highway to nowhere.
Incidentally, unlike the maidan demonstrations which essentially were only in Kyiv there are
demonstrations in more than a dozen cities, and have established dozen of check points already
and Yarosh a member of the VT. have clearly instructed them to fight if necessary.
GameOverManGameOver Omniscience 13 Jul 2015 01:35
So? Yes there are nationalists in Russia, just like everywhere else. You get a gold star for
googling. Shall I get some articles with European and American nationalists to parade around to
make a vague point? If you want I can get you an article of Lithuanians dressed up as the Waffen
SS parading around Vilnius. That's Lithuania the EU and Nato member. Funny how EU principles disappear
when it's one of their own violating them.
You seem to be missing the point entirely. While all countries have their nationalists, those
nationalists are a very small minority, have no power, have no popular support, have no seats
in government, usually derided by the majority of the population and they certainly aren't armed
to the teeth roaming around the country killing, torturing and kidnapping people with the blessing
of their government
HollyOldDog Joe way 13 Jul 2015 00:09
The Right Sector were / are Ukrains Storm Troopers who have had more advanced training by the
Americans. If the Right Sector turn on the Kiev Government they will be difficult to defeat, and
who knows if the civilian population of Ukraine may join in the 'fun' by ousting the current unpopular
Ukrainian government.
sorrentina 12 Jul 2015 23:35
this is what happens when you play with fire: you get burned. Using Neo-Nazi's to implement
Nato expansionist policies was always a very bad idea. It's just a shame it is not people like
Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland who will have to suffer the blowback consequences- it is the poor
Ukrainian people. This is not that different to what has happened in Libya- where Islamic extremists
were used as a proxy force to oust Gaddafi.
annamarinja jgbg 12 Jul 2015 23:31
The threshold has been guessed impatiently by the US neocons (while the provocateur Higgins/
Bellingcat fed the gullible the fairy tales about Russian army in Ukraine). The US needs desperately
a real civil war in Ukraine, the Ukrainians be damned. Just look what the US-sponsored "democracy
on the march" has produced in the Middle East. Expect the same bloody results in eastern Europe.
annamarinja obscurant 12 Jul 2015 23:25
perhaps you do not realize that your insults are more appropriate towards the poor Ukrainians
that have been left destitute by the cooky-carrying foreigners and their puppets in Kiev. The
Ukrainian gold reserve has disappeared... meanwhile, the US Congress has shamed the US State Dept
for collaborating with Ukrainian neo-nazis. Stay tuned. But do not expect to hear real news from
your beloved Faux News.
annamarinja quorkquork 12 Jul 2015 23:14
the jihadists in Ukraine are the integral part of Iraqization of Ukraine. The lovers of Nuland's
cookies are still in denial that Ukraine was destined by the US plutocrats to become a sacrificial
lamb in a fight to preserve the US dollar hegemony.
Bud Peart 12 Jul 2015 22:59
Well we always knew it would end this way. With a stalemate in the war with the East the Right
wing paramilitaries and private oligarch militias (whom the west funded and trained) have gone
completely feral and are now in fighting directly with whats left of the Ukrainian National Army.
This is pretty much the rode to another breakaway in Galacia which would effectively end the Ukraine
as a functional state.
The government should move as fast as possible to get a decent federal structure (copy switzerland)
in place before the whole of the West goes into revolt as well.
DelOrtoyVerga LostJohnny 12 Jul 2015 22:38
That is what you get when you put fascists in your government.
I rather reword it to
That is what you get when you enable and rely on thugish pseudo-fascist radical para-military
groups to impose order by force and violence against dissident segments of your own population
(which is armed to the teeth probably by Russia)
Bosula Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 22:37
What do you think it is?
There were several people identified directly or indirectly in this BBC story whose stories should
have been formally pursued by legal authorities in Kiev.
If you lived in the West you would understand that we call these references as possible 'leads'
- you follow these 'leads' and see where they take you. That is what Western police do.
The story says that Kiev didn't want to follow up any of these points. Why? What harm could this
do?
You state that you do not understand the point that this BBC journalist was making. But I have
in a fair way tried to to explain the point that the BBC was making.
This story caused quite a stir went it came out - and the BBC chose to stick with it and support
their British reporter. In an edited and shorter form the story is still on the BBC - the editing
is also acknowledged by the BBC.
Do you think the BBC should have blocked or not published this investigative piece?
If so - why?
And why hasn't Kiev followed up these issues?
Have I addressed your point yet?
HollyOldDog Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 21:34
I am just watching a program recorded earlier. Hiroshima: The Aftermath. I have got past the
part when the Japanese 'survivors' had to drink from the pools of Black Rain ( highly radioactive)
and watched the part when American Army Tourists visited the city to take a few photos ( no medical
help though) while gawking at the gooks. In fact the Japanese civilians recieved no medical assistance
at all from the Americans. The commentator just said that they were just there to study the effects
of nuclear radiation on a civilian population. These nuclear bombs were just dropped on Japan
to save One Day of the surrender of the Japanese forces.
The next documtary I will watch another day is the sinking of the Tirpitz by the RAF using
Tallboy bombs. At least this had a useful pupose in helping to stop the destruction of the North
Atlantic convoys, sending aid to Russia. That aid along with the rebuilding of the Soviet Armies
helped the Soviet Union to destroy the invading Nazi forces and provided a Second Front to the
Western Allies to invade Normandy. A lot of good can be achieved when the East and West work together
- maybe avoiding the worst effects of Global Warming but the Americans only seem to want to spend
Trillions $ building more powerful nuclear weapons. Is this all that America has now, an Arms
Industry - I can see it now, cooling the planet with a Nuclear Winter.
HollyOldDog Scepticbladderballs 12 Jul 2015 20:33
The USA caused the chaos in Ukraine so they must pay the billions of $ to fix it then leave
Ukraine alone.
6i9vern 12 Jul 2015 20:29
One of the amusing features of the Soviet media was the long silences it maintained on possibly
embarrassing breaking news until it became clear what the Party Line was.
Eventually, a memo would go out from Mikhail Suslov's office to various media outlets and the
silence would be broken.
At least everyone knew exactly how that system worked. What is happening with the British media
is much more murky.
The beeb/graun seem to be the Pravda/Izvestia, whilst the torygraph is a sort of Trybuna Ludu
- ie real news very occasionally appears in it.
6i9vern 12 Jul 2015 20:08
So, after a mere 24 hours the Graun ran a story on Mukachevo. The Torygraph actually had the
nerve to run the AFP wire report more or less straight away.
The BBC are still keeping shtum.
The Beeb/Graun complex have well and truly had the frighteners put on them.
PrinceEdward Kaiama 12 Jul 2015 20:07
There's no doubt. I agree that the MP was probably running cigarettes, but also Right Sektor
was going to muscle in.
If you asked somebody 3 years ago if Ukraine would be rocked by armed bands with RPGs and Light
Machine Guns fighting in towns, they would have thought you were crazy.
This isn't Russia, this is the Ultranats/Neo-Nazis.
PrinceEdward obscurant 12 Jul 2015 20:05
Right, it's the people in Donbass who bury 14th SS Division veterans with full honors, push
for full pensions to surviving Hiwi and SS Collaborators... not those in Lvov. Uh huh.
BMWAlbert 12 Jul 2015 20:04
11 months of investigations by the newKiev regime, attempting to implicate the the prior one
for the murder of about 100 people in Kiev early last year was unsuccessful. There may be better
candidates here.
fragglerokk ploughmanlunch 12 Jul 2015 19:55
It always amazes me that the far right never learn from history. The politicians and oligarchs
always use them as muscle to ensure coup success then murder/assasinate the leaders to make sure
they dont get any ideas about power themselves. Surprised its taken so long in ukraine but then
the govt is barely hanging onto power and the IMF loans have turned to a trickle so trouble will
always be brewing, perhaps theyve left it too long this time. Nobody will be shedding any tears
for the Nazis and Banderistas.
Why, don't you know? They infiltrated Ukraine, the CIA (and NATO and the EU somehow) created
Maidan, their agents killed the protesters, then they overthrew a legitimate government and installed
a neo-nazi one, proceeded to instigate a brutal oppression against Russian speakers, then started
a war against the peaceful Eastern Ukrainians and their innocent friends in the Kremlin, etc etc.
Ignorant question that, by now you should know the narrative!
Kaiama gimmeshoes 12 Jul 2015 19:53
If you think Pryvi Sektor want to "clean up" then yes, but not in the way you imagine - they
just want the business for themselves.
Geordiemartin 12 Jul 2015 19:51
I am reminded of AJP Taylor premise that Eastern Europe has historically had either German
domination or Russian protection.
The way that the Ukrainian government had treated their own Eastern compatriots leaves little
reason to believe they would be welcome back into the fold and gives people of Donbass no reason
to want to rejoin the rest of the country.
If government is making an effort to reign in the likes of Right sector it is a move in the
right direction but much much more will be needed to establish any trust.
Some Guy yataki 12 Jul 2015 19:45
just because they are nazis doesnt mean they are happy about doing any of this... now. look
at greece and the debacle that has unfolded over the past week has been . the west ukraine wanted
to be part of the euro zone and wanted some of that ecb bail out money. now they are not even
sure if they could skip out on the bill and know they are fighting for nothing . russia gave them
14 bil dollars . the west after the coup only gave the 1 bil
Andor2001 Kaiama 12 Jul 2015 19:44
According to the eyewitnesses the RS shot a guard when he refused to summon the commanding
officer. It was the beginning of the fight.
Andor2001 yataki 12 Jul 2015 19:41
Remember Shakespeare "Othello"? Moor has done his job, Moor has to go..
The neo-Nazis have outlived their usefulness.
Bosula caaps02 12 Jul 2015 19:39
The BBC investigative reported earlier this year that a section of Maidan protesters deliberately
started shooting the police. This story was also reported in the Guardian. Google and you will
easily find it.
The BBC also reported that the Prosecutors Office in Kiev was forbidden by Rada officials from
investigating Maiden shooters.
Maybe the BBC is telling us a lie? The BBC investigation is worth a read - then you can make up
your own mind.
Bosula William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 19:29
Kazakhstan had the highest percentage of deaths from Stalin's policies in this period when
he prevented the nomad herders moving from the mountains to the planes to take advantage of the
benefits of seasons and weather.
Stalin forced the nomads to stay in one area and they perished in the cold of the mountains or
the heat of the summer plains (whichever zone they were forced to stay in).
Some of my family is Ukrainian and some recognise that Stalin's policies weren't specifically
aimed at Ukrainians - the people of Kazakhstan suffered the most (as a percentage of population).
Either way, there is no genetic difference between Slavs or Russian or Ukrainian origin in Ukraine
or Russia - they are all genetically the same people.
This information should be better taught in Ukraine.
The problem is that it would undermine the holy grail story of right wing nationalism in Ukraine.
It's been one of the biggest mistakes ( although Ukraine's military started in a desperately
poor condition ) , to allow militia groups to get so powerful. Right sector should not have arms
and guns... The national Ukraine military should, If members of Right sector want to fight , they
should leave Right sector and join the army.
This was and will happen if they don't disband such armed groups.
annamarinja silvaback 12 Jul 2015 18:18
have you ever studied geography? If yes, you should remember the proximity of Ukraine to Russia
(next door) and the proximity of Ukraine to the US (thousands miles away). Also, have you heard
about the CIA Director Brennan and his covert visit to Kiev on the eve of the beginning of the
civil war in Ukraine? This could give you an informed hint about the causes of the war. Plus you
may be interested to learn about Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (Ms. Nudelman), her cookies, and her foul language.
She is, by the way, a student of Dick Cheney. If you were born before 2000, you might know his
name and his role in the Iraq catastrophe. Mrs. Nuland-Kagan (and the family of Kagans she belongs
to) finds particular pleasure in creating military conflicts around the globe. It is not for nothing
that the current situation in Ukraine is called Iraqization of Eastern Europe.
Bev Linington JJRichardson 12 Jul 2015 18:10
Ukrainians shot down the plane. East, West does not matter as they were all Ukrainians before
the government overthrow. Leaders of the new government could not look past some Ukrainian citizens
ethnicity, instead of standing together united, they decided to oppress which lead to the referendum
in Crimea and the rise of separatists in the East.
jgbg Chirographer 12 Jul 2015 17:53
And for the Pro-Russian posters the newsflash is that could also describe the situation
inside the Donbass.
It certainly describes the situation in Donbass where Right Sector or the volunteer battalions
are in charge. In Dnepropetrovsk, Right Sector would simply turn up at some factory or other business
and order the owner to sign document transferring the enterprise to them. In other cases, they
have kidnapped businessmen for ransom. Some people have simply disappeared under such circumstances.
The Ukrainian National Guard simply break into homes left empty by people fleeing the war and
steal the contents. Such was the scale of looting, the Ukrainian postal service have now refused
to ship electrical goods out of the ATO area unless the senders have the original boxes and receipts.
jgbg AlfredHerring 12 Jul 2015 17:45
Maybe Kiev just needs to bomb them some more.
Putin promised to protect the Russian speaking people in Ukraine - but he hasn't really done
that. His government has indicated that they would not allow Kiev to simply overrun or obliterate
the people of Donbass. Quite where their threshold of actual intervention lies is anyone's guess.
The "pro-Russian" government that you refer to was only elected because it promised to sign
the EU trade agreement. It then reneged on that promise...
Yanukovych's government was elected the previous one was useless and corrupt.
Yanukovych wanted to postpone the decision to sign for six months, while he attempted to extract
more from both the EU and Russia. Under Poroshenko, the implementation of the EU Association Agreement
has been delayed for 15 months, as the governments of Ukraine, the EU and Russia all recognised
that Russian trade (with the favourable terms which Ukraine enjoys) are vitail to Ukraine's economic
recovery. Expect that postponement to be extended.
.... severely and brutally curtailing freedom of speech and concentrating all power in the
hands of Yanukovich's little clan...
As opposed to sending the military to shell the crap out of those who objected to an elected
government being removed by a few thousand nationalists in Kiev.
There was no "coup".
An agreement had been signed at the end of February 2014, which would see elections in September
2014. The far right immediately moved to remove the government (as Right Sector had promised on
camera in December 2013). None of the few mechanisms for replacing the president listed in the
Ukrainian constitution have been followed - that makes it a coup.
The Maidan protesters were not armed
This newspaper and other western media documented the armed members of far right groups on
Maidan. One BBC journalist was actually shot at by a Svoboda sniper, operating from Hotel Ukraina
- the video is still on the BBC website.
....the interim government that was put in place by the parliament in late February and
the government that was elected in May and Oct. of 2014 were and are not fascist.
The interim government included several ministers from Svoboda, formerly the Socialist Nationalist
Party of Ukraine. These were the first Nazi ministers in a European government since Franco's
Spanish government that ended in the 1970's. In a 2013 resolution, the EU parliament had indicated
that no Ukrainian government should include members of Svoboda or other far right parties.
pushkinsideburn vr13vr 12 Jul 2015 16:45
There has been a marked change in rhetoric over the last few weeks. Even CiF on Ukraine articles
seems to attract less trolls (with a few notable exceptions on this article - though they feel
more like squad trolls than the first team). Hopefully a sign of deescalation or perhaps just
a temporary lull before the MH17 anniversary this week?
pushkinsideburn calum1 12 Jul 2015 16:38
His other comments should have been the clue that arithmetic, like independent critical thinking,
is beyond him.
normankirk 12 Jul 2015 16:19
Right sector were the first to declare they wouldn't abide by the Minsk 2 peace agreement.Nevertheless,
Dmitry Yarosh, their leader is adviser to Ukraine's Chief of staff. Given that he only received
about 130,000 votes in the last election, he has a disproportionate amount of power.
As predicted the real civil war in Ukraine is still to happen. The split between the east and
the ordinary Ukrainian was largely manufactured . In the long term no body would be able to live
with the right sector or more precisely the right sector cant share a bed with anyone else.
sashasmirnoff RicardoJ 12 Jul 2015 15:44
"When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as
it is, in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules
all Western mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at
that time?"
This may be why:
"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media." - former CIA Director William
Colby
Alexander_the_Great 12 Jul 2015 15:43
This was so, so predictable. The Right Sector were the main violent group during the coup in
2014 - in fact they were the ones to bring the first guns to the square following their storming
of a military warehouse in west Ukraine a few days before the coup. It was this factor that forced
the Police to arm themselves in preparation.
Being the vanguard of the illegal coup, they then provided a useful tool of manipulation for
the illegal Kiev government to oppress any opposition, intimidate journalists who spoke the truth
and lead the war against the legally-elected ELECTED governments of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Having failed in the war against the east, western leaders have signalled the right sector
has now outlived its usefulness and has become an embarrassment to Kiev and their western backers.
The Right Sector meanwhile, feel betrayed by the establishment in Kiev. They have 19 battalions
of fighters and they wont go away thats for sure. I think one can expect this getting more violent
in the coming months.
SHappens jezzam 12 Jul 2015 15:40
Putin is a Fascist dictator.
Putin is not a dictator. He is a statist, authoritarian-inclined hybrid regime ruler that possesses
some democratic elements and space for opposition groups.
He has moderate nationalist tendencies in foreign affairs; his goal is a secure a strong Russia.
He is a patriot and has a charismatic authority. Russians stay behind him.
ploughmanlunch samuel glover 12 Jul 2015 15:31
'this notion that absolutely everything Kiev does follows some master script drawn up
in DC and Brussels is simplistic and tiresome'
Agreed.
As is everything is Russia's fault.
ConradLodziak 12 Jul 2015 15:26
This is just the latest in a string of conflicts involving the right sector, as reported by
RT, Russian media and until recently many Ukrainian outlets. The problem, of course, is that Porostinko
has given 'official' status to the right sector. Blow back time for him.
CIAbot007 William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 15:06
Yes, Russia (USSR) from the USSR foundation had been forcing people of the then territory of
Ukraine to identify themselves as Ukrainians under the process of rootisation - Ukrainization,
then gave to Ukraine Donbass and left side Dniepr and Odessa, Herson and Nikolaev, and then decided
to ethnically cleane them.. It doesn't make sense, does it? Oh, wait, sense is not your domain.
annamarinja William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 15:05
let me help you with arithmetics: 72 years ago Europe was inflamed with the WWII.
There was a considerable number of Ukrainians that collaborated with Hitler' nazis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician)
In short, your government finds it is OK to glorify the perpetrators of genocide in Europe during
the WWII.
Nik2 12 Jul 2015 15:04
These tragic events, when YESTERDAY, on Saturday afternoon, several civilians were unintentionally
wounded in gun battles in previously peaceful town near the Hungary and Slovakia borders, vividly
exposes Western propaganda. Though mass media in Ukraine and Russia are full of reports about
this from the start, The Guardian managed to give first information exactly 1 day later, and BBC
was still keeping silence a few minutes ago. Since both sides are allies of the West (the Right
Sector fighters were the core of the Maidan protesters at the later stages, and Poroshenko regime
is presumably "democratic"), the Western media preferred to ignore the events that are so politically
uncomfortable. Who are "good guys" to be praised? In fact, this may be the start of nationalists'
revolt against Ukrainian authorities, and politically it is very important moment that can fundamentally
change Ukrainian politics. But the West decides to be silent ...
annamarinja William Fraser 12 Jul 2015 14:59
Do your history book tell you that the Holodomor was a multiethnic endeavor? That the Ukrainians
were among the victims and perpetrators and that the whole huge country had suffered the insanely
cruel policies of multiethnic bolsheviks? The Holodomor was almost a century ago, whereas the
Odessa massacre and the bombardments of civilian population in east Ukraine by the neo-nazi thugs
(sent by Kiev), has been going during last year and half. Perhaps you have followed Mr. Brennan
and Mrs. Nuland-Kagan too obediently.
foolisholdman zonzonel 12 Jul 2015 14:58
zonzonel
Oops, the presumably fascist govt. is fighting a fascist group.
What is a poor troll to do these days??
Antiukrainian copywriting just got more difficult, perhaps a raise is needed? Just sayin.
What's your problem? Never heard of Fascist groups fighting each other? Never heard of the
"Night of the Long Knives"? Fascists have no principles to unite them. They believe in Uebermenschen
and of course they all think that either they themselves or their leader is The Ueberuebermensch.
Anyone who disagrees is an enemy no matter how Fascist he may be.
samuel glover ploughmanlunch 12 Jul 2015 14:55
Y'know, I'm no fan of the Russophobic hysteria that dominates English-language media. I've
been to Ukraine several times over the last 15 years or so, and I'm sorry to say that I think
that in time Ukrainians will regard Maidan's aftermath as most of them view the Orange Revolution
-- with regret and cynicism.
That said, this notion that everything, absolutely everything Kiev does follows some master
script drawn up in DC and Brussels is simplistic and tiresome. Most post-revolution regimes purge
one end or the other of the current ideological wings. Kiev has already tangled with the oligarch
and militia patron Igor Kolomoisky. So perhaps this is another predictable factional struggle.
Or maybe, as another comment speculates, this is a feud over cigarette tax revenue.
In any case, Ukraine is a complex place going through an **extremely** complex time. it's too
soon to tell what the Lviv skirmish means, and **far** too soon to lay it all on nefarious puppetmasters.
TheTruthAnytime ADTaylor 12 Jul 2015 14:49
The only thing that makes me reconsider is their service to their country,...
Is the CIA their country? So far they've only seemed to serve the interests of American businesspeople,
not Ukrainian interests. Also, murdering eastern Ukrainians cannot really be considered such a
great service to Ukraine, can it?
annamarinja ID075732 12 Jul 2015 14:44
Maidan was indeed a popular apprising, but it was utilized by the US strategists for their
geopolitical games. The Ukrainians are going to learn hard way that the US have never had any
interest in well-being of the "locals" and that the ongoing civil war was designed in order to
create a festering wound on a border with the Russia. The Iraqization of Ukraine was envisioned
by the neocons as a tool to break both Russia and Ukraine. The sooner Ukrainians come to a peaceful
solution uniting the whole Ukraine (for example, to federalization), the better for the general
population (but not for the thieving oligarchs).
vr13vr 12 Jul 2015 14:38
"Couple of hundred Right Sector supporters demonstrated in Kiev?" Come on! Over the last week,
there have been enough of videos of thousands of people in fatigues trying to block access to
government buildings and shouting rather aggressive demands. The entire battalions of "National
Guard." This is much bigger than just 100 people on a peaceful rally. Ukraine might be heading
towards Maidan 3.0.
ID075732 12 Jul 2015 14:26
The situation in Ukraine has been unravelling for months and this news broke on Friday evening.
The Minsk II cease fire has not been honoured by Poroshenko, who has not managed to effect
any of the pledges he signed up to. The right sector who rejected the cease-fire from the start
are now refusing the rule of their post coup president in Kiev.
Time for Victoria Nuland to break out the cookies? Or maybe it's too late for that now. The
country formerly know as Ukraine is turning out to be another outstanding success of American
post -imperial foreign policy.
Meanwhile in UFA the BRIC's economic forum is drawing to a close, with representatives from
the developing world and no reporting of the aspirations being discussed there of over 60% of
the world's population. It's been a major success, but if you want to learn about it, you will
have to turn to other media sources - those usually reported as Russian propaganda channels or
Putin's apologists.
The same people who have been reporting on the deteriorating situation in Kiev since the February
coup. Or as Washington likes to call it a popular up rising.
'The only thing that makes me reconsider is their service to their country'
Don't get me wrong. I detest the fascist militias and their evil deeds.
However, despite their callousness, brutality and stupidity, they have been the most effective
fighting force for Kiev ( more sensible Ukrainians have been rather more reluctant to kill their
fellow countrymen ).
Deluded ? Yes. Cowardly ? No.
Even more reprehensible, in my opinion are the calculating and unprincipled Kiev Government
that have attempted to bully a region of the Ukraine that had expressed legitimate reservations,
using those far right battalions, but accepting no responsibility for the carnage that they carried
out.
mario n 12 Jul 2015 12:52
I think it's time Europe spoke up about dangers of Ukrainian nationalism. 72 years ago Ukrainian
fascists committed one of the most hideous and brutal acts of genocide in the human history. Details
are so horrifying it is beyond imagination. Sadly not many people remembers that, because it is
not politically correct to say bad things about Ukraine. Today mass murderers are hailed as national
heroes and private battalions and ultranationalist groups armed to the teeth terrorise not only
Donbas but now different parts of the country like Zakarpattia where there is strong Hungarian,
Russian and Romanian minority.
How many massacres and acts of genocide Europe needs before it learns to act firmly?
SHappens 12 Jul 2015 12:49
Kiev has allowed nationalist groups including Right Sector to operate despite allegations
by groups like Amnesty International, that Right Sector has tortured civilian prisoners.
You know what, you dont play with fire or you will get burnt. It was written on the wall that
these Bandera apologists would eventually turn to the hand that fed them. I wonder how Kiev will
manage to blame the russians now.
RicardoJ 12 Jul 2015 12:33
Of course the Guardian doesn't like to explain that 'Right Sector' are genuine fascists - by
their own admission! These fascists, who wear Nazi insignia, were the people who overthrew the elected government
of Ukraine in the US / EU-supported coup - which the Guardianistas and other PC-brainwashed duly
cheered on as a supposed triumph of democracy. Since that glorious US-financed and EU-backed coup, wholly illegal under international law,
Ukraine's economy has collapsed, as has Ukrainians' living standards.
The US neocons are losing interest in their attempted land grab of Ukraine - and the EU cretins
who backed the coup, thinking it would be a nice juicy further territorial acquisition for the
EU, are desperately looking the other way, now that both the US and EU realize that Ukraine is
a financial black hole.
When the Guardian claims to be a fearless champion of investigative journalism - as it is,
in some areas - why did it obey the dictats of the US neocon media machine which rules all Western
mainstream media over the Ukrainian land grab, instead of telling the truth, at that time?
jgbg 12 Jul 2015 12:15
The move came after a gunfight broke out on Saturday, when about 20 Right Sector gunmen
arrived at a sports complex controlled by MP Mikhail Lano. They had been trying to stop the
traffic of cigarettes and other contraband, a spokesman for the group said.
Put another way, one group of gangsters tried to muscle in on the cigarette smuggling operation
of another group of gangsters. Smuggling cigarettes into nearby EU countries is extremely lucrative. Here's some video of some of the events:
Note the registration plates driven by both Right Sector and the other gangsters i.e. not Ukrainian.
In all likelihood, these cars are all stolen. Right Sector and fighters from "volunteer battalions" have become accustomed to muscling in
on other people's activities (legal or not) in Donbass. This sort of thuggery is routine when
these folk come to town. It is only when since they have continued such activities on their home
turf in west and central Ukraine that the authorities have taken any notice.
"... This is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Trump will have to meet with Assad (following in the footsteps of the hated Tulsi Gabbard) to declare an end to the policy of regime change in Syria. Another Peace Prize for sure, following his ending of the Korean War. Which leaves us with the question, "Who is the most dangerous man in the United States today?" ..."
"... Rubio is batsh*t nuts. God knows what goes through his head. God forbid he should become President. ..."
The 200 soldiers left in the north as part of an international contingent will be there to act as a tripwire to keep the Turks
with their armored army and strong air force from simply butchering the SDF Kurds whom the Turks regard as the enemies of their
blood.
The 200 at al-Tanf will remain in place for the purpose of blocking the shortest Damascus-Baghdad-Iran land route. This reflects
the continuing policy of the US government of seeking regime change in Syria. This policy's effect is clear in the utterances
of the Borg (foreign policy establishment) concerning the defeat of the IS caliphate and the other rebel; riff-raff around the
country. How? Simple! If you listen to the Borg, you will easily be led to believe that the forces of the Syrian
government have done very little to liberate their country. In fact the opposite is true.
"A lot of people like that idea." I am sure that they do. Lindsay Graham has said and done a lot of good things since
his office wife died but in the matter of Middle East policy he remains as goofy and conditioned by the Israelis as he and John
John ever were. Do the Borgists think that they will slowly ratchet up the number of soldiers engaged in the "Syria
Problem?" Yes, the Borgists and the generals are sure they can pull that off.
One little problem for the Borgists and generals is the hard surface road that runs through Palmyra to Deir al-Zor to Abu
Kamil to Baghdad and thence to Iran. Will the Iraqi government and militias allow the US to block that road as well?
pl
I am dismayed by the fact that the Borg always wins. I think Trump really wanted to pull out of Syria, which the Syrian people
would very much appreciate and which would allow them to start to rebuild their country - but it gets delayed long enough for
this "we are going to leave 400 troops behind to be augmented by a couple of thousand European troops".
The Syrian's are not going
to get their country back. That is too bad - I really like the Syrians.
The 400 troops matter as a means to hurt the SAR. It can prevent / delay reconciliation between the Kurds and the Syrian govt
by giving the Kurds some reassurance that the U.S. supports their autonomy.
I hate that we are playing the spoiler and sitting
their oil fields. They can use that revenue to rebuild their country but since we don't live there we can play games like that.
If we attempt to block the Baghdad/AbuKamal/DeZ/Palmyra Road the Iraqi government will undoubtedly tell us to leave their country
- where that "very powerful base" is that Trump mentions. Then we lose some of the immediate air support for those 400
troops in Syria.
We are however in a position to observe that road. And maybe pass on info to Netanyahu of likely IRGC convoys.
I suspect that keeping the SAA out of Syria east of the Euphrates is at least as important to the US as stopping the Turks kill
the Kurds.
Colonel, do you have a view on how many 'irregulars' there would be in there supporting those stay behind US troops? Also,
how do you think the US will react if/when Idlib finally gets hit?
SDF has in the past been estimated to be 60,000. But some of the Arab elements, such as Liwa Thuwwar al-Raqqa a former FSA
unit, had already left the SDF last year. And many more Arab tribal units in the SDF are being actively proselytized by Assad's
government to return to the fold, And undoubtedly Erdogan's MIT is trying the same with Syrian Turcomans in the Seljuk Brigade.
And many of those 60,000 numbers are non-deployable village protection forces - teenagers, old men, and women manning checkpoints.
The Kurdish YPG is the biggest element with perhaps 25,000 fighters.
The Christian Syriac Military Council has perhaps 3000 plus.
The al-Sanadid Forces of the Arab Shammar tribe claims to have 4,500. Many smaller Arab tribal militias, but I have no clue of
their numbers or whether they wish to stay in the SDF once the so-called caliphate gets reduced down to sleeper cells.
BTW Idlib has been getting hit hard with artillery and airstrikes for several weeks. Just in the past 24 hours both the Syrian
military and the Russian Air Force have hit Saraqeb, Jisr al-Shugour, Maarat al-Numan, Jarjanaz, al-Tah, Tamaniyah, Khan Sheikoun,
and other smaller locations in Idlib.
Remember the original support offered to the YPG/SDF was limited to 50 Green Berets. 200 is more than enough to advise and support
those forces now that IS is more or less licked.
I don't think there are "irreguIars" other than the YPG/SDF forces.
What do you think counts as 400 soldiers? Would this include SF, contractors/mercenaries or just Army/Marines? There seems to
have become something of a grey area about soldiers who are on the Army payroll and contractors who were but are now funded by
a more indirect route but may be performing the same function.
This is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Trump will have to meet with Assad (following in the footsteps of the hated
Tulsi Gabbard) to declare an end to the policy of regime change in Syria. Another Peace Prize for sure, following his ending of
the Korean War. Which leaves us with the question, "Who is the most dangerous man in the United States today?"
Rubio is batsh*t nuts. God knows what goes through his head. God forbid he should become President. He gets my
vote. Bolton, etc. As nuts for sure, but they aren't President nor will they be.
Like a gilded coating that makes the dullest things glitter, today's thin veneer of
political populism covers a grotesque underbelly of growing inequality that's hiding in plain
sight. And this phenomenon of ever more concentrated wealth and power has both Newtonian and
Darwinian components to it.
In terms of Newton's first law of motion: those in
power will remain in power unless acted upon by an external force. Those who are wealthy will
only gain in wealth as long as nothing deflects them from their present course. As for Darwin,
in the world of financial evolution, those with wealth or power will do what's in their best
interest to protect that wealth, even if it's in no one else's interest at all.
In George Orwell's iconic 1945 novel, Animal Farm ,
the pigs who gain control in a rebellion against a human farmer eventually impose a
dictatorship on the other animals on the basis of a single commandment
: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." In terms of the
American republic, the modern equivalent would be: "All citizens are equal, but the wealthy are
so much more equal than anyone else (and plan to remain that way)."
Certainly, inequality is the economic great wall between those with power and those without
it.
As the animals of Orwell's farm grew ever less equal, so in the present moment in a country
that still claims equal opportunity for its citizens, one in which
three Americans now have as much wealth as the bottom half of society (160 million people),
you could certainly say that we live in an increasingly Orwellian society. Or perhaps an
increasingly Twainian one.
After all, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner wrote a classic 1873 novel that put an
unforgettable label on their moment and could do the same for ours. The Gilded Age: A Tale
of Today depicted the greed and political corruption of post-Civil War America. Its
title caught the spirit of what proved to be a long moment when the uber-rich came to dominate
Washington and the rest of America. It was a period saturated with robber barons, professional
grifters, and incomprehensibly wealthy banking magnates. (Anything sound familiar?) The main
difference between that last century's gilded moment and this one was that those robber barons
built tangible things like railroads. Today's equivalent crew of the mega-wealthy build
remarkably intangible things like tech and electronic platforms, while a grifter of a president
opts for the only new infrastructure in sight, a great wall to nowhere.
In Twain's epoch, the U.S. was emerging from the Civil War. Opportunists were rising from
the ashes of the nation's battered soul. Land speculation, government lobbying, and shady deals
soon converged to create an unequal society of the first order (at least until now). Soon after
their novel came out, a series of recessions ravaged the country, followed by a 1907 financial
panic in New York City caused by a
speculator-led copper-market scam.
From the late 1890s on, the most powerful banker on the planet, J.P. Morgan, was called upon
multiple times to bail out a country on the economic edge. In 1907, Treasury Secretary George
Cortelyou provided him with
$25 million in bailout money at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt to stabilize
Wall Street and calm frantic citizens trying to withdraw their deposits from banks around the
country. And this Morgan did -- by helping his friends and their companies, while skimming
money off the top himself. As for the most troubled banks holding the savings of ordinary
people? Well, they folded. (Shades of the 2007-2008 meltdown and bailout anyone?)
The leading bankers who had received that bounty from the government went on to cause the
Crash of 1929 .
Not surprisingly, much speculation and fraud preceded it. In those years, the novelist F. Scott
Fitzgerald caught
the era's spirit of grotesque inequality in The Great Gatsby when one of his characters
comments: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." The same
could certainly be said of today when it comes to the gaping maw between the have-nots and
have-a-lots.
Income vs. Wealth
To fully grasp the nature of inequality in our twenty-first-century gilded age, it's
important to understand the difference between wealth and income and what kinds of inequality
stem from each. Simply put, income is how much money you make in terms of paid work or any
return on investments or assets (or other things you own that have the potential to change in
value). Wealth is simply the gross accumulation of those very assets and any return or
appreciation on them. The more wealth you have, the easier it is to have a higher annual
income.
Let's break that down. If you earn $31,000 a year, the median salary for an
individual in the United States today, your income would be that amount minus associated taxes
(including federal, state, social security, and Medicare ones). On average, that means you
would be left with about $26,000 before other expenses kicked
in.
If your wealth is $1,000,000, however, and you put that into a savings account paying
2.25%
interest , you could receive about $22,500 and, after taxes, be left with about $19,000,
for doing nothing whatsoever.
To put all this in perspective, the top 1% of Americans now take home, on average, more than
40 times the incomes of the bottom 90%. And if you head for the top 0.1%, those figures only
radically worsen. That tiny crew takes home more than 198 times the income of the
bottom 90% percent. They also possess
as much wealth as the nation's bottom 90%. "Wealth," as Adam Smith so classically noted
almost two-and-a-half-centuries ago in The Wealth of Nations , "is power," an adage that seldom, sadly, seems outdated.
A Case Study: Wealth, Inequality, and the Federal Reserve
Obviously, if you inherit wealth in this country, you're instantly ahead of the game. In
America, a third to nearly a half of all wealth is
inherited rather than self-made. According to a New York Times investigation, for
instance, President Donald Trump, from birth, received an estimated
$413 million (in today's dollars, that is) from his dear old dad and another
$140 million (in today's dollars) in loans. Not a bad way for a "businessman" to begin
building the empire (of bankruptcies
) that became the platform for a presidential campaign that
oozed into actually running the country. Trump did it, in other words, the old-fashioned
way -- through inheritance.
In his megalomaniacal zeal to declare a national emergency at the southern border, that
gilded millionaire-turned-billionaire-turned-president provides but one of many examples of a
long record of abusing power. Unfortunately, in this country, few people consider record
inequality (which is still growing) as another kind of abuse of power, another kind of great
wall, in this case keeping not Central Americans but most U.S. citizens out.
The Federal Reserve, the country's central bank that dictates the cost of money and that
sustained Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 (and since), has finally
pointed out that such extreme levels of inequality are bad news for the rest of the country. As
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a
town hall in Washington in early February, "We want prosperity to be widely shared. We need
policies to make that happen." Sadly, the Fed has largely contributed to increasing
the systemic inequality now engrained in the financial and, by extension, political system. In
a recent research paper , the Fed
did, at least, underscore the consequences of inequality to the economy, showing that "income
inequality can generate low aggregate demand, deflation pressure, excessive credit growth, and
financial instability."
In the wake of the global economic meltdown, however, the Fed took it upon itself to reduce
the cost of money for big banks by chopping interest rates to zero (before eventually raising
them to 2.5%) and buying $4.5 trillion in Treasury and mortgage bonds to lower it further. All
this so that banks could ostensibly lend money more easily to Main Street and stimulate the
economy. As Senator Bernie Sanders noted though, "The
Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the
largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world a
clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone
else."
The economy has been treading water ever since (especially compared to the stock market).
Annual gross domestic product growth has not surpassed
3% in any year since the financial crisis, even as the level of the stock market
tripled , grotesquely increasing the country's inequality gap. None of this should have
been surprising, since much of the excess money went straight to big banks, rich investors, and
speculators. They then used it to invest in the stock and bond markets, but not in things that
would matter to all the Americans outside that great wall of wealth.
The question is: Why are inequality and a flawed economic system mutually reinforcing? As a
starting point, those able to invest in a stock market buoyed by the Fed's policies only
increased their wealth exponentially. In contrast, those relying on the economy to sustain them
via wages and other income got shafted. Most people aren't, of course, invested in the stock
market, or really in anything. They can't afford to be. It's important to remember that nearly
80% of the population lives paycheck to paycheck.
The net result: an acute post-financial-crisis increase in
wealth inequality -- on top of the income inequality that was global but especially true in the
United States. The crew in the top 1% that doesn't rely on salaries to increase their wealth
prospered fabulously. They, after all, now own
more than half of all national wealth invested in stocks and mutual funds, so a soaring
stock market disproportionately helps them. It's also why the Federal Reserve
subsidy policies to Wall Street banks have only added to the extreme wealth of those
extreme few.
The Ramifications of Inequality
The list of negatives resulting from such inequality is long indeed. As a start, the only
thing the majority of Americans possess a greater proportion of than that top 1% is a mountain
of debt.
The bottom 90% are the lucky owners of about three-quarters of the country's household debt.
Mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and credit-card debt are cumulatively at a
record-high $13.5 trillion .
And that's just to start down a slippery slope. As Inequality.org reports, wealth and
income inequality impact "everything from life expectancy to infant mortality and obesity."
High economic inequality and poor health, for instance, go hand and hand, or put another way,
inequality compromises the overall health of the country. According to academic findings,
income inequality is, in the most literal sense, making Americans sick. As one study put it ,
"Diseased and impoverished economic infrastructures [help] lead to diseased or impoverished or
unbalanced bodies or minds."
Then there's Social Security, established in 1935 as a federal supplement for
those in need who have also paid into the system through a tax on their wages. Today, all
workers contribute 6.2% of their annual earnings and employers pay the other 6.2% (up to a cap
of $132,900 ) into the Social
Security system. Those making far more than that, specifically millionaires and billionaires,
don't have to pay a dime more on a proportional basis. In practice, that means about 94%
of American workers and their employers paid the full 12.4% of their annual earnings toward
Social Security, while the other 6% paid an often significantly smaller fraction of their
earnings.
According to his
own claims about his 2016 income, for instance, President Trump "contributed a mere 0.002
percent of his income to Social Security in 2016." That means it would take nearly
22,000 additional workers earning the median U.S. salary to make up for what he doesn't
have to pay. And the greater the income inequality in this country, the more money those who
make less have to put into the Social Security system on a proportional basis. In recent years,
a staggering $1.4 trillion
could have gone into that system, if there were no arbitrary payroll cap favoring the
wealthy.
Inequality: A Dilemma With Global Implications
America is great at minting millionaires. It has the highest concentration of them, globally
speaking, at 41%. (Another 24% of that millionaires' club can be found in Europe.) And the top
1% of U.S. citizens earn 40 times the national average and
own about 38.6 % of the country's total wealth. The highest figure in any other developed
country is "only" 28%.
However, while the U.S. boasts of epic levels of inequality, it's also a global trend.
Consider this: the world's richest 1% own 45% of total wealth on
this planet. In contrast, 64% of the population (with an average of
$10,000 in wealth to their name) holds less than 2%. And to widen the inequality picture a bit
more, the world's richest 10%, those having at least $100,000 in assets, own 84% of total
global wealth.
The billionaires' club is where it's really at, though. According to Oxfam, the richest
42 billionaires have a combined wealth equal to that of the poorest 50% of humanity. Rest
assured, however, that in this gilded century there's inequality even among billionaires. After
all, the 10 richest among them possess $745
billion in total global wealth. The next 10 down the list possess a mere $451.5 billion , and why even
bother tallying the next 10 when you get the picture?
Oxfam also recently
reported that "the number of billionaires has almost doubled, with a new billionaire
created every two days between 2017 and 2018. They have now more wealth than ever before while
almost half of humanity have barely escaped extreme poverty, living on less than $5.50 a
day."
How Does It End?
In sum, the rich are only getting richer and it's happening at a historic rate. Worse yet,
over the past decade, there was an extra perk for the truly wealthy. They could bulk up on
assets that had been devalued due to the financial crisis, while so many of their peers on the
other side of that great wall of wealth were economically decimated by the 2007-2008 meltdown
and have yet to fully
recover .
What we've seen ever since is how money just keeps flowing upward through banks and massive
speculation, while the economic lives of those not at the top of the financial food chain have
largely remained stagnant or worse. The result is, of course, sweeping inequality of a kind
that, in much of the last century, might have seemed inconceivable.
Eventually, we will all have to face the black cloud this throws over the entire economy.
Real people in the real world, those not at the top, have experienced a decade of ever greater
instability, while the inequality gap of this beyond-gilded age is sure to shape a truly messy
world ahead. In other words, this can't end well.
I read a stat in Mother Jones magazine that 90% of Americans have an average income of
$31,000 a year and the richest .1 percent have an average income of $27 million dollars. So
how does one pay all these living expenses and various debts with $26,000 after taxes? The
Trump tax cuts just exacerbated the problem by giving more money to the wealthy and
practically nothing to the 90% (at the bottom, which is almost everyone else). A good book on
the subject of wealth inequality is "Billionaire's Ball."
Forward, Comrades (Russian: Вперед,
товарищи; Chinese:
前进，达瓦里希; pinyin: Qiánjìn,
dáwǎlǐxī; literally: "Advance, tovarish") is a 2013 Chinese animated
short film by Wang Liyin of the Beijing Film Academy. The film focuses on the fall of the
Soviet Union as its main theme, told from the perspective of a young girl. As an original net
animation with a strong political backdrop, the film has triggered strong reactions from
various audiences.
I see someone f'd up the thread with their link making it impossible for the rest to read or
comment so I'll write this and move on. The U.S. ruled by Zionist Trump already has what it
wants: despite Russia and Syria calling the shots, not so much, since the U.S. has chaos it
can control indefinitely several ways and with money. The U.S. tried to pull the same dirty
business in Iraq but it didn't work out so well. Leaving a country it attacks in a weakened,
chaotic state is a Zionist tactic. Zionists have been using this strategy against the
Palestinians for decades pitting Hamas against Fatah and vice versa. The Kurds are blinded by
U.S. money and weapons that leave them in a holding catch-22 pattern. Unless they take a leap
of faith accepting the best possible option they will never be free of US pawn-limbo.
Why didn't you bring up the fact that Trump bragged he stopped Russia, Syria and Iran from
killing 3 million people in Idleb therefore deserves the Nobel prize? Trump's bullshet aptly
represents how dirty and scheming the U.S. behave in battle, every day more and more like
their chickenshit Zionist brethren they love so much and are morphing into.
They leave muck and destruction wherever they intervene for humanitarian
reasons.
Trump didn't save Idleb from anything; it's just a chaos they want to control, a muck they
want Assad and Russia to perpetually get stuck in. The U.S. claims Iran is a supporter of
terrorism? There are no greater supporters of terrorism than shithole Israel and the dumb
hee-haw donkey it rides, the U.S. Two thoroughly depraved patrons of terrorism using Kurds
and Syrians with pipe dreams that never materialize cause these patrons of misfortune only
care for AmerikkanZionist domination.
They don't give shet about brown bearded, turbaned tools and their kin. Reality check!
Yes, that's how they really view their loyal pawns! The prouder they are to fight with the
U.S. the easier they are to use and abuse indefinitely. The only way for these people to be
free is to screw the Zio strategy by smoking the peace pipe with the real enemy of the U.S.,
no not the terrorists, but Russia, Iran and Syria in this case.
If everyone made friends with the enemy of the AZEmpire they would be free from decades of
battle-misery and servitude and be able to live normal lives. Not perfect lives; as there
will always be squabbles, but normal lives.
Lavrov,
Munich SC Q&A In response to (assumed) Washington Post reporter, Lavrov
provides the following comparison in policy:
"Addressing a news conference in Sochi President Putin said clearly that we could not put
up with "this hotbed of terrorism" forever. How to solve this problem is a question we should
put to the military. I am confident that they will do it differently from how the terrorists
were being destroyed in Raqqa, where bodies of peaceful civilians and mines are still lying
in the open, with no one to attend to them. But it is the military that should draw up a plan
in keeping with international humanitarian law requirements.
"Of course, everyone can interpret international humanitarian law in his own way. As
Belgrade was being bombed, the targets were a train moving on a bridge, or a television
centre, and this was also regarded as normal. But we don't intend to follow these sorts of
international humanitarian law interpretations."
Ouch! Perhaps the WaPost scribe felt a pang in his conscious. The next exchange clearly
shows Lavrov's feelings after years of total bullshit:
"Question: Elaborating on what The Washington Post correspondent has said, I would like to
ask the following. Since Russia is a guarantor of security in Syria, can you guarantee that
the Assad regime will stop threatening the region and will end its atrocities against its own
people?
"Sergey Lavrov: No matter what I say in reply, you will write what you want. So, go on,
write what you want."
It continues, and Lavrov decides to parry then provide a fatal thrust:
"Question: The Russian government attempted to interfere in the affairs of Greece and
North Macedonia, pandering to the nationalist forces in these countries. How does this relate
to your statements on supporting the European Union?
"Sergey Lavrov: I will take up this question, although I could answer it in the same way
as I did with the previous question.
"Russia has been accused of interfering in the matter of changing Macedonia's name, but
these accusations have not been supported with any clear or reliable facts. Yesterday, I
talked with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and several other colleagues. Mr
Stoltenberg, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and some of the American colleagues, I believe
it was the US Defence Secretary – in all, five or six of the leading Western
politicians – visited Skopje and publicly urged the people to vote for changing the
republic's name in the referendum. They did this publicly and openly. Had we done one
hundredth of what they did, new sanctions would have been imposed on Russia. But these "first
class passengers" get away with anything.
"When Kosovo seceded [from Serbia] and unilaterally declared independence, which the
majority of Western countries recognised, we warned them about the possible consequences of
this. Now Pristina does what it wants....
"By the way, yesterday Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama said openly in an interview with
a Greek newspaper that Kosovo is part of Albania. Well, you wanted it, you got it."
The text omitted via ellipsis is also rather important to read, some of which I included
while discussing this topic on the Open Thread. IMO, the ability of BigLie Media to have an
impact has dwindled to the point of being nil. But as Lavrov observes, EU leadership is
incapable of summoning the courage to demand a divorce and thus maintains a Clintonian Public
and Private Face that only serves to confirm the nth degree of hypocrisy being employed. On
Syria, the best possible things EU nations can do is end ALL their illegal sanctions,
withdrawal their military assets, and support the repatriation and reconstruction
projects.
Compromise With Terrorists In Idlib Is Impossible, They Must Be Eliminated: Russian
Deputy Foreign Minister
Russia's principled stance is that a compromise with terrorists in Syria's Idlib is
impossible and that they must be eliminated, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said on
February 17.
"Idlib is a serious problem, this is probably a major concentration of terrorists in
the region and maybe beyond its borders," he said on the sidelines of the discussion on the
Syrian settlement at the Munich Security Conference, according to TASS. "Our principled
stance is no to any compromise with terrorists, they must be eliminated."
Vershinin recalled that 90% of Idlib's territory is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
(formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) terrorist group, which is excluded from the de-escalation
agreement.
"It's impossible to say that we can make peace with Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists and
similar organizations," he said adding that Ankara, Teheran and Moscow will think about the
ways in order not to harm or put in danger the civilians.
Regarding the situation in northeastern Syria, the diplomat said that the dialogue between
the Kurds and the Damascus government will be the best solution.
"Various options were named of what can be done after or in case the US leaves Syria or
if there are no foreign forces in northeast Syria, which were also mentioned here. We believe
that probably the best option here would be solving these problems through dialogue between
the Kurds and Damascus," he said. "Certainly, we know about those problems which exist in
relations between Damascus and the Kurds. We would support this dialogue, this is the path
that should be chosen."
I think that the Kurds are gegetting too much of everything, including attention. I know I
will read racist, but there is a very good reason why the Kurds never achieved autonomy
let alone a nation state throughout centuries . They are congenitally stupid and always
pick the worst option possible because on the surface it looks most attractive. In 2012, when
US (that is Israel) started mulling using YPG as the third tier anti-Syrian force, after ISIS
and Al Qaida, I wrote that Kurds are going to get shafted again in such an un-natural
alliance. It is an endless cycle in which the Israelis keep using the Kurds to destabilise
their Arab neighbors and let them down, rinse and repeat.
So here we are again, the Kurds were given control over Syrian oil by US and hopes of
statehood with even riches on top, to then be let down by the same "allies" for the one
thousandth time. Now they will drag on negotiations with the real owner of oil, trying to get
their state (with oil) within a state, and let two mutual enemies, Syria and Turkey, gang up
on them to solve the Kurdish problem that both states have (Iraq as well). Do not accuse only
the Kurdish leadership just to make it read non-racist, this is one whole "nation" that I
really do not fell sorry for. You need more proof how stupid they really are? They are asking
US to stay, still not having a faintest clue that the Israeli war on Syria has been lost and
what their own role in it has always been?
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad warned on February 17 that the U.S. would not protect
those depending on it, in a clear hint to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which control
northeastern Syria.
"We say to those groups who are betting on the Americans, the Americans will not
protect you The Americans will put you in their pockets so you can be tools in the barter,
and they have started with (it)," the Syrian President said while he was welcoming the heads
of local councils, according to Reuters.
Assad called on these US proxies to hand over their weapons to the army and join the
reconciliation process while stressing that this is the only way to "retreat from
mischief."
"Nobody will protect you except your state If you do not prepare yourselves to defend
your country, you will be nothing but slaves to (Turkey)," he added.
U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria revived
Turkey's plans to invade the northeastern part of the country. This forced the SDF to resume
its talks with Damascus. However, the Kurdish-dominated group made very high demands, such as
maintaining its independent military force.
Assad's warning may indicate that a deal between his government and the SDF has been still
not reached. Despite this, he appears to be confident that the U.S. will eventually carry on
with the withdrawal decision.
SDF Official: We Are Ready To Consider Deployment Of Egyptian Troops East Of Euphrates
The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) is ready to consider the deployment of Egyptian troops
in its areas east of the Euphrates River in order to prevent any attack by Turkey, Riad
Darar, a co-chairman of the Kurdish-dominated council told the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights (SOHR) on February 17.
"We can coordinate with the Egyptian side to allow a deployment in eastern Euphrates,
they can have a presence there in many ways, we can agree on this," Darar said.
The SDC governs northeastern Syria with direct support from the US-led coalition. Turkey
began preparations to invade the entire region following President Donald Trump's decision to
withdraw all US troops from Syria.
Darar said that he understands that Turkey will not welcome any communication between them
and Egypt. However, he stressed that it is within their rights to communicate with any side
that could "protect their future," especially Egypt, who has historical ties with Syria.
"We always wanted to open an office [in Egypt] to maintain relations with the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of Egypt We are ready to visit Egypt in anytime that would be suitable for
our Egyptian brothers," the Kurdish official added.
Egypt and several other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have been
working to counter Turkey's growing influence in Syria. However, it remains unclear if Cairo
is willing to deploy troops in the northeastern part of the country.
U.S. cannot back Syrian forces who align with Assad - U.S. commander
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States will have to sever its military assistance to the
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battling Islamic State if the fighters partner
with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or Russia, a senior U.S. general said on Sunday.
Kiza @ 11: The main reason the Kurds have never achieved unity despite one of their number
having been the famous Salahuddin (Saladin) a thousand years ago is that they were never
really one ethnic group in the first place but rather several groups speaking related
Northwestern Iranian languages and dialects. The close linguistic relationship is the basis
for the various communities being lumped together as "Kurds".
Apart from their languages and dialects, there is not much else that really unites them.
Living in a similar environment and having a similar lifestyle and even culture because they
are neighbours doesn't count if all they've done in the past is fight each other.
I understand the Kurds have traditionally been Sunnis, Shi'a Muslims, Zoroastrians and
even Alevi Sufi believers and members of various esoteric faiths like Yazidism so they don't
even have a common set of religious beliefs.
"How many more Kurds will have to die until their leadership finally accepts that?"
The problem is they only accept facts. If they see u.s. troops leaving, then and only then
will they change their attitude.
It is clear that the US will continue to send arms to the Kurds Why? Simple, - 50% of US arms
in 2018 were sold to the ME. So continual conflict zones are "good" for business. Kurds.
Qatar, saudi's etc, are all willing "consumers"
The Russians (Lavrov) have accused the US of trying to set up a "mini-sate" in Syria east
of the Euphrates, with EU troops and others "supporting" their aim.
So - I no longer believe that there will be a pull-out from E. Syria- just a "war under
new management" sign.
====
incidentally it seems that the ISIS groups are "appearing" in Idlib. (ie. They are saved (or
buy their exit with Syrian Gold) and sent towards Turkey and then Turkey sends them to
Idlib.
Assad knows they will reject because they have no impetus to accept the offer. Assad speaks
quite harshly about the Kurdish usurpers- His language makes his stance very clear.
"From the beginning, you offered yourselves and the homeland (notice he does not say
your homeland?) for sale. I wouldn't say you offered your principles, because you had
none to begin with. You offered yourselves and the homeland for sale, and there was
demand for this kind of goods at the time, and you were paid handsomely and bought, but after
the new owners tried you out, and despite all the plastic surgery and improvements and
upgrading and modifications , you failed to achieve the required tasks, so they decided
to sell you at a discount after demand for you decreased in the international slave market,
but at a low price, and they won't find a buyer and they'll probably give you away for free,
and no-one will take you.
Assad is being brutally honest with the SDF aka PKK rebrand- Which is the reference to
plastic surgery and upgrades- He's clear that the land is not their homeland- It is the
homeland.
"And no one will take you" This is a reference,to the fact that now the Kurds have made
themselves lepers in Iran & Turkey as well as in Syria (Peace talks between AKP and PKK
failed in 2013- the Syrian situation was undoubtedly a factor With the PKK thinking they'd
have leverage should they be able to annex Syrian territory all the way to the Med)
"But you were sold without the homeland , because the homeland has actual owners, not
thieves. The homeland has a people who view their homeland as their soul whose death would
mean their death, while brokers consider the homeland a commodity that they can replace if
it's gone after they pay the price. The homeland is like a soul; these are phrases you don't
understand the homeland is sacred; these are words whose meaning you don't know, because you
are cheap brokers who understand nothing but humiliation and disgrace and who deserve only
contempt and disdain."
Assad continues... The soil is not yours. You are not of the soil. The land or soil has
real owners who identify with this (true citizens of the land) A reference to the idea of
birthright and citizenship.
A solid old world view- when the world had some sense
"The homeland is like a soul" Beautiful.
"Cheap brokers who understand nothing but humiliation and disgrace and who deserve only
contempt and disdain." Accurate
The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take
back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial. The Caliphate is
ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them
..
President of the United States of America who promissed to leave Syria (which he won't,
not NE and not Al Tanf) informed his European "allies" that the Daesh/IS scum rotting away in
SDF jails will soon be set free so they can return to Europe or Europe can voluntarely take
them back. So after years of indoctrination committing the most heinous crimes to further
Zionist, US and Saudi interests these battle hardened terrorists are forced onto Europe by
president US Trump.
Why not make room in that stolen land Guantanamo Bay? Why not move them to their Saudi
ideological friends? Or have them set on trial in Syria or Iraq? Even if they're incarcerated
in Europe, it's not that they will keep their extreme crazy ideologies to themselves. Daesh
itself was nurtured in Iraqi jail cell's.
US president Donald Trump knows perfectly well his insideous plan not only sows division
but knows these religious fanatics will launch a new avalanche of terrorist attacks
throughout Europe. Trump is not only at war with China and Russia but also with Europe.
Balkanisation. Yugoslavia is a perfect example and going back a few years, Biafra in
Nigeria. Mini-states have no power, above all, no armies! It was the plan for Iraq and the
former USSR.
I could not find a transcript of Assad's speech, but I do
think your interpretation is wrong. I went to the Syrian
site b linked to, and there are quotations there that do
not sound like a slur on the Syrian Kurds as a community
but rather on those who oppose the government:
"...President al-Assad said that today, terrorism is suffering
defeats in one area after the other, and security is being
restored to millions of Syrians in liberated areas, adding
"with every inch that is liberated, there is an enemy that
is thwarted, and with every inch that is cleansed there is
an agent and a traitor and a mercenary who complains. Why
do they complain? According to their statements, they
complain because their sponsors failed them...today and in
the future, we must realize the fact that the war was between
us Syrians [including Kurds] and terrorists exclusively. We
triumph together, not against each other."
He further states, without naming any group directly, that
"...they have a choice: to be masters in their own land, or
slaves and pawns in the hand of occupiers."
To me that latter statement is that the Syrian Kurds (as
do Chechnyans in Russia) have the choice to be masters
in their own land, which does not sound a bad choice to me.
A French colonel who led an artillery group in the fight against ISIS
criticized the U.S. way of fighting that war:
Colonel Francois-Regis Legrier, who has been in charge of directing French artillery
supporting Kurdish-led groups in Syria since October, said the coalition's focus had been
on limiting its own risks and this had greatly increased the death toll among civilians
and the levels of destruction.
"Yes, the Battle of Hajin was won, at least on the ground but by refusing ground
engagement, we unnecessarily prolonged the conflict and thus contributed to increasing
the number of casualties in the population," Mr Legrier wrote in an article in the
National Defence Review.
" We have massively destroyed the infrastructure and given the population a disgusting
image of what may be a Western-style liberation leaving behind the seeds of an imminent
resurgence of a new adversary ," he said, in rare public criticism by a serving
officer.
Several times during the last months bad weather prevented the use of aerial
bombing and artillery fire against ISIS. The terrorists always used these pauses to
counterattack. The poorly armed and led Kurdish/Arab SDF suffered a lot of casualties
because of these. The colonel opines that a well armed professional ground force would have
shortened the conflict with less casualties and much less damage.
The original essay by the soon to be former colonel was taken down from the web. It is
available in French on page 65 of this pdf .
It is still not clear if or when the U.S. forces will leave northeast Syria. President
Trump had asked Turkey to take over the area but Syria, Russia, Iran and the Kurdish forces
the U.S. used as proxies against ISIS are against this. A U.S. attempt to recruit British,
German or French forces to occupy the area failed.
The Syrian ground must obviously be turned back to the Syrian government. The Kurdish
forces, controlled by the anarcho-marxist PKK/YPG which Turkey and others designate as
terrorists, use their current position to demand political autonomy in the area they now
control. The Syrian government is strongly against this. Any federalization of Syria would
be the beginning of its end.
Yesterday the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad offered a compromise to the Kurds. In
a speech in front of the heads
of local councils he announced local council elections and the decentralization of some
political decisions. The required law 107 is already in place but its implementation was
held up by the war:
[Assad] said that the essence of the local administration law is achieving balance in
development across all areas by giving local administrative units the authority to
develop their areas in terms of economy, urban development, culture, and services ,
thereby improving citizens' living conditions by launching projects, providing job
opportunities, and providing services locally, particularly in remote areas.
President al-Assad said it is no longer practical to manage the affairs of the society
and state and achieved balanced development in the same centralized way that had been
used for decades, noting that the population of Syria in 1971 when the previous law was
issued was around 7 million, while the population in 2011 when law 107 was issued had
reached around 22 million.
That the implementation of elected local administrations is offered now is a clear sign
to the Kurds that they can get some autonomy but not the wide ranging one that they ask
for. While they can have local elections, councils and administrations as all other areas
will have, there will be no separate armed force, police of judicative in Kurdish majority
areas.
Several times over the war the Kurds overreached, made too large demands and lost
because of it. Turkey took the Afrin area and the Kurdish population had to flee because
the Kurdish leadership did not want the Syrian army to take over control. In a later part
of the speech Assad again addressed the Kurds without specifically naming them. He
warned:
"The Americans will not protect you you will be a bargaining chip in their pocket along
with the dollars they have, and they have already started bargaining. If you don't
prepare yourselves to defend your country, you will be mere slaves for the Ottomans. Only
your state will protect you and only the Syrian Arab Army will defend you when you join
it and fight under its banner.
"When we stand in one position and in the same trench, face a single enemy, and aim in
the same direction instead of aiming at each other, there will be no worry of any threat
no matter how big, His Excellency said.
President al-Assad said the time has come for those groups to decide how history will
judge them, and that they have a choice: to be masters in their own land, or slaves and
pawns in the hand of occupiers.
The offer is quite clear and the consequences of not accepting it would be harsh. The
Kurds and the area they hold must come back under Syrian government control or Turkey will
grab it and will put the Kurds under its boots. The pigheadedness of their leadership could
easily lead to that. In his speech Assad already predicts that they will reject his offer
before - maybe - accepting it.
"As you noticed, I will not name these groups, but as usual, for a few hours or maybe for
a few days, they will issue statements attacking this speech, then you will know who I'm
talking about," he added.
A few hours after Assad's speech the Kurdish commander of the SDF was again begging the
U.S. to keep 1,500 of its troops there.
Mazloum Kobani, commander-in-chief of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),
called on international coalition allies to keep 1,000-1,500 troops in Syria.
...
"We would like to have air cover, air support and a force on the ground to coordinate
with us," Kobani told reporters at an undisclosed airbase in northeast Syria, Reuters
reports.
It is very unlikely that Trump will change his position. The U.S. troops will leave.
Only the Syrian government can give the Kurds the protection they need.
How many more Kurds will have to die until their leadership finally accepts that? To the
French Colonel:
Wake up dummy as ISIS is C$IA, Mo$$$ad, Deep State.
Go back to France and join the yellow vests. Arrest the Roth$child family, Soros and the
other dual citizen banksters who have bled France dry and turned France into Africa. The
enemy is in Paris there Colonel and at the bIS in Switzerland, NATO and also in Tel$$
Aviv$.
erdogan is not going to change... putin has to address this, however he addresses
it..
usa-west is not going to change either.. the withdrawal sounds good on paper, but they
will find a way to throw a spoke in everything.
kurds have an outside chance of changing..
so, it is a frozen type dynamic at present, waiting on turkey or russia to make the next
move... kurds don't seem capable of making the right move here... they find whatever the
usa dangles in front of them, enough to continue to fantasize about their future
independence.
erdogan never saw a renamed terrorist he didn't like, so long as it wasn't a kurd...
until this changes, we are still on track for ww3.. we just had a slight pause in the same
direction..
The Kurds I suspect are getting mixed messages from other members of NATO and some of
those message promise them a better position then where they are headed if the US completes
its pull out and doesn't backfill with mercenaries as the only choice now.
I don't see the US EVER leaving the ME unless the private finance issue is resolved
or the US goes bankrupt and can't project war anymore . I think the later is most
likely and fast approaching but will the cancer of private finance empire find another host
to control by then is the question
"How many more Kurds will have to die until their leadership finally accepts that?"
Syrian Kurds were second class inhabitants of Syria before the US invasion and there is
nothing to suggest that they will not be second class inhabitants after the 'peace'.
Perhaps they would prefer to die fighting, rather than live in chains; the true meaning of
the real 'peshmerga' - their souls go on before.
John Daywww.johndayblog.com , Feb 21, 2019 12:16:39 PM |
link
The French Colonel's essay is available here, translated to English quite well.
Eleni Tsigante, an Athenian of ancient family, has translated to English, the essay by a
French Colonel, commander of artillery of NATO coalition forces in Syria, which was
referenced in the Moon of Alabama article.
This essay has ceased to be available online, but I copy what she has sent me, with thanks
to her and to Colonel François-Régis Legrier.
"... Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all the major media. ..."
"... I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him and destroyed his country ..."
"... There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect folks to fall for it. ..."
Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the
American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day. He
may be an FDR capitalist, giving you just enough socialism to keep the capitalist system
afloat, keeping the pitchforks and torches at bay.
Bernie is a pro-war imperialist, just look at his tweets about Maduro recently, or his
views on Palestine-Israel. He may be the best "candidate" in 2020, but he is far from a
socialist. Same deal with Tulsi, if you are pro-Israel, you are a pro-war imperialist
period.
Notice she always makes a point to say "regime change wars" but what about drones? What
about covert CIA-mercenary assassinations? What about the war OF terror? She has no problem
with these types of war apparently. Colonialism and imperialism (theft of other people's and
nation's resources) are not true socialist policies. Capitalism by definition is stealing the
surplus value of the labor of other people – it cannot lead anywhere but to where we
are today.
Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the
working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such
as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all
the major media.
There is now no Left left in America, although plenty people here now think "left" means
identity stuff. It does not. Left is giving priority to the welfare if the working class
majority and protecting them from predatory capitalists. Race, gender and deviancies did not
define the authentic socialist agenda.
I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco
Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him
and destroyed his country, turning it back centuries, using them as a threat to Maduro. You
don't vote that kind of Mob out, we have the mafia now in charge of our country, the most
powerful military in the world is run by satanic mobsters, and we're foolish enough to think
voting is going to make this go away? Criminals and gangsters don't stop until they're either
in prison or dead. They don't go away or give up power because you ask them to, which is all
voting is, asking them nicely. Good luck with that!
I wish it wasn't true. I wish we could vote Bernie or Tulsi in and things change for the
better, but from what I've seen the past 30 years, it ain't happening. Their silence on 9-11
truth, knowing full well they know better is pretty telling.
It doesn't take an Einstein to
see those buildings were blown up with explosives, if they're not willing to call that out,
what makes you think they're willing to do what needs to be done once in office? Sadly I'm
afraid either collapse, armed revolt, or China or Russia invading and/or nuking us is the
only way out of this evil system.
There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the
same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect
folks to fall for it.
This is a great
article which effectively exposes Sanders as being fatally compromised by his role as
Clinton lackey after the evidence emerged that the party engaged in fraud securing the
predicted result. I also fully endorse Hooch's response to the commentary. Great job on both
counts.
"... This is where Sanders will come to help: he will help US citizens, by helping corporations to be able to sell their stuff to US citizens. Sanders calls that socialism, but it is, as Chomsky explained, new dealism. ..."
"... As of 3 min ago, https://berniesanders.com/ was just a splash screen. He had 4 yrs to update his website. He should not run. Tulsi Gabbard went to the mat for him in 2016, he should have sat this one out and endorsed her. Bernie is a typical narcissistic baby boomer who believes only he can save the world he has spent his life F-ing up. ..."
@Bern I think that
Sanders is able to change half of the USA. He is likely to do something about inequality,
unemployment, health care, but he will not touch the MIC.
The US is a rich country, and if the US wants stay rich it has to do something about this
third world-isation of the USA that is in play since the 1990s (outsourcing of jobs, leaving
the home population with less and less means to buy stuff US corporations produce abroad).
This is where Sanders will come to help: he will help US citizens, by helping corporations to
be able to sell their stuff to US citizens. Sanders calls that socialism, but it is, as
Chomsky explained, new dealism.
Socialism would be if Sanders promoted that workers would
take over the corporations, or would allow to re-open factories, warehouses, and farmland
where the workers were in control, not the bosses. Sanders is not promoting any of that.
Sanders may be a Roosevelt, but he is not an Upton Sinclair (who nearly became governor of
California in the 1930s by running a truly socialist platform). And, as said, he will
certainly not touch the MIC.
IMO he is the lesser evil of candidates who run for the 2020 US elections, but to consider
him a socialist, as Sanders calls himself, will lead to disappointment.
Here is Michael Parenti talking about his former compatriot:
As of 3 min ago, https://berniesanders.com/ was just a splash screen. He had 4
yrs to update his website. He should not run. Tulsi Gabbard went to the mat for him in 2016, he
should have sat this one out and endorsed her. Bernie is a typical narcissistic baby boomer who
believes only he can save the world he has spent his life F-ing up.
Oh great, Bernie -- another Sunday Socialist. The road to Hell is trodden bare by his
type, downhill all the way. Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen". Provide
the necessary razzle-dazzle for the war democrats, police state liberals and austerity
progressives to suck up the attention and energy of the disaffected.
That's what they get paid to do. This layer of burn-outs, has beens and traitors. The
ever-odious staffers, full-timers, consultants, aides, advisors, policy wonks, publicity
hounds. Ever advancing themselves as spokespeople for all the causes. Always ready to turn
viciously on any regular people who have the impertinence to say otherwise. Generals without
an army.
Always anything but class with the Bernie boosters. Furiously beating their drums for
feminism, gay whatever, racism, the environment. But never for mobilization of the working
class. Never for fighting against real capitalism. The Bernie Sunday Socialists live
comfortably, haven't walked a picket line in ages, buy sweat shop labour designer clothes and
are as tough as jello.
Life has a way of paying you out. And the future for the Bernie boosters and those dumb
enough to buy their bilge is -- the Ukraine.
While the Bernie crowd serve as their apologists the class elites grind on. They have no
limit and the Bernie bunch will swallow anything so long as they keep their place and
privileges as police for the working poor. But, at some point, Ukrainization hits the
tipping point. As it is heading for in Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, Mexico. When the shit
hits the fan, the Bernie boosters will be on the wrong side of the barricades.
@redmudhooch "See how
the faithful city has become a prostitute! She once was full of justice; righteousness used
to dwell in her -- but now murderers!"
(Isaiah 1:21-23)
Bernie is not a magic socialist. He is a fraud: he was cheated out of nomination, and then
supported the cheater. Shame on him! He will never get my vote, period.
Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely
controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era
Newspeak.)
What's more, Hill and Bill work for CIA too: Hill got her start purloining documents for
CIA's "Watergate" purge of Nixon; Cord Meyer recruited Bill at Oxford.
CIA brainwashing makes Republicans blame Democrats for what CIA does to you, and makes
Democrats blame Republicans for what CIA does to them. CIA runs your country while party
loyalists tear each other's throats out. Divide et impera.
Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about
the country. They've got a business to run: drug-dealing, gun-running, child trafficking and
pedophile blackmail, money-laundering, foreign asset-stripping.
I honestly think that had the media and the deep state treated Trump fairly, they would have still have some credibility
now. But the blatant attempt to derail his candidacy only egged on his supporters. Then, the concerted attempts to nullify the
election results convinced people all over the political spectrum that our "democracy" is only a "simulation of democracy" as
Hopkins points out.
Don't the people pulling the strings behind the media understand what they have done? They have convinced a large part of the
nation that everything that they were taught from childhood is a fraud.
Civilizations are only held together by the "glue" of shared beliefs. The deep-state-media-complex has just applied a solvent
to the very glue that holds the entire culture together.
This is going to make the next couple of years very interesting.
Attempts by Russian gov. to intimidate Amb. Wallace & @UANI are unacceptable. If
President Putin is serious about stabilizing the Middle East, confronting terrorism &
preventing a nuclear arms race in the region, he should stand with UANI & against
Iran.
Why would the national security advisor care what the Russian Foreign Ministry has to say
about a New York-based nonprofit's letter writing campaign, especially when those remarks got
virtually no notice in the media?
Bolton's personal finances and the president's biggest campaign funder offer a couple
clues.
Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he
received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping
staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the
payments were "consulting fees."
@Asagirian I've read that
she is still in line to primary Trump. Surely someone will, so it might as well be a neocon
Israel-first Sikh woman who is even more ignorant and psychotic that our current
Tweeter-in-Chief. If she wins, she can even keep Pompeo and Bolton to finish off Iran and
start WWIII.
@animalogic I don't
know if you live in the US, sounds like you don't, but one could argue that the healthcare
system has already been nationalized. Consumers must shop for policies that meet
Obamacare standards which include coverage for gender reassignment and other things
that 10 years ago no private insurer would dream of paying for. This is a direct result of
government's boot on the market's throat. (And the market likes it, based on HMO stock
prices)
It is illegal for any insurer to offer a bare bones catastrophic plan that doesn't
cover Obama's hopey-changey list of progressive surgical procedures. 15 years ago, those
catastrophic plans were everywhere, and very affordable.
And to your point about providing healthcare to people who can't afford it. We already
have that, it's called Medicaid. When those receiving it die, the government comes in and
grabs all of their estate's assets, because they used a government program that was
forced on them. Like I said, it's been taken over.
"That might have left people with the false impression that their votes mean absolutely
nothing, and that the entire American electoral system is just a simulation of democracy, and
in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire
administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until
they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image."
Now that's writing worth reading. If the Nobel committee did not serve the Global Empire,
it would give the Literature Prize to Hopkins.
The late 19th and 20th century Russians had the horror of dealing with Nihilists running
amuck in their country. Now the Nihilists rule the world as multi-billionaire Globalists.
The DNC takes Deep State to a whole new level. They have this thing called "Superdelegates",
which has veto power over the little people.
The SJWs and Bernie bots may be too dumb to know who their real daddies are, but the
Superdelegates know exactly whose ring they need to kiss to regain power: the same globalist
capitalist Davos scums who now have Trump exactly where they want him, between their legs
sucking up while busy implementing their agendas of endless wars and endless immigration.
The Superdelegates will never let things get too far with the socialists, they're good for
entertainment, to give off the pretense of a real race. I'm betting my money on Kirsten
Gillibrand -- Dems know if there's a woman who could beat Trump, she needs to be a blonde.
Uncle Joe has too many skeletons in his closet. It's just a matter of time before the
cockroaches come out of the woodwork and #MeToo him into the orbits.
Oh great, Bernie -- another Sunday Socialist. The road to Hell is trodden bare by his
type, downhill all the way. Bernie's assigned role is to "suck up all the oxygen". Provide
the necessary razzle-dazzle for the war democrats, police state liberals and austerity
progressives to suck up the attention and energy of the disaffected.
That's what they get paid to do. This layer of burn-outs, has beens and traitors. The
ever-odious staffers, full-timers, consultants, aides, advisors, policy wonks, publicity
hounds. Ever advancing themselves as spokespeople for all the causes. Always ready to turn
viciously on any regular people who have the impertinence to say otherwise. Generals without
an army.
Always anything but class with the Bernie boosters. Furiously beating their drums for
feminism, gay whatever, racism, the environment. But never for mobilization of the working
class. Never for fighting against real capitalism. The Bernie Sunday Socialists live
comfortably, haven't walked a picket line in ages, buy sweat shop labour designer clothes and
are as tough as jello.
Life has a way of paying you out. And the future for the Bernie boosters and those dumb
enough to buy their bilge is -- the Ukraine.
While the Bernie crowd serve as their apologists the class elites grind on. They have no
limit and the Bernie bunch will swallow anything so long as they keep their place and
privileges as police for the working poor. But, at some point, Ukrainization hits the
tipping point. As it is heading for in Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, Mexico. When the shit
hits the fan, the Bernie boosters will be on the wrong side of the barricades.
Bernie is no socialist, neither are any Democrats, just controlled puppets to keep the
American people docile, keep up the illusion that things will actually get better one day. He
may be an FDR capitalist, giving you just enough socialism to keep the capitalist system
afloat, keeping the pitchforks and torches at bay.
Bernie is a pro-war imperialist, just look at his tweets about Maduro recently, or his
views on Palestine-Israel. He may be the best "candidate" in 2020, but he is far from a
socialist. Same deal with Tulsi, if you are pro-Israel, you are a pro-war imperialist
period.
Notice she always makes a point to say "regime change wars" but what about drones? What
about covert CIA-mercenary assassinations? What about the war OF terror? She has no problem
with these types of war apparently. Colonialism and imperialism (theft of other people's and
nation's resources) are not true socialist policies. Capitalism by definition is stealing the
surplus value of the labor of other people – it cannot lead anywhere but to where we
are today.
Socialism is government by the working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the
working-class ruling over society anywhere in the world, certainly not in a dictatorship such
as America. Capitalists own all the means of production, all levers of government, and all
the major media.
There is now no Left left in America, although plenty people here now think "left" means
identity stuff. It does not. Left is giving priority to the welfare if the working class
majority and protecting them from predatory capitalists. Race, gender and deviancies did not
define the authentic socialist agenda.
I've given up the illusion that we'll ever vote our way out of this madness, look at Narco
Rubio's tweet yesterday using snuff photos of Gaddafi after the gangsters in DC murdered him
and destroyed his country, turning it back centuries, using them as a threat to Maduro. You
don't vote that kind of Mob out, we have the mafia now in charge of our country, the most
powerful military in the world is run by satanic mobsters, and we're foolish enough to think
voting is going to make this go away? Criminals and gangsters don't stop until they're either
in prison or dead. They don't go away or give up power because you ask them to, which is all
voting is, asking them nicely. Good luck with that!
I wish it wasn't true. I wish we could vote Bernie or Tulsi in and things change for the
better, but from what I've seen the past 30 years, it ain't happening. Their silence on 9-11
truth, knowing full well they know better is pretty telling.It doesn't take an Einstein to
see those buildings were blown up with explosives, if they're not willing to call that out,
what makes you think they're willing to do what needs to be done once in office? Sadly I'm
afraid either collapse, armed revolt, or China or Russia invading and/or nuking us is the
only way out of this evil system.
There are limits, after all, to people's gullibility. It's not like you can just run the
same con, with the same fake message and the same fake messiah, over and over, and expect
folks to fall for it.
"... There are foundations in Washington, all closely linked to Israel and its lobby in the U.S., that are wholly dedicated to making the case for war against Iran. ..."
"... The Times suggests how it all works as follows: "Congressional and legal sources say the law may now provide a legal rationale for striking Iranian territory or proxies should President Trump decide that Tehran poses a looming threat to the U.S. or Israel and that economic sanctions are not strong enough to neutralize the threat." The paper does not bother to explain what might constitute a "looming threat" to the United States from puny Iran but it is enough to note that Israel, as usual, is right in the middle of everything and, exercising its option of perpetual victim-hood, it is apparently threatened in spite of its nuclear arsenal and overwhelming regional military superiority guaranteed by act of the U.S. Congress. ..."
"... So going after Iran is the name of the game even if the al Qaeda story is basically untrue. The stakes are high and whatever has to be produced, deduced or fabricated to justify a war is fair game ..."
Observers of developments in the Middle East have long taken it as a given that the United
States and Israel are seeking for an excuse to attack Iran. The recently terminated conference
in Warsaw had that objective, which was clearly expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, but it failed to rally European and Middle Eastern states to support the cause. On
the contrary, there was strong sentiment coming from Europe in particular that normalizing
relations with Iran within the context of the 2015 multi party nuclear agreement is the
preferred way to go both to avoid a major war and to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation.
There are foundations in Washington, all closely linked to Israel and its lobby in the U.S.,
that are wholly dedicated to making the case for war against Iran. They seek pretexts in
various dark corners, including claims that Iran is cheating on its nuclear program, that it is
developing ballistic missiles that will enable it to deliver its secret nuclear warheads onto
targets in Europe and even the United States, that it is an oppressive, dictatorial government
that must be subjected to regime change to liberate the Iranian people and give them democracy,
and, most stridently, that is provoking and supporting wars and threats against U.S. allies all
throughout the Middle East.
Dissecting the claims about Iran, one might reasonably counter that rigorous inspections by
the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirm that Tehran has no nuclear
weapons program, a view that is supported by the U.S. intelligence community in its recent
Worldwide Threat Assessment. Beyond that, Iran's limited missile program can be regarded as
largely defensive given the constant threats from Israel and the U.S. and one might well accept
that the removal of the Iranian government is a task best suited for the Iranian people, not
delivered through military intervention by a foreign power that has been starving the country
through economic warfare. And as for provoking wars in the Middle East, look to the United
States and Israel, not Iran.
So the hawks in Washington, by which one means National Security Adviser John Bolton,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and, apparently President Donald Trump himself when the subject
is Iran, have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of a clear casus belli to hang their
war on. No doubt prodded by Netanyahu, they have apparently revived an old story to give them
what they want, even going so far as to develop an argument that would justify an attack on
Iran without a declaration of war while also lacking any imminent threat from Tehran to justify
a preemptive strike.
What may be the new Iran policy was recently outlined in a Washington Times article,
which unfortunately has received relatively little attention from either the media, the
punditry or from the few policymakers themselves who have intermittently been mildly critical
of Washington's propensity to strike first and think about it afterwards.
The article is entitled "Exclusive: Iran-al Qaeda alliance May Provide Legal Rationale
for U.S. military strikes." The article's main points should be taken seriously by anyone
concerned over what is about to unfold in the Persian Gulf because it is not just the usual
fluff emanating from the hubris-induced meanderings of some think tank, though it does include
some of that. It also cites government officials by name and others who are not named but are
clearly in the administration.
As an ex-CIA case officer who worked on the Iran target for a number of years, I was shocked
when I read the Times ' article, primarily because it sounded like a repeat of the
fabricated intelligence that was used against both Iraq and Iran in 2001 through 2003. It is
based on the premise that war with Iran is desirable for the United States and, acting behind
the scenes, Israel, so it is therefore necessary to come up with an excuse to start it. As the
threat of terrorism is always a good tactic to convince the American public that something must
be done, that is what the article tries to do and it is particularly discouraging to read as it
appears to reflect opinion in the White House.
As I have been writing quite critically about the CIA and the Middle East for a number of
years, I am accustomed to considerable push-back from former colleagues. But in this case, the
calls and emails I received from former intelligence officers who shared my experience of the
Middle East and had read the article went strongly the other way, condemning the use of both
fake and contrived intelligence to start another unnecessary war.
The article states that Iran is supporting al Qaeda by providing money, weapons and
sanctuary across the Middle East to enable it to undertake new terrorist attacks. It is doing
so in spite of ideological differences because of a common enemy: the United States. Per the
article and its sources, this connivance has now "evolved into an unacceptable global security
threat" with the White House intent on "establishing a potential legal justification for
military strikes against Iran or its proxies."
One might reasonably ask why the United States cares if Iran is helping al Qaeda as both are
already enemies who are lying on the Made in U.S.A. chopping block waiting for the ax to fall.
The reason lies in the Authorization to Use Military Force, originally drafted post 9/11 to
provide a legal fig leaf to pursue al Qaeda worldwide, but since modified to permit also going
after "associated groups." If Iran is plausibly an associated group then President Trump and
his band of self-righteous maniacs egged on by Netanyahu can declare "bombs away Mr.
Ayatollah." And if Israel is involved, there will be a full benediction coming from Congress
and the media. So is this administration both capable and willing to start a major war based on
bullshit? You betcha!
The Times suggests how it all works as follows: "Congressional and legal sources say
the law may now provide a legal rationale for striking Iranian territory or proxies should
President Trump decide that Tehran poses a looming threat to the U.S. or Israel and that
economic sanctions are not strong enough to neutralize the threat." The paper does not bother
to explain what might constitute a "looming threat" to the United States from puny Iran but it
is enough to note that Israel, as usual, is right in the middle of everything and, exercising
its option of perpetual victim-hood, it is apparently threatened in spite of its nuclear
arsenal and overwhelming regional military superiority guaranteed by act of the U.S.
Congress.
Curiously, though several cited administration officials wedded to the hard-line against
Iran because it is alleged to be the "world's leading state sponsor of terrorism" were willing
to provide their opinions on the Iran-al Qaeda axis, the authors of the recent Worldwide Threat
Assessment issued by the intelligence community apparently have never heard of it. The State
Department meanwhile sees an Iranian pipeline moving al Qaeda's men and money to targets in
central and south Asia, though that assessment hardly jives with the fact that the
only recent major attack attributed to al Qaeda was carried out on February 13
th in southeastern Iran against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a bombing that
killed 27 guardsmen.
The State annual threat assessment also particularly condemns Iran for funding groups like
Hezbollah and Hamas, both of which are, not coincidentally, enemies of Israel who would care
less about "threatening" the United States but for the fact that it is constantly meddling in
the Middle East on behalf of the Jewish state.
And when in doubt, the authors of the article went to "old reliable," the leading neocon
think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which, by the way, works closely with
the Israeli government and never, ever has criticized the state of democracy in Israel. One of
its spokesmen was quick off the mark: ""The Trump administration is right to focus on Tehran's
full range of malign activities, and that should include a focus on Tehran's long-standing
support for al Qaeda."
Indeed, the one expert cited in the Times story who actually is an expert and
examined original documents rather than reeling off approved government and think tank talking
points contradicted the Iran-al Qaeda narrative. "Nelly Lahoud, a former terrorism analyst at
the U.S. Military Academy and now a New America Foundation fellow, was one of the first to
review documents seized from bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. She wrote in an
analysis for the Atlantic Council this fall that the bin Laden files revealed a deep strain of
skepticism and hostility toward the Iranian regime, mixed with a recognition by al Qaeda
leaders of the need to avoid a complete break with Tehran. In none of the documents, which date
from 2004 to just days before bin Laden's death, 'did I find references pointing to
collaboration between al Qaeda and Iran to carry out terrorism,' she concluded."
So going after Iran is the name of the game even if the al Qaeda story is basically untrue.
The stakes are high and whatever has to be produced, deduced or fabricated to justify a war is
fair game. Iran and terrorism? Perfect. Let's try that one out because, after all, invading
Iran will be a cakewalk and the people will be in the streets cheering our tanks as they roll
by. What could possibly go wrong?
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]
.
Israel has a population of approximately 8.7 million, roughly equal to the state of New
Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income slightly
below that of the European Union. Israel's unemployment rate of 4.3% is better than
America's 4.4%, and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 22nd in the world
while the US sits in last place at a dismal 202nd.
Yet, Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other nation. The US
has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan
Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined – which have a total population of
over a billion people.
And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with
Israel.
Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on
Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a
look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.
given the constant threats from Israel and the U.S.
And it has been more than threats: the Stuxnet virus and Mossad assassinations. While I
think even Trump may be reasonably nervous about a potential attack, if he has cheerleaders
like Kushner, Friedman, MBS, AIPAC, et al, it does seem almost a certainty. Is this not what
NSA Bolton has been waiting for most of his career?
And the neocon media crew will likely be out in full force soon doing their "mushroom
cloud" thing.
I saw Rubin, Boot, Pletka, Todd in shock over what Rep Omar had said. Poor David Brooks felt
the Democrats had "slapped him the face (PBS Newshour)."
Democrats need to be talking about this early. They can't let this happen. As for the GOP
I'm sure the words at the AIPAC convention will be supportive.
The patent absurdity of the 'indispensable nation,', in one administration, making peace with
Iran and then, in the very next (on the basis of no palpable facts) making war, should
eventually wake even the most catatonic to the monstrous activities that have led us to this
point.
I suspect that this (seemingly imminent) attack on Iran will, also become the noose to
hang Trump with. Thus, the Neocons, with Stalinesque subtlety will have killed two birds with
one shot.
But in a world of America attacking countries over non-existent weapons of mass
destruction or over supposed destruction of democracy, both plainly false claims, does it
make any difference?
America will do what it wants to do. Simply because it can.
The European powers allowed World War II to unfold by wringing their hands rather than
taking a stand while Hitler built up his forces, threatened his neighbors and bit off
chunks of their territory.
You have to be kidding. You're re-spouting nearly century old war propaganda as fact. You
need to go back and read the article and focus on the parts where pretexts are made up.
Here, start with this.:
So the hawks in Washington, by which one means National Security Adviser John Bolton,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and, apparently President Donald Trump himself when the
subject is Iran, have been somewhat frustrated by the lack of a clear casus belli to
hang their war on. No doubt prodded by Netanyahu, they have apparently revived an
old story to give them what they want, even going so far as to develop an argument that
would justify an attack on Iran < /blockquote>
@renfro Thanks for the
tweets renfro .
I saw the news of Iran's FM Zarif's resignation yesterday and I was immediately alarmed. If
Zarif is actually removed from power a Western educated man with TV charisma will be taken
off the 'airs'. Iran will lose a big positive public relations asset with Zarif's departure
to the glee of Netanyahu and the rabid Zionists in Isra-hell and here in Trump's
administration and the Beltway. Bad news.
In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?
I agree. Who'd be stupid enough to "ally" themselves with the money bags "one world" crowd
after seeing so many others get tossed under the bus?
CAIRO, Egypt, May 27, -- The last hope of 30,000,000 Arabs to win freedom for their race
without further bloodshed vanished when cables from Washington announced that the United
States had concluded an agreement with Great Britain The Arabs came into the war on the
side of the allies against their Turkish co-religionists in- response to the
allies' promise of freedom The Arab support" was determined and effective."
Newspaper article by Junius B. Wood on the American recognition of Britain's mandate in
Palestine, Chicago Daily News,27 May 1922 (also The Sunday Star, Washington)
When the smoke of [WW2] cleared only three purposes had been achieved, none of them
disclosed at its start: the world-revolution, with Western arms and support, had
advanced to the middle of Europe; Zionism had been armed to establish itself in Palestine
by force; the "world-government", obviously the result which these two convergent
forces were intended to produce, had been set up anew in embryo form, this time in New
York. The war behind the war was the true one; it was fought to divert the arms,
manpower and treasure of the West to these purposes.
-Douglas Reed, "the Controversy of Zion," p 333 (written ~1955 ) https://archive.org/stream/TheControversyOfZion/TheControversyOfZi
Sep 11, 2011 General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years
"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years,
starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."
I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I
saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you
that memo! I didn't show it to you!"
July 23, 2006 Secret 2001 Pentagon Plan to Attack Lebanon
Bush's Plan for "Serial War" revealed by General Wesley Clark. "[The] Five-year campaign
plan [includes] a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley Clark) According to
General Wesley Clark–the Pentagon, by late 2001.
The problem with this (sky is falling) analysis is the number of troops available to wage a
war over there. We're in 150 countries with 165,000 people deployed OCONUS. There's no
150,000 here for this potential war, 150,000 there for that potential war (and the list of
wars we're apparently going to start is pretty long, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran,
Venezuela ).
And there's no draft. The composition of a US division has significantly fewer trigger
pullers than support people and nobody thinks the mechanics and admin people are going to
conquer another country.
I think that before indulging in paranoia it would seem like you'd want to be looking for
mass mobilizations and significant movements of armored vehicles. You can't hide it and
troops are dumb about social media None of that's happening now.
@Colin
Wright Before the US psychopaths start bombing Iran, Russia and China need to step up to
the plate and just tell them NO, your world empire will NOT expand further. I'd rather see
the US nuked than to see it kill millions of innocent Persians and wipe out their ancient
society.
If war with Iran can somehow be prevented before the coming presidential election, I'd
rather see any of the Dems far-left loony candidates elected than to hear the rantings of
psychos like Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo for one more day. God, the US and Israel are horrible,
evil countries that must be stopped!
@wraith67 That's why all US
wars are now fought with bombs and missiles, not infantry. The US no longer has to invade
countries to destroy them – witness Libya where there were no military casualties. As
for the draft – bring it on and draft the wymyn. I'd love to see middle class parents
start rioting in the streets once their 19 year-old daughters were drafted. I've read, also,
that there is a dire shortage of qualified pilots. Perhaps our high schools and universities
are not graduating enough psychos willing to kill great numbers of civilians from high
altitude for no reason. I've heard that a lifetime PTSD is a bitch, as the veteran suicide
rate of 22 a day demonstrates.
I'm actually not sure that is inaccurate. If trends continue in the current way, there may
well eventually be a push to force all Palestinians out of the West Bank. There is nothing
controversial about this:
"Over the past 50 years, Israel has demolished tens of thousands of Palestinian properties
and displaced large swathes of the population to build homes and infrastructure to illegally
settle its own population in the occupied territories. It has also diverted Palestinian
natural resources such as water and agricultural land for settlement use."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/06/israel-occupation-50-years-of-dispossession/
"Nearly half of Jewish Israelis agree that Arabs should be expelled or transferred from
Israel The survey makes no distinction between Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and
citizens of Israel in its question about whether Arabs should be expelled from Israel. And
yet, 48% of Jewish Israelis said they were in favor, 46% were opposed, and 6% said they
didn't know. Breaking it down into religious groups, the Modern Orthodox (the report uses the
Hebrew term dati'im), were the most likely to support such a measure, at 71%."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/plurality-of-jewish-israelis-want-to-expel-arabs-study-shows/
If that number grows (and there is little to doubt it will because of demographic patterns
in the Jewish populace) and it eventually becomes the case, then Daniel's statement will just
be a statement of fact; Palestinians used to live there and now they do not because they were
killed or forced out. So the jury is still out on that as far as I'm concerned. Maybe
slightly hyperbolic, but – meh – it's the internet. Hardly qualifies as "hate
speech" though.
@Wizard
of Oz Of course there are numerous options but containment only works if the targeted
country does not strike back, which would instantly escalate the conflict. Bear in mind that
all the pre war estimates of what would happen with Iraq were wrong. Assumptions that a
conflict with Iran would be manageable or containable are likely to be equally misplaced
particularly as there are hardliners on both sides that would welcome a shooting war
What no one, not even in alternative media, has picked up on is the real reason for Iran
being a threat.
An Iran war is itself a distracting event for the real issue: Palestinians.
Israel always tries to provoke a war with Iran. This is to stoke unifying nationalism
among the Israelis. Iran is a far preferable opponent than the Palestinians.
Furthermore, in the event of an actual war, you now have a global state of emergency which
allows you to expel the remaining Palestinians. The world powers will all be occupied with
fighting Iran. So will the regional powers. The Palestinians will be a legitimate security
threat in the event of a war with Iran. So an expulsion would be justified.
But of course the instigators of such a conflict would be Israelis and their toadies among
the idiot Christians of the GOP.
There is a high degree of cognitive dissonance here. I do not think that even Netanyahu
can admit to himself this is why he keeps on hyping the Iran threat. But deep down, this is
why. Otherwise, Israel has made its bed among the Palestinians. Jews are a white minority
governing and oppressing a brown Muslim majority. Their only population growth is coming from
the religious ultra orthodox, who they view with disdain and disgust.
Israel needs Iran more than anyone else in the world.
@Philip
Giraldi If I recall, the Iranian leadership has made it clear that any direct attack on
it of this magnitude will be considered an attack by proxy by Israel and they will respond in
kind. Am I correct?
@NoseytheDuke Agree. The
continued destruction of the economy and social fabric has no downside for the people who
plan to rule through globalized tyranny. It's a feature, not a bug. Middle class America
still has memory of freedoms. Not much of an impediment to real power, but nonetheless they
must go.
Act I – Remove Sunni regimes (e.g., Iraq, Libya) that are hostile to the Zionist
Project
Act II – Take a Sunni Turn by funding, arming, advising Sunni "terrorist" groups
(e.g., al Qaida, IS) to attack Shia regimes (e.g., Syria, Iran) that are hostile to the
ZP
Act III – push the KSA-led Sunni coalition to wage an eternal war against the
Iranian-led Shia coalition, while the ZP continually expands.
"has likely been the goal from the get-go" of what?
"Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to
safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The
object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power
is power."
Al Qeada=CIA created BS. The smarter sort of zombies know this. Americans, however are one of
the most heavily propagandized populations outside of 1984, a true story. The media reliably
spreads fear of groups like al Qaeda, ISIS, the Viet Cong, Iraqis, Iranians, Martians, New
America Foundation you name it – fear, credulity and obedience sustains the taxpaying
class of war mongering morons. The US needs to end trying to run every country. It costs the
hard working and mostly underpaid voters a lot of money to overthrow foreign Governments with
CIA fake revolutions. Moreover, every time the military drops a bomb the tax payers pay to
replace it and a billionaire profits.
There are tons of reasons to continue all the wars or start a new one, all related to
Profit, the central concept of Capitalism. War means Profit. The propaganda war means the
rich get to loot other countries without any complaints from the confused, moronic voting
class who pay for it and support it while they debate the merits of the latest CIA prepared
Al Qeada narrative. Usually pro-Jew Giraldi does a better job faking a divisive meme with his
propaganda. Another "debate" that misses the real questions.
Anyone who knows anything about the Muslim world would know this link between Al Qaeda and
Iran is a complete sham. Al Qaeda is Sunni, Iran is Shia. They are mortal enemies. Al Qaeda
is about as likely to ally themselves with the Shias they are with the Jews, which is to say,
over their dead bodies.
But this Jew driven war machine is definitely hard at work building its case, not just
drumming up support from the left, but even more so, from the right, through their Zionist
mouthpieces esp. Breitbart. Jews are now in total control of America, controlling both sides
of the aisle in congress, and both sides of the debate in the media.
If Trump is dumb enough to invade Iran, he'll have signed his own death warrant.
In any case US needs a proxy group to attack Iran. Who could be interested?
The US and Israel already have a proxy group–the MEK– who has been doing
assassinations. bombings and false flags for them for years.
The MEK (People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran or the Mojahedin-e Khalk is a Iranian
political–militant organization that advocates overthrowing the Islamic Republic of
Iran leadership and installing its own government.
It was listed as a terrorist group by the US for blowing up American embassies and killing
americans.'
Just who has been killing Iran's nuclear scientists? | The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk
› Voices › Comment
Oct 6, 2013 – Is it a last-minute attempt by Israel or the Iranian dissident group the
Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) to sabotage talks – or at least to show that they
As of 2018, MEK operatives are believed to be still conducting covert operations inside
Iran to overthrow Iran's government. Seymour Hersh reported that "some American-supported
covert operations continue in Iran today," with the MEK's prime goal of removing the current
Iranian government.
The MEK use to be anti Israel . BUT THEN . Israel offered them a deal they couldnt
refuse .the Jewish lobby would get them of the terrorist list in exchange for them ceasing to
support Palestine.
"In the beginning, MEK used to criticize the Pahlavi dynasty for allying with Israel and
Apartheid South Africa, calling them racist states and demanding cancellation of all
political and economic agreements with them. MEK opposed and was anti-Zionist.
The Central Cadre established contact with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), by
sending emissaries to Paris, Dubai, and Qatar to meet PLO officials. In one occasion, seven
leading members of MEK spent several months in the PLO camps in Jordan and Lebanon. On 3
August 1972, they bombed the Jordanian embassy as a means to revenge King Hussein's
unleashing his troops on the PLO in 1970.
After their exile, the MEK changed into an 'ally' of Israel in pursuit of its ideological
opportunism"
I could write all week about how Israel uses its control of the US to further its goal of
being the Super Power of the ME .coming into play now also is how they offering their control
of the US to help Egyptian mad man, General Sisi, to implement his President of Egypt for
life plan in exchange for being Israel's side kick.
Makes you want to vomit doesnt it?.. to know what the US has become.
@Philip
Giraldi There are hardliners in Alaska, Texas, North Dakota and other oil-producing
states that wouldn't be too troubled if the horse manure hit the fan in Iran.
Haven't the Iranians said they would pulverize Saudi Arabian oil installations if they are
attacked by Israel or the United States?
Two hundred dollar a barrel oil could buy a lot of joy in the USA oil patch!
Barr is CIA's shyster lawyer, Mueller is CIA's cleaner. Both FBI and DoJ are completely
controlled by CIA "focal points" (Dulles' term) or dotted-line reports (Bush-era
Newspeak.)
What's more, Hill and Bill work for CIA too: Hill got her start purloining documents for
CIA's "Watergate" purge of Nixon; Cord Meyer recruited Bill at Oxford.
CIA brainwashing makes Republicans blame Democrats for what CIA does to you, and makes
Democrats blame Republicans for what CIA does to them. CIA runs your country while party
loyalists tear each other's throats out. Divide et impera.
Nobody will be doing a fine job for the country because CIA doesn't give a rat's ass about
the country. They've got a business to run: drug-dealing, gun-running, child trafficking and
pedophile blackmail, money-laundering, foreign asset-stripping.
"... When we suggest turning to universally approved OSCE documents that reject as unacceptable any obstacles standing in the way of the public or journalists getting access to information, we are told that this was the case in 1990 and should remain there. ..."
"... It wasn't us that bombed Libya and turned it into a "black hole." It still remains such and through it bandits, terrorists and arms traffickers travel to the Sahara-Sahel zone whereas migrants are heading to the north. Therefore, we leave it up to them to deal with those who are responsible for this. ..."
"... Apparently, the international legal space is being fragmented – the US is doing this all along the way while the EU is isolating itself when it comes to a number of issues. The processes that are taking place in Eurasia may also be interpreted as isolation at some point but in reality we want to launch something that will become all-embracing. ..."
"... Maybe, there is a rational idea in everything that is taking place. As Vladimir Lenin used to say, "before uniting it is necessary resolutely to draw lines of demarcation." Maybe, we should be fragmented to understand who the main global players are. ..."
We are now saying that the world is changing and the interdependence of states is growing. Do you think international regulation,
for instance, in communications, can be radically improved in perspective? Because of fake news navigation in the sea of information
leaves much to be desired. Is it possible to regulate a host of other things related to migration flows and capital management?
Is it possible to raise international regulation to a new level or is this altogether impossible? Will countries continue to strike
unstable alliances for shorter or longer periods of time or are there grounds to hope for an improvement of this situation?
Sergey Lavrov:
This question is fairly controversial. In brief, currently this regulation that should be ideally based on universal principles
of international law is being replaced with narrowly interpreted rules elaborated in a narrow circle of states.
As for fake news, France, for example, adopted a law that filters the media space the way it wants. The Russian media Russia Today
and Sputnik are political outcasts. They are not allowed to visit the Elysee Palace or attend any special events. When we address
French officials in this context, they tell us that everything is correct because in their view these are propaganda instruments
rather than news agencies. This is what regulation is all about.
When we suggest turning to universally approved OSCE documents that reject as unacceptable any obstacles standing in the way
of the public or journalists getting access to information, we are told that this was the case in 1990 and should remain there.
There are other examples as well. When France failed to use the OPCW exclusively for passing remotely a verdict on who is guilty
and who is not in violation of all conceivable norms of the Chemical Weapons Convention, it took the initiative to establish an International
Partnership against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons that was not linked with any international structures. A few months
later the EU made a decision to the effect that if the new structure reveals violators, Brussels will impose sanctions on them. This
is, of course, regulation but this regulation is based on the narrow interpretation of broad interests by an individual group of
countries.
As for the internet, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has been talking for years, if not decades, about the way
the internet should function so as to not offend anyone. No results have been produced and there will not be any in the foreseeable
future for obvious-to-all reasons. I have practically no doubts about this. Likewise, for the same reason virtually not a single
Western country supported our proposals that were endorsed by the UN General Assembly at the onset of work on the rules of responsible
conduct in cyberspace.
You mentioned migration. There is the Global Compact for Migration that was adopted last year. The West was fighting for it to
include a provision on the equal and divided responsibility for the migration crisis. Russia and other countries objected. It
wasn't us that bombed Libya and turned it into a "black hole." It still remains such and through it bandits, terrorists and arms
traffickers travel to the Sahara-Sahel zone whereas migrants are heading to the north. Therefore, we leave it up to them to deal
with those who are responsible for this.
We are now talking about the formation of the multipolar international order. Its development was preceded by a whole historical
era.
Apparently, the international legal space is being fragmented – the US is doing this all along the way while the EU is isolating
itself when it comes to a number of issues. The processes that are taking place in Eurasia may also be interpreted as isolation at
some point but in reality we want to launch something that will become all-embracing.
Maybe, there is a rational idea in everything that is taking place. As Vladimir Lenin used to say, "before uniting it is necessary
resolutely to draw lines of demarcation." Maybe, we should be fragmented to understand who the main global players are.
Not those that established the UN in 1945 but those that are playing today, in the middle of the 21 st century. Only
after this we should think what to do next, for instance, with the UN. It is absolutely clear that the UN Security Council requires
a reform because the world's developing regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America are not properly represented in it. Today, up to
one third of the UN Security Council is represented by EU countries. I don't think that if more countries from the historical West
are added to this structure, it will gain the diversity we want to see in it.
Attempts by Russian gov. to intimidate Amb. Wallace & @UANI are unacceptable. If
President Putin is serious about stabilizing the Middle East, confronting terrorism &
preventing a nuclear arms race in the region, he should stand with UANI & against
Iran.
Why would the national security advisor care what the Russian Foreign Ministry has to say
about a New York-based nonprofit's letter writing campaign, especially when those remarks got
virtually no notice in the media?
Bolton's personal finances and the president's biggest campaign funder offer a couple
clues.
Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he
received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping
staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the
payments were "consulting fees."
@Asagirian I've read that
she is still in line to primary Trump. Surely someone will, so it might as well be a neocon
Israel-first Sikh woman who is even more ignorant and psychotic that our current
Tweeter-in-Chief. If she wins, she can even keep Pompeo and Bolton to finish off Iran and
start WWIII.
We live in a goon-run surveillance economy, backed up by the strong arm of a mighty
surveillance state apparatus, and nobody -- I mean nobody -- really stands up to it, calling
out the real economic problems without a politically correct overlay that focuses on
drummed-up social issues or other media-driven diversion tactics. As much as Hollywood
theatrics are used as a way to sell the current setup as a functioning Republic to the serfs,
none of our never-been-so-wealthy elected leadership has the morality to challenge the
corrupt system. There's a reason for their crumbly back bones.
Despite the fake-morality play, using kids and babies as props in this fake-feminist era,
we don't even have leaders morally uncompromised enough to take on the Swamp in minor ways,
not in a surveillance state / surveillance economy, where all of the morally blemished
political elites have a lot to lose -- financially.
Political elites have a lot to lose financially, even though few of them ever took the
classic road to riches, including taking on financial risk to create quality jobs for US
citizens, as opposed to using cheap foreign wage slaves whose low wages are pumped up by
welfare for US-born kids, making it easy for them to work cheaply for elites.
Most of our rich political elites have never started businesses, employing US citizens to
make tangible items, like cake mixes or ketchup, but somehow in this finacialized
surveillance economy, all of our political leaders are flat-out rich with a lot to lose from
speaking out against the rigged system, much less actually doing something about it.
Even without extra, ratings-boosting, sexual or other Swamp-exploitable foibles, that
means a lot of leverage for surveillance goons to hold over political decision-makers' heads
if they don't do their bidding, especially in a survelliance state / survelliance economy,
wherein every nook and cranny of their lives is scrutinized to the hilt.
And it's perfectly okay for our power couples to put riches over morality because, like
the aristocrats producing golden heirs to assume the throne in other eras when aristocratic
couples and static wealth reigned supreme, our business and political leaders have all
reproduced, putting them as above firing and above morality as other elites in the
family-friendly, fake-feminist era. Everything elites do is for their babies, regardless of
how venal it is.
Despite all of the surveillance that renders the Fourth Amendment null and void for
cash-strapped serfs no less than elites and that stymies the First Amendment, suppressing the
serfs from calling out the economic situation for what it is no less than elites, corruption
is at all time highs.
Think that has anything to do with the brass-knuckle silencing tactics, made possible by
the surveillance state?
Our so-called leaders don't even bother to challenge the most basic threats to
constitutional liberty, much less the shaky foundation of our part-time / temp / churn-job
economy, with its welfare-subsidized legal & illegal immigrant workforce and our
single-mom & married-mom workforce, able to work part-time and in temp jobs for beans,
thereby supplementing spousal income, rent-covering child support or the welfare they collect
by staying under the earned-income limits for multiple welfare programs during working months
in single-breadwinner households with US-born kids.
It is not even semi-quality jobs that support most households at the growing bottom. It is
the already intact socialist system propping up a willing, cheap labor force for big
corporations, that supports a large percentage of American households. Who needs Bernie's
socialism when we already have a platter of 100%-free, non-contributory, pay-per-birth
socialism, offered up by the Republican and Democratic Uniparty to drive down wages for
non-welfare-eligible citizens 40 years?
Bernie is no stand-out Rebel. American corporations love socialism.
Even though the rebel Bernie has never held more than one senate seat, single-breadwinner
households with US-born kids are already supplied with hundreds in free EBT food,
reduced-cost housing, hundreds in monthly cash assistance, free electrcity and up to $6,431
in refundable child tax credit cash when they are willing to work part time or in temp
positions for low wages, staying below the earned-income limits for welfare during working
months. That's how they undercut millions of underemployed citizens who lack unearned income
streams from .gov, and no corporate-owned political rebel in the surveillance state is
willing to stand up to it.
No politician on the right or the left is free enough from the surveillance economy /
surveillance state's goon squad to say what that means for vanquished middle-class prosperity
in the USA.
It's not just student loans, either, no matter how much the establishment wants that to be
the main problem so that they can blow another housing bubble with the mostly unmarried
Millennials in their part-time / churn jobs. Truth is: Few of those college grads except the
dual-high-earner parents in their family-friendly / absenteeism-friendly jobs -- keeping two
of the few jobs with benefits and good wages under one roof and halving the size of the
house-buying and rent-covering middle class while low-wage daycare workers or grandparents
raise their kids -- can afford to buy a house. The above-firing group in the top 20%,
however, can afford more palatial houses than any non-rich group of non job creators in US
history.
In the long-gone America with the broad middle class and the mostly married, stay-at-home
moms, most couples paid off modest houses by retirement, and most single earners with one,
earned-only income stream could afford the dignity of a modest apartment, whereas most of
today's working women will face insurmountable rent costs in retirement, just like they do
during working years.
That is what the fake feminists have accomplished for the bottom 80%, but the
family-friendly princesses in their palaces have not made any compromises. They humanize that
by adding layers of absenteeism privileges for low-wage mommies in discriminatory
voted-best-for-moms jobs, plus welfare and cash handouts through the progressive tax code to
soften the brutality of this churn-job economy. But those womb-privileged single moms find
themselves in the same dismal economic boat with the single, childless women in the bottom
80% after their kids turn 18, and the wage-supplementing, pay-per-birth freebies from
goverment dry up.
Lacking a student loan debt does not overcome the insurmountable cost of housing for
single breadwinners, whether they are male or female, non-custodial parents, middle-aged or
older with no kids, older with no kids under 18 or younger in the years before family
formation beefs up their income with cash-check tax code privileges, monthly welfare access
and crony-parent workplace privileges. With none of the unearned income streams accruing to
womb-productive single earners, the single earners relying relying on earned-only income from
one person cannot even afford rent for a one-room apartment in a safe or unsafe area, much
less a house. And there are more single earners than ever; we are the majority.
The childbearing-aged Millennials will be the focus of every economist and of all
political hacks, seeking votes from the mostly older and middle-aged citizens who bother to
show up on voting day, not the Xers with one, earned-only income stream and no kids under 18
and, thus, no handouts from Uncle Sam and the Treasury Department pumping up their wages in
this dismal scam landscape of a churn-job gig economy.
Thanks to feminism, there are more & more of us in that category in this era of
single, "independent" career women, and it is going to get worse and worse as this group hits
retirement age. It will be worse for everyone except the dual-high-earner parents -- the
tax-advantaged, "needs-the-job," above-firing "talent" who were needed at work because of
their talent, but who were somehow on a an expensive, lengthy, family-friendly vacation every
couple of months during their above-firing, childbearing-aged working years, not to mention
all of the mornings and afternoons of excused absenteeism (for kids, for kids!) and their
multiple pregnancy leaves.
These working-parents-in-charge, with their libertine, back-watching, family-friendly work
schedules, sure do fire a lot of the non-family-friendly non culture fits whose every day,
all-day hard work helps to keep their bonus numbers up. They fire away for the most trivial
and pettiest of infractions in the churn machine of America's unprofessional-to-the-max
corporate workplaces. Use and lose. Churn and burn. It equals family-friendly job
security.
But regardless of how they did it, they will still retire into their luxury apartments or
cathedral-ceiling homes, with two streams of SS income and two 401k streams.
Whereas, however hard they work and however much they help to pump up the crony-parent
managers' bonuses, a huge number of divorced or never-married, single-breadwinner Xers who,
since they did not have kids, did not need tax credit handouts to boost up their low wages,
nor above-firing absenteeism privileges, benefits, decent-paying jobs or even a modicum of
job security will retire into the most spartan and hopeless of "retirement" situations.
They will have nothing but one stream of very inadequate, non-rent-covering SS, into which
they contributed either 7.5% or 15.3% of every dime they earned, unlike these glorified
single moms and immigrants, raking in 100%-free monthly welfare by the truckloads, in
addition to bigly, refundable cash-assistance welfare checks from the progressive tax code
that top out at $6,431 all through their childbearing years, even though they do not pay
income taxes in many cases and even though they work part time .
The average employed person in the USA is a part-time worker. That is the
reality of automation, fake womb-productivity-based feminism and 4 decades of
welfare-supported mass immigration.
Retirement will be just as bad, if not worse, for the even bigger group of hear-them-roar,
fake-feminist, ever-more-never-married, part-time-job-holding, pink-hatted "career" women --
with all of their hypocritical, un-feminist, womb-focused demands of .gov and their
much-maligned soy-boy sperm providers -- in the equally underemployed Millennial
generation.
But in an anti-individual, anti-liberty and corrupt-to-the-core survelliance state
economy, with a Constitution based on individual liberty in suspension, all that counts is a
functioning feudal structure for aristocratic baby makers in the top 1 -- 20%, pumping out
heirs to the thrones in a financialized economy that favors static wealth, and the illusion
of benevolence that they create by throwing lots of mom-pampering cake crumbs to their
womb-productive, welfare-qualified, legal & illegally-in-this-country cheap, groveling
servants. A ton of Hollywood-lite, weepy-eyed media concern for the mommies and babies around
the globe adds gloss to this fake-morality veneer.
Trump said something about the immigration part of this corrupt equation, saying it
loudly enough to divert attention from the fact that he is not really doing anything about
the onslaught of 40 years of mass-scale, welfare-aided legal & illegal immigration that
keeps wages at rock bottom for cashing-in employers.
Turns out, Bernie, however saintly by comparison with other politicians in the
surveillance state / surveillance economy, was not without goon-exploitable human foibles,
like a $600,000 rustic lake house needing "help" from interior designers and a spousal-income
controversy. Bernie fans should not forget that the Deep State cutthroats are not at all
above exploiting it with no mercy, no matter how many cutesy baby pics they wave around to
prove their humanity. They are shameless enough to use it against him, no matter how
knee-deep in Swamp dollars they are.
That goes for the lovely, family-friendly leaders in both of our corrupt, Swamp-controlled
parties. And it would not matter if a truly kick- *** superhero arose to take on the Swamp
Goliath.
This Surveillance Swamp is too deep even for Mister Rodgers to wade through. If he ran for
office on a platform of true reform, the Surveillance Swampers would be accusing him of
bacchanalian bathroom activity, telling him they have video conformation of that, along with
proof from credit-rating agencies of his cardigan sweater-buying shopaholic sprees right down
to his last bank transaction.
We live in KGB country, where it is easy to pull politicians off of any real reformist
path. No wonder, swampers are so concerned with Russia, thirty years after the Cold War
ended. Rich US politicians, in a rigged surveillance economy, live in Stalinist Russia --
Stalinist Russia with an increased surveillance capacity, whereas the serfs live under the
same economic & government surveillance without even the reward of a quality non-churn
job, an independent roof over their heads or a safe neighborhood.
What a great trade off: our liberty and our widespread middle class in return for
end-to-end financial security for the top 1 -- 20% and womb-productivity-based welfare
security for some part-time-working, womb-productive citizens and noncitizens in the bottom
80% during their baby-making years. Oh, we serfs also get to hear the virtue-signaling chorus
of the racism and sexism fighters, and a few of them make bank off of discrimination
lawsuits.
"... Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants. ..."
"... If I understand you correctly, we are in the best of all worlds? ..."
@Commentator Mike
Today's system is a hybrid of a late finance-stage global capitalism and cultural–not
economic–Marxism. Instead of class struggle, we have identity politics. Instead of the
ownership of the means of production, we have tranny bathrooms.
So the right-wingers (like Peter Hitchens) who say that 'Marxism won' are half right
culturally, not economically. What causes all the confusion (among the libertarian types
especially) is that capitalism in reality does not in any way resemble how it ought to
work according to libertarian theories and never did. But when you point out to them
that capitalism never worked in practice to begin with, they answer: 'But true
capitalism has never even been tried!' And of course, they're right. 'True' capitalism (i.e.,
what libertarian theory calls capitalism) really never has been tried, and for exactly the
same reason that perpetual motion machines have never been tried either: they're
impossible.
None of which means I'm a 'pure' socialist. I'm open to mixed-economies and new
experiments. I usually characterize myself more as a national socialist, mostly to
differentiate myself from the 'world revolution' Trotskyite socialists who now predominate on
the far-left.
That means I also take some inspiration from some fascists and national-syndicalists,
although I don't regard any of them as holy writ, either.
In my opinion, the number one success factor for a civilization is not what theory
it professes, but rather who controls it. Theories will always have to be modified to
suit the circumstances; but the character of a people is much harder to change.
China's prospering because it's controlled by Chinese engineers; our civilization is
suffocating because it's controlled by Jew-bankers and Masonic lawyers. Get rid of them
first, and we can debate monetary theory till we're blue in the face.
@Captain Willard You
must be under the delusion we live in a Constitutional Republic.
Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία
(oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos),
meaning 'few', and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning 'to rule or to
command')[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of
people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, family ties, education or
corporate, religious, political, or military control. Such states are often controlled by
families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next, but inheritance
is not a necessary condition for the application of this term.
@redmudhooch "
Socialism is government by the working class"
Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as
altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in
front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants.
Your transparent mindset of : Socialism never worked because the wrong people were in
charge of every attempt to actualize it, and if the right folks go at it in the "right"
manner it will finally work., has been exposed as the lie it is.
This nonsense of : the Russians, Chinese, all of East Europe, Cuba, Venezuela, etc, etc.
they really did not understand Marx, and they really did not want to establish a true "
Farmers and Workers paradise", as according to Marx, so if we, the new generation of "Woke"
"Jungsozialisten", if we go at it, there will be no failure this time, this nonsense has run
it time and more and more otherwise unknowing peoples are finally waking up it's the lies and
madness
Myself, I spent time in the seventies behind the "Iron Curtain" before the wall came down
and I will never forget the morgue-like atmosphere of the grey cities and the dead eyes of
the hopeless natives, and ignoranti like you are striving to repeat these humans tragedies
over and over, regardless of how many time they fail and how much travail and suffering they
generate.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro jazz
artist.
@Stephen Paul Foster "
The profit motive" after being replaced with the Socialist rubber-stamp which holds power of
life or death over it's hapless subjects, and make no bones about wielding it's ruthless
fatal power, would seem like altruism and benevolency in retrospect.
@ploni almoniT
he runaway over-use of the narcissism cliché has been fueled mostly by copy-cats with
weak vocabularies who use it deliriously as a general purpose put-down of men who aren't
slobs.
@Digital Samizdat
Excellent intelligence. As opposed to the "high IQ" idiocy promulgated on here.
You may like the way an acquaintance, a PhD from Chicago School of Business, who had just
finished working on a project for Big Pharma, observed when I brought up the concept of "free
market."
"'Free market?!'" he exclaimed. "No such thing. Because it's all crooked."
"Poor lil Hitler was a good boy. He dindu nuttin."
Already after the turn of the last century Southern Iran became a British "sphere of
influence". Through the 1920's, after making the world free for democracy, and fighting the
war to end all wars, England was gassing and murdering the kurds and Iraqi's with in their
"mandate".
The British wars in the middle east in the 1920's, after ending "all war" at Versailles,
mercilessly waged against less technologically developed countries, were all highly
aggressive.
Former UN chief & humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Hans-Christof von Sponeck, suggested that the UK does not want to give the
impression it is "allied to the US" in Syria because of past ventures into Iraq and Afghanistan, which do not play well with
the British public.
Asked whether the US is essentially driving these decisions to deploy special forces on the ground, and not the UK, von Sponeck
replied: "Of course," but added that the Turks were also highly influential when it came to ground-force deployment.
Special forces serviceman Tonroe was killed along with two US soldiers fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in Syria, the
Times reported. In a statement, the Ministry of Defence has ostensibly argued that any British ground forces operating in Syria act
as if they were a soldier of the nation they're embedded with.
"British forces embedded in the armed forces of other nations operate as if they were the host nation's personnel, under that
nation's chain of command," the ministry said.
Historian and journalist Mark Curtis has taken to social media to highlight the fact that British military personnel are embedded
with US military commands around the world. He argues that not enough is being made public on the matter.
Former head of the British Joint Forces Command, Sir Richard Barrons, has suggested that numerous countries have been conducting
"proxy assistance" in Syria without explicitly declaring direct involvement in military operations.
Subscribe to RT newsletter to get stories the mainstream media won't
tell you.
The world slipped closer to nuclear war. Big false flags -- actual, suspected, and
anticipated -- were a key factor. But hardly anybody noticed. Everyone was riveted by the story
of actor Jussie Smollet, who supposedly paid a couple of Nigerian-American bodybuilders for a
staged racist-homophobic near-lynching. The ostensible motive: Add a zero to Smollet's pathetic
little million-a-year salary.
In England and in France, as well as in the US, the Jews became a symbol of the present
neo-liberal regime, as the scams and hoaxes make it apparent.
The pride and pressure of Jews as high-achievers could be fueling the scams and frauds in
so many fields.
Non-Jews don't feel particularly bad if they don't achieve much. But Jews have this
reputation, indeed a point of pride among Jews, as being intelligent and high-achieving. So,
it seems like many many Jews come under the pressure to be high-achieving or at least appear
so. To be a 'loser' Jew is far more humiliating that it is to be a loser goyim. It's like a
black guy losing to a white guy in boxing or one-on-one basketball. Unheard of. Consider the
movie BOILER ROOM where lesser Jews resort to fraud to make easy money and seem
successful.
Shamir, you missed a very simple point. This Jussie Smollett is Jewish. His father is a Jew.
He isn't black, he is bi-racial and since Judaism is not a race (like being black) but an
ethnicity Jussie actions are more that of a jew than it is as a black person. In fact a lot
of black people didn't believe him and show his actions as a means to exploit the black
identity even before his actions where exposed as a hoax
@swamped
I believe he's pointing out the supremacy that the Jews enjoy in Israel/Palestine is due to
the role that Jews play in the neoliberal institutions – that Israel is dependent on
corporate patronage, trade concessions, capital flow from the West, etc.
Thank you Mr. Shamir, for a very informative and interesting article.
In many ways the exposure of the "Smollett Hoax" as a "hoax" is a watershed event in post
9-11 America.
It is, perhaps , the first time that the deliberate defrauding of the public through the
enacting of a "staged event" has been given the media attention for being uncovered "as
such".
And actually prosecuted.
Amazing.
But to many of us, increasingly aware we are living in (what could only be fairly
described as) an Empire of Fraud the "Smollett Hoax"attention is akin to one noticing a tiny
chipmunk urinating on your toe while standing, hapless, under a torrential deluge raining
down from the mammoth elephant above you.
We live in the great age of fraud, Mr. Shamir, and Mr. Smollett's phony act was but a drop
in the bucket.
Consider the fact that nearly every pretext for war, especially since 9-11, has been
proven to be founded on fraudulent narratives , hoaxes, lies , and staged events . and you
will see what I mean.
Do I need to remind you of the media's "iron clad" certainty it was "Saddam's Anthrax"
deposited in both Tom Brokaw and Senator Leahy's office in the run up to the Iraq war ?
Why they even had the 'matching spores from Baghdad' to prove it .Right ?
How about the "Yellow Cake" from Niger ? .or the "aluminum tubes" ? .or the impending
"mushroom clouds" from Saddam's imminent WMD's ?.
All "hoaxes" .All "lies" A veritable cornucopia of war and terror "fraud" which has led to
the unconscionable death of millions of innocent people and the greatest debt crisis our
country has ever faced.
Were it only that our leaders and the oligarchs (for whom they serve) be faced with same
accountability from their "defrauding" as Jussie Smollett ..we would be living in a much
different world , today.
ex.: "Jewish, black and gay actor Jussie Smollett was charged Wednesday with making a
false police report, after he had told Chicago police last month that two men physically
attacked him and yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him."
' In England, seven (now eight) Jewish and Judeophile MPs have stormed out of the Labour
Party claiming Labour has been 'infected' with 'anti-Jewish racism' '
I noted some details on the latest of these, an Ian Austin, who supposedly quit because of
'anti-semitism.'
His recorded foreign trips over the last three years:
'Kurdistan', AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Jerusalem, Israel, Israel, 'Kurdistan',
AIPAC conference in Washington DC, Israel, Israel Admittedly, there's also a visit to
Auschwitz.
Sponsors: Nokan Group, Labour Friends of Israel, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Australia Israel Cultural Exchange Ltd -- all multiple times.
The data comes from a site somewhat ironically called 'They Work for You.'
"... Trump didn't drain the swamp, he pour fertilizer in it. ..."
"... The shekel counting big snout alligators? They're particularly nasty. ..."
"... Acosta = Epstein Pedogate Prosecutor "When I first heard the name Alexander Acosta, Trump's new pick for Labor Secretary, I knew it sounded eerily familiar. And then it dawned on me. He was the U.S. Attorney in charge of the Southern District of Florida from 2006 through 2009, and oversaw a sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein." ..."
"... Trump - Epstein civil suit COMPLAINT FOR RAPE, SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, CRIMINAL SEXUAL ACTS, SEXUAL ABUSE, FORCIBLE TOUCHING, ASSAULT, BATTERY, INTENTIONAL AND RECKLESS INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, DURESS, FALSE IMPRISONMENT, AND DEFAMATION ..."
"... Over 200 children. 12,13,14 years old. Broken homes. Different countries. "Punishment" = Empty wing of a comfy 'prison' with liberal leave privledges for him to work from his office, where he could receive guests including females. That's not prison Tyler's, it's ******* daycare - which is the kind of place he's attracted to. Stop calling it / quoting it as a "prison sentence". ..."
So Trump appoints the prosecutor who slapped Epstein on the wrist for a cabinet position. This is so obvious as Trump was part
of the Lolita Express as was lifelong Democrat Alan Dershowitz who has suddenly flipped to Trump's most ardent supporter as well
as the usual group of pervs like Clinton and Spacey (who cares I guess).
Trump didn't drain the swamp, he pour fertilizer in it.
Acosta = Epstein Pedogate Prosecutor
"When I first heard the name Alexander Acosta, Trump's new pick for Labor Secretary, I knew it sounded eerily familiar. And
then it dawned on me. He was the U.S. Attorney in charge of the Southern District of Florida from 2006 through 2009, and oversaw
a sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein."
Trump - Epstein civil suit COMPLAINT FOR RAPE, SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, CRIMINAL SEXUAL ACTS, SEXUAL ABUSE, FORCIBLE TOUCHING, ASSAULT, BATTERY, INTENTIONAL
AND RECKLESS INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, DURESS, FALSE IMPRISONMENT, AND DEFAMATION
Over 200 children. 12,13,14 years old. Broken homes. Different countries. "Punishment" = Empty wing of a comfy 'prison' with
liberal leave privledges for him to work from his office, where he could receive guests including females. That's not prison Tyler's,
it's ******* daycare - which is the kind of place he's attracted to. Stop calling it / quoting it as a "prison sentence".
Must be some really compromising video footage with some very powerful people on it to get that kind of deal. Day of the rope
for that **** and all who let him walk. No exceptions.
I had to search this up to believe what you said. Holy ****... the rabbit hole is deeper than most realize:
" Instead of being sent to state prison, Epstein was housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County jail. And rather
than having him sit in a cell most of the day, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office allowed Epstein work release privileges,
which enabled him to leave the jail six days a week, for 12 hours a day, to go to a comfortable office that Epstein had set up
in West Palm Beach. This was granted despite explicit sheriff's department rules stating that sex offenders don't qualify for
work release ."
Note how they spent hours to placate and kowtow to the pedophile while dumping on the victims. That is because the government
is loaded with dog **** like the half monkey Epstein and his fellow tribe members. The only justice left to Americans will come
from the streets. I am completely against torture and war, yet this piece of scum should be waterboarded for names. They need
to clear out those members of government who have been compromised by the activities of the tribe.
The websites contain not only virus, malware, spyware whatever. .. (depends on your PC protection)
It is a ripoff . You never get paid a cent. But if one is gullible and naive enough to give away to shady strangers personal
data as address, birth date, social security number, credit card number, bank account etc., they empty your account , and they
do Identity theft.
p.e. They ask for an initial payment for training, or they sell you a starter kit etc., so they get your data. Or they promise
you to pay salary in advance, before they ever saw you. Sometimes they have "real" job interviews with a "recruiter" by Skype
or Smartphones facial, no skills required, with faked websites of real companies, faked or personal email addresses.
Every last pedophile is dead meat just like Judaica is dead meat which promoted it. No, you cannot touch a kid any longer,
ignorant arrogant sick followers of the Talmud and Kabbalah, for the Talmud and Kabbalah will be burned out of every last Synagogue
on the planet just as the entire religion will be burned down to the ground. Including many dumb parts of the Bible. Take for
example that sick *** stupid mother ******* event where some guy holds a knife up to his son because God told him to. You ignorant
arrogant assholes. God never said any such thing, and God sure as hell never said you were chosen! Well, I take that back. You
see, God told me that you are actually especially chosen for the *** kicking of a millenia.
This is the manner that the scum in the so called "Justice Department" works to protect pedophiles. If it wasn't for an intense
amount of corruption, Epstein would have been prosecuted by the full extent of the law. Instead, sneaky deals by the scum bags
that "prosecuted" this fraud of a case ended up with a plea agreement which "punished" this slimy creep with a measly 13 month
sentence.
To add insult to injury to the victims, the civil case is dragged on for 11 years.
This is the same type of "justice" that is in place that has protected the Catholic clergy pedophiles, which for the most part,
never saw the inside of a court room for their unspeakable crimes.
Why are pedophiles seemingly protected in this society? Is it because pedophilia is rampant among so many that are in powerful
positions? I think we all know the answer to that one.
And then there are all Epstein's friends, who enjoyed themselves with little girls on that benighted island: hearsay includes
both the Clintons among them, and the Queen of England's second son, prince someone or the other. I assume that what they did
on that island was felonious. Need to go after them.
And then there's ACOSTA - our current Federal Secretary of Labor. TRUMP NEEDS TO FIRE HIM, perhaps to prosecute him.
Shhhh, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Orange Jesus is their messiah. He can do no wrong. He was misquoted
when he said he'd bang his daughter, ignore those creepy photos too.
Facts? Oh you mean like the Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislane Maxwell connection? Yeah. Wait, they obviously never met
right? "He's a lot of fun to be with," "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on
the younger side."
This ****** is toast. If you don't get that, you're just not ready for what's happening, and it's OK. The adults have stepped
in, and are cleaning house. The streets will be paved with the carcases of these pedophiles, satanists, and assorted scumbags.
Some will be from the dregs of society, others from the highest echelons, but none will escape.
[So it has been spoken, so it shall be done... (Yul Brenner as Pharoah - from The Ten Commandments)]
I figure God helps those that help themselves,there is an afterlife though,the trick is being in this world but not of it.I
have a roof over my head,a full belly,an income and good family and friends hell thats better than 70 per cent on this planet
so I tend not to be much of a God botherer.
I must apologize, it seems his pimpette (?) named Ghislaine was there, representing Prince Andrew, who also seems to like them
young, ... not sure if thats why Fergie left him... its complicated...
As far as the Clinton Foundation paying for the 3 million dollar wedding, well that's murky too
Far more important in the here and now is Bernie Sanders refused to go with the Dims and back fat Mike's 'Guido' in Venezuela.
The head of the Clinton Foundation , a Congresswoman from Florida and ex Bill Clinton Secretary of something, loudly condemned
Bernie and said he will NEVER be the Dems candidate for President.
NATO's Aggression Against Serbia and Montenegro in 1999
The NATO launched a military intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia
and Montenegro) on March 24th, 1999 in the name of protection of human rights of Kosovo
Albanians. In other words, the 78 days of barbaric air-strikes were formally justified by
"humanitarian intervention" which was mainly based on the false flags and fake news (like the
Rachak case) by Western corporate mass media or brutal lies from the ground (like by William
Walker – a Head of the Kosovo Verification Mission).
In essence, regional organizations like the NATO, according to the UN Charter, do not have
the right to interfere in internal affairs of any country, not even in internal affairs of
their own member states. This superior international document and instrument of global security
explicitly demand the approval of the UNSC for the undertaking of any armed action by any
regional organization. The NATO never asked and never became authorized to carry out military
intervention against Serbia and Montenegro in 1999 and, therefore, according to modern Public
International Law, this "humanitarian" intervention under arms was a pure act of brutal
aggression against a sovereign country and as such a crime against peace. Subsequently, human
rights served in this case just as a justification for the realization of certain geopolitical
aims in the Balkans. It became of crystal visibility in February 2008 when Kosovo Albanians
proclaimed an independent Republic of Kosovo which became recognized by all US' satellites
around the world. In 1999 NATO did not bomb Serbia and Montenegro for the sake of Kosovo
independence but only to protect "human rights" (of Albanians). However, the same NATO nothing
did to continue the protection of human rights (of Kosovo Serbs and other non-Albanians) after
the war when the province became put under complete protectorate and control by the NATO who
nothing did to prevent comprehensive ethnic cleansing of the province committed by Albanian
extremists (former members of the KLA).
Although, as it is presented above, every armed intervention is strictly prohibited by both
Public International Law and the UN Charter, the NATO, established in 1949 on the foundation of
Article 51 of the UN Charter which is dealing with the right to collective and individual
self-defense, attacked the FYR on March 24th, 1999 with continual barbaric air-strikes for the
next 77 days. The term "air-strikes", the NATO was regularly used at its own press conferences
during the aggression on Serbia and Montenegro like the term "collateral damage" for the mass
destruction and civilian casualties resulted by the NATO bombing. In their official statements,
NATO's officials declaratively claimed that the focal reason for those (illegal) air-strikes
was a set of humanitarian issues among them the most important have been three:
1) protection of individual human rights,
2) violation of Albanian rights in Kosovo as a national minority, and
3) prevention of the potential policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing against ethnic
Albanians by Yugoslavia's security forces.
Nevertheless, the aggression was accompanied by dirty and powerful media propaganda which
was, of course, directly supported by a number of politically "correct" legal and human rights
experts for the purpose to wash the brains of the Western audience. Most of them justified the
aggression with the right of Kosovo Albanians to self-determination, although such right is not
supported by any valid international instrument if the right to self-determination means the
destruction of territorial integrity of the country. However, the same experts did not
recognize the same right to self-determination to Croatia's and Bosnia's Serbs during the break
up of ex-Yugoslavia.
Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, center, with court security guards at left and
right, appears before the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Tuesday July 3, 2001.
Milosevic walked into the U.N. tribunal courtroom, Tuesday, without lawyers to represent him
against charges of war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. Milosevic died in his
prison cell in the Hague on March 11, 2006 allegedely of a heat attack jist a few months begore
the verdict to be annouced.
To keep in our mind, according to Public International Law and the UN Charter, the
aggression also includes bombing by the armed forces of one country against the territory of
another country or use of any arms and armed forces of one country against the territory of
another as, for instance, NATO used Kosovo Albanian KLA as ground forces during the Kosovo War.
But the crucial fact in relation to the 1998−1999 Kosovo War was that since there was no
real humanitarian catastrophe before the NATO aggression starred on March 24th, 1999 against
the FRY, it had to be created what exactly NATO did during the air-strike campaign of 78 days
in order to justify its occupation of the province after the war followed by Kosovo's secession
from Serbia in 2008.
Violation Of Human Rights In Kosovo
No one claims that human rights of all citizens including and ethnic Albanians in
Kosovo-Metochia have not been violated to a certain extent before NATO's military campaign in
1999. This fact was approved in several resolutions by the UNSC before the NATO aggression but
what is systematically hidden as a fact is that original flagrant violation of human rights in
the province came from the side of Albanian KLA as this terrorist organization launched a
widespread policy of attacking, kidnapping and killing of the Serbs in order to provoke
Serbia's security forces who reacted as they did it by violation of human rights of those
Albanians who participated in the actions of and/or supported the KLA's activities. Here we
have to keep in mind that a majority of Kosovo's Albanians did not support the methods of
combat by the KLA including and Dr. Ibrahim Rugova – a political leader of Kosovo's
Albanians. In order to calm down a political situation in the province, the Yugoslav Government
concluded with different international organizations, like the OSCE or the NATO, several
agreements allowing the OSCE monitoring mission in Kosovo-Metochia. The Yugoslav Government as
well as agreed to restrain the activities by its security forces if the opposite side (the KLA)
would do the same. That the Albanian side before NATO's aggression was committing war crimes is
clear from the invitation to both the Yugoslav and Kosovo's Albanian sides by the international
community to cooperate with the UN special Tribunal (est. 1993) for the crimes committed on the
territory of ex-Yugoslavia (including Kosovo-Metochia too). The fact was that regarding this
invitation to cooperate with the Tribunal's prosecutor in the Hague, the leaders of the
"Albanian national community" were also invited but not only the Yugoslav side to participate
in the investigation for all offenses within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. The Albanian
side was, in other words, invited to participate in the investigation of personal involvement
of the KLA members in the crimes committed against other ethnic groups in Kosovo-Metochia, with
the final political aim to secede the province from the FRY.
Nevertheless, in no one resolution on Kosovo before March 24th, 1999, it was not mentioned
any "threat to peace" in the province nor did they order the UNSC to form international armed
forces with the right to re-establish the peace and order in Kosovo, that was to undertake
certain armed actions against Serbia and Montenegro. In 1998, the FRY as a sovereign state was
combating separatist Albanian movement in Kosovo-Metochia, in some cases with inordinate use of
force, but, nevertheless, there was no real humanitarian catastrophe at that time. The recent
historical experience of violation of human rights according to contemporary definition, in the
province suggests that the critical situation was escalating with the creation of the KLA in
1995 which took comprehensive terrorist actions for the sake to bring about the secession of
Kosovo from Serbia. The Yugoslav security forces came into serious conflict with different
groups of the KLA, and the judiciary of the FRY accompanied by relevant experts and scholars
justifiably qualified the armed actions of Kosovo's separatists as classic terrorism and
criminal acts against a sovereign state.
[iv]
Former leader of KLA Ramush Haradinaj arrested on 5 January 2017 on a Serbian arrest warrant
by French border police upon his arrival at EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg on a flight
from Pristina. Serbian authorities urged France to extradite Haradinaj, citing that he
personally took part in the torture, murder, and rape of civilians. On 27 April 2017, a French
court turned down a Serbian request to extradite Ramush Haradinaj and released him. Since
September 9, 2017 Haradinaj is the Prime Minister of self-proclamed Kosovo.
In essence, there were prior to NATO's aggression on the FRY the problems of protection of
human rights in Kosovo-Metochia, but certainly no to such extent as it was exaggerated by the
Western mass media and policymakers at least no bigger than in many other corners of the world
like in Colombia or Turkey's eastern part populated by ethnic Kurds. Surely, the situation in
regard to human rights in Turkey since 1994 onward is much more serious than it was in
Kosovo-Metochia in 1998 as the Kurdish human and minority rights are drastically violated like
in 1994 when a large number of the Kurdish villages were destroyed by the Turkish police and
regular army's forces and when almost one million of ethnic Kurds fled Turkey to neighboring
states but the US administration simply did nothing to protect the Kurdish human rights. Even
no initiative was launched for the UN to undertake a legitimate international action in order
to prevent Turkey's authorities to stop with the production of a humanitarian
catastrophe.
Producing Humanitarian Catastrophe But Characterized As No Aggression
The focal result of NATO's bombing of Serbia and Montenegro was a huge number of refugees of
all nationalities from Kosovo-Metochia that became, in fact, a real humanitarian catastrophe.
However, during such exodus of people, NATO's military aggression under the umbrella of the
"armed humanitarian intervention" became even strengthened in spite of all prohibitions which
have been existing in Public International Law. However, during and after the bombardment of
the FRY, the UN resolutions, like the UNSC Resolution of June 10th, 1999, simply did not
mention the bombardment at all for a very reason: if mentioned it would have to be officially
qualified as "aggression" what means a violation of Public International Law and the UN
Charter. In this case, however, due to the established voting system in the UNSC (threat of
using Russian and Chinese veto rights), no resolution could be adopted. The Resolution of June
10th, 1999, in fact, is speaking only about deployment of international security forces
including and those of the NATO in the province after the war for the sake to " establish safe
environment for all people in Kosovo, as well as to facilitate safe return of all displaced
people and refugees to their homes". In other words, nowhere in the whole text of the
resolution is mentioned the bombardment of the FRY and, therefore, a pure act of aggression
against a sovereign state. That was the same with another previous resolution adopted during
the aggression (Resolution 1239 on May 14th, 1999) which does not say any single word about
NATO's bombardment but instead it only says that international community expresses serious
concern in respect to the humanitarian catastrophe in and around Kosovo as a result of
continuing crisis but who produced this crisis is absolutely unclear from the text of the
resolution. The same text confirms the rights of all refugees and displaced persons to return
to their homes in a safe and dignified manner but what was a real background of the crisis is
not clear. According to the UN resolutions on Kosovo, the NATO barbaric bombardment and a
classic act of aggression on a sovereign state, in fact, believe or not, never happened!
We have to mention that there were several attempts by Russia and China in the UNSC to adopt
an appropriate resolution in which would be recognized that NATO's air-strikes in 1999 really
happened on the ground and subsequently they had to be characterized as "aggression". However,
such resolution's proposals failed as not being adopted for the only reason – used veto
rights by the USA, the UK, and France (the Western obstruction).
Arguments Against
Humanitarian Intervention
There are several focal objections by the scholars, policy-makers, and lawyers to
humanitarian intervention advocated at various times. Here, we will address the most important
arguments against humanitarian intervention taking primarily the case of NATO's bombing of the
FRY in 1999:
No real basis for humanitarian intervention in Public International Law . The common good
is best preserved by maintaining a ban on any use of force not authorized by the UNSC.
Interveners have typically either claimed to be acting in self-defense according to the
"implied authorization" of the UNSC resolutions and the UN Charter or have refrained from
making any reasonable legal argument based on Public International Law at all.
States do not intervene for primarily humanitarian reasons . States always have mixed
real reasons for humanitarian and other interventions and are very rarely prepared to
sacrifice their own soldiers overseas. It means that humanitarian intervention is guided by
calculations of national interest but not by what is best for the victims in whose name the
intervention is formally carried out.
States are not allowed to risk the lives of their own soldiers in order to save strangers
. Political leaders do not possess any moral right to shed the blood of their own citizens on
behalf of suffering foreigners. Citizens are having the exclusive responsibility of their own
state, and their state is entirely their own business and, therefore, if a civil authority
has broken down this is the responsibility only of the citizens and political leaders of that
state but not of the foreign powers.
T he issue of abuse . In the absence of a not politically colored mechanism for deciding
when a real humanitarian intervention is permissible, states have a possibility to espouse
humanitarian motives just as a formal pretext to morally cover the pursuit of national
self-interest as, for instance, A. Hitler did with the Sudetenland.
Selectivity of response . States all the time apply principles of humanitarian
intervention selectively following their own national interest but not real protection of
human rights. In other words, a state's behavior is always governed by what the Government
decides to be in their interest and, therefore, states are selective about when they choose
to intervene. As an example, the selectivity of response is the argument that NATO's
"humanitarian" intervention in Kosovo in 1999 could not be driven by real humanitarian
concerns as it has done nothing to address, for instance, the very much larger humanitarian
catastrophe in Darfur, a province in West Sudan (Darfur genocide).
A problem of moral principles . There is no generally reached consensus on a set of moral
principles about humanitarian intervention which should not be permitted in the face of
disagreement about what constitutes extreme cases of the violation of human rights.
Practically, humanitarian intervention does not work . Humanitarian intervention is not
workable as the outsiders cannot impose human rights especially by those who have the same
problem in their homes. Democracy can be established only by a domestic struggle for liberty
but not from the outside. It means that human rights cannot take root if they are imposed by
outsiders. The argument is that the oppressed people should by themselves overthrow
non-democratic authority.
Conclusion
The norms of Public International Law and doctrine of collective security after 1945
presented above, unfortunately, did not stop different forms of armed interventions around the
globe but especially by the US – a country which became a global champion of aggression.
Armed "humanitarian" interventions are still going to be a reality of the present and future
international relations under the umbrella of the R2P.
After the Cold War, the most brutal, illegal and shameful "humanitarian intervention" was in
the southern Serbian province of Kosovo-Metochia in 1999 that was, in fact, NATO's aggression
against the FRY in a form of an air campaign. However, beside this example of "humanitarian
intervention" as a violation of Public International Law, there were many similar interventions
before like when in 1983 the USA invaded a sovereign state of Granada with some 8.000 soldiers
under justification to protect the lives of about 1.000 American citizens living there under
the belief that they were threatened due to the unrest in this country. However, the real
reason of such "humanitarian intervention" has been of purely political and geostrategic nature
rather than humanitarian one as US' troops occupied the whole island (state) of Granada
including and those parts in which US' citizens did not live. The focal proof of abuse of
Public International Law was a fact that the American troops de facto occupied Granada as they
stayed on the island even after all the American citizens had left and changed the Government
of it.
From the presentation above, it is quite clear that NATO's military action against Serbia
and Montenegro in 1999 cannot be characterized as a just war of "humanitarian intervention"
even according to the criteria by the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius not to speak
about the modern set of criteria incorporated into the UN Charter and Public International Law.
Therefore, the action was rather a classic example of brutal military aggression against a
sovereign state covered by politicized Western mass media. It is true that "media are not only
spectator in modern conflicts, but must be considered active participants forming public
opinion and also creating and directing threat perception" that was exactly the case of the
1998−1999 Kosovo War when the Western corporate mass media succeeded to convince public
opinion that NATO's "humanitarian intervention" was a just war.
"He threatened the head of OPCW I believe as well."
Your belief is correct; The one threatened was José Bustani, then --- head of the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
"Bolton -- then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International
Security Affairs -- arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a
warning to the organization's chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn't mince words.
'Cheney wants you out,' Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president
of the United States. 'We can't accept your management style.'
Bolton continued, according to Bustani's recollections: 'You have 24 hours to leave the
organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to
retaliate against you.'
There was a pause. 'We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York'."
It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American
econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have
worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast
empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China.
Russia is more than racially closer, Russia is culturally much closer and by culturally I
don't mean this cesspool of new "culture". But, as you brilliantly noted:
The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather
than by competence.
To be a real Jew, you have to born a Jew. It is the same for Hindus. Someone should tell
Tulsi Gabbard she cannot convert to Hinduism -- she will not be accepted by most Hindus.
This is the key reason why Hindus do not believe in propagating their religion.
LOL I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka. She thinks it's for real.
Western Oligarchs raped Russia in the 90's. OK, most of them were Jews – but still
Western. The (((harvard))) boys foisted dollar debts on Russia, and then converted Russia to
an extraction economy. Putin cleverly taxed the Oligarchs and prevented them from further
predations.
No country can survive if it has an internal hostile elite. Nobody here can claim that
Russia's government is hostile to its people. A fair claim can be made that the
"international" elite that infest America IS HOSTILE. Why would you immigrate a replacement
population if not hostile? Why would you export your industry if not hostile?
You don't dig out and convert your economy to first world standards overnight.
So, the trend lines are clear. The West and U.S. is a finance oligarchy in decline, while
Russia is on a ascendant path. These lines will cross over at some point in near future. One
could even squint and say that Russia is no longer an Oligarchy of special interests, and is
moving into Byzantium mode e.g. symphony of Church and State. Many Russian thinkers are
projecting another 40 years or so to consolidate the gains.
Fracking has helped the USA boost oil production, but that is pressuring to get oil out of
older wells. Once those have been sucked dry, we'll need to import lots more. You read news
about occasional big new discoveries in the USA, but read the details to see that each
amounts only to a few days of oil consumption in the USA.
The world still runs on oil and the USA wants to control it all. If you doubt the
importance, look at a freeway or airport or seaport to see oil at work.
@onebornfree You are
probably the most whacked out idealist on this site. In your mind all the ills of society is
because of socialism.
Well next time your toilet backs up, don't use that socialist phone network to call a
plumber to clean those socialized drainpipes that keeps your stinky shit flowing down hill
and away to be socially treated – just move to certain parts of India where none of
that takes place – it's your idealist utopia. Wallow in it.
And please refrain from that socialized, government organized power grid – it's the
only thing that keeps you on this site spewing your nonsense. And stay off those socialized
roads.
I don't think the American decline is self inflicted. America became the most powerful
country and has 800 foreign (literally) bases solely because it has the most powerful economy
in the world, and that was in no small measure due to America's abundance of arable land,
navigable waterways, natural resources ect.
The US's population was high quality but it was
prime real estate that others could only dream about. The USA developed advanced technology
not because it had a particular system and set of beliefst let Americans innovate and
cooperate better than other people, or because Americans are more individualistic and freedom
loving than Chinese. Indeed the performance of the Chinese in the Korean war if anything
showed the Chinese could do more with less.
In a few decades China has rocketed close to US level and is in a global hegemon
trajectory solely on the quality and size of its population. With access to Russian resources
and no intention of giving the US any excuse for a war, China is going to gain on the US and
perhaps overtake it in technology. That is their plan and why wouldn't they? This giant
awakening had to happen sooner or later.
There is not much doubt about the outcome of any competition between China and the
West, especially as much of the profits of the ruling class in the West has come from
offshoring and investment in China and their economy of scale production suppressing labour's
power in the West. The Chinese and their Western collaborators will just wait Trump
out.
I wouldn't give up on America yet. There are pockets of resistance to the PTB popping up
around the country.
Here we have a Arkansas newspaper suing the state over the Israel Boycott ban .. that it is a
newspaper doing the suing is significant.
ACLU and ACLU of Arkansas to Appeal Ruling on Boycott Ban
February 21, 2019
LITTLE ROCK –The Arkansas Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the American Civil
Liberties Union Foundation today filed a notice of appeal in their lawsuit challenging a
state law that requires government contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel or reduce
their fees by 20 percent. The lawsuit, which was dismissed by a U.S. District Court judge in
January, was filed on behalf of the Arkansas Times LP. The Times was penalized by the
government after it refused to certify that it is not boycotting Israel or Israel-controlled
territories.
The case is being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
"The district court's decision would radically limit the First Amendment right to boycott
if allowed to stand," said Rita Sklar, ACLU of Arkansas executive director. "Allowing the
government to force people to relinquish their First Amendment rights or pay a penalty for
expressing certain political beliefs disfavored by the government would set a dangerous
precedent. This 'pay-to-say' tax is blatantly unconstitutional and we're committed to seeing
the law struck down."
To be a real Jew, you have to born a Jew. It is the same for Hindus. Someone should tell
Tulsi Gabbard she cannot convert to Hinduism -- she will not be accepted by most Hindus.
This is the key reason why Hindus do not believe in propagating their religion.
LOL I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka. She thinks it's for real.
..empire, the desire for which is an ancient and innate part of mankind's cerebral
package. Parthian, Roman, Aztec, Hapsburg, British. It never stops.
When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly
world empire.
Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet.
For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must
be neutralized.
To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."
Minor quibble:
.
..the developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them
occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America,
Saudi Arabia, and Australia.
Canada, United Kingdom and Australia are not occupied by American troops. Those
troops, and not that many in the first place, are stationed there. Majority of
Australians do not mind that at all. Well, depending on skin colour, that is.
As for:
The present moment is an Imperial crunch point.
and
It is now or never.
Not so sure about that.
Because
Another decade or two of this ..
is a long time. A lot of things can happen, including some bad , to Russia and/or
China.
Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I
particularly liked:
The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by
popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education
deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military
instead of infrastructure and the economy.
We've all been deceived. Almost everything "we're told" is a lie. It's up to each of us to
discern the truth.
Notable quotes:
"... Like Rome, the US has hollowed itself out ..."
"... Perhaps some do wish the US Empire's collapse will come sooner rather than later, and even that some other empire will replace it. I simply see its collapse as both inevitable, and imminent (in historical terms, of course), but I don't see another global Empire rising to take its place, much less wish it. ..."
"The United States once dominated economically by making better products at better prices,
ran a large trade surplus, and barely had competitors." Wrong. The United States once
dominated by NOT competing – until around 1970, foreign trade was a negligible fraction
of the economy. The United States historically was a functional autarky. With a modest
population, abundant resources, and no need to worry about competing with slave-labor level
wages, America's economy and power boomed.
"The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than
by competence." Utterly false. Our government is one of oligarchy, democratic elections have
essentially zero impact on policy. Our government is not incompetent because of 'democracy'
but because our elites and their institutions are corrupt and insulated from the consequences
of their decisions. One is reminded that Chinese industry is still overwhelmingly US industry
that was moved their because US elites wanted quick shot-term profits – and were just
too greedy to think about the long-term consequences of giving away the work of centuries to
a large competitor nation.
Good to see an article that doesn't blame only the "Jews" seems some people here have a
terrible time believing that there can be more than 1 single cause of wars or other troubles.
I thought all our military heros were required to read and understand Sun Tzu's Art of
War? Seems they skipped a few chapters and cheated on the exam.
Capitalism always fails. Capitalism is growing and the white population is dying
.hmmmm
The 'flaw' (intentional) in capitalism is that it was never intended to improve the
conditions of the common man. Capital, was only ever intended to fill the coffers of princes,
kings, dukes, barons and lesser nobles so that they would have a medium of exchange for
services that they, themselves, were incapable of producing/providing.
And, as we now see the full long term 'effects' of capitalism, wealth disparity,
homelessness, drug addiction, increased suicide rates, lowered longevity, stagnant wages,
staggeringly high personal, corporate, and sovereign debt levels, increases in personal
bankruptcy (particularly health care related), predatory lending, a monopolistic private
sector, corporate dominance of government (think ALEC and uncontrolled corporate lobbying),
unrestricted immigration (think removal of sanctions on employers for illegals), destruction
of unions (& pensions), encouragement of offshoring and destructive mergers and
acquisitions via changes to the tax code, massive overspending on the military along with an
aggressive empire-building posture, trickle down economics, etc.
The current situation in the U.S. should not be a surprise it started about 38 years ago.
You voted for it and now you will have to live with it. China is indeed kicking our ass, our
"leaders" are far too corrupt to change course, we've hit the iceberg already.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will
be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Welcome to the Saint Reagan Revolution. Have a nice day.
country that is 15% black and 25% Mestizo (and growing) will not rebound to the former
heights of a country that was 90% white. Won't happen.
Why not? Where are all the high ability whites gonna go? Will they just vanish? They're
still around, and aren't going anywhere. The talent pool will continue to have the same
absolute number of people, even if a lower fraction of the whole.
There is a difference between percentages and absolute numbers. All that will have
happened is that a large number of slightly less able people will have been added to the pie.
That doesn't diminish the number of more able people. They're still around.
Here's another little secret. A country is great because of its top 15% of people. The
average Chinese, or the lower class Chinese, is far from impressive.
If the gap between the top 15 percent and everyone else is too large, that may create some
problems, but Hispanics are a fairly capable people.
This doesn't mean I support immigration. But adding say 50 million slightly less able
people to 250 million slightly more able isn't exactly going to ruin a country,
realistically. And other countries may have more serious deficiencies.
Interesting article, and good timing too. China's president today reiterated China's
commitment to developing its strategic partnership with Iran. The US may have pulled out of
the Iran Nuclear Deal, but China remains committed to that deal, and EU doesn't seem quite
ready to jettison it either.
WSJ reported today that India is ignoring US warning about Huawei and will use their
equipment for 5G anyway. Germany is reportedly doing the same.
Thanks to the Zionist stranglehold on the US and UK, I see the world developing into two
factions, one of US-UK-Israel-Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Muslim countries, and the other of
Russia-China-Iran, and potentially India, with EU sitting uncomfortably in the middle. F is
on the Ziocon side as long as Macron is in office, but once he leaves, France could well join
Germany and the rest of the EU and switch side.
The Europeans were not too enamored with Pence at the recent Munich Security Conference,
they all know what a Jew puppet he is, esp. after he used a visit to Auschwitz to convey to
the Europeans that if they do not join the US on our antagonism towards Iran, they are as
good as anti-Semites. The only 2 people who gave him a standing O after his speech were
Javanka. Sad.
Zionists will turn America into an international pariah, as isolated and alone as
Israel.
@Harold Smith
Socialism means equalizing and socializing – of rich and poor – at the expense of
the rich who got that way at the expense of the poor, so you can say – it's little bit
of a payback time. Americans have very clear minds about socialism – that's because
they have been brainwashed during decades long running propaganda.
Then they got introduced to a wrong kind of "socialism" – where they were forced to
socialize with a wrong kind of people – from alien lands and cultures. That's not
socialism, that's cheap propaganda stunt, worthy of the Adolf himself.
I think they were introduced to that type of "socialism" under the motto: "Fake it, so you
don't have to make it". I think that the time will eventually come, where the more
traditional motto will come into play: "Fake it, until you make it".
Just because this produce has the label "United States" doesn't mean that it's the same
as the old product. Grow up.
No, it definitely won't be the same product. But nations change character fairly often.
Elizabethan England was very different than Georgian England. The one was known as merry and
licentious and highly emotional, the other was melancholy, stiff and inexressive, and more
Puritan. Nations literally flip over into their opposites. In the past century Jews went from
being physical cowards to tough physical adventurers in the Middle East. The Germans went
from being the land of poets and thinkers to the land of blood and iron and war.
America will change, very drastically. Immigration will eventually stop, and the new
people absorbed and integrated. Something new will emerge to replace a European civilization
that had grown old. Something partly European and probably very capable.
And yes, I know that ethnic changes aren't the same thing. And I don't supplier
immigration. I'm just pointing out realities.
That's because the America see no advantage in placing its boot upon Canada's neck as
long as Canada, recognizing its absolute dependence on the US for its territorial integrity
and economic prosperity, remains subservient, sending token military forces wherever NATO
directs, extraditing foreign nationals as America requires, and assimilating every
appalling American cultural meme.
LOL how true. Canada to the US is like NZ to Australia. They just don't matter.
How old is Fred Reed anyway? I first became aware of him in late 2001. Back then he posted
his picture at the top of his articles and I thought he looked ancient even back then.
Could it be because that their religious elites correctly figure that it would be
difficult to sell rapist/gay/androgynous deities, phallus/vagina/devil/animal worship,
etc., to the world, except to some whitey hippies (e.g. Tulsi's mother)? They feel ashamed
to proselytise except to braindead whitey hippies.
LOLOL. You really have to wonder what kind of people could be dumb/crazy enough to follow
a religion with 33 million gods! It's no wonder India is such a fucked up country, completely
ungovernable. The worst thing is, these nutcases are now invading the US en masse (and soon
to be let in by tens of millions more courtesy of Trump), are increasingly running for
office, and winning as zealous socialist leftists running in uber liberal districts.
These bullshit artist nutjobs are not satisfied having completely destroyed their own
country, they now want to destroy ours. We are on our way to becoming the next India,
completely with people defecating out in the open like our growing homeless population, just
like in Mumbai.
@flashlight joe Agree
with Flashlight Joe on the duties and imposts and the Civil War. That was the major cause of
the war as far as I can tell from reading books. Of course there were other factors including
slavery as a lesser cause. What a waste of lives and treasure.
@Harold Smith I find
it hard to believe the masses in the US will choose Bernie's socialism. It doesn't work and
the evidence for failure is overwhelming just in the last 100 years. We should stop the
migrations of impoverished third worlders. Lacking any education these migrants would be most
susceptible to hair brained socialism.
@Biff Socialist phone
network? Last I heard the phone companies are 100% privately owned.
All those sewage pipes were privately built and private companies collect your water and
sewer bill.
The definition of socialism: the government or community owns the means of production.
Some nations have more regulations than others but successful nations are capitalist,
including Scandinavians.
Roads are built by private contractors. Missiles and jets as well.
The Jews think far too much of themselves and are screwed. Their hollowing out of the
manufacturing of the US was premature before they could guarantee a home in China. The
Chinese thing of course is not working out so well. The Chinese are not nice individualist
like Europeans that they can manipulate with "caring" for others as the Chinese don't "care"
and will laugh at Jewish cries of "victimization".
Jewish parasitism is only functionally
able to work among Europeans and only last so long in each region they go to. I suspect the
Western Ukraine take over was to have a plan "B" place to go if they get overrun in Israel.
I'm not so sure that will work out in the long run either.
I noted your impressions, but Asia is a big place. There's a great variety of peoples and
cultures between Japan and Saudi Arabia, and I'm curious which you're actually commenting
on.
The US is having a little bit of a bad period, and everyone is rushing to say it's
completely finished for all time.
It isn't simply a "bad period" from where I sit, and I don't think any serious person
would claim "it's completely finished for all time". In the first place it's not that "bad"
(yet), and it has a long way to go before it gets genuinely bad for no greater reason than
that it's starting its decline from a fully developed state. A lot of things have to go to
hell for it to become hell.
And its debatable just how bad a period the US is going through. I think its overstated,
although there are undoubtedly some serious problems that need to be addressed.
The issue for America is that having lost its civilizational strengths, it's running on
the fumes of Empire. So, we're really talking about just how much of those fumes there are
left. The former didn't simply get weakened. For the elites and approx half the population
they seem to have been replaced by something alien and corrosive. "Freedom", "Democracy",
"Rule of Law" and even "American Know-how" have visibly dissipated to invisibility for those
looking honestly for them. The fumes it's running on are the preeminence of the U$ dollar
system and such fear as the USM is able to generate. Both are past their tipping point, and
well into decline.
great nations go through bad periods, and then rise again.
They do, but Empires generally don't. It's all about resource flow, and when the flow
stops, or worse reverses, the nation at the core of empire rarely survives in anything like
its original form. Greece, Italy, Mongolia or Iran are very different than simply diminished
versions of their former selves at the core of Empires. The original versions
disappeared.
In any case, America wasn't great for long enough to be called a historically great
nation. Great nations build civilizations that endure through trials such as the loss of
Empire. Russia and China have, and arguably remain modern versions of their original
selves.
In 4thC Rome, things didn't look so bad either. There was lots of asset speculation for
the rich, and bread 'n circuses for everyone else, while the Empire's ability to bring
resources in from the periphery shrank a little every day. Without new resources being
brought in, the Empire inevitably ate its tail. The people remained blithely certain that
there would be even more bread 'n circuses in the future. So Americans are today. They'll
stay quite certain until a modern-day Alaric hammers on the Imperial Gates and says "It's
over". Rome never recovered its Empire, and the city itself went from a population of ~1M to
<50,000 at its depths. It and the area that became Italy took centuries to recover a
halfway decent standard of living.
Like Rome, the US has hollowed itself out and became dependent on such tithes a shrinking
Empire can deliver to keep the bread 'n circuses going. Rome, however, had no peers and so
could continue on well beyond its sell-by date. America, through a breathtaking series of
strategic blunders, has lost that advantage. There's more peers now than America can hope to
deal with and they, not America control the clock. The resources the Empire needs to continue
have been taken off the table. It needed Russia's natural resources, and China's human
resources. It lost both, and what's worse forced them into partnership. As the recent Warsaw
"conference" so vividly exposed, even its vassals know that the Empire has lost its mojo, if
DC's brain-trusts don't.
Can it recover and become a normal country again? Absolutely, though I give it less chance
of coming through the process intact than either Russia or China did. Cultural homogeneity is
what carries a civilization through hard times, and the US ain't got much of that. Perhaps it
will undergo a similar split to Rome's, where the Eastern Empire went on to develop a very
different society than the one it split off from. Rome split along more or less logistical
and administrative lines, whereas the US' fissures are marbled across the continent. It'll
take some serious statesmanship to hold it together.
As for wishing
Perhaps some do wish the US Empire's collapse will come sooner rather than later, and even
that some other empire will replace it. I simply see its collapse as both inevitable, and
imminent (in historical terms, of course), but I don't see another global Empire rising to
take its place, much less wish it.
Maybe one will arise in the fullness of time, but not in mine, or in anyone's that's
currently alive. The resource base just ain't there any more. A Eurasian Empire? Maybe.
Global? Nah.
"He threatened the head of OPCW I believe as well."
Your belief is correct; The one threatened was José Bustani, then --- head of the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
"Bolton -- then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International
Security Affairs -- arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a
warning to the organization's chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn't mince words.
'Cheney wants you out,' Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president
of the United States. 'We can't accept your management style.'
Bolton continued, according to Bustani's recollections: 'You have 24 hours to leave the
organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to
retaliate against you.'
There was a pause. 'We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York'."
I changed the term Capitalism to Neoliberalism, as Capitalism has multiple forms incliudong
New DealCapitalism and Neoliberlaism. It is Neoliberlaism that won in 1980 with "Reagan
revolution."
Good to see an article that doesn't blame only the "Jews" seems some people here have a
terrible time believing that there can be more than 1 single cause of wars or other troubles.
I thought all our military heros were required to read and understand Sun Tzu's Art of
War? Seems they skipped a few chapters and cheated on the exam.
Neoliberalism always fails. Neoliberalism is growing and the white population is dying
.hmmmm
The 'flaw' (intentional) in Neoliberalism is that it was never intended to improve the
conditions of the common man. Capital, was only ever intended to fill the coffers of princes,
kings, dukes, barons and lesser nobles so that they would have a medium of exchange for
services that they, themselves, were incapable of producing/providing.
And, as we now see the full long term 'effects' of Neoliberalism, wealth disparity,
homelessness, drug addiction, increased suicide rates, lowered longevity, stagnant wages,
staggeringly high personal, corporate, and sovereign debt levels, increases in personal
bankruptcy (particularly health care related), predatory lending, a monopolistic private
sector, corporate dominance of government (think ALEC and uncontrolled corporate lobbying),
unrestricted immigration (think removal of sanctions on employers for illegals), destruction
of unions (& pensions), encouragement of offshoring and destructive mergers and
acquisitions via changes to the tax code, massive overspending on the military along with an
aggressive empire-building posture, trickle down economics, etc.
The current situation in the U.S. should not be a surprise it started about 38 years ago.
You voted for it and now you will have to live with it. China is indeed kicking our ass, our
"leaders" are far too corrupt to change course, we've hit the iceberg already.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will
be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Welcome to the Saint Reagan Revolution. Have a nice day .
@TKK immigrate a
replacement population if not hostile? Why would you export your industry if not hostile?
You don't dig out and convert your economy to first world standards overnight.
So, the trend lines are clear. The West and U.S. is a finance oligarchy in decline, while
Russia is on a ascendant path. These lines will cross over at some point in near future. One
could even squint and say that Russia is no longer an Oligarchy of special interests, and is
moving into Byzantium mode e.g. symphony of Church and State. Many Russian thinkers are
projecting another 40 years or so to consolidate the gains.
"... When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon. ..."
"... Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice. ..."
"... A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has. ..."
"... America cannot compete with China commercially ..."
"... Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future. ..."
"... Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." ..."
"... As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's founder. ..."
When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world
empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them
occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America,
Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military,
controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was
in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon.
Powerful groups in Washington, such as PNAC, began angling towed aggrandizement, but the
real lunge came with the attack on Iraq. Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating
the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.
The world runs on oil. Controlling the supply conveys almost absolute power over those
countries that do not have their own. (For example, the Japanese would soon be eating each
other if their oil were cut off.) Saudi Arabia is an American protectorate,and, having seen
what happened to Iraq, knows that it can be conquered in short order if it gets out of line.
The U. S. Navy could easily block tanker traffic from Hormuz to any or all countries.
A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American
forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians
aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of
another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing
what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria?
Guess what Nigeria has.
Note that Iraq and Iran, in addition to their oil, are geostrategically vital to a world
empire. Further, the immensely powerful Jewish presence in the US supports the Mid-East wars
for its own purposes. So, of course, does the arms industry. All God's chillun love the
Empire.
For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must
be neutralized. Thus the campaign to crush Russia by economic sanctions. At the same time
Washington pushes NATO, its sepoy militia, ever eastward, wants to station US forces in Poland,
plans a Space Command whose only purpose is to intimidate or bankrupt Russia, drops out of the
INF Treaty for the same reasons, and seeks to prevent commercial relations between Russia and
the European vassals (e.g., Nordstream II).
China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire. Ergo the trade war. America
has to stop China's economic and technological progress, and stop it now, as it
will not get another chance.
The present moment is an Imperial crunch point. America cannot compete with China
commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages are too
great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a
for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government
that can plan well into the future.
America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated
economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely
had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody,
carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world
can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.
Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells
other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." The indispensable
country is an indispensable market. With few and diminishing (though important) exceptions, if
it stopped selling things to China, China would barely notice, but if it stopped buying, the
Chinese economy would wither. Tariffs, note, are just a way of not buying China's stuff.
Since the profligate American market is vital to other countries, they often do as ordered.
But Asian markets grow. So do Asian industries.
As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no
choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead.
Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal
with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the
Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's
founder.
The tide runs against the Empire. A couple of decades ago, the idea that China could compete
technologically with America would have seemed preposterous. Today China advances at startling
speed. It is neck and neck with the US in supercomputers, launches moonlanders, leads in 5G
internet, does leading work in genetics, designs world-class chipsets (e.g., the Kirin 980 and
920) and smartphones. Another decade or two of this and America will be at the trailing
edge.
The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity
contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates
under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of
infrastructure and the economy. It is politically chaotic, its policies changing with every new
administration.
The first rule of empire is, "Don't let your enemies unite." Instead, Washington has pushed
Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire. It might have been brighter to
have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let
America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe
than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China. By
imposing sanctions of adversaries and allies alike, Washington promotes dedollarization and
recognition that America is not an ally but a master.
It is now or never. If America's great but declining power does not subjugate the rest of
the world quickly, the rising powers of Asia will swamp it. Even India grows. Either sanctions
subdue the world, or Washington starts a world war. Or America becomes just another
country.
To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."
"Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire."
Turkey may soon join them, then Iraq might revolt. South Korea has tired of the
warmongering and may join too, which is why Washington is giving them the lead in dealing
with North Korea. But a united Korea identifes more with China than the USA, so the USA wants
to block that idea. The Germans are unhappy too, with all the warmongering, immigration, and
American arrogance.
Sorry Fred, but you're too late. It's all over. Just that your maniacal rulers, i.e. Pompeo,
Bolton et al can't see it. Or, Cognitive Dissonance being painful, refuse to.
Warsaw recently was a case in point. The two biggest European countries, Germany and France
refused to even send a senior representative. All people did was listen in an embarrassed
silence while Pompeo tried to make like a latter day Julius Cesear. At the same time, Russia,
Turkey and Iran met in Sochi, and worked out how they were going to take the next solving the
mess in Syria, the way they want it.
Incidentally, you could also go onto YouTube and watch RT's subtitled [also horrible voice
over, but you can't have everything I guess] of President Putin's "Address to Parliament and
the Nation". It runs for close to 1.5 hours. You will hear the problems Russia has, how Putin
addresses the concerns of the people, their complaints re poor access in country areas to
medicine, and his orders on how this is to be fixed.
But you will also hear the moves forward, that Russia now has a trade surplus [remember
those?] and can afford all the programs it needs. It's the world leading exporter of Wheat,
and other commodities are catching up.
Then he will tell you and show videos of the latest 2 defense weapons – and they are
things America cannot defend against. He also in light of the US withdrawing from the INF
treaty made a very clear statement, should the US be so stupid as to think it can use Europe
as it's war ground, and have Europeans get killed instead of Americans. "Put Intermediate
sites in Europe and use just one, and not only will we fire on the European site that sent
it, but we will also take out the "decision making centre", wherever this is".
Ponder that for a while. There is nothing US can do. The dollar is slowly being rejected and
dumped. The heartland is reamed out after billions took the productive facilities and put
them in China [so kind]. The homeless and desperate are growing in numbers.
It's all over, Fred. Time to start planning what to do when the mud really hits the fan.
Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I
particularly liked:
The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by
popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education
deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military
instead of infrastructure and the economy.
Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert
Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel
gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside
down.
But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile
phonies and hypocrites.
It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American
econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have
worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast
empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China.
Russia is more than racially closer, Russia is culturally much closer and by culturally I
don't mean this cesspool of new "culture". But, as you brilliantly noted:
The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather
than by competence.
Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not
emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power
politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.
India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no
friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power,
not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the
US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.
Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?
The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.
.
Not to notice (or rather, not to notice one's own noticing) what the majority doesn't
notice (OK: they don't notice that they notice, actually) is part of humankind's cerebral
package too.
You once called it the law of the pack. It can be given innumerable names -- just it doesn't
change.
The American decline is largely self-inflicted.
.
It's what follows ripe democracy, invariably -- meanjng that it can arguably not be
helped.
@Godfree Roberts
Finally a bright spot in an otherwise depressingly-fairly-truthful article. Less Government
spending is a GOOD thing, I mean, unless you are a flat-out Communist, of course ohhhhh .
And yes, the scale is WAY off. How could those 0.8 to 2.05% numbers seem even close to
reality to anyone who has a clue. I can't vouch for China, but the US number is off by a
factor of 20 to 25 . Come on, Godfree, you're (a tad bit) better than that!
That's not a bad article in general, but, as usual, Mr. Reed doesn't really have that
analytical mind to know what's really been, and is, going on.
1) There were PLENTY of Americans, many of them even politicians who wanted a "peace
dividend" after the Cold War was won. G.H.W Bush and the neocons put the kibosh on that. The
current version of empire-building didn't have to be. The Israeli-influenced neocons are most
of the reason for the post-Cold-War empire building.
2) It's not ALL about oil anymore – it seems to be a diminishing factor, what with
the US producing more oil than it imports, at this point. Mr. Reed could use a dose of
Zerohedge.com, as, along with their gloom-and-doom, they have opened my eyes to the American
meddling around the world to keep support of the Reserve Currency, the US dollar. Lots of the
countries in which the US causes trouble were trying to get out of the dollar world with
their trade.
3) Related to (2) here, China and Russia both want to eliminate the use of the dollar in
trade, including with each other. That bothers a lot of people who understand how bad the
outlook for the US economy really is, and what it would mean for the dollar to no longer be
used around the world for trade.
4) American government has handed China a completely one-sided deal (FOR China) in trade
since the mid-1990's and Bill Clinton. It's time to end that, which is what the trade war is
about. I don't dispute that American could be in a whole lot more pain over it than the
Chinese, but it's like medicine – take it now, or suffer even more later.
America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once
dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade
surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit
with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes
few things that the world can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.
@peterAUS I agree ..
Canada is "not" under America's boot. As a Canadian I respect the security America provides
Canada on the world stage but it would be a cold day in hell when i would submit to an
America with a gun in his hand. And im pretty sure our best buddies in jolly ol England might
have something to say. This isnt a pissing match. Empire is a fickle bitch.
@Bruce County Pretty
much.
As far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned it's crystal clear. Somebody has to provide
security for our way of life here; before it was United Kingdom, now it's USA.
Hehe definitely preferable to China.
Or Japan.
Or anyone here in Pacific.
If Americans want to deploy a full corps, whatever, no prob. Again, as far as "fair
skinned" English speaking citizens here are concerned. I'd even say it applies to Polynesians
around.
Now, can't say it applies to our Mohammedan citizens, and definitely not to Chinese.
It's amusing to see Westerners around here keen on replacing USA empire with Chinese. Hehe
talking about self-hate.
Granted, there are people among them who really believe in all that propaganda coming from
Beijing. Well better than taking Prozac or similar, I guess, so all good.
"Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is
that some people don't notice." That is pretty astonishing, given that most of the columns on
sites like this & even in more MSM-style publications rehash this theme ad infinitum. It
may, in fact, be more a matter of people simply getting tired of hearing it over and over
that leads them to shrug and turn to something different. It's not news anymore. How many
columns can anyone squeeze out of the same threadbare topic. Many years ago, during first
Cold War, it was still somewhat daring to expose this partially hidden truth; but now it's
old hat on both the left & right.No one really needs someone to tell them again what
everyone already knows, that's easy – but what to do about it, that's the hard part!
@Philip Owen This is
a subset of government spending and only covers R&D.
It doesn't cover corporate R&D spending, though I'm guessing that in that regard, the
two countries are even. If anyone has the numbers I'd be grateful if they'd share them.
"... When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon. ..."
"... Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice. ..."
"... A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria? Guess what Nigeria has. ..."
"... America cannot compete with China commercially ..."
"... Beijing's advantages are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government that can plan well into the future. ..."
"... Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." ..."
"... As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead. Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's founder. ..."
When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world
empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them
occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America,
Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military,
controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was
in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon.
Powerful groups in Washington, such as PNAC, began angling towed aggrandizement, but the
real lunge came with the attack on Iraq. Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating
the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.
The world runs on oil. Controlling the supply conveys almost absolute power over those
countries that do not have their own. (For example, the Japanese would soon be eating each
other if their oil were cut off.) Saudi Arabia is an American protectorate,and, having seen
what happened to Iraq, knows that it can be conquered in short order if it gets out of line.
The U. S. Navy could easily block tanker traffic from Hormuz to any or all countries.
A major purpose of the destruction of Iraq was to get control of its oil and put American
forces on the border of Iran, another oil power. The current attempt to starve the Iranians
aims at installing a American puppet government. The ongoing coup in Venezuela seeks control of
another vast oil reserve. It will also serve to intimidate the rest of Latin America by showing
what can happen to any country that defies Washington. Why are American troops in Nigeria?
Guess what Nigeria has.
Note that Iraq and Iran, in addition to their oil, are geostrategically vital to a world
empire. Further, the immensely powerful Jewish presence in the US supports the Mid-East wars
for its own purposes. So, of course, does the arms industry. All God's chillun love the
Empire.
For the Greater Empire to prevail, Russia and China, the latter a surprise contender, must
be neutralized. Thus the campaign to crush Russia by economic sanctions. At the same time
Washington pushes NATO, its sepoy militia, ever eastward, wants to station US forces in Poland,
plans a Space Command whose only purpose is to intimidate or bankrupt Russia, drops out of the
INF Treaty for the same reasons, and seeks to prevent commercial relations between Russia and
the European vassals (e.g., Nordstream II).
China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire. Ergo the trade war. America
has to stop China's economic and technological progress, and stop it now, as it
will not get another chance.
The present moment is an Imperial crunch point. America cannot compete with China
commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages are too
great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright people, a
for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a stable government
that can plan well into the future.
America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once dominated
economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade surplus, and barely
had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit with almost everybody,
carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes few things that the world
can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.
Increasingly America's commercial power is as a consumer, not a producer. Washington tells
other countries, "If you don't do as we say, we won't buy your stuff." The indispensable
country is an indispensable market. With few and diminishing (though important) exceptions, if
it stopped selling things to China, China would barely notice, but if it stopped buying, the
Chinese economy would wither. Tariffs, note, are just a way of not buying China's stuff.
Since the profligate American market is vital to other countries, they often do as ordered.
But Asian markets grow. So do Asian industries.
As America's competitiveness declines, Washington resorts to strong-arm tactics. It has no
choice. A prime example is the 5G internet, a Very Big Deal, in which Huawei holds the lead.
Unable to provide a better product at a better price, Washington forbids the vassals to deal
with Huawei–on pain of not buying their stuff. In what appears to be desperation, the
Exceptional Nation has actually made a servile Canada arrest the daughter of Huawei's
founder.
The tide runs against the Empire. A couple of decades ago, the idea that China could compete
technologically with America would have seemed preposterous. Today China advances at startling
speed. It is neck and neck with the US in supercomputers, launches moonlanders, leads in 5G
internet, does leading work in genetics, designs world-class chipsets (e.g., the Kirin 980 and
920) and smartphones. Another decade or two of this and America will be at the trailing
edge.
The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by popularity
contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education deteriorates
under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military instead of
infrastructure and the economy. It is politically chaotic, its policies changing with every new
administration.
The first rule of empire is, "Don't let your enemies unite." Instead, Washington has pushed
Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire. It might have been brighter to
have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American econosphere, but Israel would not have let
America do this. The same approach would have worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe
than China and acutely aware of having vast empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China. By
imposing sanctions of adversaries and allies alike, Washington promotes dedollarization and
recognition that America is not an ally but a master.
It is now or never. If America's great but declining power does not subjugate the rest of
the world quickly, the rising powers of Asia will swamp it. Even India grows. Either sanctions
subdue the world, or Washington starts a world war. Or America becomes just another
country.
To paraphrase a great political thinker, "It's the Empire, Stupid."
"Washington has pushed Russia, China, and Iran into a coalition against the Empire."
Turkey may soon join them, then Iraq might revolt. South Korea has tired of the
warmongering and may join too, which is why Washington is giving them the lead in dealing
with North Korea. But a united Korea identifes more with China than the USA, so the USA wants
to block that idea. The Germans are unhappy too, with all the warmongering, immigration, and
American arrogance.
Sorry Fred, but you're too late. It's all over. Just that your maniacal rulers, i.e. Pompeo,
Bolton et al can't see it. Or, Cognitive Dissonance being painful, refuse to.
Warsaw recently was a case in point. The two biggest European countries, Germany and France
refused to even send a senior representative. All people did was listen in an embarrassed
silence while Pompeo tried to make like a latter day Julius Cesear. At the same time, Russia,
Turkey and Iran met in Sochi, and worked out how they were going to take the next solving the
mess in Syria, the way they want it.
Incidentally, you could also go onto YouTube and watch RT's subtitled [also horrible voice
over, but you can't have everything I guess] of President Putin's "Address to Parliament and
the Nation". It runs for close to 1.5 hours. You will hear the problems Russia has, how Putin
addresses the concerns of the people, their complaints re poor access in country areas to
medicine, and his orders on how this is to be fixed.
But you will also hear the moves forward, that Russia now has a trade surplus [remember
those?] and can afford all the programs it needs. It's the world leading exporter of Wheat,
and other commodities are catching up.
Then he will tell you and show videos of the latest 2 defense weapons – and they are
things America cannot defend against. He also in light of the US withdrawing from the INF
treaty made a very clear statement, should the US be so stupid as to think it can use Europe
as it's war ground, and have Europeans get killed instead of Americans. "Put Intermediate
sites in Europe and use just one, and not only will we fire on the European site that sent
it, but we will also take out the "decision making centre", wherever this is".
Ponder that for a while. There is nothing US can do. The dollar is slowly being rejected and
dumped. The heartland is reamed out after billions took the productive facilities and put
them in China [so kind]. The homeless and desperate are growing in numbers.
It's all over, Fred. Time to start planning what to do when the mud really hits the fan.
Can't argue with that! Usually, I read Fred for amusement, but this is all spot on. I
particularly liked:
The American decline is largely self-inflicted. The US chooses its government by
popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence. American education
deteriorates under assault by social-justice faddists. Washington spends on the military
instead of infrastructure and the economy.
Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert
Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel
gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside
down.
But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile
phonies and hypocrites.
It might have been brighter to have integrated Iran tightly into the Euro-American
econosphere, but Israel would not have let America do this. The same approach would have
worked with Russia, racially closer to Europe than China and acutely aware of having vast
empty Siberia bordering an overpopulated China.
Russia is more than racially closer, Russia is culturally much closer and by culturally I
don't mean this cesspool of new "culture". But, as you brilliantly noted:
The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather
than by competence.
Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not
emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power
politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.
India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no
friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power,
not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the
US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.
Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?
The astonishing thing is that some people don't notice.
.
Not to notice (or rather, not to notice one's own noticing) what the majority doesn't
notice (OK: they don't notice that they notice, actually) is part of humankind's cerebral
package too.
You once called it the law of the pack. It can be given innumerable names -- just it doesn't
change.
The American decline is largely self-inflicted.
.
It's what follows ripe democracy, invariably -- meanjng that it can arguably not be
helped.
@Godfree Roberts
Finally a bright spot in an otherwise depressingly-fairly-truthful article. Less Government
spending is a GOOD thing, I mean, unless you are a flat-out Communist, of course ohhhhh .
And yes, the scale is WAY off. How could those 0.8 to 2.05% numbers seem even close to
reality to anyone who has a clue. I can't vouch for China, but the US number is off by a
factor of 20 to 25 . Come on, Godfree, you're (a tad bit) better than that!
That's not a bad article in general, but, as usual, Mr. Reed doesn't really have that
analytical mind to know what's really been, and is, going on.
1) There were PLENTY of Americans, many of them even politicians who wanted a "peace
dividend" after the Cold War was won. G.H.W Bush and the neocons put the kibosh on that. The
current version of empire-building didn't have to be. The Israeli-influenced neocons are most
of the reason for the post-Cold-War empire building.
2) It's not ALL about oil anymore – it seems to be a diminishing factor, what with
the US producing more oil than it imports, at this point. Mr. Reed could use a dose of
Zerohedge.com, as, along with their gloom-and-doom, they have opened my eyes to the American
meddling around the world to keep support of the Reserve Currency, the US dollar. Lots of the
countries in which the US causes trouble were trying to get out of the dollar world with
their trade.
3) Related to (2) here, China and Russia both want to eliminate the use of the dollar in
trade, including with each other. That bothers a lot of people who understand how bad the
outlook for the US economy really is, and what it would mean for the dollar to no longer be
used around the world for trade.
4) American government has handed China a completely one-sided deal (FOR China) in trade
since the mid-1990's and Bill Clinton. It's time to end that, which is what the trade war is
about. I don't dispute that American could be in a whole lot more pain over it than the
Chinese, but it's like medicine – take it now, or suffer even more later.
America? It's power is more fragile than it may seem. The United States once
dominated economically by making better products at better prices, ran a large trade
surplus, and barely had competitors. Today it has deindustrialized, runs a trade deficit
with almost everybody, carries an astronomical and uncontrolled national debt, and makes
few things that the world can't get elsewhere, often at lower cost.
@peterAUS I agree ..
Canada is "not" under America's boot. As a Canadian I respect the security America provides
Canada on the world stage but it would be a cold day in hell when i would submit to an
America with a gun in his hand. And im pretty sure our best buddies in jolly ol England might
have something to say. This isnt a pissing match. Empire is a fickle bitch.
@Bruce County Pretty
much.
As far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned it's crystal clear. Somebody has to provide
security for our way of life here; before it was United Kingdom, now it's USA.
Hehe definitely preferable to China.
Or Japan.
Or anyone here in Pacific.
If Americans want to deploy a full corps, whatever, no prob. Again, as far as "fair
skinned" English speaking citizens here are concerned. I'd even say it applies to Polynesians
around.
Now, can't say it applies to our Mohammedan citizens, and definitely not to Chinese.
It's amusing to see Westerners around here keen on replacing USA empire with Chinese. Hehe
talking about self-hate.
Granted, there are people among them who really believe in all that propaganda coming from
Beijing. Well better than taking Prozac or similar, I guess, so all good.
"Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is
that some people don't notice." That is pretty astonishing, given that most of the columns on
sites like this & even in more MSM-style publications rehash this theme ad infinitum. It
may, in fact, be more a matter of people simply getting tired of hearing it over and over
that leads them to shrug and turn to something different. It's not news anymore. How many
columns can anyone squeeze out of the same threadbare topic. Many years ago, during first
Cold War, it was still somewhat daring to expose this partially hidden truth; but now it's
old hat on both the left & right.No one really needs someone to tell them again what
everyone already knows, that's easy – but what to do about it, that's the hard part!
@Philip Owen This is
a subset of government spending and only covers R&D.
It doesn't cover corporate R&D spending, though I'm guessing that in that regard, the
two countries are even. If anyone has the numbers I'd be grateful if they'd share them.
Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert
Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel
gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside
down.
But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile
phonies and hypocrites.
I think that Bernie Sanders was the best hope that US had in the last 50 years. And they
killed that hope by stealing his nomination and highly probable presidency from him. I don't
care what the orange clown says about "US will never be a socialist country". One other
individual of his ethnic background once prognosticated a 1000 year Reich – and we all
know how that turned out.
I don't know what Bernie views on immigration are, but on social and economic issues
– he is bang on. And I just heard on the news that Bernie new campaign for 2020, has
broken all previous records – raising 6 million $ in the first 24 hours.
All that nonsensical talk about empire is just a product of idle (and deranged) minds of
individuals who have achieved personal wealth and success based on rules of questionable
fairness, and now have nothing better to do than play some retarded game of world domination
– which doesn't benefit the average American at all. It's just a way for the
degenerates to achieve "immortality" and get into the history books – where they don't
belong – certainly not based on their abilities.
"Yeah right. Sanders is just another scammer, like Trump and all the rest of them:"
Yes of course they're all scammers, but there's a reason they picked the orange clown
scammer rather than the Sanders scammer or the Clinton scammer. And I think that reason is
because orange clown is actually the most evil of the three; evil enough to risk planetary
extinction in pursuit of world domination and control, whereas Sanders probably isn't.
So in a sense Sanders probably is "the best hope that the U.S. had in the last 50
years."
Britain's time of full spectrum dominance (well trade, industry and navy really) did not
emerge fully formed from isolation as did America. England and the UK played balance of power
politics. The US can still do that for a very long time, given some basic diplomatic sense.
India, China & Pakistan present an interesting triangle. Indonesia and Vietnam are no
friends of China. Nigeria is heading for 400m people and will want to exert its own power,
not take instructions from Peking, etc, etc. Balance of power requires more fluidity than the
US has shown to date. Seeing Russia as an hereditary enemy illustrates this failure.
Can the US make the changes necessary to play balance of power politics?
China of course is the key obstacle to expanding the Empire America cannot compete with
China commercially or, increasingly, in technology. Washington knows it. Beijing's advantages
are too great: A huge and growing domestic market, a far larger population of very bright
people, a for-profit economy that allows heavy investment both internally and abroad, a
stable government that can plan well into the future.
But all the bright minds come to the US. There is no brain drain in China's way, but the
best and brightest in Asia come to the US. Also, as the Asian mind respects power and status
above all, most Asians in the US become loyal servitors of Empire. Asians will serve Asian
power only in Asia where they are dominant. When they are in a non-Asian land, they will suck
up to the non-Asian power. In this, they are unlike Jews. Even in Ancient Times, Jews always
felt as #1 even when surrounded by much bigger powers. They were defined by the Covenant with
the one and only God. Wherever Jews go, they expect others to revolve around them. In
contrast, wherever Asians go, they revolve around the dominant power, whatever it is. Asians
lack the centrism of Jews. Maybe Hindus do a little bit, but Chinese don't. China regarded
itself as the Middle Kingdom only in the Middle Kingdom. But outside it, they feel as strays
who must serve another master. (To be sure, Chinese resist assimilation into foreign nations
when they regard the natives as inferior. Chinese see Southeast Asians as inferior and don't
assimilate much with them. But Chinese regard whites as superior, and so, they try to serve
and be white in the West. And trashy Chinese try to imitate blacks, the masters of badass
coolery in Pop Culture and Sports.) East Asians mainly define themselves by service and
loyalty? To what? To whatever happens to be the most powerful.
Here's the difference between Jews and East Asians.
If the US were to turn anti-Israel and made war against it, American Jews will NOT join in
the effort to kill fellow Jews in Israel. No way in hell, and this is the admirable aspect of
Jewish consciousness. Jews will not be manipulated by goyim to kill other Jews.
But Asian dogs in the US will gladly serve the US empire in killing tons of Asians in
Asia, even ethnic kin. Muslims are the same way. Look at those Muslims in US military who
bombed and killed Muslims in the 'Wars on Terror'. There's no way any American Jew will
participate in US war on Israel that kills tons of Jews, but Asians will gladly kill fellow
Asians in the service to what they deem to be the highest power. Look at Japanese during and
after WWII. During WWII, Japanese loyally served the Emperor, the symbol of power. After the
way, they loyally served Uncle Sam as the New Top Power.
... ... ...
US has lots of problems, but most smart people around the world want to move to the US to
work in Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Real Estate, and etc. There are foreigners in
China, but the system is rigged by nationalism to keep top positions in Chinese hands. But in
the US, due to demise of white race-ism and nationalism, non-white newcomers can rise to the
very top very fast. Look at all the obscenely rich Hindus in Silicon Valley. Also, white
goyim who made America let Jews take over. The Jewish takeover of a majority white Christian
nation sent a message to the world that ANYONE can come to the US and reach the top. If
Chinese elites still favor fellow Chinese, white elites no longer favor white folks and
prefer to do business with non-white elites. So, most of the top talents will flow to the
US.
Also, tons of peons are willing to move to the US to do jobs Americans won't do. So, US
will have tons of brains and tons of peons. (The Middle will suffer though as it's hard for
the middle class and working class to have bargaining power if they can be replaced by
foreigners or if their jobs can be shipped overseas.) US population is likely to be 700 or
800 million by 2100. Also, America has much more resources than China. It has more oil,
better land, more minerals. And US also has Alaska, a world unto itself. (Russians sure were
stupid to sell it.)
@Asagirian That's a
very selective reading of things, and a lot of debatable generalizations about other nations
the US one it seems is all you know personally. Too much to challenge it all but just the
point about Jews not killing other Jews has to be questioned. Jewish elites sacrifice Jews
without qualms when they see it as a means to an end, witness the "Holocaust" which was
instigated and fed by Jewish elites who did all they could to ensure Jewish refugees from
Europe only went to Palestine or back to oppression.
There were Jews in armies on both sides
of the two world wars. Over 150,000 German Jews fought in WWII in the Wehrmacht. Then there
have been the instances of Zionist false flag terrorism in various Middle Eastern countries
to drive yet more Jews to Palestine.
As for the best and brightest making a beeline for the USA that was yesterday. These days
that flow is slowing and by no means are the best and brightest headed that direction and
more to the point, many of America's best and brightest are beginning to emigrate to greener
pastures as the writing on the wall becomes more obvious.
What you describe as a US
renaissance is no such thing. Although the demographics are probably about right. It
represents the end of the USA in it's traditional self perception and the aftermath of empire
collapse. History doesn't support the rosy outlook you project.
Incredible. US government cooks up lies to invade and wreck Iraq, destroy Libya, and subvert
Syria. It pulled off a coup in Ukraine with Neo-Nazis. US and its allies Saudis and Israel
gave aid, direct and indirect, to ISIS and Al-Qaida to bring down Assad or turn Syria upside
down.
But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile
phonies and hypocrites.
"... Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her ..."
"... Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn. ..."
"... The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic
cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her. She said:
" We must stand up
against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up
new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and
hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our
middle class."
It is too early to formulate a complete opinion on Gabbard, but she has said the right thing
so far. In fact, her record is better than numerous presidents, both past and present.
As we have documented in the past, Gabbard is an Iraq war veteran, and she knew what
happened to her fellow soldiers who died for Israel, the Neocon war machine, and the military
industrial complex. She also seems to be aware that the war in Iraq alone will cost American
taxpayers at least six trillion dollars.
[1] She is almost certainly aware of the fact that at least "360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans may have suffered brain injuries."
[2]
Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and
destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the
Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle
East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn.
The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both
parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about
you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that
matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of
the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you
should all agree with Gabbard here.
[1] Ernesto Londono, "Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion," Washington
Post , March 28, 2013; Bob Dreyfuss, The $6 Trillion Wars," The Nation , March 29,
2013; "Iraq War Cost U.S. More Than $2 Trillion, Could Grow to $6 Trillion, Says Watson
Institute Study," Huffington Post , May 14, 2013; Mark Thompson, "The $5 Trillion War
on Terror," Time , June 29, 2011; "Iraq war cost: $6 trillion. What else could have
been done?," LA Times , March 18, 2013.
[2] "360,000 veterans may have brain injuries," USA Today , March 5, 2009.
"We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new
places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy,
our security, and destroying our middle class."
"... US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class ..."
...Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the
power of the Israel Lobby to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the
Middle East and West Asia.
US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and
Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the
foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.
"... Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her ..."
"... Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn. ..."
"... The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here. ..."
Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic
cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her. She said:
" We must stand up
against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up
new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and
hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our
middle class."
It is too early to formulate a complete opinion on Gabbard, but she has said the right thing
so far. In fact, her record is better than numerous presidents, both past and present.
As we have documented in the past, Gabbard is an Iraq war veteran, and she knew what
happened to her fellow soldiers who died for Israel, the Neocon war machine, and the military
industrial complex. She also seems to be aware that the war in Iraq alone will cost American
taxpayers at least six trillion dollars.
[1] She is almost certainly aware of the fact that at least "360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans may have suffered brain injuries."
[2]
Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and
destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the
Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle
East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn.
The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both
parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about
you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that
matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of
the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you
should all agree with Gabbard here.
[1] Ernesto Londono, "Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion," Washington
Post , March 28, 2013; Bob Dreyfuss, The $6 Trillion Wars," The Nation , March 29,
2013; "Iraq War Cost U.S. More Than $2 Trillion, Could Grow to $6 Trillion, Says Watson
Institute Study," Huffington Post , May 14, 2013; Mark Thompson, "The $5 Trillion War
on Terror," Time , June 29, 2011; "Iraq war cost: $6 trillion. What else could have
been done?," LA Times , March 18, 2013.
[2] "360,000 veterans may have brain injuries," USA Today , March 5, 2009.
"We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new
places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy,
our security, and destroying our middle class."
"... US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class ..."
...Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the
power of the Israel Lobby to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the
Middle East and West Asia.
US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and
Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the
foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.
The media in most countries report the news in a neutral manner. Since the Judaists bought
the media, they turned media into weapons of terror, by:
a. Fake news -- outright lies (eg. calling alien invaders "migrants").
b. Manufacturing scandals that THEY make up eg. blackface.
c. Harassing and abusing patriots and others and calling them racists, getting them fired from
jobs, etc.
None of these are legitimate jobs of the media. The New York Times and most Zionists
controlled media in this country are therefore criminal enterprises and terrorist organizations
and these criminals belong in prison.
Most of the US attendees might better be described as sincere American patriots. Former
Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), whom I personally recruited for the conference, is widely
acknowledged as an all-American hero for his principled stance against the Vietnam war, his
role in exposing the Pentagon Papers, and his courageous advocacy of 9/11 truth.
Merlin Miller, a family values oriented filmmaker who once ran for president, is another
all-American hero who attended the Hollywoodism Conference. Merlin Miller's pro-American,
anti-Zionist-Hollywood perspective is as patriotic as it gets.
And then there was Culture Wars editor E. Michael Jones, another conservative
American patriot who wants to take his country back.
While all three all-American heroes are in varying degrees critical of Israel and its
occupation of American politics and media, none could possibly be viewed as America haters.
Notes
[1] I
was witch-hunted in 2006 by State Rep. Steve Nass for "teaching 9/11 conspiracy theories" at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But in fact I had never done so, nor had I any plans to do
so. While teaching African Studies, Folklore, and Religious Studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison between 2001 and 2006, I had never once revealed to students my personal
views of 9/11, nor did I ever discuss the research that gave rise to those views.
None of my students up to that point even knew what my views of 9/11 were, unless they had
stumbled upon one of my occasional teach-ins, or read my published work on the issue, which I
did not bring into the classroom.
Yet Stanley
Fish lied brazenly about me in his NYT op-ed , libelously claiming: "Mr. Barrett, who has a
one-semester contract to teach a course titled 'Islam: Religion and Culture' acknowledged on a
radio talk show that he has shared with students his strong conviction that the destruction of
the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the American government."
I immediately wrote to The New York Times urging them to correct their libelous
error. They refused to do so. Instead, they published several other
letters all taking for granted Fish's outrageous and utterly baseless lie.
"... Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes vote. ..."
"... how being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure, for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic? ..."
Foreign policy is more than just war and peace, it is a nuanced and complex issue that
directly affects us here at home. In this interview, Dr. Jane Sanders sits down with
Representative Tulsi Gabbard to talk about U.S. foreign policy and how it affects us here at
home.
Tulsi this is the first I've explored who you are. This conversation felt like a life
giving refreshment. The constant war and regime change policy of every administration since I
was a young child has been utterly confounding. We are bankrupting our society and
civilization with military expenditure exactly like a life destroying heroin addict except
it's on a global scale. These people in the powers that be together with the masses that back
them are literal sociopaths and they're entirely in control at both the highest and base
levels. The only other time I've felt as nourished by a public figure that somehow pierced
through the mainstream media was Bernie Sanders actually expressing the fact that we are an
oligarchy not a democracy. Like oligarchy, anti-war and imperialism is just not talked about.
US Americans won't acknowledge the scale of our imperialism.
Tulsi should run and both Sanders should follow her lead. As much as I love him, Bernie's
too old to be president - when it gets to the stage against Trump, we need a young, vibrant
face. Add onto that the fact that she's a veteran who actually asked to be deployed in
comparison to him, a draft dodger - he looks like an old fat pathetic septogenarian next to
an early 40s real populist. Ultimately it is up to Sanders whether this whole thing is about
a man or a movement. If he runs, he'll probably win the primary but it is not a guarantee
that he'd win - Tulsi would win and she'd be around for decades to come as a standard barer
too.
"Sensible politics" seems to be an oxymoron these days and pretty much throughout the
history of our country. It's so refreshing to see a politician who has a vision for the
future that the majority of us can get behind. It scares me though. I've read quite a bit
about JFK the past few years, and he amassed a number of very powerful and dangerous enemies.
They won't just stand by and allow someone in a position of influence to get the truth out
about our immoral and illegal wars. Tulsi, I support your efforts to bring peace to the
Middle East and elsewhere, but please do be careful. You're a fighter and I admire that, but
we all want you to be safe and healthy for many years to come.
Tulsi Gabbard, I am thrilled to have someone like you running for president. I am a fellow
Veteran dealing with disability and I am glad to have a candidate who understands the issues
Veterans are dealing with. I also realize that the voting public will support the person who
resonates with their personal lives and issues that don't exist in their life they will
disregard.Thank you for you're support.
The DNC will lie cheat and steal the election from Tulsi Gabbard just like they did Bernie
Sanders, and the 15 million Americans who Left the un-Democratic party will double and
triple....DEMEXIT
Tulsi Gabbard needs to be the president of the United States of America period. If she not
the president of our country will not survive. That is a fact, how stupid can our government
be. I guess very stupid, what else can I say. We don't hear that in main news media, the
reason we do hear it the media . The news media is totally brought, the main news media love
money and the devil, simple as that. How are you going to hear about wars from main news
media. They do care about the citizens or the country. We really don't have a real news
media, it all propaganda. All fake news, that why one doesn't hear anything from the new
medias.
Congress needs to take back the war powers. The fact that no one wants to be the one
responsible for deciding to go to war might help slow down if not stop all these regime
change wars. Maybe if Congress votes on it enough of them will be reluctant to make a yes
vote.
WAKE UP, PEOPLE! Bernie is a sell-out - a sheeple-herder that never intended to win. He
was a gatekeeper for Hillary because she is AIPAC-beloved and he is an Israel-firster. He
threw his supporters under the bus as they told him in real time that the nomination was
being stolen. He's part of the con, and the sooner we realize this, the better off we'll be.
BERNIE WORKS FOR DEMOCRATS. Vote Third Party (REAL third parties, not the Bernie Sanders'
kind).
Kinky, 2 months ago
Tulsi - re your comment about our veterans who have "served and sacrificed for their country," could you clarify how
being a mercenary soldier/terrorist in other people's countries, murdering their people and destroying their infrastructure,
for military and multinational corporate profits and Wall St., translates to "serving and sacrificing for the people of our
country"? How do you make that weird leap in logic?
"... The anti Semitism ploy is used to shield the Zionists from any criticism and to place them in a special place kind of like in Orwell's Animal Farm ..."
Ilhan Omar quickly understood that she had touched a live wire, surrendered, and
recanted. She apologized by Monday afternoon, 18 hours after her original tweet, saying
"Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating
me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my
constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and
think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my
identity. This is why I unequivocally apologize."
What does that sound like? A Stalin-era confession? 'I have betrayed the Party. I have
betrayed the Revolution. I humbly request to be sent to Joo-lag.'
The anti Semitism ploy is used to shield the Zionists from any criticism and to place them in
a special place kind of like in Orwell's Animal Farm and in fact the Zionists are in fact in
that special place here in America where they reign above all and none dare call them out for
their genocide of the Palestinians or the fact they did 911 and murdered some 3000 Americans.
So great is the Zionist control of the US government that no congressman who values his
position in congress dares criticize Zionists and goes along with everything that Israel and
the Zionists do, and if fact congress would be more accurately called the lower house of the
Knesset!
Accusations of so-called "anti-Semitism" are used by the JEW/WASP ruling class to cover up
the treasonous activities of the JEW/WASP ruling class.
When CIA Leprechaun Boy Buckley wanted to attack Pat Buchanan because Buchanan was
skeptical of wars that benefited Israel, Buckley the whore called Buchanan an "anti-Semite."
In fact, the CIA Leprechaun scumbag Buckley wrote a whole book screaming about so-called
"anti-Semitism" and Pat Buchanan. Buckley is a disgusting Leprechaun rat who is now roasting
in the hottest pits of fiery Hell!
When disgusting rat whores in the US Congress such as Charles Schumer want to cover the
fact that they are pushing JEW NATIONALISM by pushing to continue to use the US military as
muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel, they accuse those who call them out on their
actions by the swear word of the ruling class: "anti-Semite."
Charles Schumer is a JEW NATIONALIST who uses his power and the power of the Israel Lobby
to get American soldiers to fight wars on behalf of Israel in the Middle East and West Asia.
US soldiers are butchered, maimed and horribly wounded fighting wars on behalf of Israel and
Charles Schumer will start screaming about so-called "anti-Semitism" if anyone questions the
foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class.
"... The epithet 'anti-semitic' continues to have a lot of clout. Measuring this in the most accurate way -- how effectively it cows one into silence -- I've realized it's quite effective. ..."
It was manufactured outrage, with political leaders from both parties latching on to a media
frenzy to score points against each other. Even though it is perfectly legitimate for a
Congresswoman on the Foreign Affairs Committee to challenge what AIPAC does and where its money
comes from, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi complained that Omar's "use of anti-Semitic
tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel's supporters" was "deeply offensive." Chelsea
Clinton
accused Omar of "trafficking in anti-Semitism." President Donald Trump, who
has admitted that his Mideast policy is intended to serve Israeli rather than U.S.
interests, also jumped in, saying "I think she should either resign from congress or she should
certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee."
Ilhan Omar quickly understood that she had touched a live wire, surrendered, and recanted.
She
apologized by Monday afternoon, 18 hours after her original tweet, saying "Anti-Semitism is
real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful
history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish
Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism,
just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I
unequivocally apologize." But she also bravely wrote "At the same time, I reaffirm the
problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel
industry. It's gone on too long and we must be willing to address it."
Pelosi approved of the apology. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota who is
running for president in 2020, chimed in to make sure that everyone knew how much she loves
Israel, saying "I'm glad she apologized. That was the right thing to do. There is just no room
for those kinds of words. I think Israel is our beacon of democracy. I've been a strong
supporter of Israel and that will never change."
Two days later,
a motion sponsored by Congressman Lee Zeldin of New York passed by a 424 to 0 vote. It was
specifically intended to serve as a rebuke to Omar. It
stated that "it is in the national security interest of the United States to combat
anti-Semitism around the world because there has been a significant amount of anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel hatred that must be most strongly condemned."
Congressional votes professing love for Israel notwithstanding, the fact is that there is a
massive
, generously funded effort to corrupt America's government in favor of Israel. It is
euphemistically called the Israel Lobby even though it is overwhelmingly Jewish and it boasts
fairly openly of its power when talking with its closest friends about
how its money influences the decisions made on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Its
combined budget exceeds one billion dollars per year and it includes lobbying powerhouses like
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which alone had $229 million
in income in 2017, supporting more than 200 employees. It exists only to promote Israeli
interests on Capitol Hill and throughout the United States with an army of lobbyists and its
activities include using questionably legal all expenses paid "orientation" trips to Israel for
all new congressmen and spouses.
McCarthy and the other stooges in Congress deliberately sought to frame the argument in
terms of Ilhan Omar having claimed that he personally was receiving money from pro-Israel
sources and that money influenced his voting. Well, the fact is that such activity does take
place and was documented three years ago by the respected Foreign
Policy Journal , which published a piece entitled "The Best Congress AIPAC can Buy" as well
as more recently in an al-Jazeera investigative expose using a concealed camera.
And Kevin McCarthy does indeed receive money from Israel PACs –
$33,200 in 2018 . The amount individual congressmen receive is dependent on their actual or
potential value to Israel. Completely corrupt and enthusiastically pro-Israel Senator Robert
Menendez of New Jersey received
$548,507 in 2018 . In the House, Beto O'Rourke of Texas received $226,690. The numbers do
not include individual contributions of under $200, which are encouraged by AIPAC and can be
considerable. In general, congressmen currently receive over $23,000 on
average from the major pro-Israel organizations while Senators get $77,000.
But, of course, direct donations of money are not the whole story. If a congressman is
unfriendly to Israel, money moves in the other direction, towards funding an opponent when
re-election is coming up. Former Rep. Brian Bard has observed that "Any
member of Congress knows that AIPAC is associated indirectly with significant amounts of
campaign spending if you're with them, and significant amounts against you if you're not with
them." Lara Friedman, who has worked on the Hill for 15 years on Israel/Palestine, notes how
congressmen and staffs of "both parties told me over and over that they agreed with me but
didn't dare say so publicly for fear of repercussions from AIPAC."
A good example of how it all worked involves one honest congressman, Walter Jones of North
Carolina, who recently passed away. In 2014, "Wall Street billionaires, financial industry
lobbyists, and neoconservative hawks" tried to unseat Jones by bankrolling
his primary opponent . The "dark money" intended to defeat him came from a PAC called "The
Emergency Committee for Israel," headed by leading neoconservative Bill Kristol. Jones' war
views, including avoiding a war with Iran, were clearly perceived as anti-Israel.
And one should also consider contributions directly to the political parties. Israeli/U.S.
dual nationals Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are the largest single donors to the GOP and to
the Democrats, having contributed
$82 million and
$8,780,000 respectively in the 2016 presidential campaign. Both have indicated openly that
Israel is their top priority.
If they have demonstrated fealty to Israel while in office, many Congressmen also find that
loyalty pays off after retirement from government with richly remunerated second careers in
Jewish dominated industries, like financial services or the media. And there are hundreds of
Jewish organizations that contribute to Israel as charities, even though the money frequently
goes to fund illegal activity, including the settlements. Money also is used to buy newspapers
and media outlets which then adhere to a pro-Israel line, or, where that does not work, to buy
advertising that is conditional on being friendly to Israel. So the bottom line is indeed "the
Benjamins" and the corruption that they buy.
Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Education Trust
said in January that "One person questioning the truth of the Holocaust is one too many."
That is nonsense. Any, and all, historical events should be questioned regularly, a principle
that is particular true regarding developments that carry a lot of emotional baggage. The
Israel Lobby would have all Americans believe that any criticism of Israel is motivated by
historic hatred of Jews and is therefore anti-Semitism. Don't believe it. When the AIPAC crowd
screams that linking Jews and money is a classic anti-Semitic trope respond by pointing out
that Jews and money are very much in play in the corruption of congress and the media over
Israel. Terrible things are being done in the Middle East in the name of Jews and of Israel and
it all comes down to those Benjamins and the silence they buy by accusing all critics of
anti-Semitism. Just recall what the Israeli minister admitted, "It's a trick, we always use
it."
Israel has a population of approximately 8.7 million, roughly equal to the state of New
Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income slightly
below that of the European Union. Israel's unemployment rate of 4.3% is better than
America's 4.4%, and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 22nd in the world
while the US sits in last place at a dismal 202nd.
Yet, Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other nation. The US
has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan
Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined – which have a total population of
over a billion people.
And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with
Israel.
Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on
Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a
look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.
Here's Nancy Pelosi on what's most important about America.
"I have said to people when they ask me, if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the
one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid, I don't even call it our aid,
our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are."
.Jews and money are very much in play in the corruption of congress and the media
over Israel.
Absolutely, and this 4 part documentary, "The Israel Lobby in the U.S." proves it's every
bit as bad as you imagine, maybe worse.
Start with this, Part 2, which focuses on Congress. (Part 1 introduces the undercover
reporter, and shows how the Israel Lobby operates on college campuses.)
The Israel Lobby in the U.S. – Documentary by Al Jazeera (Part 2 of 4
)
@Marcus
Aurelius Tarkus If you watch Al Jazeera's The Lobby you would obviously be pleased to
learn that the lobbyists are lamenting the falling effectiveness of the anti-Semitism
accusation. It stands to reason that under 30s do not have the reliably implanted mindset
about the shame of antisemitism that the, say, over 55s are likely to have.
A lot of pro-Israel pressure comes from some decidedly un-Jewish sources. Namely, the
"Rapture Ready" crowd among evangelical Christians. They support Israel because they think
Israel's existence is a precondition for Jesus' return. They want to go to Heaven, but don't
want to die, and think that the "Rapture" is a way around that.
Rashida Tlaib believes that US States must be banned from making geopolitical considerations
a part of which companies they do business with. She calls it a free speech issue.
On the other hand, she also believes that States, and the Federal Government, must
discriminate in favour of companies not owned by white people. She calls that an
equality issue.
She often calls into question all manner of other people's loyalties, while she is also
endlessly talking about Palestine, and how Israel must become majority Palestinian.
In a one off piece of consistency, she also supports the same thing for America though, as
she want to abolish immigration enforcement. Which would obviously directly lead to
abolishing America itself.
Meanwhile, Philip Giraldi pretends that he thinks $23,000 of campaign contributions will
buy a US Congressman. In which case, Jezz Bezos could have bought 10 literally every
single minute with the money he made in 2018.
People disagree with you. They have reasons. Cluelessly implying it is because they are
all bought by the Jews makes you look dumb, especially to them.
Israel came into being because Britain needed to get America into the WW1, and the American
leadership were glad of the the PR/ Media and political wherewithal of Jews to help get the
USA in. Even Germany felt it had to match the Balfour Declaration. The Jewish community has
not declined in influence since WW1.
If the US had nothing better to worry about they could, and would, deal with the
subjugation of the whole political system on the issue, but the fact is the priorities lie
elsewhere. The Israel Lobby are an opponent best avoided, and the West has to concentrate on
China.
If one were to read the U.S. mainstream media one would think that there has been a
dramatic increase in anti-Semitism worldwide, but that claim is incorrect. What has been
taking place is not hatred of Jews but rather a confluence of two factors
As well as the factors you mention -- Israeli behaviour and broadening the definition of
anti-Semitism -- the Internet has enabled millions of gentiles to become 'Jew woke', which
inevitably leads to a rise in what Jews perceive as anti-Semitic comment.
The Irish Savant recently blogged about a
lecture by Rabbi David Bar-Hayim: 'He sees Jews as having no moral obligations to us
[gentiles] at all, we're there to be robbed, exploited and, where possible, physically
destroyed.'
Memo to Jews: Has it crossed your minds that anti-Semitism is your fault?
I'd always reckoned myself soundly philo-semitic, based mainly on my father's dealings with
British Jews, backed up by my own acquaintanceships amongst them.
I've cooled in the last few years. That's because two or three times one website comment
threads I've made factual remarks about Palestine that have led to vituperative responses
from commenters who have presumably been Jewish, perhaps Israelis.
I'm not so daft as to think that a few internet nutters or crooks should outweigh personal
experience but it has made me a little more sensitive to institutionalised bullying on behalf
of Israel. An example was the pressure recently put on the (British) Labour Party to adopt
Israel's favoured definition of anti-semitism. I accept, of course, that there are lots of
disgusting anti-semites in that party but I'm damned if I see why a whole political party
should be expected to swallow uncritically some other buggers' definition of
anti-semitism.
In Warsaw, Pompeo urges Poland to pass Holocaust restitution law Poland is the only EU member without comprehensive legislation to return, or provide
compensation for, private property confiscated by the Nazis
By JTA
14 Feb 2019
As part of his remarks, Pompeo called on the Polish government to resolve outstanding
restitution issues.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the issue of Holocaust-era property restitution
during his first official visit to Poland.
"We also appreciate the importance of resolving outstanding issues of the past, and I
urge my Polish colleagues to move forward with comprehensive private property restitution
legislation for those who lost property during the Holocaust era," he said.
Gideon Taylor, chair of operations for the World Jewish Restitution Organization, said
he welcomed Pompeo's "expression of his commitment to securing justice for Holocaust
survivors and their families. This is a powerful affirmation of the importance of this
issue to the United States."
His first state visit and he makes this the key issue.
1. stop blaming Jews for your own stupidity, corruption, greed & whoredom
2. Jews, as a national collective, have some unpleasant traits, among them, recently,
emotional blackmail misusing the shoah to extort money from most white/Euro-derived nations.
This behavior, similar to divorced women's scheming, should be publicly exposed &
denounced. OK guys, you suffered, we admit, but others suffered too, so to hell with this
game
3. US political system, Jews & Gentiles, is too plutocratic, with all these PACs, big
donors, super PACs & whatnot. This should be reformed because the very system perpetuates
corruption & suicidal policy at all levels
Thus, is there a significant difference, ethical or otherwise between being bought by
the NRA, the health insurers, the organised aged, the arms industry, the
sugar/biofuels/cattle lobbies, trial lawyers etc as compared with Israel?
Well wiz, while it's true that the arms industry and Big Sugar, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma
and others, are responsible for the deaths of millions of people, including Americans,
there's no evidence that they deliberately murdered Americans in cowardly and treacherous
acts of war, as Israel has done repeatedly, as with the cowardly and treacherous attack on
the USS Liberty, and the cowardly and treacherous false flag attack on 9/11.
So as to your query over the ethical question of extorting Americans to lavish lucre on an
enemy state with the blood of thousands of Americans on its hands, this question should
answer itself.
Why are Americans looted to fund an enemy state that murders Americans with fiendish glee,
as the "dancing Israelis" so egregiously demonstrates.
It's like the people of Iraq being taxed to pay for Tony Blair or Dubya's new private jet.
Forcing the victims of war crimes to fund their abusers.
Lobbyists for Big Tobacco are saints by comparison.
American mass media is especially two faced when it comes to outing intolerance. A good
deal has been made over over Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's comments on the influence
of AIPAC (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee). The anti-Russian establishment hack
journalist Julia Ioffe tweeted her belief that Omar's comments are "anti-Semitic"
(anti-Jewish). I'm not too familiar with what Omar has said about Jews over the course of
time. I doubt that it['s more repugnant than what Ioffe has stated about Russians.
There has been no letting up with Ioffe. In one recent mass media TV appearance, she
said (in a joking tone) that a relaxation of Russian gun laws isn't a good idea because
Russians drink too much. In another prominent TV segment, Ioffe stated that when the
Russians call someone corrupt, that person must be pretty bad.
Some generalizations are hypocritically more acceptable than others. A good number of
Western reared Russians see thru this gross hypocrisy. On the subject of Russia, these
individuals regularly get limited coverage in Western mass media.
A lot of pro-Israel pressure comes from some decidedly un-Jewish sources. Namely, the
"Rapture Ready" crowd among evangelical Christians. They support Israel because they
think Israel's existence is a precondition for Jesus' return. They want to go to Heaven,
but don't want to die, and think that the "Rapture" is a way around that.
Aaahhh the beauty of religion ..a very old method for controlling people.
This is Protestantism, which was a Jewish revolutionary movement.
1. stop blaming Jews for your own stupidity, corruption, greed & whoredom
Who's blaming them for that?
Here's what they get the blame for
"Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us." Explaining why God allowed non-Jews long
lives, he added: "Imagine that your donkey would die, you'd lose your income. [The donkey]
is your servant. That's why he [the gentile] gets a long life, to work well for the
Jew."
This summer, Yosef Elitzur and Yitzhak Shapira, who head an influential seminary in the
West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, published The King's Torah, a 230-page guide to how Jews
should treat non-Jews.
The two rabbis concluded that Jews were obligated to kill anyone who posed a danger,
immediate or potential, to the Jewish people, and implied that all Palestinians were to be
considered a threat. On these grounds, the pair justified killing Palestinian civilians and
even their babies.
@Wizard of
Oz'If you watch Al Jazeera's The Lobby you would obviously be pleased to learn that
the lobbyists are lamenting the falling effectiveness of the anti-Semitism accusation. It
stands to reason that under 30s do not have the reliably implanted mindset about the shame of
antisemitism that the, say, over 55s are likely to have.'
The epithet 'anti-semitic' continues to have a lot of clout. Measuring this in the most
accurate way -- how effectively it cows one into silence -- I've realized it's quite
effective.
Islamophobes feel entirely free to publically walk their dog these days. Speaking for
myself, I feel entirely free to express my opinions about blacks, and frequently do. I'd do
the same with respect to other groups if I felt strongly enough.
But to be labelled anti-semitic? I'll caught myself hesitating to click 'publish' when I
notice that my post could reasonably be read as 'anti-semitic.'
The United States of America must have political leaders who will stop the JEW/WASP ruling
class rats from using accusations of so-called "anti-Semitism" to stop debate on policy
issues. The rats who screech about so-called "anti-Semitism" must be ignored!
With all the dirty cash swirling around the Swamp, it's almost hard to believe that Kevin
McCarthy can be bought for $33,200. Seems to me the figure has to be much higher,
probably in the mid 6 figures per year. Those sub-$200 donations need to be reported, with
names attached. I wonder how many of them are precisely $198, since the Saturday people love
gifts that are a multiple of 18. Funny since 18 is also the alphanumeric code for a famous
world leader.
Marco Rubio is a treasonous rat whore for Israel First Jews.
Marco Rubio puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States. Jew billionaires pay Marco Rubio to put the interests of Israel over the interests of the
United States.
The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire will screech on about so-called
"anti-Semitism" if you call Marco Rubio a treasonous rat whore for Israel First Jew
billionaires.
They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power,
Empire and war. That they really care about.
I disagree. Empire is always dominated by a group, and US empire is dominated by Jews. If
the US is merely after Empire, why not cook up excuses to sanction, invade, and destroy
Israel? After all, the world community has condemned Israel many times over for its myriad
crimes. Also, why not invade and smash Saudi Arabia as well? If US is just after empire and
more wars, why not wage war on Israel and Saudis? More bucks for the military industrial
complex.
In truth, the US empire is selective. It is not empire for empire's sake but empire for
Zion's sake. That is why US empire targets Russia, Syria, and Iran while hailing Israel and
protecting Saudi Arabia. US empire is premised on the biases and hatreds of its ethnic
super-elites. "Is it great for the Jews?"
"... Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash. ..."
"... Trump is a recipient of the 'The Tree of Life Award' "the highest humanitarian award the Jewish National Fund* presents to one individual or family each year in appreciation of their outstanding community involvement, their dedication to the cause of American-Israeli friendship, and their devotion to peace and the security of human life". ..."
"President Trump continued to condemn the Saturday shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed at least
11 people.
"The hearts of all Americans are filled with grief following the monstrous killing of Jewish Americans at the Tree of
Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., you've all seen it, you've been watching it, it's horrible," he said at a rally in Murphysboro,
Ill.
"This evil anti-Semitic attack is an attack on all of us, it is an assault on humanity. It will require all of us working
together to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism from our world. This was an anti-Semitic attack at its worst," Trump
added. "The scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated, and it cannot be allowed to continue It must be
confronted and condemned everywhere it rears its very ugly head."
Through the centuries, the Jews have endured terrible persecution And those seeking their destruction, we will seek their destruction.
And when you have crimes like this, whether it's this one or another one on another group, we have to bring back the death penalty,"
he said. [the audience exploded in wild ovations].
Trump is a recipient of the 'The Tree of Life Award' "the highest humanitarian award the Jewish National Fund* presents to
one individual or family each year in appreciation of their outstanding community involvement, their dedication to the cause of
American-Israeli friendship, and their devotion to peace and the security of human life".
*The Jewish National Fund (Hebrew: קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael, previously הפונד הלאומי,
Ha Fund HaLeumi) was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Palestine (later the British Mandate for Palestine, and
subsequently Israel and the Palestinian territories) for Jewish settlement.
In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:
Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and
the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump
Okay, in theory, a third option is possible (never say never!) but I see that as highly unlikely: Tulsi Gabbard follows in the
footsteps of Trump and gets elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House
she does what Trump failed to do and appeals directly to the people of the USA to back her in a ruthless campaign to "drain the swamp"
(meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially, when he came to power,
by the way. Frankly, for all her very real qualities she does not strike me as a "US Putin" nor does she have the kind of institutional
and popular backing Putin had. So while I will never say never, I am not holding my breath on this one
Finally, if Gabbard truly is "for real" then the Deep State will probably "Kennedy" her and blame Russia or Iran for it.
Still, while we try to understand what, if anything, Tulsi Gabbard could do for the world, she does do good posting messages like
this one:
I don't know about you, but I am rather impressed!
At the very least, she does what "Occupy Wall Street" did with its "1%" which was factually wrong. The actual percentage is much
lower but politically very effective. In this case, Gabbard speaks of both parties being alike and she popularizes concepts like
" warmongers in ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage and new places for people to die ". This is all very good and useful
for the cause of peace and anti-imperialism because when crimethink concepts become mainstream, then the mainstream is collapsing
!
The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't give a
damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans"
or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they
really care about.
Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are hell bent on power, empire and war. They
also will stop at nothing to prevent the USA from (finally!) becoming a "normal" country and they couldn't care less about the fate
of the people of the USA. All they want is for us all to become their serfs.
All of this is hardly big news. But this hysterical reaction to Gabbard's candidacy is a very powerful and useful proof of the
fact that the USA is a foreign-occupied country with no real sovereignty or democracy. As for the US media, it would make folks like
Suslov or Goebbels green with envy. Be it
the ongoing US aggression
against Venezuela or the reaction to the Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon, the diagnostics concur and we can use the typical medical
euphemism and say with confidence: "the prognosis is poor".
In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:
– Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign
– Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump
I think it is unlikely that Tulsi Gabbard caves in so soon. The way she has started her campaign, she is certainly aware that
she has cut off herself from the normal donors of Democrats, and the way she talks shows that she is not afraid of alienating
them even more because she won't get money from them, anyway. The plan is to do the same like Bernie Sanders 2016 and raise small
donations. Many Democratic candidates now say they don't take PAC money, but there are different ways of getting money from big
donors – Tulsi Gabbard is probably one of those who are more serious about avoiding reliance on big donors. It could work. In
2016, during the primaries, Hillary Clinton regularly had to interrupt her campaign in order to attend dinners with superrich
donors, while Bernie Sanders asked people to donate as a part of his campaign on social media, and Sanders regularly outraised
Clinton. Of course, 2016, we just saw that for the primaries, but it might also work for the general election (and numbers are
not everything, Hillary Clinton spent far more than Donald Trump and still lost, so even if small donations would lead to a somewhat
lower sum, she could still win with a popular message). And not only could it work, I think it would be the only way for Tulsi
Gabbard to succeed because she has probably already been too outspoken about some things to ever gain back the trust of the neocons
and their allies in the media and the billionaire donor class.
Of course, if Tulsi Gabbard advances in the primaries, she will be attacked most viciously in the media. I am not so sure what
the effect will be. On one hand, Trump's victory in the primaries and the general election showed that being hated by mainstream
media does not have to be an obstacle that cannot be surmounted, and as long as there are so many primary candidates, such vicious
attacks can also make her seem more interesting to some people. On the other hand, her main hurdle are probably the Democratic
primaries, and, according to polls, Democrats have lost trust in the mainstream media to a lesser degree than the general public.
But then again, vilifying her too much in the liberal media (as it has already started) is also a certain risk for them because
it could become too obvious to see that the decisive feature that leads to such attacks is that someone is not seen as reliably
pro-neocon, and that could also lead to doubts about the media in leftists who readily accepted the attacks on Trump because they
hated him for other reasons. Therefore, I think the main hope of the establishment is that Tulsi Gabbard can be treated as a „minor
candidate" and won't get far, in case she becomes a serious contender for the nomination, they are in trouble.
If Tulsi Gabbard wins the nomination, we can almost be certain that the pro-neocon establishment will a) see a re-election
of Trump as the lesser evil and b) they will support a pro-establishment third party candidate (already last time, Michael Bloomberg
threatened to run if the two major candidates are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, now Howard Schultz seems to have positioned
himself that way, though I think he is too ridiculous and ineffective and will be replaced by someone else if the establishment
needs a third party candidate because they lose the Democratic primaries). Such a third party candidate probably increases the
chances of Trump's re-election (probably a desired side-effect, many of these liberal oligarchs probably prefer Trump to Gabbard
and Sanders by far, but it would be difficult for them to support Trump in public, supporting a third party candidate is much
easier), but a populist campaign against both Trump and that third party candidate as representatives of a corrupt billionaire
class might well be successful.
Then, if Tulsi Gabbard is elected, she certainly runs the risk of ending like JFK, but the fact that so many people now already
talk and write about this risk might also protect her to some degree – the danger is so obvious that many people won't believe
theories about a lonewolf terrorist easily (and blaming Russia and Iran after Tulsi Gabbard had been vilified as an Assadist and
Russian trolls' favorite candidate would also be difficult, if for some reasons relations with Saudi Arabia are not seen as so
important any more, the more realistic option of blaming Saudi terrorists may be chosen). Another option would be to impeach her,
though that could also be a big risk for the establishment, and depending on who would be her VP, it would not be enough. Of course,
there could be bipartisan agreement about blocking all of her initiatives.
Even if she is extremely smart and tough, alone against the united forces of the deep state, establishment media and the bipartisan
war party, Tusli Gabbard probably could not achieve very much – of course, she would still be commander in chief and probably
could prevent new wars, and she could open some people's eyes about who really holds power, but she could hardly achieve very
much. The question is whether she still might get some institutional support like Putin when he became president. I think that
is not so unlikely because there are indications that the deep state is internally divided (one small example is that the communications
of Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were published) and that the neocons' grip on power is far from total. Therefore, it does not seem
impossible that with a combination of support in the general public (and she certainly has the potential of becoming very popular)
and the support of parts of the deep state that have not been subdued by the neocons, she might be successful – it would be a
very harsh power struggle.
As far as caving in to Israel is concerned, Tulsi Gabbard has never been too critical of Israel – there was some relatively
mild criticism of attacks on Gaza (in a way that is fairly common among progressives), but in general, she has not been too critical
of Israel and has also had some friendly contacts with the pro-Israel lobby. So, while she is very strong and consistent in rejecting
neocons and their regime change wars, as far as Israel and Palestinians' rights are concerned, people should probably not expect
too much from her. But if she is serious about fighting the neocons and limiting the power of the military-industrial complex
and still could win an election, that would already be a big achievement.
After witnessing the temper tirades and the teeth gnashing of the deep states media minions after the anti-war-lite Donald Trump
got elected, I'm guessing Tulsi Gabbard is in for one of two things:
1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom
to most debates.
I don't think American Democracy(AKA Empire) is in any mood for another spoiler
By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here:
http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/
. This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!
This is one of the few things I agree with Ilhan Omar about. Abrams is a felonious, warmongering prick.
She is very photogenic. So is Kamala Harris.
Projecting an anti-war position against promoting the bonafides of her army service will be quite the balancing act of cognitive
dissonance, but opposite the hyper-masculine affect a candidate like Trump or Hillary must emote to neutralize an absence of military
experience in their résumé.
Then there's that first husband and her family's political machine.
But damn, Tulsi and Kamala photograph impeccably well from every angle.
What are the chances outside of India that three potential presidential candidates of the female persuasion all share a common
ethnic background, Nimrata Haley, Tulsi and Kamala? No coincidence there.
Finding all this information below takes less time than burning a cigarette.
United Christians for Israel, founded and led by pastor John Hagee, have millions of members and call themselves "the largest
pro-Israel charity in the United States." The organization was an important factor in the decision of US President Donald Trump
in 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to transfer the US embassy there.
Gabbard sponsored the resolution of the Congress criticizing Amnesty International for revealing Israeli atrocities against
civilians in his blitzkrieg in Gaza in 2014. The resolution stated that Israel "focuses on terrorist targets" and "goes to extraordinary
efforts to attack only terrorist actors". https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/22/gaza-and-the-bi-partisan-war-on-human-rights/
Zionism and Islamophobia Gabbard have gained recognition and support from all kinds of unpalatable characters – like right-wing
billionaire and Zionist Sheldon Adelson, who loudly declared that "all Muslims are terrorists".
In addition to Israel's loyal defender, Gabbard has also proved to be a credible servant of Adelson's business interests. Introduced
regulations against online gambling to protect the casino's empire from competition on the Internet. Adelson thanked her, giving
her the Champion of Freedom award. http://time.com/3695948/sheldon-adelson-online-gambling/
Her prejudices against Islam directly stem from her Hindu fundamentalism. Gabbard became one of the main American political
supporters of Narendra Modi, the leader of the Hindu sectarian party Bharatiya Janata (BJP) and the current Prime Minister of
India.
Being the main minister of the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, Modi helped spark a pogrom against Muslims, in which they killed
2,000 people and displaced over 200,000 people in the ethnic cleansing campaign. Since his victory in the 2014 elections, Modi
has been a decidedly pro-Israeli Indian politician and has strong relations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the invitation of Modi, Gabbard traveled through India for three weeks during which various Hindu fundamentalists greeted
her as their American master. In probably the worst part of the tour, the India Foundation, a formation tuned to the Hindu fascist
group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), hosted Gabbard to discuss the future of Indian-American relations. After the reactionary
lovefest, the Indian newspaper Telegraph called it "the American Sangha mascot" https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/sangh-finds-a-mascot-in-american-tulsi/cid/1579985
After returning to the USA, Gabbard defended Modi against any criticism. She was one of the few democrats who spoke against
the federal government's decision to refuse a Modi visa in 2014 because of his abolition of religious freedom
As with other leading liberal democrats, Gabbard's alleged progressive values do not extend to the Palestinian struggle for
freedom. While she may support the resistance of Indian Native at Standing Rock, she will not support the indigenous people of
Palestine and her struggle for self-determination against Israeli colonialism. http://socialistworker.org/2014/08/13/liberal-champions-of-apartheid
Yawn. Tulsi, Bernie, Corbyn – doesn't matter. The ruling elites have the power to co-opt, demonize or kill them. And, that regime
is desperate enough to do this.
We are all waiting for the tectonic impact of some external shocks. Because the system is fragile, over-ripe. Collapse of debt
bubbles, an infectious disease epidemic, a rogue general fires off some nukes. Whatever. Just passes the Global Tipping Point,
then, everything disintegrates. The centre cannot hold. And at that point the tensions release and people go nuts. The regime
divides against itself; the roof falls in. The whole world is waiting, expecting this to happen in some way or form.
Go and max out your credit card, get hard stuff, don't pay, stop buying anything. A few millions doing that. Empty your bank
account. Stop paying your mortgage and car loan. Make them chase you. Work to precipitate the Big One. Help tear the fabric beyond
its tensile strength. Do your bit.
Don't expect to see Tulsi on your side of the barricades.
@Rich1234
Nimrata Randhawa Haley is of Punjabi Sikh ancestry on both sides, genetically closer to southern Europeans than to most Indians.
Kamala Harris is descended from South Indian brahmins on her mother's side. You can't get more Aryan than that – look up the
word. And she is Jamaican on her father's side. I haven't seen a picture of him but I imagine he's about as black as fellow Jamaican
Colin Powell. An octoroon to use that old-fashioned term. But Negro blood was considered so polluting that just a smidgeon put
you with the lower race. It's still working like that, but in victim politics less is more.
Tulsi Gabbard had a WASP mother who became a member of Swami Bhaktivedanta's Krishna devotees. Her father was Polynesian. There's
no genes from India. It's a mistake to think of her religion as Hindu, but it's her mistake as well as that of many Indians. Hinduism
is not *a* religion because Hinduism is the liberating realization that the idea of *a* religion is very shallow. It is a pleasure
to see Tulsi, in videos, going about her devotions.
.. "drain the swamp" (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State). This is what Putin did, at least partially,
when he came to power, by the way.
a good article, overall.
Especially:
USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism and war; folks who
don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside the USA
and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.
Apparently, US public figures like Gabbard and Trump still don't understand the simple fact that NO amount of grovelling
will EVER appease the Neocons or the Ziolobby
the so-called "liberals" don't give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities,
don't give a damn about "thanking our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what
they do care about is power, Empire and war. That they really care about.
It's interesting to see the prompt [13] Democrat party oppo based on the "right-wing Indian agent" smear. It's exactly analogous
to Democrat/CIA attack on "Russian puppet" Trump, when Democrats had absolutely nothing to offer in lieu of a famous loathsome
TV asshole they hand-picked to beat like a drum and then lost to.
If it were the case that Tulsi were an Indian fifth-column traitor, like Rubio is a Israeli fifth-column traitor, So what?
Objective indicators of world-standard state responsibilities show that the state of India is more developed, more legitimate,
and more entitled to responsible sovereignty than the US government. India exceeds US performance on most of the top-level human
rights indicators.
You can see for yourself, in whatever level of detail you desire, with NGO input exhaustively compiled by elected independent
international experts acting in their personal capacity.
Tulsi's exposure to superior Indian human-rights compliance is likely to build her capacity in terms of Responsibility to Protect
Pillar 2. She will have a better understanding of rights and rule of law than provincial goober candidates with no international
exposure. That will necessarily influence her evolving stance on systematic and widespread Israeli extermination of Palestinian
indigenous peoples.
I have never voted for a Democrat. I plan to vote for Gabbard. I have contributed to her campaign. I cringe at her progressive
agenda, but I fully support her positions on non-intervention.
@der einzige
Hope is such a frail and tenuous emotion.
That said, l'm investing some of my dwindling reserves of hope in Tulsi. Your comments are very considered, and l share your concerns
for peace with the current play of Theo-politics. Modi is an unapologetic Hindu chauvinist who has successfully incited brutal
communalism for electoral gain. But my personal loathing of him has ameliorated over time (I shock myself!) because he has steered
a pretty independent course for India, maintaining friendly relations with China for example,despite U.S. pressure to use India
as a wedge. His Hinduva ideology appears to be a domestic political tool. This is a cunning but pragmatic approach and is distinct
from a religious ideology with global ambitions. The latter is the province of Zionism which is not really a religion but has
(other) religious affiliations or "allies",including Hinduism but most importantly Christian zionism (or evangelicism or dispensationalism
et al). It seems to me that a lot of what Trump is doing re. "Jerusalem as the capital of Israel" is to appease the Christian
Zionists who comprise a large chunk of his support base, and not American Jewry.(They are democrats as a foregone conclusion).There
is great irony in this if you follow the fantastical narrative of the Christian evangelical apocalypse.
Political ambitions are the scourge of religion.I attend an Anglican Church,very traditional, because my preferred form of worship
is hymn singing-the sung mass for Eucharist.I do this in contradistinction(!) to evangelicism. Unfortunately Islam too undergone
a political makeover in recent history which has led to un utter corruption of prophet Mohammad's words.It's apogee is Wahhabism,
a fad made manifest through money and power and war. Shia is also Islam, but not according to Wahhabis,who do not even relate
to Shia as "self-hating Moslems."And do not imagine that the Moslem brotherhood is any better for all the acceptable styling.
Sunnism needs to detach itself from ideology.God is in the poetry and not the small print.
Thanks for your patience with my digression. The Saker suggests we examine the Tulsi phenomenon as a diagnostic tool.
This may be useful. But Tulsi as a Hindi wooden horse?
She cannot be anti war without being anti Israel. Her candidacy is going nowhere.
It would be nice to have an anti war voice in the debates but Gabbard will be adrift in a sea of idiots. How many candidates
will there be for the Democratic nomination? Twenty? Eighty? All of them competing for who hates whitey the most. Featuring as
a side show Biden and Bernie expressing their shame at their skin color.
If Gabbard wants to be heard she should switch parties and primary Trump. Let him defend his Israel first foreign policy.
She is the only prominent politician in the commander-in-chief discussion who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Is there a poll
on her standing with the military demographic? An argument can be made that her credibility on fighting more war or fighting less
war is an order of magnitude higher than a dozen Trumps, Clintons, et al all put together.
She has seen firsthand the pointlessness of the waste of blood and treasure. How can you root against Gabbard? She is near
the only elected official to get any positive press at anitwar.com.
I have a somewhat contrary analysis although admittedly, it's not based on much.
Tulsi's speech patterns closely resemble Hillary Clinton's. I put this down to various leadership classes they attended which
likely have a common source. I think we are seeing a divergence of opinion in the Deep State with some wanting Globalism, while
others are unwilling to accept the destruction of the United States as a price for Globalism. Call them the Fortress America
wing of the Deep State. They want to rebuild America and preserve its wealth and autonomy while moving toward a world government.
In other words, Tulsi could emerge as the candidate of the MAGA section of the Deep State.
As for Trump, he is waist deep in the Swamp fighting for his life against pretty much everybody. If Omar had her way he would
be impeached. Trump's support among Republicans is the only thing keeping from being impeached. His partisan attacks are probably
designed to signal his willingness to lead the fight for Republicans, hoping they will defend him in return.
You make such a convincing case that you've painted yourself into a corner. Your point is that the Ziocons or whatever you call
them are so bent on war and empire that they'll destroy anyone who tries to get in their way.
To be credible, because your claim is so extreme, you'd need to explain the abnormal psychology that drives this will to domination.
Can you do that? If not, your article -- and a number of your others -- come off as routine Jew- and liberal-bashing. The bashing
may or may not be deserved depending on your point of view. But that would be all it is: standard prejudice and bigotry in what
you seem to take as a good cause.
We see from where we've been. I supported Ron Paul. He was ignored, and then cheated.
Voting for Washington wannabes is like watching just the "good programs" on TV, or patronizing the non-disgusting movies that
manage to emerge from Hollywood. Those doing so endorse and prop up the tottering, rotten Establishment.
Another very important thing Tulsi is doing is being a completely different person from Trump but hammering home the same Trump
campaign message against the war-lusting elites.
If it wasn't for her, the media and elite mafia could marginalize this entire argument. They'll never let the population vote
on these points because then, the jig will be up.
A media blackout of Tulsi will only work if people continue to get their information from the boob tube and newspapers. Why is
anyone still expecting to get the truth from the MSM? Anyone with half a brain and an internet connection should be able to follow
her. Tell all of your grandparents, uncles, and other old fogies to throw away CNN, NYT, Fox, WaPo, NBC, etc. and find the truth
online.
@jacques
sheete The Anti-federalist's never had a chance, nor would Aloha Tulsi. The Boston tea party itself was a false flag attempting
to pass blame on to the Indians. How typically American. Lexington was caused by the that same Sam Adams and his free masons from
the green dragon, who were firing at both the British and the Militia's, just like they did in Maidan 5 years ago. The US revolution
in 1776 was just another Masonic color revolution on behalf of the Rothschild's. These are the same guys who killed Kennedy and
pulled off 9/11. Now they have Trump 100% corralled and black balled, and he is one of them anyway.
That was when Wonder Woman Tulsi came surfin' into the Washington swamp, all ready to drain it.
True – "The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called "liberals" don't
give a damn about race, don't give a damn about gender, don't give a damn about minorities, don't give a damn about "thanking
our veterans" or anything else. They don't even care about Israel all that much. But what they do care about is power, Empire
and war. That they really care about. Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend "liberals" are
hell bent on power, empire and war."
The average Liberal voter thinks that Conservatives love Empire while Liberals oppose empires. Likewise, the average Middle
American Republican voter thinks America is anything but the new British Empire and that America is always fighting against those
bad empires and so must be very active globally to do good and prevent even worse bad.
True – "As for the US media, it would make folks like Suslov or Goebbels green with envy."
The Anglo-Zionist Empire: the inherent fruit of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism that was not stopped dead in its tracks.
It will get worse before it can get better. It cannot be corrected without a rejection of WASP culture, which is replaced with
an authentically Christian culture.
Tulsi Gabbard presents bill to stop Trump from pulling out of INF treaty
Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard has introduced a bill to Congress which would prevent President Donald Trump
from withdrawing the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
Speaking at a press conference on Friday morning, Gabbard said that Trump's decision to pull out of the 1988 treaty was
"reckless," was "exacerbating a new Cold War" with Russia, and could spark another arms race.
"Walking away from this agreement doesn't solve our problems, it makes them worse. It doesn't bring us closer to peace,
it moves us closer to war," she said.
I am hoping that Gabbard is the next president because it would mean Hindus beat Jews to the White House, and if she serves a
full term she will be the first nonprotestant* president to serve a full term, take that Catholics. She will be sworn in with
her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, bah ha hah ha. The Evangelicals will go berserk (I hope). She declared herself Hindu as a teen,
was she baptized?
* Jimmy Carter was 'born again' so he might be the first non main line Protestant or even nonProtestant.
@JL
I think both the anti-war Left and anti-war Right are sizeable and growing. Speaking of the Dissident Right, which I am more in
tune with, we just need a courageous leader to rally around. Right now the Dissident Right is more reliably anti-war than any
other faction.
But, really, the dissident right is not doctrinaire right at all as they are against Big Business and reject Libertarianism.
Tulsi probably doesn't even want the open support of the dissident right (very few are racist white supremacists, although the
media has tarred us all with that brush)...
@Biff1) The 2012 Ron Paul treatment – total media blackout
Or
2) A media Blitzkrieg that will depend on outright lies to discredit her – in which case she might as well bring a hat and a broom
to most debates.
But what about social media? The MSM mostly ignored Bernie Sanders but he got a huge boost.
I think the real problem with Tulsi is she comes across as too calm for politics. She's not low-energy like Jeb, but she lacks
fire.
Also, I'm not sure most progs would be interested in her anti-war platform. They liked Bernie because his message was mostly
domestic: Free Stuff!
Americans are anti-war only when too many Americans are getting killed overseas. In the Obama yrs, the US perfected a new way
of Open Borders War where US uses proxies to destroy other nations. So, most Americans don't care.
@Robert
Bruce It's the same 'bait and switch' strategy, that occurs every 4 years. Why change a strategy when the old one works so
well? To date, Trump holds the record for fooling the largest number of people, with anti-war candidate, John Kerry coming in
a distant 2nd.
I suppose there is also a fourth option: Tulsi Gabbard keeps her no-war stance, and follows in the footsteps of Trump and gets
elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House she does what Trump did
and caves.
"... Due to her antiwar stance in Syria, Gabbard was at one point rumored to be a potential candidate to head Trump's State Department, and even met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in November 2016, but nothing came of it. ..."
"... In January 2017, she traveled to Syria on a fact-finding trip, outraging the Washington establishment. She has also proposed a bill to outlaw US weapons sales to terrorists. ..."
"... It is unclear whether Gabbard will get much traction among the establishment Democrats, who she has frequently disagreed with on foreign policy issues. ..."
"... So many entrenched bipartisan interests fear the foreign policy debate her presence on the campaign trail will provoke. Look for more obsessive attacks in Omidyar's the Interventionist, republished in his local Hawaii paper. ..."
Due to her antiwar stance in Syria, Gabbard was at one point rumored to be a potential candidate to head Trump's State Department,
and even met with the president-elect at Trump Tower in November 2016, but nothing came of it.
In January 2017, she traveled to Syria on a fact-finding trip,
outraging the
Washington establishment. She has also proposed a bill to
outlaw US weapons
sales to terrorists.
Gabbard first sparked rumors of a 2020 run
in December , when she toured Iowa and New
Hampshire, the first two states to host nationwide party primary elections.
Inspired by the party's strong showing in the November midterms, a number of Democrats are eager to challenge Trump in the 2020
presidential election.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) announced on New Year's Eve that she was forming a presidential exploratory committee.
Julian Castro, former Housing and Urban Development secretary in the Obama administration, has also toured Iowa and is expected to
announce his candidacy this weekend.
It is unclear whether Gabbard will get much traction among the establishment Democrats, who she has frequently disagreed with
on foreign policy issues.
Ostensibly, Tulsi Gabbard checks all the correct "diversity boxes" that Democrats claim they want: young, female, minority.
But weirdly, she won't benefit from satisfying these (fake) criteria, because she's hated for unrelated political reasons. So
that should be fun.
Tulsi Gabbard is a really next-level politician. Any amateur can be a traditional US racist politician, but it takes skill
to succeed in America as a Hindu-nationalist racist / tankie Assad apologist.
Say what you want about Tulsi Gabbard (I have my own criticisms) but this is probably an accurate prediction of how opposition
to her campaign from other Democrats will play out https://t.co/xEhdD1ZmyN
So many entrenched bipartisan interests fear the foreign policy debate her presence on the campaign trail will provoke.
Look for more obsessive attacks in Omidyar's the Interventionist, republished in his local Hawaii paper. Also, not sure what
this means for a Bernie run. https://t.co/RD7pCRRkTW
Well, as we all saw, the putatively "liberal" legacy Ziomedia hates Tulsi Gabbard with a passion. Maybe not as much as that legacy
Ziomedia hates Trump or Putin, but still – the levels of hostility against her are truly amazing. This may seem bizarre until you
realize that, just like Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard has said all the right things about Israel, but that this was not nearly "enough"
to please the US Ziolobby. Check out the kind of discussions about Gabbard which can be found in the Israeli and pro-Israeli press:
This is just a small sample of what I found with a quick search. It could be summed up "Gabbard is not pro-Israel enough". But
is that really The Main Reason for such a hostility towards her? I don't think so. I believe that Gabbard's real "ultimate sin" is
that she is against foreign wars of choice. That is really her Crime Of Crimes!
The AngloZionists wanted to tear Syria apart, break it up into small pieces, most of which would be run by Takfiri crazies and
Tulsi Gabbard actually dared to go and speak to "animal Assad", the (latest) "New Hitler", who "gasses his own people". And this
is an even worse crime, if such a thing can even be imagined! She dared to disobey her AngloZionist masters.
So, apparently, opposing illegal wars and daring to disobey the Neocons are crimes of such magnitude and evil that they deserve
the hysterical Gabbard-bashing campaign which we have witnessed in recent times. And even being non-Christian, non-White, non-male
and "liberal" does not in any way compensate for the heinous nature of "crimes".
What does this tell us about the real nature of the US society?
It is also interesting to note that the most vicious (and stupid) attacks against Gabbard did not come from "conservative" media
outlets or journalists. Not at all! Most of the attacks, especially the more vicious ones, came from supposedly "liberal" sources,
which tell us that in 2019 USA "liberals" do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism
and war; folks who don't care one bit about any real "liberal" values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside
the USA and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.
Gino Santa Maria /
Shutterstock.com Pence
repeated his tone-deaf demands to our allies to quit the nuclear deal at the Munich
Security Conference over the weekend. The response from the Europeans was even frostier than it
had been in Warsaw:
European officials brushed off U.S. Vice President Mike Pence's call this week for the
bloc to ratchet up pressure on Iran, saying they will continue defending the 2015 nuclear
deal and stay engaged with Iran's government.
World leaders gathered at the annual Munich Security Conference on Friday to debate a
range of issues from the Middle East, to trade, Europe's future and cyberwarfare. Speaking at
the conference on Saturday, Mr. Pence, who is on a diplomatic trip to Europe, said the
European Union should follow the U.S. in leaving the Iran nuclear deal.
U.S.-European relations are lower than they have been at any time since the the run-up to
and immediate aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Just as the Bush administration
berated and insulted longtime allies for refusing to fall in line behind their destructive and
reckless war, the Trump administration is berating and insulting some of our closest allies
over their refusal to capitulate to unreasonable American demands on Iran and the nuclear deal.
Many of the elements of these two rifts are
similar : an irrational American fixation on a wildly exaggerated or non-existent threat in
the Middle East, an arrogant assumption that our allies are obliged to do whatever our
government tells them to do, and open expressions of contempt for the allies that disagree with
the course being set by the irresponsible U.S. administration. In both cases, some of our
closest allies unsuccessfully try to stop the administration from making terrible, costly
errors, and they are rewarded for their efforts with condemnation and threats.
The most worrying similarity between the 2002-03 breach with our European allies and today
is the willingness of administration officials to promote obvious lies in the service of their
destructive policy. Like other members of the administration, Pence has been pushing the
dishonest claim that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. He said this in his
Warsaw speech :
But beyond its hateful rhetoric, the Iranian regime openly advocates another Holocaust and
it seeks the means to achieve it. Iran seeks to recreate the ancient Persian Empire under the
modern dictatorship of the ayatollahs.
Iran's government neither advocates for this, nor does it "seek the means to achieve it."
Any work that Iran did on nuclear weapons research took place more than fifteen years ago, and
it has not resumed since then. Iran's nuclear program is peaceful, and the IAEA has confirmed
Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal more than a dozen times in a row. The talking points of
Iran hawks remain unchanged from the mid-2000s, but in the meantime the rest of the world has
moved on.
If Pence really believed what he was saying, he wouldn't be urging our allies to tear up the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The nuclear deal has ensured that Iran cannot
develop and build nuclear weapons, and anyone genuinely worried about Iran's acquisition of
such weapons would not try to destroy the agreement that makes that outcome practically
impossible. The only reason to promote the lie that Iran seeks nuclear weapons is to create a
pretext for war. Iran hawks hate the nuclear deal so passionately because it deprives them of
that pretext. That is why they are determined to do whatever they can to kill the deal even if
that means badly damaging relations with our most important treaty allies.
Europe will not bend in this one. Too much at stake, inside the EU (elections) as well as
outside the EU (geoplitics, Brexit).
As mr. Larison so often points out, the Iran obsession is the weirdest irrational thing in
US foreign policy. Shooting oneself in the foot time after time.
A lot of special interests by special people underneath that I presume.
Between the progressives and the conservatives, the conservatives are often the ones talking
about religion, God and morality, and accuse the Left to be Godless and immoral. Yet it does
not seem to vex them their side had started the war in Iraq with false pretense, which led to
disastrous economic, geopolitical, and human costs. Now, as Larison observed, they are poised
to repeat it.
What averagely decent human beings can inflict such sufferings on others with such
impunity and without conscientious qualms?
Pence lacks basic loyalty and good judgment. He's abandoning and betraying our oldest allies,
and he isn't even doing it for a compelling reason of state.
Indeed, after watching the degrading spectacle of 2016 and 2018 campaign donations, it's
hard not to suspect that Pence is doing it to keep Israel money flowing to GOP candidates,
possibly for a future presidential run of his own. That he's putting America and American
lives at risk for the Israel money.
Would it not be in American interest to demonstrate compliance with the existing agreement if
it sought further agreement on ballistic missiles and involvement with their neighbors
internal affairs? It not only precludes diplomacy for the nuclear issue, but any and all
other conflicts of interest
Yes, it is increasingly clear that our recent actions with respect to Iran are for the
purpose of preparing for, and conjuring a pretext for, war.
Mr. Larison, I am sure your efforts are a major contributor to the recent Congressional
resolution regarding the Yemen war. You were a lone voice crying in the wilderness for years.
Please keep up on this Iranian issue as well. Many, many lives are at stake. You are an
unsung hero.
"[Pence] is abandoning and betraying our oldest allies, and he isn't even doing it for a
compelling reason of state. "
That's what blows my mind. There seems to be no reason for what Pence is doing, except
perhaps to please Binyamin Netanyahu or Muhammed bin Salman. And does Pence really expect
Europe to risk its basic security by following the lead of corrupt American politicians
bobbing for Israel dollars?
Being pro-Zionism is New York way of being militarist
Notable quotes:
"... Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake ! ..."
"... It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election ! ..."
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam,
Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending
wars are expensive was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
Notable quotes:
"... Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our republic. ..."
The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street
masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives,
create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class
in US politics and culture.
Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking
about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.
Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell
Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.
Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into
an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously
pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our
republic.
Even you, Tucker Carlson, mock the efforts of Ilhan Omar for criticizing AIPAC and
Elliott Abrams.
I don't personally care for many of her opinions but that's not what matters:
if we elect another neocon government we won't last another generation. Like the lady asked
Ben Franklin "What kind of government have you bequeathed us?", and Franklin answered "A
republic, madam, if you can keep it."
Being pro-Zionism is New York way of being militarist
Notable quotes:
"... Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake ! ..."
"... It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election ! ..."
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam,
Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending
wars are expensive was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
Notable quotes:
"... Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our republic. ..."
The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street
masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives,
create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class
in US politics and culture.
Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking
about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.
Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell
Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.
Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into
an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously
pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our
republic.
Even you, Tucker Carlson, mock the efforts of Ilhan Omar for criticizing AIPAC and
Elliott Abrams.
I don't personally care for many of her opinions but that's not what matters:
if we elect another neocon government we won't last another generation. Like the lady asked
Ben Franklin "What kind of government have you bequeathed us?", and Franklin answered "A
republic, madam, if you can keep it."
Why would Max Boot and Bill Kristol want to conquer the middle east in order to spread
Americanism while at the same time having nothing but disdain for actual Americans
themselves?
Hmm (strokes beard)
Hmmmmm (strokes beard more rapidly)
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (tears out beard furiously without abandon)
Feb. 14, 2019 (EIRNS) -- Responding to the U.S. Senators' efforts to impose new sanctions on
Russia by proposing a bill on Feb. 13 called the "Defending American Security from Kremlin
Aggression Act (DASKA)" of 2019, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said behind such proposals
"there is an absolutely concrete, pragmatic and aggressive trading approach, having
nothing to do with international trade rules.... This policy sometimes borders on
racketeering. I mean various provisions of the draft law aimed at disrupting various energy
projects of Russian companies, undermining the activities of Russian banks with state
participation,"
Peskov said, reported TASS.
The proposed legislation, an updated version of an earlier bill that did not muster enough
support, seeks to increase economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Russia "in response
to Russia's interference in democratic processes abroad, malign influence in Syria, and
aggression against Ukraine, including in the Kerch Strait," said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who
proposed the bill with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), among other members of the Foreign Relations
Committee.
That why war is called racket, And that's why dominance of military-industrial complex turns
any country in neo-fascist state. Still people can fight this cancer, even if changes are not
that great.
Notable quotes:
"... It is easy for them to make the recommendation to head into to war for two very simple reasons. The first is that it will not require any personal sacrifice. The other reason is that it will not require any sacrifice of those closest to them. ..."
It is easy for them to make the recommendation to head into to war for two very simple
reasons. The first is that it will not require any personal sacrifice. The other reason is
that it will not require any sacrifice of those closest to them.
And I say this as a Veteran that also thought Iraq was a good idea back in 2001. The
difference is that I then went there to serve. As a result I have learned hard fought
lessons. Tucker is spot on. Maybe the follow up article can be a piece that discusses why we
need more "combat" Veterans up in the beltway. And it is good that more veterans are now
serving in Congress but not all are combat veterans.
That's probably why Max Boot is considered one of the "world's leading authorities on armed
conflict,"y et never appears to have served in any branch of the armed forces
Bottomfeeders like Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, Max Boot are just peddlers of MIC interests.
Perhaps the benjamins from another middle eastern nation, that can't be named, has something to
do with their worthless opinions.
They are not paid to be experts. They're paid to use thier meaningless credentials to enhance
their credibility of MIC policies of perpetual war for perpetual peace. They're PROPAGANDISTS,
not experts.
The Bush/Clinton/Obama coalition runs DC – controls the federal workforce, and colludes
to run the Federal government for themselves and MIC
So why are these professional war peddlers still around? For the same reason that members of
the leadership class who failed and continue to fail in the Middle East are still around.
There has not been an accounting at any level. There is just more talk of more war.
Just like Eliot Abrams, John McCain, GWB, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld or any other neocon, there is
no justice or punishment or even well deserved humiliation for these parasites. They are
always misinformed, misguided, or "well intentioned."
The US can interfere with sovereign governments and elections at will I guess and not be
responsible for the the unintended consequences such as 500k+ killed in the Middle East since
the Iraq and Afghan debacle.
There are sugar daddies from the MIC, the Natsec state (aka the Swamp), AIPAC, and even
Jeff Bezos (benefactor of WaPo) that keep these guys employed.
You need to be more critical of Trump also as he is the one hiring these clowns. But other
than that, keep up the good work Mr. Carlson!
The article states: " but by 2011 Boot had another war in mind. 'Qaddafi Must Go,' Boot
declared in The Weekly Standard. In Boot's telling, the Libyan dictator had become a threat
to the American homeland."
-- -- -
There is reported evidence that Libya was a war crime. And the perpetrators are Free. See
info below:
"They Speak "
"The destruction of Libya by NATO at the behest of the UK, the US and France was a crime,
one dripping in the cant and hypocrisy of Western ideologues " John Wight, November 27,
2017.
They speak of "The Rule of Law" while breaking the law themselves
They are the dangerous hypocrites that bombed Libya, and created hell
Thousands upon thousands are dead in this unfortunate country
Many would still be alive, if our "leaders" had not been down and dirty
Libya is reportedly a war crime and the war criminals are free
Some of them are seen posturing on the world stage and others are on T.V.
Others have written books and others are retired from public office
And another exclaimed: "We came, we saw, he died" as murder was their accomplice
They even teamed up with terrorists to commit their bloody crimes
And this went unreported in the "media": was this by design?
There is a sickness and perversion loose in our society today
When war crimes can be committed and the "law" has nothing to say
Another "leader" had a fly past to celebrate the bombing victory in this illegal war
Now Libya is in chaos, while bloody terrorists roam secure
And the NATO gang that caused all this horror and devastation
Are continuing their bloody bombings in other unfortunate nations
The question must be asked: "Are some past and present leaders above the law?
Can they get away with bombing and killing, are they men of straw?
Whatever happened to law and order in the so- called "democracies"?
When those in power can get away with criminality: Is that not hypocrisy?
There is no doubt that Libya was better off, before the "liberators" arrived
Now many of its unfortunate people are now struggling to exist and survive
The future of this war torn country now looks very sad and bleak
If only our "leaders" had left it alone; but instead hypocrisy: They Speak
"The cause of the catastrophe in Libya in Libya was the seven month US-NATO blitzkrieg
from March to October 2011 in which thousands of bombs and rockets rained down on that
unfortunate land which was governed by President Muammar Ghaddafi whom the West was
determined to overthrow by assisting a rebel movement." Brian Cloughley, 12.02.2019
The goal of any "peddler" is to move product. When perpetual war is the product, then any
rationale that leads to more sales will do. Enemies become interchangeable. The only thing to
apologize for is the lack of sales.
These two hucksters are not experts on the product itself, but rather experts at selling
the product.
Pres. Eisenhower, a genuine "authority on armed conflict", warned us of such peddlers.
...[Trump] administration is still filled with Hawks ...
1) The administration action in Iran is aggressive and counter-productive to long term peace. The nuclear deal was an effective
way of ensuring Iran controlling behavior for 15 years as the other parties, Europe and China, wanted to trade with Iran. (Additionally
it makes our nation depend more on the Saudia relationship in which Washington should be slowly moving away from.)
2) Like it or not, Venezuela is another mission creep for the Trump Administration. Recommend the administration
stay away from peace keeping troops and suggest this is China's problem. (Venezuela in debt to their eyeballs with China.)
3) Applaud the administration with peace talks with NK but warn them not to overstate their accomplishments. It is ridiculous
that the administration signed big nuclear deals with NK that don't exist.
Why would Max Boot and Bill Kristol want to conquer the middle east in order to spread
Americanism while at the same time having nothing but disdain for actual Americans
themselves?
Hmm (strokes beard)
Hmmmmm (strokes beard more rapidly)
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (tears out beard furiously without abandon)
Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Kristol and Boot work for the CIA and MI6. They tend to lead
with placed stories, either before or after events, helping to persuade those who have yet to
make up their minds or those looking to have someone else do their thinking for them.
With the ongoing internet reformation we are experiencing, its a lot easier for the masses
to see the bigger picture, the parties involved and the corrupt characters playing the puppet
strings for the media.
Glad to see these shysters exposed for what they are propagandists.
"... In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well. ..."
In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI
Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing
President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the
President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy
director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to
accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure
that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well.
Now, after its own two years of investigation and 200 interviews, Chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee Richard Burr (R-NC) has said, "There is no factual evidence of collusion
between the Trump campaign and Russia." Ranking Member Mark Warner (D-VA) said he disagrees
with the way Burr characterized the evidence, but declined to give his own assessment.
Veteran criminal attorney John Dowd, a member of Trump's legal team from June 2017 to March
2018, said,
"I know exactly what he [Mueller] has. I know exactly what every witness said, what every
document said. I know exactly what he asked. And I know what the conclusion or the result
is."
What will be the result of the probe?
"It's been a terrible waste of time.... This is one of the greatest frauds the country has
ever seen. I'm just shocked that Bob Mueller didn't call it that way and say, 'I'm being
used.' I would've done that.
"I'd have gone to [then Attorney General] Sessions and Rosenstein and said, 'Look. This is
nonsense. We are being used by a cabal in the FBI to get even.' "
Asked about Mueller's final report, he responded, "I will be shocked if anything regarding
the President is made public, other than, 'We're done.' "
At the same time, former NSA Technical Director William Binney has published new evidence
which shows that the DNC documents posted by WikiLeaks in July 2016, were probably not hacked
over the internet, by Russians or anyone else -- rather, the only available forensic evidence
indicates that they were downloaded from within the DNC's network. His evidence is summarized
in an article he co-authored with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson on Col. Pat Lang's "Sic
Semper Tyrannis" blog yesterday.
"... The precedent was established in Italy with assistance to non-Communist candidates from the late 1940s to the 1960s. "We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their expenses," said F. Mark Wyatt, a former C.I.A. officer, in a 1996 interview . ..."
"... A self-congratulatory declassified report on the C.I.A.'s work in Chile's 1964 election boasts of the "hard work" the agency did supplying "large sums" to its favored candidate and portraying him as a "wise, sincere and high-minded statesman" while painting his leftist opponent as a "calculating schemer." Advertisement ..."
"... C.I.A. officials told Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s that "insertions" of information into foreign news media, mostly accurate but sometimes false, were running at 70 to 80 a day. In the 1990 election in Nicaragua, the C.I.A. planted stories about corruption in the leftist Sandinista government, Mr. Levin said. The opposition won. ..."
"... Over time, more American influence operations have been mounted not secretly by the C.I.A. but openly by the State Department and its affiliates. For the 2000 election in Serbia, the United States funded a successful effort to defeat Slobodan Milosevic, the nationalist leader, providing political consultants and millions of stickers with the opposition's clenched-fist symbol and "He's finished" in Serbian, printed on 80 tons of adhesive paper and delivered by a Washington contractor. ..."
"... Similar efforts were undertaken in elections in wartime Iraq and Afghanistan, not always with success. After Hamid Karzai was re-elected president of Afghanistan in 2009, he complained to Robert Gates, then the secretary of defense, about the United States' blatant attempt to defeat him, which Mr. Gates calls in his memoir "our clumsy and failed putsch." ..."
"... At least once the hand of the United States reached boldly into a Russian election. American fears that Boris Yeltsin would be defeated for re-election as president in 1996 by an old-fashioned Communist led to an overt and covert effort to help him, urged on by President Bill Clinton. It included an American push for a $10 billion International Monetary Fund loan to Russia four months before the voting and a team of American political consultants (though some Russians scoffed when they took credit for the Yeltsin win). ..."
"... In 2016, the endowment gave 108 grants totaling $6.8 million to organizations in Russia for such purposes as "engaging activists" and "fostering civic engagement." The endowment no longer names Russian recipients, who, under Russian laws cracking down on foreign funding, can face harassment or arrest. ..."
"... What the C.I.A. may have done in recent years to steer foreign elections is still secret and may not be known for decades. It may be modest by comparison with the agency's Cold War manipulation. But some old-timers aren't so sure. ..."
"... "I assume they're doing a lot of the old stuff, because, you know, it never changes," said William J. Daugherty, who worked for the C.I.A. from 1979 to 1996 and at one time had the job of reviewing covert operations. "The technology may change, but the objectives don't." ..."
Bags of cash delivered to a Rome hotel for favored Italian candidates. Scandalous stories leaked to foreign newspapers to swing
an election in Nicaragua. Millions of pamphlets, posters and stickers printed to defeat an incumbent in Serbia.
The long arm of Vladimir Putin? No, just a small sample of the United States' history of intervention in foreign elections.
On Tuesday,
American intelligence chiefs warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that Russia appears to be preparing to repeat in the 2018
midterm elections the same full-on chicanery it unleashed in 2016: hacking, leaking, social media manipulation and possibly more.
Then on Friday, Robert Mueller, the special counsel, announced the indictments of 13 Russians and three companies, run by a businessman
with close Kremlin ties, laying out in astonishing detail a three-year scheme to use social media to attack Hillary Clinton, boost
Donald Trump and sow discord.
Most Americans are understandably shocked by what they view as an unprecedented attack on our political system. But intelligence
veterans, and scholars who have studied covert operations, have a different, and quite revealing, view.
"If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,"
said Steven L. Hall, who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the C.I.A., where he was the chief of Russian operations. The United States
"absolutely" has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, "and I hope we keep doing it."
Loch K. Johnson, the dean of American intelligence
scholars , who began his career in the 1970s investigating the C.I.A. as a staff member of the Senate's Church Committee, says
Russia's 2016 operation was simply the cyber-age version of standard United States practice for decades, whenever American officials
were worried about a foreign vote.
"We've been doing this kind of thing since the C.I.A. was created in 1947," said Mr. Johnson, now at the University of Georgia.
"We've used posters, pamphlets, mailers, banners -- you name it. We've planted false information in foreign newspapers. We've used
what the British call 'King George's cavalry': suitcases of cash."
The United States' departure from democratic ideals sometimes went much further. The C.I.A. helped overthrow elected leaders in
Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s and backed violent coups in several other countries in the 1960s. It plotted assassinations and supported
brutal anti-Communist governments in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
But in recent decades, both Mr. Hall and Mr. Johnson argued, Russian and American interferences in elections have not been morally
equivalent. American interventions have generally been aimed at helping non-authoritarian candidates challenge dictators or otherwise
promoting democracy. Russia has more often intervened to disrupt democracy or promote authoritarian rule, they said.
Equating the two, Mr. Hall says, "is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because they both have guns -- the motivation
matters."
This broader history of election meddling has largely been missing from the flood of reporting on the Russian intervention and
the investigation of whether the Trump campaign was involved. It is a reminder that the Russian campaign in 2016 was fundamentally
old-school espionage, even if it exploited new technologies. And it illuminates the larger currents of history that drove American
electoral interventions during the Cold War and motivate Russia's actions today.
"I'm not in any way justifying what the Russians did in 2016," Mr. Levin said. "It was completely wrong of Vladimir Putin to intervene
in this way. That said, the methods they used in this election were the digital version of methods used both by the United States
and Russia for decades: breaking into party headquarters, recruiting secretaries, placing informants in a party, giving information
or disinformation to newspapers."
His findings underscore how routine election meddling by the United States -- sometimes covert and sometimes quite open -- has
been.
The precedent was established in Italy with assistance to non-Communist candidates from the late 1940s to the 1960s. "We had bags
of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their expenses," said F. Mark Wyatt, a former C.I.A. officer, in
a 1996 interview .
Covert propaganda has also been a mainstay. Richard M. Bissell Jr., who ran the agency's operations in the late 1950s and early
1960s, wrote casually in his autobiography
of "exercising control over a newspaper or broadcasting station, or of securing the desired outcome in an election."
A self-congratulatory
declassified report on the C.I.A.'s
work in Chile's 1964 election boasts of the "hard work" the agency did supplying "large sums" to its favored candidate and portraying
him as a "wise, sincere and high-minded statesman" while painting his leftist opponent as a "calculating schemer."
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C.I.A. officials told Mr. Johnson in the late 1980s that "insertions" of information into foreign news media, mostly accurate
but sometimes false, were running at 70 to 80 a day. In the 1990 election in Nicaragua, the C.I.A. planted stories about corruption
in the leftist Sandinista government, Mr. Levin said. The opposition won.
Over time, more American influence operations have been mounted not secretly by the C.I.A. but openly by the State Department
and its affiliates. For the 2000 election in Serbia, the United States funded
a successful effort to defeat Slobodan Milosevic, the nationalist leader, providing political consultants and millions of stickers
with the opposition's clenched-fist symbol and "He's finished" in Serbian, printed on 80 tons of adhesive paper and delivered by
a Washington contractor.
Vince Houghton, who served in the military in the Balkans at the time and worked closely with the intelligence agencies, said
he saw American efforts everywhere. "We made it very clear that we had no intention of letting Milosevic stay in power," said Mr.
Houghton, now the historian at the International Spy Museum.
Similar efforts were undertaken in elections in wartime Iraq and Afghanistan, not always with success. After Hamid Karzai was
re-elected president of Afghanistan in 2009, he complained to Robert Gates, then the secretary of defense, about the United States'
blatant attempt to defeat him, which Mr. Gates
calls in his memoir
"our clumsy and failed putsch."
At least once the hand of the United States reached boldly into a Russian election. American fears that Boris Yeltsin would be
defeated for re-election as president in 1996 by an old-fashioned Communist led to an overt and covert effort to help him, urged
on by President Bill Clinton. It included an American push for a $10 billion International Monetary Fund loan to Russia four months
before the voting and a team of American political consultants (though some Russians scoffed when they took credit for the Yeltsin
win).
That heavy-handed intervention made some Americans uneasy. Thomas Carothers, a scholar at the Carnegie Institute for International
Peace, recalls arguing with a State Department official who told him at the time, "Yeltsin is democracy in Russia," to which
Mr. Carothers said he replied, "That's not what democracy means."
But what does democracy mean? Can it include secretly undermining an authoritarian ruler or helping challengers who embrace democratic
values? How about financing civic organizations?
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In recent decades, the most visible American presence in foreign politics has been taxpayer-funded groups like the National Endowment
for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which do not support candidates but
teach basic campaign skills, build democratic institutions and train election monitors.
Most Americans view such efforts as benign -- indeed, charitable. But Mr. Putin sees them as hostile. The National Endowment for
Democracy gave a $23,000 grant in 2006 to an organization that employed Aleksei Navalny, who years later became Mr. Putin's main
political nemesis, a fact the government has used to attack both Mr. Navalny and the endowment.
In 2016,
the endowment
gave 108 grants totaling $6.8 million to organizations in Russia for such purposes as "engaging activists" and "fostering civic
engagement." The endowment no longer names Russian recipients, who, under Russian laws cracking down on foreign funding, can face
harassment or arrest.
It is easy to understand why Mr. Putin sees such American cash as a threat to his rule, which tolerates no real opposition. But
American veterans of democracy promotion find abhorrent Mr. Putin's insinuations that their work is equivalent to what the Russian
government is accused of doing in the United States today.
"It's not just apples and oranges," said Kenneth Wollack, president of the National Democratic Institute. "It's comparing someone
who delivers lifesaving medicine to someone who brings deadly poison."
What the C.I.A. may have done in recent years to steer foreign elections is still secret and may not be known for decades. It
may be modest by comparison with the agency's Cold War manipulation. But some old-timers aren't so sure.
"I assume they're doing a lot of the old stuff, because, you know, it never changes," said William J. Daugherty, who worked for
the C.I.A. from 1979 to 1996 and at one time had the job of reviewing covert operations. "The technology may change, but the objectives
don't."
Correction : Feb. 18, 2018
An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that Aleksei Navalny, a political opponent of the Russian president,
Vladimir V. Putin, had received grants from the National Endowment for Democracy. In fact, an organization employing him received
one $23,000 grant from the endowment in 2006.
Scott Shane is a national security reporter for The Times and a former Moscow correspondent.
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 18, 2018 , on Page SR 4 of the New York edition with the headline: America
Meddles in Elections, Too.
Gabbard is going nowhere, and while it's true that the powers that be will try to bury her,
they don't need to. The simple truth is this: the American public largely doesn't care about
the wars and never has. There hasn't been an anti-war movement of any significance since Bush
left office, and that was mostly a phony anti-war movement in the first place. It was
primarily an anti-Bush movement, and the bulk of the people screaming 'no blood for oil'
would've just been screaming some other anti-Bush slogan had our current path of destruction
through the Mideast never occurred.
Yes, there has always been a small, independent-minded minority on both the right and left
who genuinely oppose American interventionism.
The vast majority of voters, though, don't care much, don't have strong opinions and will
largely just follow their leaders. Rank and file Democrats now oppose drawing down from Syria
and Afghanistan and want to 'contain' Russia.
This is solely because Trump has made noises in the opposite direction, even if he hasn't
done much of anything. And a good portion of the Republicans who say they want out of these
wars would support them if Jeb or Rubio were in the White House.
There is a fair bit more genuine antiwar sentiment on the right now than there was 15
years ago. But it's not a dominant issue for many people on the right who didn't always
oppose the wars from the get-go. And the mainstream left, again, has totally abandoned the
issue.
Only a tiny proportion of the American public considers the endless wars to be the most
important issue facing America today.
You don't win campaigns focusing on issues that are regarded as unimportant and where most
of the voters in your party oppose you on this point. There is no real antiwar movement.
Another full-scale invasion of a previously stable country would generate some serious
opposition, sure, but the current slow bleed of endless occupations and occasional
opportunistic attacks on already destabilizing regimes can continue forever with little
pushback from the public at large.
How anyone could live through the last 15 years of American politics and not realize this
is beyond me.
That one trick happens to the most important trick that America is facing.
No Art, that would be unchecked legal and illegal immigration and as far as I can tell
Tulsi Gandhi is pretty dreadful on that subject. True, the likudniks in the diaspora don't
like her because she would be bad for an expansionist Israel...
If elected Tulsi would probably become a Jew tool just like Trump has become. If not, then
they'll have another special counsel ready to take her down. That's how the (((deep state)))
operates.
@Wally Yea, John
McCain was a truly historic person. So far, he was the only person in history who managed to
totally disable an American aircraft carrier. Of course, he was not found guilty of anything:
after all, having Admirals for your dad and granddad counts for something in squeaky-clean
military.
@ariadna
"What other organization/group is capable of such as perfect job of covering their tracks."
It is the organization that controls the government and the media that is capable of doing
this. In other words, the same organization that was responsible for 9/11 and other major
deceptions. It compartmentalizes knowledge of operational details using the need-to-know
rule, but it can still be regarded as the same overall entity carrying out all of these
deceptions, with the same general goals always applying.
There is a tendency, especially among dissenters and conspiracy theorists, to equate the
Kennedy family with the Gracchi brothers of the great late Roman republic, a model of a good
opportunity for the Republic to evolve for the best and that was missed thanks to timely
assassinations. Unfortunately that's not the case : JFK was rather a behavioural model of
utter political servility, to the point of psychic codependence, towards the media sphere. He
was actually the first American president to have been entirely made by the media, and
especially by the most intensively Jewish ones as well as by the Hollywood actors' milieu :
people even worse than the power elite proper. Anyway the American presidential institution
was designed right from the start as a hidden imperial monarchy by adoption where none is
admitted except from families having being initiated into the inner occult circles of the
oligarchy and consecrated their whole progeny to come for one century and more : there never
was the slightest risk that a US President disobey. The fact that the father had slight
pro-Nazi inclinations should fool no one : Israel's Likud party has always collaborated with
such figures among the non-Jews and anyway JFK's family is nearly Jewish on his mother's
side. The American republic, though draping in Roman architecture and symbols, is clearly far
more Carthaginian in outlook.
If JFK is to be compared with a Roman character it would be more with a kind of Nero,
judging by his general private conduct, his lavish use of public money for private luxuries,
and his abundant use of secret services to dispose of no longer useful women. He was all
shape and no substance, and also known for a preference for false flags as the royal way to
disentangle all diplomatic quandaries, and some of those false flags were so ridiculous that
they fell flat, like the Bay of Pigs operation where he had given the orders to simulate the
return of Christ. JFK had been put into power to accomplish a very specific mission :
highjacking the Catholic Church into a religion 100% compliant with American interests and
values (not an easy task) and also with Zionist theology : a most preposterous (and pervert)
task but which he carried out in a brillant way. Up to then that religion had been the most
opposite to the American enterprise, even more so than the communist enterprise, after the
VII Council which that president was made to supervise as a nominal Catholic, the religion
was made into some kind of neo-episcopalian thing. JFK did it mostly through the
assassinations of countless prelates who would oppose such a turn. JFK also launched the
Moonlanding mission in perfect knowledge, through Van Allen and Von Braun, that it was not
feasible due to the impossibility to send any living being into space beyond a quite low
orbit : he just counted on Hollywood. What he didn't realize is that it would be simpler for
the American secret services to ensure the perfect secrecy of his own scheme to eliminate him
once all orders to make it work were given. Had he escaped or survived the assassination in
Dallas he would have been rapidly known as the very disappointing false liberal and real
decadent machiavellian prince he was, one year of tabloid media coverage would have revealed
him as an embarrassment to America, even though he was most probably due to die from his
chronic illness before campaining for reelection. Thanks to his assassination he was
transfigurated from the Nero he was into a kind of perfect tragic hero he was to become in
the American dreamworld. In brief he was killed for obeying just to well, to the point of
being more useful after death as a model, not for dissent of any kind (even though like all
corrupt politicians who feel death to be impending he started making timid regrets and
confessions about the power structure around him just a few days before, but in doing so he
did no better than for instance FBI's Hoover or France's Mitterrand or Israel's Sharon just
before entering mysterious coma).
Let us not be fooled by some allegations as to him having envisioned to do away with the
FED by giving back the American state the right to print money : all he did in reality was
allowing the American state to emit BONDS (not currency units) payable in metallic silver
rather than in USD proper, a way different thing, actually a first move (by avowing the USD
was subject to inflation in metallic terms as a judicial precedent to impose other decisions
later on) to stealthily undo the convertibility of the dollar into precious metal as was to
be finalized under Nixon. Let us not be deluded he envisioned doing away with the CIA : if
anything JFK was an overuser of its assassination services, he just wished for the agency,
which was then quite decentralized, to be eventually conflated with the FBI. And let us not
imagine he was anti-Israel : when he refused Israel the authorization to go nuclear that was
under the American Nuclear Industry Lobby's pressure which was then a more Jewish thing than
its Israeli counterpart : Israel was seen as too young, too lefty, too hippie-like to be
entrusted with everything at once, the real Jewish capital of the world was Manhattan, not
Tel Aviv. Israel as an offshore power centre was still in construction and JFK's only
concern, shared by his close Jewish appointees as well as by most conservative American Jews,
was that it might fall under Soviet pressure for lack of maturity in operating secret
services. In those kinds of affairs JFK heeded and obeyed the voice of best-established
moneyed interests without delving too much deeply. Thanks to the JFK perfect model of
media-tailored politicians the way was paved for Clinton and Obama to come thereafter as
natural heirs.
Let's move on to the next question: how dedicated was John to getting to the bottom of his
father's assassination?
According to testimonies from his friends, John Junior was haunted by the death of his
father and quite knowledgeable about independent investigations contradicting the Warren
Report. In 1999, he was not a newcomer to JFK conspiracy theories; his quest for truth had
started as early as the late 1970s. His old high school girlfriend Meg Azzoni, in her
self-published book, 11 Letters and a Poem: John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Meg Azzoni (2007),
writes that as a teenager, JFK, Jr. was questioning the official version of his father's death:
"His heartfelt quest was to expose and bring to trial who killed his father, and covered it
up." [28] Quoted
in John Koerner, Exploding the Truth: The JFK Jr., Assassination, Chronos Books, 2018,
kindle k. 540-45. Don Jeffries, author of Hidden History, claimed that "another
friend of JFK, Jr.'s adult inner circle, who very adamantly requested to remain anonymous,
verified that he was indeed quite knowledgeable about the assassination and often spoke of it
in private." [29] Quoted
in Koerner, Exploding the Truth, op. cit., k. 540-5. JFK Jr., said Jeffries in a
radio interview, was on "a Shakespearian quest," "to avenge his father's death," like young
Hamlet. [30]
https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-093-donal...fk-jr/
John is the only Kennedy to have shown a serious determination to pursue this truth, besides
his uncle Bobby. And he took the risk of making his interest public in October 1998, when he
released a special "Conspiracy Issue" of George magazine , which included an
article by Oliver Stone titled "Our Counterfeit History," introduced on the cover as "Paranoid
and Proud of It!"
If Joe Kennedy Jr had not died in WW2, they would have killed him, because he was the
smartest and toughest of the four brothers.
The WASPs and their Jewish allies assumed they could control JFK because of his war injury
and resulting lifetime of medication, as well as from his having chosen to be a playboy when
he assumed Joe Jr would be President. But in the White House, JFK began to understand that US
was going to have major troubles if it did not pull out of Vietnam sooner rather than later
and it if did not rein in Israel. He likely would have dumped LBJ in '64, and that was enough
to guarantee his death.
Bobby Kennedy had to go because he was indispensable to John's movements in understanding
how the Brits and their Jewish allies had cost the America that was neither WASP Elite nor
Jewish a great deal. Plus, from his time working on organized crime, Bobby Kennedy knew that
all big time organized crime was significantly funded by Jews and that at some point,
virtually all major Jewish American big business and prominent law firms had direct ties to
Jewish organized crime. And as President, Bobby Kennedy would have applied such knowledge to
Israel. And so Bobby Kennedy had to be killed.
I have long assumed that some alliance of CIA and Mossad, meaning WASP and Jewish, was
behind Chappaquiddick. No need to kill Teddy, because he was the least intelligent Kennedy
brother, as well as the only coward.
Why risk JFK Jr? Get rid of him before he holds any office. Do not risk any movement
growing up around him, because he might turn out to be some combo of his dad and dead
uncles.
I have long assumed that some alliance of CIA and Mossad, meaning WASP and Jewish, was
behind Chappaquiddick. No need to kill Teddy, because he was the least intelligent Kennedy
brother, as well as the only coward.
What makes you think that he was not supposed to die in that crash? He got out by the skin
of his teeth, could not save his companion. What would be a better smear on the Kennedys that
Teddy died with some woman in his lap?
As it turned out, he survived but forever smeared anyway
Interesting article. I believe JFK Jr.'s death was the result of a conspiracy, but the
author's assertion that Mossad was responsible leaves me with doubt. Hillary Clinton was the
person who had the most to gain from JFK Jr.'s demise; they were both on the same trajectory:
the open New York senate seat, followed by a run to the White House. The Clintons have been
shadow government players since at least the 1980s when, while governor, Bill helped
facilitate the CIA's trafficking of guns and drugs in Arkansas, which is a state with a
significant Rockefeller presence. The demoness Hillary is where investigators of JFK Jr.'s
death should start. Whether that leads to the Mossad, I don't know. My guess would be a
domestic CIA network.
I very much like the writing by Laurent Guyénot and I have read all of the articles by
him that I have come across including purchasing his book, "From Yaweh to Zion".
And I have no doubt that some insidious form of foul play was what killed JFK Jr. and his
wife.
As one who flew aircraft many years ago I can attest to the fact that on a fog-ridden
night it is very easy to succumb to vertigo and crash your plane into the ground. You can do
this very easily as well with the current bevy of highly sophisticated aircraft simulations
that are available.
However, JFK Jr. was, to my knowledge, a consummate pilot and would have never attempted
such a flight unless he was intsrument rated. As a result, he would have not succumbed to to
the effects of vertigo since he would have been concentrating on his instruments.
Also, I understand that this was basically a night flight, which by law required an
instrument rating.
From these generalizations alone one can see that JFK Jr. would have known how to fly his
plane.
If the eyewitnesses to the explosion are credible along with other supporting evidence
than there is no way any legitimate investigation could have concluded with verdict of "pilot
error", unless of course JFK Jr. knowingly took a bomb on board his plane with the intent of
blowing himself and his passengers up. A highly unlikely scenario.
If one were to look at the "only available picture" of JFK Jr.'s aircraft in this piece,
even a layperson could see that there is no scarring anywhere to be seen on the debris, which
would have been used then to support the stupidity of "pilot error".
You can see the same nonsense with the 911 pictures of the Pentagon after it was struck.
There is literally no debris in any of those pictures from an aircraft freshly blown to
pieces by its strike on the E-wing of the Pentagon.
Considering the insidiousness of the Clintons, especially Hillary herself, the author
paints an excellent portrait of a likely pathway for the support and implementation of an
assassination of JFK Jr through her. Given Hillary's background (and rabid incompetence) in
nefarious operations such as the destruction of Libya, I wouldn't put it past this women to
work with other planners to prevent JFK Jr. from obstructing her planned ascent into the US
Senate from New York.
Despite her popularity in New York State, which was somewhat overrated in the media, many
never considered her a welcome representative of our state. And JFK Jr. would have wiped the
floor with her in a political contest.
As a former flyer myself, it is aviation law that you cannot fly any aircraft at night or
non-VFR conditions without being instrument rated. If this was a night flight as stated then
the moon could have been out lighting up every aspect of earth and still only
instrument-rated pilots could fly.
And the airport he flew out of would have never allowed such a flight-plan for a
non-instrument rated pilot unless they wanted to lose their license to operate an
airport.
If JFK Jr. could send a message from the other world – it should probably be: "Don't
cry for me Argentina".
Just because his father was a president (of dubious quality and of dubious control over
the deep state – it probably was, as usual – vice versa, the deep state
controlled him), doesn't mean that they had presidential DNA in their genes.
Sons of presidents are usually worse than their fathers in the same role. I have only 2
examples but they are adequate enough to prove the point. GW Bush was 10 times the disaster
of a president his father was. And also Justin Trudeau is not even 1% the prime minister his
father was. In fact, if JFK jr, lived long enough to be elected a president – he
probably would have been the American Justin Trudeau.
Our media ignored breaking news a few years ago that Kennedy's TWA "conspiracy theory" was
proven true. TWA Flight 800 did not explode in mid-air because of an electrical short. It was
accidentally hit by a US Navy anti-aircraft missile during a training exercise.
An outstanding 2013 documentary: "TWA Flight 800" appeared on Netflix, but was removed
after just a few weeks. It featured two senior federal NTSB investigators of TWA 800 who
declared the investigation was a cover-up by the Clinton administration, and waited until
they retired to speak out. Several books have appeared that provide undeniable evidence, such
as:
@SunBakedSuburb
Agree, the book Compromised, Clinton, Bush and the CIA by Terry Reed shows the connection
between the Bushes and Clintons and the CIA and FBI and their CIA hit teams, or just read the
customer comments on the book at Amazon.com.
@Diversity
Heretic As a 30 year instrument rated pilot myself I would agree except for .."and the
overstressed airframe comes apart."
In light civilian air craft that is very rare and usually caused by some defect already
existing.
Unless the NTSB itself is lying and the radar records and the recovery divers are lying I go
with their determination.
First, the debris field was only 120 feet, if the plane had exploded or broken up in the air
it would have been scattered over a larger area.
Second, records show the plane entered a banking turn in excess of 45 degrees, which is not
recommended and dangerous .It can cause a accelerated stall and if you don't have the
altitude to recover from it before you hit the ground or you panic you go 'spiraling' down
and smash into whatever is below, you like the ocean.
So I really am not into the plane being blown up theory.
'A performance study of the radar data revealed that the target began a descent from 5,500
feet about 34 miles west of MVY. The speed during the descent was calculated to be about 160
knots indicated airspeed (KIAS), and the rate of descent was calculated to have varied
between 400 and 800 feet per minute (fpm). About 2138, the target began a right turn in a
southerly direction. About 30 seconds later, the target stopped its descent at 2,200 feet and
began a climb that lasted another 30 seconds. During this period of time, the target stopped
the turn, and the airspeed decreased to about 153 KIAS. About 2139, the target leveled off at
2,500 feet and flew in a southeasterly direction. About 50 seconds later, the target entered
a left turn and climbed to 2,600 feet. As the target continued in the left turn, it began a
descent that reached a rate of about 900 fpm. When the target reached an easterly direction,
it stopped turning; its rate of descent remained about 900 fpm. At 2140:15, while still in
the descent, the target entered a right turn. As the target's turn rate increased, its
descent rate and airspeed also increased. The target's descent rate eventually exceeded 4,700
fpm. The target's last radar position was recorded at 2140:34 at an altitude of 1,100 feet.
(For a more detailed description of the target's [accident airplane's] performance, see
Section, "Tests and Research," Subsection, "Aircraft Performance Study.")
WRECKAGE INFORMATION
On July 20, 1999, the airplane wreckage was located by U.S. Navy divers from the recovery
ship, USS Grasp, at a depth of about 120 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
According to the divers, the recovered wreckage had been distributed in a debris field
about 120 feet long and was oriented along a magnetic bearing of about 010/190 degrees.
The main cabin area was found in the middle of the debris field.
At 2139:50, the airplane entered a left turn, while slightly increasing altitude to 2,600
feet. The airplane reached a maximum bank angle of 28 degrees left-wing-down (LWD) and a
maximum vertical acceleration of 1.2 Gs in this turn. When the maximum LWD bank angle was
obtained, the altitude started to decrease at a descent rate close to 900 fpm. The LWD
attitude was maintained for approximately 15 seconds until the airplane was heading towards
the east. At 2140:07, the airplane bank angle returned to wings level. At 2140:15, with the
airplane continuing towards the east, it reestablished a descent close to 900 fpm and then
started to increase its bank angle in a RWD direction at nearly a constant rate. As the
airplane bank angle increased, the rate of descent increased, and the airspeed started to
increase. By 2140:25, the bank angle exceeded 45 degrees , the vertical acceleration
was 1.2 Gs, the airspeed increased through 180 knots, and the flightpath angle was close to 5
degrees airplane nose down. After 2140:25, the airplane's airspeed, vertical acceleration,
bank, and dive angle continued to increase, and the right turn tightened until water
impact
Creating conspiracy theories is lots of fun, and sometimes can even be productive, but for
this one you really do have to go overboard ignoring Occam's Razor:
In reality, everyone who has ever acquired any kind of pilot's licence has been told
repeatedly in training something like: "Understand, that without getting sufficient
instruction to qualify for an instrument rating, if you lose visual reference to the ground,
during the day or at night, you will be toast. Experiments have consistently shown that, even
the world's most brilliant and experienced pilots, if they lose visual reference to the
ground and cannot see the instruments to assess carefully what they are saying, in every case
lose control of the aircraft in less than 45 seconds. And, having lost control, do not
realize it, and are unable to figure out that they need to regain it, let alone what they
need to do."
Most people find this surprising, which is why in the later stages of basic training a
demonstration is usually done in which the pilot wears a hood that prevents him from seeing
outside the aircraft, and is instructed to maintain straight and level flight. The instructor
removes the student's hood when the aircraft is in a rapidly accelerating, 45 degree bank,
descending turn, when the pilot had imagined he was still flying straight and level. I can
vouch that this is a persuasive demonstration!
This isn't mere speculation. Loss of control is the inevitable consequence of a
non-instrument rated pilot losing sight of the ground. It is enormously probable that this
was JFK Jr's issue.
I remember a little after JFK was assassinated a report of a statement by an government
official, I think someone in the FBI, saying there is evidence of a conspiracy to kill JFK
and other Kennedy family members. What happens is that after an attack or bombing the media
filters are not coordinated for hours or days but then controls and directives kick in the
narratives get stabilized. I always watch the news reports right after the event to catch
leaks. The above reported statement was never again reported by anyone.
It is certainly looking like Israel had a hand in many operations inside the US to control
its foreign policy and make sure major narratives are pro-Israel like the UK has a long
history (at least from WW2 on) of using dirty tricks to control the US. Since US foreign
policy is substantially controlled by the UK, Saudis, and Israel, we must suspect any of them
of trying to keep control of the US with all sorts of dirty tricks. Israel in a prime
candidate for assassinations and false flag operations in the US as they certainly knew by
the 1960's that the survival of Israel depended on US support. There are just too many dual
passport holders in these events to ignore this any longer.
Implicitly, this article takes the position that Jackie Kennedy was not involved in the JFK
assassination conspiracy, but there is an intriguing connection between the Bouvier family
and the assassination via a person named George de Mohrenschildt, who was a close friend of
both the Bouviers and Oswald.
@Steve
Naidamast That isnt correct.
There are 3 types of licenses a person can get:
Sport Flyer license restricted to local area and only certain types of small aircraft.
Recreational License restricted to local area and daylight hours only.
Private Pilot License ..not restricted, can fly at night . at their own risk
I did a lot of night time flying before I got my instrument rating. But wasn't stupid
enough to fly in bad weather day or night.
@Sean
I have no idea if JFK Jr. was bombed out of the sky by our friends in the Mossad, CIA, or
other wonderful entities. But years ago an ex CIA guy told me bluntly that the reason the CIA
and intelligence agencies get away with stuff is because much of it no one would be believe
they would even try thus the invention of the Conspiracy Theory.
The Kennedys were family of egomaniacs and were often careless and their itinerary through
life was filled with many people they destroyed and cast by the side of the road. They
believed they were really the chosen ones and their opinion and their way of doing things
were right and everyone else was wrong. So they mirrored the Jews except they were Irish.
@Peredur
Mohrenschildt seems to have been Oswald's CIA handler for a while, but months before the JFK
assassination he went off to Haiti. There's nothing to connect him with the JFK
assassination, especially if -- as seems likely -- Oswald was not the shooter who killed JFK.
@Carlton
Meyer TWA Flight 800 Investigators Claim the Official Crash Story Is a Lie
A new film claims the official government report on the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is an
elaborate fabrication, but the most shocking part of the story is that charges are being
leveled by the very investigators who put the report together.
A new film claims the official government report on the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 is an
elaborate fabrication, but the most shocking part of the story is that charges are being
leveled by some of the very investigators who put the report together. Six experts who appear
in the film were members of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation team that
concluded the crash was an accident, but they now claim they were silenced by their
superiors. The movies, "TWA Flight 800" will debut on EPIX TV next month, on the 17-year
anniversary of the crash. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/twa-flight-800-film-coverup/314092/
@Che
Guava JFK junior was really just not that bright. He failed the bar exam at least once.
As Larry Elders once said, the best thing you could say about JFK junior was that he was a
down-to-earth guy who never pretended to be more than an average person who happened to be
rich.
Supposedly he loved alcohol and was obsessed with porn-he was friends with Irish-America's
one porn mogul in a gallery of Jews, Larry Flint.
He was handsome-some say that his father was Onassis and not Kennedy, believable
considering his Mediterranean looks which were nothing like Kennedy's fair Irish looks
(Though JFK junior was eternally proud of his Irish roots).
His magazine was alright, supposedly advised under-the-table by Larry Flynt again.
@Che
Guava The magazine was in big trouble financially. It never did break even although the
Kennedy PR machine and the Kennedy worshiping media pushed it for years
George was financed by the big French International publisher Hachette. Hachette was getting
ready to stop financing a losing publication. The combination of People and New Republic just
never worked.
I don't remember any announcements that JFKjr planned to run for any office. It was just
speculation and part of the endless media coverage of JFKjr which increased a thousand times
after he got married
There's a book Nemesis that claims that Jackie visited Onassis on his yacht in September?
October? 1963 and they arranged that Jackie would divorce jack and marry Onassis ic Hack lost
the 64 election
"... Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War. ..."
"... Gabbard has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which many progressive Democrats boycotted. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
"... What's her angle about immigration? This: https://votesmart.org/public-statement/1197137/rep-tulsi-gabbard-calls-on-congress-to-pass-the-dream-act#.XGXEplUza1s Not optimistic. ..."
"... What's her angle about "outsourcing" jobs overseas? This: https://www.votetulsi.com/node/25011 Not bad, but, still .. ..."
"... Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. ..."
"... Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. ..."
"... She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. ..."
"... Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war" ? ..."
"... Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'" and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back ..."
"... Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater. Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance. ..."
"... De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What a load of crap that turned out to be ..."
"... Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following. ..."
The lineup of Democrats who have already declared themselves as candidates for their party's presidential nomination in 2020 is
remarkable, if only for the fact that so many wannabes have thrown their hats in the ring so early in the process. In terms of electability,
however, one might well call the seekers after the highest office in the land the nine dwarfs. Four of the would-be candidates –
Marianne Williamson a writer, Andrew Yang an entrepreneur, Julian Castro a former Obama official, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congressman
John Delaney – have no national profiles at all and few among the Democratic Party rank-and-file would be able to detail who they
are, where they come from and what their positions on key issues might be.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has a national following but she also has considerable baggage. The recent revelation
that she
falsely described herself as "American Indian" back in 1986 for purposes of career advancement, which comes on top of similar
reports of more of the same as well as other resume-enhancements that surfaced when she first became involved in national politics,
prompted Donald Trump to refer to her as "Pocahontas." Warren, who is largely progressive on social and domestic issues, has been
confronted numerous times regarding her views on Israel/Palestine and beyond declaring that she favors a "two state solution" has
been somewhat reticent. She should be described as pro-Israel for the usual reasons and is not reliably anti-war. She comes across
as a rather more liberal version of Hillary Clinton.
And then there is New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, being touted as the "new Obama," presumably because he is both black and progressive.
His record as Mayor of Newark New Jersey, which launched his career on the national stage, has both high and low points and it has
to be questioned if America is ready for another smooth-talking black politician whose actual record of accomplishments is on the
thin side. One unfortunately recalls the devious Obama's totally bogus Nobel Peace Prize and his Tuesday morning meetings with John
Brennan to work on the list of Americans who were to be assassinated.
Booker has carefully cultivated the Jewish community in his political career, to include a close relationship with the stomach-churning
"America's Rabbi" Shmuley Boteach, but has recently become more independent of those ties, supporting the Obama deal with Iran and
voting against anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) legislation in the Senate. On the negative side, the New York Times likes
Booker, which means that he will turn most other Americans off. He is also 49 years old and unmarried, which apparently bothers some
in the punditry.
California Senator Kamala Harris is a formidable entrant into the crowded field due to her resume, nominally progressive on most
issues, but with a work history that has attracted critics concerned by her hard-line law-and-order enforcement policies when she
was District Attorney General for San Francisco and Attorney General for California. She has also
spoken at AIPAC , is anti-BDS, and is considered to be reliably pro-Israel, which would rule her out for some, though she might
be appealing to middle of the road Democrats like the Clintons and Nancy Pelosi who have increasingly become war advocates. She will
have a tough time convincing the antiwar crowd that she is worth supporting and there are reports that she will likely split the
black women's vote even though she is black herself, perhaps linked to her affair with California powerbroker Willie Brown when she
was 29 and Brown was 61. Brown was married, though separated, to a black woman at the time. Harris is taking heat because she clearly
used the relationship
to advance her career
while also acquiring several patronage sinecures on state commissions that netted her hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where
she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer
with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.
Tulsi's own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In
the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged "focus
on the issue of war and peace" to "end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening
terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda." She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay
over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.
Not afraid of challenging establishment politics,
she called for an end to the "illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government," also observing that "the war to overthrow Assad
is counter-productive because it actually helps ISIS and other Islamic extremists achieve their goal of overthrowing the Syrian government
of Assad and taking control of all of Syria – which will simply increase human suffering in the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis,
and pose a greater threat to the world." She then backed up her words with action by secretly arranging for a personal trip to Damascus
in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, saying it was important to meet adversaries "if you are serious about pursuing peace."
She made her own assessment of the situation in Syria and now favors pulling US troops out of the country as well as ending American
interventions for "regime change" in the region.
In 2015, Gabbard supported President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and more recently has criticized President Donald
Trump's withdrawal from the deal. Last May, she criticized Israel for shooting "unarmed protesters" in Gaza, but one presumes that,
like nearly all American politicians, she also has to make sure that she does not have the Israel Lobby on her back. Gabbard
has spoken at a conference of Christians United for Israel, which has defended Israel's settlement enterprise; has backed legislation
that slashes funding to the Palestinians; and has cultivated ties with Boteach as well as with major GOP donor casino magnate Sheldon
Adelson. She also attended the controversial address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2015, which
many progressive Democrats boycotted.
Nevertheless, Tulsi supported Bernie Sanders' antiwar candidacy in 2016 and appears to be completely onboard and fearless
in promoting her antiwar sentiments. Yes, Americans have heard much of the same before, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only
genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years.
What Tulsi Gabbard is accomplishing might be measured by the enemies that are already gathering and are out to get her. Glenn
Greenwald at The Intercept
describes how NBC news published a
widely distributed story on February 1 st , claiming that "experts who track websites and social media linked to Russia
have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard."
But the expert cited by NBC turned out to be a firm New Knowledge,
which was exposed by no less
than The New York Times for falsifying Russian troll accounts for the Democratic Party in the Alabama Senate race to suggest
that the Kremlin was interfering in that election. According to Greenwald, the group ultimately behind
this attack on Gabbard is The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), which sponsors a tool called
Hamilton 68 , a news "intelligence net checker" that
claims to track Russian efforts to disseminate disinformation. The ASD
website advises that "Securing Democracy is a Global Necessity."
ASD was set up in 2017 by the usual neocon crowd with funding from The Atlanticist and anti-Russian German Marshall Fund. It is
loaded with a full complement of Zionists
and interventionists/globalists, to include Michael Chertoff, Michael McFaul, Michael Morell, Kori Schake and Bill Kristol. It claims,
innocently, to be a bipartisan transatlantic national security advocacy group that seeks to identify and counter efforts by Russia
to undermine democracies in the United States and Europe but it is actually itself a major source of disinformation.
For the moment, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the "real thing," a genuine anti-war candidate who is determined to run on that platform.
It might just resonate with the majority of American who have grown tired of perpetual warfare to "spread democracy" and other related
frauds perpetrated by the band of oligarchs and traitors that run the United States. We the people can always hope.
Just those two. We can leave the rest of "globo-homo" agenda off the table, for the moment. And, the last but not the least,
that nagging angle about automation and (paid) work in general. Let's not get too ambitious here. Those two, only, should suffice
at the moment.
I like Tulsi. but she hasn't been tested in a presidential campaign yet. At least we will have someone who could put peace on
the ballot. She should write a book pulling her policies together and use it to get some publicity.
Regularly Americans vote for the less interventionist candidate. 2008, an important reason for Obama's victory against
Hillary Clinton and John McCain was that he had been against the Iraq war. 2000, George W. Bush said he was against nation building.
Then, after they are elected, the neocons remain in power. Something similar again with Donald Trump who campaigned against stupid
wars in the Middle East and now has surrounded himself with some of the most extreme neocons.
Of course, it is impossible to predict whether it will be the same with Tulsi Gabbard, but unlike these other candidates
in the past , she puts her rejection of neocons and regime change wars so much into the center of her campaign that it should
be assumed that she is serious – otherwise it would be complete betrayal. However, if she is serious about this and is elected,
she will be fought by the deep state and its allies in the media much more harshly than Trump, who isn't even consistently anti-neocons,
just not reliably pro-neocon. What they would probably do to her would make spygate, the Russiagate conspiracy theory, and the
Muller investigation look harmless. She might end like JFK (a VP who is just as anti-neocons might increase the chances of survival).
But despite all the risks, I think it is worth trying. If the US was a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation
and the neocons had their own party, it would hardly have more than a handful of seats in Congress. Although they don't have,
a significant base of their own, neocons have remained in power for a long time, whoever was elected. At the moment, Tulsi Gabbard
is probably the best hope for ending their long reign.
She'll be sabotaged by relentless smears and other dirty tricks. Only someone bought and owned will be allowed to be a candidate
which means the MIC must continue being fed enormous amounts of money and war hysteria constantly being stoked. She won't
have a chance. Besides, the Dem party has gotten radical and out of touch with the majority of Americans so who really wants them
in? There's no cause for optimism anywhere one looks.
Has anyone discussed the possibility of Tulsi being "marketed" or long-game "branded" through intentional theatre as "anti-war"
? Greenwald himself has questionable backers and the WWF good guy/bad guy character creations (like Trump's pre-election
talking points concerning illegal wars , now stuffed down the memory holes of many), all the FAKE and distracting "fights" etc
etc
Any serious Democratic candidate, and to some extent any Republican, must fly through the flack of Deep State anti-populist
guns. I am skeptical about Gabbard because her policy views are already too good to be true. She is "cruisin' for a bruisin'"
and there is already a campaign to erase her from the debate in the manner in which Ron Paul was erased a few years back.
Gabbard is an attractive woman and on camera she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater.
Like Trump her instinct is to meet force with counter-force rather than roll with the punches and I think that is her best chance.
In that way she calls the bluff of her opponents: Just how confident are they that in the end the public will prefer war to peace?
These points add up to a realistic chance of success but given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a
long shot.
De ja vu. I remember reading these very similar (not exactly but similar) sentiments about Barack Obama back in 2008. What
a load of crap that turned out to be, but I do understand that not all politicians are cut from the same dung heap, so it
is probably best to find out who is funding the little pricks while they are campaigning – for once they are elected, payback
is due.
In the case of Obama it was Robert Rubin( of Goldman Sachs) who bankrolled him, and of course, once elected it was bank bailout
time. Then once Ghaddaffi's gold back Dinar became a monetary powerhouse, he committed another crime for the bankers.
"Is she the real deal?"
Elect her and you'll find out, and there lies the problem – you get to find out when it's too late. On the other hand, she
could actually be honest and sincere, but that alone disqualifies her as a politician (the kind that Americans are used to anyway).
NTL, she's got people's attention and if for anything else – the people are anti-war, but the monied power brokers are definitely
not which begs the question – will democracy actually happen?
Don't know much about this lady. If she is "fair dinkum" in her anti war/anti-imperialism stance her only chance to get
into power & then get things done will be to gain a massive, committed popular following.
She will need to use tactics from both the Sanders & Trump play-books. She will need to appeal to a good number in both the
Sanders & Trump constituencies. Regardless, she will need an iron-will & tsunami of charisma .
@Biff Obama was a creation
of the Pritzker and Crowne families, although the puppet did decide he wanted to somewhat act on his own. Gabbard is certainly
taking flak from the Israel firsters, and her debating Trump on foreign policy in a US Presidential election would be a real paradigm
shift.
@renfro Where do you get
this "obsessive hatred of Muslims and Islam?"
She's been [insistent and consistent] using the term 'radical Islamic terrorists' which, unfortunately, is an accurate description
of ISIS (the bane of the ummah). OTOH, last year Tulsi was a featured speaker at a Moslem conference in NJ, and she has been outspoken
about freedom of religion and mutual respect. If you've got some evidence that she excludes Islam from that, please show it.
[Gabbard's] policy views are already too good to be true.
Not really. Too good to be true would be if she understood Putin in the context of the US and oligarch rape of Russia in the
1990's and how he has restored the Russian economy and dignity; and if she recognized (openly) the US role in the Maidan coup
and accepted the validity of the Crimean decision to return to Russia.
Unfortunately, even though she's taken a brave position on ending US regime-change war on Syria, in many other respects she
remains quite conventional. She also promotes fear of DPRK, and who knows what she thinks about China.
she comes across as aggressive and a quick-thinking, highly articulate debater.
Aggressive? Composed, confident, yes. Aggressive, no. Calm under fire is more like it. Take a look at the whole interview on
Morning Joe. She really outclasses those squirming bitches. BUT, notice her (short) responses on Putin and Assad ("adversary"
and "no"), real Judas moments. Does she believe that, or is she clinging to the Overton Window? https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/rep-gabbard-assad-is-not-an-enemy-of-the-us-1438093891865
Tulsi's presidential timber but she's wasting her life with the Democrats. Their consulting apparatchiks are going to stuff a
bunch of incoherent slogans up her butt. If she wants a real antiwar platform she should steal it wholesale from Stein and Ajamu
Baraka. Baraka built a complete and consistent law-and-order platform. He's the only real antiwar candidate in this country.
Of course the Democrat's CIA handlers will crush Tulsi if she starts to make sense, so she's going to have to take her supporters
and jump to the Greens.
She will lose, but arbitrary forcible repression of the party will discredit bullshit US electoral pageantry once and for all.
Then we move into the parallel government zone in conformity with world-standard human rights law and destroy the parasitic kleptocratic
USA.
@jack daniels You know .there
IS one thing nobody wants, really, to talk about.
.given the Deep State's stranglehold on the media she is definitely a long shot
Why, in this age, the "stronghold on the media" is so decisive? A person who gets the most of media exposure wins? That's how
it works?
Or, do anyone reading and posting here gets his/her information from the "media"? I'd say not.
Isn't the bottom, the very heart of the matter NOT a Deep State, Dem Joos, Anglo-Saxons, Masons, Illuminati and .whatever but
simple, eternal, laziness and stupidity of an average person?
Or, even worse: the real, true, needs and wants of an average person are simply "breads and circuses". Nothing more.
Combine those two and here we are.
I am aware that throws the spanner into works of those into Aryans, White supremacy, Western man and similar stuff, but, the
conclusion seems inevitable.
That's the heart of the problem "we" face at the moment. How to fix it, or even is it possible, I don't know. Have some ideas,
of course.
CIA Giraldi probably has more Cherokee DNA than Warren. Another fact he failed to provide to the Government during the security
clearance process. The troll has supported the republican establishment all his career, this distinguishes him from the trolls
that support the democratic establishment all of their careers. The fact that people can debate the relative merits of political
leaders from the dark lagoon reveals their complete lack of rational thought. No politician decides anything important.
@Anonymous No, then she is
toast in Hawaii politics, and she is probably running not because she plans on winning, but to raise her profile and perhaps open
doors for herself on the national or state level, which won't happen if you shoot yourself in the foot at the same time.
Besides, leaving aside Krishna consciousness, she is too close to Sanders to get any traction among the Republicans. I suppose
getting the bipartisan support of the Internet kook vote is something, but hard to translate into political office.
You're never going to get anything worthwhile from a Democratic politician because they're indoctrinated worse that the brightest
little Pioneer in Juche class. Take Ro Khana's meaningless pap.
What is this 'we should' crap? The law is perfectly clear. The right to self-defense is subject to necessity and proportionality
tests, and invariably subject to UN Charter Chapter 7 in its entirety. See Article 51. Instead of this 'restraint' waffle, just
say, the president must commit to faithfully execute the supreme law of the land, including UN Charter Chapter 7 and Article 2(4).
That means refrain from use or threat of force. Period.
Second, national security is not a loophole in human rights. Khana uses the legally meaningless CIA magic word 'threat.' Under
universal jurisdiction law, it is a war crime to declare abolished, suspended or inadmissible in a court of law the rights and
actions of the nationals of the hostile party. Domestic human rights are subject to ICCPR Article 4, HRC General Comment 29, and
the Siracusa Principles. Instead of CIA's standard National Security get-out clause, state explicitly that US national security
means respect, protection and fulfillment of all human rights. To enforce that, ratify the Rome Statute or GTFO.
Third, internationalism is OK as far as it goes, but Ro Khana doesn't deal with the underlying problem: CIA has infested State
with focal points and dotted-line reports, and demolished the department's capacity for pacific resolution of disputes. You have
to explicitly tie State's mission to UN Charter Chapter 6, and criminalize placement of domestic CIA agents in State.
Fourth, Congressional war-making powers are useless with Congress completely corrupted. Bring back the Ludlow Amendment, war
by public referendum only, subject to Article 51.
Tulsi is a far Left democrat. She supports raising taxes to pay for free college for people earning less than 125K and universal
health care, she actually joined protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline, has a 100% rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood,
supports homosexual marriage (changed her previous position in 2012), and has an F rating from the NRA. She's a Lefty. Not for
me, anyway.
I like the one on here who says the Democrat party has "gotten radical."
I assume this is sarcasm, but there is no denying the fact that the neocons(radical whack jobs) have jumped ship from the Republicans
and attached themselves to the Democrats (although there are filtering back into the Trump administration – drunk with power they'll
suck up to anyone)
The DNC NeverTrump crowd is all but calling for a nuclear exchange with Russia because they colluded with Trump to throw the
election, and they pose a National Security threat to the United States(in their head). Hillary also went on to say that Russians
Hacking the DNC is another 9/11. The radical Antifa crowd is made up of 99.999999% of Democratic voters.
The article states: " but by 2011 Boot had another war in mind. 'Qaddafi Must Go,' Boot
declared in The Weekly Standard. In Boot's telling, the Libyan dictator had become a threat
to the American homeland." -- -- - There is reported evidence that Libya was a war crime. And
the perpetrators are Free. See info below:
They speak of "The Rule of Law" while breaking the law themselves They are the dangerous
hypocrites that bombed Libya, and created hell Thousands upon thousands are dead in this
unfortunate country Many would still be alive, if our "leaders" had not been down and
dirty
Libya is reportedly a war crime and the war criminals are free Some of them are seen
posturing on the world stage and others are on T.V. Others have written books and others are
retired from public office And another exclaimed: "We came, we saw, he died" as murder was
their accomplice
They even teamed up with terrorists to commit their bloody crimes And this went unreported
in the "media": was this by design? There is a sickness and perversion loose in our society
today When war crimes can be committed and the "law" has nothing to say
Another "leader" had a fly past to celebrate the bombing victory in this illegal war Now
Libya is in chaos, while bloody terrorists roam secure And the NATO gang that caused all this
horror and devastation Are continuing their bloody bombings in other unfortunate nations
The question must be asked: "Are some past and present leaders above the law? Can they get
away with bombing and killing, are they men of straw? Whatever happened to law and order in
the so- called "democracies"? When those in power can get away with criminality: Is that not
hypocrisy?
There is no doubt that Libya was better off, before the "liberators" arrived Now many of
its unfortunate people are now struggling to exist and survive The future of this war torn
country now looks very sad and bleak If only our "leaders" had left it alone; but instead
hypocrisy: They Speak
"... There was a desperately weakened and impoverished Russia (still with its nuclear arsenal more or less intact) that, as far as they were concerned, had been mollycoddled by President Bill Clinton's administration. There was a Communist-gone-capitalist China focused on its own growth and little else. And there were a set of other potential enemies, "rogue powers" as they were dubbed, so pathetic that not one of them could, under any circumstances, be called "great." ..."
"... It was as clear as glass that the world -- the whole shebang -- was there for the taking ..."
"... Charles Krauthammer who, in February 2001, six months before the ... attacks of September 11th, wrote a piece swooning over the new Bush administration's "unilateralism" to come and the "Bush Doctrine" which would go with it. In the process, he gave that administration a green light to put the pathetic Russians in their nuclear place and summed the situation up this way: ..."
"... "America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. Accordingly, America is in a position to reshape norms, alter expectations, and create new realities. How? By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will." ..."
"... "How did USA's oil get under Iraq's sand?" said a typical protest sign ..."
"... And yet, wrong as they may have been on such subjects, don't sell Krauthammer and the rest of that neocon crew short. They were, in their own way, also prophets, at least domestically speaking. After all, Rome, like the United States, had been an imperial republic. That republic was replaced, as its empire grew, by autocratic rule, first by the self-anointed emperor Augustus and then by his successors. Arguably, 18 years after Krauthammer wrote that column, the American republic might be heading down the same path. After all, so many years later, the neocons, triumphantly risen yet again in Washington ( both in the administration and as its critics), finally have their Caesar. ..."
"... All of this not only gave Americans a visibly unhinged president -- think of him, in axis-of-evil terms, as a rogue state of one -- but an increasingly unhinged country. ..."
"... Think of it not as an obituary for a single loopy president, a man who, with his "great, great wall," has indeed been an opiate of the masses (for his famed base, at least) in the midst of an opioid crisis hitting them hard. Yes, Donald J. Trump, reality TV star and bankruptee , he of the golden letters, was elevated to a strange version of power by a troubled republic showing signs of wear and tear. It was a republic feeling the pressure of all that money flowing into only half-noticed distant wars and into the pockets of billionaires and corporate entities in a way that turned the very idea of democracy into a bad joke. ..."
"... Someday, if people ask the obvious question -- not who lost Afghanistan, but who lost America? -- keep all those failed imperial wars and the national security state that went with them in mind when you try to answer. Cumulatively, they had a far more disruptive role than is now imagined in toppling the dominos that sent us all careening on a path to nowhere here at home. And keep in mind that, whatever Donald Trump does, the Caesarian die was cast early in this century as the neocons crossed their own Rubicon. ..."
What dreamers they were! They imagined a kind of global power that would leave even Rome at its Augustan height in the shade.
They imagined a world made for one, a planet that could be swallowed by a single great power. No, not just great, but beyond anything
ever seen before -- one that would build (as its
National Security Strategy put it in 2002)
a military "beyond challenge." Let's be clear on that: no future power, or even bloc of powers, would ever be allowed to challenge
it again.
And, in retrospect, can you completely blame them? I mean, it seemed so obvious then that we -- the United States of America --
were the best and the last. We had, after all, outclassed and outlasted every imperial power since the beginning of time. Even that
other menacing superpower of the Cold War era, the Soviet Union, the "
Evil Empire
" that refused to stand down for almost half a century, had gone up in a puff of smoke.
Imagine that moment so many years later and consider the crew of neoconservatives who, under the aegis of George W. Bush, the
son of the man who had "won" the Cold War, came to power in January 2001. Not surprisingly, on viewing the planet, they could see
nothing -- not a single damn thing -- in their way. There was a desperately weakened and impoverished Russia (still with its nuclear
arsenal more or less intact) that, as far as they were concerned, had been mollycoddled by President Bill Clinton's administration.
There was a Communist-gone-capitalist China focused on its own growth and little else. And there were a set of other potential enemies,
"rogue powers" as they were dubbed, so pathetic that not one of them could, under any circumstances, be called "great."
In 2002, in fact, three of them -- Iraq, Iran, and North Korea -- had to be cobbled together into an "
axis of evil
" to create a faintly adequate enemy, a minimalist excuse for the Bush administration to act preemptively. It couldn't have been
more obvious then that all three of them would go down before the unprecedented military and economic power of us (even if, as it
happened, two of them didn't).
It was as clear as glass that the world -- the whole shebang -- was there for the taking.
... ... ...
As President
Bush would put it in an address
at West Point in
2002,
"America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other
eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace."
In other words, jihadists aside, it was all over. From
now on, there would be an arms race of one and it was obvious who that one would be. The National Security Strategy of that year
put the same thought this way:
"Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up
in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States."
Again, anywhere on the planet ever .
Look at more or less any document from the period and you'll sense that they weren't shy about touting the unprecedented greatness
of a future global Pax Americana . Take, for instance, columnist Charles Krauthammer who, in February 2001, six months before the
... attacks of September 11th, wrote
a piece swooning over the new Bush administration's "unilateralism" to come and the "Bush Doctrine" which would go with it. In
the process, he gave that administration a green light to put the pathetic Russians in their nuclear place and summed the situation
up this way:
"America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. Accordingly,
America is in a position to reshape norms, alter expectations, and create new realities. How? By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations
of will."
"How Did USA's Oil Get Under Iraq's Sand?"
And soon enough after September 11th, those unapologetic, implacable demonstrations of will did, in fact, begin -- first in Afghanistan
and then, a year and a half later, in Iraq.
Goaded by Osama bin
Laden, the new Rome went into action.
Of course, in 2019 we have the benefit of hindsight, which Charles Krauthammer, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and the rest of that crew didn't have as they applied their Roman-style
vision of an imperial America to the actual world. It should be added, however, that the
millions of people who hit the streets globally to protest the coming invasion of Iraq in the winter of 2003 -- "How did USA's
oil get under Iraq's sand?" said a typical protest
sign (which Donald Trump would have
understood
in his own way) -- had a far better sense of the world than did their American rulers-to-be. Like the Soviets
before them ,
in fact, they would grievously confuse military power with power on this planet.
More than 17 years later, the U.S. military remains stuck in Afghanistan, bedeviled in Iraq, and floundering across much of the
Greater Middle East and Africa on a planet with a resurgent Russia, and an impressively rising China. One-third of the former axis
of evil, Iran, is, remarkably enough, still in Washington's
gunsights , while another third (North
Korea) sits uncomfortably in a presidential bear hug. It's no exaggeration to say that none of the dreams of a new Rome were ever
faintly fulfilled. In fact, if you want to think about what's been truly exceptional in these years, it might be this: never in history
has such a great power, at its height, seemed quite so incapable of effectively applying force, military or otherwise, to achieve
its imperial ends or bring its targets to heel.
And yet, wrong as they may have been on such subjects, don't sell Krauthammer and the rest of that neocon crew short. They
were, in their own way, also prophets, at least domestically speaking. After all, Rome, like the United States, had been an imperial
republic. That republic was replaced, as its empire grew, by autocratic rule, first by the self-anointed emperor Augustus and then
by his successors. Arguably, 18 years after Krauthammer wrote that column, the American republic might be heading down the same path.
After all, so many years later, the neocons, triumphantly risen yet again in Washington (
both in the administration and as its
critics), finally have their Caesar.
Hail, Donald J. Trump, we who are about to read your latest tweet
salute you!
A Rogue State of One
Let's note some other passing parallels between the new Rome and the old one. As a start, it's certainly accurate to say that
our new American Caesar has much gall (divided into
at least three parts). Admittedly, he's no Augustus, the first of a line of emperors, but more likely a Nero, fiddling while, in
his case, the world quite
literally burns . Still,
he could certainly say of campaign 2016 and what followed: Veni, Vidi, Tweeti (I came, I saw, I tweeted). And don't forget the classic
line that might someday be applied to his presidency, " Et tu , Mueller?" -- or depending on who turns on him, you can fill in your
name of choice.
One day, it might also be said that, in a country in which executive power has become ever more imperial (as has the
power
of the Senate's majority leader), blowback from
imperial acts abroad
has had a significant, if largely hidden, hand in crippling the American republic, as was once true of Rome. In fact, it seems
clear enough that the first republican institution to go was the citizen's army. In the wake of the Vietnam War, the draft was thrown
out and replaced by an "all-volunteer" force, one which would, as it came to fight on ever more distant battlefields, morph into
a home-grown version of an imperial police force or
foreign legion . With
it went the
staggering sums that, in this century, would be invested -- if that's even the word for it -- in what's still called "defense,"
as well as in a vast
empire of
bases abroad and the national security state, a rising locus of power at home. And then, of course, there were the never-ending
wars across much of the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa that went with all of that. Meanwhile, so much else, domestically
speaking, was put on the equivalent of austerity rations. And all of that, in turn, helped provoke the crisis that brought Donald
Trump to power and might, in the end, even sink the American system as we've known it.
The Donald's victory in the 2016 election was always a sign of a deep disturbance at the heart of an increasingly
unequal and
unfair system of wealth and power. But it was those trillions of dollars -- The Donald
claims seven trillion of them -- that the neocons began
sinking into America's "
infinite
" wars, which cost Americans big time in ways they hardly tracked or
noticed
. Those
trillions didn't go into shoring up American infrastructure or health care or education or job-training programs or anything
else that might have mattered to most people here, even as untold tax dollars -- one estimate:
$15,000 per middle-class family
per year -- went into the pockets of the rich. And some of those dollars, in turn,
poured back into the American political system (with a helping hand from the Supreme Court's 2010
Citizens United decision) and, in the end, helped
put the first billionaire in the Oval Office. By the 2020 election campaign, we may achieve another all-American first: two or
even three of the candidates could be billionaires.
All of this not only gave Americans a visibly unhinged president -- think of him, in axis-of-evil terms, as a rogue state
of one -- but an increasingly unhinged country. You can feel so much of this in President Trump's confused and confusing attempts
to both end American wars and
ratchet them
up , 17-and-a-half -- he always claims
" almost 19 " -- years
after the invasion of Afghanistan. You can feel it in his gut-level urge to
attack the "deep state"
and yet fund it beyond its wildest dreams. You can feel it in his attempts to
create a corps of "my generals" and then fire
them all. You can feel the unhinged nature of events in a world in which, after so many years of war, America's enemies still seem
to have the formula for staying afloat, no matter what Washington does. The Taliban in Afghanistan is
on the rise ; al-Shabaab
in Somalia, is still going
strong ; the Houthis in Yemen
remain functional
in a sea of horror and starvation; ISIS, now without its caliphate, has from Syria to the
Philippines ,
Africa to
Afghanistan , become a distinctly
global brand ; al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula thrives ,
while terror groups more generally continue to
spread .
You can feel it in the president's confused and confusing explanations for his urges to withdraw American troops in
days or
four months
or
whenever from Syria and do the same or
maybe not exactly in Afghanistan. (As he
said in
his State of the Union address, American troops would both withdraw and "focus" on "counterterrorism" in that country.) You can feel
it in the way, after so many years of visible failure, the neocons are once again
riding high in Washington,
ascendant both in his administration and as critics of its global and military policies.
These days, who even remembers that classic early Cold War question -- who lost China? -- that rattled American domestic politics
for years, or later, the similar one about Vietnam? Still, if Donald Trump ever truly does withdraw American forces from Afghanistan
(undoubtedly leaving this country's allies in a Vietnam-style ditch), count on foreign policy establishmentarians in Washington and
pundits around the country to ask an updated version of the same question: Did Donald Trump lose Afghanistan?
But no matter what happens, don't make the mistake of blaming him. It's true that he tweeted endlessly while the world burned,
but he won't be the one who "lost" Afghanistan. It was "lost" in the grisly dreams of the neocons as the century began and it's never
truly been found again.
Of course, we no more know what's going to happen in the years ahead than the neocons did in 2001. If history has taught us anything,
it's that prediction is the diciest of human predilections. Still, think of this piece as an obituary of sorts. You know, the kind
major newspapers write about those still living and then continually update until death finally occurs.
Think of it not as an obituary for a single loopy president, a man who, with his "great, great wall," has indeed been an opiate
of the masses (for his famed base, at least) in the midst of an
opioid crisis
hitting them hard. Yes, Donald J. Trump, reality TV star and
bankruptee , he of the
golden letters, was elevated to a strange version of power by a troubled republic showing signs of wear and tear. It was a republic
feeling the pressure of all that money flowing into only half-noticed distant wars and into the pockets of billionaires and corporate
entities in a way that turned the very idea of democracy into a bad joke.
Someday, if people ask the obvious question -- not who lost Afghanistan, but who lost America? -- keep all those failed imperial
wars and the national security state that went with them in mind when you try to answer. Cumulatively, they had a far more disruptive
role than is now imagined in toppling the dominos that sent us all careening on a path to nowhere here at home. And keep in mind
that, whatever Donald Trump does, the Caesarian die was cast
early in this century as the neocons crossed their own Rubicon.
"... As Trump found himself accused of improper ties to Vladimir Putin, Boot agitated for more aggressive confrontation with Russia. Boot demanded larger weapons shipments to Ukraine. ..."
"... Boot's stock in the Washington foreign policy establishment rose. In 2018, he was hired by The Washington Post as a columnist. The paper's announcement cited Boot's "expertise on armed conflict." ..."
"... Republicans in Washington never recovered. When Trump attacked the Iraq War and questioned the integrity of the people who planned and promoted it, he was attacking them. They hated him for that. Some of them became so angry, it distorted their judgment and character. ..."
"... Almost from the moment Operation Desert Storm concluded in 1991, Kristol began pushing for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In 1997, The Weekly Standard ran a cover story titled "Saddam Must Go." If the United States didn't launch a ground invasion of Iraq, the lead editorial warned, the world should "get ready for the day when Saddam has biological and chemical weapons at the tips of missiles aimed at Israel and at American forces in the Gulf." ..."
"... Under ordinary circumstances, Bill Kristol would be famous for being wrong. Kristol still goes on television regularly, but it's not to apologize for the many demonstrably untrue things he's said about the Middle East, or even to talk about foreign policy. Instead, Kristol goes on TV to attack Donald Trump. ..."
"... Trump's election seemed to undo Bill Kristol entirely. He lost his job at The Weekly Standard after more than 20 years, forced out by owners who were panicked about declining readership. He seemed to spend most of his time on Twitter ranting about Trump. ..."
"... By the spring of 2018, Kristol was considering a run for president himself. He was still making the case for the invasion of Iraq, as well as pushing for a new war, this time in Syria, and maybe in Lebanon and Iran, too. Like most people in Washington, he'd learned nothing at all. ..."
"... Creating complex and convincing false narratives to support demonic purposes is HARD WORK, and requires big pay. ..."
"... Lots of spilled ink here that's pretty meaningless without an answer to the following: Why does Trump employ John Bolton and Elliot Abrams? Explain Trump and Pence and Pompeo's Iran obsession and how it's any better than Kristol/Boot? ..."
One thing that
every late-stage ruling class has in common is a high tolerance for mediocrity. Standards
decline, the edges fray, but nobody in charge seems to notice. They're happy in their sinecures
and getting richer. In a culture like this, there's no penalty for being wrong. The talentless
prosper, rising inexorably toward positions of greater power, and breaking things along the
way. It happened to the Ottomans.
Max Boot is living proof that it's happening in America.
Boot is a professional foreign policy expert, a job category that doesn't exist outside of a
select number of cities. Boot has degrees from Berkeley and Yale, and is a fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations. He has written a number of books and countless newspaper columns
on foreign affairs and military history. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, an
influential British think tank, describes Boot as one of the "world's leading authorities on
armed conflict."
None of this, it turns out, means anything. The professional requirements for being one
ofthe world's Leading Authorities on Armed Conflict do not include relevant experience with
armed conflict. Leading authorities on the subject don't need a track record of wise
assessments or accurate predictions. All that's required are the circular recommendations of
fellow credential holders. If other Leading Authorities on Armed Conflict induct you into their
ranks, you're in. That's good news for Max Boot.
Boot first became famous in the weeks after 9/11 for outlining a response that the Bush
administration seemed to read like a script, virtually word for word. While others were
debating whether Kandahar or Kabul ought to get the first round of American bombs, Boot was
thinking big. In October 2001, he published a piece in The Weekly Standard titled "The
Case for American Empire."
"The September 11 attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition,"
Boot wrote. "The solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their
implementation." In order to prevent more terror attacks in American cities, Boot called for a
series of U.S.-led revolutions around the world, beginning in Afghanistan and moving swiftly to
Iraq.
"Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in
Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul," Boot wrote. "To turn Iraq into a beacon of hope
for the oppressed peoples of the Middle East: Now that would be a historic war aim. Is this an
ambitious agenda? Without a doubt. Does America have the resources to carry it out? Also
without a doubt."
In retrospect, Boot's words are painful to read, like love letters from a marriage that
ended in divorce. Iraq remains a smoldering mess. The Afghan war is still in progress close to
20 years in. For perspective, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of France, crowned himself
emperor, defeated four European coalitions against him, invaded Russia, lost, was defeated and
exiled, returned, and was defeated and exiled a second time, all in less time than the United
States has spent trying to turn Afghanistan into a stable country.
Things haven't gone as planned. What's remarkable is that despite all the failure and waste
and deflated expectations, defeats that have stirred self-doubt in the heartiest of men, Boot
has remained utterly convinced of the virtue of his original predictions. Certainty is a
prerequisite for Leading Authorities on Armed Conflict.
In the spring of 2003, with the war in Iraq under way, Boot began to consider new countries
to invade. He quickly identified Syria and Iran as plausible targets, the latter because it was
"less than two years" from building a nuclear bomb. North Korea made Boot's list as well. Then
Boot became more ambitious. Saudi Arabia could use a democracy, he decided.
"If the U.S. armed forces made such short work of a hardened goon like Saddam Hussein,
imagine what they could do to the soft and sybaritic Saudi royal family," Boot wrote.
Five years later, in a piece for The Wall Street Journal , Boot advocated for the
military occupation of Pakistan and Somalia. The only potential problem, he predicted, was
unreasonable public opposition to new wars.
"Ragtag guerrillas have proven dismayingly successful in driving out or neutering
international peacekeeping forces," he wrote. "Think of American and French troops blown up in
Beirut in 1983, or the 'Black Hawk Down' incident in Somalia in 1993. Too often, when outside
states do agree to send troops, they are so fearful of casualties that they impose rules of
engagement that preclude meaningful action."
In other words, the tragedy of foreign wars isn't that Americans die, but that too few
Americans are willing to die. To solve this problem, Boot recommended recruiting foreign
mercenaries. "The military would do well today to open its ranks not only to legal immigrants
but also to illegal ones," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times . When foreigners get
killed fighting for America, he noted, there's less political backlash at home.
♦♦♦
American forces, documented or not, never occupied Pakistan, but by 2011 Boot had another
war in mind. "Qaddafi Must Go," Boot declared in The Weekly Standard . In Boot's
telling, the Libyan dictator had become a threat to the American homeland. "The only way this
crisis will end -- the only way we and our allies can achieve our objectives in Libya -- is to
remove Qaddafi from power. Containment won't suffice."
In the end, Gaddafi was removed from power, with ugly and long-lasting consequences. Boot
was on to the next invasion. By late 2012, he was once again promoting attacks on Syria and
Iran, as he had nine years before. In a piece for The New York Times , Boot laid out
"Five Reasons to Intervene in Syria Now."
Overthrowing the Assad regime, Boot predicted, would "diminish Iran's influence" in the
region, influence that had grown dramatically since the Bush administration took Boot's advice
and overthrew Saddam Hussein, Iran's most powerful counterbalance. To doubters concerned about
a complex new war, Boot promised the Syria intervention could be conducted "with little
risk."
Days later, Boot wrote a separate piece for Commentary magazine calling for American
bombing of Iran. It was a busy week, even by the standards of a Leading Authority on Armed
Conflict. Boot conceded that "it remains a matter of speculation what Iran would do in the wake
of such strikes." He didn't seem worried.
Listed in one place, Boot's many calls for U.S.-led war around the world come off as a
parody of mindless warlike noises, something you might write if you got mad at a country while
drunk. ("I'll invade you!!!") Republicans in Washington didn't find any of it amusing. They
were impressed. Boot became a top foreign policy adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign
in 2008, to Mitt Romney in 2012, and to Marco Rubio in 2016.
Everything changed when Trump won the Republican nomination. Trump had never heard of the
International Institute for Strategic Studies. He had no idea Max Boot was a Leading Authority
on Armed Conflict. Trump was running against more armed conflicts. He had no interest in
invading Pakistan. Boot hated him.
As Trump found himself accused of improper ties to Vladimir Putin, Boot agitated for more
aggressive confrontation with Russia. Boot demanded larger weapons shipments to Ukraine. He
called for effectively expelling Russia from the global financial system, a move that might be
construed as an act of war against a nuclear-armed power. The stakes were high, but with
signature aplomb Boot assured readers it was "hard to imagine" the Russian government would
react badly to the provocation. Those who disagreed Boot dismissed as "cheerleaders" for Putin
and the mullahs in Iran.
Boot's stock in the Washington foreign policy establishment rose. In 2018, he was hired by
The Washington Post as a columnist. The paper's announcement cited Boot's "expertise on
armed conflict."
It is possible to isolate the precise moment that Trump permanently alienated the Republican
establishment in Washington: February 13, 2016. There was a GOP primary debate that night in
Greenville, South Carolina, so every Republican in Washington was watching. Seemingly out of
nowhere, Trump articulated something that no party leader had ever said out loud. "We should
never have been in Iraq," Trump announced, his voice rising. "We have destabilized the Middle
East."
Many in the crowd booed, but Trump kept going: "They lied. They said there were weapons of
mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none."
Pandemonium seemed to erupt in the hall, and on television. Shocked political analysts
declared that the Trump presidential effort had just euthanized itself. Republican voters, they
said with certainty, would never accept attacks on policies their party had espoused and
carried out.
Republican voters had a different reaction. They understood that adults sometimes change
their minds based on evidence. They themselves had come to understand that the Iraq war was a
mistake. They appreciated hearing something verboten but true.
Rival Republicans denounced Trump as an apostate. Voters considered him brave. Trump won the South Carolina primary, and shortly after that, the Republican nomination.
Republicans in Washington never recovered. When Trump attacked the Iraq War and questioned
the integrity of the people who planned and promoted it, he was attacking them. They hated him
for that. Some of them became so angry, it distorted their judgment and character.
♦♦♦
Bill Kristol is probably the most influential Republican strategist of the post-Reagan era.
Born in 1954, Kristol was the second child of the writer Irving Kristol, one of the founders of
neoconservatism.
The neoconservatism of Irving Kristol and his friends was jarring to the ossified liberal
establishment of the time, but in retrospect it was basically a centrist philosophy: pragmatic,
tolerant of a limited welfare state, not rigidly ideological. By the time Bill Kristol got done
with it 40 years later, neoconservatism was something else entirely.
Almost from the moment Operation Desert Storm concluded in 1991, Kristol began pushing for
the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. In 1997, The Weekly Standard ran a cover story titled
"Saddam Must Go." If the United States didn't launch a ground invasion of Iraq, the lead
editorial warned, the world should "get ready for the day when Saddam has biological and
chemical weapons at the tips of missiles aimed at Israel and at American forces in the
Gulf."
After the September 11 attacks, Kristol found a new opening to start a war with Iraq. In
November 2001, he and Robert Kagan wrote a piece in The Weekly Standard alleging that
Saddam Hussein hosted a training camp for Al Qaeda fighters where terrorists had trained to
hijack planes. They suggested that Mohammad Atta, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was actively
collaborating with Saddam's intelligence services. On the basis of no evidence, they accused
Iraq of fomenting the anthrax attacks on American politicians and news outlets.
Under ordinary circumstances, Bill Kristol would be famous for being wrong. Kristol still
goes on television regularly, but it's not to apologize for the many demonstrably untrue things
he's said about the Middle East, or even to talk about foreign policy. Instead, Kristol goes on
TV to attack Donald Trump.
Trump's election seemed to undo Bill Kristol entirely. He lost his job at The Weekly
Standard after more than 20 years, forced out by owners who were panicked about declining
readership. He seemed to spend most of his time on Twitter ranting about Trump.
Before long he was ranting about the people who elected Trump. At an American Enterprise
Institute panel event in February 2017, Kristol made the case for why immigrants are more
impressive than native-born Americans. "Basically if you are in free society, a capitalist
society, after two, three, four generations of hard work, everyone becomes kind of decadent,
lazy, spoiled, whatever." Most Americans, Kristol said, "grew up as spoiled kids and so
forth."
In February 2018, Kristol tweeted that he would "take in a heartbeat a group of newly
naturalized American citizens over the spoiled native-born know-nothings" who supported
Trump.
By the spring of 2018, Kristol was considering a run for president himself. He was still
making the case for the invasion of Iraq, as well as pushing for a new war, this time in Syria,
and maybe in Lebanon and Iran, too. Like most people in Washington, he'd learned nothing at
all.
Trump isn't the only one hated by useless establishment Republicans – with essays like
this so will Tucker. Thanks for this takedown of these two warmongering know-nothings. I wish
Trump all the time was like he was at that debate in S Carolina where he said what every
American knows: the Iraq invasion was stupid and we should not have done it!
So why are these professional war peddlers still around? For the same reason that members of
the leadership class who failed and continue to fail in the Middle East are still around.
There has not been an accounting at any level. There is just more talk of more war.
Well, the headline pretty much answers its own question if you know the purpose of Experts.
In any subject matter from science to economics to politics, Experts are paid to be
wrong. Nobody has to be paid to observe reality accurately with his own senses and rational mind.
Every living creature does that all the time. It's the basic requirement of survival.
Creating complex and convincing false narratives to support demonic purposes is HARD WORK,
and requires big pay.
""The September 11 attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition,"
Boot wrote. "The solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their
implementation.""
In other words, if we had only squandered even more blood and treasure, why, everything
would have been fine.
Why do so many true believers end up with some variation on the true believer's wheeze:
"Communism didn't fail ! It was never tried!" Then again one can't be sure that Boot
is a true believer. He might be a treacherous snake trying to use American power to advance a
foreign agenda.
Max Boot has indeed been an advocate of overseas intervention, but you fail to point out
that he has recanted his support of the Iraq War. In his 2018 book "The Corrosion of
Conservatism: Why I left the American Right," he states:
". . . I can finally acknowledge the obvious: it (The Iraq War) was all a big mistake.
Saddam Hussein was heinous, but Iraq was better off under his tyrannical rule than the chaos
that followed. I regret advocating the invasion and feel guilty about all the lives lost. It
was a chastening lesson in the limits of American power."
I'm glad to see that Boot, along with yourself and other Republicans, realize that
American use of force must have a clear objective with reasonable chance of success. I
suggest you send this article to John Bolton. I'm not sure he agrees with you.
Excellent article. It's a shame that the Bush era GOP took Boot and Kristol seriously. That
poor judgment led Bush to make the kinds of mistakes that gave Democrats the opening they
needed to gain power, which in turn led them to make even more harmful mistakes.
Being against the Iraq 2 I find this populist arguing very 'eye-rolling' as you were pimping
this war to death back in the day. (In fact I remember Jon Stewart being one of the few
'pundits' that questioned the war in 2003 & 2004.) And has dovish as Trump as been, his
administration is still filled with Hawks and if you are concerned about wars then maybe use
your TV show for instead of whining for past mistakes:
1) The administration action in Iran is aggressive and counter-productive to long term
peace. The nuclear deal was an effective way of ensuring Iran controlling behavior for 15
years as the other parties, Europe and China, wanted to trade with Iran. (Additionally it
makes our nation depend more on the Saudia relationship in which Washington should be slowly
moving away from.)
2) Like it or not, Venezuela is starting down the steps of mission creep for the Trump
Administration. Recommend the administration stay away from peace keeping troops and suggest
this is China's problem. (Venezuela in debt to their eyeballs with China.)
3) Applaud the administration with peace talks with NK but warn them not to overstate
their accomplishments. It is ridiculous that the administration signed big nuclear deals with
NK that don't exist.
I find it amazing that Boot is considered one of the "world's leading authorities on armed
conflict,"yet never appears to have served in any branch of the armed forces, nor even heard
a shot fired in anger. He is proof that academic credentials do not automatically confer
"expertise."
Any war, anytime, any place, and cause just so long as American boys and girls can be in the
middle of it.
Welcome to the American NeoCon movement, recently joined by Republican Never Trumpers,
elected Democrats, and a host of far too many underemployed Beltway Generals &
Admirals.
From a reformed Leftist, thank you Tucker for calling out the stank from the Republicans. The
detailed compilation of lowlights from Max Boot and Bill Kristol (don't forget Robert Kagan!)
should be etched in the minds of the now pro-war Democratic Party establishment.
I laughed out loud while reading this, and continued laughing through to the end, until I
saw who had the audacity to tell the truth about these utter incompetent failures (who have
failed upwards for more than a decade now) who call themselves "foreign policy experts."
Yeah -- "experts" at being so moronically wrong that you really start wondering if perhaps
the benjamins from another middle eastern nation, that can't be named, has something to do
with their worthless opinions, which always seem to do made for the benifit of the nameless
nation.
So hurrah for you!!!
Let the truth set us all free!
Praise the Lord & Sing Songs of Praise to his Name!!!!
Literally that's how great it is to hear the pure & unvarnished TRUTH spoken out loud in
this publication!
I hope you get such awesome feedback that you are asked to continue to bless us with more
truths!
Thank you! You totally made my day!
And thank you for your service to this country, where it used to be considered patriotic
to speak the truth honestly & plainly!
"Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in
Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul," Boot wrote.
To which the reader might reasonably reply, "What do you mean we , Paleface?"
When I see Max Boot or Bill Kristol in uniform, carrying a rifle, and trudging with their
platoon along the dusty roads of the Middle East, I'll begin to pay attention to their bleats
and jeremiads.
Until that day, I'll continue to view them as a pair of droning, dull-as-ditchwater
members of the 45th Word-processing Brigade. (Company motto: "Let's you and him fight!")
It is my understanding that HRC led the charge to overthrow and hang Gaddafi in spite of a
reluctant Obama administration. Did Boot, in fact, influence her?
"Most Americans, Kristol said, "grew up as spoiled kids and so forth."" Unintentional irony, one must presume. Still it is astonishing that it took someone as addled as DJT to point out the
obvious–Invading Iraq was a massive mistake.
Just like Eliot Abrams, John McCain, GWB, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld or any other neocon, there is
no justice or punishment or even well deserved humiliation for these parasites. They are
always misinformed, misguided, or "well intentioned."
The US can interfere with sovereign governments and elections at will I guess and not be
responsible for the the unintended consequences such as 500k+ killed in the Middle East since
the Iraq and Afghan debacle.
There are sugar daddies from the MIC, the Natsec state (aka the Swamp), AIPAC, and even
Jeff Bezos (benefactor of WaPo) that keep these guys employed.
You need to be more critical of Trump also as he is the one hiring these clowns. But other
than that, keep up the good work Mr. Carlson!
These Chairborne Rangers in Washington know nothing about war. They are the flip side of the radical Dems. "Hey, we lost in 2016. Let's do MORE of what
made us lose in the first place!"
The GOP is as much an enemy to the Trump revolution
as the left. The Bush/Clinton/Obama coalition runs DC – controls the federal workforce, and
colludes to run the Federal government for themselves and their pet constituents.
Trump should have stuck it out on the shutdown until those federal workers left. I think
it was called RIF wherein after 30 days, he could dump the lot of em.
THE GOP IS NOT THE PARTY OF LESS GOVERNMENT. That's there motto for busy conservatives who
don't have the time or inclination to monitor both sides of the swamp.
Lots of spilled ink here that's pretty meaningless without an answer to the following:
Why does Trump employ John Bolton and Elliot Abrams? Explain Trump and Pence and Pompeo's Iran obsession and how it's any better than
Kristol/Boot?
Funny how when liberals said it was wrong to be in Iraq they were vilified. Yes some
conservatives changed their minds. Trump however is all over the map when it comes to wars.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176527/
"... "Whether under your watch a genocide will take place and you will look the other way because American interests were being upheld is a fair question because the American people want to know that anytime we engage in a country that we think about what our actions could be and how we believe our values are being furthered," Omar said. ..."
"... After again downplaying her question, Abrams said "the entire thrust of American policy in Venezuela is to support the Venezuelan people's effort to restore democracy to their country." ..."
As assistant secretary of state during the Reagan administration, Abrams was involved in a
secret arms deal in which the U.S. sought to trade missiles and other weapons to Iran and use
the funds to support right-wing paramilitaries known as the "contras," who were seeking to
topple a leftist government in Nicaragua. In a 1991 plea agreement with an independent
commission tasked with probing the scandal -- which became known as the Iran-Contra affair --
Abrams admitted to lying to members of Congress about the clandestine deal. In 1992, he and
other Reagan administration officials embroiled in the scandal were pardoned by former
President George H. W. Bush.
Omar also pressed Abrams about his role in shaping an interventionist American foreign
policy in other Latin American countries during his first stints at the State Department.
During the Cold War, the U.S. supported various violent coups in Latin America, including some
against democratically-elected governments.
The freshman Democrat asked Abrams about a remark he made in 1993, when he called the Reagan
administration's record in El Salvador a "fabulous achievement." Between 1979 and 1992, the
U.S. backed a right-wing military government in El Salvador during a civil war against leftist
guerrillas that resulted in the deaths of more than 75,000 people, according to the Center for Justice and
Accountability , an international human rights group.
Omar specifically cited the massacre of hundreds of civilians by the American-trained El
Salvadoran army at the El Mazote village in 1981.
"Yes or no, do you think that massacre was a 'fabulous achievement' that happened under our
watch," she asked.
"That is a ridiculous question," Abrams responded, again accusing Omar of crafting a
"personal attack."
Omar continued her questioning, asking Abrams if he would be in favor of the U.S. supporting
armed groups in Venezuela that participate in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide
if he believed it would serve America's interests. Abrams refused to answer the specific
question, saying it was not a "real" question.
"Whether under your watch a genocide will take place and you will look the other way because
American interests were being upheld is a fair question because the American people want to
know that anytime we engage in a country that we think about what our actions could be and how
we believe our values are being furthered," Omar said.
But Maduro and other leftist leaders in the region, including in Bolivia and Cuba, have
accused the American government of trying to stage a coup in Venezuela. Standing alongside
diplomats from Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Nicaragua and Iran, Venezuela's foreign
minister Jorge Arreaza told CBS News' Pamela Falk Thursday that Maduro's government has formed
a coalition to oppose interference in his country's affairs.
After again downplaying her question, Abrams said "the entire thrust of American policy in
Venezuela is to support the Venezuelan people's effort to restore democracy to their
country."
In her final question, Omar asked Abrams whether American foreign policy prioritized
upholding human rights and protecting people against genocide.
"That is always the position of the United States," he replied.
"... "Whether under your watch a genocide will take place and you will look the other way because American interests were being upheld is a fair question because the American people want to know that anytime we engage in a country that we think about what our actions could be and how we believe our values are being furthered," Omar said. ..."
"... After again downplaying her question, Abrams said "the entire thrust of American policy in Venezuela is to support the Venezuelan people's effort to restore democracy to their country." ..."
As assistant secretary of state during the Reagan administration, Abrams was involved in a
secret arms deal in which the U.S. sought to trade missiles and other weapons to Iran and use
the funds to support right-wing paramilitaries known as the "contras," who were seeking to
topple a leftist government in Nicaragua. In a 1991 plea agreement with an independent
commission tasked with probing the scandal -- which became known as the Iran-Contra affair --
Abrams admitted to lying to members of Congress about the clandestine deal. In 1992, he and
other Reagan administration officials embroiled in the scandal were pardoned by former
President George H. W. Bush.
Omar also pressed Abrams about his role in shaping an interventionist American foreign
policy in other Latin American countries during his first stints at the State Department.
During the Cold War, the U.S. supported various violent coups in Latin America, including some
against democratically-elected governments.
The freshman Democrat asked Abrams about a remark he made in 1993, when he called the Reagan
administration's record in El Salvador a "fabulous achievement." Between 1979 and 1992, the
U.S. backed a right-wing military government in El Salvador during a civil war against leftist
guerrillas that resulted in the deaths of more than 75,000 people, according to the Center for Justice and
Accountability , an international human rights group.
Omar specifically cited the massacre of hundreds of civilians by the American-trained El
Salvadoran army at the El Mazote village in 1981.
"Yes or no, do you think that massacre was a 'fabulous achievement' that happened under our
watch," she asked.
"That is a ridiculous question," Abrams responded, again accusing Omar of crafting a
"personal attack."
Omar continued her questioning, asking Abrams if he would be in favor of the U.S. supporting
armed groups in Venezuela that participate in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide
if he believed it would serve America's interests. Abrams refused to answer the specific
question, saying it was not a "real" question.
"Whether under your watch a genocide will take place and you will look the other way because
American interests were being upheld is a fair question because the American people want to
know that anytime we engage in a country that we think about what our actions could be and how
we believe our values are being furthered," Omar said.
But Maduro and other leftist leaders in the region, including in Bolivia and Cuba, have
accused the American government of trying to stage a coup in Venezuela. Standing alongside
diplomats from Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, Nicaragua and Iran, Venezuela's foreign
minister Jorge Arreaza told CBS News' Pamela Falk Thursday that Maduro's government has formed
a coalition to oppose interference in his country's affairs.
After again downplaying her question, Abrams said "the entire thrust of American policy in
Venezuela is to support the Venezuelan people's effort to restore democracy to their
country."
In her final question, Omar asked Abrams whether American foreign policy prioritized
upholding human rights and protecting people against genocide.
"That is always the position of the United States," he replied.
"... Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity . ..."
"... At this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it? ..."
In 2011, the U.S. regime, then under a
different
nominal
leader than in the Iraq invasion,
invaded
and
destroyed
Libya -- also on the basis of lies that its press (which is controlled by the same billionaires
who control the nation's two political Parties) stenographically published from the Government and refused
ever to expose as being lies.
On February 8th, the Latin American
Geopolitical Strategic Center (CELAG) issued their study,
"The Economic Consequences of the Boycott of Venezuela"
, and reported that throughout the five-year
period of 2013-2017, Venezuela's "economy and society suffered a suffocation [of] $ 22.5 billion in annual
revenues, as a result of a deliberate international strategy of financial isolation [of Venezuela].
Evidently, this financial pressure intensified since 2015 with the fall in the price of crude oil." So:
that's a total loss of over $112 billion from Venezuela during the entire 5-year period, and the result has
become (especially after 2014) the impoverishment of the country. The U.S. regime and its allies and their
propaganda-media blame, for that, not themselves, but the very same Government they're trying to take down.
The U.S. regime and its allies have contempt for the public everywhere. The more that Venezuelans blame
their own Government for this impoverishment, instead of blame America's Government for it, the more that
their exploiters will have contempt for them, but also the more that their exploiters will benefit from
them, because the exploiters' taking control of the Government will then be much easier to do.
The U.S-and-allied exploiters are
attempting to install in Venezuela
a man who has absolutely no justification under the Venezuelan Constitution to be claiming to be the
country's 'interim President'
. For some mysterious reason, Venezuela's President isn't calling for that
traitor to be brought up on charges of treachery -- attempting a coup -- and facing Venezuela's Supreme
Judicial Tribunal on such a charge, which Tribunal is the Constitutionally authorized body to adjudicate
that matter. So, Venezuela's Government is incompetent -- but so too have been all of its predecessors since
at least 1980, and incompetence alone is
not
Constitutional grounds for replacing Venezuela's
President by
a foreign-imposed coup
. At least Venezuela's actual President is no traitor, such as his would-be
successor, Juan Guaido,
definitely
is
.
Did Venezuela invade America so as for
America's economic war against it
to be justified? Did Iraq invade America so as for America's
destruction of it to be justified? Did Libya invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be
justified? Did Syria invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? Did Ukraine
invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? None of them did, at all. In each and
every case, it was pure aggression, by America, the international rogue nation.
Back in 1986, regarding America's
international relations including its coups and invasions, the U.S. quit the International Court of Justice
(ICJ), when that Court ruled against the U.S. in the Iran-Contra case,
Nicaragua v. United States
, which concerned America's attempted coup in that country. But though
the U.S. propaganda-media reported the Government's rejection of that verdict in favor of Nicaragua, they
hid the more momentous fact: the U.S. Government stated that it would not henceforth recognize any authority
in the ICJ concerning America's international actions. The public didn't get to know about that. Ever since
1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime, simply ignoring the ICJ except when the ICJ could be
cited against a country that the U.S. regime is trying to destroy ('democratize'). And then, when the ICJ
ruled on 9 March 2005 against the U.S. regime in a U.S. domestic matter where the regime refused to adhere
to the U.S. Constitution's due-process clause regarding the prosecutions and death-sentences against 51
death-row inmates, and the Court demanded retrials of those convicts,
the U.S. regime, in 2005, simply withdrew completely from the jurisdiction of the ICJ
. Ever since 9
March 2005, the U.S. regime places itself above, and immune to, international law, regarding everything.
George W. Bush completed what Ronald Reagan had started.
This rogue regime has
no real legitimacy
even as a representative of the American people. It
doesn't really represent the American public at all
. It is destroying the world and lying through its
teeth all the while. Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's
currently 585 billionaires
are not in prison from convictions by the International Court of Justice in
the Hague. They're not even being investigated by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. That's a
U.N. agency. Does the U.N. have any real legitimacy, under such circumstances as this? Can an international
scofflaw simply refuse to recognize the authority of the international court? This mocks the U.N. itself.
The U.S. places itself above the U.N.'s laws and jurisdiction and yet still occupies one of the five
permanent seats on the U.N's Security Council and still is allowed to vote in the U.N.'s General Assembly.
Why doesn't the U.N. simply expel America? It can't be done? Then why isn't a new international legal body
being established to
replace
the U.N. -- and being granted legal authority everywhere
regardless
of whether a given national regime acknowledges its legal authority over matters of international law? Why
is Venezuela being internationally isolated and sanctioned, instead of the U.S. being internationally
isolated and sanctioned?
On top of all that, this is the same
U.S. regime that has blocked the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and that has broken one international
agreement after another -- not only NAFTA, and not only the nuclear agreement on Iran, and not only many
nuclear agreements with first the Soviet Union and then Russia, but lots more -- and all with total impunity.
And it's not only the countries that
the U.S. invades or otherwise destroys, which are being vastly harmed by this international monster-regime.
How many millions of the flood of asylum-seekers who are pouring into Europe have done that in order to
reach safety from America's bombs and proxy-troops -- jihadists and fascist terrorists -- which have ravaged
their own homelands? What is that flood of refugees doing to Europe, and to European politics -- forcing it
ever-farther to the right and so tearing the EU apart? Why are not Europeans therefore flooding their own
streets with anti-American marches and movements for their own Governments to impose economic sanctions
against all major American brands, and demanding prosecution of all recent American Presidents, starting at
least with G.W. Bush -- or else to vote out of office any national politicians who refuse to stand up against
the American bully-regime?
It isn't only weak nations such as
Nigeria
that are corrupt and rotten to the core. The entire U.S. empire, and
especially
its U.S.
masters, are.
How much more will the peoples of the
world remain suckers to the vast corporate propaganda-operation by that out-of-control beast of a rapacious
regime, which displays the Orwellian nerve to label as being a 'regime' each and every Government that it
seeks to overthrow and to call itself a
'democracy'
? The U.S. regime is itself actually allied the most closely with the world's most barbaric
rulers, the Saud family, that own Saudi Arabia. The U.S. regime is also allied with the apartheid and
internationally aggressive regime in Israel. Is such an international gang, as this is, going to get off
scot-free, as if there were no international law -- or at least none that applies to itself?
And, if the U.S. regime is so concerned
to 'protect democracy' and 'protect human rights' all over the world (as that perennially lying bunch always
claim to be the 'justification' for their invasions and coups), then why isn't it starting first by
prosecuting itself? (Or, maybe, by prosecuting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, for his many crimes
-- and prosecuting his predecessors for
financing the 9/11 attacks
against Americans?) Well, of course, Hitler didn't do anything of the sort.
(Nor did he prosecute his allies.) He set the standard. Maybe, ideologically, Hitler and Mussolini and
Hirohito actually won the war, though this has happened after they first physically lost what everyone had
thought
was the end of WW II. After all, nobody is prosecuting the U.S. regime today. Isn't that
somewhat like a global victory for fascism -- the Axis powers -- after the fact? Maybe "we" won the war, only
to lose it later. Doesn't that appear to be the case? Mussolini
sometimes called fascism "corporationism"
, and this is how it always functions, and functions today by
agreement amongst the controlling owners of international corporations that are headquartered in the U.S.
and in its vassal-nations abroad.
Is this to go on interminably? When will
this international reign of fascism end?
What would happen if all the rest of
the world instituted an international legal and enforcement system (under a replacement U.N.) in which all
commitments and contractual proceeds to benefit American-based international corporations and the U.S.
Government were declared to be immediately null and void -- worthless except as regards the claims
against
the U.S. entities? (The owners of those entities have been the beneficiaries of America's international
crimes.) Contracts can be unilaterally nullified. The U.S. Government does it all the time, with no
justification except lies. Here, it would be done as authentically justifiable penalties, against actually
massive global crimes.
The U.S. militarily occupies the world;
this is a global empire; it has over a thousand military bases worldwide. Why aren't the people in all of
those occupied countries demanding their own governments simply to throw them out -- to end the military
occupation of their land?
You can't have a world at peace, and
anything like international justice, without enforcing international law. This is what doing that would look
like.
What we know right now is actually a
lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.
America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State. The Intelligence Agencies are
inseparable from the Corporations, The Bankers, and The Billionaires they work for. Most of the
economic-social-media pathways are controlled by the Magic Jews. Elections are a fraud. You have seen what
happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win. Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square.
The entire Mueller Fiasco is a demonstration of the Intelligence State and a warning for anyone who doesn't
play their game. The Super Jew Zionist Senator Shumer warned Trump in a Freudian Slip about upsetting the
Intelligence agencies which the Jewish Media quickly tried to hide.
This is the county where dimwits like
Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries,
murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was
said by anyone on the left.
America and the world are headed for the dark ages. I doubt if anyone will really survive. Think Tanks
for the super rich run by Intel know this and are preparing for the worse case scenario are you!
"Total lockdown against truth and for internatio al conquest . . .mass murder and destruction on the basis
of sheer lies. That's today's U. S. Government, that's it's reality."
It worked so well in WWI and WWII,
why mess with a sure thing?
To behave otherwise, that is, honestly and decently would return a heap of millionaires to their
rag-picker tin-peddlar origins.
Ever since 1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime
Why the leniency for a regime that has been led by gangsters of varying shades for the best part of the
post-WWII era, hands down? Unless the Vietnam war and the companion Gulf of Tomkin lie, the mass murder in
Laos and Cambodia and the Korean war are brushed aside. As was the kidnapping of Aristide of Haiti and
Panama's Noriega are trivial mobster rule blips and the sodomising of Ghadhafi's cadaver by "rebels" after
relentless bombing that left a once prosperous nation in utter ruin regarded as an unfortunate "aberration".
The tainting of American hands with the blood of millions of innocents extends well beyond the leaders who
presided over arguably the worst atrocities and crimes of the post-WWII era. For a nation that takes pride
in its slogan of a government of, for and by the people, the people cannot escape responsibility for the
horrendous crimes committed in their name.
Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a
communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a
meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?
I think some of this is over the top. However, I am not sure that one can excuse challenging the case based
on news reports. The case on its face had little of any supporting material. But there were news agencies
that provided a counter narrative, they just weren't the mainstream sources. Which is why I think your
giving an out where none exists.
Instead, a better case could be made as to how those that questioned the case got the boot and in some
cases got it good. Those voices were not only muted out by the media, the advocates, but the public as well.
One cannot ignore the palpable anger after 9/11. The country wanted revenge. And they would have it. Unlike
Mr. Neeson, we did not restrain ourselves from acting out, against anyone of we held suspect as similar in
nature -- we lashed out with few reservations.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
Now I have to admit that the questions of international order are tricky. Who wants to take on enforcing
the rule of law against the US when she violates the very rules she helped create and espouses. When the
leadership bends, breaks or ignores the rules in the name of country. It's hard to make a case that everyone
else abide by the rules if you yourself breaks them. Maybe people pf conscience will hire people who
actually abide by what they say they will do when applying for the job of leadership.
But I have to be honest, I am cautious when it comes bodies of international order: UN, IMF, World Bank,
WTO, NAFTA, and others. I appreciate the value of NATO, but I am a bit dubious about the agitation that the
US take the lead in addressing Europe's security, at our expense. And while I would like to avoid what
about, most nations treat the international bodies of justice with no small amount of reticence on their own
account. I am unclear of China has backed away from provoking the Phillipines after the UNCLOS ruling
regarding commercial development zones. They have made a point to say they will abide by UNCLOS except where
they disagree. The short answer is that ultimately the developed world has to operate with some integrity.
There's a lot of complaining about the Saudis and Israel. But those states can simply point to the US or the
Europeans states and make a constituent claim,
"What's good for the gander . . ."
There is a manner of discipline and that is to our failures and the cost. We are at the moment large
enough to absorb them (not sure that is not more face saving facade than truth). Iraq is a failure. Libya is
a failure. Afganistahn most likely a failure, even we end up with some manner of negotiated settlement, it
will still be far short of our objective(s). The Ukraine still threatens to fall into a full blown civil
war. After five years plus of bombing Yemen, the end is nowhere in sight. If the Saudis think the Yemenis a
threat, then they should deal with it. The Syria gambit was never a smart move and it has cost us. I am a
firm believer that part of these issues results in not having a national draft system where our entire
population is bought in on the US project and in so doing have an incentive to hold its government
accountable. Because there is no body count to shock the public into reality as in previous military
engagements.
We simply are not electing enough men such as representative Walter Jones into office, who upon
recognizing an error will seek to change course. And I like him, I suspect, get increasingly restless about
how our unrequited hypocrisy (if continued) will play out for us in the end. I think there are signs of
trouble, just hints, that we need to get our ducks in order.
We honor and protect our sovereignty by respecting that of others (minus some outstanding extreme
circumstance).
Note: not all of the US military programs are about the use of force. The US does huge amounts of
humanitarian aide, independently and in conjunction with with are numerous aid depts. And as a nation we
remain the most effectively generous (giving nations) on the planet to others in need, including private
charitable organizations, no small number of them faith and practice based.
How many multitudes of sins that will cover is unknown to me.
A typical piece of American racism. Naturally, the peoples of all these countries are far too primitive and
far too stupid to see that they are being manipulated!
To quote your first para: 'In 2003, America (and its lap-dog UK) invaded and destroyed Iraq on
the basis of lies to the effect that the U.S. (and UK) regime were certain that Saddam Hussein had and was
developing weapons of mass destruction.'
It should read: 'In 2003, the UK (and its lap dog USA) invaded and destroyed Iraq. I know you Americans like to think that the USA is sovereign in its bullying of the world, but many
people apart from myself, see it differently.
Rothschild runs the 'free west' and he is based in The City of London where he operates the world's drug
money laundering operation. Yes, even all the drugs moved out of Afghanistan by his private drug army you
call the CIA, those profits are laundered in London.
It is Rothschild in London that decides who to invade and why. The USA is Rothschild's private supply of
canon fodder, weaponry and congenital idiots who think Jesus of Nazareth, that you erroneously call Jesus
Christ, condones the violence, the blood baths and the pure evil that is the USA.
Your nation and its corrupt state is the puppet of Rothschild. I can understand it is especially hard for
you to finger one of your own, especially as you consider yourself to be the goyim's friend, but that is not
actually true is it?
What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon would
want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not vast
profits to be made?
Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on
Venezula today, only make sense if you are Rothschild.
I'm not into America-bashing. Life's too short, and, besides, I did half-seriously think of
emigrating from the States, and didn't do it.
But–but–I think there's enough evidence to support the writing of a "black book" of American democracy
since 1945, a hit piece modeled on a similarly titled book about Communism's depredations that, I think, was
first published in France maybe thirty years ago.
Better observers than I can probably offer a laundry list of American cruelties worth including, and some
of those better observers comment here on
Unz Review
.
American military interventions, a Constitution drained of effectiveness and meaning, the "ethnic
cleansing" of American cities, the gratuitous cruelties of American health care,
etc
.
Keep the book short, about 250-350 pp., and include good front and back matter to focus the reader's
attention.
@niteranger
If the author of this piece a child who believes in fairy stories about American exceptionalism . America is
more powerful than other countries and if it is "The International Rogue Nation" then it is solely as a
result of being more powerful that other countries, for were they as strong as America they all would do the
same as America.
This is the county where dimwits like Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama
and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries, murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children
including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was said by anyone on the left.
The Democrats want future voters to swamp the votes of native-born Americans. The kids in Yemen are
irrelevant. So are the innocent kids in countries like Syria.
America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State
That is just a long winded way of saying it is a state. Like any other state America can't call 911 if it
gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral
imperatives and live as tree huggers in perpetual peace. Except it would come to an end, just as it did for
the Tibetans (and their trees).
These U.S. allegations were based on provable falsehoods when they were stated and published, but the
regime's 'news'-media refused to publish and demonstrate (or "expose") any of these lies.
Back in the late summer of 2003, when Washington finally admitted there were no WMD in Iraq, the Danish
Public Broadcaster had invited four of the heaviest hitters in Danish MSM, four foreign policy editors of
the largest news outlets in Denmark.
The conversation was supposed to be about something else, but the WMD-news had dropped that same morning,
and at one point they discuss the missing WMD. One guy spontaneously says: "I never believed in the
WMD-story anyway." The three others quickly agree, because they don't want to be seen as the slow, gullible
kid in the class.
So they'd been peddling this WMD-nonsense aggressively since the invasion, but they didn't actually
believe that story themselves? The broadcast was taken off the internet 24 hours later, but I have their
names in my little book.
What we know right now is actually a lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.
Well yes, but they also want not only a monopoly on violence and compliant tax, debt, wage and dollar
slaves, but also "legal" support for it all, hence "gubbermint." Keep payin' dem taxes and hoping for da Messiah in the forms of the likes of the Cacklin' Hyena, The
Trumpster, and "Bibi."
And another thing: back in the day, the PM, Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen spoke frequently about Saddam in
the Danish parliament. But he never said "weapons of mass destruction", he said "dangerous weapons" – didn't
want to be caught lying to the legislature, would you? Nobody ever called him out on it; you'd think
journalists were familiar with sleazy rhetoric, but not on this occasion. He went on to become secretary
general of NATO.
Rather than presenting a balanced viewpoint where we hear both sides of the story regarding nuclear
treaty violations by both sides, we are subjected to what can best be termed "fake news".
"Is this to go on interminably? When will this international reign of fascism end?"
The plutocrat criminal elite are working fast and furiously to import a new electorate and slave labour
force: At some point they will no longer be able to finance the machine, because you get what you pay for,
and bread and circuses aren't cheap, and at that point the machine will pull back from the world, if not
outright devolve into mayhem in its streets.
Just came across these powerful words from Kevin Tillman, Pat Tillman's brother.
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the
world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade
uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to
establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil
war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons
around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them
with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad
apples" in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a
picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra
pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing
from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a
helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes
apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an
illegal invasion they started. Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and
illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the
ground.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that
it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most
irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active
ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge
of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our
grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely,
they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country
vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It
can start after Pat's birthday.
Global empires rise because of the desire for power, which is also their Nemesis. Power gives prestige,
status, wealth, security and a sense of invincibility: the opposite of what is feared most. But they cannot
hold that power forever, though they try, and eventually they end up getting the war they have always
dreaded: utter defeat. But their leaders are deluded, blindly leading their people to annihilation – even
nuclear – because power is the one thing they will destroy themselves and everyone else over. The pattern of
history is clear.
Feb 11, 2019 Venezuelans' message to the US: Hands off our country
The Grayzone reports from inside
Venezuela, where millions of people waited in long lines to sign an open letter to the US public, strongly
rejecting foreign intervention in their country.
15.04.2017 Americans Are No Different Than Germans Were (and Are)
Daniel Goldhagen blamed the Holocaust on "the Germans" (by which he meant the German people), and said
that they perpetrated the Holocaust because they positively enjoyed murdering "the Jews".
Feb 18, 2013 Corporatocracy, Globalization, An Empire Expands
A short video clip from the Documentary
Zeitgeist: Addendum, in it a Corporatocracy is explained. "A Incredible cozy relationship between Government
and Corporations"
@niteranger
I think this sums up things pretty well:
"All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering
into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has
never yet melted." D. H. Lawrence.
Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a
communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a
meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?
Fascist country, Communist country – a more understandable definition would be a Mafia run state.
The US regime uses violence and threats (local and international) to get its way. It corrupts and
terrorizes politicians and forces through its projects. It's all about money and power and it rubs
traditional Anglo society's face in the mud while its getting looted.
@Justsaying
You have a pointy head, but rubbish conclusions I am also tired of hearing 'sodomy' or 'sodomized' re.
Ghaddafi, assaulting the anus and rectum with bayonets is not 'sodomy'.
Hillary Clinton enjoyed it, I world prefer not to repeat her moronic statement, but will because of the
many morons are on this site now, 'we came, we saw, he died, (cackle, cackle, cackle'). She liked to pretend that this is her classical education. She clearly has none.
But she sure has an ugly pair of cankles.
Fifth Column:
Is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in
favour of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces
gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to
organised actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of
sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an
external force.
He's a
lying
New York idiot Israel firster who demonstrates a new meaning to the concept of
winning fair and square and "won" the position as Cuck-in-Chief of the Corporate Fascio-Commie Military
Industrial-Intelligence Police State, that's all. He should have saved us all a lot of trouble and just eloped with the Cackling Hyena instead.
Mrs Ilhan Omar Is the voice from the graves of Millions of Muslims murdered by US Military under leadership
of US politicians (purchased for pennies), and ordered by Israel.
@exiled off mainstreet
Interesting for me it's all known for several years, so I was about to say myself "same old, same old".
Then I read your comment and think to myself "well, contrary to my belief, obviously publishing this article
does make sense"
@Asagirian
Most of the european business and population do NOT agree with the yankee sanctions to Russia ( or to
Venezuela , or to Iran , Cuba .. ) . Nothing ideological , it is just that the EU has no oil , the EU needs
russian , iranian , venezuelan oil and gas , and the EU countries NEED to sell products to any country
willing to buy them . The abusive yankee pressure on the EU to santion any country that the US wants will
backfire .
"This rogue regime has no real legitimacy even as a representative of the American people. It doesn't
really represent the American public at all. It is destroying the world and lying through its teeth all
the while."
Words seem insufficient to describe the situation, don't they? What we're witnessing, apparently, is the
fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The Satanic cult known from the Book of Revelation as the "beast from the
sea" is attempting to rise to the top of the world by "giving worth to evil" (i.e. worshiping Satan). To put
it another way, the beast rises to the top by bringing everyone and everything else down.
Being relatively small in number, the Satanic cult operates primarily by deception, corruption and
manipulation. If the beast cannot get the people to destroy themselves, it resorts to mass murder, but the
end result is always destruction.
"Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's currently 585 billionaires are not in prison from
convictions by the International Court of Justice in the Hague."
Money has nothing to do with it (other than being another tool in the Satanists' tool box). They do what
they do because they're evil. Evil is both the means and the end. To put it in Biblical terms, the Satanists
seek to do to the whole world what Satan did to Eve. Only when whole world is brought down can evil claim
victory over good (as per the Satanic agenda set forth in Isaiah 14:13,14).
How can we have a meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing
about?
Excellent question, but the two, fascism and the various forms of big "C" Communism, are not necessarily
mutually exclusive even though fascism as often used today was intended as a catch-all smear word by the
Marxist cornballs a century ago.
In fact, Marxism, Bolshevism and Stalinism are can all be or become forms of fascism. Likewise, as Orwell
saw, there is no essential difference between various iterations of capitalism and the various forms of
communism that they oftentimes supported and promoted and still do.
Also, I highly doubt whether a meaningful debate regarding politics is possible whether or not
definitions are agreed upon.
[During the war]words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.
Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious
cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question,
inaptness to act on any.
– Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Chap X, ~400 BC
"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and
division of society."
– John Adams, letter to J. H. Tiffany, Mar. 31, 1819.
Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to
Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of
solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946
IOW, it's pretty much all bullsh!t. Reader and listener beware.
The gangster laughs in your face: "Whadda going to do about it, kid?". Answer is nothing can be done.
At
this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead
with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it?
The pattern actually goes back 121 years to the
Spanish-American war when the US smelled weakness and pounced. It's been on a roll ever since, sometimes
slowly, sometimes quickly. The barriers to the US having a completely free hand are Russia, China, Iran,
countries about which there's much heavy propaganda being thrown about. Their areas are limited though and
they can't help the Venezuelans or most of the others. The US has a huge budget for internal spying and
security to ensure that the people in charge stay that way so don't get optimistic. This supposed democracy
is rigged from start to finish. The US has been very efficient in brainwashing it's residents into thinking
it is all legit.
What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon
would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not
vast profits to be made?
Talk about sweet summaries; yours is masterful!
Anyone who doubts it would do well to read Fish's,
Tragic Deception,
FDR and America's involvement in World War II
@Stephen Paul Foster
This thread is uncommonly full of great comments and yours is another. Excellent.
This question [about the UN] is proof that the author needs psychiatric assistance.
And more than a brief stay in a reprogramming (anti-brainwashing) camp.
The UN was formed by the usual One World (globalist) crowd to serve their ends and theirs only. Anyone
who fails to see that needs to be questioned deeply, no matter how correct he or she is about other matters.
Like any other state America can't call 911 if it gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty
work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral imperatives
This is exactly right. The UN member nations are ready to replace the UN with an organization that can curb
criminal regimes like the US. This has been the case since the 80s.
Considering the terminal degeneracy of the criminal enterprise that runs the US, it's going to take a
war. Classified US policy is to use urban populations as human shields for the CIA COG autocracy. COIN
drills like Watertown are dry runs for CIA martial law during war with Russia.
The one hopeful sign is superior SCO missile technology, which allows kinetic warheads to be substituted
for nuclear ones. This permits regime decapitation by somewhat less destructive means. Most of you are still
going to die, of course. But Russia and China will leave some habitable zones for people they can trust.
Make sure you know human rights and humanitarian law,
and you can demonstrate a record of sticking up for them, and the postwar criminal tribunals will let you
reconstruct a peaceful and lawful American state.
It's a shame it's going to take a couple hundred million dead, mostly American, to stop the CIA regime,
but the world knows it's got to be done. If we're too chicken to storm Langley and hang those criminal
scumbags, we're going to have to pay.
This continuous harping on international law should be wearing thin even with you, Mr. Zuesse. The US
outspends the next 24 nations combined on arms, I understand. For the US might is right. Until you and those
who oppose US policy have an army that can break the US military might you have no hope.
You really need
to think this through and stop the empty posturing. The bird flipped to the International Court of Justice
by John Bolton for the third time apparently should teach you a lesson. Three strikes and you're out. Go
home.
"Elections are a fraud. You have seen what happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win.
Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square."
If elections are a fraud (which they obviously are) how can orange clown be said to have won "fair and
square"? It's a contradiction. The evil orange clown had to lie to win the election; he had to completely
misrepresent himself. What orange clown did was tantamount to stealing ballots/rigging voting machines.
Orange clown is nothing but Satanic low-life scum.
Also, how do you know Clinton was "the person they picked [to win]"? That's very speculative, IMO. A
solid argument can be made that orange clown was actually the chosen one.
"What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917?"
An evil idiot.
"What sort of buffoon would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the
same time, if there were not vast profits to be made?"
An evil buffoon.
"Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on
Venezula (sic) today, only make sense if you are Rothschild."
@Commentator Mike
Fascists, communist, liberal and conservative. Those terms don't have as much meaning as you might think. In
fact they are used as tools.
@Harold Smith
The Rothschild's are the Kings of the Jews. They have conquered the Bourbon, Habsburgs, the Hohenzollern,
the Romanovs. They have merged with the house of Windsor. They have been mercilessly harvesting the entire
planet for 200 years. They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against
Hindu's, Chirstians against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese
against Chinese, US Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews
harvest.
They also sent all of these groups to get slaves from each other in raids and wars to provide
human material from all the other races, except jewish, to sell on these jewish run slave markets. For
centuries.
They extracted blood and organs from the children of the victims for use in the kabalistic rituals.
America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2 against
Germany was based on devilish lies. So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over
the whole world and that he had killed millions of innocent people(which he hadn't) but then turned around
and helped the real murderers of millions of people which was the Soviet Union. And it goes on and on and
there will be more lies and more wars to follow.
@DESERT FOX
You can almost tell just how important the issue of private central banking is by the fact that you can't
get anyone to really explain it, or even talk about it. Right now I would settle for just knowing exactly
who owns it.
America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2
against Germany was based on devilish lies
All true.
So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over the whole world
When in fact it was a handful of mafiosi financial oligarchs, many based in New Yoik, who desired to
control the whole world via co-opted Marxist principles. One of their tools was the "holy" UN which the
author seems to think is some sort of Messiah. A Rockefeller "donated" the land for the UN Headquarters
building, and the UN was formed under the direction of Commies and their sympathizers associated with FDR.
I'm convinced that WW2 was instigated partly to begin imposing globalism on the rest of us, just as the
constitution of Uncle Shylock was rammed down our throats. All for the benefit of us lowly proles, peasants
and peons, of course.
I'm giving about 1.8 cheers for this piece. I agree with much of it, but I surely don't share the author's
enthusiasm for this International Court of Justice, not for the workings of the United Nations in general.
Give one of these international legal outfits any actual power in America, and "hate crime" laws? You
ain't seen nothin' yet. In much of the world, "anti-Semitism" (whatever that's construed to mean) is already
a criminal offense. Hell, leave it up to these international bodies, and the Unz Review goes dark -- and
quickly, too. No, thanks.
@Hank
The owners are the Rothschilds, the Rockerfellers. the Warburgs , the Schiffs, etc., all satanic zionists
and they control every central bank in the world including the FED and the Bank of England.
"They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against Hindu's, Chirstians
against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese against Chinese, US
Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews harvest."
The Satanists are small in number and generally cowardly so their general modus operandi is to get their
victims to destroy themselves. To put it in Biblical terms, their goal is to do to the whole world what
Satan did to Eve; they deceive, corrupt, manipulate and ultimately stand tall over the destruction they've
brought about. They're destroyers.
Speaking of the UN and war, Douglas Reed provides a lot of great info about the two; too much to summarize
here, but I offer a sample for the curious.
The Second War produced a third result, additional to the advance of the [Marxist permanent]
revolution into Europe and the establishment by force of the Zionist state: namely,
the second attempt
to set up the structure of a "world government", on the altar of which Western nationhood was to be
sacrificed.
This is the final consummation to which the parallel processes of Communism and Zionism
are evidently intended to lead; the idea first emerged in the Weishaupt papers, began to take vigorous
shape in the 19th Century, and was expounded in full detail in the Protocols of 1905. In the First War it
was the master-idea of all the ideas which Mr. House and his associates "oozed into the mind" of
President Wilson, and sought to make the president think were "his own". It then took shape, first as
"The League to Enforce Peace" and at the war's end as "The League of Nations".
Well yeah. The Anglo/Zionist Empire is an evil empire indeed. I've known that since serving under President
Johnson in the mid sixties.
The geniuses over at ZeroHedge will be surprised to learn about imperial aggression against Venezuela.
They believe the explanation for Venexuela's troubles is "Socialism doesn't work".
I'm a Nationalist. So I say screw your International Court of Justice. What the U.S. needs is a New
Republic complete with a new constitution. Failing that, secession will be the way forward.
"... They divide us with race, sex, and religion. If we came together all the working class people, from every race, you'd see the oligarchs true face. They'd innact martial law in a heartbeat, and run to their underground base in the Ozarks. That's the painful truth. ..."
"... That's why Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery that has evolved into a volunteer armed forces. We were nearly the verge of another civil war in this country. ..."
"... So Jimmy, once again, hit it out of the ballpark with this podcast on why the war hawks fear Tulsi ..."
"... She really scares the war hawks and just as importantly she scares the huge profits these war hawks and allied corporations (the parent company of GE which owns MSNBC makes turbine engines for the military) have made off these unnecessary and tragic wars since the 9/11 attacks. ..."
They divide us with race, sex, and religion. If we came together all the working class
people, from every race, you'd see the oligarchs true face. They'd innact martial law in a
heartbeat, and run to their underground base in the Ozarks. That's the painful
truth.
I served in Vietnam (31 May 1967 - 31 May 1968), so I'm approximately around the same age
as Phil. I told everyone I knew that if we invaded Iraq - this was during the lead-up in 2002
to vote on GWB's Iraq War resolution - having just a volunteer armed forces in the strategic
sense, let alone the invasion of Iraq would violate international covenants against illegal
wars of aggression - we would eventually have down the road a military blunder and a foreign
policy debacle that would rival the one we had in the Vietnam War.
If GWB had somehow
convinced the American people and the Congress to bring back the draft after the 9/11
attacks, I assure you we would have withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq long, long ago. But
the war hawks in Congress and the Pentagon love their private, (essentially) quasi-mercenary
volunteer armed forces after how badly they got burnt during the anti-war protests against
the Vietnam War.
That's why Richard Nixon replaced the draft with a lottery that has evolved
into a volunteer armed forces. We were nearly the verge of another civil war in this country.
So Jimmy, once again, hit it out of the ballpark with this podcast on why the war hawks fear Tulsi. Remember they can't smear her based on the fact that she was an officer who did two
tours of duty in the war zone, so they try to smear her because she is supposedly a puppet of
Putin, that is, a fifth columnist or fellow traveler as they did during the Red Scare in the
McCarthy era. I would definitely vote for her as a fellow war veteran for president, but she
has a very hard road to travel to win the nomination.
She really scares the war hawks and
just as importantly she scares the huge profits these war hawks and allied corporations (the
parent company of GE which owns MSNBC makes turbine engines for the military) have made off
these unnecessary and tragic wars since the 9/11 attacks.
"... Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations. ..."
"... The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to slaughter people who do not obey. ..."
Venezuela invasion thing is double-faceted: a trap for Trump & a bluff. if the
invasion is, then bye-bye 2020 election, mission accomplished. if no invasion on sight then
the bluff of Pompeo-Bolton-Abrams is called & the 2020 reelection assured. Venezuela in
the role of bait.
The real issue lies in the voting class which cowers in fear all day long and
seeks saviors every four years via rigged circus. Trump = Obama = CIA meddling in every
country. Presidents never change, only the perception of the morons changes.
Why does the USA care about internal Venezuelan politics? Because it cares about every
country's politics and demands every country bow down and kneel to the USA. The voters, aka
morons, support this, both liberal and right wing, and have for generations.
The morons pay their taxes to meddle in other countries and for a giant military to
slaughter people who do not obey. Freedom at the point of a gun. Nothing quite says
democracy like having the US president tell the Venezuelans how to run their country.
BRAVO OMAR ..2 nd time in my life I have seen balls in congress.
Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan
Omar
Watch the video at link
"Mr. Abrams, in 1991 you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from
Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later
pardoned by president George H.W. Bush," began Omar. "I fail to understand why members of
this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be
truthful."
"If I could respond to that " interjected Abrams.
"It was not a question," shot back Omar.
After a brief exchange in which Abrams protested "It was not right!" Omar cut Abrams off,
saying "Thank you for your participation."
BRAVO OMAR ..2 nd time in my life I have seen balls in congress.
Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan
Omar
Watch the video at link
"Mr. Abrams, in 1991 you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from
Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later
pardoned by president George H.W. Bush," began Omar. "I fail to understand why members of
this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be
truthful."
"If I could respond to that " interjected Abrams.
"It was not a question," shot back Omar.
After a brief exchange in which Abrams protested "It was not right!" Omar cut Abrams off,
saying "Thank you for your participation."
"... You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. ..."
"... Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means. ..."
"... Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI, and within the entire Democrat Party. ..."
"... Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western world. ..."
"... Stephen Cohen discusses how rational viewpoints are banned from the mainstream media, and how several features of US life today resemble some of the worst features of the Soviet system. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/12/stephen-cohen-on-war-with-russia-and-soviet-style-censorship-in-the-us/ ..."
"... The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly 4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course. ..."
"... Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically justified by its diabolical policies. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their Government Lackeys. ..."
"... It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it to be so ..."
"... If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation, propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention. ..."
"... See also this primer on Mueller's MO. ..."
"... The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to increase military spending; and more, more, more war. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished. a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians. ..."
"... At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already brainwashed population? ..."
"... The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. ..."
"... Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others, the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry. ..."
For more than two years U.S. politicians, the media and some bloggers hyped a conspiracy theory. They claimed that Russia had
somehow colluded with the Trump campaign to get him elected.
An obviously fake 'Dirty Dossier' about Trump, commissioned by the Clinton campaign, was presented as evidence. Regular business
contacts between Trump flunkies and people in Ukraine or Russia were claimed to be proof for nefarious deals. A Russian
click-bait company was accused of manipulating the U.S. electorate by posting puppy pictures and crazy memes on social media.
Huge investigations were launched. Every rumor or irrelevant detail coming from them was declared to be - finally - the evidence
that would put Trump into the slammer. Every month the walls were closing in on Trump.
Finally the conspiracy theory has run out of steam. Russiagate
is finished :
After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016
election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats
and Republicans on the committee.
...
Democrats and other Trump opponents have long believed that special counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional investigators would
unearth new and more explosive evidence of Trump campaign coordination with Russians. Mueller may yet do so, although Justice
Department and Congressional sources say they believe that he, too, is close to wrapping up his investigation.
Nothing, zero, nada was found to support the conspiracy theory. The Trump campaign did not collude with Russia. A few flunkies
were indicted for unrelated tax issues and for lying to the investigators about some minor details. But nothing at all supports the
dramatic claims of collusion made since the beginning of the affair.
In a recent statement House leader Nancy Pelosi was reduced
to accuse Trump campaign officials of doing their job:
"The indictment of Roger Stone makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to
influence the 2016 election and subvert the will of the American people. ...
No one called her out for spouting such nonsense.
Russiagate created a lot of damage.
The alleged Russian influence campaign that never happened was used to
install censorship on social media. It was used
to undermine the election of progressive Democrats. The weapon salesmen used it to push for more NATO aggression against Russia.
Maria Butina, an innocent Russian woman interested in good relation with the United States, was
held in solitary confinement
(recommended) until she signed a paper which claims that she was involved in a conspiracy.
In a just world the people who for more then two years hyped the conspiracy theory and caused so much damage would be pushed out
of their public positions. Unfortunately that is not going to happen. They will jump onto the next conspiracy train continue from
there.
Posted by b on February 12, 2019 at 01:38 PM |
Permalink
Comments next
page " Legally, Maria Butina was suborned into signing a false declaration. If there were the rule of law, such party or
parties that suborned her would be in gaol. Considering Mueller's involvement with Lockerbie, I am not holding my breath. FWIW the
Swiss company that made the timers allegedly involved in Lockerbie have some
comments of its own .
I will be really glad when this 'get Russia' craziness is over, but I suspect even if the Mueller investigation has nothing,
all the same creeps will be pulling out the stops to generate something... Skripal, Integrity Initiative, and etc. etc. stuff
like this just doesn't go away overnight or with the end of this 'investigation'... folks are looking for red meat i tell ya!
as for Maria Butina - i look forward to reading the article.. that was a travesty of justice but the machine moves on, mowing
down anyone in it's way... she was on the receiving end of all the paranoia that i have come to associate with the western msm
at this point...
Hillary's loss is actually best explained as her throwing the election to Trump . The Deep State wanted a nationalist
to win as that would best help meet the challenge from Russia and China - a challenge that they had been slow to recognize.
= ... to smear Wikileaks as a Russian agent
The DNC leak is best explained as a CIA false flag.
= ... to remove and smear Michael Flynn
Trump said that he fired Flynn for lying to VP Pence but Flynn's conversations with the Russian Ambassador after Obama threw
them out for "meddling" in the US election was an embarrassment to the Administration as Putin's Putin's decision not to respond
was portrayed as favoritism toward the Trump Administration.
You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in
the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. This is typical behavior for conspiracy
theorists.
I hope that Russiagate is indeed "finished", but I think it needs to be draped with garlic-clove necklaces, shot up with silver
bullets, sprinkled with holy water, and a wooden stake driven through its black heart just to make sure.
I don't dispute the logical argument B. presents, but it may be too dispassionately rational. I know that the Russiagate
proponents and enthralled supporters of the concept are too invested psychologically in this surrealistic fantasy to let go, even
if the official outcome reluctantly admits that there's no "there" there.
The Democratic Party, one of the major partners mounting the Russophobic psy-op, has already resolved to turn Democratic committee
chairmen loose to dog the Trump administration with hearings aggressively flogging any and all matters that discredit and undermine
Trump-- his business connections, social liaisons, etc.
They may hope to find the Holy Grail: the elusive "bombshell" that "demands" impeachment, i.e., some crime or illicit conduct
so heinous that the public will stand for another farcical impeachment proceeding. But I reckon that the Dems prefer the "soft"
impeachment of harassing Trump with hostile hearings in hopes of destroying his 2020 electability with the death of a thousand
innuendoes and guilt-by-association.
Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt
to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate
the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means.
Put more succinctly, I fear that Russiagate won't be finished until Rachel Maddow says it's finished. ;)
Once a hypothesis is fixed in people's minds, whether true or not, it's hard to get them to let go of it. And let's not forget
how many times the narrative changed (and this is true in the Skripal case as well), with all past facts vanishing to accommodate
a new narrative.
So I, like others, expect the fake scandal to continue while many, many other real crimes (the US attempted
coup in Venezuela and the genocidal war in Yemen, for instance) continue unabated.
Putin solicits public input for essential national
policy goals . If ever there was a template to follow for an actual MAGAgenda, Putin's Russia provides one. While US politicos
argue over what is essentially Bantha Pudu, Russians are hard at work improving their nation which includes restructuring their
economy.
Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI,
and within the entire Democrat Party.
I very much doubt it it is over. Trump is corrupt and has links to corrupt Russians. Collusion, maybe not, but several
stinking individuals are in the frame for, guess what - ...bring it on... The fact that Hilary was arguably even worse (a point
made ad-nauseum on here) is frankly irrelevant. The vilification of Trump will not affect the warmongers efforts. He is a useful
idiot
for a take on the alternative reality some are living in
emptywheel has an article up on the nbc link b provides and the article on butina is discussed in the comments section...
as i said - they are looking for red meat and will not be happy until they get some... they are completely zonkers...
Blooming Barricade , Feb 12, 2019 2:55:18 PM |
link
Now that this racket has been admitted as such, I expect all of the media outlets that devoted banner headlines, hundreds of thousands
of hours of cable TV time, thousands of trees, and free speech online to immediately fire all of their journalists and appoint
Glenn Greenwald as the publisher of the New York Times, Michael Tracey at the Post, Aaron Matte at the Guardian, and Max Blumenthal
at the Daily Beast.
Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this
to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity
Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western
world.
The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly
4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most
of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course.
Then of course Russia has to be surrounded by NATO should they try and take over Europe by surging through the Fulda gap./s
Then of course there are the professional pundits who have built careers on anti Russian propaganda, Rachel Maddow for instance
who earns 30,000$ per day to spew anti Russian nonsense.
Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically
justified by its diabolical policies.
I'm sorry b is so down on Conspiracy Theories, since they reveal quite real staged homicidal false flag operations of US power.
Feeding into the stigmatizing of the truth about reality is not in the interests of the earth's people.
somehow I see this "revelation: tied to Barr's approaching tenure. I think they (FBI/DOJ) didn't want his involvement in their
noodle soup of an investigation and the best way to accomplish that was to end it themselves. I also suspect that a deal has been
made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone.
So we will see no investigation of Hillary, her 650,000
emails or the many crimes they detailed (according to NYPD investigation of Weiner's laptop) and the US will continue to be at
war all day, every day. Team Swamp rules.
Meanwhile, MSM is prepping its readers for the possibility that the Mueller report will never be released to us proles. If that's
the case, I'm sure nobody will try to use innuendo to suggest it actually contains explosive revelations after all...
Harry, its vitally important as the US desperately wants to keep Europe under its thumb and to stop this European army which
means Europe lead by Paris and Berlin becomes a world power. Trump's attempts to make nice with Russia is to keep it out of the
EU bloc.
Well, the liberal conspiracy car crash ensured downmarket Mussolini a second term, it appears...Hard Brexit Tories also look likely
to win thanks to centrist sabatoge of the left. You reap what you sow, corporate presstitutes!
Sane people have predicted the end of Russiagate almost as many times as insane people have predicted that the "smoking gun that
will get rid of Trump" has been found. And yet the Mighty Wurlitzer grinds on, while social media is more and more censored.
I expect it all to continue until the 2020 election circus winds up into full-throated mode, and no one talks about anything but
the next puppet to be appointed. Oops, I mean "elected".
You also need to behead the corpse, stuff the mouth with a lemon and then place the head down in the coffin with the body in
supine (facing up) position. Weight the coffin with stones and wild roses and toss it into a fast-flowing river.
Russiagate won't be finished until a wall is built around Capitol Hill and all its inhabitants and worker bees declared insane
by a properly functioning court of law.
I also suspect that a deal has been made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone. So we will see no
investigation of Hillary ...
Underlying your perspective is the assumption that USA is a democracy where a populist "outsider" could be elected President,
Yet you also believe that Hillary and the Deep State have the power to manipulate government and the intelligence agencies and
propose a "conspiracy theory" based on that power.
Isn't it more likely that Trump made it clear (behind closed doors, of course) that he was amenable to the goals of the Deep
State and that the bogus investigation was merely done to: 1) cover their own election meddling; 2) eliminate threats like Flynn
and Assange/Wikileaks; 3) anti-Russian propaganda?
Dowd, Trump's former lawyer on Russiagate stated there may not even be a report. If this is the case then the Zionist rulers have
gotten to Mueller who no doubt figured out that the election collusion breadcrumbs don't lead to Putin, they lead to Netanyahu
and Zionist billionaire friends! So Mueller may have to come up with a nothing burger to hide the truth.
B is the only alternative media blogger I've followed for a significant amount of time without becoming disenfranchised. Not because
he has no blind spot - his is just one I can deal with... optimism.
I will believe Russiagate is finished when expelled Russian staff gets back, when the US returns the seized Russian properties,
when the consulate is Seattle reopens and when USA issues formal apology to Russia.
Posted by: hopehely | Feb 12, 2019 5:14:49 PM |
link
Nobody has ever advanced the tiniest shred of credible evidence that 'Russia' or its government at any level was in any way implicated
either in Wikileaks' acquisition of the DNC and Podesta emails or in any form of interference with the Presidential election.
This has been going on for three years and not once has anything like evidence surfaced.
On the other hand there has been an abundance of evidence that those alleging Russian involvement consistently refused to listen
to explore the facts.
Incredibly, the DNC computers were never examined by the FBI or any other agency resembling an official police agency. Instead
the notorious Crowdstrike professionally russophobic and caught red handed faking data for the Ukrainians against Russia were
commissioned to produce a 'report.'
Nobody with any sense would have credited anything about Russiagate after that happened.
Thgen there was the proof, from VIPS and Bill Binney (?) that the computers were not hacked at all but that the information
was taken by thumbdrive. A theory which not only Wikileaks but several witnesses have offered to prove.
Not one of them has been contacted by the FBI, Mueller or anyone else "investigating."
In reality the charges from the first were ludicrous on their face. There is, as b has proved and every new day's news attests,
not the slightest reason why anyone in the Russian government should have preferred Trump over Clinton. And that is saying something
because they are pretty well indistinguishable. And neither has the morals or brains of an adolescent groundhog.
Russiagate is over, alright, The Nothingburger is empty. But that means nothing in this 'civilisation': it will be recorded
in the history books, still to be written, by historians still in diapers, that "The 2016 Presidential election, which ended in
the controversial defeat of Hillary Clinton, was heavily influenced by Russian agents who hacked ..etc etc"
What will not be remembered is that every single email released was authentic. And that within those troves of correspondence
there was enough evidence of criminality by Clinton and her campaign to fill a prison camp.
Another thing that will not be recalled is that there was once a young enthusiastic man, working for the DNC, who was mugged
one evening after work and killed.
The 'no collusion' result will only spur the 'beginning of the end' baboons to shout even more, they'll never stop until they
die in their beds or the plebs of the Republic made them adore the street lamp posts, you'll see. The former is by far more likely,
the unwashed of American have never had a penchant for foreign affairs except for the few spasms like Vietnam.
There was collusion alright but the only Russians who helped Trump get elected and were in on the collusion are citizens of ISRAEL
FIRST, likewise for the American billionaires who put Trump in the power perch. ISRAEL FIRST.
That's why Trump is on giant billboards in Israel shaking hands with the Yahoo. Trump is higher in the polls in Israel than
in the U.S. If it weren't that the Zionist upper crust need Trump doing their dirty work in America, like trying today get rid
of Rep. Omar Ilhan, then Trump would win the elections in Ziolandia or Ziostan by a landslide cause he's been better for the Joowish
state than all preceding Presidents put together. Mazel tov to them bullshet for the rest of us servile mass in the vassal West
and Palestinians the most shafted class ever. Down with Venezuela and Iran, up with oil and gas. The billionare shysters' and
Trump's payola is getting closer. Onward AZ Empire!
He proved himself so easy to troll during the election. It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all
along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate.
At least Germany has the good sense not to throw taxpayer money at the F-35.
German F-35 decision sacrifices NATO capability for Franco-German industrial cooperation I don't know what they have
in mind with a proposed airplane purchase. If they need fighters, buy or lease Sweden's Gripen. If attack airplanes are what they're
after, go to Boeing and get some brand new F-15X models. If the prickly French are agreeable to build a 6th generation aircraft,
that would be worth a try.
Regarding Rachel Maddow, I recently had an encounter with a relative who told me 1) I visited too many oddball sites and 2)
he considered Rachel M. to be the most reliable news person in existence. I think we're talking "true believer" here. :)
It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate
they could manipulate.
Considering how those "intelligence agencies" are hard pressed to find their own tails, even if you allow them to use both
hands, it would surprise me.
That Trump would turn out to be a tub of jello in more than just a physical way has been a surprise to an awful lot of us.
Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting
peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their
Government Lackeys.
It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made
that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do
it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it
to be so
Allowed the bipartisan support for the clamp down on alt media with censorship by social media (Deep State Tools) and funded
by the Ministry of Truth set up by Obama in his last days in office to under the false pretense of protecting us from foreign
governments interference in elections (except Israel of course) . Similar agencies have been set up or planned to be in other
countries followig the US example such as UK, France, Russia, etc.
Did anyone really expect Mr "Cover It Up " Mueller to find anything? Mueller is Deep State all the way and Trump is as well,
not withstanding the "Fake Wrestling " drama that they are bitter enemies. All the surveillance done over the past 2-3 decades
would have so much dirt on the Trumpet they could silence him forever . Trump knew that going in and I sometimes wonder if he
was pressured to run as a condition to avoid prosecution. Pretty sure every President since Carter has been "Kompromat"
If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO
Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation,
propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.
Russians and likely at the behest of the Russian state interfered and it was fair payback for Yeltsin's election. It is time to
move on but not in feigned ignorance of what was done. Was it "outcome" affecting, possibly, but not clearly and if the US electoral
college and electoral system generally is so decrepit that a second level power in the world can influence then its the US's fault.
It's not like the 2000 election wasn't a warning shot about the rottenness of system and a system that doesn't understand a
warning shot deserves pretty much what it gets. But there's enough non-hype evidence of acts and intent to say yes, the Russians
tried and may have succeeded. They certainly are acting guilty enough. but still close the book move and move on to Trump's 'real'
crimes which were done without a Russian assist.
I seem to recall former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray saying that it was not a hack and that he had been handed
a thumb drive in a field near American University by a disgruntled Democrat whistleblower. Further, I seem to recall William Binney,
former NSA Technical Leader for intelligence, conducting an experiment to show that internet speeds at the time would not allow
the information to be hacked - they knew the size of the files and the period over which they were downloaded. Plus, Seth Rich.
So why does anyone even believe it was a hack, @32 THN?
Just another comment re Mueller. There is a great documentary by (Dutch, not Israeli---different person) Gideon Levy, Lockerbie
Revisited. The narration is in Dutch, but the interviews are in English, and there is a small segment of a German broadcast. The
documentary ends abruptly where one set of FBI personnel contradict statements by another set of FBI personnel. See also
this primer on Mueller's MO.
reply to Les 42
"It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they
could manipulate."
Not the intelligence agencies, the Military IMO. They knew HC for what she was; horrifically corrupt and,again IMO,they know
she is insane.
They saw and I think still see Trump as someone they could work with, remember Rogers (Navy) of the NSA going to him immediately
once he was elected? That was the Military protecting him as best they could.
They IMO have kept him alive and as long as he doesn't send any troops into "real" wars, they will keep on keeping him alive.
This doesn't mean Trump hasn't gone over to the Dark Side, just that no military action will take place that the military command
doesn't fully support.
Again, I could be wrong, he could be backed by fiends from Patagonia for all I really know:)
The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the
democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to
increase military spending; and more, more, more war.
Boy, I hope Jackrabbit sees this. Everyone knows I believe Trump is the anointed chosen of the Zionist 1%. There was no Russia
collusion; it was Zionist collusion with a Russian twist...
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention the latest. Trump is asking Kim to provide a list of his nuclear scientists! Before Kim acts on this
request, he should call up the Iranian government for advise 'cause they have lots of experience and can warn Kim of what will
happen to each of those scientists. They'll be put on a kill-list and will be extrajudicially wacked as in executed. Can you believe
the chutzpah? Trump must think Kim is really stupid to fall for that one!
Aye! The thought of six more years of Zionist pandering Trump. Barf-inducing prospect is too tame.
The view from the hermitage is, we are in the age of distractions. Russiagate will be replaced with one of a litany of distractions,
purely designed to keep us off target. The target being, corruption, vote rigging, illegal wars, war crimes, overthrowing sovereign
governments, and political assasinations, both at home and abroad. Those so distracted, will focus on sillyness; not the genuine
danger afoot around the planet. Get used to it; it's become the new normal.
@76Hw
I have yet to read anything more delusional, nay, utterly preposterous. Methinks you over-project too much. Even Trump would have
a belly-ache laugh reading that sheeple spiel. You're the type that sees the giant billboard of Zionist Trump and Yahoo shaking
hands and drones on and on that our lying eyes deceive us and it's really Trump playing 4-D chess. I suppose when he tried to
pressure Omar Ilhan into resigning her seat in Congress yesterday, that too was reverse psychology?
Trump instagramed the billboard pic, he tweeted it, he probably pasted it on his wall; maybe with your kind of wacky, Trump
infatuation, you should too!
Russiagate is finished because Mueller discovered an embarrassing fact: The collusion was and always will be with Israel. Here's
Trump professing his endless love for Zionism:
Trump Resign
Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished.
a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the
lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians.
Most designs of armed nation states provide the designers with information feedback and the designers use that information
to appoint more obedient politicians and generals to run things, and to improve the design to better serve the designers. The
armed rule making structure is designed to give the designers complete control over those targeted to be the governed. Why so
stupid the governed? ; always they allow themselves to be manipulated like sheep.
When 10 angry folks approach you with two pieces of ropes: one to throw over the tree branch under which your horse will be
supporting you while they tie the noose around your neck and the other shorter piece of rope to tie your hands behind ..your back
you need at that point to make your words count , if five of the people are black and five are white. all you need do is
say how smart the blacks are, and how stupid the whites are, as the two groups fight each other you manage your escape. democrat
vs republican= divide to conquer. gun, no gun = divide to conquer, HRC vs DJT = divide to conquer, abortion, no abortion = divide
to conquer, Trump is a Russian planted in a high level USA position of power = divide to conquer, They were all in on it together,,
Muller was in the white house to keep the media supplied with XXX, to keep the law enforcement agencies in the loop, and to advise
trump so things would not get out of hand ( its called Manipulation and the adherents to the economic system called Zionism
For the record, Zionism is not related to race, religion or intelligence. Zionism is a system of economics that take's no captives,
its adherents must own everything, must destroy and decimate all actual or imaginary competition, for Zionist are the owners and
masters of everything? Zionism is about power, absolute power, monopoly ownership and using governments everywhere to abuse the
governed. Zionism has many adherents, whites, blacks, browns, Christians, Jews, Islamist, Indians, you name it among each class
of person and walk of life can be found persons who subscribe to the idea that they, and only they, should own everything, and
when those of us, that are content to be the governed let them, before the kill and murder us, they usually end up owning everything.
1. why the Joint non nuclear agreement with Iran and the other nuclear power nations, that prevented Iran from developing nuclear
weapons, was trashed? Someone needs to be able to say Iran is developing ..., at the right time.
2. Why Netanyohu made public a video that claimed Iran was developing nuclear stuff in violation of the Iran non nuclear agreement,
and everybody laughed,
3. Why the nuclear non proliferation agreement with Russia, that terminated the costly useless arms race a decade ago, has
been recently terminated, to reestablish the nuclear arms race, no apparent reason was given the implication might be Russia could
be a target, but
4. why it might make sense to give nukes to Saudi Arabia or some other rogue nation, and
5. why no one is allowed to have nuclear weapons except the Zionist owned and controlled nation states.
Statement: Zionism is an economic system that requires the elimination of all competition of whatever kind. It is a winner
get's all, takes no prisoners, targets all who would threaten or be a challenge or a threat; does not matter if the threat is
in in oil and gas, technology or weapons as soon as a possibility exist, the principles of Zionism would require that it be taken
out, decimated, and destroyed and made where never again it could even remotely be a threat to the Empire, that Zionism demands..
Hypothesis: A claim that another is developing nuclear weapon capabilities is sufficient to take that other out?
I am glad that most commenters understand that Russiagate will not go away. But the majority appear to miss the real reason. Russiagate
is not an accusation, it is the state of mind.
At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on
decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already
brainwashed population?
The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away
from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. Of course, the most ironic in the affair is that it is the so called
US "intellectuals", academics and other assorted cretins who are the most fervent proponents. If you were wondering how Russia
can make such amazing defensive weapons that US can only deny exist and wet dream of having, there is your answer. It is the state
of mind. The whole of US establishment are legends in their on lunch time and totally delusional about the reality surrounding
them - both Russiagate and MAGA cretins, no report can help the Russiagate nation.
Finally, I am thinking of that crazy and ugly professor bitch from the British Cambridge University who gives her lectures
naked to protest something or other. I am so lucky that I do not have to go to a Western university ever again. What a catastrophic
decline! No Brexit can help the Skripal nation.
Russiagate is finished, but is DJT also among the rubble?
Hardly any money for the border wall and still lingering in the ME?
If Hoarsewhisperer proves to be correct above re: DJT, he will really have to knock our socks off before election 2020. To
do this he will have to unequivocally and unceremoniously withdraw from the MENA and Afghanistan and possibly declare a National
Emergency for more money for the wall.
The problem is, when he does this, he will look impulsively dangerous and this may harm his mystique to the lemmings who need
a president to be more "presidential."
My money is on status quo all the way to 2020 and the rethugz hoping the Dems will eat their own in an orgy of warring identities.
The collusion story may be faltering, but the blame for Russia poisoning the Skripals lives on. The other night on The News Hour,
"Judy" led off the program with this: "It has been almost a year since Kremlin intelligence officers attempted to kill a Russian
defector in the British city of Salisbury by poisoning him with a nerve agent. That attack, and the subsequent death of a British
woman, scared away tourists and shoppers, but authorities and residents are working to get the town's economy back on track. Special
correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports."
Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others,
the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry
of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry.
Here is one recent example. You know the measles outbreak in the US Pacific Northwest. Yup, the Russians. How do we know.
A government funded research grant. The study found that 899 tweets caused people to doubt vaccines. Looks like money is
to be had even by academics for the right results.
"... So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under. ..."
"... Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly). ..."
"... Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela. ..."
"... And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. ..."
Maybe Donald Trump isn't as stupid as I thought. I'd hate to have to admit that publicly,
but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time.
Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn't help but notice a significant decline in the
number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and "
the brink of fascism " that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton
lost the election.
I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn't find a single
editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the U.S. Constitution, dissolve
Congress, and
proclaim himself Führer . Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz , or any other Nazi
stuff which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria
has been a standard feature of the official narrative we've been subjected to for the last two
years.
So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He
did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the
bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist
empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live
under.
I'm referring, of course, to Venezuela, which is one of a handful of uncooperative countries
that are not playing ball with global capitalism and which haven't been "regime changed" yet.
Trump green-lit the attempted coup purportedly being staged by the Venezuelan "opposition," but
which is obviously a U.S. operation, or, rather, a global capitalist operation. As soon as he
did, the corporate media immediately suspended calling him a fascist, and comparing him to
Adolf Hitler, and so on, and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to
overthrow the elected government of a sovereign country.
Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing
their gold, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist "international
community" is not exactly what most folks thought Trump meant by "Make America Great Again."
Many Americans have never been to Venezuela, or Syria, or anywhere else the global capitalist
empire has been ruthlessly restructuring since shortly after the end of the Cold War. They have
not been lying awake at night worrying about Venezuelan democracy, or Syrian democracy, or
Ukrainian democracy.
This is not because Americans are a heartless people, or an ignorant or a selfish people. It
is because, well, it is because they are Americans (or, rather, because they believe they are
Americans), and thus are more interested in the problems of Americans than in the problems of
people in faraway lands that have nothing whatsoever to do with America. Notwithstanding what
the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous,
self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were
brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he
sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was
supposed to mean, exactly).
Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a
fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less
buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever.
What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a
decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national
governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces,
media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in
Venezuela.
The entire global capitalist empire is working in concert to force the elected president of
the country out of office. The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark,
Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have officially recognized
Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that no one elected
him. Only the empire's official evil enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other
uncooperative countries) are objecting to this "democratic" coup. The global financial system
(i.e., banks) has frozen (i.e., stolen) Venezuela's assets, and is attempting to transfer them
to Guaido so he can buy the Venezuelan military. The corporate media are hammering out the
official narrative like a Goebbelsian piano in an effort to convince the general public that
all this has something to do with democracy. You would have to be a total moron or hopelessly
brainwashed not to recognize what is happening.
What is happening has nothing to do with America the "America" that Americans believe they
live in and that many of them want to "make great again." What is happening is exactly what has
been happening around the world since the end of the Cold War, albeit most dramatically in the
Middle East. The de facto global capitalist empire is restructuring the planet with virtual
impunity. It is methodically eliminating any and all impediments to the hegemony of global
capitalism, and the privatization and commodification of everything.
Venezuela is one of these impediments. Overthrowing its government has nothing to do with
America, or the lives of actual Americans. "America" is not to going conquer Venezuela and
plant an American flag on its soil. "America" is not going to steal its oil, ship it "home,"
and parcel it out to "Americans" in their pickups in the parking lot of Walmart.
What what about those American oil corporations? They want that Venezuelan oil, don't they?
Well, sure they do, but here's the thing there are no "American" oil corporations.
Corporations, especially multi-billion dollar transnational corporations (e.g., Chevron,
ExxonMobil, et al.) have no nationalities, nor any real allegiances, other than to their major
shareholders. Chevron, for example, whose major shareholders are asset management and mutual
fund companies like Black Rock, The Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, Geode Capital
Management, Wellington Management, and other transnational, multi-trillion dollar outfits. Do
you really believe that being nominally headquartered in Boston or New York makes these
companies "American," or that Deutsche Bank is a "German" bank, or that BP is a "British"
company?
And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. Ask yourself,
honestly, what have the "American" regime change ops throughout the Greater Middle East done
for any actual Americans, other than get a lot of them killed? Oh, and how about those bailouts
for all those transnational "American" investment banks? Or the billions "America" provides to
Israel? Someone please explain how enriching the shareholders of transnational corporations
like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin by selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabian
Islamists is benefiting "the American people." How much of that Saudi money are you seeing?
And, wait, I've got another one for you. Call up your friendly 401K manager, ask how your
Pfizer shares are doing, then compare that to what you're paying some "American" insurance
corporation to not really cover you.
For the last two-hundred years or so, we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as the
citizens of a collection of sovereign nation states, as "Americans," "Germans," "Greeks," and
so on. There are no more sovereign nation states. Global capitalism has done away with them.
Which is why we are experiencing a "neo-nationalist" backlash. Trump, Brexit, the so-called
"new populism" these are the death throes of national sovereignty, like the thrashing of a
suffocating fish before you whack it and drop it in the cooler. The battle is over, but the
fish doesn't know that. It didn't even realize there was a battle until it suddenly got jerked
up out of the water.
In any event, here we are, at the advent of the global capitalist empire. We are not going
back to the 19th Century, nor even to the early 20th Century. Neither Donald Trump nor anyone
else is going to "Make America Great Again." Global capitalism will continue to remake the
world into one gigantic marketplace where we work ourselves to death at bullshit
jobs in order to buy things we don't need, accumulating debts we can never pay back, the
interest on which will further enrich the global capitalist ruling classes, who, as you may
have noticed, are preparing for the future by purchasing luxury
underground bunkers and post-apocalyptic compounds in New Zealand. That, and militarizing
the police, who they will need to maintain "public order" you know, like they are doing in
France at the moment, by
beating, blinding, and hideously maiming those Gilets Jaunes (i.e., Yellow Vest) protesters
that the corporate media are doing their best to demonize and/or render invisible.
Or, who knows, Americans (and other Western consumers) might take a page from those Yellow
Vests, set aside their political differences (or at least ignore their hatred of each other
long enough to actually try to achieve something), and focus their anger at the politicians and
corporations that actually run the empire, as opposed to, you know, illegal immigrants and
imaginary legions of Nazis and Russians. In the immortal words of General Buck Turgidson, "I'm
not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed," but, heck, it might be worth a try, especially
since, the way things are going, we are probably going end up out there anyway.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
"... Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the parameters of the debate." ..."
"... "When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media." ..."
"... "And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though they haven't been convicted of anything." ..."
"... "That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said – I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that." ..."
"... Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.. ..."
Cohen has largely been banished from mainstream media.
"I had been arguing for years -- very much against the American political media grain --
that a new US/Russian Cold War was unfolding -- driven primarily by politics in Washington, not
Moscow," Cohen writes in War with Russia. "For this perspective, I had been largely
excluded from influential print, broadcast and cable outlets where I had been previously
welcomed."
On the stage at Busboys and Poets with Cohen was Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of
The Nation magazine, and Robert Borosage, co-founder of the Campaign for America's
Future.
Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship
imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union.
"Until some period of time before Trump, on the question of what America's policy toward
Putin's Kremlin should be, there was a reasonable facsimile of a debate on those venues that
had these discussions," Cohen said. "Are we allowed to mention the former Charlie Rose for
example? On the long interview form, Charlie would have on a person who would argue for a very
hard policy toward Putin. And then somebody like myself who thought it wasn't a good idea."
"Occasionally that got on CNN too. MSNBC not so much. And you could get an op-ed piece
published, with effort, in the New York Times or Washington Post ."
"Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times six or
seven years ago. But then it stopped. And to me, that's the fundamental difference between this
Cold War and the preceding Cold War."
"I will tell you off the record – no, I'm not going to do it," Cohen said. "Two
exceedingly imminent Americans, who most op-ed pages would die to get a piece by, just to say
they were on the page, submitted such articles to the New York Times , and they were
rejected the same day. They didn't even debate it. They didn't even come back and say –
could you tone it down? They just didn't want it."
"Now is that censorship? In Italy, where each political party has its own newspaper, you
would say – okay fair enough. I will go to a newspaper that wants me. But here, we are
used to these newspapers."
"Remember how it works. I was in TV for 18 years being paid by CBS. So, I know how these
things work. TV doesn't generate its own news anymore. Their actual reporting has been
de-budgeted. They do video versions of what is in the newspapers."
"Look at the cable talk shows. You see it in the New York Times and Washington
Post in the morning, you turn on the TV at night and there is the video version. That's
just the way the news business works now."
"The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate
these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in
these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have
been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the
parameters of the debate."
"If you are not, then you struggle to create your own alternative media. It's new in my
lifetime. I know these imminent Americans I mentioned were shocked when they were just told no.
It's a lockdown. And it is a form of censorship."
"When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident
voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes
they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media."
"Dissidents created what is known as samizdat – that's typescript that you circulate
by hand. Gorbachev, before he came to power, did read some samizdat. But it's no match for
newspapers published with five, six, seven million copies a day. Or the three television
networks which were the only television networks Soviet citizens had access to."
"And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some
other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like
keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though
they haven't been convicted of anything."
"That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said
– I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are
doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that."
Cohen appears periodically on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News. And that rankled one person
in the audience at Busboys and Poets, who said he worried that Cohen's perspective on Russia
can be "appropriated by the right."
"Trump can take that and run on a nationalistic platform – to hell with NATO, to
hell with fighting these endless wars, to do what he did in 2016 and get the votes of people
who are very concerned about the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia," the
man said.
Cohen says that on a personal level, he likes Tucker Carlson "and I don't find him to be a
racist or a nationalist."
"Nationalism is on the rise around the world everywhere," Cohen said. "There are
different kinds of nationalism. We always called it patriotism in this country, but we have
always been a nationalistic country."
"Fox has about three to four million viewers at that hour," Cohen said. "If I am not
permitted to give my take on American/Russian relations on any other mass media, and by the
way, possibly talk directly to Trump, who seems to like his show, and say – Trump is
making a mistake, he should do this or do that instead -- I don't get many opportunities
– and I can't see why I shouldn't do it."
"I get three and a half to four minutes," Cohen said. "I don't see it as consistent with my
mission, if that's the right word, to say no. These articles I write for The Nation ,
which ended up in my book, are posted on some of the most God awful websites in the world. I
had to look them up to find out how bad they really are. But what can I do about it?"
"... You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. ..."
"... Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means. ..."
"... Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI, and within the entire Democrat Party. ..."
"... Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western world. ..."
"... Stephen Cohen discusses how rational viewpoints are banned from the mainstream media, and how several features of US life today resemble some of the worst features of the Soviet system. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/12/stephen-cohen-on-war-with-russia-and-soviet-style-censorship-in-the-us/ ..."
"... The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly 4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course. ..."
"... Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically justified by its diabolical policies. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their Government Lackeys. ..."
"... It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it to be so ..."
"... If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation, propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention. ..."
"... See also this primer on Mueller's MO. ..."
"... The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to increase military spending; and more, more, more war. ..."
"... Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished. a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians. ..."
"... At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already brainwashed population? ..."
"... The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. ..."
"... Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others, the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry. ..."
For more than two years U.S. politicians, the media and some bloggers hyped a conspiracy theory. They claimed that Russia had
somehow colluded with the Trump campaign to get him elected.
An obviously fake 'Dirty Dossier' about Trump, commissioned by the Clinton campaign, was presented as evidence. Regular business
contacts between Trump flunkies and people in Ukraine or Russia were claimed to be proof for nefarious deals. A Russian
click-bait company was accused of manipulating the U.S. electorate by posting puppy pictures and crazy memes on social media.
Huge investigations were launched. Every rumor or irrelevant detail coming from them was declared to be - finally - the evidence
that would put Trump into the slammer. Every month the walls were closing in on Trump.
Finally the conspiracy theory has run out of steam. Russiagate
is finished :
After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016
election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats
and Republicans on the committee.
...
Democrats and other Trump opponents have long believed that special counsel Robert Mueller and Congressional investigators would
unearth new and more explosive evidence of Trump campaign coordination with Russians. Mueller may yet do so, although Justice
Department and Congressional sources say they believe that he, too, is close to wrapping up his investigation.
Nothing, zero, nada was found to support the conspiracy theory. The Trump campaign did not collude with Russia. A few flunkies
were indicted for unrelated tax issues and for lying to the investigators about some minor details. But nothing at all supports the
dramatic claims of collusion made since the beginning of the affair.
In a recent statement House leader Nancy Pelosi was reduced
to accuse Trump campaign officials of doing their job:
"The indictment of Roger Stone makes clear that there was a deliberate, coordinated attempt by top Trump campaign officials to
influence the 2016 election and subvert the will of the American people. ...
No one called her out for spouting such nonsense.
Russiagate created a lot of damage.
The alleged Russian influence campaign that never happened was used to
install censorship on social media. It was used
to undermine the election of progressive Democrats. The weapon salesmen used it to push for more NATO aggression against Russia.
Maria Butina, an innocent Russian woman interested in good relation with the United States, was
held in solitary confinement
(recommended) until she signed a paper which claims that she was involved in a conspiracy.
In a just world the people who for more then two years hyped the conspiracy theory and caused so much damage would be pushed out
of their public positions. Unfortunately that is not going to happen. They will jump onto the next conspiracy train continue from
there.
Posted by b on February 12, 2019 at 01:38 PM |
Permalink
Comments next
page " Legally, Maria Butina was suborned into signing a false declaration. If there were the rule of law, such party or
parties that suborned her would be in gaol. Considering Mueller's involvement with Lockerbie, I am not holding my breath. FWIW the
Swiss company that made the timers allegedly involved in Lockerbie have some
comments of its own .
I will be really glad when this 'get Russia' craziness is over, but I suspect even if the Mueller investigation has nothing,
all the same creeps will be pulling out the stops to generate something... Skripal, Integrity Initiative, and etc. etc. stuff
like this just doesn't go away overnight or with the end of this 'investigation'... folks are looking for red meat i tell ya!
as for Maria Butina - i look forward to reading the article.. that was a travesty of justice but the machine moves on, mowing
down anyone in it's way... she was on the receiving end of all the paranoia that i have come to associate with the western msm
at this point...
Hillary's loss is actually best explained as her throwing the election to Trump . The Deep State wanted a nationalist
to win as that would best help meet the challenge from Russia and China - a challenge that they had been slow to recognize.
= ... to smear Wikileaks as a Russian agent
The DNC leak is best explained as a CIA false flag.
= ... to remove and smear Michael Flynn
Trump said that he fired Flynn for lying to VP Pence but Flynn's conversations with the Russian Ambassador after Obama threw
them out for "meddling" in the US election was an embarrassment to the Administration as Putin's Putin's decision not to respond
was portrayed as favoritism toward the Trump Administration.
You can take this to the bank. Hardcore Russiagaters will never give up their belief in collusion and Russian influence in
the 2016 campaign -- never. Congress and Mueller will be accused of engaging in a coverup. This is typical behavior for conspiracy
theorists.
I hope that Russiagate is indeed "finished", but I think it needs to be draped with garlic-clove necklaces, shot up with silver
bullets, sprinkled with holy water, and a wooden stake driven through its black heart just to make sure.
I don't dispute the logical argument B. presents, but it may be too dispassionately rational. I know that the Russiagate
proponents and enthralled supporters of the concept are too invested psychologically in this surrealistic fantasy to let go, even
if the official outcome reluctantly admits that there's no "there" there.
The Democratic Party, one of the major partners mounting the Russophobic psy-op, has already resolved to turn Democratic committee
chairmen loose to dog the Trump administration with hearings aggressively flogging any and all matters that discredit and undermine
Trump-- his business connections, social liaisons, etc.
They may hope to find the Holy Grail: the elusive "bombshell" that "demands" impeachment, i.e., some crime or illicit conduct
so heinous that the public will stand for another farcical impeachment proceeding. But I reckon that the Dems prefer the "soft"
impeachment of harassing Trump with hostile hearings in hopes of destroying his 2020 electability with the death of a thousand
innuendoes and guilt-by-association.
Thus, even if the Mueller report is underwhelming, I think that the Democrats and TDS-saturated Trump opponents will attempt
to rehabilitate it by pretending that it contains important loose ends that need to be pursued. In other words, to perpetuate
the Mueller-driven political Russophobia by all other available means.
Put more succinctly, I fear that Russiagate won't be finished until Rachel Maddow says it's finished. ;)
Once a hypothesis is fixed in people's minds, whether true or not, it's hard to get them to let go of it. And let's not forget
how many times the narrative changed (and this is true in the Skripal case as well), with all past facts vanishing to accommodate
a new narrative.
So I, like others, expect the fake scandal to continue while many, many other real crimes (the US attempted
coup in Venezuela and the genocidal war in Yemen, for instance) continue unabated.
Putin solicits public input for essential national
policy goals . If ever there was a template to follow for an actual MAGAgenda, Putin's Russia provides one. While US politicos
argue over what is essentially Bantha Pudu, Russians are hard at work improving their nation which includes restructuring their
economy.
Russiagate has exposed the great degree of corruption within the Justice Department bureaucracy, particularly within FBI,
and within the entire Democrat Party.
I very much doubt it it is over. Trump is corrupt and has links to corrupt Russians. Collusion, maybe not, but several
stinking individuals are in the frame for, guess what - ...bring it on... The fact that Hilary was arguably even worse (a point
made ad-nauseum on here) is frankly irrelevant. The vilification of Trump will not affect the warmongers efforts. He is a useful
idiot
for a take on the alternative reality some are living in
emptywheel has an article up on the nbc link b provides and the article on butina is discussed in the comments section...
as i said - they are looking for red meat and will not be happy until they get some... they are completely zonkers...
Blooming Barricade , Feb 12, 2019 2:55:18 PM |
link
Now that this racket has been admitted as such, I expect all of the media outlets that devoted banner headlines, hundreds of thousands
of hours of cable TV time, thousands of trees, and free speech online to immediately fire all of their journalists and appoint
Glenn Greenwald as the publisher of the New York Times, Michael Tracey at the Post, Aaron Matte at the Guardian, and Max Blumenthal
at the Daily Beast.
Since this is obviously not going to be allowed to happen, and since these people get away with everything, expect this
to never end, despite all evidence to the contrary. It doesn't matter if they've been exposed as CIA propagandists or Integrity
Initiative stooges, the game goes on...and on.... the job security of these disgraced columnists is the greatest in the Western
world.
The US needs an enemy, how else can they ask NATO members to cough up 2% of GDP [just for one example Germany's GDP is nearly
4 Trillion dollars [2017] for defence spending, what a crazy sum all NATO members must fork out to please the US, but then most
of that money must be spent on the US MIC 'interoperability' of course.
Then of course Russia has to be surrounded by NATO should they try and take over Europe by surging through the Fulda gap./s
Then of course there are the professional pundits who have built careers on anti Russian propaganda, Rachel Maddow for instance
who earns 30,000$ per day to spew anti Russian nonsense.
Another great damage of Russiagate was the instigating of a nuclear arms race directed primarily at Russia, and ideologically
justified by its diabolical policies.
I'm sorry b is so down on Conspiracy Theories, since they reveal quite real staged homicidal false flag operations of US power.
Feeding into the stigmatizing of the truth about reality is not in the interests of the earth's people.
somehow I see this "revelation: tied to Barr's approaching tenure. I think they (FBI/DOJ) didn't want his involvement in their
noodle soup of an investigation and the best way to accomplish that was to end it themselves. I also suspect that a deal has been
made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone.
So we will see no investigation of Hillary, her 650,000
emails or the many crimes they detailed (according to NYPD investigation of Weiner's laptop) and the US will continue to be at
war all day, every day. Team Swamp rules.
Meanwhile, MSM is prepping its readers for the possibility that the Mueller report will never be released to us proles. If that's
the case, I'm sure nobody will try to use innuendo to suggest it actually contains explosive revelations after all...
Harry, its vitally important as the US desperately wants to keep Europe under its thumb and to stop this European army which
means Europe lead by Paris and Berlin becomes a world power. Trump's attempts to make nice with Russia is to keep it out of the
EU bloc.
Well, the liberal conspiracy car crash ensured downmarket Mussolini a second term, it appears...Hard Brexit Tories also look likely
to win thanks to centrist sabatoge of the left. You reap what you sow, corporate presstitutes!
Sane people have predicted the end of Russiagate almost as many times as insane people have predicted that the "smoking gun that
will get rid of Trump" has been found. And yet the Mighty Wurlitzer grinds on, while social media is more and more censored.
I expect it all to continue until the 2020 election circus winds up into full-throated mode, and no one talks about anything but
the next puppet to be appointed. Oops, I mean "elected".
You also need to behead the corpse, stuff the mouth with a lemon and then place the head down in the coffin with the body in
supine (facing up) position. Weight the coffin with stones and wild roses and toss it into a fast-flowing river.
Russiagate won't be finished until a wall is built around Capitol Hill and all its inhabitants and worker bees declared insane
by a properly functioning court of law.
I also suspect that a deal has been made with Trump, possibly in exchange for leaving his family alone. So we will see no
investigation of Hillary ...
Underlying your perspective is the assumption that USA is a democracy where a populist "outsider" could be elected President,
Yet you also believe that Hillary and the Deep State have the power to manipulate government and the intelligence agencies and
propose a "conspiracy theory" based on that power.
Isn't it more likely that Trump made it clear (behind closed doors, of course) that he was amenable to the goals of the Deep
State and that the bogus investigation was merely done to: 1) cover their own election meddling; 2) eliminate threats like Flynn
and Assange/Wikileaks; 3) anti-Russian propaganda?
Dowd, Trump's former lawyer on Russiagate stated there may not even be a report. If this is the case then the Zionist rulers have
gotten to Mueller who no doubt figured out that the election collusion breadcrumbs don't lead to Putin, they lead to Netanyahu
and Zionist billionaire friends! So Mueller may have to come up with a nothing burger to hide the truth.
B is the only alternative media blogger I've followed for a significant amount of time without becoming disenfranchised. Not because
he has no blind spot - his is just one I can deal with... optimism.
I will believe Russiagate is finished when expelled Russian staff gets back, when the US returns the seized Russian properties,
when the consulate is Seattle reopens and when USA issues formal apology to Russia.
Posted by: hopehely | Feb 12, 2019 5:14:49 PM |
link
Nobody has ever advanced the tiniest shred of credible evidence that 'Russia' or its government at any level was in any way implicated
either in Wikileaks' acquisition of the DNC and Podesta emails or in any form of interference with the Presidential election.
This has been going on for three years and not once has anything like evidence surfaced.
On the other hand there has been an abundance of evidence that those alleging Russian involvement consistently refused to listen
to explore the facts.
Incredibly, the DNC computers were never examined by the FBI or any other agency resembling an official police agency. Instead
the notorious Crowdstrike professionally russophobic and caught red handed faking data for the Ukrainians against Russia were
commissioned to produce a 'report.'
Nobody with any sense would have credited anything about Russiagate after that happened.
Thgen there was the proof, from VIPS and Bill Binney (?) that the computers were not hacked at all but that the information
was taken by thumbdrive. A theory which not only Wikileaks but several witnesses have offered to prove.
Not one of them has been contacted by the FBI, Mueller or anyone else "investigating."
In reality the charges from the first were ludicrous on their face. There is, as b has proved and every new day's news attests,
not the slightest reason why anyone in the Russian government should have preferred Trump over Clinton. And that is saying something
because they are pretty well indistinguishable. And neither has the morals or brains of an adolescent groundhog.
Russiagate is over, alright, The Nothingburger is empty. But that means nothing in this 'civilisation': it will be recorded
in the history books, still to be written, by historians still in diapers, that "The 2016 Presidential election, which ended in
the controversial defeat of Hillary Clinton, was heavily influenced by Russian agents who hacked ..etc etc"
What will not be remembered is that every single email released was authentic. And that within those troves of correspondence
there was enough evidence of criminality by Clinton and her campaign to fill a prison camp.
Another thing that will not be recalled is that there was once a young enthusiastic man, working for the DNC, who was mugged
one evening after work and killed.
The 'no collusion' result will only spur the 'beginning of the end' baboons to shout even more, they'll never stop until they
die in their beds or the plebs of the Republic made them adore the street lamp posts, you'll see. The former is by far more likely,
the unwashed of American have never had a penchant for foreign affairs except for the few spasms like Vietnam.
There was collusion alright but the only Russians who helped Trump get elected and were in on the collusion are citizens of ISRAEL
FIRST, likewise for the American billionaires who put Trump in the power perch. ISRAEL FIRST.
That's why Trump is on giant billboards in Israel shaking hands with the Yahoo. Trump is higher in the polls in Israel than
in the U.S. If it weren't that the Zionist upper crust need Trump doing their dirty work in America, like trying today get rid
of Rep. Omar Ilhan, then Trump would win the elections in Ziolandia or Ziostan by a landslide cause he's been better for the Joowish
state than all preceding Presidents put together. Mazel tov to them bullshet for the rest of us servile mass in the vassal West
and Palestinians the most shafted class ever. Down with Venezuela and Iran, up with oil and gas. The billionare shysters' and
Trump's payola is getting closer. Onward AZ Empire!
He proved himself so easy to troll during the election. It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all
along was to get him elected and have a candidate they could manipulate.
At least Germany has the good sense not to throw taxpayer money at the F-35.
German F-35 decision sacrifices NATO capability for Franco-German industrial cooperation I don't know what they have
in mind with a proposed airplane purchase. If they need fighters, buy or lease Sweden's Gripen. If attack airplanes are what they're
after, go to Boeing and get some brand new F-15X models. If the prickly French are agreeable to build a 6th generation aircraft,
that would be worth a try.
Regarding Rachel Maddow, I recently had an encounter with a relative who told me 1) I visited too many oddball sites and 2)
he considered Rachel M. to be the most reliable news person in existence. I think we're talking "true believer" here. :)
It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate
they could manipulate.
Considering how those "intelligence agencies" are hard pressed to find their own tails, even if you allow them to use both
hands, it would surprise me.
That Trump would turn out to be a tub of jello in more than just a physical way has been a surprise to an awful lot of us.
Russiagate was very successful. You just have to understand the objectives. It was a great distraction. Diverting
peoples attention from the continued fleecing of the "real people" which are the bottom 90% by the "Corporate People" and their
Government Lackeys.
It provided an excuse for the acting CEO (a figurehead) of the Corporate Empire to go back on many of the promises made
that got him elected, and to fill the swamp with Neocon and Koch Brother creatures with the excuse the Deep State made him do
it. More proof that there is no deception that is too ridiculous to be believed so long as you have enough pundits claiming it
to be so
Allowed the bipartisan support for the clamp down on alt media with censorship by social media (Deep State Tools) and funded
by the Ministry of Truth set up by Obama in his last days in office to under the false pretense of protecting us from foreign
governments interference in elections (except Israel of course) . Similar agencies have been set up or planned to be in other
countries followig the US example such as UK, France, Russia, etc.
Did anyone really expect Mr "Cover It Up " Mueller to find anything? Mueller is Deep State all the way and Trump is as well,
not withstanding the "Fake Wrestling " drama that they are bitter enemies. All the surveillance done over the past 2-3 decades
would have so much dirt on the Trumpet they could silence him forever . Trump knew that going in and I sometimes wonder if he
was pressured to run as a condition to avoid prosecution. Pretty sure every President since Carter has been "Kompromat"
If you've done just a cursory look into Seth Rich, you'd be very suspicious about the story of his life and death. IMO
Assange/Wikilleaks were set up. And Flynn was set up too. What they are doing is Orwellian: White Helmets, election manipulation,
propaganda, McCarthism, etc. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.
Russians and likely at the behest of the Russian state interfered and it was fair payback for Yeltsin's election. It is time to
move on but not in feigned ignorance of what was done. Was it "outcome" affecting, possibly, but not clearly and if the US electoral
college and electoral system generally is so decrepit that a second level power in the world can influence then its the US's fault.
It's not like the 2000 election wasn't a warning shot about the rottenness of system and a system that doesn't understand a
warning shot deserves pretty much what it gets. But there's enough non-hype evidence of acts and intent to say yes, the Russians
tried and may have succeeded. They certainly are acting guilty enough. but still close the book move and move on to Trump's 'real'
crimes which were done without a Russian assist.
I seem to recall former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray saying that it was not a hack and that he had been handed
a thumb drive in a field near American University by a disgruntled Democrat whistleblower. Further, I seem to recall William Binney,
former NSA Technical Leader for intelligence, conducting an experiment to show that internet speeds at the time would not allow
the information to be hacked - they knew the size of the files and the period over which they were downloaded. Plus, Seth Rich.
So why does anyone even believe it was a hack, @32 THN?
Just another comment re Mueller. There is a great documentary by (Dutch, not Israeli---different person) Gideon Levy, Lockerbie
Revisited. The narration is in Dutch, but the interviews are in English, and there is a small segment of a German broadcast. The
documentary ends abruptly where one set of FBI personnel contradict statements by another set of FBI personnel. See also
this primer on Mueller's MO.
reply to Les 42
"It wouldn't surprise me if aim of the domestic intelligence agencies all along was to get him elected and have a candidate they
could manipulate."
Not the intelligence agencies, the Military IMO. They knew HC for what she was; horrifically corrupt and,again IMO,they know
she is insane.
They saw and I think still see Trump as someone they could work with, remember Rogers (Navy) of the NSA going to him immediately
once he was elected? That was the Military protecting him as best they could.
They IMO have kept him alive and as long as he doesn't send any troops into "real" wars, they will keep on keeping him alive.
This doesn't mean Trump hasn't gone over to the Dark Side, just that no military action will take place that the military command
doesn't fully support.
Again, I could be wrong, he could be backed by fiends from Patagonia for all I really know:)
The button pushers behind the Trump collusion and Russia election hacking false narratives got what they wanted: to walk the
democrats and republicans straight into Cold War v2; to start their campaign to suppress alternative voices on the internet; to
increase military spending; and more, more, more war.
Boy, I hope Jackrabbit sees this. Everyone knows I believe Trump is the anointed chosen of the Zionist 1%. There was no Russia
collusion; it was Zionist collusion with a Russian twist...
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention the latest. Trump is asking Kim to provide a list of his nuclear scientists! Before Kim acts on this
request, he should call up the Iranian government for advise 'cause they have lots of experience and can warn Kim of what will
happen to each of those scientists. They'll be put on a kill-list and will be extrajudicially wacked as in executed. Can you believe
the chutzpah? Trump must think Kim is really stupid to fall for that one!
Aye! The thought of six more years of Zionist pandering Trump. Barf-inducing prospect is too tame.
The view from the hermitage is, we are in the age of distractions. Russiagate will be replaced with one of a litany of distractions,
purely designed to keep us off target. The target being, corruption, vote rigging, illegal wars, war crimes, overthrowing sovereign
governments, and political assasinations, both at home and abroad. Those so distracted, will focus on sillyness; not the genuine
danger afoot around the planet. Get used to it; it's become the new normal.
@76Hw
I have yet to read anything more delusional, nay, utterly preposterous. Methinks you over-project too much. Even Trump would have
a belly-ache laugh reading that sheeple spiel. You're the type that sees the giant billboard of Zionist Trump and Yahoo shaking
hands and drones on and on that our lying eyes deceive us and it's really Trump playing 4-D chess. I suppose when he tried to
pressure Omar Ilhan into resigning her seat in Congress yesterday, that too was reverse psychology?
Trump instagramed the billboard pic, he tweeted it, he probably pasted it on his wall; maybe with your kind of wacky, Trump
infatuation, you should too!
Russiagate is finished because Mueller discovered an embarrassing fact: The collusion was and always will be with Israel. Here's
Trump professing his endless love for Zionism:
Trump Resign
Russiagate was very successful <=pls read, re-read Pft @ 46.. he listed many things. divide and conquer accomplished.
a nation state is defined as an armed rule making structure, designed by those who control a territory, and constructed by the
lawyers, military, and wealthy and run by the persons the designers appoint, for the appointed are called politicians.
Most designs of armed nation states provide the designers with information feedback and the designers use that information
to appoint more obedient politicians and generals to run things, and to improve the design to better serve the designers. The
armed rule making structure is designed to give the designers complete control over those targeted to be the governed. Why so
stupid the governed? ; always they allow themselves to be manipulated like sheep.
When 10 angry folks approach you with two pieces of ropes: one to throw over the tree branch under which your horse will be
supporting you while they tie the noose around your neck and the other shorter piece of rope to tie your hands behind ..your back
you need at that point to make your words count , if five of the people are black and five are white. all you need do is
say how smart the blacks are, and how stupid the whites are, as the two groups fight each other you manage your escape. democrat
vs republican= divide to conquer. gun, no gun = divide to conquer, HRC vs DJT = divide to conquer, abortion, no abortion = divide
to conquer, Trump is a Russian planted in a high level USA position of power = divide to conquer, They were all in on it together,,
Muller was in the white house to keep the media supplied with XXX, to keep the law enforcement agencies in the loop, and to advise
trump so things would not get out of hand ( its called Manipulation and the adherents to the economic system called Zionism
For the record, Zionism is not related to race, religion or intelligence. Zionism is a system of economics that take's no captives,
its adherents must own everything, must destroy and decimate all actual or imaginary competition, for Zionist are the owners and
masters of everything? Zionism is about power, absolute power, monopoly ownership and using governments everywhere to abuse the
governed. Zionism has many adherents, whites, blacks, browns, Christians, Jews, Islamist, Indians, you name it among each class
of person and walk of life can be found persons who subscribe to the idea that they, and only they, should own everything, and
when those of us, that are content to be the governed let them, before the kill and murder us, they usually end up owning everything.
1. why the Joint non nuclear agreement with Iran and the other nuclear power nations, that prevented Iran from developing nuclear
weapons, was trashed? Someone needs to be able to say Iran is developing ..., at the right time.
2. Why Netanyohu made public a video that claimed Iran was developing nuclear stuff in violation of the Iran non nuclear agreement,
and everybody laughed,
3. Why the nuclear non proliferation agreement with Russia, that terminated the costly useless arms race a decade ago, has
been recently terminated, to reestablish the nuclear arms race, no apparent reason was given the implication might be Russia could
be a target, but
4. why it might make sense to give nukes to Saudi Arabia or some other rogue nation, and
5. why no one is allowed to have nuclear weapons except the Zionist owned and controlled nation states.
Statement: Zionism is an economic system that requires the elimination of all competition of whatever kind. It is a winner
get's all, takes no prisoners, targets all who would threaten or be a challenge or a threat; does not matter if the threat is
in in oil and gas, technology or weapons as soon as a possibility exist, the principles of Zionism would require that it be taken
out, decimated, and destroyed and made where never again it could even remotely be a threat to the Empire, that Zionism demands..
Hypothesis: A claim that another is developing nuclear weapon capabilities is sufficient to take that other out?
I am glad that most commenters understand that Russiagate will not go away. But the majority appear to miss the real reason. Russiagate
is not an accusation, it is the state of mind.
At the beginnng of Russiagate, I wrote on Robert Parry's Consirtium News that Russiagate is Idiocracy piggy-backing on
decades and literally billions of dollars of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. How hard would it be to brainwash an already
brainwashed population?
The purveyors of Russiagate will re-compose themselves, brush off all reports and continue on. One just cannot get away
from one's nature, even when that nature is pure idiocy. Of course, the most ironic in the affair is that it is the so called
US "intellectuals", academics and other assorted cretins who are the most fervent proponents. If you were wondering how Russia
can make such amazing defensive weapons that US can only deny exist and wet dream of having, there is your answer. It is the state
of mind. The whole of US establishment are legends in their on lunch time and totally delusional about the reality surrounding
them - both Russiagate and MAGA cretins, no report can help the Russiagate nation.
Finally, I am thinking of that crazy and ugly professor bitch from the British Cambridge University who gives her lectures
naked to protest something or other. I am so lucky that I do not have to go to a Western university ever again. What a catastrophic
decline! No Brexit can help the Skripal nation.
Russiagate is finished, but is DJT also among the rubble?
Hardly any money for the border wall and still lingering in the ME?
If Hoarsewhisperer proves to be correct above re: DJT, he will really have to knock our socks off before election 2020. To
do this he will have to unequivocally and unceremoniously withdraw from the MENA and Afghanistan and possibly declare a National
Emergency for more money for the wall.
The problem is, when he does this, he will look impulsively dangerous and this may harm his mystique to the lemmings who need
a president to be more "presidential."
My money is on status quo all the way to 2020 and the rethugz hoping the Dems will eat their own in an orgy of warring identities.
The collusion story may be faltering, but the blame for Russia poisoning the Skripals lives on. The other night on The News Hour,
"Judy" led off the program with this: "It has been almost a year since Kremlin intelligence officers attempted to kill a Russian
defector in the British city of Salisbury by poisoning him with a nerve agent. That attack, and the subsequent death of a British
woman, scared away tourists and shoppers, but authorities and residents are working to get the town's economy back on track. Special
correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports."
Russiagate will not go away unfortunately because it has evolved in the "Russiagate Industry". As mentioned by others,
the Russiagate Industry has been very profitable for many industries and people. Russiagate has generated an entire cottage industry
of companies around censorship and "find us a Russian". Dow Jones should have an index on the Russiagate Industry.
Here is one recent example. You know the measles outbreak in the US Pacific Northwest. Yup, the Russians. How do we know.
A government funded research grant. The study found that 899 tweets caused people to doubt vaccines. Looks like money is
to be had even by academics for the right results.
"... So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live under. ..."
"... Notwithstanding what the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous, self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was supposed to mean, exactly). ..."
"... Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever. What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces, media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in Venezuela. ..."
"... And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. ..."
Maybe Donald Trump isn't as stupid as I thought. I'd hate to have to admit that publicly,
but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time.
Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn't help but notice a significant decline in the
number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and "
the brink of fascism " that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton
lost the election.
I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn't find a single
editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the U.S. Constitution, dissolve
Congress, and
proclaim himself Führer . Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz , or any other Nazi
stuff which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria
has been a standard feature of the official narrative we've been subjected to for the last two
years.
So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He
did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., like a "normal" president). Which is to say he did the
bidding of the deep state goons and corporate mandarins that manage the global capitalist
empire the smiley, happy, democracy-spreading, post-fascist version of fascism we live
under.
I'm referring, of course, to Venezuela, which is one of a handful of uncooperative countries
that are not playing ball with global capitalism and which haven't been "regime changed" yet.
Trump green-lit the attempted coup purportedly being staged by the Venezuelan "opposition," but
which is obviously a U.S. operation, or, rather, a global capitalist operation. As soon as he
did, the corporate media immediately suspended calling him a fascist, and comparing him to
Adolf Hitler, and so on, and started spewing out blatant propaganda supporting his effort to
overthrow the elected government of a sovereign country.
Overthrowing the governments of sovereign countries, destroying their economies, stealing
their gold, and otherwise bringing them into the fold of the global capitalist "international
community" is not exactly what most folks thought Trump meant by "Make America Great Again."
Many Americans have never been to Venezuela, or Syria, or anywhere else the global capitalist
empire has been ruthlessly restructuring since shortly after the end of the Cold War. They have
not been lying awake at night worrying about Venezuelan democracy, or Syrian democracy, or
Ukrainian democracy.
This is not because Americans are a heartless people, or an ignorant or a selfish people. It
is because, well, it is because they are Americans (or, rather, because they believe they are
Americans), and thus are more interested in the problems of Americans than in the problems of
people in faraway lands that have nothing whatsoever to do with America. Notwithstanding what
the corporate media will tell you, Americans elected Donald Trump, a preposterous,
self-aggrandizing ass clown, not because they were latent Nazis, or because they were
brainwashed by Russian hackers, but, primarily, because they wanted to believe that he
sincerely cared about America, and was going to try to "make it great again" (whatever that was
supposed to mean, exactly).
Unfortunately, there is no America. There is nothing to make great again. "America" is a
fiction, a fantasy, a nostalgia that hucksters like Donald Trump (and other, marginally less
buffoonish hucksters) use to sell whatever they are selling themselves, wars, cars, whatever.
What there is, in reality, instead of America, is a supranational global capitalist empire, a
decentralized, interdependent network of global corporations, financial institutions, national
governments, intelligence agencies, supranational governmental entities, military forces,
media, and so on. If that sounds far-fetched or conspiratorial, look at what is going on in
Venezuela.
The entire global capitalist empire is working in concert to force the elected president of
the country out of office. The US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark,
Poland, the Netherlands, Israel, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina have officially recognized
Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, in spite of the fact that no one elected
him. Only the empire's official evil enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and other
uncooperative countries) are objecting to this "democratic" coup. The global financial system
(i.e., banks) has frozen (i.e., stolen) Venezuela's assets, and is attempting to transfer them
to Guaido so he can buy the Venezuelan military. The corporate media are hammering out the
official narrative like a Goebbelsian piano in an effort to convince the general public that
all this has something to do with democracy. You would have to be a total moron or hopelessly
brainwashed not to recognize what is happening.
What is happening has nothing to do with America the "America" that Americans believe they
live in and that many of them want to "make great again." What is happening is exactly what has
been happening around the world since the end of the Cold War, albeit most dramatically in the
Middle East. The de facto global capitalist empire is restructuring the planet with virtual
impunity. It is methodically eliminating any and all impediments to the hegemony of global
capitalism, and the privatization and commodification of everything.
Venezuela is one of these impediments. Overthrowing its government has nothing to do with
America, or the lives of actual Americans. "America" is not to going conquer Venezuela and
plant an American flag on its soil. "America" is not going to steal its oil, ship it "home,"
and parcel it out to "Americans" in their pickups in the parking lot of Walmart.
What what about those American oil corporations? They want that Venezuelan oil, don't they?
Well, sure they do, but here's the thing there are no "American" oil corporations.
Corporations, especially multi-billion dollar transnational corporations (e.g., Chevron,
ExxonMobil, et al.) have no nationalities, nor any real allegiances, other than to their major
shareholders. Chevron, for example, whose major shareholders are asset management and mutual
fund companies like Black Rock, The Vanguard Group, SSgA Funds Management, Geode Capital
Management, Wellington Management, and other transnational, multi-trillion dollar outfits. Do
you really believe that being nominally headquartered in Boston or New York makes these
companies "American," or that Deutsche Bank is a "German" bank, or that BP is a "British"
company?
And Venezuela is just the most recent blatant example of the empire in action. Ask yourself,
honestly, what have the "American" regime change ops throughout the Greater Middle East done
for any actual Americans, other than get a lot of them killed? Oh, and how about those bailouts
for all those transnational "American" investment banks? Or the billions "America" provides to
Israel? Someone please explain how enriching the shareholders of transnational corporations
like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin by selling billions in weapons to Saudi Arabian
Islamists is benefiting "the American people." How much of that Saudi money are you seeing?
And, wait, I've got another one for you. Call up your friendly 401K manager, ask how your
Pfizer shares are doing, then compare that to what you're paying some "American" insurance
corporation to not really cover you.
For the last two-hundred years or so, we have been conditioned to think of ourselves as the
citizens of a collection of sovereign nation states, as "Americans," "Germans," "Greeks," and
so on. There are no more sovereign nation states. Global capitalism has done away with them.
Which is why we are experiencing a "neo-nationalist" backlash. Trump, Brexit, the so-called
"new populism" these are the death throes of national sovereignty, like the thrashing of a
suffocating fish before you whack it and drop it in the cooler. The battle is over, but the
fish doesn't know that. It didn't even realize there was a battle until it suddenly got jerked
up out of the water.
In any event, here we are, at the advent of the global capitalist empire. We are not going
back to the 19th Century, nor even to the early 20th Century. Neither Donald Trump nor anyone
else is going to "Make America Great Again." Global capitalism will continue to remake the
world into one gigantic marketplace where we work ourselves to death at bullshit
jobs in order to buy things we don't need, accumulating debts we can never pay back, the
interest on which will further enrich the global capitalist ruling classes, who, as you may
have noticed, are preparing for the future by purchasing luxury
underground bunkers and post-apocalyptic compounds in New Zealand. That, and militarizing
the police, who they will need to maintain "public order" you know, like they are doing in
France at the moment, by
beating, blinding, and hideously maiming those Gilets Jaunes (i.e., Yellow Vest) protesters
that the corporate media are doing their best to demonize and/or render invisible.
Or, who knows, Americans (and other Western consumers) might take a page from those Yellow
Vests, set aside their political differences (or at least ignore their hatred of each other
long enough to actually try to achieve something), and focus their anger at the politicians and
corporations that actually run the empire, as opposed to, you know, illegal immigrants and
imaginary legions of Nazis and Russians. In the immortal words of General Buck Turgidson, "I'm
not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed," but, heck, it might be worth a try, especially
since, the way things are going, we are probably going end up out there anyway.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
"... Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... "The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the parameters of the debate." ..."
"... "When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media." ..."
"... "And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though they haven't been convicted of anything." ..."
"... "That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said – I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that." ..."
"... Russell Mokhiber is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.. ..."
Cohen has largely been banished from mainstream media.
"I had been arguing for years -- very much against the American political media grain --
that a new US/Russian Cold War was unfolding -- driven primarily by politics in Washington, not
Moscow," Cohen writes in War with Russia. "For this perspective, I had been largely
excluded from influential print, broadcast and cable outlets where I had been previously
welcomed."
On the stage at Busboys and Poets with Cohen was Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of
The Nation magazine, and Robert Borosage, co-founder of the Campaign for America's
Future.
Cohen said the censorship that he has faced in recent years is similar to the censorship
imposed on dissidents in the Soviet Union.
"Until some period of time before Trump, on the question of what America's policy toward
Putin's Kremlin should be, there was a reasonable facsimile of a debate on those venues that
had these discussions," Cohen said. "Are we allowed to mention the former Charlie Rose for
example? On the long interview form, Charlie would have on a person who would argue for a very
hard policy toward Putin. And then somebody like myself who thought it wasn't a good idea."
"Occasionally that got on CNN too. MSNBC not so much. And you could get an op-ed piece
published, with effort, in the New York Times or Washington Post ."
"Katrina and I had a joint signed op-ed piece in the New York Times six or
seven years ago. But then it stopped. And to me, that's the fundamental difference between this
Cold War and the preceding Cold War."
"I will tell you off the record – no, I'm not going to do it," Cohen said. "Two
exceedingly imminent Americans, who most op-ed pages would die to get a piece by, just to say
they were on the page, submitted such articles to the New York Times , and they were
rejected the same day. They didn't even debate it. They didn't even come back and say –
could you tone it down? They just didn't want it."
"Now is that censorship? In Italy, where each political party has its own newspaper, you
would say – okay fair enough. I will go to a newspaper that wants me. But here, we are
used to these newspapers."
"Remember how it works. I was in TV for 18 years being paid by CBS. So, I know how these
things work. TV doesn't generate its own news anymore. Their actual reporting has been
de-budgeted. They do video versions of what is in the newspapers."
"Look at the cable talk shows. You see it in the New York Times and Washington
Post in the morning, you turn on the TV at night and there is the video version. That's
just the way the news business works now."
"The alternatives have been excluded from both. I would welcome an opportunity to debate
these issues in the mainstream media, where you can reach more people. And remember, being in
these pages, for better or for worse, makes you Kosher. This is the way it works. If you have
been on these pages, you are cited approvingly. You are legitimate. You are within the
parameters of the debate."
"If you are not, then you struggle to create your own alternative media. It's new in my
lifetime. I know these imminent Americans I mentioned were shocked when they were just told no.
It's a lockdown. And it is a form of censorship."
"When I lived off and on in the Soviet Union, I saw how Soviet media treated dissident
voices. And they didn't have to arrest them. They just wouldn't ever mention them. Sometimes
they did that (arrest them). But they just wouldn't ever mention them in the media."
"Dissidents created what is known as samizdat – that's typescript that you circulate
by hand. Gorbachev, before he came to power, did read some samizdat. But it's no match for
newspapers published with five, six, seven million copies a day. Or the three television
networks which were the only television networks Soviet citizens had access to."
"And something like that has descended here. And it's really alarming, along with some
other Soviet-style practices in this country that nobody seems to care about – like
keeping people in prison until they break, that is plea, without right to bail, even though
they haven't been convicted of anything."
"That's what they did in the Soviet Union. They kept people in prison until people said
– I want to go home. Tell me what to say – and I'll go home. That's what we are
doing here. And we shouldn't be doing that."
Cohen appears periodically on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News. And that rankled one person
in the audience at Busboys and Poets, who said he worried that Cohen's perspective on Russia
can be "appropriated by the right."
"Trump can take that and run on a nationalistic platform – to hell with NATO, to
hell with fighting these endless wars, to do what he did in 2016 and get the votes of people
who are very concerned about the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia," the
man said.
Cohen says that on a personal level, he likes Tucker Carlson "and I don't find him to be a
racist or a nationalist."
"Nationalism is on the rise around the world everywhere," Cohen said. "There are
different kinds of nationalism. We always called it patriotism in this country, but we have
always been a nationalistic country."
"Fox has about three to four million viewers at that hour," Cohen said. "If I am not
permitted to give my take on American/Russian relations on any other mass media, and by the
way, possibly talk directly to Trump, who seems to like his show, and say – Trump is
making a mistake, he should do this or do that instead -- I don't get many opportunities
– and I can't see why I shouldn't do it."
"I get three and a half to four minutes," Cohen said. "I don't see it as consistent with my
mission, if that's the right word, to say no. These articles I write for The Nation ,
which ended up in my book, are posted on some of the most God awful websites in the world. I
had to look them up to find out how bad they really are. But what can I do about it?"
He not only acknowledged early on that his initial support for the Iraq war was wrong, but
spent the rest of his career fighting for a more restrained and peaceful foreign policy. Rep.
Jones was one of the original Republican co-sponsors of
the first House antiwar resolution to end
U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen . He co-authored an op-ed with
Reps. Khanna and Pocan in 2017 in support of their resolution:
We believe that the American people, if presented with the facts of this conflict, will
oppose the use of their tax dollars to bomb and starve civilians in order to further the
Saudi monarchy's regional goals. Our House resolution is a first step in expanding democracy
into an arena long insulated from public accountability. Too many lives hang in the balance
to allow this American war to continue without congressional consent. When our bill comes to
the floor for a vote, our colleagues should consider first the solution proposed by the
director of Unicef, Anthony Lake, for stopping the unimaginable suffering of millions of
Yemenis: "Stop the war."
It is unfortunate that Rep. Jones did not live to see the House pass that resolution to end
U.S. support for the war, but when a new version of that resolution passes later this month it
will be thanks in no small part to his leadership.
Jones became a reliable scourge of
unnecessary and unauthorized foreign wars wherever they happened to be
. He saw the continuation of open-ended and illegal wars as an attack on the Constitution and
an abuse of the men and women who volunteered to serve their country. His opposition to these
wars earned him the enmity
of Republican hawks , who repeatedly and
unsuccessfully sought to unseat him through primary challenges. Whatever their disagreements
with him may have been over the years, his constituents recognized and appreciated his
integrity and his dedication to the country.
The cause of peace and restraint has lost one of its great defenders, TAC has lost
one of our good friends, and America has lot one of its most honorable and decent public
servants. May his memory be eternal.
I hope that good and true Americans inspired by his example will pick up the colors he
carried so long and faithfully, carry them forward, renewing his dogged efforts to rein in
military intervention and preserve true freedom.
For all that, you may be certain that somewhere the vermin are jumping for joy, because
when it comes to their vile wars and meddling they brook no dissent, and Jones's voice was
strong and sure, grounded in truth and "the better angels of our nature".
Very sorry to have lost this good and valuable American. Hats off also to the people of
his district, many of them soldiers or families of soldiers, who kept sending him back to
Washington. May they find someone to replace who has the same gumption, character, and
commitment to basic Americanism.
If there were more people like him in Washington, we wouldn't be in the state we're in. I
wrote him a "fan" letter back in 2006 or thereabouts, about his regrets about the Iraq war
and writing to all the families of those KIA. Also appreciated him being one of the few in
Congress that actually tried to follow the Constitution and do something about our national
debt. He also was all about constituent service,especially for veterans and those in Eastern
North Carolina affected by the recent hurricanes. Eternal rest, grant him, Oh Lord, and let
perpetual light shine upon him.
The USSR had elections of various types. They meant nothing because the Party owned
everybody.
We have elections that are far more like Soviet elections than the average 'conservative'
voter can allow himself to imagine. The great difference Soviet elections and ours today is
who – what entity – owns the system, meaning which cultural values rule,
dictate.
Ours is the Anglo-Zionist Empire. This is the end game of the Judaizing heresies that
destroyed Christendom. This nightmare is where WASP culture leads and always lead.
With friends like Marco Rubio, the United States doesn't need enemies. I still remember very
well, when then-candidate Donald Trump ridiculed Rubio as "little Marco" during the 2016
debates. He was perfectly right. Like Phil Giraldi demonstrated Rubio's "intellectual"
capability, It seems he has a birdbrain. Joke aside, Rubio's political busyness Israel is
concerned raises the question who owns his true loyalty. Instead of working for his
constituency, he is on the road primarily for Israel. As it seems he loves Israel more than
his birthplace the United States, and he despises Cuba that political system is more
social-oriented that the American one.
The problem with the Florida senator is his absolute blind obedience towards the Zionist
state, his engagement against the BDS movement and his loyalty to Israel's stalwarts in the
US. He is not the only US politician in Congress who is in the pocket of the Zionist lobby.
At least the American Middle Eastern policy is run by the Zionist Israel Lobby in the US. But
from all walks of life, their influence is also not to be underestimated.
The so-called unbreakable bond between the US and Israel is mere rhetoric, but most
members of Congress believe in this nonsense just out of mere political survival. Israel is
not an ally but a massive liability to US national interest in the region. The Zionist
political class uses the American political system to its advantage and pays nothing in
return. The opposite is true. The State of Israel is massively spying on the US and cause the
American people a lot of damage.
There are not only the assassinations of JFK and RFK, but also the killing of JFK, Jr.
who's private plane crashed into the sea right of the coast of Martha's Vineyard. It was the
same cover-up as in the case of his father and his uncle. There are persistent rumors in the
wind that the Israeli Mossad was behind it, such as Laurent Guyénot laid out in his
two excellent articles on UNZ Review. Among large parts of the truther movement, some
segments make a strong argument that Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks, although with the
collaboration of sections of the Bush/Cheney administration.
To refer to Israel as a friend or ally such as Rubio does is just a joke. Israel is
nothing more than an albatross like an ally. The whole American-Israeli relationship must be
put to the test. There is no room for romance because such romanticism is for the sole
detriment of the United States and the American People.
How such a lightweight came to be a Senator of the United States of America eludes
me.
I know this question is meant to be a bit rhetorical but let me try and answer it.
This senator, and the vast majority of his ilk in the Congress, are venal lying whores in
thrall to a foreign party and to money interests. He is not unique in this regard but only
one of many lying whores in power.
And the American people–by and large–are so dumbed down by a dumbed down
culture and a dumbed down media that they cannot recognize these treacherous weasels for the
traitors that they are.
The Senator is using contentions meant to protect us citizens from unfair business
practices by state and enterprise to launch protections against free speech for a foreign
entity.
That is painfully funny. I hope it is only a feeling, a sensation, but our political
leadership seems to have abandoned their collective minds. But this is convenient for the
Sen. because nullifying the constitution is one way of nullifying borders.
Zionists control our money via the unconstitutional FED and that gives the Zionist banking
cabal total control over the U.S. government and we the goyim/proles!
Nathan Rothschild infamously said, I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of
England for the man who controls the money supply controls the British Empire and I am that
man!
It is the same here in America and every country in the world that has a Zionist central
bank and that is almost all of them!
Rubio is just another puppet of the Zionist banking kabal and is just like the rest of
congress and in fact congress would be better named as the lower house of the Knesset.
Marco Rubio Is A Complete And Total Politician Whore For Jew Billionaires Norman Braman and
Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson.
Marco Rubio does the bidding of Jew Billionaires by putting the interests of Israel ahead
of the interests of the United States.
Jew Billionaires Norman Braman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson all push nation-wrecking
mass legal immigration and amnesty for illegal alien invaders.
Marco Rubio pushes nation-wrecking mass legal immigration and amnesty for illegal alien
invaders.
Jew Billionaires Shelly Adelson and Paul Singer and Norman Braman have bought the mass
legal immigration policies and the amnesty for illegal alien invaders immigration policy of
the Republican Party ruling class and Marco Rubio and Shyster Boy Trump.
Marco Rubio and New York City Shyster Boy Trump have been bought and paid for like common
whores by Jew Billionaires Shelly Adelson and Paul Singer and Norman Braman.
Israel is powerful only to extent its goals are well correlated with the goal of the US MIC.
So like neocons Israel serves as a collective lobbyist of MIC. If this would not be the case, all
power of AIPAC and similar organizations would disappear, and the organization itself would be
put under FARA where it belongs.
The same is true for Zionists billionaires. The minute they turn against MIC would the minute
some dirty dealing and connections with organized crime would be exposed and some pedophile
scandals put on the front pages of MSM.
Notable quotes:
"... There wouldn't be calls for BDS movement if the US wasn't providing 3.8 billion per to a country whose domestic policy is apartheid and foreign policy goal is an attack on Iran. ..."
All these anti-Semitic articles fail a basic logical test :
i) If gentiles are so smart, why are Zionists, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the
combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism
fails.
ii) If Israel is able to manipulate the US government this totally, why can't someone like
China, with deeper pockets, do the same? Conversely, why can't Israel manipulate Russia or
the EU?
iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Zionists is what blacks say about
whites. Given the small number of Zionists and no prior history of enslavement, the WN claim
is even weaker.
There is a reason that the conspiracy theories regarding Zionists don't get any purchase
outside of a small fringe.
@Thomm i) It's not so
surprising given the wholesale lies pedaled by the predominantly Zionists media and
entertainment sectors of Western civilization, compounded by the outright censorship of
opposing views by those same groups with the assistance of the ADL, SPLC, et al. Add to that
the altruistic nature and generally independent spirit of Whites as opposed to the *dare I
say tribal* nature of Zionists.
ii) China's recent ascent to global dominance was not built on usury and manipulation of
foreign nation states through a diaspora of what has been described as "nations within
nations." I'd say Zionists in Russia (ever hear of the Holodomor?) manipulated that part of
the world for over a century quite completely, and in Eastern Europe for slightly less time,
to the tune of 100 million dead White Christians.
iii) Interesting you bring up Blacks but leave out the part about Zionists manipulating
Whites with "Birth of a Nation" being the first movie many arriving White immigrants viewed.
Shock status: imagined. Clearly, that's but one of a laundry list of things any reasonably
educated White person could hold up as an example of manipulation of public opinion.
Calling truisms tropes doesn't absolve ... crimes committed against humanity.
Every single day Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Han Chinese, are criticized and critiqued for
all sorts of reasons and all manner of circumstances. Only one category of people is immune
from criticism: Zionists. It's a double standard, and it must end.
> If gentiles are so smart, why are Zionists, whom gentiles outnumber 40:1 across the
combined Western World, able to control everything? The entire premise of White Nationalism
fails.
WN's largely agree that Zionists are more intelligent, so they are not surprised that
Zionists have been able to achieve outsized influence (to "control everything," in the
language of this lame troll).
ii) If Israel is able to manipulate the US government this totally, why can't someone
like China, with deeper pockets, do the same? Conversely, why can't Israel manipulate
Russia or the EU?
If the Chinese attempted the same thing, Americans would be permitted to notice .
Noticing Zionists political activity is "anti-semitic", so many Americans don't notice it (or
pretend not to).
There are far fewer Zionists in the EU and Russia, but they enjoy outsized influence in
those lands too – just not to the same extent as in the U.S.
iii) Virtually everything that White Nationalists say about Zionists is what blacks say
about whites. Given the small number of Zionists and no prior history of enslavement, the
WN claim is even weaker.
Incorrect. WN's admit that Zionists are more intelligent than white gentiles; blacks who
accuse whites of racism seldom admit that whites are more intelligent than blacks.
Ultimately, WN's want separation from Zionists. Blacks who accuse whites of racism virtually
never desire separation from whites. I'm not even a WN, but it really shouldn't be
controversial to admit these obvious facts.
Why does Phil have such a hard time banning moronic trolls like this clown? (Who everybody
suspects is just a sad little hindoo, but it's possible is a deranged little zionut.)
There wouldn't be calls for BDS movement if the US wasn't providing 3.8 billion per to a
country whose domestic policy is apartheid and foreign policy goal is an attack on Iran.
I was disappointed to see that one of my two senators voted for the bill. And I would have
to say the biggest surprise was Sen. Gillibrand who probably wanted to say 'aye' but
didn't.
The next step is likely to be that any public disagreement with the state of Israel is
akin to antisemitism. Which I'm certain that the Republicans will be happy to throw at the
Dem. congress.
"... However, he was one of the few politicians initially supporting the Iraq invasion to later express profound public regret over his decision , and went on to become a consistent advocate for ending regime change wars and Washington's military adventurism abroad. As part of these efforts, he was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute. ..."
Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. died at the age of 76 on Sunday after an extended illness for which was a granted a leave of absence from
Congress last year.
The Republican representative for North Carolina's 3rd congressional district since 1995 had initially been a strong supporter
of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and even became well-known for getting french fries renamed as "freedom fries" in the House cafeteria
as a protest against French condemnation of the US invasion.
... ... ...
However, he was one of the few politicians initially supporting the Iraq invasion to later express profound public regret
over his decision , and went on to become a consistent advocate for ending regime change wars and Washington's military adventurism
abroad. As part of these efforts, he was an original Board Member of the Ron Paul Institute.
Remembering Jones as a tireless advocate of peace, Ron Paul
notes that he " turned
from pro-war to an antiwar firebrand after he discovered how Administrations lie us into war . His passing yesterday is deeply mourned
by all who value peace and honesty over war and deception." The Ron Paul Institute has also called him "a Hero of Peace" for both
his voting record and efforts at shutting down the "endless wars".
And Antiwar.com also describes Jones as having been among the "most consistently antiwar members of Congress" and
a huge supporter
of their work:
By 2005, Jones had reversed his position on the Iraq War. Jones called on President George W. Bush to apologize for misinforming
Congress to win authorization for the war. Jones said, "If I had known then what I know today, I wouldn't have voted for
that resolution."
Jones went on to become one of the most antiwar members of Congress, fighting for ending US involvement in Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, and Yemen.
Also the BBC describes Rep. Jones' "dramatic change of heart" concerning the Iraq war starting in 2005, after which he began reaching
out to thousands of people who had lost loves ones in combat.
Rep. Walter Jones led an effort in the House to call French Fries "Freedom Fries" instead, but came to profoundly regret his role
in supporting Bush's war.
Noting that "no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq" and that the war was justified by the Bush administration based
entirely on lies and false intelligence, the BBC describes:
At the same time, Mr Jones met grieving families whose loved ones were killed in the war. This caused him to have a dramatic
change of heart, and in 2005 he called for the troops to be brought home.
He spoke candidly on several occasions about how deeply he regretted supporting the war, which led to the deaths of more than
140,000 Iraqi and American people.
"I have signed over 12,000 letters to families and extended families who've lost loved ones in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,"
he told NPR in 2017. "That was, for me, asking God to forgive me for my mistake."
In total he represented his district for 34 years, first in the North Carolina state legislature, then in Congress. He took a
leave of absence last year after a number of missed House votes due to declining health.
The full interview is at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67y2V3ksdlA it's a interesting interview, especially considering Kushner lack of
experience in this area and composition of his team.
This interview was in 2017. As of 2019 the results were zero and with recent Israeli actions problem probably became worse. Palestine conflict after so many Palestinian brood was spilled by Israel
looks like a permanent feature which, unfortunately, might one day to bring Israel down iether by unleashing a war with Iran
(without USA support), or when the USA might decide to toss Israel to wolfs.
Notable quotes:
"... You can view the complete interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZyGpirUMvk . ..."
"... Watch the full interview before making a judgment. ..."
"... Try to grasp the real power struggles underneath the headlines and hype. ..."
"... It's almost as if cronyism and nepotism breed incompetence. Who knew? ..."
"... One reason Jared has been chosen to interact with Israel is because he is a practicing Koshier Jew and long time family ties and friends with Israli PM Netanyahu since Jared was a young child and in fact Jared would give up his bedroom when Netanyahu came to visit. ..."
Jared Kushner, President Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, is interviewed at the Saban Forum on the topic of Israeli-Palestinian
peace and his talking points get crushed by Israeli telecom billionaire Haim Saban
....Watch the full interview before making a judgment. Because he's betting that you
won't because of your short attention span.
silverskid1, year ago
There's no story here. I watched the interview. It's a nothing-story. Of course the premise of Trump and his team as peacemakers
in Israel is a bad joke-- but Kushner hasn't been "taken down" and "humiliated."
His demeanor throughout the interview was normal for him. The problem lies in what he says, and that's a different matter
entirely. You're show is way to shallow. Try to grasp the real power struggles underneath the headlines and hype.
Kim Nguyen, 1 year ago (edited)
Jared sounds like that guy in your international relations class who is presenting his term paper, which he composed by collecting
the cliff notes.
In terms of social issues, the achievement of peace between Palestine and Israel may be somewhere around P vs NP. There's no better
person to expose the ridiculous of this team and how grossly unqualified they are than an Israeli or a Palestinian person. You
can tell he feels insulted by the composition of this team.
Touting a bankruptcy lawyer for a committee to solve the middle east problem, jesus h. Christ we are in trouble. Kushner sounds
like daddy-in-law on the campaign trail. Every thing is so vague as to be rendered useless. We are going to fix the middle east.
Yeah, how?
We are going to fix the problems there. Yeah, you said that but how are you going to fix it? Well the Iranians are
a problem. Uh huh, we know that, how are you going to fix it? Also the Palestinians and Israelis don't seem to get along either.
The talking while saying nothing just keeps going with this Administration.
Priceless, when I first heard that Kushner was tasked with working on bringing peace to the Middle East my first thought was
who? That that idiot Trump could throw this milk toast Jewish nobody into such a complex, sensitive protracted policy issue speaks
volumes. From what I now know Kushner is a failed real estate agent with a father who is a convicted felon. Just cause he's married
to Big orange daddies equally vacuous dumb daughter seems to be the only reason he is even in the White House. What a disgrace.
1 year on, and this little pecker wood is still just as inept, but at least we can finally begin to see through that fake (and
very creepy) smile. The criminal Trump organization is falling apart at the seems, I think the only thing holding it all together
is the sheer strength of the criminal investigations. Once those are all wrapped up, the Trump org. Will just collapse into a
nasty little pile of rubble at Trumps feet. Fingers crossed Jared and Ivanka will be swept right up into the collapse and find
themselves and in prison as well
So what he saying is Israel is still just a victim they do nothing wrong to stimulate the wars going on in the Middle East
don't do anything they're just playing victims. ??? It's well-known what part did Jesus play in the explosion of the Mesopotamia
Cruise liner for the Americans to get into the war and save England where the Jews benefit in and got his real out of it through
the Rothschild.
The Jewish bankers have been front and center of every war right in the middle stirring up the problems every country that
took them in the Jew would find out their secrets their dislikes for the enemy that you will then go to the enemy and tell him
everything hit the Jews host said causing War then the Jew finances both sides.
I know people like that who was start s***and watch the fight Jews have also claimed that they are A different race from your
average Caucasian. Rh-positive bloodline
I grew up around them and i know that to be true about their conversational interactions them and Italians I just like black
American people in that aspect, you may think it's an argument but it's not, you may think they are joking but they're expressing
the irony of a situation or a persons stupidity.
Trump seems at times to be allergic to real knowledge, competence and expertise - except for the crooks in his cabinet that
he hired to do his dirty work, like Mnuchin. And Trump could have hired real Middle East experts to be on his team. But no, he
hired his son in law - someone he trusts, but also someone with no real expertise in the field, someone who's totally clueless.
It seems like loyalty is 100% to Donald Trump, and knowledge, competence and expertise count for absolutely nothing.
Janet Johnson2 weeks ago (edited)
Ok Packman... so what is your expertise or qualifications? Your experience.. if any? IQ? What are you..15..16?? What qualifies
you to peck away at the Trumps and all interactions with world leaders?
One reason Jared has been chosen to interact with Israel is because he is a practicing Koshier Jew and long time family
ties and friends with Israli PM Netanyahu since Jared was a young child and in fact Jared would give up his bedroom when Netanyahu
came to visit.
I understand Jared has a very high IQ. You Packman are just plain mean. Your friend there with you is even less impressive.
You both sit around and poke fun of brave people who actually go out and try to do something to contribute and better this messed
up world. I hope you aren't old enough to vote bc you aren't capable of making a wise choice yet.
Super Sonic 1 year ago (edited)
Good god we have complete fcking idiots running this country. This guy was absolutely SPOT ON! More people like this need to
tell Trump and his cronies exactly this. The best bankruptcy lawyer to negotiate peace in the Middle East-wtf?? They have not
the dimmest dullest notion on how to run a country starting with that orange ape at the top! ISIS on the run, good economy, low
unemployment rate, Thank-you Obama!
David everyone keeps on talking about the Trump team and how its biased toward Israel. But what about all the other so called
teams of other administrations. What about the Obama team?
What about the Bush team when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the PLO peace, what about the Clinton team when Ehud Barak
practically offered 97% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem?
Oh and again while Bush was in office what about the fact that Israel removed itself and all of its settlers from Gaza? And
what we got in return was an Iranian based about 40 minutes from Tel Aviv??
Why do you concentrate on the Trump team and not the "teams" we've had for the past 20 years or since the Oslo accords began.
People keep on saying that the Trump team is not good for the peace process but I insist what peace process???
We've had this peace process since the late 80's and nothing has happened under the most leftist governments in Israel: Rabin,
Peres, Barak, Olmert, all these Prime Ministers couldn't bring peace with the varying American teams....so why do you pick on
Kushner???
Kushner had the balls to come out and say it like it is: There is NO solution to the conflict...
Eric Grosch1 month ago
So Trump and Kushner won't solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So, who is your exemplar of someone who has done so? The
United States government has been funding Israel greatly and the Palestinians less so for years. Trump came to understand that
Israel knows which side its bread is buttered on, so it sides with the US on most questions and the US sides with Israel on
most questions.
Palestinians hate the US and Israel more or less equally, so Trump rationally withdrew funding from the Palestinians.
That was a divisive move, but the parties, Israel and Palestinians have already been divided since 1948, the year of the
founding of modern Israel. It has long been US-policy to promise recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its
embassy there.
Trump finally did it. Divisive? Sure, but so what? The parties are already divided.
sam n1 year ago
Stop Zionism. It preaches the same ideology and Isis and Nazism. it considers one group of people more superior.
Abban A7 months ago
Kushner only in the picture because his father in law and because he is a Jewish. He has zero international ,foreigners
policies . Basically trump forcing Arab world leaders to pass this deal or else . There will be no peace in Middle East with
those guys in charge and in office. Just more innocent people will die .
"... The "New World Order" is responsible for what is happening. In this new religion, you have the grand priests (the elite to be found in Davos) and the common. They don't want to see that the diversity of the common is the main source of the creativity of the human species. Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies, never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, they have reduced people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can be worse than most animals' behavior. ..."
The "New World Order" is responsible for what is happening. In this new religion, you
have the grand priests (the elite to be found in Davos) and the common. They don't want to
see that the diversity of the common is the main source of the creativity of the human
species. Furthermore, the previous religious systems, even if they were packed with big lies,
never cut the link between people and the sky. Today, in cutting this link, they have reduced
people to a level even below the animal state since with the intelligence, human behavior can
be worse than most animals' behavior.
This human sickness is now pandemic and to save humanity will require some kind of a
tsunami. Nobody today wants to loose anything, and in doing so everybody is just pushing the
system down the drain.
Another point: families, clans, nations are structures allowing people to develop roots.
They are not the causes of war but it is true that these structures can be manipulated to
generate wars in the interest of some "elite" (the poor get killed and the elite, gets
richer). Reconciliation between people does not require to erase structures but to eliminate
the bad guys manipulating them (the Jihadists, the terrorists and their Bosses which are
today mostly in Washington, Wall Street and Riyadh)
and essence of Christianity and Christian civilization is reason and objective reality,
necessary basis of TRUTH (= Christ)
My goodness! The essence of any religion -- - basically a mix of unsubstantiated
superstition and blind faith depending on no verifiable evidence -- - to be equated with
reason and objective reality, phenomena more aligned with the scientific method and culture
is patently absurd. And to quote a book written when the earth was still thought a flat,
anthropocentric mass and stars perched in the heavens as glittering divine ornaments? I rest
my case.
"... Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter the last phase of the 30 Years War or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they are are actively crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group. ..."
"... Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia. Waiting in the wings we see various groups that hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to governing the US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn. ..."
"... Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently either doesn't care or is unable to change. ..."
"... If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity has enough shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in its extent as WW I and WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was during the 30 Years War). ..."
The third trend is the only place where hope can reside. This trend – what I have
previously ascribed to a group I call the "dissenters" – understands that radical new
thinking is required. But given that this group is being actively crushed by the old
liberal elite and the new authoritarians, it has little public and political space to
explore its ideas, to experiment, to collaborate, as it urgently needs to.
Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter
the last phase of the 30 Years War or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old
elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they are are actively
crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group.
Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy
people, one of which has active dementia. Waiting in the wings we see various groups that
hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to governing the
US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn.
Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian
propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently either doesn't care or is unable to
change.
Example: Reaction to yellow vests in France, which drew the reactions described in Cook's
article (at the root of this comment thread). "Back to your kennels, curs!" isn't effective
in situations like this, but it seems to be the only reply the EU has.
New groups take over when the old group has rotted away. At some point, Cook's third
alternative will be all that is left. The real question is what will be happening world wide
at that point. If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity has enough
shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in
its extent as WW I and WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was
during the 30 Years War).
Counterinsurgency
1] To understand contemporary effect of WW I on survivors, think of a the survivors of a
group playing paintball who accidentally got hold of grenade launchers but somehow didn't
realize that until the game was over. WW II was actually worse -- people worldwide really
expected another industrialized war within 20 years (by AD 1965), this one fought with
nuclear weapons.
The parading of liberalism's humanitarian credentials has entitled our elites to leave a
trail of carnage and wreckage in their wake in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria
" I am a Syrian Living in Syria: "It Was Never a Revolution nor a Civil War. The
Terrorists Are Sent by Your Government"
"American soldiers and people should not be supporting barbarian al Qaeda terrorists
who are killing Christians, Muslims in my country and everyone .
Every massacre is committed by them. We were all happy in Syria: we had free school and
university education available for everyone, free healthcare, no GMO, no fluoride, no
chemtrails, no Rothschild IMF- controlled bank, state owned central bank which gives 11%
interest, we are self-sufficient and have no foreign debt to any country or bank. "
[ ]
" I do not understand how the good and brave American people can accept to bomb my
country which has never harmed them and therefore help the barbarian al Qaeda. These animals
slit throats and behead for pleasure they behead babies and rape young kids.
" They are satanic. Our military helped by the millions of civilian militias are
winning the battle against al Qaeda. But now the USA wants to bomb the shit out of us so that
al Qaeda can get the upper hand. "
"Please help us American people. They are destroying the cradle of civilization. Stop your
government. "
A Serbian activist on Wednesday threw a pie in the face of Jewish French intellectual
Bernard-Henri Levy at a showing of his film "Peshmerga" in Belgrade. He is promoting
'Kurdistan' which is part of Israel's EXPANSIONIST policy.
He will talk at the Cambridge public library, a propaganda center, on February 20th, 2019
He should be exposed further. Jewish French philosopher gets pied in face in Belgrade
'Populism' is just democracy in action and most people seem to think democracy is a good
thing. So what's the problem? Apparently the masses don't want what's being shoved down their
throats by undemocratic rulers so now we have this ongoing conflict. One can only hope that
the populists get the upper hand in all this. We need a new political terminology because it
seems strange to use the label "liberal" for a group of people that are such aggressive
war-mongers. There doesn't seem to be much that's liberal about them.War lovers and
anti-democratic, they have much in common with fascism.
anarchyst says:
February 3, 2019 at 2:24 pm GMT • 300 Words
The debasement of European societies is deliberate. The elites want destruction, period
they want their "New World Order"
Very true.
The intent of this article is to blame [neo]Liberals. I would hardly call Europe's
[neoliberal] elite liberals. A liberal would defend freedom of expression and thought. A
liberal would defend the right of an individual or group to express viewpoints that are
unpopular.
Western Europe is hardly liberal. It is ... repressive when it comes to dissent, mildly
totalitarian. Political leaders who advocate for the rights of indigenous Europeans in Europe
are persecuted and imprisoned. Political parties are banned or bankrupted.
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. ..."
"... The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts. ..."
"... Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law ..."
"... A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda. ..."
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not
always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be
disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem
unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American
politicians.
In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And
-- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with
conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which
carefully avoided war with America.
It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president,
who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By
contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly
opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is
not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.
Donald the Cockatoo
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.
All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump
and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies
describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit
long, but worth reading.
"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches
into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed
woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I
decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time
she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.
"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone
call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and
would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting
that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her
own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that
out," he says.
"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in
return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only
in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called
me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach
disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."
All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That
is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This
increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.
A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of
military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch
hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in
Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this
fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.
Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War
draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered
the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid
service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me
that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no
great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to
take it away from."
This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended,
now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions
would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological
and dangerous.
Here is PJ on
Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under
real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in
Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."
How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans,
inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the
weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of
course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is
destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.
Bush II
Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he
hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not
having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the
killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively,
these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft
carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No
empathy. What a man.
The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that
our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John
Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not
yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and
Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's
leadership should do, but ours doesn't..
Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew)
holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the
Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the
captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple
missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"
The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on
Pennsylvania Avernus.
Gina
A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and
proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture
prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the
CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the
civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?
Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't
torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging,
desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a
little more water .
What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her
office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little
girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .
Michael Pompeo
Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate
for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to
destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to
the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not
America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and
none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia,
which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO
up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command
which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race;
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North
Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a
war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly
puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as
Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no
more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.
But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.
Nikki Haley
A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and
Pompeo Mattis
"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat
Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go
into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a
veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun
to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun
to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."
Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an
amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking
about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?
The Upshot
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically
fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration
of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many
countries. These people are not right in the head.
I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the
leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in
the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of
course, decades ago.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it
was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton
leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought
in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.
However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial
goals that have been in play since at least 1945.
The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive &
inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation.
The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's &
naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer
competitors.
China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they
are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.
To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders
in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?
It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of
individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable
responses .
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired
Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky
hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage
sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help
swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft
dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?
And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it
still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the
inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law
enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?
No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively
toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.
Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump
administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones
have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which
is ominous).
Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its
predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call
incremental.
Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who
jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary?
Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how
the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in
the Establishment came to his side.
Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in
common.
@Sean
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress
"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as
far as Russia was concerned."
Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China
will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.
Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them
everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier
research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and
then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen
economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod
along, single file, to oblivion.
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a
real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in
fury at this.
Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he
was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white
America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration
and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the
Business Roundtable.
He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant
people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.
Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with
Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People
like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.
Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico
does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime.
Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest
criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.
@KenH
The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US
president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on
the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep
state, with him having no say in the matter.
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. ..."
"... The problem with the current occupants of the White House is not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts. ..."
"... Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law ..."
"... A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda. ..."
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not
always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be
disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem
unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American
politicians.
In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And
-- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with
conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which
carefully avoided war with America.
It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president,
who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By
contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly
opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is
not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.
Donald the Cockatoo
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.
All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump
and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies
describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit
long, but worth reading.
"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches
into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed
woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I
decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time
she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.
"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone
call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and
would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting
that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her
own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that
out," he says.
"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in
return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only
in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called
me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach
disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."
All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That
is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This
increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.
A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of
military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch
hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in
Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this
fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.
Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War
draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered
the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid
service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me
that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no
great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to
take it away from."
This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended,
now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions
would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological
and dangerous.
Here is PJ on
Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under
real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in
Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."
How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans,
inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the
weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of
course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is
destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.
Bush II
Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he
hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not
having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the
killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively,
these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft
carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No
empathy. What a man.
The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that
our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John
Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not
yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and
Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's
leadership should do, but ours doesn't..
Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew)
holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the
Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the
captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple
missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"
The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on
Pennsylvania Avernus.
Gina
A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and
proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture
prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the
CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the
civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?
Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't
torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging,
desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a
little more water .
What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her
office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little
girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .
Michael Pompeo
Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate
for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to
destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to
the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not
America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and
none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia,
which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO
up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command
which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race;
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North
Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a
war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly
puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as
Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no
more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.
But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.
Nikki Haley
A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and
Pompeo Mattis
"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat
Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go
into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a
veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun
to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun
to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."
Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an
amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking
about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?
The Upshot
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically
fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration
of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many
countries. These people are not right in the head.
I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the
leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in
the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of
course, decades ago.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it
was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton
leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought
in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.
However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial
goals that have been in play since at least 1945.
The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive &
inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation.
The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's &
naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer
competitors.
China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they
are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.
To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders
in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?
It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of
individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable
responses .
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired
Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky
hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage
sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help
swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft
dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?
And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it
still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the
inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law
enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?
No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively
toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.
Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump
administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones
have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which
is ominous).
Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its
predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call
incremental.
Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who
jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary?
Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how
the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in
the Establishment came to his side.
Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in
common.
@Sean
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress
"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as
far as Russia was concerned."
Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China
will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.
Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them
everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier
research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and
then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen
economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod
along, single file, to oblivion.
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a
real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in
fury at this.
Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he
was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white
America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration
and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the
Business Roundtable.
He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant
people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.
Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with
Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People
like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.
Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico
does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime.
Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest
criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.
@KenH
The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US
president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on
the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep
state, with him having no say in the matter.
@Asagirian
Clinton wasn't a lunatic? I wonder what Fred thinks about his deranged Jewish Secretary of State Madeline Albright.
She famously
told Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, due to Clinton's years of punative sanctions, was
"worth it."
Doesn't seem like those preventable deaths of innocent children bothered Billy Boy too much. With the Clinton's, we
get two lunatics for the price of one.
@Asagirian
Clinton wasn't a lunatic? I wonder what Fred thinks about his deranged Jewish Secretary of State Madeline Albright.
She famously
told Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, due to Clinton's years of punative sanctions, was
"worth it."
Doesn't seem like those preventable deaths of innocent children bothered Billy Boy too much. With the Clinton's, we
get two lunatics for the price of one.
@NoseytheDuke
Face it -- he neither believed nor understood those Stephen Miller speeches. Coming from the
mouth of Donald Trump, they were lies.
Why do so many of you intelligent people still buy into the political puppet show,
expecting BigGov to fix itself? Electoral politics, judicial confirmations, etc, are
orchestrated conflict to keep dissidence channeled and harmlessly blown off as the Empire
lurches along.
There are other columnists here at Unz who have been calling the Beltway BS for years. For
example:
"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and
bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class.
Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking
complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as
a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war
abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his
election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."
@anon1
I would not condemn them out of hand. Most enlisted men never went to college. They come from
poor rural areas, where they would be lucky to get a part-time job at McDonalds. Their
mothers were probably on welfare, drug-addicted with no father in the home.
Compared to their
options, the military offers fame and fortune, and military recruiters are duplicitous
snakes, just out to fill their quotas.
Only later do many of them realize they were duped.
Hence, their suicide rate of 20 vets per day.
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically fascinating as now.
Appointment on Bolton essentially confirms Fred Reed diagnose of Trump: "profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law.
Notable quotes:
"... I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth ..."
"... The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive & inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation. The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's & naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer competitors. ..."
American government has become a collection of sordid and dangerous clowns. It was not
always thus. Until Bush II, those governing were never lunatics. Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Clinton had their defects, were sometimes corrupt, and could be
disagreed with on many grounds. They weren't crazy. Today's administration would seem
unwholesome in a New York bus station at three in the morning. They are not normal American
politicians.
In particular they seem to be pushing for war with Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. And
-- this is important -- their behavior is not a matter of liberals catfighting with
conservatives. All former presidents carefully avoided war with the Soviet Union, which
carefully avoided war with America.
It was Reagan, a conservative and responsible president,
who negotiated the INF treaty, to eliminate short-fuse nuclear weapons from Europe. By
contrast, Trump is scrapping it. Pat Buchanan, the most conservative man I have met, strongly
opposes aggression against Russia. The problem with the current occupants of the White House is
not that they are conservatives, if they are. It is that they are nuts.
Donald the Cockatoo
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a real-estate
con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in fury at this.
All politics being herd politics, the population has coalesced into herds fanatically pro-Trump
and fanatically anti-Trump. Yet Trump's past is not a secret. Well-documented biographies
describe his behavior in detail, but his supporters don't read them. The following is a bit
long, but worth reading.
"I always get even," Trump writes in the opening line of that chapter. He then launches
into an attack on the same woman he had denounced in Colorado. Trump recruited the unnamed
woman "from her government job where she was making peanuts," her career going nowhere. "I
decided to make her somebody. I gave her a great job at the Trump Organization, and over time
she became powerful in real estate. She bought a beautiful home.
"When Trump was in financial trouble in the early nineties .."I asked her to make a phone
call to an extremely close friend of hers who held a powerful position at a big bank and
would have done what she asked. She said, "Donald, I can't do that." Instead of accepting
that the woman felt that such a call would be inappropriate, Trump fired her. She started her
own business. Trump writes that her business failed. "I was really happy when I found that
out," he says.
"She had turned on me after I did so much to help her. I had asked her to do me a favor in
return, and she turned me down flat. She ended up losing her home. Her husband, who was only
in it for the money, walked out on her and I was glad. Over the years many people have called
me asking for a recommendation for her. I always gave her bad recommendation. I can't stomach
disloyalty. ..and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable."
All that because (if she exists) she declined to engage in corruption for the Donald. That
is your President. A draft dodger, a pampered rich kid, and Ivy brat (Penn, Wharton). This
increasingly is a pattern at the top: Ivy, money, no military service.
A particularly loathsome sort of politician is one who dodges his country's wars when of
military age, and then wants to send others to die in later wars. This is Pussy John, arch
hawk, coward, amoral, bully, willing to kill any number while he prances martially in
Washington. Speaking as one who carried a rifle in Viet Nam, I would like to confine this
fierce darling for life in the bottom of a public latrine in Uganda.
Pussy John, an Ivy flower (Yale) wrote in a reunion books that, during the 1969 Vietnam War
draft lottery, "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered
the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton explained that he decided to avoid
service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me
that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no
great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to
take it away from."
This same Pussy John, unwilling to risk his valuable being in a war he could have attended,
now wants war with Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and Afghanistan. In these wars millions
would die while he waggled his silly lip broom in the West Wing. His truculence is pathological
and dangerous.
Here is PJ on
Iran: which has not harmed and does not threaten America: "We think the government is under
real pressure and it's our intention to squeeze them very hard," Bolton said Tuesday in
Singapore. "As the British say, 'squeeze them until the pips squeak'."
How very brave of him. He apparently feels sadistic delight at starving Venezuelans,
inciting civil war, and ruining the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong. Whence the
weird hostility of this empty jockstrap, the lack of humanity? Forgot his Midiol? Venezuela of
course has done nothing to the US and couldn't if it wanted to. America under the Freak Show is
destroying another country simply because it doesn't meekly obey. While PJ gloats.
Bush II
Another rich kid and Yalie, none too bright, amoral as the rest, another draft dodger, (he
hid in the Air National Guard.) who got to the White House on daddy's name recognition. Not
having the balls to fight in his own war, he presided over the destruction of Iraq and the
killing of hundreds of thousands, for no reason. (Except oil, Israel, and Empire. Collectively,
these amount to no reason.) He then had the effrontery to pose on the deck of an aircraft
carrier and say, "Mission accomplished." You know, just like Alexander the Great. Amoral. No
empathy. What a man.
The striking pattern of the Ivy League avoiding the war confirmed then, as it does now, that
our present rulers regard the rest of America as beings of a lower order. These armchair John
Waynes might have called them "deplorables," though Hillary, another Yalie bowwow hawk, had not
yet made the contempt explicit. This was the attitude of Pussy John, Bushy-Bushy Two, and
Cockatoo Don. Compare this with the Falklands War in which Prince Andrew did what a country's
leadership should do, but ours doesn't..
Wikipedia: "He (Prince Andrew)
holds the rank of commander and the honorary rank of Vice Admiral (as of February 2015) in the
Royal Navy, in which he served as an active-duty helicopter pilot and instructor and as the
captain of a warship. He saw active service during the Falklands War, flying on multiple
missions including anti-surface warfare, Exocet missile decoy, and casualty evacuation"
The Brits still have class. Compare Andrew with the contents of the Great Double-Wide on
Pennsylvania Avernus.
Gina
A measure of the moral degradation of America: It is the only country that openly and
proudly engages in torture. Many countries do it, of course. We admit it, and maintain torture
prisons around the globe. Now we have a major government official, Gina Haspel, head of the
CIA, a known sadist. "Bloody Gina." Is this who represents us? Would any other country in the
civilized world put a sadist publicly in office?
Think of Gina waterboarding some guy, or standing around and getting off on it. You don't
torture people unless you like it. The guy is tied down, coughing, choking, screaming, begging,
desperate, drowning, and Gina pours more water. The poor bastard vomits, chokes. Gina adds a
little more water .
What kind of woman would do this? Well, Gina's kind obviously. Does she then run off to her
office and lock the door for half an hour? Maybe it starts early. One imagines her as a little
girl, playing with her dolls. Cheerleader Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Klaus Barbie .
Michael Pompeo
Another pathologically aggressive chickenhawk. In a piece in Foreign Affairs he describes Iran as a "rogue state that America must eliminate
for the sake of all that is good. Note that Pompeo presides over a foreign policy seeking to
destroy Venezuela's economy and threatens military invasion, though Venezuela is no danger to
the US and is not America's business; embargoes Cuba, which in no danger to the US and is not
America's business; seeks to destroy Iran's economy, though Iran is no danger to the US and
none of Americas business; sanctions Europe and meddles in its politics; sanctions Russia,
which is not a danger to the United States, in an attempt to destroy its economy, pushes NATO
up to Russia's borders, abandons the INF arms-control treaty and establishes a Space Command
which will mean nuclear weapons on hair trigger in orbit, starts another nuclear arms race;
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress; sanctions North
Korea; continues a seventeen-year policy of killing Afghans for no discernible purpose; wages a
war against Syria; bombs Somalis; maintains unwanted occupation forces in Iraq; increasingly
puts military forces in Africa; supports regimes with ghastly human-rights records such as
Saudi Arabia and Israel; and looks for a war with China in the South China Sea, which is no
more America's business than the Gulf of Mexico is China's.
But Pompeo is not a loon, oh no, and America is not a rogue state. Perish forfend.
Nikki Haley
A negligible twit -- I choose my vowel carefully -- but characterized, like Trump, PJ, and
Pompeo Mattis
"After being promoted to lieutenant general, Mattis took command of Marine Corps Combat
Development Command. On February 1, 2005, speaking at a forum in San Diego, he said "You go
into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a
veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun
to shoot them. Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. It's fun
to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."
Perhaps in air-to-air combat you want someone who regards killing as fun, or in an
amphibious assault. But in a position to make policy? Can you image Dwight Eisenhower talking
about the fun of squaring a man's brains across the ground?
The Upshot
We have until recently never had government as aggressive, reckless, or psychiatrically
fascinating as now. Again, it is not a matter of Republicans and Democrats. No administration
of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively toward war with so many
countries. These people are not right in the head.
I remember in high school one of my teachers stating how weird it seems that it would be the
leadership of the US military who would call for the American government to intervene less in
the affairs of other countries and to not be so quick to use military force. This was, of
course, decades ago.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with one of my colleages. He remarked how scary it
was that so many American politicians were calling for war with Russia (with Hillary Clinton
leading the pack?). I remarked how it seemed so strange that many of these hawks never fought
in a war even when they had ample opportunity in their youth (Vietnam).
Fred is absolutely correct: the current administration is pathological & insane.
However, it's worth remembering that their insane behavior is based on the same Imperial
goals that have been in play since at least 1945.
The crazy irresponsibility of Trump's foreign policy is entirely counter productive &
inexcusable, however it's symptomatic of a slowly swelling sense of unconscious desperation.
The reality, the feeling of unconstrained power the US experienced in the 90's &
naughties has gone. The US has slowly woken to the nightmare possibility of real peer
competitors.
China & Russia are real novelties -- & as such, damn scary. Taken together, they
are near equal military & economic rivals of the US.
To US elites this is almost incomprehensible. How ? How did China suddenly become leaders
in cutting edge tech? How did Russia suddenly appear with hypersonsic missiles ?
It's impossible ! Given the already existing moral & psychological inadequacies of
individual Trump team members, insanity & juvenile behavior are fairly predictable
responses .
The fact that you left Bill Clinton off this list (you know, the president that fired
Tomahawk missiles into the country of Sudan to take attention away from the Lewinsky
hearings, sexually assaulted subordinate women for decades, and spent time banging underage
sex slaves via the Lolita Express, pardons a bunch of Puerto Rican terrorists in 2000 to help
swing PR votes to his bag of shit wife in the New York Senate race and was, oh yeah, a draft
dodger) is pathetic even for you , Kiko. I guess NAFTA makes up for all that rapey shit, huh?
And when can we expect a detailed critique of the Mexican political climate, Kiko? Is it
still never? A little too worried about that knock on the door if you bring up all the
inconvenient murder going on down there, and all of the gutless politicians and law
enforcement that turn a blind eye to it, you insufferable hypocrite?
No administration of any party, stripe, or ideology has ever pushed to aggressively
toward war with so many countries. These people are not right in the head.
Now there, I will certainly agree with Mr. Reed, but in a qualified way. The Trump
administration is somewhat more warlike and interventionist in its talk than previous ones
have been. But, so far, all talk (except for its repudiation of the Iran nuclear deal, which
is ominous).
Also, even in terms of the bellicose hot air, the current regime's increase over its
predecessors is a matter of degree, not of kind. Even the increase itself I'd call
incremental.
Also, I wrote, "So far, all talk." That doesn't mean I'm not concerned. As the man who
jumped off a skyscraper said, when passing the 2nd floor, "All right so far!"
So what's the difference between Trump's neocons and the neocons who would have run Hillary?
Nothing. There is no one more chicken hawkish, and slavish to Israel than Hillary.
Give Trump some credit. He tried to ease ties with Russia and end war in Syria. But look how
the Jewish supremacists in media and Deep State goons all jumped on him. And almost no one in
the Establishment came to his side.
Obama and his goons pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax. Obama and Bush II have more in
common.
@Sean
wages a trade war against China intended to prevent its economic progress
"About time too. Nixon deciding the US would getting pally with China was a hostile act as
far as Russia was concerned."
Exactly right. Glad someone else remembers things as they were. Getting pally with China
will turn out to be the most disastrous mistake the USA has ever made in foreign policy.
Arrogantly thinking that we could make them our junior partners we have given or sold them
everything which made us great. Our industries, technology, patents, education at premier
research institutions etc. Now, utilizing everything we provided them, they will surpass and
then suppress us. Meanwhile our ignorant politicians, blinded by traitorous, dual-citizen
economists and bankers who promised a new economy based upon finance and "information", plod
along, single file, to oblivion.
Start with the head cheese, Donald Trump, profoundly ignorant, narcissistic, a
real-estate con man who danced just out of reach of the law. His supporters will explode in
fury at this.
Most of us knew that Trump is a flawed man but were willing to overlook that because he
was the only one talking sense on immigration and offering solutions that would benefit white
America. Of course, after two years Trump has been all tweet and little action on immigration
and appears poised to sell out out to Javanka, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers and the
Business Roundtable.
He's narcissistic and a bit of a con man but not profoundly ignorant. Profoundly ignorant
people don't become billionaires and will themselves to the presidency.
Trump has done a 180 on his campaign foreign policy and filled his administration with
Israel first neocon retreads from the George W. Bush era instead of America firsters. People
like Bolton deserve all the hate and condemnation heaped upon them by Fredrico.
Fredrico just hates Trump because he doesn't worship Mexico and Mexicans like Fredrico
does and spoke the truth about many Mexican illegals being predisposed to violent crime.
Fredrico and his hispandering Bobbsey twin Ron Unz get easily triggered at the slightest
criticism of hispanics, even if based in fact, and fly into a foaming at the mouth rage.
@KenH
The first priority of any president is staying alive, which probably explains why every US
president, including Donald Trump ends up doing the exact opposite of what they promise on
the campaign trail. As to Trump's neocon advisors, I suspect they were appointed by the deep
state, with him having no say in the matter.
Both Haley and Mattis are no longer serving with the Administration; apparently news of this
has not reached Fred's watering hole in Ajijic, where I hear the Internet is slow and dodgy.
And does he really think the Brits have "class?"
Harry showed up for a photo op in Helmand province and promptly got two American GIs
killed, a result that Reed probably found thrilling.
The classy Brits promptly created tall tales of this dimwitted ginger dodging bullets and
blasting insurgents to bits, like a modern day Flashman. All this in the run-up to the big
wedding. Classy, and not propaganda at all!
It looks like a specialist on illegal transferee of weapons is needed to make the color revolution a success...
Notable quotes:
"... Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike National Endowment for Democracy (NED). ..."
It's a sad fact that the full and unconditional
pardon given by President George H.W. Bush to Elliott Abrams (a member of the second
generation neo-conservative royalty by way of marriage to the daughter of neo-con co-creator,
Midge Decter), protected him from disbarment and possible prison. Abrams, who pled guilty to
the crime of lying to Congress in the investigation of the Iran-Contra, embraced the plea
option reportedly in order to avoid heavier charges from the office of then independent
counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, prosecutor in the Iran-Contra cases. Bush is gone, Walsh is gone,
but Mr. Bush's Attorney General William Barr is – surprise – now Attorney General
of the United States.
What that portends for future regime change adventures remains to be seen, but the
historical record is ominous.
In 1992, when Bush issued the Iran-Contra pardons on the eve of his leaving office after
losing reelection to President Bill Clinton, William Barr fully supported the pardons.
Presidential pardons are, after all, Constitutional. But, Lawrence Walsh said at the time,
reported NPR, "It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious
crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences."
Now the Iran-Contra era neo-cons and the Dick Cheney/Iraq Invasion 2003 era neo-cons are
marching back into the institution of the Presidency.
Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within
weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan
President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military
intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran
of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike
National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Regime change, putting in questionable, if not nefarious new leaders, seems to be Abrams'
delight: Nicaragua, Iraq while a government official. Many others in his dreams.
In 1986, even before the Iran-Contra debacle was revealed, as Assistant Secretary of State
for Inter-American Affairs, Elliott Abrams told Congress that Nicaraguan "Contras" involved in
drug running didn't have the okay from Contra leaders. It was just underlings. This, while
Abrams and company were busy doing end-runs around the Boland Amendment and other Congressional
actions that barred military supplies to the Contras. Even Khomeini's Iran was not off limits
in getting money for the Nicaraguan fight.
In another time and place, i.e., Saudi Arabia, present day, where regime change in Syria was
a high priority, we've heard excuses similar to those made by Elliott Abrams about the Contras,
about the responsibility for the killing and butchering of the corpse of Saudi journalist Jamal
Khashoggi, and about the financing and arming of ISIS and Al Nusra terrorists by Saudi Arabia
in Syria. Deja vu.
With more neo-cons in the Administration, the trajectory is more wasted blood and
treasure.
"... Now the Times acknowledges: "The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans' care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher More than 2.7 million Americans have fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members-and nearly 8,000 private contractors-have been killed. More than 53,700 people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs." ..."
"... Kagan has a great deal invested in the Afghanistan war. He and his wife Kimberly served as civilian advisers to top generals who directed the war and elaborated the failed strategies of counterinsurgency (COIN). He has been a vociferous supporter of every US war and every escalation, arguing most recently for the US military to confront Russian- and Iranian-backed forces in Syria. ..."
"... A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women ..."
"... Aside from costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan women, the US war has left women, like the entire population, under worse conditions than when it began. Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school, 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate, and 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16. ..."
"... The attempt by the likes of Smeal and leading elements within the Democratic Party to cloak the bloodbath in Afghanistan as a crusade to "liberate" women and promote "democracy" is itself a criminal act. ..."
"... Afghanistan is a shitshow due to elite meddling. This editorial was nothing more than virtue-signaling to those that still hate war. But the anti-war movement is effectively dead anyway. There are anti-war people, but no anti-war movement. That's the crowd that the New York Times was appealing to. This is a stunt; nothing more. ..."
"... It was USA imperialism (under Carter and Brzezinski) which first had made Afghanistan a hell for women, but colonial feminists do not care for the facts. ..."
"... That is very true. "Death by a thousand cuts" was Brzezinski's scheme to destroy the Soviet Union in Central Asia. A few years ago, he was interviewed by a journalist from PRC who asked if he had any regrets with all the destruction and death it caused. Brzezinski said, "None". ..."
An editorial published by the New York Times on February 4 titled "End the War in Afghanistan" has provoked a backlash from prominent
supporters of the decades-long US "war on terrorism" and the fraud of "humanitarian intervention."
The Times editorial was a damning
self-indictment by the US political establishment's newspaper of record, which has supported every US act of military aggression,
from the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the US wars for regime change in Libya
and Syria beginning in 2011.
The editorial presents the "war on terror" as an unmitigated fiasco, dating it from September 14, 2001, when "Congress wrote what
would prove to be one of the largest blank checks in the country's history," i.e., the Authorization for Use of Military Force against
Al Qaeda and its affiliates, which is still invoked to legitimize US interventions from Syria to Somalia, Yemen and, of course, Afghanistan.
On the day that this "blank check" was written, the Times published a column titled "No Middle Ground," which stated "the Bush
administration today gave the nations of the world a stark choice: stand with us against terrorism, deny safe havens to terrorists
or face the certain prospect of death and destruction. The marble halls of Washington resounded with talk of war."
It continued, "The nation is rallying around its young, largely untried leader-as his rising approval ratings and the proliferation
of flags across the country vividly demonstrate "
This war propaganda was sustained by the Times, which sold the invasion of Afghanistan as retribution for 9/11 and then promoted
the illegal and unprovoked war against Iraq by legitimizing and embellishing the lies about "weapons of mass destruction."
With the first deployment of US ground troops in Afghanistan, the Times editorialized on October 20, 2001: "Now the nation's soldiers
are going into battle in a distant and treacherous land, facing a determined and resourceful enemy. As they go, they should know
that the nation supports their cause and yearns for their success."
Now the Times acknowledges: "The price tag, which includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and increased spending on veterans'
care, will reach $5.9 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. Since nearly
all of that money has been borrowed, the total cost with interest will be substantially higher More than 2.7 million Americans have
fought in the war since 2001. Nearly 7,000 service members-and nearly 8,000 private contractors-have been killed. More than 53,700
people returned home bearing physical wounds, and numberless more carry psychological injuries. More than one million Americans who
served in a theater of the war on terror receive some level of disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs."
The massive loss of life, destruction of social infrastructure and vast human suffering inflicted by these wars on civilian populations
are at best an afterthought for the Times. Conservative estimates place the number killed by the US war in Afghanistan at 175,000.
With the number of indirect fatalities caused by the war, the toll likely rises to a million. In Iraq, the death toll was even higher.
What does the Times conclude from this bloody record? "The failure of American leaders-civilians and generals through three administrations,
from the Pentagon to the State Department to Congress and the White House-to develop and pursue a strategy to end the war ought to
be studied for generations. Likewise, all Americans-the news media included-need to be prepared to examine the national credulity
or passivity that's led to the longest conflict in modern American history."
What a cowardly and cynical evasion! Three administrations, those of Bush, Obama and Trump, have committed war crimes over the
course of more than 17 years, including launching wars of aggression-the principal charge leveled against the Nazis at Nuremberg-the
slaughter of civilians and torture. These crimes should not be "studied for generations," but punished.
As for the attempt to lump the news media together with "all Americans" as being guilty of "credulity" and "passivity," this is
a slander against the American people and a deliberate cover-up of the crimes carried out by the corporate media, with the Times
at their head, in disseminating outright lies and war propaganda. The Times editors should be "prepared to examine" the fact that
journalistic agents of the Nazi regime who carried out a similar function in Germany were tried and punished at Nuremberg.
The Times editorial supporting a US withdrawal reflects the conclusions being drawn by increasing sections of the ruling establishment,
including the Trump administration, which has opened up negotiations with the Taliban. It is bound up with the shift in strategy
by US imperialism and the Pentagon toward the preparation for "great power" confrontations with nuclear-armed Russia and China.
The Times ' call for an Afghanistan withdrawal has provoked a heated rebuke by defenders of the "war on terrorism" and "humanitarian
intervention," who have denounced the newspaper for defeatism. Such a withdrawal, a letter published by the Times on February 8 argued,
would "accelerate and expand the war," "allow another extremist-terrorist phenomenon to emerge," and "result in the deaths and abuse
of thousands of women."
The signatories of the letter include Frederick Kagan, David Sedney and Eleanor Smeal.
Kagan has a great deal invested in the Afghanistan war. He and his wife Kimberly served as civilian advisers to top generals
who directed the war and elaborated the failed strategies of counterinsurgency (COIN). He has been a vociferous supporter of every
US war and every escalation, arguing most recently for the US military to confront Russian- and Iranian-backed forces in Syria.
Likewise Sedney, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense responsible for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, now working
at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Married to a top lobbyist for Chevron who worked extensively
in Central Asia, he has his own interests in the continuation of US military operations in the region.
Smeal is the president of the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMD) and a former president of the National Organization for Women
(NOW), who is widely described as one of "the major leaders of the modern-day American feminist movement."
A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan
as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women. In 2001, Smeal and her FMD circulated a petition thanking the Bush
administration for its commitment to promoting the rights of women in Afghanistan. After the bombing began on October 7, she declared,
"We have real momentum now in the drive to restore the rights of women." A few days later, she and representatives of other feminist
organizations showed up at the White House to solidarize themselves with the US war.
Urging on the conquest of Afghanistan, she wrote, "I should hope our government doesn't retreat. We'll help rip those burqas off,
I hope. This is a unique time in history. If you're going to end terrorism, you've got to end the ideology of gender apartheid."
Aside from costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Afghan women, the US war has left women, like the entire population,
under worse conditions than when it began. Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school, 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate,
and 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16.
Recent reports suggest that the maternal death rate may be higher than it was before the war began, surpassed only by South Sudan.
While USAID has poured some $280 million into its Promote program, supposedly to advance the conditions of Afghan women, it has done
nothing but line the pockets of corrupt officials of the US-backed puppet regime in Kabul.
The attempt by the likes of Smeal and leading elements within the Democratic Party to cloak the bloodbath in Afghanistan as a
crusade to "liberate" women and promote "democracy" is itself a criminal act.
On October 9, two days after Washington launched its now 17-year-long war on Afghanistan and amid a furor of jingoistic and militarist
propaganda from the US government and the corporate media, the World Socialist Web Site editorial board posted a column titled "Why
we oppose the war in Afghanistan." It rejected the claim that this was a "war for justice and the security of the American people
against terrorism" and insisted that "the present action by the United States is an imperialist war" in which Washington aimed to
"establish a new political framework within which it will exert hegemonic control" over not only Afghanistan, but over the broader
region of Central Asia, "home to the second largest deposit of proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world."
The WSWS stated at the time: "Despite a relentless media campaign to whip up chauvinism and militarism, the mood of the American
people is not one of gung-ho support for the war. At most, it is a passive acceptance that war is the only means to fight terrorism,
a mood that owes a great deal to the efforts of a thoroughly dishonest media which serves as an arm of the state. Beneath the reluctant
endorsement of military action is a profound sense of unease and skepticism. Tens of millions sense that nothing good can come of
this latest eruption of American militarism.
"The United States stands at a turning point. The government admits it has embarked on a war of indefinite scale and duration.
What is taking place is the militarization of American society under conditions of a deepening social crisis.
"The war will profoundly affect the conditions of the American and international working class. Imperialism threatens mankind
at the beginning of the twenty-first century with a repetition on a more horrific scale of the tragedies of the twentieth. More than
ever, imperialism and its depredations raise the necessity for the international unity of the working class and the struggle for
socialism."
These warnings and this perspective have been borne out entirely by the criminal and tragic events of the last 17 years, even
as the likes of the New York Times find themselves compelled to admit the bankruptcy of their entire record on Afghanistan, and their
erstwhile "liberal" allies struggle to salvage some shred of the filthy banner of "human rights imperialism."
"The failure of American leaders -- civilians and generals through three administrations, from the Pentagon to the State Department
to Congress and the White House -- to develop and pursue a strategy to end the war ought to be studied for generations. Likewise,
all Americans -- the news media included -- need to be prepared to examine the national credulity or passivity that's led to the
longest conflict in modern American history."
What the New York Times should propose is a Nuremberg-style trial for the war criminals responsible for the genocide of millions,
the devastation of of the Middle East and Africa, and the looting of the US Treasury by war profiteers and the political duopoly.
If these criminals are NOT held accountable for their actions NOTHING will be learned and the violence, death and destruction
will continue.
"The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law, acted as Head of State or responsible
government official, does not relieve him from responsibility under international law."
Gore Vidal rightly named America as the United States of Amnesia. They NEVER learn from their own history and they are never told
about what their terrorist government does in their name.
Eleanor Smeal's comment about "ripping off those burqas" in Afghanistan reminds me of Louisiana congressman John Cooksey's post-9/11
suggestion that police should pull over and question anyone with ''a diaper on his head''. Both use religious intolerance to increase
the power of the state.
"A leading figure in the Democratic Party, Smeal is no Jane-come-lately to the filthy campaign to promote the war in Afghanistan
as a "humanitarian" exercise in promoting the rights of women."
wouldn't it be more correctly "Janey comes lately" ..as in "Johnny come lately"..?
The completely insane fraud of waging imperialist war for "women rights" has been , unfortunately, extensively documented..the
US occupation has strengthened not weakened the Taliban
"The WSWS stated at the time: "Despite a relentless media campaign to whip up chauvinism and militarism, the mood of the American
people is not one of gung-ho support for the war. "
Not really in agreement with this statement although, everything has changed in almost 20 years.....
There are always elements that are gung ho for war. And I'll agree that the number was abnormally high for Afghanistan. But I
do think the majority still reluctantly agreed to the war as a necessary measure to fight "terrorism" as the more-than-likely-to-be-a-false-flag
9/11 event was very fresh in everyone's mind.
Afghanistan is a shitshow due to elite meddling. This editorial was nothing more than virtue-signaling to those that still
hate war. But the anti-war movement is effectively dead anyway. There are anti-war people, but no anti-war movement. That's the
crowd that the New York Times was appealing to. This is a stunt; nothing more.
What's more interesting is that the liberal elites will probably do their best to continue on with the war. But either way,
the USA will likely lose. In fact, it's already lost the war. The Taliban have won this one. That the elitists can't see that
shows just how far gone they are.
It was USA imperialism (under Carter and Brzezinski) which first had made Afghanistan a hell for women, but colonial feminists
do not care for the facts.
That is very true. "Death by a thousand cuts" was Brzezinski's scheme to destroy the Soviet Union in Central Asia. A few years
ago, he was interviewed by a journalist from PRC who asked if he had any regrets with all the destruction and death it caused.
Brzezinski said, "None".
"... "Constrained by the treaty's provisions, the United States has been prevented from deploying new weapons to counter China's efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and keep American aircraft carriers at bay. China was still a small and unsophisticated military power when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of a rapidly-weakening Soviet Union, negotiated the INF agreement." ..."
"... Over the past two years, the American military establishment has grown increasingly alarmed at the rapidity of China's technological development, which the United States sees as a threat not only to the profitability of its corporations, but the dominance of its military. ..."
"... As the latest US Worldwide Threat Assessment warns, "For 2019 and beyond, the innovations that drive military and economic competitiveness will increasingly originate outside the United States, as the overall US lead in science and technology shrinks" and "the capability gap between commercial and military technologies evaporates." ..."
"... The United States hopes that, by leveraging its military, it will be able to contain the economic rise of China and shore up US preeminence on the world stage. ..."
"... Nearly 75 years ago, the United States, after having "scorched and boiled and baked to death," in the words of General Curtis Lemay, hundreds of thousands of civilians in a genocidal "strategic bombing" campaign over Japan, murdered hundreds of thousands more with the use of two nuclear weapons: an action whose primary aim was to threaten the USSR. ..."
"... But ultimately, the continued existence of the Soviet Union served as a check on the genocidal impulses of US imperialism. ..."
"... Despite the triumphalist claims that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would bring about a new era of peace, democracy and the "end of history," it has brought only a quarter-century of neocolonial wars. ..."
"... the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have not achieved their intended purpose. Having spent trillions of dollars and killed millions of people, the global position of US imperialism is no better than when it launched the "war on terror" in 2001. ..."
"... Now, the United States is upping the ante: setting "great-power conflict" with Russia and China on the order of the day. In its existential struggle for global hegemony, US imperialism is going for broke, willing to employ the most reckless and desperate means, up to and including the launching of nuclear war. ..."
In an article that fully backs the White House's accusations against Russia, the New
York Times ' David Sanger, a conduit for the Pentagon, spells out with perfect lucidity
the real reasons why the United States is leaving the INF treaty:
"Constrained by the treaty's provisions, the United States has been prevented from deploying
new weapons to counter China's efforts to cement a dominant position in the Western Pacific and
keep American aircraft carriers at bay. China was still a small and unsophisticated military
power when Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of a rapidly-weakening Soviet
Union, negotiated the INF agreement."
Sanger's own words make perfectly clear why the United States wants to leave the treaty,
which has nothing to do with Russia's alleged violations: Washington is seeking to ring the
island chain surrounding the Chinese mainland with a hedge of nuclear missiles. But Sanger
somehow expects, without so much as a transition paragraph, his readers to believe the hot air
spewed by Pompeo about Russia's "bad behavior."
Over the past two years, the American military establishment has grown increasingly alarmed
at the rapidity of China's technological development, which the United States sees as a threat
not only to the profitability of its corporations, but the dominance of its military.
Two decades ago, at the height of the dotcom bubble, China was little more than a cheap
labor platform, assembling the consumer electronics driving a revolution in communications,
while American companies pocketed the vast bulk of the profits. But today, the economic balance
of power is shifting.
Chinese companies like Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo are capturing an ever-greater portion of the
global smartphone market, even as their rivals Samsung and Apple see their market share slip.
The Shenzhen-based DJI is the uncontested global leader in the consumer drone market. Huawei,
meanwhile, leads its competitors by over a year in the next-generation mobile infrastructure
that will power not only driverless cars and "smart" appliances, but the "autonomous" weapons
of the future.
As the latest US Worldwide Threat Assessment warns, "For 2019 and beyond, the innovations
that drive military and economic competitiveness will increasingly originate outside the United
States, as the overall US lead in science and technology shrinks" and "the capability gap
between commercial and military technologies evaporates."
It is the economic decline of the United States relative to its global rivals that is
ultimately driving the intensification of US nuclear war plans. The United States hopes that,
by leveraging its military, it will be able to contain the economic rise of China and shore up
US preeminence on the world stage.
But a consensus is emerging within the US military that Washington cannot bring its rivals
to heel merely with the threat of totally obliterating them with its massive arsenal of
strategic missiles. Given the fleet of nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines possessed by
both Russia and China, this option, even ignoring the effects of nuclear winter, would result
in the destruction of the largest cities in the United States.
Rather, the US is working to construct a "usable," low-yield, "tactical" nuclear arsenal,
including the construction of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile. This week, a new low-yield
US nuclear warhead went into production, with a yield between half and one third of the "little
boy" weapon that leveled the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and hundreds of times smaller than the
United States' other nuclear weapons systems.
The Trump administration's Nuclear Posture Review, released last year, envisions using such
weapons to turn the tide in conflicts that begin with conventional weapons, under the pretense
(whether the Pentagon believes it or not) that such wars will stop short of full-scale nuclear
exchanges.
Nearly 75 years ago, the United States, after having "scorched and boiled and baked to
death," in the words of General Curtis Lemay, hundreds of thousands of civilians in a genocidal
"strategic bombing" campaign over Japan, murdered hundreds of thousands more with the use of
two nuclear weapons: an action whose primary aim was to threaten the USSR.
But ultimately, the continued existence of the Soviet Union served as a check on the
genocidal impulses of US imperialism.
Despite the triumphalist claims that the dissolution of the Soviet Union would bring about a
new era of peace, democracy and the "end of history," it has brought only a quarter-century of
neocolonial wars.
But the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have not achieved their intended
purpose. Having spent trillions of dollars and killed millions of people, the global position
of US imperialism is no better than when it launched the "war on terror" in 2001.
Now, the United States is upping the ante: setting "great-power conflict" with Russia
and China on the order of the day. In its existential struggle for global hegemony, US
imperialism is going for broke, willing to employ the most reckless and desperate means, up to
and including the launching of nuclear war.
"I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics
charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more than
a little merit." As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
Notable quotes:
"... Still, I find myself wondering: If a proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan qualifies as a "mistake," as O'Hanlon contends, then what term best describes a war that has cost something like a trillion dollars, killed and maimed tens of thousands, and produced a protracted stalemate? ..."
"... And, if recent press reports prove true, with U.S. government officials accepting Taliban promises of good behavior as a basis for calling it quits, then this longest war in our history will not have provided much of a return on investment. Given the disparity between the U.S. aims announced back in 2001 and the results actually achieved, defeat might be an apt characterization. ..."
I don't wish to imply that political leaders and media outlets ignore our wars altogether.
That would be unfair. Yet in TrumpWorld, while the president's performance in office receives
intensive and persistent coverage day in, day out, the attention given to America's wars has
been sparse and perfunctory, when not positively bizarre.
As a case in point, consider the op-ed
that recently appeared in the New York Times (just as actual peace talks between the
U.S. and the Taliban seemed to be progressing
), making the case for prolonging the U.S. war in Afghanistan, while chiding President Trump
for considering a reduction in the number of U.S. troops currently stationed there. Any such
move, warned Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, would be a "mistake" of the first
order.
The ongoing Afghan War dates from a time when some of today's recruits were still in
diapers. Yet O'Hanlon counsels patience: a bit more time and things just might work out. This
is more or less comparable to those who suggested back in the 1950s that African Americans
might show a bit more patience in their struggle for equality: Hey, what's the rush?
I don't pretend to know what persuaded the editors of the Times that O'Hanlon's
call to make America's longest war even longer qualifies as something readers of the nation's
most influential newspaper just now need to ponder. Yet I do know this: the dearth of critical
attention to the costs and
consequences of our various post-9/11 wars is nothing short of shameful, a charge to which
politicians and journalists alike should plead equally guilty.
I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics
charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more
than a little merit. Even more striking than Trump's critique is the fact that so few members
of the national security establishment are willing to examine it seriously. As a consequence,
the wars persist, devoid of purpose.
Still, I find myself wondering: If a proposed troop drawdown in Afghanistan qualifies as
a "mistake," as O'Hanlon contends, then what term best describes a war that has cost something
like a trillion dollars, killed and maimed tens of thousands, and produced a protracted
stalemate?
Disaster? Debacle? Catastrophe? Humiliation?
And, if recent press reports prove true, with U.S. government officials accepting
Taliban promises of good behavior as a basis for calling it quits, then this longest war in our
history will not have provided much of a return on investment. Given the disparity between the
U.S. aims announced back in 2001 and the results actually achieved, defeat might be an apt
characterization.
Yet the fault is not Trump's. The fault belongs to those who have allowed their immersion in
the dank precincts of TrumpWorld to preclude serious reexamination of misguided and reckless
policies that predate the president by at least 15 years.
You have to compare Trump with the alternative. The D's /progs make war on free speech,
attack the presumption of innocence, want essentially uncontrolled mass immigration and
relentlessly push in the direction of war with Russia. Add their cynical Russiagate
hoax-witch hunt for further illustration
of the danger they present. As many have said, Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
"I take it as a given that President Trump is an incompetent nitwit, precisely as his critics
charge. Yet his oft-repeated characterization of those wars as profoundly misguided has more
than a little merit."
I'm with Bacevich on the insanity of Endless War, but I question why he has to denigrate
Trump in his lead in. The cynical side of me believes that Bacevich thinks he has to be a
Trump-hater if he is to be listened to.
Hey Andrew sir Democracy is messy. But DJT is on your team and the MSM/Liberal
progs/Neocons aren't. Worth reflecting on
@fnn "As many have said,
Trump is the symptom, not the disease"
Actually, Trump is the microbe not the virus. He's the opportunistic microbe that attaches
itself to a sick and diseased body-politic. As to symptoms, they are borne by society
at-large and now manifest themselves in the majority of Americans who one way or the other
are "Lost in TrumpWorld"
It looks like a specialist on illegal transferee of weapons is needed to make the color revolution a success...
Notable quotes:
"... Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike National Endowment for Democracy (NED). ..."
It's a sad fact that the full and unconditional
pardon given by President George H.W. Bush to Elliott Abrams (a member of the second
generation neo-conservative royalty by way of marriage to the daughter of neo-con co-creator,
Midge Decter), protected him from disbarment and possible prison. Abrams, who pled guilty to
the crime of lying to Congress in the investigation of the Iran-Contra, embraced the plea
option reportedly in order to avoid heavier charges from the office of then independent
counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, prosecutor in the Iran-Contra cases. Bush is gone, Walsh is gone,
but Mr. Bush's Attorney General William Barr is – surprise – now Attorney General
of the United States.
What that portends for future regime change adventures remains to be seen, but the
historical record is ominous.
In 1992, when Bush issued the Iran-Contra pardons on the eve of his leaving office after
losing reelection to President Bill Clinton, William Barr fully supported the pardons.
Presidential pardons are, after all, Constitutional. But, Lawrence Walsh said at the time,
reported NPR, "It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious
crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences."
Now the Iran-Contra era neo-cons and the Dick Cheney/Iraq Invasion 2003 era neo-cons are
marching back into the institution of the Presidency.
Elliott Abrams got a new high level job last month, Special Envoy on Venezuela. Within
weeks, the United States recognized a new President of Venezuela while the elected Venezuelan
President is still in office. Chatter and rumor from the White House suggests that military
intervention is possible. The "new" recognized-by- the-US-President of Venezuela is a veteran
of color revolution type regime change, groomed for service with the help of the snakelike
National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Regime change, putting in questionable, if not nefarious new leaders, seems to be Abrams'
delight: Nicaragua, Iraq while a government official. Many others in his dreams.
In 1986, even before the Iran-Contra debacle was revealed, as Assistant Secretary of State
for Inter-American Affairs, Elliott Abrams told Congress that Nicaraguan "Contras" involved in
drug running didn't have the okay from Contra leaders. It was just underlings. This, while
Abrams and company were busy doing end-runs around the Boland Amendment and other Congressional
actions that barred military supplies to the Contras. Even Khomeini's Iran was not off limits
in getting money for the Nicaraguan fight.
In another time and place, i.e., Saudi Arabia, present day, where regime change in Syria was
a high priority, we've heard excuses similar to those made by Elliott Abrams about the Contras,
about the responsibility for the killing and butchering of the corpse of Saudi journalist Jamal
Khashoggi, and about the financing and arming of ISIS and Al Nusra terrorists by Saudi Arabia
in Syria. Deja vu.
With more neo-cons in the Administration, the trajectory is more wasted blood and
treasure.
Go to a large library and cross-reference James Jesus Angleton, Kim Philby, Miles Copeland and Nicholas Elliott in the "spy" books.
Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions.
At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start.
Then you will understand Steele and the "five eyes" involvement in the Russia hoax.
Go to a large library and cross-reference James Jesus Angleton, Kim Philby, Miles Copeland and Nicholas Elliott in the "spy" books.
Soon you will begin to see that MI6 was there at the OSS and later CIA inceptions.
At the hidden deep levels, both these agencies serve the GLOBALIST' enterprise, and have since the start.
Then you will understand Steele and the "five eyes" involvement in the Russia hoax.
The key question is how strong is Maduro support within Venezuela? When oil is in stake,
imperial powers usually take gloves off pretty quickly.
All this rhetoric of Eric Zuesse does not answer the key question: does Maduro movement
propose sustainable alternative to neoliberalism in Venezuela and has unwavering support of armed
forces and population in view of this externally driven aggression? Because if the model is
unsustainable (iether for internal or external reasons -- presence of neoliberal 3000 pound
guerilla on the continent) it will eventually be crushed. What is the plan and what Maduro is
trying to built? Left government in several other countries of LA were recently deposed by openly
neoliberal puppets: Argentina and Brazil are two recent examples.
"Progressive regimes" all run into problems in economics (which are given due to neocolonial
nature of the current World order) which in turn creates social problems and the precondition for
neoliberal coup d'état sponsored from Washington. So there is a Neoliberal Catch 22 for all countries who want to
excape dependence on the USA: neoliberals new order guarantee that economic condition of peripheral countries do not improve; that
creates social discontent that allows to propose population a neoliberal carrot -- elect a neoliberal leader and your standard of
living "soon" will be like in the USA. neoliberal coup d'état can now succeed. Further impoverishing follows but it is
too late -- the train has left the station.
While convention to to more extreme
version of neoliberalism does not solve the problems in economics (Argentina here is nice example
of "What happens next after neoliberals came back to power") and impoverishment of population is
given. But at the same time the civil war is prevented and the support of the USA guarantee a
certain period of political stability.
In other words this struggle is about alternatives to neoliberalism and anti-neoliberal
governments have a huge handicap in a form of the USA presence on the continent. It looks like
Canada is just another neoliberal puppet of the USA in this game/
Notable quotes:
"... Venezuelan soldiers have blocked the crossing ahead of a delivery arranged by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself interim president ..."
Today, we have been joined by our Lima Group partners, from Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Saint Lucia.
We have also been joined in our conversations with our partners from other countries, for
this Lima Group ministerial meeting. These include Ecuador, the European Union, France,
Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States."
She, along with U.S. President Donald Trump, had, all along, been the actual leaders of this
international diplomatic effort, to violate
the Venezuelan Constitution blatantly , so as to perpetrate the coup in Venezuela. Her active effort to replace Venezuela's Government began with her formation of the Lima
Group, nearly two years ago.
Canada's Ottawa Citizen headlined on 19 August 2017,
"Choosing Danger" , and their reporter Peter Hum interviewed Canada's Ambassador to
Venezuela, Ben Rowswell, who was then retiring from the post. Rowswell said that Venezuelans
who wanted an overthrow of their Government would continue to have the full support of Canada's
Government : "'I think that some of them were sort of anxious that it (the
embassy's support for human rights and democracy in Venezuela) might not
continue after I left,' Rowswell said. 'I don't think they have anything to worry
about because Minister (of Foreign Affairs Chrystia) Freeland has Venezuela way at the top
of her priority list.'"
Maybe it wasn't yet at the top of Trump's list, but it was at the top of hers. And she and
Trump together chose whom to
replace Venezuela's President, Nicholas Maduro, by: Juan Guaido . Guaido had secretly
courted other Latin American leaders for this, just as Freeland had already done, by means of
her secretly forming the Lima Group.
On 25 January 2019, the AP bannered "AP
Exclusive: Anti-Maduro coalition grew from secret talks" and reported that the man who now
claims to be Venezuela's legitimate President (though he had never even run for that post),
Juan Guaido, had secretly visited foreign countries in order to win their blessings for what he
was planning:
In mid-December, Guaido quietly traveled to Washington, Colombia and Brazil to
brief officials on the opposition's strategy of mass demonstrations to coincide with Maduro's
expected swearing-in for a second term on Jan. 10 in the face of widespread international
condemnation, according to exiled former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, an ally.
Playing a key role behind the scenes was Lima Group member Canada, whose Foreign Minister
Chrystia Freeland spoke to Guaido [9 January 2019] the night before Maduro's swearing-in
ceremony [on 10 January 2019] to offer her government's support should he confront the
socialist leader [Maduro], the Canadian official said. Also active was Colombia, which
shares a border with Venezuela and has received more than two million migrants fleeing economic
chaos, along with Peru and Brazil's new far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
To leave Venezuela, he sneaked across the lawless border with Colombia, so as not to raise
suspicions among immigration officials who sometimes harass opposition figures at the airport
and bar them from traveling abroad, said a different anti-government leader, speaking on
condition of anonymity to discuss security arrangements.
During the last days in office of Canada's Ambassador to Venezuela Rowswell, U.S. President
Donald Trump went public with his overt threat to invade Venezuela. On 11 August 2017,
McClatchy's Miami Herald bannered "Trump
was making friends in Latin America -- before he raised Venezuela 'military option'" , and
Patricia Mazzei reported that "President Donald Trump's unexpected
suggestion Friday that he might rely on military force to deal with Venezuela's pressing
political crisis was an astonishing statement that strained not only credulity but also the
White House's hard-won new friendships in Latin America."
Even a spokesperson from the Atlantic Council (which is the main PR agency for NATO) was
quoted as saying that "U.S. diplomats, after weeks of carefully building the groundwork for
a collective international response, suddenly find their efforts completely undercut by a
ridiculously over the top and anachronistic assertion. It makes us look imperialistic and
old-time. This is not how the U.S. has behaved in decades!" However, Peru's Foreign
Minister, Ricardo Luna, was just as eager for a coup in Venezuela as were Trump and
Freeland.
On 26 October 2017,
Peru's Gestion TV reported that Luna was the co-chair of the meeting of the Lima Group in
Toronto, which Freeland chaired, and that (as translated into English here) "Luna added that
the objective of the meeting of the Group of Lima 'is to create a propitious situation' so that
the regime of Nicolás Maduro 'feels obligated to negotiate' not only an exit to the
crisis, 'but also an exit to his own regime'."
This gang was going to make Maduro an offer that he couldn't refuse. So, the Lima Group,
which was founded by Luna and by Freeland, was taking the initiative as much and as boldly as
Trump was, regardless of what NATO might think about it. The topic of that news-report, and its
headline, was "Peru proposes Grupo de Lima to involve the UN to face the Venezuelan
crisis." Four days later, Freeland and Luna met privately at the U.N., in New York, with
the Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.
Inner City
Press reported that"The title of the meeting is 'the situation in Venezuela and efforts
by regional organizations to resolve the crisis per Chapter VIII of the UN Charter' [see it
here ] and the briefer will be not USG [Under Secretary General] Jeffrey Feltman but his
Assistant, ASG [Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs] Miroslav Jenca."
Jeffrey Feltman was the person who, in the secretly recorded 27 January 2014
phone-conversation in which U.S. President Barack Obama's agent, Victoria Nuland -- planning
and overseeing the February 2014 coup that overthrew Ukraine's democratically elected President
-- instructed the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, that, after Ukraine's President is ousted,
Arseniy "Yats" Yatsenyuk was to be appointed as Ukraine's 'interim' leader as the new Prime
Minister, to replace the President. She also
said :
"I talked to Jeff Feltman this morning; he had a new name for the UN guy Robert Serry.
He's now gotten both Serry and Ban ki-Moon to agree that Serry could come in Monday or
Tuesday. That would be great, I think, to help glue this thing, and to have the UN help glue
it, and, you know, fuck the EU."
So, the still Under Secretary General of the U.N, Mr. Feltman, is still America's fixer
there, who "glues" whatever the U.S. President orders the U.N. to do, and his Assistant was
filling in for him that day. Therefore, if Trump and Freeland turn out to be as successful as
Obama was, then the U.N. will "glue" the outcome. Chrystia Freeland happens also to be a friend
of Victoria Nuland, and a passionate supporter of her coup in Ukraine.
... ... ...
Of course, the man whom the U.S. and Canadian regimes and the Lima Group are trying to
install as Venezuela's President, Juan Guaido, had been well-groomed for that job, but not by
political and electoral experience, of which he has almost none, but by his foreign sponsors.
On 29 January 2019 the Gray Zone Project bannered
"The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela's Coup
Leader" , and their two star investigative journalists, Dan Cohen and Max Blumenthal,
opened: "Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington's
elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at
the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization."
This report also noted that "The 'real work' began two years later, in 2007, when
Guaidó graduated from Andrés Bello Catholic University of Caracas. He moved to
Washington, DC to enroll in the Governance and Political Management Program at George
Washington University, under the tutelage of Venezuelan economist Luis Enrique Berrizbeitia,
one of the top Latin American neoliberal economists. Berrizbeitia is a former executive
director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [and the IMF is a central part the operation
that's described in John Perkins's now-classic Confessions of an Economic Hit Man] who spent
more than a decade working in the Venezuelan energy sector, under the old oligarchic regime
that was ousted by Chávez."
Moreover, "Stratfor and CANVAS – key advisors of Guaidó and his
anti-government cadre – devised a shockingly cynical plan to drive a dagger through the
heart of the Bolivarian revolution. The scheme hinged on a 70% collapse of the country's
electrical system by as early as April 2010." Etc. This is how 'democracy' now functions.
It's not democracy -- it is fascism. The euphemisms for it are "neoliberalism" and
"neoconservatism."
Regardless of whether or not the Trump-Freeland-Luna program for Venezuela succeeds,
democracy and human rights won't be advanced by it; but, if it succeeds, the fortunes of
US-and-allied billionaires will be . It's part of their global
privatization program .
Sidebar: If you want to understand what was the historical
context where Inner City Press reported that
"The title of the meeting is 'the situation in Venezuela and efforts by regional
organizations to resolve the crisis per Chapter VIII of the UN Charter'" ; then Luk Van Langenhove has
summarized that context , by saying:
Few invocations of Chapter VIII's provisions were made during the cold war period. But
when the bipolar world system collapsed and spawned new global security threats, the
explosion of local and regional armed conflicts provoked a renewed interest in regional
organizations and their role in the maintenance of regional peace and security. The United
Nations was forced to acknowledge its inability to solely bear the responsibility for
providing peace and security worldwide."
So, "during the cold war period," this provision of the UN Charter remained virtually
inactive. Then, suddenly, after 1991, when the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw
Pact military alliance to counter America's NATO military alliance, all ended (with
no concessions being made on the American side ), America could no longer use 'communism'
as a 'justification' to invade or perpetrate coups against foreign governments that were
friendly toward or else allied with Russia.
So, now, this provision of the U.N.'s Charter became activated by the U.S. and its
allies, in order to be able to say that The West's coups and invasions aren't actually to
build-out the U.S. empire, but are instead for (in the terms of this part of the U.N.'s
Charter) "the maintenance of international peace and security" -- so as to 'authorize' coups
and international invasions by the U.S. and its vassal nations, such as are the members of
NATO.
This is what U.S. President G.H.W. Bush had in mind to rely upon, when he told the leaders
of the U.S. regime's vassal states, secretly at Camp David, on the night of 24 February 1990,
that the 'Cold War' would now continue secretly on the U.S.-allied side, against Russia and
against any nation's leaders (such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, and
Viktor Yanukovych) that aren't hostile toward Russia, by Bush's saying then to them, that no
compromise must ever be allowed "with Moscow," because
"To hell with that! We prevailed, they didn't."
In other words, whereas the U.N. had been set up by FDR to evolve ultimately into the global
democratic federation of nation-states -- a democratic world-government -- so as to become the
sole possessor of control over all strategic weaponry, and thus to become the democratic
republic of the entire world authorized to settle international disputes peacefully, the
subterranean Nazis and other fascists whom U.S. President Truman and the Bilderberg group
represented, were determined that the U.S. and its vassal nations would ultimately become the
dictatorship over all nations, the entire world. That's what Ukraine, and now Venezuela, and
many other U.S. coups and invasions, are -- and have been -- really about. It's about the
'peace' of the graveyard, NOT any democracy, anywhere at all.
That's their dream. They want to monopolize the corruption everywhere, not to end it,
anywhere. And that's why they distort and blatantly lie about
Venezuela's democratic constitution now , just as they did about Ukraine's
democratic constitution in February 2014. It's, essentially, a lawless international gang
of billionaire thugs. It is the international
Deep State . It consists of the under 2,000 people who are international billionaires in
the U.S. and secondarily in the U.S.-allied countries, and of those billionaires' millions of
hirees.
585 of those under-2,000 are Americans .
But the wealthiest person on the planet isn't even listed on any of the standard lists of
billionaires, and
he is the King of Saudi Arabia . That person is the U.S. aristocracy's #1 international
ally, because ever since the 1970s when gold no longer backed the U.S. dollar but instead oil
did, that person's decisions have enabled the U.S. dollar to continue as being the world's
reserve currency, no matter how big the U.S. economy's trade deficits are, and no matter how
high the U.S. Government's fiscal deficits are.
Below those billionaires (and trillionaire), and below their millions of hirees, are the
billions of serfs; and, below those, at the very bottom, are the approximately 40 million slaves , and the many
millions imprisoned -- virtually all of whom have extremely low (if any) net worth at all,
since slavery and imprisonment are, in the real world, only for the very poor, not at all for
the international gangsters, except for a very few exceptions (such as, perhaps, "El
Chapo").
The billionaires command, and the governments obey; that's 'democracy', and it's 'the rule
of law', today. Everything to the contrary is propaganda, such as that what Trump-Freeland-Luna
want for Venezuela is to decrease corruption and to increase democracy and human rights.
At least the more blatant fascist John Bolton was honest when
he said on January 28th : "It will make a big difference to the United States
economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities
in Venezuela." But he would have been lots more honest if he had acknowledged, instead,
that "It will make a big difference to the United States billionaires economically if we
could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in
Venezuela."
This is all that the fascists ever really cared about. Mussolini called it "corporationism."
Now, decades in the wake of the Allies' supposed 'victory against fascism' -- against the Axis
powers -- in WW II, we all (at least the realists) are acknowledging that we clearly are
staring in the face the raw fact that fascism has finally won, or at least very nearly totally
won, in the world.
Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito, died; but their ideological followers today rule the world,
and FDR would be turning in his grave.
Unfortunately the Orange one is being wagged again by those who are most seriously plotting his demise and
over reach in Venezuela may be just as much part of the plan as it was in pushing him into launching an attack
on Syria. It is true that the global elites are at a loss what to do, as the fracturing of the global
oligarchies is proving Marx right . capitalist are just a band of warring brothers [brigands, robbers, pirates
– all!]. As there is no serious ideological threat to their hegemony at the moment they fight amongst
themselves with imperial designs.
The threat to the imperium is the chaos which ensues when the elite power struggles fracture their hegemony
and an uncontrollable uprising ensues. Who shapes that revolution will be central to this. Where it will come
from is not evident yet but let's hope it's a grass roots one!
Yes, they will never stop. Just think of this brand-new propaganda lie of Maduro allegedly preventing aid
shipment to come into Venezuela. See BBC:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47143492 : "Venezuelan soldiers have blocked the crossing
ahead of a delivery arranged by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself
interim president".
Notice the word "ahead" in this sentence. This word
appears because there was never a "delivery" (truck) with aid shipment at the bridge!
The Venezuelan government ("Maduro") blocked the bridge only because of war-threatening Columbia and USA.
If you want to send aid shipment to Venezuela you can send as much as you want anytime. Of course you have to
respect the regulations of the custom (like in every other country!). But that's all!
Whets foul with this story?
Well, this aid "delivery" cannot have been collected in Colombia – and thus being taken away from the
people of Colombia, who are much poorer than the people of Venezuela. So it would have to come from other
country (USA, Europe, China, Japan). And then you would not land this aid shipment in Columbia (a harbour, an
airport), drive it, in hot-humid air, through half of Colombia to the border crossing bridge of Cúcuta. Then
cross the bridge and then drive it through half of Venezuela!
Instead aid shipments for Venezuela would be landed directly in Venezuela – in an Venezuelan harbour or
airport.
Nations should explore better system to break US hegemony
"The US dollar is used for the international oil and gas trade and a wide part of global
trade. This gives the US an exorbitant privilege to sanction countries it opposes.
..
The latest sanctions on Venezuela's state-owned oil company aim to cut off source of foreign
currency of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro's government and eventually force him to step
down.
..
A new mechanism should be devised to thwart such a vicious circle"
My question is really about those at the top of the power pyramid (those few hundred
families who own the controling share of the wealth of the world) -- those who position
idiots like Bolton to do their work, do they comprehend 'exergy' decline ?
If we can, then can they not? I agree with Parenti that they are not
'somnambulists'. They are strategists looking out for their own interests, and that means
scrutinising trends in political movements, culture, technology and, well, just about
everything. I find it hard, the idea that all these people -- people who have seen their
businesses shaped by resource discovery, exploitation and then depletion, have no firm grasp
on the realities of dwindling returns on energy.
The models were drawn up 47 years ago. I think that some of them at least, do
understand that economic growth is coming to a halt, and have understood for decades. If true
then they are planning that transition in their favour.
These hard to swallow facts about oil are still on the far fringes of any political
conversation. The neoliberal cultists are deaf to them for obvious reasons; the socialist
idealists believe that a 'New Deal' can lead us off the death train, but mostly ignore the
intractable relationship between energy decline and financial problems; even the anarchists
want their work free utopia run by robots and AI but stop short of asking whether solar
panels and wind turbines can actually provide the power for all that tech. It's the news that
nobody wants to think about, but which they will be forced to thinking about in the very near
future.
The Twitter feed 'Limits to Growth' has less than 800 followers (excellent though it
is).
I do not want to get into the mind of the Walrus of Death Bolton! I do not want to know
what he does, as he does. But at lower levels of government, and corporatism, there is an
awareness of surplus energy economics. And as Nafeez has also pointed out, the military (the
Pentagon) are taking an interest. And though it could rapidly change, who really appreciates
the nuances of EROEI? I'm guessing at less than a single percent of all populations? And how
many include its effects in a integrated political sense?
Its appreciation is sporadic: ranging from tech-utopia hopium to a defeated fatalism of
the inevitability of collapse. Unless and until people want to face the harshness of the
reality that capitalism has created: we are going to be involved in a marginal analysis.
There are very few people who have realised that capitalism is long dead.
Dr Tim Morgan estimates that world capitalism has conservatively had $140tn in stimulus
since 2008 -- without stimulating anything or reviving it at all. In fact, that amounts to
the greatest robbery in history -- the theft of the future. Inasmuch as they can, those
unrepayable debts -- transferred to inflate the parasitic assets of capitalists -- will be
socialised. Except they cannot be. Not without surplus energy.
Brexit, gilets jaunes, Venezuela, unending crises in MENA, China's economic slowdown, etc
-- all linked by EROEI.
It is a common socio-politico-economic energy nexus -- but linked together by whom? And
the emergent surplus energy-mind-environmental ecology nexus? All the information is
available. The formation of a new political manifesto started in the 1960s with the New Left
but it seems to have been in stasis since. Perhaps this might stimulate the conversation.
According to Nate Hagens: there is 4.5 years of human muscle power leveraged by each
barrel of oil. We are all going to be working for a very long time to pay back the debts
the possessing classes have built up for us -- with absolutely no marginal utility for
ourselves.
We are subsidising our own voluntary slavery unless we develop an emergent ecosocialist
and ecosophical alternative to carbon capitalism. We cannot expect paleoconservative carbon
relics like Bolton -- or anyone else -- to do it for us. The current political landscape is
dominated by a hierarchical, vested interest, carbon aristocracy. We can't expect that to
change for our benefit any time ever. Expect the opposite.
Graeber has a point, though. We could already have a post-scarcity, post-production society
but for the egregious maldistribution of resources and employment. Andre Gorz said as much 50
years ago (Critique of Economic Reason). Why do we organise around production: it makes no
sense but for the relations of production are, and remain, the relations of hierarchical
rule. So long as we assign value to a human life on the basis of meritocratic productivity --
we will have dehumanisation, marginalisation, and subjugation (haves and have nots). So why
not organisation around care, freedom and play?
Such a solution would require the transversalistion of society and not-full-employment: so
that no part of the system is subordinate, and no part is privileged. All systems and
sub-ordinate (care) systems would be co-equal, of corresponding value and worth. So, without
invoking EROEI, that would go a long way to solve our exergy, waste, pollution, and
inequality problems. It is the profligate, unproductive superstructure: supporting rentier,
surplus energy accumulating, profit-seeking suprasocieties -- that squanders our excess
energy and puts expansive spatio-temporal pressures on already stretched biophysical
ecological systems that engenders potential collapse. It is their -- the possessing classes
-- assets that are being inflated, at our environmental expense. When it comes to
survivability, we cannot afford a parasitic globalised superstructure draining the host --
the ecologically productive base. Without the over-accumulation, overconsumption, and wastage
(the accursed share) associated with the superstructure of the advanced economies -- and
their cultural, credit, military imperialisms I expect we could live quite well. Without the
pressures of globalised transportation networks, and unnecessary military budgets -- the
pressure on oil is minimised. It could be used for the 1001 other uses it has, rather than
fuelling Saudi Eurofighters bombing Yemeni schoolchildren, for instance. The surplus energy
could be used to educate, clothe and feed them instead. That would be a better use of
resources, for sure.
If we took stock of what we really have, and what we really are -- a form of spiritual
neo-self-sufficiency, augmented and extended into co-mutual care and freedom valorising
ecologies we wouldn't need to chase the perceived loss all over the globe, killing everything
that moves. The solutions are not hard, they are normative, once we are shocked out of this
awful near-life trance state of separationism. Thanks for the link.
It seems to me that there are two parallel arguments going on.
One is about social organisation, attitudes towards and policies determining work, money,
paid employment, technological development and the distribution of weath.
The other is fundamentally based on the laws of thermodynamics and concerns resource limits,
energy surpluses, the role of 'stored sunlight' in producing things and doing work for each
other, pollution and projections about these into the future.
I am surprised that Graeber (just as an example) seems to basically ignore the second of
these even though he clearly is an incisive thinker and makes good points about the first. It
is taken as a given that, theoretically at least, human civilisation could re-organise around
a new ethic, transform the economy into a 'caring economy', re-structure money, government
and do away with militarism. In terms of what to do now, as an individual, what choices to
make, it is disconcerting to me when talk of these ideals seems to ignore those latter
questions about overshoot.
I wonder if the egalitarian nature of much of indiginous North American society was
inescapably bound with the realities of a low population density, low technology,
intimate relationship with the natural world and a culture completely steeped in reverence
for Mother Earth.
The talk I hear from Bastani or Graeber along the lines of 'we could be flying around in jet
packs on the moon, if only society was organised sensibly' rings hollow to me.
Welcome to my world! Apart from as a managerial tool, systems thinking has yet to catch on
in the wider population. According to reductive materialism: there are two unlinked
arguments. According to Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) there is only one integrated argument --
with two inter-connected correlative aspects. We can only organise around what we can
energetically afford. Consequently, we cannot organise around what we cannot afford -- that
is, global industrialised production with a supervenient elitist superstructure.
Let's face it : ethical arguments carry little weight against organisation around
hierarchical rule. The current talk of an ethical capitalism -- in mixed economies with
'commons' elements -- is an appeasement. and distractional to the gathering and ineluctable
reality.
The current (2012) EROI for the UK is 6.2:1 -- barely above the 'energy cliff' of 5:1. The
GDP 'growth' and bullshit jobs are funded by monetised debt (we borrow around £5 to
make every £1 -- from Tim Morgan's SEEDS). From the Earth Overshoot Day website: the UK
is in economic overshoot from May 8th onward.
These are indicators that we will not be "flying jetpacks on the moon": even if we
reorganise. Everyone, and I mean everyone, will have to make do with less. A lot less.
Everything would have to be localised and sustainable. Production would be minimised, and not
at all full. Two major systems of production -- food (agroecology) and energy -- would have
to be sustainable and self-sovereign. And financialisation and the rentier, service economy?
Now you can see why no one, not even Dave the crypto-anarchist, is talking about reality.
Elitism, establishment and entitlement do not figure in an equitable future. We can't afford
it, energetically or ethically.
So when will the debate move on? Not any time the populace is bought into ideational
deferred prosperity. All the time that EROEI is ignored as the fundamental concept governing
dwindling prosperity -- no one, and I mean no one, will be talking about a minimal surplus
energy future. The magic realism is that the economic affordances of cheap oil (unsustainably
mimicked by debt-funding) will return sometime, somehow (the technocratic superfix). The
aporia is that the longer the delay, the less surplus energy we will have available to
utilise. Something like the Green New Deal -- that has been proposed for around two decades
now -- may give us some quality of life to sustain. Pseudo-talk of a Customs Union, 'clean'
coal, and nuclear power, will not.
An integrated reality -- along the model of Guattari's 'Three Ecologies' -- of mind,
economy, and environment is well, we are not alone, but we are ahead of the curve. The other
cultural aporia is that we need to implement such vision now. Actually, about thirty years
ago but let's not get depressive!
We are going to need that cooperative organisation around care and freedom just to get
through the coming century.
As mentioned elsewhere here, Venezualan oil deposits are not all that the hype cracks them up
to be. They are mostly oil sands that produce little in the way of net energy gain after the
lengthy process of extraction.The Venezuala drama is about the empire crushing democracy
(i.e. socialism), not oil. [not that this detracts from Kit's essential point in the
article].
The Left (as well as the Right), by and large have not come to terms with the realities of
the decline in net surplus energy that is unfolding around the world and driving the
political changes that we see. So they still view geopolitics in terms of the oil economy of
pre-2008.
The productive economies of Europe are falling apart (check Steve Keen's latest on Max and
Stacy -- although even i he doesn't delve into the energy decline aspect).
The carbon density of the global economy has not changed in the 27 years since the founding
of the UNFCCC.
The Peak Oil phenomenon was oversimplified, misrepresented and misunderstood as a simple
turning point in overall oil production. In truth it was a turning point in energy
surplus.
I predict that by the end of this or next year, everyone will be talking about ERoEI.
Everyone will realise that there is no way out of this predicament. Maybe there are ways to
lessen the catastrophe, but no way to avert it. This will change the conversation, and even
change what 'politics' means (i.e. you cannot campaign on a 'new start' or a 'better,
brighter future' if everyone knows that that physically cannot happen).
Everyone will understand that their civilisation is collapsing.
Does Bolton understand this?
If you were referring to my earlier comments about Venezuelan extra heavy crude: it's
still massively about the oil. The current carbon capitalist world system does not understand
surplus energy or EROEI, as it is so fixated on maximal short term returns for shareholders.
It can't comprehend that their entire business model is unsustainable and self cannibalising.
Which is bad for us: because carbon net-energy (exergy) economics it is foundational to all
civilisation. The ignorance of it and subsequent environmental and social convergence crises
threatens the systemic failure of our entire civilisation. The Venezuelan crisis affects us
all: and is symptomatic of a decline in cheap oil due to rapidly falling EROEI.
I can't find the EROEI specifically for Venezuelan heavy oil: but it is only slightly more
viscous than bitumen -- which has an EROEI of 3:1. Let's call it 4:1: the same as other tight
oils and shale. Anything less than 5:1 is more or less an energy sink: with virtually no net
energy left for society. The minimum EROEI for societal needs is 11:1. Does Bolton understand
this? Francis hit the nail on the head there.
Do any of our leaders? No. If they did, a transition to decentralisation would be well
under way. Globalised supply chains are systemically threatened and fragile. A globalised
economy is spectacularly vulnerable. Especially a debt-ridden one. Which way are our leaders
trying to take us? At what point will humanity realise we are following clueless Pied Pipers
off the Seneca Cliff -- into globalised energy oblivion?
The rapid investment -- not in a post-carbon transition -- but in increased
militarisation, and resource and market driven aggressive foreign intervention policies
reveal the mindset of insanity. As people come to understand the energy basis of the world
crisis: the fact of permanent austerity and increased pauperisation looms large. What will
the outcome be when an armed nuclear madhouse becomes increasingly protectionsist of their
dwindling share? Too alarmist, perhaps? Let's play pretend that we can plant a few trees and
captive breed a few rhinos and it will all be fine. BAU?
The world runs on cheap oil: our socio-politico-economic expectations of progress depend
on it. Which means that the modern human mind is, in effect, a thought-process predicated on
cheap oil. Oleum ergo sum? Apart from the Middle East: we are already past the point where
oil is a liability, not a viability. Debt funding its extraction, selling below the cost of
production -- both assume the continual expansion of global GDP. Oil is a highly subsidised
-- with our surplus socialisation capital -- negative asset. We foot the bill. A bill that
EROEI predicts will keep on rising. At what point do we realise this? Or do we live in hopium
of a return to historical prosperity? Or hang on the every word of the populist magic realism
demagogue who promises a future social utopia?
EROEI = Energy Returned on Energy Invested (also known as EROI = Energy Return on Investment)
EROEI refers to the amount of usable energy that can be extracted from a resource compared
to the amount of energy (usually considered to come from the same resource) used to extract
it. It's calculated by dividing the amount of energy obtained from a source by the amount of
energy needed to get it out.
An EROEI of 1:1 means that the amount of usable energy that a resource generates is the
same as the amount of energy that went into getting it out. A resource with an EROEI of 1:1
or anything less isn't considered a viable resource if it delivers the same or less energy
than what was invested in it. A viable resource is one with an EROEI of at least 3:1.
The concept of EROEI assumes that the energy needed to get more energy out of a resource
is the same as the extracted energy ie you need oil to extract oil or you need electricity to
extract electricity. In real life, you often need another source of energy to extract energy
eg in some countries, to extract electricity, you need to burn coal, and in other countries,
to extract electricity you need to build dams on rivers. So comparing the EROEI of
electricity extraction across different countries will be difficult because you have to
consider how and where they're generating electricity and factor in the opportunity costs
involved (that is, what the coal or the water or other energy source -- like solar or wind
energy -- could have been used for instead of electricity generation).
That is probably why EROEI is used mainly in the context of oil or natural gas
extraction.
@Sean
According to this comment, "The government does not take orders from the CIA or the FBI. The
President controls both." Well, only if the President is a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations and a Rockefeller's puppet. For a well-documented, quite different analysis of the
Kennedy assassination see "Partners in Crime: The Rockefeller, CFR, CIA and Castro Connection
to the Kennedy Assassination."
The C.I.A. IS all about Regime Change. I am not convinced that they are all bad just a clique
within. They are inexplicably connected with that government behind the Government. They are
not connected with the office of the Executive but follow the orders of a few that have no
regard for The People, constitutionally. If they were, drugs would have been squashed,
decades ago.
Edward Curtain writes for the CIA about the CIA. Amazing that a bunch of academics would
"criticize" the CIA and leave out all the real facts about the CIA.
ISIS, Al Qaeda, Pornhub, Facebook, Google – or whatever the CIA calls themselves and
their weapons isn't in the business of informing you about anything at all.
Read 1984, it will explain it to you, another psychological warfare treatise written by a
Government agent.
March 19, 2017 The CIA's 60-Year History of Fake News How the Deep State Corrupted Many
American Writers
Whitney's new book, "Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World's Best Writers," explores how
the CIA influenced acclaimed writers and publications during the Cold War to produce subtly
anti-communist material. During the interview, Scheer and Whitney discuss these manipulations
and how the CIA controlled major news agencies and respected literary publications (such as
the Paris Review).
JANUARY 18, 2017 CIA Publishes About 13 Million Pages of Declassified Files Online
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published nearly 13 million pages of declassified
files on its official website for the first time in its history. The declassified files were
previously publicly available only at the National Archives in Maryland.
You'd think that US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their
relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few
years.
After all, both countries had their presidents installed by an unfriendly foreign power
– in the case of US – that was Russia and in the case of Venezuela – that's
US that did them the favor of choosing the proper president for them.
It's common knowledge now that without the Russian interference in the US electoral system
– which as we all know works like a clockwork (orange), Trump would have never been
elected as president of US – because that's not who they are.
And now the US – embittered by that experience -has decided to do the same thing to
Venezuela. I see bad Russian influence everywhere. I think that indirectly – Russia is
responsible for the crisis in Venezuela. If they hadn't elected Trump for president in US, it
would have never occurred to the Americans that it could be done. That's not how democracies
work.
@Ilyana_Rozumova Despite huge increases in domestic oil production in the last years the
USA is still the second largest net oil importer in the word (behind China).
Also the USA is extracting its proven reserves at a much faster rate than any other large
producer (a pattern it also had in the past, leading to high fluctuation in its production)
so unless new reserves are discovered US production will likely start to decline again within
a few years.
@Ilyana_Rozumova Condensate, not oil. Only good for gas or lighter fluid. It may be
called oil but that's a deliberate misnomer.
Only financial engineering makes it appear profitable. Its a money losing psychopaths
power play, not a business. Without a heavy real oil to blend it with its useless, heavy oil
is where Venezuela comes in.
@Ilyana_Rozumova "Main factor here is that US due to fracking become self sufficient,
what actually nobody could foresee. Just a bad luck".
Bad luck for the USA. They have fallen into an elephant trap, because fracking has already
become unprofitable and is only being financed by ever-increasing debt.
Admittedly this gives them some advantage, but only in the very short term.
Of course, it doesn't really matter – in the short to medium term – whether
fracking is profitable or grossly unprofitable. They can still pay for it by printing more
dollars, as long as the "greater fools" (or heavily bribed officials) in other countries go
on accepting dollars.
"America's energy security just got a lot more secure . Located in the Wolfcamp Shale
and overlying Bone Spring Formation, the unproven, technically recoverable reserves are
officially the largest on the planet."
None of these breathlessly optimistic articles say how expensive it will be to get this
oil. If a dollar's worth of oil costs you more than a dollar to recover, you are obviously
losing in the deal. If you print the dollars, your entire economy loses.
@50 bobzibub... your link doesn't bring me to the article, but i suspect it is more then just
crystallix - the canuck gold mining company - that are pushing for a change in power in
venezuala.. as i understand it, there are a number of canuck mining and oil related interests
where they would like to exploit venezuala and can't seem to get around the democractically
elected gov't of maduros..
looks like
this might be related, or the article you were trying to post? an american judge says
crystallex can have citgo, lol....
We just got done conquering Iraq. We haven't stayed to loot the oil.
The US has NOT successfully conquered Iraq (has not pacified the country). Oil is not like
a bag of diamonds, which you can grab and run. In order to steal a worthwhile amount of the
greasy stuff, you have to make a substantial investment up front, in wells and shipping
terminals. Not even the greediest thief will risk his money if there is even the slightest
chance that his wells and terminals will be blown up by righteous nationalists. This is why
the US hasn't stolen much from Iraq.
So now you believe we're going to Venezuela to take their crappy heavy oil?
That the US hasn't been able to steal much from Iraq tells us little about whether the
Americans have larcenous motives with regard to Venezuela. Especially as Trump has been
talking loudly about the oil.
It would be easier for us just to build a pipeline to Alberta and import all their
cheap, shut-in heavy crude.
" Second, Venezuela's central bankers were persuaded to pledge their oil reserves and all
assets of the state oil sector (including Citgo) as collateral for its foreign debt. This
meant that if Venezuela defaulted (or was forced into default by U.S. banks refusing to make
timely payment on its foreign debt), bondholders and U.S. oil majors would be in a legal
position to take possession of Venezuelan oil assets."
Solid proof that it was the empire who invented the practice of "debt trap" and is still
flourishing with it.
hunor, February 7, 2019 at 6:24 am GMT
Thank you ! Made it very clear. Perfect reflection of the " Values of Western Civilization ".
Reaching to grab the whole universe, with no holds barred . And never show of any interest for the " truth". They are not
even pretending anymore , awakening will be very painful for some.
Reuben Kaspate, February 7, 2019 at 2:38 pm GMT • 100 Words
Why would the U. S. based White-Protestant aristocracy care a hoot about the Brown-Catholic elites in the far off land?
They don't! The comprador aristocracy in question isn't what it seems It's the same group that plagues the Americans.
The rootless louts, whose only raison d'ê·tre is to milk everything in sight and then retire to coastal cities, i.e. San
Francisco, if you are a homosexual or New York City and State, if you are somewhat religious.
Poor Venezuelans don't stand a chance against the shysters!
You'd think that US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their
relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few
years.
After all, both countries had their presidents installed by an unfriendly foreign power
– in the case of US – that was Russia and in the case of Venezuela – that's
US that did them the favor of choosing the proper president for them.
It's common knowledge now that without the Russian interference in the US electoral system
– which as we all know works like a clockwork (orange), Trump would have never been
elected as president of US – because that's not who they are.
And now the US – embittered by that experience -has decided to do the same thing to
Venezuela. I see bad Russian influence everywhere. I think that indirectly – Russia is
responsible for the crisis in Venezuela. If they hadn't elected Trump for president in US, it
would have never occurred to the Americans that it could be done. That's not how democracies
work.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump lambasted America's endless and wasteful wars. But
as president, he has surrounded himself with individuals who have made defending and advancing
American empire a full-time career. Why did Trump cave and what could be the consequences for
him and his presidency?
CrossTalking with George Szamuely, Jeff Deist, and Lee Spieckerman.
That Lee guy demonstrated perfectly why the world should fear the USA. Dangerous stupid.
71 Likes
You are correct!
21 Likes
The danger comes from the arrogance with the stupidity. American exceptionalism at its
ugliest, on par with bolton and pompeo for sure.
I don't think tRump really knows what he is saying, as in big disconnect between brain and
mouth. More empty bluster than arrogance with his 5th grader stupidity.
23 Likes
The scary part is a lot of Americans are like him
23 Likes
Show 2 more replies
The "Lee" entity encapsulates everything that is wrong with consecutive US governments:
arrogant, obnoxious, I'll mannered, undiplomatic, belligerent, misinformed and dangerously
stupid.
43 Likes
Thanks for having this Lee Spieckerman on. It proves RT tries to show all sides and is a
shocking example of how crazy the far right is.
Keep it real!
37 Likes
Spickerman is living in cuckoo land with his claim US is a force for good and billions are
so happy to live under a bunch of mobster's Wrong
22 Likes
Lee Spickerman is a typical Sociopath
18 Likes
Lee Spickerman is mad like the US Governement.!!
The Monroe Doctrine gets evoked yet again. In written form it was "anti-colonial", but in
practice it was "imperial anti-colonialism" and used as a declaration of hegemony and a right
of unilateral intervention over the Americas.
This is why I feel we need to stop using the term "regime change" which also hides the
reality of what are really coup d'etats and imperialist wars. It's not a regime being changed,
but a regime trying to do the changing. Like Peter says at the end, it would take a long show
to talk about them all.
Do us all a favor and take Mr. Spieckerman off your guest list. He advances our knowledge
not a bit. He is merely one of the Bush claque. As for his admired public servant, John Bolton,
rarely does this country produce so maniacal a political operator. Giving Bolton a responsible
position was Trump's most egregious personnel error.
Radio Sputnik's Loud and Clear spoke with Daniel Lazare,
a journalist and author of three books, "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's
Undeclared War," about what we can expect from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation
in 2019, its third year of operation.
"A House committee can keep the ball rolling indefinitely," Lazare noted. "Nothing solid has
turned up about collusion in the Russiagate story. Yet, the story keeps going and going, a new
tidbit is put out every week, and so the scandal keeps somehow perpetuating itself. And even
though there's less and less of substance coming out, so I expect that'll be the pattern for
the next few months, and I expect that the Democrats will revv this whole process up to make it
sort of seem as if there really is an avalanche of information crashing down on Trump when
there really isn't."
investigation, noting it had produced little to nothing of substance in support of the
thesis justifying its existence: that Russia either colluded with the Trump campaign or
conspired to interfere in the US election to tilt it in Trump's favor.
Indeed,
report after
report on the data that has been provided to Congress by tech giants like Facebook, Twitter
and Google show an underwhelming performance by any would-be Russian actors. In contrast to the
apocalyptic claims by Democrats and the mainstream media about the massive disinformation
offensive waged by Russian actors, the websites, social media accounts, post reach and ad money
associated with "Russians" is always
dwarfed by the equivalent actions of the Trump campaign and the campaign of its rival in
the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, along with their throngs of supporters
across the US corporate world, both of whom sunk hundreds of millions into winning the
social media game.
Among the chief motivations for Democrats going into 2019 is that "Democrats are now the
party of war," Lazare said, noting that Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump's
prospective withdrawal from Syria a "Christmas gift to ISIS [Daesh]."
"This is the raison d'etre for Russiagate: they're trying to maneuver Trump into
hostilities with Russia, China, North Korea, etc. I mean, this is foreign policy by
subterfuge it's about keeping 2,000 troops in Syria as well, and getting Americans' heads
blown off in Afghanistan, all of which the Democrats want to do. The whole thing is backroom
government of the worst kind."
"... "Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you didn't come across as crazy so... ..."
This woman had NO CLUE what she was talking about. She thought she was on a show that would just tow the party line and let
her get away with wrong statements. She's just repeating what critics say with no idea of the truth. What a fool. As a woman,
THIS IS WHY I WON'T JUST VOTE FOR ANY WOMAN. We are just as capable of being stupid as anyone else.
Bari: "I think Tulsi Gabbard is an Assad toadie." Joe: "What do you mean by toadie?" Bari: "Oh, I don't know what that means."
Joe: "Okay, I looked it up, and it's like a sycophant." Bari: "Then Tulsi is like an Assad sycophant." Joe: "So what do you mean
by that?" Bari: "I'm not sure what sycophant means either." Joe: "I looked up the definition, it's like a suck-up." Bari: "All
right, Tulsi is an Assad suck-up." Joe: "Could you explain that further?" Bari: "I don't know what suck means." Joe: "It's what
you're doing right now."
"Am I crazy?" -Bari Weiis Well Bari Weiis you're either crazy or you're a yet another worthless establishment shill whose job
is spread deliberate misinformation about the most genuine anti-war candidate running at a time when the entire MSM, MIC, and
the neoliberal rightwing establishment (including AIPAC) is deliberately smearing her to immediately kill her campaign. And you
didn't come across as crazy so...
I will be very surprised if neocons would not frame her Putin toady as well. This is how this
system works. It eliminates undesirable to the neoliberals candidates with 100% efficiency.
They
serve as local STASI and some former STASI official might well envy neocons efficiency of
silencing opponents (with much less blood and overt repression, by pure magic of neocon
propaganda ).
Notable quotes:
"... She has "monstrous ideas, she's an Assad toady," Weiss tells Rogan. ..."
"... Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven -- known -- about her." ..."
"... When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant, Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details." ..."
"... Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January 2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in the country's civil war as "terrorists." ..."
"... She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile attacks by the US and its allies against the country. ..."
Monday to discuss current events, but
things got embarrassing when she went in on Gabbard, a progressive Democrat whose foreign
policy positions have turned more than a few heads.
Neocon NY Times columnist Bari Weiss smeared Tulsi Gabbard (who bravely opposed regime
change and US support for Salafi-jihadist contras) as an "Assad toady," then couldn't
spell/define toady or offer any evidence to prove her smear. Embarrassingly funny pic.twitter.com/m0MLaHFPiX
When Rogan asks for clarification, she says, "I think that I used that word correctly." She
then asks someone off camera to look up what toady means. "Like toeing the line," Rogan says,
"is that what it means?" "No, I think it's like, uh " and Weiss drones off without an answer.
She then attempts to spell it, and can't even do that. "T-O-A-D-I-E. I think it means what I
think it means "
Rogan then reads the definition: "Toadies. The definition of toadies: A person who flatters
or defers to others for self-serving reasons." "A sycophant. So I did use it right!" Weiss
exclaims. "So she's an Assad sycophant? Is that what you're saying?" "Yeah, that's, proven --
known -- about her."
When Rogan asks what Gabbard has said that qualifies her as a sycophant,
Weiss replies: "I don't remember the details."
"We probably should say that before we say that about her -- we should probably read it,
rather, right now, just so we know what she said," Rogan notes. "I think she's, like, the
motherlode of bad ideas," Weiss then says. "I'm pretty positive about that, especially on
Assad. But maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I'm wrong." It seems to us here at Sputnik that such
claims should be made with a bit more confidence than this. So let's set the record
straight.
Gabbard, who announced her presidential campaign on January 11, has drawn incredible amounts
of ire from mainstream Democrats tripping over themselves for war with Syria because in January
2017, Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and denounced the opposition rebels in
the country's civil war as "terrorists."
She has also expressed skepticism about accusations that Assad's
government has used chemical weapons during the conflict and spoken out against cruise missile
attacks by the US and its allies against the country.
"Initially I hadn't planned on meeting him," Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, told CNN's Jake
Tapper following the meeting. "When the opportunity arose to meet with him, I did so, because I
felt it's important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their
suffering, then we've got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a
possibility that we could achieve peace. And that's exactly what we talked about."
"I have seen this cost of war firsthand, which is why I fight so hard for peace," Gabbard
said. "And that's the reality of the situation that we're facing here. It's why I have urged
and continue to urge [US President Donald] Trump to meet with people like Kim Jong Un in North
Korea, because we understand what's at stake here. The only alternative to having these kinds
of conversations is more war."
Moreover, in a March 2016 speech before Congress, Gabbard called Assad
"a brutal dictator," noting that her opposition to what she called a "war bill" was over the
legal ramifications that she feared would lead to the overthrow of Assad, which she opposes on
anti-interventionist grounds.
"[T]oppling ruthless dictators in the Middle East creates even more human suffering and
strengthens our enemy, groups like ISIS and other terrorist organizations, in those countries,"
Gabbard
said at the time.
Gabbard has been thoroughly demonized for her pro-peace views by global liberal media, as
Trump has been for his moves to end the war in Syria and avoid another on the Korean Peninsula.
For example, The Daily Beast's
article announcing her candidacy called Gabbard "Assad's Favorite Democrat" in its
headline; a Haaretz
headline from last week say she had "Tea With Assad," and the Washington Post has
called her "Assad's Mouthpiece in Washington." The UK Independent
called her a "defender of dictators."
It's not clear what Weiss had in mind when she called Gabbard a "sycophant" and a "toady,"
since the congresswoman's rhetoric about Assad has consisted of skepticism and opposition to
intervention, and she hasn't hesitated to call the Syrian president a "brutal dictator." What
Gabbard's treatment has demonstrated is that a Democrat who steps out of line from the party's
pro-regime change agenda in Syria and who condemns Muslim extremists associated with Daesh and
al-Qaeda should be prepared to suffer for it in the mainstream media.
I love Tulsi; her ad was great. She's the only dem I would vote for at this point. Kamala is an evil hypocrite. And Tulsi's
right, love is the most powerful force in the planet.
Wake up folks -Tulsi would not have run if Bernie was going run. Bernie will endorse her early on and she will have a much
tougher fight than he did, because while Sanders caught the corporate establishment sleeping in 2016, they are now frightened
and see Gabbard coming. They will use every dirty trick at their disposal to keep her from catching fire -and that begins with
dividing progressives like us. Tulsi is not perfect because no one is perfect. But she is young, bright and fucking fearless compared
to other politicians about putting the long term good of the American people above the moneyed interests who think they own our
media and our government. This is why the establishment despises her more than even Sanders. 2020 will reveal weather or not we
can retake ownership of our media and our government. That fight will require all of us - so Kyle get on the bus!
Tulsi is an amazing candidate in her own right, but IMO she would be a perfect VP pick for Bernie. She has the amazing foreign
policy cred and would really shore up Bernie's weakest areas.
Tulsa Gabbard's ad doesn't mention the people who die in the countries we invade. That's 600k people in Iraq for example. A
significant omission me thinks.
The Aloha Spirit Law is a big deal in Hawaii. Government officials are required to approach dignitaries from other countries
or states with the spirit of aloha. "Aloha" means mutual regard and affection and extends warmth in caring with no obligation
in return. Aloha is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other person for collective existence.
I think that's what we want in a President or a diplomat.
She's great and unique as she doesnt fall back to identity politics and sjwism as much as the standard left politicians. I
hope she doesnt bend her ethics when the sjws come for her. I'm putting my trust in her. I hope she wins. And if she isn't in
the race, i wont be voting.
The question I would love her to address specifically is will her campaign focus on decreasing military spending like Bernie
Sanders? She has a military background and the US loves war. This ad is good but it is tip toing around the MIC ( military industrial
complex) She can be non interventionist but not decrease military spending is what worries me
This is why we need Gabbard on the debate stage. She will push the Overton window on revealing to the public what our military
is actually doing overseas. She's also a staunch progressive. Bernie/Tulsi 2020. Their weakness match well with each other, and
Tulsi was one of the first to jump ship on the sinking DNC ship when Hillary got caught cheating being the DNC. Keep small donations
going into your favorite progressive candidates to hear their voice. It doesn't work any other way folks.
Intervention isn't only an issue about morality. As Dwight Eisenhower put it (even though he himself was far from an anti imperialist),
you can't have an endless stream of money dedicated to military endeavors AND a sufficient investment in domestic public priorities.
This easily explains why we have increasingly decrepit infrastructure, increasingly worse performing education, increasingly worse
performing health care, absurdly insufficient regulation between government and business (although the pay to play system certainly
is the top reason) and a generally decaying public atmosphere. Beyond the fact that getting involved everywhere creates humanitarian
crises, countless dead people, hopelessly destroyed countries, and so much more, even if other countries haven't in return bombed
our shores from sea to sea, even if generally speaking those who consider not only the US but Americans the "enemies" haven't
overwhelmed with non stop attacks, this non stop and ever growing appetite for more money for more war priorities has created
the very decline we see in our country today. Until there is a change in priorities in general, these problems in the US will
only continue to get worse.
Man, Tulsi made me tear up. She's my girl. This message reminds me more of the message of Jesus than many of the fundamentalists.
She's not even Christian, yet represents Christ very well. I love this woman.
Prepare for BAE, Systems, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other weapons corporations and their bum lickers to launch a viscous
smear campaign against her suggesting she's somehow a Neo Nazi communist anti Semitic islamophobic islamist.
Tulsi 2020 she's saying some of the same things Trump said in his 2016 campaign. Unfortunately, he didn't deliver. Per the
corporate Democrates, making America better is a bad thing.
Tulsi can actually beat Trump...if she gets the nomination. The wars are the elephant in the room, and whoever is willing to
take that on full force, can win.
Meanwhile, the modern Republican Party is all about cutting taxes on the rich and benefits for the poor and the middle class.
And Trump, despite his campaign posturing, has turned out to be no different.
Hence the failure of our political system to serve socially conservative/racist voters who also want to tax the rich and preserve
Social Security. Democrats won't ratify their racism; Republicans, who have no such compunctions, will -- remember, the party establishment
solidly backed Roy Moore's Senate bid -- but won't protect the programs they depend on.
Paul Krugman is a baby boomer, pissant globalizer bastard, but he has made reasonable comments about immigration in the past.
Paul Krugman is a high IQ moron who has occasional bouts of clarity on the anti-worker aspects of mass legal immigration and illegal
immigration. Krugman had it right in 2006 when he said that mass immigration lowers wages for workers in the USA.
Krugman in NY Times 2006:
First, the benefits of immigration to the population already here are small. The reason is that immigrant workers are, at least
roughly speaking, paid their "marginal product": an immigrant worker is paid roughly the value of the additional goods and services
he or she enables the U.S. economy to produce. That means that there isn't anything left over to increase the income of the people
already here.
My second negative point is that immigration reduces the wages of domestic workers who compete with immigrants. That's just
supply and demand: we're talking about large increases in the number of low-skill workers relative to other inputs into production,
so it's inevitable that this means a fall in wages. Mr. Borjas and Mr. Katz have to go through a lot of number-crunching to turn
that general proposition into specific estimates of the wage impact, but the general point seems impossible to deny.
However, Krugman is also a relentless partisan hack. So his expert analysis always ends up supporting the current Democrat
talking points -- whatever they may be.
Here, Krugman is disparaging any move to the center as the DNC wants to keep the Dems unified on the left and keep Schultz
(or anyone like him) out of the race. Of course, the real reason Schultz has massively negative polling is because the Democrat
establishment has been savaging him for precisely this reason.
Likewise, to Krugman a "Racist" politician is anyone who holds the same immigration position as Krugman did in 2006, which
is now anathema to the Dem's new Open Borders electoral strategy.
It's only a matter of time until Krugman starts talking up Kamala Harris as the best thing that could happen for the economy.
Bottom line: Krugman – like any economist who was gifted with a fake Nobel Prize in Economics by his wealthy patrons (the Nobel
Prize in Economics does not exist – check out wikipedia!) – is a whore whose only function is to protect the left flank of our
corrupt and rapacious elite.
He's not a moron, and he's certainly not a liberal. His job – which pays very well mind you – is to pretend to be a sorta-kinda
Keynesian New Dealer, but in reality, anything that the rich wants, he will end up defending. And even if he sorta kinda claims
to be opposing something that the rich want which will impoverish the rest of us, when it comes to the bottom line, he will ruthlessly
attack any opposition to these policies.
"... Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon official, told RT that Trump's failure to provide specifics about a withdrawal timeline from the warzones was disappointing – especially because the president had earlier indicated that troops would be returning home in the near future. ..."
"... While the president railed against "foolish wars" as one of the few obstacles standing in the way of the "miracle" of American economic might, Maloof said that Trump's threats directed at Venezuela and Iran show that Washington's penchant for "regime change" has not subsided. ..."
"... "Now [Trump] is threatening to have a new arms race with the Russians and the Chinese. We spend 10 times as much as the Russians, three times as much as the Chinese. Not enough money isn't our problem here. It is because the strategy is all wrong. I think he knows that," the former US diplomat said. ..."
Donald Trump's State of the Union speech sent mixed messages about where the president
stands on foreign policy, analysts told RT, as his anti-intervention views clash with his
threats against Iran and Venezuela.
While the commander-in-chief praised US troops serving in Afghanistan and Syria as having
"fought with valor," he gave little indication of a timeline for a possible pull-out from the
region, despite previous sentiments to the contrary. The omission did not sit well with
analysts.
Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon official, told RT that Trump's failure to provide
specifics about a withdrawal timeline from the warzones was disappointing – especially
because the president had earlier indicated that troops would be returning home in the near
future.
The president likely "glossed over" a withdrawal timeline because it would have been "very
controversial," Maloof suggested, adding that ultimately, Trump may even embrace his cabinet's
"neo-conservative approach to foreign policy."
While the president railed against "foolish wars" as one of the few obstacles standing in
the way of the "miracle" of American economic might, Maloof said that Trump's threats directed
at Venezuela and Iran show that Washington's penchant for "regime change" has not subsided.
"These are very scary times," Maloof warned, adding that despite its military might, the US
could once again "get bogged down in another Vietnam" in places like Venezuela.
Likening the speech to pouring "old neo-con wine into a new America First rhetorical
bottle," Jim Jatras, a former US diplomat, lamented that elements within the Trump
administration were working against the president's stated foreign policy objectives.
"The one bright spot is probably Korea but there are people in his administration who would
like to tank that one as well," Jatras said. Trump has signaled that he's open to
reconciliation between the two Koreas, but his cabinet – not to mention most of
Washington and the media – continue to paint peace efforts on the Korean peninsula as
naive and dangerous.
Trump's decision to pump record amounts of money into the military is also a cause for
concern, Jatras warned.
"Now [Trump] is threatening to have a new arms race with the Russians and the Chinese. We
spend 10 times as much as the Russians, three times as much as the Chinese. Not enough money
isn't our problem here. It is because the strategy is all wrong. I think he knows that," the
former US diplomat said.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump lambasted America's endless and wasteful wars. But
as president, he has surrounded himself with individuals who have made defending and advancing
American empire a full-time career. Why did Trump cave and what could be the consequences for
him and his presidency?
CrossTalking with George Szamuely, Jeff Deist, and Lee Spieckerman.
That Lee guy demonstrated perfectly why the world should fear the USA. Dangerous stupid.
71 Likes
You are correct!
21 Likes
The danger comes from the arrogance with the stupidity. American exceptionalism at its
ugliest, on par with bolton and pompeo for sure.
I don't think tRump really knows what he is saying, as in big disconnect between brain and
mouth. More empty bluster than arrogance with his 5th grader stupidity.
23 Likes
The scary part is a lot of Americans are like him
23 Likes
Show 2 more replies
The "Lee" entity encapsulates everything that is wrong with consecutive US governments:
arrogant, obnoxious, I'll mannered, undiplomatic, belligerent, misinformed and dangerously
stupid.
43 Likes
Thanks for having this Lee Spieckerman on. It proves RT tries to show all sides and is a
shocking example of how crazy the far right is.
Keep it real!
37 Likes
Spickerman is living in cuckoo land with his claim US is a force for good and billions are
so happy to live under a bunch of mobster's Wrong
22 Likes
Lee Spickerman is a typical Sociopath
18 Likes
Lee Spickerman is mad like the US Governement.!!
The Monroe Doctrine gets evoked yet again. In written form it was "anti-colonial", but in
practice it was "imperial anti-colonialism" and used as a declaration of hegemony and a right
of unilateral intervention over the Americas.
This is why I feel we need to stop using the term "regime change" which also hides the
reality of what are really coup d'etats and imperialist wars. It's not a regime being changed,
but a regime trying to do the changing. Like Peter says at the end, it would take a long show
to talk about them all.
Do us all a favor and take Mr. Spieckerman off your guest list. He advances our knowledge
not a bit. He is merely one of the Bush claque. As for his admired public servant, John Bolton,
rarely does this country produce so maniacal a political operator. Giving Bolton a responsible
position was Trump's most egregious personnel error.
1) continue to control the "prestige" outlets: academia, newspapers, major publishers,
2) censor the huge online platforms like Twitter and YouTube,
3) confine the samizdat to small-scale blogs and independent websites,
4) crush any sort of opposition smearing it using anti-Semimuticm chanrge (to keep the opposition confined to online ghettos).
5. ifrnore the rest
It's not going to work, though.
Notable quotes:
"... Kristol sees the Empire as basically a galaxy-wide extrapolation of what he has long wanted the US to have over the Earth: what he has termed, "benevolent global hegemony." ..."
"... In " The Case for the Empire ," Jonathan V. Last made a Kristolian argument that you can't make a "benevolent hegemony" omelet without breaking a few eggs. ..."
"... A year after Kristol published Last's essay, large numbers of civilians were killed by American Imperial Stormtroopers in their actual Middle Eastern arid homeland of Iraq, thanks largely in part to the direct influence of neocons like Kristol and Last. ..."
"... In reality Hussein had put a death warrant out on Zarqawi, who was hiding from Iraq's security forces under the protective aegis of the US Air Force in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. It was only after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Iraq that Zarqawi's outfit was able to thrive and evolve into Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). And after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Syria, AQI further mutated into Syrian al-Qaeda (which has conquered much of Syria) and ISIS (which has conquered much of Syria and Iraq). ..."
"... The Soviet menace had recently disappeared, and the Cold War along with it. The neocons were terrified that the American public would therefore jump at the chance to lay their imperial burdens down. Kristol and Kagan urged their readers to resist that temptation, and to instead capitalize on America's new peerless preeminence by making it a big-spending, hyper-active, busybody globo-cop. The newfound predominance must become dominance wherever and whenever possible. That way, any future near-peer competitors would be nipped in the bud, and the new "unipolar moment" would last forever. ..."
"... What made this neocon dream seem within reach was the indifference of post-Soviet Russia. The year after the Berlin Wall fell, the Persian Gulf War against Iraq was the debut "police action" of unipolar "Team America, World Police." Paul Wolfowitz , the neocon and Iraq War architect, considered it a successful trial run. As Wesley Clark, former Nato Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, recalled : ..."
"... Also in 1996, David Wurmser wrote a strategy document for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Titled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," it was co-signed by Wurmser's fellow neocons and future Iraq War architects Richard Perle and Douglas Feith . "A Clean Break" called for regime change in Iraq as a "means" of "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria." Syria itself was a target because it "challenges Israel on Lebanese soil." It primarily does this by, along with Iran, supporting the paramilitary group Hezbollah, which arose in the 80s out of the local resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, and which continually foils Israel's ambitions in that country. ..."
"... The neocons used to be Democrats in the big-government, Cold Warrior mold of Harry Truman and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. After the Vietnam War and the rise of the anti-war New Left, the Democratic Party's commitment to the Cold War waned, so the neocons switched to the Republicans in disgust. ..."
"... According to investigative reporter Jim Lobe, the neocons got their first taste of power within the Reagan administration, in which positions were held by neocons such as Wolfowitz, Perle, Elliot Abrams , and Michael Ledeen . They were especially influential during Reagan's first term of saber-rattling, clandestine warfare, and profligate defense spending, which Kristol and Kagan remembered so fondly in their "Neo-Reaganite" manifesto. ..."
Bill Kristol watches Star Wars
movies, he roots for the Galactic Empire. The leading neocon recently caused a social media
disturbance
in the Force when he tweeted this predilection for the Dark Side following the debut of the final trailer for Star Wars: The
Force Awakens .
Kristol sees the Empire as basically a galaxy-wide extrapolation of what he has long wanted the US to have over the Earth: what
he has termed, "benevolent global hegemony."
Kristol, founder and editor of neocon flagship magazine The Weekly Standard, responded to scandalized critics by linking
to a 2002 essay from the Standard's blog that justifies even the worst of Darth Vader's atrocities. In "
The Case for the
Empire ," Jonathan V. Last made a Kristolian argument that you can't make a "benevolent hegemony" omelet without breaking a few
eggs.
And what if those broken eggs are civilians, like Luke Skywalker's uncle and aunt who were gunned down by Imperial Stormtroopers
in their home on the Middle Eastern-looking arid planet of Tatooine (filmed on location in Tunisia)? Well, as Last sincerely argued,
Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru hid Luke and harbored the fugitive droids R2D2 and C3P0; so they were "traitors" who were aiding the rebellion
and deserved to be field-executed.
A year after Kristol published Last's essay, large numbers of civilians were killed by American Imperial Stormtroopers in their
actual Middle Eastern arid homeland of Iraq, thanks largely in part to the direct
influence of neocons like Kristol and Last.
That war was similarly justified in part by the false
allegation that Iraq ruler Saddam Hussein
was harboring and aiding terrorist enemies of the empire like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The civilian-slaughtering siege of
Fallujah , one of
the most brutal episodes of the war, was also specifically justified by the false allegation that the town was harboring Zarqawi.
In reality Hussein had put a death warrant out on Zarqawi, who was hiding from Iraq's security forces under the protective aegis
of the US Air Force in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. It was only after the Empire precipitated the chaotic
collapse of Iraq that Zarqawi's outfit was able to
thrive and evolve into Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
And after the Empire precipitated the chaotic collapse of Syria, AQI further mutated into Syrian al-Qaeda (which has conquered much
of Syria) and ISIS (which has conquered much of Syria and Iraq).
And what if the "benevolent hegemony" omelet requires the breaking of "eggs" the size of whole worlds, like how high Imperial
officer Wilhuff Tarkin used the Death Star to obliterate the planet Alderaan? Well, as Last sincerely argued, even Alderaan likely
deserved its fate, since it may have been, "a front for Rebel activity or at least home to many more spies and insurgents " Last
contended that Princess Leia was probably lying when she told the Death Star's commander that the planet had "no weapons."
While Last was writing his apologia for global genocide, his fellow neocons were baselessly arguing that Saddam Hussein was similarly
lying about Iraq not having a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. Primarily on that basis, the obliteration of an entire country
began the following year.
And a year after that, President Bush performed a
slapstick comedy act about his failure to find
Iraqi WMDs for a black-tie dinner for radio and television correspondents. The media hacks in his audience, who had obsequiously
helped the neocon-dominated Bush administration lie the country into war, rocked with laughter as thousands of corpses moldered in
Iraq and Arlington. A more sickening display of imperial decadence and degradation has not been seen perhaps since the gladiatorial
audiences of Imperial Rome. This is the hegemonic "benevolence" and "national greatness" that Kristol pines for.
"Benevolent global hegemony" was coined by Kristol and fellow neocon
Robert Kagan in their 1996 Foreign Affairs
article " Toward
a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy ." In that essay, Kristol and Kagan sought to inoculate both the conservative movement and US
foreign policy against the isolationism of Pat Buchanan.
The Soviet menace had recently disappeared, and the Cold War along with it. The neocons were terrified that the American public
would therefore jump at the chance to lay their imperial burdens down. Kristol and Kagan urged their readers to resist that temptation,
and to instead capitalize on America's new peerless preeminence by making it a big-spending, hyper-active, busybody globo-cop. The
newfound predominance must become dominance wherever and whenever possible. That way, any future near-peer competitors would be nipped
in the bud, and the new "unipolar moment" would last forever.
What made this neocon dream seem within reach was the indifference of post-Soviet Russia. The year after the Berlin Wall fell,
the Persian Gulf War against Iraq was the debut "police action" of unipolar "Team America, World Police."
Paul Wolfowitz , the neocon and Iraq War architect,
considered it a successful trial run. As Wesley Clark, former Nato Supreme Allied Commander for Europe,
recalled :
"In 1991, [Wolfowitz] was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy -- the number 3 position at the Pentagon. And I had gone
to see him when I was a 1-Star General commanding the National Training Center. ( )
And I said, "Mr. Secretary, you must be pretty happy with the performance of the troops in Desert Storm."
And he said: "Yeah, but not really, because the truth is we should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, and we didn't But one
thing we did learn is that we can use our military in the region -- in the Middle East -- and the Soviets won't stop us. And
we've got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes -- Syria, Iran, Iraq -- before the next great superpower
comes on to challenge us."
The 1996 "Neo-Reaganite" article was part of a surge of neocon literary activity in the mid-90s. It was in 1995 that Kristol and
John Podhoretz founded The Weekly Standard with funding from right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Also in 1996, David Wurmser wrote a strategy
document for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Titled, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," it was co-signed
by Wurmser's fellow neocons and future Iraq War architects
Richard Perle and
Douglas Feith .
"A Clean Break" called for regime change in
Iraq as a "means" of "weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria." Syria itself was a target because it "challenges Israel
on Lebanese soil." It primarily does this by, along with Iran, supporting the paramilitary group Hezbollah, which arose in the 80s
out of the local resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, and which continually foils Israel's ambitions in that country.
Later that same year, Wurmser wrote another strategy document, this time for circulation in American and European halls of power,
titled "Coping with Crumbling States: A Western and Israeli Balance of Power Strategy for the Levant."
In "A Clean Break," Wurmser had framed regime change in Iraq and Syria in terms of Israeli regional ambitions.
In "Coping," Wurmser adjusted his message for its broader
Western audience by recasting the very same policies in a Cold War framework.
Wurmser characterized regime change in Iraq and Syria (both ruled by Baathist regimes) as "
expediting the chaotic collapse " of secular-Arab nationalism
in general, and Baathism in particular. He concurred with King Hussein of Jordan that, "the phenomenon of Baathism," was, from the
very beginning, "an agent of foreign, namely Soviet policy." Of course King Hussein was a bit biased on the matter, since his own
Hashemite royal family once ruled both Iraq and Syria. Wurmser argued that:
" the battle over Iraq represents a desperate attempt by residual Soviet bloc allies in the Middle East to block the extension
into the Middle East of the impending collapse that the rest of the Soviet bloc faced in 1989."
Wurmser further derided Baathism in Iraq and Syria as an ideology in a state of "crumbling descent and missing its Soviet patron"
and "no more than a Cold War enemy relic on probation."
Wurmser advised the West to put this anachronistic adversary out of its misery, and to thus, in Kristolian fashion, press America's
Cold War victory on toward its final culmination. Baathism should be supplanted by what he called the "Hashemite option." After their
chaotic collapse, Iraq and Syria would be Hashemite possessions once again. Both would be dominated by the royal house of Jordan,
which in turn, happens to be dominated by the US and Israel.
Wurmser stressed that demolishing Baathism must be the foremost priority in the region. Secular-Arab nationalism should be given
no quarter, not even, he added, for the sake of stemming the tide of Islamic fundamentalism.
Thus we see one of the major reasons why the neocons were such avid anti-Soviets during the Cold War. It is not just that, as
post-Trotskyites, the neocons resented Joseph Stalin for having Leon Trotsky assassinated in Mexico with an ice pick. The Israel-first
neocons' main beef with the Soviets was that, in various disputes and conflicts involving Israel, Russia sided with secular-Arab
nationalist regimes from 1953 onward.
The neocons used to be Democrats in the big-government, Cold Warrior mold of Harry Truman and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. After the
Vietnam War and the rise of the anti-war New Left, the Democratic Party's commitment to the Cold War waned, so the neocons switched
to the Republicans in disgust.
According to investigative reporter
Jim Lobe, the neocons got their first taste of power within the Reagan administration, in which positions were held by neocons such
as Wolfowitz, Perle, Elliot Abrams , and
Michael Ledeen . They were especially influential
during Reagan's first term of saber-rattling, clandestine warfare, and profligate defense spending, which Kristol and Kagan remembered
so fondly in their "Neo-Reaganite" manifesto.
It was then that the neocons helped establish the "Reagan Doctrine." According to neocon columnist
Charles Krauthammer , who coined the
term in 1985, the Reagan Doctrine was characterized by support for anti-communist (in reality often simply anti-leftist) forces around
the whole world.
Since the support was clandestine, the Reagan administration was able to bypass the "Vietnam Syndrome" and project power in spite
of the public's continuing war weariness. (It was left to Reagan's successor, the first President Bush, to announce following his
"splendid little" Gulf War that, "by God, we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all!")
Operating covertly, the Reaganites could also use any anti-communist group they found useful, no matter how ruthless and ugly:
from Contra death squads in Nicaragua to the Islamic fundamentalist mujahideen in Afghanistan. Abrams and Ledeen were both involved
in the Iran-Contra affair, and Abrams was convicted (though later pardoned) on related criminal charges.
Kristol's "Neo-Reaganite" co-author Robert Kagan gave the doctrine an even wider and more ambitious interpretation in his book
A Twilight Struggle :
"The Reagan Doctrine has been widely understood to mean only support for anticommunist guerrillas fighting pro-Soviet regimes,
but from the first the doctrine had a broader meaning. Support for anticommunist guerrillas was the logical outgrowth, not the
origin, of a policy of supporting democratic reform or revolution everywhere, in countries ruled by right-wing dictators as well
as by communist parties."
As this description makes plain, neocon policy, from the 1980s to today, has been every bit as fanatical, crusading, and world-revolutionary
as Red Communism was in the neocon propaganda of yesteryear, and that Islam is in the neocon propaganda of today.
The neocons credit Reagan's early belligerence with the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union. But in reality, war is the health
of the State, and Cold War was the
health of Soviet State . The Soviets long used the American menace to frighten the Russian people into rallying around the State
for protection.
After the neocons lost clout within the Reagan administration to "realists" like George Schultz, the later Reagan-Thatcher-Gorbachev
detente began. It was only after that detente lifted the Russian siege atmosphere and quieted existential nuclear nightmares that
the Russian people felt secure enough to demand a changing of the guard.
In 1983, the same year that the first Star Wars trilogy ended, Reagan vilified Soviet Russia in language that Star
Wars fans could understand by dubbing it "the Evil Empire." Years later, having, in Kristol's words, "defeated the evil empire,"
the neocons that Reagan first lifted to power began clamoring for a "neo-Reaganite" global hegemony. And a few years after that,
those same neocons began pointing to the sci-fi Galactic Empire that Reagan implicitly compared to the Soviets as a lovely model
for America!
Fast-forward to return to the neocon literary flowering of the mid-90s. In 1997, the year after writing "Toward a Neo-Reaganite
Foreign Policy" together, Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan co-founded
The Project for a New American
Century (PNAC). The 20th century is often called "the American century," largely due to it being a century of war and American
"victories" in those wars: the two World Wars and the Cold War. The neocons sought to ensure that through the never-ending exercise
of military might, the American global hegemony achieved through those wars would last another hundred years, and that the 21st century
too would be "American."
The organization's founding
statement
of principles called for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity" and reads like an executive summary of the
founding duo's "Neo-Reaganite" essay. It was signed by neocons such as Wolfowitz, Abrams,
Norman Podhoretz and
Frank Gaffney ; by future Bush administration
officials such as Dick Cheney ,
Donald Rumsfeld ,
Lewis "Scooter" Libby ; and by other
neocon allies, such as Jeb Bush.
Although PNAC called for interventions ranging from Serbia (to roll back Russian influence in Europe) to Taiwan (to roll back
Chinese influence in Asia), its chief concern was to kick off the restructuring of the Middle East envisioned in "A Clean Break"
and "Coping" by advocating its first step: regime change in Iraq.
The most high-profile parts of this effort were two "open letters" published in 1998, one in January addressed to
President Bill
Clinton , and another in May addressed to
leaders of Congress
. As with its statement of principles, PNAC was able to garner signatures for these letters from a wide range of political luminaries,
including neocons (like Perle), neocon allies (like
John Bolton ), and other non-neocons (like James Woolsey and Robert Zoellick).
The open letters characterized Iraq as "a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold
War," and buttressed this ridiculous claim with the now familiar allegations of Saddam building a WMD program.
Thanks in large part to PNAC's pressure, regime change in Iraq became official US policy in October when Congress passed, and
President Clinton signed, the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. (Notice the Clinton-friendly "humanitarian interventionist" name in spite
of the policy's conservative fear-mongering origins.)
After the Supreme Court delivered George W. Bush the presidency, the neocons were back in the imperial saddle again in 2001: just
in time to make their projected "New American Century" of "Neo-Reaganite Global Hegemony" a reality. The first order of business,
of course, was Iraq.
But some pesky national security officials weren't getting with the program and kept trying to distract the administration with
concerns about some Osama bin Laden character and his Al Qaeda outfit. Apparently they were laboring under some pedestrian notion
that their job was to protect the American people and not to conquer the world.
For example, when National Security Council counterterrorism "czar" Richard Clarke was frantically sounding the alarm over an
imminent terrorist attack on America,Wolfowitz was uncomprehending. As Clarke recalled, the then Deputy Defense Secretary
objected :
"I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden."
Clarke informed him that:
"We are talking about a network of terrorist organizations called al-Qaeda, that happens to be led by bin Laden, and we are
talking about that network because it and it alone poses an immediate and serious threat to the United States."
This simply did not fit in the agenda-driven neocon worldview of Wolfowitz, who responded:
"Well, there are others that do as well, at least as much. Iraqi terrorism for example."
"During that same time period [in 2001], the CIA was raising alarms too. According to Kurt Eichenwald, a former New York
Times reporter given access to the Daily Briefs prepared by the intelligence agencies for President Bush in the spring and
summer of 2001, the CIA
told
the White House by May 1 that 'a group presently in the United States' was planning a terrorist attack. On June 22, the Daily
Brief
warned
that al-Qaeda strikes might be 'imminent.'
But the same Defense Department officials who discounted Clarke's warnings pushed back against the CIA's. According to
Eichenwald's
sources , 'the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the
C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration
from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.'
By the time Clarke and the CIA got the Bush administration's attention, it was already too late to follow any of the clear leads
that might have been followed to prevent the 9/11 attacks.
The terrorist attacks by Sunni Islamic fundamentalists mostly from the Saudi Kingdom hardly fit the neocon agenda of targeting
the secular-Arab nationalist regimes of Iraq and Syria and the Shiite Republic of Iran: especially since all three of the latter
were mortal enemies of bin Laden types.
But the attackers were, like Iraqis, some kind of Muslims from the general area of the Middle East. And that was good enough for
government work in the American idiocracy. After a youth consumed with state-compelled drudgery, most Americans are so stupid and
incurious that such a meaningless relationship, enhanced with some fabricated "intelligence," was more than enough to
stampede the spooked American herd into supporting the
Iraq War.
As Benjamin Netanyahu once
said , "America is
a thing you can move very easily."
Whether steering the country into war would be easy or not, it was all neocon hands on deck. At the Pentagon there was Wolfowitz
and Perle, with Perle-admirer Rumsfeld as SecDef. Feith was also at Defense, where he set up two new offices for the special purpose
of spinning "intelligence" yarn to tie Saddam with al-Qaeda and to weave fanciful pictures of secret Iraqi WMD programs.
Wurmser himself labored in one of these offices, followed by stints at State aiding neocon-ally Bolton and in the Vice President's
office aiding neocon-ally Cheney along with Scooter Libby.
Iran-Contra convict Abrams was at the National Security Council aiding Condoleezza Rice. And Kristol and Kagan continued to lead
the charge in the media and think tank worlds.
And they pulled it off. Wurmser finally got his "chaotic collapse" in Iraq. And Kristol finally had his invincible, irresistible,
hyper-active hegemony looming over the world like a Death Star.
The post-9/11 pretense-dropping American Empire even had Dick Cheney with his Emperor Palpatine snarl preparing Americans to accept
torture by saying:
"We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will."
The Iraq War ended up backfiring on the neocons. It installed a new regime in Baghdad that was no more favorable toward Israel
and far more favorable toward Israel's enemies Iran and Syria. But the important thing was that Kristol's Death Star was launched
and in orbit. As long as it was still in proactive mode, there was nothing the neocons could not fix with its awful power.
This seemed true even during the Obama presidency. On top of Iraq and Afghanistan, under Obama the American Death Star has demolished
Yemen and Somalia. It also demolished both Syria and Libya, where it continues the Wurmsurite project of precipitating the chaotic
collapse of secular-Arab nationalism. Islamic terror groups including al-Qaeda and ISIS are thriving in that chaos, but the American
Death Star to this day has adhered to Wurmser's de-prioritization of the Islamist threat.
As Yoda said, "Fear is the path to the Dark Side." The neocons have been able to use the fear generated by a massive Islamic fundamentalist
terror attack to pursue their blood-soaked vendetta against secular-Arab nationalists, even to the benefit of the very Islamic fundamentalists
who attacked us, because even after 12 years Americans are still too bigoted and oblivious to distinguish between the two
groups.
Furthermore, Obama has gone beyond Wurmser's regional ambitions and has fulfilled Kristol's busybody dreams of global hegemony
to a much greater extent than Bush ever did. To appease generals and arms merchants worried about his prospective pull-outs from
the Iraqi and Afghan theaters, Obama launched both an imperial "pivot" to Asia and a stealth invasion of Africa. The pull-outs were
aborted, but the continental "pivots" remain. Thus Obama's pretenses as a peace President helped to make his regime the most ambitiously
imperialistic and globe-spanning that history has ever seen.
But the neocons may have overdone it with their Death Star shooting spree, because another great power now seems determined to
put a stop to it. And who is foiling the neocons' Evil Empire? Why none other than the original "Evil Empire": the neocons' old nemesis
Russia.
In 2013, Russia's Putin diplomatically frustrated the neocons' attempt to deliver the coup de grâce to the Syrian regime
with a US air war. Shortly afterward, Robert Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland yanked Ukraine out of Russia's sphere of influence by engineering
a bloody coup in Kiev. Putin countered by bloodlessly annexing the Ukrainian province of Crimea. A proxy war followed between the
US-armed and Western-financed junta in Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
The US continued to intervene in Syria, heavily sponsoring an insurgency dominated by extremists including al-Qaeda and ISIS.
But recently, Russia decided to intervene militarily. Suddenly, Wolfowitz's lesson from the Gulf War was up in smoke. The neocons
cannot militarily do whatever they want in the Middle East and trust that Russia will stand idly by. Suddenly the arrogant Wolfowitz/Wurmser
dream of crumbling then cleaning up "old Soviet client regimes" and "Cold War enemy relics" had gone poof. Putin decided that Syria
would be one "Cold War relic" turned terrorist playground too many.
Russia's entry into Syria has thrown all of the neocons' schemes into disarray.
By actually working to destroy Syrian al-Qaeda and ISIS instead of just pretending to, as the US and its allies have, Russia threatens
to eliminate the head-chopping bogeymen whose Live Leak-broadcasted brutal antics continually renew in Americans the war-fueling
terror of 9/11. And after Putin had taken the US air strike option off the table, al-Qaeda and ISIS were the neocons most powerful
tools for bringing down the Syrian regime. And now Russia is threatening to take those toys away too.
If Hezbollah and Iran, with Russia's air cover, manage to help save what is left of Syria from the Salafist psychos, they will
be more prestigious in both Syria and Lebanon than ever, and Israel may never be able to dominate its northern neighbors.
The neocons are livid. After the conflicts over Syria and Ukraine in 2013, they had already started ramping up the vilification
of Putin. Now the demonization has gone into overdrive.
One offering in this milieu has been an article by Matthew Continetti in the neocon web site he edits, The Washington Free Beacon.
Titled " A Reagan Doctrine
for the Twenty-First Century ," it obviously aims to be a sequel to Kristol's and Kagan's "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy."
As it turns out, the Russian "Evil Empire" was not defeated after all: only temporarily dormant. And so Continetti's updated Reaganite
manifesto is subtitled, "How to confront Vladimir Putin."
The US military may be staggering around the planet like a drunken, bloated colossus. Yet Continetti still dutifully trots out
all the Kristolian tropes about the need for military assertiveness (more drunken belligerence), massive defense spending (more bloating),
and "a new American century." Reaganism is needed now just as much as in 1996, he avers: in fact, doubly so, for Russia has reemerged
as:
" the greatest military and ideological threat to the United States and to the world order it has built over decades as guarantor
of international security."
Right, just look at all that security sprouting out of all those bomb craters the US has planted throughout much of the world.
Oh wait no, those are terrorists.
Baby-faced Continetti, a Weekly Standard contributor, is quite the apprentice to Sith Lord Kristol, judging from his
ardent faith in the "Benevolent Global Hegemony" dogma. In fact, he even shares Lord Kristol's enthusiasm for "Benevolent Galactic
Hegemony." It was Continetti who kicked off the recent Star Wars /foreign policy brouhaha when he tweeted:
"I've been rooting for the Empire since 1983"
This elicited a concurring response from Kristol, which is what set Twitter atwitter. Of course the whole thing was likely staged
and coordinated between the two neocon operatives.
Unfortunately for the neocons, demonizing Putin over Syria is not nearly as easy as demonizing Putin over Ukraine. With Ukraine,
there was a fairly straight-forward (if false) narrative to build of big bully Russia and plucky underdog Ukraine.
However, it's pretty hard to keep a lid on the fact that Russia is attacking al-Qaeda and ISIS, along with any CIA-trained jihadist
allies are nearby. And it's inescapably unseemly for the US foreign policy establishment to be so bent out of shape about Russia
bombing sworn enemies of the American people, even if it does save some dictator most Americans don't care about one way or the other.
And now that wildly popular wild card Donald Trump is spouting unwelcome common sense to his legions of followers about how standing
back and letting Russia bomb anti-American terrorists is better than starting World War III over it. And this is on top of the fact
that Trump is deflating Jeb Bush's campaign by throwing shade at his brother's neocon legacy, from the failures over 9/11 to the
disastrous decision to regime change Iraq. And the neocon-owned Marco Rubio, who actually adopted "A New American Century" as his
campaign slogan, is similarly making no headway against Trump.
And Russia's involvement in Syria just keeps getting worse for the neocons. Washington threatened to withdraw support from the
Iraqi government if it accepted help from Russia against ISIS. Iraq accepted Russian help anyway. Baghdad has also sent militias
to fight under Russian air cover alongside Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces.
Even Jordan, that favorite proxy force in Israel's dreams of regional dominance, has begun coordinating with Russia, in spite
of its billion dollars a year of annual aid from Washington. Et tu Jordan?!
Apparently there aren't enough Federal Reserve notes in Janet Yellen's imagination to pay Iraq and Jordan to tolerate living amid
a bin Ladenite maelstrom any longer.
And what is Washington going to do about it if the whole region develops closer ties with Russia? What are the American people
going to let them get away with doing about it? A palace coup in Jordan? Expend more blood and treasure to overthrow the very same
Iraqi government we already lost much blood and treasure in installing? Start a suicidal hot war with nuclear Russia?
And the neocon's imperial dreams are coming apart at the seams outside of the war zones too. The new Prime Minister of Canada
just announced he will pull out of America's war in the Levant. Europe wants to compromise with Russia on both Ukraine and Syria,
and this willingness will grow as the refugee crisis it is facing worsens. Obama made a nuclear deal with Iran and initiated detente
with Cuba. And worst of all for neocons, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is being de-legitimized by the bourgeoning BDS movement
and by images of its own brutality propagating through social media, along with translations of its hateful rhetoric.
The neocons bit off more than they could chew, and their Galactic Empire is falling apart before it could even fully conquer its
first planet.
Nearly all empires end due to over-extension. If brave people from Ottawa to Baghdad simply say "enough" within a brief space
of time, hopefully this empire can dissolve relatively peacefully like the Soviet Empire did, leaving its host civilization intact,
instead of dragging that civilization into oblivion along with it like the Roman Empire did.
But beware, the imperial war party will not go quietly into the night, unless we in their domestic tax base insist that there
is no other way. If, in desperation, they start calling for things like more boots on the ground, reinstating the draft, or declaring
World War III on Russia and its Middle Eastern allies, we must stand up and say with firm voices something along the lines of the
following:
No. You will not have my son for your wars. And we will not surrender any more of our liberty. We will no longer yield to a regime
led by a neocon clique that threatens to extinguish the human race. Your power fantasy of universal empire is over. Just let it go.
Or, as Anakin finally did when the Emperor came for his son, we will hurl your tyranny into the abyss.
WASHINGTON -- In an impassioned call for preemptive action against the Middle Eastern
nation, United States national security advisor John Bolton insisted Thursday that Iran was
likely harboring the dangerous terrorist Osama bin Laden. "For the good of our nation, we must
act immediately," said Bolton, citing several intelligence reports providing significant
evidence that Iran is currently providing sanctuary to the Al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of
the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We must never rest until this fugitive is brought to justice, and the only way to achieve
that is through repeated and prolonged military strikes on Iran.
We have reason to believe that he's living in a compound there where he's training a legion
of bloodthirsty Iranian civilians to take up arms as the next generation of terrorists. It is
our solemn duty as the international safeguard of freedom to prevent this at all costs."
At press time, Bolton had left the podium to follow up on an important tip that Iranian
leaders had hired American nuclear physicist Otto Gunther Octavius.
"... No such glasnost ever took place in the pages of the Standard whose reputation has become indelibly wedded to its cheerleading for the calamitous 2003 Iraq War. The neocons had confused the Soviet Union's forfeiting of the cold war with American triumphalism, seizing upon its peaceful conclusion to search for new monsters to destroy abroad, whenever and wherever they could. The Standard itself constantly published taradiddles about the Middle East and Islam. Stephen F. Hayes, its last editor, lauded for his "integrity and courage" in the Trump era by David Brooks, wrote a phantasmagoric book called The Connection: How al Qaeda's Connection With Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America , not to mention reverential biographies of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz. ..."
"... For his part, Kristol co-wrote a book with Lawrence F. Kaplan called The War Over Iraq that supported a worldwide crusade for democracy. Far from spreading democracy, the Iraq War ended up not only spreading chaos in the Middle East, but also enabling the rise of Trump. As Carlos Lozada recently observed in The Washington Post , "The Never Trumpers hold everyone culpable for the appeal of Trumpism except, in any worthwhile way, themselves." ..."
"... For most neocons, however, journalism has never been more than a Leninist means to an end -- to form an intellectual vanguard. For it is political influence that the neocons crave. In his memoir, Boot proudly recounts that he served as an adviser to Senator Marco Rubio as well as to Mitt Romney during his run for the presidency in 2012. Kristol worked to destroy the 1993 Clinton Healthcare bill and sought to mold first Dan Quayle, then Sarah Palin, into his political homunculi. During the 2016 primary, he desperately cast about for a viable candidate to oppose Donald Trump and incurred much ridicule when he floated the name of David French, a writer for the National Review . ..."
"... Kristol, Podhoretz, Boot, and others belong to a second generation of neocons that never drifted away from the Democrats toward the Republican Party. Instead, they were right from the beginning. While some have begun to duplicate the odyssey in reverse that neocon elder Norman Podhoretz chronicled in memoirs such as Breaking Ranks and Ex-Friends , many seem simply politically adrift, like Russian exiles stranded in Paris after the Bolshevik revolution pining for the ancien régime . ..."
"... For his part, Kristol refused to concede that the GOP was irredeemably tainted by Trump. He acknowledged, "there are recessive genes in the GOP. They were always there and a lot of us didn't want to look too closely. There was a shining moment when the Bill Buckley conservatives came together with the neoconservatives and with Ronald Reagan," but "that went away quickly." Explaining his backing for Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate in 2008, he said: "The instinct I had was you had to have a more populist flavor That would be a way to incorporate populist discontent." He concluded, "It will be very different if this ends up being a parenthesis or this is an inflection point where it becomes the culmination, or end point. That's a very different story We're less doomed than what some people say as a party and a movement." ..."
In April 2016, I
attended
a fortieth anniversary gala dinner in Washington, D.C., held by the Ethics and Public Policy Center at the St. Regis Hotel to honor
House Speaker Paul Ryan. The master of ceremonies was William Kristol. Kristol noted that Donald Trump, who won the New York Republican
primary that night to the dismay of the attendees who audibly groaned at the news, had described him as "dopey," the editor of a
"slightly failing magazine," and "very embarrassed to even walk down the street" thanks to his refusal to endorse Trump. Kristol
said, "It's been a tough two or three months of rehabilitation for me." After the audience stopped laughing, Kristol concluded: "This
should be a Trump-free evening so that's enough Trump."
It hasn't worked out that way. Instead, Kristol watched helplessly as Trump denounced the Iraq War as a fraud and trumpeted an
America First doctrine that repudiated the neocon crusading foreign policy doctrine. This past Friday, the saga of the neocons took
a fresh and unexpected turn with the demise of The Weekly Standard . Launched as a "redoubt of conservatism" by Kristol, Fred
Barnes, and John Podhoretz, with the backing of the Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch, the Standard , TheNew
Yorkernoted in May 1995
, "will become the nation's only weekly journal of conservative opinion yet it will rely for editorial inspiration on a liberal model:
The New Republic . Just as Herbert Croly began The New Republic , in 1914, to conduct the intellectual debate at the
climax of the Progressive Era, The Standard appears at the dawn of a conservative one."
That was then. Now Colorado billionaire Philip F. Anschutz, who bought the magazine from Murdoch in 2007, has decided to pull
the plug, in part over the brickbats the Standard lobbed at Trump. If so, his move has pleased the president. On Saturday,
Trump tweeted : "The pathetic
and dishonest Weekly Standard, run by failed prognosticator Bill Kristol (who, like many others, never had a clue), is flat broke
and out of business. Too bad. May it rest in peace!"
Even as Trump gloats over Anschutz's move, however, a chorus of neocons is indicting Anschutz for willfully ending a golden age
of journalism. Alfred Kazin
observed in A Lifetime Burning in Every Moment , "Jews on the American scene. The neoconservatives have made it right
with the boss their grandfathers used to picket." But New York Times columnist David Brooks
echoedCommentary editor John Podhoretz in angrily accusing Anschutz of, in effect, committing murder and behaving like
a "run-of-the-mill arrogant billionaire," On Monday, Podhoretz went on to deem Representative Steve King a "disgusting liar and a
stain on American public life" for assenting with Trump's claims about the Standard . Meanwhile, Max Boot, the author of
The Corrosion of Conservatism ,
wrote in TheWashington Post , "I devoutly hope a new Standard will arise to lead the Republican Party out
of the moral and political oblivion to which the president is consigning it."
It's an unlikely prospect. The most provocative and inventive writing on the right about Trump doesn't come from the neocons --
who are essentially Johnny-come-latelies in their criticisms of the GOP -- but from publications such as TheAmerican Conservative
, American Affairs, or even National Review . In TheAmerican Conservative , Daniel Larison pillories
the Trump administration for its recklessly high military budget -- something no neocon would aver -- and for repudiating the Iran
nuclear deal, while William Ruger deems neocon historian Robert Kagan's latest book, The Jungle Grows Back , a recipe for
"forever war."
At the same time, in The American Conservative 'slatest
issue , the historian Robert W. Merry declares that Trump will be a one-term president, partly because his foreign policy stands
repudiate his campaign promises. His point is well-taken. It's ironic that the Standard has imploded at the very moment when
the neocons' nemesis, Trump, has stolen their lunch money with an aggressively militarist foreign policy that is pro-Israel, hostile
to Iran and China, and disdainful of the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, and other international institutions.
The only thing missing from the Trump program is the patina of democracy promotion. Perhaps the neocons have become a victim of their
own success; in Merry's words:
Trump himself has already reversed his campaign stance regarding the country's foreign policy, having installed Mike Pompeo
as secretary of state and John Bolton as national security adviser -- men who personify the prevailing establishment outlook of
hegemonic liberalism. Thus, because of Trump's political and leadership shortcomings, Trump voters will see their hopes of a new
direction for America trampled and thwarted.
Julius Krein, the editor of American Affairs ,
disavowed
his support for Trump after the Charlottesville demonstrations in TheNew York Times , but his journal continues to
publish lengthy essays taking aim at neoliberal economic doctrines and includes well-known authors on the left such as
John B. Judis . And in National Review
, Michael Brendan Dougherty is attempting to formulate a populist approach toward workers and education. In a
December 17 cover story
, he politely acknowledges that the "Trump presidency is not what conservatives would have designed for themselves" but suggests
"conservatives should allow themselves to see that America's great middle class was the vessel for its previous electoral victories
and the preservation of the American order."
No such glasnost ever took place in the pages of the Standard whose reputation has become indelibly wedded to its cheerleading
for the calamitous 2003 Iraq War. The neocons had confused the Soviet Union's forfeiting of the cold war with American triumphalism,
seizing upon its peaceful conclusion to search for new monsters to destroy abroad, whenever and wherever they could. The Standard
itself constantly published taradiddles about the Middle East and Islam. Stephen F. Hayes, its last editor, lauded for his "integrity
and courage" in the Trump era by David Brooks, wrote a phantasmagoric book called The Connection: How al Qaeda's Connection With
Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America , not to mention reverential biographies of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
For his part, Kristol co-wrote a book with Lawrence F. Kaplan called The War Over Iraq that supported a worldwide crusade
for democracy. Far from spreading democracy, the Iraq War ended up not only spreading chaos in the Middle East, but also enabling
the rise of Trump. As Carlos Lozada
recently observed in The Washington Post , "The Never Trumpers hold everyone culpable for the appeal of Trumpism except, in any
worthwhile way, themselves."
Indeed, it would be difficult to point to any significant essays that the Standard has published in recent years. Many
of the more prominent neocons who originally wrote for it have moved on to more mainstream outlets. TheWashington Post
, whose editorial page championed the Iraq War, has become a kind of bulletin board for Never Trumpers, including Max Boot, a regular
on CNN and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Jennifer Rubin, a former contributor to Human Events , Commentary
, and the Standard . Both Bari Weiss and Bret Stephens decamped from TheWall Street Journal for higher profile
jobs at TheNew York Times . Robert Kagan has long since left the Standard and the Project for the New American
Century behind to become a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. David Frum, who regularly wrote for the Standard and
was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is a staff writer at TheAtlantic .
For most neocons, however, journalism has never been more than a Leninist means to an end -- to form an intellectual vanguard.
For it is political influence that the neocons crave. In his memoir, Boot proudly recounts that he served as an adviser to Senator
Marco Rubio as well as to Mitt Romney during his run for the presidency in 2012. Kristol worked to destroy the 1993 Clinton Healthcare
bill and sought to mold first Dan Quayle, then Sarah Palin, into his political homunculi. During the 2016 primary, he desperately
cast about for a viable candidate to oppose Donald Trump and incurred much ridicule when he floated the name of David French, a writer
for the National Review .
Kristol, Podhoretz, Boot, and others belong to a second generation of neocons that never drifted away from the Democrats toward
the Republican Party. Instead, they were right from the beginning. While some have begun to duplicate the odyssey in reverse that
neocon elder Norman Podhoretz chronicled in memoirs such as Breaking Ranks and Ex-Friends , many seem simply politically
adrift, like Russian exiles stranded in Paris after the Bolshevik revolution pining for the ancien régime .
A
conference attended by about a hundred people last week at the
Niskanen Center
, a small think tank located near Capitol Hill, offered a timely reminder of their losses. The conference was not, as one might have
expected in the past, held at the American Enterprise Institute, whose senior vice president, Danielle Pletka, has suggested that
fears of climate change may be overblown, or the Heritage Foundation. Rather, it is the Niskanen Center that has become the unofficial
headquarters of what amounts to a rebel alliance of Democrats and Republicans united against Trump. Over the past year, they have
met on Tuesday mornings for off-the-record events under the auspices of a group called the Meeting of the Concerned, whose members
include George Conway, the husband of Kellyanne, and David Frum. In November, the group released
a formal
statement in support of Special Counsel Robert Mueller that was signed by Mickey Edwards, the former chairman of the House Republican
Policy Committee, and Kristol, among others.
The conference, which opened with moderate Republican Maryland Governor Larry Hogan reminding the attendees that his father, a
congressman, had helped kickstart the impeachment hearings against Richard M. Nixon, was titled "Starting Over: the Center-Right
After Trump." But Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Mona Charen, the author of a book about liberals during the cold war titled Useful
Idiots , and Peter Wehner, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, grappled uneasily with the historical legacy of the GOP
and its implications for Trump's rise.
The center's president, Jerry Taylor, suggested, "There was a time not that long ago when you all had the commanding heights of
the world of conservative public intellectuals. Today, that's not the case. You've have been displaced." Rubin was incredulous. "Displaced,
displaced!" she expostulated. Then she went on to blame the GOP. "Intellectuals don't do well in a nativist, know-nothing party,"
said Rubin. "The party is not going to accept public intellectuals in the way it did."
For his part, Kristol refused to concede that the GOP was irredeemably tainted by Trump. He acknowledged, "there are recessive
genes in the GOP. They were always there and a lot of us didn't want to look too closely. There was a shining moment when the Bill
Buckley conservatives came together with the neoconservatives and with Ronald Reagan," but "that went away quickly." Explaining his
backing for Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate in 2008, he said: "The instinct I had was you had to have a more populist flavor
That would be a way to incorporate populist discontent." He concluded, "It will be very different if this ends up being a parenthesis
or this is an inflection point where it becomes the culmination, or end point. That's a very different story We're less doomed than
what some people say as a party and a movement."
So far, though, his efforts at regime change in Washington have proven as illusory as his dreams of transforming Iraq into a democracy
overnight.
The original bronze disks of Rome circulated as currency. The metal money of U.S.
Confederacy circulated that is until the Confederacy became no more.
The point? Money's true nature is law. When a country collapses, then its money
collapses.
Paper money that was good? Lincoln's greenbacks circulated at par. Massachusetts Bills
circulated as money and prevented Oligarchs from England and their attempted takeover. The
colony used the money to make iron goods (like Cannons) and do commerce.
The real statement is this: Money when it becomes unlawful, always collapses.
Massive money printing can happen when too many loans are made, as in the case today as
all private bank credit notes come into being with loan activity -- a little more that
98%.
Driving a currency down with shorts causes new money to be loaned into existence, which in
turn is the underlying cause of hyperinflations. The new credit creation covers the short.
This mechanism always goes along with exchange rate pressures, where your country has to pay
a debt in a foreign currency.
If you had an internal gold currency, which is recognized internationally, then your debts
would be paid in gold, which would collapse your country into depression instead of
inflation.
Bottom line is that money's true nature is law, and making claims about "paper" or "metal"
obscures this fact.
Since both the Fed and your local bank create money from nothing
They also impose some obligations: repayment of principle and interest. Since we
can't create money from nothing, this payback has to come from money somehow created by the
banks as well.
I'm less worried about "disappearing" tax money than I am about misallocated spending
and its consequences -- eg the 'black budget' of the NSA and 'deep state' generally.
Can't we worry about everything ?
Good point about the 'black budget'. But the last time some sort of DOD audit was
attempted the Pentagon accountants' offices got hit by a missile, I mean airliner, on
911.
CIA Was Aiding Afghan Jihadists Before the Soviet Invasion
by Nauman
Sadiq Posted on
February 05, 2019 February 1, 2019 Originally, there were four parties involved in the
Afghan conflict which are mainly responsible for the debacle in the Af-Pak region. Firstly,
the former Soviet Union which invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Secondly, Pakistan's
security agencies which nurtured the Afghan jihadists on the behest of Washington.
Thirdly, Saudi Arabia and the rest of oil-rich Gulf states which generously funded the
jihadists to promote their Wahhabi-Salafi ideology. And last but not the least, the Western
capitals which funded, provided weapons and internationally legitimized the erstwhile
"freedom fighters" to use them against a competing ideology, global communism, which posed a
threat to the Western corporate interests all over the world.
Regarding the objectives of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the then
American envoy to Kabul, Adolph "Spike" Dubs, was assassinated on Feb. 14, 1979, the same day
that Iranian revolutionaries stormed the US embassy in Tehran.
According to recently
declassified documents of the White House, CIA and State Department, as reported by Tim
Weiner for The Washington Post , the CIA was aiding Afghan jihadists before the
Soviets invaded in 1979.
President Jimmy Carter signed the CIA directive to arm the Afghan jihadists in July 1979,
whereas the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December the same year. That the CIA
was arming the Afghan jihadists six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan has been
proven by the State Department's declassified documents; fact of the matter, however, is that
the nexus between the CIA, Pakistan's security agencies and the Gulf states to train and arm
the Afghan jihadists against the former Soviet Union was formed several years before the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Historically, Pakistan's military first used the Islamists of Jamaat-e-Islami during the
Bangladesh war of liberation in the late 1960s against the Bangladeshi nationalist Mukti
Bahini liberation movement of Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman – the father of current prime
minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, and the founder of Bangladesh, which was then a
province of Pakistan and known as East Pakistan before the independence of Bangladesh in
1971.
Jamaat-e-Islami is a far-right Islamist movement in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh –
analogous to the Muslim Brotherhood political party in Egypt and Turkey – several of
whose leaders have recently been hanged by the Bangladeshi nationalist government of Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed for committing massacres of Bangladeshi civilians on behalf of
Pakistan's military during the late 1960s.
Then, during the 1970s, Pakistan's then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto began aiding
the Afghan Islamists against Sardar Daud's government, who had toppled his first cousin King
Zahir Shah in a palace coup in 1973 and had proclaimed himself the president of
Afghanistan.
Sardar Daud was a Pashtun nationalist and laid claim to Pakistan's northwestern
Pashtun-majority province. Pakistan's security establishment was wary of his irredentist
claims and used Islamists to weaken his rule in Afghanistan. He was eventually assassinated
in 1978 as a result of the Saur Revolution led by the Afghan communists.
Pakistan's support to the Islamists with the Saudi petrodollars and Washington's
blessings, however, kindled the fires of Islamic insurgencies in the entire region comprising
Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Soviet Central Asian States.
The former Soviet Union was wary that its forty-million Muslims were susceptible to
radicalism, because Islamic radicalism was infiltrating across the border into the Central
Asian States from Afghanistan. Therefore, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December
1979 in support of the Afghan communists to forestall the likelihood of Islamic insurgencies
spreading to the Central Asian States bordering Afghanistan.
Even the American President Donald Trump
recently admitted : "The reason Russia invaded Afghanistan was because terrorists were
going into Russia; they were right to be there." Incidentally, Trump also implied the reason
why Soviet Union collapsed was due to the economic burden of the Soviet-Afghan War, as he was
making a point about the withdrawal of American forces from Syria and Afghanistan.
Notwithstanding, in the Soviet-Afghan War between the capitalist and communist blocs,
Saudi Arabia and the rest of Gulf's petro-monarchies took the side of the capitalist bloc
because the former Soviet Union and Central Asian states produce more energy and consume
less. Thus, the Soviet-led bloc was a net exporter of energy whereas the Western capitalist
bloc was a net importer.
It suited the economic interests of the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries
to maintain and strengthen a supplier-consumer relationship with the Western capitalist bloc.
Now, the BRICS countries are equally hungry for the Middle East's energy, but it's a recent
development. During the Cold War, an alliance with the industrialized Western nations suited
the economic interests of the Gulf countries.
Regarding the motives of the belligerents involved, the Americans wanted to take revenge
for their defeat at the hands of communists in Vietnam, the Gulf countries had forged close
economic ties with the Western bloc and Pakistan was dependent on the Western military aid,
hence it didn't have a choice but to toe Washington's policy in Afghanistan.
In the end, the Soviet-Afghan War proved to be a "bear trap" and the former Soviet Union
was eventually defeated and was subsequently dissolved in December 1991. It did not collapse
because of the Afghan Jihad but that was an important factor contributing to the dissolution
of the Soviet Union.
Regardless, more than twenty years before the declassification of the State Department
documents as mentioned in the aforementioned Washington Post report, in the 1998
interview to the alternative news outlet The CounterPunch Magazine , former
National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, confessed that the
president signed the directive to provide secret aid to the Afghan jihadists in July 1979,
whereas the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan six months later in December 1979.
Here is a poignant excerpt from the interview: The interviewer puts the question: "And
neither do you regret having supported the Islamic jihadists, having given arms and advice to
future terrorists?" Brzezinski replies: "What is most important to the history of the world?
The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation
of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"
Despite the crass insensitivity, one must give credit to Zbigniew Brzezinski that at least
he had the courage to speak the unembellished truth. It's worth noting, however, that the
aforementioned interview was recorded in 1998. After the 9/11 terror attack, no Western
policymaker can now dare to be as blunt and forthright as Brzezinski.
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused
on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and
petro-imperialism.
The freezing of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England is a signal to all countries out of
step with US interests to withdraw their money, according to economist and co-founder of
Democracy at Work, Professor Richard Wolff. He told RT America that Britain and its central
bank have shown themselves to be "under the thumb of the United States."
"That is a signal to every country that has or may have difficulties with the US, [that
they had] better get their money out of England and out of London because it's not the safe
place as it once was," he said.
"... Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was mixed. ..."
"... PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem. ..."
"... There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go. ..."
"... I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq. ..."
Many of us, actually most of us, were pleased with candidate Trump's declared intent to end our involvement in endless foreign
interventions. He would put America first and refrain from sending our troops where they don't belong. Once elected, his record was
mixed.
We launched an ineffective volley of cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase in response to a trumped up gas attack, but we never
sought to establish a no fly zone and risk war with Russia. For a while we were well on our way to establish an enduring client state
in east Syria. We assumed this was all the doing of the cabal of manipulating neocons that Trump surrounded himself with. His call
for immediate withdrawal of troops from Syria surely proved this true. Finally Trump was allowed to be Trump. He was even seeking
a way out of Afghanistan, after a literal lifetime of war in that godforsaken land.
The neocons are fighting back bigly. The pace of withdrawal from Syria was slowed and there is no indication we would ever
give up our outpost on the Baghdad-Damascus highway at Tanf. Why? I think Trump laid out HIS thoughts on the matter during the traditional
pre-super bowl presidential interview.
-- -- -- --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have to protect Israel. We have to protect other things that we have...
MARGARET BRENNAN: But you want to keep troops there [Iraq] now?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: [W]e spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the
reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Whoa, that's news. You're keeping troops in Iraq because you want to be able to strike in Iran?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, because I want to be able to watch Iran. All I want to do is be able to watch. We have an unbelievable
and expensive military base built in Iraq. It's perfectly situated for looking at all over different parts of the troubled Middle
East rather than pulling up. And this is what a lot of people don't understand. We're going to keep watching and we're going to
keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we're going to know it before
they do.
-- -- -- --
So, We are staying in Iraq to keep an eye on Iran and we are doing this to protect Israel. It was not any of the neocons who said
this. It was Trump himself. So much for America first. There also appears to be an effort to keep the Rojava Kurds as a proxy force
after our troops withdraw to Iraq. We continue sending combat and engineering equipment into Rojava and fully intend to continue
providing air support to the YPG. We just can't let it go.
However, Baghdad has thrown a monkey wrench into this developing Trump doctrine. Iraqi President Barham Salih has told Trump to
slow his roll.
-- -- -- --
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Barham Salih said on Monday that President Donald Trump did not ask Iraq's permission for
U.S. troops stationed there to "watch Iran."
Speaking at a forum in Baghdad, Salih was responding to a question about Trump's comments to CBS about how he would ask troops
stationed in Iraq to "watch" Iran. U.S. troops in Iraq are there as part of an agreement between the two countries with a specific
mission of combating terrorism, Salih said, and that they should stick to that. (Reuters)
-- -- -- --
I see a confrontation in our future, especially with all the Iraqi PMS units in western Iraq.
This article from 2017 looks like it was written yesterday. Trump betrayal of his elctorate on multiple levels, essentially on all
key poin of his election program mkes him "Republican Obama".
What is interesting about Trump foreign policy is his version of neoliberal "gangster capitalism" on foreign arena:
might is right principle applied like universal opener. Previous administrations tried to put a lipstick on the pig. Trump
does not even bother.
In terms of foreign policy, and even during the transition before Trump's inauguration, there were other, more disturbing signs
of where Trump would be heading soon. When Fidel Castro died on November 25, 2016,
Trump seemed jubilant as if he had somehow been vindicated, and took the opportunity to slander Castro as a "brutal dictator" who
"oppressed his own people" and turned Cuba into a "totalitarian island".
Notable quotes:
"... However, when he delivered his inaugural address on January 20, 2017, Trump appeared to reaffirm his campaign themes of anti-interventionism. In particular he seemed to turn the government's back on a long-standing policy of cultural imperialism , stating: "We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone". In addition he said his government would "seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world," and he understood the importance of national sovereignty when he added, "it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first". ..."
"... Yet when it came to Russia, Trump could have instantly removed sanctions that were imposed by Obama in his last weeks in office -- an irresponsible and dangerous act by Obama, where foreign policy was used as a partisan tool in the service of shoring up a crummy conspiracy theory about "Russian hacking" in order to deny the Democrats any culpability in their much deserved defeat. ..."
"... The entire conflict with Russia that has developed in recent years, on the US side, was totally unnecessary, illogical, and quite preventable. ..."
"... Just two weeks after violating his promise to end the US role as the world's policeman and his vow to extricate the US from wars for regime change, Trump sold out again. "I love WikiLeaks -- " -- this is what Trump exclaimed in a speech on October 10, 2016. Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks is thus truly astounding. ..."
"... AP: If I could fit a couple of more topics. Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, is taking a tougher line suddenly on Julian Assange, saying that arresting him is a priority. You were supportive of what WikiLeaks was doing during the campaign with the release of the Clinton emails. Do you think that arresting Assange is a priority for the United States? ..."
"... AP: But that didn't mean that you supported what Assange is doing? ..."
"... AP: Can I just ask you, though -- do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to arrest Julian Assange? ..."
"... While there is no denying the extensive data about the severe impacts of NAFTA on select states and industries in the US, witnessed by the closure of tens of thousands of factories and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is little support for the claim that Canada and Mexico, as wholes, have instead fared well and that the US as a whole has been the loser thanks to them. ..."
"... Since NAFTA was implemented, migration from Mexico to the US skyrocketed dramatically. US agricultural industries sent millions of Mexican farmers into food poverty, and ultimately drove them away from agriculture ..."
"... As for per capita GDP, so treasured by economists, NAFTA had no positive impact on Mexico -- in fact, per capita GDP is nearly a flat line for the entire period since 1994. Finally, Trump does not mention that in terms of the number of actual protectionist measures that have been implemented, the US leads the world . ..."
"... To put Trump's position on NAFTA in bold relief, it is not that he is decidedly against free trade. In fact, he often claims he supports free trade, as long as it is "fair". However, his notion of fairness is very lopsided -- a trade agreement is fair only when the US reaps the greater share of benefits. ..."
"... As argued in the previous section, if Trump is to be the newfound champion of this imperialism -- empire's prodigal son -- then what an abysmally poor choice he is ..."
"... On the one hand, he helped to unleash US anti-interventionism (usually called "isolationism" not to call it anti-imperialism, which would then admit to imperialism which is still denied by most of the dominant elites). On the other hand, in trying to now contain such popular sentiment, he loses credibility -- after having lost credibility with the groups his campaign displaced. ..."
"... As for Trump's domestic opposition, what should be most pertinent are issues of conflict of interest and nepotism . Here members of Trump's base are more on target yet again, when they reject the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in the White House ("we didn't elect Ivanka or Jared"), than are those distracted by identity politics. ..."
"... As Trump leverages the presidency to upgrade the Trump family to the transnational capitalist class, and reinforces the power of US imperialism which that class has purchased, conflict of interest and nepotism will be the main political signposts of the transformation of the Trump presidency, but they could also be the targets for a refined strategy of opposition. ..."
Trump could have kept quiet, and lost nothing. Instead what he was attacking -- and the irony was missed on his fervently right
wing supporters -- was someone who was a leader in the anti-globalist movement, from long before it was ever called that. Fidel Castro
was a radical pioneer of independence, self-reliance, and self-determination.
Castro turned Cuba from an American-owned sugar plantation and brothel, a lurid backwater in the Caribbean, into a serious international
actor opposed to globalizing capitalism. There was no sign of any acknowledgment of this by Trump, who instead chose to parrot the
same people who would vilify him using similar terms (evil, authoritarian, etc.). Of course, Trump respects only corporate executives
and billionaires, not what he would see as some rag-tag Third World revolutionary. Here Trump's supporters generally failed, using
Castro's death as an opportunity for tribal partisanship, another opportunity to attack "weak liberals" like Obama who made minor
overtures to Cuba (too little, too late).
Their distrust of "the establishment" was nowhere to be found this time: their ignorance of Cuba and their resort to stock clichés
and slogans had all been furnished to them by the same establishment they otherwise claimed to oppose.
Just to be clear, the above is not meant to indicate any reversal on Trump's part regarding Cuba. He has been consistently anti-communist,
and fairly consistent in his denunciations of Fidel Castro. What is significant is that -- far from overcoming the left-right divide
-- Trump shores up the barriers, even at the cost of denouncing others who have a proven track record of fighting against neoliberal
globalization and US interventionism. In these regards, Trump has no track record. Even among his rivals in the Republican primaries,
senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul had more of an anti-interventionist track record.
However, when he delivered his inaugural address
on January 20, 2017, Trump appeared to reaffirm his campaign themes of anti-interventionism. In particular he seemed to turn the
government's back on a long-standing policy of
cultural imperialism
, stating: "We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone". In addition he said his government would "seek friendship and goodwill
with the nations of the world," and he understood the importance of national sovereignty when he added, "it is the right of all nations
to put their own interests first".
Russia
Yet when it came to Russia, Trump could have instantly removed sanctions that were imposed by Obama in his last weeks in office
-- an irresponsible and dangerous act by Obama, where foreign policy was used as a partisan tool in the service of shoring up a crummy
conspiracy theory about "Russian hacking" in order to deny the Democrats any culpability in their much deserved defeat.
Instead, Trump continued the sanctions, as if out of meek deference to Obama's policy, one founded on lies and antagonism
toward Trump himself. Rather than repair the foul attempt to sabotage the US-Russian relationship in preparation for his presidency,
Trump simply abided and thus became an accomplice. To be clear,
Trump has done precisely nothing
to dampen the near mass hysteria that has been manufactured in the US about alleged -- indeed imaginary -- "Russian intervention".
His comments, both during the electoral campaign and even early into his presidency, about wanting good relations with Russia,
have been replaced by Trump's admissions that US relations with Russia are at a low point (Putin agreed: "I would say the level of
trust [between Russia and the US] is at a workable level, especially in the military dimension, but it hasn't improved. On the contrary,
it has degraded " and his spokesman called
the relations " deplorable ".)
Rather than use the power of his office to calm fears, to build better ties with Russia, and to make meeting with Vladimir Putin
a top priority, Trump has again done nothing , except escalating tensions. The entire conflict with Russia that has
developed in recent years, on the US side, was totally unnecessary, illogical, and quite preventable. Russia had actively facilitated
the US' war in Afghanistan for over a decade, and was a consistent collaborator on numerous levels. It is up to thinking American
officials to honestly explain what motivated them to tilt relations with Russia, because it is certainly not Russia's doing. The
only explanation that makes any sense is that the US leadership grew concerned that Russia was no longer teetering on the edge of
total socio-economic breakdown, as it was under the neoliberal Boris Yeltsin, but has instead resurfaced as a major actor in international
affairs, and one that champions anti-neoliberal objectives of enhanced state sovereignty and self-determination.
WikiLeaks
Just two weeks after violating his promise to end the US role as the world's policeman and his vow to extricate the US from
wars for regime change, Trump sold out again.
"I love WikiLeaks --
" -- this is what Trump exclaimed in a speech on October 10, 2016. Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks is thus truly astounding.
After finding so much use for WikiLeaks' publication of the Podesta emails, which became incorporated into his campaign speeches,
and which fuelled the writing and speaking of journalists and bloggers sympathetic to Trump -- he was now effectively declaring WikiLeaks
to be both an enemy and a likely target of US government action, in even more blunt terms than we heard during the past eight years
under Obama. This is not mere continuity with the past, but a dramatic escalation. Rather than praise Julian Assange for his work,
call for an end to the illegal impediments to his seeking asylum, swear off any US calls for extraditing and prosecuting Assange,
and perhaps meeting with him in person, Trump has done all of the opposite. Instead we learn that Trump's administration may
file arrest charges against Assange
. Mike Pompeo ,
chosen by Trump to head the CIA, who had himself
cited WikiLeaks as a reliable source of proof about how the Democratic National Committee had rigged its campaign, now declared
WikiLeaks to be a "
non-state hostile intelligence service ," along with vicious personal slander against Assange.
Trump's about-face on WikiLeaks was one that he defended in terms that were not just a deceptive rewriting of history, but one
that was also fearful -- "I don't support or unsupport" WikiLeaks, was what Trump was now saying in his dash for the nearest exit.
The backtracking is so obvious in this
interview
Trump gave to the AP , that his shoes must have left skid marks on the floor:
AP: If I could fit a couple of more topics. Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, is taking a tougher line suddenly on
Julian Assange, saying that arresting him is a priority. You were supportive of what WikiLeaks was doing during the campaign with
the release of the Clinton emails. Do you think that arresting Assange is a priority for the United States?
TRUMP: When Wikileaks came out never heard of Wikileaks, never heard of it. When Wikileaks came out, all I was just saying
is, "Well, look at all this information here, this is pretty good stuff." You know, they tried to hack the Republican, the RNC,
but we had good defenses. They didn't have defenses, which is pretty bad management. But we had good defenses, they tried to hack
both of them. They weren't able to get through to Republicans. No, I found it very interesting when I read this stuff and I said,
"Wow." It was just a figure of speech. I said, "Well, look at this. It's good reading."
AP: But that didn't mean that you supported what Assange is doing?
TRUMP: No, I don't support or unsupport. It was just information .
AP: Can I just ask you, though -- do you believe it is a priority for the United States, or it should be a priority, to
arrest Julian Assange?
TRUMP: I am not involved in that decision, but if Jeff Sessions wants to do it, it's OK with me. I didn't know about that decision,
but if they want to do it, it's OK with me.
First, Trump invents the fictitious claim that WikiLeaks was responsible for hacking the DNC, and that WikiLeaks also tried to
hack the Republicans. Second, he pretends to be an innocent bystander, a spectator, in his own administration -- whatever others
decide, is "OK" with him, not that he knows about their decisions, but it's all up to others. He has no power, all of a sudden.
Again, what Trump is displaying in this episode is his ultimate attachment to his class, with all of its anxieties and its contempt
for rebellious, marginal upstarts. Trump shuns any sort of "loyalty" to WikiLeaks (not that they ever had a working relationship)
or any form of gratitude, because then that would imply a debt and therefore a transfer of value -- whereas Trump's core ethics are
those of expedience and greed (he admits that much).
This move has come with a cost , with members of Trump's support base openly denouncing the betrayal. 6
NAFTA
On NAFTA , Trump claims he has not changed his position -- yet, from openly denouncing the free trade agreement and promising
to terminate it, he now vows only to seek modifications and amendments, which means supporting NAFTA. He appeared to be
awfully quick to obey the diplomatic pressure of Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and Mexico's President, Enrique Peña
Nieto. Trump's entire position on NAFTA now comes into question.
While there is no denying the extensive data about the severe impacts of NAFTA on select states and industries in the US,
witnessed by the closure of tens of thousands of factories and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is little support
for the claim that Canada and Mexico, as wholes, have instead fared well and that the US as a whole has been the loser thanks to
them.
This really deserves to be treated at length, separately from this article. However, for now, let's keep in mind that when
Trump complains about Canadian softwood lumber and dairy exports to the US, his argument about NAFTA is without merit. Neither commodity
is part of the NAFTA agreement.
Moreover, where dairy is concerned, the problem is US overproduction.
Wisconsin alone has more
dairy cows than all of Canada . There is a net surplus , in the US' favour, with respect to US dairy exports to Canada.
Overall,
the US has a net surplus in the trade in
goods and services with Canada. Regarding Mexico, the irony of Trump's denunciations of imaginary Mexican victories is that he
weakens his own criticisms of immigration.
Since NAFTA was implemented,
migration from Mexico to
the US skyrocketed dramatically. US agricultural industries sent millions of Mexican farmers into food poverty, and ultimately
drove them away from agriculture.
As for per capita GDP, so treasured by economists, NAFTA had no positive impact on Mexico -- in fact,
per capita GDP is nearly a flat
line for the entire period since 1994. Finally, Trump does not mention that in terms of the number of actual protectionist measures
that have been implemented, the
US leads the world .
To put Trump's position on NAFTA in bold relief, it is not that he is decidedly against free trade. In fact, he often claims
he supports free trade, as long as it is "fair". However, his notion of fairness is very lopsided -- a trade agreement is fair only
when the US reaps the greater share of benefits.
His arguments with respect to Canada are akin to those of a looter or raider. He wants to block lumber imports from Canada, at
the same time as he wants to break the Canadian dairy market wide open to absorb US excess production. That approach is at the core
of what defined the US as a "new empire" in the 1800s. In addition, while Trump was quick to tear up the TPP, he has said nothing
about TISA and TTIP.
Mexico
Trump's argument with Mexico is also disturbing for what it implies. It would seem that any
evidence of production
in Mexico causes Trump concern. Mexico should not only keep its people -- however many are displaced by US imports -- but it should
also be as dependent as possible on the US for everything except oil. Since Trump has consistently declared his antagonism to OPEC,
ideally Mexico's oil would be sold for a few dollars per barrel.
China
Trump's turn on China almost provoked laughter from his many domestic critics. Absurdly, what figures prominently in most renditions
of the story of Trump's change on China (including his own), is a big piece of chocolate cake. The missile strike on Syria was, according
to Wilbur Ross, the "
after-dinner entertainment ". Here, Trump's loud condemnations of China on trade issues were suddenly quelled -- and it is not
because chocolate has magical properties. Instead it seems Trump has been willing to settle on
selling out citizens' interests , and
particularly those who voted for him, in return for China's assistance on North Korea. Let's be clear: countering and dominating
North Korea is an established favourite among neoconservatives. Trump's priority here is fully "neocon," and the submergence of trade
issues in favour of militaristic preferences is the one case where neoconservatives might be distinguished from the otherwise identical
neoliberals.
North Korea
Where North Korea is concerned, Trump chose to manufacture a "
crisis ". North Korea has actually done nothing
to warrant a sudden outbreak of panic over it being supposedly aggressive and threatening. North Korea is no more aggressive than
any person defending their survival can be called belligerent. The constant series of US military exercises in South Korea, or near
North Korean waters, is instead a deliberate provocation to a state whose existence the US nearly extinguished. Even last year the
US Air Force publicly boasted of having
"nearly destroyed" North Korea -- language one would have expected from the Luftwaffe in WWII. The US continues to maintain roughly
60,000 troops on the border between North and South Korea, and continues to refuse to formally declare an end to the Korean War and
sign a peace treaty
. Trump then announced he was sending an "armada" to the Korean peninsula, and boasted of how "very powerful" it was. This was in
addition to the US deploying the THAAD missile system in South Korea. Several of his messages in Twitter were written using highly
provocative and threatening language. When asked if he would start a war, Trump glibly replied: "
I don't know. I mean, we'll see ". On another occasion Trump stated, "There is a chance that we could end up having a
major, major conflict with North
Korea. Absolutely". When the world's leading military superpower declares its intention to destroy you, then there is nothing you
can do in your defense which anyone could justly label as "over the top". Otherwise, once again Trump posed as a parental figure,
the world's chief babysitter -- picture Trump, surrounded by children taking part in the "Easter egg roll" at the White House, being
asked about North Korea and responding "they gotta behave". Trump would presume to teach manners to North Korea, using the only tools
of instruction that seem to be the first and last resort of US foreign policy (and the "defense" industry): bombs.
Syria
Attacking Syria , on purportedly humanitarian grounds, is for many (including vocal supporters) one of the most glaring contradictions
of Trump's campaign statements about not embroiling the US in failed wars of regime change and world policing. During the campaign,
he was in favour of Russia's collaboration with Syria in the fight against ISIS. For years he had condemned Obama for involving the
US in Syria, and consistently opposed military intervention there. All that was consigned to the archive of positions Trump declared
to now be worthless. That there had been a change in Trump's position is not a matter of dispute --
Trump made the point himself :
"I like to think of myself as a very flexible person. I don't have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go
the same way, I don't change. Well, I do change and I am flexible, and I'm proud of that flexibility. And I will tell you, that
attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me -- big impact. That was a horrible, horrible thing. And I've been watching
it and seeing it, and it doesn't get any worse than that. And I have that flexibility, and it's very, very possible -- and I will
tell you, it's already happened that my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much. And if you look back over the last
few weeks, there were other attacks using gas. You're now talking about a whole different level".
Bending to the will of the prevailing Cold War and neo-McCarthyist atmosphere in the US, rife with anti-Russian conspiracy theories,
Trump found an easy opportunity to score points with the hostile media, ever so mindful as he is about approval ratings, polls, and
media coverage. Some explain Trump's reversals as arising from his
pursuit
of
public adulation -- and while the media play the key role in purveying celebrity status, they are also a stiff bastion of imperialist
culture. Given his many years as a the host of a popular TV show, and as the owner of the Miss Universe Pageant, there is some logical
merit to the argument. But I think even more is at work, as explained in paragraphs above.
According to Eric Trump it was at the urging of Ivanka that Donald Trump decided to strike a humanitarian-militarist pose. He
would play the part of the Victorian parent, only he would use missiles to teach unruly children lessons about violence. Using language
typically used against him by the mainstream media, Trump now felt entitled to pontificate that Assad is "evil," an "
animal ," who would
have
to go . When did he supposedly come to this realization? Did Assad become evil at the same time Trump was inaugurated? Why would
Trump have kept so silent about "evil" on the campaign trail? Trump of course is wrong: it's not that the world changed and he changed
with it; rather, he invented a new fiction to suit his masked intentions. Trump's supposed opponents and critics, like the Soros-funded
organizer of the women's march Linda Sarsour, showed her
approval of even more drastic
action by endorsing messages by what sounded like a stern school mistress who thought that 59 cruise missiles were just a mere "slap
on the wrist". Virtually every neocon who is publicly active applauded Trump, as did most senior Democrats. The loudest
opposition
, however, came from Trump's
own base , with a number of articles
featuring criticism from Trump's
supporters , and one conservative publication calling him outright a "
weakling
and a political ingrate ".
Members of the Trump administration have played various word games with the public on intervention in Syria. From unnamed officials
saying the missile strike was a "one off," to named officials
promising more if there
were any other suspected chemical attacks (or use of barrel bombs -- and this while the US dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb in
existence on Afghanistan); some said that
regime change was not the goal,
and then others made it clear that was the ultimate
goal ; and then Trump saying, "Our policy is the same, it hasn't changed.
We're not going into Syria " -- even
though
Trump himself greatly increased the number of US troops he deployed to Syria , illegally, in an escalation of the least
protested invasion in recent history. Now we should know enough not to count this as mere ambiguity, but as deliberate obfuscation
that offers momentary (thinly veiled) cover for a
renewal of neocon policy .
We can draw an outline of Trump's liberal imperialism when it comes to Syria, which is likely to be applied elsewhere. First,
Trump's interventionist policy regarding Syria is one that continues to treat that country as if it were terra nullius ,
a mere playground for superpower politics. Second, Trump is clearly continuing with the
neoconservative agenda and its hit list of
states to be terminated by US military action, as famously confirmed by Gen. Wesley Clark. Even Trump's strategy for justifying the
attack on Syria echoed the two prior Bush presidential administrations -- selling war with the infamous "incubator babies" myth and
the myth of "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs). In many ways, Trump's presidency is thus shaping up to be either the seventh term
of the George H.W. Bush regime, or the fifth straight term of the George W. Bush regime. Third, Trump is taking ownership of an extremely
dangerous conflict, with costs that could surpass anything witnessed by the war on Iraq (which also continues). Fourth, by highlighting
the importance of photographs in allegedly changing his mind, Trump has placed a high market value on propaganda featuring dead babies.
His actions in Syria will now create an effective demand for the pornographic trade in pictures of atrocities. These are matters
of great importance to the transnational capitalist class, which demands full global penetrability, diminished state power (unless
in the service of this class' goals), a uniformity of expectations and conformity in behaviour, and an emphasis on individual civil
liberties which are the basis for defending private property and consumerism.
Venezuela
It is very disturbing to see how Venezuela is being framed as ripe for US intervention, in ways that distinctly echo the lead
up to the US war on Libya. Just as disturbing is that Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has a clear conflict of interest
regarding Venezuela, from his recent role as CEO of
Exxon
and its conflict with the government of Venezuela over its nationalization of oil. Tillerson is, by any definition, a clear-cut
member of the transnational capitalist class. The Twitter account of the
State
Department has a battery of messages sternly lecturing Venezuela about the treatment of protesters, while also pontificating
on the Venezuelan Constitution as if the US State Department had become a global supreme court. What is impressive is the seamless
continuity in the nature of the messages on Venezuela from that account, as if no change of government happened between Obama's time
and Trump's. Nikki Haley, Trump's neocon ambassador to the UN, issued
a statement that read like it had been written by her predecessors, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, a statement which in itself
is an unacceptable intervention in Venezuelan internal affairs. For Trump's part, from just days
before the election, to a couple of weeks
after his inauguration, he has sent explicit
messages of support for anti-government
forces in Venezuela. In February, Trump
imposed sanctions on Venezuela's
Vice President. After Syria and North Korea, Venezuela is seeming the likely focus of US interventionism under Trump.
NATO
Rounding out the picture, at least for now (this was just the first hundred days of Trump's presidency), was Trump's outstanding
reversal on NATO -- in fact, once again he stated the reversal himself, and without explanation either: "
I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete ". This came just days after the US missile strike against Syria, and just as
Ivanka Trump was about to represent
his government at a meeting of globalist women, the
W20 . NATO has served as
the transnational military alliance at the service of the transnational capitalist class, and particularly the military and political
members of the TCC. 7
Saving Neoliberalism?
Has Trump saved neoliberal capitalism from its ongoing demise? Has he sustained popular faith in liberal political ideals? Are
we still in the dying days of liberalism
? If there had been a centrally coordinated plan to plant an operative among the ranks of populist conservatives and independents,
to channel their support for nationalism into support for the persona of the plant, and to then have that plant steer a course straight
back to shoring up neoliberal globalism -- then we might have had a wonderful story of a masterful conspiracy, the biggest heist
in the history of elections anywhere. A truly "rigged system" could be expected to behave that way. Was Trump designated to take
the fall in a rigged game, only his huge ego got in the way when he realized he could realistically win the election and he decided
to really tilt hard against his partner, Hillary Clinton? It could be the basis for a novel, or a Hollywood political comedy. I have
no way of knowing if it could be true.
Framed within the terms of what we do know, there was relief by the ousted group of political elites and the liberal globalist
media at the sight of Trump's reversals, and a sense that
their vision had been vindicated.
However, if they are hoping that the likes of Trump will serve as a reliable flag bearer, then theirs is a misguided wishful thinking.
If someone so demonized and ridiculed, tarnished as an evil thug and racist fascist, the subject of mass demonstrations in the US
and abroad, is the latest champion of (neo)liberalism, then we are certainly witnessing its dying days.
Is Trump Beneficial for Anti-Imperialism?
Once one is informed enough and thus prepared to understand that anti-imperialism is not the exclusive preserve of the left (a
left which anyway has mostly shunned it over the last two decades), that it
did not originate with the
left , and that it has a long and distinguished history
in the US itself , then we can move
toward some interesting realizations. The facts, borne out by surveys and my own online immersion among pro-Trump social media users,
is that one of the
significantreasons
why Trump won is due to the growth in popularity of basic anti-imperialist principles (even if not recognized under that name): for
example, no more world policing, no transnational militarization, no more interventions abroad, no more regime change, no war, and
no globalism. Nationalists in Europe, as in Russia, have also pushed forward a basic anti-imperialist vision. Whereas in Latin America
anti-imperialism is largely still leftist, in Europe and North America the left-right divide has become blurred, but the crucial
thing is that at least now we can speak of anti-imperialism gaining strength in these three major continents. Resistance against
globalization has been the primary objective, along with strengthening national sovereignty, protecting local cultural identity,
and opposing free trade and transnational capital. Unfortunately, some anti-imperialist writers (on the left in fact) have tended
to restrict their field of vision to military matters primarily, while almost completely neglecting the economic and cultural, and
especially domestic dimensions of imperialism. (I am grossly generalizing of course, but I think it is largely accurate.) Where structures
such as NAFTA are concerned, many of these same leftist anti-imperialists, few as they are, have had virtually nothing to say. It
could be that they have yet to fully recognize that the transnational capitalist class has, gradually over the last seven decades,
essentially purchased the power of US imperialism. Therefore the TCC's imperialism includes NAFTA, just as it includes open borders,
neoliberal identity politics, and drone strikes. They are all different parts of the same whole.
As argued in the previous section, if Trump is to be the newfound champion of this imperialism -- empire's prodigal son --
then what an abysmally poor choice he is. 8
On the one hand, he helped to unleash US anti-interventionism (usually called "isolationism" not to call it anti-imperialism,
which would then admit to imperialism which is still denied by most of the dominant elites). On the other hand, in trying to now
contain such popular sentiment, he loses credibility -- after having lost credibility with the groups his campaign displaced.
In addition to that, given that his candidacy aggravated internal divisions in the US, which have not subsided with his assumption
of office, these domestic social and cultural conflicts cause a serious deficit of legitimacy, a loss of political capital. A declining
economy will also deprive him of capital in the strict sense. Moreover, given the kind of persona the media have crafted, the daily
caricaturing of Trump will significantly spur anti-Americanism around the world. If suddenly even Canadian academics are talking
about boycotting the US, then the worm has truly turned. Trump can only rely on "hard power" (military violence), because "soft power"
is almost out of the question now that Trump has been constructed as a barbarian. Incompetent and/or undermined governance will also
render Trump a deficient upholder of the status quo. The fact that nationalist movements around the world are not centrally coordinated,
and their fortunes are not pinned to those of Trump, establishes a well-defined limit to his influence. Trump's antagonism toward
various countries -- as wholes -- has already helped to stir up a deep sediment of anti-Americanism. If Americanism is at the heart
of Trump's nationalist globalism, then it is doing all the things that are needed to induce a major heart attack.
As for Trump's domestic opposition, what should be most pertinent are issues of conflict of interest and nepotism
. Here members of Trump's base are more on target yet again, when they reject the presence of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner
in the White House ("we didn't elect Ivanka or Jared"), than are those distracted by identity politics.
As Trump leverages the presidency to upgrade the Trump family to the transnational capitalist class, and reinforces the power
of US imperialism which that class has purchased, conflict of interest and nepotism will be the main political signposts of the transformation
of the Trump presidency, but they could also be the targets for a refined strategy of opposition.
"... The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report it. ..."
The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her
latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the
democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York
rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to
overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report
it.
She's being paid no doubt by the usual suspects. She is personally 1 million in debt and
has signed with a Speakers agency to give speeches for 200,000 a pop.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV)
"Haley is currently quoting $200,000 and the use of a private jet for domestic speaking
engagements, according to CNBC
In October 2018, when Haley resigned, she said, she would be taking a "step up" into the
private sector after leaving the U.N. According to a public financial disclosure report based
on 2017 data, at the rate quoted for her engagements, just a handful would pay down more than
$1 million in outstanding debt that was accrued during her 14 years
@Johnny Rico Thanks for that Johnny. I'm sure that you also know that Saddam Hussein has
weapons of mass destruction, Gadaffi is killing his own people, there is a civil war underway
in Syria, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Israel is the only democracy in the ME.
Oh, and there are no potholes in the roads of America, it being the worlds number one
economy.
"So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook
ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world
and interfere with elections is perfectly fine? Because democracy? Riiiiiiight." :
NEOCON America does not want Russian bombers in South America.
Real America doesn't give a f*ck. Bombers are so last century, might as well put up
machine-gun equipped Union Pacific Big Boys to make it marginally more steampunk and become a
real danger for the USA.
"... That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. ..."
CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV.
That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes
that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and
overseas. The less the population knows, the easier it is to lie to it.
"... This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions. ..."
"... The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures. ..."
Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National
Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt,
or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from
storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons
are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that
we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that
it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not
notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the
Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).
And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of
the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in
spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred
principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean
toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to
condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of
dignity.
...Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid
as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they
felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the
strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the
Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top
positions.
The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian
Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White
House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight "
and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all
their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.
"... Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets. ..."
"... After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well: ..."
"... After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense. ..."
"... I don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as though that is a person to be trusted. ..."
"... I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag. ..."
The Ziocons are now fully in charged at the WH. They are wild and giddy with power, ready to set the whole world on fire.
Pence has no need to undermine Trump. He can just wait. All the militant Zionist Trump brought into the WH have already done
that ..and Trump let them. Who do you suppose Kushner has shared US secret intelligence with Israel for sure, probably Saudi in
exchange for their allying with Israel. We use to worry about spies and moles in government but now they are the government.
Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass
after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets.
by Tina Nguyen
January 25, 2019 11:44 am
AFP
The CIA took one look at Kushner's SCI application and freaked out, calling over to the White House to find out how he even
got the lower level clearance.
[MORE]
In May, after months working under an interim clearance, Jared Kushner's request for a permanent security clearance, which
would allow him to see top-secret material, was finally granted. At the time, observers took this as an indication that Donald
Trump's son-in-law, who'd reportedly attracted Robert Mueller's attention for his ties to various foreign entities, was in the
clear.
On Thursday, however, an NBC News report threw that conclusion into doubt. In fact, two sources familiar with the matter told
the outlet, Kushner's clearance was only approved because Trump's handpicked director of security personnel overruled two career
White House security specialists, who had recommended against Kushner receiving top-secret clearance after seeing the results
of his F.B.I. background check.
Kushner's case represents a worrisome pattern for the White House. Per NBC, Trump's director of security, Carl Kline, overruled
security experts in at least 30 cases, recommending that Trump officials be granted clearances despite troubling information uncovered
in their background checks. That number is indeed extraordinary.
Prior to the Trump administration, White House security experts had only been overruled once in the past three years. (The
White House told NBC, "We don't comment on security clearances." A CIA. spokesman said the same, and Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell,
had "no comment." Kline, a former Pentagon employee, could not be reached for comment.)
Denying a security clearance to a White House official, noted Daniel Jacobson, a former lawyer in Barack Obama's administration,
is not something that's done lightly. "It is not normal for the head of the Personal Security Office to ever overrule the career
employees who adjudicate clearances," he wrote on Twitter. "It takes some pretty bad stuff to be denied a clearance. The fact
that there have been thirty denial recommendations of WH staff in the last 1.5 years is itself crazy, before you even get to the
overruling part."
After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I.,
or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well:
After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter
said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources
said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense.
@renfroI don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and
Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as
though that is a person to be trusted.
I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep
Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag.
It is very difficult for normal people to understand that one of distinguishing feature of psychopaths is that they simply do
not care about the laws and about moral principles. The only thing they care about is being caught, but even this is often not the
case for some of them. There is a category of psychopaths who display wanton disregard for laws ignoring possible consequences,
despite the fact that they are not completely stupid. For them they not only doe not exist, or they are just for
"deplorables" to borrow Hillary epithet for common people.
If this is the case for a female psychopath this is vey dangerous and not that easy to detect as we intuitively prescribe to
female less aggressiveness and better law obedience. Huge disappointments may follow.
Notable quotes:
"... I think your folly is that you are trying to rationalize greed. Greed is irrational, we inherited it from our irrational aggressively territorial cousins, monkeys. Remember Soros: he looks like he died a couple of weeks ago (I wish he did), but still grabs for more loot and resents those who get in his way, including Trump. When greed is powerless, it is simply ridiculous. When greed has power, it becomes evil. ..."
"... That's the downside of so-called market economy: the driving force is greed (apologists like to call it profit, bit semantics don't change the matter). Unregulated greed, like unregulated power of wind (hurricanes) and water (floods), is destructive, whereas properly regulated it can produce some good. ..."
"... Greedy elites are liars and mass murderers because they have no moral scruples: they would think nothing of lying or murdering people just to get more money. If they can enrich themselves by doing something good, they won't pass up that opportunity, either. ..."
I think your folly is that you are trying to rationalize greed. Greed is
irrational, we inherited it from our irrational aggressively territorial cousins, monkeys.
Remember Soros: he looks like he died a couple of weeks ago (I wish he did), but still grabs
for more loot and resents those who get in his way, including Trump. When greed is powerless,
it is simply ridiculous. When greed has power, it becomes evil.
That's the downside of so-called market economy: the driving force is greed (apologists
like to call it profit, bit semantics don't change the matter). Unregulated greed, like
unregulated power of wind (hurricanes) and water (floods), is destructive, whereas properly
regulated it can produce some good.
You also ignore the fact that all those MIC profiteers don't really want WWIII. They want
to keep stealing huge amounts of taxpayers' money on military contracts. For that they scare
the common folk with dangers that do not exist and regale them with "patriotic" BS they don't
believe in. Deep down they know that to enjoy their loot they must stay alive: unlike
pathetic politicians, the gods do not take bribes.
As to those people throwing rocks from the overpass of I-75, I think "Beavis and
Butt-Head" answers your question. Hopeless stupidity of people totally lacking imagination,
when it becomes active, is evil. But the people themselves are just unimaginative morons.
So, my point is there is no such thing as evil per se, there is greed and stupidity (often
the combination of the two) that leads to evil actions.
Greedy elites are liars and mass murderers because they have no moral scruples: they
would think nothing of lying or murdering people just to get more money. If they can enrich
themselves by doing something good, they won't pass up that opportunity, either.
You can call them evil, if you wish, but that worldview is the dead end: if there are
inherently good and inherently evil people, you simply cannot do anything about that. You can
promise rewards or punishments in the afterlife, but that would not prevent any crimes or get
murdered people back to life here on Earth.
If you look for causes of evil behavior instead, you have a chance to minimize or
eliminate those causes, thereby minimizing evil behavior. That does not negate the spiritual
nature of humans, unless by "spiritual" you mean supernatural.
So, from my perspective, the views you propound are essentially defeatist. Personally, I
do not think anyone is inherently predisposed to good or evil, you have to look for motives.
Then you have a chance to motivate good behavior and demotivate evil one.
However, let me tell you what I tell my students: if you are conventionally religious, you
don't want to discuss religion with me.
Internally, a national currency has a value corresponding to demand placed by the
government, such as money for the taxes the state requires of its people. The ups and downs
of Lincoln's Greenback fiat currency, especially its interaction with the value of gold,
demonstrates how currency is tied to confidence in the government, as you suggest.
Externally, a nation's currency usually has value to the extent that a nation has
something to offer others, which makes the currency useful for making a desired purchase.
Today, the "desired purchase" is oil. The dollar is valued because you need dollars to buy
oil, as formerly enforced by diplomatic pressure. Because of US sanctions, trade in oil is
now beginning using rubles, yuan, and most unforgivably, Venezuelan currency! (Like Iraq,
Libya and Syria). If this keeps up, countries will no longer need dollars for their oil, and
$ will have to compete internationally based on other considerations. That won't be pretty.
IMHO, US leaders have dangerously eroding the dollar's pre-eminence by profligate use of
sanctions.
I need to remedy my own deficiencies in this area, but advocates of Modern Monetary
Theory, like Michael Hudson, Steve Keene, and like-minded economists who often post at
nakedcapitalism, make a strong case for a fiat money system, issued and controlled by
state banks, in contrast to the private banks as now.
But objecting to the fact that private bankers charge us interest, and act above the law
and democratic accountability, is such a quaint complaint.
Feb 2, 2019 The REAL Reason The U.S. Wants Regime Change in Venezuela. The U.S. and its
allies have decided to throw their weight behind yet another coup attempt in Venezuela. As
usual, they claim that their objectives are democracy and freedom. Nothing could be farther
from the truth.
Feb 3, 2019 Venezuela's Oil Enough for World's 30 Year Energy Needs
The long bankrupt fiat financial system is pushing the Deep State to target Venezuela for
the latter's natural resources that dwarfs that of its satellite province Saudi Arabia.
"... An indefinite military presence in Iraq makes no more sense for the U.S. than it does to have one in Syria. Keeping troops in Iraq isn't going to give the U.S. any knowledge about what Iran's government is doing inside its borders, and announcing that their mission is an anti-Iranian one exposes them to potential attack from militias aligned with Tehran ..."
"... Another country with a large permanent garrison of US Troops to join Japan, Germany, South Korea, etc. how long will this occupation of Iraq last? Five years? Fifty years? We have had Troops in Germany and Japan for 73 years. How long will this continue? For another 100 years? ..."
"... The neocons will not rest until we have US boots on the ground in every nation on earth. Enough of this foolishness. ..."
Trump wants to
keep U.S. forces in Iraq so they can "watch" Iran:
President Trump plans to keep United States troops in Iraq to monitor and maintain pressure on neighboring Iran, committing
to an American military presence in the region's war zones even as he moves to withdraw forces from Syria and Afghanistan.
"I want to be able to watch Iran," Mr. Trump said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We're going to
keep watching and we're going to keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things,
we're going to know it before they do."
An indefinite military presence in Iraq makes no more sense for the U.S. than it does to have one in Syria. Keeping troops
in Iraq isn't going to give the U.S. any knowledge about what Iran's government is doing inside its borders, and announcing that
their mission is an anti-Iranian one exposes them to potential attack from militias aligned with Tehran.
Many Iraqis already want U.S. forces out of the country now that ISIS has been dealt with, and there will probably be even more
demanding our withdrawal if Trump tries to keep U.S. forces there for this purpose.
Trump's suggestion that Iran might "do nuclear weapons" is more of the same propaganda that he and his officials have been pushing
for months. Iran is unable to develop and build nuclear weapons because it is complying with the nuclear deal that Trump reneged
on. Thanks to the nuclear deal, the IAEA is able to conduct very intrusive inspections as part of the most rigorous verification
regime, and they would be the first to know if Iran were violating the restrictions set down in the JCPOA.
It is unlikely that the Iraqi government is going to agree to a U.S. presence that is being justified by hostility to its neighbor.
Iraq's president has already said that the U.S. military presence is permitted in the country only for the purposes of counter-terrorism:
Iraq's government wants to maintain good relations with Iran, and it isn't going to go along with an anti-Iranian agenda that
can only harm Iraq's economic and security interests. Many of Iran's neighbors are not as obsessed with and hostile to Iran as the
Trump administration, and Iraq definitely doesn't want to be a front-line state in some anti-Iranian coalition. Trump's proposal
would needlessly put U.S. troops at greater risk in Iraq, and it would gain the U.S. nothing except more resentment from Iraqis.
Another country with a large permanent garrison of US Troops to join Japan, Germany, South Korea, etc. how long will this
occupation of Iraq last? Five years? Fifty years? We have had Troops in Germany and Japan for 73 years. How long will this continue?
For another 100 years?
The neocons will not rest until we have US boots on the ground in every nation on earth. Enough of this foolishness.
@Bill Instead of looking at this issue using a microscope, reading history about how
Empires fall lends wisdom and insight. Arrighi's book, (I believe) is called "The Long
Twentieth Century." He details how empires and huge trading giants rise and fall.
He details the rise of Italy's banking system during the Middle Ages as well as Spain's
Empire, the Dutch trading hegemonies and most enlightening how the British Empire rose and
fell.
We are seeing tell-tale symptoms of a US that's in trouble with a slow erosion of the US
$$ hegemony. The financial growth of China has begun degrading the US market with hi-tech and
other products. Thusly, you see Tim Cook of Apple apoplectic over China's Huwaii (sp?)
flooding the European market with less expensive computers, cellulars, notebooks, etc.
We see the practical nature of Exxon Mobile that views the short geographic distance
between the US (its military) to Venezuela's oil and mineral-rich soil. An easy pick, rather
than becoming further embroiled in the Middle East.
Targeting Venezuela suggests a geopolitical shift away from the Middle East (and Israel)
to countries that are less expensive to plunder yet with vast resources to be stolen. A
telling sign in the slow deteriorating US Hegemony.
This is the money quote: "
The Neocons never cease to amaze me and their latest stunt with Venezuela falls into this
bizarre category of events which are both absolutely unthinkable and simultaneously absolutely
predictable. This apparent logical contradiction is the direct result of a worldview and
mindset which is, I believe, unique to the Neocons: a mix of imperial hubris and infinite
arrogance, a complete lack of decency, a total contempt for the rest of mankind, crass
ignorance, a narcissist/sociopath's inability to have any kind of empathy or imagine another
guy's reaction and, finally, last but most certainly not least, crass stupidity. "
Notable quotes:
"... The bad thing is, of course, that the Neocons are negating any chance for a gradual, phased, collapse and are, instead, creating a dynamic in which a sudden, catastrophic, collapse becomes much more likely. ..."
"... Chavistas without Chavez ..."
"... pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ..."
"... insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results ..."
"... I place my own hopes not in the Venezuelan military, or in Chinese or Russian help, but on the amazing ability of the Americans to f*** up. At the end of the day, that is our biggest ally: the US stupidity, ignorance, arrogance and cowardice ..."
The Neocons never cease to amaze me and their latest stunt with Venezuela falls into this
bizarre category of events which are both absolutely unthinkable and simultaneously absolutely
predictable. This apparent logical contradiction is the direct result of a worldview and
mindset which is, I believe, unique to the Neocons: a mix of imperial hubris and infinite
arrogance, a complete lack of decency, a total contempt for the rest of mankind, crass
ignorance, a narcissist/sociopath's inability to have any kind of empathy or imagine another
guy's reaction and, finally, last but most certainly not least, crass stupidity.
There is so
much which can be said about the latest US aggression on Venezuela that entire books could be
(and will be) written about this, but I want to begin by look at a few specific but nonetheless
very symptomatic aspects:
"In your face" stupidity or bootcamp-like deliberate public humiliation?
Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National
Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt,
or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from
storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons
are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that
we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that
it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not
notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the
Neocon's version of Uncle Sam). And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else,
the most faithful lackeys of the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression
against a sovereign nation in spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates
every letter of the most sacred principles of international law. This is exactly the same
tactic as when they make you clean toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during
basic training: not only to condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up
any semblance of dignity.
MAGA? really?
This is not just a case of history repeating itself like a farce, however. It is hard to
overstate how totally offensive a character like Elliott Abrams is for every Latin American who
remembers the bloody US debacle in Nicaragua. US vassals now have to give up any type of
pretend-dignity in front of their own people and act as if Abrams was a respectable and sane
human being.
I believe that this kind of "obedience conditioning by means of humiliation" is not just a
case of the Neocons being idiots, but a deliberate tactic which will, of course, backfire and
end up hurting US puppets worldwide (just like the pro-US Russian "liberal" opposition was
eviscerated as a result of being associated by the Russian public opinion with the US policies
against Russia, especially in the Ukraine).
Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid as
there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they felt
the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the strong
smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet
Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top
positions.
The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo
is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House
(since Dubya came to power) as the "
gang that couldn't shoot straight
"
and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore -- all
their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.
As I wrote in my article "
The good
news about the Trump Presidency: stupid can be good!
" these folks will only precipitate
the collapse of the AngloZionist Empire, which is a very good thing.
The bad thing is, of
course, that the Neocons are negating any chance for a gradual, phased, collapse and are,
instead, creating a dynamic in which
a
sudden, catastrophic, collapse
becomes much more likely.
Now we have all seen the latest antic from Bolton: showing up with a yellow pad with "5,000
troops to Colombia" written on it. Again, this might be a case of Bolton being senile or not
giving a damn, but I doubt it. I think that this is just another oh-so-subtle way to threaten
Venezuela with a US-led invasion. And, really, why not?
If the Empire thinks it has the authority and power to decide who the President of Venezuela
should be, it has to logically back up this stance with a threat, especially since there is no
US authority, moral or otherwise, left.
The obvious question here is how this threat will be received in Venezuela and that largely
depends on how credible that threat is. Now, "5,000 troops" could mean anything, ranging from a
infantry brigade combat team to the typical US mix of as many putatively "special" forces as
possible (to make every service happy and give everybody a piece of the expected (but never
achieved) "victory pie" -- many careers in the US depend on that kind of stuff). At this
point in time, I rather not speculate and get technical about how such a force could be
structured. Let's just assume that it will be an overall credible and well-packaged force and
try to speculate how the Venezuelans could react to it.
The state of the Venezuelan military
ORDER IT NOW
Here I am particularly lucky as I have a close and trusted Latin American friend who is now
a retired Lt-Colonel who spent many months in Venezuela working with the Venezuelan military in
a capacity which I cannot disclose, but which gave him quasi-total access to every unit and
military facility in the country and who, just a couple of years ago, shared with me his
impression of the Venezuelan military. Here is what he told me:
A military, any military, is always the product of the society which produces it and this is
also true of Venezuela. It would be silly to admit that the Venezuelan economy is a total mess
while expecting the Venezuelan armed forces to be a shining example of professionalism, honesty
and patriotism. The sad reality is very different.
For one thing, much of the Venezuelan military is hopelessly corrupt, as is the rest of
society. In a country whose economy is imploding, this is hardly surprising. Furthermore, for
years both Chavez and Maduro have fought an uphill battle to remove as many potential traitors
and class enemies (in a Marxist sense of the word) from the Venezuelan military and replace
them with "socially close" (a Bolshevik concept) elements from the poorer sections of society.
Truth be told, this was a partially successful strategy as seen by the fact that during this
latest coup attempt the Venezuelan military overwhelmingly supported the Venezuelan
Constitution and the legitimacy of Maduro. And yet that kind of loyalty often comes at the
costs of professionalism and at the risk of corruption as seen by the case of the Venezuelan
military attache to the US who clearly was a US agent. I am afraid that the current situation
in Venezuela might be similar to what it was in Syria in the very early stages of the
AngloZionist war against this country when scores of top officials of the Syrian government
proved to be traitors and/or US agents. In Syria the government eventually re-took control of
the situation, but only with a great deal of help from Iran and Russia and after almost being
toppled by the US-run Takfiri forces.
The good news here, according to my friend, is that the Venezuelan special forces (army
special forces, jungle infantry troops, "Caribe" counter insurgency units, airborne units, etc)
are in a much better shape and that they could form the core of a resistance force to the
invasion, not unlike what the Republican Guard eventually did in Iraq. But the biggest
difference with Iraq is that in Venezuela the majority of the people are still backing Maduro
and that any invasion force should expect to meet a lot of resistance of the type which the US
encountered in Iraq after the invasion of the country. Also, there was a fragile truce of sorts
between Hugo Chavez and various Left-wing guerillas who agreed to stop their military
operations, but who also kept all their weapons "just in case". This "case" has now happened
and we can expect that any US invasion will trigger an immediate re-emergence of a Left-wing
guerilla force which, combined with popular support and the key role of a core of patriotic
Venezuelan special forces could form a very dangerous combination, especially in the mid to
long term.
Keep in mind that corrupt officers don't like combat and that while they might aid a US
invasion force, they will only do so as long as things seem to go the easy way, but as soon as
things go south (which is what always happens to US invasion forces) they will run as fast as
they can. So while the endemic corruption now will be a problem for the Maduro government, it
will become a problem for the US as soon the legitimate government is toppled.
Comparisons are necessarily tricky and crude, but with this caveat in mind, don't think
"Syria" but rather think "Iraq" when considering the possible outcomes of a US invasion.
The state of the Venezuelan people
This is really crucial. Hugo Chavez' reforms alienated a lot of Venezuelans, especially
those who made their fortunes by servicing US interests and who became your typical Latin
American version of a
comprador
class. Much of the middle-class also got hurt and are
angry. However, these same reforms also empowered huge numbers of destitute and poor
Venezuelans who, for the first time, felt that the government stood for their interests and who
remember what it was like to live in abject poverty under a US-backed regime. These folks
probably have no illusion about what the toppling of this government would mean for them and
they are likely to fight hard, if not necessarily competently, to keep the little rights and
means they acquired during the Chavez years. There is even what is sometimes referred to "
Chavistas without Chavez
" which some describe as potential back-stabbing traitors
while other see them as more pragmatic, less ideological, faction of Chavez supporters who
decry Chavez' mistakes but don't want their country to turn into a Colombia-style US colony.
Whatever may be the case, Hugo Chavez' pro-popular policies left a very profound mark on the
country and you can expect that a lot of Venezuelans will take up arms and resist any
US/Colombian invasion.
Would you trust that face?
Here I think we can all express our heartfelt gratitude to Mr MAGA whose appointment of
Elliott "Iran-Contra" Abrams has done more than any government sponsored propaganda to clearly
and bluntly explain to the Venezuelan people who is doing what to them and why.
Seriously, Ron Paul or Tulsi Gabbard speaking of democracy is one thing, but having
gangsters and psychopathic thugs like Pompeo, Bolton or Abrams in charge really sends a message
and that message is that we are dealing with a banal case of highway robbery triggered by two
very crude considerations:
First, to re-take control of Venezuela's immense natural resources. Second, to prove to the
world that Uncle Shmuel can still,
quote
, "
pick up some small crappy
little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business
",
unquote.
The obvious problem is that 1) nobody takes the US seriously because 2) the US has not been
capable of defeating any country capable of resistance since many decades already. The various
US special forces, which would typically spearhead any invasion, have an especially appalling
record of abject failures every time they stop posing for cameras and have to engage in real
combat. I assure you that nobody in the Venezuelan military cares about movies like "Rambo" or
"Delta Force" while they carefully studied US FUBARs in Somalia, Grenada, Iran and elsewhere.
You can also bet that the Cubans, who have had many years of experience dealing with the (very
competent) South African special forces in Angola and elsewhere will share their experience
with their Venezuelan colleagues.
Last but not least, there are a lot of weapons in circulation in Venezuela and which the
various popular militias and National Guard would be more than happy to further distribute to
the local population if any invasion appears to be successful.
The State of the Empire and its puppet-President Macrobama
Well, here the famous "
insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again
expecting different results
" is the best possible description of US actions. Just look at
this sequence:
Does this bizarre mix of Neocons, gerontocrats and deepstaters really, sincerely, believe
that this time around they will "win" (however you define that)?!
More relevantly -- has this recipe ever worked in the past? I would say that if we
accept, for argument's sake, that the goal is to "restore democracy" then obviously "no". But
if the goal is to wreck a country, then it has worked, quite a few times indeed.
Next, a few misplaced hopes
I am getting a lot of emails suggesting that Russia might do in Venezuela what she did in
Syria. Let me immediately tell you that this is not going to happen. Yes, there are a lot of
Russians in Venezuela, but the "Russians are not coming". For one thing, I will never cease to
repeat that the Russian intervention in Syria was a very small one, and that even if this small
force proved formidable, it was really acting primarily as a force multiplier for the Iranians,
Hezbollah and the Syrian government forces. And yet, even the deployment of this very small
force necessitated a huge logistics effort from Russia whose military (being a purely defensive
one) is simply not structured for long-distance power projection. Syria is about 1000km from
Russia. Venezuela is about 10 times (!) further. Yes, I know,a few Tu-160 visited the country
twice now and there are Russian advisors in the country and the Venezuelans have a few pretty
good Russian weapons systems. But here, again, this is a game of numbers. Limited numbers of
Russian-made combat aircraft (fixed and rotary wing), air defense missiles or even large
numbers of advanced MANPADs or assault rifles won't do the trick against a determined
US-Colombian invasion. Finally, there is no Venezuelan equivalent to Iran or Hezbollah (an
outside ally and friend) which would be capable and willing to deploy real combat forces for
actual, sustained combat against the invader.
Next comes terrain. Yes, much of Venezuela is difficult to access, but not for
jungle-experienced forces which both the US military and the Colombians have. Furthermore,
there is absolutely no need to invade the entire country to topple the legitimate government.
For that all you need is to control is a few key facilities in a few key locations and you are
done. For example, I don't see the USAF or USN wasting any time in air-to-air combat against
the (few) Venezuelan Sukhois -- they will simply destroy them in their hangars along with
their runways and air combat management radars and command posts. So the terrain will not
prevent the Empire of suppressing Venezuelan air defenses and as soon as this is done, you can
expect the usual mix of bomb and missile strikes which will create chaos, wreck command and
control capabilities and, basically, disorganize much of the military. Finally, US forces in
Colombia and USN ships off the Venezuelan coast will enjoy a safe harbor from which to launch
as many strikes as they want.
Next, hopes that Russia and China will somehow resuscitate the Venezuelan economy are also
ill-founded. First, neither country is interested in pouring money into a bottomless pit. It is
one thing to sign contracts which are likely to eventually produce a return on investment and
quite another to dump money into a bottomless pit (as the US and Europe have found out in the
Ukraine). Second, the Venezuelan economy is so deeply enmeshed in the US-UK run international
financial system that neither China nor Russia can do anything about it. That is not to say
that US sanctions, subversion and sabotage did not play a major role in the collapse of the
Venezuelan economy, they sure did, but it is equally true (at least to Russian specialists)
that many of the Chavista reforms were botched, a lot of them were a case of too little too
late, and that it will take years to refloat the Venezuelan economy.
Finally, we are comparing apples to oranges here: the task of the AngloZionists is to
destroy the Venezuelan economy while the Chinese and Russian task would be, at least in theory,
to rescue it. Destroying is so much easier than building, that the entire comparison is
logically flawed and fundamentally unfair.
I really mean no offense to the supporters of Hugo Chavez and his ideals (I very much
include myself in this category) but anybody who has been to, or near, Venezuela will tell you
that destitute Venezuelans are not only running out of the country in large numbers, but they
also contribute to destabilize the neighboring states. So we should have no Pollyannish notions
about all the reports about the economic and social collapse in Venezuela as only "US
propaganda". Sadly, much of it is true even if often exaggerated, lopsided and missing all the
very real successes of the Chavez reforms, hence the continuous popular support, in spite of it
all, the Maduro government continues to enjoy. Still, the overall picture is very bleak and it
will take Venezuela consistent and correct action to recover from the current plight.
So is there still hope? Yes, absolutely!
I recently replied the following to a friend asking me about a possible Russian intervention
in Venezuela "
I place my own hopes not in the Venezuelan military, or in Chinese or
Russian help, but on the amazing ability of the Americans to f*** up. At the end of the day,
that is our biggest ally: the US stupidity, ignorance, arrogance and
cowardice
".
Think of what currently passes as a "policy" of the US in Venezuela as a diagnostic tool
.
Not just to diagnose the moral degeneracy and mental pathology of the leaders of the
AngloZionist Empire, but also to diagnose the very real state of despair and chaos of the
Empire itself. Under Obama, for all his faults and weaknesses, the US succeeded in subverting a
list of crucial Latin American countries (like Brazil or Argentina) but now, with Mr MAGA, it
can't even do that. The kind of antics we see from the Pompeo, Bolton & Abrams gang is
amazing in its crudeness and, frankly, makes a supposed "indispensable nation" look absolutely
ridiculous. These losers already had to fold several times, in spite of equally hyperbolic
threats delivered with maximal gravitas (think DPRK here), and yet they still think that crude
bullying methods can yield success. They can't. Immense firepower is not a substitute for
brains.
In its short and blood-soaked history, the US has pretty much always acted like some
criminal enterprise run by brutal gangsters, but in the past some of these gangsters could be
extremely well educated and intelligent (think James Baker here). Today, their guns are still
lying around (albeit in various states of disrepair), but they are wielded by ignorant retards.
Yes, ignorant retards with guns can be very dangerous, but they can never be effective!
Conclusion
Right now the US, backed by its various colonies and vassal states, appears to be ready to
deliver a death blow to Venezuela and, truth be told, they might be able to do just that. But,
for whatever it is worth, my gut feeling is that they will fail again, even against the weakest
countries of the Axis of Resistance. That is not to say that Venezuela is not in a heap of
critical problems. But I believe that in spite of being in a critical condition, Venezuela will
be able to bounce back, just like Syria did. After all, the Syrian example proves that it *is*
possible to resist a superior invading force while at the same time successfully engaging in
critically needed reforms. Yes, today's Caracas is in very bad shape, but the city of Aleppo
was in a much worse shape until it was liberated, and now quasi-normal life has returned to it
(in sharp contrast to the US liberated devastated city of Raqqa which
still lies in ruins
).
Yankees (to use the usual Latin-American expression) are just like their Israeli overlords:
they are capable of devastating violence but they have no staying power: if things don't go
their way fast, really fast, they run and barricade themselves somewhere faraway from danger.
In our case, they might even do what they did in Iraq and Afghanistan: build obscenely huge
embassies, create a special zone around them, and sit tight while the country is engulfed in a
bloody civil war. This way, they can provide CNN & Co. with footage of a "peaceful
neighborhood" while still claiming that the Stars and Strips are still proudly flying high over
the enemy's capital and that "these colors don't run". This would be a disastrous outcome for
the Venezuelan nation and this is why we all have to try to prevent this
Hopefully the memory of past completely failed, humiliating and bloody invasions will
convince the right people at the Pentagon to do whatever it takes to prevent the US from
launching yet another stupid and immoral war of choice on behalf of the Neocons.
@Johnny Rico Thanks for that Johnny. I'm sure that you also know that Saddam Hussein has
weapons of mass destruction, Gadaffi is killing his own people, there is a civil war underway
in Syria, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Israel is the only democracy in the ME.
Oh, and there are no potholes in the roads of America, it being the worlds number one
economy.
"... That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and overseas. ..."
CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV.
That reflects geographical knowledge of a typical American, who sincerely believes
that the world consists of three roughly equal parts: Main Street, out-of-town, and
overseas. The less the population knows, the easier it is to lie to it.
"... This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top positions. ..."
"... The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight " and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures. ..."
Remember the almost universal reaction of horror when Bolton was appointed as National
Security Advisor? Well, apparently, either the Neocons completely missed that, which I doubt,
or they did what they always do and decided to double-down by retrieving Elliott Abrams from
storage and appointing him US Special Envoy to Venezuela. I mean, yes, of course, the Neocons
are stupid and sociopathic enough not to ever care about others, but in this case I think that
we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that
it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not
notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the
Neocon's version of Uncle Sam).
And it worked, in the name of "solidarity" or whatever else, the most faithful lackeys of
the Empire immediate fell in line behind the latest US aggression against a sovereign nation in
spite of the self-evident fact that this aggression violates every letter of the most sacred
principles of international law. This is exactly the same tactic as when they make you clean
toilets with a toothbrush or do push-ups in the mud during basic training: not only to
condition you to total obedience, but to make you publicly give up any semblance of
dignity.
...Finally, these appointments also show that the senior-Neocons are frightened and paranoid
as there are still plenty of very sharp junior-Neocon folks to chose from in the US, yet they
felt the need to get Abrams from conservation and place him in a key position in spite of the
strong smell of naphthalene emanating from him. This reminds me of the gerontocrats of the
Soviet Politburo in the worst stagnation years who had to appoint the likes of Chernenko to top
positions.
The one thing the Mr MAGA's administration has in common with the late Brezhevian
Politburo is its total inability to get anything done. My wife refers to the folks in the White
House (since Dubya came to power) as the " gang that couldn't shoot straight "
and she is right (she always is!): they just can't really get anything done anymore – all
their half-assed pseudo-successes are inevitably followed by embarrassing failures.
LOL Deep State is a term used by the simple minded. There is no 'deep state' there is
however a shadow government and it is made up of various groups all jockeying for
their own interest.
We have the 'Establishment..i.e. the two parties who want to maintain
their political power. We have the Corporate Elites and Globalist ' who want to control the
world's commerce and economies. We have Wall Street who doesnt want any restrictions on their
financial crimes. We have Domestic Business Interest who want laws and policies favorable to
them. We have Foreign Interest who want to use the US for their country.
Sometimes they join forces when their interest coincide, sometimes they don't.
Outside of this shadow government we have Ideological Activist of various kinds that can
be useful or not to the Establishment, the Globalist, Wall Street, Domestic Business Interest
and Foreign Interest.
All of the above are why we cant and don't have coherent policies on anything foreign or
domestic.
People like you who want to ascribe everything to some giant conspiracy in the CIA help to
dumb people down , its easier for the lazy to have one or two big scary entities to blame.
You cant even explain what the CIA conspiracy is can you? Tell us how the CIA maintains their
conspiracy against the US and what their goal is. How does the CIA maintain their secret
agenda when the CIA is subject to new CIA directors with every change of presidents and
parties?
Orwell, in his book, 1984 wrote that the government had two terms: Oldspeak and Newspeak. One
was not permitted to use old speak.
" This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating
undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so
far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever.
To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be
used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from
weeds."
It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free,"
since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were
therefore of necessity nameless."
Were sliding down a slippery, ever-darkening slope. When I step back and try to examine
the whole picture, it's very concerning. Take, for instance, [MORE]
The article had a link to a WordPress article, penned by John Whitehead, The Rutherford
Institute about what has crept into America, via the Militarization of the Police Force.
I subscribed to his newsletter, years ago when Bush and, then, Obama gave Military
Armament to Civilian Police forces. When the "FBI raids Stone's Home" story hit, complete
with CNN presence, I realized that we do, in fact have policing by fear in the U.S.,
advertised by Cable News. I'm not an alarmist but, I am taking this all in and it doesn't
look good for us. I've also read that millions of Americans are leaving this country, yes, in
droves. I've thought about it, before but, don't know if I can convince Wifey this is what we
need to do since were in our 70s.
Whiteheads sight has an ongoing ledger of Police incompetence, armed to the teeth just to
deliver a warrant, often going to the wrong house, creating chaos, shooting people and their
animals and then finding out that they raided the wrong house and killed the wrong person. A
flash-band grenade was launched into the wrong residence, landed on a toddler in a crib and
burned a hole in its stomach. The scales are tipped in the favor of cops and, if a homeowner
attempts to defend himself, he's prosecuted to the full extent of the "law."
Our 4th amendment is gone. Our First and Second Amendment Rights are under heavy attack.
There's a call for a Constitutional Convention with almost all of the States sign on for an
Article Five Convention.
Were all in deep shit. It doesn't matter if you are guilty of a crime or not. If they'll
go after an unarmed Roger Stone, guns pointed, in front of his family, terrorizing them for
National TV, what do YOU think is their intent? With 10 Zillion Super-Cop shows on TV for the
last forty years, where they always get their man, never make errors and show how violent
they are, legally, what do you think is the intent?
Nothing happens on the government level by accident NOTHING
First, Myspace sucked in all of the youngsters and they learned how easy it was to
communicate, online. Then, Twitter and Facebook arrived as beacons of free speech. Then,
other commentary friendly web site pop up everywhere, allowing you to spew your agitated
heart out and argue with each other and call each other names and then opposite ideologies
manifested in separate sites on the net with "moderators" that throw registrants off
(banning/banishing) them for defending their positions echo chambers for the "alt" Right or
the politically correct Left Trump bashers. Sometime, I suggest you go to these and read the
commenters' remarks. They're literally insane. I was even banned from a DISCUSS site for
suggesting some civil discourse, identifying myself as a Trump Voter.
Do you really believe that all of these issues simply morphed to lock out Conservatives?
No way. This was all planned, possibly to I.D. individuals who are "potential" adversaries of
a different ideology or possible "problem people" that get put on a watch list. If the DNA
Ancestry sights are GIVING your DNA results to the Government, what good can come of it?
"... More and more heretics and skeptics have been removed from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but still people insist on sharing their ideas. So now they are stomping harder. Picture it as a ruling class boot, stomping on a human face. ..."
It is true that censoring social media platforms will be very harmful to actual democracy.
There can be no real democracy without an informed public, and the marketplace of ideas must
be open to all IF you want an informed, thinking public who are capable of shifting through
differing views and logically deciding which position to support.
But the catch, of course, is that our ruling overlords actually hate an informed and logical
public. They prefer gullible cretins who swallow whatever ruling class propaganda is beamed
to them through radio or TV, into each individual house or car.
For decades, people have been subject to one-way, top-down propaganda beamed to each
individual, with no way for each person to know how other people were reacting to said
propaganda, no way of checking the "facts" given to them, and no way of hearing skeptics
debunk the fallacies.
That changed with social media. It is my opinion that social media was launched as a way for
our rulers to monitor our opionions and reactions to their propaganda. It was to be a billion
person focus group, with instaneous results to each new ploy.
But millions of people seized upon this new communication device to start communicating with
each other! People around the country and around the world started talking to each other,
laughing at the most outlandish ruling class claims, spread clever memes to ridicule the
nonsense, and sharing opinions and facts between each other.
For the first time, we could communicate horizontally and we did.
Our overlords grew increasingly alarmed. They started telling us about Fake News, and the
harmful effects of hearing Non-Approved opinions and "conspiracy theorists" who used
dangerous facts and science to debunk Official Stories.
The Empire is Striking Back. For the last 2 years, the repression has gotten more and more
intense, with multiple people losing access to social media, and the rest of us being told it
is our "moral duty" to leave Facebook, so as not to contaminate the mass mind with unapproved
messages.
Personally, I think that we have lost. I see even people who are alarmed at the repression
personalizing it, such as blaming Mark Zuckerberg, personally, for bowing to the ruling class
pressure we ALL watched him undergo!
It is true that restricting information and debate is bad public policy, but only if you want
a vibrant and informed democracy.
It is clear to me that our ruling overlords want to such thing, and the last two years of
increasingly shrill denunciations of a free and open internet are proof of that.
For decades our owners were able to transmit their propaganda vertically, top down, into
each individual's house or car. No person receiving the propaganda was able to know how other
people were reacting, or to judge the veracity of the facts or to share their skepticism at
outright lies and obvious falsehoods.
It is my opinion that social media was created by our rulers to monitor our opinions and
reactions to their propaganda, as sort of a billion-person, real time focus group.
But millions of us started using it as a horizontal communication tool, a way to share our
information, opinions and skepticism with each other, with people all over the world, with no
interference from the moderators.
This is why we have been subjected to a couple of years of increasing denunciations of
"fake news" and warnings of Wrong Opinions and admonitions that it is our moral duty to stay
away from Facebook, so as not to contaminate our minds with unapproved ideas.
More and more heretics and skeptics have been removed from Twitter, Facebook and
YouTube, but still people insist on sharing their ideas. So now they are stomping harder.
Picture it as a ruling class boot, stomping on a human face.
Politics is the very art of conspiracy although conspiracy is not confined to politics.
Official conspiracy theories (Russiagate, to give a current example) should inspire much more
skepticism than dissident conspiracy theories. But any theory should be subject to analysis
and challenge. If a theory is impossibly convoluted or unfalsifiable, ignore it. Also, the
vague generalization "it's all part of the conspiracy" is not helpful at all. It suggests
that there is only one conspiracy and that conspiracy explains everything – sort of
like Divine Providence, but malevolent.
I recall seeing a video c. 2010, wherein following a boring speech by Cass Sunstein, Luke
Rudkowski (of We Are Change), who was in the audience, asked Mr. Sunstein about some of the
views he had expressed in his original article. I believe the original article was published
c. 2007. Sunstein claimed that he did not remember having written such an article ("I write a
lot of articles, how can I remember, yadda, yadda ") and slunk off as quickly as possible to
his coward's hidey hole. I guess he remembered later, and padded it out to a book length
piece of excrement, which gets a 61% 1-star ratings by Amazon reviewers.
Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, former 'information czar' of the White House staff in
the Barack Obama administration, is discussed in the Dept of Justice
Inspector General file on crimes involving Robert Mueller , in quite appalling terms,
Sunstein described as supporting a campaign of lying against his own undergraduate Harvard
classmate, an ex-DOJ employee described in the DOJ file as a victim of threats of murder
indulged by former FBI Director Mueller. From page 24 of that DOJ report:
Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, Hillary propagandist, supporting threats to kill
his own Harvard classmate. One of the corrupt Obama administration officials, was
'information czar' Cass Sunstein A man with apparently no ethics except his wishing to
serve the Hillary Clinton wing of the powerful, Cass Sunstein was able to receive a portion
of bribes, for indulging the campaign of terrorism, extortion, and defamation against his
classmate.
Sunstein is a leading propagandist for the network planting lies on the internet to
attack common people. Along with Sunstein refusing to write or sign even a one-sentence
note asking for prosecution of those menacing to murder his classmate, Sunstein has
declined to modify or amend his oily propaganda for 'wiki world' and 'nudging', as
euphemisms for what Sunstein knows are criminals spreading lies to destroy and kill people,
including the attack on someone Sunstein knew as a boy.
"Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what might that
threat be? Oddly, he never explains."
Given that Sunstein is a noted expert on disinformation, the obvious answer is that
conspiracy theories tend more often than not to hit too close to the truth for the comfort of
TPTB.
@Brabantian Its not a Dep of Justice report . No idea what this website is about .
Another fake news ? Int doesn't mean Muller or Sunstein are not bunch of liars. They are.
Excellent, thought-provoking article. I especially like how the author points to the Official
Conspiracy Theories that been tearing humanity apart. i.e. Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction. Kudos to the author.
"... Now add numerous different 'companies' with their own books and stupendous amounts of transfers between them. That in a nutshell is not just the Pentagon but the whole US financial economy. ..."
"... It also smacks of distorted priorities when the US military can fund and construct a small town sized base with a private 18 hole golf course, a multi room cinema, a McDonalds and a Burger King in faraway Iraq while the US government can't find enough funds to re pave a major road just outside of Washington DC. ..."
@bluedog There are thousands of examples, but here is a recent one from my blog:
Feb 2, 2019 -- USAF to Reopen Unneeded Airbase
A great example of waste and corruption in the US military is the plan to rebuild and
reopen Tyndall Air Force base. The number of aircraft in the USAF has fallen nearly in half
over the past 20 years, so it has far too many airbases that are expensive to operate. For
example, after F-22 bases were selected only half as many F-22s were procured as planned, so
all F-22 bases have ample room for more aircraft.
Last year, Tyndall Air Force F-22 base in Florida was destroyed by a hurricane. Tyndall's
F-22s were quickly relocated to other bases. Some questioned why such expensive aircraft were
based in an area with hurricanes since several F-22s undergoing maintenance were destroyed.
Nevertheless, the Air Force just announced at least $3 billion will be spent over five years
to rebuild and reopen unneeded and poorly located Tyndall!
Politics are important and the base is a mess, but the Air Force should have proposed
spending a couple billion to clean up Tyndall and prepare it for industrial or other
productive private sector uses. But our Congress and Pentagon are so selfish and corrupt they
don't give a damn about wasting money. Just bill the taxpayers and always blame poor
readiness and accidents on a lack of funding!
@bluedog As much as I support the notion that the Pentagon is awash in corruption, the
media reports about missing trillions are incorrect and the result of either deliberate
misrepresentation or (more likely) the lack of competence on the part of those reporting to
comprehend complicated material.
The reports originated from the recent audit work done on the Pentagon. I'm not sure
exactly how long a period this covered (and to be honest, can't be bothered to look it up
right now) but it was a 10-20 year period.
Included in the preliminary reports was the unaccounted for adjustments totaling up to
several trillions of dollars. Here's the thing most people reporting on this fail to grasp,
adjustments are not expenditures. There a bookkeeping gimmick to balance the books.
The debit and credit side need to be balanced out. This is what adjustments do. They
balance the books. But as they can appear on either the credit or the debit side and on both
sides at the same time, they can be used to artificially inflate the books (to make a company
look more valuable than it is) or to hide real expenses. More likely in the case of the
Pentagon, due to systemic failures of accurately forecasting (real) expenditures, inability
to stick to budgets and ignoring (at least some) of the financial paperwork needed to satisfy
the accountant, they had to make numerous adjustments all over the place to balance their
books.
In addition, it is highly likely that these trillions include the same adjustment multiple
times, not because 'it' (what ever it is) happened multiple times, but because it is included
in the books of each level in the Pentagon hierarchy that reports its finances
independently.
For example, a specific ship in the Navy spends more on their operational cruise than it
should have. This means adjustments on its financial report. The fleet it belongs to also has
to adjust its books. The US Navy also has to include the adjustment and ultimately the
overall Pentagon books will include it too. The same adjustment reported multiple times.
It also works if the ship spends LESS than was budgeted for. A surplus also requires an
adjustment in the books with the same result as above.
Last (purely theoretical) example; let's say you have 3 companies. You put $ 1 million in
company A.
You transfer this in batches to company B. You put in the books (of company A) as
'reservations', ie money to be spend later. When this comes into company B, you put it in the
books as 'investments' ie implying the money is to used by company B for expenditures. Again
you transfer this in batches, this time to company C, again as 'reservations'. You book them
as 'investments' in company C and guess what, you then transfer these into company A as
'reservations'.
Company A now has an additional $ 1M coming into it which you label 'investments'. The
value of company A now appears to be $ 2M ($ 1M investments from company C and $ 1M in
reservations) as it it not evident from the books of ONLY company A that it is the same $ 1M.
You need to see all of the books to make sense of what is happening, in this case to
distinguish between what are real revenue and expenses and what is just pumping around of the
same money.
Now add numerous different 'companies' with their own books and stupendous amounts of
transfers between them. That in a nutshell is not just the Pentagon but the whole US
financial economy.
Note for the accountants out there, I know, the last example is extremely simplified. It
merely serves to illustrate the subject in an easily understood manner.
@Johnny Rico I believe they are referring to the practice of diverting funds that would
otherwise go to maintain vital infrastructure, health care services and sanitation to over
purchase military equipment by the billions in order to maintain a high level of income for
the armaments industry.
It also smacks of distorted priorities when the US military can fund and construct a
small town sized base with a private 18 hole golf course, a multi room cinema, a McDonalds
and a Burger King in faraway Iraq while the US government can't find enough funds to re pave
a major road just outside of Washington DC.
They could also be talking about the weird practice of US tax money getting flushed down
the toilet by funding one army project after another that always, always goes over budget,
under delivers on promises, breaks down too easy and can't fight off decade old tech if they
don't cancel it after a billion or so is lost.
As for me, when I look at the US, I shake my head when I notice that the military
industrial complex and the Government have become one and the same thanks to the revolving
door between private companies and US Gov offices.
@AnonFromTN Just imagine for a second that everything "Made in China" disappears from the
US stores. Then ask: why is the superior indispensable democratic country cannot supply its
citizens with all this crap? Why does it have to rely on communist dictatorship to produce so
much, from nails, electric bulbs, and appliances to clothes?
I can answer this, and it wasn't always that way. Listen to Linda Ronstadt's lyrics.
The superior indispensable country became a liberal democracy in 1912 with the advent of
Wilson's progressive era reforms. The 16'th amendment is used to back up the instability of
banks -- remember TARP? 17'th is used to make Senators into populists and hence break state
power. Senators then become easy to bribe and maneuver as they cannot be recalled by their
state Legislature, and no longer do the bidding of their voters. Federal Reserve Act, IRS,
March to War, and so on. Women's suffrage made easy to maneuver and emotionally driven women
prey for the tribe.
It takes awhile for some things to manifest. The U.S. export of Jobs and American
Patrimony began under Clinton. The idea was for Wall Street to make some wage arbitrage. The
Wall Street China/China gambit then began, and transplanted companies exported from China at
just under the American price. The Patrimony of America was gifted to China, all of the
knowledge from the past was monetized for today, so the future was screwed.
This is yet another reason (how many do you need) for our hand rubbing friends to be
disallowed from ever being near money or finance.
Justinian of Byzantium prevented Jews from being in government, teaching in schools, or in
counting houses -- what goes for banking today.
This still didn't work for us, because their descendants from Pale of Settlement,
immigrated to U.S. to become today's Neo-Cons.
"... Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube's effort to make "conspiracy videos" invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of expression. ..."
"... The epithet 'conspiracy theorist' is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. ..."
A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on
an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power
of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the
People Who Believe Them , edited by Joseph E. Uscinski
On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories,
saying "we'll
begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in
harmful ways -- such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming
the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11."
At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad
information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly
false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.
But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First,
the word "recommend" is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn't really
recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying.
When you watch YouTube videos, the YouTube search engine algorithm displays links to other
videos that you are likely to be interested in. These obviously do not constitute
"recommendations" by YouTube itself, which exercises no editorial oversight over content posted
by users. (Or at least it didn't until it joined the war on conspiracy theories.)
The second and larger problem is that while there may be near-universal agreement among
reasonable people that flat-earthism is wrong, there is only modest agreement regarding which
health approaches constitute "phony miracle cures" and which do not. Far less is there any
agreement on "claims about 9/11 and other historical events." (Thus far the only real attempt
to forge an informed consensus about 9/11 is
the 9/11 Consensus Panel's study -- but it seems unlikely that YouTube will be using the
Consensus Panel to determine which videos to "recommend"!)
ORDER IT NOW
YouTube's policy shift is the latest symptom of a larger movement by Western elites to -- as
Obama's Information Czar Cass Sunstein put it -- " disable
the purveyors of conspiracy theories ." Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule's 2008 paper
" Conspiracy Theories ,"
critiqued by David
Ray Griffin in 2010 and developed into a
2016 book , represents a panicked reaction to the success of the 9/11 truth movement. (By
2006, 36% of Americans thought it likely that 9/11 was an inside job designed to launch wars in
the Middle East, according to a Scripps poll.)
Sunstein and Vermuele begin their abstract:
Many millions of people hold (sic) conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people
have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some
terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that
the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States.
Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of
violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and
law.
Sunstein argues that conspiracy theories (i.e. the 9/11 truth movement) are so dangerous
that some day they may have to be banned by law. While awaiting that day, or perhaps in
preparation for it, the government should "disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories"
through various techniques including "cognitive infiltration" of 9/11 truth groups. Such
"cognitive infiltration," Sunstein writes, could have various aims including the promotion of
"beneficial cognitive diversity" within the truth movement.
9/11 Contradictions An
Open Letter to Congress and the Press David Ray Griffin • 2008 • 110,000 Words
What sort of "cognitive diversity" would Cass Sunstein consider "beneficial"? Perhaps 9/11
truth groups that had been "cognitively infiltrated" by spooks posing as flat-earthers would
harbor that sort of "beneficial" diversity? That would explain the plethora of expensive,
high-production-values flat earth videos that have been blasted at the 9/11 truth community
since 2008.
Why does Sunstein think "conspiracy theories" are so dangerous they need to be suppressed by
government infiltrators, and perhaps eventually outlawed -- which would necessitate revoking
the First Amendment? Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what
might that threat be? Oddly, he never explains. Instead he briefly mentions, in vapidly
nebulous terms, about "serious risks including the risk of violence." But he presents no
serious evidence that 9/11 truth causes violence. Nor does he explain what the other "serious
risks" could possibly be.
Why did such highly accomplished academicians as Sunstein and Vermuele produce such an
unhinged, incoherent, poorly-supported screed? How could Harvard and the University of Chicago
publish such nonsense? Why would it be deemed worthy of development into a book? Why did the
authors identify an alleged problem, present no evidence that it even is a problem, yet
advocate outrageously illegal and unconstitutional government action to solve the
non-problem?
The too-obvious answer, of course, is that they must realize that 9/11 was in fact a
US-Israeli false flag operation. The 9/11 truth movement, in that case, would be a threat not
because it is wrong, but because it is right. To the extent that Americans know or suspect the
truth, the US government will undoubtedly find it harder to pursue various "national security"
objectives. Ergo, 9/11 "conspiracy theories" are a threat to national security, and extreme
measures are required to combat them. But since we can't just burn the First Amendment
overnight, we must instead take a gradual and covert "boil the frog" approach, featuring plenty
of cointelpro-style infiltration and misdirection. "Cognitive infiltration" of internet
platforms to stop the conspiracy contagion would also fit the bill.
Cognitive Infiltration
An Obama Appointee's Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory David Ray Griffin • 2011
• 66,000 Words
It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Sunstein and Vermeule are indeed
well-informed and Machievellian. But it is also conceivable that they are, at least when it
comes to 9/11 and "conspiracy theories," as muddle-headed as they appear. Their irrational
panic could be an example of the bad thinking that emerges from groups that reflexively reject
dissent. (Another, larger example of this kind of bad thinking comes to mind: America's
disastrous post-9/11 policies.)
The counterintuitive truth is that embracing and carefully listening to radical dissenters
is in fact good policy, whether you are a government, a corporation, or any other kind of
group. Ignoring or suppressing dissent produces muddled, superficial thinking and bad
decisions. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case even when the dissenters are wrong.
ORDER IT NOW
Scientific evidence for the value of dissent is beautifully summarized in Charlan Nemeth's
In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business (Basic Books,
2018). Nemeth, a psychology professor at UC-Berkeley, summarizes decades of research on group
dynamics showing that groups that feature passionate, radical dissent deliberate better, reach
better conclusions, and take better actions than those that do not -- even when the dissenter
is wrong.
Nemeth begins with a case where dissent would likely have saved lives: the crash of United
Airlines Flight 173 in December, 1978. As the plane neared its Portland destination, the
possibility of a problem with the landing gear arose. The captain focused on trying to
determine the condition of the landing gear as the plane circled the airport. Typical air crew
group dynamics, in which the whole crew defers to the captain, led to a groupthink bubble in
which nobody spoke up as the needle on the fuel gauge approached "E." Had the crew included
even one natural "troublemaker" -- the kind of aviator who joins Pilots for 9/11 truth -- there
almost certainly would have been more divergent thinking. Someone would have spoken up about
the fuel issue, and a tragic crash would have been averted.
Since 9/11, American decision-making elites have entered the same kind of bubble and engaged
in the same kind of groupthink. For them, no serious dissent on such issues as what really
happened on 9/11, and whether a "war on terror" makes sense, is permitted. The predictable
result has been bad thinking and worse decisions. From the vantage point of Sunstein and
Vermeule, deep inside the bubble, the potentially bubble-popping, consensus-shredding threat of
9/11 truth must appear radically destabilizing. To even consider the possibility that the 9/11
truthers are right might set off a stampede of critical reflection that would radically
undermine the entire set of policies pursued for the past 17 years. This prospect may so
terrify Sunstein and Vermeule that it paralyzes their ability to think. Talk about "crippled
epistemology"!
Do Sunstein and Vermeule really think their program for suppressing "conspiracy theories"
will be beneficial? Do YouTube's decision-makers really believe that tweaking their algorithms
to support the official story will protect us from bad information? If so, they are all doubly
wrong. First, they are wrong in their unexamined assumption that 9/11 truth and "conspiracy
theories" in general are "blatantly false." No honest person with critical thinking skills who
weighs the merits of the best work on both sides of the question can possibly avoid the
realization that the 9/11 truth movement
is right . The same is true regarding
the serial assassinations of America's best leaders during the 1960s . Many other
"conspiracy theories," perhaps the majority of the best-known ones, are also likely true, as
readers of Ron Unz's American Pravda series are
discovering.
Final Judgment The Missing
Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Michael Collins Piper • 2005 • 310,000 Words
Second, and less obviously, those who would suppress conspiracy theories are wrong even in
their belief that suppressing false conspiracy theories is good public policy. As Nemeth
shows, social science is unambiguous in its finding that any group featuring at least one
passionate, radical dissenter will deliberate better, reach sounder conclusions, and act more
effectively than it would have without the dissenter. This holds even if the dissenter is wrong
-- even wildly wrong.
The overabundance of slick, hypnotic flat earth videos, if they are indeed weaponized
cointelpro strikes against the truth movement, may be unfortunate. But the existence of the
occasional flat earther may be more beneficial than harmful. The findings summarized by Nemeth
suggest that a science study group with one flat earther among the students would probably
learn geography and astronomy better than they would have without the madly passionate
dissenter.
We could at least partially solve the real problem -- bad groupthink -- through promoting
genuinely beneficial cognitive diversity. YouTube algorithms should indeed be tweaked to
puncture the groupthink bubbles that emerge based on user preferences. Someone who watches lots
of 9/11 truther videos should indeed be exposed to dissent, in the form of the best arguments
on the other side of the issue -- not that there are any very good ones, as I have discovered
after spending 15 years searching for them!
9/11 Ten Years Later When
State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed David Ray Griffin • 2011 • 116,000 Words
But the same goes for those who watch videos that explicitly or implicitly accept the
official story. Anyone who watches more than a few pro-official-story videos (and this would
include almost all mainstream coverage of anything related to 9/11 and the "war on terror")
should get YouTube "suggestions" for such videos as September 11: The New Pearl Harbor ,
9/11
Mysteries , and the work of Architects
and Engineers for 9/11 Truth . Exposure to even those "truthers" who are more passionate
than critical or well-informed would benefit people who believe the official story, according
to Nemeth's research, by stimulating them to deliberate more thoughtfully and to question
facile assumptions.
The same goes for other issues and perspectives. Fox News viewers should get "suggestions"
for good material, especially passionate dissent, from the left side of the political spectrum.
MSNBC viewers should get "suggestions" for good material from the right. Both groups should get
"suggestions" to look at genuinely independent, alternative media brimming with passionate
dissidents -- outlets like the Unz Review!
Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube's effort to make
"conspiracy videos" invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist
lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of
expression.
ORDER IT NOW
Nemeth and colleagues' findings that "conspiracy theories" and other forms of passionate
dissent are not just beneficial, but in fact an invaluable resource, are apparently unknown to
the anti-conspiracy-theory cottage industry that has metastasized in the bowels of the Western
academy. The brand-new bible of the academic anti-conspiracy-theory industry is Conspiracy
Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Editor Joseph Uscinski's introduction begins by listing alleged dangers of conspiracism: "In
democracies, conspiracy theories can drive majorities to make horrible decisions backed by the
use of legitimate force. Conspiracy beliefs can conversely encourage abstention. Those who
believe the system is rigged will be less willing to take part in it. Conspiracy theories form
the basis for some people's medical decisions; this can be dangerous not only for them but for
others as well. For a select few believers, conspiracy theories are instructions to use
violence."
Uscinski is certainly right that conspiracy theories can incite "horrible decisions" to use
"legitimate force" and "violence." Every major American foreign war since 1846 has been sold to
the public by an official theory, backed by a frenetic media campaign, of a foreign conspiracy
to attack the United States. And all of these Official Conspiracy Theories (OCTs) -- including
the theory that Mexico conspired to invade the United States in 1846, that Spain conspired to
sink the USS Maine in 1898, that Germany conspired with Mexico to invade the United States in
1917, that Japan conspired unbeknownst to peace-seeking US leaders to attack Pearl Harbor in
1941, that North Vietnam conspired to attack the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and
that 19 Arabs backed by Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and everybody else Israel doesn't like
conspired to attack the US in 2001 -- were false or deceptive.
Well over 100 million people have been killed in the violence unleashed by these and other
Official Conspiracy Theories. Had the passionate dissenters been heeded, and the truths they
told about who really conspires to create war-trigger public relations stunts been understood,
none of those hundred-million-plus murders need have happened.
Though Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them generally pathologizes the
conspiracy theories of dissidents while ignoring the vastly more harmful theories of official
propagandists, its 31 essays include several that question that outlook. In "What We Mean When
We Say 'Conspiracy Theory' Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason Magazine , exposes the
bias that permeates the field, pointing out that many official conspiracy theories, including
several about Osama Bin Laden and 9/11-anthrax, were at least as ludicrously false and
delusional as anything believed by marginalized dissidents.
In "Media Marginalization of Racial Minorities: 'Conspiracy Theorists' in U.S. Ghettos and
on the 'Arab Street'" Martin Orr and Gina Husting go one step further: " The epithet
'conspiracy theorist' is used to tarnish those who challenge authority and power. Often,
it is tinged with racial undertones: it is used to demean whole groups of people in the news
and to silence, stigmatize, or belittle foreign and minority voices." (p.82) Unfortunately,
though Orr and Husting devote a whole section of their article to "Conspiracy Theories in the
Muslim World" and defend Muslim conspiracists against the likes of Thomas Friedman, they never
squarely face the fact that the reason roughly 80% of Muslims believe 9/11 was an inside job is
because the preponderance of evidence
supports that interpretation .
Another relatively sensible essay is M R.X. Dentith's "Conspiracy Theories and Philosophy,"
which ably deconstructs the most basic fallacy permeating the whole field of conspiracy theory
research: the a priori assumption that a "conspiracy theory" must be false or at least dubious:
"If certain scholars ( i.e. the majority represented in this book! –KB ) want to
make a special case for conspiracy theories, then it is reasonable for the rest of us to ask
whether we are playing fair with our terminology, or whether we have baked into our definitions
the answers to our research programs." (p.104). Unfortunately, a few pages later editor Joseph
Uscinski sticks his fingers in his ears and plays deaf and dumb, claiming that "the
establishment is right far more often than conspiracy theories, largely because their methods
are reliable. When conspiracy theorists are right, it is by chance." He adds that conspiracy
theories will inevitably "occasionally lead to disaster" (whatever that means). (p.110).
We
Are NOT Charlie Hebdo! Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11 Kevin Barrett • 2015
• 90,000 Words
I hope Uscinski finds the time to read Nemeth's In Defense of Troublemakers and
consider the evidence that passionate dissent is helpful, not harmful. And I hope he will look
into the issues Ron Unz addresses in his American Pravda series.
Then again, if he does, he may find himself among those of us exiled from the academy and
publishing in The Unz Review.
Seriously, Ron Paul or Tulsi Gabbard speaking of democracy is one thing, but having
gangsters and psychopathic thugs like Pompeo, Bolton or Abrams in charge really sends a message
and that message is that we are dealing with a banal case of highway robbery triggered by two
very crude considerations:
First, to re-take control of Venezuela's immense natural
resources. Second, to prove to the world that Uncle Shmuel can still, quote , " pick up some small crappy
little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ",
unquote.
The obvious problem is that 1) nobody takes the US seriously because 2) the US has not been
capable of defeating any country capable of resistance since many decades already. The various
US special forces, which would typically spearhead any invasion, have an especially appalling
record of abject failures every time they stop posing for cameras and have to engage in real
combat. I assure you that nobody in the Venezuelan military cares about movies like "Rambo" or
"Delta Force" while they carefully studied US FUBARs in Somalia, Grenada, Iran and elsewhere.
You can also bet that the Cubans, who have had many years of experience dealing with the (very
competent) South African special forces in Angola and elsewhere will share their experience
with their Venezuelan colleagues.
Well people you need to explore this move to take over Venezuela in the context of what
having that oil control will mean for the US and Israel in the increasingly likely event we
blow up Iran and up end the ME for Israel.
So what could happen that might make control of oil rich Venezuela necessary? Why has
Venezuela become a Bolton and Abrams project? Why is Netanyahu putting himself into the
Venezuela crisis ?
We, otoh, would need all the oil we could get if we blew up the ME, specifically Iran,
figuratively or literally. The US signed a MOU with Israel in 1973 obligating us to supply
Israel with oil ( and ship it to them) if they couldn't secure any for themselves.
"... Why does everyone make Trump out to be a victim, poor ol Trump, he's being screwed by all those people he himself appointed, poor ol persecuted Trump. Sounds like our Jewish friends with all the victimization BS. ..."
"... I think Israel is just a capitalist creation, nothing to do with Jews, just a foothold in he middle east for Wall St to have a base to control the oil and gas there, they didn't create Israel until they discovered how much oil was there, and realized how much control over the world it would give them to control it. ..."
"... It is the love of money, the same thing the Bible warned us about. Imperialism/globalism is the latest stage of capitalism, that is what all of this is about, follow the money. ..."
I heartily dislike and find despicable the socialist government of Maduro, just as I did
Hugo Chavez when he was in power. I have some good friends there, one of whom was a student
of mine when I taught in Argentina many years ago, and he and his family resolutely oppose
Maduro. Those socialist leaders in Caracas are tin-pot dictator wannabees who have wrecked
the economy of that once wealthy country; and they have ridden roughshod over the
constitutional rights of the citizens. My hope has been that the people of Venezuela,
perhaps supported by elements in the army, would take action to rid the country of those
tyrants.
Hard to take this guy seriously when he spouts Fox News level propaganda.
Why does everyone make Trump out to be a victim, poor ol Trump, he's being screwed by
all those people he himself appointed, poor ol persecuted Trump. Sounds like our Jewish
friends with all the victimization BS.
Its clear that voting no longer works folks, this is an undemocratic and illegitimate
"government" we have here. We let them get away with killing JFK, RFK, MLK, Vietnam, we let
them get away with 9/11, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria. They've made a mess in Africa. All
the refugees into Europe, all the refugees from Latin America that have already come from CIA
crimes, more will come.
We wouldn't need a wall if Wall St would stop with their BS down there!
You can't just blame Jews, yes there are lots of Jews in Corporate America, bu t not all
of them are, and there are lots of Jews who speak out against this. We were doing this long
before Israel came into existence. You can't just blame everything one one group, I think
Israel/Zionist are responsible for a lot of BS, but you can't exclude CIA, Wall St,
Corporations, Banks, The MIC either. Its not just one group, its all of them. They're all
evil, they're imperialists and they're all capitalists.
I think Israel is just a capitalist creation, nothing to do with Jews, just a foothold
in he middle east for Wall St to have a base to control the oil and gas there, they didn't
create Israel until they discovered how much oil was there, and realized how much control
over the world it would give them to control it.
Those people moving to Israel are being played, just like the "Christian Zionists" here
are, its a cult. Most "Jews" are atheists anyhow, and it seems any ol greedy white guy can
claim to be a Jew. So how do you solve a "Jewish Problem" if anybody can claim to be a Jew? I
think solving the capitalist problem would be a little easier to enforce.
All of the shills can scream about communists, socialists and marxists all they want.
Capitalism is the problem always has been always will be. Its a murderous, immoral,
unsustainable system that encourages greed, it is a system who's driving force is maximizing
profits, and as such the State controlled or aligned with Corporations is the most advanced
form of capitalism because it is the most profitable. They're raping the shit out of us,
taking our money to fund their wars, so they can make more money while paying little to no
taxes at all. Everything, everyone here complains about is caused by CAPITALISM, but nobody
dares say it, they've been programmed since birth to think that way.
We should nationalize our oil and gas, instead of letting foreigners come in and steal it,
again paying little or no taxes on it, then selling the oil they took from our country back
to us. Russia and Venezuela do it, Libya did it, Iraq did it, and they used the money for the
people of the country, they didn't let the capitalists plunder their wealth like the traitors
running our country. We're AT LEAST $21 trillion in the hole now from this wonderful system
of ours, don't you think we should try something else? Duh!
It is the love of money, the same thing the Bible warned us about.
Imperialism/globalism is the latest stage of capitalism, that is what all of this is about,
follow the money. Just muh opinion
The opposition hates me. I can do no right. The
Trumptards blindly support me. I can do no wrong. There are not enough independent thinkers
to make a difference as the two main sides bitterly fight each other over every minute,
meaningless issue. I can pretty much do as I please without consequence ..like pay off all my
buddies and pander to the jews/globalist/elites.
I'd add: and by doing the last, I could cut a deal with the real TPTBs as to for what happens
after I leave White House.
"So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook
ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world
and interfere with elections is perfectly fine? Because democracy? Riiiiiiight." :
NEOCON America does not want Russian bombers in South America.
Real America doesn't give a f*ck. Bombers are so last century, might as well put up
machine-gun equipped Union Pacific Big Boys to make it marginally more steampunk and become a
real danger for the USA.
"... The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report it. ..."
The nuttiest member of the Trump administration is UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Her
latest neo-nazi stunt was to join protestors last week calling for the overthrow of the
democratically elected government of Venezuela. She grabbed a megaphone at a tiny New York
rally and told the few "protesters" (organized by our CIA) to say the USA is working to
overthrow their President. This was so bizarre that our corporate media refused to report
it.
She's being paid no doubt by the usual suspects. She is personally 1 million in debt and
has signed with a Speakers agency to give speeches for 200,000 a pop.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCIV)
"Haley is currently quoting $200,000 and the use of a private jet for domestic speaking
engagements, according to CNBC
In October 2018, when Haley resigned, she said, she would be taking a "step up" into the
private sector after leaving the U.N. According to a public financial disclosure report based
on 2017 data, at the rate quoted for her engagements, just a handful would pay down more than
$1 million in outstanding debt that was accrued during her 14 years
US Sanctions as a Tool To Perpetuate Neocolonialism
by Nauman
Sadiq Posted on
February 02, 2019 January 31, 2019 It's an evident fact that neocolonial powers are ruled
by behemoth corporations whose wealth is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, far
more than the total GDP of many developing nations. The status of these multinational
corporations as dominant players in international politics gets official imprimatur when the
Western governments endorse the congressional lobbying practice of so-called "special
interest" groups, which is a euphemism for corporate interests.
Since the Western governments are nothing but the mouthpiece of business interests on
international political and economic forums, therefore any national or international entity
which hinders or opposes the agenda of corporate interests is either coerced into accepting
their demands or gets sidelined.
In 2013, the Manmohan Singh's government of India had certain objections to further
opening up to the Western businesses. The Business Roundtable, which is an informal
congregation of major US businesses and together holds a net wealth of $6 trillion, held a
meeting with the representatives of the Indian government and literally coerced it into
accepting unfair demands of the Western corporations.
The developing economies, such as India and Pakistan, are always hungry for foreign direct
investment (FDI) to sustain economic growth, and this investment mostly comes from the
Western corporations. When the Business Roundtables or the Paris-based International Chamber
of Commerce (ICC) form pressure groups and engage in "collective bargaining" activities, the
nascent and fragile developing economies don't have a choice but to toe their line.
State sovereignty, that sovereign nation states are at liberty to pursue independent
policies, particularly economic and trade policies, is a myth. Just like the ruling elites of
the developing countries which maintain a stranglehold and monopoly over domestic politics;
similarly, the neocolonial powers and multinational corporations control international
politics and the global economic order.
Any state in the international arena which dares to transgress the trade and economic
policies laid down by neocolonial powers and multinational corporations becomes an
international pariah like Castro's Cuba, Mugabe's Zimbabwe; or more recently, Maduro's
Venezuela.
Venezuela has one of the largest known oil reserves in the world. Even though the
mainstream media's pundits hold the socialist policies of President Nicolas Maduro
responsible for economic mismanagement in Venezuela, fact of the matter is that
hyperinflation in its economy is the effect of US sanctions against Venezuela which have been
put in place since the time of late President Hugo Chavez.
Another case in point is Iran which was cut off from the global economic system from 2006
to 2015, and then again after May last year when President Donald Trump annulled the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), because of Iran's supposed nuclear ambitions. Good for
Iran that it also has one of the largest oil and gas resources, otherwise it would have been
insolvent by now.
Such is the power of Washington-led global financial system, especially the banking
sector, and the significance of petrodollar, because the global oil transactions are pegged
in the US dollars all over the world, and all the major oil bourses are also located in the
Western financial districts.
The crippling "third party" economic sanctions on Iran from 2006 to 2015 have brought to
the fore the enormous power that the Western financial institutions and the petrodollar as a
global reserve currency wields over the global financial system.
It bears mentioning that the Iranian nuclear negotiations were as much about Iran's
nuclear program as they were about its ballistic missile program, which is an equally
dangerous conventional threat to Israel and the Gulf's petro-monarchies, just across the
Persian Gulf.
Despite the sanctions being unfair, Iran felt the heat so much that it remained engaged in
negotiations throughout the nearly decade-long period of sanctions, and such was the
crippling effect of those "third party" sanctions on Iran's economy that had it not been for
its massive oil and gas reserves, and some Russian, Chinese and Turkish help in illicitly
buying Iranian oil, it could have defaulted due to the sanctions.
Notwithstanding, after the brutal assassination of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate
in Istanbul on October 2, and the clear hand of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in the
murder, certain naïve political commentators of the mainstream media came up with a
ludicrous suggestion that Washington should impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia.
As in the case of aforementioned Iran sanctions, sanctioning Saudi Arabia also seems
plausible; however, there is a caveat: Iran is only a single oil-rich state which has 160
billion barrels of proven oil reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per
day (mbpd) of crude oil.
On the other hand, the Persian Gulf's petro-monarchies are actually three oil-rich states.
Saudi Arabia with its 266 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and 10 mbpd of daily crude
oil production, and UAE and Kuwait with 100 billion barrels of proven reserves, each, and 3
mbpd of daily crude oil production, each. Together, the share of the Gulf Cooperation
Countries (GCC) amounts to 466 billion barrels, almost one-third of the world's 1477 billion
barrels of total proven oil reserves.
Therefore, although imposing economic sanctions on the Gulf states might sound like a good
idea on paper, the relationship between the Gulf's petro-monarchies and the industrialized
world is that of a consumer-supplier relationship. The Gulf states are the suppliers of
energy and the industrialized world is its consumer, hence the Western powers cannot sanction
their energy suppliers and largest investors.
If anything, the Gulf's petro-monarchies had "sanctioned" the Western powers in the past
by imposing the oil embargo in 1973 after the Arab-Israel War. The 1973 Arab oil embargo
against the West lasted only for a short span of six months during which the price of oil
quadrupled, but Washington became so paranoid after the embargo that it put in place a ban on
the export of crude oil outside the US borders, and began keeping sixty-day stock of reserve
fuel for strategic and military needs.
Recently, some very upbeat rumors about the shale revolution have been circulating in the
media. However, the shale revolution is primarily a natural gas revolution. It has increased
the probable recoverable resources of natural gas by 30%. The shale oil, on the other hand,
refers to two starkly different kinds of energy resources: firstly, the solid kerogen –
though substantial resources of kerogen have been found in the US Green River formations, the
cost of extracting liquid crude from solid kerogen is so high that it is economically
unviable for at least a hundred years; secondly, the tight oil which is blocked by shale
– it is a viable energy resource but the reserves are so limited, roughly 4 billion
barrels in Texas and North Dakota, that it will run out in a few years.
More than the size of oil reserves, it is about per barrel extraction cost, which
determines the profits for the multinational oil companies. And in this regard, the Persian
Gulf's crude oil is the most profitable. Further, regarding the supposed US energy
independence after the purported shale revolution, the US produced 11 million barrels per day
(bpd) of crude oil in the first quarter of 2014, which was more than the output of Saudi
Arabia and Russia, each of which produces around 10 million bpd. But the US still imported
7.5 million bpd during the same period, which was more than the oil imports of France and
Britain put together. More than the total volume of oil production, the volume which an
oil-producing country exports determines its place in the hierarchy of petroleum and the
Gulf's petro-monarchies constitute the top tier of that pyramid.
Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused
on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and
petro-imperialism.
"Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing
things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a
madman."
Imagine the response of the USA Goobermint if, in an obverse scenario of the Venezuelan
fiasco, the Roosians and Chai-nese decided Trump was an undemocratic dictator and declared
they are depositing all USA payments they owe into Bernie Sander's accounts?
Oh, I'm sorry, bad analogy: unlike Guaido, Sanders actually ran and would be hanging
around the oval office if we had a democracy.
I note by other sources "Acting President of The United State", John Bolton, has stated he
will send President Murado to Gitmo .....Apparently, a coup took place and Trump has been
demoted from Chief Moron to Acting Moron of the United States.
Expect the Venezuelan White Helmets to appear real soon. This "project" is being run using
the same plan as Syria. This means that shortly there will be reports that the Bolivarian
government has used chemical weapons it doesn't have against the "freedom fighters".
Ever hear of the "Hague Invasion Act" passed under Bush? In short, if you are an American
or an American ally (e.g. Israeli) and you find yourself in Hague charged with war crimes or
crimes against humanity, the Pentagon is authorized to go into the Hague, if necessary, and
break them out-
I remember being utterly amazed about 10 years ago when the Germans wanted to just look at
their gold in the vaults at the New York Fed, and were told by the US authorities "NO!" , and
the Germans backed down. And another moment of gob-smacking arrogance during the Reagan years
when the US refused to recognize the World Court's jurisdiction when Nicaragua sued the US for
mining it's harbors. The US refused to participate, lost the case and was able to get away with
not paying the judgment. Is my memory faulty on any of this?
I'm sympathetic to the argument, but coming from an academic the presentation is a bit
sloppy. Not only does he invent the meaningless phrase "quo bono" (as has been pointed out,
it's "cui bono") he's wrong about World Bank Presidents being former Defence Secretaries (the
current incumbent is Korean, anyway). He's completely confused about the legal side, and has
invented an entirely mythical organisation -- the "United Nations International Court." He
seems to be mixing up two organisations: the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which
is nothing to do with the UN, and settles international law questions where the countries agree
to accept its judgements, and the International Criminal Court also in The Hague which deals
with violations of international humanitarian law, and is a treaty-based organisation of which
the US is not a member anyway.
Five minutes checking in Wikipedia could have avoided all these errors. I wonder how many
others there are? As I say, I'm not unsympathetic to the argument, but you expect better from a
distinguished academic.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United
Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began
work in April 1946.
The seat of the Court is at the Peace
Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). Of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it
is the only one not located in New York (United States of America).
The Court's role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes
submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by
authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.
The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by
the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. It is assisted by a Registry,
its administrative organ. Its official languages are English and French
It predates the United Nations as the Permanent Court of International Justice, although it
has a link to the UN now, as practically all global organisations do. The UN is obviously the
right place to elect the judges, for example. It is not a "UN Court" and has jurisdiction only
over international law questions where both sides agree in advance to accept the verdict. The
article is conflating and confusing two organisations in the Hague, quite different, which in
each case have a link to the UN, but are not, individually or collectively, a "UN Court."
I second David's remarks. The author should get his terms right and be clear what court he's
referring to -- he does seem to conflate the ICC and the ICJ.
One other correction: I believe it was FDR, not LBJ, who famously remarked "He may be a son
of a [family blog] but he's our son of a [family blog]," in reference to the Nicaraguan
dictator Anastasio Somoza.
When Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
announced her candidacy for the presidency on CNN last month, I had a feeling I'd be
writing about her a fair bit. Not because I particularly want her to be president, but because
I knew her candidacy would cause the narrative control mechanizations of the political/media
class to overextend themselves , leaving them open to attack, exposure, and the weakening of
their control of the narrative.
Mere
hours before her campaign officially launched, NBC News published an astonishingly blatant smear piece titled "Russia's
propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard," subtitled "Experts who
track websites and social media linked to Russia have seen stirrings of a possible campaign of
support for Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard." One of the article's authors shared it on Twitter with the
caption, "The Kremlin already has a crush on Tulsi Gabbard."
The article reported that media outlets tied to the Russian government had been talking a
lot about Gabbard's candidacy, ironically citing as an example an RT article which
documented the attempts by the US mainstream media to paint Gabbard as a Kremlin agent. The
article's authors cited the existence of such articles combined with the existence of "chatter"
about Gabbard on the anonymous message board 8chan (relevant for God knows what reason) as
evidence to substantiate its blaring headline. Even more hilariously, the source for its weird
8chan claim is named as none other than Renee DiResta of the narrative control firm New
Knowledge, which was
recently embroiled in a scandal for staging a "false flag operation" in an Alabama Senate
race which gave one of the candidates the false appearance of being amplified by Russian
bots.
This pathetic, juvenile language from one of the authors of that astronomically awful NBC
News article gives you a sense of what they're trying to accomplish here. Smear campaign
fully underway https://t.co/jvl5pFRr0P
This article is of course absurd. As we
discussed recently , you will always see Russia on the same US foreign policy page as
anti-interventionists like Tulsi Gabbard, because Russia, like so many other nations, opposes
US interventionism. To treat this as some sort of shocking conspiracy instead of obvious and
mundane is journalistic malpractice. There are many, many very good reasons to oppose the war
agendas of the US-centralized empire, none of which have anything to do with having any loyalty
to or sympathies for the Russian government.
But we will continue to see this tactic used again and again and again against any and all
opposition to US-led interventionism for as long as the Russiagate psyop maintains its grip
upon western consciousness. And make no mistake, these smears have everything to do with
anti-interventionism and nothing to do with Russia. There will never, ever be an antiwar voice
who the political/media class and their centrist followers espouse as good and valid; they'll
never say "Ahh, finally, someone who hates war and also isn't aligned with Russia! We can get
behind this one!" That will never, ever happen, because it is the opposition to war and
interventionism itself which is being rejected, and in the McCarthyite environment of Russia
hysteria, tarring it as "Russian" simply makes a practical excuse for that rejection.
All the biggest conflicts in the world can be described as unipolarism vs multipolarism: the
unipolarists who support the global hegemony of the US-centralized empire at any cost, versus
the multipolarists who oppose that dominance and support the existence of multiple power
structures in the world. The governments of Russia, China, Iran and their allies are
predominantly multipolarist in their geopolitical outlook, and they tend to be more in favor of
non-interventionism, since unipolarity can only be held in place by brute force and aggression.
Unipolarists, therefore, can always paint western anti-interventionists as Russian assets,
since the Russian government is multipolarist and opposed to the interventionism of the
unipolarists.
The nonstop propaganda campaign to keep the coals of Russia hysteria burning white hot at
all times can therefore be looked at first and foremost as a psychological operation to kill
support for multipolarism around the world. It can of course be used to manufacture consent for
escalations against Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, Iran etc as needed, but it can also be
used to attack the ideology of anti-interventionism itself by smearing anyone who opposes
unipolar oppression and aggression as an agent of a nefarious oppositional government.
The social engineers have succeeded in constructing a narrative control device which
encapsulates the entire agenda of the unipolar world order in a single bumper sticker-sized
talking point: "Russia opposes Big Brother, therefore anyone who opposes Big Brother is
Russian." This device didn't take an amazing intellectual feat to create; all they had to do
was recreate the paranoid insanity of the original cold war, and they already had a blueprint
for that. It was simply a matter of shepherding us back there.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, there emerged a popular notion of a " peace dividend " in which defense
spending could be reduced in the absence of America's sole rival and the abundant excess funds
used to take care of the American people instead. The only problem was that a lot of people had
gotten very rich and powerful as a result of that cold war defense spending, and it wasn't long
before they started circulating the idea of using America's newly uncontested might for a very
expensive campaign to hammer down a liberal world order led by the beneficent guidance of the
United States government. Soon the neoconservatives were pushing their unipolarist narratives in high levels
of influence with great effect, and shortly thereafter they got their " new Pearl
Harbor " in the form of the 9/11 attacks which justified an explosion in defense spending,
interventionism and expansionism, just as the neoconservative Project for a New American
Century had called
for . And the rest is history.
And now our collective consciousness is planted right back in the center of that paranoid,
hawkish political environment of the first cold war. The main difference now is of course that
Russia is nothing remotely like a superpower today, and that the establishment Russia narrative
is made entirely out of narrative, but the most important difference is that this time the
establishment narratives are not taking place within the hermetically sealed bubbles of major
news media corporations. People are able to communicate with each other and share information
far more easily than they were prior to the fall of the Berlin wall, and westerners are able to
easily access Russian media and anti-interventionist narratives if they want to.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, as I never tire of saying. This
difficulty in replicating the hermetically sealed media environment of the original cold war
poses a severe challenge for narrative control, and it is for this reason reason that there is
now so much skepticism of the establishment Russia narrative. It is also the reason for the
establishment's aggressive maneuvers to censor the internet, to demonize Russian media, and to
smear anti-interventionist perspectives.
But we can't keep living this way. We all know this, deep down. The people at the helm of
the unipolar world order are advancing an ecocidal world economy which is stripping the earth
bare and filling the air with poison while at the same time pushing more and more aggressively
against the multipolarist powers, one of which happens to have thousands of nuclear warheads at
its disposal. The unipolarity so enthusiastically promoted by the neoconservatives and their
fellow travelers has reached the end of the line after just a few short years, and now it's
time to dispense with it and try something else. They will necessarily smear us with everything
but the kitchen sink for saying so, but we are right and they are wrong. The state of the world
today proves this beyond a doubt.
* * *
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"... Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the Senate vote. ..."
"... taken at face value, it inverts Congress's constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace. ..."
"... When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude ..."
"... The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of withdrawal. ..."
"... Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen, Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat. ..."
"... Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company throughout the country than he thinks. ..."
"... Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it one way, while his administration does something completely different. ..."
"... I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. ..."
Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington closed ranks Thursday
behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the Senate voted 68-23 to
advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from Afghanistan and Syria.
Afghanistan is now the longest war in U.S. history, making any withdrawal seem anything
but "precipitous." Syria hasn't even been authorized by Congress. In both cases, our men and
women in the armed forces have already achieved the goals that are militarily attainable. "It
doesn't get much more pathetic," Congressman Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, said of the
Senate vote.
The resolution is non-binding, like the Democrats' toothless measures to stop George W.
Bush's Iraq "surge" over a decade ago. Still, taken at face value, it inverts Congress's
constitutional war powers by allowing lawmakers to shirk their power to declare war while
frustrating presidential efforts to pursue peace.
When Trump twice bombed Syria without congressional approval, the Beltway applaude
d. Veteran Washington reporter Bob Woodward's book repeats the president's probing questions
about how long we must stay in Afghanistan with an air of disbelief better suited to "fake
news" shared on Facebook. Trump's call late last year to bring troops home from both war-torn
countries elicited bipartisan criticism and the abrupt resignation of Pentagon chief James
Mattis.
To make matters worse, only three Republican senators -- Ted Cruz of Texas, John Kennedy of
Louisiana, and Mike Lee of Utah -- voted to stand with their president against these endless
nation-building exercises. Kentucky's Rand Paul, who was not present for the vote, would surely
have been a fourth. Even Chuck Schumer, the third straight Senate Democratic leader to have
voted for the Iraq war, opposed this anti-withdrawal amendment.
During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff.
He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or
he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional
duties.
Trump may find that he has unlikely allies in his would-be 2020 Democratic presidential
foes. The one bright spot in the Senate vote was that Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren,
Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Amy Klobuchar were all on the side of
withdrawal. How many ambitious Democrats will vote to give a Republican president a blank
check for war as an election year approaches?
GOP lawmakers will have to decide whether they stand with their president -- who wants to
cut America's multi-trillion dollar losses in the Middle East -- and
rank-and-file Republican voters in ending these wars. Those who want to stay in Syria and
Afghanistan quite likely cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.
Up until now, Trump's big fight with the establishment has been over immigration and the
border wall. Amid his belated turn towards the more populist parts of his program, he should
not forget to spend political capital on America's wars as well. Trump
now says Republican congressional leaders misled him on the wall. It has been even worse on
foreign policy.
Partisans are dug in on the border. But on war, Trump has some opportunities to win over
converts. Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sit stone-faced behind him as he agrees with the
Progressive Caucus on foreign policy?
Much is riding on whether a course correction is possible in Afghanistan and Syria.
Trump has heeded the hawks in his party -- and inside his own administration -- on Yemen,
Iran, and perhaps soon Venezuela. Breaking free of their stranglehold could help put his
presidency back on track. Otherwise he will end up ceding foreign policy to the progressives
who want to usher him out of office either by impeachment or electoral defeat.
Trump's call to bring the troops home has left him isolated in Washington. If he makes
withdrawal a priority in the State of the Union, he may find that he has more company
throughout the country than he thinks.
Mearsheimer has some main tenets of realist foreign policy include:
The lobby and its fellow travelers are not used to being told no. Time for them to create
and fund volunteer corps and do their own dirty work on their dime and at their own risk.
Trump should demand Congress debate and authorize the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. It
would be good policy and good politics. And good for the Constitution.
Wouldn't hold my breath on Trump doing any such thing on ending of the Middle Eastern Wars.
Seriously, he's got too many warmongers in his administration to go after Congress. If he's
serious about ending these wars he needs to clean house in his administration of the perpetual
warmongers. Once he's done that then go after Congress. To do anything less is Trump talking it
one way, while his administration does something completely different.
The article states: "Who says Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything? Washington
closed ranks Thursday behind two wars President Donald Trump has proposed winding down as the
Senate voted 68-23 to advance a resolution warning against "precipitous withdrawal" from
Afghanistan and Syria."
-- -- -- -
I believe the above quote shows that there are lawbreakers and warmongers in both
political parties. None of the above countries "Afghanistan and Syria" invaded or attacked
America. Therefore I believe they are in violation of international law. More info at link
below.
I am extremely disappointed that both of my State's Democratic Senators voted to keep the wars
going.
However, I'm sure they did so only to spite Trump.
They don't either of them support more Long War. Of course, they don't want to be blamed
either in the case of another terrorist attack for not being tough enough. But this vote was
not one of principle.
That means they would not fight for it. They just did it. I suspect much of the vote in the
Senate was like that, and that the rather large number of non-votes is because of that.
During the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump should call Congress's bluff.
He should dare legislators to do their jobs and vote to authorize continuing these wars -- or
he will end them. Put the onus on the House and Senate to fulfill their constitutional
duties.
Would that he would but he won't.
Mr. Trump shan't read this good advice because it seems he only reads what the Kushners put
in front of him and (for the most part) hires only people who despise him–people who are
married to the pro-war Blob in DC.
Interesting developments re Idlib: SF report Cavusoglu as saying 1) some anti-IS coalition
partners are supporting HTS and 2) Russia has suggested a joint op with Turkey to remove HTS
from Idlib. They do not report what Turkey's response was.
One wonders if 1) may be being introduced as the excuse for Erdogan to declare the Sochi
deal as sabotaged by US/other evil forces, ultimately to justify 2). HTS recently cut all
road links with Olive Branch territory - do they know what is coming?
SDF has refused an offer by IS to surrender in exchange for safe passage to Idlib and Turkey.
Not sure what the Daeshis were thinking about. Idlib would not be a good destination for them
right now. And I don't see Erdogan openly welcoming them into Turkey. In the last month many
tried to infiltrate out of their last pocket. Some by slipping across the Iraqi border, but
Iraqi PMFs have blocked most of them. Some others by posing as civilian refugees fleeing from
IS, but the Asayish Police, both Kurd and Arab, screen everyone coming from that area.
While the Senate's Thursday vote against withdraval from Syria does not prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts congressional
Republicans on the record as being at odds with Trump's Middle East policy. In the past, the Senate has backed similar bipartisan measures
expressing support for NATO in the face of Trump's criticisms and threats to withdraw from the alliance. Earlier this month, the House
overwhelmingly passed a measure to prevent Trump from using any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from NATO
Notable quotes:
"... When Trump was elected, I wondered if the "forever war" was too deeply entrenched in the borg/deep state or even someone like Trump to be able to push back against it. I wondered if there were any realists left In significant enough numbers to be willing to stand with Trump and buck their borg compadres. Because I knew Trump couldn't do it alone. The Borg is many-tentacled and yuuuuge! ..."
"... The wording is utterly astonishing, conflating al-Qaeda and ISIS with Iranian and Russian influence - pure Ziocon drivel. Troops must remain until the Administration can "..certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS..". I'd like Sen. McConnell to show me a historic example of an ideology that was enduringly defeated (without the complete extermination of the host population). So depressing that over 2/3 of the Senate felt the need to support this garbage. ..."
The vast majority of Senate Republicans backed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday in a rebuke of President Trump's
rationale for withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, voting to declare that the Islamic State's continued operations
in both countries poses a serious threat to the United States. Democrats who voted against the measure characterized it as a commitment
to endless war.
While the Senate's Thursday vote does not carry the weight of law or prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts
congressional Republicans on the record as being at odds with Trump's Middle East policy. In the past, the Senate has backed similar
bipartisan measures expressing support for NATO in the face of Trump's criticisms and threats to withdraw from the alliance. Earlier
this month, the House overwhelmingly passed a measure to prevent Trump from using any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from
NATO.
-----------------------------
When Trump was elected, I wondered if the "forever war" was too deeply entrenched in the borg/deep state or even someone
like Trump to be able to push back against it. I wondered if there were any realists left In significant enough numbers to be
willing to stand with Trump and buck their borg compadres. Because I knew Trump couldn't do it alone. The Borg is many-tentacled
and yuuuuge!
Looks to me like the neocon/neolibs imperialists are not going to let Trump do what he was elected to do. Most Americans of
both parties would welcome less war but that appears to be irrelevant to the political class.
Couldn't agree more Valissa. The wording is utterly astonishing, conflating al-Qaeda and ISIS with Iranian and Russian influence
- pure Ziocon drivel. Troops must remain until the Administration can "..certify that conditions have been met for the enduring
defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS..". I'd like Sen. McConnell to show me a historic example of an ideology that was enduringly defeated
(without the complete extermination of the host population). So depressing that over 2/3 of the Senate felt the need to support
this garbage.
Trump's only chance seems to be to ensure the withdrawal(s) are completed before this amendment is added to the bill and it
becomes law. WaPo don't even include a link, so here it is for anyone with the stomach to read it:
"... President Trump on Sunday ratcheted up his attacks on the news media as the "enemy of the people," saying they "can also cause War." He accused journalists in an early morning tweet of "purposely" causing "division & distrust" in the country. ..."
"... "The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE," he said. "I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People." ..."
"... "They purposely cause great division & distrust," he added. "They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!" ..."
"... I have so many news sources @ TV, radio, social media, internet, direct source as much as possible (all vetted for accuracy) so I will state who I NEVER use as a news source: CNN, MSNBC. The following I watch for comparison with the grain of salt only: ABC, CBS. Never read NYT, WAPO ..."
"... There are really great journalists out there especially the investigative ones that do a terrific job digging and bringing the truth to light. However these journalist that we know of took $ to keep Hillary in the headlines and are in trouble because of it! Fake news is lies! ..."
President Trump on Sunday ratcheted up his attacks on the news media as the "enemy of the
people," saying they "can also cause War." He accused journalists in an early morning tweet of "purposely" causing "division &
distrust" in the country.
"The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know
it's TRUE," he said. "I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American
People."
"They purposely cause great division & distrust," he added. "They can also cause War!
They are very dangerous & sick!"
The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know
it's TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They
purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous
& sick!
I have so many news sources @ TV, radio, social media, internet, direct source as much as
possible (all vetted for accuracy) so I will state who I NEVER use as a news source: CNN,
MSNBC. The following I watch for comparison with the grain of salt only: ABC, CBS. Never read NYT,
WAPO
There are really great journalists out there especially the investigative ones that do a
terrific job digging and bringing the truth to light. However these journalist that we know of took $ to keep Hillary in the headlines and are in trouble because of it! Fake news is lies!
"Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing
things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a
madman."
Imagine the response of the USA Goobermint if, in an obverse scenario of the Venezuelan
fiasco, the Roosians and Chai-nese decided Trump was an undemocratic dictator and declared
they are depositing all USA payments they owe into Bernie Sander's accounts?
Oh, I'm sorry, bad analogy: unlike Guaido, Sanders actually ran and would be hanging
around the oval office if we had a democracy.
I note by other sources "Acting President of The United State", John Bolton, has stated he
will send President Murado to Gitmo .....Apparently, a coup took place and Trump has been
demoted from Chief Moron to Acting Moron of the United States.
Expect the Venezuelan White Helmets to appear real soon. This "project" is being run using
the same plan as Syria. This means that shortly there will be reports that the Bolivarian
government has used chemical weapons it doesn't have against the "freedom fighters".
"... This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty, as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification." ..."
"... Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan." ..."
"... Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021. ..."
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) has effectively collapsed following the
US announcing Friday that it's suspending all obligations under the treaty. Predictably
Moscow's response has been swift, with President Vladimir Putin saying in a meeting with his
foreign and defense ministers that Russia will now pursue missile development previously banned
under its terms .
Putin said "ours will be a mirror response" in a tit-for-tat move that the Russian president
ultimately blames on Washington's years-long "systematic" undermining of the agreement. "Our US
partners say that they are ceasing their participation in the treaty, and we are doing the
same," the Russian president said . "They say that they are doing
research and testing [on new weapons] and we will do the same thing."
Crucially, however, he noted that there were no plans to deploy short and mid-range missiles
to Europe unless the US does it first -- a worst nightmare scenario that has rattled European
leaders ever since talk began from Trump that the 1987 treaty could be scrapped.
Putin still seemed to allow some degree space for last minute concessions as "still on the
table" possibly in line with the Trump administration's desire to modernize and update a new
treaty taking into account new technological and geopolitical realities, such as China's
ballistic missile capabilities.
"Let's wait until our partners mature sufficiently to hold a level, meaningful conversation
on this topic, which is extremely important for us, them, and the entire world," Putin said.
But also lashing out during the press conference that followed the meeting with top officials
Putin
described :
Over many years, we have repeatedly suggested staging new disarmament talks, on all types
of weapons. Over the last few years, we have seen our initiatives not supported. On the
contrary, pretexts are constantly sought to demolish the existing system of international
security .
Specifically he and FM Sergei Lavrov referenced not only Trump's threats to quit the
agreement, which heightened in December, but accusations leveled from Washington that the
Kremlin was in violation. The White House has now affirmed the bilateral historic agreement
signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan will be suspended for 180 days. Lavrov insisted
that Moscow "attempted to do everything we could to rescue the treaty."
This included "unprecedented steps going far beyond our obligations," Lavrov said, and noted
that part of Washington's "systematic" attempts to undermine the treaty included "testing
drones that matched the characteristics" of ground-based cruise missiles banned in the treaty,
as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can be
used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."
Putin noted further in the midst of Lavrov's remarks, "This is a direct a violation of the
INF." And Lavrov also added, "Such launchers have already been completed in Romania, more are
scheduled to be put into service in Poland and Japan."
Alarmingly, Putin concluded his remarks by saying Washington could be imperiling in the long
term the landmark New START treaty, set to expire in 2021.
" as well as installing "MK 41 launching systems for the defense shield in Europe that can
be used to fire mid-range Tomahawk cruise missiles without any modification."
US trying to get from Russia top position first-response list and get Europe on that
position.
Neocons should be remembered as oldcons because their bag of tricks is so well known that
they don't fool anyone. Think about this Reagan era fossil who tries to arrange his little
coup in Venezuela and will fall flat on his face. Think also about these Pompeo and Bolton
who are so desperate that they didn't even spend the necessary time to learn the checkers
rules before trying to take on Putin in his favorite chess play. No really, the level of
mediocrity and the lack of strategy or even sheer preparedness of these dudes is so low that
they may even be hung by their own subordinates who can't even stand that stench of fool
play. Trump should be ashamed he hired these clowns to ride their one trick ponies while the
titanic goes down. History will not be kind with him.
Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military
attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the
one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO
were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.
Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older
9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:
This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of
the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .
About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.
Additionally, just last week the Russian Ministry of Defense invited foreign military
attachés and journalists to inspect the new Iskander 9M729 cruise missile. This is the
one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of the US and NATO
were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up.
Interestingly, the 9M729 has a heavier warhead, and thus shorter range, than the older
9M728, which the US has not claimed violates the INF treaty. See it for yourself:
This is the one that the US claims is in violation of the INF treaty. Representatives of
the US and NATO were invited and expected to be there, but they never showed up .
About standard to ignore what doesn't fit the agenda.
"... The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the wrecking ball has been brought to that. ..."
"... And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle ..."
Populism by itself cannot hold together for a lack of common values. However, Christian
Populism can hold the long road by emphasising the common values of French Christians and
European Christians.
Globalist mass-migration theology was an obvious attempt to suppress or replace common
European Christian values. In direct opposition to the Globalist screed -- Christian
Populists are rising up in France, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Austria, and elsewhere. All with a
common, unifying Christian cause and true European Values.
This movement is different from those that have come before. In the past, Anti-Christian,
Leftist, Socialism has managed to hijack Populist efforts. Here the Christian backbone of the
movement prevents that fate.
It's not true that people as a whole are driven by endless greed and 'bottomless human
desire'.
In general, people understand the limits of the world, and the mass of commoners merely
want something small and safe a nice little home, the ability to raise a family, a safe
neighbourhood and decent schools, no worries about medical care – and stability in all
of this, knowing that their little petit bourgeois lives will not be undermined or destroyed.
That is it.
There may be a little 'dreaming' about wealth and expensive toys, cars, homes, apparel,
but that is not very 'driven'. People are overall content with something humble, a safe,
stable little corner, having 'enough' and no worries.
The problem is that people are not given this, they don't have their stable little corner
in security, they see and watch what little they have being undermined. Oligarchs demand
'more', sponsoring progressive impoverishment as they extract more profit; as well as seeking
control by sponsoring social turmoil, in part via waves of invited arrivals who create great
difficulties for humble working class lives and stability.
The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if
globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number
of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the
wrecking ball has been brought to that.
And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened
in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy
what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle
Hard times make strong people
Strong people make good times
Good times make weak people
Weak people make hard times
Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.
Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.
@anon A lot of truth in what you say. Personally, I'm ashamed to admit that I bought into
the 'Red peril' nonsense when I was young. When leftists–yeah, back then it was the
leftists–tried to warn us that the elites were going to bust the unions, export jobs and
roll-out 'free trade', I didn't believe them. I actually couldn't then imagine that any
non-communist would be so diabolical! I was a pretty naïve kid, all in all. But then, I
guess most kids by nature are.
I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article. How come whenever Joe
Blow (or Jacques Bonhomme) wants something essential like healthcare, transportation or an
affordable dwelling, he is denounced as 'greedy' for demanding a bunch of 'gibmedats', but when
the big multi-national corporations want another free-trade treaty or another tax cut, this is
labelled 'progress'?
I guess that's why I just can't get into conservatism.
All of this actually helps the EU, which is not a globalist project but a regionalist
alternative to globalism. Globalism was imposed on a very reluctant EU in the 1980s by a then
hyperdominant US (I'm old enough to remember!) with Margaret Thatcher acting as an American
Trojan horse within the EU. It has never worked precisely because it contradicts the inherent
regionalist logic that underlies the whole idea of European integration.
Thus, the more the US globalist project goes under, the more the EU and similar regionalist
projects in other parts of the world come to the fore.
Just as Trumpmania spawned the pro-US and pro-globalist Brexiteers in the summer of 2016,
Trump's bull in a china shop blundering and the self-destruction of American power that has
entailed has empowered the various protest movements we've seen in Europe, none of which are
calling for the withdrawal of their countries from the EU.
People instinctively sense that Trump has defeated the notorious "TINA" argument, which in
Europe meant "the US won't let us do anything else". The ongoing collapse of American power
makes for a very turbulent and unstable situation in the world but fundamentally, we're all on
the right track. For European integration, that doesn't mean collapse but a return to the
original post-WWII project, designed to allow us to have our respective nationalisms without
killing each other at regular intervals.
That concept is so alien to the American experience that it is unsurprising that Americans
have difficulty in understanding it. Americans need to stop lumping themselves together with
Europeans and calling us all "Westerners".
@obwandiyag Contrary to obwandiyag, Durocher came over to me as the sort of sour
conservative who can't deliver goods for the people and therefore reflects that, well, people
oughtn't to demand so much goods.
Well, both kinds, the libertarian and the sour conservative, have a certain disregard for the
average guy.
The average guy is by no means crying "me,me,me" all the time and he doesn't demand the best
and the most of everything. Also, he is quite prepared too work for life, if his work is within
his range of capabilities and if it doesn't develop into a kind of modern slave labour.
But he sees, and reads, that technology improves which means that life should become easier
not more difficult.
And he too often sees that in fact he has to live worse than his father – or, if he is
the father, he sees that his sons will live worse than he. And he asks why. And the media can
give no honest explanation. (Nor can Durocher.)
In the " west " , the working people are extracted to the last cent with the all the locals IRS
and varied taxes . This surplus goes to pay faraonic governement bureaucracies which live on
the taxpayers and humiliate them , goes to subvention tax free oligarchs , and goes to
subvention all kind of stupid utopias and a wide array of social bums national and foreign .
They have killed the hen of the golden eggs . The CCCP fell in the 1990`s , our EUUSACCCP will
fall in the 2020`s ?
By the way will the Cesar of the western Roman Empire Trumpo Maximo order you Microncito
Napoleonis to go away like he is doing with his rebelius consul Maduro Petrolero ? After all
Microncito is very mean with his subdits , and after all he is not supported by the Cesar of
the eastern Roman Empire Putinos Bizantinii like Maduro Petrolero is , it would be an easy coup
, and very popular .
@Jewish minds Trump Zionism. Completely agree on "representative" democracy being a sham,
and on the feasibility and great importance of direct democracy. Realistically, though, one
still needs legal specialists who can draft workable laws and ensure their compatibility with
existing laws and constitutions. Some sort of hybrid system – a lawmaking institution, be
it elected or appointed – with oversight and ultimate arbitration by the citizens will
probably work better in practice.
Probably just as important is the media – the kind of oligarchic concentration we have
right now in the mass media is going to interfere with any kind of democracy, however much
improved over the current dysfunctional and discredited system.
I'll tell you what the average Joe Blow(Yellow Vest)wants, and it is not just more "Shiny
stuff".
1) He/She wants to be left alone. H/S is sick of breaking some law every time H/S merely
sets foot out of their house. Police forces have become nothing more than revenue sources for
the ever growing police state and have absolutely nothing to do with protecting the common man.
Pulling a cell phone out of your pocket at the wrong time is enough to get you killed by tyrant
with a badge.
2) H/S wants to be able to make enough money to raise a family and live comfortably. H/S is
sick of watching the top 1% steal everything that is not nailed down through such scams as
fractional reserve banking and stock market swindles. As the old saying goes: Give a man a gun
and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob the world.
3)H/S wants a REAL form "affirmative action", where every man/woman is chosen for their
ability not the color of their skin or their ethnicity. A world where an an individual is
judged on their ability and nothing more.
4) H/S wants to be safe in their neighborhoods as they watch them being flooded by
uncivilized and criminal immigrants. All the while his and hers own government is confiscating
their means of self protection through such things as gun control.
5) H/S is sick of watching programs such as Social Security and Medicare being bled dry by
people who have never contributed a dime to such programs, while H/S has contributed to these
programs their entire working lives.
6)H/S is sick of these never ending wars, which are started but never fought by the men in
suits. They are tired of watching the blood suckers of war stealing not only the treasure of
their country, but the very lives of their sons and daughters. All they are saying is give
peace a chance.
So you see, it is much more than a bunch of whiny socialist wanting more free stuff.
I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article.
Yeah. You could have replaced the byline with any one of Conservative, Inc.'s generic hack
writers and other than Durocher's improved erudition, nobody would have known the
difference.
@Michael Kenny I agree . We europeans are not " westeners " ( " occidentales " , "
occidentaux " ) ,we are just europeans , greco-roman europeans .
To call western europeans " westeners " is an English fraud , followed by the US , made to
isolate Russia from the rest of Europe and preventing the formation of a strong continental
Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok .
We europeans , produced the greco-roman culture , the Christian culture , we consider
ourselves the land of Christian and greco-roman civilization . We consider ourselves the
fathers of most of the Americas .
For us ,europeans , at least for old ones , the " westeners " were the half mexican people
from Texas to California , the cowboys , the vaqueros . And the US easteners were the yankees
.
We always liked the cowboys , the soul of north America , the roots of north America , and
we always felt some uneasiness and distrust of the yankees , those excentric , warmonger ,
greedy , rootless ex-europeans .
All this shows the limits both of official Europeanism and short-sighted demotic populism.
The goal of both is to distract the French from their real problems, namely their spiritual
and demographic collapse. The EU as such is not the source, or even a significant cause, of
France's problems.
Germany passes immigration law to lure non-EU skilled workers . It is silly to call for
cohesion unless you halt immigration and have the strength to sacrifice for that end. France is
much further down the road to dissolution than they are over the Rhine. Germany has not
suffered much so mar, they can take far more immigration than France. Germany' business class
has reasons for increasing immigration into Germany, which is becoming ever more powerful
though building up its economic strength by abandoning ll nuclear capacity and defence against
other countries, and keeping labour costs low–by any means necessary. The USA is turning
away from defending Germany (which tried to claim the costs of it taking million refugees
should be counted as a defence contribution). For now, Germany thinks it has enough cohesion in
reserve to sacrifice some to building up its economic strength and productive capacity in
particular. In the EU, France will be subjected to German priorities.
The troubles that our society is experiencing are also sometimes due and related to the
fact that too many of our fellow citizens believe that they can earn without effort . . .
It is comparative. Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants and refugees, come from
countries where if you don't work you starve. But those countries lack the flexibility
conferred by the gentrified, relaxed and complex societies of Europe.
Going all out rather than tepidly for native demographic strength is probably a bad idea,
because we don't know what national or personal qualities are going to be needed to cope with
the unexpected type of challenges that will certainly be posed in our future.
@Johnny Walker Read You are essentially right, but some of your points speak more to
America than France. In particular, police tends to be a lot less trigger-happy and generally
more lenient in France. Considering the scale of the French protests, I would say overall the
number of people who got hurt by police is very low. I even suspect that the few really bad
cases were committed not by regular police but by special agents provocateurs, trying to incite
violence in order to create a pretext for cracking down.
Amusing anecdote – I spent a couple of months in Paris a goodish number of years ago.
One French guy told me that he was stopped while driving drunk by police. He explained to them,
"it is the last night before I will be thirty years old." Police told him, "o.k., you be
careful now while driving home" and let him go.
With a monetary system based on debt, and the counterfeiting and issuance of money privately
controlled, it was inevitable that globalization and the elimination of state sovereignty would
result. Global financial capitalism is the maximizing of profit for private gain and the
socialization of losses by the state. Although, nation-states are now nothing more than
subsidiaries of the global banking cartel. As debt levels grow well beyond the ability of
states to service, let alone repay, the banking cartel need seamless access to other nation's
resources to keep the ponzi going – hence the unified global banking cartel, always
acting in concert.
The counterfeiting racket is quite ingenious. The public demanding more and more state
subsidies to ensure their standards of living, as high paying jobs disappear, never to return,
give the political class free rein to borrow well beyond tax levels, or their ability to ever
repay. Of course, there isn't sufficient savings to fund this level of borrowing on a global
scale (public and private) so it must be manufactured, or more bluntly, counterfeited. The
banking cartel then takes it's skim off the top in fees, seniorage, and interest. Over time,
this enormous skim has allowed them to buy whatever, and whomever, they want.
We live in an age of money illusion, where the enormous amount of phony money has corrupted
every aspect of society, and disguises late-stage, economic collapse. It's just as likely the
the global economy has been going nowhere in the last ten years but we can't tell because GDP,
being a measure of money transactions, presents a false picture of growth, disguised by the
enormous quantities of money counterfeited over the decade, and indeed since Mr. Greenspan took
the helm at the Fed.
It has been very successful, however, in inflating all asset classes, other than commodities
(controlled by futures derivatives trading), to increase collateral for even more debt
issuance. Of course, all these assets are tightly controlled by the counterfeiters.
Unfortunately, we have reached a point where even interest can't be paid, let alone principle.
And the underlying asset values look to be poised for collapse. Counterfeiting more money, ie.
QE, will most certainly be redeployed, but should result in collapsing currencies around the
globe, as all are in the same boat.
In effect, the western world has created a neo-feudal order, with money counterfeiters being
the overlords, rather than the land-holding thugs of the past.
A rather sad piece from someone not quite au fait with current thinking though understandable
under the circumstances.
Politics today is no longer of the 'left' or the 'right', but of globalism or nationalism. Yes,
groups like Antifa cling to the old while supporting the fascist Establishment with fascist
action. Odd lot those people.
Essentially you can't have a just society where usuary, share dealing and currency speculation
take place. The termites that practice this sort of lifestyle need to be given a spade to dig
the earth and grow their own veggies!
And democracy is just a smoke screen permitting special interest groups to over ride the
popular consensus. To have it clarified by a popular vote one way or the other is a good idea,
but can only work where the local culture supports the concept as in Switzerland, as opposed to
California where it doesn't really work properly, since the culture is alien to that sort of
concept.
Old man Le Pen's daughter is a wiley old solicitor that speaks like a fisherman's wife. The old
man won't be bothered about what has happened to his party, though it is surprising things have
stagnated a bit for National Rally.
The EU should not have expanded in to Eastern Europe and it should never have permitted the
sort of third rate politicians such as Junkers, Moderini, the Kinnocks to have the power and
the gravy they have got. The ultimate weakness is having Rothschild control all the banks and
operate his money laundering business in the City of London. The EU is just another scam and
the 520 million people in the EU are sick of it.
If you think the US is a poisoned chalice, the EU by comparison drank the Coudenhove-Calergi
poison fifty years ago and is just about to go tits up and expire. Immigrants or no immigrants,
the Austro-Japanese Richard Coudenhove-Calergi brand of pure poison has destroyed everything of
worth in Europe.
This writer touches on the edges of the truth without actually pointing a finger at the cause:
greed through usuary, share dealing and currency speculation. Until you deal with this cancer
and the termites that promote it you will never find an answer.
"... My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945 have now become like the people we fought. ..."
The launch of INSTEX -- "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges" -- by France, Germany, and the UK
this week
to allow "legitimate trade" with Iran, or rather effectively sidestep US sanctions and bypass SWIFT after Washington was able
to pressure the Belgium-based financial messaging service to cut off the access of Iranian banks last year, may be too little too
late to salvage the Iran nuclear deal .
Tehran will only immediately press that more than just the current "limited humanitarian" and medical goods can be purchased on
the system, in accordance with fulfilling the EU's end of the 2015 JCPOA -- something which EU officials have promised while saying
INSTEX will be "expansive" -- while European companies will likely continue to stay away for fear of retribution from Washington,
which has stated it's "closely following" reports of the payment vehicle while reiterating attempts to sidestep sanctions will "risk
severe consequences" .
As a couple of prominent Iranian academics
told Al Jazeera this week: "If [the mechanism] will permanently be restricted to solely humanitarian trade, it will be apparent
that Europe will have failed to live up to its end of the bargain for Iran ," said political analyst Mohammad Ali Shabani. And another,
Foad Izadi, professor at the University of Tehran, echoed what is a common sentiment among Iran's leaders: "I don't think the EU
is either willing or able to stand up to Trump's threat," and continued, "The EU is not taking the nuclear deal seriously and it's
not taking any action to prove to Iran otherwise... People are running out of patience."
But Iranian leadership
welcomed the new mechanism as merely a small first step: "It is a first step taken by the European side... We hope it will cover
all goods and items," Iranian Deputy FM Abbas Araqchi told state TV, referencing EU promises to stick to its end of the nuclear deal.
The European side also acknowledged it as a precondition to keeping the nuclear deal alive, which EU leaders sea as vital to their
security and strategic interests : "We're making clear that we didn't just talk about keeping the nuclear deal with Iran alive, but
now we're creating a possibility to conduct business transactions," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas
told reporters on
Thursday . "This is a precondition for us to meet the obligations we entered into in order to demand from Iran that it doesn't
begin military uranium enrichment," Maas said.
What is INSTEX?
A "special purpose vehicle" that will allow European businesses to trade with Iran, despite strict US sanctions.
According to media reports, INSTEX will be based in Paris and will be managed by German banking expert Per Fischer, a former
manager at Commerzbank. The UK will head the supervisory board.
The European side intends to use the channel initially only to sell food, medicine and medical devices in Iran. However,
it will be possible to expand it in the future. --
DW.com
Technically US sanctions allow some limited humanitarian trade and limited goods; however the White House's "maximum pressure"
campaign on Iran has still scared away European giants like Seimens, Maersk, Total, Daimler, Peugeot, Renault, and others.
This brings up the central question of whether skittish European countries will actually return to doing business with Iran, the
entire purpose on which the new mechanism rests. The dilemma was summarized at the start of this week by outspoken Iran hawk Sen.
Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who told the AP
"The choice is whether to do business with Iran or the United States." He warned, "I hope our European allies choose wisely."
Thus far a number of analysts and observers have remained far less optimistic than the European sponsors of INSTEX. One particular
interview with geopolitical analyst and journalist Luc Rivet, cited in Russian media, outlines
the likelihood for failure of the new payment
vehicle : "I don't know what companies will make use of that mechanism to sell to Iran," Rivet said, noting that countries still
consider it "dangerous" to be caught working with Iran.
Addressing the current restriction of INSTEX facilitating medical and pharmaceutical goods transactions, he continued:
Who produces this equipment? You think that Siemens will sell to Iran? Never, because they sell to America many other things
as well And Siemens is afraid of losing the American market.
No matter if a handful of companies resume or continue business with Iran he explained that an "incredible number of companies"
won't. He added: "It's much easier for Chinese and Russian companies to make deals with Iran. The Europeans are scared in an incredible
way. The companies are afraid by ricochet of being in the eye of the storm with the Americans."
He concluded, "That's very dangerous for European companies," and repeated, "I don't know anybody who will dare to go with this
Instex system."
And the New York Times in asking the same question --
But Will Anyone Use
It? -- concludes similarly that "given that most large companies have significant business in the United States, very few --
if any -- are likely to use the trading mechanism for fear of incurring Washington's wrath."
However, the test will be whether or not a steady trickle of small companies gives way to bigger companies. The NYT report
continues :
But the financial mechanism could make it easier for smaller companies with no exposure in the United States to trade with
Iran and could promote trade in medicine and food, which are not subject to sanctions. European diplomats say that, in the beginning,
the concentration will be on goods that are permitted by Washington, to avoid an early confrontation .
But much could also depend on just how fierce the White House reaction will be. If the past months' Trump administration rhetoric
is any indicator, it will keep large companies scared and on the sidelines.
Europe has had double the tariffs on American cars than we had for theirs. It's time for us to quadruple the tariff on European
cars, to make up for the tariff imbalance that Europe has taken advantage of for decades.
Before World War II the question was, "Who will stand up to the demands of Germany?" Now the question is, "Who will stand up
to the demands of the United States?" It is clear that as far as means and methods are concerned Washington flies the swastika.
History has come full circle.
The following quote from J. R. R. Tolkien makes the point, "Always after a defeat and a respite," says Gandalf, "the shadow
takes another shape and grows again." The irony of our times is that the shadow has moved from Germany to the US.
Consternation and craven refusal to confront the reality of our times is again in vogue. We are walking towards madness crying,
"Let the other fellow fix this!"
My 95 year old aunt here in NL lived thru the NAZI occupation. She said its sad that the nice decent Americans of 1945
have now become like the people we fought.
"... In February 2017, it was reported that Abrams was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson 's first pick for Deputy Secretary of State , but that Tillerson was subsequently overruled by Trump. Trump aides were supportive of Abrams , but Trump opposed him because of Abrams' opposition during the campaign. ..."
"... On January 25, 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appointed Abrams as the United States' Special Envoy to Venezuela ." ..."
There he was, right there on the stage to the right side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
who was briefing the press on America's position concerning the recent coup in Venezuela. I
rubbed my eyes -- was I seeing what I thought I was seeing?
It was Elliot Abrams. What was HE doing there? After all, back in February 2017, after
then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had pushed for his nomination as Deputy Secretary of
State, it was President Trump himself who had vetoed his appointment.
Here is how the anodyne account in Wikipedia describes it:
In February 2017, it was reported that Abrams was Secretary of State Rex Tillerson 's first pick
for Deputy Secretary of
State , but that Tillerson was subsequently overruled by Trump. Trump aides were
supportive of Abrams , but Trump opposed him because of Abrams' opposition during the
campaign. [emphasis mine]
Abrams during the 2016 campaign had been a NeverTrumper who vigorously opposed Donald Trump
and who had strongly attacked the future president's "Make America Great Again," America First
foreign policy proposals.
Abrams, a zealous Neoconservative and ardent globalist was -- and is -- one of those foreign
policy "experts" who has never seen a conflict in a faraway country, in a desert or jungle,
where he did not want to insert American troops, especially if such an intervention would
support Israeli policy. He was deeply enmeshed in earlier American interventionist miscues and
blunders in the Middle East, even incurring charges of malfeasance.
Apparently, President Trump either did not know that or perhaps did not remember Abrams's
activities or stout opposition. In any case, back in 2017 it took an intervention by a
well-placed friend with Washington connections who provided that information directly to Laura
Ingraham who then, in turn, placed it on the president's desk And Abrams' selection was
effectively stopped, torpedoed by Donald Trump.
But here now was Abrams on stage with the Secretary of State.
What was that all about?
Again, I went to Wikipedia, and once again, I quote from that source: " On January 25,
2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appointed Abrams as the United
States' Special Envoy to Venezuela ."
Despite President Trump's resolute veto back in February 2017, Abrams was back, this time as
a Special Envoy, right smack in the department that President Trump had forbade him to serve
in. Did the president know? Had he signed off on this specially-created appointment? After all,
the very title "Special Envoy on Venezuela" seems something dreamed up bureaucratically by the
policy wonks at State, or maybe by Mike Pompeo.
Then there was the widely reported news, accompanied by a convenient camera shot of National
Security Adviser John Bolton's note pad (which may or may not have been engineered by him),
with the scribble: "5,000 troops to Colombia."
What gives here?
Last week suddenly there was a coup d'etat in Venezuela, with the head of the national
assembly, Juan Guiado, proclaiming himself as the country's new and rightful president, and the
theoretical deposition of then-current President Nicolas Maduro. And we were told that this
action was totally "spontaneous" and an "act of the Venezuelan people for democracy," and that
the United States had had nothing to do with it.
If you believe that, I have an oil well in my backyard that I am quite willing to sell to
you for a few million, or maybe a bit less.
Of course, the United States and our overseas intelligence services were involved.
Let me clarify: like most observers who have kept up with the situation in oil-rich
Venezuela, I heartily dislike and find despicable the socialist government of Maduro, just as I
did Hugo Chavez when he was in power. I have some good friends there, one of whom was a student
of mine when I taught in Argentina many years ago, and he and his family resolutely oppose
Maduro. Those socialist leaders in Caracas are tin-pot dictator wannabees who have wrecked the
economy of that once wealthy country; and they have ridden roughshod over the constitutional
rights of the citizens. My hope has been that the people of Venezuela, perhaps supported by
elements in the army, would take action to rid the country of those tyrants.
And, in effect, I wish for the success of Juan Guaido in his struggle with Maduro, and I
support American diplomatic and economic pressure on Maduro to step down. After all,
Venezuela is in our back yard with huge oil reserves.
But potentially sending American troops -- as many as 5,000 -- to fight in a country which
is made up largely of jungle and impassible mountains, appears just one more instance, one more
example, of the xenophobic internationalism of men like Bolton and the now state department
official, Abrams, who believe American boots on the ground is the answer to every international
situation. Experience over the past four decades should indicate the obvious folly of such
policies for all but the historically blind and ideologically corrupt.
While we complain that the Russians and Chinese have propped up the Maduro government and
invested deeply in Venezuela, a country within our "sphere of influence" in the Western
Hemisphere (per the "Monroe Doctrine") -- we have done the very same thing, even more
egregiously in regions like Ukraine that were integrally part of historical Russia, and in
Crimea, which was never really part of Ukraine (only for about half a century) but historically
and ethnically Russian. Did we not solemnly pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, under George H. W.
Bush, that if the old Soviet Union would dissolve and let its some fourteen socialist
"republics" go their own way, leave the Russian Federation, that we, in turn, would not advance
NATO up to the borders of Russia? And then we did the exact opposite almost immediately go back
on our word and move our troops and advisers right up to the borders of post-1991 Russia?
From mid-2015 on I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump, and, in many ways, I still am. In
effect, he may be the only thing that stands in the way of a total and complete recouping of
power by the Deep State, the only slight glimmer of light -- that immovable force who stands up
at times to the power-elites and who has perhaps given us a few years of respite as the
managerial class zealously attempts to repair the breach he -- and we -- inflicted on it in
2016.
My major complaint, what I have seen as a kind of Achilles' Heel in the Trump presidency,
has always been in personnel, those whom the president has surrounded himself with. And my
criticism is measured and prudential, in the sense that I also understand what happens -- and
what did happen -- when a billionaire businessman, a kind of bull-in-the-china shop (exactly
what was needed), comes to Washington and lacks experience with the utterly amoral and
oleaginous and obsequious political class that has dominated and continues to dominate our
government, both Democrats and, most certainly, Republicans.
The wife of a very dear friend of thirty-five years served in a fairly high post during the
Reagan administration. Before her untimely death a few years ago, she recounted to me in stark
detail how the minions and acolytes of George H. W. Bush managed to surround President Reagan
and subvert large portions of the stated Reagan Agenda. Reagan put his vice-president
effectively in charge of White House personnel: and, as they say, that was it, the Reagan
Revolution was essentially over.
In 2016 a number of friends and I created something called "Scholars for Trump." Composed
mostly of academics, research professors, and accomplished professionals, and headed by Dr.
Walter Block, Professor of Economics at Loyola-New Orleans, and Dr. Paul Gottfried,
Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College, in Pennsylvania, we attempted
to gather real professed believers in the stated Trump agenda. We received scant mention
(mostly negative) in the so-called "conservative" press, who proceeded to smear us as
"ultra-right wingers" and "paleo-conservatives." And, suddenly, there appeared another
pro-Trump list, and that one composed largely of the same kinds of professionals, but many if
not most of whom had not supported Donald Trump and his agenda during the primary
campaigns.
What was certain was that many of the amoral time-servers and power elitists had decided
that it was time for them to attach themselves to Trump, time for them to insinuate themselves
into positions of power once again, no matter their distaste and scorn for that brash
billionaire upstart from New York.
Remember the (in)famous interview that the President-elect had with Mitt Romney who
desperately wanted to be Secretary of State? Recall the others also interviewed -- some of whom
we remembered as Donald Trump's opponents in the campaign -- who came hat-in-hand to Trump
Tower looking for lucrative positions and the opportunity once again to populate an
administration and direct policy? And, yes, work from within to counteract the stated Trump
agenda?
It would be too facile to blame the president completely: after all, the professional policy
wonks, the touted experts in those along-the-Potomac institutes and foundations, were there
already in place. And, indeed, there was a need politically, as best as possible, to bring
together the GOP if anything were to get through Congress. (As we have seen, under Paul Ryan
practically none of the Trump Agenda was enacted, and Ryan at every moment pushed open
borders.)
Our contacts did try; we did have a few associates close to the president. A few -- but only
a few -- of our real Trump Agenda supporters managed to climb aboard. But in the long run we
were no match for the machinations of the power elites and GOP establishment. And we discovered
that the president's major strength -- not being a Washington Insider -- was also his major
weakness, and that everything depended on his instincts, and that somehow if the discredited
globalists and power-hungry Neoconservatives (who did not give Trump the time of day before his
election) were to go too far, maybe, hopefully, he would react.
And he has, on occasion done just that, as perhaps in the case of Syria, and maybe even in
Afghanistan, and in a few other situations. But each time he has had to pass the gauntlet of
"advisers" whom he has allowed to be in place who vigorously argue against (and undercut) the
policies they are supposed to implement.
Donald Trump, for all that and for his various faults and miscues, is in reality the only
thing standing in the way of the end of the old republic. The fact that he is so violently and
unreservedly hated by the elites, by the media, by academia, and by Hollywood must tell us
something. In effect, however, it not just the president they hate, not even his rough-edged
personality -- it is what he represents, that in 2016 he opened a crack, albeit small, into a
world of Deep State putrefaction, a window into sheer Evil, and the resulting falling away of
the mask of those "body snatchers" who had for so long exuded confidence that their subversion
and control was inevitable and just round the corner.
President Trump will never be forgiven for that. And, so, as much as I become frustrated
with some of the self-inflicted wounds, some of the actions which appear at times to go
flagrantly against his agenda, as much as I become heartsick when I see the faces of Elliot
Abrams -- and Mitt Romney -- in positions where they can continue their chipping away at that
agenda, despite all that, I continue to pray that his better instincts will reign and that he
will look beyond such men, and just maybe learn that what you see first in Washington is
usually not what you'll get.
I cannot imagine a more evil person to be allowed back into govt than this man, who is
more evil than he looks.
It is over, in my mind, with the trump admin; nothing has been done about the long list of
crimes committed by the obama gang during the election and after. Nothing has been done about
seth rich, I would add michael hastings, and the long list of clinton "suicides" and the
clinton crimes. the list is endless with no progress.
The dimos in doj, fbi, etc have completely out-manuevered trump and he really has no junk
yard dog to protect him-guliani is a joke, even if he is sober as he claims to be.
Linh Dinh on this website (June 12, 2016) predicted both the election outcome and its
meaninglessness. He had by then, of course, been blackballed by Scholars, Inc., and is now
helping to run a recycling operation back in Vietnam. But he has emerged as one of the top
Unz columnists, most of his Heritage American attackers who couldn't see past their DNA
having slunk away.
Conversely, go read the comment thread under Mr. Buchanan's latest. People who used to
fall for the "we/us/our" conflation of their country and Uncle Sam are waking up, due largely
to the President in whom you still place your scholarly hope. We may not be scholars, but we
understand that the blood of people in places like Iraq, Libya, Syria, and soon enough
Venezuela is on the hands of those who endorse the warmongering imperialism of Exceptionalia.
Your scholarly enabling, such as:
"And, in effect, I wish for the success of Juan Guaido in his struggle with Maduro, and I
support American diplomatic and economic pressure on Maduro to step down. After all,
Venezuela is in our back yard with huge oil reserves."
is naive at best. As a scholar, did you support the "economic pressure" rationalized by
Secretary of State Albright that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of them
children?
Those of you who still expect the Unz readership to give two sh ** s about Donald Trump or
anyone else in the Washington Puppet Show are fast losing your relevance around here.
Yup, Personnel is Policy; always has been. The scale of it all really precludes the kind of
benefit-of-the-doubt explanation the author struggles to formulate. It's not that Trump tried
to do the right thing but some war-hawks, jews, and Wall-Street shysters got through
regardless. Those were the only people that needed apply because Trump wasn't considering
anybody else. One simply has to conclude that the people that currently surround him are
indeed "his kind of people". And let's not forget that after a crash course in the realities
of government he replaced Tillerson and notorious torturer McMaster because they were not
hawkish, not pro-Israel, enough .
What evidence is there that your definition of "doing the right thing" coincides with
Trump's anyway. Yes he made some non-interventionist noises during the campaign, but that was
mostly during the primary before he'd kissed Adelson's ring in exchange for the shekels. But
he was also "a very militaristic guy" who was all for "taking the oil" and who nonstop hated
on Iran. Face it, it was just the Obama playbook: throw an incoherent mishmash to the proles
in the hope that they remember only those parts they liked.
Isn't Trump's CV rather more illuminating on who he is than his campaign rhetoric: casino
operator and pro-wrestling MC. He gets off on playing the rubes.
From mid-2015 on I was a strong supporter of Donald Trump, and, in many ways, I still
am. In effect, he may be the only thing that stands in the way of a total and complete
recouping of power by the Deep State
Donald Trump, for all that and for his various faults and miscues, is in reality the
only thing standing in the way of the end of the old republic.
.despite all that, I continue to pray that his better instincts will reign and that he
will look beyond such men, and just maybe learn that what you see first in Washington is
usually not what you'll get.
The US military has kept some 3000 soldiers in Columbia for years. Maybe that has grown to
5000, but Bolton's yellow pad note was a simple trick to fool simpletons. Invading Venezuela
would require at least 50,000 US troops.
Americans are quick to denounce socialists, especially those in the US military who thrive
in a socialist US military. Most Americans do not realize that their police, firefighters,
schools, most universities, roads, water, and electricity are products of socialism. If you
have an emergency in the USA, you dial 9-11 for socialists to help you. Everyone thinks that
is great!
From my blog:
Jan 27, 2019 – A Clumsy Slow Coup
Corporate America media has not reported basic facts about the attempted takeover of
Venezuela. The Deep State has tried to overthrow the popular, elected government of Venezuela
for a decade as it gradually nationalized its oil production. Several coup attempts failed so
the USA imposed sanctions to punish the people for voting wrong. Sanctions caused shortages
and inflation but the elected government remains in power.
In the past, the USA conducted coups by bribing Generals to conduct a quick military
takeover, and always denied participation. The Trump administration gave up on deception and
began a clumsy, slow coup. I suspect Trump's new CIA appointed attorney general told Trump
that he had the power to appoint foreign presidents, so last week he openly appointed a new
president for Venezuela. The Venezuelan army openly backs the existing president so nothing
changed. The UN did not recognize Trump's puppet president nor did any other major world
power. These facts do not appear in our corporate media, although the internet provides
reality via a Paul Craig Roberts article. (posted at unz.com)
Trump has now ordered other nations to send payments for oil purchases to a bank account
controlled by his new president. This infuriates foreign governments because they know oil
shipments will stop if they fail to pay the legitimate government of Venezuela, and oil
prices will rise worldwide as they scramble to buy oil elsewhere. Meanwhile, a massive
humanitarian and refugee crisis is building as the result of this economic embargo.
I do not know how the fracking is going in the winter. I have read somewhere, that yields
from fracking are going down. also that fracking companies are moving down to Texas.Also I do
not know the state of strategic reserves, But I definitely suspect that moves in Venezuela
were planed long before. so I have to presume that this is all about price of oil.
Trump quite a while ago, quite eagerly said something about moving on Venezuela.
Trump can be easily triggered by any economic subject by which US gains. But I do suspect
that in this case it could be economic necessity. (What would be a real shame.)
@Taras77 I agree Taras. Although I much enjoyed reading Boyd Cathey's essay, sadly, I
think he remains too optimistic. With the D's back in charge of the House, and the R's
impotent in the Senate, (McConnell as majority leader is a joke), Trump's stated agenda is
all over. He got nothing in his first two years besides the traditional GOP tax cut for the
rich. And he waited far too long to get serious about the wall. Yes, Koch-man Paul Ryan
opposed it, but surely Trump could have tried harder to get enough R votes to override him.
His only option now, unless Pelosi budges a little, would be to declare a National Emergency
on Feb 15. There is no way he could shut down the government again. Let's see how that goes.
However I disagree with Realist's comment. With Trump being attacked viciously on all
sides, I don't understand how anyone could think he is part of the Deep State. I think Victor
Davis Hanson got it right when he called Trump a "Tragic Hero."
Whoever believed that Trump will drain the swamp must feel disappointed. The US foreign
policy is run by the swamp now, like it always was. The US uses full range of classical
gangster tactics against Venezuela: blackmail, theft of assets, threats, etc. The US tries to
instigate yet another "color revolution" to bring yet another puppet to power in yet another
country. The only difference is, Maduro resists. But that's the difference in the victim
country, not in DC.
"... See my essay linked below on "Artists and Bureaucrats." ..."
"... Trump seemed always intent to challenge any type of détente between the US and Iran. Am I missing something? ..."
"... I believe that's the zionist influence showing. ..."
"... As I have said before, Trump as a sole proprietor businessman, treats all these government people as dispensable flunkies, In his former world the analogy would be "consultant advisers." People who you pay for their work and/or advice but whose opinions are not better than yours. They probably taught him something like that at Wharton. ..."
"... Thus, the many thousand people of the IC agencies have opinions that, while interesting, mean nothing if he has a gut feeling contrary to that. That being the case - in the end the truth is that the main question is whether they or he is/are correct in their opinions. ..."
"... For governing and leading on the national level, I don't think one man's gut is enough, especially with the zionist and neocon forces informing his gut for the last two years. ..."
"... And with daughter and son-in-law as ardent Israel First Jews who are playing very prominent roles in the White House. ..."
"Trump and his top aides have taken a hard line on Iran, implying that the Islamist-led
country still poses a nuclear threat despite its adherence to a 2015 accord that put curbs on
its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that nuclear
deal, and has reimposed sanctions, although other international allies have stayed committed to
the pact.
During the hearing, Coats said Iran isn't taking any steps to make a nuclear weapon. "We do
not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a
nuclear device," he said.
CIA Director Gina Haspel, who also spoke at the hearing, said Tehran, " at the moment,
technically they're in compliance" with the deal.
But Coats also noted that Iranian officials have "publicly threatened to push the
boundaries" of the nuclear deal if it did not see any benefits from it." politico
------------
Well, pilgrims, I have resolutely maintained on SST that Iran has not had a nuclear WEAPONS
program since 2003, having cancelled their research program then with the disappearance of the
Iraqi threat. The 2007 NIE on Iran stated that explicitly but the Zionist lobby has blocked
publication of an unclassified summary of subsequent judgments on this subject. Why? It is
Israel's policy that Iran must be prevented from becoming strong enough to become the major
hegemonic power in the ME. Trump's ignorance of realities in the region has enabled The Lobby
to distort US policy to serve its purposes. To my surprise the IC chiefs had the guts to tell
the world what is true about Iran and to point out other areas in which their agencies differ
in judgment from the administration, but the Iran judgement is IMO the most important. Neocons
like Pompeo, Bolton and E. Abrams do not reason from evidence. They reason from ideology and
their shared hostility to anyone who does not bow down to the US. They and The Lobby currently
control Trump's foreign policy especially in the ME.
At the same time we must remember that these agencies are "mature bureaucracies." That means
they have existed long enough to have become "self licking ice cream cones." These are
organizations for which institutional survival and the welfare of the all important leader of
each agency are primary interests. You don't think so? Just remember that the grandees at the
top of these agencies are totally dependent on their directors for success in the their
careers.
That is what makes the performance of Coats and Haspel so impressive. Bravo! pl
See my essay linked below on "Artists and Bureaucrats."
" The same kind of "thinking" has caused the clandestine services to rely far too much on
"liaison" relationships with foreign intelligence services as a substitute for conducting
American run espionage against difficult targets. The reason? Disclosure of foreign
operations does not entail the career risk for the "managers" that the failure of an American
operation would bring. "
(From the second reference above.)
Could this, over a long period of time, lead to a passive or uncritical acceptance of
intelligence from foreign sources? It would also serve as protection against enquiry or
blowback if those foreign sources were discredited.
The use of Dutch or Estonian or, more significantly, UK sources that were said to have
kicked off the Russiagate scandal might show this.
I ask because enquiry into the Steele affair seems to stop when it comes to examining the
sources and methods of the foreign intelligence services that had an input, if sometimes
indirect, in that case.
A passive or uncritical acceptance of intelligence from any source is bad. As Colonel Lang
noted, skepticism is a necessary part of good intelligence. Deception and the current in
vogue term of perception management are in wide practice by allies and adversaries. This is
always a threat in HUMINT. It is also a threat in SIGINT and any other INT. As the good
Colonel said, the "devil's advocate" performs a needed function in intelligence. In the case
of "L'Affaire Russe," I think the strong pushback against the official IC and SCO line by
many Trump and Russia supporters is serving that vital function.
One often sees complaints that officials in the States are keeping information back but it
is in fact quite astonishing how much has been disclosed - from revelations about sources to
that odd series of Walter Mitty messages from the former Chief of the Counterespionage
Section to his girl friend. And it's taken for granted by all that however much they might
redact or withhold they're not going to fake.
So whatever these officials are up to they're doing it by the book and are in fact letting
a lot out. To a foreign outsider it looks quite impressive - if not very conclusive.
Cross the Atlantic and it's a dead blank. Speculation about the Hannigan resignation, a
dismissive reference from Sir Richard Dearlove - but there's been no counterpart here to the
turmoil of investigation and enquiry in the States.
Since they're not going to get to the bottom of the Steele affair without at least some
disclosure of what was happening at that time at this end it's quite possible that they're
not going to get to the bottom of it at all. The UK end is, to put it bluntly, being used as
the memory hole for the US Intelligence Community.
That's a hell of a comedown for the so called "Special Relationship". So much so that one
wonders whether we in the UK still have a functioning Intelligence Service in this area. Or
just a bunch of chancers happy to go along with whatever boneheaded schemes the big boys call
them in for.
The responsible standard for appraising information obtained from an informant (criminal
matters) or a live asset (intelligence/counter intelligence matters) is under virtually all
circumstances a required knowledge of the identity of the person who is the source of the
information. In banking, when the money laundering legislation beefed up, it was know your
customer.
Only with detailed knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the assets acquisition of the
information, from whom, how, when, where, why the asset has the information, why he is coming
forward with the information, can the information be appraised. Other considerations that
should be brought to bear are how often the asset has provided information in the past, has
his information ever been discredited, what have been the outcomes from his previously
furnished information. Are there ulterior motives? Could the information be
disinformation?
We can see that not knowing the identity of the source gravely impedes characterizing
information and determining whether and how it should be used.
With regard to the Steele information used in the Carter Page FISA affidavit and to predicate
the Russian collusion adventure, I, at any rate, am unaware of any information in the public
domain to indicate that US authorities even knew who the claimed Russian sources were let
alone had direct access to them or had the ability to conduct inquiries to corroborate any of
the circumstances attending their claimed possession of the relevant information.
I will say that that Robert Hannsen espionage case offers an exceptional case. Hannsen had
devised a scheme where he provided the Russians information anonymously, until he was caught.
The Russians evidently authenticated his information on sheer quantity and content.
The prudent practice is the more you know and the longer you have been directly engaged with
your source, the better off you are, certainly if you are contemplating conducting an
investigation of a Presidential candidate or a President elect.
I'm still waiting to see when all the facts come out whether we are looking at malfeasance,
misfeasance, plain old incompetence, or some combination thereof.
Pres. Trump is politically wounded. He capitulated on the government shutdown/wall and SOTU
address. No doubt the IC chiefs have recognized that and would short term sacrifice a little
truth to further weaken the President.
Trump used to tweet his way out of his errors, but his tweets have lost their novelty. He
can't even declare a national emergency for the wall as it would be done out of weakness. The
courts would likely create a new fandangled interpretation of the law to counter it.
It is strange to me, that of all things, Trump's lack of assertiveness in exercising
executive authority seems to be doing him in.
He never ran a large organization in which everyone was not subject to him directly. These
people think they have some relatively autonomous existence.
As I have said before, Trump as a sole proprietor businessman, treats all these government
people as dispensable flunkies, In his former world the analogy would be "consultant
advisers." People who you pay for their work and/or advice but whose opinions are not better
than yours. They probably taught him something like that at Wharton.
Thus, the many thousand
people of the IC agencies have opinions that, while interesting, mean nothing if he has a gut
feeling contrary to that. That being the case - in the end the truth is that the main
question is whether they or he is/are correct in their opinions.
He has a world of experience in real estate development and self promotion to inform that
gut. It stands him well in politics. For governing and leading on the national level, I don't
think one man's gut is enough, especially with the zionist and neocon forces informing his
gut for the last two years.
The "intelligence" community is just another swamp bureaucracy with the difference that they
are VERY important people who "risk their lives" for our freedom....or something like
that.
With their track record, why would we believe them now?
SOME of them risk their lives. That depends on your job. IMO DIA has a much better track
record than the other analytic agencies. NSA is NOT an analytic agency. It collects signal
data and gives it to the others.
Since you're of that world, you would know (a lot) more about this than me.
I remember a long time ago attending a Christmas party in Athens at which there was a bunch
of US diplomats and military and some other clowns who when asked what they do there would
say "they CALL me a vice consul" and laugh.
"... with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different.. ..."
"... His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the empire today. ..."
"... Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here. ..."
"... Why Venezuela? Why now? We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most interesting: It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan, for that matter. ..."
This article at https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/29/the-empires-propagandists/
may be of interest to some. Not saying that any of it is new to readers here nor is it
exhaustive but imo a decent piece that pulls together a lot and might be interesting to those
who mainly follow MSM.
An extract:
"The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes
its financial and geopolitical dominance, attempts socialism, or transfers its nexus to
another powerful state entity, like Russia or China for instance. If one chooses to do so it
is instantly targeted for assault either by crippling economic sanctions or embargoes, which
make governance nearly impossible and primarily harms the general population, or covert
subversion, or by direct and indirect military intervention. And the corporate media, when it
chooses to cover these issues, generally parrots State Department and Pentagon talking points
and obfuscations about the intentions of the US government, the role of corporations and
global capitalism, and the character of the governments the US happens to be opposing at the
time. And all of this is done with virtually no historical analysis. But of course none of
this is new."
It is interesting, the seeming rush to mess with Venezuela.
I guess whether it was in fact rushed, depends on how much we want to believe the data we are
fed.
I believe it was and suspect that that was the reason for resumption of operation of the
government - to support the intervention in Venezuela. Otherwise, it seemed like too sudden a
reversal by Trump.
I think in their analysis of where to intervene next, they look at an array of
factors:
Venezuela is weak
Venezuela espouses something like socialism
Venezuela has been associating with unsavory "competitors"
Venezuela is nearby (and very nearby our asset, Colombia)
Venezuela can be portrayed as in need of humanitarian intervention
Maduro has said some unkind things about U.S. government (Bush)
Venezuela holds a grand prize
In there discusions, I assume the issue of right/wrong is not mentioned.
Imagine someone attempting to raise the issue:
- But what will the media say?
- But what will the U.N. say?
- But what will the Pope say?
- But what will the voters say?
- But what will the other party say?
- But is it really the moral thing to do, what would God say?
with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different..
i suppose the main
difference is not being served up a regular diet of 'we are the greatest' bs, accounts for
some of it.. the general curiousity about what the fuck is going on outside of the usa seems
sorely lacking in people who live in the usa... maybe the media can be blamed for a chunk of
this... generally canucks know a lot more about the usa, then the usa people know about
canada.. that is something i have witnessed in my life.. but, the simple answer to your
question is there isn't a lot of difference.. and yes - trudeau senior must be really
disappointed in tru dope jr... he is nothing compared to his dad... canada is on a downhill
trajectory and fast with this buffoon.. i expect worse in the next election too.. we will get
our trump as we are one cycle behind..
His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US
empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian
empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to
join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the
empire today.
Also, similar to some who get impatient with the seeming over-conservatism of Russia and
China today, so the aggressive, hot-headed Corinthians and Thebans often get frustrated with
the more conservative Spartans.
I wonder when/if there'll be an American version of the Athenians' disastrous Sicilian
expedition.
Attached to that Venezuelanalysis.com that CE linked to @ 2 was this odd piece of
information:
"EREPLA deal "unusually favourable to foreign company"
... [A] 25-year deal was signed with unknown US based firm EREPLA in November 2018,
which has been described by financial firm Argus as "unusually favourable" to the US
company.
Little is known of EREPLA or its board of directors, with Reuters claiming that Harry
Sargeant III, magnate and ex-Financial Chairman of the US Republican Party, is one of their
owners. The small company, which was only legally registered in the US on November 8,
2018, a mere day before signing the PDVSA deal, has managed to extract a contract from PDVSA
which revives a number of practices, previously eliminated in the Chavez-era, of oil
so-called service contracts. PDVSA is yet to make any official comment on the deal, and analysts have already expressed concern that the deal violates Venezuela's 2001
Hydrocarbons Law.
The deal, which is extendable for a further 15 years, is due to bring US $500 million
of investment to the Tia Juana, Rosa Mediano fields in Maracaibo Lake and the Ayacucho 5
field in the Orinoco Belt. It assigns 49.9 percent of the new mixed company to EREPLA, and
passes 100 percent of the output to the US firm, which is expected to repatriate 50.1 percent
of sale profits back to PDVSA.
Day to day running, purchasing, exporting, and the sale of the oil produced is to be
completely controlled by EREPLA, except in the case of fulfilling PDVSA's hefty oil quota to
China, which will be agreed upon by both parts.
Whilst EREPLA is due to supply the rigs and crews for the fields, other costs will be
split between the two partners, whilst the US firm find themselves exempt from Venezuelan
labour laws under the Service Contract clause, as well as from paying its share of the 30
percent oil royalty which PDVSA is due to cover.
"We believe that the new model created in this agreement is in the national interest of
the United States," stated a Harry Sargeant Oil Management Group lawyer who signed the
documents on behalf of EREPLA.
An EREPLA statement on the deal describes how it looks to "revitalise" Venezuela's oil
industry. It goes on to explain that new terms and conditions have been applied as previous
contracts "fermented corruption and bad management." EREPLA also argued that the deal will
help prevent "US adversaries" such as Chinese and Russian firms from gaining further ground
in the oil-rich country.
It is unclear at this point how the new deal will function in light of US financial
sanctions against Caracas, as a license from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
is still pending, but the statement assures that the company's work "will be carried out in
accordance with the economic sanctions enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department."
Oil deals in Venezuela were notoriously favourable to foreign firms until 2001, in
terms of profit [repatriation], labour laws, running costs, and local accountability, until
Hugo Chavez' Hydrocarbons Law broke the tradition, ensuring Venezuelan control over joint
ventures. Another Chavez decree in 2007 capped foreign participation in oil deals at 40
percent. However, in December 2017 the National Constituent Assembly approved a "Foreign
Investment Law" meant to improve conditions for foreign capital investments in
Venezuela.
A company that is incorporated only a day before it signs a major oil extraction and
production deal (parts of which violate Venezuela's own laws governing working conditions and
pay for Venezuelan workers and national control over joint ventures) with Venezuela? Does
anyone else not smell a rat?
What could PDVSA have been thinking? Did it not enter their
heads that EREPLA could be a front acting for elements in the US government?
Venezeula has become the tipping point for loss of GRC for the USD.
Venezeulan oil is being shipped to India, refined by the new Rosneft refinery then being
sold in anything but USD.
Added to the now over 100 country's that are rejecting the USD by using bi-lateral trade,
KSA already selling in yuan, the desperation of Uncle Scam is palpable.
Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here.
Why Venezuela? Why now?
We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most
interesting:
It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable
for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan,
for that matter.
It seems to me that the major blocs might be pulling back, and settling for easy gains.
Not that this coup is likely to be easy, it may prove to be impossible. It may even prove to
be the spark that sets Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and the rest of Latin America alight.
But the way the clowns in the White House- who haven't had a new idea since 1981-see it all
resources will be mobilised to make the region safe for imperialism: Venezuela, Cuba,
Nicaragua and Bolivia: in the proverbial cross hairs.
The second question |Why now?) could be a reflection of the fact that the neo-conservative
axis has only recently re-established full spectrum domination over the White House. As the
Hitler Youth Freeland has been hinting: the running in this matter has been made by the Lima
Group in which Canada has been playing a leading and thoroughly despicable role. It was they
who did the pseudo legalistic groundwork for the coup. No doubt Bolton et al found it
convenient to have the Lima group demands presented to it on a plate. That meant that even
Ponce, who together with Bolton and Pompeo takes the role of the Three Weird Sisters in this
tragedy, could trigger the crisis with a phone call to Guido. Whose role is clearly to be
martyred, probably by a CIA sniper, so that he can die, if not for his country at least for
its corrupt elites.
We've seen this movie before.
Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient--we speak as we are obliged, since
you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest -- that you should not destroy
what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is
fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid. And you are as much
interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an
example for the world to meditate upon.
Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival
empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the
vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. This, however, is
a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in
the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the
preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble,
and see you preserved for the good of us both.
Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to
rule?
Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the
worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.
Melians . So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of
enemies, but allies of neither side.
Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be
an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
Melians. Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do
with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some
conquered rebels?
Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and
that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not
molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain
in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others
rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of
the sea.
Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we
indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey
your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to
coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case
from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater
the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have
never thought of it?
Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm;
the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is
rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke,
who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious
danger.
Melians. Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to
get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to
try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.
Athenians. Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with
honour as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not
resisting those who are far stronger than you are...
"... with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different.. ..."
"... His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the empire today. ..."
"... Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here. ..."
"... Why Venezuela? Why now? We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most interesting: It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan, for that matter. ..."
This article at https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/29/the-empires-propagandists/
may be of interest to some. Not saying that any of it is new to readers here nor is it
exhaustive but imo a decent piece that pulls together a lot and might be interesting to those
who mainly follow MSM.
An extract:
"The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes
its financial and geopolitical dominance, attempts socialism, or transfers its nexus to
another powerful state entity, like Russia or China for instance. If one chooses to do so it
is instantly targeted for assault either by crippling economic sanctions or embargoes, which
make governance nearly impossible and primarily harms the general population, or covert
subversion, or by direct and indirect military intervention. And the corporate media, when it
chooses to cover these issues, generally parrots State Department and Pentagon talking points
and obfuscations about the intentions of the US government, the role of corporations and
global capitalism, and the character of the governments the US happens to be opposing at the
time. And all of this is done with virtually no historical analysis. But of course none of
this is new."
It is interesting, the seeming rush to mess with Venezuela.
I guess whether it was in fact rushed, depends on how much we want to believe the data we are
fed.
I believe it was and suspect that that was the reason for resumption of operation of the
government - to support the intervention in Venezuela. Otherwise, it seemed like too sudden a
reversal by Trump.
I think in their analysis of where to intervene next, they look at an array of
factors:
Venezuela is weak
Venezuela espouses something like socialism
Venezuela has been associating with unsavory "competitors"
Venezuela is nearby (and very nearby our asset, Colombia)
Venezuela can be portrayed as in need of humanitarian intervention
Maduro has said some unkind things about U.S. government (Bush)
Venezuela holds a grand prize
In there discusions, I assume the issue of right/wrong is not mentioned.
Imagine someone attempting to raise the issue:
- But what will the media say?
- But what will the U.N. say?
- But what will the Pope say?
- But what will the voters say?
- But what will the other party say?
- But is it really the moral thing to do, what would God say?
with minor exceptions the 5 eye countries are no different..
i suppose the main
difference is not being served up a regular diet of 'we are the greatest' bs, accounts for
some of it.. the general curiousity about what the fuck is going on outside of the usa seems
sorely lacking in people who live in the usa... maybe the media can be blamed for a chunk of
this... generally canucks know a lot more about the usa, then the usa people know about
canada.. that is something i have witnessed in my life.. but, the simple answer to your
question is there isn't a lot of difference.. and yes - trudeau senior must be really
disappointed in tru dope jr... he is nothing compared to his dad... canada is on a downhill
trajectory and fast with this buffoon.. i expect worse in the next election too.. we will get
our trump as we are one cycle behind..
His History has often been applied as analogous to the post-cold war era, with the US
empire usually compared to the arrogant, bullying, tyrannical, over-stretched Athenian
empire. The speeches of the Corinthian and Theban ambassadors trying to convince Sparta to
join them in war could be transposed almost word for word to anyone who fiercely opposes the
empire today.
Also, similar to some who get impatient with the seeming over-conservatism of Russia and
China today, so the aggressive, hot-headed Corinthians and Thebans often get frustrated with
the more conservative Spartans.
I wonder when/if there'll be an American version of the Athenians' disastrous Sicilian
expedition.
Attached to that Venezuelanalysis.com that CE linked to @ 2 was this odd piece of
information:
"EREPLA deal "unusually favourable to foreign company"
... [A] 25-year deal was signed with unknown US based firm EREPLA in November 2018,
which has been described by financial firm Argus as "unusually favourable" to the US
company.
Little is known of EREPLA or its board of directors, with Reuters claiming that Harry
Sargeant III, magnate and ex-Financial Chairman of the US Republican Party, is one of their
owners. The small company, which was only legally registered in the US on November 8,
2018, a mere day before signing the PDVSA deal, has managed to extract a contract from PDVSA
which revives a number of practices, previously eliminated in the Chavez-era, of oil
so-called service contracts. PDVSA is yet to make any official comment on the deal, and analysts have already expressed concern that the deal violates Venezuela's 2001
Hydrocarbons Law.
The deal, which is extendable for a further 15 years, is due to bring US $500 million
of investment to the Tia Juana, Rosa Mediano fields in Maracaibo Lake and the Ayacucho 5
field in the Orinoco Belt. It assigns 49.9 percent of the new mixed company to EREPLA, and
passes 100 percent of the output to the US firm, which is expected to repatriate 50.1 percent
of sale profits back to PDVSA.
Day to day running, purchasing, exporting, and the sale of the oil produced is to be
completely controlled by EREPLA, except in the case of fulfilling PDVSA's hefty oil quota to
China, which will be agreed upon by both parts.
Whilst EREPLA is due to supply the rigs and crews for the fields, other costs will be
split between the two partners, whilst the US firm find themselves exempt from Venezuelan
labour laws under the Service Contract clause, as well as from paying its share of the 30
percent oil royalty which PDVSA is due to cover.
"We believe that the new model created in this agreement is in the national interest of
the United States," stated a Harry Sargeant Oil Management Group lawyer who signed the
documents on behalf of EREPLA.
An EREPLA statement on the deal describes how it looks to "revitalise" Venezuela's oil
industry. It goes on to explain that new terms and conditions have been applied as previous
contracts "fermented corruption and bad management." EREPLA also argued that the deal will
help prevent "US adversaries" such as Chinese and Russian firms from gaining further ground
in the oil-rich country.
It is unclear at this point how the new deal will function in light of US financial
sanctions against Caracas, as a license from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
is still pending, but the statement assures that the company's work "will be carried out in
accordance with the economic sanctions enforced by the U.S. Treasury Department."
Oil deals in Venezuela were notoriously favourable to foreign firms until 2001, in
terms of profit [repatriation], labour laws, running costs, and local accountability, until
Hugo Chavez' Hydrocarbons Law broke the tradition, ensuring Venezuelan control over joint
ventures. Another Chavez decree in 2007 capped foreign participation in oil deals at 40
percent. However, in December 2017 the National Constituent Assembly approved a "Foreign
Investment Law" meant to improve conditions for foreign capital investments in
Venezuela.
A company that is incorporated only a day before it signs a major oil extraction and
production deal (parts of which violate Venezuela's own laws governing working conditions and
pay for Venezuelan workers and national control over joint ventures) with Venezuela? Does
anyone else not smell a rat?
What could PDVSA have been thinking? Did it not enter their
heads that EREPLA could be a front acting for elements in the US government?
Venezeula has become the tipping point for loss of GRC for the USD.
Venezeulan oil is being shipped to India, refined by the new Rosneft refinery then being
sold in anything but USD.
Added to the now over 100 country's that are rejecting the USD by using bi-lateral trade,
KSA already selling in yuan, the desperation of Uncle Scam is palpable.
Interesting times, or as one source said today, an Arch Duke moment could well be here.
Why Venezuela? Why now?
We've looked at these questions before. The answer to the first is, I think, most
interesting:
It represents a return of the Empire to its natural sphere of influence. It is as untenable
for Russia to control Venezuela as it is for the US to run Ukraine. Or Syria. Or Afghanistan,
for that matter.
It seems to me that the major blocs might be pulling back, and settling for easy gains.
Not that this coup is likely to be easy, it may prove to be impossible. It may even prove to
be the spark that sets Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and the rest of Latin America alight.
But the way the clowns in the White House- who haven't had a new idea since 1981-see it all
resources will be mobilised to make the region safe for imperialism: Venezuela, Cuba,
Nicaragua and Bolivia: in the proverbial cross hairs.
The second question |Why now?) could be a reflection of the fact that the neo-conservative
axis has only recently re-established full spectrum domination over the White House. As the
Hitler Youth Freeland has been hinting: the running in this matter has been made by the Lima
Group in which Canada has been playing a leading and thoroughly despicable role. It was they
who did the pseudo legalistic groundwork for the coup. No doubt Bolton et al found it
convenient to have the Lima group demands presented to it on a plate. That meant that even
Ponce, who together with Bolton and Pompeo takes the role of the Three Weird Sisters in this
tragedy, could trigger the crisis with a phone call to Guido. Whose role is clearly to be
martyred, probably by a CIA sniper, so that he can die, if not for his country at least for
its corrupt elites.
We've seen this movie before.
Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient--we speak as we are obliged, since
you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest -- that you should not destroy
what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is
fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid. And you are as much
interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an
example for the world to meditate upon.
Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival
empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the
vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. This, however, is
a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in
the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the
preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble,
and see you preserved for the good of us both.
Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to
rule?
Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the
worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.
Melians . So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of
enemies, but allies of neither side.
Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be
an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
Melians. Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do
with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some
conquered rebels?
Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and
that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not
molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain
in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others
rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of
the sea.
Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we
indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey
your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to
coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case
from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater
the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have
never thought of it?
Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm;
the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is
rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke,
who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious
danger.
Melians. Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to
get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to
try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.
Athenians. Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with
honour as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not
resisting those who are far stronger than you are...
Jason Raimondo's hopes that the tide slowly was turning against the War
Party with Trump's appointment of Tillerson are dashed for good with the appointments of
Abrams, Bolton and Pompeo. The thugs for Wall Street have taken DC. Trump might as well go
home. Raimondo wrote of Abrams in 2017 in "The End of Globalism":
Excerpt:
Oh yes, the times they are a changin', as Bob Dylan once put it, and
here's the evidence :
"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered his department to redefine its mission and
issue a new statement of purpose to the world. The draft statements under review right now are
similar to the old mission statement, except for one thing – any mention of promoting
democracy is being eliminated."
All the usual suspects are in a tizzy .
Elliott Abrams , he of
Contra-gate fame , and one of the purest of
the neoconservative ideologues , is cited in the
Washington Post piece as being quite unhappy: "The only significant difference is the
deletion of justice and democracy. We used to want a just and democratic word, and now
apparently we don't."
Abrams' contribution to a just and democratic world is
well-known : supporting a
military dictatorship in El Salvador during the 1980s that slaughtered thousand s, and then
testifying before Congress that massive human rights violations by the US-supported regime were
Communist "propaganda." US policy, of which he was one of the principal architects, led to the
lawlessness that now plagues that country, which has a higher murder rate than Iraq: in Abrams'
view, the Reagan policy of supporting a military dictatorship was "a fabulous achievement." The
same murderous policy was pursued in
Nicaragua while Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian
Affairs, as the US tried to overthrow a democratically elected government and provoked a civil
war that led to the death of many thousands . In
Honduras
and Guatemala
, Abrams was instrumental in covering up heinous atrocities committed by US-supported
regimes.
And, now, Venezuela. The economic hit man has arrived.
" 'I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I
spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the
bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and
especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a
decent place for the National city Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of
half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify
Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light
to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras
right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that
Standard Oil went on its way unmolested." --
Smedley Butler
Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago (Edited)
...The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some
cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.
napper, 4 hours ago (Edited)
He will, if he gets a second term!!!
Abrams' appointment is no accident or mistake. By now even the most casual (but intelligent) observer should have seen
through Donald Trump's contemptuous disregard for legal institutions and a criminal propensity for lawlessness.
Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago(Edited)
And most American sheeple are dumb as a pile of rocks. The few good people left are largely powerless and have to deal
with so much BS in all directions. I hope they will get through the coming implosion with their sanity intact.
Glad I left that shithole. I saw it coming. What's coming won't be pretty.
CananTheConrearian1, 3 hours ago
OK, Great Mind, name a populace that is as smart as Americans. Europeans? Chinese? We're glad you left, ********.
Just one more to a long list of Trump appointments. I believe Trump is some kind of pervert, like the ones that like
to get whipped, only Trump likes to get stabbed in the back. XXX , 34 minutes ago
He does what Sheldon and Bibi tell him.
You think you're so ******* smart, but this some how eludes you?
YYY, 3 hours ago (Edited)
Donald Trump's House of Cons, Clowns, Crappolas, Criminals, and Conspirators:
Jason Raimondo's hopes that the tide slowly was turning against the War
Party with Trump's appointment of Tillerson are dashed for good with the appointments of
Abrams, Bolton and Pompeo. The thugs for Wall Street have taken DC. Trump might as well go
home. Raimondo wrote of Abrams in 2017 in "The End of Globalism":
Excerpt:
Oh yes, the times they are a changin', as Bob Dylan once put it, and
here's the evidence :
"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered his department to redefine its mission and
issue a new statement of purpose to the world. The draft statements under review right now are
similar to the old mission statement, except for one thing – any mention of promoting
democracy is being eliminated."
All the usual suspects are in a tizzy .
Elliott Abrams , he of
Contra-gate fame , and one of the purest of
the neoconservative ideologues , is cited in the
Washington Post piece as being quite unhappy: "The only significant difference is the
deletion of justice and democracy. We used to want a just and democratic word, and now
apparently we don't."
Abrams' contribution to a just and democratic world is
well-known : supporting a
military dictatorship in El Salvador during the 1980s that slaughtered thousand s, and then
testifying before Congress that massive human rights violations by the US-supported regime were
Communist "propaganda." US policy, of which he was one of the principal architects, led to the
lawlessness that now plagues that country, which has a higher murder rate than Iraq: in Abrams'
view, the Reagan policy of supporting a military dictatorship was "a fabulous achievement." The
same murderous policy was pursued in
Nicaragua while Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian
Affairs, as the US tried to overthrow a democratically elected government and provoked a civil
war that led to the death of many thousands . In
Honduras
and Guatemala
, Abrams was instrumental in covering up heinous atrocities committed by US-supported
regimes.
And, now, Venezuela. The economic hit man has arrived.
" 'I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I
spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the
bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and
especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a
decent place for the National city Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of
half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify
Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light
to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras
right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that
Standard Oil went on its way unmolested." --
Smedley Butler
Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago (Edited)
...The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some
cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.
napper, 4 hours ago (Edited)
He will, if he gets a second term!!!
Abrams' appointment is no accident or mistake. By now even the most casual (but intelligent) observer should have seen
through Donald Trump's contemptuous disregard for legal institutions and a criminal propensity for lawlessness.
Brazen Heist II, 4 hours ago(Edited)
And most American sheeple are dumb as a pile of rocks. The few good people left are largely powerless and have to deal
with so much BS in all directions. I hope they will get through the coming implosion with their sanity intact.
Glad I left that shithole. I saw it coming. What's coming won't be pretty.
CananTheConrearian1, 3 hours ago
OK, Great Mind, name a populace that is as smart as Americans. Europeans? Chinese? We're glad you left, ********.
"... The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they come across a particularly adorable baby. ..."
"... I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's books and media appearances. ..."
"... George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one). ..."
"... That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems these people don't have a conscience. ..."
"... Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking, oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's. ..."
"... The Deep State Guardian. Why don't they just change their name to 'The Daily Thatcherite' and have done with it. ..."
"... They should just show it's full title: The Guardian Of The Establishment ..."
"... well, yeah. but for us mad people it goes deeper even than that: https://geopolitics.co/2018/12/02/in-memoriam-george-h-scherff-jr-aka-george-hw-bush-sr/ ..."
British and most western media are either in the direct or indirect pay of their governments. What journalist can expose this
for us? Any of you willing to make the biggest scoop of the 21st century? Tom Bradbury at ITN must be on the spook payroll, for
starters? MI6 had foreign correspondents for years, but domestic mouthpieces must now be on the take too? All paid to demonise
Russia and Putin.
The Guardian has lost all sense of proportion – mention Tommy Robinson and the entire staff through themselves to floor and
roll round like dying flies – yet for when it comes to US neocons they go all misty eyed, redolent of a broody couple when they
come across a particularly adorable baby.
Simon 'white helmets' Tisdall is especially egregious – one can imagine him throwing darts at a picture of Putin while
producing his latest homily to the murderous actions of gangsters like Bush and his crime family.
Its hard not to despair now this has become the official face of Britains so-called liberal media.
I would wager a medium sum that Tisdall is on a payroll other than the Grauniad's, or he's an actual asset per Ulfkötte's
books and media appearances. As with Michael White, with whom I had a very illuminating argument via email a few years back.
He *is* an asset, not a journalist (and a massive dick, to boot)
I thought the attitude of the Bush family to their fellow Americans was best illustrated by Barbara's response to the plight of
the homeless victims of Katrina who had been transported to the Houston domed stadium. They spent their nights there sleeping
on hard benches and when good ole Babs heard of it, she opined that they probably had never had it so good so why were they complaining.
Could Mother Theresa have had greater generosity of spirit?
Not just one article, the awful Guardian is full of contents eulogising [yet another] mongrel of a president.
But look at conservative media. The crazy Infowars.com described this Bush as an Anti-American Globalist and Traitor!! .. and
zerohedge.com is celebrating: "The Evil Has Died" and "In 2016 he voted for Hillary Clinton, because the Deep State Swamp sticks
together". https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-02/exploring-dark-side-bush-41
Just tell me, who is the rabid neo-con right-wing rag that is glorifying wars and mass murderers?
The late Robert Parry, sad to say. Maybe that now both the 'MacBeths' are stains on the tarmac – Parry's notes of the bloodstained
legacy of that dynasty can finally be displayed? That Barbara was one cold blooded mother! Would have happily pulled a trigger
on JFK, MLK herself (some think).
Just about the whole century from the setup of the Fed, the two world wars, the depression,
Hitler, Korea, Cuba all of it, had a a Bush hand in it. He was the self crowned Caesar having publicly executed the whole of Camelot
and left us with a poison toad, reminds us how low the Bush's took the USA.
George Bush spent his adult life organizing operations and wars that killed a few million people. Anyone who has spiritual
beliefs must wonder how it is to die with so much killing on your record or conscience (if you have one).
That's something I've wondered about many times. If you review John McCain's actions and comments before he died, it seems
these people don't have a conscience. If you surround yourself with people of similar mindset and in a climate where war
is considered obligatory for US Presidents, you go into self denial. Wars are probably like an addiction for these people and
once you get to that stage you no longer have a conscience.
During John McCain's funeral where all living ex-presidents were in attendance, someone remarked on Twitter, 'Quick, lock the
church doors and hold the war crimes trial in the church!'. This was a far more realistic observation than the sickening McCain
apologist BBC coverage we were subjected to.
At the weekend I went to the place where Oliver Cromwell lived. There was an American tourist who told us she was shocked about
Oliver Cromwell being dug up from his grave and his head stuck on a pike. She said it was gruesome. I was tempted to say that
at least that was 350 years ago, and similar things are happening today in Iraq, Syria and Libya – all places where the US has
instigated the chaos and supports the perpretators. I resisted the temptation.
I note that Cromwell thought he was chosen by God to do what he did. But again that was in different times and there were some
redeeming factors in what he did, Probably on par with Obama – who wreaked havoc on the Middle East but reached agreements on
Iran and Cuba. Plus Obama looked cool while killing and droning.
But what goes around comes around. I sense the pure evil involved in the current regime change wars, government, media etc
will pay a heavy price – whether in this life or the next.
The state controlled BBC has just done another puff piece on McCain saying what a splendid chap and great statesman and all round
good egg he was.
The MSM likes to slag off Vlad The Bad by droning on about how he was in the KGB. But Bush wasn't just IN the CIA, he was the
BOSS of the CIA, at a time when hundreds of thousands of Central American peasant farmers and Indians were being killed by CIA
trained and orchestrated death squads.
Mark: jayzus Mark, don't you just want to projectile vomit when you see all this absolute bullshit, just straight out revising
of history, just the lies, on and on . I was involved in a Central American solidarity group in the 1980s – early 90s here in
Aussie, found out then all about U.S style 'democracatic values' and 'human rights concerns' and death squads and various fascists
fully supported by the United States, and places like Guatemala and Nicaragua. Its all an illusion for 'polite society' and the
gullible to believe in. Sigh
I can't remember the exact figures but I think it was over 200,000 murdered in Guatemala out of a population of 4 million. It
was the same story in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. And of course the CIA satrap Noriega was hauled off in chains
when that country was invaded. But Uncle Sam is finally paying a price for his antics south of the border. Those societies were
wrecked and brutalised beyond repair. There is now an unbelievably high murder rate of women in Guatemala. Millions of those people
have sought some kind of refuge in the belly of the beast, causing an immigration crisis, with an illegal immigrant population
that may be as high as 30 million. Hence all the uproar over Trump's wall. The immigration crisis was a factor in Trump's election,
just as the tidal wave of migrants from the destroyed countries of the Middle East was a factor in Brexit. Cameron, Sarko and
Clinton thought it was a spiffing idea and quite a wizard wheeze to bomb Libya back to the Stone Age. So we now have a Mad Max
failed state complete with warlords and slave markets just across the Med. What goes around, comes around. You can't expect to
export violence and mayhem abroad and remain immune to it at home.
Mark: after Efrain Rios Montt seized power in a coup in Guatemala in 1982, US Ambassador Frederick Chapin declared that thanks
to the coup of Rios Montt "the Guatemalan Govt has come out of the darkness into the light". That sums it up in one sentence,
and you're probably aware of the mass killing and disappearances under his genocidal tyranny. Reagan kindly submitted that Rios
Montt was 'getting a bum rap on human rights, the same Reagan who declared the Contra's were 'The moral equal of our founding
fathers'. In El Salvador, the same mass slaughter, the same mass upheaval, and even murdering Archbishop Romero. You only need
to look at what happened in Central & South America to understand what the United States really represents.
That's entirely right. People understandably despise and revile people like Brady and Hindley, Sutcliffe, Dahmer, Bundy and the
like. But they killed a handful of people and were often very damaged individuals to begin with. And at least they did their own
dirty work. Subhuman scum sucking filth like Bush, Bush 2, Obama, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice, Blair, Straw and Campbell
are a thousand times worse. They kill millions without getting their hands dirty, and preen and posture as great statesmen and
public servants, expecting deference and state funerals and puff piece obituaries from nauseating, loathsome, lickspittle media
hacks like Tisdall.
Nailed it Kit. The attempt at revionism and rewriting history by these craven creatures, these sycophantic slimebag shills for
Imperialism and War and the Anglo Zionist Empire. They don't speak truth to power, they protect and grovel to the powerful. The
eulogising and fawning of Bush was stomach churning, as it was for the arch Imperialist McCain when he croaked. Thank God for
alternative news sites, and yeah Caitlin Johnston @ medium nailed it as well, as Fair Dinkum mentioned. Where's John Pilger when
you need him?
What no one seems to realize is that the VP often takes charge of the US National Security Council when POTUS is not able to attend
meetings, which are held weekly. Under Eisenhower it was Richard Nixon who often took charge of the meetings -- Tim Weiner's book
"Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA" gives some details on this. Reagan was primarily a mantle piece for the banking,
oil and defense sectors to run wild. Is it really so hard to believe GHW Bush was running the National Security Council? It was
a CIA wet dream come true (especially after the alligator-armed "investigations" of the 70's.
I don't know but as a fairly apolitical individual, I never much bothered with the Kennedy Assasination. All that changed when
during the fiftieth anniversary, BBC Radio Four ran a program which included an interview with the Dallas police officer who was
handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby. The consensus of that program was that the case was open shut and
Oswald did it. Around that time, several newspapers in the UK featured articles claiming that Oswald acted alone.
Whether or not anyone actively involved still lives, their descendants still do and the probable organising body too. There
still appears to be determination in some quarters to spread disinformation about the case. Given that as long ago as the late
seventies the House of Representatives Assassination Committee concluded that JFK's death was probably the consequence of a conspiracy,
determination amongst the mainstream media to lay Kennedy's death at the hands of Oswald alone suggests that there is still determination
that the truth never becomes public.
I'm sickened by the Guardian's and BBC's obedience to the US neocon project to seek, or create, and destroy "enemies" and whilst
ignoring all the disgusting atrocities that arise as a consequence.
The Guardian is not even worth the paper it's printed on. It's become The Guardian Of The Establishment rather than of the
Truth which it used to proclaim.
It is in danger of losing its budgie-cage-liner status. If budgies can talk they may refuse to evacuate on it. What kind of person
maintains ties to such a a poor excuse for cage toiletry. The moral crunch time for their journalists (actually their opinionists)
came and went a long time ago.
What a great piece. My parents knew them in New York and they came over once and left behind an embossed packet of White House
cigs. I asked my father (before he died) what he thought of them and all he ever said was he thought that Barbara was the intellect
in the family.
Bloody annoying, thanks Pater.
"The induction of DU weapons in 1991 in Iraq broke a 46-year taboo. This Trojan Horse of nuclear war continues to be used more
and more. DU remains radioactive longer than the age of the earth (estimated at 4.5 billion years). The long-term effects from
over a decade of DU exposures are devastating. The increased quantities of radioactive material used in Afghanistan are 3 to 5
times greater than Iraq, 1991. In Iraq, 2003, they are already estimated to be 6 to 10 times 1991, and will travel through a larger
area and affect many more people, babies and unborn. Countries within a 1000-mile radius of Baghdad and Kabul are being affected
by radiation poisoning
"DU remains radioactive longer than [ ] 4.5 billion years." It's worse than that. It loses half of its radioactivity in that time.
The good news is that that slow release means "D"U doesn't zap you much. The bad news is it's chemically toxic, like a heavy metal
(which it is).
Also no mention of the body of circumstantial evidence linking Bush to JFK's murder, though Bush repeatedly insisted that he couldn't
recall his whereabouts that day (I can precisely recall where I was, and I was 9 years old in 1963), in spite of the fact that
solid documentary evidence exists that puts him in Dallas on Nov 22, 1963.
The very first Google Search I did was this, (George H.W. Bush+November 22, 1963) and it yielded a page like the following link,
which began my research into the JFK Assassination.
Who is next? Paul
Wolfowitz now would be the most logical choice. Id the invasion of Venezuela decided already,
like Iraq war under Bush II.
That means that Rump can say goodbye to independents who votes for him because of his
anti-foreign wars noises during previous election campaign
Notable quotes:
"... Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle. Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra. ..."
"... Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign governments both by covert action and outright military invasion. ..."
"... At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. ..."
"... Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly would advance U.S. interests. ..."
"... Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation? ..."
"... Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no -- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot. ..."
"... If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg, David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would be a necessary condition. ..."
"... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that. ..."
On Friday, following the dramatic arrest of a prominent Trump supporter on charges of lying
to Congress, President Trump gave one of the nation's most sensitive national security and
diplomatic posts to another controversial figure who already had been convicted of lying to
Congress.
Has the NeverTrump Republican echo chamber gone berserk over this irresponsible
appointment?
Have Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio taken to the Senate floor to speak out against the
president's defiance of honesty in government? Have they demanded hearings and a confirmation
vote?
Has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that Trump's action is so egregious it might call for
an article of impeachment?
Not at all. Turns out, the appointee is one of the president's worst enemies, a man
forcefully opposed to almost all of Trump's policies and campaign promises, a man who
repeatedly has said Trump is morally unfit for his office. He is Elliott Abrams, the
71-year-old éminence grise of the NeverTrump movement.
Abrams is the pre-eminent prophet and practitioner of hyper-interventionist approaches to
destabilize or overthrow governments - of foes and friends alike - that do not pass his
democracy-is-the-end-all-and-be-all litmus test. His closest friends and associates, from whom
his political positions are indistinguishable, include some of President Trump's most rabid
enemies, false-flag "conservatives" Bill Kristol and Max Boot.
Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for
lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle.
Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of
impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned
by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra.
After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly
elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where
Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects
of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries
whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign
governments both by covert action and outright military invasion.
At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied
clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy
head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. Trump, who would
have had to sign off on the nomination, rejected Abrams when he learned of Abrams' background.
The truth about Abrams, while not by any means a secret,
came to Trump's attention from Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Paul, who held a deciding vote in
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would block Abrams if he were nominated.
Abrams already knew then what Trump took nearly a year to discover, that Tillerson was
hopelessly unprepared to serve as the nation's chief diplomat and indeed was, as Trump
colorfully put it, "dumb as a rock." Nothing about Abrams, the NeverTrumper who believes Trump cannot govern effectively without
him, has changed since then.
Following his rejection by Trump, Abrams wrote a sour-grapes article for
Politico , disparaging the president, along with Vice President Pence and Abrams' erstwhile
patron Tillerson, for not having international human rights policies identical to Abrams' own
views.
Abrams has been outspoken against sensitive Trump international policies right up to the
moment of his surprise appointment. He is unapologetic about his role in masterminding the Iraq
war. He has opposed Trump concerning American troops in Syria and America's relationship with
Saudi Arabia. As recently as January 14, 2019, he published a withering
attack on Trump's Middle East policies and diplomacy.
As events in Venezuela last week reached a crisis with rival claimants to the nation's
presidency, Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as
special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly
would advance U.S. interests.
Immediately? An appointee to a sensitive post needs a background investigation and security
clearance. These investigations can take months. If he indeed has a valid clearance, that means
his appointment was decided long ago.
Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or
assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate
acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation?
What is Pompeo thinking? Has Pompeo read Abrams' anti-Trump articles? In particular, has he
read Abrams' January 14 anti-Trump article that mocks Pompeo with a hugely unflattering photo
of the secretary of state?
What is going on?
Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of
whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no
-- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot.
If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your
enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg,
David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams
appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would
be a necessary condition.
So far there are no signs of this.
What did Trump know about the new Abrams appointment, and when did he know it?
It's amazing seeing the holdout Trump supporters continually writhe in mental contortions
to support his every move..as I've said all along..TDS affects the sheep on both right and
left equally.
Brazen Heist II 4 minutes ago (Edited)
... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in
some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.
uhland62, 5 minutes ago
This guy is just picking up a couple more paychecks. He may think he can whip up Trump for more wars, Trump may think he
can control this guy because 'I am President and you are not'. The main thing is that the military can make more wars and
destroy more countries.
The-Post, 15 minutes ago
Trump loves those Bush criminals.
readerandthinker
Venezuelan army defectors appeal to Trump for weapons
Caracas, Venezuela (CNN)Venezuelan army defectors are calling on the Trump administration to arm them, in what they call
their quest for "freedom."
Former soldiers Carlos Guillen Martinez and Josue Hidalgo Azuaje, who live outside the country, told CNN they want US
military assistance to equip others inside the beleaguered nation. They claim to be in contact with hundreds of willing
defectors and have called on enlisted Venezuelan soldiers to revolt against the Maduro regime, through television broadcasts.
"As Venezuelan soldiers, we are making a request to the US to support us, in logistical terms, with communication,
with weapons, so we can realize Venezuelan freedom," Guillen Martinez told CNN.
"... War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme. ..."
"... Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few who run the show generation after generation. ..."
"... He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom. ..."
"... So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really mean what it really says. Scary sob ..."
"... Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job. ..."
"... When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****. ..."
"... I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo, 150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****. ..."
"... it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails. ..."
"... After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. ..."
Abrams is obviously a Bush plant from left over CIA Bushys.
Abrams lied to Congress twice about his role with the Contras. He pleaded guilty to both counts in 1991 but was pardoned
by George H.W. Bush just before the latter left office.
A decade later, while working as special Middle East adviser to President George Ws Bush, Abrams was an enthusiastic advocate
of the disastrous Iraq invasion.
Abrams was also in the Bush White House at the time of the abortive coup in 2002 against the late Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez.
Abrams helped lead the U.S. effort to stage a coup to overturn the results of the 2006 Palestinian elections, complete
with murder and torture.
War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old
Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme.
This is the precise crap people were hoping to avoid with Trump, but the left has put Trump administration in a vice by having
constant fires to put out and disyractions with FALE RUSSIAN COLLUSION
... It's a psychological ploy to wear down the President and search for legitimate excuse to gain public opinion to go against
Russia and they found it. Venezuela is a **** hole from socialism which AOL and dems are embracing now. Of course having sorry
liberal advisors like Kushner doesn't help... That is a huge mistake to have the opposition ( democrate Kushner and wife) in the
hen house with great pursasive power over an overwhelm Trump... Strategy working.
But politics as it is run mostly out of " The City of London" and old lynn Rothschild wanted puppet Hillary in ( Rothschild's
play dirty to get what they want and hold a full house of cards with the financial tools to " persuade people to their way of
thinking"... A battle us penny picker uppers must live with.... It's the only change we get.
Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few
who run the show generation after generation.
He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they
enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom.
So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton
still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really
mean what it really says. Scary sob
Abrams was convicted of lying to congress meanwhile congress lies to us all day everyday and what happens to those bastards?
They vote themselves raises and sit on their *** all day taking bribes from their paymasters and writing laws and regulations
to control their chattel. Yes I hate politicians because they're ******* criminals and all of them and the useless bureaucrats
that infest that cesspool in D.C should be out of work permanently.
Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield
power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job.
When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company
he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who
the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****.
I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo,
150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****.
You're excused...it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in
after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails.
Seriously though, it's interesting that ZH has said nothing about the big corruption scandal going on now in Brasil. The guy
who won on platform of anti-corruption has been exposed within a month of taking office, surprise...surprise, as part of one of
the worst. Talk is vp taking over with the backing of the military. "soft-hard" coup you could say.
I too, got very angry about the exact things you mention. However, I perspective is something that keeps me grounded. Remember
what was happening in 2016, and what the options were. Remember BLM, march's in like every city, and Cops getting ambushed every
few weeks?
Remember, "We came, We saw, he died", from Queen Hillary? Or how about Queen Hillary calling Putin a Thug, and saying we had
to stand up to him in Ukraine, and Syria?
dude, we all know she is part of the same ****. The ******** election is over, the plutocracy chose their puppet. Think of
it, sure Killary would have done the same, but she wouldn't have been able to get away with it and the schizoid msm would have
had a breakdown trying to sell the same ol, same ol us empire games. People don't like surprises. Repubelicans as aggressive warmongers
doesnt surprise. Sadly they think they cant do anything about it. But they can, and not by talking **** on ZH.
See Ralph Nader's, How the Rats Re-Formed the Congress for tips.
It's 10 dimensional to the fifth power chess right? Just kidding. It's a big club and you ain't in it. Trump is not going to
save you. Did you really think one guy defied the odds and overcame the voter fraud and beat Hillary? Puhleez. All by design.
You're watching a movie...
After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush
appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief.
Didn't W run on a 'bring the troops home and world leave us alone' platform in 2000?
when i think about what Trump did so far I think about that mandatory Obama care tax that I had to pay if I* didn't get Obama
care Well it's gone and that was a big deal for me cause I've got four kids that would have to pay it and that would be six thousand
out of pocket every year that's for starters with out Trump running interference in the FL house and senate elections we'd have
Obama lite new and antique Bill still that makes a huge difference in things like taxes and EPA enforcement in this state I really
think he has made the general public more aware of the Mexican invasion cause I see less and less Latinos on the jobs sites around
here He has really caused the Dems to lose it Trump did that not any other politician he has exposed election fraud he has exposed
the deep state like never before
Yes I'm a Trump supporter a thoughtful one I consider the options and will go with this till it impacts me negatively on an
economic personal level not an emotional one brought on by pundits and MSM never Trump ilk
why don't you ask me if I think he is perfect I think his wife is pretty much ok however I hate that he is from NYC and acts
like it his friends are not much to be proud of and his social skills are lacking but I think he showers regularly and has good
hygiene and moral habits except for golf but that's just me He's a bossy kind of guy and I might not get along with him He doesn't
do things country folks do and wouldn't fit in around here his hair sucks and is a narcissistic affectation for sure but i like
his foreign policy so far how am i doing think I'm being killed slowly I liked Ike but he was weak and I liked Buchanan bur preferred
Goldwater and on and on they are politicians and deserve the loyalty they give and " that's all I have to say about that"
Trump is a psychopath and he loves to hire even bigger psychopaths. Your whole admin is a swamp of sociopaths, psychopaths
and other sick deranged people.
"... War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme. ..."
"... Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few who run the show generation after generation. ..."
"... He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom. ..."
"... So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really mean what it really says. Scary sob ..."
"... Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job. ..."
"... When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****. ..."
"... I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo, 150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****. ..."
"... it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails. ..."
"... After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. ..."
Abrams is obviously a Bush plant from left over CIA Bushys.
Abrams lied to Congress twice about his role with the Contras. He pleaded guilty to both counts in 1991 but was pardoned
by George H.W. Bush just before the latter left office.
A decade later, while working as special Middle East adviser to President George Ws Bush, Abrams was an enthusiastic advocate
of the disastrous Iraq invasion.
Abrams was also in the Bush White House at the time of the abortive coup in 2002 against the late Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez.
Abrams helped lead the U.S. effort to stage a coup to overturn the results of the 2006 Palestinian elections, complete
with murder and torture.
War with Russia will be the agenda just as the left wanted to begin with. The " pick sides" is the warring cry of the old
Bush regime of " either you're with us or against us" theme.
This is the precise crap people were hoping to avoid with Trump, but the left has put Trump administration in a vice by having
constant fires to put out and disyractions with FALE RUSSIAN COLLUSION
... It's a psychological ploy to wear down the President and search for legitimate excuse to gain public opinion to go against
Russia and they found it. Venezuela is a **** hole from socialism which AOL and dems are embracing now. Of course having sorry
liberal advisors like Kushner doesn't help... That is a huge mistake to have the opposition ( democrate Kushner and wife) in the
hen house with great pursasive power over an overwhelm Trump... Strategy working.
But politics as it is run mostly out of " The City of London" and old lynn Rothschild wanted puppet Hillary in ( Rothschild's
play dirty to get what they want and hold a full house of cards with the financial tools to " persuade people to their way of
thinking"... A battle us penny picker uppers must live with.... It's the only change we get.
Radical capitalism on the left and conservative traditional capitalism on right.... Both fighting for the same select few
who run the show generation after generation.
He's not really attacked by anyone. Its a bipartisan play to distract the gullible from the sick and subhuman policy they
enact while you are distracted with the wall or fantasizing bout his tiny mushroom.
So Trump jerks a couple of gators from the swamp, but only to make room for the T-Rex. Amazing. And why the hell is Bolton
still involved in our government? He penned an article during the bush admin explaining why the posse comitatus doesn't really
mean what it really says. Scary sob
Abrams was convicted of lying to congress meanwhile congress lies to us all day everyday and what happens to those bastards?
They vote themselves raises and sit on their *** all day taking bribes from their paymasters and writing laws and regulations
to control their chattel. Yes I hate politicians because they're ******* criminals and all of them and the useless bureaucrats
that infest that cesspool in D.C should be out of work permanently.
Trump is Zahpod Beeblebrox. Anyone remember the Hitchhiker's Guide? The role of the galactic president was not to wield
power, but to distract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was remarkably good at his job.
When he bombed Syria in the first weeks of his presidency, giving the MIC, a $100 million of bomb sales ( to a company
he had shares in, raytheon) was enough for me that tRump is what he always has been, a bankrupt, loud mouth yankee puppet who
the plutocrats chose to continue the usual US empire evil ****.
I had my suspicions prior with his choice of vp, mad eyes pence, a protege and smoker of **** cheney. Then pompous pompeo,
150% arsehole bolton and now this official pos. Only a trumptard or patriotard would accept this ****.
You're excused...it's just too much to keep track of it all. My scorecard booklet was all used up about the 1st week in
after all the neocons and bankster slime who galloped into the WH on Trump's coattails.
Seriously though, it's interesting that ZH has said nothing about the big corruption scandal going on now in Brasil. The guy
who won on platform of anti-corruption has been exposed within a month of taking office, surprise...surprise, as part of one of
the worst. Talk is vp taking over with the backing of the military. "soft-hard" coup you could say.
I too, got very angry about the exact things you mention. However, I perspective is something that keeps me grounded. Remember
what was happening in 2016, and what the options were. Remember BLM, march's in like every city, and Cops getting ambushed every
few weeks?
Remember, "We came, We saw, he died", from Queen Hillary? Or how about Queen Hillary calling Putin a Thug, and saying we had
to stand up to him in Ukraine, and Syria?
dude, we all know she is part of the same ****. The ******** election is over, the plutocracy chose their puppet. Think of
it, sure Killary would have done the same, but she wouldn't have been able to get away with it and the schizoid msm would have
had a breakdown trying to sell the same ol, same ol us empire games. People don't like surprises. Repubelicans as aggressive warmongers
doesnt surprise. Sadly they think they cant do anything about it. But they can, and not by talking **** on ZH.
See Ralph Nader's, How the Rats Re-Formed the Congress for tips.
It's 10 dimensional to the fifth power chess right? Just kidding. It's a big club and you ain't in it. Trump is not going to
save you. Did you really think one guy defied the odds and overcame the voter fraud and beat Hillary? Puhleez. All by design.
You're watching a movie...
After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly elected President George W. Bush
appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief.
Didn't W run on a 'bring the troops home and world leave us alone' platform in 2000?
when i think about what Trump did so far I think about that mandatory Obama care tax that I had to pay if I* didn't get Obama
care Well it's gone and that was a big deal for me cause I've got four kids that would have to pay it and that would be six thousand
out of pocket every year that's for starters with out Trump running interference in the FL house and senate elections we'd have
Obama lite new and antique Bill still that makes a huge difference in things like taxes and EPA enforcement in this state I really
think he has made the general public more aware of the Mexican invasion cause I see less and less Latinos on the jobs sites around
here He has really caused the Dems to lose it Trump did that not any other politician he has exposed election fraud he has exposed
the deep state like never before
Yes I'm a Trump supporter a thoughtful one I consider the options and will go with this till it impacts me negatively on an
economic personal level not an emotional one brought on by pundits and MSM never Trump ilk
why don't you ask me if I think he is perfect I think his wife is pretty much ok however I hate that he is from NYC and acts
like it his friends are not much to be proud of and his social skills are lacking but I think he showers regularly and has good
hygiene and moral habits except for golf but that's just me He's a bossy kind of guy and I might not get along with him He doesn't
do things country folks do and wouldn't fit in around here his hair sucks and is a narcissistic affectation for sure but i like
his foreign policy so far how am i doing think I'm being killed slowly I liked Ike but he was weak and I liked Buchanan bur preferred
Goldwater and on and on they are politicians and deserve the loyalty they give and " that's all I have to say about that"
Trump is a psychopath and he loves to hire even bigger psychopaths. Your whole admin is a swamp of sociopaths, psychopaths
and other sick deranged people.
Who is next? Paul
Wolfowitz now would be the most logical choice. Id the invasion of Venezuela decided already,
like Iraq war under Bush II.
That means that Rump can say goodbye to independents who votes for him because of his
anti-foreign wars noises during previous election campaign
Notable quotes:
"... Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle. Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra. ..."
"... Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign governments both by covert action and outright military invasion. ..."
"... At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. ..."
"... Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly would advance U.S. interests. ..."
"... Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation? ..."
"... Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no -- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot. ..."
"... If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg, David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would be a necessary condition. ..."
"... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that. ..."
On Friday, following the dramatic arrest of a prominent Trump supporter on charges of lying
to Congress, President Trump gave one of the nation's most sensitive national security and
diplomatic posts to another controversial figure who already had been convicted of lying to
Congress.
Has the NeverTrump Republican echo chamber gone berserk over this irresponsible
appointment?
Have Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio taken to the Senate floor to speak out against the
president's defiance of honesty in government? Have they demanded hearings and a confirmation
vote?
Has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that Trump's action is so egregious it might call for
an article of impeachment?
Not at all. Turns out, the appointee is one of the president's worst enemies, a man
forcefully opposed to almost all of Trump's policies and campaign promises, a man who
repeatedly has said Trump is morally unfit for his office. He is Elliott Abrams, the
71-year-old éminence grise of the NeverTrump movement.
Abrams is the pre-eminent prophet and practitioner of hyper-interventionist approaches to
destabilize or overthrow governments - of foes and friends alike - that do not pass his
democracy-is-the-end-all-and-be-all litmus test. His closest friends and associates, from whom
his political positions are indistinguishable, include some of President Trump's most rabid
enemies, false-flag "conservatives" Bill Kristol and Max Boot.
Abrams, who had served in the Reagan State Department, faced multiple felony charges for
lying to Congress and defying U.S. law in his role as a mastermind of the Iran-Contra debacle.
Abrams' dishonesty almost destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency and put Reagan in jeopardy of
impeachment. Abrams was allowed to plead guilty to two reduced charges and later was pardoned
by George H.W. Bush, who feared impeachment because of his own role in Iran-Contra.
After having expressed antagonism towards nation-building during the 2000 campaign, newly
elected President George W. Bush appointed Abrams as deputy national security adviser, where
Abrams' role was essentially nation builder-in-chief. Abrams was even more consequential as nation-wrecker. He was one of the principal architects
of the invasion of Iraq. He is an inveterate advocate of "regime change" against countries
whose policies he doesn't like. He has a track record in attempting to overthrow foreign
governments both by covert action and outright military invasion.
At the beginning of the Trump administration, foreign policy establishment types lobbied
clueless Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to accept the convicted criminal Abrams as deputy
head of the department - the person running all day-to-day affairs at State. Trump, who would
have had to sign off on the nomination, rejected Abrams when he learned of Abrams' background.
The truth about Abrams, while not by any means a secret,
came to Trump's attention from Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Paul, who held a deciding vote in
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would block Abrams if he were nominated.
Abrams already knew then what Trump took nearly a year to discover, that Tillerson was
hopelessly unprepared to serve as the nation's chief diplomat and indeed was, as Trump
colorfully put it, "dumb as a rock." Nothing about Abrams, the NeverTrumper who believes Trump cannot govern effectively without
him, has changed since then.
Following his rejection by Trump, Abrams wrote a sour-grapes article for
Politico , disparaging the president, along with Vice President Pence and Abrams' erstwhile
patron Tillerson, for not having international human rights policies identical to Abrams' own
views.
Abrams has been outspoken against sensitive Trump international policies right up to the
moment of his surprise appointment. He is unapologetic about his role in masterminding the Iraq
war. He has opposed Trump concerning American troops in Syria and America's relationship with
Saudi Arabia. As recently as January 14, 2019, he published a withering
attack on Trump's Middle East policies and diplomacy.
As events in Venezuela last week reached a crisis with rival claimants to the nation's
presidency, Abrams suddenly appeared deus ex machina at the side of Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, who said in a news conference that Abrams was appointed, "effective immediately" as
special envoy to deal with resolution of the situation in Venezuela in a way that supposedly
would advance U.S. interests.
Immediately? An appointee to a sensitive post needs a background investigation and security
clearance. These investigations can take months. If he indeed has a valid clearance, that means
his appointment was decided long ago.
Abrams' special envoy post will be far more powerful than that of an ordinary ambassador or
assistant secretary of state -- offices that require Senate confirmation. Should the Senate
acquiesce in letting Abrams work without Senate confirmation?
What is Pompeo thinking? Has Pompeo read Abrams' anti-Trump articles? In particular, has he
read Abrams' January 14 anti-Trump article that mocks Pompeo with a hugely unflattering photo
of the secretary of state?
What is going on?
Abrams is a close friend and constant collaborator of Bill Kristol and Max Boot, both of
whom are waging campaigns to impeach Trump or deny him re-election. There are no -- repeat, no
-- policy differences between Abrams, Kristol, and Boot.
If the appointment is supposed to be a sharp move to "hug your friends close and your
enemies closer," then the test of its efficacy would be that Kristol, Boot, Jonah Goldberg,
David French et. al., would halt their anti-Trump campaigns. One would think that if the Abrams
appointment is one side of a shrewdly calculated transaction, then silencing Team Kristol would
be a necessary condition.
So far there are no signs of this.
What did Trump know about the new Abrams appointment, and when did he know it?
It's amazing seeing the holdout Trump supporters continually writhe in mental contortions
to support his every move..as I've said all along..TDS affects the sheep on both right and
left equally.
Brazen Heist II 4 minutes ago (Edited)
... The Orange Buffoon might as well open the door to Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Perle. Hell even get Scooter Libby in
some cameo. You know, keep them enemies closer and all that.
uhland62, 5 minutes ago
This guy is just picking up a couple more paychecks. He may think he can whip up Trump for more wars, Trump may think he
can control this guy because 'I am President and you are not'. The main thing is that the military can make more wars and
destroy more countries.
The-Post, 15 minutes ago
Trump loves those Bush criminals.
readerandthinker
Venezuelan army defectors appeal to Trump for weapons
Caracas, Venezuela (CNN)Venezuelan army defectors are calling on the Trump administration to arm them, in what they call
their quest for "freedom."
Former soldiers Carlos Guillen Martinez and Josue Hidalgo Azuaje, who live outside the country, told CNN they want US
military assistance to equip others inside the beleaguered nation. They claim to be in contact with hundreds of willing
defectors and have called on enlisted Venezuelan soldiers to revolt against the Maduro regime, through television broadcasts.
"As Venezuelan soldiers, we are making a request to the US to support us, in logistical terms, with communication,
with weapons, so we can realize Venezuelan freedom," Guillen Martinez told CNN.
"... Capitalism has at different times or in different places offered concessions to mobilisations of the working class. It offers the fiction of political choice and representation. It provides a fig-leaf of regulation to impinge on the very worst excesses of the free market and private accumulation ..."
An anti-Trotskyist rationale for supporting imperialist war The war for regime change waged in Syria by the NATO powers, in
alliance with Al Qaeda, behind the backs of the peoples of America and Europe, is the outcome of three decades of US-led wars across
the Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.
These crimes of US and European imperialism have not only claimed millions
of lives and turned more than 60 million people into refugees. They have exposed the fact that the basic contradictions of capitalism,
which led to world war and the October Revolution in the 20th century, remain unresolved.
Despite the deep unpopularity of these bloody wars, which have cost trillions of dollars amid the deepest economic crisis of capitalism
since the 1930s, attempts by voters to end or limit them, by voting governments out of office in America and Europe, have failed.
Successive governments of all political colorations have, on the contrary, stepped them up, and it is clear that this has become
a policy endorsed by an entrenched ruling class. When the Syrian regime invited Moscow to help it fight the NATO-backed opposition
militias in 2015, for example, NATO escalated the war into a military standoff with Russia, a nuclear power. A century after the
outbreak of World War I and the Russian Revolution, the capitalist system is teetering on the brink of a nuclear conflagration.
The paragraphs quoted from Hensman in which she extols Western capitalist states providing democratic mechanisms through which
the working class can "fight back" - notwithstanding the 4 decades of unbroken counterrevolution that bring us into the present
- don't just embody the political dead end reached by those who broke from international revolutionary solidarity and Trotskyist
struggles against both Stalinism and imperialism.
They do something much worse and, in my view, more fundamental. They highlight how the thinkers that cluster around groups
like the ISO have completely lost - if they ever had it - the ability to think dialectically. Their political conclusions lead
me to conclude in turn that they actually don't comprehend the most essential principles of Marxist critical analysis of capitalism
or how dialectical materialism builds a complete picture of the totality that is our socio-economic environment.
Capitalism has at different times or in different places offered concessions to mobilisations of the working class. It
offers the fiction of political choice and representation. It provides a fig-leaf of regulation to impinge on the very worst excesses
of the free market and private accumulation.
But - and this is the key thing! - it is in its essence, in the most primitive, unchanging logic of its momentum and inexorable
development, always but always a system in which the privileges and power of capital will be elevated above those of workers.
It is constitutionally organised around that core function. If you don't understand that, every analysis that follows will be
useless.
By proceeding in his analysis from revolutionary concepts of class struggle, exploitation, alienation, and the material basis
for historical development, Marx was able to build - brick by brick - a critique of capitalism itself. Pseudo-left groups like
the ISO or the DSA do the exact opposite - they start from false principles and work towards over-elaborated false conclusions.
It isn't in other words just the case that they err on this or that detail. The whole premise and therefore all the conclusions
are useless - and must be rejected wholesale!
"... Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently – the greatest democracy. ..."
Marks **** s Hitler, but Hitler was pretty good at *** ing Marks too. Listen to this logic: The party that Hitler belonged
to, was called National-Socialist, yet he hated communist and attacked Russia.
Communism and socialism are the same. There never was communism – that's what they were "aspiring" to become in some distant
utopian future. So Hitler attacking Russia because they were communist is like US attacking France because they are capitalists.
Total propaganda BS on the part of the Nazis – calling themselves "Socialists".
The whole last century has been spent on one major task by the west: Combat socialism. Mainly by wars, but propaganda also.
And yet, socialism refuses to die. And the idea will never die. I know, someone will say, where have you been in the last almost
30 years? Capitalism defeated socialism in the cold war. Not so fast. Capitalism may have scored a major victory but it may have
sustained a mortal self-inflicted wound of propaganda nature. In the last 100 years 3 major ways to fight socialism domestically
were discovered:
FDR approach – include little bit of socialism into capitalism, to prevent a lot of socialism (total takeover). Nazi
Germany approach – include none of socialism, but only use its name for propaganda and pretend that all is hunky-dory, and
that "socialism" is already here. US approach – include a little bit of fake socialism in order to prevent a lot of real
socialism from taking over. That's how multiculturalism came into being.
Again, I must say that the best approach was FDR's. If capitalism wants to survive – that's the way to go. Despite all the
numerous wars against socialist countries, US haven't been able to erase the idea of socialism like they were hoping for.
If you want proof of this, just look at the last US election. Along comes Bernie Sanders, just mentions the name socialism
few times – claiming himself to be one – socialist, and wins the primaries, only to be robbed by the Democratic mafia bosses who
couldn't stand the idea of "socialist" running for president – after all the US has done to destroy socialism.
By the way, I think that Bernie is a good guy, but he is probably as much socialist as Adolf used to be. It still demonstrates
the power of the socialist idea to attract people. Pretty clever propaganda ploy on Bernie's part, but there was no chance in
hell the "democrats" would let him run for president on that platform.
And he would have defeated Trump. Talking about exercise in futility – US trying to erase the idea of socialism. That's what
made them inflict the mortal wound of fake socialism on themselves and might in the end destroy them. FDR approach was the best
– little bit of socialism to prevent a lot of it.
How about " Nope ". Communism is an end ; Socialism is a means that Marx considered the most likely to
enable the end-point to be achieved. It's akin to saying that a mall (the end) and a car (the means) are "the same
thing", on the basis that a car is an efficient way to get to the mall.
To flesh it out: Communism is explicitly anarchic, and is mainly characterised by
material abundance and the fulfillment of (self-limited) wants;
no ownership of property (not by individuals or the state);
no class stratification (and hence no political organisations whatsoever);
work as a 'prime want' (not a disutility that must be compensated).
This all seems slightly silly when you write it down, so Marx recognised that there had to be a ' radical transformation
of consciousness ' whereby people didn't want what they couldn't have.
He reckoned that the best way was to entrust an enlightened clique (the ' vanguard of the proletariat ') to take control,
and to force society towards the 'end' by coercion – until such time as the end was in sight, whereupon the enlightened vanguard
would relinquish control and society would be on a glide path to utopia.
And doing that specifically requires that the 'vanguard' controls production and allocation decisions during the transition
– which he thought (wrongly) means that the means of production must be owned by the State.
Hence Socialism.
His end is correct so long as you add one adjective. A society free of artificial stratification is a desirable
end. His means were totally wrong because he was a fucking idiot (as well as being a parasitic charlatan). The State
would not relinquish control under any circumstances, and will actively undermine any mechanism that raises everyone (because
that would narrow the gap between the political class and the demos can't have that).
A society free of artificial stratification is where we will end up once technological progress gets past its next 'knee' ('
The Singularity ') it would be hastened if the parasites in the global political class are put to the sword.
I don't think you understood my argument here. You are correct. Socialism and Communism are not the same in philosophical sense.
My argument was that for all practical purposes Communism never existed – and probably never will. Only Socialism existed in one
form or another in few dozen countries.
Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss
it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently
– the greatest democracy.
An apparent order by US President Donald Trump for the withdrawal of all 2,000 US troops deployed in Syria over the next 60 to
100 days has sparked consternation and sharp opposition from the Pentagon, top Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill as well
as Washington's NATO allies.
The withdrawal order, which was leaked to the media by senior officials within the administration and the military, was given
what apparently constituted a confirmation by a brief tweet from Trump Wednesday declaring, "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only
reason for being there during the Trump Presidency."
This was followed later in the day by a statement from White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, declaring, "We have started returning
United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign," adding, "The United States and our allies stand ready
to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests whenever necessary."
The White House announcement was followed by yet another statement from the Pentagon, whose spokeswoman Dana White flatly contradicted
the US president, declaring that "the coalition has liberated ISIS-held territory, but the campaign against ISIS is not over." ISIS
is an acronym for the Islamic State terror group.
"We will continue working with our partners and allies to defeat ISIS wherever it operates," she said, giving no details as to
a timeline, noting "force protection and operational security reasons."
Meanwhile, Reuters quoted an unnamed US official as stating Wednesday that all US State Department personnel operating inside
Syria were being evacuated from the country within 24 hours.
The official also said that the withdrawal plans flowed directly from an agreement reached between Trump and Turkey's President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a telephone conversation last Friday. "Everything that has followed is implementing the agreement that
was made in that call," the official said.
The call was reportedly made to discuss Turkey's concerns over the presence of the Syrian Kurdish separatist YPG militia near
the Syrian-Turkish border. The YPG is the main element of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the proxy ground force that the US has backed
in northeastern Syria. Erdogan, whose government views the YPG as an extension of the Turkish Kurdish separatist PKK, against which
Ankara has waged a decades-long counterinsurgency campaign, has repeatedly threatened that a Turkish intervention against the YPG
is imminent. Turkish forces, including armor, have reportedly been deployed to the border.
While Washington is no doubt anxious to avoid a potential military confrontation with Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, the
Trump White House has taken other measures aimed at restoring US-Turkish relations, which have been strained since the abortive July
2016 military coup, which enjoyed covert backing from Washington.
Just hours before the withdrawal announcement, the State Department informed Congress of a proposed $3.5 billion dollar deal to
sell Turkey Patriot anti-ballistic missile systems, manufactured by Raytheon. Ankara had previously signaled its intention to buy
S-400 surface-to-air missile systems from Russia. Such a purchase would have precluded Turkey's purchase of US F-35 warplanes, and
would have brought the country's relations with NATO to a breaking point.
The announced withdrawal of US troops may signal a green light to the Erdogan government to launch its threatened invasion of
eastern Syria and drive Kurdish forces from the border. In the absence of US troops, the YPG may seek to reach an accommodation with
Damascus, restoring control of the region to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The illegal US occupation of Syria, begun under the Obama administration in October 2015 without authorization from either the
United Nations or the Syrian government, was expanded under Trump, with at least 2,000 US troops deployed in northeastern Syria as
well as special forces near the borders with Iraq and Jordan in the south.
The launching of the so-called war on ISIS in Syria signaled a shift from the failed US strategy of "regime change" based upon
CIA support for Al Qaeda-linked militias in a bloody war to bring down the Assad government. US troops on the ground in Syria coordinated
a savage campaign of airstrikes and bombardments that reduced the city of Raqqa and other towns controlled by ISIS to rubble.
While during the presidential campaign of 2016 Trump had vowed to withdraw US troops from Syria, Pentagon, intelligence and other
national security officials had dissuaded him against acting on the promise.
Figures like Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis, National Security Advisor John Bolton and chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford have reiterated -- including just weeks ago -- a strategy based on an open-ended US military presence
in Syria aimed at rolling back both Iranian and Russian influence and ultimately securing Washington's original aim of overthrowing
Assad and imposing a more pliant puppet regime in Damascus.
For his part, Dunford stated earlier this month that the US military was only one-fifth of the way towards its goal of training
and arming a force of 35,000 to 40,000 proxy troops in northeastern Syria to provide "security" over what would effectively be a
US protectorate carved out of the Middle Eastern country.
In occupying northeastern Syria, the US military and its proxies have seized control over roughly a third of the country, including,
most crucially, Syria's oil and natural gas fields as well as its eastern border with Iraq. By maintaining this domination, Washington's
aim was to preclude any reunification and reconstruction of the war-ravaged country and continue the murderous conflict until the
US achieved its strategic aims.
The announcement of the planned withdrawal drew sharp criticism from leading Republicans in Congress, who appeared to have been
blindsided by the shift in policy.
Senator Lindsey Graham described the withdrawal as "a huge Obama-like mistake," invoking previous Republican criticisms of Obama
for withdrawing US troops from Iraq in 2011.
"The decision to pull out of Syria was made despite overwhelming military advice against it," Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted.
"It is a major blunder. It [sic] it isn't reversed it will haunt this administration & America for years to come."
Also apparently caught unawares by the apparent shift in US policy in Syria was Washington's closest NATO ally. British Defense
Minister Tobias Ellwood issued a statement declaring that he "strongly disagreed" with Trump's decision. "It [ISIS] has morphed into
other forms of extremism and the threat is very much alive," he said in a tweet.
Among those who did receive an advance warning was Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The US administration has told
me that it was the president's intention to pull out their troops from Syria. They clarified that they have other ways to wield their
influence in that arena," he told the Israeli daily Haaretz .
The main instrument of US "influence" has been devastating US airstrikes, which have been launched from bases in Qatar and elsewhere
in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the US maintains a force of at least 5,000 troops across the border in Iraq, capable of delivering
artillery fire into eastern Syria.
The announced withdrawal of US troops from Syria will undoubtedly intensify the internecine conflicts within the US ruling establishment
and state, while at the same time increasing tensions within the Middle East. It is not a harbinger of any deescalation of the armed
conflicts in the region. With or without "boots on the ground" in Syria, Washington's military aggression against Iran and Russia
will only intensify.
"... Throughout the day, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Google News all led with breathless stories about Russian efforts to "sway American opinion and divide the country" (in the words of the Times). The propaganda barrage was based on a set of reports submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee by organizations with close ties to the US state and intelligence apparatus. ..."
"... Like countless other stories about alleged Russian "disinformation," Monday's media blast followed a script. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The first of two reports submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee, "The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency," was published by an organization known as New Knowledge, which purports to be a cybersecurity company, but whose primary public presence consists in advocacy for internet censorship. ..."
"... Ryan Fox, the co-founder of New Knowledge and a co-author of the report, worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) for 15 years. New Knowledge's website notes that "prior to his civilian roles as a Counter Terrorism Fellow and NSA Representative European SIGINT partners, he served under US Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC) as a CNO Analyst for the US Army." His partner, the company's CEO, is Jonathon Morgan, who has published for the state-connected Brookings Institution and worked as a special advisor to the State Department. ..."
"... The second report, "The IRA and Political Polarization in the United States," published under the imprimatur of Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project, in collaboration with the social media analysis firm Graphika, was likewise authored by figures with deep connections to the state and the military. Graphika staffer Camille Francois, a co-author, served as chief technical officer to the French prime minister and worked at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). ..."
"... Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, like Warner a member of the Intelligence Committee, appeared on the Public Broadcasting evening news program to chastise Facebook and demand that it be more "aggressive" in shutting down "disinformation." ..."
"... Commenting on the New Knowledge report, the New York Times ..."
"... The orchestrated hysteria over "disinformation" is itself a gigantic disinformation campaign, and the narrative about the sinister spread of "fake news" is an example of real "fake news." ..."
"... First all the anti Russian hysteria is concentrated in MSM media, completely absent from grassroots political discourse across kitchen table as it is dominated by economy-stupid daily struggle reality ( as Dems internal pols showed) , and is methodically debunked by most of alternative media except for blatant political hacks who fuel the nonsense on internet. ..."
"... The major reason for all they prefapaos and war mongering is as WSWS numerous times documented is because oligarchic policies of mass pauperization of population resulted in skyrocketing of class struggle and they just pull old worn down card of nationalism and war, Luxemburg warned over hundred years ago. ..."
"... "The new "proof" of Russian subversion is then used to demand even more sweeping measures to censor the internet, in the name of securing "our democracy." With each successive wave of stories, foreign "disinformation" is more directly identified with opposition to social inequality, police brutality and the capitalist system." ..."
"... It's the "War on Terrorism" brought to a whole new level . But it's the same class (in the service of the same class interests) bringing it. ..."
"... "It is highly significant that the posts cited by the reports as responsible for manipulating public opinion and undermining American democracy are predominantly left-wing in character." Against the same material interests of the working class. "These left-wing pages expressed "antiwar opposition" and "objections to US involvement in another country's affairs." ..."
"... The more things change, the more they stay the same: "The Black Panther party, without question, remains the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." -- J. Edgar Hoover, 1969 ..."
"... All Russia is doing ( if it even is Russia) is holding up a big mirror to the US, and big military industrial recipients like Mark Warner hate it. The criteria should be truth itself not the source of the truth. ..."
"... I simply call it NeoMcCarthyism propaganda. What they as me being disinformed, lol, then they would have had to start on me when I was in grammar school in the early to mid 1960s, and I don't recall there being a social media way back then. I formed own opinion way back then when, on my own I decided what I was getting the 6o'clock news was B.S. ..."
"... The USA is a hopeless war mongering terrorist state. It should, and must be, coming to an end. And, there are signs that the USA with all its weapons and lies is creeping toward that situation. ..."
"... The fact that Russia and China are starting to get rid of the worthless USA dollar is a major blow to the USA. The latest appointments of the neocon Bolton, and the CIA blowhard Pompous Pompeo is an indication that the only thing USA has to offer to the world is threats of war by these, and all their filthy war dogs! ..."
"... America survival is dependent upon its lies and misinformation it delivers each day through cable news and sports which also fetishsize militarism. The only situation that lies on the horizon is more of the same. ..."
"... America doesn't have "defense" spending. We have offense spending. ..."
Amid new exposures of Wall Street criminality, the White House's mass imprisonment of immigrant children, and growing demands
by US workers for decent wages, the US media was preoccupied Monday with the supposed efforts of Russian President Vladimir Putin
to make people believe that life in America is not a paradise.
Throughout the day, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Google News all led with breathless stories
about Russian efforts to "sway American opinion and divide the country" (in the words of the Times). The propaganda barrage
was based on a set of reports submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee by organizations with close ties to the US state
and intelligence apparatus.
Like countless other stories about alleged Russian "disinformation," Monday's media blast followed a script. Reports and testimony
from nominally independent organizations, which are, in reality, mouthpieces for the intelligence agencies, are commissioned by
Congress. They are "leaked" to the New York Times, which publishes a front-page article promoting them as "independent,"
scientific and authoritative, without, however, presenting any serious analysis of the actual evidence or the social and political
forces behind the studies. The reports in the Times (or the Washington Post) are then cited by countless media
outlets and politicians as new and irrefutable "evidence" of Russian "meddling" and "fake news."
The new "proof" of Russian subversion is then used to demand even more sweeping measures to censor the internet, in the name
of securing "our democracy." With each successive wave of stories, foreign "disinformation" is more directly identified with opposition
to social inequality, police brutality and the capitalist system.
The first of two reports submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee, "The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency,"
was published by an organization known as New Knowledge, which purports to be a cybersecurity company, but whose primary public
presence consists in advocacy for internet censorship.
Ryan Fox, the co-founder of New Knowledge and a co-author of the report, worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) for
15 years. New Knowledge's website notes that "prior to his civilian roles as a Counter Terrorism Fellow and NSA Representative
European SIGINT partners, he served under US Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC) as a CNO Analyst for the US Army." His partner,
the company's CEO, is Jonathon Morgan, who has published for the state-connected Brookings Institution and worked as a special
advisor to the State Department.
New Knowledge was established with a $1.9 million grant from Moonshots Capital. Moonshots' founders are Kelly Perdew, who,
according to the biography on the company's website, "served in the US Army as a military intelligence officer," and Craig Cummings,
who "spent 17 years in the Army, most of that time as an intelligence officer serving in support of the National Security Agency."
The second report, "The IRA and Political Polarization in the United States," published under the imprimatur of Oxford University's
Computational Propaganda Project, in collaboration with the social media analysis firm Graphika, was likewise authored by figures
with deep connections to the state and the military. Graphika staffer Camille Francois, a co-author, served as chief technical
officer to the French prime minister and worked at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
In line with the by now well-established playbook, Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the leading advocate of internet censorship
in the US Senate, took to the airwaves to proclaim that these "independent" reports were a "wake up call." He continued: "These
attacks against our country were much more comprehensive, calculating and widespread than previously revealed." He added that
"addressing this challenge" was "going to require some much-needed and long-overdue guardrails when it comes to social media."
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, like Warner a member of the Intelligence Committee, appeared on the Public Broadcasting evening
news program to chastise Facebook and demand that it be more "aggressive" in shutting down "disinformation."
In regard to their content, both reports are highly dubious and clearly politically motivated. The raw data is based on information
turned over to the Senate Intelligence Committee last year by Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. After initially rejecting
as "crazy" claims that "Russian meddling" helped swing the election to Trump, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, together with the
leaders of other major technology companies, provided a list of accounts that they asserted-without providing any details on how
this conclusion was reached-were controlled by Russian operatives.
Even if one were to assume that this data and the content of the reports were accurate, whatever Russia may or may not have
done pales in comparison to the operations of US intelligence agencies all over the world, including within the United States
itself, not to mention the billions of dollars spent by the corporate and financial elite to manipulate US elections and determine
their outcome.
The claim, moreover, that Russian Twitter and Facebook posts are responsible for social discontent in the United States-the
most unequal country in the world-is beyond ludicrous.
It is highly significant that the posts cited by the reports as responsible for manipulating public opinion and undermining
American democracy are predominantly left-wing in character.
The New Knowledge report attempts to muddle this reality by categorizing content opposing police brutality as neither left-wing
or right-wing, but "Black." It states that of 62 Facebook pages allegedly tied to Russia, "Overall, 30 targeted Black audiences
and amassed 1,187,810 followers; 25 targeted the Right and amassed 1,446,588 followers, and 7 targeted the Left and amassed 689,045
followers."
The content of the accounts labeled by New Knowledge as targeting "Black audiences" is made clear in a subsequent section dealing
with the video streaming service YouTube. Of 1,063 videos turned over to the committee, the majority "related to the police and
focused on police abuses."
Commenting on the New Knowledge report, the New York Times declared that the Russian government's "tactics echo Soviet
propaganda efforts from decades ago that often highlighted racism and racial conflict in the United States."
Here, the Timesdemonstrates the utterly reactionary pedigree of the campaign against "Russian meddling." During the
American civil rights movement, Southern segregationists claimed that African American workers were being stirred up by "communists"
and "outside agitators." The strivings of African Americans for equal rights were denounced as a Soviet plot.
Now, too, the deeply-felt hatred by American workers and youth of all races for police brutality and the epidemic of police
murders is presented as a "Russian" plot to "sow division" among "Black audiences."
"Left-leaning [Russian-inspired] pages," the report states, "criticized mainstream, established Democratic leaders as corporatists
or too close to neo-cons, and promoted Green Party and Democratic Socialist themes." These left-wing pages expressed "antiwar
opposition" and "objections to US involvement in another country's affairs."
The clear intent of the campaign by Warner and his co-thinkers is to de-legitimize such views as the product of "foreign meddling,"
and to effectively criminalize them. Their concern is not with Russia, but with the American working class.
As the year 2018 concludes, the intensification of the global economic crisis and heightening of war preparations are accompanied
by a renewed upsurge of the class struggle throughout the world.
The American ruling elite has made clear its intention to respond to this growing movement of the working class with censorship
and repression. Writing about the recent "yellow vest" protests in France, the New York Timeswarned that "the power of
social media to quickly mobilize mass anger, without any mechanism for dialogue or restraint, is a danger to which a liberal democracy
cannot succumb." The implication of such statements is clear: the campaign to censor the internet must be intensified.
The orchestrated hysteria over "disinformation" is itself a gigantic disinformation campaign, and the narrative about the sinister
spread of "fake news" is an example of real "fake news."
The ruling class and the corporate media are frustrated that their claims have had little impact on popular consciousness,
and very few people really believe that Russia is responsible for social discontent in the United States. But this only intensifies
their efforts to uphold and strengthen the grip of the "guardians" of information-that is, themselves.
The growth of working class opposition provides the means to counter these efforts to censor the internet. As workers enter
into struggle, they must take up the fight to defend freedom of expression on the internet as inseparable from the fight for social
equality.
see the brilliant Margaret Kimberley's article (and give some love to the BAR by subscribing and supporting the BAR): US and
UK Psy-op collusion
https://blackagendareport.c...
Another great report but I would like to push back on myth not necessarily proliferated in this report but widely present in
the media including alternative media about the McCarthyite anti Russian propaganda.
One of myths is that still too many Americans believe the MSM blatant lies even without any shred of evidence.
First all the anti Russian hysteria is concentrated in MSM media, completely absent from grassroots political discourse
across kitchen table as it is dominated by economy-stupid daily struggle reality ( as Dems internal pols showed) , and is methodically
debunked by most of alternative media except for blatant political hacks who fuel the nonsense on internet.
It is the very independent media which in some part like WSWS became in fact media of record diligently analyzing not as
much lies themselves, although they do, easily debunking them but to analyzing context of that public mostly black propaganda
campaign and what all those tabloid like productions including #metoo aim to obfuscate which is mostly preprogrammed economic
collapse of working class as well as peddling and funding fascism under guise of all used up trick of threat of foreign enemy
and unity under flag of nationalism.
In fact this lack of true conviction one way or another among Americans is simply due to, already observed by Mills, Tocqueville
referenced by Marx and in last three decades formulated by Chomsky, deep despotic totalitarian culture that underlies seemingly
open society of US as many Americans are conditioned to believe what they are told to believe without any intellectual curiosity
of what it is they must believe in today as they truly believe in money and power only, associated with whatever political
or religious mumbo jumbo like Russia Gate they do not bother to remember as long as their service to rulers paychecks arrive
regularity.
Many understand it as simple confession of state religion of Americanism and (similarly to exceptionalism of Orthodox Jews
or Hegel or Hitler) exceptionalism of American Nation, itself nothing but state religion nonentity used to stir up internal
divisions between those called by rulers Americans and others called by rullers un-American.
Such a curious division not existing in any other country founded on inclusive nationalism, is simply because there is no
reality or premise of American nation beyond those fantasies described in lying school textbooks.
And hence it is that totalitarian culture that MSM peddles as a primary counterrevolutionary measure of $billion a day propaganda
aimed at suppression of class struggle that itself repudiated that culture of submission to ruling elites for culture of unity
among all working class in US and elsewhere rejecting nationalism and exceptionalism and embracing internationalism devoid
of foreign enemies instead.
By the same token another myth that such belligerent anti Russia and anti Chinese propaganda by the West in any way weakens
grip of local rulers of global oligarchy (what ISO peddles) is also repudiated as their very political legitimacy is founded
on nationalism as a tool against class struggle and socialist revolution that would dispose of their power and political base
of saviors of nations via its inherent creed of internationalism.
In fact in spite of normal family infighting none of members of global oligarchy seems to be even slightly hurt so far and
even they appreciate such US belligerence as incentive to consolidate their local powers around nationalist fervent of suppose
siege while for example exports of China, Russia and even Iran to US increased since 2014 and oligarchy of those countries
while inconvenied are well compensated by loss of their visible roles in western corporates while they maintain control by
The major reason for all they prefapaos and war mongering is as WSWS numerous times documented is because oligarchic policies
of mass pauperization of population resulted in skyrocketing of class struggle and they just pull old worn down card of nationalism
and war, Luxemburg warned over hundred years ago.
Let's no fall for that bogus foreign boogeyman threats as this is all about vicious and brutal class war waged over working
class by global oligarchy. And for real boogyman mask we should check Buffet, Soros, Gates, Bezos, Brin, Cook Ellison or Musk
or Trump lower drawer of their executive desks, not abroad as other bogeymen in Russia China and EU will be taken care of by
our working class brothers and sisters when socialist revolution comes, very shortly.
"The new "proof" of Russian subversion is then used to demand even more sweeping measures to censor the internet, in the name
of securing "our democracy." With each successive wave of stories, foreign "disinformation" is more directly identified with
opposition to social inequality, police brutality and the capitalist system."
It's the "War on Terrorism" brought to a whole new level . But it's the same class (in the service of the same class
interests) bringing it.
"It is highly significant that the posts cited by the reports as responsible for manipulating public opinion and undermining
American democracy are predominantly left-wing in character." Against the same material interests of the working class. "These left-wing pages expressed "antiwar opposition" and "objections to US involvement in another country's affairs."
"The content of the accounts labeled by New Knowledge as targeting 'Black audiences' is made clear in a subsequent section
dealing with the video streaming service YouTube. Of 1,063 videos turned over to the committee, the majority 'related to the
police and focused on police abuses.'
Commenting on the New Knowledge report, the New York Times declared that the Russian government's 'tactics echo Soviet propaganda
efforts from decades ago that often highlighted racism and racial conflict in the United States.' "
The more things change, the more they stay the same: "The Black Panther party, without question, remains the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." -- J.
Edgar Hoover, 1969
The American Public's reaction to the lying disinformation campaign of the capitalist "press" should be as "The Dude's" reaction
to Sam Elliot's. Question in the great American classic film, "The Big Lebowski": Sam: "Tell me Dude; do you really have to
use that bad language?" The Dude: " WTF are you talking about?"
Let's just picket the HQ of this New Knowledge and demand that they shut down or retract their lies. Those who can't attend,
spam their FB or corporate contact page with a Photoshop of their logo and have it read something like "Old Lies, paid for
by the CIA". Or, register similar domain names and create a similar looking websites to theirs, but with the modified logos
exposing their leaders as cronies, containing links to the news they try to censor and then link the copycat sites to all your
friends. Best bet is if we can hack them and replace everything with our stuff every now and then. Force Google's algorithm
to ban their own ally or admit that our copycat sites have more popularity.
All Russia is doing ( if it even is Russia) is holding up a big mirror to the US, and big military industrial recipients like
Mark Warner hate it. The criteria should be truth itself not the source of the truth.
To add to Vivek Jain's welcome recommendations of "Moon of Alabama"'s ongoing incisive analysis of the massive Western anti-Russian
propaganda campaign, here's still another MOA post:
I simply call it NeoMcCarthyism propaganda. What they as me being disinformed, lol, then they would have had to start on me
when I was in grammar school in the early to mid 1960s, and I don't recall there being a social media way back then. I formed
own opinion way back then when, on my own I decided what I was getting the 6o'clock news was B.S.
Here's a list of the top things I would absolutely love if not for those evil Russians whispering in my ear:
Stagnant wages. I have been working for the same crap pay for over 10 years.
Ever-increasing rent. Unlike my wages, my rent increases every single year.
Health care with a $6500 deductible.
4) The constant warning threats from the spokespeople of the ruling-class that Social Security will soon run out of money.
Funny how they never issue warning threats that the military will soon run out of money.
5) Never-ending war. Oh man, I love death and destruction so much! We all do!
6) $1.5 trillion tax cuts for the super-rich. They are so deserving.
7) Our lord and savior Hillary Clinton and her love for the super-rich, imperialist wars, savage killing, and our military
killing machine.
8) Doing absolutely nothing about climate change as utter catastrophe draws ever closer. I don't want to save humanity.
I just want our richest capitalists to keep raking in huge yearly incomes.
9) The fact that in our beloved democracy, every major policy passed is always a boon for the super-rich 1% and a total
screwing up the backside for the 99%. Now THAT'S true democracy. We don't want those evil Russians getting in the way of that.
10) The prison industrial complex and the fact that capitalists have found brilliant ways to get rich off of war, killing
people, and putting millions of people in prison for decades. In fact, I read an article yesterday that points out that capitalists
are already busy investigating genius ways to get rich off of climate change and the potential deaths of billions of people.
11) The fact that I have no pension; that even as I've worked a labor job for the same company for 20 years, I'm classified
as an "independent contractor", which basically means that when they don't need me, I sit home and don't get paid while receiving
no benefits. Hey, who wants to survive retirement anyway? What lazy, greedy worker wants vacation pay? I sure don't. I just
want to leave this world knowing that rich people got a lot richer from my having been here.
Indeed, if not for evil Russians, I would be totally oblivious to all of the screwing up the ass I get from our universally-beloved
American capitalist daddies. That's right! None of that would have ever occurred to me. Nope. Damn you Russia! Damn you all
to hell!
Oh yes and the Yellow Vest protests are now being attributed to Russian control/influence. So yes the left is being targeted,
to be blamed overall, down the line. Because we all know Russia is still run by the Bolsheviks!
You'll notice that New Knowledge -- about as Orwellian a name as can be -- brags about its connections to the military-intelligence
apparatus as though it were a good thing. We're supposed to think that makes them credible. Scary.
it's a good thing for them, isn't it ? but for us continue the horrors of war and lack of rent money : a psychological projection
from the obtuse neo-fascist elites, but also the propaganda they're trained in, the elites all believe in, and it will be effective
with us because we are stupid, we are the vietnam peasant again ,reveling in the primitve of past centuries, and so we will
believe ! we must believe for we are not them --
and good comment : the word 'Scary' at the end resonates
The other Orwellian aspect is that the intelligence agencies are the Democratic Party's new best friend. Back in the 70's the
Church Committee investigated the unlawful infiltration of the CIA in the mainstream media. Now it's welcomed with open arms.
We've come along way baby into a reactionary right-wing political system which is no longer even a duopoly. It's a a one party
system controlled by the military/ security/ surveillance state.
As is the theme of the upper middle class liberal TDS, a sudden, unthinking, blind loyalty to and worship of the intelligence
agencies and characters with blood soaked hands from the depths of the swamp like Muller and Hayden and Bush. Anything, anyone
to desperately cling to, to protect them from owning up to true nature of their beloved status quo, and the shadowy sources
of their class privilege. Such are the lengths one goes to to justify the unjustifiable and defend the indefensible when the
other choice is self reflection and responsibility.
So important that WSWS is doing the work of exposing this propaganda attempt to create a moral panic about Russian meddling,
as a means to justify the censorship of the internet. One thing I'm sure of: academics will be buying the New York Times' and
Democratic Party's claims lock, stock, and barrel and will be further amplifying them. And any attempt to argue with this within
the universities will lead to one being oneself labeled as a peddler of Russian influence. It's a total closed loop.
Yes...but consider this: the fact that ruling class front people (like Mark Warner) are reduced to making such transparently
unsound arguments-based on such completely relativist notions of truth-betrays just how afraid and weak they are becoming.
Yes, they keep running the same circular scam -- running the same weak data from the intelligence community through this or
that shiny new think-tank, thence to the media, culminating in proposed legislation by some co-opted politicians -- it's a
strategy of diminishing returns.
At this point, they merely reflect ever-greater light back upon their own intellectual and political bankruptcy.
And, meanwhile, revolutionary social forces continue to grow.
Viva la revolucion!
yeah ! and Mark Warner ? what is he, some kind of nano-robot, a creature whipped up in nano-technology labs, some AI fabricated
to be a moron, whose only purpose is devotion to the intelligence agencies and to Capital ? if he had to, can he tie his own
shoelaces in the mornings ? on his athletic shoes ? i look at him and think : major trauma there -- and he murders us and all
those caught in our Imperialist wars !
Excellent antidote to mainstream corporate propaganda. Would suggest supplement with : "Racist 'Russians' Targeted African-Americans;
in 2016 election ploy, report claims" @https://
www.rt.com
(Also, just as an editing note, WSWS might want to clarify the notation "CNO"; according to the rt article it stands for "Computer
Network Officer".)
The only people that they are fooling is themselves.... and most likely not even that....
They haven't come and said the posts are not true...they just say that you should not believe them because they are propaganda.
That's really a bad strategy.
You know what would help the capitalist cause? Making life in America more equal. But that's not on your plate .
'Reports and testimony from nominally independent organizations, which are, in reality, mouthpieces for the intelligence agencies,
are commissioned by Congress. They are "leaked" to the New York Times, which publishes a front-page article promoting them
as "independent," scientific and authoritative, without, however, presenting any serious analysis of the actual evidence or
the social and political forces behind the studies. The reports in the Times (or the Washington Post) are then cited by countless
media outlets and politicians as new and irrefutable "evidence" of Russian "meddling" and "fake news."
This is the method that's always used to demonize political figures or a leader of a sovereign country which the intelligence
agencies have targeted for elimination. It's an insidious but clever way to influence public opinion. All mainstream media
news proliferates the same nonstop propaganda using each other as sources to substantiate a CIA fable.
All these efforts will intensify prior to the Dems taking control of the House in January. It's like watching the last phase
of a fireworks display as the pyrotechnic crescendo reaches it apex. Trump's impeachment might be imminent, but internet censorship
will have a greater and longer lasting impact on the remaining vestiges of our democracy.
Thank you, Mr. Damon, for showing us what proper journalism looks like. Unfortunately not enough people will read this excellent
exposé, and will simply assume that all the fuss has some basis in reality, while our right to the truth suffers further erosion.
I am endlessly amazed at how many of my friends and colleagues are blinded by their Dem partisanship and unwilling to see
how dangerous this conscious and blatant manipulation of the facts is to our chances of preserving a relatively open society.
I will post this piece everywhere I can and hope for the best.
For me, this theme, this Russian propaganda theme, is infantile, and nothing of this is of interest to those who work for a
living, as opposed to the elites: in all my life riding close to politics in Washington DC, never has the elite class presented
to our country such an immature and juvenile thesis, such an outrageous and laughable spectacle of projection, such a certitude
of vision in which the vision is absurd, irrelevant, with the seeming simple logic of a child in her belief that some bear
speaks to her, but these are adults ! do we laugh ? do we scorn ? do we hate ? yes, all 3, but do these elite politicians and
editors at the Times, do they really believe in talking bears ? fascists wallow in their propaganda --
I don't think they actually believe this BS but they believe that the public will believe it! As you said, it is ridiculous
and infantile but they obviously think the power of propaganda will prevail. They don't realize they are becoming more irrelevant
and ludicrous with each new "bombshell." People have more important things on their minds. Like survival.
Thanks for this important anaylisis of what the ruling class is thinking though what amazes me is that "Russian Interference"
is the only argument these highly educated people can come up with. With the fall of the Soviet Union the Capitalists were
in a position to further advance their cause which they did brutally and without mercy. They were like kids taking over a candy
store repeatedly gorging themselves and sharing none of it. In fact the Oligarchs began an assault on the working class all
over the world and the crisis of inequality is seething and bubbling over to open revolt.
That they used the fight against fascism by Captain America as an example of Russian interference shows the true nature
of these Rulers,corrupt,incompetent and total reactionaries.
I can't stand to read any of those papers but I'm glad someone does. The reporters for WSWS who read the NYT are like that
guy Mike on the show "Dirty Jobs" where he takes on the nastiest jobs in America. To immerse yourself in their caldron of lies
is truly a Dirty Job and you folks should get a Purple Heart for the wounds you've incurred.
After reading about the attack on the tune"Baby it's cold outside" and similar articles may I suggest the WSWS start a new
section "Socialist News of the Weird" as the maneuvers of the bourgeois though dangerous empty and delusional are truly weird.
An excerpt from a World Socialist Web Site 2010 obituary tribute to Howard Zinn, author of " A People's History of the United
States " ( by Tom Eley ) :
" People's History grew out of, and in turn contributed to, a growing skepticism of the democratic pretensions of the
American ruling class -- particularly among the youth. These characteristics of Zinn's work earned him the hatred of those
who wish to see college and high school curriculum more tightly controlled; after Zinn's death, right-wing ex-radicals David
Horowitz and Ronald Radosh penned columns attacking him for exposing truths about the US government to a mass audience ".
I read that presently David Horowitz is glorifying President Donald Trump in his latest " kick-liberal-ass " book. The Tom
Eley article on Howard Zinn was fair minded and excellent.
"With the fall of the Soviet Union the Capitalists were in a position to further advance their cause which they did brutally
and without mercy "
And they got moral support from not a few ( I guess ) ex-Stalinists. I recall reading one David Horowitz's book :" The Destructive
Generation " - a bitter denunciation of his own past. Never being devoted to Stalinism, I thought that Horowitz and hundreds
like him were spitting in public on the very IDEA and IDEAL of socialism. To be sure , the Trotskyists do not have the blood
of the Stalinist counter-revolution on their hands.
The last time I checked David Horowitz had evolved into a far right belligerent
Zionist interviewed on many radio and TV programs. At last he found found true freedom in Apartheid Israel == not quite a "
workers' paradise ".
In order to survive what else can the world plutocracy do but play divide and conquer games ? Today the sentencing of the
" treasonous " American general, Michael Flynn, will tell us how much Imperial America needs an " evil " enemy. In a universe
where everything changes only the military and the police are forever ?
The USA is a hopeless war mongering terrorist state. It should, and must be, coming to an end. And, there are signs that
the USA with all its weapons and lies is creeping toward that situation.
The fact that Russia and China are starting to get rid of the worthless USA dollar is a major blow to the USA. The latest
appointments of the neocon Bolton, and the CIA blowhard Pompous Pompeo is an indication that the only thing USA has to offer
to the world is threats of war by these, and all their filthy war dogs!
The Democratic Party has lost its way, and sanity, by living with the burned out one trick pony diatribe that Russia interfered
and meddled into the USA election. CNN should be censured and fined millions for promoting this deceit every hour of every
day. It is amazing to watch the stunned budgies (would be newscasters) on CNN trying to outdo each other in front of their
masters Wolf Blitzer et al as they revel in babbling the lies about Russia and China while praising the lies of the USA in
its march to WW111.
"The USA is a hopeless war mongering terrorist state. It should, and must be, coming to an end. And, there are signs
that the USA with all its weapons and lies is creeping toward that situation."
Nice platitude but what signs are those? Appears to me this current administration and the Democrats have given more money
to defense wasting er, I mean spending than ever before and both parties are itching for a war with Iran. So what signs?
America survival is dependent upon its lies and misinformation it delivers each day through cable news and sports which
also fetishsize militarism. The only situation that lies on the horizon is more of the same.
Can the elite be afflicted by some mass disease. Is Neoconservatism a deadly infection ?
Theoretically Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based on
that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information ever gets
broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and irresponsibility. In
other words they spearheaded a dangerous disease to stay in power. And eventually got infected themselves.
Notable quotes:
"... "But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their folly and change course?" ..."
"... That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune to challenge. ..."
"... The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere citizens having influencing decisions like that. ..."
"... An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated. ..."
"... As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and evil - begin to have real effect. ..."
"But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce
grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the
guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their
folly and change course?"
What if, on election day, you only have a choice between 2 candidates. Both favoring all
the wrong choices, but one tends to talk up Christianity and family and the other talks up
diversity.
And both get their funding from the very wealthy and corporations. And any 3rd choices
would be "throwing your vote away". How would you ever get to vote for someone who might
change course?
Democracy has little to actually do with choice or power.
mlopez, January 18, 2019 at 6:22 pm
GB may not have been any utopia in 1914, but it was certainly geo-politically dominant. It's common people's social,
economic and cultural living standards most assuredly was vastly improved over Russian, or European peasants. There can be no
serious comparison with third world countries and regions.
As for the US, there can be absolutely no debate about its own dominance, or material standard of living after 1945 as
compared to any where else in the world. More importantly, even uneducated and very contemporary observers were capable of
recognizing how our elites had sold out their interests in favor of the furtherance of their own.
If we are on about democratic government, then it's been generations since either country and their peoples have had any
real democracy. Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based
on that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information
ever gets broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and
irresponsibility.
That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the
rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune
to challenge.
Hello / Goodbye, January 19, 2019 at 11:40 am
The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere
citizens having influencing decisions like that.
Patzinak, January 19, 2019 at 5:07 pm
What ineffable flummadiddle!
Prominent Brexiteers include Boris Johnson (dual UK/US citizenship, educated in Brussels and at Eton and Oxford, of mixed
ancestry, including a link - by illegitimate descent - to the royal houses of Prussia and the UK); Jacob Rees-Mogg (son of a
baron, educated at Eton and Oxford, amassed a solid fortune via hedge fund management); Arron Banks (millionaire, bankroller
of UKIP, made to the Brexit campaign the largest ever political donation in UK politics).
So much for "the elite" being against Brexit!
But the main problem with Brexit is this. Having voted by a slim margin in favour of Brexit, the Great British Public
then, in the general election, denied a majority to the government that had undertaken to implement it, and elected a
Parliament of whom, by a rough estimate, two thirds oppose Brexit.
It ain't that "the elite" got "things wrong". It's that bloody Joe Public can't make his mind what to do - and go through
with it.
Rossbach, January 20, 2019 at 2:14 pm
"Whether the imagined utopia of a dominant Great Britain prior to 1914 or a dominant America after 1945 ever actually
existed is beside the point."
It wasn't to restore any defunct utopia that led people to vote for Brexit or Donald Trump; it was to check the descent of
the Anglosphere into the totalitarian dystopia of forced multi-cultural globalism that caused voters to reject the EU in
Britain and Hillary Clinton in the US. It is because they believed that only with the preservation of their national
independence was there any chance or hope for a restoration of individual liberty that our people voted as they did.
Ratings System, January 17, 2019 at 1:27 pm
It's why they won't enjoy their privileges much longer. That stale charade can't and won't last.
We don't have a meritocracy. We have a pseudo-meritocracy with an unduly large contingent of aliens, liars, cheats,
frauds, and incompetents. They give each other top marks, speak each other's PC language, and hire each other's kids. And
they don't understand why things are falling apart, and why they are increasingly hated by real Americans.
A very nasty decade or two is coming our way, but after we've swept out the filth there will be a good chance that
Americans will be Americans again.
Paul Reidinger, January 17, 2019 at 2:03 pm
An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of
the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those
institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated.
As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and
their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and
evil - begin to have real effect. The new dark age is no longer imminent. It is here, and it is them. I see no way to
rectify the damage. When minds are ruined young, they remain ruined.
New emails published by the U.S. Department of State reveal the real motives behind the
international invasion of Libya.
The new emails of Hillary Clinton reveal that the real reason behind the invasion were
primarily the countries large gold and oil reserves, and the extension of French influence in
North Africa.
Fort Russ reports:
The U.S. State Department has published a series of emails that reveal the volume of gold
reserves of Gaddafi. According to the documents, the reserves are so great that they could
become the basis for creating a pan-African currency, which, in turn, could compete with the
dollar in the region.
Also, the reasons for intervention were identified as the major oil reserves of Libya and
the strengthening of French influence in North Africa. However, in 2011, Western leaders
welcomed the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime as a democratic step. "Long live Benghazi, long
live Libya, long live the friendship between France and Libya!", – said French President
Nicolas Sarkozy.
"You showed the world that you can overthrow the dictator and have chosen freedom!" –
said the Prime Minister of Great Britain David Cameron, speaking to the Libyan people."The
people of Libya got rid of a dictator. Now it has a chance," claimed the Vice-President of USA
Joe Biden.
In the past five years, the violence and chaos in Libya has not stopped. In the background
of this, "Islamic State" is gaining momentum in the country and has captured new territory. In
January 2016, dozens of people were killed as a result of terrorist.
Previously, "Islamic State" had claimed responsibility for the attack on a training camp in
Zliten. According to the correspondent of the newspaper The Jerusalem Post Ariel Ben Solomon,
from the outset it was obvious that intervention in Libya would lead to negative consequences
for the country.
"The email to Clinton is confirmed by the results of studies that began to appear after the
invasion of Libya, organized by France with U.S. support. Major oil reserves of the country
were the main reason for intervention. Dictators lead many African countries, but the West is
in no hurry to intervene in each of them. The Obama administration from the beginning was
guided by rather naive misconceptions on the actions that needed to be taken to resolve the
situation in Libya after the war," said RT political analyst Ariel Ben Solomon.
Source:
http://yournewswire.com/clinton-email...Ozzie Crosby2 years ago
America needs war to survive. The United States IS the infidel. It's not just propaganda.
pav_k20072 years ago
modern day robbers! K Lyall2 years ago
Imagine a NWO puppet like her in the White House for 4 more years!
10 11
View reply Hide replies 1979USHI2 years ago The
Western nations governments are totally out of order and need to be taken to a real world
court. Notta
Dr2 years ago
incredibly disgusting what we are learning about warmongering corporate globalist elites. there
is a strong move starting in the other direction....more conservative nationalist leaders are
rising up everywhere. these monsters ask need to be arrested, tried and severely
punished....held to the highest level of accountability.
January 25, 2019For Thierry
Meyssan, one of the consequences of the successive ends of the bipolar and unipolar world is the re-establishment of colonial projects.
One after the other, the French, Turkish and English have publicly declared the return of their colonial ambitions. We still need
to know what form they will adopt in the 21st century. by Thierry Meyssan Part 3 - The British Empire
As for the United Kingdom, it has been hesitating for two years about its future after the Brexit.
A little after the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House, Prime Minister Theresa May went to the United States. Speaking to
the representatives of the Republican Party, she proposed re-establishing the Anglo-Saxon leadership of the rest of the world. But
President Trump has been elected to liquidate these imperial dreams, not to share them.
Disappointed, Theresa May then travelled to China in order to propose that President Xi Jinping share control of international exchanges.
The City, she said, was ready to ensure the convertibility of Western currencies into Yuan. But President Xi had not been elected
to do business with an heiress of the power which had dismantled his country and imposed on the Chinese their opium war.
Theresa May tried a third version with the Commonwealth. Some of the ex-colonies of the Crown, like India, are today enjoying powerful
growth and could become precious commercial partners. Symbolically, the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Charles, was raised to the
Presidency of this association. Mrs. May announced that we are on our way to a Global Britain.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph on 30 December 2018, the British Minister for Defence, Gavin Williamson, published
his analysis of the situation. Since the fiasco of the Suez Canal in 1956, the United Kingdom has implemented a policy of decolonisation,
and has withdrawn its troops from the rest of the world. Today, it conserves permanent military bases only in Gibraltar, Cyprus,
Diego Garcia and the "Falklands", to give these islands their imperial title.
For the last 63 years, London has been oriented towards the European Union, invented by Winston Churchill, but to which, initially,
he never imagined that England would belong. The Brexit "tears this policy to shreds". From now on, "the United Kingdom is back as
a global power".
London is planning to open two permanent military bases. The first will probably be in Asia (Singapore or Brunei), and the second
in Latin America - most likely in Guyana, in order to participate in the new stage of the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski strategy of the destruction
of those regions of the world which are not connected to globalisation. After the "African Great Lakes", the "Greater Middle East",
it's time for the "Caribbean Basin". The war will probably start with an invasion of Venezuela by Colombia (pro-US), Brazil (pro-Israëli)
and Guyana (pro-British).
Neocons are "enemies of the people" independent of their party affiliation. Nuremberg principles were written not for nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... he thought Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone except the staff of Commentary magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks. ..."
"... The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic consequence. ..."
There is an unforgettable passage in Graham Greene's classic "The Quiet American" in which the
title character, a CIA agent named Alden Pyle, admits that Vietnam is much more complicated
than he'd imagined. "I had not realized how tribal politics was and how divorced it could be
from principles or conviction," Pyle says. Surveying the wreckage of the American war effort,
he adds, "Looking back with greater introspection and humility after the passage of more than
fifteen years, I can finally acknowledge the obvious: it was all a big mistake."
Greene's admirers will recognize that these lines do not actually come from his 1955 novel.
They are from Max Boot's new book, " The Corrosion of
Conservatism: Why I Left the Right ." Boot, a leading intellectual in the conservative
movement for the past two decades, is now apologizing for nearly everything he has done and
abided. He is denouncing not just Donald Trump, but the Republican Party as a whole. "Upon
closer examination," he writes in his 260-page atonement, "it's obvious that the whole history
of modern conservatism is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance,
isolationism, and know-nothingism."
The temptation is to say, Bravo, here at last is a Republican willing to admit the emperor
has no clothes. That's the reaction of lots of journalists and
pundits who have flipped
through Boot's book. Jacob Heilbrunn wrote in the
Washington Monthly that Boot's "readiness to reexamine his old convictions is admirable."
Adam Serwer, writer at The Atlantic, tweeted , "You don't want to
punish people for getting the right answer." Boot is no longer a Republican (he quit the party
after Trump's election) but he is hardly an outcast in the political world -- he is a
Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a CNN
analyst. Such is the sweet life of a born-again intellectual.
It's easy to understand why a penitent like Boot appeals to liberals and other members of
the Trump resistance. He ratifies their sense of having been correct from the start, and his
confession is enunciated in perfect sound bites, with just the right dose of abasement. Boot is
an irresistible spectacle -- the sinner with tears running down his cheeks dropping to his
knees at the altar of all that is good, proclaiming that he has seen the light and wants to
join the army of righteousness. But here's the thing: Boot is only half-apologizing. And
because he's been wrong so many times and with so many ill consequences, he should be provided
with nothing more than a polite handshake as he's led out of the sanctuary of politics,
forever.
When I say wrong, I mean Guinness World Records wrong. In his first book, " Out of
Order ," Boot argued that the Supreme Court erred when it ruled in Brown v. Board of
Education that school segregation violated the Constitution ("I am not proud of 'Out of
Order,'" he now says); he was a key proponent of the invasion of Iraq ("Once we have deposed
Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the
one in Kabul," he proclaimed in 2001);
he thought John Bolton was treated unfairly when Democrats
opposed his 2005 nomination for ambassador to the United Nations ("He seems like a good choice
to help drain the U.N. cesspool of corrupt bureaucrats and self-serving tyrants");
he thought
Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly
maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone
except the staff of Commentary
magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the
GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks.
That's a lot of wrong. It's so much wrong that I can't imagine how or why anyone could look
at Boot and think, "Ah, here's a man we should listen to." I can pre-empt Boot's response to
this -- in his book, he complains that "doctrinaire leftists" will be satisfied with nothing
less than his "ritual suicide" for the war crimes he's committed. I've exchanged a few cordial
emails with Boot (we both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, a few years
apart, and worked at its student newspaper, the Daily Californian ), and I can honestly say he seems a nice and
bright enough fellow to whom I wish no physical harm. But like Alden Pyle, he has helped create
so much havoc, he has been wrong so completely, that it would be the definition of insanity to
treat his ideas as fodder for anything other than a shredder. Here's a real line from "The
Quiet American," spoken about Pyle by the novel's weary narrator, that suits Boot perfectly: "I
never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." Pyle's innocence, the
book explains, "is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no
harm."
The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and
intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic
consequence.
Boot is a perfect example, because he has been wrong so many times in such major
ways and is actually willing to admit it. But there are vast numbers of pundits , masters of
spin , and
allegedintellectuals who have been wrong
enough on enough big things (not just war, but climate change and more) to merit laughter
rather than praise. Yet there they are,
stroking their chins on our finest
op-ed pages and cable news channels. Mutual forgiveness is a necessity among pundits who are
stuffed with nonsense much of the time; without mercy on demand, they might all be out of jobs.
It's no surprise that Boot's book arrives with admiring blurbs from D.C. heavyweights James
Fallows, Jon Meacham, and David Corn, among others.
March 20, 2018, marks the 15th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. While the American footprint in Iraq has drastically
changed over 15 years, a significant number of the original cheerleaders for the invasion still hold prominent roles in the media
today:
John Bolton, Fox News contributor
Bolton was President George W. Bush's
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control when the Iraq War began.
Bolton backed an Iraq invasion as early as 1998, when he signed a letter from the Project for a New American Century (PNAC),
a neoconservative group led by William Kristol, urging then-President Bill Clinton to attack Saddam Hussein. As the State Department's
top arms-control official during President Bush's first term, Bolton played a role in pushing the allegation that Saddam Hussein
sought uranium in Africa.
"We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq." [BBC,
11/20/02
]
"I still think the decision to overthrow Saddam was correct." [Talking Points Memo,
5/14/15 ]
Larry Kudlow, CNBC senior contributor
Kudlow was economics editor of
National Review and a co-host of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer when the Iraq War began.
"Could it be that a lack of decisive follow-through in the global war on terrorism is the single biggest problem facing the stock
market and the nation today? I believe it is. The shock therapy of decisive war will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand
points." [ National Review ,
6/26/02 ]
"Every day we wait for the impending invasion of Iraq is a day Saddam Hussein grows stronger, a day our national security is threatened,
and a day our economic security is jeopardized." [ National Review ,
2/6/03 ]
Boot's bloodthirstiness is united with a peculiar naïveté about America; it must be said that in this respect he is not unlike
Lansdale. Could it really have been, as Boot wrote in 2017, that only Trump opened his eyes to the fact that it's a bit easier
to be a white guy in America, that "I benefitted from my skin color and my gender -- and those of a different gender or sexuality
or skin color have suffered because of it"? Good for Max if he's had a change of heart and seen the world through more empathetic
eyes; one only wishes he could've had those moments of reflection, which seem so modest and so reasonable, circa 2001. But that
might not have changed anything. He wrote as recently as 2013 that he feels "No Need to Repent for Support of the Iraq War." He
declares, "I feel no shame being part of the 75 percent of Americans who believed at the beginning that this was a war worth waging."
This move is not quite honest: Boot wants to submerge himself into the center of a crowd, one of the democratic mass, when in
fact he was at its vanguard, pushing for the Iraq War early and often.
"Once Afghanistan has been dealt with, America should turn its attention to Iraq." [ The Weekly Standard ,
10/15/01 ]
"In places like Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and very shortly Iraq, ordinary people clamor for American intervention, and welcome
U.S. troops as liberators." [Nimitz Memorial Lecture at University of California, Berkeley,
3/12/03 ]
"No need to repent for support of [the] Iraq war." [ Commentary ,
3/18/13 ]
"But how exactly does the Iraq War differ from previous wars? From World War I, when the Great Powers were said to have 'sleepwalked'
into a conflict that no one really wanted?" [ Commentary ,
7/6/16 ]
Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist
Cohen
was a Washington Post columnist when the Iraq War began.
"Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or
possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise." [ The Washington Post ,
2/6/03 ]
"Initially, I thought bringing down Saddam Hussein was a good cause. I was wrong -- not about the cause, but about its practicality."
[ The Washington Post ,
4/1/08 ]
Ari Fleischer, Fox News contributor
Flesicher served as President Bush's
press secretary as the Iraq War began.
"My point is, the likelihood is much more like Afghanistan, where the people who live right now under a brutal dictator will view
America as liberators, not conquerors." [ The New York Times ,
10/12/02 ]
"There's no question that if force is used, it will achieve the objective of preserving the peace far faster than the current
path that we're on." [White House press briefing, 2/14/03
]
"Given the chance to throw off a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein, people will rejoice." [White House press briefing,
3/21/03 ]
"I think that if you look at the Iraqi people, the Iraqi people are overwhelmingly pleased with the fact the United States has
helped them to get rid of the Saddam Hussein regime. That was clear from their dancing in the streets, from the way they tore down
the statues. And I think that is the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people." [White House press briefing,
7/1/03 ]
Sean Hannity, Fox News host
Hannity was also a syndicated talk radio host
and a Fox News host when the Iraq War began.
"We're going to find all the weapons of mass destruction." [Fox News, Hannity & Colmes , 2/19/03, via Nexis]
"I was a real believer in the Iraq War. I still am to this day. I still feel that there were probably weapons of mass destruction.
I do believe they were likely moved to Syria in the long lead-up to the war." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Sean Hannity Show
,
9/7/16 ]
Stephen Hayes, Weekly Standard editor-in-chief
Hayes was a senior writer at The
Weekly Standard when the Iraq War began.
"Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives
and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi
financial support for al Qaeda." [ The Weekly Standard ,
11/24/03 ]
Hayes' 2004 book was titled The Connection: How Al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein has Endangered America .
[ Media Matters ,
6/30/04 ]
Fred Hiatt, Washington Post editorial director
Hiatt has been
editorial page director of The Washington Post since 1999.
As Media Matters has
documented , the Washington Post editorial page -- headed by Hiatt since 1999 -- repeatedly echoed the Bush administration's
claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. A February 6, 2003,
editorial began, "After Secretary Of State Colin L. Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, it
is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction."
The Post 's editorial page also
linked the need to invade Iraq to the 9/11 attacks:
During the past decade the United States vowed many times to disarm Saddam Hussein, who made no secret of his hatred and enmity
toward the United States; but when the Iraqi dictator resisted, the United States chose to abandon its vows rather than use the
force that would have been needed to enforce them. In every case, the calculation, stated or unstated, was the same: Pay tribute,
don't make trouble, and maybe nothing worse will happen.
In the ruins of Lower Manhattan in September 2001, most Americans saw evidence that this calculation was incorrect as well
as craven. The nation's enemies would not be deterred or mollified by a gentle response; they would be emboldened. President Bush
rightly concluded that the nation had to defend itself more vigilantly but also that no defense could succeed unless accompanied
by an offensive against the terrorists and the states that sheltered them.
Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard editor-at-large
Kristol was a co-founder of
Project for a New American Century, a neo-conservative think-tank Kristol used to crusade for the Iraq War.
Saddam Hussein "will not disarm peacefully. And he must be disarmed. So war will come. The war itself will clarify who was right
and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about
Saddam's regime." [ The Weekly Standard ,
3/17/03 ]
Kristol bragged that the war would last just two months:
In 2015, Kristol
defended
the decision to invade Iraq:
Even with the absence of caches of weapons of mass destruction, and the mistakes we made in failing to send enough troops at
first and to provide security from the beginning for the Iraqi people, we were right to persevere through several difficult years.
We were able to bring the war to a reasonably successful conclusion in 2008.
Paul Gigot, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor
Gigot has been the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal since 2001.
Under Gigot, the editorial page
frequently hyped the likelihood that Saddam Hussein was close to producing or obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Journal
forwarded alarmist claims about Iraq's nuclear capabilities on numerous occasions:
August 2, 2002: "Above all, a debate would let Mr. Bush demonstrate that he has by far the stronger case. Even the critics
concede that Saddam is a threat, after all, a tyrant who has gassed his own people, tried to kill a U.S. President and whose military
routinely fires at American pilots patrolling no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
said Monday that before the Gulf War Saddam was 'within a year or two' of having nuclear weapons. And at Wednesday's Senate hearings,
former Iraqi nuclear engineer Khidir Hamza said Saddam will have enough weapons-grade uranium for three nuclear bombs by 2005."
August 29, 2002: "There is always the chance that Congress could refuse the President. But this must be measured against the
strong case the Administration has, a case Vice President Dick Cheney pressed earlier this week in Nashville. Mr. Cheney flatly
declared that when it comes to a nuclear-armed Saddam, 'the risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action.'"
September 25, 2002: "And then there is the redoubtable Mr. Blair, an ally who continues to risk dissent in his party and country
for a cause in which he believes. Yesterday Mr. Blair released a dossier of intelligence on Iraq. The 50-page report describes
how Saddam has tried to buy uranium from Africa for use in nuclear weapons, has 20 missiles that could reach British military
bases in Cyprus as well as Israel and NATO members Greece and Turkey, and stating that Iraq's chemical weapons are on standby
for use within 45 minutes. 'The policy of containment is not working. The WMD program is not shut down. It is up and running,'
Mr. Blair told Parliament."
September 9, 2002: "Democrats hardly need two more months now to deliberate over this evidence, most of which they already
know. They merely want to push any decision past Election Day so their votes won't put their Senate majority at risk. They can
then posture as statesmen for two months but only declare themselves after the day when voters would be able to hold them immediately
responsible. Let's hope Saddam's nuclear weapons program is operating on the same wait-until-the-election timetable."
A January 27, 2003, editorial was titled "If Saddam Survives."
Judith Miller, Fox News contributor
Miller was a New York Times reporter
when the Iraq War began.
Miller produced a series of now-debunked reports that the Bush administration used to buttress its claim that Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of mass destruction. As Franklin Foer wrote for New York magazine:
During the winter of 2001 and throughout 2002, Miller produced a series of stunning stories about Saddam Hussein's ambition
and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, based largely on information provided by [Ahmad] Chalabi and his allies --
almost all of which have turned out to be stunningly inaccurate.
For the past year, the Times has done much to correct that coverage, publishing a series of stories calling Chalabi's
credibility into question. [ New York magazine, 6
/7/04 ]
In a 2004 interview, she told The New
York Review of Books: "My job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My
job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal."
Former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller
discussed
Miller's Iraq War reporting with Media Matters in 2011:
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller says one of his biggest mistakes as editor was not addressing the paper's
misleading pre-Iraq War coverage sooner, including the reporting of former Times writer Judy Miller.
Keller tells Media Matters that he is "not at all" surprised that Miller ended up at the "conservative" Fox News Channel
after she left the Times under a cloud of controversy related to her Iraq reporting.
Keller, who announced Thursday that in September he will leave the post he has held since July 2003, said: "Judy was the author
of a lot of those stories, and I should have dealt with the stories and with her I think as the sort of first order of business
when I took the job rather than waiting until the following year."
Keller was referring to the unusual
editor's note the
Times published on May 26, 2004, in which it admitted many of its pre-war stories about weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq -- a number of which were reported by Miller -- misrepresented the situation before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"The whole Judy Miller WMD experience was ... one of the low points of the last eight years," Keller said.
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC host
Scarborough
was hired by MSNBC as the Iraq War began.
Joe Scarborough repeatedly cheered on the Iraq War and attacked people who criticized it.
"Congressman [Jack] Kingston [R-GA], give me a quick response. How could there be anyone left on the planet today that doesn't
believe that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction?" [MSNBC, MSNBC Reports , 3/5/03, via Nexis]
Toppling Saddam Hussein "will mean the end of his weapons of mass destruction." [MSNBC, MSNBC Reports , 3/11/03, via
Nexis]
"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types
. I just wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe
the White House will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now, Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war
.
"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief UN weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein?
Well, Mr. Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, 'The United States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between
its legs, defeated.' Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail, again.
"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step
forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions
were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their
mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing." [MSNBC 4/10/03 via
FAIR ]
Bret Stephens, New York Times columnist and MSNBC contributor
Stephens
was editor of The Jerusalem Post when the Iraq War began.
As The New Yorker
noted , in 2003 Stephens' Jerusalem Post "named one of the Iraq War's chief architects, Paul Wolfowitz, its 'man of
the year.'"
"Saddam may unveil, to an astonished world, the Arab world's first nuclear bomb." [ The Jerusalem Post ,
11/15/02 ]
Stephens criticized the Obama administration's case for military intervention in Syria by contrasting it with Bush's decision
to invade Iraq, which he claimed was made based on "highly detailed" intelligence revealing weapons of mass destruction. Stephens
claimed that the "testimony of U.N. inspectors like Hans Blix" supported the Bush administration's case for war, and accusations
that the Bush administration lied were "libel" and "cheap slander." In fact, Blix told CNN in 2004 that the Bush administration "chose
to ignore" his team's concerns about the lack of solid evidence in favor of war, and that prior to the invasion the evidence of WMDs
in Iraq was revealed to be "shaky." [ Media Matters ,
4/13/17 ]
David Frum, Atlantic senior editor
Frum was a speechwriter for President
Bush when the Iraq War began.
Frum is renowned for writing George W. Bush's
"Axis of Evil" speech. Alex Nichols
described
Frum's Iraq boosterism in 2017:
Bush chief speechwriter Michael Gerson, a fellow fanatical interventionist and veteran of the neoconservative underworld, tapped
Frum for the speechwriting team in 2000. His greatest accomplishment was the authorship of Bush's 2002 State of the Union speech,
now known for its most famous phrase, "axis of evil." The axis was a grouping of three countries -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea
-- that were implicit allies in a plot to destroy America. The supposed ties between the three mostly came down to their mutual
love for imaginary "weapons of mass destruction" and non-existent collaboration with al-Qaeda. As Trump threatens war crimes against
civilians in Iraq and Syria, sanctions Iran despite its compliance with our nuclear agreement and threatens "fire and fury" for
North Korea, Frum must be held accountable for cementing them as boogeymen in the public imagination.
Frum resigned his post in February 2002 in order to join the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank then
working in close association with the Bush administration. With them, he emerged as one of the most enthusiastic supporters of
the War on Terror. In 2004, Frum and former adviser to the Bush Department of Defense Richard Perle published a book titled An
End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror. Its text was as audacious as its title. "An End to Evil will define the conservative
point of view on foreign policy for a new generation -- and shape the agenda for the 2004 presidential-election year and beyond,"
a description of it reads. By this time, the Iraq War was in full swing, and Frum and Perle offered full-throated apologia. Under
the assumptions that the war would bring stable democracy to Iraq and that the imaginary WMDs would be located soon enough, they
called for similar action against North Korea and Iran.
Eli Lake, Bloomberg View columnist
Lake was a State Department
correspondent for United Press International (UPI) when the Iraq War began.
As
noted
by Adam Weinstein for Gawker, Lake
argued
for the legality of the Iraq War in a 2003
column for UPI:
"On the facts of the case, it is hard to argue that Iraq has given up its weapons of mass destruction. ... With this kind of
evidence, far from being an international outlaw, the United States would be a the (sic) defender of the entire institution of
international (sic) should it lead a war to disarm Iraq."
Eliot Cohen, Atlantic contributing editor
Cohen was a co-founder
of Project for the New American Century.
MSNBC's Zachary Roth described
Cohen's role in boosting the Iraq War in 2013:
[Cohen] was a key agitator for an Iraq invasion and for a maximalist response to the 9/11 attacks. In a November 2001 op-ed
in which he called the War on Terror "World War IV," Cohen argued that the US. should "target" Iraq because it had "helped al
Qaeda" and "developed weapons of destruction." Not long after, he touted a spurious connection between Muhammed Atta, the chief
9/11 hijacker, and Saddam's regime. In Congressional testimony in 2002, Cohen framed a stark choice for policymakers: Allow Saddam
"to acquire weapons of mass destruction or to take action to overthrow him." In 2007, Cohen became a top adviser to Condoleezza
Rice at the State Department.
Ann Coulter
Coulter was a prominent conservative author and
commentator when the Iraq War began.
Coulter, alongside Sean Hannity,
pushed lies about Army Ranger Pat Tillman's opposition to the Iraq War. Asawin Suebsaeng
wrote in 2017 for The Daily Beast about Coulter's Iraq War boosterism and how she has pivoted away from it under Trump:
"I think Iraq was a crucial part of the war on terrorism -- if you had to choose between Iraq and Afghanistan, I'd take Iraq
over Afghanistan," Coulter said on a Fox Business panel, debating anti-war libertarians, in late 2011. "PATRIOT Act, fantastic,
Gitmo, fantastic, waterboarding, not bad, though [even harsher] torture would've been better."
Coulter went on to tell a bewildered John Stossel and Matt Welch that "[Iraq] is a fantastic country for regime change," that
"torture works beautifully," and that position regarding potential blowback or unintended negative consequences to the war were
merely a "crazy ACLU argument."
Rush Limbaugh
Limbaugh was also host of his own radio show when the Iraq War began.
On April 7, 2003, Rush Limbaugh said
, "We're discovering WMDs all over Iraq." On September 26, 2007, Limbaugh
called soldiers who advocated withdrawal from Iraq "phony soldiers." Limbaugh has
subsequently tried to justify the Iraq War, even declaring that President Bush should be
added
to Mount Rushmore . In January 2018, Limbaugh
accused the "deep state" of faking weapons of mass destruction evidence in Iraq to damage Bush.
Nicole Wallace, MSNBC host
Wallace
was George W. Bush's communications director as the Iraq War began.
"[Obama's] legacy on foreign policy is going to be that he didn't start a war in Iraq. He wasn't the president, thank God, in
the years after 9/11." [MSNBC, 5/30/14 ]
"... As we have explained elsewhere, the cost of Empire is now nearing $1 trillion per year when you count foreign aid and security assistance, homeland security, the $200 billion Veterans budget and debt service on past wars. Add that to $2.5 trillion of entitlements that neither party will touch and what will soon by $1 trillion per year of interest expense and you have nothing less than a Fiscal Doomsday machine. ..."
"... That is, spending that will be pushing 25-30% of GDP and a revenue base that amounts to less than 17% of GDP. Literally, the nation's fiscal accounts are being drawn and quartered by the dual menace of the Welfare State and Warfare State. ..."
"... In fact, during the past 27 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914. ..."
"... Needless to say, there is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington – not Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or Raqqah. The former has become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991. ..."
"... So doing he should have demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; slashed the US standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican predecessors during the 1920s. ..."
"... Unfortunately, George H.W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even mediocre intelligence. He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace when he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the greedy Emir of Kuwait that was none of our business. ..."
We've got NATO on our mind today because we learned this morning that the mere suggestion this obsolete relic of the Cold War
should be abandoned tends to trigger an absolutely virulent outburst of Trump Derangement Syndrome in the mainstream media.
So long as we were talking about the folly of Trump-O-Nomics and the Donald's rookie mistake in embracing an egregious stock market
bubble that is destined to crash and a failing, geriatric business cycle that at age 115 months has "recession ahead" written all
over its forehead, our host, Mika Brzezinski, was happy to nod approvingly.
But when we veered off into approval of the Donald's efforts to rein in the Empire and make peace with the Russkies, it was an
altogether different matter. We no more than launched the thought of it than Mika was sputtering in disbelief – as if we had committed
a grotesque sacrilege in public:
STOCKMAN: Beyond that – beyond that, trump tried to do the right thick with America first. He's been stymied at every turn
of the road. He was right. They wouldn't let him do it. He was right. NATO is obsolete. We should get rid of it. Everybody went
after him for he's trying to do the right thing in Korea and yet they keep coming after him on the basis of the status quo, which
has been wrong for last 60 years. So on the one hand, his economic policy is a failure. On the other hand, his effort to rein
in the empires I call it and get to something we can afford is being stymied. And then he's filled the swamp with $100 billion
more for the Pentagon that is doesn't need. That's the deep end of the swamp."
BRZEZINSKI: "David, David, hold on a second, hold on, hold on. You did a lot."
STOCKMAN: "Yes."
BRZEZINSKI: "I just want to like hone in on one – are you saying we should pull out of NATO?" [crosstalk]
STOCKMAN: "Sure. NATO is obsolete."
BRZEZINSKI: "What?"
STOCKMAN: "NATO is obsolete. It was only set up to stop the Soviet Union and 50,000 tanks on the Warsaw front. That ended 25
years ago. We don't need NATO. Europe can take care of itself. Russia's a pint-sized economy, 7 percent of size of U.S. economy.
NATO, US GDP combined is $36 trillion, Russia's $1.5 trillion. You think the Europeans can't handle it? Germany spends 1 percent
only of GDP on defense. If they really thought that the Russians were heading through the Brandenburg Gate, they would be providing
for their own defense. They're not pacifists.
So if you wonder why we insist that a fiscal calamity is barreling down the pike – just consider the implications of this exchange.
MSNBC is ground zero for the so-called progressive Left. Yet it has become so deranged by the Donald and convinced that he was elected
not because the electorate rejected its threadbare agenda, but because Putin and the Russkies threw the election to him, that it
has become a full-fledged champion of the War Party.
As we have explained elsewhere, the cost of Empire is now nearing $1 trillion per year when you count foreign aid and security
assistance, homeland security, the $200 billion Veterans budget and debt service on past wars. Add that to $2.5 trillion of entitlements
that neither party will touch and what will soon by $1 trillion per year of interest expense and you have nothing less than a Fiscal
Doomsday machine.
That is, spending that will be pushing 25-30% of GDP and a revenue base that amounts to less than 17% of GDP. Literally, the
nation's fiscal accounts are being drawn and quartered by the dual menace of the Welfare State and Warfare State.
Yet with respect to the latter, the last time we checked the old Soviet Union slithered off the pages of history 28 years ago.
Shortly thereafter the 50,000 Red Army tanks, which had been arrayed menacingly (and unbeknownst to the CIA, largely without spare
fuel) behind the Iron Curtain, were mostly melted down for scrap by the destitute statelets of the Warsaw Pact (Poland, Rumania,
Bulgaria, Albania etc.) and 14 ex-Soviet Republics (like Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine, etc.)
What was left of the Soviet Empire was the rump state of Russia – shorn of much of its industrial base and with an aging population
of just 140 million compared to the 425 million souls who had been incarcerated in Stalin's dystopia.
So, yes, there was every reason to declare "mission accomplished" and disband NATO because the much exaggerated conventional military
threat of the Soviet Union had literally vanished from the face of the earth. At that point, NATO was, in fact, pointless.
So when President George Bush the Elder, who was no wimpy Yale pacifist, promised Gorbachev in 1989 that in return for his acquiescence
to the reunification of Germany that NATO would no move " a single inch to the east", he wasn't exactly selling the "free world"
(as they called it) down the drain.
In fact, as the above map unfolded, the 77-Years War that had incepted in August 1914 was finally over. If you want to count bodies,
150 million were killed by all the depredations which germinated in the Great War, its foolish aftermath at Versailles, and
the march of history into the second world war and cold war which followed inexorably thereupon.
To wit, upwards of 8% of the human race was wiped-out during that span. The toll encompassed the madness of trench
warfare during 1914-1918; the murderous regimes of Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism that rose from the ashes of the Great War and
Versailles; and then the carnage of WWII and all the lesser (unnecessary) wars and invasions of the Cold War including Korea and
Vietnam.
So finally the time had come for Washington to lead the world into a golden age of peace, disarmament and prosperous commerce
among the nations.
Yet there was a virulent threat to peace still lurking on the Potomac after the 77 Years War ended. The great general and president,
Dwight Eisenhower, had called it the "military-industrial complex" in his farewell address.
But that memorable phrase had been abbreviated by his speechwriters, who deleted the word "congressional" in a gesture of comity
to the legislative branch. So restore Ike's deleted reference to the legislative pork barrels and Sunday afternoon warriors of Capitol
Hill and toss in the legions of beltway busybodies that constituted the civilian branches of the cold war armada (CIA, State, AID,
NED etc.) and the circle would have been complete.
It constituted the most awesome machine of warfare and imperial hegemony since the Roman legions bestrode most of the civilized
world.
In a word, the real threat to world peace circa 1991 was that Pax Americana would not go away quietly into the good
night.
In fact, during the past 27 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was ever possible at the end of the cold
war. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914.
Needless to say, there is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington – not Moscow, Beijing,
Pyongyang, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or Raqqah. The former has become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991.
What needed to happen back in 1991 was for Bush the Elder to declare "mission accomplished" and slash the Pentagon budget from
$600 billion to $250 billion.
So doing he should have demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons development,
procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network of US military bases; slashed the US standing armed
forces from 1.5 million to a few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world disarmament and peace campaign, as did his Republican
predecessors during the 1920s.
Unfortunately, George H.W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even mediocre intelligence. He was the malleable tool of
the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace when he plunged America into a petty argument between the impetuous
dictator of Iraq and the greedy Emir of Kuwait that was none of our business.
By contrast, even though liberal historians have reviled Warren G. Harding as some kind of dumbkopf politician, he well understood
that the Great War had been for naught, and that to insure it never happened again the nations of the world needed to rid themselves
of their huge navies and standing armies.
To that end, he achieved the largest global disarmament agreement ever made during the Washington Naval conference of 1921, which
halted the construction of new battleships for more than a decade.
And while he was at it, President Harding also pardoned Eugene Debs. He thereby gave witness to the truth that the intrepid socialist
candidate for president and vehement antiwar protester, who Wilson had thrown in prison for exercising his first amendment right
to speak against US entry into a pointless European war, had been right all along.
In short, Warren G. Harding knew the war was over, and the folly of Wilson's 1917 plunge into Europe's bloodbath should not be
repeated at all hazards.
The Unforgiveable Sins 0f George H.W. Bush
Not George H.W. Bush. The man should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and
their neocon pack of jackals to come to power – even if he did denounce them in his bumbling old age.
Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in 1991 he opened the gates to an unnecessary
confrontation with Islam. In turn, that nurtured the rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today – save for forces
unleashed by George H.W. Bush's petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein.
We will address more fully on another occasion the 45-year-old error that holds the Persian Gulf is an American Lake and that
energy security requires it be patrolled by the Fifth Fleet. As history proves, the real answer to high oil prices everywhere and
always is high oil prices and the wonders they work to rebalance the global energy market.
But first it is well to remember that there was no plausible threat anywhere on the planet to the safety and security of the citizens
of Springfield MA, Lincoln NE or Spokane WA when the cold war ended.
But rather than dismantling the NATO machinery, virtually the opposite happened. NATO has been expanded to 29 countries including
such powers as Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and now the statelet of Montenegro that has a military half the size of the
police force of Philadelphia.
In the context of this relentless and pointless NATO expansion to the very borders of the shrunken Russian state, Washington not
only sponsored and funded the overthrow of Ukraine's constitutionally elected government in February 2014. But once it had unleashed
a devastating civil war, it relentlessly blocked the obvious alternative to the bloodshed that has claimed 10,000 civilian and military
casualties.
That is, it's partition of its population among the Russian speaking provinces in the Donbas and Crimea and Ukrainians in the
west. After all, partition was accomplished peacefully in the artificial state of Czechoslovakia and at the insistence of NATO bombers
in the short-lived nation of Yugoslavia.
Had not the Donald been stopped cold by the hail of hysteria which emanated from the War Party and their dutiful stenographers
in the main stream media, the next step after his historic meeting with Putin in Helsinki would have been to take up where George
H.W. Bush faltered in 1991.
That is, on the dismantlement and interment of NATO and the reopening of Europe to peaceful commerce among all the nation's that
had been artificially separated by the now long departed Iron Curtain.
The fact is, Washington doesn't need its budget-busting $720 billion defense budget to defend Europe from Russia, nor should it
be endlessly haranguing those nations to waste more of their own money on defense than they already are.
That's because there is absolutely no reason to believe that Russia wants to attack Germany or any other country in Europe. Indeed,
the very idea is just plain madness.
As shown by the table below, the NATO-28 (excluding the US) are now actually spending $250 billion per year on defense
(2017). That's 4X Russia's entire military budget of $61 billion .
Likewise, the GDP of Russia is but $1.5 trillion compared to $18 trillion for the NATO-28. So is Cool
Hand Vlad so completely foolish and reckless as to think that he could invade and occupy territories that have an economy 13X bigger
than that of Russia?
Actually, it's far more ludicrous than that. The rump of Russia today is a giant hydrocarbon province attached to some wheat fields,
timber lands and mineral deposits – all dependent upon an aging work force afflicted with an undue fondness for Vodka etc.
What that means is that Russia must export its commodities big time or die. In fact, during 2017 Russian exports totaled $357
billion or 26% of its GDP. And 55% of that went to Europe!
Moreover, when you breakdown Russian exports it is plain to see that the industrial maw of Europe is the port of first call for
its vast tonnages of exported commodities. These included $173 billion of oil and gas and $60 billion of iron, steel, aluminum, precious
metals, forest products, fertilizers, grains and copper, among others.
Finally, the table on defense spending by country below speaks for itself as to the purported Russian threat. If the German government
really feared that Russian tanks would be soon rolling through the Brandenburg Gates, it would have more than 20 operational tanks,
and it would spend far more than $40.6 billion or 1.2% of GDP to defend itself.
And the same is even more true of the former Warsaw pact countries that are located cheek-by-jowl on Russia's border. Yet Romania
spends the tiny sum of $2.8 billion or 1.2% of GDP on its military.
Likewise, the figure for Hungary, which learned all about Soviet-style invasions in 1956, spends only $1.2 billion or barely 1.0%
of GDP. And besides that, its intrepid leader, Viktor Orban, doesn't even support NATO's ridiculous sanctions on Putin's cronies
and allies.
And as for the allegedly threatened Baltic states, their combined defense budgets are less than $1.5 billion, representing a minuscule
1.7% of combined GDP; and Bulgaria, fast upon the Russian Lake called the Black Sea, spends only $660 million or 1.4% of its GDP.
In short, European policy action on the defense spending front trumps all the hot air that wafts from NATO's spanking new Brussels
headquarters. Their governments and parliaments positively do not think they are threatened by the Russian Bear because they aren't.
What would help a lot, therefore, is for the Great Disrupter to forget about his unfortunate infatuation with the idea that bigger
is always better, and do what no other American politician in thrall to the Warfare State has been unable to do since 1991 when the
Soviet Union vanished.
That is, declare "mission accomplished" with respect to NATO and disband it forthwith.
You could call it a Mercy Killing. Indeed, a couple more NATO summits at which they are browbeat to waste ever more money on defense,
and the Europeans themselves may well start begging for exactly that.
Then again, could you imagine how loudly the progressive left would be screaming if the Donald even entertained the thought deep
beneath his bedraggled Orange Comb-Over?
Neocons are "enemies of the people" independent of their party affiliation. Nuremberg principles were written not for nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... he thought Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone except the staff of Commentary magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks. ..."
"... The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic consequence. ..."
There is an unforgettable passage in Graham Greene's classic "The Quiet American" in which the
title character, a CIA agent named Alden Pyle, admits that Vietnam is much more complicated
than he'd imagined. "I had not realized how tribal politics was and how divorced it could be
from principles or conviction," Pyle says. Surveying the wreckage of the American war effort,
he adds, "Looking back with greater introspection and humility after the passage of more than
fifteen years, I can finally acknowledge the obvious: it was all a big mistake."
Greene's admirers will recognize that these lines do not actually come from his 1955 novel.
They are from Max Boot's new book, " The Corrosion of
Conservatism: Why I Left the Right ." Boot, a leading intellectual in the conservative
movement for the past two decades, is now apologizing for nearly everything he has done and
abided. He is denouncing not just Donald Trump, but the Republican Party as a whole. "Upon
closer examination," he writes in his 260-page atonement, "it's obvious that the whole history
of modern conservatism is permeated with racism, extremism, conspiracy-mongering, ignorance,
isolationism, and know-nothingism."
The temptation is to say, Bravo, here at last is a Republican willing to admit the emperor
has no clothes. That's the reaction of lots of journalists and
pundits who have flipped
through Boot's book. Jacob Heilbrunn wrote in the
Washington Monthly that Boot's "readiness to reexamine his old convictions is admirable."
Adam Serwer, writer at The Atlantic, tweeted , "You don't want to
punish people for getting the right answer." Boot is no longer a Republican (he quit the party
after Trump's election) but he is hardly an outcast in the political world -- he is a
Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a CNN
analyst. Such is the sweet life of a born-again intellectual.
It's easy to understand why a penitent like Boot appeals to liberals and other members of
the Trump resistance. He ratifies their sense of having been correct from the start, and his
confession is enunciated in perfect sound bites, with just the right dose of abasement. Boot is
an irresistible spectacle -- the sinner with tears running down his cheeks dropping to his
knees at the altar of all that is good, proclaiming that he has seen the light and wants to
join the army of righteousness. But here's the thing: Boot is only half-apologizing. And
because he's been wrong so many times and with so many ill consequences, he should be provided
with nothing more than a polite handshake as he's led out of the sanctuary of politics,
forever.
When I say wrong, I mean Guinness World Records wrong. In his first book, " Out of
Order ," Boot argued that the Supreme Court erred when it ruled in Brown v. Board of
Education that school segregation violated the Constitution ("I am not proud of 'Out of
Order,'" he now says); he was a key proponent of the invasion of Iraq ("Once we have deposed
Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the
one in Kabul," he proclaimed in 2001);
he thought John Bolton was treated unfairly when Democrats
opposed his 2005 nomination for ambassador to the United Nations ("He seems like a good choice
to help drain the U.N. cesspool of corrupt bureaucrats and self-serving tyrants");
he thought
Ahmed Chalabi was "the most unfairly
maligned man on the planet" long after the Iraqi exile's dissembling was apparent to everyone
except the staff of Commentary
magazine; and as Boot notes in his mea culpa, he totally failed to notice the dark side of the
GOP. "It's amazing how little you can see when your eyes are closed," he squeaks.
That's a lot of wrong. It's so much wrong that I can't imagine how or why anyone could look
at Boot and think, "Ah, here's a man we should listen to." I can pre-empt Boot's response to
this -- in his book, he complains that "doctrinaire leftists" will be satisfied with nothing
less than his "ritual suicide" for the war crimes he's committed. I've exchanged a few cordial
emails with Boot (we both graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, a few years
apart, and worked at its student newspaper, the Daily Californian ), and I can honestly say he seems a nice and
bright enough fellow to whom I wish no physical harm. But like Alden Pyle, he has helped create
so much havoc, he has been wrong so completely, that it would be the definition of insanity to
treat his ideas as fodder for anything other than a shredder. Here's a real line from "The
Quiet American," spoken about Pyle by the novel's weary narrator, that suits Boot perfectly: "I
never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused." Pyle's innocence, the
book explains, "is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no
harm."
The problem here isn't really Boot. It's the eternal forgiveness that journalists and
intellectuals bestow upon colleagues who should be cast out for errors of immense and tragic
consequence.
Boot is a perfect example, because he has been wrong so many times in such major
ways and is actually willing to admit it. But there are vast numbers of pundits , masters of
spin , and
allegedintellectuals who have been wrong
enough on enough big things (not just war, but climate change and more) to merit laughter
rather than praise. Yet there they are,
stroking their chins on our finest
op-ed pages and cable news channels. Mutual forgiveness is a necessity among pundits who are
stuffed with nonsense much of the time; without mercy on demand, they might all be out of jobs.
It's no surprise that Boot's book arrives with admiring blurbs from D.C. heavyweights James
Fallows, Jon Meacham, and David Corn, among others.
"... In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora ..."
"... The neocons initially found a home with Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, but they moved on in the 1970s and 1980s to prosper under Ronald Reagan as well as under Democrat Bill Clinton. Their ability to shape policy peaked under George W. Bush, when they virtually ran the Pentagon and were heavily represented in both the national security apparatus and in the White House. They became adept at selling their mantra of "strong national defense" to whomever was buying, including to President Obama, even while simultaneously complaining about his administration's "weakness." ..."
"... When Trump was elected, it, therefore, seemed that the reign of the neocons had ended, but chameleonlike, they have changed shape and are now ensconced both in some conservative as well as in an increasing number of progressive circles in Washington and in the media. Against all odds, they have even captured key posts in the White House itself with the naming of John Bolton as National Security Adviser and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State. Bolton's Chief of Staff is Fred Fleitz , a leading neocon and Islamophobe while last week Trump added Iran hawk Richard Goldberg to the National Security Council as director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. Goldberg is an alumnus of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is the leading neocon think tank calling incessantly for war with Iran. ..."
"... One of the most active groups attacking President Trump is "Republicans for the Rule of Law," founded by Bill Kristol in January 2018, as a component of Defending Democracy Together (DDT), a 501(c)4 lobbying group that also incorporates projects called The Russia Tweets and Republicans Against Putin. Republicans Against Putin promotes the view that President Trump is not "stand[ing] up to [Vladimir] Putin" and calls for more aggressive investigation of the Russian role in the 2016 election . ..."
"... Omidyar is a political liberal who has given millions of dollars to progressive organizations and individuals since 1999. Indeed, he is regarded as a top funder of liberal causes in the United States and even globally together with Michael Bloomberg and George Soros. His Democracy Fund awarded $9 million in grants in 2015 alone. ..."
"... Last week, the Omidyar-Kristol connection may have deepened with an announcement regarding the launch of the launch of a new webzine The Bulwark , which would clearly be at least somewhat intended to take the place of the recently deceased Weekly Standard. It is promoting itself as the center of the "Never Trump Resistance" and it is being assumed that at least some of the Omidyar money is behind it . ..."
"... That hatred is the tie that binds and it is why Bill Kristol, a man possessing no character and values whatsoever, is willing to take Pierre Omidyar's money while Pierre is quite happy to provide it to destroy a common enemy, the President of the United States of America. ..."
The Roman poet Ovid's masterful epic The Metamorphoses includes the memorable opening line
regarding the poem's central theme of transformation. He wrote In nova fert animus mutatas
dicere formas corpora , which has been translated as "Of shapes transformed to bodies
strange, I purpose to entreat "
Ovid framed his narrative around gods, heroes and quasi-historical events but if he were
around today, he would no doubt be fascinated by the many transformations of the group that has
defined itself as neoconservative.The movement began in a cafeteria in City College of New York
in the 1930s, where a group of radical Jewish students would meet to discuss politics and
developments in Europe. Many of the founders were from the far left, communists of the
Trotskyite persuasion, which meant that they believed in permanent global revolution led by a
vanguard party. The transformation into conservatives of a neo-persuasion took place when they
were reportedly "mugged by reality" into accepting that the standard leftist formulae were not
working to transform the world rapidly enough. As liberal hawks, they then hitched their wagon
to the power of the United States to bring about transformation by force if necessary and began
to infiltrate institutions like the Pentagon to give themselves the tools to achieve their
objectives, which included promotion of regime change wars, full spectrum global dominance and
unconditional support for Israel.
The neocons initially found a home with Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, but they
moved on in the 1970s and 1980s to prosper under Ronald Reagan as well as under Democrat Bill
Clinton. Their ability to shape policy peaked under George W. Bush, when they virtually ran the
Pentagon and were heavily represented in both the national security apparatus and in the White
House. They became adept at selling their mantra of "strong national defense" to whomever was
buying, including to President Obama, even while simultaneously complaining about his
administration's "weakness."
The neoconservatives lined up behind Hillary Clinton in 2016, appalled by Donald Trump's
condemnation of their centerpiece war in Iraq and even more so by his pledge to end the wars in
Asia and nation-building projects while also improving relations with the Russians. They worked
actively against the Republican candidate both before he was nominated and elected and did
everything they could to stop him, including libeling him as a Russian agent.
When Trump was elected, it, therefore, seemed that the reign of the neocons had ended, but
chameleonlike, they have changed shape and are now ensconced both in some conservative as well
as in an increasing number of progressive circles in Washington and in the media. Against all
odds, they have even captured key posts in the White House itself with the naming of John Bolton as
National Security Adviser and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State. Bolton's Chief of Staff is
Fred
Fleitz , a leading neocon and Islamophobe while last week Trump
added Iran hawk Richard Goldberg to the National Security Council as director for
countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction. Goldberg is an alumnus of the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies, which is the leading neocon think tank calling incessantly for war with
Iran.
Meanwhile, the neocon metamorphosis is nearly complete as many of the neocons, who started
out as Democrats, have returned home, where they are being welcomed for their hardline foreign
policy viewpoint. Glenn Greenwald
reports that , based on polling of party supporters, the Democrats have gone full-Hillary
and are now by far more hawkish than the Republicans, unwilling to leave either Syria or
Afghanistan.
The neocon survival and rejuvenation is particularly astonishing in that they have been
wrong about virtually everything, most notably the catastrophic Iraq War. They have never been
held accountable for anything, though one should note that accountability is not a prominent
American trait, at least since Vietnam. What is important is that neocon views have been
perceived by the media and punditry as being part of the Establishment consensus, which
provides them with access to programming all across the political spectrum. That is why neocon
standard-bearers like Bill Kristol and Max Boot have been able to move effortlessly from Fox
News to MSNBC where they are fêted by the likes of Rachel Maddow. They applauded the Iraq
War when the Establishment was firmly behind it and are now trying to destroy Donald Trump's
presidency because America's elite is behind that effort.
Indeed, the largely successful swing by the neocons from right to left has in some ways
become more surreal, as an increasing number of progressive spokesmen and institutions have
lined up behind their perpetual warfare banner. The ease with which the transformation took
place reveals, interestingly, that the neocons have no real political constituency apart from
voters who feel threatened and respond by supporting perpetual war, but they do share many
common interests with the so-called liberal interventionists. Neocons see a global crisis for
the United States defined in terms of power while the liberals see the struggle as a moral
imperative, but the end result is the same: intervention by the United States. This fusion is
clearly visible in Washington, where the Clintons' Center for American Progress (CAP) is now
working on position
papers with the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
One of the most active groups attacking President Trump is "Republicans for the Rule of
Law," founded by Bill Kristol in January 2018, as a component of Defending Democracy Together (DDT), a 501(c)4
lobbying group that also incorporates projects called The Russia Tweets and Republicans Against
Putin. Republicans Against Putin promotes the view that President Trump is not "stand[ing] up
to [Vladimir] Putin" and calls for more aggressive investigation of the Russian role in the
2016 election .
DDT is a prime example of how the neoconservatives and traditional liberal interventionists
have come together as it is in part funded by Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire co-founder of
eBay who has provided
DDT with $600,000 in two grants through his Democracy Fund Voice ,
also a 501(c)4.
Omidyar is a political liberal who has given millions of dollars to progressive
organizations and individuals since 1999. Indeed, he is regarded as a top funder
of liberal causes in the United States and even globally together with Michael Bloomberg
and George Soros. His Democracy Fund awarded $9 million in grants in 2015 alone.
Last week, the Omidyar-Kristol connection may have deepened with an announcement regarding
the launch of
the launch of a new webzine The
Bulwark , which would clearly be at least somewhat intended to take the place of the
recently deceased Weekly Standard. It is promoting
itself as the center of the "Never Trump Resistance" and it is being assumed that at least
some of the Omidyar money is behind it
.
Iranian-born Omidyar's relationship with Kristol is clearly based on the hatred that the two
share regarding Donald Trump.
Omidyar has
stated that Trump is a "dangerous authoritarian demagogue endorsing Donald Trump
immediately disqualifies you from any position of public trust."
He has tweeted that Trump suffers from "failing mental capacity" and is both "corrupt and
incapacitated."
Omidyar is what he is – a hardcore social justice warrior who supports traditional big
government and globalist liberal causes, most of which are antithetical to genuine
conservatives.
But what is interesting about the relationship with Kristol is that it also
reveals what the neoconservatives are all about. Kristol and company have never been actual
conservatives on social issues, a topic that they studiously avoid, and their foreign policy is
based on two principles: creating a state of perpetual war based on fearmongering about foreign
enemies while also providing unlimited support for Israel. Kristol hates Trump because he
threatens the war agenda while Omidyar despises the president for traditional progressive
reasons.
That hatred is the tie that binds and it is why Bill Kristol, a man possessing no
character and values whatsoever, is willing to take Pierre Omidyar's money while Pierre is
quite happy to provide it to destroy a common enemy, the President of the United States of
America.
It is rather significant that this is the first known statement by Syrian UN Representative
Dr Jafaari as reported by RT [ https://www.rt.com/news/449463-syria-threatens-israel-airport/]
which contains an explicit warning of military action in response to the latest Israeli attack.
I have met Dr Bashar on three separate occasions and recall that in 2015 he confided to a small
group of people at a social gathering that Qatari diplomats had offered him 3 million if he
would split with Damascus. I found in him an honorable man of dignity and principle.
Framing his statement and warning as reckless or 'rash' ignores the interminable punishment
and humiliation Syria has suffered following years of incurring hundreds of Israeli acts of
aggression. Since the October War Syria fought to recapture the Golan Heights in 1973, it has
not fired a single shot across the armistice lines. Israel obviously interprets restraint as
weakness. Zionist military superiority does not translate to invincibility and if the conniving
bully is not confronted in a manner which causes a condign level of retribution, the cumulative
damage and casualties he inflicts will only rise.
'RT and the Jerusalem Post report that the Syrian government threatened to strike Ben
Grunion Airport if Israel violates its territory again. They also reiterated their moral and
sovereign right to maintain the Golan Heights and stop their annexation. Not sure where this
is headed but it looks rash and risky with all of the media pro-Israel and biased...'
Inveterate media bias cannot be an excuse for Syria to withhold from exercising legitimate
sovereign right to defend Syrian territory from unrelenting attacks especially those
targeting its international airport in Damascus and elsewhere. Media fealty to Israel is not
about to undergo an epiphany but Jaffari's warning is overdue and consistent with the policy
of engagement articulated in the E Magnier article I cited in a previous post.[
https://ejmagnier.com/2018/12/14/new-rules-of-engagement-between-syria-and-israel-as-russia-changes-its-position/].
No mater what Syria does or does not do will always to filtered through the MSM Israeli
prism. IMO, Syria is long overdue in delivering on its warnings.
It is rather significant that this is the first known statement by Syrian UN
Representative Dr Jafaari as reported by RT [ https://www.rt.com/news/449463-syria-threatens-israel-airport/]
which contains an explicit warning of military action in response to the latest Israeli
attack. I have met Dr Bashar on three separate occasions and recall that in 2015 he confided
to a small group of people at a social gathering that Qatari diplomats had offered him 3
million if he would split with Damascus. I found in him an honorable man of dignity and
principle.
Framing his statement and warning as reckless or 'rash' ignores the interminable
punishment and humiliation Syria has suffered following years of incurring hundreds of
Israeli acts of aggression. Since the October War Syria fought to recapture the Golan Heights
in 1973, it has not fired a single shot across the armistice lines. Israel obviously
interprets restraint as weakness. Zionist military superiority does not translate to
invincibility and if the conniving bully is not confronted in a manner which causes a condign
level of retribution, the cumulative damage and casualties he inflicts will only rise.
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of George
Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the American
People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.
Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions
raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His
Readers:
"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet
Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist"
-- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history.
But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different -- inspired
by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like. I never respond
specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem attacks. Instead,
I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that the orthodox policies
my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they assail -- are patriotic
heretics. Here too readers can judge."
Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.
Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional
United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this
important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.
Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent
figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?
If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson
on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods
by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a
loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional
nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.
I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported
by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious
politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble
purpose.
If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.
America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."
This is a compelling book that documents and examines the senseless and dangerous demonizing of Russia and Putin. Unfortunately,
the elites in Washington and mass media are not likely to read this book. Their minds are closed. I read this book because I was
hoping for an explanation about the cause of the new cold war with Russia. Although the root cause of the new cold war is beyond
the scope of this book, the book documents baseless accusations that grew in frequency and intensity until all opposition was
silenced. The book documents the dangerous triumph of group think.
"On my planet, the evidence linking Putin to the assassination of Litvinecko, Nemtsov, and Politkovskaya and the attempt
on the Skripals is strong and consistent with spending his formative years in the KGB. The naive view from Cohen's planet is
presented on p 6 and 170."
Ukrainian history. That's evident to any attentive reader. I just want to state that Ukrainian EuroMaydan was a color revolution
which exploited the anger of population against the corrupt neoliberal government of Yanukovich (with Biden as the best friend,
and Paul Manafort as the election advisor) to install even more neoliberal and more corrupt government of Poroshenko and cut Ukraine
from Russia. The process that was probably inevitable in the long run (so called Baltic path), but that was forcefully accelerated.
Everything was taken from the Gene Sharp textbook. And Ukrainians suffered greatly as a result, with the standard of living dropping
to around $2 a day level -- essentially Central Africa level.
The fact is that the EU acted as a predator trying to get into Ukraine markets and displace Russia. While the USA neocons (Nuland
and Co) staged the coup using Ukrainian nationalists as a ram, ignoring the fact that Yanukovich would be voted out in six months
anyway (his popularity was in single digits, like popularity of Poroshenko those days ;-). The fact that Obama administration
desperately wanted to weaken Russia at the expense of Ukrainians eludes you. I would blame Nuland for the loss of Crimea and the
civil war in Donbass.
Poor Ukrainians again became the victim of geopolitical games by big powers. No that they are completely blameless, but still...
It looks like you inhabit a very cold populated exclusively with neocons planet called "Russiagate." So Professor Cohen really
lives on another planet. And probably you should drink less American exceptionalism Kool-Aid.
As usual, the pledge ultimately never changes, New jobs and No increase in taxes. Americans
love tag lines even though our infrastructure, poor education et al is the result of fear of
taxation. Both parties use the same tag line, we certainly get what we pay for.
Yep,
The party has circled its wagons.
They insist that the Evil Vlad stole the last election.
Therefore, no need to examine Obama's centrist/neoliberal policies and the socio-economic
conditions that fueled the rejection of Hillary.
We're doomed to repeat our errors.
The farcical DNC leadership echoes the days of Brezhnev's intransigent politburo.
"... Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation. ..."
"In a Time of Universal Deceit -- Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act" is a well known quotation (but probably not of George
Orwell). And in telling the truth about Russia and that the current "war of nerves" is not in the interests of either the American
People or national security, Professor Cohen in this book has in fact done a revolutionary act.
Like a denizen of Plato's cave, or being in the film the Matrix, most people have no idea what the truth is. And the questions
raised by Professor Cohen are a great service in the cause of the truth. As Professor Cohen writes in his introduction To His
Readers:
"My scholarly work -- my biography of Nikolai Bukharin and essays collected in Rethinking the Soviet Experience and Soviet
Fates and Lost Alternatives, for example -- has always been controversial because it has been what scholars term "revisionist"
-- reconsiderations, based on new research and perspectives, of prevailing interpretations of Soviet and post-Soviet Russian history.
But the "controversy" surrounding me since 2014, mostly in reaction to the contents of this book, has been different -- inspired
by usually vacuous, defamatory assaults on me as "Putin's No. 1 American Apologist," "Best Friend," and the like. I never respond
specifically to these slurs because they offer no truly substantive criticism of my arguments, only ad hominem attacks. Instead,
I argue, as readers will see in the first section, that I am a patriot of American national security, that the orthodox policies
my assailants promote are gravely endangering our security, and that therefore we -- I and others they assail -- are patriotic
heretics. Here too readers can judge."
Cohen, Stephen F.. War with Russia (Kindle Locations 131-139). Hot Books. Kindle Edition.
Professor Cohen is indeed a patriot of the highest order. The American and "Globalists" elites, particularly the dysfunctional
United Kingdom, are engaging in a war of nerves with Russia. This war, which could turn nuclear for reasons discussed in this
important book, is of no benefit to any person or nation.
Indeed, with the hysteria on "climate change" isn't it odd that other than Professor Cohen's voice, there are no prominent
figures warning of the devastation that nuclear war would bring?
If you are a viewer of one of the legacy media outlets, be it Cable Television networks, with the exception of Tucker Carlson
on Fox who has Professor Cohen as a frequent guest, or newspapers such as The New York Times, you have been exposed to falsehoods
by remarkably ignorant individuals; ignorant of history, of the true nature of Russia (which defeated the Nazis in Europe at a
loss of millions of lives) and most important, of actual military experience. America is neither an invincible or exceptional
nation. And for those familiar with terminology of ancient history, it appears the so-called elites are suffering from hubris.
I cannot recommend Professor Cohen's work with sufficient superlatives; his arguments are erudite, clearly stated, supported
by the facts and ultimately irrefutable. If enough people find Professor Cohen's work and raise their voices to their oblivious
politicians and profiteers from war to stop further confrontation between Russia and America, then this book has served a noble
purpose.
If nothing else, educate yourself by reading this work to discover what the *truth* is. And the truth is something sacred.
America and the world owe Professor Cohen a great debt. "Blessed are the peace makers..."
This is a compelling book that documents and examines the senseless and dangerous demonizing of Russia and Putin. Unfortunately,
the elites in Washington and mass media are not likely to read this book. Their minds are closed. I read this book because I was
hoping for an explanation about the cause of the new cold war with Russia. Although the root cause of the new cold war is beyond
the scope of this book, the book documents baseless accusations that grew in frequency and intensity until all opposition was
silenced. The book documents the dangerous triumph of group think.
"On my planet, the evidence linking Putin to the assassination of Litvinecko, Nemtsov, and Politkovskaya and the attempt
on the Skripals is strong and consistent with spending his formative years in the KGB. The naive view from Cohen's planet is
presented on p 6 and 170."
Ukrainian history. That's evident to any attentive reader. I just want to state that Ukrainian EuroMaydan was a color revolution
which exploited the anger of population against the corrupt neoliberal government of Yanukovich (with Biden as the best friend,
and Paul Manafort as the election advisor) to install even more neoliberal and more corrupt government of Poroshenko and cut Ukraine
from Russia. The process that was probably inevitable in the long run (so called Baltic path), but that was forcefully accelerated.
Everything was taken from the Gene Sharp textbook. And Ukrainians suffered greatly as a result, with the standard of living dropping
to around $2 a day level -- essentially Central Africa level.
The fact is that the EU acted as a predator trying to get into Ukraine markets and displace Russia. While the USA neocons (Nuland
and Co) staged the coup using Ukrainian nationalists as a ram, ignoring the fact that Yanukovich would be voted out in six months
anyway (his popularity was in single digits, like popularity of Poroshenko those days ;-). The fact that Obama administration
desperately wanted to weaken Russia at the expense of Ukrainians eludes you. I would blame Nuland for the loss of Crimea and the
civil war in Donbass.
Poor Ukrainians again became the victim of geopolitical games by big powers. No that they are completely blameless, but still...
It looks like you inhabit a very cold populated exclusively with neocons planet called "Russiagate." So Professor Cohen really
lives on another planet. And probably you should drink less American exceptionalism Kool-Aid.
Among few good things that Trump have done to the USA is that he destoryed credibility of
neoliberal MSM. They all are now firmly belong to the "fake news" catagory.
Notable quotes:
"... C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org . ..."
So the corporate media have gone and done it again. As they have, repeatedly, for the last
two and half years, they shook the earth with
a "bombshell" story proving beyond any reasonable doubt that Donald Trump colluded with the
Russians to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton, or at least committed an impeachable
felony in connection with something to do with the Russians, or Ukrainians, or other Slavic
persons which story turned out to be inaccurate, or not entirely accurate, or a bunch of
horseshit.
This time it was BuzzFeed's Jason Leopold, " a
reporter with a checkered past " (i.e., a history of inventing
his sources ) who broke the "bombshell" Russiagate story that turned out to be a bunch of
horseshit. Leopold, and his colleague Anthony Cormier, reported that Trump had directed his
attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about plans to construct a Trump Tower in Moscow,
thus suborning perjury and obstructing justice. Their sources for this "bombshell" story were
allegedly "two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the
matter."
Approximately twenty-four hours later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office (i.e., the
office "involved in an investigation of the matter") stated that the BuzzFeed story was "not
accurate," which is a legal term meaning "a bunch of horseshit."
BuzzFeed is standing by its story , and is working to determine what, exactly, Mueller's
office meant by "not accurate." Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's Editor-in-Chief, has called on Mueller
"to make clear what he's disputing."
Liberals and other Trump-obsessives have joined in the effort to interpret the Special
Counsel's office's cryptic utterance. French hermeneuticists have been reportedly called in to
deconstruct the meaning of "accurate." Professional Twitter
semioticians are explaining that "not accurate" doesn't mean "wrong," but, rather, refers
to something that is "accurate," but which the user of the word doesn't want to disclose
publicly, or that legal terms don't mean what they mean or something more or less along those
lines.
But Greenwald's list is just a small sample of the Russiagate stories that have turned out
to be horseshit. For the record, here are several more:
"Seventeen intelligence agencies"
confirm Russia interfered in the U.S. elections (
New York Times ) Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum (
The Guardian ) Russia interfered in the German elections ( Reuters )
Russia hacked the French elections ( Politico and numerous other
outlets ) Michael Cohen conspired with the Russians in Prague ( BuzzFeed
)
I am using the terms "horseshit" and "a bunch of horseshit" (as opposed to terms like
"failures" and "errors"), not just to be gratuitously vulgar, but, also, to try to make a
point. One is not supposed to use these terms in connection with "serious," "respected" news
outlets. Which is why journalists like Greenwald and Aaron Maté (who have extensively
reported on the corporate media's ongoing production and dissemination of horseshit) do not use
such terms in the course of their reporting, and instead use less inflammatory terms like
"false," "inaccurate," "mistake," and "error." Principled journalists like Greenwald and
Maté are constrained by (a) their journalistic ethics, (b) their integrity, and (c)
their belief in the idea of a "free and independent press," which is one of the pillars of
Western democracy.
Being neither a respected journalist nor a believer in the existence of an "independent
press," I am under no such constraints. Because I'm not trying to get or keep a job, or
maintain a "respectable" reputation, I'm free to call a spade a spade and a bunch of horseshit
a bunch of horseshit. I am also free to describe "journalists" like Leopold,
Luke Harding ,
Craig Timberg ,
Franklin Foer , and many of their corporate media colleagues (not to mention
TV clowns like Rachel Maddow ) as the liars and rank propagandists they are. I don't need
to pretend their fabricated stories are simply the result of "shoddy journalism," or
"over-reliance on official sources," or any other type of "error" or "failure." These people
know exactly what they are doing, and are being extremely well paid to do it. They went to
school to learn how to do it. Then they butt-sucked and back-stabbed their way up the ladder of
establishment power to be able to do it.
Yes, of course, there are still principled journalists working for the corporate media, but
they are doing so by walking a very fine line. No one has to tell them where it is. Every
professional journalist knows precisely where it is, and what it is there for. Though they are
permitted to walk right up to it, occasionally (to keep them from feeling like abject whores),
one step over it and they will be cast into the Outer Darkness of the Blogosphere and
excommunicated from the Church of Respectable Journalism. If you don't believe me, just ask
Seymour Hersh, or John Pilger, or any other journalistic heretic.
If Russiagate serves no other useful purpose, it is at least exposing the corporate media as
the propaganda factories that they are. Given the amount of obviously fabricated horseshit they
have disseminated during the last two years, you'd have to be a total moron or a diehard
neoliberal cultist not to recognize the function they perform within the global capitalist
ruling establishment (which is essentially no different than the function the establishment
media perform in any other society, namely, to disseminate, maintain, and reify the official
narrative of its ruling classes).
Sadly, there's no shortage of morons and cultists. I don't blame the morons, because well,
they're morons. The cultists are another species entirely. These are people who, no matter how
often the corporate media feed them another "explosive," "bombshell" Russiagate story that
turns out to be a bunch of horseshit, will defend the concept of the "independent media" like
head-shaven, bug-eyed Manson followers. Confront them with facts contradicting their beliefs
and they close their eyes and start chanting and humming and repetitiously babbling banishing
spells. The notion that the Western corporate media may serve the interests of the ruling
establishment (just like the media in every other society serve that society's ruling classes)
is unimaginable and tantamount to heresy.
This fetishization of "the independent press" is a phenomenon unique to Western capitalism.
Basically, it's a childish fairy tale, like believing that Santa Claus is an actual person or
that voting in elections in a corporate oligarchy has anything to do with actual democracy.
Think about it dispassionately for a minute. Why would any ruling establishment permit a
genuinely "independent" press to disseminate ideas and information willy-nilly throughout
society? If it did, it wouldn't last very long.
Most people understand this intuitively, which is why the corporate media relentlessly
repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press," over, and over, and over again.
Seriously, switch on NPR, or have a look at The Guardian or the Washington Post, or any of the
other corporate media repeatedly reminding you how "independent," "free" and "democratic" they
are. It's essentially Neuro-linguistic programming.
So let's not be shocked when the corporate media continue to bombard us with "bombshell"
stories about Trump and Russia that turn out to be horseshit. Personally, I welcome these
stories. The more corporate media horseshit the better! Who knows, if they dish out enough
blatant horseshit, more people might lose their "trust in the media," and begin to investigate
matters themselves. I know, that makes me a Nazi, right? Or at least a Russian propagandist? I
mean, encouraging folks to distrust the corporate media? Isn't there some kind of law against
that? Or have they not quite gotten around to that yet?
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant Paperbacks. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
The Associated Press (AP) reports the latest bad news for the press: " Just 6 Percent of
People Say They Trust the Media ."
Carole Feldman and Emily Swanson began: Trust in the news media is being eroded by
perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans' skepticism about what they
read on social media. Just 6 percent of people say they have a lot of confidence in the
media, putting the news industry about equal to Congress and well below the public's view of
other institutions.
Most people understand this intuitively, which is why the corporate media relentlessly
repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent press,"
People inversely brag about their short comings.
Militarized police states brag about their freedom.
A well heeled synchophant brags about his independence.
Dudes with small dicks -- big belt buckle and big hat.
I used to listen to the BBC and NPR until the corporo-globalist bias became unbearable. I
laughed at incidents such as Marketplace mocking the public's concern about GMO's. But it
went off the rails in 2016. They may have backed off from Trump Derangement Syndrome a bit
since then, but I've noticed that they have to call themselves "credible." Maybe if they say
that enough times we'll believe it, eh?
The Greenwald link is pretty important and I bookmarked it. These fake news outlets do
everything in their power to scrub these mistakes from the Google machine once they happen.
They remove stories, videos -- everything, in the hopes of shoving it all down the memory
hole. And since other fake news outlets don't hold them accountable, they get away with it.
This is why it's important to take screen shots of fake news and download videos if possible,
to create a record that's permanent and useful when you need it.
More than 6% of the population are technically, and this is the technical term, retarded
-- they are mentally disabled.
I know it's obvious our media is propaganda, but I don't think it's quite so obvious such
that adults watching Sesame Street who fully enjoy it (nothing wrong with that!) are aware of
it.
I would like to think it's true, but I think the Associated Press article is not true,
after all, can you identify their funding sources?
This fetishization of "the independent press" is a phenomenon unique to Western
capitalism. Basically, it's a childish fairy tale, like believing that Santa Claus is an
actual person or that voting in elections in a corporate oligarchy has anything to do with
actual democracy.
Great article. Articles on this theme should be published daily. The fetish must be
destroyed.
There is at least one other person who calls corporate media what it is, and it ain't
"mainstream."
"Sparkie" ain't gonna be happy about it either."Sparky" chewed me out good for correcting
the incomparable and always superb Linh Dinh for using the disgusting and inaccurate term,
"mainstream" when referring to coprophilic media. Oh, and speaking of "horseshit" one wag
suggested we call it main steam media, for accuracy as well as for giggles and that's
fine by me.
the corporate media relentlessly repeat the mantra-like phrase, "free and independent
press," over, and over, and over again. Seriously, switch on NPR, or have a look at The
Guardian or the Washington Post, or any of the other corporate media repeatedly reminding
you how "independent," "free" and "democratic" they are. It's essentially Neuro-linguistic
programming.
It's blatantly obvious that the same can be said about the self-legitimizing term,
"mainstream," too, so bless you sir, and to (bleep) with the Sparkies of the world.
Confront them with facts contradicting their beliefs and they close their eyes and start
chanting and humming and repetitiously babbling banishing spells.
Not only is Hopkins correct, but what he says about corporate media is not new. The Civil
Rights movement presented by the media was false. The media promotion of the US re-engaging
in Europe in the post WW1 period so we could defend dear ole England and sacred democracy.
The media preparing us for our need to fight WW1 so we could end all wars was false. The
media stirring us to go into Cuba and end the awfully evil Spanish Empire so we could start
the process of ending all empires
N o doubt it is a pleasure for you because C.J. Hopkins managed to scribble 1500
words about fake news without even once mentioning the CIA.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public
believes is false."
-- CIA Director, William Casey
Of course, our resident Bumpkin of Unz would have you believe that the CIA is a
corporation.
"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
-- former CIA Director William Colby
So you see Sheete, the term "corporate media" is entirely inaccurate -- a red herring, a
misleading label, a pig in a poke -- because it entirely excludes, avoids, overlooks, and
completely dismisses the role of our intelligence agencies in creating fake news ,
a.k.a. disinformation and propaganda.
The notion that the Western corporate media may serve the interests of the ruling
establishment (just like the media in every other society serve that society's ruling
classes) is unimaginable and tantamount to heresy.
This comes close to the term "regime media," which I like as a replacement for the
clunky-but-common terms "Mainstream Media" or MSM. "
Hopkins uses "corporate media," which appears fifteen times here including in the
title.
Several commenters have noted the problems with the term "mainstream media":
While better than "mainstream media," I'm not sure "corporate media" is sufficient.
"Corporate media," as a term, may wrongly convey the notion that the 'media' in question
complaisantly both [1] broadcasts the ruling ideology (interventionist capitalist
liberal democracy and multicultacracy) and [2] 'megaphones' (Steve Sailer's useful term)
against enemies thereto, coordinating our regular Two-Minute Hates.
That characterization misses an important point, to wit:
The 'media' (in the sense of the "MSM") as we know it today, is itself consciously
part of the ruling apparatus . Not complaisantly, but actively; not lackeys on the
side, but right at the regime's core. A useful distinction. Hence "regime media."
Jun. 14, 2012 These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America
That's consolidated from *50* companies back in 1983. But the fact that a few companies
own everything demonstrates "the illusion of choice," Frugal Dad says.
Tom Charles Huston testified before the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, commonly known as the Church Committee,
on the 43-page plan he presented to the President Nixon and others on ways to collect
information about anti-war and "radical" groups, including burglary, electronic
surveillance, and opening of mail.
Lippmann-Dewey debate, which is known to academics but not the general public in the
United States, the home country of both authors. Obviously, John Dewey is famous as one
of the most important American philosophers, and for his international influence in the
field of education. By contrast, Walter Lippmann has been somewhat forgotten, though he
was a major journalist in the 1920s and 1930s. He was a widely familiar author at the
time, and wrote some cynical things about American democracy. The story America tells
itself politically is that since we're a democracy in which the citizens rule themselves,
there is a paramount need for an excellent public education so that the citizens can vote
wisely. We ourselves are the leaders. But of course it doesn't work that way in practice.
We actually have a surplus of ignorant and uninformed people who pay no attention to the
nuances of policy, and who vote based on the workings of demagoguery and short-sighted
self-interest. Any number of foolish decisions have been made by the American public.
This leads Lippmann to take the somewhat cynical line that America is destined to be
ruled by technocrats. We need experts to run things; the people are too clueless to rule
themselves. We'll pretend we have a democracy, but we actually don't. Now, Dewey reads
this, and he is temperamentally more optimistic, and he thinks: 'This is a really
stimulating book, but Lippmann is wrong. He is setting the bar too high for the people.
People were never supposed to be educated in depth about every issue, which is an
impossible demand. Even Lippmann doesn't have the time to master every issue, and he
covers politics for a living. Instead, Dewey says, political issues generate their own
publics in each case. I might care deeply about seven political issues. I might care
about national health insurance, but I don't care about gay marriage, or vice versa. So I
get involved in one debate and not the other. I take the trouble of becoming informed
about issues that interest me.
@Hail
Hail says: "The 'media' (in the sense of the "MSM") as we know it today, is itself
consciously part of the ruling apparatus. Not complaisantly, but actively; not lackeys on
the side, but right at the regime's core ":
Exactly. The MSM is the government [CIA/NSA/ etc. etc.] grinning right at you as
it continually lies , albeit behind a very thin veil of supposed integrity/respectability
that the general public still refuses to see through.
By way of illustration of this "outrageous" assertion of mine, here is part of a video
analysis of the original 5 channel US MSM "live" coverage of the morning of Sept. 11 2001,
which clearly demonstrates that on that morning, all 5 US networks broadcast entirely fake
"live" footage [ i.e. C.G.I. prefabricated imagery] for about 102 minutes :
So you see Sheete, the term "corporate media" is entirely inaccurate
I never claimed it was perfect. I do claim that the term, "mainstream," in this context
is entirely inaccurate and misleading. And you should be nice, as you admonished me,
regarding the author of this article. As for your complaint that he didn't mention the CIA,
may I remind you that he wrote, as you noticed, an article, not an encyclopedia.
Anyway, you have yet to establish that the CIA and our corporate masters are entirely
separate entities. Even a Dumb Sheete such as myself would find it somewhat, if not
entirely, incredible if they were.
But of course too everyone knows by now that Jews, Israel and Mossad did 9/11 all by
their lonesomes, and the CIA and the Air Force had nothing to do with it.
Ahem, you forgot to mention big, coprophilic, media. Please try to practice the
inclusiveness that you preach.
one step over [the line] and they will be cast into the Outer Darkness of the
Blogosphere and excommunicated from the Church of Respectable Journalism. If you don't
believe me, just ask Seymour Hersh, or John Pilger, or any other journalistic
heretic.
To this list I might also add CBS' Sharyl Attkisson, and Larry Conners of KMOV-TV, who
had the big brass balls to question the $85 million the Obamas spent on vacations.
NR kicked Derb to the curb, but that gutter's littered with Internet flotsam who
presumed integrity.
@Sean
Sean says: "Lippmann-Dewey debate, which is known to academics but not the general
public in the United States, the home country of both authors. "
Debate summary: 2 know-it-alls debating about how "best" to run everybody else's lives
[and with straight faces, I've no doubt].
Two sides of the same [pro-statist] coin, in other words. Oh, and one minor issue one
"thinks" that a ruling technocracy is "the answer".
Sean says: "Obviously, John Dewey is famous as one of the most important American
philosophers, and for his international influence in the field of education."
You mean: Dewey was important in the field of "public education" , otherwise known as
brainwashing.
ISLAMABAD -- U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said on Saturday that Washington was ready
to "address legitimate concerns" of all Afghan sides in order to restore peace in
Afghanistan. Since being appointed in September, Khalilzad has met with all sides, including
the Taliban, Afghan officials and Pakistan's political and military leadership in efforts
aimed at finding a negotiated end to America's longest war in neighboring Afghanistan.//
The US managed the overthrow of the Afghanistan government seventeen years ago, then
creating a puppet government with a feckless army to fight the Afghan resistance while
assassinating many of the Afghan leaders who fought to regain their country, and now the US
is ready to "address legitimate concerns" of all Afghan sides?
Well the Afghan officials are US puppets, so rule them out of legitimate concerns (as the
Taliban has done). Pakistan? They fully support the Taliban's return to government, so that's
a "legitimate concern" as is the Taliban's return to power.
Anything less ain't gonna work, that's obvious. Khalilzad was appointed in September to
achieve results in six months, which is soon. So get with it, Zalmay. Get the US troops out
of there as the Taliban demands in your "peace" talks.
[T]he units have also operated unconstrained by battlefield rules designed to protect
civilians, conducting night raids, torture and killings with near impunity, in a covert
campaign that some Afghan and American officials say is undermining the wider American
effort to strengthen Afghan institutions.
The "special forces" and the people trained by them don't follow rules. This has been
going on for a long time.
The Clinton administration has enforced a near-total ban on the supply and sale of U.S.
military equipment and training for the Colombian military because of its deep involvement
in drug-related corruption and its record of killing politicians, human rights activists
and civilians living in areas controlled by guerrilla groups.
The piece goes on to say that Special Forces were immune from this ban on training a
foreign military to kill politicians, human rights activists and civilians" . It names
dozens of nations where this was happening.
Of course not all US Special Forces are wild and lawless. Unfortunately the ones who do
behave are at risk of being killed themselves.
Whenever you have a combination of lousy leadership and "Special Forces", there is going
to be a problem. Australia has recently made the news in that regard.
Individually, each claim is staggering: apparent execution of detainees; reported use of
so-called drop weapons, planted to cover up unlawful killings; confirmed reports of
commandos flying a Nazi flag on a combat patrol; alleged "blooding" of rookies, initiation
rites in which newcomers were pressured to execute unarmed men. In one particularly
sadistic case, a prosthetic limb was allegedly pilfered from the corpse of a dead Afghan,
only to be repatriated and repurposed as a novelty binge-drinking implement.
At some point a Special Forces person is going to shrug and say "so what?" He or she knows
they can double or triple their pay with Blackwater-type mercenary forces. So except for
taking minimal precautions against going on trial, they can do as they please.
The base attack took place in Maidan Wardak Province, where US Special Forces troops were
evicted five years ago for atrocities.
In 2013 President Hamid Karzai demanded the withdrawal of all U.S. Special Operations
Forces (SOF) from Wardak province after charges that U.S. special forces stationed in Wardak
province engaged in harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people.
A Memorandum of Understanding signed May 12, 2012 between the U.S. military and the Afghan
Defence Ministry was trumpeted by the Obama administration as giving the Afghan government
control over such operations.
But a little-noticed provision of the agreement defined the "special operations" covered
by the agreement as those operations that are "approved by the Afghan Operational
Coordination Group (OCG) and conducted by Afghan Forces with support from U.S. Forces in
accordance with Afghan laws."
That meant that the SOF was still free to carry out other raids without consultation with
the Afghan government, until Karzai threw them out. But not the CIA.
The idea that the US isn't REALLY trying to win wars strikes me as more of a
rationalization of failure than a real explanation. The US is an economically declining power
that is trying to use its military dominance to maintain, and ideally increase its power. So
wouldn't it be in the US's best interests if Afghanistan or Iraq (for example) were
completely controlled by US controlled puppet governments, and US controlled corporations
were making huge profits by exploiting those countries mineral and human resources? Wouldn't
that be far more profitable than the mere creation of chaos?
Part of the reason I tend to find your ideas less than plausible, Pft, is that you always
seem to vastly exaggerate the competence and power of the US or transnational elites you
suspect are controlling everything. So I don't think the US's wars are either "fake" or
"forever". Instead they are failures. And they can't last forever, because the corrupt system
that generates them needs some successes, and soon, in order to continue to survive.
"while Victoria Nuland's activities were not helpful, believing they caused the Maidan uprising simply believes Putin
propaganda."
That's true. But that's not the whole truth. She definitely served as a catalyst for the violent coup. Yanukovich was a
corrupt neoliberal President with popularity in single digits (with Biden as the key mentor and Manafort as the key election
advisor), although probably less corrupt then Poroshenko, who eventually succeeded him (and also now has ratings in low teens).
In six months or so he would be gone. And Ukraine probably would keep Crimea and avoid Donbass war.
BTW Ukraine was moving apart from Russia since independence, and that process would continue and get to somewhat similar
results without such losses.
By encouraging radical part of Ukrainian nationalists and helping to stage an armed coup d'état using Western Ukrainian
nationalists as a ram, Nuland and Co opened the Pandora box. The process of drifting from Russian influence was forcefully
sped up and led to the loss of Crimea and civil war in Donbass.
So while US policy was to weaken Russia using Ukrainian nationalists (the policy which started after WWII) and the EU wanted
to monopolize Ukrainian markets and push out Russia ("Drang Nah Osten" in neoliberal form) the net result was plunging Ukrainian
population into African style poverty ($2 a day or so).
The arrogance and incompetence of the US neocons have no boundaries. I would recommend to you Stephen Cohen recent book
"War with Russia: From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate." He is a pretty keen observer of the events in the region.
Or much older but still excellent UK book: America and the Imperialism of Ignorance: US Foreign Policy Since 1945 by Andrew
Alexander ( Andrew Alexander was a senior journalist for the Daily Mail. He died in 2015. )
The American foreign policy approach proved to be wretchedly consistent. Neocons did great damage to Ukraine and the USA.
And probably deserve some punishment, not sinecures in think tanks like Nuland got. I would like to see the US State Department
neocons hanging from Khreshchatik (the main street in Kiev) lamp posts ;-).
With Russia fully rearmed and still simmering with anger from humiliation and economic plunder organized by Clinton administration
(in this sense Hillary was right -- there is Russian revanchism; she just did not understand that it, for now, is suppressed
by Putin), there are now just two possibilities: (1) "God protects Fools, Children, and the United States of America" or (2)
"The US lemmings led by neocons jump from the cliff."
Neocons like to blackmail Putin using him as the scapegoat, but they do not understand that the person who will replace
Putin might be not some Yeltsin type neoliberal, ready to sell his country and people, but a hardcore nationalist spoiling
for a fight.
Then what? Thermonuclear WWIII and wiping out both the USA and Russia from the map?
I hate the bellicosity and arrogance of the US neocons like Bill Kristol or Max Boot. It is not accidental that 99% of them
are chickenhawks. For the USA to survive and prosper they need to be removed from Washington and exiled to Alaska, or even
farther North. But this is clearly impossible as they are, de-facto, paid lobbyists of MIC, the corrupt stooges, not some ideological
lunatics (many of them do have a pretty decent IQ; this is necessary for a successful lobbyist )
There is not a single newspaper in the US that supports the views of the US President.
Nobody defended him when he was
accused , brazenly, in-your-face, of being a Russian agent. Nobody supported him when he
called to bring the troops home from Syria. Nobody came to his aid when he mulled parting with
NATO. There are tens of millions of men and women who voted for him, but he has only his
Twitter account at his disposal.
The media
accuses Trump of paying too little attention to Israel's needs. Israel needs US troops in
Syria and in Germany, US jets in Spain and Qatar, US ships in Italy and the Gulf. Israel needs
the US to lead NATO to contain Russia. If Israel needs it, the US should provide,
says Daniel Shapiro, the ex-ambassador. Not a single American newspaper, not a single US
statesman cared to reply that President Trump had been elected by the American people to do
what is needed for them, not for Israel
"... As Binney had no documents to give to the media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations. ..."
"... Whistleblowers are protected by federal law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him. ..."
"... Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to have been cleared at the top of the government. ..."
Years before Edward Snowden provided documented proof that the National
Security Agency was really a national insecurity agency as it was violating law and the US Constitution and
spying indiscriminately on American citizens, William Binney, who designed and developed the NSA spy program
revealed the illegal and unconstitutional spying.
Binney turned whistleblower, because NSA was using the
program to spy on Americans. As Binney was well known to the US Congress, he did not think he needed any NSA
document to make his case. But what he found out was
"Congress would never hear me because then they'd lose
plausible deniability. That was really their key. They needed to have plausible deniability so they can
continue this massive spying program because it gave them power over everybody in the world.
Even the
members of Congress had power against others [in Congress]; they had power on judges on the Supreme Court,
the federal judges, all of them. That's why they're so afraid. Everybody's afraid because all this data
that's about them, the central agencies -- the intelligence agencies -- they have it. And that's why Senator
Schumer warned President Trump earlier, a few months ago, that he shouldn't attack the intelligence
community because they've got six ways to Sunday to come at you. That's because it's like J. Edgar Hoover on
super steroids. . . . it's leverage against every member of parliament and every government in the world."
To prevent whistle-blowing, NSA has "a
program now called 'see something, say something' about your fellow workers. That's what the Stasi did.
That's why I call [NSA] the new New Stasi Agency. They're picking up all the techniques from the Stasi and
the KGB and the Gestapo and the SS. They just aren't getting violent yet that we know of -- internally in the
US, outside is another story."
As Binney had no documents to give to the
media, blowing the whistle had no consequence for NSA. This is the reason that Snowden released the
documents that proved NSA to be violating both law and the Constitution, but the corrupt US media focused
blame on Snowden as a "traitor" and not on NSA for its violations.
Whistleblowers are protected by federal
law. Regardless, the corrupt US government tried to prosecute Binney for speaking out, but as he had taken
no classified document, a case could not be fabricated against him.
Binney blames the NSA's law-breaking on
Dick "Darth" Cheney. He says NSA's violations of law and Constitution are so extreme that they would have to
have been cleared at the top of the government.
Binney describes the spy network,
explains that it was supposed to operate only against foreign enemies, and that using it for universal
spying so overloads the system with data that the system fails to discover many terrorist activities.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50932.htm
Apparently, the National Security Agency
values being able to blackmail citizens and members of government at home and abroad more than preventing
terrorist attacks.
Unfortunately for Americans, there are
many Americans who blindly trust the government and provide the means, the misuse of which is used to
enslave us. A large percentage of the work in science and technology serves not to free people but to
enslave them. By now there is no excuse for scientists and engineers not to know this. Yet they persist in
their construction of the means to destroy liberty.
Buzzfeed was once notorious for
traffic-generating "listicles" , but has since become an impressive outlet for deep
investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the
news this week thanks to its "bombshell" story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story
that, like so many others of its kind,
blew up in its face , this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller's office took the
extremely rare step to
label its key claims "inaccurate."
But in homage to BuzzFeed's past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures
in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by
the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news,
the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger
they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets
(particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most
embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is
so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end
with (dis)honorable mention status.
Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave
threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media
outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would
expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories.
That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media
clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors"
went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the
same agenda and script:
10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)
On June 12, 2017, Fortune claimed that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN and that
C-SPAN "confirmed" it had been hacked. The whole story was false :
9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity
Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat During the Winter (WashPost)
On December 30, 2016, the Washington Post reported that "Russian hackers penetrated the U.S.
electricity grid through a utility in Vermont," causing predictable outrage and panic, along
with threats from U.S. political leaders. But then they kept diluting the story with editor's
notes – to admit that the malware was found on a laptop not connected to the U.S.
electric grid at all – until finally acknowledging, days later, that the whole story was
false, since the malware had nothing to do with Russia or with the U.S. electric grid:
8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares
Mainstream Political Sites on the Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost
Touts its Report to Claim Massive Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)
On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post
published one of the most inflammatory, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian
infiltration into U.S. politics using social media, accusing "more than 200 websites" of being
"routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of
at least 15 million Americans." It added: "stories planted or promoted by the disinformation
campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times."
Unfortunately for the paper, those statistics were provided by a new, anonymous group that
reached these conclusions by classifying long-time, well-known sites – from the Drudge
Report to Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig,
and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul
Institute. – as "Russian propaganda outlets," producing one of the longest Editor's Note
in memory appended to the top of the article (but
not until two weeks later , long after the story was mindlessly spread all throughout the
media ecosystem):
7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a
Russian Hedge Fund Under Senate Investigation (CNN)
On June 22, 2017, CNN reported that Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci was involved with the
Russian Direct Investment Fund, under Senate investigation. He was not. CNN retracted the story
and forced the three reporters who published it to leave the network.
6. Russia Attacked
U.S. "Diplomats" (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave
Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)
On September 11, 2017, NBC News and MSNBC
spread all over its airwaves a claim from its notorious CIA puppet Ken Dilanian that Russia
was behind a series of dastardly attacks on U.S. personnel at the Embassy in Cuba using a sonic
or microwave weapon so sophisticated and cunning that Pentagon and CIA scientists had no idea
what to make of it.
But then teams of neurologists began calling into doubt that these personnel had suffered
any brain injuries at all – that instead they appear to have experienced collective
psychosomatic symptoms – and then biologists published findings that the "strange sounds"
the U.S. "diplomats" reported hearing were identical to those emitted by a common Caribbean
male cricket during mating season.
5. Trump Created a Secret Internet Server to
Covertly Communicate with a Russian Bank (Slate)
4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three
Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)
On November 27, 2018, the Guardian
published a major "bombshell" that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had somehow managed
to sneak inside one of the world's most surveilled buildings, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,
and visit Julian Assange on three different occasions. Cable and online commentators
exploded.
Seven weeks later,
no other media outlet has confirmed this ; no video or photographic evidence has emerged;
the Guardian refuses to answer any questions; its leading editors have virtually gone into
hiding; other media outlets have expressed serious doubts about its veracity; and an Ecuadorian
official who worked at the embassy has called the story a complete fake:
3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its
Source – For a Story Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew
in Advance About the Trump Tower Meeting (CNN)
On July 27, 2018, CNN
published a blockbuster story : that Michael Cohen was prepared to tell Robert Mueller that
President Trump knew in advanced about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, however, two
problems with this story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed that
"contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment" (in fact, Davis
was one of CNN's key sources, if not its only source, for this story), and second, numerous
other outlets retracted the story after the source, Davis, admitted it was a lie. CNN, however,
to this date has refused to do either:
2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and
Witness Interviews Proving Trump Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)
1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to
the WikiLeaks Email Archive (CNN/MSNBC)
The morning of December 9, 2017, launched
one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so
grave and bombastic that it is impossible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a
major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public.
Within an hour, MSNBC's Ken Dilanian, using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to
have "independently confirmed" this mammoth, blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have
been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked
emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC
videos
here ).
There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally
and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks
archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see, not before.
Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access, as both CNN and
MSNBC told the public for hours they had confirmed, it was instead just some totally pedestrian
message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole
world was already talking about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all
got the date of the email wrong.
To date, when asked how they both could have gotten such a massive story so completely wrong
in the same way, both CNN and MSNBC have adopted the posture of the CIA by maintaining complete
silence and refusing to explain how it could possibly be that all of their "multiple,
independent sources" got the date wrong on the email in the same way, to be as incriminating
– and false – as possible. Nor, needless to say, will they identify their sources
who, in concert, fed them such inflammatory and utterly false information.
Sadly, CNN and MSNBC have deleted most traces of the most humiliating videos from the
internet, including demanding that YouTube remove copies. But enough survives to document just
what a monumental, horrifying, and utterly inexcusable debacle this was. Particularly amazing
is the clip of the CNN reporter (see below) having to admit the error for the first time, as he
awkwardly struggles to pretend that it's not the massive, horrific debacle that it so obviously
is:
Dishonorable Mention:
ABC News' Brian Ross is fired for
reporting Trump told Flynn to make contact with Russians when he was still a candidate;
in fact, Trump did that after he won.
The New York Times c laimed Manafort provided
polling data to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a person "close to the Kremlin"; in fact, he
provided them to Ukrainians, not Russians.
Crowdstrike, the firm hired by the DNC, claimed they had evidence that Russia hacked
Ukrainian artillery apps;
they then retracted it .
Bloomberg and the WSJ reported Mueller subpoenaed Deustche Bank for Trump's financial
records; the NYT said
that never happened .
Rachel Maddow devoted 20 minutes at the start of her show to very melodramatically
claiming a highly sophisticated party tried to trick her by sending her a fake Top Secret
document modeled after the one published by the Intercept, and said it could only have come
from the U.S. Government (or the Intercept) since the person obtained the document before it
was published by us and thus must have had special access to it; in fact,
Maddow and NBC completely misread the metadata on the document ; the fake sent to Maddow
was created after we published the document, and was sent to her by a random member of the
public who took the document from the Intercept's site and doctored it to see if she'd fall
for an obvious scam. Maddow's entire timeline, on which her whole melodramatic conspiracy
theory rested, was fictitious.
The U.S. media and Democrats spent six months claiming that all "17 intelligence
agencies" agreed Russia was behind the hacks; the NYT finally
retracted that in June, 2017: "The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies --
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not
approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community."
AP claimed on February 2, 2018, that the Free Beacon commissioned the Steele Dossier;
they thereafter acknowledged that was false and
noted, instead: "Though the former spy, Christopher Steele, was hired by a firm that was
initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon, he did not begin work on the project until
after Democratic groups had begun funding it."
Widespread government and media claims that accused Russian agent Maria Butina offered
"sex for favors" were
totally false (and scurrilous).
After a Russian regional jet crashed on February 11, 2018, shortly after it took off from
Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard, Harvard Law Professor and frequent MSNBC contributor
Laurence Tribe
strongly implied Putin purposely caused the plane to go down in order to murder Sergei
Millian, a person vaguely linked to George Papadopoulos and Jared Kushner; in fact, Millian
was not on the plane nor, to date, has anyone claimed they had any evidence that Putin
ordered his own country's civilian passenger jet brought down.
Special mention:
As I've said many times, the U.S. media has become quite adept at expressing extreme
indignation when people criticize them; when politicians conclude that it is advantageous to
turn the U.S. media into their main adversary; and when people turn to "fake news" sites.
If, however, they were willing to devote just a small fraction of that energy to examining
their own conduct, perhaps they would develop the tools necessary to combat those problems
instead of just denouncing their critics and angrily demanding that politicians and news
consumers accord them the respect to which they believe they are entitled.
The problem is not Russia; the problem is the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. And related legitimization of neoliberal
elite, which now Deep State is trying ot patch with anti-Russian hysteria
Notable quotes:
"... That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present. ..."
Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia.
Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy | The Nation
The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship
-- why mince words and call it "collusion"? -- with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will
not produce the hoped-for "bombshell" to end Trump's presidency. Certainly,
New York Times columnist
David Leonhardt seems worried, demanding, "The president must go," his drop line exhorting, "What are we waiting for?" (In some
countries, articles like his, and there are very many, would be read as calling for a coup.) Perhaps to incite Democrats who have
now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no
facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish.
And there is no new credible evidence, preposterous claims notwithstanding. One of The New York Times '
own recent "bombshells,"
published on January 12, reported, for example, that in spring 2017, FBI officials "began investigating whether [President Trump]
had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." None of the three reporters bothered to point out that those "agents
and officials" almost certainly included ones later reprimanded and retired by the FBI itself for their political biases. (As usual,
the Times buried its self-protective disclaimer deep in the story: "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly
in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.")
Whatever the explanation, the heightened frenzy is unmistakable, leading the "news" almost daily in the synergistic print and
cable media outlets that have zealously promoted Russiagate for more than two years, in particular the Times , The Washington
Post , MSNBC, CNN, and their kindred outlets. They have plenty of eager enablers, including the once-distinguished Strobe Talbott,
President Bill Clinton's top adviser on Russia and until recently president of the Brookings Institution.
According to Talbott
, "We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker . Trump has been colluding
with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency." In fact, we do not "know" any of this. These remain merely widely disseminated
suspicions and allegations.
In this cult-like commentary, the "threat" of "a hostile Russia" must be inflated along with charges against Trump. (In truth,
Russia represents no threat to the United States that Washington itself did not provoke since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.)
For its own threat inflation, the Times featured not an expert with any plausible credentials but Lisa Page, the former FBI
lawyer with no known Russia expertise, and who was one of those reprimanded by the agency for anti-Trump political bias. Nonetheless,
the Times quotes Page
at length : "In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western
alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability to spread our democratic ideals."
Perhaps we should have guessed that the democracy-promotion genes of J. Edgar Hoover were still alive and breeding in the FBI, though
for the Times , in its exploitation of the hapless and legally endangered Page, it seems not to matter.
Which brings us, or rather Russiagate zealots, to the heightened "threat" represented by "Putin's Russia." If true, we would expect
the US president to negotiate with the Kremlin leader, including at summit meetings, as every president since Dwight Eisenhower has
done. But, we are told, we cannot trust Trump to do so, because,
according to The Washington Post , he has repeatedly met with Putin alone, with only translators present, and concealed
the records of their private talks, sure signs of "treasonous" behavior, as the Russiagate media first insisted following the Trump-Putin
summit in Helsinki in July 2018.
It's hard to know whether this is historical ignorance or Russiagate malice, though it is probably both. In any event, the truth
is very different. In preparing US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits since the 1950s, aides on both sides have arranged "private
time" for their bosses for two essential reasons: so they can develop sufficient personal rapport to sustain any policy partnership
they decide on; and so they can alert one another to constraints on their policy powers at home, to foes of such détente policies
often centered in their respective intelligence agencies. (The KGB ran operations against Nikita Khrushchev's détente policies with
Eisenhower, and, as is well established, US intelligence agencies have run operations against Trump's proclaimed goal of "cooperation
with Russia.")
That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy
of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding
information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo
afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin
leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present.
Nor should we forget the national-security benefits that have come from private meetings between US and Kremlin leaders. In October
1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met alone with their translators and an American official who took
notes -- the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished. The result,
in 1987, was the first and still only treaty abolishing an entire category of such weapons, the exceedingly dangerous intermediate-range
ones. (This is the historic treaty Trump has said he may abrogate.)
And yet, congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump's meetings
with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep
America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years -- and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the
two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book
War with Russia? -- that anti-Trump
Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security.
The following correction and clarification were made to the original version of this article on January 17: Reagan and Gorbachev
met privately with translators during their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, not February, and Reagan was also accompanied
by an American official who took notes. And it would be more precise to say that the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed
in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished.
Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU and author of the new book
War with Russia? From Putin and
Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate . This commentary is based on the most recent of his weekly discussions of the new US-Russian
Cold War with the host of the John Batchelor radio show. (The podcast is
here . Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at
TheNation.com . )
The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted nine years. But it was largely successful in building
a stable government and the Soviets left a mostly competent Afghan military behind. Three
years later Russia ended its financial support for the Afghan government. Only that gave the
guerrilla the chance to destroy the state.
After 18 years in Afghanistan the U.S. military seems still unable to create and train
competent local forces.
The $8 billion spent on the
Afghan airforce have resulted in a mostly incapable force that depends on U.S. contractors to
keep its birds flying. This was the result of unreasonable decisions:
Aviation experts have criticized a decision to phase out the old workhorses of the Afghan
forces -- Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters -- for American-made UH-60 Black Hawks.
Mr. Michel, the retired general, said the Mi-17 was "the perfect helicopter" for
Afghanistan because it can carry more troops and supplies than the Black Hawk and is less
complicated to fly.
"Let's be candid," he said of the switch. "That was largely done for political
reasons."
The U.S. military built an Afghan force in its own image:
American trainers have built an Afghan Army that relies heavily on air power that the air
force might not be able to provide for years, said John F. Sopko, the special inspector
general for Afghan reconstruction.
Why the U.S. military, which since Vietnam proved inept at fighting local guerrilla,
believed that its ways of fighting suits an Afghan force is inexplicable. If the Taliban
manage to win without an airforce why should the Afghan military need one?
As Mr. Khan was driven away for questioning, he watched his home go up in flames. Within
were the bodies of two of his brothers and of his sister-in-law Khanzari, who was shot
three times in the head. Villagers who rushed to the home found the burned body of her
3-year-old daughter, Marina, in a corner of a torched bedroom.
The men who raided the family's home that March night, in the district of Nader Shah
Kot, were members of an Afghan strike force trained and overseen by the Central
Intelligence Agency in a parallel mission to the United States military's, but with looser
rules of engagement.
... ... ...
that the two most effective and ruthless forces, in Khost and Nangarhar Provinces, are
still sponsored mainly by the C.I.A.
This conflict between militarized CIA proxy forces and forces trained by the U.S. military
played out in every recent war the U.S. waged. In Iraq CIA sponsored Shia units clashed with
Pentagon sponsored Sunni militia. In Syria this CIA trained 'rebels' ended up shooting at
U.S. military trained 'rebels' and vice versa. In Afghanistan the rogue force under CIA
control is some 3.000 to 10,000 strong. It large alienates the same population the Afghan
military tries to protect.
Unity of command is an important condition for successful military campaigns. As the
military works in one direction while the CIA pulls in another one, the campaign in
Afghanistan continues to fail.
A similar split can be seen in Afghanistan's political field. The CIA is notorious for
bribing Afghan politicians, while the military launches anti-corruption campaigns. The
political system installed by such competing forces is unsustainable.
The last Afghan election with the top candidates being the Pashto Ashraf Ghani and the
Tajik Abdullah Abdullah, was marred in irregularities. The uncertain outcome led the U.S. to
fudge the results by making Ghani president and Abudullah his 'chief executive'. Both are now
again
competing against each other in the elections that are to be held later this year. They
will be as irregular as all elections in Afghanistan are. The disputed outcome might well
lead to new clashes between ethnic groups.
This upcoming conflict will further weaken the Afghan state. Why hasn't anything be done
to prevent it?
@1 @3
While appearing weak, incompetent and clueless the US implements chaos exactly as
intended. It works in Congo, it works in Libya, it works in South America and it works in
Afghanistan. Chaos is very profitable for extracting resources and supplying and controlling
the world narcotic business.
The USA goal is an incompetent state, a permanent war and the destruction of any stable
Afghan government that could make relations with neighboring states. Permanent conflict
prevents unity and transnational trade through the region. Same goes for the Baluchistan
rebels in the south.
Isolate Iran is all and no strategic care or thinking about anything else.
The USA will fight until the last Afghani civilian is killed.
"... The Republicans are only nominally more "pro-peace". They are still full bore advocates for the hyper-bloated National Security State. Nobody is pushing back hard against Nut-Job Bolton and Fat Pompeo as they maraud around the planet playing Mafia enforcers with a negotiating strategy of "Make them a deal that they can't refuse." ..."
Re: "This polling data seems to reflect that Trump, more any other factor, has been the
primary driver of Republicans becoming more pro-peace and Democrats becoming less
anti-war."
The Republicans are only nominally more "pro-peace". They are still full bore advocates for
the hyper-bloated National Security State. Nobody is pushing back hard against Nut-Job Bolton
and Fat Pompeo as they maraud around the planet playing Mafia enforcers with a negotiating
strategy of "Make them a deal that they can't refuse."
And the Republican endorsement of the updated Global Cop Gorilla forever National Defense
Strategy indicates that their new found prudence is marginal at best. I.e., the U.S. is still
engaged in sabre rattling and war-monger threats globally, and the Warfare State fear-monger
scenarios out the wazoo domestically to extract even more taxpayer for the War Machine and its
Security State accoutrements.
Agree with Jack Hunter that the Democrats are reactively stupid related to U.S. military
operations in the ME simply because of Trump. But that being said, the bipartisan parasitic War
Party still dominates (and wrecks) U.S. foreign policy.
If you believe (like Arthur Berman, James Howard Kunstler, Steve Angelo and Gail Tverberg)
that cheap energy is a thing of the past, Russia has much more leverage than the West. It has
the oil and natural gas and we don't. The U.S. imports about 40% of its energy needs. Europe
needs Russian natural gas to stay warm. Who is going to be better positioned in an energy
starved future? John Michael Greer believes that the two centers of civilization hundreds of
years from now will be centered in Western Russia and the Ohio River Valley.
Robert Snefjella says:
January 20, 2019 at 4:21 pm GMT 200 Words
@Erebus Going from memory, in Hellyer's book The Money Mafia, his impression was that
Bouey's decision was taken without real political understanding or guidance. Noteworthy was an
attempt in recent years to restore that Bank of Canada fund-emission function via the court
system. The attempt failed. The lawyer representing the group making the effort, Rocco Galati,
indicated that the media in Canada had received pressure not to cover the story. The government
of Canada at the time the court case was initiated was under Harper Conservative rule.
As to how astute Trudeau was, or how much practical influence he had when it came to
national financial matters, I don't know. There was a lot of economic flux at the time
involving the US dollar, oil, high inflation and gold. There was a big jump in Canadian
interest rates around 1974. In any case, the emission of funds directly for productive purpose,
without taxation and borrowing, is a beneficent unacknowledged elephant in the economic
policy-options room.
"... apparatus of coercion and violence by which the ruling class governs the society ..."
"... In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails, special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears ..."
"... After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers' Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another? ..."
Think about it in this way: we know from ALL the past elections that the pro-Western segment
of the Russian population is somewhere around 1-3% (that is why they cannot make it into the
Duma). But let's generously give that hardcore, liberal, opposition 5%, for argument's sake. So
if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if 5% of Russians are hardcore pro-Western liberals,
then who are the remaining 48%?
Or in this way: if 53% of Russians want a new cabinet, and if Putin's approval rating is
still somewhere in the 65% range, who are those Russians who like Putin but dislike the
Medvedev government?
There is an easy cop-out argument which I´ve often offered to explain away this
fact:
Levada Center is officially classified as a "foreign
agent" under Russian law. This makes sense: for one thing, Levada Center receives most of its financing from
abroad, including the US and even the Pentagon ! Furthermore, Levada is staffed by liberals
(in the Russian meaning of the word which really means "pro-US") whose biases are also
reflected in their work. However, while this is all true, Levada is still credible enough to be
cited even by Russian officials. Finally, the kind of results Levada publishes are often
generally similar to the finding of the official VTsIOM polling
institution, not down to the percentage point, but often reflecting similar trends (check out
the VTsIOM English language page here: https://wciom.com/ ). So the fact that Putin is much more popular than
Medvedev or that the majority of Russian people are unhappy with the government really is not
in doubt.
So regardless of the actual numbers, it is clear that the Russian government is only popular
with those whom it allows to make a lot of money (corporations and various millionaires and
billionaires) and that everybody else strongly dislikes it.
And yet, recently Putin was asked if he was happy with the government and his reply was "
on the whole, yes ".
This type of political yoga is hard to sustain in the long term: if Putin is the champion of
the interests of the common people, and if most common people feel that the government cares
more for millionaires and billionaires, then how can the President say that he is "on the whole
happy" with the government?
It is truly a crying shame that the basics of Marxism-Leninism is not taught in schools and
colleges any more (even some self-described "Communists" are clearly clueless about what Marx,
Lenin or even Hegel taught!). Not because the solutions advocated by Marx and his followers are
so universally effective, but because one can use the Marxist-Leninist conceptual toolkit to
better understand the world we live in and, one can do this without necessarily endorsing the
solutions offered by Marxism. For example, in the West at least, very few people are aware of
this very simple Marxist-Leninist definition of what a state, any state, really is. According
to Lenin, the state is simply an " apparatus of coercion and violence by which the ruling
class governs the society ". Specifically Lenin wrote:
In essence, the state is ruling apparatus created from the human society. When such a
group of people appears, one which is only concerned with ruling over others, and which for
that purpose needs a coercion apparatus which can force people to obey by means of jails,
special units, armed forces, etc, – that is the moment when the state appears
(Lenin, collective works, vol 39, page 69).
From a Marxist point of view, any state is always and by definition the dictatorship of the
ruling class, which is a good thing, at least according to the Marxists, when this ruling class
is the workers and people, and a very bad thing when the ruling class is the
plutocracy.
ORDER IT NOW
In the post-modern West, where political discourse has been reduced to a particularly
nauseating form of intellectual flatulence, the very notion of "class" and "class warfare" has
been fully replaced with vapid (pseudo-) identity politics which completely obfuscate all the
real issues and problems our world is dealing with. Thus, by removing the concepts and
categories needed to understand the nature of the struggle which is taking place
internationally, but also inside each of the countries currently living under the AngloZionist
yoke, the leaders of the Empire have deprived the people they rule over from the means to
understand why and how they are oppressed. All that nonsense about "gay" rights, gun control,
#meetoo, the many sex scandals, the struggle for racial identity (White or Black or any other),
abortion, drugs and all the rest of the crap we are fed on a daily basis by the AngloZionist
propaganda machine are primarily a distraction to keep the eyes of the general population from
the real issues. In a way, this zombification and re-direction to fake topics serves exactly
the same function as the red cape of the bullfighter: to keep the bull busy with trying to gore
a harmless red piece of cloth while completely missing the real cause of his suffering and
eventual death.
From that point of view, the Russian people are much better informed and have a much better
understanding of what is going on. For example, while in the West the people define "democracy"
as "people power" (or something similar), in Russia the joke is that "democracy is the power of
the democrats" which, in Russia, is a general codeword/euphemism for "pro-US wealthy liberal"
who want to turn Russia into some kind of "bigger Poland" or something equally uninspiring.
Various pro-Western "intellectuals" like to say that this is an old Russian pathology: to
say that the Czar (President) is very good, but his court (the Ministers) are bad and that this
makes absolutely no sense. These are the folks who go as far as denying the existence of a
struggle between what I call Eurasian Sovereignists (roughly Putin supporters) and Atlantic
Integrationists (roughly Medvedev and the "economic block" of this government).
The folks who deny this remind me of something Berthold Brecht once wrote after the 1953
uprising in Berlin in a short poem entitled "The Solution": (emphasis added)
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
This deep alienation from the Russian masses, this notion that the Russian people have, yet
again, failed to heed the "wise words" of the "progressive intelligentsia" and other (mainly
financial) "elites" has plagued the Russian ruling classes since Peter I and is still at the
very core of their worldview. Believe you me, the Russian "liberals" and the folks in the West
who deny that there is any 5th
column in Russia are psychologically and politically joined at the hip: neither one of them
can accept this. Furthermore, both the Russian "liberals" and the western believers in the
values of "democracy" and "free market capitalism" share exactly the same worldview: they want
the Russian people to become "Europeans" not in a geographical sense, of course (geographically
speaking most Russian live in the European part of Russia), but culturally! This is what the
Popes wanted, this is what the French Freemasons wanted, this is what the Nazis wanted, and
this is what the AngloZionists want. That dream to turn Russians into Europeans while totally
cleansing them from any "Russian-ness" is what united *all* the invaders of Russia over the
centuries.
But the "stubborn" Russian people just don't seem to "get it" and, for some totally
mysterious reason, they always resist all these "benevolent" western attempts at "civilizing"
them.
This is exactly what we see today: Putin and his Eurasian Sovereignists try as hard as they
can to *sovereignize* Russia; in other words, they want to make Russia *truly* Russian again.
Sounds basic, but that is categorically unacceptable to the Russian plutocrats and to their
supporters in the West. Thus any kind of defense of the Russian-ness of Russia is immediately
and contemptuously dismissed as "national leftism", "nationalism" or, God forbid!,
"monarchism". And when the person trying to make the argument that Russia ought to be Russian
uses Marxist concepts or categories, these arguments are also dismissed out of hand as an
"outdated rhetoric of a system which has failed and discredited itself". What they fail to
realize is to say that the collapse of the Soviet Union was due primarily/solely to the Marxist
or Communist ideology is just as stupid as blaming the current collapse of democracy in the US
on the writings of the Founding Fathers rather than on the SOB politicians who are destroying
this country day after day after day. Tell me: when the US finally bites the dust, will you
simply declare that "democracy is dead" and that the "collapse of the US proved that democracy
is not a viable regime"? So yes, the Soviet Union did indeed collapse, broken into 15 pieces by
its own ruling elite (the Nomenklatura ), but the ideas contained
in the Marxist-Leninist ideology have not only not been "defeated" – they have not even
been challenged (more on this issue here ).
But, thank God! most Russians are still not willing to be incorporated into the "European
cultural Borg
collective ", at least not in the cultural sense. And in spite of 300 years of oppression
by various pro-western regimes (with various degrees of russophobia, not all were equally bad),
the Russian people still want to remain Russian, not just by speaking a language, but by having
a ruler and a regime in power which they feel defends their interests and not the interests of
the ruling class. They want to live in their own civilizational realm, and not the kind of
post-Christian intellectual desert the West has become.
Many decades of rabid russophobia by the rulers of the AngloZionist Empire have convinced
the Russian people that they have no friends in the European or North American ruling elites
and that true freedom comes through liberation, not submission. That, and the appalling example
of the consequences of the "Euromaidan" in the Ukraine.
It is very important to keep a close eye on this trend: the appearance of slowly but surely
growing (truly) patriotic opposition (as opposed to the CIA-paid clowns in the Russian liberal
camp). As for the "official" opposition (LDPR, KPRF and the Just Russia), they might decide to
grow a few teeth, initially small, baby teeth only, but if this trend accelerates, they might
decide to look a tad more credible. Until now the rather lame and ridiculous LDPR & KPRF
parties are just a collective form of court jesters with no real opposition potential. Just
look at how the KPRF, thoroughly discredited by their crazy choice of the millionaire Grudinin
for candidate, jumped onto the pension reform PR-disaster to suddenly try to launch a
referendum. This would never have happened in the past.
The political landscape in Russia is becoming more complicated, which is both good and bad.
It is bad because Putin's personal political credit suffers, however modestly for now, from
his continuous
inability to purge the Kremlin from the 5th columnists , but it is also good because if
things get bad enough Putin will have no choice but to (finally!) get rid of at least the most
notorious 5th columnists. But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really
want to live in a western-style capitalist society (with all the Russophobic politics and the
adoption of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a
"social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and
economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal
profits.
You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics.
The future of Russia, and much of the world, will depend on the outcome of this battle.
UPDATE : well, just as I was mentioning that the fact that Levada Center and VTsIOM mostly
agree, at least on trends, the
Russian media is now reporting that the latter now also is reporting a drop in the
popularity of Putin. And just to make things worse, the Russian authorities have deported an
(in-)famous anti-Nazi Ukrainian journalist, Elena Boiko, to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine in spite
of the fact that Boiko had requested political asylum in Russia. Now, Boiko is a very
controversial person for sure (and, personally, not *at all* my cup of tea), but the sole fact
that Russia would deport ANY anti-Nazi activist to the Nazi-occupied Ukraine is disgusting and
revolting. And, sure enough, the bovine-excreta is already hitting the proverbial fan as now
members of the Duma, journalists and various personalities are demanding explanations for this
absolutely stupid and deeply immoral act. Sadly, can only agree with Nikolai Starikov who
speaks of a "liberal revanche" following the "Russian Spring" of 2014. If this kind of nonsense
continues we will see a further deterioration of Putin's personal rating along with a gradual
degradation of the Russian political environment.
Not because the solutions advocated by Marx and his followers are so universally
effective, but because one can use the Marxist-Leninist conceptual toolkit to better
understand the world we live in and, one can do this without necessarily endorsing the
solutions offered by Marxism.
I don't see what issue the Russian people have with the current administration, the main
economic indicator that impacts most people directly is real wage growth, and it is not as if
wages have been stagnant, real wages grew by 7.4% in the first 11 months of 2018, no reason
to believe December data will be any different, if 7% real wage growth isn't enough for
people, then nothing will be. Real wage growth was slow in 2017 at 2.9% but it has
accelerated significantly since then.
Do they really want to live in a western-style capitalist society (with all the
russophobic politics and the adoption of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice
implies), or do they want a "social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a
society in which social and economic justice and the good of the country are placed above
corporate and personal profits.
For the inhabitants of the EU member states mutatis mutandis :
Do they really want to live in a society ran by multinationals and globalists, (with all the
russophobic politics, and the destruction of European cultures, such a choice implies), or do
they want a "social-democratic society", meaning a society in which social and economic
justice and the good of the country are placed above profits and dictatorial rule ?
@Felix Keverich The foundation of the capitalism is based on exploitation at home and
abroad . The foundational base is the 3 rd world . Capitalism including those based on 17- 20
th century's colonization would have not succeeded the way it has . We intentionally forget
that the western capitalism is much more destructive than the soviet marxism . Soviet marxism
failed because it did not colonize the rest of the world and make them pay for its survival
the way Capitalism did.
No one talks of the vile corrupt despicable poor situation of Congo Niger Nigeria or Gabon
. They are capitalist friendly crony dictatorial countries whose existences without any media
reported daily grinding poverty and violences are possible due to the western support and
media silence . They are not socialist they are not capitalist . They are support countries .
They maintain support and enrich western capitalism . They ( king cronies dictator and
limited choice based elected leaders ) in turn get western protection support and help . The
media ( western ) don't refer to them , don't remind of them , and don't bother about the
plight of the citizen . Their disenfranchised citizen support the western capitalism like the
slaves propped up the culturally savvy educated well dressed well fed elites of Greece and
Rome.
When those illegal manipulated created support system are gone, west 's capitalism as we
know for 400 hundred years will be gone . Reason of the disconnect we see in the west is
because the system is failing at the margins at the borderlands, at the periphery of the
control ,whose victims are the middle class . The margin will move to the centers slowly and
the elites will start killing each other and fighting each other . Capitalism can't feed and
can't enrich and can't hold the promise as it used to before . Because the major victims of
the 400 yrs capitalism have become also successful capitalist themselves . It is like the 19
th European dynasties are challenging each other over the territories . It is like Pope being
threatened by new ideologies from the fringes . Pie is shrinking . Capitalism's success has
so far been left externalities un -addressed . Externalities are in the ruins of the 3rd
world .
@Felix Keverich I wonder if any other commenters are as dumb as I am. I didn't know that
Putin wasn't in charge of pretty much everything in Russia. Saker says that Medvedev, as
Prime Minister, actually runs domestic policy, while Putin, as President, runs foreign
policy. It seems that these two have been taking turns being either President or PM for a few
decades now.
With these two constantly at odds, it would be like our President and VP being of
different parties, except that our VP has no power (unless it's Dick Cheney). But I do think
that our President, elected to an office designed for the 18th Century, has far too much on
his plate for any one person. A country the size of the US should have both a President and
PM, but I'd like to see them run as a slate, not in opposition to each other.
The MSM and its allies in the controlled alternative media, and the global private-interest
financial, investment and banking system, are a tag-team, indispensable to each other.
Control of money and control of information. The first narrowly concentrates wealth and thus
power and influence. The second through agenda-driven selection, lies, censorship, spin,
misdirection and so on – disinformation – controls people's sense of what is real
and possible, thus dis-empowering them.
The American military and CIA have provided most of the overt and covert 'muscle' for that
control system.
The combined effort of narrowly controlled and narrowly advantaging globe straddling
finance, media, and muscle has facilitated the development of a near global Empire. In common
with traditional Empires this new Empire had totalitarian ambitions: but since its reach was
global, this is really a first attempt at global totalitarian control.
Russia under Putin – leaving aside China – has developed enough strength to
attempt alternative modes of communication and finance and development, not as adjuncts or
subordinates to the Empire's efforts in those regards. And their military is antidote and
opposition to the totalitarian project.
The forgoing is pretty obvious stuff, but I think that the Saker's concluding paragraph
provides a limiting summary of how the issue can play out.
"But fundamentally the Russian people need to decide. Do they really want to live in a
western-style capitalist society (with all the russophobic politics and the adoption
of the terminally degenerate "culture" such a choice implies), or do they want a
"social society" (to use Putin's own words) – meaning a society in which social and
economic
justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits.
You could say that this is a battle of greed vs ethics."
This is a simplistic way of looking at the choices available. We are all caught up in
transitional culture processes, no matter where we live. The conjunction of the cornucopia of
new technology and unprecedented environmental and social challenges is everywhere at play,
leading who knows where?
What the Russian people have been given, and this is near singular on Earth, is a
protected and enhanced opportunity of developing a culture in which honest national discourse
is a predominant feature. This is in complete contrast to the predominant 'fake news' system
of discourse control that is in place in so many countries. And full and honest discourse
will create its own original cultural developments.
The Russian adoption of more honest discourse is already having global influence. An
example is Russia Today, which far from perfect and all that, still provides an enormous
advance over the extremely controlled western mass media, and a powerful foe to 'fake
news'.
Perhaps the most visible exemplar of rationale discourse has been Putin himself, with for
example his marathon annual Q and A with the Russian people, or his articulate well
considered sallies on many issues
And with that – if Russia can use unfettered reason writ large as a prime ingredient
of cultural and political development, as a basic developmental 'steering tool' – then
the simple dichotomy of "western-style capitalist society" vs "a society in which social and
economic justice and the good of the country are placed above corporate and personal profits"
, as much as I'm sympathetic to the latter, seems to me to be a limiting way of expressing
the range of potential beneficent possibilities.
"... "Will The War Criminals Be Brought To Justice in 2019? Or Is Justice Dead and Buried"? ..."
"... I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to conquer all of Europe. The Soviets were entirely exhausted after that catastrophic war and in good Russian tradition, were reactive, and taking a brake. ..."
"... European countries, not wanting to be a target of Soviet missiles, have forced the Americans to get into INF. But the Russians have been, and still are in the cross-hair of one or other Western power de jour. ..."
"... Someone defined the role of NATO: to keep the Americans in, Germans down, and Russians out. I truly believe that that assertion was wrong from the beginning and showed complete lack of historical knowledge about Russia and Russians. NATO was mainly set up to keep the Americans in and Germans out. Russians were never a real issue. For almost 30 years they are within their national borders (e.g. they pulled their troupes out of Romania in late 50s and kept their side of the bargain in any deal they made with the Americans). But Americans are still in and Germans are still down. ..."
"... Our political failure is that no figure other than Trump would challenge what has no discernible benefit for hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans, but holds them instead hostage to nuclear holocaust for the sake of foreign empire. Who benefits? Elites who are invested in empire instead of America's citizenry. ..."
"... Well, just yesterday Trump uttered something about "We will be with NATO 100%". So, if Trump in the past said anything negative about NATO, it's not because he shares the sentiments on NATO of Mr. Merry. It's because he was like a child asking a question about something he doesn't understand. Now "the adults" have explained it to the child and the child parrots what the adults told him. ..."
"... "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr. President! You're an idiot." ..."
The New York Times scored a serious scoop when it revealed on Monday that President
Trump had questioned in governmental conversations -- on more than one occasion, apparently --
America's membership in NATO. Unfortunately the paper then slipped into its typical mode of
nostrum journalism. My Webster's New World Dictionary defines "nostrum" as "quack
medicine" entailing "exaggerated claims." Here we had quack journalism executed in behalf of
quack diplomacy.
The central exaggerated claim is contained in the first sentence, in which it is averred
that NATO had "deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." This is wrong, as can be
seen through just a spare amount of history.
True, NATO saved Europe from the menace of Russian Bolshevism. But it did so not over 70
years but over 40 years -- from 1949 to 1989. That's when the Soviet Union had 1.3 million
Soviet and client-state troops poised on Western Europe's doorstep, positioned for an invasion
of Europe through the lowlands of Germany's Fulda Gap.
How was this possible? It was possible because Joseph Stalin had pushed his armies farther
and farther into the West as the German Wehrmacht collapsed at the end of World War II. In
doing so, and in the process capturing nearly all of Eastern Europe, he ensured that the
Soviets had no Western enemies within a thousand miles of Leningrad or within 1,200 miles of
Moscow. This vast territory represented not only security for the Russian motherland (which
enjoys no natural geographical barriers to deter invasion from the West) but also a potent
staging area for an invasion of Western Europe.
The first deterrent against such an invasion, which Stalin would have promulgated had he
thought he could get away with it, was America's nuclear monopoly. By the time that was lost,
NATO had emerged as a powerful and very necessary deterrent. The Soviets, concluding that the
cost of an invasion was too high, defaulted to a strategy of undermining Western interests
anywhere around the world where that was possible. The result was global tensions stirred up at
various global trouble spots, most notably Korea and Vietnam.
But Europe was saved, and NATO was the key. It deserves our respect and even reverence for
its profound success as a military alliance during a time of serious threat to the West.
But then the threat went away. Gone were the 1.3 million Soviet and client-state troops.
Gone was Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Indeed, gone, by 1991, was the Soviet Union
itself, an artificial regime of brutal ideology superimposed upon the cultural entity of Mother
Russia. It was a time for celebration.
But it was also a time to contemplate the precise nature of the change that had washed over
the world and to ponder what that might mean for old institutions -- including NATO, a
defensive military alliance created to deter aggression from a menacing enemy to the east.
Here's where Western thinking went awry. Rather than accepting as a great benefit the favorable
developments enhancing Western security -- the Soviet military retreat, the territorial
reversal, the Soviet demise -- the West turned NATO into a territorial aggressor of its own,
absorbing nations that had been part of the Soviet sphere of control and pushing right up to
the Russian border. Now Leningrad (renamed St. Petersburg after the obliteration of the menace
of Soviet communism) resides within a hundred miles of NATO military forces, while Moscow is
merely 200 miles from Western troops.
Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has absorbed 13 nations, some on the Russian border,
others bordering lands that had been part of Russia's sphere of interest for centuries. This
constitutes a policy of encirclement, which no nation can accept without protest or pushback.
And if NATO were to absorb those lands of traditional Russian influence -- particularly Ukraine
and Georgia -- that would constitute a major threat to Russian security, as Russian President
Vladimir Putin has sought to emphasize to Western leaders for years.
So, no, NATO has not deterred Russian aggression for 70 years. It did so for 40 and has
maintained a destabilizing posture toward Russia ever since. The problem here is the West's
inability to perceive how changed geopolitical circumstances might require a changed
geopolitical strategy. The encirclement strategy has had plenty of critics -- George Kennan
before he died; academics John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, and Robert David English; former
diplomat Jack Matlock; the editors of The Nation . But their voices have tended to get
drowned out by the nostrum diplomacy and the nostrum journalism that supports it at every
turn.
You can't drown out Donald Trump because he's president of the United States. And so he has
to be traduced, ridiculed, dismissed, and marginalized. That's what the Times story, by
Julian Barnes and Helene Cooper, sought to do. Consider the lead, designed to emphasize just
how outlandish Trump's musings are before the reader even has a chance to absorb what he may
have been thinking: "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires
more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and
Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that,
Mr. President! You're an idiot."
Henry Kissinger had something interesting to say about Trump in a recent interview with the
Financial Times . "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history," said the
former secretary of state, "who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to
force it to give up its old pretenses." One Western pretense about Russia, so ardently enforced
by the likes of Julian Barnes and Helene Cooper (who, it may be safe to say, know less about
world affairs and their history than Henry Kissinger), is that nothing really changed with the
Soviet collapse and NATO had to turn aggressive in order to keep that menacing nation in its
place.
Trump clearly doesn't buy that pretense. He said during the campaign that NATO was obsolete.
Then he backtracked, saying he only wanted other NATO members to pay their fair share of the
cost of deterrence. He even confessed, after Hillary Clinton identified NATO as "the strongest
military alliance in the history of the world," that he only said NATO was obsolete because he
didn't know much about it. But he was learning -- enough, it appears, to support as president
Montenegro's entry into NATO in 2017. Is Montenegro, with 5,332 square miles and some 620,000
citizens, really a crucial element in Europe's desperate project to protect itself against
Putin's Russia?
We all know that Trump is a crude figure -- not just in his disgusting discourse but in his
fumbling efforts to execute political decisions. As a politician, he often seems like a doctor
attempting to perform open-heart surgery while wearing mittens. His idle musings about leaving
NATO are a case in point -- an example of a politician who lacks the skill and finesse to nudge
the country in necessary new directions.
But Kissinger has a point about the man. America and the world have changed, while the old
ways of thinking have not kept pace. The pretenses of the old have blinded the status quo
defenders into thinking nothing has changed. Trump, almost alone among contemporary American
politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers. NATO, in its current
configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it.
Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington journalist and publishing executive, is the
author most recently of President McKinley: Architect of the American Century.
We recently heard Trump get real mad at the Germans because their energy policy is
strengthening Russia, meanwhile, we're protecting them from Russia, so like what the hell,
Germany, make up your mind but you know that we're just venting, we're with you no matter what,
Germany, and NATO is sacrosanct, you know the status quo, and Trump is very often a status quo
kinda guy, which is why when the newly liberated Poles and Czechs and Hungarians and Baltics
insisted on NATO protection, there is no way Trump would have refused to expand the alliance,
no chance whatsoever that he would have listened to Kennan -- Kennan who?
Kennan was a smart man, but he didn't get everything right all the time, for example, be
didn't think the Germans were made for democracy, in fact he had serious doubts about American
democracy as well.
Personally, I supported the NATO expansion, and even in hindsight I'm not so sure it was the
wrong move. It's easy to talk loudly when you don't have to weigh deeply competing interests
and make the hard calls. Plenty of smart people were also convinced after '89 that a re-unified
Germany would spell grave misfortune, but a decision had to be made, and we'll never really
know where the road not taken would have led. Truly, are we so sure that leaving 100 million
Eastern Europeans as a buffer zone would have been the absolute and unambiguous best
choice?
But to reiterate, knowing his abiding love for their women, my bet on Trump gladly and
effusively welcoming them is a safe one.
I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to
conquer all of Europe. The Soviets were entirely exhausted after that catastrophic war and in
good Russian tradition, were reactive, and taking a brake.
And then NATO came to life in 1949, and then the other shenanigans that the U.S. did that
convinced the Soviets that the time started ticking against them. So they managed to pull
together the Warsaw Pact in 1955. And then they always tried to catch up with having enough to
deter a nuclear attack from US.
European countries, not wanting to be a target of Soviet missiles, have forced the
Americans to get into INF. But the Russians have been, and still are in the cross-hair of one
or other Western power de jour.
Someone defined the role of NATO: to keep the Americans in, Germans down, and Russians
out. I truly believe that that assertion was wrong from the beginning and showed complete lack
of historical knowledge about Russia and Russians. NATO was mainly set up to keep the Americans
in and Germans out. Russians were never a real issue. For almost 30 years they are within their
national borders (e.g. they pulled their troupes out of Romania in late 50s and kept their side
of the bargain in any deal they made with the Americans). But Americans are still in and
Germans are still down.
Russians, for a long time looked up to and got inspiration from Europe and wanted to enjoy
it. Why to debase it with their boots?
An instructive book is Brendan Simms' "Europe -- The Struggle for Supremacy". Provides quite
a perspective
Well written Robert! We in the West don't even think much about extant structures like NATO,
but they have raised the tension needlessly with Russia, at a time we need to build friendship.
Trump should chat to Putin about bringing Russia into NATO -- that would set the cat among
the pigeons!
We will need all the Euro-Christian nations to unite and defend against Islamic invasion
soon, as 23% of world are Muslim, and they follow a global domination death cult in the Koran.
Even China may have to swing on board (not in NATO, but as allies like in WW2).
Of course, Russia would need to improve its democratic practices, and it would take time to
ease suspicions, but with fast falling fertility & birth rates in all Western nations, and
fast rising 3rd world births and forcible migration into the West, a united Europe & West
will be vital
Our political failure is that no figure other than Trump would challenge what has no
discernible benefit for hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans, but holds them instead
hostage to nuclear holocaust for the sake of foreign empire. Who benefits? Elites who are
invested in empire instead of America's citizenry.
Well, just yesterday Trump uttered something about "We will be with NATO 100%". So, if
Trump in the past said anything negative about NATO, it's not because he shares the sentiments
on NATO of Mr. Merry. It's because he was like a child asking a question about something he
doesn't understand. Now "the adults" have explained it to the child and the child parrots what
the adults told him.
This is a very good article about why we should now take a very critical look at the question
of NATO.
However, I do not see any evidence that the Soviet Union, so devastated by war, ever planned
an invasion of Western Europe and this article has not supplied any.
AP European History Class, Classwork, Date: 1/18/19
There are two things I have learned from reading this article:
First, there is Europe, which from geography we know is a continent called Europe, and then
there in Eastern Europe, which may or may not be a continent, but it seems it is somewhere in
the East. Also, Western Europe is mentioned, but its precise location is not given. Thinking
critically, I think it's in the West;
The second thing I learned is that Russia needs a permanent radius of 1200 miles centered on
Moscow, to feel safe and secure within its western borders;
Conclusions and critical thinking thoughts:
Russia is right to defend itself. It is surrounded by enemies of peace, so this need for
buffer areas is justified. In my opinion, that's because for centuries Russia suffered invasion
after invasion, so it's justified. Also, because Peter the Terrible built Leningrad, which
freezes in winter;
Also, thinking critically, if these buffer areas around Russia are populated, it would be
best to depopulate them, to further enhance the Russian need for security. Since security
threats to Russia come from hostile populations, peace would be enhanced by the removal of
these hostile populations. They could, for, example, be used to form farming communities in
unsettled parts of Antarctica, thus enhancing world's food supply.
Clearly, the US should not have excluded the Russian Federation from NATO but that is now
purely academic. That exclusion spawned Putin just as the harshness of the Versailles Treaty
spawned Hitler. However, having spawned the monster, the US has litle choice but to destroy him
and the only effect of abandoning NATO would be to encourage him to continue to grab other
ountries' territory until, one day, he will go too far and will have to be fought with military
force. The same argument Mr Merry is making was also made about Hitler in the 1930s:"Not our
problem. Anyway, he's only taking back what is rightfully his". It didn't work then and I don't
see why it would work now.
This is a an excellent essay by Robert Merry. Congrats.
Re: "There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than
the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that
has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years." Translation: "Take that, Mr.
President! You're an idiot."
That Russia wants NATO gone is true. But for economic, not military reasons. NATO is the
front that the U.S. Global Cop Gorilla uses to pressure Europe in all dimensions, military and
economic. Washington demonizes Russia, even equates Russia with the Soviet Union to maintain
the basis for its ham-fisted interference in every issue of importance to the Europeans.
Russia's objectives are economic, not territorial. It wants to set up a pan-Eurasian
economic architecture that includes Europe as a primary trading partner. The U.S. via NATO will
do anything and everything to subvert that benign economic activity, e.g., Nord Stream 2.
Because the Gorilla insists on absolutely controlling everything that it touches.
American Elites have lived parasitically large for decades under the existing model. America
as a "force for good" is their sole argument for sustaining the foreign policy pathologies
regardless of the record of wreckage and waste.
Unfortunately, with a War Machine that is worshiped, a compliant cronied-up corporate
culture, sycophantic MSM and seduced population, at this points it's wiser to bet on the
Elites. I.e. the Gorilla fronted by the NATO it controls, will be sticking its fat, greasy
thumb in European affairs for years to come. And the American taxpayer will again be forced to
pay the bills for Elite arrogance and stupidity.
'America and the world have changed, while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace', is
true. We live in extremely dangerous times and the signs are ominous. It's correct that Russia
had a huge buffer zone after it pushed west at the end of ww2, for which NATO was justifiable
to counter this. But now Russia sees itself encircled, threatened, with the choice of either
rebounding or imploding; no state chooses that latter.
The present crisis is worse than the Cold War because the Cold War was the peace. Today it is
becoming increasingly difficult to prevent the scenarios where Mutual Assured Destruction will
be resorted to. We will soon face the scenario where (unlike the Cuban missile crisis or Euro
missile crisis) one protagonist will not be able to step back from the brink, blindly stumbling
into a situation they cannot de-escalate. All that is left is Deterrence's fall-back position
-- annihilation.
The world has experienced periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty
Years Peace between the two Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after
the Congress of Vienna, to name a few. They all ended: followed by war. The Congress System
finally collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One. That conflict was followed by the
League of Nations. It did not stop World War Two. That was followed by the United Nations and
other post-war institutions. But all the indications are they will not prevent a third world
war. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Wasn't post WW 2 perceived logic, you cannot allow the Germans to ever rearm, and the Russians
need be isolated. So give them half the spoils, to keep them happy, and occupy Germany. Well
here we are, spending billions to have a European military presence, while Putin looks on in
wonderment, at our Government and the Brits. We concentrate on impeachment , and the Brits
chose to ignore 51.9 percent of their population, wanting out of Germany controlled so called
EU, administered by Brussels puppets. If we got out of Nato , which is all about the US
military capabilities, would Russia invade western Europe? Bottom line is that wouldn't be
practical. Russia prefers to have eastern Europe willingly join Russia in a re-constructed
Soviet Union.
Henry Kissinger: "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to
time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses."
Robert Merry: "Kissinger has a point about the man. America and the world have changed,
while the old ways of thinking have not kept pace. The pretenses of the old have blinded the
status quo defenders into thinking nothing has changed. Trump, almost alone among contemporary
American politicians, is asking questions to which the world needs new answers. NATO, in its
current configuration and outlook, is a danger to peace, not a guarantor of it."
Thank you, Mr. Merry. You're a historian, I know -- and that gives you many advantages --
but why do you think so few among the Elite Classes understand that even a man whose favorite
meal is two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted "may be one of those figures in
history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its
old pretenses" -- a man who "almost alone among contemporary American politicians, is asking
questions to which the world needs new answers"?
An opportunity to move beyond NATO was missed in 2001. Putin had been president for a year and
a half. Russia was even weaker than it is today. Pointing out that the Soviet Union was gone
and NATO had won the Cold War, Putin had a few suggestions: NATO could disband; Russia could
join NATO; or a new European defense league could be formed to include Russia. The response to
such feelers? Aggressive NATO expansion.
As laid out in detail in contemporary books, NATO did not ever have the conventional military
force to stop a conventional attack by the Soviets.
If NATO is seen as a military force that could stop the Soviets, that is just wrong. It
never was. It must not have been meant to be either, since the balance of forces was obvious
and nothing was done to change that.
Nuclear deterrent could have been done with a lot less conventional force, and was for
awhile.
So what was it really all about? Likely it was US dominance of military force on the
Continent, to such an extent that they could not imagine fighting each other. That provided
peace from the 400 years of European civil wars. We now take that for granted, or credit it to
"the Soviet threat" but it was far more complex than that.
As much as I am sympathetic to Trump's views of NATO, I would say this:
1) I wish Trump simply pulled out of EU with military. It seems like a lot of small changes
could be made without Trump throwing another temper tantrum.
2) I am fine with keeping the nations the same and not expanding in order to avoid Russia
being threatened.
3) The best part of NATA the last 30 years is peace within Europe. When was the last time
Spain, Italy, France, England, and Germany did not have a major war in over 70 years? And look
at Eastern Europe the last 18 years, in which it has been historically peaceful.
This read is actually composed of actual history and common sense.
President Eisenhower, as well as Kennedy and Johnson kept diplomacy and civility, in relations
with Russia.
Even with the Berlin so-called crises in the early 60's, the Bay of Pigs and so on, these
leaders were calm, using diplomacy.
Isn't that what diplomacy is for?
Now, we have very narrow minded and crude people advising Trump. To think, Bolton and Kushner
are the face of a great country as the USA to the world?
What a dangerous and insulting situation we have,because of these two, insulting to the
American people. Pompeo is also an extremist and so they bring America down to the level of a
bully and war loving nation. They sure as hell don't care about US troops and civilians in
other nations suffering, dying. And, the leaders of NATO have been talking nonsense.Russia
attacking W Europe? Why? That's bull.
NATO and the US state department are run by nuts.
There are problems within the capitalist systems also, do we throw out the whole capitalist
system? No, we fix the problematic parts. Likewise with NATO.
Given the aggression from Putin in invading Ukraine, and in interfering with the elections
of not just United States but also other European countries, NATO is needed more than ever to
deter Putin from increased aggression.
NATO however can be strategic and not provoke Putin by expanding NATO right next to Russia's
border. This author is as short sighted and foolish as Trump.
@ Mark VA Also, thinking critically, if these buffer areas around Russia are populated, it would be
best to depopulate them, to further enhance the Russian need for security. Since security
threats to Russia come from hostile populations, peace would be enhanced by the removal of
these hostile populations. They could, for, example, be used to form farming communities in
unsettled parts of Antarctica, thus enhancing world's food supply.
Hilarious. You've earned and "A" in Mr. Merry's geography class.
An interesting thesis, and well argued I think, except for the part about Trump's motives. It's
more likely that he favors easing off on the Russians because Putin has something on him;
specifically, that he's indebted to the Russian mob. I think the main thesis of this article is
likely valid, and questioning NATO is overdue. Trump is probably doing it for corrupt and
possibly treasonous reasons, so what does one make of the right thing being done for the wrong
reasons? Trump may be one of those figures who appears at a time of transition in thinking, and
provokes important thinking. That doesn't imply that the man himself has any kind of coherent
strategy or understanding of what he's doing. He's an opportunist, a con man, not a statesman
or strategist, but he still may break some things that need to be broken, even if for the wrong
reasons or no clear reason at all. None of what's happening fits into any kind of good-vs-evil
or wise leadership narrative.
A cogent debate on this topic would be useful, at least for academic purposes [if only the few
people in the current administration capable of such a carefully reasoned examination did not
keep getting forced out]. The Deplorables like the "gut feel" of it, but would never
countenance the shrinking of the military budget.
Please tell us how this squares with the carefully cultivated Trump image of being the 21st
Century Churchill rather than Chamberlain? I thought that he was the only leader of our time
who could see the true enemies and protect us?? Or does that only apply to the threat of
dark-skinned people?
What's really ironic is that, even if the author is absolutely correct, Trump will have done
more to strengthen US involvement in NATO than any recent president. Once Trump is relegated to
the ash-heap of history, suffering the scorn of millions, if not actually in prison, his ideas
will become toxic-no subsequent president will touch them.
If Trump had been a thoughtful, well-spoken leader, perhaps we could have withdrawn from
NATO. But he will be a laughingstock, generating endless jokes about hamberders, raking the
forest, his ties made in China, rather than made in America, and tunnels under walls.
Merry writes a clear case against NATO and its Drang nach Osten but one that has been patently
obvious for a long time now.
But then as he gets to the end he writes in what is a total non-sequitur:
"We all know that Trump is a crude figure -- not just in his disgusting discourse but in his
fumbling efforts to execute political decisions. As a politician, he often seems like a doctor
attempting to perform open-heart surgery while wearing mittens. His idle musings about leaving
NATO are a case in point -- an example of a politician who lacks the skill and finesse to nudge
the country in necessary new directions."
Trump Derangement Syndrome strikes again! Note that Merry dislikes Trump for his style --
you can almost hear in it the snotty putdowns of Trump and Deplorables from the refined and
brutal hawk, Hillary, or the contempt of a Marie Antoinette for the rabble who would soon cart
her off to face the guillotine.
The upper professional classes cannot stomach the nouveau riche Trump -- and that is true
whether they are Right or Left. The original NYT dislike for Trump in the early days of his
candidacy came of its judgement that he was "vulgar" and "boorish." So Merry completes his
piece by unwittingly put himself in the same crowd he seeks to discredit at the beginning.
TDS is catnip for the Respectables.
With respect to NATO, that Cold War relic should have ceased operations some years after the
fall of the Soviet Union. Sadly the West had other ideas and now we're threatening Russia in
the 21st Century, ironically some of the cheerleaders against Moscow are the political
descendants of NATO opponents during its heyday.
For all the talk about "aggressive" NATO expansion, countries such as the Baltic states, who
experienced the delights of Russian domination first-hand, were eager to join, for reasons that
would seem obvious except to the author.
"I am not sure that immediately after WWII, Soviet Union and Stalin really had their eyes to
conquer all of Europe."
I think this is accurate. That press is probably an overstatement. Not only is it doubtful
they had that desire, it is doubtful that even then they could have accomplished that task.
Based on what we now know, by the the 1960's the Soviet Union and it's "empire" was in
trouble.
"There are problems within the capitalist systems also, do we throw out the whole capitalist
system?"
There are valid reasons to suspect that capitalism is gone or at least under tremendous
pressure by merchantil behavior.
-- -- -- -- --
For some reasons that make a little sense and plenty more that are incomprehensible to me --
this president chose not to embrace the mantle of transformational change. Sec. Kissinger's
observation is correct. But ultimately, this president has chosen to be that transformative
force those of us that voted for him so desired. Breaking the social communicative norms of
"political correct speech" is the least of the substantive behaviors I was hoping to see
occur.
I fully expected that he would press NATO for either a less substantial US presence or a
they pay a larger share of the expense.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"Please tell us how this squares with the carefully cultivated Trump image of being the 21st
Century Churchill rather than Chamberlain? I thought that he was the only leader of our time
who could see the true enemies and protect us?? Or does that only apply to the threat of
dark-skinned people?"
Referring to this president as a Lord/PM Churchill or PM Chamberlain in light the conditions
in which the both operated makes no sense. As I understand it, PM Churchill's choices was to
stand in the face of extreme criticism. His choice made, there he stood. He believed in his
being he had a destiny and he seized it as a bull dog might sieze it's prey. He by sheer will
and force -- regardless of the odds. He actually served . . . in battle and it appears was as
brazen and certain as consistent to his character throughout.
PM Chamberlain actually embraced the popular will of the people when he chose a peaceful,
understanding that GB was neither in the mood or a condition to go to war.
Our current president, has neither stood consistently, has any deep certainty of his place
nor marshaled the will of the people to advance policy on any grand scale. The comparison's
made have been false comparisons about what this president could be or might have been, but
refuses to fully embrace save as facades of leadership, despite have been given a clear
mandate.
"Tucker Carlson: You're not allowed to question NATO" Tucker Carlson Tonight, Jan 15, 2019:
(3:20) "They consider asking difficult questions a criminal act. Just this morning, Preet
Bharara, the most famous former federal prosecutor in America, explained this on Twitter.
Quote: 'If true, Trump should immediately and publicly state his apparent wish to withdraw from
NATO so he can be promptly impeached, convicted, and removed from office'." Unquote. In other
words, talking about leaving NATO isn't simply unwise. It's an impeachable offense. Lots of
famous and powerful people in Washington think this. Watch:
"SOT: JAMES CLAPPER: Withdrawing from NATO -- even discussing withdrawing from NATO -- would
be disastrous for the security of the United States.
"REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D), CALIFORNIA: I think that act would be so destructive to our country
(edit) it would be a ground for some profound effort by our part, whether it's impeachment or
the 25th Amendment. He can't do that to this country. And I don't believe that he can do it
without Senate ratification."
I understand that TAC's editors might not have wanted to run two fine NATO essays head-to-head
on the same day, but this is Pat Buchanan's regular Friday TAC column:
"At Age 70, Time to Rethink NATO" by Pat Buchanan, Jan 18, 2019
'Trump saved Europe from the menace of Russian Bolshevism.'
So we are working with a definition of Europe that does not include former Yugoslavia,
former Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, or the Baltic countries. Well,
Russia is geographically vulnerable, so it needs to ride roughshod over all its neighbors to
establish a defensive perimeter. So let us all understand what Russia feels it needs, and
dismiss what, say, Poland feels it needs. Then we can characterize the eagerness of former
satellites and Soviet 'republics' to join as 'NATO expansion'. And we can ignore Russian
manipulation of Abkhazia and of its exclaves in Moldova and Ukraine to violate the territorial
integrity of former 'Union Republics', and the threats of invasion and nuclear devastation
uttered against various neighbors.
NATO handled the applications of countries in the area with due reserve until recent years,
when needless loose talk about prospective membership of Ukraine and Georgia predictably caused
upset in the Kremlin. But considering occupation of parts of the supposed territories of both,
can you at least understand why a lot of Ukrainians and Georgians might want to join NATO? And
can you stop talking as though accession to NATO on the part of Visegrad and Baltic countries
was driven by some megalomaniacal obsession to expand on the part of NATO?
Like most Trump-leaning conservative opinion on NATO, this leaves out a key part of the
picture: the EU. Because Robert Merry, like most Trump-leaning conservatives dislikes both NATO
and the EU, and would like to see both dissolve.
But realistically, US leaving NATO and the EU breaking up or weakening together would leave
a massive vacuum of power which would lead to either Russian domination (likely in the short
run), or (more likely in the long run), a return to Anglo-Franco-German great power rivalry --
and we know the dangers of that.
There's a solution that avoid both the Scylla of an unending US trusteeship over European
security or a return to the pre-1914 idea of a remilitarized, competitive Europe.
That is preserving and extending European union, by making the EU a defense union as well as
a political and economic one. and then tying the US to that resulting European defense union,
as its ultimate guarantor of strategic depth.
'World still needs NATO' writes German defense minister in New York Times op-ed [And other info
on this Tax Funded Monster that reportedly Funds, Arms, and Trains Terrorists]
-- -- -- -
'World still needs NATO' writes German defense minister in New York Times op-ed
With NATO rattled amid pressure from Donald Trump, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen
made an appeal for the alliance in a New York Times op-ed. She described NATO as an "emotional
bond" between the US and Europe.
"For all the talk about "aggressive" NATO expansion, countries such as the Baltic states, who
experienced the delights of Russian domination first-hand, were eager to join, for reasons that
would seem obvious except to the author."
I'm pretty sure the author and everybody else here understands why the Baltic States wanted
to join NATO.
The question is why NATO should have been eager to want to admit the Baltic States.
Is a NATO supporter being questioned? See story links below.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
German opposition to probe defense minister over spending scandal
Ursula von der Leyen is suspected of poor management and nepotism over her department's
allocation of contracts and its decision to hire a consultant as her deputy. A parliamentary
committee is set to investigate.
Mr. Merry must be aware that the advocates of NATO emphasize the fear that Eastern European
countries have of once again being dominated so cruelly by Russia and the moral obligation the
U.S. has to aid them in their self-defense. If he wishes to persuade us that the U.S. is the
post-1989 aggressor, doesn't he at least need to demonstrate that the Eastern European
countries' fears are baseless or nonexistent?
"If he wishes to persuade us that the U.S. is the post-1989 aggressor, doesn't he at least
need to demonstrate that the Eastern European countries' fears are baseless or
nonexistent?"
No. That's a sucker's game. The Israelis got us to play that game, and now we pay them to do
nothing while we fight their wars for them. I'm sure that the Eastern Europeans would love to
get in on some similar action. Let the stupid Americans do the paying and the heavy
lifting.
For an isolationist, it's much more convenient to act as if certain countries and their
historical experiences are nonexistent
On the other hand, to be fair to TAC, no one should be coerced into playing a global role if
one doesn't wish it. This is certainly honorable. And there is always a graceful way to either
exit the global stage, or officially confine one's interests to a small region (say, England
and France). But then there are consequences to accept: for example, China, with its One Belt
One Road Initiative, may inherit the world;
In the meantime, Eastern Europe is exploring its own collective security initiative, called
Intermarium:
"... Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity. ..."
"... I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people ..."
It should be pointed out that the Integrity Initiative recently claimed on Twitter that some of the documents leaked in batch
#4 were not theirs and had been misrepresented as part of the organisation.
It doesn't really matter, though: all that we know, anti-socialist shills writing propaganda on behalf of II (Nimmo, Cohen,
Reid-Ross) have confirmed their own roles, and the Twitter account was proven to have pushed out slanderous material on Jeremy
Corbyn.
Note that "misrepresented" could have referred to the inclusion of the Corbyn slide show document which was presented at but
created by the II.
This organisation and all of those part of it should be treated as enemies of the people, as they have attacked, disingenuously
and using smears,
-Yellow Vests
– Jill Stein
-Jeremy Corbyn
-George Galloway
-Seuams Milne
-German Left Party
-French Left Party
-French Communist Party
-Greek Communist Party
-Podemos
-Norwegian Red Party
-Norwegian Socialist Left Party
-Swedish Left Party
-Swedish Greens
-International Anti-NATO Groups
-Greyzone Project
-Julian Assange
-MintPressNews
Via
-Infiltrating Corbyn and Sanders campaigns
-Inserting propaganda anonymously into local media including the Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, The Times, the Guardian, and more
-Using social media to orchestrate hate and dismissal campaigns against those mentioned above
-Hosting events for collaboration between members
-Building online "clusters" to deploy and shape discourse in the media and elsewhere
By repeating or openly collaborating with:
-Ben Nimmo
-Oz Katergi
-Anne Applebaum
-Peter Pomerantsev
-Bellingcat
-Atlantic Council
-Carole Cadwalladr
-David Aaronovitch
-Center For A Stateless Society
-PropOrNot
-Alexander Reid-Ross
-Nick Cohen
-Michael Weiss
-Jamie Fly
-Jamie Kirchick
Directed by:
-Tory Government
-NATO
-Facebook
-German Multinationals
Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward
many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity.
I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least
for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people.
It takes two to tango. The defense contractors can jaw jaw and spread around loads of
cash but without someone in power having the same views war doesn't happen. You don't buy
politicians they willingly sell you their services at top dollar if the cause is right.
Too
many people with big ego's and tiny dicks proving their manhood by sending in the military to
kill and maiming or piling on sanctions to slowly starve any country that stands in the way of
the one indispensable nation on the planet.
Politicians and their sanctions are like the fabled
neutron bomb. Very little physical damage but huge death and suffering.
Iraq is a perfect
example. Sanctions killed far more than than bombs and bullets.
DEDA CVETKO 13 hours ago
Is The Violent Dismemberment Of Russia Official US Policy?
Even as an old timer, I am drawn to the arguments made by our "Dissident Right"(DR), who seek
to find a Third Way between destructive international capitalism and destructive
international socialism. That movement is Nationalism. Some might call it Fascism, though
that loaded term has become far too pejorative. It is not surprising that one of the heroes
of the US DR is Mr. Putin.
The people making the best oral arguments for this third way that I've listened to thus
far are Mike Enoch and Eric Striker. Do not dismiss them lightly. They are obviously highly
intelligent and their movement is growing. As young white males are increasingly marginalized
and oppressed by the dominant culture, they have nowhere else to go. Old-time GOP civic
nationalism is dead, killed by the Diversity Cult that they foolishly embraced. On their own,
after Trump, and given the snowballing demographic catastrophe, the GOP could never again win
another national election. At some point there will be an uprising, unless young
indoctrinated males have been become like frogs in slowly boiling water, who don't realize
they are being scalded alive until it is too late.
"... Recall that, leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal Integrity Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military intelligence specialists. Politicians and academics have reacted with fury to news a covert Government-funded unit had been attacking the official opposition in Parliament. ..."
The UK government and other Western governments and the US in recent years have had increasing
difficulties persuading enough of their populations as to the legitimacy of the foreign
policies that they have been pursuing.
And at the same time, Western countries have been going through a period of political crisis
and economic crisis.
Piers Robinson, Chair in Politics, Society and Political Journalism at the University of
Sheffield, further explains:
I think a lot of this drive is as much about trying to shore up shaky official narratives and
trying to shore up political systems in a situation of political crisis, as it is actually
about countering Russian propaganda.
I would suspect that that's a little bit of an excuse here to really what's going on of
problems much closer to home. This is not just to do to UK, this is Europe-wide. And there are also indications from the
documents that they are intending to start to have some kind of impact within the United
States. So, it's a very wide-ranging network that seems to be established.
The reason why it needs to be covert, of course, is that if a media organization, or if a
journalist is to let on that he, or she, is involved in a program, which quite clearly is
pushing a particular agenda, then the credibility of that journalist will be damaged.
And this is really what is very deceptive about the Integrity Initiative . It's about
co-opting journalists and academics into, essentially, a campaign, which appears to be a
propaganda campaign, in order to manipulate opinions.
And the only way that can really work effectively, is if readers and viewers don't know that
what they're reading is something which has emerged from a particular political agenda.
Recall that, leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail reveal Integrity
Initiative is funded with £2million of Foreign Office cash and run by military
intelligence specialists. Politicians and academics have reacted with fury to news a covert
Government-funded unit had been attacking the official opposition in Parliament.
So, it's not accidental that the organized and systematic propaganda campaign against labour
party has actually started under Corbyn's leadership. And that the campaign contains a lot of
personal attacks against the leader of the Labour party. That's because, of course, Jeremy
Corbyn is driving the party out of the neoliberal machine that has been dominating the UK
politics for decades.
But it seems that the agents of the neoliberal establishment are really desperate as they see
that the new narratives are not particularly successful.
It would not be exaggerating to suggest that the attacks against Leftist leaders like Jeremy
Corbyn and Bernie Sanders essentially bring the opposite effect. That's because especially the
younger generations have turned their back to the mainstream media.
And they understand that the more the media attack Corbyn and Sanders, the stronger the
indication that these leaders are not part of the neoliberal establishment that ruined their
lives becomes.
Today I participated in a nice web-based program started by the Central Bank of Russia (it
will be posted soon). An economist is being interviewed by another, and then the one who has
been interviewed becomes in his/her turn the interviewer of yet a third one. My friend Shlomo
Weber, the head of the New School of Economics interviewed me, and then I interviewed
Professor Natalya Zubarevich, from the Lomonosov Moscow State University and a noted scholar
of Russian regional economics.
Just a couple of days ago Natalia gave a very well-received talk at the Gaidar Forum in
Moscow on (what one might call) "unhealthy convergence" of Russian regions. In fact, Natalia
shows that most recently regional per capita GDPs have started a mild convergence, but that
this is due first to low growth rate of most of them and the economy as a whole, and to the
redistribution mechanism (mostly of the oil rent) between the regions. A healthy convergence,
Natalia says, would be the one where economic activity, and especially small and medium size
private businesses, were much more equally distributed across some ninety subjects of the
Russian Federation. She also had very interesting insights into the excessive
"verticalization" of economic power and decision-making in Russia, and the economic growth of
Moscow (much faster than of any other part of Russia) driven by centralization of that power,
and concentration of large state-owned or state-influenced enterprises as well as bureaucracy
in Moscow.
What most attracted my attention during Natalia's presentation at the Gaidar Forum was her
description of the current period of low growth rates in Russia as zastoi, or stagnation.
Now, zastoi has a very special political meaning in Russian because it was a disparaging term
used in the Gorbachev era, and by Gorbachev himself, to define the Brezhnevite period of
declining growth rates, lack of development perspectives, unchanging bureaucracy, and general
demoralization and malaise.
But I asked Natalia the following question. Looking over the past 150 years of Russian
history (and I think it is hard to go further back), were not really the best periods for
ordinary people exactly the periods of zastoi: incomes rose by little for sure, but the state
repression was weak, there were no wars, and probably if you look at violent deaths per
capita per year, the lowest number of people died precisely during the periods of zastoi. So
perhaps that zastoi is not so bad.
Natalia said, "I know I lived through the Brezhnevite period. Many people were
demoralized; but I used it to study. I never read so many books and learned so much as then
-- you could do whatever you wanted because your actual job really did not matter much."
(Even art, as I saw in the Tretyakovska Gallery, even if some of these paintings were never
exhibited in the official museums, seems to have done well during the Brezhnevite zastoi. And
as the recent film, which I have not seen, but read the reviews, Leto, appears to indirectly
argue as well.)
The best growth periods, as Natalia said, and as is generally accepted by economic
historians were the 1950s up to about 1963-65, and then the period of the two first Putin's
terms. In both cases, the growth spurs came as a ratchet effect to the previous set of
disasters: in the Khrushchev period, to the apocalypse of the Second World War, in the Putin
period, as a reaction to the Great Depression under Yeltsin during the early transition.
So this then made us think a bit back into the past (say, going back to 1905) and put
forward the following hypothesis: that Russian longer-term economic growth is cyclical. The
cycle has three components. First a period of utter turbulence, disorder, war, and huge loss
of income (and in many cases of life as well), followed by a decade or so of efflorescence,
recovery and growth, and finally by the period of "calcification" of whatever (or whoever)
that worked in that second period -- thus producing the zastoi or stagnation.
I do not know if this is something specific to the Russian economic history. It made me
think of Naipaul's observation on successful and unsuccessful countries. The history of the
former consists of a number of challenges and setbacks indeed, but certain things are solved
forever, and then new challenges appear. Take the United States: the Indian challenge and
then the independence from Britain were not easy to overcome/acquire, but eventually, they
were and they never came back; then the Civil War and the Emancipation; then the Great
Society etc. But unsuccessful countries, according to Naipaul (and he had, I think, Argentina
in mind) always stay within the circular history. The same or similar events keep on
repeating themselves forever without any upward trend -- and no single challenge is forever
overcome. In each following cycle everything simply repeats itself.
The challenges for Russia today is, I think, to break this cycle.
Russia's PL-19 Nudol, a system U.S. military
intelligence assesses will be focused primarily on anti-satellite missions, was successfully
tested twice in 2018. The weapon, which was fired from a mobile launcher, was last tested on
Dec. 23 and marked the seventh overall test of the system, according to one of the people who
spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Russian anti-satellite weapon is expected to target communication and imagery satellites
in low Earth orbit, according to the other person, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
For reference, the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope travel in low
Earth orbit.
While anti-satellite missiles are by no means new, the latest revelation comes less than a
year after Putin touted his nation's growing military arsenal.
"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to
win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our
country's development: You have failed to contain Russia," Putin said during a national address
in March.
A recently unclassified report from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, or
NASIC, explained how the U.S. advantage above the Earth's atmosphere is eroding to "an emergent
China and a resurgent Russia."
The NASIC report said there number of foreign intelligence and imaging satellites "has
tripled" to 300 in orbit in the last two decades. The U.S. itself has 353 of its own space
assets in orbit for those purposes. In response, military superpowers have poured funding into
researching and developing anti-satellite weapons.
Missiles are the most high-profile, physical manifestation of anti-satellite weapons. Frank
Slazer, the vice president of space systems at the Aerospace Industries Association, told CNBC
about how those missiles may be physically effective, but are likely not the "first line of
approach on this."
"You'd much rather jam the satellite, blind it [with a laser], or take over its control
systems with a cyberattack," Slazer said. "Kinetic impacts could cause problems for other
nations, besides the one you are attacking, and possibly for your own system's for many years
afterwards."
Both Slazer and the NASIC report pointed to the example of China's anti-satellite test in
2007. China fired an anti-satellite missile at one of its own, discarded weather satellites.
The test was successful, but the satellite shattered into thousands of pieces, which continue
to zip around in an orbital cloud of deadly debris.
"A huge percentage of the debris in low earth orbit is still attributable to that one test,"
Slazer said.
As far as the U.S. military's ability to defend against anti-satellite weapons, the assets
and capabilities in orbit "are the same as they have been for awhile," Tommy Sanford, director
of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, told CNBC.
Sanford contends that there has not been much in the way of progress when it comes to
defending U.S. space-based assets. Sanford gave the example of using networks of smaller and
cheaper satellites, like cubesats and nanosats, to offer "effective platforms to augment and
support missions carried out by the DoD's larger exquisite satellites."
"The idea behind a distributed architecture for space support is – instead of having
one exquisite target – you'd have a system which could presumably survive some loss of
its elements and still be able to provide function," Slazer said.
First, a quick précis of what is under discussion. The Obama stimulus package was
less than half as big as it needed to be, meaning unemployment was at 10 percent in November
2010, sending Democrats to a massive defeat in the midterms. Obama's foreclosure policy was a
monumental catastrophe which crushed the wealth of middle-class homeowners -- particularly
African-American ones -- to save the banks from their own fraudulent schemes. His corporate
crime policy amounted to a near-halt of prosecutions of top white-collar crime, again largely
to protect the banks.
Obama's health-care reform, while a step forward in some ways, was poorly designed and
failed to stop skyrocketing cost growth. His climate policy was timid and inexcusably slow --
while at the same time he enabled enormous growth of U.S. oil and gas drilling. He also made
excuses for torture and largely embraced the Bush security apparatus -- even extending it in
places, like dragnet surveillance and assassinating American citizens.
Obama apologists typically deal with these problems in one of three ways. One strategy is to
ignore them in favor of his positive record, which to be fair is pretty substantial. Jonathan
Chait points to the stimulus, some moderate corporate regulation (Dodd Frank), and modest tax
hikes on the rich as evidence he is basically just like FDR. Another strategy is slanted
arithmetic: Michael Grunwald says the stimulus was as big as the New Deal in inflation-adjusted
dollars, which is true but leaves out overall economic size, which is far more telling since
the point of that spending was to restore full employment at the time it was passed. The
Recovery Act spending was 5.7 percent of 2008 output, while the New Deal was 40 percent of 1929
output. A final strategy is just to point at Obama's popularity among Democrats (95 percent
approval) as speaking for itself, as former administration staffer Jon Favreau does here.
I would guess that of the three, this final strategy will be the one that actually prevents
any very searching debate over Obama's failures. Bringing that topic up online always creates
an instant snarling fight between critics and the vastly more numerous legions of die-hard
Obama partisans. For a candidate to do it would distract from their upcoming campaign and
likely polarize Democratic loyalists against whatever a critic was saying, regardless of
content. Even Bernie Sanders has become hesitant to obliquely criticize the Democratic Party as
such, because of the instant backlash from Obama fans.
However, that's not the end of the story. The very terrain of political and policy debate
among Democrats in 2019 is a tacit admission that the Obama presidency was a wrong turn to a
great degree. Instead of building on the clearly lousy ObamaCare exchange model, most
presidential candidates so far have endorsed Medicare-for-all, or at least the idea of
expanding Medicare and Medicaid. Elizabeth Warren wants to give workers 40 percent of corporate
board seats -- which is hugely more radical than anything Obama ever did or proposed. Kirsten
Gillibrand supports universal paid leave and postal banking, instead of Medicare and Social
Security cuts to reduce the deficit.
Cory Booker is talking about a quasi-social wealth fund for children, instead of tax cuts
for companies who hire domestically. Kamala Harris is proposing big income boosts for the
working and middle class. Even Joe Biden is considering free college.
The turn away from Obama-style policy can also be seen in what gets attention now. The new
hotness in tax policy is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 70 percent top marginal tax rate -- over 30
percentage points above its highest rate during the Obama years. Instead of a disastrous "all
of the above" energy policy, Democrats are debating how to slash domestic oil and gas
production with a Green New Deal.
Politically, most Democrats have quietly abandoned Obama's asinine notion that America is
crying out for a return to bipartisanship -- in favor of the clearly correct view that
defeating Republicans is what matters. Even the Democratic rank and file have ditched their
traditional attachment to compromise, apparently radicalized by the ongoing disaster of the
Trump presidency.
So while nobody is likely to want to hash out Obama's indefensible handouts to bankers or
drill-baby-drill energy policy over the next two years, the political debate will still proceed
as if everyone agrees they were a bad idea. Because they were.
"... The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United States
has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist
its domination. ..."
"... The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization", with
continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by President Franklin
D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism.
The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, therefore making
it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic. ..."
"... By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized
of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that
they have learned to control". ..."
"... Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state because
of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate subsidies.
..."
According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks,
as summarized at Wikipedia,the United
States has two main totalizing dynamics:
The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United
States has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any
state to resist its domination.
The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization",
with continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component
of inverted totalitarianism. The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people
feel helpless, therefore making it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Wolin's Inverted Totalitarianism provides the ground work for my suspicions regarding faux populists Obama and Trump:
By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized
of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections
that they have learned to control".
Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state
because of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate
subsidies.
"... The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United States
has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist
its domination. ..."
"... The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization", with
continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by President Franklin
D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism.
The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, therefore making
it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic. ..."
"... By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized
of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that
they have learned to control". ..."
"... Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state because
of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate subsidies.
..."
According to Wolin, domestic and foreign affairs goals are each important and on parallel tracks,
as summarized at Wikipedia,the United
States has two main totalizing dynamics:
The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United
States has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any
state to resist its domination.
The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization",
with continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component
of inverted totalitarianism. The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people
feel helpless, therefore making it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Wolin's Inverted Totalitarianism provides the ground work for my suspicions regarding faux populists Obama and Trump:
By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized
of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections
that they have learned to control".
Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state
because of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate
subsidies.
It's also untrue that he "shot himself in the foot", as the event, if anything,
strengthened his image for the election.
What strengthened his image was an insane hysterics by the UK and the West in general. The
Russians do tend to consolidate when perceive themselves under external threat.
the pettiness of going after apparent pipsqueaks
Neither Putin personally nor the Russian government in general have ever shown themselves
to be petty. On the contrary, one of the notable qualities of Putin's is that he believes, as
we Russians put it, "the crown would not fall off his head if he bows". Apparently, he feels
strong, so he is not afraid to be magnanimous and make concessions. This quality is much
appreciated by some but drives other people crazy.
None of that however proves Putin did it. It's just a possibility.
Theoretically, it's a possibility that the Martians did it. However, given the behavior of
the UK authorities, there is no reason to believe anything even remotely like the picture
described happened in reality. There is a scientific impossibility to identify the agent,
first, as fast as it was supposedly done, and, second, unless they had a sample and/or
detailed information in their possession. It's scientifically impossible to establish
provenance unless the UK had samples of both the agent used and a comparison sample. Multiple
comparison samples, I should say, since there are many such compounds. But if they did, the
whole premise "only Russia could have done it" goes out of the window.
Add here the inconsistency of the symptoms and the outcome with the "military grade" nerve
agent poisoning – and here you have a complete a story of a very clumsy false flag
operation.
Like a gullible person I at first accepted that there was indeed some event that involved the
Skripals. Now I wonder if the entire thing was a scripted hoax, that nothing had hit them,
that it's all fake. It wouldn't be surprising. We seem to be in an age of rule by sociopaths
whose only compass is that of power and riches. The populations of our countries are being
hustled along for the benefit of the few. This can't have a happy ending for the majority of
people. The much vaunted democracy of the west looks like just a fixed shell game.
"... We saw the exact same dynamic when Obama was the populist hero. As Obama betrayed his base and acted against what people had expected from him, Obamabots insisted that Obama was playing 11-dimensional chess and that their hero's intentions were pure. It was all bullshit. ..."
"... Trump brought on Nikki Haley, Bolton, and Pompeo. Trump nominated Gina Haspel, acolyte of his supposed nemesis Brennan, for CIA director. Trump approved termination of JCPOA. ..."
"... And Trump's duplicity extends beyond Russia and Syria. He pretended to make a peace deal with North Korea but refuses to complete it. He railed against TPP but included TPP provisions in the new North America free-trade agreement. He said he would prosecute Hillary but backed within days of being elected saying: "the Clintons have been through enough" (what have they been through?!?), he said he would "drain the swamp" but has added to it, he put Jared Kushner - a supporter of illegal settlement building - in charge of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, etc. ..."
"... It was obvious from jumpstreet what Obama was all about! I never for once believed anything ..."
"... It is very unusual for a populist to win office in USA. I would say that today it is virtually impossible due to the money-based US electoral system. Once this fact is understood, it becomes clear that BOTH Trump and Obama are each faux populists ..."
"... The faux populist leader model is actually well suited for an inverted totalitarian government like USA. And I've previously described a number of elements that make up this model such as the need for partisans (Obamabots/Trumptards) that vehemently defend the popular hero as he betrays his base while bogus accusations from political opponents spark a knee-jerk reaction in the hero's base and prepare the ground for the next faux populist leader. ..."
"... In 2008, the Deep State needed to "turn the page" from Bushes militarism and Obama embodied that "change". In 2016, the Deep State needed a nationalist that could revive patriotism in order to meet the challenge from Russia and China. I don't think this was accidental. ..."
There are other signs a confrontation is coming soon. The U.S. has objected to Iran's
pending launch of two space satellites, saying these look like tests of missiles designed
to deliver nuclear warheads....
In short, forces are moving in this country and in Israel to bring about a U.S.
confrontation with Iran -- before our troops leave Syria [NYT says troop withdrawal is
estimated to take 4-6 months] .
But the real questions here are not about Bolton or Pompeo.
They are about Trump .
We saw the exact same dynamic when Obama was the populist hero. As Obama
betrayed his base and acted against what people had expected from him, Obamabots insisted
that Obama was playing 11-dimensional chess and that their hero's intentions were pure. It
was all bullshit.
Trump brought on Nikki Haley, Bolton, and Pompeo. Trump nominated Gina Haspel, acolyte
of his supposed nemesis Brennan, for CIA director. Trump approved termination of
JCPOA.
And Trump's administration claims to have defeated ISIS. They say that USA actions were
responsible for 99% of the anti-ISIS effort. Why make such a claim after Trump said in his
campaign: "Let Russia take care of ISIS"? My best guess: They want to portray
themselves as the 'good guy' to Western audiences and when they act against Syria in the
future, they will attempt to convince the Syrian people that the 'Assad must go'
Coalition was responsible for eliminating ISIS.
And Trump's duplicity extends beyond Russia and Syria. He pretended to make a peace
deal with North Korea but refuses to complete it. He railed against TPP but included TPP
provisions in the new North America free-trade agreement. He said he would prosecute Hillary
but backed within days of being elected saying: "the Clintons have been through enough" (what
have they been through?!?), he said he would "drain the swamp" but has added to it, he put
Jared Kushner - a supporter of illegal settlement building - in charge of Israeli-Palestinian
peace efforts, etc.
We saw the exact same dynamic when Obama was the populist hero. As Obama betrayed his base
and acted against what people had expected from him, Obamabots insisted that Obama was
playing 11-dimensional chess and that their hero's intentions were pure. It was all
bullshit.
It was obvious from jumpstreet what Obama was all about! I never for once believed
anything he said but I looked at what he did. A gangster from Chicago. In some
respects he was a black Carter, designed to act as an interregnum. It was Carter who
kickstarted the occupation of Afghanistan. It was Carter who bumped up the nuclear weapons
programme.
Trump is just a naked version of every prior US prez.
Trump is just a naked version of every prior US prez.
It is very unusual for a populist to win office in USA. I would say that today it is
virtually impossible due to the money-based US electoral system. Once this fact is
understood, it becomes clear that BOTH Trump and Obama are each faux populists.
The faux populist leader model is actually well suited for an inverted totalitarian
government like USA. And I've previously described a number of elements that make up this
model such as the need for partisans (Obamabots/Trumptards) that vehemently defend the
popular hero as he betrays his base while bogus accusations from political opponents spark a
knee-jerk reaction in the hero's base and prepare the ground for the next faux populist
leader.
"Untethered from any political responsibility whatsoever, he can be expected to capitalize fully on his new status as
political martyr and leader of a new "resistance" that will make today's look supine."
Trump campaigned as a populist, the principal time the term applies, and also as
president. Witness the current impasse over a border wall which is an appeal to the ordinary
people who elected Trump, and he often wears that silly MAGA cap which appeals to his
electorate.
populist: a person, especially a politician, who strives to appeal to ordinary
people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
Trump on the campaign trail was a populist as you admit at your link: "Trump was the ONLY
populist on the Republican side (out of 19 contenders!)." That's how he got nominated and
then elected in a huge upset, appealing to ordinary people which the other candidates
couldn't do. Trump wasn't chosen by anybody, but he was (and is) ridiculed by many.
How Trump and Obama got elected is clear. But just because they ran as populists doesn't
mean that they have a populist agenda. I think I've been pretty clear that they have each
made decisions and taken actions that furthered the establishment over the people.
And running as a populist doesn't mean an automatic 'win'. For example, voters are going
to be skeptical about the motives of a billionaire running for office, question the ability
of a novice politician, and be distrustful of a man who has had 3 wives and 4
bankruptcies.
In 2008, the Deep State needed to "turn the page" from Bushes militarism and Obama
embodied that "change". In 2016, the Deep State needed a nationalist that could revive
patriotism in order to meet the challenge from Russia and China. I don't think this was
accidental.
@ karlof1 | Jan 15, 2019 8:29:05 PM | 30 Which are more salient--domestically: The attacks on Russia or those against
Trump?
Of course the attacks against Trump by the establishment are more important, designed to
bring him down. The American people have been conditioned by the press in American
Exceptionalism, so they expect that those people in the world who were not wise enough to be
born Americans ought to suffer for it especially if they are -- yuk -- Russian. So anything
the US government does against Russia is accepted as a given, no big deal, run-of-the-mill.
When is Trump's "delivering" for Israel (i.e. not Russia) going to be examined?
Let's examine it -- Trump is delivering a crushing defeat to Israel by backing out of Syria,
and thereby conceding the "Shia Crescent" to Iran, backed by Russia and Turkey.
Thanks b that sets out the nature of the great distraction and the transparent BS that it
represents. So now that USAians can see the nonsense could they please get on with the
substance of making change and making USA great again by taking to the streets. Its about
time for a large wage increase and dropping taxes that impact on low to medium wage people.
Given the special role played by France in the USA struggle for independence, its about
time the the Gillet Jaune manifested in the USA. The low and middle income people already
Occupy the nation so now they should demand reform. Those few old and new progressive leftish
congresscritters should don the yellow vest and meet their allies on the street corners for
discussions and talk of equity and wage and tax justice. Its Rules for Radicals time or its
going nowhere time. Will they choose? May I suggest the first Rule for Radicals could be the
wearing of a yellow vest by the Congressional and Senate supporters of wage and tax justice
at the next and all subsequent pressers and attendances.
If not I gather they have all guzzled the cool aid and are content with the noise emitted
from the great distractor.
I've made a substantial case for Trump's having been chosen to follow Obama. I look forward
to any comments you may have regarding that the argument that I've set forth.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 15, 2019 6:20:14 PM | 24
That was a joke, right?
Anyone so hampered by dotage that he forgets, several times a day, that he's already repeated
the substance of his 'newest' meme several times in the same thread, and a majority of
others, should probably consider getting a good night's sleep as an anti-dote.
"crushing defeat"? what utter provocative BS Don! Trump withdrawal leaves all the local
belligerents and malign Syria haters to do the job any way they wish. This fantasy that Trump
has abandoned Israel's regional domination is totally unsupported by fact and sounds to me
like a typical AIPAC alarmist trope.
Trump has being saying for some years now that others need to shoulder the burden.
Lets look at what the burden in Syria is shall we. Not only does USA give billions to
Israel to guarantee the colony but it also fights its wars for it in Syria. Then there are
all those charities raising money in the USA for the IDF. Then there is all the armaments
transfers by numerous clandestine channels to head choppers trying to destroy the Syrian
people's government and society. Many of those armaments transfers are paid with by USA black
dollars possibly to be accounted for in that $21 trillion fund that the USA Defense
Department has been wallowing in.
It is bleedingly obvious to me that Israel in not being crushingly defeated by anyone.
Syria nearly was!!!!!
When a self professed progressive country such as Israel is incapable of getting on with
the most religiously diverse border nation as Syria or Lebanon then there is a hoax somewhere
in the dialogue. The manifestation of a Shia crescent (a BS straw man)is because the
belligerent nations self defeated their allies: the Sunni murderers.
Mind you Don, I don't see any Shia crescent, I see a few nations bombed and shot to hell
desperately trying to establish normalcy of some sort BECAUSE of the manipulations of Saudi
and Israel governments and their pawns.
Looks like when it will all shake out, the net result will not be in the favor of the US-Israel-Saudi axis. That will be the new
"normalcy of some sort."
"Essentially, the Creditor Class and their allies--which have existed for several thousand years--constitute a real life Hydra
that must be slain, as was recognized by the Greeks who first told the whole story."
In doing research for a dinosaur novel I'm planning to write, I was pleased to learn that the feature of the hydra sprouting
multiple heads to replace each one severed wasn't part of the original myth, but was added later during the decadent stage of
Greek culture. That ancient perception tallies well with the cultural-economic decadence of this collapsing civilization.
BTW I got my copy of Spirit in the Gene and look forward to reading it.
@65 pyschohistorian.. that is a good personal story of yours from today.. it is an easy analogy and many people will understand
it.. one person at a time maybe...
More than one person at a time came out to hear Bernie Sanders deliver that message. There is no doubt they heard it vaguely
via the US media but that was enough, they came in their tens of thousands. Such was the response that the Sanders campaign had
to sometimes book bigger venues and truck in extra PA and video gear to broadcast to crowds outside.
The yankee establishment is just desperate to smash any chance of this growing a second time. Come on Bernie and Tulsi Gabbard
and all those newly elected put on the yellow vest. I dare you. Millions of Americans are willing. Ditto throughout the world
millions of people are waiting to mock the BS colour revolutions and have a real one.
Socialism and thoughts of socialist economic management spread like pheromones on the wind.
Its all like living on the film set of Alice In Wonderland while reading 1984 and Brave New World at the same time while overdosing
on chocolate. Just batshit surreal, and the presstitutes keep pushing the World to the edge of the abyss in their continuous Russia
and Putin bashing. And the vast majority in the West are completely oblivious to what is going on in the World, and completely
oblivious to what is coming. And it will not be pleasant.
@57 James
Did anyone notice an article copied from the Guardian by Information Clearing House entitled "Brought to Jesus - the evangelic
grip on the Trump administration"? "Pense and Pompeo both call evangelical theology a powerful motivating force". "Evangelics
now see the US locked into a holy war against the forces of evil who they see embodied by Iran". It is a never-ending struggle
until.... the rapture." It is a chilling read, especially when it comes to their belief in the role of Zion. Extremely dangerous
because entirely irrational.
I also want to see it [yellow vest] on the tower of london, somewhere in rome, fluttering in the Swiss alps, in china
near the sacred city, in Russia, in India........
apparently you missed the fact that an anti-establishment, anti-euro(thus threatening global bond markets) government was elected
here in Italy last summer, precluding the necessity for protests in the streets. for the moment you might say we're riding the
avant-garde.
@61 NemesisCalling "Saw that Blackwater founder did an interview explaining that they can also replace the role of US troops in
Syria."
They would fit the definition of a Mercenary in Article 47 of the Geneva Conventions.
As such they would not be afforded the protections of Geneva Convention III.
"Fine by me, as long as the US offers no protection or no-fly-zone for them."
I believe that Prince is advocating his own private mercenary airforce to provide support for his own mercenary army. Might
work as far as ground support goes, but not against SU-35 fighter jets.
So, yes, if Trump agrees to this proposal then it is inevitable that he will end up either providing a no-fly-zone for them
or be accused of leaving these brave, brave boys to be slaughtered.
I would assume that the Pentagon has told him that, but I make no assumption that he is paying that advice any attention.
"Open season on all guns for hire. In Afghanistan, too."
Well, yes, that's what International Humanitarian Law says.
So today we have US service men killed in Manbij and ISIS claim responsibility. It is reasonable to suspect that this is a false
flag (with actual deaths) in order to create political justification for US to stay in Syria. Many commentators here view ISIS
as being effectively a US proxy force.
In my view the only real evidence that the US would be leaving Syria would involve direct negotiations with the Syrian government.
In this case the US could leave saving face and securing some concessions that reflect their interests. The alternative is that
the US would leave with their tails between their legs being bombed out, very ignoble and looking like the withdrawal from Vietnam;
it is just not plausible that the US would leave in this way.
Yes. What better way to demonstrate that ISIS is not defeated and the US "job" in Syria is not done.
I suspect that Trump's rhetoric will not change. He will continue to insist that he is/will 'pull out' of Syria .... it's just
gonna take longer. Just how long will remain a mystery.
I see you have been accused of having a one sized fits all condom!😁
Your theory, unfairly, gets short shrift whereas ideas like "Trump is doing all the right things, but is frustrated at every
turn by the deep state" is just accepted unquestioningly.
However, the Syrian withdrawal could happen and this would not necessarily be incompatible with your theory; there may be tactical
reasons. Whatever, the idea that the US is just going to retreat and leave the Middle East alone is so far fetched that I am staggered
that people see this as a real possibility.
Personally, I think the US have a strategy for the world based on the model they created in Congo, South America, Libya and
Afganistan. All of these areas are hugely profitable for the Empire because "controlled" chaos allows cheap extraction of resources
and control of the world drug trade. This is what I believe the Empire has in mind for the Middle East, everywhere along OBOR
and, also, Europe (and, perhaps, the US itself?).
from Asia Times, quote:
On a mission from God: Pompeo messages evangelicals from the Middle East
The US secretary of state was communicating to an audience back home on his Middle East tour, the key Trump constituency of evangelical
Christians.
In Cairo: "This trip is especially meaningful for me as an evangelical Christian, coming so soon after the Coptic Church's Christmas
celebrations. This is an important time. We're all children of Abraham: Christians, Muslims, Jews. In my office, I keep a Bible
open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth." . .
here
Trump is being prosecuted by Robert Swan Mueller III, who entire career has been him covering up and fixing cases which involved
CIA criminality. Now William Barr is Trump's own choice for Attorney General. Barr spent the mid-1970s in the CIA. While there
he got his degree in law, suggesting his career path was being drawn by his employer. Unsurprisingly, GHW Bush moved him along
until he became Bush's AG.
Trump is either more demented than many have thought, he's in on the whole charade of his Presidency or he's in deep trouble
with the Deep State. The strings all lead back to Langley.
> Starting with Reagan, every President and/or VP has had, or rumored to have had, links to CIA: Bush Sr. had led the CIA;
Clinton allowed CIA flights into Arkansas; Obama's grandfather/mother. Questions have also been raised about Trump - the first
casino he purchase was rumored to have been involved in CIA money laundering (prior to Trump's purchase).
> Wolin, a respected Princeton University academic, described how the ruling establishment engages in "managed democracy"
to retain control. A key part of that management is the money-based electoral system which ensures that no real populist is
elected President.
If you enjoy the Kool-Aid then just pass over my comments.
Yes! Why nominate Barr for AG? Why nominate Gina Haspel for CIA? Why bring on Bolton? These choices make no sense for a President
that is supposedly at war with the Deep State.
Great list, b. Another. From the top of google (enter co name or part of post in goog for details.)
Afaik (please correct if), Trump tried to do biz in Russia but more or less failed or gave up or didn't get anywhere much,
nothing major transpired.
"There are 517 McDonald's restaurants in Russia, 73 of which were opened in 2014. The company's total revenue for 2014 in Russia
was 65.8 billion rubles.. the chain has been operating in Russia independently for 22 years."
"PepsiCo reported that in 2017, its Russian operations generated net revenue of $3.23 billion, which made up 5.1 percent of
the company's total net revenue."
Philip Morris has good sales in Russia. Cisco Systems (idk about this, look it up.) Abbot Labs (US) sells generic drugs in
Russia. Ford is still selling cars there.
The leading Chocolate co. in Russia is Mondelez (should be another topic .. )
Starbucks celebrated its 100 stores in Russia in 2015.
The CEOs of these cos. + their shareholders, employees, are in bed w. Russia and undermining US Democracy, interfering in people's
choices, the true shining light on the hill, or what? It is collusion! They meet and deal with Russians, all the time.
Note: Flynn revelation was likely just a tip of the iceberg. It was from his agency (DIA) that Judicial Watch got the memo (via
FOIA) that talked of how US allies wanted to establish a Caliphate.
These were important to understanding ISIS as a proxy force, not the grass-roots group of Jihadi hoodlums that the Obama Administration
wanted us to believe. Obama infamously called ISIS al Queda's "JV team" to explain why he was essentially ignoring it's rise.
Later, the story changed to "ISIS was created by Assad." LOL.
@68 uncle tungsten.. i wish you all the best trying to take back control of the gov't, or following thru on the yellow jacket
demonstrations... i am with you in spirit..
@70 montreal.. something is driving these folks... some whacky evangelical fantasy sounds about right... i can't believe how
easily duped people are with fundamental religion of all stripes...
@74 john.. you probably would have voted for frank zappa if he was running in the italian elections!
i've never embraced the argument that Trump is a president who is at war with the deep state. i've only said that this sort
of yammering is all conjecture and as such will never be sufficient grounds for proof...that it doesn't really matter anyway.
for all i know every incoming president is given a private screening of the zapruder film and the rest is left to his imagination.
i don't drink Kool-Aid, and if i passed over your comments i wouldn't know that they pretty much all say the same thing.
Fair enough! But what should be done about the many people that HAVE drunk the Kool-Aid and believe the Trump vs. Deep State
narrative?
I think some amount of repetition is unavoidable. Especially since the Trump vs. Deep State narrative is repeated ad nauseum
by MSM and even independent bloggers (that haven't thought it through).
@90 James.
As someone said, history doesn't always repeat itself but sometimes rhymes....... in India, in the early nineteenth century, the
British presence consisted largely of lowland Scots - evangelical Presbyterians. People like Dalhousie and Grant. They managed
to combine an iron conviction in their own Godly righteousness - and duty to improve the benighted heathen - with a sincere belief
that there was nothing wrong in robbing the natives blind whilst improving them. Their arrogance and greed led directly to the
disaster of the First Afghan War and subsequently the First Indian War of Independence (or Indian Mutiny depending on your point
of view). Maybe Presbyterian Evangelical certainty will be the American downfall as well. I do often hope so.
do you know the story
of when once president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, appointed Frank as Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture
and Tourism , much to the chagrin of then U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker?
apparently Baker declared, 'You can do business with the United States or you can do business with Frank Zappa.'
@93 montreal.. i was unaware of the specifics on the history in india as you note.. thanks for sharing that.. i just assumed it
was the british empire mindset, without looking more closely at the details of it..
@94 john.. lol! cool pic - man from utopia... i do recall frank getting that appointment from vaclav havel, but this is the first
time i heard of james bakers response! james baker is long forgotten, but frank zappa is a cultural icon that will be remembered
for a long time!
Superbowl democracy : pick the red team or pick the blue, really doesn't matter which you do, none of the wrestling is really
true, just a snare of a circus we're forced to view, where puppets pose and pretend to duel, and the House will always win...
Indeed the Levant is returning to the centre of Middle East and world attention in a stronger position than in 2011. Syria
has advanced precision missiles that can hit any building in Israel. Assad also has an air defence system he would have never
dreamed of before 2011 -- thanks to Israel's continuous violation of its airspace, and its defiance of Russian authority. Hezbollah
has constructed bases for its long and medium range precision missiles in the mountains and has created a bond with Syria that
it could never have established -- if not for the war. Iran has established a strategic brotherhood with Syria, thanks to its
role in defeating the regime change plan. . .
here
Alastair Crooke
NATO's support for the growth of ISIS has created a bond between Syria and Iraq that no Muslim or Baathist link could ever
have created: Iraq has a "carte blanche" to bomb ISIS locations in Syria without the consent of the Syrian leadership, and
the Iraqi security forces can walk into Syria anytime they see fit to fight ISIS. The anti-Israel axis has never been stronger
than it is today. That is the result of 2011-2018 war imposed on Syria". . .
here
And then add to that the current hectic itinerary of pompous Pompeo to explain the defeat to eight Middle East countries
in eight days, highlighted by his feeble pleas to Qatar to join with Saudi Arabia against Iran. Solidity is crucial! Pompeo
says, to which Qatar which shares a huge gas field with Iran gave pompous the middle finger. Another factor is the Turkey-Qatar
alliance promoting the Muslim Brotherhood, anathema to the Saudi despots. This will all shake out, not to the favor of the
US-Israel-Saudi axis. That will be the new "normalcy of some sort."
First of all, if Trump is so bad with and Russia, why are you and others here always loving on him, singing his praises and
defending him like he's still a naive schoolboy in short pants that the big boys are picking on?
@21 Jackrabbit
Bolton's not steering Trump into war with Iran, Trump hired Bolton so he'd have someone to blame and take the heat when
he greenlights war with Iran and things go bad; which they will.
Trump was an Iran hawk from start. He's been railing against Iran since he got off the Trump Tower escalator and stepped
behind the AIPAC podium.
@43 uncle tungsten
Wow, I mean wow. That's a bull's eye zinger. DB was really off the mark.
Yeah, and Israel still has one of the most powerful arsenals in the world funded to the tune of $38 billion, the largest
aid package to Israel in U.S. history delivered by Trump. and Israel has hundreds of nukes, still occupies Palestine and the
Golan Heights, and still has the Empire's bases where it wants them, and now has the GCC in its corner all in, and Trump has
delivered on so many promises already: tearing up the Iran deal, defunding aid to Palestinians, closing the Palestinians D.C.
mission office, moving the U.S. Embassy and declaring Jerusalem capital of Israel, and sabotaging a Resolution at the U.N condemning
settlements when he wasn't even President yet. Poor Israel, so abandoned by Trump...NOT.
You ask the question: "How will we ever gain control of our country."
As psychohistorian intones, private financial casinos and their ilk need to become public utilities to fund public activities
and protect the resources on which they're based, while the political/philosophical change to create that paradigm metes our
justice and cleans The Swamp. To discover the veracity of our prescription, one need only read
Michael Hudson's works , although there're others we might also cite.
Essentially, the Creditor Class and their allies--which have existed for several thousand years--constitute a real life Hydra
that must be slain, as was recognized by the Greeks who first told the whole story.
Of course, the end is far easier than the road to get there. But as the polling link I provided upthread and others show,
the public is roused and of greater solidarity for the first time this century. Why do ya think the Deep State's trying so
hard to limit and falsify information I an overt manner!
@ Circe | Jan 16, 2019 12:10:26 AM | 51 Poor Israel, so abandoned by Trump...NOT.
I never said Israel was abandoned by Trump, so I was never "really off the mark," was I. If Trump is doing any abandoning anywhere,
it's in Syria, Israel's enemy, now stronger due to Obama's mistake, one of many. Trump is a late arrival.
Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself. US troops are still there. NY Times says the 'pull out' is expected to take
4-6 months.
How many times has US been rumored to be leaving Afghanistan?
US still has troops in Iraq! Years after Obama was forced (yes, forced) to remove the bulk of the forces in that country.
And what good is the 'pull out' if US keeps mercenaries/special forces in the country to fight with SDF? The plan seems
to be retain control of Syrian territory via proxies. There is NO TALK of a hand over to SAA.
Thanks karlof1 I will explore that Michael Hudson link it looks good from first scan.
Generally: I don't do graphics but I think a statue of liberty with a yellow vest would be a good theme for a behind the
scenes 'competition' submitted via email to b (if willing) then published here for a discussion and 'vote' would be a great
aid to mirth. I won't be in your revolution if I can't dance - sort of thing. Maybe its been done by now ?
I rarely harangue at US Exceptionalism like I did when I first began commenting here as it gets in the way of highlighting
other points, and with me it's a priori along with its kin Manifest Destiny. It should also be observed that all Imperialist
Nations share both to differing degrees and becomes part of Elite "Magic Mirror" persona--Mirror, mirror on the wall; who's
the fairest of them all..."--generating the deadliest of snobbishness. When I taught, I took pains to properly explain the
Outlaw US Empire's Mythos and show where it's present in everyday life--The Few; The Proud; The Marines. He's shooting the
ball. (You throw the damn thing; do baseball pitchers shoot their pitch!?)
The Canadian domestic situation differs from the USA's in numerous ways, but it faces the same forces trying to keep citizens
from gaining control over their destiny and that of their nation. And Canadians share much of the same negative American baggage.
Both nation's citizens would benefit by knowing the true nature of their past which would aid them greatly in their current
struggle.
@43 uncle tungsten is bang on... for some reason - maybe you need to read a tao te ching verse before i say this to you!
- you can't seriously believe trump has changed his fealty to israel? that is just not the reality as i see it.. the whole
of the usa establishment are completely subservient to israel.. take a look at trumps daughter and son in law.. what the fuck
is that?
trump is also totally down with war on iran.. why is that? was a little zionist birdie talking in his ear, or not? sure
looks like 24/7 fealty to israel is spite of whatever bullshit trump is tweeting about..
@56 karlof1... thanks.. i agree with you and see what you are saying... it seems though on one small level canucks are not
always thinking we are the fucking greatest.. that is the one difference i would point to.. so if that isn't exceptionalism
rearing it's ugly head, i don't know what to call it.. other then that - i agree with you and i suppose your point is that
the concept of exceptionalism is just another distraction..
@ karlof1 with the hat tip about gaining control of "our" country....thanks.
I am with uncle tungsten with wanting to put a yellow vest on the statue of liberty and especially the dance part because
I already do that twice a week. I also want to see it on the tower of london, somewhere in rome, fluttering in the Swiss alps,
in china near the sacred city, in Russia, in India........you get the picture.
We are entering that cleft of time where psychohistorian is suppose to wave its magic wand and greatly reduce the time before
"real change". Ok, so I did that. But that still means that others will need to play their roles as well for the change to
occur. We all need to continue the zombie awakening so that when the time comes for "we the people" to make a collective "sound",
it comes out as beautiful music that we can all dance to.
This is a good place to begin at Hudson's site as it explains a great many things about the recent past and present. I
would suggest this page next .
His opus, Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire ought to be in every respectable library, for
which the videos here provide
a bit of context. If I add another link, this might be construed as spam, so I'll also highly suggest Life & Thought: An
Autobiography from last August. Enjoy!
Saw that Blackwater founder did an interview explaining that they can also replace the role of US troops in Syria.
Fine by me, as long as the US offers no protection or no-fly-zone for them.
Remember the episode where 100+ Russian contractors were strafed fighting alongside SAA by USAF? Open season on all guns
for hire. In Afghanistan, too.
YES!and some really good (short)5second? video to stream via whatever those social media platforms are. One on each of the
religious icons of whatever would be inviting.
"The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish
grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses, such
as the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire or of the fall and the consequent beheading of Louis XVI. The fact that Trump,
like the Ottoman worthies, stocks his harem with East European women, lends an eerie touch. That said, most people in the US
seem blind to the nature of their overlords in a way that the French, with their Gilets Jaunes movement (just as an example)
are definitely not."
By now everybody knows that Netanyahu asks and Trump delivers. The servility of US politicians and media to Israel is so obvious
that they world laughs at the "superpower USA, that is being rough shod" by a toy shit entity called Israel. THE GREATEST TREASON
OF ALL "Israel first"
@ james who quoted Orlov:
"
That said, most people in the US seem blind to the nature of their overlords in a way that the French, with their Gilets Jaunes
movement (just as an example) are definitely not."
"
This is part of the elite massaging of nationalism narratives. There is still too much "frontier" in America that blind
many to not feeling part of a government controlled community. I talked to a young guy today with 3 kids and living in a mobile
home on property in the sticks so he doesn't have problems with neighbors and government. I think I got my message across when
I pointed out that the roads he drives on to his house, the power and water he gets are forms of socialism and I just want
the tools of finance to be public-minded like that.
Actually, I think that in the end Russia has to thank the British for sending a great message
to her traitors and gangsters. Apart from the Skripal case, the UK seems up to confiscate the
wealth Russian expats in the UK looted back home. On the one hand, it's ~ $10bn worth that
will be definitely lost for Russia, on the other if the UK's treatment of Skripal and runaway
oligarchs won't heal Russian traitors and gangsters from their blissful enamourment with
England's climate, I don't know what will.
@Mike
P I can't find the comment because the comment archive is down -- I think it was
annamaria who reported that the British were holding assets of Russian oligarchs and that
Russia wanted the funds back. The speculation was that Teresa May would take possession of
the assets.
As these two articles state, most of the Russian billionaire oligarchs are Jewish
So at least (conspiracy theory) part of the Skripal scheme is for Teresa May to be an
angel and return their assets to the Jewish billionaires who stole Russian wealth fair and
square.
Despite ths supposed intense push by the US to harm the Iranian economy, parts of thst certaainly in place, without publicity
US policy has recently gone the other way, not so vigorously harming the Iranian economy. For starters we have that the US gave
"temporary" exemptions from the renewed US sanctions agaainst nations importing Iranian oil for 8 major such importers. The
upshot is not all that much of a reduction of such exports from Iran, an obviously crucial factor.
Then we have more recent subtle pro-Iranian decisons, most importantly Trump's annoucement of US removing troops from Syria. This
helps Iran, even if the removal is slowed down as seems likely. We also have SecState Pompeo pressuring the Saudis to end their
boycott against Qatar, which has retained both political and economic relations with Iran, not to mention having just whupped
Saudi Arabia in soccer 2-0.
So, we, or at least I, do not know what precisely is going on inside Iran, long a highly repressive regime, despite its facade
ofs pseudo-democracy. They have been continuing to adhere to the JCPOA nuclear deal, even as recent reports have them possibly
setting up increased uranium enrchment facilities and activities. While there havee been many demos against the government over
the troubled economy, it seems that these have slowed down, or at least reporting of them has.
The US does not determine all that happens in Iran, but it seems that currntly the US has an inconsiistent verging on incoherent
policy regarding Iran. But for Iran, this turn from full ostility, combined with a possible upturn in world oil prices, may
explain an unreported stabililization in Iran.
Karl Kolchak , January 19, 2019 6:30 pm
Probably because the "reports" of unrest were more MSM BS–or Iran managed to root out and arrest all of the CIA provocateurs
who were "meddling" in Iranian politics.
likbez, January 19, 2019 8:12 pm
Karl,
Probably because the "reports" of unrest were more MSM BS–or Iran managed to root out and arrest all of the CIA provocateurs
who were "meddling" in Iranian politics.
I think you are too optimistic. And you should probably talk about CIA-Mossad-MI6 provocateurs, not so much about CIA provocateurs.
Or, more correctly, foreign interests controlled disaffected strata of the population.
The meddling will continue, and money are flowing to destabilize the Iranian government and induce the "regime change" via
yet another color revolution. So it remains to be seen if mullahs are vigilant enough and not "fossilized" like the USSR leadership
was ( if we view the USSR as an example of yet another theocratic regime) to withstand this attack. BTW Soviet nomenklatura was
simply bought by the same alliance of CIA-Mossad-MI6 and the lure of getting the lion share of privatized resources of the country.
I am sure that any drop in the standard of living due to sanctions will be exploited to the fullest extent possible to generate
unrest and possibly the regime change.
Please note the success of recent neoliberal counter-revolutions in Argentina and Brazil against more progressive governments.
That means that chances for neoliberal counter-revolution in Iran are probably non-zero, even though neoliberal ideology was discredited
in 2008 and is sustained only pure power of neoliberal propaganda machine, which makes Third Reich propaganda look pretty amateurish
in comparison.
If we view neoliberalism as "Trotskyism for the rich" (financial elites of the world unite) it is clear that it has staying
power. And that means that the "Permanent Neoliberal Revolution" in best Trotskyite tradition will continue.
Also, if you have a country in which the population grows fast and the standard of living gradually deteriorates as was the case
in many Arab countries before the Arab spring, you can always find enough people to support a color revolution against the current
government. It is so easy to exploit the legitimate grievances of the population if you have money to pay for a cadre of "professional
revolutionaries" (students are very lucrative target here), and control at least a part of MSM.
The fact that installed after the color revolution puppets will be much worse, and that looting of natural resources will be
the natural result, will be realized by the strata of population which had driven the color to its success only later. In other
words, the promises of EU standard of living tomorrow, if you get rid of mullahs is a very successful social mousetrap like it was in Ukraine
before that.
Just look at the drop of that standard of living in Ukraine after the EuroMaydan color revolution (sponsored by Nuland and
friends)
Also, any theocratic regime has elements of instability within itself. At some point, people became tired of regimes driven
by religious dogma. As soon as the CIA-Mossad-Mi6 alliance can provoke some ethnic group on insurrection all bets are off.
I think the power of the neoliberal center (US+EU) to stage color revolutions so far remains largely intact.
ilsm, January 19, 2019 9:55 pm
There was a suicide bombing 6 Dec 18 near Chabahar, Iran, an Indian run (financed) port that will link into Afghanistan and
on up the east side of the Caspian, and an alternate route to One Band one road (OBOR). The US has relieved India of sanctions
regarding Chabahar, which competes with Gwadar in Pakistan for access to China's OBOR. In this regard to court India and to
snub OBOR the US would side with Iran..
There have been reports of Saudi support for Baluch separatists, the area being inhabited with a Baluch faction.
There had been a similar attack a couple of years ago also attributed to foreign meddling.
Baluchs live in the area overlapping Pakistan and East Iran. The area was ceded to the two countries by the Sultan of Oman,
who did not want to keep his holdings on the north side of the Arabian Sea.
In the eastern part of Iran the US including associates of McCain and Bolton have entertained MEK, which represents a tiny
minority within Iran. MEK would be a terror group on the lines of HTS but it does US bidding like HTS, so the US supports
Salafi terror groups despite the blithe about GWOT.
In terms of Iran crude oil there are numerous waivers to US sanctions.
The Iranian authorities are using the foreign aggression to good advantage. All the Ayatollahs need do is say: "look at what
the outsiders did to Libya".
The
Washington Post's Greg Miller reported Sunday that President Donald Trump's confiscation
of the translator's notes from a one-on-one conversation with Russian President Vladimir
Putin in 2017 was "unusual." This is incorrect. It was unprecedented. There is nothing like
it in the annals of presidential history.
Not really. Other U.S. leaders held long private meetings with their counterparts without
notes being taken.
When Richard Nixon met Leonid Brezhnev he did not even bring his own interpreter:
Nixon would meet Brezhnev alone, the only other person in attendance being Viktor
Sukhodrev, the Soviet interpreter. "Our first meeting in the Oval Office was private, except
for Viktor Sukhodrev, who, as in 1972, acted as translator." Nixon on Brezhnev's 1973 visit.
RN, p.878 . Therefore, the only "notes" that would exist would be those of the Soviet
interpreter. Not sure he would have time to make notes and translate and, even if he did so,
whether those notes would be housed in any US archive.
Nixon's White House office was bugged. There are probably tape recordings of the talks.
There might also be recordings of the Trump-Putin talks.
Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev began their second day of talks with a private meeting that had
been scheduled to last 15 minutes but ran for nearly 70 minutes, with only interpreters
present . They met in a small room in the Soviet Mission , with the Soviet leader seated in a
small armchair and Mr. Reagan on a sofa.
In the afternoon, they meet alone for a little over 20 minutes and then again for 90
minutes. All told, the two leaders have spent 4 hours and 51 minutes alone , except for
interpreters, over the two days here.
That the FBI agents involved in the decision were avid haters of Russia and of Trump has
surely nothing to do with it. That the opening of a counter-intelligence investigation gave
them the legal ability under Obama's EO12333 to use NSA signal intelligence against Trump is
surely irrelevant.
What the FBI people really were concerned about is Trump's public record of favoring Russia
at each and every corner.
Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He is reluctant to counter
its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just consider the headlines below.
With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense suspicions of Russian influence over
him is surely justified.
Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He
is reluctant to counter its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just
consider the headlines below. With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense
suspicions of Russian influence over him is surely justified.
When one adds up all those actions one can only find that Trump cares more about Russia,
than about the U.S. and its NATO allies. Only with Trump being under Putin's influence,
knowingly or unwittingly, could he end up doing Russia so many favors.
"... is a retired civil servant living in London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness. He runs the Living In A Madhouse and England Calling blogs. ..."
So what is really happening -- in the U.K. and the U.S.?
The Deep State is often portrayed as a conspiracy. In fact, it is better thought of as a
blind sociological event. There is no group of conscious conspirators, simply people being
groomed to have the same opinions or at least saying they do.
Link Bookmark What has happened in the UK (and the rest for the West to varying degrees) is
the
success of the long
march through the institutions . That is what ultimately has given the UK an elite (
politicians ,
mediafolk , teachers etc) who are overwhelmingly Politically Correct internationalists. And
it's those people who are at the forefront of the attempts to sabotage Brexit.
How did it come about? A German student leader of the 1960s Rudi Dutschke,
echoing the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci , put forward
the idea whereby societies could be subverted
from within by those of an internationalist bent who would patiently work to gain
positions of power and influence. Eventually there would be enough of such people to change the
policies of Western societies from national to internationalist ones. That point was reached in
the UK at least 50 years ago and the Politically Correct stranglehold on our society is now
complete.
The capture of Western societies by internationalists has allowed them to permit and even
overtly encourage mass immigration of people from different cultures, denigrate their own
societies, traduce the West and its native populations generally and introduce gradually the
pernicious Totalitarian creed of Cultural Marxism which has "anti-racism" (in reality
anti-white racism) at its heart. The last brick in the Politically Correct building is the
increasingly draconian treatment of anyone who refuses to toe the line -- increasingly
including the use of the criminal law and imprisonment.
That is why Western politics until recently has been so ideologically monotone. Brexit was a
revolt against that mentality.
Most MPs overtly or tacitly supported the idea of the referendum and its result by promising
it in election manifestos, in Parliament and through their passage by large majorities of the
legislation needed to both set up the referendum and make provision for its implementation.
But by doing so, MPs forfeited their right to do anything other honour the result of the
referendum. That applies just as much to Remainer MPs as Leaver MPs.
Sadly, the behaviour of the most committed Remainers with power and influence (including
many MPs and peers in the House of Lords) has shattered utterly the idea that the UK is a fully
functioning democracy. Rather, it is an elective oligarchy whereby the electorate are offered
an opportunity every few years to choose between competing parts of the elite -- an elite in
the UK whose general political ideas are largely held in common and go against the interests
and wishes of most of the electorate.
None of this should be a surprise. The sad truth: the central political question in all
Western societies is -- how far will the masses be able to control the naturally-abusive
tendencies of the elite?
Robert Henderson [ Email him ]is a retired civil servant living in
London and consequently old enough to remember what life was like before political correctness.
He runs the Living In A
Madhouse and England Calling
blogs.
I challenge anyone to name a modern war prosecuted by the US government and its allies that
did not involve at its root the direct fabrication of blatant lies on enormous levels, both
as a casus belli and also to manipulate public opinion in favor of hostilities.
The clandestine activity represented by these *provocations* isn't even good spycraft. The
Skripal case and the latest use of chlorine gas in Syria are risible, clumsy, amateur
attempts to wangle the empire into war that the callowest rube could see through. And yet,
it's working its magic on the media. The politicians, suborned by the war machine, give
unanimous bipartisan assent.
@Giuseppe
Saddam's WMD, Gulf of Tonkin, etc., etc. And now a ridiculous false flag attack in Syria. Did
it take place at all? But the narrative is all. The press in the USA is more effectively
controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s and nobody goes around beating up
journalists or sending them to a KZ. The Syrian Gov't is winning the civil war, things are
going well but what Assad really needs is to have the crap bombed out of his military by
Uncle Sam. What transparent bullshit.
The press in the USA is more effectively controlled and conformist than in Germany in
the late 1930s
Who controlled the press there and then?
What can be said about the control and conformity of the Soviet, British and American
press of the time?
and nobody goes around beating up journalists or sending them to a KZ.
That's probably because the usual thugs don't need to do that any longer since they
control virtually everything.
A couple of anecdotes to illustrate my point.:
2 of the reasons we don't hear much about mobsters these days are that the press and
judiciary are owned by them and if you do get something published, you run the risk of
getting snuffed. They probably don't stop at mere blinding anymore.
Victor Riesel was an American newspaper journalist and columnist who specialized in
news related to labor unions. In 1956 a mobster threw sulfuric acid in his face on a
public street in Chicago causing his permanent blindness.
"Treason is a strong word, but not too strong to characterize the situation in which the
Senate is the eager, resourceful, and indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to
the American people as any invading army could be." This indictment launched a
nine-part series of articles entitled "Treason of the Senate."
-David Graham Phillips, Cosmopolitan magazine, February 1906
In 1911 Phillips was shot multiple t imes by Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough, a
Harvard-educated scion of a prominent Maryland family ,at Gramercy Park in New York
City.
Still, you authors need to start digging deeper. Trump and his Allies are putting on an
amazing show / act to distract their ( and Humanities going back generations) hidden
enemies.
The Bad Guys have for millennia weoponized information, convincing the public, reporters,
and journalists that the rabbit hole ends here, that they don't need to dig any deeper, to
just accept this slightly deeper layer of the onion. That warm and fuzzy feeling from
scratching just a little deeper into to information matrix, isn't enough anymore. You guys
have the intelligence, experience, and ability just do it please!
Suppose that ... CIA-MI6 were trying to ensure the election of Trump, not Hillary. As
I described in previous comments , Trump's election followed a logical progression that,
in sum, indicate manipulation on his behalf. Hal Duell @21 mentions some of the psyop
reality-making: White Helmets, MH-17, Skripal, etc. Karlof1 @30 notes the absolute hubris of
the Empire's "we make our own reality".
Lets say Integrity Initiative, working with CIA and MI6, wanted to use the 2016 election
to cast aspersion on the Russians. A populist running against Hillary was the logical choice.
The narrative: only with Russian help could a challenger hope to win against Hillary.
"Russian meddling" and Wikileaks as Russian agent are major "wins" for the establishment.
Integrity Initiative was formed soon after Kissinger's Op-Ed in August 2014 and before Trump
began his run for President.
"... The current round of bullshit is not about justifying the investigation, it is about concealing MI6 taking a leading role in the attempted coup. ..."
A Russian American was put on sanctions list based on Forbes list of Russian billionaires.
This guy founded a high tech industrial laser company employing over a thousand American
workers. Forbes realized they f'ed this guy over and took him off their Russian billionaire
list. But too late--he remains sanctioned.
In my experience, just about everyone here, including hordes of supposedly educated people
who really should know better, believe it. They really do. However, most of them don't
care--it's merely something to snark about or score points in a political conversation with,
not anything they perceive as an actual threat to their way of life.
It's nothing more than the undying legacy of anti-communism and racism thrown in for good
measure. It echoes the German Nazis and their treatment of Slavs (slaves, unter menchen). We
need only look at how the US viewed the Japanese (and the Germans) during WWII, with
Roosevelt calling for their extermination (I'll find the source).
And of course, there's US slavery and extermination of the original inhabitants that also
feeds into the psychosis.
London was said to be very subdued the day news came through that Sweden's Charles the twelfth
had been crushed at Poltava in 1709 . North Western European economic interests have clashed
with Russian across many centuries. Had Charles been successful in the Ukraine a new level of English and Swedish alliance was
in the offing .
I just read about Trump's AG candidate, commenting on the 'Russian interference' in US
elections ....and i'm struck that these are not stupid people....they are either totally
IGNORANT of the facts and analysis .....or they are good ol boys, ready to tow the deep state
lie, so they too can feed at the trough. It saddens me in either case ....what hope can one
entertain when such cretins and low lifes are the supposed LEADERS of the democratic west. I
hold no hopes.
Proof by absurdity. Trump and Deep State work together. MAGA is a policy choice as much as it is a
campaign slogan. Everyone wants to rail against the anti-Trump forces. Oh it feels so good. That Trump has
proven to be a faux populist like Obama is ignored. WTF? Welcome to the rabbit hole.
I didn't live through the entire Anti-Communist Crusade, but was certainly cognitively aware
of it from JFK's inauguration in 1961 until the USSR's dissolution. I very closely studied
the events that led to an emergent Russian Federation and the device meant to corral the
"Near-Abroad"--The Commonwealth of Independent States. Admittedly, I was somewhat horrified
by Yeltsin's attack on Russia's Duma's White House in 1993 and eagerly read Kargalitsky's
account as it was the only one written by a Parliamentarian in English and published in 1994.
It was possible to discern the outright looting of Russia and former Soviet nations, but the
depth of evil involved wasn't made clear until some publications in the late 1990s
documenting the Rape of Russia; all of which made clear what the underlying intent of the
Anti-Communist Crusade entailed, and that that Crusade wouldn't end until Russia was
absolutely broken and enslaved by NATO/Outlaw US Empire. As many have opined, the Cold
War/Anti-Communist Crusade never ended; rather, it just entered a new phase/chapter, and
that's what we're living through today. But as b portrays, the level of hysterics paraded via
BigLie Media go far beyond anything from the previous chapter and probably outweigh those
employed during Red Scares I and II combined.
It seems fairly plain to see that delusional madness and anger have combined as the
motivating factors, but why/what sparked them and when? IMO, when was during Carter's
presidency with the why/what being several seemingly disparate but connected happenings:
Church Committee Hearings; Stagflation; Iranian Islamic Revolution; OPEC actions; losing grip
on Latin America; informal end to War on Poverty, and institution of Neoliberalism and
Zerosumism; changing of Coldwarrior Guard to Israel First Coldwarrior Guard. The culmination
was CIA gaining control of Executive with DCI GHW Bush becoming Veep to senile, dementia
addled POTUS Reagan.
Interconnected with the above is the prepping of the World Trade Center buildings for
demolition during Clinton's 2nd term, the operative question being: Would the False Flag be
perpetrated by Gore/Liberman, or was Bush/Cheney deemed to do the deed by Deep State actors;
or does this aspect even matter--Liberman was as much of a Neocon as Cheney, all 4 are Israel
Firsters, and Gore was already a War Criminal due to his participation in Clinton's numerous
illegalities. Sure, the Bush/Cheney cabal was more radical; but given what we observed during
Clinton/Gore, Deep State support was quite abundant. The dismemberment of Yugoslavia was
finished and Kosovo created, Afghanistan was already targeted and Joint Vision 2010
--the blueprint for the Outlaw US Empire's Full Spectrum Dominance Policy--was published in
1996. Interestingly, at no time known to me has the Policy articulated by the authors of
Joint Vision 2010 or its update Joint Vision 2020 been announced by any POTUS
or senior member of the Duopoly as THE #1 policy goal of the Outlaw US Empire despite both
papers being available to the public. (If he were still alive, IF Stone would have written
about both umpteen numbers of times; while true to form, BigLie media remains 100% mute.)
Despite all the preparations and Trillions of dollars spent and looted, The failure to
implement the Yinon Plan seems to be directed at Russia, although it was indigenous Iraqis
who are responsible for the plan's defeat.
So, is the lying vitriol we're subjected to the result of Russian actions or the inability
to attain the #1 policy goal due to mistakes made at all levels--Deep State and Federal
Government? Recall that Russia/Putin didn't start to actively parry Outlaw Empire moves until
2008, well after the Yinon Plan's defeat by Iraqis.
Blooming Barricade , Jan 15, 2019 5:02:35 PM |
link
This inane narrative has gone too far. It's actually threatening chances for human survival
with its nationalism, poor focus, and banality:
--
"The key focus of the so-called "left" in the world's most polluting country, run by an
ecocidal vandal who deserves to be in the running for most destructive rulers of all time, is
whether or not that vandal is taking orders from the Russian Federation.
Let me repeat that: in the most wasteful society in human history, the forces designated
to oppose the rape of the planet and corporate slavery are concerned with treason and
betrayal of the "nation."
MSNBC: "The worst case scenario that we`ve all been talking about, which is the
possibility that the president had somehow been co-opted and was in the pocket of the
Russians."
THIS is the "worst case scenario" according to the "social justice" network of the
American "left?"
If we were to step back and look at this terrible situation honestly, we could only
conclude that American liberals, and the Democratic Party, are right-wing nationalist forces
concerned with geopolitical gambits and preservation of military alliances.
This isn't the politics of 2019, or 1999. It's the politics of 1819 - but even then, it's
the right wing politics of 1819, as there was already a left dedicated to popular solidarity
and social ownership existing, clandestinely, in the shadows of European cities.
It's worth analyzing how a "Seattle" would play out if it were to occur in the context of
today's US political discourse: the protestors would be seen as nationalist anti-Semites
doing the bidding of Putin, and perhaps Xi Jinping. The leaking of the Multilateral Agreement
on Investment would be condemned instantly as "information warfare." A focus on environmental
issues would be viewed in the context of "energy geopolitics." Indymedia would be shut down
by the authorities as a vehicle for "sowing discord" in Europe against NATO and
liberalism."
@14 karlof1... good post.. i don't know the answer to your questions, but it seems like a bit
of both but mostly the later... i am unaware of this joint vision 2010 paper..
As b points out, and Erelis @6, among others confirms, Kaplan's article in Slate is
worthless. Discredited by everything that has happened over the past two years.
The question is whether it matters. Who reads Slate? Are those who follow Kaplan anything
more than partisans, far beyond the reach of logical argument, committed to the Zionist
project and US hegemony, who read him for comfort and laughs rather than critically.
Kaplan, after twenty odd years of consistently being wrong and consistently impelling the
United States into foreign disasters, costly in lives and treasure, is a busted flush
politically. The only people his ravings effect are the true believers who are simply looking
for someone to articulate their idiotic prejudices.
This, after all is a man whose wife, an Obama/ Clinton favourite, parodying Marie Antionette,
midwifed the Bandera Reich in Kiev.
There is little point in arguing with him, just feed him ever more rope and he will hang
himself, his spouse, his country(s) and the Ukraine and its allies too.
Given the part we know about how self serving, corrupt and incompetent our IC is I fear it is
the tip of the iceberg. So many decades they have learned they can do as they will with
impunity. If I am not mistaken they are partly self financing through likely illegal and
unethical activities. They have gone rogue. Currently the dems think it's fitting however
they will also feel the bite. How will we ever gain control of our country.
Which are more salient--domestically: The attacks on Russia or those against Trump? Lots of
Trumpian, GOP and Corporate Democrat policy ploys go against the majority of the polity and
the National Interest. Unfortunately, the bloc known as the Resistance includes a 5th Column
consisting of most Corporate Democrats, who are essentially Republicans wearing donkey heads.
BigLie Media wants to promote the GOP & Corporate Democrat policy ploys, so the
anti-Russian news assault serves to cover-up popular domestic issues, like
this one regarding taxation and related income disparity . (Amazing that 60
Minutes provided Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez airtime to outline her proposals--airtime that
was meant to cut her down to size but backfired.)
As I outlined earlier, what I see as the struggle is for control of the Federal
Government--CIA/Deep State vs the American People--with the Anti-Communist Crusade used as
cover to diminish rights while enriching actors controlling government, which is exactly what
we see now. Yes, Trump's a player, but with few friends and little coaching. Arguably, his
only asset is the position he occupies.
A great man once wrote that the "big lie" had a force of credulity among the broad masses, as
the latter were wont to engage in lying about minor quotidian matters of little or no
significance while the big lies were engaged in by the mainstream press, dominated by the
usual tribal suspects.
It was the case with blaming General Ludendorff for Germany's defeat, and it is the same
case today, 100 years after the fact.
The Mockingbird Media lies and equivocates about everything. Insofar as the deep state
spider's web of hegemony spreads all over the world and becomes more odious, the lies become
more copious and more predictable, and their acceptance relies upon the lever of public
credulity and kosher Newspeak.
What the unconditional and incorrigible Trumpetistas do not realize is that those of us- a
very large plurality of of Trump supporters- voted for him because he was not Hillary Clinton
and had pledged to keep us out of foreign wars. We will neither support, nor abet, foreign
wars for the sake of Israel, whether they are started by Trump or anyone else. Intervention
in Syria against the Assad regime is a no go. Trump cannot hope to compare himself to Assad,
since the latter has formed a real and effective alliance against the Christian hating head
choppers with Russia and Iran. Trump is totally clueless with respect to geopolitics. He is a
rank amateur.
It makes complete sense if one simply looks at the British Establishment's prior behavior of
intentionally starting world wars at the order of the Society of the Elect. It's all in the
CFR's archives. Their guilt in starting WW1 is emphatically admitted and documented in
roughly the first 200 pages of the following book. http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf
"In 2016 an official British government inquiry determined that Bush and Blair had indeed
together rushed to war. The Global Establishment has nevertheless rewarded Tony Blair for his
loyalty with Clintonesque generosity. He has enjoyed a number of well-paid sinecures and is
now worth in excess of $100 million."
-- The character of Blair and the Establishment is well established: Blair is a major war
criminal supported by the major war profiteers. His children and grandchildren are a progeny
of a horrible criminal.
What is truly amazing is the complacency of the Roman Catholic Church that still has not
excommunicated and anathematized the mass murderer. Blair should be haunted and hunted for
his crimes against humanity.
With age, Blair's face has become expressively evil. His wife Theresa Cara "Cherie" Blair
shows the same acute ugliness coming from her rotten soul of a war profiteer.
Keep in mind how long ago all this is:
Skripal was recruited around 1990 and arrested in 2004. Guess that the Russian attitude
towards Skripal took the chaos of the 90's as mitigating circumstances into account.
Skripal served his sentence of only 13 years till 2010 when he was pardoned and given the
option to leave. Russia did not revoke Skripal's citizenship. The UK issued Skripal a
passport too. On arrival in the UK Skripak was extensively debriefed by UK intelligence
services. Skripal has lived for 8 years in the UK now.
And now out of the blue this incident nicely dovetailing with May ratcheted up anti Russia
language only a few months before this false flag incident and the rapidly failing traction
of the Steele/Orbis/MI6 instigated Russia collusion story on the basis of that fake Trump
Dossier. By the way Orbis affiliated Steele and Miller have been among Skripal's
handlers.
Good article.
The Skipnal affair has been an utter disgrace from day one. May & Boris are a shame on
the UK fully reminesent of that utter dog, Blair.
The fact that the msm still babbles on about Russia & Skipnal is indicative of their
monumental contempt for the public & factual balanced reporting .well what's new, I guess
?
Paul Craig Roberts is correct when quoting The Saker:
"The Russian view is simple: the West is ruled by a gang of thugs supported by an
infinitely lying and hypocritical media while the general public in the West has been
hopelessly zombified." -- The Saker
These ridiculous, suicidal gas attacks by Assad seem to coincide not only with battleground
victories against the head-choppers, but co-incidentally with Israel's murderous attacks on
unarmed Palestinians "throwing stones".
What nobody seems to have picked up is the emphasis – and red lines – on Gas;
gas, gas attacks. Why is gas so much worse than being dismembered, disembowelled, and
mutilated by high explosives? Certainly I would favour unconsciousness and death by gas
before being smashed to pieces by depleted uranium.
These relentlessly repeated claims are an exercise with the dual purpose of providing a
subliminal message about the greatest tragedy in human history, repeated ad nauseam. The
massive 'gassing' of European Jews some 65 years ago. Lest we forget.
Compared with the Litvinenko umbrella attack with its tip having been dipped in an Amazonian
Indians' style curare variant of Polonium the intelligence level of the MI6 & CIA seems
to have hit the ground with the twofold miracle of the dead being raised. Now the miracles
are posing a big problem for the demonizers of Russia & President Putin: how to spirit
these two living & talking people away, who have returned from the dead, where they were
supposed to be so safe and well for all truth-loving investigators. This whole story seems to
unfold like a Jesus Christ Superstar sequel with James Bond appetizers having been added. At
present the roles have been reversed: the Russians being the champions of free will and the
Western intelligence services being the Joker.
Until some kind of sanity returns to this planet and war mongering gangsters like the Bush
and Clinton Mobs, Blair, Obama and a host of Pentagon generals, along with their boot-licking
MSM are indicted, tried for crimes against humanity and war crimes, found guilty and
sentences carried out, there will be no peace on Earth, just an endless series of False
Flags, hysterical reactions by the ones who were behind the False Flags and more wars.
It does look rather like those Syrian chemical weapon attacks that happen whenever the rebels
are about to be defeated.
I am pretty sure that it was not ordered within the British government and that most of
the British government don't know where it came from, but are willing to believe it was
Russia.
While the CIA does have plenty of form on assassinations, the risk if they were found to
be assassinating in Britain seems quite high due to the close CIA links with the UK
intelligence sector. But CIA agents could have paid someone else to do it.
Mossad is the one group that can act freely in the UK, has a record of assassinating
scientists, engineers etc here, and unlike CIA, can take the risk of being caught. So it's a
possibility – OTOH Israel has shown a lot less anti-Russian hatred than the US Deep
State has.
Normally I'd assume it was indeed Russia – I thought there was plenty of evidence
the Polonium poisoning was Russia – and it still seems possible, but US or Mossad must
be at least equally likely in this case. It's just possible it could have been British
initiated but I doubt it.
I do think it's most likely the person who actually poisoned them was not an employee of
any agency.
Theresa May as more evil than Bill Clinton? That will sound odd to some, but I think it is
true. Hillary is the pure evil half of the Clinton marriage. Bill is simply charming and
filled with a desire to amass enough power to have a group adore him as he finds new panties
to explore.
May is English, and she has the very long line of Brit Empire secret service evil at her
disposal. And her move is a bold one. What it means is that she is signaling that at least if
she is PM, the UK could replace the US as Fearless Leader of the actual New World Order,
which is the WASP Empire with Israel and worldwide Jewry as Junior Partner #1 and Saudi
Arabia elevated to Junior Partner #2 in an insane attempt to make Israel secure forever.
The English have never been happy that the lowly Americans leaped them as A-#1 of the WASP
Empire, and being English they have no permanent alliances, no permanent allies, not even kin
(perhaps especially kin – which type and degree of ruthlessness impresses all
Semites).
This alliance was sealed by none other than the very epitome of WASP culture: Mr.
Archetypal WASP himself, Oliver Cromwell. The Anglo-Saxon alliance with Jews precisely to
wage wars against non-WASP white Christians was the logical (and inevitable if WASP culture
were to acquire large scale political power) .
By the Victorian era, virtually all Elite Brit WASPs were knowing philoSemites. The new
twist was that a growing number of them were becoming obsessed with Arabs and/or Islam.
decades before the Balfour Declaration, the Brit WASP Elites were wrangling among themselves
over how best to use the largest and wealthiest Empire in world history to express its
philoSemtism.
The solution recently agreed upon was to elevate the Saudis. The assumption is that as the
Saudis control the actual land of Mohammed, if they are elevated to suzerainty over not
merely all Arabs but the entire Islamic Middle East, then the entire Islamic world can be
controlled, including to allow Israel to exist in 'peace.'
And that means all that oil is under the indirect, but very firm, control of the WASP
Empire, or as The Saker calls it: the Anglo-Zionist Empire.
Of course, the Saudi royal family is the most amorally vicious power party in the Middle
East. They would slaughter half the Sunni Arabs in order to become unrivaled suzerain over
the entire Islamic world. Such monstrousness makes the House of Saud exactly the type partner
that those who control the WASP Empire want as partners.
The Russians are in the way of that beautiful plan of world domination. Russians have
common sense and, much worse, they express it, even publicly. Russians know that Sunni Islam
is a much worse threat to the world than is Shiite Islam. The Russians know that the Iranians
are much more honorable and moral than are the Saudis. The Russians know that as bad as the
Turks are, they are more honorable and trustworthy than the Saudis.
And the Russians also know that the Anglo-Zionist Empire would be tickled pink to make all
non-WASP Elite whites – all in the world – a permanent serf class, treated the
way Cromwell treated the Irish, the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians.
I challenge anyone to name a modern war prosecuted by the US government and its allies that
did not involve at its root the direct fabrication of blatant lies on enormous levels, both
as a casus belli and also to manipulate public opinion in favor of hostilities.
The clandestine activity represented by these *provocations* isn't even good spycraft. The
Skripal case and the latest use of chlorine gas in Syria are risible, clumsy, amateur
attempts to wangle the empire into war that the callowest rube could see through. And yet,
it's working its magic on the media. The politicians, suborned by the war machine, give
unanimous bipartisan assent.
@Giuseppe
Saddam's WMD, Gulf of Tonkin, etc., etc. And now a ridiculous false flag attack in Syria. Did
it take place at all? But the narrative is all. The press in the USA is more effectively
controlled and conformist than in Germany in the late 1930s and nobody goes around beating up
journalists or sending them to a KZ. The Syrian Gov't is winning the civil war, things are
going well but what Assad really needs is to have the crap bombed out of his military by
Uncle Sam. What transparent bullshit.
@DESERT
FOX Agreed to all you said, but I would include the assassination of JFK and his brother,
and likely Martin Luther King Jr.
And each time they took out a great American, they used that assassination to push a
destructive narrative: With the killing of MLK they pinned the killing on a white southern
man, thus pushing their white hate narrative.
With 9/11 is was all about stoking hate of Muslims
These creatures lie as easily as breath, and they have all the money in the world to push
their lies.
@jacques
sheete The intent of my post was to show that the MSM here is conformist and doesn't like
to stray far from what the USG is claiming and what other journalists are writing. Rather
than explore the topics you raise, as worthy of exploration as they might be, I thought I'd
offer what newspapers around the USA were saying about Saddam's WMD after Powell's UNSC
speech; seems a bit more germane.
The Powell evidence will be persuasive to anyone who is still persuadable.
The Wall Street Journal
Piling fact upon fact, photo upon photo Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
methodically demonstrated why Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein remains dangerous to his own
people, Iraq's neighbors
The Los Angeles Times
On Wednesday, America's most reluctant warrior, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell,
presented succinct and damning evidence of Saddam's enormous threat to world peace.
Arizona Republic
Saddam Hussein's illicit arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, as well as the
equally illicit means that he possesses to deliver them, poses a tangible and urgent danger
to U.S. and world security. Millions of innocent lives are at risk.
Dallas Morning News
At some point, the world chooses to believe President George W. Bush and Secretary Powell
or the international community chooses to side with Saddam Hussein and those who broadcast
his lies to the world. Powell has painstakingly presented a strong case against Iraq.
Greenville News/South Carolina
Iraq is busted. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the case clearly. No one
hearing Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council could doubt Iraq's
actions and intentions.
Jacksonville Times-Union/Florida
The threat is real and at our door. Sept. 11, 2001, stripped away the belief that the
United States can peacefully coexist with evil. Prove it, they said. Powell has.
Charleston Daily Mail/West Virginia
We are a country always loath to fight unless provoked. The reluctance of Americans to
initiate a war needlessly does the nation credit. But this is not a needless war, nor is it
unprovoked. Powell laid out the need, and explained the provocation, in step-by-step fashion
that cannot be refuted without resorting to fantasy.
Chicago Sun-Times
The Dispatch repeatedly has called on the Bush administration to make a compelling case
that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction and hiding these
efforts from U.N. inspectors. Yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell made that case
before the Security Council.
Columbus Dispatch
Powell has methodically proved Iraq's failure to comply with U.N. mandates. With each
passing day, Iraq's own choices move it closer to a war that full compliance would
prevent.
Indianapolis Star
Secretary of State Colin Powell's 90-minute presentation to the U.N. Security Council,
buttressed with surveillance photographs and recorded phone conversations, should remove all
doubt that Iraq's Saddam Hussein has developed and hides weapons of mass destruction, in
violation of U.N. resolutions.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Powell's speech to the U.N. Security Council presented not just one 'smoking gun' but a
battery of them, more than sufficient to dispel any lingering doubt about the threat the
Iraqi dictator poses.
Denver Post
The United States has made a compelling case that Iraq has failed to rid itself of weapons
of mass destruction. This failure violates the U.N. Security Council resolution of late last
year which ordered Iraq to disarm. As a consequence and it is a grave one, the Security
Council must act now to disarm Iraq by force.
Salt Lake City Tribune
Powell has connected enough dots to tie Iraq to al-Qaeda and show that this alliance is a
threat to all of Europe as well as the United States.
Manchester Union Leader
In fact, the speech provided proof that Saddam continues to refuse to obey U.N.
resolutions. Any amount of time he has now to comply fully and openly with U.N. demands
should be measured in days or a few weeks – and no longer.
Yes. Not an "insurance policy" for overturning the election. But I'd say that how they
used the dossier was exactly how they intended to use it:
- to get wiretaps from the FISA court;
- to poison Trump campaign media relations;
- to justify a cloud of suspicion (17 intelligence agencies agree!) over the Trump
Administration that prompts a special council investigation after Trump fires Comey.
But there is a more basic problem with your analysis: You think personalities
matter. You think it is absurd that the establishment would choose Trump as President over
Hillary. That is their firewall. What you and millions of others think is impossible is a
lever for manipulation/psyop. Constitutional lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama can be
nothing but good! Western democracies are trustworthy! Well funded humanitarian organizations
working in a war zone are heros! Etc.
(Repeating:) MAGA is a Deep State/establishment POLICY CHOICE as much as it is Trump's
campaign slogan. A populist nationalist is exactly what they wanted to lead the Empire
(just as a populist socialist was what was wanted when Obama was elected.) Trump
"unlikely" win was conveniently pinned on the Russians and Wikileaks.
How else does one explain Trump's Deep State/establishment nominations that further the
agenda of people that are supposedly against Trump:
VP PenceBesties with McCain
John BoltonMost neocons are 'Never Trump' (or pretend to be)
Gina HaspelBrennan's acolyte
William BarrLong time friend of Bushes, Mueller, and Comey (Comey is
Mueller's pal)
That's probably wrong. Distancing from Russia was the main theme for all post Soviet States.
And the fact that Ukraine had chosen Baltin model -- becoming the sattelite of EU is not
surprising, taking into account connections of Western Ukraine and Germany which goes to the time
when this territory was a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The the fact that this distancing took such a toxic and self-destructing form and incldes the
loss of territory and population, can be attributed to the USA. Here I would agree with the
author.
Notable quotes:
"... The term, roughly translated as Revolution of Dignity, was cooked up at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, well in advance of Victoria Nuland's assumption of the throne as de facto "Queen of the Ukraine," lording over her subjects, playing the role of "donut dollie." ..."
"... The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of, minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued genocide against the Palestinian people." ..."
"A Pew poll from April 2014 revealed that 91 percent of Crimean respondents
believed the referendum was free and fair, 93 percent had confidence in Putin, and
85 percent believed Kiev should recognize the results.
Another poll in June 2014, this one from Gallup , showed 94 percent of
ethnic Russians in Crimea thought the referendum reflected the views of the people and 68
percent of ethnic Ukrainians in Crimea agreed . The poll found that 74 percent
believed that joining Russia would make life better.
A GfK poll from February 2015, sponsored by a pro-Ukrainian group in Canada,
revealed 93 percent of Crimeans endorsed the referendum."
"Enough documents have been released -- citing coup-backed snipers killing dozens of
protesters, US embassy officials planning false flag attacks, extremists downing a passenger
airliner and NATO peddling falsified intelligence -- to make it very clear that the "coup" is
more of an invasion than anything else.
The term, roughly translated as Revolution of Dignity, was cooked up at the Jamestown
Foundation in Washington, well in advance of Victoria Nuland's assumption of the throne as de
facto "Queen of the Ukraine," lording over her subjects, playing the role of "donut
dollie."
The roots of the conflict in the Ukraine with thousands dead and the threat of,
minimally, a wider regional conflict, are attributable to extremist elements in the United
States -- those faces and voices seen and heard promoting the invasion of Afghanistan and
Iraq, the supporters of ISIS/Al Qaeda in Syria -- and the cheerleaders of the continued
genocide against the Palestinian people."
"In 1950, the Nuremberg Tribunal defined Crimes against Peace, in Principle VI,
specifically Principle VI(a), submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, as:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation
of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the
acts mentioned under (i)."
@annamaria
Bravo, indeed, Annamaria. Beautiful, perfect, resounding, harsh, unforgiving words for a pair
of worthless human vermin masquerading as civilised, intelligent professionals with a moral
compass.
He makes great points, and I'm encouraged that he's allowed to do so on to a big and
important audience.
I remember when his predecessor, Bill O'Rielly, claimed to have seen the evidence of
Saddam's WMD, and told his audience, on the run up to war, and I was appalled. As indeed, it
turned out he too was lying.
When the ZUSA was entrenched in the highly profitable war on Vietnam, there seemed to be no
way to end it. Protests in the streets and at the universities, and anger at the war and war
pig$ seemed to no avail.
But then a phenomena began. Fragging.
one wonders .
at seven minutes in, Carlson interviews a senator. The senator does his best to lie and
deceive, as only a ZUS senator can. But Tucker eviscerates him on screen.
now if this senator, and others like him, were themselves put into peril by these
serial, treasonous wars for Israel, would they still be so keen to have Americans die,
slaughtering innocent people- to bolster and benefit the main enemy of America; Israel?
I imagine the parent of a young American, who's life was sacrificed to augment the career of
Lindsey Graham. Or other Americans who're fed up with the endless wars for Israel, and are
willing to do something about the treasonous scum who're demanding and foisting all of these
Satanic wars.
Just as Tucker says, any general who advocates for these wars, should be required to
actually visit a battlefield, so too I wonder about the politicians, and how they eventually
have to go home, and live among their constituents. What if some of the worst of them, like
Graham for instance, were to actually suffer some consequence for all the evil he's done, and
continues to do?
Of course I'm not advocating anything illegal. Just ruminating on potential solutions to the
Eternal Wars for Israel – which are nothing more or less than a continuation of the first
two World Wars (for Israel) duh
END the FED!
(or watch your nation bankrupted and looted and made to die for Israel)
"... The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment. ..."
annamaria says: April 10,
2018 at 2:44 pm GMT 100 Words On the British Establishment:
The Skripal affair is better understood in the context of "sir" Savile' knighthood -- when the
influential pedophile had been raping and molesting kids for 40 years and none stood up to the
criminal. The BBC has dutifully refused to publish anything that would upset "sir" Savile. The
Scotland Yard looked the other way -- precisely as the Establishment ordered them to do.
Savile' specialty were orphans. He was the embodiment of British Establishment.
The British Establishment has done with the concepts of honor. The loudest lying voices
against Russia belong either to the whoring "aristocrats," who found that war profiteering (by
any means) pays well, or the opportunistic parvenu like Gavin Williamson representing the
vulgarity and intellectual inadequacy of the Establishment.
Originally from: President Trump's Losing Strategy: Embracing Brazil and Confronting China
James Petras January 8, 2019
Introduction
The US embraces a regime doomed to failure and threatens the world's most dynamic economy. President Trump has lauded Brazil's
newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro and promises to promote close economic, political, social and cultural ties. In contrast the
Trump regime is committed to dismantling China's growth model, imposing harsh and pervasive sanctions, and promoting the division
and fragmentation of greater China.
Washington's choice of allies and enemies is based on a narrow conception of short-term advantage and strategic losses.
In this paper we will discuss the reasons why the US-Brazilian relation fits in with Washington's pursuit for global domination
and why Washington fears the dynamic growth and challenge of an independent and competitive China.
Brazil in Search of a Patron
Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro from day one, has announced a program to reverse nearly a century of state directed economic
growth. He has announced the privatization of the entire public sector, including the strategic finance, banking, minerals, infrastructure,
transport, energy and manufacturing activities. Moreover, the sellout has prioritized the centrality of foreign multi-national corporations.
Previous authoritarian civilian and military regimes protected nationalized firms as part of tripartite alliances which included
foreign, state and domestic private enterprises.
In contrast to previous elected civilian regimes which strived – not always successfully – to increase pensions, wages and living
standards and recognized labor legislation, President Bolsonaro has promised to fire thousands of public sector employees, reduce
pensions and increase retirement age while lowering salaries and wages in order to increase profits and lower costs to capitalists.
President Bolsonaro promises to reverse land reform, expel, arrest and assault peasant households in order to re-instate landlords
and encourage foreign investors in their place. The deforestation of the Amazon and its handover to cattle barons and land speculators
will include the seizure of millions of acres of indigenous land.
In foreign policy, the new Brazilian regime pledges to follow US policy on every strategic issue: Brazil supports Trump's economic
attacks on China, embraces Israel's land grabs in the Middle East, (including moving its capital to Jerusalem), back US plots to
boycott and policies to overthrow the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. For the first time, Brazil has offered the Pentagon
military bases, and military forces in any and all forthcoming invasions or wars.
The US celebration of President Bolsonaro's gratuitous handovers of resources and wealth and surrender of sovereignty is celebrated
in the pages of the Financial Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times who predict a period of growth, investment and recovery
– if the regime has the 'courage' to impose its sellout.
As has occurred in numerous recent experiences with right wing neo-liberal regime changes in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador,
financial page journalists and experts have allowed their ideological dogma to blind them to the eventual pitfalls and crises.
The Bolsonaro regime's economic policies ignore the fact that they depend on agro-mineral exports to China and compete with US
exports Brazilian ago-business elites will resent the switch of trading partners.. They will oppose, defeat and undermine Bolsonaro's
anti-China campaign if he dares to persists.
Foreign investors will takeover public enterprises but are not likely to expand production given the sharp reduction of employment,
salaries and wages, as the consumer market declines.
Banks may make loans but demand high interest rates for high 'risks' especially as the government will face increased social opposition
from trade unions and social movements, and greater violence from the militarization of society.
Bolsonaro lacks a majority in Congress who depend on the electoral support of millions of public employees, wage and salaried
workers ,pensioners,and gender and racial minorities. Congressional alliance will be difficult without corruption and compromises
Bolsonaro's cabinet includes several key ministers who are under investigation for fraud and money laundering. His anti-corruption
rhetoric will evaporate in the face of judicial investigations and exposés.
Brazil is unlikely to provide any meaningful military forces for regional or international US military adventures. The military
agreements with the US will carry little weight in the face of deep domestic turmoil.
Bolsanaro's neo-liberal policies will deepen inequalities especially among the fifty million who have recently risen out of poverty.
The US embrace of Brazil will enrich Wall Street who will take the money and run, leaving the US facing the ire and rejection of
their failed ally.
The US Confronts China
Unlike Brazil, China is not prepared to submit to economic plunder and to surrender its sovereignty. China is following its own
long-term strategy which focuses on developing the most advanced sectors of the economy – including cutting edge electronics and
communication technology.
Chinese researchers already produce more patents and referred scientific articles than the US. They graduate more engineers, advanced
researchers and innovative scientists than the US based on high levels of state funding . China with an investment rate of over 44%
in 2017, far surpasses the US. China has advanced, from low to high value added exports including electrical cars at competitive
prices. For example, Chinese i-phones are outcompeting Apple in both price and quality.
China has opened its economy to US multi-national corporations in exchange for access to advanced technology, what Washington
dubs as 'forced' seizures.
China has promoted multi-lateral trade and investment agreement ,including over sixty countries, in large-scale long-term infrastructure
agreements throughout Asia and Africa.
Instead of following China's economic example Washington whines of unfair trade, technological theft, market restrictions and
state constraints on private investments.
China offers long-term opportunities for Washington to upgrade its economic and social performance – if Washington recognized
that Chinese competition is a positive incentive. Instead of large-scale public investments in upgrading and promoting the export
sector, Washington has turned to military threats, economic sanctions and tariffs which protect backward US industrial sectors. Instead
of negotiating for markets with an independent China, Washington embraces vassal regimes like Brazil's under newly elected President
Jair Bolsonaro who relies on US economic control and takeovers.
ORDER IT NOW
The US has an easy path to dominating Brazil for short-term gains – profits, markets and resources, but the Brazilian model is
not viable or sustainable. In contrast the US needs to negotiate, bargain and agree to reciprocal competitive agreements with China
..The end result of cooperating with China would allow the US to learn and grow in a sustainable fashion.
This article is asinine. By the book, Bolton takes orders from Trump... not the other way
around. Bolton is just being used as an excuse. Trump was never serious about getting the US
out of any wars. I confidently predict that US troops will still be in Syria this time next
year.
"Was he aware of Bolton's request for a menu of targets in Iran for potential U.S.
strikes? Did he authorize it? Has he authorized his national security adviser and secretary
of state to engage in these hostile actions and bellicose rhetoric aimed at Iran? "
Yes, Yes and Yes, that's why he's an orange fucktard.
Bolton's former deputy, Mira Ricardel, reportedly told a gathering the shelling into the
Green Zone was "an act of war" to which the U.S. must respond decisively.
This war mongering harpy fortunately was kicked to the curb by melania trump!
Send the House, Senate, FBI, CIA, IRS & all others state operatives to fight in Iran.
Include the TSA for gods sake. Include the Obamas, Clintons and Bush's. So they can verify
that their weapons are all delivered again and work properly. Bring our troops home to defend
are border. Include NYT, WaPo and most of our current media in the Iran light brigade, so
they can charge with the rest of the parasites. Many problems will be solved in very short
order.
He's a temporary useful idiot for Trump who will flush him at his convenience. He's handy
to have around to encourage the Hawks do a group masturbation.
Seriously, if Ertogen tells Bolton to go **** off, he has no sauce. He's been neutered.
Let him act all important and play in the sand box all he wants.
trust the plan. there are white hats in government who have your best interest in mind.
you don't need to do anything other than pretend like everything is fine, they'll take care
of the rest. go to work and continue accepting continually devalued worthless fiat in
exchange for time you spend away from your family and doing things you love. trust the plan,
it's all going to be alright
"... Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract. ..."
"... While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent. ..."
Of all the State Department officials named in Integrity Initiative documents, the one who
appeared most frequently was Todd Leventhal. Leventhal has been a staffer at the State
Department's Global Engagement Center, boasting of "20 years of countering disinformation,
misinformation, conspiracy theories, and urban legends." In an April 2018 Integrity Initiative
memo, he is listed as a current team member:
Funded to the tune of $160 million this year to beat back Russian disinformation with
"counter-propaganda," the State Department's Global Engagement Center
has refused to deny targeting American citizens with information warfare of its own. "My
old job at the State Department was as chief propagandist," confessed former Global
Engagement Center Director Richard Stengel. "I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it
and they have to do it to their own population and I don't necessarily think it's that
awful."
Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's
international network, the Global Engagement Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying
smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal
appeared in an
outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian disinformation smugly explaining how he
would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world.
Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would
marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation.
His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message and destroy the
messenger.
Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's
international network, the Global Engagement Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying
smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal
appeared in an
outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian disinformation smugly explaining how he
would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world.
Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would
marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation.
His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message and destroy the
messenger.
Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000
British pounds) for a 50% contract.
While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own
Linkedin page
lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation Advisor" to the State Department. If that were
true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent.
Mueller investigation is a continuation of JFK assassination by other means.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Now, as the 'Russian influence' narrative is dying down, the anti-Trump - anti-Russian campaign is moving to new grounds. ..."
"... Initiating a counter-intelligence investigation, for which there was no basis, gave the FBI, and later the Mueller investigation, unfettered access to NSA 'signals intelligence' that could then possibly be used to incriminate Trump or his associates. ..."
"... It was the Obama administration which had given the FBI access to this tool : ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Trump is no populist. A populist can't be elected by the money-based US political system. Trump's election was almost certainly arranged ..."
"... Then why did Trump nominate Gina Haspel as head of the CIA? She is the acolyte of Trump nemesis Brennan. Why does Trump choose people like Nikki Halley, Pompeo, Bolton? ..."
"... "I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people." ..."
"... the assassination of JFK opened the floodgates of blatant depravity perpetrated by those whose greed and lust for power will ultimately destroy us. ..."
"... There are trends: A growing US citizen realization that their political system prior to Trump was nearly completely corrupt; the Clintons are more broadly understood as the pathological criminals that they are; the Podesta emails with their sick connotations remain 'in the air' - See Ben Swann's work, for example. The Clinton Foundation is far more broadly understood as a massive criminal enterprise. ..."
"... "Pompeo met on October 24 [at Trump's request] with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community's official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year's theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was "leaked," not hacked, "by a person with physical access" to the DNC's computer system." ..."
"... In short the last two years have been about trying to defeat Trump but the attackers are looking more and more wounded, and Trump, well, he's hanging in there. General Kelly and others have described Trump's work ethic as exhausting. ..."
"... Trump has been put under intense investigation by Deep State hacks who are determined to see him impeached. And all they have come up with is that he is a compulsive pussy-grabber (no shit, hey?). ..."
"... Well, if he has then he has hidden them extraordinarily well, because Mueller with all his resources hasn't found any. Indeed, Mueller's investigation is so well-resourced that the only conclusion I can reach is that Trump has no such skeletons. ..."
"... "Simply put, the Russia NIA is not an "IC-coordinated" assessment -- the vehicle for such coordination, the NIC, was not directly involved in its production, and no NIO was assigned as the responsible official overseeing its production. Likewise, the Russia NIA cannot be said to be the product of careful coordination between the CIA, NSA and FBI -- while analysts from all three agencies were involved in its production, they were operating as part of a separate, secretive task force operating under the close supervision of the Director of the CIA, and not as an integral part of their home agency or department." ..."
"... Escalation towards war with Russia was a matter of public record in late pre-election 2016, thanks to Clinton News Network ... now ask yourselves where is that general in the press conference nowadays? ..."
"... For a thorough update on the Integrity Initiative and its offshoots, check out the latest from legal investigator Barbara Boyd. ..."
"... To defeat the "Deep State" in the U.S., it is essential to understand the role of British Intelligence. While it is essential to know the role of Hillary Clinton, Obama, Comey, DOJ/FBI operatives, et.al., it is even more important to understand the geopolitical assumptions behind Russiagate. And for that, one must turn to the British. ..."
"... The aim of the counterintelligence operation and of the Russiagate hoax was not to build a prosecution case against President Trump. It was to put the United States in constitutional limbo by creating a parallel and competing center of constitutional legitimacy. ..."
"... Very difficult to judge: what is the result of infighting in the US vs. any agreed-on never mind coherent foreign policy? That the question is even asked - all over the world now - spells stage one collapse. ..."
"... Trump's nationalist credentials are further belied by such things as: adding TPP provisions to the new North American trade agreement; attacking Syria based on false flags; arming Ukraine; pulling out of the INF treaty and engaging in an unnecessary and costly arms race; actively seeking to overthrow the governments of Iran and Venezuela; etc. ..."
"... My own theory about 2016 is that everybody miscalculated. Trump was (IMO) running as an ego-building publicity stunt. Hillary (and her Deep State sponsors) had actively helped Trump get the nomination with hundreds of millions of dollars of free publicity which also enhanced the bottom lines of Big Media. His multiple flaws were airbrushed away. ..."
Despite the loss of major narratives, the war of the deep state against U.S. President Trump continues unabated. The main of tool
in this war are allegations of relations between Trump and anything Russia. The war runs along several parallel paths.
The narrative war in the media is most visible one. When any of the fake stories about Trump and Russia gets debunked and disposed,
new ones are created or others intensified.
In parallel to these propaganda efforts the deep state created an investigation that Trump has no way to escape from. Enabled
by one of the Obama administrations last acts the investigation is using signal intelligence to entrap and flip the people surrounding
Trump (see section three below). The big price will be Trump himself. Here we take a look at what transpired during the last weeks.
One major anti-Trump narrative was that 'Russian influence' helped to put him into office. This was based on the alleged nefarious
influence a Russian clickbait company, the Internet Research Agency (IRA) in St. Peterburg, had on the U.S. electorate. That explanation
never made sense. Little of the IRA activities had to do with the election. It used sockpuppets on Facebook and Twitter to attract
people to websites filled with puppy pictures or similar nonsense. The IRA would then sell advertisement and promotions on these
sites.
This
was obvious for anyone following the factual content of the news instead of the 'opinions' a whole bunch of anti-Trump 'experts'
and the media formed around them.
That the Mueller investigation finally indicted several of the IRA's officers over minor financial transactions was seen as a
confirmation of the political aspects of the IRA activities. But nearly all the reporting left out that Mueller
confirmed the commercial intent behind the IRA and its activities. There is nothing political in the accusations. Indeed point
95 of the Mueller
indictment
of the IRA says:
Defendants and their co-conspirators also used the accounts to receive money from real U.S. persons in exchange for posting promotions
and advertisements on the ORGANIZATION-controlled social media pages. Defendants and their co-conspirators typically charged certain
U.S. merchants and U.S. social media sites between 25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content on their popular false
U.S. persona accounts , including Being Patriotic, Defend the 2nd, and Blacktivist.
Part of the false narrative of a political influence campaign was the claim that the $100,000 the IRA spent for advertisement
to promote its clickbait webpages through Facebook ads somehow moved people to vote for Trump. But 56% of the IRA ads ran after the
election, 25% of all its ads were never seen by anyone. How a few $10,000 for ads only few saw moved an election that was fought
with several billions spent by each candidate's campaign was left unexplained.
[T]he common understanding is that Russia's interference efforts included sophisticated targeting of specific voting groups on
Facebook, which could have made the difference in states that Trump narrowly won on his way to an electoral-vote victory.
That understanding about Russia's sophisticated targeting, though, is not supported by the evidence -- if it's not flat-out
wrong.
...
Most of the ads purchased by the Russians didn't specify a geographic target smaller than the United States on the whole, according
to a Post review of the ads released by the House Intelligence Committee. Those that did target specific states heavily targeted
those that weren't really considered targets of the 2016 election, such as Missouri and Maryland. And of those ads that did target
specific states, most happened well before or well after the final weeks of the campaign.
All the claims that some Russian sockpuppets influenced the 2016 elections were and are nonsense. The IRA sockpuppets never had
any political intent.
Likewise the allegations that Russian intelligence hacked the DNC and Clinton crony Podesta's email are mere assertions for which
no hard evidence was ever provided. The only known fact is that the emails and papers were real, and that there content revealed
the shoddiness of Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and her campaign.
Now, as the 'Russian influence' narrative is dying down, the anti-Trump - anti-Russian campaign is moving to new grounds. Last week
the New York Times claimed that Paul Manafort, who for some time ran the Trump election campaign, gave public and internal
polling data to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska:
Manafort Accused
of Sharing Trump Polling Data With Russian Associate . A day after that sensational claim made a large splash throughout U.S.
media the New York Times recanted:
CORRECTION: PAUL MANAFORT asked KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK to pass TRUMP polling to the Ukrainian oligarchs SERHIY LYOVOCHKIN & RINAT
AKHMETOV, & not to OLEG DERIPASKA, as originally reported. We have corrected the story & I deleted a tweet repeating the error.
Duh. Manafort gave polling data to his Ukrainian fixer Konstantin Kilimnik with the request to pass it along to Ukrainian oligarchs
for who he had worked before joining the Trump campaign. Kilimnik had long
worked for the International Republican Institute office in Moscow. The IRI is a CIA offshot under Republican Party tutelage
that is used to influence politics abroad. Its long time head was the deceased hawkish Senator John McCain. While he worked with
Kilimnik in the Ukraine, Manafort concentrated on moving the Ukraine towards the European Union and away from Russia. His and Kilimnik
efforts were always opposed to Russian interests. But the NYT and others falsely
try to pass them off as the opposite
with the sole purpose of feeding the anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign.
Another anti-Trump/anti-Russian propaganda effort is a new sensational NYT piece on obvious misbehavior in the upper rows
of the FBI :
In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the
president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests
, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.
The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions
constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for
Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence.
The NYT lets it seem as if the decision to launch a counter-intelligence investigation related to Trump was as based
on some reasonable suspicion the FBI had. It was not. This was an act of revenge by the upper anti-Trump echelons in the FBI with
which they attempted to undermine Trump's presidency. Note what the claimed suspicion was based on:
Mr. Trump had caught the attention of F.B.I. counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference
in July 2016 to hack into the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump had refused to criticize Russia on the campaign
trail, praising President Vladimir V. Putin. And investigators had watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention
platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.
Other factors fueled the F.B.I.'s concerns, according to the people familiar with the inquiry. Christopher Steele, a former
British spy who worked as an F.B.I. informant, had compiled memos in mid-2016 containing unsubstantiated claims that Russian officials
tried to obtain influence over Mr. Trump by preparing to blackmail and bribe him.
Trump made a joke during the election campaign asking Russia to release the 30,000 emails Hillary Clinton had deleted from her
illegal private email server. There is no requirement, as far as I know, for any candidate to criticize this or that country. How
can not following the non existing requirement to criticize Russia be suspicious? The Republican Party did not soften its convention
platform on Ukraine. It rejected an amendment that would have further sharpened it. Overall the Republican platform was
more hawkish than the Democratic one. The
Steele dossier was of course from A to Z
made up nonsense paid for
by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
It is non sensible to claim that these were reasonable suspicions sufficient to open a counter-intelligence investigation. The
hasty FBI move to launch a counter-intelligence operation obviously had a different motive and aim.
Strzok and Page sent other text messages that raise the possibility they were discussing opening up a counterintelligence investigation
against Trump before Comey's firing.
"And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok wrote to Page on the day of Comey's
ouster.
Andy is Andrew McCabe, who served as deputy FBI director.
Page gave some indication in her congressional testimony in July 2018 that the text message was a reference to an investigation
separate from the obstruction probe that has already been reported.
Normally the FBI needs to clear such counter-intelligence investigations with the Justice Department. In this case it
did not do so at all :
In the case of the investigation into Trump, the FBI's decision to open a file on the president so quickly after Comey's firing
in May 2017 was a source of concern for some officials at the Justice Department because the FBI acted without first consulting
leadership at the department . But those worries were allayed when, days later, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was appointed
to oversee the Russia probe ...
After Comey was fired, the FBI made a very hasty move, without reasonable suspicion and without informing the Justice Department,
to launch a counter-intelligence operation involving the sitting president and his administration. What was the real purpose of this
move?
Initiating a counter-intelligence investigation, for which there was no basis, gave the FBI, and later the Mueller investigation,
unfettered access to NSA 'signals intelligence' that could then possibly be used to incriminate Trump or his associates.
On his way out the door, we all were wallowing in our winter of discontent, Obama signed an executive order...
...
The order revised the rules around intelligence sharing among our intel community. Specifically, it made the firehose of raw intelligence
collected by the NSA directly accessible to the FBI and CIA. Instead of having to ask for intel and getting what they filtered
down the FBI and CIA could directly access the unfiltered "SigInt" or signals intelligence. Intercepted phone calls, emails, raw
intel from human sources. Everything our vast intelligence vacuum hoovers up, available directly... but only for counterintel
and foreign intel purposes .
The NSA can sit on virtually every communication into and out of the U.S. that takes place over networks. Obama made it possible
for the FBI to directly access everything they had on Trump, et al. Obama supercharged the FBI's ability to investigate Trump.
The Obama administration
enacted the changed executive order EO 12333 in early January 2017, shortly before Trump took over:
Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or
the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.'s analysts passed on only information
they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.
Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by
the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for "minimizing" privacy intrusions.
...
[T]he 12333 sharing procedures allow analysts, including those at the F.B.I., to search the raw data using an American's identifying
information only for the purpose of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence investigations , not for ordinary criminal cases.
And they may do so only if one of several other conditions are met, such as a finding that the American is an agent of a foreign
power.
However, under the rules, if analysts stumble across evidence that an American has committed any crime, they will send it to
the Justice Department.
At that time Peter Lee, aka Chinahand,
already had the suspicion
that Obama was behind the FBI campaign against Trump.
With the changes in EO 12333 Obama gave the FBI the ability to launch a world wide snooping operation against the incoming Trump
administration under the guise of a 'counter-intelligence' operation. The hasty FBI move after Comey was fired activated this instrument.
The Mueller investigation has since used it extensively. 'Crimes' revealed through the snooping operation are turned over to the
Justice Department.
The NYT claim that the counter-intelligence investigation was initiated because of reasonable suspicion of Russian influence
over Trump is nonsense. It was initiated to get access to a set of tools that would allow unlimited access to communication of Trump
and anyone related to him. It was Obama who on his way out of the door gave the FBI these capabilities.
There are signs that the unlimited access the FBI and Mueller investigation have to signal intelligence is used to create prosecutions
via ' parallel construction ':
An active counterintel investigation means the Trump Administration's crimes were only as secure as the weakest link in their
weakest moment. We got hints of this early. Our intelligence folks picked up "signals intelligence" or SigInt from Russians talking
to Russians.
Those "signals" aren't the kind of evidence that finds its way into a courtroom. In fact, it's important that it doesn't. It would
burn sources and methods. It lays out the crimes and the players though... and then prosecutors find ways to make triable cases
other ways .
The public sees cases for specific charges carrying significant prison time without ever knowing that the NSA and prosecutors
knew so much more than they ever revealed. Now, apply those principles to the cases we've seen Mueller bring forward so far.
Mike Flynn: pleaded out to a minor charge, rolled over in full and then produced five rounds of documents. Likely: Flynn was
confronted with the intel they had on him and knew he was cooked. They knew the crimes. They heard and saw everything. There'd
be no escape.
By flipping and pleading out Flynn, all of that secret intel stays secret. Our intelligence efforts are protected. And Flynn
goes down. And he cooks a bunch of other gooses. He's savvy enough to know that once they have the intel, all that's left to do
is make the case.
...
The 'crime' that di Flynn in was misremembering a phone call he had with the Russian ambassador. Similar happened with Rick Gates,
Paul Manafort's righthand man and a member of Trump's transition team. Then it happened to Paul Manafort himself and to George Papadopoulos.
The Mueller investigation, thanks to the snooping Obama and the FBI enabled, knows the content of every phonecall, chat and email
any member of the Trump administration made and make to someone abroad (and likely also within the U.S.). It invites people as witnesses
and asks them about the content of a specific calls they made. If they misremember or lie - bang - Mueller has the transcript ready.
A crime has been created and an indictment for lying to the FBI will follow. This is what happened to Flynn and the others the Mueller
investigation entrapped and convicted.
Because of the counter-intelligence investigation the anti-Trump gang in the FBI hastened to initiate, the investigators got hands
on signal intelligence - phone calls, chats and emails - that allowed them to indict minor people for petty crimes and to flip them
to talk to the investigation.
The aim, in the end, was and is to build a prosecution case against President Trump for whatever minor and petty half-backed illegal
doing there may be.
To make such a prosecution and an indictment publicly palpable the media is assigned with launching story after story about nefarious
relations between Trump and anything Russia.
As we have seen above with the IRA story, the retracted NYT 's Manafort bang, and the NYT's false claims about
the motive of the FBI's counter-intelligence investigation, none of these stories hold up to diligent scrutiny. Today's Washington
Post adds another example of no-beef stories that insinuate mystic 'Russian influence' over Trump:
President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin
, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to
discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.
The rest of the story largely refutes the claim made in its headline and very first sentence:
Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
...
Trump generally has allowed aides to listen to his phone conversations with Putin ..
...
In an email, Tillerson said that he " was present for the entirety of the two presidents' official bilateral meeting in Hamburg,"...
After Trump had a first White House meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Washington, lots of leaks about the talk
appeared in the DC media. Trump was accused of giving information about an ISIS plot to the Russians that was allegedly secret.
It was not . Since then Trump clamped down on the number of participants, briefings and readouts for such talks. That is simply
a necessary and laudable behavior. Now the media try to construct that into 'Trump is concealing details' about talks with Russia
even when the U.S. Secretary of State and others are present in these.
Ever since Trump won the Republican primaries, the Clinton campaign, the Obama administration and the U.S. and British intelligence
services prepared to prevent a successful Trump presidency. The Steele dossier, created by 'former' British intelligence agents and
paid for by the Clinton campaign, was the basis for an FBI investigation that was seen
as
an insurance against a Trump win. Any possible Russia relations Trump might have came under scrutiny. This prevented him from
fulfilling his campaign promise of coming to better relations with Russia.
Shortly before Obama left the office he created the tool the FBI needed to put its investigation on steroids. When Trump fired
Comey for his handling of the Clinton email affair, the FBI put that tool into action. With unfettered access to signal intelligence
the Mueller investigation was able to entrap a number of Trump related people and to flip them to its side. It will use any information
they give up to find some angle under which Trump can be prosecuted and eventually impeached. Even if nothing comes off this investigations,
the media reports and slander all this created may well be enough to prevent an election of Trump for a second term.
I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign
the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people. Unfortunately I see no way
that Trump could escape from the hold it has gained over him. Exposing it as much as possible might well be his best defense.
It is information that is put out there that is never cross checked by the American people. They are too busy, too involved
with other things or too stupid to find out the true facts. It is hard to predict what will occur next year. I
feel it all depends who wins the primary on the Democrat side.
[Trump] ... was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign the media and the intelligence services have since
run against him undermines the will of the people.
There is a major flaw in reasoning here. Trump is no populist. A populist can't be elected by the money-based US political system.
Trump's election was almost certainly arranged:
The anti-Russia campaign began in earnest in 2014 (well before the 2016 election);
Trump's pre-election relationship to the Clinton's is highly suspect: they were likely to be much closer than we have
been led to believe;
An FBI informant worked for Trump for over 10 years - during the time that Mueller was FBI director;
Trump was the ONLY populist on the Republican side (out of 19 contenders!);
Sanders was a 'sheepdog'
and Hillary ran a terrible campaign in which she made obvious mistakes that a seasoned campaigner like herself would never
make;
British involvement in the election (Fusion GPS, Cambridge Analytica, a Brit 'spy' in the Sanders campaign, etc.) suggests
CIA-MI6 working together;
Trump Administration policies are consistent those of Clinton-Bush-Obama:
> Obamacare was not repealed "on day one" - it has been strengthened by not defending coverage for prior conditions;
> Trump put TPP provisions into his new North American trade deal;
> Trump continues ME meddling;
> Trump continues militarism and tax cutting;
> Etc.
The only major "difference" that I can think of are Trump's Wall and China tariffs. But these are consistent with the 'Deep
State' goals.
Surveys show that the "will of the people" is very different than the neoliberal, neoconservative policies that the establishment
fosters upon us.
MAGA is a POLICY CHOICE as much as it is a campaign slogan. It is designed to meet the challenge posed by Russia and China
and 'turn the page' on the deceit and duplicity of the Obama Administration just as Obama's "Change You Can Believe In" was designed
to turn the page on the the militarism of the Bush Administration. These BI-PARTISAN page-turnings ensure that there is no accountability
and provides each new Administration with a new sly story line that the public readily swallows. Each new Presidential charade
entertains and misdirects as the interests of the Empire are advanced with a refreshed box of tricks and dishonest narratives.
...war of the deep state against U.S. President Trump continues unabated.
Then why did Trump nominate Gina Haspel as head of the CIA? She is the acolyte of Trump nemesis Brennan. Why does Trump choose
people like Nikki Halley, Pompeo, Bolton?
The war of the Deep State is a psyop to crush dissent as the butt-hurt Deep State continues to pursue their dream of global
hegemony. Anyone that believes that Trump is no part of that psyop is delusional.
Wow, man. Thanks to you and all the regulars here who contribute to gathering relevant info from all kinds of sources. I hate
to repeat myself, but I feel that a little praise every 3 or 6 months is not too much spamming. This is what serious journalism
looks like.
Zachary Smith @2: ... I just don't buy into the "insurance" theory.
And I don't buy the theory that Hillary is hell bent on war. The Clinton's are very rational and calculating and no President has the freedom that your theory suggests. IMO what the Deep State has done under their man Trump is very similar to what the Deep State would have done if they had selected
Clinton instead. The fact is, a populist nationalist is what was deemed necessary to meet the challenge from Russia and China. And that is what
we got (surprise!).
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Furthermore, focusing on personality and Party is just what they want
"Watch what they do, not what they say" has a corollary: pay attention to the polices, not the politicians.
"I very much dislike most of Trump's domestic and foreign policy. But he was duly elected under the existing rules. The campaign
the media and the intelligence services have since run against him undermines the will of the people."
This pretty well sums it up for me. Being old enough to remember FDR and the brief rise of the middle class in the 40's, 50's
and 60's (and having benefited from that attempt at leveling the playing field), I am more than saddened at the downward spiral
of our nation. Politics have obviously never been clean and fair, but the assassination of JFK opened the floodgates of blatant
depravity perpetrated by those whose greed and lust for power will ultimately destroy us.
Of course b you have nothing here to offer except your opinion. Your views regarding the relentlessness of the US criminal justice
system are on target, just ask the underclasses about that. Once in view, you are never let be and in the US everyone can be found
guilty of something.
Rather nice to see the pampered son of inherited tax-free wealth on the receiving end for once, in my opinion.
Trump is a crook. Russian collusion is his smokescreen. His crimes have already been demonstrated through what little we already
know and there is still much we don't know and probably never will know.
This essay reads something like a veiled mea culpa from you.
You were wrong about Trump from the get go. Why not just admit it and move along? Why remain steadfastly in thrall to any shred
of rightwing, authoritarianism of the elite masquerading as populism?
Whatever Trump gets from the criminal justice system, Congress or the voters appears to be well-deserved. He has brought this
on himself and really there is no one else to blame even as he never will accept responsibility. He is stupid at best, dishonest
at best, a useful idiot at best.
Trump saved his ass financially after a series of disastrous business bankruptcies by accepting what appears by all indications
to be laundered money from literally hundreds of anonymous shell companies investing in his condos since at least 2008.
He has run roughshod over the emoluments clause quite openly.
I do believe, knowing what we know now, he will probably avoid indictment and escape impeachment, maybe only through resignation/pardon
but more likely the old fashioned way: defeat at the polls in 2020.
In many ways Trump has done some good by reinvigorating the US left (such as it is) and bringing at least enough cohesion in
the ranks of a badly splintered populace mainly among white females and white college educated voters who now reject the GOP,
or at least the GOP of Trump.
Whether this will lead to badly needed fixes for the heinous wealth inequality (started with Reagan) is doubtful but at least
the conversation is now underway (started with Bernie) which is the first step.
Tax increases, social security stabilisation, re-funneling wasted MIC billions to domestic programs for the poor, etc.
It is a start. Will it become a solution or a revolution in time?
That is up to the people who are still under the yoke of neoliberalism and global capital flight.
re:
Mike Flynn: pleaded out to a minor charge, rolled over in full and then produced five rounds of documents. Likely: Flynn was confronted
with the intel they had on him and knew he was cooked. They knew the crimes. They heard and saw everything. There'd be no escape.
By flipping and pleading out Flynn, all of that secret intel stays secret. Our intelligence efforts are protected. And Flynn goes
down. And he cooks a bunch of other gooses. He's savvy enough to know that once they have the intel, all that's left to do is
make the case.//
So the situation is worse than I thought. The clear inference is that (1) Flynn (and others) really did commit some major crimes,
and then (2) got off easy by admitting to a memory lapse (3) while cooking a bunch of other gooses.
Flynn does the easy (2) and gets away with (1) and (3), both very serious. This is justice?
As you may recall, the woman threatened conflict on cyberattacks.
"As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack," the Democratic
presidential nominee said. "We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses."
Regarding the Deep State and Trump, Syria is in the process of winning against the neocons. And Iran has not yet been attacked.
Hillary has a record, and for the most part hasn't even tried to run away from it.
thanks b... the topic is so very tiring.. i am sick of hearing about it.. if the usa fell off a cliff and never came back again
- i would be fine with that.. thank you regardless, for taking it apart and trying ti dispel the bullshite.. it is so thick, it
defies logic.. i agree with @1 jose garcia, and @4 radiator...
trump is a crook... so what? most of the business class in the west are at this point! politics and crookery go hand in hand...
i would be surprised if it was any different at this point in time.. how about the intel agencies? you want to sleep with them?
lol..
There's either something wrong with this assumption, or something we're not being told...
The Mueller investigation, thanks to the snooping Obama and the FBI enabled, knows the content of every phonecall, chat
and email any member of the Trump administration made and make to someone abroad (and likely also within the U.S.). It invites
people as witnesses and asks them about the content of a specific calls they made. If they misremember or lie - bang - Mueller
has the transcript ready. A crime has been created and an indiction for lying to the FBI will follow. This is what happened to
Flynn and the others the Mueller investigation entrapped and convicted.
Option 1. Something wrong?
If you're being cross-examined in a court or pseudo-legal forum about things you may or may not remember, you have the right to
decline to answer a question, or to preface any and every answer with the phrase "If I remember correctly blah blah blah..."
Option 2. Something we're not being told?
If the interrogators were able to ambush Flynn, then it's probably because they didn't acquaint him with all of his rights, or
he didn't have a lawyer with him.
Trump's not stupid. He won't blunder into a situation bereft of any semblance of legal Human Rights protections designed to
ambush him. And if he can't have a lawyer with him when the questions start, then he can probably refuse to attend without breaking
any law.
@donkeytale There has been close to three years of serious investigative intent to lay a glove on Trump (HRC's team, the FBI and
Mueller) and there is only the merest scratch of a womaniser (which with three marriages doesn't come as a surprise). What is
quite remarkable, despite all the investigative effort, is how clean Trump has managed to keep himself despite building a fortune
in one of the toughest cities in the world, building himself up through the eras of the five families, junk bonds and ponzi schemes
and soviet union mobsters, not to mention the corruption of the poltical classes and regulatory abuses and unionised labor.
For the world's he moves in, the only explanation that gives him enough protection is that for a long time Trump has been a
protected FBI asset for one of the field offices, possibly now senior service figures. And it's this deep relationship with well
connected parts of the FBI or other secret services that has given him the ability to steer past the various attempts by the deep
state. Why, for instance, do we have such a lot of leakage of the inner workings of the anti-Trump FBI? Some part of the deep
state has become disgusted at the spying (eg on congress), the blackmailing, the warmongering, and deep corruption of the anti-constitutionalists,
and Trump is their vengence. You just have to decide which side you are on...
I read that as Testing - perhaps a trial/demonstration as a professional troll for somebody or other. How else to interpret "only the merest scratch of a womaniser" or "how clean Trump has managed to keep himself". Maybe I'm
surprised not to also see praise for the clever Government Shutdown.
meanwhile..trump and his appointees attack legitimacy of Venezuela govt.
Trump is in bad odor at home while seeking to attack other govts.
' Washington has explicitly expressed its support for a potential coup against the elected Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro,
by offering its backing to the opposition and stating outright it was time for a "new government."
"The Maduro regime is illegitimate and the United States will continue ... to work diligently to restore a real democracy"
to Venezuela, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on his trip to the Middle East on Saturday, adding that Washington
would attempt to make the Latin American nations "come together to deliver that."' https://www.rt.com/news/448673-us-venezuela-time-new-government/
One thing the US deep state and their muller proxy would have on Trump, and most if not all of Trump's team, is collusion with
Israel (can this convert into charges of treason as threats). A weapon that is good for threats against and turning those around
Trump, and possibly used in as a last resort to remove Trump.
Adding to my post @ 18
Pat Lang has a post up "What is wrong with Trump?" "But, how does one explain his lack of action on the border? Does someone or
some thing in Russia, Israel, the UK, his former business associates, have something really juicy on Trump, something that he
fears to unleash through decisive action? pl"
Collusion with Israel is something neither side - team Trump and the deep state - would wish to bring into the open, but this
may be the only thing they have on Trump.
"On Thursday November 17th, 2016, NSA Director Mike
Rogers traveled to New York and met with President-Elect Donald Trump.
On Friday November 18th The Washington Post reported
on a recommendation in "October" that [NSA Director
Admiral Mike Rogers] Mike Rogers be removed from his
NSA position:
The heads of the Pentagon and the nation's
intelligence community have recommended to President
Obama that the director of the National Security
Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be removed.
In a move apparently unprecedented for a military
officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled
to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump
Tower.
Occam's Razor. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers
didn't want to participate in the spying scheme [on
Trump]
(Clapper, Brennan, Etc.), which was the baseline for
President Obama's post presidency efforts to undermine
Donald Trump and keep Trump from digging into
[who knows what crimes]"
After the visit by Rogers, Trump vacated Trump Towers. There is considerable irony in the Mueller 'probe' and the continuing avalanche of MSM lies and evasions and spin etc pertaining
to Trump.
There are trends: A growing US citizen realization that their political system prior to Trump was nearly completely corrupt;
the Clintons are more broadly understood as the pathological criminals that they are; the Podesta emails with their sick connotations
remain 'in the air' - See Ben Swann's work, for example. The Clinton Foundation is far more broadly understood as a massive criminal
enterprise.
Serious criminality at the highest levels of the FBI is now far more obvious to far more people
MSM as evil propaganda is more widely understood.
It is understood widely that the DNC material to Wikileaks was not 'hacked' (Binney)
From the theintercept.com :
"Pompeo met on October 24 [at Trump's request] with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower
who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community's
official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year's theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former
officials argue that the DNC data was "leaked," not hacked, "by a person with physical access" to the DNC's computer system."
In short the last two years have been about trying to defeat Trump but the attackers are looking more and more wounded, and
Trump, well, he's hanging in there. General Kelly and others have described Trump's work ethic as exhausting.
The Internet Research Agency (IRA) paid $100,000 for Facebook ads and then charged its customers for the clickbait service (between
25 and 50 U.S. dollars per post for promotional content). So even if the IRA didn't manage to make a profit, the net cost for them must have been much lower than $100,000. Does anyone
know how much revenue it made from that operation? Facebook must know but they've kept quiet about it. Same with Mueller.
Thank you, b. I am so glad I did not vote for Obama a second time around. A very rotten duopoly has taken over the US government,
all based on the premise that money is speech and money runs government, the people be damned. Hence the shutdown being orchestrated
by money, with Trump in the crosshairs.
I also very much adhere to your final paragraph's sentences. Let no one be in any doubt - what is underway is no less than
traitorous activity, a clear violation of the US Constitution, motivated by corrupt individuals whose meanness is beyond dispute.
How it can be redressed at this very late stage beggars the mind; I can only hope it be done as peacefully as possible.
If this is really true, then it's a clear sign of decline: Obama sacrificed a huge chunk of American freedom just for the sake
of personal political revenge. The USA is transitioning from a laissez faire to a highly burocratized, byzantine economy.
Shortly after the USSR's experiment with communism collapsed, I read an article which suggested that if the noise from that fall
was loud, even louder will be the noise when the second shoe (the American experiment with capitalism) falls.
And this is the crux of why I appreciate The Donald. His is the most honest face the US can present to the world at this point
in time. So look at it closely, and marvel at where we have come to.
I am so glad I did not vote for Obama a second time around.
LOL (first time I've ever written this!)
You made the same mistake I did in 2008. The deck was really stacked in that election, though I was too blind to see it at
the time. Smiling & smooth-talking black face issuing zillions of promises, and this was right after the Codpiece Commander. It
took me a whole year to realize I'd been suckered, and by 2012 understood the fix was STILL on. Obama had lost most all of his
glitter by then, so the Power Elites arranged his opposition to be a financial predator/Mormon bishop paired up with the most
awful Libertarian POS I've ever seen. Speaking the honest truth here, I'd prefer to have Sarah Palin as POTUS to Paul Ryan. What
a combo! That's why I offered anybody I met 10:1 odds on Obama winning. Hillary thought she had had seen a winning pattern from
all that, and arranged to have as her opponent a fellow named Donald Trump.
@15 Zachary Smith "How else to interpret 'only the merest scratch of a womaniser' or 'how clean Trump has managed to keep himself'."
Zachary Smith, I have been posting here for a number of years, and on this I have to agree with the newcomer Tess Ting
Trump has been put under intense investigation by Deep State hacks who are determined to see him impeached.
And all they have come up with is that he is a compulsive pussy-grabber (no shit, hey?).
To my mind Trump is a very offensive human being, but that isn't an impeachable character trait.
I had assumed that he would have skeletons in his cupboard that would be grounds for impeachment.
Well, if he has then he has hidden them extraordinarily well, because Mueller with all his resources hasn't found any.
Indeed, Mueller's investigation is so well-resourced that the only conclusion I can reach is that Trump has no such skeletons.
As I say, that is extraordinary.
But - apparently - also true.
Blooming Barricade , Jan 13, 2019 9:21:09 PM |
link
Astonishing how out in the open the military coup plotting against Venezuela is right now, it was consisted an outrage to overthrow
Allende and that was even before direct proof of US involvement, now the anti-war and left wing consciousness of the public and
the intellectual class has been so corroded that nobody care and many even see an attempted coup as a god thing. The ideological
counter revolution in full swing.
@ Yeah, Right who wrote:
"
Indeed, Mueller's investigation is so well-resourced that the only conclusion I can reach is that Trump has no such skeletons.
"
I would just bring your attention to the possibility that bringing Trump down brings them down as well. Your assertion that
Trump doesn't have any skeletons in the closet is laughable.
Also consider that most of what is known comes from compromised sources and much of the house of cards we live is built on
sketchy assumptions.
Cui Bono for Trump?
I am beginning to understand how Trump fits the elite plan and instead of your "grab them by the pussy" thought change it to
"they have him by the balls". They played his ego to get him to run the race and then, gee, he won.
I now see Trump as the last great hope of the elite to carve out as big a chunk as they can of the new world....and try and
hold onto it. The ongoing proxy conflicts will keep the musical chair game playing for a bit more but then something is going
to stop the music.
A shrink told me once that after fire came music. What comes after music?
How did I know that you would be first up after b's exhaustive story on the IC's corruption and utterly obvious attempt to
take Trump down to cry, "Fiction."
Here is a reply to all your points:
- yes, the Russia-bad narrative was picking up steam before Trump's election. The MSM and TPTB incorrectly surmised that there
would be enough anti-Russia fervor among the masses that pinning the accusation on Trump would stick. It did not. It is evidence
of THEIR stupidity.
- you must have never heard of keeping your enemies close. The Clintons are powerbrokers. Trump used them. Maybe he did like them
at one point, but clearly shat on his relationship with them and since the election they have truly been trashed and unable to
recover any good fortune or power. The Dems made a mistake will backing HRC. They weren't acting under Deep State orders once
again, Occam's Razor dictates that stupidity is the culprit here.
- How does FBI informant in campaign neccessarily implicate Trump in conspiracy and not confirm IC's weasely attempts to dig up
dirt?
- Look at prior Repub primaries? Notice anything? Populists don't float in the Yacht Club Party, do they? Trump was an anomoly
indicitive of the times (again, Occam's Razor).
- Again, it is absolutely absurd and suspicious that you can not admit that the Dems are a party of retards and that they consistently
step over quarters to pick up pennies.
- Your opinion that Trump's policies do not differ from the Dems needs qualifying. I don't agree that his domestic policies align
and verdict is still out on his FP. We know he is not a True-Believer, which is good.
- British involvement again suggests that the IC is compromised and globalized yielding national sovereignty to centralized planning.
Trump deserves that ire and proves that there is a contest afoot.
If Trump's corporate bankruptcies are so well-known, and picked over several times by different media sources (even Snopes
has covered them), surely any other behaviour or incident that might call Trump's character or ethics into question must have
been uncovered by Robert Mueller by now?
I can't imagine the scale of exploding heads among the media talking heads and the establishment of the two parties, IF, Trump
gets re-elected. DC would be in serious melt down. After 4 years of continuous assault the voters may actually repudiate the corporate
media and the DC elites in the 2020 elections.
In any case with the Democrat candidates starting to announce we are essentially into the next presidential campaign. I don't
think it is smart to under-estimate Trump's electoral chances.
"Normally the FBI needs to clear such counter-intelligence investigations with the Justice Department. In this case it did
not do so at all:"This sounds like the same "kangaroo court" MO Scott Ritter detailed a few years ago:
"Simply put, the Russia NIA is not an "IC-coordinated" assessment -- the vehicle for such coordination, the NIC, was not directly
involved in its production, and no NIO was assigned as the responsible official overseeing its production. Likewise, the Russia
NIA cannot be said to be the product of careful coordination between the CIA, NSA and FBI -- while analysts from all three agencies
were involved in its production, they were operating as part of a separate, secretive task force operating under the close supervision
of the Director of the CIA, and not as an integral part of their home agency or department."
Why does it have to be either-or?; it could have been for insurance AND warmongering narrative/dog whistling.
Escalation towards war with Russia was a matter of public record in late pre-election 2016, thanks to Clinton News Network
... now ask yourselves where is that general in the press conference nowadays?
NemesisCalling @31: Here is a reply to all your points
Well, you haven't replied to all my points, nor have you addressed the the thrust of my remarks. But I'll answer the issues
that you raised so my view is clear to everyone.
= - yes, the Russia-bad narrative was picking up steam before Trump's election. The MSM and TPTB incorrectly surmised that there
would be enough anti-Russia fervor among the masses that pinning the accusation on Trump would stick. It did not. It is evidence
of THEIR stupidity. Wrong. Firstly, I was referring to the anti-Russia imperative in official circles NOT to the propaganda effort. That imperative
intensified greatly after Russia blocked USA-proxy takeover of Syria (2013), and Crimea and Donbas (2014). In fact,
Kissinger
wrote a WSJ Op-Ed in Aug 2014 that issued a cryptic call for MAGA.
"picking up steam before Trump's election" needs some unpacking. The anti-Russia fervor among the masses has been
entirely concocted, and mostly AFTER 2014.
Nothing has stuck to Trump because there's no substance to the allegations.
= - you must have never heard of keeping your enemies close. The Clintons are powerbrokers. Trump used them. Maybe he did like
them at one point, but clearly shat on his relationship with them and since the election they have truly been trashed and unable
to recover any good fortune or power. The Dems made a mistake will backing HRC. They weren't acting under Deep State orders once
again, Occam's Razor dictates that stupidity is the culprit here. What does Occam's Razor have to say about the remarkable continuity of US foreign and domestic policy for the last 30 years?
Trump and the Clintons were known to be close. Even their daughter's were/are close.
Are you unaware of the CIA connections of Clinton, Bush, and Obama? Should we assume that Trump is free of any such connection?
= - How does FBI informant in campaign neccessarily implicate Trump in conspiracy and not confirm IC's weasely attempts to dig
up dirt? The FBI informant (Felix Sater) worked for Trump from about 2001 to 2013. This was essentially the same period in which Mueller
was FBI Director. Mueller and Comey are close and are connected to the Clinton's.
The informant wasn't investigating Trump or digging up dirt on him, he was informing on the Russian mob, and probably using
employment by Trump to get closer to the mob. FBI/counter intel might have also used info provided to turn some of the Russians
into US intel assets.
= - Look at prior Repub primaries? Notice anything? Populists don't float in the Yacht Club Party, do they? Trump was an anomoly
indicitive of the times (again, Occam's Razor). Have you heard of the Tea Party? Have you heard of Obama using the IRS against the Tea Party? Seems that a Republican populist
would get a lot of votes against the hated Hillary who championed Obama's "legacy".
- Again, it is absolutely absurd and suspicious that you can not admit that the Dems are a party of retards and that they
consistently step over quarters to pick up pennies. You can't admit that the Dem's have failed the left so consistently that it is unlikely to be due to their mental capacity
or an accident of circumstance.
= - Your opinion that Trump's policies do not differ from the Dems needs qualifying. I don't agree that his domestic policies
align and verdict is still out on his FP. We know he is not a True-Believer, which is good. I didn't say that they don't differ from the Dems, I said that Trump policies are consistent with policies of previous Administrations
and that Hillary likely would've ruled in much the same way.
= - British involvement again suggests that the IC is compromised and globalized yielding national sovereignty to centralized
planning. Trump deserves that ire and proves that there is a contest afoot The US IC is undoubtedly primary and universally acknowledged to be the lead in the US-Brit Intel relationship.
The only 'contest' I can discern is how best to fool the people.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
You seem to believe that a populist outsider can be elected President. And, you also believe that a US President can be both
all powerful (Obama) or constrained by Deep State whim (Trump).
You also seem to believe that Trump's rhetoric is gospel-truth and means what you think it does. Surprise! "Negotiation with
Russia" doesn't mean peace. Troop 'pull out' doesn't mean it'll happen any time soon (and possibly never). Anti-TPP doesn't mean
he won't implement TPP provisions in other trade agreements. Etc.
PS The establishment doesn't benefit DESPITE our populist President's, they benefit BECAUSE we are willing to believe that
our populist President's work for US.
Jr, it was a fruitless endeavor, to be sure, but I gave it a shot.
For the record, I never counted Trump as savior, although he could very well be if he continues on getting caught with his
dick in his hand as the empire around him crumbles. He's not a true believer, but he can at the very least be a useful idiot for
the real anti-imperialists in the world.
It is of note that Oleg Deripaska is not a stranger to the world of politics and politicians. Before his fortunes changed dramatically,
Oleg Deripaska was well-known for entertaining world politicians on his luxury yacht moored off Kassiopi in the northwest corner
of the Greek Island of Corfu.
The Rothschilds have an estate outside Kassiopi. Among the many high-powered friends and guests
of Deripaska was UK Tory politician, George Osborne, who visited him on his yacht at Kassiopi while still British Chancellor of
the Exchequer. Osborne and EU Commissioner Peter Mandelson, a powerful force in Tony Blair's government, were both guests at a
function held aboard the yacht in 2008. Baron Mandelson's position in the EU, at the time, led to accusations of a conflict of
interest.
Among other movers and shakers, John McCain was also a friend of Oleg Deripaska, but that friendship may have soured
after the virtual collapse of the Russian billionaire companies. McCain was more a fairweather friend than a stalwart ally through
thick and thin. The reason I mention these tidbits is because the corporate media fails to join all the pieces that show just
how corrupt Western politicians have become.
For a thorough update on the Integrity Initiative and its offshoots, check out the latest from legal investigator Barbara Boyd.
To defeat the "Deep State" in the U.S., it is essential to understand the role of British Intelligence. While it is essential
to know the role of Hillary Clinton, Obama, Comey, DOJ/FBI operatives, et.al., it is even more important to understand the geopolitical
assumptions behind Russiagate. And for that, one must turn to the British.
It would help to get a handle on the precise nature and format of these FBI "under oath" fishing expeditions if the FBI released
transcripts of a few of the recent hi-profile Q & A sessions. If suspects are being convicted for misdemeanors of dubious relevance
to the stated aim of the Mueller Crusade then transcripts would allow inconsistencies to be counted and evaluated. It would also
be interesting to discover whether the FBI uses a seductive approach to questioning, or a confrontational approach, given the
petty nature of the 'crimes' exposed to date.
The aim of the counterintelligence operation and of the
Russiagate hoax was not to build a prosecution
case against President Trump. It was to put the United States in constitutional limbo by creating a parallel and competing center
of constitutional legitimacy.
The Obama Administration would live on in the structure of this "investigation", without ever having
to relinquish power to Trump. The investigation would form the center of "The Resistance", with the ability to question the legitimacy
of the Trump Administration.
I didn't say that they don't differ from the Dems, I said that Trump policies are consistent with policies of previous Administrations
and that Hillary likely would've ruled in much the same way.
This is very true but only in the same sort of overgeneralised sense with you populate your latest CT. That is, sweep any of
the plainly ridiculous assumptions in your theory under the widest possible rug available to conspiratards.
At least you aint exactly drinking the Orange Kool-Aid like so many of the posters on this thread. That's a big positive in
my book. As for them, it's more a reflection of the love for rightwing authoritarianism than for Trump himself. What they really
wish for is a crafier, shrewder Amerikkkan version of Putin, but they accept Trump because his bumbling is the existential proof
of US decline in relative power, as if such proof was necessary.
And if you overlook all Trump's achievements (such as they are):
1. Obamacare/Medicaid expansion repeal and subsequent degradation of the enrollment and funding processes by executive degree
when appeal failed thanks only to McCain's "in yo office sucka" thumbs down vote.
2. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations (basically same thing)
3. SCOTUS and federal bench selections
The US system is meant to create a uniparty environment whereby opposing views are compromised into a "third way" legislative
process.
I grok this system is broken and completely controlled by the wealthiest (show me a political system anywhere that you prefer
that is not controlled by the wealthiest) but the funding mechanisms need changing before there will ever be significant change
to governing processes.
Trump through his ignorance, corruption and loose lips has tilted the playing field left. Hilliary through her elitism, arrogance,
corruption and lack of retail political skills gets a big assist in the same tilting.
Those who believe (if any truly do) that Trump represents anything more than the end of Reaganist conservatism are "wishin'
and hopin'" as Dusty Springfield would say.
I do applaud those who are willing to show in the comments that they suffer from the real "Trump Derangement Syndrome," such
as your good buddy James. They're all crooks, in his opinion.
So what is it Jim? Do you excuse Trump only or do you excuse them all? LMAO
Putin January 2017 - "You know, there is a category of people who leave without saying goodbye, out of respect for the situation
that has evolved, so as not to upset anything. And then there are people who keep saying goodbye but don't leave. I believe the
outgoing administration belongs to the second category.
What are we seeing in the United States? We are seeing the continuation of an acute internal political struggle despite the
fact that the presidential election is over and it ended in Mr Trump's convincing victory. Nevertheless, in my opinion, several
goals are being set in this struggle. Maybe there are more, but some of them are perfectly obvious."
The first is to undermine the legitimacy of the US president-elect. By the way, in this regard, I would like to point out that
whether deliberately or not, these people are causing enormous damage to US interests. Simply enormous. The impression is that,
after a practice run in Kiev, they are now ready to organise a Maidan in Washington to prevent Trump from taking office."
Posted by: pretzelattack , Jan 14, 2019 10:05:43 AM |
link
sure, no doubt trump has been involved in financial improprieties; this in no way means he colluded with Russia to fix the election,
or that russia on its own hacked the election, or any of the other false narratives the ic is trying to cram down our throats
with the connivance of the msm and (mostly, but there are some republicans pushing it, too) the "centrist" dems.
And the clintons have their own skeletons, but they seem to be judgement proof with the aid of comey et al.
The only real difference between Trump and the Clintons at end of the day is they are smart lawyers who obviously better understand
how to navigate the treacherous legal waters surrounding them.
They also know what the definition of "is, is" and how to carefully craft their words in public, while Trump is all loose cannon
all the time ahd his legal representation appears to follow his lead, IE Giuliani and Cohen.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 14, 2019 9:45:39 AM | 45:
We are seeing the continuation of an acute internal political struggle despite the fact that the presidential election is
over and it ended in Mr Trump's convincing victory.
Not really. What we are seeing is Deep State controlled media force-feeding the public a toxic concoction: the narrative of a
political struggle that centers on anti-Russia hysteria.
Maybe you missed Romney's Op-Ed in which he praised Trump's pro-establishment policies while attacking his Russia-friendly
'pull out' from Syria. That's the best example of the two-faced establishment bullsh*t.
Welcome to the rabbit hole.
Robert Snefjella , Jan 14, 2019 10:57:29 AM |
link
What is loosely called 'globalism', consisting of various trends and ideologies and practices: the EU and the aborted for now
'North American Union' and satellites, and cell phones able to instantly transmit images from the other side of the planet, and
so on, has also importantly aimed at and advocated for and implemented various means by which national sovereignty was eroded.
And this erosion meant a reduction of the ability of a country's people to wield an effective national politics, let alone
something vaguely democratic, or to implement policies which were at odds with the various globalist institutions and imperatives
and programs. So we've seen on numerous occasions, for example, the IMF impose its globalist economic 'recipe' on a nation's economic
policies.
And even the destruction of Libya in 2011 was primarily or importantly directed at preventing Libya from implementing a national
financial strategy intended to give African countries an alternative to the depredations of global financial 'business as usual'.
But over the last two years the movement to restore or renovate national sovereignty has made something of a comeback.
So for example, Macron as recently as roughly two years ago was being lauded as a great new leader of the globalist project,
and both he and Merkel have gone on record decrying the very concept of national sovereignty.
But now Macron and Merkel are largely reviled, especially Macron, by their people, and 'populist' enthusiasm strengthens. You
can see the same trend in virtually every European country.
And in the United States, the tens of millions of 'deplorables' backing Trump are doing so partly, perhaps mostly, because
he champions the restoration of national sovereignty and has questioned dominant globalist institutions.
Now for those who are committed to the view that Trump doesn't really mean it, that he isn't really an American nationalist,
and so on, well, fine, believe what you like. But in the end, Trump's base of support is nationalistic, and that is as I noted
above a very general trend that is quickly manifesting.
Re. the USA, when the handmaidens of power, aka politicians, the servant class in an oligarchic corporatist 'state,' are alarmingly
seen to fight to the death in public it is crystal clear that control (which may take the shape of relatively informal and obscure
networks ) is lost, .. > the 'fight' will only serve to weaken all parties.
Trump is loathed because he upset the apple cart and revealed weakness and fissures in the system. (+ possibly because he is
an upstart, from the wrong side of whatever, has bad hair, is dumb, a thief, more )
He ran as an anti-establishment maverick:
"Drain the Swamp!"
"Lock her up!"
"Build the Wall!"
- and was elected only for that reason. It was disconcertingly easy to do, which is also terrifying to the PTB. Plus, election/voter
fraud did not perform as expected - help !! The MSM promoted him with mega 24/24 coverage - help !!
As the no. 1 disruptive foe is merely an elderly scummy biz type, an intruder, some other entity like malignant agressive Russia
had to be associated with him. (Yes, is was Obama-Clinton who started the highjinks + the following Mueller investig.; see b at
top - also, bashing Russia gradually took wing as it recovered under Putin, the Ukraine plots did not work out, etc. *Crimea!*
the last straw! ..)
If Obama had announced that 2K USA personnel were to be withdrawn from Syria because the good folks want their wonderful husbands
and wives, great ppl, our folks, home soon, they have dutifully served, etc. the MSM and anyone who bothered to digest that news
would have clapped and sent off pixel sparkles and sweet tweets.
Very difficult to judge: what is the result of infighting in the US vs. any agreed-on never mind coherent foreign policy? That
the question is even asked - all over the world now - spells stage one collapse.
Now for those who are committed to the view that Trump doesn't really mean it, that he isn't really an American nationalist,
and so on, well, fine, believe what you like. But in the end, Trump's base of support is nationalistic ..."
Did Obama really mean it when he touted "Change You Can Believe In"? No. His rhetoric was meant to turn the page
from the Bush Administration excesses and convince the world that USA was not the threat that they perceived us to be. In fact,
he was given a Nobel Prize for essentially not being Bush. But it was all psyop. Obama refused to hold CIA accountable for rendition
and torture, refused to stop NSA pervasive spying, conducted covert wars and regime change ops, bragged of his drone targeting
skills, made Bush tax cuts permanent, bailed out bankers, etc.
Does Trump really mean his nationalism? Only to the extent that a nationalist was needed to meet the challenge from Russia
and China. People don't fight for globalist principals.
US is still a member of NATO, still involved in the Middle East, still has hundreds of bases around the world.
Trump's nationalist credentials are further belied by such things as: adding TPP provisions to the new North American trade
agreement; attacking Syria based on false flags; arming Ukraine; pulling out of the INF treaty and engaging in an unnecessary
and costly arms race; actively seeking to overthrow the governments of Iran and Venezuela; etc.
Is there a requirement for an open trial on these sort of things. I'm not sure about the US, but normally gag orders are all
that's required to keep something quiet. All the people around Trump could be taken down in this way with charges that would stick.
Apparently the only one they cannot take down in this way is the president (Another post up now at SST on the legalities of investigating
the president). As far as I know, the president can only be taken down by impeachment so I guess they wouldn't try to use collusion
with Israel for that unless they could keep what they were impeaching him for secret.
And in the United States, the tens of millions of 'deplorables' backing Trump are doing so partly, perhaps mostly, because
he champions the restoration of national sovereignty and has questioned dominant globalist institutions.
Yes, "Amerikkka First" represents nationalism for sure. Many, maybe most Amerikkkans have always been nationalistic and detest
globalist structures because they view them as limiting Amerikkka's rightful global sovereignty. This is a fine distinction
I believe gets lost in commentary such as yours. Trump isn't looking to retreat from Amerikkkan Exceptionalism at all, it his
raison d etre for the tariffs and increases in military spending.
The movement which elected Trump represents the nostalgic view of a lost Amerikkkan dominance over the globe, which of course
they blame on those hated Democratic and Republican establishment globalists, Bushes, Clintons and Obama.
You see all that and then assume that the Hillary-Trump contest was genuine?
Why not assume that the Deep State's candidate won in every election since Carter and work from there.
That first is a difficult one to answer, for I quite agree with you on the second part. Rigged elections from Carter on to
the present day matches my own thoughts as well. In 2000 "they" had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to get their man in
office, but GWB did indeed move into the White House.
My own theory about 2016 is that everybody miscalculated. Trump was (IMO) running as an ego-building publicity stunt. Hillary
(and her Deep State sponsors) had actively helped Trump get the nomination with hundreds of millions of dollars of free publicity
which also enhanced the bottom lines of Big Media. His multiple flaws were airbrushed away. Hillary ran a horrible campaign because
she is an arrogant and "entitled" woman. The incompetence of that campaign simply didn't uncover the extent to which she was hated
by so many people. (myself included, but I didn't vote for the torture-loving Trump, either)
The biggest mistake of all was not having any plan in place to use the touch-screen voting systems (think "Diebold") to
nail down her victory. Again an opinion, but I think that was judged to be a little too risky plus the fact it was obviously
totally unnecessary. Hillary didn't have a "loss" speech prepared, and Trump didn't have a "victory" one.
This is why I call Trump an "accidental" President. I'll admit the Deep State has reacted pretty well since 2016, but they're
still playing catchup. Israel - to name just one - remains in shell shock.
Further to American's general support for Trump's declared intention of reduction of troops in Syria and Afghanistan, the Daily
Caller on the 9th of January 2019 cited 56 % in support, 20 % not sure, and 27 % opposing. This is after MSM and general national
political outrage and 'deep concern' over Trump's decision.
Note that US involvement in Syria has been justified by the most lurid of lies and disinfo continually poured for years into
American's psyches. For Tulsi Gabbard to have a direct conversation with Assad (the designated 'butcher of Damascus', the 'horrid
monstrous dictator' accused over and over of attacking his own people, often with chemical weapons from barrel bombs, and especially
targeting children and hospitals: the man can have no soul, no heart! We must help the Syrians in their struggle against this
animal!) was an outrage!
So not only do most Americans want American troops out of Syria, it would seem that there is some growing immunity among the
people of the United States to their diet of diseased propaganda.
The populist hero must be portrayed as an "outsider" that takes on the establishment. Obama was positioned in much the same way.
Trump is no "outsider". He is very establishment. Even before running for President, he had access that ordinary people never
get.
Trump only won because of a bizarre technicality of the American electoral system.
You are directing our attention to what the establishment wants us to see. It ignores Hillary's spectacular failure: snubbing
of Sanders progressives; Cold shoulder to black voters; insult to white voters ("deplorables"); choosing not to campaign in crucial
states; the wierdness of Bill Clinton being discovered meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch (Bill Clinton is one of
the most recognizable people in America - why why why would be meeting with the Attorney General on an airport tarmac?), etc.
If the race were easy, Trump woundn't be a populist hero, would he? And Hillary's winning the popular vote is a nice consolation
prize to the Clinton's. Plus, it nicely sets up the fake Deep State vs. Trump conflict.
While Trump is a member of the elite establishment that practically owns the country he has always been a pariah for one main
reason. He does not honor the unspoken code of never exposing inside information about other elite members. He is a big mouth.
Given that, the establishment and their propaganda arm of the media have been out to get him even before he was elected. His presidency
has largely been an inside struggle. However, Trump is clever and crafty. During his tenure he has been give access to tremendous
amounts of information about his political enemies and he continues to bait, insult and fire them, pushing them deeper and deeper
into insanity.
He will fight fire with fire. If they attempt to impeach him he will tit for tat release information incriminating
his enemies. I view this as a positive direction for the US in the long run. ALL of these people need to be banished to "Elba".
Maybe they will fight to the death of both sides. One can dream.
This article is asinine. By the book, Bolton takes orders from Trump... not the other way
around. Bolton is just being used as an excuse. Trump was never serious about getting the US
out of any wars. I confidently predict that US troops will still be in Syria this time next
year.
"Was he aware of Bolton's request for a menu of targets in Iran for potential U.S.
strikes? Did he authorize it? Has he authorized his national security adviser and secretary
of state to engage in these hostile actions and bellicose rhetoric aimed at Iran? "
Yes, Yes and Yes, that's why he's an orange fucktard.
Bolton's former deputy, Mira Ricardel, reportedly told a gathering the shelling into the
Green Zone was "an act of war" to which the U.S. must respond decisively.
This war mongering harpy fortunately was kicked to the curb by melania trump!
Send the House, Senate, FBI, CIA, IRS & all others state operatives to fight in Iran.
Include the TSA for gods sake. Include the Obamas, Clintons and Bush's. So they can verify
that their weapons are all delivered again and work properly. Bring our troops home to defend
are border. Include NYT, WaPo and most of our current media in the Iran light brigade, so
they can charge with the rest of the parasites. Many problems will be solved in very short
order.
He's a temporary useful idiot for Trump who will flush him at his convenience. He's handy
to have around to encourage the Hawks do a group masturbation.
Seriously, if Ertogen tells Bolton to go **** off, he has no sauce. He's been neutered.
Let him act all important and play in the sand box all he wants.
trust the plan. there are white hats in government who have your best interest in mind.
you don't need to do anything other than pretend like everything is fine, they'll take care
of the rest. go to work and continue accepting continually devalued worthless fiat in
exchange for time you spend away from your family and doing things you love. trust the plan,
it's all going to be alright
"... By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane ..."
"... Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over the request detailed in Journal ..."
"... Bolton: Chickenhawk-in-Chief ..."
"... Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers. ..."
"... Why did Trump appoint Bolton? ..."
"... I think Bolton is a sop to Sheldon Aldelson. He may be playing a similar role to "The Mooch", I hope. ..."
"... Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that like a feudal fiefdom? ..."
"... Steven Cohen has an interesting editorial in RT, not about directly about Bolton but about the war parties' demand for ongoing M.E. conflict. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/448688-trump-withdrawal-syria-russia/ ..."
"... see what we could do ..."
"... Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton. Much the same can be said of Pompeo. ..."
"... I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking war. ..."
Posted on
January 14, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I am surprised
that Bolton has lasted this long. Bolton has two defining personal qualities that are not
conducive to long-term survival with Trump: having a huge ego and being way too obvious about
not caring about Trump's agenda (even with the difficulties of having it change all the time).
Bolton is out for himself in far too obvious a manner.
By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at
Common Dreams
Reminding the world that he is, as one critic put it, " a reckless advocate
of military force ," the Wall Street Journalrevealed
on Sunday that President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton "asked the
Pentagon to provide the White House with military options to strike Iran last year, generating
concern at the Pentagon and State Department."
"It definitely rattled people," a former U.S. official said of the request, which Bolton
supposedly made after militants aligned with Iran
fired mortars into the diplomatic quarter of Baghdad, Iraq that contains the U.S. Embassy
in early September. "People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about
hitting Iran."
"The Pentagon complied with the National Security Council's request to develop options for
striking Iran," the Journal reported, citing unnamed officials. "But it isn't clear if
the proposals were provided to the White House, whether Mr. Trump knew of the request, or
whether serious plans for a U.S. strike against Iran took shape at that time."
Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John
Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane."
Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no
mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert
on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over
the request detailed in Journal 's report.
"This administration takes an expansive view of war authorities and is leaning into
confrontation with Iran at a time when there are numerous tripwires for conflict across the
region," NIAC president Jamal Abdi warned in a statement . "It is
imperative that this Congress investigate Bolton's request for war options and pass legislation
placing additional legal and political constraints on the administration's ability to start a
new war of choice with Iran that could haunt America and the region for generations."
In a series of moves that have elicited concern from members of Congress, political experts,
other world leaders, and peace activists, since May the Trump administration has
ditched the Iran nuclear deal -- formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) -- and reimposed
economic sanctions .
NIAC, in November, urged the new Congress that convened at the beginning of the year to
challenge the administration's hawkish moves and restore U.S. standing on the world stage by
passing measures to block the sanctions re-imposed in August and November , and
reverse Trump's decision to breach the deal -- which European and Iranian diplomats have been
trying to salvage .
Iran continues to comply with the terms of JCPOA, according to the United Nations nuclear
watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). However, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's
nuclear chief, told state television on Sunday
that "preliminary activities for designing modern 20 percent (enriched uranium) fuel have
begun." While Iran has maintained that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, the nation would
still have to withdraw from the deal if it resumed enrichment at the level.
As Iran signals that it is considering withdrawing from the JCPOA, the Journal
report has critics worried that Bolton and Pompeo have the administration on a war path -- with
Bolton, just last week, insisting without any evidence that Iranian leadership is committed to
pursuing nuclear weapons. Some have compared that claim to former Vice President Dick Cheney's
infamous lie in 2002, to bolster support for the U.S. invasion, that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction.
As the Journal noted, "Alongside the requests in regards to Iran, the National
Security Council asked the Pentagon to provide the White House with options to respond with
strikes in Iraq and Syria as well."
So Bolton wants war with Iran? Pretty tall talk from a man who during the war in 'Nam
ducked into the Maryland Army National Guard because he had no desire to die in a Southeast
Asian rice paddy as he considered the war in Vietnam already lost. His words, not mine. The
Iranian military will not be the push over the Iraq army was. They are much better equipped
and motivated and have a healthy stock of missiles. They even have the Russian-made S-300
anti-aircraft missile system up and running.
Once you start a war, you never know where it will go. Suppose the Iranians consider –
probably correctly – that it is Israel's influences that led to the attack and so
launch a few missiles at them. What happens next? Will Hezbollah take action against them as
well. If the US attacks Iran, then there is no reason whatsoever for Iran not to attack the
various US contingents scattered around the Middle East in places like Syria. What if the
Russians send in their Aerospace Forces to help stop an attack. Will they be attacked as
well? Is the US prepared to lose a carrier?
And how will the war end? The country is mountainous like Afghanistan so cannot be occupied
unless the entire complete total of all US forces are shipped over there. This is just lunacy
squared and surely even Trump must realize that if the whole thing is another Bay of Pigs, it
will be his name all over it in the history books and so sinking his chances for a 2020
re-election. And if the justification for the whole thing is a coupla mortars on a car park,
how will he justify any American loses? At this point I am waiting for Bolton to finish each
one of his speeches and tweets with the phrase-
Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just
drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and
bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers.
Calling Bolton on Pompeo "batshit crazy" cries out for revisions in the APA Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual (DSM).
Why did Trump appoint Bolton? A saying of LBJ, I believe attributed to Sam Rayburn, might
illuminate. "It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent
pissing in."
Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to
guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that
like a feudal fiefdom?
Not to be a broken record but should we blame the Dems? Arguably Trump's "out there"
gestures to the right are because he has to keep the Repubs on his side given the constant
threat of impeachment from the other side. Extremes beget extremes. There's also the Adelson
factor.
Of course this theory may be incorrect and he and Bolton are ideological soul mates, but
Trump's ideology doesn't appear to go much beyond a constant diet of Fox News. He seems quite
capable of pragmatic gestures which are then denounced by a horrified press.
The point might be, sure the Dems as part of the duopoly created the context within which
Trump now acts as president. Nonetheless there is a direct linear responsibility for his
actions that rests with him.
Unless you consider him so impaired as not to be responsible for his actions ;-)
So will the buck stop with Obama/Hillary for destroying Libya, the half million dead in
Syria, the covert support for the Saudis in Yemen which started under Obama, the coup in
Honduras, the deterioration in US/Russia relations to the point where nuclear war has once
again started to become thinkable? By these standards Trump's wrecking ball is quite
tiny.
It's not like the Obama administration and the EU didn't strike a nuclear deal with Iran
to freeze nuclear capable production and allow for lifting of sanctions -- how could they
have gone further? How could its deal be worse then the saber rattling of Trump/Bolton? Not
saying this as a fan of the Obama administration in general.
Pied Piper Memo. It's up in Wikileaks. Clinton campaign laid out a strategy to help Trump along so he would be their opponent.
They bet that he was too far out there for the general public to vote him in as
president.
...Everyone
including Trump was shocked he won. He has made an only partly successful hostile takeover of
the Republican party. The fact that he got only at best the second string, and mainly the
fourth string, to work in his Administration, Trump's repudiation of international
institutions and his trade war with China are all evidence that he was chosen by anyone, much
the less a cabal you create out of thin air called "the oligarchy"
As Frank Herbert said in Dune, the most enduring principles in the universe are accident
and error. Trump did not want to win. This was a brand-enhancing stunt for him that got out
of control.
Something for our would be Croesus and his minions: If you go to war with Persia, you will
destroy a mighty empire OK, not so mighty, but an empire nevertheless.
The US has previously run multiple conventual war simulations and in all cases the US lost
against Iran, only when the US used its nuclear option did the US prevail. The implications of a nuclear strike and how the Russian Federation will react, to having
yet another one of its allies attacked is unknown?
Really -- who cares? Any claim of 'all' is difficult to support under the best of
circumstances and unwise. Besides, suppose we could 'prevail' in a war with Iran -- why
should or would we want to? Are you OK with a little war with Iran if a couple of
conventional war simulations suggest we could win?
1) I really hope jim webb gets the def sec job. That would be a strong signal.
2) if the TDS infected bi-partisan consensus wants to impeach. They can build on this. I
suspect they won't though.
3) Keep in mind Trump like some trash talk. Pompeo seems here to stay. Not sure about
Bolton. But, as we saw with N. Korea, sometimes the crazy gets dialed up to 11, right before
things get calmed down.
Because that worked so well in the Balkans and Iraq and Libya, etc, etc etc. The world is
not what you think it is. Let us compare Iran as a country with America's loyal ally Saudi
Arabia as an example. Would you believe that Iran has a Jewish population that feel safe
there and have no interest in moving to Israel? In Saudi Arabia, if you renounce Islam that
is a death sentence. Women have careers in Iran and drive cars. Woman have burkas in Saudi
Arabia and have very few freedoms. Iran has taken in refugees from the recent wars. Saudi
Arabia has taken virtually none from Syria. Iran wants to have their own country and work out
their own problems as they are a multicultural country. Saudi Arabia is a medieval monarchy
that has been exporting the most extremist view of Islam around the world using their oil
money. Ideologically, all those jihadists the past few decades can be traced to Wahhabi
teachings. Now tell me that if you had a choice, which country sounds more attractive to live
in?
Having been to Iran, it is an amazing place and they are the most welcoming of people. One
of the few places I have seen female taxi drivers, too. Women are very self-assured there
– they will blow past men to get to what they want to do. Lots of people don't like the
Islamic government (and they will note that to you), but as you mentioned, they are NOT
medieval.
The government praises science and technology in roadside ads up and down the
country. The ads, by the way, are almost always in Farsi and English, as English is the 2nd
language of the country. And I'd like to add that they love Americans. It didn't matter what
town I was in and we went to some small towns. I literally had people yelling "We love
America" and asking for my autograph. And no – I am not famous. They are the most
generous, gregarious people I have ever met in my life.
I have odd memories of my trip like being in a taxi going into Tehran listening to a
instrument only version of Madonna's La Isla Bonita (they really like Madonna). And going to
beautiful mosques which are filled with mirrors and coloured light so it's almost like a
disco (mirrors and water are ancient pre-Islamic symbols). And the gardens – in odd
places like underpasses that happen to have a bit of opening to light and rain. Where ever
they can stick a garden they will do it.
Iran is a hodgepodge of so many thoughts, peoples, and currents. One thing they are though
– is fiercely loyal to Iran. Not the government, but to their homeland, to their
people. There is no way we would win. Due to geography and due to the losses they would be
willing to sustain we would be destroyed. We would lose so badly that it would look like the
First Anglo-Afghan War where only one Brit got back after the entire army was destroyed. We
tussle with them on their own land at our peril.
Saudi Arabia is America's loyal ally! You mean the SA that financed, planned, and manned
the 9/11 attacks?
Because SA is a bigger shithole than Iran is no argument. What does need to be faced is that
SA has a lock on American politics through its financial control of Washington DC swamp
dwellers.
The Balkans is quiet now. Iraq became a mess when Paul Bremer snatched defeat from near total
victory.
Libya, Syria and Ukraine are the victims of malevolent US meddling (as was Vietnam). I am
hoping that President Trump can reverse course and create a foreign policy that puts the
interests of people first, particularly the interests of the people of the USA. Forlorn hope
perhaps.
I would not want to live in either of them.
Well said. All religious fundamentalists are dangerous because they believe they are the
"chosen ones" and therefore superior to "non-believers", whose lives are less important and
therefore expendable if and when they feel so inclined.
(1) Echoing other responses, I suggest we ask the "Iranian people" if they would like the
U.S. to help them into modernity. Given our track record in Iran and other ME nations, I'm
not sure they would welcome our assistance, particularly if it involved "a few explosions" or
so.
(2) It is "the people" that are always hurt first, and the most, in such interventions,
not the government.
I wasn't sure if this was a serious comment or one meant to provoke. It did provoke me to
make an earlier response. I thank the moderators for blocking it (sincerely – not being
sarcastic).
Bah, who cares about a little collateral damage. The Iranian people obviously don't know
what's good for them. We just need to bring back Wolfowitz to make sure they are on hand to
lay down palm fronds before the US forces as they enter Baghdad after we nuke it into rubble.
Speaking of sociopaths, I am sure Darth Vader would make himself available to advise from
Wyoming. Where the hell is Elliot Abrams when you need him. What's Rumsfeld doing these days?
How great would it be to get the old gang together again, under the maniacal leadership of
Bolton. Maybe Dubya would be willing to do the "mission accomplished" as the smoke clears
over the whole MENA region. What a great bunch of guys.
You're a regular humanitarian bomber. Reminds me of "Assad must go" and the fact 'we'
never bombed him but all the people, all around the nation of the ilk you pretend to want to
help by doing the same thing in Iran.
At best, you are speaking a bunch of hooey without thinking. Oh, and last I heard Iran has
not invaded another country for something like 400 years. Look in your mirror.
Are the Iranian people asking us to invade their country? In the U.S. there seems to be
this bizarre nonchalance about war, which used to be considered a terrible scourge. After the
recent disasters in Libya, Ukraine, and Iraq, "regime change" should be discredited. The U.S.
has caused nothing but misery in the third world. We should focus on our own human rights and
democracy problems. If we want to do something abroad I favor ending our support for Israeli
crimes against Palestinians.
Gotta keep the military industrial complex well fed.
George Orwell was right, sadly; constant state of military alert and occasionally shifting
loose alliances between three competing major military powers.
What a waste of human resources.
IMHO, Bolton serves two roles in the Trump Administration.
As a symbol for the hawkier folks in Congress and the media
As a foil to Trump in a good cop-bad cop, or bad cop-worse cop role, if you prefer
The first provides air cover and the second forestalls ground action. The air cover says
see what we could do , and the ground action blusters to draw attention by
the media thereby serving to defuse any escalationist tendencies pushed by neo-cons.
Bolton is a price of admission, and will not have much of a purpose as the effects of the
Iran sanctions become more evident and that regime becomes more pliable. The people on the
ground in Iran seem to want de-escalation and more normal lives, like so many around the
world and at home.
Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good
for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton.
Much the same can be said of Pompeo.
I have never understood the lust for war with Iran it looks entirely irrational to me. The
Iranian government may not be to your taste and pursue policies you dislike in the
extreme, but is this a reason to gin up a war. I could never support such a conflict and would
do whatever I could to thwart it.
This is not news and while concerning is not fundamental.
Bolton was hired precisely because of his uberhawk obsession with Iran. That is in fact
the central credential that he brought to the table and as such there should be zero surprise
in this. Indeed the only real shocker is that he asked for plans rather than pulling them out
of his own fevered mind as he usually does.
And as others have noted the Pentagon draws up plans like this all the time. This kind of
speculative planning is a big part of what the Pentagon does and somewhere no doubt is
someone who is paid to prepare for the "inevitable" war in Jamaca.
The question really is whether we will act upon these plans, or some others, and from what
I read of this article that is no more likely than it was a few months ago. Scary yes but no
scarier than it already was.
Well, what do they want us to think? Of course this is predictable–even
SOP–for Bolton. But someone in the Pentagon is offering some pushback, or wants to
suggest there is resistance. Or someone in the CIA. Some of these people prefer wars to
quagmires, especially after an exhausting 20 years. And climbing into bed with the Saudis and
Israelis to fight Iran may not appeal to everyone.
Some may even see that Iran is a much more promising place for consumer and capital
growth, and implementation of bourgeois democracy, than Saudi Arabia. But Mr. Bolton might
say that that's the point.
I think we may be closer to war with Iran than most of us care to think. Trump is under
siege from multiple investigations with no room to run, the Democrats now have the House and
will only intensify the pressure, Pompeo and Bolton–both Iran hawks–are now in
charge of our foreign policy, and a former Boeing executive (with stock options?) is in
charge of the Pentagon, Trump is also being pushed into war by Saudi Arabia and
Israel–his two closest buddies–and probably the two most malign influences on US
policy, and finally, our economy is beginning to look shakey, and the normal functions of
government are now in shutdown. Shock doctrine holds that now is the time to act.
I recall a piece by Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader posted by another commenter here that he
would likely do so BEFORE the Dems took control of the House. I thought there was a lot of huffing and puffing going on, except for the likelihood of
wagging the dog, a tried and true tactic of US presidents.
Was chatting to a someone who was a junior official in the GWB administration. He
suggested the first thing Bolton does when he joins an administration is request these plans.
If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of any interesting events to bomb Iran.
Besides, he hasn't actually implemented them yet!
Amusingly its standard bureaucratic form to ensure you have plans on file. Otherwise when
asked to list the options, how would you make sure your plan for covert opps, or democracy
subsidizing/subverting payments appeared to be the most reasonable plan on the table?
Bolton is the same paleoconservative he ever was. And in that sense he is refreshing. One
gets tired of seeing Israelis and Saudis make proposals for spending American lives on
countless critically important projects.
There's also word that the US and Bolton have been giving quiet encouragement, with the
new President in Brazil, for a Venezuela intervention.
I think it's important, though, not to simply characterize these people as monsters but to
finger the system behind them. There was word before the election that Ms. Clinton has become
chummy with Bolton and some of the other neocons; we might be looking at much the same if she
had been elected.
Also, Kissinger bombed Cambodia and set off a genocide. Bolton is awful, but nothing
whatsoever will make me yearn for Mr. K. I have a friend who's still unhappy with me because
I turned down an invite to dine with him long ago, but I was just too frightened of what I
might say in his presence.
We can take it for granted that they are nuts–but nuttiness is like monstrousness,
not always so useful as explanation. They're also operating out of the logic of a
contradictory and decaying system. The neocons are the ideological successors of the
neoliberals (who liked to follow with the velvet fist rather than lead with it, but hardly
eschewed it). . . the culmination of much of the same logic. Egalite and fraternite trail far
behind these days.
I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include
Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political
acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each
of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet
the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they
keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to
bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking
war.
The National Security Advisor is a senior official in the executive branch. Who placed
these people in charge of our nation's foreign policy and to act in our name?
There is no threat to the United States involved here. I don't recall being given the
opportunity to vote on them or the policies they represent and push. It's past time these
individuals be removed from positions of power and influence and for American soft power and
diplomacy to be restored to preeminence. I want this country to stand for peace, freedom,
equal opportunity and hope; not war, chaos, fear and death.
The US foreign policy generally doesn't depend on individual people. It is the Swamp which
drive neolib/neocon policy which is driven mostly by the Deep State which means the coalition of
MIC, Wall Street and intelligence agencies and their agents of influence within the
government.
The most important question is how he managed to get into administration?
bolton is a bully and such people have no friends.
Notable quotes:
"... The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have made him even more enemies. ..."
"... If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas. He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office. Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has exited. ..."
"... the longer he remains National Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests. ..."
Henry Olsen is
very worried that other people in the administration might be out to get Bolton:
Whatever the motive, conservatives who favor more robust U.S. involvement abroad should
sit up and take notice. One of their strongest allies within the administration is under
attack. Whether Bolton's influence wanes or even whether he remains is crucially important
for anyone who worries that the president's impulses that deviate from past American foreign
policy will weaken American security.
There have been a number of unflattering reports about Bolton in the last few weeks, but for
the most part those stories are just proof that Bolton has no diplomatic skills and does a
terrible job of managing the administration's policy process. If Bolton had done a better job
of coordinating Syria policy, the administration's Syria policy wouldn't be the confused mess
that it is. If he hadn't made such a hash of things with the Turkish government, there would
have been no snub by Erdogan for anyone to report. There may be quite a bit of hostile leaking
against Bolton, but that is itself a testament to how many other people in the administration
loathe him.
The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious
colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have
made him even more enemies.
If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved
with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas.
He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office.
Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton
allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has
exited.
Bolton's influence in the administration is an important indication of what U.S. foreign
policy will look like in the months and years to come, and the longer he remains National
Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests.
Like that scene in Orwell's 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in
the middle of the Hate Week rally, the War on Terror was officially canceled and replaced by
the War on Populism. Or all right, it wasn't quite that abrupt. But seriously, go back and scan
the news. Note how the "Islamic terrorist threat" we had been conditioned to live in fear of on
a daily basis since 2001 seemed to just vanish into thin air. Suddenly, the "existential
threat" we were facing was "neo-nationalism," "illiberalism," or the pejorative designator du
jour, "populism."
In support of RRC, I looked up their agency expenses, and found they are less than $50
million. That's to pay for keeping up with almost a half million oil and gas wells, thousands
of operators, and multiple other duties, including taking care of a significant amount of
State income. There is a grand total of about 725 employees. Hats off!
"As Democratic Elites Reunite With Neocons, the Party's Voters Are Becoming Far More
Militaristic and Pro-War Than Republicans" [Glenn Greenwald, T
he Intercept ].
'But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support
for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents
overwhelming favor their removal.
The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support
withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support
withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent."
Those of you who followed my midterms worksheets will recall that the liberal Democrat
establishment packed the ballot with MILOs (candidates with Military, Intelligence, and Law
enforcement backgrounds, or Other things, like being a DA), preparing the way for further
militarization of the Party, and ultimately for war.
So will the buck stop with Obama/Hillary for destroying Libya, the half million dead in
Syria, the covert support for the Saudis in Yemen which started under Obama, the coup in
Honduras, the deterioration in US/Russia relations to the point where nuclear war has once
again started to become thinkable? By these standards Trump's wrecking ball is quite
tiny.
In support of RRC, I looked up their agency expenses, and found they are less than $50
million. That's to pay for keeping up with almost a half million oil and gas wells, thousands
of operators, and multiple other duties, including taking care of a significant amount of
State income. There is a grand total of about 725 employees. Hats off!
The US foreign policy generally doesn't depend on individual people. It is the Swamp which
drive neolib/neocon policy which is driven mostly by the Deep State which means the coalition of
MIC, Wall Street and intelligence agencies and their agents of influence within the
government.
The most important question is how he managed to get into administration?
bolton is a bully and such people have no friends.
Notable quotes:
"... The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have made him even more enemies. ..."
"... If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas. He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office. Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has exited. ..."
"... the longer he remains National Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests. ..."
Henry Olsen is
very worried that other people in the administration might be out to get Bolton:
Whatever the motive, conservatives who favor more robust U.S. involvement abroad should
sit up and take notice. One of their strongest allies within the administration is under
attack. Whether Bolton's influence wanes or even whether he remains is crucially important
for anyone who worries that the president's impulses that deviate from past American foreign
policy will weaken American security.
There have been a number of unflattering reports about Bolton in the last few weeks, but for
the most part those stories are just proof that Bolton has no diplomatic skills and does a
terrible job of managing the administration's policy process. If Bolton had done a better job
of coordinating Syria policy, the administration's Syria policy wouldn't be the confused mess
that it is. If he hadn't made such a hash of things with the Turkish government, there would
have been no snub by Erdogan for anyone to report. There may be quite a bit of hostile leaking
against Bolton, but that is itself a testament to how many other people in the administration
loathe him.
The National Security Advisor has had a reputation of being an abrasive and obnoxious
colleague for a long time, and his attempts to push his aggressive foreign policy agenda have
made him even more enemies.
If Bolton is "under attack" from within the administration, it is because he has behaved
with the same recklessness and incompetence that characterize his preferred policies overseas.
He should be attacked, and with any luck he will be defeated and driven from office.
Unfortunately, we have been seeing the opposite happen over the last few weeks: more Bolton
allies are joining the administration in important positions and at least one major rival has
exited.
Bolton's influence in the administration is an important indication of what U.S. foreign
policy will look like in the months and years to come, and the longer he remains National
Security Advisor the worse it will be for U.S. interests.
"... By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane ..."
"... Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over the request detailed in Journal ..."
"... Bolton: Chickenhawk-in-Chief ..."
"... Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers. ..."
"... Why did Trump appoint Bolton? ..."
"... I think Bolton is a sop to Sheldon Aldelson. He may be playing a similar role to "The Mooch", I hope. ..."
"... Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that like a feudal fiefdom? ..."
"... Steven Cohen has an interesting editorial in RT, not about directly about Bolton but about the war parties' demand for ongoing M.E. conflict. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/448688-trump-withdrawal-syria-russia/ ..."
"... see what we could do ..."
"... Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton. Much the same can be said of Pompeo. ..."
"... I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking war. ..."
Posted on
January 14, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I am surprised
that Bolton has lasted this long. Bolton has two defining personal qualities that are not
conducive to long-term survival with Trump: having a huge ego and being way too obvious about
not caring about Trump's agenda (even with the difficulties of having it change all the time).
Bolton is out for himself in far too obvious a manner.
By Jessica Corbett, staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at
Common Dreams
Reminding the world that he is, as one critic put it, " a reckless advocate
of military force ," the Wall Street Journalrevealed
on Sunday that President Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton "asked the
Pentagon to provide the White House with military options to strike Iran last year, generating
concern at the Pentagon and State Department."
"It definitely rattled people," a former U.S. official said of the request, which Bolton
supposedly made after militants aligned with Iran
fired mortars into the diplomatic quarter of Baghdad, Iraq that contains the U.S. Embassy
in early September. "People were shocked. It was mind-boggling how cavalier they were about
hitting Iran."
"The Pentagon complied with the National Security Council's request to develop options for
striking Iran," the Journal reported, citing unnamed officials. "But it isn't clear if
the proposals were provided to the White House, whether Mr. Trump knew of the request, or
whether serious plans for a U.S. strike against Iran took shape at that time."
Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts University, called the news "a reminder that when it comes to Iran, John
Bolton and Mike Pompeo are batshit insane."
Trita Parsi, founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), tweeted, "Make no
mistake: Bolton is the greatest threat to the security of the United States!" Parsi, an expert
on U.S.-Iranian relations and longtime critic of Bolton, called for his immediate ouster over
the request detailed in Journal 's report.
"This administration takes an expansive view of war authorities and is leaning into
confrontation with Iran at a time when there are numerous tripwires for conflict across the
region," NIAC president Jamal Abdi warned in a statement . "It is
imperative that this Congress investigate Bolton's request for war options and pass legislation
placing additional legal and political constraints on the administration's ability to start a
new war of choice with Iran that could haunt America and the region for generations."
In a series of moves that have elicited concern from members of Congress, political experts,
other world leaders, and peace activists, since May the Trump administration has
ditched the Iran nuclear deal -- formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) -- and reimposed
economic sanctions .
NIAC, in November, urged the new Congress that convened at the beginning of the year to
challenge the administration's hawkish moves and restore U.S. standing on the world stage by
passing measures to block the sanctions re-imposed in August and November , and
reverse Trump's decision to breach the deal -- which European and Iranian diplomats have been
trying to salvage .
Iran continues to comply with the terms of JCPOA, according to the United Nations nuclear
watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). However, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's
nuclear chief, told state television on Sunday
that "preliminary activities for designing modern 20 percent (enriched uranium) fuel have
begun." While Iran has maintained that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, the nation would
still have to withdraw from the deal if it resumed enrichment at the level.
As Iran signals that it is considering withdrawing from the JCPOA, the Journal
report has critics worried that Bolton and Pompeo have the administration on a war path -- with
Bolton, just last week, insisting without any evidence that Iranian leadership is committed to
pursuing nuclear weapons. Some have compared that claim to former Vice President Dick Cheney's
infamous lie in 2002, to bolster support for the U.S. invasion, that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction.
As the Journal noted, "Alongside the requests in regards to Iran, the National
Security Council asked the Pentagon to provide the White House with options to respond with
strikes in Iraq and Syria as well."
So Bolton wants war with Iran? Pretty tall talk from a man who during the war in 'Nam
ducked into the Maryland Army National Guard because he had no desire to die in a Southeast
Asian rice paddy as he considered the war in Vietnam already lost. His words, not mine. The
Iranian military will not be the push over the Iraq army was. They are much better equipped
and motivated and have a healthy stock of missiles. They even have the Russian-made S-300
anti-aircraft missile system up and running.
Once you start a war, you never know where it will go. Suppose the Iranians consider –
probably correctly – that it is Israel's influences that led to the attack and so
launch a few missiles at them. What happens next? Will Hezbollah take action against them as
well. If the US attacks Iran, then there is no reason whatsoever for Iran not to attack the
various US contingents scattered around the Middle East in places like Syria. What if the
Russians send in their Aerospace Forces to help stop an attack. Will they be attacked as
well? Is the US prepared to lose a carrier?
And how will the war end? The country is mountainous like Afghanistan so cannot be occupied
unless the entire complete total of all US forces are shipped over there. This is just lunacy
squared and surely even Trump must realize that if the whole thing is another Bay of Pigs, it
will be his name all over it in the history books and so sinking his chances for a 2020
re-election. And if the justification for the whole thing is a coupla mortars on a car park,
how will he justify any American loses? At this point I am waiting for Bolton to finish each
one of his speeches and tweets with the phrase-
Great point. None of my fellow comrades who actually participated in firefights (not just
drove trucks behind the lines) are eager to be led into battle by National Guard and
bone-spur deferrals, much less student deferral draft dodgers.
Calling Bolton on Pompeo "batshit crazy" cries out for revisions in the APA Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual (DSM).
Why did Trump appoint Bolton? A saying of LBJ, I believe attributed to Sam Rayburn, might
illuminate. "It is better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent
pissing in."
Likewise, Pompeo is the Koch brother's man. Both authoritarian billionaires trying to
guarantee their investment in Trump. You see the US is being run like a business, or is that
like a feudal fiefdom?
Not to be a broken record but should we blame the Dems? Arguably Trump's "out there"
gestures to the right are because he has to keep the Repubs on his side given the constant
threat of impeachment from the other side. Extremes beget extremes. There's also the Adelson
factor.
Of course this theory may be incorrect and he and Bolton are ideological soul mates, but
Trump's ideology doesn't appear to go much beyond a constant diet of Fox News. He seems quite
capable of pragmatic gestures which are then denounced by a horrified press.
The point might be, sure the Dems as part of the duopoly created the context within which
Trump now acts as president. Nonetheless there is a direct linear responsibility for his
actions that rests with him.
Unless you consider him so impaired as not to be responsible for his actions ;-)
So will the buck stop with Obama/Hillary for destroying Libya, the half million dead in
Syria, the covert support for the Saudis in Yemen which started under Obama, the coup in
Honduras, the deterioration in US/Russia relations to the point where nuclear war has once
again started to become thinkable? By these standards Trump's wrecking ball is quite
tiny.
It's not like the Obama administration and the EU didn't strike a nuclear deal with Iran
to freeze nuclear capable production and allow for lifting of sanctions -- how could they
have gone further? How could its deal be worse then the saber rattling of Trump/Bolton? Not
saying this as a fan of the Obama administration in general.
Pied Piper Memo. It's up in Wikileaks. Clinton campaign laid out a strategy to help Trump along so he would be their opponent.
They bet that he was too far out there for the general public to vote him in as
president.
...Everyone
including Trump was shocked he won. He has made an only partly successful hostile takeover of
the Republican party. The fact that he got only at best the second string, and mainly the
fourth string, to work in his Administration, Trump's repudiation of international
institutions and his trade war with China are all evidence that he was chosen by anyone, much
the less a cabal you create out of thin air called "the oligarchy"
As Frank Herbert said in Dune, the most enduring principles in the universe are accident
and error. Trump did not want to win. This was a brand-enhancing stunt for him that got out
of control.
Something for our would be Croesus and his minions: If you go to war with Persia, you will
destroy a mighty empire OK, not so mighty, but an empire nevertheless.
The US has previously run multiple conventual war simulations and in all cases the US lost
against Iran, only when the US used its nuclear option did the US prevail. The implications of a nuclear strike and how the Russian Federation will react, to having
yet another one of its allies attacked is unknown?
Really -- who cares? Any claim of 'all' is difficult to support under the best of
circumstances and unwise. Besides, suppose we could 'prevail' in a war with Iran -- why
should or would we want to? Are you OK with a little war with Iran if a couple of
conventional war simulations suggest we could win?
1) I really hope jim webb gets the def sec job. That would be a strong signal.
2) if the TDS infected bi-partisan consensus wants to impeach. They can build on this. I
suspect they won't though.
3) Keep in mind Trump like some trash talk. Pompeo seems here to stay. Not sure about
Bolton. But, as we saw with N. Korea, sometimes the crazy gets dialed up to 11, right before
things get calmed down.
Because that worked so well in the Balkans and Iraq and Libya, etc, etc etc. The world is
not what you think it is. Let us compare Iran as a country with America's loyal ally Saudi
Arabia as an example. Would you believe that Iran has a Jewish population that feel safe
there and have no interest in moving to Israel? In Saudi Arabia, if you renounce Islam that
is a death sentence. Women have careers in Iran and drive cars. Woman have burkas in Saudi
Arabia and have very few freedoms. Iran has taken in refugees from the recent wars. Saudi
Arabia has taken virtually none from Syria. Iran wants to have their own country and work out
their own problems as they are a multicultural country. Saudi Arabia is a medieval monarchy
that has been exporting the most extremist view of Islam around the world using their oil
money. Ideologically, all those jihadists the past few decades can be traced to Wahhabi
teachings. Now tell me that if you had a choice, which country sounds more attractive to live
in?
Having been to Iran, it is an amazing place and they are the most welcoming of people. One
of the few places I have seen female taxi drivers, too. Women are very self-assured there
– they will blow past men to get to what they want to do. Lots of people don't like the
Islamic government (and they will note that to you), but as you mentioned, they are NOT
medieval.
The government praises science and technology in roadside ads up and down the
country. The ads, by the way, are almost always in Farsi and English, as English is the 2nd
language of the country. And I'd like to add that they love Americans. It didn't matter what
town I was in and we went to some small towns. I literally had people yelling "We love
America" and asking for my autograph. And no – I am not famous. They are the most
generous, gregarious people I have ever met in my life.
I have odd memories of my trip like being in a taxi going into Tehran listening to a
instrument only version of Madonna's La Isla Bonita (they really like Madonna). And going to
beautiful mosques which are filled with mirrors and coloured light so it's almost like a
disco (mirrors and water are ancient pre-Islamic symbols). And the gardens – in odd
places like underpasses that happen to have a bit of opening to light and rain. Where ever
they can stick a garden they will do it.
Iran is a hodgepodge of so many thoughts, peoples, and currents. One thing they are though
– is fiercely loyal to Iran. Not the government, but to their homeland, to their
people. There is no way we would win. Due to geography and due to the losses they would be
willing to sustain we would be destroyed. We would lose so badly that it would look like the
First Anglo-Afghan War where only one Brit got back after the entire army was destroyed. We
tussle with them on their own land at our peril.
Saudi Arabia is America's loyal ally! You mean the SA that financed, planned, and manned
the 9/11 attacks?
Because SA is a bigger shithole than Iran is no argument. What does need to be faced is that
SA has a lock on American politics through its financial control of Washington DC swamp
dwellers.
The Balkans is quiet now. Iraq became a mess when Paul Bremer snatched defeat from near total
victory.
Libya, Syria and Ukraine are the victims of malevolent US meddling (as was Vietnam). I am
hoping that President Trump can reverse course and create a foreign policy that puts the
interests of people first, particularly the interests of the people of the USA. Forlorn hope
perhaps.
I would not want to live in either of them.
Well said. All religious fundamentalists are dangerous because they believe they are the
"chosen ones" and therefore superior to "non-believers", whose lives are less important and
therefore expendable if and when they feel so inclined.
(1) Echoing other responses, I suggest we ask the "Iranian people" if they would like the
U.S. to help them into modernity. Given our track record in Iran and other ME nations, I'm
not sure they would welcome our assistance, particularly if it involved "a few explosions" or
so.
(2) It is "the people" that are always hurt first, and the most, in such interventions,
not the government.
I wasn't sure if this was a serious comment or one meant to provoke. It did provoke me to
make an earlier response. I thank the moderators for blocking it (sincerely – not being
sarcastic).
Bah, who cares about a little collateral damage. The Iranian people obviously don't know
what's good for them. We just need to bring back Wolfowitz to make sure they are on hand to
lay down palm fronds before the US forces as they enter Baghdad after we nuke it into rubble.
Speaking of sociopaths, I am sure Darth Vader would make himself available to advise from
Wyoming. Where the hell is Elliot Abrams when you need him. What's Rumsfeld doing these days?
How great would it be to get the old gang together again, under the maniacal leadership of
Bolton. Maybe Dubya would be willing to do the "mission accomplished" as the smoke clears
over the whole MENA region. What a great bunch of guys.
You're a regular humanitarian bomber. Reminds me of "Assad must go" and the fact 'we'
never bombed him but all the people, all around the nation of the ilk you pretend to want to
help by doing the same thing in Iran.
At best, you are speaking a bunch of hooey without thinking. Oh, and last I heard Iran has
not invaded another country for something like 400 years. Look in your mirror.
Are the Iranian people asking us to invade their country? In the U.S. there seems to be
this bizarre nonchalance about war, which used to be considered a terrible scourge. After the
recent disasters in Libya, Ukraine, and Iraq, "regime change" should be discredited. The U.S.
has caused nothing but misery in the third world. We should focus on our own human rights and
democracy problems. If we want to do something abroad I favor ending our support for Israeli
crimes against Palestinians.
Gotta keep the military industrial complex well fed.
George Orwell was right, sadly; constant state of military alert and occasionally shifting
loose alliances between three competing major military powers.
What a waste of human resources.
IMHO, Bolton serves two roles in the Trump Administration.
As a symbol for the hawkier folks in Congress and the media
As a foil to Trump in a good cop-bad cop, or bad cop-worse cop role, if you prefer
The first provides air cover and the second forestalls ground action. The air cover says
see what we could do , and the ground action blusters to draw attention by
the media thereby serving to defuse any escalationist tendencies pushed by neo-cons.
Bolton is a price of admission, and will not have much of a purpose as the effects of the
Iran sanctions become more evident and that regime becomes more pliable. The people on the
ground in Iran seem to want de-escalation and more normal lives, like so many around the
world and at home.
Trump is interested in what is good for Trump. Why he thinks Bolton at his side is good
for him is a mystery. Rather a hand grenade with the pin pulled in your pocket than Bolton.
Much the same can be said of Pompeo.
I have never understood the lust for war with Iran it looks entirely irrational to me. The
Iranian government may not be to your taste and pursue policies you dislike in the
extreme, but is this a reason to gin up a war. I could never support such a conflict and would
do whatever I could to thwart it.
This is not news and while concerning is not fundamental.
Bolton was hired precisely because of his uberhawk obsession with Iran. That is in fact
the central credential that he brought to the table and as such there should be zero surprise
in this. Indeed the only real shocker is that he asked for plans rather than pulling them out
of his own fevered mind as he usually does.
And as others have noted the Pentagon draws up plans like this all the time. This kind of
speculative planning is a big part of what the Pentagon does and somewhere no doubt is
someone who is paid to prepare for the "inevitable" war in Jamaca.
The question really is whether we will act upon these plans, or some others, and from what
I read of this article that is no more likely than it was a few months ago. Scary yes but no
scarier than it already was.
Well, what do they want us to think? Of course this is predictable–even
SOP–for Bolton. But someone in the Pentagon is offering some pushback, or wants to
suggest there is resistance. Or someone in the CIA. Some of these people prefer wars to
quagmires, especially after an exhausting 20 years. And climbing into bed with the Saudis and
Israelis to fight Iran may not appeal to everyone.
Some may even see that Iran is a much more promising place for consumer and capital
growth, and implementation of bourgeois democracy, than Saudi Arabia. But Mr. Bolton might
say that that's the point.
I think we may be closer to war with Iran than most of us care to think. Trump is under
siege from multiple investigations with no room to run, the Democrats now have the House and
will only intensify the pressure, Pompeo and Bolton–both Iran hawks–are now in
charge of our foreign policy, and a former Boeing executive (with stock options?) is in
charge of the Pentagon, Trump is also being pushed into war by Saudi Arabia and
Israel–his two closest buddies–and probably the two most malign influences on US
policy, and finally, our economy is beginning to look shakey, and the normal functions of
government are now in shutdown. Shock doctrine holds that now is the time to act.
I recall a piece by Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader posted by another commenter here that he
would likely do so BEFORE the Dems took control of the House. I thought there was a lot of huffing and puffing going on, except for the likelihood of
wagging the dog, a tried and true tactic of US presidents.
Was chatting to a someone who was a junior official in the GWB administration. He
suggested the first thing Bolton does when he joins an administration is request these plans.
If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of any interesting events to bomb Iran.
Besides, he hasn't actually implemented them yet!
Amusingly its standard bureaucratic form to ensure you have plans on file. Otherwise when
asked to list the options, how would you make sure your plan for covert opps, or democracy
subsidizing/subverting payments appeared to be the most reasonable plan on the table?
Bolton is the same paleoconservative he ever was. And in that sense he is refreshing. One
gets tired of seeing Israelis and Saudis make proposals for spending American lives on
countless critically important projects.
There's also word that the US and Bolton have been giving quiet encouragement, with the
new President in Brazil, for a Venezuela intervention.
I think it's important, though, not to simply characterize these people as monsters but to
finger the system behind them. There was word before the election that Ms. Clinton has become
chummy with Bolton and some of the other neocons; we might be looking at much the same if she
had been elected.
Also, Kissinger bombed Cambodia and set off a genocide. Bolton is awful, but nothing
whatsoever will make me yearn for Mr. K. I have a friend who's still unhappy with me because
I turned down an invite to dine with him long ago, but I was just too frightened of what I
might say in his presence.
We can take it for granted that they are nuts–but nuttiness is like monstrousness,
not always so useful as explanation. They're also operating out of the logic of a
contradictory and decaying system. The neocons are the ideological successors of the
neoliberals (who liked to follow with the velvet fist rather than lead with it, but hardly
eschewed it). . . the culmination of much of the same logic. Egalite and fraternite trail far
behind these days.
I agree with author Nicholas Taleb's view of the military interventionists, who include
Bolton, that have repeatedly urged that we "intervene in foreign countries -- Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria -- whose governments did not meet their abstract standards of political
acceptability." Besides the losses suffered by our troops and economy, as Taleb observed each
of those interventions "made conditions significantly worse in the country being 'saved'. Yet
the interventionists pay no price themselves for wrecking the lives of millions. Instead they
keep appearing on CNN and PBS as 'experts' who should guide us in choosing what country to
bomb next." Now, after imposing economic sanctions on Iran, they're evidently again seeking
war.
The National Security Advisor is a senior official in the executive branch. Who placed
these people in charge of our nation's foreign policy and to act in our name?
There is no threat to the United States involved here. I don't recall being given the
opportunity to vote on them or the policies they represent and push. It's past time these
individuals be removed from positions of power and influence and for American soft power and
diplomacy to be restored to preeminence. I want this country to stand for peace, freedom,
equal opportunity and hope; not war, chaos, fear and death.
Like that scene in Orwell's 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in
the middle of the Hate Week rally, the War on Terror was officially canceled and replaced by
the War on Populism. Or all right, it wasn't quite that abrupt. But seriously, go back and scan
the news. Note how the "Islamic terrorist threat" we had been conditioned to live in fear of on
a daily basis since 2001 seemed to just vanish into thin air. Suddenly, the "existential
threat" we were facing was "neo-nationalism," "illiberalism," or the pejorative designator du
jour, "populism."
All links are going to Brennan and CIA. Rosenstein was just a tool, necessary to appoint the Special Prosecutor. And launching
the prove was the meaning of "insurance" that Strock mentioned to his mistress. Both Strzok and McCabe have their liasons
(read bosses) at CIA, so in essence they were "CIA infiltration group" within the FBI. And it is also important to understand that Obama was just a CIA snowperson.
There is Stalin's NKVD chief Beria shadow over CIA and FBI now. He famously said "Show me the man and I'll find you the
crime."
Notable quotes:
"... The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation. ..."
"... Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe ..."
"... As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump. ..."
As FBI Ramped Up "Witch Hunt" When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion
Investigation A Joke
A Friday report in the New York Times revealing that the FBI supercharged its Trump-Russia
collusion investigation after President Trump fired FBI director James Comey appears to have
backfired - especially when one reviews internal FBI communications from the time period in
question.
The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then
the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page,
that there was no merit to the investigation.
Nine days after Comey was fired and the DOJ "sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was
knowingly working for Russia," Strzok texted Page on May 18, 2017: "You and I both know the
odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely I'd be there no question. I hesitate in part
because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there. "
It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the
investigation. The article suggests that the FBI had long considered the move and that
Comey's firing and Trump's subsequent comments marked a tipping point.
...
A source close to Strzok told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Jan. 26, 2018, shortly
after the text was released, that the message reflected Strzok's concern that the FBI would
not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia . - Daily Caller
The Times' explanation for the FBI's rationale that Trump may have been a Russian asset
consists of Trump's call for Moscow to release Hillary Clinton's emails an election debate, and
allegations contained within the unverified Steele Dossier. The Times was also quick to note
that Trump may have "unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence," to temper the accusation
that he was an agent of a foreign power. In short, weak sauce.
It's no wonder Strzok was hesitant to join Mueller's team.
Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation"
after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended
Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe.
As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and
Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump.
" And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok
texted Page the day Comey was fired, referring to then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.
Meanwhile, Page - who served as McCabe's deputy, provided some additional color on the text
messages during her July 2018 congressional testimony, suggesting that the "case we've been
waiting on" text referred to an investigation separate of the obstruction probe we already knew
about.
"Well, other than obstruction, what could it have been?" one lawmaker asked Page in her
interview, details of which were published by The Epoch Times on Friday.
" I can't answer that, sir. I'm sorry ," she replied.
"If I was able to explain in more depth why the Director firing precipitated this text, I
would," she continued while declining to say if the text message referred to an obstruction
of justice investigation or something more. - Daily Caller
That said, Page admitted that Comey's firing prompted the text exchange.
"So the firing of Jim Comey was the precipitating event as opposed to the occupant of the
Director's office?" asked one lawmaker.
"Yes, that's correct," replied Page.
Meanwhile, The Times went to great lengths to imply that the FBI was justified in their
ratcheted-up collusion investigation - failing to mention who started the probe, who led it,
and more importantly - waiting until the 9th paragraph to mention the fact that it turned up
nothing .
"No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took
direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the
special counsel's office both declined to comment."
VideoEng_NC
"It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation."
Should be pretty simple with one question. "Was it Hillary who was the responsible party to open an investigation on Trump?".
About as direct as it gets & we already know the answer.
adampeart
TDS sufferers hate Trump so bad that they have become (at 70%) pro-warmonger. Pathetic. I guess that I shouldn't be
surprised. They were fine with Black Jesus starting wars, overthrowing governments and bombing brown people for 8 years.
Teeter
McCabe initiated the investigation. Nobody likes McCabe, so he is likely to be the one guy that gets thrown under the bus.
Of course what he knows may protect him to some extent... they won't want a trial.
Duc888
Sedition? Treason?
Yippie21
7 Days in May.... except for current version we use the DOJ and FBI! Interesting times.
Hillary lost the election when she could not walk. she lost a shoe, she was shown in the van,
and shoe was thrown after her. And that was arranged by Russians.
He essentially became a Republican Obama, save Nobel Peace Price. If Obama was/is a CIA-democrat, this guy is a
Deep State controlled republican. In any case he betrayed his voters in a way that resembles Obama betrayal. One has a
fake slogan "change we can believe in" that other equally fake "Make [middle] America Great Again" (which means restoration
of well-being of middle class and working class in my book, not the continuation of Obama foreign wars, and tax cuts for for
corporations and super rich.
And that means that he lost a considerable part of his electorate: the anti-war republicans
and former Sanders supporters. He might do good and not to try to run in 2020. He definitely is no economic nationalist.
Compare his policies with Tucker Carlson Jan 2, 2019
speech to see the difference. He is
"national neoliberal" which rejects parts of neoliberal globalization based on treaties and
prefer to bully nations to compliance that favor the US interests instead of treaties.
And his "fight" with the Deep State resemble so closely to complete and unconditional
surrender, that you might have difficulties to distinguish between the two.
Most of his appointees would make Hillary proud. That that extends beyond rabid neocons like Haley, Mattis, Bolton and
Pompeo.
Notable quotes:
"... The Washington Post is without a doubt the most pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not only do they defend the narratives of the Deep State but actively attacks anyone who challenges them. ..."
"... Jeff Bezos owner of the Washington Post is also a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board all part of doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built. ..."
"... It's really sad that people in the public believe this stuff. It's insane and ridiculous. We're living in an Insane Asylum and the ones who should be there for the safety of themselves and others are walking around giving orders to Media and USG, fomenting war and making a mockery of laws and "normal behaviors. ..."
"... They flooded the news with the old Helsinki/Putin stuff to hide the real news. Lisa Page's testimony revealed that John Carlin, Mueller's former chief of staff was running the Russia investigation from the DOJ end, showing another conflict of Mueller's. Now Mueller is covering for two best friends, Comey and Carlin and he has to frame Trump to save them. ..."
"... The testimony also showed FBI David Bowditch was heavily involved, and Bowditch is now 2nd in command at the FBI and blocking the public release of witness testimony, and one reason for it is it reveals his involvement. ..."
"... It is also now revealed that John Brennan CIA had the dossier before the FBI, and the dossier was likely written by Nellie Ohr, who belonged to a CIA group, and then the dossier was laundered by Steele to look like foreign intelligence to get the Crossfire Hurricane investigation started on Trump. You would think it would be big news that Russians may have had nothing to do with the dossier but the media doesn't see it that way ..."
Washington
Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his
discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a
phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private conversation in
Helsinki last summer.
"I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I
couldn't care less."
"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which
only the leaders and their translators were present -- as "a great conversation" that
included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."
"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the
president of various countries. I do it with all countries." -
Politico
In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed
by Republicans.
"The Washington Post is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump
said.
When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York Times report that the FBI had opened an
inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you ever
worked for Russia, Mr. President?"
"I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think it's
the most insulting article I've ever had written."
Trump went on an
epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former
FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush
or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often
said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday
we will have good relations with Russia again!"
rumcho
Jeff Bezos paid $250 million for Washington Post, five years later he gets a government contract with the CIA for $600
million. Are you connecting the dots? You do the numbers. This is how fascism works. Bezos is a crony capitalist joker.
is Trump waiting for Mueller to lay down his cards? Head him off at the pass and arrest Obama, Rice, Jarrett, Lynch, Comey,
Rosenstein and McCabe all on day 1
best defense is a good offense. Make the narrative about Dem sedition not impending House impeachment hearings.
You are President, start acting like it. Make them fear you.
your re-election depends on Mike Obama not being your opponent.
Let it Go
WaPo, again?
The Washington Post is without a doubt the most pro-establishment among all large mainstream publications, not only do
they defend the narratives of the Deep State but actively attacks anyone who challenges them.
Jeff Bezos owner of the Washington Post is also a contractor with the CIA and sits on a Pentagon advisory board all
part of doing everything he can to cozy up and ingratiate himself to the establishment on which his empire is built. The
article below delves into how WaPo is behind many of the big stories that manipulate America and moves the needle of public
opinion in huge ways.
It's really sad that people in the public believe this stuff. It's insane and ridiculous. We're living in an Insane Asylum
and the ones who should be there for the safety of themselves and others are walking around giving orders to Media and USG,
fomenting war and making a mockery of laws and "normal behaviors.
shadow54
They flooded the news with the old Helsinki/Putin stuff to hide the real news. Lisa Page's testimony revealed that
John Carlin, Mueller's former chief of staff was running the Russia investigation from the DOJ end, showing another conflict
of Mueller's. Now Mueller is covering for two best friends, Comey and Carlin and he has to frame Trump to save them.
The testimony also showed FBI David Bowditch was heavily involved, and Bowditch is now 2nd in command at the FBI and
blocking the public release of witness testimony, and one reason for it is it reveals his involvement.
It is also now revealed that John Brennan CIA had the dossier before the FBI, and the dossier was likely written by
Nellie Ohr, who belonged to a CIA group, and then the dossier was laundered by Steele to look like foreign intelligence to
get the Crossfire Hurricane investigation started on Trump. You would think it would be big news that Russians may have had
nothing to do with the dossier but the media doesn't see it that way.
Then there is the news that Fusion GPS worked with the Democracy Integrity Project and Knew Knowledge to run a fake Russian
bots campaign against Roy Moore. The Democracy Integrity Project was started by Feinstein's aide and with New Knowledge wrote
a report on Russian bots for the Senate Intelligence Committee. So the Senate Intelligence Committee hired creators of fake
Russian bots to write a report on Russian bots.
In my view, at the moment the deed is done. The president signed onto the report acknowledged
the he accepts the report has even gone as far to say, he blames Pres. Putin
Another backtrack, just muddies the waters, and mat be acceptable because no one wants to
accept the real consequences of a president who has repudiated the one state president he
most desired to make a deal with -- the jig is up.
Whether kabuki theater or real gamesmanship --
A threshold has been crossed and uncrossing it is going to be tricky and in my further
humiliation for the wh. The analysis here mattered before the president agreed with the
report. But when he did, this analysis, becomes moot. Having a chit chat about de-escalating
nuclear tensions is quaint in light of the president acknowledging that russia has in fact
undermined the US democratic process. This is a serious charge and no amount of changing the
subject, crying foul, or pretending it was all a big misunderstanding is going to change
that.
I think it would have been prudent for the president to hold fire in Helsinki and read the
report and then responded . He did make any of those choices. It matters not how exposed the
establishment in wanton eagerness to have their way, wh has embraced the matter. it is on
record and . . . oh well. I see merit in maintaining his original position of disbelief --
however, the president did a complete about face -- and there is no question of that or the
implications.
Trump was elected using Adelson money. That;s probably is what is wrong with Trump.
Is Trump a Republican Obama? As in "Brain dead Dems kept saying Obama would do the right thing by the nation, that he was
playing 4D chess, up till the moment he was no longer president, and in the end he was a
narcisstic, self-aggrandizing politician who transferred trillions to the 0.1% and made
America worse by any standard."
Notable quotes:
"... The struggle between the neocons and Trump over control of foreign policy has become ridiculous. One must remember that he can dismiss them all with the stroke of a pen, just he can dismiss his non civil service tormentors in the justice department and the FBI. ..."
"... Bolton has tried to countermand Trump's decision in Syria. His attempt and that of Jeffrey were rebuked in Ankara and DoD then announced an immediate commencement of the withdrawal. ..."
"... And yet the unholy trio of Pompeo (first in the hearts of his USMA class), Jeffrey, a career neocon hack at State, and Bolton (the mustachioed menace) are still in their jobs? Say what? ..."
"... And then there is the Great Southern Border Crisis. The Democrats have repeatedly voted for a great deal of money for barrier systems on the border. Chancy (Chuck and Nancy) were in the lead in such votes over the years. Now Nancy (who may not remember her votes) is denying Trump "a single dollar" for border barriers. ..."
"... To say that barriers are ineffective is dishonest. By now Trump knows that he can declare a national emergency and fund the barriers after however much litigation the Dems can arrange. There is ample money available for the purpose. So, why does he not do it? ..."
"... I voted for Trump. He lost me when he filled his cabinet with swamp creatures and then further when he replaced the generals with neo-cons like Bolton. You cant change the government if you don't understand how the government works - its not a real estate business that you can declare bankruptcy to make a buck. ..."
"... Brain dead Dems kept saying Obama would do the right thing by the nation, that he was playing 4D chess, up till the moment he was no longer president, and in the end he was a narcisstic, self-aggrandizing politician who transferred trillions to the 0.1% and made America worse by any standard. ..."
"... If he cared about illegal immigration, how about enforcing laws against employing illegal immigrants ..."
According to Hido, Washington's Special Representative for Syria, James Jeffrey, delivered
several messages to the leadership of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) demanding them to slow
down the negotiations with Damascus and promising to discuss the idea of establishing a no-fly
zone over northeastern Syria.
The Kurdish political described Jeffery's messages as "disturbing" and called on the Kurdish
leadership to deal with them in careful manner.
Furthermore, Hido stressed that the SDF should take a decision on the talks with the
Damascus government as soon as possible and regretted that some Kurdish officials are still
pinning their hopes on a possible change in the
U.S. decision to withdraw from Syria .
"Talks with the Syrian government are still ongoing in a positive atmosphere," RT quoted
Hido as saying.
Jeffrey made a visit to Turkey recently, where he tried to strike a deal with Ankara over
northeastern Syria. However, Turkey's plans to attack US-backed Kurdish forces and invade the
region hindered his efforts.
It appears to be that the SDF's only real option is the deal with Damascus as any U.S.
solution would likely involve Turkey, which has demonstrated its agressive attitude towards
Syrian Kurdish groups during its operation in Afrin in 2018." SF
------------
The struggle between the neocons and Trump over control of foreign policy has become
ridiculous. One must remember that he can dismiss them all with the stroke of a pen, just he
can dismiss his non civil service tormentors in the justice department and the FBI.
Bolton has
tried to countermand Trump's decision in Syria. His attempt and that of Jeffrey were rebuked in
Ankara and DoD then announced an immediate commencement of the withdrawal.
What could that have
been other than a renewed presidential order to the Defense Department? And yet the unholy trio
of Pompeo (first in the hearts of his USMA class), Jeffrey, a career neocon hack at State, and
Bolton (the mustachioed menace) are still in their jobs? Say what?
And then there is the Great Southern Border Crisis. The Democrats have repeatedly voted for
a great deal of money for barrier systems on the border. Chancy (Chuck and Nancy) were in the
lead in such votes over the years. Now Nancy (who may not remember her votes) is denying Trump
"a single dollar" for border barriers.
BTW, any soldier will tell you that the purpose of
barriers IS NOT to stop all movement. No, it is to slow up movement and canalize it so that
Quick Reaction Forces (QRF) can get there first with the most. To say that barriers are
ineffective is dishonest. By now Trump knows that he can declare a national emergency and fund
the barriers after however much litigation the Dems can arrange. There is ample money available
for the purpose. So, why does he not do it?
On Smerconish's show today, Bob Baer, spy extraordinaire, (read his books) asserted that the
various bits and pieces of circumstantial "evidence" about Trump's contacts with and attitude
toward Russia, as well as those of his flunkies and relatives amount to a "good enough" case
for Trump being a Russian agent of influence. That is how a HUMINT spook judges such things. It
is a matter of probabilities, not hard evidence. Assets of an alien government are not always
witting (understanding) of their status from the POV of the foreign government, but that does
not necessarily make other than agents. Sometimes they think they are merely cooperating in a
good and normal way when, in fact, the relationship is much deeper. Jane Fonda in North Vietnam
would be an example.
OTOH the president is responsible for the conduct of US foreign policy and is not under an
obligation to accept the perhaps hackneyed views of his subordinates. Perhaps his world view is
quite different and he is not mesmerized by the group think of the Borg. If that is so ...
But, how does one explain his lack of action on the border? Does someone or some thing in
Russia, Israel, the UK, his former business associates, have something really juicy on Trump,
something that he fears to unleash through decisive action? pl
Sir, I think he's just being cautious and exhausting all other options because half of the
country has been made to believe he's a dictator. He's being sensitive to that. He will act.
Give it time.
Sensitive? Cautious? Caring about Americans not in his base (whatever his base means)? Doesnt
sounds like president Donald Trump the last two years. He acts more like he is confused about what the president's powers are while the
wormtongues he appointed and replaces with more of the same continue to whisper in his
ear.
Contrary to all the TDS out there, maybe he prefers to do things the right way and have
Congress make laws and budgets that work for all of us whether or not we all understand how.
If that was the case, why so many signing statements (particularly since republicans control
congress ). He is on target to pass Obama. who also preferred not to do things by laws.
http://www.coherentbabble.c... Its just that the trend towards an imperial, unitary presidency keeps getting worse with
full acquiescence of congress who suckles on the corporate money teat, under both Dems and
Repubs.
I voted for Trump. He lost me when he filled his cabinet with swamp creatures and then
further when he replaced the generals with neo-cons like Bolton. You cant change the
government if you don't understand how the government works - its not a real estate business
that you can declare bankruptcy to make a buck.
Brain dead Dems kept saying Obama would do the right thing by the nation, that he was
playing 4D chess, up till the moment he was no longer president, and in the end he was a
narcisstic, self-aggrandizing politician who transferred trillions to the 0.1% and made
America worse by any standard.
-----
Here's a nice plot - US apprehensions comparable to 1970 when the US had a much smaller
population.
Now if Trump shut the govt down until congress did something about big pharma and the opioid
crisis because Congress is in their pocket he would have my support. But then the republicans
and dems would jointly impeach him to keep the money spigot flowing.
Decreasing life expectancy is what happens in the sh-tholes to use his term. If he cared about illegal immigration, how about enforcing laws against employing illegal
immigrants. Don't republicans who theoretically support capitalism (as opposed to crony
capitalism) understood supply and demand? (If there is a demand, then supply will meet
it)
Oh, because illegal immigrants are good for the bottom line of people, like, well,
Trump:
"... Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake Internationalists Newly-inaugurated Senator has been promoted to standard-bearer for the bipartisan War Party, filling in for John McCain. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of ..."
Mitt Romney, Commander of the Fake
Internationalists Newly-inaugurated Senator has been promoted to standard-bearer for the
bipartisan War Party, filling in for John McCain.
No surprise: Senator Mitt Romney does not like President Donald Trump, as he recently
explained in TheWashington Post . But what, one wonders, was the former GOP
presidential candidate thinking two years ago when he supped with the man he now claims to
deplore while seeking an appointment as secretary of state?
Much of Romney's complaint is over manners. Yes, the president is a boor. Most people,
including many of Trump's supporters, recognize that. Trump won not because of his etiquette
but because of what he stood for -- and against.
Romney also defended The Blob, Washington's bipartisan foreign policy establishment. In his
article attacking the president, he offered the usual vacuous bromides that characterize the
interventionist consensus, which poses as internationalism but with plenty of bombing raids,
illegal occupations, and nation-building. Most importantly, this perspective presumes permanent
American domination, irrespective of cost.
Romney wrote: "America has long been looked to for leadership. Our economic and military
strength was part of that, of course, but our enduring commitment to principled conduct in
foreign relations, and to the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice, was even more
esteemed." Indeed, "The world needs American leadership, and it is in America's interest to
provide it. A world led by authoritarian regimes is a world -- and an America -- with less
prosperity, less freedom, less peace."
In fact, Romney appears more committed to dependence on allies than American leadership. For
him, these are two sides of the same coin. The only alternative he sees to Washington in
control is the bad guys leading.
Related is Romney's apparent belief that foreign policy is fixed, irrespective of
circumstance: the very same U.S.-dominated alliances created in 1950 are needed today. Although
America's friends have raced ahead economically, politically, even militarily, Washington must
forever treat them as helpless derelicts. For instance, Russia, a weakened declining power,
faces the U.S. and Europe -- which together have more than 20 times its GDP. Yet Romney sees
Moscow as the greatest threat facing America. It is 1945 all over again.
Romney's most important omission is Iraq. After the war there turned bad, he remained silent
about his support for it. The Iraq disaster is an important reason why Trump won and other
Republicans, including Romney, lost. In 2008, Americans rejected John McCain, the very symbol
of promiscuous war-making. Four years later, Romney criticized President Barack Obama for
leaving Iraq too soon, by which the Republican nominee probably meant leaving at any time. In
saying he would keep more troops in Iraq, he ignored the fact that the Iraqis had refused to
negotiate a status of forces agreement with the Bush administration.
Romney also failed to mention Afghanistan, both as a presidential candidate in 2012 and
senator in 2019. After all, what good can be said for entering the 18th year of nation-building
in a region of little strategic interest? As for Syria, last November, Romney predictably
denounced as "recklessness in the extreme" exiting a multi-sided civil war in a country never
important to America.
Now Romney is being touted as the new standard-bearer for the bipartisan War Party, filling
in for John McCain. Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands theorized that Romney was attempting to
"position himself as heir to John McCain as the congressional conscience of U.S. diplomacy"
(defined as advocating policies designed to prolifically kill and destroy).
Towards this effort, Romney is articulating "a renewed Republican internationalism based on
opposition to aggressive authoritarian regimes." Brands celebrates Romney's Russophobia, saying
he "deserves credit for being anti-Russia before being anti-Russia was cool." No hint that the
U.S. might have contributed to Moscow's hostility through the aggressive "internationalism" of
Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama -- violating commitments not to
expand NATO, dismantling Moscow's Slavic friend Serbia, and encouraging violent regime change
against an elected government that neighbored Russia. After all, equivalent Russian
intervention in Mexico would have triggered an extremely hostile reaction in Washington.
Neoconservative Max Boot lauded Romney for throwing "down the gauntlet to President Trump."
Indeed, argued Boot, "it now falls upon Romney to champion the cause of principled conservatism
in Washington." Boot hoped the freshman senator would lead a general opposition and seemed
especially pleased at Romney's support for the interventionist status quo.
Yet the passion-less Romney is a poor substitute for the perennially angry McCain. It is
difficult to imagine Romney leading Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman on another apocalyptic
ride, demanding that death and destruction be visited upon an enemy du jour. Indeed, Romney
admitted as much, complained TheNew York Times , which noted that he said he
"would only speak out against Mr. Trump on issues of 'great significance,' which means not
much."
Worse, Romney is a typical denizen of Washington and lacks any connection to the disastrous
consequences of his policies. Give McCain credit: he and his sons served in the military. Not
Romney. He received four deferments during the Vietnam War, explaining that he "had other
plans." This sounds eerily like Dick Cheney, who said his five deferments reflected "other
priorities."
Moreover, none of Romney's five sons served. That is, of course, their prerogative. But
their decision further insulated Romney from any consequences of his policies. His response to
questions about their lack of service: "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our
nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president." Did Romney
believe working for him was as dangerous as fighting Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah? Or that his
personal interest in winning the election was as important as the nation winning a war?
My friend William Smith at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at Catholic University
argued that Romney's article "is another clear sign that the bipartisan political establishment
is largely oblivious to the terrible tragedy of wartime casualties disproportionately inflicted
on certain communities." Candidate Trump did particularly well in states that so suffered.
Complained Smith: "What is astonishing is that, after all this tragedy, Romney offers only
cliched neoconservative bromides to the many heartbroken communities across the nation."
However, The Blob, which dominates foreign policy under both parties, poses an even larger
problem. These policymakers consider permanent war to be America's natural condition. They seek
to suppress dissident views to ensure united support for permanent war. Anyone who hesitates to
back every proposed new intervention is demonized and marginalized.
The favorite technique, recently employed by Frederick Kagan in The Hill, is to call
opponents, irrespective of their actual positions, "isolationists." Thus did Kagan urge left
and right "internationalists" -- meaning military interventionists -- to work together to
defend "the principle that the United States must remain actively engaged in the world," by
which he meant warring without end on multiple countries.
Exclaimed Kagan: "The isolationists who have condemned the United States involvement in the
Middle East and the rest of the world for decades are about to get their wish. We will witness
what the world looks like when left to its own devices."
Egads. Imagine what might have happened had the U.S. not intervened in the Lebanese Civil
War, armed Turkey to kill tens of thousands of Kurds and destroy thousands of Kurdish villages,
invaded Iraq and triggered sectarian conflict, fostered civil war in Libya and the chaos that
followed, supported decades of violent occupation over millions of Palestinians by Israel,
backed murderous Saudi Arabia in Bahrain and Yemen, supported a coup against Iran's
democratically elected government and a brutal invasion backed by chemical weapons against
Iran's Islamist regime, actively underwritten tyranny across the Middle East, and tried to sort
out the Syrian Civil War. Something bad might have happened.
Yeah.
In Syria, Kagan views as "isolationist" the withdrawal of an illegal military deployment
that risks violent confrontation with Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Russia over minor stakes. In
contrast, "internationalism" means war everywhere all the time, especially in a country like
Syria.
Trump, complained Kagan, is leaving "Afghanistan for no clear reason whatsoever." No reason
other than Washington long ago having achieved its objective of degrading and displacing
al-Qaeda and punishing the Taliban for hosting al-Qaeda. And eventually having recognized,
after more than 17 years passed, trillions of dollars were spent, and thousands of lives were
lost, that using force to create a liberal democracy in Central Asia is a fool's errand. Why
leave, indeed?
It has oft been recognized that Donald Trump is a flawed vehicle to achieve almost any
foreign policy end. However, he still possesses far more common sense than Mitt Romney. It is
time to rescue "internationalism" from those who love humanity so much that they would destroy
the world in order to save it.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
.MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
"No reason other than Washington long ago having achieved its objective of degrading and
displacing al-Qaeda and punishing the Taliban for hosting al-Qaeda."
One should avoid the back pedal here. the Taliban did not host Al Quaeda in the manner
your reference suggests.
I truly voted against Romney when he ran for president because of his omnidirectional
belligerence. I also didn't like his vulture capitalism style (and I did technical due
diligence for venture capital activities as a side line).
Romney just guaranteed that he won't get the nomination. Amazing, really, stupid and
gratuitous.
He could at the least have shown a little "growth" in the direction of populist disgust with
the wasteful, reckless, failed wars, not to mention concerns about the growth of government and
corporate mass surveillance of the public, and the continuing unholy collaboration between Wall
Street, Silicon Valley, and Washington in ripping off taxpayers and importing cheap labor to
take American jobs.
Not Mitt. He seems to think he's running for president of our utterly discredited,
pseudo-meritocratic "Establishment".
Let's all thank the knuckle-headed Utahns for delivering another unimaginative empty suit to
the Nation's State House. Sure, Trump is often a boor, and unmistakably human, but give me a
man-child with conviction and Devil-may-care determination over a dapper dolt whose ideas are
contrived platitudes and whose passion is a Macbeth-like obsession with stature and power any
day of the week and twice on Sunday. Well written Mr. Bandow! Keep fighting the good fight.
I get the sense that the "isolationist" line doesn't work any more. It was a commonly used
rhetorical weapon 10 years ago, and it effectively silenced opposition. Now it's not used much,
and it seems to be ignored or derided when it is used. Most Americans understand now that
maintaining and expanding an empire is destroying us.
You really don't get Romney, do you. Who are you to decided what anyone sees or feels. Do you
think you could use the word seems like a professional journalist. I don't construe
Romney that way. You SEEM to put words in his mouth and thought in his head. Please be
professional.
My take is Mitt see's himself as a Gerald Ford calming effect, for this 4 year disruption, the
Swamp battles with. The Deep state needs an impeachment win and soon. With that said it will be
ever difficult for the Beltway to change Americans perception , they don't trust the
government.
For someone so smart Romney should realize that Americans will reject him (again), when he
takes up the mantle of McCain (again) as quickly as they did the last time. But that he fails
to realize that substance trumps form, which is why 67 million Americans voted for the
President, demonstrates what a shallow narcisst and sociopath he is. I mean, it's okay to rob
your neighbor so long as you say "please" and "thank you," isn't it?
The writer states: "Now Romney is being touted as the new standard-bearer for the bipartisan
War Party, filling in for John McCain."
I believe The "War Party" are:
"The Maniacs of Militarism"
The maniacs of militarism are creating wars
Countries are bombed by warmongering whores
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and other countries too
Are hell holes of the earth, "The work," of this insane crew
Enabled by politicians in positions of power
These well dressed war criminals hide and cower
The generals salute their political masters
Then the brainwashed obey these bemedaled disasters
Cities are destroyed and reduced to rubble
Where are the perpetrators that created all this trouble?
They are residing in luxury and given fancy titles
War crimes trials are needed, and are so vital
But this is not happening: the system is corrupted
And these evil beings, by some are worshiped
Blood-soaked villains that never do the fighting
They are the "experts" that do the inciting
They are the producers of death and destruction
Others are profiteers of all the bloody actions
Missiles, bombs and horrendous weapons
There is no end to the endless aggression
Millions are dead, and millions are homeless
Millions are refugees, and all this is atrocious
Once they had jobs, families, and homes as well
Then their countries were bombed by the agents from hell
Setting the world on fire is what these war arsonists do
The money for their depredations comes from me and you
They have made us all accessories to their criminal acts
Our Taxes are the blood money and that is a fact
Will the people ever say: "We have had enough"?
And put all these villains in secure handcuffs
Then lock them up in maximum security prisons
Then, we can say "goodbye" to the maniacs of militarism
[more info at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-maniacs-of-militarism.html
-- --
And:
"More War "
More war is needed to keep armies trained and employed
More wars are needed so that countries can be destroyed
More killing, bombing, destruction and death
More of this is needed until the victims have nothing left
[read more at link below]
Romney is such an empty suit i'm not sure if he isn't weakening his position just by virtue
that, he Romney, supports it.
Does this guy inspire anyone to any emotion other than revulsion? Along with Hillary, they
both strike me both as elites who want to become president, not from any actual passions or
desires, but because they've run out of other things to add to their C.V.
The only thing I can say with certainty that Mitt Romney believes in, is Mitt Romney. So I'm
intensely skeptical that ANYONE in America, aside from the most firebrand resistance types, are
going to take anything coming out of this corporate drone's mouth with any seriousness. And
even for the resistance types the support would equally follow a labrador retriever, just so
long as it opposed Trump, so Mitt doesn't even have that thin thread of loyatly going for
him.
I guess that leaves him with the neocons as BFFs. They're welcome to each other.
Why are we ragging on Romney? Is it because he had the audacity to criticize Trump? Shouldn't
we wait until he actually does something bad before ragging on him? Has he lied 6,000 times in
the last few years, for example? Did he refuse to rake the forests?
I think Romney is simply miffed that the boorish Trump became president and he did not and
sadly, he may be running for president again. I think someone used the word revulsion about
Romney. I approve. It's ironic the boorish Trump isn't nearly as revolting as the urbane Mitt.
@Mike Clements
For me it's the straw man arguments that are most egregious. As an Arizonan, I knew John
McCain, and Romney is no McCain (whose like we will never see again, if we're lucky).
Just to single out one objection to Mr. Bandow's argument: Romney didn't refer to the SOFA,
which supposedly required Obama to abandon Iraq, for the very good reason that Leon Panetta,
who should know, has said that Obama, with plenty of time to do it, made no effort whatsoever
to re-negotiate the SOFA 2011 deadline. Panetta regrets this and so do I.
Romney is the epitome of the decay of the USA. Further, he shows the complete inability of the
Republican party to choose the correct casting. After Bush and Iraq they propose McPain. After
the Great Financial Crisis they propose Mittens. It's akin to cast Dany de Vito to play
Casanova. When Trump is gone, this party is finished.
I approve. It's ironic the boorish Trump isn't nearly as revolting as the urbane Mitt.
That Americans are revolted more by Romney than by Trump, in fact, speaks well for them. All
morally mature folk should be repelled more by a polite, urbane, well-scrubbed pirate, who made
his fortune destroying people's lives and wealth than by a loud-talking, crude womanizer, who
creates wealth and, in fact, shows his concern for the people below him more than the polite,
charming, well-bred pirate.
@Jeeves, Obama would have stayed in Iraq if the Iraqi's had allowed us to continue to kill with
impunity. Thankfully, they said no. And why on earth would you regret us not negotiating a new
SOFA?
If Utah has a problem with Trump they could have elected a Democrat.
Romney is obsolete. Never Trump Republicans are sinking in a tar pit. Romney cannot be
nominated much less elected even if Trump does not run. He can help with the impeachment of
Trump if it comes to that. But again, a Democrat would be more useful.
"... Obama sacrificed a huge chunk of American freedom just for the sake of personal political revenge. The USA is transitioning from a laissez faire to a highly burocratized, byzantine economy. ..."
"... Smiling & smooth-talking black face issuing zillions of promises, and this was right after the Codpiece Commander. It took me a whole year to realize I'd been suckered, and by 2012 understood the fix was STILL on. ..."
If this is really true, then it's a clear sign of decline: Obama sacrificed a huge chunk
of American freedom just for the sake of personal political revenge. The USA is transitioning
from a laissez faire to a highly burocratized, byzantine economy.
I am so glad I did not vote for Obama a second time around.
LOL (first time I've ever written this!)
You made the same mistake I did in 2008. The deck was really stacked in that election,
though I was too blind to see it at the time. Smiling & smooth-talking black face
issuing zillions of promises, and this was right after the Codpiece Commander. It took me a
whole year to realize I'd been suckered, and by 2012 understood the fix was STILL
on.
Obama had lost most all of his glitter by then, so the Power Elites arranged his
opposition to be a financial predator/Mormon bishop paired up with the most awful Libertarian
POS I've ever seen.
Speaking the honest truth here, I'd prefer to have Sarah Palin as POTUS to Paul Ryan. What
a combo! That's why I offered anybody I met 10:1 odds on Obama winning. Hillary thought she
had had seen a winning pattern from all that, and arranged to have as her opponent a
fellow named Donald Trump.
A perfectly good article, I'm sure, but why diffuse ourselves [and engender feelings of
fear and hopelessness as you express] when a strategic pressure point has presented?
Johnstone makes no mention of Bill Browder. Nor do the [100, so far] commenters.
BILL BROWDER is a key figure in the anti-Trump, anti-Russia hysteria. The notorious Trump
Tower meeting was about the Magnitsky Act, a fabrication by Browder to hide his financial
crimes. Browder "testified" in the Senate expressly to demonize Putin. Browder's contacts in
the IC, the Jewish Lobby, and the fawning media have enabled his propaganda assault this
week. He's appeared -- unchallenged, virtually unquestioned -- on countless talk shows. But
he's been running scared at the mention of interrogation by Russians. There are huge holes in
his story, made clear in his deposition in the Prevezon case. The truth will bring him down!
And perhaps his Deep State supporters, along with him.
Ask your Senators if they've heard/read Browder's 2015 deposition in the Prevezon
case. (See comment 161 under The Untouchable Mr. Browder? by Israel Shamir for
links.)
BTW, have you seen "THE MAGNITSKY ACT – BEHIND THE SCENES" that Phil Giraldi
posted today? Debunking anti-Russian criminal sociopaths like Bill Browder will go a long way
to improving relations. Not to mention easing pressure on the unfortunate Trump.
@RobinG
UWell, we here in Russia know all this (about Browder) for quite a time. What new did you
find? It's just one story in long list of those written and spoken for western idiots like
Scripals
, MH17, chemicals in Syria and WMD in Iraq, Russian meddling in f-n US elections and so on.
Eat it all dummies.
@Cagey
Beast Yup. Furthermore, CIA is organized crime and organized crime is CIA. CIA recruits
and runs agents in favored criminal syndicates in every illicit trade: drugs, child sexual
trafficking, arms, fraud, bustouts, extortion, money laundering. Their purpose is not to
interdict the trade but to control it.
CIA manages transnational organized crime to top up their budget for unauthorized
clandestine operations, like killing JFK.
CIA protects its criminal proteges with their chartered impunity. They call off law
enforcement with the magic words national security or 'sources and methods.' If the plan gets
exposed, CIA's criminal cutouts insulate the agency from exposure.
RFK knew how it works. RFK junior explained the reason for RFK's focus on organized-crime
until CIA whacked him. That's why his book was made to sink without a ripple.
Evenfurthermore, CIA is the government and the government is CIA. Decades ago Fletcher
Prouty showed that CIA's deepest-cover illegal moles are embedded in our own government.
Every agency with repressive capacity is infiltrated with focal points, who report to CIA
handlers without the other agency's knowledge.
Of course Israel is trying to infiltrate it -- they understand the levers of power.
Assange has got some mighty stinkers in his insurance file. All we can do is hope they're
enough to destabilize the CIA Reich that has ruled America since 1949.
"... CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald ..."
"... Strzok has clearly got a dotted-line report to his real boss in CIA ..."
"... Publius Tacitus is incorrect, though, in making a distinction between the Obama administration and the intelligence community. Obama is a third-generation CIA spook he's a CIA spokesmodel, not a head of state (see Andrew Krieg's Presidential Puppetry.) ..."
"... To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary . IIRC, she was Sec of State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution brigade tried to rig the Russian elections against Putin. ..."
"... Putin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but I've always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's campaign, if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back the hits he'd already taken from her. ..."
CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA
assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest
traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald .
Publius Tacitus is incorrect, though, in making a distinction between the Obama
administration and the intelligence community. Obama is a third-generation CIA spook he's a
CIA spokesmodel, not a head of state (see Andrew Krieg's Presidential Puppetry.)
Excerpt : "A Pew Research analysis on Monday found that more than a third of the
US' largest newspapers and more than a fifth of its largest digital outlets experienced
layoffs between January 2017 and April 2018."
To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary . IIRC, she was Sec of
State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution brigade tried to rig the
Russian elections against Putin.
Putin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but
I've always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's
campaign, if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back
the hits he'd already taken from her.
Hillary of course was incompetent in having America interfere in Russian elections. That
campaign never had a chance as Putin is a lot more popular in Russia than Hillary is in
America. So, she took a pot shot at a rival world leader knowing (or at least some smart
people did) that it would have no effect and that Putin would win that election anyways. And
of course Hillary the Arrrogant could never imagine that another player in the game would get
to take a turn, and that others might interfere in her election, and she knew she'd run and
she knew she'd rig the Dem party to get the nod, in the same way the NED and the Soros NGO's
tried to interfere in Russia.
I share your sentiments [in a slightly different vernacular]; of course they, the usurping
'rulers' are neither a class nor in any way 'elite,' but who/what ever they are [jews,
oligarchs, 'simply' psychopaths or 'true' spawn of Satan], they do seem to be 'in control.'
Proof of that is the coordinated criminal actions of 'the West.'
Find "CIA is the government and the government is CIA" above; it's the obvious place to
expect a ccc = covert criminal cabal to establish itself. Add to that the truly weird concept
of having spies a) out of all control and b) with apparently unlimited power. We 'shall know
them by their deeds' which is almost unrelievedly a 'bad look.' Odd is that the 1st mention
of any conspiracy that I heard of was that of 'jewish banksters ruling the world.' We since
know that such was pilloried by the CIA, but it seems to me to be a case of the tar-baby: The
more they [CIA, jews] howl/deny, the guiltier they prove themselves to be. rgds
I would say that what is affecting the western establishment elites at this juncture is not
mere dementia but the madness which arises from acts of pure, hellish evil. These people are
the Gadarine swine of the contemporary era; a good portion of them appear to be Satanic
perverts and pedophiles, if we are to judge from recent revelations. I am not being
hyperbolic when I write that Antichrist's reign has been postponed. They had imagined it
would be installed by November of 2016 and this is driving them to despair. They hate Trump
because his election blocked their lord and master's ascent and they hate Putin because he
represents the great restraining power.
@yurivkuHe's of course is a bone in DC's throat, but his level of intelligence and real power seem
to be extremely low.
Yes, he's a golden chandelier stuck in the belly of the Beast. I think he's quite smart,
in his own way, but can only do so much on his own. He also has some bad ideas and makes
enemies when it isn't necessary but he's still the only hope for change at the centre of the
American empire.
@skrik
Be that as it may, Romper Stomper took place 30 years after the Vietnam War began. The
reverberations of the war were felt in Australia long afterwards.
@peterAUS
That's an armchair rugby referee for you, encouraging a Civil War in a country he's probably
never set foot. What do you believe would change its policy towards Oz.
If you remember when Reagan broke the air-traffic control union strikes and 30,000 of them
immigrated to Oz in 1981, what would happen would be that many qualified Americans would come
to Australia and take Australian jobs.
That's how such unrest would affect you.
At any rate, the US would still have the same grip on popular culture (If not financial
markets) and Vegemite would not suddenly replace McDonald's everywhere.
Also, though the Asians seem to slowly taking over your economy anyhow, if the US military
was busy suppressing a civil war and Asian countries might get aggressive towards you
militarily.
@peterAUS
The Asians might get more aggressive if the US military suddenly found itself preoccupied
with a Civil War.
Asia is taking over your country economically anyhow but they might get a bit anti-social
if suddenly the US were to lose all capacity to maintain its presence in your hemisphere.
Aw, don't go all wussy -- you're acting like a wounded suitor. I suppose it was my
rejection of your
I'd need to trust you and then we'd have a long chat somewhere in open public place
Similr to which you you offered Backstay
Have a quiet chat somewhere in a park, for example. Just two of us. Two
Try this google ; that the sort
of place you had in mind? It's also reputedly a secret entrance to an ASIO bunker but I
suppose you know that; I call attempted entrapment.
"As a matter of fact, the composition of the governments is predetermined, and their
actions are controlled by great financial consortiums."
J. V. Stalin, Questions & Answers to American Trade Unionists: Stalin's Interview
With the First American Trade Union Delegation to Soviet Russia
Pravda September 15, 1927 ___________(h/t, J.S.)
think he's quite smart, in his own way, but can only do so much on his own
But I think he's stupid, ignorant, spineless (as well as most of POTUSes), the only
difference is -- he's not completely belongs to DC. Probably it's better than if Clinton was
on his place, but who knows, Trump can make any stupid thing
G'day, q.possibly and glad you responded. Yeah sure, Stalin is 'close;' it's why some
suggest oligarchs, but it demonstrably falls a bit short. My ccc = covert criminal cabal,
each word of the highest significance; let's examine each one:
[COED:] covert = not openly acknowledged or displayed -- this is 100% true, since
they operate from 'behind a curtain' of deliberate secrecy. Not declaring who they are is a
lie of omission, then see after cabal below. Before moving on, let's consult Cicero:
mendaci neque quum vera dicit, creditor
= A liar is not to be believed, even when speaking the truth. That's never a 'good look,'
and leads to the next:
criminal -- self-evident, then:
[COED:] cabal = a secret political clique or faction. Øarchaic a secret
intrigue .
ORIGIN
C16 (denoting the Kabbalah): from French cabale, from medieval Latin cabala (see
Kabbalah).
Finally [COED:] Kabbalah (also Kabbala, Cabbala, Cabala, or Qabalah = the ancient
Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible .
I allow myself to propose an exactly apposite example of the latter: 'Xxx promised it to
us!' -- Where Xxx comes directly from some "mystical interpretation of the Bible." 'Nuff
said?
More? IF it were only "great financial consortiums" THEN one would need to explain the
criminality, since I'm pretty sure oligarchs *could* work legally. Then, the 'normal'
consortiums' business is to 'make money' [and cheating and/or theft may be sort of 'normal'],
but the ccc goes *far* past that into [mass-]murdering for spoil, quite/most often for oil
and/or *soil* . The latter is within Nuremberg class = supreme international criminality.
That may complete the loop and explain why covert in the 1st place.
I wrote above that I would 'revisit' lies; here's a partial quote:
But it remained for the yyy, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood,
Feel free to 'guess' at the yyy, then I assert QED rgds
Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass?
Besides those in "volunteer battalions", which tend to be nationalistic with distinct Nazi
overtones, people in the regular Armed Forces are there for the money. There are very few
paying jobs in today's Ukraine, so men enlist and hope for the best.
the ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I
suspect.
That could've been the case in 2014. Today I very much doubt it. Even the Right Sector
people are fed up with the current power in Kiev, and even the dumbest nationalists are
beginning to realize what a deep hole the country is in. Normal people all over the
South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come. The problem is the Russians
aren't coming.
The moniker "journalist" should immediately by banished by replacement of "reporter", as in
report the facts and observations, not interpretations or personal opinions.
@Eagle
Eye " In your view what else was Hubbard brilliant about?"
Well for example his bizarre sounding concepts regarding the sources of mankind, and the
history of this insane planet, which are repeatedly ridiculed and labeled as absurd by the
PTB, who of course have their own turf to defend, and their own concepts which they do not
want to be brought into question.
@EugeneGur
Well can't say I disagree with the comment.
Or, better, can't provide any concrete evidence to the contrary, especially re the second
paragraph.
The thing is, nationalism is a peculiar feeling.
So, while this
Normal people all over the South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to
come.
could be true, the rest of Ukraine could get into quite the opposite.
But, as you say
The problem is the Russians aren't coming.
so it's all academic.
Now, speaking of
people are fed up with the current power .
one could feel, probably, the same in Donbass.
Things aren't great there either.
In any case the conflict is there, frozen for the moment (not for the people along the
front line) and can erupt, again, when the US Deep State wants it.
@Michael
Kenny If one wants a clear example of the Russophobic or Putinophobic hysteria infecting
the West, one need go no further than this demented fellow. And to that he adds a conspiracy
theory about the gangsters ruling over it all.
@seeing-thru
You got it 100% Right my friend. That's the best reality-connected assessment of the Donald's
performance that I've read. I'm going to swipe it for reuse elsewhere. Thank you, and may the
force be with you.
@Jeff
Davis Glad you liked it. Yeah, go ahead use it any which way. BTW, my fear is that the
Donald may not be able to succeed because of the massive line-up of forces against him. The
whole lunatic asylum is out of their cages, snarling and clawing and planning all sorts of
stuff to bring him down. Let us wish him success.
So standing up for American citizens is considered a "mentally insane" thing?
You are utterly and completely out of your mind, virtually from another planet, another
reality. A textbook example of insanity. The fact that you don't recognize it, simply
confirms the fact.
The Deep state is not, repeat not , the American people.
Regarding the Intel community: There are the guys in the trenches. these are honorable
guys. Then there is the leadership. The current leadership is on notice to behave itself, on
account of the new "Sheriff" in town. The corrupt politicized leadership from the
Clinton/Bush/Obama regimes however, now out of power, are attempting to overthrow the
legitimately elected president of the United States. In so doing, they are pursuing
treason-lite.
Clapper, Brennan, and Hayden are already full-on war criminals: Iraq & torture. Now,
in their attempt to destroy the Trump presidency, they are adding betrayal of democracy and
betrayal of the Constitution of the United States to their criminal resume. These are evil
men who think it is their job to run the United States from behind a malleable (gutless?)
figurehead who does what they tell him to do.
As I said in my original post, it is fascinating to observe people like you, utterly
dominated -- brain-raped really -- by a neocon/neoliberal narrative that has reduced them to
robotic -- even willing -- slaves of the 1%. Good for you. Enjoy. The others, who prefer
self-mastery to self-enslavement, will benefit from your choice of enslavement.
That is what all of this boils down to; Trump treating Americans like s*hit in front of
the whole world, while praising Russia and Russians.
The IC war criminals/traitors should not be equated with or allowed to hide anonymous
behind the majority population of decent Americans. Which is what simpletons like you enable
and then fall for.
I fully understood all the concerns for what the Left is doing to people and to the
society.
Trump praises Israel and says that, "Securing Israel's safety is our most important
task" not a peep comes from the Trump-supporters?!
Some Trump supporters do object. Others however grasp the political reality of Jewish
political influence in the US. Politically incompetent simpletons like yourself think Trump
should commit political suicide by taking on the Jews.
The Jews/Israel will be dealt with -- or not -- later, when Trump has secured his
presidency. And then, the rebalancing of the US-Israeli relationship will not be grounded in
hostility to the Jews, but will be more along the lines of America First.
Never ever did I expect, that it would be the Trump-supporters surfacing as the fifth
column, giving the "finishing touch" to the destruction of American citizens.
The above is pure paranoid, "the sky is falling", TDS whackadoodle.
The Liberals seem to have woken up,
The country is in the throes of a cultural war between the bubble-wrapped snowflakes and
"real" people. Thankfully, the "real" people will win, precisely because they have the
advantage of being reality-connected. The snowflakes will benefit as well -- you will benefit
-- by the resulting opportunity to reconnect with reality.
Good luck, best wishes, Trump is rapidly changing the world for the better.
And let me add: The Soviet Union is a quarter century gone, and with it Soviet Communism.
Putin is the preeminent statesman of our times. Go to YouTube and listen to what he says. He
and Trump, aligned, are a force for good in the world. Peace with Russia is coming, and with
it a new era of peace and prosperity in the world.
Which leaves me to echo your closing comment:
Are you ever going to be able to comprehend this?
(Answer: Probably not for another six years, if ever.)
@peterAUS
Australia's problem is going to be an Asian economic overclass you Australians always obsess
about country's located halfway around the world first the UK now the US.
you're worried about blacks in the US in the ghetto's wealth inequality while Chinese
business elite reduce you to paupers IN Australia and eventually you go the way of the black
aborigines.
But you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you
have seen in Hollywood films.
Point is that in the sixties you were still obsessed with the British Empire though you
are a bit of a lost colony now you are obsessed with the United States, another waning
Empire.
Pretty soon the Chinese will have you sleeping in your cars and you will still be focused
on the state of blacks in the US ghetto and inequality in America.
But see, the US won't be the problem in Australia. China will.
You compare yourself to the United States because it is a similar former British colony
and white settler nation but it is Asia that will stomp you.
She is most likely onto something important. My solution is that most people are
double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control us while we
(somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us.
St Paul, Shakespeare and Montaigne all complained of their own double-mindedness.
I hope that a column of mine on this topic will appear soon in The U.R.
most people are double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control
us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us
..
I guess you are onto something here.
It could go a bit deeper, though, as:
. most people are double-minded because it suits us to allow our betters to lead us
while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for their and our faults and errors which
profit us.
But you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you
have seen in Hollywood films You compare yourself to the United States because it is a
similar former British colony and white settler nation
If I may intercede, no, and that twice.
1. peterAUS, if my interpretation is correct, sees the world through 'military blinkers,'
is assumed not to notice China et al. except as one 'enemy' among many, and probably thinks
that ~100 F35s, xxx new warships, yyy new submarines and zzz new 'armoured cars,' costing the
Aus-taxpayer nose-bleeding squillions will 'save his/their bacon.' As such, peterAUS cannot
be addressed as any valid representative of 'the great Aus-unwashed.'
2. That great Aus-unwashed, hoovering up the trash err, sorry for the US-speak; hoovering
up the horrendous rubbish 'presented' to them via their '1984-style telescreens' err,
one-finger flat-screen distraction devices [when not actual television sets], is largely
unconscious of any 'real world.'
Since the CIA-sponsored coup of 1975, the country has been 'going to the dogs' at an
increasing rate. The sheople glory under their 'Lucky Country' delusion, not even knowing its
full import: Lucky not to be even partly aware. Yeah sure, the corrupt&venal MSM+PFBCs [=
publicly financed broadcasters] try to revive 'the yellow peril' scare, but that's just
standard 'Bernays haze' scare mongering, to keep the proles from thinking: Der, they [as
peterAUS] didn't think. rgds
PS The great Aus-unwashed, as any 'Western' citizen, has zero choice; so-called 'Western
democracy' allows for as good as zero 'citizen input.' The 'choice' of Trump should be put
down to an aberration -- some 'clever-clogs' manipulators -- *not* Russians -- pulled off a
coup. But as they used to say: "Better red than dead;" better Trump than HRC.
Do we have a democracy? Or even representative government? So what happened to our jobs
off-shored. Who approved that? Who approved 100 million legal immigrants in the last 50
years?
Why does anyone accept our stilted self-image, especially Diana?
On the point about the "world's greatest prison population" note that some one-third of
the federal prison population consists of illegal alien criminals and the large U.S. black
criminal underclass commits crimes at a higher rate than everyone else, so there are more
blacks in our prisons. Oh, the horror.
If other nations enjoyed large illegal immigrant populations and a large black criminal
underclass we would see similar inflated prison populations.
Spare us the silliness on this score as well as the "regular massacres of school children"
garbage. No doubt you'll enlighten us with your anti-gun views on American gun nuts at a
later time. I wait with bated breath.
Still, you almost got a lock on insightful commentary these days.
This is a very good blog, column, whatever, because it illuminates with the light of
reason the mass madness of the Washington crowd, and probably much of the American
population. See the New Yorker article in the current issue about the utility of caregivers
lying to and/or deceiving demented patients to keep them content. That is what is happening
now in the USA and your failure to understand my explanation for it, in my essay on
double-mindedness, which I sent you last summer, I mind very much. You could lead the way out
of the mess if you would re-read that essay and try to understand it.
I am a very ordinary guy and I understand it. Please try again. The world needs this.
who has spent time in Ukraine knows how deep hatred of Russia goes
I don't know where is Ukraine you spent your time and in what company, but this is
complete BS. The South-Eastern Ukraine hates the Western Ukrainian "banderovtsi" as much as
the Russians do if not more -- after all, the followers of Bandera operated mostly on the
Ukrainian soil. There are deranged individuals in every country, of course, and Ukraine has
been subjected lately to intense hate propaganda as well as repressions, but there is no
hatred of Russia. This is contradicted by both sociology and everyday behavior of Ukrainian,
which move to Russia in droves, spend time in Russia, support Russian sport teams, etc.
we are supposed to dismiss the actual wishes of Ukrainians, Estonians, Poles, Georgians
and other peoples who hate Russia (and love the US)
Nobody is asking about what the real Ukrainians, Estonians, Georgians or even Poles
actually think, least of all the US. There are almost as many Georgians living in Russia as
there are in Georgia, and they show no desire to move back. In 2008 during the conflict,
their biggest fear was that they'd be deported.
The Ukraine's Maidan was a violent coup, where a few thousand militants armed and trained
abroad overthrew a government elected by the entire country. Protests that immediately
started all over the country were suppressed with force -- the one in Donbass still is.
How could anyone with an access to Internet remain unaware of these facts is beyond
me.
@Peter
Akuleyev Why should anyone freaking care and put his ass in the line of fire because you
bunch of primitives hate Russia? Between having a nuclear cataclysm because you pathetic
dwarfs of nations are frustrated to have a neighbour you can't bully and Russia obliterating
you, I say let Russia obliterate you, thus we won't have to suffer the ear-hurting
dissonnance of your incessant whining any more. Though I doubt Russia would stomp on you.
When you see shit, you don't stomp on it, you don't want you don't want your shoes to stink,
you just walk around it.
@EugeneGur
That's an interesting point. Even if true, doesn't matter. One could wonder ..who are the
people populating Ukrainian Armed Forces?
Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass? All of
them. Including those is logistics/maintenance depots far away from the (current) line of
separation?
The will to fight against "Russia" ranges from a deep hate to simply not wishing to go
against the (current) Ukrainian government. The former are in those "shock" battalions. The
later are manning the logistics train. And everything in between.
Now .if/when a real shooting starts, as soon as Russia, as expected (and desired) by the
most of readers here, starts delivering ordnance into operational depth of Donbass enemy, the
ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I suspect.
The president says he will bring the troops home from Syria and Afghanistan. Now, because of
their pathological hatred of Trump, mainstream Democrats are hysterical in their
opposition.
If anyone else were president, the "liberals" would be celebrating. After all, pulling
American soldiers out of a couple of failing, endless wars seems like a "win" for progressives.
Heck, if Obama did it there might be a ticker-tape parade down Broadway. And there should be.
The intervention in Syria is increasingly aimless, dangerous and lacks an end state.
Afghanistan is an unwinnable war – America's longest – and about to end in outright
military
defeat . Getting out now and salvaging so much national blood and treasure ought to be a
progressive dream. There's only one problem: Donald Trump. Specifically, that it was Trump who
gave the order
to begin the troop withdrawals.
Lost in the haze of their pathological hatred of President Trump, the majority of mainstream
liberal pundits and politicians can't, for the life of them, see the good sense in extracting
the troops from a couple Mideast quagmires. That or they can see the positives, but, in their
obsessive compulsion to smear the president, choose politics over country. It's probably a bit
of both. That's how tribally partisan American political discourse has become. And, how
reflexively hawkish and interventionist today's mainstream Democrats now are. Whither the
left-wing antiwar movement? Well, except for a few diehards out there, the movement seems to
have been buried long ago with
George McGovern .
Make no mistake, the Democrats have been tacking to the right on foreign policy and
burgeoning their tough-guy-interventionist credentials for decades now. Terrified of being
painted as soft or dovish on martial matters, just about all the "serious" baby-boomer Dems
proudly co-opted the militarist line and gladly accepted campaign cash from the corporate arms
dealers. Think about it, any Democrat with serious future presidential aspirations back in 2002
voted for the Iraq War – Hillary, Joe Biden, even former peace activist John Kerry! And,
in spite of the party base now moving to the left, all these big name hawks – along with
current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer – are still Democratic stalwarts. Heck, some
polls
list Biden as the party's 2020 presidential frontrunner.
More disturbing than the inconsistency of these political hacks is the vacuousness of the
supposedly liberal media. After Trump's announcement of troop withdrawals, just about every
MSNBC host slammed the president and suddenly sounded more hawkish than the clowns over at Fox
News. Take Rachel Maddow. Whatever you think of her politics, she is – undoubtedly
– a brilliant woman. Furthermore, unlike most pundits, she knows a little something about
foreign policy. Her 2012 book, Drift: The
Unmooring of American Military Power was a serious and well-researched critique of
executive power and the ongoing failure of the wars on terror. Drift was well reviewed by
regular readers and scholars alike.
Enter Donald Trump. Ever since the man won the 2016 election, Maddow's nightly show has been
dominated the hopeless dream of Russia-collusion and a desire for Trump's subsequent
impeachment. Admittedly, Maddow's anti-Trump rhetoric isn't completely unfounded – this
author, after all, has spent the better part of two years criticizing most of his policies
– but her zealousness has clouded her judgment, or worse. Indeed, that Maddow, and her
fellow "liberals" at MSNBC have now
criticized the troop withdrawals and even paraded a slew of
disgraced neoconservatives – like Bill Kristol – on their shows seems final proof
of their descent into opportunistic hawkishness.
One of the most disturbing aspects of this new "liberal" hawkishness is the pundits' regular
canonization of Jim Mattis and the other supposed "adults"
in the room . For mainstream, Trump-loathing, liberals the only saving grace for this
administration was its inclusion of a few trusted, "grown-up" generals in the cabinet. Yet it
is a dangerous day, indeed, when the supposedly progressive journalists deify only the military
men in the room. Besides, Mattis was no friend to the liberals. Their beloved President Obama
previously canned "mad-dog" for his excessive bellicosity towards Iran. Furthermore, Mattis
– so praised for both his judgment and ethics – chose an interesting issue for
which to finally fall-on-his-sword and resign. U.S. support for the Saudi-led starvation of
85,000 kids in Yemen: Mattis could deal with that. But a modest disengagement from even one
endless war in the Middle East: well, the former SECDEF just couldn't countenance that. Thus,
he seems a strange figure for a "progressive" network to deify.
Personally, I'd like to debate a few of the new "Cold Warriors" over at MSNBC or CNN and ask
a simple series of questions: what on the ground changed in Syria or Afghanistan that has
suddenly convinced you the US must stay put? And, what positivist steps should the military
take in those locales, in order to achieve what purpose exactly? Oh, by the way, I'd ask my
debate opponents to attempt their answers without uttering the word Trump. The safe money says
they couldn't do it – not by a long shot. Because, you see, these pundits live and die by
their hatred of all things Trump and the more times they utter his name the higher go the
ratings and the faster the cash piles up. It's a business model not any sort of display of
honest journalism.
There's a tragic irony here. By the looks of things, so long as Mr. Trump is president, it
seems that any real movement for less interventionism in the Greater Middle East may come from
a part of the political right – libertarians like Rand Paul along with the president's
die hard base, which is willing to follow him on any policy pronouncement. Paradoxically, these
folks may find some common cause with the far left likes of Bernie Sanders and the
Ocasio-Cortez crowd, but it seems unlikely that the mainstream left is prepared to lead a new
antiwar charge. What with Schumer/Pelosi still in charge, you can forget about it. Given the
once powerful left-led Vietnam-era protest movement, today's Dems seem deficient indeed on
foreign policy substance. Odds are they'll cede this territory, once again, to the GOP.
By taking a stronger interventionist, even militarist, stand than Trump on Syria and
Afghanistan, the Democrats are wading into dangerous waters. Maybe, as some say, this president
shoots from the hip and has no core policy process or beliefs. Perhaps. Then again, Trump did
crush fifteen Republican mainstays in 2015 and shock Hillary – and the world – in
2016. Indeed, he may know just what he's doing. While the Beltway,
congressional-military-industrial complex continues to support ever more fighting and dying
around the world, for the most part the American people do not . Trump, in fact, ran on a
generally anti -interventionist platform, calling the Iraq War "dumb" and not to be repeated.
The president's sometimes earthy – if coarse – commonsense resonated with a lot of
voters, and Hillary's hawkish establishment record (including her vote for that very same Iraq
War) didn't win her many new supporters.
Liberals have long believed, at least since McGovern's 1972 trouncing by Richard Nixon, that
they could out-hawk the Republican hawks and win over some conservatives. It rarely worked. In
fact, Dems have been playing right into bellicose Republican hands for decades. And, if they
run a baby-boomer-era hawk in 2020 – say Joe Biden – they'll be headed for another
shocking defeat. The combination of a (mostly, so far) strong economy and practical policy of
returning US troops from unpopular wars, could, once again, out weigh this president's other
liabilities.
Foreign policy won't, by itself, tip a national election. But make no mistake, if the clowns
at MSNBC and "liberal" hacks on Capitol Hill keep touting their newfound militarism, they're
likely to emerge from 2020 with not only smeared consciences, but four more years in the
opposition.
* * *
Danny Sjursen is a US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq
and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a
memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of
Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter at
@SkepticalVet .
[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an
unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of
the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
A the politicians carry their recordsike a ball and chain. Trump had no legislative
baggage so in comparison he looked ok. There may be a chance that some plan to allow e
wrything to sink to near chaos is happening, with that risk of a slip up being total
collapse. It would appear total collapse is likely absent some very well thought out plan by
a lot of people who appear to be morons
In the US the neocons switch between parties like changing underwear. Now that the
republicans are soiled they'll wear democrats instead, lobby for more war until they're good
and soiled, and switch when republican populism is back on the rise (like during the Bush
years, and then Obama).
We all know it. If libtards didn't hate America, they wouldn't be trying so hard to change
it.
Remember the happy white culture middle class America of 1955? Libtards hate it with a
passion that can only be an obsession. The first thing libtards started whining about in the
1950's was the the poor 'oppressed' negroes weren't allowed to burp and fart at the same
lunch counter as the evil white man. We foolishly caved in to that first step of liberal
stupidity and look where we are today. Mall shootings in Chicongo and New Jersey.
Everytime the (((media))) shows you these violent examples, just remember how we got
here.
Compromising with liberals is nothing more than a highway to hell, paved with compromise
and liberal 'good intentions'.
Now we have Donald Trump who is willing to tell the liberal idiots to shove their fake
altruism and egalitarianism up their collective asses. This chance of a lifetime for our
children may never come again.
I voted for McGovern. I think that was the first time I voted. Now I can't stand either
political Parties. I saw the games the Republicans pulled with the Massachusetts Caucus and
Convention when I was an alternate delegate for Ron Paul. There is no trick dirty enough for
either Party to pull. They are without a moral compass.
Bring 'some' troops home is just a political maneuver not a policy change. How can you
tell?
Trump is an imperialist. That's why he fired Bannon.
And that's why Trump moved drones attacks operations from the military to the CIA.
There's no evidence that Trump is ending US intervention anywhere.
Now check this out when the President is Democrat.
52%
of Republicans disprove withdrawing troops: Americans widely support President Obama's
recent decision to withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of the year, with 75%
approving. That includes the vast majority of Democrats and independents. Republicans,
however, are slightly more likely to disapprove than approve.
The Republican position went from 50% supporting withdrawal with Obama to 70% under Trump.
A change for sure, but not nearly as dramatic as the Democrats which have completely changed
their positions i.e. their position has nothing to do with principles what-so-ever.
@Escrava Isaura: " Trump is an imperialist. That's why he fired Bannon. "
Not so sure of the connection there.
But America is an imperial nation (both major parties have supported this for years) and
the problem now is that its imperialism is on an irreversible trajectory which will bring it
to an end. As one might expect, they are trying to keep it alive but that will only delay the
inevitable. What we don't know is whether it will end with a whimper or a big bang.
Hillary lost the election when she could not walk. she lost a shoe, she was shown in the van,
and shoe was thrown after her. And that was arranged by Russians.
"... This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations. ..."
"... They are CIA assets who do what they're told. ..."
"... There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt. They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true. ..."
"... Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety (because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness. ..."
"... I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the "basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically induced madness. ..."
"... If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to antidepressants. ..."
"... The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees, become orphans and all other manner of evil. ..."
"... Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down. ..."
"... "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics." ..."
"... I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a genius comment. ..."
"... "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" obviously the Gods want to destroy the so called western man ..."
Anyone with an average intelligence can, in two hours trawling of Internet, get how
false all that is. And, yet, here we are.
The same people who can spend hours on social media, shopping and entertainment online
can't, for SOME reason, figure all that out.
Easy to blame "them" and media/academia/whatever. Maybe it's time to start passing a bit
of blame to people in general. Not holding my breath.
I fully agree with this sentiment. The only reason the evil bastards who control our
society can get away with their treachery is because most of the American people are out to
lunch on the most important issues of our time. If the sheeple were to take responsibility to
inform themselves of what is happening today they would be able to see the lies they are
being constantly exposed to as just that -- lies. And then, they could put down the beer and
turn off the damn sports channel and get angry at what has happened to their country.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for ignorant people to remain
ignorant.
This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European
elite which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or
corgis in the American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation"
associations.
There is an unrecognized plague in our society called antidepressants. More than ten per
cent of the people in the industrialized world take drugs which interfere with self doubt.
They don't ask themselves whether an idea in their minds is true, fair or kind. They only ask
if they believe it. And since the chemical they ingest prevents them from assessing the idea
from all sides they always believe that if they think something it must be true.
This is the perfect environment for the virus of groupthink to spread.
And since our leaders, both on the left and the right, may be ahead of the curve on drug
usage the neocons and the politically correct may use antidepressants at greater levels than
10 per cent.
Other symptoms of antidepressant use include high levels of free floating anxiety
(because useful anxiety is suppressed) and restlessness.
I am still asking myself what motivated a veteran politician like Hillary Clinton to
violate a cardinal rule of politics by attacking not her opponent but his supporters with the
"basket of deplorable" comment in the closing days of the 2016 campaign except chemically
induced madness.
If history has recorded that the Roman Empire collapsed due to lead poisoning from the
water pipes a future time may also conclude the US Empire was destroyed due to
antidepressants.
@Gordon
Pratt I think you are mistaken trying to rationalize the behavior of the political class
and their puppet masters. I believe the real driver are not antidepressants, but an obscene
greed, which is so blinding that it made MIC profiteers forget that to enjoy the fruits of
their thievery they have to be alive.
The psychology of the mass of Americans with it's self-righteousness and self-centerdness
is really amazing. Just in the last seventeen years the US has invaded or otherwise attacked
numerous countries and has caused millions of people to die, become miserable refugees,
become orphans and all other manner of evil.
Not least of all has been it's creation and patronage of ISIS, one of the most heinous
groups in history. Yet Americans have this massive blind spot to the war criminality of all
this that their country has committed against the peace of the world. Instead they're being
stampeded into some irrational Russia-phobia. It's the US that's been on the march
everywhere, labeling those countries that resist it's aggression as being aggressors for
being willing to defend themselves. It's all upside-down.
"I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in
pursuit of politics."
I'd really like to know who wrote that line for the Prez. (Since I think it unlikely
that he wrote that, or any of his "prepared remarks".) Stephen Miller? Whoever. But it was a
genius comment.
TDS is a convenient shorthand for this form of disconnect from reality. That said it is
absolutely fascinating to see and puzzle over this geopolitical tectonic event. The old
narrative is crumbling, with the result that people like Lauri are fighting desperately to
preserve their "sanity", dependent as it is on their tribal submission to the old order and
its old narrative (its timeworn lies).
"Science advances one funeral at a time."
Max Planck
By which he means that people persist in believing in those "truths" (their belief system)
they have held for a lifetime. Only when they die out will a new, revised belief system
replaced the old. The same in geopolitics as in science.
American dementia is not new. It is current but after the false flags of almost all of our
(US) wars going back as far as the Barbary Pirates, Americans have thrived on being the good
guys in an evil world. We are SO GOOD, and the world thinks we are perfect and want to be
part of US so much, that any other thought is treasonous.
The fact that getting along with Russia is necessary to NOT create armageddon, is
irrelevant to the typical citizen because no matter how wrong, we are blessed and perfect in
the eyes of the gawd we pretend to believe in.
"... Their fundamental problem is, Aspen Institute is CIA. Their first and only instinct is to use people like toilet paper. They don't want popular support. They want agents in complete control. ..."
@Cagey
Beast Aspen Institute does make attempts at outreach, but they invariably cock it up by
eliciting, recruiting, or suborning every single person they bring in. The shitheads even
tried to do it to me. You would think they'd have a dossier saying I hate those cobags.
Their fundamental problem is, Aspen Institute is CIA. Their first and only instinct is
to use people like toilet paper. They don't want popular support. They want agents in
complete control.
Yes, the Aspen Institute is the CIA and the CIA is the Aspen Institute. Or, to be more
precise, the CIA is the armed wing of Washington's permanently governing technocratic party,
in the same way the KGB was the armed wing of the Soviet Communist Party.
Poor Julian Assange is likely going to be in their hands not too long from now. The
citizen of one Five Eyes country will be arrested by another and then sent off to the
imperial metropole, to be kicked around like a political football. The rest of us
Anglosphericals are expected to cheer or remain silent. Either is acceptable.
there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them
Me: Oh yes there is; by *them* I don't mean "Zuckerberg, others" but the actual
rulers of 'the West,' then see this:
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of
thistles?
Consider also:
Aspen Institute is CIA
and [perhaps most critically] this:
may depend on support for Trump from Israel and the Pentagon!
Now, I term the actual rulers of 'the West' the ccc = covert criminal cabal. Of course
they are in hiding -- acting from 'behind the curtain,' as some have it -- it has to be that
*dishonest* way -- for them. Among their most notable 'fruits' are the JFK murder, USS
Liberty outrage, inside-job 9/11 psyop and the utterly wicked destruction of Libya/Gaddafi,
just 4 of many. The extended list is looong, and note that the 1st 3 in my list demonstrate
the ccc 'murdering their own' -- except that to the ccc, anybody not actually in the ccc
itself is not 'their own' but only exploitable/disposable objects. Of course the ccc causes
lies to be promulgated, hence the Lügenpresse . Neoliberalism/austerity must also
come from the ccc, causing misery wherever it's forced upon us, we the people. One of the
spivs in suits who 'sold' neoliberalism to the Aus people called it 'economic rationalism'
and jeered: 'What would you rather -- irrational economics?' Another ccc modus
operandi item is coercion as demonstrated by the downstream effects of Downer's "Get a
briefing!" -- which shows us that the CIA et al. is a 'command conduit' if not a command
originator. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that the ccc does not merely operate like a
mafia, it *is* a mafia, and one of the author's "may depend on" items suggests a name for
this mafia, namely: Khazar. That's our miserable world, deliberately made that way by that
mafia; if that's not 'mindless and demented' what is? rgds
@MK-DELTABURKE
The Aspen Institute is CIA, but the CIA is an organization created and controlled by the
globalist conspirators at the Council on Foreign Relations, mostly the Rockefellers and other
banksters.
In my opinion, no dementia. Too many careers and institutions are built on continuing
hostility towards Russia. First ECB President Duisenberg's ph d thesis had as title 'The
economic consequences of peace', something like that, his conclusion was that
demilitarization was possible economically, when controlled sensibly.
Did anyone read 'The Iron Mountain Report', I never quite knew what to make of it, but it
also is about if demilitarization is possible. Barbara Hinckley Sheldon Goldman, American
Politics and Government, Glenview Ill.,1990 describes how the USA weapons industry skillfully
prevents that spending on useless weapons diminishes. The history of the later Roman empire,
the army in control.
"... This link, I believe, points into a very interesting direction. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-23/imperial-naivete-american-public I don't think that "naivete" is a correct word there. ..."
"... the American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic affairs and elections. ..."
.a public lulled into a warm and fuzzy sense of moral superiority based on the notion
that we only go to war to save the good and punish the evil, and if we meddle in other
nations' domestic affairs and elections, we're only doing so for their own good.
If we weren't a kindly, generous Empire, we'd let them go down the drain without trying
to set them straight.
Key expression " moral superiority "
There is more:
. the American public naively assumes that their Imperial Project is so god-like in
its powers and prowess that no other great power should be able to meddle in our domestic
affairs and elections.
there are no limits on our execution of power because we're morally superior
That is the key. That is what, deep in their hearts, Americans believe. We .are .better
than .anybody .else. So, blaming "them", media, whatever no no that's a copout. Weak one. The
crux is simple, eternal, hard wired: "I am better than you". "I can be homeless punk here,
but, I am better than YOU." Feels good. That's all.
May be not yet, but talks
talks are under way and hiring of former CIA officials commenced :-). What is coming is
going to make COINTELPRO
look like the work of some amateur meme-freak.
But, seriously, all that actually happened back in the Summer of 2016 was the global
capitalist ruling classes recognized that they had a problem. The problem that they
recognized they had (and continue to have, and are now acutely aware of) is that no one is
enjoying global capitalism except the global capitalist ruling classes. The whole
smiley-happy, supranational, neo-feudal corporate empire concept is not going over very well
with the masses, or at least not with the unwashed masses. People started voting for
right-wing parties, and Brexit, and other "populist" measures (not because they had suddenly
transformed into Nazis, but because the Right was acknowledging and exploiting their anger
with the advance of global neoliberalism, while liberals and the Identity Politics Left were
slow jamming the TPP
with Obama and babbling about transgender bathrooms, and such).
The global capitalist ruling classes needed to put a stop to that (i.e, the "populist"
revolt, not the bathroom debate). So they suspended the Global War on Terror and launched the
War on Populism. It was originally only meant to last until Hillary Clinton's coronation, or
the second Brexit referendum, then switch back to the War on Terror, but well, weird things
happen, and here we are.
... ... ...
And then there's the battle for hearts and minds, which they've been furiously waging for
the last two years, and which is only going to intensify. If you think things are batshit
crazy now (which, clearly, they are), strap yourself in. What is coming is going to make
COINTELPRO
look like the work of some amateur meme-freak. The neoliberal corporate media, psy-ops like
Integrity Initiative , Internet-censoring apps like
NewsGuard , ShareBlue and other
David Brock
outfits , and
a legion
of mass hysteria generators will be relentlessly barraging our brains with absurdity,
disinformation, and just outright lies (as will their counterparts on the Right, of course,
in case you thought that they were any alternative). It's going to get extremely zany.
"Kamala Harris: John Kelly Got Mad That I Called Him at Home About the Travel Ban"
by Gideon Resnick...01.08.19... 5:16 AM ET
"In the early days of President's Trump first term, when he signed an executive order to ban travel to the United States from
seven Muslim-majority nations, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) decided to get more information about the chaos occurring at airports
across the country.
"So I called [then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary] John Kelly," Harris writes in her new book, The Truths We Hold:
An American Journey.
Senators talking to Cabinet members is not rare, especially when it involves a pressing legal and political matter. But Harris
hadn't called Kelly at his office. She had dialed him at home. And the soon-to-be chief of staff was not exactly pleased.
"There were a lot of ways Secretary Kelly could have shown responsiveness, a lot of information he could have provided," Harris
writes. "Indeed the American people had a right to this information, and, given my oversight role on the Senate Homeland Security
Committee, I intended to get it. Instead, he said gruffly, "Why are you calling me at home with this?" That was his chief concern.
By the time we got off the phone, it was clear that he didn't understand the depth of what was going on. He said he'd get back
to me, but he never did."...
May be not yet, but talks
talks are under way and hiring of former CIA officials commenced :-). What is coming is
going to make COINTELPRO
look like the work of some amateur meme-freak.
But, seriously, all that actually happened back in the Summer of 2016 was the global
capitalist ruling classes recognized that they had a problem. The problem that they
recognized they had (and continue to have, and are now acutely aware of) is that no one is
enjoying global capitalism except the global capitalist ruling classes. The whole
smiley-happy, supranational, neo-feudal corporate empire concept is not going over very well
with the masses, or at least not with the unwashed masses. People started voting for
right-wing parties, and Brexit, and other "populist" measures (not because they had suddenly
transformed into Nazis, but because the Right was acknowledging and exploiting their anger
with the advance of global neoliberalism, while liberals and the Identity Politics Left were
slow jamming the TPP
with Obama and babbling about transgender bathrooms, and such).
The global capitalist ruling classes needed to put a stop to that (i.e, the "populist"
revolt, not the bathroom debate). So they suspended the Global War on Terror and launched the
War on Populism. It was originally only meant to last until Hillary Clinton's coronation, or
the second Brexit referendum, then switch back to the War on Terror, but well, weird things
happen, and here we are.
... ... ...
And then there's the battle for hearts and minds, which they've been furiously waging for
the last two years, and which is only going to intensify. If you think things are batshit
crazy now (which, clearly, they are), strap yourself in. What is coming is going to make
COINTELPRO
look like the work of some amateur meme-freak. The neoliberal corporate media, psy-ops like
Integrity Initiative , Internet-censoring apps like
NewsGuard , ShareBlue and other
David Brock
outfits , and
a legion
of mass hysteria generators will be relentlessly barraging our brains with absurdity,
disinformation, and just outright lies (as will their counterparts on the Right, of course,
in case you thought that they were any alternative). It's going to get extremely zany.
Any unbiased observer would suspect that considerable part of US Congress consists of senile
gerantocrats...
Notable quotes:
"... You can accuse only the elites of dementia: they forgot that to enjoy the fruits of your thievery you have to be alive. ..."
"... They tricked us the last time, I hope that the people have learned their lesson – not to trust them anymore. ..."
"... Thank you, this is an excellent summary of the situation right now. It's worth noting too just how disconnected the establishment is from the wider public. They have enormous financial resources and access to the entire legacy media ..."
"... Let's stop using the word "elites". That sounds too positive, as though they have some admirable traits acquired by hard work, as in "elite athletes". Instead, let's call them "oligarchs" so that we get the right nuances of wealth and power, and get the correct emotional connotations of our disgust with them. We should label them with labels that they will dislike: oligarchs, mob bosses, etc. ..."
"... This is not irrational. The screaming, the hysteria, this is the utterly rational, breathtakingly brutal reaction of a ruling elite that has the moral sense of a reptile. And it's working. All of Trump's campaign promises to stop wasting trillions on pointless winless foreign wars of choice, and instead spend that on our own country? Gone. And so much else besides. ..."
"... It's dangerous to underestimate an enemy. The useful idiot foot soldiers, screaming in mindless herd instinct, are one thing. The people behind them – the Koch brothers, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, others – there is nothing at all mindless or demented about them. ..."
Where to begin to analyze the madness of mainstream media in reaction to the Trump-Putin
meeting in Helsinki? By focusing on the individual, psychology has neglected the problem of
mass insanity, which has now overwhelmed the United States establishment, its mass media and
most of its copycat European subsidiaries. The individuals may be sane, but as a herd they are
ready to leap off the cliff.
For the past two years, a particular power group has sought to explain away its loss of
power – or rather, its loss of the Presidency, as it still holds a predominance of
institutional power – by creation of a myth. Mainstream media is known for its herd
behavior, and in this case the editors, commentators, journalists have talked themselves into a
story that initially they themselves could hardly take seriously.
Donald Trump was elected by Russia ?
On the face of it, this is preposterous. Okay, the United States can manage to rig elections
in Honduras, or Serbia, or even Ukraine, but the United States is a bit too big and complex to
leave the choice of the Presidency to a barrage of electronic messages totally unread by most
voters. If this were so, Russia wouldn't need to try to "undermine our democracy". It would
mean that our democracy was already undermined, in tatters, dead. A standing corpse ready to be
knocked over by a tweet.
Even if, as is alleged without evidence, an army of Russian bots (even bigger than the
notorious Israeli army of bots) was besieging social media with its nefarious slanders against
poor innocent Hillary Clinton, this could determine an election only in a vacuum, with no other
influences in the field. But there was a lot of other stuff going on in the 2016 election, some
for Trump and some for Hillary, and Hillary herself scored a crucial own goal by denigrating
millions of Americans as "deplorables" because they didn't fit into her identity politics
constituencies.
The Russians could do nothing to build support for Trump, and there is not a hint of
evidence that they tried. They might have done something to harm Hillary, because there was so
much there: the private server emails, the Clinton foundation, the murder of Moammer Gaddafi,
the call for a no-fly zone in Syria they didn't have to invent it. It was there. So was the
hanky panky at the Democratic National Committee, on which the Clintonite accusations focus,
perhaps to cause everyone to forget much worse things.
When you come to think of it, the DNC scandal focused on Debbie Wasserman Schultz, not on
Hillary herself. Screaming about "Russian hacking the DNC" has been a distraction from much
more serious accusations against Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders supporters didn't need those
"revelations" to make them stop loving Hillary or even to discover that the DNC was working
against Bernie. It was always perfectly obvious.
So at worst, "the Russians" are accused of revealing some relatively minor facts concerning
the Hillary Clinton campaign. Big deal.
But that is enough, after two years of fakery, to send the establishment into a frenzy of
accusations of "treason" when Trump does what he said he would do while campaigning, try to
normalize relations with Russia.
This screaming comes not only from the US mainstream, but also from that European elite
which has been housebroken for seventy years as obedient poodles, dachshunds or corgis in the
American menagerie, via intense vetting by US trans-Atlantic "cooperation" associations. They
have based their careers on the illusion of sharing the world empire by following U.S. whims in
the Middle East and transforming the mission of their armed forces from defense into foreign
intervention units of NATO under U.S. command. Having not thought seriously about the
implications of this for over half a century, they panic at the suggestion of being left to
themselves.
The Western elite is now suffering from self-inflicted dementia.
Donald Trump is not particularly articulate, navigating through the language with a small
repetitive vocabulary, but what he said at his Helsinki press conference was honest and even
brave. As the hounds bay for his blood, he quite correctly refused to endorse the "findings" of
US intelligence agencies, fourteen years after the same agencies "found" that Iraq was bursting
with weapons of mass destruction. How in the world could anyone expect anything else?
But for the mainstream media, "the story" at the Helsinki summit, even the only
story, was Trump's reaction to the, er, trumped up charges of Russian interference in our
democracy. Were you or were you not elected thanks to Russian hackers? All they wanted was a
yes or no answer. Which could not possibly be yes. So they could write their reports in
advance.
Anyone who has frequented mainstream journalists, especially those who cover the "big
stories" on international affairs, is aware of their obligatory conformism, with few
exceptions. To get the job, one must have important "sources", meaning government spokesmen who
are willing to tell you what "the story" is, often without being identified. Once they know
what "the story" is, competition sets in: competition as to how to tell it. That leads to an
escalation of rhetoric, variations on the theme: "The President has betrayed our great country
to the Russian enemy. Treason!"
This demented chorus on "Russian hacking" prevented mainstream media from even doing their
job. Not even mentioning, much less analyzing, any of the real issues at the summit. To find
analysis, one must go on line, away from the official fake news to independent reporting. For
example, "the Moon of Alabama" site offers
an intelligent interpretation of the Trump strategy , which sounds infinitely more
plausible than "the story". In short, Trump is trying to woo Russia away from China, in a
reverse version of Kissinger's strategy forty years ago to woo China away from Russia, thus
avoiding a continental alliance against the United States. This may not work because the United
States has proven so untrustworthy that the cautious Russians are highly unlikely to abandon
their alliance with China for shadows. But it makes perfect sense as an explanation of Trump's
policy, unlike the caterwauling we've been hearing from Senators and talking heads on CNN.
Those people seem to have no idea of what diplomacy is about. They cannot conceive of
agreements that would be beneficial to both sides. No, it's got to be a zero sum game, winner
take all. If they win, we lose, and vice versa.
They also have no idea of the harm to both sides if they do not agree. They have no project,
no strategy. Just hate Trump.
He seems totally isolated, and every morning I look at the news to see if he has been
assassinated yet.
It is unimaginable for our Manichean moralists that Putin might also be under fire at home
for failing to chide the American president for U.S. violations of human rights in Guantanamo,
murderous drone strikes against defenseless citizens throughout the Middle East, the
destruction of Libya in violation of the UN mandate, interference in the elections of countless
countries by government-financed "non-governmental organizations" (the National Endowment of
Democracy), worldwide electronic spying, invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the
world's greatest prison population and regular massacres of school children. But the diplomatic
Russians know how to be polite.
Still, if Trump actually makes a "deal", there may be losers – neither the U.S. nor
Russia but third parties. When two great powers reach agreement, it is often at somebody else's
expense. The West Europeans are afraid it will be them, but such fears are groundless. All
Putin wants is normal relations with the West, which is not much to ask.
Rather, candidate number one for paying the price are the Palestinians, or even Iran, in
marginal ways. At the press conference, asked about possible areas of cooperation between the
two nuclear powers, Trump suggested that the two could agree on helping Israel:
"We both spoke with Bibi Netanyahu. They would like to do certain things with respect to
Syria, having to do with the safety of Israel. In that respect, we absolutely would like to
work in order to help Israel. Israel will be working with us. So both countries would work
jointly."
In political terms, Trump knows where political power lies, and is counting on the influence
of the pro-Israel lobby, which recognizes the defeat in Syria and the rising influence of
Russia, to save him from the liberal imperialists – a daring bet, but he does not have
much choice.
On another subject, Trump said that "our militaries" get along with the Russians "better
than our politicians". This is another daring bet, on military realism that could somehow
neutralize military industrial congressional complex lobbying for more and more weapons.
In short, the only chance to end the nuclear war threat may depend on support for Trump from
Israel and the Pentagon!
The hysterical neoliberal globalists seem to have ruled out any other possibility –
and perhaps this one too.
"Constructive dialogue between the United States and Russia forwards the opportunity to open
new pathways toward peace and stability in our world" Trump declared "I would rather take a
political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics."
That is more than his political enemies can claim.
This is a frightening, accurate commentary on what we face as a result of an unaccountable
power structure resorting to any and all means to retain power which, if this structure
continues to exercise it, will lead to our extinction.
In the establishment, it's not dementia as such, it's just serving the highest bidder. You
can accuse only the elites of dementia: they forgot that to enjoy the fruits of your thievery
you have to be alive. If only they die, it would be a great service to the humanity.
Unfortunately, the way things go, they might take us all with them.
This mass hysteria over a country hostile to both democracy and gay rights (it's hard to tell
which one is worse) has been seen in the west before.
It's very reminiscent of the lead-up to Iraq war in 2003. I mean what's next? Are they
gonna accuse Russia of having WMD's too?
They are pretty good at providing false evidence of WMD's, I wouldn't be surprised if they
stage another presentation of evidence of Russian WMD's at UN, complete with satellite images
of mobile trucks equipped with Uranium enrichment technology and all that.
That Nikki Halley can be quite persuasive, you know. I just hope that the world doesn't
buy that BS again. Russia having WMD's? That's preposterous. They tricked us the last time, I
hope that the people have learned their lesson – not to trust them anymore.
Thank you, this is an excellent summary of the situation right now. It's worth noting too
just how disconnected the establishment is from the wider public. They have enormous
financial resources and access to the entire legacy media but seem to have almost no real
base of support. Remember how the Never Trumpers had no one more prominent and well-known
than Evan McMullan (!!) to run as their candidate? Note too the tiny number of views the
YouTube videos of the Aspen Institute get: https://www.youtube.com/user/AspenInstitute/videos
.
On its own, these things aren't conclusive proof but together they add up. The Aspen
Institute crowd is an almost entirely self-contained subculture. They seem to have no base of
support, beyond their stacks of money, job titles and the power that come with the various
offices they hold. That's probably why they can never stop calling their opponents
"populists" or why Bill Kristol keeps tweeting about encountering scrappy shoeshine boys who
shout "give Trump hell, Mr Kristol!" as he goes about his urban peregrinations.
Diana Johnstone is not alone. Others on the alt-Left are starting to wake up, too. This is
Joaquín Flores:
People are seeing through dishonesty, and the old language traps are used up and done
for. If reconquista is the goal, then we need to have an honest conversation about that. If
there's a Latino nation with self determination in the south-west US, or rights 'back' to
the south-west US, then let's speak of it in such terms. Because then we'd be looking at a
Euro-American nation also. Now of course there's issues of interpenetrated peoples, and
identities we carry in our minds in diverse urban centers. But the point here is that we
have to have an honest discourse, and stop hiding reconquista sentiments under the rubric
of 'human rights'. Because European-Americans don't have right of return to Europe, so the
left is promoting what will ultimately be a race war, full scale, if they don't chill the
fuck out and back off this disingenuous approach to policy-wonkism on immigration.
The paradigmatic question today is, how is wealth made, and where does wealth come from?
What is the balance of trade and debts, and how is that is no longer manageable? The US
empire and NATO is no longer manageable. Trump is unwinding NATO. That can't be a bad
thing.
@AnonFromTNLet's stop using the word "elites". That sounds too positive, as though they have some
admirable traits acquired by hard work, as in "elite athletes". Instead, let's call them
"oligarchs" so that we get the right nuances of wealth and power, and get the correct
emotional connotations of our disgust with them. We should label them with labels that they
will dislike: oligarchs, mob bosses, etc.
@Tulips
You are right, of course, the word "elites" has too many positive connotations. In fact, they
are oligarchs, mega-thieves, or something on those lines. Functionally, in our society they
are puppet masters of all the venal puppets (politicians, journos, etc.).
I hear you, and I sympathize, but this is not mass dementia.
The oligarchy that runs the United States was worried that Donald Trump might actually
(!!) take some consideration for the national interest of the people of the United States of
America. That will never do.
This is not irrational. The screaming, the hysteria, this is the utterly rational,
breathtakingly brutal reaction of a ruling elite that has the moral sense of a reptile. And
it's working. All of Trump's campaign promises to stop wasting trillions on pointless winless
foreign wars of choice, and instead spend that on our own country? Gone. And so much else
besides.
It's dangerous to underestimate an enemy. The useful idiot foot soldiers, screaming in
mindless herd instinct, are one thing. The people behind them – the Koch brothers, Jeff
Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, others – there is nothing at all mindless or demented about
them.
Having a title "Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment" and approaching this effort as
"mass insanity", "demented chorus" etc. is simply delusional.
They know exactly what they are doing and, it appears, they are doing it well.
The are able to create their own reality. What puzzles me a bit isn't "them" or their servants (media etc.).
It's people in general. They appear to be buying that manufactured reality with ease. In this
era of instant communications it's .sobering. This constant shitting on "them" and their servants is fine and dandy but feels as just a
feel good exercise.
Perhaps some effort could be spared in trying to analyze and explain common people approach
to all this. The buying, hook and sinker, that manufacture.
Anyone with an average intelligence can, in two hours trawling of Internet, get how false
all that is. And, yet, here we are.
The same people who can spend hours on social media, shopping and entertainment online can't,
for SOME reason, figure all that out.
Easy to blame "them" and media/academia/whatever.
Maybe it's time to start passing a bit of blame to people in general.
@Daniel
Rich The Russians are by nature cautious. They are a conglomerate of individuals, many of
whom remember times when they would be sent by communist tyrants to a gulag for Wrongthink.
Of course they're cautious.
How Hillary Clinton could even run for presidency after the murder of Moammer Gaddafi and
Libya destruction, in any decent civilisation and society.
That's planetary shame and the most important question, not DNC hack or anything else, which
just trace in wrong direction.
So, Trump should grow some balls and arrest not just her but Barack Obama as well on the
same charges, as war criminals as they are, and prove that he really deserves to be
trusted.
And sacrifice himself in the process if needed as that would do any honest true US president,
and he knew what to expect from such position from the start.
It's not TV reality show, as still it is.
All he cares about is his ego and popularity, and he is loosing both.
Israel lobby finally see that they put their money in the wrong bank.
I intend to believe more that West, namely USA and UK the most, keeps them more hostage in
uncertainty for decades than in some Jewish conspiracy. Also, I also believe that only Russia can guaranty Israel security and peace in the
region.
In political terms, Trump knows where political power lies, and is counting on the
influence of the pro-Israel lobby, which recognizes the defeat in Syria and the rising
influence of Russia, to save him from the liberal imperialists – a daring bet, but he
does not have much choice.
Saudi Arabia spent 40 billion dollars helping Saddam's Iraq in its war against Iran, the
cost of US efforts in the Syria civil war have largely been met by the Saudis. The coming
attack on Iran will be as much to please the Saudis as to lock Israel into West Bank Arab
expulsion mode. The Israel Lobby will is not pushing Donald Trump, they are playing catch up
with him. Trump has already shown with the Jerusalem recognition that he is encouraging
Israel in unilateral courses of action.
@TG
No, I agree with the assessment in this article and its title: the establishment is
dangerously detached from reality right now. Our stagnant and locked-down political culture
in the West allowed the "elite" to develop a false sense of security and and certainty. They
thought they had things pretty much figured out a few years ago but now they're genuinely
panicked.
Looking to this circus from Russia, to those insane speaches, insulting caricatures in MSM, I
understand the huge amount of rotteness of Western society, mainly its high top part, but not
only. Even here in comments (not in this particularly article) the percentage of trolls and
brainwashed idiots exceeds all I could've imagined. So I stopped writing here – no
sense, I beleive that something can change only after the dramatic changes in US/West society
and that is possible only after a big war/revolution.
So, I'm afraid our future is vague
"... By Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast , author of Going Posta l and publisher of The eXile, and Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah , Goliath , The Fifty One Day War , and The Management of Savagery , which will be published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Killing Gaza and Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie . Originally published at the Greyzone Project ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US. ..."
The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing
foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US.
A bombshell
domestic spy scandal has been unfolding in Britain, after hacked internal communications exposed a covert UK state military-intelligence
psychological warfare operation targeting its own citizens and political figures in allied NATO countries under the cover of fighting
"Russian disinformation."
The leaked documents revealed a secret network of spies, prominent journalists and think-tanks colluding under the umbrella of
a group called "Integrity Initiative" to shape domestic opinion -- and to smear political opponents of the right-wing Tory government,
including the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
Until now, this Integrity Initiative domestic spy scandal has been ignored in the American media, perhaps because it has mostly
involved British names. But it is clear that the influence operation has already been activated in the US. Hacked documents reveal
that the Integrity Initiative is cultivating powerful allies inside the State Department, top DC think tanks, the FBI and the DHS,
where it has gained access to
Katharine Gorka and her
husband, the
fascist-linked cable news pundit
Sebastian Gorka .
The Integrity Initiative has spelled out plans to expand its network across the US, meddling in American politics and recruiting
"a new generation of Russia watchers" behind the false guise of a non-partisan charity. Moreover, the group has hired one of the
most notorious American "perception management" specialists, John Rendon, to train its clusters of pundits and cultivate relationships
with the media.
Back in the UK, Member of Parliament Chris Williamson has clamored for an investigation into the Integrity Initiative's abuse
of public money.
In a
recent editorial , Williamson drew a direct parallel between the group's collaboration with journalists and surreptitious payments
the CIA made to reporters during the Cold War.
"These tactics resemble those deployed by the CIA in Operation Mockingbird that was launched at the height of the cold war in
the early 1950s. Its aims included using the mainstream news media as a propaganda tool," Williamson wrote.
"They manipulated the news agenda by recruiting leading journalists to write stories with the express purpose of influencing public
opinion in a particular way," the Labour parliamentarian continued. "Now it seems the British Establishment have dusted off the CIA's
old playbook and is intent on giving it another outing on this side of the Atlantic."
Unmasking a British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine
The existence of the Integrity Initiative was virtually unknown until this November, when the email servers of a previously obscure
British think tank called the Institute for Statecraft were hacked, prompting allegations of Russian intrusion. When the group's
internal documents appeared at a website hosted by Anonymous Europe, the public learned of a covert propaganda network seed-funded
to the tune of over $2 million dollars by the Tory-controlled UK Foreign Office, and run largely by military-intelligence officers.
Through a series of cash inducements, off the record briefings and all-day conferences, the Integrity Initiative has sought to
organize journalists across the West into an international echo chamber hyping up the supposed threat of Russian disinformation --
and to defame politicians and journalists critical of this new Cold War campaign.
A bid for
funding submitted by the Integrity Initiative in 2017 to the British Ministry of Defense promised to deliver a "tougher stance
on Russia" by arranging for "more information published in the media on the threat of Russian active measures."
The Integrity Initiative has also worked through its fronts in the media to smear political figures perceived as a threat to its
militaristic agenda. Its targets have included a Spanish Department of Homeland Security appointee, Pedro Banos, whose nomination
was scuttled thanks a media blitz it secretly orchestrated; Jeremy Corbyn, whom the outfit and its
media cutouts
painted as a useful idiot of Russia; and a Scottish member of parliament, Neil Findlay, whom one of its closest media allies
accused of adopting "Kremlin messaging" for daring to protest the official visit of the far-right Ukrainian politician Andriy
Parubiy -- the founder of two neo-Nazi parties and author of a white nationalist memoir,
"View From The Right."
These smear campaigns and many more surreptitiously orchestrated by the Integrity Initiative offer a disturbing preview of the
reactionary politics it plans to inject into an already toxic American political environment.
Lessons from "The Man Who Sold the War"
A newly released Integrity Initiative document reveals that the outfit plans an aggressive expansion across the US.
The Integrity Initiative claims to have already established a "simple office" in Washington DC, though it does not say where.
It also boasts of partnerships with top DC think tanks like the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, CNA, and
close relationships with US officials.
A major hub of Integrity Initiative influence is the State Department's Global Engagement Center, a
de facto US government propaganda operation that was established by President Barack Obama to battle online ISIS recruitment,
but which was rapidly repurposed to counter Russian disinformation following the election of Trump.
He is John Rendon, best known as "The Man Who Sold
The War" -- several wars, in fact, but most notoriously the Iraq invasion. Rendon was the self-described "information warrior"
who planted fake news in the major US-UK media about non-existent WMD threats. With deep ties to the CIA and other military-intelligence
agencies, his PR firm was paid $100 million to organize and sell Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. In 2002, the New York Times
exposed a Pentagon program using Rendon to plant "disinformation" -- including "false stories" and "the blackest of black PR"
-- in media outlets around the world, in order to shape public opinion and sell the Iraq invasion.
John Rendon (left) with Maj. Gen. Michael Snodgrass, US Africa Command Chief of Staff (photo by US Africom Public Affairs)
Journalist James Bamford outlined a catalogue
of disinformation feats Rendon performed for the Pentagon, such as identifying "the biases of specific journalists and potentially
obtain an understanding of their allegiances, including the possibility of specific relationships and sponsorships." Bamford also
found proposals and programs Rendon was involved in that aimed to "'coerce' foreign journalists and plant false information overseas
[and] find ways to 'punish' those who convey the 'wrong message.'"
These tactics seem particularly relevant to his work with the Integrity Initiative, especially considering the internal documents
that reveal further Rendon-style plans to produce reports and studies to be
"fed anonymously into local media." (Among
the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left Spanish daily.)
Keeping Up with the Gorkas
Internal documents also refer to interactions between Integrity Initiative Director Chris Donnelly and top Trump officials like
Katharine Gorka , a vehemently anti-Muslim Department of Homeland Security official, as well as her husband, Sebastian, who earned
right-wing fame during his brief tenure in Trump's White House.
The latter Gorka is an
open supporter of the Hungarian Vitezi Rend, a proto-fascist order that collaborated with Nazi Germany during its occupation
of Hungary. Following Trump's election victory in 2016, Gorka appeared for televised interviews in a black Vitezi Rend uniform.
Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb, with his wife, Katharine, on Election Night
Gorka was among the first figures listed on an itinerary for Donnelly to Washington this September 18 to 22. The itinerary indicates
that the two had breakfast before Donnelly delivered a presentation on "Mapping Russian Influence Activities" at the federally funded
military research center, CNA .
According to the itinerary, Donnelly was granted access to Pentagon officials like
Mara Karlin
, an up-and-coming neoconservative cadre
, and John McCain Institute executive director
Kurt Volker
, another neoconservative operative who also serves as the US Special Representative for Ukraine. Numerous meetings with staffers
inside the State Department's Office of Global Engagement were also detailed.
A Foreign Agent in the State Department?
Of all the State Department officials named in Integrity Initiative documents, the one who appeared most frequently was Todd Leventhal.
Leventhal has been a staffer at the State Department's Global Engagement Center, boasting of "20 years of countering disinformation,
misinformation, conspiracy theories, and urban legends." In an April 2018 Integrity Initiative memo, he is listed as a current team
member:
Funded to the tune of $160 million this year to beat back Russian disinformation with "counter-propaganda," the State Department's
Global Engagement Center
has refused to deny targeting American citizens with information warfare of its own. "My old job at the State Department was
as chief propagandist," confessed former
Global Engagement Center Director Richard Stengel. "I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their
own population and I don't necessarily think it's that awful."
Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's international network, the Global Engagement
Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal
appeared in an outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian
disinformation smugly explaining how he would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world.
Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem
smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation. His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message
and destroy the messenger.
Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract.
While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own
Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation
Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent.
As a cut-out of the British Foreign Office and Defense Ministry, the Integrity Initiative's work with current and former US officials
and members of the media raises certain legal questions. For one, there is no indication that the group has registered under the
Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Act, as most foreign agents of influence are required to do.
Grants from the Neocons' Favorite Foundation
An Integrity Initiative memo states that the right-wing Smith Richardson Foundation has also committed to ponying up funding for
its US network as soon as the group receives 501 c-3 non-profit status. The foundation has already provided it with about $56,000
for covert propaganda activities across Europe.
The Smith Richardson Foundation has old ties to the US intelligence community and controversial cold war influence operations.
According to reporter
Russ Bellant , the foundation was secretly bankrolling radical right-wing "indoctrination campaigns for the American public on
cold war and foreign policy issues" -- programs that got the attention of Senator William Fulbright, who warned then-President Kennedy
of their dangers. At one of these indoctrination seminars, a Smith Richardson Foundation director "told attendees that 'it is within
the capacity of the people in this room to literally turn the State of Georgia into a civil war college,' in order to overcome their
opponents."
Smith Richardson has funded a who's who of the neoconservative movement, from hyper-militaristic think tanks like the American
Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War. "To say the [Smith Richardson] foundation was involved at every level
in the lobbying for and crafting of the so-called global war on terror after 9/11 would be an understatement,"
wrote journalist
Kelley Vlahos.
Besides Smith Richardson, the Integrity Initiative has stated its intention to apply for grants from the State Department "to
expand the Integrity Initiative activities both within and outside of the USA." This is yet another indicator that the US government
is paying for propaganda targeting its own citizens.
The "Main Event" in Seattle
An Integrity Initiative internal
document argues that because
"DC is well served by existing US institutions, such as those with which the Institute [for Statecraft] already collaborates," the
organization should "concentrate on extending the work of the Integrity Initiative into major cities and key State capitals [sic]
across the USA."
This December 10, the Integrity Initiative organized what it called its "main event" in the US. It was a conference on disinformation
held in Seattle, Washington
under the auspices
of a data firm called Adventium Labs. Together with the Technical Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, the Integrity
Initiative listed Adventium Labs as one of its "first partners outside DC."
Adventium is Minneapolis-based research and development firm that has reaped contracts from the US military, including a
recent $5.4 million cyber-security grant from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
Inside a modest-sized hotel conference room, the Adventium/Integrity event
began with a speech by the Integrity Initiative's Simon Bracey-Lane. Two
years prior, Bracey-Lane appeared on the American political scene as a field worker for Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential primary
run, earning media write-ups as the
"Brit for Bernie." Now, the young operator was back in the US as the advance man for a military-intelligence cut-out that specialized
in smearing left-wing political figures like Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader widely regarded as the British version of Sanders.
Bracey-Lane opened his address by explaining that Integrity Initiative director Chris Donnelly had been unable to appear at the
event, possibly because he was bogged down in the scandal back home. He proceeded to read remarks prepared by Donnelly that offered
a window into the frighteningly militaristic mindset the Integrity Initiative aims to impose on the public through their media and
political allies.
According to Donnelly's comments, the West was no longer in a "peace time, rules based environment." From the halls of government
to corporate boardrooms to even the UK's National Health System, "the conclusion is that we have to look for people who suit a wartime
environment rather than peacetime."
During Q&A, Bracey-Lane remarked that "we have to change the definition of war to encompass everything that war now encompasses,"
referring vaguely to various forms of "hybrid warfare."
"There is a great deal to be done in communicating that to young people," he continued. "When we mean being at war we don't mean
sending our boys off to fight. It's right here in our homes."
The emphasis on restructuring society along martial lines mirrored the disturbing thinking also on display in
notes of a private meeting
between Donnelly and Gen. Richard Barrons in 2016. During that chat, the two officers decided that the British military should
be removed from democratic supervision and be able to operate as "an independent body outside politics."
While Bracey-Lane's presentation perfectly captured the military mindset of the Integrity Initiative, the speakers that followed
him offered a diverse array of perspectives on the concept of disinformation, some more nuanced than others. But one talk stood out
from the rest -- not because of its quality, but because of its complete lack thereof.
Reanimating the "Red-Brown" Grifter
Alexander Reid Ross (left) and Emmi Bevensee at the Integrity Initiative's "main event" in Seattle
The presentation was delivered by Alexander Reid Ross, a half-baked political researcher who peddles computer-generated spiderweb
relationship charts to prove the existence of a vast hidden network of "red-brown" alliances and "syncretic media" conspiracies controlled
by puppeteers in Moscow.
Ross is a lecturer on geography at Portland State University with no scholarly or journalistic credentials on Russia. His students
have given him dismal marks at Rate My
Professors, complaining about his "terrible monotone lectures" and his penchant for "insert[ing] his own ideologies into our class."
But with a book, "Against the Fascist Creep," distributed by the well-known anarchist publishing house, AK Press, the middling academic
has tried to make his name as a maverick analyst.
Before the Integrity Initiative was exposed as a military-intelligence front operation, Ross was among a small coterie of pundits
and self-styled disinformation experts that followed the
group's Twitter account. The Integrity Initiative even retweeted his smear of War Nerd podcast co-host John Dolan.
In a series of articles for the Southern Poverty Law Center last year, Ross attempted to bring his warmed-over Cold War theories
to the broader public. He wound up trashing everyone from the co-author of this piece, Max Blumenthal, to Nation magazine publisher
Katrina Vanden Heuvel to Harvard University professor of international relations Stephen Walt as hidden shadow-fascists secretly
controlled by the Kremlin.
The articles ultimately
generated an embarrassing scandal and a series of public
retractions by the editor-in-chief of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Richard Cohen. And then, like some Dr. Frankenstein for
discredited and buried journalism careers, the British Ministry of Defense-backed Integrity Initiative moved in to reanimate Ross
as a sought-after public intellectual.
Before the Integrity Initiative-organized crowd, Ross offered a rambling recitation of his theory of a syncretic fascist alliance
puppeteered by Russians: "The alt right takes from both this 'red-brown,' it's called, or like left-right syncretic highly international
national of nationalisms, and from the United States' own paleoconservative movement, and it's sort of percolated down through college
organizing, um, and anti-interventionism meets anti-imperialism. Right?"
In a strange twist, Ross appeared on stage at the Integrity Initiative's Seattle event alongside
Emmi Bevensee , a contributor to the left-libertarian
Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) think tank, whose tagline, "a left market anarchist think-tank" expresses its core aim of uniting
far-left anarchists with free-market right-libertarians.
Bevensee , a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona
and self-described "Borderlands anarcho into tech and crypto," concluded her presentation by asserting a linkage between the alternative
news site, Zero Hedge, and the "physical militarized presence in the borderlands" of anti-immigrant vigilantes. Like Bevensee, Ross
has written for C4SS in the past.
The irony of contributors to an anarchist group called the "Center for a Stateless Society" auditioning before The State – the
most jackbooted element of it, in fact – for more opportunities to attack anti-war politicians and journalists, can hardly be overstated.
But closer examination of the history of C4SS veers from irony into something much darker and more unsettling.
Pedophile Co-Founder, White Nationalist Associates
C4SS was co-founded in 2006 by a confessed
child rapist and libertarian activist, Brad Spangler, who set the group up to promote "Market anarchism" to
"replace Marxism on the
left."
When Spangler's child rape confessions emerged in 2015, the Center for Stateless Society founder was
finally drummed out by his colleagues.
There's more: Spangler's understudy and
deputy in the C4SS, Kevin
Carson -- currently listed as the group's "Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory"
-- turned out to be a longtime friend and defender
of white nationalist Keith Preston. Preston's name is prominently plastered on the back of Kevin Carson's book, hailing the C4SS
man as "the Proudhon of our
time" -- a loaded compliment, given Proudhon's unhinged
anti-Semitism . Carson
only disowned Preston in 2009,
shortly before Preston helped white nationalist leader Richard Spencer launch his alt-right webzine, Alternative Right.
The C4SS group currently participates in the annual Koch-backed International
Students For Liberty conference in Washington DC,
LibertyCon, a who's
who of libertarian think-tank hacks and Republican Party semi-celebrities like Steve Forbes, FCC chairman Ajit Pai, and Alan Dershowitz.
In 2013, C4SS's Kevin Carson tweeted out his dream fantasy that four Jewish leftists -- Mark Ames, Yasha Levine, Corey Robin,
and Mark Potok -- would die in a plane crash while struggling over a single parachute. Potok was an executive editor at the Southern
Poverty Law Center, which last year retracted every one of the crank articles that Alexander Reid Ross published with them and
formally apologized for having run them.
For some reason, the super-sleuth Ross conveniently failed to investigate the libertarian group, C4SS, that he has chosen to partner
with and publish in. That ability to shamelessly smear and denounce leftists over the most crudely manufactured links to the far-right
-- while cozying up to groups as sleazy as C4SS and authoritarian as the Integrity Initiative -- is the sort of adaptive trait that
MI6 spies and the Rendon Group would find useful in a covert domestic influence operation.
Ross did not respond to our request for comment on his involvement with the Integrity Initiative and C4SS.
Disinformation for Democracy
As it spans out across the US, the Integrity Initiative has
stated
its desire to "build a younger generation of Russia watchers." Toward this goal, it is supplementing its coterie of elite journalists,
think tank hacks, spooks and State Department info-warriors with certifiable cranks like Ross.
Less than 24 hours after Ross's appearance at the Integrity Initiative event in Seattle, he
sent a menacing email to the co-author
of this article, Ames, announcing his intention to recycle an old and discredited smear against him and publish it in the Daily Beast
-- a publication that appears to enjoy a
special relationship
with Integrity Initiative personnel.
Despite the threat of investigation in the UK, the Integrity Initiative's "network of networks" appears to be escalating its covert,
government-funded influence operation, trashing the political left and assailing anyone that gets in its way -- all in the name of
fighting foreign disinformation.
"We have to win this one," Integrity Initiative founder Col. Chris Donnelly
said , "because if we don't, democracy will be undermined."
making up lies to get paid. james angleton was paranoid (not that it seemed to make him more effective in counterintelligence)–these
people are just con artists, paid to be con artists.
i'm just waiting for "we have to undermine democracy in order to save it".
Agreed. Not only are they paid to make things up, but they have an ingenious scheme for paying themselves from narcotics and
arms dealing.
The most amazing feat of confidence artistry (apart from maybe the TARP bailout (c.f.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
) is their remarkable ability to convince the population they are needed and working on our behalf instead of being in jail
where they belong.
I submitted a long comment on this about an hour ago, which seems to have been eaten by the system. I won't repost it now,
but I'll do so later if it doesn't surface.
This is something that has repeatedly happened to me too recently – it often takes 2 or more hours for most of my recent posting
to surface on the site. It rarely disappears altogether, so I would assume your post will eventually arrive.
Same here on the delays. Keep a copy.
But anyway, very glad you posted this piece. Whatever we make of Patreon, it's one way to support Mark Ames' work.
Sir Alan Duncan, responding on behalf of the Government to Emily Thornberry's urgent question (Dec 12) on recent allegations
that the Foreign Office funded a company which carried out a smear campaign against the official Opposition.
What a frightful fellow that Alan Duncan is eh? Talks like a Mafia lawyer and he's supposed to be a national leader. He reminds
that other MP, the POS who interrogated David Kelly on TV, they both use the same style. Is it a qualification for legislator?
Just a minor note to start off. That image of "Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb". I think that Vitezi Rend actually refers
to the medal he wears on the left. The jacket itself more resembles the patrol jacket that British officers wore in the 19th century.
Moving on! Notice how the same players keep on coming up again and again in all these stories of skulduggery? John Rendon, the
Atlantic Council, Ajit Pai and Alan Dershowitz – the same scum-bags with a few new wannabe players. As an example.
The penchant that Brad Spangler, C4SS co-founder, has for under-age girls is disgusting of course but you have to put it into
the context of the people that you are talking about. If Spengler was more rich or more powerful, you might see his name on a
manifest for the "Lolita Express" but his activities would not be splashed about in an article like this one. That sort of activity
is given a level of protection if you are in the right group. And it is a good thing that that British General Richard Barrons
is retired as his comments are deserving of being cashiered.
Funny how a group that claims to be about protecting democracy wants to push it aside and install propaganda on a "1984" level
in the pursuit of their aims. I cannot decide if their target of Russia is a means or an end. If it is a means, that means using
the boogy-man of Russia to radically restructure western society to their tastes. If it is an end, well, it is true that Russia
has about $75 trillion in resources, mostly in Siberia and the east, so if it was broken up eventually, that would be a bonanza
of wealth appropriation.
I was thinking about the activities of this group and how they go about their activities, especially the smearing of anybody that
talks truth to power. I wonder if anybody here made the connection with this story and the PropOrNot website that came out of
nowhere about two years ago and that had the stamp of approval of the Washington Post. I would not be surprised if it turns out
to be that PropOrNot was a trial balloon in the United States for the Integrity Initiative to establish what it was capable of.
Just a thought.
He looks like an extra from Star Wars – one of those nazi guys working the bridge of the Death Star. The "look and feel" of
a lot of pre-war fascism strikes us as silly in retrospect, though it really wasn't at the time.
That tailored black jacket Sebastian wears looks like something Winston Churchill would have changed out of before that last
cavalry charge at Omdurman. It seems intentionally designed to mimic 19th century great power imperial army officer garb. Nostalgia
for the good times, apparently. Goes with his fascist priorities.
Let us not get carried away with the exuberance of discovering skulduggery among fascist elements of the media and politics.
This does not mean that the conspiracy means Russia is thereby a Goodie Twoshoes. It also does not mean that Russia is any less
a pain in the ass than it has heretorfore be characterized.
It does mean that there is less reason (any?) than ever to put much faith in FoxNews (already a mere propaganda machine) or
other orgs. I am uncomfortable hearing CNA is caught up in this as they are a pseudo government thinktank with some Pentagon influence.
If true, the story should be used to clear out some journalists and analyst riffraff. However, this story is surely not going
to restore, much less create, any integrity among the Beltway Punditry.
The article and related matters may also shed more light on the abrupt resignation of
Robert Hannigan from the leadership of GCHQ in January 2017 a few days after Trump's inauguration. Given previous revelations
about GCHQ and NSA spying on each other's citizens, what else is next in the UK and in the US and elsewhere?
After reading about that Carson character and others I am ready for a shower to try to wash off the disgust.
Yves Smith: Thanks for this. I am wondering about two stories that have been flapping around here for a few days: That odd
New Knowledge company that produced the report about Russian influence on the elections as well as the story about the case before
the Supreme Court of the US in which a company is invoking claims of sovereign immunity.
I have a feeling that New Knowledge definitely fits into the framework outlined by Ames above. A contractor that appears out
of nowhere with a "distinguished" board of concerned semi-liberals (at the trough)?
But what do I know? Some guy named Volodya showed up at my house and bought my vote in 2016 for two bottles of pickled mushrooms
Perfideus Albion is not just a neat saying, but a truth that the Irish, French and
Germans (etc.) have known forever, the people don't deserve it, but the
jumped up Tories do in spades.
Thank you for highlighting this article! It names names and connects some dots, including some connections reaching into the
U.S. It also describes propaganda mechanisms that have been around forever but have become pervasive today. A few protruding tips
of a massive iceberg, in my view. I'm sure *this* "bombshell" story will get the massive coverage it deserves in the MSM -- not!
That was interesting. Well argued all the way through I thought, but they could take a closer look at the unwinding of Yugoslavia;
what Serbia and Syria have in common is having been targeted by outside state powers for dissolution, responses did vary.
Thank you diptherio for posting the C4SS response. Such responses are helpful in evaluating issues like this, and we should
always be open to the other side when they take the time to reply. However, I can't agree that the response was "well argued."
The author does make some valid points, but mainly she resorts to ad hominem attacks on Ames (based on some juvenile antics at
eXile that are often used to smear him), or on both authors because they may have agreed with "Assadists" like Ambassador Peter
Ford or "9/11 Truthers" like Piers Robinson, whose claims about Syria or the White Helmets are, of course, Kremlin propaganda.
Which brings up why Blumenthal would have changed his position on Syria; it was not because of his gradual understanding of what
was really happening there. Rather, while he had once grasp the truth of the "revolution," he made the mistake of going to a Kremlin
gala and the Rooskies (and RT) got to him. Now he is just another propagandist. Nowhere that I can see does the author discuss
the major claims made in Ames and Blumenthal's article, or the evidence cited (except to say that if it was in RT or Sputnik,
we can ignore it anyway as propaganda). Nor does she address the actual defamation made by Alexander Ross-Reid through the SPLC
that pissed off Blumenthal in the first place. There are other problems (don't get me started on the "red-brown" smear), but that's
enough.
Having said all that, I do think that in their criticism of C4SS, Ames and Blumenthal perhaps did some unnecessary punching
down. They could have made clearer the distinction between organizations like the Integrity Initiative, that are pretty clearly
intelligence operatives or cut-outs, versus groups like C4SS that function more like "useful idiots" because of their ideological
position (e.g. equating U.S. and Russian imperialism in this case in their "anarchist" appeal). The latter are in no way as evil
as the former, in my mind.
You are clearly much more engaged with the related debates than I. I read the piece as a response to the punching down you
mention in your last paragraph and felt like I got a respectable read on someone still developing their arguments. I'm not informed
enough to argue with much of it, but having read Diana Johnstone's "Fools Crusade", the Syria/Serbia bit stuck in my craw.
I had thought about commenting on the ad hominems directed at Ames, but didn't want to get into the whole identity argument
embedded in much of the language of the post. While I disagree with many of her positions and attitudes on the state actions she
criticizes without, in my opinion, adequate grounding, I judged it a mostly good faith effort trying to find solid footing in
a world increasingly thick with distorted narratives.
It's hard to argue now, from anywhere with out power, without being someone's "useful idiot": trust has decayed to the point
where language impedes communication in the political sphere.
It's funny you should mention Johnstone's book. I normally would not use the derogatory term "useful idiot" for the very reason
you imply; most such people are acting in good faith. I admit that her comments on Syria irritated me. But the reason I sometimes
overreact to that sort of narrative is because of my own experiences as a useful idiot, starting with Yugoslavia. I fell for the
liberal "humanitarian" argument hook, line, and sinker in the 1990s, even though I considered myself a knowledgeable progressive
at the time. It wouldn't be the last time I was duped, but I'd like to think I'm a little wiser today.
I appreciate your comment. We definitely need to distinguish empire propagandists from the beliefs of people honestly trying
to find their way.
I thought the later part of Ames' piece was unnecessary. It's kind of the same sort of guilt-by-attending-same-conference thing
that I find annoying about the Russophobes.
Keep focused on government malfeasance, not basement brown-shirts.
Oh well, there would be a lot to argue here. In one side it is nice to see that the "Initiative" is being exposed although
it doesn't appear yet to trigger any significant response from supposedly democratic institutions like, let's say the english
parliament (at ransom by brexit).
Just to demonstrate how this article is well focused and pointed I wanted to comment on this bit:
(Among the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left
Spanish daily .)
YES! iIt is so true that the former "center-left" –if you wish– daily that years ago was a must read but has been degraded
to levels that I wouldn't have imagined, in a case that makes the Guardian as the "guardian of reporting-as-it should-be". One
has to bear in mind that the current most important shareholder of Grupo Prisa (owner of El Pais) is an english hedge fund Amber
Capital whose CEO,
Joseph
Oughorlian is chairman at Grupo Prisa and probably responsible for the Russia!Russia!Russia! campaign observed in this medium
that surprised me so much. You don't find nothing similar in Spain even in rigth and rigth of the rigth news outlets.
I believe this UK-based shareholder is clearly associated with the peculiar Russia!Russia!Russia! stance of the supposedly
centre-left daily.
For those of us from way back way back, these kooks relate to offshoots of the Watergate scandal, the original one, where people
working on those burglaries of psychiatrist's offices and Democratic headquarters got their start organizing small gangs of crooks
to infiltrate what was then a porous but trustable system of government – on they went to propose surveillance and collection
of data that was at first publicly laughed about but on they went. On they went. Technology with all its pluses has these minuses
we at first were able to counter (Church hearings) but the rats have scurried into all the back alleys and secretive pathways
that need a thorough cleanup. It can be done, but it needs to be done periodically. Hopefully this is finally the year when that
will happen.
Thank you, Yves. I believe these folk don't end up in a good place, but meanwhile they are wreaking havoc. The place to start,
after the brooms and mops, is to get money OUT of politics and restore a verifiable voting system that happens methodically and
is trustworthy. The citizenry will be behind this. We the people don't care how long it takes to vote or to find out who won.
We don't! Haste makes waste in more ways than we know.
Let's do this. And please, judges, do your duty or go to jail yourselves.
It's obvious that neither Ames or Blumenthal read the actual documents they're quoting from. Which is a shame considering the
relevant one involving the CIA's Operation Mockingbird comparison was only seven pages long. The CIA were merely imitating British
intelligence during the war and it is clearly stated as such when one of the replies involving General Sir Richard Barrons states
that they've done this before during the 1930s. The US didn't possess a foreign intelligence agency at the time and I'd fervently
argue that we still don't to this day.
but I've already commented about British Security Coordination in the aftermath of PropOrNot though and I'm reluctant to beat
a dead horse.
Ah, the smell (or should we say stench) of domestic propaganda in the morning, ironically by some of the same individuals who
brought us Iraq WMDs. While First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and other civil rights must be protected, it seems to
me that a careful balance can be drawn under new legislation that insulates us from such government-sponsored propaganda. We should
be able to rely on our government's representations. Instead, as with a former president who openly acknowledged, "My job is to
catapult the propaganda," the reverse, together with a related loss of trust, unfortunately seems to be increasingly the case.
Stop lying! What part of "of the People, by the People, for the People," is difficult to understand?
"... Look at Russiagate. An excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive behavior. ..."
"... That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and there's no evidence that it did. ..."
"... So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn. It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether. ..."
"... Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the establishment propaganda machine is acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the internet are getting more and more severe. ..."
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump tweeted the following:
"Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgement mistakes that were made
many years ago, & those where we are getting little financial or military help from the
rich countries that so greatly benefit from what we are doing, will eventually come to a
glorious end!"
The tweet was warmly received and celebrated by Trump's supporters, despite the fact that it
says essentially nothing since "eventually" could mean anything.
Indeed, it's
looking increasingly possible that nothing will come of the president's stated agenda to
withdraw troops from Syria other than a bunch of words which allow his anti-interventionist
base to feel nice feelings inside. Yet everyone laps it up, on both ends of the political
aisle, just like they always do:
Trump supporters are acting like he's a swamp-draining, war-ending peacenik...
...his enemies are acting like he's feeding a bunch of Kurds on conveyor belts into
Turkish meat grinders to be made into sausages for Vladimir Putin's breakfast, when in
reality nothing has changed and may not change at all.
How are such wildly different pictures being painted about the same non-event? By the fact
that both sides of the Trump-Syria debate have thus far been reacting solely to narrative.
This has consistently been the story throughout Trump's presidency: a heavy emphasis on
words and narratives and a disinterest in facts and actions. A rude tweet can dominate
headlines for days, while the actual behaviors of this administration can go almost completely
ignored. Trump continues to more or less advance the same warmongering Orwellian globalist
policies and agendas as his predecessors along more or less the same trajectory, but frantic
mass media narratives are churned out every day painting him as some unprecedented deviation
from the norm. Trump himself, seemingly aware that he's interacting entirely with perceptions
and narratives instead of facts and reality, routinely makes things up whole cloth and often
claims he's "never said" things he most certainly has said. And why not? Facts don't matter in
this media environment, only narrative does.
Look at Russiagate. An
excellent recent article by Ray McGovern for Consortium News titled "A Look Back at
Clapper's Jan. 2017 'Assessment' on Russia-gate" reminds us on the two-year anniversary of the
infamous ODNI assessment that the entire establishment Russia narrative is built upon nothing
but the say-so of a couple dozen intelligence analysts hand-picked and guided by a man who
helped deceive the world into Iraq, a man who is so virulently Russophobic that he's
said on more than one occasion that Russians are genetically predisposed to subversive
behavior.
That January 2017 intelligence assessment has formed the foundation underlying every
breathless, conspiratorial Russia story you see in western news media to this very day, and
it's completely empty. The idea that Russia interfered in the US election in any meaningful way
is based on an assessment crafted by a known liar , from which countless relevant
analysts were excluded, which makes no claims of certainty, and contains no publicly available
evidence. It's pure narrative from top to bottom, and therefore the "collusion" story is as
well since Trump could only have colluded with an actual thing that actually happened, and
there's no evidence that it did.
So now you've got Trump being painted as a Putin lackey based on a completely fabricated
election interference story, despite the fact that Trump has actually
been far more hawkish towards Russia than any administration since the fall of the Soviet
Union. With the nuclear brinkmanship this administration has been playing with its only nuclear
rival on the planet, it would be so incredibly easy for Trump's opposition to attack him on his
insanely hawkish escalation of a conflict which could easily end all life on earth if any
little thing goes wrong, but they don't. Because this is all about narrative and not facts,
Democrats have been paced into supporting even more sanctioning, proxy conflicts and nuclear
posturing while loudly objecting to any sign of communication between the two nuclear
superpowers, while Republicans are happy to see Trump increase tensions with Moscow because it
combats the collusion narrative. Now both parties are supporting an anti-Russia agenda which
existed in secretive US government agencies
long before the 2016 election .
And this to me is the most significant thing about Trump's presidency. Not any of the things
people tell me I'm supposed to care about, but the fact that the age of Trump has been
highlighting in a very clear way how we're all being manipulated by manufactured narratives all
the time.
Humanity
lives in a world of mental narrative . We have a deeply conditioned societal habit of
heaping a massive overlay of mental labels and stories on top of the raw data we take in
through our senses, and those labels and stories tend to consume far more interest and
attention than the actual data itself. We use labels and stories for a reason: without them it
would be impossible to share abstract ideas and information with each other about what's going
on in our world. But those labels and stories get imbued with an intense amount of belief and
identification; we form tight, rigid belief structures about our world, our society, and our
very selves that can generate a lot of fear, hatred and suffering. Which is why it feels so
nice to go out into nature and relax in an environment that isn't shaped by human mental
narrative.
This problem is exponentially exacerbated by the fact that these stories and labels are
wildly subjective and very easily manipulated. Powerful people have learned that they can
control the way everyone else thinks, acts and votes by controlling the stories they tell
themselves about what's going on in the world using mass media control and financial political
influence, allowing ostensible democracies to be conducted in a way which serves power far more
efficiently than any dictatorship.
See how both A and B herd the public away from opposing the dangerous pro-establishment
agendas being advanced by this administration? The dominant narratives could not possibly be
more different from what's actually going on, and the only reason they're the dominant
narratives is because an alliance
of plutocrats and secretive government agencies exerts an immense amount of influence over
the stories that are told by the political/media class.
The narrative matrix of America's political/media landscape is a confusing labyrinth of
smoke and funhouse mirrors distorting and manipulating the public consciousness at every turn.
It's psychologically torturous, which is largely why people who are deeply immersed in politics
are so on-edge all the time regardless of where they're at on the political spectrum. The only
potentially good thing I can see about this forceful brutalization of the public psyche is that
it might push people over the edge and shatter the illusion altogether.
Trust in the mass media is already at an all-time low while our ability to network and share
information that casts doubt on official narratives is at an all-time high, which is why the
establishment propaganda machine is
acting so weird as it scrambles to control the narrative, and why efforts to censor the
internet are getting more and more severe. It is possible that this is what it looks like when
a thinking species evolves into a sane and healthy relationship with thought. Perhaps the
cracks that are appearing all over official narratives today are like the first cracks
appearing in an eggshell as a bird begins to hatch into the world.
"... By Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast , author of Going Posta l and publisher of The eXile, and Max Blumenthal, an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah , Goliath , The Fifty One Day War , and The Management of Savagery , which will be published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Killing Gaza and Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie . Originally published at the Greyzone Project ..."
"... The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US. ..."
The Integrity Initiative has mobilized an international disinformation campaign across Europe. Now, with government and right-wing
foundation money, this massive "political smear unit" is infiltrating the US.
A bombshell
domestic spy scandal has been unfolding in Britain, after hacked internal communications exposed a covert UK state military-intelligence
psychological warfare operation targeting its own citizens and political figures in allied NATO countries under the cover of fighting
"Russian disinformation."
The leaked documents revealed a secret network of spies, prominent journalists and think-tanks colluding under the umbrella of
a group called "Integrity Initiative" to shape domestic opinion -- and to smear political opponents of the right-wing Tory government,
including the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
Until now, this Integrity Initiative domestic spy scandal has been ignored in the American media, perhaps because it has mostly
involved British names. But it is clear that the influence operation has already been activated in the US. Hacked documents reveal
that the Integrity Initiative is cultivating powerful allies inside the State Department, top DC think tanks, the FBI and the DHS,
where it has gained access to
Katharine Gorka and her
husband, the
fascist-linked cable news pundit
Sebastian Gorka .
The Integrity Initiative has spelled out plans to expand its network across the US, meddling in American politics and recruiting
"a new generation of Russia watchers" behind the false guise of a non-partisan charity. Moreover, the group has hired one of the
most notorious American "perception management" specialists, John Rendon, to train its clusters of pundits and cultivate relationships
with the media.
Back in the UK, Member of Parliament Chris Williamson has clamored for an investigation into the Integrity Initiative's abuse
of public money.
In a
recent editorial , Williamson drew a direct parallel between the group's collaboration with journalists and surreptitious payments
the CIA made to reporters during the Cold War.
"These tactics resemble those deployed by the CIA in Operation Mockingbird that was launched at the height of the cold war in
the early 1950s. Its aims included using the mainstream news media as a propaganda tool," Williamson wrote.
"They manipulated the news agenda by recruiting leading journalists to write stories with the express purpose of influencing public
opinion in a particular way," the Labour parliamentarian continued. "Now it seems the British Establishment have dusted off the CIA's
old playbook and is intent on giving it another outing on this side of the Atlantic."
Unmasking a British Military-Intelligence Smear Machine
The existence of the Integrity Initiative was virtually unknown until this November, when the email servers of a previously obscure
British think tank called the Institute for Statecraft were hacked, prompting allegations of Russian intrusion. When the group's
internal documents appeared at a website hosted by Anonymous Europe, the public learned of a covert propaganda network seed-funded
to the tune of over $2 million dollars by the Tory-controlled UK Foreign Office, and run largely by military-intelligence officers.
Through a series of cash inducements, off the record briefings and all-day conferences, the Integrity Initiative has sought to
organize journalists across the West into an international echo chamber hyping up the supposed threat of Russian disinformation --
and to defame politicians and journalists critical of this new Cold War campaign.
A bid for
funding submitted by the Integrity Initiative in 2017 to the British Ministry of Defense promised to deliver a "tougher stance
on Russia" by arranging for "more information published in the media on the threat of Russian active measures."
The Integrity Initiative has also worked through its fronts in the media to smear political figures perceived as a threat to its
militaristic agenda. Its targets have included a Spanish Department of Homeland Security appointee, Pedro Banos, whose nomination
was scuttled thanks a media blitz it secretly orchestrated; Jeremy Corbyn, whom the outfit and its
media cutouts
painted as a useful idiot of Russia; and a Scottish member of parliament, Neil Findlay, whom one of its closest media allies
accused of adopting "Kremlin messaging" for daring to protest the official visit of the far-right Ukrainian politician Andriy
Parubiy -- the founder of two neo-Nazi parties and author of a white nationalist memoir,
"View From The Right."
These smear campaigns and many more surreptitiously orchestrated by the Integrity Initiative offer a disturbing preview of the
reactionary politics it plans to inject into an already toxic American political environment.
Lessons from "The Man Who Sold the War"
A newly released Integrity Initiative document reveals that the outfit plans an aggressive expansion across the US.
The Integrity Initiative claims to have already established a "simple office" in Washington DC, though it does not say where.
It also boasts of partnerships with top DC think tanks like the Atlantic Council, the Center for European Policy Analysis, CNA, and
close relationships with US officials.
A major hub of Integrity Initiative influence is the State Department's Global Engagement Center, a
de facto US government propaganda operation that was established by President Barack Obama to battle online ISIS recruitment,
but which was rapidly repurposed to counter Russian disinformation following the election of Trump.
He is John Rendon, best known as "The Man Who Sold
The War" -- several wars, in fact, but most notoriously the Iraq invasion. Rendon was the self-described "information warrior"
who planted fake news in the major US-UK media about non-existent WMD threats. With deep ties to the CIA and other military-intelligence
agencies, his PR firm was paid $100 million to organize and sell Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. In 2002, the New York Times
exposed a Pentagon program using Rendon to plant "disinformation" -- including "false stories" and "the blackest of black PR"
-- in media outlets around the world, in order to shape public opinion and sell the Iraq invasion.
John Rendon (left) with Maj. Gen. Michael Snodgrass, US Africa Command Chief of Staff (photo by US Africom Public Affairs)
Journalist James Bamford outlined a catalogue
of disinformation feats Rendon performed for the Pentagon, such as identifying "the biases of specific journalists and potentially
obtain an understanding of their allegiances, including the possibility of specific relationships and sponsorships." Bamford also
found proposals and programs Rendon was involved in that aimed to "'coerce' foreign journalists and plant false information overseas
[and] find ways to 'punish' those who convey the 'wrong message.'"
These tactics seem particularly relevant to his work with the Integrity Initiative, especially considering the internal documents
that reveal further Rendon-style plans to produce reports and studies to be
"fed anonymously into local media." (Among
the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left Spanish daily.)
Keeping Up with the Gorkas
Internal documents also refer to interactions between Integrity Initiative Director Chris Donnelly and top Trump officials like
Katharine Gorka , a vehemently anti-Muslim Department of Homeland Security official, as well as her husband, Sebastian, who earned
right-wing fame during his brief tenure in Trump's White House.
The latter Gorka is an
open supporter of the Hungarian Vitezi Rend, a proto-fascist order that collaborated with Nazi Germany during its occupation
of Hungary. Following Trump's election victory in 2016, Gorka appeared for televised interviews in a black Vitezi Rend uniform.
Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb, with his wife, Katharine, on Election Night
Gorka was among the first figures listed on an itinerary for Donnelly to Washington this September 18 to 22. The itinerary indicates
that the two had breakfast before Donnelly delivered a presentation on "Mapping Russian Influence Activities" at the federally funded
military research center, CNA .
According to the itinerary, Donnelly was granted access to Pentagon officials like
Mara Karlin
, an up-and-coming neoconservative cadre
, and John McCain Institute executive director
Kurt Volker
, another neoconservative operative who also serves as the US Special Representative for Ukraine. Numerous meetings with staffers
inside the State Department's Office of Global Engagement were also detailed.
A Foreign Agent in the State Department?
Of all the State Department officials named in Integrity Initiative documents, the one who appeared most frequently was Todd Leventhal.
Leventhal has been a staffer at the State Department's Global Engagement Center, boasting of "20 years of countering disinformation,
misinformation, conspiracy theories, and urban legends." In an April 2018 Integrity Initiative memo, he is listed as a current team
member:
Funded to the tune of $160 million this year to beat back Russian disinformation with "counter-propaganda," the State Department's
Global Engagement Center
has refused to deny targeting American citizens with information warfare of its own. "My old job at the State Department was
as chief propagandist," confessed former
Global Engagement Center Director Richard Stengel. "I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it and they have to do it to their
own population and I don't necessarily think it's that awful."
Like so many of the media and political figures involved in the Integrity Initiative's international network, the Global Engagement
Center's Leventhal has a penchant for deploying smear tactics against prominent voices that defy the foreign policy consensus. Leventhal
appeared in an outtake of a recent NBC documentary on Russian
disinformation smugly explaining how he would take down a 15-year-old book critical of American imperialism in the developing world.
Rather than challenge the book's substance and allegations, Leventhal boasted how he would marshall his resources to wage an ad hominem
smear campaign to destroy the author's reputation. His strategic vision was clear: when confronting a critic, ignore the message
and destroy the messenger.
Integrity Initiative documents reveal that Leventhal has been paid $76,608 dollars (60,000 British pounds) for a 50% contract.
While those same documents claim he has retired from the State Department, Leventhal's own
Linkedin page lists him as a current "Senior Disinformation
Advisor" to the State Department. If that were true, it would mean that the State Department was employing a de facto foreign agent.
As a cut-out of the British Foreign Office and Defense Ministry, the Integrity Initiative's work with current and former US officials
and members of the media raises certain legal questions. For one, there is no indication that the group has registered under the
Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Act, as most foreign agents of influence are required to do.
Grants from the Neocons' Favorite Foundation
An Integrity Initiative memo states that the right-wing Smith Richardson Foundation has also committed to ponying up funding for
its US network as soon as the group receives 501 c-3 non-profit status. The foundation has already provided it with about $56,000
for covert propaganda activities across Europe.
The Smith Richardson Foundation has old ties to the US intelligence community and controversial cold war influence operations.
According to reporter
Russ Bellant , the foundation was secretly bankrolling radical right-wing "indoctrination campaigns for the American public on
cold war and foreign policy issues" -- programs that got the attention of Senator William Fulbright, who warned then-President Kennedy
of their dangers. At one of these indoctrination seminars, a Smith Richardson Foundation director "told attendees that 'it is within
the capacity of the people in this room to literally turn the State of Georgia into a civil war college,' in order to overcome their
opponents."
Smith Richardson has funded a who's who of the neoconservative movement, from hyper-militaristic think tanks like the American
Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War. "To say the [Smith Richardson] foundation was involved at every level
in the lobbying for and crafting of the so-called global war on terror after 9/11 would be an understatement,"
wrote journalist
Kelley Vlahos.
Besides Smith Richardson, the Integrity Initiative has stated its intention to apply for grants from the State Department "to
expand the Integrity Initiative activities both within and outside of the USA." This is yet another indicator that the US government
is paying for propaganda targeting its own citizens.
The "Main Event" in Seattle
An Integrity Initiative internal
document argues that because
"DC is well served by existing US institutions, such as those with which the Institute [for Statecraft] already collaborates," the
organization should "concentrate on extending the work of the Integrity Initiative into major cities and key State capitals [sic]
across the USA."
This December 10, the Integrity Initiative organized what it called its "main event" in the US. It was a conference on disinformation
held in Seattle, Washington
under the auspices
of a data firm called Adventium Labs. Together with the Technical Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, the Integrity
Initiative listed Adventium Labs as one of its "first partners outside DC."
Adventium is Minneapolis-based research and development firm that has reaped contracts from the US military, including a
recent $5.4 million cyber-security grant from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
Inside a modest-sized hotel conference room, the Adventium/Integrity event
began with a speech by the Integrity Initiative's Simon Bracey-Lane. Two
years prior, Bracey-Lane appeared on the American political scene as a field worker for Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential primary
run, earning media write-ups as the
"Brit for Bernie." Now, the young operator was back in the US as the advance man for a military-intelligence cut-out that specialized
in smearing left-wing political figures like Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader widely regarded as the British version of Sanders.
Bracey-Lane opened his address by explaining that Integrity Initiative director Chris Donnelly had been unable to appear at the
event, possibly because he was bogged down in the scandal back home. He proceeded to read remarks prepared by Donnelly that offered
a window into the frighteningly militaristic mindset the Integrity Initiative aims to impose on the public through their media and
political allies.
According to Donnelly's comments, the West was no longer in a "peace time, rules based environment." From the halls of government
to corporate boardrooms to even the UK's National Health System, "the conclusion is that we have to look for people who suit a wartime
environment rather than peacetime."
During Q&A, Bracey-Lane remarked that "we have to change the definition of war to encompass everything that war now encompasses,"
referring vaguely to various forms of "hybrid warfare."
"There is a great deal to be done in communicating that to young people," he continued. "When we mean being at war we don't mean
sending our boys off to fight. It's right here in our homes."
The emphasis on restructuring society along martial lines mirrored the disturbing thinking also on display in
notes of a private meeting
between Donnelly and Gen. Richard Barrons in 2016. During that chat, the two officers decided that the British military should
be removed from democratic supervision and be able to operate as "an independent body outside politics."
While Bracey-Lane's presentation perfectly captured the military mindset of the Integrity Initiative, the speakers that followed
him offered a diverse array of perspectives on the concept of disinformation, some more nuanced than others. But one talk stood out
from the rest -- not because of its quality, but because of its complete lack thereof.
Reanimating the "Red-Brown" Grifter
Alexander Reid Ross (left) and Emmi Bevensee at the Integrity Initiative's "main event" in Seattle
The presentation was delivered by Alexander Reid Ross, a half-baked political researcher who peddles computer-generated spiderweb
relationship charts to prove the existence of a vast hidden network of "red-brown" alliances and "syncretic media" conspiracies controlled
by puppeteers in Moscow.
Ross is a lecturer on geography at Portland State University with no scholarly or journalistic credentials on Russia. His students
have given him dismal marks at Rate My
Professors, complaining about his "terrible monotone lectures" and his penchant for "insert[ing] his own ideologies into our class."
But with a book, "Against the Fascist Creep," distributed by the well-known anarchist publishing house, AK Press, the middling academic
has tried to make his name as a maverick analyst.
Before the Integrity Initiative was exposed as a military-intelligence front operation, Ross was among a small coterie of pundits
and self-styled disinformation experts that followed the
group's Twitter account. The Integrity Initiative even retweeted his smear of War Nerd podcast co-host John Dolan.
In a series of articles for the Southern Poverty Law Center last year, Ross attempted to bring his warmed-over Cold War theories
to the broader public. He wound up trashing everyone from the co-author of this piece, Max Blumenthal, to Nation magazine publisher
Katrina Vanden Heuvel to Harvard University professor of international relations Stephen Walt as hidden shadow-fascists secretly
controlled by the Kremlin.
The articles ultimately
generated an embarrassing scandal and a series of public
retractions by the editor-in-chief of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Richard Cohen. And then, like some Dr. Frankenstein for
discredited and buried journalism careers, the British Ministry of Defense-backed Integrity Initiative moved in to reanimate Ross
as a sought-after public intellectual.
Before the Integrity Initiative-organized crowd, Ross offered a rambling recitation of his theory of a syncretic fascist alliance
puppeteered by Russians: "The alt right takes from both this 'red-brown,' it's called, or like left-right syncretic highly international
national of nationalisms, and from the United States' own paleoconservative movement, and it's sort of percolated down through college
organizing, um, and anti-interventionism meets anti-imperialism. Right?"
In a strange twist, Ross appeared on stage at the Integrity Initiative's Seattle event alongside
Emmi Bevensee , a contributor to the left-libertarian
Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) think tank, whose tagline, "a left market anarchist think-tank" expresses its core aim of uniting
far-left anarchists with free-market right-libertarians.
Bevensee , a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona
and self-described "Borderlands anarcho into tech and crypto," concluded her presentation by asserting a linkage between the alternative
news site, Zero Hedge, and the "physical militarized presence in the borderlands" of anti-immigrant vigilantes. Like Bevensee, Ross
has written for C4SS in the past.
The irony of contributors to an anarchist group called the "Center for a Stateless Society" auditioning before The State – the
most jackbooted element of it, in fact – for more opportunities to attack anti-war politicians and journalists, can hardly be overstated.
But closer examination of the history of C4SS veers from irony into something much darker and more unsettling.
Pedophile Co-Founder, White Nationalist Associates
C4SS was co-founded in 2006 by a confessed
child rapist and libertarian activist, Brad Spangler, who set the group up to promote "Market anarchism" to
"replace Marxism on the
left."
When Spangler's child rape confessions emerged in 2015, the Center for Stateless Society founder was
finally drummed out by his colleagues.
There's more: Spangler's understudy and
deputy in the C4SS, Kevin
Carson -- currently listed as the group's "Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory"
-- turned out to be a longtime friend and defender
of white nationalist Keith Preston. Preston's name is prominently plastered on the back of Kevin Carson's book, hailing the C4SS
man as "the Proudhon of our
time" -- a loaded compliment, given Proudhon's unhinged
anti-Semitism . Carson
only disowned Preston in 2009,
shortly before Preston helped white nationalist leader Richard Spencer launch his alt-right webzine, Alternative Right.
The C4SS group currently participates in the annual Koch-backed International
Students For Liberty conference in Washington DC,
LibertyCon, a who's
who of libertarian think-tank hacks and Republican Party semi-celebrities like Steve Forbes, FCC chairman Ajit Pai, and Alan Dershowitz.
In 2013, C4SS's Kevin Carson tweeted out his dream fantasy that four Jewish leftists -- Mark Ames, Yasha Levine, Corey Robin,
and Mark Potok -- would die in a plane crash while struggling over a single parachute. Potok was an executive editor at the Southern
Poverty Law Center, which last year retracted every one of the crank articles that Alexander Reid Ross published with them and
formally apologized for having run them.
For some reason, the super-sleuth Ross conveniently failed to investigate the libertarian group, C4SS, that he has chosen to partner
with and publish in. That ability to shamelessly smear and denounce leftists over the most crudely manufactured links to the far-right
-- while cozying up to groups as sleazy as C4SS and authoritarian as the Integrity Initiative -- is the sort of adaptive trait that
MI6 spies and the Rendon Group would find useful in a covert domestic influence operation.
Ross did not respond to our request for comment on his involvement with the Integrity Initiative and C4SS.
Disinformation for Democracy
As it spans out across the US, the Integrity Initiative has
stated
its desire to "build a younger generation of Russia watchers." Toward this goal, it is supplementing its coterie of elite journalists,
think tank hacks, spooks and State Department info-warriors with certifiable cranks like Ross.
Less than 24 hours after Ross's appearance at the Integrity Initiative event in Seattle, he
sent a menacing email to the co-author
of this article, Ames, announcing his intention to recycle an old and discredited smear against him and publish it in the Daily Beast
-- a publication that appears to enjoy a
special relationship
with Integrity Initiative personnel.
Despite the threat of investigation in the UK, the Integrity Initiative's "network of networks" appears to be escalating its covert,
government-funded influence operation, trashing the political left and assailing anyone that gets in its way -- all in the name of
fighting foreign disinformation.
"We have to win this one," Integrity Initiative founder Col. Chris Donnelly
said , "because if we don't, democracy will be undermined."
making up lies to get paid. james angleton was paranoid (not that it seemed to make him more effective in counterintelligence)–these
people are just con artists, paid to be con artists.
i'm just waiting for "we have to undermine democracy in order to save it".
Agreed. Not only are they paid to make things up, but they have an ingenious scheme for paying themselves from narcotics and
arms dealing.
The most amazing feat of confidence artistry (apart from maybe the TARP bailout (c.f.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
) is their remarkable ability to convince the population they are needed and working on our behalf instead of being in jail
where they belong.
I submitted a long comment on this about an hour ago, which seems to have been eaten by the system. I won't repost it now,
but I'll do so later if it doesn't surface.
This is something that has repeatedly happened to me too recently – it often takes 2 or more hours for most of my recent posting
to surface on the site. It rarely disappears altogether, so I would assume your post will eventually arrive.
Same here on the delays. Keep a copy.
But anyway, very glad you posted this piece. Whatever we make of Patreon, it's one way to support Mark Ames' work.
Sir Alan Duncan, responding on behalf of the Government to Emily Thornberry's urgent question (Dec 12) on recent allegations
that the Foreign Office funded a company which carried out a smear campaign against the official Opposition.
What a frightful fellow that Alan Duncan is eh? Talks like a Mafia lawyer and he's supposed to be a national leader. He reminds
that other MP, the POS who interrogated David Kelly on TV, they both use the same style. Is it a qualification for legislator?
Just a minor note to start off. That image of "Sebastian Gorka, in Vitezi Rend garb". I think that Vitezi Rend actually refers
to the medal he wears on the left. The jacket itself more resembles the patrol jacket that British officers wore in the 19th century.
Moving on! Notice how the same players keep on coming up again and again in all these stories of skulduggery? John Rendon, the
Atlantic Council, Ajit Pai and Alan Dershowitz – the same scum-bags with a few new wannabe players. As an example.
The penchant that Brad Spangler, C4SS co-founder, has for under-age girls is disgusting of course but you have to put it into
the context of the people that you are talking about. If Spengler was more rich or more powerful, you might see his name on a
manifest for the "Lolita Express" but his activities would not be splashed about in an article like this one. That sort of activity
is given a level of protection if you are in the right group. And it is a good thing that that British General Richard Barrons
is retired as his comments are deserving of being cashiered.
Funny how a group that claims to be about protecting democracy wants to push it aside and install propaganda on a "1984" level
in the pursuit of their aims. I cannot decide if their target of Russia is a means or an end. If it is a means, that means using
the boogy-man of Russia to radically restructure western society to their tastes. If it is an end, well, it is true that Russia
has about $75 trillion in resources, mostly in Siberia and the east, so if it was broken up eventually, that would be a bonanza
of wealth appropriation.
I was thinking about the activities of this group and how they go about their activities, especially the smearing of anybody that
talks truth to power. I wonder if anybody here made the connection with this story and the PropOrNot website that came out of
nowhere about two years ago and that had the stamp of approval of the Washington Post. I would not be surprised if it turns out
to be that PropOrNot was a trial balloon in the United States for the Integrity Initiative to establish what it was capable of.
Just a thought.
He looks like an extra from Star Wars – one of those nazi guys working the bridge of the Death Star. The "look and feel" of
a lot of pre-war fascism strikes us as silly in retrospect, though it really wasn't at the time.
That tailored black jacket Sebastian wears looks like something Winston Churchill would have changed out of before that last
cavalry charge at Omdurman. It seems intentionally designed to mimic 19th century great power imperial army officer garb. Nostalgia
for the good times, apparently. Goes with his fascist priorities.
Let us not get carried away with the exuberance of discovering skulduggery among fascist elements of the media and politics.
This does not mean that the conspiracy means Russia is thereby a Goodie Twoshoes. It also does not mean that Russia is any less
a pain in the ass than it has heretorfore be characterized.
It does mean that there is less reason (any?) than ever to put much faith in FoxNews (already a mere propaganda machine) or
other orgs. I am uncomfortable hearing CNA is caught up in this as they are a pseudo government thinktank with some Pentagon influence.
If true, the story should be used to clear out some journalists and analyst riffraff. However, this story is surely not going
to restore, much less create, any integrity among the Beltway Punditry.
The article and related matters may also shed more light on the abrupt resignation of
Robert Hannigan from the leadership of GCHQ in January 2017 a few days after Trump's inauguration. Given previous revelations
about GCHQ and NSA spying on each other's citizens, what else is next in the UK and in the US and elsewhere?
After reading about that Carson character and others I am ready for a shower to try to wash off the disgust.
Yves Smith: Thanks for this. I am wondering about two stories that have been flapping around here for a few days: That odd
New Knowledge company that produced the report about Russian influence on the elections as well as the story about the case before
the Supreme Court of the US in which a company is invoking claims of sovereign immunity.
I have a feeling that New Knowledge definitely fits into the framework outlined by Ames above. A contractor that appears out
of nowhere with a "distinguished" board of concerned semi-liberals (at the trough)?
But what do I know? Some guy named Volodya showed up at my house and bought my vote in 2016 for two bottles of pickled mushrooms
Perfideus Albion is not just a neat saying, but a truth that the Irish, French and
Germans (etc.) have known forever, the people don't deserve it, but the
jumped up Tories do in spades.
Thank you for highlighting this article! It names names and connects some dots, including some connections reaching into the
U.S. It also describes propaganda mechanisms that have been around forever but have become pervasive today. A few protruding tips
of a massive iceberg, in my view. I'm sure *this* "bombshell" story will get the massive coverage it deserves in the MSM -- not!
That was interesting. Well argued all the way through I thought, but they could take a closer look at the unwinding of Yugoslavia;
what Serbia and Syria have in common is having been targeted by outside state powers for dissolution, responses did vary.
Thank you diptherio for posting the C4SS response. Such responses are helpful in evaluating issues like this, and we should
always be open to the other side when they take the time to reply. However, I can't agree that the response was "well argued."
The author does make some valid points, but mainly she resorts to ad hominem attacks on Ames (based on some juvenile antics at
eXile that are often used to smear him), or on both authors because they may have agreed with "Assadists" like Ambassador Peter
Ford or "9/11 Truthers" like Piers Robinson, whose claims about Syria or the White Helmets are, of course, Kremlin propaganda.
Which brings up why Blumenthal would have changed his position on Syria; it was not because of his gradual understanding of what
was really happening there. Rather, while he had once grasp the truth of the "revolution," he made the mistake of going to a Kremlin
gala and the Rooskies (and RT) got to him. Now he is just another propagandist. Nowhere that I can see does the author discuss
the major claims made in Ames and Blumenthal's article, or the evidence cited (except to say that if it was in RT or Sputnik,
we can ignore it anyway as propaganda). Nor does she address the actual defamation made by Alexander Ross-Reid through the SPLC
that pissed off Blumenthal in the first place. There are other problems (don't get me started on the "red-brown" smear), but that's
enough.
Having said all that, I do think that in their criticism of C4SS, Ames and Blumenthal perhaps did some unnecessary punching
down. They could have made clearer the distinction between organizations like the Integrity Initiative, that are pretty clearly
intelligence operatives or cut-outs, versus groups like C4SS that function more like "useful idiots" because of their ideological
position (e.g. equating U.S. and Russian imperialism in this case in their "anarchist" appeal). The latter are in no way as evil
as the former, in my mind.
You are clearly much more engaged with the related debates than I. I read the piece as a response to the punching down you
mention in your last paragraph and felt like I got a respectable read on someone still developing their arguments. I'm not informed
enough to argue with much of it, but having read Diana Johnstone's "Fools Crusade", the Syria/Serbia bit stuck in my craw.
I had thought about commenting on the ad hominems directed at Ames, but didn't want to get into the whole identity argument
embedded in much of the language of the post. While I disagree with many of her positions and attitudes on the state actions she
criticizes without, in my opinion, adequate grounding, I judged it a mostly good faith effort trying to find solid footing in
a world increasingly thick with distorted narratives.
It's hard to argue now, from anywhere with out power, without being someone's "useful idiot": trust has decayed to the point
where language impedes communication in the political sphere.
It's funny you should mention Johnstone's book. I normally would not use the derogatory term "useful idiot" for the very reason
you imply; most such people are acting in good faith. I admit that her comments on Syria irritated me. But the reason I sometimes
overreact to that sort of narrative is because of my own experiences as a useful idiot, starting with Yugoslavia. I fell for the
liberal "humanitarian" argument hook, line, and sinker in the 1990s, even though I considered myself a knowledgeable progressive
at the time. It wouldn't be the last time I was duped, but I'd like to think I'm a little wiser today.
I appreciate your comment. We definitely need to distinguish empire propagandists from the beliefs of people honestly trying
to find their way.
I thought the later part of Ames' piece was unnecessary. It's kind of the same sort of guilt-by-attending-same-conference thing
that I find annoying about the Russophobes.
Keep focused on government malfeasance, not basement brown-shirts.
Oh well, there would be a lot to argue here. In one side it is nice to see that the "Initiative" is being exposed although
it doesn't appear yet to trigger any significant response from supposedly democratic institutions like, let's say the english
parliament (at ransom by brexit).
Just to demonstrate how this article is well focused and pointed I wanted to comment on this bit:
(Among the outlets listed as friendly hosts in Integrity Initiative internal memos are Buzzfeed and El Pais, the center-left
Spanish daily .)
YES! iIt is so true that the former "center-left" –if you wish– daily that years ago was a must read but has been degraded
to levels that I wouldn't have imagined, in a case that makes the Guardian as the "guardian of reporting-as-it should-be". One
has to bear in mind that the current most important shareholder of Grupo Prisa (owner of El Pais) is an english hedge fund Amber
Capital whose CEO,
Joseph
Oughorlian is chairman at Grupo Prisa and probably responsible for the Russia!Russia!Russia! campaign observed in this medium
that surprised me so much. You don't find nothing similar in Spain even in rigth and rigth of the rigth news outlets.
I believe this UK-based shareholder is clearly associated with the peculiar Russia!Russia!Russia! stance of the supposedly
centre-left daily.
For those of us from way back way back, these kooks relate to offshoots of the Watergate scandal, the original one, where people
working on those burglaries of psychiatrist's offices and Democratic headquarters got their start organizing small gangs of crooks
to infiltrate what was then a porous but trustable system of government – on they went to propose surveillance and collection
of data that was at first publicly laughed about but on they went. On they went. Technology with all its pluses has these minuses
we at first were able to counter (Church hearings) but the rats have scurried into all the back alleys and secretive pathways
that need a thorough cleanup. It can be done, but it needs to be done periodically. Hopefully this is finally the year when that
will happen.
Thank you, Yves. I believe these folk don't end up in a good place, but meanwhile they are wreaking havoc. The place to start,
after the brooms and mops, is to get money OUT of politics and restore a verifiable voting system that happens methodically and
is trustworthy. The citizenry will be behind this. We the people don't care how long it takes to vote or to find out who won.
We don't! Haste makes waste in more ways than we know.
Let's do this. And please, judges, do your duty or go to jail yourselves.
It's obvious that neither Ames or Blumenthal read the actual documents they're quoting from. Which is a shame considering the
relevant one involving the CIA's Operation Mockingbird comparison was only seven pages long. The CIA were merely imitating British
intelligence during the war and it is clearly stated as such when one of the replies involving General Sir Richard Barrons states
that they've done this before during the 1930s. The US didn't possess a foreign intelligence agency at the time and I'd fervently
argue that we still don't to this day.
but I've already commented about British Security Coordination in the aftermath of PropOrNot though and I'm reluctant to beat
a dead horse.
Ah, the smell (or should we say stench) of domestic propaganda in the morning, ironically by some of the same individuals who
brought us Iraq WMDs. While First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and other civil rights must be protected, it seems to
me that a careful balance can be drawn under new legislation that insulates us from such government-sponsored propaganda. We should
be able to rely on our government's representations. Instead, as with a former president who openly acknowledged, "My job is to
catapult the propaganda," the reverse, together with a related loss of trust, unfortunately seems to be increasingly the case.
Stop lying! What part of "of the People, by the People, for the People," is difficult to understand?
Naomi Klein's book "Shock Doctrine", encapsulated by this post as "global elites used periods of crisis around the world to force
damaging neoliberal policies derived from the Chicago School and Washington Consensus upon unhappy populations that suffered greatly
as a result."
Notable quotes:
"... Eventually, Poland emerged as the major US agent of influence within the EU (along with GB) with the adamant anti-Russian stance. Which taking into account the real state of Polish manufacturing deprived of the major market is very questionable. Later by joining sanctions, they lost Russian agricultural market (including all apple market in which they have a prominent position). ..."
"... Gowan's book, Global Gamble, is also good on the details of shock therapy in the former Warsaw Pact nations. One key problem was that shock therapy partly rested on he assumption that western European buyers would want to invest in modernizing plant and equipment in industries they acquired, but it quickly turned out that the German and other western buyers were really interested only in acquiring new MARKETS for their own products. ..."
"... I remember a couple of paragraphs about Poland in my Economics 101 course, some 20 years ago. Was it in in Mankiw's book? or Lipsey-Chrystal? I do not remember anymore. One of those vicious neoliberal propaganda mouthpieces, anyway. The textbook pitched Poland's success story against Russia's abject failure, claiming that the former had dismantled and shut down all its inefficient state-run companies, while the latter still kept its unprofitable heavy industry on life support. ..."
"... Somehow neoclassical economists always distort history into a cartoonish parody that confirms their models. ..."
"... If you looked carefully, you could still find older books, barely touched, that touted Albania as a neoliberal success story along the same lines as Poland. Albania almost collapsed in civil war in 1998. ..."
"... The author's criticism doesn't really address Klein's central points at all, which would be that the crisis was used as leverage to ram through otherwise politically unpalatable change, and that a great deal of the constraint forcing that was provided by actors both undemocratic and external. He seems to be of the school that regards such niceties as beside the point, as long as various macroaggregates eventually rose. ..."
"... Any discussion of the Polish economy that completely ignores this massive level of economic outmigration, and it's continued rise among the young, misses a great deal. In a vibrant economy, it seems unlikely that so many educated Poles would find, for example, lower tier jobs in Britain to be their best path forward. ..."
"... Out-migration is a huge factor in eastern and central Europe and without it, the picture would look entirely different. The Baltics, Bulgaria and Romania are even more affected. ..."
"... Inter-war Poland is celebrated a lot in Poland these days, conveniently ignoring the facts it was really a totalitarian state – when Czechoslovakia was Muniched in 1938, Poles (and Hugarians) were quick to grab bits of territory right after that. ..."
"... Poland has taken around a million Ukrainians over the past ten years so while many Poles are emigrating to Europe, they are being replaced by Ukrainians, who are ethnically and linguistically fairly similar to Poles. ..."
The argument largely seems to hold for the original poster boy example in Chile with the Pinochet coup against the socialist Allende
regime. A military coup replaced a democratically government. Whiole Chlle was experiencing a serious inflation, it was not in a
full-blown economic collapse. The coup was supported by US leaders Nixon and Kissinger, who saw themselves preventing the emergence
of pro-Soviet regime resembling Castro's Cuba. Thousands were killed, and a sweeping set of laisssez faire policies were imposed
with the active participation of "Chicago Boys" associated with Milton Friedman. In fact, aside from bringing down inflation these
rreforms did not initially improve economic performance, even as foreign capital flowed in, especially into the copper industry,
although the core of that industry remained nationalized. After several years the Chicago Boys were sent away and more moderate policies,
including a reimposition of controls on foreign capital flows, the economy did grow quite rapidly. But this left a deeply unequal
income distribution in place, which would largely remain the case even after Pinochet was removed from power and parliamentary democracy
returned.
This scenario was argued to happen in many other narions, especially those in the former Sovit bloc as the soviet Union disintegrated
and its successor states and the former members of the Soviet bloc in the CMEA and Warsaw Pact also moved to some sort of market
capitalism imposed from outside with policies funded by the IMF and following the Washington Consensus. Although he has since expressed
regret for this role in this, a key player linking what was done in several Latin American nations and what went down after 1989
in Eastern and Central Europe was Jeffrey Sachs. Klein's discussion especially of what went down in Russia also looks pretty sound
by and large, wtthout dragging through the details, although in these cases the political shift was from dictatorships run by Communist
parties dominated out of Moscow to at least somewhat more democratic governments, although not in all of the former Soviet republics
such as in Central Asia and with many of these later backsliding towards more authoritarian governments later. In Russia and in many
oothers large numbers of people were thrown into poverty from which they have not recovered. Klein has also extended this argument
to other nations, including South Africa after the end of apartheid.
likbez
The level of the naivety of Barkley Rosser is astounding.
Poland was a political project, the showcase for the neoliberal project in Eastern Europe and the USSR. EU was pressed to provide
large subsidies, and that marionette complied. The commenter ilpalazzo (above) is right that there has been " a tremendous development
in real estate and infrastructure mostly funded by the EU that has been a serious engine of growth." Like in Baltics and Ukraine,
German, French, Swedish and other Western buyers were most interested in opening market for their products and getting rid of
local and xUSSR competitors (and this supported and promoted Russophobia). With very few exceptions. University education system
also was partially destroyed, but still fared better than most manufacturing industries.
I remember talking to one of the Polish professors of economics when I was in Poland around 1992. He said that no matter how
things will develop, the Polish economy will never be allowed to fail as the USA is interested in propelling it at all costs.
That means that there was no CIA activity to undermine the financial system, deindustrialize the country, and possibly to partition
the county like it was in Russia with Harvard mafia (Summers, Shleifer, etc.)
Still, they lost quite a bit of manufacturing: for example all shipbuilding, which is ironic as Lech Wałęsa and Solidarity
emerged in this industry.
Eventually, Poland emerged as the major US agent of influence within the EU (along with GB) with the adamant anti-Russian
stance. Which taking into account the real state of Polish manufacturing deprived of the major market is very questionable. Later
by joining sanctions, they lost Russian agricultural market (including all apple market in which they have a prominent position).
But they have a large gas pipeline on their territory, so I suspect that like Ukraine they make a lot of money via transit
fees simply due to geographic. So they parochially live off rent -- that why they bark so much at North Stream 2.
Polish elite is a real horror show, almost beyond redemption, and not only in economics. I do not remember, but I think it
was Churchill who said " Poland is a greedy hyena of Europe." This is as true now as it was before WWII.
Now they are propelled by cheap labor from Ukraine, which they helped to destroy (along with Sweden and Germany)
My post seem to have vanished into oblivion so I'm pasting from the clipboard.
I am a Pole and have been a daily reader here since 2008. I hope a better versed compatriot will come out of the closet and
give a better picture (I know there are a few).
Let's just say the shock was pretty bad. In terms of amount of human suffering the worst was dissolving state owned farms.
Hundreds of thousands of people were just let go without any help, although many farms were profitable and others could be restructured
or converted into collectives etc. I live in a small town where there was a huge state farm and I can see former employees started
to recover and get by just recently judging by the looks of their dwellings.
Most of the manufacturing and heavy industry was sold off and extinguished. We used to have pretty decent capital producing
capabilities like tooling etc. Not a trace of that now. There is a lot being manufactured now here but mostly simple components
for german industry to assemble.
Pension system was thoroughly looted by you know who and is a ticking time bomb. Most of it was quasi privatized – that is
managed by western companies but still part of the state system. There were supposed to be individual saving accounts managed
by sophisticated investment specialists but the money ended up invested in state bonds, issued to subsidize it. Managing fee 7
– 10 percent charge on every payment into the system, regardless of performance, anyone? It was a heist of the century.
The ticking time bomb is because a large part of young people working now are working on non – permanent contracts that don't
pay benefits. These people won't have any pension at all and there are a lot of them.
Healthcare is single payer fund but heavily underfunded. Private practice and hospitals are allowed and skim most profitable
procedures leaving the rest to public fund. There are unrealistic limits on number of procedures so if you need to see a specialist
in July or later prepare to pay cash or wait till January.
Municipal service companies, at least the most lucrative ones have ben sold off to foreign investment funds. A few of our cities'
municipal companies, like central heating or energy have been sold off to german municipal companies (!). State telecom has been
sold off to french state telecom (and one of the biggest and most famous fortunes made).
Local printed press is 90% german corps owned.
This is a map of state rail company railways in 1988 and 2009 . It
has been a meme here for some time. It is true. Cancelled lines are the subsidized ones workers relied on to get to job. I closely
know a thousand years old town that had rail built in 1860 by germans and liquidated right in 1990. The populace is now halved,
all young emigrated, businesses dead. There have been a huge investment in freeways and other kind of roads so every one has to
own a car to get to her job. Most cars are used 10+ year old german imports. Polish car mechanic and body shops are the best in
the world specialists of german automotive produce.
I live in a small contry town that was a home to a wealthy aristocrat. There is a beautiful baroque palace and huge park, the
complex is literally a third part of town. After the war it was nationalized, there were sporting facilities built in the park
for locals and school pupils to use. The palace was re-purposed as medical facility and office complex for state farm management.
In the nineties the whole thing was given back to aristocrat descendants – a shady bunch hiding in Argentina AFAIR. They couldn't
afford to keep it so they sold it to a nouveau – riche real estate developer. He fenced the whole thing off and refurbished into
a sort of conference complex – it is underway and still not clear what's gonna happen with it. The effect is that a third of my
town that used to be public space is fenced off and off limits now.
To conclude, there has been a tremendous development in real estate and infrastructure mostly funded by the EU that has been
a serious engine of growth. Lot of people got mortgage and financed homes or flats and there has been a whole industry created
around it. A few crown jewel companies (copper mining, petroleum and other chemistry) are state owned. But most of the sophisticated
furnishings used in real estate are german made (there is german made nat gas furnace in 95% of newly built homes) etc. Two million
young people emigrated to work mostly to UK and Ireland. I'd lived in Dublin for a year in 2003 and there were Chinese people
as salespersons in groceries and seven – elevens everywhere, now there are Poles instead.
Recommended reading about the transformation years dealing is this book:
Thanks for this. Gowan's book, Global Gamble, is also good on the details of shock therapy in the former Warsaw Pact nations.
One key problem was that shock therapy partly rested on he assumption that western European buyers would want to invest in modernizing
plant and equipment in industries they acquired, but it quickly turned out that the German and other western buyers were really
interested only in acquiring new MARKETS for their own products.
And in agriculture, they both insisted on the elimination of subsidies within the eastern nations, and proceeded to use the
area as a dumping ground for their own (often subsidized) agricultural surpluses.
All this gets back, in my minuscule view, to failure to have a decent answer to one little question:
What kind of political economy do "we, the mopes" want to live within?
And related to that, what steps can and must "we, the mopes" take to get to that hopefully wiser, more decent, more homeostatic
and sustainable, political economy?
And it likely doesn't matter for us old folks (obligatory blast at Boomers as cause of all problems and distresses, dismissing
the roots and branches of "civilization," current patterns of consumption, and millennia of Progress), given what is "baked in"
and the current distribution of weatlhandpower. But maybe "we, the mopes" can at least go down fighting. Gilets Jaunes, 150 million
Indians, all that
But without an answer to the first question, though, not much chance of "better," is there? Except maybe locally, for the tiny
set of us mopes who know how to do community and commensalism and some other "C" words
"We, the mopes" could make some important and effective changes. Enough of us, and soon enough, to avoid or mitigate the Jackpot?
Thanks very much for this. Very graphic. So, if you would, could you explain who the Law and Justice Party is, and why they
won the election, and what exactly are they doing to make themselves popular? Are they in fact enacting certain social programs
that we can read about or are they primarily relying on something else, like mainly Catholic traditionalism, for their political
power?
I remember a couple of paragraphs about Poland in my Economics 101 course, some 20 years ago. Was it in in Mankiw's book?
or Lipsey-Chrystal? I do not remember anymore. One of those vicious neoliberal propaganda mouthpieces, anyway. The textbook pitched
Poland's success story against Russia's abject failure, claiming that the former had dismantled and shut down all its inefficient
state-run companies, while the latter still kept its unprofitable heavy industry on life support.
It is unsurprising to read that Poland followed a more nuanced approach. Somehow neoclassical economists always distort
history into a cartoonish parody that confirms their models.
That was in the early 2000s. The university was then brand new and was still filling the shelves of the library. If you
looked carefully, you could still find older books, barely touched, that touted Albania as a neoliberal success story along the
same lines as Poland. Albania almost collapsed in civil war in 1998.
Klein at least provided footnotes, and sources for her claims. Which are conspicuously absent from this piece.
The World Bank, (World Development Indicators, 2006), one of Klein's sources, has a nationwide poverty rate only for 1993,
and has it at 23% at that point, or between 2.3 times and more than 4 time the most common estimate he cites under the ancient
regime.
The same source has unemployment averaging 19.9% in 1990-92, and 19% in 2000-2004.
As to the later poverty rate, Klein's source is Przemyslaw Wielgosz, then editor of the Polish edition of le Monde Diplomatique,
who gives this: " Poles living below the 'social minimum' (defined as a living standard of £130 (192,4 EUR) per person and £297
(440,4 EUR) for a three person family per month) affecting 15% of the population in 1989 to 47% in 1996, and 59% in 2003." but
whence he obtains these figures he does not say. Given that it falls in a period when unemployment was pushing 20% for a prolonged
period, and that both the EU's subsidies and outmigration to the EU as an escape valve only start to kick in in 2003, the figure
seems not wildly implausible.
The author's criticism doesn't really address Klein's central points at all, which would be that the crisis was used as
leverage to ram through otherwise politically unpalatable change, and that a great deal of the constraint forcing that was provided
by actors both undemocratic and external. He seems to be of the school that regards such niceties as beside the point, as long
as various macroaggregates eventually rose.
The contrast between what was done, and what Solidarnosc had claimed to be all about when in opposition is incredibly striking,
basically the difference between libertarian Communism and uber Dirigisme style capitalism.
Any discussion of the Polish economy that completely ignores this massive level of economic outmigration, and it's continued
rise among the young, misses a great deal. In a vibrant economy, it seems unlikely that so many educated Poles would find, for
example, lower tier jobs in Britain to be their best path forward.
Yes, your unemployment and poverty rates are lower if a significant fraction of the population works elsewhere in the EU, and
reatriates the money. Though the pattern may cause a few other problems. (while many nations like to export their unemployment,
not everybody wants to import it.)
Out-migration is a huge factor in eastern and central Europe and without it, the picture would look entirely different.
The Baltics, Bulgaria and Romania are even more affected.
The migration from Poland does not have only economic reasons. A lot of Poles migrate because they find the polish society
(especially small towns and rural) very stiffling.
A friend of mine left Poland the moment she got her MSc – literally, the same day she was on a bus to Germany. She's now a
sucessfull woman, director level at a large consultancy. Yet her father calls her "old spinster" (this is the polite version),
as she wasn't maried by 30, and she basically avoids going to Poland.
She says she could never be as sucessfull in Poland, being a woman, and not being keen on marrying. I've heard similar stories
from young Poles, not just women.
Inter-war Poland is celebrated a lot in Poland these days, conveniently ignoring the facts it was really a totalitarian
state – when Czechoslovakia was Muniched in 1938, Poles (and Hugarians) were quick to grab bits of territory right after that.
Kasia, January 10, 2019 at 5:17 pm
Poland has taken around a million Ukrainians over the past ten years so while many Poles are emigrating to Europe, they
are being replaced by Ukrainians, who are ethnically and linguistically fairly similar to Poles.
So Poland is proof that nationalist, populist policies can indeed work. Poland has had to taken rough measures with our judicial
system and media to ensure globalist forces do not undermine our successes. No one, I mean no one, in Poland mouths the words,
"diversity is our strength". Internationalist, liberal minded people who are so susceptible to globalist propaganda, are generally
the ones leaving the nation. Indigenous Western Europeans who are suffering the joys of cultural enrichment and vibrant diversity
are starting to buy property in Eastern Europe - more Hungary than Poland - but as the globalists push even more multiculturalism
and continue to impoverish indigenous Europeans, Eastern Europe will become a shining beacon on the hill free of many of the evils
of globalisation.
That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent,
often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own
failures on [everyone but themselves].
Another sign of degeneracy is that masses of people put their faith in such human garbage
and fantasize that the essentially effortless task of casting ballots every few years will
somehow, perhaps magically, improve their situations. Even more telling is the infantilism
demonstrated by the attitude that they're special and "da gweatist" and that the world should
cater to their every whim just like mommy and daddy did.
Unlike the Titanic, most collapsed regimes don't fully sink. They remain about half
under water, and half above, possibly with an orchestra still playing joyful music. And in
the most expensive top deck cabins, a pretty luxurious lifestyle can be maintained by the
elites.
A clever metaphor.
incompetent, often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who
blame their own failures on internal ("deplorables") and external ("the Russians")
factors.
Just so.
Dmitry Orlov's assessment rings dead true to me. The most terrifying factor is that a
doomed and demented US administration may resort to the use of its vast air and missile power
to save itself.
If I could pinpoint where the things went wrong for the
west – I would say it happened when they invented the idiocy of multiculturalism. It was
supposed to prevent socialist revolution and on the face of it, it seemed pretty clever, but
it's actually a moronic idea.
The thing that you are supposed to prevent should be the absolute worst case scenario,
replaced with more benign idea. With multiculturalism – its' actually the opposite.
The remedy is worse than the malady. Multiculturalism is going to destroy the western
civilization.
With that in mind and in the spirit of public service, I propose to replace the propaganda
slogan: Diversity is our strength (which doesn't make sense to anybody), with a more logical
and understandable propaganda slogan:
Diversity is our perversity. What Lies Behind the Malaise of the West?
Elite double income families have enjoyed great prosperity and influence and required many
desk jobs for their wives and daughters, preferably in government. They have been fine, had a
kid or two now and again and are very keen on their own self perceived virtue. Deep down they
know the two incomes they enjoy comes at the expense of working class men who might aspire to
better but are now rarely satisfied.
Further down the ladder poor men and women can rarely form bond and form stable families.
They have little money and their women would rather use Uncle Sam as a partner.
They are harassed by one do-gooding government department after another.
The same do-Gooders have no problem with poor communities being flooded with porn and
smut, nor do they seem overly concerned about rising house prices and rent. Wonder why?
There is a cancer in the entire west, and it is leading to great inequality.
MEN MUST STOP CHASING SEX AND THINK OF THEIR NEIGHBOR PARTICULARLY THEIR POOR
NEIGHBOR.
@Ace
"All if this combines to ensure that America is the go-to place for clowns everywhere.
Nothing will be able to correct this cavalcade of lunacy, chaos, depravity, and destruction
except economic catastrophe, coming soon to a neighborhood on top of you. Then to be followed
immediately by dictatorship and years of statist and racial excess until, with luck, we
reduscover what we have now uf we'd but lift a finger to protect it."
Congratulations, you are a doormat to the decline. So, what are you prepared to do about
this dire situation other than lament and complain?
"... If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in reserve. ..."
"... To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in their possession. ..."
"... I would venture to guess that most people in the US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions to pay much attention to the political realm ..."
"... The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses ..."
It is already safe to declare Trump's plan to Make America Great Again (MAGA) a failure.
Beneath the rosy statistics of US economic growth hides the hideous fact that it is the
result of a tax holiday granted to transnational corporations to entice them to repatriate
their profits. While this hasn't helped them (their stocks are currently cratering) it has
been a disaster for the US government as well as for the economic system as whole. Tax
receipts have shrunk. The budget deficit for 2018 exceeds $779 billion.
Meanwhile, the trade wars which Trump initiated have caused the trade deficit to
increase by 17% from the year before. Plans to repatriate industrial production from
low-cost countries remain vaporous because the three key elements which China had as it
industrialized (cheap energy, cheap labor and low cost of doing business) are altogether
missing. Government debt is already beyond reasonable and its expansion is still
accelerating, with just the interest payments set to exceed half a trillion a year within a
decade.
This trajectory does not bode well for the continued existence of the United States as a
going concern. Nobody, either in the United States or beyond, has the power to
significantly alter this trajectory. Trump's thrashing about may have moved things along
faster than they otherwise would have, at least in the sense of helping convince the entire
world that the US is selfish, feckless, ultimately self-destructive and generally
unreliable as a partner. In the end it won't matter who was president of the US -- it never
has. Among those the US president has succeeded in hurting most are his European allies.
His attacks on Russian energy exports to Europe, on European car manufacturers and on
Europe's trade with Iran have caused a fair amount of damage, both political and economic,
without compensating for it with any perceived or actual benefits.
Meanwhile, as the globalist world order, which much of Europe's population appears ready
to declare a failure, begins to unravel, the European Union is rapidly becoming
ungovernable, with established political parties unable to form coalitions with
ever-more-numerous populist upstarts. It is too early to say that the EU has already failed
altogether, but it already seems safe to predict that within a decade it will no longer
remain as a serious international factor.
Although the disastrous quality and the ruinous mistakes of Europe's own leadership
deserve a lot of the blame, some of it should rest with the erratic, destructive behavior
of their transoceanic Big Brother. The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional
affair, unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes
for Washington, which is going to either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get
chased out from much of the world.
The departure from Syria is inevitable whether Trump, under relentless pressure from his
bipartisan warmongers, backtracks on this commitment or not. Now that Syria has been armed
with Russia's up-to-date air defense weapons the US no longer maintains air superiority
there, and without air superiority the US military is unable to do anything. Afghanistan is
next; there, it seems outlandish to think that the Washingtonians will be able to achieve
any sort of reasonable accommodation with the Taliban.
Their departure will spell the end of Kabul as a center of corruption where foreigners
steal humanitarian aid and other resources. Somewhere along the way the remaining US troops
will also be pulled out of Iraq, where the parliament, angered by Trump's impromptu visit
to a US base, recently voted to expel them. And that will put paid to the entire US
adventure in the Middle East since 9/11: $4,704,439,588,308 has been squandered, to be
precise , or $14,444 for every man, woman and child in the US.
The biggest winners in all of this are, obviously, the people of the entire region,
because they will no longer be subjected to indiscriminate US harassment and bombardment,
followed by Russia, China and Iran, with Russia solidifying its position as the ultimate
arbiter of international security arrangements thanks to its unmatched military
capabilities and demonstrated knowhow for coercion to peace. Syria's fate will be decided
by Russia, Iran and Turkey, with the US not even invited to the talks. Afghanistan will
fall into the sphere of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And the biggest losers will
be former US regional allies, first and foremost Israel, followed by Saudi Arabia.
My question for you is this: where would you place the US (or the Empire) on your 5 stages
of decline and do you believe that the US (or the Empire) can reverse that trend?
Here is Dmitry's reply:
Collapse, at each stage, is a historical process that takes time to run its course as the
system adapts to changing circumstances, compensates for its weaknesses and finds ways to
continue functioning at some level. But what changes rather suddenly is faith or, to put it
in more businesslike terms, sentiment. A large segment of the population or an entire
political class within a country or the entire world can function based on a certain set of
assumptions for much longer than the situation warrants but then over a very short period of
time switch to a different set of assumptions. All that sustains the status quo beyond that
point is institutional inertia. It imposes limits on how fast systems can change without
collapsing entirely. Beyond that point, people will tolerate the older practices only until
replacements for them can be found.
Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost.
Internationally, the major change in sentiment in the world has to do with the role of the
US dollar (and, to a lesser extent, the Euro and the Yen -- the other two reserve currencies
of the three-legged globalist central banker stool). The world is transitioning to the use of
local currencies, currency swaps and commodities markets backed by gold. The catalyst for
this change of sentiment was provided by the US administration itself which sawed through its
own perch by its use of unilateral sanctions. By using its control over dollar-based
transactions to block international transactions it doesn't happen to like it forced other
countries to start looking for alternatives. Now a growing list of countries sees throwing
off the shackles of the US dollar as a strategic goal. Russia and China use the ruble and the
yuan for their expanding trade; Iran sells oil to India for rupees. Saudi Arabia has started
to accept the yuan for its oil.
This change has many knock-on effects. If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct
international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in
reserve. Consequently, there is no longer a need to buy up large quantities of US
Treasury notes. Therefore, it becomes unnecessary to run large trade surpluses with the US,
essentially conducting trade at a loss. Further, the attractiveness of the US as an export
market drops and the cost of imports to the US rises, thereby driving up cost inflation. A
vicious spiral ensues in which the ability of the US government to borrow internationally to
finance the gaping chasm of its various deficits becomes impaired. Sovereign default of the
US government and national bankruptcy then follow.
The US may still look mighty, but its dire fiscal predicament coupled with its denial of
the inevitability of bankruptcy, makes it into something of a Blanche DuBois from the
Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire." She was "always dependent on the kindness
of strangers" but was tragically unable to tell the difference between kindness and desire.
In this case, the desire is for national advantage and security, and to minimize risk by
getting rid of an unreliable trading partner.
How quickly or slowly this comes to pass is difficult to guess at and impossible to
calculate. It is possible to think of the financial system in terms of a physical analogue,
with masses of funds traveling at some velocity having a certain inertia (p = mv) and with
forces acting on that mass to accelerate it along a different trajectory (F = ma). It is also
possible to think of it in terms of hordes of stampeding animals who can change course
abruptly when panicked. The recent abrupt moves in the financial markets, where trillions of
dollars of notional, purely speculative value have been wiped out within weeks, are more in
line with the latter model.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost.
Within the US there is really no other alternative than the market. There are a few rustic
enclaves, mostly religious communities, that can feed themselves, but that's a rarity. For
everyone else there is no choice but to be a consumer. Consumers who are broke are called
"bums," but they are still consumers. To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a
commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in
their possession. Such a culture can die by becoming irrelevant (when everyone is dead
broke) but by then most of the carriers of this culture are likely to be dead too.
Alternatively, it can be replaced by a more humane culture that isn't entirely based on the
cult of Mammon -- perhaps, dare I think, through a return to a pre-Protestant, pre-Catholic
Christian ethic that values people's souls above objects of value?
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is
lost.
All is very murky at the moment, but I would venture to guess that most people in the
US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions
to pay much attention to the political realm . Of the ones they do pay attention, a fair
number of them seem clued in to the fact that the US is not a democracy at all but an
elites-only sandbox in which transnational corporate and oligarchic interests build and knock
down each others' sandcastles.
The extreme political polarization, where two virtually identical pro-capitalist, pro-war
parties pretend to wage battle by virtue-signaling may be a symptom of the extremely decrepit
state of the entire political arrangement: people are made to watch the billowing smoke and
to listen to the deafening noise in the hopes that they won't notice that the wheels are no
longer turning.
The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House,
the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center
stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses , such as the
disintegration of the Ottoman Empire or of the fall and the consequent beheading of Louis
XVI. The fact that Trump, like the Ottoman worthies, stocks his harem with East European
women, lends an eerie touch. That said, most people in the US seem blind to the nature of
their overlords in a way that the French, with their Gilettes Jaunes movement (just
as an example) are definitely not.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost.
I have been saying for some years now that within the US social collapse has largely run
its course, although whether people actually believe that is an entire matter entirely.
Defining "your people" is rather difficult. The symbols are still there -- the flag, the
Statue of Liberty and a predilection for iced drinks and heaping plates of greasy fried foods
-- but the melting pot seems to have suffered a meltdown and melted all the way to China. At
present half the households within the US speak a language other than English at home, and a
fair share of the rest speak dialects of English that are not mutually intelligible with the
standard North American English dialect of broadcast television and university lecturers.
Throughout its history as a British colony and as a nation the US has been dominated by
the Anglo ethnos. The designation "ethnos" is not an ethnic label. It is not strictly based
on genealogy, language, culture, habitat, form of government or any other single factor or
group of factors. These may all be important to one extent or another, but the viability of
an ethnos is based solely on its cohesion and the mutual inclusivity and common purpose of
its members. The Anglo ethnos reached its zenith in the wake of World War II, during which
many social groups were intermixed in the military and their more intelligent members.
Fantastic potential was unleashed when privilege -- the curse of the Anglo ethnos since
its inception -- was temporarily replaced with merit and the more talented demobilized men,
of whatever extraction, were given a chance at education and social advancement by the GI
Bill. Speaking a new sort of American English based on the Ohio dialect as a Lingua Franca,
these Yanks -- male, racist, sexist and chauvinistic and, at least in their own minds,
victorious -- were ready to remake the entire world in their own image.
They proceeded to flood the entire world with oil (US oil production was in full flush
then) and with machines that burned it. Such passionate acts of ethnogenesis are rare but not
unusual: the Romans who conquered the entire Mediterranean basin, the barbarians who then
sacked Rome, the Mongols who later conquered most of Eurasia and the Germans who for a very
brief moment possessed an outsized Lebensraum are other examples.
And now it is time to ask: what remains of this proud conquering Anglo ethnos today? We
hear shrill feminist cries about "toxic masculinity" and minorities of every stripe railing
against "whitesplaining" and in response we hear a few whimpers but mostly silence. Those
proud, conquering, virile Yanks who met and fraternized with the Red Army at the River Elbe
on April 25, 1945 -- where are they? Haven't they devolved into a sad little subethnos of
effeminate, porn-addicted overgrown boys who shave their pubic hair and need written
permission to have sex without fear of being charged with rape?
Will the Anglo ethnos persist as a relict, similar to how the English have managed to hold
onto their royals (who are technically no longer even aristocrats since they now practice
exogamy with commoners)? Or will it get wiped out in a wave of depression, mental illness and
opiate abuse, its glorious history of rapine, plunder and genocide erased and the statues of
its war heros/criminals knocked down? Only time will tell.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in "the goodness of humanity" is lost.
The term "culture" means many things to many people, but it is more productive to observe
cultures than to argue about them. Cultures are expressed through people's stereotypical
behaviors that are readily observable in public. These are not the negative stereotypes often
used to identify and reject outsiders but the positive stereotypes -- cultural standards of
behavior, really -- that serve as requirements for social adequacy and inclusion. We can
readily assess the viability of a culture by observing the stereotypical behaviors of its
members.
It is possible to quote statistics or to provide anecdotal evidence to assess the state
and the viability of a culture, but your own eyes and other senses can provide all the
evidence you need to make that determination for yourself and to decide how much faith to put
in "the goodness of humanity" that is evident in the people around you.
Dmity concluded his reply by summarizing his view like this:
Cultural and social collapse are very far along. Financial collapse is waiting for a
trigger. Commercial collapse will happen in stages some of which -- food deserts, for
instance -- have already happened in many places. Political collapse will only become visible
once the political class gives up. It's not as simple as saying which stage we are at. They
are all happening in parallel, to one extent or another.
My own (totally subjective) opinion is that the US has already reached stages 1 through 4,
and that there are signs that stage 5 has begun; mainly in big cities as US small towns and
rural areas (Trump's power base
Don't expect these two losers to fix anything, they will only make things worse
In the meantime, the US ruling elites are locked into an ugly internal struggle which only
further weakens the US. What is so telling is that the Democrats are still stuck with their
same clueless, incompetent and infinitely arrogant leadership, in spite of the fact that
everybody knows that the Democratic Party is in deep crisis and that new faces are desperately
needed. But no, they are still completely stuck in their old ways and the same gang of
gerontocrats continues to rule the party apparatus.
That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent,
often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own
failures on internal ("deplorables") and external ("the Russians") factors. Again, think of the
Soviet Union under Brezhnev, the Apartheid regime in South Africa under F. W. de Klerk, or the
Kerensky regime in 1917 Russia.
As for the Republicans, they are basically a subsidiary of the Israeli Likud Party. Just
take a look at the long list of losers the Likud produced at home, and you will get a sense of
what they can do in its US colony.
Eventually the US will rebound; I have no doubts about that at all. This is a big country
with millions of immensely talented people, immense natural resources and no credible threat to
it's territory. But that can only happen after a real regime change (as opposed to a change in
Presidential Administration) which, itself, is only going to happen after an "E2 catastrophe"
collapse.
The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional affair, unable to project power or
entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington, which is going to
either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get chased out from much of the
world.
Well, it's O.K. to have online therapy with that brief dopamine rush every now and then.
Does help, I guess.
But, looks like, in order to keep having the "fix" the blathering is becoming ludicrous.
Starting to feel desperate.
Like: " unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes
for Washington .".
"... Behind the candidate's rhetoric there never was enough strategic sense, necessary knowledge, or even caring about foreign affairs to ward off the maneuvers of a determined hawk like Bolton once he was in position to do damage. ..."
Pillar
comments on Bolton's maneuvers to keep us at war in Syria:
The episode involving withdrawal and non-withdrawal of U.S. troops in Syria should be a
lesson for those who mistakenly placed hopes in Trump for a more restrained and less
militaristic U.S. foreign policy. Applause lines on the campaign trail have been mistaken for
deeper thought. Behind the candidate's rhetoric there never was enough strategic sense,
necessary knowledge, or even caring about foreign affairs to ward off the maneuvers of a
determined hawk like Bolton once he was in position to do damage.
If the first two years of Trump's presidency didn't already make it clear, the last few
weeks should have laid to rest any suspicions that the Trump administration is going to put an
end to unnecessary foreign wars. It isn't happening. For one thing, everyone around Trump
doesn't want those wars to end and will go to considerable lengths to ensure that they
continue. That is a result of Trump's own poor personnel choices and bad judgment. It isn't
possible to have a "more restrained and less militaristic U.S. foreign policy" when the
president's national security team is dominated by reflexive hawks that have never seen a
military intervention they didn't want to support. Trump put Bolton in the position he now
occupies, and unless he wants to start in on his fourth National Security Advisor within two
years we are going to be stuck with the unfortunate consequences of that bad decision for a
while longer.
Pillar writes:
The de facto reversal of Trump's withdrawal decision is a victory only for those who --
like Bolton, who still avers that the Iraq War was a good idea -- never met a U.S. military
intervention in the Middle East they didn't like and never stop seeing regimes they would
like to change with force.
One big problem with the Trump administration is that it is filled with the people who never
met an intervention they didn't like. People like that have been the ones shaping
administration policies in the region for the last two years, and on Syria they have prevailed
once again. It could scarcely be otherwise when there is essentially no one willing or able to
make the arguments for the other side of these issues. It is extremely difficult for hawks to
lose an internal administration debate when there is no one in the administration that opposes
hawkish policies.
Middle East. Bolton had his ass kicked on this trip. The Turks made it clear that my view of
them as neo-Ottomans unwilling to kow-tow to the US or anyone else is correct. The manner of
Turkish dismissal of Bolton's neocon decrees was wonderfully reminiscent of an Ottoman sultan
leaving envoys waiting for weeks for an audience. Now Dunford has run off to Ankara to try his
luck. IMO he will not do much better. The Turks have rejected US pressure to cancel the S-400
deal with Russia and make it clear that they are going to butcher the SDF people as soon as we
get out of the way. At the same time Bolton, Pompeo and Jeffrey are telling the SDF that they
better not make a deal with Damascus!
They better not! This behavior is like children forming
cliques in a school yard. The mere fact that only the Syrian government and its allies can save
the SDF from the Turks evidently means nothing to the neocons. And, the Jordanian foreign
minister made an unequivocal statement, presumably on behalf of his sovereign that under no
circumstance would Jordan accept Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, a territory
undoubtedly a de jure territory of Syria. Iraq and Egypt have made similar statements.
The neocons have always made a great show of respect for a world order based on post Westphalia
conceptions of state sovereignty. Their willingness to accept Israeli piracy and theft of other
peoples' territory makes a mockery of that. IMO neocon policy in the ME is collapsing under its
own weight of delusion. That Trump allows this indicates to me that he is compromised to some
special interest and that the depth of his ignorance of the region remains appalling.
"... Neither Rob nor I have a sound theory of what really happened in Salisbury. There are many possible explanations, but none
for which there is sufficient evidence. What we do know is that the British government lied and lies about the case from A to Z. ..."
"... This wasn't an accident blamed on Putin but a planned semi-assassination in which at least one of the victims was unaware of
the plan designed from the beginning to be used in the rolling anti-Putin regime change operation. ..."
Stuff To Read: Integrity Initiative, Skripal, Kaspersky ...
The is no original piece ready to post today, but here are some interesting links:
The Russian anti-virus company Kaspersky was contacted by someone who it found to be related to the U.S. National Security
Agency. Kaspersky immediately told the NSA about the contact. Following that tip the FBI arrested Harold T. Martin, a NSA contractor
who had collected the NSA entire arsenal of digital weapon at is home. Despite that very helpful tip by Kaspersky the U.S. government
continues to harass the company and to claim that it was working as an agent of the Russian government. Exclusive:
How a Russian firm helped catch an alleged NSA data thief , Kim Zettler, Politico
There are several new stories about the Integrity Initiative though still none in any mainstream media.
Over several months Rob Slane at The Blogmire did a detailed analysis of the Skripal case and the often contradictory
information that officials and media have published. Rob has the advantage of living in Salisbury, where the Skripals were allegedly
poisoned. Today he published the summation of his
series about the case:
Last but not least a 20 minute video by Prolekult about the (geo-)politics of Brexit and the Skripal mess in Britain.
Interestingly Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn seems to be pushing the 'blame Russia' racket just as much as the Conservatives. (Disclaimer
- I do not endorse the views of the authors.):
History
is Marching | Part five: The Fall of the British Empire (vid)
Comments I posted this comment at Off Guardian. There are a couple of points that may be of interest:
The essential feature of this "Integrity Initiative" is that it is purportedly a charity or an NGO. Like Atlantic Council,
or Bellingcat, it is funded by government(s) but it has, as this video demonstrates, the capacity to distance itself from government,
Deniability.
Deniability is the central feature of all British regime change operations since 1945. The UK takes (took?) the UN Charter
and Nuremberg seriously. Not in the sense that it follows the rules but in so far as it tries not to get caught waging aggressive
wars and interfering in sovereign states by carrying out regime change operations.
Britain has become very good not just at keeping its secret operations secret and deniable. But, through its controls over
the media, stopping leaks by ensuring that whistle blowers are not heard.
What this case indicates is that people like Donnelly, contemptible careerists playing games with humanity's very existence,
have prevailed over the more cautious and sensible Civil Servants in the Foreign Office, who used to keep a lid on the irrepressible
folly of psychopaths like Christopher Nigel, and have been given license not only to kill but to do so without reference to 'M'
and Whitehall.
In this case, thanks to the weakness and demoralised state of the current government what has happened is that Donnelly has
improved on the rolling regime change operation against Russia, (consisting of taking advantage of opportunities to castigate
the Kremlin and blaming Putin for everything that goes wrong, every Russian expatriate's death, every botched poison gas gambit
by the White Helmets (another one of these NGOs run by 'retired MI types),).. improved on it to the extent that, now, rather than
waiting to comment on, and build frames around such events as Litvinenko's death, they are constructing them out of whole cloth.
The key word here is bricolage, as used by Levi Strauss to describe one of the characteristic reactions of traditional societies
to the irruption of western imperialism.
Donnelly, his acolytes and his dupes in the media are taking whatever they find lying around in the world and twisting it together
to form apparent events. The White Helmets, for example, attempt a chlorine gas attack on Syrian forces. It fails but rather than
deny that it ever happened British Intelligence convinces the media that, in fact the attack was not by the Jihadists but upon
them. The media dutifully takes its cues, from the clusters and, almost before you know it, the US is bombing Damascus on the
ground that Assad is carrying out poison gas attacks.
The MH17 affair is another instance: an airliner gets shot down, whether deliberately or not doesn't matter, and Russia is
blamed. All manner of phony 'evidence' is publicised. The real evidence such as Air Traffic Control records is suppressed. Sanctions
are imposed. Russia further isolated etc. Then we had the DNC emails, again, a leak probably by a decent person disgruntled by
the utter cynicism and criminality of the DNC's tactics in the primary elections. Twisted into something resembling a Russian
conspiracy against Clinton. Not one that anyone with enough brain to tie his shoelaces would credit but just enough to set the
media lynch mobs, led by their clusters, into operation.
All of which leads inexorably to Salisbury and the Skripals.
And here perhaps there is more than bricolage: rather than picking up what providence has delivered and making a passably plausible
story of it, here, one suspects, the matter was put together in advance. This wasn't an accident blamed on Putin but a planned
semi-assassination in which at least one of the victims was unaware of the plan designed from the beginning to be used in the
rolling anti-Putin regime change operation..
Which, and this is something that the old FO mandarins knew would happen if policy were left in the hands of Donnelly and Co,
(straight out of schoolboy comics like Magnet or Hotspur), has proved to be exactly what Russia needed: a series of kicks at the
Kremlin which drove it into the arms of Beijing and forced it to form an iron alliance which will lead not to regime change in
Moscow but to the destruction of the Atlantic empire.
Just would like to point out a small, interesting parallel between these Integrity Initiative documents and some of the mainstream
academic literature in the US about democracy, namely the use of the phrase "malign influence" to describe the influence of Russia
(and China). If one reads the latest issue of the Journal of Democracy (which names the NED as a partner or some such)
or the latest Freedom House report, one will find the academic version of the language used by mainstream journalism, warning
of the threat that Russia and China pose to the Western liberal democratic way of life.
I would call them a country run fully by intel agencies. I made a game today. Google research results are personalized. I asked several friends to search Google for „Integrity Iniative".
All the screenshots showed the same. One sputnik-Link, one to Nachdenkseiten, the rest international. Not one single main stream
medium was mentioned. Since November! There has been even a debate in the British parliament. If this is no top-down organized
consulting machine what is such a machine then?
@26 Ross Stanford. I had been posting on Craig Murray's website for nearly 10 years since I read his book Murder in Samarkand,
and very nearly turned up at the House of Commons as a witness - but he asked can anyone record this - which I did. I have never
actually met him. bevin posted for maybe a couple of years a couple of years ago. bevin wrote about The French political situation,
before it kicked off.
He is a very clever man, and to delete someone so intelligent who was almost literally predicting what was
likely to happen with yellow vests etc, seems a little bit both arrogant and immature in my my view. However all of us regardless
of our political views accept the Craig Murray is a Man of Great Integrity and Courage, even though on a lot of political issues
I disagree with him. Surely thats O.K. disagreeing about politics?
@30 The basic line seems to be that the West is vulnerable to Russian attacks because we have a free press. So why did it take
the free press such a long time to come up with a response? James Ball does admit that a secretive organization using government funding to slander Jeremy Corbyn might not have been a
great idea.
Posted this over at Mark Chapman's The New Kremlin Stooge blog:
The latest news from Salisbury: first, the park bench and the dining table walked the Path of Fire, then the guinea pigs
and a cat followed, a house may soon do so as well, and the latest perhaps to join the queue
Several comments attached to that post are of "wish we had Novichok in our shopping centre" or "they planned this all along"
type. It seems that Salisbury shopping centre as it is has not been doing well because of high rents previously imposed by Wiltshire
Council and it desperately needs a makeover. Call me cynical but maybe Wiltshire Council is using the poisoning incident to bring
forward its redevelopment plans for the Salisbury shopping centre that will all but kill off local businesses.
Blooming Barricade , Jan 9, 2019 6:17:08 PM |
link
@3
The irony is that, with a genuinely free press, RT would cease to have any appeal. The corporate media is hopelessly biased against
Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, as well as pro-war, opposed to anarchism, openly pro-capitalism, and fails to report on issues
like fracking, oligarchic trade deals Palestinian struggles, police state brutality against left, and almost every other topic
the public would want to know about.
Projects like PropOrNot and the Intgerity Initiative exist solely to prevent the public from
knowing about those things by locking down the information sphere against independent media (today they claimed that "neoliberalism"
and "neoconservatism" aren't real concepts but Russian-invented insults against the rules-based liberal world order.
George Galloway weighs in
on the chaos engulfing the Empire in Washington, London and Paris. The Neoliberal ship is foundering while the uplifting of people-based
policies of Russia and China keep them on track to reach their aims. Soon, if Trump keeps the government shutdown, those idled
federal workers just might be seen in the streets. George has a penchant for connecting things, and had this to say about Macron:
"The very conditions Macron strove so very hard to bring about in Damascus and that France DID help bring about in Kiev are
now rocking the very foundations of the French Republic."
The false flag of Austerity--Neoliberalism preying on its own as was predicted at its beginnings is what we're witnessing,
while the actors that created the situation cling with bloody hands to the ship of state unwilling to surrender the wheel to those
who might salvage the situation. Metaphorically, Rome burns while Nero and his Senators fiddle.
The Guardian has produced an article about Integrity Initiative. It was so poorly written that they had to close the comment section
after 138 comments. People do know a lot more than the Guardian thinks.
the guardian never keeps comment sections open long if too many posters start disagreeing with their preferred line. their other
tactic is simply never to open comments on posts where they think this is likely to happen. and of course they haven't even acknowledged
the luke harding travesty, as they continue to beg for donations to support their fearless independent journalism.
I thought James Ball made a gallant effort to exonerate Western media considering he probably had a team of editors breathing
down his neck. It's the lack of transparency that seems to upset him most. Perhaps his next article will be an in depth look at
how Integrity Initiative got government funding.
What is absolutely remarkable to me in a very bad way is that this piece of trash received 681 reviews on Amazon, only 21
with one star and the balance above that for an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5.
Absolutely remarkable, again, but it is reflective of the brain dead sheeple currently doing any reading at all of books by
the rabid neo cons. I hesitate to guess what some extreme alarm sounding diatribe by Wolfowitz or the current "main man,"
max boot would register. Maybe Romney can lead us out of the wilderness (sarc)>
I know that this is Amazon and when it comes to the standards of what passes as accurate reporting and journalistic
standards,"wapo and bezos leads the pack into the sewer.
REPLY
AGREE/DISAGREE/ETC.
THIS COMMENTER
@El Dato
an American puppet inasmuch as he had Americans masterminding his political PR campaigns) start
giving ground that the situation becomes fluid.
Albright (and Nuland) had no idea what Russia as a normal nation state could be expected to put up with, because all they
had to go on was Yelstyn who was drunk most days. So the US was slowly but surely drawn into the power vacuum in the
territories the USSR withdrew from and Albright thought that was the way things were going to continue to be. The domestic
situation in America was also one where the elite had things their own way to an unsustainable extent. What Albright does
not like is the facts of life.
The whole discussion is so asinine.
Facism is not a form of government that can just be inserted or deleted.
It is a very specific reaction to the communist takeover of a nation.
At that point, other forms of government are no longer viable: totalitarianism of one kind of another becomes an absolute
necessity to rule.
We see western governments coming to this point-the moral law is lost, corruption reigns, and only pure force has currency.
So at this point you only have one of two choices, there simply are no alternatives:
communism or facism.
And it is quite clear that facism is a more reasonable and less murderous choice.
for as long as neo con history is a subject for study (she has plenty of competition for that recognition).
Most "history" taught in the US (and combined West) is one or another iteration (sometimes extreme, sometimes less so) of
US exceptionalism. Even American so called "realism" is built around exceptionalism. American military doctrines are
written primarily on exceptionalism basis. Results are easily observable.
"... To consider how the neoliberal order works in practice one only has to consider the Clintons, who justified brutal military interventions in the Balkans and in Libya based on what they claimed to be humanitarian principles. ..."
"... More recently, particularly since 9/11, neoconservatives have dominated U.S. foreign policy through their think tanks, access to the media and their ability to infiltrate both major political parties based on their essentially fraudulent appraisals of threats to national security. They have been so successful at selling their product that the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House. Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe. ..."
"... Hotel California ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Pompeo has also cautioned Iran against the development of ballistic missiles in connection with a claimed space program, a warning that Tehran has rejected. Israel meanwhile, presumably acting with U.S. connivance, has introduced a new destabilizing element into the Middle East cauldron, using civilian airliners to mask the approach of its military jets to attack targets in Syria. The possibility of an airliner being shot down with great loss of life by "accident" has thereby gone up exponentially. ..."
"... Iran has responded to the threats by restating in early December its intention to exercise control over all ship traffic leaving the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz if its own oil exports are blocked by the United States. The U.S. responded immediately by sending the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis to the Gulf, the first such deployment in the region in eight months. With all the pieces in place, the possibility that there will be some accident in the region, presumably involving Iranian Revolutionary Guards and U.S. naval units, will escalate just as the largely contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident famously accelerated American involvement in the Vietnam War. ..."
"... All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia. ..."
Never before has any presidential administration been as all over the place in terms of
national security and foreign policy as is that of Donald J. Trump. Indeed, one might well
argue that there is no overriding policy at all in terms of a rational doctrine arrived at
through risk versus gain analysis of developing international situations. Instead, there has
been a pattern of emotional reactions fueled by media disinformation supplemented by "gut
feelings" about a series of ultimately bilateral relationships that frequently have little or
nothing to do with American national interests.
This is not to suggest that the "gut feelings" are always wrong. Established wisdom in
Washington has long reflected the view that the United States must exercise leadership in
establishing and maintaining the neoliberal consensus that gained currency after the
devastation of the Second World War. Elections, free trade and a free media were to be the
benchmarks of the New World Order but they also came packaged with U.S. hegemony to confront
those who resisted the development. And it turned out that those "benefits" were frequently
difficult to achieve as elections sometimes produced bad results while trade agreements and an
uncontrolled media often worked against broader U.S. objectives. All too often the United
States found itself going to war against nations that it disapproves of for reasons unrelated
to any actual interests, routinely claiming inaccurately that dissident regimes were both
"threatening" and disruptive of the universal values that Washington claimed to be
promoting.
To consider how the neoliberal order works in practice one only has to consider the
Clintons, who justified brutal military interventions in the Balkans and in Libya based on what
they claimed to be humanitarian principles. Or Obama, who demanded regime change in Damascus
and was prepared to launch a large-scale attack on Syria before he realized that there was no
public support for such a move and backed down.
More recently, particularly since 9/11, neoconservatives have dominated U.S. foreign policy
through their think tanks, access to the media and their ability to infiltrate both major
political parties based on their essentially fraudulent appraisals of threats to national
security. They have been so successful at selling their product that the bogus claims that Iran
is a threat to the United States are generally accepted without question by both Democrats and
Republicans, not to mention the White House. Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of
bipartisan wrath, from the left over the results of the 2016 election and from the right due to
fearmongering over alleged threats to Eastern Europe.
But hope springs eternal, even in 2019. There have recently been some encouraging signs that
change is in the air. Donald Trump has declared that he will be pulling all American soldiers
out of Syria and half of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, though the timetable appears to have
slipped somewhat and might slow even more as the Establishment pushes back. That Trump may have
chosen to break with the interventionist model with Syria, if he succeeds in doing so, is
certainly commendable, but one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the
line in the Eagles' song Hotel California , "you can check out any time you want, but
you can never leave."
There are other indications that something is afoot. On January 3 rd , Trump
offhandedly commented that Iran could do what it wishes in Syria, a comment that generated
shock waves through the neoconnish Washington Post 's
coverage of the remarks. To be sure, other Administration officials have continued to send
different signals, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisting that the U.S. will stay in
Syria as long as Iran remains there.
Pompeo has also cautioned Iran against the development of ballistic missiles in connection
with a claimed space program, a warning that Tehran has rejected. Israel meanwhile, presumably
acting with U.S. connivance, has introduced a new destabilizing element into the Middle East
cauldron,
using civilian airliners to mask the approach of its military jets to attack targets in
Syria. The possibility of an airliner being shot down with great loss of life by "accident" has
thereby gone up exponentially.
To be sure, there are
some who believe that the Trump anti-interventionist turn is essentially fraudulent. They
cite the unrelenting hostility coming out of the White House regarding Iran, which is vilified
on a nearly daily basis for its alleged threats not only to the Middle East region but also to
Western Europe and the United States. That the Administration's fulminations have little basis
in reality is beside the point as it would seem that Trump, Pompeo, John Bolton and the now
departed Nikki Haley all believe that the case for disarming Iran and bringing about regime
change has been made effectively. Indeed, warfare directed against the Iranian economy has
already begun by virtue of a punitive series of targeted sanctions with much more to come when
a complete ban on oil exports kicks in in May.
Iran has responded to the threats by restating in early December its intention to exercise
control over all ship traffic leaving the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz if its own oil
exports are blocked by the United States. The U.S.
responded immediately by sending the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis to the Gulf,
the first such deployment in the region in eight months. With all the pieces in place, the
possibility that there will be some accident in the region, presumably involving Iranian
Revolutionary Guards and U.S. naval units, will escalate just as the largely contrived Gulf of
Tonkin incident famously accelerated American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Much of what happens in the Middle East will ultimately depend on the extent to which
America's feckless allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, succeed in selling their version of what is
going on in the region. Trump, uncharacteristically, seems to be standing firm, telling
a journalist that concerns about the Syria pullout are misplaced because "We give Israel
$4.5 billion a year. And we give them, frankly, a lot more money than that, if you look at the
books -- a lot more money than that. And they've been doing a very good job for themselves."
Likewise, the much more important relationship, with Russia, will depend on the ability to
ignore congressional hostility towards the Kremlin as well as the media bias that continues to
promote Russiagate as a national security threat.
There is also North Korea, which has now indicated clearly that it is willing to talk to the
U.S. but will revert to its nuclear development program unless sanctions are removed. And
anyone for Latin America? Bolton
has dubbed Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as a "troika of tyranny," though fortunately
suggestions that Venezuela might be invaded by the U.S. to restore order appear to have
faded.
If one reads the neocon press one cannot help but notice that China is the anointed over the
horizon threat, but it is also a major trading partner and the drive to somehow renegotiate the
terms whereby the two nations are linked economically will be complicated. Care must be taken
lest what now appears to be an aggravated sense of great power competition becomes something
more dangerous. The detention of Weng Manzhou in Canada one month ago together with the
implication that the United States can and will enforce U.S. imposed sanctions globally could
easily develop into a major problem with China as well as with others, including some NATO
allies. The arrest has already disappeared from the media but several Canadians have been
detained by Beijing and the U.S. government has warned American
businessmen about traveling to China at the present time.
All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether in
2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his
campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless
wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia. There
is admittedly a long way to go and it is very much a work in progress, but Trump actually has
the ability to overrule the hawks in his administration and change the entire conversation
about America's place in the world.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]
.
Oh for Gawds sake.
The reason the public cant figure out what the hell is up with Trump and his first pulling
out of Syria forthwith and then back pedaling.
Is because no one will tell them about Bolton/Adelson and Bolton being in Israel yesterday
telling Netanyahu the US will stay in Syria and wont tell them about the Kushner Jewish cabal
deal with Saudi prince MBS.
And wont tell them about the neo General toddies who use war like a carpenter uses a hammer
just cause that's all they know until they retire and get cushy jobs with the weapons
industry.
Trump has run out of excuses for his many policy contradictions, even his supporters
aren't buying them any more. A few are hanging in for the Wall, which they wont get
either.
Trump is being taken down by the Dems and their liberal Jewish media and at the same time
being taken down by his own installed Zionist Jews and their errand boy Bolton who every time
Trump makes an announcement rushes out to contradict him.
Trump has one chance. There is no black mailable material on Trump that hasn't already
come out since the NY AG is already looking into money laundering in Trumps businesses.
So Trump needs to blow every thing up .Fire Bolton, fire his son on law, fire all the zios
and neos -- totally clean house and shock the shit out of everyone by bringing in some
familiar names like realist Chas Freeman for the ME, Webb for Defense, etc that will have the
zios, neos, deep state, the establishment and both parties pissing in their special interest
bought and paid for pants.
The Myth of the Russian Crime Boss, Semion Mogilevich, He's Israeli by Larry Johnson
(excerpts)
'One of the cornerstones of the meme that Donald Trump is beholden to the
Russians–i.e. a Putin puppet–is his alleged ties to Semion Mogilevich, who is
described in Wikipedia and other publications as the Godfather of all Russian mobsters. Only
one tiny problem with the Mogilevich description–it is devoid of any actual evidence
and ignores the simple facts that he was born in Ukraine and is a citizen of Israel. Not a
Russian.
One of the best recent examples of building the Mogilevich myth is Craig Unger's 2017 article
in the New Republic, Trump's Russian Laundromat. Unger wrote:
In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in
New York City. . . . he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a
gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower. . .
.
The Russian plunked down $6 million to buy not one or two, but five luxury condos. The big
check apparently caught the attention of the owner. According to Wayne Barrett, who
investigated the deal for the Village Voice, Trump personally attended the closing, along
with Bogatin. . . .
In 1987, just three years after he attended the closing with Trump, Bogatin pleaded guilty to
taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. After he fled the
country, the government seized his five condos at Trump Tower, saying that he had purchased
them to "launder money, to shelter and hide assets." A Senate investigation into organized
crime later revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His
family ties, in fact, led straight to the top: His brother ran a $150 million stock scam with
none other than Semion Mogilevich, whom the FBI considers the "boss of bosses" of the Russian
mafia. At the time, Mogilevich -- feared even by his fellow gangsters as "the most powerful
mobster in the world" -- was expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal
syndicate into America.
I have spent the last twenty years of my life working on money laundering cases and carrying
out international financial investigations. I had never heard of Semion Mogilevich. Unger's
claim piqued my interest. So I started digging.
I do not know if Semion is a genuine mobster. He certainly is portrayed that way in this very
flawed FBI report. And that report has become ground truth for a host of writers who
mindlessly repeat the fantastical claims and allegations without insisting on corroboration.
Going back to my discussion about the busted gangster summit in Prague in May of 1995, I keep
wondering if Mogilevich is actually an FBI asset or working for one of our friends, such as
Israel. For a guy who is supposedly engaged in a broad swath of illegal activities that
encompasses the gamut of bad behavior, Semion has enjoyed a relatively peaceful life. If he
actually had such a record I would expect him to face a mountain of extradition requests. But
that is not the case.
The final issue of relevance concerns Semion's ethnicity and citizenship status. He is not a
Russian. Never has been. He is Ukrainian and a citizen of Israel. So why are media types so
eager to claim Semion as proof that Donald Trump is under the thumb of the Russian mob? It
does not compute."
Remember Helsinki? And then that creepy presser back home in Exceptionalia days later where,
with Mr. Bolton dropping moustache dandruff down the President's collar, the talk of peace
was walked back, and the lights literally went out?
So I'm afraid that the real answer to Dr. Giraldi's well put, real question is that in
2019 Donald J. Trump will lack both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his
campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless
wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia.
I hope I'm wrong, but this is nothing new and was foreseen by another of this website's
best columnists:
"In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and
bloody criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class.
Though fools still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking
complex. Now, Trump is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as
a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war
abroad while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his
election promises, and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics."
Linh Dinh, as published at The Unz Review, June 12, 2016 ("Orlando Shooting Means Trump
For President")
"the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the
necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises "
Gumption? He has ordered things, and his orders are disregarded. Tweeting his disregarded
orders is gumption. Any thoughts on what more than gumption is needed?
https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/2996129/russen-wij-leveren-goedkoper-gas-dan-vs
USA ambassador in the Netherlands and the Russian ambassador in a row about which country is
going to sell us gas.
The Russian gas is cheaper.
Less dangerous too, maybe, liquid gas tankers are great objects for terrorist attacks.
As long as countries compete with each other about gas sales war does not seem imminent to
me.
one wit has observed that the departure will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles'
song Hotel California, "you can check out any time you want, but you can never leave."
If Giraldi is thinking Trump is going to show some kind of intelligence, or moral sense, or
simply backbone against his numerous enemies – then he is indulging in a fruitless and
foolish daydream. Get real. Remember who you are dealing with.
Why Bolton hasn't been fired yet is a mystery. It's as if his real job is Presedential Minder
and his appointment to that position was made by an unknown party. It'll be interesting to
see what happens when Trump does try to fire him. It might even reveal who has the real power
in this country.
@Mike G
Actually AIPAC, Adelson, Kushner, and other assorted khazarian mafia slime are his boss.
Chumps promises made are only kept if they're in line with AIPAC and HELL Aviv
Trump is just another puppet for the moneyed powers of America and the western world. He is
there to give the restless "deplorable's" the impression they have someone who is finally
speaking for them and actually cares for them. The minute Trump steps to far off the
reservation he is hauled back in. If he manages to get out of lasso range, other more deadly
and final measures will be instituted.
If you have any doubt's about what I say, you can ask Sen. Paul Wellstone. Oh wait, no you
can't, He's dead.
"Donald Trump has declared that he will be pulling all American soldiers out of Syria and
half of U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, though the timetable appears to have slipped somewhat
and might slow even more as the Establishment pushes back."
Didn't he also declare that he wants better relations with Russia? Yet he sees determined
to take the world back to the darkest, most dangerous days of the cold war. So I guess we
can't put any faith in the things he "declares."
"That Trump may have chosen to break with the interventionist model with Syria, if he
succeeds in doing so, is certainly commendable, but one wit has observed that the departure
will be somewhat like the line in the Eagles' song Hotel California, "you can check out any
time you want, but you can never leave."
According to his pre-election rhetoric (e.g. tweets from 2013), he broke with the
"interventionist model" a long time ago; so why did he expand the illegal, immoral and
unconstitutional U.S. military footprint in Syria in the first place? Of course he can leave
Syria whenever he "wants" to.
"There are other indications that something is afoot. On January 3rd, Trump offhandedly
commented that Iran could do what it wishes in Syria, a comment that generated shock waves
through the neoconnish Washington Post's coverage of the remarks."
The problem is, as we see, nothing that he says or does can be taken at face value. Among
other things, he's an ignorant, arrogant, stupid, shallow, incurious, feckless, malignantly
narcissistic, completely morally bankrupt pathological liar – whose strings are
apparently being pulled by a coterie of jewish-supremacist madmen. This is why I variously
refer to him as "teflon-don-the-con-man", "orange clown", "perfidious presidential poseur";
etc.
"To be sure, there are some who believe that the Trump anti-interventionist turn is
essentially fraudulent."
Why wouldn't they when it's clear that his whole presidential campaign was obviously a
fraud?
"All of the above sounds somewhat depressingly familiar, but the real question is whether
in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the necessary gumption to fulfill his
campaign promises to change the face of American foreign policy by withdrawing from useless
wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are actually important like Russia."
Orange clown having "vision and necessary gumption"? Seriously? He's an unrepentant
mass-murdering psychopath who "hears voices" and takes action. He's "Son of Sam" or the
Zodiac killer in a suit and tie. He's leading us to planetary extinction, IMO.
The Zionist have neutered Trump. He'll keep floundering claiming he gonna do something but
its clear Sheldon Adelson's boy Bolton is running the country and bringing in more zio jews
to plan war, hot or cold, for Iran
Trump is finished.
John Bolton, national security advisor, is tapping Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies (FDD) for a key post.
FDD President Mark Dubowitz confirmed the hire on Twitter late Monday: "Couldn't think
of anyone better than my @FDD colleague @rich_goldberg to join NSC to maximize the maximum
pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran." The White House has not yet publicly
commented.
The story was first reported in Jewish Insider . Goldberg has locked his previously-public
Twitter page, following the course taken by other NSC hires, such as Fred Fleitz (who has
since departed) and Anthony Ruggiero, formerly of FDD, who swiftly locked their Twitter pages
upon ascension to the White House.
What the U.S. has is a Zionist foreign policy driven by Zionist dual citizens who have as
their number one agenda the goals of the Zionist satanic NWO! Zionists control every facet of
the U.S. government and the so called congress might just as well be called the lower house
of the Knesset as it grovels to kiss the hand that smites them continually in some type of
Stockholm syndrome!
On 911 the Zionist controlled deep state and Israel destroyed the WTC and murdered some
3000 Americans and they got away with it and every American who has the ability to think for
themselves knows that Israel and the deep state did 911! The Zionists not only got away with
it but forced America into 17 years and counting of war and war crimes in the Mideast in
support of the Zionist satanic goal of their NWO and in the process murdered untold millions
of innocent civilians , men and women and children all for their Zionist masters who rule
America!
America is under the control of the Satanist Zionists who have turned America into a
nation that invades and bombs the hell out of countries and commits war crimes of the worst
king and all this under the command of Zionist controlled U.S. government!
I do not know this government that is in control of America it is a foreign to me as if it
came from Mars, and Trump is just another puppet in a long line of puppets going back to JFK
, who was the last patriot POTUS and was shot in full view of America by the same ones who
rule America today!
Zionists are going to destroy America , just as a parasite destroys its host!
As long as Bolton and Pompeo are still in his cabinet, Trump has zero chance of pulling out
of Syria. He needs to grow a pair and fire both of those clowns. He's gone this far, firing
Haley, Kelly and Mattis, now he needs to finish the job so he can finally run the
non-interventionist foreign policy that he promised his voters on the campaign trail.
Rod Rosenstein also needs to be fired, and Pence needs to be iced.
The first step to showing us he's serious is to replace John Bolton with Tulsi
Gabbard.
Zionists control every facet of the U.S. government and every POTUS since JFK who they could
not control so they shot him in front of America to show the people who was really in charge!
911 was done by the zionists and the zionist controlled deep state and every thinking
American knows that the zionists did 911 and used this false flag to push America into
illegal uncontitutional wars in the mideast for 17 years and counting all for the zionist
goal of a zionist satanic NWO!
Trump is just another zionist puppet in a long line of zionist puppets and congress is the
lower house of the knesset and the zionists are going to destroy America just as a parasite
destroys its host.
My idea is that quite a few of the commenters here do not understand that no dictator
anywhere ever had absolute power.
Not Stalin, not Atatürk, not Hitler.
This is not to suggest Trump is a dictator, but to make clear that a USA president does not
have absolute power.
Not even FDR had absolute power, as the diaries of Harold L Ickes make abundantly clear.
In my opinion Kennedy underestimated the forces against him.
Trump, again in my opinion, does not want suicide, not politically, not bodyly.
As long as he can handle fool Bolton, when he was at the UN staff had great difficulty not to
laugh about his stupidities, why send the man away, escalate the conflict, and maybe has to
accept a far more dangerous opponent ?
FDR's Bolton in my opinion was Henry L Stimson.
FDR fooled him with regard to the negotiations with Japan.
The saying is 'keep your enemies close', this was what all three dictators mentioned above
did.
Trump won the elections, but he still has to annihilate Deep State.
Sorry Ron, but the guy's been gelded; he'll not merely stand by, he'll be an active
participant in the 180 and he asked for it as he prances around bully-and-exhibition-queen
fashion spouting off like an adolescent.
It seems that Trump is trying, that at least is a small good. The next thing he is needing
to do is to dismiss Walrus Bolton, perhaps decapitation would be a richly deserved fate?
If you were to be offered the job, would you take it? Most of readers here who are sane
would love to see you have a stronger influence, but I am supposing it is never to be.
Trump may be POTUS but he is just one man but he is continually beating on the door and
moving the Overton window. Who was the last President – as President – who made
these statements about getting out of these various 'wars' we are in. Generals and congress
critters are now having to produce proof, arguments and RESULTS on why we should stay. I have
seen very little of that before Trump. He certainly has a growing population behind this
direction.
Obviously not much has moved in this direction, but I feel confident he will continue to
batter this door and eventually it will fall. The sooner the better.
@jacques
sheete "Sorry Ron, but the guy's been gelded; he'll not merely stand by, he'll be an
active participant in the 180 and he asked for it as he prances around
bully-and-exhibition-queen fashion spouting off like an adolescent.
@chris
Regarding my use of the hit Eagles song "Hotel California" lyrics, as metaphor for ZUS war
policy in Syria, Brother Chris noted & wrote, "PS BTW: awesome, Chuck for getting
honorable mention in Phil's column via your Hotel California comment! ," and Brother Jacques
Sheete also encouraged, said, "Go, Chuck!"
First off, I thank Phil Giraldi for using the noun "wit" to describe me, instead of the
alternative "nitwit," which doubtless several U.R. commenters would have preferred.
One talent where Donald Trump is either equal to, or > 1930's FDR
on-the-campaign-stump, is his being expert at the Zio art of "baiting" voters with vows to
avoid war, & then executing a "switch."
There is nothing that exhausts serious American voters confidence more than ambitious
politicians' campaign 'bait & switch" tactics.
Tonight, it appears President Trump shall address the "Homeland" from Oval Office.
Doubtless, he'll try to reestablish communication with his adoring voter base, silence
Democrats, and in the name of a decades-long (Soros?) engineered & foreseeable "National
Security Emergency," determine to build his border wall at all taxpayer cost, including
permanency of a ltd. government "shut down."
What American TV viewers shall not learn about is the president's virulent pro-Greater
Israel foreign policy, and Trump's silent construction of an impenetrable WALL, consisting of
freak war building block-personages, namely, Steve Mnuchin, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo as a
united cornerstone.
(Note: Absent in our Zio Corporate Media's vast conspiracy spin-machine is a voice which
demands, "Tear down the F.P. wall!"
Regrettably, above, 'Merkins can not tear down that peace-prohibitive wall.
Thanks Phil Giraldi, Chris, and Jacques. Er , Welcome to Hotel California Discomfort Inns,
D.C./Tel Aviv!
@jilles
dykstra Trump is under Zionist control and the Zionist bankers who hold the paper on all
of his properties and so even if he wanted to, can not and will not go against the Zionist
control of the U.S. government.
America's feckless allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, succeed in selling their version of what
is going on in the region.]
This is very laughable and only the propagandists make it.
Only the propagandists are making fake news to confuse the ignorant and illiterate
people.
Trump is a war monger with different style, like criminal Obama had different style from mass
murderers like Clinton family and the Zionist criminals in the different American regimes,
especially since 911 staged as false flag operation by USG and Zionist Neocons to implement
the plan they had against the Muslims and the region for hegemony and 'greater Israel'.
All evidence since 9/11 and before that proves that these wars are designed and carried
out by the criminal and terrorist USG, its 'intellectuals', CIA, FBI and the rest of
criminals in the American regime.
The 'nationalist' propagandists do not refer to 9/11 as FALSE FLAG OPERATION to protect the
handas of the criminal and terrorists in American regimes to fool the public
Now, it is obvious, more than ever, that Donald Trump, a traitor and Jewish Mafia member,
is trying the rest of the VICIOUS PLAN for 'American first' or racist 'American
exceptionalism' with the help of US colony Saudi Arabia and one of the main master mind of
the geopolitical assault plan, the Zionist Jews.
People are not dumb, and no propagandist can fool them.
Saudi Arabia and its terrorists army is US proxy army which Saudi Arabia follishly is
fuding because USG terrorist state WANTS ITS COLONY TO DO THAT. Saudi Arabia cannot exist if
does not OBEY THE ODER. The terrorist American regime is using the wealth of the Saudis
(muslims) to kill and rob muslims. The dumb MBS must know that after they fund destruction of
other states, then it would be their turn, is mbs that stupid? Then let them go down the
tube. The west is milking Saudi Arabia for its geopolitical interest, staging false flag
operation, to bring its dumb population on board. Is This so difficult to understand? USG has
killed millions, millions, millions of people around the world. Every day is a new 'enemy',
in Asia, Afria, even Europe. They construct enemy with the help of the criminal and fake
media.
Now, people of the region know more than ever than NO one can trust US and their
propagandists.
People of the region cannot trust the lies coming from the mouth of a Jewish Mafia member.
They are not going to be fooled like American ignorant people who have been molded to be
one.
The people of the region know that 'troop out of Syria' is NOTHING BUT A LIE. Because they
see the activities of the criminal American and their mass murderer 'soldiers' and 'advisors'
all around them.
The criminal US and jewish neocons' plan in Syria did not go according to plan. The mass
murderer Obama DID EVERYTHING to implement accordingly, but were not successful due to
sacrifices of Syrian people and army, Hizbullah and Iran. Russia a pro Zionist entity entered
later in 2015 to fill 'a void' for its own interest and jewish mafia interest that Putin,
like trump, is a member of.
Now, the jewish mafia stooge at the WH is changing the plan, but has NOT ABANDONED it. Now,
the plan is to focus on Iraq as a base to weaken Iran more than ever.
To do that Trump is playing with Iraqi government, is trying to weaken its government to
make it MORE dependent on Washington to follow orders with the help of TRAITOR KURDS and
Turkey.
All evidence show that Trump has smuggled the terrorist MEK members, where have no
influence in Iran, into Iraq to BE USED, ALONG WITH TRAITOR KURDS, for terrorist plot against
Iranian people to put pressure on Iranian government.
But Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali al-Hakim said:
"These sanctions, the siege, or what is called the embargo," imposed by the US is
"unilateral, not international," and Iraq is "not obliged [to follow] them."
So, the plan is going to be continued by Trump, the war monger, but the propagandists tell
you that IT IS THE 'DEEP STATE' DOES NOT ALLOW PEACE LOVING IDIOT TO DO ITS WORK.
They are lying to you. Trump is as criminal as the former American regimes.
the bogus claims that Iran is a threat to the United States are generally accepted
without question by both Democrats and Republicans, not to mention the White House.
accepted as bogus, but the fraud is nevertheless enforced across the zio-fiefdom.
Russia, meanwhile, remains the target of bipartisan wrath, from the left over the
results of the 2016 election and from the right due to fearmongering over alleged threats
to Eastern Europe.
Not to split hairs, but the fake news of 'Russian collusion' in the election, is and
always has been a laughable farce. Just as any threats to Eastern Europe by Putin's Russia is
a preposterous absurdity.
The real reasons for the hostility towards Russia is Russia's unwillingness to go along
with ((the unilateral power's)) agenda.
Putin was OK with the globalists until he confronted the Fiend in Syria.
So all their hysterical lies notwithstanding, our media and politicians are all hostile to
Russia for Putin's intransigence in Syria. Not for 'hacking our democracy' or arresting Pussy
Riot, or menacing Latvia or Poland. These are just more media turds for forced public
consumption.
@mike k To
be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against the array
of forces facing Trump. The best intelligence he could show is to survive, and the most I
would hope for is for him to bring the whole mess crashing down on his way out.
"the real question is whether in 2019 Donald J. Trump will have both the vision and the
necessary gumption to fulfill his campaign promises to change the face of American foreign
policy by withdrawing from useless wars overseas and mending fences with countries that are
actually important like Russia."
I would put it differently and, I daresay, with more precision:
"If pigs had wings, AND if they were slender enough to enable the take-off, AND their
flatulence did not create an outsize Coandă effect in flight, AND if and only if they
had a strong desire to fly, then they might fly just as likely as Trump might do what Mr.
Giraldi hopes he would."
One characteristic of a ZUS president is to capitalize on both the engineered successes
and failures of their predecessors.
Hence, tonight, 'Merkins will hear President Trump speak accurately about how illegal
immigration constitutes a present "National Emergency" threat; a western crisis which was
promoted & established by cohort billionaire international Jew "Open Borders" engineers,
& who Trump might chastise later on, but not by name.
Now, it is obvious, more than ever, that Donald Trump, a traitor and Jewish Mafia
member, is trying the rest of the VICIOUS PLAN for 'American first' or racist 'American
exceptionalism' with the help of US colony Saudi Arabia and one of the main master mind of
the geopolitical assault plan, the Zionist Jews.
People are not dumb, and no propagandist can fool them
.
Alas not obvious to me.
If you're fooling me, I do not know, what I do know is that a lot of assertions is not
proof.
@ChuckOrloski
Trump, who I voted for , has been a disappointment and I have given up all hope for him, and
with his being surrounded by Zionists, it is going to take a grass roots awakening of the
American people to the Zionist control of the government and that I think will not happen.
Soros , when 14 years old in Budapest Hungary lived with the Nazi commander who was
charged with rounding up jews and Soros went out with the Nazis and pointed out where the
jews lived and thus helped betray and send these jews to the death camps, this is true, and
anyone can check this out, and not a peep out of the Zionists, they betrayed their own!
@Rurik
Knowingly, Rurik said: "Putin was OK with the globalists until he confronted the Fiend in
Syria."
Above, I totally agree, Brother Rurik.
Have not done a search/study, but I would wager Russian representatives stood tall &
mighty at past globalist assemblies, for example, Davos.
Fyi, I still think Putin and Xi are to some extent acceptable to Globalist control
designs, but the ZUS & western European Zionist zealots insist that an Israeli personage
must sit at the right-hand of the coming (globalist) Mes$iah.
One rather purposely forgotten thing, Rurik? At Davos, January 2017, populist-President
Trump's business pal, Anthony Scaramucci, delivered a curious address.
"Mooch" assured the Davos assembly that Donald Trump is "the globalists last good chance
for success."
Why? Well , if Putin's and the very powerful Xi's rule happens to weaken to international
Jewry's applied internal & external financial pressure, the poor world must (regrettably)
suck-it-up and, in reverse, & sing together the old song lyric, "Jesus will not be just
right with me."
Thanks, Brother Rurik! And no doubt, P.G. reads the comments to his articles, & he may
deploy them
@renfro Very
blackmailable sadly.
Mueller has not even started,contrary to popular opinion.
Not sure what Trump won't do when his kids and biz are under threat of RICO charges and
confiscation.
Mueller will flip Alexander Slater the conduit for billions of Russian(Jewish)mafia money
laundered thru' the Trump organization.Cohen already flipped on Slater.
Mueller is involved in parallel construction of what the deep state organs already gave
him.
He isn't looking for a crime,he already knows exactly what they are,he is looking for
corroboration.
Trumpy's foreign policy is more step-in-the-bucket than bait and switch.
Trump proposes some thing in regards to foreign policy and the globalizer Deep State
ghouls in the WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire throw Trumpy some 97 mph chin
music and Trumpy steps in the bucket out of fear of getting beaned in the coconut.
The Israel Firist globalizer goons in the GOP such as John Bolton and Lindsey Graham and
Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton do the bidding of the government of Israel and they do the bidding
of wealthy Jew billionaires such as Sheldon Adelson. Jared Kushner, the money-grubbing Jewish
real estate shyster, is also telling Trump to put the interests of Israel ahead of the
interests of the United States.
Trump is doing good work on China, but he is not going far enough. The treasonous rat
whores in the WASP/JEW ruling class of the United States sold out the sovereignty and
security of the United States by allowing China to use cheap labor to crush American
manufacturing. Greedy shyster rats such as Robert Rubin wanted to fully expand
financialization and globalization and mass immigration to concentrate wealth and power in
the United States.
Greedy dirtbags in academia fully supported the flooding of Chinese students into the
United States. This has allowed Chinese intelligence assets and other Chinese elements to
infiltrate themselves into areas of operation that should have been disallowed to them.
Trump should immediately put into place a 95 percent prohibitive tariff on all goods or
services coming from China. Trump should begin mass deportations of as many Chinese
interlopers as possible, and he should ban the entrance of any other Chinese people from
entering the United States.
China and the WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire are enemies of the American
people.
George HW Bush and George W Bush did everything in their power to flood the United States
with Chinese interlopers and Chinese manufactured products and goods. China boy George HW
Bush is now rotting in Hell for pushing mass immigration and for colluding with the Communist
Chinese against the best interests of the American people.
The disgusting, treasonous rats in the WASP/JEW ruling class have sold out the American
people for cash and Trumpy is just now getting the American people to think in terms of US
national interests when it comes to US foreign policy instead of some vague, nebulous "global
economy" or some other abstraction.
In short, that German and Scottish and Irish guy named Patrick Joseph Buchanan has been
right about US foreign policy and the WASP/JEW ruling class has been treasonously wrong.
'One of the cornerstones of the meme that Donald Trump is beholden to the
Russians–i.e. a Putin puppet–is his alleged ties to Semion Mogilevich, who is
described in Wikipedia and other publications as the Godfather of all Russian mobsters.
Only one tiny problem with the Mogilevich description–it is devoid of any actual
evidence and ignores the simple facts that he was born in Ukraine and is a citizen of
Israel. Not a Russian.
@Wally
Streeter John Bolton is a treasonous baby boomer globalizer rat who puts the interests of
Israel ahead of the interests of the United States. That is treason.
John Bolton was a big backer of the Iraq War debacle.
John Bolton pushes nation-wrecking mass immigration and multicultural mayhem.
President Trump should fire John Bolton immediately.
Trump: Jamal Al-Badawi, Leader In USS Cole Attack, Killed: "Our GREAT MILITARY has
delivered justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Cole,"
Trump tweeted Sunday.
Mr. President, now let us ask our GREAT MILITARY to deliver justice for the heroes lost
and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Liberty.
Unless the Islamic Republic of Iran is resisting ZUS demands, & has covert nuclear
weapon & delivery systems, I am afraid that the post-WW2 (carved up) Germany landscape
will become its terrible fate.
Thanks a lot for delivering such solid Gold(berg) information, renfro.
Americans are immersed in an existencial war for their values and beliefs. For starters
start thinking what to do with poisonous Hollywood.
Hollywood is one cesspit; another is the public library that you, Mr & Mrs Taxpayer
support.
I'm acquainted with three major public library systems. Their shelves groan with fiction
by authors such as those C Span featured last year in its series on (best selling) fiction
writes. Among those interviewed:
David Ignatius
Brad Thor
Brad Meltzer
David Baldacci
Jodi Piccoult
Geraldine Brooks
Rabbi Manis Friedman's declaration triggered this rant:
Early in Meltzer's The Book of Lies , his main character asserts:
"If there was one constant in history it was that victors torched property, salted the
earth, destroyed all the old idols. No sense warehousing the past when you could obliterate
it entirely."
In, The Increment , David Ignatius praises: "The young Iranian scientist did the
right thing: he betrayed his country and sold out to CIA."
Jodi Piccoult's "The Storyteller" is so full of holocaust propaganda she might as well be
ghost writing for Simon Wiesenthal.
Baldacci is a hack sell-out. His writing -- as most of the others -- is two steps removed
from Stratemeyer Syndicate / Hardy Boys – Nancy Drew. But be sure to mention Nazis in a
bad light and Jews/Israel in a favorable light, and you're golden.
Meltzer is forthright enough to discuss his close relationship with CIA, Secret Service,
and other US agencies that most of us do not have access to. What are the chances US
government is subsidizing these authors to produce fiction to shape the minds of the
American people?
There are non-profit organizations that work with publishing houses to send these
books by the truckload to military service members in MENA and elsewhere.
Public libraries spend tens- if not hundreds of thousands of dollars acquiring these
books, in print, large print, and CD. Writers in this grouping construct their stories to
make them readily adaptable to Hollywood movies.
The networking is extraordinary: C Span, "sponsored as a public service by your cable
companies," provides a platform for these writers to promote their work.
Cable companies are owned by interests that also own newspapers as well as the publishing
houses that market these books.
Hollywood is incestuously related to all of the above.
The American people are screwed every which way: their tax dollars are used to fund public
libraries that peddle propaganda; they pay for cable services that propagandize them; they
pay to see movies that degrade and propagandize them.
While their tormentors collect fat paychecks and laugh at them.
The fever pitch of Trump decent is off the charts.
Trump saying. he was going to pull out the troops from Syria – is a cultural and
diplomatic earthquake. The possibility of that happening, has shaken the Jews to the
core.
Look at Drudge today – things are going crazy – the Jew media is fighting him
on virtually everything that is going on in America. They are attacking him on every
pronouncement. It is 24/7 get Trump.
Hmm -- just who owns and controls the US MSM – JEWS.
Sorry folks – it is all Jew intimidation – they are saying to Trump "screw
with Israel's security, and we Jews will kill your presidency."
@Ahoy Crazy
religious people are not just among jews
Dutch politician vd Staay is under fire here because of his ideas about homosexuality, the
Nashville declaration.
Why anyone bothers about such nonsense is beyond my comprehension
Probably the Torah forbids homosexuality in order to get maximum population growth
Ideas resembling what I read here, because the Chinese population grows the USA must welcome
migrants
Idiots
@Art
"ISTANBUL -- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey denounced the White House national
security adviser John R. Bolton for comments he made ahead of his arrival in the Turkish
capital and refused to meet him on Tuesday, making any agreement between the two NATO
partners over a United States withdrawal from Syria increasingly difficult.
Mr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a "grave mistake" when he said that Turkey must agree
to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.
"It is not possible for us to swallow the message Bolton gave from Israel," Mr. Erdogan
said in a speech to political party members in Parliament. Turkey was only opposed to Kurdish
militant groups and not ordinary Kurds, he insisted."
-- -- -- Erdogan Cancels Meeting With Bolton, As U.S. Seeks To Reassure Allies On Syria
NPR January 8, 2019
"Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has apparently snubbed U.S. national security
adviser John Bolton, canceling a planned meeting to discuss the withdrawal of U.S. troops
from Syria as well as the fate of a U.S.-allied Kurdish militia fighting ISIS in Syria.
Bolton's meeting with Erdogan was canceled moments before it was to begin, reflecting
Turkish anger at Bolton's insistence that those Kurdish forces be protected after more than
2,000 American troops exit northeastern Syria."
@Art And
then orange clown said: "Oh yeah? Screw with my "presidency" and I'll investigate the Sandy
Hook elementary school "shooting," 9/11 and the attack on the USS Liberty."
@Ilyana_Rozumova
I agree.
Hell, Trump wasn't even supposed to get this far per 'the polls' and the pre-election media
onslaught, but here we are.
Strict immigration control is something way too may Americans want, even Hispanics &
blacks are figuring it out, (1.3 of Hispanics actually voted for Trump in 2016), They see
their wages taking a hit because of the cheap, illegal labor who pay no taxes, but access
free stuff like they do.
And who will the ne0-Communists run against him? Airhead Ocasio-Cortez, Hillary? LOL
Trump would slaughter them.
The neo-Communists only chance is to get Trump out before the 2020 election
with the fake Mueller thing, and that's not going to happen. Too many have seen through that
scam, and Mueller has nothing or we would have seen it.
Trump will do whatever the REAL bosses, the FED, those corrupt Wall Street casinos and Israel
tells him to do. He's nothing more than a carny barker, a fool that keeps the gullible marks
occupied so they won't bitch about never-ending war; endless monetary support for Israel and
our nation's infrastructure turning into 3rd world status while the MIC gets a bigger share
each year.
Trump went bankrupt four different times, yet he's still a multi-billionaire? The ones who
backed him thru that are now calling in their chits.
As No One Watched, Trump Pardoned 5 Megabanks For Corruption Charges -- Who He Owes
Millions January 2018
While Americans celebrated the holidays, President Trump followed in the footsteps of
his predecessors by acting in the interest of Wall Street and using the distraction to do
something that was not in the best interest of the American people. He pardoned five
megabanks for rampant fraud and corruption, which is especially notable because of the
amount of money he owes them.
Trump has been using Deutsche Bank since the 1990s, and Financial Times has reported
that he now owes the bank at least $130 million in outstanding loans secured in properties
in Miami, Chicago, and Washington. However, a source told the Times that the actual number
is likely much larger at $300 million.
Reports claimed that Deutsche was the only bank willing to lend Trump money after his
companies faced multiple bankruptcies. The relationship has continued over the years, and
an analysis from the Wall Street Journal claimed that Trump has received at least $2.5
billion in loans from Deutsche Bank over the last 20 years.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/trump-pardoned-megabanks-owes-millions-rampant-fraud-corruption/
Steal a couple hundred from a liquor store and you'll do ten years. Steal trillions and
you'll get a pass, some money from Congress and the green light to steal again.
@SolontoCroesusI'm acquainted with three major public library systems. Their shelves groan with fiction
by authors such as those C Span featured last year in its series on (best selling) fiction
writes.
S2C – Great comment – Thanks!
I love C-Span's weekend Book TV. It is the best programing on the tube.
They do all non-fiction except for this last year with the 3 hour long fiction writers.
Most of them I turned off.
@anonymousMr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a "grave mistake" when he said that Turkey must agree
to protect Syria's Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.
Bolton and Pompeo are living in the last century when America was respected.
The aftermath of 9/11 has destroyed our credibility. The world correctly views the US
government as being controlled by the Jews.
Clearly, fighting terrorist wars for the Jews, has diminished our moral standing and place
in the world. Our military is weakened and dissipated – we are falling behind in new
tech – we are losing out in the cyber conflicts. America is getting dangerously behind
in a thousand ways.
Bolton and Pompeo are bad guys working for the Jews – and the world knows it. Those
two think, that all they have to do is say "Iran" and everyone will fall in place – it
is not happening! (The world has no respect for our killing the Iran nuke deal.)
@SolontoCroesus
Let's not forget the fake Diary of Anne Frank and the ridiculous & easily debunked
Destruction of European Jewry</i,. by Zionist Raul Hilberg*, to name just a few of the
witchcraft equivalent books on the "holocaust" that plaque our libraries.
" it is questionable whether one should accept improbable figures supplied by a not
overly friendly source."
– American Jewish Year Book, , 1972, Vol. 73, p. 536
* Raul Hilberg quotes no less than 20 times as a source in his standard work about the
"Holocaust" ,Filip Mueller, who described how he ate cake in an alleged cyanide-saturated gas
chamber. : https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10426
Oh, I really would like to share this author´s New Year optimism with respect to the
"US withdrawing from useless wars" , but, as far as I read over there, it seems quite certain
the while possibly withdrawing ( in case this is going to happen anytime, or just they decide
to remain so as to waste other´s victory ) from what has become useless wars in the
Middle East and Central Asia, if not because of the presence of formidable opponents there,
the US seems to not loose a minute to engage in others which could result much more usefull,
mainly, if we remember Trump´s reproach on "we should had grabbed the oil" , and
so, we have that
preparations to disrupt countries in the Caribbean Sea ,
or intends to grabb portions of Africa even if necessary by usual method of kicking the
door are next in the eternal list of unending agressions by the US and its "allies" .
Thus, it is crystal clear to me that what we will have with Trump and the masters who put
them in charge in the first place and move the strips behind him, is more of the same
elevated to the nth potence .
I wonder what more is needed to have you all in the streets doing the only thing you can
do to obligue them to do what you gratutiously affirm Trump is going to do ( whenever that is
going to happen )
The information about what your country has always done, continue doing to date, and is all
the way planning to do, is all out there for everybody to find and assess.
That you deny acknowledgment of this can only be for two reasons, willing blindness and
deafness, so that your way of life does not change a bit, or willing collaboration with the
so called "deep state"/"the borg" through taking part in disinformation operations, being the
latter the highly likely case of, former or current, intelligence
operatives/journalists/analysts .
May be, you, with your "fake stories", "fake news", "fake success", "fake victories"
..will manage to make the lives of increasingly more people increasingly miserable, but, that
all that, sooner or later, will pay unto you, and, consequently, you will end rotten in hell
believe me, that is a fact .
@Wally Wally
said: 'Too many have seen through that ("fake Mueller thing") scam, and Mueller has nothing,
or we would have seen it."
Hey Wally!
Speaking respectfully, "we" see what Zionist's want us to see, and they have no problem
with 'Merkins' presumed capability to see through "fake" special prosecutor stuff.
I liken ZUS citizens' bizarre & engineered political situation to that which Simon
& Garfunkel described in peppy song, "A man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the
rest."
The Zio Corporate Media, including the often gripping DrudgeReport, feasts upon what
appears to be a (combined) left & right flogging of what appears to be the wounded
political carcass of President Trump.
But tonight, when the contentious & divisive border-wall address is completed, Oval
Office lights out, and Trump tucks-in, the ruling darkness never sleeps.
Fyi, Wally, earlier and while in-between Scranton school bus runs, I indulged "Head- Start
Program, 101; No Dumb Goyim Left Behind," by reading Andrew Bacevich's mind expanding &
new U.R. article, below, subtitle, "Abizaid of Arabia."
Try Bacevich? For nothing "is" as to what Zio spinners appear to tell what it is "is."
This just in!: The Wall Will Not Stop Illegal Immigration !
Even if built according "to plan" [an impossibility, of course, given the nature of
governments], the border wall would not prevent illegal immigrants, except maybe in the very
short term, until people found various ways around its presence.
A border wall would be just another government scam, a worthless boondoggle that would
only benefit the contractors and the politicians, just like every other government program
throughout history.
Why? Because so-called government "solutions" cannot work.
All one has to do to reach this conclusion is to look at the world around us with a cold,
unbiased eye, and observe the massive failure of other government "solutions" to date such
as:
1] the war on drugs.
2] government- run healthcare
3] government- run education
4] government environmental regulation
5] the government war on poverty via welfare programs
6] government racial integration policies
The list of failures is endless , and at the present time- ever expanding into new areas
supposedly 'begging" for government "solutions" that will not work either, because , tah dah!
: government "solutions " cannot ever work, [for reasons I will not get into here], although
admittedly, in the very short term they might appear to work. but it never takes long for
"the rot to set in"
And then orange clown said: "Oh yeah? Screw with my "presidency" and I'll investigate
the Sandy Hook elementary school "shooting," 9/11 and the attack on the USS Liberty."
And then I woke up.
Is Trump going to wake up and smell the Jews destroying him?
Will he call out the editors and CEO's of the media by name?
WOW! What outstanding, let me say, poetic (prophet-like) following paragraph, which
addresses the doomed soul of real evildoers: "May be, you, with your "fake stories", "fake
news", "fake success", "fake victories" ..will manage to make the lives of increasingly more
people increasingly miserable, but, that all that, sooner or later, will pay unto you, and,
consequently, you will end rotten in hell believe me, that is a fact ."
Go, go, (Lady?) Fatima! Fyi, the sick U.S. Zio Corporate Media-directors and ZUS "Long
War" practitioners cannot bear the reality of your warning. Thanks very much!
P.S.: During 1960's, Bob Dylan sang the pulsating "Masters of War" which for me, &
decades later, rings to your tune.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving
as a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage
war abroad while impoverishing Americans back home.
and, overall, simply continue with the plan.
Change of demographics, as one element of it, will, probably, accelerate.
One reason I keep pointing out the Zios now in government is that they can use their
positions to create fake reports on Israel's enemies leading the US into even more actions
against our own interest.
I don't think Americans are paying attention to how dangerous this is. Too much of the talk
about Jewish crimes and deceptions is ancient history and no one is going to punish or end
Jewish manipulations over ancient history. ((They)) are only going to be stopped by exposing
what they are doing TODAY.
John Doe doesn't give a shit about whatever Jews did 100, 1000 years ago. Joe Doe might
give a shit about what the Jews are doing if they knew that they have taken over the US and
are sending all US blood and tax payer treasure to wars for Israel TODAY.
@RobinG
RobinG -- most pertinent information I came across is that a British writer, William
Nicholson, was working on a screenplay for a movie version of Red Notice.
I've never heard of the book. From a New York Times review, it appears there's a great
deal of insider financial/ Wall Street information, which is not Baldacci's strength -- James
Grippando specializes in that arena. The NYTimes review mentions Browder's "grating
self-regard." Would a ghost writer allow something like that to remain unedited? (Why did an
editor allow it to remain unedited?)
@renfro The
office of Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence was created
by uber Jew Stuart Levey, now legal counsel at HSBC.
When he left the post a few years ago, his former law partner, David Cohen, took his
place.
Jews-who-hate-Iran created and have occupied the position at Treasury since they created
it, specific ally for the purpose of bankrupting Iran.
You're right, renfro: people SHOULD know these things and SHOULD be outraged.
Thanks for putting it out there.
--
btw: Richie Goldberg has made a career of hating Iran. He was a student at a Chicago area
Solomon Schechter school, whose website carried a front-page banner proclaiming their mission
to "instill in students an undying devotion to Israel."
While still in his 30s, Goldberg became assistant to Illinois governor Bruce Rauner. He
leveraged that position to make Illinois the first state to pass legislation divesting state
pension funds from Iran-linked corporations.
Rich Goldberg is a proud defender of Israel and the United States, and that's not
hyperbole; as Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative Affairs for Illinois Governor Bruce
Rauner and former Deputy COS to Senator Mark Kirk, Goldberg has helped advanced a number of
initiatives to protect and benefit Israel and serves as an intelligence officer in the U.S.
Navy Reserve.
In 2008, Goldberg spearheaded the deployment of X-Band missile defense radar to Israel
and later played an integral role in the passage of economic sanctions against the Central
Bank of Iran. This spring he helped Illinois become the first state to pass binding
legislation countering the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
Goldberg is a board member of AJC Chicago and a regional governor of the Alpha Epsilon
Pi Fraternity, for which he serves as the representative on Iran to the Conference of
Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. http://www.juf.org/YLD/WYLD.ASPX (2015)
--
btw again: the Jodi Picoult book mentioned above focuses on the work of one Leo Stein, who
occupies a US government office that searches out and prosecutes "Nazi war criminals," --
this novel revolves around a 93 year old "former SS" member that the main character
ultimately kills. Jews use US institutions & tax $ to carry out their psychopathology
@SolontoCroesus
"Grating self-regard" is the lesser fault with Red Notice . it's a tissue of lies.
Anyway, ghost writers don't need their own depth of research, like biographers. They just
take their subject's story and spin it well. His job was puffing up Browder as a hero.
@renfro
renfro said: "I don't think Americans are paying attention to how dangerous this is."
Hey renfro!
Pitifully, Jews count on millions of curiously alert American people who are trained &
predisposed to "pay attention" to that which the TV tells them, and count on all to believe
it, and obediently follow Judas Goat-herd authority.
At present, am a lot like you.
Average "John Does" today would let Jews slide if he/she learned that the stilted
Holocaust education served as the state of Israel's launch pad, a reason to be criminal.
Now there's fascinating excitement about America getting a real 9/11 terror attack
investigation, the one then FBI Director Robert Mueller missed. Am saddened to say that the
Al Qaeda-perp "whopper" fantasy is more entertaining, and legions of dumb goyim
(Bible-thumping) believers would persist to agree with Netanyahu's incredible assessment,
"9/11 was good for Israel."
So, renfro, the great proposition is, & as you put it: "Joe Doe might give a shit
about what the Jews are doing if they knew that they have taken over the US and are sending
all US blood and tax payer treasure to wars for Israel TODAY."
Big problem for me is the Protocols of Zion world takeover-plan, and how Jews will never
let a bad (stinky) "taxpayer" finding fester out of control, for example, the facts you
wrote, directly above.
As a pessimistic-optimist, here's how I see things: Contemporary Americans must dismount
couches, reconcile to wear "do-rags" with bird feathers, fashion Anti-Zio War Paint instead
of belly tattoos, and regain their stolen "Homeland."
Really hope/pray I'm nuts, renfro, but no Western Wall visit and yarmulke for me. Thank
you!
@renfro In
2001 a woman intern was found dead in then congressman Joes office with a gash on her head,
and not one thing was done about this, who benefits?
I'd say they are getting out of Syria. If for no other reason than they lost and have nothing
to do there, which is increasingly obvious despite the media held curtain of lies. I'm
convinced Trump genuinely does want to withdraw US troops from some theatres but he is facing
tremendous pushback from the bloated MIC and all it's little minions. Probably learning as he
goes the real reasons for some of them, such as the minerals and opium in Afghanistan. I
can't see them letting go of those goodies easily though replacing the troops with
contractors is a likely option.
@ChuckOrloski
People's capacity to ignore an uncomfortable reality is unlimited. I once had a shocking
example of it when I and my 2 kids were witness to a massive triangle UFO, which moved
silently, very low and slowly near a major road in the city I live in. My daughter hid under
the dashboard and wouldn't even look. Even so that is how nearly everyone else from numerous
cars reacted and even a bus which stopped and I tried to get a dozen people on-board to look
at this thing. My gesticulating and waving to the cars passing to look to their right was
absolutely ignored by ten or more cars which passed. They saw me alright but they would NOT
turn their heads! I could see some of them staring ahead grimly and obviously refusing under
any circumstances to look. They seemed angry at me for trying to make them look even. They
all either laughed at me as they passed or gave me a nasty look. This is NOT how people treat
others in Perth, Western Australia usually, indeed several would normally have stopped to see
if we were OK.
The people on the bus giggled and made fun of me, yet would not no matter how much I
implored them simply look out that window and acknowledge a freaking massive aircraft carrier
sized black aircraft no more than a couple of hundred meters off the ground. It was dusk but
still somewhat light and it had three lights on it also. Eventually ONE guy did stop and look
but it was a long way away by then. He could see the odd light configuration and noticed even
at that distance it was not making the sound a jet would but that was it. I was astounded not
by the UFO so much as by the weird reaction of most people who should have seen it yet
something in them was so powerful it could make them anticipate something before they even
saw it and avoid seeing it even physically since to do so would obviously have shattered
their world view too much I guess.
That is why the truth of 9/11, Kennedy's slaying, the Holocaust [TM] and virtually all the
wars which is so easy to access, will never become common currency so long as their
acknowledgement will have a major impact on people's paradigms. The media of course do their
part in feeding into this cognitive dissonance for their sheeple but in the end it is what
the sheeple want as well. They don't want to be informed they want to be validated and
amused.
More truths that people will not acknowledge, even if they were shown widely to them via
their usual information swill bucket. ETs as my example directly demonstrates, MH-17, the USS
Liberty. The nuclear 'Energy' lie. (Nuclear "Power stations" are really just part of the
nuclear weapons process) The medical swindle around most "incurable diseases". The true
history of almost any nation, they're almost all based on great founding myths which would
not stand the light of examination but nobody wants to know except those for whom knowing
might bring some benefit. An excuse to reclaim something supposedly lost and which loss
itself is more often then not another invented myth. I despair of the human race becoming
enlightened or exalting the virtues inherent in mankind. It will only happen on an individual
basis, there's no 100th monkey situation that is another myth anyway.
They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their heads! I could see some of them
staring ahead grimly and obviously refusing under any circumstances to look. They seemed
angry at me for trying to make them look even. They all either laughed at me as they passed
or gave me a nasty look.
. something in them was so powerful it could make them anticipate something before they
even saw it and avoid seeing it even physically since to do so would obviously have
shattered their world view too much I guess.
.will never become common currency so long as their acknowledgement will have a major
impact on people's paradigms.
and, the most important:
.in the end it is what the sheeple want as well. They don't want to be informed they
want to be validated and amused.
Actually, the only important when dealing with average person.
I've had plenty related experiences. Nothing such extraordinary; just the usual stuff
about power, politics, social issues, even health. Always willful, derogatory, even hostile
reaction to simple common sense.
And, TPTBs do know that. That's why they are where they are.
They know the truth and act upon it. Realists.
And idealists, no matter what type, stick to their delusions. "If we could just inform and
educate people" and similar bullshit.
Feels good, though.
@ChuckOrloski
Chuck:
Speaking of CODOH, coming soon from 'Holocaust Handbooks' Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, An Introduction and Update to
Jean-Claude Pressac's Magnum Opus , By Germar Rudolf http://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=42
Oh my oh dear – surprise surprise' – Senator Marco Rubio pays back Jew sugar
daddies with first bill of the 2019 Senate – killing free speech for BDS movement
against Israel.
Heavens to Betsy – can you believe it – go figure' – the darling of
American conservatism FOX JEWS defends the bill.
p.s. To her credit, the Jewess Senator Diane Feinstein opposes the bill.
"On Friday, a State Department official said "(w)e have no timeline for our military
forces to withdraw from" the country. Delay may turn out to be not at all.
On Sunday, a senior Iraqi parliamentarian said
"(t)he Americans have built a military base in Erbil (in) the Iraqi Kurdistan region to
use against Iraq's neighboring countries, in particular Iran and Syria."
Iraqi media said the Pentagon has 14 military bases in the country – along with a
reported 18 in Syria. The US is highly unlikely to abandon them, especially ones considered
most strategically important.
An earlier report indicated the Pentagon intends establishing a permanent base along the
Iraqi border with Syria. Turkey reportedly established one or more military bases in
northwestern Aleppo.
On Saturday, a senior Trump regime official said US forces may remain indefinitely at the
(illegally established) al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria near the Iraqi and Jordanian
borders "
-- -- -- -- -- –
There has been a major change in US propaganda. In its earlier versions , US has always
downplayed whats it's interest are, what it is trying to achieve, how it is trying to achieve
– whether the case was in Soviet or Iraq or Vietnam or Libya few years ago. Now the
neocons declare what they plan how they plan and whats the objectives are . With that
differences between former and current, one can see also so called victory before and the
absolute defeat now.
@Rabbitnexus
I was going to say that you had better make sure of your St Paul before taking the decisive
trip on your donkey But then I see he is there ready to go in the shape of PeterAus. So now
you needn't wait: get yourself crucified after alerting all the media, mainstream and
alternative. Pruning the gospels for some semblance of consistency you will, I'm afraid, just
have to trust Your Father will look after.
My gesticulating and waving to the cars passing to look to their right was absolutely
ignored by ten or more cars which passed. They saw me alright but they would NOT turn their
heads!
While I've never seen such a thing as a UFO, I've had similar responses from people when
I've tried to warn them of potentially dangerous situations while driving on the freeway such
as unlatched hoods on their cars to wobbling wheels on their trailers, to unsecured loads
that were bouncing around.
Now as to the assertion that history is useless or foolish, I do agree with the idea that
for most people a knowledge of history is wasted on them, but there are a significant few, I
think, who see the light after understanding that what's being detailed today is largely the
fruit of past efforts. I also am a proponent of exposing past crimes so that people are not
surprised when they see how the methods are very similar to those being used at the present
and will likely be used in the future. A further benefit is that people will begin to
understand what is not effective and that it's imperative to look for ways to undermine the
parasite classes.
Another reason why knowledge of history is important is that it helps immunize people
against being lied to by the purveyors of fake news and fake history. Such knowledge really
seems to help in assessing the verity, or lack thereof, of those who make excuses for bad
behavior or try to downplay the seriousness of unacceptable and irresponsible behavior.
I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who
reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is
filled with falsehoods & errors.
It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely
deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to
falsehood.
p.s. To her credit, the Jewess Senator Diane Feinstein opposes the bill.
Mere theater, I suspect.
Can there be any doubt that the Senator, Diane Feinstein, merely pretends to
oppose the bill?
Most of what the clowns say is meant to be laughed at, not believed, and almost all are
clowns. Furthermore history shows that in that respect nothing's changed over the
millennia.
Trumpy's foreign policy is more step-in-the-bucket than bait and switch.
My take is that it's the good cop, bad cop routine. It's just another version of The
Shrub's promises of implementing compassionate conservatism and a humble foreign policy or
O-bomb-a's hope and change
Trump says something that the ever hopeful Trumpettes want to hear, then does exactly as
his bosses desire. This allows The Trumpster to appear like the good guy while maintaining
hope and simultaneously enabling his supporters to claim that da devil would't let him do it.
The Boltons of the world no doubt enjoy their roles as devils.
And I agree that The Cackling Hyena would have been exponentially worse, but that's small
consolation and no denying that the masses are being played, again.
@jacques
sheete This would explain Trump's heartening announcement of U.S. withdrawal from Syria,
immediately followed by Pompeo and Bolton hustling and bustling amongst our valued Mid East
allies, issuing consolations and moderations. Witness Bolton's recent twitterings of the U.S.
now "coordinating" its withdrawal from Syria with Israel, downstream of Trump's original
immediate withdrawal, then 4-month withdrawal.
Our Zio Media never tells us that John Bolton is a Neoconservative and is establishing
presidential foreign policy geared to Israeli requirements and in fact against NATO ally,
Turkey.
Israel likes the Kurds due to only an obsession to divide & conquer neighboring
Islamic countries. As a ZUS-approved "good" terror state, the Kurds want territory spanning
Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
A very shitty & transparent deception, please refer to article, below, Jacques?
(Zigh)
@DESERT FOX
Agree with all except the worship of JFK. Kenned was the one that started the UN one world
government ball rolling with Public Law 87-297. Truth be known every president, including
Washington has been part of the plan to make America the "New Atlantis", with one possible
exception, Andrew Jackson. http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/un/do.htm
@RVBlake
RVBlake wrote: "Witness Bolton's recent twitterings of the U.S. now "coordinating" its
withdrawal from Syria with Israel, downstream of Trump's original immediate withdrawal,"
Hey Blake!
Re above; a question.
Why doesn't our Zio Media report on how Bolton managed to overturn Trump's 2016
presidential election, and how he easily managed to tweak & assume the role as US
Commander in Chief of the armed forces?
@ChuckOrloski
The MSM is part of the narrative, the septic tank melange of Pentagon, neocons, liberal
interventionists No way they're turning on one of their own. They most likely sneer at his
past political associations, i. e. Bush/Cheney, but they publicly endorse him as less evil
than Trump.
About my major point, re; the Kurds, their leaders know they have ZUS and Israeli miliary
support, and such stuff can end up causing a major war, and US troops who remain in Syria are
most regrettably in danger of becoming ritualistic & unnecessary "sacrificial lambs."
Appears evident that Commander in Chief Trump is fighting to secure the US southern border
(with Mexico), and his NSA Director Bolton has the job of securing Israeli expansion into
Lebanon and Syria.
Agree with all except the worship of JFK. Kenned was the one that started the UN one
world government ball rolling with Public Law 87-297. Truth be known every president,
including Washington has been part of the plan to make America the "New Atlantis", with one
possible exception, Andrew Jackson
Getting your information from gun owner rights nut case sites is not a good idea.
Public Law 87-297 had nothing to do with the 2nd ammendment. It was a reaction to the arms
race with Russia , nuclear fears and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Basically a brain fart of
the times but one that led to the eventual reduction of nuclear weapons in Russia.
Further, it was Eisenhower that was the biggest champion of the UN and international law
after WWII.
Further you need to read Washington's Farewell Address if you think he was a 'globalist'
-- he was the exact opposite.
Washington's Farewell Address 1796 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
@ChuckOrloski
Comrade ChuckOrloski, you are really very kind, and generous, to consider that anything I
could write with my scarce command of English language could be anytime qualified as
"poetic", but I am glad if, in any way, it served you, or any other person, as inspiration
or, at least, to be moved a bit from the wide conformism in front of what we are witnessing
and are being directed to.
I thank you for the reference to Dylan´s song ( which I am not worthy of being
compared to..), which I did not know so far, since not so heard at my country, and even at my
times, which became a bit more cynic, despaired and self-destructive than yours ( when the
anti-war movement was at its full heights of plenitude and strenght .Although they managed to
fully disintegrate it be it through generalized introduction of drugs amongst the youth and
hopeful ..or directly cutting the tongues of the troubadours ..), but, still, we had our
bards too .
In this vein, you remind me of the fact that perhaps the lack of inspiration of these
times lays in part, apart from in the general alienation by electronic devices, in the lack
of bards .To kill the bards has always been one of their priorities as ancient leyends tell
us .
But we will prevail .and will return to the streets . again .
Great work as always, Phil -- with the exceptions that you should have devoted due attention
to (i) the nefarious, always-lurking Zionist presence/influence of Sheldon Adelson on Trump
and our body politic and (ii) the neocon/Zionist/Israel-first (near) unanimity of our
legislative branch in affairs of the Middle East and beyond that makes a mockery of any use
of the term "US national [security] interests." Other areas: the MIC, the MSM,
Ziothinktankdom, the Palestinians' fading hopes of justice and liberation .
(I can't find time and energy to review the comments; I'm sure there are some great
ones.)
@Wally Being
that our jewish-supremacist masters apparently wanted the perfidious orange clown over
clinton, I have to assume that the orange clown is even more evil than clinton.
@Fatima
Manoubia Fatima Manoubia wisely noted: "To kill the bards has always been one of their
priorities as ancient legends tell us,"
Greetings from Scranton, Pa, Fatima!
Am in complete agreement with your insight above.
US social engineers have accomplished insidious modification of the great art of poetry.
Shall brand the hostile takeover as Zionist Infirmity in Art.
You are too kind to me, and no doubt, U.R. commenters, for example RobinG, shall second my
motion. Nonetheless, thanks & I dig your enthusiasm for noble non-conformism!
Loved Bowie's performance of "Life on Mars." Will share it with dear friends.
And, maybe you will like Peter Gabriel, linked below, and his performing a classical
version of David Bowie's great "Heroes," live in Verona.
P.S.: A bit disappointed, am not expecting the great Peter Gabriel to produce other
tribute-songs in memory of real national heroes, as he did the stirring one for Stephen Biko,
martyr. And Jewish Bob Dylan, has-been radical? He's doing Tony Bennett covers.
To be fair, not many men below the Second Person of the Trinity could succeed against
the array of forces facing Trump.
To be even more fair, in order to succeed against the evil forces, orange clown would at
least have to try to oppose them which means he would first have to stop being their willing
agent.
What is absolutely remarkable to me in a very bad way is that this piece of trash received 681 reviews on Amazon, only 21
with one star and the balance above that for an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5.
Absolutely remarkable, again, but it is reflective of the brain dead sheeple currently doing any reading at all of books by
the rabid neo cons. I hesitate to guess what some extreme alarm sounding diatribe by Wolfowitz or the current "main man,"
max boot would register. Maybe Romney can lead us out of the wilderness (sarc)>
I know that this is Amazon and when it comes to the standards of what passes as accurate reporting and journalistic
standards,"wapo and bezos leads the pack into the sewer.
REPLY
AGREE/DISAGREE/ETC.
THIS COMMENTER
@El Dato
an American puppet inasmuch as he had Americans masterminding his political PR campaigns) start
giving ground that the situation becomes fluid.
Albright (and Nuland) had no idea what Russia as a normal nation state could be expected to put up with, because all they
had to go on was Yelstyn who was drunk most days. So the US was slowly but surely drawn into the power vacuum in the
territories the USSR withdrew from and Albright thought that was the way things were going to continue to be. The domestic
situation in America was also one where the elite had things their own way to an unsustainable extent. What Albright does
not like is the facts of life.
The whole discussion is so asinine.
Facism is not a form of government that can just be inserted or deleted.
It is a very specific reaction to the communist takeover of a nation.
At that point, other forms of government are no longer viable: totalitarianism of one kind of another becomes an absolute
necessity to rule.
We see western governments coming to this point-the moral law is lost, corruption reigns, and only pure force has currency.
So at this point you only have one of two choices, there simply are no alternatives:
communism or facism.
And it is quite clear that facism is a more reasonable and less murderous choice.
for as long as neo con history is a subject for study (she has plenty of competition for that recognition).
Most "history" taught in the US (and combined West) is one or another iteration (sometimes extreme, sometimes less so) of
US exceptionalism. Even American so called "realism" is built around exceptionalism. American military doctrines are
written primarily on exceptionalism basis. Results are easily observable.
Big brass and government executives play both sides of the military revolving door,
including "the only adult in the room."
Before he became lionized as the "only adult in the room" capable of standing up to
President Trump, General James Mattis was quite like any other brass scoping out a lucrative
second career in the defense industry. And as with other military giants parlaying their four
stars into a cushy boardroom chair or executive suite, he pushed and defended a sub-par product
while on both sides of the revolving door. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that contract
turned out to be an expensive fraud and a potential health hazard to the troops.
According to a
recent report by the Project on Government Oversight, 25 generals, nine admirals, 43
lieutenant generals, and 23 vice admirals retired to become lobbyists, board members,
executives, or consultants for the defense industry between 2008 and 2018. They are part of a
much larger group of 380 high-ranking government officials and congressional staff who shifted
into the industry in that time.
To get a sense of the demand, according to POGO, which had to compile all of this
information through Freedom of Information requests, there were 625 instances in 2018 alone in
which the top 20 defense contractors (think Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin) hired
senior DoD officials for high-paying jobs -- 90 percent of which could be described as
"influence peddling."
Back to Mattis. In 2012, while he was head of Central Command, the Marine General
pressed the Army to procure and deploy blood testing equipment from a Silicon Valley
company called Theranos. He communicated that he was having success with this effort directly
to Theranos's chief executive officer. Even though an Army health unit tried to terminate the
contract due to it's not meeting requirements, according to POGO, Mattis kept the pressure up.
Luckily, it was never used on the
battlefield.
Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise but upon retirement in 2013, Mattis asked a DoD counsel
about the ethics guiding future employment with Theranos. They advised against it. So Mattis
went to serve on its board instead for a $100,000 salary. Two years after Mattis quit to serve
as Trump's Pentagon chief in 2016, the two Theranos executives he worked with were indicted for
"massive"
fraud , perpetuating a "multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors, doctors and
patients," and misrepresenting their product entirely. It was a fake.
But assuming this was Mattis's only foray into the private sector would be naive. When he
was tapped for defense secretary -- just three years after he left the military -- he was worth
upwards of $10 million . In addition to his retirement pay, which was close to $15,000 a
month at the time, he received $242,000 as a board member, plus as much as $1.2 million in
stock options in General Dynamics, the Pentagon's fourth largest contractor. He also disclosed
payments from other corporate boards, speech honorariums -- including $20,000 from defense
heavyweight Northrop Grumman -- and a whopping $410,000 from Stanford University's public
policy think tank the Hoover Institution for serving as a "distinguished visiting fellow."
Never for a moment think that Mattis won't land softly after he leaves Washington -- if he
leaves at all. Given his past record, he will likely follow a very long line, as illustrated by
POGO's explosive report, of DoD officials who have used their positions while inside the
government to represent the biggest recipients of federal funding on the outside. They then
join ex-congressional staffers and lawmakers on powerful committees who grease the skids on
Capitol Hill. And then they go to work for the very companies they've helped, fleshing out a
small army of executives, lobbyists, and board members with direct access to the power brokers
with the purse strings back on the inside.
Welcome to the Swamp
"[Mattis's' career course] is emblematic of how systemic the problem is," said Mandy
Smithberger, POGO's lead on the report and the director of its Center for Defense
Information.
"Private companies know how to protect their interests. We just wish there were more
protections for taxpayers."
When everything is engineered to get more business for the same select few, "when you have
a Department of Defense who sees it as their job to promote arms sales does this really serve
the interest of national security?"
That is something to chew on. If a system is so motivated by personal gain (civil servants
always mindful of campaign contributions and private sector job prospects) on one hand, and big
business profits on the other, is there room for merit or innovation? One need only look at
Lockheed's F-35 joint strike fighter, the most expensive
weapon system in history, which was relentlessly promoted over other programs by members of
Congress and within the Pentagon despite years of test failures and cost overruns , to see what
this gets you: planes that don't fly, weapons that don't work, and shortfalls in other parts of
the budget that don't matter to contractors like pilot training and maintenance of existing
systems.
"It comes down to two questions," Smithberger noted in an interview with TAC.
" Are we approving weapons systems that are safe or not? And are we putting
[servicemembers'] lives on the line" to benefit the interests of industry?
All of this is legal, she points out. Sure, there are rules -- "cooling off" periods before
government officials and members of Congress can lobby, consult, or work on contracts after
they leave their federal positions, or when industry people come in through the other side to
take positions in government. But Smithberger said they are "riddled with loopholes" and lack
of enforcement.
Case in point: current acting DoD Secretary Patrick Shanahan spent
31 years working for Boeing , which gets about $24 billion a year as the Pentagon's second
largest contractor. He was Boeing's senior vice president in 2016 just before he was confirmed
as Trump's deputy secretary of defense in 2017. Last week he recused himself from all matters
Boeing, but he
wasn't always so hands off. At one point, he "prodded" for the purchase of 12 $1.2 billion
Boeing F-15X fighter planes, according to Bloomberg.
But the revolving door is so much more pervasive and insidious than POGO could possibly
catalogue. So says Franklin "Chuck" Spinney , who worked
as a civilian and military officer in the Pentagon for 31 years, beginning in 1968. He calls
the military industrial complex a "quasi-isolated political economy" that is in many ways
independent from the larger domestic economy. It has its own rules, norms, and culture, and
unlike the real world, it is self-sustaining -- not by healthy competition and efficiency, but
by keeping the system on a permanent war footing, with money always pumping from Capitol Hill
to the Pentagon to the private sector and then back again. Left out are basic laws of supply
and demand, geopolitical realities, and the greater interest of society.
"That's why we call it a self-licking ice cream cone," Spinney explained to TAC.
" [This report] is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more subtle stuff going on.
When you are in weapons development like I was at the beginning of my career, you learn about
this on day one, that having cozy relationships with contractors is openly encouraged. And
then you get desensitized. I was fortunate because I worked for people who did not like it
and I caught on quickly."
While the culture has evolved, basic realities have persisted since the massive build-up of the military
and weapons systems during the Cold War. The odds of young officers in the Pentagon making
colonel or higher are slim. They typically retire out in their 40s. They know implicitly that
their best chance for having a well-paid second career is in the only industry they know --
defense. Most take this calculation seriously, moderating their decisions on program work and
procurement and communicating with members of Congress as a matter of course.
" Let's just say there's a problem [with a program]. Are you going to come down hard on a
contractor and try to hold his feet to the fire? Are you going to risk getting blackballed
when you are out there looking for a job ? Sometimes there is no word communicated, you just
don't want to be unacceptable to anyone," said Spinney. It's ingrained, from the rank of
lieutenant colonel all the way up to general.
So the
top five and their subsidiaries continue to get the vast majority of work, usually in
no-bid contracts
($100 billion worth in 2016 alone) , and with cost-plus structures that
critics say encourage waste and never-ending timetables, like the $1.5 trillion F-35. "The
whole system is wired to get money out the door," said Spinney. "That is where the revolving
door is most pernicious. It's everywhere."
The real danger is that under this pressure, parties work to keep bad contracts alive even
if they have to cook the books. "Essentially from the standpoint of Pentagon contracting you
are not going to have people writing reports saying this product is a piece of shit," said
Spinney. Worse, evaluations are designed to deflect criticism if not oversell success in order
to keep the spigot open. The most infamous example of this was the
rigged tests that kept the ill-fated "Star Wars" missile defense program going in the
1980s.
* * *
Everyone talks about generals like Mattis as though they're warrior-gods. But for decades,
many of them have turned out to be different creatures altogether - creatures of a
semi-independent ecosystem that operates outside of the normal rules and benefits only a
powerful minority subset: the military elite, defense contractors, and Congress. More recently,
the defense-funded think tank world has become part of this ecology, providing the ideological
grist for more spending and serving as a way-station for operators moving in and out of
government and industry.
Call it the Swamp, the Borg, or even the Blob, but attempting to measure or quantify the
revolving door in the military-industrial complex can feel like a fool's errand. Groups like
POGO have attempted to shine light on this dark planet for years. Unfortunately, there is
little incentive in Capitol Hill or at the Pentagon to do the very least: pull the purse
strings, close loopholes, encourage real competition, and end cost-plus practices.
"We generally need to see more (political) championing on this issue," Smithberger said.
Until then, all outside efforts "can't result in any meaningful change."
So tell me again how "Mad Pedo" evaded Obama's axing of all the non-compliant General(s)
and Admiral(s) in charge of the U.S. strategic command?!!!
Answered my own question. He's like the rest of them since the Balkans that just does
counter insurgencies!...
"SUCCESS" in every direction on the weather vane you look!!!
Or... Another way of saying it.
How to build your successful U.S. military career turning $8 trillion in unfunded
liability debt into $200 trillion in unfunded liability debt in less than 20 years!
Who wants to line up for that 'self help book"?!!!
Mattis is just another self serving cockroach in a U.S uniform.
__name___3O4jF">Realname Wild tree , 31 minutes ago
link
It has nothing to do with the defense of our nation, or the unnecessary spilling of the
blood of our nation.
It has everything to do with greed at the expense of our youths blood and the nations
security. Follow the money.
As the light of truth shines as this article illustrates, the cockroaches scurry.
Rumsfield's DoD 2 trillion missing comment the day before 9/11 comes to mind. Wonder how he
knew.......
It has nothing to do with the defense of our nation, or the unnecessary spilling of the
blood of our nation.
It has everything to do with greed at the expense of our youths blood and the nations
security. Follow the money.
As the light of truth shines as this article illustrates, the cockroaches scurry.
Rumsfield's DoD 2 trillion missing comment the day before 9/11 comes to mind. Wonder how he
knew.......
Hacking syndicate Anonymous has just released its fourth tranche of documents hacked from
the internal servers of the Institute for Statecraft and its subsidiary, the Integrity
Initiative. Several explosive files raise serious questions about the shadowy British state and
NATO-funded 'think tank' and its connections with the Skripal affair.
The files were
released just after 2:30pm GMT on January 4 -- I've barely scratched the surface of the
content, but what I've seen so far contains a panoply of bombshell revelations -- to say the
least, the organization(s) now have serious questions to answer about what role they played in
the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in March, and its aftermath both nationally and
internationally.
Sinister Timeline
One file
apparently dating to "early 2015" -- "Russian Federation Sanctions" -- written by the
Institute's Victor Madeira outlines "potential levers" to achieve Russian "behaviour change",
"peace with Ukraine", "return [of] Crimea", "regime change" or "other?". The suggested "levers"
span almost every conceivable area, including "civil society", "sports", "finance" and
"technology".
In the section marked "intelligence", Madeira suggests simultaneously expelling "every RF
[Russian Federation] intelligence officer and air/defense/naval attache from as many countries
as possible". In parentheses, it references 'Operation Foot' , the expulsion of over
1000 Soviet officials from the UK in September 1971, the largest expulsion of intelligence
officials by any government in history.
The section on sports also suggests "advocating the view [Russia] is unworthy of hosting
[sporting] events" -- and the section marked "information" recommends the sanctioning of
'Russian' media "in West for not complying with regulators' standards".
2015 File
Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions
In April that year, Institute for Statecraft chief Chris Donnelly was
promoted to Honorary Colonel of SGMI (Specialist Group Military Intelligence), and
in
October he met with General Sir Richard Barrons. Notes from the meeting don't make clear
who said what, but one despaired that "if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a
response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and
take it out of the political space."
"We will need to impose changes over the heads of vested interests. We did this in the
1930s. My conclusion is it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something
dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an independent debate outside
government. We need to ask when and how do we start to put all this right? Do we have the
national capabilities [and/or] capacities to fix it? If so, how do we improve our harnessing of
resources to do it? We need this debate now. There is not a moment to be lost," they said.
Operation IRIS Begins
On 4 March 2018, former Russian military officer and double agent for MI6 Sergei Skripal and
his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury, England.
Within days, the Institute had submitted a proposal to the Foreign & Commonwealth
Office, "to study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news
spread and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" in a number of countries.
The bid was accepted, and the Initiative's 'Operation Iris' was launched. Under its
auspices, the Institute employed 'global investigative solutions' firm Harod Associates to
analyze social media activity related to Skripal the world over.
It also conducted media monitoring of its own, with Institute 'research fellow' Simon
Bracey-Lane
producing regular 'roundups' of media coverage overseas, based on insights submitted by
individuals connected to the Initiative living in several countries. One submission, from an
unnamed source in Moldova, says they "cannot firmly say" whether the country's media had its
"own point of view" on the issue, or whether news organizations had taken "an obvious
pro-Russian or pro-Western position", strongly suggesting these were key questions for the
Initiative.
Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal
Incident
Moreover though, there are clear indications the Institute sought to shape the news
narrative on the attack -- and indeed the UK government's response.
One file dated March 11 appears to be a briefing document on the affair to date, with key
messages bolded throughout.
It opens by setting out "The Narrative" of the incident -- namely "Russia has carried out
yet another brutal attack, this time with a deadly nerve agent, on someone living in
Britain".
"Use of the nerve agent posed a threat to innocent British subjects, affecting 21 people and
seriously affecting a police officer. This is not the first time such an attack has been
carried out in the UK 14 deaths are believed to be attributable to the Kremlin Russia has
poisoned its enemies abroad on other occasions, most notably then-candidate for the Presidency
of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, in 2004. Russian political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza has been
poisoned twice; and the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was also poisoned and later shot dead.
Since Putin has been running Russia, the Kremlin has a history of poisoning its opponents in a
gruesome way," the "narrative" reads.
The file goes on to declare the British response has been "far too weak it's essential the
government makes a much stronger response this time" -- and then lists "possible, realistic,
first actions", including banning RT and Sputnik from operating in the UK, boycotting the 2018
World Cup, withdrawing the UK ambassador from Moscow and expelling the Russian ambassador to
the UK, and refusing/revoking visas to leading Russians within Vladimir Putin's "circle", and
their families.
Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative
It's not clear who the document was distributed to -- but it may have been given to
journalists within the Initiative's UK 'cluster', if not others. This may explain why the
Institute's "narrative", and its various recommended "responses" utterly dominated mainstream
media reporting of the affair for months afterwards, despite the glaring lack of evidence of
Russian state involvement in the attack.
It's extremely curious so many of the briefing document's recommendations almost exactly --
if not exactly -- echo several of the suggested "levers" outlined in the 2015 document. It's
also somewhat troubling the "Global Operation Foot" spoken of in that file duly came to pass on
March 28 2018, with over 20 countries expelling over 100 Russian diplomats.
Likewise, it's striking Victor Madeira, the Institute staffer who made the recommendations
in 2015, made many media appearances discussing the poisoning following the incident
routinely documented by the Institute. Security consultant Dan Kaszeta also wrote a number
of articles for the Integrity Initiative website about chemical weapons following the attack --
including a July 14 article, How could Novichok have poisoned people four months after the
Skripal attack? --receiving 40
pence per word .
Invoice submitted to
Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Strange Connections
The Institute's bizarrely intimate connections with the incident don't end there. Another document
apparently dating to July 2018 contains the contact details of Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6
recruiter, handler and -- unbelievably -- neighbor in Salisbury. Anonymous claims the document
is an invitee list for a meeting the Institute convened between a number of individuals and
Syria's highly controversial White Helmets group, but this is yet to be verified.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the latest document dump raises yet further questions
about how and why it was BBC Diplomatic and Defense Editor Mark Urban -- who was in the same
tank regiment as Miller after leaving University -- came to meet with Skripal in the year
before his poisoning. When I attended the
launch of his book on the affair in October -- The Skripal Files -- he was evasive
on whether he played a role in connecting him with Skripal, and denied Miller was Skripal's
recruiter.
The latest trove also raises yet further questions about the activities of the Institute for
Statecraft and Integrity Initiative. In light of these revelations, reading the record of
Donnelly's meeting with General Barrons takes on an acutely chilling quality. It may be that
purely serendipitously the pair got their "catastrophe", their "something dreadful", which
"[woke] people up" and made the government "realise the problem" posed by Russia -- or it could
be they one way or another played a facilitative role of some kind.
After months of refusing to answer the vast number of questions I and thousands of others
have submitted to the paired organizations, it's high time for them to break cover, and be
honest with the public.
Images removed. Please brose the original to view them.
Notable quotes:
"... "Russian disinformation." ..."
"... "network of networks" ..."
"... It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence. ..."
"... "study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived" ..."
"... "global investigative solutions" ..."
"... What role did # IntegrityInitiative play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow.... ..."
"... "pro-Russia troll accounts" ..."
"... "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case." ..."
"... Another document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative" ..."
"... These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK." ..."
"... "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" ..."
"... "threat Russia poses." ..."
"... This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning ..."
"... One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot. ..."
"... "the largest collective expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history." ..."
"... "Makes you think " ..."
"... The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute. ..."
"... It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended # IntegrityInitiative meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair. ..."
"... £2,276.80 in July 2018 during the # Skripal # Novichok affair for writing articles on the subjects of poison gas; nerve agents; treatment; nerve agent persistency & # PortonDown @ RTUKproducer 160 1:24 PM - Jan 4, 2019 ..."
"... It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were drawn up years in advance. ..."
The Integrity Initiative, a UK-funded group exposed in leaked files as psyop network, played a key role in monitoring and molding
media narratives after the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal, newly-dumped documents reveal. Created by the NATO-affiliated,
UK-funded Institute for Statecraft in 2015, the Integrity Initiative was
unmasked in November after hackers
released documents detailing a web of politicians, journalists, military personnel, scientists and academics involved in purportedly
fighting "Russian disinformation."
The secretive, government-bankrolled "network of networks" has found itself under scrutiny for
smearing UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
as a Kremlin stooge – ostensibly as part of its noble crusade against anti-Russian disinformation. Now, new
leaks show that the organization played a central role in shaping media narratives after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia
were mysteriously poisoned in Salisbury last March.
It's notable that many of the draconian anti-Russia measures that the group advocated as far back as 2015 were swiftly implemented
following the Skripal affair – even as London refused to back up its finger-pointing with evidence.
Operation Iris
Days after the Skripals were poisoned, the Institute solicited its services to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, offering to
"study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being
perceived" in a number of countries.
After receiving the government's blessing, the Integrity Initiative (II)
launched
'Operation Iris,' enlisting "global investigative solutions" firm Harod Associates to analyze social media activity
related to Skripal.
What role did # IntegrityInitiative
play in the # Skripal affair? I looked for answers
from a brief look at the newly released files. More very much to follow....
However, Harod's confidential
report
did more than just parse social media reactions to the Skripal affair: It compiled a list of alleged "pro-Russia troll accounts"
accused of "bombarding the audience with pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation relevant to the Skripal case."
Among those who found themselves listed as nefarious thought-criminals were Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa, and a gentleman
from Kent who goes by Ian56 on Twitter.
Neocon Fascist, al-Qaeda Supporting Treasonous Scumbag @ Benimmo
is having a laugh with £2m of Taxpayers money. Nimmo should be IN JAIL for Fraud & Treason
"The Insider" - the same "Insider", that was credited by Bellingcat with "outing Boshirov and Petrovas GRU agents"
- has investigated and found me guilty of passing Putin orders to French yellow jackets. I kid you not.
Another
document , dated March 11, 2018 – and titled "Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible?" – contains a "narrative"
of the Skripal incident, which blames Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally, as well as containing a number of recommended
actions.
These included boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to
Germany, blocking Russian access to the SWIFT international banking system, and banning "RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the
UK."
Other suggestions included propaganda directed at British Muslims "to publicize what has been happening with their Muslim
brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion [sic]" and getting members of parliament to publicize the "threat Russia poses."
It's not clear who the document was drawn up for, but it may have been provided to II-affiliated journalists in the UK and other
countries.
This would certainly explain the evidence-deficient echo chamber that emerged in the aftermath of Skripal's poisoning
– which the UK and its allies unanimously blamed on Moscow.
Ahead of its time?
One of the more intriguing revelations from the fresh leaks is a
document from 2015, in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a series of measures targeting Russia, including
mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of 1971's Operation Foot.
Coincidentally, more than 100 Russian diplomats were expelled from 20 Western countries in an apparently show of solidarity with
the UK following the Skripal attack. At the time, UK Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed what she said was "the largest collective
expulsion of Russian intelligence officers in history."
Former MP George Galloway noted that the documents, written long before the Salisbury events, also call for the arrest of RT and
Sputnik contributors (such as himself), adding: "Makes you think "
The new trove of hacked documents also revealed an unexplained link between the II and Skripal himself – a connection made
all the more noteworthy by the group's central role in coordinating an evidence-free campaign to blame and punish Moscow for the
alleged nerve-agent attack. A document from July 2018 contains contact details for Pablo Miller, Skripal's MI6 recruiter, handler
and (conveniently) neighbor in Salisbury. Miller, it seems, had been invited to a function hosted by the Institute.
It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended
# IntegrityInitiative meetings. There
is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II initiated the affair.
It's not clear to what degree Miller is or was involved with the group, but his appearance on an Integrity
Initiative guest list adds another layer of mystery to a coordinated campaign which sought to impose punishments on Moscow that were
drawn up years in advance.
Agreed that the House of Saud and the salafist jihadis are to blame for so much that has
happened in the ME since long before 9/11. And that the Long War is always projected as
"defense" against the nefarious "terrorists" who are objects of the GWOT. But, dude, all the
terrorists in the world still don't have anything that amounts to a real army, navy, and
– how ridiculous can it be? – an air force. The Long War has never really
amounted to anything more than a cover story and a smoke screen.
That's because, as we have been informed of late, the real enemy is Russia. And China. And
everything else that counts in the Long Great Game of four-dimensional chess must necessarily
conform to the strategy that ultimately is about "containment" of those two competitors for
global power. This is not just my own opinion. It has come down from on-high, in statements
conveyed by the highest ranks of military authority. News flash: The "enemy" is no longer the
"terrorists" – if it ever was. The plan's best advocate may have been Paul Wolfowitz,
whose "doctrine" was "no peer competitors" – forever. That's the Long War for ya.
To retain a respectable status, Mr. Bacevich skipped over the hard evidence that Prince
Bandar directly funded the 9-11 terrorists (aka patsies) while all were in the USA, per the
FBI:
From my blog:
Jul 17, 2016 – The 28 Pages
After years of controversy, the House Intelligence Committee declassified part of their
December 2002 report on the 9-11 attacks, which shows direct Saudi involvement in supporting
the 9-11 attackers. This major story has been ignored by most of our corporate media. White
House press secretary Josh Earnest said: "This information does not change the assessment of
the US government that there's no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi
individuals funded al-Qaida." The BBC reported the story, but assures us it proves no high
level links to the Saudi government.
The House Committee report states that Saudi Ambassador to the USA and a close friend of
the Bush family, Prince Bandar, and his wife sent the 9-11 attackers thousands of dollars on
several occasions; but I guess the BBC does not consider him high-level, or their reporters
didn't bother to read the 28 pages. BBC readers will not know these facts because the BBC
report failed to provide a link to the 28 pages.
Bacevich should rewrite: After 9/11, the Israeli envoy made the most of those connections,
deflecting attention away from the role The Israelis had played in the events of that day
while fingering Saddam Hussein's Iraq as the true font of Islamist terrorism.
The hard evidence to substantiate the role played by Israel is overwhelming.
Unless you are saying that Prince Bandar may have been deliberatey involved in setting up
the events of 9/11 you are just waffling to get attention. And if you are saying that you are
spouting obvious BS.
" .General, can you describe this Long War of ours? What is its nature? What is it all
about?
Are we winning? How can we tell?
How much longer should Americans expect it to last?
What are we up against? ."
" ..What would be the criteria for removing our remaining troops from the Iraqi, Syrian,
and more general Middle Eastern conflicts? Or, for that matter, from Afghanistan, where we
have been trapped for more than 17 long years of still open-ended occupation?
If the answer to that question is that only when each of these countries is a healthy
pro-American democracy, and Islamist terrorism has ceased to be an "enduring" threat to the
West, then the answer, as the old Bob Mankoff joke has it, is "How about never -- is never
good for you?" ":
Recall that was a Saudi. So, too, were 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11,
2001.
Gimme a break.
When I saw Bacevich's name, I wasted no time reading. However, with that one statement,
his credibility just dropped to zero. Just another unthinking garbage peddler, (I'm in a
gnerous mood this AM), it seems.
To retain a respectable status, Mr. Bacevich skipped over the hard evidence that Prince
Bandar directly funded the 9-11 terrorists (aka patsies) while all were in the US.
While I have no hard evidence to either confirm or deny any of that, I commend you for the
likely accurate use of the term,"patsies." I highly suspect that they were little more than
actors in a false flag drama and think it would be more accurate to label them "alleged
terrorists." No?
That is what Mr Meyer is saying. Bandar was deliberately involved in setting up the events
of 911. Unless you are a follower of the absurd belief that 'Saudi Arabia did 911', then the
most rational explanation is that he was doing it on behalf of the deep state US/Israeli
plotters. The Saudis were effectively the handlers for the fake hijackers. Bandar blundered
somewhat by not having enough cutouts to make US govt claims that he was innocent totally
believable.
With MBS in charge, is Saudi Arabia part of the solution or part of the problem?
This is exactly the wrong question to ask. It's a testament to how thoroughly a Regime
Change mindset has disastrously taken hold that even seeming critics like you are captured by
it.
The Real Enemy . . . militant Salafism
Your use "enemy," let alone "The Real Enemy" is depressingly telling. Particularly for
pissant jihadis who we've variously funded and armed over the years.
Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a generational shift in its ruling factions.
How did our Regime Change Libya work out? Or Obama/Hillary's Morsi/MB gambit in Egypt?
The American foreign policy establishment is highly selective in who it deems beyond the
pale (e.g. assassin in chief; perpetrator of atrocities).
What does President Trump's recent nomination of retired Army General John Abizaid to
become the next U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia signify? That the President is focused on
stabilizing the Middle East and our position in it. It means that the Saudis must reverse
their military and strategic openings to Russia/China.
Prince Bandar's wife did send several thousand dollars to the terrorists who arrived in
Los Angeles airport, went directly to nearby Culver City and met s contact st the big Culver
City mosque and then to San Diego where they stayed a while.
The Saudi's claimed that the money sent to the terrorists was just the standard diplomat's
duty to help their nationals in foreign countries Most countries aren't that generous to
their traveling nationals. But most countries don't have the money that Saudi does.
Her sending the money was widely reported at the time.
Harold L Ickes at the end of 1944 made Saudi Arabia a USA colony.
Saudi Arabia somehow resembles Israel, without USA support it cannot exist.
But there is, still is, a big difference, the Saudi kings are just USA puppets, jews still
have enormous influence in the USA.
The other difference, Saudi Arabia has oil, Israel is just a nuisance.
"... Editor's Introduction: This article is about events that took place in 2012, but anyone who follows the news closely knows that nothing has changed. This is a remarkable account by someone who had an inside look at deliberate falsifications by what was once one of the most respected names in journalism. ..."
"... The program has disappeared from YouTube; it appears to be available only this much less trafficked site . But when it was broadcast, it made national headlines in Poland. The country's biggest television channel took the extraordinary step of broadcasting it just days later, dubbed in Polish. ..."
"... Many Poles were outraged at what they recognized as a vicious smear. It is worth noting that within a week or so, every single person ..."
"... Even Jacek Purski, director of Never Again , an organization dedicated to monitoring racism in Poland, says the program was one-sided . When a "watchdog" group calls a television program "one-sided," you can be sure it was outrageous. ..."
"... The Polish government demanded a clarification from the BBC, and even the foreign minister complained. Newspapers throughout Europe expressed skepticism, and reader comments left online were overwhelmingly outraged. The BBC took the very unusual step of publicly responding to criticism ..."
"... Then the BBC got a huge break from Barack Obama, of all people. During a ceremony at the White House honoring someone who had survived Auschwitz, Mr. Obama referred to it as a "Polish death camp" rather than a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Angry demands for an apology from the US government pushed "Stadiums of Hate" off the front page. After that, the relentless media cycle quickly relegated the whole affair to yesterday's news. ..."
"... the BBC seems to have taken pains to get copies off the internet. ..."
"... Panorama ..."
"... Mr. Krak does not expect to get any more work from the BBC. ..."
"... The Grauniad is in the same business. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/09/raheem-sterling-newspapers-fuelling-racism-alleged-abuse-chelsea ..."
Editor's Introduction: This article is about events that took place in 2012, but
anyone who follows the news closely knows that nothing has changed. This is a remarkable
account by someone who had an inside look at deliberate falsifications by what was once one
of the most respected names in journalism.
In May of 2012, the BBC Panorama program broadcast a documentary about "racism" in
the host countries of the 2012 European soccer championship: Poland and Ukraine. Those two
countries were about to stage the second biggest event in the sport after the World Cup, and
legions of journalists had arrived to cover it. The purpose of the BBC program -- aired
strategically one week before the opening match -- was to argue that neither country was
qualified to host the tournament because of their "hateful" soccer cultures. The message:
All-white countries are hotbeds of violent racism, and non-white fans and players would be in
danger.
I know a lot about the Panorama program because I helped produce it. I saw what is
arguably the world's most famous and trusted media organization fabricate a false,
sensationalist story. Through outright distortion -- and by using only those pieces that fit
its predetermined views -- the BBC "documented" the vicious attitudes of people who live in
countries that are not sufficiently "diverse." The program had a scripted conclusion before a
single camera was turned on.
Panorama is
the BBC's flagship investigative program. It is the longest-running such production in the
world, having been on the air since 1953. The closest thing to it on American television is
probably 60 Minutes . Panorama enjoys a reputation for hard-hitting and
serious investigative journalism.
About three months before the tournament began, a BBC journalist got in touch with me
through mutual media contacts and asked me to help with the part to be filmed in Poland. He
said the program would be about aspects of the football culture -- hooliganism, trouble at
stadiums, etc. -- that could cause problems for players and fans alike. This topic is something
of a hobby of mine, and I have followed it carefully during my time in Poland. The BBC wanted
me to be a "fixer" -- the person on the ground who arranges things in advance for the
production team. That meant setting up interviews, scouting filming locations, getting press
passes and access to events, arranging transport, and a hundred other odds and ends. I was also
expected to contribute ideas based on my knowledge.
I suspected right from the start that they wanted things that make for good television
rather than a true investigation -- conflict, tension, etc. -- but I was somewhat reassured
because this was the BBC. Despite my reservations, I never thought they would make the
television equivalent of sensationalist trashy tabloid headlines.
The producer and a cameraman made their first trip to Poland in March 2012. They had asked
me to arrange an interview with Aviram Baruchian, an Israeli who played with Polonia Warsaw.
They said the interview was supposed to be about "his experience as a football player in
Poland," but the fact that they asked for him by name suggested they assumed he would have
horror stories about being mistreated by fans because he is Jewish.
The press officer for Polonia was very accommodating, something I found again and again when
dealing with officials from football clubs. People automatically trusted the BBC and went to
extraordinary lengths to give them what they wanted.
I met the production crew for the first time the day after the interview. When I asked how
it went, they joked about how useless it was. I was confused by their dismissive attitude and
felt a bit responsible, but they told me not to worry. I learned later from the Polonia media
spokesman that Mr. Baruchian had nothing but appreciative things to say about the fans and his
experience in Warsaw -- which is exactly why he isn't in the final program.
There is a curious "Jewish" angle to Polish football that is easily misunderstood. Fans
chant nasty things about Jews, but, strange as it may seem, it's not accurate to call it
serious anti-Semitism.
Many of the older clubs originally had or are thought to have had Jewish financial backing.
This is almost certainly true of the team in Lodz -- called Widzew Łódź --
since that city had a large Jewish population before the Second World War. These origins have
become a source of cheap name calling for people who seize on any excuse to trade insults. When
fans chant "death to the Jews," it sounds shocking -- and it certainly is brutish -- but this
is mainly a way of attacking the other team rather than Jews.
There has been a similar situation with the London football club Tottenham Hotspur, which
has had Jewish owners. Fans of rival clubs started chanting about the "Jewish" team. Tottenham
supporters eventually embraced this and some even call themselves the " Yid Army ." The fans of one Polish
club, Cracovia, were in the same position and did the same thing, now proudly calling
themselves the "Jewish Sons of Bitches." When I told the BBC about that, they weren't
interested.
Needless to say, there is a lot of anti-Jewish chanting in the final Panorama
program, but it is presented without explanation. It falsely makes the fans look as though they
want to send Jews to the ovens.
The Star of David is now used so much in soccer graffiti that a Polish teacher I met told me
that the children in his class associate it with the sport. He also had a friend from Israel,
so this seemed like gold for the BBC: a poignant combination of children, the star of David,
racism, and a chance to talk to another Israeli and get what they missed from Aviram
Baruchian.
I set up the interview, but it was another disaster. Both the teacher and his Israeli friend
said that, yes, while there certainly are boorish people, just as there are in every country,
most Poles are very nice etc. Again and again, the Israeli put a positive spin on things, even
when asked melodramatic questions about the Second World War. It was another "useless"
interview that didn't make the final cut. I remember that when we got back to the van everyone
burst out laughing about what a complete waste of time it had been.
The first actual match we went to film was Legia Warsaw vs. Polonia Warsaw. This contest had
an excellent chance of including all the things that make for great television, and it was
before I understood what the real focus of the program was, so I was sure the BBC crew would
not be disappointed. For about five hours, they filmed an army of police in full riot gear,
flares and firecrackers being thrown around the stands and onto the field, an enormous banner
unfurled by the home Legia fans declaring that Warsaw belonged to them, and a reply spelled out
by the small but brave contingent of visiting Polonia supporters, who held up cards to form one
big reply: "FUCK LEGIA." There was a hooligan with a bullhorn on an elevated platform and
countless examples of a well-known hand gesture delivered straight into the camera. A section
of the stadium was burned black by a flare that set fire to a banner.
The entire contingent of Polonia fans was still in that blackened section after the match,
surrounded by hundreds of security guards who would escort them out of the stadium perhaps an
hour or two later. This was to minimize the chance of contact with Legia hooligans who might be
waiting for them. It was easy to capture the violent atmosphere of the game, and I was
confident the production team was happy. As we made our way back to the van, I asked the
assistant producer if he was pleased. He made a face that said "not really," and then out of
nowhere asked, "Did you hear any racist or anti-Semitic chants?" He was visibly disappointed
when I said I hadn't.
Boring
The lead producer said he was more or less satisfied with the "visuals" but was disappointed
with the "substance." He asked again about something I had been unable to do: get one of the
more committed hooligan types to go on camera. This time he explicitly said he wanted someone
involved in "right-wing politics" as well as hooliganism.
I said it wasn't easy to get inside a violent crime syndicate. The higher-ups in any
hooligan organization are wanted by the police, and anyone further down is too scared to speak
to the media for fear of the "leaders." Believe me, anyone who goes on camera and says he's a
hooligan is either a wannabe or gets a very personal lesson in media relations from his former
friends. I did the best I could, striking up awkward and even dangerous conversations on dark
streets, and I visited dodgy clubs in four different cities, but I never delivered. The closest
I got was a conversation with the head of one club's "supporters organization," who demanded a
"fee" for "security." To its credit, the BBC refused to pay.
Time to get serious
The team went back to London, and I continued to look into leads. I began to realize that
what they wanted was bananas thrown at black players, Nazi salutes from the stands, and maybe
some brutal beatings to add color.
In a phone conversation with the assistant producer at the end of March, I detected a note
of urgency and in April, I got an e-mail message from him that said, "Our Executive Producer,
Karen Wightman [who was in charge of the entire Panorama series], wants us to film
black players and their experience of racism in Poland as a priority."
The BBC had dropped all pretense about what they were after -- at least with me -- though
they kept up the charade of a neutral investigation with others.
The crew decided to come see a match in the city of Łódź between ŁKS
Łódź and Widzew Łódź. Like the previous game in Warsaw, this
was a derby, that is to say, a contest between two clubs in the same city. Derbies typically
have the most intense atmosphere, and thus an elevated chance of the kind of incident the BBC
was looking for.
Widzew had two Nigerian players, Princewill Okachi and Ugo Ukah, and the BBC wanted
first-hand accounts of mistreatment. Mr. Ukah was of particular interest because he had played
for Queens Park Rangers in London and could compare his treatment in diverse, tolerant,
multicultural England with that of all-white, wicked Poland. Also, there would be two black men
on the visiting team in a contest famous for its wild fans. Everything was lined up perfectly
to provide the missing "substance."
I asked the BBC specifically what they wanted me to tell the press officer of Widzew and
they told me to say we were interested in Poland's preparation for the Euro 2012 tournament.
Someone else on the production team, who had also been in contact with Widzew by e-mail, sent
me this note:
They don't know at this stage we want to specifically talk about racism in Polish football
and their [the black players'] own personal experiences of abuse, so be prepared to schmuz
[sic] and impress.
"At this stage" was after the club had agreed to make the players available -- on Easter
Sunday, no less, to fit our tight schedule. We were supposed to "schmuz and impress" rather
than be forthright about the reason for the interview. I remember wondering how often the BBC
gets access and interviews under false pretenses. To my shame, I was helping set the trap.
Łódź was the BBC's last chance to find anti-black "racism." The broadcast
date for the final program was already booked and Panorama was fully committed to a
headline-grabbing account of the dark, racist side of what was soon to be Europe's biggest
sporting stage. But they had no racism.
It was in Łódź that the host, Chris Rogers , finally parachuted
into his own program. He was the one who had sold the BBC on the idea months earlier, and the
entire Panorama episode is presented as "his" investigation. Mr. Rogers made something
of a name for himself in 2007 with an undercover investigation of Romania's orphanages, and he
has been dining out on it ever since.
He flew in to interview the two Nigerian players and to do PTC's (pieces to camera) the
following day at the match to add to footage shot in Warsaw without him. He came across as a
typical media type who was good at fake sincerity and spent a little too much time on his
hair.
We went to the Widzew Łódź office to interview Mr. Okachi and Mr. Ukah. Mr.
Rogers started with softball questions, such as how long the players had been in Poland, where
else they had played professionally, etc. He turned things up a notch by asking about the
reception they had received in Poland. Both players gave positive answers. Time and again
Rogers dangled the carrot and time and again no one reached for it. Suddenly Rogers put on his
best journalist Serious Face, turned to Mr. Ukah, and said "Why has Polish football been
hijacked by racism?"
There was nothing in the interview up to that point to justify that question. It was so
unexpected that Mr. Ukah was taken aback for a moment before he was finally able to give a
suitably noncommittal answer. The next few minutes consisted of both Mr. Ukah and Mr. Okachi
repeatedly stating that though they had heard of things happening to other people, they had
never heard or seen anything that could be interpreted as racist abuse in Poland.
This went on for a few more minutes until both players had run out of nice ways to say "no"
to the same question. Mr. Rogers had no choice but to wrap it up.
"For the hundredth time: No."
The players left quickly to enjoy what was left of Easter. I distinctly remember Mr. Rogers
and the producer agreeing that they had "material to work with."
If you watch the final
version of the program , you will see how they "worked" with it. They made it sound as
though the players were talking about horrible things that happened to them . I was in
the room the whole time, paying careful attention, and those bits were taken from rambling
answers they gave about things they had heard happened to others . I was amazed at how
editing and voice-overs transformed the interview into something I couldn't recognize. Needless
to say, those were the only parts of the interview that were used.
I heard it. Trust me. Let's go.
The next day was the match. After filming the police using water cannons on fans, we went
inside the stadium. We set up a camera behind one of the goals and a microphone at midfield in
front the home fans. Mr. Rogers instructed me to be on the lookout for "anything good," and by
then I knew what he meant. He also told me to keep an eye on the Nigerian players and look for
any nastiness from the crowd. He constantly disappeared to sneak cigarettes and text his
friends in England. He wasn't even there for the kickoff. When he finally reappeared he asked
if I had seen or heard anything useful. When I said I hadn't, he disappeared again.
About 30 minutes in to the first half, we were still waiting for "something good," and Mr.
Rogers was visibly anxious. He paced back and forth, checking his phone more than he watched
the crowd or the match. Once, just to break the silence between us as we stood on the sidelines
or maybe to vent his frustration, he actually said out loud "Come on! Sing some Jewish
songs!"
At halftime, the five of us who were there got together to trade notes and suggestions, and
we decided to switch places to maybe improve our "luck." I was with the producer and one
cameraman; the other cameraman was high above the crowd on the opposite stand. Chris Rogers was
. . . somewhere.
The second half kicked off and we went back to work. There was plenty of thuggishness in the
stands -- you see a lot of it in the final version -- but still not what they wanted. There was
a palpable feeling of frustration and hopelessness as another 30 or so minutes passed.
That's when Chris Rogers walked up and said he had heard monkey sounds coming from the
crowd. No one knew quite what to say, but this certainly wasn't greeted with the kind of relief
and interest you would have expected. For a moment it seemed as though we were just waiting for
someone to say "Um . . . really?" but we just waited for Mr. Rogers to tell us exactly what
happened. All he said was that the microphone at midfield had probably picked it up, and he
told the producer to get ready to do a PTC about it. Thirty second later he was in Serious Face
mode, intoning that he had just heard monkey sounds directed at a black player. I kept waiting
for him to tell our cameramen what part of the stands the sounds came from so they could zoom
in on it. Surely he wanted to watch those fans in the hopes that they would do it again, this
time on camera?
No. Chris Rogers made no effort to get visual material for what was to be a key moment in a
television program. And it wasn't as if we were in a massive stadium with 60,000 people, where
it would be hard to pinpoint where sounds came from. The photo below is of the stadium, and the
picture captures about 80 percent of the length of the stand from which the monkey sounds
allegedly came. The banner says "This is how we have fun in Łódź." Not one of
the BBC crew said, "OK, Chris, where should we look?"
The recording from the microphone is in the final version of the program, and I challenge
anyone to detect what Chris Rogers claims to have heard. You might be at a loss to describe
exactly what the noise is, but "monkey sounds" is way, way down on the list of
possibilities.
In the broadcast version, this part of the recording is played over a shot they had taken
earlier in the match of Ugo Ukah attacking the ball. However, the audio is from a microphone
planted at the edge of the field. When they went back and "found" those sounds, they had no
idea what was going on in the match at that moment. But in the program, the sounds start the
moment Mr. Ukah is on the ball. The BBC took the audio from one moment and played it over a
video from another moment. I would expect that from the North Korean press, not the BBC.
When we packed up to leave, we had to walk through the part of the stadium where the
post-match press conference was to be held. It hadn't started, but print and video journalists
were waiting. The BBC producer saw this, and asked Mr. Rogers if we should stop and ask about
what he had heard at the match. What more perfect, made-for-television scene could there be? He
could have walked into the after-match press conference and announced dramatically, "I'm Chris
Rogers from the BBC and I want to know how it's possible that a black player was racially
abused in a country that will be hosting the European Championships." That would be the
dramatic moment they were looking for. But no, Mr. Rogers said we needn't waste the time. He
wanted to go back to the hotel for dinner. He did not speak with Ugo Ukah after the match or
the following day while we were still in Lodz.
Mr. Ukah never said anything about hearing monkey noises. No player from either team ever
did. Nor did any of the many journalists from the Polish media, nor did a German television
crew that was there.
I cannot say what Chris Rogers did or did not hear. However, I do know that in a stadium of
around 5,000 people the only person who claims to have heard monkey sounds was the one person
who flew to Poland for three days with the sole purpose of finding "racism."
The final version of the program stretches the truth in other ways. For example, Mr. Rogers
says he has spent months on location studying local football culture, whereas he spent just a
few days in the country. There is also a scene in which a British "anti-racist" named Nick
Lowles is shown scanning the crowd with binoculars, looking for "hate." The voiceover says that
"he has flown out to see what British fans can expect in Poland," and he obligingly gives an
interview. The program makes it look as though the camera crew just stumbled onto him in the
stands. In fact, the BBC flew him in just for that scene.
The team certainly didn't mind spending money. I was with the producer when he got a message
from London telling him that they were well over budget. He said they had spent around
£150,000 pounds (about $230,000). They stayed in expensive hotels and never thought about
costs. I was amazed by how much they spent in restaurants and hotel bars. Remember: This is the
BBC, to which mandatory payments of £150 pounds a year must be made if you own a
television set in Britain. It is a criminal offense not to pay.
The results
Just days before the broadcast, the BBC showed some of the footage to Sol Campbell, son of
Jamaican immigrants and former captain of the English national football team. They happily
filmed him claiming -- predictably -- to be shocked. He said it was enough to convince him not
to go to the tournament and to warn other non-whites not to go.
This was brilliant publicity for Panorama . Polish and Ukrainian media picked up
Mr. Campbell's comments, which pushed "racism" to the forefront of any British discussion of
the tournament. The program cast a pall over the tournament before the first match was even
played, and put a small army of journalists on alert, scanning the stands for "hate."
I watched the show when it first aired at the end of May. I had been dreading it, but my
dread turned to shock when I heard what the episode was called: "Stadiums of Hate ."
They had come up with a suitably provocative title for their contrived, deliberately misleading
fairy tale about a football culture permeated with vile racism.
The program has disappeared from YouTube; it appears to be available only this
much less trafficked site . But when it was broadcast, it made national headlines in
Poland. The country's biggest television channel took the extraordinary step of broadcasting it
just days later, dubbed in Polish.
Many Poles were outraged at what they recognized as a vicious smear. It is worth noting that
within a week or so, every single person who appeared on camera in the Polish part of
the program claimed publicly to have been misrepresented. This includes Jonathan Ornstein, the
director of the Jewish Community Center of Krakow. I was present for the interview with him,
and he gave thoughtful answers to all of Chris Rogers' questions, always emphasizing that ugly
graffiti and idiots making trouble at stadiums do not represent larger Polish attitudes. In the
program, however, he seems to be leading the charge against horrible, hateful, anti-Semitic
Poland. Mr. Ornstein told me personally how disgusted he was by how his interview was cut apart
and stitched back together.
Even Jacek Purski, director of Never Again , an organization dedicated to monitoring
racism in Poland, says the program was
one-sided . When a "watchdog" group calls a television program "one-sided," you can be sure
it was outrageous.
The Polish government demanded a clarification from the BBC, and even the foreign minister
complained.
Newspapers throughout Europe expressed skepticism, and
reader comments left online were overwhelmingly outraged. The BBC took the very unusual
step of publicly responding
to criticism .
Then the BBC got a huge break from Barack Obama, of all people. During a ceremony at the
White House honoring someone who had survived Auschwitz, Mr. Obama referred to it as a "Polish
death camp" rather than a Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Angry demands for an apology from
the US government pushed "Stadiums of Hate" off the front page. After that, the relentless
media cycle quickly relegated the whole affair to yesterday's news.
Today, criticism of the "Stadiums of Hate" episode takes up more space on the Wikipedia page forPanorama than any other episode
in its history. As the doubts and questions mounted, the BBC seems to have taken pains to get
copies off the internet. There are any number of other full
episodes of
Panorama
on YouTube , but not this one.
I was the least important man on the production crew and had no editorial influence, but I
still felt responsible the episode that millions of people ultimately watched. At the height of
the furor I got in touch with the Polish and foreign press. Their reaction was always the same:
intense initial interest that quickly faded after a better understanding of what was involved.
The explanation I heard over and over was that attacking a program that attacked racism looks
like you're defending racism.
One editor of a major UK newspaper told me it was hard to attack Panorama without a
smoking gun. When I asked for an example, he said one would be someone who admitted he was paid
by the BBC to pretend to be a "racist" hooligan. The man seemed jaded and not at all surprised
by what I told him; he also said he simply could not risk coming across as defending
"racism."
As time goes by, doubts about the program's credibility fade. All anyone will remember is
that the great Chris Rogers exposed horrible racists in Poland and Ukraine. You will have to
dig pretty deep to get the real story. That is the power of the biggest name in news.
Mr. Krak does not expect to get any more work from the BBC.
The documentary was called Stadiums of Hate. I think the quote below, by itself, is enough
to rename it a Documentary of Hate.
Ornstein:
As an American-born Jew living happily and safely in Poland and working diligently to
build Jewish life in that country, I am furious at the way the BBC has exploited me as a
source. The organization used me and others to manipulate the serious subject of
anti-Semitism for its own sensationalist agenda; in doing so, the BBC has insulted all Polish
people and done a disservice to the growing, thriving Jewish community of Poland.
I have reason to believe the BBC similarly misrepresented the black African football
players it used as sources in the same programme.
Moreover, the BBC knowingly cheated its own audience – the British people – by
concocting a false horror story about Poland. In doing so, the BBC has spread fear,
ignorance, prejudice and hatred.
I would urge the BBC to become more aware of its own negative stereotyping of Poles,
before it goes pointing the finger of judgment.
Only causing physical harm to someone that you hate could be termed a hate crime. Hating
someone or something and saying so is not a crime. Hate is a natural emotion and reaction to
something that is unacceptable. Islam and what it teaches is unacceptable, therefore I hate
Islam and I hate the followers of Islam that commit hate-crimes.
The same dishonesty taints nearly everything the BBC puts out. Even drama is hijacked to
carry the globalist message. Whatever is devoid of politics is mindless pap about baking or
dance, etc., to keep the proletariat in a state of goodthink docility.
The author errs when he says
mandatory payments of £150 pounds a year must be made if you own a television set
in Britain
You need only buy a TV 'licence' if you watch TV as it is broadcast , on any
equipment belonging to you. Licences are issued to households; a 'household' may also
comprise a student's room or a communal area such as is found in retirement homes. The BBC,
through agents, maintains a spotty database of every address in the UK. Any unlicensed
address is targeted with letters threatening criminal prosecution. It is legal to own a set
if you just use it for watching DVDs or videos from the net.
There are plenty of ways to thwart the BBC's bagmen, the simplest, healthiest and most
time-efficient being to stop watching television of any description. I did this in 2005.
Since then I have withheld from them the inflation-adjusted equivalent of about £2,000,
plus interest, been blessed with many hours of more interesting, lucrative and enjoyable
pursuits, and saved myself innumerable episodes of anger and disgust. Moreover I have no idea
who any of these 'celebrities' are who grace the tabloids, and have been spared the
pontifications of the assorted arseholes and big-heads whose cretinous and toxic opinions the
BBC daily spews on the British public and, indeed, on the hapless citizens of the rest of the
globe via a propaganda outlet called the BBC World Service.
I commend going TV-free to all. It does wonders for the capacity to think clearly, not to
mention the blood-pressure.
BBC's neutrality ended when the BBC exposed Tony B-liar's lies about Saddam's 45 minutes
WMD's.
The director was fired, replaced by a jew.
As to Polish antisemitism, it existed, still existed around 1967 when Polish jews were
given the opportunity to leave.
And of course, since Israel tries to make Poland responsible for a part of the holocaust, the
gas chamber camps were on Polish territory, Poland responds, they have no desire whatsoever
to be the next victim of the holocaust industry.
As to the why of Polish anti-Semitism, suppose it was in Poland more or less the same as in
Lithuania in the thirties, Jews controlling the economy.
Of course also Polish Catholicism may have played a role.
Jews responsible for the death of the son of god.
Descriptions of Polish antisemitism one finds in
Jan T. Gross, 'Neighbours, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland,
1941', 2003, London Bogdan Musial, ´Sowjetische Partisanen 1941 – 1944, Mythos und Wirklichkeit',
Paderborn 2009
The book describes antisemitism among all E European resistance fighters.
Jews were not or hardly allowed among these resistance fighters.
The novel
André Schwartz-Bart, 'Le Dernier des Justes', 1959, 1980 Paris seems to have been to
some extent autobiographical, with as country of origin Poland.
Described is on the one hand how jews resisted assimilation, wanted to remain jews, even, or
especially, in clothing, on the other hand how non jews did not accept jews, even trying to
prevent they visited the synagogue, or jewish children being insulted in schools.
As nearly always, one wonders why the antagonism., no explanation.
The program had a scripted conclusion before a single camera was turned on.
This seems self-evident and yet it's rarely or never said. Cameras and word processors
don't operate autonomously. Somebody begins with a story, a narrative, they wish to convey.
They then point their camera at things they choose, or cherrypick, to illustrate their
narrative. Afterwards, they carefully edit, or censor, what they've recorded making sure that
only that most sympathetic to their narrative is shown. It is ALL propaganda. And it is
ubiquitous.
It is up to the viewer or reader to filter the information presented, to sift through it
for specks of unbiased Truth that may have somehow survived their unlikely journey past the
narrative writer, his editors, their advertisers and lawyers, to the end product. Thus we see
a "News Report" about "a fight that broke out among a group of youths" where the amateur
video shows us a pack of feral young negroes, without provocation, attacks a lone white and
after knocking him unconscious rifles through his pockets removing his phone and wallet
before running off in jubilation.
And yet, despite this being shown to us time and again, incessantly, most people still
trust their "News" sources!
And, as Ron Unz has so often shown us on this very site, History is nothing more than
yesterday's "News."
The open question, really, is whether or not it is even possible to obtain information
assembled and presented by an organization that does not fit the paradigm described above.
And, considering the amount of time and cognition required for one to even attempt to find
Truth in media, what are the chances that an average viewer or reader (bear in mind
illiteracy rates) of average intelligence (bear in mind the left side of the bell curve) can
obtain anything resembling a sense of Reality on which he may inform his opinions and
beliefs? How often do we hear older people say things like, "I remember when you used to be
able to get straight News from Walter Cronkite.." oblivious to the Truth above?
The BBC twists the truth!? Having also worked in the UK tv industry, the only proper
response is "do bears etc?" But thank you, Mr Krak, for having recorded your experiences.
The truth is that the Cultural Marxism movement was about the take over of all
institutions of white european culture and turning them against white europeans.
Professional sports was subverted almost a century ago. The racist anti-German propaganda
of WWI and WWII was already strongly "semitic". The ascendence of Hollywood really marks the
heeb takeover of American entertainment industry and the beach head for the conquest of the
entire culture.
So as we enter 2019, I cannot think of one aspect of western European culture that is not
heavily influenced by heebs, under their control or outright under their ownership. Even the
alt-right "nazi's" are really just a bunch of jew cut-outs like Breitbard, Savage and
Shapiro. Then there are all the crypto jews like Alex Jones or even Jordan Peterson. Many
white Europeans are talmudists without having even a drop of jewish blood.
The BBC has been a Tavistock propaganda organ since its inception. After the Armistice and
Versailles in 1919, the masonic-zionist propaganda war against the planet never stopped.
Every new technology was first weaponized for use in mind control before release to the
general population. Even the internet itself was also conceived at Darpa as a mind control
tool and is closely linked to the trans-humanist and cultural marxist agenda.
So if you want to successfully attack the BBC, you also have to attack MI5, MI6, CIA, NSA,
MIC, the entire 5 eyes spy network, the Queen of England, the Catholic Church, the US deep
state, Israel, and ultimately their jewish god who in reality is Satan.
So to me it seems that obsessing about football hooligans is rather pointless, any
movement to try to deal with any of the symptoms of our take over will quickly be subsumed.
Like the occupy movement. Or the alt-right. Or the yellow-vests.
To kill this snake you will have to cut off its head.
"... If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another. ..."
"... The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.' ..."
"... There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech. ..."
"... I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. ..."
"... Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome. ..."
After contemplating the likely intelligence and propaganda efforts of HMG over the last 15 years or so I am puzzled as to motivation.
Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little to do with the welfare
of Britain. Why? I suppose that the same question can be asked for the US and I have.
In re "Our man in Havana" I think there
are many issues raised in the work that apply directly to the trade of espionage.
The question why? is a very interesting but also very dispiriting one, but also one which it is quite hard to get one's head
round. I hope to have something more coherent to say about it.
Among many reasons, however, there has been a kind of intellectual disintegration.
If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.'
It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating
one ham-fisted cover-up after another.
The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador
Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in
Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.'
Subsequently, of course, he set about colluding in the process. And, sixteen years later, Dearlove is still at it, with 'Russiagate'
-- and the product being actually accepted much more uncritically by the MSM than it was then.
And that is one of the problems -- nobody any longer pays any penalty for failure, or indeed feels any sense of shame about
it..
There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying
Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with
Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech.
As the Colonel eloquently asks:
"I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem
to have little todo with the welfare of Britain. Why?"
I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating
their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened
in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world
(with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.
Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May,
Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though
there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome.
(I don't include the Maurice Cowling-ites in this fandango because they strike me as more Little Englanders. Though Peterhouse
is of course, shamefully, the HQ of the Henry Jackson Society).
"... If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.' It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating one ham-fisted cover-up after another. ..."
"... The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.' ..."
"... There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech. ..."
"... I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world (with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies. ..."
"... Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome. ..."
After contemplating the likely intelligence and propaganda efforts of HMG over the last 15 years or so I am puzzled as to motivation.
Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem to have little to do with the welfare
of Britain. Why? I suppose that the same question can be asked for the US and I have.
In re "Our man in Havana" I think there
are many issues raised in the work that apply directly to the trade of espionage.
The question why? is a very interesting but also very dispiriting one, but also one which it is quite hard to get one's head
round. I hope to have something more coherent to say about it.
Among many reasons, however, there has been a kind of intellectual disintegration.
If I had the talent and energy, I might write a sequel to the 'Quiet American', to be entitled 'The Noisy Englishmen.'
It would feature a series of inept conspiracies, involving ludicrous means used in support of preposterous ends, necessitating
one ham-fisted cover-up after another.
The central characters might be loosely based on Christopher Steele, Matt Tait, Eliot Higgins, and our former UN Ambassador
Matthew Rycroft, author of the July 2002 Downing Street memorandum, in which Sir Richard Dearlove was quoted explaining how, in
Washington, 'the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.'
Subsequently, of course, he set about colluding in the process. And, sixteen years later, Dearlove is still at it, with 'Russiagate'
-- and the product being actually accepted much more uncritically by the MSM than it was then.
And that is one of the problems -- nobody any longer pays any penalty for failure, or indeed feels any sense of shame about
it..
There is a 1990's British historian (whose name I've been trying to rediscover without success) who wrote a sunny book saying
Britain should return to its imperialist ways to bring light to the dark and repressive world we live in. It was a great hit with
Blair and his henchmen. Blair used its arguments in his notorious 1999 Chicago neo-conservative/liberal interventionist speech.
As the Colonel eloquently asks:
"I am puzzled as to motivation. Why? Why? The UK is now a regional power for which events in places like Syria would seem
to have little todo with the welfare of Britain. Why?"
I'd draw attention to "The Brideshead Revisited" generation especially at Oxford in the early 80's. Unashamedly celebrating
their wealth and upper middle class privately-educated backgrounds, they viewed themselves as a gilded, golden generation, preened
in narcissism, adept at networking and self-promotion. They are the generation now in power - politically, financially, in the deep state. Their fantasy of again ruling the world
(with American and Zionist aid) has led to a series of catastrophic blunders and overreaches in both foreign and domestic policies.
Our economic power - the base of any imperial power - is shrinking daily. All the Oxfordites (chief amongst them Theresa May,
Boris Johnson and Michael Gove) are still playing Oxford Union/PPE games and stabbing each other joyously in the back as though
there's no tomorrow. It most ressembles the halluciogenic decadence of the court of late Imperial Rome.
(I don't include the Maurice Cowling-ites in this fandango because they strike me as more Little Englanders. Though Peterhouse
is of course, shamefully, the HQ of the Henry Jackson Society).
"... The British Private Eye finds a relation between the Integrity Initiative and the Rendon Group which drove the propaganda for the Iraq invasion. ..."
Forgot to link this: The
Briefing note
on the Integrity Initiative by Paul McKeigue, David Miller, Jake Mason and Piers Robinson is the most complete analysis of the
Integrity Initiative papers.
The British Private Eye finds a relation
between the Integrity Initiative and the Rendon Group which drove the propaganda for the Iraq invasion.
I'll have to say more on the issue. For some fun, check the attachment to this tweet. (Klarenberg writes for Sputnik.)
"Jornos for hire" are now mainstream. Much like escort services.
Again, it's pure projection. These vermin are literally incapable of looking at anything except in terms of how it can
be used as a weapon (or how it can be destroyed), so they automatically attribute that fundamentalist way of looking at things to everyone
else, and especially to the "enemy". So by definition anything Putin and the Russians do is some kind of "weaponization".
Notable quotes:
"... Yes! All true! But I weaponised Vladimir Putin to make media profits, newspapers (Guardian!), radio (BBC), internet (Bellingcat). Evidently only the Brits understand me. The US does the same in a different style. ..."
"... Here is what Americans really think about the anti-Russia hysteria coming from Washington: https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/08/americans-on-russia-will-of-people.html Washington has completely lost touch with what Main Street America really believes. ..."
"... And besides humor I am sure Putin is also weaponizing calendars, at least in Japan. Maybe in exchange for keeping the Kuril islands: Putin calendar sales surpassing those of Japanese stars in Japan What I am wondering is, if the socalled "Western Elite" maybe actually believe what they are saying and are not aware that it is a self-created illusion they are chaught in. Otherwise I can not understand why they are again and again surprised if Russia is not behaving they way they expected. ..."
"... Yes, these are projections, and they tell us the final world war, a war of aggression by the US against China and Russia, will be a total war beyond our imaginations. (Unless real leftists and real lovers of peace can stop it.) ..."
"... I think this insane epidemic illustrates the degree to which the Western propaganda system has completely decoupled the population from reality. ..."
"... The underlying problem: Russia has weaponized telling the truth. ..."
"... Yes, I'd agree that's part of its purpose -- to prevent the unification of Eurasia, which as I wrote last week's proceeding apace. They're trying to wall off Japan too, so I wonder if Japanese media's as flush with the same garbage as BigLie Media. ..."
"... Although likely covered by weaponizing incompetence and stupidity, Putin has certainly weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's appalling lack of a professional diplomatic corp--just look at who he gets Trump to nominate to key diplomatic positions. ..."
"... Hey guys, guys, you are not getting the point man. There is something really creepy about this Russia place, like Midas. Everything they touch turns to weapons. ..."
"... But since the fall of Communism in Russia, I have lost all belief in anything like a new Cold War. After all, when I was in parochial school, we prayed for the conversion of Russia. Now, that has been accomplished. Russia's government is more Christian than Western governments ..."
"... Truth weaponized. Five eyes pulling out all stops in its propaganda campaign to defeat it. ..."
Several of the pieces listed in it are products of the recently uncovered
British government
financed disinformation campaign , or of similar efforts by other governments. But these are only a part of the general anti-Russian
reflex that is ingrained in our 'western' culture. Nothing else can explain the craziness of these 'weaponizing' claims.
The updated list with some 65 issues, ideas and things that Russia allegedly 'weaponizes' will hopefully help to convince people
that most of what is said or written about Russia is likewise blatant nonsense.
Yes! All true! But I weaponised Vladimir Putin to make media profits, newspapers (Guardian!), radio (BBC), internet (Bellingcat).
Evidently only the Brits understand me. The US does the same in a different style.
And besides humor I am sure Putin is also weaponizing calendars, at least in Japan. Maybe in exchange for keeping the Kuril
islands:
Putin calendar sales surpassing those of Japanese stars in Japan What I am wondering is, if the socalled "Western Elite"
maybe actually believe what they are saying and are not aware that it is a self-created illusion they are chaught in. Otherwise
I can not understand why they are again and again surprised if Russia is not behaving they way they expected.
Yes, these are projections, and they tell us the final world war, a war of aggression by the US against China and Russia,
will be a total war beyond our imaginations. (Unless real leftists and real lovers of peace can stop it.)
I think this insane epidemic illustrates the degree to which the Western propaganda system has completely decoupled the
population from reality. Now whether it's believed or not is neither here nor there as it's built upon decades of anti-communism
and the inherent racism of the Anglo-Saxon Empire that has demonized the Russians as essentially backward peasants who cannot
be trusted. Worse still, the Russkies have ginormous weapons!
I agree that both 'sides' in a phony cold war 2.0 weaponize just about anything of a controversial nature or event in civilization.
Both sides are advancing agenda that are leading humanity in the same direction even as they create a false adversarial paradigm.
This has been termed non linear psychological warfare under which such a confusing array of created realities leaves the greater
public unable to define what is real or a fabrication. It takes at least two or more to create the illusions and the 'other' can
simply be created/funded as controlled opposition and then even this can be published to further create more confusion within
the confusion. Carl Rove told us this. He just didn't tell us that the 'Empire' also includes Russia, China and any number of
other corporate national jurisdictions.
More seriously, this is not "stupidity" of the political class, as some pundits would have you believe. It is a well thought-out
retrenchment plan of attempting to institute a new "iron curtain" to separate Europe from Asia after the demise of unipolarity.
Yes, I'd agree that's part of its purpose -- to prevent the unification of Eurasia, which as I wrote last week's proceeding
apace. They're trying to wall off Japan too, so I wonder if Japanese media's as flush with the same garbage as BigLie Media.
Russia's weaponized Arctic
Ocean or perhaps Russia's weaponized the lack of proper marine maintenance. Russia's also weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's
lack of naval or other Arctic Ocean land-based infrastructure -- there's zip to support any off-shore drilling from Alaska's coastline.
IOW, Russia's weaponizing a plethora of Outlaw US Empire weaknesses.
And what the Sputnik article refers to as the heavy US icebreaker Polar Star is more roughly one half the size of the
nuclear powered Russian icebreaker 50 Years of Victory, 50 лет Победы . I suspect the Russians would call the Polar
Star a light icebreaker. Sputnik probably probably being polite.
Way back in the 1950s the Pentagon (specifically the Air Force) was all atwitter over unsubstantiated reports (again leaked by
the Air Force) that the Soviets (read: the Russians) were building a nuclear powered strategic bomber that would have unlimited
range and flight time. Well now. You know what that means? We gotta have one too! So guess what. The Air Force dutifully volunteered
to save the US and Western civilization from being bombed back to the stone age and godless communism all at the same time by
building a nuclear powered bomber of our own. To make a long story short the effort failed miserably. The project managed to last
into the Kennedy administration but was cancelled in favor of developing submarine launched ICBMs. While the nuclear bomber program
died it's spirit lived on. During the Carter administration the then chief of Air Force intelligence (yes I know there's no such
thing) became convinced that the russkies were building ground-based and orbiting death ray machines to use against US satellites
and ICBMs. Thus was born "Star Wars." Of course this fit in perfectly with the Reagan administration's defense views even though
the engineering and science simply didn't exist then of now. Well as the french say the "more things change the more they remain
the same"
Some people get weaponized on business trips to Moscow. This video shows how they do it...
https://youtu.be/8cs4tKdiiI4 Posted by: dh | Dec 17, 2018 10:36:48
AM | 15
Move over Russia make room for the Chinese weapon program.. its much more dangerous than the Russian disinformation program,
unlike Russia, the Chinese circumvent the USA Senate, the President, and the SCOUS and go directly to the poor, innocent governed
humans, lending them money, creating for them jobs and developing infra structure to make life easier; such will be the end of
us all. WE MUST REMEMBER Aake news and made up fictions are produced by the six entities that own 92 of the media. Without the
Internet and other public infra structure, the media could not smear you with its dirty tricks. Someone please pass the soap.
"weaponizing terrorism "? because until Putin all "terrorists" sat around talking and sipping tea like the goddamn mclaughlin
group? then again, given the outsize influence of objectively insane think tanks in DC, maybe they were onto something.
funny how this can also be seen as what psychology types call "projection". in a culture like the west's (especially the states)
where the economies are built on warfare and financial voodoo, everything is either "weaponized" or collateralized. look at anything
on that list and it's something from which someone "atlantic" has tried or will try to make money. of course, many things start
out weaponized and are then collateralized
. weaponized taxes? weaponized corporate welfare?
hey, if a bunch of white/israeli suburbanite music executives in LA can control rap, it should be pretty easy. side note: rap
is officially banned in iran. some say it's been deemed "satanic". Years ago when i was grooving to das efx or public enemy i'd
have disagreed but now that the big names are drake, minaj and meek mill...only malevolent supernatural evil can explain that.
I'm shocked to learn that "Russia is weaponizing its Coast Guard",
https://warisboring.com/russia-is-weaponizing-its-coast-guard/
The author seems quite angry the Russians are using their "Coast Guard" of all things, to defend their coast. He thinks they should
have used their Navy instead!
"The use of the Russian Federation Navy to close the strait would have been more likely to escalate because it would have
been a military-on-military clash. In contrast, using the Russian coast guard made it a law enforcement issue rather than a
military-sanctioned act of war. Russia is adept at using legal channels to pursue violations of justice. It now appears willing
to use its coast guard for this purpose.
Onshore, the situation in eastern Ukraine has been stuck in a rut. Perhaps the escalation in the Sea of Azov was seen by
the Russians as a means to break the impasse, using the flimsy legal cover provided by the coast guard. No similar terrestrial
options exist, as the Russians have exhausted their plausible deniability for operations by police, volunteers and undercover
"little green men."
While Russian seizure of the Azov coast was anticipated, it was not expected to use its coast guard. Utilizing the Russian
coast guard in this way opens a new range of options for Moscow, in the Sea of Azov and beyond."
Although likely covered by weaponizing incompetence and stupidity, Putin has certainly weaponized the Outlaw US Empire's appalling
lack of a professional diplomatic corp--just look at who he gets Trump to nominate to key diplomatic positions. Indeed, perhaps
this ought to be enlarged to include weaponizing mediocrity as portrayed by Trump's entire Cabinet. We can also see the great
strides Putin's made in making the Outlaw US Empire appear as the Ogre it is by weaponizing Anglo-American Exceptionalism. It
seems, given the above list and its additions via comments, that the Outlaw US Empire is most exceptional at being incapable of
weaponizing anything aside from its #1 go-to--The BigLie.
Strategic Message Code One , Dec 17, 2018 3:04:33 PM |
link
Hey guys, guys, you are not getting the point man. There is something really creepy about this Russia place, like Midas. Everything
they touch turns to weapons. I seen it here as well, every Russia thing is trouble of some kind, like there is nothing else
that comes from there. I seen Russian people and they ok, but now I'm frightened to get close to them in case I turn into a weapon.
Aan here too guys, Russia touches the west an the west as consequence are all buying weapons an using them everywhere, they cant
do nothing cause Russia makes them weaponators too. Oh my, we are doomed man and waponized press freakin me out aaaaaaahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A quote from the report mentioned in (50): "Although the NDS generally reflects the right priorities and objectives, it
is not supported by adequate investments. It is beyond the scope of this Commission's work to identify the exact dollar amount
required to fully fund the military's needs, but the available means are clearly insufficient to fulfill the strategy's ends.
This is true despite the two-year funding increase for FY2018 and FY2019 provided by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018."
What would be particularly interesting is also to see how the money flow is helping the (we all know it) struggling news organizations.
I believe many of these quasi-journalists are going hat in hand to various agencies that have some of that propaganda money. Most
of them would need to work for weeks getting paid a measly amount, but doing a couple of these anti-Russia pieces gets them paid
well. I certainly think the Guardian has such an arrangement with MI5/6.
The recipe is using the wonderwords like Putin, Russia,
'weaponizing', hackers, cyber, fake news...
I believe the Saker was pointing out a few days ago that the Border Guards were often more like spetsnaz than what we in the
west think of as a border patrol. The Russian Coast Guard has probably maintained the tradition.
I see culture's already been deemed weaponized, but
here's Putin's actual plan he laid out in his speech to a meeting of the Presidential Council for Culture and Art in St Petersburg
two days ago. Introductory remarks:
"... global competition in creating best conditions for self-fulfilment and revealing the potential of each individual is
growing, and the world's leading powers including Russia, rightly see it as a key to the future. Of course, a significant role
here will belong to establishing a vibrant, rich cultural space, which will be interesting and attractive not only for the
citizens of our country but also for the whole world."
Meanwhile within the Outlaw US Empire, Boy Scouts of America is about to
file for bankruptcy thanks
to the many sexual abuse lawsuits it now faces. This leads me to declare yet another Russian accomplishment: Putin has weaponized
Machiavellian divide and rule by enticing the Outlaw US Empire's Deep State -- years prior to his birth! -- to promote and escalate
what's known as the Culture Wars used to ensure a continuing inability to achieve solidarity by the USA's polity.
Anaya, I take it you took a look-see at its staff and there's a lot of them! Yeah, that's what prompted my own feelings about
it. The report has apparently been published but I've not yet seen it.
The '150 million' influenced by those scheming Russkies, has been floating for awhie. I first saw it used in a Euro-based setup,
funded by NATO I think. I'll try and dig it out as I remember writing something about.
This kind of "Weaponization" is far less expensive than say an F35 or a 13bn Ford class Aircraft carrier, but the more of them
you build the safer you will be from the "Weaponization" of coloring books. Nuke crayons now! The state of the US and its
military in my view is that they can't win a war against anyone, all they can do is blow up the world with nukes - the only question
is will they deny the world to everyone if they can't own it.
It's a shame we can't massively disseminate our weaponization of ridicule contained in b's article and our commentary. I wonder
how many comedians are making good money ridiculing the entire weaponization meme, and not just in English.
What I'd like to see at all US government pressers is for uncontrollable laughter to break out amongst the press when the spokesperson
begins speaking and continue until it leaves the podium, followed by the press exiting the room.
In case you haven't yet heard, Heather Nauert replaces Nutty Nikki as US ambassador to the UN so 'tis there that Matt Lee and
his fellow journos must trek (it's gonna be a long way to NYC) to get their regular dose of laughter.
Here in my exceptional country it is customary at the end of each year to declare a "word of the year", some from past years were
truthiness, Y2K and hashtag.
but it didn't go after the current Russian govt. It pointed out how the US imitates the Soviets in weaponizing psychiatry by
declaring dissidents crazy. You have to be insane to disagree with TPTB.
I'm sure the comedian replacing Nauert will be just as distracting and of similar character.
Did you happen to read Caitlin Johnstone's
Twenty-One Thoughts On The Persecution Of Julian Assange , particularly #s 8-10 as they relate to her essay about narratives?
All our rather witty ridicule is almost totally wasted on us--we don't need to hear it; it's those people Caitlin refers to in
her 8-10 that require the deep pin-prick of ridicule to snap them from their torpor and return them to reality and to rational
thinking.
The biggest weapon in the West arsenal is private finance. Private finance is the jackboot that keep nations/governments/individuals
in line. Private finance has been the primary weapon of control for centuries. China/Russia are trying to weaponize alternative
finance......and succeeding......which is why the world is all in a tither.
I think it has to do with what one has studied. I have four university degrees: B.A. in Classics from Princeton, A.B. in Classics
from Oxford, Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Harvard, and a J.D. from Yale. I spent a lot of time in the U.S. military: four
years in the active duty U.S. Air Force, plus something like 15 years in the reserves, largely of the U.S. Navy. For as long as
the original Cold War lasted and Communism ruled Russia, I was a true believer in the Cold War. It now looks to me as if I was
misguided at the time, but that is what I believed, whether despite or because of my education, I don't know which.
But since the fall of Communism in Russia, I have lost all belief in anything like a new Cold War. After all, when I was
in parochial school, we prayed for the conversion of Russia. Now, that has been accomplished. Russia's government is more Christian
than Western governments. I think someone with a classical education like the one I got is more capable of thinking for himself.
I don't think my education disabled me from thinking critically and independently.
BB 93 Truth weaponized. Five eyes pulling out all stops in its propaganda campaign to defeat it.
Hoarsewhisperer 95 He may well be, but with the passing of several years and his actions in that time appear to be ardent
zionist. The swamp to him are those that frittered away US unilateral power and those that did not sufficiently support Israel.
What Trump views as the swamp is not what most of us view as the swamp. Kissinger was not forced upon Trump, rather his thinking
is in line with that of Kissinger.
"... To get an idea of how Gladio 2.0 is now investing each corner of our lives, including art and education, I saw recently on the flyer of a sculpture exhibition in a 5-eyes country that two artists, one born in 1901 and one in 1914 were "famous Cold War artists". Of course, there was nothing political in their work, the first died in 1966 and the other in 2003... ..."
To get an idea of how Gladio 2.0 is now investing each corner of our lives, including art
and education, I saw recently on the flyer of a sculpture exhibition in a 5-eyes country that
two artists, one born in 1901 and one in 1914 were "famous Cold War artists". Of course,
there was nothing political in their work, the first died in 1966 and the other in
2003...
In EU universities you now see all sorts of "labs" popping out, with EU funding from the
"digital" budget. They are trying to recruit people with a very odd profile: ambitious, ONG
oriented, IT familiar. The reason why these labs insist on the ONG type activities is
dubious. An example of US/EU sponsored project involving refugees in Greece, neurosciences
and mobile phones (check Harvard/Data&Society: Refugee Connectivity)
"... The neoconservatives in the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton and the Syria envoy James Jeffery, are scrambling to save their plans for Syria that President Trump disposed of when he ordered a complete retreat. ..."
"... Trump is certainly a 'faux populist' all right wing populists are. That is what fascism is, empty promises to the people while promoting the interests of the 1% and violently dismantling the democratic structures that might be used to control the state. ..."
"... The real wolves in sheep's clothing were the ascendance of Clinton, Blair, and the like in the early 1990s ..."
The neoconservatives in the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
National Security Advisor John Bolton and the Syria envoy James Jeffery, are scrambling to
save their plans for Syria that President Trump disposed of when he ordered a complete
retreat.
Those plans were for a permanent U.S. occupation of northeast Syria, the reduction of
Iranian influence within the government held parts of Syria and an eventual disposal of the
Syrian government under President Assad through negotiations. These were unicorn aims that
had no chance to ever be achieved.
Moreover Trump had
never signed off on these ideas. Back in April he had announced that he wanted U.S.
troops out of Syria. He gave his staff six month to achieve that. But instead of following
those orders Pompeo and Bolton tried to implement their own plans:
Late last year, some of the president's hawkish advisers drafted a memo committing the
United States to a longer-term presence in Syria that included goals of an enduring
defeat of the Islamic State, a political transition and the expulsion of Iran, officials
said. The president has not signed the memo, which was presented to him weeks ago.
In fact, Trump had warned his aides for months that he wanted out of Syria in short
order.
...
Bolton's Iran plan never really took effect at the Pentagon, where officials were not
officially tasked with any new mission in addition to the operation against the Islamic
State. Military officials likewise viewed Iran's expansion into Syria as problematic, but
they were skeptical about the lack of a clear legal justification that would be required
for offensive military action against Iranian-backed forces.
Trump recognized that those plans were nonsense and ordered to end them. In that process
he came up with a likewise unicorn idea - to hand northeast Syria to Turkey to fight the
already defeated Islamic State. Turkey
does not want northeast Syria. It does not want to risk a bloody war against the Kurds
that would be required to sustain such an occupation. It looks like the US advisors like
Bolton are really circling around looking for another way to get into the fight. Air
support for the Turks in an ongoing massacre might suit them. Will the Russian allow it
though?
You mentioned Sykes-Picot. The whole situation reminds me of the late great Yugoslavia
and the Balkan Wars. Divide everybody up by ethnicity or religion (Croats are Catholics,
Serbians are Orthodox not to mention the various Muslims and Albanians lurking about) and
set them at each other's throats.
Time for the Russians to remind the Americans they said they were leaving and if they
don't leave now, the door will hit them on the way out. The clock is ticking.
The situation in Syria is coming along nicely. Kurds negotiating with Damascus, Turk
proxies all out of Idlib and AQ takeover of Idlib. Much harder now for the US and UK to
stand up for the 'people' of Idlib when the offensive goes ahead. Be interesting to see
what the color coded map of Syria looks like at this time next year.
It looks like Bolton and Pompeo are making last attempts to turn things around, presumably
with Netanyahu's involvement in the conspiracy. I wonder whether they, and Trump, even
understood what an irreversible decision announcing the pull-out was. Once Trump had told
the Kurds to piss off, they were bound to go and make a deal with Asad. I said this on here
weeks ago immediately after the announcement; it was obvious. Trump telling them not to is
not going to have any effect. I really don't think they understood the political
consequences. There you are, the leaders of the most powerful nation on earth, and they
don't even bother to consult advisors (mind you, Washington advisors are pretty idiotic
too).
Trump claims Mattis' resignation as a 'win' but allows Bolton to continue his neocon
machinations?
Numerous MSM articles appear about Trump's standing up to the Generals: Mattis, Kelly,
Dunford, etc. Yet Bolton feels free to conspire against the President's agenda?
The narrative that Trump is fighting for his campaign promises but allows Bolton and
Pompeo to scheme against him is nonsensical.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
My view (which I've repeated numerous times at MoA) is that Trump is a faux
populist . He is the Republican Obama - pretending to be a populist peacemaker while
working for the establishment. The "populist hero" is a gimmick that reinforces people's
belief in USA democracy and the righteousness of USA actions. The Trump/Deep-State conflict
is a propaganda psy-op.
The Israeli Christmas attack was likely an attempted false flag (trying to get SAA to
shoot down a civilian airliner like they did weeks before to a Russian military plane). It
was likely coordinated with USA because Trump's "pull out" announcement and Mattis'
resignation occurred only days before .
Trump leads the political wing of the US Deep State. They know that they don't have
public support for stepped up military operations in the Middle East. But they have an
agenda (anti-Iran, pro-Israel) that requires that they re-commit to ME. They need a
false flag.
For the US to withdraw like this will prove to the region and the world that the US has
been defeated and is just a paper tiger. Next, Iraq will be wanting the US to get out.
Attacking Iran will become a fantasy. And this could just spread and spread.
This could well be the start of an incredible diminishment of US influence in the region
(and then the rest of the world). Negotiations with Syria and Russia could mitigate at
least the look of what is happening, but no effort is made in this regard.
For these reasons it just feels over-optimistic (to me) that the US will just pull-out
like this.
Trump is certainly a 'faux populist' all right wing populists are. That is what fascism
is, empty promises to the people while promoting the interests of the 1% and violently
dismantling the democratic structures that might be used to control the state.
Trump is all about attacking democracy, making voting tough, promoting the Courts over
the legislatures, dismantling regulations and silencing critics.
We all knew that.
But the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he
plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each
other, is bizarre.
There is collusion alright: all involved want to rip off the taxpayers and cram the
people back into their box. But there is a genuine struggle going on within the ruling
class over how best to run the scam in a changing world- whether to attack Russia and/or
China, whether to settle for cheap gains in Latin America and Africa, for example, and wait
until things swing in Uncle Sam's way again, whether to push the Europeans into full Cold
War brinkmanship mode, whether to calm down Israel or whip it up into a frenzy...
The world's a complex place and Washington's influence is declining quickly, people are
panicking. And it is all real.
Trump is a businessman, first and foremost. His view of the presidency is essentially being
CEO of United States, Inc. His policies are aimed at removing what he sees as bad deals for
the employees and shareholders of that corporation. Basically it's about profit and loss.
He sees border security (building the wall) as necessary to stop the outflow of money and
lives as the result of illegal immigrants. He sees businesses moving operations back to the
US as necessary to reduce the US's economic dependence on the rest of the world. He sees
maintaining and strengthening US military might as necessary for providing a service to the
rest of the world that they will pay a fair price for. The tariffs and trade deals
are also about the US being paid fair prices (in his eyes). Thus Trump is essentially
mercantilist in his outlook.
Of course, a businessman is not the same thing as an economist, and Trump is no
economist. He seems to focus entirely on what Frederic Bastiat called "the seen" and thus
to ignore "the unseen" (i.e. the bigger picture). This is entirely in line with being a
businessman. Businessmen typically concentrate on their own narrow interests. Under free
enterprise, the interplay among their various narrow interests results in the common good
being served regardless - but it almost goes without saying that we certainly don't live
under free enterprise today.
Trump is a populist in the sense of wanting economic benefits to be enjoyed more broadly
by the American people, instead of primarily benefiting an increasingly tiny elite. He
doesn't seem to understand that US economic benefits are primarily the result of the US
dollar being the world reserve currency (which is, of course, enforced by US military
might) - or, at least, he doesn't seem to understand that his policies could well bring an
end to that situation. This is why the aforementioned elite is trying to steer him away
from his own policies and outright opposing him when it can't.
None of the above is a justification of Trump and his policies, just an observation.
The real wolves in sheep's clothing were the ascendance of Clinton, Blair, and the like
in the early 1990s - as the populations of the West had grown weary of the Cold War
establishment and largely favoured, if not a progressive agenda, then certainly a
reallocation of resources away from national security towards serious environmental issues
etc. Such faux progressive figures never faced anything like the extreme pressure focussed
on Trump. I certainly wouldn't endorse Trump, but he has faced the treatment one would
expect for any unvetted person who approaches actual position (as with Corbyn).
The neo-cons may hold appointed office under Trump, but little of their policy
initiatives gain any traction. A year ago, their plan was to move into a full military
confrontation with North Korea. The propaganda trail had been well laid, and a major
conference with an "allied coalition" had been set for Vancouver to unveil the strategy -
but it was quietly cancelled and effectively dropped for unknown reasons. Now there is
utter incoherence in Middle East strategy. The only effective foreign policy for the US
right now is the hawkish stance on China, which is being lead by economic wonks not
neo-cons. And this plan is running into serious complications regarding the global economy.
I think the rise of Clinton and Blair heralded a generation of rather mediocre political
figures whose legacy will be the abrupt decline of the Anglo-Euro geo-political position,
which is being realized right now and there is indeed a sense of panic.
News that the BBC is trying to tie the Gilets Jaunes movement to the Kremlin reaches the
Russian Foreign Ministry. Betting that Lavrov, Zakharova and company are all having a laugh
as well.
Just when you think British news media couldn't fall any deeper into their rabbit hole ...
down, down farther they go into the abyss ... aaarrgghhh ...
"... Some of the people at the Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project are banal presstitutes ready to oblige the top clients (management) for a modest pay, whereas others are real criminals whose ideas and orders have been endangering the western civilization -- and humankind at large. ..."
"... People are building their careers on this garbage! ..."
The Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project are run by people.
These people display a stunning level of immorality by lying and war-mongering.
Some of the people at the Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project are banal
presstitutes ready to oblige the top clients (management) for a modest pay, whereas others are real criminals whose ideas and
orders have been endangering the western civilization -- and humankind at large.
It would be proper to publish a roster of the presstitutes and their idiotic managers working at the Oxford University's Computational
Propaganda Project and the Integrity Initiative Project
About half an hour ago I opened News.Google.Com these are some of their major headlines:
Russians sought to recruit 'assets' through social media, Senate told - CNN . one hour
ago
Russua favored Trump, targeted African-Americans with election meddling, reports say -
NBC News . one hour ago
New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation's
scale and sweep - The Washington Post . today
Senate report finds millions of social media posts by Russians aimed at helping Trump,
GOP - USA TODAY . 2 hours ago
Silicon Valley may have done 'bare minimum' to help Russia investigation, Senate Intel
Committee told - CNN . one hour ago
I opened the one from the Washington Post:
Headline: "New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the
operation's scale and sweep"
Subtext: "The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the
first to analyze the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate
Intelligence Committee."
The headline is meant to give the impression that the report was prepared at *The Behest*
of the Senate. If you read the article it would have you believe that it *was* written at the
behest of the Senate but does not say that specifically.
Well? Was it? I have tried to track it down and could use some assistance.
Buried in a CBS NEWS version of the article is this sentence: "The Committee welcomed the
research effort without endorsing either report's findings."
USA TODAY says it *was* "Senate Reports". The lead paragraph is this: "WASHINGTON –
The Senate released Monday a pair of reports that found Russia engaged in an all-out social
media campaign on Donald Trump's behalf during the 2016 election and continued to support him
after he took office."
"People are building their careers on this garbage!"
Josh said at #60
"What would be particularly interesting is also to see how the money flow is helping the
(we all know it) struggling news organizations. I believe many of these
quasi-journalists are going hat in hand to various agencies that have some of that
propaganda money. Most of them would need to work for weeks getting paid a measly amount,
but doing a couple of these anti-Russia pieces gets them paid well. I certainly think
the Guardian has such an arrangement with MI5/6. The recipe is using the wonderwords like Putin, Russia, 'weaponizing', hackers, cyber,
fake news..."
Obama strategy in Syria was replica of Clinton strategy in Yugoslavia during the Balkan Wars. Divide everybody up by ethnicity
or religion (Croats are Catholics, Serbians are Orthodox not to mention the various Muslims and Albanians lurking about), arm
them, create false flags to set them at each other's throats. Enjoy the results.
Obama like Clinton before him was a real wolve in sheep's clothing
Notable quotes:
"... Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving US imperialism a pleasing face. ..."
"... Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump. ..."
But the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he
plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each
other, is bizarre.
I would've agreed with you before Obama. I followed the criticisms of Obama from true
progressives closely. It was clear within 2 or 3 years that Obama was betraying his 'base'.
His lofty rhetoric didn't match his actions. His Nobel Peace Prize can only be viewed
today as a ruse. He talked of peace and fairness but worked behind the scenes to further the
establishment.
Fast forward to the 2016 election where Sanders was a sheepdog and Hillary ran a terrible
campaign. It's difficult to look back and not be at least somewhat suspicious of the 2016
election. A populist nationalist was what the Deep State NEEDED to face the threat from
Russia and China to their NWO project. And that is what they got. After recognizing the
threat in 2013-14 (when Russia countered the Empire in Syria and Ukraine).
Similar excuses are made for both Obama and Trump. We are told that they were FORCED to
succumb to Deep State scheming and political power. But a much more logical view is that
these "populists" know exactly what they are doing: they know what their 'job' is to serve
the establishment and act as the leader of the Deep State's political arm. In return they get
financial gain, social standing, and life long protection. Sweet.
Obama 'turned the page' on the Bush Administration's warmongering. He promised a more
peaceful USA. But he conducted covert wars and bragged of his drone targeting.
Trump 'turned the page' on Obama's deceitfulness. He promised to put 'America First' but
within months attacked Syria with missiles "for the babies". Evidence that his first attack
was prompted by a false flag didn't deter him from attacking AGAIN - also based on a false
flag. Trump is still helping the Saudis in Yemen. And he's not doing what's necessary to get
peace in Korea.
Obama promised 'transparency' ("Sunlight is the best disinfectant") but 'no drama' Obama
protected CIA torturers, NSA spies, and bankers. Trump promised to "drain the swamp" but has
welcomed oligarchs and neocons into his Administration.
How much sly BS do we have to see before people connect the dots? A real populist will
NEVER be elected in USA unless there is a revolution; USA political elites are fully
committed to a neoliberal economics that make society neofeudal, and a neoconservative-driven
foreign policy that demands full spectrum dominance that brooks no opposition to its NWO
goals.
Anyone who believes otherwise has drunk the Kool-Aid, an addictive, saccharine concoction,
provided without charge and in abundance.
Glenn Brown | Jan 5, 2019 10:27:14 PM |
39@ 10 17
Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he
was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope
inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving
US imperialism a pleasing face.
Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too
blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major
sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump.
Yes, their public rejection of Trump is partly motivated by the need to be able to claim that Trump is an aberration from
all previous US Presidents, as opposed to Trump and his policies being just a particularly explicit continuation of the same
underlying trends.
But I see no reason to doubt that the US elites really wish they had someone as President who was better at supplying the
right propaganda and less obviously an incompetent fool. So I don't understand why you think the US oligarchy and deep state
would have thought they needed someone like Trump, or would have greatly preferred him to Hillary Clinton.
Numerous MSM articles appear about Trump's standing up to the Generals: Mattis, Kelly, Dunford, etc. Yet Bolton feels free to
conspire against the President's agenda? The narrative that Trump is fighting for his campaign promises, but allows Bolton and
Pompeo to scheme against him does not make any sense.
A more realistic take is that rump is a faux populist. He is the Republican Obama - pretending to be a populist
peacemaker while working for the establishment. The "populist hero" is a gimmick that reinforces people's belief in USA democracy
and the righteousness of USA actions. The Trump/Deep-State conflict is a propaganda psy-op.
The major inconsistency here is why the Deep State is hell bent of deposing him. Is The Trump/Deep-State conflict
is a propaganda psy-op? I do no not think so.
Trump is certainly a 'faux populist' as all right wing populists are: promises to the people while promoting the interests of
the 1%. But there is a genuine struggle going on within the ruling class due to the crisis of neoliberal governance. The world is
a complex place and Washington's influence is declining. No surprise that parts of the US elite that got used to "full spectrum
dominance" are panicking. And it is all real.
Notable quotes:
"... "The president's statement offered the latest illustration of the dramatic gyrations that have characterized his foreign policy and fueled questions about whether his senior advisers are implementing his policies or pursuing their own agendas." ..."
"... Here we have the question asked, in effect: Are Trump's senior people going rogue? Does the master of spin Washington Post, by putting the question in a manner sympathetic to Trump and unsympathetic to Bolton and Pompeo, and by extension the hordes denouncing Trump's decision to reduce US involvement in Syria suggest a new orientation in the Mockingbird media? ..."
The Washington Post article that b links to ("never signed off") has the headline " 'They
can do what they want' Trump's Iran comments defy his top aids"
The "They" in the quote in the headline is a reference to Iran in Syria. "President Trump
stuck a dagger in a major initiative advanced by his foreign policy team:
Iran's leaders, the president said, "can do what they want" in Syria.
With a stray remark, Trump snuffed out a plan from his national security adviser, John
Bolton, who this fall vowed that the United States would not leave Syria
"as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders." Pompeo has of course also obsessed
over Iran.
Now the next paragraph in the WP piece is I think quite remarkable: "The president's
statement offered the latest illustration of the dramatic gyrations that have characterized
his foreign policy and fueled questions about whether his senior advisers are implementing
his policies or pursuing their own agendas."
Here we have the question asked, in effect: Are Trump's senior people going rogue? Does
the master of spin Washington Post, by putting the question in a manner sympathetic to Trump
and unsympathetic to Bolton and Pompeo, and by extension the hordes denouncing Trump's
decision to reduce US involvement in Syria
suggest a new orientation in the Mockingbird media?
Also note that acting Defense Sec Patrick Shanahan, who was injected immediately into his
position when Trump gave Mattis the boot, is becoming part of the strategic scene.
From the NYT: "He is the brightest and smartest guy I worked with at Boeing," said Carolyn
Corvi, a former executive at the company. "He has the ability to see over the horizon and
{implement needed change]."
"Ana Mari Cauce, the president of University of Washington, worked with Mr. Shanahan ....
She said his outsider perspective was helpful in questioning old practices,
forcing people to look at problems in different ways."
Hackers who leaked documents from the Integrity Initiative, a shadowy outfit funded by the
UK government, claim they show its connections to the March 2018 alleged poisoning attack in
Salisbury and proposed actions against Russia. The Integrity Initiative (II) was set up in 2015
by the equally shadowy "Institute for Statecraft," according to the documents
published online in
November by hackers calling themselves a part of the Anonymous collective. While Anonymous
has denied the group was behind the leak, the Institute confirmed the authenticity of the first
batch of documents.
The hackers
posted a fresh batch of documents purportedly from the Initiative and the Institute on
Friday, hinting that both outfits had connections with Western media coverage of the March 2018
alleged poisoning of former Russian spy Sergey Skripal, and the actions against Russia taken
subsequently by the UK government and its allies.
One of the documents is the
confidential report by Harod Associates, a company hired by the Initiative to conduct
"mainstream & social media analysis" of the Skripal scandal coverage. The entire
undertaking was dubbed "Operation Iris."
Among those who found themselves named "Russian trolls" and Kremlin agents in the
report were Ukrainian-born pianist Valentina Lisitsa and a gentleman from Kent who goes by
Ian56 on Twitter.
Wanna see something funny? 🤣
"The Insider" - the same "Insider", that was credited by Bellingcat with "outing Boshirov and
Petrovas GRU agents" - has investigated and found me guilty of passing Putin orders to French
yellow jackets. I kid you not. https://t.co/I3X4ypylAP
Another
document , dated March 11, 2018, contains a "Narrative" of the Skripal incident,
blaming Russia and President Vladimir Putin personally and containing a number of recommended
actions, such as boycotting the 2018 World Cup, starting campaigns to boycott the Nord Stream 2
gas pipeline from Russia to Germany and block Russian access to SWIFT international banking
system, but also to "ban RT TV and Sputnik from operating in the UK."
Other suggestions include propaganda directed at British Muslims "to publicise what has been
happening with their Muslim brethren in Crimea since the Russian invasion" (sic) and getting
members of Parliament to publicize the "threat Russia poses."
The document dump also contains the April
14, 2018 email from Andy Pryce, whom the hackers describe as "chief propaganda man" at the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, containing the official government narrative of the Skripal
affair and the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria. Pryce ends the email by recommending
"good sources of further information" on alleged Russian propaganda, including the
Atlantic Council's DFR Lab, Bellingcat and Stopfake.
Documents obtained and published by the hackers also show connections between Skripal's
recruiter and neighbor Pablo Miller, the Institute for Statecraft, and the so-called rescue
group White Helmets, created in militant-held areas of Syria by a former British official in
2013.
It was already known that Pablo Miller, the MI6 handler of Sergej Skripal, attended
#IntegrityInitiative
meetings. There is now more material to draw a connection. It is indeed possible that IfS/II
initiated the affair. https://t.co/Xv29Uk9z3e
There are also several invoices from Dan Kaszeta of the Institute for Statecraft, for
articles he wrote as supposedly a chemical weapons expert advancing the Institute's narrative
on both the Skripals and Syria.
The most intriguing, however, is
a document from 2015 , in which Victor Madeira of the Institute for Statecraft proposes a
series of measures targeting Russia, including mass expulsion of diplomats along the lines of
1971's Operation Foot. One of the actions by the UK, US and several other NATO countries in the
wake of claims that Russia used a nerve agent against Skripal was a mass expulsion of Russian
diplomats.
Former MP George Galloway noted that the documents written long before the Salisbury events
call for arrests of RT and Sputnik contributors (such as himself), adding, "Makes you think
"
Previously published documents have revealed the Initiative and the Institute as being
involved in widespread
propaganda operations targeting not only foreign countries and media outlets – as one
might expect from someone doing the bidding of the Foreign Office – but also domestic political
figures , such as Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
"... Neoliberal media has always embraced boundary transgression, always embraced invasiveness, always embraced adventurism, always embraced war. ..."
"... Fox is a racist bully. MSNBC is poison, & CNN is a joke. If nothing else, Trump is right about one thing. The American media is the enemy of the people. ..."
"... That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-pat riotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing. ..."
"... Years ago, whilst this reactionary putsch was still in it's infancy, my mom would listen to the "news" on the local CBS affiliate, and many times I heard her gasp and say, referring to the "reporters" jabbering, "My God, they're a bunch of dopes!" The dopes are ascendant; stupid, scared, violent-minded, and very well-paid. ..."
"... We, The People, Are Fed Up With Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs! ..."
"... Democratic Party leadership has basically always been neoconservative supporters of the national security state, but there has been some resistance within the rank and file. ..."
"... But the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing,.... ..."
"... We've known for a long time that NBC & MSNBC "have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies." ..."
"... The US military presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with national security (i.e protecting American citizens from military attack by foreign nations, or even with disrupting the activities and funding of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda, groups we financed and armed as part of the overthrow Assad strategy). ..."
"... It has everything to do with controlling the region's oil flow and propping up regimes like Saudi Arabia who agree to invest the majority of their oil money in Wall Street banks. This is called petrodollar recycling, a strategy devised in the 1970s. Here is a foundational document discussing the plan, from 1974: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16506_b.html ..."
"... Real News vs "fake news" is almost impossible to find and dissect. Even looking for real reporting beyond echoing is hard to find. The real problems are ignored or misstated to the extent real solutions are impossible. Not just security and endless wars but every aspect of civil existence, education, healthcare, you name it. We exist in an echo-chamber where real knowledge and understanding have been all but banished. ..."
"... Gotta hand it to the neocons, soon after the Vietnam debacle (I served 3 tours there), and Watergate, they quickly licked their wounds and devised a new playbook that, over time, would become a 'Project for the New American Century'. First things first, get rid of the draft. Go professional, and then only a very minuscule percentage of Americans have skin in the game, meaning their own sons and daughters at risk, while the rest of America can focus on the more important things, like watching the Housewives of New Jersey, New York, Beverly Hills, etc. etc., or sports, or the newest fashions, or the current fad diets, or the newest Trump tweet, bla bla bla. ..."
"... Next, and this is genius because it incorporates that great American pastime, greed, spread all of that endless supply of taxpayer money around to each and every State, County, and municipality in the form of jobs tied to the military industrial complex. ..."
"... And finally, silence and denigrate any meaningful opposition. As Kierkegaard stated, "Once you label me you negate me." Hence the long, ongoing labeling of opposition with terms like traitor, anti-American, unpatriotic, (insert name or country here) sympathizer. The sad part of all of this, too many Americans are gullible enough to swallow this crap, hook, line and sinker, as long as they get their daily ration of manna. ..."
"... What's the central reason MSNBC is so pro-war? Because the shareholders in its parent corporation, Comcas, have a deep vested interest in militarism, arms sales, and the capture of natural resources around the word ..."
"... Maddow long ago described herself as a "national security liberal." ..."
"... Still, that a network insider has blown the whistle on how all this works, and how MSNBC and NBC have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies, while not surprising, is nonetheless momentous given how detailed and emphatic he is in his condemnations. ..."
"... . . if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. ..."
"... This essay is critical for every American to read. No exaggeration. NBC/MSNBC has become the proverbial spear tip in the march toward nuclear war with Russia. ..."
"... Perhaps, but I would suggest that Iran has become the most desired target for a war, and due in no small part to the aggressive advocacy for such a war by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and their subservient boot-licking, ass kissing American politicians. ..."
"... Project Mockingbird was publicly revealed years ago, but pretty much totally ignored by the audiences who lap contentedly from the MSM koolaid bowl. ..."
"... It's ironic that these politicians who have gorged themselves on literally millions of dollars in campaign funding from Big Pharma, Defense Contractors, Energy, Big Banking, and even insider stock trading now feel compelled to warn us of graft and corruption they all fostered. These politicians get elected as nobodies, sell their votes, retire as millionaires, then have the nerve to tell us how corrupted our government has become as they check out to become Lobbyist' ..."
"... I am so glad to see this man speak out. For the longest time, war and the military budget has been a third rail in politics ..."
"... State Department has become another branch of the MIC, not a diplomatic corps. And I am not saying this is all because of Trump. Probably started when we "won" the Cold War. ..."
Veteran NBC/MSNBC Journalist Blasts the Network for Being Captive to the National Security State and Reflexively Pro-War to Stop
Trump
A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in
a Monday
email for becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President
Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism.
As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat
but indeed has gained dangerous strength" and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."
The NBC/MSNBC reporter, William Arkin, is a longtime prominent war and military reporter, perhaps best known for his
groundbreaking,
three-part Washington Post series in 2010, co-reported with two-time Pulitzer winner Dana Priest, on how sprawling, unaccountable,
and omnipotent the national security state has become in the post-9/11 era. When that three-part investigative series, titled "Top
Secret America," was published, I hailed it as one of the most
important pieces of reporting of the war on terror, because while "we chirp endlessly about the Congress, the White House, the
Supreme Court, the Democrats and Republicans, this is the Real U.S. Government: functioning in total darkness, beyond elections and
parties, so secret, vast and powerful that it evades the control or knowledge of any one person or even any organization."
Arkin has worked with NBC and MSNBC over the years and continuously since 2016. But yesterday, he announced that he was leaving
the network in a long, emphatic email denouncing the networks for their superficial and reactionary coverage of national security,
for becoming fixated on trivial Trump outbursts of the day to chase profit and ratings, and -- most incriminating of all -- for becoming
the central propaganda arm of the CIA, the Pentagon, and the FBI in the name of #Resistance, thus inculcating an entire new generation
of liberals, paying attention to politics for the first time in the Trump era, to "lionize" those agencies and their policies of
imperialism and militarism.
That MSNBC and NBC have become Security State Central has been obvious for quite some time. The network
consists of little more than former CIA, NSA, and Pentagon officials as news "analysts"; ex-Bush-Cheney national security and
communications officials as hosts and commentators; and the most extremists pro-war neocons constantly bashing Trump (and critics
of Democrats generally) from the right, using the Cheney-Rove playbook on which they built their careers to accuse Democratic Party
critics and enemies of being insufficiently patriotic,
traitors for America's official enemies , and abandoning America's hegemonic role in the world.
Some of the most beloved and frequently featured MSNBC commentators are the most bloodthirsty pro-war militarists from the war
on terror: David Frum, Jennifer Rubin, Ralph Peters, and Bill Kristol (who was just giddily and affectionately celebrated with a
playful nickname bestowed on him: "Lil Bill"). In early 2018,
NBC hired former
CIA chief John Brennan to serve as a "senior national security and intelligence analyst," where
the rendition and torture advocate joined -- as
Politico's Jack Shafer noted -- a long litany of former security state officials at the network, including "Chuck Rosenberg,
former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBI Director James B. Comey, and counselor to former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller
III; Frank Figliuzzi, former chief of FBI counterintelligence; Juan Zarate, deputy national security adviser under Bush."
As Shafer noted, filling your news and analyst slots with former security state officials as MSNBC and NBC have done is tantamount
to becoming state TV, since "their first loyalty -- and this is no slam -- is to the agency from which they hail." As he put it:
"Imagine a TV network covering the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin to appreciate
the current peculiarities."
All of this led Arkin to publish a remarkable denunciation of NBC and MSNBC in the form of an email he sent to various outlets,
including The Intercept. Its key passages are scathing and unflinching in their depiction of those networks as pro-war propaganda
outlets that exist to do little more than amplify and serve the security state agencies most devoted to opposing Trump, including
their mindless opposition to Trump's attempts (with whatever motives) to roll back some of the excesses of imperialism, aggression,
and U.S. involvement in endless war, as well as to sacrifice all journalistic standards and skepticism about generals and the U.S
war machine if doing so advances their monomaniacal mission of denouncing Trump. As Arkin wrote (emphasis added):
My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued
at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested
in the Trump circus.
To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security
leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested . Despite being at "war," no great wartime leaders or visionaries
are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might
be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster,
we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And
yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical
truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed
the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.
Windrem again convinced me to return to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary
Clinton's hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other
upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly
lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow
storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable.
No wars won but the ball is kept in play.
I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous
strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has
become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against
Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results).
I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step
back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars.
In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss
so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse, that
it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word
partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.
For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations
with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his
attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at
how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really?
We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we
should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the
Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?
That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing
Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-patriotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a
reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and
foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing. These toxins will endure far beyond Trump, particularly given
the
now full-scale unity between the Democratic establishment and neocons .
photosymbiosis1 hour ago
Just remembered something about Arkin. This book: Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the
9/11 World January 25, 2005 by William M. Arkin
https://books.google.com/books/about/Code_Names.html?id=KXLfAAAAMAAJ
In particular there was this one exercise called Vigilant Guardian, run by NORAD, simulating terrorist attacks by hijackers which,
curiously enough, happened to be in operation on the very day the Saudi hijackers were actually conducting such attacks:
NORAD's next Vigilant Guardian exercise, in 2001, will actually be several days underway on 9/11 (see (6:30 a.m.) September
11, 2001). It will include a number of scenarios based around plane hijackings, with the fictitious hijackers targeting New
York in at least one of those scenarios (see September 6, 2001, September 9, 2001, September 10, 2001, and (9:40 a.m.) September
11, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 2004; VANITY FAIR, 8/1/2006]
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=vigilant_guardian
However, what's interesting from Arkin's book, as I recall, is that this operation name was then reused in Afghanistan (a very
rare practice, apparently, to reuse an operation name, but perhaps if you wanted to hide the original program, etc...), in 2003
or so - here's a NYT article about Vigilant Guardian in Afghanistan:
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/magazine/where-the-enemy-is-everywhere-and-nowhere.html
It's just one of many stories that makes one wonder exactly how much pre-warning the Bush Administration had about the 9/11 attacks,
and whether there was a deliberate decision to allow the hijackers to seize control of the planes without any interference. It
did save the Bush presidency, it did open the door to the Iraq invasion, and the Saudi intelligence services were involved with
helping the hijackers. All very suspicious, really. Point being, Arkin's book is one of the few sources that lay out all those
covert/overt program names, and is a real treasure for anyone interested in the history of that era.
bobhope1: 2 hours ago
This has been clearly obvious for several years. Goebbels would be proud.
Dysnomia 3 hours ago
If there were some kind of political realignment (similar to the realignment that took place in the 60s and 70s where racist
white Democrats became racist white Republicans) where neoconservatives and warmongers become Democrats, and the Republican Party
becomes the party of, surely not peace, but at least moderation in foreign military intervention, that might not be too bad, or
at least not too much worse than the earlier post-9/11 status quo.
But I'm afraid this shift in discourse heralds something worse than that. So-called "liberal" media's embrace of neoconservatism
and imperialism is likely to have the effect of narrowing the Overton window on issues of war and peace, making genuine anti-war
positions even more unthinkable and beyond the pale. There will increasingly be no place for public anti-war discourse.
The single greatest threat to human freedom in the world today is the U.S. national security state. Inculcating public reverence
for the state is perhaps the most dangerous thing that a media organization could do.
open_hearted_jade 2 hours ago
Neoliberal media has always embraced boundary transgression, always embraced invasiveness, always embraced adventurism,
always embraced war.
Fox is a racist bully. MSNBC is poison, & CNN is a joke. If nothing else, Trump is right about one thing. The American
media is the enemy of the people.
Lawrence_Hill 4 hours ago ( Edited )
Do we remember way back in the 80's/Reagan admin war involvement in the El Salvador civil war when NBC anchor Tom Brokaw openly
questioned the US's support for death squad leader D' Auboissan's terror regime on the air? Shocking! A Walter Cronkite-Vietnam
War moment Brokaw supposed, maybe?
I remember that in all the hullabaloo that followed one of our ruling class commented that Brokaw was being $5 million a year
not to say such subversive things. Lesson learned, Brokaw nor any other gainfully employed MSM tool has made the same mistake
again, and now Brokaw has emeritus status in the NBC "News" hierarchy.
That comment opened my eyes for the first time to the reality of American MSM...
Michael_Wilk 4 hours ago
That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly
right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-pat riotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless
use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign
policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing.
I have to take issue with your use of the word 'formerly' in describing Cold War values. They are still very much right-wing.
They never stopped being right-wing, nor did the current and former government and security state apparatchiks polluting the airwaves
with their lies.
TimN 5 hours ago
The neo-con and neo-lib argument against this unfortunate reveal of things present, and things to come: "But Trump! Trump!"
I didn't think I'd see things unravel so quickly, but Goddamn. Years ago, whilst this reactionary putsch was still in it's
infancy, my mom would listen to the "news" on the local CBS affiliate, and many times I heard her gasp and say, referring to the
"reporters" jabbering, "My God, they're a bunch of dopes!" The dopes are ascendant; stupid, scared, violent-minded, and very well-paid.
haugeneder 6 hours ago
Great piece. America is on the precipice and there are few who care -- very few. Time for an great economic depression -- not
recession -- to shift the ground or open it to swallow us whole.
Tlaloc 7 hours ago
Interesting that we might be seeing a shift on both parties, the republicans finally embracing their libertarian side (long
being a part of the republican party) and the neocons trying to find a new home on the democratic party. I wonder where the progressive
side of the DNC will go, they might be the ones pushed out of any national party :(
Art 6 hours ago
[...] the progressive side of the DNC [...] might be the ones pushed out of any national party
Fuck that! They're headed for permanent electoral failure on every occasion they put forward neocons on any ballot.
We, The People, Are Fed Up With Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs!
Dysnomia 3 hours ago
Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that we'll see a shift only on the Democratic side. Democratic Party leadership
has basically always been neoconservative supporters of the national security state, but there has been some resistance within
the rank and file. The narrowing of the Overton window we're seeing will make such resistance increasingly beyond the pale.
But I don't think the Republican Party, in terms of leadership or rank and file, will become more "libertarian" (in the American
sense of that word) or less pro-war. I think there's likely to be greater consensus among the political class in favor of U.S.
imperialism generally, and Trump, to the extent he occasionally makes moves in the opposite direction, is a convenient foil to
bring that about.
johnanderson 7 hours ago ( Edited )
There is no "means test" for the empire military spending supports energy supplies supports international banking supports
global corporatism but the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health
care premiums and copays, expensive housing, and social security cutbacks because they are playing the same elite economic game
against the majority true the democratic leadership has a better stance on abortion and a generally more rainbow-flavored social
agenda. Because they want this stuff for their own social class however economic policy will be at our expense ... just watch
Pelosi and Company
open_hearted_jade 2 hours ago
But the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums
and copays, expensive housing,....
Those costs rise for one reason...
Mona 7 hours ago
...And here's Joe Biden: ""Paul Ryan was correct when he did the tax code, what was the first thing we have to go after, Social
Security and Medicare. Now we need to do something about Social Security and Medicare. It's the only way to find room to pay for
it." Biden is after means testing and other "adjustments" slashing SS, as endorsed by his pal. Paul Ryan. (This is called Republican
Lite.)
Thanks for publishing this story, Glenn, and putting your perspective on it. We've known for a long time that NBC & MSNBC
"have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies." Before
Comcast purchased them, General Electric owned these networks for many years. The public's interests are the last thing on their
minds when they do "news reporting."
Have you watched when MSNBC's "prime time" talk shows are doing live sports-like camera angles, moves, and shots in their studio,
trying to make it look all-the-more sensational on your TV screen? I mean, they're doing these intricate camera shots, rapid switching
between cameras, zooming, panning, trying to make it look like a high-production-value shoot, and it looks like they've hired
some live sports producers and technical directors to make this pathetic illusion on the air. All this shit for talking heads.
Rotf-lmao.
What's next? Slow-motion HDTV instant replays of Rachel Maddow, utilizing zoomed-in camera shots of her mouth, when she's spraying
spittle into her guests' faces? That's what happens when she launches into her infamous hissy fits.
The round table MSNBC uses in their cheap studio is only 4 feet in diameter. In other words, they're shooting these live action
shots of people talking around an itty-bitty little table, and they're doing all this intricate camera work with approximately
8 cameras to make it look 'sensational', action-packed, and thrilling. Instead, it's extremely ugly, stupid, idiotic, disgusting,
and ridiculous. It's not sensational. It's a disgusting cocktail of vomit, puss, and diarrhea.
I need reliable sources of news and weather so I can live my life sustainably with dignity while I maintain my values. My pride
and dignity are invaluable to me. All these a-holes are doing for me is raising my blood pressure and pissing me off. That's why
I read The Intercept. I'd like to have the option to just sit back and watch TI's reporting on a news channel someday SOON, if
possible.
Again, what's our msm network news alternatives, besides Fox news, and why are they so pathetic? CBS news: Les Moonves in particular
has cheered the Trump phenomenon, telling investors in 2016 that the Trump campaign "may not be good for America, but it's damn
good for CBS." -- https://theintercept.com/2017/02/24/cbs-fcc-trump/
-- Moonves got fired and lost his pension -- The longtime chairman-CEO was forced out Sept. 9, 2018 amid a cascade of sexual assault
and misconduct allegations. "The CBS board of directors has denied former chairman-CEO Leslie Moonves any of the $120 million
severance he was due under his employment contract after conducting a five-month internal probe of his conduct and the corporate
culture at CBS Corp." --
https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-ent-les-moonves-denied-severance-20181217-story.html ABC news: Who owns
ABC? Walt Disney bought ABC 22 years ago. Exactly, we're in Disneyland.
photosymbiosis 8 hours ago ( Edited )
Some basic facts:
The US military presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with national security (i.e protecting American citizens
from military attack by foreign nations, or even with disrupting the activities and funding of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al
Qaeda, groups we financed and armed as part of the overthrow Assad strategy).
It has everything to do with controlling the region's oil flow and propping up regimes like Saudi Arabia who agree to invest
the majority of their oil money in Wall Street banks. This is called petrodollar recycling, a strategy devised in the 1970s. Here
is a foundational document discussing the plan, from 1974:
https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16506_b.html
"CENTRAL THESIS, BASED ON BELIEF THAT THERE IS NO EARLY PROSPECT OF BREAKING OIL CARTEL, IS THAT WE SHOULD SEEK EARLY DIALOGUE
WITH PRODUCERS TO WORK OUT ARRANGEMENTS WITH ALL OR SOME OF THEM TO (A) INDEX PRICE OF OIL AND (B) BRING THEM INTO RECYCLING MECHANISM
IN ORDER TO SHARE THE RISK. SECOND PAPER LARGELY DUPLICATES FIRST, THOUGH IT DOES ADD SOME STRESS ON LONGER RANGE PROBLEM OF MASSIVE
SURPLUS OF OPEC COUNTRIES, ESTIMATED AT $400 BILLION BY 1980, FOR WHICH NO SOLUTION IS PROPOSED OTHER THAN NEW INTERNATIONAL RECYCLING
AGENCY PROPOSED IN BOTH PAPERS."
One key point is that the proponents of this scheme in the United States, be they Democrats or Republicans, have zero interest
in replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar and battery storage. That would sour the whole deal; nobody would buy Saudi oil.
Of course the Russkies, the stated enemy, don't want to see Europe go 100% renewable either, any more than the Clinton-Bush-Obama-Trump
Administrations did. The Russia-US conflict is mostly over who gets to sell gas to Europe, and neither dealer wants the addict
to kick the habit, right?
This is a very consistent policy, year-to-year.
Now, why can't the corporate media honestly discuss this? Because they are the corporate establishment's propaganda monkeys,
little more, regardless of whether they work at MSNBC or at FOX.
Oh, and this is why #Resist Trump is so nonsensical, when those supporting that them want to install a Joe Biden or Kamela
Harris, who would continue right on with this status quo, i.e. blocking the development of renewable energy and continuing the
idiotic military entanglements in the Middle East.
Fred_Cowan 8 hours ago
Real News vs "fake news" is almost impossible to find and dissect. Even looking for real reporting beyond echoing is hard
to find. The real problems are ignored or misstated to the extent real solutions are impossible. Not just security and endless
wars but every aspect of civil existence, education, healthcare, you name it. We exist in an echo-chamber where real knowledge
and understanding have been all but banished.
Mona 8 hours ago
@Tom Collins & Art
"Yeah one wonders if [Snowden's] cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks"
No need to wonder! Snowden made clear -- explicitly stated-- he wanted Greenwald and Poitras, and not Wikileaks. He deeply
desired journalists to exercise judgment over what should be released to the public and did not want a data dump.
Further, he insisted on outing himself , and did so several days after the first document was published. At his behest,
Poitras videotaped a 20-minute video of him taking responsibility, which was then posted at The Guardian. He did this, among other
reasons, to spare his co-workers from suspicion and investigation.
Mona 1 hour ago
Citizen 4 won the Oscar for best documentary in 2013 or '14. It's all Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras, and other real players.
DC_Reade 8 hours ago
If the only way someone can manage to frame any of these issues is as "Fox vs. MSNBC" or "Trump Corruption vs. Washington Establishment
Defenders of Democracy", they've assented to a two-valued action-reaction Pavlovian conditioned response loop.
No way should that be confused with a process of independent thought.
Unsurprisingly, I don't read one mention in the above post to any of the specifics of the content in Glenn Greenwald's remarks,
or to any of the observations made by Arkin in his email resignation.
You're too busy fitting everyone with Team Jerseys tailored to your preconceived ideas.
Mona 6 hours ago
"This article does not inform."
Oh, it does lots of informing, you just don't like what it informs us of, to wit, the first paragraph:
A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in a Monday email for becoming captive
and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now
the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism . As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming
militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength"
and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."
Any substantive response, Milton?
MiltonWiltmellow 6 hours ago ( Edited )
Any substantive response, Milton?
As always, Mr. Greenwald's description is hyperbolic and bordering on unhinged. As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's
email. You should too. It seemed more like a Montaigne Essaiy or a reflective note for posterity than a thundering repudiation
of MSNBC.
Mr. Greenwald turns it into a typical Greenwald crie du guerre™ against the evil Deep State (a term which he appears to have
mercifully discarded. Too Foxy I suppose.) Here's his problem. Crying "wolf" only works for awhile. Eventually it becomes part
of the information flood drowning everyone. Any bit of flotsam is as good as another.
Tom_Collins 5 hours ago
What's your point again? Do you even know?
DC_Reade 4 hours ago ( Edited )
Excerpts from Arkin's email:
"Seeking refuge in its political horse race roots, NBC (and others) meanwhile report the story of war as one of Rumsfeld vs.
the Generals, as Wolfowitz vs. Shinseki, as the CIA vs. Cheney, as the bad torturers vs. the more refined, about numbers of troops
and number of deaths, and even then Obama vs. the Congress, poor Obama who couldn't close Guantanamo or reduce nuclear weapons
or stand up to Putin because it was just so difficult. We have contributed to turning the world of national security into this
sort of political story. I find it disheartening that we do not report the failures of the generals and national security leaders.
I find it shocking that we essentially condone continued American bumbling in the Middle East and now Africa through our ho-hum
reporting..."
"...I argued endlessly with MSNBC about all things national security for years, doing the daily blah, blah, blah in Secaucus,
but also poking at the conventional wisdom of everyone from Matthews to Hockenberry. And yet I feel like I've failed to convey
this larger truth about the hopelessness of our way of doing things, especially disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest
of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system..."
"...For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations
with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his
attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at
how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really?
We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we
should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the
Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?..."
Yes, William Arkin does go on to be gracious and complimentary of some of his (former) colleagues at NBC. Arkin mantains his
professional composure. His critique of the focus and practices of NBC/MSNBC News is tempered and reasoned. But the critique is
scathing, nonetheless.
Tom_Collins 4 hours ago ( Edited )
You are missing Milton's point altogether. Like "Craig Summers", MW expects that his word alone is enough to dismiss the editorial/investigative/analytical
work put in by Greenwald, Arkin or anyone else on the topics considered most important by the U.S. State Department.
When MW or CS weigh in on these things to dismiss or diminish these stories/opinions/facts with the wave of a hand or incorrect
reading (and absolutely nothing of substance), we are supposed to defer to them respectfully and re-consider the respect we have
developed for the professionalism, dedication and personal/career risks taken on by the people who bring us these stories that
are inconvenient to the establishment government and media actors.
Mona 3 hours ago
"As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's email. "
Cool, Milton, and what are your substantive comments on this part:
My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued
at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested
in the Trump circus. To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security,
the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested. Despite being at "war," no great
wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any
conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called
warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently
have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts".
We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today
than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous. Windrem again convinced me to return
to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign. I thought that the mission was
to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton's hawkishness.
It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping
up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost
in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm.
And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable. No
wars won but the ball is kept in play. I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed
a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd
also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional
wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure
and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how
much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars. In
our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss
so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse,
that it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by
the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. For me I realized
how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to
denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on
the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick
NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We
shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we
should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for
the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?
OftenWrongSeldomInDoubt 9 hours ago
This is SO validating to read! Surely no other ruler in history with a cute butt and polite voice ordered killings in 56 countries
in one year. I want someone to discuss this without accusing me of being pro-Rump. I guess, the Rachel Maddows of the world cannot
criticize Hillary/Obama for expanding every awful thing for which the good people of the world hated Bush.
There are two giant problems in the world today-
1. the scale of people who lost their homes and countries because of the good guy's wars and
2. climate change which the good guy's 27,600 odd bombs of 2016 might or might not have exacerbated. After all, each bomb costs
upward of $10,000,000. Who is measuring the greenhouse gases released by them?
The media needs to be equally adversarial to 'liberal' governments as they are to 'conservative' ones, so that majority parties
cannot take credit for granting me bathroom and bedroom permissions that are surely my personal domain! The media must shed light
on whether it is bad to tell 'aliens' not to cross a border or it is bad to win a Nobel Peace prize before raining bombs on brown
people in other countries, never separating children from families, when blowing up ten civilians for every 'target' we extra-judicially
decided to label as militant.
So thank you for this article!!
bluecurl3 9 hours ago
Gotta hand it to the neocons, soon after the Vietnam debacle (I served 3 tours there), and Watergate, they quickly licked
their wounds and devised a new playbook that, over time, would become a 'Project for the New American Century'. First things first,
get rid of the draft. Go professional, and then only a very minuscule percentage of Americans have skin in the game, meaning their
own sons and daughters at risk, while the rest of America can focus on the more important things, like watching the Housewives
of New Jersey, New York, Beverly Hills, etc. etc., or sports, or the newest fashions, or the current fad diets, or the newest
Trump tweet, bla bla bla.
Next, and this is genius because it incorporates that great American pastime, greed, spread all of that endless supply
of taxpayer money around to each and every State, County, and municipality in the form of jobs tied to the military industrial
complex. Now, lots of Americans have skin in the game, as long as the lobbyists, politicians, government and the military
can provide a pipeline of endless wars and conflicts. Of course, in order to provide and maintain the patina of morality and righteousness,
a subservient and corporate controlled media is vital.
And finally, silence and denigrate any meaningful opposition. As Kierkegaard stated, "Once you label me you negate me."
Hence the long, ongoing labeling of opposition with terms like traitor, anti-American, unpatriotic, (insert name or country here)
sympathizer. The sad part of all of this, too many Americans are gullible enough to swallow this crap, hook, line and sinker,
as long as they get their daily ration of manna.
Xavi 8 hours ago
Orwellian times.
firstpersoninfinite 9 hours ago
No, it's not rocket science. Otherwise you couldn't have proven Greenwald's point with your own views about "supporting" the
security state so easily. You missed the entire point of the article, which is that the neocons and the neoliberals support the
same cast of nefarious personalities that got us into the Middle East, over and over again. Why is NBC/MSNBC normalizing right-wing
radicalism? Because they've joined hands with neocons and neoliberals to support the military/industrial complex. Your argument
is akin to someone claiming that their Communion wafer is more holy than anyone else's because it has the Pope's imprint on it.
firstpersoninfinite 8 hours ago
Neocons, like Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol's father, were leftists in the 1930's. It's not a difficult term to come to terms
with, historically. I don't wonder why anyone questions what Trump is doing. I never said such a thing.
What Trump has done during his first two years in office has not been questioned by the mainstream press at all. Only the imbecile
tweets and the gaffes are of any interest to the citizens of such a redoubtable empire as our own. A friend of mine who fights
anti-wolf and anti-bear laws in Montana, laws sent down by the Trump administration, says that these are the same laws they fought
during 8 years of Obama. The mainstream of both parties are the two sides of the same coin. So I agree with the "role reversal."
Dysnomia 2 hours ago
I think the problem is not that supporting the "deep state" is becoming a convenient excuse to oppose Trump, but that opposing
Trump is becoming a convenient excuse to support the deep state.
DC_Reade 10 hours ago
Bravo, William Arkin. I only wish that you could have found some way for you to resign on the air in the middle of a broadcast.
(I've been wishing such a scenario for decades. Preferably featuring one or more news anchors.)
Incredible that the USA has spent trillions of dollars in a game of whack-a-mole that's been extended over the entire globe
with no time limitations, occasionally interspersed with declarations of surprise that the nation faces more emergent terror threats
than ever. We spend more money on the military and warfare than we spent during the Cold War. And all that was required to trigger
this spiral into perpetual militarism was a single special operation carried out 17 years ago by a small team of not-particularly-elite
commandos who hijacked four airliners, thereby obtaining the one-time ability to repurpose three of them into cruise missiles.
By now, it should be no surprise that other large nations have taken notice of the American assumption of entitlement to police
the world and begun their own rearmament campaigns. Also worth noting that the focus on the Terror Threat has served as the rationale
for massive investment in a level of surveillance technology that's unknown in human history. As for the norms and values that
international law was supposedly intended to provide for governments everywhere, all of that went out the window in 2003, with
the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the Benevolent Hegemon Hyperpower. American scolding of other nations for their armed territorial
incursions and imperial designs has rung awfully hollow, ever since.
The emphasis on massive military escalation to deal with terrorism outbreaks is reminiscent of the War on Drugs- which, it
should be noted, also remains largely in effect, notwithstanding occasional feints toward de-escalation. And we all know what
the War on Drugs did in terms of empowering the criminal elite that it was supposed to eliminate.
What's that all about? The leaders of this country- and for that matter, the supposed leaders of the rest of the world- aren't
leading. To me, almost all of them look like they're running from something: they're running from fossil fuels addiction and its
toxic blowback, looming climate catastrophe, natural resource depletion, maldistribution of wealth and neglect of the commons.
photosymbiosis 11 hours ago
What's the central reason MSNBC is so pro-war? Because the shareholders in its parent corporation, Comcas, have a deep
vested interest in militarism, arms sales, and the capture of natural resources around the word:
Comcast, a large cable operator, completed its purchase of a majority stake in NBCUniversal from General Electric in January
2011. The cable giant bought the rest of NBCUniversal in February 2013. NBCUniversal is the parent company of MSNBC, as well
as NBC, Bravo, USA and other channels.
State Street Corporation 13,394,660,471 Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 6,210,096,924
Capital World Investors 5,098,130,465
Blackrock Inc. 5,084,573,828
Bank of America Corporation 2,826,426,091
ExxonMobil major holders, $US:
Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 26,661,034,588
Blackrock Inc. 21,669,998,686
State Street Corporation 16,964,902,104
Northern Trust Corporation 4,566,789,988
Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation 4,420,622,076
It pretty obvious once you look at the value of an outfit like Blackrock's investments in media, arms, and oil - they don't
want any stories told on MSNBC that would threaten the profit margins of Exxon, Lockheed or Comcast.
The only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legisation which would require the likes of Comcast, TimeWarner(CNN)
and NewsCorp(FOX) to divest their media holdings, creating dozens of independently owned outfits not beholden to some corporate
master who won't let them discuss important topics like, say NAFTA....
Benito_Mussolini 10 hours ago
The only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legislation
Hopefully, MSNBC will be smart enough to provide a friendly platform for ex-government officials. It means a great deal to
government officials to know their influence, public visibility (and associated appearance fees) will continue into their retirement.
I don't watch MSNBC, so I don't know if they have implemented this strategy, but the pictures in the article seem encouraging.
johnnyred 11 hours ago
War is touted exclusively by those who've never experienced it. Get rid of the generals, put in some infantry casualties, those
who've lost a limb or two.
Then we can have some informed comment.
Somewherearoundtikrit 11 hours ago
Meanwhile, over at The Guardian, "In these critical times..." their "editorial independence" is in sincere need of your donation.
They're just 80K away from their million dollar goal! Pardon me while I retch. Julian Assange is still being robbed of his freedom.
In these critical times indeed. Thank you Glenn.
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
The Guardian can get its funding from the organizations for whom they carry water. Not a damn cent from me. After they caved
in on the Snowden files, I was done with them for good.
Yeah one wonders if his cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks, but I think
they were onto him anyway. Ultimately the information got out, and media orgs like The Guardian were exposed for their fealty
to the national security state(s).
Cryptome wouldn't have censored the releases, as WikiLeaks has. Still WikiLeaks continues to be one of the world's premier
journalistic outlets.
MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours ago
Was anyone else surprised by how long it took them to get to a million? I've seen Kickstarters for video games that got to
a million faster. The slow pace of the fundraising seemed like a rebuke. I was hoping they'd never hit a million.
And I say all of that as someone who has recurring donations set up for about a dozen podcasts and blogs. The nonprofit/fundraiser
model is the way to go, but I also think that publicly owned media outlets, or privately owned but public-interest-minded news
organizations, while editorially independent, can't be totally contemptuous of their reader/donors.
I would never donate to the Guardian for a million reasons, but to pick just one: they have played the lead role in smearing
Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as dangerous radicals and anti-Semites.
And I would never donate to The Intercept, for instance, because of the crucial role it has played in promoting Russiagate
and amplifying voices like Mattathias Schwartz's. (I'll never stop reminding people that Schwartz non-jokingly advocated here
for what would essentially be a coup -- Obama "putting a hold on the transfer of power" -- after the most recent presidential
election. The Intercept published that. Amazing.) And the face of the Intercept, arguably, is no longer Greenwald but Mehdi Hasan,
who publishes rank propaganda smearing peace activists as "Bashar al-Assad Apologists" who revere human rights abusers as "heroes."
(Again: the Intercept published that. Amazing.)
My favorite line from that Arkin email is the one about the tension between worship of "officialdom" and respect for "public
yearnings." To political elites and reporters (including the experts at the Intercept who spent a week running PR for Nancy Pelosi's
speaker bid, and who constantly write off the 2016 election as a consequence either of sinister foreign interference or of the
squalid bigotry, stupidity and ugliness of non-coastal Americans), officialdom always wins, and "public yearnings" are just the
bleatings of deplorables.
If Glenn's excellent reporting was removed from this site, The Intercept would be as deserving of Arkin's critique as NBC and
the Guardian are.
tigertiger 8 hours ago
They didn't hit their million, which they wanted before the end of the year, but they're still begging. Not for lack of trying,
that 'give us money!' pop up has to be about the loudest, most intrusive of it's kind I've ever seen.
And yes, TI is only marginally less repulsive (thanks to Glenn, Lee Fang, and Jon Schwartz). It amazes me that an outlet owned
by a bajillionaire constantly begs for money. I guess they think it makes them more 'populist' or something- 'look, the peons
are sacrificing their pennies to help us!'.
TravisTea 11 hours ago
As an American author (and journalist) once wrote:
"Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and
keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them
from grabbing slices of his . And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the
'universal brotherhood of man' -- with his mouth."
-- Mark Twain, Man's Place in the Animal World (1896)
P.S. As always, thank you very much, Mr. Greenwald (and thank you, Mr. Arkin).
Carlaly 11 hours ago
Just vindicates what you have been saying all along. Although I expect the denialists will dismiss Arkin as some anti-American,
anti-troop stooge of Putin.
Mona 11 hours ago
"The cable network's key anchor, Rachel Maddow, once wrote a book on the evils of endless wars without congressional authorization,
but now routinely depicts anyone who wants to end those illegal wars as reckless weaklings and traitors."
She's just coming home. Liberals have long been dominated by hawks (after all, Vietnam was a Democrats' war, albeit Nixon/Kissinger
took the war crimes up to 11.)
Maddow long ago described herself as a "national security liberal."
Which leads to yet another element of Ms. Maddow's portfolio: the daughter of an Air Force captain who served stateside during
the Vietnam War, she is an admitted defense-policy wonk. "I'm a national security liberal, which I tell people because it's
meant to sound absurd," she said. "I'm all about counterterrorism. I'm all about the G.I. Bill."
Madcow would like nothing more than to see open war with Russia.
brer_rabbit 11 hours ago ( Edited )
maddcow . . my laugh of the day.
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
It's a common refrain in far-right reaches of the Internet. I almost felt bad for saying it, but that's what she's become on
the topic of Russia.
brer_rabbit 11 hours ago
Yes, whenever is see her, or Anderson Cooper, or any of these guys for that matter (which is rare . . usually for a few minutes
to catch a glimpse of the latest environmental disaster, mass shooting, or whatever) my first thought always goes to question
the kind of upbringing that could have produced such vapid people, who enthusiastically shame themselves on a daily basis for
money. What must they think of their audience?
open_hearted_jade 11 hours ago
Maddow is less respected by an awakening public -- therefore she must be a conservative right winger. Didn't you learn anything
after 1945?
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
You've made made totally missing the point into a trolling form of art. Bravo.
endlesswar 11 hours ago
Attacking an extreme right wing president from the right, while lauding unrepentant war criminals like Bush and McCain. Just
about sums up what it means to be a liberal in this day and age.
PatrickShaw 6 hours ago
MSNBC and their national security contributors do not speak for liberals. They never invite liberal voices on who are anti-war/pro
diplomacy.
xochtl 12 hours ago
Still, that a network insider has blown the whistle on how all this works, and how MSNBC and NBC have become ground zero
for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies, while not surprising, is nonetheless
momentous given how detailed and emphatic he is in his condemnations.
perfect summary
brer_rabbit 12 hours ago ( Edited )
. . if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they
are right.
bingo
clawhammerjake 13 hours ago
War is a business decision.
Steeeve 13 hours ago ( Edited )
I've been consistently surprised that anyone is still watching these things. Personally, I've already divested from special-interest
funded media outlets and the DNC for that matter. It's always interesting when I run across someone parrotting their viewpoints
though.
TheManj 13 hours ago ( Edited )
The greatest scam of the millennium, after cruptocurrency, was the use of Trump Derangement Syndrome to pervert "progressives"
into acolytes of the security establishment.
pedinska2 13 hours ago
Actually, TDS wasn't used in the original perversion so much as it was used as the cement to keep it firmly in place.
I lay blame for much of the greatest scam of the millenium on Obama with his drone policies, expansion of our involvement
in the ME, retention of the same Smartest Guys in the Room who tanked our economy and wholesale conversion of liberals into acceptance
of further erosion of our Constitutional rights with his warm embrace of the same criminals running the security state when torture
became de rigueur. He was just so darn pretty and eloquent they had no choice but to believe all the lies dripping from those
sexy lips. And have you seen Michelle's arms???!? /s
Benito_Mussolini 13 hours ago
To herd people, it's more effective to use both the carrot (Obama) and the stick (TDS). The fact that progressives needed to
be herded is a testament to their numbers and success.
Erelis 13 hours ago
This essay is critical for every American to read. No exaggeration. NBC/MSNBC has become the proverbial spear tip in the
march toward nuclear war with Russia. Every day, step by step, brick by brick, they are laying the foundation for the justification
of war--in fact, for needing and demanding war, almost any war, but more particularly with Russia. Let's remember that when Bush
ordered the invasion of Iraq, 72% of Americans supported it to according to Gallup. That didn't happen overnight with some big
propaganda event.
bluecurl3 4 hours ago
Perhaps, but I would suggest that Iran has become the most desired target for a war, and due in no small part to the aggressive
advocacy for such a war by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and their subservient boot-licking, ass kissing American politicians.
I'm all for pulling our troops out of Syria, but mark my word, Bibi and his zionist war-hawks will seize the opportunity to bomb
the hell out of Syria, and use it as a pretext to launch attacks against Iran.
Mike5000 13 hours ago
Maddow is not really pro-war or anti-war. She is just pro whatever Clinton and Pelosi happen to be pushing this week. It's
a shame. She's a good presenter but hopelessly biased.
PresumptuousInsect 13 hours ago
I think she is more enthralled to the people who are paying her.
Erelis 13 hours ago
Maddows rhetoric and reporting is pro-war regardless of her motivations. She uses the language of aggression and conspiracy
and accusation in describing the Russians and other Americans such as Jill Stein. She without exception imputes malevolent motives
on "the enemy" which is Russia leading to a truly a bizarre clip telling Americans in somber and concerned tones that Russia and
N. Korea share a border. The conspiracy has been exposed.
Bill_Owen 10 hours ago
What is it, exactly, about Hillary Clinton that enthralls Rachel Maddow so much that she now pretty much spends her days building
a case (in-the-sky) for war on Russia? Seems pathological somehow.
MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours ago
Look at how her ratings and salary have been affected by her transformation. She's gone from "cable news anchor" to "superstar."
The Russiagate scam has also given dozens of mediocrities like Seth Abramson a chance to be noticed and to feel important. Even
the writers on the Intercept's "intelligence" beat have been doing some sort of Tom Clancy cosplay for the last two years. It's
profitable and fun to be one of these people, as long as you don't have a nagging sense of shame.
William 13 hours ago
Indeed, none of this is new. I read Norman Solomon's and Martin Lee's UNRELIABLE SOURCES: A GUIDE TO DETECTING BIAS IN NEWS
MEDIA back when I was in college in the late 80s and they cite General Electric's ownership of NBC (before there was an "MSNBC")
uncritically:
General Electric's Influence on NBC GE is by no means a hands off owner of NBC. Lee and Solomon in their book Unreliable Sources
have detailed how GE insisted on the removal of references to itself in an NBC programme on substandard products. They also point
out that NBC journalists have not been particularly keen to expose GE's environmental record and that TV commercials by a group
called INFACT, urging a boycott of GE products, were banned by NBC as well as other television stations. NBC did however briefly
report GE's indictment for cheating the Department of Defense which was reported more extensively in other media outlets. (Lee
and Solomon 1990, pp. 77-81) Former NBC News Chief, Lawrence Grossman, claims that the head of GE, Jack Welch made it clear to
him that he worked for GE and told him not to use terms such as 'Black Monday' to describe the stock market crash in 1987 because
it depressed share prices such as GE's (Cited in Naureckas 1995). Todd Putnam, editor of National Boycott News, tells of how he
was approached by the NBC's Today Show to do an interview about consumer boycotts. Their biggest boycott at the time was against
General Electric and its nuclear defense contracts but the show wouldn't let him talk about that and was reluctant to have him
mention boycotts against any large corporation preferring him to talk about "a boycott that was 'small,' 'local' and 'sexy'."
(1991) Mark Gunther writing in American Journalism Review claims that references to General Electric's use of the bolts in an
NBC Today Show on defective bolts in planes, bridges and nuclear plants, were edited out and only mentioned in a follow-up segment
after criticism of the omission (1995, p. 40). In 1990 NBC Nightly News ran 14 minutes of coverage over three days of a breast
cancer detection machine produced by GE, without mentioning that it was made by NBC's owners. The other two major television networks
didn't bother to cover it at all. (FAIR 1991) Helen Caldicott who had been featured on the Today Show previously found that when
she wrote her book If You Love This Planet, which used GE as a case study of an environmentally damaging company, her scheduled
appearance was mysteriously cancelled (Anon. 1992). In 1987, one year after GE took over NBC, NBC broadcast a special documentary
promoting nuclear power using France as a model. The promotion for the programme proclaimed that "French townspeople welcome each
new reactor with open arms". The documentary won a Westinghouse sponsored prize for science journalism. (Westinghouse Electric
Company also builds nuclear power stations.) Shortly after the documentary was screened, when there were a couple of accidents
at French power stations and there was significant opposition to nuclear power amongst the French population (polls showed about
one third opposed it), NBC did not report the story although some US newspapers did. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 78) Karl Grossman
documents in Extra! (1993) how the programme What Happened? broadcast on NBC in 1993 gave a one sided account of the Three Mile
Island nuclear accident and its aftermath. It showed local resident Debbie Baker saying that she was not as afraid of the nuclear
plant as she used to be. However, according to Grossman, Baker, whose son was born with Down's syndrome 9 months after the accident
and who has received $1.1 million in a settlement arising from the accident, was shocked at how the programme had been edited
to imply her acceptance of the plant. She said she was still extremely uncomfortable with the plant and that what she had said
was she felt safer since her groups set up a network of radiation monitors around the plant. Neither Baker's settlement nor the
200 or so others "made to families who have suffered injury, birth defects and death because of the 1979 accident" were mentioned.
Instead a nuclear power industry expert was featured who said the plant's back-up safety systems worked successfully. When EXTRA!
pointed out that no scientists critical of nuclear power appeared in the program, Jaffe [executive producer of the show] responded,
'That is correct. Maybe there is some misunderstanding. That show is not a journalistic show but an entertainment show to look
into and to find out the reason and cause of various accidents and incidents.' (Grossman 1993, p. 6) NBC has not been alone in
putting a positive spin on the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. On the tenth anniversary of the accident, the New York Times
ran an anniversary article opposite the editorial page headlined "Three Mile Island: The Good News" which argued that the accident
had been good for the nuclear power industry prompting better management and emergency planning. The paper did not report the
fact that 2000 residents living near the plant had filed claims for cancer and other health problems they blamed on the accident,
nor the 280 personal-injury settlements paid out to such claimants, nor the unusual clusters of leukemia, birth defects and hypothyroidism
around the plant. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 210) This was not the first time Times reporting had fitted with General Electric's
views. In 1986 the Times reported on the use of humans as subjects in tritium absorption experiments. Tritium is routinely handled
by nuclear power plant workers. An early edition of the paper said: "The tritium study was financed by the Atomic Energy Commission
and conducted by the General Electric Company at Richland, which abuts the Hanford [nuclear weapons] reservation." In the late
edition the sentence ended after Commission and no longer named General Electric. (Tenenbaum 1990)
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
Sure, but the question then becomes: Why didn't the corporate networks and newspapers with whom NBC competed point these things
out?
Art 11 hours ago
That's what my father always said about media - that it was self-correcting. But he was wrong. They're all influenced by the
same thing, namely the ultra-rich and their money.
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
But wouldn't another network stand to gain more clout from the ultra-rich, corporations, and their money from NBC's losing
viewers/ratings due to exposure for their corrupt unwillingness to report negatively on their parent corporation's actions?
Art 11 hours ago
They share a huge fraction of investors, that's the problem.
Midwest 14 hours ago
Nothing has changed except that there is an outsider independent president. NBC was just as bad 20 years ago.
TheManj 13 hours ago
Project Mockingbird was publicly revealed years ago, but pretty much totally ignored by the audiences who lap contentedly
from the MSM koolaid bowl.
Phil 14 hours ago
William Arkin is right on point with his email to MSNBC, especially when he says:
"And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring
the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18
years ago. "
In that same vein I have problems with MSNBC et al also covering the farewell speeches of outgoing Senators and Representatives
which are full of warnings as to how the current system is "broken" [Paul Ryan, ClaireMcCaskill, Orrin Hatch, Jeff Flake, among
many] and not calling them out.
It's ironic that these politicians who have gorged themselves on literally millions of dollars in campaign funding from
Big Pharma, Defense Contractors, Energy, Big Banking, and even insider stock trading now feel compelled to warn us of graft and
corruption they all fostered. These politicians get elected as nobodies, sell their votes, retire as millionaires, then have the
nerve to tell us how corrupted our government has become as they check out to become Lobbyist's.
Orrin Hatch was a Senator for 42 years but last week he woke up one morning to find the Senate needs fixing? Paul Ryan was
Speaker of the House and fiercely defended Trump but now as he leaves he's suddenly discovers that things aren't right in Washington?
And what about all those who are still in office now – where are their warnings and concern? The answer is it's difficult to talk
while you're in office stuffing your mouths at the trough.
Sadly, MSNBC and the media carry these farewell speeches with no comment except that they are all great public servants and
their viewers soak it all up because to do otherwise would be unpatriotic. And the march of the lemmings to the voting booths
continues.
PresumptuousInsect 14 hours ago
I am so glad to see this man speak out. For the longest time, war and the military budget has been a third rail in politics,
and "support the troops!"--however hypocritical that slogan might be--has been a rallying cry as well as an accusation of treason/unAmericanism/communism,
etc., for those who have had doubts. But finally we are starting to see signs of dissatisfaction with the status quo among the
political class, and even antiwar bullet points listed on some platforms. There are even calls for diplomacy, a word that seemed
to have been deleted from all U.S. dictionaries. I hope that Arkin's outcry serves to move this agitation forward.
shenebraskan 14 hours ago
Dunno if you noticed (I did because I watch State Department briefings), but when Brett McGurk resigned as Syria envoy, in
a similar huff to McMaster, he bemoaned the loss of his colleagues at State and Pentagon. State Department has become another
branch of the MIC, not a diplomatic corps. And I am not saying this is all because of Trump. Probably started when we "won" the
Cold War.
There is no political left in US. There are only 2 right wing parties and it's only a matter
of degrees. Policies define a party, not what they call themselves. You can call yourself
whatever you want. It's not like it's against the Geneva convention or something.
Examples of mismatch between the official name and reality are: North Korea calling itself
DPRK – where D stands for democracy and yet they have never had elections, not that it
matters, the whole thing about "democracy" is a sham anyway. Also East Germany used to call
themselves DDR – which of course stands for Deutsche Demokratische Republikische (I
couldn't ressist making fun of the German language). Anyway, they called
themselves"Democratic" with no elections ever taking place there.
Same thing with the Democratic party in US. Calling yourself Democratic doesn't make you a
left wing automatically. After all, the Nazis used to call themselves "Socialists", which
would imply leftist orientation, yet they were as far right as you can get.
In order for a party to qualify as left wing, they have to look after the interests of the
working class. US has no such party, they probably never did. So, both Democrats and
Republicans are right wing, but not as far right as the Nazis used to be. Yet, the Nazis were
way smarter because they saw foreigners as the main threat to their country. Both domestic
born and foreign born foreigners.
The 2 right wing US parties see their native born population as their main threat. Their
"instincts" tell them that even after decades long propaganda, they haven't succeeded in
completely lobotomizing the native born citizens, and that there is still some
"revolutionary" potential left in them, who might one day reach for their pockets.
That's where the degeneracy of the elites comes into clear focus. Seeing the working class
as a potential threat to them and their pockets. When it's actually the opposite. The
degenerate elites are a threat to the working class (and frankly to themselves, but they are
too degenerate to see that). They are threat because they off-shored millions of jobs of the
working class, and if that wasn't enough, they imported millions of third world individuals
to fill in jobs that are not even there anymore.
Who is a threat to whom? Multiculturalism is not a left wing policy. It's a fascist
policy. The only difference is that the intended victims are domestic, rather than foreign.
It's inward oriented fascism. The only hope for US is that under Trump, the republicans are
starting to flip-flop between seeing the Americans and foreigners as a threat. Where the
other right wing party – the "Democrats" are firm in their belief that the Americans
are the threat.
I guess it's just a matter of perspective – who is Nazi to whom. The democrats think
that the deplorables are potential Nazis towards the foreigners, while actually it's them
– the Democrats that are currently Nazis towards the "deplorables".
There's only one thing necessary to maintain the respect and affection of DC's ruling political and media class: affirm standard
precepts of US imperialism & militarism. You can work for Trump, or cheer menacing authoritarians, and you'll still be revered
as long as you do that:
Nikki Haley @NikkiHaley
Congratulations to Brazil's new President Bolsonaro. It's great to have another U.S.-friendly leader in South America, who
will join the fight against dictatorships in Venezuela and Cuba, and who clearly understands the danger of China's expanding influence
in the region.
(Previous comments from me that Pentagon officers
are not *necessarily* militarists not withstanding...)
Military Deletes New Year's Eve Tweet Saying It's
'Ready to Drop Something' https://nyti.ms/2RvcZwi
NYT - Matt Stevens and Thomas Gibbons-Neff - Dec. 31, 2018
The unified command responsible for the United States' nuclear strike capabilities drew
attention on Monday when it tweeted a message and video that threatened the possibility of
dropping a bomb.
In the tweet, which was posted as Americans prepared to celebrate New Year's Eve and was
deleted about three hours later, the United States Strategic Command said the nation was
"ready to drop something." A video that was part of the tweet showed a B-2 stealth bomber
soaring across the sky before releasing two GPS-guided bombs that exploded into a giant ball
of fire after hitting the ground below.
In the video, which was viewed more than 120,000 times, pulsing music beats in the
background as the words "STEALTH," "READY" and "LETHAL" flash across the screen in white
block letters.
"#TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball...if ever needed,
we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger," the tweet said, adding the hashtags:
"#Deterrence #Assurance #CombatReadyForce #PeaceIsOurProfession." ...
A spokeswoman for the Strategic Command said the post "was part of our Year in Review
series meant to feature our command priorities: strategic deterrence, decisive response and
combat-ready force."
"It was a repost from earlier in the year, dropping a pair of conventional Massive
Ordnance Penetrators at a test range in the United States," she said in a statement that did
not elaborate.
About 30 minutes after the statement was issued, Stratcom apologized on Twitter, saying
that its "previous NYE tweet was in poor taste & does not reflect our values."
"We are dedicated to the security of America & allies," the new tweet added. ...
Obama was concocted in the darkest recesses of the elite. He was a deep-state test tube
presidential candidate.
BIC, Kissinger Associates, an occulted provenance, two comprehensively CIA connected
maternal grandparents, a June 8, 2008 meeting with HRC at a Bilderberg conference at the
Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, VA, while his press plane was ordered flown out of town
with all aboard except Barack Obama.
A ring on his wedding finger inscribed in Arabic. Tarmac reading material: "The Post
American World."
He was molded to do his level best to demolish the U.S., to deindustrialize it, strip mine
it, extinguish the middle class, serve it garnished to the People's Republic of China.
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago
Don't forget the fact that he refused to even investigate, much less prosecute both war
criminals and financial criminals. That effectively made those people and policies de-facto
above-the-law. As Glenn has written before, including in his book, we are now a nation of
men, not a nation of laws, and Obama is as much to blame for that as Bush, Cheney, their
lawyers and the Congress.
dkwilson 8 hours ago
I've always wondered why everyone forgets(?), or maybe no one knows... or maybe it's
convenient to omit the fact that Obama's first meaningful move as president was to attempt to
extract soldiers from the morass that is Syria. He sent Biden to the Pentagon to talk with
the corporate warlords there to take the overall temperature and find out how he could
achieve the pullout. But suddenly, that bell cow CIA media member, Bob Woodward, leaped off
the toilet on his yacht and "exposed" Obama's wants with a withering how could he, pro-war
attack (and some slick, "is Obama really a Muslim and, therefore, "anti Semite"
rhetoric).
It was as if someone took Obama into the WH's cinema room and showed him the untouched
version of the JFK assassination from every angle from which it was filmed. From that moment
forward, Barack Obama was never the same... in fact, he quickly became the Pentagon's "main
boy" water carrier. (It also seemed, Joe, I might be a Jesuit but I'm Jewish as hell, Biden
may have played a YUGE part in the play.)
But hey, why allow that little incident to get in the way of a tread worn, wholly
uniformed but somehow still effective anti-Obama narrative?
"... Very interesting. It is understandable that Trump does not read briefings, if all he is fed is a variety of permanent war options at odds with his strategic goals. ..."
"... Trump had lunch with Lindsay Graham who has allegedly said that Trump is "reconsidering ". The Neocons haven't given up.. ..."
Gareth Porter, in an article published in the American Conservative, definitively shows that
Trump's Dec. 19 announcement of the US withdrawal from Syria was, in fact, the end of a fight
of at least a year, between Trump on the one side and his national security team, lead by
Mattis and Dunford on the other. Published accounts of the policy process over the past year
"show that senior national security officials and self-interested institutions have been
playing a complicated political game for months aimed at keeping Trump from wavering on our
indefinite presence on the ground in Syria ," Porter writes. "The entire episode thus
represents a new variant of a familiar pattern dating back to Vietnam in which national
security advisors put pressure on reluctant presidents to go along with existing or proposed
military deployments in a war zone . The difference here is that Trump, by publicly choosing a
different policy, has blown up their transparent schemes and offered the country a new course,
one that does not involve a permanent war state."
Porter cites an April 2018 Associated Press account of an NSC meeting at which Trump's
impatience with his national security team boiled over. At that meeting, Trump ordered them
unequivocally to accept a fundamentally different Syria deployment policy. Instead, they framed
the options as a binary choice -- either an immediate pullout or an indefinite presence in
order to ensure the complete and permanent defeat of Islamic State. Mattis and Dunford, Porter
continues, were consciously exploiting Trump's own defensiveness about a timeline–he had
attacked Obama during the 2016 campaign for imposing a timeline in Afghanistan–"to press
ahead with their own strategy unless and until Trump publicly called them on it."
"The Syria withdrawal affair is a dramatic illustration of the fundamental quandary of the
Trump presidency in regard to ending the state of permanent war that previous administrations
created. Although a solid majority of Americans want to rein in U.S. military deployments in
the Middle East and Africa, Trump's national security team is committed to doing the opposite,
" Porter concludes. "Trump is now well aware that it is virtually impossible to carry out the
foreign policy that he wants without advisors who are committed to the same objective. That
means that he must find people who have remained outside the system during the permanent war
years while being highly critical of its whole ideology and culture. If he can fill key
positions with truly dissident figures, the last two years of this term in office could
decisively clip the wings of the bureaucrats and generals who have created the permanent war
state we find ourselves in today."
Trump has called the bluff of the permanent warfare crowd and now has his decision, but the
possibility of sabotage by that crowd's assets inside the Pentagon cannot yet be discounted.
This is indicated by an exclusive Reuters report claiming that planners at the Pentagon are
proposing that the YPG be allowed to keep the heavy weapons that the US has supplied it with,
though Reuters' sources stress that the planning is still at an early stage and nothing's been
decided yet. And yet, there must be a reason why this is being reported now. It obviously would
throw a monkey wrench in the arrangements that Trump is trying to make with Erdogan to keep
eastern Syria stable in the wake of the US withdrawal. It would also represent a back down from
US promises made earlier to the Turks to retrieve the weapons and Erdogan would throw a fit.
Certainly, the idea that the U.S. military can retrieve all of the weapons that it handed over
is a dubious one, at best , and there are legitimate questions about whether or not Turkish
troops could really operate in the Middle Euphrates valley near the Iraqi border, hundreds of
kilometers from the Turkish border.
But the key to the proposal is this: The recommendation "is a rejection of Trump's policy to
withdraw from Syria," a person familiar with the discussions told Reuters. So, really, it is an
attempt at sabotage.
Very interesting. It is understandable that Trump does not read briefings, if all he is fed
is a variety of permanent war options at odds with his strategic goals. The Syrian war that
matters is clearly now being fought within the USG and Trump has won the latest battle. As
Porter says, this war will only be won if Trump can successfully replace key Borg positions
with people of his own.
If the pullout can be completed without being sabotaged, Russia ought
to be able to seamlessly step in guarantor of peace - and the SAG and Iraq between then can
finish IS. The permanent war crowd with then just have to vent their frustrations elsewhere.
A good outcome for all.
He was IMO suckered into taking a lot of these people because he didn't know anyone in
government. His problem will be to find people not already working for the other side.
"that the YPG be allowed to keep the heavy weapons that the US has supplied it with"
I would love to find out what those "heavy weapons" were exactly. I have been putting up
comments all over the place saying that as far as I have been able to find out the US has not
supplied anything with a barrel bigger than an 80mm mortar or a vehicle heavier than a MRAP.
Up to now no-one has contradicted me. The reason the US did this was precisely this
situation, not to upset the Turks if gear was left behind.
Am I wrong? Is this equipment now regarded as "heavy weapons"?
I have looked as to where I might post my comment on this important site; this article seems
to be the best fit for my comment on another site about the retirement of Gen Kelly and a
link to an interview with Gen Kelly (I hope Col Lang will be lenient in allowing a secondary
posting of my comment from another site):
On the subject of trump this AM, zerohedge has a summary of an interview with Gen Kelly
which occurred just prior to his departure-to say that it was "bone crushing hard" probably
is a long way from describing the difficulty of that Chief of Staff job in a chaotic white
house working for a chaotic individual.
I have just a ton of respect for Gen Kelly-even in this totally mucked up country with all
of its unending flustercucks, there are individuals still willing to step up and try,
emphasis on try, to restore some sanity to the situations. God speed, Gen Kelly!!
Two factors not mentioned are the SAA and support from Russia. Turkey may be somewhat off the
hook for a deep thrust if Syrian forces move in and convince the YPG to stand down, by force
or otherwise. As Col. Lang points out, starving the YPG of ammunition is a practical
approach. If the PMU links up with Syrian forces to secure the eastern border areas, the
Kurdish interests should be balanced out. My point being that the so-called vacuum left for
Iran to fill is an overplayed shadow puppet.
Outsider independent....LMAO - only according to the very narrowly limited range of
allowed speech that Chomsky references in his famous quote. Trump may not be a D.C. insider
in the recent traditional sense, but he's no outsider and he's no independent. His
three-letter agency actions and judicial nominations clearly point to longstanding
Republican/corporate/Wall Street/Israeli wish lists.
I'm happy about the Syria decision, but I have a suspicion that it's not as positive a
development as many of his supporters are touting.
... there is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries.
After all that the elites have done in the past 40-50 years to demonstrate their humanity
– basically bringing a big chunk of the third world and resettling them in the west,
the greedy underclass still demands proof from the elites that they are humanists.
Unfortunately the way they envision that the elites should prove their humanity is by
opening their wallets and sharing their wealth with the poor in order to satisfy their ever
increasing demands for better life by the undeserving poor.
Someone has to put a stop to it. Because if the poor underclasses succeed in draining the
wealth from the innocent elites – the whole society will collapse. Why? Because there
is no way that anyone can have respect for poor elites – which is where all this
business with the yellow wests in France is going.
If the elites become poor – how can they maintain that magic aura of "we are better
than you" that they project on the poor and which allows to govern them? No one can have a
respect for poor elites. That's why I think it's time to step up the tried and trusted method
– thankfully invented by US – that when somebody doubts the generosity of the
elites – just import few hundred thousand fresh new faces from the 3rd world – to
prove how much the elites care and that we are all equal – not with them, but among
ourselves, which is where it really counts.
"... Turkey, which views the PKK as an existential threat, says that it will go on the offensive against fighters from the PKK and its Syrian affiliate, the YPG, in key areas of its border with Syria. ..."
"... he Assad regime will no doubt try to regain control of lands the Kurds now control. A bigger foe may be Syrian Arabs from areas formerly controlled by ISIS, who bitterly resent the Kurdish militia bossing them around. ..."
"... the U.S. military has refused to discuss PKK practices, insisting that its partner is the Syrian Democratic Forces, not the PKK or the YPG ..."
"... My overall conclusion is stark: U.S. reliance on the PKK and its Syrian affiliate has driven these militias to conscript at gunpoint and stirred ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds. The PKK may be sorry to see the Americans go, but a lot of Arabs are not. ..."
"... The U.S., the Brits, the French, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf kleptocracies financed and armed all of the jihadist gangs that descended on Syria after 2011, and although the Islamic State decided that it had plans of its own, the American "coalition" never tried to militarily defeat ISIS in Syria or Iraq. ISIS was still useful, to wear down the Syrian army and keep the Iraqi government off balance and dependent on the United States . ..."
"... The kurds (the pkk/ ypg ) are the US mercenaries. Just trying to divide Iraq and Syria and expand Israel. (Look at Odin Yinan plan)" ..."
"... I support the Kurds but agree that is accurate. The Kurds are playing the hand they were dealt. ..."
"... Beyond the issue of this particular situation with the Kurds, this is truly a broken record in terms of the American war machine and imperialism - yet again, regardless of what war-hungry administration has been in power for the last 200-plus years in the Oval Office our military is more than willing to side with terrorists and pathological inhumane groups for the sake of their own continued imperialism. This scenario is a dime-a-dozen story in the history of America. ..."
KHALIL WAS SHOPPING in the Hasakah marketplace in Syria when Kurdish military police
arrested him last March. He was 19 and had papers that showed he was in high school, but that
didn't matter. The Kurdish militia, which feeds troops to the U.S.-led war in Syria, was way
short of volunteers. They ordered him into a minibus and drove through the northeast Syrian
city, abducting others along the way.
The force that conscripted Khalil calls itself the People's Protection Units, or YPG in
Kurdish. The militia it supplies calls itself the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, a mixed
Kurdish-Arab formation. But conscripts quickly learn who is really in charge in the proxy war
against Islamic State extremists. It's the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Marxist guerrilla
movement that's been at war with neighboring Turkey for 35 years.
Khalil's boot camp lasted six weeks, one-third of which was political indoctrination about
the Kurds -- including the works of Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the PKK, which is the
Kurdish acronym for the Kurdistan Workers' Party -- and the rest was weapons familiarization.
His cohort was 15 Kurds and about 350 Arabs, all conscripted at gunpoint, he told me. The
course was taught in Kurdish with translators for the Arabs. (Khalil, who's from Syria's Yazidi
minority, speaks Kurdish).
When the training ended in May, Khalil received orders to deploy to Deir Ezzor on the
frontline near an ISIS-held pocket of territory. Instead, he fled with his sister to Kurdish
territory in Iraq. He was lucky, for his parents are refugees in Europe -- if his family had
lived in the area, he wouldn't have been able to quit, knowing that military police would seize
a brother, a cousin, or even their father in his place.
U.S. reliance on the PKK and its Syrian affiliate has driven these militias to conscript at
gunpoint and stirred ethnic tensions. The PKK may be sorry to see the Americans go, but a lot
of Arabs are not.
This is everyday reality for the force that the U.S. military, politicians, and pundits have
lionized as the most capable and reliable ground partner the U.S. could find in Syria. It's run
by a group that the State Department has declared to be terrorists; it conscripts at gunpoint
and utilizes police state methods in its operations and governance that are completely
antithetical to U.S. values, according to deserters interviewed by The Intercept.
This is also the force that will soon be left hanging and exposed to retribution if
President Donald Trump carries out his apparently impulsive decision last week to withdraw U.S.
forces from Syria as fast as possible. Turkey, which views the PKK as an existential threat,
says that it will go on the offensive against fighters from the PKK and its Syrian affiliate,
the YPG, in key areas of its border with Syria. ISIS may also target them, and the Assad regime
will no doubt try to regain control of lands the Kurds now control. A bigger foe may be Syrian
Arabs from areas formerly controlled by ISIS, who bitterly resent the Kurdish militia bossing
them around.
"They are not able to do anything today," Khalil said of the Arabs who constitute the
majority of the population in the provincial capital. "But if they come to power in the future,
they will do everything they can against the YPG." Also, a large
number of Kurds have fled north Syria rather than live under the YPG and the economic
hardship of war, and more will leave with the YPG, especially in
Manbij , where they've been given special privileges by the YPG.
THE U.S. MILITARY first linked up with the Kurdish militia in Syria in late 2014 when ISIS
was attacking the town of Kobani, but the U.S. ground partner has not had close scrutiny until
now, just as U.S. presence is about to end. In part, it's because the Kurds run what a State
Department official told
me is a "mini-totalitarian state," where criticism isn't allowed; in part, it's because the
U.S. military has refused to discuss PKK practices, insisting that its partner is the Syrian
Democratic Forces, not the PKK or the YPG. One way to circumvent this closed circuit is by
seeking out deserters, who've been fleeing to territory controlled by Iraq's Kurdistan Regional
Government for several years. With KRG assistance, I interviewed four deserters in the northern
Iraqi town of Dohuk last month. I have changed their names to protect them from PKK
retribution.
My overall conclusion is stark: U.S. reliance on the PKK and its Syrian affiliate has driven
these militias to conscript at gunpoint and stirred ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds.
The PKK may be sorry to see the Americans go, but a lot of Arabs are not.
... .... ...
xochtl 2 days ago (Edited)
Haven't we seen this picture before? Soon as u.s./western powers strong-arm people who are
struggling to survive and self-defend, there are suddenly allegations of "human rights
violations", when it did not exist before u.s. "support"and ally development. We have them
serve us as slaves doing our dirty work to pit brother against brother, and simultaneously
claim moral superiority if they "misbehave" because we claim we don't do bad things. The old
"divide and conquer", weaken and crumble under our thumb. centuries of practice have given us
great skill in knowing how to exploit and fk-up people to our benefit.
Aside from the remaining head-hunters, Washington's only indigenous ally in Syria is an
army of Marxist Kurds who were among the prime victims -- and fiercest resisters -- of the
American-sponsored jihadist onslaught. For years they were tacit allies of Syria's
government -- whose secularism they share -- in the struggle against the U.S.-sponsored
barbarians. But Don Uncle Sam made them an offer of protection-or-else that they believed
could not be refused, and the Kurds are now pawns -- as is the whole planet, in a sense --
to Washington's quandary : How does the world's sole Superpower remain in a region where it
is despised, after its proxy forces have been defeated?
The United States will claim it's against the Islamic State. These days, the U.S. claims
everything it does in Syria and in Iraq is part of the fight against the Islamic State.
But, of course, there never was a U.S. war against the Islamic State, which spread like
wildfire until the Russian air force intervened in late September.
The U.S., the Brits, the
French, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf kleptocracies financed and armed all of the
jihadist gangs that descended on Syria after 2011, and although the Islamic State decided
that it had plans of its own, the American "coalition" never tried to militarily defeat
ISIS in Syria or Iraq. ISIS was still useful, to wear down the Syrian army and keep the
Iraqi government off balance and dependent on the United States .
However, the Turks have
their own agenda. Turkish President Recep Erdogan has staked his political life on
defeating and humiliating the Kurds, in his own country and in Syria.
But, the United
States has made a huge investment in acting as the "protector" of the Iraqi Kurds, in order
to dismember and control Iraq, and the Americans are trying to play the same game with the
Syrian Kurds . That's why the U.S. is providing air cover to some Syrian Kurdish units,
while the Turks are shelling other Kurds who operate under Russian air cover, 60 miles
away.
The Turks don't like the game the Americans are playing, and are threatening to
invade Syria, confront the Russians, and force the U.S. to choose between Turkey, or the
Kurds, or World War Three. This is a very dangerous moment for the planet. https://www.blackagendareport.com/syria_war_out_of_control
Great_White 3 days ago
The kurds (the pkk/ ypg ) are the US mercenaries. Just trying to divide Iraq and Syria and
expand Israel. (Look at Odin Yinan plan) Its a US plan that creating ethnic hatred in the
countries of the ME and support Israel.
The US and the US backed kurdish terrorist organizations are hand in hand with Israel.
The Kurdish Connection: Israel, ISIS And U.S. Efforts To Destabilize Iran
http://www.voltairenet.org/article197439.html
If Turkey is clever enough they should never trust to the US. I know the Turks saved
thousands of American lives in the Korean war but they still didn't realized the US is a
backstabber and its not the first time. I wonder what if Turkey supports Mexican cartels and
funding and arming them ?
What if the Turks supports North Korea ? Support them in any way and develop long range
missiles ? The US media is full of lies, hoax and the fake news. The US and the US backed
kurdish terrorist organizations never fought against ISIS.
The Kurds: Washington's Weapon Of Mass Destabilization In The Middle East
http://www.voltairenet.org/article197437.html The US has 800 terrorist nest around the world. As long as the US military stay in the ME,
terror, chaos and the terrorist organizations will never end.
DHorse 3 days ago
@Great_White I will read the links thanks they are additional sources.
"The kurds (the pkk/ ypg ) are the US mercenaries. Just trying to divide Iraq and Syria
and expand Israel. (Look at Odin Yinan plan)"
I support the Kurds but agree that is accurate. The Kurds are playing the hand they were
dealt. That plan though? Lacking more time I see its authenticity as irrelevant. Particularly
when the behavior mimics the plan.
Global fascism seemed a higher priority and applies here as well.
I support Turkey and hope they will clean all the US backed terrorists.. The Military
industry wants war that's how they make money and expand Israel..
Happy new year mate.
Keith 4 days ago
A few things come to mind here...
1. Beyond the issue of this particular situation with the Kurds, this is truly a broken
record in terms of the American war machine and imperialism - yet again, regardless of what
war-hungry administration has been in power for the last 200-plus years in the Oval Office
our military is more than willing to side with terrorists and pathological inhumane groups
for the sake of their own continued imperialism. This scenario is a dime-a-dozen story in the
history of America.
2. Without The Intercept to settle the reality here for those of us (too few) who consume
it, Americans are reduced to being told by CNN and MSNBC how innocent and desperate these
poor Kurdish groups are now - or even more insane - they're told by FOX how whatever the
inhumane baffoon currently in the Oval Office thinks about the Kurds (he's not thinking about
the Kurds) needs to be the fascist narrative for a fascist America, no matter how many times
it changes.
3. Once again, this is an issue like so many others that goes beyond blaming/praising
presidents of the past or present. Getting into a debate here over Hillary Clinton needs to
be moved to the CNN comments section.
4. Thank-you The Intercept for an amazing 2018 of actual journalism.
"... Seven years and 500,000 dead Syrians later, it is Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron who are gone. Assad still rules in Damascus, and the 2,000 Americans in Syria are coming home. Soon, says President Donald Trump. ..."
So read the headline in The Washington Post, Aug. 18, 2011.
The story quoted President Barack Obama directly: "The future of Syria must be determined by
its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. the time has come for
President Assad to step aside."
France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's David Cameron signed on to the Obama ultimatum: Assad
must go!
Seven years and 500,000 dead Syrians later, it is Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron who are
gone. Assad still rules in Damascus, and the 2,000 Americans in Syria are coming home. Soon,
says President Donald Trump.
But we cannot "leave now," insists Sen. Lindsey Graham, or "the Kurds are going to get
slaughtered."
Question: Who plunged us into a Syrian civil war, and so managed our intervention that were
we to go home after seven years our enemies will be victorious and our allies will "get
slaughtered"?
Buchanan writes this article as if our government is legitimate. The fact is the important
parts of our government are controlled by the elite. The important parts are any asspect
of the government that can gain and maintain power and wealth for the Deep State/Elite. The
petty internecine squabbles between parties or factions are of no concern to the elite and
they provide confusion of the electorate and cover for the true power center.
That was a most excellent column and summation of the reality of American Neocon Middle Eastern
foreign policy, Mr. Buchanan. This is in contrast to many columns written by supposedly
conservative pundits, including yourself, in which the questions asked are "what should WE do
about Mr. ____ of _____?" "Who should WE support in this or this other conflict?", etc.
No, WE need to just get the hell out of their business. We don't need to care about who's
taking over which country, what minorities are getting pushed out of one portion of one
shithole to another, or who's allied with whom. Just GET OUT, STAY OUT, and maybe leave a
couple of diplomats earning hazard pay in a small consulate or office there for
communications, the way it's supposed to be (you know your history, Pat).
BTW, I also like the headline, as the column reads that the "War Party" includes both
squads of The Party, the blue and the red. I agree with this assessment.
Guess I'm behind, didn't know we had 5,000 troops still in Iraq. I though Obama pulled them
out in 2011, which caused much angst and wailing from the usual suspects. The Iraqi
parliament should expel us, we haven't the brains to leave on our own.
It's tough to break the habit, but Americans who still fall for this pronoun propaganda
need to wake up. Identifying with the Establishment is what keeps them voting like sheep
every two years, letting a Beltway fixture fret on their behalf while they await the next
Most Important Election Ever.
Trump's backtracking has already started. First it was immediate pull out. Now it will take
four months. A week later, it will be six months and then a year and so it will go on.
@WorkingClass
War and destruction is what makes our species homo rapiens so very human; war is the
force that gives us meaning.
The destruction of the natural world [including incessant war] is not the result of
global capitalism, industrialisation, "Western civilisation" or any flaw in human
institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious
primate. -- John Gray, STRAW DOGS
'How has all this invading, bombing and killing made the Middle East a better place or
Americans more secure? '
Nu? This is only evidence of failure if one assumes making the Middle East a better place
or Americans more secure was the goal in the first place.
Do all go in fear of provoking Israel's wrath? Will American largess continue to flow to
her in an ever-widening and deepening stream? Has increased Islamophobia on our part and
hatred of America on the part of the Muslim world helped to ensure the Forever War will
indeed continue forever? Is Europe swiftly being destabilized and brought into the arena of
conflict?
Like anything else, our policy should be analyzed in terms of its goals. I think it's all
been a rousing success.
Obama and Hillary turned the middle east over to the Muslim Brotherhood.
With the exception of Syria and Egypt(military trained by Americans)
Before this Christians any homosexuals were fairly safe. Now homos are
tossed off tall buildings and Christians done away with using many methods.
The key fact about Syria situation is that Obama administration conducted criminal actions
against a sovereign state.
Which by standard of Nuremberg trials makes Obama a war criminal.
Trump inherited (and actually aggravated) this mess. Two ancient Syrian cities were wiped
from the face of the Earth by US strikes ("wanton destruction of cities" is a war crime). The
US forces operated in Syria outside any norm of international law.
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of
aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;(ii)
Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts
mentioned under (i).
(b) War crimes:Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited
to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian
population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or
persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton
destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military
necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other
inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or
religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution
of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
So read the headline in The Washington Post, Aug. 18, 2011.
The story quoted President Barack Obama directly:
"The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is
standing in their way. the time has come for President Assad to step aside."
France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's David Cameron signed on to the Obama ultimatum:
Assad must go!
Seven years and 500,000 dead Syrians later, it is Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron who are
gone. Assad still rules in Damascus, and the 2,000 Americans in Syria are coming home.
Soon, says President Donald Trump.
But we cannot "leave now," insists Sen. Lindsey Graham, or "the Kurds are going to get
slaughtered."
Question: Who plunged us into a Syrian civil war, and so managed our intervention that
were we to go home after seven years our enemies will be victorious and our allies will
"get slaughtered"?
Not all neocons are sociopaths. most are simply MIC lobbyists, kind of intellectual prostitutes.
Notable quotes:
"... U.S. foreign policy has always been subject to hijack by interested parties. There are not strong institutions in the U.S. that could define and discipline the pursuit of a foreign policy focused an American public interest. ..."
"... the majority of intellectuals in the American (and British, and Australasian) intellectual elite (be they 'liberal' or 'conservative') are intellectually and emotionally committed to the continuance of American (and Western, more generally) imperialism. But we knew that anyway. ..."
"... Does anyone care that many legal experts – regardless of how evil Assad or Isis was and is – think sending troops into Syria was illegal, given that Congress never debated or approved sending troops there? Should we fight in Syria forever, just because Russia also thinks we should leave? What percentage of the American public even knew to begin with over 2,000 troops have been on the ground in Syria occupying a third of the country for years? ..."
"... Maybe if Congress has not used the last decade to totally abdicate its constitutional responsibility to debate and approve of wars the US is involved in, and if they were actually up front to the American people about the extreme costs of fighting yet another war, they would have a leg to stand on. But their stance seems to now be: we only get upset when troops get to come home without our approval, not when they are deployed in yet another war zone. ..."
"... there is no pt having illusions about the degree to which the current Iranian govt is meeting the aspirations/needs of most of its pop. (not well, from the admittedly limited amt I follow this) or the degree to which Iran's foreign policy is promoting anything resembling regional peace, "stability," and "security." ..."
"... Bourgeois nationalism may be outmoded but replacing it with Islamic State is simply obscene. That's why the sometime tacit US support for IS is criminal. Yes, it is quite likely that the US will covertly assist a revival of ISIS. ..."
Whether acting for good or ill, the history of US involvement in the Middle East has been
one of consistent failure at least for the last 40 years.
Cui bono?
U.S. foreign policy has always been subject to hijack by interested parties. There are not
strong institutions in the U.S. that could define and discipline the pursuit of a foreign
policy focused an American public interest.
And, unfortunately, few critics are willing to come out plainly calling this what it is,
deep corruption. Most Americans are simply struck dumb by the horror of recognizing that
American foreign policy was conducted by and for self-interested sociopaths long before Trump
came along. As a people, we are not willing to even acknowledge that Richard Nixon and Henry
Kissinger down to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were war criminals. I proposed to a group of
well-informed observers of foreign policy once that Colin Powell had ended his career shaming
his country by lying to the Security Council about the gravest matters and ought to be
shunned from polite company. They looked at me like I was insane. We were lied into Vietnam
and we were lied into Iraq. I guess it is some credit to us as a people that they feel the
need to tell lies that appeal to our better impulses, but why don't our better impulses
extend to punish the liars and the sociopaths?
Hidari 12.22.18 at 10:58 am (no link)
If anyone cares, here's a link to an article by one of the few Western journalists who
actually knows what he is talking about: Patrick Cockburn. Worth reading.
@3 'Trump folded or traded. If a trade what did he trade, if he folded, why?'
The answer, sadly, is not difficult to discover. There are 2 million Kurds. There are 80
million Turks. Turkey (under Erdogan) is increasingly an economic powerhouse. 'Kurdistan',
insofar as it exists .isn't. Trump is a businessman first, and a politician second. What more
do you need to know?
A few other things that need to be pointed out: despite the fact that liberals have
(correctly) been screaming that Trump is a liar since he became President, everyone seems to
be acting as if Trump is now telling the truth and this 'withdrawal' will actually happen. Of
course, it might. But equally it might not. What progressives need to be particularly careful
of are 'withdrawals' that aren't. E.g. how many American 'special forces' will be left in
Syria? How many 'advisers'? How many mercenaries working for American companies like
Blackwater? And so on.
In any case, the idea that there will be a long term withdrawal from Syria seems unlikely.
As a number of commentators above have pointed out, presumably, in the next 5 years or so,
Turkey (which is still a 'US aligned' power, although relations have been strained recently)
will invade Syria/Kurdistan. Thus bringing the area back under (de facto) American control,
although of course, the Turks are unlikely to stay for prolonged periods of time. But the
threat of another Turkish invasion may well work to keep the Kurds 'on message', put paid to
their 'revolutionary idealism' and stop them having silly ideas about spreading their new
socialist/anarchist polity to other countries.
In any case, as other commentators (not on this thread, but on Democracy Now and other,
so-called 'alternative' media) have also pointed out, this 'withdrawal' may well mean 'amping
up' the 'drone war' (the 'liberal' media has barely reported this, but Trump has
significantly increased and expanded Obama's 'drone campaign', especially, of course, in Arab
countries).
Moreover, Syria remains a victim of Obama's/Trump's sanctions (sanctions by states always,
of course, being a weapon of war).
So it seems unlikely that Trump will genuinely allow Syria to pursue a genuinely
independent foreign or domestic policy. Of course the idea that Trump (and the West
generally) should formally apologise and pay reparations to the Syrian people for the chaos
they have helped to inflict in Syria remains an idea from science fiction.
This is not to argue against the position of the OP, which merely points out that the
majority of intellectuals in the American (and British, and Australasian) intellectual elite
(be they 'liberal' or 'conservative') are intellectually and emotionally committed to the
continuance of American (and Western, more generally) imperialism. But we knew that
anyway.
john c. halasz 12.22.18 at 8:11 pm (no link)
christian h. @8:
I find it hard to fathom how any leftist could conclude that the Assad regime is the worst
evil in the Syrian civil war, let alone imply that U.S. forces should have conducted a regime
change illegally. While, in fact ,the U.S. and its unsavory allies have poured $10's bn worth
of weapons into the conflict arming jihadi extremists and prolonging the agony, not to
mention the vast hoard of weapons the U.S. gifted to IS due to the collapse of the Iraqi army
that was supposed to defend Mosul
As to what is likely to happen if U.S. forces are really withdrawn completely, the Kurds,
who have been betrayed repeatedly by the U.S. before, would have to make a deal with the
Assad gov. and the Russians would then forestall any Turkish invasion. That offer was made in
the case of Afrin province and the Kurds foolishly rejected it. (Putin's aim clearly has been
to get the U.S. out of Syrian, where their presence is illegal anyway and re-unify the
country.) But thus far the Kurdish delegation recently sent to Damascus has stuck to their
maximalist demands. Vut if they fail to make a deal and Turkey does invade, the Turks will
only seek to occupy a 10 mile strip alone the border. An attempt to occupy all of Syrian
Kurdish territory would take 100,000's of troops and result in huge Turkish casualties, as
the Kurds among others would resist fiercely and asymmetrically.
Does anyone care that many legal experts – regardless of how evil Assad or Isis
was and is – think sending troops into Syria was illegal, given that Congress never
debated or approved sending troops there? Should we fight in Syria forever, just because
Russia also thinks we should leave? What percentage of the American public even knew to begin
with over 2,000 troops have been on the ground in Syria occupying a third of the country for
years?
Maybe if Congress has not used the last decade to totally abdicate its constitutional
responsibility to debate and approve of wars the US is involved in, and if they were actually
up front to the American people about the extreme costs of fighting yet another war, they
would have a leg to stand on. But their stance seems to now be: we only get upset when troops
get to come home without our approval, not when they are deployed in yet another war
zone.
I agree with this, but also think there's a responsibility to minimize the fallout.
Much more important than all this is ending the war in Yemen, though.
Hidari @10 But the threat of another Turkish invasion may well work to keep the Kurds 'on
message', put paid to their 'revolutionary idealism' and stop them having silly ideas about
spreading their new socialist/anarchist polity to other countries."
Funny business how long (100+ years) those setting up exclusionary ethno-nationalist
"homelands" (that seamlessly morph into armed to the teeth ethnostates once their imperial
patron signs on to their project) have been conning ignorant Westerners with fantasies of
egalitarian/anarchist utopian communities:
David Graeber, resident anarchist at BBC, seems to have fallen hard for fairy tales of
formerly cult-of-personality based Marxist-Leninists (esp. comely women in fatigues
brandishing AK-47s) who now spout soundbites upon request from the playbook of Murray
Bookchin's "social ecology":
1) David L. @6 says that most of Iran's foreign-policy goals are aligned w the US's. I don't
think so. That doesn't mean the US shd be so close to Saudi Arabia (it definitely shouldn't),
but I don't think either the character of the Iranian domestic system or most of Iran's
regional activities are things the US shd be aligning with. Trump shd not have withdrawn from
the nuclear deal, but beyond that there is no pt having illusions about the degree to which
the current Iranian govt is meeting the aspirations/needs of most of its pop. (not well, from
the admittedly limited amt I follow this) or the degree to which Iran's foreign policy is
promoting anything resembling regional peace, "stability," and "security."
2) The OP says that the First Gulf War "created" Al Qaeda. No: Al Qaeda was created in
1988, before the first Gulf War; a formal organizational meeting was held August 1988 in
Peshawar. (Source: Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower , pp. 150ff.) The aftermath(s)
of the first Gulf War, notably the stationing of more US soldiers in SA, strengthened Al
Qaeda by putting another significant item on its list of grievances, but the first Gulf War
did not create it.
"There are 2 million Kurds. There are 80 million Turks."
The question what is Kurd and how many Kurds are there is highly contentious but realistic
estimates put the number at 20 to 40 million. For that reason alone, the Kurdish question
isn't likely to be going anywhere.
As to the OP, it is puzzling. Turning against one of very few progressive secular forces
in the Middle East while increasing support for the anti-secular Saudi and Turkish
autocracies is far from my definition of "getting it half right". And whatever the reason,
sudden and unpredictable changes in foreign policy are not to be taken lightly. That US
foreign policy is a mess is easy to agree to. But it doesn't follow that any partial change
of course is a move in the right direction.
Once the dogs of war are unleashed anywhere it becomes difficult to chain them up again. Poor
Syria has a civil war that has been hijacked by regional powers. One less superpower dropping
bombs is a good thing for such an oppressed population.
JQ: "The first Gulf War looked like a success at the time, but created both Al Qaeda and the
conditions for the disastrous second war."
1. Are you saying the second war was inevitable given the first, so Bush II had no choice?
He had lots of choice. He could easily have avoided the second war, or managed the occupation
that followed less utterly incompetently (Paul Bremer, anyone?).
2. I'd be interested to hear how the Middle East would have been all peace and harmony if
Saddam had been left in occupation of Kuwait. No dangers whatever there!
Lots of failures in US Middle East policy, sure, but you're stretching on this one. And on
Israel-Palestine, how much of the ultimate failure of the Clinton Camp David effort was due
to US and how much to the Israelis and Palestinians?
Peter T 12.23.18 at 1:01 am (no link)
Cranky Observer (and others)
As the largest single agglomeration of power on the planet, the US cannot hope to escape
influence or manipulation – everyone wants to tap into and use US power (economic,
military or cultural). Just by existing it exerts a distorting force. So the question is not
whether but how it acts, and to what purposes. The US has more choices than "bomb" or
"leave". It has locked itself into a set of incoherent, contradictory policies (oppose
terrorism but support Saudi Arabia, fight al-Qaeda/ISIS but replace Assad, enable Israeli
expansion but deplore the results, fight the Taliban but support Pakistan and oppose Iran ).
This is not a new story – the same could be said of US policy in SE Asia from the 50s
through to the 80s, which saw the US end up in bed with the Khmer Rouge.
A coherent policy would decide on a small set of achievable aims and then stick to them.
If defeating ISIS is the key aim, then Assad and Iran are on the US side, and Saudi an
obstacle (this does not mean alliance or enmity – it means avoiding hostility on the
one hand, and making clear the limits of support on the other). A deal whereby Damascus
regains formal control of the north-east in return for some level of Kurdish autonomy is
probably do-able, and would at least avoid another round of ethnic cleansing/guerilla war and
the prospect of an ISIS revival or an Islamist pocket under Turkish protection.
novakant 12.23.18 at 2:58 pm (no link)
there is no pt having illusions about the degree to which the current Iranian govt is
meeting the aspirations/needs of most of its pop. (not well, from the admittedly limited amt
I follow this) or the degree to which Iran's foreign policy is promoting anything resembling
regional peace, "stability," and "security."
If you're really concerned about the needs and aspirations of the Iranian population you
should lift all sanctions immediately and bring the country back into the international
community. Iran has been under sanctions and ostracized for nearly 30 years for no good
reason except US spitefulness and the people have suffered greatly as a result (and I'm
leaving out the Iran-Iraq war for reasons of brevity).
The regime is a bit shit, but they're rational actors and the Iranian people can very well
figure out the way ahead themselves without hypocritical Westerners shedding crocodile tears
over human rights abuses.
And it takes some chutzpah for an American (or a Brit) to accuse Iran of insufficiently
promoting regional peace, "stability," and "security", after all the havoc the US/UK has
wrought in the Middle East over the past century – are fucking serious?
Trump may be withdrawing from Syria in the same way he made peace with North Korea.
Al-Qaeda was a product of the war against the socialist government in Kabul. US support
for their sectarian war provoked Soviet intervention, just as Brzezinsky hoped.
Saddam Hussein's seizure of Kuwait was a consequence of his defeat in the war with Iran,
which left his finances in shambles. It's not clear the continued existence of another "oil
company with a flag" is a blessing to humanity.
Islamic State began as ISIL or ISIS in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq. This is
not an accident. The US deliberately divvied up Iraq on sectarian lines.
Bashar Assad is terrible, just like his father. But Bashar Assad does stand for a secular
national state. The Louis Proyect-type socialists who want sectarian ethnic cleansing and
possibly genocide of the Alawite base they say is Assad's only support seem hell-bent on
demonstrating there *can* be social-fascism. Bourgeois nationalism may be outmoded but
replacing it with Islamic State is simply obscene. That's why the sometime tacit US support
for IS is criminal. Yes, it is quite likely that the US will covertly assist a revival of
ISIS. This is why it is premature to claim Trump is half-right I think.
Erdogan has been engaged in the Zia-fication of Turkey. Like Pakistan, the end result will
be a nightmare society. The US simply withdrawing is not making peace with Damascus.
Therefore this is giving Erdogan a greenlight. Partition of Syria and/or endless war has been
an acceptable goal for the US at all times.
... ... ...
Hidari 12.24.18 at 4:49 pm (no link)
To all those who have ('dialectically', one might say) decided, on the basis of very little
evidence, that a drawback of US power will somehow make a situation (any situation) worse .
one should always remember that there are very few, if any, geopolitical situations on
planet Earth which would not be radically improved by following the simple injunction 'Yankee
Go Home' (as well as following the order of its, so to speak, semantic cousin, 'Brits
out').
The problem is that Trump's ramblings are unlikely to presage anything of the sort
happening. The Americans arrive, but they rarely leave. Ask the Japanese about that.
But in the highly unlikely event that Trump is telling the truth, this would be a
wholly and unarguably positive development in the region. Which, I think, was the point of
the OP.
Hmm. I get the impression that the Japanese overall are not unhappy about the US presence
and are generally pretty pro-American. The Okinawans would like less of the burden falling on
them, but between the LDP being heavy-handed, insensitive, and in complete power, and
NIMBY-ism being strong everywhere in Japan, this problem isn't getting fixed any time soon.
For a while, a lot of the Japanese were of the opinion that Obama was to blame for North
Korea's nuclear craziness (or for not doing anything about said craziness), and thought The
Orange Monster was fixing the problem. They seem to have figured out that hoping for good
work from said monster isn't a good idea, though.
Anyway, US policy in Syria was dizzy from the start. We don't like Assad, but failed to
notice that the opposition quickly became Salafi jihadists friendly to ISIS, al Qaida and the
like. When we finally figured that latter bit out, we (including lots of lefty commentators,
sigh) were still committed to being anti-Assad. Stupid. Beyond. Words.
Hidari @23. But in the highly unlikely event that Trump is telling the truth, this would
be a wholly and unarguably positive development in the region.
I'm reminded of a book that didn't receive much
attention when it came out 10 years ago, but which was written by a man who had a penchant
for unsentimental analysis (of the Soviet Union, but then to the consternation of some he
turned those analytic tools upon his country of birth after the former disappeared):
In general, Hough argues, Republican Administrations during the Cold War were more open
to the détente policies favored by the German-American component of their
constituency, while Democratic presidents were more aggressively anti-Communist: Truman in
Korea, Kennedy planting missiles in Turkey, invading Cuba and sending US troops to Vietnam,
while Nixon negotiated with Mao and Reagan with Gorbachev. He admits that the picture is
blurred, however, by the fact that each side compensates by proclaiming an ideological
stance that is the opposite of its actions.
A former British
diplomat concurs that what Trump just announced would have been inconceivable under a
Hillary (or for that matter, almost any postwar Democratic) administration:
I have written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans, but at least
he has not initiated a major war; and I am quite sure Hillary would have done by now. For a
non-American, the choice between Hillary and Trump ended up in balancing on one side of the
scale the evil of millions more killed and maimed in the Middle East and the launching of a
full on, unreserved new Cold War, against on the other side of the scale poorer Americans
having very bad healthcare and social provision and America adopting racist immigration
policies. I do hope that the neo-con barrage today arguing for more American troops in the
Middle East, will help people remember just how very unattractive also is the Hillary side
of the equation.
The US had at least two policies in Syria. One was conducted by the CIA in alliance with the
Gulf State, using ex-East European arms stocks, which aimed to overthrow Assad. This worked
with various Islamist groups, including some explicitly tied to al-qaeda. The other was run
by Defense, and worked with the PKK against ISIS. State ran around providing diplomatic
cover, and also fostered talking shops for the miniscule and ineffectual "moderate
opposition".
The first was quietly wound down under Obama. While Hillary's job at State was to provide
the talking points, there is no reason to believe that she opposed Obama's policy of
withdrawal. Trump has, if anything, stepped up the rhetoric against Assad and also loosened
the restrictions on Defense, resulting in more civilian casualties. The Defense effort was
always on borrowed time, in that the rationale disappeared with victory over ISIS, and it had
to operate against Turkish pressure.
On my point about others seeking to use US power – the US' system of dispersed
governance provides multiple entry points for outside influence (foreign relations committees
and staff, different arms of the administration, influential outsiders – see China
Lobby, the career of Ahmad Chalabi, the MEK, the Israeli grip, the Saudi nexus ). So foreign
entanglements are a fact of life, short of wholesale reform of the US state. Isolation was
possible when the US was a bit player; it's not now.
All these nations and groupings intervening, what are their tag-lines?
By which I mean the British Empire stated it brought for "Christianity, Commerce, and
Civilisation", and the American post-war hegemony brought "Freedom and Democracy". We can
argue lots about how much they stood by their slogans, but nevertheless these slogans gave
the nations that were being brought under control a sense of what, nominally, they were
entitled to. But what of other participants? What is Russia's tag-line when it intervenes in
the middle east? For that matter, what is China's tag-line when it buys up influence all over
the world? What is Saudi Arabia's tag line? What do these nations stand for?
@45
My only point is to remind everyone of the Americans' long tradition of withdrawals that
aren't. Remember, it was Obama who first 'withdrew' from Iraq, in December 2011 (December
being a popular time for 'withdrawals' apparently) before 'unwithdrawing' in 2014 because of
the 'threat' of ISIS, which 'required' American troops to fight it .and American troops
continue to fight (and die) in Iraq to this day.
Stephen Gowans has written a book entitled 'Washington's Long War on Syria'. Whatever one
might think of Gowans, the title is surely accurate. The Americans have been interfering in
Syrian internal affairs since the CIA backed coup of 1949 (and of course 'Western'
imperialistic control of Syria goes back to 1918). The idea that the Americans are simply
going to back up and go home (as they have never done before) is simply science fictional:
the Americans never give up or go home.
Let's not forget that American Imperial Troops are currently deployed in more than 150
countries worldwide ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments
). The 'withdrawal' of 2,000 troops here or there is not going to fundamentally alter an
imperialist foreign policy.
@46 ' So foreign entanglements are a fact of life.' Why?
'short of wholesale reform of the US state.' Let's do that then.
'Isolation was possible when the US was a bit player; it's not now.'
And yet other countries seem to manage it just fine.
I continue to be amazed by well educated historically aware people who consider American
imperialism an objective and unalterable fact of life, like the laws of physics. The US has
only been a global world dominating hegemon since about 1948, and it already looks highly
unstable (the Roman Empire for contrast lasted roughly from 700BC to the 15th century AD. The
various Egyptian Empires lasted much longer). It is by no means unalterable or
unstoppable.
A 'progressivism' that doesn't take a simple, elementary, moral stand against American
imperialism in general, and Western imperialism more generally, isn't really worth much, at
the end of the day, and will inevitably founder on its own contradictions.
Hidari no doubt has excellent evidence of both of the following:
1. That the Russian sphere of influence is more beneficial than the American one, and
2. That leaving the Middle East today will somehow inhibit the next militarily
adventuristic US President with bad ideas from just going back.
Because without the former you've no reason to expect any immediate benefit, and without
the latter you've no reason to think that we can avoid greater future harms by allowing
present ones.
@45. Dennis Perrin is also good on the Democrats' weakness for bombing brown peoples:
Not surprised by the countless liberals opposed to #SyriaWithdrawal. Liberals love war and
imperialism, and it's extra exciting to see warmongering covered in rainbow flags and peace
signs. Again: I wrote SAVAGE MULES far too soon.
The argument that Trump has proven to be crazy and incompetent for withdrawing those troops,
and that instead, we should have the crazy and incompetent president directing those troops,
is an argument of considerable madness. It reminds me of the liberal interventionist argument
about invading Iraq, which conceded that Bush and his people were total incompetents and then
turned about and urged a fantasy war for fantasy reasons. It makes me think that there is an
intellectual deficit in the foreign policy establishment that requires wholesale
de-legitimation.
I have written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans, but at least
he has not initiated a major war; and I am quite sure Hillary would have done by now.
This is perfect (as epitome of "leftist" commentary on Trump/ Clinton). Shrill, angry
bitch might not be a Nazi like our boy, but she would have started a war, and don't you doubt
it, because, somehow or other, we just know she would have.
'(Trump) said he had no plans to withdraw American forces from Iraq, which he said the United
States could use as a staging ground in the heart of the Middle East from which to combat
Iran, or someday reenter Syria' .
Despite what some people are projecting onto him, Trump is just as much of a warmonger and
an imperialist as Clinton, Obama, Bush and the rest. It's just that he has a (slightly)
clearer view of the limits of American power and (slightly) more insight into how much
ordinary working class Americans hate the forever wars.
But the basic lineaments of his worldview are imperial. That this in no way distinguishes
him from the majority of American intellectuals, be they 'conservative' or 'liberal', is not
an excuse.
For any self described "liberal progressive" who wholeheartedly agrees with:
"military intervention in foreign disputes is almost always harmful and hardly ever
preferable to civil aid" @50 is really "annoying"?
As it is highly doubtful that the "countless liberals opposed to #SyriaWithdrawal" are
really "liberals" – as it is highly doubtful that the "Shrill, angry bitch would have
started a war – as she for sure is NOT "like our boy" – Baron von Clownstick
– who never ever will get anything "even half right" – as "random" never can be
"right" or "wrong" – it's just as random as naming "Paradise" – "Pleasure" and
not "Papperlapapp"!
[William Appleman] Williams' most important contribution was to identify foreign relations
as the arena where competing moral ideas concerning how best to organize society got worked
out. Over the long course of US history, Williams argued, liberalism's prime
contradictions–between, for instance, the general good and self-interest, or society
and private property–were harmonized through constant expansion, first territorially,
then economically. Empire, he wrote, "was the only way to honor avarice and morality. The
only way to be good and wealthy." (Williams was well ahead of his time: it has only been in
the last decade that intellectual historians have begun to look at liberalism's relationship
to empire.)
Williams taught that domestic reform in America has always been paid for with imperial
expansion. In the mid-1800s, the federal fight against slavery went hand in hand with the
fight against Native Americans and the final drive west. Progressives and New Dealers could
use the government to distribute wealth a bit more equitably only if they also used it to
open the world's markets to American corporations. And in the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson couldn't
get the congressional votes for the Great Society unless he stood "firm on the frontier" in
Vietnam.
One thing wrong with that Engel quote, novakant -- Obama did back the Syrian rebels. Some of
the weapons he sent quickly ended up in the hands of ISIS.
53, anybody who says Trump is not a warmonger should look at the increase in the military
budget that he advocated. He's a warmonger. Which is why having a small force of soldiers in
Syria is a hugely bad idea. It is not enough to confront Turkey, which just went ahead and
incursed in Kurdish Syria recently – and it is not enough to confront Isis – but
it is certainly enough to draw us into another badly planned, ill advised larger conflict. So
what is the point?
I do love how suddenly the Kurds are these romantic exotics. I'm a fan of the Kurds, in a
way, but I recognize that the Kurdish establishment in Northern Iraq profitted hugely from
selling oil they got at a rock bottom price from ISIS in 2014 to Turkey. I realize this not
because of Russian propaganda, but because Obama's undersecretary for the Treasury, David
Cohen, said this way back in 2012. https://www.ft.com/content/6c269c4e-5ace-11e4-b449-00144feab7de
It is also important to realize that the Kurdish parties who rule Northern Iraq are
incredibly corrupt, and have crushed protests against them. Those parties have a history of
fighting each other for the spoils, and have no hesitation about calling in their supposed
"natural" enemies – as happened when the PUK allied itself with Saddam Hussein in the
mini civil war of the late nineties.
Turkey has no right whatsoever to go into Syria. That's cause James Madison was not Turkish.
Luckily for the U.S., he was American, and he gave America carte blanche to invade anywhere
in its sphere in the Americas. Lucky America! Trump will never do anything right for the
right reasons – but sometimes he does things right for the wrong reasons. Withdrawal
from Afghanistan is certainly an excellent thing to get going. And it is also true that the
Generals will continually ask for more time – no skin off their nose if it costs
another hundred billion dollars. The discussion, in my opinion, should be about how to
withdraw better, not how to stay.
'Syria's most powerful Kurdish militia has called on President Bashar al-Assad's government
to send forces to protect it against an attack by Turkey, the first sign of shifting
political alliances in eastern Syria since President Trump announced that he would withdraw
American troops.
At issue is an expanse of territory in the country's north and east that the United
States, in partnership with local Kurdish-led militias, took from the Islamic State. That put
about one-quarter of Syria's territory, including valuable agricultural land and oil
reserves, under the control of those militias backed by the United States and supported by
about 2,000 American soldiers .
The Kurds said that the Syrian army would only take over border areas to protect against a
Turkish attack but would not deploy inside the city itself.'
@63. I do love how suddenly the Kurds are these romantic exotics.
Yes, it's interesting how in some folks' feverish imagination they might as well be a
feminist, vegan, pro-LGBT, environmentally friendly, counter-cultural band of merry
pranksters. Reality is a little more complicated (esp. as the cultural gap is vastly greater
than, say, that between an Englishman like Orwell and Catalans in Barcelona):
Speaking of Catalans–who, incidentally had a 60 year track record of anarchist
practice by the time the Spanish Civil War broke out–here's an article that compares
their predicament with that of Kurds:
I actually think Dipper has a good point here. Every major international power has or should
have a slogan or a set of principles which describes what its subjects and tributaries can
expect from engagement with it. The reality doesn't match the slogan of course but it tells
us something about how the imperial nation sees itself and its own activities, and what
rhetoric people need to deploy against and in favour of it.
I think it's notable that post-Soviet Russia doesn't have any slogan. It's just "me and
mine". But fortunately China has a very clear set of principles driving everything it does,
with their origin in Mao and their latest expression in Xi Jinping Thought. I haven't read
his thought (I guess it's a bunch of anodyne principles like "freedom is good"). But you can
find Chinese scholars interpreting it with Chinese government support. For example here
is a collection of positions on international affairs . Some examples:
Xi also said that diplomacy should continuously contribute to the building of a
community with a shared future for mankind. It should be noted that a community of shared
future for mankind is not a design or product exclusive to China, but a concept that can
help resolve global issues, and thus should be shared by more countries and needs the
concerted efforts of all to succeed.
(I assume that the use of "mankind" here is a translation error, since I expect it is not
a gendered word in Mandarin).
Or here:
And sixth, the idea of fairness and justice should be promoted in global governance,
especially as the United States has thrown the world order into chaos from time to time. In
an ideal world, major powers should not harm others and destabilize the world order for the
sake of their own interests.
So Xi Jinping thought proposes China as a responsible member of the global order,
promoting a shared future for humanity through peaceful cooperation.
And finally, about the One Belt One Road initiative:
The steady advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative attests to the great importance
of upholding justice and friendship while pursuing shared interests in diplomatic work.
Upholding the principle of wide consultations, joint contributions and shared benefits, the
initiative is not a one-way promotion of the China model. So, in the future, reasonable
goals should be set to gradually promote the development of the initiative, in order to
safeguard national interests and bring benefits to the economies involved in the
initiative.
There's a new paper out by a scholar on colonialism that shows the UK stole resources from
India equal to 17 times the total current UK GDP over the period of the colonial era. But you
can bet that a bunch of idiots like BoJo and pretty much everyone in the US centrist press
are going to try and present the One Belt One Road initiative as worse than colonialism. In
any case, by Dipper's lights, it has a much better set of goals.
I also agree that maybe abd is a new incarnation of ph. If so, that's sock-puppeting, and
completely unacceptable.
BUT as there is this rumor that Baron von Clownstick – in this case – did what he
did in order to just get Turkey to order a Patriot System from our weapon manufacturers
–
and that would be a YUUUUGE winning for US –
What are we discussing here?
Hidari 12.31.18 at 6:59 pm (no link)
As I predicted, Trump's 'withdrawal' turns out not to be quite as reported.
'A top Republican has said US President Donald Trump remains committed to defeating
Islamic State (IS) in Syria, despite his plan to withdraw US troops.
Senator Lindsey Graham suggested the withdrawal had been slowed and he was now reassured of
the president's commitment after meeting him on Sunday.
Mr Trump's troop pullout plan met strong criticism from major allies, and senior Republicans
like Mr Graham.
The White House has yet to comment on Mr Graham's remarks.
"I think we're in a pause situation where we are re-evaluating what's the best way to achieve
the president's objective of having people pay more and do more," Mr. Graham said.
He did not explain this, but The New York Times reports that he may be referring to
assurances given to military officials that they can have longer than 30 days to ensure an
orderly withdrawal of troops.'
Clinton would have escalated in Syria by her own admission, and as other commenters
pointed out above, would have been less willing than Trump to de-escalate because she and
her backers place a premium on an appearance "pragmatic centerism" which requires
unwavering posturing towards vague right-wing ideals that they'll never actually satisfy
and that will never exempt them from right-wing criticism.
'Clinton would have escalated in Syria' is not synonymous with 'Clinton would have
initiated a major war', which is the statement that William Berry was reacting to.
So, I understand how Faustusnotes's information about Xi Jinping Thought might be
interesting to you, but I still don't get how the whole question of 'Who is China's David
Livingstone?' was supposed to be relevant to this discussion.
I think its too early to say whether the withdrawal will or will not be as initially
declared.
Trump is a nihilistic narcissist with a lazy absence of follow through, but with strong
impulsive tendencies. I think the most likely reason for the changed announcements about what
withdrawal will or will not happen is that Congressional Republicans like Lindsay Graham
don't want the withdrawal to happen, and are trying to chart a course where something happens
to mollify Trump, but the withdrawal doesn't really take place. It is NOT guaranteed that
they will succeed in that aim. They are not the first set of Trump flunkies to try to achieve
this sort of redirection of the Presidency, and the success rate of other people's efforts is
maybe 50/50 over the long term.
Re: J-D's question to Dipper and Dipper's follow-up question to J-D (the three C's)
This will be an exercise in attempted mind-reading, which will probably fail, but,
Since the answer to "who first mentioned the three C's" takes less than a minute to google
and find David Livingstone of "Dr. Livingston, I presume" fame (i.e., the missionary who
probably was sincere in the sentiment he expressed with the three C's), and one would like to
think that comments are relevant to the posts they are submitted to, I think Dipper assumed
that you already knew the answer and were trying to make a subtle Socratic point (relevant to
the discussion) that the three C's were not and are not necessarily insincere. So he
responded to the effect of, okay, Dr. Livingston may he been sincere but who today is being
similarly sincere in their imperialism?
Based on J-D's responses I further mind-read that he actually was asking for information,
tangential to the discussion, as to who authored the three C's, not trying to make any point
relevant to the discussion with that question. I'm less sure of that reading than the
previous one, though.
I offer this with no dog in the barking contest, just trying, and probably failing, to
clear up a misunderstanding on the Internet.
Orange Watch 01.01.19 at 7:36 pm (no link)
J-D@80:
Clinton would have escalated in Syria' is not synonymous with 'Clinton would have
initiated a major war', which is the statement that William Berry was reacting to.
It's also not even vaguely mutually exclusive with initiating a major war. Syria "enjoyed"
certain aspects of a proxy war with Russia, and Clinton's call for imposing a no-fly zone and
escalating our direct involvement showed a fair amount of disregard for that. (Incidentally,
this is one of the reasons that the #resistance crowd don't sound entirely insane when they
wildly overstate the evidence of the extent of Trump-Russia collusion, but like the above
admission that Clinton was flawed, they want us to not think about the implied consequences
of have these intentions, because that would spoil the illusion that "centerist" liberals
become hawks have only when their unwilling hand is forced by evolving circumstances.)
Pointing out that calls for escalating something bordering on proxy war with Russia does
not guarantee a new major war does nothing to contradict the fact that a major war was
a very possible outcome of those enthusiastic intentions. Clinton expressed a desire to
greatly increase the risk of a new major war (although frankly, if anything can be broadly
objected to here, it's the new; this would have been a new major theater, not a new war).
Scoffing "that's ridiculous" on the basis of "she didn't actually SAY 'I want to start a new
major war'" is generally unhelpful, and it's flat-out disingenuous when your faction's
preferred rhetorical ploy is to say that you don't ever WANT the predictable negative
consequences of your policy positions to occur, but the situation unfortunately forced your
hand (exactly as your slanderous, scurrilous, naive critics predicted, time and again).
"... The president's own appointees, the "adult" foreign policy advisors he surrounded himself with, disagreed with him on almost all of this -- not just micromanaging the Middle East, but subsidizing Europeans in NATO, underwriting South Korea, and negotiating with North Korea. His aides played him at every turn, adding allies, sending more men and materiel to defend foreign states, and expanding commitments in the Middle East. ..."
"... Equally important, though somewhat less urgent, is finding a new secretary of state. Although Pompeo has not so ostentatiously undermined his boss, he appears to oppose every effort by the president to end a war, drop a security commitment, or ease a conflict. Pompeo's enthusiasm for negotiation with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin is clearly lagging. While the secretary might not engage in open sabotage, his determination to take a confrontational approach everywhere except when explicitly ordered to do otherwise badly undermines Trump's policies. ..."
"... Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of ..."
"... Those of us who want to see Bolton gone should first ask why he was chosen in the first place. Clearly Trump had to appease Adelson in order to make that appointment because he depends on his campaign donations. What makes anyone think that the situation has changed in such a way as to permit Trump more autonomy in his choice of his cabinet? ..."
"... It astonishes me how people, in particular Bolton, can continue to get these jobs, particularly under Trump. Who pushed him and supported him for this position? Pompeo is disappointing and he just appointed a anti-Trump neocon for a high level position at State. ..."
"... Trump has made many very bad personnel decisions, with some very horrible political advisor appointments, foreign affairs appointments, and domestic policy appointments. And, he has decidedly left out of his administration many people who worked very hard to get him elected, shared his views on the world, and who would be loyal supporters in office. He appointed many people who were against him and probably did not vote for him, much less support him. There was and perhaps still is a better chance of a high level appointment if one opposed and still oppose Trump's promises to the American people. ..."
"... He needs to turn this around now. Bolton is a piece of crap, a devoted coward, and a fraud with a track record of disastrous judgment and failure. I was astonished when Trump appointed him he needs to go now. Clean house. ..."
After Syria, Trump Should Clean Out His National Security BureaucracyThey're
undermining his positions and pursuing their own agendas. John Bolton should be the first to
go.
President Donald Trump has at last rediscovered his core foreign policy beliefs and ordered
the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. Right on cue, official Washington had a collective
mental breakdown. Neocons committed to war, progressives targeting Trump, and centrists
determined to dominate the world unleashed an orgy of shrieking and caterwauling. The
horrifying collective scream, a la artist Edvard Munch, continued for days.
Trump's decision should have surprised no one. As a candidate, he shocked the Republican
Party establishment by criticizing George W. Bush's disastrous decision to invade Iraq and
urging a quick exit from Afghanistan. As president, he inflamed the bipartisan War Party's
fears by denouncing America's costly alliances with wealthy industrialized states. And to
almost everyone's consternation, he said he wanted U.S. personnel out of Syria. Once the
Islamic State was defeated, he explained, Americans should come home.
How shocking. How naïve. How outrageous.
The president's own appointees, the "adult" foreign policy advisors he surrounded
himself with, disagreed with him on almost all of this -- not just micromanaging the Middle
East, but subsidizing Europeans in NATO, underwriting South Korea, and negotiating with North
Korea. His aides played him at every turn, adding allies, sending more men and materiel to
defend foreign states, and expanding commitments in the Middle East.
Last spring, the president talked of leaving Syria "very soon." But the American military
stayed. Indeed, three months ago, National Security Advisor John Bolton announced an entirely
new mission: "We're not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders
and that includes Iranian proxies and militias."
That was chutzpah on a breathtaking scale. It meant effectively that the U.S. was entitled
to invade and dismember nations, back aggressive wars begun by others, and scatter bases and
deployments around the world. Since Damascus and Tehran have no reason to stop cooperating --
indeed, America's presence makes outside support even more important for the Assad regime --
Bolton was effectively planning a permanent presence, one that could bring American forces into
contact with Russian, Syrian, and Turkish forces, as well as Iranians. As the Assad government
consolidates its victory in the civil war, it inevitably will push into Kurdish territories in
the north. That would have forced the small American garrison there to either yield ground or
become a formal combatant in another Middle Eastern civil war.
The latter could have turned into a major confrontation. Damascus is backed by Russia and
might be supported by Ankara, which would prefer to see the border controlled by Syrian than
Kurdish forces. Moreover, the Kurds, under threat from Turkey, are not likely to divert forces
to contain Iranians moving with the permission of the Damascus government. Better to cut a deal
with Assad that minimizes the Turks than be Washington's catspaw.
The Pentagon initially appeared reluctant to accept this new objective. At the time,
Brigadier General Scott Benedict told the House Armed Services Committee: "In Syria, our role
is to defeat ISIS. That's it." However, the State Department envoy on Syria, Jim Jeffrey, began
adding Iran to his sales pitch. So did Brian Hook, State's representative handling the
undeclared diplomatic war on Iran, who said the goal was "to remove all forces under Iranian
control from Syria."
Apparently this direct insubordination came to a head in a phone call between President
Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "Why are you still there?" the latter asked
Trump, who turned to Bolton. The national security advisor was on the call, but could offer no
satisfactory explanation.
Perhaps at that moment, the president realized that only a direct order could enforce his
policy. Otherwise his staffers would continue to pursue their militaristic ends. That
determination apparently triggered the long-expected resignation of Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis, who deserves respect but was a charter member of the hawkish cabal around the
president. He dissented from them only on ending the nuclear agreement with Iran.
Still in place is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who so far has proven to be a bit more
malleable though still hostile to the president's agenda. He is an inveterate hawk, including
toward Tehran, which he insists must surrender to both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as part of any
negotiation. He's adopted the anti-Iran agenda in Syria as his own. His department offered no
new approach to Russia over Ukraine, instead steadily increasing sanctions, without effect, on
Moscow. At least Pompeo attempted to pursue discussions with North Korea, though he was
certainly reluctant about it.
Most dangerous is Bolton. He publicly advocated war with both Iran and North Korea before
his appointment, and his strategy in Syria risked conflict with several nations. He's
demonstrated that he has no compunctions about defying the president, crafting policies that
contradict the latter's directives. Indeed, Bolton is well-positioned to undermine even obvious
successes, such as the peaceful opening with North Korea.
Supporting appointments to State and the National Security Council have been equally
problematic. Candidate Trump criticized the bipartisan War Party, thereby appealing to
heartland patriots who wonder why their relatives, friends, and neighbors have been dying in
endless wars that have begotten nothing but more wars. Yet President Trump has surrounded
himself with neocons, inveterate hawks, and ivory tower warriors. With virtually no aides
around him who believe in his policies or were even willing to implement them, he looked like a
George Bush/Barack Obama retread. The only certainty, beyond his stream of dramatic tweets,
appeared to be that Americans would continue dying in wars throughout his presidency.
However, Trump took charge when he insisted on holding the summit with North Korea's Kim
Jong-un. Now U.S. forces are set to come home from Syria, and it appears that he may reduce or
even eliminate the garrison in Afghanistan, where Americans have been fighting for more than 17
years. Perhaps he also will reconsider U.S. support for the Saudis and Emiratis in Yemen.
Trump should use Secretary Mattis's departure as an opportunity to refashion his national
security team. Who is to succeed Mattis at the Pentagon? Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan
appears to have the inside track. But former Navy secretary and senator Jim Webb deserves
consideration. Or perhaps it's time for a second round for former senator Chuck Hagel, who
opposed the Gulf war and backed dialog with Iran. Defense needs someone willing to challenge
the Pentagon's thinking and practices. Best would be a civilian who won't be captured by the
bureaucracy, one who understands that he or she faces a tough fight against advocates of
perpetual war.
Next to go should be Bolton. There are many potential replacements who believe in a more
restrained role for America. One who has been mentioned as a potential national security
advisor in the past is retired Army colonel and respected security analyst Douglas
Macgregor.
Equally important, though somewhat less urgent, is finding a new secretary of state.
Although Pompeo has not so ostentatiously undermined his boss, he appears to oppose every
effort by the president to end a war, drop a security commitment, or ease a conflict. Pompeo's
enthusiasm for negotiation with Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin is clearly lagging. While the
secretary might not engage in open sabotage, his determination to take a confrontational
approach everywhere except when explicitly ordered to do otherwise badly undermines Trump's
policies.
Who to appoint? Perhaps Tennessee's John Duncan, the last Republican congressman who opposed
the Iraq war and who retired this year after decades of patriotic service. There are a handful
of active legislators who could serve with distinction as well, though their departures would
be a significant loss on Capitol Hill: Senator Rand Paul and Representatives Justin Amash and
Walter Jones, for instance.
Once the top officials have been replaced, the process should continue downwards. Those
appointed don't need to be thoroughgoing Trumpists, of whom there are few. Rather, the
president needs people generally supportive of his vision of a less embattled and entangled
America: subordinates, not insubordinates. Then he will be less likely to find himself in
embarrassing positions where his appointees create their own aggressive policies contrary to
his expressed desires.
Trump has finally insisted on being Trump, but Syria must only be the start. He needs to
fill his administration with allies, not adversaries. Only then will his "America First" policy
actually put America first.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
.
Talk about "Ivory Tower" know-nothings. Does this writer, Doug Bandow of the Cata Institute
amazingly, have any idea what he is talking about? Justin Amish? In a discussion of the most
virulent anti-Trumper in Congress Amish would have to be included in the discussion. Chuck
Hagel? Are you kidding? Let us just bring back Obama and let him do some national security.
And Hagel is loyal to no one. And, sorry, like John Bolton or not, he basically just started.
He is not going anywhere and he should not. It would look ridiculous to replace him so soon.
Gosh, that would be great (Bolton and Pompeo out) but I don't see it happening anytime soon.
They're in it for the power and the money they'll make afterward, not for principle, and will
bob and weave with the caprices of their boss.
After two years in office, I am utterly flabbergasted that there are still people out there who
take seriously the notion that Trump wants to extricate us from our wars around the globe and
refrain from starting new ones. Virtually every foreign policy decision he has made has been
contrary to that.
Finally, for once, he decides to pull out of Syria (a mere few weeks after he announced we
would stay there indefinitely) and somehow this one, as yet unimplemented decision represents
"Trump being Trump?" Seriously? He's proven through his actions and his appointments that he's
a full-blown neocon. Maybe I'll rescind the "full-blown" part of that judgment if he actually
does withdraw from Syria. But it would still be a pretty tiny exception to his thoroughly
neocon actions up to this point.
If nothing else, appointing Bolton as national security advisor speaks volumes. Personnel is
policy, as they say. And you'd have have spent the last two decades in a coma living on another
planet not to know that Bolton is the biggest warmonger around. He makes most of the neocons
look like pacifists by comparison. Even the people who think Trump a complete idiot can't
really imagine that Trump didn't know what he was getting when he hired Bolton.
Let's get real here. It'll be great if he withdraws from Syria. It'd be even better if he
replaces his national security team along the lines suggested in this article. But don't hold
your breath. It would go against nearly everything he has done since taking office.
It's time to come to grips with the non-existence of the tooth fairy.
Before we credit Trump with stumbling on something sensible for once, it might be wise to
remember that we're still talking about -- Trump. Who now says that American troops still in
Iraq can still raid into Syria as necessary, and by the way, they'll be staying in Iraq
. So already it's shaping up as not so much a withdrawal as a reshuffling. After a minor
adjustment to the game board, play can continue as necessary, such as whenever Bolton or Fox
media whispers into the casino bankrupt's ear.
Always always always a swindle, with Trump. It's an iron law.
" heartland patriots who wonder why their relatives, friends, and neighbors have been dying in
endless wars that have begotten nothing but more wars."
Nothing to wonder at, war is the most lucrative racket going, for those who profit mightily
from supplying weapons. It's become so important to an otherwise shrunken manufacturing base,
that downsizing would affect employment, and there's nowhere domestic to absorb the overseas
demobilized.
The downside of this, therefore, is it may only be redirection and consolidation, to be able
to concentrate forces on Iran instead. The budget's not getting any smaller, so there's going
to be warmaking somewhere.
" heartland patriots who wonder why their relatives, friends, and neighbors have been dying in
endless wars that have begotten nothing but more wars."
Nothing to wonder at, war is the most lucrative racket going, for those who profit mightily
from supplying weapons. It's become so important to an otherwise shrunken manufacturing base,
that downsizing would affect employment, and there's nowhere domestic to absorb the overseas
demobilized.
The downside of this, therefore, is it may only be redirection and consolidation, to be able
to concentrate forces on Iran instead. The budget's not getting any smaller, so there's got to
be compensatory warmaking somewhere.
Bolton is a national disgrace. This vile piece of trash is desperate to get the USA into a
disasterous war with Iran. The quicker Bolton is removed the better. Any stooge who supported
the Iraq invasion should be precluded from consideration.
"Yet President Trump has surrounded himself with neocons, inveterate hawks, and ivory tower
warriors."
In fairness to Trump, there just was nobody else. He had nobody lined up to be an
administration that believed what he did. Republicans were all hawks. Democrats wouldn't think
of helping, and were also all hawks anyway.
Trump's first effort to break out of that with second or third-line people went bust with
the likes of Gen. Flynn, and he was left with going back to the very people he'd defeated.
At this point in time I don't think Trump will be able to win a second term, such is the chaos
he's brought about to his Presidency. So that leaves to question which of the men you have
suggested to help lead Trump to a less warlike America would choose to serve? Perhaps first, we
need an "Adult" as POTUS and maybe then, we can get "men of wisdom" who can help America get
out of it's "Miltary Misadventures" in the Middle East.
There is no problem replacing someone who should never have been tapped in the first place.
John Bolton. Never too soon to right a wrong. Get rid of neocon Bolton and his types now. Not
later. He marches to another drummer not to USA interests. I doubt Trump can even beat Kamila
Harris (darling of the illiberal left) in 2020 if he keeps Bolton and Co. around.
I wouldn't get overly excited about this. Trump has habitually initiated all levels of chaos
throughout his incompetent administration. This is nothing new but more of the same.
If anyone believes Trump actually found his brain, they are smoking something
What a joke. Trump has no "foreign policy vision," just a series of boisterous, bellicose
talking points that to his isolationist base and his own desire to be the strongman.
sglover says (Dec 27, 12:12 am): "Before we credit Trump with stumbling on something sensible
for once, it might be wise to remember that we're still talking about -- Trump. Who now says
that American troops still in Iraq can still raid into Syria as necessary, and by the way,
they'll be staying in Iraq. So already it's shaping up as not so much a withdrawal as a
reshuffling. After a minor adjustment to the game board, play can continue as necessary, such
as whenever Bolton or Fox media whispers into the casino bankrupt's ear. Always always always a
swindle, with Trump. It's an iron law."
However, just 6 days ago sglover said on another thread ("Washington Melts Down Over Trump's
Syria Withdrawal" -- Dec 21, 3:26 pm):
"I despise Trump, but if he's managed to stumble on doing something sensible, and actually
does it (never a certainty with the casino swindler) -- great! There's no sane reason for us to
muck about in Syria. However it comes about, we should welcome a withdrawal there. If the move
gives Trump some of the approval that he plainly craves, maybe he'll repeat the performance and
end our purposeless wallow in Afghanistan. It doesn't say anything good about the nominal
opposition party, the Dems, that half or more of them -- and apparently *all* of their dinosaur
'leadership' -- can't stifle the kneejerking and let him do it. Of course many of them are
"troubled" because their Israeli & Saudi owners, er, 'donors' expect it. But some of them
seem to have developed a sudden deep attachment to 'our mission in Syria' for no better reason
than, Trump is for it, therefore I must shout against it. And then, of course, there's the
Russia hysteria. Oh yeah, what a huge win for Moscow if it scores the 'prize' of occupying
Syria! If that's Putin's idea of a big score, how exactly does it harm any American to let him
have it? I wonder if the Democratic Party will ever be capable of doing anything other than
snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?"
The problem with they article begins with it's first sentence "President Donald Trump has at
last rediscovered his core foreign policy beliefs " I can't find any core foreign policy
beliefs. What I have seen is a mosh-mosh of sound bites that resound well with his audiences at
rallies, and various people attempt to link those together and fill in the white space between
with what they WANT his foreign policy beliefs to be. But to go so far as to say he has any
consistent beliefs that combine to form a foreign policy is going way too far.
Replace Bolton with Mike Flynn after all charges are dropped against him. Then have Robert
Mueller et al. arrested to be tried and put to death for High Treason. Then liberate Britain,
Bomb the Vatican, and put a naval blockade on China.
You do know that Trump wants to increase the military budget. Yet you maintain that he wanted
to pull us out of foreign wars. Curious. Where would all that extra money go? I'd look for it
at the top of Trump Tower. Certainly not in the pockets of ordinary citizens.
Hmm This article makes it seem like there's these renegades who have somehow held onto power
and are charting America's course on their own. But doesn't the President hand pick the members
of his cabinet? Wasn't every single one of them given their authority *by Donald Trump*?
Only an incompetent imbecile with no experience in leadership or government could be so
dim-witted as to appoint people who would willfully defy and disregard his agenda. Surely our
country would never put give such an incompetent so much authority.
We have a "peaceful opening" with North Korea? How many months ago did Mr. Bandow last read
about the NoKos counter-proposal to unconditional nuclear disarmament? And what about all the
Trump saber-rattling that preceded this so-called opening? If Trump was "played" by his own
advisers on Afghanistan, he was equally duped by the mirage offered by Kim.
Trump had no lofty notions underpinning this decision. He did it in an impetuous, chaotic
manner in which he obtained nothing in return from Russia or Turkey or Iran to address our
broader strategic interest in the region, such as ending the war in Yemen.
Like everything he does, it reeks of corruption and no doubt will be added to Mueller's
investigation.
Contrary to Bandows libertarian take, it is an expression of Trumps imperial presidency. The
Syrian involvement has strong bipartisan support even if lacking a resolution in support (and
the Libertarian Sen. Paul never got anywhere with a resolution against.) Leaving Syria was the
correct long term strategic decision. I'm sure 99% of democrats in Congress supported the
action. Only Trump, with his narcissistic incompetence could take an action that his opponents
would overwhelmingly support if done in a credible manner and turn it into controversy. Trump
looks like the servant of Russians and Turks in his conduct. Jan 2021 can't come soon
enough.
I find it interesting that so many people (the author apparently included) are still so slow to
understand that Trump can't afford to get rid of people, because he literally can't find new
cabinet members.
He started with mostly C-listers, and most of them are gone. He is on to hiring TV hosts,
bloggers, professional political grifters, his family, or just being stuck with straight-up
vacant posts.
Only the worst sorts would voluntarily work for such an angry, undisciplined, chaotic boss
in the smoking shambles of an organization like this administration.
You just go ahead and ask Chuck Hagel if he would join this train wreck.
The article itself is a joke, of course, but this is TAC, so one shouldn't expect much.
Besides, it's always amusing (in a gallows humor kind of way) to watch the right-wingers
cling to and puff up everything, anything, that might keep them from confronting the product of
their dime store "philosophy". In every way that counts, Trump is the true heir of the sainted
Reagan.
FL Transplant is correct. Whatever 'core beliefs' Trump may have, they will prove hard to find
and if found will turn out to be political expediency, ego inflation, or gibberish -- often all
three at once.
Still, I welcome the withdrawal from Syria, but even supporting the result, i am amazed at
how ineptly this was decided and how abruptly it was announced . This question of 'process' is
in fact what so many critics are pointing to -- the abruptness, the lack of consultation (of
course) or even warning to our allies -- including the exposed and vulnerable Kurds, and so on.
Considering these errors of process, it seems certain that he will manage to produce awfulness
from what should have been a correct policy intention.
Everything he touches turns to crap.
This includes every person he appoints to any office -- each waits in turn to have his or
her reputation destroyed.
It is sort of remarkable that any Americans still support him at all. But if they do, they
are advised to do so from a distance -- from someplace he cannot touch, leaving his stink
behind.
I blogged on December 22 when I read a similar article like this;
"Every time I read such article as this about Mr. Trump's decisions of any sort, I always
wonder if the authors believe that he has solid political philosophy or consolidated policy
agenda.
I took his decision of withdrawal from Syria and seemingly from Afghanistan is his survival
strategy for 2020 presidential election to appeal to war weariness American voters because Mr.
Cohen's plea deal and the revelation of Trump signature on the license agreement for Moscow
Trump Tower project would kill his 2020 chance. It is a good strategy but over the last two
days his approval rating has not been improved."
Mr. Trump seems to have delivered a speech in Iraq saying that the withdrawal from Syria
would not give any adverse effect on Israel security because the US government gives more than
$45 billion every year according to a local newspaper of Middle East.
This is another tactic to appeal to AIPAC to make sure his own security for 2020 candidacy,
isn't it?
First 2000 troops is not much more than a reinforced battalion the USMC shuffles that many
warriors and more around the Mediterranean every six months. I think the issue with Trump is,
as it's always been, his gut seat of his pants way of handling virtually everything he does.
There's no control or consideration apparent in any action other than to pitch chum at his
largely illiterate followers. In this case he's handed a huge victory to Putin (my my what a
surprise that is) and essentially screwed the Kurds. If nothing else those 2000 troops were at
least keeping a cap on things to some small degree. That's out the door now and I can't help
but think that ISIS (aka the enemy here) will have a vote on what happens next.
Those of us who want to see Bolton gone should first ask why he was chosen in the first
place. Clearly Trump had to appease Adelson in order to make that appointment because he
depends on his campaign donations. What makes anyone think that the situation has changed in
such a way as to permit Trump more autonomy in his choice of his cabinet?
To those who say Trump has no foreign policy vision, you are wrong. His vision is simple,
dismantle parts of the Empire, become a little more isolationist, and focus on 'America First'.
Trump is not very intelligent, but he has the right instincts. He is up against the War Party,
the most influential power center in the US, and that is not easy. Obama is more intelligent
than Trump, but the results were very bad add one more destroyed country, Libya to his credit,
and almost another, Syria (although thankfully the Russians stopped that).
What is mysterious is the following from the article:
'Yet President Trump has surrounded himself with neocons, inveterate hawks, and ivory tower
warriors. With virtually no aides around him who believe in his policies or were even willing
to implement them, he looked like a George Bush/Barack Obama retread.'
Why he does this, I don't know.
Pulling out of Syria will be a good thing for everyone. The reason is largely nonsense, as
it was Russia/Syria that destroyed Isis (we did manage to destroy another city, Raqqa), but I
don't care, and neither will the American Public, who understand nothing of Syria.
The Kurds will make an arrangement for limited autonomy with Damascus (already happening as
they just asked for protection from Turkey in Manbij). Turkey will not invade Syria as long as
they feel Damascus can control the border. Syria, Russia, and maybe even the Kurds will wipe
out the last of Isis and those militants in Idlib that would rather die than give up the fight
(the fanatics), will be killed.
Then, the reconstruction of Syria can begin in earnest, and it is to be hoped that the
Chinese will get off their butt and provide some assistance.
Israel is probably unhappy, which pleases me no end, and I hope this is an indication that
there is some limit to the number of people we are willing to murder on their behalf.
@ NEexpert. Integrity is a quality severely lacking in many politicians in the US. Not being
American , but watching closely, if Senator Hagel is such a man , it would do American politics
much good, not only for the US but the US standing in the world. Gods speed in changing the
likes of Bolton and Pompeo to begin with.
@ Kurt Gayle -- I don't think you'll find any contradiction between my two remarks.
All I'm saying is that in all the ways that really matter the sudden "withdrawal" from Syria
is already shaping up to be a typical Trump bait-and-switch. Sure, troops won't be bivouacing
in Syria. Instead, they'll be stationed next door in Iraq, so they can continue to muck around
in Syria. And Trump emphasized that as far as he's concerned we'll be staying in Iraq.
(Of course, that "strategic doctrine" is only valid until his next Fox media wallow in front
of the idiot box. I.e., maybe until tomorrow afternoon)
I wouldn't hesitate to appoint Walter Jones to the Trump Cabinet. He is entering his last term
in Congress and will have virtually no influence in that position. Not only is he a minority of
a minority, he is given no respect by his own Republican caucus, which parcels out
chairmanships to fundraisers -- not to members with seniority. Seniority, i.e., experience and
knowledge, is exactly what the North Carolina Congressman has -- on the Armed Services
Committee, and as the representative of a district top heavy with active duty Marines and
Airmen and retired military. He should be appointed Secretary of Defense to replace Gen.
Mattis.
Jim Webb would be a great pick to become a new National Security Adviser or Secretary of
State.
"want to see Bolton gone should first ask why he was chosen in the first place. Clearly
Trump had to appease Adelson in order to make that appointment because he depends on his
campaign donations."
Very much agree with the thrust of that comment-adelson is still around, indeed so is his
wife, who may be even more rabid than her husband. Do not see this pressure and bolton support
going away.
Pompeo??? the day I heard that he wanted to put the "swagger" back into the state dept was
the day I knew we were in trouble.
TAC published an article a couple of years ago that romney was instrumental in loading the
admin with rabid neo cons-now he will enter the senate, keep any eye on which committee he
lands on-graham, menendez, dual citizen cardin, other browder lap dogs will still be active in
keeping the heat on for moar neo cons appointees, moar rabid support for wars, moar
anti-russian risk taking, etc
Even if the number is ten times that, it is nothing compared to what the Syrians, Iranians
and Kurds, who actually fought ISIS, suffered.
Even after the US leaves, you have Syria, Russia, Iran and the Kurds fighting ISIS. The 2000
US troops in Syria were there to prevent Assad from defeating ISIS completely since ISIS is a
creation of our pals the Saudis and Emiratis, and is supported by our other pal, Israel.
With the US out of the way, ISIS vermin will be exterminated. This will make the Saudis,
Emiratis and Israelis sad, which is an added bonus.
@Cloak and Dagger : "Clearly Trump had to appease Adelson in order to make [the Bolton]
appointment because he depends on his campaign donations. What makes anyone think that the
situation has changed in such a way as to permit Trump more autonomy in his choice of his
cabinet?"
Maybe the Syria withdrawal is Trump's way of saying to Adelson something like this:
"Look, you got more than your $80 million worth with the embassy move, cutting off the
Palestinians, Haley at the UN supporting Israel killing and maiming unarmed protesters, and me
standing by Israel's only regional friend, Saudi Arabia's MBS. It didn't have to be that way,
Sheldon. See? I just pulled out of Syria. I hired Bolton like you wanted, but I don't have to
do what Bolton says. Do I?
The bottom line, Sheldon, is that if you want more favors for Israel, and particularly if
you want me to put Americans at risk standing between Israel and its enemies, you've got to
hand over more money. A lot more money."
It astonishes me how people, in particular Bolton, can continue to get these jobs,
particularly under Trump. Who pushed him and supported him for this position? Pompeo is
disappointing and he just appointed a anti-Trump neocon for a high level position at
State.
Trump has made many very bad personnel decisions, with some very horrible political
advisor appointments, foreign affairs appointments, and domestic policy appointments. And, he
has decidedly left out of his administration many people who worked very hard to get him
elected, shared his views on the world, and who would be loyal supporters in office. He
appointed many people who were against him and probably did not vote for him, much less support
him. There was and perhaps still is a better chance of a high level appointment if one opposed
and still oppose Trump's promises to the American people.
He needs to turn this around now. Bolton is a piece of crap, a devoted coward, and a
fraud with a track record of disastrous judgment and failure. I was astonished when Trump
appointed him he needs to go now. Clean house.
Every American should spit on John Bolton anytime they encounter the coward. Bolton loves war
as long as HE does not have to go to it. The Draft Dodger has no shame and should be placed in
the Front Lines for the duration.
"... I do not believe the neocons are credible. But the mainstream media and purchased politicians treat them as supernovas when it comes to issues of war and peace; especially in the Middle East. ..."
"... Look at those photos, the superior smirks on Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld's faces. And then reflect on their recklessness and incompetence. I will never forgive what these people did to America. And I'm only one of a great many Americans who feel that way. ..."
"... Tillerson, Mattis, Bolton, Pompeo -- all are poor hires to a candidate that wanted to reign in foreign intervention. Trump's greatest failing is one of Management 101. He can't seem to staff a team without drawing from the swamp he claimed to want to drain. ..."
"... The American Conservative was onto something brave and noble when it was founded. I don't recall that it called GWB a fool but its pages redounded with criticism of his administration's folly in prosecuting its wars, ruinous at home and more ruinous abroad. And it recognized the cancer of neo-conservativism, a neologism coined to camouflage the pseudo-religion of American exceptionalism uber alles. ..."
When 'Trashing Our Allies' Was All the RageThe same neocons who gush about
alliances today were telling anyone not on board with the Iraq invasion to 'go to hell.' By
Andrew J. Bacevich
•
December 28, 2018
The
newly confirmed Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz emphasizes a point as he talks to
reporters in the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on March 1, 2001. (DoD photo
by R. D. Ward)
Is it blatant dishonesty or a convenient bout of amnesia? It's hard to tell. What I do know
is this: t he supposed American devotion to alliances, now being celebrated by those who deem
the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis as heralding the end of Western civilization,
is a load of malarkey.
The canonization of Mattis as a secular saint was underway in record time. In The New
York Times , David Sanger describes Mattis as "the last senior official in the
administration deeply invested in the world order that the United States has led for the 73
years since World War II, and the global footprint needed to keep that order together." Here
the tradition of Marshall, Acheson, and Kennan ostensibly ends and the precipice beckons.
To the wise and seasoned defense secretary, Sanger writes, "alliances were a
force-multiplier." To the foolish and impetuous commander-in-chief, "they are mostly a burden."
To drive the point home, Sanger recruits Robert Kagan, who obligingly chides President Donald
Trump for treating allies as "freeloaders who can go to hell if they don't get on board."
Treating allies with disrespect is no doubt a terrible thing. Yet not so very long ago it
was Kagan and his fellow neoconservatives who were telling allies unwilling to get onboard to
go to hell. The moment was the run up to the Iraq war. The George W. Bush administration was
urging American allies to join our mission. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein would initiate a great
crusade to democratize the Middle East. What could possibly go wrong?
Apparently failing to appreciate that Washington's operative definition of ally is "we
decide, you agree, photo op to follow," the Krauts and the Frogs refused to go along.
To which Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld replied: s o what? In their view, allies
were window dressing -- nice to have if convenient, but utterly expendable if they dared to
interfere with the exercise of American global leadership. Regarding Iraq, the Bush
administration did not hide the fact that the United States would go it alone if necessary.
"Coalition of the willing" was the phrase devised to gussy up what was little more than a
policy of naked unilateralism.
The Germans? Ingrates who had managed to forget their debt to the United States, dating from
1945 and continuing through the Cold War. And the French? "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys."
Together the two European nations formed an "axis of weasel." They could both go to hell.
As it actually took shape, the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld coalition of the willing consisted
mostly of the United Kingdom, led into war by a prime minister subsequently derided by his own
countrymen as George Bush's "poodle." Tagging along were various other military contingents,
together mustering firepower roughly equivalent to that of the Joplin, Missouri Police
Department. Not a lot of capability, but since the war was sure to end up as a great romp -- or
so its proponents believed -- none of this was expected to matter. The mighty forces of the
United States would make short work of anyone foolish enough to resist. The favored term was
"cakewalk."
As is so often the case in war, things did not go as expected, to put it mildly. The
reckless U.S. invasion of Iraq set in train a sequence of events leading -- wouldn't you know
it -- to the election of a president promising to put "America First."
Donald Trump is a fool. Let there be no doubt on that score. But let there also be no
confusion about how the United States got into the mess in which it finds itself today. Back in
2002 and 2003, various warmongers decided that noncompliant allies could "go to hell." They got
their wish and we live with the consequences.
I think a lot of countries and their dead and wounded would resent your comment about the
Joplin PD. The Israelis actually asked the Australian SAS to go in before the invasion and
eliminate the scuds. This appeared in the Jerusalem Post but not the LA Times. Many countries
agreed with Pat Buchanan's "Whose war?" in TAC ( https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/whose-war/
)and felt it was propelled by one group for their interests and that it was none of their
business to commit their lives, limbs, and treasure. Seems the facts agree with them.
I do not believe the neocons are credible. But the mainstream media and purchased
politicians treat them as supernovas when it comes to issues of war and peace; especially in
the Middle East.
Let 'em have it, Professor. God knows they earned it. Look at those photos, the superior
smirks on Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld's faces. And then reflect on their recklessness and
incompetence. I will never forgive what these people did to America. And I'm only one of a
great many Americans who feel that way.
Andrew Bacevich "Donald Trump is a fool. Let there be no doubt on that score."
Yet the "fool" Donald Trump managed to get himself elected President of the United States on
a platform of no new wars in the Middle East and -- after the defeat of ISIS -- getting the US
out of Syria, and also Afghanistan.
The "fool" Donald Trump has just announced that he is pulling all remaining US troops out of
Syria and withdrawing half of the remaining US troops from Afghanistan.
The "fool" Donald Trump could have done these things a lot more quickly but for the uniform
opposition of the Deep State, the Republican Party Establishment, the Democratic Party
Establishment, the neocons, the mainstream media, and the endless sniping of retired
non-interventionist academics like Mr. Bacevich who would rather snipe and call Trump a "fool"
than applaud his worthy efforts and work to help him.
The writer states: "Back in 2002 and 2003, various warmongers decided that noncompliant allies
could "go to hell." They got their wish and we live with the consequences." I believe the
"warmongers" and their "consequences" have spread like a deadly disease throughout the Middle
East. Millions dead, millions of refugees, countries reduced to rubble and the fires were lit
by the warmongers in the "Iraq invasion." Which spread to other countries by those addicted to
war.
Therefore, one has to ask: "Will The War Criminals Be Brought To Justice in 2019? Or Is
Justice Dead and Buried"?
It has been said that: "The wheels of justice turn slowly " but based on the evidence
available the "justice" wagon appears to have been deliberately crashed, and it is dead and
buried by war criminals in positions of power. These people (are they really people?) are
getting away with murdering millions of people in a number of countries. Iraq, Libya, Syria,
Yemen and other countries too are suffering from the depredations and illegal wars planned by
them.
"The Israelis actually asked the Australian SAS to go in before the invasion and eliminate
the scuds. "
Israel regards Australia as populated by dumb colonials chafing at the bit for another
Gallipoli, especially if that were the heart's desire of Uncle Sam's very special "no daylight"
friends.
Interestingly, judging by their contribution to the last seventeen years of American-led
wars in the Middle East, the Israelis themselves appear to be pacifists. Extraordinarily
well-armed ones, of course, thanks to US taxpayer largesse.
You don't have to go back that far to see neocons trashing American allies. Just look at the
things they've been saying about Turkey, the only country in the region that we have a treaty
with, and which has fought alongside us more than any other country in the region.
Andrew Bacevich, it's a good article, but you ruined it with "Donald Trump is a fool." It's the
only thing anyone who read it will remember, especially when it has nothing to do with your
point that Trump is right about something.
Bad neocons! Bad! Neocons are the new racists. Did one of these neocons (did I mention that
they are bad?) actually tell France and Germany to "go to hell"? Please provide citation (the
epithets you do cite, e.g., "cheese-eating surrender monkeys," were not to my knowledge uttered
by Bush & Co.)
Donald, on the other hand, was pretty frank about a singular issue: the failure of NATO
allies to pay their fair share of GDP on defense, i.e., free-riding. Trump's not wrong, but his
America-first disdain for allies is more targeted than any issue raised by the (bad) neocons.
To my knowledge, there were no reprisals visited on France or Germany on account of their being
"unwilling." That kind of threat came from Trump.
Yes, Mr. Bacevich, I think we all (even some bad neocons) agree Iraq was a terrible idea,
America's worst foreign policy blunder -- ever. Wash, rinse, spin dry. That topic's done.
Trump is a fool who, so far, hasn't got 70,000 of our soldiers killed or wounded. So, this
"fool" apart, whom would you have voted for? Because all the other "non fool" would have
already sent to Syria, or somewhere else, what's left of the army.
The fool is the person who tells the king the truth when the wise men are too afraid.
Still, it's uncontestable that Donald Trump doesn't have expertise or experience with
foreign policy or other areas of government operations.
The gamble was that Trump would have the right instincts to deal with whatever came up. It's
quite a gamble, but if you thought that the other candidate had precisely the wrong instincts
and the wrong policies, you might have been willing to take the gamble.
@Bryan Turkey, the only country in the region that we have a treaty with, and which has fought
alongside us more than any other country in the region.
"More than any other country in the region"? That's not saying much, since some of these
countries are of relatively recent origin. The Ottomans were allied with Germany in WWI, and
the Turks were neutral for most of WWII. But they did send soldiers to Korea. I'm not sure
that's enough of a reason not to badmouth their authoritarian, quasi-theocratic regime.
"Donald Trump is a fool. Let there be no doubt on that score." Maybe you should ask your Nation
magazine fellow contributor, Stephen F. Cohen, if he agrees with you that Trump has no
statesmanlike qualities. Why don't you tell us what you think about amnesty and open borders?
I'm 95% sure you favor those things, and that the moral feelings you have about migrants is
what propels your contempt for Trump, which mysteriously exceeds your disdain for George W.
Bush. Prove me wrong, Mr. Bacevich.
Nice article, but I could have done without the "fool" comment. Better to leave such gratuitous
remarks out in the future. You have too much that is important to say.
You go ahead
That was one point that the local neocons missed. Another is that Australia's greatest general
was General Monash (WW1), who was Jewish and is a national hero. Some historians argue that he
should have been in charge of all allied forces on the Western Front in WW1, but bigotry was a
deterrent. Another point is that the 2003 Iraq invasion (see Patrick's "Whose war?") was
illogical and unjustified from the perspective of nearly everyone in the world but the selfish
and self-absorbed neocons and their bought for local (on the cheap) politicians.
Your constant ridiculing of the President undermines your credibility. I am inclined to
believe you adopt this position in order to curry favor with old line academic elites who also
hate the President. You need to be more honest with yourself.
Another point is that the 2003 Iraq invasion (see Patrick's "Whose war?") was illogical and
unjustified from the perspective of nearly everyone in the world but the selfish and
self-absorbed neocons and their bought for local (on the cheap) politicians.
This is nonsense. The Iraq war was in the interest of the Saudis and the Israelis, which is
why "Bandar Bush" and the Israel lobby in the US promoted the war. The only clueless people
were ordinary Americans, and some of them seem to be clueless even today.
@Jeeves : "But they did send soldiers to Korea. I'm not sure that's enough of a reason not to
badmouth their authoritarian, quasi-theocratic regime."
Turkey is housing several million refugees from our disastrous Mideast wars, keeping them
from flooding into and further destabilizing Europe.
Turkey controls some of the most strategically important real estate in the world, including
the Black Sea cork. For decades it has exercised that control in ways that conduced to US
interests, and it is doing so right now.
Two reasons to remember that Turkey is one thing and its current leadership is another. And
that its "authoritarian, quasi-theocratic" regime is certainly no worse, and in some ways more
palatable, than Saudi Arabia's. Or Egypt's. Or Israel's.
Ah yes, the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" cliché. Where do I begin. What brought me
to TAC in early 2017, aside from a 2008
article on WALL-E , was reading of how the US government began a slew of French-bashing in
2003 when France refused to fight in Iraq. Let me think of some examples:
I'm rather surprised that the neocons (both American and British), while rejecting
everything French, continued to drink pasteurized milk, use the Braille system, use words such
as bureau and platoon , and/or fly hot-air balloons, most (if not all) of which
were of French origin. For them to crap on the French is to bite the hand that feeds them.
At the time, I was only four years old and my family was living in China at the time. My
American dad, who I remember frequenting sites like lucianne.com back then (he still does
today), doesn't seem to remember such a boycott.
I don't know about you guys, but as an American citizen of French descent myself, I'll go on
a limb and say that 2003 would've been a bad time to be American. Had I known about it back
then, I'd be eager to learn Russian and possibly "seek asylum" in Russia.
One thing I forgot to mention was that John Kerry, the Democratic 2004 presidential candidate,
was smeared by Bush for his ability to speak French. For all his flaws, I'd like to know how
differently the Iraq War would've turned out had Kerry won.
Another thing to note is that, back when Bush was president, so-called "Freepers" (members
of the forum Free Republic) would go to German news websites such as Der Spiegel and
gerrymander opinion polls regarding Bush by selecting and submitting the "Most Favorable"
option, clearing their browser's site cookies, and repeating the process until it appears as if
more and more people support Bush than oppose him. If I recall correctly, this despicable act
of gerrymandering was called "Freeping".
One of the most foretelling things about reality TV Trump was the weekly climax, "You're
fired!" I learned from Peter Drucker decades ago that if your 'go to' solution is firing people
you are a poor manager. Hire well and find employees strengths. That served me extremely well
over my 40 years of management.
Tillerson, Mattis, Bolton, Pompeo -- all are poor hires to a candidate that wanted to
reign in foreign intervention. Trump's greatest failing is one of Management 101. He can't seem
to staff a team without drawing from the swamp he claimed to want to drain.
The American Conservative was onto something brave and noble when it was founded. I don't
recall that it called GWB a fool but its pages redounded with criticism of his administration's
folly in prosecuting its wars, ruinous at home and more ruinous abroad. And it recognized the
cancer of neo-conservativism, a neologism coined to camouflage the pseudo-religion of American
exceptionalism uber alles.
But alas, the American Conservative lost its way almost entirely during the Obama
Administration because it continued to nurture the greater part of its contempt, just contempt
I would add, for the neo-conservatives who had lost executive power, Republicans, while largely
giving a pass to the neo-conseervatives who had assumed it, Democrats. When it came to the
disastrous policies that were being implemented, nothing much had changed; but when it came
where American Conservative had reserved its fervor, it for some reason had forgotten where it
was that the noxious powers were resident.
Well, now that a Republican is exercising the executive power, if Trump can be called a
Republican (he calls himself a Republican at any rate), Bacevich slurs Trump as a fool, even as
he exercises his office in a manner that Bacevich himself might have scripted. The criticism is
beneath Bacevich and it undercuts the authority of his policy prescriptions which are generally
well wrought.
Bacevich knows policy because he has been there. What does he know about Trump that anyone
should care that at the moment Trump does something he considers wise, he still thinks him a
fool. Bacevich would serve himself and his topic better if he would just stick to it.
I am not inclined to believe the president is a "fool."
Nor do I think Gen. Mattis is a fool or a warmonger. His position is fairly clear. A
withdrawal requires some responsible manner. Afterall, we once again emboldened and encouraged
a revolution that resulted in death and all manner of mayhem.
We leave behind others who will pay a stiff price, if we don't take steps to ensure some
reconciliation. Though it is my read, that a peace process has already been put in place. Minus
much input from the US. That perspective of his concern makes some sense, an immediate
withdrawal, leaving those we encouraged in the wake is irresponsible.
And no, my comments are not an invite them to the US. Though many wish as much for all
manner of reasons than their safety.
It appears that Bacevich included the somewhat gratuitous "fool" remark to ensure that his
article not be viewed as an endorsement of Trump. He does not say that Trump has not done some
things that are not foolish (how's that for a triple negative?). In any case, Trump has clearly
done some foolish things, e.g, after campaigning on a platform of non-interventionism,
appointing the extreme neocon John Bolton as his national security adviser. Whether that makes
him a fool I leave it to others to debate.
@Jeeves
"I'm not sure that's enough of a reason not to badmouth their authoritarian, quasi-theocratic
regime."
Turkey fought with us in WWII, Korea, Desert Storm and in Afghanistan after 9/11. Does any
other nation the Mideast even come close to them? Furthermore, Erdogan came to power in a free
and fair election in which all Turkey's subject were free to vote, unlike the de facto
theocracy Israel and the naked theocracy Saudi Arabia. Just because Turkey doesn't kowtow to
the American whims and wishes doesn't make Erdogan a theocratic dictator. And remember, he
actually served time in prison for praying in public, which makes Turkey more secular than the
U.S. in this respect.
Yves here. In case you hadn't noticed, more and more pervasive
personal data collection is a wet dream for police.
This Real News Network interview describes how it is being used in "predictive policing" or
what Philip K. Dick called "pre-crime". And if you haven't stopped or greatly reduced your use
of Amazon, this piece makes clear why that would be in your best interest.
MARC
STEINER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Marc Steiner. Great to have you with us.
Amazon CEO chief Jeff Bezos has been in the news for quite a while now for many reasons:
becoming the world's richest man, giving a $2 billion gift to build schools and help the
homeless, buying the Washington Post. Most recently we saw the result of his being hounded by
Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna over working conditions and salaries of Amazon
employees, which prompted Bezos to give his workers a raise to $15 an hour.
Most these stories are important and vital, but there's one story that seems to have fallen
through the cracks and has not been given the same kind of media attention. And that's the
close working relationship between Amazon, the Department of Defense, CIA, Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, or as we know it, ICE, local law enforcement, and the secretive datamining
firm Palantir. It appears that the intertwined relationship ominously involves the intersection
of mass surveillance and military contracts. At Wired's 25th anniversary celebration last week,
Jeff Bezos defended Amazon's contracting with the Department of Defense, being very clear that
he won't be intimidated like other Silicon Valley tech companies whose employees are protesting
their company's involvement in the advancement of war and their role in increased mass
surveillance.
My guest today is Robert Scheer, who wrote the book They Know Everything About You: How Data
Collection Operations and Snooping Government Agencies are Destroying Democracy. He's also the
host of the podcast Scheer Intelligence, hosted by the local NPR station KCRW in LA, and is the
editor of Truthdig.com . And once again,
great to have you with us. Thank you for joining us, Bob.
So let's just begin here. Your book seems a little prescient, almost, really prescient,
about discussing the relationship we're talking about today. So let's start- let's go back.
Let's talk about Palantir. Who are they? What do we know about them? I mean, it seems like it
was founded with the help of the CIA, and Amazon's $600 million contract several years back,
with the CIA's cloud-based computing system, and more. But just who are they? And why are they
so important in this equation?
BOB SCHEER: Well, first of all, understand that the key, as George Orwel pointed out,
and others have, that our own Constitution points out, if you don't have private space, if you
can't be alone with your thoughts, your associations, your books and so forth, you can't have
freedom. That's the bottom line. The American Revolution was fought over that. And the Internet
represents, yes, the best and the worst of worlds. We are connected. We offer a lot of
ourselves. We learn a lot from it. But it's also the worst in terms of individual space and
privacy. This has come to be recognized particularly after Edward Snowden revealed the extent
of cooperation between companies like Facebook and Google and Apple, and others, and the
intelligence agencies and government. The Defense Department, the CIA, the NSA, and so
forth.
So before Snowden's revelations, it was possible to minimize all of that. And these
companies would say, hey, we're private enterprises. You're voluntarily giving over your data.
And this is no threat to your freedom, we're just helping you be better shoppers. Well, what
Snowden revealed is this data was given or stolen by- when Apple and Google didn't cooperate,
the NSA and CIA just cut into their cables, went through backdoor access to their computers,
and gathered up the most intimate details of your life. In the case of Amazon, for example, not
only what books you bought, but how far you read in that book. What you wrote to friends about
what you thought about that, or the movie you saw, or what have you. Your most private
thoughts.
So then you have the 1984 world, where a government anywhere- and by the way, they service
governments all over the world. Other governments can do it, can get information about what you
are thinking, who you are associating with. And you end up in, basically, an unfree, untenable
situation from a point of view of freedom.
Now, the key to all this is that these businesses primarily- certainly in the case of Google
and Facebook, but very much so with Amazon- are making their money not from servicing the
clients as the customers. Amazon really didn't make, in terms of its sales, most of his profit
does not come from supplying you with detergent, or books, or music, or videos, or anything
else. It comes from being able to mine that data, to advertise you. That's why in Google you
don't even pay for the service. Facebook you don't pay. The key thing here is your data. The
most detailed, personal, intimate data is the thing really being sought and marketed. It's
being mined, OK.
Now, as long as that stays in the private sector, you can argue that's not the business of
our Constitution. But when the government gets access to that information, and when the
government and the private sector are commingled, as they are very intimately with Amazon, for
example, then you have a situation that fundamentally threatens a free society. And when I say
intimately connected- and I think that's why Jeff Bezos made that outrageous statement that,
you know, I'm just being a patriotic person, and Amazon is going to help the government be
strong. Well, that's hogwash. Because really what he is is a major defense contractor. The very
kind of person that General Eisenhower warned against when he talked about the
military-industrial complex. You now have to add intelligence agencies.
And Amazon, one of their sources of profit, main sources, is building the cloud and doing
Amazon Web Services. If you look at the profit picture, just today they're announcing yet
another billion-plus quarter; four times greater than it was last year. That's not coming from
selling you products on Amazon. What they're gathering is your data. That's coming from their
building this whole web infrastructure of data seeking. And Amazon has been building the main
cloud for the intelligence agencies. All right? They are collecting it. All this data that the
government gets access to and so forth, most of that is going through Amazon-run enterprises.
So no wonder Jeff Bezos is nervous about people focusing on that, because he's in fact
primarily, at this point, a military contractor.
MARC STEINER: So let me ask you a question, Bob. How does this group Palantir,
founded by Peter Thiel, a close ally of Trump's, fit into all of this? I mean, this is a man
who named his company after the all-seeing eye in the Lord of the Rings that was being done by
the evil wizard Saruman. I mean, so who is he, and how does he fit into this? How does his
company fit into this? What's their role in all this?
BOB SCHEER: First of all, it's very interesting this connection between the private
and the public, OK. They all claim to be public companies with just brilliant Silicon Valley
software engineers, and we develop these great products. But you know, we know that Google
itself, the whole Internet itself, came out of a DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Project. You
know, the Defense Department was developing communication in the event of a nuclear war. That's
where we got the web from, as a side product of defense spending. The association with many of
these companies, most of them in the defense industry, the intelligence community, is
long-standing.
But in the case of Palantir, that's a company that during its first three years, started by
venture capitalists and others in Silicon Valley, including Peter Thiel from PayPal and so
forth, using the technology of PayPal, learning so much about how we manage our data and our
finances. Their only client- first of all, one of their investors was the CIA, through a dummy
CIA corporation called In-Q-Tel. And In-Q-Tel was created by the CIA in order to get the brains
of Silicon Valley to help them figure out the Internet and everything, and how to use it for
their purposes.
Now, the CIA is still under congressional restriction not to be spying on American citizens,
Americans. They're supposed to be doing this internationally. It's the FBI that's supposed to
be monitoring us. But not the CIA. Nonetheless, the CIA developed a company called In-Q-Tel and
invested in a plethora of Silicon Valley companies. One of the companies they invested in was
Palantir, a really mysterious, still-private organization. A huge company, incredibly
profitable. And Palantir, like Amazon, has been involved in advising the government and working
with the government during their first three years of existence. The CIA was their only client.
Now Palantir is tied into all of the intelligence agencies. And Palantir is even more blatant
than what Amazon is involved with. Palantir is actively involved in police activity, domestic
police activity, throughout the country in about 70 different police outfits.
And here in Los Angeles, for example, we have a very active coalition, community coalition,
Stop Police Spying. And what they've been able to discover is that there is this ominous
predictive policing program that is nationwide, which came out of 9/11. It came out of
supposedly finding terrorists. But the terrorists they're finding are ordinary people who live
in our community. And they're finding, predicting that they're going to be criminal even if
they haven't. Even a past record of being criminal. They find them.
Palantir is working within these police stations. They're not alone developing these models
of predictive policing, which is a way of defining who among us are likely to commit crimes,
and based on the data they've collected about us. That data and the algorithms are not made
public to us. They are not subject to discussion. The city council, people who control their
activities, are really not privy to how they do this. And yet the police target certain
neighborhoods, certain individuals, based on those algorithms. Based on the data that Palantir
supplies to them.
So what Palantir is an example of, and the same thing at Amazon, is the wedding of a
domestic police agency, domestic police force, with a notion of international power and our
defense contractors, our CIA, our NSA, and so forth. So we have the brave new world that Huxley
and the 1984 world that Huxley and Orwell warned us about. We have this constant observation of
our people, and we have some who are part of big corporations making this enormous amount of
money. As you know, Jeff Bezos of Amazon is now the richest man in the world. And they are
making money by being in bed with with our intelligence agencies.
MARC STEINER: Describe for us what's happening now. What is this latest news coming
out that we're not covering very much in the media about Bezos, Amazon, the Department of
Defense? I mean, his employees himself have been trying to get him to to not put Palantir in
that cloud. He won't listen to them. He's going to do what he wants to do. But what is this
latest revelation about?
BOB SCHEER: Well, one of the big revelations is about facial recognition technology
and their use of it. And again, it goes back to the basic point. A company like Amazon has much
more information on us, our face, the pupils of our eyes, everything about us. Our most
intimate habits, our travel, everything. And all this information that no secret police agency
in the world could ever fantasize about; ever fantasize. When our own FBI went out to destroy
Martin Luther King, something they don't teach about much in the schools, when they went out to
destroy Martin Luther King they had to use crude, old-fashioned measures. They had to actually
follow him, or get a hotel room next to his hotel, and then tap into his old-fashioned phone
line, or so forth.
None of that is necessary now. Anywhere in the world, any dictator, any government in the
world can now use our marketing services, our commercial- Facebook, Google, and Amazon to
gather an incredible amount of detail about everything you do in your life. When that
information is made available to the government, and when they are partners- mind you, Amazon
is a partner with NSA, CIA, the FBI. All of these organizations are developing their data
storage area. OK? And when they're partners with them, and they themselves, these groups like
Amazon have all this information, you have a violation basically of the constitutional
protection and our Fourth Amendment to our privacy. Our right to not have our effects, our
books, everything, our papers surveilled. They can't come through your door. They must have a
specific warrant. All thrown out by this new technology.
And that is really a fundamental violation of our Constitution. And there's almost no
examination of it. And what Bezos is saying is trust us, give us a pass. We're always going to
go after the bad guys, we're never going to go after the good guys. And that is the basis of a
totalitarian society.
MARC STEINER: So as we conclude here, Amazon's developed this recognition, which we
can talk about here, what it does. You've covered this on your podcast. And given what is
really at foot here and moving, which is the relationship between Silicon Valley, Amazon,
Palantir and the rest, with a deal with the Department of Defense, the CIA, ICE, the FBI, all
this surveillance, I'm curious. In all your years as a political activist and journalist, what
should be the- how do you respond to that? I mean, it's one thing for us to talk about this,
which we need to do to give people an awareness of what's going on. But there also has to be a
response, and not just throw up our hands and, oh, we're done.
BOB SCHEER: Well, the response that I could- you can take the leadership from the
European Union, because there's a lot more pushback in Europe than there's been here. And all
of these high tech people- Tim Cook went there from Apple and pledged just this week that he
would be concerned more about privacy, and that Apple cares, Google, and so forth. And the only
reason these companies might do the right thing at times is when they're worried that their
business model will be hurt. If consumers don't trust them, if they think they're being spied
on, if they're aware. That could hurt, you know. Facebook could be less popular. After all,
Facebook has been accused of having given 50 million accounts to a questionable group that was
gaming the last election- without any Russian interference, I might point out.
So then people stop using, are wary of these services. So that has happened more. And we're
much more gullible in this country. I know, I teach in a university. And my students think,
well, this is just for their convenience. Oh, I was looking at shoes. I talked to a friend and
suddenly shoe ads appear all around me. OK, well, the same people who can target you for you
are shoe ads can also target you for your politics, your reading habits, what movies you like,
what political organization you belong to, your free speech. They could put you on a predictive
policing list, to say watch that person, OK. Let's check them out even more closely. And then
you have a surveillance society.
Now, the defense some of my students will say, and the defense given by Silicon Valley
before Mark Zuckerberg and others don't do anything, Eric Schmidt from Google, don't do
anything that will give government reason to go after you. But most people in the world know
that governments cannot be trusted. After all, the assumption of the American Constitution is
that the government is potentially your most dangerous enemy. That's what George Washington,
Madison, Jefferson, all of them warned us against. You know, George Washington warned about the
impostures of pretended patriotism. He was a general, just like Eisenhower. So the whole
construction of the American Constitution is to protect us against our own government.
Now we have a situation where private corporations, ostensibly, gather your most intimate
data that no secret police would have ever been able to get- everything about you. Your eye
scan, your facial recognition, where you've been, where you shop. You know, you give your
location all the time, right. And so they can spot you be there, be there. What do you read,
what did you write to your friends, what are you thinking, and so forth. And they develop a
profile of you, and then you become a target of the surveillance society. And it's a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
So maybe you're a critic of Amazon, as I'm being right now. Or you're a critic of Palantir.
Do I end up here- I'm in Los Angeles. Palantir is advising my local police department. Do they
then say, hey, watch this guy Bob Scheer? You know, put a special check on him?
MARC STEINER: They might.
BOB SCHEER: That's what's built into this. That's what's predictive policing is
about. And you know, first they go after people that have a little bit different idea, a little
bit critical. And then you suddenly find everyone in the society that's concerned. You know,
it's it's a fundamental issue.
Now, I'll tell you the great contradiction. As the great singer-poet Leonard Cohen said,
there's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets through. If you want to be optimistic,
and you talked about organizing, the big problem for these multinational corporations is they
have to have customers all over the world. If they're in bed with their own local government,
their own government- the U.S. government- believe it or not, most people in the world
recognize that's a separate government. It's not a world government. It's not universally
trusted. So you have, you know, should people in China be demanding that Google, which has been
blocked in China, come in now? Well, they've got four huge Internet-related companies of their
own. And people might say, hey, better the devil we know than the devil we don't.
And so the whole problem is if you want to be a multinational corporation, you have to
protect the interest of your customers, or your people you're dealing with all over the world.
And when this stuff gets known, is exposed- that's why Bezos is pushing back. Because other
people might say, hey, if Amazon is locked in with the American defense industry, do we want
Amazon in Europe? Do we want Amazon in China? Do we want Amazon elsewhere? They'll push back.
And maybe people in the United States say, wait a minute. I'm buying, you know, 50 Shades of
Grey, this movie. Do I really want people and the government and everywhere else to know that I
bought that book, and how far I read in that book, and what I wrote to my friend?
Suddenly privacy is what it is. This becomes very personal. And why is this guy Jeff Bezos,
who's making this enormous amount of money, so sanguine about selling and giving my privacy
away? Which is why he's in the business of doing, with targeted advertising, and then this
intense cooperation with government. It's very suspicious that he should now say, you know, get
over it. If my employees or anybody else wants to raise questions about my relation with the
government, they're out of here. Well, that's not what the Constitution is about. Our
Constitution says we're supposed to be suspicious of our government. We're supposed to be
worrying about power corrupting, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We're supposed to be-
that's why we have a First Amendment, OK. We're supposed to be guarding against government
overreach, government excess, government surveillance. That's what the American Revolution was
fought about against the Brits; you know, breaking into your homes.
And here's Jeff Bezos saying, hey, get over it. I sell you products, they deliver every day.
And the other issue is he doesn't want people in the community raising questions, as Bernie
Sanders did very effectively, about who's delivering these goods. You know, what's replaced
brick and mortar stores? What are the working conditions? Well then, do you get branded as a
suspicious person if you are organizing against Amazon? Are you, then, the enemy? Do they then
tell their friends in the NSA, FBI and everything, watch those folks over there, they fit our
predictive policing profile of a terrorist or a criminal? That's the danger.
MARC STEINER: Well, Bob Scheer, it's always a pleasure to talk with you, and getting
your insightful analysis on the air here with us. I deeply appreciate your time. Thank you so
much. Bob Scheer has been our guest, and I'm Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network.
Thanks for being with us. Take care.
Russophobia is the standard deflection trick, designed to cement cracks in neoliberal society facade. And deep distrust of common
people toward neoliberal elite. With neoliberal elite completely immersed in its own groupthink, which reaches the level "Let them eat
cakes".
Notable quotes:
"... We have seen this play out in the US in the continuing obsession, fronted by Troll-Finder General Robert Mueller, over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. And the same obsession has emerged in the UK, too, with politicians and pundits claiming that a shadowy network of Russian influence tipped the EU referendum in favour of Leave. ..."
"... It is never quite clear how the 'Russians' or 'Putin' did all this, beyond Facebook ads and decidedly dubious talk of so-called dark money. But then clarity is not the point for this stripe of Russia-maniac. He or she simply wants to believe that Trump or Brexit were not what they were. Not expressions of popular will. Not manifestations of popular discontent. Not democratic exercises. ..."
While Russia-mania is widespread among today's political and cultural elites, it is not uniform.
For an older, right-wing section of the Western political and media class, otherwise known as the Cold War Re-Enactment Society,
Russia looms large principally as a military, quasi-imperial threat. Jim Mattis, the former US marine and general, and now US defence
secretary, said Russia was responsible
for 'the biggest attack [on the world order] since World War Two'. Whether this is true or not is beside the point. What matters
is that Russia appears as a military aggressor. What matters is that Russia's actions in Ukraine – which were arguably a defensive
reaction to NATO and the EU's expansion into Russia's traditional ally – are grasped as an act of territorial aggrandisement. What
matters is that Russia's military operations in Syria – which, again, were arguably a pragmatic intervention to stabilise the West-stoked
chaos – are rendered as an expression of imperial aggression. What matters is that Russian state involvement in the poisoning of
the Skripals in Salisbury – which, given its failure, proved Russian incompetence – is presented as 'part of a pattern of Russian
aggression against Europe and its near neighbours, from the western Balkans to the Middle East', to
quote Theresa May.
And it matters because, if Russia is dressed up as the West's old Cold War adversary, just with a new McMafia logo, then the crumbling,
illegitimate and increasingly pointless postwar institutions through which Western elites have long ordered the world, suddenly look
just that little bit more solid, legitimate and purposeful. And none more so than NATO.
This is why NATO has this year been accompanying its statements
warning Russia to 'stop its reckless pattern of
behaviour' with some of the
largest military exercises since the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly three decades ago. Including one in November in Norway, involving
50,000 troops, 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft and 60 warships.
Then there is the newer form of Russia-mania. This has emerged from within the political and cultural elite that came to power
after the Cold War, ploughing an uninspiring third way between the seeming extremes of the 20th century's great ideologies. Broadly
social democratic in sentiment, and elitist and aloof in practice, this band of merry technocrats and their middle-class supporters
have found in 'Russia' a way to avoid having to face up to what the populist revolt reveals – that the majority of Western citizens
share neither their worldview nor their wealth. Instead, they use 'Russia' to displace the people as the source of discontent and
political revolt.
We have seen this play out in the US in the continuing obsession, fronted by Troll-Finder General Robert Mueller, over alleged
Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. And the same obsession has emerged in the UK, too, with politicians and pundits
claiming that a shadowy network of Russian influence tipped the EU referendum in favour of Leave.
It is never quite clear how the 'Russians' or 'Putin' did all this, beyond Facebook ads and decidedly dubious talk of so-called
dark money. But then clarity is not the point for this stripe of Russia-maniac. He or she simply wants to believe that
Trump or
Brexit were not what they were. Not expressions of popular
will. Not manifestations of popular discontent. Not democratic exercises.
No, they were the result, as one Tory MP
put it , of 'the covert and overt forms of malign influence used by Moscow'.
Or, in
the words of an Observer columnist, 'a campaign that purported to be for the "left behind" was organised and funded by men with
links across the global network of far-right American demagogues and kleptomaniac dictators such as Putin'.
Such has been the determination to blame 'Russia' or 'Putin' for the political class's struggles, that in August Tom Watson, Labour's
conspiracy-theory-peddling deputy leader,
called for a public inquiry into an alleged Russian Brexit plot. '[Voters] need to know whether that referendum was stolen or
not', he said.
Such a call ought to be mocked. After all, it is absurd to think 'Russia', 'Putin' and the trolls are the power behind every populist
throne. But the claims aren't mocked – they're taken as calls to action. Think of anything viewed as a threat to our quaking political
and cultural elites in the West, and you can bet your bottom ruble that some state agency or columnist is busy identifying Putin
or one of his legion of bots and trolls as the source. The
gilet jaunes protests
in France?
Check . Climate change?
Check . Italy's Five Star Movement?
Check
.
And all this from a nation with a GDP
equivalent to Spain, an ageing, declining population, and a failing infrastructure. The reality of Russia is not that of a global
threat, but of a struggling state. Russia is weak. Yet in the minds of those clinging desperately to the status quo, 'Russia' has
never been more powerful.
The USA is treating Russia the same way it treated the USSR and run all kind of subversive operations against it.
Notable quotes:
"... This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1440 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page , which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we're doing this fundraiser, what we've accomplished in the last year and our current goal, more original reporting . ..."
"... By John Helmer , the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears ..."
"... In June 1933, he bought the Washington Post at a bankruptcy auction, for $825,000 ..."
"... It [USA] has always been fighting on foreign soil since it was formed by violence against a lawful sovereign. ..."
"... This Vast Southern Empire ..."
"... A mentor in shamelessness: the man who taught Trump the power of publicity Roy Cohn, the lawyer who embraced infamy during the McCarthy hearings and Rosenberg trial, influenced Donald Trump to turn the tabloids into a soapbox ..."
"... Angels in America ..."
"... For the life of me, I still cannot figure out why people are in an absolute panic over Russian "agents" buying $100,000.00, or whatever, worth of advertising promoting either or both sides of the election when U.S.citizens and Political Parties spent over $1.6 billion. ..."
"... Are American citizens really so stupid as to fall for the amazingly, brilliantly conceived and placed $100K worth of Russian advertising, so clever that it superseded $1.6 billion worth of U.S. citizen ads? ..."
"... Or (to misquote Shakespeare/Macbeth) is it a tale told by propagandists, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? ..."
Yves here. An important bit of history that can't be repeated too often: when the Clinton
Administration decided to move NATO into former Warsaw Pact countries, violating a
understanding made as part of the peaceful dissolution, George Kennan said it would prove to be
the worst geopolitical mistake the US ever made.
By John Helmer , the
longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist
to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also
been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United
States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy
Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with
Bears
Joseph Alsop and George Kennan started the kind of Russia-hating in Washington which, today,
President Vladimir Putin, like the businessmen around him, think of as a novelty that cannot
last for long.
Alsop was a fake news fabricator, and such a narcissist as to give the bow-ties he wore a
bad name. Kennan was a psychopath who alternated bouts of aggression to prove himself with
bouts of depression over his cowardice. For them, Russia was a suitable target. The Washington
Post was the newspaper which gave their lunacy public asylum. This, according to a fresh
history by a university professor from California, started in 1947, long before the arrival in
Washington of the anti-communist phobia known after the name of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Russia-hating was an American upper-class phenomenon, cultivated in the offices, cocktail
parties, clubs, and mansions of the deep state, as it emerged out of World War II. It needed a
new enemy to thrive; it fastened on Russia (aka the Soviet Union) as the enemy.
McCarthyism was an American lower-class phenomenon. It focused on the loyalty or disloyalty
of the upper-class deep-staters. That wasn't the same thing as Russia-hating; Wall Street
bankers, Boston lawyers, homosexuals, Jews, communists, were all the enemy. As the Senator from
Wisconsin characterized it himself in 1952, "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves
rolled." He implied – without a middle-class tie; certainly not an upper-class
bow-tie.
Russia was not an enemy which united the two American lunacies, for they hated each other
much more than they hated the Russians. The Soviet Politburo understood this better then than
the Kremlin does now.
Gregg Herken's The Georgetown
Set , is so named because it records the activities of Alsop, Kennan and several other
State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and White House officials who lived as neighbours
in the Georgetown district of the capital city, together with Katharine (Kay) and Philip
Graham, proprietor managers of the Washington Post. The district – once a chartered city
of Maryland and river port, which was absorbed into the federal District of Columbia in 1871 --
was expensive, relatively speaking then; more so now. The richest of the set, including Alsop,
had town houses in Georgetown, and rural retreats in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
Connecticut.
They were a set because because, as Herken said succinctly to an interviewer , "they got
together every Sunday for supper and, basically, they ran the country from those meetings." As
the book elaborates, they thought they were running the world. With a longer time lapse in
which to view the evidence, they were also losing it.
Newspapers exposed in the book for collaborating in all the deceits, failures and war crimes
of the history have reacted by calling
Herken's effort a "provincial corner". The New Yorker opined that the Russia-hating
and Russia war-making which Herken retells are dead and gone. "The guests at the Sunday
soirées no doubt felt that they were in the cockpit of history. But the United States is
a democracy, not a Wasp Ascendancy There was once an atmosphere of willingness that made a
system of bribes and information exchanges seem, to the people involved, simply a way of
working together for a common cause in a climate of public opinion that, unfortunately,
required secrecy. No one got rich from the arrangement. People just lost track of what was
inside their bubble and what was outside, as people tend to do. Vietnam was the reality check.
'I've Seen the Best of It' was the title Alsop gave to his memoirs. Things hadn't been the same
since, he felt. He was right about that, and we should be thankful." In the New York media
business these days it's possible to publish a selfie of pulling your own leg.
The Washington Post has deflected the indictment against itself by describing Herken's work
as "a very strange book (A) a rehash of the history of the Cold War as experienced in certain
Washington circles and (B) an almost obsessive recapitulation of the life and journalism of
Joseph Alsop." Alsop is dismissed as unworthy of a history at all because he was "utterly
repellent: arrogant, patronizing, imperious, uninterested in anyone except himself."
That's the truth about Alsop. The truth about the Washington Post is buried in this line by
the Post's books editor about the hand that fed him: "it must be very hard for people who did
not live through the '50s and '60s to understand how obsessed the American people were with the
threat from Moscow." That line appeared in
print on November 7, 2014. It was already history, that's to say, a misjudgement. How
monumentally mistaken is obvious now.
In covering the period from 1946 to 1975, Herken's research does repeat much of the history
of the Cold War which has been told elsewhere. It starts on February 22, 1946, the date of the
"Long Telegram", No. 511 -- Kennan's despatch from the US Embassy in Moscow to the State
Department, setting out his strategy of so-called containment and much more besides. Read it in
the declassified original
. Most of the war-fighting and other war crimes which the telegram set in motion under Kennan's
1948 rubrics, "organized political warfare" and "preventive direct action", are reported in
Herken's book; so too are Kennan's frequent funks, failures of conviction, reversals of
judgement, and pleas for help.
The book ends on December 30, 1974, the date of Alsop's last column. Alsop concluded with
the line: "I have never known the American people to be really badly wrong, if only they were
correctly and fully informed."
Herken shows how self-deluded and professionally delusional that was -- not because of
Alsop's character but because of his sources. Herken documents that they ran upwards from
foot-soldiers (also lubricious sailors) to presidents and cabinet secretaries. Herken doesn't
think the same of Kennan, who gets to walk off stage, aged 101, sounding more sceptical of
overthrowing Saddam Hussein than he ever was in his prime and in power to direct schemes of
what we call state terrorism today.
Left to right: Kennan died in 2005, aged 101; Alsop died in 1989 aged 78; Frank Wisner
died in 1965 aged 56. The deeper Herken gets into the private papers, the more he refers to his
subjects by their diminutives and nicknames – Joe, Oppie, Beetle, Dickie, the Crocodile,
Wig, Jack, Wiz, Soozle, Vangie, et al.
What is fresh about the sources is that Herken has had access to the private notes, letters
and diaries of the Alsop family; the Kennan diaries and letters; and the private papers of
Frank Wisner, the first director of covert operations against Russia. Wisner went mad and
killed himself, as did Graham. There's no doubt about the suicide outcome of their madness.
In the case of the mad ex-Defence Secretary James Forrestal his fatal jump from the window
of the Navy hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, in May 1949 might have been a homicidal push.
Herken concludes that Forrestal's death was "the first senior-ranking American casualty of the
Cold War." Herken thinks of their madness as anomalies. The history shows they were
normalities.
Missing from this history is any reference to official documents, now declassified; press
reporting of the time; or interviews with veterans of the same events but on other sides
– Russian and Soviet; British; German; French; Polish; Vietnamese; Chinese. This isn't so
much a fatal flaw in Herken's (right) book as the reason why his history is repeating itself
today. Call this a variation on Karl's Marx's apothegm that history starts as tragedy and
repeats itself as farce. Herken's blindness to this is as revealing as the Washington Post's
madness, not yet as suicidal as its former proprietor's, today.
So mesmerized is Herken by the moneyed backgrounds of his subjects and sources, and by the
amount of black cash from the US Government they spent on operations, he forgets to report what
they did to fill their own pockets. The claim by the New Yorker that "no one got rich from the
arrangement" – Alsop's fake news fabrications – is false, but Herken touches only
in passing on how they made (or kept) their money. Alsop's column, for example, was sold to 200
newspapers, and at one time claimed a readership of 25 million. His family inheritance is
recorded, but not its annual revenue value. Alsop's payola included silk shirts from Alfred
Kohlberg, a textile importer from China who backed Chiang Kai-shek against Mao Tse-tung, as did
Alsop. Alsop's patrons included Convair (General Dynamics), the company building the US Air
Force Atlas missile for procurement of which Alsop reported fictions about Soviet missile
strength.
In the US power which Alsop, Kennan and Wisner believed without hesitation, Herken is not
less a believer. "Anything could be achieved", Herken quotes a New York Times reporter quoting
Wisner. When the US force multiple changed, however, and US allies or agents were outgunned,
outspent, outnumbered, or outwitted, they were unable to acknowledge miscalculation,
attributing defeat instead to the superior force or guile of their adversaries, especially the
Russians.
This is madness, and there is good reason for recognizing the symptoms again. In 1958, when
Herken says Wisner's paranoid manias were becoming obvious to his friends and colleagues,
"Frank put forward a theory that the careless comment which had gotten George Kennan kicked out
of the Soviet Union was evidence the Soviets had succeeded in an area where the CIA's own
scientists had failed: mind control. Some agency hands alleged that Wisner attributed his own
increasingly bizarre behaviour to the Kremlin's sly manipulation."
From Washington in 1958, fast forward to Washington in 2017; for mind control and sly
manipulation, read Russian hacking and cyber warfare. From Wisner's and Kennan's balloon drops
of leaflets and broadcasts by Radio Free Europe, fast forward to Russia Today Television and
Russian infiltrations of Twitter, Google, the Democratic National Committee, and the Trump
organization.
It stands to reason (ahem!) that if you think what the US Government and its journalists
were doing then was mad, you are might conclude that what they is doing now is just as mad
– and not very different. When the incumbent president and his Secretary of State
publicly call for IQ tests on each other, all reason has failed. "The nation," as Alsop had
written, "had simply taken leave of all sense of proportion." That was in March 1954.
If you fast forward to now, there's one difference. Today the lunatic Russia warfighters
don't retire. They also don't fade away. Today's sleek successors to mad Wisner and mad Graham
sleep easily in their beds a-nights. For what they've done and do, they wouldn't dream of
taking shotguns to their heads.
Herken retells the story of the campaign Alsop waged against McCarthyism at the State
Department, against McCarthy himself, and the vulnerability Alsop himself presented until the
Boston lawyer Joseph Welch put an end to McCarthy on June 9, 1954 : "Have you no sense of decency,
sir, at long last?" Welch famously said. "Have you left no sense of decency?" The recurring
history reveals why, even if there are plenty of people to say the same thing today to the
Washington Post, New York Times, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the madness will continue
repeating itself.
Wisner's son married the stepmother of Nicolas Sarkozy. This facilitated the Sarkozy
family's links with Wall Street (Guillaume at Credit Suisse and Carlyle and Nicolas'
stepdaughter Judith Martin (daughter of France's Bruce Forsyth and Cecilia Albeniz) at Morgan
Stanley, the latter at Canary Wharf).
A year ago, before his elimination in the Republicain primary, Sarko met executives from
Goldman Sachs to discuss a move from London to Paris due to Brexit. Sarko promised bespoke
personal and corporate tax arrangements in return for a relocation and fanfare. Sarko was
keen on the fanfare and planned to exploit that, thinking it would be a PR coup soon between
his election and the August shut down.
Kay Graham was the daughter of a former partner at Lazard Freres. Her father bought the
WaPo after his retirement. The family and its plaything rag formed part of Operation
Mockingbird.
Also worth mentioning that he purchased the WaPo in 1933. Per wikipedia, " In June
1933, he bought the Washington Post at a bankruptcy auction, for $825,000 ".
Pre-sages Bezos buying the WaPo on the cheap too. Can't say I would have thought of Bezos
as being a Russia scare-monger. I guess it's the flip-side of regime change. If you're in the
regime preservation business, perhaps that means regime changing your enemies. In which case,
never let a good crisis go to waste. And if a crisis isn't available well if a newspaper
can't figure out how to manufacture a crisis out of the available pool of evil-doers, then
really why even have a newspaper?
Bezos to Russia, "It's nothing personal, it's just business". Bezos to Trump, "It's
personal."
Seems like that is the under the radar amount of supposed funding for Fronts.
Slowly it dawned on me, or I simply put two and two together realizing I was working for a
CIA/MI6 Front. Explained why mediocrities, liars & thieves had secure jobs.
American Airlines is most probably the inheritor of Air America's freight operations,
station agents, & to pilots a great system for overt & covert operations gets 685
million a year.
IN-Q-TEL the CIA retirement benefits fund for agents gets 685 million as well.
I don't remember where I read the figures. See what you find out?
When I worked the independent movie scene in NYC all the budgets were 100 thousand
dollars.
Now how you know, or the commentators know what they are saying here, I don't know. We are
aware that the US power structure found it convenient to blame, or imply the blame for all
that was stupid and violent in politics in the US on the Russians who as a secretive
organization by habit made the picture plausible.
If oligarchs money fleeing Russia came to America and was a source of Industrial Service
Banking it would be a victory. As it is the working classes in the US and Russia end up with
the same leaders only different.
As it is the game is the same with it being real estate and art.
If there is one thing about Russians, they lust to possess beauty.
Otherwise from my experience they are difficult to do business with and you get more respect
when you up front don't trust them so they can act like Russians.
I pitched to the Atlantic "Statehood for Russia" when the Cold War supposedly ended.
With the propaganda going into what Americans look at and voter system hacking it is evident
they want to be a state.
Outstanding article and excellent commentary points and to elaborate just on several facts
stated: ("Wisner went mad and killed himself, as did Graham.") -- this might have been the
case, but most curiously, both Wisner and Graham were first treated at Chestnut Lodge
Sanitarium in Rockville, MD at the CIA's MK ULTRA wing, then they both would return home and
commit suicide?! This was also the facility where the CIA would send a research nutritionist
(do not know whether they connived her, or it was against her will, etc., but she did not
work for the Agency) who was researching an Amazonian plant with unique properties, and after
her treatment, she never mentioned said plant or research ever again?!.
Also, this is where Richard Helms, then CIA director, had his famous auto accident right
before giving testimony before the Church Committee (when he perjured himself and later was
officially censured by Congress). Helms claimed he was seeing a psychoanalyst (basis for a
simpleton movie from Hollywood called "The President's Analyst" -- probably involved Harry
Weinstein) -- but it was because Helms was shredding all the MK ULTRA files kept there prior
to appearing before the Church Committee.
And Joe Alsop was cousin to several CIA dudes, Kermit Roosevelt and Archibald Roosevelt,
whereupon he received his "tips" or misinformation.
And the Colonel explains Sarkozy's familial background quite nicely, but to further add it
was Wisner and John Negroponte, working through the Franco-American Foundation, who were
supposed to be behind the concocted false scandals against Sarkozy's presidential opponent
which allowed Sarkozy to win the election the first time. (The second time, Sarkozy was
behind that NYC airport "incident" which blow up in his face, resulting in a Hollande
victory.)
There are further Wall Street links in the Sarkozy family. Olivier, half-brother of
Nicolas, was at CS First Boston and worked briefly with our company on an engagement some
years ago. His colleagues remarked on his pedigree and ability to open doors where others
couldn't.
So the USA had no hand in arming Japan and encouraging them to attack Russia, successfully
in 1904? Who stirred up Japan, forcing them with battleships to trade, actually firing on
Japan. USA has always had war plans for the invasion of every country on Earth, since the Civil
War, if not before.
It has always been fighting on foreign soil since it was formed by violence against a
lawful sovereign. Except for 20 years!!!
WWII was a result of rearmament of Germany, by USA and its banker allies. They wanted USSR
in ashes. In the end they had to rescue Germany, failing in that and losing half of Europe.
That must be smart!
It [USA] has always been fighting on foreign soil since it was formed by violence
against a lawful sovereign.
The monarchy of George III? Lawful sovereign? Who elected George III? Nobody. Who elected
the members of Parliament? Nobody in America, and only adult males who could meet stringent
properly requirements in Britain. Britain in 1775/1776 was definitely not a lawful sovereign
over any territory in the North American continent.
Don't forget Woody Wilson sending the troops to Vladivostok after WW1. Communism was
always regarded as an existential threat by the then WASPy, now not so WASPy elites.
And re Kennan, the recent Ken Burns Vietnam documentary shows him casting doubts on the
Vietnam intervention at a Congressional hearing. Kennan said the policy was like the elephant
being terrified of the mouse. So his Russia obsession does seem to have been more about power
rivalry than ideological apostasy.
If this is true, why did the US send 17.5 M tons of material to the USSR, through
Lend Lease ,
during WW2?
Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food
were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For
comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from
January 1942 to May 1945.
One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company's
River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and
services amounted to about eleven billion dollars.
Wasn't Henry Ford supposed to be a Na*i?
While repayment of the interest-free loans was required after the end of the war under
the act, in practice the U.S. did not expect to be repaid by the USSR after the war. The
U.S. received $2M in reverse Lend-Lease from the USSR. This was mostly in the form of
landing, servicing, and refueling of transport aircraft; some industrial machinery and rare
minerals were sent to the U.S. The U.S. asked for $1.3B at the cessation of hostilities to
settle the debt, but was only offered $170M by the USSR. The dispute remained unresolved
until 1972, when the U.S. accepted an offer from the USSR to repay $722M linked to grain
shipments from the U.S., with the remainder being written off.
So $722M in 1972 dollars for $11B in 1947 dollars?
If this is true, why did the US send 17.5 M tons of material to the USSR, through Lend
Lease, during WW2?
They suspended their death wish because without the USSR they could very well have lost to
the Nazis. Short of a successful invasion of Britain, the availability to the Nazis of a
small portion of the tank and aerial forces that were getting chewed up in the Soviet Union
would have led to the easy conquest of North Africa and the loss of the Suez canal. That
would have been hard for the Allies to recover from. Once the war was won it was time to
shift back into playing the innocent party responding to Soviet aggression.
The U.S. also sent $20 million in food aid to the Soviets during the famine of 1921-1922.
The U.S. attitude towards Russia / Soviet Union is complex and contradictory. Members of the
U.S. establishment mostly opposed the Soviets, but future President Herbert Hoover's role in
the famine relief project shows that there were exceptions.
By the 1930s, the behavior of Stalin justified opposition to the Soviets, although I think
that for a long time, many (perhaps most) of the Americans who opposed them did so for the
wrong reasons.
Hoover's role in famine relief was about more than food distribution. By 1911-1912 or so
he was director of the Russo-Asiatic Corporation and had extensive oil, mining, and timber
interests in Russia, all of which made him very, very wealthy. These interests were
relinquished prior to the Revolution, which Hoover vehemently opposed. According to Sayers
and Kahn in The Great Conspiracy Against Russia, "He was to remain one of the world's
bitterest foes of the Soviet Government for the rest of his life. It is a fact, whatever his
personal motive may have been, that American food sustained the White Russians and fed the
storm troops of the most reactionary regimes in Europe which were engaged in suppressing the
upsurge of democracy after the First World War. Thus American relief became a weapon against
the peoples' movements in Europe."
This is Disaster Capitalism 100 years ago.
The quote is footnoted. The footnote reads: "Herbert Hoover's activities as Food Relief
Administrator were directed toward giving aid to the White Russians and withholding all
supplies to the Soviets. Hundreds of thousands starved in Soviet territory. When, finally,
Hoover bowed to public pressure and sent some food to the Soviets he continued according to a
statement by a Near East Relief official in the New York World in April, 1922 -- to
'interfere with the collection of funds for famine-stricken Russia.' In February, 1992, when
Hoover was Secretary of Commerce, the New York Globe made this editorial comment:
'Bureaucrats centered throughout the Department of Justice, the Department of State and the
Department of Commerce for purposes of publicity are carrying on a private war with the
Bolshevist Government Washington propaganda has grown to menacing proportions Messrs. Hughes
and Hoover and Dougherty will do well to clean their houses before public irritation reaches
too high a point. The American people will not long endure a presumptuous bureaucracy which
for its own wretched purposes is willing to let millions of innocent people die."
In 1919, when the American Relief Administration first offered to help Russia, it's very
plausible that they only wanted to help the regions under White control. But the Soviets
refused foreign assistance at that time. In 1921, when the famine was worse, the Whites
didn't control much outside of portions of Siberia. I think the worst areas of famine were in
eastern Ukraine and the nearby parts of Russia. I don't think the Whites controlled any of
that territory any longer, but I could be wrong. I think that Hoover's aid helped a lot of
people in Soviet areas. And yes, he was anti-communist.
Also there was considerable sympathy towards Germany among the Latin American elites.
Several countries, such as Paraguay and Argentina, would likely have jumped aboard the Axis
bandwagon if it began to look like they'd come out on top.
The percentage of battle deaths incurred by the Germans on the Eastern front was at a
minimum 70%, and by some counts over 90%. If Operation Barbarosa had not been launched in
1941 and a truce had held on that front it is unlikely that the Anglo-American alliance could
have sustained a a landing on continental Europe in the west. This would have especially been
the case if the Germans, instead of putting their chips on Barbarosa, had been able to
successfully shut off British use of the Suez Canal, and thus deprive them of ready access to
the resources from India and especially the oil from Iran. Given British naval dominance of
the Mediterranean, however, this would have been difficult unless they were able to negotiate
passage to the Levant by land through Turkey and the Balkans.
Agreed. Instead of peddling diagnoses he would do well to stick with the attacking the
crudity of Kennan's view of world affairs. Kennan saw the Soviets as akin to "windup toys"
that were somehow driven to expand. In this he completely failed to account for the fact that
the Soviets were potentially autarchic, while the capitalist West was governed by
accumulation imperatives that pushed for market expansion. He doesn't bother himself with the
problem but jumps right into rationalizing base construction and an arms race. That Kennan is
seen as a kind of geostrategic genius speaks volumes regarding the self-deluded mindlessness
of US foreign policy.
This article sounds more like an angry emotional outburst from Helmer. It wouldn't
surprise me if he's one of the people taking a lot of crap in all this Russian propaganda
hysteria.
Yes, I know about his depression. But the claim that he was a psychopath? That stretches
believability. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy were examples of
psychopaths. I don't think that George Kennan was like them.
Russia-phobia is actually 100 years old. Strangely, I haven't seen any commemoration of
the centenary of 1917 Revolution. Nobody can deny that it was a world-changing event.
The Bolshevik Revolution, that overtook the Kerensky Revolution shocked the world to the
core, particularly the Church. It quickly alienated even syndicalists and anarchists, because
it developed into a strong centralized state, not the bottom up movement that Lenin found
when he entered Petrograd.
The last 4 years of Nato intervention in the Baltics, Poland and
the Ukraine have shown that the world has never recovered from that shock. British opposition
to Russia goes even deeper, back to the Great Game and the Crimean War. Without Churchill
vehemently opposing Russia in general and Stalin in particular would there even be a Nato?
History is more about continuity than discontinuity.
I'm glad you mentioned Churchill. Since the first Directors of the OSS and the CIA were
complete Anglophiles and modeled their collection techniques on Britian's SIS (MI-6) (until,
of course, those famous British spies were uncovered), it is not surprising that our first
after the war "enemies" were the same as Churchill's enemies
I have a sneaking suspicion that the troubles of the world have such a basic foundation
that if they are ever solved, people will look back, marveling at the simplicity of the
answers.
Humans have always faced the dilemma of how to organize society. The main sticking points
being how to control personal ambition in ones own group and how to get the work done that
needs doing- including protecting oneself form ones neighbors who are dealing with the same
issues.
Capitalism, and the west in general, seem to turn personal ambition loose. It takes a
persons personal confrontation and experience with the universe and makes that the primary
motivator for organization. It serves to reward the aggressive while insulating failure as a
personal shortcoming, not a flaw in the system. The Catholic religion, which underpins such a
system by giving it a spiritual legitimacy. The individual can have a personal relationship
with the creator of the universe- with the moderating teaching of caring for the poor to curb
excessive personal ambition or too close a connection. That hasn't worked out so well as the
poor are with us still and the argument is given that the poor will be with us forever. The
Divine right of Kings and all that.
Godless Communists challenged all that and the results still haven't worked themselves
out.
Endless wars seem to be an excuse to justify recurring cycles of hate. Love your God, and
spite your enemies.
The promise of Socialism is that the tools of science and reason can be used to relieve
human suffering and provide for a meaningful life. That vision remains unborn because those
sentiments are always snuffed out as quickly as they take hold.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the troubles of the world have such a basic foundation
that if they are ever solved, people will look back, marveling at the simplicity of the
answers.
I have the exact same suspicion. We might, in fact, understand the basic foundation and
already have the solutions but, to use your words, they are always snuffed out as quickly as
they take hold -- which is itself its own intractable problem.
Interesting observation about McCarthyism as a feature of the lower classes. Particularly
about what the hate and fear was directed against: bankers, lawyers, Jews, homosexuals,
communists One of the big actors in that great national drama was a fella named Roy Cohn, who
kind of fell into almost all of those categories (except maybe "communist", though with Cohn,
who was also a mob lawyer and buddy of J. Edgar Hoover, who knows?).
And for Trump haters, or those who are trying to "understand" the guy, there's even a
great big Cohn Connection, which is fun to read about here: " A mentor in shamelessness:
the man who taught Trump the power of publicity
Roy Cohn, the lawyer who embraced infamy during the McCarthy hearings and Rosenberg trial,
influenced Donald Trump to turn the tabloids into a soapbox " ,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/20/roy-cohn-donald-trump-joseph-mccarthy-rosenberg-trial
Interesting observation about McCarthyism as a feature of the lower classes.
I noted that too. It gives credence to Matt Stoller's observation that the elites / 1%ers
are not monolithic but are fractions that can and do fight each other.
Tangentially, I saw the Angels in America in London, which includes a vivid
portrait of Roy Cohn. On his deathbed, watched over by Ethel Rosenberg, Cohn dekes Rosenberg
into singing him off to his last sleep out of pity A touching moment until Cohn sits up and
yells "Fooled ya!" (paraphrasing).
America was born of conquest. The North American continent is/was vast in scale and
resources. The vision was never to live in such a place as more to conquer it and extract its
resources. That mentality is still prominent as the resource base has not been depleted yet
and energies are directed to further exploitation- fracking and the opening of the arctic
regions. Even now, an argument can be made that American corporations are more concerned
about exploiting their customers for profit, than the health of the citizenry. That is the
motivational force behind our governing elite, not some attachment to the land and its people
and the desire to make the world a better place.
American Exceptionalism is based on conquest and the right for individuals to exploit
those resources to their own end. By that standard it continues to be a success. Communism,
in principle, was an ideology opposed to that vision. Under no circumstances can such an
ideology be allowed to exist, so was set for extermination by force and disinformation. Once
that process takes hold, you live in a world devoid of reality. It is fantasy.
Naked greed cannot be justified for long without some form of damage taking place in the
human psyche. Reflection is not prevalent in the American creed. The rise of American
Corporations to the detriment of the nations citizens is a confirmation of that fact. For how
can a nation be "Great" if its citizens are driven into poverty?
You become a Nation of crazy people.
Greed and misuse of Power lead to crazy. Instead of trying to talk sense to crazy people,
sanity lies in the opposite direction. Less greed and an articulation of the proper use of
power. Implementation is another matter.
Thanks for the reading suggestions, and I especially second the the mention of Douglass's
JFK and the Unspeakable. TTBOMK although it's nearly ten years old it's the best analysis out
there of the John Kennedy assassination.
Saying "Russia (aka the Soviet Union)" (as Helmer does) is akin to saying "California (aka
The United States". It is a false statement.
The Soviet Union (1917-1991) was a materialist anti-christian, anti religious totalitarian
State. Godlessness was the ruling precept of Soviet society.
In 1923, Lenin created the first Soviet Concentration Camp, at the "re-purposed", Russian
Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery. Solovetsky was used as the prototype for the Gulag network of
camps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solovki_prison_camp
IMO, today, the USA is the World Epicenter of materialism, internationalism, greed and
godlessness.
Conversely, Russia (2017) is a Nationalist, Orthodox Christian Democracy. No wonder our
materialistic rulers are so "hysterically", (The APA says, "conversion disorder". Casual
psychiatric diagnosis of opponents is a breeze now!), fearful of Russia, and the Biblical,
little David, with his sling and stone (Putin).
There is a vast body of scholarly work on the origins of the Cold War from many different
perspectives, into which context this analysis is trivial and downright loopy. The Georgetown
Set got us into it? It was "mad" to oppose the Soviet Union and now Russia? Oh, please.
Western opposition to Russian communism pre-dates Joe Alsop and his bowties by decades.
The revolutionary regime that weakened the WWI alliance and prolonged that bloody war by
making a separate peace with Germany wasn't going to be well-liked by its former allies in
the first place. The same regime preached the violent overthrow of democratically-elected
western governments, who reacted as one might expect, including the (poorly-considered)
intervention of 1918-1920.
Stalin then gave the world many, many reasons not to trust Russia – brutal
repression on a hitherto unheard of scale, mass murder, disastrous economic policies leading
to mass famine, show trials and active promotion of Soviet-style take-overs elsewhere. Even
before WWII and the start of the Cold War there was plenty not to like. During the war,
Western governments bowed to geopolitical reality and allied with the USSR, despite Stalin's
cynical deal with Hitler to divide Poland just before, but Poland provides one of the best
samplings of why opposing the USSR/Russia after geopolitical realities changed at the end of
the war was not only understandable but a very good idea. Shortly after Russia took over in
eastern Poland the NKVD rounded up and brutally murdered 22,000 military officers, police
officers, public officials and assorted intellectuals, i.e. anyone who could think
independently and oppose Russian rule, and threw the bodies into pits dug in the Katyn
Forest. The Soviets denied this for decades, blaming it on the Nazi's, but finally fessed up
in 1990 during perestroika, now best understood as a brief twinkling of light in Russia's
dark history. Reports had leaked out of the massacre and other Soviet atrocities during the
war, which played a large role in mobilizing another major force in U.S. politics that was
deeply skeptical of the USSR after the war – ethnic Eastern Europeans.
The West and Russia did do deals at Yalta and Tehran on spheres of influence, but there
was ambiguity as to what that meant and words were thrown in about national
self-determination and free elections. After the war the West (mostly) promoted democratic
government, at least in Europe, while the Soviets laughed at the joke and imposed their
brutal regimes anywhere they could. Stalin's last living legacy is the horror show in North
Korea, where he installed a Soviet agent as head of the regime, now a dynasty. Kennan's Long
Cable/Article X, which is still well worth reading, dealt with the causes of Soviet
expansionism as part of Russia's long, troubled history and urged containment as an
alternative to more active opposition ("roll-back"), which largely worked in Europe. As the
counterpoint to containment, when Sec State Dean Acheson omitted Korea from the U.S.
"defensive perimeter" in his January 1950 speech, the North invaded the South with Soviet
support five months later. It was after that experience that containment went global.
With the exception of Kennan, the people mentioned may have had influence but were not the
real policy makers. Truman, George Marshall and Dean Acheson were the primary architects of
U.S postwar policy. Only Acheson lived in Georgetown, and he thought Alsop was a "pest."
Acheson took on Kennan as his staff chief because he had deep expertise on Russia and largely
made sense. The off-hand comments in the article about Kennan being a psychopath and coward
were made with no support and are at odds with his reputation as a pragmatist and
traditionalist in foreign policy. He was recently most well known for his quaint view that
the U.S. should declare wars as required by the Constitution before getting into them. Alsop
was a commentator not a policy maker and was regarded as somewhat of a fringe character, not
least because he was gay in the 1950s. As for the rest of the U.S. elite at the time, far
more of them had been sympathetic to Russia in their youths than rabid anti-communists. The
typical Cold Warrior was made that way not by bowtie-wearing but by sober, mature observation
of what the Soviet regime was all about.
So let's do fast-forward to the present day. No one with an objective understanding of
Russian history is at all surprised that a regime headed by one of their former secret
policemen is tampering with elections, fomenting political divisions and trying to disrupt
the western alliance. All the evidence supports those conclusions and more comes out every
day. Facebook, Google, the scope is astounding. In Helmer's piece we see the birth of a new
phenomenon, on the same intellectual level as climate-change denial. It's electing-tampering
denial.
I think if NC-ers wanted to read official propaganda, they could just subscribe to NYT.
The only thing that your comment demonstrates is that you've no idea what "objective
understanding of Russian history" could possibly be.
Was that an argument? The problem Russian apologists have is that periodically, after
years or decades of denial, the truth finally comes out from a Russian source, usually when
it's convenient to blame their predecessor. Khrushchev finally admitted Stalin's "mistakes",
like anyone really needed confirmation that his regime had murdered millions. Gorbachev
finally had the guts to admit the NKVD liquidated the Polish elite, which everyone else
(except the "useful idiots") had known for a long time, etc. That was the context of the Cold
War and the original posting. U.S. containment policy responded to real actions and constant
lying by the USSR as it imposed totalitarian regimes throughout Eastern Europe and elsewhere,
not some goofy chatter at Georgetown cocktail parties. Every one of those countries, as soon
as they had freedom to choose, bolted for the West and NATO.
As for election-tampering denial, sure looks like it's real. This was a new twist –
deny something simply because it's been reported in the NYT (Russian sources, and Donald
Trump, being so much more credible). But some other historical truth-telling pertains here.
If you want to understand what Vladimir Putin and his fellow secret policemen did in East
Germany, despite decades of denial, you can now go to the Stasi archives. It's a museum that
documents 44 years of soul-crushing repression, cynical manipulation of neighbor against
neighbor and systematic subversion of anyone or any group that might speak up against the
state. It's not hard at all to believe that someone who came of age with that background
would take advantage of such an easy way to undermine their U.S. adversaries. In fact, it's
hard to believe they wouldn't.
Well said. Thank you. My comment was much shorter, but said many of the same things. It
was censored. Much shorter version: Asserting that George Kennan was a lunatic is lunacy.
For the life of me, I still cannot figure out why people are in an absolute panic over
Russian "agents" buying $100,000.00, or whatever, worth of advertising promoting either or
both sides of the election when U.S.citizens and Political Parties spent over $1.6
billion.
Are American citizens really so stupid as to fall for the amazingly, brilliantly conceived
and placed $100K worth of Russian advertising, so clever that it superseded $1.6 billion
worth of U.S. citizen ads?
Or (to misquote Shakespeare/Macbeth) is it a tale told by propagandists, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing?
"After the war the West (mostly) promoted democratic government, at least in Europe, "
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
I am surprised no one else responded to this screed. I agree that the Soviet Union had a
horrific human rights record, but that little snippet I quote above is like a relic from the
silliest days of Cold War propaganda. As for Russian meddling, the evidence is that probably
something happened, in my opinion, but if people were serious they would keep some sense of
proportion. I read the NYT articles and melodramatic language is doing an awful lot of work
with regards to the Facebook claims.
If I accepted everything I have read at face value our
democracy was so fragile literally anyone willing to hire some hackers and spend a minuscule
amount of money could have destroyed it. Heck, if I and a few friends were willing to
mortgage our homes and cash in our retirement funds we could fund its destruction
ourselves.
Richard Spence, professor of history at the University of Idaho, has just published "Wall
Street and the Russian Revolution: 1905 – 1925." This is a fascinating book that I
would think at least some of the above commenters would be interested in. Spence has updated
Anthony Sutton's earlier work with new/more archival research and access to new/more recently
declassified documents.
I haven't finished it as it came in the mail yesterday, but it does have a few interesting
comments about George Kennan not the above George Kennan but his distant cousin who in 1891
published a book entitled "Siberia and the Exile System." So it seems that Russia-hating ran
in the family. The cousin Kennan claimed to have assisted in the distribution of a ton and a
half of literature to Russian POWs in Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. This, according to
Kennan, was financed by Jacob Schiff and caused many of the POWs to become liberals and
revolutionaries opposed to the Tsar.
Fleshing out the role of capitalist/financial interests in the Revolution is certainly
important. These were the deep state actors of 100 years ago. The names of the people and the
interests they represent may have changed, but the chicanery hasn't.
" the Clinton administration decided to move NATO into former Warsaw Pact nations,
violating a understanding made as part of the peaceful dissolution". The "peaceful
dissolution" of the Soviet "union", I presume?
NATO was formed in 1948 in response to the Soviet refusal to withdraw from the Eastern
European nations it continued to control with puppet governments and Soviet troops after
WWll. The Soviets responded by forming the Warsaw Pact -- consisting of those very same
nations: (East) Germany, Poland, Czechoslavakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania. The
only time Warsaw Pact troops were used militarily was against its own members -- Hungary in
1956, and Czechoslavakia in 1968.
The collapse of the USSR started in 1989, with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and
culminated in 1991 with the failed coup by hardliners against Gorbachev in August of 1991,
though the official end did not come until the formal dissolution on December 26, 1991.
In the following years, all of the Warsaw Pact nations, plus the illegally annexed and
occupied Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, having regained their sovereignty,
all made a point of joining NATO -- to make sure that the Russian bear did not return to do
even more damage.
What "understanding" was violated? It is a popular myth that the Russians were "promised"
that NATO would not expand to the east. Who made this promise to who, and under what
authority? Did the nations of Eastern Europe, after half a century of Russian control,
voluntarily cede the power to determine their future alliances to the Clinton Administration?
The premise is absurd on its face. In any case, how do you keep a "promise" to a political
entity- the USSR- which no longer exists?
Russian interference in Ukraine, and the forced annexation of Crimea (reminiscent of
Stalin's annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940), has validated the pragmatism
of its former vassal states in joining NATO. Russia is not being threatened by its neighbor's
membership in NATO; to them, Russia is the threat.
You should ask Jim Baker, who had confirmed that an agreement regarding NATO was made. In
addition to many other people present at the time Why try at revisionist history now ?
And FIY, Estonia, Latvia, and Litva were a part of the czarist Russia for more than 300 yrs.
Soviet Union gave up the territories in the terrible peace it had to sign with Germany before
the end of WWI. After the next war, which it won, it simply took back the areas – kinda
like the French took back Alsace-Lorraine, after victory over German in WWI.
Knowing history is really a good thing
More Russians troops are buried in the soil of the Crimea than the US lost in Europe
during WWI &WWII as well. The West or it's proxies have been after it for nearly as long
as The Great Game has been in play. But that's what Russia gets for helping Lincoln by
keeping France and Britain from actively coming in on the side of the Confederates. Never
help an ingrate.
That's two misreadings of history. There was no agreement not to expand NATO, which is
confirmed by both Jim Baker and Mikhail Gorbachev, the other guy there at the table. The only
agreement made was that NATO would not put nuclear weapons or non-German troops in the former
GDR. That agreement has been kept.
The Baltic states had all declared their independence from Russia before the Russian peace
with Germany, so they weren't anyone's to give. If they were ever "transferred" to Germany
they didn't stay German for long – in fact a couple of them defeated German armies in
battle towards the end of WWI. They were all independent by 1920, part of the wave of
national self-determination after WWI that saw the liberation of lots of smaller countries
that had been dominated by one of the defunct empires. Lithuania, of course, hadn't always
been so small – at one point it was the largest country in Europe and included parts of
what became Russia. Comparisons with Alsace are absurd on several levels.
If [neoliberal] left is understood as Clinton DemoRats, then it's just a second war party. Just look at Hillary. Such an
anti-war hero.
Notable quotes:
"... For decades, a common myth pervading the American political arena has been that the left is anti-war. ..."
"... But they are as much opposed to war as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – at least he is honest about his appetite for blood and desire for perpetual regime change, no matter who occupies the Oval Office. So, from where did this mendacity come? ..."
"... In 2008, the United States was entrenched in an election battle and two major wars – Afghanistan and Iraq. The Democrats portrayed themselves as the anti-war party, promising to correct the foreign disasters of the incumbent administration. Since then, it's as if former President George W. Bush never departed. The Democrats have championed military interventions, twiddled their thumbs under President Barack Obama, and nominated a hawk to lead the party in 2016. ..."
"... Today, the [neoliberla] left has united with the neoconservatives in opposition to President Donald Trump's decision to bring 2,000 troops home from Syria and potential plans to withdraw from Afghanistan. Because they loathe Trump so much and don't want him to be portrayed as a more peaceful president than his predecessor, leftists demand that U.S. forces permanently stay in the region, facing death or serious injury. ..."
"... Attempting to locate a handful of consistent anti-war Democrats is like trying to spot Vice President Mike Pence with a woman other than his wife at a restaurant: It's never going to happen. ..."
"... For the last century, virtually every war, invasion, and occupation have been given the stamp of approval by Democrats. President Woodrow Wilson dragged the U.S. into one of those wars-to-end-all- wars fiascos. President Harry Truman sent thousands of young men to their deaths in Korea, setting the stage for perpetual global interventionism. President Lyndon Baines Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam. The Democratic leadership approved of the Iraq War, and Obama destabilized an entire region, killed American citizens, and intensified the drone bombing campaign. ..."
"... Outside of Capitol Hill, the predominantly left-leaning mainstream media have never seen a war it didn't like. In the last two years alone, the vacuous TV commentators have employed the same two strategies: Demand action against Russia (eh, Paul Begala ?) and oppose President Trump for using diplomacy and other tactics to institute peace ..."
Otto von Bismarck once said, "People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or
before an election." For decades, a common myth pervading the American political arena has been that the left
is anti-war.
But they are as much opposed to war as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – at least he is
honest about his appetite for blood and desire for perpetual regime change, no matter who
occupies the Oval Office. So, from where did this mendacity come?
In 2008, the United States was entrenched in an election battle and two major wars –
Afghanistan and Iraq. The Democrats portrayed themselves as the anti-war party, promising to
correct the foreign disasters of the incumbent administration. Since then, it's as if former
President George W. Bush never departed. The Democrats have championed military interventions,
twiddled their thumbs under President Barack Obama, and nominated a hawk to lead the party in
2016.
Progressives, the same ones who, under Republican administrations, routinely held massive
anti-war rallies on days that ended in "y," have been eerily silent for the last ten years.
Today, the [neoliberla] left has united with the
neoconservatives in opposition to President Donald Trump's decision to
bring 2,000 troops home from Syria and potential plans to
withdraw from Afghanistan. Because they loathe Trump so much and don't want him to be
portrayed as a more peaceful president than his predecessor, leftists demand that U.S. forces
permanently stay in the region, facing death or serious injury.
Is this a case of Freaky Friday politics, or has the left always been
pro-war?
Anti-War Democrats, Please Stand Up
Attempting to locate a handful of consistent anti-war Democrats is like trying to spot Vice
President Mike Pence with a woman other than his wife at a restaurant: It's never going to
happen.
Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the man who switches from Independent to Democrat when it
suits the occasion, has come out of the closet on occasion as a hawk. In addition to
supporting the so-called Little War in Kosovo in the 1990s, Sanders
revealed to ABC News in September 2015 that the U.S. could use its military forces when not
attacked and apply sanctions on adversaries.
For the last century, virtually every war, invasion, and occupation have been given the
stamp of approval by Democrats. President Woodrow Wilson dragged the U.S. into one of those
wars-to-end-all- wars fiascos. President Harry Truman sent thousands of young men to their
deaths in Korea, setting the stage for perpetual global interventionism. President Lyndon
Baines Johnson escalated American involvement in Vietnam. The Democratic leadership approved of
the Iraq War, and Obama destabilized an entire region, killed American citizens, and
intensified the drone bombing campaign.
Outside of Capitol Hill, the predominantly left-leaning mainstream media have never seen a
war it didn't like. In the last two years alone, the vacuous TV commentators have employed the
same two strategies: Demand action against Russia (eh, Paul
Begala ?) and oppose President Trump for using diplomacy and other tactics to institute
peace.
So, how exactly is the left anti-war?
The Born-Again Right
When it comes to foreign policy, there are now three wings of the GOP: hawks, doves, and
those who realize the doctrine of the last 20 years has failed.
One of the biggest surprises since Trump's election is that the right has become
increasingly more cautious about seeking dragons to slay and erecting Old Glory on every plot
of land in the world. House Republicans have
slashed foreign aid in the billions, Senate Republicans have voted to end America's
role in Yemen's humanitarian crisis, and prominent figures in the White House have asked one
simple question: Why should the United States be the policeman of the world?
Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the president, recently
dismantled the hawkish Counterfeit News Network when he told Wolf Blitzer:
"What I'm talking about, Wolf, is the big picture of a country that through several
administrations had an absolutely catastrophic foreign policy that cost trillions and
trillions of dollars and thousands and thousands of lives and made the Middle East more
unstable and more dangerous. And let's talk about Syria. Let's talk about the fact -- ISIS is
the enemy of Russia. ISIS is the enemy of Assad. ISIS is the enemy of Turkey. Are we supposed
to stay in Syria generation after generation, spilling American blood to fight the enemies of
all those countries?"
Comments that should draw praise from the left have been met with mockery and
scorn.
US Foreign Policy
H.L. Mencken was right when he said that "every decent man is ashamed of the government he
lives under." There is no other area in government that should instill more shame in the
population than foreign policy.
The political theater of sending young men and women overseas to fight in wars is a
tragicomedy: a comedy for those who don't have to wield a weapon and a tragedy for those who
do. It is easy and comfortable for politicians and pundits, a paltry few of whom have ever done
any of the fighting, to shout platitudes as if they were reincarnated John Waynes.
It's clear that politicians of all stripes have blood on their hands. The only difference is
that some policymakers showcase this human flesh with pride, while others pretend to be
benevolent. Trump's foreign policy has not been perfect, but it has been far superior to what
has transpired over the years. To rebuke the president's withdrawal of soldiers in an NPC-like
manner makes you complicit to atrocity.
"... Graham is an interventionist fanatic, so it should raise red flags about the supposed Syria withdrawal that he is no longer concerned about it. ..."
"... If U.S. forces are still supposed to remain in Syria long enough to make sure that "Iran doesn't fill in the back end," that is essentially indistinguishable from the earlier Bolton position of an indefinite military presence until Iranian forces leave. It makes no difference to U.S. security whether or not Iran keeps some of its forces in Syria or "fills in the back end" after our withdrawal, and it is not our government's responsibility to police any part of Syria for any length of time. ..."
"... It's no secret that Netanyahu doesn't and never has cared about legality or the US Constitution. Our Constitution and laws are just a goddamned inconvenience as far as he's concerned. They're in the way , and to make matters worse, Adelson's complaining that the cost of US politicians like Durbin, Cotton, and Rubio is going through the roof. ..."
"... Congress is supposed to authorize use of military force. Not agitate to prevent it from ending. ..."
"... If those neocons and "humanitarian" interventionist set on US hegemony can't hem in Trump politically to stay in Syria do expect another 'false flag' to force Trump. ..."
"... I'm not saying I agree with Mattis' military advice, quite the contrary. But to project onto Trump some sort of principled and thoughtful policy here would be just that a projection. ..."
Adam Taylor
comments on Lindsey Graham's recent claims about Syria policy:
What explains Graham's newfound optimism about Trump's plan to leave Syria?
Well, there is one big but rather confusing reason. In Graham's retelling, Trump's plan to leave Syria sounds suspiciously
like a plan to stay in Syria -- one that could be extended indefinitely, too. Speaking to reporters Sunday, Graham described Trump's
Syria plan as a "pause situation" rather than a withdrawal.
Graham is an interventionist fanatic, so it should raise red flags about the supposed Syria withdrawal that he is no longer
concerned about it. It is possible that Graham is spinning what Trump told him and trying to box the president in with these
public statements, but if that were the case Trump would presumably reject Graham's interpretation in a series of angry tweets. The
fact that Trump hasn't done that suggests that Syria withdrawal isn't happening or will happen so slowly as to make little difference.
Graham describes Trump's Syria policy this way:
Considering these three elements, a full withdrawal would not be possible in the immediate future.
If U.S. forces are still supposed to remain in Syria long enough to make sure that "Iran doesn't fill in the back end," that
is essentially indistinguishable from the earlier Bolton position of an indefinite military presence until Iranian forces leave.
It makes no difference to U.S. security whether or not Iran keeps some of its forces in Syria or "fills in the back end" after our
withdrawal, and it is not our government's responsibility to police any part of Syria for any length of time.
It can't be stressed enough how unnecessary and illegal an American military presence in Syria is. Keeping troops there has nothing
to do with U.S. or allied security, and the most vocal advocates of keeping them there indefinitely are driven by an obsessive hostility
to Iran that blinds them to the costs and risks of further involvement in Syria. Congress never authorized any U.S. mission in Syria
against anyone, and no president had the authority to order U.S. forces into harm's way in that country. Our Syria policy for at
least the last four years has been in flagrant violation of the Constitution and international law, and it has been divorced from
U.S. interests from the very beginning.
Graham's playing him from the outside, Pompeo and Bolton are playing him from the inside, and Netanyahu's calling the shots.
It's no secret that Netanyahu doesn't and never has cared about legality or the US Constitution. Our Constitution and laws
are just a goddamned inconvenience as far as he's concerned. They're in the way , and to make matters worse, Adelson's
complaining that the cost of US politicians like Durbin, Cotton, and Rubio is going through the roof.
Graham has lost his way. He should wake up and start doing his duty. Congress is supposed to authorize use of military
force. Not agitate to prevent it from ending.
In this respect at least, Trump is starting to look like the only adult in the room, the only one capable of restraint.
If those neocons and "humanitarian" interventionist set on US hegemony can't hem in Trump politically to stay in Syria
do expect another 'false flag' to force Trump.
I think you're projecting meaning onto Trump's actions that aren't there. Trump has no problem at all with military action
in Syria and actions to contain Iran; he's even ordered such action before.
His recent withdrawal order, (and this is likely to come out when Mattis writes his memoirs if he does) was from animus towards
Mattis whose notions of service and native intelligence were starting to make Trump feel insecure and maybe dumb.
I'm not saying I agree with Mattis' military advice, quite the contrary. But to project onto Trump some sort of principled
and thoughtful policy here would be just that a projection.
... there is no hope for the humanity. The greed of the working class knows no boundaries.
After all that the elites have done in the past 40-50 years to demonstrate their humanity
– basically bringing a big chunk of the third world and resettling them in the west,
the greedy underclass still demands proof from the elites that they are humanists.
Unfortunately the way they envision that the elites should prove their humanity is by
opening their wallets and sharing their wealth with the poor in order to satisfy their ever
increasing demands for better life by the undeserving poor.
Someone has to put a stop to it. Because if the poor underclasses succeed in draining the
wealth from the innocent elites – the whole society will collapse. Why? Because there
is no way that anyone can have respect for poor elites – which is where all this
business with the yellow wests in France is going.
If the elites become poor – how can they maintain that magic aura of "we are better
than you" that they project on the poor and which allows to govern them? No one can have a
respect for poor elites. That's why I think it's time to step up the tried and trusted method
– thankfully invented by US – that when somebody doubts the generosity of the
elites – just import few hundred thousand fresh new faces from the 3rd world – to
prove how much the elites care and that we are all equal – not with them, but among
ourselves, which is where it really counts.
First, in just three EU member states referenda were held in 2005 on what was called
European constitution. All three two thirds negative, with, especially compared with
elections now, a high % of voting. Nevertheless, the Treaty of Lisbon was signed unanimously,
a treaty in essence the same as the rejected 'consitution'.
According to Farrage it was said in EP 'they do not know what they're doing'.
And so the disappearance of the nation states continued, elections in the member states,
hogwash, what still is called government is no more than errand boys of Brussels.
Second capitalism. It is a great pity that this word now is used to hide what the problem
is, the disappearance of the nation state. Capitalism is as old as the world, as is global
trading. Thousands of years BCE traders from what is now Indonesia sailed yearly to E Africa
for trade, on regulated markets, regulated informally, even without any verbal communication.
What is called capitalism now, the evil capitalism, has as only cause that nation states gave
their sovereignty away.
As to the ideological basis of the EU, mainly the fairy tale of the evil Germans, two
world wars and the holocaust.
I must admit that until say fifteen years ago I also believed these fairy tales.
One does not expect to be lied to consistently by nearly anyone and anything.
If spreading these fairy tales was lying, can even be discussed.
I'm inclined to see just concious lying as lying.
Anyhow, these fairy tales prevented common sense to understand that culturally there is no
such thing as Europe.
Culturally, thus also not economically and socially.
The Brussels love of mass immigration, forcing member states to accept in fact any migrant,
is caused, I fear, by the realisation that the European Reich can only exist if the 28 or so
different cultures have been destroyed, even the probablity of civil war seems acceptable to
Brussels, I fear.
US "resistance" is as fake as it can be. It consists mainly of Clinton wing of DemoRats (in
pocket of Wall Street) and neoliberal presstitutes in MSM.
Macron is seen as a former Rothschild banker who had the idea that he could 'modernise'
France in the neoliberal Brussels way. According to the latest poll 61% of the French reject
Macron's policies.
In less than two months, the yellow vests (" gilets jaunes " ) movement in
France has reshaped the political landscape in Europe. For a seventh straight week,
demonstrations continued across the country even after concessions from a cowed President
Emmanuel Macron while inspiring a wave of similar gatherings in neighboring states like Belgium
and the Netherlands. Just as el uture EU designer was fortunate enough to have friends in high
places. Schuman's clemency was granted by none other than General Charles de Gaulle himself,
the leader of the resistance during the war and future French President. Instantly, Schuman's
turncoat reputation was rehabilitated and his wartime activity whitewashed. Even though he had
knowingly voted full authority to Pétain, the retention of his post in the Vichy
government was veneered to have occurred somehow without his knowledge or consent.
... ... ...
Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His work has appeared
in Counterpunch, Global Research, Dissident Voice, Greanville Post, OffGuardian, and more. Max
may be reached at [email protected]
Thierry Meyssan is reporting that Macron is more of a stooge for Henry Kravis (of the KKR
corporate raider firm) than for the Rothschilds. He also alleges that Kravis has been funding
ISIS/Daesh.
Rothschild made a comment the other day about the Italian government debt problem. French
banks have heavy exposure. France has troops in Syria; has the French army been leveraged
into a mercenary force for wealthy Zionists?
The article by Angela Nagle which is linked to is, however, absolutely excellent and I
thoroughly recommend reading it as a very powerful argument against unfettered
immigration.
Very perceptive to place "Resistance" between quotes. Resistance is non-existent in the
US. True resistance requires an educated working class; instead the US has a amassed one of
the most stupefied and brainwashed workers on the planet.
The Yellow Jackets movement isn't lost in the US, nor among those who support DJT. In
fact, until the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement, both grass roots organized,
recognize they have a common enemy in the status quo, they will continue to conquered by
it.
The merge of fiscal and social responsibility is something the NWO wants to avoid at all
costs while they implement their global currency and totalitarian rule. Globalists want to
replace God with the state.
France and the US, like most nations, are controlled by the parasitical zionist central
bankers and their deep state apparatchiks. They continue to squeeze the native populations
into poverty and servitude, while destroying their culture with open borders, facilitating
3rd world immigration. The zionist controlled MSM won't cover the Yellow Vest movement in
hopes to keep awareness low. Many would like to see it gain a foothold in the US.
Unfortunately, Americans have been subject to fluoridation of their water supply, unlike
France, and thus are docile. The pharmaceuticals and vaccines have rendered them zombies.
"... That's pretty rich, coming from a country and from people who actually genuinely, and in proven ways, have subverted democracy in Europe since the late 1940s - Italy being one of the clearest cases. ..."
"... For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia. I can't believe it has to do with the economy. There's got to be a far better nefarious reason. Even during the real cold war we tried to avoid conflict. Absolute insanity. ..."
"... American media has graduated from simply repeating the lies of "unnamed government sources" to repeating the lies of any organization unofficially blessed by the powers that be. ..."
"... In that The Narrative is tightly controlled in the corporate media, not matter how strong the proofs or arguments about the falsity of these propaganda campaigns are, little or no circulation of those proofs or arguments wlll reach the general public. ..."
"... The thing that bothers me, is the fact that the MIC Globalists don't care what we think or how poor their deceptions are. ..."
"... The cleverest trick used in propaganda against a specific country is to accuse it of what the accuser itself is doing. ..."
"... I've always put it down to the Washington Establishment having a severe case of psychological projection. ..."
"... The warmongering is not intended to make any sense - not many people are trained in critical thinking and logic, and even when they are, they can be swamped by their own emotions or other people's emotions. ..."
"... Propaganda is intended to appeal to people's emotions and fears. You can try reading works by Edward Bernays - "Crystallizing Public Opinion" (1923) and "Propaganda" (1928) - to see how he uses his uncle Sigmund Freud's theories of the mind to create strategies for manipulating public opinion. ..."
"... The American Security State needs enemies to exist, otherwise there's no need for the "security" which translates into big bucks for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media Complex. They can't agree on the ranking of the enemies: North Korea is a threat to the world! Iran is....! Russia is...! China is....! But the threats are there, and they are pure evil (TPTB contend). ..."
"... Sad but definitely correct. The first casualty of war is the truth. It's dead in the USA and allies. Therefore, they're at war with Russia and China. If Russia is down, China will be dealt with. ..."
"... Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft (actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I am not alone after all. ..."
"... That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your own opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the Orwellism of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore what's what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up caught in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case of all those think tanks and media. ..."
"... Honestly, the story of democracy (by capitalist/liberal class) is a grand BS, to be modest. The only thing what was truthful, paradoxically, is who is "lesser evil" of two. Or the Bigger one in unrestrained capitalism, savage and monopoly, predatory and a fascists one. ..."
"... War or the threat of war is needed to distract attention from rapidly devolving societal bonds and immense economic inequality. ..."
"... The US is progressing toward a fascist police state; therefore, Russia is said to be a horrible dictatorship run by Putin. The US traditionally meddles in elections around the world, including Russia; therefore, the Russians are said to meddle in US elections. The US is the most aggressive country on the planet, occupying and bombing dozens of countries; therefore, the Russians are accused of "aggression." And so on ..."
"... The US actually spends $75 billion per year---more than Russia's entire $69 billion defense budget---spying on and meddling in the politics of virtually every nation on earth. An outfit within NSA called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) has a multi-billion annual budget and does nothing put troll the global internet and does so with highly educated, highly paid professionals, not $4 per hour keyboard jockeys." ..."
"... Zbignew Brzezenski explained in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard" why global hegemony required taking control over Russia (and how to do it, which boils down to taking the other chess pieces off the board (Iraq/Ukraine/etc. and then pulling off a "color revolution," coup or military conquest). ..."
"... Msm, bellingcat and other think tanks - they push their anti Russian racism too far making a large section of westerners just tired of their hysteria. Exposing their own racism and paranoia. ..."
"... Globalization . . . is a program to create private corporate rights to trade, invest, lend or borrow money and buy and own property anywhere in the world without much hindrance by national governments. It would bar governments from most of the common methods of helping or protecting their national industries and employment. It is a winners' program promoted chiefly by some business interests, governments and neoclassical economists in Europe and the United States. ..."
"... One of its purposes is to intensify international competition for jobs. Together with other Right policies it is likely to maintain some unemployment in the rich countries and reduce the wage rates of their lower-paid workers, and reduce the proportion of secure employment. Hugh Stretton, Economics: A New Introduction ..."
"... The anti-russian think tanks, msm, bellingcat etc push this too much, making them look stupid. ..."
"... Assange: "Regardless of whether IRA's activities were audience building through pandering to communities or whether a hare-brained Russian government plan to "heighten the differences" existed, its activities are clearly strategically insignificant compared to the other forces at play." ..."
The U.S. mainstream media are going nuts. They now make up and report stories based on the
uncritical acceptance of an algorithm they do not want to understand and which is known to
produce fake results.
SAN FRANCISCO -- One hour after news broke about the school shooting in Florida last week,
Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up
the gun control debate.
The accounts addressed the news with the speed of a cable news network. Some adopted the
hashtag #guncontrolnow. Others used #gunreformnow and #Parklandshooting. Earlier on
Wednesday, before the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,
Fla., many of those accounts had been focused on the investigation by the special counsel
Robert S. Mueller III into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
In other words - the "Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia" were following
the current news just as cable news networks do. When a new sensational event happened they
immediately jumped onto it. But the NYT authors go to length to claim that there is some
nefarious Russian scheme behind this that uses automated accounts to spread divisive
issues.
Those claims are based on this propaganda project:
Last year, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, in conjunction with the German Marshall
Fund, a public policy research group in Washington, created a website that tracks hundreds
of Twitter accounts of human users and suspected bots that they have linked to a Russian
influence campaign.
The "Alliance for Securing Democracy" is
run by military lobbyists, CIA
minions and neo-conservative propagandists. Its
claimed task is:
... to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin's ongoing efforts to subvert democracy
in the United States and Europe.
There is no evidence that Vladimir Putin ever made or makes such efforts.
The ASD "Hamilton 68" website shows graphics with rankings of "top items"
and "trending items" allegedly used by Russian bots or influence agents. There is nothing
complicate behind it. It simply tracks the tweets of 600 Twitter users and aggregates the
hashtags they use. It does not say which Twitter accounts its algorithms follows. It
claims
that the 600 were selected by one of three criteria: 1. People who often tweet news that also
appears on RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik News, two general news sites
sponsored by the Russian government; 2. People who "openly profess to be pro-Russian"; 3.
accounts that "appear to use automation" to boost the same themes that people in group 1 and
2 tweet about.
Nowhere does the group say how many of the 600 accounts it claims to track belong to which
group. Are their 10 assumed bots or 590 in the surveyed 600 accounts? And how please does one
"openly profess" to be pro-Russian? We don't know and the ASD won't say.
On December 25 2017 the "Russian influence" agents or bots who - according to NYT - want
to sow divisiveness and subvert democracy,
wished everyone
a #MerryChristmas.
The real method the Hamilton 68 group used to select the 600 accounts it tracks is
unknown. The group does not say or show how it made it up. Despite that the NYT reporters,
Sheera Frenkel and Daisuke Wakabayashi, continue with the false assumptions that most or all
of these accounts are automated, have something to do with Russia and are presumably
nefarious:
Russian-linked bots have rallied around other divisive issues, often ones that President
Trump has tweeted about. They promoted Twitter hashtags like #boycottnfl,
#standforouranthem and #takeaknee after some National Football League players started
kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.
The automated Twitter accounts helped popularize the #releasethememo hashtag , ...
The Daily Beast reported earlier that the last claim is
definitely false :
Twitter's internal analysis has thus far found that authentic American accounts, and not
Russian imposters or automated bots, are driving #ReleaseTheMemo . There are no preliminary
indications that the Twitter activity either driving the hashtag or engaging with it is
either predominantly Russian.
The same is presumably true for the other hashtags.
The Dutch IT expert and blogger Marcel van den Berg was wondering how Dutch
keywords and hashtags showed up on the Hamilton 68 "Russian bots" dashboard. He found (
Dutch ,
English auto translation) that the dashboard is a total fraud:
In recent weeks, I have been keeping a close eye on Hamilton 68. Every time a Dutch hashtag
was shown on the website, I made a screenshot. Then I noted what was playing at that moment
and I watched the Tweets with this hashtag. Again I could not find any Tweet that seemed to
be from a Russian troll.
In all cases, the hash tags that Hamilton 68 reported were trending topics in the
Netherlands . In all cases there was much to do around the subject of the hashtag in the
Netherlands. Many people were angry or shared their opinion on the subject on Twitter. And
even if there were a few tweets with Russian connections between them, the effect is zero.
Because they do not stand out among the many other, authentic Tweets.
Van den Berg lists a dozen examples he analyzed in depth.
The anti-Russian Bellingcat group around couch blogger Eliot Higgins is sponsored
by the NATO propaganda shop Atlantic Council . It sniffs through open source stuff
to blame Russia or Syria wherever possible. Bellingcat was recently a victim of the
"Russian bots" - or rather of the ASD website. On February 10 the hashtag #bellingcat trended
to rank 2 of the
dashboard.
Bellingcat was thus, according to the Hamilton 68 claims, under assault by hordes
of nefarious Russian government sponsored bots.
The Bellingcat folks looked into the issue and found
that only six people on Twitter, none
of them an automated account , had used the #bellingcat hashtag in the last 48 hours. Some of
the six may have opinions that may be "pro-Russian", but as Higgins himself
says :
[I]n my opinion, it's extremely unlikely the people listed are Russian agents
The pro-NATO propaganda shop Bellingcat thus debunked the pro-NATO propaganda
shop Alliance for Securing Democracy.
The fraudsters who created the Hamilton 68 crap seem to have filled their database with
rather normal people from all over the world who's opinions they personally dislike. Those
then are the "Russian bots" who spread "Russian influence" and divisiveness.
Moreover - what is the value of its information when six normal people out of millions of
active Twitter users can push a hashtag with a handful of tweets to the top of the
dashboard?
But the U.S. media writes long gushing stories about the dashboard and how it somehow
shows automated Russian propaganda. They go to length to explain that this shows "Russian
influence" and a "Russian" attempt to sow "divisiveness" into people's minds.
This is nuts.
Last August, when the Hamilton 68 project was first released, the Nation was the
only site critical of it. It
predicted :
The import of GMF's project is clear: Reporting on anything that might put the US in a bad
light is now tantamount to spreading Russian propaganda.
It is now even worse than that. The top ranking of the #merrychristmas hashtag shows that
the algorithm does not even care about good or bad news. The tracked twitter accounts are
normal people.
The whole project is just a means to push fake stories about alleged "Russian influence"
into U.S. media. Whenever some issue creeps up on its dashboard that somehow fits its false
"Russian bots" and "divisiveness" narrative the Alliance for Securing Democracy
contacts the media to spread its poison. The U.S. media, - CNN, Wired, the New York Times -
are by now obviously devoid of thinking journalists and fact checkers. They simple re-package
the venom and spread it to the public.
How long will it take until people die from it?
Posted by b on February 20, 2018 at 03:15 PM |
Permalink
Comments next page " It's all too reminiscent of Duck Soup:
"to publicly document and expose Vladimir Putin's ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the
United States and Europe."
That's pretty rich, coming from a country and from people who actually genuinely, and in
proven ways, have subverted democracy in Europe since the late 1940s - Italy being one of the
clearest cases.
For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia. I can't
believe it has to do with the economy. There's got to be a far better nefarious reason. Even
during the real cold war we tried to avoid conflict. Absolute insanity.
Gee, what could go wrong formulating policy founded upon a series of Big Lies? Kim Dotcom says he has
important info the FBI refuses to hear. At the Munich
Security Conference , neocon Nicholas Burns, former US Ambassador to NATO, details my
assertion's factual basis that current policy is being formed on a series of Big Lies: "Will
NATO strengthen itself to contain Russian power in Eastern Europe giving what Russian
[sic] has done illegally in Crimea, in the Donbass, and in Georgia ?" [Bolded text are
the Big Lies.]
Clearly, this entire psyop was premeditated and its design was hastily done
contemporaneously with Russia's Syria intervention. NSA/CIA/FBI knew of HRC's security
breeches and rightly assumed their contents would find their way into the election, so the
general plan was ready to go prior to WikiLeaks publications. b has uncovered much, and I
hope he's planning to publish a book about the entire affair.
Ken @ 4: There doesn't necessarily need to be One Major Reason for going to war. There may be
several reasons all feeding and reinforcing one another and creating a psychological climate
in which Going To War is seen as the only solution and is inevitable. The reasons are not
just economic and political but cultural and historical.
In some countries allied with the US, the politicians in power are the ideological
descendants of those who collaborated with Nazi Germany - so in a sense they are committed to
"correcting" what they see as wrong. In the case of current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe, he is the grandson of a former prime minister who once served in General Tojo's World
War II cabinet.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2012/12/26/national/formed-in-childhood-roots-of-abes-conservatism-go-deep/#.WoyZCG9uaUk
That's why pinning down the reason for wanting a war against Russia is so difficult.
Since the FBI never inspected the DNC's computers first-hand, the only evidence comes from
an Irvine, California, cyber-security firm known as CrowdStrike whose chief technical
officer, Dmitri Alperovitch, a well-known Putin-phobe, is a fellow at the Atlantic Council,
a Washington think tank that is also vehemently anti-Russian as well as a close Hillary
Clinton ally.
Thus, Putin-basher Clinton hired Putin-basher Alperovitch to investigate an alleged
electronic heist, and to absolutely no one's surprise, his company concluded that guilty
party was Vladimir Putin. Amazing! Since then, a small army of internet critics has chipped
away at CrowdStrike for praising the hackers as among the best in the business yet
declaring in the same breath that they gave themselves away by uploading a document in the
name of "Felix Edmundovich," i.e. Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret
police.
As noted cyber-security expert Jeffrey Carr observed with regard to Russia's two main
intelligence agencies: "Raise your hand if you think that a GRU or FSB officer would add
Iron Felix's name to the metadata of a stolen document before he released it to the world
while pretending to be a Romanian hacker. Someone clearly had a wicked sense of humor."
muddy waters.. paid for propaganda.... look at all the russian bots, lol... cold war 2 / mccarthyism 2 is in effect... the historic parallels are marked. thank you
neo cons! it's working... the ordinary person in the usa can't be this stupid can they?
when does ww3 kick in? is that really what these idiots want? or is it just to prolong the
huge defense budget?
This is about conditioning voters in Europe and the United States for a long war with Russia
and China. In other words, a return to the 1950s. It is not working and becoming increasingly
hysterical because societies are not nearly as cohesive as they once were, and the mainstream
political parties, while better funded and more top-down organized, are basically hollow. The
collapse is coming. Four years or ten, take your pick.
@4 "For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with Russia."
Most Americans probably don't. Just the chosen few with the deepest fall-out shelters. The
idea is to keep piling the pressure on to countries like Iran and Russia in the hope that
their populations will rise up and demand the freedoms that we enjoy in the West....things
like uncensored wardrobe malfunctions and transgender washrooms.
let's imagine that we have the pyramid of evilness, by which we measure bestiality of one
regime and its constituency. my firm belief is that us would be on the top of that pyramid.
Only dilemma would be between Zionist entity and the US.
"How could the masses be made to desire their own repression?" was the question Wilhelm
Reich famously asked in the wake of the Reichstagsbrandverordnung (Reichstag Fire Decree,
February 28, 1933), which suspended the civil rights protections afforded by the Weimar
Republic's democratic constitution.
Hitler had been appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933
and Reich was trying to grapple with the fact that the German people had apparently chosen
the authoritarian politics promoted by National Socialism against their own political
interests.
Ever since, the question of fascism, or rather the question of why might people
vote for their own oppression, has never ceased to haunt political philosophy.2 With Trump
openly campaigning for less democracy in America -- and with the continued electoral
success of far-right antiliberal movements across Europe -- this question has again become
a pressing one.
An American people is in perfect harmony with its regime.
Remember the "USS MAINE"! Media have long agitated for War in US History. Nothing sells newspapers
like a good ole war! Demonizing is a way to achieve it. What is sure is that this is a one way street.
Once over the cliff, there is no turning back.
How do you tell people that, at the flick of your magic switch, Putin is in fact
a swell guy and wonderful human being? Once love is gone who goes back
to the filthy, abhorrent and estranged spouse?
Surely the US establishment is playing with fire thinking they will successfully
ride out any conflict and come out on top secure in their newly reestablished
hegemony on the smoldering ruins of Humanity.
Make no mistake, we are all on the road to hell. Better enjoy todays peace as
tomorrow word will be filled with the sweet music of cemeteries.
@15 "An American people is in perfect harmony with its regime."
I'm not so sure. I think there are many Americans who deeply distrust their government.
But of course they don't want to appear unpatriotic. There are also many who are apathetic
and many simply don't know how to change things.
It's horrible I know to quote a Nazi, but Goring had this right:
Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm
want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his
farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in
England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all,
it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to
drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or
a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter
through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare
wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always
be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they
are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country
to danger. It works the same way in any country.
American media has graduated from simply repeating the lies of "unnamed government sources"
to repeating the lies of any organization unofficially blessed by the powers that be. The
skills required to repeat the text verbatim serve them well in both cases. Skepticism is only
reserved to anyone who tries to introduce logic or facts into the equation--such as when Jill
Stein was interviewed on MSNBC recently. How dare Ms. Stein try to bring FACTS into the
discussion!
In that The Narrative is tightly controlled in the corporate media, not matter how strong the
proofs or arguments about the falsity of these propaganda campaigns are, little or no
circulation of those proofs or arguments wlll reach the general public.
Thanks Jen. It still makes no sense. As a veteran of the Vietnam fiasco, I was pretty much
government oriented until McNamara outed the whole thing whining about haw sorry he was.
59,000 dead and he's sorry. They were able to hide the Gulf of Tonkin BS until then. After
that I researched the reasons for each war/conflict the USA started and could find no logical
reasons except hunger for power. But the little sandbox wars won't destroy the world like a
major war/conflict with Russia and it goes nuclear. Almost every politician, and major news
organizations are pushing for a war/conflict with Russia. This is insanity as no one will win
a war like this and I am sure they know that,,, but they keep the war drums beating anyhow.
It simply doesn't make sense. But Thanks again.
Same for dh, #14. Things are soooo stupid, your joking may be closer to the truth than you
know. :-)
Thank you for the post. I will save it and use it liberally, with proper attributions.
When one challenges the tribe on places like Twitter, it is hard to tell who is a real idiot
and who is a bot. How do you know? Maybe that the bots go away fairly quickly and the idiots
hang around to argue ad infinitum.
The thing that bothers me, is the fact that the MIC Globalists don't care what we think or how
poor their deceptions are. The public perception that "russia did it!!" continues to rise. I
wonder what the public acceptance level needs to be for them to execute a MAJOR false flag
event. They seem to think they are still on target, and its just a short matter or time...
They are going to do this when the perception management is complete... We really do not need another one of their disasters
The bully pushes and pushes until stopped by the first serious push back. The dynamic of the
west and the neocon/Zionists at the core is essentially that of the bully. Nations like
Venezuela and the Philippines have started to push back, and I hope and feel fairly confident
that they will both survive the rage of the US. In some part, they have begun to show the
actual powerlessness of the bully.
But the really killer nations - Russia and China - are holding their water as they
strengthen their force. I believe that one very serious push back from either of them in the
right circumstances will stop the bully. And yet, as they bide their time, we see a curious
phenomenon wherein the US is destroying itself from the inside.
It's as if all of the forces that exist to control the country - the lockstep media, the
fully rigged markets, the hysterical military, the bought legislature and the crooked courts
- are all acting far more strongly than should be necessary. The entire system is
over-reacting, over-reaching, over-boiling. And in the course of this, the US is actually
shedding power, and at an amazing rate. But not from the action of Russia but from its
non-action, the empty space that that allows the bully's dynamic to over-reach, all the way
to complete failure.
Is it possible that deep in the security states of Russia and China there's even a study
and a model for this? Is the collapse of the US actually being gamed by Russia and China -
and through the totally counter-intuitive action of non-action?
Hey b,
Just wanted to let you know that Joe Lauria mentioned your blog and the article you wrote on
the indictment of the 13 Russians. He was on Loud and Clear (Sputnik Radio, Washington DC)
today and brought you up at the start of the program.
Glad to see you get some recognition for all the great work you've been doing :)
Ken @ 24: The warmongering is not intended to make any sense - not many people are trained in
critical thinking and logic, and even when they are, they can be swamped by their own
emotions or other people's emotions.
Propaganda is intended to appeal to people's emotions
and fears. You can try reading works by Edward Bernays - "Crystallizing Public Opinion"
(1923) and "Propaganda" (1928) - to see how he uses his uncle Sigmund Freud's theories of the
mind to create strategies for manipulating public opinion. https://archive.org/details/EdwardL.BernaysPropaganda
Bernays' books influenced Nazi and Soviet propaganda and Bernays himself was hired by the
US government to justify in the public mind the 1954 US invasion of Guatemala.
You may be aware that Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation which owns the Wall Street
Journal, FOX News and 20th Century Fox studios, is also on the Board of Directors of Genie
Energy which owns a subsidiary firm that was granted a licence by an Israeli court to explore
and drill for oil and natural gas in Syria's (and Israeli-occupied) Golan Heights.
The national media speaks as one -with one consistent melody day after day. Who is the
conductor?
When will one representative of the mainstream media sing solo? There must be a Ray
McGovern somewhere among the flock.
Many of my thoughts as well.
The U.S.'s greatest fault is its tacit misunderstanding of just what russia is in fact.
They utterly fail to understand the Russian character; forged over 800 years culminating with
the defeat of Nazi Germany, absorbing horrific losses; the U.S. fails to understand the
effect upon the then Soviets, become todays Russians.
Even the god's have abandoned the west...
I watched bbc news this am in the hope that I would get to see the most awful creature at the
2018 olympics cry her croc tears (long story - a speed skater who cuts off the opposition but
has been found out so now when she swoops in front of the others they either skate over her
leading to tearful whines from perp about having been 'pushed', or gets disqualified for
barging. Last night she got disqualified so as part of my study on whether types like this
believe their own bullshit I thought I'd tune in but didn't get that far into the beebs
lies)
The bulk of the bulletin was devoted to a 'lets hate Russia' session which featured a
quisling who works for the russian arm of BBC (prolly just like cold war days staffed
exclusively by MI6/SIS types). This chap, using almost unintelligible english, claimed he had
proof at least 50 Russian Mercenaries (question - why are amerikan guns for hire called
contractors [remember the Fallujah massacre of 100,000 civilians because amerikan contractors
were stupid] yet Russian contractors are called mercenaries by the media?) had been killed in
Syria last week. The bloke had evidence of one contractor's death not 50 - the proof was a
letter from the Russian government to the guy's mother telling her he didn't qualify for any
honours because he wasn't in the Russian military.
The quisling (likely a Ukranian I would say) went on to rabbit about the bloke having also
fought in Donbass under contract - to which the 'interviewer (don't ya love it when media
'interview' their own journos - a sure sign that a snippet of toxic nonsense is being
delivered) led about how the deceitful Russians had claimed the only Russians fighting in
Donbass were contractors - yeah well this bloke was a contractor surely that proves the
Russians were telling the truth.
It's not what these propagandists say; they adopt a tone and the audience is meant to hate
based on that even when the facts as stated conflict with the media outlet's point of view.
Remember the childhood trick of saying "bad dog" ter yer mutt in loving tones - the dog comes
to ya tail wagging & licks yer hand. This is that.
The next item was more Syria lies - white helmets footage (altho the beeb is now mostly
giving them an alternative name to dodge the facts about white helmets) of bandaged children
with flour tipped on their heads.
The evil Syrians and Russians are bombarding Gouta - nary a word about the continuous
artillery barrage Gouta has subjected the citizens of Damascus to for the past 4 years, or
that the Syrians have repeatedly offered truces and safe passage for civilians. Any injured
children need to ask their parents why they weren't allowed to take advantage of the frequent
offers of transport out. Maybe the parents are worried 'the resistance' will do its usual and
blow up the busloads of children after luring them over with candy.
Anyway I switched off after that so never did learn if little miss cheat had a cry.
Thank you for reporting on this. The people behind the so-called Alliance for Securing
Democracy need to be exposed for the warmongering frauds that they are. Regardless of what
one thinks of him, Trump was correct when he said that NATO is obsolete.
The American Security State needs enemies to exist, otherwise there's no need for the
"security" which translates into big bucks for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media
Complex. They can't agree on the ranking of the enemies: North Korea is a threat to the
world! Iran is....! Russia is...! China is....! But the threats are there, and they are pure
evil (TPTB contend).
So the whole scenario makes perfect sense from that standpoint.
re Felix E. Dzerzhinsky: Ukrainian fascists have a particular hatred of Felix because he was
both a Bolshevik and a Pole.
I hate to do this but I just posted this elsewhere, at Off Guardian, where the Guardian is
back into its highest gears promoting war.
"The wardrums are beating in a way not heard since 1914-there is no reason for war except the
best reason of all: an imperial ruling class sees its grip slipping and will chance
everything rather than endure the humiliation of adjusting to reality.
"China is in the position that the US was in 1914-it can prevent the war or wait until the
combatants are too exhausted to defend their paltry gains.
Given the realities of nuclear warfare-which seem not to have sunk in among the Americans,
perhaps because they mistake a bubble for a bomb shelter- the wise option is to prevent war
by publicly warning against it. In the hope that brought face to face with reality the masses
will besiege their governments, as we can easily do, and prevent war.'
Sad but definitely correct. The first casualty of war is the truth. It's dead in the USA and
allies. Therefore, they're at war with Russia and China. If Russia is down, China will be
dealt with.
The horrible thing with the US attitude is that you do a white thing, you're attacking them
and if you do a black thing, you're attacking them too. This attitude is building hostility
against Russia. It's like programming a pet to be afraid of something. The western people are
being programmed into hating Russia, dehumanizing her people, cutting every tie with Russia
and transforming any information from Russia into life threatening propaganda. A war for our
hearts is running. The US population is being coerced into believing that war against Russia
is a vital necessity.
It will be a war of choice from the US "elites". Clinton announced it and the population
had chosen Trump for that reason.
You're wondering why they're doing it. I suppose that their narrative is losing its grip on
the western populations. They're also conscious of it. If they lose it, they'll have to face
very angry mobs and face the void of their lives. Everything they did was either useless or
poisonous. It means to be in a very bad spot. They're are therefore under an existential
threat.
Russia proved time and again that it's possible to get out of their narrative. Remember their
situation when Eltsin was reelected with the western help.
The Chicago boys were telling the
Russian authorities how to run the economy and they made out of the word democrat a synonym
of thief. They were in the narrative and the result was a disaster. Then, they woke up and
started to clean the house. I remember the "hero" of democracy whose name was "Khodorovsky
(?)". In the west he was a freedom fighter and in Russia he stole something like Rosneft.
This guy and others of the same sort were described in the west as heroes, pionniers and so
on. They were put back into submission to the law. The western silence about their stealings,
lies and cheating is still deafening me.
It was the first Russian crime. The second one was
to survive the first batch of sanctions against them (I forgot the reason of the sanctions).
They not only survived they thrived. It was against the western leading economic ideology. A
third crime was to push back Saakachvili and his troops with success.
The fourth was to put
back into order the Tchechen. Russia was back into the world politics and history. They were
not following the script written for them in Washington and Brussels. They were having a
political system putting limits to the big companies. And, worst of it, it works.
Everybody in the west who can read and listen would have noticed that they are making it.
More, with RT and Sputnik giving info outside the allowed ones or asking annoying questions
(western journalists lost that habit with their new formation in the schools of journalism -
remember the revolution in their education was criticised and I missed why - very curious to
discover why), they were exposing weaknesses of the western narrative. On the other side
their narrative became so poor and so limited that any regular reader would feel bored
reading the same things time and again and being asked to pay for it at a time his salary was
decreased in the name of competitivity. The threat to their narrative was ready. They had to
fight it.
It's becoming a crime to think outside their marks. It's becoming a crime to read outside
their marks. I don't even talk about any act outside their marks. Now, it's going to be a
crime of treason to them in war time.
I do feel sadness because many will die from their fear of losing their grip on our minds. I
do feel sadness because they have lost and are in denial about it. I do feel sadness because
those death aren't necessary. I do feel sadness because those people can't face the
consequences of their actions. They don't have the necessary spine. Their lives were useless
and even toxic. They could start repairing or mitigating their damages but it would need a
very different worldview, a complete conversion to another meaning of life outside the
immediate and maximal profit.
You have aptly described the most dangerous country on this planet.
That country must not be appeased, at any cost, because it would surely end us forever...
Conclusion regarding IP address data:
What we're seeing in this IP data is a wide range of countries and hosting providers. 15% of
the IP addresses are Tor exit nodes. These exit nodes are used by anyone who wants to be
anonymous online, including malicious actors.
Overall Conclusion:
The IP addresses that DHS provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like
Russia. But they don't appear to provide any association with Russia. They are probably used
by a wide range of other malicious actors, especially the 15% of IP addresses that are Tor
exit nodes.
The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent
relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any
website.
Partisan @15: "With Trump openly campaigning for less democracy in America -- and with the
continued electoral success of far-right antiliberal movements across Europe -- this question
has again become a pressing one."
The above is entirely backwards. The bottom 2/3rds is frustrated by the LACK of democracy
in the US and that's a major reason many voted against the (in fact anti-democratic) elite's
desired candidate, Hillary.
70% of the voting age public was dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with both candidates,
and 40% of Americans didn't vote, so that means whichever of Clinton/Trump won, she/he would
win with approval of only 10% of the electorate. That's the best example possible of our
anti-democratic reality (it's not a worry or a threat, it's already here).
In the case of both Europe and the US, many people are generally very dissatisfied with
the anti-democratic response by the elite to 'the will of the people' that there be much less
immigration into countries with high unemployment and 'race to the bottom' labor conditions.
That's nearly the entire basis of what the corporate media calls 'the move right'... When in
fact restricting immigration is a pro-labor and therefore 'left' policy ... Except in the
confused and deliberately stupid political discourse the elite media pushes so hard.
Some years ago, I noticed the American media and politicians were sort of going soft
(actually mushy) in the brain department, but I was told not to be so judgemental. As the
months went by, I saw more and more people saying "they have gone nuts". So, it turns out I
am not alone after all.
That madness comes from having no behavioural limits, no references outside of your own
opinion but groupthink, and manipulating the language to suit your ambitions (the Orwellism
of the US media has been repeatedly pointed at). Simply put, you don't know anymore what's
what outside of the narrative your group pushes, you go nuts. The manipulators ends up caught
in their lies. All the more when they makes money out of it, which would be the case of all
those think tanks and media.
One could argue that they are not going mad, that they know full well they are lying, but
I beg to differ: they don't see anymore how ridiculous or how dumb or smart their arguments
are. That would be congruent with a real loss of touch with reality. One wonders what
they see when they look at themselves in a mirror, a garden variety propagandist or a
fearless anti-Putin crusader?
Well, it is not...if you are believer in "democracy". Honestly, the story of democracy (by capitalist/liberal class) is a grand BS, to be
modest. The only thing what was truthful, paradoxically, is who is "lesser evil" of two. Or
the Bigger one in unrestrained capitalism, savage and monopoly, predatory and a fascists
one.
One way or other result is the same, it is: Barbarism.
When "trending on Twitter" became a news item in and of itself, I began to despair for the
future of reporting, political discourse and ultimately, democracy in America. Twitter and FB
are at best a source of information for news reporting, but not a source of news in
themselves.
We made ourselves vulnerable to any and every sort of pernicious manipulation and in the
end, we just about deserve everything we get.
The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the
same time over the means of mental production. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the
ideal expression of the dominant material relationships.
It is partially tied direct to the economy of the warmongers as trillions of dollars of
new cold war slop is laying on the ground awaiting the MICC hogs. American hegemony is
primarily about stealing the natural resources of helpless countries. Now in control of all
the weak ones, it is time to move to the really big prize: The massive resources of Russia.
They (US and their European Lackeys) thought this was a slam dunk when Yeltsin, in his
drunken stupors, was literally giving Russia to invading capitalist. Enter Putin, stopped the
looting .........connect the dots.
Media and its politicians have lost it completely,
and if you criticize them, well then of course you are a... "russian bot". Unfortunately 90% of westerners buy this western
MSM influence propaganda campaign, WW3
with Russia will come easy.
At risk of being censored and/or convicted of Thought Crime - it is *remarkable* how very
highly disproportionate the number of Jewish Zionists is who are in the media and in Congress
and in ThinkTankistan and shouting about Russian meddling, 'aggression,' and the like.
It's too bad it is forbidden to examine this phenomena as one part of the matrix of power
and lies leading the US into conflict with Russia, no?
I don't think Bill Kristol and David Frum and Jeff Goldberg are either honest nor
primarily concerned with American national security, nor the lives of MENA civilians. I think
they care only about using American blood and treasure to facilitate Israeli lebensraum,
however bloody and expensive.
Trump survives only if he dances for the Deep State *and* Likud.
Chris Hedges has an article on the similar situation in Germany almost 100 years ago.
"In 1923 the radical socialist and feminist Clara Zetkin gave a report at the Communist
International about the emergence of a political movement called fascism. ...." https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-we-fight-fascism/
Partisan @54: The facts contradict the statement in the quote that Trump was "openly
campaigning for less democracy." He wasn't. He in fact campaigned in part as a populist who
would oust (or at least repeatedly ridicule) an anti-democratic elite. If you've overlooked
that and believe more or less the opposite, you can't understand the 2016 election or the
elite's virulently anti-democratic reaction to it.
Earlier I wrote about the following relationship: Khodorkovsky - The Interpreter -
Henry Jackson Society (UK) .
With Bush and the Iraq War, Dutch PM Balkenende and FM de Hoop Scheffer were seen as the
poodle of the White House. In recent years PM Mark Rutte [of MH-17 crash fame] can be
considered its puppy. Perhaps a parrot would suit better.
I noticed a former journalist Hubert Smeets hs partnered with some people to found a
"knowledge center" Window on Russia [Raam op Rusland]. Laughable, funded by the Dutch Foreign
Ministry and a Dutch-Russia cultural exchange Fund. Preposturous in its simplicity and harm
for honest reporting.
US media has gone bonkers. The original claim was Russian meddling and Russian
interference in the election. Then, a sort of bridging meme showed up (see also b
above), undermining democracy or subverting it. This in turn then morphed into
promoting divisive issues which is new (circa 2018, not before?)
Imho. US pols make it their business to create divisive issues, diviusses
(neologism), to the point of inventing rubbish ones. Part of the US public embraces that sh*t
as well, > tribalism and religious economics in lieu of policy politics. So such actions
should be viewed as gloriously democratic, ;) - ok easy to make fun.
The emphasis on 'divisive' is curious, it signals that some managers are calling for
'union' - 'cohesion' - 'group soldering' facing the outside enemy, threat.
Russia has really become the all-purpose épouvantail scarecrow, specter of
doom, etc. An awareness of the high costs of divisiveness if uncontrolled -> massive
social unrest, at extreme, civil war -- and that these are to be avoided, is evidenced.
Heh, or the whole storm is just fluff that distracts, occupies the pixels, airwaves, a
jamboree of knee-jerk reactions irrelevant to the present World Situation, with practically
no important body - faction of the PTB, Trump, the MIC, lame outsiders like the EU, etc.
having any clue.
The accusation is a lot like accusing somebody of despoiling an outhouse by crapping in
it, along with everyone else, but the outhouse in question had a sign on its door that read
"No Russians!" and the 13 Russians just ignored it and crapped in it anyway.
The reason the Outhouse of American Democracy is posted "No Russians!" is because Russia
is the enemy. There aren't any compelling reasons why it should be the enemy, and treating it
as such is incredibly foolish and dangerous, but that's beside the point. Painting Russia as
the enemy serves a psychological need rather than a rational one: Americans desperately need
some entity onto which they can project their own faults.
The US is progressing toward a
fascist police state; therefore, Russia is said to be a horrible dictatorship run by Putin.
The US traditionally meddles in elections around the world, including Russia; therefore, the
Russians are said to meddle in US elections. The US is the most aggressive country on the
planet, occupying and bombing dozens of countries; therefore, the Russians are accused of
"aggression." And so on
@Noirette 70
Yes, claiming that Russians are promoting polical division is silly -- the divisions were
already there. gizmodo
, Jun 12, 2014: It's Been 150 Years Since the U.S. Was This Politically Polarized
Nevertheless, now in WIRED
magazine: Their [Agency] goal was to enflame "political intensity through supporting radical
groups, users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation, and oppositional social
movements."
Bernie Sanders said he on Wednesday, "felt compelled to address Russian interference
during the US election. Sunday.... he was not aware and believes Russian bot promoting
him and went as far to said WikiLeaks published Hillary's email stolen by the
Russia....."
Can you really trust that lying basted? I'm probably one of the few MoA refused to
believe and trust Bernie Sanders and the fuckup Democrats .
Excellent article summarizing much of what B has posted and more.
"Finally, and as long was we are on the topic, here is what a real troll farm looks like.
[Picture of NSA] Yet this vast suite of offices in Fort Meade, Maryland, where 20,000 SIGINT
spies and technicians work for the NSA, is only the tip of the iceberg.
The US actually spends $75 billion per year---more than Russia's entire $69 billion
defense budget---spying on and meddling in the politics of virtually every nation on earth.
An outfit within NSA called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) has a multi-billion annual
budget and does nothing put troll the global internet and does so with highly educated,
highly paid professionals, not $4 per hour keyboard jockeys."
Great article. Great comments. I LOVE MoA! And it's great to see b getting recognition.
james wrote: "There aren't any compelling reasons why it should be the enemy"
You know the following; I think you're just too decent a human being to understand how
psychopaths operate. Russia is a huge area with enormous natural resources as well as a
large, educated populace. Zbignew Brzezenski explained in his 1997 book "The Grand
Chessboard" why global hegemony required taking control over Russia (and how to do it, which
boils down to taking the other chess pieces off the board (Iraq/Ukraine/etc. and then pulling
off a "color revolution," coup or military conquest).
Ziggy also noted that once Russia was incorporated, China is the next, and largely last
target.
Jen: NICE JOB putting together a big picture, from Bernays' control of the masses all the
way to Genie Energy. Add in Oded Yinon and PNAC and the "foreign policy blunders" that led to
the present situation in MENA look like a carefully-constructed, long-game being played "by
the book."
Fairleft. Any leftist/socialist movement which is not global is doomed to failure. This
has always been true, but with "offshoring" of manufacturing jobs and the internet
untethering many "white collar" jobs from any given geological location(s), workers must see
ourselves as a global entity rather than national or regional players - because that is
certainly how the 0.01% see us (and themselves).
"Workers of the world UNITE" is more true today than a century and a half ago.
nations that do not have to face costs arising from environmental, health or safety
legislation will almost always prevail in the world market over those that have some concern
for the environment and the workers.
That is the main issue I have with globalization.
Competing on wages is one thing; that can be a great impetus to become more efficient and
productive, but if we do nothing to force other countries to clean up their act, they will
have no impetus to do so and we will continue to lose jobs to the international competition,
no matter how efficiently we work.
Msm, bellingcat and other think tanks - they push their anti Russian racism too far making a
large section of westerners just tired of their hysteria. Exposing their own racism and
paranoia.
"....borderless globalization has been a catastrophe for most of the underdeveloped world's
businesses and workers."
it is always annoying when I see the 'globalization" argument is used whether from the
right or left. The globalization has started by the moment when us humans begin to roaming on this
planet. there are millions of examples yet somehow globalization is of recent phenomenon.
Lapis Lazuli mineral used in making blue color and paint is found on clay pottery in
Mesopotamia's ancient city of Ur. That city is also place where many legend originated which
were taken by major religion and can be found in their holy books. See even the myth are globalizied from very early on.
Most of the people do not even know what it is, not those who are writing about it.
Globalization . . . is a program to create private corporate rights to trade, invest, lend
or borrow money and buy and own property anywhere in the world without much hindrance by
national governments. It would bar governments from most of the common methods of helping
or protecting their national industries and employment. It is a winners' program promoted
chiefly by some business interests, governments and neoclassical economists in Europe and
the United States.
One of its purposes is to intensify international competition for jobs.
Together with other Right policies it is likely to maintain some unemployment in the rich
countries and reduce the wage rates of their lower-paid workers, and reduce the proportion
of secure employment.
the observable and demonstrable attempts are clearly futile, and have been pretty
much reduced to spasms and tantrums, largely devoid of cognizance, not to mention legality,
but certainly dangerous nonetheless.
no sir ree bob, we get our multipolar world or we scavenge a dead landscape of Alamogordo glass .
Assange: "Regardless of whether IRA's activities were audience building through pandering
to communities or whether a hare-brained Russian government plan to "heighten the
differences" existed, its activities are clearly strategically insignificant compared to the
other forces at play."
Cybersecurity "experts" in the United States have long alleged that "Russian bots" were used
to meddle in the 2016 elections.
But, as it turns out, the authors of a Senate report on "Russian election meddling" actually
ran the false flag meddling operation themselves.
A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia
of depressing Democrat voter turnout by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its
authors , New Knowledge , quickly became a household name. Described by the New
York Timesas a
group of "tech specialists who lean Democratic," New Knowledge has ties to both the U.S.
military and the intelligence agencies.
Morgan and Fox have both struck gold in the " Russiagate " scheme, which sprung into being
after Hillary Clinton blamed Moscow for Donald Trump's presidential victory in 2016. Morgan,
for example, is one of the developers of the Hamilton 68 Dashboard, the online tool that
purports to monitor and expose narratives being pushed by the Kremlin on Twitter. And also
worth mentioning, that dashboard is bankrolled by the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for
Securing Democracy – a collection of Democrats and neoconservatives funded in part by
NATO (North AtTreaty Tready Organization) and
USAID (United States Agency for International Development).
It is worth noting that the 600 " Russia-linked " Twitter accounts monitored by the
dashboard is not disclosed to the public either, making it impossible to verify these claims.
This inconvenience has not stopped Hamilton 68 from becoming a go-to source for hysteria-hungry
journalists, however. Yet on December 19, a New York Times
story revealed that Morgan and his crew had created the fake army of Russian bots, as well
as several fake Facebook groups, in order to discredit Republican candidate Roy Moore in
Alabama's 2017 special election for the U.S. Senate.
Working on behalf of the Democrats, Morgan and his crew created an estimated 1,000 fake
Twitter accounts with Russian names, and had them follow Moore. They also operated several
Facebook pages where they posed as Alabama conservatives who wanted like-minded voters to
support a write-in candidate instead . In an internal memo, New Knowledge boasted that it had
" orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea that the Moore
campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet ." – RT
This scandal is being perpetrated by the
United States media and has so far deceived millions, if not more. The botnet claim made a
splash on social media and was further amplified by
Mother Jones , which based its story on "expert opinion" from Morgan's dubious creation,
Hamilton 68.
Things got even weirder when it turned out that Scott Shane, the author of the Tim es
piece, had known about the meddling for months because he spoke at an event where the
organizers boasted about it!
Shane was one of the speakers at a meeting in September, organized by American Engagement
Technologies, a group run by Mikey Dickerson, President Barack Obama's former tech czar.
Dickerson explained how AET spent $100,000 on New Knowledge's campaign to suppress Republican
votes, "enrage " Democrats to boost turnout, and execute a " false flag " to hurt Moore. He
dubbed it " Project Birmingham ." -RT
There really was meddling in American democracy by " Russian bots. " Except those bots
weren't run from Moscow or St. Petersburg but from the offices of Democrat operatives chiefly
responsible for creating and amplifying the " Russiagate " hysteria over the past two years in
a
textbook case of psychological projection ,
brainwashing, and
Nazi-style propaganda campaigns.
"... Senate Resolution on December 19, 2019 which calls for "a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline ..."
"... Calling for a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. ..."
Senator Ron Johnson (R- Wis) and Richard Durban (D-Ill) and 39 of their colleagues introduced a Senate Resolution on December
19, 2019 which calls for "a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of
the Nord Stream 2 pipeline" as shown
here :
Here is a list of co-sponsors of the resolution:
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), ranking member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation; and Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Ben Cardin
(D-Md.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Christopher Coons (D-Del.), James Risch (R-Idaho),
Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.),
Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.),
Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Doug Jones (D-Ala.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.),
Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Roger Wicker
(R-Miss.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Thune (R-S.D.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.), and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).
Here is the resolution (currently unnumbered) in its entirety:
Calling for a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of the
Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
... ... ...
Whereas the United States has important national interests in the Black Sea region, including the security
of three NATO littoral states, the promotion of European energy market diversification by ensuring unfettered European access
to energy exporters in the Caucuses and central Asia, and combatting use of the region by smugglers as a conduit for trafficking
in persons, narcotics, and arms;
Whereas the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a proposed underwater natural gas pipeline project that would provide
an additional 55,000,000,000 cubic meters of pipeline capacity from the Russian Federation to the Federal Republic of Germany
through the Baltic Sea;
Whereas the Russian Federation's state-owned oil and gas company, Gazprom, is the sole shareholder of the Nord
Stream 2 project;
Whereas, in 2017, there was spare capacity of approximately 55,000,000,000 cubic meters in the Ukrainian gas
transit system;
Whereas Gazprom cut off natural gas exports to Europe via Ukraine in 2006, and again in 2009, over supply and
pricing disputes with Ukraine's state-owned oil and gas company, Naftogaz;
Whereas transit of Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukraine declined precipitously after the completion of
Nord Stream 1 in 2011, falling from 80 percent to between 40 and 50 percent of Russia's total exports to Europe;
Whereas, in 2017, Russian gas accounted for 37 percent of Europe's natural gas imports, an increase of
5 percent over 2016;
Whereas, on December 12, 2018, the European Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning both the
Russian Federation's aggression in the Kerch Strait and the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline; and
Whereas, on December 11, 2018, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution calling upon
the European
Union to reject the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and urging the President to use all available means to promote energy policies in
Europe that reduce European reliance on Russian energy exports:
... ... ...
(9) applauds and concurs with the European 2 Parliament's December 12, 2018, resolution condemning Russian aggression in the
Kerch Strait and
the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, calling for the pipeline's cancellation due to its threat to European energy security, and calling
on the Russian Federation to
7 guarantee freedom of navigation in the Kerch Strait;
and
(10) urges the President to continue working with Congress and our allies to ensure the appropriate policies to deter the Russian
Federation from further aggression.
Fortunately, these two neocons can make all the proclamations they want but without President Trump's support it's all just
words; neocon virtue signalling. And of course President Trump won't support what they're doing because he campaigned on and governs
as an anti-war president.
Ron Johnson is a Bushie neocon who actively supported the neocon ¡Jebe! (Please Clap) Bush while Durbin is a Hillary Clinton
neocon who actively supported that drunken, corrupt, warmongering shrew.
Thank all that's holy that we have a genuine anti-war POTUS in office and not either of those two neocons, both of whom were
utterly in the pockets of defense contractors.
Thanks for your research on relevant naval law. The Ukrainian vessel is reported to have violated the ongoing protocol by failing
to take on a Russian pilot as it transited the strait and an important bridge could potentially have been attacked by those vessels.
This was a provocation by Ukraine that seems to have its desired effect on the U.S. Senate. For essential background on the Ukrainian
civil war, I recommend reading Stephen F. Cohen's article in the Nation in 2014, titled "Kiev's atrocities and the Silence of
the Hawks." https://www.thenation.com/article/kievs-atrocities-and-silence-hawks/
Some of the most recent strikes seems to be coordinated with US attacks on ISIS in Hajin
area of Deir ez Zor. Shoigu had warned that the US effort was weak. But the US won't work
with Russian Aerospace, so they brought in Iraqi planes.
America's Exceptionalism is the sad joke of the war. They can kill civilians and bomb two
huge cities into total rubble (Mosul and Raqqa) but don't know how to win a war.
Even Trump has just Tweeted his two four-star Generals couldn't defeat ISIS. They haven't
won any war ever in their long careers. Trump knows. Most of all the, the enemy knows. Get
ready for a long insurgency war in Syria as US actually stays (right across the border) and
UK and France help created chaos inside Syria.
@ Red Ryder | Dec 31, 2018 1:01:06 PM | 7 They can kill civilians and bomb two huge cities into total rubble (Mosul and Raqqa) but
don't know how to win a war.
Yes, and they also used indirect fire including 155mm howitzers on Raqqa.
A small Marine artillery battalion fired more rounds than any artillery battalion since
Vietnam.
"They fired more rounds in five months in Raqqa, Syria, than any other Marine artillery
battalion, or any Marine or Army battalion, since the Vietnam war," said Army Sgt. Major.
John Wayne Troxell, the senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
"In five months they fired 35,000 artillery rounds on ISIS targets, killing ISIS fighters
by the dozens," Troxell told Marine Corps Times during a roundtable discussion Jan. 23. "We
needed them to put pressure on ISIS and we needed them to kill ISIS." . .
here
There have been periods, during the past six years, in which it sometimes seemed that there
were very few places, apart from this blog, in which accurate information and honest analysis
of the war in Syria, which is the most active front in the Empire's war to achieve global
hegemony.
No doubt there are many in Syria today who offer particularly sincere good wishes to
Bernhard, and the stalwarts who support his efforts and refine his analyses, for the New
Year.
Here is a toast, fill your own glasses, to free speech and independent minds!
I don't know, but nearly 20,000 people killed and many more injured or turned into refugees
does not sound like a very good year to me. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the facts that the
Syrian civil war is drawing to a conclusion and the jihadists are nearly destroyed. In that
sense, the trend is good. Let us hope that Trump, whom in every other way I detest, will
follow through on his plan to disengage from the destructive and immoral wars that the U.S.
is fighting and sponsoring.
Actually it is naive to think that the ashkanazi owned Americans are ever going to leave
Syria or the region unless forced to. The British planted Zionist cancer in the region as
soon as OIL was discovered in Iran at Masjid e Soleiman in 1901 followed by the Balfour
declaration a couple decades later and then the Americunts discovered oil in Saudi pimpdom
followed by revolt against the Ottomans. The Americunts and their NATO stooges have two goals
in the region:
1. Plunder and control of Arab oil as long as the west is dependent upon fossil fuels.
2. The preservation of the Zionist cancer in Palestine and its expansion by dividing the
Arabs and fanning sectarianism. The support for corrupt puppet regimes is key pillar of the
plan.
Anyone who thinks that without the destruction of the Zionist cancer there will be peace
in the region or the world is smoking some really strong CIA grown Afghan red stuff.
Most of the nearly 20,000 people killed in Syria in 2018 will have been jihadists allied
with ISIS or Tahrir al Sham (the rebranded Jabhat al Nusra and friends aka al Qaeda in Syria)
and most of the people made refugees will also be jihadists and their families.
So I don't think there will be very much mourning here at MoA for those dead, save for
their wives and girlfriends (who, on second thoughts, are probably as fanatical as the men if
not more so and therefore just as undeserving of sympathy) and their children.
There was news recently that Canada resettled a group of former White Helmets members in
Nova Scotia. The source of the news was Guardian writer Kareem Shaheen, who is based in
Istanbul. Shaheen holds the dubious distinction of being the first reporter on the scene
(within half an hour, apparently, though I could be wrong) of the supposed CW attack in Khan
Sheykhoun in April 2017.
I'd have preferred to see these terrorists settled in Canadian FM Chrystia Freeland's
Toronto electorate or in the prairie provinces among Ukrainian-Canadian supporters of the
neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine.
Iraq is taking over the air fight against US-supported ISIS.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi warplanes hit a meeting of Islamic State leaders near Deir al-Zor
in Syria on Monday, destroying the building they were gathered in, the military said in a
statement, without giving further details about the militants targeted.
The statement said F-16 fighter jets carried out the raid around al-Sousa village in
eastern Syria, as "30 leaders from Daesh (Islamic State) gangs" met in the building. . . .
here
Good point! And same goes with the slow-down (reversal?) of US troop withdrawal from
Syria. Kinda hard to go back after you've trumpeted "mission accomplished" in both
countries
Which brings to mind that famous quote by that philosopher and paragon of intellect and
past president of the Outlaw US Empire (tm)(karlof1), GW:
"There's an old saying in Tennessee I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says,
fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
Let's hope & pray the US public hold their feet to the fire in 2019
There will be a strong, deliberate, and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria --
very deliberate, very orderly -- while maintaining the U.S. presence in Iraq to
prevent an ISIS resurgence and to protect U.S. interests, and also to always watch very
closely over any potential reformation of ISIS and also to watch over Iran. We'll be
watching.
The change to "very deliberate, very orderly" withdrawal came after reports that
the withdrawal would be completed in 60-90 days (and before that, it had been reported to
be within 30 days) .
In this speech, Trump also contradicted his own determination that ISIS was defeated as
stated in a Dec. 19th tweet:
We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump
Presidency.
Graham says that Trump "told me some things I didn't know" but he hasn't said what
those things are. In a Dec. 30th tweet, he described the reasons for Trump's "pause" as:
The President will make sure any withdrawal from Syria will be done in a fashion to
ensure:
1) ISIS is permanently destroyed.
2) Iran doesn't fill in the back end , and
3) our Kurdish allies are protected.
This deserves some unpacking:
- "permanently" essentially makes US occupation indefinite ;
- "fill in the back end" is anti-Iran BS but hints at the real purpose of remaining: to
continue to split the "Shia Crescent";
- Kurds are pawns as was underscored by Trump's willingness to sell them out to Erdogan;
Israeli, Saudi, and Turkish NATO allies are much more important to USA.
Saudis and Israelis want USA to continue to split the "Shia Crescent", and Turks
want to smash Kurds and keep parts of Northern Syria.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Graham spoke for Trump simply because it was politically inconvenient for Trump to
backtrack any further than "very deliberate, very orderly" .
SANA reported no such thing regarding authorizing Iraq to strike into Syria. You, b, should
have checked the source but didn't.
Because Fox news implied this was true doesn't mean it is.
https://sana.sy/en/?p=154547
that's the article covering Iraq/Syria's cooperative talk and it say's nothing about allowing
free reign airstrikes
b "With the U.S. on its way out"
They aren't going anywhere. And why this is being claimed as a fact is very
questionable
The Economist magazine confirmed that 2019 will be a year of notable growth for some
leading nations among which will be Syria, which will become the country with the highest
rate of economic growth in 2019, according to predictions.
"The fastest growing country in 2019 is probably Syria, which is trying to recover from
the war years," the publication said in a report. "The Syrian economy is expected to grow
by 10 percent, which will be the highest growth rate in the world."
IOW time is running out for the neo-cons, and they're only going to get Iran destroyed
and hold onto power in the US through an outright Bolshevik style coup against the public
(some kind of fabricated National Emergency).
Well, we already had one "fabricated national emergency" -- the 9/11 false flag. Do you
think there'll be yet another? I mean something big, not like the Skripal thing.
As usual Philip Giraldi out writes the NYT hacks. Stephens and his cohorts at the Times are
constantly kvetching about Israel then they scream anti-Semitism if it's pointed out. It's
exhausting. I'm exhausted with neocons.
Trotskyism : the political, economic, and social principles advocated by Trotsky
especially the theory and practice of communism developed by or associated with Trotsky and
usually including adherence to the concept of worldwide revolution as opposed to socialism
in one country.
Pro-Zionist liberals such as those at the New York Times have the dilemma of how to
oppose President Trump, who pursues pro-Zionist policies. A solution seems to be to argue
that Trump is not really that pro-Zionist.
Inspired by the Scofield Bible, it is, regrettably, a fundamental belief of millions of
voters that Israel is good for America.
In John Hagee's words , '50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with
five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel.'
The linked article concludes: 'Not least among the many victims of the Scofield Bible are
5 million Palestinian refugees whose right to return is fervently opposed by America's
Zionized Christians. Thanks to their indoctrination by Scofield's unholy book, they believe
that Palestine belongs not to the Palestinians -- many of whom are fellow Christians -- but
exclusively to "God's chosen people".'
I'm pleased to say I was not for moving the embassy and as for the Iran deal it was
better than the alternative, with the potential for further talks down the road. Stephens
didn't approve but both aspects of US foreign policy were good for the US. So why would we
expect him to?
Where the clash is going to come is the Democratic party is not going to put up with this
rubbish anymore. Yes there will be some holdovers (Schumer, Cardin et al.) but blanket
support is not going to play with the next congress. They will lose donor support as well as
media acceptance –from the Times– but Christian Zionism isn't a factor for Dem's
and constituents see that a brutal Israeli government that is focusing on attaching itself to
kindred spirit states led by strongman types, doesn't deserve support.
when we here about israel as the problem it is really not israel the country but israel the
people. they are spread out over many countries but all still believe in their cult of israel
i have read many times how the majority of them are not even ancestors of israel but are
instead converts form centuries ago there are lawsutis in the US against the government aid
to israel which vilotlates US law on providing aid to an undeclares nuke power,,,and against
aipac for not registering FARA,,,they have gone nowhere In my opinion, their whole power
comes from media control when the media goes on and on about bogus Russian influence and says
nothing of israel influence you know you have a problem
The World will never be free and peaceful until we can liberate AMERICAN & European
politcal, economic, military, intelligentsia, educational & cultural DECISION MAKING
CENTERS from destructive & inhuman ZIONIST lobby. As Stephen Walt & John Mearsheimr
wrote in their unique & worldwide known "US FOREIGN POLICY AND ISRAEL LOBBY" not only
these lobbying organizations are anti US interests but they are as well against the long term
interests of ISRAEL itself.
Briefly we should free mind of American people before all to have a ideal and productive
world.
Social Media has opened the door and continues to pave the path for the world to see the
truth of the Apartheid State of Israel and the struggle of the Palestinian People. Most
Americans are struggling themselves, so many won't make the effort to learn what's happening
to foreigners living half a world away. It's perfectly understandable. On the other hand,
there are others of us–and the number is growing exponentially–who feel a human
bond with the suffering and humiliation Palestinian People experience daily from an Apartheid
"ally" who we–through our American taxes–support. Our representatives in congress
are heavily influenced to vote for measures to support Netanyahu's Apartheid Regime. Use your
power of the pen to reach out to your local representative in congress to stop now. And keep
it up my Brothers and Sisters. Social Media is the Way!
Social Media has opened the door and continues to pave the path for the world to see the
truth of the Apartheid State of Israel and the struggle of the Palestinian People. Most
Americans are struggling themselves, so many won't make the effort to learn what's happening
to foreigners living half a world away. It's perfectly understandable. On the other hand,
there are others of us–and the number is growing exponentially–who feel a human
bond with the suffering and humiliation Palestinian People experience daily from an Apartheid
"ally" who we–through our American taxes–support. Our representatives in congress
are heavily influenced to vote for measures to support Netanyahu's Apartheid Regime. Use your
power of the pen to reach out to your local representative in congress to stop now. And keep
it up my Brothers and Sisters. Social Media is the Way!
This is what I said on Pat Buchanan's page about a comment, very apropos to this article,
also from the NY Times "That comment from the NY Times exposes how aligned the globalist
leftist elite is with the NEOCON globalist elite. There's 'no daylight' between characters
like 'Linda' Graham and 'Up Chuck' Schumer when it comes to globalist hegemony. Thank God for
Donald and keep America First!" The comment that Pat made his point on was this: 'In
Monday's editorial celebrating major figures of foreign policy in the past half-century, The
New York Times wrote', "As these leaders pass from the scene, it will be left to a new
generation to find a way forward from the wreckage Mr. Trump has already
created." This is what Pat attacked in his column.
Correct me if I'm wrong but America still has NO formal alliance treaty with the Jewish
State, no?
And finally 'Bret Stephens'; How clever they are with their names.
@Hamed
Ghashghavi The problem 'Hamed from Tehran' is that the Main Stream Media and the
political class in the USA is almost completely owned by the rich 'Zionist Lobby'.
For example: aid to Egypt is necessary because of Israel. It is how we pay off the
dictatorship for not pressing the Palestinian issue. So add another 1.5 billion.
Aid to Palestinians: another $500 million.
Tax deductible funds going towards settlement expansion: several hundreds of million if
not billion.
Aid to Jordan. Aid to Lebanon.
Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.
I predict proactive Jewish Lobby Stink-Think Tanks have engineered plans to dramatically
influence Democrat Congress & presidential candidate elections, and which are underway
now.
Elections come and go but the Zio stump-song remains the same.
First, and as you should well understand Mark, particular campaigns for US Senate cost
$millions simply to get a candidate's mere "name" in front of ever longing & frustrated
American voters.
Of course, such efforts are enhanced by manifold "special interests" and billionaire
campaign contributions.
Regrettably, U.S. election campaign "donor support" (uh, speech?) trumps the will of the
paltry amount of Americans who indulge voting, and our Zionist Corporate Media obliges the
biggest beneficiary winner$, and can finagle ideologically blind & typically
GOP-Christian Zionist's to bloc vote for, i.e., brand-name & repackaged Zio Democrats,
Pocahontas, Bloomberg, Biden, Bob Casey, etcetera.
In short, Mark, the "brutal Israeli government" expertly followed Protocols of Zion by
neutering U.S. Congressional & Presidential democratic elections, and the Zionist
Corporate Media entertainingly promotes the THEATER.
National rejection of the great "rubbish" work of, for one little example, NYT's Bret
Stephens, is a giant step toward how America could become gallant/noble again, and afterward
repent & focus upon strivation to "greatness."
The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve
the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned
up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire.
A war with Iran would also serve as a pretext and cover for Israel to expel its remaining
Palestinians.
This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States
into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the
Palestinian issue that they created.
"I still say that US and Russia should come to Israels help in hour of need.
But Israel also should stop behaving like rotten spoiled child."
Russia can provide the "Jewish Autonomous Oblast" (already exists), and the U$A can
provide the means to move them there. Of course the FORMER Israel will have to pay for
everything.
I support Great Britain and France, that does not mean I approve of colonial behavior or
trouncing British or French identity. I can certainly support the existence of Is areal and
chagrin their attacks and encroachments onto Palestine uninvited and without compensation
or shooting protectors for the matter.
I tend to agree with you on this. No matter what one thinks of the morality of the events
of 1948, most of today's Israeli Jews were born on the land and have a right to live there.
They're no more responsible for the sins of their grandfathers than a modern German, except
to the extent that they help perpetuate continued injustice.
With that said, what frightens me is the extent to which some of them have been emboldened
by a combination of unchecked ethnocentrism and a sense of immunity from scrutiny and
criticism. Particularly in the realm of ethnic bioweapons. Most of the leading DNA analysis
companies seem to be Jewish-owned. It seems to be an area of emphasis with them. It was
reported 20 years ago that Israel has an anti-Arab virus. Who else might be a target?
Israeli participation in spyware and their access to raw NSA data is also concerning. How
do we know that the data isn't be used to intimidate Americans from speaking out, or to
siphon money from ordinary investors by insider trading?
@polistra Israel
is hardly a normal country. It is an Apartheid Colony. That's why it needs American support
and will need it for the foreseeable future. It uses its co-religionists in the US to
maintain an iron grip on US mideast policy, making sure that it is at the heart of it and
that almost no dissenting voices can ever be elected in the US or get any mainstream media
access. If that sounds like a normal country to you, I have a bridge for sale.
but as far your critisisms of Israel policy and 'undemocratic' and 'illiberal' stances
and actions.
well guess what
You're missing the thrust of Giraldi's position. Israel can do whatever it likes as long
as it doesn't entangle the US in their fight. But, as you well know, Israel is not interested
in fighting this fight alone. It has dragged others into it, including the US. As long as the
American taxpayer is forced to pay an annual tribute of ~$4B, they have every right to
condemn Israeli policies that clearly don't align with their values. So, get used to it.
Israel is no friend of America , never was , never has been and never will be, and just a few
examples, JFK was shot and killed in full view of Americans for his executive order 11110
which would have restored America to constitutional money bypassing the FED, who benefits?
The USS Liberty was attacked by Israel killing 34 and wounding 174 in an attempt to blame
the attack on Egypt and bring the U.S. into the war against Egypt and of course Israel lied
about the attack and got away with it!
... ... ...
Israel is Bad for America, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
You have to hand it to the Israelis for conquering like Romans.
As for the US in Syria, it has always had the potential for handing us a "Charge of the
Light Brigade" moment where, like in the Crimean War, we manage to keep the Russians and the
Iranians checked in the region for a few years, but at a cost where even the dulled senses of
the US voter can't escape the toll taken to achieve this fleeting "strategic objective."
@bucky Aware,
Bucky said: "This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the
United States into a war with Iran."
Appreciate your posting of the wise sentences, above, bucky. Thanks.
Israel will never allow their territory expansion/M.E. hegemon goals to get interrupted by
mere U.S. elections.
The will and desires of American voters are easily manageable, manipulated, & another
major & fear-provoking "Homeland" False Flag attack, and voila, it's Fire & Fury upon
Syria and Iran.
Well, Israel itself isn't bad for us. Israel is a normal country defending its own
interests fiercely. Every country SHOULD defend its own interests fiercely
But it is HOW they defend those interests that is problematic. Hungary has insisted
that they will never tolerate a large number of migrants in their country. Hungary will be
for Hungarians. They do not wage wars, they do not commit ethnic cleansing in other people's
lands. They have merely closed their borders and that is a peaceful way in which they
fiercely protect their interests. The same goes for Japan. Despite a stagnating economy
caused by plummeting birth rates, the Japanese insist on a strict no immigrant policy. That
is a peaceful way of fiercely protecting their interests.
Israel on the other hand is anything but peaceful. They engage in ethnic cleansing and
drag the US (and whoever else they can con) into their conflicts. If we are looking for a
foreign example to emulate, there's no question about it – we should emulate Japan and
not Israel. Japan is a civilized nation where the people genuinely love their country. Israel
is a thuggish and fascist state that justly deserves all the opprobrium they shamelessly
whine about.
The level of alienation of Palestians probably reached that stage at which reconciliation is impossible.
Notable quotes:
"... This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the Palestinian issue that they created. ..."
The proximate reason why Iran is a problem in this region is because Israel cannot resolve
the Palestinian issue. Iran is basically a gigantic wag the dog. Without this external ginned
up threat, Israel is simply stuck in a Palestinian mire.
A war with Iran would also serve as a pretext and cover for Israel to expel its remaining
Palestinians.
This is why they amp up the Iran threat. This is why they want to draw the United
States into a war with Iran. Fundamentally because they refuse to take responsibility for the
Palestinian issue that they created.
For example: aid to Egypt is necessary because of Israel. It is how we pay off the
dictatorship for not pressing the Palestinian issue. So add another 1.5 billion.
Aid to Palestinians: another $500 million.
Tax deductible funds going towards settlement expansion: several hundreds of million if
not billion.
Aid to Jordan. Aid to Lebanon.
Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.
@bucky It's more
that that, specifically to Izruel . If you include 'Non Governmental Agencies', the
'Charaties' and hedge funds funneling unknown amounts of ZOG bucks to the land of Zion plus
other underhanded methods of getting money to their Zionist bretheren, it's in the tens of
billions .
Other than
brain-dead Christian fundamentalist, it come's as no surprise that Jews who wrote the Old and
New Testament, granted themselves special permission to violate virtually every moral law and
restriction known to mankind, including the right to steal land and resources belonging to
others. While, at the same time, giving themselves the right to condemn anyone daring to
point-out their lying and deceptive ways.
Realist, January 1, 2019 at 7:44 pm GMT
@bucky
Add it all up and it probably is $20 billion each and every year.
Middle East involvement costs trillions of dollars.
"... Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military establishment. ..."
If Syria wins the award for Country of the Year 2018, I'd hate to see who gets the Wooden
Spoon for 2018. There must be quite a few serious contenders for that prize!
Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer
disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that
constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own
collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity
Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military
establishment.
In these times, the real political debate is centered around the issues of migration and
national identity. It's what Brexit was all about. It's the reason the one thing all Trump
supporters really want him to do, is to build the wall. It would be an international symbol
of our longing for and right to nationhood a billion dollar monument to nationalism and a
trigger for nationalist revival.
This is why the forces of globalism will throw everything at stopping it's construction.
If Trump leaves office and that wall is not built, his presidency will have been for
naught.
"... Ever since US Crude Oil peaked its production in 1970, the US has known that at some point the oil majors would have their profitability damaged, "assets" downgraded, and borrowing capacity destroyed. At this point their shares would become worthless and they would become bankrupt. The contagion from this would spread to transport businesses, plastics manufacture, herbicides and pesticide production and a total collapse of Industrial Civilisation. ..."
@4 "For the life of me I cannot figure why Americans want a war/conflict with
Russia."
Ever since US Crude Oil peaked its production in 1970, the US has known that at some
point the oil majors would have their profitability damaged, "assets" downgraded, and
borrowing capacity destroyed. At this point their shares would become worthless and they
would become bankrupt. The contagion from this would spread to transport businesses, plastics
manufacture, herbicides and pesticide production and a total collapse of Industrial
Civilisation.
In anticipation of increasing Crude Oil imports, Nixon stopped the convertibility of
Dollars into Gold, thus making the Dollar entirely fiat, allowing them to print as much of
the currency as they needed.
They also began a system of obscuring oil production data, involving the DoE's EIA and the
OECD's IEA, by inventing an ever-increasing category of Undiscovered Oilfields in their
predictions, and combining Crude Oil and Condensate (from gas fields) into one category (C+C)
as if they were the same thing. As well the support of the ethanol-from-corn industry began,
even though it was uneconomic. The Global Warming problem had to be debunked, despite its
sound scientific basis. Energy-intensive manufacturing work was off-shored to cheap
labour+energy countries, and Just-in-Time delivery systems were honed.
In 2004 the price of Crude Oil rose from $28 /barrel up to $143 /b in mid-2008. This
demonstrated that there is a limit to how much business can pay for oil (around $100 /b).
Fracking became marginally economic at these prices, but the frackers never made a profit as
over-production meant prices fell to about $60 /b. The Government encourages this destructive
industry despite the fact it doesn't make any money, because the alternative is the end of
Industrial Civilisation.
Eventually though, there must come a time when there is not enough oil to power all the
cars and trucks, bulldozers, farm tractors, airplanes and ships, as well as manufacture all
the wind turbines and solar panels and electric vehicles, as well as the upgraded
transmission grid. At that point, the game will be up, and it will be time for WW3. So we
need to line up some really big enemies, and develop lots of reasons to hate them.
Thus you see the demonisation of Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela for reasons that don't
make sense from a normal perspective.
It is partially tied direct to the economy of the warmongers as trillions of dollars of
new cold war slop is laying on the ground awaiting the MICC hogs. American hegemony is
primarily about stealing the natural resources of helpless countries. Now in control of all
the weak ones, it is time to move to the really big prize: The massive resources of Russia.
They (US and their European Lackeys) thought this was a slam dunk when Yeltsin, in his
drunken stupors, was literally giving Russia to invading capitalist. Enter Putin, stopped the
looting .........connect the dots.
"... The Kurd alliance enraged Erdogan enough to invade Afrin. Russia allowed this partly to punish the Kurds for allying with the US and pointing out to them that the US would not have their backs. The Kurds would be better off to be part of Syria rather than independent. When the Kurds realize this, Russian and Syria will get Turkey to back off. ..."
"... The US is also being exposed as protecting ISIS along the Iraq border and also likely in Yarmouk camp as well as Al-qaeda in East Ghouta. ..."
financial matters , Feb 21, 2018 7:44:35 AM |
link
Elijah Magnier has another good article out,
Magnier
He takes up what is going on in Afrin with the Syrian Army now poised to move in.
This seems to be another sound move by Russia to expose and dislodge the US.
This is a problem of the US not having a coherent policy except to destroy Syria for the
US' own benefit.
This sees the US forming illegitimate alliances with whoever will serve this purpose at
the time such as ISIS, Al-qaeda, and the Kurds.
The Kurd alliance enraged Erdogan enough to invade Afrin. Russia allowed this partly
to punish the Kurds for allying with the US and pointing out to them that the US would not
have their backs. The Kurds would be better off to be part of Syria rather than independent.
When the Kurds realize this, Russian and Syria will get Turkey to back off.
The US is also being exposed as protecting ISIS along the Iraq border and also likely
in Yarmouk camp as well as Al-qaeda in East Ghouta.
Off topic...but of interest to many here at MoA....The snipers that executed the Maidan
massacre in Kiev have come forward and have made sworn testimony///
63
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201802151061669056-georgian-snipers-maidan-evidence
"Adding a new twist to the story about the 2014 Maidan shootings, a Sputnik correspondent has
met with the purported snipers. The agency has obtained the records of interrogation of Koba
Nergadze and Aleksandre Revazishvili. Both Georgian nationals, they are ready to testify in a
Ukrainian court."
It was a matter of time when the participants in the Maidan Massacre would surface the coup
d'état didn't stop the carnage of Ukrainians nor corruption of people in power. The
witness accounts were described in the hours as the events unfolded. Only the faces were not
known ...
Maidan Massacre Bombshell: #Georgian snipers reportedly confess to massacring along
with Lithuanian snipers both #Police and #maidan protesters in #Ukraine in Italian
#documentary just broadcast by most popular
#Italian #TV channel [h/t Ivan Katchanovski]
US media has gone bonkers. The original claim was Russian meddling and Russian
interference in the election. Then, a sort of bridging meme showed up (see also b
above), undermining democracy or subverting it. This in turn then morphed into
promoting divisive issues which is new (circa 2018, not before?)
Imho. US pols make it their business to create divisive issues, diviusses
(neologism), to the point of inventing rubbish ones. Part of the US public embraces that sh*t
as well, > tribalism and religious economics in lieu of policy politics. So such actions
should be viewed as gloriously democratic, ;) - ok easy to make fun.
The emphasis on 'divisive' is curious, it signals that some managers are calling for
'union' - 'cohesion' - 'group soldering' facing the outside enemy, threat.
Russia has really become the all-purpose épouvantail scarecrow, specter of
doom, etc. An awareness of the high costs of divisiveness if uncontrolled -> massive
social unrest, at extreme, civil war -- and that these are to be avoided, is evidenced.
Heh, or the whole storm is just fluff that distracts, occupies the pixels, airwaves, a
jamboree of knee-jerk reactions irrelevant to the present World Situation, with practically
no important body - faction of the PTB, Trump, the MIC, lame outsiders like the EU, etc.
having any clue.
Why Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee on March 11, 1985? Was there a will of Yuri
Andropov? What was the cause of the sudden death of defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov, who could be the first person in the
country? Was the Secretary General Konstantin Chernenko really poisoned by low-quality fish? And why did Victor Grishin lose his
chance to become the Secretary General of the "master of Moscow"?
Gorbachev was recruited in 1976-77 years when he visited Europe, then eliminate Kulakov and promote the Central Committee
Gorbachev. I am sure that the KGB had their own people recruited by the CIA and pursued a policy of promoting their candidacy
for the post of first person of the USSR.
The stupidest commentaries are here. This rotten system has outlived its usefulness.........and no leader was able to save
her. There is no progressive Communist state in the world and can not be!
Not Gorbachev, so someone else.The USSR was naive and doomed.What, one Gorbachev did everything? Full of vultures sat and
waited for the corpse. My uncle, being the mayor of Tikhvin, in the late 70s, said that the country is doomed because we are
engaged in self-eating.Huge funds went to support the Communist parties around the world.
@Asenovska Tatiana uncle rasskazyval, as mayor....What the University taught me.....
And I , being the senior officer, after 4 wounds the write-off on the ground, the pilot....Past Afghan, and not only.....
I saw our planes to be cur in peaces on orders from Gorbachev.... .And submarines, costing hundreds millions. Payed by people who
save on everyting to secure indepence of the country.
And this creature, was given Nobel Peace Prize for selling everthing to the USA for pennies on the dollar...
The West praised him, and he DESTROYED noth the ARMY AND NAVY and then the USSR ... He gave up our victory in
WWII without and fight's...
After Gorbachov the USA was able to bomb Belgrade, and Iraq, and Livia without any fear for retribution. He should be executed .
And the body of this traitor should be disposed in manure...
And if not Putin, we would be the colony of the USA much like Latin american countries. .And the USA would bomb Syria into stone
age, kill the President and grap all the oil
Only Putin is not GORBACHEV!!!!! And the Big Uncle blew up in Syria and they did not risk thier place to test Russia
anti-aircraft missile systems.
Gorbachev first created a deceptive impression of a young, wise, business-like head of state. In fact, he was a banal traitor
of his country, sold the sovereignty of a great country for perdpnal fortume and villa in Germany. While Wewst grbbed all opur
natiural resourses and large part of iundustry. YELTSIN destroyed completely the economica, and high technolgy ijndurites in
the country, sold everything to oligarchs for pennies. Both Gorbachev and Yeltsin are enemies of the Fatherland .
Gorbachev came to the sinking ship and it was too late to patch the holes in it. The cold war and the arms race sucked the
last currency reserves from the USSR. The Kremlin Party bonzes forgot about the economy, forgot about the people. They
were obsessed with matching the weaponry of the phantom enemy (Americans), and as a result of the cold war the USSR
disintegrated and broke up into 15 independent States.
While we can blame the weakling and traitor Gorbachev, even before him the agriculture was in deep and irreversible
decline. We were forced to buy grad for abroad. After the US has imposed sanctions that have artificially reduced oil prices
to such a low level that game was over. Currency flow from oil sales seizes and there was no alternative then to take
loans from the West.
The Treasury started printed too much rubles, inflation started and with it nationalist feeling that finished off the
country. Add to this Chernobyl disaster. When in Armenia in December 1988 there was the major earthquake, the Kremlin
requested the "decadent West" about the humanitarian aid.
Economy of the Soviet Union fell through the floor and no wonder Gorbachev was tilted towards the West, toward privatization
of the industries.
Of course he was a fool and allowed West to plunder the country, but essentially he have no choice, reforms were needed
and he lost control of them, tried to stage a fake coup to regain control and was deposed as the result. Because he was very
weak, incompetent politician, not fit for such a grave moment in the history of the country, he destroyed the country.
The socialist camp collapsed, and Gorbachov refused to help the socialist countries, it was necessary to save his own ass. He
also finished stupid and unnecessary war in Afghanistan. That was the only positive step he made. And that was too little too
late.
Instead of that asshole, Heydar Aliyev should have been elected by Politburo. The only person who was really able to
pull the country out of the crisis, it was Aliyev G. in any other scenario, the country was doomed to collapse . And
about Gorbachev , you can say so in Russian history , no traitor is worse and higher rank than this pederast!!!, All
pleasant viewing!
And why the interior Ministry, KGB were inactive. As well as Party Control? How could this hump with foreign help and
some special color revolution technology to destroy all the obstacles. How he managed to subdue the Politburo power
structure ( including the axis of the Gromyko-Primakov and Yakovlev) ? As he had no trouble to expel from the Central
Committee able and less corrupted members of the Central Committee (V. Sherbitsky , V. Grishin, G. V. Romanov, G. A.
Aliyev, D, Kuhn...)?
Gorbachev - zero as the head of state, but the soil he has prepared Khrushchev and Brezhnev (Moskva), they let the country
drift, theft, drunkenness, took away people's faith.
А хули дебилам объяснять. Горбачев открыл окно в мир. Живите уроды ,работайте развивайтесь. Но началась элементарная борьба за
власть. Так как в этой стране на протяжении всей истории ничего путного создать не умели. Что с татар взять. Страна не могла
не развалится. Если бы не Беловежское соглашение, крови было бы немерянно. В каждой республики были свои лидеры которые тупо
хотели быть президентами и якобы независимыми.. Кто виноват ,что страна наводнена ублюдками у власти. которые вместо того что
бы создавать могучую страну напичканную всей таблицей Менделеева, начали ее растаскивать.И грабят по сей день, под
руководством Единой россии. Вспомните как все визжали, когда страна стала открываться. Когда народ перестал поклонятся
импортным одноразовым зажигалкам и фантикам от жвачек. Думать надо, прежде чем повторять кремлевские методички. Теперь
катаетесь на Порше кайене, живете в особняках и хотите назад в СССР. Я с вас хуею..
Хорошо помню 1985 год когда вьібрали Горбачева .То у нас в Тернополе наш учитель политекономии тогда говорил нам студентам что
старьіе партейцьі говорят что Горбачев будет изменик .А почему мьі спрашивали .А потому что он не любит наши отечественьіе
костюмьі а любит английские ....Сколько лет прошло а только времья показало кто прав а кто нет .Китай например посмотрел на
нашу историческую ошибку и принимает все необходимьіе мерьі чтобьі подобньіх Горбачевьіх там у руля власти не оказалось ....Все
большие Иудьі бьіли меченьіе ,как и бьіл мечен Горбачев ...Горбачева можна сравнить из Нероном которьій розвалил большое ....
У господина Млечина с аналитикой большие проблемы, а ведь журналист должен знать всё о своём герое. В отношении Горбачёва он
так и не понял, почему Семи- частный отверг кандидатуру Горбачёва. Семичастный знал, что Горбачёв не чист на руку, короче
говоря один из первых советских мафиози в г. Ставрополе по производству алкоголя. Мне лично рассказал об этом брат убитого по
приказу Горбачёва следователя (по пути из Краснодара в Невинномысск), который напал на след этого упыря, но ему была устроена
автомобильная катастрофа, в которой погиб этот следователь. А почему Брежнев убрал Семичастного, потому что Семичастный знал
всю кухню правительственного переворота по смещению Хрущёва, поэтому Брежнев, по словам самого Семичастного убрал его из
Москвы подальше, и в Киеве устроил третьим замом председателя правительства Украинской ССР, выступая Семичастный сказал, я так
и не понял, кем я стал работать, работы практически не было, он просто отсиживался на этой высокой должности до пенсии.
Слушаю и все время одна мысль в голову лезет - как же надо было руководить страной , до какого идиотизма довести ситуацию с
продуктами питания , если академики и композиторы с мировым именем и даже дочь генсека !!!! искали знакомства и расположения
директора магазина !!! . О чем думают люди , пишущие вечные сентенции - "какую страну мы потеряли " - а ведь в провинции было
все гораздо хуже и японцы создали анекдот - "Самая лучшая система снабжения создана в СССР - все товары завозятся в Москву - а
благодарный народ САМ развозит по стране..." Не могла быть жизнеспособной страна при таком маразме..
Лично мне похуй!!! Если сравнить СССР ,где все было нельзя и под запретом, под наблюдением людей в плащах и шляпах,то при
Горбачеве, народ вздохнул глоток свежего,опьяняющего,долгожданного и запретного воздуха из вне... Первые кооперативы, джинсы,
машины, кафе, иномарки,музыка, фильмы!!! Что то новое принес! Нельзя так,было больше жить.. Виновен он во многом,но есть и
плюсы его политики. Предали его, а он предал нас....
Горбачёв был типичный южный дурачок . Они умеют 3 вещи -выглядеть выгодно(лучше чем есть на самом деле ,подмазать где
надо , и болтать .... А ЛЮБОЕ дело которое им поручишь -ОБГАДЯТ . СИСТЕМА СССР была уже слаба тем ,что потеряла
ЖЁСТКОСТЬ и ЗАЩИТУ от Дурака . При Хрущёве -она сработала и дурачка убрали ,при Горби - ЕМУ ДАЛИ РУЛИТЬ ,и ВСЁ
развалилось .
Престарелый Черненко - это плохо. А не престарелые Горбачёв, Яковлев, Шеварднадзе и Лигачёв - это жутко хорошо? Дело,
похоже, не только и не столько в возрасте, сколько в деловых и моральных качествах его носителей. Все члены названнй
компашки реально вредили и реально (и крепко) навредили стране. А ведь престарелыми они отнюдь не были!
Поражаюсь туполобости некоторых "демократов-капиталистов" в комментариях. Почти тридцать лет мы живём в капиталистическом
обществе, имеем полный доступ к любой информации - изучай сколько влезет, называется... И вы за эти тридцать лет так и не
смогли впихнуть в свой мозг информацию о происходящих в мире тенденциях, её систематизировать и сделать из неё вывод - вы
безнадёжны.
Никто из вас не удосужился изучать источники разной направленности по теме капитализма и социализма, вы лишь прочли/услышали
что-то одно, и приняли это за аксиому. Это совершенно ненаучный и не конструктивный подход к изучению проблемы! К сожалению,
некоторые люди просто не способны думать объёмно, для них существует только плоскость или даже прямая линия, что есть признак
ужасно узкого кругозора.
Я увидел в комментариях одно выражение, которое просто повергло меня в шок: "Нет на свете ни одного прогрессивного
коммунистического государства и быть не может!" - здрасте! :D Вы хоть историю-то изучали? То есть СССР не был мировой
сверхдержавой? А, ну да, это же была "страшная, отсталая, грязная и бедная страна-недоразумение, которая возникла по ужасной
ошибке", как же я мог забыть современных историков) А как-же нынешний Китай? Он официально считается экономической
сверхдержавой, кандидатом в мировые сверхдержавы, и темпы развития в нём имеют наивысший показатель на данный момент.
Плоскость и однонаправленность вашего мышления меня просто поразила, вы имеете радикальные взгляды, а радикализм - это всегда
ошибочно. Кто-то написал: "Китай только официально коммунистический, на деле в нём другое устройство!" - ну это просто апогей
идиотизма) Вы разве не понимаете, что человеческие взгляды могут совершенствоваться и изменяться, а система реформироваться? В
Китае именно социалистический строй, который претерпел реформацию, в которой безусловно нуждался. Советский социализм также
нуждался в реформации, и никто не говорит, что он был идеальным социализмом.
Совершенствование системы - это неотъемлемая часть прогресса, и если вы считаете, что социализм может быть только таким, каким
он был в СССР - то вы глубоко ошибаетесь, и совершенно не понимаете значение слова "прогресс". Китай построил такой социализм,
который даёт ему возможность делать поистине чудеса экономики, Китай богатеет и уровень жизни в нём растёт - если это не
прогресс, то что тогда? Также хочу упомянуть КНДР. Да-да, США на неё повесили ярлык "отсталого голодающего тоталитарного
государства", и скорее всего вы, радикальные капиталисты, даже не думали с ними спорить и что-то дополнительно про КНДР
узнавать, что, опять-же, говорит о плоскости и некритичности, я бы даже сказал суеверности вашего мышления. КНДР - страна
очень маленькая, в основном с горной местностью, и природных ресурсов в ней очень мало. "Демократы" из ООН и НАТО обложили
КНДР санкциями со всех сторон, из-за которых она не может развивать внешнюю торговлю, что губительно для маленькой страны с
худым запасом ресурсов. Поддерживать экономику, снабжать людей достатком товаров и в целом держать страну на современном
уровне в условиях торговой изоляции и недостатка ресурсов - это неподъёмная задача для капитализма. Но корейский социализм
умудрился, при всех этих условиях, победить голод, поддерживать бесплатное образование, медицину и т.д., обеспечивать людей
местом жительства, работой и доходом, сохранить суверенность своего государства и идеологию, и, ВНИМАНИЕ,
создать с нуля ядерную бомбу
. Это чудеса, северокорейский строй решает задачи, которые поистине неподъёмные в её
условиях.
Конечно,
в КНДР жесткий тоталитаризм, ведь когда страна изолирована от внешнего мира во всех аспектах, соседние страны настроены
враждебно (а со стороны США вообще идёт угроза прямого вторжения, или даже ядерного удара), со страной ведут жёсткую
идеологическую информационную войну, сохранить существующий строй - задача крайне сложная, и выполнить её можно только при
жёсткой дисциплине и контрпропаганде. Я уважаю Северную Корею, она наглядно показывает, что социализм может творить чудеса.
Конечно же, я вас переубедить не смог, радикальные вы капиталисты, но тем из вас, кои способны хоть немножко думать своей
черепушкой, я, возможно, поселил мысль о том, что социализм - это далеко не только плановая экономика, что он может меняться и
прогрессировать, что именно к нему идут все развитые страны, и что утопический коммунизм - это строй, который мы ещё
представить себе не можем, но который обязательно наступит через многие годы, или столетия прогресса. Избавляйтесь от своих
радикальных взглядов, и старайтесь думать объективно - это очень полезно для кругозора. Спасибо.
По Млечину : хорошо разработанная и осуществлённая операция по устранению конкурентов и внедрению "своего". Возникают вопросы:
кто проводил операцию? Где была организация отвечающая за государственную безопасность (КГБ)? В 2017м демпартия США подняла
вой о,якобы,вмешательстве России в избирательный процесс в США. Кто ответит:было ли вмешательство заграницы в процессы, о
которых поведал Млечин? Если было,то России так же, по образу и подобию, надо поднимать вой. Это серьёзно.Кто ответит?
Горбачев Родину продал, а Ельцин её пропил. Горбачев виноградники повырубал, а Ельцин травил народ не качественным спиртом. В
итоге, если бы не Путин, то развязка была бы давным давно, хотя он тоже не подарок, отдал страну на разграбление олигархам.
Горбачёв типичный номенклатурщик. Послушный, мягкий, ну может и прогибался ради своей высокой карьеры, но наверняка не чаял
президентом стать. Но потом когда всё случилось, стал входить во вкус, то есть жена стала проникаться важностью своего
положения при таком муженьке. А когда пришлось отказаться от власти он НИСКОЛЬКО не скорбел о потерянном кресле и стране. Его
посдили "на мягкую подушечку" и он стал жить поживать в Америке, даже не понимая, что его бездарность, как политика, послужила
развалу СССР. Он не понимает этого и сейчас. А может НЕ желает признавать. Может на смертном одре передумает строить из себя
униженного и оскорблённого и в чём-нибудь признается, хотя бы самому себе. Правда, для этого смелость нужна.
Горбачев не увлекался горячительными напитками???? Ну ну!!! Я родственник председателя крайкома СК в бытность Горбачева...Его
из машин вытаскивали лежа
Нечего горбачева обеливать!Он виноват,да еще как!Будь он трижды проклят!Этот человек не руководитель,разве не видно было из
его речей,что за он скоморох?!Как может шут руководить огромной страной и как вообще можно было доверить легкомысленному
человеку руководить государством,он же не "А ни Б,НИ КУКАРЕКУ"?!Полный идиот!!!!!
Перед развалом Союза ,этот придурок начал обсирать КАЗАКСТАН,я тогда ушёл в запас,и было обидно за академика Кунаева,За
родину мою,а на флоте мы гордились ,когда перед строем кораблей Старший офицер Азаров говорил казакстанцы ,мы едим хлеб из
каз-й муки тушёнка из kz,балык и икра,одеты мы в KZ канадки и свитера из Кызыл орды,А вот атомные ПЛ из казакстанского
титана- и мы были горды за казакстан И вот ОН наносит обсирающий удар?а дальше нам все стало ясно.
Млечный как всегда врет , не умного Горбатого плохо говорящего по русски двигала ЦРУ и как я понимаю сейчас многие советские
парта геносе знали об этом , почему , ???почему они продали все советское в котором жили ???за деньги или разочарование
произошло от этого марксизма и ленинизма, ,,,мы простые люди не когда не узнаем...но я уверен , что Брежнев уже был не
руководитель что Путин ,,,,почему ???что то им мешает , а то и наоборот они и есть гарантия чтоб страна не развивалась ,
Пшеницу покупали в Канаде,Союз изжил себя,,,вина Горбача только в одном,,,первое Крым хохлам не отдавать,,и русских в
Прибалтике не трогать,все это надо было говорить Бушу,,ставить условия
"... They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Donald Trump is Bad for Israel ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
American journalism has become in its mainstream exponents a compendium of half-truths and
out-and-out lies. The public, though poorly informed on most issues as a result, has generally
figured out that it is being hoodwinked and trust in the Fourth Estate has plummeted over the
past twenty years. The skepticism about what is being reported has enabled President Donald
Trump and other politicians to evade serious questions about policy by claiming that what is
being reported is little more than "fake news."
No news is more fake than the reporting in the U.S. media that relates to the state of
Israel. Former Illinois congressman Paul Findley in his
seminal bookThey Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's
Lobby observed that nearly all the foreign press correspondents working out of Israel are
Jewish while most of the editors that they report to at news desks are also Jews, guaranteeing
that the articles that eventually surface in the newspapers will be carefully constructed to
minimize any criticism of the Jewish state. The same goes for television news, particularly on
cable news stations like CNN.
A particularly galling aspect of the sanitization of news reports regarding Israel is the
underlying assumption that Israelis share American values and interests, to include freedom and
democracy. This leads to the perception that Israelis are just like Americans with Israel's
enemies being America's enemies. Given that, it is natural to believe that the United States
and Israel are permanent allies and friends and that it is in the U.S. interest to do whatever
is necessary to support Israel, including providing billions of dollars in aid to a country
that is already wealthy as well as unlimited political cover in international bodies like the
United Nations.
That bogus but nevertheless seemingly eternal bond is essentially the point from which a
December 26 th op-ed in The New York Times departs. The piece is by one of
the Times' resident opinion writers Bret Stephens and is entitled
Donald Trump is Bad for Israel .
Stephens gets to the point rather quickly, claiming that "The president has abruptly
undermined Israel's security following a phone call with an Islamist strongman in Turkey. So
much for the idea, common on the right, that this is the most pro-Israel administration ever. I
write this as someone who supported Trump moving
the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who praised his decision to
withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal as courageous
and correct . I also would have opposed the president's decision to remove U.S. forces from
Syria under nearly any circumstances. Contrary to the invidious myth that
neoconservatives always put Israel first, the reasons for staying in Syria have everything to
do with core U.S. interests. Among them: Keeping ISIS beaten, keeping faith with the Kurds,
maintaining leverage in Syria and preventing Russia and Iran from consolidating their grip on
the Levant."
The beauty of Stephens overwrought prose is that the careful reader might realize from the
git-go that the argument being promoted makes no sense. Bret has a big heart for the Kurds but
the Palestinians are invisible in his piece while his knowledge of other developments in the
Middle East is superficial. First of all, the phone call with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan had nothing to do with "undermining Israel's security." It concerned the northern
border of Syria, which Turkey shares, and arrangements for working with the Kurds, which is a
vital interest for both Ankara and Washington. And it might be added that from a U.S. national
security point of view Turkey is an essential partner for the United States in the region while
Israel is not, no matter what it pretends to be.
Stephens then goes on to demonstrate what he claims to be a libel, that for him and other
neocons Israel always comes first, an odd assertion given the fact that he spends 80% of his
article discussing what is or isn't good for Israel. He supports the U.S. Embassy move to
Jerusalem, the end of the nuclear agreement with Iran, both of which were applauded in Israel
but which are extremely damaging to American interests. He attacks the planned withdrawal from
Syria because it is a "core interest" for the U.S., which is complete nonsense.
Contrary to Stephens' no evidence assertion, Russia and Iran have neither the resources nor
the desire to "consolidate[e] their grip on the Levant" while it is the United States has no
right and no real interest to "maintain leverage" on Syria by invading and occupying the
country. But, of course, invading and occupying are practices that Israel is good at, so
Stephens' brain fart on the issue can perhaps be attributed to confusion over whose bad
policies he was defending. Stephens also demonstrate confusion over his insistence that the
U.S. must "resist foreign aggressors the Russians and Iranians in Syria in this decade,"
suggesting that he is unaware that both nations are providing assistance at the request of the
legitimate government in Damascus. It is the U.S. and Israel that are the aggressors in
Syria.
Stephens then looks at the situation from the "Israeli standpoint," which is presumably is
easy for him to do as that is how he looks at everything given the fact that he is far more
concerned about Israel's interests than those of the United States. Indeed, all of his opinions
are based on the assumption that U.S. policy should be supportive of a rightwing Israeli
government, that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has recently been indicted for
corruption and has called for an early election to subvert the process.
Bret finally comes to the point, writing that "What Israel most needs from the U.S. today is
what it needed at its birth in 1948: an America committed to defending the
liberal-international order against totalitarian enemies, as opposed to one that conducts a
purely transactional foreign policy based on the needs of the moment or the whims of a
president."
Stephens then expands on what it means to be liberal-international: "It means we should
oppose militant religious fundamentalism, whether it is Wahhabis in Riyadh or Khomeinists in
Tehran or Muslim Brothers in Cairo and Ankara. It means we should advocate human rights, civil
liberties, and democratic institutions, in that order."
Bret also throws America's two most recent presidents under the bus in his jeremiad, saying
"During the eight years of the Obama presidency, I thought U.S. policy toward Israel --
the
hectoring , the incompetent
diplomatic interventions , the moral
equivocations , the
Iran deal , the backstabbing at the
U.N. -- couldn't get worse. As with so much else, Donald Trump succeeds in making his
predecessors look good." He then asks "Is any of this good for Israel?" and he answers
"no."
Bret Stephens in his complaining reveals himself to be undeniably all about Israel, but
consider what he is actually saying. He claims to be against "militant religious
fundamentalism," but isn't that what Israeli Zionism is all about, with more than a dash of
racism and fanaticism thrown in for good measure? One Israeli Chief Rabbi has called black
people "monkeys" while another
has declared that gentiles cannot live in Israel. Right-wing religious fundamentalist
parties currently are in power with Netanyahu and are policy making for the Israeli Government:
Shas, Jewish Home, and United Torah Judaism. None of them could be regarded as a moderating
influence on their thuggish serial financial lawbreaker Prime Minister.
And isn't Israel's record on human rights and civil liberties among the worst in the world?
Here is the Human Rights Watch's assessment of Israel :
"Israel maintains entrenched discriminatory systems that treat Palestinians unequally. Its
50-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza involves systematic rights abuses, including
collective punishment, routine use of excessive lethal force, and prolonged administrative
detention without charge or trial for hundreds. It builds and supports illegal settlements in
the occupied West Bank, expropriating Palestinian land and imposing burdens on Palestinians
but not on settlers, restricting their access to basic services and making it nearly
impossible for them to build in much of the West Bank without risking demolition. Israel's
decade-long closure of Gaza, supported by Egypt, severely restricts the movement of people
and goods, with devastating humanitarian impact."
Israel, if one is considering the entire population under its rule, is among the most
undemocratic states that chooses to call itself democratic. Much of the population living in
lands that Israel claims cannot vote, they have no freedom of movement in their homeland, and
they have no right of return to homes that they were forced to abandon. Israeli army snipers
blithely shoot unarmed demonstrators while Netanyahu's government kills, beats and imprisons
children. And the Jewish state does not even operate very democratically even inside Israel
itself, with special rights for Jewish citizens and areas and whole towns where Muslims or
Christians are not allowed to buy property or reside.
It is time for American Jews like Bret Stephens to come to the realization that not
everything that is good for Israel is good for the U.S. The strategic interests of the two
countries, if they were openly discussed in either the media or in congress, would be seen to
be often in direct conflict. Somehow in Stephens' twisted mind the 1948 theft of Palestinian
lands and the imposition of an apartheid system to control the people is in some way
representative of a liberal world order.
If one were to suggest that Stephens should move to Israel since his primary loyalty clearly
lies there, there would be accusations of anti-Semitism, but in a sense, it is far better to
have him stick around blathering from the pulpit of The New York Times . When he
writes so ineptly about how Donald Trump Is Bad for Israel the real message that comes through
loud and clear is how bad Israel is for America.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected].
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
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CTG_Sweden 19 minutes ago ( Edited ) remove Share link Copy But so far they haven´t been kicked out of Iran, like a considerable portion of the Palestinian Christians in Palestine/Israel back in 1947-48. 30 % of the Palestinians who were driven out from Israel were Christians. Nor have they been starved to death like the Christians who owned farmland in Russia/Ukraine in the 1920s and 30s when Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Stalin´s "brother in law" Kaganovych ruled over Russian/Ukrainian farmers. But I agree that Europe still is a better place for Christians than Iran. But does a person like Barbara Lerner-Spectre want to keep it that way? Well, I´m not so sure about that. CTG_Sweden 17 minutes ago remove Share link Copy
Baker III are just discernible to the trained ear.
Another one quite likely to have been cultivating a quiet exhalation was Hongkong and Shanghai Bank boss Sir William Purvis.
Peter Seaman:
Oswald Howe, Jr:
Southeast Bank:
Bankers Trust:
White & Case:
UBS, Lugano:
Indosuez:
THE KESWICK-JARDINE CONNECTION
Jardine Fleming is also listed in the same document as a "role player", a few lines beneath the name of Tony Buckingham – the high-profile head of Executive Outcomes. In an accompanying financial report it is revealed that EO used account number 600774426 at Jardine Fleming Bank Limited, located at Port Moresby, Hong Kong. The account, rendered as at 15 May 1998, held a balance of US$36 million, and included Tony Buckingham among those authorized to sign cheques on the account.
APARTHEID'S MISSING BILLIONS
December 10, 2019 © Photo: Wikipedia Donald John Trump has turned back the clock in the Western Hemisphere to an era that saw coups and political unrest as the order of the day. Trump and his administration of far-right anti-socialists and pro-fascists have already overthrown the democratically-elected government of President Evo Morales of Bolivia. Trump has announced a policy of turning up the heat on President Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela by ratcheting up the economic blockade of Cuba, a Venezuelan ally.
Philip Giraldi December 12, 2019 | Featured Story Donald Trump and Israel: When Does a 'Passionate Attachment' Threaten National Security? In his Farewell Address , of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."
_06.jpg)
21,994
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Patti C 14 hours ago
Trump and Pompeo are abhorrent. They have destroyed our foreign policy. No one in their right
mind should be voting for Trump for a second term. This administration has no credibility
nationally and internationally. Americans who support Trump are ruining our country and are
voting against their interests over and over again. Wake up! Republicans and Mitch McConnell
should be punished for the amoral Trump Administration. Democrats need to dominate in the 2020
elections! Democrats need to work with all communities across the country to save our
democratic republic. Vote Democrats across the nation in 2020. 10 hours ago About what? He
actually said the Government has determined. And we all know how unreliable this government
is.
Al Terego Oz 1 day ago
Interesting how quickly it's gone from being possibly a mine to definitely a mine. Like
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The reality of
Arabia, from Trump's point of view during his electoral campaign, was as follows:
© AFP 2018 / Timothy A. CLARY Congresswoman
Tulsi Gabbard Speaks the Truth on Syria, Gets Smeared by the Mainstream Media
© AP Photo / Marco Garcia 'Assad's
Mouthpiece in Washington': Controversial Dem. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Announces 2020
Run
© REUTERS / Omar Sanadiki US Lawmakers
Call for Syria Strategy Where Assad Leaving Post, Russian Military Pulls Out
©
AP Photo/ J. Scott Applewhite
House Democrats Will Expand Russiagate in 2019 to Push Trump Toward War
2015 File
Written By Victor Madeira on Possible Anti-Russian Actions
Integrity Initiative Seeks Intelligence On How Overseas Media Reported Skripal
Incident
Post-Skripal Incident Anti-Russian Actions Recommended by Integrity Initiative
Invoice submitted to
Integrity Initiative by Dan Kaszeta Strange Connections
Unfortunately the Orange one is being wagged again by those who are most seriously plotting his demise and over reach in Venezuela may be just as much part of the plan as it was in pushing him into launching an attack on Syria. It is true that the global elites are at a loss what to do, as the fracturing of the global oligarchies is proving Marx right . capitalist are just a band of warring brothers [brigands, robbers, pirates – all!]. As there is no serious ideological threat to their hegemony at the moment they fight amongst themselves with imperial designs.
The threat to the imperium is the chaos which ensues when the elite power struggles fracture their hegemony and an uncontrollable uprising ensues. Who shapes that revolution will be central to this. Where it will come from is not evident yet but let's hope it's a grass roots one!